Toto je další z prvních povídek, které jsem napsal anglicky. Je datovaná listopad 1986. Původní verzi jsem nikterak neměnil a chyby
záměrně neopravoval. V textu se objevuje narážka na povídku "How I Became Lord Welsh".
Jansen Raichl
Obálka.
STORIES OF BASKERVILLE
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
The History of My Nation's Leaders
By Herodes Marshall
As I have spent at least thirty years having to read scores of decrees which I was presented and forced to sign by my
cleaning women and chamberlains, I acquired sufficient literary skills to write memoires of our dynasty.
Among others, I was inspired by books by Eliot T. Welsh who became famous in our island for writing the history of
our nation. I highly praise the way he distinguished our capital from a place in a story by Conan Doyle - simply by saying
there were no hounds here. I have written him a letter of thanks, but he didn't reply. I had an explanation from his assistant who stated Mr. Welsh read only poetry, and as my letter wasn't written in verse he couldn't understand it.
Mr. Welsh employs scores ar assistants, usually debunked military intelligents because those are trained in
decodeing. Mr. Welsh's products come out in the form of messages as if by the Pythian Sybille, so their task is to
decipher them. As three of these former captains of secret services used to serve me breakfast or rake faliage in the garden, before their expulsion, they could help to describe our way of life in the closest detail.
And now I will start the history of our dynasty. I don't know much about my grandfather because he had died
before I was even born. My father didn't speak about him because he hadn't liked him.
My father was well-known in our country under the nickname "Son of the Golden Town". It was for two reasons. Firstly, he wore sun-glasses with golden frame, which was unusual because it was not in style at that time. Secondly, because of our nation's prosperity then.
In 1928, tourists started to throng into the island, and my grandfather wanted to accelerate it, so he banned all dogs bigger than dachshund from the island on the ground that they made too big shits which nobody was ready to clean out. Soon, my grandfather got annoyed with the foreigners since they asked about Sherlock Holmes, and for he was illiterate, he couldn't know what they were talking about.
Nevertheless, the tourists brought in enough money to enable him to send my father abroad to gather experience. He could give him $1,800 for the travel expenses.
A day before my father left, an adviser had explained my grandpa the things about Sherlock Holmes. As a result, a mechanical running dog was constructed, and it even had a capacity to spit fire. It had been a great attraction for three nights, but then a workman failed to control the gas pressure, and the dog exploded.
Immediately, we got a bad press on it, and tourists feared to come here any more. Allegedly, we were not able to manipulute gas.
Meanwhile, my father arrived at New York. On the way, he read a pocket handbook for junior business executives and l
earned how profitable it was to hold stock. In the afternoon, he spent all his money on the Stock Exchange, so he had to accommodate himself on a park bench. It was Thursday, and he was sure he would get rich overnight because Friday was his lucky day.
That Friday, however, proved to be less lucky than usual. A passer-by advised him to burn the stock before someone would raise any claims against him. He took the advise and quickly burnt the papers.
He left the place even more quickly. He made the fire behind a news stall and it caught the fire. My father wasn't
ready to have any debate with the police and also needed to send a telegram for help as quickly as possible.
At the post-office, he failed to persuade the clerks that his glasses had a golden, and not only gilded, frame. While trying to prove it, he broke one lens, and so he managed to get only seven words in exchange for it.
The boat arrived one day later than it was planned because the inexperienced captain had mistaken Baltimore for New York and looked for my father there.
In the meantime, my father surrounded himself with garbage cans in the harbor. The police were then zealously searching
for him. As it turned out, the news-stall belonged to a Congressman whom the Republican Party assigned to count the pages in their austerity plan for the time of an economic collapse. If those papers hadn't been burnt the Depression could have been prevented, and Roosevelt would have never been elected.
On his return, my father was appointed the Highest Commander of the Armed Force, which in our family jargon stands for solitary confinement. There my father spent five years.
Then his father died and I could be born. My father had been alive, for sixteen more years. Then he made an error in the preparation of a military parade, and our Navy's only ship sank. My father was sentenced to death by his Court Martial, and I succeded him to his office.
I spent all my life in the island. I had to guard the Highest Commanders and to keep an eye on our servants, who had a tendency towards stealing.
But my son had thrilling experience. Last year, I decided to send him to the States. I offered him this in the form of a choice, while the other alternative, I believe, was unacceptable even for an idiot. I could supply him with as much $2,000, even though our financial situation is gloomy and the future far from glamorous. He successfully sustained four months in that hostile foreign land and was still enterprising. I am proud
of him. Nevertheless, I sent him to run the Armed Force, which will do him good. Since 1929, the conditions for the Commanders have improved dramatically. Now they even have a radio set in the room, and once a week they are allowed for a walk in the corridor.
Written in November 1986
&&&&&&&&&&&
Verze pro tisk
