Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/298

 Here Loyka, as he sat, so he got up, burning with ill-repressed emotions, and said, “How, pray, dare you act thus when these chambers are mine.”

“If you are so sorry for your poor lodgers, call them back again”, said Joseph with a mocking smile.

“And so I will call them back! Let one of the servants go and call them back.”

“The servants will go when I send them, dear father”, said Joseph with the same mocking smile. “The estate is once for all adjudged to me, and I think that the servants belong to me also.”

“What is that!” shrieked old Loyka.

“Come, come, there is no need to explain what you know quite as well as I do; the servants belong to the estate, and the estate belongs to me.”

“How so? And can I not venture to dismiss a servant if I choose?” inquired old Loyka in just the same sharp tones as at first.

“You can, just as I can take him on again if I choose. If you send him away, perhaps I shall take him on again, if he suits me.”

“And how, pray, dare you act thus when I am to be hospodar here six years longer?” And for this question he mustered all his self-importance.

“On my estate?” inquired Joseph drily.

“On thy estate!” screamed old Loyka, and here already his voice quivered with the welling tears. “And so, perhaps, you will tell me after a while that I may drag myself off after yon musicians and kalounkari.”

“Prithee, father, reflect, I have never said any such thing, although I cannot conceive how it is that these harpers have managed to grow so dear to your heart.”

“May your tongue be turned to stone!” yelled old Loyka in wrath and anguish. At that moment he was scarcely to be recognized. He seated himself, and his tongue seemed turned to stone. He wished to speak and revolved in his mind this or that sentence, but all failed him, like a broken bough. His speech was thick as though he had been drinking, and as though he had to babble instead of speaking. Then he slouched, as we say, “a peasant’s ell” upon the table, leant his chin upon his hand, opened wide his eyes, half laughed and half wept at the same time, and said several times to himself, “So it has come to this! so it has come to this!”