Too Loud a Solitude

by Bohumil Hrabal

I am a jug filled with water both magic and plain; I have only to lean over and a stream of beautiful thoughts flows out of me.

By then I had mustered the strength to look upon misfortune with composure, to still my emotions, by then I had begun to understand the beauty of destruction,

And while the sewers of Prague provide the scene for a senseless war between two armies of rats, the cellars are headquarters for Prague’s fallen angels, university-educated men who have lost a battle they never fought, yet continue to work toward a clearer image of the world.