Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/365

 Vena remained beside the sleeping Loyka. Bartos took Frank with him into his house, and told him to speed early next morning to the village about which he had spoken correctly enough, then he himself, like a night watcher, went out from time to time into the cemetery to see how Loyka fared.

The next day they followed Frank to the abode of the musicians. We must here say without concealment that Bartos had devised a kind of popular remedy for Loyka’s sick spirit. Whether it was destined to succeed or not we cannot however state at present.

In the village they found Frank already arrived. There also they found the musicians whose loss Loyka had so much deplored. The whole party collected at the alehouse, and the musicians played and sang, Bartos taking special care that everything should be gay and lively. A rumour of what had occurred at the farmstead had already outrun them, and consequently everyone knew was the afflicted Loyka who in this manner compensated himself for the loss of his home.

It was a piteous spectacle to look on the old man, and to see how his mind, restless enough without this soothing medicine, gloated over the well-known strains of the harps and violins. He sat and listened. The expression of his face was serious as if he were lost in thought, and not a word escaped his lips. The whole time he did not move a muscle, his eyelids