Angrily, he slashes her cheek with a knife. ![]() Laca tries to kiss her, but she repulses him. Laca taunts Jenůfa with the posy which Steva had received from one of his admirers she declares that she will wear it with pride. Grandmother Buryja sends him away to sleep off his drunkenness. Steva tries to appease her by declaring that she is the prettiest of them all: he loves her ‘rosy-apple cheeks’. Jenůfa is horrified at this fateful delay. She issues an ultimatum: if Steva can prove his good intentions by not getting drunk for a whole year, then she will consent to the marriage. ![]() ![]() The Buryja family are all alike, she says: her own late husband (Steva’s uncle) was the same – a blond, handsome, drunken wastrel. If Jenůfa marries this spendthrift, she will spend the rest of her life scraping for pennies. Steva orders the musicians to strike up Jenůfa’s favourite song, and leads a riotous dance in honour of their forthcoming wedding. When Jenůfa accuses him of being drunk, he rounds on her: doesn’t she realise she is addressing Steva Buryja, a mill owner loved by all the girls? Look, he says, one of them has given him a posy of flowers. The new recruits arrive in high spirits, with Steva at their head. The foreman has heard that Steva has not been conscripted after all Jenůfa’s joy at the news is shared neither by Laca nor by her step-mother the Sextoness (Kostelnicka). Goaded beyond endurance by Laca’s jealous taunts, Jenůfa goes into the house, leaving the two men to comment on what a fine sister-in-law she will make for Laca. The mill foreman offers to sharpen it for him. Laca is trying to carve a whipstock but complains that the knife is blunt. Old Mrs Buryja praises her grand-daughter’s intelligence and common sense Jenůfa replies that her common sense has long since ‘flowed away like water’. The herd-boy, Jano, gleefully announces that Jenůfa has taught him to read. If Steva has not been conscripted, they will be able to marry at once, without revealing Jenůfa’s guilty secret. In the company of Steva’s jealous half-brother, Laca, and their grandmother (old Mrs Buryja), she is anxiously awaiting Steva’s return from the army recruitment board. Jenůfa is expecting a child by her cousin Steva, owner of the mill.
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