Praha/Prag/Prague [antikvár]

YOUR SPRINGTIME, PRAGUE! Somé people say that the beauty of the City is determined by its position. Others hold the view that the river lent Prague its breathtaking charm. I have alsó come across the belief that the history of the country is recorded in its stone face, and that the City is therefore an ever blossoming rose. And all the time the waters of the Vltava flow down the river and the hillsides lining it are mirrored on its surface and history takes its chequered course day after day, year after year, century after century, and ali the beauty together and the passage of time, the shifting and rallying points of history resound harmoniously on and below the surface of the City. Its face changes through the ages and yet somehow remains unchanged because the charm, however much exposed to stress and music; to the thunder of cannon and water; to the peeling of bells and the sound of the bugle; because the charm of the City has taken deep roots in the land like a thousandyear-old lindentree, and this land offers it everything needed by beauty to prevent its ageing, so that the years and the centuries come and pass away lining its face not by the wrinkles of old age but by a magic circle which keeps evil powers out of its bounds. I know of a narrow lane in the Lesser Town of the City which leads nowhere. There is a small gate in this lane which is permanently closed and no one has its key. I know for certain that there is a garden behind this gate and that a tree has been growing there since time immemorial, and that in its branches a blue bird is nesting. It rises early in the morning and quietly sings its first tune; merles and throstles jóin it a little later, the river rubs its eyes and swings into a fresh day. It is just as weil that no one has the key to this garden where the blue bird is nesting. The City is secure under the wings and song of this blue bird and the tree, in whose branches the blue bird sings, has unbounded freedom and air to ripen and secure a firm foothold for its roots. It is just as weil that no one has the key to the gate. I alsó know of a cobblestone in a certain sidestreet which possesses magic power: anyone who treads on it will have a rose growing in his heart. And as since time immemorial children have been playing in this sidestreet I am pleased to know that the City is so full of roses growing in the hearts of its people. No one can ever puli out the cobblestone in this half-forgotten Prague sidestreet even if he had an iron grip.