Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/69

 Now it was Lukas’s turn to become as pale as a corpse.

‘You’re not making many words about that,’ he shouted, ‘but try it, and see what a welcome you will have from your father! And don’t imagine that you will have suitors by the dozen. They all will see that you are not what you pretended to be, else you would not leave your bridegroom when you had come to his house to take care of him.’

‘You know better than any one else whether I have ever minded what men thought of me. I don’t care for any of them, and I don’t care for you either. I’ve had to do without you once, and I shall do so again.’

Lukas ran out into the open like a wounded boar; he felt as though poisoned arrows had pierced his heart. What could he do to her to make her feel the same burning resentment that her barbed words had caused him to feel?

Vendulka had done wrong in answering him so uncompromisingly; but he did no better when he revenged himself on her by taking home a brass band from the inn and making them play one piece after another under her windows. The band, however, was the least offence. Why should they not have played to him if it amused him, and he made it well