Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/175

 Surely it was past all conception natural that Malka should at once prefer the lively eddying Moldau to the long monotonous streets of Prague. And Poldik was an embodiment of those streets of Prague, and Francis was an embodiment of the water of the Moldau. So then, two almost radically different forms of life were here opposed to one another the regular, measured, settled streets along which with loutish steps tramped Poldik beside his cart with its raw-boned horses, Poldik heavy like his sand, from which the water fell drip, drip: and here light-heartedness and elasticity, just like the smooth and marbled surface of the Moldau over which like thought itself skimmed Francis, light hearted, transparently gay, gentle and blithesome like that water which here plashed over the yellow sand.

So that Malka’s sudden desertion of Poldik and her subsequent predilection for Francis was so natural an occurrence, that I know not how many young ladies would have given proof of their constancy by not following in Malka’s footsteps. The female/heart, according to popular ideas, flies on wings to meet a sailor lover; if the lover be not a sailor, it goes to meet him indeed, but at a perfectly Platonic pace. And we may consider Francis more or less a sailor, at least, in so far as our Moldau justifies the comparison. No doubt a facility to captivate the female heart has also its weak side; for a heart soon won, is also soon lost. But even