Page:Poet Lore, volume 26, 1915.djvu/353



The wives of the following: and.

Lhotská.—What? Am I to let my home be burned or to be driven out of it?

Kárniková.—And have I worried in vain to bring up my children? I want them to live—to be happy—and not to have them cast into prison and thrust into white jackets.

Jirsačková.—What has God sent upon us in these times! Oh, if only all could be settled—if the thing can be averted.

Kyralová.—We mustn’t allow it to come to pass even if I am to fight with my husband about it.

Nováková.—My daughter is to be married tomorrow. All is ready, the wedding kolach is baked—and now this comes! I will tell Výrava what I think of him!

Lhotská.—Just so we find him.

Jirsačková.—He will give in now. After he has killed his own son, his blood will be cooled off.

Kyralová.—And if not, I’ll set his head right!

Kárniková.—For two hundred years our family has been on the estate and now I am to let it be taken from me or burned?

Lhotská.—Feudalism has existed always—and never a word has there been said about it here before the overlords and now—it is as if the heavens were dropping and the earth falling through.

Kyralová (Advancing to the front and sorrowfully observing the women).—And they don’t know that everywhere wherever they rose in rebellion the peasants have succeeded. Oh, God, who could have been the instigator of this day’s madness.

Jirsačková.—Your husband and that crazy hot-spur that an ill wind blew hither from Silesia.

Kyralová.—I’ll make them suffer for it! I’ll not leave a hair on my husband’s head!

Moravcová (Contemptuously).—That’s all of no account what you say here! Have you any more abuse and wrath to heap on your husbands?