Page:Poet Lore, volume 26, 1915.djvu/354

 Moravcová.—And why do you gape here, why didn’t you go at once to your husbands?

Jirsačková.—We are looking for Výrava.

Moravcová.—Výrava? And he is to do what you desire? Why didn’t you go at once to the castle to tell that overseer, Karmín, that you’ll betray your husbands, that you’ll fight them or at least bind them safely—if so nothing would happen to your estates and to your children?

Lhotská.—What vile deeds do you think us capable of?

Moravcová.—They’re only trifling compared to the deeds you are preparing to do. Why, you wish your husbands to abandon the insurrection, you wish to continue as subjects, serfs, slaves, you wish to crawl on your knees to the nobility just so that they may continue to beat you, tread upon you, harness you to the plow! Do you know, you purblind women, what you are doing? Do you know that you wish to continue in slavery for fear a hair of your head might be disordered? Shame upon you as you stand here, and command your own children to drive you from your own doorstep because you wish to make slaves of them.

Kyralová.—What kind of talk is this? Are you intoxicated or did you eat of the deadly night-shade?

Moravcová.—I am intoxicated with the desire to see for once, all our wrongs righted, and all the injustices perpetrated on us by the nobility. I am drunk with the fervent wish to see myself—to see us all—free.

Lhotská.—It's easy for you to talk—you have nothing to lose.

Moravcová.—Ah, to be sure, I have nothing to lose. For my husband died in chains at the castle because he protected me from the insolence of a castle underling. And my son was seized by the castle bailiffs, delivered up to the military authorities and miserably perished in the war in Prussia. Every one of you may lose all I have lost unless the power of the lords be broken once for all.

Kyralová.—And if our side loses! Heretofore the lords have always won.

Moravcová.—We will not fail, we will overcome the lords. We are all here from the entire district and the great Emperor is with us. Drive away fear and be heroic women like those in the Old Testament.

Lhotská.—Fine words—but a bad ending. We will not let our husbands go to slaughter and we will not lead our children into bondage and want.