Vyhľadávanie
(The stage is empty and half-dark. Hana is in the middle, sitting on a chair, naked and white, with beautifully strung up red hair and a bundle of red carnations in her lap. She is lit with a strange cone light - dream effect. In the right corner of the proscenium, Matej is sitting on a small chair, half-dark, with his back turned to the audience, and is following his own dream. He is played by a double or a dummy in the same postman's uniform. Suddenly, on the right side, an enlarged and raised window into the space, as if from the kitchen window. Lights up. In the window, the postman Matej also appears enlarged and is peculiarly lit. He is smiling humbly at Hana. She nods wisely, smiling back, encouraging the postman, with a bent finger, to come closer. Matej raises his shorter leg onto the windowsill, wanting to enter. The voices in the dialogue have a strange, dreamy echo. Hana is smiling, aiming a beckoning finger at the Postman.)
Matej: (Stops in the window.) How beautiful you are today, my little Hana, like when we… Do you remember that? I was going to follow you but Krcheň…
Hana: (Looking aside.) So you've come, my dear Matej.
Matej: (Wondering.) I can't believe you can talk again, my sweet Hana.
Hana: I certainly can. My third set of teeth has grown...
Matej: (Perplexed.) Third set of teeth?
Hana: Don't you remember? When Krcheň broke my teeth to shut me up… In the attic the other day, when we found Marka...
Matej: (Interrupting hurriedly.) Alright, he broke your teeth. Is that all?
Hana: My third set has grown, so I’m saying...
Matej: (Nervous.) There is no need to say that much...
Hana: (Casually.) Every one knows everything in the world anyway...
Matej: (Frightened.) You mean everything?
Hana: (Sighs.) I shouldn't have read that letter...
Matej: (Even more frightened.) That letter?!
Hana: (Reproachfully.) Every one knows the story behind that letter, Matej. Everyone knows about that letter...
Matej: ...about that letter?..
Hana: : The letter Marka had written to her friend before she disappeared... They remember it from beginning to end!
Matej: From beginning to end?
Hana: Yes, they do. Just recall it... recall it, Matej...
Matej: (Recalling.) That letter…
Hana: Recall it, Matej…
Matej: ...'poor father has slept with me and promised me a set of golden teeth and he is going to burn in hell for that. But I don't need anything gold'.
Hana: Go on, yes, just go on...
Matej: How did it go on...er...oh, Marka wrote that… she wrote… - 'That's the way it is, I have it in me and don't know if it's going to be a man or some monster... I'll kill myself for when my mother finds out about it, she'll kill me herself'…
Hana: (Reproachfully.) Now you see, Matej...
Matej: (Tragically.) ...but I didn't want that, Krcheň said...
(The images of Hana and the postman fade away into half-darkness. Lights off.
The light goes off.
In an instant, the familiar kitchen space is lit by a slightly more realistic light. Evoking recollections. From the side, a small girl rushes out from a room, making a lot of noise. It is Marka. She has fair hair, quite unkempt, a white nightgown all creased and half-undressed. Crying heavily, she is running out to the yard. Following her, the drunk Krcheň enters the kitchen, buttoning up his pants.
Krcheň: (Mumbles as a drunk.) Stop yelling like that… You’ll have teeth like no one else, all gold!
(Gradually, Marka stops yelling and the lights go off.
The kitchen is relit in the same light – the postman is recollecting again. The drunk Krcheň and the postman are both climbing up the ladder into the attic. Flurried hens are hopping out of the opening. The postman is looking into the opening.)
Matej: (Horrified.) For Christ’s sake!
(Flurried hens are flying up and down.)
Krcheň: What’s the matter?
Matej: Marka!!! There, look! (To Krcheň.) What have you done, you..?!
(Krcheň shoves him and looks into the opening.)
Krcheň: That stupid woman… She could have got the teeth of gold! (He climbs into the opening.)
Matej: Teeth of gold?! (Follows Krcheň into the opening.) Where is Hana?!
(The light goes off.
After a moment, a new strange dreamy light shows Hana, naked and red-haired, sitting on a chair. To the left, a window lights up into the space. In it there is Krcheň, enlarged, with his head proudly erect, puffing at his pipe among thick smoke rings. Meanwhile, the postman-dummy figure sitting on the small chair has been replaced by a flesh-and-blood character.)
Hana: Everyone here knows about the postman and that letter...
Krcheň: (Angered.) Oh, of course, that Matej!
Hana: He was all eager to help you when you found Marka in the attic...
Krcheň: Yes, he even pulled out his knife and cut her off...
Hana: And he even leashed that stone around her neck when you were throwing her into the stream, into the deepest water...
Krcheň: And didn't move a muscle when I broke all your teeth!
Hana: And he unsealed Marka's letter and brought it to you brand-new, although he was supposed to deliver it!
Krcheň: And then he hid it under that beam up in the attic!
Hana: He wasn’t obliged to do as you told him to.
Krcheň: Of course he wasn’t.
Hana: It's all his fault!
Krcheň: Why, of course, Matej is to blame!!
Together: The postman is to blame!!!
(Both figures vanish in half-darkness and the chair and the window. Focus light fades away, while the light now aims at the postman who has been sitting in the dark. Meanwhile the dummy has been replaced by the flesh-and-blood character. Matej jumps out, clutching his head, terrified, his hair unkempt and soaked with sweat; he is awakening from a nightmare.)
Matej: (Faltering.) But I.…but Krcheň... (Thinking it over.) Where is that letter?!
(Lights go off.)
Translated by Ľuben Urbánek
(From Contemporary Slovak Drama 4. Bratislava: Divadelný ústav Bratislava, 2002)
