Page:Our Grandfather by Vítězslav Hálek (1887).pdf/75

 It was old Kubista. He knelt on the grave of his daughter Betuska, and prayed for his daughter.

Grandfather felt all his hatred suddenly collapse; all the better sides of old Kubista came to mind, and he was touched with pity for his unfortunate friend when he learned to realize how unhappy he had himself become.

He did not know how it happened, but he knelt beside Kubista at the grave, and with a quavering voice pronounced the words “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”

To Kubista it was the most joyous awakening out of prayer. He took grandfather by the hand, pressed it, and said, “Aye! we have committed many errors.”

Kubista knew not hatred, and it so touched him to see grandfather kneeling beside himself, that he forgave his friend frankly, and from the bottom of his heart.

They sat by Betuska’s grave, and Kubista asked grandfather what had led him thither.

“I came here to choose some place or other,” said grandfather. “Among the living I have one no longer, and I see that I am already a burden to them.”

“Things have not succeeded with us,” said Kubista, but without reproachfulness, only pronouncing the whole truth. “We ourselves have taught friends by our example to desert one another, and now we find ourselves deserted. John even now but seldom comes here, and so I must tend the grave alone. But I will never desert Betuska, and when I have no more power to walk, I will lay myself down beside her.”

Grandfather did in reality feel himself elevated, ennobled, and good—perhaps for the first time in his life. He wished he had still the strength of youth that he might