Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/99

 but he felt his heart warm during her tearful homily, as though he were waking from a heavy dream that had held him in its toils. The simple statement of Vendulka’s goodness by this disinterested observer did more than any arguments on the right or the wrong of his case could have done.

Without knowing how he got there, Lukas found himself in his room and at the window where he had so often stood in the days of his married life and thought of his sweetheart. And he had stood in blissful silence at this same window and waited, on the evening when his heart’s desire had come into his house for the first time.

He had looked at the sky flushed with the crimson sunset, and fancied his life at her side would be one perpetual rosy dream. How different it all had been! He saw his sweetheart flying from him in the dark, silent night, into a distant place, to eat the bitter bread of servitude with tears. It was in vain that he turned away from the window to change his thoughts. He determined that he would not let himself be carried away by the emotions that welled up in him, would not let them influence his reasoning, nor would he listen to the voice in his heart which clamoured