women at all at the beginning. But tell me, Vojtech, tell me, can a man return to the pillows and the warm curtains after seeing such misery? You know our home, Vojtech, I’d choke there with shame and disgust. My wife couldn’t understand that. I know she is good; please be silent, at least about this. I didn’t want to begin with that; it’s only an example, and it happened after . . .”
“After what?”
“After I had made a decision. Wait, you don’t know anything at all yet. Everything began quite differently. It began . . . when I was still an official at the office . . . in short, in short, there was a row in the office. . . . And I,” terribly excited, Karel struck the table with his palm, “I was in the right, and that was enough.”
“What kind of a row was it?” Vojtech asked carefully.
“Oh, it was nothing, a mere stupidity. Nothing worth talking about. Only such an impulse, you see. But a man feels quite trodden on and can’t defend himself. As though you were a dish-cloth. So I remained in the office, and went through the books and files, and see, I was proved to be in the right. Someone else must have made the mistake, but who? It is quite strange how little it matters to me now; but at the moment I was wriggling like a worm and had decided to kill myself.”
'“Karel!” Vojtech cried.
“You, you must be silent,” Karel ordered as though drunk, pointing a trembling finger at him, “you are also like this. All the evening I tramped the streets. I wouldn’t go home. I condemned myself. I was tired and only longed to get drunk. I found a certain vinarna, you know the kind—but such a place. I never saw anything like it, music and girls, and so much dirt—amazing. I have forgotten for the moment who was sitting with me there. One had terrible sore fingers, her nails were dropping off. Perhaps it was from some venereal disease, do you think so?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because she drank steadily from my glass. I couldn’t prevent her. But now it’s all the same to me. Then there was someone I spoke to the whole evening; I’ve no idea who it was. It seemed to me that they had all come there just as I had, the men and the prostitutes, all of them. Perhaps they will all commit suicide because they are so unhappy, and that’s the reason they went there. It
