Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/326

 “Thou art all salt and sauce, boy, sauciness and seasoning,” said Loyka to cut short the conversation, and for a moment his breast heaved as though he was on the point of weeping. But after all nothing came of it except laughter, only that behind this laughter that weeping was quite apparent: tears and weeping looked through a curtain of laughter, and whoever saw it felt little disposed to laugh.

And so they were banished from the farm house. Loyka and Loyka’s wife cast a last lingering look over that apartment where from their youth until now they had tasted all the sweets and sorrows of life, and which they were perhaps leaving for ever. On some estates a beggar has easier access to the farm house than the vejminkar (pensioner). And if he goes there once in a way, even his step, even his look seems to sicken everyone—without careful fostering, his inclination to repeat the visit soon languishes.

“There is only one thing I am sorry for,” said Vena, when the greater part of the furniture had been already carried out before the threshold. “And that is that there are no longer any musicians at the farm—how they would have beguiled our transit to the pension house! Those were the times! When at a touch of those strings everything was tootling and jigging on the farm, and even sorrow put on a smart frock!”