Panna went daily to the churchyard and busied herself for hours about
her husband's grave. She ordered a stone cross from the city with the
inscription: "To her cruelly murdered husband by his unforgetting
widow." But when she wanted to have the monument set up, the priest
interfered with great vehemence and declared he would never permit this
cross to be placed in "his" churchyard. Panna did not make the least
attempt to rebel against this command, but quietly told the workmen to
carry the stone to her house; there it was leaned against the wall
opposite to her bed, and daily, when she rose and went to rest, she sat
a long time on the edge of her pallet, gazing thoughtfully at the cross
and inscription.
Once she interrupted her father in the midst of an ordinary
conversation with the abrupt inquiry, whether, in dismissing a
prisoner, the time fixed in the sentence was rigidly kept, and if, for
instance, any one was condemned to six months' imprisonment, this six
months would run from the end of the trial or from the following
morning.
The old man thought the question strange and did not know how to answer
it.
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