Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/240

 on all the crews shouted with delight, kindled torches and waved them in the air. The Moldau was so animated and bedizened that it was no longer like itself. And it was all because Francis had married Malka.

The banks were wellnigh trodden down by the crowds of towns-folk who had come to feast their eyes on the agreeable spectacle. Even Poldik was amongst them, lost in the throng and unobserved. And at times it seemed to him that it would be best if he were to stab himself to the heart with something, then again if he were to stab to the heart all those yonder who made merry, and then finally it appeared to him that he deserved that taunting laughter in which accorded the people, the Moldau, and the heavens that bent above them, and then finally it seemed to him that he had deserved yet worse things than that taunting laughter in which the festival found tongue: and that all together ought to lift him above their heads and point the finger at him, and shout, “Pelt him! because he does not know what life is! Pelt him! for he does not deserve to live.” And then again he seemed to see the cause of it all in that jostling mob, and home he reeled like one half crazed.

OLDIK’S horses found themselves best off while the passion of their master for Malka was on the increase until it reached its climacteric.

In those days Poldik was glad to draw rein from time to time, and took care of his horses both in the streets and at home, in order that he might be able to boast of them as his property, and mainly in order that he might jog along with them when Malka sat beside him in his cart. At that time Poldik’s horses were on the high road to transfiguration. Their ribs began to be cased in a light coating of flesh, their ears sometimes pricked, and their shoes made a deeper dint upon the ground. And Poldik’s comrades, when they met him, looked at him with a pair of eyes in which were legible the words, “Poldik is becoming quite a skilful groom.”

Here we must note in passing that Poldik occasionally took to horse-doctoring, and that when he took pains with the horses, he generally succeeded.

Thus, for example, if some scavenger’s jade broke down, and its master half determined to take it to the knacker’s yard, it still