Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/18

 impending event. No one had been known to be dangerously ill.

Our good gossips make a guess in one or the other direction rack their brains in the endeavour to ﬁnd out the name of the deceased, and make investigations concerning all the inhabitants of the place. They do not fail to fold their hands or to cross themselves devoutly from time to time, so that the wicked world should not say that it was sinful curiosity and not Christian charity that had driven them from their homes to the old lime tree. But that does not prevent their thoughts from dwelling constantly with the bellringer in his belfry, and from anxiously counting how many periods he will toll. Ah! he has finished at the second; it is a woman then who has blessed life and died. If he had tolled a third time, it would have been a man.

New astonishment new surmises under the lime tree! What woman can it possibly be? From which part of the village?

The gossips are determined to wait for the bellringer at all costs, so that they can cross-examine him as soon as he leaves the church. Let the cattle meanwhile low at the empty manger, the omelette frizzle to a