Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/213

 said to one another, “’Tis a poor fool, but he hath a good heart!”

After a few moments, Vena lifted the basket, took out of it a flask of rosolek and gulping down his sorrow, said to the neighbours and neighbours’ wives, “What’s to be done with the rosolek now that he is dead, now that he is nothing at all? Ah, neigbours! Help and drink it to his health!” He himself took the first pull and then offered it to the bystanders.

“What are you to do with him when he is a fool,” said they again to one another, half laughing, and in the meantime began to call upon the sexton to explain how it came to pass that old Loyka had died so unexpectedly.

“He dropped off! He dropped off!” said the sexton. “It came upon him just like a yawn—like a hiccough.”

“The Lord God be with us!” cried some of the neighbours’ wives, for it appeared to them that the sexton spoke as learnedly as a doctor.

“Frank, his younger grandson, was with him,” continued the sexton, “you know they loved each other truly and dearly. ‘Franky,’ he said, ‘when I die my watch will be thine. Besides this, what is in yonder drawers and chests is also thine, it is that same silver which I have collected for thee.’ Frank said, ‘oh! grandfather, who, pray, would talk about death, and you so hale and hearty,’ and he wept.