Karel Čapek

“ VOJTECH slept soundly (it was a November night when it is good for a man to be in his bed) when suddenly somebody knocked at his window with a stick. There was still a moment for the sleeper to finish his dream, in which the knocking played a certain rôle, both decisive and confused, and then he awoke. And again, again. The sleeper pulled the blankets over his ears and decided not to hear anything. But again the stick rattled on the pane in a sharp and peremptory manner. Vojtech jumped out of bed, opened the window, and saw, down below on the path, a man, muffled up to the throat. ”

“ To take such a good wife. And if she were to slave for you as if you were a tyrannical child. And if you were her little boy, because she is afraid of having children, and has no children. To have such a nest with pillows . . . as I have! Why man, you don’t know what happiness is!”
“You wrong your wife,” protested Vojtech, quietly.
“I really wrong her,” answered Karel. '“And more than that, I am quite tired of her. I’ve had enough of her. You can tell her that, but tell her also that I know how I wrong her. Tell her that she was a perfect example of an official’s wife. ”

“ And Vojtech, would you believe it? By degrees I became freer. When I saw her misery it was as though I had received wings. If to-day I could see all the horror and misery in the world I should be still happier and more certain of myself. I must recognize many more things because it makes a man free. Are you asleep?”
“I’m not asleep.”
“The more a man sees of misery the more he has in common with the world of men. I have found the feeling of unity. It is not altogether sympathy. It is enlightenment and ecstasy; not regret, but enthusiasm. You yourself . ”

“ He always used to have such passionate pleasures which he would overcome by studying. He was so ambitious and yet so rash. The young drinker who stopped drinking altogether one day because he had decided to do so. Or he would decide to get up at five o’clock in the morning. Then he would get up and study while Vojtech, voluptuous and warmth-loving as a cat, snored between the blankets. “Vojtech, Vojtech, get up, it’s seven o’clock.” Vojtech pretends not to hear. But meanwhile he hears the scratching of a pen on paper, and is rather pleased that some living being is so near to him. ”

“ Perhaps it was useful for the State; but the State is only something official . . . the State, perhaps, is the duty on wine, but it is neither the wine nor the vinarna, neither the scabby drunkard nor the diseased waitress. These are the facts, do you understand? Man must follow the facts and not only give orders. . . . In short, it became loathsome for me at once. Really, Vojtech, an official is a man who obeys and forces other men to obey also, and that is all he does. A higher official, as I was, doesn’t know at all whether men are ill or what is the matter with them. ”

“ But it is not really a dream (Vojtech smiled) it actually happened to me when I was perhaps in the Fourth Class: some boys of the Seventh Class, Karel’s school-chums, took me into a vinarna—let me see, it was Kislinger and Dostalek, but he’sdead. . . . Now Vojtech hears a woman singing: “And I am Esmeralda, the true daughter of the South, Esmeralda, Esmeralda . . .” He likes it, but he is afraid that they will turn him out, and makes himself small so that no one should see him. He hides himself behind the table and only looks at the girl who is serving the wine. ”

“ It seemed to me that they had all come there just as I had, the men and the prostitutes, all of them. Perhaps they will all commit suicide because they are so unhappy, and that’s the reason they went there. ”