Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/179



OR some time I had known that my companion Pero was unhappy. He was silent and self contained, but whenever I was with him for any length of time I felt that something weighed heavily upon his soul.

One evening we were walking by the bank of the Danube, in the neighborhood of D. It was a warm night of summer. Friendly little stars mirrored themselves in the water, when the thin clouds slipped off them. From the village the wind brought the sound of violins, and from the thickets called nightingales. Below rushed the river, and from a black, unsightly mass some distance away, came the ponderous rolling of a mill-wheel. Then from the mill or from a boat, rose the voice of a girl in song. Pero started nervously and then paused:

“That’s her song!” He stood in silence until