Uncle Pepin just drank, silently, he poured for himself, and saw that the butcher’s wife and his brother were looking at each other, Dad drank, the butcher’s wife sighed sweetly, and as they were leaving, the butcher’s wife burst sweetly into tears. And there in the shop, amongst the huge beef lungs and hearts hanging on hooks, Dad extracted an oath from the butcher’s wife, that he could come and treat her alcoholism again the following week. As the brothers left and turned the corner, a wind blew, and the gust made both of them stagger. First Dad fell on one knee under a street lantern, then all of a sudden he uttered a shout, such a kind of joyful shout, not a human voice, but a happy blurred roaring, whose fundamental tone was joy. And Uncle Pepin went back over the bridge, into town, and he fetched the local policeman Mr Holoubek, who’d just come out of the Gypsy Inn, he was taking off his helmet, which the dealers had mercilessly rammed down on to his skull, he’d been sent by Procházka the chief of police, who, seeing they were about to start a brawl over in the Gypsy Inn, had run off and said to the first policeman he met, “Holoubek, can’t you hear it? I’ve got a feeling something’s about to happen at the Gypsy Inn . . .” By the time Holoubek burst in, it was too late, they squashed his helmet down in the doorway and hammered it with a stick till his ears rang with the blows. “Mr Holoubek,” Uncle Pepin said, “there’s a drunkard lying over there roaring his head off, go and fine him, he’s making a terrible hullabaloo.” And so Dad was taken in a drunken state to the brewery by that giant Mr Holoubek, while Uncle Pepin took the case and sped off to the bar to his beauties, to try out the radiation on them and treat them, as the handbook instructed him, for interrupted monthly cycles.
7
It was in the middle of the War, Mr Burýtek’s name was added to the list of those in prison, the Gestapo arrested him along with his gramophone. They loaded him up with his bicycle, and Mr Burýtek was radiant with delight, and called out, “Armageddon! Armageddon!” but then they knocked him down, and people remembered that this butcher had actually been telling them for years that the final battle had begun, the battle of Armageddon, and they had laughed at him, calling after him as he rode along on his bicycle, “Armageddon!” And he only nodded his head and repeated it after them, but in a different sense, “Armageddon! Armageddon!” And a military commission came to the brewery and decreed that it was confiscating the malting floors and the brewery would have to buy its malt elsewhere, a munitions factory was going to be put in there, but the munitions factory never turned up, only a man from Vienna, an engineer called Mr Friedrich, who billeted himself in the lodgings and spent all day drawing up plans, showing where the various machines would be put, and at nightfall he went out on the town, he visited the Žofín bar, and chatted up the girls in broken Czech, but Vlasta, the one with perfect German, ever since the time the Germans entered the little town where time stood still, she spoke only Czech. And Friedrich, when he walked round the brewery with the bosses, he greeted each workman respectfully, but the workmen looked right through him as if he wasn’t there, as if he was transparent, they didn’t respond to his greetings, but Mr Friedrich went on greeting them persistently time and time again. And when dusk fell, the black-outs were drawn, and when nightfall came, the street lamps went out, but Uncle Pepin went on doing his rounds of the public houses with ladies’ service, he continued persistently taking flowers to the lovely ladies, he went on wearing his white sailor’s cap, and when he came into the Žofín bar, he yelled out, “What’re you sitting around here like toadstools for? Put us on a real good belter!” And he handed Marta some fading roses and Marta had a sniff at them. “Those are specially for you,” said Uncle Pepin, ordering a black coffee. “My, you’re all dolled up tonight, maestro!” said Bobinka, “Not going a-courting are we?” she asked searchingly, running her palm down Uncle’s calf and ascertaining by feel that Uncle Pepin was wearing three pairs of underpants and warm leggings over them. “Got a touch of the shivers, have we?” said Marta, “And you leave him to me, Bobinka, this is my visit, right?” and Uncle twisted his fingers, and into the bar came an old fellow, his hair was curly like a lambskin cap, he was carrying a parcel and immediately he called out jubilantly in the doorway, “Life’s just marvellous, folks, it’s just so marvellous, I’m going to buy you all a dram!” And he sat down straightaway beside Uncle Pepin, tore open the parcel and showed Uncle the contents, one light-coloured fabric and one dark. Then he said, “I can’t see too well these days, but I can see sure enough you’re a man of the world, what kind of suit should I have made for me out of this?” Bobinka brought in a tray with large glasses of spirits, passed them round, and the old fellow lifted his glass and said, “Cheers, to the end of the War! I’m eighty-three years old, folks, and I’m looking forward to peace! And I’m going to have two suits of clothes sewn for me in honour of that peace! So, mister, what am I going to have?” Uncle Pepin said, “Use the light-coloured stuff for a casual outfit with patch pockets, and a hunting hat to go with it with a chamois tuft or coloured feather, like the Emperor Franz used to wear when he went out in the landau to Ischl to hunt chamois.” “He must’ve been a handsome figure of a man, just like you, eh?” said Bobinka. “Not at all, I’m a handsome figure of a man, right enough, but the handsomest figure of a man in those days not only amongst civilians in general, but amongst the ruling families of the whole world, was the Emperor Franz, with his fine bald head, muttonchop whiskers like a tiger, and splendid nose, just like that of a little child. Marvellous!” Bobinka stroked Uncle’s thinning hair and said in a voice full of admiration, “My, your hair’s grown so thick, maestro, when you comb yourself, I suppose you can’t get the comb into it? You have to put oil on it, don’t you!” “Never you mind that,” said Uncle waving his hand, and as he recoiled from the lady’s hand he overbalanced and fell on to his back, chair and all, the girls lifted him up and dusted him off, they cleaned his trousers for him solicitously at the flies, and Bobinka kneeling raised her eyes to him and said, “Feeling any electricity yet?” But Uncle Pepin raised his finger in front of the old gent’s nose and said, “And to match the white suit you wear a blue shirt and a white spotty tie, like Hans Albers sported in La Paloma, and out of this blue material here you make a double-breasted suit, like the one Jára Pospíšil wears in ‘I Have Nine Canaries’, and a white shirt and metallic blue tie to go with it . . .” The old fellow banged the parcel several times on the table, laid his head on the tablecloth and shouted and laughed: “Folks, I’m happy, I’m so happy, all the drinks are on me!” And the proprietress came in with a knife, wringing her hands, then she turned the wireless knob and a solemn voice was heard announcing that the Herr Reichsprotektor Heydrich had been shot, and all theatre and cinema performances were prohibited, all dance entertainments and parties . . . And Uncle Pepin jumped up and cried, “Christ, what kind of order is this? Can we Czechs never do anything? Christ almighty! In 1920 we occupied a chunk of Hungary, and then they told us we weren’t allowed! We occupied a chunk of Teschen, and again we weren’t allowed to take it from the Poles. And not long back we wanted to have a fight with the Germans, and again we weren’t allowed! England and France again! Christ, catch me being woken up at midnight by the ambassadors, saying we weren’t allowed to have a go at the Germans! If only I was President! I’d soon tell those doormen and lackeys: ‘Kick the ambassadors up the arse, kick ’em right on out till they hit the pavement!’ And then I’d surround myself with ensigns and sergeant-majors from the old Austria and I’d wage war and we’d soon defeat those Germans! And now, coz they’ve done for Heydrich, we’re not allowed to dance, is that it? Come on, Bobinka, put on a real belter!” And Bobinka put on the record of “I Have Nine Canaries”, and Uncle asked her to dance, and the old chap thumped the parcel of material he’d bought for the clothes he was going to wear as soon as the War ended and peace began, and all the time that curly-haired little old gent yelled out, “Folks, life is beautiful! Bring on the drinks, I’m sticking around till I’m ninety! Do you hear
?” And Uncle danced at speed with Bobinka, first he drew her on to his back, then he took her, threw her up high and planted her on his shoulders, and carried her through the bar with dancing steps, and the proprietress locked the main entrance and wrung her hands, and the old fellow shouted out, “My old Dad, though he’d lost both his legs, had the advantage of being the oldest one in the whole Invalidenhaus, so that every year, on Count Strozzi’s birthday — he was the one that founded the Invalidenhaus for the veterans — every year he laid a wreath on his monument! — Folks, I’m happy today! — The soldiers pushed Dad along in his wheelchair up to the memorial, put the wreath in his hands, lifted him up, and carried Dad over to the monument, and all around a guard of honour made up of veterans and soldiers from the garrison! Only Infantryman Valášek envied Dad his position, but what could he do, Dad was ninety-two and Valášek was only ninety! That Valášek fellow, whenever Dad was laying that wreath, he’d whisper to him, ‘Time you snuffed it, you knackered old jade.’ And every day, when Valášek went out into the corridor, first thing in the morning, and him in a wheelchair too, all of the veterans were, first thing Valášek did was go and have a look, open the door to the room where Dad’s bed was, and ask him, ‘Still not snuffed it yet, eh?’ And Dad hollered over from the bed, ‘Aye, Valášek, I’m alive and I’m going to live to be a hundred, another ten years yet I’m going to be laying wreaths at Count Strozzi’s memorial, and meanwhile you’ll kick the bucket furious as hell!’ ” And the old fellow stood up, suddenly he was all handsome, with his smooth face and his lambskin cap of stiff bristling curly hair tremulous like the horsehair on a Roman helmet, Marta took him by the hands, and they danced a kind of childish dance, “She watched her sheep in the woods so deep”, and Uncle lifted Bobinka and lowered her from his neck, and they danced a foursome, “I to her went clippy clippy clap, she to me went tippy tippy tap”, and as they held hands their feet went darting about, and the gramophone record started up again with “I Have Nine Canaries”. And the door opened and in came Dedek the Saint Bernard from the passage, the one who couldn’t stand dancing, but he no longer had it in him even to knock over Uncle Pepin, so he just ambled through the bar gnashing his toothless gums, he had a go at gnawing Uncle’s long drawers, which were peeping out from under his trousers, but Uncle jerked back, and finally the two girls and the old man left off dancing, and Uncle was left to dance with Dedek the Saint Bernard, but it wasn’t a dance any more, it was a defence, because Dedek was trying to knock Uncle over, but Uncle kept prancing away, prancing up in the air, still to the rhythm of the foxtrot, and Misses Marta and Bobinka applauded and wept and roared with laughter, while the old buffer went thoughtful for a moment, then banged his fabric a few times on the table, rested his head on the tablecloth, and roared with laughter: “Folks, life is just beautiful!” And in through the door the Saint Bernard had entered came Friedrich the engineer, quietly, wearing his Reichs uniform, tired, but suddenly irritable, he sat down and surveyed the company, Bobinka took Uncle and danced with him, and Mr Friedrich all of a sudden banged his fist on the table and said, “Enough!” And Bobinka went and sat down, while Uncle Pepin pointed at the soldier figure and said, “Is that him?” And he sat down and breathed out, Marta wiped his brow and combed his hair with the palm of her hand. “Didn’t you hear the radio?” said Friedrich, “A man of such nobility falls, and you carry on dancing?” Bobinka said, “Hansi, remember, if you make a scene, I don’t want to have anything to do with you ever again.” And Friedrich went on, “The German Reich is fighting also for you.” Bobinka said, “But we’re not Germans. Hansi, you wouldn’t inform on us!” Friedrich got up, lifted the gramophone lid and stopped the music. Uncle Pepin shouted, “If only we had a hundred Austrian divisions, my God, we’d soon have you lot beat! Old Freiher von Wucherer would give the order: ‘Vorwärts! Nach Berlin!’ and we’d beat the lot of you!” Bobinka took Mr Friedrich by the sleeve and said, “The guv’nor means the Imperial armies, don’t you, Pepin duck?” But Uncle bellowed right out, “Rubbish, I mean the bunch with the swastikas, we’d drive ’em right back tae Berlin, if only we had a hundred good Austrian divisions and the Archduke Karl in charge of ’em!” Bobinka changed the subject: “Hey, guv’nor, let’s be having some softer stuff, let’s hear some more from you about that sexual hygiene, let’s have something for the ladies. What’s the most important thing, maestro, according to Mr Batista’s handbook?” And Uncle breathed out and darted his eyes at Mr Friedrich, but Bobinka stroked him and made him look her straight in the eye and coaxed him: “And then I’ll let you see our nice new quilt covers, what about that, eh?” And Uncle Pepin gave her a smile and said, “Do you like to hear about it, eh? Well now, as ye ken, the main and most important thing is a right proper fully grown male organ, testes and a penis.” “That’s more like it,” Marta commented, blissfully inhaling the smoke from her cigarette. Uncle carried on: “Auld Havránek, he went and tried to get himself run over due to his state of cohabitation alias conjugal relations, his wife used to eat apples the whole time they were at it, so auld Havránek, he took some sleeping powders and lay down on the line and fell asleep, and in the morning he woke up with all the trains going right past him, they’d been mending the line, and it was single-track working, so they never ran auld Havránek over at all, now you see according to Mr Batista’s handbook intercourse should be executed properly in bed, in quiet peace and concentration, not with your auld wife crunching apples all the while . . . But a hundred Austrian divisions would soon,” said Uncle pointing at Mr Friedrich, “finish that lot.” Mr Friedrich sipped his liqueur, crossed one leg over the other and said, “No they wouldn’t.” Uncle barked out, “Yes they would.” Bobinka rushed to intervene: “So how could me and Marta here get ourselves in a bad kind of situation then?” And Uncle Pepin said, “How? Is there so little crime and calamity about? The newspapers are just stuffed with it! Now your proper respectable male organ’s got to have a penis and a scrotum, then there’s your testes and your decent epididymis as well, according to Mr Batista’s handbook the penis has to have a foreskin, so-called, and the end alias beginning of the penis is termed the glans penis, then you need a nice fraenulum, and the scrotum’s important as well, that’s a kind of bag, that holds in the male glands . . .” Marta breathed: “The shy — I mean thyroid . . .” “What’re ye babbling on about like young magpies? Those’re somewhere in the chest, I’m talking about the glands alias balls or as Mr Batista crudely puts it, bollocks, now by feeling them you can tell according to Mr Batista’s manual that there’s an epididymis as well, but sometimes even the testes are missing, I mean to say they’re there, but they’ve vanished up through the groin and into your abdominal cavity, or else they’ve got into your inguinal canal, now the special term for that is cryptorchidism.” “You what?” said Bobinka taken aback, bringing in some glasses of coffee, “Cryptorchidism, cryptobollocks you mean?” And she gave a laugh in the direction of Mr Friedrich, who ordered a cup of hot chocolate and added, “No they wouldn’t.” Uncle Pepin rose up and brandished his elbow at Mr Friedrich: “Yes they would! They’d win hands down! Over these Germans!” But Mr Friedrich shook his head and said, “No they wouldn’t!” And Marta knelt in front of Uncle Pepin and clasped her hands: “So I’d really have to take a proper look and size it up beforehand like, would I?” And Uncle Pepin roared on: “You would, you wouldna be laughing if instead of a high-strung youth ye was to get a poofter or a pansy, or end up like it says in Mr Batista’s handbook wi’ a bisexual, there was one chap Gotlisch, now his scrotum according to Mr Batista’s handbook was composed of two testicles, but instead of a penis he had a clitoris alias clitty, now if you was to end up with a chappy like that, that’d soon make ye weep . . .” Bobinka, when she saw that Uncle was about to shout “We’d beat ’em!” at Mr Friedrich again, she laid her hand over his mouth and said tenderly, “Where did you get those lovely speckly ears from, maestro?” And Uncle laughed happily: “That’s right, it’s paint, it’s when
I was painting a fence along with a certain lovely lady that sewed me a lovely pair of pants after by way of gratitude.” “Made to measure, I bet, you faithless swine!” Marta said furiously and bustled about the bar stumbling over the blissfully snoozing old man, hugging his parcel of material and fast asleep on the floor. “What’s this going on between you and that lovely lady what sews you them underpants?” Bobinka exclaimed as she carried in a steaming cup, a mug of hot chocolate. “You’ll just have to make up your mind, it’s either her or me, or nobody,” she stamped her little shoe, “and if anything happens, if I go and do something to myself, then you!” she prodded Uncle in the chest till he felt a shock, “You’ve got me on your conscience!” “Wouldn’t!” said Mr Friedrich after due consideration. “What are you on about? We’d win and we’d win hands down!” roared Uncle, but Bobinka shook her finger in front of his face, “Wait, it’s me you have to be winning, but tell me now, when’s the wedding to be?” And Uncle Pepin melted, knitted his fingers and said, “Once I’ve got my new wardrobe, and then you have to go and see the doctor, Mr Batista’s handbook says, once you’re up in years and unmarried for so long, you might have tendencies towards onanism alias self-defilement . . .” “What’s all this? What’s this he’s accusing me of?” Bobinka clasped her hands. “That’s when, instead of a proper decent male organ you uses your fingers, or in Mr Batista’s book even a beer bottle or other objects that simulate this male member and substitute for the real sensation o’ pleasure, just like now in wartime, when instead of coffee beans we drink this Perola stuff or your Caro Franckovka from Pardubice, and so the best thing would be if ye got married, coz you’ve got the prime prerequisite, which is a decent upstanding physique . . .” “What really?” said Bobinka, colouring. “You’ve struck it lucky this time!” Marta exclaimed. “Aye she has that, only mind that for proper co-habitation as in Mr Batista’s handbook there should be no railway traffic beneath our window, and no blacksmith’s shop either, it’s awful disturbing,” Uncle Pepin rattled on eruditely, glowing radiant with delight. “You wouldn’t!” said Mr Friedrich. “What?” bellowed Uncle, but Bobinka said, “Stop it! Now you tell me, and me a silly goose and all, my only schooling’s been this here bar, what’s it like to possess a proper male organ. Eh?” “Well ye see, some have it like when they get in the bath, first they have to toss in their member and only then can they get in the water themselves, others have to use a pair of tweezers if they want to have a pee, but the main thing is you have to watch not to catch them veneral diseases like typhus, cholera, dysentery and influenza — what was that? Yes we would!” said Uncle, rising to his feet, as did Mr Friedrich, they stood facing one another and shouted thirty times into each other’s face, “Yes we would!” “No you wouldn’t!” “Would!” “Wouldn’t!” and the bar girls ran about and separated the vociferating German and Uncle Pepin, they stuffed up their mouths, but Uncle always jerked himself free and roared, “Oh yes we would!” And suddenly Mr Friedrich was all ablaze with wrath, he pointed his finger and yelled and dictated with his finger: “And here you were, dancing, while our Herr Reichsprotektor, Heydrich, was fiendishly shot, when an assault was made, on his life! One more word out of you and I’m handing you in! Victory is ours!” And Uncle Pepin was silent, he knitted his fingers and stared at the ground, and Bobinka said softly, “No it’s not!” and Friedrich threw his money on the table and walked out, and as he unfastened the door and went out into the dark, Bobinka called out after his disappearing back, “Hansi, don’t you report a word of this, remember, if you do that’s the end of you and me!” And Mr Friedrich did make a report, that Pepin had been dancing to celebrate the assassination of the Herr Reichsprotektor, but not to the Gestapo. He simply told Dad, and Dad was aghast, but Mr Friedrich waved his hand and said nobody else knew about it anyway, only he alone and the Žofín bar girls, so Dad devised a plan and confided in our police constable Mr Klohn, and Mr Klohn came up to the brewery and that evening Dad had Pepin summoned to the brewery office, and into the boardroom, and the police constable took his seat and lit a candle and interrogated Uncle on when he was born and what his name was, and then he informed him that a report had been made saying that Uncle Pepin had been dancing, thereby expressing approval of the assassination of the Herr Reichsprotektor, and he posed Uncle various questions, and Uncle responded, and when he read out the statement to Uncle, Uncle Pepin knitted his fingers and felt all embarrassed, especially when the constable stated that by this act he had harmed his brother, the manager of the brewery, above all else, for the Germans were ruthless and dragged the whole family into these affairs, and hence Uncle Pepin by his dancing had thwarted his brother’s promotion, for it had been expected he might be appointed managing director. And then the police constable inquired if Uncle had ever been wounded in the Great War. And Uncle Pepin said, yes, in the head, the back of the neck, he’d lost a whole bootful of blood. And the constable said, that since he’d been wounded like that, the consequences of the wound might have caused Uncle’s mental state to be impeded, and hence he had been dancing without knowing what he was doing, and so the police constable would consent to append an addition to the written statement, stating that Uncle had been wounded in the head when the Austrian armies proudly entered Przemyśl on Corpus Christi day, 1916, and that the consequences of the said wound still remained with him to the present day, and he recommended further to Uncle that he obtain a medical certificate stating that his state of health was very poor, that he did things of which he was not himself aware, and that therefore he was not responsible for his own acts, he ought to go tomorrow right away to see Doctor Vojtěšek, who would issue him this certificate absolving Uncle Pepin of all awareness and associated responsibility for his actions. And Uncle went with Dad the very next morning and obtained just such a certificate, and when they brought it in the evening, the police constable read the whole statement out to Uncle again, requested him to append his signature, and finally he issued this appeal to him: “But if you promise me that never again will you go dancing in the public houses, bars and hostelries with ladies’ service, then I shall regard this present statement as duly null and void . . .” And Uncle Pepin wept, while Dad slapped him on the back, and Uncle Pepin gave the police constable his hand, and the constable took the statement and tore it in two pieces, and each half he tore again in two, and once again, then he dropped the pieces of paper on to the floor of the boardroom and departed from the office. Dad then gathered the papers together, so that nothing would be lost, or found by an unauthorised person, and he threw the lot in the stove and burnt it, and when the paper had burnt up, Dad went out on his bicycle and caught up the police constable by the boundary wall and thanked him, squeezing his hand and pressing into it a thousand-crown note “for the official transaction”. “And not before time,” said the police constable, “that dancing of his would have landed the lot of you in a concentration camp.” And so Mr Friedrich carried on seeing Bobinka in the Žofín bar, and when he and Uncle Pepin met, they continued to shout at each other until they were both hoarse and nobody had a clue why or what they were shouting about to one another. Uncle went on calling “Would! Would!” And Mr Friedrich would call “Wouldn’t!” And so they passed on their way, still shouting at one another from a distance in faint tones, like the dim lines of a number four writing pencil, just to convince themselves that theirs was the final trump call . . . But later on Mr Friedrich stopped his shouting, and when the battle front started to shift, Mr Friedrich found himself a corner beside the brewery maltings, between an overhanging roof and two old plum trees, and there he used to go every day, in the early evening or even afternoon with a hacksaw, and out of assorted poles and boughs he shaped and fashioned a lovely bench, a sort of children’s bench, then he spent a whole Saturday and Sunday working on a little table, and then with his saw and pocket knife out of various staves and sticks and branches he made chairs and seats, whenever it rained, he sat beneath the overhanging roof and read and worked away, her
e in this little child-size room of twigs and branches he even made little wardrobes, which looked like birds’ cages, they opened and closed, you could fit a coat and a shirt inside, then for a whole month Mr Friedrich worked on a rocking horse, he even made a chandelier, and whenever Mr Friedrich rode off to the garrison or to see officials about where that machinery was for manufacturing munitions on the malting floors, the brewery workers went to take a look, they were all amazed by the work, they just stood there and marvelled and wondered why the fellow was beavering away like this, why he spent whole days and evenings playing with these toys . . . And then the brewery workmen were seized by horror at this little child-size room, which was so absurd, but Uncle Pepin said, “Just take a good look at what that German’s doing, just to stop himself thinking about how the allied armies are gloriously beating those German armies, the bitter end is nigh,” he appended, “and that old gent can have his two suits of clothes sewn up now, because peace won’t be long in coming . . .” And so it was, Mr Friedrich was sad now, he was insecure, he could see that he would soon be going off somewhere else, but even there it would all be just the same, until the end finally came and other armies engulfed not only the country where he was now, but also his home, and the retribution would be proportionate to what his own armies had done in the countries they had entered uninvited . . . And so he sat out there on the rocking horse and rocked himself up and down, evening in and evening out, till one day the order came and Mr Friedrich was summoned elsewhere. Dad said goodbye to him, but when he offered the workmen the things he was leaving behind, his sweaters and work coats and shoes hanging up in those see-through cupboards in the little nursery room made of twigs and sticks, nobody would take a thing, and it was as if Mr Friedrich was kind of see-through, transparent as well, he went and nobody bade him farewell, only Uncle Pepin shouted out after him, “We’d win! A glorious victory!” And Mr Friedrich departed with his suitcase to the station, softly observing, “Yes you win . . .” and then nobody heard any more of him ever again . . . The very next day the coopers took a canister of spirits and brought pails and buckets of water, and there behind the maltings they poured the spirits over that little nursery room, over the chairs and the wicker horse and the closets with the coats and sweaters, and they set it alight. The little room blazed up and burned away, but right up to the last moment that room defied the fire, it stood there still, and the stakes were wrapped in a fiery mane of flame, once again that room was there to be seen, but fiery throughout, until all at once the chairs and bench began to collapse all together, they fell to the ground, and then as if to a command blazed up even more strongly, the sticks twisted and dropped to the ground, as if they were burning only within the groundplan of those triple-storeyed things . . . Only the rocking-horse carried on burning for a long time, it reared up with the fire and leaped, as if it wanted to leap over the flames, but as it reared it collapsed on its side, its hooves slackened and its mouth opened and its buckles twisted up from its mouth and smelt pungently of smoked meat, then the whole wicker horse stretched itself out, and the head cooper spattered more spirit on to the chandelier of twigs and lit it and it flared up, like some kind of heavenly portent, swiftly, and blazing feathers kept fluttering down from it, like feathers from the fiery phoenix bird, and finally the coopers with great showerings of water from their pitchers and buckets doused that little nursery room, which from the very start had been a better barometer and indicator of developments at the battle front than all the military despatches in the world.