her a bright silver coin after every mass. Meanwhile the mother was waiting at home in the kitchen where they used to eat. In that whitewashed kitchen golden-green flies flew over the windowpanes.
Lucy folded her hands in her lap,—she prayed. Her lips were closed, but she prayed inwardly, mechanically, from memory, without aim or purpose,—that music, those memories, that air heavily-laden with incense, that lonesome emptiness that lay like a black shroud over her once bright life, evoked in her an ebullition of repining piety.
They remained alone in the pew after the service.
Even in the open, the heat of the July sun and the noisy stream of the townspeople left her in a stupor. She drew the old lady along with her faster, faster. . . .
There was a big dinner. The promised trusty man had arrived from Prague. Upon his lips were jests and sweet words (these he showered upon Jiří); he wore a
