ABSTRACT
Whether winter or summer, streetcar 14 never comes. They say it is because it was produced in Czechoslovakia, praha, oborovy podnik, it says on a small metal plate inside. You know, a communist product—what can you expect from it? Our experience tells us that it can’t stand either too much rain or too much sunshine; it runs only on nice days when the temperature is between 17 and 22 degrees Celsius and you are not in a hurry. But because it was December—the middle of winter—just before Christmas, drizzling, and incidentally I was in a hurry, number 14 was naturally nowhere in sight. Instead, in my sight was a lady, a lady in a splendid long fur coat—a silver fox, a wolf, a bear, or some other poor animal. Because of that coat, I couldn’t miss her, even if I wanted to. There was a time when I’d wanted such a thing myself.
