Next there appears a house, miserable and dirty, its roof askew, its door frame battered loose, wrinkled and stained shirts, spectral torsos with no heads or legs, jumping out of its windows in panic. To danse macabre music, the ailing victims of grime proceed to drag themselves toward a boiling cauldron bubbling with impatient thick white foam. With spinsterish mistrust, wavering on the very lip of the cauldron (fearful of being duped), the shirts leap into the foam … and what do you know, the mistrust was nothing but foolish superstition, for here they are, emerging from the cauldron, dazzlingly white, one after another, marching in single file and singing lustily, “Radion washes on its own.” Next, a sphinx appears on the screen and asks the viewers in a far-off, desert-dry voice: “Is this possible?” and the next instant a pretty typist shows that two typewriters cannot possibly be typed at once. “And is this possible?” the sphinx asks again. No, it is also not possible for water to flow uphill. It is equally impossible to build a house from the roof down, or for the Sun to revolve around the Earth … “but it is possible for Tungsram-Crypton double-spiraled filament lightbulbs to give twice as much light as the ordinary ones for the same wattage …” and on goes a lightbulb, as bright as the sun in the sky, the terrible glare forcing the viewers to squint. Then a mischievous little girl in a polka-dot dirndl prances her way onto the screen and declaims, in the virginal voice of a girl living with the nuns, “Zora soap washes clean, cleaner than you ever saw … you’ve ever seen,” she hastens to correct her mistake, too late, the viewers chuckle. The little girl withdraws in embarrassment. She is followed by a traveler carrying a heavy suitcase in each hand, the road winding behind him in endless perspective. The sun beats him with fiery lashes from above, but his step is spry and cheery; with a sly wink at the audience he whispers confidentially, “You go a long way without tiring thanks to Palma heels” and displays the enormous soles of his feet: sure enough, Palma heels! Next comes a mighty horde of cockroaches, fleas, bedbugs, and other horrible pests, afforded air support by dense formations of moths and flies and escorted by speedy mosquito squadrons … but suddenly there is a clatter of heavy hooves and a Flit grenadier comes galloping into the fray, armed with the dreaded Flit spray can. Before long the battlefield is littered with dead bodies (of the pests). From the platen of a Remington grows the legendary portrait of the great Napoleon with a curl of hair, drunkard-like, down his forehead. As Napoleon grows so does the Remington, and when the two have covered the entire globe the Remington types across the equator the historic words “We have conquered the world” “… and ended up on St. Helena,” muttered Melkior, “don’t give yourself airs.” Afterward a Singer uses Eurasia and America to stitch a many-colored coat for portly Mr. Globe; it fashions black trousers from Africa, and a white cap from Greenland, and Mr. Globe chortles with glee. Bata asks a passerby tottering along with lightning bolts flashing from his corns, “Is that necessary?” “No,” replied Melkior, “not if you buy your shoes at Bata’s. Shoes are an Antaean bond with Mother Earth, the pedestrian’s secret power …” And there is Brill kissing human footwear with its polishes, two long-haired brushes curling and cuddling like two sly cats around a pedestrian’s feet; he walks on tall and proud, his shoes shining! — Kästner & Öhler’s, the Balkan’s largest department store, has spilled unbelievable and magic objects, “even the kitchen sink” out of its horn of plenty, and the viewers’ imagination pecks away among the luxuries. Julio Meinl desires to fill everyone to the brim with Chinese, Ceylon, and even Russian tea; as for coffee, Haag is the brand — it caters to your heart. Sneeze if you can after a Bayer aspirin! Darmol works while you sleep, and Planinka Tea has the patriotic duty to cleanse Aryan blood. Elida Cream looks after your complexion. Intercosma swears to afforest your denuded head sooner than possible. Kalodont is the arch enemy of tartar, while VHG asks you, rather saucily, if you are a man. Finally, First Croatian Splendid Funerals Company takes the respectful liberty of reminding you of your dignity and … well, see for yourself: black varnished hearses with baroque gold angels, horses with glossy black coats, a comfortable coffin, attendance of ideally sober personnel in admirals’ hats, making your death another success and a thing of almost poetic beauty …
From the tall roof MAAR announced urbi et orbi its glittering standard of living. Its mighty acoustics had all but drowned out a blind peddler’s feeble supplication issuing from a dark doorway, “Shoelaces, black, yellow — two dinars; ten envelopes, letter paper inside — six dinars …” The blind man’s monotonous litany sounded tired and unconvinced; the pathetic bit of verbal advertising aspired only to mask the begging, that much and no more.
Melkior took refuge in the doorway with the blind man and fell to watching: what can this MAAR thing hope to accomplish? The viewer stands entranced with his head thrown back and drinks in, henlike, the filmed comfort of well-being. From his earthbound condition he watches MAAR’s looming mirage, listening to this voice “from the other world” and is already intoxicated by the luxurious illusion of his eternal longing to be pampered — and then there comes the voice of the accursed petty things — the shoelaces, black, yellow, for two dinars … and he fingers his two dinars in his pocket and his petty need for shoelaces, black or yellow as the case may be. Tungsram-Crypton’s glare has dimmed … and what do I need the Flit grenadier for … and I see this business with Napoleon is just a ruse. … The evening has gone down the drain. To think that he was actually willing to die for the sake of First Croatian! Can’t they have blind people weaving baskets or something instead of letting them beg like this? Melkior felt the thought himself, through irritation with the beggar’s plea. Why indeed can’t they open a center with heating provided, for the poor blind people to gather, think of the savings on electrical lighting … he made to redress his cruel thought, even bought a pair of yellow shoelaces (although he needed black) and generally cast about for a way to help the blind man. … He dropped a silver piece on the ground, picked it up again, and asked him, “You lost this coin, didn’t you?” “Could be, I’ve got a hole in my pocket,” replied the blind man half-jokingly, just in case, but he did, eagerly, accept the coin.
The quaint act of charity moved a person nearby. A clerical collar around his neck, the man had cast only a passing, sadly indifferent glance up at MAAR’s magic tricks as he squeezed through the throng. Then his spirits soared with a “true glow” when Melkior found a way (and how Christian a way!) of being charitable to the blind man. “When giving alms, no need to make a show of it.” He patted Melkior on the shoulder and, giving him an approving smile, dipped into the crowd again. Melkior only managed to catch a glimpse of his head, wrinkled, sad, wrung between the hands of some terrible misfortune, and a pair of large ears thereupon, jutting grimly out on either side. He was astounded by how oddly large they were, so similar to a very familiar and well-remembered pair. … But back in those days the head had been ruddy and full, young and terrifying, with those selfsame batwing ears amid waves of thick hair which protected them from ridicule.
“That pale scrawny neck!” cried Melkior in a low voice, “is it possible?”
After him, then! He had to see those ears again!
But who is to know whether or not ears have a hiding place for their memories? A secret spring-catch drawer from which at night, when they burrow into solitude, they take out trinkets to caress and sob over?