Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/52

 real mouth, and so it was easier to. believe in her heart.

On Sunday afternoon, young and old disported themselves on the village green, and there, too, Venik performed and Krista sang. All the youth of the village were soon in a ring round them, and behind the young people came the old, and then I really do not know who remained at home. Then might wicked people have gone from house to house and walked off with everything. No one would have prevented them, for no one was left at home to prevent them. But those wicked people who had slipped out to pilfer, hearing Venik and Krista, would have left off thieving, and would have gone and listened like the rest. Then Venik and Krista made a grand display of their stock of songs, playing what they just remembered and what they knew; they even sang and played masses, and the people said that they never before felt so festive even on a Sunday.

Their fame increased. Scarcely had they begun to feel somewhat at home here, before invitations came from two—from five villages all at once, begging them to come and delight the inhabitants. The whole district spoke of them, and if they had spent all their lives in going from village to village in the district, taking them in succession, our musicians would never have stood in need of their daily bread.

They even visited the town on market days, and when they posted themselves in the square, people