Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/372



LD Loyka continued to be a constant figure of the district surrounding Frishetts. If any one from the neighbourhood or from abroad had come there and enquired what novel or peculiar event had happened there, he would have learnt that they had there a vejminkar (pensioner) belonging to a large estate and with a large pension, but who would not dwell on his estate, and roved about even in the woods and dwelt in the cemetery with the gravedigger Bartos.

“You have here a strange and ludicrous thing,” he would hear said: for people frequently regard what is strange as also ludicrous. “Perhaps he would sooner allow himself to be nailed to a cross than to return to the farm in which his son is hospodar. Some years ago he was just a little touched in the head and walked with a band of musicians from village to village—what a peasant it is! Now he is a little more reasonable; only no one can persuade him to go home—the fool!”

“And has he been long thus,” the stranger would perhaps enquire.