Notes From Underground by Roger Scruton Page B

wentacross broken crockery to the kitchen window, and looked down in defiance at the street.
    The police were driving away, having no doubt reported my return. It was pointless to complain of a crime to those who had committed it, so I had no choice but to return to my changed life, restoring our little cupboard as best I could and planning for a long-lasting program of intimidation. I pushed the door back into place, and cleared away the debris. And the next morning, because it was a Saturday, I devoted myself to repairs, using the box of Dad’s old tools that we kept in a cupboard in the kitchen. I sawed up one of the broken chairs, and used the pieces to secure the splintered door on its hinges. I took down the shattered light and fixed a bare bulb to the wires with insulating tape. And I hung the shelves in such a way as to hide the holes in the plaster where their brackets had been torn away. I returned Dad’s paintings to the wall, and shelved the books that had been thrown in a corner. I made the place look like a home, to which Mother might one day return and where Betka, too, could visit. A queer feeling of apprehension came over me when I thought of Betka sitting here on Mother’s bed. And I quickly closed the door of the apartment and set off into town.
    The snow had settled in scattered precincts and there was no traffic on the roads. A chill yellow sunlight fell on the castle, which shone above the river mist like a mirage. Everything was beautiful and full of hope, and the sight of Betka, sitting amid untrodden snow on the St ř elecký Island, her head wrapped in a woolen scarf, her gloved hands gripping a book, opened a door in my soul through which light streamed in. She looked up and fixed me with a smile, not moving or speaking but winding me in along her eyebeams, until we were face to face. Then she jumped up, kissed me on the cheek, pushed the book into her pocket and said, “Honzo! Let’s go.”
    â€œGo where?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    She took my arm, steering me towards the steps, which wound on themselves, making a little alcove with a curved seat of stone. She stopped for a moment, looked at me silently, and then with a sigh and a shake of the head led me across the bridge to Smíchov. She was silent, trembling, and pressed against me as though fearing something. We walked along the Újezd to an old arch between stucco façades, where a metal panel opened in a wooden carriage door. The panel slammed shut behind us, excluding the world. Before us was a long courtyard. On one side there were buildings with a functional appearance, like warehouses, one of them belching steam from a pipe that pierced the roof tiles. On the other side, casement windows, neatly framed in stucco, faced the courtyard, and in the middle of them a door opened onto some old wooden steps. We went up a flight. Two more doors bordered a flagstone landing.
    Betka took an iron key from her pocket and let us into a room with an antique desk, a bed, some shelves full of books and papers, and a glazed partition leading to a kitchen. On one wall, above the bed, was an oil painting—a still life of fruit in the manner of Cézanne, whose paintings I knew from one of Mother’s books. Above the desk was a window through which I could see the roof of the building opposite. Against the wall stood the case of a large musical instrument. It was warm in the room and everything within it was neat, harmonious, arranged with a kind of visual competence that I could not explain, for taste had been absent from our life at home. Betka took off her coat and hung it carefully in an old-fashioned cupboard that stood against the wall behind the door.
    â€œBut where are we, Betka?”
    â€œThis is where I live, silly.”
    â€œBut I thought...” I stopped myself.
    â€œWhat did you think?”
    â€œOh, I imagined you living, you know, in some old family farmhouse, somewhere on the