Chapter 3 Chapter 1 The Birth of a Poet (1)

When and where was the poet conceived? As his mother pondered the problem, only three possibilities seemed worth serious consideration: either one evening on a park bench, one afternoon in the room of a colleague of the poet's father, or one morning In a romantic countryside near Prague. When the poet's father asked himself the same question, he concluded that it was a particularly unlucky day to conceive the poet in his friend's room.The poet's mother didn't want to go there, so they had two quarrels, but they made up again, and when they finally started making love, someone opened the door loudly in the next room, and the poet's mother was startled, and they stopped hugging and hurried ended the intercourse.He blamed this momentary panic for conceiving the poet.

But the poet's mother denied that conception could have been in a borrowed room (a typical bachelor's slovenly place, she loathed the messy bed and rumpled pajamas), and Maman vetoed the second option : The conception took place on a park bench where she was reluctant to have sex, and the thought of such a bench frequented by prostitutes and pedestrians made her sick.She was therefore certain that she could conceive only on a sunny summer morning, behind a boulder vividly silhouetted against the background of the green valley to which the townspeople of Prague enjoy their Sunday outings.

For many reasons, such surroundings are most suitable for conceiving a poet: here is a bright day, not a dark night, in the midday sun; surrounded by vast nature, suggesting wings and free flight; Although not far from suburban homes, the landscape has a romantic feel to it, full of crevasses, rocks and undulating ground.At the time the location seemed vividly emblematic of her experience.After all, isn’t her strong love for the poet’s father just a romantic rebellion against her parents’ unremarkable, step-by-step life?Is there not an inner resemblance between this secluded and free landscape and the great courage with which she, the daughter of a rich merchant, chose the penniless young engineer?

The poet's mother had been intoxicated with intense love, and nothing could have changed that, not even the disappointment that arose only a few weeks after what happened between those boulders on that wonderful afternoon.The discomfort she told her lover that plagued her life every month didn't come up on schedule.She broke the news to him with great excitement, only to be met with exasperating indifference (which, we now recall, was mostly on the surface).He dismissed the matter as an unimportant, purely temporary and insignificant periodic disorder.Maman was so annoyed at seeing her lover's reluctance to share her joy that she didn't speak to him until the doctor officially announced that she was pregnant.Tears welled up in Maman's eyes when the poet's father said that a good friend of his was a gynecologist who could take care of her troubles without fail.

Such is the sad end of rebellion!Initially against his parents for the sake of the young engineer, and later turning to his parents against him.Her parents succeeded; they had a frank conversation with the engineer, and he, realizing there was no way out, agreed to a decent wedding.He gladly accepted a large dowry, which later enabled him to establish his own construction company.He stuffed his entire belongings into two suitcases and moved into the villa where his new wife was born and raised. Despite the engineer's quick compromise, the poet's mother is saddened to realize that the adventure she's so impulsively thrown into -- which once seemed intoxicatingly good -- hasn't turned out to be what she firmly believes she has a right to expect Great, mutually satisfying love.Her father was the proprietor of two thriving pharmacies in Prague, so her morality was based on a strict principle of equal exchange.On her part, she invests everything in love (she is even willing to sacrifice her parents and their peaceful life); in turn, she expects the other party to invest an equal amount of affection in the joint account.In order to restore balance, she gradually regained her emotional savings and put on a haughty and stern face to her husband after the wedding.

The poet’s mother’s older sister had recently moved out of the house (she married and moved to an apartment downtown), so the old couple continued to live downstairs, while their daughter and the engineer lived on the top floor.There are three rooms upstairs, two of which are large and furnished exactly as they were when the old apothecary built his villa twenty years ago.The engineer thus inherited a fully furnished room.All in all, it was a satisfactory arrangement for him, since he had absolutely no possessions other than the two patchwork suitcases just mentioned.Still, he urges a small change to the apartment, but his wife has no intention of letting him—a man who would gladly sacrifice her to an abortionist—manage the spirit of her parents. , also represents twenty years of good habits and a peaceful world.

On this occasion, too, the young engineer compromised without resistance, and made only a small protest against one thing: a small table in the bedroom covered by a heavy gray marble disc on which stood There is a statuette of a naked man; the statue holds a lyre in its left hand, resting on its hip.The right arm swung out in a moving posture, as if the fingers had just touched the strings.Straighten your right leg, tilt your head slightly back, and look upwards.The face was very beautiful, the hair wavy, and the white alabaster gave him an extraordinary air of tenderness, effeminacy, and, so to speak, virginity; In the inscription on the base, this statue holding a lyre is the ancient Greek god Apollo.

Seeing this statue, the poet's mother couldn't help feeling angry.Often the statue was turned with its back toward the room, and either became the engineer's hat-stand, or the brooding head a place for the engineer's shoes.Occasionally a stinky sock is draped over a statuette—an unforgivable insult to the Muses and their chief. The poet's mother reacted with unusual anger.Not simply for lack of humor, but because she sensed quite accurately that her husband put Apollo in the stocking to send a message that he was politely unable to express directly: in this playful way, he wanted Let her know that he rejects her world, that his submission is only temporary.

The alabaster statue thus became a real ancient god: a ghostly god who intervenes from time to time in human affairs, confounds a person's life, plots plots, and performs miracles.The young heroine sees him as an ally, her wistful feminine imagination transforms him into a living being, his pupils seem to gleam with life, his lips quiver with breath.She fell in love with this naked young man who was being abused for her.As she gazed at that handsome face, she had a wish that the child growing in her belly would resemble her handsome rival.The desire was so strong that, looking at her belly, she imagined that this Greek youth was the real father of the child, and she prayed to God to use his power to change the past, to change her experience of conceiving her son, like the great Prophet. Shannon once painted a masterpiece on a canvas destroyed by a botched artist.

In the Virgin Mary, she stumbled upon a model of motherhood without genitals, and she longed for a motherly love without the participation of the father.She was obsessively longing for the baby to be called Apollo, which seemed to her to mean "he has no father." Of course, she knew that her son would get into trouble with such a noble name, and people would Laugh at her and her son.So she searched for a Czech name worthy of the young Olympian god, and she settled on Jaromil, which means "he loves spring" and "he is loved by spring." The choice was well received by everyone. agree.

When they drove her to the hospital, it was in fact springtime and lilacs in bloom; after hours of labor, the baby poet slipped onto the filthy sheets of the world. They put the poet in a crib next to his mother's bed, and she listened to the melodious wailing, her aching body filled with pride.Let us not begrudge the contentment of Maman's body, which has not so far experienced much joy, although it is still charming: yes, there is no outline of the back, the legs are a bit short, but the breasts are very full, and the hair is very beautifully combed. (Too beautiful to match) There is a face that is not dazzling but moving. Maman has always felt that she is plain and unattractive.This was largely due to the fact that the older sister she had grown up with was a prom queen and worked in Prague's premier couture shop, and she was vivacious and beautiful, played tennis, and slipped easily into the world of elegant men.Her sister's social success fostered Mama's challenging gravitas; out of sheer defiance, she developed a penchant for sentimental serious music and books. In fact, before meeting the engineer, she had regularly dated a young medical student, the son of a friend of her parents', but the relationship had failed to evoke her physical confidence.Having experienced her first erotic experience with him one night at a summer cottage, she broke off with him the next morning because she was sadly convinced that neither her feelings nor her senses were destined to share in the great love.She was preparing to complete her final exams, and the experience enabled her to announce in time that she had seen a purpose in life in the work of the mind, and she decided to apply to the philosophy department (despite her practical father). After five months on a hard bench in a college classroom, her disillusioned body met a young engineer just out of school one day on the street, who courted it savagely and took possession of it after a few dates.With the unexpected gratification of the body at that time, the mind soon forgot the ambition of the scholarly life and became in communion with the body (as a true mind always does).It readily agreed with the engineer, admiring his cheerfulness and admiring his charming irresponsibility.Although aware that these traits are alien to the environment in which she was brought up, Maman intends to identify with the engineer's traits, in the face of which her melancholy, pure body gains confidence.I began to admire myself inexplicably in surprise. So is Maman happy or not?Not entirely happy; she hovers between confidence and doubt.As she undresses in front of the mirror, she tries to see herself through her husband's eyes: sometimes she seems attractive, other times she seems uninteresting.Submitting your body to the eyes of others is the source of anxiety and doubt. Yet however much she tossed between hope and doubt, she was completely free from self-abasement.No longer frustrated by her sister's tennis racket, her body is finally alive, and Maman has learned to enjoy the pleasures of physical existence, and she hopes to be sure that her new life will be a permanent reality and not a completely shaky promise ; she longed for the engineer to take her away from the university lecture hall, away from her correctional home for children, and turn a love story into a true life story.That's why she welcomed her pregnancy with such enthusiasm.She contemplates herself, the engineer and the child, and this trio seems to ascend to the starry sky, filling the universe. We have already mentioned in the previous chapter: Mama quickly understands that the man who is so eager for love adventure is afraid of life adventure and does not want to travel with her in the stars.We have also seen that in this case her self-esteem survived the lover's cold reaction.A very important change has taken place: Maman's body, long dominated by her lover's gaze, has now entered a new historical stage; it is no longer a complete object in the eyes of others, but has become a body dedicated to a certain The words of people who have no vision are raw flesh.Its appearance has lost its meaning; along an inner, invisible surface, it touches another body.So the eye of the outside world catches only its insignificant shell.The engineer's evaluation no longer has any meaning, it has no effect on the fate of this body.At last the body became completely independent and self-sufficient; the belly, which grew bigger and uglier, was full of pride. After giving birth, Maman's body entered a new period.When she felt her son's mouth gropingly touching her breast for the first time, a sweet throb went deep inside, radiating to every part of her body.This feeling is similar to love, but far more than the lover's touch, it brings great peaceful happiness and great blissful tranquility.She had never felt this way before; when a lover kissed her breast, it was only briefly to bridge a long period of suspicion and distrust; but now she knew that there was a mouth attached to her breast with infinite devotion, for A devotion she could totally depend on. Now there are some other changes.She used to be ashamed when her lover touched her naked body.Mutual attraction always overcomes the feeling of strangeness, and the moment of physical contact is intoxicating precisely because it is only a moment.Shame never sleeps, it makes love more exciting, but it also watches over the body, preventing it from utterly surrendering.But now the shame is gone, it doesn't exist anymore.The two bodies unrestrainedly open to each other, with nothing to hide. She had never been so dedicated to another body, nor had any body been so dedicated to her.The lover used her belly but never lived there, he stroked her breasts but never sucked from there.Ah, the joys of breastfeeding!She watched lovingly the toothless mouth swimming like a fish, and imagined her most intimate thoughts, ideas, and dreams flowing through the milk into the baby. This is the realm of the Garden of Eden: the flesh is the flesh and needs no fig leaf; the mother and son are immersed in infinite peace; they live together as Adam and Eve did before they tasted the fruit of knowledge; they dwell in a body beyond good and evil .Moreover, there is no distinction between beauty and ugliness in the Garden of Eden. The various parts of the body are neither ugly nor beautiful, but only pleasing to the eye.Toothless gums are lovely, breasts are lovely, navels and small buttocks are lovely.The guts are delightful, and they work in perfect order.The short hair that grew out of that funny head was also delightful.Her enthusiastic observation of her son's choking, urinating and coughing is not just a meticulous concern for the baby's health-no, she is passionately involved in every process of the baby's physical activities. It was a new attitude, because from an early age, Mama had a strong aversion to all bodily needs, including her own; she hated herself whenever she sat on the toilet, trying to make sure no one saw her Going into the bathroom, she was once ashamed to eat in public because the process of chewing and swallowing disgusted her.The son's bodily need was now so high, above all ugliness, that it had a peculiarly purifying effect on her, and made her own body right.Those drops of milk that occasionally oozed from puckered nipples were as poetic as a drop of dew.Often she reaches out and gently rubs and expresses her breasts in order to produce those mysterious milk drops.She dipped her little finger in the white liquid and tasted it: she told herself that she was doing it to learn a little more about the liquid that nourished her son, but she was actually curious about the taste of herself, sweet milk. The smell reconciles her with the rest of her body's waste and secretions.She began to feel refined; her body became as agreeable and just as any object in nature—a tree, a bush, a lake. Unfortunately, for all the joy Maman's body gave her, she didn't pay enough attention to its needs.By the time she realized this, it was too late: the skin on the abdomen had become rough and wrinkled, and the underlying ligaments showed whitish streaks; the skin looked not like a real part of the body, but like a loose bed the sheets.Although Maman was surprised by this discovery, she was not overly disturbed by it.Wrinkled or not, her body is happy because it exists for eyes that see only the blurred outlines of the world, eyes (these Eden eyes) not yet aware of the In this depraved, cruel world, the body is divided into beautiful and ugly. Although these changes were invisible to the baby's eyes, the husband's eyes noticed them.After Jaromil's birth, her husband attempts to reconcile with Mamen.After a long time, they start making love again.But it wasn't the same as before; they had a certain amount of time to make out before making love hesitantly in the dark.Mama didn't care about that, she was aware of her body that had grown ugly, and she was afraid that passionate, reckless love would cost her the peace of mind her son had given her. No, no, she would never forget that the excitement her husband gave her was only full of risk and uneasiness, but her son gave her a peace full of bliss; that's why she continued to cling to him for comfort (who had begun to stagger. , babbling).Once the child was seriously ill, Maman did not close her eyes for almost two weeks, guarding day and night beside this little body suffering from high fever and suffering from illness.It was a time of ecstasy, too; after her son recovered from his illness, she felt as though she had carried him through hell in her arms, and had experienced that, nothing could separate her from him. The body of the husband, wrapped in a coat or pajamas, shutting itself in alone, is getting further and further away from her, becoming more and more strange every day, while the body of the son continues to depend on her; she no longer nurses him, but teaches him Using the toilet, she dresses and undresses him, combs his hair, chooses his clothes, and keeps in touch with his internal organs every day through the food she zealously prepares for him.When her son was four years old and began to show signs of lack of appetite, she became strict with him, forcing him to eat, and for the first time she felt that she was not only a friend of his body but also its ruler.The body resisted, would not swallow, but finally had to yield; she watched with pleasure the futile resistance, yield, and the thin neck through which she could watch the passage of the unwelcome food. what!The body of her son, her paradise, her home, her kingdom... And what about the soul of the son?Isn't it also part of her kingdom?Oh yes, of course it is!When the first word Jaromil uttered was "mother", she was ecstatic.She said to herself that her son's brain - which still has only one concept - is completely filled by her, and even after his brain starts to develop, branch and blossom, she will still be his root.This idea made her happy, and she began to pay close attention to her son's language learning. Since she felt that life is long and memory is short, she went to buy a notebook with a dark red cover and began to write down everything that came out of her son's mouth. All recorded. If we look up Maman's notebook, we will see that after "Mom", there are many words, "baba", "yaiya", "dudu", "huhu", "hum", " Lulu", the seventh is "Daddy".Looking at these simple words (often in Maman's notebook with brief notes and dates), we feel our first forays into sentences.We learn that before his second birthday he declared "Hello Mom".Months later, he said, "Mama's Kaka" because Maman refused to give him raspberry juice before lunch, and he got a slap in the back for saying that.He cried and yelled, I want another mother!But after a while he said, my mother is very beautiful.This made Maman very happy.Another time he said, Mom, I lick you a kiss.Meaning he was going to stick out his tongue and lick Maman's entire face. If we skip a few pages, we have a sentence with an astonishing sense of rhythm.The maid Anna once promised Jaromil to give him a bunch of hawthorns, but she forgot and ate the hawthorns herself.Feeling cheated, Jaromil was very angry and repeated fiercely, ugly Anna, steal the hawthorn. In a sense, this sentence is very similar to the above mentioned mother is Kaka, but this time Jaromil did not get a slap on the back, and everyone, including Anna, laughed out loud. It is also often quoted as a joke for everyone (of course, Jaromil understands this).At that time, it was impossible for Jaromil to know the inner reasons for his success, but we know very well that it was the rhyme of this sentence that saved him from being slapped.This is Jaromil's first encounter with the magical power of poetry. Subsequent pages are filled with a great deal of rhyming phrases which, according to Mama's notes, apparently brought joy and amusement to the whole family.For example, Jaromil's sketch of the maid's appearance is like this: The clothes of my servant are like a goat.Immediately followed by this sentence: We are laughing in the woods, how beautiful our hearts are.Mamen felt that, in addition to Jaromil's creative talent, his poetic vitality also came from the influence of rhyming children's books.She read them to him so often with such zeal and obstinacy that the boy was completely convinced that his entire mother tongue consisted of iambics.Here, we have to make some corrections: Jaromil's poetic flourishing is not due to his talent, nor is it due to his imitation of literary models, the real source is his grandfather.A sober, practical man, who had nothing to do with poetry, came up with the worst couplets and secretly taught them to his grandson. It wasn't long before Jaromil realized the impact his words had, and it was beginning to show.At first he used language only to be understood, but now he speaks to gain admiration, admiration, and laughter.He expects his words to have an effect, and since he often fails to get the expected response, he tries to attract everyone's attention by talking nonsense.He paid for it; once, he said to Mama and Papa, you are all thorns. (He had heard it used by a boy in the next yard, and remembered all the boys laughing out loud.) But instead of finding it funny, Dad slapped him. Since then, he has paid careful attention to the words grown-ups use—what words they hold dear, which words they consider appropriate or inappropriate, and which words shock them.This kind of observation made him stand in the garden with Maman one day, imitating his grandmother's tone, and uttering a melancholy sentence: Mom, life is really like these weeds. It's hard to tell what's going on in his head.Evidently he had not thought of the vigorous and worthless quality of weeds.Maybe he just wanted to express such a vague concept as the sadness and emptiness of life.But even if what he said was different from what he meant to say, the impression of the sentence was memorable: Maman was stunned for a moment, and then she stroked his hair and gazed tearfully into his face.That ecstatic, admiring gaze captivated Jaromil, and he longed for it again.When he was walking with Maman, he kicked a rock and said, Mom, I just kicked the rock and now I feel sorry for it—and he bent down and stroked the rock gently. Maman was convinced that her son was not only talented (he learned to read at the age of five) but also sensitive, unlike other children.She often expressed this opinion to her grandfather and grandmother, and Jaromil listened while pretending to play with his soldiers or his wooden horse.He stared into the eyes of his guests, fantasizing that they saw him as an extraordinary gifted child, or as a special person rather than a child. As his sixth birthday approached and he was getting ready for school, the family insisted he should have a room of his own and sleep alone.Maman lamented the relentless passage of time, but she agreed anyway.She and her husband decided to give their son a small room on the top floor for his birthday and furnish it with a couch and some appropriate furniture: a bookcase, a mirror to remind him to keep clean and tidy, a small Small writing desk. Papa offered to decorate the room with Jaromil's own paintings, and proceeded to paste childish graffiti of apples and houses on the walls.Maman walked up to him and said, "I want you to give me something." He looked at her, and she continued, a little shyly but firmly, "I want you to give me some paper and some paint".She sat down at the dresser in her room, spread out the paper, and practiced writing capital letters for a long time; at last she dipped the pen in red paint and began to write the first letter, a large L and then the letter I, wrote the whole sentence very quickly: Life is like weeds.She inspected her work with satisfaction; the letters were neatly drawn and evenly spaced.She took another sheet of paper and rewrote the sentence, this time in dark blue, because dark blue more appropriately expressed the deep melancholy of her son's mind. Then she remembered that Jaromil had also said that ugly Anna stole the hawthorn.With a happy smile on her lips, she began to write in bright red: OUR DEAR ANNA, LOVED A Bunch of Hawthorns.Then she laughed and remembered that you were all thorns, but she didn't write that down.She wrote in green paint: We are laughing in the woods, what a beautiful heart.She wrote in purple again: My Annie's clothes are as soft as a goat. (Jaromil actually said "my servant's clothes," but Mamen thought the word "servant" too vulgar).Then she recalled the scene of Jaromil caressing the stone, and after a little thought, she wrote in light blue: I don't even want to hurt a stone.Embarrassed, she added in orange: Mom, I will lick you a kiss.Finally, in gold, she wrote: "My mum is beautiful. On the eve of his birthday, his parents sent the excited Jaromil downstairs to sleep with his grandmother, and then began to move furniture and decorate the walls of his room.In the morning, when they called the child into the newly refreshed room, Maman was already tired.Jaromil's reaction puzzled her.Evidently startled, he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, saying nothing.He only showed interest in the writing desk, and this interest, too, was vacillating and hesitant.It was a queer piece of furniture, somewhat like a school desk: a sloping top with flaps for writing, and a cover for a small storage compartment, integrated with the seat. Maman couldn't bear it anymore; "Hey, what do you think? Do you like your room?" "Yes, I like it." The child replied. "What's your favorite? Come on, tell us!" prompts Grandpa, as he and Granny watch him from behind the half-open door. "This." said the child.He sat in front of the desk and turned the top with hinged leaves up and down. "What do you think of these paintings?" Dad asked, pointing to the framed paintings. The child looked up and smiled: "I know them well". "But what do you think of hanging these pictures on the wall?" The child was still sitting in front of the desk and nodded, expressing that he liked the paintings on the wall. Maman's heart ached a little, and she wanted to hide, but she had to stick to it.Since her silence might be taken as a reproach, she could not ignore the bright inscriptions, so she said: "Look at these!" The child buried his head lower and stared intently at the desk drawer. "You know, I want..." Mama continued, bewildered, "I just want you to remember something that reminds you of how you grew up, from the cradle to the desk, because you A very clever boy, you made us all so happy..." She spoke apologetically, in great embarrassment, repeating the same sentence several times, until she did not know what else to say, and fell silent. If she thought Jaromil did not appreciate the gift, she was wrong.He didn't know what to say, but he was satisfied.He's always been proud of his words, and he doesn't want them lost in thin air.Seeing them carefully jotted down on paper and turned into pictures gave him a sense of success—indeed, a success so great and unexpected that he did not know how to answer it, and it disturbed him.He knew that he was a child with amazing words, and he felt that such a child should say something meaningful at this moment, but he couldn't think of anything, so he hung his head silently.But out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of his own words firmly unfolding across the room, bigger and longer than himself, and he couldn't help but be ecstatic.He felt as if he were surrounded by his own self, that he was everywhere—he filled the room, the whole villa. Jaromil learned to read and write before going to school.So Maman decided to let him go directly to the second grade; she managed to get special permission from the Ministry of Education, after a committee examination, and Jaromil was allowed to sit among the students who were a year older than him.Everyone at school envied him, so to him the classroom was nothing more than a mirror in which the family was reflected.During the school celebrations on Mother's Day, when the students performed for their parents, Jaromil was the last to appear and recited a moving poem about mothers, for which he received prolonged applause. However, one day he discovered that behind the public applauding him, there was another completely different, dangerous and hostile public lurking.He made an appointment to see the dentist, and happened to run into a classmate.They were standing chatting by the window of the crowded waiting room when Jaromil noticed a grown man listening to their conversation with a friendly smile.Jaromil then raised his voice and asked his classmate aloud what he would do if he were Minister of Education.The boy didn't know how to answer, so Jaromil began to elaborate on what he had often heard from his grandfather on the subject.That is to say: if Jaromil were the Minister of Education, the school would only be in session for two months, the holidays would last up to ten months, and the teachers would listen to the children and bring them cakes from the bakery.Jaromil continued to describe all kinds of great changes that were about to take place with great enthusiasm and loudly. At this time, the door of the treatment room opened, and the nurse sent out a patient.A woman put the book on her lap, turned and said to the nurse with an angry trembling voice, "Miss, please mind that kid over there, he's making a lot of noise and showing off, it's really annoying." Just after Christmas, the teacher called each child to the front of the class to talk about the holiday.When it was Jaromil's turn, he raved about the unusual Christmas presents he had received - blocks, skis, skates, books; but he soon noticed that his enthusiasm was not shared by his classmates, some The classmate looked at him with indifference and even hostility.He stopped suddenly and did not continue to list the rest of the gifts. No, no, don't worry - we're not going to repeat the corny tale of a rich kid and his poor schoolmate.After all, there were several boys in Jaromil's class whose families were much wealthier than his.But these kids got on well with the rest of the class, and no one envied their wealthy backgrounds.So, what made Jaromil offend his classmates? Almost unspeakable: not riches, but maternal love.This love left traces everywhere; it stuck to his shirt, his hair, his school-book bag, even the books he read to entertain himself.Everything was chosen especially for him, prepared with love for him.The shirt was sewn for him by his frugal grandmother, and it somehow looked like a girl's blouse rather than a boy's.His long hair was pinned up with Maman's bobby pins so as not to obscure his eyes.Whenever it rains, Maman always waits for him in front of the school gate with a big umbrella, while his classmates hang their shoes on their shoulders and wade through the puddles barefoot. Motherly love leaves on the forehead of the child an imprint that rejects the friendship of its companions.As time went by, Jaromil learned to hide this imprint skillfully, but his first prominence at school was followed by a difficult year or two, during which his classmates ridiculed him and humiliated him. He, several times they even beat him up.But even in the darkest of times, Jaromil had several reliable friends, for whose loyalty he was forever grateful.Now let's talk about them: The first friend is his dad.Sometimes he and Jaromil took the football to the yard (father was a good football player when he was young), Jaromil always stood between two trees, his father kicked the ball to him, and Jaromil acted as Goalkeeper for the Czechoslovak national team. His grandfather was his second friend: he often took Jaromil to visit his two stores; one of them was a large pharmacy, which was already run by his grandfather's son-in-law;的女人负责；她总是对孩子殷勤地微笑，让他闻各种各样的香水，以至雅罗米尔学会了靠气味来辨别不同的牌子。他总是要外祖父把小瓶子凑到他鼻子下，考考他鉴别香味的能力。 "你是一个嗅觉灵敏的天才。"外祖父赞扬他，于是雅罗米尔就幻想着成为一个新型香水的发明家。 第三个朋友是阿里克，一条神经质的小狗，曾经在别墅里住过一段时期；尽管它没有经过训练，毫不听话，雅罗米尔仍然把它幻想成一个忠实的伙伴，在教室外面等他，陪伴他回家，它的忠诚引起了所有同学的嫉妒。 对狗的幻想成了雅罗米尔孤独的癖好，把他引向古怪的摩尼教：狗变成了动物中善的象征，一切自然美德的化身。他想象出狗与猫之间的多次战争（有将军、军官、所有设施，是他过去同他的锡兵游戏时采用过的兵法），他总是站在狗的一边，正如，个人应该永远站在正义一边。 很多时候，他都在爸爸的房间里拿着纸和笔画画，狗成了他绘画的主要对象：在种种不着边际的壮观场面中，狗被描绘成将军，大兵，球星和骑士。由于它们四肢的姿势与人物角色的适当举止相抵牾，雅罗米尔便把这些动物画成人的身躯。这是一个伟大的发现！每当雅罗米尔试图画人时，他总会遇到一个严重的困难：他不知道怎样画人脸。另一方面，他却掌握了画一个细长狗头的真正技巧，画完后在口鼻上点一滴黑墨水。这样，出于幻想和稚拙，一个狗头人身的奇异世界便诞生了。这个世界的人物能迅速地描绘出来，毫不困难地同描绘战争，足球比赛和海外冒险联系在一起。 第四个朋友是一个被大家鄙弃的同学；他的父亲是学校的看门人，一个疑心很重的小个男人，经常在校长面前告一些学生的状。这些孩子就向他的儿子报复，使他在学校里活得象狗一样。雅罗米尔逐渐被所有同学抛弃后，看门人的儿子仍然是他唯一的忠实崇拜者，有一次他还被邀请到别墅里度过了一天。大家请他在那里用了中饭和晚餐，两个男孩一起玩积木，然后雅罗米尔帮助他的朋友做功课。下个礼拜天，雅罗米尔的爸爸带他们去看足球赛。这是一场激动人心的比赛，爸爸给他们留下了深刻的印象；他知道所有球员的名字，他谈起这场球赛就象是一个真正的行家，看门人的儿子听入了迷，雅罗米尔感到非常自豪。 在表面上，两个朋友是截然不同的一对：雅罗米尔总是穿着整洁，看门人的儿子却穿着一件磨损破烂的外套；雅罗米尔的家庭作业总是做得仔细认真，他的伙伴却是一个反应迟钝的学生。尽管如此，同这个忠诚的朋友在一起，雅罗米尔感到很自在。因为看门人的儿子身体非常结实。一个冬日下午，他俩遭到一大群男孩的袭击，他们成功地击败了这群男孩；雅罗米尔很高兴他们干得这样棒；而且成功抵御所带来的光荣与进攻所带来的光荣是不同的。 一次，他们正漫步穿过城郊的空地，遇到了一个男孩，这个男孩洗得干干净净，穿着整整洁洁，好象是刚参加了一个儿童舞会。"妈妈的小宝贝。"看门人的儿子说，上前挡住这个男孩的路。他们戏弄他，向他提一些可笑的问题，对他畏缩的回答感到很开心。最后这个男孩鼓起勇气，想把他们推开。"你竟敢这样！你要为此付出代价！"雅罗米尔嚷道，好象这男孩的动作是一个莫大的侮辱；看门人的儿子把这话当成信号，给了那男孩脸上一拳。 智力和体力可以结成天造地设的一对。拜伦不就是对杰克逊拳师充满温情吗？后者以各种运动幸勤地训练这位虚弱的勋爵。"别打他，抓住他就行！"雅罗米尔对朋友叫道。他拔了一把长在垃圾堆里的带刺荨麻，强迫那个男孩脱下衣服，然后浑身上下抽打他。"看见你这样一个可爱的红小孩，你妈妈会高兴的！"雅罗米尔嘲弄道。一股对朋友的温暖友情，对所有娘娘腔的妈妈宝贝的同仇敌忾掠过了他的全身。 为什么雅罗米尔仍然是家里唯一的孩子？他的母亲对一个大家庭不感兴趣吗？ 恰恰相反，她渴望重温第一次当母亲时的那种幸福体验，但她丈夫总是找理由拖延。不久，她就不再恳求他，她怕遭到进一步的拒绝，怕拒绝所带来的耻辱。