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a set of dentures more beautiful than my own teeth, that’s what Mr. Šlosar told me, and I had believed his eyes and his voice that assured me that false teeth gleamed brighter than the teeth he had pulled, why, in America it was even the custom that when you reach a certain age, you have all your healthy teeth extracted and instead of those you wore teeth you couldrinse under running water, because teeth with fillings just kept decaying and caused rheumatic diseases and heart problems. This had happened to me in the fall, Mr. Šlosar was in excellent spirits, I’d heard that the fall was paradise for dental technicians, because it’s hunting season, and the huntsmen in our little town celebrate the end of every hunt by drinking themselves silly, and early the next morning when one of them throws up in the ditch or the toilet bowl, he accidentally spits out his expensive dentures, so from September to New Year’s Mr. Šlosar has his hands full with all those teeth, he even has to work nights repairing and making new false teeth for his hunting clientele, while they have to pay three times more than what they’d paid for their dentures the first time around. And when my gums were healed, I had him make a plaster cast and a month later I went back to him, full of hope, I smiled, because I knew that by the end of the day I’d be wearing those porcelain teeth, that work of art, as Mr. Šlosar called them, those lilies of the valley that he would plant in my rosy gums. And Mr. Šlosar disappeared into his workshop and when he returned he was carrying something wrapped in cotton on a tin tray, he asked me to sit down in the chair, close my eyes and open my mouth, and he slid something cold and hard over my lower gums, my chin dropped under the weight of it, then he slid in something even more disgusting, some object thatmade me want to vomit, I started gagging, but the voice of Mr. Šlosar urged me to suck the silver plate to the roof of my mouth and wait until the dentures had warmed up a bit. And so I lay there, the woman who moments before had clapped her hands when she saw Mr. Šlosar walk in carrying his artificial remedy on a silver tray, now I had the feeling he had clamped my whole head in a vice, I felt myself turning deathly pale, my whole body and soul struggled against the humiliation and disgrace that had been shoved into my mouth, a hostile object in a cold, harsh cave, with cones of dripping stone above and below. I paid, Mr. Šlosar assured me it was only a matter of time before I was used to the new teeth, under no circumstances was I to remove that artifact of his, which he had labored over with such care, I even had to sleep with it in, something aging saleswomen and office girls did best, since they couldn’t possibly go to work without any teeth. He walked me all the way to the square, actually he had to hold me up, because when I left his dental studio it was like leading a widow away from a grave, he held me up and whispered in my ear that I shouldn’t run my curious tongue along the teeth, a curious and restless tongue could give you cavities, even cancer, one of his clients had contracted such a serious illness with her curious tongue that she’d had to be admitted to the psychiatric unit, the psychoanalyst had given her orders never, never, under any circumstances,to yield to her curious tongue, otherwise the cavities could turn into cancer, Mr. Šlosar said in parting that there were plenty of men, boorish types, who had a set of dentures made but only wore them once and then threw them in a drawer and trained their toothless gums on crusts of bread until they were beautifully callused, which was a perfect substitute for teeth, but still! I had always been an attractive woman, he told me, I’d never make a fool out of him and I’d wear my teeth at all costs. He said this in a confidential tone and then slipped his own dentures out of his mouth