Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/92

 With these general sentiments Pan Hurka was very content, and as we have seen, did everything in his power to cause it to strike deep root in the grounds of faith. Every one found a warm welcome at his home, he borrowed money, he lent it out at interest, Christians and Jews gave the hand of friendship to one another under his roof, and what matters if there were more Jews than Christians?

Pani Hurka, whom her husband called Caroline or, more shortly, Karla had not chosen Hurka as her husband for love’s sake. She had had in her youth a romance with a young brewer, a citizen son of Prague whom she had adored with all the warmth of a girlish heart. Brewer Havel loved her with genuine affection and it must be admitted that they were made for another. People even said that they would form a pair to realize the dream of an artist. But Havel did not suit Karla’s parents because he was a brewer and, “you know, my dear, anything but refined”, so when Pan Hurka knocked at their door and began to give an account of his far-reaching plans and bold speculations they soon bowed Havel out of the house and became partisans of Pan Hurka. It caused Karla many a sleepless night and many a salt tear but the daughter was finally overruled by her parents’ persistency and when, not long after, Havel, out of pique as it was said, married some one else, Karla almost mechanically gave her hand to Hurka. Havel had tasted the honey and Hurka had only got wife and money.

We cannot say that Karla would have made her first lover an exemplary wife. In Hurka’s home she had not hitherto given a thought to her special calling, or if she gave it a thought it was more in connection with Havel’s home than her own. Complete indifference ruled in her own establishment and she was mistress only so far as Hurka was master. For the rest he might undertake what he chose, he might look about for anything to please her, he might prepare her any sort of pleasant surprise—she shared in his amusements with as much spiritual warmth as a third person might have done to whom he had given an account of them.

She received visitors because it was the custom, she was in society not because she felt a need of diversion but because she could not excuse herself and she conversed with people not because her heart prompted her but because she had ears and could not help herself. Pan Hurka was well aware of his wife’s state of mind and nothing leads me to suppose that he took much