at more jovial companionship and found her a bridegroom, Lieutenant František Karel Rudolf, Baron of Sweerts-Reist, and since the Count suffered from a wasting disease, the strictest discipline prevailed here at the castle … said Mr. Výborný, who was sweating so profusely that he removed his cap and carefully wiped the inside dry. And the faces of all three witnesses to old times suddenly brightened, they looked at me and laughed heartily, they were excited by the fact that I’d been listening in such astonishment, my eyes wide, to everything they had said, astonished by everything they knew, such wonderful men right here in the castle, in the retirement home, just like me and the rest. They all three raised their hands, extended a finger, a forefinger, and I had the impression that they were about to start beating time, that at any moment they would all three burst into song, but they were only counting off among themselves, the way children do with a counting rhyme, when one child has to leave the circle, and sure enough, they were counting off and when their fingers stopped at Mr. Výborný, he squinted his eyes and began … No one was allowed to leave the castle and go into town without permission, everyone had to be home by dark and boyish pranks were not tolerated, bandmaster and private tutor Tobiáš Seeman had entered all this in his journal … Mr. Výborný raised both his hands, opened his eyes and, with an elegant gesture, signaled to Mr. Kořínek, who announced joyfully … The court poetess Klimovská and her lover Hiëronymus, when their affair was discovered, each got fifty strokes of the cane in the presence of the whole court and were banished, Hiëronymus wearing only his undershirt … Even before he had finished his speech Mr. Výborný raised his hand and gave a sign to Mr. Otokar Rykr, who placed his hand on his chest and declaimed … Jiří Votava, Pařižek and Šimon would sometimes sneak into town in the evening, the next morning they would return from their noble pastime with bruised cheeks … This became known and they were given a sound thrashing by the Count. Šimon was not at all pleased about this, and received another thrashing for his insolence. The servant Simplex, a half-wit, got a beating when he refused to dance on command. And another because he had stolen a bite of cheese and a sip of wine. The Count gave a two-hour lecture to a huntsman from Kostomlaty because he had ruined the wild goose hunt. The Count forbade swearing, and any incorrigible blasphemer who took God’s name in vain was ordered to have his mouth stuffed with three spoonfuls of axle grease. If the Count saw someone lighting a fire at the game preserve, there was hell to pay. Sighing deeply, Mr. Otokar Rykr looked at his friends, he could go no further, one of them would have to continue. Mr. Výborný now gave himself a sign with both hands as he had to the others and went on cheerfully … Count Špork had noticed that one of the shutters on the town’s schoolhouse was hanging from a single hook and immediately ordered the schoolmaster to sit on a wooden donkey outside the old town hall while the people jeered at him, Father Pabienský chose to leave the little town rather than suffer any longer under the Count, and so the Count died here, in this castle, and on the thirtieth of March, seventeen-hundred-and-thirty-eight … Mr. Výborný paused, looked around, gave a sign with both hands and the three put their heads together and chanted, in chorus … death was the great leveler! And so they concluded their performance, these three witnesses to old times, their heads together, eyes closed, and I, who have acted for thirty years in the local playhouse and been onstage more than six hundred times with the Hálek drama club, I clapped my hands, because I’d never seen a performance quite like this, without a single rehearsal, just like that and just for me. When they lifted their heads and looked at me expectantly, I held out my arms and they all three grabbed my hand, they looked at me and beamed, as if they had found in me and because of me a reason to tell the story they had told so many times and hadn’t had a single reason to tell again, I was a source of inspiration and a good excuse for them to show off, to brag about what they knew … That evening, directly after supper, these witnesses to old times invited me to go with them for a walk. The wind shook the boughs of the trees and the branches rustled as if each twig had a flag fluttering on the end of it. When we walked through the gate and strode down the lane, the branches scraped together and intertwined and the wood moaned and groaned like old skiffs and fishing boats in a harbor. The wind blew off the river, carrying the acrid smell of chemicals. The three old men were silent because we were walking through a suburb, tall sodium lamps cast their yellow light over the streets and roads, the houses and passersby. But we ourselves were the only passersby, there weren’t even any cars or motorcycles. As we walked past the windows, I saw the blue glow of a television here and there through the curtains, they were probably broadcasting an important soccer match, because the viewers were shouting, thousands of viewers burst into cheers. When we reached Starý Vala, Mr. Kořínek led us down a quiet side street. Here, gas lamps glowed among the sheltering leaves, the low houses were separated from the road by tall fences, but you could still see the blue screens through the cracks. And below us flowed our dear old Elbe, she wallowed in filth, tin cans and broken glass glittered in her murky depths. And across from us stretched the town ramparts, every hundred yards was a crumbling tower, from here, Cavalry Street, the little houses looked as if they had been glued to the embankment, they were built right into the old red walls. Each house was different, probably because the people who had built them had been too poor to build them any other way. We walked on, slowly, here and there the light from the gas lamps illuminated a farmhouse, windows, terraced gardens, rabbit hutches, goat sheds, concrete patios, washhouses, trees and red-currant and gooseberry bushes, which looked as unhealthy as our dear old Elbe. We crossed the bridge and walked through the streets, into the wind, the streets were deserted, I looked all around but didn’t see a soul, not on Cavalry Street, not on Eliška Street, from house to house all you could hear was the jubilant voice of the sports commentator reporting on some international soccer match and the vocal cords of certainly more than thirty thousand spectators, voices that flowed together into one great roar. When we walked through an alleyway toward the main road, the wind, which blew through the square whipping scraps of paper into mounds and scattering the contents of overturned trash cans, now chased all that garbage through the alleyway toward us. We turned around and walked backward until we reached the main street and after a few steps the wind died down. And the three witnesses to old times threw their arms in the air, delighted, I thought, that we had scored a goal, because the cheers of the viewers and the commentator had united all the televisions in the little town, and every house and every household has a television, so that the whole town was united by the soccer match. And on we walked, our arms raised, into the empty square, the windows of Hotel Na Knížecí were dimly lit, in each window a television beamed brightly, as if the moon were rising in the distance, waiters in white jackets stood motionlessly and gazed at a television screen, but in the square there wasn’t a soul in sight. The plague column with the statue of the Virgin Mary was lit by four cast-iron lamps, gas lamps from the last century, at the base of the column were the statues of four saints who looked as if they were dancing. Mr. Rykr put on his pince-nez, smoothed down his pomaded hair, which clung to his scalp like a black bathing cap, and said in a low voice, his eyes on his two friends, who were standing by like two star witnesses sworn to testify, they listened intently, now and again they gave their friend a nod to let him know they agreed with what he had said … In the eighteen-sixties, spoke Mr. Rykr, one hand held lightly to his throat, this little town had three thousand five hundred residents and three hundred forty houses, it was a provincial town lying in the exceptionally fertile Elbe Valley, where ears of wheat ripened in the sun, and flax for linseed oil. Wagoners would come down from the surrounding mountains to stock up on barley, flour, millet, lentils and peas. In addition to the wealthy grain dealers, of which there were twelve in those days, there were also three tinsmiths, twenty-six tailors, two cutlers, five furriers … The other two witnesses to old times suddenly grew stern, they held up their hands and cried out one after the other … Six! Mr. Rykr thought about this for a moment and then corrected himself, blushing slightly … Six furriers, three potters … Mr. Kořínek held up his hand and interrupted in a high, jubilant voice … Potter Štolba had his pottery workshop right near the Bobnitzer Gate and one of his glazed milk jugs, decorated with scenes from rural life, has been preserved to this day … He stepped back, took a bow and waved to his friend to continue, I hung on their every word, I was amazed that I hadn’t known any of this, everything I heard was, at least for now, the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard before, because anything that had to do with our little town, anything anyone told me, I found beautiful … There were twenty-three grocers, nine merchants, four ropemakers, one of whose names we know, Kreibich, who lived in the miserable neighborhood of Purk in nearby Zálabí, one milliner, four cap makers, one comb maker, eleven bakers, two wheelwrights, two watchmakers, five tanners, one carpenter, one master bricklayer, one skinner, four coachmen, two pastry chefs … and then the swinging doors of Hotel Na Knížecí flew open and a group of youths came running out, their raised arms trembled with enthusiasm, they shook their hands in the air and ran around the square yelling Goal! We had scored, the waiter stood in the doorway, dressed in black, only his white shirt and turned-back white cuffs let everyone know that our boys had scored a goal, the youths ran past, they had hair like girls, they were drenched in sweat, and as they ran they once again gave us the joyful news, that Czechoslovakia had scored, and then they ran back into Hotel Na Knížecí and there wasn’t a soul left in the square, no one driving a car, no motorcycles. Mr. Kořínek, the whole time that the young men had been running around shouting, had held his arm in the air and when the last boy had disappeared, he picked up where his friend had left off and said, in a high voice … The most famous pastry chef of all was Jan Obst, who even appears in the memoirs of our poet Otakar Theer … He took a bow, stepped back and turned his head upward, in profile, and now it was Mr. Rykr who held forth … There was one lumberyard, three saddlers, all named Holomoucký, four cabinetmakers, nineteen shoemakers and equally as many taprooms, six of them for hard liquor, two buttermakers, two brickmakers, one soap-boiler, two bookbinders, one fisherman in Zálabí, two millers, Karel Radimský and Josef Mlejnek, three locksmiths, one milkmaid, three weavers, one wood turner, two hairdressers, one roofer, two wool dyers, five market vendors, one stove fitter, no less than five dry and fancy goods shops, two flour warehouses, one shop that sold kitchenware, the glazier was named Krása … Mr. Otokar Rykr intoned, clearly, solemnly, filled with emotion, like someone reciting a litany of Mary, the wind had swept the square so clean that the cobblestones gleamed like Mr. Rykr’s pomaded hair. Just then, coming out of Mostecká Street, were two huge women, giantesses, Uncle Pepin would have said, as big as Maria Theresa, they walked along, both with dyed blond hair swept into a high ponytail and tied with a long white scarf, their hair stuck up like plumes, as if the women were holding it up with their own hands … they were walking along and complaining bitterly, one of them even appeared to have tears in her eyes, they walked across the square, in front of them ran a little dog that kept turning to look back at them, but the giantesses kept on walking, both were smoking cigarettes, now and then the wind crumbled tiny sparks off the tips that flew on ahead until they went out. Then we began moving again, we crossed the square and walked through the streets, peered into the windows of the houses, in each one a blue screen beamed, the image on the screen trembled with the movements of the players, you could see the profiles of the people sitting in front of the television, here and there someone stood up, but his silhouette kept on watching, and someone else poured beer from a glass jug without taking his eyes off the screen, so as not to miss a single movement, a single pass. Mr. Kořínek spoke, in a high voice … A hundred years ago in our little town there were twenty pubs, ten bars and thirteen shops that sold beer. But the people also had other means of amusement. Traveling magicians, illusionists and theatrical troupes all came to our little town. On rare occasions there was even a magic lantern show, with painted slides projected on a screen. Later there were moving images, which caused quite a sensation. As early as nineteen-hundred-and-five there was a tent on Na rejdišti where scenes were projected from the Russo-Japanese War, and the audience cheered whenever the Japanese fled from the Russians. These shows always had a narrator, and sometimes musical accompaniment from the enormous horn of a gramophone. The images were called magical-spiritualistic. On Thursday May the third, eighteen-hundred-and-ninety-eight, one such performance was held in the Pelikán clubhouse by the Prague artist and cinematic pioneer Viktor Ponrepo. On Sunday November the fourth there was a similar performance at Hotel Na Knížecí by mind reader and hypnotist Schobl. By nineteen-hundred-and-eight you had Ponec’s traveling cinema on Na rejdišti and Korba’s nightclub the Royal Bishop, both had moving images … We walked along the Velký Val, the motionless water shone through the overhanging branches of the old chestnut trees like a black mirror, in which the gas lamps were reflected in a mesh of leaves, we walked past the tall, dismal-looking manor house, past its high walls, through the battered gate a large lantern shone down on piles of scrap metal, piles of discarded refrigerators, radiators, baby carriages, piles of defective radios and television sets. Mr. Václav Kořínek was moved. Above the streets the sounds from all the televisions murmured and mingled, shouts and cheers that blended with the encouraging cries of thirty thousand viewers, their voices murmuring like the sea, like the surf, ebbing and swelling rhythmically, above those waves the voice of the commentator triumphed, emphatic, enthusiastic, sometimes his voice merged with the screams and shouts, which merged with the sound of a military trumpet. Mr. Kořínek continued … When my grandfather was discharged from the army, he got married and worked as a farmhand in Michle, near Prague. In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-four he came here on foot with his wife and three young children, whom he transported in a baby carriage, underneath which he had tied a few pots and pans, he came here to work for Zedrich. Here too Grandpa was a farmhand and coachman … spoke Mr. Kořínek, and tapped on the crumbling wall of the manor house, which is now a collection site for scrap metal and old paper. And he went on … They were given a place to live in the servants’ quarters, in a large room with one family living in each corner. The stove stood in the middle and they all had to share it. These people had no theater, or magic shows, or any other form of entertainment. There were several of these rooms in the house, one next to the other. The people were contented, for the most part, they didn’t know much else outside of their daily grind, and since each of these farmhands was allowed to fatten up one or two hogs a year, slaughtering time was always great fun. And Grandpa always looked forward to the annual veterans’ reunion, where they met to discuss their uniforms, which had to be properly soldierlike, with a tunic, starred insignia and a