Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age by Bohumil Hrabal, Michael Heim, Adam Thirlwell Read Free Book Online

jam-packed with the highest-quality gray matter full of whorls and squiggles, just like Edison’s, oh Edison, the man who invented the machine that made it possible for us to sit at home in our slippers and enjoy the glories of the concert hall, that is, the man who invented the phonograph, which had never existed before, think of him sitting there for three days, poor man, thinking of nothing but earphones, no, young ladies, not even the most beautiful woman can rival a famous man like that, a woman doctor in Cracow ordered me to take off all my clothes, climbed on top of me, and, pressing her cold ear against my heart, she said, Why is your heart pounding so? so I told her about the European Renaissance and how a real man trembles like a frog about to leap whenever he sees a beautiful woman, which is why art drives so many writers mad, especially when they want to improve on it, their brains turn to sawdust and no one can do a thing about it, a composer by the name of Isvtán once tore a chandelier out of the ceiling in his grief, and when Edison’s bride came for him she found him sitting there, thinking away, with a little glass stool under his feet to keep the earth’s gravity from disturbing him, yes, that’s right, and after his death they opened up his brain and found it jam-packed with the highest-quality gray matter, a fortune-teller once read my cards and said that if it wasn’t for a tiny black cloud hanging over me I could do great things and not only for my country but for all mankind, then she reached over to me and I fell off the rocking chair and overturned the aquarium, and when I’d told all that to the Polish doctor who was lying on top of me she asked, Where are you going to take me tonight? and I quoted her Anna Nováková, Dreaming of a gold-finch in a cage means your lascivious ways will bring you to a bad end, but the doctor stood up and said, Couldn’t you find something better? so I said, Dreaming of an anniversary celebration means unquenchable passion, and she said, A good beginning at least, and she made Turkish eyes at me, because most men’s minds go straight to hanky-panky, but I take a different tack, I want to be a hero, when Marion the magician and hypnotist came to town he had to stamp his own documents, the officials were afraid he’d hypnotize them so they flew the coop the minute they saw him, I was on the stage too at the time, in The Balalaika, I wore a guardsman’s uniform, the set was all doors with keyholes and I sang Many a Maiden Fair I’ve Kissed and then a purple spot-light came on and I sang, Sing, balalaika, the sweetest melody on earth, The one that gives me second birth, The song called I Love You, and I was a hero, I hit high C, not like your garden-variety yodelers who low like cows calving, no, I was a real tenor, another Járinek Pospíšil, I could wow the ladies as much as Marion the magician and hypnotist, if you like we can put on the play here and now, we’ll cast one of you as the great tsarina, but we’ll have to find some falsies, you there, you’ll do, not all tsarinas were beautiful, I’ll play the high priest, which means I carry a chalice, the chandelier gets shot down in the finale, no, I’d rather play the baron, though how can we get his horse on stage? what if we wind rags around its hoofs, then it won’t harm the stairs, but more important, we don’t want it shying when the music plays, it might fall into the orchestra, the swine dealer can be played by Ruda Turek, the first lieutenant, he’s got a neck like a Swiss steer, I once tried to do splits with a beauty in the Catholic House and gave myself a hernia, which isn’t so bad for a man, a man makes anything look good, but when a maiden wears a truss and a lovesick swain comes up against that cold belt, those nickel springs, his ideals start to falter and his desire to flag, Christ our Lord was once invited to a