The hollow tree was a gorgeous theatre. It shone and crackled and Venik played by its fitful glare. He played and imitated all the birds which had already fled in terror. In sooth he played feelingly and finely, just as Krista had done, when she fell in a fainting fit, and Venik smiled madly at it all.
Then in the village a bell rang out from the very chapel in which he and Krista once played and sang together. The bell rang out an alarm, and when the people from the village streamed on to the hill-side, Venik was still playing underneath the tree so that it looked and all fell out just as in the old song where the linden-tree burns and its sparks fall upon the girl lying beneath it, only that there an oak-tree burnt and under it was Venik.
And just as the people began to throng the hill-side the hollow tree collapsed with a horrible crackling and in its embers the song of Venik was silenced. The people saw exactly how it buried him, and a shriek ran along the whole hill-side as if from a single throat.
The family of the bats fluttered round. Then all burnt out, all was extinguished, all was silenced, the music of two human lives was hushed and on the face of death the smile was turned to stone.
The hollow tree, Krista’s couch, Venik, the violin—all was one cinder.
