Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/80

 ‘There is no medicine in the whole world for the illness that has driven me from Lukas’s house,’ said Vendulka, and hot tears were gushing from her eyes.

‘What? What is that you are saying?’

‘That my engagement to Lukas is broken off, and we shall never meet again.’

‘Girl, you are out of your senses.’

‘I will soon prove to you that I still have my senses, although enough has happened to make me lose them. Lukas made love to me the same as he used to do when he was free. I wouldn’t let him, out of respect to his dead wife, whose rest in her grave I ought not to disturb. Then he behaved as if he were demented, raved and scolded, and constantly found fault with me, so that I grew hot and cold to think what would be the end of it. And this night he brought a brass band to play under our windows, and three loose girls, and he danced with them in front of the house to make me the butt of shame and ridicule. After that I could do nothing but pack up my things, and here I am. I dare not go home; you know that father told me beforehand, Lukas and I were not suited to each other. His sermons and his reproaches for not having listened to him would be the death of me.