Page:Poet Lore, volume 21, 1910.djvu/453

 Matoush.—How many people would envy you!

Maya.—Do you think so? (Lost in thought.) At that time when my father lost his life, I was heartbroken, crazily grief stricken. One cannot wonder. My father was everything to me. I arrived in Skalitz as if I were in a trance. I don’t know how I ever got to the railway station or into the train, and how I passed those few hours before I reached my father’s deathbed. When I got there he was dead. But all of a sudden—I blushed when I caught myself—I was studying my great sorrow, analyzing it. I was, I would say, tracing the psychology of my pain. I wanted to gain from every moment of its duration each one of its pangs. I would almost say that I was glad of my grief, as of something rare and unusual, perhaps in the same way as a doctor has a keen, scientific pleasure from even the most painful case. See, already then, at that time, I felt the actress within me. Not a comedian, who plays for the gaud of costumes or the empty applause of a helter-skelter mob, but an artist able to conceive and produce every and all pathos, passion, and pain of human nature. And so it was when I came to you the other day, reverend sir. Hardly had I been a moment in your vicinity when all the poetry of my childhood echoed in my soul. I wanted to go back, at least in my memories and sentiments, although I did not know whether I would meet with yours. I came to you the other day just like a bird of prey, and when I went away that evening I felt as if I was carrying off a new booty. (Lighter tone.) Good God, what a cruel person I am!

Matoush.—What a difference in young souls. You and Petr, both of the same age. Are you the real personification of our youth, or is it our Petr, who is so resigned, so willingly humble, so peculiarly indifferent.

Maya.—Was it inevitable that he should become a priest?

Matoush (shrugs his shoulders).—It was and it was not—hard to say! Perhaps it was not inevitable, even though his mother’s wishes were so positive and sworn. Lord! Lord! I often think that all depended upon him. If at that time he had rebelled against our wishes, especially against his mother’s. Perhaps it would have been otherwise. Well, His Will be done. (After a pause.) Besides, do understand me, Miss Zemanova, I am not pitying Petr just because he will become a priest. I feel sorry for him because he devoted himself to this calling so indifferently, just as if he would have devoted himself to any other calling in a similar way.