Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/230

 From field to field scudded the partridges, sometimes a hare ran along the road as far as the cemetery and browsed on the graves of human ancestors to requite these for having dined off his own ancestors. Or a lark fluttered from the field into the blue air of heaven, and there poured forth melody for its own delight, and also for our enjoyment. The field grew green with varied tints of emerald; grew pink and white with clover, grew yellow with beetroot, grew crimson, with hosts of poppies—and in the midst of it all glistened the burial ground, in the midst of the burial ground stretched to heaven the ruddy cross with the white iron figure of the Kristus.

Here, at eventide and at nightfall it was not so gay. No one was working in the field, no one spoke, the lark was asleep, and the green tint of the field was bathed in the sombre colours of evening and of night. And then those crosses which peered forth over the cemetery wall were just like heads and those heads looked just as if they were leaning on their hands, and it all peered forth over the wall at the carriage road, and at anyone who might be passing along it. The tall ruddy cross in the centre raised on high its desolate arms, on which, in windy weather, thumped the white iron figure of the Kristus. From the burial ground a bat flitted forth—after this there was nothing for it but that the wayfarer should cast a