Page:World Fiction 1922–1923.djvu/581

 less widower and proprietor of a fine estate, he might have enjoyed complete earthly bliss if an envious fate had not destined Mrs. Vrchcabova of all people to be his neighbor. It was she who most effectually embittered his life. On three sides her property encompassed his, not with the friendly embrace of neighborly love, but like a ferocious beast thrusting out its claws to seize its prey. The property line separating the two estates was not a peaceful insensible marking, but it gave evidence on every hand of being a boundary of furious attack and fierce defense. Every corner was a sharp tooth fastening itself into the neighboring land. Every landmark on the two estates aroused the suspicion that year by year it was advancing, and not by pin-head lengths as did the petrified shepherds in the old folk tales. Indeed, even the house belonging to Mrs. Vrchcabova, with the attractive inn adjoining it, seemed to be gradually moving forward into Matthew Prochazka’s lot, blinking more and more greedily through its several windows from day to day. The upper dormer appeared to grin mockingly and the shameless pumpkins in their impatience climbed over the fence into their neighbor’s property.

To be sure I don’t know which was the lamb and which the wolf or if, after all, both were not wolves, but certain it is that a faction in our office accepted Prochazka’s version of the situation with a non-committal smile. That smile did not vanish even when Prochazka, under solemn oath, vowed that his restless neighbor would finally drive him to sell his estate and emigrate somewhere into Russia or America, and then he swore that he had his fill of law suits, and that the woman was a fiend incarnate, that she had the premature death of her husband on her conscience, and that he could tell things about her that would make his listeners’ hair stand on end.

In the meantime, one law suit followed on the heels of another. Only a short time before a certain impertinent rafter, projecting a good nine inches over into the aerial property of Matthew Prochazka, had been, by the court’s findings, happily driven back into Barbara Vrchcabova’s roof. Already Prochazka’s legal representative was making preparations for a new action for trespass through the wilful pulling out of two stakes from a certain fence, beginning the species facti with the customary digging in of a point into the middle of the sheet of paper accompanied by the words, “Here, then, stands the apple tree”

“Stood,” Matthew Prochazka corrected him, just as he had done several times before.

I must, without delay, add the information that the unfortunate apple tree did not survive the end of the argument. One stormy night it passed from this earth, after having been shattered and set afire by lightning, thus concluding its career gloriously and beautifully like a splendid meteor. This, however, did not have the slightest effect on the law-suit, which pursued its calm, regular way over the charred remains of the apple tree. For the purposes of the court-action it still existed, flourished, bloomed, bore sourish apples—quod non est in actis, non est in mundo!

A few days after the drawing up of the documents in the new action involving the fence, Prochazka again visited the office.

“The complaint is already lodged,” his legal friend greeted