Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/353



GAIN the moon shone out, when they came to the cemetery, just as long ago when Frank and Staza first passed the night in his grandfather’s grave. And because the cemetery stood on an eminence there at times stole over it a warm breeze in whose breath the white iron figure of the Christus rattled upon the ruddy cross, several of the lesser crosses clattered with their arms, and sometimes creaked on its hinges a rusty little door, behind which lay concealed the inscription above some dead man’s bones.

This clattering of the arms of the crosses, the rattling of the Christus and the creaking of the rusty doorlets was the only unrest which the dead gave to view—how little was it all compared with that with which they had so tormented one another in life! Besides this, however, a breeze also ran above the graves and stirred the tall grasses and here and there a flower; but this unrest was scarce strong enough to be perceived, ay, rather it resembled the faint breathing of a child or the mere echo of a sigh.