Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/170

 he listened to what the bystanders, sympathizing more or less with his hard fate, said to him, I know not but when they had ceased speaking, Poldik made no response. So that at the conclusion of those well intended words a silence occurred, such as we are accustomed to call “a torturing pause.” And after that pause, the bystanders began to talk among themselves about indifferent matters, relating to their several trades or occupations; but during their indifferent remarks all kept their eyes fixed on Poldik, so that anyone at all versed in the customs of the people, who had entered the house at that moment, must have guessed that the conversation of those present was so common place and insipid, because they wished to spare him whose face was buried in his palms.

Their conversation went so to say on tiptoe, for fear of outraging that which not long before had been raging very tempestuously.

Poldik suddenly burst in upon these pacable remarks with the following monologue: “Dotards, liars! And they tell us that God looks at the heart! He looks not at all at the heart. He allows the heart of him who hath one to be wrung from him to be torn in pieces, and then the people flock around to laugh at those pieces as at the crucified Jesus. Yes! look at my heart! See how they pierce it—but let them torture it. All your talking is not worthy that