Plzeň, 27 May 1941
My Dear Friend,
Yesterday I sent my report on Zahradníček to the editors, and so I was in such a last-minute rush that I didn’t even have the time to enclose in the sparce parcel a few words of meagre apology. As you know, the disaster that was being whispered about last month has arrived. We sit here in the office every day for nine hours, which means partial mental paralysis. There is only a bit of Saturday and Sunday when one can more freely breathe. If I were twenty years younger, I would surely better tolerate the burden of such subjugation as it is I’m really quite affected by it. They are now saying that we will receive a simple shift from 7am to 4 pm. I would welcome even that. At least it would be better in the evening.
I must also once again ask that you make some changes in my manuscript if you still have it with you. In the last sentence of the first paragraph, I wrote “imagemaker” instead of “image maker”. I would also like to correct something in the final two sentences of the review which I have copied with the indicated changes:
“Not even here, in fervent songs of the most strictly orthodox perspective, does the poet, vividly seeing and thinking

in images, back away from the seasoned clergyman. He always has here the upper hand through the freshly spread power of his truly verbal creativity.
Enjoy the holidays if you are going to Náchod. I’m studying the calendar more often these days; as if by doing so I’m shortening the distance from today to the day that I flee this place, maybe first to Navarov then a few days in Běloves for sure. This escape will be of a saving nature; It is the gentlemen from the police and from the Oberlandrat authorities that turn a holiday into an escape; they strictly review the ideological purge in the library and set strict deadlines as they are not especially satisfied.
Cordially yours,
B. Polan