About Krbáň

     On the last day of December, old Krbáň set out for the village. He had no idea that the cold morning would prove fatal for him. Had he known, he wouldn’t have set foot outside his cottage. His house stood isolated from the other dwellings. Completely alone. It’s no wonder that this lonely place left its mark on Krbáň himself. He was a taciturn, uncommunicative man. You had to pry words out of him. Over the years, he grew used to his solitary life. His only company was a mangy dog and a few scruffy hens.
     That day, he put on a thick, shaggy sheepskin coat, old enough to remember Methuselah himself, pulled a black sheepskin cap deep over his forehead, and put on heavy felt boots. Fresh, dense snow had just fallen. It crunched pleasantly under his feet. The frost nipped at his nose like a hundred needles. Krbáň scowled like Beelzebub.
     “The devil owed me this trip,” he grumbled angrily under his pale mustache.
     “How nice it would be in my pleasantly heated room.”
     A cold wind picked up.
     “Damn that mayor,” he cursed again, “yesterday he sent a messenger with word that I must come to him immediately today. Why? That he didn’t bother to say! He only claimed it couldn’t wait.”
     The journey was slow. After about two hours, he stood in front of the mayor’s house. He knocked hard on the door. A familiar voice answered from inside: “Well, well, is there a fire?”
     The door opened and a burly man stood there. “It’s about time, Krbáň, I’ve been waiting for you. Come in. I was about to send the village policeman for you.”
     Krbáň said nothing. He went inside. He was greeted by a pleasant warmth.
     “Take off your coat and have a seat at the table,” the mayor invited him.
     Krbáň did so, albeit reluctantly.
     “I’ll get straight to the point,” the mayor said seriously.    
     “You’re probably wondering why I called you here?”
     The old man looked at him indifferently.
      “Something tricky has happened. Here’s the thing. The municipality received a letter. Imagine, all the way from the capital itself. The officials wrote that during a random inspection, they found some inconsistency.”
     The man paused for breath.
     “To be precise, I’ll read it to you word for word.” He put on his glasses and looked at the official document.
     “Here it says... um... here it is... Based on our investigation, we have found that your citizen, Jakub Krbáň, born in the village of Čtyřpsí, has not completed the last year of compulsory schooling. Therefore, we order you to rectify this immediately and without delay! Inform us immediately of the outcome! Period. Stamp. For the Ministry of Education, personally signed by the minister. Illegible signature. Some chicken scratch. Failure to comply will be punished under paragraph 301, section I, letter A.”
     Krbáň stared at him as if he’d seen a ghost. He understood nothing.
     The mayor put down the paper and said:
     “Well, that’s out in the open! You’ve really done it, man! Because of you, we’re in a fine mess. Just one lousy year! Why didn’t you finish that damned schooling? We could have spared ourselves a lot of trouble. Now a shadow hangs over our village. We can expect an inspection committee.”
     “I had chickenpox at the time,” Krbáň said angrily, “it’s not my fault!”
     “Chickenpox?” the mayor repeated.
     “Yes, chickenpox. And the bad kind. The doctor forbade me from going to school. He was afraid of an epidemic.”
     The mayor scratched his head.
     “Chickenpox or not, nothing can be done now. We’ll have to comply with the decision. As you see, it’s all here in black and white. You’ll finish your incomplete education, and that’s that. An order is an order. No use arguing. The higher-ups have decided. Nothing can be done about it.”
     The old man’s eyes bulged. Then he managed to say, “Me, go to school?”
     He could hardly believe what he’d heard.
     The mayor patted him on the shoulder.
     “Don’t worry about it, friend, we’ll manage somehow,” he comforted him, “you’ll finish that one year. It’ll be a piece of cake. And then you’ll have peace for the rest of your days. In the autumn you’ll start school. For this purpose, I bought you a fountain pen, notebooks, and textbooks from the village fund.”
     The mayor reached into the desk and handed him the items. “I almost forgot the most important thing. Here’s a school satchel. Put everything in it.”
     He handed him a bag made of real brown pigskin.
     “That’s all I had to say. I’ve fulfilled my civic duty. Sign here that you understand everything.”
     Krbáň reluctantly took the pen.
     “There! We’re in the clear,” the mayor said cheerfully.
Krbáň didn’t share the mayor’s joy. He left the mayor’s house in a daze. He didn’t even know how.
     “Damn it! Which devil cooked this up! Studying at my age,” he cursed like a jay.
     He trudged sadly home. That damned decision didn’t please him at all.
     “We’ll manage somehow,” Krbáň growled angrily. “He’ll surely manage it for me! Oh, he will.”
     When he got home, his cat greeted him joyfully, rubbing against his trouser leg.
     Krbáň looked at him sympathetically.
     “If only I’d been born an animal like you. What would I be missing? I’d have blessed peace.”
     Nine months passed like a pregnancy. On Monday, the first of September, he was to start school. He tossed and turned in bed all night. He couldn’t sleep. He got up before four. He was on pins and needles. Before seven, he set out for school.
     The janitor was standing in front of the school and was very surprised:
     “Mr. Krbáň, what are you doing here?”
     The old man pretended not to hear and quickly entered the school building. With a pounding heart, he entered the classroom. He saw a gang of rowdy prepubescent kids. When they saw him, they stopped their wild games. The youngsters were very surprised to see the old hermit from the woods among them. Some were seeing him for the first time in their lives.
     Krbáň sat down in the first desk. It was empty.
     Exactly at eight o’clock Central European Time, a strict-looking teacher entered the classroom. She immediately began in a formal tone: “Welcome back to this school. I hope we’ll get along well this year. Let’s start with roll call.”
     Krbáň had never heard such a foreign word in his life.
     “Aladinová,” the teacher read.
     “Here,” screeched a pockmarked girl.
     “Brechta.” Silence.
     “Brechta!” the teacher raised her voice.
     “...’scuse me, he went to his uncle’s funeral,” someone called out.
     “Alright. I hope he brings a note... Císař.”
     “Here,” squeaked a boy from the back row in an unnaturally high voice.
     The teacher read the names one by one until she got to Krbáň.
     “Mr. Krbáň,” she said gently, almost motherly.
     “Yes, ... here I am,” the old man said, struggling out of his desk.
     The woman looked at him with a tolerant smile. Then she said, “Dear pupils! This year Mr. Krbáň will be sharing this class with us. I trust you will treat him properly, or I’ll take appropriate disciplinary action.”
     Then she continued reading. When she finished, she said, “Now I’ll briefly introduce you to the curriculum for the coming school year. We’ll get to know some very interesting new subjects.”
     The man listened carefully. At the end, the teacher said: “That’s all for today. We’ll meet here again tomorrow. That’s all for now,” she said and quickly left the classroom.
     The next day, real school attendance began for him. He spent almost the whole day at school.
     When Krbáň left the school gates in the afternoon, his head was spinning from all the new knowledge as if he’d had ten beers. He muttered to himself: “... Kilimanjaro... some Pythagorean theorem... sets, ...Homer, ... Plato...”
     Day by day, he learned to be wise. Watching over his efforts was Jan Amos Comenius, who looked down on him from a peeling portrait.
     The school year passed quickly, and it was time for report cards. Krbáň’s, to be honest, was no miracle. From top to bottom, all fours (the second-worst grade). Only in conduct did he have a top mark.
     He had the report card framed and looked at it every day with almost reverent respect. From then on, he slept peacefully again.
     About a month later, a messenger from the mayor arrived at Krbáň’s. He was to come on an urgent matter. Krbáň turned pale as a sheet.
     “What does he want now?” he asked the visitor. The man only shrugged.
     Once again, he stood before the mayor.
     “Allow me to officially congratulate you on successfully completing your compulsory schooling,” the mayor greeted him at the door.
     “That wasn’t necessary.”
     “Come in, old friend.”
     The mayor’s opening words didn’t bode well.
     “Another letter from the ministry arrived,” he stated dryly.
     He paused meaningfully. Then, with pathos, he said:
     “In it, they confirm that you have duly completed your compulsory schooling. At the same time, they’re sending an application for the grammar school. If you fill it out, you can continue your studies. We need educated people here in the village! So those up there don’t think we’re all fools and bumpkins.”
     Krbáň turned pale as a sheet. The mayor noticed immediately.
     “Did that scare you? You old soldier! After the harvest, you’ll sit at the desks and improve your qualifications.”
     Krbáň nearly fainted. He felt sick and needed fresh air.
     As he left the house in a daze, he heard the mayor call after him:
     “Don’t worry! We’ll manage…”
 
 

Translated into English by artificial intelligence.