ment in the future. Horáček knew well that the girl he loved would have no future with him. He could not sacrifice her to a life of privations. He thought he was much less in love with her than he really was and he resolved to give her up. He had not the heart to renounce her in a direct manner. He wished to be repulsed, driven away. It was an unconscious desire to revel in undeserved pain. A means of accomplishing his end soon occurred to him. He wrote an anonymous letter in a disguised hand, relating the most shameful things about himself and sent the letter to the parents of the girl he loved. The girl would not believe the informer, but her father was more worldly wise, made inquiries of Horáček’s neighbors and heard from them that the young man had been a rascal from youth. When Horáček came to make a call a few days later, the weeping girl ran into another room and he was politely driven out of the house. The young girl became a bride not long after, and the rumor spread throughout Small Side that Horáček had been banished from the house for his rascality.
Now, indeed, Horáček’s heart ached to the breakingpoint. He had lost the only person who truly loved him, and he could not deny that it was through his own fault. He lost courage, his new occupation proved distasteful to him and he began to languish and fail visibly. His neighbors were not in the least surprised, for, said they, it was the natural consequence of reckless living.
