Page:Poet Lore, volume 36, 1925.pdf/350

 Zajíček (Uncertainly).—So I—

Dame Klásek.—Be quiet, you only want to help him out of his fix. Indeed not, I know all about that grinding. And to go to inquire at the mill with a clarinet! Indeed I saw very well how he stuck the clarinet under his coat like a thief! To be sure, to the mill with a clarinet! Perhaps he’ll stand by the flour bin and play!

Zajíček.—But we are going to play together at my house.

Dame Klásek.—Play together! Just where are you playing? You here, and where is he, my husband, where is he playing, where the roaming tom cat! But I’ll tell you-no, not I, but some one else.

Miller—Who?

Dame Klásek (Pulls out playing cards). These.

Miller (Merrily). The cards!

Dame Klásek.—Laugh away. Cards tell the gospel truth, they won’t lie. (Shuffles them.) I ask them every time when my husband disappears from home for a spree, and each time—

Miller.—What do they predict?

Dame Klásek.—Always the same—always; that is inevitable—because my husband has the same inclination each time. They predict that his thoughts are elsewhere, and that is true; that a certain person of feminine gender tempts him away, and that she does. (Hurriedly looks through the cards.) This is the card; this one says that that female has crossed my path. That, too, is the absolute truth, she did cross my path, that Zemánek woman, the little widow.

Miller (Rebukingly).—Are you sure of that?

Dame Klásek.—I positively know that my husband would court elsewhere, would seek elsewhere, what he already has at home. Why, am I just an old hag, some witch—some?

Miller.—And you have not caught him at any time?

Dame Klásek.—Wouldn’t that be lovely! That would be too much! It’s enough that the card says so.

Zajíček.—He was at my place, and he left for the castle on the business of that welcoming.

Dame Klásek.—I will give him a welcome, too, the rascal.

Miller.—Dame Klásek, you are always croaking like a raven.

Braha (In the door of the mill, excitedly).—Sir, sir, he is here!