KRLEŽA, Miroslav

The Return of Philip Latinowicz

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It had been a mild October afternoon. As he went with his mother through the park, he had picked some daisies from the lawn and, holding the three tiny, warm, faded flowers in his hand, he followed her into a high, dark, grimmy house with glass doors. The glass panes of the hall door were red and green, while the door itself, at which his mother had rung the bell, was vanished, shining, and extremely high. He went in with her, feeling her cotton glove in his hand and a singular warmth penetrating through the material. As he enterd and followed her across the dark room and the antechamber, rubbing his feet on the carpets and staring at the various stands and strange objects, he could take in only the fact that there were a great many rooms and that everything was strangely high: the door and the stove, the furniture, the curtains, and the windows. There were thick carpets, the gleam of polished wood and of porcelain in the china cabinet; pictures of hares and deers on silver plates; heavy, fringed woolen tablecloths and armchairs, and he was so excited at the sight of everything that he kept plucking nervously at the three daisies with his sweating fingers.

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