JIRI KLOBOUK
257
cane, sits down with obvious relief, and in doing so tears a patch on
his left knee for the hundredth time. But this is nothing when you
consider that just the other day a bird flew about our heads, one of
those extinct pterodactyls, and from its beak fell an eye which once
belonged to a fish, living at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It rolled
down the roof of a neighboring house and lodged in a gutter pipe.
There the whole night long it shone like a pearl.
The houses here, though not completely dilapidated, are very
old and have certainly witnessed a great deal. They have seen Dal–
ibor-from-Kozojed led past in shackles on his way to the central
prison in the new circular tower behind the Burgrave's house above
the Stag's Ditch . Every building is decorated with a relief or pos–
sesses a balcony of historical value. In other times passers-by would
tremble at the thought of dove droppings falling on some valuable
statue . In my enchanted eyes Uphill Street is like a vein pulsing in
my neck, and the slightest pressure applied anywhere on it would be
fatal. I know this little corner of the city in every season of the year,
in spring when the sun is still weak but the surrounding gardens are
already fragrant, and during a dark winter night when a mournful
wind whistles through the icicles. As I sit at my piano or convulsively
finger the bow of my violin, I gaze at my dear street with its door–
ways, stairways and railings bathed in the serene flow of gas lamps. I
no longer count every chimney, tower or weather vane as I did
when, as a country lad , I first rushed breathlessly into the capital
and stood motionless on street corners for hours on end. I have a
much better memory for these: there are four thousand six hundred
and sixty-three of them, and that's only as far as I can see in rainy
weather. The slate roofs get grayer every day, but that still doesn't
mean the world is coming to an end. The air used to be cleaner,
that ' s for sure .
It
used to be like healthy mountain air compared to
what we breathe now . I kept the window wide open, sometimes even
in February , since I prefer freezing to denying my lungs their due .
But times change, and sometimes I wake up without knowing why,
and when I walk up the steps with my milk-can, I try to figure out
each time I rest how many steps are left to the attic . And when I let
down the cracked blind at night, I only do it so I can sleep a little
longer than the night before.
So that ' s what my forty-sixth birthday was like. Sitting in the
evening by the window and meditating about all this.
If
you were to
imagine an actor on a stage exploding before your eyes into count–
less minute particles which heal your sore feelings and demoralized
