Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/364

 The two children now nestled close together, and looked on like birdies from a nest at what was passing before them. They did not understand, but it had not any longer so much horror for them.

“If thou thinkest that we ought to sleep,” said Loyka, “as though he were still replying to the recommendation of the gravedigger, “it will be best to lay us down and sleep,” and hereupon he immediately made as though he would lie down.

“When you were married, pantata, I was at your wedding,” said the gravedigger. “And when the deceased, your father, quitted you for the pension house, he said ‘If at any time you are too much harassed to sleep at home, come to me, you will sleep beside your father.’ And to-day, you have come to him, pantata, and will sleep soundly.”

His father had in reality said this on that long passed wedding day, and now the son came for the first time to sleep beside him. A son already grey-headed, to sleep beside a father who was no more among the living.

“Only go on, go on, and tell me about it,” entreated old Loyka, and fitful dreams were already weighing down his eyelids. Yet a few words he pronounced as if in assent, for Bartos began to narrate to him the story of his own young days, and how he had performed such and such feats, but after a while the gravedigger observed that he was speaking to Loyka who already had fallen asleep.