Miss Silver's Past by Josef Skvorecky

Author:Josef Skvorecky [Skvorecky, Josef]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-36417-3
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 1995-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

10 A dog’s life

And so on Sunday morning I lay in bed embraced by sorrow, pondering the situation. Or rather the ruins of the situation, for I had originally imagined everything quite differently. Next door, the landlady was listening to an inspirational programme on the kitchen radio, and through the wall I heard some comrade discoursing on love. The affair between me and my tawny rose – could that be categorized as love? I couldn’t find the answer, so I immersed myself in old memories. As a student I had once been in love with a girl with chestnut-coloured pigtails, but that was all I could remember about our romance. It was terribly long ago. I couldn’t remember what it felt like. I racked my brain, but the comrade on the radio kept breaking in. He was talking exaltedly, using words larger than any conceivable emotion. Desperately I attempted to concentrate my fuzzy brain and to embark on a dispassionate analysis. I had always been fond of detective stories and I read them avidly, even in periods when they occupied a prominent place on the list of Harmful Literature – somewhere between George Orwell and The Imitation of Christ. And so I was now forcing myself to play the role of a detective of love.

Take the facts, the pure facts. First of all, the fact of my sadness. I had recently been feeling awfully lonely – a feeling I had never had before. At worst, I used to be bored when I was alone, but now I longed to be near Lenka, to be with her all the time, and I longed to hear her pleasant chatter. Further, when I was in love with the pigtailed girl, it never occurred to me to sleep with her. I simply wanted to be near her. To stroll through the woods with her. To ski down the slopes of the Black Mountain in an icy wind, on that overcast wintry day long ago when everything was poetry. And now Nusle – the prosaic borough where Vera lived – had turned into a moonlit fairyland inhabited by a lovely mermaid. I was no longer preoccupied with sex. A week ago, yes. Even a few days ago, when her shoulder dipped out of her dress. Even last night, when I mused about sex in order to banish pangs of conscience. But not any longer. Not that I was opposed to sex – I simply didn’t think about it. So apparently I was in bad shape. It must be love.

I started to daydream. Cool analysis was replaced by a mental movie similar to the one I used to project on to the screen of my closed eyelids when I was very young and had trouble falling asleep. The film whirred noiselessly; my Lenka moved in slow motion closeups through the wonder-filled events of the past week. After the fiftieth rerun cold logic reasserted itself and the film faded. I became aware of the lofty voice coming

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