Page:Our Grandfather by Vítězslav Hálek (1887).pdf/32

 partiality; that she ought never to have permitted him to begin those visits to Kubista’s, and more to the same effect. Then no excuses were of any avail. Grandmother did not venture to remind him that he himself had once approved of their son paying court to Betuska.

And now grandfather became hardened not only against Kubista, but also to some extent against grandmother, and against his own son. He vowed that their only wish was to hurry him to the grave in order that they might conclude a match to which while living he would never give his consent. Aye, that he would even disinherit his son by will if he ventured to espouse the daughter of Kubista. Let the gentlemen at the office cancel this will or not, possibly they might, for Kubista had a happy knack of bribing, still he never swerved a hair’s breadth from his fixed determination.

In this state grandfather was an object of pity, but not less so grandmother and Uncle John. Uncle John avoided his father where and how he could. Already he had given up coming to supper, and always urgently entreated grandmother to lay his meals somewhere in his bedroom. No doubt grandmother did so, but she had thus to bear alone the weight of grandfather’s displeasure. Though what burden would not a mother bear seeing that by so doing she alleviated the distress of her own son?

Sometimes it happened that grandfather did not see Uncle John for several days, so that he could not give him orders early as to how to arrange his work, and where to go in the field, and more than once grandfather had to look for his son in the field to consult with him about the farm. Once one of the servants was so ill-advised that one