Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/103

 welcome third person, when Vendulka’s aunt saw him.

‘Lukas, Lukas!’ she shouted madly to her companion, who walked with her head bent.

The next moment the widower heard a cry of irrepressible delight; Martinka’s companion flew past the old woman; two trembling hands embraced him, and a kiss, a hundred times more fervent than he had ever received under the aspen tree, was pressed on his lips. Lukas seized his bride by her belt, lifted her up and, speechless with emotion, carried her back to his own house.

What are we to think of Vendulka? First she stands out against the kiss, and rather risks a scandal in the village than give it to the lover with whom quite shortly she is about to go to the altar—runs away, goes among the smugglers rather than comply, and, after the bitterest outbursts of wrath, gives him the kiss of her own accord, unasked. Oh women, women! Which of them has not known her heart run away with her reason when she was least prepared for it? God knows why this is so. I have racked my brains about it in vain, and yet it would be a good thing if the matter were properly sifted once and for all.