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 up with so much annoyance from his bride shortly before the banns are published. But mind! I’ll let you know that I am not a silly boy in his teens who can be led by the nose. I won’t be treated like this! I shall do to you after the wedding as you have done to me now when you have hardened your heart against me. I have quite made up my mind on that point. Wait and you will see me do it.’

It was foolish of Vendulka to turn pale at these words. She might well have known that he was only a man in a temper, and it would have been better if she had simply said: ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ Possibly all would have been well. A woman who cannot lead a man with gentleness when he is storming and shouting with anger, will never manage him at all.

But these heartless words had barely escaped Lukas, when Vendulka behaved as if she had lost her senses.

‘It is not written in any book that we two must be married,’ she cried in a voice trembling with anger. ‘If that is how you feel about it, and you are preparing nothing but shame for me, I should do best to leave your house before I kill myself with misery.’