Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/284

 On this Joseph rose, and said “Pray, why should I not tell them? I will go and tell them at once.”

Barushka looked at her mother-in-law as though she would say “Now, what have you got to say”—and she smiled tauntingly.

“And this is the girl who was willing to take me on her arms,” thought the peasant woman to herself, and all at once she seemed to stand on the edge of an abyss.

And Joseph exactly, as though he and Barushka had just finished a game of cards, quitted the apartment and betook himself to the musicians.

“Will you be so good as to clear off at once from here,” said he. “My wife does not wish to have people hanging about the place, and I do not wish it either.”

Here the musicians felt as if they had received a severe shock. “Well, the Lord God reward you,” said they, collecting their instruments in order that they might clear out, and they looked at Joseph as though they did not yet know whether it was jest or earnest. But it was earnest, for when they had gone out across the threshold he did not call them back nor when they crossed the courtyard, only the dogs whined a sad farewell to their old friends who went out by the gate on to the village green.

Joseph still remained by the gate until the musicians were fairly out of sight. And here the family of the kalounkar (tape pedlar), the cloth