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“HARLEQUIN’S MILLIONS” BECAME THE RETIREMENT home theme song, perhaps because the doctor in residence, an old man himself, nearly eighty, was also passionate about the golden days, he adored “Harlequin’s Millions,” the tune was like therapy for him, sometimes when he was examining pensioners in his office, he drifted away, stopped the examination, once when he had placed that instrument for listening to my heart against my back, he drifted away on the sugary tones of “Harlequin’s Millions,” then suddenly said, after putting the rubber tubes in his ears … Hello, this is Dr. Secký, who’s this? The doctor had not only been retired for some time now, it was said that he suffered from as many illnesses as the whole retirement home put together, so once a year, when he didn’t know what else to do with himself, he went to a spa. On those occasions he was relieved by young Dr. Holoubek, who had curly hair and looked like Alexander the Great, so most of the old women were in love with him, you could tell, they put on their best dresses, every day they looked forward to being lucky enough to run into the young doctor, which was why they went to the little town to get their hair done, colored their cheeks with rouge and did their best to look artistic when sitting on the benches and armchairs, even those who had trouble walking felt, in Dr. Holoubek’s presence, compelled to walk as if there was nothing the matter with them. Dr. Holoubek won over the men by never asking about their illness, but about how much they smoked and how much they drank. And when a smoker told him truthfully that he smoked twenty cigarettes a day, the doctor replied enthusiastically that he himself smoked thirty, but that it would be wise if the pensioner tried to cut down to fifteen … And then the pensioner left his office feeling better than ever, went on smoking to his heart’s content and was glad Dr. Holoubek was such a fine physician. But his biggest fans were the drinkers. Whenever a drinker entered his office, the doctor knew right away what sort of man he was and said, before the fellow could utter a word … So, you drink six pints a day! And the pensioner would say he drank seven. That will never do, Dr. Holoubek exclaimed, I want you to cut back to five pints a day, followed by two large shots of hard liquor, preferably Russian vodka, but if you’re low on funds, try Czech vodka from Haná, though personally I’d recommend Prostějov rye, I myself drink a pint a day, but best of all, advised Dr. Holoubek, is a sour pickle dipped in rum, every morning, instead of breakfast. And he told everyone that the whole question of sickness or health was predetermined by genes, how many years a person would live was decided right there in his mother’s body, and smoking and drinking had no influence on this whatsoever, because a man who is genetically programmed to die at the age of forty will die at the age of forty, even if he doesn’t drink or smoke, while another man could smoke and drink as much as his budget would allow and still live to be seventy-eight. Old Dr. Secký smoked so much that no one ever saw him without a lit cigarette, even when he was writing out prescriptions, he was always smoking, his cigarette dangled from the right-hand corner of his mouth, so that his glasses, the right lens, had become completely brown from the smoke, the old doctor didn’t even have a cigarette case, he kept his cigarettes in his briefcase, it was his own private tobacco shop, people said he was so fond of smoking that he set his alarm clock for four in the morning so he could light a cigarette, and from that moment on he smoked one after another, he never coughed and was nearly eighty but alive and kicking, he had his hair died chestnut, and in his office he always had two cigarettes, one between his fingers and one burning on the nickel-plated display case where he kept his medicines. And so while the old doctor was taking the waters at Marienbad, Dr. Holoubek was giving moral support to all the inmates of the retirement home, and immediately you saw the men walking around looking more cheerful, they bought hip flasks and started each day with a large swig of Prostějov rye, the whole castle smelled of that rye from Prostějov, a pleasant fennel scent, and the women rubbed their cheeks early each morning with