At the village green a country festival is starting and the dancing villagers are singing a song Come, then Let Us All Be Merry. Pretty Marenka Krusinová is sad, for her parents invited the marriage broker and a bridegroom with his parents. But the girl is in love with Jeník, to whom she affirms faithful love. Once, Jeník`s mother died and the second wife of his father drove him from home out to the world. The marriage broker Kecal exalts to the Krusinas the bridegroom Vasek Mícha. However, Marenka refuses the new suitor and when she meets the dressed up but rather dim-witted Vasek she makes him believe that his future bride is going to poison him.