Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/289

 herself in the afternoons. Now her mother, the landlady, descended there, giving her daughter permission to go for a walk with a girl friend. Frýbort, passing by, respectfully doffed his hat to the mother of his Márinka.

“But, Mr. Frýbort!”

He stopped.

“What is it? You are all white!” The small, serious-looking lady was pointing to the philosopher’s breast, where his dark coat was whitened.

“Oh, I got that from the wall somehow; thank you!”

“So? Did you press your chest against a wall?”

“The coat must have been hanging in some such way!” And, laughing, he took his leave from the matron, who regarded him somewhat suspiciously.

“I forgot that my Márinka is a rose sprinkled with flour in the store, and that her hair is as if powdered,” thought the philosopher merrily, and directed his steps toward the castle park.

In the student room, a lamp was burning on one of the tables; on the smaller one, by which Vavřena was seated, a candle flickered. Špína was lying on his back across a trunk and a bed in his dusky corner, and puffed at a long pipe. His eyes were staring.

Silence reigned in the small room; only at intervals the click of a spoon against a plate in terrupted the stillness. Zelenka was eating his supper, a fruit porridge with a portion of bread. He had a definite portion of bread, which he permitted himself morning, noon and night. He was living almost entirely on it. He had just returned, tired and hungry, from giving lessons, and had a keen appetite. Scarcely had this pale, slender young man finished his meal and cleared the table, when he seized a book and began to study, or, as Frýbort put it,” began to “cram.” It was evident that Lenka’s Almanac interested Vavřena deeply. He sat before the book for a long while, yet did not finish even the first page. He was looking thoughtfully at the inside page of the cover, where on the already yellowish paper was a German inscription, which read:

And a little lower in Latin script:

“The grief over a perishing native land is the most painful.” Myslimír.

Over these lines one could become thoughtful. They were written by Lenka’s uncle, who signed himself here by his patriotic name.

How fervently had this man, who lived in a secluded, highland hamlet, loved his country! With what fears for her had he tormented himself, with what hopes had he encouraged himself, until perhaps disappointed in his desires and expectations, in an hour of sad depression, he wrote these despondent words! Did they express a passing mood, or did the thought of his nation’s death oppress him to the last moment of his life? Or did these words contain a sad truth?

No, no, that the energetic young man could not believe. Worse times were known, lower skies threatened, and yet the nation did not perish! The dark clouds of the lack of national feeling were being torn asunder; luminous rays were already streaming brightly, yonder they gleamed afar. They day will come, the day will come!

And again he fixed his eyes on the sad writing. He saw before him a serious, white-haired priest, sitting under a wide-spread basswood tree in the parish garden, and beside him a young maiden. She is reading from a book and he is listening attentively. Here and there he makes an explanatory remark, until he drifts into a talk.

And she listens, looking at the old man,, [sic]as today at the registrar’s she had listened to him, looking at him with bright, moist eyes.

He turned a page and read:

“Pindar and Corinna.”

Aroused from dreams, Vavřena began to read the story at the beginnnig of the Almanac.

“As the morning star on the East, and the zodiac on the West are shining, so were these two stars, Pindar and Corinna, once brilliantly luminous on the sky of Greece. Corinna was given birth by Tanagra, Pindar by Thebe.”

But already in this foreword of this sadly sweet, love-filled story, he was interrupted by Frýbort, who entered humming a gay tune.

“Have you read it, Vavřena?”

“Yes; I corrected it somewhat, and shortened some of it.”

“Good. And you do not notice? Do you see this beautiful bouquet?”

“Pretty.”

“Oh, a very dear present! Have a smell!”

“I want to read.”

“Zelenka, you look!”

“Beg your pardon, I am studying.”

“Then you, Špína, have a smell, and you will be healed of your moroseness. Look, how beautiful! It is from Márinka.”

Špína had already turned and raised himself, but immediately fell back into the featherbed and, turning his head away, growled something unintelligible.

“Oh, blasts on you, you drudges, you book worms!” and putting his flowers into a small vase and jumping on the trunk, he snatched the guitar from the wall.

Zelenka stopped his ears with both hands, and bent lower over his book. Full chords sounded, followed immediately by the strong,