I had arranged to meet Milan Kundera at his home in Paris and, as I was entering number 7, rue Littré, where he lived, I stopped in front of the elevator door. A tall, athletic man with white hair came out of the elevator. I asked him in French: "Could you tell me which floor Mr. Kundera lives on?" He gave me an amused smile and told me that I had to go up to the attic. So I did, and the door was opened by a lady who introduced herself in Czech as Vera Kundera and added that her husband had just gone out to buy some cigarettes. "Let's see if he comes back," I dared to reply with a laugh, because the story about another Czech writer, Jaroslav Hasek, who went out of his house one day to buy some cigarettes, never to return, is known to all Czechs. More
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