Page:Poet Lore, volume 28, 1917.djvu/552

 here! Mr. Merfajt is with them! (The murmur of voices is heard.)

Kralenec (Leaping to his feet).—Merfajt!

( runs to the window.)

Kralencova.—And the miners are running after him! What an uproar!

Kralenec.—He is coming here! He must be coming for my answer!

Tonicka.—Vojtech! What are you going to do?

Kralencova.—They want something of you, and you do not wish to comply with their demands?

Kralenec.—I surely will not give in! Just one thing: Tonicka are you prepared to suffer the result of this decision with me?

Kralencova.—For Heaven’s sake, what is in the air? Surely you would not voluntarily dismiss yourself from work?

Kralenec.—We will do it, mother, because we must. We will not suffer ourselves to be tyrannized over. Rather would we endure actual want than to be exposed to endless humiliations.

Kralencova.—Vojtech! My son! What folly is this! Your wife, your children! Are you forgetting all about them? The winter is here, you have no other resources at hand, money at your house, where would one find it,  and work cannot be found! Do not be stubborn, do not stand against the whole company! Submit to their demands!

Kralenec.—I cannot, mother! I cannot betray myself, and I will not betray others! I could not do it!

Kralencova.—I do not even know what this is all about! But be content with what they offer! Do not rebel! I have endured more than you have,— I know what it means to go hungry, I had to bring you up, all of your brothers, in actual poverty and want! I never complained! I managed to tide it over, so that you all, you and your brothers, are neither beggars nor dependants today, but are sustaining yourselves by an honorable effort! But work, I never scorned nor ran away from And you, Vojtech, you must not be so foolish! It would be against the will of the Lord, against my will, and such a thing I will not permit! I am aged now, I am your mother, for my sake, for the sake of these children, for the sake of us all, relent!

Kralenec.—Mother, mother! If I knew I should die of hunger and want, I cannot do otherwise, I cannot relent!