Page:Our Grandfather by Vítězslav Hálek (1887).pdf/58

 thoroughly satisfied with everything, uncle answered, “You see that I am always satisfied as it is.”

Grandfather took a fresh lease of life, and even his foot ceased to pain him; he walked to the farm-yard with Novak, under the lindens, and again from the farm-yard to the house. He was more active than Uncle John.

Grandmother did, indeed, often look into uncle’s eyes thus inviting him to confidence, that he might unbosom himself to her, for she felt, as no one else could, that what she had heard from grandfather, Novak, and others, could not be his genuine desire and will. A kind of terror fastened itself at her heart.

But Uncle John only looked at her from time to time with anguish, and that was all his answer. At other times he was inaccessible to all. No one could find the key to his soul; perhaps at times he could not even find it himself.

Sunday came, the vehicle was prepared, the horses harnessed. They went for Uncle John, but they did not find him. Grandmother could scarcely speak for terror and surprise, and if she could have concealed the truth from grandfather, she would not have told it for the whole world.

Servants ran hither and thither to look for Uncle John. Even Novak, whose mind was bewildered, and whose countenance paled at the unexpected turn things had taken, set off to search; even grandfather himself looked where he could, calling out and searching, not without fear.

But it was not so bad as that. They soon found Uncle John, at the very boundary stone of grandfather’s and Kubista’s fields. They found him with his face to the ground, in tears and protestations. Without witnesses he