Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/451

 to-day, but when Frýbort narrated it, they laughed again.

At to-day’s solemn mass, Mrs. Roller wedged her way up to the choir-loft, and there seated herself at the very railing, holding her knitting bag before her. As she was spying around keenly someone near her noticed that the bag was open and that in it a very strange object lay. At the same moment Mrs. Roller almost cried aloud in horror. She sprang up and tried to catch the bag, which had slipped over the railing; but she missed it. Leaning over, she saw how the people were looking up at her, and, here astounded, there laughing, were catching the playing cards, which fluttered from her bag like large snow-flakes upon the congregation below.

There was laughter and fun all through Litomyšl over this incident, but the philosophers, assembled at Prence’s Inn, were especially pleased. It was late already, but the gayety, noise, and singing did not abate.

The whole town was slumbering in the embrace of a tepid, July night. The few people who had lingered on the benches in front of the houses, disappeared toward midnight; even the sounds of a guitar which were issuing from an open windovwindow [sic] late in the night, ceased. Silence reigned everywhere.

In the baywindow of her parent’s old fashioned house, Márinka sat at the open window. She could not sleep. She gazed into the public square; she saw on the opposite side the city hall tower, behind which was the dark blue, star-studded vault of the sky. Miss Elis told her that he went out in the evening. Would he return?—And how would the vacation pass? Sad, long, long time!

Presently a chorus of pleasant men’s voices resounded without. Márinka sprang up, then bounced aside, attentively listening. She recognized one—Frýbort’s resonant voice! A serenade! and to her! What beautiful singing, how pleasant it sounded in the stillness of the night! She caught a glimpse of the singers, the colleagues of Frýbort, whom she recognized even in the darkness. She heard windows in the neighborhood being opened, and saw people peering out into the darkness; she stepped aside again. In her honor!

The singing ceased, the steps of the dispersing singers resounded on the pavement, died away, then a key creaked in the house door. She heard steps on the hall way; now they stopped at the door of her room. She trembled, hesitated, then stepped nearer.

“Márinka, good night! Good night!” a sincere voice spoke outside.

Oh, how gladly would she have thanked him, and told him what joy he had caused her! But she dared not. She merely whispered:

“Good night!”

The exodus of students was general. On all highways leading from Litomyšl, numerous wagons, freighted with various articles of furniture, were seen, headed toward different parts of Bohemia and Moravia. Zelenka left in the forenoon; Vavřena followed soon afterward and in the afternoon Frýbort was taking his leave. His father, an honest, worthy Hanák, thanked Miss Elis sincerely that she watched over his son so carefully, and delivered the regards of the mother who sent many a token of her esteem to the kitchen. The gay philosopher was taking his leave from everybody jocosely, but when he pressed the hand of Márinka, now sad and of few words, all his gayety departed.

“But a little while and we shall see each other again! Good bye!” he said heartily.

All gradually left, and Litomyšl became quiet. She became for a lime poorer by some few hundred young, fiery people. Even in the house it was quiet, sad.

“It is just as though w» had had a funeral,” Miss Elis complained to the landlady.

“True, it is sad here without them, isn’t it Márinka?”

The daughter blushed.

“I feel as if my sons had left. Believe me, forty seven philosophers have lived in my rooms, but these I like the best;” and she thought mostly of Vavřena and Frýbort.

“And what of Mr. Špína?” asked the landlady.

“He will go to-morrow, the poor fellow,—to a cloister!”

Špína was wandering about all afternoon. Late in the day he was seen in the castle park, sitting under the trees, lost in meditation. From thence he went home, and asked Miss Elis not to let him oversleep, that he might leave early in the morning.

“And won’t you say ‘good bye” to anybody?”

“To whom—?”

“To the landlady?”

“I can find her in the store. I’ll not go to the home.”

Miss Elis understood.

“Then you will not see Márinka?” she added gently.

“No—I do not wish to—,” the philosopher stammered. “But tell her—please”—and Špína’s voice choked and his face grew dark red—“tell her that I wish her all happiness—that she may always be happy—.” He became silent, and spoke of her no more.

That night he slept but little. The last moments of a sorrowful, hard, but still a free life! What awaited him? Joy and happiness nowhere, of that, in the bitterness of his mind, he was convinced.

In the morning, Miss Elis packed into his scanty bag a supply of food.

He did not think it would be so hard for him to leave. In that moment he realized how solicitous, kind and good that boarding lady of his