I don't know. It was too unpleasant, I suppose.

He was sitting at the desk where he usually read his books, an open envelope with a letter in it lying in front of him. From time to time I get letters I haven't told you about, he said to Tereza. They're from my son. I've tried to keep his life and mine completely separate, and look how fate is getting even with me. A few years ago he was expelled from the university. Now he drives a tractor in a village. Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.

Why didn't you ever tell me about the letters? Tereza asked, with a feeling of great relief.

Now and then.

Does he write often?

What about?

Himself.

And is it interesting?

Yes, it is. You remember that his mother was an ardent Communist. Well, he broke with her long ago. Then he took up with people who had trouble like ours, and got involved in political activities with them. Some of them are in prison now.

But he's broken with them, too. In his letters he calls them 'eternal revolutionaries.'

Does that mean he's made his peace with the regime?

Why don't you ask him?

No, not in the least. He believes in God and thinks that that's the key. He says we should all live our daily lives according to the dictates of religion and pay no heed to the regime, completely ignore it. If we believe in God, he claims, we can take any situation and, by means of our own behavior, transform it into what he calls 'the kingdom of God on earth.' He tells me that the Church is the only voluntary association in ourcountry which eludes the control of the state. I wonder whether he's joined the Church because it helps him to oppose the regime or because he really believes in God.

I used to admire believers, Tomas continued. I thought they had an odd transcendental way of perceiving things which was closed to me. Like clairvoyants, you might say. But my son's experience proves that faith is actually quite a simple matter. He was down and out, the Catholics took him in, and before he knew it, he had faith. So it was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. Human decisions are terribly simple.

Tereza was ashamed of having been suspicious of Tomas, and hoped to expiate her guilt with a rush of benevolence towards his son. Then why not drop him a line, invite him to come and see us?

Haven't you ever answered his letters?

He never gives a return address, he said, though the postmark indicates the name of the district. I could just send a letter to the local collective farm.

He looks like me, said Tomas. When he talks, his upper lip curls just like mine. The thought of watching my own lips go on about the kingdom of God -- it seems too strange.

Tereza burst out laughing.

Don't be such a child, Tomas! said Tereza. It's ancient history, after all, you and your first wife. What's it to him? What's he got to do with it? Why hurt the boy just because you had bad taste when you were young?

Frankly, I have stage fright at the thought of meeting him. That's the main reason I haven't done anything about it. I don't know what's made me so headstrong and kept me from seeing him. Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.

Tomas laughed with her.

She could not tear her eyes away from him: he looked like an old man. His hair had gone gray, and his lack of coordination was not that of a surgeon turned driver but of a man no longer young.

Invite him, she said.

She recalled a recent talk with the chairman of the collective farm. He had told her that Tomas's pickup was in miserable condition. He said it as a joke, not a complaint, but she could tell he was concerned. Tomas knows the insides of the body better than the insides of an engine, he said with a laugh. He then confessed that he had made several visits to the authorities to request permission for Tomas to resume his medical practice, if only locally. He had learned that the police would never grant it.

She had stepped behind a tree trunk so that none of the men by the pickup could see her. Standing there observing him, she suffered a bout of self-recrimination: It was her fault that he had come back to Prague from Zurich, her fault that he had left Prague, and even here she could not leave him in peace, torturing him with her secret suspicions while Karenin lay dying.

That afternoon she was on her way back from the cow sheds when she heard voices from the road. Coming closer, she saw Tomas's pickup. Tomas was bent over, changing a tire, while some of the men stood about looking on and waiting for him to finish.

Now she saw that she had been unfair: If she had really loved Tomas with a great love, she would have stuck it out with him abroad! Tomas had been happy there; a new life was opening for him! And she had left him! True, at the time she had convinced herself she was being magnanimous, giving him his freedom. But hadn't her magnanimity been merely an excuse? She knew all along that he would come home to her! She had summoned him farther and farther down after her like the nymphs who lured unsuspecting villagers to the marshes and left them there to drown. She had taken advantage of a night of stomach cramps to inveigle him into moving to the country! How cunning she could be! She had summoned him to follow her as if wishing to test him again and again, to test his love for her; she had summoned him persistently, and here he was, tired and gray, with stiffened fingers that would never again be capable of holding a scalpel.

She had always secretly reproached him for not loving her enough. Her own love she considered above reproach, while his seemed mere condescension.

Now they were in a place that led nowhere. Where could they go from here? They would never be allowed abroad. They would never find a way back to Prague: no one would give them work. They didn't even have a reason to move to another village.

Good God, had they had to cover all that distance just to make her believe he loved her?

She went home and drew a bath. Lying in the hot water, she kept telling herself that she had set a lifetime of her weaknesses against Tomas. We all have a tendency to consider strength the culprit and weakness the innocent victim. But now Tereza realized that in her case the opposite was true! Even her dreams, as if aware of the single weakness in a man otherwise strong, made a display of her suffering to him, thereby forcing him to retreat. Her weakness was aggressive and kept forcing him to capitulate until eventually he lost his strength and was transformed into the rabbit in her arms. She could not get that dream out of her mind.

At last Tomas succeeded in getting the tire back on. He climbed in behind the wheel, the men jumped in the back, and the engine roared.

Tereza ran out and came back with a bottle of slivovitz. She poured some into a liqueur glass, and the young man downed it in one gulp.

She stood up from her bath and went to put on some nice clothes. She wanted to look her best to please him, make him happy.

Just as she buttoned the last button, in burst Tomas with the chairman of the collective farm and an unusually pale young farm worker.

Then they told her what had happened. The man had dislocated his shoulder and started bellowing with pain. No one knew what to do, so they called Tomas, who with one jerk set it back in its socket.

Quick! shouted Tomas. Something strong to drink!

After downing another glass of slivovitz, the man said to Tomas, Your wife's looking awfully pretty today.

No, I'm not. I put it on for Tomas.

You idiot, said the chairman. Tereza is always pretty.

I know she's always pretty, said the young man, but today she has such pretty clothes on, too. I've never seen you in that dress. Are you going out somewhere?

You lucky devil! said the chairman, laughing. My old woman wouldn't dream of dressing up just for me.

He must be missing me, said the chairman.

Let's all go and dance, said Tereza.

Seeing you in that dress makes me want to dance, the young man said to Tereza.

You come too, said the young man in an imperative tone of voice to the chairman of the collective farm, and because by then he had downed a third glass of slivovitz, he added, If Mefisto misses you so much, we'll take him along. Then we'll have both little pigs to show off. The women will come begging when they get an eyeful of those two together! And again he laughed and laughed.

Would you come along? the young man asked Tomas.

So that's why you go out walking with your pig instead of your wife, said the young man, and he started laughing, too.

Where do you plan to go? asked Tomas.

If you're not ashamed of Mefisto, I'm all yours. And they piled into Tomas's pickup -- Tomas behind the wheel, Tereza next to him, and the two men in the back with the half-empty bottle of slivovitz. Not until they had left the village behind did the chairman realize that they had forgotten Mefisto. He shouted up to Tomas to turn back.

The young man named a nearby town where the hotel bar had a dance floor.

How is Mefisto, anyway? asked Tomas. I haven't seen him for at least -- he thought a bit -- at least an hour.

And turning to Tomas, he asked, Would you let me dance with her?

Nothing here for me, said the young man after surveying the situation, and immediately asked Tereza to dance.

Never mind, said the young man. One little pig will do the trick. That calmed the chairman down.

It was growing dark. The road started climbing in hairpin curves.

When they reached the town, they drove straight to the hotel. Tereza and Tomas had never been there before. They went downstairs to the basement, where they found the bar, the dance floor, and some tables. A man of about sixty was playing the piano, a woman of the same age the violin. The hits they played were forty years old. There were five or so couples out on the floor.

Don't be silly, he said. We're staying the night. And he went off to the reception desk to book two rooms.

The collective farm chairman sat down at an empty table with Tomas and ordered a bottle of wine.

I can't drink, Tomas reminded him. I'm driving.

When Tereza came back from the dance floor with the young man, the chairman asked her to dance, and finally Tomas had a turn with her, too.

Low? What are you talking about?

That's a silly comparison to make, said Tereza. Your work meant everything to you; I don't care what I do, I can do anything, I haven't lost a thing; you've lost everything.

If we had stayed in Zurich, you'd still be a surgeon.

And you'd be a photographer.

Haven't you noticed I've been happy here, Tereza? Tomas said.

What does it mean to turn into a rabbit? It means losing all strength. It means that one is no stronger than the other anymore.

Missions are stupid, Tereza. I have no mission. No one has. And it's a terrific relief to realize you're free, free of all missions.

There was no doubting that forthright voice of his. She recalled the scene she had witnessed earlier in the day when he had been repairing the pickup and looked so old. She had reached her goal: she had always wanted him to be old. Again she thought of the rabbit she had pressed to her face in her childhood room.

Tomas, she said to him out on the floor, everything bad that's happened in your life is my fault. It's my fault you ended up here, as low as you could possibly go.

Surgery was your mission, she said.

Then they all went upstairs and to their two separate rooms.

On they danced to the strains of the piano and violin. Tereza leaned her head on Tomas's shoulder. Just as she had when they flew together in the airplane through the storm clouds. She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: we are at the last station. The happiness meant: we are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.

Tomas turned the key and switched on the ceiling light. Tereza saw two beds pushed together, one of them flanked by a bedside table and lamp. Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below.

They went back to their table. She danced twice more with the collective farm chairman and once with the young man who was so drunk he fell with her on the dance floor.