"I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND" "Correctional Facility Prague" "I was sentenced to 15 years, but because of the amnesty I only served 14 years, 9 months." "It was always my luck to run into bad luck" "My whole life, I aspired solely to becoming a millionaire." "But before that I wanted nothing more than to peddle frankfurters at the train station." "I'm hungry" "Forget the coins, just give me back the bills!" "And I sold those frankfurters so well that I was determined to become a millionaire." "Then I'd buy a small hotel and marry a rich bride and when my wife and I put our money together" "I'd be respected like the other hoteliers." "Everyone would recognize me as a rich man as a millionaire." "I was even able to cry at the station." "And because I was small, perfectly piccolo," "They let me have the money because they took me for an orphan." "So I started having money of my own." "within a month I had a couple hundred, then even 1000 crowns." "And I discovered what motivates people and what they're willing to do for a few coins:" "they'll bend over, kneel down, even crawl on all fours." "I used to daydream about scooping up fistfuls of coins and scattering them like a shower of seed." "I saw almost no one could resist collecting those coppers, how they'd jostle each other and butt heads to snatch them up, coins they all thought were theirs and theirs alone." "But that was long ago." "After they released me, they said" "I could find whatever work I pleased on the condition that it be near the border." "They sent me to be a roadman faraway in the mountains where resettled Germans had abandoned their cottages" "They even gave me the key to one of them." "And the unbelievable, which was becoming reality, did not desert me." "I knew that another person would have fled from here as from a place of ill fortune." "But I rejoiced to see such devastation" "I knew that I would like it here, that this would be my new home." "I considered it a good omen that the key fit a former pub because I started out in a pub and I had worked in the hotel trade my whole life." "I was small, from a small village, and here it felt like the big world." "A select society came:" "the notary and the stationmaster, the veterinarian, the music school master, the industrialists..." "They could sip beer all afternoon discussing, for example, a poplar that stood outside town by a bridge 30 years ago" "One would say that there had been no bridge, only a poplar." "Another said the bridge was just a plank and a handrail." "they shouted and cursed." "but it was all just pretend." "They only shouted so as to enjoy the beer all the morel" "Do you think I should move my bishop to G7?" "Move your knight to C5 and you'll win." "Mr. Dite, mind your own business!" "Hold on there..." "That shrimp is right." "Checkmate!" "Another time they argued about the best beer in Bohemia." "One said Protivin, another Vodnany, another Nymburk," "and another said..." "Pilsner is known the world over!" "And although they shouted they all liked each other." "They only shouted as a way of killing time" "And I was amazed at how rich people can enjoy themselves all afternoon." "Except for the lungs, I'd like every main course you have." "Bring one after another until I say to stop." "Then bring four mineral waters and a pound of salami to my room." "Thus I came to know Mr. Walden." "He liked me most probably because he was as small as I." "I represent Van Berkel  Co." "The largest firm in the world is the Catholic Church" "They deal in something no one has ever seen or touched:" "namely that which we call God." "The second largest, Van Berkel, makes scales that weigh accurately whether at the equator or the North Pole" "We also make al kinds of meat and salami sheers." "Observe the charm of this instrument..." "Ever seen anything more beautiful?" "It took me a week to earn everything you see on the carpet." "I sold ten scales and seven meat and salami sheers" "I buy, I sell, I know what to buy and where to sell." "That's all there is to it." "I saw you selling frankfurters at the station." "I've also seen what you do with your loose change." "But you have to know how to throw your change away so that it comes back as banknotes." "Hang in there!" "You're small and from small people." "You're going places." "Remember, it's in your blood." "Money can lay the world at your feet!" "Remember, my boy, if you succeed, life can be beautiful, so beautiful!" "An image of myself had come to me." "I would lay out all the money I earned just like that" "On the floor, I would arrange an image of my abilities, my power." "But now the only thing I 'arrange' is the gravel" "I myself have crushed to lay a road with." "More and more I conflate maintaining this road with maintaining my life, a life which, in hindsight, seems as if it happened to someone else, a life which seems like a novel written by another." "Welcome!" "Did they send you here as punishment too?" "Punishment?" "Nobody's here for just no reason." "No?" "My name is Marcela." "I apprenticed at the chocolate factory in Orionka." "My name is Dite." "I'm supposed to lay gravel on this road." "We're here to find trees with melodies in them." "Music." "Spruce trees like this are scarce." "Music has been preserved in it." "We'll take this tree to an instrument factory, and it'll be cut up into planks and thin boards, then made into violins and cellos, string instruments of music." "I m here being punished too." "Punished?" "Because like to... dance." "Mankind is a progeny evil, stupid and criminal" "That man is here for some reason too, right?" "I'd say he was university educated." "He taught French literature and esthetics" "How did you know?" "By his fingers." "And your eyes tell me that you like the male species." "I like to dance, and to go with whoever I please." "I knew right off that she was from reform school, or was one of those girls who stands by Prague's Powder Tower." "And I longed to slowly undress her." "If not in fact then at least with my eyes." "I was actually surprised and I found it a good sign that that young redhead had awoken desire in me after all those years." "You re a trainee so remember:" "you see and hear nothing." "Repeat!" "I see nothing, I hear nothing." "Remember this too: you must see and hear everything." "Repeat!" "I must see and hear everything." "Come on in, miss." "Hurry or you'll get wet." "Come!" "Please, have a seat." "Like a toddy?" "Here..." "Go ahead." "Ah, it stopped raining." "Thank you." "Oh, no, that's alright." "That's the new girl from Paradise." "her name is Jaruska." "The veterinarian was seen Thursday at Paradise." "Oh yes it is!" "And he took a room with Helena!" "And, gents, it was Wednesday not Thursday!" "But not Helena, It was long-legged Vlasticka." "Long-legged Vlasticka, the one with..." "So I began to hear nothing and yet hear everything, to see everything and yet see nothing." "And now I only wanted to hear and see everything at Paradise." "What would you like, junior?" "It was quite different from what I'd been used to alone." "It was so forbiddingly beautiful that I wished for nothing else." "I looked at the world differently from then on." "I'm up a creek again, aren't I, Mr. Dite?" "Not at all." "Just move your queen..." "Raspberry grenadine!" "What about my queen?" "Right away... look what you've done, you shrimp!" "Is this how you wait tables?" "How dare you! " I won't listen to such slander." "He ruined your dress." "What business is it of yours?" "I'll have to pay for it." "I want nothing from you." "Watch this..." "For the check." "Come to Paradise tonight." "I bought a beautiful bouquet of wild poppies." "The scent of raspberry trailed behind her." "She stepped out in that silk dress full of peonies, and bees hovered around her like a Turkish honey store." "But I knew I had to leave." "An apprentice waiter cannot take the liberties a respectable citizen only enjoys in private." "But there was some luck in this misfortune." "I was hired at Hotel Tichota." "The hotelier, Mr. Tichota, hired me at the request of my guardian angel:" "Van Berkel's sales representative, Mr. Walden." "The hotel was like in a fairy tale." "It reminded me of the Sleeping Beauty." "I couldn't really imagine how I'd ended up here, or who it was built for, or if it was possible to live like this." "The hotel was set up like an orchestrion:" "someone would suddenly put a coin in it and it would begin to play." "Need a railcar of Hungarian hogs?" "Lord!" "How about two?" "What are you feeding me?" "A whole trainload?" "Yuck!" "Okay, then." "I determined to save up so that chambermaid would be mine." "I never saw happier men than those rich industrialists." "Like all rich people they were as playful and merry as puppies." "We have winter pleasures in the middle of summer." "Here, I discovered that those who said" ""work is ennobling" were the same men who drank all night and ate with lovely young ladies seated at their knees." "I've come up in the world." "Stop!" "I like looking at it." "A pound of salami to finish up?" "No, leave that for the poor." "I used to think rich people were cursed, and that only garrets, sour soup and potatoes can bring people joy." "But our guests had invented that drivel about cottages being cozy." "They didn't care how much they spent, and they felt just fine." "Good evening." "What are you feeding me?" "is everything alright?" "You scoundrels want me to die." "I guess I neglected my cancer." "My liver is gone and I no doubt have renal gravel." "Entire streets of apartment houses are bought and sold at this hotel." "I mustn't overeat." "Even castles have been sold, and a chateau or two." "I have a crankshaft factory to sell." "factories are bought and sold here, hunting grounds, agents have negotiated envelope shipments for all over Europe." "A half-billion-crown loan was negotiated here for the Balkans." "I wont go under two million." "Excuse me... two trainloads of munitions were sold." "And all accompanied by champagne, oysters and young ladies." "A girl is fancied after seven, she dazzles as you dine." "Then she promises you heaven but when will she incline?" "A man thinks." "Why do I wait?" "A promise is forever." "Miss, how about a private date?" "The sooner we go the better." "Not just yet, in a while, after the lights go out in the bar." "Not just yet, in a while let's close down another bar." "Not just yet, in a while when were alone together." "A vow she makes then kisses takes, but not yet, in a while." "My bill!" "The general deigned to eat, drink, and break the following:" "three bottles of champagne, 66 crowns;" "then he ordered one roast goose;" "and two dozen oysters, 39 crowns;" "three bottles of 1923 Beaujolais, two turtle soups, 32 and 20 crowns;" "a dozen snails, 14 crowns;" "the general trampled one Moser cut glass bowl, 169 crowns;" "two pike au vin blanc, 36 crowns;" "one broken water pitcher, 12 crowns;" "two creams of asparagus,16 crowns;" "one flag stand, 57 crowns;" "one Japanese porcelain service came in harm's way, 1,327 crowns;" "one 1918 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 161 crowns." "And later the general ordered and ate a whole roast cock, 20..." "Enough?" "Enough?" "Enough." "Once again I knew I had to leave." "I had to go elsewhere in order to learn everything I needed to know." "for when I would be a millionaire and would have my own grand hotel." "Once again Mr. Walden recommended me and I was lucky enough" "To be hired by Mr. Brandejs, hotelier and millionaire owner of Prague's most beautiful hotel." "Hotel Paris was so beautiful that I almost swooned." "My luck held, and I was placed where I could learn the most under the tutelage of the maitre d', Mr. Skrivanek." "I noted that one waiter at this gorgeous hotel liked to pinch off a bite when he thought no one was looking." "For some reason he didn't seem to like me." "Move it, shrimp!" "Move it, shrimp!" "You even speak Chinese?" "That was Korean." "Une table." "Un table..." "Une table, you cow!" "Un table, you cow." "Silly goose, I'm going to take my belt to your behind." "Une table." "Finally!" "Une chaire..." "She's an idiot." "Une chaire!" "A 'chair' is for bending over." "Putain." "Putain..." "Putain." "Putain..." "Putain." "Putain..." "Of course you know that one." "Aujourd'hui..." "What?" "Well, we have mutton heads, calf brains, and there's nothing in our heads but jelly." "Wow, you idiot, how do you know?" "I have a medal from the Emperor of Ethiopia." "That patron will have goulash or tripe soup." "That patron will have toasted bread with no garlic." "Tea and toast, no garlic!" "Learn to recognize a bilious diner." "Look at him;" "his liver is probably shot too." "Sir, how do you know everything?" "How do you know?" "I served the King of England!" "The king?" "Oh, my lord!" "You served the King of England?" "Who was that?" "She must be from Paris." "That's a certain Julinka from east Prague." "How can you tell?" "You served the King of England..." "Mr. Brandejs liked that waiter." "He thought him a credit to the place." "His ability to carry so many dishes was nearly an acrobatic feat." "I still didn't understand." "but everyone in the trade said that it had happened to them the result would have been the same because a front waiter has only one point of honor." "And I was promoted to front waiter under the tutelage of the maitre d', Mr. Skfivanek." "I inherited other duties from my predecessor as well." "What was it like with the Ethiopian Emperor?" "You don't believe me?" "Should I?" "Invite me to dinner and tell me all about it." "Man is indestructible." "He just transforms, metamorphoses." "Every person contains enough phosphorus to make ten boxes of matches and enough iron to forge a nail to hang himself on..." "Good evening." "Man is indestructible both mentally and physically." "A person also contains enough water to make ten liters of tripe soup." "I'm hungry!" "I can't eat this." "I can't eat this." "I can't eat this." "I guess I neglected my cancer and I've got an ulcer." "My liver is gone and I no doubt have renal gravel." "I've got a good heart and lungs, good legs..." "The doctor says he's never seen such a 60-year-old." "I could live to be ninety." "Isn't that a shame?" "Who did I offend?" "Why must I live so..." "Sorry, but we don't have a mirror." "Is it true that mankind is a progeny evil, stupid and criminals?" "Worse than that." "All philosophers and prophets exclude Jesus Christ." "They're nothing more than a pack of scoundrels, villains, bastards, and murders." "Mankind would be better off without them." "We in the 20th century..." "What was it like with the emperor?" "It's true:" "I have a medal from the Emperor of Ethiopia." "We in the 20th century are inclined to see the glory in ourselves and the shame in others." "That's how the mess got started." "And in that unimaginable chaos..." "It really is a medal from the Emperor of Ethiopia." "I was lucky enough that the most illustrious of honors took place at Hotel Paris." "That distinguished African guest chose our hotel to host a gala banquet for the government and diplomatic corps." "His cooks brought a live camel to the hotel." "It was unambiguously bleating, "No, no!" - -to not slit its throat" "But its throat was slit kosher style and blood, filled the hotel yard." "Then those Ethiopian cooks boned the whole camel, made a huge fire, and roasted it." "They had to antelopes quickly skinned and roasted." "Then they put stuffed, half roasted turkeys into the antelopes." "The filled the empty spaces with hundreds of hardboiled eggs, and put the turkey-stuffed antelopes into the camel." "The turkeys were stuffed with fish, and everything was packed with eggs." "hey kept sprinkling everything with special spices while drinking beer." "When the table was laid, the Emperor and various Ethiopian potentates arrived with our prime minister and other officials." "And then that African specialty was sumptuously served, a small token from the emperor of Ethiopia." "The emperor was satisfied." "It had been arranged that the oldest and most respected of the wait staff, Mr. Skrivanek, would be decorated for the excellent banquet." "Once again I knew I couldn't stay long." "No one would forgive the fact that I alone had receive that medal." "Good evening" "Get a move on, dammit!" "I'm going to take my belt to your behind!" "I knew that the girl from the chocolate factory, who was being punished because she liked to sleep around, would not be happy." "Instead, her life would be sadly beautiful." "Life with her would be anguish and fulfillment in one." "And it came to me that she didn't care who used to live here that it was indifferent to her history of those who'd had to leave." "They'd lived here for centuries, but I knew nothing about them, people I now clean up after." "This is the final territorial claim that I must raise here, but it is a claim that I will bring to a satisfactory end." "The history of the problem:" "In 1918, under the heading of the right to national self-determination, several insane so-called statesmen reshaped Central Europe." "It is to them that Czechoslovakia owes its existence." "That state is founded on the lie that a Czechoslovak nation exists." "The father of that lie is Benes." "I began to pay more attention to myself." "I dressed nicely in my free time and started wearing lifts so I'd be a bit taller." "Soon after Hitler's speech, the Sudetenland was occupied." "victorious German students walked down Prague's streets." "In revenge, Czechs stole the white socks right off their feet." "And I saw how all Czechs were unfair to the Germans, and I was ashamed I'd been a member of the Sokol gym club." "Czech hooligans roughly tore the knee socks off a young woman." "In Czech I shouted, "Czechs, yuck!" "What are you doing, you rabble?"" "I shouted until they let us go." "They carried off her sock like a white scalp, a white trophy." "The girl wheezed out:" ""Take it you Bolshevik scum."" ""To disgrace a German teacher from Cheb like this!"" "Prague is a beautiful Reich city." "And it is every German's inalienable right to walk the streets." "I was so incensed that I wanted to rip my Sokol membership card." "But I couldn't find it." "A day will come when the Fuhrer will liberate every German from the bohemian Forest to the Carpathians." "Why is it so deserted here?" "This was a German village." "Germans and Czechs lived side by side for centuries." "Hitler came and the Czechs had to leave." "Then the Germans lost the war and had to leave." "They were resettled." "I understood why the political leaders were resettled:" "they were brutal, full of a pride that was their ultimate undoing." "What I didn't understand was why the workers had to leave, hands that have yet to be replaced." "Were you in the war?" "No." "We Czechs don't fight wars." "The Munich Pact, which decreed that all territory inhabited by a German majority goes to the Reich, has led to accelerating the German army's occupation of the Czech border regions." "The government, deliberating on the hard international situation and forced by circumstances coming out of the Munich diktat, could do nothing other than bow its hitherto proud Czechoslovak head to unprecedented pressure." "The Czech inhabitants have been enabled to move to the interior where they are seeking new homes." "It is up to us and our solidarity if they find them and if they are able to find work under these new circumstances." "n territory now occupied by German inhabitants," "German Chancellor Adolf Hitler receives an enthusiastic welcome." "In his Berlin address, the Reichschancellor assured world powers that he has no further territorial claims." "Master max Svabinsky works on designing a new stamp." "It's issue was made necessary by changes in the state apparatus." "Engraver Bedrich Heinz executes Svabinsky's original, and other specialists ready the stamp for printing." "Soon the stamp will delight postal customers everywhere, as well as collectors and admirers of Master Svabinskv as well." "Here's your handkerchief back." "My name is Lise." "And I'm Dite." "Dite?" "That means 'child.'" "My name is Dite." "Jan Dite." "Mv birthplace is so small that I saw coal for the first time last year." "I'm from Cheb." "I teach physical education and I'm a regional swimming champ." "I'm maitre d' at Prague's most beautiful hotel:" "Hotel Paris." "Maitre d'?" "Not quite yet, but soon." "Except for the lungs, you'd like every main course we have!" "Just mineral water, please." "Know anyone who sells stamps?" "Das Menu, bitte" "Excuse me?" "Das Menu." "Sorry, I don't understand." "Die Speisekarte." "Sorry, I don't understand." "War is coming everything will drop in value except stamps" "They are easy to hide and transport." "I sold everything and I'm buying stamps!" "Stamps!" "Stamps!" "Not gold or jewels." "Currency or securities?" "Impossible!" "war is coming, everything will drop in value except stamps." "These damn Czechs are vermin, scum, slaves, pigs..." "Maitre d' Skrivanek taught me that I must recognize where each patron is from and be able to differentiate Czechs from Germans, French from Poles... he said I must learn to know what a customer is likely to order." "I must be able to guess how much money a customer has on him and thus how much he'll spend, or should spend." "And I must also know who hasn't been served yet, and who'd like the check so they won't have to snap their fingers." "I saw that she was as small as I, and beautiful." "And I noticed that she looked at me the same way." "She looked at my hair, as light as straw, at my sheep's blue eyes." "And I knew that I had to protect her against all Czechs who would harm this little Sudeten girl." "She told me I had the most beautiful blond hair in the world and I told her that when I became the maitre d' of Hotel Paris," "I'd save up for a hotel of own and I'd be the hotelier." "With such a medal we could open a hotel in the Sudeten Mountains or in the Bohemian Paradise." "We'd call it the Order of the Ethiopian Empire Hotel." "I care for you." "You were so brave." "to protect my German honor against the Czech rabble but.." "I'm not German." "Lise lectured me about the importance of pure blood, and that races should not mix." "She said race isn't determined by language but by blood, and that mixing blood would harm the superior race, that mating with an inferior race would dilute its cultish power..." "But I didn't know how -nor did I want- to listen." "Eventually, Lise asked me to check my genealogy because I must have some German ancestors." "I said that my granddad's name on his grave was written Johann Ditie, and that he'd been a lord s groom." "I was ashamed he'd been a horse groom, but in her eyes I grew more than if I'd been a Czech count." "This customer will have tea with bread and butter." "This customer will have Prague ham and pickles, and a glass or Pilsner." "A Pilsner and Prague ham!" "And a pickle on the side!" "I bet you I know where this young lady is from." "You cannot expect anything better from such Czech rabble!" "Mr. Dite!" "You are not a good Czech;" "you are discharged." "And I will see to it that no one in Prague hires you." "Prague is a beautiful Reich city." "A day will come when the Fuhrer will liberate every German from the Bohemian Forest to the Carpathians." "She told me that Reich Germans long for Slavic blood." "that they nave been trying for thousands of years to marry it." "(President of the occupied lands:) Czech People, at the eleventh hour I resolved, with the agreement of the government, to seek an audience with Reichschancellor Adolf Hitler." "After a long talk with the Reichschancellor and after ascertaining the state of affairs." "I have decided to announce that I am surrendering the fate of the Czech nation and state" "Into the hands of the leader of the German nation." "In return for this show of trust I received a promise that our nation would be guaranteed independence and our right to develop our national life." "Well, It didn't help in the least that you served the King of England." "What is it?" "A mirror." "The villagers gave me lots of them." "They were glad to see them go." "They say that Germans appear when they look into them." "Do you believe that?" "No." "Seeing myself is quite enough." "The Nuremberg Laws stated that as a citizen of another nation." "in order to marry Lise Rapanek I had to be examined to see if I were fit to impregnate Arian German blood." "And now young man, like in your youth..." "Vile Traitors Justly Executed!" "Nothing yet?" "Those beads of my semen were labeled excellent:" "fit to impregnate an Arial vagina in a dignified manner." "And the officer for the protection of German Blood and Honor found nothing against my marrying Arian German blood." "I had a wonderful feeling from being able to attend a celebration with young people just as fair haired as I." "And though I couldn't speak proper German, I felt like a German." "Lise explained, to everyone that I had defended her German honor against the Czech rabble, and I tried to get used to the role of a tolerated Arian-Bohemian, but I didn't let on." "I knew that any of the officers could woo Lise, but I was always the only one who enchanted her." "Because I know the necessity of love and play and playfulness behind closed doors." "This I understood When I garnished Jaruska's tummy with daisies and the tummies of Vanda, Julinka, and others with any suitable thing." "Maitre d' sir, they're..." "I know." "As a member of the German army," "Lise got me a job at an unexpected place:" "Hotel Tichota." "But it was no longer called Tichota." "This is a selective human breeding center where future mothers carry the new citizens of Europe in their wombs." "Here is where we cross the pure blood of German girls and soldiers." "The doctor explained that German soldiers come here as studs or purebred boars to scientifically impregnate German females with German semen." "I was to attend to the girls so they'd be properly prepared for intercourse." "I imagined things would proceed just like when we got the cow and bull together or the nanny-goat and the village billy." "I may conceive a new being tonight the founder of a new Europe." "Roused by the blitzkrieg's success Lise decided to go to the front." "She volunteered to go because we had yet to present the Fuhrer with a new German." "She parted from me." "Proud that she would belong to the finest army in the world" "Suddenly I was sad she was leaving, sad that she might never return." "I loved her, that little teacher from Cheb who was as small as I." "All the women that had come into my life had been taller." "Lise was the only one I could look straight in the eye." "And only now did it dawn on me that there was a war somewhere and that my wife was leaving me for that war." "and that my wife was leaving me for that war." "My neighbors abandoned me to find other musical trees elsewhere." "I longed for someone to be here with me" "I looked at myself and I saw a stranger from that perspective." "A person starts to talk to himself, lets memory present images of the past." "But then he starts to address himself, ask questions and interrogate himself, bring charges against himself like a prosecutor, defend himself." "While people at home suffered I served German girls to whom soldiers and Waffen SS were admitted nightly under scientific supervision." "These women considered me a servant despite of my tuxedo." "I was a side table in front of whom they felt no embarrassment." "They were careful to let no man see them but I could freely watch while they stood naked, talking toweling dry fuzzy golden bellies, cautiously and meticulously wiping crotches as if I weren't there." "In my free time I wrote long letter to Lise." "After Warsaw was taken I had an address for her there, then I sent letters to Paris." "Lise wrote me from Kiev and Smolensk." "Finally sad letters came from east Prussia." "The German's victorious advance became a victorious retreat." "And Lise came home because she got no more pleasure from the fighting." "She did not however return empty-handed." "I found these stamps in Warsaw and other places" "While inspecting the houses of deported Jews." "According to the Zumstein catalogue, just these four stamps alone make us millionaires." "Deported Jews?" "Sure." "Who knows where they are now?" "We'll buy a hotel after the war." "A big hotel!" "These stamps will bring such a price that we'll be able to buy a hotel anywhere." "Hotel Ditie." "With just this you could buy the Hotel Ritz in Paris." "The war went on and they stopped breeding people for a new Europe." "It made way for those who were still alive and might again hold a weapon." "They might even be made ready to go to war lacking an arm or a leg." "And I saw that the Germans had lost the war." "Their faces betrayed how things stood on the battlefield." "Looking at them I could tell it would soon be over." "and I looked forward to buying a hotel with Lise." "I look at myself, and the more I look the more alarmed I become." "I am alarmed as if I were a stranger whom I accuse and fail to defend." "I look at myself and I am sickened by what I see." "The unbelievable became reality." "My goal had been to buy a hotel and become a millionaire, and I bought a hotel and became a millionaire." "After the war I sold the stamps" "Lise had found in the homes of deported Jews." "Mr. Tichota never returned and I had enough money to buy this hotel and open it for millionaires." "And when I no longer knew how to spend my money," "I bought securities and foreign currency." "Mr. Walden had made a carpet of cash but I used mine as wallpaper." "Every guest would see the extend of my fortune." "millionaires would gawk and envy me." "But three years later millionaires disappeared." "The triumphant February putsch had come." "So none of this is mine anymore?" "No, it isn't." "Like I said, the People's Committee is confiscating this hotel;" "all of your property rights have been transferred to the people." "Even this chair isn't mine?" "No." "Not even the expensive furnishings I bought?" "Not even the food in the fridge?" "All of it belongs to the people it belongs to all of us." "For now you'll be the manager." "We're through with exploitative capitalists, and we're locking up all the millionaires." "Hey, hold on, I'm a millionaire too." "Not anymore." "But I am!" "Look at the millions I have in the bank." "How much do you have?" "Fifteen million." "Then you'll do 15 years." "I concluded that the money from the stamps wasn't lucky." "And I was actually glad it turned out this way." "Because even though in jail, I'd be where I'd always wanted to be." "I'd be among millionaires." "I'd be one of them." "A person becomes most human, often against his own will, when he begin to founder, when he is derailed or deprived of order." "I'm hungry." "And there's the change back from your hundred." "The beer's good here." "This is where I'll be coming."