Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/221

As spring came on, we all began to yearn toward the soil. Miloš showed this by lengthy perusals of the latest Jizdní Řád, the railway guide book, which he had bought at Vilimek’s book store. The Jizdní Řád was a seductive thing, for it showed you how easily one could step aboard a train and find himself within a few hours in the Giant Mountains or the Bohemian or the Moravian hills. It was also a snare and a delusion, for unless you studied it carefully you were apt not to observe the neat little foot notes which explained, in the fewest words possible, that the running of this train or that had been cancelled for the present. But Miloš read assiduously every evening after dinner, and soon became expert in all these pathological conditions of the time tables. Outside of the Ministry of Railroads, I do not believe there was a man in Prague more versed in the lore of arriving and departing trains.

Milada gave up the Jízdní Řád after a brief and unsatisfactory perusal, but she continued to share the pleasurable uneasiness of her husband. She used to go out on the kitchen balcony and remain there, with her elbows resting on the iron railing, gazing down into the little back garden of the apartment building, where a venerable creature moved mysteriously about spading up the earth and planting seeds. I found her out there one morning and took advantage of the brilliant sunshine to make a snap-shot. She was laughing, and it turned out a very good picture, as Milada readily agreed. This, of course, proved that she was singularly free from vanity. A woman who is satisfied with snap-shots of herself is a rare phenomenon, and therefore to be admired and praised when she is discovered.

Finally it was left for me, with my American impulse to action, to transform these fluttering desires into plans. It was I who obliged Miloš to confine himself to a few trains instead of spreading over the entire guide book. It was I who wheedled Milada into baking koláče and packing knapsacks. It was I who sent our oldest shoes down to the cobbler in the basement for one last siege of mending and overhauling. Mařena of the kitchen sighed as she took them down, for she knew that all man-made foot gear has a limit of repairability, and our shoes had virtually reached that limit. It was not I, however, who decided where we should go, for it was all one to me whether we went east, west, north or south, and I much preferred to start out with a feeling of adventurous vagueness regarding our destination. Miloš at length proposed that we should go up in the vicinity of Turnov. This was not because he wanted to see Turnov again, but because the Turnov train left at seven in the morning. All the others went earlier, much earlier. Inasmuch as we had seats for the theatre on the evening before our day of leaving, this was a matter of some importance to us. On such slight considerations do the balances of the gods turn.

The Turnov train, when we duly achieved it, proved to be one of those leisurely creations, which, in America, are popularly thought of as indigenous to the state of Arkansas. As we wandered from one station to the next, we had the opinion that no other trains in Bohemia could possibly be going slower than ours. Yet there was at least one such. Just beyond Mladá Boleslav we drew up beside a troop train that had obligingly got itself out of the way for us. It was made up of about fifteen little box-cars out of whose windows and doors uniformed soldiers were hanging and leaning. Milo opened the window of our compartment and shouted a greeting to them. This they acknowledged in a friendly, bellowing style, and we fell into conversation. They told us they had left Prague the previous night at nine o’clock and had been traveling intermittently ever since. Over a distance which we had covered in less than three hours they had been crawling for more than twelve. After hearing this, Miloš felt so sorry for them that he hunted about for some cigarettes to give them. But he had only a box of one hundred, and they would not have gone far with the car-full of soldiers, whereas they would keep Miloš happy for several days. Therefore, he pocketed his cigarettes and his generosity and let Milada do the agreeable thing instead. This she did to perfection. She beamed through the open window and