Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/229

 I also know not whether these words were a simple soliloquy, but they caught the ear of one of the wherrymen, who gallantly replied, “Sit down in my skiff, and we will have a lark.” Malka looked at him and did not answer. Perhaps she considered the whole affair a joke. But the wherryman understood it for earnest. “Only just a minute,” said he, “before Poldik comes back we will be ashore again.”

Before she expected it the little skiff lay close by the shore at Malka’s feet. She need only take one step forward, and she would be afloat. The young wherryman stood all prepared as if he were a winged being, and as if his whole attitude was an embodiment of the words “Come and let us flutter about”. He was like an embodied smile, like an embodied jest. Everything in him was playful, everything in him was so full of gaiety that it was hard to resist. His eyes alone were a comedy, his words were like snatches of merry songs—Malka never meant it, and lo! there she was sitting in his skiff.

The skiff acquired wings; a few strokes, and it was in the middle of the river. The river smiled around them, the heavens smiled above them, when Malka looked at the young waterman he smiled, too. Everything was smiling; Malka also was smiling.

And then they looked from the middle of the river, and watched Poldik as he slowly returned to the shore.

“Never mind,” said the young waterman, “before he gets back we can yet take a look somewhere else.” And again he plied the oar, and they seemed to fly along; like a fives ball they were at Podskali, not far from Vysehrad [High burgh], and like a fives ball they were back again. And they stopped again in the middle of the river just as Poldik was returning to his vehicle which stood by the shore.

When he reached it some of the bystanders exclaimed, “Your bride has eloped, Poldik, look! yonder. Francis has carried her off”, and they laughed.

Poldik looked in the direction whither the wherrymen pointed; there from the skiff Francis and Malka looked smilingly at him, and Francis shouted, “Now she wishes me to tell you that she is faithless to you”, and Malka shouted to the shore, “Wait a minute, Poldik dear, I will be there directly.”

Poldik also laughed feebly, all laughed and joked, and so it may be concluded that they were all very merry at the Quay that noon. Rh