Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/269

 the corpse, in order to cry her prescribed modicum of tears, to cry a good bottleful, and it was all just as necessary and just as much belonged to her sphere as the sauces and the sauer kraut.

After the funeral, then, Loyka’s house wore all the appearance of a festival. The guests who were staying in the house, and those who were invited for the day sat down to a richly furnished table, which in the form of a horse shoe occupied the whole of the principal apartment; the musicians seated themselves in the hall by the pantry, and after a few moments everything was as merry as at a wedding.

It was a custom in the Loykas’ family for the males to marry late in life. Thus our defunct centenarian had not married until well nigh his fortieth year: Loyka, the peasant proprietor, not until after his thirtieth year, consequently he was now sixty and his wife fifty. Joseph, his eldest son, was now about four and twenty—we know the age of Frank. Loyka, the peasant, in contradistinction to the vejminkar (pensioner) was called young Loyka. But after the death of the hundred-year-old-grandfather, Loyka, the peasant, became all at once old Loyka, and his son Joseph was promoted to the dignity of young Loyka.

Joseph seemed fully alive to the importance of the day. He did not seat himself at table, but with watchful eyes superintended and arranged the dishes and liquors as they issued from the kitchen and the