Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/237

 had gazed at the pruned tree for a long time, then uttered a senile groan and shuffled towards his chair.

Under the influence of the sun’s hot rays he remembered steep terraces covered with olive trees, wonderful olive trees, hundreds of years old, peopled with wood sprites; eloquent as a grave; personal in their individuality, like great men. He remembered olive-mills driven by rushing waters amid moss and ferns, and hands of women working among these terraces generation after generation. He thought of a pair of particularly small hands, passionate in their embraces, and ever ready to snatch up a knife, and of white, sinuous and affectionate feet which he had pursued in their flight up those terraces that seemed to be made for chamois’ feet. Then he saw those same feet, white, sinuous and affectionate, dashed against the rocks; saw the black rocks spattered with hot blood spilled through his fault

Again the aged man groaned; it was a sound so hollow and horrible that he was startled himself for a moment, as if he thought that not he but some one else had uttered it. He did not know how long he had been sitting there; his thoughts were concentrated on