THAT summer Mother went to the Drei Lilien at Franzensbad, as she had been doing now for several years. It was only a few hours’ drive from Carlsbad, so I managed to get over to see her every week end. We never talked much when we were together. I often wish now that I had found a way to communicate more to her from my mind. My heart she understood, and that seemed enough for both of us.

She still found it difficult to accept the luxuries I wanted her to have. The apartment in Smichov was the sanctuary she had made for us, to hide her from the large, violent and indifferent life of the city in which she had never wanted a part, and nothing could persuade her to leave it permanently. She had seen her son—the only human being in the world to whom she felt any attachment—established and successful, after having come close to despair of seeing him survive. There was poignant dignity in the situation. Mother had been what she was in order that I might become the man she saw before her now, but the comfort and security of success carried no meaning into her own life. She was too old, and her appetites had been restrained too long.

As the life of Carlsbad wore in on me she noticed the strain in my eyes when I came to her each Sunday for a few hours and she wanted desperately to help me. When I told her the simple facts behind my move from Prague, she persisted in misjudging the cause of my preoccupation. In the past, her anxieties had always been caused by poverty. So now she became convinced that I was sacrificing my own comfort in order to keep her at Franzensbad.

One Sunday toward the end of July I found her moved into a small, unpleasant room at the back of the Drei Lilien, overlooking an alley. When I protested violently, she said it was only to help me. She had no right to take more from her hard-working son. She didn’t want to be a nuisance to me. Then I became angry. It had been a long time since she had seen me in such an uncontrolled fit of temper. I was overworked and irritated and I used this excuse to release my pent-up anger at many other people. I shouted and walked the floor and then I dashed from the room, slamming the door as I went. I found the manager and ordered him to move Mother into the best room in the hotel as soon as I left, one with sunshine and a good view, and then to fill it with flowers. He was to send me the bill and not let her see it.

By the time I returned to her my anger was gone and the tempest had subsided, but she was still suffering from it. People with tempers always shout loudest at those they love most, because instinctively they know that no one else will stand it. She was crying, with one hand pressed against her side and the other holding a handkerchief to her eyes. It was time for me to return to Carlsbad. When I kissed her good-by, promising to return the following Sunday, she tried to smile, for Mother could hardly begin now to deplore the behavior my tempers forced upon me.

Three days later I received a wire from the Drei Lilien asking me to come at once. Mother was ill. I borrowed Bělský’s car and drove as fast as I could through the valleys and over the mountains, but it was midnight before I reached her. She had suffered a stroke, probably not her first, and now she was unconscious. The doctor told me she could live only a matter of hours, perhaps days.

In spite of the fact that I had gone through a major war and still had the marks of seven wounds on my own body, the experience of the following five days was seared on my soul and nothing since has been able to heal the invisible scars it made. She looked so different from the mother I had always known. I felt as though the change had been caused solely by the way I had treated her. Toward morning, still unconscious, her lips moved and I heard her murmur my name. I held her hand and she must have realized I was there. In another few hours her eyes were open and she was even able to be raised on pillows and speak to me.

She wanted desperately to go home. The nurse and the doctor both tried to quiet her, but she was adamant. She refused to die in the hotel. She wanted to go home. Her determination seemed to give her strength and she persisted in the demand, begging me not to let her die where she was. She wanted to go back to her familiar rooms in Smichov where she had lived for so long.

I talked with the doctor and he agreed that nothing could save her life; therefore she might as well try to get back if it would ease her mind. So we set out in an ambulance, and every few miles we had to stop while the nurse gave her an injection. Sitting in the front seat beside the driver, I felt I would lose my reason each time the nurse signaled us. It took from eleven in the morning until seven at night to drive the hundred and twelve miles back to Prague.

She lived for another night and half the next day. Alternately I begged the Lord to take her quickly and talked to her as to a child, not realizing that her words were only an automatic response without meaning now because she no longer knew what she was saying.

The last time she called me I picked her up in my arms, and it was thus that she died.