Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/393

 Once Staza sat upon the grave of her mother: she did not sing “Oh rest in peace,” either to her mother or to the other dead. But she felt weary and oppressed, she knew not why, and then she interpreted the oppression to be sorrow for never having known her mother. And she would most gladly have delved a fresh grave beside her mother’s grave and laid herself in it, not by any means as a corpse, but that she might again tap at her mother’s coffin and tell her something which she had not yet breathed even to herself.

At this moment came Frank to her, and when he stood beside her, he was for the first time at a loss for a word. Everything that he had said to her hitherto seemed insufficient. He wished to say much more and therefore said nothing.

The dawn of life shot its crimson streamers before him, he had his soul full of spring, full of sap and beauty, and when he wished to express it all, he cast his eyes down to the ground and his tongue seemed parched with a long drought. He had his soul full of sunlight, and when he wished to reveal it in its full brightness, he had tears in his eyes.

And when he had stood thus a long time and could not find anything to say, and yet wished to say something—he found nothing else but the enquiry, “Oh! Staza, and so thou dost not sing any more.”