The jack-of-all-trades and adventurer Ferdinand Mestek was one of the exceptional natives of Podskali. He added a nobleman's sobriquet of "de Podskal" after his name. Before the First World War, Jaroslav Hasek befriended him.
In a short story Reelni Podnik, Hasek described how he and Mestek started to operate a flea circus without fleas. Hasek called people together and collected the entrance fee. The visitors would enter the darkness inside the tent. There, Mestek grabbed them by the pants and threw them out of the tent through the rear entrance. From the moment they were tricked, the visitors themselves started to promote Mestek's circus: they wanted their friends to undergo the same unpleasant experience. And the spectators came in droves.
R. Fucikova, "Prague in the Heart"
Zahaczyliśmy w tym roku o Pragę, a jako, że w międzyczasie skończyła mi się książka, nabyłam takie coś. Ładne wydanie, ciekawy pomysł - pokazać miasto przez pryzmat krótkich wycinków jego historii i anegdot. Szkoda tylko, że czytanie to droga przez mękę ze względu na paskudnie kanciaste tłumaczenie.
