Jaroslav Kvapil, translated by Charles Recht

“ I often feel that I am floating on like those clouds. High up above the earth, illumined, sunkissed. And the earth deep down, deep under me. In that distance the earth looks so friendly, peaceful, dumb. Here on earth there might be happiness, but up above there is joy, there is light—light even long after sunset—and probably death there would be sweet, beautiful. Can you see?
Petr (from his depths) .—I see. (Silence.)
Maya (first to rouse herself) .—But I am babbling again. It looks like foolishness, doesn’t it?
Petr.—Ach, no, Miss. I could listen to you forever and forever. ”

“ See, already then, at that time, I felt the actress within me. Not a comedian, who plays for the gaud of costumes or the empty applause of a helter-skelter mob, but an artist able to conceive and produce every and all pathos, passion, and pain of human nature. And so it was when I came to you the other day, reverend sir. Hardly had I been a moment in your vicinity when all the poetry of my childhood echoed in my soul. ”

“ The strength, that yearning strength of my life, has given me a plentitude of different passions and sentiments, but when I was tired of everything, my glory, my art, and my passions, I went out to seek something different, something unusual—the enchantment of primitive memories and recollections, these small dainty flowers that grew alongside of the paths of my childhood, the fairy tales of my once unspotted soul. ”

“ Besides, do understand me, Miss Zemanova, I am not pitying Petr just because he will become a priest. I feel sorry for him because he devoted himself to this calling so indifferently, just as if he would have devoted himself to any other calling in a similar way. (Plaintively.) Without enthusiasm, just as if he had never been young. (He remains silent for a while, and then speaks again with increasing warmth.) Youth to me appears like a bright, glowing flame which heats up to the utmost all human feelings. ”

“ My dear Miss Zemanova, it is not advisable to shake the foundations on which rest the newer layers of our life. Petr is to-day blindly going along on the well-beaten path—like a new chicken in a strange yard, whose wings are tied. If he should want to fly he will only fly into a neighboring yard and would injure himself in getting over the fence. ”

“ A young soul should be such a white glowing matter which is hardly restrained by its surroundings. It ought not to cool off until life itself creates a hard mold for it, into which it pours with vehemence and heat. And it does not matter, later on in life, what the form of this once glowing metal is; whether it is a pagan idol or a consecrated bell, as long as it is inherently pure, intact, and without a blemish. (Sighs.) But where is that warm youth of Petr’s?
Maya.—Perhaps he never was different. ”

“ Life, my friend, is not a romance or a melodrama where people shoot themselves so easily. Life has a healing power even for those who know but little of its tremendous scope. And you, Petr, you are a tender, flexible little tree—life will bend you, but not break you. ”

“ Matoush.—You ought to be happy that life took you where you are.
Maya.—I think that my life would have blossomed forth even in other surroundings. Because life to me is a magnificent, wholesome joy. But do not think, father, that because of these things I am frivolous. On the contrary,—my conscience usually is even painfully sensitive. But my profession has taught me to understand the manifold features of our daily life. ”

“ Look, Petr, without fear. It is not necessary, my dear fellow, that you should cast down your eyes before your old uncle.
Petr.—Uncle— (kisses his hand feverishly) .
Matoush (to Kocianova) .—Don’t cry, sister, don’t cry. You will not mend things with tears. (Goes over to her and embraces her lightly.) Go, poor woman. Go away from here for a while and leave us here alone. God will grant that we shall come to an understanding. (Helps her to rise.) Well, go, go, Marianka. ”

“ Kocianova.—I don’t understand those things at all. One hears about it once in a while, but never knows about it. But when I look at that girl there I begin to believe it. Only she must be better, more open hearted than the others—Well! I don’t know how I should say it. When one hears a goodly creature like that one feels better and the world grows brighter.
Petr.—And what must the men of their world be if a woman can be so free and independent—how those men must live! Does it not seem to you, maminka, that they are entirely different people of a different world than ours? ”

“ Petr.—But, Miss, what are you thinking of? I never in my life have thought of being anything greater than a simple country parson. I have really never given it any thought at all.
Maya.—Aren’t you ambitious?
Petr (calmly) .—No.
Maya.—Peculiar! (After a while.) You know what I was thinking of. It seems to me that this calling of yours does not afford you happiness. I don’t believe that it is not impossible to be ambitious in a labor of love. Look! not even I thought of being an actress. ”

“ I go through fields, I meet the peasants and laborers, and I often ask of myself, “For this did I study many long years, for this did my brothers and sisters sacrifice themselves, for this did I remain single, that at the end of ends I should be the same as you are, but without your happiness and your hope?” What I am! A peasant, a strange acre, which to-day is mine and to-morrow is—God knows whose. A decaying recluse who never knew the world and who doesn’t leave anything to the world.
Kocianova.—Don’t lament, Jenichek! You brought up Petr. ”

“ Petr.—I don’t believe you.
Maya.—You cannot believe me. I understand you. In your pious naïveness you have learned to classify people into good and bad only. Into apostles and devils, into saints and sinners. You do not know that human nature is an undivided composite element which contains parts of both—evil and good. That it often does good in order to effect evil and sometimes acts evilly to bring about good. ”

“ Petr, I do not force you. I will not sorrow, like your mother. I will gladly assist you, but I am old. I beg you, my dear fellow, think it over carefully, lest all these new sacrifices are in vain. There are moments in our lives when we have no right to decide or choose what course we would take. When we must not think of our happiness or our future, but when the errors of our bygone years commandingly point the inevitable way they have formed for us. (The churchbell begins to toll.) They are already ringing for early Mass—I’ll have to go. And this is the law of life. ”

“ Petr.—And you have followed them all your life, while I only dared modestly to stare at the ground. Always down bent, always humble. While they kept on traveling by day and night. Full of meaning for every one in the world—except for me.
Maya.—It is too late, my friend. You would not know how to follow them now. We are different, Petr, both of us. We are something else than we used to be. ”

“ Kocianova.—But I have promised him to the Lord. And He knows the covenant I made with Him when the boy was on his deathbed, and that’s why He saved him.
Matoush.—And do you think that is the only reason why He saved him?
Kocianova.—For that and everything. But it was His will that Petr should be what you are.
Matoush.—What I am! Ah! my golden soul, at our age one can regret many things and yearn for things which are not. ”

“ But, see here, Petr, I should not talk to you in this way. I am a priest and you too will become one soon; and perhaps I ought to pray for the constant and undisturbed peace of your soul. But we are men now; grown-up men, and they say that men are the masters of their fates. Tell me, my boy—are you content? And do you hope to be always content?
Petr (quietly) .—Always, uncle. ”

“ We ought to concede, no matter how holy or important our aims may be, and youth ought to demand; it ought to have a will, even though it is a spiteful one, youth can even be reckless, at least more so than we. (Plaintively.) Why was not Petr such?
Maya (decisively) .—Ach well, reverend sir, you yourself said that it is too late. Petr’s life is already cooling and forming into a consecrated bell. Let us drop these thoughts. It is not given to Petr to be different, so let us at least wish him perfect peace in his even though joyless life. Perhaps a time will come when even I will envy him. ”

“ But I am an old man, Petr, and to us old people and especially to those who during their lives have always had enough time to meditate about themselves—is given as a recompense for their inactive past, an insight as clear as of summer nights when the most distant things are in view. I was never a religious fanatic, although even if I had taken up a different calling I would have never ceased to be a believer. ”

“ Petr.—Ach. I am not speaking of that. And please don’t let us talk about it at all. What good is it? Those few strange wishes and ambitions which I had to renounce when I entered the seminary have long since been regretted. Anyway, they were so modest that they were hardly worth while. Listen to me: My present life, from my earliest years until to-day, that petty, monotonous, down trodden life has begun to hurt me—that life for which I was brought up and which could not have ended differently than it's ending now. ”

“ Petr.—My calling is not supposed to be a joyful one.
Maya.—Don’t think that! Everywhere it is possible to feel joy, even in the most cruel and terrible things. Don’t you think that there was joy in dungeons, pillories; in martyrdom and sufferings that there was no joy? Don’t you tkink that they who died for their faith at the stake or in torture chambers, that they felt no joy in such dying? ”

“ Something carries them along, something unknown, invisible, perhaps the vehement currents of those high spheres, perhaps their own passion for the setting sun, or perhaps only the mood and poetic spirit of this day. How freely and undauntedly they journey on! Without a will of their own and yet so free, unencumbered, unfettered by either earth or heaven. ”

“ Matoush (seriously) .—Don’t blaspheme, Marianka. What has happened, has happened. It was His will. But you, Petr. Let us talk sensibly. We are grown-up people; you too, Petr, are no longer a child. Tell me, what do you intend to do? If you do not wish to finish your theological studies, well and good. You say that you would only sin against your own conscience if you would sacrifice your outward life to the service of the Lord without your inward will. You could have been a good enough servant even without that inward conviction. ”

“ After all, our attainments in life are only the sum total of our ambitions, so far as these could develop in our environment. It all depends on whether the individual is strong enough to change his surroundings, if he finds that they conflict with his ambitions.
Maya.—And what if such individual recognizes that fact later on in life? For instance, suppose that Petr should to-day awake and recognize that his mother’s wishes are of no importance when compared to his duty to himself, his mission in life, his happiness? Suppose he should rise up? ”

“ Matoush.—And do you think that energy does not befit a priest? That is probably because our calling seems to you nothing else but self denial. But, ach, let me tell you, Miss, that it is just this self denial which requires at times lots of energy. It is just in self denial that we must have a strong will, so that it may safely and surely last throughout our life. Under the external, apparent resignation and self denial, there must be a strong, iron will, there must be an inherent internal strength, enough to control the entire being, to dictate to it. ”

“ Even in him there was the blood of an adventurer, even though the traditions and conventionality of bourgeois life got the best of him. But I am a bit more of my own making. Ten years of life on the stage gave me much more training than all my former home and school education. I know the art of being happy, the art of intoxicating myself with everything and any thing—to-day with a great work of art, to-morrow with a mere memory ”

“ Petr.—Poor maminka.
Matoush.—My poor mother cried for me when I served my first mass, but not from joy. She wanted me to be a doctor. But there wasn’t enough money for that. And see, Petr, I have been consecrated for thirty-two years, and this is the twenty-sixth year that I have been in this lonely farm. Why, why, I am almost sixty (pause) . Do you still remember, Petr, how we sat here, just as to-day, under this tree, at the time when you were about to enter the Seminary? ”

“ Petr (somewhat astonished; then he says slowly and quietly) .—It had to be!
Maya (seriously) .—It had to be! Ach, yes, Mr. Petr, every thing had to be! (Merrily.) And how about me—did you ever think that I would become an actress?
Petr (quiet smile) .—Rather a fairy princess, Miss, as you yourself used to tell me in those days.
Maya.—Yes, a fairy princess. Down below on a hedge near the brook we had our castle in a watchman’s booth.
Petr.—Yes, and I used to go out, sabre in hand every time Frank Dolejsh would come to besiege our cherry trees. ”

“ We in the villages are, as it were, isolated from the rest of the world, but we still have our worries.
Maya.—Listen, doctor, do you often come here to the rectory?
Votava.—Now and then. Whenever it is necessary. Every time I come to the village I always stop here to see the old man. He is one of those old-fashioned ones. One still can talk to such.
Maya.—Young Kocian is of the younger generation, I suppose?
Votava.—Well, at the present time he is not. That is—I don’t know. On the whole, he is a poor talker. Perhaps his seminary life did not contribute much to his happiness. ”