Valerie and Her Week of Wonders by Vitezslav Nezval Page A

not being born a girl. The story of this tyrant is as simple as it is tangled, and I think I understand it properly now. The Polecat is an old degenerate who, regrettably, learned in his youth all sorts of arts that he now puts to ill use. The pellets in your earrings are his handiwork of long ago. He filled them with an essence he had managed to acquire during the endless experiments to which he dedicated his youth. Let me tell you why we came here. Since his memory has long played tricks on him, he has forgotten most of what he once knew. The old man, as you know, prolongs his life and his sensual appetite by ingesting the blood of chickens. Although he sometimes manages to help his senses to their feet and whip himself up to the pathological lustfulness that has him completely under its control, his brain decayed long ago and nothing can save it. One day, he remembered the elixir he had once succeeded in creating and concealed in the earrings, and the desire to lay hands on it again led him to this house, which was once his property. The underground room used to be his laboratory, where he performed experiments with chickens’ blood. Today it is a gloomy tomb, of that there is no doubt. On that day you first spotted us we had spent the whole afternoon lurking in the henhouse, looking out for anyone wearing the old man’s earrings. We saw them in your ears as you returned from a walk. Then all we had to do was wait until you were asleep and steal them from you. But no sooner were your earrings in the Polecat’s possession and he knew that their secret was in place than he lost all interest in them and transferred his attention to you. The rest you know. So notwithstanding the desire of his sick mind, he is neither my father, nor yours. I feel bitterness. Now that you have prolonged his life, now that his lips have defiled your beauty, and now that he may have infected you with his lust as he infected all the women he has ever met in the course of his life of crime, I have not the temerity to believe that I shall win your love. Why have I wandered the world with him? Why didn’t I rebel against him long ago? Out of compassion and habit. But then he did bring me up for so long. Was it so easy to resist his threats and promises? Today, now that he has deprived me of you, no bond, save that of hatred, ties me to him any longer. I should despair if I had to witness his power over you growing day by day. Therefore, I have decided to flee as far away as possible from this place. I wanted to be your protector, friend, and husband. Today, it seems unlikely that you would accept even advice from me. I shall try to earn my living far from here, no matter in what penury. Forgive me for lacking the strength either to hope, or to take my life. I am too young to believe that I may be able to influence you for your good. What I have seen tears at my heart. That wound will never heal. If it were not too late, I would suggest that together we go somewhere far away and avoid returning to this place until the spell in whose grip we are as nothing loses its power. May my departure bring vigilance to your mind and may you no more be seduced by compassion or an impulse to act in a way that could prove fateful. Farewell, Valerie, I hesitate to say “until we meet again,” since that would mean chafing my mind with renewed hope. Be stronger than I am. Be stronger than you have been until now. Remember that Orlík adores you and loves you with all his heart.
     
     
    Chapter XXVIII
FRIENDS
     
    The letter made up Valerie’s mind not to return to that house of snares and intrigues. She wondered where to go. Unfortunately, she had no girlfriend, because they had never allowed her to play with the girls from the town. She would spend days on end with her grandmother and the domestic animals. She didn’t know where she could go. Walking about the town like a lost soul, she avoided people. She was missing Orlík and reproaching herself for not