Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/140

 one, ‘and I am on the rack. Everything that I possessed in life has been destroyed our good name, my father’s position after a life of hard work  all in one blow. The fruits of his labour are lost. But, terrible as these losses are—all the more because of their suddenness—they do not shatter me. I wish they did!

‘But my fate is more terrible than this; that of my parents is its crowning disaster. The shame, oh the shame! Never-ending shame clings to my wasted life!

‘It was all like a horrible, fantastic dream: but the crying of the little creature whom they have separated from me, the crying that I heard for a moment only, which was lost in the distance when they carried the little girl away, this crying was the proof of a dreadful reality.

‘And Robert does not return! He has disappeared, and gives no sign of whether he is alive or dead. Alas! my fall should have helped him to rise, but then came my father’s failure and what can be my value now? Did ever two more terrible misfortunes meet?’

Another sheet began:

‘He does not return. Perhaps he is seeking death, perhaps he may have found it. The