Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/324



The peal of the large bell had already ceased; the noon had passed.

Exactly at half past twelve, as usual, Roubinek’s had finished their dinner. Fritz was out somewhere in the garden. Having put things in order with the help of the servant girl, Lenka seated herself in the front room. She enjoyed her Sunday afternoons. While the uncle, the aunt, and Lotty sat in the rear parlor, she could freely do as she liked in the front room. At such times she drew out of her trunk a book, inherited from her uncle, and seating herself at the window, or in summer time, in the garden, she buried herself in reading, completely and whole-heartedly. Often she fell into meditation, and abandoned herself to revery and pleasant thoughts of the past. Then it was that she felt easiest. In the meanwhile uncle Roubinek, doffing “Aaron”, reposed in the soft armchair at the table. Lotty brought her father his long gypsum pipe already filled, also fire, and the father began to puff contentedly. He never smoked except on Sunday afternoon after dinner and after supper. Then, when the tobacco in the white pipe-head was transformed into bluish-gray smoke, he solemnly cleaned out the ashes. After that he usually wrote a letter. He devoted no other days to this work. While Lotty went to see some friend, and the mother blissfully slumbered at the table, the registrar was composing a letter. He thought everything out carefully before he put it on the paper; on the other hand, he never had occasion to correct anything, and his sentences were so arranged and rounded out that it was a joy to listen to them. Of course it lasted sometimes several weeks before the letter was completed. But there was no hurry, for the correspondence of Mr. Roubinek’s was not very extensive. When he had finished something, he woke his wife and read to her his solemn sentences, which resembled ponderous, mail-clad knights in their array.

Thus it was every Sunday.

A little later the recorder would come, either alone or with his wife, and then the “entertainment” began.

On the wall opposite Roubinek’s armchair hung an old picture in a dark, carved frame. This picture was considered by its owner to be the greatest rarity in the whole town; in fact once, when he became unusually enthusiastic, he exclaimed with animation: “Let somebody find one like it I In the whole kingdom of Bohemia he could not find its like!”

And it was no wonder. In that picture was portrayed the cruel king Herod, who had unmercifully ordered the massacre of the babes of Bethlehem. Only his head was depicted, but so ingeniously was it done that the whole bloody deed could be read therefrom. Of course, the observer had to come close to the picture; then he could see that the whole head was cunningly composed of the bodies of children, so that the white children served for the forehead and the face, and the black children composed his beard and hair. Evidently, there were very many negroes in Bethlehem at that time.

Of this creation the registrar was inordinately proud, and there was no price for which he would sell it.

When he was smoking in the easy chair, his eyes were riveted on the picture, and he continued to loklook [sic] at it even when he talked with his wife. Moreover, when the recorder, or someone else came, Mr. Roubínek did not look him in the eye, but kept his glance bent on the cruel king Herod.

Mr. Roubinek was, for his office, a very wealthy man. This wealth was not brought him by his wife, whom he married from mere inclination, or more probably, from a sober reasoning concerning her good qualities, especially her economical talent. It would be a mistake to suppose that Mr. Roubínek was ardent or passionate in his youth. He had not changed at all. His contemporaries asserted that he looked exactly the same now as years ago. Be that as it may, it is certain that he inherited his wealth from his old uncle, a colonel, who amassed the riches during the Napoleonic wars.

Thus this afternoon, in which Mrs. Roubínek neglected her quiet nap because of uncertainty and curiosity, her husband wrote quite calmly a letter to his colleague and friend, a registrar in the castle and estate of Richtemberg. It goes without saying that he wrote in German, not because he despised his mother tongue, but because of custom, and because he could express himself more pithily and clearly in German. For the registrar was no enemy of his nationality, although he was no friend of it, either. In a word, he was a true official, devoted entirely to his gracious Lordship; he observed the old, customary ways and order, and hated all innovations heartily. Nevertheless, from some of his sayings it was possible to surmise that he rose to many reformatory historical views, which radically differed from the current, accepted ideas. Thus he did not consider Žižka to have been a robber and a cruel murderer, as man still thought. He used to say: “Žižka and Emperor Joseph were the best Czechs!” And when