Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/266

 grating, and there dwelt the bones. It was quite proper that, on account of the lonesomeness of his dwelling the grave-digger should have his windows grated, in order that no ill-disposed person should break into his house; it would have been quite superfluous to put a grating to the charnel-house; for who would ever think of entering that single window? At one side were a few skulls piled in order and a few unburied shin-bones—that was a treasure about which a thief pays scanty heed.

By day mirth and gaiety reigned around the burial-ground. People worked afield, conversed, sang, whistled, shouted to one another from field to field, and answered one another from field to field and sound and speech are the source of all gaiety.

From field to field scudded the partridges, sometimes a hare ran along the road as far as the cemetery and browsed on the graves of human ancestors, to requite these for having dined off his own ancestors. Or a lark fluttered from the field into the blue air of heaven, and there poured forth melody for its own delight, and also for our enjoyment. The field grew green with varied tints of emerald, grew pink and white with clover, grew yellow with beet-root, grew crimson with hosts of poppies—and in the midst of it all glistened the burial-ground, in the midst of the burial-ground stretched to heaven the ruddy cross with the white-iron figure of the Christus.

Here at eventide and at nightfall it was not so gay. No one was working in the field, no one spoke, the lark was asleep, and the green tint of the field was bathed in the sombre colours of evening and of night. And then these crosses which peered forth over the cemetery wall were just like heads and those heads looked just as if they were leaning on their hands, and it all peered forth over the wall at the carriage-road, and at any one who might be passing along it. The tall ruddy cross in the centre raised on high its desolate arms, on which, in windy weather, thumped the white-iron figure of the Christus. From the burial-ground a bat flitted forth—after this there was nothing for it but that the wayfarer should cast a timid glance at the bone-house, to see whether something was not there also glowering from the window, and then lastly he must fain cast a glance at the dwelling of the grave-digger to see whether there was a light in the window or whether those windows also were lost in ghostly fantasies.

At eventide and at nightfall few of the villagers cared to take a walk hither, and any one whose road led along the ridge of the hill or on either side of it, preferred to diverge I know not how