Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/283

 before very long were again asleep, Staza on the bosom of Frank and Frank having his hand entwined around her neck.

When they awoke in the morning, Staza said, “If only I had thee for a brother.”

Frank still held her head in his hands, and said, “Well, thou hast me for a brother, if thou wishest.”

Above the grave folks say that truth is spoken, these children were speaking in the grave itself, so what they said was certainly the truth.

After this Staza shared with Frank her bread at breakfast, shared her dinner and everything else, led him all over the cemetery, taught him the airs which she had learnt, and by evening they had more than once sung together in a duet. And because on the morrow his grandfather’s funeral was to be, Frank said that he would not go home at all that day, but would wait until they brought thither his grandfather, and for that once they would still be faithful spirits.

Staza told him to pay attention and notice what tunes were sung at his grandfather’s funeral, and she would learn them all by heart, then they would sing them over again by the grave-side until the earth had been raked over his grandfather’s coffin.

And when the funeral took place, that came to pass which no one the least expected. For while people thought that Frank would follow the corpse with tears and miserable lamentations, Frank never wept at all. And while they thought that Loyka’s wife, the peasant woman, would not shed a tear, she sobbed and wept as though she were broken-hearted, and looked as if she wished to tear her hair.

The peasant woman thus conducted herself, because she wished to efface the impression left by her previous behaviour. She deceived none, but she fancied that she deceived them.

Frank and Staza listened what sort of hymns were sung above the grave that they might learn them afterwards.

When the funeral was over, Frank said, “Now that we are like brother and sister, thou must come to us at Frishets that I may entertain thee at our house.”

Staza went with him; he led her by the hand and the neighbours pointed at Frank and said, “Just look at that boy: he went to dig his grandfather’s grave and out of that grave he is leadingStaza.”

The neighbours’ wives said, “Look! look! he is going about with Staza, with thatshe will be just like her mother.”