Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/105

 Krista’s death and Venik’s playing, or indeed between Krista and Venik. When they asked him Venik assented “It was an unfortunate fall,” he said.

Then Venik was alone in the chamber of death. At Krista’s head the waxen tapers were burning, and they and Venik were the only watchers. And here Venik looked musingly at those well-loved features. Ah! how like they were to their living self—how fair they were and the lips scarce cold, as though they might yet move in speech. It was not like the sleep of death, it was not like sleep at all. But just as though she had closed her eyes in sportive jest and pursed her lips together to simulate an easy slumber, and could throw away the mask and thaw the wells of speech whenever she chose.

Venik seemed to see her once again on her couch of leaves and moss within the hollow tree. His hand had strewn the couch of leaves and moss in the old days—the couch from which she fled so faithlessly. And his hand also had strewn the couch on which she lay to-day, but she was not truant now.

Then Venik questioned the shade of her—the lost one. “Krista why didst thou desert me in the old days?” But Krista’s lips were mute and her shadow answered not, and on her face she smiled the same cold smile. And Venik’s tongue faltered his reproaches—“Only once in the old days thou