Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/188

 It was something new which he had hitherto never observed in her. But searching for the cause of this phenomenon he found to his surprise that he was himself the cause of it—or to speak more precisely that he was himself less attentive. It seemed to him that he also recognized a confirmation of this truth even in Pani Horska whose face he now saw overclouded with thoughts. He read reproach in those thoughts—but of whom? Did Pani Horska blame his own want of attention or did she wish to censure her daughter who forgot where she was sitting?

“This fault needed rectification. I am not satisfied with Lidunka’s education”, said Pani Horska, some time since: if she had said it now it would have been a hundred times worse and he recognized the truth of her remarks. He curtailed the time belonging to Lidunka’s poor little brother and his little sister, he made scarcely half an hour of it, and gave what was over to Lidunka. He compensated for his distracted attention by length of time and if that proved insufficient he determined to spare some of his own time for Lidunka’s lessons. The children noticed it. Between themselves they grumbled because Pan Vojtech now never read a fairy story which had so consoled them after their lessons.

If they repeated their songs better than usual he pretended not to be listening and seldom praised them. The little boy expressed the gist of the matter when he said, “Pan Vojtech is grumpy.”

Consequently when Vojtech came to the door and rang the bell, the children did not any longer hurry to meet him, but greeted him almost apprehensively, and only took him by the hand from force of habit. The little boy only sat on his knee when Vojtech expressly invited him, and repeated his songs with frequent stammering. Vojtech was oftener strict with them than heretofore; if everything did not go just as he wished, he scolded them and never played with them. He employed himself with them only to say that he had performed his task and taught them more for the name of the thing than in reality.

But with Lidunka he set to work most sedulously. He divided the time with her in such a way that he lectured for a few minutes and then read a long time with her. They read wonderful things. Poems, dramas, native and foreign, and it was a curious circumstance that the word love was repeated in them more frequently than any other word you chose to mention. What they read Vojtech explained, what they were to read was an affair which demanded Vojtech’s most solicitous attention and he gave to it