Vítězslav Hálek

“ And when the boy got his boat and punted about in it, and Poldik saw his face beam with pleasure, the tears came into his own eyes and he could have sung for joy. His heart beat fast, his feet made a few small skips, and he said as if he shared the boy’s joyous sense of freedom, “The world will smile upon thee wherever thou lookest upon it. And thou wilt easily find some Malka and no one will look down upon thee. I have rescued a soul from thy clutches thou foul trade of the scavenger!” ”

“ N the cemetery at Bartos’ house, consequently with Staza and the gravedigger, were Frank and old Loyka. They conducted together their modest household, Frank busying himself about the management of all outside the house, and Staza devoting herself to domestic duties.
Frank and Staza had reached an age, when life wishes to burst forth in the song of the skylark. Where such an eye directs its gaze, the bud unfolds, the rose blossoms. The sky is draped in a garment of transparent blue, every star hath its own language, every ray of moonlight brings a message down to earth. ”

“ He was again the wild Venik who made merry all night long with a merry gay brotherhood; who tippled with them heart and soul, who made them merry with music and jesting, and who would not feel the dint of care till morning. Venik was again the centre of a group of lads in their prime; only that at this time mothers would no longer have invited him to their homes: rather, they would have slammed the door in his face lest he should entice their son to drunkenness and debauch.
But he only acted thus in unfamiliar villages where he was not known in the days when he walked with Krista. ”

“ He waited for Krista to come—for her to return. But even if she had returned, it seemed to him that now the world would be the world no longer, that the heaven would be the heaven no longer, since once the sun had stooped from the sky and had lost its pathway in the heavens. And Krista returned not.
Venik waited that day and that night: he waited the next day and the next night. At night he slept on that couch of leaves and moss from which Krista had vanished. He only felt that he was alone, and the hollow of the tree resounded with his sighs. ”

“ Staza gave to Frank flowers and colours, and Frank gave to Staza singing and melodious sounds.
But they also penetrated the rocky wildernesses and ravines of the woodland, and lingered there awhile. Only that Staza especially thought that it would be too much to sit there every day, that it would oppress her too heavily. Because in that ravine there was not any sound to be heard, everything was, as it were, embedded in silence, and if a step rustled it startled you. The rocky walls stood narrowly opposed to one another: if they had had hands they could have stretched them out and shaken them. ”

“ I was more than sauce and seasoning,” said Vena proudly.
“Listen, aged wife of my bosom, this affects your credit in the kitchen,” laughed old Loyka.
“It affects you both, pantata,” said Vena, quickly correcting him. “But, of course, you will soon understand it all yourselves. When your dinner is brought to you up aloft yonder without salt or sauce or seasoning, neither your son nor your son’s wife will salt or sauce it for you; then you just call down the back stairs ‘Oh! Vena, come and be our sauce and seasoning!’ And I shall understand all that you have need of. ”

“ Then yet once again Venik took Krista by the hand, held it firmly, and said, “Krista, if thou art lost to me in the world, I shall come here to seek thee—remember the way.”
And both felt heavily oppressed, as though someone was taking their heart out of their breast piece by piece.
The first step was so hard to make that they scarcely managed to take the second. Then their steps soon became lighter, and when village, river, hillside, and wood were lost to view, they were already as light as two birds. Youth alone easily adopts itself to all, and quickly forgets both weal and woe. ”

“ For the sake of a fair and noble deed—to take care of a deserted child, the son of a detested father, and of a mother equally detested—for the sake of the same fair and noble deed to tear to pieces and fling to the winds all theories, personal crotchets, hatred and distastes—name to me anything more sublime and more honourable—I know of none, and let your heroes rant and declaim from the boards I know not how far to your satisfaction—Poldik the scavenger can boldly place himself beside any of them, and stand on a level even with the most favoured. ”

“ And this expedition into the wood was for Staza something unutterably charming and wonderful. From Bartos, the gravedigger, she heard how robbers fell upon him in the woods and how he defended himself. From Frank she heard how a panic seized a man when he retired to its rocky wildernesses. And when she came thither with Frank, she saw trees like giants, she heard the murmur as of a mighty river, she felt the breath of flowers, she felt the chill of the woodland, her little soul opened and something of the great unknown entered into it. ”

“ When harvest time drew near the farm-stead filled with harvesters and harvest women. It was gay in the courtyard below. Scythes and sickles clashed, rakes were being mended, everywhere there was a sound of hammering—just as if a clock was striking in the courtyard. Old Loyka, who had scarcely spoken five words since his son’s wedding day, grew young again at the season of harvest. He was so accustomed to those two chambers by the coach-house, he used always to find there some wayfarer with whom he gladly conversed, and since his son’s wedding day these chambers had been empty. ”

“ When Venik from the hillside saw his cottage-home it looked to him as though it could be singled out from all the other buildings by particular signs, and to Krista sitting in complete silence in the sick room with the ticking of the old clock and the groans of the failing Riha, it seemed as though an invisible finger had wiped off from the world all mirth and all sweet singing. All who came into the sick room were gloomy and grave ”

“ That no doubt was the difference for Staza expressed in the most general terms. But otherwise she here entered into a new world, and still it appeared to her as though it was a world akin to the one she knew before. True, when she and Frank came out of the graves or from the graves themselves into the fields, gaiety, potent even to excess and delight seized upon her spirits, her soul soared aloft with the very skylarks, and fluttered into the blue of heaven and the clear transparent ether. ”

“ When Krista fell fainting on the ground, Venik could scarcely refrain from calling out to her. But then the public kept on clapping, the curtain rose, Krista stepped before it, as if she had never in her lifefallen on the ground in a fainting fit, thanked them, smiled blandly, and as often as the curtain furled up was ready with more smiles and with more thanks. When Venik saw all this thanking, he was no longer disposed to call out to her, disdain again played around his mouth and half to the neighbour who sat beside him he audibly exclaimed, “a theatrical princess.” ”

“ And thus in a brief space of time were banished from the estate after the musicians, the kalounkar, the cloth pedlar, and the rest. At a moment which is the sweetest in human life, at a moment which every family scores in letters of gold on the page of its domestic history—at that moment in sorrow left this house several people who by right of dear custom considered that it was in part their home.
“Pray, where are the pedlar and the kalounkar being banished,” said old Loyka, seeing from the window how they were trailing across the courtyard with their wares. ”

“ The moon shone over the village green with its first rays, Loyka ran direct to the neighbours there assembled.
“Neighbours, for the love of heaven, I implore you, lend me a match,” he shouted. “In all the house I cannot find one little match wherewith to kindle the roof above the head of this son of mine!” shouted old Loyka, and kept constantly feeling in his pockets to see if there was anything like a match in them.
It was quite an awful spectacle to look upon the poor old man, and yet more awful to listen to him. ”

“ Old Loyka, somewhat roused by this from his own sombre fancies, turned and listened. He seemed as though he were on the watch, as though he sought out for himself some new pathway, and now was deliberating whether he should take it.
“Dost hear, Vena? Dost hear?” said he to Vena. “I once heard that melody in the hall of our house; but there were harps with it.” ”

“ What was it at home in the cemetery, compared with this huge grave! If she had ever felt oppressed in a grave (but she never did feel oppressed) she had only to sit upright or stand and she saw in a moment all the surrounding world: all the other graves, the ruddy-painted cross with the white iron figure of the Christus, the whole sky, and her cheerfulness was at once restored. But here! if you felt oppressed, standing upright was of slight service to you. ”

“ When Staza was gone, Bartos said, “You know, I suppose Frank, that Staza is a child not born in wedlock.”
“But all the same, a child,” responded Frank.
“That she does not know, neither do I know, nor perhaps does anybody know who was her father.”
“Is there any need to know it,” enquired Frank.
“That people will talk about this and will say, ‘Look! there goes Frank Loyka arm in arm with his wife,’ and they will laugh at her origin.”
“Why should a man trouble himself about an origin?”
“Every one thinks his or her origin the important thing and acts accordingly.” ”

“ We need not go beyond the confines of Europe if we wish to discover slaves and slave masters. We have them at home, each of us in his own village, and what is more disgusting is that the son is the slave master, the father is the slave; and what is still most disgusting, the law sanctions this relation, approves it, ay, incribes it on the public rolls like a commercial treaty. The greatest popular immorality is carried on before our very eyes, nature debauched and trampled under foot, is distorted into what is unnatural and monstrous. ”

“ And after awhile Loyka began to speak again almost meekly, as though he were fit to cry. “What injury have I done you, my neighbours, that ye have leagued yourselves against me with yonder fellow. I always avoid you all, I do not get in any one’s way, I do not beg anything at your hands, I creep away like the field mouse beneath the hedgerow, for many years ye have not heard my voice, I suffer and am mute; what do ye find so sickening in me that you come to the cemetery against me as against a savage beast.” ”

“ T was a dreary mission for Frank to carry to the cemetery the measure for his grandfather’s grave. Hitherto he had not in the least realized that it was a burial ground. He had been there when somebody was being interred, when they sang hymns to him, prayed above his coffin, and wept for him. But what effect have all such ceremonies upon a mere child. Issuing from the burial ground he sees the laughing green fields, the flowery hedge rows, he sees the weasels run along the hedgerows, and forthwith yon grim cemetery is forgotten, and is no longer the truth. ”

“ Loyka seated himself exhausted by the abutment, beside which long ago Frank had wept for the death of the grandfather. And as he sat by this abutment, he spoke in a voice of forced meekness. “Bend, proud knees, and entreat my son to permit me to cross his courtyard. Hands clasp yourselves in prayer and entreat my son to open that gate for so many years barred against me. Enter his doors, ye words, and entreat and implore. For surely it is not possible that I must stifle even my words. Then forth, oh! stubborn thoughts, and learn humbleness! My son Joseph!” ”

“ By day mirth and gaiety reigned around the burial ground. People worked afield, conversed, sang, whistled, shouted to one another from field to field, and answered one another from field to field—and sound and speech are the source of all gaiety.
From field to field scudded the partridges, sometimes a hare ran along the road as far as the cemetery and browsed on the graves of human ancestors to requite these for having dined off his own ancestors. ”

“ Loyka, however, was of a different opinion, and awoke Frank, and this caused Staza also to awake. The boy was drowsy, leapt to his feet, and looked about him. Over the burial ground streamed the white light of the moon, the crosses stretched forth their gaunt arms, by the grave stood his father and bade him come home with him. Frank did not at once collect his ideas; only he knew that he was with Staza and that he was not at home.
“Let him be; children are children,” said Bartos. ”

“ Old Loyka paused beside a chest, and said “Prythee, how sayst thou? It seems to me that thou dost completely pity me?”
“Pantata,” answered Vena, “I do pity you. I pity every one as soon as he is pensioned off. I ever jeered at you when you evilly entreated the pensioner on your bounty, and I pitied him, your own father, while it went on. If I could have remembered how your father played the hospodar, I should have pitied the pensioner on his bounty, and if I live to see Joseph pensioned off, I shall begin to pity him, and I shall give it his successor—perhaps his son. ”

“ Venik was the violinist of the gallery, and Krista was its chief songstress; she had a voice like a little angel, and when she sang people said it was like stringing pearls on a silken thread. Venik and Krista made music in the gallery side by side; and when one accompanied the other people said the chapel was like paradise; they were not brother and sister, but people called them “those children,” because they always learnt together, together walked home from school, and from home to school, and stood together in the gallery. ”

“ You managed to fool your own father, why then should your son not manage to do the same by you? But what surprises me is—that in your son it begins so precious soon. You put the fool’s cap on your father later. But who can change the course of nature? Now-a-days youth develops faster. Joseph, methinks, will have done with you sooner than you had done with your defunct father.”
“Don’t you know anything more to tell me than that,” enquired old Loyka.
“I do know,” said Vena. “But there is nothing in all that. You to talk about happiness, indeed. ”