Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/71

 he prowled around so purposely and futilely, that when he tried to recall that wandering to mind, all he knew was that he sat on the hillside at the outskirts of the wood beside the hollow tree. It was passing strange to him. Like a heavy dream rested upon him all that had taken place beyond that spot of ground, and that had ended there. He peered into the tree, and there yet lay Krista’s couch of leaves and moss as though he had strewed it there that veryday. And here he flung himself on this couch and embraced the whole of it as if in a wild frenzy of passion. Then he laid himself down on it and lay awake or dreamt. He reflected how constant were those fallen leaves and that shrunken moss in comparison with man. Deprived of the sunlight and the sun’s warm beams, it had not proved unfaithful to its post. In the hollow, worm eaten tree, he had laid that moss and foliage, and he found it there whensoever he returned.

Here it seemed to him that after all it was impossible that he was so deserted as he held himself to be. He got up, ranged the wood once more, and shouted “Krista, Krista!” but there was no reply; there was not even her footprint, there was not even her shadow. And when he turned back without success, he did not wish to go again to the tree, or to the couch within it.

Then he cast his eyes over his own native district, and felt as though here he was in his own home