Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/268

 spring-sun were thawing it. And when he asked himself whence this feeling came, he discovered that it was caused by this same silent longing to be face to face with the man he had injured so badly; to deliver himself up to his justice. He knew he was looking forward to this terrible retribution, and that the desire for it made his life more beautiful, made it festal. If it were taken away from him, he would lose that which was sweetest and best in him, and his life would lose its object.

Autumn came; following on a summer which Martin had exclusively dedicated to this strange inward experience.

The Archduke came with the young princesses, and they hunted every day. At night they dined at the forester’s house, and the foresters went to the inn. Martin was never alone. Words, curses, laughter, and song fell upon his soul, overlaying all that there was in it of sweetness and justice. He longed for solitude, regretted every moment which was stolen from his silent self-examination and sacrificed to other people.

There was a day in October when a warm, soft grey mist lay over the landscape like a