Life Is Elsewhere Read Online Free PDF Page B

recommended a rest. He told her about a boardinghouse on the edge of a small spa, surrounded by a river and lakes, which every summer attracted crowds of people who liked swimming, fishing, and boating. It was early spring, and she was enchanted by the thought of tranquil lakeside walks. But then she was afraid of the delightful dance music that, forgotten, lingers in the air of restaurant terraces like a poignant recollection of summer; she was afraid of her own longing, and she decided that she couldn't go there alone.
    Ah, of course! She knew right away with whom she would go. Because of the sorrow her husband had caused her and because of her desire for another child she had for some time nearly forgotten him. How stupid she had been, how badly she had treated herself by forgetting him! Repentant, she bent over him: "Jaromil, you're my first and my second child," she said, pressing his face to her breast, going on senselessly: "You're my first, my second, my third, my fourth, my fifth, my sixth, and my tenth child," and she covered his face with kisses.
     
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    A tall, gray-haired lady with an erect bearing greeted them at the railroad station; a sturdy countryman grabbed the two suitcases and carried them out to a waiting horse-drawn black carriage; the man got up onto the driver's seat and Jaromil, Mama, and the tall lady sat down on the facing passenger seats to be conveyed through the streets of the small town to a square bordered on one side by a Renaissance colonnade and on the other by a wrought-iron fence before a garden in which stood an old vine-covered chateau; then they headed down to the river; Jaromil noticed a row of yellow wooden cabanas, a diving board, white pedestal tables and chairs, a line of poplars in the background along the riverbank, and by then the carriage was already on its way to the scattered riverfront villas.
    In front of one of them the horse stopped, the man got down from his seat and picked up the two suitcases, and Jaromil and Mama followed him through a garden, a foyer, and upstairs to a room with twin beds placed against each other in the marital arrangement and with two windows, one of them opening onto a balcony facing the garden and the river. Mama went over to the balcony railing and took a deep breath: "Ah, how divinely peaceful!" she said and again inhaled and exhaled deeply, looking at the riverside, where a red boat moored to a wooden landing was rocking.
    That evening at dinner downstairs in the small dining room, she met an old couple who occupied another of the guest rooms, and every evening thereafter the murmur of prolonged conversation ruled the room; everyone liked Jaromil, and Mama listened with pleasure to his small talk, ideas, and discreet boasting. Yes, discreet: Jaromil would never forget the woman in the dentists waiting room and would always seek a shield against her nasty look; to be sure he would still thirst for admiration, but he had learned to gain it with terse phrases naively and modestly uttered.
    The villa in the peaceful garden; the dark river with the moored boat awakening thoughts of long voyages; the black carriage that stopped in front of the villa from time to time to pick up the tall lady who looked like a princess from a book filled with castles and palaces; the still, deserted swimming pool to which one could descend upon leaving the carriage as if passing from one century to another, one dream to another, one book to another; the Renaissance square with the narrow colonnade among whose columns men with swords once clashed—all this made up a world that Jaromil entered with delight.
    The man with the dog was also part of this beautiful world; the first time they saw him he was standing motionless on the riverbank, looking at the water; he was wearing a leather coat, and a black German shepherd sat at his side; their stillness made them look like otherworldly figures. The next time they met him it was in the same place; the man (again in the