Aristocracy she imagined to herself in the person of her father, democracy in the person of Yosef. "Oh, what people they must be!" thought she, almost with dread, "terrible people who know how to crush obstacles, another kind of people." Books told the rest to her.
The countess went far in such thoughts. Once when she asked Yosef for details concerning his past, she heard him answer with perfect freedom, "My father was a blacksmith." She could hardly understand how he dared tell such a thing, so natural did it seem to her that if that were the case he ought not to mention it. Why did he not conceal it? These words were really a hammer which struck the soul of the countess most heavily.
She surveyed Yosef with an astonished glance, as if seeking a leather apron on him, or traces of sparks on his hands. Besides, it is proper to confess that, despite all her gratitude to him and Pani Visberg, she judged at first, in silence it is true, that the coronet inclined those people to her; she judged that in sheltering the daughter of a lord they did that somewhat to do themselves honor. But she learned that touching Yosef she was thoroughly mistaken. He pronounced the word count just as he did the word Jew, gipsy, or noble, not
