Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/275

 Only let me be Joseph’s wife and your daughter. I desire nothing more.”

These words tripped quite glibly from Barushka’s tongue, and no doubt came from her heart, and yet she spoke them with a kind of forced energy as though she was anxious that they should not miss their mark. Loyka’s aged wife pressed her to her own bosom and embraced her, Loyka wiped away his tears, and at the same instant the neighbours wiped both their eyes and noses, because in all public assemblages tears take this direct route to the ground.

“Oh! what a daughter that is,” said the neighbours’ wives to her father Kmoch, “how well she expresses herself, too; you must love her, indeed, you must. And how proud you must be to have such a daughter.”

“How could I fail to feel delight in her,” said Kmoch. “She takes after me: that is just as I should have spoken.”

Then Barushka also stepped up to Loyka, kissed his hand, and repeated in somewhat different words all that she had said a moment before to her future mother-in-law. Here again during these reciprocal endearments you might hear tears falling, only that this time they were still more audible, because just then a braying of instruments resounded from the inner hall whereby the solemnity of the moment gained a sort of official confirmation.