The Chestnut Crown

grown-ups

The main protagonist, Jan Hudorovec, is haunted by his past, as he is erotically attached to his mother. After dropping out of law school, he returns home, where he learns that his mother has also been in a relationship with his neighbour Geder for some time. Jan cuts down an old chestnut tree and weaves a crown from its branches, which is supposed to “suck the worms out of his brain”. He and Geder get into an argument, which ends with Geder’s death. Everything indicates that Jan is the culprit, which the judge is also convinced of, but the truth is somewhat different ...

INSPECTOR: But how does it work, this – chestnut crown?

JANEK: It kills the worms that crawl around in your skull. It draws the poison out of your brain. Put it on, you’ll see.

INSPECTOR (turns back to the corpse): Evidently the chestnut crown does more than draws poison out of one’s brain. (Places the crown on Weiner’s crotch.) It perforates stomachs. (Looks at Janek and yells.) Doesn’t it?

JANEK: For a long time you refuse to say dirty words. So you never see things as they are. All you see is the color stuck to them from the past. Then one day you slip on this smooth surface of many ancestors, and you fall, and some of the color peels off. Underneath, there is something different, something completely different. You get fed up with all this beauty, with all the gleaming appearances, with the red clouds of the sunset, you lose your temper and begin to scratch, and you peel the color off trees, countryside, heavens, and faces, and finally, there, between your fingers, you have it: the bare world.

INSPECTOR (after pause): Why did you kill him?

JANEK: The moon is shining, cats are whining, boo-boo-boo-boo-boom!