who he can’t stand: Frič and the revolutionary’s circle of young literati.”
“That is to say, the same circle that is also frequented by Němcová, even though she is older?”
“That’s right. Father Štulc has admonished her bitterly.”
“What is there between them, exactly? All Prague is talking about it, but it seems that nobody can say for sure what’s going on.”
“Somebody showed Father Štulc one of Němcová’s letters, addressed to one of the members of their circle.”
“Who?”
“To Mr. Jurenka, a student of medicine.”
“Do you know what was in the letter?”
“I have made a copy. It is a love letter.”
“Ach so! And what else happened?”
“Father Štulc used the letter to put moral pressure on the writer. He upbraided her time and again. And that isn’t all. The Father tried to oblige Němcová to accompany him publicly in an open carriage, all the way across Prague, to confess at the castle.”
“Like a heretic?”
“Precisely. To make a show of her failings and of her shame before the inhabitants of Prague.”
“Father Štulc’s intentions were excellent. Němcová is a kind of heretic. Of the same type as that dog Havlíček. I see that the Catholic Church has not altogether forgotten its inquisitorial past. Fortunately, the Catholic Church is on our side, and our regime depends to quite an extent on its support. What else happened?”
“Father Štulc threatened to make public the contents of Němcová’s letter if she didn’t ride with him in an open carriage to make her confession and show that she was renouncing the vanities of this world for ever more.”
“And Němcová?”
“She refused.”
“She wasn’t afraid of the threat?”
“She was certainly afraid of it, as anybody would have been.
But she refused to give in.”
“I will now read your copy of the letter in question. It is addressed to that young man who is soon to be a doctor. Wait for a while in the lobby, Fräulein. If I need you again, I shall call for you.”
The following day the young doctor ordered her to undress and untie her corset. He had always helped her. This day, however, he was distant. He cleaned the glass cups coolly. And so the days passed. She didn’t dare to so much as open her mouth; he remained stubbornly silent, as his palms and fingers moved with the same professional skill over her body.
I like to dream that we will go to some place together, to the mountains, for example,” says the difficult-to-read copy that Fräulein Zaleski made of Němcová’s letter to her man friend, “to spend a few happy days together. But as reality is not within my grasp, I take pleasure in my dreams.” Can this be of any importance to the police? I shall read a little more. “When I don’t have reality, let me dream! How many times have I satisfied my longing for the sea, in dreams? How many times have I dreamed of joyful landscapes? Dreams have brought me people I love whom I will never see again. In dreams I can live as I wish and be happy. Why complain about them only being dreams, if these feelings will be with me for the rest of my days! I am grateful, deeply grateful for this kind of dream.”
No, I am ashamed to read on. I do not wish to eavesdrop. But I am a defender of our Austro-Hungarian fatherland. How many enemies it has!
About Němcová: she is a sensitive woman. How must I go about destroying her? It isn’t easy. When her son Hynek was dying in a Prague hospital, while she was on a trip to Hungary, we re-routed the letter from the doctor that was meant to inform the mother of her son’s critical condition. We were hoping that the son would die without his mother being able to take her leave of him. But at the last moment she found out about him, rushed to Prague, and during his last forty-eight hours she held her son in her arms. Fräulein Zaleski gave me a report about Němcová’s period of mourning. But even that wasn’t enough to crush her spirit. She goes on writing; her novels and stories continue to be published, and people like them. I see that Fräulein Zaleski has marked a passage in one of them: “The ignorance of woman is a whip that she entwines in order to hurt herself. Until women are aware of the tremendous importance of their mission, men will not be able to build the future on a solid foundation either. If this building