Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/65

 dead; and his eyes were suffused with blood, so that they looked like bleeding suns.

And then he thrust his fingers through his hair, ran along the hillside and past the wood, and shouted “Krista! Krista!” But there was no reply, then he ran into the wood, searched it cross by cross, and shouted, “Krista! Krista!” But there was no reply anywhere.

Then it seemed to Venik as though he had roved that wood for several days, as though he had grown old, as though he had lost the power of speech, as though he was exhausted, and his feet refused to stir. On this he staggered towards the hollow tree, and rested in weariness, and was still.

He waited.

He waited for Krista to come—for her to return. But even if she had returned, it seemed to him that now the world would be the world no longer, that the heaven would be the heaven no longer, since once the sun had stooped from the sky and had lost its pathway in the heavens. And Krista returned not.

Venik waited that day and that night: he waited the next day and the next night. At night he slept on that couch of leaves and moss from which Krista had vanished. He only felt that he was alone, and the hollow of the tree resounded with his sighs.

And once again he went out like a sportsman to the wood, and as though he was bent on sport, and