Vestec is a large village and has a church and school also. Near the church is the parsonage; beside it the sexton’s house. The mayor also lives in the center of the community. On the very edge of the hamlet stands the little cottage of the village herdsman. Beyond the cottage extends a long valley surmounted on both sides by hills grown over mainly with pines. Here and there is a clearing or green meadow with sparsely growing white-barked, bright-leaved birches, those maidens of the tree world which nature had permitted to grow there to cheer up the dismal pines and fire and the somber oaks and beeches. In the middle of the valley among the meadows and fields flowed a river directly past the herdsman’s cottage. On its banks at this point grew an alder and a willow.
The village herdsman was called Jacob and, lived with his daughter, Bára, in the last cottage. Jacob was in his sixties and Bára was his first-born and only child. To be sure he had wished for a son to inherit his name, but when Bára grew older he did not regret that she was a girl. She was dearer to him than a son and many times he thought to himself: “Even though she is a girl, she is my own. I shall die like a man and I have, as a father, a stepping-stone to heaven.”
Jacob was born in the village. Being an orphan, he had to go into service from childhood. He served as goose-herder, drover, cowherd, neat-herder, as hostler and ploughman until he reached the highest degree of the rank, becoming the community herdsman. That offered a good living and he could now marry.
He was given a cottage to live in to his death. The peasants brought him wood to his very courtyard. He could keep a cow. Bread, butter, eggs, milk, vegetables, of all these he received supplies each week. Each year, linen enough for three shirts and for two pairs of drawers was supplied to him, and, in addition, two pair of shoes, corduroys, a jacket, a broad-brimmed hat, and every other year a fur coat and a heavy blanket. Besides that on each holy day and church feast day he received pastry and his wages, so that even at the parsonage they did not fare better.
In short it was a good position and Jacob, though he was lacking in good looks, uncommunicative and morose, could nevertheless have gotten a wife, but he was in no hurry. In the summer he made the excuse that he had no time to look around among the girls because it was pasturing season. In the winter he was busy carving out wooden shoes, and in the evenings when the lads sought out the society of their girl friends he preferred to sit a while at the inn. When it happened that a wife would come to the inn for her husband, Jacob always congratulated himself that there was no one to come looking for him. It never bothered him that they poked fun at him, saying he’d be an old bachelor and that old bachelors must, after death, stay in purgatory and tie sand into bundles. Thus passed his fortieth year. Then someone told him that should he die childless he could not get to heaven, that children are steps up to heaven. Somehow that worked itself into Jacob’s brain and when the thought had thoroughly matured he went to the town mayor and married his maid, Bára.
Bára was a pretty girl in her youthful years. The boys liked to dance with her, and several of them used to go a-wooing her, but they were none of them the marrying sort. When Jacob asked her to become his wife she figured that she had three decades behind her, and though she was not particularly in love with Jacob she gave her promise to him, thinking to herself, “Better one’s own sheaf than someone else’s stack.” So they were married and the mayor prepared a fine wedding for them.
A year later a girl child was born to them whom they named Bára after her mother. Jacob scratched his head a little when they told him it was a girl and not a boy, but the midwife consoled him by telling him she resembled him as closely as one egg resembles another.
Some days after the birth of the girl a mishap occurred in Jacob’s home. A neighbor woman stopped in to see the convalescent and found her lying near the fireplace half dead. She gave the alarm, and the women came running hither, including the midwife, who resuscitated Bára. They learned from her that she was cooking her husband’s dinner and, forgetting that a woman, after confinement, must never emerge from her room precisely at noon or after the Angelus, remained standing in the kitchen under the chimney and went on cooking. And then, she said, something rustled past her ears like an evil wind, spots floated before her eyes, something seemed to pull her by the hair and felled her to the floor.
“That was the noon-witch!” they all cried.
“Let us see if she has not exchanged a strange child for your Bára,” one of them suggested and ran to the cradle. At once they all crowded around and took the baby from the cradle, unwrapped and examined it. One of them said: “It is a changeling, it is, surely! It has such big eyes!” Another cried, “She has a large head!” A third passed judgment on the child as having short legs, and each had something different to say. The mother was frightened, but the midwife after conscientiously examining the babe decided that it was Bára’s very own child. Nevertheless, more than one of the old gossips continued to insist that the child was a changeling left there by the witch who appears at midday.
After that mishap Jacob’s wife somehow never recovered and in a few years after continual illness she died. Jacob remained alone with his little girl. Regardless of the fact that they urged him to marry again on account of the young child, he did not wish to do so. He watched over her as over a little lambkin, all alone, and well indeed he cared for her. When she grew up the schoolmaster sent word that Jacob should send her to school, and though Jacob regarded reading and writing as unnecessary, nevertheless he heeded. All winter Bára attended school, but in the spring when the pasturing began and also work in the field he could not get along without her. From springtime until fall the school, for the greater part of the week, was closed on a latch, the schoolmaster and the children also working in the fields, each according to his strength. The next winter Bára could not attend school any more, for she had to learn to spin and weave.
When Bára reached the age of fifteen not a girl in the entire village could equal her in strength and size. Her body was large-boned, of strong muscles, but of perfect symmetry. She was as agile as a trout. Her complexion was dark brown, in part naturally and in part due to the sun and wind, for, even in the heat of summer, never would she veil her face as did the village girls. Her head seemed to be large, but that was due to her mass of hair, black as a raven and long and coarse as horsehair. She had a low forehead, a short, blunt nose, a mouth that was rather large, with full lips, but healthy and as red as blood. Her teeth were strong and always glisteningly white. Her most beautiful feature was her eyes, and precisely on account of them she had to suffer much mockery from people. They nicknamed her, saying she had a “bull’s eye.” She did indeed have large eyes, unusually so and as blue as the cornflower, with long black lashes. Above her eyes arched thick black eyebrows.
When Bára frowned her face resembled the sky covered with black clouds, from which only a bit of blue shone forth. But she seldom wore a frown, except when the youngsters called her names, saying she had bull's eyes. Then her eyes flashed with anger and often she would burst into tears. But Jacob would always say: “You foolish girl, why do you mind them? I, too, have big eyes. And even if they are ‘bull’s eyes,’ that’s nothing bad. Why, the dumb animals can look at a man far more kindly than those human beings there!” At this he would always point with his stick towards the village. In later years, however, when she was stronger, none of the youngsters dared to hurt her, for she gave quick payment for every affront. Strong boys were unable to conquer her in a fight, for when mere strength failed her she used all sorts of maneuvers or helped herself by her nimbleness. In that way she won peace for herself.
Bára had so many unusual characteristics that it was not to be wondered at that the neighbors talked about her. Unable to interpret such a nature, the women began again to assert that she was, after all, a “changeling,” and if not, that the noon-witch had most undoubtedly taken her under her power. By this utterance all the actions of the girl were explained and excused, but as a consequence the villagers either avoided or feared her and only a few souls truly loved her. Whoever thought to anger her had only to say “Bewitched Bára!” But he who thought that this particular nickname offended her worse than any other was mistaken.
To be sure she had heard tales of noon-witches, evening specters, of the water-man, the fire-glow man who lives in the forest, and about the will-o’-the-wisps, the devil and ghosts. She had heard of all of these among the children, but she feared none of them. While she. was still small her father used to take her out with him to the pasture and there she played the whole livelong day with her dog, Lišaj, who, next to her father, was her dearest playmate. Her father wasted few words on her, but sat and carved wooden shoes, raising his eyes at times to look at the herd, and if it were not all together, he would send Lišaj to return the cow or heifer, which the dog would always do, according to orders. When necessary, he himself would get up and make several circuits of the herd. When Bára was larger she accompanied Lišaj on his rounds, and if a cow tried to sniff at her, Lišaj would at once drive it away. As she grew older, in case of need she would often drive the herd out for her father. The cows knew her voice as well as Jacob’s horn. Even the wicked bull, of whom stalwart boys were afraid, obeyed when Bára shook her fist at him.
When Jacob wished to take the herd out to wade or to drive them across the river he would place Bára on the back of one of the cows and say, “Hold on!” He himself would swim across after the herd. Once Bára was not holding tight and slipped off into the water. Lišaj pulled her out by the skirt and her father gave her a good scolding. She asked her father then what a person must do in order to swim. Her father showed her how to move arms and legs, and Bára remembered it and tried to hold herself above the water until she learned how to swim. She enjoyed swimming so much that in the summertime both morning and evening she would go in bathing and was able not only to keep her head above water, but to swim with her head under water. However, no one beside her father knew of her ability in this respect. From dawn until ten o’clock at night there was not a time when Bára had not gone in swimming, yet she had never seen the “water-man,” and therefore she had no faith in his existence nor did she fear the water.
In broad midday and also at full midnight Bára had been out under the clear skies and had seen neither noon nor night specters. In the summer she liked to sleep in the stall beside the open dormer window, and yet nothing unusual had ever appeared before her to frighten her.
Once when she was out herding and was lying under a tree at the edge of the wood with Lišaj near her she recalled the tale of the traveler who, like her, lay under a tree in the forest and wished himself in a palace beside a beautiful princess, and to attain his desire wanted to sell himself to the devil. Barely did his thoughts turn to the devil when the devil stood before him
“What would I wish for if the devil appeared before me now?” Bára asked herself, patting Lišaj’s head.
“Hm!” she smiled. “I’d ask him to give me such a headkerchief that when I’d wrap myself in it I’d be invisible and when I’d say, ‘Take me to such and such a place,’ I’d be there at once. I’d first of all want to be with Elška.” And she thought hard a long, long time, but it was quiet everywhere, not even a tree rustling. Finally her curiosity gave her no peace and she called out softly, “Mr. Devil!”
Not a sound in response.
Then a little louder and more and more loudly until her voice re-echoed far and wide, “Devil, Mr. Devil!” Among the herd the black heifer raised its head, and when the voice sounded again it separated from the rest of the cattle and ran merrily to the forest. Then Lišaj leaped up, intending to return the heifer to the herd as was his duty. The black heifer stood still.
Bára burst into gay laughter. “Leave it alone, Lišaj. The heifer is obedient and thought I was calling it.” She jumped up, patted the “devil” on the neck and from that time believed no more in tales of demons.
Near the wood, several hundred steps beyond the river, was a cemetery. After prayers the people did not like to go in that direction. There were many weird tales of dead men who roved about at midnight. But Bára passed that way many a time at night and never yet had she met with any fearful experience. She did not, therefore, believe that the dead arise and dance on their own graves or go about scaring people.
When the young people went out into the forest to gather strawberries or juniper berries and came upon a snake there was always a great scurrying. If the snake lifted its head and showed its fangs they all ran to the water, believing if they could reach it first the snake would be deprived of all power.
Bára never ran away. She was not afraid of a wicked bull, and therefore much less of a snake or a scorpion. If it lay in her path, she drove it away. If it refused to move and defended itself, she killed it. If it did not obstruct her path, she left it alone.
In short, Bára did not know fear or dread. Even when the thunder rolled and the storm poured forth its wrath over the valley Bára never trembled. On the contrary, when the villagers closed their windows and doors, lighted the consecrated Candlemas candles and prayed in fear and trembling lest the Lord be angry with them, Bára delighted in standing out on the boundary ridge the better to view the horizon spread out before her eyes.
Jacob often said to her, “I don’t understand, girl, what joy you can have to look into the heavens when God is angry.”
“Just the same sort of joy I have as when he smiles,” she answered. “Just see, father, that fire-how beautiful it is amid the black clouds!”
“Don’t point!” shrieked Jacob warningly. “God’s messenger will break off your finger! He who does not fear the tempest has no fear of the Lord, don’t you know that?”
“Elška of the parsonage once read me out of a book that we must not fear a storm as if it were the wrath of God, but that we should admire in it His divine power. The priest always preaches that God is only good and is love wholly. How could it be that He is so often angry at us? I love God and so I’m not afraid of His messenger.”
Jacob disliked long speeches and so he left Bára to her own thinking. The neighbors, however, seeing the girl’s fearlessness and that nothing evil occurred to her, were all the more convinced that she was a child protected by some supernatural power.
Besides her father, Elška and Josífek, who were of her own age, were the only ones who loved her. Josífek was the son of the sexton, Elška was the niece of the parish priest. Josífek was a lad of slender build, pale, golden-haired, good-hearted, but very timid. Bára was a head taller than he, and when there was a fight, Josífek always hid behind her skirts, for Bára always courageously took his part against the boys for whom he alone was no match. For that Josífek loved her very dearly, brought her dried apples and every Saturday a white wafer-cake. One Sunday when Bára was still quite small he brought her home with him, intending to show her a little altar he had there and how well he could act the part of a priest. They went along hand in hand with Lišaj lagging on behind.
The doors of all the peasant homes closed with a latch and at night were bolted. At the parsonage the iron-cased oak doors were always locked and whoever wished to enter had to ring. At the sexton’s there was also a bell, just as at the parsonage, and often the village youths, when passing, would open the door a little in order to hear the bell ring and the sexton’s wife scold. When she had had her fill of railing at them they yelled, “Vixen, vixen!” at her.
When Bára with Josífek entered the door and the bell sounded, the sexton’s wife ran out into the passageway. The end of her long nose was pinched up in a pair of spectacles and she cried out in a snufiling voice, “Who is this you’re bringing with you?” Josífek stood as if scalded, dropped his eyes and was silent. Bára also looked down and said nothing. But behind the sexton’s wife came running the tom-cat and, catching sight of Lišaj, began to bristle up its back, sputter and glare furiously. Lišaj began to growl, then barked and started after the cat. The cat leaped up on the cupboard and when Lišaj tried to follow it even there it jumped up on the shelves among the pans. That was as far as it could reach, but every hair stood on end with anger. Lišaj continued to leap up awkwardly on the shelving and barked deafeningly. The sexton ran out to learn the cause of the commotion, and beheld the foes in combat and his furious wife. He himself flew into a rage and, opening the door, shrieked at the children, “Get out of here right away with that beast and stay where you came from!”
Bára didn’t let herself be ordered twice, and, calling Lišaj whom the sexton struck smartly with a cane, she ran as if from a fire. Josífek called her back, but she shook her head, saying, “Even if you’d give me a heifer, I’ll never go back to your house.” And she kept her word, even though Josífek persistently pleaded and promised that his mother would be glad to see her if she’d leave the dog at home. Never would she consent to step in the house again, and from that time, too, she lost all respect and love for everything smacking of the sexton—with the exception of Josífek. She had always thought the sexton on an equality with the priest and had the greatest esteem for him, for he dressed like the priest and in church had everything under his command. When he boxed the ears of some mischievous boy in church there dared not be even a murmur, and the neighbors, when they wanted some thing of the priest, always stopped first for advice at the sexton’s.
“The sexton must indeed be a worthy person,” the girl had always thought, but from the time that he so rudely showed her the door and struck Lišaj so smartly that, whimpering, he hopped on three legs all the way home, she always thought to herself, “You are not good at all,” whenever she met him.
How different it all was when Elška took Bára home with her to the parsonage every Thursday and Sunday. The moment the doorbell rang the maid would open the door and admit the two girls and also Lišaj, for their own dog got along well with him. Softly the two girls would go to the servants’ hall, climb up over the oven where Elška had her toys and dolls. The priest, who was an old man, used to sit on a bench at the table, and with his snuff-box and blue pocket handkerchief lying before him always dozed with his head leaning against the wall. Only once had he been awake; and when Bára ran to him to kiss his hand he patted her head, saying: “You’re a good little girl. Run away and play together now, my little maids!”
Also Miss Pepinka, the priest’s sister, was kind. She had no extensive conversation with Bára, although she liked to talk a good deal to the neighbor women, but she always gave her a big piece of bread with honey or a large muffin for lunch, larger than to Elška. Miss Pepinka was a short, little person who was taking on fat with the years. She was rosy, had a mole on her chin and rather weepy eyes, but in her youthful years, as she said herself, she used to be pretty, to which statement the sexton always nodded assent. She wore a long dress after the fashion of city women, with a short waist, an immense apron with large pockets, and at her side always dangled a bunch of keys. Her gray hair was always smooth, and on week days she wore a brown headkerchief with a yellow border, whereas on Sundays the headkerchief was yellow with a brown border. Miss Pepinka usually was busy with something around the house or in the field, spinning or, with her glasses on her nose, patching things. Sunday afternoons after dinner she, too, would doze a little, and after vespers she would play cards with her brother and the sexton. She rarely addressed him as “brother” but usually “Reverend Sir.”
Miss Pepinka was the head of the house and what she wanted was carried out. What she said counted as unmistakable truth in the house, and when she favored anyone, all favored him.
Elška was the pet of both Miss Pepinka and the reverend father, and what Elška wished, that, too was desired by Miss Pepinka. Whom Elška loved was in Pepinka’s good graces. Therefore Bára never received an unkind glance at the parsonage and Lišaj, too, was tolerated. The sexton, who could not endure dogs, often tried to pat Lišaj, in order to curry favor, but Lišaj, who could not bear the sexton, invariably snarled at him.
Bára was wholly happy when she could be at the parsonage. In the rooms everything fairly glistened. There were beds piled with fine bedding to the very ceiling, many beautiful pictures, and inlaid cabinets. In the garden were many flowers, vegetables and fine fruit. In the yard was poultry of all kinds; in the stable, cattle which it was a pleasure to look at. The herdsman Jacob had the greatest delight in the cattle belonging to the parish. And in the servants’ hall, over the oven, what a quantity of toys! Elška never mixed up mud cakes nor played with brick dust and lime. She always had real cooking things and what was prepared was also eaten.
Why shouldn’t Bára have been happy in such a home? But to her, Elška herself was far dearer than anything else. Oftentimes it seemed to her that she loved Elška more than she did her own father. If Elška had lived even in the flax-house, Bára would, nevertheless, have loved to be with her. Elška never once laughed at Bára and when she had anything she always shared it with her. Often she would throw her arms around Bára’s neck and say, “Bára, I like you so very much.”
“She likes me so much, and yet she is so beautiful and belongs at the parsonage. All the people address her as ‘you’ and not ‘thou,’ even the schoolmaster and sexton. All others mock at me,” Bára repeated to herself, and in spirit she always embraced and kissed Elška for her friendship, though in reality she timidly refrained from expressing, as she longed to do, her fervent feeling.
When they were running about on the meadow and Elška’s braid became loosened Bára pleaded: “Elška, let me braid it. You have hair as fine as flax. I love to braid it.” At her willing consent, Bára delighted to play with the soft strands of hair and admire its beauty. After plaiting it, she pulled down her own braid and, placing it beside Elška’s, said, “What a difference.” True enough, Elška’s hair beside Bára’s resembled gold beside hardened steel. But yet Elška was not satisfied with it and wished she might have hair that was black like Bára’s.
Sometimes when Elška came over to Bára’s and they were certain that no one saw them they went in bathing. Elška, however, was timid, and no matter how much Bára assured her that nothing would happen and that she’d hold her and teach her to swim, still she would never go into water deeper than to her knees. After their bath Bára liked to wipe Elška’s feet with her coarse apron and, clasping the tiny white feet in her strong palms, she kissed them and said with laughter: “Lord, but your feet are tender and small! What would happen if you had to walk barefoot. Look!” she added, comparing her own sun-browned, bruised feet full of callouses with Elška’s dainty white ones.
“Doesn’t it hurt you?” asked Elška, rubbing her hand on the hard lower surface of Bára’s feet with sympathetic touch.
“Until the skin became like sole-leather my feet used to hurt, but now I don’t even feel fire beneath them,” Bára answered with pride, and Elška wondered greatly. Thus the two girls enjoyed each other. Often Josífek joined them, and when they were preparing feasts he had to bring what was needed and did the slicing and the grating. When they played wolf, he had to be the lamb, and when the game was barter, he had to haul the pots and kettles. But he never objected, and liked best to play with the girls.
The twelfth year passed over the heads of the children and there was an end to their childish joys. The sexton put Josífek in a school in the city, as he wanted to make a priest of him. Miss Pepinka took Elška to Prague to a rich, childless aunt, in order that Elika should learn city manners and that the aunt should not forget her country relatives. Bára remained alone with her father and Lišaj.
II
Life in the rural districts flows along softly without noise or rustle, like a meadow brook. Three years had passed since Elška had gone away to Prague. At first neither Miss Pepinka nor the priest could become accustomed to her absence and were very lonely for her. When, however, the sexton reminded them why they had sent Elška from home, Miss Pepinka always said, very sententiously: “My dear Vlček, man must not live for today, we must think for the future. We God—granting—will get through life somehow, but Elška is young and that we must keep in mind. To save money—how in the name of the dear God can we do it—when we have none! Some feather-beds, her dowry—that is all she will have as an inheritance from us—and that is very little. The world takes note of these (and at this Pepinka opened her palm and with her other hand went through the pantomime of counting coins)—and her Prague aunt has countless numbers of them. Maybe Elška will win her favor. It is only for her own good that we are leaving her there.”
The sexton acquiesced in every particular.
The Prague aunt had been ill for years. From the time of her husband’s death she always wrote to her brother-in-law and sister-in-law that she had been kept alive only by medicines and if her physician did not thoroughly understand her constitution she would long ago be lying in the holy field. Suddenly, however, Elška wrote that her aunt had a new physician who had advised that she take a daily bath in cold water, walk a great deal, eat and drink heartily, and that she would soon be cured. Her aunt had obeyed and was now as healthy as a lynx.
“Hm, such new-fangled treatments. If that’s the case, Elška can come home at once.” All Miss Pepinka ordered was faithfully carried out. That very day the hostler had to pull out the carriage from the shed and take it to the wheelwright. Miss Pepinka, having decided to herself escort Elška, brought out her hat from the small chamber for inspection to see if it had suffered any damage. Yes, Miss Pepinka also had a hat which she had received ten years ago when she was in Prague, from that same aunt. In the village of Vestec no one had ever beheld her in it, but when she went on a pilgrimage with her brother to the deanery in a nearby town she put it on, and now when she was going to Prague she took it along in order, she said, not to disgrace the aunt by wearing a kerchief on her head.
The next day the carriage was repaired and the third day Pepinka ordered that it be well greased and the horses shod. On the fourth day she ceased household duties and sent for Bára to look after things during her absence. On the fifth day early in the morning they piled into the carriage fodder for the horses, food for the coachman and also for Miss Pepinka herself, a basket of eggs, a jar of butter and similar gifts for the aunt, the box with the hat, a bundle of clothes, and after holy mass Miss Pepinka herself, after long parting injunctions, stowed herself away inside. The coachman whipped up the horses and, putting themselves in God’s hands, they started on their journey. Whoever saw the antiquated carriage which resembled a winged caldron hanging amid four wheels doffed his hat from afar, although Miss Pepinka herself, wrapped in numerous shawls, in the depths of the vehicle among all sorts of articles, including a pile of hay towering above her, was wholly invisible. But the peasants recognized the equipage, their fathers, too, had known it, and they used to say among themselves that that carriage remembered Žižka.
No one more ardently looked forward to Elška’s arrival than Bára. No one thought so fervently of her, no one spoke of her oftener. When she had no one to talk with she conversed with Lišaj and promised him good times when Elška would return and asked him if he, too, did not yearn for her. Miss Pepinka and the good priest knew how much Bára loved Elška and they liked her the more for it. Once when Miss Pepinka had been slightly ill, and Bára with greatest willingness was waiting on her, she became so convinced of the girl’s loyalty and good heart that she often called her in afterwards to help her. At last she reposed so much faith in her that she entrusted to her care the key to the larder, which in Miss Pepinka’s own eyes was the highest evidence of favor. That is why she put the whole household into Bára’s hands, on her departure, at which all the housekeepers in the village wondered greatly. Pepinka’s mark of preference aroused greater antipathy than ever in the sexton’s wife against Bára. The gossips said immediately “See, such good-for-nothings have luck from hell. She has nested herself securely at the parsonage.” By which they meant Bára. Prejudice against the girl had not died out. She herself did not worry whether or not people liked her. She did not push herself forward among the young people either in playing or dancing, but attended to her own affairs and to her old father. The parsonage was her Prague
There were some voices in the village which said: “One must give the girl all honor as having skill and strength which no girl and very few men can equal. What girl can carry two buckets full of water and yet walk as if she were toying with them? And who can look after a herd as she can? A horse or bull, a cow or sheep, all obey her, she controls all of them. Such a girl is a real blessing in a household.” But if a youth here or there announced, “I’d like to make her my wife,” the mothers at once shrieked, “No, no, my boy! Don’t bring that girl into our family. No man can say how things will turn out with her. She is the wild sort—bewitched!”
And so none of the boys were permitted to court her seriously, and to attempt it in sport no one of them dared. Bára would not let herself be ruled nor would she be blinded by flattering words. The sexton’s wife hated her most of all, although Bára never laid so much as a straw across her path. Indeed, on the contrary, she did good by protecting Josífek from the revenge of the boys. Whenever any boy got a box on the ear in church from the sexton he always tried to return it to Josífek. But the sexton’s wife was angry at Josífek for being a dunce and permitting a girl to defend him and for liking that girl. She was angry because Bára went often to the parsonage and because they liked her there. She would have forced her out of the parsonage if Miss Pepinka had been anyone but Miss Pepinka, but the latter did not permit others to blow on her mush and least of all the sexton’s wife. Once on a time this worthy, together with the wife of the schoolmaster, had made up some gossip about Miss Pepinka and from that time their friendship ceased, although formerly they had been together constantly. Miss Pepinka often taunted Mr. Vlček with it, saying, “A sharp nose likes to pry,” which referred to the sexton’s wife. Vlček was a lamb at the parsonage and only at home was he a real wolf.
Two, three, four days passed since Pepinka had left and Bára could hardly wait.
“Good sir, how far is it to Prague?” she said to the priest when he had had his afternoon nap and was in his best humor.
“Be patient, girl. They can’t be back yet. A hundred miles—that’s some distance. Three days to get there, two days Pepinka will stop in Prague, and three days for the return trip—figure it up yourself!”
Bára counted the days, and when the fourth day after the conversation arrived there were great preparations at the parish house, and then Bára counted only the hours. For the tenth time she rushed out to look down the road. The sun was already sinking and her father was driving home the herd when the carriage appeared on the highway.
“They are coming,” shouted Bára, so that it could be heard over the whole place. The priest went out in front of the gate and the sexton after him. Bára would like to have flown directly to them, but she became shy suddenly and only ran about from place to place. When the carriage neared the parsonage a sort of fear filled her, her heart pounded, her throat contracted and heat and cold surged over her.
The carriage stopped at the gate. First, Miss Pepinka rolled out of it and behind her leaped forth the slender figure of a rosy-cheeked girl upon whom the priest, the sexton and the assembled crowd stood gazing. If she had not thrown her arms around the priest’s neck and called him “Uncle” they would not have believed it was Elška.
Bára never took her eyes from her. When Elška emerged from her uncle’s embrace she stepped at once to Bára, took her two hands in her own and, looking up into her eyes, said in her sweet voice, “Bára, Bára—I’ve been so lonely for you! How have you been? Is Lišaj still alive?” Then Bára burst into tears and cried as if her heart would break, unable to answer a word. After a while she sighed gratefully, "Well, it’s good that you are here at last, dear Elška!”
The priest repeated after Bára: “Well, it’s good that you are here. We’ve been so lonely.”
“They wanted to detain me there a day longer,” said Miss Pepinka, piling all sorts of things out of the carriage into the arms of the sexton, Bára and the maid. “But I was worried, dear brother, about you. I didn’t want you to be alone, and besides we wouldn’t have had enough feed for the horses,” she added.
They put the old equipage back for a rest into the carriage-house, Miss Pepinka laid away her hat in the little room as spotless as when she took it out, disposed of what she had brought with her and distributed the gifts. Bára received a lovely ribbon for her skirt and one for her hair, and from Elška a string of corals for her neck. Elška brought with her some beautiful dresses, but these would not have made her pleasing if she had not brought back with her from Prague her unspoiled good heart. She had not changed.
“Oh, Bára, you’ve grown up so!” was the first thing that Elška wondered at when she had time to talk to Bára and inspect her properly.
Bára had grown a head taller than Elška.
“Oh, Elška, you are just as good as you always were, only so much prettier. If it wouldn’t be a sin, I’d say that you look like the Virgin Mary on our altar.”
“Oh, there—there! What are you talking about,” Elška rebuked her but not at all severely. “You are flattering me.”
“God forbid! I am telling you what my heart says. I can’t get my fill of looking at you,” Bára earnestly insisted.
“Dear Bára, if you’d only go to Prague! There you’d see the lovely girls!”
“More beautiful than you?” marvelled Bára.
“Yes, indeed. Far more beautiful,” sighed Elška.
“Are there good people in Prague? Is it a beautiful place? Did you like it there?” questioned Bára a little later.
“They were all good to me, auntie, the governess—all of them liked me. I liked to be among them all, but I longed so for you and kept wishing that you were there with me. Oh, Bára, dear, it is so beautiful there that you cannot even picture it in imagination. When I saw the Vltava, the beautiful churches, the huge buildings, the parks—I was as if struck dumb. And there were so many people on the streets as if there were a procession, some of them dressed in holiday costume even on the week days, carriages driving by constantly, turmoil and noise so that a person doesn’t know who is with them. Just wait. Next year you and I will go there together to a church pilgrimage,” added Elška.
“What would I do there! People would laugh at me!” said Bára.
“Don’t believe it, dear. There, on the streets one person doesn’t notice another, one doesn’t even greet another in passing.”
“I wouldn’t like that. That must be a strange world,” Bára wondered.
The next day—Sunday—Elška arrayed herself in her holiday clothes, placed on her head a very becoming red velvet cap such as was just in fashion, and went to early mass. All eyes in church were turned towards her and many a young man thought, “For you I’d serve even twice seven years if I knew I’d surely get you.”
Whenever Elška was in church she was always devout and never looked about her and this time she was the same. But when she went from the church through the village she turned in all directions, greeting the villagers who crowded to her to welcome her home from Prague, inquired how each had been during her absence and answering their many questions. Many things had changed in those three years, although it hardly seemed so to the villagers. Here and there some aged man or old grandmother whom Elška had been accustomed to seeing on Sundays sitting on the high walk around their houses or in the orchard, warming themselves in the sun, was no more. In the circle of young people many a pair was missing, looking after their own newly established housekeeping. Children rolled in the grass whom Elška did not know. Many a head which had been gray was now white and the girls of Elška’s own age were now being escorted by youths and were no longer regarded as children. And, too, no one addressed her now as “Elška,” but all added to her name, “Maiden.”
When Elška heard herself so addressed her cheeks flushed red. By this prefix the simple villagers expressed what she herself was scarcely conscious of—that she was no more a child. In Prague they had called her “the little miss” and later “miss.” At first she had thought it was some sort of mockery, but hearing that it was the general title for girls, she accepted the custom. The title “Panna” or “Maiden” honored her more highly, expressing, as it did, virginity and it was because she appreciated this that the blush of virgin shyness overspread her sweet face.
The sexton’s wife also emerged to her threshold, and when Elika passed, invited her in. She liked Elška, though she thoroughly disliked Miss Pepinka. She asked Elška how she had liked it in Prague and how the altar of St. John looked at the castle and if it is true that the bridge is paved with gold. When Elška answered all these questions she examined her from head to foot, not even a thread escaping those venomous eyes. Elška asked about Josífek.
“Oh, he is getting along well in his studies. He is the best student in school and is growing like a reed out of the water. Many—ah—many times he asked about you, Maid Elška, when he was here for the holidays. He pined for you and had no one at all with whom to enjoy himself. With the local youth—it is not fitting for him to associate now that he is a student,” said the sexton’s wife.
Elška was of a different mind, but she said nothing.
In the afternoon Elška went to visit Bára. The shepherd’s home was a little cottage, the smallest in the entire village, but, excepting the parsonage alone, there was nowhere greater cleanliness and neatness. A table, bench, two chairs, the beds, chest and loom formed its entire furniture, but all were as shining as glass. The walls were as white as chalk, the ceiling was scrubbed till it glistened as if made of polished walnut. On the walls were several pictures and over them green sprigs. On the shelves shone several pitchers and plates, all keepsakes left of her mother’s dowry. The little windows were wide open all summer and on the sills stood pots of basil, sweet violets and rosemary. The floor was not boarded, consisting only of hardened thrashings, but Bára covered it with a rush-mat which she herself had woven.
Near the cottage there was a strip of orchard and a little flower-garden which Bára cultivated. Everywhere it was evident that the occupants of the cottage had few wants, but that the being who ruled it was not at all lacking in a sense of beauty.
Not a single girl in the village, not even excepting the maidservants, dressed as simply as did Bára, but not one of them looked as clean at her work, day in and day out, as Bára did. Her blouse, gathered at the neck and at the wrists, was of coarse cloth, but it was always as white as the fallen snow. This and her dark woolen skirt, her apron, also of coarse linen, formed her entire costume. On Sundays she put on shoes and wore a close-fitting bodice and in the winter she added a wool jacket. For ornamentation she wore a border on her skirt, red strings on her apron and red ribbons on her black braids which hung down on her back to her knees. The girls sometimes chided her for not wearing a tight girdle during the week, but she answered that she felt freer without and Elška always told her she looked better without a corset. There is no person free of some form of vanity and even Bára was not exempt.
Great was Bára’s delight that Elška had come for a visit. She led her everywhere over the place, showing off her garden, the orchard, the field, and taking her out to the meadow to her father, who could not admire Elška enough, and wonder at how she had grown. In short they visited every spot where three years ago they had romped together. Then they sat down in the orchard. Bára brought a dish of cream in which black bread was crumbled, set it on the grass and with Elška ate it just as in former days. While they ate, Bára related things about her black cow, about Lišaj, and finally the conversation drifted to Josífek.
“Does Mrs. Vlček still dislike you?” asked Elška.
“Yes, indeed! When I’m around it is like salt in her eyes. When she knows nothing more slanderous to say of me she criticizes my eyes, saying that I look like a tadpole.”
“How wicked of her!” Elška exclaimed angrily.
“Yes, truly, for I have never injured her in any way. The other day, though, I got angry about it. I sent her a mirror so that she might first look at her own beauty before she found fault with others’ looks.”
“You did just the right thing,” laughed Elška. “But why does she hate you so?”
“Oh, she’s a hard one. She stings everyone with her basilisk eye, not only me. Perhaps she dislikes me because I am in better standing with your people than is Josífek and because Josífek likes me. The poor fellow gets a beating every time his mother learns that he has been to see me. I always tell him not to come here, but he comes anyway, and I am not to blame.”
Elška was silent, but after a pause asked, “And do you like Josífek?”
“Why shouldn’t I like him? Everybody picks on him just as they do on me. Poor little fellow! He can’t defend himself and I feel sorry for him.”
“Why, is he still the same as he used to be? Mrs. Vlček told me he had grown remarkably.”
“Yes, as high as Lišaj’s garters,” smiled Bára. But at once she added compassionately, “How can he grow when his mother gives him more thumps on the back than she puts biscuits in his stomach?”
“And what does Vlček say to all that? It’s his son, too!”
“Vlček and Mrs. Vlček are of one stripe. They are angry because Josífek does not want to become a priest. In the name of the Lord, how can he help it that he doesn’t like it any more? Unwilling service surely could not be pleasing to God.”
“Truly, it could not be,” Elška confirmed.
A little while longer the girls talked, and then Bára accompanied Elška home. From that time they visited each other regularly as before, although they no longer played with dolls in the space over the oven.
But the friendship of the two girls did not suit the neighbor women. They began to gossip that it was odd that Elška should associate with the shepherd’s daughter, that it was not fitting for her, that she should rather seek the society of the daughters of the mayor, the justice and others. Purposely, they said these things openly so that they would be carried to Miss Pepinka’s ears. The talk vexed Miss Pepinka. It was not wise to irritate the neighbor women, yet Miss Pepinka did not like to send Elška among the local young people. Somehow it did not seem proper to invite the village girls to the parsonage when Elška did not herself seek them. She talked to Elška about it, and the latter briefly decided that she would some times go to visit the village girls, but that Bára would remain the dearest friend of her choice.
Miss Pepinka did not oppose this plan, for she liked Bára herself for many reasons. She thought that Bára would hardly be likely to marry and that later on she would become her right hand, after Elška married. Miss Pepinka had a suitor for Elška up her sleeve, so to speak, but no one knew of it, not even the priest. This suitor was the manager or steward on a nearby noble estate, who was pleasing to Miss Pepinka, and it seemed to her that it would be a very convenient arrangement for Elška’s future. The manorial fields bordered on the parish lands and the steward, whenever he visited that section of the estate, always stopped at the parish house.
Elška had not an inkling of the happiness her aunt was in spirit preparing for her, and through her head flitted altogether different plans than any idea of becoming the wife of the steward. She had not yet told these plans even to Bára. But Bára often beheld Elška lost in thought and downcast, and from this she judged that something was weighing on her heart. Still she said nothing, thinking to herself, “When the right time comes, she will tell me.”
Bára was not mistaken. Despite the fact that the neighbors tried to present Bára in an evil light to Elška and accused her of being unrestrained, still Elška believed in her more than in them all and cared for her in the same way as before. On the eve before St. John the Baptist’s day the girls met and Elška asked Bára, “Are you going to toss a wreath tomorrow?”
“Alone, I wouldn’t care to toss one, but if you wish to, come over before sunrise and we’ll go together.”
“I’ll come!”
In the morning before the sun came up Elška already stood in the herdsman’s orchard with Bára beside her. They were weaving white, blue and red blossoms on hoops made of willow twigs.
“Whom are you going to think of when you throw the wreath?” Elška asked of Bára.
“Dear Lord, I haven’t any one to think of!” sighed the girl. “I’ll cast the wreath at random to see if it floats after yours. I only wish that when you marry, Elška, I could go with you.”
Elška became silent as a blush overspread her cheeks. After a pause she said, extending her hand to Bára: “Here is my hand on it that we shall stay together; if you do not marry, I shall never marry,” she added with a deep sigh.
“What are you saying, Elška? Very few people love me, but everyone cares for you. You will be rich; I am poor. You are beautiful and I am homely. You are well educated and I am a simple, stupid girl—and I am to think of a husband, and you not?”
“Auntie has always told me that it all depends on taste. To one a carnation is most becoming, to another a rose, to a third a violet. Every flower finds its own admirer, each has its own kind of beauty. Do not underrate yourself nor overvalue me; we are equals. Aren’t you truly going to think of any of the boys, or haven’t you thought of any as yet?”
“No, no,” Bára shook her head, smilingly. “I don’t think of any of them, and when they come a-courting I make short work of them. Why should I spoil my thoughts, or bind up my golden freedom?”
“But if one of them loved you very much and you him, then you’d let yourself be bound, wouldn’t you?” asked Elška. “Why, Elška, don’t you know how it goes? First, his parents would bargain with my father and haggle about how much he would give me before their son would dare to marry me. My dowry isn’t big enough to satisfy any parents I know, and I have no desire to be permitted to enter a household as a gracious act of favor. I would rather tie a millstone around my neck and jump into the river. If I’d voluntarily put a load on myself, I’d have to call myself a fool. If they abuse me now, they’d revile me doubly afterwards.
‘And no matter what I am,
I have a bouquet at my belt,’”
she finished, quoting the popular song as she placed at her waist a nosegay made of the surplus flowers from the wreath. Then pointing to the beams of the rising sun she cried, “We have no time to spare!”
Elška quickly finished weaving her wreath and both girls hastened to the nearby bridge which led over the river to the meadow. In the center of the bridge, they paused.
“Let’s throw them together!” said Elška, lifting the wreath high above her head.
“All right! Ready!” cried Bára, tossing the wreath out over the water. But her wreath, cast by a strong arm, did not reach the water, but remained hanging on a willow. For an instant Bára stood in startled silence, then she wept. Finally she tossed her head resolutely, saying: “Well, let it hang there. The flowers look pretty up on that willow.”
Elška, however, never removed her eyes from her wreath, which, dropped by her trembling fingers, whirled a moment in one place in the river, then a wave seized it, pushed it on to a second, and that one to a third, and then carried it further and further down stream till it had vanished from the sight of the two girls.
Elška, with clasped hands on the railing of the bridge, gazed with flaming eye and cheek after the wreath now carried by a strong current. Bára, leaning against the rail, also looked silently after it.
“And your wreath was caught here. See, you will marry someone right here!” exclaimed Elška turning to Bára.
“According to that, it looks as if we weren’t to be together, after all. I am to stay here and you are to go far away from us. But I don’t believe in it. Man plans but God decrees.”
“Of course,” Elška said in a voice half sad, and dropped her eyes with a sigh to the stream below.
’o, then, Elška, you’d like to go far away from us? Don’t you like it here?” asked Bára, and her dark-blue eyes gazed into Elška’s face searchingly.
“Why, what are you thinking of?” whispered Elška, not raising her eyes. “I like it here, but . . .”
“But out there far away is someone for whom you are yearning, whom you’d like to go to isn’t that so, Elška?” concluded Bára, and laying her brown hand on the girl's white shoulder she looked with a smile into her face.
Elška lifted her eyes to Bára’s, tried to smile, but at the same time burst into tears.
“If something weighs on you, confide in me. With me it will be as if buried in a grave,” said Bára.
Elška without a word laid her head on Bára’s shoulder, embraced her and then fell to weeping. Bára held her gently as a mother holds her babe, kissing her golden hair.
High above the heads of the girls the lark soared, singing, and above the summit of the green forests the sun was rising, pouring its golden glow over the emerald valley. Jacob came out in front of the cottage and the sound of the shepherd’s horn reminded the girls it was time to go home.
“Along the way we can tell each other,” said Bára, leading Elška by the hand from the bridge to the meadow path.
“But how did you guess it about me?” questioned Elška.
“Dear Lord, that’s easy to know. You are often absorbed in thought, sometimes you’re sad and then again your face fairly glows. As I watched you I knew at once that there was something ailing you. I guessed right.”
“Only, I hope Auntie hasn’t noticed anything and that she won’t question me,” said Elška anxiously. “She would be angry. He would not please her,” she finished.
“Does she know him?”
“She saw him in Prague. He is the one who cured Auntie.”
“That doctor? I see. You mentioned several times to me what a good man he was. But why doesn’t Miss Pepinka like him?”
“I don’t know. She just scolds about him and says he’s distasteful to her,” Elška related almost tearfully.
“Why, is he displeasing?”
“Oh, Bára!” sighed the girl. “A man as handsome as he is cannot be found in the whole countryside!”
“Perhaps he isn't rich?”
“Rich? That I don’t know. But what of it? What do riches amount to?”
“That’s true, but your auntie will want you to marry a wealthy man who will provide well for you.”
“No, no, Bára. I won’t marry anyone else. I’d rather die!”
“Well, it won’t be as bad as that. And even if he isn’t rich, Miss Pepinka and your uncle will listen to reason when you tell them—that you love him.”
“I don’t dare tell them. My Prague aunt forbade me to tell them, but she promised us that she’d take care for our happiness even if Auntie Pepinka should oppose it. A week ago he wrote me that next month we’d meet again.”
“You write to each other?”
“It’s this way—my Prague auntie can’t write and is near-sighted. Hynek—that’s his name—it’s a pretty name, isn’t it?”
“Strange, I’ve never before heard such a name,” said Bára; and Elška continued:
“Hynek offered to write letters for her to me. She wouldn’t write oftener than once a year, but he urges her to always send some message. Uncle has been much surprised that Auntie writes so often.”
“And how about it, when your uncle reads the letters?”
“Oh, my dear, we have that part all planned out. We write in such a way that no one can understand excepting we alone.”
“After all, it’s a fine thing when a person is accomplished. I’d never be able to do it.”
“Oh, you’d learn that easily enough,” said Elška. They had just reached the cottage, and she took both of Bára’s hands and, looking with clear eyes into Bára’s face, she said: “You can’t even believe how much better and freer I feel now, as if a stone had fallen from my heart. Now I can talk to you about him. But,” she added with a confidential tone in her voice, “you, Bára, have you nothing to tell me?”
“I?” stammered Bára, and her large eyes dropped. “I—nothing!”
“Just a little word?” "Nothing, Elška, nothing. Mere dreams!”
“Tell them to me, then!”
“Some other time!’ Bára shook her head, slipped her hands out of Elška’s grasp and, pointing to the stable and the doghouse, concluded, “Look, Lišaj is chafing to be out and Blackie will hang herself. It’s time to let them out. And your cows are already in the herd; I hear their bells. In a minute father will drive them past. Go past the garden, Elška, so that the peasant women wouldn’t see you and gossip about you!”
“Oh, let them talk. I’m doing nothing wrong. But I’ll mind you. I’m going, but just as soon as possible we must tell each other more,” said Elška as she disappeared between the hedges.
III
Two rumors were being carried about the village. On every estate, in every cottage nothing else was talked of than the ghost in the parish forest and the approaching marriage of Maid Elška and the steward.
“So she forgot her first love thus early?” the reader will think. Do not wrong Elška. She had not proved disloyal in even a thought and had determined to undergo anything before she would become the steward’s wife. Even if she were not already betrothed, the steward was by no means the sort of man with whom she could have fallen in love.
He was of a short figure, as if he had been baked and set up on two short legs. His cheeks were as red as peonies, as was his nose also. On his head was a round bald spot which, however, he sought to cover with the red hair which still remained around his ears and neck. His eyes were surrounded by flabby fat and had the peculiar quality, especially for a steward, that at one and the same time they looked in two different directions. In the summer he wore a straw hat with a green ribbon, a cane with a tassel, nankeens, a winter double-breasted vest so that he wouldn’t take cold or get his shirt soiled, a cotton kerchief around his neck, and a clove-colored frockcoat with pointed tail and yellow buttons. From his pocket usually hung the corner of a blue handkerchief, for the steward used snuff.
It was said among the peasants of Vestec that the subjects of the neighboring manor had many a time dusted that clove-colored frock-coat with their sticks, but that somehow the matter never got to the courts. The steward was very timorous, but nevertheless the peasants were afraid of him, for he made up for his cowardliness by craft and revengefulness—with which he paid them back. To the people from whom he could expect any sort of benefit he was very fawning and polite, otherwise he was a very harsh man. He was also very stingy. The only good quality which no one could deny him was his wealth. Yes, indeed, the manager, Kilián Sláma, was a rich man, and that was the quality in him which appealed to Miss Pepinka. For that matter, she did not mean that his figure was unhandsome—for she never did like tall, spare people. Besides, she was flattered because the steward always kissed her hand. She thought that in time he would find favor in Elška’s eyes also, that she would get accustomed to him. She told her brother, who didn't want to hear of the plan, that such a man would value his wife more than could some young fop, and that he would carry out every wish of Elška’s who would be a lady, well provided for and, should he die, there would be no worries about the future.
“And if my brother should die,” she reasoned in her mind further, “I’ll have a place to go.”
In short, Miss Pepinka knew how to manage cleverly so that the steward visited the parish often, and finally even the priest made no further objection. The good pastor got accustomed to him and missed the steward when he did not come for supper and he had only Miss Pepinka and the sexton or the schoolmaster to play cards with. Elška at first had no idea of Pepinka’s plan, and listened to praises of his goodness and wealth with about as much concern as she paid to his awkward enough courting. But the steward became more insistent, and her aunt more open in her designs until Elška comprehended fully. It amused her, but when her aunt made it clear that the matter was serious, reprimanding her severely, and when the priest counselled her to accept the steward, she began to be gloomy, to avoid the steward and to hasten with her burdens to Bára.
Bára learned Miss Pepinka’s plan from the lady herself, for Pepinka wished her to aid in persuading Elška. But she struck the wrong note there, for even if Bára had not known of Elška’s love she would not have tried to influence her. She herself esteemed the steward no more than the dust in her eyes and would not have accepted him even if he had offered her the entire noble estate. She said neither yes nor no to Miss Pepinka, but conspired secretly with Elška. She herself carried to the town post-office Elška’s letter detailing everything fully to her Prague aunt.
From the time that Elška learned of the steward’s intent he did not have a pleasant word or glance from her. No one would have said that the kind-hearted and always amiable Elška could speak sharply or frown. Whenever he approached the parish he heard in the village square or from some hedge abusive songs, as if composed and sung for him especially. He tolerated it all, however, except once when he met Bára and she began suddenly to sing—
“Any sort of manikin,
On spindly legs so thin
Would like to choose our prettiest girl,
It surely is a sin.—”
He nearly burst with bristling anger, and his nose crimsoned like a turkey gobbler’s when it sees red. But what was the use? The steward had already swallowed all sorts of shaming and mockery—so he gulped down the teasing of the girls, thinking to himself, “Just wait, my girl, until I have you and your money—then I’ll show them all what’s what!” But the steward forgot that even in Stupidville they don’t hang a thief until they catch him.
One morning it was told around through the village that a ghost had been seen. A woman in white had gone from the parish forest to the village, through the square, over the meadows and somewhere near the graveyard had mysteriously disappeared. The sexton’s wife fell sick of fright, for, she said, the ghost had rapped on her window, and when the sexton stepped to the window, not knowing who it was, he beheld a white specter surmounted by a skull and it made a wry face at him, while the figure shook its finger threateningly. It was a wonder Vlček himself did not become ill as a result, but the sexton’s wife would have it that death had given her warning that in a year and a day she must die.
The night watchman also took his oath that it was a ghost and that it came out of the parish wood. People began to dig up past history, if perhaps someone had not hanged himself there, but when they could not think up any such incident they said that once upon a time someone buried a treasure somewhere and that his spirit had no peace and was seeking someone to free it. All sorts of conjectures were made and the talk was only of the specter.
“I don’t believe it,” said Bára to Elška when she came to her that same evening to the meadow near the wood where Jacob was pasturing the herd.
“Whether it’s true or not, I’m grateful to the ghost, for it has rid me for several days of a much-disliked guest. To be sure, he wrote to uncle that they are having harvest and a great deal of work and that he cannot come for several days, but I’d wager my head that he heard about the specter and is afraid. He’s a terrible coward and he has to come by way of the parish forest.”
“I wish it had blown him away so that he’d come no more to Vestec. I’d rather see you in your coffin than with that bald-pate at the altar,” Bára scolded. “I don’t see where Miss Pepinka puts her reason that she forces you to accept such a creature. And yet she is a good woman.”
“She thinks she is making provision for a comfortable future for me. That is the only reason I am not utterly angry at her, but I cannot marry him, no matter what happens.”
“And you must not. God would punish you since you gave your promise to Mr. Hynek, if you did not keep it. You know the saying, ‘He who breaks the vow of love, alas, alas, for his soul!’”.
“I shall never, never break it even if it would take years,” asserted Elška. “But he—he—if only he will not forget! In Prague there are beautiful girls who are his equals. But, Bára, if he would forget me I would grieve myself to death!” And Elška began sobbing.
“You are a foolish child to worry yourself so. Yesterday you told me what a fine man Mr. Hynek was and how much he loves you, and today you have doubts of him?”
Elška wiped her eyes, smiled and, throwing herself down beside Bára on the grass, said: “It was only a passing thought. I believe in him as I do in God! Oh, if I were only that little bird and could fly to him and tell him all that grieves me!”
To Bára at once occurred the song, “If I were a nightingale!” and she began to sing, but it did not go merrily, for in the middle of the song she paused suddenly, as if terror-stricken. Her cheeks, too, became red.
“What frightened you? Why did you stop singing?” Elška asked, but Bára did not answer, only gazed off into the forest.
“Bára, Bára!” Elška shook her finger reproachfully. “You are hiding something from me and I haven’t a secret thought before you. That isn’t nice of you.”
“I don’t know myself what I’d say,” replied Bára.
“Why did you start just now! You are never afraid of anything? Who was that in the forest?”
“A huntsman, perhaps,” Bára said evasively.
“You know very well who it was. Your fright wasn’t over nothing. Maybe it was the ghost you saw?”
“No, no! I wouldn’t be afraid of that,” laughed Bára heartily, and wished to change the subject, but Elška persisted in unreeling the same thread until finally she asked directly if Bára would marry Josífek in case he did not become a priest. Bára burst into even louder laughter than before.
‘God save me!” she cried. “The sexton’s wife would cook up a snake for me the first day. Josífek is a good boy, but he doesn’t fit among us. He is neither for the herd nor the plow, and it wouldn’t be proper to put him at the spinning-wheel. Still I might keep him behind a frame and under glass for exhibition.”
Elška, too, had to laugh at her notion, but after a while she asked Bára very earnestly, “Then there is truly no one whom you are fond of?”
“Listen, Elška!” Bára said, after short deliberation. “Last fall it happened often that alone with Lišaj I took the herd out. Father had a sore foot and could not stand up. One afternoon the mayor’s cow, Plavka, and Milost’s cow, Březina, got into a fight and began to gore each other with their horns. One must never let them get into a rage or they’d dig out each other’s horns. So I seized a pail and ran to the river for some water to throw on their heads. Before I returned to the herd some huntsman approached from the wood and, seeing the cows with their locked horns, tried to drive them apart.
“Away, Go away!” I shrieked at him. “I’ll separate them myself. Don’t let the bull see you, he’s wicked!” The huntsman turned around, but in that instant the bull, also, had caught sight of him. Luckily, the cows ran off in different directions when I splashed the water over them or it would have been hard for the huntsman to escape. It was all I could do to seize the bull, restrain and calm him, for even father can’t hold him, though he usually obeys me when I threaten him. The huntsman hid himself in the wood behind a tree and watched. When the herd was again peacefully at pasture he appeared at the edge of the forest and asked me whose daughter I was. I told him. He looked at me strangely, doffed his cap, thanked me for my protection and went away into the forest. After that I saw him many times, but I never spoke with him again except to greet him when he passed near by. He used to stand on the edge of the wood or walk along the river’s bank, even coming into the village, all that winter and spring. On St. John’s day early in the morning after you left I was helping father drive out the cows when I saw him coming over the meadow to the bridge. He paused where you had stood, looked around, then stepped down from the bridge into the bushes near the bank. There I distinctly saw him take down my wreath which had remained hanging on the willow and hide it under his coat. Just a few moments ago I saw him down there near the wood. Why I always have a sudden fright whenever I see him, I don’t know.”
“And you truly have never talked with him?”
“Not a word more than at that first meeting,” Bára declared.
“But you like him, don’t you?” Elška questioned further.
“Yes, as I do every good man who has wronged no one.”
“But you don’t know whether he is good when you haven’t talked with him.”
“He certainly is not bad. It doesn’t show in his eyes!”
“So you truly do like him?” Elška insisted searchingly.
“There are handsome boys in the village, but if you want the truth, I must say that no one of them pleases me as does he. I often dream of him!”
“What a person thinks of, that he dreams of.”
“Oh, not always. Dreams also come from God.”
“But tell me honestly—if that huntsman should say, ‘Bára, I mean to marry you,’ would you consent?”
“Elška, how you talk! He will never think of me, let alone wishing to marry me. Those are all vain dreams and speeches. Forget it all! Ho! Ho! Plavka, where are you going? Lišaj, where are you? Don’t you see Plavka getting after Březina?” Bára interjected, leaping up from the soft green turf to turn aside the cow, meanwhile.
Whenever later Elška wanted to turn the conversation to the subject of the huntsman Bára always evaded her by beginning about Hynek. By that magic word she knew she could turn Elška from any subject.
A few days later the steward was again at the parish. Nothing had frightened him off. But—he came in the daytime. Even at the parsonage there was discussion of the ghost. While the priest had no faith in similar superstititions, still it was thought there was something to the tales, for every third night precisely from eleven to twelve it “haunted,” according to the testimony of reputable people. It shook its fist at many a person and a death’s head looked into numerous windows. The people were so terrified that only the boldest men ventured outside their own thresholds at night. They began repenting their sins and gave generously for prayers for souls in purgatory. In fact fear of death drove them all to do penance. To be sure, the priest preached against superstition and false beliefs, but it was all useless.
The steward, though he would not own to it, was so frightened that he visibly paled, and if it had not been for his great greed to possess a beautiful bride and her rich dowry, the parsonage would not have seen him again. He wanted, therefore, to have certainty assured as soon as possible. For that reason he had come to a definite understanding with Miss Pepinka and the priest and decided to consult even Elška so that the wedding could be celebrated immediately after harvesttime.
Miss Pepinka announced to Elška the steward’s impending visit the next day and urged her to be sensible and listen to reason. Elška wept and begged her aunt not to force her to marry such a scarecrow, but Pepinka became very angry with her. Even her uncle, although he did not rebuke her as did his sister, nevertheless reproved her for ingratitude and unreasonableness. No letter came from Prague—and not a word of any news. Elška knew not what to do. She consulted Bára, who encouraged her to be brave and further incensed her against the steward, but all this was no real help to her.
The next day came—the day when the ghost did not haunt-and the steward arrived all dressed up in finery to do his courting. Miss Pepinka cooked and baked from earliest dawning in order the better to honor the guest. Even wine came to the table to celebrate the glorious day. Bára was also at the parish and only on her persuasion was Elška able to stand on her feet at all, for the whole affair made her terribly ill.
When he actually pressed his demands, Elška told him to come back a week later for her final word. She hoped against hope that in the meantime some word would come from Prague. The steward was not pleased with her evasive answer nor the cold demeanor of his bride-to-be, for he saw something was not right. But there was nothing to do but keep still and trust in his protectress, Miss Pepinka. Despite his chagrin, the food and drinks tasted excellently and his cheeks fairly burned. That day he wore a blue frock-coat so the contrast was all the more marked.
When evening approached, the steward wished to go home, but the priest did not wish to let him go yet. An hour later when he again spoke of going the priest said: “Just stay a little longer. Vlček will accompany you, and also the hostler. It’s possible that some sort of rabble does infest our forest.”
The steward acted as if some one had dashed icewater over him. He no longer had any appetite and would have preferred to see himself at home in bed. The only thing that held him was the promise of having an escort. Vlček had a bit too much in his head and the stableman, too, had tippled, thinking to himself, “It doesn’t happen every day,” and neither cared to go until it was after ten. Then, at last, they set out on the journey. The steward, sobered by fear, observed that both his escorts were intoxicated. They reeled along the road, one zigzagging here and the other there. There was no speech to be had with them and the steward was in mortal anxiety, although he buoyed himself up with the hope that this was not the regular night for the specter to appear.
Alas! how he had looked forward to that day-for which he had had everything well figured out and now everything was botched.
The night was clear enough; one could see from the village to the forest. The travellers were quite near it when suddenly there issued forth a white figure, appearing to them immensely tall and came directly towards them. The steward shrieked and rolled to the ground like a log. The sexton, sobered in a twinkling, started on a run. Only the hostler remained standing like a pillar, but when the figure with skeleton white hand unveiled its head, showing a grinning skull, his hair stood on end and he fell to his knees down beside the steward. The figure, however, took no notice of him, but with a powerful grip lifted up the kneeling steward to his feet and shrieked in a hollow voice into his ear, “If you ever dare go a-courting again to the parsonage you sign your own death-warrant!” Without another word the weird apparition stalked with long, slow strides towards the village.
Meanwhile Vlček rushing, breathless, to the village square overtook the night watchman. Together they called out half the village. The more courageous ventured out, taking clubs and flails, while the sexton ran to the church to get some consecrated object.
They took him in their midst and started towards the parish wood. At the edge of the village they caught sight of the tall white specter striding along slowly, not to the town, but obliquely over the meadows towards the graveyard. For an instant they paused, but then with shouts encouraging each other to boldness they advanced in one body after the white figure which, observing them, speeded up its steps.
Suddenly, however, the specter began to run and on the bridge vanished completely from their eyes. They started after it now with more fearlessness. At the bridge they stopped.
“Something white is lying here!” they shouted.
The sexton made the sign of the cross above the bridge and when after pronouncing the words, “Praise ye all the good spirit of the Lord,” no response was made, one of the peasants stepped closer and saw that it was only a dress lying there. With his club he raised the bundle gingerly, and carried it thus to the village. On their return they picked up the half-dead steward whom the hostler had to almost carry all the way back. They went directly to the parsonage.
The priest was not yet asleep and cheerfully opened the door. They there examined what they had found. All of them stood transfixed as if they had been dropped from the clouds. Two white sheets and a brown woollen skirt with a red border. They recognized the skirt.
“That belongs to bewitched Bára!” they all cried. “Damnable!” some of them cursed. “A perfect dragon!” swore others.
But the most furious were the sexton and the steward, both going almost mad with rage. The hostler was the only one who laughed.
“I’d sooner have guessed it was real Death stalking around as a ghost than Bára. She is a devilish woman!”
Miss Pepinka just then burst into the company. The noise and confusion had attracted her from her room where she had already betaken herself to bed. She was wrapped in a shawl, on her head a yellow quilted nightcap. She always had to have something yellow on. She came with a lamp in one hand and an immense bundle of keys in the other. “For Heaven’s sake, people, what has happened?” she cried, wholly terrified.
From several pairs of lips she heard the remarkable occurrence.
“Oh, the godless, ungrateful girl!” exclaimed Pepinka in shocked amazement. “Just wait! She’ll catch it from me! I’ll read the gospel to her properly! Where have you got her?” she demanded.
“Who knows where she is? She disappeared in the middle of the bridge, just as if the earth had opened and swallowed her.”
“Did she jump in the river?” questioned the priest.
“We heard no splash nor did we see anyone in the water. But then, reverend father, that is no trick for such a bewitched being! She can make herself invisible and is as much at home in fire as in water, up in the air as on earth, everywhere the same!” asserted one of the neighbors.
“Don’t believe such nonsensical tales, my people!” the priest rebuked.
“Bára is a venturesome girl and has been carrying on mischief, but that is all, and for that she must be reprimanded. She must come to me to-morrow.”
“Severely reprimanded, much respected sir!” exclaimed the steward, trembling with anger combined with the terror which had shaken his bones. “Very severely. It is a punishable offense to make a fool of the entire community.”
“Oh, it wasn’t as bad as that, precious sir,” interrupted the peasants. “It was only the women who were frightened.”
“My poor wife will have such a sick spell from the whole affair! It is unforgivable godlessness!” Vlček complained. Like the peasants, he did not mention his own fright.
Miss Pepinka was so rejoiced at the import of Vlček’s speech that she could have forgiven Bára on the spot. But the hostler incensed her anew by saying: “Why should I deny it? I was really scared, though I’m not usually afraid of anything. We were all of us frightened. You, Mr. Sexton, could hardly crawl home, and the honorable Mr. Steward here was so terrified he dropped to his knees like an over-ripe pear. When she grinned her teeth at me I was sure it was Death itself—and it’s no wonder, for I was three sheets in the wind. I expected her to clutch me by the throat, but instead she grabbed the steward here, lifted him up and screeched into his ears, ‘If you ever dare show yourself again at the parsonage as a suitor you sign your own death-warrant.’”
The hostler wanted to demonstrate exactly how Bára seized the steward, but the latter dodged his grasp, his face changing from red to purple. But Miss Pepinka was terribly offended, although the peasants fully forgave Bára for putting them to the blush when they learned what she did to the steward. All further procedure was postponed till morning. The steward remained at the parsonage overnight, but by earliest dawn he was well on his way beyond the boundaries.
When in the morning Elška heard what Bára had ventured to do for her sake she begged her uncle and Pepinka to forgive Bára, who had done it all to rid her of the steward. Miss Pepinka would not relinquish her plan and insisted that since Bára had so deeply affronted the steward she must be punished.
“And, moreover, if you don’t marry the steward, you’ll not get so much as a thread from me!” she threatened Elška, who only shrugged her shoulders.
The priest was not so stubborn. He did not wish to reprove his niece, but he could not wholly, of his own volition, forgive Bára. Elška was eager to go at once to Bára, but was not permitted to do so.
Jacob, knowing nothing of his daughter’s secret doings, as usual took his horn the next morning and went out to call together his herd. But, to his amazement, nowhere were the gates opened—just as if during the night all the cattle had perished or as if the servants had overslept. He went up to the very houses and sounded his horn—loudly enough to call the dead from their graves. The cows bellowed, to be sure, but no one went to let them out. The maid-servants came out and said: “You are not to drive out our cows any more. Someone else is to do it!”
“What’s that?” thought Jacob to himself, and went immediately to the mayor. Here he learned what had happened.
“We have nothing against you, personally, but your Bára is bewitched and the peasant women are afraid that she will cast a spell on them.”
“Why, has anything ever happened to any of the herd?”
“No, but Bára might want to revenge herself.”
“Leave my daughter alone!” cried Jacob angrily. “If you want my services, I’m willing to give them. If not, it’s all right, too. The world is wide. God won’t forsake us!”
“Well, you see, it wouldn’t do to keep you, under the circumstances.”
“Then put into your herdsman’s hut whomsoever you please, and may you be here with God!” Jacob had never talked so much at once in all his life, nor had be ever been as angry as at that moment. He went home at once. Bára was not there. He went to untie Lišaj. The cow and bull which he had in charge were left to moo and bellow while he went to the parsonage.
Bára was standing before the priest.
“Did you parade around as a ghost?” the priest catechized her.
“Yes, reverend! Bára answered dauntlessly.
“And why?”
“I knew the steward was a coward. I wanted to frighten him off so he wouldn’t torture Miss Elška. She can’t bear him and would die if she had to marry him.”
“Remember its not your business to extinguish a fire that isn’t burning you. Even without you, it would have been settled. How were you able to vanish so suddenly from the bridge?”
“Very easily, reverend sir. I cast off the sheets and dress, jumped into the river and swam under water a short distance. That’s why no one could see me.”
“You swam under water?” The priest struck his hands together amazedly. “What a girl you are! And at night, too! Who taught you?”
Bára was amazed at the priest’s surprise.
“Why, reverend sir, my father instructed me how I must move when in the water, and the rest I learned myself. That’s no trick. I know every stone in the river. Why should I be afraid?”
The priest gave long-drawn-out admonitions to Bára and then sent her to the servants’ hall to await judgment. He took consultation with the mayor, aldermen and the schoolmaster, and they decided that since Bára had caused such a general scandal and had been so audacious she must be publicly chastised. As a punishment they condemned her to remain shut up for one whole night in the vault at the cemetery. It seemed to all a terrible punishment, but since she had been so bold and unabashed, let her learn, they said, what real terror is by a night spent among dead men’s bones.
Miss Pepinka was not at all pleased with the sentence. Elška was utterly shocked and every woman in the village shuddered with horror over the penalty imposed. Even the sexton’s wife was willing to forgive Bára, and thought she would be sufficiently punished by the simple publication of the fact that judgment had been passed on her.
Bára, alone, remained unmoved. It worried her far more that the community had dismissed her father, for she had already heard what had happened to him. When the priest told her where she was to spend the succeeding night, she listened to all quietly, then kissed his hand, saying, “As far as that’s concerned, it makes little difference if I sleep in the charnelhouse or some other place. I can sleep even on a stone. But it’s harder for father. What will become of him, now that they’ve taken his position away from him? Father can’t live without his flocks and herds, for he’s been used to them all his life. He will die! Arrange it somehow, reverend sir!”
Everyone marvelled at Bára’s unsubdued spirit and refused to believe otherwise than that, after all, it was some sort of supernatural power that made Bára different from other people.
“Never mind, her crest will fall by night,” many of them thought. But they were mistaken. Bára was dejected only until she learned that the peasants had returned to Jacob his work as public herdsman, which the priest had arranged for by giving him his own herd to pasture.
After dinner, when the priest was napping and Miss Pepinka was also dozing a little, Elška stole out from the room and ran down to Bára. Her eyes were red with weeping and she was shaking with fear. Violently she threw her arms around Bára’s neck and fell to sobbing anew.
“There, there, be quiet!” Bára consoled her. “Don’t worry! Just let’s be content if that cricket doesn’t come courting you again, and he’d have to be a man without any sense of honor at all if he’d dare come another time. The rest will right itself!”
“But you, poor dear, to have to spend the night in the charnel-house. Dear Lord, I’ll not have a moment’s peace!”
“Don’t have any anxiety on that score. I have slept near the cemetery more than once, and day and night it is before my eyes. Just you go to bed and to sleep! And please send word to father not to have any fears for me and to tie up Lišaj for the night so he won’t follow me. Then tomorrow I’ll tell you the whole affair and what a scare I gave the steward. You’ll have a good laugh over it. And soon you’ll get word from Mr. Hynek. But when you get away from this place, Elška, you’ll surely not leave me here, will you?” Bára asked sadly.
Elška only pressed her hand, whispering, “You and I belong to each other!” Softly she slipped away. Bára sang cheerfully to herself and felt a great peace.
When it had become quite dark the sexton and the night watchman came to lead Bára away to the cemetery. Miss Pepinka winked at her to plead with the priest, intending herself to intercede also. But Bára would not understand, and when the priest himself said that if she asked mercy and was penitent those who had passed the decree could be prevailed upon she tossed her head defiantly, saying, “Since you were pleased to judge me deserving of punishment, I will serve out my sentence!” And she went with the men.
The people ran out of the houses, many of them feeling sorry for her, but Bára took no notice of any of them and walked merrily towards the graveyard, which was situated near the heel of the forest not far from the community pasture.
Her two escorts opened the door of the deathchamber where human bones and funeral biers were kept and, after expressing the wish, “May God protect you!” they went home.
From the vault a little window not much bigger than one’s hand looked out on the valley and the forest. Bára stationed herself beside the window and looked out for a long, long time. Sad, indeed, must have been the thoughts that fitted through her mind, for tear after tear fell from her beautiful eyes and ran down her brown cheeks.
The moon rose higher and higher, one light after another in the village was extinguished, and more and more quiet it grew all around her. Over the graves fell the shadows of the tall pines standing near the wall and above the valley a light mist gathered. Only the barking or weird howling of dogs disturbed the stillness of the night.
Bára looked out upon the grave of her mother, recalled her lonely childhood, the dislike and scorn of her by the people of the village, and for the first time she felt the weight of it all and for the first time the thought came to her, “Oh, mother, would that I could be lying there beside you!” One thought gave birth to another, vision succeeded vision. In spirit she embraced the beautiful Elška, and on the forest path her imagination portrayed as by magic the figure of a tall, broad-shouldered huntsman, with a face expressing earnestness, energy and strength.
But finally she turned away from the window, shook her head silently and, covering her face with her hands, sank with a deep sigh to the ground, weeping and praying. Her deep sorrow, allayed somewhat, she rose from the ground, intending to lie down on the funeral bier, when suddenly near the window a dog barked and a deep voice asked, “Bára, are you sleeping?” It was Jacob and Lišaj.
“I’m not sleeping, father, but I soon shall be. Why did you come? I’m not afraid.”
“All right then, girl, sleep. I will sleep out here it’s a warm night.” And her father lay down beneath the window, with Lišaj beside him.
They slept well until morning.
In the morning when the first streaks of dawn began to show, a man dressed in huntsman’s costume came through the forest. Jacob often used to see him going through the forest or the valley.
“What are you doing here, Jacob?” the huntsman asked him as he drew near.
“Well, sir, they locked my daughter in here overnight and so I couldn’t stand it to stay at home.”
“Bára? What has happened?” the huntsman asked in amazement.
Jacob related all briefly. The huntsman uttered an oath, and then jerking the gun from his shoulder, hung it on a tree and nimbly scaled the cemetery wall. With a swing of his powerful right arm he forced open the door of the charnel-house and stood before Bára, whom the noise had awakened. Seeing the huntsman before her, she was under the impression that she was still dreaming, but hearing his voice, she wondered how he had come there and could not in her embarrassment even thank him for his greeting.
“Don’t be angry, Bára, because I have burst in here this way. I was going past, saw your father and heard from him what had occurred to place you here, and it made me furious. Come away at once from these dead things!” the huntsman urged, taking Bára by the hand.
“Not yet, sir. I shall stay here until they come for me. They would say that I ran away. I really wasn’t so uncomfortable here,” Bára demurred lightly, withdrawing her hand from the grasp of the huntsman.
“Then I shall call your father and we shall both stay here,” said the huntsman and shouted over the wall to Jacob.
So Jacob, too, climbed over the stone enclosure. Together they entered into the death-chamber to join Bára. Lišaj, who had bounded after Jacob, did not know what to do for joy when he saw Bára again.
When Jacob saw where Bára had slept he was almost ready to burst into sobs, and so to cover up his tears he went to the grave of his dead wife. The huntsman sat down on the bier. Bára played with Lišaj, but all the while she was conscious that the huntsman never took his eyes from her. She blushed and then paled and her heart pounded more violently than it had throughout the night when she had been wholly alone in the tomb.
“And is there no one beside your father in the entire village who would have looked after you here?” the huntsman asked after a while.
“Besides Elška and my father there is no one. Father came. Elška cannot come, and there is no one else who loves me that much. Excepting you, Lišaj, isn’t that so?” And she gazed into the eyes of her dog. “And then everyone’s afraid to go near the cemetery at night,” she added.
“I marvel at your courage as I marvelled at your strength. Almost every day I have told my mother about you,” said the huntsman.
“Oh, you still have a mother, sir?” Bára asked in gentle tones.
“Yes, an aged mother. We live together high up on the hill three-quarters of an hour’s distance from here, in the forest. I am a huntsman. My mother has wished for a daughter and would like to see me happy. I have never found anywhere a woman I would want for a wife until I saw you. Bára, I am not a man of long speeches. I have cared for you from the moment I first saw you. I’ve learned to know you well, too, even though we did not talk to each other, and that I have said nothing before this is because I did not dare presume to ask your consent. Now you know all. Tell me if you think you can care for me and if you want to be my wife. In Vestec you cannot remain after this. So if you care for me, take what things you wish with you and come at once with your father to me up there to our home in the forest where people will love you.”
Bára stood like a statue, not moving a muscle, nor could she utter a single word. The huntsman did not know how to interpret this but, wishing to learn the truth, even if it should prove bitter for him, he again asked Bára if she would become his wife. Then the girl burst into tears and cried out: “Dear God! Is it really true that you love me?” The huntsman assured her with his lips and the warm clasp of his hand, and only then did she avow her long-cherished love for him.
Having come to a happy understanding, they emerged and knelt before Jacob. The huntsman said: “You know me, father, and you know that for a long time now I have been amply able to support a wife. But none pleased until I saw your daughter. I fell in love with her that very first time. She and I have just come to an agreement, and we want your blessing. Even though we are in a cemetery, this, too, is God’s domain—God Himself is everywhere!”
Jacob did not ask any long-drawn-out questions, only assuring himself that Bára herself was contented. He gave them his blessing and then the three made further plans and arrangements.
How astonished the sexton was when, after ringing the morning bell for early prayers, he came for Bára and found her in the company of her father and her accepted suitor, as the huntsman immediately announced himself to be.
There was even greater amazement at the parsonage and in the entire village. The people had thought Bára would be tamed down, the Lord only knows how much, and how humble she would be—and now she was returning as the betrothed of such a splendid man. They could not even believe it to be possible that “bewitched Bára” could win anyone’s love—but it had come to pass.
“She has luck from hell itself,” the girls in the village told each other.
But sincere and great was the rejoicing of Elška when Bára brought her lover to her friend.
“See, God has repaid the service that you rendered me and for which you suffered so much. I knew that you would find a man who would truly love you. You must love her deeply—for she deserves it most fully,” the good girl said, turning to the huntsman and extending her hand, which he clasped earnestly.
The huntsman wished very much to take Bára with him at once, but things did not move as rapidly as that, as Miss Pepinka would not consent to let Bára go before the formal wedding. Better to have all three publications of the banns of marriage at once when the bridegroom is impatient. Jacob, too, could not at once tear himself from the herdsman’s cottage.
Bára grieved most deeply about Elška. But the next day a letter arrived from Prague for the priest, in which the aunt stated that she would bequeath all her wealth to her niece on the single condition that she marry the young doctor who had cured her (the aunt) and that the priest should ask Elška to decide yes or no on the matter. When also a special letter was enclosed for Elška full of the most beautiful hopes for an early meeting, then Bára had no more unfulfilled desires.
Before the wedding all the people of the village became reconciled with Bára. Even the sexton’s wife wished her happiness and handed her a letter from Josífek. Elška read it to Bára and then only did the latter learn what Elška had long known, that Josífek loved her and only on Bára’s account had not wanted to become a priest. But since she was to marry another he would now accede to his parents’ wishes and enter the priesthood.
A week later Miss Pepinka prepared a fine wedding for Bára. The huntsman’s dear old mother came also to take away with her the daughter to whose coming she had looked forward for a long time. Jacob went with them.
When the huntsman was leading his young wife through the house he brought her to the room which had been his own. From the wall above the bed he took down a wreath which was now all withered.
“Do you recognize it?” he asked Bára. It was the very wreath which had caught on the branches of the willow on St. John’s morn. Bára smiled.
“Whom were you thinking of when you threw it to the water?” questioned the huntsman, drawing her to his heart.
Bára did not answer, but put her arms around his neck and lifted up to him a pair of lovely, smiling eyes which the people had called “bull’s eyes,” but which the huntsman regarded as the most beautiful eyes in the whole wide world.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
