Closely watched trains by Hrabal Bohumil 1914-1997

Author:Hrabal, Bohumil, 1914-1997
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Czech fiction
Publisher: Evanston : Northwestern University Press
Published: 1990-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

'Don't talk to me about nature, in nature everything shifts about too much,' cried the engine-driver, laughing, and he cast a glance tow^ards the goods w^agons and winked; and then they all burst out laughing. 'If J painted from nature I should have to reduce_ every thing. instead j)f_ enlarging^ It. Only once did I let myself tangle w^ith nature. 1 borrowed a stuffed vixen from a school, and arranged her among the underbrush in a wood, and before I could even begin to sketch her, up came a couple of dogs and tore the vixen to pieces! Three hundred crowns! Don't talk to me about nature!'

But Dispatcher Hubi^ka was gazing into the blue sky, and now, as I followed his gaze, I, too, could see what he was seeing there: our telegraphist Virginia stretched out across the entire heaven, and Mr HubiCka gently turning up her skirt, and then taking one stamp after another, and with long movements printing those stamps on our telegraphist's behind ... and I saw that the train crew and the engine crew, all of them were gazing at the sky, and all of them were seeing the same thing there, that beautiful incident on account of which they had made this halt here, under the pretence of raising a head of steam.

And when they'd done gazing at the sky they gazed in wonder at Dispatcher Hubi^ka, who was suddenly transformed into a handsome man. Even those wrinkles round his mouth, even his slightly bandy legs became him. I grasped that for women our dispatcher had an assured enchantment.

Tou know how I'm painting the sea from that picture postcard?' asked the engine-driver. This board I'm painting on, I fasten it in my vice. Then I pin the picture postcard to my work-bench, and I paint. But somehow I seem to be ham-handed. 1 can

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