Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age Read Online Free PDF Page B

notary’s son he wore a sky blue jacket and black trousers with a red silk stripe down the side, no army could hold a candle to ours when it came to looks, your soldiers today they’re a bunch of sad sacks compared with us, our waists laced in like the ladies’, and when we came home on leave the ladies would piss olive oil they were so jealous of our corsets, every member of the medical corps had two rows of buttons, gold buttons, and a gold collar, silk-lined, and the head doctor wore special braiding and a collar made entirely of gold, magnificent, the only possible competition would be nature wanting to show what it could do and coming up with another kingfisher or parrot, but besides pomp and beggars the monarchy was big on discipline, it drove the soldiers up the wall, the torture, the beatings, the prisons and chains, a regular concentration camp it was, but the army doctor, the notary’s son, he was as proud as proud could be, he went to war the way beauties go on walks, but then the most terrible thing happened, one soldier murdered another for the money his mother sent to him, and the murderer poured a whole bottle of brandy down the corpse’s throat to make it look like he was drunk, and the doctor thought he was and gave the body a kick, but another soldier saw the murderer do it and turned him in, and they threw him in jail, and he strung himself up with a towel, and at the funeral his mother nearly cracked the church open with her wailing, but she paid what had to be paid and he was buried in the churchyard even though he’d committed suicide, only they had to do it at night, hush-hush, off to the side, whereas when they bury you at the front, young ladies, they toss you anywhere and you’re gone for good, like a lost handkerchief, and would you believe it? Anna Nováková says in her dream book, holding a dead man’s watch means a wedding and being locked up in an insane asylum means a great fortune awaits you! but you’ll never guess what happened to our stationmaster, who raised turkeys and was always worried his assistant would forget to switch the tracks for the express train and always went himself and checked, well, one day the express train ran into a whole flock of his turkeys, that was a sight, let me tell you, you know how express trains speed along so fast they blow bits of paper and twigs behind them, well, this one was all turkey parts, and the assistant stationmaster at the next station got three thighs on his head and the stationmaster at the station after that thought he’d had a featherbed emptied on him, those express trains are really something when they barrel through a station, the Libice stationmaster had his application for promotion torn out of his hand and couldn’t put on his new uniform for two whole weeks until they finally found the application five stations away, then there was the woman on her way home from a pig feast who walked along the tracks to save time, and when the train ran over her it dragged her soup bucket to the next station and splashed the stationmaster with barley, then there are the people who sit next to the tracks in their little huts in the middle of the fields and crank the barriers up and down, you can’t even see them at night, but they’re there, shining their boots and brushing off their uniforms and standing at the barrier, saluting, the express train rushing into the night, covering them with dust, streaking them with mud, but there they stand at attention saluting it, the last remnants of the monarchy, those people, the monarchy had its Lukases, who made garrison inspections without beatings or even punishments, and its Zelikowskis, who were first-class swine, Zelikowski not only beat his men, he had them tied to trees, officers mostly, so they’d know how things were supposed to look when he rode along and the troops had to go into columns or echelon formation or single or double file or form a