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thing I’d ever heard before, because anythingthat had to do with our little town, anything anyone told me, I found beautiful … There were twenty-three grocers, nine merchants, four ropemakers, one of whose names we know, Kreibich, who lived in the miserable neighborhood of Purk in nearby Zálabí, one milliner, four cap makers, one comb maker, eleven bakers, two wheelwrights, two watchmakers, five tanners, one carpenter, one master bricklayer, one skinner, four coachmen, two pastry chefs … and then the swinging doors of Hotel Na Knížecí flew open and a group of youths came running out, their raised arms trembled with enthusiasm, they shook their hands in the air and ran around the square yelling Goal! We had scored, the waiter stood in the doorway, dressed in black, only his white shirt and turned-back white cuffs let everyone know that our boys had scored a goal, the youths ran past, they had hair like girls, they were drenched in sweat, and as they ran they once again gave us the joyful news, that Czechoslovakia had scored, and then they ran back into Hotel Na Knížecí and there wasn’t a soul left in the square, no one driving a car, no motorcycles. Mr. Kořínek, the whole time that the young men had been running around shouting, had held his arm in the air and when the last boy had disappeared, he picked up where his friend had left off and said, in a high voice … The most famous pastry chef of all was Jan Obst, who even appears in the memoirs of our poet Otakar Theer … He took a bow, stepped back and turned his head upward, in profile, and now it was Mr. Rykr who held forth … There was one lumberyard, three saddlers, all named Holomoucký, four cabinetmakers, nineteen shoemakers and equally as many taprooms, six of them for hard liquor, two buttermakers, two brickmakers, one soap-boiler, two bookbinders, one fisherman in Zálabí, two millers, Karel Radimský and Josef Mlejnek, three locksmiths, one milkmaid, three weavers, one wood turner, two hairdressers, one roofer, two wool dyers, five market vendors, one stove fitter, no less than five dry and fancy goods shops, two flour warehouses, one shop that sold kitchenware, the glazier was named Krása … Mr. Otokar Rykr intoned, clearly, solemnly, filled with emotion, like someone reciting a litany of Mary, the wind had swept the square so clean that the cobblestones gleamed like Mr. Rykr’s pomaded hair. Just then, coming out of Mostecká Street, were two huge women, giantesses, Uncle Pepin would have said, as big as Maria Theresa, they walked along, both with dyed blond hair swept into a high ponytail and tied with a long white scarf, their hair stuck up like plumes, as if the women were holding it up with their own hands … they were walking along and complaining bitterly, one of them even appeared to have tears in her eyes, they walked across the square, in front of them ran a little dog that kept turning to look back at them,but the giantesses kept on walking, both were smoking cigarettes, now and then the wind crumbled tiny sparks off the tips that flew on ahead until they went out. Then we began moving again, we crossed the square and walked through the streets, peered into the windows of the houses, in each one a blue screen beamed, the image on the screen trembled with the movements of the players, you could see the profiles of the people sitting in front of the television, here and there someone stood up, but his silhouette kept on watching, and someone else poured beer from a glass jug without taking his eyes off the screen, so as not to miss a single movement, a single pass. Mr. Kořínek spoke, in a high voice … A hundred years ago in our little town there were twenty pubs, ten bars and thirteen shops that sold beer. But the people also had other means of amusement. Traveling magicians, illusionists and theatrical troupes