Prague Spring

The Prague winter had been erratic; spells of intense cold when ice-floes piled up about the piers of the bridges, and even gave rise to anxiety concerning the safety of those structures; then mild winds from the south driving the smoke of the Smichov factories across Castle Hill. This, too, has its beauties when reluctant rays of the setting sun try to dispel it and cloak the Hradcany in a shroud of purple mist.

Winter lingered on into the beginning of the week of Resurrection. On Tuesday in Holy Week wild gusts from the north drove powdered snow in scurries across the uplands through the broad streets and into narrow alleys, where it lingered during two breathless days until with Good Friday came glorious sunshine, dispelling the last traces of winter storms.

As if to attune themselves to the change from winter's bondage to generous life, from the season of Lent to the Day of Resurrection, the people of Prague, as is their wont, called music to their aid. On Palm Sunday, as the last light of a grey day faded away, the church dedicated to Saint Henry, standing austerely apart from the traffic of the streets, was filled with the sweet sadness of Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater."

From the organ-loft came the soul-searching harmony of two voices, a pure white soprano and a rich vibrant contralto, which spread about the lofty building, penetrated to the secluded corners where the scent of incense lingers, and then seemed to lose itself in the shadowy arches of the roof, merging, as it were, into the memories of centuries of prayer and praise.

There was that feeling of impending relief from pain, then as of a healing touch when glorious sunshine ushered in Easter Sunday. Larks poured out their soul into a cloudless sky over the battlefield of the White Mountain, the pale green of larches showed up bravely among the riot of live purple and crimson and the flashing trunks of birches, over the wall that confines the park of the Star. The Star itself, that singular monument, a former hunting-box of Bohemian Kings and built in the shape of a six-pointed star, is undergoing renaissance: it is being arranged as a museum for the Czech legionaries.

The little brook that makes such a long detour on its way to join the Vltava, passing through the rocky gorge and the winding valley of the Sharka, was very emphatic on the subject of spring's arrival, and its voice must have penetrated to secluded nooks and crannies, rousing sluggard forms of life from winter sleep. Spring was asserting itself with all the glorious certainty of youth, and was calling aloud to all and sundry to come out and witness a brave display in the many gardens of Prague.