Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/315

 turned to the apartment. “And so it is beginning already”, said he, just as if it was the eve of a kind of battle.

After a brief moment Joseph came, and here old Loyka was already seated by the table with some solemnity, because such an act could not be completed without a certain amount of ceremony.

“I have summoned thee,” began Loyka, “or more properly speaking I have begged thee to come, since I have already no more power to command, and I know not whether thou wouldst obey. But I and thy mother, look you, desire to place the hospodarship in thy hands and Barushka’s. And thou art aware that in the agreement we have reserved to ourselves in case of such a contingency, to wit, that we should quit the hospodarship within the course of six years: to be rendered to us by thee a quarter of all the produce of the farm. So, then, I ask thee in the presence of the Lord God, wilt thou conscientiously fulfil thy part of the contract?”

Joseph, at these words, merely smiled like a man whose object is accomplished—an object which he had long had in view. For I think the reader will agree with us so far as this—that all the wrongs which Joseph heaped upon his father only aimed at making the hospodarship a burden to him, so that he might voluntarily surrender it of himself. And now his father surrendered it, voluntarily surrendered it, be it understood, because surrender it he must.

“Why should I not fulfil my portion of the contract, and give you what belongs to you”, said Joseph. “It is understood, of course, that you will also contribute a fourth part of all the outlay on the farm. And if the produce is scanty, your share will be scanty, too, and if the outlay be greater, then you will have to contribute more. All just as the Lord God blesses our undertakings.” Joseph said all this smilingly, and as he pronounced the last sentence his lip almost curled, as though he said only in different words, “I have you in a trap, dear father; I shall give you just as much as I choose.”

Old Loyka certainly perfectly well understood that his son led him thus to a kind of chasm, and now said to him, “Leap!” He felt it but too well, even some motes danced before his eyes, even his head went round a little. But sometimes a man, in presence of very important events stands as it were blindfold, if not actually blind: he knows that he is standing above an abyss, but still he says, “I leap!” and he leaps.