Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/96



HEN the appointed day arrived, the theatre did not differ from its ordinary appearance except perhaps that the public interest was somewhat less than heretofore. The public knew the opera, and it knew Krista’s song in it and was already accustomed to it as we accustom ourselves at last to all. Even popular enthusiasm in the end smoothes out its waves. Krista was an apparition above all dear to them but they were already habituated to it. To-day they went to the theatre pretty much from habit, not from any inward necessity, not because something drew them to it with irresistible force. Nothing that they could see and hear to-day could be any more either novel or striking. They saw and heard it already in their recollection, to-day those recollections had only to be sprinkled with a few drops of dew and then they would be tolerably revived, and ever recollection is but pale and wan beside the full blown roses of novelty.

The theatre then had a more ordinary appearance. Among the public there was no expectation only