| Dr. Bruj, County Physician |
| Zalovec, County Commissioner |
| Krejsa, a young chaplain |
| Sejkora, a teacher |
| Melichar, a journalist |
| Lieutenant, clerk, waiter, miners, constables, and soldiers |
Scene laid in western Bohemia, in the year 1890.
ACT I
A room in a laborer’s cottage, poorly furnished but clean. In the rear appears a window, a door and a bed; to the left is a cupboard. The bed is built into the wall, with a chest at its foot. In the center of the room, is a table and three chairs. To the right, a stove and a bench.
Scene I
Old Rokos is seated on the chest to the left; in the center of the room, at the table, are Kralenec and Skarban; to the right, his wife, Tonicka, washing dishes. Pepicek and Ruzenka are playing at the feet of Kralenec; Bozenka is drying the dishes, and arranging them in rows on the shelf above the hearth.
Rokos has heavy white hair and a full gray beard. He is a man who is greatly respected. While speaking, he gazes straight ahead with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling; when he looks at one, he takes his measure with a piercing glance. His movements are measured and slow. He is dressed in miner’s clothes, habitually smoking a long pipe. Young Kralenec, a twenty-seven year old miner in workman’s clothes, is resting in a careless attitude at the table. His wife, Tonicka, is a young woman, strong and well-proportioned. Skarban is a forty-year old miner, also in a workman’s clothes.
Rokos.—Life is as dark and uncertain as a deep body of water; one it buoys up, another it drowns,—and that usually just when a person is beginning to think that all is won.
Tonicka.—That is the truth. But it drowns a hundred while fortune comes to but one.
Skarban.—And it plays with people like a cyclone tossing
