Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/102

 pillowed herself on stone and wood. The cold racked her, whether because she was unaccustomed to pass the night in the open air or that now reality yawned upon her in full certainty. People passed from home to their daily callings, stopped by her partly from pity to her, partly from curiosity. Popular curiosity is always distasteful, but if one is in misfortune it pains more than the misfortune itself.

And it stung Karla. When several children trooped after the domovnica, to see how Pani Hurka was bereft of everything save what she had on her back and what she carried in her arms, she was so exasperated that she drove them away with nasty words.

But children have not strength enough either to comprehend anguish or to enter into the state of mind of the miserable. Children thus as gaily disport themselves with grey-haired eld over which hangs the shadow of death as with the floweret cup, which has just expanded on the meadow. The children burst out laughing at Karla’s. Her indignation amused them. It was to them but a momentary plaything like the dolls which they had received more than once from her hands.

Against these light thoughts which weigh the cradle and the grave in one balance, Karla had no weapon. But their meaning flashed upon her at a single gleam which with awful strength illuminated a whole abyss—an abyss which had no end, and beginning from her own threshold, had no resting-place or turning-point. No more need now for the housekeeper to come and repeat the message which the master of the house had sent her.

The children’s eyes burnt Karla like living coals, the earth seemed to reel under her feet as she arose, and hurried down the steps. She felt as if she had just arisen from a burning fever. It was all one to her whither she turned.

The world which unrolled itself before her was a wide one and if she had no aim and object it was all one which way she chose. She was above all things anxious to lose sight of the people who knew her and to reach some place where their pitying or curious looks would no longer haunt her.

The world has leered at the apparition of misery so long that it spares the wretch with whom it is unacquainted.

With these thoughts she at once hurried out of the main street to a smaller one hard by. The further she went, the emptier grew the street and more rare the glances which where directed towards her. It had not yet occurred to her that she was dressed in fine