Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/336

 Loyka having bewailed and lamented his fate, now felt relieved, at least those thick clouds broke and dispersed in which till now his thoughts had been enveloped. But it was only for a moment. And in that moment he sank down by the cross, embraced the foot of it, and perhaps he wept. But this did not last long. He looked up to the heavens, ran his eyes through the myriad stars, and seeing the moon in the full splendour of its rays, suddenly laughed aloud, laughed without words, and so continued to laugh.

Vena, gazing in the same direction as Loyka, said, “Pantata, that tiresome little moon tickles me, too, under the nose with its rays; for my part, I can hold out no longer, but laugh I must.” And he laughed, too.

“Nay, ’tis not that, lad”, said Loyka. “But I am so glad that I have found a comrade. Look at him, he hath no home either, and never in all my life had I observed it until to-day. To-day a holy spirit has quite illumined me; to-day I know it, just as if I had walked the sky with him. Look! look! every night he must hie up yonder through agues and nipping blights, and that pleases me. Only I should like to know whether he also had an estate, whether he gave it to some Joseph, and so now is pensioned off! Look at him! look at him! It pleases me to think that we are two, I here on earth, and he yonder in the sky—and as it seems to me they are no better off yonder in the sky than we here on earth.”

And he laughed on. Then he stood up, and looking towards the pilgrim moon, said, “Stop and let us take note how fast he gets over the ground, to see if he is good on his feet.” And here he looked up at the moon, just as though he were reckoning its footsteps, and laughed aloud. From this laughter went forth a greater horror than from the clanging Christus or from the clattering branches of those crosses which spread around.

As we know, Frank and Staza followed Loyka at a distance hither to the cemetery. Even now in the cemetery they kept several paces apart, so that Loyka had no notion of their presence. When Frank first heard his father on the village green, he was half bewildered, and knew not what was happening, and understood nothing of it all. When he here heard him pray that strange prayer by the cross his flesh crept and he shivered, for so much he understood of it all as to perceive that his brother Joseph was the cause. But when he heard his father laugh so wildly, he could bear it no longer, but gave way to an uncon-