Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/328

 sterious apparel, was illuminated. Young people and old came out of the city to enjoy the night and to witness the “burning of the witches”. The largest crowd was assembled on the ridge by the statue of St. Prokop, over which the young leaves of the old, wide-spread basswood tree were gently murmuring.

A large bon-fire was burning nearby, and around it some high-spirited young fellows were prancing, shouting, and throwing into the air the burning brooms. Every now and then a roar burst out, accompanying the highest thrown and the most luminous of these homely torches.

Vavřena stood aside, with his face turned from the fire. He did not join his friends, of whom there was a whole crowd here. He sought solitude. He gazed toward the woods of Nedošín which, wide-spread and mysterious, were rising out of the evening dusk. A white manor house on the hill stood out from the background of the black woods like a silent, abandoned castle. Whenever the long shadow of the sable woods permitted a glimpse into the vale below, one could see the broad bright surface of the Košíř River glimmering there. Behind the woods and all around, the bon-fires and lights were blazing.

The evening, the lights, the fires, the cries—everything recalled home to Vavřena. Unwittingly he wandered in revery into his boyhood years, when he also was preparing wooden sheds on the hills and then set fire to them, jumped over the fire, and shouted in high glee. A motley crowd of memories swept through his mind like a cluster of flying sparks.

“I don’t know what they see in it!” a voice nearby exclaimed.

“Ach, das gemeine Volk!” (Oh, these common people!)

He recognized the voice of Mrs. Roubínek, and the rejoinder as Miss Lottynka’s. He did not turn in order to avoid recognition, and started to go away; without any definite choice, he took the path between the fields. The ladies passed, the noise and shouting diminished to faint and occasional sounds.

Vavřena gave himself to revery. A cool, pleasant breeze was moving the young wheat. The dewy grass was like velvet. But now, under this quiet, evening sky he no longer thought of home. It occurred to him what a joy it would be if Lenka had come to the fires.

He felt a poetic impulse. He imagined that gentle maiden beside him; he spoke to her, communicated to her his innermost thoughts. She was answering him—yes, surely thus would she speak.

Suddenly he ran into somebody who approched him also with a bent head.

“Oh, Špína!—Is it you? What are you—”

His friend caught him impulsively by the hand, and for a while looked into Vavřena’s face. He seemed strangely moved, agitated.

“Comrade!” he ejaculated. “Comrade, I must tell you—! But no—no!”

And before Vavřena realized what happened, Špína was gone.

Turning around, he saw him taking big strides toward the town.

The crowd dispersed, the noise subsided, and the fires died out. Darkness again spread over all. Here and there a few fires shone like bloody stars. But as the still, warm night covered all with its dark, ethereal mantle, glow after glow went out, until not a single spark remained on the whole wide plain. Cries, singing, and shouting ceased and the mysterious silence of the first May night reigned.

A charming, awe-inspiring moment. You can not penetrate it, you can not search it out, but you feel it; and when everything revives, awakes, buds out and fertilizes, your heart softens, and dreams unfold like blossoms in your mind. Then you understand the pure life of the shooting plant, you understand the flattering murmur of the bubbling creek in the shadows of the revivified alders; then you know why the youthful beech forest on the slope is trembling and why the blackthorn is wrapped in its white blossoms.

Sweet dreams are going through the grove: in the dark heavens above the bright constellations shine. The dreams pass on to the trees in the gardens and into still rooms and chambers. As the dew silently falls on all things growing, new life and flowers awake.

Thus the night is passing, till beyond the dusky woods a light band appears, the messenger of a young May day. Companies of enchanting fairies anl wild spirits disappear from the lowlands and the soft meadows and fly deep into the frowning depths of the forest.

On the clear sky a radiant, trembling band of golden light appeared ; dreams sped away and the day and life awoke.

Dreams also departed on their rosy wings from the chamber of Lenka.

The young girl awoke and gazed before her, still under the spell of enchanting memories. But in an instant her eyes rested in the trees in front of the window, and immediately she jumped up, as when a quail flies out of her nest in the early morning. Every top, every branch was one mass of white blossoms! She opened the window hastily, and gazed enraptured on the miracle. The sun had not yet risen, but it already was bright day. A fresh stream of air fanned the young maiden in the white robe, until her cheeks flowered out in crimson blossoms.

But hearken! Stray notes of music were wafted on the breeze from the public square; it was the customary celebration of the brilliant, first day of the beautiful month of the “budding thorn”. Rosy, fragrant May.