"The partner of the project is" "presents a feature film" "FIMFARUM by Jan Werich" "When somebody is reluctant to do what is required of him, he usually wriggles out of it by saying:" "Never in a month of Sundays." "Some people will say:" "When the cows come home." "And someone else will place his hand on his stomach and say:" "When my beard is that long!" "I am acquainted with a village where in such circumstances, the people say:" "WHEN THE LEAVES FALL FROM THE O AK" "Mr Cupera was a drinker." "He drank away his cows, his horses and his cart." "In short, he drank his farm into debt so much, so that his neighbours avoided him." "He had a pretty wife, Julia, who had very dark eyes." "Time and again she told him to decide between her and the drink." "Time and again she revived him in the yard when someone brought him home from the pub, and set him on the manure heap like on a throne." "One day Cupera was walking across his fields and thinking about Julia." "All around him he could see nothing but neglected, fallow land." "His neighbours' fields showed green crops, his own only thistles and weeds, thick as a windbreak." "If he'd had money, he would have gone off to get drunk and forget about it all." "Hell and damnation!" "What devil is playing tricks with me?" " It's about time you recalled who I am!" "Cupera knew at once who it was." "The devil!" "I have been watching you for a long time and observing what a bad life you are leading." "Don't you want me to help you out of this mess?" "He spoke grammatically, quite correctly but with a slight foreign accent." "Cupera could not say no more." "They reached an agreement that, by morning, Cuper's field would be fertilized, ploughed, harrowed, planted and where necessary, the crops thinned out." "However, Cupera himself would have to harvest the crops, but he would have to hire help in good time for the heads of grain would be four times their usual weight." "Well, thank you very much." " Mr Cupera, no one is ever ready to do something for nothing." "For clients who have brought about their own failure we have particularly favourable terms." "You, Mr. Cupera, will sight in blood, in your own, of course," "an undertaking to give us that of which you have no knowledge that you now have at home." "Cupera started thinking." "Whatever could he have at home and not know about it?" "He knew about Julia and about the store cupboard, the cowsheds were empty, he knew about the crucifix in the passage, about the dovecote..." " Right, and when will you come for it?" " Any time I choose." " Just so that I would be at home." " We shall come for the thing that is due to us riding on a strange creature." "If you are able to ride out to meet us on an even stranger creature," "you will be the winner and your obligation will be waived." "Are you willing to sign?" " Upon my soul, I must say." "That is very civil, isn't it so?" " It really is." "It's a boy!" "You will hand over to us the thing you are not even aware that you have at home." "The harvest was tremendous." "Experts visited Cupera from the district town and took samples of the soil." "He paid off his debts." "True, he was still drinking, but no longer so often and so much." "His neighbours no longer avoided him and Cupera's harvests got bigger and better year after year." "Even so, something was not in order at the Cupera's." "The sparkle had returned to Julia's black eyes, it is true, but she was constantly cudgelling her brains." "Cupera had lived for the last five years in fear." "He was waiting for them to come for little Johnnie." "He realized what that meant." "And old beggar woman passed by." "She was generally called Madame Pompadour." "Cupera told her everything." "The things he was ashamed to tell people about himself, he confided in the beggar woman." "Perhaps it was because no one in the neighbourhood looked upon her as a person." "You know, Cupera, you have rum to thank for all of that." "When I was a young girl I was in Bremen." "And I also drank my share." "Just look at me." "What is standing here, is what rum made of a pretty girl." "I'll help you." " However could you?" " The devil is supposed to come today on a strange steed." "Is that how it is?" " Yes." " Devils usually come from the Budejovice direction, from the south." "You must climb up a tree and the moment you spot him in the distance, you'll jump onto my back and we'll set out to meet him." "But before that, you must bring some honey, a feather bed and a horsetail." "So get a move on!" "There was no time for Cupera to ask for an explanation." "In a moment he was back, all in a sweat, with everything the old woman required." "Now get up into that tree!" "He's coming!" " What's he riding on?" " It is small and rust coloured." "Damnation - it's a fox!" "He is riding on a fox!" " He's in for a surprise!" "Not only was the devil surprised, he laughed uproariously." "You are the winner, Mr. Cupera." "As for you, you have wiped out all your sins in Bremen with this good deed." "Congratulations." " After all, there weren't so many of them." " I wouldn't like the job of throwing them over a wall." "People in the area were very much surprised when Cupera built a little house for Madame Pompadour and sent her to Podebrady Spa at his own expense." "However, they did remark that nothing could surprise anyone coming from that eccentric." "Indeed, the sad Cupera had turned into the most cheerful fellow for miles around." "There were plenty of men who raised their elbows as they downed their snifters, but no one did it as elegantly as Cupera." "Now, that he had got over his panic about Johnnie, he was drinking as much as he had been at the time when he had met the young man in the dusty jacket." "Mr. Devil!" "Mr. Devil!" " We have just got a new price list with a whole lot of special offers." "You might be interested in page 111, item:" "Breakdown in Family Relations." " There is only one thing that could interest me," "Mr. Representative." "How I can break the drinking habit?" " My dear fellow, breaking the drinking habit is of all good deeds the goodest, er... the best." "However, our firm, as is generally known, has always specialized in the opposite direction." " I will give you my soul in return." " Do you realize that you will go through hell before you break the drinking habit?" "If you want, we may start at once." "But you really have to want to." "Your will is a component which you, yourself, will have to invest into the undertaking." "Only you." " When would you come for my soul?" " You will set the deadline yourself." "It is not the regular custom but you deserve certain privileges for that Madame Pompadour." "What time would you suggest, Mr Cupera?" " Let's say, when the leaves fall from the oak, if it suits you." " Why not?" "Well, sit down comfortably." "Close your eyes, Mr Cupera." "Now open them." "It didn't hurt, did it?" "Take a seat, Mr. Cupera." "Now you will not drink any more, insofar as you, yourself, will not want to, of course." "Up till now, your will has not left you in the lurch." " I am not afraid." " Sure." " Here is your copy of the agreement." "Till the leaves fall from the oak, that is right, isn't it?" "So it's spring now, enjoy it, and now close your eyes." "When Cupera opened his eyes, he was sitting in his own field and, according to the sun, it was hardly two hours since he had decided not to drink any more." "The first words he pronounced were to Julia." "I am not going to drink any more." "Saw that she did not believe him." "What could he do but come to terms with it and to do the thing which people do not like doing - changing words into deeds." "Autumn passed, the trees shed their leaves." "Cupera sat at home and he said to himself that it would be a good thing to have a girl to go with the boy, so that he might have two pairs of Julia's eyes at home." "What can I do for you?" "All right, let's go by way of the woods." " Don't you want to také leave of your wife and son?" " Not really." "Mr Cupera, you have surprised me very much." "I expected you to fidget and ask for deferment and, here you are, stepping out on your way to Hell as if you were taking a stroll for your health's sake." " But you are mistaken, young man." "I am not going to Hell." "I am only going to point out to you what has evidently escaped your attention." "Please be so good as to look around at the trees." "While other deciduous trees now have bare branches, the oak retains its leaves." "It is true they are yellow but they are on the branches." "And they will hang there till spring." "You know, Mr Devil, when the new oak leaves burst in the spring, only then the old ones fall off." "The oak is never without leaves." "Good day to you." "Cupera never drank again." "Then after the christening of the little girl with Julia's eyes, some fool placed a glass of liqueur before him in the pub during the celebrations, saying he should have a drink as well." ""When the leaves fall from the oak."" "And so it caught on in that region." "The saying and not the drinking." "Do you know how to be afraid?" "Are you afraid sometimes?" "Thaťs alright, because fear is a sense that is something like the sense in your fingers." "However, I know a person who hasn't got a bit of fear." "FEARLESS FRANKIE" "We all of use have our peculiarities." "We all have our peculiarities, but there are very few like my son Frankie." "The innkeeper knew him." "He was called Hutton." "He was a wandering minstrel, a widower and had a son called Frankie." "That was the one he was talking about." "When the boy was born everybody was surprised how such a puny and frail couple could be the parents of such a lusty child." "The boy grew and gained strength." "He thrived but he did not talk." "He played with children but he didn't talk." "When his mother died he was sad but he did not speak." "People had grown used to it and everything took its course." "Then once there was a ball at the manor house and Hutton was playing there." "As he had no one to look after his child, he took the boy with him and left him in the kitchen." "He himself went off to play for the gentry to dance." "After the banquet, when the dancing was in full swing, the servants sat down in the kitchen to eat their supper." "Christ Almighty, the soup is no better than dish water!" " Have you heard?" "Young Hutton is speaking!" "Frankie spoke!" "Frankie is speaking!" " What did he say?" "I didn't hear it!" "After things had quietened down, the estate manager took the floor and said:" "My dear boy, you are talking like a preacher!" "That vocabulary!" "Why haven't you spoken all this time?" "Why didn't you let us know you knew how to talk?" " Up to now there was no cause for complaint." "Please, serve next course." "All this was running through the innkeeper's mind as he looked at Hutton sitting so gloomily over his beer." "And how are things going with Frankie, anyway?" "He talks fluently now, doesn't he?" " Oh yes, he does, but he never says much." "He is very sparing of words, but he is a very good boy, very willing." "He is as strong as a bull but I am very worried about him." "He doesn't know how to be afraid." " You wouldn't want a son who would be a coward?" " What an idea!" "Not only is he fearless, but he doesn't even know what it is to be afraid." "He is always asking me what fear is." "He says, please father, show me how you are afraid and I'll learn it." " I understand you, it's not normal." "A decent fellow has to be afraid at times." " Frankie is not afraid." "He doesn't know how to be." " That's enough to bring on a heart attack." "I'll lend you a sack to put over your head so you don't get wet." "We are just going to close." "If you can keep your mouth shut, then I'll teach that lad to be afraid!" "Hutton turned back and the innkeeper suggested that he send Frankie to the pub the next evening." "Tomorrow is Tuesday." "That is your closing day." " That's because every Tuesday the place is haunted!" "But not a word about it!" "I should lose my customers!" "I'm only doing it for your sake and for that boy of yours." "Hutton promised to send his boy along." "The rain continued on Tuesday." "It was in such inclement weather that Frankie arrived at the inn." "Well, here I am." "Father told me you would teach me how to be afraid." "What am I to do?" " You'll sit down here or over there and you'll watch." "There's the tap if you should get thirsty." "It all starts at eleven." " And are you certain I shall be afraid?" "I don't want to hang about here for nothing!" "Darkness had already fallen, everyone would have lighted up by now so as not to be afraid, but Frankie was quite happy to sit in the dark." "Every Tuesday's closing day." "When dead corpses have their stay." "Playing cards and drinking beer." "Their coffins hold for them no fear." "Double!" "Redouble!" "Slapping the cards on the table." ""Each makes his bet as he is able."" "Get him!" "Get him!" "Damn!" "Come on then!" "Frankie was standing in the tap room, in front of him some one who hadn't been there when Frankie came." "He bowed to Frankie and thanked him for releasing him." "He had been the innkeeper in this place and he no longer knew how many years ago." "He used to give short measure to his customers." "In punishment, he had to serve all the corpses of the card sharpers from the whole district." "Frankie had delivered him with those very three blows that he still needed to be fully reformed, and thus, he had released him." "Come!" "Come, I am telling you!" "Well." "I can't really say" "When they saw Frankie in the doorway they rejoiced." "Frankie told them everything, factually and briefly." "In the end he added:" "Whether I experienced it or whether it was a dream." "And we don't know either." "The only thing certain is that Fearless Frankie did not learn to be afraid that Tuesday." "Perhaps he did at another time but there are no records of it." "Are you afraid to enter such Prague quarters as Haunt or Devil or even Cut-throat?" "Believe me, your fear is pointless." "MEAN BARBARA" "There is nothing that confuses a fellow more than the names of villages." "You might think Givemore." "Give-more!" "The people there must be over generous in their giving." "By no means!" "They were avaricious and grasping." "They skimped and pinched and scraped and they were skinflints." "The most miserly skinflint of all was Barbara, the housekeeper of the village priest, and everybody knew it." "Not only did she save all the skins from smoked sausage to make curtains, not only did she refrain from looking into the mirror so as not to wear it out, but she was the one who, declared she would rather" "walk a mile to save a penny and the coachman took pity on her age, and allowed her to ride without paying." "Then, the other day, the priest said to Barbara:" "What would you say if we gave that other pig to..." " Certainly not!" " Wait a minute, Barbara!" "I was thinking of the teacher's family." "They have so many children and one pig is enough for us." " It is their business that they have so many children!" " You can say what you want, two pigs for just the two of us is a lot." "It is an interesting phenomenon that at just about the same time, the teacher arrived at the same conclusion." "Here am I with as many hungry mouths as the pipes of an organ and, at the manse, there are two pigs for tow people." "When his face cleared, he shoved a hammer and a large nail into his pocket and announced he was going out to get a breath of the evening air." "The priest used to have an Alsatian, a watch dog, but Barbara had starved him to death." "This now played into the hands of the teacher." "He approached the manse from the forest and there was no dog to bark a warning." "Barbara ran off to the teacher." "She said the priest sent his regards and would like to ask him to get rid of the little pig." "During the night one had pegged out at the manse." "People have evil minds and they could say that they were trying to conceal swine fever at the manse, or what." "Well of course, Barbara, with pleasure." "Anything for you." "The teacher took a sack and a wheelbarrow and went off for the pig, saying he would bury it somewhere." "That day, the chimney of the teacher's cottage started to smoke and never stopped smoking." "It was hardly dark when Barbara crept around the church towards the schoolhouse." "What could the teacher's wife and that blessed flock of heirs be cooking?" "Could it be that pig?" "But it had died of some disease - or had it?" "She had arrived just a shade too late." "The teacher was just concluding:" "And let us also say a prayer for Barbara." " That she shouldn't be so miserly." " And dirty!" " That she shouldn't torture the pigs with hunger." " And the kittens." " And the dogs." " And that she shouldn't eat worms!" "It looks as if she's gone." " Run for the priest." " That's all very well, but how to explain everything?" "They'll say we killed her, that we were hatching a plot over the pig, you know what people are like..." "His wife lost her head." "She suggested to her husband that they should emigrate, or set fire to the house or some other stupidity." "Where are you going?" "Harry, my dear husband!" "They'll catch you and I'll never see you again!" " I'll be back in a minute, he consoled her." "And darkness swallowed him up." "He did not know what to do with Barbara." "He was already turning to the bell tower when he remembered Kubat." "Kubat was capable of cashing a flea over the stubble for a penny." "Night after night he would go to his barn to guard his wheat against anyone stealing it." "But he'd hardly get settled in the barn when he'd be overcome with fear someone might rob his cottage and so he'd race off to safeguard his home." "After spending the whole night running, he would sleep during the day." "Kubat was guarding his house." "After about half an hour he was overtaken with the usual fear about his grain and flew to the barn." "And there you are!" "He had caught a thief with a shovel, just as he was preparing to rob a poor man." "You wicked creature, you knave!" "You hussy!" "What do you think you're up to?" "Woman hey, hey, hey!" "Surely I haven't..." "Oh, my goodness, Barbara!" "Kubat was in despair." "What to do with her?" "They'll find her here and say that I beat here to death out of avarice." "You know what people are like!" "What to do with her?" "Of all ideas that came to him, the one he liked best was very malicious." "Barbara was once more in a sack being carried through the night." "Kubat was trying to take a short cut through an alley of chestnut trees leading to the royal game reserve, he almost bumped into a fellow coming out of the reserve." "He was the mayor from Givemore." "He'd been in the Royal Reserve poaching, and was taking home a sturdy faun." "Only, after all, there was a bit of a hitch." "Just look what I have caught today!" "In the morning, before school started, the teacher found the faun in the schoolroom." "He wondered for a while how it had come about but then concluded that he who asks too much hears too much." "So he dragged the faun into the store room, where he hung it up to mature." "He'd hardly done so when he heard Kubat calling him outside" "asking whether he had not heard anything in the night." "I mean you, teacher." " No, nothing." "Kubat had heard something?" " No, nothing either." " So why did he ask?" " Oh well, nor reason really." " I wonder whether you have heard about our Barbara?" "Both Kubat and the teacher got a fright." "Each separately." "Just imagine." "Overnight, two great lumps came up on her head!" " And what did the doctor say?" "Asked Kuba." " Who'd waste money on a doctor?" "With God's help, she'll get over it." "Without Goďs help as well, the teacher wanted to say but he didn't." "And with that, if fact, we come to the end." "If you had hoped Barbara would mend her ways and stop being mean, that the teacher felt the pressure of the stolen pig both on his tummy and his conscience, that Kubat came to his senses, that the priest achieved some dignity and that Givemore decided" "to change its name to Gluttonham, then you should have read a fairy tale and not this true story." "One never knows how to explain a message hidden in dreams and the fact that people dream." "As for example mine, last night." "A DREAM FULFILLED" "A certain fellow called Loudal, from Radetice, was always quarrelling with his wife." "Though we might admit that his wife was by nature ready to argue with anyone, at anytime, about anything, we must acknowledge that, in the case of Loudal, she was in the right and not him." "Betting on numbers is the most immoral, even though the Emperor supports it!" "Just look around you!" "The roof leaks, mortar is peeling off the walls, the floor is crumbling with dry rot..., all because you are betting everything away." " Don't worry, I'll get it right some time and then I'll buy a vineyard." "Only remember what that old gypsy woman foretold!" "With a pile of ducats two feet high, a vineyard is what we'll buy." "Cimbalia cimbili." "Let it rain or let it snow, we'll buy a vineyard and you'll see," "as drunk as lords is what we'll be." "Cimbali..." " You've been to Moses again, drinking his kummel." "Yes, I have." "Yes, I went to Moses, so there, and I drank his kummel because I have lovely dreams after it." " You and your dreams!" " You are cross because you never dream." "Mrs. Loudal didn't know what to say." "How often has she asked herself why, the time when he sold her wedding dress, and lost the money in the lottery, she had not run away." "Was it because she loved him?" "Before she dropped off, she thought for a while about the riddle, which in fact, she didn't even want to solve." "Or, maybe, she was afraid to solve it?" "Early in the morning, Loudal's bed was empty and there was no sign of him." "He's had a dream and how he is stealing the eggs to bet in the lottery." "Is it necessary to collect the eggs so early?" " Your father's late aunt commanded me to do it in a dream." " How do you now that it was her?" " Of course it was her." "She tapped me on the nose three times." " That would seem to be her." "She did everything three times." "She sipped three times from her spoon, she fed the fire with three logs, and three times she was widowed." " And she pulled my ear three times and I sat down." "She showed me a picture in a book," "then she tore a page out of the book." "It said there that in a house in Prague called 'The Turk's Head'" "I would find hidden treasure!" "Then she cackled and I woke up." "Hand me those eggs and I'll sell them to Mr Moses." "I have to bet on those numbers!" " Not likely." "A dream is a dream!" "You wake up and it is day time." "Mend the leaking roof - that isn't a dream." " Woman, don't be a fool!" "She tapped three times, that's three." "In her right hand was a lamp - sixteen, to see a mad woman, twenty-six, to hear a cackling hen - eleven." "That's for sure!" " To have a stupid husband is also for sure!" "The Turk's Head house at once caught his eye." "It was a large house." "He hadn't a courage to enter." "He stood on the pavement, looked all around and contemplated - where he ought to start looking for the treasure." "You are staring at the house as if you wanted to buy it." " Why not." "The thing is, whether it is for sale?" " Everything can be got for money, my good man." "So that's how the land lies!" "It's hard to interpret a message contained in a dream." "Of course!" "The draw will be tomorrow and my numbers are a sure thing." "Tomorrow I'll be the winner." "I'll draw the money," "I'll buy the house The Turk's Head and we will calmly start work on its restoration and reconstruct and, while doing so, we will come across the treasure." "He could already visualize himself next day riding in a carriage, where today he had gone on foot." "It was in this elevated mood that he reached the stage coach in the Golden Goose." "He asked to be shown a room." "He could not make up his mind but finally made himself comfortable in the largest one with windows looking onto the Horse Market." "Where should I send for your luggage, your honour?" " Tomorrow, my good man." "There will be a great pile of luggage." "Do you have kummel in the house?" "You do." "Please bring me some to my room." "A litre!" "That night was proliferous in dreams." "Come on, your honour, damn it, get up!" "One night's lodging, a litre of kummel." "Pay up and go somewhere else." "This is no cheap tavern." "It's the Golden Goose!" " I've no money at present." "Where are you going?" " For the constable." " Oh no, don't do that!" "Don't be foolish!" "I've got a property in Prague!" "The porter wouldn't stir from him." "He stood over him like his shadow." "Then he accompanied him to Goat Place where the headquarters of the lottery were." "I'll be damned!" "I've never seen the like!" " Of course you haven't, and you never will again!" "It isn't everyone who gets his tips from the late aunt of his wife's father!" " Just imagine, my good man, if, instead of four you had three, instead of fifteen, fourteen, in short, every number less by one, then you would be drawing one hundred thousand." " Well, and how much do I get like that?" "Loudal asked stubbornly." " Like that?" "I'll tell you civilly - nothing!" " That's a swindle!" "I had sure numbers, you thief!" "You robbed me!" "I have to report a swindler and an anarchist!" " He elicited a night's lodging and a litre of kummel, added the hotel porter." " We'll look into that." "So as not to bring shame on his wife and his village," "Loudal gave his name as John Walker." "He said he came from Mochov." "He didn't even know what had put that into his head." "You are certainly no anarchist, Mr. Walker." " If it is a religion, then I am a Catholic." " That's what I thought." " I am a small farmer." " That's what I thought." "And you are fond of kummel?" " It makes me dream." " And for that you have to have a litre, and on the slate," "Mr. Walker?" "Whatever has brought you to Prague?" "Loudal confessed." "How he had relied on getting rich by winning the main prize and how the numbers and the late aunt of his wife's father, how they all outwitted him." "Now he didn't know what to do and perhaps the Commissioner could advise him." "I just look you over and knew at once you were not what they thought." "Sunburned cheeks, sunburn on the back of your neck and a white forehead - that's the sign of a farmer." "Swindlers have their hair plastered with pomade and anarchists are unshaven and have ruffled hair." "Well then, you have a nice, well-preserved suit, hat and boots." "We'll call in Mr Mankowitz, he's got a second hand shop." "He'll change them for something cheaper and pay you the difference." "With that, you will settle your debt for the night's lodging and the kummel, and you can trot off back to your wife." "What do you say to that?" "Loudal did look up to much in the second hand clothes from Moses Mankowitz, but he paid off his debt and still had enough for a third-class ticket home." "Don't put your faith in dreams, Mr. Walker." "Only last night I had a dream, and it wasn't after drinking kummel, but after this kind of beer." "I dreamed I was the conductor of an orchestra at the opera and, sitting in the front row, was someone called Loudal from Radetice." "Everybody had their opera glasses turned to him for he had found treasure hidden under the stove in his cottage." "If I were you," "I would go off to Radetice and find that Loudal and I don't know what else." "A dream is a dream." "You wake up and it is day time." "Have a good journey, Mr. Walker." "What do you think of that?" "You frustrated my dreams, you abuse Moses' kummel and said I should have mended the roof and dug up the potatoes!" "You see what you might have caused?" "Now stop crying." "The next day they left the cottage." "They did not take leave of anyone." "To this day, they say in Radetice that the Loudals disappeared from the face of the earth." "Thaťs not true at all!" "They bought a vineyard near Karlstejn and laid out another in Lodenice." "And at the end I would like to tell you what fimfarum is." "If anybody of you thought it had no meaning, he was deeply mistaken." "FIMFARUM" "One day, when you have time to spare and really nothing to do, go to the nearest railway station and buy a ticket for Roads End." "In Roads End there is a Village Green." "But the Village Green is not just an empty space as it is in most villages." "It is just one large monument." "All that appears to be hewn in stone and under it, flowers have been planted in the form of an inscription saying Fimfarum." "Right behind the monument is a forge." "It all started in that forge." "Many, many years ago a blacksmith live there." "The blacksmith had a wife, and his wife was young and very beautiful." "At that time the village of Roads End belonged to a nobleman whose whole property was managed by his first footman." "A young and pretty, but foolish woman sometimes fails to recognize where the true value of a person lies." "And so the blacksmith's wife started something with that fancy first footman behind her husbanďs back." "And as is the way of the world, the more the blacksmith's wife and the first footman got entangled with each other, the more the blacksmith was in their way." " How then, to fix it so that the blacksmith would not be in the way?" " Just leave it to me!" "That blacksmith has been saying some strange things." "He criticizes everything and nothing is right for him." "He has some peculiar thoughts." "All in all, he ought to be punished!" " Well, if our loyal first footman says so, then we'll punish that blacksmith!" " Well, you could order him to make a chain in a single night that would wind three times around your lordships mansion." "He won't be able to accomplish that before morning, and so he will hang for it!" "Ha ha - that's very good!" "With an official seal," "So they wrote it down, attached and the first footman hurried to the blacksmith with the command." "Our blacksmith took a pencil and a piece of paper, looked to see how much iron he had, and then tried to calculate." "He realized it was impossible task, that he could never make such a chain by morning." "He confided in his wife and asked for her advice." "You dare to ask how to get out of it?" "Rather than allow yourself to be publicly hanged, rather than expose your wife to public shame, go to the forest and do the hanging yourself!" " If that were to be my fate, a little sooner or later made no difference." "Hey, what is going on here?" "There beside him stood a forester, one he had never seen before in the locality." "And at once he let fly at the blacksmith:" "What's the idea?" "What sort of forest is this in which the condemned man hangs himself?" "Is it the custom for folk to commit suicide the first time they encounter failure?" "Could he possible be the devil?" "So you recognized me after all!" "And seeing you know who I am, I'll tell you why I'm taking up your case." "Down the hell we have cauldrons full of the likes of you." "There is no pot for you so I'd rather help you with that chain." "And now I'd better make you laugh." "The blacksmith was not over keen, but he had to laugh." "Ha ha..." "And he went on laughing for a whole week, when he saw the amazement of the first footman after he had forged that chain by morning after all." "And on top of that, the nobleman sent him 1000 gold pieces!" "The blacksmith is boasting that nothing is beyond him." "He says your lordship could take a lesson from him." "And it is rumoured that someone saw him" "I don't know if I should talk about it, nobleman, spitting scornfully in the direction of your house." "In short, that very same day the first footman read a strange order to the blacksmith:" "He was to transfer the water from the river into the park of the mansion with a single night." "For that he would get 1000 ducats." "Should he fail, he would get the rope!" "The blacksmith was downcast, his wife rejoiced:" "I'll be free tomorrow, thee cheers!" "When the blacksmith asked her advice, she gave it:" "Rather than a public disgrace, he had better string a rock around his neck and drown himself!" "Men are queer sort of folk." "When a man trusts his wife, he does things even a donkey wouldn't do." "Wouldn't it be better to go for a beer?" " My goodness, the water sprite Slosher!" "As if I hadn't had enough trouble." " Hey, wait!" "Don't run off!" "Look here, if you must drown yourself, then go somewhere else." "I stopped putting souls into pots long time ago and I am not prepared to stomach a distended, drowned body floating around in my river." "What has got into your head?" "Young and strong and fed up with the world?" " I wouldn't be fed up only..." " Only what?" "So the blacksmith confided in Slosher." "Upon my soul!" "You are expected to transfer the water from the river into the park in a single night?" "Damn it all, that's a tall order." "If the devil helped you, than the water sprite will do the same." "Ressel here, Ressel there!" "Get up onto my back." "We'll have to go against the stream up to the upper mill." "Watch out!" "I'm off down there to block off the sluice and raise the weir." "When I holler up, pull up the sluice gate and run off home!" "And be quick about it!" "The water will run over and will fill the park." "Ha ha..." "So much water!" "Watch out not to get wet!" "Ha ha..." "My goodness!" "His lordship was an old man and he was not quite right in his head due to hardening of the arteries." "The first footman knew how to make use it this circumstance." "That blacksmith is again champing at the bit." "Nobleman." "It's true he knows how to forget and how to transfer the river, but he has made too much out of it." "He is lowering the state of morals in Roads End." " But how to punish him when he is so clever?" "Lt'll cost a mint of money again." " But he'll never get hold of Fimfarum, your worship." " Fim-fi." "And whatever can that be?" "Fim-fa." "Fimfarum?" " That's the point!" "It isn't anything, your worship." "I don't know what Fimfarum is either!" "So whatever he brings us, we can always say that it isn't fimfarum and we can hang him!" " Ha, ha, ha!" "What ideas he gets!" "Fimfarum, and he will hang!" "Ha, ha." "The poor blacksmith leafed through all possible encyclopaedias." "He found "flagellant" and "flageolet"" "but there was no fimfarum anywhere." "And when he complained to his wife - you can guess what has answered." "It is something you would never find." "It will be better for you take your gun and go off into the forest and shoot yourself, than to suffer the shame of a public execution." "But by now the blacksmith was getting suspicious." "She had sent him to hang himself, she had advised him to drown himself and now she was offering him his gun." "Thoughts ran here and there in his head as he went towards the river." "Quietly!" "Love is streaming down the river." "Did you want something?" " Fimfarum is what I want." " Fimfarum?" "I don't know what it is." "Whatever could it be?" "I should be interested to know myself." " Devil know what it could be." " If the devil, then consult the devil." "You know one." "Ask him!" " But where will I find him?" " If today's Friday, he will be paying cards with the ghosts who are on duty in the ruined mill." "And because it was Friday, the blacksmith found the devil there." "Fimfarum, that's something I can give you, but it won't be for nothing." "You will have to give me in return for that fimfarum the souls of three evil people." "Is it a deal?" "I need three specimens for an exhibition down the Hell." " Three evil souls?" "I don't know so many evil people." " Ha, ha..." " That's because you are an idealist." "I'll take payment when you recognize them." "Is it a deal?" " It's a deal." " So look!" "Well, this is fimfarum." "There is only one in the world, so it is unique." "Look, you take Fimfarum and you wave it once and everything that moves will stiffen and become immobile, like a monument." "Nothing will move until you wave it once again." "Don't forget that!" "Now run along home, climb into the attic above your living room." "But leave your gun in the forest!" "Don't take it home with you!" "The moment you hear the gun go off, look down into the room through a knot hole." " Yes." "I've an idea you will be able to make use of the fimfarum straight away." "Everything is going right." "The blacksmith's end is now in sight!" "So that's what you are up behind my back!" "Ok, then." "I'll show you!" "There you have and one for you as well so that you didn't miss anything." "Hang up yourself, get drowned and shoot yourself." "The mother of the young wife had been on the side of her daughter and the footman." "She set upon the blacksmith and tried to defend the couple." "And what about you, wretched old witch?" "As you like." "Oh, goodness." "Well." "It's your turn now." "And get going!" "Go on in front of me!" "And he drove them on before him, once more alive, so that the whole village could see them as a warning." "Only he almost lost them on the village green." "That was the place where everything crashed and happened." "But not this." "Not this!" "It goes without saying that the whole village came running up and, out of blue, there was the forester," "whom the blacksmith well knew was the devil." "He took the blacksmith into his forge saying he had come for his payment." "He said he had selected three evil souls:" "The footman, the blacksmith's wife and his mother-in-law." "He wanted the blacksmith to wave the wand and he would take them away." "I have a right to punish" "but I have no right to souls, nobody has right to human souls, the blacksmith thought." " No!" "Lah lah lah lah..." "Move, bitch!" "People, people..." "Come on." "When the blacksmith saw it, he took up a bundle over his shoulder and quietly, taking the back route through the garden, went around Slosher's willow into the forest." "And on one ever saw him again." "At least, not in Roads End, however, it is said he was seen in Milevska." "He was thought to have married a good woman and she wrote a song about it all which is still being sung in Milevsko." "Production executive producers" "co-operation animation" "actor editing sound" "camera theme and spoken word by" "screenplay dramaturgy music" "artist director" "The film was created with a contribution from the Czech Republic State Fund for the Support and Development of Czech Cinematography" "Filmed under the auspices of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport special thanks to sponsors media partners" "production and"