Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/411



HAT more have I to relate?

Frank again began to rove away from the farm, and of course they knew to a hair whither he went. But it was not true exactly as they thought it that is to say, when he went to the cemetery he went with a heavy heart as in the old days when he carried hither the measure for his grandfather’s grave. And now he carried thither a kind of measure, the measure of his own heart—was it that he would order a grave for it. By no means. In order that he might lay it in a heart softer than any dust and sweeter than any flower.

And yet indeed the path was as toilsome as if he were going to bury his heart in the grave. Enchantment seemed to murmur around him and shot about his path in the mist and the clear weather: his heart beat with a presentiment of rapture, and his hand vacillated—so it will be to the end of the world.

When he came to the cemetery he posted himself by the wicket gate, as on that day long past, and gazed eagerly. And he saw the great ruddy cross