Read Harlequin's Millions for Free Online Page A

all came to our little town. On rare occasions there was even a magic lantern show, with painted slides projected on a screen. Later there were moving images, which caused quite a sensation. As early as nineteen-hundred-and-five there was a tent on Na rejdišti where scenes were projected from the Russo-Japanese War, and the audience cheered whenever the Japanese fled from the Russians. These shows always had a narrator, and sometimes musical accompaniment from the enormous horn of a gramophone. Theimages were called magical-spiritualistic. On Thursday May the third, eighteen-hundred-and-ninety-eight, one such performance was held in the Pelikán clubhouse by the Prague artist and cinematic pioneer Viktor Ponrepo. On Sunday November the fourth there was a similar performance at Hotel Na Knížecí by mind reader and hypnotist Schobl. By nineteen-hundred-and-eight you had Ponec’s traveling cinema on Na rejdišti and Korba’s nightclub the Royal Bishop, both had moving images … We walked along the Velký Val, the motionless water shone through the overhanging branches of the old chestnut trees like a black mirror, in which the gas lamps were reflected in a mesh of leaves, we walked past the tall, dismal-looking manor house, past its high walls, through the battered gate a large lantern shone down on piles of scrap metal, piles of discarded refrigerators, radiators, baby carriages, piles of defective radios and television sets. Mr. Václav Kořínek was moved. Above the streets the sounds from all the televisions murmured and mingled, shouts and cheers that blended with the encouraging cries of thirty thousand viewers, their voices murmuring like the sea, like the surf, ebbing and swelling rhythmically, above those waves the voice of the commentator triumphed, emphatic, enthusiastic, sometimes his voice merged with the screams and shouts, which merged with the sound of a military trumpet. Mr. Kořínek continued … When mygrandfather was discharged from the army, he got married and worked as a farmhand in Michle, near Prague. In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-four he came here on foot with his wife and three young children, whom he transported in a baby carriage, underneath which he had tied a few pots and pans, he came here to work for Zedrich. Here too Grandpa was a farmhand and coachman … spoke Mr. Kořínek, and tapped on the crumbling wall of the manor house, which is now a collection site for scrap metal and old paper. And he went on … They were given a place to live in the servants’ quarters, in a large room with one family living in each corner. The stove stood in the middle and they all had to share it. These people had no theater, or magic shows, or any other form of entertainment. There were several of these rooms in the house, one next to the other. The people were contented, for the most part, they didn’t know much else outside of their daily grind, and since each of these farmhands was allowed to fatten up one or two hogs a year, slaughtering time was always great fun. And Grandpa always looked forward to the annual veterans’ reunion, where they met to discuss their uniforms, which had to be properly soldierlike, with a tunic, starred insignia and a
Federbüsche
, a stiff shako with cocks’ feathers. The platoon commanders wore waistbands with long tassels and the chief commanders had sashes across their chest and the wholetroop had its own standard … he said, and we crossed a quiet little bridge and came to the water tower, once again the wind rose and raised clouds of dust and paper and leaves, once again we turned around and walked backward, with our backs to the windstorm blowing in from the streets, and as we walked backward I could see into the window of every house, into the living rooms, the half-dark kitchens, where a blue screen beamed and where all the eyes of the viewers were fixed on the playing