Page:Poet Lore, volume 36, 1925.pdf/352

 Grandmother.—It’s light, it cheers one. It is gloomy in the dark; the night is sad, the mother of all sorts of deeds. It has its own power and its own rights.

Hanička (More quietly). It is the queen of the spirits and they are its servants.

Grandmother.—The queen of the spirits and good to nobody. That is why the light cheers one, particularly when one wanders through the wide fields in the autumn evenings, and when from the lantern on the pole a little light pierces the darkness as a wagon rattles along the deserted street.

Hanička.—And it is still gayer in winter when everything is covered with snow in the evening, when the young girls run to the spinning and light the way with lanterns.

Grandmother.—But the little light is sad when they carry it ahead of a priest on his way to a sick man, when death is already waiting.

Pause.

Hanička (Suddenly).—And I like the lantern, Grandmother, even in the daytime, without a light.

Grandmother.—Well, well! And why?

Hanička.—Because of all the things I saw in it, when it stood before me and its glass walls glittered! That was a little glass room, my glass castle. And in it was a beautiful little princess and a handsome prince—I saw them; and his courtiers were there, gentlemen and ladies in embroidered dresses; everything on them glittered with gold and precious stones, everything just blazed forth in that glass palace. (Steps backward towards the stove.) And today I was in it again. It stood in a grove in a wealth of blossoms. Around it was a thicket of motherwort, gold mullein and blue helmet flower and cowslip, peonies and marvellous herbs. Everything around was fragrant with camomile and thyme, and the glass castle stood in this, all alone, deserted, dusty—

Grandmother (Gazes at her questioningly).—A glass castle?

Hanička.—On the floor in the little room, Grandmother, here. (Takes lantern and approaches with it.) Here it is. (Lifts it to the window in which a red sky is glowing.) Look, they have put the lights on; see, the prince has come for the princess!

Grandmother.—Child, what have you done?

Hanička (Surprised).—What?

Grandmother.—That is the very lantern.—Did Libor see it? Does he know about it? Has he seen it?