1
Good morning.
TALKS WITH T.G. MASARYK
Queen Queen
Good morning, Mr. President.
Morning is long gone.
- Tea ?
- Thank you.
Are you worried ?
I didn't know you liked
this kind of music.
Me neither.
Yes. I am worried. About Olga.
- That actress ?
- She's not "that actress"...
I am sorry.
What's wrong with her ?
She and Dr. Steinbach, whom
you know, made a trip to Zbraslav.
- They were driving too fast.
- And she was driving...
Yes, she was, apparently
overestimating her abilities.
Is she hurt ?
No concussion, but the wound on her
head took really long to stitch.
Unfortunately,
I have to leave today.
- Of course.
- I am sorry.
Although Dr. Steinbach is with her now
and apparently also some other man...
But, I have to go.
How did you like the film yesterday ?
Metropolis ! Remarkable !
Artificial people, robots...
You like that, don't you ?
Yes, I like that. I like the topic
of a man vs his creation.
A man's creation revolt.
Like Adam and Eve
against God in paradise ?
Yes. Like that.
apek, do you make up your plays
or are they based on truth ?
- You like that revolt, don't you ?
- It depends.
I find revolt important.
You can't stop people
discovering things.
But we can't foresee
where it will lead.
Like Adam and Eve couldn't.
I apologise,
but I'll have to go soon.
- What time does the train depart ?
- 12:21.
I really need to discuss
some points of our book.
You are not yet happy with the text.
I do value the comments
of your family and friends,
but we must finalize the whole
process, provide the final version.
Have you read the papers ?
I didn't manage.
- You mean politics ?
- No, I don't.
Yes, I did.
I took some notes.
A man appeared in the court in Martin.
His young wife cheated on him.
He killed her with an axe.
At the court he said he'd do it again.
He was sentenced to death.
Have you loved someone so much
that you could kill ?
I don't know.
The papers publish the lists of people
who will be pardoned at the occasion
of the Republic's anniversary.
- How many ?
- 20, 30 names a day.
Altogether many.
What would you do if that murderer
asked you for the pardon ?
I have no idea.
Try to imagine.
It's hard. I don't know !
Anything else in the papers ?
Your statues unveiled everywhere.
Rolnek's one in Kuntt
is 15 m tall.
- I shall grant him that pardon.
- The French paper is even poetic:
The age of this President Liberator
is like a beautiful evening...
It takes me longer to decide than
him to kill, but I know I'll do it.
At night I had an idea
in connection with the anniversary.
We need 50 years
of undisturbed growth
to get where we wish
to be already today,
then we won't have to be afraid
of anything and anybody.
With our geographical position,
it won't be easy.
I promised that the new division
of Central Europe will bring peace.
That all the hatred, reinforced
by the war, will disappear.
But instead, it became even deeper.
Germans, Austrians,
Hungarians and even Poles
hate us more than before 1918.
The Great Powers wanted cooperation.
But instead, all those small states
introduced protectionist policies
and grew more chauvinistic.
We have cut the bonds
with the Austrian monarchy,
but haven't established any new
economic order in Central Europe.
- Are you afraid of Germans, apek ?
- Aren't you ?
Germans have a slogan:
We don't fear anyone except God.
- Exactly.
- But I like it.
It's good to have a self-confident
and strong neighbour.
If they are strong,
we must be strong too.
In such a partnership of strength
it's easier to communicate.
With an insecure and unclear
weakling, you won't go far.
My grandchildren,
Olga's sons, left it here.
I suspected it was yours.
I know the German issue
is the key one for the Republic.
As a state, we don't really
have any other issue.
But you can never rebuild
Germans into Czechs.
You can rebuild them
into Czechoslovaks.
Let them speak their own
language and add the freedom.
If the freedom is better than
what they have, you win.
I don't want to fight with them
or anyone else about a nationality.
What I offer is freedom
and social justice.
And what if they wouldn't
care for it ?
It's me who decides here, apek.
It doesn't depend on them !
You know me. I am not just
an idealist. I know politics.
When the southern states
wanted to break away,
Washington didn't let them
and it ended as the Civil war.
If our Germans would want to break
away we wouldn't let them either.
We won't let them destroy
our homeland.
But until then,
we have to do our best
to make them feel at home here.
- And if they wouldn't want ?
- Then a war will be the only solution.
That's the problem.
Wells once told me in London:
- You can't cast them out.
- That's true.
Germans will never accept their defeat,
or the existence of our republic.
They still have many young men
excited by weapons.
It is the most militant nation
in Europe.
- We have defeated them in the war.
- That's what they don't respect.
They say: you Czechs haven't fought
a single fight with us.
You've never defeated us and have
no right control us after the war.
Victory, defeat...
I want to suggest something to you,
Mr. President.
We are at the end of the book,
after a year of work,
and I consider it to be
your book as much as mine.
So I suggest
to divide the fee fifty-fifty.
My God, apek. You wrote it,
I just supplied the material.
But nobody has ever got
such a material.
Fifty-fifty ? Agreed ? Otherwise this
job won't bring me any satisfaction.
I never push on you.
But I do now.
Promise me you'll think it over.
-Have the book cost you a lot of work ?
- Yes, but I am used to work.
Work brings both victories
and failures.
- You should be able to take both.
- Sure.
Then this one is a failure.
Well...
- The book won't be published.
- I beg your pardon ?
I didn't know how to tell you,
but I decided already yesterday.
It can't be published.
Alice, my daughter insists on it,
Jan and many other think the same.
- They say it is inappropriate.
- Inappropriate ? How ?
Mostly because of the chapter
about love and marriage.
It's not right for a president
to speak about women.
About love between
a man and a woman.
But you are a human, not a monster.
I do not agree with them.
I think the opposite.
You wrote much less, than
what I told you and what I think...
Anyhow, it mustn't be published.
It's a lost deal.
How many times did you have
to rewrite it ? Ten ? Hundred ?
You wanted to make a name on it.
With all due respect, Mr. President,
that book was your idea.
I don't think I deserve
to be treated like this.
And we can also always cancel
that chapter.
Oh, cancel... the chapter.
Let's go for a walk.
I like the grassfield in autumn.
Everybody thinks it's dying,
but it's full of life.
As a boy I fed a goat henbane.
- It died.
- Henbane is poisonous.
As an educated city man you know that,
but I was just a village rascal.
Each flower is different, but they all
need loving care, just like people.
- I never had time for such things.
- Sorry, Mr. President.
Centaurium erythraea,
a very rare herb.
Easily overlooked and
great for your gallbladder.
Capek...
- You have a better sight...
- It's your son.
Our Jan...
the London ambassador.
He stayed long
at the bonfire yesterday.
Probably has some sweetheart
in the village.
Jan is not sure about your book,
but it's Alice who dislikes it most.
She is very strict. After me.
A firstborn,
she always wanted to be like me.
Look at this !
Can you tell which one is mine ?
This one ?
Wrong ! It's hers.
- I mistook it in the morning too.
- How did you find out ?
How ?
You see ?
That's how I found out.
She couldn't take the fact she'd
never be a professor of philosophy.
Wearing her heart on her sleeve.
Charlie brought her up that way.
They both thought it would do.
She made it hard for herself.
If she was to write, then about
nothing less important than God.
But after ten sentences
she had nothing more to say.
She asked me:
How is it possible, dad ?
After all,
I am yours and mom's daughter.
Finally she gave up and started
to worry about her looks... Her !
She was ashamed to wear glasses
but couldn't recognize
people on the street.
I used to tell her, sweetheart,
beauty is an inner light.
But she is a woman.
She didn't believe me.
With her mom we though: She'd
get married and all would change.
She never has.
I taught her to value her freedom.
For her, men ceased to exist.
She doesn't mean it like that, apek.
She's terrible. Isn't she ?
- Tell me !
- Yes, she is terrible.
We, Masaryks, are terrible.
It's not easy for me
with her either, believe me !
She wants to be my conscience.
I oppose: You don't have to
safeguard my legacy, my dear.
- I am still alive !
- But I am alive too, Mr. President.
What if the book is better
than she can understand ?
What are you scribbling there ?
As I said, it's all over.
- Are you working on a new book ?
- Detective stories.
Maybe not really detective...
An offender is not important here.
What is important are the people
and their hidden beliefs.
- Do you enjoy writing ?
- I learnt to enjoy it.
Others are in pain when writing.
It hurts me too sometimes.
But I don't mind.
If you want to be a writer,
you have to write more than you live.
Like let's say at a hot summer day,
people are sunbathing at a lake
and me, sitting at home
with my feet in a washtub,
writing a story about
people sunbathing at a lake.
Not many people have dreamt up
so many beautiful lives as I have.
But once in a blue moon
a miracle happens.
You feel something
has got inside you.
It's like a vertigo.
A feeling that I don't control it.
That something is writing through me.
I've never enjoyed writing.
When I needed to say something
I sat down and wrote.
But I always wanted to get over
it as soon as possible.
Nobody would ever dare to say
my books are poor though.
Only Suicide was good.
I think it's a masterpiece.
Timeless.
Have you ever wanted
to take your own life ?
I don't think so... No.
Didn't you want to die
when you were young ?
When I was young,
I felt older than ever.
I think a young man is dull.
Unable to imagine,
that one day he will be dead.
Always waiting for something.
- For the world to change by itself.
- Haven't you even try to imagine ?
What would it be like ?
By your own hand...
- Yes, I have.
- You see ?
Let's say, because of a woman ?
Four years ago,
when my mother was dying...
A student of mine
shot himself in mouth.
His name was Flesch.
He left me some money.
- I talked about him before.
- Yes.
I saw his body at pathology.
No blood on his face,
nothing to be seen.
But his expression...
I expected the horror of someone
who lost faith
and fell into desperation.
But he was smiling.
When he was taking his own life,
without God, he was smiling.
- Do you understand that ?
- I think I do.
- Smile !
- Pardon me ?
Smile !
No !
Nobody can smile like he did
at that moment.
- What are you thinking about ?
- Do you really want to know ?
First:
Borov is planning the campaign.
Second:
the ads for the papers are ready.
And third: our book is a gift
to the Republic's decennary.
That's what I am thinking about.
You were sick when you were young.
You told me about it but I forgot.
Scarlet fever ate my spine away.
My back is made of stone.
My father, a doctor,
told me I would die soon.
I had a girlfriend I loved. I didn't
marry her, not to destroy her life.
After two years
doctors told me I shall live.
Your girlfriend must have been happy.
She got married in the meantime.
I think she is happy...
Suicide ?
I couldn't think of it now.
If only because of my mother...
The pain taught me to live for work.
We must live whatever happens.
It also taught me
that what matters
is what you do for the others.
- That's a clever opinion.
- It's true.
You live among the characters you
made up yourself. Not real people.
I think you are real enough.
No. You made me up too.
How old were you, apek,
when you left home ?
Eleven. When I was sent
to a high school in Hradec.
I was 14.
I found out I could earn my living
and stopped snooping on the rich.
- But you graduated in philosophy !
- Really just graduated...
You never wanted to make
money with it ?
I did but I didn't get habilitation.
I couldn't teach.
What time is it, apek ?
Five to eleven.
You are a philosopher like me.
And I am a journalist like you.
I always preferred writing newspaper
articles to preparing my lectures.
I like to encounter new things
and discuss them
with all people at once.
Newspapers is the best way
how to share things quickly.
I am not sure.
People want a journalist
to write things long known.
Only few people want to learn
about new things.
The rest prefer to just reconfirm
old things.
Radiojournal station
broadcasting continues
with the news of
Czechoslovak press agency.
Ministry of justice prepared
a concept of amnesty at the occasion
of the Republic's decennary...
Ten years. Time flies.
- How are you going to celebrate ?
- I don't celebrate 28 October.
We founded the Republic
two weeks earlier abroad,
when the Great Powers approved
our temporary government.
That was important ! Not what
the crowds in Prague were doing.
Bene and me will also meet
at Lny two weeks earlier.
At a small dinner party.
That's all.
Capek, may I ask you ?
I'll never be able to explain this
to all those Prague "October men".
Ran was the worst, thinking the
Republic existed only thanks to him.
Thanks to the first
Republic's act he had compiled
and the brass band he had sent
to the streets for people to stay calm.
Without our resistance abroad, he'd
be sent back to prison the same day.
vehla was the only
real man among them.
But he had a terrible life style:
sleeping at day, working at night.
And all the booze and cigars.
He also paid for it soon enough.
Rasin: the dictator.
He didn't like people.
If he wasn't assassinated,
he'd become a friend of
Mussolini and Czech fascists.
And Stribrny:
womanizer and drunkard,
totally unable to control himself.
Soukup: a decent man,
but he'd bore you to death
in 5 minutes.
And srobar, for Slovaks ! In 1918,
they had no politics of their own yet.
They always just sent someone to Prague
to speak for all of them at once !
Terrible.
And what did you do in 1918, apek ?
I was in Narodni listy.
I knew Benes already before the war.
He was my teacher at the university.
Bene was our core person abroad.
I was the brains, Bene was the sward.
Nobody at German's side had worked
so hard during the war as he had.
- Have you ever distrusted him ?
- You know I doubt everything.
Of course I have. We don't live
in paradise. We live on Earth.
But I knew Benes as a man,
who became one
with the fate of this country.
Still it's unbelievable.
In 1915, before Benes joined you
in dismantling Austria
I was going to Spain.
He found out somehow and asked me
to take some documents with me.
Maybe they were for you.
Many people were delivering
messages back and forth.
Two of you had achieved so much.
With tefnik and few others.
I can't think of another place where
the few like you accomplished so much.
You see and maybe
we could do even more.
- Do you think so ?
- You always can do more.
Capek !
I'll tell you something
I haven't said to anyone else.
When I can't sleep at night
and my eyes get too tired to read,
I often think about one thing.
I never regret anything,
but maybe back in 1917 in Russia
I made a mistake.
I had 20 thousand fully armed men,
which was quite a lot for that time.
Maybe I should have rather moved
against Moscow or St Petersburg.
Those days I believed we shouldn't
meddle in Russian affairs at any price.
But if I'd had meddled,
Russia might be different today.
As a democrat
you didn't have a choice.
Yes I did.
I didn't return from America
as a democrat back in 1918,
or even as a democratic president.
I had no idea I was going
to be elected.
When I got the telegram,
I was stunned.
I was returning as a dictator.
Nobody, including me, thought
the monarchy would capitulate so soon.
We were sure French will have
to move all the way to Berlin
to pay Germans back
for the defeat at Sedan.
We agreed I'd move with them
in the head of the legions.
Berlin then Dresden and Prague.
I wanted to win
our Prague back from Germans.
Sorry to interrupt you but it's
going to rain. A storm is coming.
Oh, Capek. Let's go then.
Someone passed away.
- Do you know why I left Catholics ?
- No, I don't know.
Their religion never changes.
While Protestantism
is a continuous reform.
- Catholic God doesn't change.
- Exactly ! And that's wrong.
When the whole world and universe
is on move, the God should move too.
It's logical. God can't separate
himself from his own creation.
Be careful not to reform
that God of yours to death !
Finally you'll find out
there is no God anymore.
That can happen.
- Aren't you a bit of disbeliever ?
- No, I am not.
Conscience or God,
it's the same thing.
11:20. Time flies.
Isn't it strange ? Two Czechs like us,
here, in an almost strange land
just 10 years after the war...
and it feels we've ever been here.
My father would never believe
it would be all ours one day.
Be careful, apek.
I am no Czech. I'm Slovak.
You know, a Moravian Slovak !
A Czechoslovak really !
You're right. I meant the
Czechoslovak nation. All the people.
Like the American nation consists
of all the people of America.
We Czechs in Prague think that as
the state was formed mainly there,
it will be always like that.
It will somehow belong to us.
I think you are
the main winner of the war.
It was you who said to the Allies:
"A chain of new democratic states
will emerge in Central Europe,
better ones than the old empires.
And that's the sense of the war."
- That's true.
- It's great.
Except Czechoslovakia, no other
democracies were founded, though.
But such tendency
was established.
You also tasked
the Great Powers
to watch Germany not to become
too strong again after the war.
- True.
- They didn't listen.
But that's the deal.
What do you expect ?
If a small nation and state
wants to win, it has to bet a lot.
- Germans are not weak anymore.
- They're still manageable.
Your prediction of global revolution
of heads and hearts hasn't come true.
- Except for maybe here.
- 1918 brought a new space.
It would have been cowardly
not to use the chance back then.
But your calculation had
too many variables, I think.
Too many strange wills
hard to influence altogether.
All my life I've influenced
people in the same way.
I offer them my thoughts. Explain where
they come from. And discuss them.
Before the war, not many
discussed with you here.
- What if it happens again ?
- Don't panic !
When the war started, it was
much harder than today, in 1928.
You're right. You wanted us to be
something like another Switzerland.
A great idea,
but it hasn't happened yet.
But it's also in progress !
Who are the Swiss ?
Germans, French and Italians,
living outside their motherlands.
They are doing better in Switzerland
than they would with their own nations.
And the Germans here would
eventually feel exactly the same.
I wish you were right.
It's a beautiful music of the future.
But I am talking about future.
- Capek !
- Thank you very much. Nice.
I like this.
- What ?
- To have more options.
I like to find myself on the crossroads
suddenly not knowing which way to go.
When the brains starts to fall short.
Because it encounters the unknown.
It's almost a sort of anxiety.
A light blue pain.
- And what can you do about it ?
- Sorry ?
That anxiety, the pain.
To get rid of it and to find the way ?
By feeling pain, yours or someone
else's, you're already doing something.
Maybe more than someone
comfortably snuggled down in a bed.
So the pain doesn't disappear ?
Sometimes it doesn't.
A pain is senseless.
It should disappear.
- Take your shoes off, apek.
- Pardon me ?
We'll walk barefoot.
The grass is wet,
it will be pleasant.
Very pleasant...
Well...
What was the family name
of your girlfriend Olga again ?
Scheinpflugov...
Do you love her ?
I had loved Charlie for 45 years.
You didn't know her.
I think I understand
how much she had meant for you.
Nobody can understand that.
I didn't either before.
That a man and a woman
can share everything.
Talk about everything,
do everything.
Think as one, not two people.
My parents weren't like that.
My mom was much better
and stronger than my dad.
He was no match for her.
He was just a coachman.
She, as a servant, stood much higher.
When he asked authorities
to let me study in Brno,
he squeezed his hat.
I stood next to him watching his palms
sweating and I hated him for that.
He cursed at the rich at home
but took his hat off to them.
I said I'd never be like that.
A lonely man can't be strong.
Many people thing they'd manage.
But I know what I am talking about.
Solitude is crazy.
When you're lonely, you can't tell
whether you haven't got crazy yet.
All the hermits searching God in desert
eventually got crazy in their solitude.
Charlie was different.
She was very balanced.
I've never met a person
like her before, moreover a woman.
I was sure to end up as a bachelor,
absorbed by science and books.
Charlie calmed me down.
She gave me balance.
With her, I could keep my freedom.
For the first time, I met a woman,
who treated me as equal.
We have it in our book.
Or rather... we had.
You can't put it in any book.
I saved her friend from drowning,
almost drowning myself.
Guess what she told me,
when I was revived.
"Don't think I shall admire you.
Every decent man would do the same."
Did I tell you
what were her last words
before passing away ?
No, I haven't told anyone.
Ever.
She said:
"You've never surrendered. Good."
And then: "You'll never be alone.
I'll always be...
I'll always be with you."
That's beautiful.
Mr. President,
let's publish it.
- And what ?
- Our book.
Oh, Capek...
- Why didn't you go to see Olga ?
- I told you ! I was going very soon !
Why didn't' t you go immediately ?
I would, if I were you.
You must worry her love for you
is crumbling, son !
If you don't go now,
you can publish 50 books
and she'll still find another man,
even with the wound on her head.
Capek, wait !
Capek !
Come on.
You decide, just like that, there'll
be no book, wasting a year of my work.
You don't care about the other
person's feelings, worries,
people are looking forward
to the book. It will be a shame.
Tell me more about your Olga.
Olga...
- Olga is complicated.
- I thought you liked it.
Oh, come on.
She gets marriage proposals,
doesn't she ?
Yes...
Time to time.
Some Frenchman wanted
to marry her, she wanted too.
So I wished her luck.
But she swallowed some pills.
Since then we are just good friends.
I am not a theatre expert like you.
Actors have always scared me.
If an actor was good,
I believed him in his role.
But it was a shock to find out
that as a human being
he was completely different.
I hated the idea, you couldn't tell
who is who, if an actor was good.
What was a poem and what was life.
If an actor is good
the truth is on the stage, I'd say.
Is Olga a good actress ?
How did you meet her ?
When did you realize,
it was the woman of your life ?
That came later.
I first met her after a show,
waiting in front of the theatre.
She wore that paper dress. Remember ?
They were in fashion after the war.
She was 17.
I said to her:
"I need your voice, young lady."
Her voice ?
I wanted to hear how my Mimi
would sound in The Bandit.
And ?
Would you like to marry her ?
First I wanted, then I didn't
and now I don't know what I want.
I don't know.
- Capek !
- Now Dr. Steinbach is with her.
He takes care of her,
when she needs help.
And I am here with you
to hear you don't need my help.
You'll go now to see her
and settle things in Prague.
So you won't let me publish
that book ?
No.
You always blame me of asking you
too ordinary questions.
And don't you agree ?
Okay then.
How about your mother ?
How did you feel,
when people told you
she didn't have you with your father ?
With the coachman ?
My mother... I loved her.
How did you feel when papers wrote
you were a bastard ?
What did you think of her ?
Be careful, Capek !
As I said, I was ashamed
of my dad for his humility.
But my mother was a different story.
What did you think of her ?
Dear friend,
I've noticed long ago how much
you'd like to be my son.
- I beg your pardon ?
- But I've got one already.
All the servility of yours
from the beginning...
"Please, Mr. President,
change my questions as you wish !"
Mr. Capek lets Mr. Masaryk
ask his own questions !
I wanted to serve you,
that's true... But you liked it !
"Please, Mr. President, find a task
for me, something I could do for you !"
A real man knows
what his task is !
I wished to be useful for the Republic.
I just asked you how to do it !
You didn't want to serve the state,
you wanted to serve me !
And you liked it. I am sorry
for you. You are so lonely.
- Pardon me ?
- You are alone.
Unlike you, I have a family.
But they have no time for you.
And either do you for them !
You even left your beloved Charlie !
At the beginning of the war !
When you went to the exile
to build this state.
You left your wife and children
here ! And off you went.
I had two important things in life:
my family and my work.
When I had to chose one,
it took me this to decide...
I owe them for that till today.
Mainly to my dear late Charlotte.
Also to Eliska,
she pays for it till today.
I destroyed her somehow.
She's only known duty
in her life, no joy.
And it's my fault.
And I owe to our late Herbert too.
And Jan, who tries
to find himself all his life.
I wish he did one day.
And to the youngest, Olga,
who joined me to the exile
and almost got crazy
from the amount of work
she had to do for me.
And now, you too, apek.
Can't you forgive me at least ?
- Did you fight as a boy ?
- No, I didn't.
I did. In a bunch or alone,
it didn't matter.
Alone against everybody.
People in the crowd will never know
how great it is to get a thrashing.
Alone. When you are right.
Not everybody can take what you can.
People have no idea
what they can take.
But when you bend them, you find out
they can take really a lot.
I didn't know this
before even about myself.
Read.
Come on !
"Thank you for your long letter.
I feel you really love me.
We should respect my family,
because of my position.
But we must and shall find the way,
how to live together, Ola.
Once you are here
we both shall calm down."
There is another woman, apek.
Not only yours...
Have you read Goethe ?
When he was very old,
like me today,
he met a girl...
Ulrike von Levetzow.
She was 17.
Her name is Oldra.
Almost like your actress.
Ulrike is German for Oldra.
I know only one Oldra...
I am writing a book with her too.
What about ?
About love.
About what I've been through.
Different from yours.
It's a novel. I always wanted
to write a novel. Since I was 16.
- With a lesson.
- Novels are not written for lessons.
Really ? And what for ?
For beauty, for love,
for a beauty of hope.
I've never read books to find beauty.
I studied novels to learn from them.
About the people living
in certain place and time.
I see. So now you're writing
a novel... with Oldra.
- You want to read a piece ?
- No, maybe when it's ready.
Thank you.
How old is she ?
Same age as our Jan,
I suppose. Or you.
I know, she could be my daughter.
After Charlotte passed away,
it took me long to realize
there were other women.
Something started to change
already during the war.
tefnik had an educated
and beautiful girlfriend in Paris,
an Italian marquise.
Things happened...
Milan had disliked me since,
even politically.
I've known Oldra for a long time,
but she came into my life
only this summer.
What Alice and the others
mind about in your book
is not you or some chapter,
but the fact, that on the background
of all my words about love is her.
They call her "a merry lady"...
try to banish her from here and Lny.
But Oldra is still coming !
- When ?
- Tomorrow.
Are you also reading together ?
Our aim is to work on the novel
about me and all I've been through.
I suppose you are the main hero.
Oldra will combine Havlicek,
Comenius and St Paul.
And hopefully me too.
It sounds monumental.
I only hope there will be space
in it for some truth about you too.
apek, do you see those birds ?
- Yes.
- Are they pigeons ?
Magpies, I'd say.
Are you sure ?
Pigeon flies differently.
- Did you look carefully ?
- I did. Magpies.
Okay.
Now you said what the truth is.
You named its both main features.
The truth is what we can believe,
what we first observed or
experienced and later verified.
What we got from our eyes to
our heads and finally to our hearts.
That's what the truth is.
- You are writing detective stories.
- Yes.
What is the truth about a crime ?
When someone kills or just cheats ?
What is the truth about that act ?
Is it the general opinion
of the people around ?
Even the most horrible crime doesn't
say the truth about its offender.
Only the way he or she goes
about the crime brings the truth.
What conclusion a person draws
from the crime. That's the truth.
Complex questions can be answered
only by the whole human life.
The truth exists. But it's different
from what people mostly imagine.
I tell you an example.
Our Alice and the crowds of people
seeing me as a Daddy.
They all think I have never
told a lie in my life.
And isn't it the truth ?
You know, what Alice often says ?
"You've always been an incarnation
of truth and conscience.
And now you're secretly meeting
a strange woman in a hotel."
I can't explain it. I don't even know
whether it's worth explaining.
I was brought up with the idea,
that physical love was something
unclean, not to be seen by others,
done in secret,
with the only aim to conceive.
Charlie thought the same way
and we had lived like that
for 45 years in mutual love.
With Oldra I have understood
the core of physical love.
Passion can't be low.
Passion is natural.
Only abuse of the nature can be low.
It's like if you'd apologize
for sleeping, eating or walking.
A sin comes from the soul,
not from the body.
Body is clean. Natural.
Take a marriage. Hypocrites profess
the legal formality of the marriage.
But that's not what it is about
between a man and a woman.
The key is to stay together, come rain
or shine. With a paper or without.
I am not surprised Alice
doesn't like your opinion.
But I agree with you.
You also live with Olga neither in
a celibate nor a marriage, don't you ?
One could say about many people
that they have no soul.
You've always got a soul,
but discovered the body
only at the end. Sorry.
What for ?
Look, maybe I got crazy
but being with this woman
is more true for me
than anything else.
It's difficult
to put this truth into words.
You can rather feel it, live it.
You're deserving it.
Who knows what the truth about two
of us will be in a couple of years ?
Mr. President,
we have to publish that book.
Please. Let me have my way.
O.K. Let it be your way.
Your way.
Why do I believe in democracy ?
I believe in democracy...
Because I believe in people.
In their value.
In their immortal soul.
I believe in democracy
as I am a believer.
Democracy means to connect
with people because you like them.
Two eternities meet in democracy:
love to the Creator and love to a man.
The Republic will be as good
as the majority of people in it.
It's important for people to care
about what's happening around them.
And when they dislike something,
not just to complain,
but start to act.
Talking is not the same as acting.
People have never understood me.
But when I brought them the Republic
from the USA, everybody said:
Look ! Our Daddy.
They meant well.
But it wasn't the truth.
What kind of Daddy am I ?
How shall you title the book, Capek ?
Capek's interview with...
With the Daddy.
- I must go now.
- Of course.
Good luck.
- Good luck to you too.
- Thank you.
Could you please play
that record once more ?
The one you played before ?
Oh, I didn't know you liked
that kind of music.
Neither did I.
The first part of the
Talks with T. G. Masaryk,
The Age of Youth
was published at Christmas 1928.
Karel Capek completed
the whole book in 1935.
The book Oldra Sedlmayerova was
writing with the president Masaryk
has never come into being.
TALKS WITH T.G. MASARYK
Queen Queen