Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/179

 own portraits of all those persons who, God-like and from afar, reached with hands unseen into their lives. Soaring before their inner vision in ever-bright contours were the barons, baronesses, baronets and the junior baronesses, chambermaids, nurses, the bewrinkled, wigged attorney, the English governess with her sharp, pointed nose, the rotund butler; the characters of each being known to them to its least detail. But to see these constant objects of their dreams and discussions, to meet these, their models of perfections, suddenly face to face was to them a prospect rather dazzling and awesome.

The inside of the castle was animated by a feverish stir. From the upper rooms came the creaking of doors, the noise of furniture moved hither and thither, the rustle of brooms and dusters. The director’s wife ran about the courtyard from the chicken-coops to the pig-sty without a definite plan of action, the director was seeking for miscellaneous keys and diaries, heaping the guilt for all disorder upon Beruška’s head, the fair ringlets of which the latter, thinking himself secure within the confines of the officerooms and without the least suspicion of the approaching storm, was busy at steeping In sweet-oil. Old Foltýn stood in the passage, with his drum across his shoulder, each muscle and every line of his face atwitch, stretching forth a hand armed with a drumstick after the fashion of Joshua, to tarry beyond the village awhile until everything was ready; for a triumphal arch, maids of honor, schoolboys, speech of welcome, flowers upon the footway—all this was darting through his old head. But the carriage stood not, nearing the castle with the swiftness of a gale. Already quite visible upon the road leading to the village was a pair of sturdy bays with lighter-hued, flowing manes, a braid-entwined coachman shone upon his box, a bluish grey cloud of dust floated above and about the carriage, enveloping in its folds a group of children standing, with mouths agape, along the roadside. Hardly had Foltýn stepped aside, removing his befurred shako the while, hardly had the delicate, white silhouette of Miss Melanie vanished beyond a window of the lower story, before the august visit came rumbling up the passageway.

The carriage contained a gentleman and a lady—lord of the manor and his consort. The man was of middle age and was dressed in smart black, his evenly oval and very pale face wearing a deep shadow about the eyes. He appeared languid and sleepy, yawning frequently. The lady was a young, fresh brunette of a quick, fiery eye, and was dressed in bright colors; with a vivacious, coquettish glance she gazed about.

As they rode into the passage where the whole populace of the castle was greeting them with low bows, the gentleman in black fixed his faint, sleepless eyes upon old Foltyn who stood in the very forefront, with his mustaches flabbily adroop, with limitless devotion written in his frank blue eye, with the expression of humble sorrow in his furrowed face, and his hereditary drum by his side.

The baron stared awhile upon this interesting part of his ancestors’ estate; then the muscles of his fatigued face moved, and milord gave vent to his good humor by a ringing, hearty laugh. Those standing about, surprised, looked for a moment from the baron at the gate-keep and back; thereupon they thought it good form to express their loyalty by blindly imitating the action of their majestic exemplary, and everyone laughed as best he could. The director and his wife in a somewhat uneasy manner, the carefree Beruška, the coachman and the butler quite heartily. The baroness herself smiled lightly and in a bewitching fashion.

Old Foltýn at this point presented a picture that is not easily drawn. He looked about a few times, alternately growing pale and blushing, stroked first his eyes finally resting upon the fatal drum. It seemed to him that he understood it all. He was ruined.

After some condesceding words to the rest, the gentry repaired to their chambers creating an initial impression upon the occupants of the lower story as the finest and happiest couple on earth.

A short while later they could be seen in their joint drawingroom. The gentleman sat, indolently reposing in an armchair, sketching upon the cover of a book the likeness of old Foltýn. The baroness, holding in her hand an antique, nude statue was gazing searchingly, about the room.

“Advise me, Henri, where shall I place it?”

“You should have left it where it was.”

“Oh no! We are inseparable. I’d be lonesome out of the sight of its fine, oval, marble face.”

“But if you will carry it everywhere we go, it won’t remain whole for long.”

“The very reason I guard it as if it was the pupil of my eye. You couldn’t but note the excess of care I paid it throughout our journey.”

“Belter get a lap-dog, my dear!”

The baroness shot an angry glance towards her spouse. Her lips opened to utter some biting conjugal reproof, but she thought better of it. Taking the Statue carefully, she whisked, full of scorn, past the baron to a rounded alcove. She was at point of depositing her fetish here when, sudenly and as if bitten by a snake, she leaped backwards and raised her finger in her husband’s direction. Manv years’ dust that had accumulated in the niche, had left its hoary trace upon it.

“Look!” she cried.

“Look!” echoed he, pointing to the ceiling. From a bouquet of fantastic blossoms there swayed a long, unsteady cobweb at the end of which, clearly defined, swung a hideous spider. “You did not heed my warning. Here is your first introduction to that divine rustic idyl of which you had dreamt.”