Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/341

 His father had in reality said this on that long-passed wedding-day, and now the son came for the first time to sleep beside him. A son already grey-headed, to sleep beside a father who was no more among the living.

“Only go on, go on, and tell me about it”, entreated old Loyka, and fitful dreams were already weighing down his eyelids. Yet a few words he pronounced as if in assent, for Bartos began to narrate to him the story of his own young days, and how he had performed such and such feats, but after a while the grave-digger observed that he was speaking to Loyka, who already had fallen asleep.

Vena remained beside the sleeping Loyka. Bartos took Frank with him into his house, and told him to speed early next morning to the village about which he had spoken correctly enough, then he himself, like a night-watcher, went out from time to time into the cemetery to see how Loyka fared.

The next day they followed Frank to the abode of the musicians. We must here say without concealment that Bartos had devised a kind of popular remedy for Loyka’s sick spirit. Whether it was destined to succeed or not we cannot, however, state at present.

In the village they found Frank already arrived. There also they found the musicians whose loss Loyka had so much deplored. The whole party collected at the ale-house, and the musicians played and sang, Bartos taking special care that everything should be gay and lively. A rumour of what had occurred at the farmstead had already outrun them, and consequently every one knew it was the afflicted Loyka who in this manner compensated himself for the loss of his home.

It was a piteous spectacle to look on the old man, and to see how his mind, restless enough without this soothing medicine, gloated over the well-known strains of the harps and violins. He sat and listened. The expression of his face was serious as if he were lost in thought, and not a word escaped his lips. The whole time he did not move a muscle, his eyelids never winked, his lips appeared as though they could not open. One would have thought that the music of his old friends would have stimulated him to mirth or tumultuous grief. But it was not so. Excitement seemed to hold the spiritual part of him in equipoise—and he was completely tranquil through it all.

Frank stood the whole time by the side of his father, who was seated. Old Loyka held him round the waist with one hand, and Rh