Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/401

 “So I said.”

“Why are they playing music where some one is sick unto death?” enquired Loyka.

“If music can play after a funeral, why should it not be played before the funeral? Did not the music play the whole day, when they brought out your father for me to bury?”

Loyka mused awhile and was silent. After this, Loyka said of his own accord, “Let us enter.”

He opened the gate, remained standing in the gateway and listened. The music played on.

Here Loyka said, “They have not yet loosed the dog upon me and I cannot hear one barking. The music played on.

Then they stepped into the courtyard, and old Loyka said in a much milder tone of voice than before, at the abutment, “look in wonder on me all you who here in days gone by craved a hospitable shelter. Did any of you come here so humbly as I come this day? Had any of you to stoop to such servile entreaties as I have stooped to? Oh, how could I come more humbly than I come this day?” And the music played on. Loyka listened and said, “I have not yet heard the baying of the hound.”

And when he had said this he perceived that the music and the singing were in the chambers beside the coach-house, and now there was the chattering of many voices. He saw and heard feet approaching, and not looking up to see who it was, he bowed