Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/247

 an unpropitious task, and as though he had undertaken a mission to an accursed place which it was impossible to carry out without contamination. He stood by the gate as if frozen to the spot, not knowing how to fulfil the task entrusted to him. At that moment came out of the gravedigger’s dwelling the little Staza with a watering pot in her hand. She came out into the cemetery and watered the graves, and all the while sang with a tiny treble, sweet, and tuneful, the words “odpocinte v pokoji verne dusicky.” “Rest in peace ye faithful spirits.” The grass and the flowers were half withered on the graves: where she sprinkled them they began to smell sweet, and their odour was wafted to the gate where Frank was standing.

It was a very tender sentiment which now filled the mind of Frank. That little girl fluttered like a butterfly over the graves, watering with the dew of life, like a spring shower, nature’s exhausted and withered offspring—and singing all the while “odpocinte v pokoji verne dusicky.” (Rest in peace ye faithful spirits). From the cemetery the blast of winter ceased to blow, a sportive presence seemed to linger there, something breathed warm along the sward, perhaps even the dead felt it. Then once more Staza tripped away and vanished through the door of the gravedigger’s abode, and the place was again untenanted. No song nor dance was there,