Bratislava, once Pozsony, before that Pressburg, kept trying to be a free city, but each time the Czechoslovak Legion came in, started killing people, threw their weight around enough to slap on the kibosh. The wind unrelenting all year long is believed by some to be the vestige of this free city that never came to be, as the breath of ghosts may sometimes be felt in haunted locations-a great history of unrequited political desire.-Thomas Pynchon
