Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/338

 inmost soul was a sort of language which explained it all. Once Staza said that they would sing; and they began to sing (Rest in peace ye faithful spirits), but scarcely had they pronounced the words before Staza burst into tears, and when she was quieted it seemed to her as though she heard organ tones above her; then she said that never in her life, not for the whole world would she dare to sing in this place again. And it seemed to the two as though she had expressed herself as follows: In the fields there is a presence which inviteth to the dance and singing, but here in the woodland there is a presence which inviteth to silence and attentiveness, because it would fain tell its own story.

That no doubt was the difference for Staza expressed in the most general terms. But otherwise she here entered into a new world, and still it appeared to her as though it was a world akin to the one she knew before. True, when she and Frank came out of the graves or from the graves themselves into the fields, gaiety, potent even to excess and delight seized upon her spirits, her soul soared aloft with the very skylarks, and fluttered into the blue of heaven and the clear transparent ether. But when she came hither into the wood she partially felt as though she were in the cemetery among the tombs and at home. Just as though she was actually