Telč, entirely by myself

There is no other person on the central Square.

I was left alone with my camera, surrounded by the Renaissance and Baroque style houses dating back to the 16th century.

Gazing at the colorful gables and arcades, I was entirely by myself. Feeling a bit unease, I sensed quietness being imbibed into my body through every pore. 4 hours‘’ train trip heading eastwards from Český Krumlov, my first destination situated in the South Bohemian Region of in the Czech Republic, I found myself standing on the town square of Telč. There was no trace of human beings, with no shops open. I would be just as scared to hear any steps echoing on the stony square anyway. It turned out that I came at some sort of public holiday and the closing shops around a commercial square attracted no local folks at the dawn.

Mixed feelings of cowardness and courage were creeping up on me. How rare it is to be entirely by myself? When our earth is becoming increasingly inhibited with the two-leg animals, I find myself among the crowd every single day. Coming from a country extremely favoured by the God of Fertility, I am struggling to find an inch to put my feet on so as not to stumble on another person when I walk my way to the subway station in Beijing. There is indeed beauty in the crowd. The trouble and the noise are just reasonable prices paid to the companionship and brotherhood. Occupying one single paving stone on the empty square, I was struggling to internalize the contrast between the belittled self and the enlarged space.

Feeling a bit exhilarated to be able to catch a rare travelling scene with no trace of people in it, I took several photos that would later become an evidence of my grand conquer to the square. The conqueror needs a well-lighted place after a long train journey and I headed on to find my accommodation: Chornitzerův dům at No. 56, Namesti Zachariase z Hradce, situated right on the square. I managed to pick out a Baroque- facade house among its peers. My vague memory from online booking led me to a sky-blue three-story house. When I approached the wooden gate hidden in the Gothic-Renaissance portal arcade, I found it securely locked with a hand-written note on it, asking me to ring a number for the gate-keeper. Finally I would be able to see a living human being!

In less than five minutes, a lady with a Czech English accent came with the key chained on a black iron loop. She opened the heavy wooden gate made by binding wood boards together with black iron binds. A domed white cave cellar sucked me in. There were yet more wooden gates, but much smaller, like those for the Hobbit. The gates were obviously hand-made. There was no extra effort by the carpenter to make them identical in size, nor in color, neither in shape. The modern civilization has trained me well in finding pleasure or finding fault in in identical series of stuff. Each of the gates was unique with its own imperfections and with a character. The original flavor of the architecture satisfied my novolty-seeking eyes.

I dragged one of the wooden gates open leading to my room, and was shocked at the sheer size of the residence. The apartment was over 70 square meters, with a private garden leading to the lake. I was shocked at how little I paid for how much I have got. I spent roughly forty Euros, the same amount I spent on a bunk bed in an 8-person bedroom in Norway. The room was thoroughly furnished with air conditioning, well-equipped kitchen, spacious living room with satellite TV, etc. Only the beamed ceiling existed to suggest the age of the house, dating back to 1530. The gate-keeper was also telling me the existence of a water tank from 1680 with pride. By looking from the exterior perfectly preserved from its glorious days, no one would have imagined what the interior of the house looks like.

The modern comfort did not help much in quenching my uneasiness with the solitude I was in. After a through patrol of the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and reassured at the locks to all windows and doors, I shut the curtains and confined myself to the bedroom. I was better accommodated in a smaller space, apparently. Admittedly, I was taken over by the loneliness swelling in the space.

The TV set in the room failed to provide any evening entertainment to a foreigner illiterate to the language. In fact, I was more worried that the noise of the TV would conceal any sound of a cunning trespasser. I was too tense.

Luckily, I found a book in English considerately prepared by the host bearing stories of all the houses around the town square. It was a detailed chronicle of the fate of the houses. I found the story to my residence. Unsurprisingly, there were fires and invasions. A fire in the 1530s marks the rebirth of the house. There was inheritance. Some Mertl or Martin Kosař, a sickle maker, was the first recorded owner who bequeathed the house to his son Linhart the tailor. There were respected townsmen. Linhart Merti became an alderman and later municipal magistrate. There were seller and buyers. With 430 kops, Vlach Petr Alberto bought the house in 1609 when he arrive at Telč to build the chateau. There was fame. The later wealthy owner, Ondřej Hanusík, acquired the house in 1734 and build a chapel of the Virgin Mary at his own expense. The house has been residence of Martin Ignatius Chornitzer who acted as the chief director of the manor. The story has no ending. Later, on 30 March, 2016, a nobody rented the place from Internet and was awed at the stories of several generations.

I was fascinated by the plain record, a record that made the house vivid and human. Ancient stories were fermented by space and by time over a span of five hundred years. I was drinking from a glass of fine wine of literacy. With the company of the book, I was feeling all the more entertained than ever in a room of solitude. I paid my tribute with each page carefully turning over, with each word slipping through the tip of my tongue.

Strangely, my tolerance to space expanded. I opened the bedroom door and walked into the spacious living room. The space is no longer as distant and indifferent as it was when I stepped cowardly in. What a transition! My desire of being accompanied by some other person a while ago transitioned into complete comfort of being by myself. I was not lonely being alone. Opening the curtain and gazing over the mirror surface of the lake, my thoughts flashed on Henry David Thoreau and his retreat by the Walden Pond. He lived in the dense wood, wrapping himself in a self-built house, a mile from any neighbour and sufficing his life with his own labor.

"Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows." "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude". Thoreau might be the lucky few that are able to construct a spiritual world that allows no space for loneliness. Nature becomes his best companion from whom he draws inspirations and comfort when he took his walk on the shore of Walden Pond rippled gracefully by the evening breeze.

The moments that I experience no sense of loneliness are moments I was employed, by it by my thoughts, by painting, by working, by writing or by reading. Those are the moments when I was unearthing what is hidden in my own kingdom. The biggest ever loneliness I experienced is not when I was climbing up the mountain by myself, but when I found myself in a crowd party decorated with drunken ecstasy.

That night, I was entirely by myself, with my own moon and start shining in my own kingdom.

The next morning, I woke up with my own sun.