Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/209

 fondly on him and Vojtech understood it all. Here was that fair and beauteous kingdom which he sought. Here the streamlet babbled, the rocks sparkled, the grass was streaked with quivering moonlight as in a fairy vision—and beside him in the house slept Lidunka.

Vojtech experienced unspeakable delight in the thought that for the first time he slept under the same roof as Lidunka. This sentiment had in itself something so fond, so mysterious, that it did not let itself be analysed. But it was reflected on Vojtech’s face in smiles of conscious satisfaction. His whole being was engrossed by it and the mastery of its magic filled him with innocent pride. He felt a bliss so unspeakable that his soul seemed to melt away, withal he felt himself so strong that he said to himself involuntarily, “I shall yet be a worthy member of society.” How could life be indifferent to him?

Then these thoughts took shape in his mind: “Lidunka sleeps and the dreams which reach her pass over my head. I guard her threshold. I guard her dreams and only allow the most beautiful ones to pass.”

How long he sat there he did not know himself. The foot of time had no sound for him. Time itself was as it were subverted.

At last he rose to seek his couch. The moon shone into Lidunka’s window and Vojtech fancied that in the window he caught a glimpse of a head. Lidunka, not yet undressed, stood at the window and when Vojtech rose, she pressed her head close against a pane of glass. Vojtech approached and kissed the glass where Lidunka pressed her face. They spoke by gesture and sent one another kisses. Vojtech noticed that the window had a small pane which opened. The opening of the pane was undertaken together and accomplished in whispers. The pane was just large enough to admit a hand and they whispered so close that their lips touched.

“You must go to sleep now, Lidunka”, said Vojtech fearing lest the cold night-air should enter.

They closed the window together. Vojtech returned to the hall to rest and murmured, “Thrice blessed storm.”

Then he let himself down and heard how Lidunka’s skirts rustled as she undressed and closing his eyes he murmured as though lost in thought, “Now go to her, happy dreams.”

For Vojtech it was a day of enchantment that had just closed and his imagination having full play scattered through his dreams the fairiest pearls of Araby. His whole existence seemed to emerge