Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/268

 districts to go by easy stages from the burial to music, from music to lively music, from lively music to a downright banquet, and from a banquet to a debauch. Just as if at the funeral they had been sad against their will, and required a lively banquet quickly to counterpoise their weight of woe. They took good care to keep sorrow at arm’s length, and must needs have something to divert them from it. Or perhaps genuine sorrow is so rare and portentous a thing that it is necessary to give it a fillup with a flourish of light music whensoever it reveals itself. Or perhaps true sorrow is a superfluous thing, if we needs must lay our dead in the grave with sighs and tears through which all the time we catch the sound of instruments which are tuning for a dance. Or perhaps our sorrow is but as a game of play from which we shake ourselves free in a moment, and which with a dance is ended. But at any rate such is the fact: after a funeral there must be music, and music of a light and cheerful sort.

So then the musicians came confident of employment, and the Loykas conscientiously and sedulously completed all their preparations.

Before the funeral procession issued forth from the door, Loyka’s wife had already arranged her kitchen; fat beasts slaughtered the day before were already in chops and quarters on the trunchions or were frying on the hobs. Then Loyka’s wife followed