Josef

“ He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: "I won't go to the Dying Room."
"But we are going to the bandaging ward."
"Then what do you want my tunic for?" He can speak no more. Hoarse, agitated, he whispers: "Stopping here!"
They do not answer but wheel him out. At the door he tries to raise himself up. His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears. "I will come back again! I will come back again!" he cries.
The door shuts. We are all excited; but we say nothing. At last Josef says: "Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, he never comes through." ”

“ Then the door opened.
"It is he," whispered Josef. All heads uncovered and each man bowed low. Delmotte stood petrified with astonishment.
"Messieurs," he said at last, recovering his speech, "messieurs, I am honored." Then as his eyes lighted on Josef, they sparkled with unexpected recognition. "You are Petros," he said, puzzled by the brilliant throng surrounding him.
"Josef Petros Zolsky, Your Majesty. I am your childhood's retainer and hereditary servitor. Yes, I am he you call Petros," and the white head bowed low as a gratified light kindled in the crafty eyes. ”

“ It turned out only a joke on me after it was straightened out, but I was feeling rather shy for a while along at first.
I ought to give some idea of the sort Josef is. Well, to look at he’s a tall, lean, powerful chap of twenty-four, with slim hips and big shoulders, and black hair, and large light-blue eyes which are simply marvellous. They are wide open always, and snap back and forth over everything like lightning, [Pg 106] and there isn’t a visible object for miles that they miss. Why, one day out on the lake in a canoe, fishing, Josef said, in his soft, respectful voice:
“M’sieur Bob!” ”

“ The Emperor Franz Josef is probably as thoroughly beloved by his subjects as any sovereign in history has ever been. His great misfortunes—fearful defeats in the wars with France and Germany, the suicide of his only son, the assassination of his wife, and family troubles in more recent times—have thrown about him an atmosphere of romantic sympathy; while love for his kindly qualities is mingled with respect for his plain common sense. During his stay in Berlin I met him a second time. At my first presentation at Dresden, two years before, there was little opportunity for extended conversation ”

“ All silent, the group of men reached the end of the path and tried the door. It was open, and quietly they entered. Father Josef in the lead. They passed through a long, dark hall, at the end of which was a door leading into the parlor. Light gleamed through the crack along the floor. As they approached they heard the muffled sound of low praying, mingled with sobs.
Father Josef opened the door carefully and tiptoed in, followed by the five other villagers. They crossed themselves in unison.
By a simple, black coffin of wood knelt Fraulein Feldenpflanz. ”

“ He’s had a hard time in some ways, that Josef—yet he has his hunting, which is a great pleasure. I’d tell him about college and big cities, where he’s never been in his life, not even to Quebec, [Pg 110] and he’d ask the simplest, most childlike questions about things, so that sometimes it made me feel sorry and a bit ashamed somehow to have had all the chances.
After we’d talked a while that way I’d get him to sing for me, for he’s got a corking voice and they are all musical, these habitants. ”

“ His superior as though discovering a fatal weakness in the completed structure, said in renewed despair: "while you have the right man, it won't do."
"Why, Excellency," asked Josef with no diminution of that glacial smile. It was as though he held his superior in hardly concealed contempt.
"The papers," said Haupt. "They can't be forged. We have no precedents to follow. Those chaps over there will know the thing by rote and probably would recognize the signatures more quickly than their own." ”

“ Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies in the battle of Sadowa. ”

“ Tut!" said Death. "That's no way to talk. If you only knew it, I'm your godmother who held you at your christening. I helped your father to wealth and fame and now I'll help you. I tell you what I'll do: I'll apprentice you to a successful doctor and I'll see to it that soon you'll know more than he knows."
Death rubbed some salve over Josef's ears and led him to a doctor. [205]
"I wish you to take this youth as an apprentice," she said. "He's a likely lad and will do you credit. Teach him all you know." ”

“ He put out the desk light. Before putting out that on the center-table he took another look to make sure everything was safe and to take a survey, as he often did, of the comfort and beauty of the room. He liked beautiful and refined things, did Josef. At his mother's home in Augsburg everything was well scrubbed and clean, but coarse, very coarse. Here what a difference! How his old mother would stare and wipe her lips. Maybe his brothers would stay in America, too, if they were here. He raised his eyes to the portraits. What would Emil and Friedl say to women like that, eh? ”

“ You will not be surprised to know that Josef's interest, stimulated by our mutual businessfriend, goes beyond my mere personality. He reminds me—Philippa is quite affected by this—that there are others. "The astonishing advantages ... must induce to serious consideration anyone who is looking after his own welfare, and that of those near and dear to him as well."—Yet Josef can be almost stern when there is occasion, and he tersely warns me that it is a chance which "probably never will be offered to you again!" ”

“ An annual fête that was regularly celebrated at Marienbad during King Edward’s sojourn there, was the birthday of the late Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. The King made a practice of entertaining the various officials of the neighbourhood, in honour of the occasion. The guests consisted mainly of the officers commanding the troops of the district, any hoch geboren Austrians who might happen to be there, the principal municipal authorities, and last, but by no means least, our friend the Abbot of Tepl. ”

“ I think I can—yes, I have it: John Fdk. Johnson, 72, Chestnut Av., Mayfield Pk., S.W. You've got that?" Josef has it.
Josef, it appears, possesses a few tickets, and I gather that for some reason he does not require all of them himself. Naturally he turns to the friend of our mutual businessfriend. Will I participate in the distribution of "many, many million within five months?" The first prize is one—but perhaps I had better express it as Josef loves to do. The first prize is
The chance, he goes on to say, is "without any risk worth mentioning." ”

“ Worn with the battle which had witnessed his defeat, he had just completed his cipher message, when, following a modest knock at the door, Josef entered complacently with the pent-browed peasant at his heels.
"If monsieur desires to send despatches," said the Hereditary Servitor, "he can make his arrangements with Johann here. Johann goes at once to Vienna, via Schallberg. He is trustworthy and discreet. Can I be of further service to monsieur? No? ”

“ Both Servia and Russia were much annoyed when Austria annexed the two provinces. The anger of Russia and Servia nearly brought about another war.
Such was the state of things at the beginning of June in the year 1914.
Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria. Photo by C. Pietzner.
Here is a portrait of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, Franz Josef. He is an old man, eighty-five years of age—the oldest monarch in [10] Europe. It is impossible not to be sorry for him; his life has been full of trouble, and he has had to rule over the most divided kingdom on earth. ”

“ Crayton was unaware of all three. He bent over the chess-table, absorbed in the next move. The fingers of one hand were grouped intently, consideringly, on one of the pieces. One would have said his hand thought.
Josef went back noiselessly to his butler's sitting-room and to the letters he was writing. His three brothers had joined the colors and his fierce old mother in Augsburg expected him to return to fight for the Fatherland. Of course he had not the slightest idea of returning! Not he! He liked America and meant to stay in it. ”

“ But Josef was such a brick that I had a good time anyway—I’ve discovered that there are many varieties of good times and there’s one tied up in about every package, if you’ll look hard, and shake it out. So we used to have lots of fun building a whooping blaze at night near some little green-mossy arrangement of a brook, and making it go in spite of the rain—Josef’s a wizard at that. We’d get the tent up and chop for the all-night fire, and dry out our clothes and things—it’s wonderful how much [Pg 109] you can. ”

“ And M’sieur Jack was also capable to portage a canoe like a guide, tossing the heavy boat to his shoulders unaided and swinging off down a trail as silently, as swiftly as an Indian; and he could tie up a pacqueton—and [Pg 7] make camp in a rain—and skin a moose; these things and others M’sieur Jack could do, and Josef was proud of him. But M’sieur Jack could not see into the woods like Josef and he was not as quick at hearing sounds—of that also Josef was proud. So he smiled and waited for the question sure to come. “What the dickens makes you think he’s a big man—un homme pesant?” ”

“ The landing-net dropped, just now. It was that which one heard. They fish in the little river, around the next turn, at the Rémous des Jurons—Profanity Pool—one will see in a moment. The m’sieur, par exemple, is large—a heavy man.”
This in quick, disjointed sentences, as Josef talked—much the same way as he sprang from one rock to another in a river crossing, feeling his way, assuring [Pg 5] himself of a footing before he tried the next. Josef was shy even with his own young m’sieur, whom he had guided for seven years, since M’sieur Jack was a lad in knickerbockers. ”

“ Next day the black cow went dry: otherwise you might say that Josef's hobgoblins were fir trees."
Whilst Jakob laughed at Josef's phantoms, he could not help telling us in his turn a tale which he considered much more noteworthy: "There was no denying that one winter's night a huntsman, [pg 323] losing himself in the deep snow, took refuge in a forsaken senner-hut. Content to suffer hunger if only thus sheltered for the night, he was shortly surprised by the entrance of a black man, who not only welcomed him to the hut, but proposed cooking him some supper; an offer most thankfully accepted. ”

“ He married Ludmila Anna Nováková, who is mentioned with affection in the diary. They had two children: Josef Šrámek Jr., who passed away in 2006, and Jarmila Svobodová, my mother, who lives in Prague. ”

“ Ha! shame upon you—shame upon you, city full of lewdness and mischief! Woe unto you, unclean streets, cross-roads of sin and marts of transgression! Oh, whore of Babylon! God’s countenance is bowed above your roofs that it may judge you. ”

“ The city and the people are all alive, and everything is the same as it was yesterday. I should like to be with you far away from here; I should like to be with you on a new earth, where there are no people, only we two with our love, in a new paradise, far from this city and the people, only we two, happy and alone. ”

“ In the garden, the half-open roses offer a caress. Flowers of the summertime and of joy are all a-bloom. Severus comes back into the house. Beside him walks Edith. Still does he possess her smile, her voice, her love. ”

“ And riches, treasures?
Pieris:
Oh, treasure-house of a happy future! It is a new continent, a new paradise. The age-old dream is here becoming real. To us is granted a new world, new life. In unutterable purity gleams the naked earth. It is radiant with hopes and glows with the glory of coming ages. An immaculate, shining, uninscribed tablet awaits the advent of man, that he may mark it with his love and his spirit. ”

“ May this fair rainbow never be blotted out, and may it continue for ever, perpetually shedding the light of family affection upon the links which bind nation to nation, across all continents and oceans. ”

“ Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental structure remained standing upon the rock of God-founded authority in the vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. ”

“ How could she favour the progress made in enlightening reason or in advancing human knowledge? Must she not fear for its intellectual sway over men whom she keeps under the yoke of faith? Must she not fear that they might awaken from the slumber in which they were held prisoners by the suggestive force of her authority, held to be transcendental; that they might awaken to find out the truth for themselves? ”

“ At the threshold of modern natural science there stands the man who solved the riddle that had puzzled centuries before him, the father of modern astronomy, Nikolaus Copernicus. He had studied at the universities of Cracow, Bologna, Ferrara, and Padua, and while he was one of the foremost historians of his time, it was astronomy that had engaged his enthusiastic devotion from his youth. ”

“ Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren, and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. ”