Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/156

132 ridiculous I must be to this chit of a girl with such a past, with such experience and such yearnings in her soul

I slunk round the kiosk only once again. I saw that Vlasta had again dyed her hair an infamously light colour. This was the last chapter. The end, in good sooth, the end.

After that I got a letter from her. A despairing letter. She supposed I knew all. She was a worthless wretch. But I should not desert her. And if I did not come, she would go back to the place where we had met for the first time

I threw the letter into the grate and went nowhere.

Then after a few days, another one came. She wrote curtly and categorically that if I did not come that day or the next, then on the following day she would most certainly be in that house.

I did not go. By chance I discovered later that Vlasta was in that house. I was impressed by the fact that she had kept her word, but it did not disturb me. As far as my feelings were concerned, she had died long before.

Two years later I was at "The Bear Cubs," a cabaret at Perštýn. Šmíd's company, which had just been got together, was giving a performance of vocal and instrumental music upon a small stage. Šmíd drew my attention to a new singer, petite and pretty, who was just about to appear,