Strona 26 z 788

"O, if some time I might attain this joy-that this book might

find shelter beneath roofs of thatch, and that the village girls,

as they spin and turn the wheel, humming the while their

much-loved verses, of the girl who so loved to make music that

while fiddling she lost her geese, or of the orphan, who, fair as

the dawn, went to drive home the birds at eventide-if even those

village girls might take into their hands this book, simple as

their songs!

"So in my own day, along with the village sports, they sometimes

read aloud, under the linden tree on the green, the song of

Justina,(7) or the story of Wieslaw;(8) and the bailiff, dozing

at the table, or the steward, or even the master of the farm, did

not forbid us to read; he himself would deign to listen, and

would interpret the harder places to the younger folk; he praised

the beauties and forgave the faults.