testimony without requiring that of the son. But when he was called he did not dare meet his father’s eyes. After they told him he could take advantage of the beneficence of the law not requiring a son to testify against a father, he arose to depart.
That instant his gaze fell on his aged father. The rough mountaineer could not control his emotion. He leaped forward, fell on his knees before his father, and weeping, begged for forgiveness. The people in the courtroom cried, the witnesses, the judge and even the lawyers were touched, but old Nešněra remained like a rock.
“You sold it?” he asked coldly. “Answer—did you sell?”
And when the son dumbly assented, the old man pushed him away so that he staggered towards the bench occupied by the witnesses.
“Go then, go! Accursed! I no longer have a son, nor you a father! But when they let me go from here—”
He was not permitted to speak further. They led his son away from the courtroom. This cruel scene impressed the judge and jury unfavorably, but in the course of the trial, they again were inclined towards the stubborn old man who had wished to preserve his inherited estate for his descendants. Their decree was fairly light. He was sentenced to ten months in prison. When the attorney explained to Nešněra that it was absolutely the minimum sentence for two
