Harlequin's Millions Read Online Free Page B

the eye of the stone beauty, it went through her head like a pin through a Jugendstil hat … I walked back, I looked down at my rhythmically moving shoes, shuffling along the sandy path, I walked with my head bent, past the statues of the next few months, but I didn’t look up, I knew that they would wait for me here and that I still had many days ahead, days in which I would find the strength to look at everything the Baroque sculptors had carved out of sandstone for Count Špork, and for me … When I stepped over the trampled wire fence, like a thief in the night, on my way back to the retirement home, I heard a deafening explosion in the skies above the little town. As always, I couldn’t help thinking that the brewery had collapsed, that Saint Giles Cathedral had come tumbling down, but then I thought that perhaps it was the castle, I waited a moment, perhaps two jet planes had collided above the retirement home, after a while pieces of metal would fall one by one out of the sky and bury the castle and the park with the sandstone statues … But all was still, it had been nothing more than the air imploding behind the plane, which had flown at great speed through the sound barrier … And I quickly took three steps back and became aware of a higher warning system, the gutter, which had been danglingfrom the side of the castle, was now torn off and landed horizontally on the ground, where it bounced once or twice and then grew quiet and peaceful, stretched out on the ground like a snake that had died long ago.

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    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â A FTER A MONTH ’ S STAY AT THE RETIREMENT HOME , I suddenly felt disappointed. This was because I had always thought of myself as somewhat different from the rest, I wanted to be the only one who snuck out to the castle park, had a secret, did something forbidden, went from statue to statue, afraid someone might see me. But then I saw that anyone who wanted to could step over that fence, that the wire fence was really only there to alert the pensioners to the fact that behind the fence was a lost paradise. And so I very often ran into residents of the castle there, strolling around, and after a week I could see that they weren’t really looking at the statues, they were just strolling around to kill time, to sit on the benches hidden under the beeches, sometimes they chatted, but mostly they said nothing and just staredinto space, and when the sun shone, suddenly every pensioner was a true sun-worshipper, they all stretched their legs, closed their eyes and turned their heads to the rays of sunlight, they’d sit like that for hours, legs stretched, listening closely as the warm sunlight penetrated the skin of their wrinkled faces, in that light, in that glow, they forgot all about their sad fate. I noticed that some of the pensioners preferred to sit with their backs, their spines, to the sun, the sun warmed their backs and every so often they groaned, as if the sun were rubbing them with camphorated oil and liniment. And then one morning I met three pensioners there, they were strolling about in silence, now and then they stopped, gave each other a certain look, as if they understood each other, sighed, and walked on. I knew them from the little town where time stood still, but I’d never had a reason to chat with them, the always elegant Mr. Otokar Rykr, his pince-nez in his hand one minute, on the base of his nose the next, workshop foreman Mr. Karel Výborný, with the same kind of cap that drivers wore, and Mr. Václav Kořínek, railroad engineer, who was constantly raking back his graying hair with widespread fingers. I looked up at Count Å pork’s coat of arms, at the seven plumes in two rows, the coat of arms above the castle gate that seemed to be floating toward the balustrade. As these silent old men walked past me, deep in thought, I turned around and said, I’ve heard that youare