BENEŠ
BY JAN NERUDA
In a certain little wine-shop near the Carinthian theatre in Vienna it was usually lively, day in and day out, but today, laughter and shouts filled the entire side-street. This was the meeting-place of the singers and chorus girls of the court opera and of the members of the orchestra, all of them people free from every care, for if they had admitted the first care they would then have had to admit altogether too many. The less of sweetness life offered them the more feverishly they rushed into it.
Even old gray Beneš, usually morose and short spoken, was as if transformed today. He drank, talked, drank and talked again. His expressive face was already flushed and was covered with a perpetual smile. His classic cape, in winter and in summer always the same, hung behind him on a hook, but the old man felt the fire of the wine and had already removed his vest also. It struck no one as freakish that underneath the first vest of heavy material there appeared a second thick vest. They were thoroughly acquainted with Beneš and knew all of his peculiarities.
Beneš had been an accompanist and rehearser of
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