by Karel Čapek
High up on the pile of planks a little chap is sitting; the planks are piled up as high as the tops of old plum-trees, you can catch them with your hands and in a moment you are sitting in the forked branches. This is higher still, somehow it is a dizzy height; now the little chap doesn’t belong to that joiner’s yard, he has a world to himself, which is connected with that other world by a single stem. It’s slightly intoxicating; daddy and mammy can’t come here, not even Frank the workman; and the little chap sips for the first time the wine of solitude. There are still other worlds that the child has for himself alone; for instance, somewhere among the longer planks there are shorter ones, too, and a tiny cave is formed, it has its ceiling and walls, it smells of resin and warm wood; nobody would squeeze himself in there, but there is room enough for the little chap and his mysterious world. Or chips are stuck into the ground like a fence, the enclosure is strewn with sawdust, and into it a small handful of coloured beans are stuck; these are hens, and the biggest bean, the speckled one, that’s the cock. It’s true that behind the joiner’s yard there is a real fence, and behind it real hens cluck with a real golden cock who stands on one leg and looks round with flaming eyes, but that’s not the thing; the little fellow crouches over his tiny heap of illusions, sprinkles sawdust about, and cries in a low voice: Chuck, chuck, chuck! That is his farmyard, and you grown-ups must make believe that you don’t see it; you would destroy its charm if you looked.
But the grown-ups are good for something after all: for instance, when midday rings out from the church tower the workmen stop cutting, pull out the saw from the half-cut plank, and sit down squarely on a pile of planks to eat. Then the little fellow scrambles up Frank’s strong workman’s back and sits down astride on his damp nape; and that is his presumptive right, and it is part of the glory of the day. Frank is a dangerous fighter, and once in a row he bit somebody’s ear, but the little fellow doesn’t know that; he adores him for his strength and for the right to be enthroned on his neck in his midday triumph. There is another workman, he’s called Mr. Martinek; he is quiet and thin, his moustache hangs down and he has beautiful large eyes; the little chap is not allowed to play with him because they say that he has consumption; the lad doesn’t know what that is, and he feels some sort of embarrassment, or fear, when Mr. Martinek looks at him in a friendly and beautiful way.
And there are expeditions into THEIR world, too. Mother says: “Sonny, run and fetch some bread from the baker for me.” The baker is a fat man, sprinkled with flour; sometimes one can see him through the glass in the shop running round the tub, mixing and kneading the dough. Who would have thought that of him, such a big, fat man, and he runs round and round till his slippers smack on his heels. The youngster takes the loaf home, still warm, like a sacrament, his bare feet sinking into the warm dust of the road, and he sniffs in rapture the golden aroma of a loaf of bread. Or to go to the butcher’s for meat; terrible gory pieces of flesh hang from hooks; the butcher and his wife have shiny faces; they hack through pink bones with a cleaver and smack goes the meat on to the weighing machine it’s a wonder they don’t cut their fingers off! But it’s quite different at the grocer’s: there it smells of ginger, gingerbread, and of suchlike things; his wife talks gently in a low voice, and she measures out spices with tiny weights, and for one’s trouble you get a couple of walnuts, one of which is usually bad and shrivelled up, but that’s all the same, if only it has two shells—at least you can stamp on it and make it bang.
I remember these people, now a long time dead, and I should like to see them once again as I used to see them then. Each one had his own particular world, and in it his own mysterious work; every craft was as if a world for itself, each of different material, and with a different ritual. Sunday was a strange day because then the people didn’t wear their working clothes or have their sleeves rolled up, but they had black clothes and they all looked almost like one another; they seemed to me somehow strange and unfamiliar. Sometimes father used to send me with a jug for beer; while the landlord filled the misty jug with froth, I glanced furtively into the corner; there at the table the butcher, the baker, the barber, sometimes the gendarme, fat, with his coat unbuttoned and his gun leaning against the wall, were sitting and talking with loud voices and much noise. It was strange for me to see them away from their yards and shops; it struck me as rather indecent and untidy. Now I should say that I was troubled and mystified when I saw their closed worlds intercross. Perhaps that is why they made such a noise, because they were disturbing some order.
Everyone had his own world, the world of his craft. Some of them were taboo, like Mr. Martinek, like the parish idiot who bellowed in the street, like the stone-mason who lived in silent isolation because he was a spiritualist and reticent. And among those worlds of the grown-ups the youngster had tiny reserved worlds of his own; he had his tree, his enclosure of chips, his corner between the planks; these were the mysterious places of his deepest happiness, which he shared with no one. Squatting on his heels and holding his breath—and now it all merges into one great and agreeable roar; the banging of the planks and the damped tumult of the crafts, there is tapping at the stonemason’s, cans rattle at the tinker’s, the anvil rings at the smithy, someone is hammering a scythe, and somewhere there is a baby wailing, shouts of children in the distance, the hens cluck excitedly, and mother calls from the doorstep: “Where are you?” You call it a small town, and yet it is a mass of life, like a big river; jump into your little boat and don’t make a sound, let it rock you, let it carry you till your head turns round and you will feel almost afraid. To hide from everyone—even that is an expedition into the world.
CHAPTER IV
THE common world of children, that is something entirely different. A lonely child in his game forgets himself and everything that is round him, and his oblivion is beyond time. Into the common game of children wider spheres are drawn, and their mutual world is governed by the laws of the seasons. No amount of boredom will make boys play marbles in summer. You play marbles in spring when the frost goes; that is a grave and indisputable law, like that which commands the snowdrops to flower, or mothers to make Easter cakes. Only later can you play at touch or hide and seek, while the school holidays are the time for adventure and escapades: into the field to catch grasshoppers, or to bathe on the sly in the river. No self-respecting fellow will ever feel in summer the urge to make a bonfire; that’s not done until towards the autumn, at the time when kites are flown. Easter, summer holidays, and Christmas, fairs, village wakes, and feasts, these are important dates and big watersheds in time. The year of children has its routine, its ritual is governed by the seasons; a lonely child plays with eternity, while a pack of children play with time.
In that pack the joiner’s little son was not an outstanding personality; he was somewhat overlooked, and they reproached him that he was a mother’s darling and that he was afraid. But at Easter didn’t he have a rattle that Mr. Martinek had made for him, couldn’t he provide wooden chips for swords, and have as many blocks as he liked? With the painter’s son it was something different; once he smeared celestial blue all over his face, and after that he basked in special esteem. But in the joiner’s yard there were planks on which you could swing seriously and silently; wasn’t that a kind of detachment from the earth and therefore an act that fulfils all desire? Let the painter’s boy smear his face with blue: he was never invited to have a swing.
A game is a game, a serious thing, a matter of honour; there is no equality in sport, there is either excelling or submitting. Let it be said that I did not excel; I was neither the strongest nor the most daring of the pack, and I believe I suffered for it. It was of little avail that the local policeman touched his hat to my father, but not to the painter and decorator. When my father put on his long black coat to go to a meeting of the parish council, I grasped his fat finger and I tried to make as long strides as he did; don’t you see, boys, what a gentleman my dad is—he even carries one pole of the canopy over
the curate at the Resurrection and in the evening of his birthday the local musicians come and play in his honour. Dad stands on the doorstep, this time without an apron, and with dignity he acknowledges the celebration of his feast. And I, drunk with the sweet torment of pride, am looking round at my friends who listen attentively; with a tremor I experience this summit of terrestrial glory, and I hold on to my father for everybody to see that I belong to him. The next day the boys had no wish to be conscious of my glory; again I was the one who did not excel in anything and one that nobody wished to obey unless I invited him to swing in our yard. And on purpose not, I would rather not swing myself; and out of grief and spite I made up my mind at least to excel at school.
School, that again is quite another world. There children differ no longer according to their fathers, but by their names; they are no longer distinguished by one being the glazier’s and the other the shoemaker’s, but by one being called Adamec and the other Beran. For the joiner’s little boy it was a shock and for a long time he could not get used to it. Up to that time he had belonged to his family, to the workshop, to the house, and to his pack of boys; now he sat there terribly alone among forty little chaps, most of whom he did not know and with whom he had no common world. If daddy, or mammy, or at least the apprentice Frank, or even the sad Mr. Martinek, had been sitting with him it would have been something different; he would have held them by the lapel of their coat, and he would not have lost continuity with his world, he would have felt it behind him like a protection. He would have liked to burst into tears, but he was afraid that those others would laugh at him. He never merged into his class. Those others soon became friends and nudged each other under the forms, but it was easy for them; at home they had no joiner’s shop, or enclosure of chips strewn with sawdust, or the strong man Frank, or Mr. Martinek; they had nothing about which to feel so terribly lonely. The joiner’s little boy sat in the swarm of the class, self-conscious, and with a lump in his throat. The teacher bent over him. “You are a good, quiet boy,” he said approvingly. The little chap blushed, and his eyes filled with tears of happiness never known before. From that time on in school he became the good and quiet boy, which, of course, separated him still farther from the others.
But in a child’s life school means still another new and greater experience: there for the first time he comes in contact with the hieratic order of life. Up to that time, it’s true, he has had many to obey; mother gives orders, but mother is ours, mother is here to cook, and mother also kisses and strokes; sometimes father loses his temper, but at others you can scramble on to his knees or hold his fat finger. Other grown-ups sometimes snap or swear, but you don’t mind that very much and you run away. But the teacher is something different; he is here only to command and admonish. And you can’t run away and hide somewhere, you can only blush and be horrified of your shame. And you will never scramble on to his knees, never clutch his well-washed finger; he is always above you, inaccessible and untouchable. And the curate, he is more still; when he pats you on the head you are not only patted but distinguished and raised above all the others, and it is a hard job in your pride and gratitude to keep your eyes from watering. So far the little fellow has had a world of his own, and round him has been a multitude of closed, mysterious worlds. The baker’s, the stonemason’s, and those others. Now the whole world splits into two distinct grades: into a higher one, in which there is the teacher, the curate, and those who talk with them; the apothecary, the doctor, the public prosecutor, and the magistrate; and then that ordinary world in which there are fathers and their children. Fathers live in workrooms and shops and only come out on to their doorsteps as if they had to hold to their houses; those from the higher world meet in the middle of the square, they greet with a long bow, and they stand together for a while or they accompany each other for a bit of the way. And for them in the public-house on the square there is a table covered with a white cloth, while the other table-cloths are red or with blue checks; it almost looks like an altar. Now I know that that table-cloth was not so amazingly white, that the curate was snuffy, fat, and good-natured, and the teacher a country bachelor with a red nose; but then for me he was the embodiment of something higher, and almost superhuman; it was the first articulation of the world according to dignity and power.
I was a quiet and industrious little scholar, pointed out to others as an example; but in secret I nursed a tremulous admiration for the painter’s boy, a hangman’s rascal who drove the teacher insane by his roguery, and bit the curate’s thumb. They were almost afraid of him and were quite helpless with him. If they thrashed him as hard as they could, the fellow laughed in their face; it was beneath his savage dignity to cry, whatever happened.
Who knows ? Perhaps it was one of the most decisive things in my life that the painter’s boy would not have me for his pal. I would have given, I can’t say how much, if he had gone with me. Once, Satan knows what he had been up to, a beam crushed his fingers; other children began to cry, but he not, he only turned pale and bit his teeth. I saw him when he was going home carrying that bleeding hand in the other like a trophy. The other boys in a crowd round him, screaming: “A beam fell on him!” I was beyond myself with terror and sympathy, my legs quivered, I felt sick. “Does it hurt you ?” I gasped out in terror. He looked at me with proud, flaming, mocking eyes. “It’s not your business,” he trickled through his teeth. I stood there rejected and snubbed You wait, I’ll show you, I’ll show you what I can stand! I went into the workshop and pushed my left hand into the vice which holds the planks together; I tightened the screw, you will see! Tears burst from my eyes, well, now it hurts me as much as it does him; I’ll show him! I tightened the screw more, more yet, I no longer felt any pain but rapture. They found me in the workshop in a dead faint with my fingers held in the vice; to this day the last joints of the fingers on my left hand are stiff. Now that hand is crabbed and dry like a turkey’s claw, but still remembrance is written on it—of what? Of revengeful childish hatred, or of passionate friendship ?
CHAPTER V
THAT was the time when the railway got to our little town. They had been building it for a long time, but now it was quite near; in the joiner’s yard you could hear them blasting out the rocks for the cutting. There were strict orders that children like us must not go there, partly because they were using dynamite and partly because there were some queer people; the devil wouldn’t trust that riff-raff, they used to say. The first time my father took me there, so that I could see, he said, how a railway is built, I clutched his finger, I was afraid of “those people”; they lived in wooden huts, between which ragged underwear hung on lines, and the biggest hut was a canteen with a paunchy, evil woman who swore continuously. On the track half-naked men were digging with pickaxes in their hands; they shouted something at my father, but he made no answer. Then there was one with a red flag in his hand. “Look there, that’s where they’ll fire a charge,” said my father, and I clutched him still more convulsively. “Don’t get frightened, I’m here,” said father reassuringly, and with a blessed sigh I felt how powerful he was, and strong; nothing could happen while he was there.
Once beyond the fence of our workshop a little ragged girl stopped, she pushed her nose through the bars and jabbered something. “What do you say ?” asked Frank. The little girl stuck out her tongue in a temper, and went on jabbering. Then Frank called my father. Father leant against the fence and said: “What do you want?” The child went on still faster. “I can’t understand what you say,” said father gravely, “who knows what nation you belong to. Wait here!” And he shouted for mother. “Look at that child’s eyes.” She had large dark eyes with very long lashes. “She’s beautiful,” exclaimed mother with amazement. “Are you hungry ?” The little girl said nothing, she only gazed at her with those eyes. Mother brought her a slice of bread and butter, but the little one shook her head. “Perhaps she’s Italian, or Magyar,” suggested father uncertainly. “Or a Rumanian. Who knows what she wants.�
�� And he went on with his job. When he had gone Mr. Martinek took out a penny from his pocket and without a word gave it to the girl.
The next day when I came from school she was sitting on our fence. “She’s after you,” laughed Frank, and I was terribly annoyed; I didn’t pay any attention to her at all, although from something that might have been a pocket she fished out a shiny penny, and she looked at it to catch my attention. On a pile of planks I put one across to make a see-saw and I sat down on one end; the other could stick into the air, that was no business of mine, I turned my back to the whole world, frowning and somehow vexed. And suddenly the board with me on it began to move mysteriously; I didn’t turn round, but an infinite, almost painful happiness came over me. It swung me up to the top, dizzy with bliss; I leaned back to bring the swing down on my side to the ground, the other end responded lightly in rhythm, a little girl was sitting there; she said nothing, she swung with silent joy, on the other end a boy with silent joy; they didn’t look at each other and they began to see-saw body and soul, for they loved each other; at least the boy did, even if he could not give it that name he was full of it, it was beautiful and tormenting at the same time; and so they swung without a word, almost like a ritual, as slow as possible to give it greater glory.