carp, ‘god of fortune’ my mother calls him, has caught. In two years they will begin to get stout, to be tired of each other, to quarrel, and again to make up,—ugh, it’s an insipid life! Of course, our whole life is something incidental and temporary, and it does not make much difference, how we go through it. . . .”
Lucy displayed true feminine curiosity,—curiosity, and nothing else,—for she was interested only in this new park. As they passed by, a peculiar peace fell upon her soul. It occurred to her that a tree must feel that way, when a lifeless branch is cut from it. Her relation to Jiří now became clear to her,—it was a pure, sisterly relation. With her whole heart, she wished the two happiness, and Jiří suddenly appeared to her as something better, and she felt that she would from now on be more lenient with him, that she would make peace with him, and would press his hand at home. Then she felt that
