Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/191

 burden to him; wherever he looked he saw the divine benediction; but with it all to be alone in the world was a grievous trial to him.

Here, no doubt, the inexperienced reader will be inclined to exclaim, “Ah, ha! the writer is trying to find a new bride for him.” He is not doing so my dear reader—all thoughts of wedlock Poldik had now banished from his mind for ever. He would rather have stabbed himself with the first knife which came to his hand than have said again to any female, “When shall we two pair off.” From that side he was as completely cured as those horses of his which he possessed no longer; and if a new saint had been required for the calendar, whose sole qualification was to be that he now never even looked at a woman’s form—Poldik might have applied for the place and have been canonized forthwith.

But a new and somewhat curious idea took possession of him, in consequence of which he ceased to feel lonely and deserted. This same idea was to beg from their parents the boys and children of scavengers. When he knew that a scavenger had a son who already began to trot along beside the horses, Poldik went to the father and said, “What do you mean your son to be?”

If the scavenger said, “What should I mean him to be? He will be a scavenger.” “Good,” said Poldik, “but you might entrust him to me for a