Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/227

 in mind did not perveice that she beckoned him so far in order that he might say the word, and then that they might reach the end in view. Poldik only gathered from her reply that he was not to be admitted to her table or to eat in her company. “At present she thinks she couldn’t yet”, he said to himself, and then wondered when the happy hour would come. And though it was his Sunday dinner and Malka had taken particular pains with it, Poldik scarcely smiled, and scarcely praised her cookery.

When the meal was over, Malka said, “Dear me, Poldik, aren’t you going anywhere this fine Sunday?”

Here Poldik did smile again, for he more easily understood this immediate project.

“Malka, would you like?” he said.

“I should like to have a look at Nussle or Liska [i.e. the Fox inn] well enough—wait just a moment till I have changed my things.”

Once again Poldik thought the world fairer by a whole Sunday. Only to think that he should never have hit upon the device of inviting her to take a walk with him, and there was Malka inviting him herself! True she had excluded him from one thing, but then she had freely invited him to another. And it almost seemed to Poldik that the second thing had the greater value. What was dinner? It only lasted an instant. But an outing with her lasted the whole afternoon until evening.

Then Malka came, and she was dressed in her best. Poldik chuckled with delight when he saw how it became her, and thought that there was none to compare with Malka. And proud he felt as he marched through the streets with her on his arm. He felt young again at her side, and he quite forgot his sluggish unsteady pace, and stepped out as if he had never tramped behind a scavenger’s cart and his horses. He never could have believed himself capable of so much animation. And he felt glad when he realized that he was; and he began to love Malka more and more for that very reason.

After a time they went into some gardens, seated themselves at a table, and Poldik treated Malka. It was beyond everything dear to him to have a being beside him who was pleased to be seated near him, and who was glad that they had gone out and were there together. Poldik looked smilingly at her as at a fair picture, and all through that afternoon he felt as if he must say continually how he loved her. But he did not say it. Indeed all he