Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/171

 Terinka was at times thoroughly out of health. She was sallow, little inclined to move about, and more like a specimen preserved under a glass case than an animated being. Uncle John did not experience much pleasure in her company; however, he did not look for much pleasure of this kind. Even the child which was born to them, and which Terinka always dressed in the finest clothes, awakened in him no special delight. ’Twas seldom he even smiled at it.

Sometimes he would follow grandfather to his pension house to talk over old times, but what they said on these occasions was of trifling value. It touched upon topics of merely general interest.

I used to go pretty often to visit grandfather at a later period, particularly during the summer time. I knew where his gardens and shrubberies were, and thus made straight for him, for grandfather in summer time was head gardener.

Grey-haired Vorjech was there his inseparable companion. He always stood in front of his kennel and growled when he observed me, for he could not remember my face. Grandfather basked in the sun, scolded Vorjech for not knowing me, and welcomed me with immense satisfaction. Sometimes I also found old Kubista with him.

When I asked him how he felt, he only smiled and said, “Ah! welladay! I am not now what I used to be.” And in these words lay all his confession; his whole life—everything.

And then, when I described to him what went on in Prague, at school and elsewhere, he forgot for very pleasure everything else. in the world. He would not let me leave him, and I had to give him an account of everything I had heard and seen. It seemed as though a new world unrolled itself before his eyes. He always said by way of supplement, “Ah, well, Pepik” (so he had named my father) “knows how to bring up children—he did not learn it from me.”

It was once more St. Lawrence’s festival, and I was already in the bloom of manhood.

It was holiday time and I had just written to my parents to say that I was going to grandfather’s for the festival, where I hoped they would meet me, and then after the festival we could return together.

Just then memories of early days and our visits to grandfather and grandmother came upon me with uncommon force. I felt as though I were their own child, and with all a child’s fondness