Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/17

relled. In the middle, between the railway station and the tavern, is an open place. In the season when the grass grows, this furnishes pasturage for the goats of Slanice, but now it is inches deep with snow.

Through this end of the town runs a wide ditch spanned in two places by narrow foot-bridges without railings. The nearer bridge leads directly toward the marmalade-maker’s house and factory and the hard-trodden path in the snow shows thatmany people come and go over this route. The young man with the skis warns me to be careful about my footing on the bridge. A mis-step on the icy planks might easily cause a tumble into the ravine which is half full of drifted snow, and that is very inferior sport as he knows from his own chilly experience.

A little girl of six comes dancing down the path toward us with open arms.

“Oh, daddy!” she cries. “Here you are! Did the strange man come?”

Then, catching sight of me behind her father, she is overcome with confusion and hides her blushes in the folds of his long coat. Her father laughs and lifts her in his arms.

“Our little Mařenka is shy,” he says. “But just wait a few years and you will see that she is not so afraid of the young men.”

Mařenka looks very demure, so that it is hard to know how much of her father’s pleasantry she understands.

“But what does this mean?” he continues with grave reproof, stroking her flying locks. “How many times has mamička told you not to go running out of doors on cold days with nothing on your head?”

Mařenka blurts out, crestfallen: “I forgot, daddy!’

Her father looks severe, but cannot refrain from winking solemly at me. It is probable that nothing escapes little Mařenka, least of all a furtive wink. It must be very subversive of discipline. The marmalade-maker goes on up the path carrying her.

His house appears insignificant in comparison with the factory and the various sheds and buildings which cluster about it. It is very old and is all on one floor, but the marmalade-maker is entirely satisfied with it. He is even a little proud, for it has a real bath-room, the only one in Slanice. The windows are casements, of a design long disused, and through them I see dainty curtains and rows of flowering plants.

The approach to the door-stone is across a sort of farmyard. If it were not winter there would be geese waddling about and a few hens, and perhaps a little lamb with wobbly legs would go cantering in front of us to get a drink out of the water pail. None of these things is to be seen today; the farmyard is deserted and the season’s white blanket covers the ground and roofs. Birds and animals are penned up in a number of outbuildings where they are presumably warm and well-fed, but where I fancy they drag out a dismal existence in spite of the company which they afford each other and the ceaseless opportunity for the exchange of ideas.

We are at the door. The brother-in-law throws it open, while I am busy with the boot-scraper, and admits us to a kitchen all shining and warm. A table with a white cloth in the center of the room is laid for afternoon coffee. The pungent smell of the drink fills the whole room and a cloud of steam rises from a small black kettle on the stove, where it is being stirred by the servant girl. The mistress of the house is placing a pan of boiled milk on the table. She is a merry little woman and makes me instantly feel at home under her roof-tree. A child of three toddles around clasping a great doll, and a tall boy of eleven, summoned from another room, comes in to make his compliments in a husky voice. A canary trills welcome from a brass cage and the kitchen range sends out a hospitable glow.

After the marmalade-maker and I have stood for a few minutes warming our hands over the coals in the stove, we are bidden to sit down. There are four places at the table, set for my host, his wife, her brother and myself. The children will not take coffee with us. Each of us gets a big cup more than half full of hot black liquid, and then the servant passes about with the scalding milk and dips it out with a ladle into our cups, stirring the mixture as she does so. Mařenka brings a great platter of buchty and coffee bread from the bedroom, staggering under the weight. Her mother exclaims.

“Child, what are you thinking of. Couldn’t you have waited for Anna?”

Mařenka rubs against her mother’s knee like an affectionate kitten and whispers