world a greater happiness than such meetings, so that they measured time by them, although they dwelt under the same roof.
When Bartos, the grave-digger, observed what I here relate, he said to Frank, “You will not sleep another night at our house, Frank, you will go to the farm; the farm is your own, and requires a hospodar without delay.”
And now it seemed to Frank as though Bartos had announced to him some dire misfortune. Frank begged not to be dismissed to the farm until the morrow. But Bartos said, “You go there at once, just as you are, without saying a word to any one.”
“Not even to Staza?” asked Frank.
“Not even to Staza”, said Bartos.
And so Frank departed that same day without saying a word to any one.
When several days had elapsed, old Loyka said, “I wonder where Frank is roving; ’tis several days since he has been at home.”
“I have not seen him now for several days”, said Bartos. “I know not where he is roving.”
I know not whether this answer contented Loyka, but certainly it did not content Staza, who was now constantly on the watch to see whether Loyka or Bartos would begin to mention Frank.
She would gladly have inquired a hundred times in the hour what had become of him, and yet she never summoned courage to ask even once.
“I wonder why Frank doesn’t come”, said old Loyka after several days.
“I wonder he does not come”, said Bartos.
And it was the only thing she heard of him for several days, and yet she always watched with immeasurable anxiety for the occasion when Loyka should inquire for his son. Once Loyka asked Staza herself whether she knew where Frank was. “I do not know”, said Staza; and after this she once more seated herself on her mother’s grave, buried her hot face in the clover, and doubtless told her mother to the very end what that other time she had only begun to speak about.
In the meantime Bartos went to the mayor, and both together went to the Loykas’s farm and advised Frank how to manage his estate; instructed him, worked with him, and were always ready with friendly counsel.
