Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/306

 And to tell the truth these two chambers at the Loykas’ farm seemed steeped in fairy lore and ballad history. He who stepped into them involuntarily remembered things which he had here heard from the musicians and from the kalounkar, and scarcely had he seated himself before it all seemed to come upon him so that he was compelled to relate it all again. Something of this kind Frank and Staza experienced when they went into the burial ground and when they seated themselves in a fresh dug grave. Even there on that little hillock into which the grave was heaped some one seemed to sit with a harp and to softly sweep the strings.

And somehow Staza so aptly interpreted it all, that it seemed to Frank that never in his life had he heard such sweet and reasonable discourse.

After that they consecrated with their visits every hedgerow in the fields. And that spot where either of them had narrated some particularly pretty story was, in a manner, the source of that story. The circumstance that had been related was dear to them, and so also was the spot on which it had been related. Whenever they came to that spot a tender feeling was awakened in their minds, as often as this feeling was awakened within them, the place became still dearer, until it was to them like a consecrated shrine, without masonry, however, and without pictures. Many such shrines had they carefully chosen, resting places and trysting places, fringed