a bookshop aimed at educating these country people. The people here know almost nothing about the world. I consider it most important, as would anybody concerned with the well-being of their nation, that country folk be better informed. For the time being, the only way to educate people is through reading. Which is why I have set all my hopes on the idea of a mobile library and bookshop, an enterprise that would prove to be of great value to ignorant people.’
“How did this enterprise fare?”
“As was to be expected, Němcová lost a lot of money with it. Not only that, but also the inhabitants of that geographical area, who had at first been indifferent toward the Němec couple, became openly hostile. This is natural enough: Němcová woke them up from their lethargy and somnolence. Should you require proof in writing, here is a note of hers dating from that period: ‘They’ve shown their true colors, these people from the villages and the town of Domažlice. My husband and I cannot so much as step out into the street, because they have threatened to beat us and throw us out by brute force. This churlishness instead of gratitude for our sincere concern for them.’”
“Could it be said that this writer launched a campaign of political agitation?”
“Yes, what she was doing was mobilizing the poor against the rich.”
“Have you proof of that?”
“Yes, a letter of hers dating from March 1848: ‘How human misery upsets me! Oh, Lotty, you have no idea of the poverty suffered by humble people. Believe me when I say that a wealthy man’s dog would not eat what the poor have to eat every day. How much money is wasted, how many fortunes are lost to gambling, or spent on clothes and other trifles, while all the time there are people who are dying of hunger! What justice, what Christian love! When I see all of this, I feel like walking among the poor to show them where to search for justice.’ That is literally what she says.”
“And what was Němcová’s realtionship then with the Catholic church, one of the mainstays of our empire?”
“Our writer published a few markedly anticlerical articles. On May 24, 1849, she wrote in Prague’s Afternoon Post, about an event in the district of Klatovy. The title of the article was ‘A Little Story about the Religious Beliefs of Jesuits.’ In it, she detailed how the Jesuits visited some dying people with a miraculous cross on which the crucified figure shook his head and moved his eyes. When they had left, a citizen of Klatovy got hold of the cross and saw that it was put together with wire: when one wire end was pulled, the crucified figure moved his head and eyes.”
“Thank you, Fräulein Zaleski. I am most pleased with your work today. Write a report about these educated ladies who are friends of Němcová: what they do and what they are like, what their relationship is with the writer and vice versa. We will see each other again shortly, Fräulein.”
She went out onto the street and had the sensation again that the wind was lifting her and taking her over the city, over the river. “Dear friend,” echoed his voice in her ears. She was flying fast, gaining height. Today she was heading for the steeple of Saint Vito’s Cathedral. “More humility . . . ” Everything was whirling around in her brain. She looked down and in front of the cathedral she saw a beggar. She descended in order to approach him with a few coins in her hand, all that she had. But that’s not a beggar! she realized. The old sage was half-kneeling, hands joined under the wide sleeves of the worn kimono he wore. He looked at her as she came zigzagging down toward him, but he did not see her.
Like the last time, she reached out to the old man, to take hold of him and bring him flying into the air, up to the furthest heights of happiness. He looked beyond her, through her, to where he had been before he was born and to where he would return after death.
Seeing him so concentrated, she left him there and took flight once more. Her hair was loose and she wanted to share the happiness she felt with the castles of clouds and the networks of sunbeams, with each and every ribbon of smoke from the chimneys.
Then she flew in the direction of her room. She