Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/150

 But now they had to comfort Betuska. She reproached her parents for confiding their anxiety about her to any one, though it broke her heart, and for having more regard to strangers than to their own daughter. The poor girl was only quieted when her parents assured her that they did not believe anything that Novak had said in their house.

Betuska met Uncle John about two days after this, in the evening, at the fatal boundary-stone of grandfather’s and Kubista’s field.

Uncle John noticed at once that she had been crying, and asked her the reason of it.

Instead of answering Betusha burst out into a fresh fit of crying, and tears, hot as the anguish in her heart trickled over her poor face, testifying to the measureless disquietude of her soul.

The more Uncle John questioned her the more she sobbed. He refrained from further attempts, and kissed her face with so much warmth that her tears fell afresh over it.

When this struggle had somewhat subsided in her she began to bewail the misfortune of their parent’s mutual estrangement. She augured nothing good from this, and for some time she could not rid herself of a certain presentiment which foreboded misfortune. Even a stranger began uninvited to meddle with their affairs, and who could say but his sole business was to separate them.

Uncle John consoled her. He succeeded after this natural explosion of a sensitive soul, for Betuska was so shy that she did not dare to mention a single word about Novak’s visit and what she had heard from him. She was in her heart of hearts convinced that it was all a scandalous lie, and only trumped up by gossips in order to separate them. And yet this conviction paved the way to fresh tears, just because it failed to find words to express itself.

Uncle John encouraged her to be patient. Nothing, he said, could occur even the least to dissipate their mutual trust and confidence. Next, as to the relation in which their angry parents stood to one another he thought he might soon hope to see an end of it. For grandfather—his father—had just begun to show himself much more amenable to reason, much more conciliatory, than he had ever done before. Let interlopers say what they liked, for himself he meant to show them by deeds what he thought of their speeches, and by means, certainly, check all unbridled gossip.