ridiculous I must be to this chit of a girl with such a past, with such experience and such yearnings in her soul. . .
I slunk round the kiosk only once again. I saw that Vlasta had again dyed her hair an infamously light colour. This was the last chapter. The end, in good sooth, the end.
After that I got a letter from her. A despairing letter. She supposed I knew all. She was a worthless wretch. But I should not desert her. And if I did not come, she would go back to the place where we had met for the first time. . .
I threw the letter into the grate and went nowhere.
Then after a few days, another one came. She wrote curtly and categorically that if I did not come that day or the next, then on the following day she would most certainly be in that house.
I did not go. By chance I discovered later that Vlasta was in that house. I was impressed by the fact that she had kept her word, but it did not disturb me. As far as my feelings were concerned, she had died long before.
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Two years later I was at "The Bear Cubs," a cabaret at Perštýn. Šmíd's company, which had just been got together, was giving a performance of vocal and instrumental music upon a small stage. Šmíd drew my attention to a new singer, petite and pretty, who was just about to appear,
