by Karel Čapek
Mr. Tomšík did it with him, and never in his life had he felt so uncomfortably twisted up.
“You need to practice the position,” advised the expert. “And now watch! I bounce with my left leg forward — ” The expert bounced with his left leg forward, ran six steps, pushed off, and jumped, his arms circumscribing a beautiful circle. After which he dropped elegantly to a squat with his arms stretched out in front of him. “That’s how it’s done,” he said, and he hitched up his pants. “Do that exactly the way I did.”
Mr. Tomšík looked quizzically and unhappily at Mr. Vojta. Do I really have to do that?
“Once more then,” said Mr. Vojta, and Mr. Tomšík twisted himself into position, as directed. “Now!”
Mr. Tomšík got his legs mixed up: he started his run with his left leg, but perhaps that didn’t matter. If only I can do that squat for him and stretch my arms forward, he thought anxiously. He very nearly forgot to jump, then suddenly he pushed off — now for the squat, was the next thought that flashed across his mind. He jumped to the height of perhaps two feet and fell back to the ground some five feet away. Then he hastily bent his knees in a squat and stretched out his arms.
“But Mr. Tomšík,” Mr. Vojta called out, “you didn’t fly! Please, once more!”
Mr. Tomšík got underway once more. He jumped only four feet off the ground, but he landed in a squat and stretched out his arms. He was sweating profusely by now, and his heart was in his mouth. God, just let them leave me in peace, he thought in total misery.
He jumped twice more that day; after that, they had to call it quits.
From that day on, Mr. Tomšík was no longer able to fly.
May 1, 1938
The Anonymous Letter
So, fancy what happened to me the other day, said Mr. Diviš. You see, for years now I’ve been receiving these, um, anonymous letters. Probably — given the writing style, paper, and so forth — they’re all from the same four people. Two of them use a typewriter and two write by hand; one of the latter has atrociously poor spelling, and the overall impression is of someone scribbling furtively behind a basement door. The second of the two, however, writes in nothing less than a calligraphic hand, with the most artistic, meticulous penmanship — it must be a horrendous amount of work for him. Why these four picked one me, exactly, I couldn’t begin to guess; I don’t meddle in politics at all, unless I’m writing articles for the newspaper about the needs and aims of our dairy farms and cheese-making industry. You know how it is: once you become the least bit of an expert in something, you can’t help but, in your own small way, try to rouse the nation’s interest as well as inform our socially-conscious public and the like. I’d never have thought that suggestions for improving the cheese industry could provoke such feelings of outrage. But one never knows.
One of my most persistent anonymous-letter writers is apparently a butcher fighting on behalf, or so he thinks, of his trade association. After each of my articles he sends me a typewritten letter in which he accuses me and my cheese of stinking up the socially-conscious public and trying to undermine the strength of our nation. The second anonymous typist, who uses an old Remington, usually puts me on notice that it’s common knowledge I’m paid millions by certain interests for my idiotic articles, that I’ve already bought three huge country estates with my thirty pieces of silver, and that I’m trying to hoodwink our citizens into squandering their hard-earned pennies swigging my watered-down, typhus-ridden milk. As for the handwritten letters, the basement scribbler writes incredibly vile things about my wife; well, I simply can’t repeat them, but . . . I’ll say this: it’s monstrous what hatred and viciousness there is in people sometimes. I have a feeling it’s some upper-crust society woman who knows us and dictates the letters to her maid or laundress. The fourth and last, the calligrapher, addresses me menacingly as “Sir!” and demands categorically that I quit writing articles about milk this very minute; he says the nation has other problems and will quite rightfully dispose of those who deliberately divert its attention with materialistic garbage and shatter its idealism. You’ll be among the first to hang from a lamppost, my artistic letter-writer informs me, just as soon as our people open their eyes to the deceptions and shameful intrigues in which they’ve been entangled by traitors and hirelings like you and your kind, and so on and so forth.
It doesn’t matter all that much; most anonymous letters, you know, are written in very much the same vein, as if they’d been copied from some made-to-order variation on How to Write Love Letters or The Model Correspondent. I’m more interested in who is writing them: probably some otherwise well-meaning individual, I used to think, who pours out his personal feelings in this painstaking fashion and wants to take revenge on me for something — for what, I have no idea — but in all probability, I felt, it’s someone I know or with whom I’ve had dealings of some sort at one time or another. The truth is, I hate to write letters myself; that’s why I think a normal person must be incredibly motivated to sit down with a piece of paper and actually write a letter to someone.
As I say, it’s been going on for years, but it’s curious that in these recent unsettled times the letters have increased remarkably in both number and animosity. The belligerent butcher, or whoever he is, has begun using the intimate form of address, and he writes things like: “You fat pig, I’ve got a sharp knife waiting for you.” The one with the Remington now signs his letters “from the League for Order and Purity,” and he warns me to say good-bye to my huge country estates — you know, when it comes to farmland, all I’ve got is a box of geraniums by the window — because, he goes on, working people already have passed sentence on parasites like me. Those coarse, ungrammatical letters about my wife have become even more raw, and the calligrapher holds me personally responsible for all the dreadful things that have happened here, and then his letters end with: “Cut and run for the border, you no-good bum, before it’s too late! This time I’m signing myself: Furious.” Of course there was a great deal more, but it was written in the same forceful tone.
I think that chaotic times like these heighten the graphomania in people and the need to somehow make their opinions known; the only thing that surprises me more is how a thoroughly dull individual like myself could be of such passionate interest to anyone. I suppose there must be something intensely personal behind it . . . maybe I’ve offended someone or I’m standing in someone’s way — how little a man knows even about his friends! But you know, it’s a bit embarrassing when a man finds himself staring with a certain measure of uncertainty at every person he greets: Dear friend, surely it isn’t you?
In any event, late the other afternoon I’d been strolling around the streets for about an hour; I’d put everything else out of my head and was merely noting that, by and large, people seem to be going about their lives these days much as they did in times that weren’t so historical. I don’t even know the name of the street I was on — a quiet street, somewhere over near Grébovka. Limping along in front of me was a rather short man in a cape — he must have had a devil of a cold from the way he kept coughing and spitting and rummaging around in his pockets for a handkerchief. While he was searching, an envelope fell from one of his pockets, but he didn’t notice and kept on walking. I picked it up and took a quick look to see if it was worth chasing after the man to return it. It was addressed to me, and it was written in the artistic hand of my fourth anonymous correspondent.
So I quickened my step and called out, “Hey, sir, isn’t this your letter?”
The man came to a halt and searched through his pockets. “May I see it?” he asked. “Yes, that’s my letter. Many thanks, sir. Thank you most kindly.”
I tell you, I stood there as if I’d been struck dumb. You know I have a good memory for faces, and yet I’d never seen this man in my life. He was such a puny little runt, with a horribly dirty collar, trousers frayed at the hem, a crooked cord instead of a tie — believe me, a sorry sight. He had an Adam’s apple that twitched up a
nd down his neck, watery eyes, an oily bump on his face, and if all that wasn’t enough, he had something wrong with his leg —
“I thank you most kindly, sir,” he said with almost pathetic courtliness, and he doffed his hat in the old-fashioned manner. “It’s extremely good of you.” Then he waved his hat in my direction once again and, with a sort of curious dignity, hobbled off down the street.
I’m telling you, I stood there on the spot and stared after him with my mouth hanging wide open. So this is my anonymous letter writer! Someone I’d never met in my life and I’d never had a thing to do with. And this man not only writes me, but sends his letters by special delivery! For heaven’s sake, what did I ever do to deserve this — and how did he come to be doing it? I used to think I had God-knows-what kind of secret enemy, and all the while — Well, of course, it must have cost the poor fellow a bundle of money! I wanted to run after him and demand to know his name, but somehow I couldn’t; I simply turned on my heel and slowly wandered back home. You know, I suddenly felt terribly sorry for him. I thought, since it gives him so much pleasure — But if only that idiot wouldn’t spend so much on postage! I could have told him: look here, fellow, it’s all right with me if you send your letters collect; you put all that effort into penmanship and money into postage, there’s no need to do that —
The next morning I received the letter, sent by special delivery, still smudged from having fallen on the wet sidewalk. There were horrible things in it: lining me up against a wall, hanging me from the nearest tree, and who knows what else. Except it only made me sad. You know, he’s such a miserable, seedy old wretch; how things must gnaw at that poor soul; just imagine how awful, how grotesque his life must be . . .
November 6, 1938
Ten Centavos
Well, it didn’t happen here, of course; newspapers here don’t write that way, and here public opinion, people, streets, however you want to put it, don’t do an about-face so readily. It happened in Lisbon during one of their political upheavals; one regime fell and another seized control of the government, just as happens, eventually, in other lands. Senhor Manoel Varga didn’t worry too much about it, because politics wasn’t his field; he was mildly vexed, at most, and he sighed over the anxiety that would once again monopolize people’s thoughts and distract them from things which, in his opinion, were more useful and also more high-minded. That is to say, Senhor Varga loved tranquillity and his work; he was president of the Association for Popular Education, and he firmly believed that adult education opens a nation’s gates to prosperity and freedom, that in work and knowledge lie our salvation and so on. That very morning he had been attending to correspondence concerning the highly popular astronomy course in Monsars and lectures in the city of Monra on the hygienics of breastfeeding, when his housekeeper returned from shopping, her eyes rolling and her face conspicuously red.
“That does it, sir!” she announced, and she hurled a crumpled newspaper on the table. “I’m leaving here right now, sir! I’m a respectable woman, and I won’t work in a place like this!”
“What? What’s all this?” Senhor Varga exclaimed in surprise, and he glanced down through his glasses at the newspaper. For a split second he froze; right there on page one, in bold type, was the headline: “Hands off, Senhor Manoel Varga!” Senhor Varga couldn’t believe his eyes. “Where did you get this, woman?” he demanded.
At the butcher’s, she said. The butcher had showed it to her, and they were all talking about it. And they were all saying that they shouldn’t put up with it and that a rotten traitor and contemptible dog like Senhor Varga shouldn’t even be allowed to live on their street.
“All who?” Senhor Varga asked uncomprehendingly.
All of them, she said: the ladies and maids, the butcher and the baker — “And I’m not staying here a minute longer,” she howled passionately, angry tears streaming down her face. “Folks will come and burn this place down for sure — and rightfully so! It’s all right here in the newspaper, who’s doing what and just what kind of person he is . . . And to think I’ve served somebody like that so faithfully!”
“Please, leave me alone now,” Senhor Varga said dejectedly. “And if you want to go, I won’t detain you.”
Only now could he concentrate on the lead story in the newspaper. “Hands off, Senhor Manoel Varga!” Perhaps it’s some other Varga, the thought struck him and, momentarily relieved, he read on. No, it was about him after all. “The people are holding you to account for your ‘adult education’ activities, Senhor Varga, with which for years you have corrupted the soul of our nation! The people cannot stand your foul, alien ‘cultural improvement,’ which sows nothing but moral ruin, weakness, and social decay. And they will no longer allow you to continue spreading your subversive ideas, under the pretext of ‘useful knowledge,’ among ordinary, unsuspecting young people and adults — ”
Overcome by sadness, Senhor Manuel Varga let the newspaper fall from his hands. He could not grasp, somehow, what was subversive about popular astronomy or hygienic breastfeeding, and he didn’t even try. He simply believed in cultural improvement, and he loved people; that was all there was to it. So many people came to those lectures, and now they were all reading that ‘the people’ couldn’t stand them and were spurning them with revulsion. Senhor Varga shook his head and forced himself to read on. “If the authorities fail to take steps against the havoc you are wreaking, our aroused people will take the law into their own hands; and when that happens, watch out, Senhor Manoel Varga!”
Senhor Manoel Varga meticulously reassembled the newspaper and smoothed it out. Then that’s the end, he thought. He was completely at a loss as to how things could have changed so suddenly in the world and in people, and how what was good yesterday had become, at the flick of a wrist, harmful and subversive today. Still less was he able to comprehend how quickly so much hatred had arisen in people. God in heaven, so much hatred! Old Senhor Varga shook his head again and stared out the window at the outskirts of Sao Joao. The sight was as lovely and dear to him as ever; he could hear the merry shouts of children and the barking of dogs — He removed his glasses and slowly polished the lenses. So much hatred, dear God! What on earth had come over people? It was as if everyone and everything had changed overnight. Even my housekeeper: she’s been with me for so many years . . . Despondently, Senhor Varga thought once again about the loss of his wife. If his late wife were still alive — would she too, perhaps, have changed?
Senhor Manoel Varga gave a small sigh and picked up the telephone. I’ll call my old friend Souza, he thought; perhaps he can advise me —
“Hello, Varga here.”
Momentary silence. “Souza. What do you want?”
Senhor Varga gave a slight gasp. “Merely . . . to ask you something. You read that article — ”
“I did.”
“Please . . . what should I do about it?”
Brief hesitation. “Nothing. You must realize that . . . that circumstances have changed, have they not? Well then. Accommodate yourself to them.” Click.
Senhor Manoel Varga could not even locate the telephone to hang up the receiver. This was his best friend. How things had changed! Accommodate himself — but how? How can a man accommodate himself to the fact that people hate him? Perhaps he, too, must begin to hate, is that it? And how can he accommodate himself to hating when his entire life has been spent teaching people to love one another?
Well, I must accommodate myself — at least officially, Senhor Varga decides; and he sits at the table and painstakingly composes a letter stating his resignation from the presidency of the Association for Popular Education. In view of circumstances having changed and so forth. He sighs and fetches his hat; he will deliver the letter himself, the sooner to get it over and done with.
He walks along his street with the feeling that even the houses are looking at him differently, almost with hostility, perhaps also in view of circumstances having changed. No doubt the neighbors are saying, “There goes
that Varga, who’s corrupting the soul of our nation.” Maybe even now someone is painting it on his gate — it wouldn’t be surprising. Senhor Varga walks quickly, this too in view of circumstances having changed. Perhaps I’ll have to move somewhere else, he thinks, sell the house and . . . in short, accommodate myself, right?
Senhor Varga climbs on the streetcar and seats himself on a bench in the corner. Two or three people on the car are reading that very same newspaper. Hands off, Senhor Manoel Varga! If they recognize me, Senhor Varga thinks — that man who’s scowling will probably point me out: “See him? It’s that Varga who’s spreading subversive ideas! And he’s not the least bit ashamed to still go out in public!” — I’ll probably have to get off the streetcar, Senhor Varga speculates, and he senses hostile eyes behind him . . . Good heavens, the way people’s eyes can express hatred!
“Ticket, sir.” The conductor is suddenly standing over him, and Senhor Varga almost jumps out of his skin. Then he pulls a handful of coins out of his pocket, and as he does so, a ten-centavo piece slips from his hand and rolls out of sight under the bench.
The conductor looks around for the coin. “Never mind,” Senhor Varga says quickly, and he counts his small change; he doesn’t wish to attract attention in any way.
The scowling man lays down his newspaper and bends over, looking under the bench for the ten-centavo piece. “Really, sir, it’s not worth it,” Senhor Varga assures him somewhat nervously.