THE FOURTEENTH
When the train rolled onto the viaduct, a flotilla of stormy clouds was sailing through the heavens, while in the spaces between them oblique rays of afternoon sunlight were shooting down, with a splendid, Baroque sublimity upon the green fields of grain with a brilliance so penetrating, that each and every one of the green stalks cast its individual black shadow upon the buxom earth of the fields swelling to the horizon. Slowly, carefully, the train slid over the old arches, and Mrs Vránová, the mother of Martin and his brothers, looked upon these heavenly acts with breathless delight, swept up from the mundane present moment. Look at those ships up there — just look at them! If they collide, there’ll be a storm, but if they scatter, we’ll gather home the sheaves of hay, n
