Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/239

Rh the dance—God knows—alone—where. Zahrada kept the fan, but no one came to fetch it. The young woman who wore the butterfly cap was so overcome by the fiery dance, that she took off the jeweled cap and put it on the head of tall Zajczek. But his head was so little, that it hung as if on a broom stick. Naturally everyone began to laugh—and the orgy grew wilder and more unrestrained.

For a moment the dancing was interrupted. A fat old man whose coat was fastened with garnet buttons, exclaimed: “What manners—the fiddlers three have not been asked to eat or drink!” Then began such running this way and that. The peasant girls in the red morocco shoes brought in a little table, and loaded it with food. Potted hare, roast sucking pig, cakes, tarts, pastries of Crizsnócz, and brandy from Rigy.

The three Bohemians hung their fiddles on the wall, sat up and began the feast—How good it tasted! If it only did not have such a scent of the dead about it! It must have been very late. The candles were all but burned down, and the pale wind of dawn made them flutter and tremble like ghosts. The noblemen and women were still talking and laughing in the glowing marble rooms.