Today Primatora Vacka, my local Metro station, changed its name1. The lift was rewallpapered whilst I was out for the evening and Barbora put a new name label on her front door. These are the small things by which one orientates oneself2.
Had the Czech lesson at ten. A small confrontation with Milena. Coffee with Tim, Ezra and Charles. Discussed the Moors Murderers, crime & punishment3. Had to take Milena the papers I had corrected in preparation for the reading. Finished Nausea4. Have Between the Acts5 but feel less inclined to read it. Back to Proust instead.
Things do change very quickly. In young-Toby’s final year in Praha, a friend comes to visit from England. Young-Toby tries to take him to three of his favourite restaurants, only to find that all of them have closed in the previous month. These were Praha institutions. They travel all over the centre of town, growing depressed and hungry. In the end, young-Toby takes him to a Slovak restaurant in a cellar where they eat a meat dish called ‘Poacher’s Pocket’. Meat wrapped inside more meat with gravy on top.
Tim is from Manchester. It is inevitable we’ll talk about the Moors Murderers at some point.
Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938. This is research for the novel young-Toby is writing.
Virginia Woolf, 1941.