41 9
PARTISAN REVIEW
Then he rouses himself and continues.
-The story is very simple. We did not correspond during
this period and you don ' t know what happened to me. I will tell
you briefly; I'm only going as far as Lukova... From the
Gymnasium I entered the university to study medicine. I never
finished ...to some extent I hold friends and teachers responsible,
but mostly I have only myself to blame ..
.!
had to leave, became a
druggist, married, and with my dowry I established myself in a
shop selling pills and castor oil in a small town. But I did have
some luck: I had an honest father-in-law who gave me the dowry
money right after the wedding, my wife was good and beautiful,
the small town was tolerable .
...My wife ' s name was Maria. Even now I can see her
standing before me ... she turns to me helplessly from the mirror:
the golden tresses will not surrender to her despotic comb. The
curls scatter merrily in all directions...they refuse to remain sup-
pressed under the garland which was then in style.
"l
...Slender, and such kind, lively, laughing, sky-blue eyes.
...The practice didn't disturb us much .... the small town was
too poor, and a pharmacy without a doctor is not very useful. I
earned little ...it was really like Paradise .. .in the summer we
would stand on the veranda holding hands, looking into each
other's eyes, our lips touching!
...And what else should interest us? We had an income. Go
places? Where to? From our veranda we could see almost the en–
tire town... the low, crooked houses, with the tall, wide, black,
wooden attics which were bent, as if in pity, over the arches of
the inhabitants who lived upstairs in the poorer parts... as if they
meant to keep the shrunken, old, emaciated faces from the sun.
...The small town was once prosperous. The attics used to be
filled with produce and fruits; the marketplace with carts, with
peasants, with merchants; among the white aprons and the gray
smocks one could sometimes see a great landowner, too.. .at least
that's what they told me. But the highway and the train made
the town superfluous in the world of trade ; the streets are empty
now, the attics filled with decaying onions and moldy pieces of
cheese, the only legacy remaining from the good old days.
...Poor! It's hard to imagine how poor! Ten grain dealers
throw themselves on every measure of rye which a peasant
brings. This raises the price . Then they come to an agreement
