Page:The Best continental short stories of and the yearbook of the continental short story 1926.pdf/213

 cemetery. It was, we thought, the tombstone of one of the pastor’s predecessors, for we could see engraved on it in Latin: “Pastor of the Flocks of the Lord,” and an old, old date. We admired the church and promised our hostess to come back some day. Whilst waiting for the pastor’s return we strolled through the park of the castle.

Dacha and I listened while Vivostchka and the poetess explained to us about the Czech farmers who have become Magyarized and have renounced their own people. The lady politician gave her views which did not seem to interest Dacha very much; the question of farmers left her unmoved. And she was right—the future of the Czech people lies not with them but rather with her and children like her. I made no contribution to the conversation, and Vivostchka went on to tell us what she knew about the pastor and his wife. They had lived together in perfect harmony in the same presbytery for nearly fifty years, and the half-century had rolled by sweetened by their never-ceasing love. Having no children to think of they had never left the village where they were known as Philemon and Baucis, nor even moved from the modest presbytery where the will of God had placed them. Now they were peacefully living out the autumn of their days, their hearts warmed by the rays of love’s sun, which for them would soon disappear.

I thought of this immense flame which warmed these two souls so intensely that after all these years they still burned with the same fire; how powerful, how ardent it must have been to thus weld these two souls with such a solid link! How brilliant must have been its rays to blind their eyes to the rest of the world! How penetrating to have filled everything so that never once were their hearts empty and cold! The pastor must certainly have had other things with which to fill his life. Through the years he had guarded his flock, showing them the paths that led to God. Uplifted and animated himself by the divine fire, he had inculcated in the hearts of his spiritual children the love of country and of the language of their fathers, and to-day with a peaceful and satisfied eye he could contemplate his work amidst human souls.

But his companion, what of her? Oh, mysterious feminine soul! Had you no misgivings, when you, young and alone, iso-