Les préludes, and their trumpeting filled not only the dining hall but the entire castle. And I remembered that these trumpets and this passage from Les préludes, that during the Protectorate this was the theme song of the radio program that brought reports from the battlefield, where the Germans had defeated France and Poland, and the old men, who had been young in those days, were no doubt remembering that very same thing. Dr. Holoubek stood up, looked around uncomprehendingly, he was young, he undoubtedly couldn’t remember the theme song that had ushered in every Wehrmachtbericht … And suddenly the door flew open and the Sudeten German woman from Pecer burst into the dining hall, the orchestra had calmed down and the weary, conciliatory tones gave the impression that the parties had settled their differences, but then once again the trombones and horns and trumpets sounded, and the German woman from Pecer stood there, eyes shining, with a knotted tablecloth over her shoulder holding her most valuable possessions, she handed Dr. Holoubek her identity card and cried … Our boys have taken back Sudetenland, they’re marching into Pecer, permission to evacuate, sir! And Dr. Holoubek stood there and didn’t know what to say to the old woman, her eyes were still sparkling at the sound of the trombones and kettledrums and trumpets, and the whole symphony orchestra, but then the triumphant fanfare died away and once again you heard the slow, tender, dying melody that softly answered the question … What is life? the final tones were filled with reconciliation, with lost love regained … And so the melody ended as it had begun, though in a somewhat higher sphere … And the old lady, the German woman from Pecer, suddenly looked sad, her outstretched arm, which was about to hand over the identity card, now dropped to her side, she turned around and walked, disappointed, out of the dining hall to put her most valuable possessions back in the closet and night table … And in the dining hall all eyes were wide, the unblinking eyes of the pensioners stared into the very heart of the music, which had given each of them their own answer to the question … What is life? Even the old lady from Pecer, even that tune from the Wehrmachtberichten, those weekly radio bulletins during the war, they suddenly said more about the music than you would have expected … Dr. Holoubek picked up several more gramophone records and said … Friends, the music we have heard tonight has formed such a strong bond between us that I feel we’ve come to know each other better, so now, for you and you alone, I shall play Brahms’s Violin Concerto Opus Seventy-Seven, performed first by Georg Kulenkampff and then by our very own Váša Příhoda … He placed the needle on the record and sank down into the armchair, the old women listened like countesses to the violin concerto, as played by Georg Kulenkampff, who, with the delicate thread of his violin, stitched a wistful embroidery. The witness to old times Mr. Karel Výborný wanted to say something, but Mr. Kořínek put his finger to the other man’s lips and listened attentively to the violin’s lament, three Mariáš players tiptoed into the dining hall, they were holding their cards in their hands like three fans, they sat down to listen to the violin concerto. Georg Kulenkampff had already finished playing his version, now Váša Příhoda was playing the same yet completely different Concerto Opus Seventy-Seven by Brahms, and I heard and knew that Váša Příhoda had gained such power over his listeners that it made them moan, suddenly I could see Váša Příhoda before me, just as I had seen him years before giving a concert in our little town, with piano accompaniment, he didn’t have much hair, even in those days, but his face was soulfully beautiful, in those days he was quite short and fat, but because of that he and his violin seemed to form a single entity, he played in those days with his eyes closed, so that the slenderness of his spirit might be transported through his fingers to the bow and strings and ultimately to the ears of the listeners, who were profoundly moved, in those days I was filled not only with the beauty of that concerto, but also with a sacred trembling and joy that someone could make a violin concerto look and sound so beautiful. Now, here at the retirement home, Váša Příhoda moved the listeners so deeply that they couldn’t suppress their tears and sobs. Even Dr. Holoubek couldn’t bear it any longer, he jumped up, his white coat was pulled taut, the doctor clutched at his throat, something was choking him, something that couldn’t get out, he stood there like that for several moments, the old women rose from their chairs, terrified, and threw up their hands. The doctor staggered, ran to the window and tried to push aside the nylon curtains, he wanted to open the window, but the more he tried the more entangled he became in the curtains, Váša Příhoda stopped playing for a moment and the orchestra majestically, with powerful symphonic chords, repeated the violin phrase, Dr. Holoubek tried to push the curtains aside with both hands to reach the window handle, but they wouldn’t relent, and so, with one powerful conductor-like sweep of his arm, the doctor yanked the curtains off the wall, cornice board and all, and now nothing could keep the window from flying open so that the doctor could get some air. But then all the women proceded to do exactly the same thing the doctor had done, they threw open three more windows and greedily inhaled the cool evening air. But while they were leaning out the windows, Dr. Holoubek ran into the middle of the dining hall, once again Váša Příhoda raised his bow and played the next phrase, this phrase was more than Dr. Holoubek had bargained for, it was a kind of joyous devastation … The old women formed a circle around the doctor, who in a burst of passion had pulled out a fistful of his curls, then he picked up one of the Count’s chairs, a beautiful white chair, and smashed it against the carpet, breaking its legs, I saw some of the women pulling out tufts of their bleached blond hair and throwing them into the draft from the open windows, and then they too began smashing up the Count’s white chairs, bits of wood flew everywhere, one by one the chairs toppled over, but Váša Příhoda, tenderly and dreamily, went on embroidering that sweet, delicate song of melancholy love, he seemed to be playing from a great distance, as if to wound Dr. Holoubek even more deeply, the doctor now raised his hands, he held them in the air as if in prophetic rapture, intoxication … and then started running, he ran through the corridor weeping and wailing and rushed helter-skelter down the stairs, all the old women ran after him, some failed to take the bend, skidded on their slippers, didn’t get back up, but clambered down the stairs on their hands and knees, to the vestibule, where Dr. Holoubek had already run out the front door. I hurried after the women, not to find out what the doctor was going to do, but to see something I never would have believed could happen. But the white coat was already running in through the front door and Dr. Holoubek headed back upstairs, he took two, three stairs at a time, careful to avoid the old women lying here and there, but now the women were following him up the stairs, their hair had come loose, they had lost their handbags, hats, their eyes were wide with ecstasy, they hurried after the doctor, who stood in the middle of the dining hall again and spread his arms wide, threw them open, but after a few more notes of the violin concerto he could no longer control himself and to the amazement of all the men grabbed one of the broken white chairs and threw it out the open window, I saw how the broken legs seemed to hover briefly in the open window with the black air in the background and how only then the chair fell into the sand of the courtyard, and the women fought each other to get hold of the next chair and tossed it out the window too, and the old men looked uncomprehendingly at the frenzied women, the witnesses to old times shook their heads, whispered to each other, the cardplayers stood up and with an angry sweep of their hands they cursed everything they saw happening in the dining hall, then walked out into the corridor to continue their game of Mariáš, Dr. Holoubek went to the phonograph, put his ear against it, listened closely to Váša Příhoda and suddenly gave a loud shriek as if Váša Příhoda’s violin bow had sailed into the dining hall and gouged out his eye, because Dr. Holoubek clapped both hands over his face and ran back out of the room, with the old women close behind him, he ran as fast as he could, stumbling over the old ladies lying here and there on the stairs and in the vestibule, he leapt over them and ran out into the courtyard, then he ran through the park, leaping over the benches and knocking them down, the old women hobbled along after him, from there it was a sprint across the meadow to the fishpond, where Dr. Holoubek came to a standstill, the old women caught up with him and looked him in the face, from the open windows of the Count’s former banquet hall you could hear the powerful chords of the symphony orchestra … and Dr. Holoubek stepped into the shallow pond, he waded in up to his knees, the old women waded in after him, Dr. Holoubek bent over and scooped up a few handfuls of cold water and splashed it on his face, the old women bent over too and scooped up a few handfuls and pressed the water to their painted faces … And the doctor was suddenly wide awake, he trudged out of the pond and walked slowly, painfully slowly back toward the courtyard, in the meadow were sheaves of hay, all of a sudden Dr. Holoubek began dancing around them, he grabbed fistfuls of hay and threw them in the air to the rhythm of his galumphing wet shoes, the old women too surrendered to the dance and threw fistfuls of hay into the air, the doctor danced like a faun, from the open windows Váša Příhoda went on playing his violin concerto, the doctor began dancing more slowly, the broken white legs of the discarded chairs gleamed in the darkness, and the old women, dancing just like the doctor, moved to the rhythm of the Count’s broken chairs, in a slow-motion bacchanal, dancing nymphs, now retired, but filled with the same glow as in the old days, when all that was beautiful and wild was granted only to beautiful youths, demigods and gods who disguised themselves as rain, so that beautiful, credulous mortals were impregnated by a spring shower. Then the moon came out, Dr. Holoubek lay in the hay and gazed up at the sky, the light from the moon was intensified by the pallid glow of the military garrison somewhere beyond the enormous oaks and mountains, the sky was tinted green and pink, it hummed and murmured with neon and electric light, in the courtyard the broken legs of the Count’s chairs shone white, through the open windows of the dining hall Váša Příhoda kept playing his story of an unhappily happy love, and now it dawned on all the old women that the reason they had been powdering and perfuming themselves all week long and had their hair permed in the little town hadn’t been for the sake of the dashing young Dr. Holoubek, but for this moment alone, when they realized that only one thing mattered in this world, and that was love, unhappy love, the kind that meant everything to every young woman, and they knew that this composer had lived through and set down his own love story, even though it had ended long ago, even though it had happened to him when he was still young, and that he had only been able to compose this piece when he, too, was old, the memory of a love that was more than the love itself … somewhere in the distance this declaration rang out, that the memory of love is always stronger. The old women had grown more serious, more beautiful because of this violin concerto, which was still pouring from the open window, the mighty orchestra once again granted Váša Příhoda a few moments’ rest and took the theme, and now the music seemed to emanate from the whole castle, from the cellar up through all the floors to the attic and beyond, the music shimmered all the way to the crowns of the old trees, to the heavens, where it suddenly stopped, and once again Váša Příhoda beseeched his listeners, and himself, with the burning expressivity of his violin, which went on articulating what Brahms considered the most beautiful thing in his world, the most essential, and that was the beautiful misery of unrequited love. And I saw those statues in the castle park, illuminated by the pallid light of our Chicago, I walked from one statue of a young woman to the next, I heard Váša Příhoda and suddenly I knew what I hadn’t known before, that all these statues of young women were filled with wistful music, that these statues were drenched with the sorrow and bliss expressed by the violin, that these sandstone statues trembled with the happiness of a love that at the same time filled them with fear … And when the concerto ended, there was silence. Dr. Holoubek’s white coat glowed beside the old women lying on their backs in the meadow, the magic of the music slowly faded, the open window and broken white legs of the Count’s chairs glowed like a reproach. Dr. Holoubek sat up, looked around and must have had a terrible fright, he stuck his fingers in his hair, got to his feet and zigzagged down the path to the retirement home, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints, the old women awoke as if from a deep sleep, they stood up and couldn’t believe how happy they felt, one after the other they tiptoed into the corridor, they stood outside Dr. Holoubek’s door, they plastered the whole door with their ears and listened closely, then they rapped their wet knuckles lightly against the door panel, but there was no sound from inside … The next day, while the carpenter was repairing and gluing the six broken legs of the Count’s chairs, Dr. Holoubek again advised the nurses to go on playing “Harlequin’s Millions,” and instead of classical music he ordered soothing drinks from the pharmacy to help the pensioners sleep, he no longer advised them to drink Russian vodka or Prostějov rye. And before they went to bed they found a variety of colorful drinks