Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/167

 Grandfather now recognized himself that his objections were trivial, and submitted to be banished with grandmother the more easily the more urgently the young people laboured to effect his banishment.

On the whole the poor invalid was not so badly off. Grandfather, according to his custom, went to visit Terinka, and consoled himself with the thought that there would be so soon an end of all.

But it seemed all at once to occur to Terinka that he consoled himself with the notion that he would soon be reinstated in the living-room. And so one fine evening after a warm day, she just reminded him that he had not yet gained his point. “For you know,” says she, “my indisposition might easily return.”

I cannot really blame Uncle John for any harshness towards grandfather; not at all. But he was indifferent to him as to everything else in general. For that man was yet to find in the world who could discover something that should console him. If grandfather had still had the stronger will, the son would have obeyed his father: as his wife had it, he obeyed her.

Perhaps he would have obeyed any one, for it was wholly indifferent to him what he did.

Briefly, to whichever side grandfather looked he found himself completely deserted. His sons and daughters now rarely visited him, for the Terincine character was not too alluring. And how could grandfather open out his heart to them when it was all his doing, that he had almost forgotten even those of them who were yet living.

My father, on one occasion, did indeed delicately suggest that grandfather should pay him a visit, and if our house pleased him, that he should establish himself there. But grandfather answered that after all he could not bear to die anywhere but at home.

And now, too, grandfather could not open his heart to grandmother, who complained of her daughter-in-law perpetually, and since grandfather had always from the beginning taken Terinka under his protection he felt that he must seem to do so still, for the sake of consistency.

And once when seated in the yard he tried to think of any one to whom he could open out his heart; then, and not till then, he recognized that he was alone, alone.

Thus involuntarily his eyes fell on the grey-haired dog, Vorjech, who stood there before him, looking up at his eyes and wagging its tail, for it was long since grandfather had noticed it. Rh