Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/149

 had allowed the girl to go to a procession. No one had surprised him, no one knew that anything had happened.

He slowly went down the stairs. His thoughts were moving round and round in a strange circle. A picture of Doré’s from the édition de luxe of his Bible occurred to him; it represented the expulsion from paradise. As he left his house he felt as though he too were being driven from his paradise. Day by day he had hastened hither to meet his beloved Magda. He thought of her return the next day and shivered. How would he feel at meeting her? Would he be able to master his features sufficiently for her not to see that he now knew what she had kept a secret for so long, what perhaps she had meant to keep a secret for ever? What kind of a life between them would it be if Magda discovered his secret?

If only he could escape meeting friends to-day! He wished he were a stranger to all the world.

He went to a part of Prague where he had hardly ever been before, across the ‘little bridge’ and through the passages of the crooked old town on the banks of the Moldavia. It was a fine day; all those who could walk