XII.
Father Cvok lived on in his quiet, retired way as heretofore. He seldom went anywhere, and his open hearted, simple character never minded the gossip going on around him. He did not pore so much over his books as before. Pepíc̓ek , who had crept completely into his heart, often gave him more food for thought than the deepest systems of philosophers, or the finest verses of poets. He came down from the heights of a more or less ideal life to the joys and cares of reality; and many a thing he had hardly regarded before, now, through Pepíc̓ek, became a subject worth thinking about, and so interesting besides, that his mind and heart felt refreshed like a tree after abundant rain. The soaring elasticity of youth could not, of course, come back to him any more, for he was already nearing old age; but even old trees sometimes grow green and bud out afresh, and bear better and more juicy fruit than younger ones.
It was not, it is true, the full, complete family life that turned all at once his humble dwelling upside down; but it was a beautiful part of it, and it confirmed Cvok in the truth, known to him hitherto only in poetical books, that family life regenerates decaying humanity, cheering it in the sad decline of advanced age, which otherwise would be barren of blossoms and fruit.
