Harlequin's Millions

~ ~ ~

The preceding text was written in cooperation with and in memory of three witnesses to old times, Misters Václav Kořínek, Karel Výborný and Otokar Rykr, who wrote their memories the way memories should always be written: because the moment moves you, and because you feel the need to capture something others have long forgotten, or can only barely remember. When I first read their words, I was so moved by the sense of detail that I struck up a friendship with the three men, even though they were already dead. For many years Mr. Rykr published his own books, at his own expense, Mr. Václav Kořínek published his memories in installments in a local magazine, Mr. Karel Výborný wrote them down with pen and pencil. I was able to take those painstaking descriptions, which still move me deeply, and incorporate them into my tale of the retirement home, a text in which the details are true, but the rest is fiction, from which I hope to be able to extract more truth. May Count Špork’s fictitious estate, the present-day retirement home, live on in the hearts of the readers!