Intimate Things Author:Karel Capek INTIMATE KAREL APEK Translated by DORA ROUND G. P. PUTNAMS SONS NEW YORK 1936 PUBLISHED IN U. S. A. All rights reserved PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY OTNWIN BROTHERS LTD., WOKING 880885 J M o CONTENTS PAGE ON LITERATURE 9 FROST FLOWERS 13 FOR BOOKWORMS 16 SNOW 20 ON DREAMS 23 MAPS 27 FIRES 30 MELANCHOLY 33 A PLAN FRUSTRATED 36 CATS IN SPRING 39 PO... more »RTENTS 43 FORERUNNER OF SPRING ... 46 BIRDS 49 THE INNER VOICE 52 IN PRAISE OF CLUMSY PEOPLE , . 56 WHEELS 60 WOMAN AND THE PROFESSIONS . . 63 A GAME WITH A PIGEON . . , . 67 THE BARREL ORGAN 70 THE SMELL OF HOME 74 SECRETS 77 IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS .... 80 THE TAMING OF THE HOOP ... 83 SUNDAY 86 FROM THE LAWS OF THE CATS . . 90 WHICH IS THE MERRIER .... 92 7 Intimate Things PAGE NAMES 95 RAILWAY STATIONS 99 CATS 103 THE POST 107 TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE . . . . in THE JOYS OF LIFE 114 A CLEAN JOB 117 ON THE THRESHOLD OF MYSTERIES . 121 CAT AND DOG 124 WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW ... 127 SNAPSHOTS . 130 MEN AND DOGS . . . . . .134 PLOUGHLAND I37 THE GOLDEN EARTH I4 o OCTOBER i 43 LIGHTS i 47 AUTUMN PICTURE 150 BIG AND LITTLE . T . . . . 153 SOMETHING NEW 156 A COLD J j THE SWITCH Z 6 4 GOOD RESOLUTIONS K 8 PRAGUE IN THE SNOW .... 171 THOSE GREY DAYS I 4 INTIMATE THINGS ON LITERATURE ORGIVE me if I start off with something quite other than literature, something from the days when I was a small boy. Your city boy is a kind of super-boy, a born sceptic, lord of the streets and it is quite natural that he should have a huge contempt for hobble-de hoys, nincompoops, bumpkins, and clod-hoppers, as he nicknames country boys. Your country boy looks down immeasurably and with justice on the city boys for he is lord of the fields and forests he knows all about horses, and is on friendly terms with the beasts of the field he can crack a whip and has under his dominion all the treasures of the earth, from willow switches to ripe poppy-heads. And even your boy from a small country town is by no means the least among worldly princes for he includes in his circle more than any other mortal creature he can watch all human activities at close quarters. When I was a boy in a little country town I saw at home how a doctors business is run, and at my grand fathers I could inspect the business of a miller and baker, which is ever so jolly and fine. And at my uncles I saw what a farmer has to do but if I once started on that I should never stop telling you all I learnt there, and all the things I got to know. Our nearest neighbour was the painter who stencilled the Intimate Things walls, 1 and that is a tremendously interesting job. Sometimes he used to let me mix him the colours in their little pots and once, almost bursting with pride, I was allowed to smear one stencil pattern with the brush it came out crooked, but otherwise most successfully. I shall never forget how that painter used to stride up and down the planks whistling, gloriously splashed with all the colours of the rainbow and he stencilled in such miraculously straight lines, sometimes even painting in something freehand it might be an amazingly well-nourished rose the colour of stale liver, on the ceiling. It was my first revelation of the painters art, and I lost my heart to it then, and have been in love with it ever since. And then I used to go every day and have a look at how the innkeeper runs his job, and see how they roll the casks down into the cellar and how they draw the beer and blow off the froth, and hear the wise tales the old gossips tell as they wipe the froth from their whiskers with the backs of their hands. Every day I used to look in on neighbour cobbler and watch in silence how he cut the leather and hammered it on his last and then put on the heel, and all manner of other things for shoemaking is an intricate and delicate work, and if you have not seen leather in the cobblers hands you know nothing about it at all, though you may wear shoes of Cordovan or even of celestial leather...« less