Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/177

 his hands to them. He was in evident embarrassment and with difficulty controlled himself. As if to gain time he asked the girl a question; yet Vojtech continued to watch her lips after she ceased to speak. What reply she made, he did not know and as to whether the answer was right or wrong he had not the slightest notion. The girl looked fixedly at her book and was perhaps in greater embarrassment than Vojtech if that were possible.

The mother was generally present at these lectures and also entered the schoolroom to-day—after a long pause between the tutor and pupil. It was impossible to continue in silence and Vojtech began again possibly just where he had begun before the mother entered the room.

His delivery was still slow and painful; but he knew very well in her presence how exactingly she insisted, how imperiously she pointed out his duty. He suppressed the quavering of his voice; he governed his words that they might be more fluent, added a touch of boldness to them, let himself be carried on by the stream. In a short time his language flowed along as though it had been spoken by a first-rate orator. His address had warmth and fervour, he felt it. It carried him along with it, it carried along the girl and if the girl’s eyes flashed, his face regained its colour and his blood coursed through his veins with the vivacity of a child’s. He could have continued his discourse a long time without loosing the thread of it in his mind.

But it was wonderful what he lectured about. He soon turned aside from the history of our kings, after naming their doughty deeds which hardly deserve to be taken seriously. Now he ran off into trivial details. Now he held forth on some master, ran through his life, enumerated the creations of his mind and depicted how that master by those works of his had more glorified his era, more exulted mankind, more advanced the civilization of his contemporaries, than all the generals and Grand dukes of the period. Here he was master, here he was at home. Here passion almost inspired him, his words breathed energy, they were not merely warm, they were fiery. Then he spoke at length about this or that poet and when he had sketched the whole character of his genius, he added, “All that we must read together, some day.”

After this he made a bow, took up his hat and left. It is possible that my readers have already decided that Vojtech was a poor instructor. I do not wish to correct their opinion for it is possible that it is founded on truth. Vojtech had hitherto been a master in