After the dinner, however, Dítě is accused of having stolen a golden spoon that went missing. When the Emperor of Ethiopia comes to Czechoslovakia for a state visit, he dines at the hotel, and Dítě is awarded a special medal for his diligent service, an honor which he wears proudly many times throughout the novel. Here, Dítě works as a waiter, honing his skills of perception under the watchful tutelage of the headwaiter. The next hotel Dítě works at is in Prague itself. In one satirical scene, however, the hotel receives a visit from the President of the country (presumed to be Tomáš Masaryk) and his French lover. The next hotel he works at is a grand estate, but it is almost always empty. His disapproving boss eventually finds out about his habit and puts a stop to it. He begins spending his paychecks at the local brothel and enjoys decorating prostitutes' laps with flower petals. It is here that Dítě begins his fascination with both women and money, trends that will continue and develop throughout much of the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Dítě is starting out as a busboy at the Golden Prague Hotel, which, despite its name, is located in the countryside. He is rather short, which causes him to have an inferiority complex he goes to great lengths to disguise this perceived flaw. The novel is narrated in the first person and follows the life of Dítě (a name meaning "child" in Czech), an aspiring hotelier. It was adapted into a 2006 film with the same title, directed by Jiří Menzel, a noted director of the Czech New Wave. It began circulating in 1971, and was formally published in 1983. Hrabal wrote the book during a period of censorship in the early 1970s. The story is set in Prague in the 1940s, during the Nazi occupation and early communism, and follows a young man who alternately gets into trouble and has successes. I Served the King of England ( Czech: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále) is a novel by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal. I Served the King of England at Internet Archive
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