Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/118

 the floor, on the walls hung various pictures, and among them she recognized her own.

Havel had not forgotten her, but that picture cut her to the heart. She was represented with a rose in her hands, she was dressed in a white dress, her features bloomed, on them were youth and smiles and in her figure fullness and health. Karla stood by the window and seeing the image of the little song-bird in the opposite mirror, she unexpectedly caught her own reflection and saw what changes sorrow had wrought. That cowering posture, those wrinkled features, the dress of poverty, the shrunken body—and in her hands violets. She was transfixed by the contrast and retreated from herself as if before some awful spectre. What had dared her to this comparison? She turned again to the other window beside which slept the little daughter. How pleased she would have been to give it those violets in bed, only once to kiss it as doubtless Havel kissed it every day, and then never show herself again! The violets in her hand seemed to burn her. She tried the window to see if it was bolted and found that the pane which opened was ajar. In the window stood a large vase with water. Karla carefully opened the window-pane, placed her violets in the vase with water and closed the window with as much care as she had opened it.

The act was unobserved. The picture affected Karla more than she had expected. She did not feel strength in herself to bear her whole burden of sorrow. Her steps strayed again towards the house and she stopped by Havel’s window. Only once again she wished to look closely at his face and then never again to torment either his sleeping or his waking hours. Only once again she wished to cast her eyes over that peaceful chamber and then to go away for ever, lost among the measureless sufferings of life.

She stood by the window like a child which looks for the first time at an elegantly appointed salon, feasting upon it with delighted eyes, and fearful of disarranging its beautiful furniture. How that window made all the difference! Within was a world of comfort kept safe like a tree in a garden, outside it was a world of misery, despised like the wild brier on which are only thorns. Once they had gone hand in hand together, now there was no bridge to unite their severed lives.

Yet one moment more and Karla meant to turn away, she looked a last look at Havel’s face and it seemed to her as though he smiled, he evidently struggled with something in his sleep,