Page:Czechoslovak stories.pdf/277

 use talking to the old man here. After it’s all under the seal, he’ll give in.”

“In order that you two traffickers in human souls may know at once just where you stand,” screamed out the old man, “I’llenlighten you! I have things so arranged that if I should not get along with the young people under the same roof, the old drying-kiln over there and the potato field near it will be mine to the day of my death. And from that I will not part even for a thousand, as surely as there is one God above me!”

The factory owner had too good a knowledge of human nature not to realize that all talking was useless here. Old Nešněra stood there, pale, with starting eyes and dishevelled gray hair. He was terrible to look upon. Even Joseph felt very uneasy, and eagerly accepted the master’s invitation to depart by reaching for his hat, which was close at hand.

But before the young man could step to the door, his father blocked the way. Old Nešněra in the agony of his heart, perhaps hardly knowing what he was doing, fell on his knees before his son and flung both arms around his knees.

“Joseph, my son!” he cried in a heart-breaking voice. “For the living God, have mercy on my gray head, on yourself and on your own family! Apolenka, children, kneel and implore him! Surely he has not a heart of stone, since a Czech mother gave him birth! Why, it surely cannot be that one Nešněra would heap so much shame on all the rest!”