Krakatit

NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE

THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY
TRENT UNIVERSITY

K R A K A T I T

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KRAKATIT

BY

KAREL CAPEK

Translated by
LAWRENCE HYDE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1925

All rights reserved

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Copyright, 1925.

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and printed.
Published October, 1925.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY

KRAKATIT

KRAKATIT

CHAPTER I

WITH the evening the fog of the cold, damp
day grew thicker. You felt as if you were
making your way through some thin, moist sub¬
stance which closed behind you again for good.
You wished you were at home. At home by your
lamp in a box of four walls. Never before had
you felt so forsaken.

Prokop felt his way along the embankment. He
was chilled and his forehead was damp with the
sweat of weakness; he wanted to sit down on that
wet seat but he was afraid of the policemen. He
felt as if he was twisting round; yes, near the
Old Town mill a man made a detour to avoid him
as though he were a drunkard. He exerted all
his strength to walk straight. And now there came
another man, walking towards him with his hat
drawn down over his eyes and his collar turned up.
Prokop set his teeth, furrowed his brow and
strained all his muscles in the attempt to pass him
successfully. But when he was just a step away
from the other there was suddenly a darkness inside
his head and the whole world began to revolve with
him; suddenly he saw ever so near a pair of pene¬
trating eyes which were fixed on him. He struck

2

Krakatit

against some one’s shoulder, murmured a word of
apology and moved away with a sort of convulsive
dignity. A few paces further he stopped and looked
round. The other man stood regarding him fixedly.
Prokop pulled himself together and moved off a
little more quickly; but it was no good, he was
obliged to give another glance back. The man was
still standing and watching him, sticking his head out
of his collar like a tortoise. “Let him look,” thought
Prokop uneasily, “now I shan’t turn round again.”
And he went on as best he could. The man with
the turned-up collar followed him. It seemed
that he was running. Prokop took to flight in
terror.

The world again began to revolve with him.
Breathing heavily, with chattering teeth, he leaned
against a tree and closed his eyes. He felt horribly
ill and was afraid that he would fall, that his heart
would burst and that the blood would spurt out
of his lips. When he opened his eyes he saw the
man with the turned-up collar standing right in
front of him.

“Aren’t you Engineer Prokop?” asked the man,
as though repeating the question.

“I ... I haven’t been there,” answered Pro¬
kop, trying to lie.

“Where?” asked the man.

“There,” said Prokop, and indicated with his
head some place in the direction of Strahov. “What
do you want of me?”

“Don’t you know me? I’m Thomas. Thomas
from the Polytechnic. Don’t you know, now?”

“Thomas,” repeated Prokop, utterly indifferent

Krakatit 3

to what the name might signify. “Yes, Thomas,
of course. And what do you want from me?”

The man with the turned-up collar seized him
by the arm. “Wait, first of all you must sit down.
Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Prokop, and allowed himself to be
led to a seat. “I . . . that is to say . . . I’m
not well, you see.” He suddenly drew out of his
pocket a hand bound up with a piece of dirty rag.
“Wounded, see? A confounded business.”

“And doesn’t your head ache?” asked the man.

“It does.”

“Now listen, Prokop,” said the other. “You’ve
got a fever or something of the sort. You must
go to the hospital, see? Anyone can tell you’re in
a bad way. But at least do remember that we
know one another. I’m Thomas. We did chem¬
istry together. My dear fellow, do remember!”

“I know Thomas,” echoed Prokop weakly.
“That rotter. What about him?”

“Nothing,” said Thomas. “He is talking to
you. You must go to bed, see? Where do you
live?”

“There,” Prokop attempted to say, and made a
gesture with his head. “Near . . . near Hybs-
monka.” Suddenly he attempted to stand up. “I
don’t want to go there! Not there! There —
there is . . . there is . . . ”

“What?”

“Krakatit,” breathed Prokop.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. I shan’t say. No one must go there.
Or . . Or ...”

4

Krakatit

“What?”

“Ffft, bang!” said Prokop, and threw his hand
up in the air.

“What’s that?”

“Krakatoe. Kra-ka-tau. A volcano, see? It
. . . tore off my finger. I don’t know what. . . .”
He stopped and added slowly: “A frightful thing,
you know.”

Thomas watched him carefully as if he were
waiting for something. “And so,” he began after
a moment, “you’re still on explosives?”

“Yes, always have been.”

“With success?”

Prokop gave a queer kind of laugh. “You’d
like to know, eh? No, my friend, it won’t do that
way . . . not that way,” he repeated, swaying his
head in a drunken manner. “My friend, by itself
— by itself — it ...”

“What?”

“Kra-ka-tit. Krakatit. Krrakatitt. And by it¬
self — I only left a little powder on the table, see?
All the rest I col — collected in a snuff-box. There
was only a 1-1 — little powder left on the table, and
suddenly ...”

“It exploded.”

“Exploded. Only a trace, only the powder that
I had dropped. It was hardly visible. Then the
electric light globe — a kilometre away. It wasn’t
that. And I — in the arm-chair, like a bit of wood.
Tired, you know. Too much work. And suddenly
. . . crash ! I was thrown on to the floor. The
window was blown out, and the globe wasn’t there.
A detonation like — the explosion of a lyddite car-

Krakatit

5

tridge. Terrible energy. I ... I thought at first
that it was the por-porcel-por-ce-lain, polcelain, por-
celene . . . the white insulator, you know, that
had exploded. Aluminium silicate.”

“Porcelain.”

“Snuff-box. I thought it had exploded. So I
strike a match and there it is unharmed, unharmed,
unharmed. And I stay there like a post . . .
until the match burns my fingers. And then —
across country — in the dark to Brevnov or Stresovic
— and somewhere on the way the word Krakatoe,
Krakatit came into my head. Kra-ka-tit. No, no,
it wasn’t li — like that. When it went up, I fell
on the floor and shouted out Krakatit. Krakatit.
Then I forgot it. Who’s that there? Who — who
are you?”

“Thomas.”

“Thomas, aha! That lousy fellow! We used
to lend one another our notes. He never gave me
back a chemistry notebook. Thomas, what was
his first name?”

“George.”

“I know now, George. You’re George, I know.
George Thomas. Where’s my notebook? Wait
a moment and I’ll tell you something. If the
rest goes up there’ll be trouble. Man, it’ll flatten
out the whole of Prague. Wipe it away. Blow
it off the earth — f-t! When that por-ce-lain box
explodes, see?”

“What box?”

“You are George Thomas, I know. Go to
Karlin or to Vysocany and watch it explode. Run,
run!”

6

Krakatit

“Why?”

“I made a hundred-weight of it. A hundred¬
weight of Krakatit. No, about three ounces. Up
there, in that porcelain box. When it explodes,
man — but wait a minute, that’s impossible. It’s
senseless,” mumbled Prokop, clutching his head.

“Well?”

“Why — why — why didn’t it explode also in the
box? If the powder exploded by itself — wait a
moment, on the table there’s a sheet of zinc — why
did it explode on the table? Wa-it, be quiet, be
quiet,” said Prokop. His teeth chattered, and he
rose up unsteadily.

“What’s up with you?”

“Krakatit,” muttered Prokop. He made a twist¬
ing movement with his whole body and fell on the
ground unconscious.

CHAPTER II

The first thing of which Prokop was conscious
was that everything in him was being shaken
and rattled and that some one was holding him
firmly round the waist. He had a terrible fear of
opening his eyes; he had an idea that everything
would collapse on top of him. And when this
didn’t happen be opened them and saw in front of
him a vague square about which were moving misty
balls and strips of light. He was unable to explain
it; confusedly he watched the phantom shapes
as they jumped about and slid away, having patiently
resigned himself to anything which might be in
store for him. Then he realized that the rattling
was that of the wheels of a cab and that outside
lights were slipping past in the fog. Exhausted by
this act of observation he again closed his eyes and
allowed himself to be carried away.

“Now lie down,” said a quiet voice above his
head; “swallow an aspirin and you’ll be better. In
the morning I’ll fetch a doctor, yes?”

“Who’s that?” asked Prokop sleepily.

“Thomas. You’re lying down at my place,
Prokop. You’ve a fever. Where does it hurt
you ?”

“Everywhere. I feel giddy. So, you see . . .”
“Just lie quiet. I’ll boil you some tea and you’ll
go off to sleep. It’s the result of excitement, see?

7

8 Krakatit

A sort of nervous fever. It’ll be gone before
morning.”

Prokop knitted his brows in the effort to remem¬
ber. “I know,” he said carefully, after a moment.
“Listen, some one must throw that box into the
river. So that it won’t explode.”

“Don’t worry. Now stop talking.”

“Perhaps I could sit up. Aren’t I heavy?”

“No, lie down.”

“ — and you’ve got my chemistry notebook,”
Prokop remembered suddenly.

“Yes, you’ll get it back. But now stay quiet, do
you hear?”

“My head’s so heavy.”

Meanwhile the cab was rattling up Jecna Street.
Thomas was softly whistling a tune and looking
out of the window. Prokop was breathing heavily
and moaning quietly. The fog made the pave¬
ments damp and insinuated itself under one’s coat
with its cold, wet slime. It was late and the streets
were deserted.

“Here we are,” said Thomas loudly. The cab
bumped more noisily over a square and turned off
to the right. “Wait, Prokop, can you manage a
couple of steps? I’ll help you.”

With an effort Thomas dragged his guest up to
the second floor. Prokop seemed to himself to
be without weight, and allowed himself to be quickly
wafted up the stairs; but Thomas was breathing
heavily and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“See, I’m like a thread,” said Prokop, surprised.

“Well,” said Thomas, panting, and opened the
door of his flat.

Krakatit

9

Prokop felt like a little child while Thomas was
undressing him. “My mother,” he began, “when
my mother, ever so long ago . . . father sat at
the table, and mother carried me to bed, see?”

Then he was in bed, covered up to the chin, his
teeth chattering and watching Thomas rapidly
making a fire. He could have cried from self-pity
and weakness, and he babbled the whole time; then
a cold compress was placed on his forehead and he
quieted down. He looked about the room; there
was a scent of tobacco and women.

“You’re a rogue, Thomas,” he exclaimed seri¬
ously, “always having women.”

Thomas turned round. “Well?”

“Nothing. What exactly are you doing just
now ?”

Thomas waved his hand. “It’s bad, my friend.
No money.”

“You womanize.”

Thomas only shook his head.

“And it’s a pity, you know,” began Prokop, with
concern. “You could have — look, I’ve been at it
for twelve years.”

“And what have you got out of it?” retorted
Thomas sharply.

“Well, something here and there. I sold some
explosive dextrine this year.”

“For how much?”

“For ten thousand. But that’s nothing. Rub¬
bish. Only an explosive for mines. But if I had
wished to . . .”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Fine. I’ve found out some methods for you!

io Krakatit

Nitrate of cerium, there’s an excitable monster for
you, man; and chloride, chloride, tetrachloride of
nitrogen, that’s exploded by light. You turn on
the light, and bang! But that’s nothing. Listen,”
he exclaimed, suddenly sticking his thin, terribly
mutilated hand out of the bedclothes, “when I take
anything in my hand, so ... I feel the vibration
of the atoms. Just like ants. Each kind of sub¬
stance creeps differently, see?”

“No.”

“That’s power, see? Power in matter. Matter
is terribly powerful. I ... I feel it moving. It
holds together . . . with an enormous effort. Once
you loosen it inside, it disintegrates. Bang! Every¬
thing is an explosive. Every thought is a sort of
explosion inside the head. When you give me your
hand I feel as if something is exploding inside you.
I’ve an extraordinary touch, man. And hearing.
Everything is bubbling like effervescent powder.
Tiny explosions again. There’s a noise going on
in my head. . . . Ratata, like a machine gun.”

“Yes?” said Thomas. “And now swallow this
aspirin.”

“Yes. Ex — explosive aspirin. Perchlorated
acteylsalicacid. That’s nothing. Man, I’ve discov¬
ered an exothermic explosive. Water.. Water is an
explosive. Every material is really an explosive. The
feathers in a feather bed are explosives. At present,
you see, this has only a theoretical significance. And
I’ve discovered atomic explosions. I — I — I — I’ve
made alpha explosions. It disintegrates into plus
electrons. No thermochemistry. Des-truc-tion.

Krakatit 1 1

Destructive chemistry, man. That’s a tremendous
thing, Thomas, purely scientific. At home I’ve got
tables. ... If only I had apparatus! But I’ve
only eyes . . . and hands. . . . Wait, let me write
it down!”

“Don’t you want to sleep?”

“I do. To-day — I’m — tired. And what have you
been doing all this time?”

“Nothing. Life.”

“Life is an explosive, see? Bang, and a man
is born and then, bang, he falls to pieces. And
we think it lasts some years, see? Wait a moment,
I’ve got something mixed, haven’t I?”

“It’s all right, Prokop. To-morrow, perhaps,
we’ll make an explosion. That is, if I haven’t
any money. But it’s all the same, just go to
sleep.”

“I’ll lend it you if you like.”

“No, thanks, it wouldn’t be enough. Perhaps my
father - ” Thomas waved his arm.

“So you’ve still got a father,” said Prokop after
a moment with sudden gentleness.

“Well, yes. A doctor in Tynice.” Thomas stood
up and began to walk up and down the room. “I’m
up against it. But don’t worry about me. I — I’ll
do something. Sleep!”

Prokop quieted down. Through his half-closed
eyes he watched Thomas sit down at the table and
rummage among some papers. It was somehow
delicious to listen to the rustling of paper and
the quiet noise of the fire in the stove. The man
bent forward over the table, supported his head

12

Krakatit

with his hand and, it seemed, was hardly breathing;
and to Prokop it was as if he was at home and
looking at his elder brother, Joseph, studying elec¬
trical engineering in preparation for the examina¬
tion the next day. He fell into a feverish sleep.

CHAPTER III

He dreamed that he heard a noise made by
innumerable wheels. “It’s some factory or
other,” he thought and ran up the steps. All at once
he found himself standing in front of a large door,
on which was a glass plate with the name: Plinius.
Inordinately delighted, he went in. “Is Mr. Plinius
in?” he asked of a girl sitting at a typewriter.
“He’ll be here in a moment,” she answered and
directly afterwards there appeared a tall, clean¬
shaven man with enormous circular spectacles.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Prokop glanced inquiringly at his extraordinarily
expressive face. His mouth was of the British
variety, his forehead was covered with lines and
had a wart the size of a sixpence, his chin was that
of a cinema artist. “Are y — jyou Mr. Plinius?”

“Please,” said the tall man, and with an abrupt
gesture indicated the way to his study.

“I am extremely . . . it’s a great honour for
me,” stammered Prokop, taking a seat.

“What is it you want?” the tall man interrupted
him.

“I’ve disintegrated matter,” announced Prokop.
Plinius remained silent; he only played with a steel
key and, behind his spectacles, closed his heavy lids.

“It’s like this,” began Prokop impetuously.
“E-e-everything is disintegrating, you understand?

13

H Krakatit

Matter is fragile. But I can make it disintegrate
all at once, bang! An explosion, if you compre¬
hend me? Into smithereens. Into molecules. Into
atoms. And I’ve also broken up atoms.”

“A pity,” said Plinius, after consideration.

“Why a pity?”

“It’s a pity to break anything. Even an atom.
Well, go on.”

“I . . . break up the atom. I am aware that
Rutherford has already . . . But that was only
donkey work with radiation, you know. That’s
nothing. The thing must be done en masse. If
I were asked to I could explode a ton of bismuth
in that way. It would blow up the whole world.
Would you like me to?”

“Why would you do it?”

“It’s . . . scientifically interesting,” said Prokop,
confused. “Wait, how shall I . . . It’s amazingly
interesting.” He clutched his head. “One mo¬
ment, my he-head’s splitting; it will be scientifically
enormously interesting, eh? Aha!” he burst out, re¬
lieved, “now I can explain. Dynamite — dynamite
smashes up matter into pieces, lumps, but benzol-
trioxozonid reduces it to dust; it makes only a small
hole but it disintegrates matter into submicroscopic
fragments, see? That’s through the quickness of
the explosion. Matter hasn’t time to get out of the
way, it can’t even bl — break up, see? But I . . .
I’ve accelerated the speed of detonation.
Argonozonid. Chlorargonoxozonid. Tetrargon.
And so on and on. And suddenly, after a certain
speed, the power of explosion increases terribly.
It increases . . . quadratically. I watch it, as if

Krakatit 15

I were an idiot. Where does it come from, this
energy?” demanded Prokop feverishly. “Tell me.”

“Well, perhaps from the atom,” suggested
Plinius.

“Aha,” cried Prokop exultantly, and wiped the
sweat away from his face. “That’s the amusing
part of it. Simply from the atom. It throws the
atoms together . . . and t-t-t — tears off the Beta
layer . . . and the core disintegrates. It’s an

Alpha explosion. Do you realize who I am? I am
the first man, sir, who has overcome the coefficient
of compressibility. I ... I have extracted tanta¬
lum from bismuth. Listen, do you know the amount
of power there is in one gramme of mercury? Four
hundred and sixty-two millions of kilogramometres.
Matter is frightfully powerful. Matter is a regi¬
ment which is marching without moving: one two,
one two; but give it the right order and the regi¬
ment will attack. En avant! That’s the explosion,
you understand? Hurrah!

Prokop was pulled up by his own exclamation;
the beating in his head was so loud that he ceased
to understand anything. “Excuse me,” he said,
in order to cover his confusion, and with a shaking
hand felt for his cigar case. “You smoke?”

“No.”

“Even the ancient Romans used to smoke,”
Prokop assured him, and opened his case. Inside
was nothing but some heavy fuses.

“Light up,” he urged, “this one’s a small Nobel
Extra.” He himself bit off the end of a tetryl car¬
tridge and looked round for matches. “Never
mind,” he said, “but have you ever heard of explo-

i6

Krakatit

sive glass? A pity. Listen, I can make you ex¬
plosive paper. You write a letter, someone throws
it into the fire, and crash! The whole of the place
collapses. Would you like that?”

“What for?” asked Plinius, raising his eye¬
brows.

“Well, I don’t know. Power must out. I’ll tell
you something. If you were to walk on the ceiling,
what would happen to you? To begin with I have
no use for the theory of valency. Everything is
possible. Listen, you hear that noise outside?
That’s the grass growing; nothing but little explo¬
sions. Every seed is an explosive cartridge which
goes off. Poof , like a rocket. And those fools
think that there is no such thing as tautomerism.
I’ll show them such merotropy that they’ll go off
their heads. Pure laboratory experience, my dear
sir.”

Prokop suddenly had a dreadful feeling that he
was babbling nonsense. He tried to extricate him¬
self from his position, but only jabbered all the
more quickly, mixing everything up. Plinius nodded
his head seriously and finally inclined his body for¬
ward more and more, as if he were bowing. Prokop
gabbled confused formulas, unable to stop himself,
his eyes fixed on Plinius who was swinging back¬
wards and forwards with increasing speed, like a
machine. The floor began to move and lift under
him.

“But stop it, man,” roared Prokop, terrified, and
woke up.

Instead of Plinius he saw Thomas who grunted,

Krakatit 17

“Don’t shout, please,” without turning round from
the table.

“I’m not shouting,” said Prokop, and closed his
eyes. Inside his head the blows had become faster
and more painful.

It appeared that he was moving with the mini¬
mum velocity of light; in some way his heart was
compressed. But that was only the Fitzgerald-
Lorentz contraction, he explained to himself; soon
he would become as flat as a pancake. And sud¬
denly there appeared in front of him countless glass
prisms; no, they were only endless, highly polished
planes which intersected at sharp angles like models
of crystals. He was thrown against the edge of
one of them with terrible speed. “Look out!” he
shouted to himself, for in a thousandth of a second
he would be smashed to pieces; but at that moment
he flew at an enormous speed towards the apex of
a huge pyramid. Thrown back from this like a
beam of light, he was cast against a wall as smooth
as glass, slid along it, whizzed madly along walls
set at angles, was hurled back against he knew not
what. Cast away again he was falling on to a sharp
angle, but at the last moment was thrown upwards
again. Now he struck his head on a Euclidean plane
and now fell headlong downwards, downwards into
darkness. A sudden blow, a painful shuddering of
his whole body, but he immediately picked himself
up and took to flight. He tore along a labyrinthine
passage and heard behind him the noise made by
his pursuers; the passage became narrower and nar¬
rower, its walls came together with a frightful and
inevitable movement; he became as thin as an awl,

i8

Krakatit

held his breath and dashed along in horror, so as
to escape before the walls crushed him. They
crashed behind him with a stony impact, while he
whirled into a chasm. A frightful blow, and he
lost consciousness. When he awoke he was in black
darkness; he groped along the slimy stone walls
and cried for help, but no sound came from his lips.
Such was the darkness.

Shivering with fear, he stumbled about the bot¬
tom of the pit. He came upon a path along the
side and followed it. Actually it consisted of steps,
and above, an incredible distance away, there
gleamed a tiny opening, as in a mine. Then he ran
up endless and terribly steep stairs; but at the top
there was nothing but a platform, a light metal plat¬
form which trembled above the dizzy abyss, and
downwards there descended endless spiral steps of
iron plates. And again he heard behind him the
panting breath of his pursuers. Beside himself with
fear he dashed down the twisting stairs, and behind
him the steps of his enemies clanged upon the iron.
Suddenly the spiral steps ended sharply in a void.
Prokop shrieked, extended his arms and, still turn¬
ing, fell into the gulf. His head spun, he saw and
heard nothing; with legs that seemed to be bound he
ran he knew not whither, dominated by a blind and
terrible impulse to reach some place before it was
too late. He ran more and more quickly along an
endless vaulted corridor; from time to time the
number changed on a semaphore, and always higher:
17, 18, 19. Suddenly he realized that he was run¬
ning in a circle and that the numbers represented
the circuits he had made. 40, 41 1 He was seized
with the intolerable fear that he would never get

Krakatit 19

away; he whizzed round at an insane speed, so
that the semaphore moved like telegraph poles seen
from an express train; and still more rapidly! Now
the semaphore ceased to move and recorded at a
lightning speed thousands and tens of thousands of
revolutions, and still there was no exit from this
tunnel, and the tunnel was smooth and polished and,
as well, was itself rotating. Prokop sobbed with
fear. This was Einstein’s universe and he must
get there before it was too late ! Suddenly there
resounded a frightful cry. Prokop was aghast;
it was the voice of his father, whom somebody was
murdering. He tried to run still more quickly,
the semaphore disappeared and everything was
dark. Prokop felt along the walls and discovered
a closed door, and behind it he again heard desper¬
ate wails and the noise of furniture being thrown
about. Crying out with horror, he dug his nails into
the door, scratched it and tore it into pieces, to
find behind it the familar stairs which led him every
day to his room when he was little. And upstairs
his father was being suffocated, someone was
strangling him and dragging him along the floor.
Prokop flew upstairs, saw the familiar pail, his
mother’s bread-cupboard, and the half-opened door
into the kitchen, and there, inside, his father was
making a rattling noise in his throat and begging
someone not to kill him. Prokop wished to go to
his aid, but some blind, mad force obliged him
again to run in a circle, faster and faster, laughing
convulsively, while the wailing of his father slowly
died away. Incapable of escaping from this dizzy,
senseless circle, he suddenly burst into a laugh of
horror.

20

Krakatit

He woke up, covered with sweat, his teeth chat¬
tering. Thomas was standing over him in the act
of laying another cold compress on his burning
forehead.

“That’s good, that’s good,’’ mumbled Prokop,
“now I shan’t sleep any more.” And he lay quietly
and watched Thomas sitting near the lamp. George
Thomas, he said to himself, and then Duras, and
Honza Buchta, Sudik, Sudik, Sudik, and who else?
Sudik, Trlica, Trlica, Pesek, Jovanovic, Madr,
Holoubek, who wears spectacles, that was our year
at chemistry. God, and who’s the other? Aha,
Vedral, who was killed in ’sixteen, and behind him
there sat Holoubek, Pacovsky, Trlica, Seba, all the
men of the year. Then he suddenly heard the
words: “Mr. Prokop to be examined.”

He became terribly frightened. At the desk sat
Professor Wald, pulling with a dry hand at his
beard, as usual. “Let’s hear,” said Professor Wald,
“what you know about explosives.”

“Explosives, explosives,” began Prokop ner¬
vously, “their explosiveness lies in the fact that —
that — that — that a large volume of gas is suddenly
liberated which — which expands from the much
smaller volume of the explosive mass ... I beg
your pardon, that’s not right.”

“What?” asked Wald severely.

“I — I — Pve discovered alpha explosives. The
explosion takes place, that is to say, through the
disintegration of the atom. The parts of the atom
fly . . . fly.”

“Rubbish,” the professor interrupted him.
“There are no such things as atoms.”

Krakatit

21

“There are, there are, there are,” said Prokop
through his teeth. “Please, I’ll demonstrate to
you ...”

“An obsolete theory,” said the professor gruffly.
“There are no such things as atoms, only gumetals.
Do you know what a gumetal is?”

Prokop sweated with fear. He had never heard
the word in his life. Gumetal? “I don’t know,” he
said in confusion.

“There you are,” said Wald dryly. “And yet
you presume to offer yourself for examination.
What do you know about Krakatit?”

Prokop stopped uneasily. “Krakatit,” he whis¬
pered, “that is . . . that is ... a completely new
explosive, which . . . which up to the present . . .”

“How is it ignited? How? How does it ex¬
plode ?”

“By Hertzian waves,” croaked Prokop with
relief.

“How do you know?”

“Because the Krakatit which I prepared exploded
for no reason at all. Because . . . because there
was no other reason. And because ...”

“Well?”

“ . . .1 synthesized it . . . du — du — during

high frequency oscillation. This isn’t yet explained,
but I think that . . . that there were some sort
of electromagnetic waves.”

“There were. I know. Now write down the
chemical formula for Krakatit.”

Prokop took up a piece of chalk and scribbled
his formula on the board.

“Read it.”

22

Krakatit

Prokop read the formula aloud. Then Professor
Wald stood up and suddenly said in a voice which
was somehow completely different: “How does it
run?”

Prokop repeated the formula.

“Tetrargon?” inquired the professor rapidly.
“How much Pb?”

“Two.”

“How is it prepared?” inquired the voice, this
time extraordinarily close. “The method! How is
it prepared? How? How do you prepare
Krakatit ?”

Prokop opened his eyes. Thomas was bending
over him with a pencil and notebook in his hand
and breathlessly watching his lips.

“What?” mumbled Prokop uneasily. “What
do you want? How . . . is it prepared?”

“You’ve got some strange idea into your head,”
said Thomas and hid the notebook behind his back.
“Sleep, man, sleep.”

CHAPTER IV

U\J°w I’ve blurted something out!” Prokop
realized with the fragment of his brain that
was most clear; but otherwise he was completely
indifferent on the subject; all he wanted was to
sleep, to sleep inordinately. He saw in front of him
a sort of Turkey carpet, the pattern of which con¬
tinually changed. It was nothing important and
yet it somehow agitated him. Even in sleep he
yearned to meet Plinius again. He tried to rid him¬
self of his image; instead, he saw before him an
abominable grinning face, which ground its yellow,
rotten teeth until they were crushed, and then spat
them out in pieces. He wanted to get away from
this picture. The word “fisherman” came into his
head, and presto there appeared to him a fisherman
sitting above some grey water with a net full of fish.
He said to himself “scaffolding,” and he actually
perceived scaffolding to the last hook and rope. For
a long time he amused himself by thinking of words
and looking at the pictures which they called up;
but then not even by exerting all his powers could he
recall a single one. He made the most strenuous
efforts to remember at least one word or thing, but
in vain; and then through the horror of impotence
he came out in a cold sweat. He decided that he
must go to work methodically; he must begin from
the beginning or he was lost. Luckily he remem-

23

24

Krakatit

bered the word “fisherman”; but now there ap¬
peared before his eyes an empty petroleum tin. It
was horrible. He said to himself “chair,” and he
saw with astonishing clearness the tarred fence of a
factory with a patch of dreary, dusty grass and some
rusty hoops. This is insanity, he said to himself
with cold clearness; this, gentleman, is typical mad¬
ness, hyperofabula ugongi dugongi Darwin. This
technical term for some unknown reason appeared
to him to be excruciatingly funny. He positively
gulped with laughter and woke up.

He was covered with sweat and had kicked off his
bedclothes. With feverish eyes he watched Thomas,
who was moving quickly about the room and throw¬
ing a few things into a suitcase; but he did not
recognize him. “Listen, listen,” he began, “here’s
a funny thing, listen, wait a moment, you must

listen - ” He wanted to tell him as a great joke

this extraordinary technical designation, and was
already smiling in anticipation; but for the life of
him he was unable to recall how exactly it had run.
He became annoyed and was silent.

Thomas put on an ulster and a cap; but when he
had already picked up the suitcase he hesitated and
sat down on the end of Prokop’s bed. “Listen, old
chap,” he said with concern, “I’ve got to go away
now. To my father, in Tynice. If he doesn’t give
me any money I shan’t come back, see? But don’t
be worried about that. The doorkeeper’s wife will
come in the morning and bring you a doctor, yes?”

“What’s the time?” asked Prokop indifferently.

“Four. Five past four. Perhaps . . . there’s
nothing you want, is there?”

Krakatit 25

Prokop closed his eyes, resolved to take no fur¬
ther interest in anything in the world. Thomas
covered him up carefully and all became quiet.

Suddenly he opened his eyes again fully. Above
him he perceived an unfamiliar ceiling round the
edge of which there ran an ornament which he had
not seen before. He stretched out his hand for the
table at his bedside, but groped in the air. Fright¬
ened, he turned round and saw, in the place of his
laboratory desk, some sort of table with a small
lamp. Where there used to be a window there was
a screen; in the place of the wash-stand some door
or other. This confused him enormously; he could
not understand what was happening to him, or
where he was. Conquering his giddiness, he sat
up in bed. Slowly he realized that he was not at
home, but could not remember how he got -to be
where he was. “Who is that?” he asked aloud on
chance, controlling his tongue with difficulty.
“Drink,” he said, after a moment, “drink.” It was
painfully quiet. He got out of bed and, a little
unsteadily, started to look for water. On the wash-
stand he found a carafe and drank from it greedily;
but when he was returning to the bed his legs gave
way and he sank into a chair, unable to do any
more. He sat there for a good hour, perhaps; then
he began to shiver with cold, and became over¬
whelmed with self-pity, thinking that he was in
some strange place, that he was not capable of even
reaching the bed, and that he was alone, helpless,
and without anyone to give him counsel. Suddenly
he began to cry convulsively like a child.

When he had cried in this way for a bit his head

2 6

Krakatit

became clearer. At last he was able to get to the
bed and lie down with his teeth chattering; no
sooner had he got some warmth into his body than
he went off into a deep, swoon-like, dreamless
sleep.

When he woke up the grey light of day was com¬
ing through the window; someone had pulled up
the blind and created a certain amount of order in
the room. He was unable to comprehend who had
done this; but, on the other hand, he remembered
the explosion of the day before, Thomas, and his
departure. His head was splitting, he felt a weight
on his chest, and he was tortured by a tearing cough.
That’s bad, he said to himself, that’s really bad; I
ought to have gone home and gone to bed there.
He got up and began to dress himself with long
pauses. He felt as if something wTas exercising a
horrible pressure on his chest. Then he sat down,
indifferent to everything and breathing heavily.

Suddenly the bell rang briefly and lightly. With
an effort he remembered himself and went to open
the door. Outside was standing a young girl with
a veil over her face.

“Does . . . Mr. Thomas live here?” she asked
rapidly and confusedly.

“Please,” said Prokop and made way for her.
When, hesitating a little, she had passed close by
him into the room, he became conscious of a faint
and elegant perfume which he inhaled with delight.

He gave her a seat by the window and sat down
opposite her, holding himself as straight as he was
able to. He felt that through this very effort he
must appear to be severe and frozen, which embar-

Krakatit 27

rassed both the girl and himself exceedingly.
Behind her veil she bit her lip and cast down her
eyes; oh, the delicious smoothness of her face, oh,
what small hands and how extraordinarily excited!
Suddenly she raised her eyes and Prokop held his
breath with ecstasy, so beautiful did she seem to
him.

“Mr. Thomas isn’t at home?” asked the girl.

“Thomas has gone away,” said Prokop, with
some hesitation. “Last night.”

“Where?”

“To Tynice, to his father.”

“And he returns?”

Prokop shrugged his shoulders.

The girl bent her head down, her hands pulling
at something. “And did he tell you why . . .
why?”

“He did.”

“And you think that . . . that he will do it?”
“What?”

“That he will shoot himself.”

In a flash Prokop remembered that he had seen
Thomas put a revolver into his suitcase. “To-mor¬
row, perhaps, we’ll make an explosion,” he again
heard him mutter through his teeth. He did not
wish to say anything. He looked very serious.

“Oh my God!” said the girl, “but this is terrible.
Tell me . . .”

“What?”

“If only somebody could follow him! If only
somebody could say — could give him — you under¬
stand, don’t you, that he mustn’t do it! If only
somebody could go after him today - ”

28 Krakatit

Prokop looked at her hands which were twisting
desperately.

“I will go there for you,” he said quietly. “As
it happens I’ve got to go somewhere in that direc¬
tion. If you wish it I - ”

The girl raised her head. “Could you really?”
she cried joyfully, “could you . . . ?”

“I’m an old . . . colleague of his, you see,” ex¬
plained Prokop. “If you would like to send him a
message . . . or send . . . I would willingly . . .”

“You are really very good,” breathed the girl.

Prokop reddened a little. “That’s nothing,” he
defended himself. “As it happens . . . I’ve some
free time ... I should like to go away somewhere

and also, generally speaking - ” He waved his

hand in embarrassment. “It’s not worth talking
about. I will do anything that you wish.”

The girl blushed and looked quickly in another
direction. “I really don’t . . . know how to thank
you,” she said in confusion. “I am really very
sorry that . . . you. . . . But it is so important —
you’re his friend. Don’t you think perhaps that I

myself - ” Then she got control of herself and

turned her clear eyes on Prokop. “I must send
him something. From somebody else. I cannot
tell you.”

“There is no need to,” said Prokop quickly. “I
shall give it him and that’s all there is about it.
I am so glad that I am able . . . that I can help
him. ... Is it raining then?” he asked suddenly,
looking at the drops of moisture on her fur.

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s good,” said Prokop. He was actually

Krakatit 29

thinking how pleasantly cool it would be if he could
put his forehead against the fur.

“I haven’t got it with me,” she said, standing up.
“It will only be a small parcel. If you could wait
. . . I’ll bring it you in two hours’ time.”

Prokop bowed; and in doing so he was afraid
of losing his equilibrium. In the doorway she
turned round and gave him a direct look. “Au
revoir.” She was gone.

Prokop sat down and closed his eyes. The drops
of rain on the fur; a thick and bedewed veil; a
curiously distant voice; scent; uneasy hands in small
tight gloves; a clear and disturbing glance from
beneath firm, elegant eyebrows; her hands on her
lap; the soft folds of her dress over her strong
knees. Oh, little hands in tight gloves ! Scent, a
dark and vibrant voice, a smooth, pale face. Pro¬
kop dug his teeth into his quivering lips, sad, and
confused and brave. Blue-grey eyes, eyes clean and
full of light. Oh God, how her veil pressed against
her lips !

Prokop groaned and opened his eyes. “And she’s
Thomas’s girl,” he said to himself, with blind fury.
“She knew the way; it wasn’t the first time she had
been there. Perhaps here . . . here in this very
room ...” Prokop dug his nails into his palms in
intolerable agony. “And I, like a fool, suggest that
I shall go after him! I, idiot that I am, am to
take him a letter! What . . . have I to do with
her?”

Then he had a saving thought. I will dash off
home to my laboratory at the top of the house —
and she — let her come here! Let her do what she

30

Krakatit

wants to ! Let . . . her go after him herself, if

. . . it’s so important to her -

He looked round the room; he saw the tumbled
bed and straightened it a little as he was accustomed
to at home. Then it seemed to him that it was not
tidy enough, so he did it again, smoothed it and then
set about cleaning up the whole place, even trying
to arrange the curtains in nice folds. After which
he sat down with a dizzy head and a chest which
was thumping painfully, and waited.

CHAPTER V

IT seemed to him that he was walking about in an
enormous kitchen garden. All around was
nothing but cabbage heads, not simply heads, but
heads which grinned and were slimy from the crea¬
tures which had crawled over them; gibbering
heads, blear-eyed, monstrous, watery, pimpled and
swollen. They were growing on cabbage stumps,
and creeping over them were repulsive green cater¬
pillars. And now across the garden there ran
towards him the girl with the veil over her face.
She raised her skirts a little and jumped over the
heads. But under each of them there suddenly
sprouted bare, horribly thin and hairy hands, which
clutched at her feet and her skirts. The girl
screamed in fear, and raised her skirts still higher,
above her strong knees, showing her white legs, and
tried to spring out of the way of these grasping
tentacles. Prokop closed his eyes; he could not
bear the sight of her white strong legs and was
nearly mad with dread lest those green heads should
defile her. He cast himself on the ground and
chopped off the first head with his clasp-knife. It
squeaked like an animal and snapped at his hand
with its rotten teeth. Now the second and the
third head. Christ ! would he be able to mow the
enormous field before the girl reached the other
end? Springing madly' about, he trampled them

3i

32

Krakatit

down and kicked them; his feet become entangled
in their thin sucker-like claws, he fell, was seized,
torn and suffocated. Then everything disappeared.

Everything disappeared in whirling confusion.
And suddenly he heard quite near the veiled voice :
“I have brought you the parcel.” He sprang up
and opened his eyes, and before him stood the girl
from Hybsmonka, squint-eyed and pregnant, her
stomach damp, and gave him something wrapped
up in a damp rag. “It’s not her!” groaned Prokop
painfully, and suddenly he saw before him the tall,
dreary saleswoman who used to stretch his gloves
for him on wooden sticks. “It’s not her!” Prokop
repeated, and there appeared before him a puffy
child on legs bent with rickets who . . . who

shamelessly offered herself to him! “Go away,”
cried Prokop, and then he saw an overturned can in
the middle of a dried-up lawn and some cabbages
covered all over with the traces of snails, and this
picture would not disappear in spite of all his efforts
to banish it.

At that moment the bell rang quietly, with a
noise like the piping of a bird. Prokop dashed to
the door and opened it. In the passage was stand¬
ing the girl with the veil, pressing the parcel to her
breast and panting for breath. “So it’s you,” said
Prokop gently and, without knowing why, was pro¬
foundly touched. The girl came in, brushing him
with her shoulder as she went past. Her scent
moved Prokop painfully.

She remained standing in the middle of the room.
“Don’t be angry, please,” she said quietly and
somehow hastily, “that I have given you such a

Krakatit 33

commission. You see you have no idea why . . .
why I — if it’s really causing you any trouble - ”

“I will go,” said Prokop in a hoarse voice.

The girl turned her clear serious eyes on him.
“Don’t think anything bad of me. I am only afraid
that Mr. . . . that your friend may do something
which would drive a certain person to death. I
have so much confidence in you. . . . You will
save him, won’t you?”

“I shall be ever so glad to,” said Prokop softly in
an uncertain voice which was not his own; to such
an extent was he overcome with excitement. “I
. . . what you wish. ...” He turned his eyes
away; he was afraid that he would blurt something
out, that perhaps she would hear the loud beating of
his heart. He was ashamed of his uncouthness.

And the girl also was infected by his confusion;
she blushed terribly and did not know what to do
with her eyes. “Thank you, thank you,” she tried
to say in a voice which was also somehow uncertain,
and she gripped the sealed packet which she held in
her hand. There was a silence, a silence which
induced in Prokop a sweet and painful dizziness.
He felt feverishly that the girl was watching his face
askance; and when he suddenly turned his eyes on
her he saw that she was looking down on the
ground, waiting till she was able to endure his look.
Prokop felt that there was something which he
ought to say to save the situation; instead he only
moved his lips uneasily and trembled with his whole
body.

Finally the girl touched his hand and whispered,
“That parcel - ” Then Prokop forgot why he

34

Krakatit

was holding his right hand behind his back and
reached out for the large parcel. The girl turned
pale and recoiled. “You are wounded,” she burst
out. “Show me!” Prokop hastily hid his hand
again. “It’s nothing,” he assured her quickly; “I
just got a slight . . . slight wound.”

The girl, quite pale, drew in her breath sharply as
if she herself felt the pain. “Why don’t you go to
a doctor?” she said abruptly. “You mustn’t travel
anywhere ! I ... I will send somebody else !”

“It’s healing already,” said Prokop, as if some¬
thing precious were being taken away from him.
“Really it’s almost . . . right again, only a scratch,
and anyway what nonsense! Why shouldn’t I go?
And then, in such matters . . . you can’t very well
send a stranger. Really it doesn’t even pain me, —
look!” And he shook his right hand.

The girl made a movement of sympathy which
was yet severe. “You mustn’t go! Why didn’t
you tell me? I . . . don’t allow it! I don’t
want - ”

Prokop became extremely unhappy. “Look
here,” he said hotly, “it really is nothing; I am used
to such things. Look here,” and he showed her his
left hand, almost the whole of the little finger of
which was missing, while another had a twisted scar
on the joint. “That’s the sort of occupation I have,
you see?” He did not even notice that the girl
shrank away from him with pale lips and was look¬
ing at a deep scar on his forehead stretching from
the eyes to the hair. “There’s an explosion and
there you are. Like a soldier, I get up and run
off as fast as I can, you understand? Nothing can

Krakatit 35

happen to me now. Give it to me!” He took
the parcel out of her hand, threw it into the air
and caught it again. “No need for anxiety. I’ll
go like a gentleman. Do you know, it’s a long time
since I have been anywhere. Do you know
America ?”

The girl remained silent and watched him with a
pained expression.

“It’s all very well for them to say that they have
new theories,” muttered Prokop feverishly through
his teeth, “but wait; I’ll show them something when
I have finished my calculations. It’s a pity that you
don’t understand that sort of thing; I could explain
it to you. I trust you, I trust you but not him.
Don’t trust him,” he said earnestly, “take care. You
are so beautiful,” he breathed enthusiastically.

“Up there I never speak to anybody. Only a
sort of hut made of planks, you understand? Ha!
ha ! How frightened you were of those heads ! But
I won’t give you up ! Don’t be frightened of any¬
thing! I won’t give you up.”

She looked at him with eyes distended with
horror. “But you simply must not go!”

Prokop grew dispirited and became suddenly
weak. “No, you mustn’t take any notice of what
I’m saying. I’ve been talking nonsense, haven’t I?
I simply wanted you not to think about that hand.
So that you shouldn’t be frightened. It’s all over
now.” He got control of himself again and became
stiff and almost sulky through his very concentra¬
tion. “I shall go to Tynice and find Thomas. I
shall give him the parcel and say that it comes from
a young lady whom he. knows. Is that right?”

36

Krakatit

“Yes,” said the girl with some hesitation, “but
really you must not - ”

Prokop tried to muster a supplicatory smile. His
heavy scared face suddenly grew beautiful. “Leave
it to me,” he said quietly, “it’s . . . for you.”

The girl blinked her eyes; a sharp feeling had
suddenly driven her nearly to tears. She inclined
her head silently and gave him her hand. He raised
his shapeless left hand. She looked at him interro¬
gatively and pressed it warmly. “Thank you so
much,” she said quickly, “good-bye !”

In the doorway she stopped as if she wished to
say something. Twisting the handle, she waited.

“Am I to . . .to convey any greeting to him?”
asked Prokop with a wry smile.

“No,” she said quietly and gave him a quick
glance. “Au revoir.”

The door closer behind her. Prokop looked after
her and suddenly he felt mortally heavy and weak,
his head began to swim, and it cost him an immense
effort to take a single step.

CHAPTER VI

At the station he had to wait an hour and a half.

He sat down in the corridor shivering with
cold. His wounded hand pulsated painfully. He
closed his eyes and immediately it seemed to him
that this aching hand was growing, that it was as
big as a head, as a gourd, as a cauldron, and that
all over it the flesh was twitching feverishly. At
the same time he felt oppressively faint and a cold
sweat kept on breaking out on his forehead. He
did not dare to look at the dirty, muddy floor cov¬
ered with spittle — his stomach would have risen.
He tore off his collar and fell half asleep, gradually
overpowered by an infinite indifference. He had the
impression that he was a soldier, lying wounded
in the open field; where . . . where are they fight¬
ing all the time? Then there sounded in his ears a
loud ringing, and someone shouted . . . “Tynice,
. . . Duchcov, . . . Moldava ! Take your seats !”

Now he was sitting in the railway carriage next
to the window and feeling inordinately gay, as if
he had got the better of somebody or had escaped
from them; yes, now he was on the way to Tynice
and nothing could stop him. Almost giggling with
delight he settled down in his corner and began to
observe his fellow-travellers with amazing eager¬
ness. In front of him sat some sort of a tailor
with a thin neck, a slight dark woman, and then

37

38

Krakatit

a man with an extraordinarily expressionless face;
next to Prokop was a terribly fat gentleman whose
stomach could not settle down between his legs, and,
further away, somebody else, but that didn’t matter.
Prokop did not dare to look out of the window7 — it
made him feel giddy. Ra-ta-ta-ra-ta-ta the train
thumped out, vibrating and rattling with the fever¬
ishness of its movement. The head of the tailor
swung to the right, to the left, to the right, to the
left; the dark lady in some curious fashion bounced
stiffly up and down on the same spot, the expression¬
less face vibrated and jerked like a bad film in a
cinema. And his fat neighbour was simply a heap
of jelly which jumped, shook and hopped in the
most extraordinarily entertaining manner. Tynice,
Tynice, Tynice, scanned Prokop to the beat of the
wheels; faster, faster! The train grew heated
through its haste; it became warm in the carriage
and Prokop began to sweat; the tailor had now two
heads on two thin necks; both heads shook and
knocked against one another until they rattled. The
dark lady jumped up and down on her seat in the
most amusing and yet offensive way; she deliberately
put on the expression of a wooden doll. The expres¬
sionless face disappeared; in its place there sat a
body with its arms folded in a dead manner on its
lap; the hands jumped about, but the body had no
head.

Prokop exerted all his strength in order to see it
properly. He pinched his leg, but it was no use;
the body remained headless and lifelessly responded
to the vibration of the train. Prokop became hor¬
ribly uncomfortable. He nudged his fat neighbour
with his arm; but the neighbour only quivered still

Krakatit 39

more like a jelly. It seemed to Prokop that the
fat body was voicelessly tittering at him. He was
unable to look at it any longer; he turned to the
window, but there, out of the void, appeared a
human face. At first he could not make out why it
disconcerted him so; he stared at it with wide-open
eyes to realize finally that it was another Prokop
whose eyes were fixed on him with terrible earnest¬
ness. “What does he want?” said Prokop, terror-
stricken. “My God! have I left that parcel in
Thomas’s room?” He hastily went through his
pockets and found the parcel in the inside one of his
coat. Then the face in the window smiled and
Prokop felt better. Finally he plucked up courage
to look at the headless body and saw that all that
had happened was that the man had pulled over
his face a coat that was hanging from the rack and
was asleep behind it. Prokop would have done
the same but was afraid that some one would take
the sealed package out of his pocket. And yet it
was important for him to sleep; he was intolerably
tired; he would never have been able to imagine
that it was possible for him to be so tired. He
dropped off, awoke with a start and dropped off
again. The dark lady had one head bobbing on her
shoulder and held the other in her lap with both
hands; and as for the tailor, instead of him there
were sitting empty, bodyless clothes, out of the top
of which projected a porcelain pestle. Prokop fell
asleep but suddenly started up with a feverish con¬
viction that they were already in Tynice. Some¬
body outside had shouted the name out, or the train
had stopped.

He rushed out and saw that it was already eve-

4o

Krakatit

ning; two or three people were getting out at a
tiny station with blinking lights behind which was
an unknown and foggy darkness. They told Pro-
kop that he could only get to Tynice by a post¬
wagon, if there was still room in it. The post¬
wagon proved to consist of a coach-box behind
which was a trough for packages, and the postman
and some passenger or other had already taken
their seats.

“Will you take me to Tynice, please?” said
Prokop.

The postman shook his head in infinite dejection.
“Can’t be done,” he answered after a moment.

“Why . . . how is that?”

“There’s no more room,” said the postman, hav¬
ing considered the matter.

Tears of self-pity came into Prokop’s eyes. “How
far is it . . .on foot?”

The postman reflected sympathetically. “Well,
an hour,” he said.

“But I . . . can’t walk it! I’ve got to get to
Dr. Thomas’s I” protested Prokop, crushed.

The postman thought for a moment. “Are you
. . . going . . . as a patient?”

“I feel bad,” mumbled Prokop; actually, he was
trembling with weakness and fever.

The postman again considered the matter and
shook his head. “But it can’t be done,” he said
finally.

“If only you could make . . . a little room . . .”

On the coach-box there was no sound. The post¬
man pulled at his beard; then, without saying a
word, he got down, did something at the side and

Krakatit 41

silently went off to the station. The passenger on
the coach-box remained motionless.

Prokop was so exhausted that he was obliged to
sit down on the edge of the pavement. “I shall
never get there,” he felt desperately; “I shall remain
here until . . . until ...”

The postman returned from the station bringing
with him an empty tub. Somehow he attached it
to the platform of the coach-box and looked at it
reflectively. “Sit down there,” he said finally.

“Where?” asked Prokop.

“Well ... on the coach-box.”

By some superhuman effort, as if some magical
power were lifting him up, Prokop got on to the
coach-box. The postman did something with the
reins and there he was sitting in the tub with his
legs hanging down over the side. “Hey,” said he.

The horse made no movement, but only trembled.

The postman made another thin, guttural “r-r-r,”
The horse whisked its tail.

“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.”

The post-wagon moved off. Prokop convulsively
gripped a railing at his side; he felt that it was
beyond his strength to keep his place on the coach¬
box.

“R-r-r-r-r.” It seemed that this high, whirring
note somehow galvanized the old horse. It limped
along, twitching its tail.

“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.” They were going along an ave¬
nue of bare trees. It was pitch dark, save where
the flickering strip of light from the lantern moved
over the mud. Prokop clung to the railing feeling
that he had already completely lost control of his

42

Krakatit

body, that he must be careful not to fall, that he
was infinitely weak. Some lighted window or other,
an avenue, a dark field. “R-r-r-r.” The horse
trotted along, moving its legs stiffly and unnaturally,
as if it had already been dead for a long time.

Prokop cast a surreptitious glance at his fellow-
traveller. He was an old man with a scarf wrapped
round his neck. All the time he was chewdng some¬
thing, rolling it about in his mouth and periodically
spitting. And then Prokop remembered that he
had seen this face somewhere before. It wras the
loathsome face from the dream, which ground its
rotten teeth until they crumbled and then spat them
out in fragments. It was wonderful and horrible.

“R-r-r-r-r-r.” There was a turn in the road, they
climbed up a hill and then descended again. Some¬
body’s estate, — the barking of a dog, — a man pass¬
ing along the road and wishing them good-night.
The houses increased in number; they wrere reach¬
ing the top of the hill. The post-wagon swung
round, another high “R-r-r-r-r” and it suddenly
drew up.

“This is where Dr. Thomas lives,” said the post¬
man.

Prokop wished to say something but was unable
to do so. He wanted to let go of the railing, but
could not. His fingers were frozen.

“Well, here we are,” said the postman again.
Once more he called out, and Prokop slipped down
from the coach-box, trembling with his whole body.
As if performing a remembered action, he opened
the gate and rang at the door. Inside there was
to be heard a fierce barking and a young voice called

Krakatit 43

out: “Honzik, quiet!” The door opened and,
scarcely able to move his tongue, Prokop inquired,
“Is the doctor at home?”

A moment of silence; then the young voice said,
“Come in.”

Prokop stood in the warm sitting-room. On
the table was a lamp, supper was laid, there was
a smell of beech wood. An old gentleman with his
spectacles pushed up on to his forehead rose from
the table, came over to Prokop and said: “Well,
what can I do for you?”

Prokop tried to remember dully what exactly
it was that he had come for. “I . . . that is to
say . . .’’he began, “is your son at home?”

The old gentleman looked at Prokop attentively.
“He isn’t. What do you want with him?”

“George ...” mumbled Prokop, “I’m ... his
friend and I am bringing him ... I have to give
him ...” He hunted about in his pocket and
found the sealed package. “It’s ... an important
matter and . . . and. ...”

“George is in Prague,” the old gentleman inter¬
rupted him. “But do sit down.”

Prokop was profoundly astonished. “But he said
... he said . . . that he was coming here. I mu —
must give him. ...” The floor began to sway
beneath his feet and he started to slip forward.

“A chair, Annie,” shouted the old gentleman in
an extraordinary voice.

Prokop still had time to hear himself cry out
before he collapsed on to the ground. A boundless
darkness swept over him and then there was nothing.

CHAPTER VII

There was nothing; only when the mist lifted, as
it were, for a time, there appeared the pattern
which was painted on the walls, the carved cornice
of a cupboard, the top of the curtains or the frieze
on the ceiling. Or somebody’s face bent over him
as if over the mouth of a well; but its features wrere
not to be discerned. Things were happening, some¬
body from time to time moistened his hot lips or
raised his helpless body, but everything disappeared
in snatches of dreaming which continued to drift
away from him. And there were landscapes, pat¬
terns of carpets, differential calculations, balls of
fire, chemical formulae. From time to time some¬
thing rose to the surface and took the form for a
moment of a clearer dream, but immediately after¬
wards it dissolved again into the wide current of
unconsciousness.

Finally there came moments when he awoke fully.
Then he saw above him the warm ceiling with its
stucco pattern; his eyes lighted on his own thin,
deathly white hands, resting on the coloured cover¬
let. Beyond there appeared the frame of the bed,
the cupboard and a white door; everything some¬
how pleasant, quiet and already familiar. He had
not a notion where he was. He wanted to consider
this problem; but his head was hopelessly weak.
Everything began to grow confused again and he

44

Krakatit 45

closed his eyes and rested, resigning himself to his
weakness.

The door opened gently. Prokop opened his
eyes and sat up a little in bed, as if something had
raised him up. And there at the door was standing
a girl, slender and bright, with clear eyes with an
extraordinarily astonished look in them, lips half
open with surprise, and holding to her breast a pile
of white linen. Embarrassed, she remained motion¬
less, only moving her long lashes, while her rosy
face began shyly and uncertainly to smile.

Prokop’s face darkened. He made an effort to
find something to say, but his head was completely
empty. He moved his lips voicelessly and looked
at the girl with severe eyes that were trying to recall
something.

“I supplicate thee, O Queen,” came from his
lips rapidly and involuntarily in Greek, “if indeed
thou art a goddess of them that keep the wide
heaven; to Artemis, then, the daughter of great
Zeus, I mainly liken thee, for beauty and stature
and shapeliness. But if thou art one of the daugh¬
ters of men who dwell on earth, thrice blessed are
thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed
thy brethren. Surely their souls ever glow with
gladness each time they see thee entering the
dance, so fair a flower of maidens.”

The girl made no movement. As if she were
turned to stone, she listened to this greeting in an
unknown language. On her smooth forehead there
was so much confusion, her eyes blinked so childishly
and with so much apprehension that Prokop con¬
tinued with increased warmth to deliver the speech

46

Krakatit

of Odysseus when cast on the shore, himself only
vaguely realizing the meaning of the words.

“But he is of heart the most blessed,” he con¬
tinued quickly, “beyond all other who shall prevail
with lips of wooing, and lead thee to his home.
Never have mine eyes beheld such an one among
mortals, neither man nor woman; great awe comes
upon me as I look on thee.”

The girl blushed deeply as if she understood the
greeting of the Greek hero. An invincible and
delightful embarrassment held her limbs. Prokop,
twisting his hands on the coverlet, spoke as if he
were praying.

“Yet in Delos,” he continued rapidly, “once I
saw as goodly a thing; a young sapling of a palm
tree springing by the altar of Apollo. For thither
too 1 went, and much people with me, on that path
where my sore troubles were to be. Yea, and when
I looked thereupon, longtime I marvelled in spirit, —
for never grew there yet so goodly a shoot from
ground, — even in such wise as I wonder at thee,
lady, and am astonished and do greatly fear to touch
thy knees, though grievous sorrow is upon me.”

Yes, he was terribly frightened; but the girl was
frightened too, and continued to press the linen to
her breast without taking her eyes from Prokop,
who hastened to continue his invocation.

“Yesterday, on the twentieth day, I escaped from
the wine-dark deep, but all that time continually the
wave bare me, and the vehement winds drave, from
the isle Ogygia. And now some god has cast me
on this shore, that hereto, methinks, some evil may
betide me; for I trow not that trouble will cease.

Krakatit 47

The gods ere that time will yet bring many a thing
to pass.”

Prokop sighed deeply and raised his wasted
hands in fear. “But, Queen, have pity on me, for
after many trials and sore to thee first of all am I
come, and of the other folk, who hold this city and
land, I know no man. Nay, show me the town, give
me an old garment to cast about me, if thou hadst,
when thou earnest here, any wrap for the linen.”

Now the girl’s face became a little brighter, her
moist lips opened. Perhaps Nausicaa was speaking,
but Prokop still wanted to bless her for the cloud of
sympathy which made her face so rosy. “And may
the gods grant thee all thy heart’s desire; a husband
and a home, and a mind at one with his may they
give — a good gift, for there is nothing mightier
and nobler than when man and wife are of one
heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes and
to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know
it best.”

Prokop scarcely more than breathed the conclud¬
ing words. He himself only understood with diffi¬
culty what he was saying; effortlessly it flowed out
from some forgotten corner of memory. It was
almost twenty years since he had heard that sweet
melody of the Sixth Book. It afforded him almost
physical relief to let it reel itself off in this manner;
his head became lighter and clearer, he was almost
in ecstasy in this pleasant weakness. An embar¬
rassed smile trembled on his lips.

The girl smiled too, made a slight movement and
said: “Well?” She made a step towards him and
then burst out laughing.' “What did you say?”

48

Krakatit

“I don’t know,” said Prokop uncertainly.

Then the door, which had not been completely
closed, was burst open and there dashed into the
room something small and shaggy which whined
with delight and jumped on to Prokop’s bed.

“Honzik!” cried the girl apprehensively. “What
are you doing?” But the little animal was already
licking Prokop’s face and in excited joy had snuggled
down into the coverlet. Prokop wiped his face wTith
his hand and was disconcerted to find that he had a
full beard. “Bu — but,” he stammered, and became
silent with surprise. The dog was in the seventh
heaven; with overflowing devotion he bit at Pro¬
kop’s hands, yelped, and snorted, thrusting his wet
muzzle up to his chest.

“Honzik!” cried the girl, “you’re mad! Leave
the gentleman alone!” and she ran to the bed and
took the dog in her arms. “Honzik, you are
stupid !”

“Leave him alone,” said Prokop.

“But you’ve got a bad hand,” objected the girl
with great seriousness, pressing the struggling dog
to her breast.

Prokop regarded his right hand doubtfully.
Across the palm there stretched a broad scar covered
with a new, thin, red membrane which was pleas¬
antly itching. “Where . . . where am I?” said
he in surprise.

“At our house,” said the girl, as if it were the
most self-evident thing in the world, and Prokop was
reassured at once. “At your house,” he said with
relief, although he had no idea where that might
be. “And how long?”

Krakatit 49

“Three weeks. And all the time - ”, she wanted

to say something but stopped herself. “Honzik has
been sleeping with you,” she added hurriedly, and
for some reason or other blushed, holding the dog
as if it were a little child. “Do you know about
it?”

“I don’t,” replied Prokop. “Have I been asleep?”

“All the time,” she said quickly. “You were
able to have a full sleep.” Then she put the dog
down on the ground and drew nearer to the bed.
“Do you feel better. . . . Do you want any¬

thing?”

Prokop shook his head; he could think of noth¬
ing which he wanted.

“What’s the time?” he asked doubtfully.

“Ten. I don’t know what you are allowed to
eat; wait till father comes. . . . Father will be
so glad. . . . Don’t you want anything then?”

“A mirror,” said Prokop hesitatingly.

The girl burst out laughing and ran off.

There was a humming in Prokop’s head; he was
continually trying to recall what had happened and
it was continually escaping him. And now here was
this girl again, she said something and handed him
a mirror. Prokop tried to lift his hand; but it
couldn’t be done. The girl placed the handle
between his fingers but the mirror fell on to the
coverlet. Then the girl suddenly became pale, grew
anxious, and herself put the mirror in front of his
eyes. Prokop looked and saw a face covered with
hair and almost unrecognizable; he looked and was
unable to understand and his lips began to tremble.

“Lie down, lie down again at once,” she ordered

50

Krakatit

him in a tiny voice, almost crying, and quickly her
hands placed the pillow ready for him. Prokop let
himself fall on to his back and closed his eyes; just
for a moment he would doze, he thought to himself,
and then there would be a deep, lovely silence.

CHAPTER VIII

Someone pulled at his sleeve. Well, well,” said
this someone, “we mustn’t sleep any more, eh?”
Prokop opened his eyes and saw an old gentleman
with a pink-bald head and a white beard, gold spec¬
tacles up on his forehead, and an extraordinarily
bright look in his eyes. “No more sleep, my friend,”
he said. “You’ve done that long enough; you don’t
want to wake up in the next world.”

Prokop looked darkly at the old gentleman; he
wanted to dream on a little longer. “What do you
want?” he said finally in an irritated tone. “And
. . . with whom have I the honour? ...”

The old gentleman burst out laughing. “Dr.
Thomas, if you please. . . . You haven’t yet
deigned to recognize me, eh? But don’t bother
about that. What may your name be?”

“Prokop,” said the invalid ungraciously.

“Well, well,” said the doctor contentedly. “I
thought that you were the Sleeping Beauty. And
now, Mr. Engineer,” he said energetically, “we
must have a look at you. Don’t get cross.” He
whisked a thermometer from under Prokop’s arm-
pit and made a self-satisfied noise. “Ninety-nine.
You’re like a fly, man. We must feed you up,
what? Don’t move.”

Prokop felt on his chest a bald pate and a cold
ear, which moved from one shoulder to the other

5i

52

Krakatit

and from his stomach to his neck, accompanied by
an animated grunting.

“Well, thank God,” said the doctor finally, and
settled his spectacles on his nose. “We’ll fix up
that little wheezing in the chest, and the heart —
well, that’ll adjust itself, eh?” He bent over Pro-
kop, poked his fingers through his hair and raised
and lowered his eyelids with his finger. “No more
sleeping, see?” he said, and at the same time
looked at the pupils of his eyes. “We’ll get some
books and do some reading. We’ll eat a little, drink
a glass of wine and keep still. I shan’t bite you.”

“What’s the matter with me?” asked Prokop
timidly. The doctor drew himself up. “Well,
nothing now. Listen, where did you come from?”

“What?”

“We picked you up from the floor, and . . .
where did you come from, man?”

“I don’t know. From Prague, perhaps,” Prokop
recalled.

The doctor shook his head. “By train from
Prague ! With the membrane of your brain inflamed?
Were you mad? Do you know what it is?”

“What?”

“Meningitis. The sleeping form of it, and added
to that inflammation of the lungs. 104, eh? My
friend, one doesn’t go out on expeditions when one
has that sort of thing. And do you know that —
well, shew me your right hand, quick!”

“That . . . was only a scratch,” Prokop justified
himself.

“A nice sort of scratch. Blood poisoning, you
understand? When you are well I shall tell you

Krakatit

53

that you were ... an ass. Forgive me,” he said
with dignified warmth. “I very nearly said some¬
thing stronger. An educated man, and he doesn’t
know that he’s ill enough for three ! How were you
able anyway to keep on your feet?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Prokop, ashamed.

The doctor wished to go on talking but instead
grunted and waved his hand. “And how do you
feel?” he said sternly. “A little drunk, eh? No
memory, eh? And,” he tapped his forehead, “a
little weak, eh?”

Prokop remained silent.

“And now, Mr. Engineer,” said the doctor,
“don’t do anything about it. It will last for some
time. You understand me? You musn’t over¬
work your head. No thinking. It’ll come back
. . . in bits. Only a temporary disturbance, a

slight loss of memory, you see?”

The doctor shouted, sweated and grew agitated
as if he were struggling with a deaf-mute. Prokop
continued to watch him and then said quietly, “Shall
I remain always weak-minded?”

“But no, no, no,” said the doctor excitedly. “Com¬
pletely out of the question. Simply . . . for a
certain time ... a disturbance of the memory,
disassociation, exhaustion and certain symptoms,
you understand me? Irregularities in co-ordina¬
tion, see? Rest. Quiet. Do nothing. You must
thank God, my friend.”

“Survived,” he went on after a moment and
in his delight blew his nose loudly. “Listen, I’ve
never had such a case before. You arrived here
completely delirious, crashed on to the ground and

54

Krakatit

finis! What was I to do with you? It’s a long
way to the hospital and the girl howled so much,
and besides you came as a guest ... to see George,
eh? So we left you, you understand? Well, it
didn’t bother us. But I’ve never had such an enter¬
taining guest before. To sleep for twenty days!
When my colleague cut your hand open you didn’t
even stir, what do you think of that? A quiet
patient, upon my soul. But that’s nothing, the
great thing is that you are out of it.” The doctor
slapped his thigh. “But,, for God’s sake, no more
sleeping! My friend, you might have gone to sleep
for good and all, do you hear? For goodness’ sake
try and get yourself under control! Drop it, see?”

Prokop nodded his head weakly; he felt as if a
curtain had been drawn between him and actuality,
a curtain which shrouded, disturbed and muted
everything.

“Annie !” came an agitated voice. “The -wine !
Bring the wine!” Some quick steps, a conversa¬
tion which seemed to be going on under water, and
the cool flavour of wine caressed his throat. He
opened his eyes and saw the girl bending over him.
“You mustn’t sleep,” she said excitedly and her long
hair trembled as if to the beating of her heart.

“I won’t sleep any more,” said Prokop submis¬
sively.

“I should like you not to,” said the doctor gruffly
from the end of the bed. “A specialist is coming
from the town for a consultation. We’ll let him
see that we provincial medicos know something, too,
eh? You must behave yourself nicely.” With unex¬
pected dexterity he lifted Prokop up and thrust a

Krakatit 55

pillow behind his back. “There, now you can sit
up; and you won’t want to sleep until after dinner,
what? I must go to my patients. And you, Annie,
sit dowm now and gossip about something or other.
Generally your mouth goes like a wheelbarrow, eh?
And if he tries to sleep, call me. I shall know how
to deal with him.” In the doorway he turned round
and grunted. . . . “But . . . I’m glad about it,
see? So be careful!”

Prokop’s eyes wandered to the girl. She sat a
short distance away, her hands in her lap, and for
the life of her could not think what to talk about.
Then she raised her head and opened her lips
slightly. One heard that she was saying something,
but she was confused, gulped, and lowered her head
still more. Her long eyelashes trembled on her
cheeks.

“Father is so abrupt,” she said finally. “He’s so
used to shouting ... to scolding . . . the patients.”
Here, unfortunately, she ran out of material; on the
other hand — as if by a happy inspiration — she
became conscious of her apron between her fingers,
and began to arrange it in all sorts of interesting
folds, her eyelashes still trembling.

“What’s that noise?” asked Prokop after a long
pause.

She turned her head to the window; she had
beautiful light hair and her lips were attractively
moist. “It’s the cows,” she said with relief. “There’s
a yard there, you see? Father has a horse and cart
there. . . . His name is Fritz.”

“Whose?”

“The horse. You’ve never been to Tynice, have

56

Krakatit

you? There’s nothing here. Only avenues and
fields. . . . When mummy was still alive it was
more cheerful; George used to come here. . . .
But he hasn’t been here for over a year. He had a
quarrel with father and ... he doesn’t even write.
We aren’t even allowed to speak of him — do you
see him often ?”

Prokop shook his head decidedly.

The girl sighed and became reflective. “He's
. . . I don’t know. Funny, somehow. He did
nothing but go about with his hands in his pockets,
yawning. I know that’s nothing, but yet . . .

Father is so glad that you are with us,” she con¬
cluded quickly and somewhat disconnectedly.

Somewhere outside a young cock began to crow
hoarsely and comically. Immediately afterwards all
the chickens became very excited and one could hear
a wild “ko-ko-ko” and the triumphant yelping of a
dog. The girl sprang up. “Honzik is chasing the
chickens!” But she sat down again at once, having
resolved to leave them to their fate. It was pleas¬
antly silent.

“I don’t know what to talk about,” she said with
the most beautiful simplicity. “Would you like me
to read you the paper?”

Prokop smiled. She fetched the paper and
started confidently on the leading article. The
financial equilibrium, the Budget, uncovered credits
. . . her charming and uncertain voice quietly read
out these extraordinarily important items, and Pro¬
kop, who simply was not listening at all, was better
off than if he had been soundly asleep.

CHAPTER IX

And now Prokop was able to get out of bed for
an hour or so every day; so far he was only
capable of dragging his legs along somehow and
there was not much question of talking to him.
Whatever you said to him, he answered in a nig¬
gardly manner, excusing himself with a weak smile.

At mid-day — it was the beginning of April — he
sat down on a seat in the garden. Next to him the
wiry-haired terrier Honzik grinned for all he was
worth, obviously proud of his function as compan¬
ion, and through sheer delight he licked himself,
and blinked his eyes when Prokop’s scarred left
hand smoothed his warm, shaggy head. About this
time the doctor usually ran out of his consulting
room, his skull-cap slipping about his bald head,
squatted down on his haunches and planted vege¬
tables in the garden. With his short fat fingers he
worked the heaps of soil and carefully arranged the
beds for the young buds. Every now and then he
became excited and grunted; he had stuck his pipe
into the ground somewhere and was unable to find
it. At this point Prokop arose and with the astute¬
ness of a detective (for he spent his time in bed
reading detective stories) went straight to it.
Whereat Honzik shook himself noisily.

About then also Annie used to come and water
her father’s flower-beds. Her right hand carried

57

58

Krakatit

the can, her left swung in the air. A silver stream
of water hissed into the new soil, and if Honzik
happened to be near he caught it on his back or
on his stupid, good-natured head, which led him to
yelp desperately and seek protection with Prokop.

The whole of the morning patients kept on arriv¬
ing at the consulting-room. In the waiting-room
they coughed or were silent, each one thinking about
his own suffering. Sometimes a terrible cry was to
be heard when the doctor was pulling out the teeth
of some little boy. Then Annie in a panic took
shelter behind Prokop, pale, and quite beside her¬
self, her long lashes trembling in her anxiety, wait¬
ing until the frightful affair was over. Finally the
boy ran off wailing and Annie awkwardly apolo¬
gized for her tender-heartedness.

It was different when there drew up before the
doctor’s house a cart on the bottom of which straw
had been spread and two old men carefully carried
a seriously wounded man up the steps. He had a
crushed hand or a broken foot, or his head had been
split open by the kick of a horse. A cold sweat
poured down his terribly pale forehead and he was
quietly groaning with heroic self-control. A tragic
silence descended upon the whole house; something
serious was silently taking place in the consulting-
room. The fat, jovial servant went about on the
tips of her toes. Annie’s eyes were full of tears and
her fingers trembled. Then the doctor would burst
into the kitchen and shout for rum, wine, or water,
and with redoubled gruffness cover up his acute
sympathy. And the whole of the next day he would
be silent, fly into rages and slam the doors.

Krakatit 59

But there was also a holiday, the splendid annual
function of the provincial doctor, the inoculation of
the children. A hundred mothers nursed their
squalling, yelling, or sleeping children; they filled
up the consulting-room, the passage, the kitchen,
and the garden. Annie was wildly excited and
wanted to nurse, swaddle, and play with all these
toothless, downy children in an ecstasy of exuberant
motherhood. The doctor’s bald pate seemed to
shine more than ever. From early in the morning
he went about without his spectacles, so as not to
frighten these scamps, and his eyes were filled with
exhaustion and happiness.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night the bell
would ring excitedly. Then voices were heard in the
doorway, the doctor grumbled and Joseph had to
harness the horse. Somewhere in the village, behind
a lighted window, a new being was about to enter
the world. It was already morning when the doctor
returned, tired out, but contented, and strongly
smelling of carbolic. Annie liked him best of all
like that.

There were other people about the place; the fat,
garrulous Nanda in the kitchen, who sang and clat¬
tered the whole day and was always being doubled
up with laughter. Then the serious, whiskered
coachman, Joseph. A historian, he was always
reading history books and was delighted to expound
the Hussite wars or the historical secrets of the
country. Then the gardener from the castle, a
great one for the girls, who appeared every day
in the doctor’s garden, pruned his roses, clipped his
bushes and convulsed Nanda with laughter. Then

6o

Krakatit

the above-mentioned shaggy and excited Honzik,
who followed Prokop about, chased fleas and
chickens and, best of all, liked to sit on the doctor’s
coach-box. Fritz was an old horse, a little grey, a
friend of the rabbits, good-natured and reliable.
It was the height of pleasantness to smooth his
warm and sensitive nostrils. Then a dark-haired
boy who helped in the yard, in love with Annie, who,
together with Nanda, made fun of him mercilessly.
The foreman, an old fox, who played chess with
the doctor, who became excited, grew angry and
always lost the game. And other local characters,
among whom an extraordinarily tedious surveyor
with political interests who bored Prokop on the
strength of being also a professional man.

Prokop read a lot, or at least pretended to. His
scarred, heavy face did not reveal much, especially
nothing of his desperate secret struggle with his
disturbed memory. The last few years of study
had particularly suffered; the most simple formulae
and processes were lost and Prokop jotted down in
the margin of his book fragments of formulae which
came into his head when he was least thinking of
them. Then he would leave the book and go to
play billiards with Annie, since this was a game
during which one had no need to talk. Annie was
impressed by his leathery and impenetrable serious¬
ness. He played with concentration, aimed with
his eyebrows severely drawn together, and when
the ball, as if on purpose, went in the wrong direc¬
tion he opened his mouth in astonishment and indi¬
cated the proper destination with a movement of his
tongue.

Krakatit

6 1

Evenings by the lamp. Most talkative of the
three was the doctor, an enthusiastic scientist with¬
out any knowledge of the subject. He was especially
fascinated with the deeper mysteries of the universe:
radio activity, the boundlessness of space, electric¬
ity, relativity, the origins of matter and of pre¬
historic man. He was an out-and-out materialist,
and just for this reason experienced a sweet and
secret fear when confronted with unsolved prob¬
lems. Occasionally Prokop could not contain him¬
self and corrected the German naivete of his views.
The old gentleman listened piously, and began to
have an inordinate admiration for Prokop, espe¬
cially when he could no longer understand what he
was talking about — potentials of resonance or the
quantum theory. Annie sat quietly, resting her chin
on her hands. She did not even blink and, large¬
eyed, looked at Prokop and her father in turn.

And the nights, the nights were wide and quiet,
as everywhere in the country. Now and then one
could hear the rattle of chains from the cowshed or,
nearer or farther away, the barking of a dog. A
falling star flashed across the sky, the spring rain
hissed in the garden or water dropped with a silver
note into the deserted well. A clear, deep cold
came in through the open window and one fell into
a blessed sleep, untroubled by dreams.

CHAPTER X

Now things were better. Life returned to Pro-
kop day by day. He felt a dulness in his head
and he was always a little as if in a dream. There
was nothing to do but to shew his appreciation of
the doctor’s services and go on his own way. He
announced this decision one day after supper but
everybody received it in stubborn silence. Then
the old man took Prokop by the arm and led him
into the consulting-room. After a certain amount
of beating about the bush he said gruffly that Prokop
must not leave, that it was better for him to rest,
that the battle was not yet won — in short, that he was
to remain. Prokop vaguely defended himself; the
fact was that he did not yet feel himself in the saddle
and that he was a little demoralized by comfort.
All talk of going away was postponed indefinitely.

Every afternoon the doctor shut himself up in
his consulting-room. “Come in and see me, eh?” he
said to Prokop casually. And Prokop found him
surrounded by all sorts of bottles, crucibles, and
powders. “There’s no apothecary in the town, you
know,” explained the doctor, “I have to prepare
the medicines myself.” And with his fat, trembling
fingers he laid some powder on the pan of the
small balance. His hand was uncertain, the scales
twisted and jumped about; the old gentleman became
agitated, wheezed, and small drops of sweat

62

Krakatit

63

appeared on his nose. “I can’t see as well as I used
to,” he said, excusing his old fingers. Prokop
watched for a moment and then, saying nothing,
took the scales from him. Two little taps and the
powder was weighed to a milligram. And a second
and a third powder in the same way. The delicate
balance simply danced in Prokop’s fingers. “Just
look at that,” said the doctor with admiration and
watched Prokop’s crushed, knotty hands with their
shapeless knuckles, broken nails, and short stumps
in the place of one or two missing fingers. “Your
fingers are wonderfully nimble, man!” In the
course of a few moments Prokop had spread some
ointment, measured off some drops of liquid, and
heated a test-tube. The doctor glowed with pleas¬
ure, and stuck on the labels. In half-an-hour all the
medicines were ready, and, in addition, there was
a pile of powders in reserve. In a few days Prokop
could read the doctor’s prescriptions and make them
up. Bon!

One evening the doctor was poking about in the
garden in the loose soil. Suddenly there was a
frightful report in the house, and a moment after
the noise of falling glass. The doctor dashed
indoors and in the passage ran into the terrified
Annie. “What has happened?” he cried.

“I don't know,” replied the girl. “In the con¬
sulting-room.” . . . The doctor ran there and
found Prokop on all fours picking potsherds and
pieces of paper off the floor.

“What have you been doing?” cried the doctor.

“Nothing,” said Prokop, and got up guiltily. “A
test-tube burst.”

64 Krakatit

“And what, in God’s name, does this mean?”
thundered the doctor, stopping suddenly; a stream
of blood was pouring from Prokop’s left hand.
“How did you tear your finger?”

“Only a scratch,” Prokop protested and hid his
left hand behind his back.

“Show me,” cried the doctor and dragged him to
the window. Half of one finger was hanging by
the skin. The doctor rushed to the cupboard for
his scissors and in the open door saw Annie, deathly
pale. “What do you want?” he rapped out. “Be
off, quick!” Annie did not move; she pressed her
hands to her breast and looked as if she might swoon
away any moment.

The doctor turned to Prokop. To begin with he
did something with some wadding and then snapped
the scissors. “Light,” he shouted to Annie. Annie
dashed to the switch and turned it on. “And don’t
stay here,” roared the old gentleman, dipping a
needle into some benzine. “What can you do here?
Some thread, quick!” Annie sprang to the cup¬
board and gave him a box full of thread. “And now
away with you !”

Annie looked at Prokop’s back and did something
else instead; she stepped closer, took the wounded
hand and held it in both of hers. The doctor at
the moment was washing his hands; he turned to
Annie and was going to burst out with something
but instead grunted: “All right, hold it firmly! And
nearer the light!” Annie held the hand, her eyes
blinking. When there was nothing to be heard but
the doctor’s heavy breathing she ventured to raise
them. Below, where her father was working, all

Krakatit

65

was bloody and revolting. She hastily glanced at
Prokop; his face was turned away and twitched with
pain. Annie shivered and swallowed her tears.

Meanwhile Prokop’s hand grew larger and
larger; quantities of wadding, silk, and a good kilo¬
metre of bandages; finally an enormous white lump.
Annie continued to hold the hand. Her knees
shook; it seemed to her that this terrible operation
would never be over. Suddenly her head began to
swim and the next thing that she heard was her
father saying: “Drink this quickly!” She opened
her eyes and found that she was sitting in the arm¬
chair in the consulting-room and that her father
was handing her a glassful of some stuff or other
while Prokop was standing behind him, smiling
and holding his bound hand, which looked like a
huge doll, across his chest. “Drink it up,” repeated
the doctor through his teeth. She swallowed the
contents of the glass and nearly choked with cough¬
ing; it was murderously strong cognac.

“And now you,” said the doctor, and gave the
glass to Prokop. Prokop was a trifle pale and vali¬
antly awaited the scolding which was due to him.
Finally the doctor himself drank, cleared his throat
and said, “What exactly have you been doing?”

“An experiment,” said Prokop with the twisted
smile of a guilty person.

“What? What experiment? Experiment with
what?”

“Only . . . something with potassium chlorate.”

“What were you making?”

“An explosive,” whispered Prokop with the
humiliation of a sinner. _

66

Krakatit

The doctor’s eyes moved to his bandaged hand.
“And you’ve paid for it, my friend! It might
have torn your hand off, eh? Does it hurt? But
it suits you,” he added bloodthirstily.

“But, father,” said Annie, “leave him alone
now !”

“What’s that to do with you?” grunted the doctor
and caressed her with a hand which smelt of car¬
bolic and iodoform.

After that the doctor kept the key of the con¬
sulting-room in his pocket. Prokop ordered a parcel
of scientific books, went about with his arm in a
sling and spent the whole day in study. The cher¬
ries had already begun to blossom, the sticky young
leaves were glistening in the sun, the golden lilies
were putting out heavy buds. Annie went about
the garden with a buxom girl friend, their arms
round one another’s waists, laughing all the time.
They put their red faces together, whispered some¬
thing, burst out laughing and began to kiss one
another.

At last Prokop felt bodily well again. Like an
animal, he basked in the sun, blinking his eyes.
Then he would sigh and sit down to work, but
would at once feel an inclination to move about
and wander far into the country, passionately giv¬
ing himself up to the joy of breathing. Sometimes
he would meet Annie about the house or in the
garden and try to say something. Annie would look
at him out of the corner of her eye and not know
what to do. Prokop would be equally at a loss and
cover his embarrassment by speaking in a gruff

Krakatit 67

voice. He felt better, or at least more sure of
himself, when he was alone.

In the course of his studies he noticed that there
was a great deal that he had missed. There were
all sorts of new developments, and he was obliged
to orientate himself again. Chiefly he was afraid
of not being able to remember his own work, for
it was in connection with this that his memory suf¬
fered most. He worked like a mule, or else gave
himself up to dreaming. He dreamt of new labo¬
ratory methods, and at the same time he was fas¬
cinated by bold and delicate theoretical calculations.
When his dull brain proved incapable of splitting
the thin hair of a problem he would grow angry
with himself. He was conscious of the fact that
his laboratory “destructive chemistry” opened up
the most marvellous vistas in the theory of the con¬
stitution of matter. He came up against unexpected
correlations, immediately afterwards to be oppressed
by the laboriousness of his methods. Disgusted,
he would throw everything down and plunge into
reading some stupid novel; but even here he was
haunted by the atmosphere of the laboratory.
Instead of words he read only chemical symbols,
mad formulae full of elements hitherto undiscov¬
ered, which disturbed him even in his sleep.

CHAPTER XI

That night he dreamed; it seemed to him that
he was studying a highly technical article in
the Chemist. He came across the symbol An Ni
and did not know what to make of it. He reflected,
bit his knuckles and suddenly realized that it stood
for Annie. And then he saw her in the room, smil¬
ing, with her arms clasped at the back of her head.
He went across to her, took her in his arms and
began to kiss her on the lips. Annie fought wildly
with her elbows and knees while he held her brutally
and with one hand tore her clothes into long strips.
He already had his hands on her young flesh. Annie
struggled desperately, her hair fell over her face,
and now, now she suddenly became weak and
drooped. . . . Prokop threw himself upon her;
but instead found in his arms nothing but long rags
and bandages. He tore them and ripped them up,
trying to disengage himself from them, and then
he woke up.

He was exceedingly ashamed of his dream,
dressed quietly, sat down at the window and waited
for the dawn. There is no frontier between night
and day. The sky becomes the slightest bit pale;
there is still neither light nor sound; but the signal
has been given to nature to awake ! Now, while
it is still night, morning has begun. The cocks crow,

68

Krakatit

6 9

the animals move in their sheds. The sky turns to
pearl, grows brighter and then rose-coloured; the
earliest red streak appears in the east; the birds
begin to chirp and the first man to go to work sets
out with a swinging step.

The man of science also sat down to work. For
a long time he bit his penholder, and then decided
to set down the first words. For this was to be a
big affair, the result of twelve years of experiment
and reflection, work really paid for with his own
blood. Of course this would only be a rough draft,
or rather a sort of physical philosophy or poem, or
a confession of faith. It would be a picture of the
world composed of figures and equations. But these
figures of an astronomical order measured some¬
thing other than the sublimity of the firmament; he
was calculating the instability and destructibility of
matter.

Everything that exists is a dull, latent explosive;
but whatever the index of its inertia may be, it repre¬
sents only an insignificant fraction of its explosive
power. Everything which takes place, the move¬
ment of the stars, tellurian work, entropy, active and
insatiable life itself, all this is only on the surface,
while invisibly and incalculably there is gnawing
beneath it that explosive force which is called matter.
Consider now that the cord which binds it is nothing
more than a cobweb on the limbs of a sleeping titan.
Give him strength to disturb it and he will tear the
surface off the globe, and hurl Jupiter on to Saturn.
And you, humanity, you are only a swallow which
laboriously builds a nest under the roof of the cosmic
powder magazine; you twitter in the eastern sun

7° Krakatit

while in the casks beneath you there vibrates silently
the terrible potential of explosion . . .

Naturally Prokop did not write these things
down; to him they were only a secret melody, which
lent wings to the heavy phrases of the technical expo¬
sition. For him there was more phantasy in a bare
formula and more blinding beauty in an index of
explosiveness. And so he wrote his poem in symbols,
figures, and the frightful jargon of scientific
terminology.

He did not come down to breakfast. Annie
came in and silently brought it to him. He thanked
her, and then remembered his dream and was some¬
how unable to look at her. He stared obstinately
into a corner. God knows how it was possible,
but he nevertheless saw every golden hair on her
bare arms. He had never noticed them so much
before.

Annie was standing quite near him. “Are you
going to write?” she asked in some uncertainty.

“I am,” he muttered and wondered what she
would say if he were suddenly to put his head on
her breast.

“The whole day?”

“The whole day.”

She was moving off, greatly impressed. She had
firm, small and broad breasts, a fact of which she
was probably unaware. But what did it matter!

“Is there anything you want?”

“No, nothing.”

It was silly. He would have liked to bite her
arm or something. Women never seem to realize
how much they disturb men.

Krakatit 7r

Annie shrugged her shoulders, a little offended.
“All right then.” And she was gone.

He got up and began to walk up and down the
room. He was angry with himself and with her;
and, the chief thing, he did not want to write any
more. He collected his thoughts; but it simply
would not go. He grew annoyed, and, in a bad
frame of mind, strode from wall to wall with the
regularity of a pendulum. One, two hours. Down¬
stairs there was a rattling of plates; they were pre¬
paring lunch. He sat down at his papers again and
put his head in his hands. A moment afterwards
the servant came in and brought him his meal.

He pushed the food away almost untouched and
cast himself irritably on the bed. It was clear that
they had already had enough of him, that he also
was tired of it all and that it was time to depart.
Yes, the very next day. He made a few plans for
his future work, without realizing why the process
was so painful, and why he felt ashamed, and ended
by falling into a deep sleep. He woke up late in
the afternoon, with his soul clogged and his body
demoralized by abominable slothfulness. He wan¬
dered about the room, yawned and, unable to think,
became infinitely bored. It grew dark, and he did
not even light the lamp.

The servant brought him his supper. He left
it to grow cold and listened to what they were doing
downstairs. He heard the chink of forks, the doc¬
tor grumbling and, directly after supper, slam the
door of his room. All became quiet.

Convinced that he would meet nobody, Prokop
pulled himself together and went into the garden.

72

Krakatit

It was a moist and clear night. The lilac was
already in blossom; Boetius stretched his starry
arms across the sky; it was quiet but for the distant
barking of a dog. Something white was leaning
against the stone wall in the garden. Of course it
was Annie.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he remarked, in order
to say something, and leant against the wTall next
to her. Annie said nothing but only turned her face
away and her shoulders trembled in an anxious and
unaccustomed manner.

“That’s Boetius,” said Prokop hoarsely. “And
above it . . . the Dragon and Cepheus, and over
there is Cassiopeia, those four stars together. But
you must look higher.”

Annie turned away from him and rubbed some¬
thing away near her eyes. “There, wdiere it’s
clear,” said Prokop hesitatingly, “is Pollux, one of
the twins. You mustn’t be angry with me. Maybe
I was a bit rough with you, eh? I’m . . . some¬
thing was worrying me, you see? You mustn’t take
it to heart.”

Annie sobbed loudly. “And what’s . . . that
one over there?” she said in a quiet, timid voice.
“The brightest one of all, low down.”

“That’s Sirius, in the Great Dog. They also
call it Alhaboa. And there right away to the left
are Arcturus and Spica. There’s a falling star.
Did you see it?”

“Yes. Why were you so angry with me this
morning?”

“I wasn’t. I’m perhaps . . . sometimes . . .
a bit crude; but I’ve had a hard life you know,

Krakatit 73

too hard; always alone and . . . like an outpost. I
can’t even talk properly. To-day I wanted . . .
to write something beautiful ... a sort of scientific
prayer, so that everybody should understand it. I
thought that . . . that I’d read it to you; and
then, everything dried up in me — one becomes
ashamed of getting so excited. Or at least one
should be able to say something. I’m stale, so to
speak. You understand? I’m already growing
grey.”

“But it suits you,” said Annie softly.

This aspect of the question took Prokop by
surprise.

“Well, you know,” he said, in confusion. “It
isn’t pleasant. It is already time ... to bring
one’s harvest home. What wouldn’t another do
with all that I know! And I’ve got nothing, noth¬
ing, nothing from it all. I’m only . . . ‘beruhmf
and ‘celebre’ and ‘highly esteemed’ ; and nobody
here . . . knows anything about me. I think, you
know, that my theories are pretty bad; I haven’t
got a head for theory. But what I have discov¬
ered isn’t without value. My exothermic explosives
. . . diagrams . . . and explosions of atoms . . .
have a certain worth. And I have only published
about a tenth of what I know. What wouldn’t
another have done with it ! I . . . don’t even

understand their theories; they are so subtle, so
rich . . . they only confuse me. My spirit is that
of the kitchen. Put some stuff under my nose and
I can tell by smelling it what to do with it. But to
realize what follows from that . . . theoretically
and philosophically, that ,1 can’t do. I only know

74 Krakatit

. . . facts; I create them; they’re my facts, do you
understand? But still . . . I . . . feel some sort
of truth in them; a great general truth . . . that
changes everything . . . until it explodes. And this
great truth is hidden in facts and not in words. And
so one must go for facts, even if both one’s arms are
torn off. ...”

Annie, leaning against the wall, was scarcely
breathing. Their gloomy guest had never said so
much before — and, principally, had never spoken
about himself. He had to struggle hard with words.
There was wrestling within him an enormous pride,
but also pain and shyness; and even when he spoke
in terms of integral numbers Annie understood that
something interior and humanly lacerated was tak¬
ing place before her.

“But the worst of it is,” mumbled Prokop, “that
sometimes . . . and especially now, it all seems to
me to be stupid . . . and worthless. Even this
final truth ... in fact everything. It’s never hap¬
pened to me before. Why? . . . Perhaps it would
be wiser to give in ... to everything” — (he indi¬
cated with his hands something surrounding them).
“Simply to Life. A man mustn’t be happy; it softens
him, you understand? Then everything else appears
to be useless, small . . . and senseless. The best
things . . . the best things are done by a man
through desperation. Through anger, loneliness,
being stunned. So nothing’s enough for him. I
used to work like a maniac. But now, now I’ve
begun to be happy. I’ve now learnt that perhaps
. . . there’s something better than thinking. Here
one only lives . . . and sees that it is something

Krakatit

75

tremendous just to live. Like your Honzik, like a
cat, like a chicken. Every animal understands that
. . . and it seems to me so terrific, as if I have
never lived before. And so ... so I’ve again
lost twelve years.”

His deformed right hand, sewn up God knows
how many times, trembled on the wall. Annie was
silent; she was resting her arms on the brick wall
and looking up at the stars. Then something
rustled in the shrubbery and Annie became fright¬
ened; she threw herself on Prokop’s shoulder.
“What’s that?”

“Nothing; probably a marten; they come right
into the yard after the chickens.”

Annie was reassured. Her young breasts, full
and soft, were resting against Prokop’s right hand.
She, perhaps, did not realize the fact herself, but
Prokop was more aware of it than of anything else
in the world. He was terribly afraid of moving
his hand, for, in the first place, Annie would think
that he had put it there on purpose, and in the
second place, she would draw away from him. Curi¬
ously enough, as a result of this circumstance, he
was unable to talk any further about himself and
his wasted life. “I’ve - ” he stammered in con¬

fusion, “I’ve never been so glad ... so happy,
as I am now. Your father is the finest man in the
world, and you . . . you are so young ...”

“I thought that you found me . . . too stupid,”
said Annie quietly and happily. “You never spoke
like that with me before.”

“True, never before,” said Prokop gruffly. Both
became silent. He felt against his hand the light

76

Krakatit

rising and falling of her breasts. He kept perfectly
still and held his breath, and she, it seemed, was
also holding her breath and trembling quietly, her
eyes fixed on some spot in the distance. Oh, to
caress and embrace her! Oh, the ecstasy of touch¬
ing her for the first time ! Involuntary and burn¬
ing delight! Had you ever any adventure more
intoxicating than this unconscious and self-sacrific¬
ing devotion? Timid and delicate body, like a
drooping bud! If you could realize the agonizing
tenderness of this rough youth’s hand which, with¬
out moving, is caressing and holding you!

Annie suddenly drew herself up with an unnatural
movement. Ah ! girl, you haven’t realized any¬
thing!” “Good-night,” said Annie quietly, her face
pale and indistinct, and rather stiffly she gave him
her hand. He stretched out his own faintly, as if
it were broken, and stared fixedly in another direc¬
tion. Didn’t she really wish to linger a little? No,
she was already going. She hesitated; no, she stood
still and pulled at the edges of some leaves. What
more was there to be said? Good-night, Annie,
and sleep better than I shall.

For there was certainly no question of going to
bed now. Prokop threw himself down on the seat
and put his head in his hands. Nothing, nothing
had succeeded. Annie was pure and unconscious
as a young doe, but enough of that; he was not a
raw lad. Then a light showed in a window on the
first floor. It was Annie in her bedroom.

Prokop’s heart beat wildly. He knew that it
was shameful to watch her secretly; certainly as a
guest he should not do such a thing. Finally he

Krakatit

77

attempted to cough so that she should hear him; but
somehow he found this to be false, and sat motion¬
less like a statue, unable to take his eyes from the
golden window. Annie moved to and fro, bent
down, took a long time to do something or other.
Aha ! she was making her bed. Then she stood at
the window, looking into the darkness, her hands
behind her head exactly as he saw her in his dream.
Now, now he would so gladly have liked to call to
her; why did he not do so? But it was too late.
Annie turned away and began to move about again.
She was still there; no, she was sitting with her back
to the window and slowly and reflectively taking her
shoes off. Now, at least, he might depart, but
instead he climbed up on to the seat, so as to see
better. Annie turned round, already half undressed;
she raised her bare arms and began to comb her
hair. She moved her head and it all fell over her
shoulder, gave it a shake and all this wealth of hair
tumbled over her face and she set to work with the
comb and brush until her head was as smooth as
an onion.

Annie, a white virgin, stood motionless, with bent
head, and braided her hair into two plaits. Her
eyes were lowered and she whispered something to
herself, smiled, and became ashamed. The strap
of her chemise threatened to slip down. Plunged
in reflection, she rubbed her white shoulder with a
sort of delight, trembling with the cold.

The shoulder strap slipped still more danger¬
ously, and the light was extinguished.

Never had he seen anything more white, more
beautiful than that lighted window.

CHAPTER XII

Early in the morning he found her scouring
Honzik in a trough full of soapsuds. The
little dog struggled desperately; but Annie, inexor¬
able, laughing and splashed with water, soaped
him energetically. “Look out!” she cried when
Prokop was still some way off, “he will splash you!”

She looked like a young, enthusiastic mother.
Oh God, how simple and beautiful everything is in
this sunny world !

Even Prokup was unable to bear continued idle¬
ness. He remembered that the bell was out of
order, and went off to repair the battery. He was
just scraping some zinc when she softly approached
him. Her sleeves were turned up above the
elbows and her hands were wet from washing. “It
won’t explode?” she asked with anxiety. Prokop
was obliged to smile. She also smiled and splashed
him with soapsuds; then with a serious face she
came over to him and rubbed the splashes of soap
off his hair. The night before she would not have
ventured to do such a thing.

At mid-day she and Nanda carried a basket of
washing into the garden to be bleached. Prokop
shut his book with relief; he would not allow her
to carry the heavy watering-can. He possessed him¬
self of it and began to sprinkle the linen. The thick
stream bubbled joyously on to the folds of table¬
cloths, white coverlets and the widely spread arms

78

Krakatit

79

of shirts; the water hissed, guttered and formed
little fiords and lakes. Prokop began to water white
petticoats and other interesting things; but Annie
took the can out of his hands and did it herself.
Meanwhile Prokop sat down on the grass, inhaling
with delight the damp smell and watching Annie’s
beautiful and active hands.

Sol Bs Oeot xoaa oolev, he remembered piously,
p/sx£t staopooma.

Annie sat down on the grass next to him. “What
were you thinking about?” She blinked her eyes
happily, dazzled by the brightness of the sun,
blushed, and for some reason was inordinately
happy. Plucking a full handful of fresh grass, she
tried exuberantly to throw it on to his hair; but for
some reason or other she suddenly felt a sort of
shyness before this shaggy hero. “Have you ever
been in love?” she asked inconsequently and quickly
looked in another direction.

Prokop laughed. “I have. And you surely have
already loved somebody?”

“I was silly once,” said Annie, and against her
will grew red.

“A student?”

Annie only nodded and sucked a blade of grass.
“It was nothing,” she said quickly. “And you?”

“I once met a girl who had the same sort of
eyelashes that you have. Perhaps she was rather
like you. She sold gloves or something of the
sort.”

“And what else?”

“Nothing. When I went there again to buy
some gloves, she was gone.”

80 Krakatit

“And . . . were you fond of her?”

“I was.”

“And . . . did you ever . . . ?”

“Never. Now my gloves are made by some one
else.”

Annie concentrated her attention on the ground.
“Why do you always hide your hands from me?”

“Because . . . because they are so knocked
about,” said Prokop, and the poor fellow grew red.

“They are just as nice that way,” whispered Annie
with her eyes cast down.

“Din — ner, din — ner,” cried Nanda from the
house. “Goodness, already,” said Annie, and re¬
luctantly got up.

After dinner the old doctor rested for a bit.
“You know,” he excused himself, “I’ve been slav¬
ing this morning like a dog.” And a moment after¬
wards he was snoring away. They signalled to one
another with their eyes and left the room on tip¬
toe; and even in the garden they spoke quietly,
as if they respected his repose.

Prokop was obliged to narrate the story of his
own life. Where he was born, where he grew up,
that he had been as far as America, the poverty
which he had endured, what he had done and where.
It did him good to go over his life in this way; he
was astonished to find that it was more wonderful
and complicated than he had imagined; but there
was much which he was silent about, especially cer¬
tain emotional experiences since, in the first place,
they were of no significance, and, in the second,
every man has certain things of which he cannot

Krakatit

8 1

speak. Annie was as quiet as a mouse. It seemed
to her somehow curious and amusing that Prokop
had once been a child and a youth and something
different from the gruff and extraordinary person
by the side of whom she felt herself to be so small.
Now she ceased to be afraid of touching him, tying
his cravat and combing his hair. And for the first
time she became conscious of his thick nose, his
heavy and severe lips and his sombre, bloodshot
eyes. It all seemed to her extraordinarily
wonderful.

And now it was her turn to speak of her life.
She had already taken breath and opened her lips;
but suddenly she burst out laughing. What could
she say about such an insignificant life, especially
to a person who had once been buried by a shell for
twelve hours in the War, had been in America, and
who knows what else? “I have nothing to say,”
she said directly. But is not such a “nothing” as
valuable as the experience of a man?

It was late in the afternoon when they set off
together on a sun-warmed path across the fields.
Prokop was silent, and Annie caressed the prickly
heads of the wheat with her hand as she went along.
She brushed him with her shoulder, lingered and
stopped — and then set off again two steps in front
of him, pulling at the wheat with some curious com¬
pulsion to destruction. This sun-lit solitude finally
weighed her down and made her nervous. We
shouldn’t have come here, they both thought se¬
cretly, and in this oppressive disharmony they
dragged out a shallow, fragmentary conversation.
Finally here was their objective, a little chapel

82 Krakatit

between two ancient lime trees. It was late in the
afternoon, the time when the herdsmen begin to
sing. In front of the chapel was a seat placed there
for pilgrims; they sat down and became more silent
than ever. A woman was kneeling on the steps of
the chapel and praying, certainly for her family.
Scarcely had she left when Annie knelt in her
place. There was in this action something obviously
and eternally feminine. Prokop felt himself to be
very young by the side of the mature simplicity of
this time-worn and sacred gesture. Finally Annie
stood up, grew more serious, as it were ripened,
having decided something, reconciled herself to it;
it was as if she had become aware of something,
as if she were heavy-laden, preoccupied, changed in
some way. She carried something new within her;
when they wandered back home in the twilight she
answered only in monosyllables in a sweet and
hushed voice.

During supper neither she nor Prokop spoke.
Perhaps they were wondering when the old gentle¬
man would go away to read his newspaper. The
old gentleman muttered and scrutinized them over
his spectacles; something had put him out, was not
as it should be. The evening dragged on and on
until the bell rang and a person from Sedmidoli or
Lhota called for the doctor to attend a confinement.
The old man was far from delighted, and finally
forgot even to grumble. When already in the door¬
way with his bag in his hand he hesitated and said
tersely . . . “Go to bed, Annie.”

Without a word she got up and slipped away from
the table. For a long, long time she was occupied

Krakatit 83

with something in the kitchen. Prokop smoked
nervously, and was already about to go away. Then
she returned, pale, as if frozen, and said with heroic
self-control: “Would you care for a game of bil¬
liards?” — which meant that there was no question
of going in the garden that evening.

It was a wretched game. Annie was terribly for¬
mal, played blindly, forgot her turn and scarcely
spoke at all. And when she had missed a particu¬
larly easy shot Prokop showed her how she should
have played . . . the left hand so, the cue held
nearer the end. In showing her he touched her
hand with his. Annie gave him a sharp, dark look,
threw the cue on the ground, and ran out of the
room.

What should he do? Prokop walked up and
down the room, smoked and became annoyed. A
curious girl; and why should she confuse him? Her
stupid mouth, her narrow eyes, her smooth and
burning face — well, a man isn’t made of wood.
Why should it be wrong to stroke her face, to kiss
her red cheeks, stroke her hair, her delicate hair
at the nape of her young neck — a man isn’t made of
wood. To caress her, take her in one’s arms, and
kiss her reverently? How stupid, thought Prokop,
annoyed; I’m an ass; I ought to be ashamed of
myself — such a child, who never thinks of such
things — Good; Prokop considered that he had dealt
with this temptation, but it was not to be managed
so quickly.

He stood still in front of the glass, sombre, biting
his lips and bitterly considering his age.

Go to bed, old bachelor; you’ve saved yourself

84 Krakatit

from being insulted; this young, stupid girl would
laugh at you. More or less decided in his mind,
Prokop stumped upstairs to his bedroom; the only
thing which oppressed him was that he was obliged
to go past Annie’s door. He went on tiptoe; per¬
haps the child was already sleeping. And sud¬
denly he stopped with his heart beating wildly.
The door of Annie’s room . . . was not closed.
Inside there was darkness. What could this mean?
And then inside he heard something like weeping.

He had an impulse to rush into the room; but
something stronger sent him hurriedly downstairs
and out into the garden. He stood in the thick
shrubbery, pressing his hand to his heart, which
was beating hard. Thank Christ that he did not go
in to her ! Annie was certainly kneeling, half
dressed and crying into her pillow; why? And if
he had gone in what would have happened? Noth¬
ing; he would have smoothed, smoothed her bright
hair, already loose on her shoulders — O God! why
did she leave the door open?

A light shadow glided out of the house towards
the garden. It was Annie. She was dressed and
her hair was not loose, but she pressed her hand
to her temples to cool her burning forehead; and
she was still sobbing from her recent crying. She
went past Prokop as if she had not seen him, but
made no resistance when he took her by the arm and
led her to the seat. Prokop mustered a few words
of consolation (but, in God’s name, on account of
what?) Then suddenly he felt her head on his
shoulder; once more she cried convulsively and in
the midst of her sobs assured him that “it was

Krakatit

85

nothing.” Prokop put his arms round her as if he
were her uncle and not knowing what to say mut¬
tered something to the effect that she was a good
girl and wonderfully lovable; upon which the sobs
changed to long sighs (he felt somewhere on his
arm a hot dampness) and it was all right. O Night,
Queen of heaven, you lighten the breast of the
afflicted and loosen the heavy tongue ; you quicken,
bless, endow with wings the quietly beating heart,
oppressed and silent; the thirsty can drink of your
endlessness. At some tiny point of space, some¬
where between the pole and the Southern Cross,
the Centaur and Lyra, something tender is taking
place; some man for no reason at all feels himself
to be the sole protector of this girl, with her face
moist with tears, strokes her head and says — what
exactly? — that he is so happy, so happy, that he
loves so dearly, so terribly dearly this creature which
is sobbing on his shoulder, that he will never leave
her, and so on, in that vein.

“I don’t know what happened to me,” said Annie
through her tears. “I — I so wanted to talk to you
before ...”

“And why did you cry?” asked Prokop.

“Because you took such a long time to come to
me,” ran the surprising answer.

Something in Prokop weakened, the will or some¬
thing of the sort. “Do . . . you . . . love me?”
he said with difficulty, and his voice was as con¬
fused as that of a boy of thirteen. The head buried
itself in his shoulder quickly and nodded.

“Perhaps ... I should have come to you,” whis¬
pered Prokop, crestfallen. The head shook de-

86

Krakatit

cidedly. “Now ... I feel better,” sighed Annie
after a moment. “Here it is so beautiful!” Most
people would find it difficult to understand what
there was attractive about a man’s shabby coat,
smelling of tobacco; but Annie thrust her head into
it and for nothing in the world would she have
turned to look up at the stars, so pleasant was it
in this dark and smoky resting place. Her hair
tickled Prokop under the nose and had about it
an exquisite fragrance. Prokop smoothed her
drooping shoulders, smoothed her young neck and
breast, and encountered nothing but palpitating de¬
votion; then, forgetting everything, he roughly and
brutally seized her head and began to kiss her on
her moist lips. And, lo ! Annie defended herself
wildly, became quite paralyzed with fear and gasped
out “No, no, no!” She again buried her face in
his coat and he could almost hear the frightened
beating of her heart. Prokop suddenly realized
that she had probably been kissed for the first time.

Then he became ashamed of himself, grew ex¬
traordinarily serious and did not venture to do more
than smooth her hair. This one may do . . . God,
she’s still just a child and quite naive! And now
not a word that might besmirch this innocent young
creature; not a thought which would coarsely in¬
terpret the confused emotions of this evening! In
truth he did not know what he was saying; it had
a crude melody and no syntax; it touched in turn
upon the stars, love, God, the beauty of the night
and some opera or other the name of which Prokop
was quite incapable of recalling, but the notes of
which were sounding intoxicatingly in his head.

Krakatit 87

A few moments after it seemed to him that Annie
had fallen asleep; he remained silent until he felt
again on his shoulder the exquisite breath of sleepy
attention.

At last Annie drew herself up, folded her hands
in her lap and became reflective. “I can’t believe
it, I can’t believe it,” she said. “It seems to me
impossible that it should have happened.”

Across the sky a star fell in a streak of light.
There was a scent of honeysuckle, the peony slept
closed up in a ball, a heavenly breath rustled through
the tops of the trees. “I should like to stay here,”
whispered Annie.

Once more Prokop had a silent struggle with
temptation. “Good-night, Annie,” he said. “If
. . . your father were to return ...”

Annie obediently stood up. “Good-night,” she
said and hesitated; and they stood opposite one
another, not knowing what to do or how to come
to an end. Annie was pale, her eyelids fluttered in
agitation and she looked as if she were preparing
herself for some heroic deed; but when Prokop,
this time completely losing his head, took hold of
her elbow she recoiled apprehensively and left him.
He followed her along the garden path about a
yard behind; when they reached the place where
the shadow was darkest they evidently lost the
way or something of the sort since Prokop struck
somebody’s forehead with his teeth, kissed a cold
nose and finally found with his mouth a pair of
desperately closed lips. Forcing them apart, he vio¬
lently kissed their moaning, burning moistness.
Then Annie tore herself out of his arms, ran to the

88

Krakatit

garden gate and began to sob. Prokop dashed after
her to comfort her, covered her ears, hair and neck
with kisses, but it was of no avail; she asked to be
released, and turned to him a moist face, eyes full
of tears, and a sobbing mouth. He kissed and
caressed her and suddenly saw that she had ceased
to resist him, that she had given herself up to what¬
ever might come and perhaps was crying because
of her own abruptness. Prokop became filled with
masculine gallantry and, infinitely moved, kissed
nothing but her desperate fingers, trembling and
damp with tears. Now, now it was better. Now
she again rested her face on his rough paw and he
kissed her soft, hot mouth and she was reluctant
for him to cease.

And now he held his breath, overcome with pain¬
ful tenderness.

Annie raised her head. “Good-night,” she said
softly, and quite simply offered him her mouth.
Prokop bent down and implanted on it the most
delicate kiss of which he was capable. He did not
dare to accompany her farther but stood quite still
for a moment and then took himself off to the
other end of the garden, untouched by any ray of
light from her window. There he remained mo¬
tionless as if he were praying. But he was not
praying; it was only the most wronderful night of
his life.

CHAPTER XIII

When it grew light he found it impossible to
stay in the house ... he thought he would
go out and pick some flowers; then he would lay
them outside Annie’s door, and when she came
out . . . On wings of delight Prokop crept down¬
stairs while it was still hardly after four o’clock.
Outside it was beautiful; every flower sparkled like
an eye (she has large, calm eyes like a cow) (she
has also long lashes) (now she is sleeping, her eye¬
lids are as delicate in color as pigeons’ eggs) (God!
if I could know her dreams) (if her hands are
crossed on her breast they will rise and fall with
her breathing; but if they are under Per head then
certainly her sleeve has fallen back and one can see
her rosy elbow) (she said the other day that up
to now she has been sleeping in the green bed she
had when a child) (she said that she would be
nineteen in October) (she has a birthmark on her
neck) (how is it possible that she loves me? — it is
so wonderful) ; in fact there is nothing more beauti¬
ful than a summer morning, but Prokop looked
down at the ground, smiled as far as he was able to
do so, and made his way to the river, still full of his
reflections. There appeared — but near the other
bank — the buds of some water-lilies. Scornful of
all dangers he undressed, threw himself into the

89

9°

Krakatit

muddy torrent, cut his feet on some insidious stump
and returned with an armful of the plants.

The water-lily is a poetical flower, but it exudes
an unpleasant liquid from its juicy stalks. Still
Prokop ran home with his poetic booty and won¬
dered how he could make an attractive bouquet out
of the flowers. He saw that the doctor had left
a copy of yesterday’s Politika on the seat in front of
the house. Fiercely he tore it into pieces, casually
noticing something about a mobilization in the Bal¬
kans, a crisis in some Ministry or other, the notice,
framed in black, of somebody’s death, bemoaned
of course by the whole nation, and wrapped up the
wet stems in these items of news. Just as he was
preparing, however, to gaze with pride at his work,
he got a sudden shock. At the back of the paper
he discovered one word. It was KRAKATIT.

For a moment he stared, stupefied, unable to be¬
lieve his own eyes. Then with feverish haste he
unrolled the paper, scattering all the glory of the
lilies on to the ground, and finally found the fol-
owing announcement: “KRAKATIT! Will Eng.P.
send his address? Carson, Poste Restante.” Noth¬
ing more. Prokop’s eyes bulged, and he read again.
“Will Eng.P. send his address . . . Carson.”
What in heaven’s name! . . . Who is this Carson?
And how on earth can he possibly know? . . .For
the fiftieth time Prokop re-read the mysterious an¬
nouncement. . . . “KRAKATIT! Will Eng.P.
send his address?” and then “Carson, Poste Re¬
stante.”

Prokop sat down as if he had been struck with a
club. Why — why did I ever take that cursed paper

Krakatit

91

into my hands? flashed desperately through his
head. How did it run? “KRAKATIT! Will
Eng. P. send his address?” Eng. P., that means
Prokop; and Krakatit, that is the cursed place, that
foggy place somewhere in his head, that morbid
swelling in his brain which he did not like to think
about, which led him to go about running his head
into walls, that which had ceased to have a name
— what was it there? “KRAKATIT!” Prokop’s
eyes again grew wide through the interior blow
which he had received. Suddenly he saw ... a
certain lead salt, and in a flash there unrolled be¬
fore him the film that had become blurred in his
memory; a desperate, unduly protracted contest in
the laboratory with this heavy, dull, apathetic sub¬
stance; blind and foolish attempts when everything
failed him, a corrosive feeling when in his anger
he triturated it in his fingers, a sticky taste on the
tongue and a caustic smoke, exhaustion, so that
he had dropped off to sleep in his chair, cold; and
suddenly— perhaps in his sleep, or at least it seemed
like it — a final inspiration, a paradoxical and miracu¬
lously simple experiment, a physicist’s trick which
he had never employed before. He saw thin white
crystals which he finally collected in a porcelain box,
convinced that he would be able to explode them
finely the next day when he had buried the box in
a hole in the sand out in the open fields where
he had his thoroughly illegal experimental station.
He saw the arm-chair in his laboratory, out of which
there stuck wire and pieces of stuffing. He curled
up in it like an exhausted dog and evidently dropped
off to sleep, for it was completely dark when, to

92

Krakatit

the accompaniment of a frightful explosion and the
jingle of falling glass, he was thrown out of the
chair on to the ground. Then came that sharp pain
in his right hand, for something had cut it open;
and then — then -

Prokop furrowed his brow painfully in the act
of violently recollecting all this. There the scar
was across his hand. And afterwards he had tried
to turn on the light, but the electric bulb had been
broken. Then he had felt about in the darkness
to see what had happened; the table was covered
with debris and there, where he had been working,
the sheet of zinc covering the desk was torn to
pieces, twisted and fused, and the oak table split
as if had been struck by lightning. And then he
came across the porcelain box and found it — intact,
and this gave him a fright. Yes, that was Krakatit.
And then -

Prokop was unable to remain seated; he strode
over the scattered lilies and ran about the garden,
nervously gnawing at his fingers. Then he had run
somewhere or other, into the open country, over
ploughed fields, several times fell over, — God!
wherever did he go? At this point the sequence of
his recollections was definitely broken; the only thing
which he could remember with certainty was the
terrible pain in his forehead and some affair or other
with the police, after which he spoke with George
Thomas, and walked to his place — no, took a cab.
Then he was ill and George looked after him.
George was all right. My God, what a long time
ago that was! George Thomas said that he was

Krakatit 93

going here, to his father, but he did not do so; now
that’s odd; after that he slept or something -

Then the bell rang, briefly and gently; he went
and opened the door and outside was standing a
girl with a veil over her face.

Prokop groaned and covered his face with his
hands. He forgot completely that he was sitting
on the very seat where the night before he had been
caressing and consoling somebody else. “Does
Mr. Thomas live here?” she asked, out of breath;
probably she had been running, her fur was covered
with rain drops and suddenly, suddenly she raised
her eyes -

Prokop nearly cried out with pain. He saw her
as she had been that evening; hands, little hands
in tight gloves, drops of moisture from her breath
on her thick veil, a clear glance, full of suffering;
beautiful, sad and brave, “you will save him, won’t
you?” She looked at him with serious, troubled
eyes, and all the time was gripping in her hand some
sort of a package, a sealed package, pressing it to
her bosom agitatedly and trying to keep control of
herself.

It was as if Prokop had received a blow in the
face. Where did I put that package? Whoever
that girl may be, I promised her that I would take
it to Thomas. While I was ill . . .1 forgot every¬
thing; because I ... or rather ... he did not
like to think about it. But now — now I must
find it, that’s clear.

He rushed up to his room and pulled out all the
drawers. No, no, no, it’s not here. For the twen-

94

Krakatit

tieth time he rummaged through all his possessions,
piece by piece; then he sat down in the midst of
the frightful disorder that he had created, as above
the ruins of Jerusalem, and corrugated his brow.
Perhaps it had been taken by the doctor or by
the guffawing Nanda; how else could it have dis¬
appeared? When he had discovered, however, that
this was not the case he experienced a sort of com¬
pulsion or confusion in his head, and, as if in a
dream, made his way to the stove, groped in the
recess behind it and pulled out . . . the missing
parcel. And as he did so he had a vague impres¬
sion that some time or other he must have put it
there himself, some time when he was not yet . . .
completely well; he also remembered that in that
condition of swooning and delirium he had insisted
on having it in the bed with him the whole time
and fell into a rage when they tried to take it away
from him, and that at the same time he had been
in a painful state of anxiety about it. Evidently,
with the astuteness of the madman, he had hidden
it from himself, so as to be left in peace. But it
was impossible to penetrate these secrets of his un¬
consciousness; anyway, here it was, this carefully
packed parcel with five seals, on which were written
the words, “for Mr. George Thomas.” He tried to
deduce something more from this inscription but in¬
stead saw before him the veiled girl, holding the
parcel in her trembling fingers; now, now she was
again raising her eyes ... he passionately smelt the
package. There clung to it an evanescent and re¬
mote fragrance.

He put it down on the table and began to walk

Krakatit

95

up and down the room. He would have given a
lot to know wThat it contained under its five seals;
certainly some weighty secret, some fateful and
urgent relationship. She certainly said . . . that
she was doing it for somebody else; but she was
so agitated — But that she could love Thomas was
incredible. Thomas was a good-for-nothing, he
assured himself with blind fury; he was always
getting what he wanted from women, a cynic. All
right, he would find him and give him this love
letter, and that would be the end of it.

Suddenly a thought flashed through his head.
There must be some connection between Thomas
and that — what’s his name — that cursed Carson!
Because nobody else had ever heard anything about
Krakatit, only George Thomas and this other. A
new picture introduced itself uninvited into the
blurred film of his memory: he, Prokop, was mutter¬
ing something in his fever (it must have been in
Thomas’s room), and George bent over him and
wrote something down in a notebook. “Without the
slightest doubt that must have been my formula!”
he cried. “He wheedled it out of me, stole it, and
probably sold it to that Carson!” Prokop grew
cold at the thought of such baseness. Christ ! and
that girl had fallen into the hands of a man like
him! If anything in the world was clear it was
that she must be protected at any cost!

Good! To begin with he must find Thomas, that
criminal. He would give him the sealed package
and in addition he would smash his face for him.
Also, he would get him in his power. Thomas
would have to tell him the name and address of

9 6

Krakatit

that girl and promise — no; no promises from such
a waster. But he would go to her and tell her every¬
thing. And then he would disappear from her eyes
forever.

Satisfied with this cavalier decision, Prokep got
up. Ah, to find out — that was the only thing —
where the girl lived! He saw her again, standing
elegant and strong; nothing in her glance betrayed
any contact with Thomas. Was she capable of
lying with such eyes . . . ?

Then, drawing in his breath with pain, he broke
the seals, and tore off the paper and string. Inside
was a letter and some bank-notes.

CHAPTER XIV

Meanwhile Doctor Thomas was sitting at
breakfast grunting and puffing after working
hard at a difficult delivery. From time to time he
threw anxious and inquisitorial glances at Annie,
who sat motionless, neither eating nor drinking,
simply unable to believe that Prokop had not yet
put in an appearance. Her lips were trembling and
she was evidently about to cry. Then Prokop came
in, with inappropriate buoyancy, pale, and incapable
even of sitting down, as if he were in a hurry. He
greeted her perfunctorily, giving her a casual glance
as if he had never seen her before, and immediately
asked with impulsive impatience: “Where’s your
George?” The doctor swung round, disconcerted.

. . . “What?”

“Where is your son now?” repeated Prokop, and
devoured him with threatening eyes.

“How should I know?” grunted the doctor. “I
don’t want to hear of his existence.”

“Is he in Prague?” insisted Prokop, clenching his
fists. The doctor was silent but within him some¬
thing was working swiftly.

“I must see him,” said Prokop incoherently. “I
must, do you hear? I must go and see him now, at
once! Where is he?”

The doctor made a chewing movement with his
jaws and walked towards the door.

“Where is he, where does he live?”

97

98

Krakatit

“I don’t know,” shouted the doctor in a voice
which was not his own, and slammed the door.

Prokop turned to Annie. She sat frozen and
looked into the distance with her large eyes.

“Annie,” said Prokop feverishly, “you must tell
me where your George is. I — I must go and see
him, do you understand? that is to say . . . it’s a
question of . . . To cut it short, it’s to do with
. . . I . . . Read this,” he said quickly, and
stuck in front of her eyes the crumpled fragment of
newspaper. But Annie saw nothing but some circles
or other.

“That’s my discovery, do you see?” he explained
nervously. “A certain Carson is looking for me —
where’s your George?”

“We don’t know,” whispered Annie. “It’s two
. . . quite two years since he wrote to us - ”

“Ah!” growled Prokop and angrily crushed the
paper into a ball. It was as if the girl had turned
to stone, only her eyes grew larger and between
her half-closed lips she breathed out something con¬
fused and painful.

Prokop would have liked to sink through the
ground. “Annie,” he said at last, breaking the pain¬
ful silence, “I shall come back. I . . . in a fgw
days. . . . You see, this is a very important busi¬
ness. A man . . . after all must consider . . .
his work. And he has, you know, certain . . . cer¬
tain obligations. . . .” (God, how he had botched
it!) “Consider that ... I simply must,” he cried
suddenly. “I would rather died than not go, you
see ?

Annie only nodded her head slightly. Ah, if she

Krakatit

99

had moved it more it would have sunk on the table
and she would have burst out crying; but, as it was,
her eyes only filled with tears.

“Annie,” cried Prokop in desperation, and took
shelter near the door, “I won’t even take leave of
you; look, it isn’t worth it; in a week, a month I

shall be here again . . . see - ” He could not

help watching her; she sat perfectly still, with
relaxed shoulders; he could not see her eyes; it was
painful to look at her. “Annie,” he tried again,
and again was unable to go on. The last moment
in the doorway seemed to him to be endless; he felt
that there was still something which he should say
or do, but instead he forced out of himself an “An
revoir” and stole miserably away.

He left the house like a thief, on tiptoe. For
a moment he hesitated outside the door behind
which he had left Annie. Inside all was quiet, a fact
which caused him unspeakable agony. In the porch
he stopped short like a person who has forgotten
something and went softly to the kitchen — thank
God, Nanda was not there! — and picked up the
Politika. “ . . . ATIT ! . . . address Carson,
Poste Restante.” Thus it ran on a fragment of
newspaper which the cheerful Nanda had used for
covering a shelf.

Prokop left a handful of money in return for
her services and made off.

Prokop, Prokop, you are not the only man who
intends to return in a week!

“We’re off, we’re off,” beat the wheels of the
train. But its noisy, vibrating pace did not suffice

ioo Krakatit

for human impatience; human impatience desper¬
ately twisted about, drew his watch out of his pocket
and nervously kicked his feet about. One, two,
three, four . . . telegraph posts. Trees, fields,
trees, a watchman’s house, trees, the bank of a
river, a fence and fields. Eleven-seventeen. Fields
of turnips, women in blue aprons, a house, a little
dog which took it into its head to race the train —
fields — fields — fields. Eleven-seventeen. God, how
the time stood still! Better to think of something;
to close one’s eyes and count up to a thousand;
to recite a paternoster or repeat some chemical
formula. “We’re off, we’re off!” Eleven-eighteen.
God! what is one to do?

Prokop started. “KRAKATIT” stared him in
the eyes, until he grew frightened. Where was it?
Aha ! the man opposite was reading a paper and
on the back was that announcement. “KRAKATIT!
Will Eng. P. give his address? Carson, Poste
Restante.” I wish that Mr. Carson would leave
me alone, thought Eng. P. ; all the same at the next
station he bought all the papers which his country
produced. It was in all of them and in all of them
the same. “KRAKATIT! Will Eng. P. give his
address? Carson, Poste Restante.” “My god¬
fathers!” said Eng. P. to himself, “there’s some
demand for me ! But what does he want me for,
when Thomas has sold him the secret?”

But instead of solving this fundamental problem
he looked to see if he was observed, and then, per¬
haps for the hundredth time, drew out the familiar
package. With all possible delays, delays which
gave him acute pleasure, after all sorts of reflections

Krakatit

IOI

and hesitations, he pulled out of it the sealed-up
money and that letter, that priceless letter, written
in a mature and energetic hand. “Dear Mr.
Thomas,” he again read with excitement, “I am not
doing this for you, but for my sister. She has been
nearly off her head since you sent her that terrible
letter. She would have sold all her clothes and
jewels in order to send you money; I had to use all
possible force to prevent her from doing something
which she would afterwards have been unable to
hide from her husband. What I am sending you
is my own money; I know that you will take it
without making unnecessary difficulties and beg you
not to thank me for it. — L.” Then a hasty post¬
script: “For the love of God, after this leave M.
in peace! She has given all that she has; she gave
you more than what belonged to her; I am horrified
to think of what would happen if it all were discov¬
ered. I beseech you not to abuse your terrible influ¬
ence over her! It would be too base if you were

to - ” The rest of the phrase was struck out

and there followed still another postscript: “Please
convey my thanks to your friend, who is bringing
you this. He was unforgettably kind to me at a
time when most of all I needed human help.”

Prokop was simply overpowered by an excess of
happiness. So she was not Thomas’s ! And she
had nobody to whom she could turn! A brave and
generous girl. She got together forty thousand to
save her sister from . . . evidently from some

humiliation. Thirty thousand of it was from the
bank; it still had a band round it as when she had
drawn it — why the devil didn’t the band have on it

102

Krakatit

the name of the bank? And the other ten thousand
she scraped together nobody knows how; for it was
made up of small notes, miserable, soiled five-crown
notes, tousled rags from God knows whose hands,
shabby money from women’s purses. God! what a
frightful time she must have had before she got
this handful of money together! “He was unfor¬
gettably kind to me. ...” And that moment Pro-
kop would have pounded Thomas to death, that low,
shameless scoundrel; but at the same time he some¬
how forgave him . . . since he was not her lover!
She did not belong to Thomas . . . that certainly
signified at the least that she was a pure and beau¬
tiful angel; and it was as if some unknown wound
suddenly healed in his heart.

Yes, to find her; before everything . . . before
everything he must return her her money (he was
not in the least ashamed of forming such a pretext)
and say that . . . that, in short . . . she could
depend on him. . . . “He was unforgettably kind.”
Prokop clasped his hands. . . . God! what would
he not do to earn such words from her -

Oh, how slowly the train was going!

CHAPTER XV

Directly he arrived at Prague he made for
Thomas’s rooms. Outside the Museum he
pulled himself up . . . curse, where exactly did
Thomas live? He walked, yes, he walked, shaking
with fever, along the road by the Museum; but from
where? From which street? Swearing, Prokop
wandered round the Museum looking for the most
probable direction; he found nothing and went to
the Inquiry Office of the police. George Thomas;
the dusty official looked through a number of books.
Engineer Thomas, George, that, please, is Smichov,
such and such a street. Evidently an old address.
Nevertheless Prokop flew into Smichov to such and
such a street. The caretaker shook his head when
he asked for George Thomas. He certainly used
to live here, but more than a year ago; where he
lived now nobody knew; incidentally he had left all

sorts of debts behind him -

Crestfallen, Prokop wandered into a coffee-house.
“KRAKATIT” hit him in the eyes from the back of
a paper. “Will Eng. P. give his address? Carson,
Poste Restante.” Well, this Carson will certainly
know about Thomas . . . there must be some con¬
nection between them. All right then . . . “Car-
son, Poste Restante. Be at such and such coffee¬
house to-morrow at mid-day. — Eng. Prokop.”
Directly he had written this a new idea came into

103

104 Krakatit

his head . . . the debts. He rushed off to the
courts, the Inquiry Department. Yes, they knew
Mr. Thomas’s address very well ... a whole pile
of undelivered circulars, official reminders, etc. ; but
it appeared that this Thomas, George, had disap¬
peared without leaving a trace, and, especially, had
furnished no one with his new address. All the same
Prokop dashed off to the new address. The care¬
taker’s wife, encouraged by an adequate tip, at
once recognized Prokop, who on one occasion had
spent the night there. She informed him quite vol¬
untarily that Mr. Engineer Thomas was a crook
and a good-for-nothing. Further, that on that occa¬
sion he had gone off in the night and left him, the
gentleman, in her care; that she had come upstairs
three times to ask whether he needed anything, but
that he, the gentleman, remained asleep and kept
on talking to himself, and finally disappeared. And
where on earth was Mr. Thomas? That night he
had gone off and left everything lying about and had
still not returned. All he had done was to send
her some money from somewhere abroad, but he was
still in debt for the new quarter. She had heard
that they were going to sell his effects in the State
Lottery if he didn’t report by the end of the month.
He was nearly a quarter of a million in debt, so
they said, and had made off. Prokop subjected the
worthy woman to a cross-examination . . . did she
knew anything about a certain young lady who was
supposed to have relations with Mr. Thomas, who
came to his rooms and so on? The caretaker’s wife
could not tell him anything; as far as women went,
as many as twenty came to the place, some with

Krakatit

!05

veils over their faces and others “made up,” and all
sorts. It was a scandal for the whole street. Pro-
kop paid for the new quarter himself and in return
obtained the key of the flat.

Inside there was the musty smell of rooms which
have long been unoccupied and from which almost
all life has departed. Only now did Prokop realize
that he had wrestled with his fever amidst the most
extraordinary luxury. Everywhere Bokhara or Per¬
sian carpets, on the walls tapestries and nude stud¬
ies, a divan, arm-chairs, the dressing-table of a
soubrette, the bathroom of a high-class prostitute, a
mixture of luxury and vulgarity, lewdness and dis¬
soluteness. And here, in the middle of all these
abominations, she had stood pressing the package
to her bosom, her clear, woeful eyes cast on the
ground. And now, my God! she raised them in
brave devotion. . . . What on earth could she
have thought of him when she found him in this den?
He must find her at least ... at least to return
her her money; even if it was for nothing else, for
nothing more important ... it was absolutely
nqcessary to find her!

That is easy enough to say, but how? Prokop
bit his lips in obstinate reflection. If he only knew
where to look for George, he said to himself;
finally he came upon a pile of correspondence which
was waiting there for Thomas. Most of it con¬
sisted, naturally, of commercial letters, obviously
chiefly bills. Then a few private letters which he
turned over and sniffed with some hesitation. Per¬
haps in one of them there was a clue to his where¬
abouts, an address or something of the sort, which

io 6 Krakatit

would enable him to find him . . . or to find her!
He heroically repressed the inclination to open at
least one letter; but he was alone there behind dirty
windows, and everything seemed to exhale an atmos¬
phere of base and secret corruption. And then,
quickly overcoming all his scruples, he began to tear
open the envelopes and read one letter after the
other. A bill for Persian carpets, for flowers, for
three typewriters; urgent reminders regarding goods
given on commission; some mysterious transaction
relating to a horse, foreign currency and twenty
wagons of wood somewhere near Kremnice. Pro-
kop could not believe his eyes; according to these
documents Thomas was either a smuggler on a large
scale, or an agent dealing in Persian carpets, or a
speculator on the Exchange, very probably all three.
In addition he did business in motor-cars, export
certificates, office furniture and, obviously, all sorts
of things. In one letter there was something about
two million crowns, while in another, soiled and
written in pencil, there was a threat of a complaint
regarding some antique or other which he had
wheedled from somebody. Everything together
pointed to a long succession of deceptions, embezzle¬
ments, falsifications of export documents, as far as
Prokop was able to understand; it was simply amaz¬
ing that it had not all come out. One solicitor inti¬
mated briefly that such and such a firm had brought
an action against Mr. Thomas for embezzling forty
thousand crowns; it was in Mr. Thomas’s own inter¬
est to appear at his office, etc. Prokop was horri¬
fied; if it were all once found out what would not
be the ramifications of this unutterable turpitude?

Krakatit

107

He thought of the quiet house in Tynice and of
the girl who had stood in the very room, desperately
determined to protect that third person. He took
up all Thomas’s commercial correspondence and
ran to burn it in the stove, which he found full of
charred papers. It was evident that Thomas him¬
self had simplified conditions in this way before
he left.

Good; that dealt with the commercial papers;
there remained a few purely private letters, tender
or dreadfully scrawled, and over these again Prokop
hesitated in burning shame. But what on earth
else was he to do? He was suffocating with embar¬
rassment but he boldly opened the remaining envel¬
opes. “Darling, I remember,’’ “a further meeting,”
— and so on. A certain Anna Chvalova stated with
the most touching orthographical mistakes that
Jenicek had died “of an erruption.” Somebody
else intimated that “he knew something that might
interest the police but that he would be willing to
discuss the question,” and that Mr. Thomas “cer¬
tainly knew the price of his discretion” ; there fol¬
lowed an allusion to “that house in Bret Street where
Mr. Thomas knew whom to speak to if the affair
was to be kept secret.” Then something about some
business or other, the sale of some bills, signed
“your Rosie.” The same Rosie stated that her hus¬
band had gone away. The same handwriting as in
No. 1, a letter from a watering-place, nothing but
bovine sentimentality, the unbridled passion of a
fat and mature blonde, sweetened all over with ahs !
reproofs, and lofty sentiments, apart from “sweet¬
heart” and “ducky” and other abominations. Pro-

r

108 Krakatit

kop positively felt bilious. A German letter, signed
“G,” a deal in foreign currency, “sell these papers, I
await your reply, P.S. Achtung, K. aus Hambourg
eingetroffen.” The same “G”; a hasty and offended
letter, the frigid use of the second person plural.
“Send back that ten thousand, sonst wird K. dahinter
kommen.” H’m. Prokop was deeply ashamed at
having to penetrate into the malodorous obscurity
of these disreputable affairs, but it was no good
stopping now. Finally four letters signed M.; tear¬
ful, bitter and miserable, from which emerged the
passionate history of some blind, airless, servile
love. There were passionate demands, crawlings
in the dust, desperate incriminations, frightful offer¬
ings of the writer’s self and more terrible self-tor¬
ture; references to the children, the husband, the
offer of a further loan, obscure allusions and the all
too clear wretchedness of a woman at the mercy of
passion. So this was her sister! To Prokop it was
as if he saw before him the cruel and mocking lips,
the taunting eyes, the aristocratic, proud, self-confi¬
dent head of Thomas; he would have liked to smash
it with his fist. But it was of no use; the miserable
love of this woman told him nothing about . . .
about this other one, who was for him so far with¬
out a name and whom he must seek out.

Nothing was left but to find Thomas.

CHAPTER XVI

TO find Thomas . . . as if that were a simple
matter ! Prokop again made a general exam¬
ination of the whole flat; he rooted in all the cup¬
boards and drawers, finding old bills, love letters,
photographs and other relics of Thomas’s youth,
but nothing which was likely to help him with his
quest. Well, it was natural enough that a person
who had brought down so much on himself would
have to disappear very definitely!

He again cross-questioned the caretaker’s wife;
he certainly learnt all sorts of stories, but nothing
which put him on Thomas’s trail. He tried to find
out from the caretaker from where Thomas had
sent the money from abroad. He had to listen to a
whole sermon from an ungracious and rather
unpleasant old man, who had suffered from every
possible sort of catarrh and who enlarged upon the
depravity of the young men of to-day. At the price
of superhuman patience Prokop finally learnt that
the money in question was not sent by Mr. Thomas
but by an agent of the Dresdner Bank “Auf Befehl
des Herrn Thomas.” He dashed off to the solicitor
who had a claim prepared against the delinquent.
The solicitor withdrew to an unnecessary extent into
his professional secrecy; but when Prokop stupidly
blurted out that he had some money to give to
Thomas, the solicitor became more alive and

109

no

Krakatit

demanded that he should hand it over to him. It
cost Prokop a good deal of trouble to get away.

This taught him not to search for Thomas among
people who had any sort of commercial connection
with him.

At the next corner he stopped ; what now ? There
remained only Carson. An unknown quantity who
knew something and wanted something. Good. Car-
son then. Prokop found in his pocket the letter
which he had forgotten to post and ran off to a
letter-box.

But once there his hand dropped. Carson, Car-
son — yes, but he . . . what he wants is hardly a
trifle. Devil take it, that fellow knew something
about Krakatit and had got something up his sleeve
— God knows what. Why was he looking for him?
Evidently Thomas didn’t know everything, or he
didn’t want to sell everything, or he laid down
impossible conditions, and he, Prokop, like an ass,
had to sell himself more cheaply. It must be some¬
thing like that; but (and here Prokop for the first
time grew terrified at the extent to which he was
involved) what could he do with Krakatit when he
got it? To begin with he must know very well what
the substance is for, how it is handled, etc. Krakatit,
my friend, is not snuff or a sleeping-powder for
children. And in the second place, in the second
place it was . . . too strong a tobacco for this
world. Just imagine what could be done with it
... let us say in a war. Prokop began to get
frightened of the whole business. What devil was
bringing that cursed Carson here? On all accounts
he must stop, cost what it may -

Krakatit

hi

Prokop clutched at his head so markedly that
passers-by stopped to look at him. For he remem¬
bered that up there in his laboratory shed in Hybs-
monka he had left nearly four ounces of Krakatit!
That is to say enough to blow off the earth I don’t
know what, — the whole district! He became frozen
with horror and ran for a tram. What did not hang
upon these few minutes ! He went through hell
before the tram took him across the river; then he
climbed the street as fast as he possibly could and
finally reached the shed. It was locked up and Pro¬
kop vainly hunted in his pockets for something
resembling a key; then, taking advantage of the twi¬
light like a burglar, he broke open the window,
pulled back the bolts and crawled home through the
window.

He only needed to strike a match to see that the
place had been plundered in the most methodical
way possible. Certainly the bedding and a few sticks
of furniture remained; but all the flasks, test-tubes,
crushers, mortars, dishes and apparatus, spatulas
and balances, all his primitive chemical kitchen,
everything which had contained material upon which
he had experimented, anything on which there might
be left the slightest sediment or trace of any chem¬
ical, had disappeared. There was missing also the
porcelain box containing Krakatit. He pulled out a
drawer of the table; all his papers and notes, every
scrap of paper on which he had scribbled, the small¬
est relic of twelve years of experimental work, all
had gone. Finally, even the spots and splashes had
been scraped off the floor, and his overall, that
ancient, ragged covering, positively encrusted with

1 12 Krakatit

chemicals, had also been taken away. He found
himself nearly crying.

Until late in the night he remained sitting on his
soldier’s palliasse and blankly stared at his looted
work-room. At moments he consoled himself by
thinking that he would remember everything that
he had made a note of in the course of twelve years;
but when he tried to repeat some experiment in his
head he found, in spite of his most desperate efforts,
that it was impossible; then he gnawed his mutilated
fingers and groaned.

Suddenly he was awakened by the rattling of a
key. It was fully light, and as if it were the most
ordinary thing in the world a man came into the
room and made towards the table. He sat dowm
with his hat still on, muttering and scratching at the
zinc on the table. Prokop cried out from the pal¬
liasse: “What do you want here, man?”

Extraordinarily surprised, the man turned around
and looked at Prokop without a word.

“What do you want here?” repeated Prokop
excitedly. The man said nothing; to crown every¬
thing he put on his spectacles and gazed at Prokop
with enormous interest.

Prokop ground his teeth, for there was prepared
within him a fearful insult. But at this point the
man glowed with the most human feeling, sprang
out of the chair and suddenly looked as if he were
joyfully wagging his tail. “Carson,” he said rapidly
introducing himself, and added in German: “God,
I am glad that you have come back! You undoubt¬
edly read my announcement?”

Krakatit H3

“I did,” answered Prokop in his stiff and ponder¬
ous German. “And what do you want here?”’

“You,” said his guest completely delighted. “Do
you know that I’ve been chasing you for six weeks?
All the newspapers, all the detective institutes, — ha,
ha, my dear sir, what do you say to that? Herr
Gott, I am glad! How are you? Well?”

“Why have you stolen my things?” said Prokop
gloomily.

“What do you mean, please?”

“Why have you stolen my things?”

“But, Mister Engineer,” said the cheerful little
man, not in the least put out, “what are you saying?
Stolen ! Carson ! That’s good, aha !”

“Stolen,” repeated Prokop meaningly.

“Tut, tut, tut,” protested Mr. Carson. “It’s all
carefully stored. I arranged everything in order.
My dear sir, how could you possibly leave it lying
about like that? Anybody might have stolen it from
you — what? Of course they could, my dear sir.
They could have stolen it, sold it, made it public,
eh? That goes without saying. They could have
done that. But I’ve stored it for you, do you under¬
stand? Honestly, I have. That’s why I have been
looking for you. You shall have everything back.
Everything. That is,” he added with some hesita¬
tion and something steely flashed under his shiny
spectacles, “that is ... if you will be reasonable.
But we shall come to an understanding, eh?” He
added quickly: “You must become qualified. A
wonderful career. Atomic explosions, disintegration
of elements. Magnificent! Science, before every-

Krakatit

1 14

thing science! We shall come to an understanding,
eh? Honestly, you shall have everything back. So.”

Prokop was silent, overpowered by this avalanche
of words, while Mr. Carson waved his arms and
circulated about the laboratory inordinately de¬
lighted. “I’ve preserved everything, everything,”
he said exuberantly. “Every fragment from the
floor. Sorted out, stored away, ticketed, sealed.
Aha! I could have gone off with everything, eh?
But I’m honourable, my dear sir. I shall return
everything. We must come to an understanding.
You trust Carson. A Dane by birth, formerly a
lecturer in Copenhagen. And I’ve also studied
theology. What does Schiller say? Dem Einen ist
sie — ist sie — I’ve forgotten, but it’s something to
do with science; amusing, eh? But don’t thank me.
Later. So.”

Prokop had had no idea of thanking him, but
Mr. Carson glowed like a self-righteous benefactor.
“In your place,” he said enthusiastically, “in your
place I should get - ”

“Where is Thomas now?” Prokop interrupted
him.

Mr. Carson gave him a searching look. “Well.”
he said through his teeth after consideration, “we
know about him. Oh, yes,” he said quickly, “you
should provide yourself . . . provide yourself with
the largest laboratory in the world. The very best
instruments. The World’s Institute of Destructive
Chemistry. You are right, a university chair is a
stupidity. They only repeat old facts, eh? A waste
of time. Institute a laboratory in the American
style. An enormous laboratory, a brigade of assist-

Krakatit

ii 5

ants, everything that you want. And you mustn’t
worry about money. Where do you dejeuner? I
should so much like you to be my guest.”

“What do you really want?” Prokop burst out.
Then Mr. Carson sat down on the palliasse next
to him, took him extraordinarily warmly by the
hand and said suddenly in quite a different voice:
“Keep cool. You can make millions and millions.”

CHAPTER XVII

PROKOP looked at Mr. Carson in amazement.

He was surprised to find that his face was no
longer an insipid one, glowing with kindliness; it
had grown serious and severe, the eyes of this zeal¬
ous man had disappeared behind his heavy lids and
only for an instant now and then did they flash out
sharply. “Don’t be foolish,” he said emphatically.
“Sell us Krakatit and the thing is done.”

“But how do you know . . . ?” said Prokop
hoarsely.

“I’ll tell you everything, honestly everything.
Mr. Thomas came to us; he brought four ounces
and the formula. Unfortunately he was not able
to tell us the process. Neither he nor our chemists
have so far been able to discover it, to discover how
to make the stuff. Some sort of a trick, eh?”
“Yes.”

“H’m. Maybe we may come upon it without
your assistance.”

“You won’t.”

“Mr. Thomas . . . knows something about it,
but keeps it a secret. He worked for us behind
locked doors. He’s a terribly bad chemist, but
more artful than you are. At least he doesn’t blurt
out what he knows. Why did you tell him? All
he knows is to cadge money out of people. You
should have come yourself.”

116

Krakatit

1 17

“I didn’t send him to you,” muttered Prokop.

“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, “extremely interesting.
Your Mr. Thomas came to us - ”

“Where exactly?”

“To us. Factories in Balttin. Do you know
it?”

“No.”

“A foreign concern. Marvellously up to date.
An experimental laboratory for new explosives. We
make keramit, methylnitrate, and such things.
Chiefly military, you see? You’ll sell us Krakatit.
Yes?”

“No. And is Thomas still with you?”

“Aha! Mr. Thomas; wait, that’s amusing. Now
he comes to us and says: This is the legacy of my
friend, Prokop, a chemist of genius; he died in my
arms, and with his last breath, aha ! he bequeathed
it me. Aha! magnificent, — what?”

Prokop only smiled wryly. “And is Thomas still
. . . in Balttin?”

“Wait a moment. Naturally, to begin with we
kept him . . . as a spy. We get hundreds of them,
you know. And we had this powder, Krakatit,
tested.”

“And the result?”

Mr. Carson raised his hands to heaven. “Mag¬
nificent !”

“What’s the speed of detonation? How did you
find Q? And t? The figures!”

Mr. Carson let his hands fall, so that they slapped
on his knees and opened his eyes very wide. “What
figures, man! The first attempt . . . fifty per

cent starch . . . and the crusher gauge was blown

1 1 8 Krakatit

to smithereens. One engineer and two assistants
. . . also in smithereens. Would you believe it?
Attempt No. 2 ... a Trauz block, ninety per cent
vaseline, and bang! The roof went up and one
workman was killed; nothing of the block remained
but a fragment. Then we let the soldiers have a
go at it; they laughed at us . . . said we knew as
much about it as . . .a village blacksmith. We
gave them a little; they rammed it into a gun with
a lot of sawdust. Splendid results. Seven gunners
blown up including a N.C.O. . . . they found one
leg three kilometres away. Twelve dead in two
days, there’s figures for you. Aha ! magnificent,
eh?”

Prokop wanted to say something, but gulped it
down. Twelve dead in two days — the devil!

Mr. Carson rubbed his knees and glowed with
pleasure. “The third day we gave it a rest. It
makes a bad impression, you know, when . . . you
have many such incidents. Then we only took a
little Krakatit . . . about three decigrams ... in
glycerine and that sort of thing. The idiot of a
lab. boy left a pinch lying about in the night when
the laboratory was shut - ”

“It exploded?” cried Prokop.

“Yes. At ten thirty-five. The laboratory chem¬
ist was torn to shreds, not to speak of a couple of
blocks of buildings. . . . About three tons of
methylnitrate went up with it — in short about sixty
killed. Naturally enough a tremendous investiga¬
tion and all the rest of it. It turned out that nobody
had been in the laboratory and that evidently it
must have exploded - ”

Krakatit 1I9

“ — by itself,” interrupted Prokop, scarcely
breathing.

“Yes. Was it the same with you?”

Prokop nodded gloomily.

“There you are,” said Carson quickly. “And not
without a reason. Terribly dangerous stuff. Sell it
to us and you won’t have to worry any more. What
would you have done with it?”

“And what would you have done with it?” said
Prokop through his teeth.

“We’ve . . . made arrangements about that.
What does it matter blowing up a few fellows — but
it would be a pity if you were to suffer.”

“But the Krakatit in the porcelain box didn’t
explode,” said Prokop, still obstinately reflecting.

“Thank God, no. I should think not!”

“And it was at night,” Prokop reflected further.

“At ten thirty-five, precisely.”

“And . . . those few grains of Krakatit were
lying on a zinc . . . on a metal plate,” Prokop
went on.

“It was nothing to do with that,” burst out the
little man with a worried expression, and he bit his
lips and started pacing up and down the laboratory.
“It was . . . perhaps only oxidization,” he said
after a moment. “Some sort of chemical process.
It didn’t explode when mixed with glycerine.”

“Because it isn’t a conductor,” jerked out Prokop.
“Because it doesn’t ionize — I don’t know.”

Mr. Carson stopped and stood over him with his
hands behind his back. “You’re very astute,” he
said appreciatively. “You deserve to get a lot of
money. It’s a pity you’re stuck here.”

120

Krakatit

“Is Thomas still in Balttin?” asked Prokop, exert¬
ing all his strength so as to appear indifferent.

Something flashed behind Mr. Carson’s spectacles.
“We’ve got our eye on him,” he said evasively. “He
certainly won’t come back here. Come to us . . .
you may find him, if — you — want him so very
badly,” he said slowly and emphatically.

“Where is he?” repeated Prokop obstinately,
making it quite clear that he would talk of nothing
else.

Mr. Carson waved his hand airily. “Well, he’s
made off,” and he gave Prokop an inscrutable glance.

“Made off?”

“Faded away. He wasn’t supervised carefully
enough, and he was an artful bird. He undertook
to prepare Krakatit for us. Experimented with it
. . . about six weeks. Cost us a frightful amount
of money. Then disappeared, the rotter. Didn’t
know what to do, — what? Knows nothing.”

“And where is he?”

Mr. Carson bent over Prokop. “A rotter. Now
he is offering Krakatit to some other state. And at
the same time he stole our methylnitrate, the swine.
Now he is playing the same trick on them.”

“Where?”

“Mustn’t say. Honestly, I mustn’t. And when
he bolted I went, aha ! to visit your grave. Piety —
what? Chemist of genius, unknown to anyone here.
That was a job if you like. Had to keep on adver¬
tising in papers like an idiot. Naturally the others
got on to itr see? You understand me?”

“No.”

“Come and have a look,” said Mr. Carson

Krakatit I^i

briskly, and crossed to the opposite wall. “Here,”
he said and tapped the boarding.

“What is it?”

“A spy-hole. Some one came here.”

“And who shot at him?”

“Well, I did. If you had crept through the
window the same way a fortnight ago some one . . .
would have let fly at you.”

“Who?”

“That’s all the same, this or that state. A good
many foreign powers, my friends, have been knock¬
ing at this door. And meanwhile you were some¬
where, aha! catching fish, eh? Marvellous fellow!
But listen, my dear sir,” he said with sudden serious¬
ness, “kindly give up coming here. Never, do you
understand?”

“Rubbish!”

“Wait. You won’t find a grenadier waiting for
you. Very unpretentious-looking people. Nowa¬
days this sort of thing ... is done very discreetly.”
Mr. Carson stopped near the window and drummed
with his fingers on the glass. “You can’t believe
how many letters I got in answer to my advertise¬
ment. About six Prokops introduced themselves.
. . . Come and look, quick!”

Prokop came over to the window. “What is
it?”

Mr. Carson silently pointed at the road with his
short finger. On it a young man was twisting about
on a bicycle in a desperate attempt to maintain his
equilibrium, each wheel exhibiting a strong inclina¬
tion to go in a different direction. Mr. Carson
looked at Prokop inquiringly.

122 Krakatit

“Apparently learning to ride,” said Prokop
doubtfully.

“Frightfully inept, eh?” said Mr. Carson and
opened the window. “Bob.”

The youth on the bicycle stopped instantly:
“Yessr.”

“Go to the town for our car!” said Mr. Carson
in English.

“Yessr.” And the young cyclist whisked off
towards the town.

Mr. Carson turned away from the window. “An
Irishman. Very smart lad. What was I going to
say? Aha! About six Prokops appeared — meet¬
ings in different places, especially at night — amus¬
ing, eh? Read this.”

“Come to my laboratory at ten o'clock to-night,
Eng. Prokop,” read Prokop as if in a dream. “But
this is . . . practically . . . my handwriting !” .

“You see,” grinned Carson. “My friend, things
are warm. Sell the stuff, and be left in peace !”

Prokop shook his head.

Mr. Carson gave him a heavy, fixed look. “You
can ask ... let us say . . . twenty million. Sell
us Krakatit.”

“No.”

“You will get everything back. Twenty million.
Sell it, man!”

“No,” said Prokop heavily. “I don’t want any¬
thing to do . . . with your wars.”

“What’s your position here? A chemist of
genius . . . and lives in a wooden hut! That’s
the way your countrymen appreciate you ! I know.

Krakatit I23

A great man has no countrymen. Don’t let your¬
self be worried! Sell it and - ”

“I don’t want to.”

Mr. Carson stuck his hands into his pockets and
yawned. “Wars! Do you think they can be
stopped? Pche ! Sell it and don’t worry. You’re
a scientist . . . what does the rest matter to you?
Wars! Don’t be silly. While people have nails
and teeth - ”

“I shan’t sell it,” said Prokop through his teeth.

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders. “As you
like. We shall discover it ourselves. Or Thomas
will. Good.”

There was a moment of silence. “It’s all the
same to me,” said Mr. Carson. “If you prefer it
we’ll offer it to France, to England, where you like,
even to China. Together, see? No one would buy
it here. You would be a fool to sell it for twenty
million. Trust Carson, eh?”

Prokop shook his head decisively.

“Character,” said Mr. Carson appreciatively.
“All honour to it. I like that sort of thing enor¬
mously. Listen, I’ll tell you. An absolute secret.
I swear it.”

“I’m not asking you for your secrets,” muttered
Prokop.

“Bravo. A discreet fellow. Just my type, my
dear sir.”

CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. carson sat down and lit a very fat cigar,
after which he reflected for a time. “Tchah !”
he said at last. “So it exploded with you also. When
was that? The date?”

“I can’t say now.”

“The day of the week?”

“I don’t know. I think . . . two days after
Sunday.”

“Tuesday then. And at what time?”

“About . . . some time after ten in the evening.”
“Correct.” Mr. Carson thoughtfully blew out
some smoke.

“With us it exploded . . as you were pleased
to express it, ‘by itself’ ... on Tuesday at ten
thirty-five. Did you notice anything at the time?”
“No. I was asleep.”

“Aha! It also explodes on Fridays, about half¬
past ten. On Tuesdays and Fridays. We tested
it,” he explained in answer to Prokop’s fascinated
look. “We left a milligram of Krakatit lying
exposed and watched it day and night. It exploded
on Tuesday and Friday at half-past ten. Seven
times. Once also on a Monday at ten twenty-nine.
So.”

Prokop was inwardly horrified.

“A sort of blue spark appears on it,” added Mr.
Carson, absorbed, “and then it explodes.”

124

Krakatit I25

It was so quiet that Prokop could hear the ticking
of Carson’s watch.

“Tchah!” sighed Mr. Carson and rummaged
desperately with his hand in his brush of red hair.

“What does it mean?” Prokop burst out.

Mr. Carson only shrugged his shoulders. “And
what did you,” he said, “what did you think your¬
self when it exploded . . . ‘by itself,’ eh?”

“Nothing,” replied Prokop evasively. “I didn’t
speculate ... so far.”

Mr. Carson mumbled something uncomplimen¬
tary.

“That is,” Prokop corrected himself, “I thought
that perhaps ... it was done by electro-magnetic
waves.”

“Aha! Electro-magnetic waves. We thought
so too. A splendid idea, only idiotic. Unfortu¬
nately completely idiotic. So.”

Prokop was completely at a loss.

“To begin with,” continued Mr. Carson, “wire¬
less waves don’t pass over the world only on Tues¬
days and Fridays at half-past ten! And secondly,
my friend, you must imagine that we at once experi¬
mented accordingly. With short, long, all possible
waves. And your Krakatit didn’t alter that much,”
and he indicated a minute spot on his own nail.
“But on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten it con¬
ceived the idea of exploding ‘by itself.’ And do you
know what besides?”

Prokop of course did not. “This. For some
time . . . about six months or something of the
sort . . . the European wireless stations have been
horribly annoyed. Something is interfering with

i26 Krakatit

their conversations, you know. Really. And as it
happens . . . always on Tuesdays and Fridays at
half-past ten in the evening. What did you say?”

Prokop had said nothing, but only rubbed his
forehead.

“Well, on Tuesdays and Fridays. They call it
disturbed conversations. Something begins to
crackle in the telegraphists’ ears, and there we are;
it’s enough to send the fellows off their heads. Sad,
eh?” Mr. Carson removed his spectacles and began
to clean them with extreme care. “To begin with
... to begin with they thought it was magnetic
storms or something of the sort. But when they
found that its office hours were always Tuesday and
Friday ... to cut the story short, Marconi S.F.
Transradio, and various Ministries of Posts and
Marine, Commerce, the Interior and I don’t know
what, have agreed to pay twenty thousand pounds
sterling to the smart fellow who can find out the
cause of it.” Mr. Carson replaced his spectacles
and smiled broadly. “They think that there is some
illegal station in existence which amuses itself by
interfering with conversations on Tuesdays and Fri¬
days. Rubbish! A secret station which uses up
twenty kilowatts for a joke! Fi!” And Mr. Car-
son spat contemptuously.

“On Tuesdays and Fridays,” said Prokop, “that
is, regularly ...”

“Extraordinary, eh?” leered Mr. Carson. “I’ve
got it written down: on Tuesday on such and such
a date at ten thirty-five and so many seconds a dis¬
turbance at all stations from Reval onwards, and
so on. And a certain amount of your Krakatit

Krakatit 127

explodes at the same instant ‘by itself,’ as you are
good enough to express it. Eh? What? The same
the next Friday at ten twenty-nine and a few seconds ;
a disturbance and an explosion. The next Tuesday
at ten thirty-five explosion and disturbance. And so
on. As an exception, not in accordance with the
programme as it were, a disturbance on Monday at
ten twenty-nine minutes, thirty seconds. Ditto
explosion. Comes on the second. Eight times in
eight cases. A joke, eh? What do you think about
it?”

“I d — don’t know,” mumbled Prokop.

“There’s one thing,” said Mr. Carson after reflect¬
ing for a long time. “Mr. Thomas was working
with us. He has no knowledge, but he has got hold
of something. Mr. Thomas had a high frequency
generator installed in his laboratory and shut the
door in front of our noses. A rotter. It’s the first
time I’ve heard of high frequency machines being
used in ordinary chemistry, eh? What’s your
idea?”

“Well . . . naturally,” said Prokop doubtfully,
with an uneasy glance at his own brand-new genera¬
tor in the corner.

Mr. Carson did not fail to notice this. “H’m,”
he said. “You’ve the same sort of toy, eh? A
pretty little transformer. What did it cost you?”

Prokop grew sullen, but Mr. Carson began to
glow. “I think,” he said with growing expansive¬
ness, “that it would be a magnificent thing if one
could produce in some substance . . . let’s say

with the help of high power currents . . . certain
vibrations, set it in violent motion, loosen its interior

i28 Krakatit

structure so that one only had just to tap it, from
a distance . . . with some waves or other ... by
an explosion, oscillations, or the devil knows what,
and it would fly to pieces, — what? Bang! From
a distance! What do you say to that?”

Prokop said nothing, and Mr. Carson, pulling
at his cigar in delight, feasted his eyes on him.

“Pm not an electrician, you know,” he began after
a moment; “it was explained to me by an expert,
but I’ll be damned if I understood it. The fellow
was all over me with electrons, ions, elementary
quanta and I don’t know what; and, to finish up
with, this professorial luminary stated that, to make
a long story short, the thing was impossible. My
friend, you’ve made a howder! You’ve done some¬
thing which according to the greatest authorities is
impossible . . .

“I tried to explain it myself,” he continued, “but
not like that. Let us suppose that some one takes
it into his head to . . .to make an unstable com¬
pound . . . from a certain lead salt. The salt in
question does not behave as it should; it refuses to
combine, eh? Then this chemist of ours tests every¬
thing possible . . . like a madman ; and then remem¬
bers, let us say, that in the January number of the
Chemist there was something about the said phleg¬
matic salt being a first-class coherer ... a detector
of electric waves. He gets an inspiration. An
idiotic and sublime inspiration — that perhaps by
the use of electric waves he can bring that cursed
salt into a better frame of mind, eh? A man gets
his finest inspirations through being stupid. So he

Krakatit I29

gets hold of some comic transformer and sets to
work; what he did is at present his secret, but in
the end ... he will achieve the synthesis he wants.
He’ll achieve it. Or at least, the oscillation will do
it. Man, I shall have to go down on all fours and
start learning physics in my old age; I’m talking
rubbish, eh?”

Prokop muttered something completely unintel¬
ligible.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Mr. Carson calmly.
“As long as it holds together. I’m dull and I imagine
that it has some sort of electro-magnetic structure.
If this structure is disturbed, then ... it disinte¬
grates, eh? Luckily about ten thousand regular
wireless stations and several hundred illegal ones
preserve in our atmosphere the sort of electro-mag¬
netic climate, the sort of — eh — eh — oscillatory bath
which suits this structure. And so it holds to¬
gether ...”

Mr. Carson reflected for a moment. “And now,”
he began again, “imagine that some devil has a
means by which he can thoroughly disturb electric
waves. Obliterate them or something of the sort.
Imagine that — God knows why — he does this regu¬
larly on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten
o’clock at night. At that minute and second all
wireless communication is interrupted all over the
world; but at that minute and second something
also happens in this unstable compound, in so far
as it is not isolated. ... In a porcelain box, for
example; something in it is disturbed . . . cracks,
and it . . . it . . .”

130

Krakatit

. explodes,” cried Prokop.

“Yes, explodes, disintegrates. Interesting, —
what? One learned gentleman explained to me that
— hell, what did he say? That — that - ”

Prokop sprang up and seized hold of Mr. Car¬
son’s coat. “Listen,” he burst out, violently excited,
“if one were to . . . sprinkle . . . some Krakatit
about . . . here, let us say ... or simply about
the place ...”

“. . . then the next Tuesday or Friday at half¬
past ten it would explode. Tja. Don’t strangle me,
man.”

Prokop released Mr. Carson and paced up and
down the room gnawing his fingers in consternation.

“That’s quite clear,” he muttered, “that’s quite
clear ! Nobody must prepare Krakatit - ”

“Besides Mr. Thomas,” suggested Carson scep¬
tically.

“Leave me alone,” said Prokop. “He won’t be
able to prepare it I”

“Well,” said Mr. Carson doubtfully, “I don’t
know how much you told him.”

Prokop stopped as if rooted to the ground.
“Imagine,” he said feverishly, “imagine, for instance
. . . a war! Anyone who possessed Krakatit could
. . . could . . . whenever he liked ...”

“At present only on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

“ . . . blow up . . . whole towns . . . whole
armies . . . everything! All that is necessary is
to sprinkle — can you imagine?”

“lean. Magnificent!”

“And therefore ... for the sake of the world
... I shall never, never give it up.”

Krakatit

131

“In the interest of the world,” repeated Carson,
“do you know, in the interest of the world the first

thing is to get on the track of that - ”

“What?”

“That cursed anarchist wireless station.”

CHAPTER XIX

ct f~A O you mean to say,” stammered Prokop,

-L' “that . . . that perhaps ...”

UW e know,” Carson interrupted, “that there exist
various transmitting and receiving stations. That
regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays they certainly
say something more than good-night. That they
have at their disposition certain forces at present
unknown to us: explosions, oscillations, sparks, rays
or some other cursed things. Or certain counter¬
waves, counter-oscillations or whatever they may be
called, something which just obliterates our waves,
you understand?” Mr. Carson glanced about the
laboratory. “Aha !” said he, and took up a piece of
chalk. “It may be like this,” he went on, drawing
a long arrow on the floor with the chalk, “or like
this,” and he scribbled over the whole of the board
and added, by wetting his finger, a dark streak.
“So or so, you understand? Positive or negative.
They either send new waves into our medium or
interfere with ours at fixed intervals, you see? In
both cases they can do without our control. Both
systems are at present though technically and physi¬
cally . . . a pure mystery. Hell!” said Mr. Carson
and in a sudden access of anger broke the chalk into
pieces, “that’s too much! To send secret messages
by secret waves to a secret addressee who is doing —
what do you think?”

132

Krakatit

133

“Perhaps the Martians,” said Prokop, forcing
himself to jest; but he was certainly not in the mood
for doing so.

Mr. Carson looked at him with hostility and then
neighed exactly like a horse. “Let us say the Mar¬
tians. Magnificent ! But let us rather say some¬
body on the earth. Let us say that some earthly
power is sending out its secret instructions. Let
us say that it has extremely serious reasons for
escaping human control. Let us say that there
exists some sort of . . . international service or
organization, or the devil knows what, and that it
has at its disposal certain mysterious forces, secret
stations and the rest. In any case ... in any
case we have the right to be interested in those
secret messages, eh? Whether they are from hell
or from Mars. It’s simply in the interests of human
society. You can imagine. . . . Well, my dear
sir, they certainly won’t be wireless messages about
Little Red Riding Hood. So.”

Mr. Carson moved rapidly up and down the shed.
“One thing is certain to begin with,” he said loudly,
“that the transmitting station in question is some¬
where in Central Europe, approximately in the
middle of the areas where these disturbances occur,
eh? Relatively, it’s not very strong, as it only talks
at night. All the worse; there’s no difficulty in find¬
ing the Eiffel Tower or Nauen, eh? My friend,”
he shouted suddenly and stood still: “Imagine that
in the very heart of Europe something extraordinary
is being prepared. The organization has branches
and offices, and the branches are in touch with one
another; it has technical devices unknown to us,

i34 Krakatit

secret powers and, that you may know,” roared Mr.
Carson, “it has also Krakatit, so!”

Prokop jumped up like a madman. “What!”

“Krakatit. Nine grammes and thirty-five deci¬
grammes. All that we had left.”

“What did you do with it?” said Prokop fiercely.

“Experiments. We handled it as carefully as if
. . . as if it were something very precious. And
one evening - ”

“What?”

“It disappeared. Including the porcelain box.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes.”

“And who — who - ”

“Obviously the Martians,” grinned Mr. Carson.
“Unfortunatey through the base collusion of a lab.
boy who has disappeared — of course with the porce¬
lain box.”

“When did that happen?”

“Well, just before they sent me here in search of
you. An educated man, a Saxon. He left us not
even a grain of powder. Now you know why I
came.”

“And you think that it fell into the hands . . .
of these mysterious people?”

Mr. Carson only snorted.

“How do you know?”

“I am certain. Listen,” said Mr. Carson, jump¬
ing about on his short legs, “do I look like a timid
person?”

“N— no.”

“But I tell you that this frightens me. Honestly,
I’m terrified. Krakatit. . that’s bad enough ; and

Krakatit

135

that unknown wireless station is still worse; and if
they both fall into the same hands, then . . . good¬
morning. Then Mr. Carson will pack his bag and
go off to the cannibals of Tasmania. You know, I
shouldn’t like to see the end of Europe.”

Prokop only rubbed his hands together between
his knees. “Christ, Christ,” he whispered to himself.

“Well, yes,” said Mr. Carson. “I’m only sur¬
prised, you know, that nothing . . . nothing large
has gone up in the air already. All you have to do
is to press some button or other and two thousand
kilometres away — bang! And there you are. What
else do you expect?”

“That’s clear,” said Prokop feverishly. “Krak¬
atit mustn’t be given up. And Thomas — Thomas
must be stopped ...”

“Mr. Thomas,” said Carson rapidly, “would sell
Krakatit to the Devil himself if he paid him for it.
At the present moment Mr. Thomas is one of the
most dangerous people in the world.”

“My God,” muttered Prokop desperately, “what
are we to do now?”

Mr. Carson waited for some time. “It’s clear,”
he said finally. “Krakatit must be given up.”

“N-n-no ! Never!”

“Given up. Simply because it’s a . . . decipher-
ink key. It’s the very moment to do so, my dear sir.
For goodness sake give it to anybody you like, only
don’t make all this fuss about it. Give it to the Swiss
or to the League of Aged Virgins or to the Devil’s
grandmother; it will take them six months to realize
that you are not insane. Or give it to us. We’ve al¬
ready set up a receiving apparatus at Balttin. Just

136

Krakatit

consider . . . infinitely rapid explosions of micro¬
scopic fragments of Krakatit. Ignited by an un¬
known current. Directly they turn on the switch
somewhere the whole business starts off: t-r-r-r ta ta
t-r-r-r t-r-r-r ta t-r-r-r ta ta. And there you are. De¬
cipher it and you have the message. If only one
had Krakatit !”

“I won’t give it up,” Prokop replied, covered
with a cold sweat. “I don’t believe you. You
would . . . make Krakatit for yourself.”

Mr. Carson only pulled down the corner of his
mouth. “Well,” he said, “it’s only a question of
. . . we’ll call a Conference. The League of Na¬
tions, The World Postal Union, The Eucharistic
Congress or anything you like. For the sake of
being in peace. I’m a Dane and have no use for
politics. So. And you can give Krakatit to an
International Commission. What’s the matter?”

“I — I’ve been ill for a long time,” Prokop ex¬
cused himself, deathly pale. “I don’t feel quite
well . . . and ... I haven’t eaten for two days.”

“Weakness,” said Mr. Carson, sitting down next
to him and putting his arm round his neck. “It’ll
soon pass. You must go to Balttin. A very healthy
region. And then you must go after Mr. Thomas.
You shall have as much money as a millionaire.
You’ll be a big man. Well?”

“Yes,” whispered Prokop like a little child, and
meekly allowed himself to be rocked.

“So so. Too much strain, see? That’s noth¬
ing. The chief thing ... is the future. You’ve
had a lot of poverty, man, eh? You’re a good
chap, see? Now you’re better.” Mr. Carson

Krakatit

i37

smoked reflectively. “The future is something tre¬
mendous. You’ll get tons of money. You’ll give
me ten per cent, eh? An international custom. You
need Carson as well ...”

In front of the shed there resounded the horn of
a motor-car.

“Thank God,” said Carson with relief, “here’s
the car. Well, my dear sir, we’ll be off.”

“Where?”

“For the moment, to eat.”

CHAPTER XX

The next day Prokop woke up with a terribly
heavy head and at first could not realize where
exactly he was; he waited for the sound of the
clucking of the chickens or the resonant barking of
Honzik. Slowly he realized that he was no longer
in Tynice; that he was in bed in the hotel to which
Carson had brought him completely drunk, roaring
like an animal. Only when he put his head under
a stream of cold water did he recall the happenings
of the evening and could have sunk through the
ground with shame.

They drank even during the meal, but only a
little, enough to make them both very red in the face,
and then went somewhere in the car along the edge
of some woods so as to clear their heads. Pro¬
kop chattered the whole time without respite while
Carson chewed the end of his cigar, nodded from
time to time and said: “You will be a big man.”
“Big man,” “big man,” echoed in Prokop’s head like
the note of a gong; if only in such glory he could
be seen by . . . that girl with the veil ! He nearly
burst with importance in talking to Carson, who
only nodded his head like a mandarin and added
fuel to the flame of his insane pride. In his ardour
Prokop nearly fell out of the car; he was explaining
his conception of the World Institute for Destructive
Chemistry, Socialism, Marriage, the Education of

138

Krakatit

139

Children and other nonsense. But in the evening
they began with a vengeance. Where it was they
drank, God alone knows; it was terrible. Carson,
his face inflamed and his hat pushed down over his
eyes, paid for all sorts of strangers, while some girls
were dancing. Somebody broke some glasses and
Prokop, sobbing, told Carson about his terrible
love for the mysterious woman. On remembering
this, Prokop clutched his head with shame and mor¬
tification.

Then they put him, shouting “Krakatit,” into
the car. Heaven knows where they went; they
dashed along endless roads, while beside Prokop
there jumped up and down a fiery red spot which
must have been Mr. Carson with his cigar. Mr.
Carson, who hiccoughed “quicker, Bob” or some¬
thing of the sort. Suddenly at a corner two lights
rushed at them, some voices cried out, the car swung
off the road, and Prokop was thrown head first on
the grass, which brought him to his senses. There
was a sound of several violently disputing voices,
accusations of drunkenness. Mr. Carson swore ter¬
ribly and muttered “now we must go back,” upon
which, with thousands of precautions, they carried
Prokop, as if he were seriously wounded, into the
other car. Mr. Carson sat down next to him and
they set out for home, Bob remaining with the in¬
jured vehicle. Half-way back the seriously wounded
man began to sing rowdily, and just before reach¬
ing Prague found that he was thirsty again. They
were obliged to go with him to several bars before
he quieted down.

Prokop studied his disfigured face in the glass

ho Krakatit

with dark aversion. In this painful occupation he
was interrupted by the hotel porter who, with due
apologies, brought him a registration form to fill up.
Prokop put down the necessary particulars and
hoped that he had dealt with the matter; but
scarcely had the porter read his name than he be¬
came excited and begged Prokop not to leave the
room. A certain gentleman from abroad had asked
him to telephone to him at his hotel the moment he
learned that Eng. Prokop had arrived. If Mr. Eng.
would allow it, etc. Mr. Eng. was so furious with
himself that he would have allowed him to cut his
throat. He sat down to wait, painfully resigning
himself to enduring the pain in his head. In a
quarter of an hour the porter was back and handed
him a card. On it was printed:

SIR REGINALD CARSON
President of the International
Wireless Corporation
London

“Show him in,” ordered Prokop, and he was
extremely surprised that that fellow Carson had not
told him the evening before about his honours and
that to-day he should have arrived so ceremoniously;
he was also a little curious to see how Carson would
look after that wild night. Then his eyes simply
started out of his head with astonishment. There
came into the room a completely strange gentleman,
a good foot taller than the Mr. Carson of yesterday.

“Very glad to see you,” said the strange gentle¬
man slowly, and bowed just as low as if he had been
a telegraph pole.

Krakatit 141

Prokop made an indeterminate noise and gave
him a seat. The gentleman sat down on it squarely
and began very leisurely to peel off a pair of magni¬
ficent kid gloves. He was a very tall and extraor¬
dinarily serious gentleman with a horse-like face
with very precise lines on it. In his tie-pin was an
enormous Indian opal, on his gold watch-chain an
antique cameo. He had the enormous feet of a
golf player, and was, in brief, every inch an English
gentleman. Prokop was stupefied. “Please?” he
managed to say finally, when the silence had become
unbearable.

The gentleman was in no hurry. “Without
doubt,” he began slowly in English, “without doubt
you must have been surprised when you first came
across my announcement in the paper. I assume
that you are Eng. Prokop, the author of some ex¬
tremely interesting articles on explosives.”

Prokop nodded silently.

“I am very glad to meet you,” said Sir Reginald
without haste. “I have been wanting to see you in
connection with a matter of great scientific interest
and practically of great importance for our com¬
pany, the International Wireless Corporation,
whose president I have the honour to be. It is of no
less importance for the International Union for
Wireless Telegraphy, who have been so good as to
elect me as their general secretary. You will cer¬
tainly be somewhat astonished,” he continued with¬
out being out of breath, “that these important con¬
cerns should have sent me to see you when your
distinguished work is in quite another field. Allow
me.” With these words Sir Reginald opened his

142 Krakatit

crocodile leather wallet and pulled out some papers,
a writing block and a gold pencil.

“About nine months ago,” he began slowly,
putting a pair of gold pince-nez on his nose so as to
see better, “the European wireless stations noticed
the fact - ”

“Pardon me,” Prokop interrupted him, unable
to control himself, “did you put those announce¬
ments in the papers?”

“Certainly I did. The stations became aware,
then, of certain regular disturbances - ”

“ — on Tuesdays and Fridays, I know. Who
told you about Krakatit?”

“I proposed to come to that later,” said this ven¬
erable gentleman somewhat reproachfully. “Well,
I will pass over the details, assuming that to a cer¬
tain extent you are informed regarding our aims and
oh— eh— ah - ”

“ — regarding a secret international conspiracy,
eh?”

Sir Reginald opened his pale blue eyes very wide.
“Excuse me, but to what conspiracy do you refer?”

“Well, to those secret messages at night, to the
secret organization which sends them out - ”

Sir Reginald cut him short. “Fantasy,” he said
regretfully, “pure fantasy. I am aware that the
Tribune when our company advertised such a rela¬
tively large reward . . . circulated the report - ”

“I know,” said Prokop quickly, afraid that this
leisurely gentleman would begin to discuss the point.

“Yes. Pure invention. The whole business has
nothing but a commercial basis. It is in the inter¬
ests of a certain person to demonstrate the unre-

Krakatit

143

liability of our stations, if you understand me. He
wishes to undermine public confidence. Unfortu¬
nately our receivers and — ah — coherers are unable
to discover the particular type of waves which bring
this disturbance about. And since we have received
reports to the effect that you have in your possession
a certain substance or chemical which reacts in the
most remarkable way to these disturbances - ”

“Reports from whom?”

“From your colleague, Mr.— ah — Mr. Thomas.
Mr. Thomas — ah.” Sir Reginald extracted a letter
from the bundle of papers he had brought with him.
“ ‘Dear Sir,’ ” he read with a certain amount of ef¬
fort, “ ‘I have seen in the newspapers an announce¬
ment of a reward, etc., etc. As at the present mo¬
ment it is impossible for me to leave Balttin, where
I am at work in connection with a certain discovery,
and as a matter of such importance cannot be dealt
with by letter, I beg you to seek out in Prague a
friend of mine with whom I have worked for many
years, Mr. Eng. Prokop, who is in possession of a
newly discovered substance, Krakatit, the tetrargon
of a certain lead salt, the synthesis of which is made
by utilizing the effect of a high frequency current.
Krakatit reacts, as various exact experiments have
demonstrated, to certain mysterious disturbing
waves by a powerful explosion, from which it fol¬
lows that it will have decisive significance for de¬
termining the nature of the waves in question. In
view of the importance of the matter I would sug¬
gest, on behalf of myself and my friend, that the

reward offered should be considerably rai - ’ ” Sir

Reginald cleared his throat. “That is really all,”

i44 Krakatit

he said. “We could discuss the question of the re¬
ward separately. Signed by Mr. Thomas in
Balttin.”

“H’m,” said Prokop, possessed by a sudden seri¬
ous suspicion, “that such a personal . . . unreliable
. . . fantastic report should suffice for the Inter¬
national Wireless Corporation.”

“I beg your pardon,” retorted Sir Reginald,
“needless to say we have received very precise re¬
ports regarding certain experiments in Balttin - ”

“Aha! from a certain Saxon laboratory assistant,
eh?”

“No. From our own representative. I’ll read
you it now.” Sir Reginald again rummaged in his
papers. “Here we are. ‘Dear Sir, the local sta¬
tions have so far been unable to overcome the dis¬
turbances in question. Attempts at using greater
power for transmission purposes have completely
failed. I have received a report from a reliable in¬
formant to the effect that the military works in
Balttin have acquired a certain quantity of some
substance - ’ ”

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,”
said Prokop, and the waiter entered with a visiting
card: “Some gentleman is asking - ”

On the card were the words:

MR. CARSON
Balttin

“Show him in,” said Prokop, suddenly violently
angry and completely ignoring Sir Reginald’s ges¬
ture of protest.

Krakatit

145

A moment afterwards the Mr. Carson of yester¬
day, his face bearing evident marks of lack of sleep,
walked into the room and made towards Prokop,
evidently delighted to see him again.

CHAPTER XXI

ne moment,” Prokop stopped him, “allow me

me to introduce you. Mr. Carson, Sir Regi¬
nald Carson.”

Sir Reginald drew himself up but remained seated
with unruffled dignity; but Mr. Carson, whistling
with surprise, sank into a chair like a man whose
legs have suddenly failed him. Prokop leaned
against the door and stared at both of them with
uncontrolled hostility. “Well?” he asked finally.

Sir Reginald began to put his papers away in his
wallet. “Undoubtedly,” he said slowly, “it would
be better for me to visit you some other time - ”

“Please stay,” Prokop interrupted him. “Ex¬
cuse me, gentlemen, are you by any chance related?”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Carson. “On the con¬
trary.”

“Which of you is the real Carson?”

Nobody answered; there was a painful silence.

“Ask this gentleman,” said Sir Reginald coldly,
“perhaps he will show you his papers.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” hissed Mr. Car-
son, “but after the other gentleman has done so
first. So.”

“And which of you inserted that announcement
in the papers?”

“I,” said Mr. Carson without the least hesitation,
“my inspiration, my dear sir. I see that even in

146

Krakatit 147

our sphere one comes across the unheard-of deprav¬
ity of exploiting some one else’s idea. So.”

“Allow me,” Sir Reginald turned to Prokop with
real moral indignation, “this is really too much.
What would it have looked like if still another an¬
nouncement had been made under another name !
I was therefore obliged to accept the situation
created by the other gentleman.”

“Aha!” burst out Mr. Carson aggressively, “and
so the gentleman assumed my name for his pur¬
poses !”

“All I want to say is,” Sir Reginald defended
himself, “that this gentleman is simply not named
Carson.”

“What is his name then?” asked Prokop quickly.

“. . .1 don’t know exactly,” said Sir Reginald
contemptuously through his teeth.

“Carson,” said Prokop, turning to the engineer,
“and who is this gentleman?”

“Competition,” said Mr. Carson with bitter hu¬
mour. “This is the gentleman who wished to trap me
with false documents. He certainly wanted to make
me acquainted with some very charming people.”

“With the local military police,” muttered Sir
Reginald.

Mr. Carson’s eyes flashed maliciously and he
coughed warningly: “I beg you not to speak about
it! Certainly - ”

“Would the gentlemen like to explain anything
to one another?” grinned Prokop from the door.

“No, nothing further,” said Sir Reginald with
dignity; so far he had not considered the other
Carson worthy of a single glance.

148 Krakatit

“•Now,” Prokop began, “first of all I should like
to thank you both for your visit. Secondly, I am
extremely glad to hear that Krakatit is in good
hands, that is to say, in my own; for if you had the
slightest hope of getting hold of it otherwise I
should not have been so much in demand, eh? I am
extremely obliged to you for the information which
you have involuntarily given me.”

“Don’t exult too soon,” muttered Mr. Carson,
“there remains - ”

“ — him?” said Prokop, indicating Sir Reginald.

Mr. Carson shook his head. “Good gracious, no !
But a certain third person - ”

“Excuse me,” said Prokop, annoyed, “you don’t
surely think that I believe anything of what you
told me last night?”

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders regretfully.
“Well, as you like.”

“Thirdly,” Prokop continued, “I should be
obliged if you would kindly tell me where Thomas
is at present.”

“But I told you already,” said Mr. Carson quickly,
“that I am not allowed to do so. Come to Balttin
and there you are.”

“And you, sir,” Prokop turned to Sir Reginald.

“I beg your pardon,” said the latter, “but I pre¬
fer to keep that to myself.”

“Fourthly, I entreat you not to devour one an¬
other while I go out - ”

“ — for the police,” said Sir Reginald. “Quite
right.”

“I am delighted that you share my opinion. Par¬
don my locking you in while I am away.”

Krakatit x49

“Oh, please,” said Sir Reginald politely, while
Mr. Carson would have protested desperately.

Greatly relieved, Prokop locked the door behind
him and further stationed two waiters outside it,
while he himself ran off to the nearest police-station;
for he thought it best to let them know what had
happened. It transpired that the matter was not to
be arranged so easily. He was unable to accuse
either of the strangers of having committed even
any crime so unimportant as that of stealing silver
spoons or playing faro; it cost him a great deal of
effort to allay the suspicions of the official at the
police-station, who evidently regarded him as insane.
Finally — probably for the sake of being left in peace
— he allotted Prokop a shabby and taciturn plain
clothes detective. When they reached the hotel they
found both waiters still valiantly guarding the door,
surrounded by a group consisting of the entire per¬
sonnel of the establishment. Prokop unlocked the
door and the detective, having blown his nose
loudly, stepped quietly into the room as if he were
going to buy a pair of braces. It was empty. Both
the Carsons had disappeared.

The taciturn individual merely blew his nose
again and made his way to the bathroom, which
Prokop had completely forgotten. From there
there was a window looking out on to the well of the
hotel, and on the opposite wall was a window in the
wall of the lavatory. The taciturn individual then
proceeded to the lavatory. This led to another
flight of steps. The door was locked, and the key
had disappeared. The detective undid the door
with a pass-key and opened it; inside he found it

i5° Krakatit

empty, but there were footmarks beneath the win¬
dow. The taciturn individual locked the door again
and said that he would go and fetch his superior.

His superior, an active little man and a first-rate
criminal expert, did not take long to grasp the situa¬
tion. He spent a good two hours in trying to ex¬
tract from Prokop an explanation of his relation to
the two gentlemen. It appeared that he had a
strong desire to arrest at least Prokop, who had be¬
come terribly embarrassed in his explanation of his
dealings with the two foreigners. Then he ques¬
tioned the doorkeeper and the waiters and instructed
Prokop to report himself at the police-station at six
o’clock that evening, intimating that he would do
better not to leave the hotel meanwhile.

Prokop spent the rest of the day in wandering
about the room and reflecting with horror that he
would probably be imprisoned; for how could he
furnish an adequate explanation when he was deter¬
mined not to mention Krakatit at any cost? The
devil only knew how long such a detention might
last; and then, instead of looking for her, the un¬
known one with a veil . . . Prokop’s eyes were full
of tears; he felt so weak and soft that he grew posi¬
tively ashamed. Finally he mustered all his deter¬
mination and set out for the police-station.

They led him at once into an office which was fur¬
nished with a thick carpet, leather arm-chairs and a
large box of cigars — that of the President. Near
the writing-table Prokop was confronted with an
enormous back like that of a boxer, inclined over
some papers, a back which at the first glance inspired
him with terror and submissiveness. “Sit down,

Krakatit I5I

Mr. Engineer,” said the back in a friendly tone, and
there turned to Prokop a face no less monumental in
build, appropriately placed on the neck of a wild
bull. The powerful gentleman studied Prokop for a
moment and then said: “Mr. Engineer, I will not
force you to tell me what you have decided, after
consideration, to keep to yourself. I know about
your work. I have the impression that the matter
had to do with a certain explosive prepared by you.”

“Yes.”

“The substance has a certain . . . shall we say
military significance?”

“Yes.”

The powerful gentleman got up and shook hands
with Prokop. “I should just like to express my
thanks to you, Mr. Engineer, for not selling it to
foreign agents.”

“Is that all?” breathed Prokop.

“Yes.”

“Have you arrested them?” Prokop burst out.

“Why?” smiled the gentleman. “We have no
right to do so. So far it is only a matter of your
secret and not of one belonging to our army . . . ”

Prokop took the delicate hint and became con¬
fused. “The matter . . . hasn’t yet matured . . .”

“I believe you. I have confidence in you,” said
the powerful man and again shook his hand.

That was all.

CHAPTER XXII

“T must set to work methodically,” Prokop de-

-L cided. Good; and after reflecting for a long
time and having a series of remarkable inspirations
he evolved a course of action. . . .

To begin with, he inserted the following an¬
nouncement in all the papers: “Mr. Thomas. The
messenger with a wounded hand asks the lady in the
veil for her address. Very important. P. Write
‘40,000’ to Box Office.” This formulation of the
inquiry seemed to him to be very ingenious; he cer¬
tainly did not know whether the young lady read
the newspapers, and especially advertisements, at all,
but still, who knows? Chance is a powerful factor.
But instead of chance, circumstances came about
which could have been foreseen, but which Prokop
had not anticipated. In answer to the advertise¬
ment he received piles of correspondence, consisting
mostly of bills, reminders, threats and insults ad¬
dressed to the missing Thomas: “Let Mr. Thomas
in his own interest furnish his address ...” and
so on. Further, there wandered into the office of
the paper a lean person who, when Prokop called
for the answers to his advertisement, stepped up to
him and asked him where Mr. Thomas lived. Pro¬
kop was as rude to him as the circumstances per¬
mitted, whereupon the lean person produced his

152

Krakatit

153

authority out of his pocket and emphatically warned
Prokop not to misbehave himself. It was a ques¬
tion of a certain embezzlement and other disrepu¬
table matters. Prokop was able to convince the lean
person that he himself was inordinately desirous of
knowing where Mr. Thomas lived; after this ad¬
venture and after studying the replies to his adver¬
tisement his faith in the efficacy of such a method
was seriously weakened. In any case the replies
steadily decreased in number, becoming on the other
hand more threatening in tone.

The next thing he did was to go to a private
detective agency. There he explained that he was
looking for a mysterious girl in a veil and at¬
tempted to describe her. The agency was quite pre¬
pared to furnish him with perfectly discreet in¬
formation regarding her if only he could tell them
her name, or address. There was nothing for him
to do but to go away.

Then he got an inspiration of genius. In the
package, which never left him day or night, there
was, besides a number of smaller bank-notes, thirty
thousand crowns done up in a wrapper, as is usually
the custom when banks pay out large sums of
money. The name of the bank was not on it; but
it was at least highly probable that the girl had
drawn the money from some institution or other the
day that Prokop left for Tynice. Well, all he had
to do was to find the exact date and then go round
all the banks in Prague and ask them to give him
the name of the person who on that day drew out
thirty thousand crowns or something about that
figure. Yes, to find the exact date; Prokop was

154

Krakatit

certain that Krakatit had exploded on a Tuesday
and it was probable that the girl had drawn the
money on a Wednesday; but Prokop was uncertain
of both the week and the month; it might have been
in February or in March.

He made a tremendous effort to remember, or at
least to calculate, when it was; but all his specula¬
tions were nullified by the fact that he had no idea
how long he had lain ill. Good; they certainly must
know at Tynice what week it was in which he de¬
scended upon them. Dazzled by this new hope, he
sent a telegram to old Dr. Thomas: “Please
telegraph date when I arrived at your house. Pro¬
kop.” He had scarcely sent off the wire when he
was overcome with a feeling of remorse at having
behaved so badly. To the telegram he obtained no
answer. Just as he was about to abandon this trail
it occurred to him that the caretaker’s wife at
Thomas’s flat might remember the date. He flew
off there; but the caretaker’s wife insisted that it
was a Saturday. Prokop became desperate; then
he received a letter written in the large and careful
characters of a schoolgirl, to the effect that he had
arrived at Tynice on such and such a day but that
“father mustn’t know that I have written to you.”
Nothing more. It was signed by Annie. For some
reason Prokop’s heart was torn by this couple of
lines.

Now, having at last found the date he wanted, he
rushed off to the nearest bank; could they tell him
who on such and such a day had drawn, say, thirty
thousand crowns? They shook their heads, saying
that it was not the custom to furnish such informa-

Krakatit

155

tion; but when they saw that he was completely
disconcerted they consulted somebody behind and
then asked him on whose account the money had
been taken out; for certainly it had been drawn on
a cheque, a deposit account or something of that
sort. Naturally Prokop did not know. Further,
they told him, it was possible that the person in
question had only sold certain bills, in which case
there would be no record of his name in their books.
And when, finally, Prokop informed them that he
had simply no idea whether the money was paid out
by this particular bank or not they burst out laugh¬
ing and inquired whether he was going round the
two hundred and fifty-odd financial institutions,
agencies and exchanges in Prague with the same
question. So Prokop’s marvellous inspiration
proved a complete failure.

There only remained the fourth possibility, the
chance that he would meet her. Prokop tried to
introduce method even into this possibility; he
divided the map of Prague into sections and ex¬
amined each one twice daily. One day he calculated
the number of people he would meet in this way in
one day and arrived at a total of nearly forty thou¬
sand; bearing in mind the total population of the
city it worked out that the chances were one in
twenty that he would meet her. Even this small
probability gave him hope. There were certain
streets and places in which she was more likely to
reside, or along which she was likely to be walking;
streets with acacias in bloom, venerable old squares,
intimate corners of deep and serious life. It was
surely impossible that she should be found in the

156

Krakatit

sort of noisy and dreary street along which one only
hurried. Nor amid the symmetrical desolation of
characterless flats. Why, was it not possible that
she lived behind those large, dark windows beyond
which was to be found a shaded and refined quiet?
Wandering as if in a dream, Prokop realized for the
first time in his life what there was to be discovered
in this town in which he had spent so many years
of his existence; God! how many beautiful spots,
where life unrolls itself, peaceful and mature, and
entices one when one is distraught !

Numberless times Prokop dashed off in pursuit
of young women who gave him the impression from
a distance, for some reason, of being she whom he
had only seen twice. He ran after them with a
wildly beating heart; what if it should prove to be
she ! Heaven knows what instincts of divination
led him to go after them. They were certainly mys¬
terious, sad and beautiful, absorbed in themselves
and wrapped in some sort of inaccessibility. Once
he was almost certain that it was she; he was so
excited that he had to stop for a moment to take
breath; and at that moment the woman got into a
tram and disappeared. For three days afterwards
he waited near the stopping place, but never saw her
again.

Worst of all were the evenings when, completely
exhausted, he sat rubbing his hands on his knees
and trying to evolve a new plan of campaign. God !
he would never abandon the search for her; it may
be that it was an obsession; that he was a lunatic,
an idiot, a maniac; but he would never give up.
The more she evaded him — the greater efforts

Krakatit

i57

would he make; it was . . . simply fate ... or
something.

Once he awoke in the middle of the night and it
suddenly became inevitably clear to him that he
would never find her in this way; that he would
have to set out in search of George Thomas, who
knew about her and could tell him what he wanted.
Although it was the middle of the night he clothed
himself, unable to wait until morning. He was un¬
prepared for the incredible difficulties that awaited
him in obtaining a passport; he could not understand
what they wanted of him and alternately cursed and
grew dejected in feverish impatience. Finally,
finally the night came when an express carried him
across the frontier. And now, to begin with, to
Balttin !

Now it will be decided, Prokop felt.

CHAPTER XXIII

IT was decided very differently from the way he
imagined.

He had conceived a plan of seeking out in Balttin
the person who had given himself out to be Carson
and of saying to him something like this: “What¬
ever happens, I spit on your money; lead me at
once to George Thomas, with whom I have business,
and in return you shall get a good explosive, say
fulminate of iodine with a guaranteed detonation of
some eleven thousand metres per second, or a cer¬
tain acid with a good thirteen thousand, my dear sir,
and you can do with it what you like.” They would
simply be mad not to take advantage of such an
offer.

From the outside the factory in Balttin seemed to
him to be positively enormous; he was rather
startled when, instead of a porter, he came upon a
military sentry. He asked for Mr. Carson (of
course that was not the fellow’s real name!) ; but
the soldier passed him on without a word to his
N.C.O. The latter said little more and led Prokop
to the officer. “We’ve never heard of Engineer
Carson here,” said the latter, “and what might the
gentleman want with him?” Prokop announced
that, strictly speaking, he wished to see Mr.
Thomas. This made such an impression on the
officer that he sent for the commandant.

The commandant, a very fat and asthmatic per-

158

Krakatit H9

son, questioned Prokop in detail as to who he was
and what he wanted; by this time there were at
least five military persons in the office and they all
stared at Prokop so hard that he simply sweated.
It was evident that they were waiting for somebody,
for whom they had meanwhile telephoned. When
this somebody suddenly dashed into the room he
proved to be nobody else but Mr. Carson; they
addressed him as director, but Prokop never learned
his real name. He cried out with delight when his
eyes fell on Prokop, saying that he had been waiting
for him for a long time and various other things.
He at once telephoned to the “Castle” for the
guest’s suite to be prepared, took Prokop by the arm
and conducted him all over the factory. It appeared
that what Prokop had taken for the factory was
nothing but the guard’s and firemen’s quarters at the
entrance; from there they went along a long road,
bordered on each side by a fence about thirty feet
high. Mr. Carson led Prokop to the end of this
road and only then did he realize what the Balttin
factories were really like: a whole town of munition
sheds, designated by numbers and letters, hillocks
covered with grass which, he told him, were maga¬
zines, a little farther on a siding with cranes and
ramps, and behind it a number of buildings made of
wood. “You see that wood over there?” said
Mr. Carson pointing to the horizon. “Behind
it are the first experimental laboratories. And
there where you see those sand hills is the range.
So. And here in the park is the castle. You’ll
open your eyes when I show you the laboratories.
Absolutely up to date.- And now we’ll go to the
castle.”

i6o

Krakatit

Mr. Carson chattered on happily, but said noth¬
ing about what had happened or what was to hap¬
pen in the future; they passed through the park
and he showed him a rare variety of Amorphophal-
lus and next to it a particular species of Japanese
cherry; and then they came in sight of the Castle
of Balttin, all overgrown with ivy. At the entrance
was waiting a quiet and gentle old man in white
gloves named Paul, who led Prokop straight to the
guest’s apartments. Prokop had never been in such
surroundings in his life: parquet flooring, empire
style, everything old and valuable, so that he was
afraid even to sit down. And before he had had
time to wash his hands there was Paul with eggs,
a bottle of wine and a glass, which he set down on
the table as carefully as if he were waiting on a
princess. Beneath the window was a yard covered
with pale yellow sand; a groom in top boots was
training a large dapple grey horse; beside him there
stood a slight, dark girl who was watching the
trotting of the horse through half-closed eyes and
from time to time giving the groom some sort of
brief orders, after which she knelt down and felt
the animal’s hocks.

Mr. Carson then appeared with the swiftness of
the wind, saying that he must now introduce Prokop
to the general manager. He led him along a long
white passage, adorned exclusively with antlers and
lined with black carved chairs. A red-faced page
wearing white gloves opened the door for them, Mr.
Carson pushed Prokop inside into a sort of reception
room and the door closed behind them. At a desk
there was seated a tall old man, extraordinarily

Krakatit

161

erect, as if he had just been taken out of a cup¬
board and prepared for the interview.

“Mr. Eng. Prokop, your Excellence,” said Mr.
Carson, “Prince Elagen — Balttin.”

Prokop’s brow darkened and he jerked his head
angrily, a movement which he evidently regarded as
constituting a bow.

“Very — pleased — to welcome you,” said Prince
Hagen and stretched out an inordinately long hand.
Prokop again jerked his head.

“I — hope that — you will — enjoy yourself —
among us,” continued the Prince, and then Prokop
noticed that he was paralyzed in half his body.

“Do — honour us — with your presence at dinner,”
continued the Prince, with evident anxiety on the
score of his artificial teeth.

Prokop moved his feet nervously. “Excuse me,
Prince,” he said finally, “but I am unable to stay
here; I — I must leave this very day - ”

“Impossible, quite impossible,” cried Mr. Carson
from behind.

“I must leave to-day,” repeated Prokop obsti¬
nately. “I only wanted ... to ask you the where¬
abouts of Thomas. I should be . . . pleased to
offer you in return - ”

“What?” cried the Prince, and looked at Mr.
Carson with eyes wide with complete lack of com¬
prehension. “What — does he want?”

“Leave that for the moment,” said Mr. Carson
in Prokop’s ear. “Mr. Prokop means to say, your
Excellence, that he was not prepared for your invi¬
tation. That doesn’t matter,” he went on, turning
quickly to Prokop. “I’ve arranged for that. We

i6i

Krakatit

shall dine to-day out on the lawn, so there is no
question of evening clothes; you can go as you are.
I’ve telegraphed for a tailor; no need for anxiety,
my dear sir. Everything will be arranged by to¬
morrow. So.”

It was now Prokop’s turn to open his eyes wide.
“What tailor? What does this mean?”

“It will be — a particular honour — for us,” the
Prince concluded and gave Prokop his lifeless
fingers.

“What does this mean?” raged Prokop when
they were outside in the passage and seized Carson
by the shoulder. “Tell me now, man, or - ”

Mr. Carson neighed like a horse and slipped out
of his grasp like a street urchin. “Or — what?” he
laughed and flew off, bouncing like a ball. “If you
can catch me I’ll tell you everything, honestly.”

“You clown,” thundered Prokop, furious, and
set off after him. Mr. Carson, still neighing, flew
down the stairs and slipped past the row of armoured
knights into the park. There he squatted down like
a hare in mockery of his pursuer. “Well,” he cried,
“what will you do to me?”

“I’ll smash you to a jelly,” Prokop- burst out,
falling on him with his full weight. Carson slid
away, squeaked with delight and leapt about the
lawn like a hare. “Quick,” he sang out, “here I
am,” and again he slipped out of Pffokop’s hands
and cried “I see you!” from behind the stump of a
tree.

Prokop again set off after him silently with
clenched fists, as serious and threatening as Ajax.
He was already panting for breath when, looking

Krakatit

163

round, he saw the dark Amazon watching him from
the castle steps with half-closed eyes. He became ex¬
ceedingly ashamed of himself, stopped, and had a
sudden foolish fear that the girl would come across
and feel his hocks.

Mr. Carson, suddenly quite serious again, strolled
over to him with his hands in his pockets and said
in a friendly manner: “Not enough training. You
shouldn’t spend the whole day sitting. Exercise
your heart. So. A-a-a-a,” he sang out, glowing,
“haholihoo ! The daughter of the old man,” he
added softly. “Princess Willy, that is Wilhelmina
Adelaide Maud and so on. An interesting girl,
twenty-eight years old, a great horsewoman. I
must introduce you,” he said aloud and dragged the
protesting Prokop up to the girl. “Princess,” he
called when they were still some distance away, “let
me introduce to you — to a certain extent against
his will — our guest, Engineer Prokop. A terribly
irate person. Wants to kill me.”

“Good-morning,” said the Princess, and turned
to Mr. Carson: “Do you know that one of Whirl¬
wind’s hocks is inflamed?”

“My God!” said Mr. Carson, horrified. “Poor
Princess !”

“Do you play tennis?”

Prokop was frowning darkly and did not even
realize that the remark was addressed to him.

“He doesn’t,” Carson answered for him and dug
him in the ribs. “You must play. The Princess
lost to Lenglen by only one set, eh?”

“Because I was playing against the sun,” said the
Princess, a little piqued. “What do you play?”

i64 Krakatit

Again Prokop did not realize that he was being
addressed.

“Mr. Prokop is a scientist,” said Carson warmly.
“He’s discovered atomic explosions and that sort of
thing, A marvellous mind. Compared with him
we’re nothing but helps in the kitchen. Scraping
potatoes. But he,” and Mr. Carson whistled with
amazement, “he’s a pure magician. If you want
him to he’ll prepare hydrogen from bismuth. So,
madame.”

The half-closed grey eyes glanced casually at Pro¬
kop, who stood still, thoroughly embarrassed and
furious with Carson.

“Very interesting,” said the Princess and at once
looked elsewhere. “Ask him to teach me about
these things some time. We meet again then at
mid-day, eh?”

Prokop bowed just in time and Carson dragged
him off into the park. “Race,” he said apprecia¬
tively. “That woman has breeding. Haughty, eh?
Wait till you know her better.”

Prokop stopped. “Listen, Carson, so that you
will get it clear. I don’t intend to get to know any¬
body better. I am going away to-day or to-morrow,
you understand?”

Mr. Carson chewed a piece of grass. “A pity,”
he said. “It’s very nice here. Well, it can’t be
helped.”

“The long and short of it is, where is Thomas
_ ?”

“Wait until you are leaving. How did you like
the old man ?”

“What interest have I in him?” growled Prokop.

Krakatit

165

“Well, yes, an antique. There for show. Un¬
fortunately he has a paralytic stroke nearly every
week. But Willy’s a marvellous girl. Then there’s
Egon, a hobbledehoy, eighteen. Both orphans.
Then the guests, some second cousin, Prince Suwal-
ski, all sorts of officers, Rohlauf, Von Graun, you
know, Jockey Club and Dr. Krafft, the tutor, and
various others. You must come and see us this
evening. Drink, none of the aristocracy, our engi¬
neers and people of that sort, see? Over there in
my villa. It’ll be in your honour.”

“Carson,” said Prokop severely, “I want to speak
seriously with you before I go.”

“There’s no hurry. Just rest yourself. Well,
I must get back to my work. Do just what you like.
No formalities. If you want to bathe, there’s a lake
over there. We’ll talk seriously later. Make your¬
self comfortable. So.”

And he was gone.

CHAPTER XXIV

PROKOP wandered about the park, irritable and
yawning through lack of sleep. He wondered
what they wanted with him and contemplated with
dissatisfaction his huge, ungainly boots and wTorn-
out trousers. Absorbed in these reflections he very
nearly walked on to the tennis court, where the
Princess was playing with two girls in white dresses.
He hastily turned aside and set off towards what he
imagined was the end of the park. But in that
direction the park ended in a sort of terrace; a stone
balustrade and below it a wall nearly forty feet high.
From the terrace one had a view of the pine woods
and of a soldier who was pacing up and down below
with a fixed bayonet.

Prokop then set off to the part of the park which
sloped away from the castle. There he found a
lake with some bathing sheds, but overcoming the
temptation to bathe, he went on into a beautiful cop¬
pice of birch trees. Here he came upon a lattice-
work fence and a half effaced path leading to a gate;
the gate was not completely closed and it was possi¬
ble to pass through it into a pine wood. He walked
quietly along over the slippery pine cones until he
reached the edge of the wood. And there, damna¬
tion, was a fence surmounted by barbed wire, a good
twelve feet high. How strong, he wondered, was
the wire? He tested it carefully with his hands and

1 66

Krakatit i67

feet until he noticed that his conduct had begun to
interest a soldier with a fixed bayonet who was
standing on the other side.

“A hot day, eh?” said Prokop, to pass it off.

“You are not allowed here,” said the soldier;
and Prokop swung round and set off farther along
the barbed-wire fence. The pine wood turned into
scattered young trees, behind which were a few
sheds and stables, evidently the yard belonging to
the castle. He looked through the fence and inside
there immediately began a frightful howling, yelp¬
ing and barking, and a good dozen dogs, blood¬
hounds and wolfhounds, hurled themselves at the
fence. Four pairs of unfriendly eyes looked out of
four different doors. Prokop made some sort of
greeting and wished to go farther, but one of the
servants ran after him, saying that “You’re not al¬
lowed here,” after which he led him back to the
gate at the end of the birch wood.

All this put Prokop into a very bad frame of
mind. Carson must tell him which was the way
out, he decided; he was not a canary, to be kept in a
cage. Making a detour to avoid the tennis court
he made his way to the road through the park, along
which Carson had first led him to the castle. No
sooner had he reached it than a fellow in a flat cap,
who looked as if he had stepped out of a film, came
up to him and asked where the gentleman might be
going.

“Outside,” said Prokop shortly; but “You’re not
allowed here!” exclaimed the fellow in the cap;
“this is the road to the munition barracks and any¬
one who wants to go along it must have a laisser-

1 68 Krakatit

passer from the management. The gate leading
outside directly from the castle is back there on the
main road and to the left, please.”

Prokop went along the main road and to the left,
please, until he was brought up by a large gate with
a grating in it. The old doorkeeper went forward
to open it for him. “Have you a ticket, please?”

“What sort of ticket?”

“A pass.”

“What sort of pass?”

“A ticket, giving you permission to go out.”

Prokop became furious. “Am I in a prison,
then?”

The old man shrugged his shoulders regretfully:
“I was instructed this morning, please.”

Poor wretch, thought Prokop, as if he could pre¬
vent anyone going out ! A movement of the
hand -

From the window of the doorkeeper’s house there
looked out a familiar face, recalling that of Bob.
Prokop left his train of thought unfinished, turned
back, and wandered again towards the castle. The
devil, he said to himself, they’re up to some curious
tricks; it almost looks as if one were a prisoner
here. Good; I’ll discuss this with Carson. To be¬
gin with, Pm not going to take any notice of their
hospitality and shan’t join them at dinner. Pm
not going to sit down with those young ladies who
laughed at me behind my back on the tennis court.
Infinitely dejected, Prokop returned to the rooms
which had been assigned to him and threw himself
down on a divan, giving himself up to his anger. A
moment later Mr. Paul knocked at the door and

Krakatit 169

asked with great kindness and concern whether the
gentleman was going down to lunch.

“No, I’m not,” growled Prokop.

Mr. Paul bowed and disappeared. In a minute
he had returned, pushing before him a little table
on wheels, covered with glasses, fragile porcelain
and silver. “What wine, please?” he asked ten¬
derly. Prokop muttered something so as to be left
in peace. y

Mr. Paul went on tiptoe to the door and there
took from two white paws a large dish. “Con¬
somme de tortue’’ he whispered and poured some
out for Prokop, upon which the dish was borne
away in the white claws. By the same route there
arrived fish, meat, salad, and things which Prokop
had never eaten in his life and did not even know
how to deal with; but he was shy of exhibiting his
embarrassment before Mr. Paul. To his surprise his
wrath had somehow disappeared. “Sit down,” he
ordered Paul, savouring the dry white wine with his
nose and palate. Mr. Paul bowed considerately but
remained standing.

“Listen, Paul,” Prokop continued, “do you think
that I’m in prison here?”

Mr. Paul politely shrugged his shoulders: “I am
unable to say, please.”

“Which is the way out?”

Mr. Paul reflected for a moment. “Along the
main road and then to the left, please. Will the
gentleman take coffee?”

“Well, perhaps.” Prokop burnt his throat with
the superior Mocha, after which Mr. Paul handed
him all the perfumes .of Araby, contained in a

170

Krakatit

cigar-box and a silver lighter. “Listen, Paul,” Pro-
kop began again, biting the end of a cigar, “thank
you. Did you ever know a certain Thomas here?”

Mr. Paul raised his eyes to heaven in an effort
of recollection. “I didn’t, please.”

“How many soldiers are there here?”

Mr. Paul considered and made a calculation.
“In the main guard about two hundred. That’s
the infantry. Then the field militia, I don’t know
how many. In Balttin-Dortum a squadron of hus¬
sars. Some gunners at the artillery ground in Balt-
tin-Dikkeln.”

“Why do they have field militia here?”

“This is a military camp, please. In connection
with the munition factory.”

“Aha ! And there’s only a guard just round this
place?”

“Here there are only patrols, please. The chain
is further away, behind the wood.”

“What chain?”

“The protective zone, please. No one is allowed
to go there.”

“And if anyone wants to leave the place - ”

“Then he must obtain a permit from the camp
commandant. Does the gentleman require any¬
thing more?”

“No, thank you.”

Like a satiated Eastern potentate, Prokop
stretched himself out on the divan. Well, we shall
see, he said to himself; so far things were not so
bad. He wished to reflect on the matter but instead
could only remember the way in which Carson had
jumped about in front of him. Supposing he hadn’t

Krakatit

171

caught him? he thought and set off in pursuit. It
was only a question of a jump of about fifteen feet;
but Carson soared up like a grasshopper and flew
smoothly over a clump of bushes. Prokop stamped
his feet and rose after him, but he had scarcely
raised his feet when he found himself skimming
over the tops of the bushes. Another jump and
he was flying God knows whither, not worrying
any more about Carson. Pie glided about amongst
trees, as light and as free as a bird; he tried a few
movements with his legs and found himself rising
higher. This pleased him inordinately. With pow¬
erful strokes he circled up and up. Below him,
like a beautiful map, there appeared the prospect
of the castle park with its arbours, lawns and serpen¬
tine paths; one could distinguish the tennis courts,
the pond, the roof of the castle, the birch wood;
over there was the yard with the dogs, and the pine
wood and the wired fence, and to the right began
the munition sheds and behind them the high wall.
Prokop made his way through the air over the part
of the park which he had not yet visited. On the
way there he saw that what he had regarded as a
terrace was really the old fortifications of the castle,
a powerful bastion with a moat, evidently formerly
filled from the lake. Pie was principally interested
in that part of the park between the main entrance
and the bastion; there there were overgrown paths
and wild bushes, and a wall a good nine feet high,
beneath which was some sort of a rubbish heap;
beyond was a kitchen garden and round it a wall
in which was a green gate; the other side of the
gate ran the main road.. “I’ll have a look in that

172 Krakatit

direction,” said Prokop to himself, and descended
a little. But at this point there appeared on the
road a squadron of cavalry with drawn sabres,
advancing directly upon him. Prokop drew his
knees up to his chin, so that they should not slash
at him; but through this movement received such
an impulse that he once more flew up to a height
like an arrow. When he looked down again he saw
everything small as on a map ; down on the main
road there was moving a tiny battery of artillery,
the polished muzzle of a gun was turned upwards,
a small white cloud appeared and bang! The first
shell flew over Prokop’s head. They’re firing at
me, he thought, and quickly waved his arms so as
to descend. Bang! Another shell whizzed passed
Prokop’s nose. He took to flight as quickly as he
was able. Bang! A third shell struck away his
wings and Prokop shot head downwards to earth
and woke up. Some one was knocking at the
door.

“Come in,” cried Prokop, and sprang up, not
knowing what it was all about.

There entered the room a white-haired aristo¬
cratic-looking gentleman in black, who bowed
deeply.

Prokop remained standing and waited to see what
the distinguished gentleman might say.

“Drehbein,” said the minister (at least!) and
bowed again.

Prokop bowed equally deeply. “Prokop,” he
introduced himself. “What can I do for you?”

“If you will kindly remain standing for a
moment.”

Krakatit :73

“Please,” said Prokop, frightened as to what was
going to happen to him.

The white-haired gentleman studied Prokop atten¬
tively for a moment; then he walked round him and
became absorbed in the contemplation of his back.

“If you would kindly draw yourself up a little.”

Prokop became as rigid as a soldier; what the
devil -

“Allow me,” said the gentleman, and knelt down
in front of Prokop.

“What do you want?” gasped out Prokop,
recoiling.

“To take your measure.” And he drew out of
his coat tails a tape measure and began to consider
Prokop’s trousers.

Prokop receded as far as the window. “Stop it,
will you?” he said, irritated. “I’ve ordered no
clothes.”

“I’ve already received instructions,” said the
gentleman respectfully.

“Listen,” said Prokop, recovering control of him¬
self, “go to — I don’t want any clothes and that’s
that! Do you understand?”

“Please,” agreed Mr. Drehbein, and he squatted
down in front of Prokop, lifted his waistcoat and
began to measure the top of his trousers. “Two
inches more,” he noted, getting up. “Allow me.”
And he slipped his hand along to Prokop’s armpit
in a professional manner. “A little more free.”

“Good,” muttered Prokop and turned his back
on him.

“Thank you,” said the gentleman and smoothed
out a crease on the back of his coat.

i74 Krakatit

Prokop swung round, furious. “Take your hands
away, man, or - ”

“Excuse me,” said the gentleman and gently
passed his arms round his waist. Before Prokop
had time to fell him to the ground he had loosened
his waistcoat strap, had stepped back and was
regarding Prokop’s waist with his head on one side.
“So,” he said, completely satisfied and bowed deeply.
“I beg to take leave of you.”

“Go to the devil,” cried Prokop after him, and
“It won’t be to-morrow now,” he said to himself,
after which he began to pace from one corner of
the room to the other. “Holy smoke, do these
people imagine that I am going to stay here for six
months ?”

Then there was a knock at the door and Mr.
Carson entered with a completely innocent face.
Prokop, his hands behind his back, stopped him
and measured him with melancholy eyes. “Who
are you, man?” he said sharply.

Mr. Carson did not even blink, crossed his hands
on his chest and bowed like a Turk.

“Prince Aladdin,” he said, “I am a djin, your
slave. Instruct me and I will carry out your every
wish. You’ve been to bye-byes? Well, your Excel¬
lence, how do you like it here?”

“Enormously,” said Prokop bitterly. “I should
only like to know whether I’m a prisoner here, and
if so, by what right.”

“A prisoner?” said Mr. Carson, astounded.
“Good heavens, surely nobody’s been preventing
your going into the park?”

“No, but going out of the park.”

Krakatit

*75

Mr. Carson shook his head sympathetically.
“Unpleasant, eh? I’m terribly upset that you’re
dissatisfied. Did you bathe in the lake?”

“No. How do I get out ?”

“By the main exit, of course. Go straight on and
then to the left - ”

“And there I’ve to show a pass, eh? Only that I
have none.”

“A pity,” said Mr. Carson. “Such pretty country
round about.”

“Mostly masses of soldiers.”

“A lot of soldiers,” agreed Mr. Carson. “Well
said.”

“Listen,” burst out Prokop and his forehead
twitched with anger, “do you think that it’s pleasant
to come upon a bayonet or a barbed-wire entangle¬
ment every few yards?”

“Where’s that?” said Mr. Carson, astonished.

“Everywhere at the edge of the park.”

“And what in God’s name is taking you to the
edge of the park? You can walk about the middle;
what more do you want?”

“So I am a prisoner?”

“God preserve us! So I shan’t forget it, here’s
a pass for you. A laissez-passer to the factory, see?
In case by any chance you would like to have a
look at it.”

Prokop took the pass from him and became
amazed; on it was his photograph, evidently
taken the same day. “And with this I can get
outside ?”

“No,” said Mr. Carson quickly. “I shouldn’t
advise you to. Generally speaking, I should be

i7 6

Krakatit

careful if I were you, eh? You understand? Come
and look,” he said from the window.

“What is it?”

“Egon is learning to box. Phew, he's caught
it! That’s Yon Graun, see? Aha! that kid’s got
some spirit !”

Prokop looked with revulsion into the yard, where
a half-naked lad, bleeding from the mouth and nose,
and sobbing with pain and anger, was hurling him¬
self again and again at an older opponent, to be
thrown back every time more bloody and pitiful
than ever. What he found particularly revolting
was that the performance was being watched by
the old Prince from a bathchair, laughing for all he
was worth, while Princess Willy was chatting calmly
all the time with a magnificently handsome man.
Finally, Egon collapsed into the sand completely
stupefied and allowed the blood to pour from his
nose.

“Brutes!” roared Prokop, addressing the remark
to no one in particular, and clenched his fists.

“You mustn’t be so sensitive here,” said Mr.
Carson. “Severe discipline. Life . . . as in the
army. We don’t treat anybody gently here,” he
added, so pointedly that it seemed like a threat.

“Carson,” said Prokop seriously. “Am I here
. . . as it were . . . in prison?”

“Good gracious, no! You’re only in a concern
which is under supervision. A powder factory isn’t
quite the same sort of thing as a barber’s shop,
what? You must adapt yourself to the position.”

“I leave to-morrow,” Prokop burst out.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Carson and slapped him

Krakatit J77

on the stomach. “A great wag! You’ll come and
see us this evening, eh?”

“I won’t go anywhere! Where’s Thomas?”

“What ? aha ! your Thomas. Well, at the moment
a long way away. Here’s the key of your labora¬
tory. Nobody will disturb you. I’m sorry I’ve no
time.”

“Carson!” Prokop wished to stop him, but he
drew back before a gesture so commanding that he
did not venture to come nearer; and Mr. Carson
slid out of the room whistling like a trained starling.

Prokop made his way with his pass to the main
entrance. The old man studied it and shook his
head; the pass, he said, was only valid for exit C,
the exit leading to the laboratories. Prokop went
to exit C; the man out of the film with a flat cap
examined the pass and pointed: straight ahead, then
the third cross-road to the north. Prokop of course
took the first road to the south; but after five steps
he was stopped by a soldier : back and the third road
to the left. Prokop ignored the third road to the
left and went straight ahead across a meadow; in
a moment three people appeared in front of him.
He was not allowed to go this way. Then he obedi¬
ently went along the third road to the north, and
when he thought that there was no one watching him
again turned off the road between some munition
sheds. Here he encountered a soldier with a fixed
bayonet who told him to go to cross-roads No. Bii
Road N.6. Prokop tried his luck at each cross-road;
he was always stopped and sent back to road Bn
N.6; finally he learned reason and realized that a
pass on which were the letters “C3n.wF.H.A.Vi i.

178 Krakatit

N6.barV.7.F.b !” had some secret and unescapable
significance which he was bound to recognize. So
he now went where they directed him. The muni¬
tion sheds were left behind, and instead were small
concrete structures, all marked with numbers, evi¬
dently experimental laboratories or something of
the sort, distributed amongst the sand dunes and
pine woods. His path led to a completely isolated
hut numbered V.7. On the door was a brass plate
marked “Eng. Prokop.” Prokop brought out the
key which Carson had given him and wTent inside.

He was confronted with a perfectly equipped
laboratory for the chemistry of explosives — so com¬
plete and modern that Prokop held his breath wfith
the delight of a specialist. On a nail there hung
his old overall, in the corner was a military palliasse
like the one he had had in Prague, and in the
drawers of a magnificently appointed writing-table
there lay, carefully classified and catalogued, all his
printed articles and manuscript notes.

CHAPTER XXV

IT was six months since Prokop had had any chem¬
ical apparatus in his hands.

He examined one instrument after another; every¬
thing of which he had ever dreamed was there,
gleaming, brand-new and arranged with pedantic
precision. There was a desk and a technical library,
an enormous table covered with chemicals, cup¬
boards containing delicate instruments, a chamber
for experimental explosions, a room containing
transformers, and apparatus of which he had never
even heard. He had looked over about half these
marvels when, following a sudden impulse, he rushed
to the table for a certain barium salt, some nitrate
acid, a few other things, and began an experiment
in the course of which he succeeded in burning his
fingers, smashing a test-tube to fragments and burn¬
ing a hole in his coat. Satisfied with this beginning
he sat down at the writing-table and jotted down
two or three notes.

Then he had another look round the laboratory.
It reminded him rather of a newly instituted per¬
fumery. Everything was arranged too carefully;
but after changing the places of a few things it
became more to his taste, more intimate. In the
midst of the most intense work he suddenly stopped
himself.

“Aha !” he said, “this is how they’re trying to

179

i8o Krakatit

catch me! In a minute Carson will arrive and
begin talking about becoming a big man and that
sort of thing.”

He sat down morosely on the palliasse and waited.
When no one appeared he sat like a thief at the
desk and began again on the barium salt. Anyway,
he was here for the last time, he told himself. The
attempt proved perfectly successful: the stuff burst
with a long tongue of flame and cracked the glass
case containing the balance. “Now I shall catch it,”
he said to himself guiltily, when he saw the extent
of the damage, and crept out of the laboratory like
a schoolboy who had broken a window. Outside
it was already dusk and a fine rain was falling. Ten
paces in front of the shed stood a military guard.

Prokop slowly walked back to the castle along the
road by which he had come. The park was deserted ;
a fine rain hissed in the branches of the trees, lights
began to appear in the castle and the triumphant
notes of a piano resounded in the darkness. Prokop
made his way to a lonely part of the park between
the main entrance and the terrace. Here all the
paths had been overgrown and he plunged into the
wet underbrush like a boar, every now and then
stopping for a moment to listen and then making
a way for himself again through the crackling
bushes. At last he reached the edge of this jungle
where the bushes stretched over an old wall not more
than nine feet high. Prokop seized an overhanging
branch so as to drop from it onto the other side
of the wall; but under his solid weight the branch
gave way with a sharp crack like a pistol shot, and
Prokop fell heavily onto a sort of rubbish heap.

Krakatit 1 8 1

He remained seated with a beating heart. Surely
someone would come after him now. But he heard
nothing more than the dripping of the rain. He
picked himself up and noticed a wall with a green
gate, as he had seen it in his dream.

It was just the same save in one detail; the gate
was open. He was greatly disconcerted. Either
some one had just gone out of it or was shortly
returning; in either case it meant that there was a
person in the vicinity. What should he do? Sud¬
denly decided, Prokop kicked the gate open and
came out on the main road; and, sure enough, there
outside was stumping about a short man in a mackin¬
tosh, smoking a pipe. They stood opposite one
another, somewhat embarrassed as to how to begin.
Naturally the more agile Prokop was the first to
take action. Having chosen instantaneously one of
a number of possibilities, he threw himself with all
his force on the man with a pipe, and, butting him
like a goat, threw him into the mud. Then he
pressed his chest and elbows into the ground, rather
doubtful as to what to do next; for he could hardly
wring his neck like a chicken’s. The man under¬
neath him never even let the pipe fall from his
mouth and evidently was awaiting developments.
“Surrender!” roared Prokop; but at that moment
he received a blow from the man’s knee in the stom¬
ach and another from his fist under the chin, as a
result of which he rolled into a ditch.

When he began to pick himself up he was greeted
with another blow, while the man with the pipe
remained quietly watching him from the road.
“Again?” he said through his teeth. Prokop shook

1 82 Krakatit

his head. Then the fellow fetched out an extraor¬
dinarily dirty hankerchief and began to clean Pro-
kop’s clothes. “Mud,” he remarked and rubbed
him assiduously.

“Back!” he said finally, and indicated the green
gate. Prokop weakly assented. The man with the
pipe led him as far as the old wall, and bent down,
his hands on his knees. “Climb up,” he ordered.
Prokop clambered on to his shoulders, the man drew
himself up sharply with an “Up !” and Prokop,
seizing an overhanging branch, found himself on the
top of the wall. He was almost crying with shame.

And, to add to everything, when, scratched and
swollen, and covered with mud, he crept humiliated
up the steps of the castle to his suite, he met Prin¬
cess Willy on the stairs. Prokop tried to pretend
that he wasn’t there, or that he did not recognize
her, or something of the sort, omitted to salute her
and dashed upstairs like a statue made of mud. But
just as he was passing her he caught her astonished,
haughty, highly offended look. He stopped stock¬
still. “Wait,” he cried and rushed up to her. “Go,”
he cried, “and tell them, tell them that . . . that I
don’t care twopence for them and that ... I don’t
consent to be imprisoned, see? I don’t consent!” he
roared and brought down his fist on the banisters so
that they rattled, after which he dashed into the
park again, leaving the Princess behind him pale and
dumbfounded.

A few moments later some one almost obliterated
by mud rushed into the porter’s house, knocked the
old man over with an oak table, seized Bob by the
throat and dashed his head against the wall so vio-

Krakatit

183

lently that he lost consciousness, after which he
possessed himself of the key, opened the door and
ran out. Outside he came up against a sentry, who
immediately challenged him and raised his rifle,
but before he could fire somebody was shaking him
violently, tore the gun out of his hands and broke
his collar-bone with the butt. Then two sentries
on duty near by ran up; the black being threw the
rifle at them and slipped back into the park. Almost
at the same moment the night guard at exit C was
also attacked; something large and black, appearing
from nowhere, suddenly began to hammer his lower
jaw. The sentry, a blonde giant, was too astonished
for a moment to whistle for assistance. Then this
somebody, cursing terribly, let him go and ran back
into the dark park. The guard was called out and
a number of patrols began to search the grounds.

At about midnight somebody demolished the bal¬
ustrade on the terrace and threw stones twenty
pounds in weight at the guard, which was passing
thirty feet below. A soldier fired, producing from
above a string of political insults — and then all was
quiet. At that moment a detachment of cavalry
arrived from Dikkeln, while the whole of the Balttin
garrison were occupied in thrusting their bayonets
into the underbrush. In the castle nobody attempted
to sleep. At one A. M. an unconscious soldier without
a rifle was found on the tennis court. Shortly after¬
wards an exchange of shots was heard in the birch
wood; luckily nobody was injured. Mr. Carson,
with a serious and careworn expression, insisted on
sending Princess Willy back to the castle. Trembling
through the cold more than anything else, she had

1 84 Krakatit

ventured, for some reason or other, on to the battle¬
field. But the Princess, her eyes unusually widely
open, asked him to be so good as to leave her alone.
Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders and let her have
her own mad way.

Although people were gathered round the castle
as thick as flies, somebody continued to break the
windows methodically from the bushes. There was
a panic, accentuated by the fact that at the same
time three or four rifle shots were heard from the
main road. Mr. Carson looked exceedingly anxious.

Meanwhile the Princess was silently wTalking
along an avenue of beech trees. Suddenly there
appeared before her an enormous black creature,
which stood still for a moment, clenched its fists,
muttered something to the effect that it was a shame
and a scandal, and then dived into the bushes again.
The Princess turned back and stopped the patrol,
saying that there was nobody there. Her eyes were
wide and shining, as if she were feverish. A moment
afterwards firing was heard from the bushes behind
the lake; according to the noise it came from shot¬
guns. Mr. Carson grumbled, saying that if the
yard boys mixed themselves up in it he would pull
their ears for them. He did not know that at that
moment somebody had thrown a heavy stone at a
valuable Danish hound.

At dawn they found Prokop sleeping soundly on
a bench in the Japanese summer-house. He was
terribly scratched and befouled and his clothes hung
in rags; on his forehead he had a lump as big as his
fist and his hair was clotted with blood. Mr. Car-
son shook his head over the sleeping hero of the

Krakatit

185

night. Then Mr. Paul shuffled forward and care¬
fully covered the snoring sleeper with a warm rug,
produced a basin full of water, a towel, some clean
linen and a brand-new tweed suit made by Mr. Dreh-
bein and went away on tiptoe.

Two inconspicuous persons in plain clothes, with
revolvers in their hip pockets, strolled up and down
in the neighbourhood of the Japanese summer-house
until morning with the unconcerned air of people
who are waiting to observe the sunrise.

CHAPTER XXVI

PROKOP was waiting for all sorts of things to
happen as a result of the night’s activity; noth¬
ing took place, except that he found himself followed
about by the man with the pipe — the one being whom
Prokop for some reason or other feared. This per¬
son bore the name of Holz — a name which was very
expressive of his quiet and observant nature. Wher¬
ever Prokop went, Holz was five paces behind him.
This drove him nearly mad and he tormented his
attendant for a whole day in the most refined man¬
ner, running hither and thither up and dowm a short
path and waiting fifty and a hundred times for Mr.
Holz to get tired of turning face about every few
steps. Mr. Holz, however, did not get tired. Then
Prokop took to flight and ran three times round
the whole park. Mr. Holz silently followed him
without even taking his pipe out of his mouth, while
Prokop became completely out of breath.

Mr. Carson did not show himself that day. Evi¬
dently he was too angry. Towards evening Prokop
collected himself and went to his laboratory, accom¬
panied, of course, by his silent shadow. Once in the
laboratory, he wanted to lock himself in; but Mr.
Holz stuck his foot in the door and came in with
him. And, since an arm-chair had been provided
in the hall, it was evident that Mr. Holz would
remain there. Well, good. Prokop busied himself
with some secret business while Mr. Holz coughed

1 86

Krakatit

187

shortly and dryly in the hall. About two hours
before dawn Prokop sprinkled some sort of fabric
with petroleum, lit it and dashed outside as fast as
he was able. Mr. Holz instantly sprang out of the
arm-chair and followed him. When they were a
hundred yards away from the building Prokop threw,
himself into a ditch with his face on the ground;
Mr. Holz remained standing over him and began
to light his pipe. Prokop raised his head, and was
about to say something to him, but stopped on
remembering that conversation with Holz was for¬
bidden on principle. Instead he stretched out his
hand and pulled his legs from under him. “Look
out!” he roared, and at that moment there was an
explosion in the shed and fragments of stone and
glass whistled over their heads. Prokop stood up,
cleaned himself more or less and quickly, and ran
off, followed by Mr. Holz. At the same moment
there appeared the guard and a fire engine.

This was the first warning addressed to Mr. Car-
son. If he didn’t come and negotiate now, worse
things would happen.

Mr. Carson did not come; instead there arrived
a new pass for another experimental laboratory.
Prokop was furious. All right, he said to himself,
this time he would show them what he could do.
He ran off to his new laboratory, reflecting on the
form which his protest would take. He decided for
explosive potash, ignited by water. But, arrived
at the new laboratory, be found himself helpless.
That Carson was a devil!

Adjacent to the laboratory were the quarters of
the factory guard. In the garden a good dozen

1 88

Krakatit

children were playing about in the dirt, and a young
mother was endeavouring to appease a little red¬
faced creature that was yelling vigorously. On
seeing Prokop’s irate visage it suddenly stopped.
“Good-evening,” muttered Prokop, and wandered
back with his fists clenched. Mr. Holz followed
him five paces behind.

On the way to the castle he ran into the Princess
on horseback accompanied by a whole cavalcade of
officers. He would have turned off down a side path,
but the Princess in a flash had ridden up to him.
“If you would like to ride,” she said quickly, and
her dark face flushed, “Premier is at your dispo¬
sition.”

Prokop edged away from the careering Whirl¬
wind. He had never been on a horse in his life,
but would not have admitted this for anything in
the world. “Thank you,” he said, “but there is no
need ... to sweeten . . . my imprisonment.”

The Princess frowned. It was certainly out of
place to refer to the matter so directly in speaking
to her; however, she controlled herself and, suavely
combining a reproach and an invitation, answered:
“I beg you not to forget that at the castle you are
my guest.”

“That doesn’t matter to me,” mumbled Prokop
obstinately, watching every movement of the nervous
horse.

The Princess, irritated, made a movement with
her foot; Whirlwind snorted and began to rear.
“Don’t be frightened of him,” Willy threw out with
a smile.

Prokop, furious, struck the horse a blow on the

Krakatit

189

muzzle; the Princess raised her whip as if she wished
to slash at his hand. All the blood rushed to Pro-
kop’s head. “Look out,” he said through his teeth,
his bloodshot eyes fixed on the Princess’s flashing
ones. But at this point the officers became aware of
the unfortunate incident, and cantered up to the
Princess. “Hallo, what’s up?” cried the one who
was riding in front on a black mare and made
straight for Prokop. Prokop saw the horse’s head
above him, seized hold of the bridle, and with all
his force dragged it aside. The horse screamed with
pain and reared up on its hind legs, while the officer
flew into the arms of the tranquil Mr. Holz. Two
sabres flashed in the sun; but quickly the Princess
placed Whirlwind between Prokop and the officers.
“Stop!” she ordered, “he is my guest!” and, giving
Prokop a black look, she added: “Incidentally he is
afraid of horses. Let me introduce you to one
another. Lieutenant Rohlauf. Engineer Prokop.
Prince Suwalski. Von Graun. The affair is settled,
eh? When Rohlauf has mounted again we will go.
Premier is at your disposition, sir. And please
remember that here you are a guest. An revoir!”
The whips swished through the air, Whirlwind
twisted round, and the cavalcade disappeared round
the corner of the road. Only Mr. Rohlauf pranced
round Prokop on his horse, fixing him with angry
eyes, saying finally in a voice choked with anger:
“You shall give me satisfaction, sir.”

Prokop swung round on his heel, returned to his
room, and locked himself in. Two hours later a
message was carried by the fragile Paul from the
guest’s suite to the management. Immediately Mr.

190

Krakatit

Carson ran to Prokop with a severe expression on
his face; with a commanding gesture he pushed
back Mr. Holz, who was quietly dreaming in an
arm-chair outside the room, and went inside.

Mr. Holz took a seat in front of the castle and
lit his pipe. From within there came a terrible roar,
but Mr. Holz paid no attention to it; his pipe was
not drawing properly. He unscrewed the stem, and
in an expert manner cleaned it with a stalk of grass.
From the guest’s suite could be heard the growling
of two tigers whose teeth were fixed in one another;
both roared, there was a sound of furniture being
overturned, a moment of silence, and then a fright¬
ful cry from Prokop. People appeared from the
garden; but Mr. Holz waved them away, and con¬
tinued to occupy himself with his pipe. The uproar
inside increased, both tigers roared still louder and
threw themselves on one another in fury. Mr. Paul
ran out of the castle as white as a sheet, lifting his
terrified eyes to heaven. At that moment the Prin¬
cess cantered up with her escort. When she heard
the unholy turmoil in the guest’s wing of the castle
she smiled nervously, and quite unnecessarily gave
Whirlwind a cut with the whip. Then the noise
quieted down a little; one could hear the thundering
of Prokop, who was threatening something and strik¬
ing the table with his fist. Interspersed with this
came the sound of a sharp voice which threatened
and commanded. Prokop shouted passionate pro¬
tests; but the sharp voice answered quietly and
decidedly.

“By what right?” cried Prokop’s voice. The
authoritative voice explained something with quiet

Krakatit

191

and terrible emphasis. “But in that case, you under¬
stand, you’ll all go up in the air,” roared Prokop,
and the uproar again became so terrific that Mr.
Holz suddenly stuck his pipe in his pocket and ran
into the castle. But again all became quiet. Only
the sharp voice gave orders and enunciated clear
phrases, to the accompaniment of a dark and threat¬
ening murmur; it was as if the conditions of an
armistice were being dictated. Twice more there
resounded Prokop’s frightful roar; but the sharp
voice remained calm, apparently sure of its victory.

An hour and a half later Mr. Carson burst out
of Prokop’s room, purple and covered with sweat,
snorting and sombre, and hurried round to the Prin¬
cess’s apartments. Ten minutes afterwards Mr.
Paul, trembling with respect, announced to Prokop,
who was gnawing at his fingers in his room: “Her
Excellence.”

The Princess entered in evening dress, deathly
pale, her eyebrows drawn with anxiety. Prokop
came forward to meet her, and wished, apparently,
to say something; but the Princess stopped him with
a movement of her hand that was full of command
and protest, and said in a strangled voice: “Eve
come . . . sir, to apologize to you for striking at
you. I am infinitely sorry that it happened.”

Prokop flushed, and again wished to say some¬
thing, but the Princess continued: “Lieutenant Roh-
lauf is leaving to-day. The Prince begs you to join
us at dinner occasionally. Please forget the inci¬
dent. Au revoir She quickly gave him her hand;
Prokop touched the ends of her fingers. They were
cold, and as if dead.

CHAPTER XXVII

he fight with Carson seemed to clear the air a

A little. Prokop certainly announced that he
intended to escape at the first opportunity; but he
solemnly undertook that until that time he would
refrain from any resort to force or to threats. In
recognition of this, Mr. Holz was removed to a
distance of fifteen paces, and Prokop was allowed,
accompanied by him, to move freely in a circle of
three miles from seven in the morning to seven in
the evening, to sleep in the laboratory, and to dine
where he wished. On the other hand, Mr. Carson
quartered a woman and two children in the labora¬
tory (as it happened, she was the wife of a work¬
man who had been killed by an explosion of Krak-
atit), as a sort of moral guarantee against any
“carelessness.” In addition Prokop was assigned
a large salary, paid in gold, and he was left free to
work or amuse himself as he wished.

Prokop spent the first few days after this adven¬
ture in studying the terrain within the three miles1
limit with a view to the possibilities it afforded of
escape. In view of the protective zone, which func¬
tioned quite perfectly, the chances were exceedingly
poor. Prokop thought out a few methods of mur¬
dering Mr. Holz; but luckily he discovered that this
dry and sturdy being was supporting five children
besides a mother and a lame sister — and that, in

192

Krakatit 193

addition, he had behind him three years’ imprison¬
ment for manslaughter.

It was a certain satisfaction to Prokop that he
had won the passionate devotion of Mr. Paul, a
retired butler, who was delighted that he again
had some one to wait on; for the dear old man was
very pained by the fact that he was considered too
slow to wait at the Prince’s table. Prokop at times
became nearly desperate at his oppressive and
respectful attention. Further, Dr. Krafft, Egon’s
tutor, who was as ruddy as a fox, and had been
terribly unfortunate in his life, had also become
attached to Prokop. He had received an unusual
education, was a bit of a theosophist, and as well the
most absurd idealist which it is possible to imagine.
He approached Prokop with shyness, and admired
him without shame, since he regarded him as at least
a genius. He had been acquainted for some time
with Prokop’s technical articles, and had even based
on them a theosophical theory of the lowest plane
of manifestation, or, in more ordinary language, of
matter. He was also a pacifist, and, like all people
with too exalted views, a bore.

Prokop finally grew sick of wandering aimlessly
about inside the protective zone and began to visit
the laboratory more and more. He studied his old
notes, filled up a lot of gaps in them, and prepared
and afterwards destroyed a large number of explo¬
sives, whose structure confirmed his most daring
hypothesis. At this time he was almost happy, but
in the evening he avoided people and languished
under the calm glance of Mr. Holz, looking up at
the clouds, the stars, and at the horizon.

i94 Krakatit

One other thing interested him enormously.
Directly he heard the beat of horses’ hoofs he
stepped to the window and watched the rider —
whether it was a yard boy, some officer or other, or
the Princess (with whom he had not exchanged a
word since that day), with attentive eyes. He
observed that the rider did not actually sit down as
in a chair, but to a certain extent might be said to
stand in the stirrups; that he used his knees and not
his back; that he did not allow himself to be passively
shaken about like a sack of potatoes by the move¬
ment of the horse, but actively adapted himself to
it. Practically the process was probably very simple,
but for the technical engineer who was watching
the mechanism it appeared to be enormously com¬
plicated, especially when the horse began to rear,
prance, or dance about in thoroughbred shyness.
Prokop studied all this for hours, sheltered behind
the window curtains; and one fine morning he
ordered Paul to have Premier saddled. Mr. Paul
became extremely disconcerted. He explained that
Premier was a high-spirited and restless animal
which had never been fully broken in, but Prokop
merely repeated the order. His riding things wTere
ready in the cupboard; he put them on with a faint
feeling of vanity and went downstairs. Premier was
already there, prancing about and dragging a groom
round with him. Prokop endeavoured to appease
the animal by stroking his nostrils, as he had seen
other people do. The creature grew a little more
calm, though his feet still dug into the sand. Pro¬
kop approached his side in a calculating manner, and
was just raising his foot to the stirrup when Premier

Krakatit

*95

struck out like lightning with his hind legs, so that
Prokop only just had time to get out of the way.
The groom broke into a short laugh. That was
enough. Prokop hurled himself at the horse, some¬
how got his foot into the stirrup and heaved himself
into the saddle. For the next few moments he had
no idea what was happening; everything spun round,
somebody shouted, Prokop had one foot in the air
while the other remained for some incredible reason
in the stirrup. At last Prokop got established in
the saddle, and gripped with his knees with all his
strength. He did this just in time, for immediately
afterwards Premier suddenly bucked violently; Pro¬
kop hastily leant back and feverishly tugged at the
bridle. As a result the beast stood up on his hind
legs; Prokop tightened his knees like a vice and put
his face forward right between the horse’s ears, tak¬
ing great care not to throw his arms around its
neck, as he was afraid that this would appear foolish.
He was practically only hanging on by his knees.
Premier ceased to rear and began to twist round and
round like a wolf dog; Prokop utilized this to get
his other foot into the stirrup. “Don’t squeeze him
so tightly,” shouted the groom; but Prokop was
glad to feel the horse between his knees. The ani¬
mal, more desperately than spitefully, made another
attempt to throw his strange rider; he twisted and
kicked, scattering the sand, and all the personnel of
the kitchen ran out to watch this extraordinary cir¬
cus. Prokop caught a glimpse of Mr. Paul, who
was pressing a napkin to his lips in consternation,
and then Dr. Krafft dashed out, his ruddy hair
gleaming in the sun, and, at the risk of his own life,

196

Krakatit

attempted to seize hold of Premier’s bridle. “Leave
him alone,” shouted Prokop, inordinately proud,
and dug his spurs into the horse’s side. Premier,
to whom this had never happened before, shot off
like an arrow into the park. Prokop drew in his
head, so as to fall lightly if it came to the worst;
he stood in the stirrups inclined forward, involun¬
tarily adopting the seat of a jockey. When flashing
past the tennis court in this manner, he noticed there
several white figures; this filled him with fury, and
he began to belabour Premier’s haunches wTith his
whip. At this the animal completely lost his head.
After a number of disturbing sidelong jumps he sat
down on his haunches so that it seemed that he
would fall over; but instead he got up and flew
across the lawn. Prokop realized that everything
now depended on holding his head, if they were
not both to turn a somersault. He dragged at the
bit for all he was worth. Premier stopped short
suddenly, covered with sweat, and then began to
move at a reasonable trot. Victory was secured.

Prokop was extraordinarily relieved. Now at
last he was able to apply what he had studied so
carefully theoretically. The trembling horse al¬
lowed himself to be directed as his rider wished,
and Prokop, as proud as a god, rode him back along
the twisting paths of the park towards the tennis
court. He caught a sight of the Princess, racket
in hand, the other side of a bush, and spurred
Premier into a gallop. At that moment the Princess
clicked her tongue, Premier rose into the air and
flew towards her like an arrow over the tops of some
shrubs; and Prokop, completely unprepared for this

Krakatit

I97

advanced exercise, flew out of the saddle and
descended on to the grass. He felt something go,
and the next moment his senses were obliterated
by pain.

When he recovered consciousness he saw in front
of him the Princess, and three men in the embar¬
rassed position of people who do not know whether
to laugh at a joke or run for assistance. Prokop
tried to move his left leg, which lay underneath
him, twisted in a surprising manner. The Princess
was watching him with an inquiring and at the same
time frightened expression on her face.

“Now,” said Prokop firmly, “you’ve broken my
leg for me.” He was in great pain, and the shock
had confused his mind; nevertheless, he tried to
stand up. When, for the second time, he came to,
he was lying in the Princess’s lap, and she was wip¬
ing his sweat-covered forehead with a strongly
scented handkerchief. In spite of the frightful pain
in his leg, he was half in a dream. “Where is . . .
the horse?” he babbled, and began to groan. Two
gardeners lifted him on to a stretcher and carried
him into the castle. Mr. Paul changed into every¬
thing in the world: an angel, a nurse, a mother.
He ran about, arranged the pillows under Prokop’s
head, and poured cognac down his throat; then he
sat down at the head of the bed and allowed Prokop
to crush his hand in his spasms of pain. Dr.
Krafft stood near with eyes filled with tears, and
Mr. Holz, evidently touched, cut away Prokop’s
riding breeches and applied cold compresses to his
thigh. Prokop groaned quietly, smiling for a
moment now and then with his blue lips at Krafft

1 9 B

Krakatit

or Mr. Paul. Then there appeared the regimental
doctor, or rather butcher, accompanied by an assist¬
ant, who very soon started work on Prokop’s leg.
“H’m,” he said, “compound fractiure of the femur
and so on; at least six weeks in bed, my friend.”
He produced two splints and then began a very
unpleasant business. “Stretch his leg out,” ordered
the butcher of his assistant, but Mr. Holz politely
pushed aside the excited beginner and himself seized
hold of the broken member with all his strength.
Prokop bit into the pillows so as not to scream with
agony like an animal, and caught sight of the pained
face of Mr. Paul in which was reflected all his own
torture. “A bit more,” said the doctor in a bass
voice, feeling the fracture; Holz tugged silently
and violently. Krafft ran out of the room gasping
out something in complete desperation. Then the
butcher quickly and adroitly fixed the splints in posi¬
tion, muttering something about putting the cursed
leg into plaster the next day. At last it wTas all
over; the pain was still terrible, and the stretched-
out leg seemed to be dead, but at least the butcher
had gone away. Mr. Paul still walked about the
room on tiptoe, doing all he could to relieve the
patient.

Then Mr. Carson dashed up in a car, and, mount¬
ing the steps four at a time, flew into Prokop’s
room, which became filled with his sparkling sym¬
pathy. He was gay and comradely, chattered all
sorts of nonsense at a tremendous speed, and sud¬
denly began to smooth Prokop’s bristly hair in a
friendly, and at the same time timid, manner. Pro¬
kop forgave his obdurate adversary and tyrant nine-

Krakatit

199

tenths of his sins. Then something heavy was heard
coming up the stairs, the door flew open and two
lackeys with white gloves led in the crippled Prince.
While still at the door he waved a preternaturally
long and emaciated hand as if to prevent Prokop
out of respect for him rising by some miracle and
coming over to greet him; then he allowed himself
to be placed on a chair and delivered himself of a
few phrases of courtly sympathy.

Scarcely had this apparition disappeared than
someone tapped at the door and Mr. Paul whis¬
pered something to a chambermaid. A moment
after the Princess came in, still in her tennis things,
her face expressing a mixture of obstinacy and
repentance. She had come voluntarily to apologize
for her clumsiness. But before she could say any¬
thing Prokop’s homely, hard, rough-cast face broke
into a childish smile. “Now,” said the proud
patient, “am I afraid of a horse or not?”

The Princess blushed so deeply that she became
confused and angry with herself. But she soon
regained her self-control, and at once became again
the charming hostess. She told him that a distin¬
guished surgeon was coming to see him, and in¬
quired what he would like to eat, read, and so on,
further instructing Paul to send a report on the
patient’s health twice a day. Then, after putting
something straight on the bed, she left the room with
a brief nod of the head.

When, not long afterwards, the famous surgeon
arrived in a car, he was obliged to wait for some
hours, however much he might shake his head over
it. Mr. Eng. Prokop had fallen into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER XXVIII

EEDLESS to say, the distinguished surgeon did

not recognize the work of the military butcher.
He stretched out Prokop’s leg again, put it into
plaster, and concluded by saying that he would
probably be lame for life.

There began for Prokop a succession of delight¬
ful and lazy days. Krafft read him passages from
Swedenborg and Mr. Paul and others from the
Court Calendar, while the Princess saw to it that the
patient’s bed was surrounded by a magnificent selec¬
tion of volumes from the world’s literature. Finally
Prokop got tired even of the Calendar, and began
to dictate to Krafft a systematic work on destructive-
chemistry. Curiously enough he became most fond
of Carson, whose insolence and lack of considera¬
tion impressed him more and more, for beneath it
he found the grandiloquent plans and crazy fantasy
of an out-and-out international militarist. Mr. Paul
was in an ecstasy of delight. He was now indis¬
pensable night after night, and could dedicate every
breath and every step of his faltering legs to Pro¬
kop’s service.

You lie encased in matter, like the stump of a
tree; but can you not feel the crepitation of terrible
and unknown forces in that inert matter which binds
you? You luxuriate on magnificent pillows charged

200

Krakatit

201

with more power than a cask of dynamite ; your body
is a sleeping explosive, and even the faded, trem¬
bling hand of Mr. Paul contains more explosive force
than a capsule of melinite. You lie motionless in
an ocean of immeasurable, unanalyzable, unutilized
forces ; you are surrounded not by the walls of the
room, quiet people and the rustling branches of
trees, but by an ammunition store, a cosmic maga¬
zine prepared for the most frightful deed. You tap
matter with your finger as if you were testing casks
of ekrasite to see if they are full.

Prokop’s hands had become transparent through
lack of use, but on the other hand they had acquired
an extraordinary sense of touch. They felt and
detected the potential power of detonation of what-
every they encountered. A young body had an
enormous explosive tension, while Dr. Krafft,
an enthusiast and an idealist, had a relatively weak
capacity for explosion. Carson’s index of detona-
ation approached that of tetranitraniline, and Pro-
kop recalled with a shudder the cool touch of the
Princess’s hand, which revealed to him the terrible
explosive power of this haughty amazon. He
racked his brains in trying to decide whether the
potential explosive energy of the organism depended
upon the presence of certain enzymotic or other
substances or on the chemical composition of the
cells themselves, which constituted charges par
excellence. Be that as it may, he would have liked
to know how that dark proud girl would explode.

And now Mr. Paul wheeled Prokop about the
park in a bathchair. Mr. Holz proved superfluous,
but was active, as he had revealed great talent as

202 Krakatit

a masseur, and Prokop felt a beneficial explosive
force flowing from his powerful fingers. If the
Princess came across the patient in the park she
said something with complete and precisely calcu¬
lated politeness, and Prokop to his annoyance never
understood how she managed to do it, for he him¬
self was always either too rough or too friendly.
The rest of the household regarded Prokop as a
marvel; this gave them the right not to take him
seriously, and allowed him to be as rude to them
as he liked. On one occasion, the Princess drew
up near him with the whole of her escort; she left
the gentlemen to wait, sat down by Prokop’s side,
and asked him about his work. Prokop, wishing
to be as obliging to her as possible, embarked on
a long technical explanation, as if he were giving a
lecture before an international chemical congress.
Prince Suwalski and some cousin or other began to
laugh and nudge one another, at which Prokop grew
furious, turned to them, and said that it was not
them whom he was addressing. All eyes turned
on Her Excellency, for it was her task to put this
unpolished plebeian in his place; but the Princess
smiled indulgently, and sent them off to play tennis.
While she was looking after them with eyes nar¬
rowed to a slit Prokop scrutinized her out of the
corner of his eye; for the first time he really noticed
what she was like. She was rigid, thin, and with an
excess of pigmentation in her colouring, strictly
speaking not beautiful. She had small breasts,
ungainly legs, magnificent hands indicative of race,
a scar on her proud forehead, deep-set eyes with a
sharp glance, dark brown under her sharp nose, full

Krakatit 203

and haughty lips; well, yes, after all almost pretty.
What were her eyes really like?

Then she turned fully round and Prokop became
confused. “They say that you are able to discover
the character of things by touching them,” she said
quickly. “Krafft was talking about it.” Prokop
smiled at this feminine description of his peculiar
chemotaxis. “Well, yes,” he said, “one feels how
much force a thing has; that’s nothing.” The Prin¬
cess gave a quick glance at his hand, and then looked
round the park; there was nobody about.

“Show me,” muttered Prokop, and opened his
scarred hand. She laid on it the smooth tips of her
fingers; a sort of flash passed through Prokop, his
heart began to beat violently, and the mad idea came
into his head : “Supposing I closed my hands !” Then
he proceeded to knead and press in his rough paw
the firm, burning flesh of her hand. His head sud¬
denly became filled with a drunken giddiness; he saw
the Princess close her eyes and draw her breath
sharply through her half-open lips, while he also
closed his eyes and, setting his teeth, whirled down
into the swirling darkness. Her hand struggled fev¬
erishly and wildly with its thin sinuous fingers, fingers
which were writhing to get free, which twisted like
serpents, which dug their nails into his skin, and
then suddenly pressed convulsively against his flesh,
Prokop’s teeth chattered with ecstasy; the trembling
fingers played on his wrist, red circles appeared
before his eyes, a sudden sharp and burning pressure
and the thin hand tore free from his grasp. Ex¬
hausted, Prokop opened his eyes; there was a noisy
beating inside his head; the green and golden garden

204

Krakatit

again presented itself to his eyes, which were
blinded by the light of day. The Princess had
grown deathly pale, and bit her lips with her sharp
teeth; through the slits of her eyes there flashed a
boundless resistance.

“Well?” she said sharply.

“Virginal, unfeeling, libidinous, proud and capa¬
ble of violent anger — inflammable as tinder — and
wicked. You are wicked; you are fiery through
your very cruelty, arrogant and heartless; you are
wicked and overcharged with excitability; inaccess¬
ible, filled with curiosity, hard, hard on yourself, fire
and ice, ice and fire - ”

The Princess nodded silently. “Yes.”

“Of no use to anybody; haughty, incapable of
loving, poisoned and burning — ardent, and every¬
thing around you leaves you indifferent.”

“I must be severe with myself,” whispered the

Princess. “You don’t know - ” She waved her

hand and got up. “Thank you. I will send Paul
to you.”

Having thus relieved himself of his personal
offended bitterness, Prokop began to think of the
Princess more kindly. Finally he became annoyed
that she now evidently avoided him. He prepared
some friendly phrases to say to her at the first
opportunity, but the opportunity did not offer itself.

At the castle there arrived Prince Rohn, known
as Mon Oncle Charles , the brother of the late Prin¬
cess, a refined and polished cosmopolitan, amateur
of everything possible, tres grand artiste, as they say.
He had written a number of historical novels, and

Krakatit

205

was an extraordinarily pleasant personality. He
exhibited a particular liking for Prokop, and spent
whole hours with him. Prokop profited a great
deal from his contact with this charming old gentle¬
man, acquired from him a certain finish, and realized
that there were other things in the world besides
destructive chemistry. Mon Oncle Charles pos¬
sessed an enormous fund of anecdotes. Prokop
turned the conversation on to the Princess, and heard
with interest what a malicious, madcap, proud, and
magnanimous girl she was, how on one occasion she
had fired at her dancing master and on another had
wanted to have a piece of her skin cut off for trans¬
plantation on to the limb of a nurse who had
received some burns; when permission to do this was
refused, in her rage she smashed a window of the
most valuable glass. Le hon oncle also brought
young Egon along to Prokop, whom he set up as
an example to the young man with such extravagant
praise that the unfortunate Prokop became as con¬
fused as Egon himself.

After five weeks he was going about on crutches.
He visited the laboratory more and more, working
like a nigger until the pain in his foot began again,
so that on the way home he literally hung on the
attentive Holz. Mr. Carson glowed with pleasure
when he saw Prokop again so peaceable and indus¬
trious, and from time to time threw out allusions to
Krakatit; but this was a subject which Prokop posi¬
tively would not hear about.

One evening there was an important soiree at the
castle. Prokop prepared a coup for this occasion.
The Princess was standing in a group of generals

20 6 Krakatit

and diplomatists when the doors opened and there
entered — without a stick — the obstinate prisoner,
who was thus making his first visit to the company
in the castle. Oncle Charles and Carson ran for¬
ward to meet him while the Princess confined her¬
self to giving him a quick discriminating glance over
the head of the Chinese Minister. Prokop had
imagined that she would come to greet him, but
when he saw that she remained with two old ladies,
both of them with their dresses cut incredibly low,
his brow clouded, and he retired into a corner, bow¬
ing with a bad grace to the distinguished personages
to whom Carson introduced him as “a distinguished
scientist,” “our eminent guest,” and the like. It was
as if Mr. Carson had assumed the role of Holz, for
he never left Prokop for a moment. As the evening
went on Prokop became desperately bored; he
retired still deeper into his corner and glowered at
the whole world. Now the Princess was talking
with various dignitaries, one of them an admiral
and the other some famous foreign lion. The Prin¬
cess glanced quickly in the direction in which Prokop
was standing sullenly, but at that moment the claim¬
ant to some lost throne or other came up to her and
led her off in the opposite direction. “Well, Pm off
home,” muttered Prokop, and decided in the depths
of his dark soul that within three days he would
make a further attempt to escape. Just then the
Princess approached him and held out her hand. “I’m
so glad that you are well again.”

Prokop forgot all the education he had received
from Oncle Charles. Making a heavy movement
with his shoulders which was intended for a bow,

Krakatit 207

he said in a surly tone: “I thought that you did not
even see me.” Mr. Carson disappeared as quickly
as if he had sunk through the earth.

The Princess wore a low-necked dress which had
the effect of confusing Prokop. Whichever way he
might look he saw her firm swarthy flesh and smelt
the fragrance of her delicate scent.

“I hear that you are working again,” said the
Princess. “What exactly are you doing?”

“Well, one thing and another,” answered Prokop,
“nothing particularly important.” Here was a
chance to repair his insulting behaviour in seizing
her hand, but what on earth could he say by way
of expiation? “If you would like me to,” he
mumbled, “I could . . . make an experiment with
your powder.”

“What sort of experiment?”

“An explosive. You’ve enough on you to charge
a cannon.”

The Princess smiled. “I didn’t know that powder
was an explosive?”

“Everything is an explosive ... if you treat it
properly. You yourself - ”

“What?”

“Nothing. A latent explosion. You are terribly
explosive.”

“When I am treated properly,” smiled the Prin¬
cess, and suddenly grew serious. “Wicked, unfeel¬
ing, violent, curious, and proud, eh?”

“A girl who wants to sacrifice her skin . . . for
an old woman.”

The Princess flared up. “Who told you that?”

“Mon Oncle Charles,” babbled Prokop.

208

Krakatit

The Princess grew stiff, and was suddenly a hun¬
dred miles away. “Ah, Prince Rohn,” she corrected
him dryly. “Prince Rohn talks a great deal. Pm
glad that you are all right.” A brief nod of the
head and Willy glided across the room at the side
of some one in uniform, leaving Prokop to rage in
a corner.

Nevertheless, the next morning Mr. Paul brought
Prokop something precious, which the Princess had
sent by her femme de chambre.

It was a box of brownish powder, -with a pene¬
trating scent.

CHAPTER XXIX

PROKOP, working inclined over this box of pow¬
der, was disturbed and excited by this strong
feminine scent; it was as if the Princess herself was
in the laboratory and was bending over his shoulder.

In his youthful ignorance he had never realized
that powder was nothing but starch; he had regarded
it as inorganic colouring. Well, starch is a mag¬
nificent thing, let us say, for damping too powerful
explosives, because in itself it is dull and unrespon¬
sive; even more so when it becomes an explosive
itself. He had no idea how to begin with it, and
buried his head in his hands, pursued by the pene¬
trating scent of the Princess. He did not leave
the laboratory even at night.

The people at the castle whom he liked best ceased
to visit him, as he was always shut off from them
by his work and treated them impatiently, absorbed
all the time in the cursed powder. What the devil
was he to try next? After five days he began to
see the light; he feverishly studied aromatic nitro-
amines, after which he began the slowest synthetic
work which he had ever done in his life. One night
the powder lay in front of him, unchanged in appear¬
ance and exuding its penetrating scent; a brown
powder, reminiscent of a woman’s healthy com¬
plexion.

He stretched himself out on the divan, completely

' 209

2io Krakatit

exhausted. It seemed to him that he saw a placard
with the inscription “Powderite, the finest explosive
powder for the complexion,” and on the placard
was a picture of the Princess putting out her tongue
at him. He tried to turn away, but two bare brown
arms stretched out from the placard and, medusa¬
like, drew him towards her. He pulled a clasp-
knife out of his pocket and ripped it up. Then he
had a fear that he had committed a murder, and
dashed away along the street in which he had lived
years before. He came upon a panting motor-car
and leapt into it shouting, “Drive quickly.” The
car started off, and only then for the first time did
he notice that the Princess was sitting at the wheel
with a leather helmet on her head in which he had
not seen her before. At a turning in the road some¬
one threw himself in front of the car, evidently to
stop it; there was an unearthly cry, the wheels
lurched over something soft, and Prokop woke up.

He realized that he was feverish, got up, and
looked about the laboratory for some kind of drug.
He found nothing except pure alcohol; he took a
good pull at it, burnt his mouth and throat, and
again lay down with his head spinning. He saw
before him a few formulae, some flowers, Annie, and
a confused train journey; then everything became
fused, and he fell into a deep sleep.

In the morning he obtained permission to make
an experiment on the artillery ground, a fact which
caused Carson extraordinary delight. Prokop
refused the help of a single laboratory assistant, and
saw to it himself that a passage was dug in the
sandstone as far from the castle as possible, in the

Krakatit

21 1

part of the ground where there were not even any
electrical wires, so that a special fuse was necessary.
When everything was prepared he informed the
Princess that at four o’clock precisely he would
explode her box of powder. He gave particular
instructions to Carson to clear the sheds in the
vicinity and unconditionally prohibited the presence
of anybody within a circle of half a mile; he fur¬
ther demanded that on this occasion he should not
be accompanied by Holz. Mr. Carson considered
all this fuss to be somewhat excessive, but conceded
all Prokop’s demands.

A quarter of an hour before the appointed time
Prokop carried the box of powder to the seat of the
explosion with his own hands, sniffed for the last
time with a certain satisfaction at the Princess’s
scent and put it in the hole. Then he placed beneath
it a mercury capsule, connected with a Bickford
cord timed for five minutes, took up his position a
short distance away, and waited with his watch in
his hand until it should be five minutes to four.

Aha, now he would show this proud girl what he
could do. This would be an explosion really worth
while, something different from the pop-guns on the
White Mountain, when one had to keep one’s eye
open for a policeman the whole time; it would be
a magnificent detonation, a column of fire reaching
up to Heaven, a marvellous force, a noise like
thunder; the heavens would be cleaved by a fiery
power and lightning made by the hand of man.

Five minutes to four. Prokop quickly lit the cord
and made off for all he was worth with his watch
in his hand, limping slightly. Three minutes;

2 1 2 Krakatit

quicker! Two minutes, and then he saw to his right
the Princess, accompanied by Carson, making her
way to the site of the explosion. For a second he
was rigid with terror, and then shouted to them a
warning. Mr. Carson stopped, but the Princess
went on without even looking round. Carson trotted
after her, evidently trying to persuade her to turn
back. Overcoming the sharp pain in his leg, Pro-
kop dashed after her. “Lie down,” he roared, “for
God’s sake lie down!” His face was so terribly dis¬
torted with anger and horror that Mr. Carson
turned pale, made two leaps, and lay down at the
bottom of a deep ditch. The Princess continued
her way; she was now not more than two hundred
yards from the hole. Prokop dashed his watch on
the ground, seizing hold of her shoulder. “Lie
down,” he yelled. The Princess swung round, giv¬
ing him a terrible look for having taken such a
liberty. Then Prokop took her in both his hands,
threw her on to the ground, and fell on top of her
with all his weight.

Her wiry lean body wriggled desperately beneath
him. “Serpent,” hissed Prokop, and breathing
heavily forced the Princess back with all the strength
of his chest. The body underneath him arched itself
and slipped to the side. Strangely enough not a
word came through the closed lips of the Princess;
she only breathed shortly and quickly, struggling
feverishly. Prokop thrust his knees between her
legs, so that she should not slip away, and placed
his palms over her ears, realizing in a flash that the
explosion might break her ear-drums. Her sharp
nails dug into his neck, and in his face he felt the

Krakatit

213

savage gnawing of four sharp eye-teeth. “Beast,”
gasped Prokop, and attempted to shake off this
aggressive animal; but she would not allow him. A
hoarse noise came from her throat, and her body
braced itself and undulated in wild convulsions. The
familiar penetrating scent overpowered Prokop’s
senses; his heart beat agitatedly, and he had a wild
desire to jump up, ignoring the explosion which
would take place now in a few seconds. Then he felt
the struggling knees pressing themselves to his leg
and two arms twined themselves convulsively round
his neck; on his face he felt the hot, moist, trembling
contact of her lips and tongue. He moaned with
agony, and sought the Princess’s lips with his own.
At this moment there was a frightful explosion, and
a column of earth and stones was torn out of the
earth. Something gave Prokop a violent blow on
the crown of the head, but he hardly realized it, for
at that instant he was kissing her mouth, tongue,
teeth, her parted and trembling lips. Suddenly her
elastic body collapsed beneath him, shuddering. He
had an impression that Mr. Carson had stood up
and was watching him, but hastily threw himself on
the ground again. Trembling fingers caressed Pro¬
kop’s neck with wonderful and intolerable sweetness;
parched lips kissed his face and eyes with tiny
trembling kisses, while Prokop thirstily thrust his
lips against the beating warmth of a fragrant neck.
“Darling, darling,” came a hot whisper into his ears,
delicate fingers were passed through his hair, and a
soft body pressed its full length against him. Pro¬
kop pressed his lips on hers in an endless kiss.

Sss ! Thrust away by her elbow, Prokop jumped

214

Krakatit

up and rubbed his forehead as if he were drunk.
The Princess sat up and arranged her hair. “Give
me your hand,” she ordered coolly, hastily looked
round, and then quickly pressed the hand which he
had stretched out against her burning face. Sud¬
denly she pushed it away, stood up, and, rigid, gazed
with large eyes into the distance. Prokop felt quite
embarrassed. He was about to approach her again,
but she made a nervous movement with her shoulder,
as if she were shaking something off. He saw that
she was biting her lips deeply. Only then did he
remember Carson, whom he found some distance
away lying on his back — but not in the ditch — and
gazing up happily at the blue sky. “Is it all over?”
he said, without getting up, and twiddled his thumbs
on his stomach. “I’m frightfully afraid of such
things. Can I get up now?” He jumped up and
shook himself like a dog. “Magnificent explosion,”
he said enthusiastically, and again looked, as it were
casually, at the Princess.

The Princess turned round; she was as white as
a sheet, but had herself completely under control.
“Was that all” she asked carelessly.

“My God,” cried Carson, “as if that were not
enough! One little box of powder! Man, you’re
a magician, a devil, the king of hell or some one
like that. What? Really. The king of matter.
Princess, behold the king! A genius, eh? A unique
person. Honestly, compared to him we’re ragpick¬
ers. What name have you given to the stuff?” The
disconcerted Prokop regained his equilibrium. “Let
the Princess christen it,” he said, glad to be able to
rise to the occasion. “It’s . . . hers.”

Krakatit 215

The Princess trembled. “You might call it
‘Vicit,’ ” she said sharply through her teeth.

“What?” cried Mr. Carson. “Aha! Vicit.
That means ‘he conquered,’ eh? Princess, you’re a
genius! Vicit! Magnificent. Aha! Hurrah!”

But through Prokop’s head there flashed another
and a terrible etymology. Vitium. Vice. He
looked with horror at the Princess, but it was impos¬
sible to read any answer on her strained face.

CHAPTER XXX

Mr. carson ran ahead to the seat of the explo¬
sion. The Princess — evidently on purpose —
lingered behind. Prokop thought that she had
something to say to him, but she only pointed with
her finger at his face. Prokop quickly felt his face;
on it he found the bloody traces of her teeth, and,
picking up a handful of soil, rubbed it over the
marks, as if he had been struck by a clod at the
explosion.

The hole in which the powder had been placed
had become a crater about fifteen feet across. It
was difficult to calculate the power of the explosion,
but Carson estimated it at five times that of oxy-
liquid. “Fine stuff,” he said, “but a bit too strong
for ordinary usage.” Mr. Carson took the whole
conversation in hand, slipping adroitly over its seri¬
ous gaps. When on the way back he took leave of
them with an affability that was somewhat too evi¬
dent, saying that he had this and that to do, Pro¬
kop became conscious of an oppressive weight. What
was he to talk about now? For some curious reason
he had the impression that he must not refer in any
way to the dark and mysterious happening which
took place at the same time as the explosion when
“the heavens were cleft by a fiery power.” He
entertained a bitter and unpleasant feeling that the
Princess had coldly dismissed him like a lackey with

216

Krakatit

217

whom — with whom - He clenched his fists in

his disgust, and began to mumble something of sec¬
ondary interest about the horses; the words stuck
in his throat, and the Princess accelerated her step
noticeably, evidently wishing to get back to the
castle as soon as possible. Prokop limped heavily,
but did not let her see that he was doing so. Hav¬
ing reached the park, he wished to take leave of her,
but the Princess turned down a side path. He fol¬
lowed her irresolutely; then she drew close to his
shoulder, turned back her head and placed her thirsty
lips on his own.

The Princess’s chow, Toy, scented the approach
of his mistress, and, whining with delight, rushed
towards her across the lawn. And here he was !
But what was this? He stopped. The Big Un¬
friendly Person was shaking her, they were biting
one another, swaying in a silent and desperate
struggle. Oho ! his Lady was beaten, her arms sank,
and she lay moaning in the arms of the Big Person;
now he was crushing her. And Toy began to cry
“Help ! help !” in his dog’s language.

The Princess tore herself out of Prokop’s arms.
“Even the dog, even the dog,” she smiled nervously.
“Let’s go!” Prokop’s head was spinning; it was
only with the greatest difficulty that he could make a
few steps. The Princess hung on to him (Insanity!
Supposing somebody . . . ) , drawing him along, but
her legs suddenly failed her; she gripped his arm
with her fingers, as if she wished to tear it or some¬
thing of the sort, drew in her breath sharply, knitted
her brows, and a dark light came into her eyes.
Then with a hoarse sob, seeking his lips, she flung

2l8

Krakatit

her arms round his neck, so that he staggered. Pro-
kop crushed her in his arms; a long breathless em¬
brace, and her body, stretched taut like a bow,
collapsed softly and helplessly against him. She
lay on his breast with closed eyes. Sweet and mean¬
ingless phrases came from her lips; she allowed her
face, neck and hair to be covered with his violent
kisses, moving her head as if she were intoxicated
and did not know what she was doing. Submissive,
half swooning, utterly tender; perhaps happy at this
moment with an inexpressible happiness. O God,
what a trembling and lovely smile there was on her
lips !

Suddenly she opened her eyes widely and slipped
out of his embrace. They were two yards away
from the main avenue. She passed her hands over
her face, like a person awakening from a dream,
moved away, and leaned her forehead against the
trunk of an oak. Scarcely had Prokop released
her from his rough hands than his heart began to
beat violently with emotion, with an emotion of
shame and degradation. Christ! for her he was
only a servant whom she used to excite her emotions
when she had nothing better to do, when she was
unable to bear her solitude, or something of the
sort. Now she had kicked him away, like a dog, so
that . . . she could do the same thing again with
somebody else. He went up to her and put his hand
firmly on her shoulder. She turned round gently
with a shy, almost frightened and humiliated smile.
“No, no,” she whispered, twisting her fingers.
“Please, not - ”

Prokop’s heart swelled with a sudden wave of

Krakatit 219

tenderness. “When shall I see you again?” he
asked.

“To-morrow, to-morrow,” she murmured anx¬
iously, and turned back towards the castle. “I must
go. Now I can’t - ’

“When to-morrow?” insisted Prokop.

“To-morrow,” she repeated nervously, drew her
cloak more closely round her shivering body, and
hurried off, Prokop at her side. In front of the
castle she held out her hand to him. “Au revoir

Her fingers were still twisting feverishly; he
would have drawn her again towards him. “You
mustn’t, you mustn’t,” she whispered, and left him
with a last burning kiss.

No greater damage than this was done by the
explosion of Yicit. A few chimneys were knocked
over on the adjacent barracks, and the rush of air
burst a number of windows. The large windows
in Prince Hagen’s room were also broken. The
crippled old gentleman had with great difficulty risen
to his feet, and stood like a soldier waiting for a
further catastrophe.

The company in the castle were sitting over their
coffee one evening when Prokop entered, his eyes
searching for the Princess. He was unable to bear
the devouring torture of uncertainty. The Princess
turned pale, but the jovial Uncle Rohn at once
grasped Prokop’s hand and congratulated him on
his magnificent achievement, etc., etc. Even the
haughty Suwalski inquired with interest whether it
was true that the gentleman was able to turn every

220 Krakatit

substance into an explosive. “Take sugar, for
instance,” he said, and was simply astounded when
Prokop grunted something to the effect that sugar
had been used as an explosive even during the Great
War. For some time Prokop was the centre of inter¬
est; but he stammered, and, although he answered
all the questions that were put to him, was chiefly
occupied in trying to ascertain the meaning of the
provocative glances of the Princess. His bloodshot
eyes were fixed on her with terrible attention. The
Princess was as if on thorns.

Then the conversation changed, and Prokop had
the impression that nobody any longer took any
interest in him. These people understood one
another so well, conversed so easily, and touched
lightly and with enormous interest on things which
he simply did not understand or had never even
heard of. Even the Princess became quite ani¬
mated; there you are, you see, she had a thousand
times as much in common with these gentlemen
as she had with him ! His brow darkened, he did
not know what to do with his hands, a blind anger
began to rage within him. Then he put down his
coffee cup so violently that it cracked.

The Princess turned horrified eyes on him, but
the charming Oncle Charles saved the situation by
telling a story about a sea captain who was able to
crush a beer bottle in his fingers. Some fat person,
a cousin of sorts, asserted that he could do the same
thing. Thereupon they ordered a bottle to be
brought in, and one after the other attempted to
smash it in this manner. The bottle was a heavy
one of black glass, and no one was able to break it.

Krakatit 221

“Now you,” ordered the Princess, with a quick
glance at Prokop.

“I shan’t be able to,” muttered Prokop, but the
Princess drew up her eyebrows in such a command¬
ing way that Prokop got up and seized the bottle
by its neck. He stood motionless, did not, like the
others, contort himself with the effort which he
was making, but the muscles in his face stood out as
if they were going to burst. He looked like a primi¬
tive man who was preparing to kill somebody with
a club. His lips were twisted with the strain, his
face as it were intersected with powerful muscles,
his shoulders loose, as if he were defending himself
with the bottle against the attack of a gorilla, and
he turned his bloodshot eyes on the Princess. There
was a silence. The Princess got up with her eyes
fixed upon him. Her lips were drawn back over
her clenched teeth, and the tendons stood out on
her swarthy face. Her eyebrows were drawn and
she breathed quickly, as if she, too, were making a
terrible physical effort. They stood opposite one
another in this manner, their faces contorted, look¬
ing into one another’s eyes like two desperate oppo¬
nents. Convulsive tremors ran through their bodies
from head to heel. No one breathed; nothing was
to be heard but the hoarse panting of these two.
Then there was a crunching sound, the jingle of
breaking glass, and the bottom of the bottle fell with
a crash on to the floor.

The first to recover himself was Mon Oncle
Charles, who paced up and down for a moment and
then rushed up to the Princess. “Minnie,” he
whispered rapidly, and lowered her, almost fainting,

222

Krakatit

into an arm-chair. Kneeling in front of her, by
exerting all his strength he opened her convulsively
clenched fists; her palms were covered with blood,
so deeply had she driven the nails into the flesh.
“Take that bottle out of his hand,” ordered le bon
Prince, and drew back one of the Princess’s fingers
after the other.

“Bravo!” cried Prince Suwalski and began to
applaud loudly. Meanwhile Von Graun had seized
Prokop’s right hand, which was still grasping frag¬
ments of the bottle, and forced open his fingers.
“Water,” he cried, and the fat cousin, agitatedly
looking round, grasped a table cover, soaked it in
water and put it on Prokop’s forehead.

“Ahahah !” cried Prokop with relief. The attack
was over but his head was still swirling from the
sudden flow of blood and his knees trembled with
weakness.

Oncle Charles was massaging on his knees the
twisted, quivering fingers of the Princess. “Games
of this sort are dangerous,” he muttered, while the
Princess, completely exhausted, was hardly able to
draw her breath. But on her lips there trembled
a wry but victorious smile. “You helped him,” said
the fat cousin, “that’s what it was.”

The Princess stood up, hardly able to move her
legs. “The gentlemen will excuse me,” she said
weakly, giving Prokop such a burning glance with
her eyes that he grew terrified lest the others should
notice it. She left the room on the arm of Uncle
Rohn. It was now necessary to celebrate Prokop’s
feat somehow or other. The company was a good-
natured one, consisting largely of young men who

Krakatit

223

were only too ready to show their appreciation of
such a heroic deed. Prokop rose enormously in their
estimation through the fact that he had broken the
bottle and afterwards demonstrated his ability to
consume an incredible quantity of wine and liqueurs
without finding himself under the table. By three
o’clock in the morning Prince Suwalski was trium¬
phantly kissing him, and the fat cousin, almost with
tears in his eyes, was addressing him familiarly in
the second person singular. Then they began jump¬
ing over chairs and kicking up a frightful row. Pro¬
kop smiled at everyone and his head was in the
clouds. But when they tried to take him off to the
only file de joie to be found in Balttin, he broke
free of them, announced that they were drunken
cattle and that he was off to bed.

But instead of executing this sensible project he
wandered into the dark park and for a long time
examined the front of the castle, looking for a cer¬
tain window. Mr. Holz stood dreaming fifteen
yards away, leaning against a tree.

CHAPTER XXXI

The next day it rained. Prokop wandered about
the park, angry with himself at the thought that
as a result he probably would not see the Princess
at all. But she ran out bareheaded into the rain.
“Only for five minutes,” she whispered, out of
breath, and was about to kiss him. Then she caught
sight of Mr. Holz. “Who’s that man?”

Prokop looked round quickly. “Who?” By this
time he was so accustomed to his shadow that he had
ceased to realize that it was always with him.
“That’s . . . my guard, see?”

The Princess turned her commanding eyes on Mr.
Holz, who instantly thrust his pipe into his pocket
and retired some distance away. “Come,” whis¬
pered the Princess and drew Prokop into a summer¬
house. They sat there, not daring to kiss one
another, for Mr. Holz was waiting near by, steadily
getting soaked. “Your hand,” ordered the Prin¬
cess quietly, and her passionate fingers grasped the
disfigured stumps of Prokop’s paw. “Darling,
darling,” she said, and went on: “you mustn’t look
at me like that in front of people. I simply don’t
know what to do. One day I shall throw my arms
round your neck in public and then there’ll be a
scandal, O God!” The Princess was simply aghast
at the thought.

“Did you go to those girls last night?” she asked

224

Krakatit

225

suddenly. “You mustn’t, now you’re mine. Dar¬
ling, darling, it’s so hard for me — why don’t you
speak? I’ve come to tell you that you must be
careful. Mon Oncle Charles is already on our track.
Yesterday you were wonderful!” Her voice
betrayed impatience and anxiety. “Do they watch
you all the time? Everywhere? Even in the labo¬
ratory? Ah, c’est hete! When you broke that
bottle yesterday I could have come over and kissed
you. You were so magnificently angry. Do you
remember the night when you broke your chain?

Then I went after you blindly, blindly - ”

“Princess,” Prokop interrupted her in a hoarse
voice, “there is something you must tell me. Is
all this the whim of a great lady or . . . ?”

The Princess let go of his hand. “Or what?”
Prokop turned his desperate eyes to her. “Are

you only playing with me - ”

“Or?” she concluded, with evident delight in tor¬
turing him.

“Or do you — to a certain extent - ”

“ — Love you, eh? Listen,” she said, placing her
hands behind her head and looking at him through
half-closed eyes, “if at any time it seemed to me
that . . . that I loved you, really loved you insanely,
then I should attempt to . . . destroy myself.” She
clicked her tongue as she had before on that occa¬
sion with Premier. “I should never leave you, if
once I fell in love with you.”

“You lie,” cried Prokop, furious, “you lie! I
couldn’t bear the thought that this was only ... a
flirtation. You’re not so corrupt as that! It’s not
true !”

226

Krakatit

“If you know that,” said the Princess with quiet
dignity, “why do you ask me?”

“I want to hear you say so,” said Prokop through
his teeth, “I want you to say . . . directly . . .
what I am to you. That’s what I want to hear!”

The Princess shook her head.

“I must know,” said Prokop fiercely, “other¬
wise — otherwise - ”

The Princess smiled wearily and put her hand on
his. “No, I beg you, don’t, don’t ask me to tell
you.”

“Why?”

“You would have too much power over me,” she
said quietly, and Prokop trembled wTith delight.

From outside there came the discreet cough of
Mr. Holz, and behind the bushes in the distance
could be seen the silhouette of Uncle Rohn. “Look,
he’s searching for us,” whispered the Princess.
“You musn’t appear this evening.” Their hands
grew quiet; the rain hissed on the roof of the sum¬
mer-house; they were spattered with cool drops.
“Darling, darling,” whispered the Princess and put
her face near Prokop’s. “What a thing you are!
A big nose, bad-tempered, covered with scars. They
say that you’re a great scientist. Why aren’t you a
prince?”

Prokop made a movement of impatience.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.
“You’re angry again. And you’ve called me a
beast and worse things. You won’t have any mercy
for what I do . . . for what I’m going to do. . . .
Darling,” she concluded, and stretched out her hand
towards his face.

Krakatit

227

He bent over her; they kissed in reconciliation.

Above the noise of the rain came that of the ap¬
proaching steps of Mr. Holz.

It’s impossible, impossible ! The whole day Pro-
kop wandered about trying to catch sight of her.
“You mustn’t appear this evening.” Of course, you
don’t belong to their society; she feels more free
among those swells. It was extraordinary; in the
depths of his soul Prokop was aware that he did
not really love her, yet he was tortured, full of anger
and humiliation. That evening he wandered about
the park in the rain thinking of the Princess sitting
in the salon in an atmosphere of gaiety and freedom;
he felt like a mangy dog which had been kicked out
into the rain. There is nothing more painful in life
than to be ashamed.

Now we’ll put an end to all this, he decided. He
ran home, hurried into evening dress and burst into
the smoking-room as he had the evening before.
The Princess looked very unhappy, but directly she
caught sight of Prokop her lips relaxed into a smile
of delight. The other young people welcomed him
with friendliness; only Oncle Charles was a shade
more formal. The Princess warned him with her
eyes : be careful ! She hardly spoke at all, as if
somehow she was disconcerted; but nevertheless she
found an opportunity to slip into Prokop’s hand a
crumpled note. “Darling, darling,” she had
scrawled in pencil in large letters, “what have you
done? Leave us.” He screwed the piece of paper
into a ball. No, Princess, no, I shall remain here.
I enjoy seeing your relations with these perfumed

228

Krakatit

idiots. For this passionate obstinacy he was re¬
warded by a burning glance from the Princess. She
began to joke with Sulwalski; Von Graun, with all
the men, was malicious, cruel, impertinent, laughing
at them all pitilessly. Now and then she gave Prokop
a quick glance as if to ask him whether he was satis¬
fied with the bodies of her admirers which she was
laying at his feet. But he was not satisfied. He
frowned and with his eyes asked for five minutes
confidential conversation. Then she stood up and
led him to some picture or other. “Be sensible,
only be sensible,” she whispered feverishly, stood on
tiptoe and gave him a warm kiss on the mouth.
Prokop was aghast at this insane action; but nobody
saw them, not even Oncle Rohn, who otherwise
noticed everything with his melancholy, intelligent
eyes.

Nothing more happened that day. Nevertheless
Prokop tossed on his bed, biting the pillows. And
in the other wing of the castle the Princess did not
sleep the whole night.

The next morning Paul brought Prokop a per¬
fumed note, without saying from whom it came.
“My dear friend,” it ran, “we shall not meet to-day.
I don’t know what I shall do. I am terribly im¬
petuous; please be more sensible than I am. (A
few lines were scratched out.) Don’t walk past the
castle, or I shall run out to you. Please do some¬
thing to rid yourself of that horrible guard. Pve
had a bad night. I look terrible and don’t want
you to see me to-day. Don’t come to us. Mon
Oncle Charles is already throwing out hints. I

Krakatit

229

shouted at him and am not on speaking terms with
him. Dear, advise me: I’ve just got rid of my
maid as they’ve told me that she has an affair with
a groom and visits him. I can’t stand that. I could
have hit her in the face when she confessed it. She
was beautiful and cried, and I enjoyed watching her
tears. Imagine, I’d never noticed before the way
in which tears come. They well up, run down the
cheek quickly, stop and then catch up the others. I
cannot cry. When I was small I screamed until I
was blue in the face, but I never cried. I drove the
girl away an hour ago. I hated her and could not
bear her to stand near me. You’re right, I’m
wicked and full of anger, but how could she dare to
do that? Darling, I beg you to speak with her.
I’ll have her back and behave to her as you’d like me
to. I only want to see that you are able to forgive
a woman for such things. You know that I’m wicked
and filled with envy. I’m so angry that I don’t
know what to do. I should like to see you but I
cannot now. Don’t write to me. My love to you.”

Prokop read this to the accompaniment of a wild
tune on the piano in the wing of the castle. He
wrote: “I see that you do not love me. You are
inventing all sorts of obstacles and you do not wish
to compromise yourself. You are tired of torturing
a man who did not force himself upon you. I
thought the position was different and now I am
ashamed and realize that you wish to end things.
If you don’t appear in the Japanese summer-house
this afternoon, I shall assume that this is the case
and do all I can not to bother you any more.”

Prokop sighed with relief. He was not used to

230 Krakatit

writing love letters. This one seemed to him to be
written sincerely and directly. Mr. Paul ran round
with it; the noise of the piano in the other wing was
suddenly cut short and all was quiet.

Meanwhile Prokop had run off to Carson. He met
him near the workshops and went straight to the
point : Could he be allowed to go about without
Holz? He was prepared to take an oath that until
further notice he would not attempt to escape. Mr.
Carson grinned significantly. But certainly, why
not? He could be as free as a bird, aha! go where
he liked and when he liked, if he would oblige him in
one detail: give up Krakatit. Prokop grew furious:
“I’ve given you Vicit: what more do you want?
Man, I’ve told you that you won’t get Krakatit even
if you cut my head off!”

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders and expressed
his regret that in that case there wras nothing to be
done, since anyone who carried Krakatit under his
hat was a public danger, a classical case of preventa¬
tive supervision. “Get rid of Krakatit, and there
you are,” he said. “It’ll be worth your while.
Otherwise . . . otherwise we shall have to consider
sending you somewhere else.”

Prokop, who was just about to fall upon him,
suddenly stopped, mumbled that he understood, and
ran home. Perhaps there’s an answer, he said to
himself; but there was none.

In the afternoon Prokop began his wait in the
Japanese summer-house. Until four o’clock he was
filled with anxious, disturbing hope: now — now she
may come every moment. After four o’clock he
could not bear to sit down any longer; he paced

Krakatit 231

about the summer-house like a jaguar in a cage,
picturing himself embracing her knees, trembling
with ecstasy and fear. Mr. Holz discreetly retired
into the shrubbery. By five o’clock Prokop was
overpowered by a horrible feeling of disillusion¬
ment. Then he suddenly thought: perhaps she will
come at dusk, of course she will! He smiled to him¬
self. Behind the castle the sun set in its autumnal
gold. The branches of the trees stood out sharply
and rigidly, one could hear the beetles rustling in
the fallen leaves, and, before one realized it, the
bright light of day had turned into a golden twilight.
The first evening star appeared on the green hori¬
zon, the earth grew dark beneath the pale heavens,
the bat began its erratic flight and from somewhere
the other side of the park could be heard the muffled
sound of bells as the cows returned to the farm,
filled with warm milk. In the castle one window
lighted up after the other. Was it already evening?
Stars of heaven, how often had not the small boy
gazed at you in wonder from the edge of the wild
thyme, how often had not the man turned to you,
waiting, suffering, sometimes sobbing under his
cross.

Mr. Holz appeared out of the darkness. “Are
you going?”

“No.”

To drink the cup of your humiliation until the
morning; for it was clear that she would not come.
Now it is necessary to drink this cup of bitterness, at
the bottom of which is truth, to intoxicate yourself
with pain, to pile up suffering and shame until you
writhe like a worm and are stupefied by agony.

232

Krakatit

You tremble in anticipation of happiness; now give
yourself up to pain, which is the narcotic of the per¬
son who is suffering. It is night, already night, and
she does not come.

Prokop’s heart was lit up by a sudden ray of joy:
she knows that I am waiting (she must know). She
will steal out in the night when everyone is asleep
and fly to me with her arms opened and her mouth
full of the sweetness of kisses. We shall embrace in
silence, drinking inexpressible realizations from one
another’s lips. She will come, pale even in the dark¬
ness, trembling with the cold fear which can accom¬
pany joy, and give me her bitter lips. She will step
out of the black night. . . .

In the castle the lights began to go out. . . .

In front of the summer-house could be discerned
the figure of Mr. Holz, his hands in his pockets.
His exhausted attitude indicated that “there’s been
enough of this.” Meanwhile in the summer-house
Prokop, with a savage, contemptuous smile on his
face, was stamping out the last sparks of hope, hang¬
ing on for a desperate minute, for the last minute of
waiting would signify the end of everything. Mid¬
night sounded from the distant town. It was the
end.

Prokop rushed home through the dark park,
hurrying for no reason at all. He ran bent with
dejection. Five paces behind him there trotted,
yawning, Mr. Holz.

CHAPTER XXXII

HE end of everything. It was almost a relief,

at least something certain and restful, and
Prokop entered into the fact with his usual thor¬
oughness. Good, it’s over. There’s nothing to fear
now. She remained away on purpose. That’s
enough, that slap in the face is enough; that’s the
end. He sat in an arm-chair, incapable of getting
up, continuing to intoxicate himself with his hu¬
miliation. A servant who had been given the sack.
She was shameless, proud, heartless. She had given
him up for one of her admirers. Well, it was over;
all the better.

Every time he heard a step in the passage Prokop
raised his head in excited anticipation, the existence
of which he would not admit to himself. Perhaps
it was a letter. No, nothing. She didn’t think him
worth even an apology. It was the end.

Mr. Paul shuffled up a dozen times with the old
question in his pale eyes : Did the gentleman want
anything? No, Paul, nothing. “Wait, have you
a letter for me?” Mr. Paul shook his head.
“Good, you can go.”

Prokop felt as if there was a lump of ice in his
chest. This desolation was the end. Even if the
door opened, and she herself were standing there, he
wrould still say: The end! “Darling, darling,” Pro¬
kop heard her whisper, and then he burst out in

233

234 Krakatit

desperation: “Why have you humiliated me so? If
you were a chambermaid, I should forgive you your
haughtiness, but as a princess you cannot be excused.
Do you hear? It’s the end, the end!”

Mr. Paul opened the door: “Does the gentle¬
man require anything?”

Prokop stopped short; he had said the last words
aloud. “No, Paul. Have you any letter for me?”

Mr. Paul shook his head.

The day grew more and more oppressive; it was
as if he was entangled in a horrible spider’s web. It
was already evening. Then he heard some voices
whispering in the passage, and Mr. Paul entered in
delighted haste. “Here is a letter for you,” he whis¬
pered triumphantly, “shall I turn on the lights?”

“No.” Prokop crushed the thin envelope in his
fingers and became aware of the familiar, penetrat¬
ing scent; it was as if he was trying by smelling to
see what was inside. The point of ice dug deeper
in his heart. Why did she wait until the evening to
write? Because she has nothing to say but: You
musn’t come to us this evening. All right, Prin¬
cess, if it’s the end, then it’s the end. Prokop
jumped up, found in the darkness a clean envelope
and placed the letter inside it, unopened. “Paul,
take this at once to Her Excellence.”

Scarcely had Paul left the room than Prokop
wished to call him back. But it was too late and he
realized painfully that what he had just done was
irrevocable. Then he threw himself on the bed and
stifled in the cushions something which was tearing
itself out of his mouth against his will.

Mr. Krafft came in, probably as the result of an

Krakatit 235

alarm from Paul, and did all he could to calm and
distract his lacerated friend. Prokop ordered some
whisky, drank it, and by an effort recovered himself.
Mr. Kraft sipped some soda-water, and assented to
everything which Prokop said, although he was
agreeing to things which were in direct opposition
to his glowing idealism. Prokop cursed, reproached
himself, used the most coarse and crude expressions
as if it relieved his feelings to besmirch everything,
spit on it, trample on it and destroy it. And he
overflowed with obscenities, turned women inside
out and abused them in the most violent possible
terms. Mr. Kraft, sweating with horror, agreed
with everything which the enraged genius threw out.
Then Prokop’s vehemence exhausted itself, he be¬
came silent, frowned and drank more than was good
for him. Then he lay on the bed, fully dressed,
rocking himself from side to side and gazing with
large eyes into the swirling darkness.

The next morning he got up, calm and disgusted,
and immigrated to his laboratory for good. But he
did nothing but lounge about the room, kicking a
sponge in front of him. Then he had an idea. He
compounded a terrible and instable explosive and
sent it to the office, hoping that a really dramatic
catastrophe would follow. Nothing happened.
Prokop threw himself on the couch and slept unin¬
terruptedly for sixteen hours.

He awoke like another man, sober, steady and
cold. He felt utterly indifferent to what had hap¬
pened before he fell asleep. He again began to
work assiduously and methodically on the explosive
disintegration of atoms, and theoretically arrived at

236 Krakatit

such terrible conclusions that his hair stood on end
in horror at the nature of the forces among which
we live.

Once in the middle of his calculations he wTas
seized by a sudden feeling of restlessness. “Prob¬
ably Pm tired,” he said to himself, and went out
into the open air for a bit, bareheaded. Without
realizing what he was doing he made his wray to
the castle, mechanically ran up the stairs and went
along the passage to the guests’ quarters. Paul
was not in his usual seat. Prokop wTent inside.
Everything was as he had left it, but in the air wTas
the familiar scent of the Princess. “Absurd, ab¬
surd,” thought Prokop. “Suggestion or something
of the sort; Pve been smelling the strong smells
of the laboratory too long.” Nevertheless he was
painfully excited.

He sat down for a moment and was surprised
how far away everything was. All wras quiet in the
castle, the quietness of the afternoon. And yet had
not something changed? He heard muffled steps in
the corridor, probably those of Paul, and went out¬
side. It was the Princess.

Surprise and what was almost horror threw her
back against the wall, and she stood deathly pale,
her eyes wide open, and her lips twisted as if in
pain. What did she want in the guests’ wing?
Perhaps she is going to Suwalski, thought Prokop
suddenly, and something in him froze. He made
a step forward as if he was going to throw himself
upon her, but instead made a noise in his throat
and ran out. Did he feel hands pulling him back?
You must not look back! Away, away from here!

Krakatit 237

Only when he was a long way from the castle,
in the middle of the sandy artillery ground, did he
throw himself down on his face. For there is only
one pain greater than that of humiliation — that of
hatred. Ten yards to the side sat the serious and
concentrated Mr. Holz.

The night which followed was heavy and oppres¬
sive, unusually black. There was going to be a
storm. At such moments people are extraordinarily
irritable and unable to control their actions.

About eleven o’clock Prokop burst out of the
door of his laboratory and stunned Mr. Holz so
thoroughly with a chair that he was able to escape
from him into the darkness of the night. A few
moments later two shots were heard from the
neighbourhood of the factory station. Low down
on the horizon there were flashes of lightning, fol¬
lowed by a more intense darkness. But from the
top of the wall near the entrance there came a bright
ray of violet light which lit up the whole of the
station, the trucks, the ramps, and the piles of coal.
It also lit up a dark figure which ran in a zig-zag
path, fell to the ground and then disappeared again
in the darkness. The figure then made its way
amongst the barracks towards the park; several
other figures threw themselves on it. The search¬
light then turned on the castle; two more shots, and
the running figure plunged into the bushes.

Shortly afterwards the window of the Princess’s
room rattled. She jumped up and at that moment
there flew into the room a stone wrapped up in a
crumbled piece of paper. On one side of the sheet

23B

Krakatit

was something illegible, scribbled with a broken pen¬
cil, and on the other a series of reproaches written
in a small handwriting. The Princess threw on her
clothes, but at that moment another report was
heard behind the lake — according to the sound, that
of a rifle which was loaded with something more
than a blank cartridge. But before the Princess
had time to leave the room she saw through the
window two soldiers dragging along something dark
which struggled and tried to throw them off. He
was not wounded, then.

The horizon continued to be lit up with long, yel¬
low flames. But the storm which would have
cleared the air did not break.

The sobered Prokop again threw himself head¬
long into work in the laboratory, or at least forced
himself to work. Mr. Carson had just left him.
He was in a cold rage and had announced unequiv¬
ocally that everything pointed to Prokop’s being
transferred as early as possible to some safer place.
If he refused to respond to lenient treatment, they
would have to resort to harsher measures. Well,
it was all the same, nothing mattered. The test-
tube broke in Prokop’s fingers.

In the hall Mr. Holz was waiting with his head
wrapped in bandages. Prokop offered him some
money as a compensation for the injury, but he
would not accept it. Well, let him do as he liked.
So he was to be transferred somewhere else — very
well. Curse these test-tubes! They break one
after another.

In the hall there was the sound of some one being

Krakatit

239

awakened suddenly from dreaming. Probably an¬
other visit. Prokop did not trouble to turn round
from the lamp he was using. The door creaked.
“Darling!” whispered somebody. Prokop stag¬
gered, gripped the table and turned round as if in a
dream. The Princess was standing with her hand
against the door-post, pale, with a dark, fixed look
in her eyes, pressing her hands to her breast as if
to muffle the beating of her heart.

Trembling all over, he went across to her and
with his fingers touched her cheeks and shoulders
as if he could not believe that it was she. She placed
her cold fingers on his mouth. Then she looked back
into the hall. Mr. Holz had disappeared. . . .

CHAPTER XXXIII

She sat motionless on the couch, her knees drawn
up to her chin, her hair falling across her face
and her hands clasped convulsively around her neck.
He was afraid of what he had done, and kissed her
knees, hands, hair, grovelled on the floor and poured
out entreaties and endearments; she did not see or
hear. It seemed to him that she trembled with re¬
vulsion at his every touch.

Then she quietly got up and went over to the
glass. He approached her on tiptoe, hoping to
surprise her, but then he caught sight of her reflec¬
tion. She was looking at herself with an expression
so wild, terrible, and desperate, that he was horri¬
fied. She turned round and fell on his shoulder.
“Am I ugly? Do I revolt you? What have I done,
what have I done?” She pressed her face against
his chest. “I’m stupid, you see? I know ... I
know that you’re disappointed. But you mustn’t be
contemptuous of me, you understand?” She nestled
against him like a repentant young girl. “You
won’t escape, will you? I’ll do anything you like,
you see? As if I were your wife. Darling, darling,
don’t leave me to think; I shall become horrible to
myself again if once I think; you’ve no idea what

my thoughts are. Dort’t leave me now - ” Her

trembling fingers caressed his neck; he raised her

240

Krakatit

241

head and kissed her, murmuring all sorts of things
in his ecstasy. Color came back into her face and
she became beautiful again. “Am I ugly?” she
whispered, happy and dazed, between his kisses, “I
should like to be beautiful for your sake. Do you
know why I came? I expected that you would kill
me.”

“And if you had known what was going to hap¬
pen,” whispered Prokop, rocking her in his arms,
“would you have come?”

The Princess nodded. “I am horrible. What
must you think of me! But I won’t let you think.”
He embraced her quickly and raised her from the
couch. “No, no,” she implored, resisting him. But
she lay still with moist eyes, her fingers playing
with the hair on his heavy forehead. “Dear, dear,”
she sighed, “how you have tortured me these last

few days! Do you - ?” She did not say the

word “love.” He assented passionately: “And
you ?”

“Yes. You should have seen it already. Do
you know what you are? You are the most beau¬
tiful horrible man that ever had a big nose. Your
eyes are as bloodshot as a St. Bernard’s. Is it
through your work? Perhaps you wouldn’t be so
nice if you were a prince. Ah! Stop!”

She slipped out of his embrace and went to the
mirror to comb her hair. She examined herself
attentively and then made a deep bow in front of
the glass. “There’s the Princess,” she said, point¬
ing to her image, “and here,” she added, indicating
herself, “is your girl, you see? Did you realize that
you possess a princess?”

242

Krakatit

Prokop made an abrupt movement. “What does
that matter?” he cried, bringing down his fist heavily
on the table.

“You must choose, the princess or the girl. You
can’t have the princess; you may worship her from
the distance but you may not kiss her hand, and you
must not ask her whether she loves you. A princess
may not do such things; she has behind her a thou¬
sand years of noble blood. Did you know that we
used to be kings? Ah, you know nothing, but you
ought to know at least that a princess lives in a
glass case and you may not touch her. But you can
have the ordinary woman, this dark girl. Stretch
out your hand and she is yours, like anything else.
Now you must choose between the two.”

Prokop was again chilled. “Princess,” he said
heavily.

She came over to him and seriously kissed his
cheek. “You’re mine, you understand? You dar¬
ling! You see that you have a princess. And are
you proud that you have a princess? What a terri¬
ble thing the princess must have done to cause any¬
one to grow haughty for a couple of days! I knew,
I knew from the first moment I saw you that you
wanted the princess; from anger, from a masculine
sense of power or something like that. For this
reason you hated me so much that you desired me
and I ran after you. Do you think that I am an¬
noyed with myself? On the contrary, I am proud
that I have done it. That’s something, isn’t it? To
lower oneself so quickly, to be a princess, a great
lady and then to come ... to come alone . . . ”

Her words threw Prokop into consternation.

Krakatit 243

“Stop,” he begged her and took her into his trem¬
bling arms. “I’m not your equal . . . in birth . . .”

“What did you say? Equal? Do you think that
if you had been a prince I should have come to
you? If you wanted me to treat you like an equal
I shouldn’t have been with you . . . like this,” she
cried. “There’s a big difference, you understand?”
Prokop’s hands fell. “You shouldn’t have said
such a thing,” he said through his teeth, re¬
coiling.

She threw her arms round his neck. “Darling,
darling, let me speak! Am I reproaching you?
I came . . . alone . . . because you wanted to
escape or to get yourself killed, I don’t know what;
any girl would have done the same. . . . Do you
think that I was wrong to do it? Tell me! Did I
do wrong? You don’t understand,” she said, winc¬
ing, “you don’t understand!”

“Wait,” cried Prokop. He extricated himself
from her embrace, and paced up and down the room.
Suddenly he was blinded by a sudden hope. “Do
you believe in me? Do you believe that I shall
do something? I can work terribly hard. I’ve
never thought about fame, but if you wished it . . .
I’d exert all my strength! You know that Darwin
was carried to his coffin by dukes? If you wished,
I could do . . . tremendous things. I can work —
I could change the face of the world. Give me ten
years and you’ll see - ”

It seemed as if she was not listening to him.
“If you were a prince it would be enough to look
at you, give you one’s hand and you would know,
you would know, you musn’t doubt — it wouldn’t

244

Krakatit

have to be demonstrated to you . . . ten years !
Would you be true to me for ten days! In ten
minutes you will become gloomy, dear, and grow
angry at the fact that the Princess does not want you
. . . because she is a princess and you are not a
prince, see? And then, try as I may to convince
you, it will be in vain; no demonstration will be
great enough, no humiliation sufficiently deep. He
would have me run after him, offer myself to him,
do more than any other girl, I don’t know what!
What am I to do with you?” She came up to him
and offered him her lips. “Wil you be true to me
for ten years, then?”

He seized hold of her, sobbing. “There,” she
whispered and stroked his hair. “So you’re pulling
at the chain? And yet I should have remained
just as I was. Darling, darling, I know that you
will leave me.” She sank into his arms. He lifted
her up and forced open her closed lips with his
kisses.

She lay still with her eyes closed, hardly breath¬
ing, and Prokop, bending over her, his heart op¬
pressed, contemplated the inscrutable serenity of her
hot, strained face. She extricated herself from his
embrace as if in a dream. “What have you got in
all those bottles? Are they poison?” She ex¬
amined his shelves and instruments. “Give me some
poison or other.”

“Why?”

“In case they want to take me away from here.”

Her serious face made him anxious, but to ap¬
pease her he poured a solution of chalk into a small
box, but at that moment she pounced on some

Krakatit 245

crystals of arsenic. “Don’t take that!” he cried,
but she had already placed it in her bag.

“I see you will be a great man,” she said softly.
“I never imagined such things. Did you say that
Darwin was carried to his grave by dukes? Who
were they?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

She kissed him. “You are nice! Why doesn’t
it matter?”

“Well . . . the Duke of Argyll and . . . the
Duke of Devonshire,” he muttered.

“Really!” she considered this, frowning. “I
should never have imagined . . . that scientists were
so . . . And you only mentioned it incidentally!”
She put her arms round his shoulders, as if for the
first time. “And you, you could - ? Really?”

“Well, wait until I am buried.”

“Ah, if that were only very soon,” she said re¬
flectively with naive cruelty. “You’d be wonder¬
ful if you were famous. Do you know what I like
the most?”

“No.”

“I don’t, either,” she said musingly, and turned
and kissed him. “I don’t know. Whoever and

whatever you were - ” She moved her shoulders

with a gesture of impatience. “It’s for always, you
understand ?”

Prokop recoiled from this relentless monogamy.
She stood before him, muffled up to her eyes in her
blue fox fur and looked at him in the twilight with
glistening eyes. “Oh!” she cried suddenly and sank
back into a chair, “my legs are trembling.” She
smoothed and rubbed them with naive shameless-

246

Krakatit

ness. “How shall I be able to ride? Come, dar¬
ling, come and see me to-day. Mon Oncle Charles
is away to-day, and even if he weren’t it’s all the
same to me.” She got up and kissed him. “An
revoir.”

In the doorway she stopped, hesitated, and came
back to him. “Kill me, please,” she said, her hands
hanging limp by her side, “kill me.” He put his
hands on her: “Why?”

“So that I shan’t have to go away . . . and so
that I shall never have to be here.” He whispered
into her ear: “ . . . To-morrow.”

She looked at him, and submissively bent down
her head; it was ... a sign of assent.

When she had been gone some time he also went
out into the half-light. Some one a hundred yards
away got up from the ground and rubbed the dirt
off his clothes with his sleeve. The silent Mr. Holz.

CHAPTER XXXIV

When he joined the company that evening, still
not able to believe what had happened, and
in an acute state of tension, he found her looking so
beautiful that he scarcely knew her. She was con¬
scious of the burning glance with which he enveloped
her, glowed with pleasure, and, indifferent to the
presence of the others, gave him ardent looks in re¬
turn. There was a new guest at the castle, named
d’Hemon, a diplomat, or something of the sort,
Mongolian in appearance, with purple lips and a
short black beard. He was evidently thoroughly
familiar with physical chemistry; Becquerel, Planck,
Niels Bohr, Milliken and similar names simply
poured out of his mouth. He had read about Pro-
kop and was extremely interested in his work. Pro-
kop allowed himself to be diverted, talked at some
length and forgot for a moment to look at the Prin¬
cess. As a result he received such a kick on the shin
that he positively jumped and all but returned it.
The kick was accompanied by a passionately jealous
glance. At that moment he was obliged to answer
a stupid question put by Prince Suwalski regarding
the nature of this energy that they are always talk¬
ing about. He grasped the sugar-bowl and
gave the Princess such a bitter look that she
imagined that he was going to throw it at her. He
then went on to explain to the Prince that if all the

247

248

Krakatit

energy which it contained could be liberated at the
same moment it would be sufficient to hurl Mont
Blanc and Chamonix into the air; but that, as it
happened, such a thing could never take place.

“But you’ll do it,” said d’Hemon seriously and
definitely.

The Princess leaned over towards them: “What
were you saying?”

“I was saying that he will do it,” repeated Mon¬
sieur d’Hemon with perfect simplicity.

“There you are,” said the Princess loudly, and
sat down victoriously. Prokop grew red and did
not dare to look at her.

“And if he does do it,” she asked breathlessly,
“will he be terribly famous? Like Darwin?”

“If he does it,” said Monsieur d’Hemon without
hesitation, “kings will consider it an honour to carry
his coffin. That is, if there are still any kings.”

“Rubbish,” muttered Prokop, but the Princess
glowed with inexpressible delight. He would not
have looked at her for anything in the world; em¬
barrassed, he mumbled something or other, crum¬
bling a piece of sugar in his fingers. Finally he
ventured to lift his eyes. She looked at him directly,
with passionate love. “Do you?” she said to him
under her breath. He understood only too well
what she meant: Do you love me? — but he pre¬
tended that he had not heard and quickly looked
at the tablecloth instead. God! that girl’s mad,
or else she deliberately wants. . . . “Do you?”
came to him across the table, still more loudly and
urgently. He nodded quickly and looked at her
with eyes filled with happiness. Luckily in the

Krakatit

249

midst of the general conversation nobody noticed
them; only Monsieur d’Hemon preserved his dis¬
creet and remote expression.

The conversation roved all over the place until
suddenly Monsieur d’Hemon, evidently an excep¬
tionally well-informed man, began to talk to Von
Graun about his genealogy up to the thirteenth cen¬
tury. The Princess listened with extraordinary in¬
terest, whereupon the new guest talked instead about
her ancestry, without the slightest difficulty.
“Enough,” cried the Princess when he had reached
the year 1007, when the first Hagen founded a
barony in Esthonia, having murdered somebody or
other; for the genealogical experts had been unable
to go back any further. But Monsieur d’Hemon
continued: This Hagen or Agen the One-armed was
clearly a Tartar Prince, captured in the course of
an expedition into the district of Kamsk. Persian
history mentions a certain Khan Agan, who was the
son of Giw Khan, King of the Turkomans, the
Uzbeks, Sards and Kirghiz, while he again was the
son of Weiwus, the son of the conqueror Li-taj Khan.
This “Emperor” Li-taj is referred to in the Chinese
chronicles as the ruler of Turkoman, Altai and
Western Thibet, who had slain as many as fifty
thousand people, amongst whom was a Chinese
Governor, round whose head he had had twisted
a wet rope, until the bones broke. Nothing was
known of Li-taj ’s ancestors. More might be dis¬
covered if access was ever gained to the archives in
Lhassa. His son, Weiwus, who was regarded even
by the Mongolians as being rather wild, was beaten
to death with tent-poles in Kara Butak. His son

2 5° Krakatit

Giw Khan depopulated Chiv and extended his ac¬
tivities as far as Itil or Astrachan, where he be¬
came famous for having plucked out the eyes of
two thousand people and driven them into the Ku¬
ban Steppe. Agan Khan continued in his foot¬
steps, having sent out expeditions as far as Bolgar
or the Simbirsk of to-day, where he was taken pris¬
oner, his right hand amputated and kept as a
hostage until the time when he was able to flee to
Balt among the Livs who then inhabited the district.
There he was baptized by the German bishop, Go-
tilly or Gutilly and — probably through religious
zeal — murdered in the cemetery in Verro the six¬
teen-year-old heir to the Pechorski barony, taking
his sister to wife. Through this bigamy he was
able to extend his territory as far as Lake Pejpus.
See the chronicles of Nikifor, where he is referred
to as “Prince Agen,” while the Osel Chronicle al¬
ludes to him as “Rex Aagen.” His descendants,
concluded Monsieur d’Hemon quietly, were driven
out, but never dethroned.

Monsieur d’Hemon then got up, bowed, and re¬
mained standing. His remarks produced an enor¬
mous sensation. The Princess simply drank in every
one of his words, as if this line of Tartar cutthroats
was the finest in the world. Prokop watched her
with dismay; she did not even wince at the story of
four thousand eyes having been plucked out. In¬
voluntarily he looked for Tartar features in her
face. She was extraordinarily beautiful, drew her¬
self up and enveloped herself in her own dignity;
suddenly there was such a distance between her and
all the others that they all became as formal as if

Krakatit

251

it were a state banquet, not daring to look at her
directly. Prokop wanted repeatedly to strike the
table, say something rough, disturb this frozen
scene. She sat with eyes cast down, as if she were
waiting for something, and across her face there
flashed something like impatience. The company
looked at one another interrogatively, at the digni¬
fied Monsieur d’Hemon, and at last one by one rose
to their feet. Prokop also stood up, not realizing
what was happening. What on earth could it mean?
They all stood quite stiffly with their arms at their
sides looking at the Princess. Then she raised her
eyes like some one who is expressing thanks for
homage, and they all sat down. Only when Prokop
was in his seat again did he realize with consterna¬
tion that they had all just made obeisance to their
ruler. He suddenly became so angry that he broke
into a sweat. Heavens, that he should have taken
part in such a farce ! How on earth was it possible
that they did not burst out laughing at the ridicu¬
lousness of the comedy which they had just played?

He was getting ready to laugh with the others,
when the Princess rose. All the others did the
same, and. Prokop was convinced that now the ice
would break. He looked around him and his eyes
fell on the fat cousin, who, his arms hanging down
at his sides, was approaching the Princess, inclined
slightly forwards; surely it must all be a joke. The
Princess spoke to him and nodded her head; the fat
cousin bowed and retired. What was happening?
Now the Princess gave a quick glance at Prokop, but
he did not move. The rest stood on tiptoe and
watched him fixedly. Again the Princess made a

252 Krakatit

sign with her eyes; still he did not move. The
Princess stepped towards an old, one-armed major
from the artillery, covered with medals. The ma¬
jor was just drawing himself up when she turned
aside and was suddenly quite close to Prokop.

“Darling, darling,” she said in a clear soft voice,

“do you - ? You’re getting angry again. I should

like to kiss you.”

“Princess,” said Prokop in a thick voice, “what
does this farce mean?”

“Don’t shout like that. It’s more important than
you imagine. Do you know that they now wrant
to give me in marriage?” She trembled with
horror. “Darling, go away now. Go down the
passage to the third room on the right and wait
there for me. I must see you.”

“Listen,” Prokop wanted to say, but she only
inclined her head and moved suavely across to the
old major.

Prokop could not believe his eyes.

Could such things happen? Was it not really
a carefully arranged performance? Were the dif¬
ferent people taking their roles seriously? The
fat cousin took him by the arm and discreetly led
him aside. “Do you know what this means?” he
whispered excitedly. “The old Hagen is paralyzed.
It’s a ruling family! Did you see that heir to a
throne? There was to be a marriage, but it didn’t
come off. That man is certainly sent here purposely.
God, what a pedigree!” Prokop got free of him.
“Excuse me,” he mumbled, walked down the pas¬
sage as slowly as possible and went into the ap¬
pointed room. It was a sort of little boudoir for

Krakatit

253

drinking tea, with shaded lights, everything lac¬
quered, black porcelain and other rubbish. Prokop
strode about this miniature apartment with his hands
behind his back, buzzing like a blow-fly which hits
its head against the glass of a window-frame.
Sacra, things were altered and for the sake of a
lousy Tartar pedigree which a decent person would
be ashamed of. ... A nice reason! And on ac¬
count of a handful of such Huns these idiots crawled
along on their bellies and she, she herself . . .

The blow-fly butted the glass in a frenzy.
Now. . . . This Tartar princess would come in
and say: Darling, darling all is over between us;
you must realize that the granddaughter of Li-taj
Khan can’t love the son of a cobbler. Tap, tap;
he heard in his head the noise of his father’s ham¬
mer and he could almost smell the odour of the
leather and of the cobbler’s wax; and his mother, in
a blue apron, was standing, flushed, over the
stove. . . .

The blow-fly buzzed desperately. “We shall see,
Princess! What have you let yourself in for, man?
When she comes you must knock your forehead on
the floor and say: Pardon, Tartar princess, I shall
not show myself in your presence again. ...”

In the little room there was a faint smell of
quince, and the light was dull and soft. The desper¬
ate fly continued to strike its head on the glass and
complain in a voice that was almost human. What
have you let yourself in for, idiot?

The Princess suddenly glided noiselessly into the
room. At the door she reached out for the switch
and turned out the light. In the darkness Prokop

254 Krakatit

felt a hand which lightly touched his face and then
passed round his neck. He took the Princess in
his arms; she was so supple and almost incorporate,
that he touched her fearfully as if she were some¬
thing fragile. She covered his face with her aerial
kisses and whispered something which he could not
catch; he felt his hair being delicately stroked. Then
he felt her sinuous body yielding, the arm round his
neck pressed him more closely and her moist lips
moved on his own, as if they were speaking voice¬
lessly. Trembling all over, she grasped Prokop
more and more firmly, pulled down his head, pressed
herself to him with her breasts and knees, twined
both her arms round him; a passionate, agonizing
embrace, the moaning of a creature which is being
suffocated; they staggered in a convulsive, insane
embrace. Never to leave go. To devour one
another! To fuse into one being or to die! She
was sobbing helplessly, but he freed himself from
the terrible grip of her hands. She swayed as if
she were intoxicated, pulled a handkerchief out of
her bosom and wiped her lips, and without saying
a word passed into the adjacent room.

With a splitting head Prokop remained in the
darkness. This last embrace seemed to him to mean
farewell.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE fat cousin was right. The old Hagen was
becoming more and more paralyzed, though
he had not yet succumbed to the disease. He now
lay helpless, surrounded by doctors, trying to open
his left eye. Uncle Rohn and his relations were sud¬
denly sent for; and the old Prince tried once more
to open his eye so as to look again at his daughter
and make some signal.

She ran out of the room, bareheaded, and rushed
outside to Prokop who had been waiting for her
in the park for some time. Completely ignoring
Holz she kissed and clung to him passionately. She
made hardly any allusion to her father and Uncle
Charles, absorbed in something, harassed and affec¬
tionate. She pressed herself against him and then
suddenly became distant and preoccupied. He began
to poke fun at the Tartar dynasty ... a little too
pointedly. She gave him an expressive look and
changed the conversation, talking about the pre¬
vious evening. “Until the last moment I thought
that I wouldn’t go to you. Do you know that I am
nearly thirty? When I was fifteen I fell terribly
in love with our chaplain. I went to him to confess,
simply in order to get a nearer sight of him, and
because I was ashamed to say that I had stolen or
lied I told him that I had been unchaste; I didn’t
know what that meant, and the poor man had a lot

• 255

256 Krakatit

of work to find out the truth. Now I couldn’t con¬
fess,” she concluded quietly, and made a bitter
movement with her mouth.

Prokop was disturbed by her continued self-
analysis, in which he saw a morbid desire for self-
torture. He tried to find something else to talk
about and discovered to his consternation that if
they did not speak about love they had nothing to
say to one another. They were standing on the
bastion. It gave the Princess a certain relief to
return to her past, to confess small but important
things about herself. “Soon after I confessed we
had a dancing master who fell in love with my
governess, a stout woman. I heard about it and
. . . saw them. It disgusted me. Oh! But all
the same I spied on them and ... I couldn’t under¬
stand. And then one day when wTe were dancing
I suddenly understood, when he pressed himself
against me. After that I wouldn’t let him touch me;
in the end ... I fired a shot-gun at him. We had
to dismiss them both.

“At that time ... I was terribly worried by
mathematics; I simply hadn’t a head for it, you see?
My teacher was a famous man, but unpleasant; you
scientists are all extraordinary. He set me an
exercise and looked at his watch; it had to be done
in an hour. And when I had only five, four, three
minutes left and I had still done nothing . . . my
heart began to thump and I had such a horrible

feeling - ” She dug her fingers into Prokop’s

arm and drew in her breath. “Then I got to like
those lessons.

“When I was nineteen they selected a husband

Krakatit

257

for me; you wouldn’t believe it. And because by
that time I understood everything I made my fiance
promise that he would never touch me. Two years
later he died in Africa. I pined so much — through
being romantic or something of the sort — that they
never tried to make a match for me again. I
thought that I’d got the question settled for ever.

“And I forced myself, you know, to believe that
I had some obligation to him and that I ought to
be true to him even after his death, until finally I
grew to believe that I had been in love with him.
Now I see that all the time I was only acting to
myself and that I had never felt anything more than
foolish disillusion.

“It’s curious, isn’t it, that I’m telling you all these
things about myself? You know, it’s a great relief
to speak about oneself like this without keeping any¬
thing back.

“When you arrived I thought to begin with that
you were like that professor of mathematics. I was
even frightened of you, darling. He’ll give me an
exercise to do, I thought, and my heart began to
beat again.

“A horse simply intoxicated me. When I was
on a horse I felt that I didn’t need love. And I
rode insanely.

“I always imagined that love was something
vulgar and . . . terribly revolting. You see, I still
can’t deal with it; at the same time it frightens me
and masters me. And now I’m glad that I’m like
any other woman. When I was little I was afraid
of water. They showed me the strokes of swimming
on dry land, but I would not go near the lake; I

258

Krakatit

got the idea that it was full of spiders, and one day
I was suddenly seized by some sort of courage or
desperation, shut my eyes, cried out and sprang in.
Don’t ask me how proud I was afterwards; it was
as if I had passed an examination, as if I knew
everything, as if I had changed into another person.
As if I had grown up at last. ...”

That evening she came into the laboratory, uneasy
and worried. When he took her into his arms she
said agitatedly: “He’s opened his eye, he’s opened
his eye, oh!” She was thinking of the old Hagen;
in the afternoon she had had a long conversation
with Uncle Rohn but would not speak about it. It
seemed that she was striving to get away from
something; she threw herself into Prokop’s arms
so passionately and devotedly that he had the im¬
pression that she wanted to blot everything out
at all costs. Finally she lay still, her eyes closed,
completely limp. He thought that she had fallen
asleep but then she began to whisper: “Darling, I
shall do something terrible, but you mustn’t leave
me. Swear to me, swear to me,” she insisted wildly
and sprang to her feet, immediately, however, get¬
ting control of herself again. “Ah! no. What
could you swear to do? I’ve read in the cards that
you will go away. If you want to, do it now before
it’s too Ute.”

Prokop naturally jumped up, saying that she
wanted to get rid of him, that her Tartar pride had
rushed to her head, and similar things. She became
very excited and charged him with being, base and
harsh, saying that he would answer for it, that . . .

Krakatit

259

that . . . But scarcely had she said it than she
flung her arms round his neck, repentant: “I’m a
beast. I wasn’t thinking of that. You know, a
princess ought never to shout, but I shout at you
. . . as if I were your wife. Strike me, I beg you.
Wait, I’ll show you that I’m capable. ...” She
released him and suddenly, as she was, began to
tidy up the laboratory, wetting a cloth under the tap
and cleaning the whole floor on her knees. She
meant it for an act of repentance, but somehow she
found the work pleasant, became radiant, worked
with a will, humming to herself a song which she
had picked up somewhere from the servants. He
wanted to raise her to her feet. “No; wait,” she
defended herself, “there’s a bit over there.” And
she crawled with the cloth underneath a chair.

“Come here,” she said in a moment, surprised.
Still mumbling reproaches he sat down next to her.
She was squatting, her arms clasped round her knees.
“Just see what a chair looks like from underneath.
I’ve never seen such a thing before.” She placed
on his face a hand which was still damp from the
wet rag. “You’re as rough as the under side of
this chair; that’s the most lovely thing about you.
I’ve only seen other people on their smooth, pol¬
ished side, but you, when one first looks at you,
you’re like a beam with cracks in it — everything
that holds the human frame together. If one runs
one’s finger over you one gets a splinter in it, but
all the same you’re beautifully made. One begins
to realize something else . . . something more im¬
portant than what one gets from the smooth side.
That’s you.”

260

Krakatit

She nestled against him. “I feel as if I were in
a tent, or a log hut,” she whispered, entranced. “I
never used to play with dolls, but sometimes . . .
secretly ... I used to go out with the gardener’s
boys and climb trees with them. . . . Then they
wondered at home why my clothes were torn. And
when I used to climb with them my heart beat "with
fear so wonderfully. When I’m with you I have
the same wonderful fear that I had then.

“Now I’m thoroughly hidden,” she said happily,
leaning her head against his knees. “Nobody can
find me, and I’m rough, like the bottom of that
chair; an ordinary woman, not thinking about any¬
thing, only being soothed. . . . Why is a person
so happy when he’s hidden? Now I know what
happiness is: One must close one’s eyes and become
tiny . . . quite tiny, waiting to be discovered. ...”

She rocked herself to and fro contentedly while
he smoothed her dishevelled hair; but her widely
opened eyes looked past his head into the distance.

Sudenly she turned her face to him. “What were
you thinking about?”

He moved his eyes away shyly. He could not
tell her that he saw before him the Tartar princess
in all her glory, a proud and commanding figure
which now ... in pain and yearning. . . .

“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, looking down
at the happy, and contented face against his knees,
and stroked her dark cheek, which flushed with
tender passion.

CHAPTER XXXVI

He would have done better if he had not come
that evening, but he compelled himself to
because she had forbidden him to appear. Oncle
Charles was particularly charming to him. By an
unlucky accident he had seen the two of them on
an inappropriate occasion pressing one another’s
hands ; finally he had put up his monocle to see better,
upon which the Princess snatched her hand away and
blushed like a schoolgirl. Oncle Charles came
across to her, drew her aside, and whispered some¬
thing into her ear. After that she did not return,
but Rohn appeared instead and engaged himself in
conversation with Prokop, evidently trying to sound
him. Prokop behaved like a hero, and betrayed
nothing, which at least appeared to please the old
gentleman. “In society one must be extremely care¬
ful,” he concluded, rebuking and advising him at
the same time. Prokop was greatly relieved when
he was left alone to reflect on the significance of this
last remark.

The worst of it was that something was evidently
being prepared behind the scenes; the older mem¬
bers of the family were positively bursting with
importance.

When the next morning Prokop was walking
round the castle he was approached by a chamber¬
maid who informed him breathlessly that he was

261

262

Krakatit

wanted in the birch wood. He made his way there
and waited for a long time. Finally the Princess
arrived, moving with the long, beautiful steps of a
Diana. “Hide yourself,” she whispered rapidly.
“Uncle is following me.” They ran off hand in
hand and disappeared behind the thick foliage of
a lilac bush; Mr. Holz, after having searched for
them for some time, sat down on the grass, resigned.
Then they caught sight of the light hat of Uncle
Rohn. He was walking quickly, looking out on
both sides of him. The Princess’s eyes glistened
with delight, like those of a young faun. In the
bushes there was a damp and musty smell; the twigs
and leaves were covered with spiders’ webs. With¬
out even waiting for the danger to pass, the Prin¬
cess drew Prokop’s head towards her. Between
his teeth he felt her kisses, like wild berries, bitter
and yet pleasant. The game was so delightful, new
and surprising that it was if they were seeing one
another for the first time.

And that day she did not come to him; beside
himself with every sort of suspicion, he made his
way to the castle. She was waiting for him, walk¬
ing with her arms round Egon’s neck. Directly she
caught sight of him she let go of the boy and came
up to him, pale, distraught, mastering a certain des¬
peration. “Uncle knows that I’ve visited you,” she
said. “God, what will happen ! I think that they
will send you away. Don’t move now; they’re watch¬
ing us from the window. I spoke this afternoon
with . . . with ...” she shivered . . . “with the
manager, you know. We quarrelled . . . Oncle
Charles wanted me simply to leave you, to let you

Krakatit

263

escape or something of the sort. The manager
was furious and wouldn’t hear of such a thing. It
looks as if they are sending you somewhere else.
. . . Darling, come here to-night; I’ll come out to
you, I’ll evade . . . them. ...”

And she actually came, breathless, sobbing with
dry and anxious eyes. “To-morrow, to-morrow,”
she wanted to say, but at that moment a firm and
friendly hand descended on her shoulder. It was
Uncle Rohn. “Go back, Minna,” he ordered sternly.
“And you wait here,” he added, turning to Prokop.
Putting his arm round her shoulder he led her back
into the castle. A moment later he came back again
and took Prokop by the arm. “My friend,” he said
sympathetically, “I understand you young people
only too well and ... I feel with you.” He made
a gesture of hopelessness with his hand. “Some¬
thing has taken place which should not have hap¬
pened. I don’t wish to . . . and of course I can’t
reproach you. On the contrary, I realize that . . .
obviously. ...” Clearly this was a bad beginning
and le bon prince tried another road. “My dear
friend, I respect you and I really like you very much.
You are an honest man and . . . a genius ; an unusual
combination. I have rarely felt such sympathy for
anybody. I know that you will go a long way,” he
said with relief. “You believe that my intentions
are friendly?”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Prokop calmly.

Le bon oncle became confused. “I am sorry,
extraordinarily,” he jerked out, “because I cannot
tell you what I want to say unless we have the fullest
possible confidence in one another. ...”

264

Krakatit

“ Mon prince” Prokop interrupted him politely,
“as you know, I am not here in the enviable posi¬
tion of a free man. I think that under the circum¬
stances I’ve no cause to have faith. ...”

“Y-yes,” sighed Oncle Rohn, pleased wdth the turn
that the conversation had taken. “You’re perfectly
right. You are up against the painful fact that
you’re a prisoner, eh? You know, that’s just what
I was going to speak about. My dear friend, as
far as I’m concerned . . . From the very begin¬
ning ... I passionately condemned this idea of
keeping you ... in captivity. It’s illegal, brutal
and ... in view of your importance, simply inex¬
cusable. I took various steps . . . some time ago,
you understand,” he added quickly. “I intervened
in the highest places but ... in view of a certain
international tension the higher officials are in a
panic. You are confined here under the accusation
of espionage. Nothing can be done,” and the Prince
bent down to Prokop’s ear, “unless you can succeed
in escaping. Trust me, and I’ll provide the means.
I give you my word.”

“What means?” Prokop threw out carelessly.

“I shall simply . . . arrange it myself. I’ll take
you in my car — and they can’t stop me, you
understand. The rest later. Where do you want
to go?”

“Leave it; I don’t want to go away,” answered
Prokop definitely.

“Why?” said Oncle Charles, surprised.

“To begin with ... I don’t want you, Prince,
to take any risks. A person like yourself - ”

“And in the second place?”

Krakatit 265

“In the second place I’m beginning to like it
here.”

“And further, further?”

“Nothing further,” smiled Prokop, enduring the
serious, scrutinizing glance of the Prince.

“Listen,” said Oncle Rohn after a moment, “I
did not mean to tell you. But the point is that in
a day or so you are to be transferred elsewhere, to
a fortress. Still under the accusation of espionage.
You mustn’t imagine. . . . My dear friend, get
away while there is still time!”

“Is that true?”

“Honestly it is.”

“Then . . . then I am obliged to you for warning
me.”

“What do you propose to do?”

“Well, I shall make my arrangements,” said Pro¬
kop bloodthirstily. “Mon prince , you may inform
HER that it isn’t done ... as easily as that.”

“What? What do you mean?” stammered Oncle
Charles.

Prokop made a gesture in the air with his hand
as if he were throwing something imaginary in front
of him. “Bang,” he said.

Oncle Charles drew back. “You intend to defend
yourself ?”

Prokop said nothing, but stood with his hands in
his pockets, frowning darkly and reflecting.

Oncle Charles , pale and fragile in the nocturnal
darkness, stepped up to him. “Do you . . . love
her as much as that?” he said quickly, gulping with
emotion.

Prokop did not answer. “You love her,” repeated

2 66 Krakatit

Rohn, and embraced him. “Be strong. Leave her
and go away! You can’t stay here, you must realize
that. What would it lead to? For God’s sake have
pity on her. Save her from a scandal. Can you
really imagine that she could ever be your wife? It
may be that she is in love with you but — she is too
proud; she wouldn’t forego the title of Princess. . . .
Oh, it’s impossible, it’s impossible! I don’t wish
to know what there was between you, but if you love
her, go away! Go at once, this very night! In the
name of love, go away, friend, I beg you in her
name. You’ve made her the most unhappy woman
— isn’t that enough? Protect her if she’s not able to
protect herself! Do you love her? Then sacrifice
yourself !”

Prokop stood motionless, his head bent, and le
bon prince felt that this black rough trunk was split¬
ting inside with pain. His heart was torn in sym¬
pathy, but he had still one more card to play; if it
was not successful he would have to give in.

“She’s proud, fantastic, wildly ambitious; she’s
been like that from childhood. And now we have
received the valuable information that she’s a prin¬
cess whose pedigree is equal to that of anyone else’s.
You don’t realize what that means to her. To her
and to us. It may be prejudice but . . . such things
are our life. Prokop, the Princess is going to be
married. She is marrying a Grand Duke without
a throne — a decent and amenable person — but she,
she will fight for the crown, for fighting is her nature,
her mission, her pride. At last her life-long dream
is being realized. And now you’re standing between

Krakatit 267

her and her future. But she’s already decided; she’s

only torturing herself with reproaches - ”

“Aha!” cried Prokop. “So it’s that way, is it?
And — you think that I shall give way now? Wait
and see 1”

And before Oncle Rohn could realize what was
happening he had hurried off in the darkness to the
laboratory. Mr. Holz silently behind him.

CHAPTER XXXVII

When they reached the laboratory he wanted
to slam the door in Holz’s face, so as to
fortify himself inside, but Mr. Holz just had time to
whisper the words: “The Princess.”

“What’s that?” said Prokop, turning round
sharply.

“She has instructed me to remain with you.”
Prokop was unable to disguise his delighted sur¬
prise. “Has she paid you?”

Mr. Holz shook his head and for the first time a
smile passed across his parchment-like face. “She
gave me her hand,” he said respectfully. “I prom¬
ised her that nothing should happen to you.”

“Good. Have you got the gun? Now you shall
watch the door. Nobody must come in, you under¬
stand?”

Mr. Holz nodded and Prokop made a thorough
strategical examination of the laboratory, considered
as a fortress.

Fairly satisfied, he collected on the table all the
metal vessels and boxes which he could get together,
and further, to his great delight, discovered a heap
of nails. Then he set to work.

The next morning Mr. Carson, with a fine assump¬
tion of casualness, wandered down to Prokop’s
laboratory. When some distance away he made
him out standing in front of the building, evidently

268

Krakatit

269

practising throwing stones. “A very healthy sport,”
he shouted cheerfully.

Prokop hastily put on his coat again. “Healthy
and useful,” he answered readily. “What do you
want me for?”

The pockets of his coat bulged out and something
rattled inside them. “What have you got in your
pockets?” asked Mr. Carson carelessly.

“Nitric acid,” said Prokop. “And explosives.”

“H’m. Why do you carry it in your pockets?”

“Oh, just for a joke. Is there anything you want
to say to me?”

“Nothing at the moment. Particularly not at this
moment,” said Mr. Carson uneasily, keeping at a
fair distance. “And what have you got in those —
those boxes?”

“Nails. And here,” he said, bringing a little box
out of his pockets, “is some Benzoltetraoxozonid, a
novelty, the dernier cri. Eh?”

“Don’t wave it about,” said Mr. Carson, retreat¬
ing to a safer distance. “Is there any request you
have to make?”

“Request?” said Prokop pleasantly. “I should
be obliged if you would tell THEM something. To
begin with, that I’m not going.”

“Good. That’s to be understood. And further?”

“And further, if anybody should inadvertently
attack me ... or try to make an assault on me . . .
I hope that it isn’t your intention to murder me.”

“Certainly not. Honestly.”

“You can come nearer.”

“You won’t go up in the air?”

“I shall be careful.- I only wanted to ask you

270

Krakatit

to stop anybody entering my fortress while I’m away
from it. There’s an explosive fuse on the door. Be
careful; there’s a trap behind you.”

“Explosive?”

“Only Diazobenzolperchlorate. You must warn
people. Nobody’s to come near here, see? Further,
I’ve certain reasons ... to believe that I’m in
danger. I should be grateful to you if you would
arrange for Holz to protect me personally . . .
against every sort of attack. And he should be
armed.”

“No,” said Carson loudly. “Holz will be trans¬
ferred.”

“What?” protested Prokop. “I’m afraid to be
alone, you understand? Kindly instruct him.” So
saying he approached Carson threateningly, rattling
as if he was made of nothing but tin and nails.

“All right then,” said Carson hastily. “Holz,
you are to look after Mr. Prokop. If anybody

wishes to approach him - Devil take it, do what

you like. Is there anything else you want?”

“Nothing for the moment. If I want anything
I’ll come to you.”

“Thank you very much,” said Carson, and
quickly removed himself from the dangerous area.
The first thing he did was to dash to his office and
telephone the necessary instructions in all directions.
But there was a rattling in the corridor and Pro¬
kop burst into the room, fully charged with bombs.

“Listen,” said Prokop, white with anger. “Who
gave orders that I should not be allowed into the
park? If that order isn’t withdrawn immedi¬
ately - ”

Krakatit

271

“Just keep a little farther off, yes?” cried Carson,
holding on to his desk. “What do I care about
the park? Go - ”

“Wait,” Prokop interrupted him and compelled
himself to explain patiently: “Let us take it that
there are occasions when . . . when a person is not
absolutely indifferent as to what happens,” he said
quickly. “You understand me ?” Rattling and clat¬
tering he crossed over to the calendar on the wall.
“Tuesday, to-day is Tuesday! And here, here I

have - ” he searched feverishly in his pockets and

finally brought to light a porcelain soap box care¬
fully tied up with a piece of string. “So far four
ounces. You know what it is?”

“Krakatit? You’re bringing it to us?” said Mr.
Carson, his face lit up with a sudden hope. “But
then, of course - ”

“Nothing of the sort,” grinned Prokop and put
the box back in his pocket. “But if you irritate me,
then . . . then I shall strew it about where I want
to, see?”

“See?” repeated Carson mechanically, completely
crestfallen.

“Well, just see that that lad is removed from the
entrance. I want to go into the park.”

Mr. Carson cast a rapid glance over Prokop and
then spat on the floor. “Bah!” he said with feel¬
ing, “I’ve arranged this badly!”

“You have,” agreed Prokop. “But it didn’t
occur to me before that I had this card in my suit.
Well?”

Carson shrugged his shoulders. “For the present,
God! this is no small matter! I am extremely glad

2?2 Krakatit

that I’m able to assist you. Honestly, extremely
glad. And you? Will you give us six ounces?”

“I won’t. I shall destroy it myself but ... to
begin with I want to see whether our old treaty still
holds. Free movement, and all the rest, eh? You
remember?”

“The old agreement,” roared Mr. Carson. “The
devil take the old agreement. At that time you

weren’t — you hadn’t yet relations with - ”

Prokop sprang towards him, rattling loudly.
“What did you say? What hadn’t I?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Mr. Carson hastened to say,
blinking his eyes quickly. “I don’t know. Your
private affairs are nothing to do with me. If you
want to walk about the park that’s your affair, eh?

Only for God’s sake go and - ”

“Listen,” said Prokop suspiciously, “No cutting

off the current to my laboratory. Because - ”

“Good, good,” Mr. Carson assured him. “The
status quo, eh? Good luck. — Ugh ! a cursed fellow,”
he added irritatedly when at last Prokop had left
the room.

Still rattling, Prokop made his way to the park,
as heavy and solid as a howitzer. In front of the
castle was standing a collection of gentlemen, but no
sooner had they caught sight of him in the distance
than they retired in some confusion, evidently having
been informed of this highly charged and furious
individual; their backs expressed the highest degree
of indignation that such a thing should be allowed.
Then Prokop came upon Mr. Krafft walking with
Egon and giving him peripatetic instruction. As
soon as he saw Prokop, he left Egon and ran across

Krakatit

273

to him. “Will you shake hands with me?” he asked,
and grew red at his own heroism. “I shall certainly
be dismissed for this,” he said proudly. Prokop
learnt from Krafft that the report had spread
through the castle like lightning that he, Prokop, was
an anarchist, and that the heir to the throne was
expected that very evening. . . . That they pro¬
posed to telegraph to His Excellence to postpone
his arrival, and were holding a big family council
about it.

Prokop approached the castle. Two flunkeys in
the passage flew out of his path and pressed them¬
selves against the wall, allowing this charged, clang¬
ing assailant to pass without a word. The family
council was being held in the large hall. Oncle Rohn
was anxiously walking up and down, the elder mem¬
bers were tremendously excited about the perversity
of anarchists, the fat cousin was silent, and some
other gentlemen were warmly advocating that sol¬
diers should be sent against this wild person: he
would either have to give himself up or be shot.
At that moment the doors opened and Prokop
crashed into the room. His eyes sought the Prin¬
cess. She was not there, but all the rest of the
company stood up rigid with terror, awaiting the
worst. Prokop addressed Rohn in a hoarse voice:
“Eve only come to tell you that nothing will happen
to the royal heir. Now you know.” He nodded
sharply and walked out of the room as solid as a
statue.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

HE passage was empty. He crept along as

A quietly as he was able to the Princess’s apart¬
ments and waited in front of the door, motionless
as the knight in armour downstairs in the vestibule.
A chambermaid came out, screamed at the sight of
the scarecrow and hastily retired. A moment after¬
wards she opened the door again and, scared out of
her life, and careful to keep out of his way, silently
motioned him in, after which she again disappeared.
The Princess came forward to meet him. She was
wearing a long cloak and had evidently only just
got out of bed. The hair over her forehead was
tangled and damp as if she had just removed a cold
compress. She was extremely pale and not looking
attractive. She put her arms round his neck and put
forward a pair of lips which were feverishly dry.
“You are good,” she whispered, half swooning.
“I’ve got the most frightful headache ! I hear that
your pockets are full of bombs ! I’m not frightened
of you. Go away now, I’m looking ugly. I’ll come
to you at mid-day; I shan’t go down to dinner. I’ll
tell them I’m not well. Go.” She touched his
mouth with her sore, peeling lips and hid her face
so that he should not see her.

Accompanied by Mr. Holz, Prokop returned to
the laboratory; everybody whom he encountered

274

Krakatit

275

stopped and then took to flight, some at times even
taking shelter in a ditch. He again threw himself
into his work as if possessed, mixed materials to¬
gether which nobody would have dreamed of associ¬
ating, armed with a blind certainty that he could
convert them into explosives. He filled flasks,
match-boxes, tins for preserved food, everything
that came into his hands. The table, window-ledges
and the floor were covered with them and he went
on until he simply had nowhere to put the stuff. In
the afternoon the Princess appeared, veiled and
wrapped up to the eyes in her cloak. He ran towards
her and would have taken her in his arms, but she
repulsed him. “No, no, to-day I’m ugly. Please
go on working; I’ll watch you.”

She sat down on the edge of a chair directly oppo¬
site to the frightful arsenal of explosives. Prokop
with set lips was rapidly weighing and mixing some¬
thing which hissed and smelt bitter. Then he filtered
it with the greatest care. She watched him, her
hands motionless, her eyes burning. Both were
thinking that the royal heir was to arrive that day.

Prokop was looking for something on a shelf on
which were ranged various acids. She stood up,
raised her veil, put her arms round his neck and
placed her dry, closed lips against his mouth. They
swayed about between the rows of bottles containing
unstable oxozobenzol and terribly powerful fulmi¬
nates, dumb and convulsed, but again she pushed him
away and sat down, covering her face with her hands.
Prokop set to work again still more quickly, like a
baker making bread, and this time it was to be the
most diabolical substance which man ever prepared.

276 Krakatit

a violent and frightfully sensitive oil, the incarnation
of swiftness and inflammability. And now here it
was, transparent as water and fluid as ether; a ter¬
rible and incalculable destructive agent. He looked
round to see where he had placed the flask contain¬
ing this nameless substance. She laughed, took it
out of his hand and held it clasped in her hands on
her lap.

Outside Mr. Holz suddenly cried “Stop” to some¬
body. Prokop ran out. Oncle Rohn was standing
extremely near the explosive trap.

Prokop went up to him. “What do you want?”

“Minna,” said Oncle Charles sweetly, “she’s not
well and so - ”

Prokop made a face. “Come and fetch her,” he
said and led him in.

“Ah, Oncle Charles !” The Princess greeted him
kindly. “Come and look, this is frightfully inter¬
esting.”

Oncle Rohn looked carefully at her and about the
room and was evidently relieved. “You shouldn’t
have come, Minna,” he said reproachfully.

“Why not?” she objected innocently.

He looked helplessly at Prokop. “Because . . .
because you are feverish.”

“Pm better now,” she said quietly.

“But still you shouldn’t ...” said le bon prince,
frowning seriously.

“Mon Oncle, you know that I always do what I
want to,” she said, making an end to this family
scene. At that moment Prokop was removing from
a chair a little box containing some explosives. “Do
sit down,” he said politely to Rohn.

Krakatit 277

Oncle Charles did not seem to be pleased at the
situation. “I’m not . . . stopping you in your
work?” he asked of Prokop aimlessly.

“Not in the least,” said Prokop, rolling some
substance in his fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“Making explosives. Please, that bottle,” he
said, turning to the Princess.

She gave it him and added openly and provoca¬
tively, “Do you - ?” Oncle Rohn recoiled as if

he had been struck but soon gave himself up to con¬
templating the rapid, though extremely cautious, way
in which Prokop was pouring some drops of a yellow
liquid on to a piece of clay.

He coughed and asked: “How do you ignite
that?”

“By shaking it,” answered Prokop shortly, con¬
tinuing to pour out the liquid.

Oncle Charles turned to the Princess. “If you
are frightened, Uncle,” she said dryly, “you needn’t
wait for me.” He sat down resignedly and tapped
with his stick on a tin box which had once contained
Californian peaches. “What does that contain?”

“That’s a hand-grenade,” explained Prokop.
“Hexani trofenyl methylnitramin. Feel the weight
of it.”

Oncle Rohn become flurried. “Wouldn’t it per¬
haps be better to be a little more careful?” he asked,
twisting in his fingers a match-box which he had
picked up from the desk.

“Certainly,” agreed Prokop and took it out of his
hand. “That’s chlorargonat. Not to be played
with.”

278

Krakatit

Oncle Charles frowned. “All this gives me a
rather disturbed feeling,” he said sharply.

Prokop threw the box down on the table. “What?
And I also had a disturbed feeling when you threat¬
ened to send me to a fortress.”

“. . .1 can say,” said Rohn, accepting the

reproach, “that all that . . . made no impression
on me.”

“But it made an enormous impression on me,”
said the Princess.

“Are you afraid that he will do something?”
said le bon prince , turning to her.

“I hope that he will do something,” she said opti¬
mistically. “Do you think that he’s not capable of
it?”

“I have no doubt about it,” said Rohn. “Shall
we go now?”

“No. I should like to help him.”

Just then Prokop was breaking a metal spoon in
his fingers. “What’s that for?” she asked him
curiously.

“Pve run out of nails,” he said gruffly. “I’ve
nothing to fill the bombs with.” He looked round
in search of something made of metal. Then the
Princess stood up, blushed, hastily peeled off one of
her gloves and removed a gold ring from her finger.
“Take this,” she said softly, her eyes cast down.
He took it, wincing; it was almost a ceremony . . .
as if they were being betrothed. He hesitated,
weighing the ring in his hand; she raised her eyes
to him in urgent and burning inquiry. Then he
nodded seriously and placed the ring at the bottom
of a tin box.

/

Krakatit 279

Oncle Rohn blinked his bird-like eyes with melan¬
choly concern.

“Now we can go,” whispered the Princess.

That evening the heir to the throne arrived at the
castle. At the entrance was drawn up a ceremonial
escort; there were official greetings and other func¬
tions; the park and the castle were specially illu¬
minated. Prokop sat on a small mound in front of
his laboratory, and watched the castle with sombre
eyes. Nobody entered it; save for the lights com¬
ing from the windows all was quiet and dark.

Prokop heaved a deep sigh and stood up. “To
the castle?” asked Mr. Holz, and transferred his
revolver from the pocket of his trousers to that of
his everlasting mackintosh. When they passed
through the park the lights in it had already been
extinguished. On two or three occasions some being
or other retired into the bushes on their approach
and about fifty paces behind them they could hear
all the time the sound of some one following them
over the fallen leaves. Otherwise all was deserted,
terribly deserted. But in one wing of the castle
the large windows stood out a bright yellow.

It was autumn, already autumn. Was the water
still dripping into the well at Tynice with a silver
note? There was not even a wind, yet there was a
sort of chill which seemed to run either along the
ground or through the trees. Up in the sky a falling
star traced a red band of light.

A number of gentlemen in evening dress, magnifi¬
cent looking and satisfied with themselves, came out
on to the terrace at the top of the castle steps,

280 Krakatit

yawned, smoked and laughed a little and then
retired. Prokop sat motionless on a seat, twisting a
little metal box in his disfigured fingers. Now and
then, like a child, he rattled it about. Inside was
the broken spoon, the ring and the nameless sub¬
stance.

Mr. Holz approached cautiously. “She can’t
come to-day,” he said respectfully.

“I know.”

Lights appeared in the windows of the guest’s
suite. They were those of the “Prince’s apart¬
ments.” And now the whole castle was illuminated,
aerial and unsubstantial as in a dream. Everything
was to be found within : unheard of wrealth, beauty,
ambition, fame and dignity, breasts covered with
orders, amusements, the art of living, delicacy, wit
and self-regard — as if they were different people,
different from the like of us. . . .

Again Prokop rattled his little box like a child.
Gradually the lights went out in the windows; that
light which was still on belonged to Rohn and that
red one to the bedroom of the Princess. Uncle Rohn
opened the window to enjoy the cool of the evening
and then began to pace from the door to the win¬
dow, from the window to the door, uninterruptedly.
No movement was to be seen in the room of the
Princess.

Then even Uncle Rohn put out his light and there
was only one left. Would human thought find a
means of forcing its way through this hundred or
two metres of dumb space and reach the waiting
mind of another being? What message have I for

Krakatit

281

you, Tartar Princess? Sleep, it is already autumn;
and if some sort of God exists, may he smooth your
feverish brow.

The red light went out.

CHAPTER XXXIX

The next morning he decided not to go into the
park; he felt rightly that there would be diffi¬
culties there. He took up a position in a rather low-
lying and deserted part of the grounds in which the
direct path from the castle to the laboratory was
intercepted by an old, overgrown rampart. He
climbed on to the top of it whence, more or less
hidden, he could see the corner of the castle and a
small part of the park. He liked the place and
buried there some of his hand-grenades. He divided
his attention between watching the path, a beetle
running at his feet, and the sparrows perched on the
swinging branches. Once a robin settled there for
a moment, and Prokop, holding his breath, gazed
at its dark neck; it piped a note or two, twitched its
tail and f-r-r — it was gone. Below in the park the
Princess was walking along by the side of a tall
young man while they were followed at a respectful
distance by a group of gentlemen. The Princess
was looking to the side and moving her hand as if
she had in it a switch and was flicking the ground
with it. Nothing more was to be seen.

An hour later Uncle Rohn appeared with the fat
cousin. Then again nothing. Was it worth while
waiting there?

It was almost mid-day. Suddenly round the cor¬
ner of the castle there appeared the Princess, head-

282

Krakatit 2 83

ing straight in his direction. “Are you there?” she
called in a subdued tone. “Come down and then
to the left.”

He slid down from the rampart and pushed his
way through the bushes in the direction indicated.
There against the wall was a heap of all sorts of
objects: rusty hoops, tin pots full of holes, old top
hats, filthy rags; God knows how such things had
accumulated in the castle. And in front of this mis¬
erable pile was standing the Princess, fresh and
beautiful, and childishly biting her fingers. “I used
to come here to be angry, when I was little,” she
said. “Nobody knows of the place. Do you like
it here?”

He saw that she would be annoyed if he was not
pleased with it. “I like it,” he said quickly.

Her face glowed with pleasure and she put an
arm round his neck. “You dear! I used to put an
old pot on my head, you know, as a crown and pre¬
tended to myself that I was the reigning princess.
‘What may Her Excellency deign to want?’ ‘Har¬
ness the four-in-hand; I’m going to Zahur.’ You
know, Zahur, that was the place I’d invented. Za¬
hur, Zahur ! Darling, is there really such a place
in the world? Come, we’ll go to Zahur! Discover
it for me, you who know so much - ”

She had never been so fresh and joyful as to-day.
So much so that it filled him with jealousy, with a
passionate suspicion. He took her in his arms and
pressed her to him. “No,” she defended herself,
“don’t. Be reasonable. You are Prospero, the
Prince of Zahur, and you’ve only disguised yourself
as a magician in order to abduct me. I don’t know.

284

Krakatit

But Prince Rhizopod has come for me from the
Kingdom of Alicuri-Filicuri-Tintili-Rhododendron,
a horrible, horrible man with a church candle instead
of a nose and cold hands. Hu ! And Pm just
going to become his wife when you suddenly appear
and say: ‘Pm the Magician Prospero, the heredi¬
tary Prince of Zahur.’ And my Uncle Metastasio
will fall on your neck and they will begin to ring
bells, blow trumpets and fire - ”

Prokop realized well enough that her playful
chatter conveyed something very, very important, so
refrained from interrupting her. She kept her arm
round his neck and rubbed her fragrant face against
his rough one. “Or wait; Pm Princess of Zahur
and you are the Great Prokopo-Kopak, King of
Spirits. But Pm under a curse, they’ve said over
me the words: ‘ore ore balene, magot malista mani-
golene’ and so Pm to be given to a fish, a fish with
fishy eyes and fishy hands and fishy in its whole body,
and he’s going to take me away to the fishes’ castle.
And then the Great Prokopo-Kopak arrives on his
magic carpet and carries me off — Au revoir!” she
concluded suddenly and kissed him on the lips. She
was still smiling, clear and rosy as she had never
been before, and left him to brood gloomily over the
ruins of Zahur. And in God’s name, what did it
all mean? She clearly wanted him to help her; pres¬
sure was being put on her and she relied on him
. . . expected him somehow to save her! Heavens!
what was he to do?

Deep in thought, Prokop wandered back to the
laboratory. Clearly . . . nothing was left but the
Big Attack, but where was he to begin it? He had

Krakatit

285

already reached the door and was feeling in his
pocket for the key. Then he suddenly recoiled and
broke into curses. The outer door of the building
was barricaded with iron cross-pieces. He pulled
at them in a frenzy but could not move them.

To the door was affixed a piece of paper on which
were the words: “In accordance with the instruc¬
tions of the Civil Authorities this building is closed
on account of having been used irregularly for stor¬
ing explosives without the required precautions hav¬
ing been taken. Par. 216 & 217 d.lit.F tr.z. and
No. 63,507. M.1889.” Underneath was an illegible
signature and below that, written with a pen, the
words: “Mr. Eng. Prokop is to report at the quar¬
ters of Sgt. Gerstensen, Barrack No. III.”

Mr. Holz carefully examined the barricade with
the eye of an expert but finally only whistled and
thrust his hands into his pockets; there was abso¬
lutely nothing to be done. Prokop, white with rage,
walked all round the building . The explosive trap
had been dug up and, as before, there was a grille
in front of each window. He hastily took stock of
all his munitions; five small bombs in his pockets,
four larger ones buried in the Zahur rampart; one
could not do much with them. Beside himself with
anger he hurried to the office of that cursed Car-
son: “Wait, you louse, and see what I’ll do with
you!” But on arriving there he was told by a
servant that the manager was away and was not
returning. Prokop pushed him out of the way and
penetrated into the office. Carson was not there.
He quickly went through all the offices, causing con¬
sternation among all the officials, down to the girl

286 Krakatit

at the telephone. Carson was nowhere to be
seen.

Prokop ran back to the Zahur rampart, so that he
could at least save his bombs. And then he found
that the whole rampart, including the tangle of
brushwood and the rubbish heap, was surrounded
by a fence of barbed wire; a real entanglement of
the type used in the War. He tried to loosen the
wire but only succeeded in tearing his hands. Sob¬
bing with anger he somehow succeeded in getting
through it, to find that his four large bombs had
been removed. He nearly cried with helplessness.
To make matters worse an unpleasant drizzle began
to fall. He crawled back, his clothes torn to rags
and his hands and face bleeding, and hurried to the
castle in the hope of finding there the Princess,
Rohn, or the heir to the throne. In the vestibule
he was stopped by the blonde giant he had encoun¬
tered once before, who was determined this time to
be torn to pieces rather than let him pass. Prokop
took one of his little boxes of explosives out of his
pocket and shook it threateningly. The giant
blinked his eyes but did not yield. Suddenly he
dashed forward and seized Prokop round the shoul¬
ders. Holz struck him in the chest with his revolver
with all his strength. The giant roared and let go,
and three men, who had appeared suddenly, as if
out of the earth, and were about to hurl themselves
on Prokop, hesitated for a moment and then stepped
back against the wall. Prokop stood with the box
in his raised hand, ready to throw it under the feet
of the first one who moved, and Holz, who was
definitely on the side of revolution, waited with his

Krakatit 287

revolver ready. In front of them were four pale
men, inclined a little forward, three of them with
revolvers in their hands. There was evidently
going to be a fight. Prokop moved strategically to
the stairs and the four men also moved in the same
direction. Behind, some one ran away. There was
a deathly silence. “Don’t shoot,” whispered one of
them sharply. Prokop could hear the ticking of his
watch. From the floor above came the sound of
cheerful voices; no one there knew what was hap¬
pening. As the exit was still open, Prokop retired
towards the door, covered by Holz. The four men
near the steps remained as motionless as if they were
carved out of wood and Prokop made his way back
into the open.

There was still a cold and unpleasant drizzle.
What was he to do now? He rapidly considered
the situation and decided to fortify himself in the
swimming bath on the lake. But from there he
could not watch the castle. As the result of another
sudden decision, Prokop ran off to the quarters of
the guard, with Holz behind him. He broke into
them just at the time when the old doorkeeper was
having his dinner. The old man was completely
unable to realize why he was being driven away “by
force and under a threat of death”; he shook his
head and went to the castle to complain about it.
Prokop was extremely satisfied at having captured
this position. He closed the iron gates leading to
the park and finished the old man’s dinner with the
greatest relish. Then he collected everything which
he could find in the house that resembled chemicals :
coal, salt, sugar, glue, dried paint and other mate-

288

Krakatit

rials and considered what he could make of them.
Meanwhile Holz spent his time in looking out, and
converting the windows into portholes — a rather
unnecessary step in view of his having only four
cartridges. Prokop set up his laboratory in the
kitchen; there was a frightful smell but in the end
he had succeeded in making a small quantity of high
explosive.

The enemy did not launch any attack; they evi¬
dently did not want to cause a scandal while they
still had such a distinguished guest in their midst.
Prokop racked his brains to think of a way of wip¬
ing out the castle. He cut off the telephone, but
there still remained three gates, without counting
the road to the factory by the Zahur rampart. He
was forced to abandon the plan of surrounding the
castle on all sides.

It rained unceasingly. The window of the Prin¬
cess’s room opened and a white figure wrote large
characters in the air with its hand. Prokop was
unable to decipher them but nevertheless stood in
front of his own little house and wrote provocative
messages in the air, waving his arms like a windmill.
In the evening Dr. Krafft ran across to the
rebels. In his lofty excitement he had forgotten
to arm himself in any way; his mission was a purely
moral one. Later on Mr. Paul shuffled over, bring-
ing with him in a basket a magnificent cold supper
and quantities of champagne and red wine; he
asserted that he had not come on anyone else’s
behalf. Nevertheless Prokop carefully impressed
upon him that he was to say — he did not say to whom
— that “he thanked them and would not give him-

Krakatit

289

self up.” At their splendid supper Dr. Krafft
ventured to drink wine for the first time, probably
to show his manliness; the result was that he became
idiotically dumb, while Prokop and Mr. Holz began
to sing military songs. It was true that they sang
different songs in different languages, but from a
distance, especially in the rain and darkness, they
achieved a sort of melancholy harmony.

Finally some one in the castle opened his window
to hear better and then attempted to accompany
them on the piano. But soon he began to play the
Eroica instead and then to strike chords aimlessly.
When the lights in the castle had gone out Prokop
erected an enormous barricade in front of the door,
and the three heroes quietly went off to sleep. They
were awakened the next morning by the knocking
of Mr. Paul, who arrived with three cups of coffee
on a tray.

CHAPTER XL

IT continued to rain. Armed with a white flag,
the fat cousin arrived to propose to Prokop that
he should give in; in return he should get back his
laboratory. Prokop announced that he would not
do so, that before that he would allow himself to be
blown into the air. Further, that he was going to
do something; let them wait and see! On receiv¬
ing this dark threat the cousin withdrew. In the
castle they were evidently very displeased at the
fact that the proper entrance was blockaded, but did
not make a fuss about it.

Dr. Krafft, the pacifist, was overflowing with
wild and belligerent proposals. He wanted to cut
off the current from the castle and cut off their water
supply; to manufacture some sort of poison gas, and
release it in the castle. Holz had discovered a lot
of old newspapers; he produced a pair of pince-nez
from some mysterious pocket and spent the whole
day in reading, looking extraordinarily like a uni¬
versity lecturer. Prokop was painfully bored; he
was burning to take some military step but did not
know how to set about it. Finally he left Holz to
guard the little house and went out with Krafft into
the park.

There was nobody to be seen in it; the enemy’s
forces were concentrated in the castle. He walked

290

Krakatit

291

round it to the side on which it was adjoined by the
sheds and stables. “Where’s Whirlwind?” he sud¬
denly asked. Krafft indicated a small window about
nine feet from the ground. “Lean against the wall,”
whispered Prokop, climbed on to his back and then
stood on his shoulders so as to look inside. Krafft
nearly fell under his weight, and to make matters
worse Prokop was dancing on his shoulders — what
was he doing? A heavy window-frame fell on the
ground and a quantity of rubble crumbled down
from the wall. Suddenly a beam also dropped and
the terrified Krafft raised his head to see two legs
disappearing through the window.

The Princess was just giving Whirlwind a piece
of bread and looking reflectively at his beautiful eyes
when she heard the noise in the window and saw in
the twilight of the stable the familiar mutilated hand
which was removing the wire screen from the win¬
dow. She placed her hands on her mouth to prevent
herself crying out.

Head first, Prokop fell on to Whirlwind’s back,
jumped down, and there he was, certainly torn, but
intact, out of breath and attempting a smile.
“Quiet,” said the Princess fearfully, for there was a
groom just behind the door. Then she threw her
arms round his neck: “Prokopokopak !” He
pointed to the window outside. “Where?” whis¬
pered the Princess, kissing him.

“To the doorkeeper.”

“You stupid! How many are there of you?”

“Three.”

“You can see it’s no good!” She stroked his face.
“Don’t attempt it.”

292

Krakatit

Prokop considered whether there was any other
way of abducting her, but it was dark inside the
stable, and the smell of a horse is somehow exciting.
Their eyes gleamed and they kissed passionately.
Suddenly she broke away and recoiled, whispering:
“Go away ! Go !” They stood opposite one another
trembling and with a feeling that the passion which
possessed them was an unclean one. He looked
away and idly turned a rung in the ladder; only
then did he regain control of himself. He swung
round towards her and saw that she was biting her
hankerchief. She pressed it to her lips and handed
it him without a word, as a reward or as a souve¬
nir. And he kissed his arm on the place where her
distracted hand had rested. Never had they loved
one another so wildly as at that moment, when they
were unable to speak and feared to touch one
another.

Then there was the sound of steps grating in the
gravel outside. The Princess made a sign to him.
Prokop swung himself up the ladder, seized some
hook or other in the ceiling and, feet first, slipped
out of the window. When he had reached the
ground again Dr. Krafft threw his arms round
him in delight. “You’ve cut the horses’ tendons,
eh?” he whispered bloodthirstily; he evidently con¬
sidered this as a necessary military precaution.

Prokop silently made his way back to the guard’s
house, impelled by anxiety regarding Holz. When
still some distance away he saw the terrible thing
that had happened: two men were standing in the
gate, a gardener was erasing from the sand the
traces of a struggle, the gate was half open, — and

Krakatit 293

Holz was gone. But one of the men had a hand¬
kerchief tied round his hand; Mr. Holz had bitten
him seriously.

Prokop returned to the park, gloomy and speech¬
less. Dr. Krafft imagined that his superior was
concocting another offensive plan and therefore did
not disturb him; but Prokop, sighing deeply, sat
down on a stump and became absorbed in the con¬
templation of some torn rag or other. On the path
there appeared a workman, pushing in front of
him a wheelbarrow full of dead leaves. Krafft,
seized with suspicion, set on him and gave him a
most terrible beating, in the course of which he lost
his spectacles. Then he took the wheelbarrow,
representing the spoils of the victory, and hurried
back with it to Prokop. “He’s run off,” he
announced, and his short-sighted eyes shone with
triumph. Prokop only grunted and continued to
examine the snow-white object which fluttered in
his hands. Krafft occupied himself with the wheel¬
barrow, trying to think what the trophy would be
good for. Finally it occurred to him to turn it
upside down: “We can sit on it!”

Prokop picked himself up and went towards the
lake, Dr. Krafft following him with the wheel¬
barrow, probably for the transport of the future
wounded. They established themselves in a swim¬
ming bath built out on posts over the water. Pro¬
kop went round the cubicles. The largest was that
belonging to the Princess and still contained a mir¬
ror, a handful of hair, a couple of hairpins, a shaggy
bathing-robe and some sandals, intimate and aban¬
doned objects. He forbade Krafft to enter it and

294 Krakatit

settled down with him in the men’s cubicle on the
other side. Krafft was radiant; he now possessed
a fleet consisting of two Rob Roys, a canoe and a
tub-shaped boat which was relatively a super-dread¬
nought. Prokop spent a long time in silently walk¬
ing up and down the platform over the grey lake and
then disappeared into the Princess’s cubicle, sat
down on her couch, took the shaggy bathing-gown
into his hands and buried his face in it. Dr.
Krafft, who, in spite of his incredible lack of observa¬
tion, had some inkling of his secret, respected his
feelings, and went about the place on tiptoe, baling
out the water from the warship with a tin and get¬
ting together some suitable oars. He displayed con¬
siderable military talents, ventured on to the bank
and carried stones of all sizes to the bathing-place,
including huge ones torn out of a neighbouring wall.
Then, plank by plank, he tore up the bridge con¬
necting the bathing-place with the bank. From the
material which he thus obtained he wras able to
barricade the entrance, and he further discovered
some priceless rusty nails which he bent into the
blades of the oars, points upwards. In this way he
obtained a powerful and really dangerous arm.

Having put everything in order and seen that it
was all right he wished to report to his superior
what he had done, but Prokop was still shut up in
the Princess’s cubicle and was so quiet that it
seemed as if he were not breathing. So Dr. Krafft
remained alone on the floating platform, which
splashed coldly on the surface of the water. Now
and then there was a plop ! as some fish leapt out of
the water and fell back again, and sometimes a

Krakatit 295

rustling in the rushes. Dr. Krafft began to feel
uneasy in the midst of this solitude.

He coughed in front of his leader’s cubicle and
now and then said something under his breath to
attract his attention. Finally Prokop came out with
his lips set and a wild look in his eyes. Krafft
showed him over the new fortress, and pointed out
everything, finally demonstrating to him when the
enemy would come within range of a stone; in indi¬
cating this he very nearly fell into the water. Pro¬
kop said nothing but put his arm round his neck
and kissed him, and Dr. Krafft, quite rosy with
delight, would have done ten times as much for him
as he had already.

They sat down on a seat near the water, at the
spot where the Princess used to bask in the sun.
Clouds began to get up in the west and a sickly strip
of yellow sky appeared an infinite distance away.
The whole of the lake began to glow, broke into
ripples, and became suffused with a pale and gentle
light . Dr. Krafft developed impromptu a com¬
pletely new theory of eternal warfare, the control
of power, and the salvation of the world through
heroism. Everything that he said was in painful
contrast with the torturing melancholy of this
autumnal twilight, but luckily Dr. Krafft was
short-sighted, and in addition, an idealist, and, as a
consequence, completely independent of the influ¬
ence of his chance surroundings. Apart from the
cosmic beauty of the moment, they were both con¬
scious of being cold and hungry. And then on the
land they heard the short, quick steps of Mr. Paul,
who approached with a basket on his arm, looking to

296 Krakatit

the right and left and periodically calling out in his
little old voice: “Cuckoo ! Cuckoo !” Prokop went
across to him on the warship and tried to force him
to say who had sent him. “Nobody, please,”
asserted the old man; “but my daughter Elizabeth
is the housekeeper.” He would have talked fur¬
ther about his daughter Elizabeth, but Prokop
stroked his white hair and told him to tell this name¬
less person that he was well and strong.

That day Dr. Krafft drank alone, gossiped,
philosophized, and again expressed his contempt for
all philosophy; action, he maintained, was every¬
thing. Prokop sat trembling on the Princess’ seat
and all the time kept his eye on one star. God knows
why he selected that particular one, which was a
yellow one in the constellation of Orion. It was not
true that he was well; he had pains in the places in
which he had suffered from them in Tynice, his head
was spinning and he was trembling with fever. When
he wanted to say anything his tongue somehow failed
him, and his teeth chattered so much that Dr.
Krafft became sobered and almost uneasy. He hast¬
ily stretched Prokop out on the couch in the cubicle
and covered him with all sorts of things, including
the Princess’s bathing-gown. He also placed a cold
compress on his forehead. Prokop asserted that
he had a cold; about midnight he -went off to sleep,
semi-delirious and a prey to the most terrible dreams.

CHAPTER XLI

The next morning the first to be woke up by
Paul’s calling was Dr. Krafft. He wanted
to jump up but found that he was stiff all oyer, as he
had been frozen the whole night and had slept curled
up like a dog. When he finally somehow pulled
himself together he found that Prokop had gone;
one of the boats of his fleet was rocking against
the bank. He became very anxious about his supe¬
rior and would have set out to look for him if he had
not been afraid of deserting the fortress which he
had barricaded so carefully. He improved it as
best he could and looked round for Prokop with his
short-sighted eyes.

Meanwhile Prokop, who had woke up abso¬
lutely prostrated, with a taste of mud in his mouth,
chilly, and a little dazed, had been for some time
high in the foliage of an old oak in the park, from
which he could see the whole of the front of the
castle. He felt very giddy, held on to the branches
firmly and was afraid to look straight below him
for fear of falling.

This part of the park was evidently regarded as
being safe; even the older members of the family
ventured at least as far as the castle steps, the gentle¬
men went about in groups of two or three and a
cavalcade of them was making its way along the
main road. The old doorkeeper was again at his

- 297

298 Krakatit

post. Soon after ten o’clock the Princess herself
came out, accompanied by the heir to the throne,
and set out for the Japanese pavilion. Prokop sud¬
denly felt giddy; it seemed to him that he was fall¬
ing head downwards; he convulsively clutched at the
branches, trembling all over. Nobody followed
them; on the contrary, all the rest quickly left the
park and collected together in front of the castle.
Probably a definitive conversation or something of
the sort. Prokop bit his lips so as not to cry out.
It took an immense time, perhaps an hour or even
five hours. And then the heir ran back alone, his
face red and his fists clenched. The party of gen¬
tlemen in front of the castle broke up and they drew
back to make way for him. The heir ran up the
steps without looking either to the right or to the
left. At the top he was met by the bareheaded
Uncle Rohn. They spoke together for a moment,
le bon prince passed his hand across his forehead and
both went inside. The gentlemen in front of the
castle again gathered into groups, thrust their heads
together and finally stole away one by one. Five
automobiles drew up before the castle.

Prokop, clutching at the branches, slipped down
the tree until he hit the ground heavily. He wanted
to run to the Japanese pavilion, but he was almost
comically incapable of controlling his legs; his head
was swimming, he felt as if he were wading through
dough and somehow he couldn’t find the pavilion,
as everything in front of his eyes was dull and shift¬
ing about. At last he reached it. The Princess
was sitting inside, whispering something to herself
with severe lips and swishing her switch through the

Krakatit

299

air. He collected all his strength so as to come in as
cavalierly as possible. She rose and came to meet
him: “I was expecting you.” He sat down next
to her, very nearly on top of her, since he saw her as
being a great distance away. He laid his hand on
her shoulder, forcibly holding himself straight, sway¬
ing a little and biting his lips ; he thought that he was
talking. She also said something, but he could not
understand her; everything was taking place as if
under water. Then came the sound of the horns of
the departing cars.

The Princess made a sudden movement, as if her
legs had failed her. Prokop saw before him a white,
vague face, in which were two dark cavities. “This
is the end,” he heard close and clear, “the end. Dar¬
ling, I’ve sent him away!” Had he been in full pos¬
session of his senses he would have seen her as if
carved out of ivory, frozen, beautiful in her pain
at the highest moment of her sacrifice; but he only
blinked, trying to master the trembling of his eye¬
lids, and it seemed to him that the floor was rising
beneath his feet and tilting over. The Princess
pressed her hands to her forehead and staggered; he
wanted to take her into his arms, to carry her, to
support her in her exhaustion after her great deed,
but instead he fell without a sound at her feet, col¬
lapsing as if he was nothing but a heap of rags.

He did not lose consciousness; his eyes wandered
about; he tried to understand where he was and
what was happening to him. He had the idea that
some one, trembling with fear, was raising him up;
he wanted to help himself, but could do nothing.
“It’s only . . . entropy,” he said, and it seemed to

3°° Krakatit

him that this characterized the situation and he
repeated the word several times. Then something
began to run about inside his head making a noise
like a weir; his head slipped heavily out of the
trembling fingers of the Princess and crashed on to
the ground. The Princess jumped up wildly and
ran for help.

He had no clear idea of what happened next. He
felt that three people were lifting him and slowly
dragging him along as if he were made of lead. He
heard their heavy, dragging steps and quick breath
and was surprised that they could not carry him
with their fingers alone, like a rag. Some one held
his hand the whole time; he turned round and recog¬
nized the Princess. “You are good, Paul,” he said
to her gratefully. Then began a confused, breath¬
less movement; they were carrying him up the steps,
but Prokop thought that they were all falling to¬
gether to the bottom of an abyss. “Don’t push
so,” he roared and his head spun so much that he
ceased to take anything in.

When he opened his eyes he found that he was
again in the guest’s quarters and that Paul was
undressing him with trembling fingers. At the head
of the bed was standing the Princess, with widely
opened eyes. Prokop’s mind was hopelessly con¬
fused. “I fell from a horse, eh?” he muttered.
“You . . . were . . . there, eh? Bang, ex-explo¬
sion. Litrogly — nitrogry — mikro — Ch2 On2 02.
Com — pli — cated fracture.” He felt the touch of
a small, cool hand on his forehead and became quiet.
Then he caught sight of the butcher-doctor and dug
his nails into somebody’s cold fingers, “I don’t

Krakatit

301

want you,” he roared, for he was afraid that there
would be pain again, but the butcher only placed his
head on his chest and breathed heavily. In front
of him he saw a pair of dark and angry eyes which
fascinated him. The butcher got up and said to
somebody behind: “Influenza and pneumonia. Take
Her Excellence away. It’s infectious.” Some one
spoke as if under water and the doctor answered:
“If it develops into inflammation of the lungs —

then - ” Prokop realized that he was lost and

that he would die, but the knowledge left him com¬
pletely indifferent; he had never imagined that it
would be so simple. “A hundred and five,” said
the doctor. Prokop had one wish: that they would
let him sleep until the time came for him to die, but
instead they wrapped him up in something cold, —
ough! At last they began to whisper. Prokop
closed his eyes and knew no more about anything.

When he woke up, two dark, elderly gentlemen
were standing over him. He felt very much better.
“Good-morning,” he said and tried to raise himself
up. “You mustn’t move,” said one of the gentle¬
men and gently pushed him back into the pillows.
Prokop obediently lay still. “But I’m better, am I
not?” he asked contentedly. “Naturally,” said the
other gentleman evasively, “but you mustn’t move
about. Quietness, you understand?”

“Where’s Holz?” asked Prokop suddenly.

“Here,” came a voice from the corner, and Mr.
Holz appeared at the end of the bed with a terrible
scratch and a blue mark on his face, but otherwise as
dry and skinny as ever. And behind him was Krafft,
Krafft, who had been forgotten in the bathing-place,

3°2

Krakatit

with red and swollen eyes as if he had been howling
for three days. What had happened to him? Pro-
kop smiled at him to comfort him. Then Mr. Paul
came up on tiptoe, holding a napkin to his lips.
Prokop was delighted that they were all there; his
eyes wandered about the room and behind the two
dark gentlemen he caught sight of the Princess. She
was deathly pale and was looking at Prokop with
melancholy eyes which somehow frightened him.
“Pm all right now,” he whispered, as if excusing
himself. She questioned one of the gentlemen with
her eyes and he gave a resigned nod. Then she
came up to the bed. “Do you feel better?” she asked
softly. “Darling, are you really better?”

“Yes,” he said uncertainly, somewhat oppressed
by the serious behaviour of everybody. “Almost
completely recovered, only — only - ” Her stead¬

fast gaze filled him with confusion and almost with
anxiety; he felt uncomfortable and constrained.

“Do you want anything?” she asked, bending
over him.

Her glance filled him with a terrible fear. “To
sleep,” he whispered, so as to be free of it.

She looked inquiringly at the two gentlemen. One
of them gave a brief nod and looked at her — with
curious seriousness. She understood and turned
still more pale. “Sleep now,” she said in a strangled
voice and turned to the wall. Prokop looked round
him in surprise. Mr. Paul had his napkin pressed
to his lips, Holz was standing like a soldier, blink¬
ing his eyes, and Krafft was simply blubbering, lean¬
ing against a cupboard and blowing his nose noisily.

Krakatit

303

“But what - ” cried Prokop, and tried to raise

himself up, but one of the gentlemen placed on his
forehead a hand which was so soft and kind, so
reassuring and pleasant to the touch, that he at once
calmed down and sighed with relief. A moment
later he was asleep.

He awoke in a curious state of semi-consciousness.
There was no light but that of the lamp on the
table, and beside the bed the Princess was sitting,
dressed in dark clothes, looking at him with gleam¬
ing, bewitching eyes. He quickly closed his own
so as not to see her, so much was he embarrassed.

“Darling, how are you?”

“What’s the time?” he asked confusedly.

“Two.”

“In the day?”

“In the night.”

“Really,” he said in surprise, and began to
weave again the dark thread of sleep. At moments
he just opened his eyes, glanced at the Princess and
went off again. Why was she looking at him so
hard? Some one moistened his lips with a spoon¬
ful of wine; he swallowed it and mumbled some¬
thing or other. Finally he fell into a deep, heavy
sleep.

He awoke to find that one of the gentlemen in
black was carefully listening to his heart. Five
others stood round.

“Incredible,” said the dark gentleman. “He has
a heart of iron.”

“Shall I die?” asked Prokop suddenly. The dark
gentleman almost jumped with surprise.

304

Krakatit

“We shall see,” he said. “If you’ve been able
to get through such a night. How long have you
been going about with it?”

“With what?” said Prokop, astonished.

The dark gentleman waved his hand. “Quiet,”
he said, “only quiet.” Prokop, although he felt
miserably ill, could not help smiling; when doctors
have no idea what to do they always prescribe quiet.

Then the one with the pleasant hands said to him :
“You must believe that you will get better. Faith
works miracles.”

CHAPTER XLII

He started out of his sleep covered with a ter¬
rible sweat. Where — where was he? The
ceiling undulated and swung to and fro above him;
no, no, no, it was falling, descending with a screw¬
like motion, slowly coming down like a gigantic
hydraulic press. Prokop wanted to shout, but was
unable to do so, and now the ceiling was so low that
he could distinguish a transparent fly which was rest¬
ing on it, the grain of the material with which it
was covered, every inequality on its surface. And
still it continued to descend and Prokop watched it
with breathless horror, unable to make any sound
louder than a hiss. The light went out, and black
darkness took its place; now it would crush him.
Prokop already felt the touch of the ceiling on his
hair and uttered a voiceless cry. Aha! now he had
found the door, pulled it open and dashed outside.
Even there there was the same darkness, or rather
not darkness, but fog, fog so thick that he was un¬
able to breathe and began to suffocate, hiccoughing
with horror. Now Em being strangled, he thought,
and took to flight in terror, treading upon — upon —
some sort of living bodies, which were still writhing.
He bent down and felt beneath his hands a young
breast. That — that was Annie, he thought, and
passed his hand over her head; but instead of a head

305

3°6 Krakatit

she had a box, a por-ce-lain box containing some¬
thing slimy and spongy like a lung. He felt utterly
revolted and tried to draw his hand away, but the
thing adhered to it, attached itself and began to
creep up his arm. It was Krakatit, a damp and
resinous sepia with the gleaming eyes of the Prin¬
cess, which were fixed on him agitatedly and passion¬
ately; the thing moved about his naked body
looking for a place on which to sit down upon him.
Prokop was unable to breathe, struggled with it, dug
his fingers into this yielding, sticky matter — and
woke up.

Mr. Paul was bending over him and placing a
cold compress on his chest.

“Where’s — where’s Annie?” mumbled Prokop
with relief and closed his eyes. Breathless and
perspiring he found himself running across a
ploughed field. He did not know where he was
going in such a hurry but he hastened along until
his heart was nearly splitting with the strain and
he groaned with anxiety lest he should arrive too
late. And here at last was the house; it had neither
doors nor windows, only above it a clock, the hands
of which marked five minutes to four. And Pro¬
kop knew in a flash that when the big hand reached
twelve the whole of Prague would be hurled into
the air. “Who’s stolen my Krakatit?” he roared,
and tried to climb up the wall so as to stop the hand
at the last minute. He sprang up and dug his nails
into the plaster, but only slid down, leaving a long
scratch on the wall. Screaming with horror, he flew
off somewhere to get assistance. He burst into the
stables, to find' the Princess standing there with Car-

Krakatit

307

son. They were making love to one another with
abrupt, mechanical gestures, like those of marion¬
ettes. When they saw him they joined hands and
began to jump quicker, quicker and ever quicker.

Prokop looked up and saw the Princess bending
over him with closed lips and burning eyes.
“Beast!” he grunted with dull contempt and quickly
closed his eyes again. His heart beat wildly and
rapidly. His eyes were stung with sweat and he
felt a salty taste in his mouth. His tongue was
stuck to his palate and in his throat was a blind, dry
thirst. “Do you want anything?” asked the Prin¬
cess, very close to him. He shook his head. She
thought that he was again sleeping, but after a while
he said hoarsely: “Where’s that parcel?”

She thought that he was delirious and did not
answer. “Where’s that parcel?” he repeated,
knitting his brows authoritatively. “Here, here,”
she said quickly, and thrust between his fingers a
piece of paper which she happened to have in her
hand. He quickly crumpled it into a ball, and threw
it away.

“That’s not it. I — I want my parcel. I — I want
my parcel.”

As he continued to repeat these words and began
to rage, she sent for Paul. Paul remembered hav¬
ing seen somewhere a dirty parcel tied up with
string, but where was it? They found it in a cup¬
board; there you are! Prokop clasped it in both
hands and held it to his breast. Appeased, he fell
into a deep sleep. Three hours later he again be¬
gan to sweat profusely; he was so weak that he
scarcely breathed. The Princess at once sent for the

3 08 Krakatit

doctors. His temperature fell lower and lower and
his pulse almost stopped. They wanted to give him
a camphor injection at once, but the local doctor,
who felt very shy and provincial amongst such man¬
darins, was of the opinion that if they did the patient
would never wake up. “At any rate he would pass
out in his sleep, eh?” said the famous specialist.
“You are right.”

The Princess, completely exhausted, went to lie
down for an hour on being told that nothing more
could be done. Dr. Krafft remained with the
patient, having promised her that he would let her
know the position in an hour’s time. He sent no
message and the agitated Princess came to see for
herself. She found Krafft standing in the middle
of the room waving his arms and talking at the top
of his voice about telepathy, quoting Richet, James
and somebody else, while Prokop was listening to
him with clear eyes, now and then interposing the
objections of a scientific and limited sceptic. “I’ve
resurrected him, Princess,” shouted Krafft, for¬
getting everything, “I concentrated my mind on the
fact of his recovery; I — I made passes over him with
my hands, see? Radiation of ods. But that sort of
thing exhausts one! I feel as weak as a fly,” he an¬
nounced, and thereupon emptied a full glass of the
benzine which was kept for washing bandages, evi¬
dently taking it for wine, so excited was he by his
success. “Tell me,” he shouted, “have I made you
well or not?”

“You have,” said Prokop with friendly irony.

Dr. Krafft collapsed into an arm-chair. “I
myself did not realize that I have such a powerful

Krakatit 3°9

aura,” he said contentedly. “Shall I pass my hands
over you again?”

The Princess looked from one to another of them
in consternation. Then she smiled and suddenly
her eyes filled with tears. She stroked Krafft’s
ruddy hair and ran out of the room.

“Women can’t stand anything,” said Krafft
proudly; “you see, Pm absolutely calm. I felt a
fluid oozing out of my finger-tips. It could certainly
have been photographed. A sort of ultra-radi¬
ation.”

The specialists returned, sent Krafft out of the
room in spite of his protests and again took Pro-
kop’s temperature, felt his pulse and all the rest of
it. His temperature was higher, his pulse ninety-
six, and he had developed some sort of an appetite.
After this the mandarins retired to the other wing
of the castle where their services were needed, for
the Princess was in a fever, and had completely col¬
lapsed after sixty hours of watching by Prokop’s
bedside. In addition she was extremely anaemic and
ill in several other ways.

The next day Prokop was already sitting up in
bed and receiving visits. Almost all the company
had already left; only the fat cousin remained alone
in boredom. Carson arrived rather agitated, but
the meeting turned out all right. Prokop made no
allusion to what had passed, and finally Carson an¬
nounced that the terrible explosives that Prokop had
invented during the last few days had shown them¬
selves to be as dangerous as sawdust. In short Pro¬
kop must have already been feverish when he pre¬
pared them. The patient accepted this information

3io Krakatit

quite calmly and smiled, in fact, for the first time.
“Well,” he said affably, “all the same I frightened
you all pretty thoroughly.”

“You did,” admitted Carson willingly. “I’ve never
been so frightened about myself and the factory
before.”

Krafft dragged himself into the room pale and
exhausted. He had spent the night celebrating his
possession of a miraculous gift by drinking large
quantities of wine and now he felt utterly miserable.
He lamented the fact that his power had left him
for ever and announced that he had decided for the
future to devote himself to yoga.

Uncle Charles also arrived, very friendly and
subtly reserved. Prokop appreciated the fact that
he had fallen back into the style of a month before,
again addressing him in the plural. Only when the
conversation turned on the Princess did the atmos¬
phere become a little strained.

Meanwhile, in the other wing of the castle, the
Princess was coughing painfully and receiving a re¬
port from Paul every half-hour as to what Prokop
was eating, saying and doing.

He again became feverish and his terrible dreams
returned. He saw in front of him a dark shed
containing an endless row of casks of Krakatit. In
front of the shed an armed soldier was marching
to and fro, to and fro; nothing more, but it was
terrible. It seemed to him that he was again in the
war; before his eyes there stretched a vast field,
covered with dead. They were all dead and he was
dead too, and frozen to the ground. Only Mr.
Carson trotted over the corpses, cursing between

Krakatit

311

his teeth and looking impatiently at his watch.
From the other side with awkward, convulsive move¬
ments there approached the crippled Hagen; he was
moving with amazing rapidity, jumping like a pony.
Carson greeted him carelessly and said something
to him. Prokop strained his ears to catch what
they were saying but could not hear a single word;
perhaps the wind was carrying them away. Hagen
pointed to the horizon with a preternaturally long
and shrivelled hand; what were they saying? Ha¬
gen turned round, put his hand to his mouth and
took out a golden set of teeth and his jaws as well;
now instead of a mouth he had a great black hole
which giggled voicelessly. With the other hand he
extracted one enormous eye from its socket, and,
holding it in his fingers, held it close down to the
faces of the dead. Meanwhile the gold set of teeth in
his other hand was screeching: “Seventeen thousand
one hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and twen¬
ty-two, one hundred and twenty-three.” Prokop
was unable to move, as he were dead. The horrible
bloodshot eye touched his face and the horse’s set
of teeth counted: “Seventeen thousand one hundred
and twenty-nine.” Now Hagen disappeared in the
distance, still counting, and across the corpses there
jumped the Princess, with her skirts drawn up
shamelessly high. She approached Prokop waving
in her hands a Tartar bunchuk, as if it were a whip.
She stood over Prokop, tickling him under the nose
with it, and sticking the point of her shoe into his
head, as if trying to find out whether he was dead.
The blood trickled down his face, although he was
really dead, so dead that he felt within him his heart

312

Krakatit

frozen as hard as a bone; all the same he could not
bear the sight of her well-shaped legs. “Darling,
darling,” she whispered, pulled down her skirt,
knelt down by his head and passed her hands lightly
across his chest. Suddenly she pulled out of his
pocket that carefully tied-up parcel, jumped up,
and angrily tore it into pieces which she threw into
the air. Then with her arms stretched out she be¬
gan to whirl round and round, passing over the dead
until she disappeared into the darkness of the night.

CHAPTER XLIII

From the time when the Princess fell ill he did
not see her any more, but several times a day
she wrote him short and passionate notes which hid
more than they revealed. He heard from Paul that
she was again able to move about her rooms and
could not understand why she did not come and
visit him. He himself was already out of bed and
waited every minute for her to send for him. He
did not know that meanwhile she had developed tu¬
berculosis seriously and was actually spitting blood.
She did not write to him about it, evidently fearing
that it would make him turn from her at the thought
that on his lips there were still burning the traces
of the kisses which she had once given him. And prin¬
cipally, principally she was afraid of not controlling
herself and again kissing him with passionate lips.
He had no idea that the doctors had discovered
traces of infection in his own lungs, a fact which
had driven the Princess to desperation and self-
condemnation. He knew nothing, grew angry at
the fact that she was so evasive now that he was
completely well, and became frightened when an¬
other day passed without the Princess expressing the
wish to see him. I’ve made her tired of me, he
thought; I’ve never been anything more for her than
a momentary distraction. He suspected her of all
sorts of things, did not want to descend to insisting

3i3

3H Krakatit

on a meeting, hardly wrote to her and did nothing
but wait in an arm-chair for her to come, or at
least to let him know what had happened.

There were a few sunshiny days and he ventured
into the park, wrapped up in a rug. He wanted
to wander about by himself with his dark thoughts
near the lake, but there were always with him Krafft,
Paul, Holz, Rohn, or the charming and dreamy
poet Charles, who always had something on the tip
of his tongue but never said it. Instead he dis¬
coursed on science, personal courage, success and
heroism and God knows what else. Prokop listened
with one ear; he had the impression that the Prince
was making a special effort for some reason or other
to interest him in ambition. Then one day he re¬
ceived a roughly scrawled note from the Princess,
telling him to wait and not to be shy. Directly after¬
wards Rohn introduced him to a laconic old gentle¬
man in whose bearing everything revealed the officer
disguised as a civilian. The laconic gentleman in¬
quired of Prokop what he proposed to do in the
future. Prokop, somewhat nettled by his tone,
answered sharply and magnificently that he was
going to exploit his inventions.

“Military inventions?”

“Pm not a soldier.”

“Your age?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Occupation?”

“None. And yours?”

The laconic person became rather confused. “Do
you intend to sell your inventions?”

“No.” He felt that he was being examined and

Krakatit

315

sounded officially. This irritated him and he
answered very shortly and only here and there would
he give them a fragment of his erudition and this
only because he saw that it pleased Rohn particu¬
larly. Actually the Prince was radiant and was all
the time looking at the laconic gentleman, as if to
ask him: “Well, what do you say to that miracle?”
But the laconic gentleman said nothing and finally
took leave of them politely.

The next day Carson appeared very early in the
morning, rubbing his hands and evidently full of
something extremely important. He babbled all
sorts of nonsense, all the time trying to sound Pro-
kop. He threw out all sorts of vague words, like
“future,” “career” and “splendid success,” but would
say nothing more, while Prokop did not like to ask
any questions. And then there arrived a strange and
important letter from the Princess: “Prokop, to¬
day you will have to make a decision. I have done
so and do not regret the fact. Prokop, at this last
moment I assure you that I love you and will wait
for you as long as may be necessary. And even
if we must separate for a time — and this must be so,
since your wife may not be your lover — even if we
separate for years, I shall always be your dutiful
betrothed. I am already so happy about it, that
I simply cannot speak of it; I walk about my room
overpowered and repeat your name. Darling, dar¬
ling, you cannot imagine how unhappy I’ve been since
this happened to us. And now do what is necessary
for me to be able really to call myself your W.”

Prokop couldn’t understand what it all meant;
he read it several times and simply was unable to

316

Krakatit

believe that the Princess meant quite simply . . .
he wanted to run round to see her but was too
agitated and bewildered. Was this again some
feminine extravagance which was not to be taken
literally and which he really didn’t understand?
While he was reflecting like this Uncle Charles
entered, accompanied by Carson. Both looked
so . . . official and serious that it flashed through
Prokop’s head: “They’ve come to say that they’re
sending me away to that fortress; the Princess has
been plotting, and now here we are!” He looked
round for some weapon, in case it should come to
force, selected a marble paper-weight and sat down,
mastering the beating of his heart.

Uncle Rohn looked at Carson, and Carson looked
at Rohn with the mute question of who was to be¬
gin. Then Uncle Rohn said: “What we’ve come
to tell you is . . . to a certain extent ...” He was
beginning as usual hesitatingly, but suddenly he
pulled himself together and continued more con¬
fidently: “My dear friend, what we have come to
tell you is something very important . . . and dis¬
creet. It is not only in your interests that you should
do this . . . but on the contrary . . . To put it
shortly, it was first of all her idea and ... as far as
I am concerned, after careful consideration ... in
any case we must leave her out of it; she is self-
willed and passionate. Apart from that, it appears
that she’s taken it into her head ... in fact from
every point of view it would be better to find a
suitable way out of the difficulty,” he concluded with
relief. “The General Manager will explain the
position.”

Krakatit 3 l1

Carson, as the General Manager, put on his spec¬
tacles very seriously. He looked quite disturbingly
important and very different from what he had ever
been like before. “I consider it an honour,” he be¬
gan, “to interpret to you the wishes of our highest
military circles, who wish you to connect yourself
with our army . . . naturally only with the highest
technical service, with duties which are related to
your work, and that straight away in the capacity
of — so to speak ... I mean to say, that it is not
a military custom to employ civilian specialists apart
from war, but in your case, in consideration of the
fact that the present situation approximates very
closely to that of war, and with special regard to
your exceptional significance, which is enhanced by
the present conditions, and . . . and taking also
into consideration your peculiar position or rather,
to put it more precisely, your extremely private obli¬
gations - ”

“What obligations?” Prokop interrupted him
hoarsely.

“Well,” stammered Carson, somewhat embar¬
rassed, “I mean . . . your interests, your rela¬
tion. ...”

“I never spoke to you about any interest,” said
Prokop sharply.

“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, as if refreshed by this
rudeness, “of course you didn’t; there was no need
to. We didn’t flaunt that up at the castle. Of
course not. Purely personal considerations, that’s
what I mean. Powerful intervention, you under¬
stand? Of course you’re a foreigner — but that’s
been arranged,” he added quickly. “It’ll be enough

3 1 8 Krakatit

if you put in a demand to become a citizen of our
State.”

“Aha!”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, only aha!”

“Aha! that’s all, eh? All you have to do is to
make a formal demand and . . . apart from that
. . . Well, you will understand of course that . . .
that we should demand some guarantee, eh? You
will have to earn the right to the honour wThich is
being bestowed on you . . . for exceptional serv¬
ices, eh? Let’s assume that . . . that you hand
over to the Army Council . . . you understand, that
you hand over ...”

There was a dead silence. The Prince looked out
of the window and Carson’s eyes disappeared be¬
hind the glitter of his glasses. Prokop was deeply
uneasy.

“. . . that you hand over . . . simply hand
over . . .” gulped Carson, also breathing with
difficulty.

“What?”

Carson wrote a large K in the air with his finger.
“Nothing further,” he said, relieved. “The next
day you’ll get a document nominating you as an
extra statum captain in the engineers . . . stationed
in Balttin. Straight away. So.”

“That is to say only a captain to begin with,”
said Uncle Charles. “We haven’t ventured any
farther. But we have been given a guarantee that
if it should suddenly come to a war - ”

“Within a year,” cried Carson, “within a year at
the latest.”

Krakatit

319

“ — as soon as war breaks out — whenever and
with whomever it may be — you will be appointed a
general in the engineers. And should — as the re¬
sult of the war — the form of government be changed
you would also be given the title of Excellence and
... in short at least a baronetcy to begin with.
Even with regard to this ... we have been given
an assurance . . . from the highest quarters,” con¬
cluded Rohn almost inaudibly.

“And who told you that I should like that?” said
Prokop icily.

“But my God!” cried Carson, “who wouldn’t?
They’ve promised me the rank of knight; it doesn’t
mean anything to me, but it’s not given me on my
own account. But for you it would have quite
special significance.”

“So you expect,” said Prokop slowly, “that I
shall hand you over Krakatit.”

Mr. Carson would have sprung into the air, but
Uncle Charles restrained him.

“We take it,” he began seriously, “that you will
do everything, or ... it may be . . . make every
sacrifice, to save Princess Hagen from any sort of
illegal and . . . impossible position. Under cer¬
tain conditions . . . the Princess is allowed to marry
a soldier. As soon as you are a captain your posi¬
tion will be regularized . . . by a strictly secret en¬
gagement. The Princess will of course go away
and return as soon as she can secure a member of
the ruling house as bridegroom for the wedding.
Until then . . . until then we expect you to earn the
right to a marriage which we feel to be good both
for you and for her. Give me your hand. You need

32° Krakatit

not decide just yet. Consider the matter carefully,
consider what your duties are and the sacrifices
which you have to make. I could appeal to your
ambition, but I am speaking only to your heart.
Prokop, she is suffering beyond her strength and
bringing to love a greater sacrifice than any other
woman. And you too have suffered. Prokop, you
are suffering with your conscience, but I will not
try to exert any pressure on you because I have con¬
fidence in you. Consider the matter carefully, and
tell me later ...”

Mr. Carson nodded his head, this time really
deeply touched.

“That’s so,” he said. “I don’t come of any sort
of family myself, but I must say that . . . that
. . . I tell you, that woman has race. God! one
can see straight away ...” He struck the region of
his heart with his fist and blinked his eyes. “Man,
Pd throttle you if you weren’t wTorthy ...”

Prokop was not listening. He sprang up and
marched up and down the room wfith his face dis¬
torted with rage. “I — I must, eh?” He ground
out hoarsely. “So I must? Good. If I must . . .
you’ve diddled me! But I didn’t want - ”

Uncle Rohn stood up and quietly put his hand on
his shoulder. “Prokop,” he said, “you must decide
yourself. We don’t want to hurry you; consult
with the best that there is in you. Ask God, love
or conscience or feeling or I don’t know what. But
remember that this does not only concern you but
her who loves you so much that she’s ready to . . . ”
He waved his hand hopelessly. “Au revoir!”

CHAPTER XLIV

IT was an overcast day and rain was falling in a
fine drizzle. The Princess continued to cough
and was alternately hot and cold, but she could not
stay in bed. Impatiently she awaited Prokop’s
answer. She looked out of the window to see if he
might be coming, and again sent for Paul. The
answer was always the same : Mr. Prokop was walk¬
ing up and down his room. And did he say any¬
thing? No, nothing. She dragged herself from
one wall to the other and then sat down again, rock¬
ing her body to and fro to calm her feverish anxiety.
Oh, it was too much to be borne ! Suddenly she be¬
gan to write to him a long letter, entreating him to
marry her, and saying that he must not give up a
single one of his secrets, that she would enter his
life and be faithful to him, whatever might happen.
“I love you so much,” she wrote, “that there is no
sacrifice which is too great for me to make for you.
Test me, remain poor and unknown; I will follow
you as your wife and never be able to return to the
world which I left. I know that you only love me
a little and that with a small part of your heart;
but you will get used to me. I have been proud,
wicked and passionate; now all is changed, all my
familiar surroundings are strange to me, I have

ceased to be - ” She read the letter through and

321

322

Krakatit

then tore it into pieces, moaning softly. It was
evening. There were still no news of Prokop.

Perhaps he will come without announcing him¬
self, she thought, and in impatient haste she put
on her evening clothes, terribly agitated. She stood
in front of her mirror and examined herself with
burning eyes, horribly dissatisfied with her clothes,
the way her hair was dressed, and everything possi¬
ble. She covered her heated face with a thick layer
of powder, and bedecked herself with jewels. But
she seemed to herself to be ugly, impossible and awk¬
ward. “Hasn’t Paul come?” she asked every mo¬
ment. At last he arrived: Nothing new; Mr. Pro¬
kop was sitting in darkness and had not ordered the
lights to be lit.

It was already late and the Princess, utterly ex¬
hausted, was sitting in front of her glass. The
powder was peeling off her burning cheeks, she
looked positively grey and her hands were numb.
“Undress me,” she ordered her maid weakly. The
fresh, sturdy girl took off one ornament after
another, loosened her clothes and wrapped her in
a diaphanous peignoir. Just as she was about to
begin combing the loose hair of the Princess, Pro¬
kop burst into the room, unannounced.

The Princess recoiled and became even more pale.
“Go, Marie,” she breathed and drew the peignoir
over her thin chest. “Why . . . have you come?”

Prokop leaned against a cupboard, his face pale
and his eyes bloodshot. “So,” he said through his
teeth, “that was your plan, eh? You arrange things
for me nicely!”

She stood up as if she had been given a blow :

Krakatit 3 2 3

“What — what are you saying?” Prokop ground
his teeth. “I know what I’m saying. The idea was
that . . . that I should give you Krakatit, eh?
They’re getting ready for a war, and you, you,” he
cried, “you are their tool! You and your love!
You and your marriage, you spy! And I — I was to
be lured into it so that you could kill, so that you

could avenge yourselves - ”

She sank into a chair with her eyes wide open
with horror; her whole body was shaken by a
terrible dry sob. He wanted to throw himself upon
her, but she prevented him with a movement of her
frozen hand.

“Who are you?” Prokop ground out. “You are
a princess? Who persuaded you to this? Do you
realize, you worthless creature, that you would have
killed thousands and thousands of men, that you
would have helped them to destroy cities, and that
our world, our world and not yours, would have
been obliterated! Obliterated, smashed to frag¬
ments, wiped out! Why did you do it?” he cried,
and fell on his knees and crawled towards her.
“What did you want to do?”

She raised to him a face full of horror and aver¬
sion and edged away from him. He bent his face
over the spot where she had been sitting and began
to cry with the heavy, crude sobs of a raw youth.
She would have knelt next to him, but controlled
the impulse to do so and retreated still further, press¬
ing her convulsively twisted lingers to her breast.
“So,” she whispered, “this is what you think?”

Prokop was being suffocated by the weight of his
pain. “Do you know,” he cried, “what war is?

324

Krakatit

Do you know what Krakatit is? Have you never
realized that I’m a man? And that — I have a con¬
tempt for you ! That is why I was good to you !
And if I had given up Krakatit it would all have
been over; the Princess would have gone awTay, and

I - ” He sprang up, beating his head with his

fists. “And to think that I wanted to do it! A
million lives for the sake of — no, two million dead!
Ten million dead! That — that for the sake of a
marriage with a princess, eh? To lower oneself so
far for that! I was mad! Aa-ah!” he roared, “I
loathe you !”

He was terrible, like some monster, with froth
on his lips, swollen face and the eyes of a mad¬
man. She pressed herself to the wall, deathly pale,
with staring eyes and lips twisted with horror.

“Go,” she wailed, “go away!”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said hoarsely, “I shan’t
kill you. I always loathed you; even wrhen — even
when you were mine, I was horrified and didn’t be¬
lieve you even for an instant. And yet, yet I — I
shan’t kill you. I — know quite well what I’m do¬
ing. I — I - ” He looked round, picked up a

bottle of eau de Cologne , poured a generous quan¬
tity of it over his hands and rubbed it on his fore¬
head. “Aha!” he cried, “aha-ha ! Don’t — be
afraid! No — no - ”

He calmed down a little, sat down on a chair
and put his face in his hands. “Now,” he began
hoarsely. “Now, now we must talk, eh? You see
that I’m quiet. Not even ... not even my fingers
are trembling. ...” He stretched out his hand to
show her, but it trembled so that it was frightful to

Krakatit 325

look at it. “We can . . . undisturbed, eh? I’m
quite calm again. You can dress. Now . . . your
uncle told me that . . . that I’m obliged . . . that
it’s a question of honour for me to make it possible
for you ... to repair your slip and that I must
. . . simply must . . . earn the right to a title
. . . sell myself, and pay for the sacrifice which
you - ”

She got up deathly pale and wanted to say some¬
thing. “Wait,” he interrupted her. “I haven’t
yet — You all thought . . . and have your own
ideas about honour. But you made a terrible mis¬
take. I’m not a nobleman. I’m . . . the son of a
cobbler. That doesn’t matter much, but . . . I’m
a pariah, you understand? An absolutely common¬
place person. I haven’t any honour. You can drive
me away like a thief or send me off to a fortress. I
won’t give it up. I won’t give Krakatit up. You
may think . . . that I’m base. You can tell them
. . . what I think about war. I was in the war
. . . and I saw poison gases . . . and know what
people are capable of. I won’t give up Krakatit.
Why should I trouble to explain it all to you? You
won’t understand me; you’re simply a Tartar prin¬
cess and too lofty. ... I only want to tell you
I won’t give it up and I humbly thank you for the
honour — incidentally, I’m engaged already; I cer¬
tainly don’t know her, but I’ve betrothed myself to
her — that’s my baseness again. I’m sorry that . . .
I’m not worthy of your sacrifice.”

She stood as if petrified, digging her nails into
the wall. It was painfully quiet. He got up slowly
and heavily: “Have you anything to say?”

326

Krakatit

“No,” she said quietly and her large eyes con¬
tinued to gaze into the distance. She looked ex¬
quisitely young and tender in her peignoir; he would
have knelt down and kissed her trembling knees.

He approached her, wringing his hands. “Prin¬
cess,” he said in a controlled voice, “now they’ll
take me away as a spy or something of the sort.
I shan’t try to defend myself. I am prepared for
whatever happens. I know that I shall never see
you again. Have you anything to say to me before
I leave?”

Her lips trembled, but she said nothing. Oh
God! why was she staring like that into the distance?

He drew near her. “I loved you,” he said, “I
loved you more than I am able to say. I am a
base and rough man, but I can tell you that . . .
that I loved you differently ... I took you . . .
and held on to you through fear that you might not
be mine, that you would escape me; I wanted to

make sure; I could never believe it; and so I - ”

Not realizing what he was doing, he placed his hand
on her shoulder; she trembled under the thin
peignoir . “I loved you . . . desperately . . .”

She turned her eyes on him. “Darling,” she
whispered and her pale face was flushed for a mo¬
ment. He bent down and kissed her trembling lips;
she made no resistance.

“What,” he ground his teeth, “I love you now?”
With rough hands he tore her from the wall and
enveloped her in his embrace. She struggled as if
she were mad, so powerfully that if he had released
his grip she would have fallen on the floor. He
held her more closely, staggering himself through

Krakatit

327

her desperate resistance. She writhed with clenched
teeth and hands pressed convulsively against his
chest; her hair fell over her face and she bit it to
prevent herself shrieking and tried to push him away
as if she was having an attack of epilepsy. It was
incredible and horrible ; he was conscious of only one
thing: that he must not let her fall on the ground
and that he must avoid knocking any chairs over.
What . . . what would he do if she evaded him?
He would sink through the earth for shame. He
drew her to him and buried his lips in her tangled
hair; he encountered a burning forehead. She
turned away her head with revulsion and tried still
more desperately to free herself of the iron grip
of his arms.

“I’ll give up Krakatit,” he heard his own voice
say, to his horror. “I’ll give it up, you hear? I’ll
give up everything! A war, a new war, millions of
dead. It’s all the same to me. Do you want me
to? Say one word — I’m telling you, that I’ll give
up Krakatit ! I swear that I’ll ... I love you, do
you hear? What . . . whatever happens ! Even
. . . even if I had to destroy the whole world — I
love you I”

“Let me go,” she wailed, struggling.

“I can’t,” he groaned, his face buried in her
hair. “I’m the most miserable man on earth. I’m
a traitor to the whole world. To the whole human
race. Spit in my face, but don’t dr — drive me away!
Why can’t I let you go? I’ll give you Krakatit, you
hear? I’ve sworn to; hut then forget me! Where
— where’s your mouth? I’m a monster, but kiss me !
I’m lost - ”

328

Krakatit

He swayed as if he were about to fall and now
she could slip out of his grasp. He stretched out
his arms vaguely and she threw the hair back from
her face and offered him her lips. He took her in
his arms, quiet and passive, and kissed her closed
lips, her burning cheeks, her neck, her eyes; he was
sobbing hoarsely and she made no effort to defend
herself. Then he grew frightened by her motionless
passivity, let her go and drew back. She staggered,
passed her hand over her forehead, smiled weakly—
and put her arms round his neck.

CHAPTER XLV

They sat together, their eyes staring into the
semi-darkness. He could feel the feverish
beating of her heart; for these hours they had not
spoken; she had kissed him insatiably and then
wrenched herself away. Now she had turned her
face away and was gazing feverishly into the dark¬
ness. . . .

He sat with his hands clasped round his knees.
Yes, lost; caught in a trap, fettered, he had fallen
into the hands of the Philistines. And now that
would take place which must take place. They were
putting the weapon into the hands of those who
would use it. Thousands upon thousands would
perish. Look! was there not in prospect an endless
waste covered with ruins? This w'as a church and
that a house; there were the remains of a man.
Force was a terrible thing and all evil came from
it. A curse on force, the unregenerated spirit of
wickedness. Like Krakatit, like himself.

Creative and industrious human weakness, all
that is good and noble comes from you. Your work
is to bind and link together, to assemble parts and
preserve what has been built up. Cursed be the
hand which liberates force ! Cursed be he who
loosens the fetters which bind the elements! Hu¬
manity is only a little boat on an ocean of forces;

' 329

33° Krakatit

and you, you have let loose a storm, the like of which
has never been seen.

Yes, he was letting loose a storm of a kind which
has never been known before; he was handing over
Krakatit, liberating an element which would blow
the boat of humanity into pieces. Thousands upon
thousands would perish. Towns and peoples would
be wiped off the face of the earth. There wrould be
no limit to the power of anyone who had this weapon
in his hands and a corrupted heart. He, Prokop,
had done it. Passion is terrible, the Krakatit of
human hearts; and all evil comes from it.

He looked at the Princess — wuthout contempt,
torn by disturbing passion and sympathy. What
was she thinking about now, motionless and as if in
a trance? He bent down and kissed her shoulder.
It was for this that he was giving up Krakatit. He
would give it up and go away so as not to see the
terror and shame following his defeat. He would
pay the terrible price for his love and go awTay.

He made a gesture of helplessness. Why did
they let him go? What was the use of Krakatit to
them while he was still able to give it to others?
Ah, that was why they wanted to keep him a pris¬
oner for ever! Ah, that was why he must sell him¬
self to them soul and body ! He would remain here,
here, fettered by passion, and for ever he would hate
this woman; he would struggle in the throes of
cursed love, and all the time he would be invent¬
ing hellish devices . . . and he would be serving
them. . . .

She turned to him with a breathless look. He
sat motionless, the tears running down his coarse,

Krakatit 33 1

rough face. She looked at him with a fixed stare,
her eyes full of painful scrutiny; he did not realize
that she was doing so, half closed his eyes and re¬
mained stupefied by his defeat. Then she quietly
got up, turned on the light over the dressing-table
and began to dress.

He was recalled to her existence by her throwing
a comb down upon the table. He watched ’her with
surprise as with both her arms raised she braided
her dishevelled hair. “To-morrow . . . to-morrow
I will give them it,” he whispered. She did not
answer; she was holding some hair-pins in her mouth
and rapidly coiling her hair round her head. He
followed all her movements. She hastened fever¬
ishly, again blushed and looked down at the ground,
then tossed her head and set to work again all the
more quickly. Then she stood up, carefully ex¬
amined her reflection in the glass, and powdered
her face as if there was nobody else in the room.
She went into the next room, returning with a scarf
over her head. Sitting down again, she rocked her
body to and fro in meditation; then she nodded
her head and again went into the next room.

He got up and softly went over to her dressing-
table. God! what a collection of curious and
charming objects! Scent-bottles, lip-sticks, little
boxes, creams, every possible sort of toy. Here was
woman’s trade : eyes, smiles, strong and disturbing
scents — His mutilated fingers passed trembling
over all these fragile and mysterious objects; he
experienced a sort of irritation and excitement, as if
they were touching something which was forbidden.

She came back into the room wearing a leather

33 2 Krakatit

coat and cap. She was pulling on a heavy pair of
gloves. “Get ready,” she said in a colourless voice,
“we’re going.”

“Where?”

“Where you like. Get together what you need,
but quickly, quickly!”

“What does this mean?”

“Don’t waste time asking questions. You mustn’t
remain here, you see? They won’t let you go. Are
you coming?”

“For . . . how long?”

“For ever.”

His heart began to thump. “No . . . no, I
won’t go I”

She came up to him and kissed his face. “You
must,” she said quietly. “I’ll tell you when we’re
once outside. Come to the front of the castle, only
quickly, while it’s still dark. Now go, go!”

He went back to his room as if in a dream, col¬
lected all his papers, his priceless and endless notes,
and quickly looked round. Was that all? “No,
I won’t go,” flashed through his head, and leaving
the papers where they were he ran outside. In front
of the castle was standing a throbbing car with the
lights turned off; the Princess was already at the
wheel. “Quickly, quickly,” she whispered. “Are
the doors open?”

“They are,” answered the sleepy chauffeur in a
hoarse voice, pulling down the hood of the car.

A shadow appeared from the back of the car and
stopped in front of them.

Prokop stepped up to the open door of the car.
“Princess,” he said in a hoarse voice, “Fve . . .

Krakatit 333

decided that I’ll . . . give up everything and

stay.”

She was not listening. Inclined forwards, she
was staring attentively at the spot where that sha¬
dow fused with the darkness. “Quickly,” she said
suddenly, seized Prokop by the arm and pulled him
into the car beside her. A single movement and the
car had begun to slide forward. At that moment a
light appeared in one window of the castle and the
shadow sprang out of the darkness. “Halt!” it
cried and threw itself in front of the car; it was
Holz.

“Out of the way,” cried the Princess, closed her
eyes and opened the throttle full. Prokop raised
his hand in horror; there was an inhuman
roar and the wheels lurched over something soft.
Prokop was about to spring out of the car, but at
that moment it swung round the corner of the drive,
so that the door slammed to by itself and the ma¬
chine hurled itself into the darkness. With horror
he turned round to the Princess. He could scarcely
recognize her with her leather cap, bent forward
over the wheel. “What have you done?” he cried.

“Quiet,” she said sharply through her teeth, still
inclined forward. He caught sight of three figures
in the distance on the white road; she slowed down
and drew up close to them. It was the military
guard. “Why are your lights off?” asked one of
the soldiers. “Who are you?”

“The Princess.”

The soldiers raised their hands to their caps and
drew back. “The password?”

“Krakatit.”

334

Krakatit

“Please put on your lights. Who have you with
you, please? Your pass, please.”

“One moment,” said the Princess calmly and
went into first speed. The car simply jumped for¬
ward; the soldiers were only just able to get out of
the way. “Don’t shoot,” cried one of them, and
the car flew into the darkness. They went round a
sharp corner and continued almost in the opposite
direction. Two soldiers approached the car.

“Who’s on duty?” she asked coldly.

“Lieutenant Rohlauf,” answered the soldier.

“Send for him!”

Lieutenant Rohlauf came running out of the
guardhouse, buttoning up his uniform.

“Good-evening, Rohlauf,” she said amicably.
“How are you? Please let me out.”

He stood still respectfully, but looked doubtfully
at Prokop: “Delighted, but . . . has the gentle¬
man a pass?”

The Princess smiled. “It’s only a bet, Rohlauf.
To Brogel and back in thirty-five minutes. You
don’t believe me? Don’t make me lose my bet.”
Stripping off her glove, she gave him her hand from
the car. “Au revoir, yes? Look in some time.”
He clicked his heels and kissed her hand, bowing
deeply. The soldiers opened the barrier and the
car moved off. “Au revoir !” she called back.

They whirled along an endless avenue. Now and
then there flashed past the light of some human
habitation; in a village a child was crying, behind a
fence a dog became excited at the dark, flying car.
“What have you done?” cried Prokop. “Do you
know that Holz has five children and a crippled

Krakatit 335

sister? His life is worth five times as much as
yours and mine! What have you done?”

She did not answer. With knitted brows and
clenched teeth she was watching the road, raising her
head higher every now and then to see better.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked suddenly
at a cross-roads high above the sleeping countryside.

“To hell,” he said through his teeth.

She stopped the car and turned round to him
seriously. “Don’t say that! Do you think that I
haven’t wanted a hundred times to crash us both
into some wall or other? Let me tell you that we
should both go to hell. I know that there’s a hell.
Where do you want to go?”

“I want . . . to be with you.”

She shook her head. “That’s no good. Do you
remember what you said? You’re engaged and
. . . you want to save the world from something
terrible. Well, do it. You must keep yourself
pure; otherwise . . . otherwise it’ll be bad. And
I can’t ...” She passed her hand along the steer¬
ing wheel. “Where do you want to go? Where
do you live?”

He clasped her in his arms with all his strength.
“You’ve . . . killed Holz ! Don’t you ...”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Do you imagine
that I can’t feel? It seemed as if my own bones
were being crushed and I see him in front of me all
the time, all the time the car is rushing at him, and

again and again he runs forward - ” she shivered.

“Well, where? To the right or the left?”

“Is this the end?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “It is the end.”

Krakatit

336

He opened the door, sprang out of the car and
stood before it. “Go on,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“Drive over me.”

She reversed and drove back a few yards. “Come,
we must go farther. I’ll take you at least to the
frontier. Where do you want to go?”

“Back,” he said through his teeth, “back with
you.”

“With me you can’t either go back or go for¬
ward. Don’t you understand? I must do this to see,
to be certain that I love you. Do you think that I
could hear what you told me again? You can’t go
back; you would either have to give up . . . what
you don’t want to give up and mustn’t, or they’d take

you away, and I - ” She let her hands fall into

her lap. “You see, I’ve thought of what it would
mean if I were to go on with you. I should be able
to, I should certainly be able to, but . . . you’ve got
a fiancee somewhere — go to her. Do you know it
never occurred to me to ask you about her. When
one’s a princess one thinks that one’s alone in the
world. Do you love her?”

He looked at her with eyes which were full of tor¬
ture; yet he couldn’t deny -

“There you are,” she breathed. “You darling,
you simply cannot lie ! But listen. When I con¬
sidered — What was I to you? What was it that
I did? Did you think of her when you were in love
with me? How you must have hated me! No, say
nothing! Don’t take away from me the strength
to say these last words.”

She wrung her hands. “I loved you! I loved
you, man, as much as I could ever love anybody —

Krakatit

337

more. And you, you were so loath to believe it that
finally you shattered even my faith. Do I love you?
I don’t know. When I see you there I could thrust
a knife into my breast; I should like to die and I
don’t know what else, but do I love you? I — I
don’t know. And when you took me into your
arms . . . for the last time I felt something . . .
impure in me . . . and in you. Forgive my kisses;
they were . . . unclean,” she breathed. “We must
part.”

She was not looking at him and did not listen to
what he said in reply. Suddenly her eyelashes began
to tremble, and then her eyes filled with tears. She
wept silently, her hands on the wheel. When he
tried to approach her she moved the car away.

“Now you’re no longer Prokopokopak,” she
whispered, “you are an unhappy, unhappy man.
You see, you pull at your chain . . . as I do. It
was . . . a wrong sort of link that joined us, and yet
when one tears oneself away it is as if one left every¬
thing behind, one’s heart, one’s soul. . . . Can
there be good in a man when he is so empty?” Her
tears fell more quickly. “I loved you, and now I
shall never see you again. Out of the way, I’m
turning round.”

He did not move.

She drew the car close up to him. “Good-bye,
Prokop,” she said softly, and began to go backwards
along the road. He ran after her, but the car began
to retire more and more rapidly.

Then it vanished altogether.

CHAPTER XLVI

He stood still and strained his ears in terror, fear¬
ing to hear the sound of the car crashing off the
road somewhere at a corner. Was not that the
sound of a motor in the distance? Was that terri¬
ble and deathly silence the end? Beside himself,
Prokop dashed dowm the road after her. Running
down the serpentine road, he finally reached the end
of the slope. But not a trace of the car was to be
seen. He rushed back again, examining the road on
each side, clambered down, tearing his hands when¬
ever he caught sight of anything conspicuous, but it
always proved to be only a stone or a bush, and he
again scrambled up and pounded along the road,
staring into the darkness, in case he should come
upon a pile of wreckage, and under it . . .

He was again back at the cross-roads; it wras here
that she had begun to disappear into the darkness.
He sat down on a milestone. It was quiet, utterly
quiet. Above him were the cold stars. Was the
dark meteor of the car flying along somewhere?
Would there never be a sound, the cry of a bird, the
barking of a dog in a village, some sign of life?
But everything was bathed in the majestic silence of
death. And this was the end, the silent, dark and
icy end of everything — a desert surrounded by dark¬
ness and silence — an icy desert in which time stood
still. If only it were the end of the world! The

338

Krakatit 339

earth would open and above the noise of the tempest
would be heard the words of the Lord: I take you
back to myself, weak and miserable creature; there
was no purity in you and you set free evil forces.
Loved one, I will make you a bed out of nothingness.

Prokop began to tremble beneath the crown of
thorns of the universe. And now human suffering
was nothing and had no value; he was a tiny,
shrivelled up, trembling bubble at the bottom of an
abyss. Good, good; you say that the world is infi¬
nite, but if I could only die!

In the east the sky began to go pale. The road
and the white stones could already be seen clearly.
Look, here were the marks of wheels in the dead
dust. Prokop picked himself up, numb and cold,
and started to walk. Downhill, towards Balttin.

He went on without stopping. Here was a vil¬
lage, an avenue lined with blackberries, a little bridge
over a dark and silent river. The mist disappeared
and the sun began to shine through; again a grey
and cold day, red roofs, a herd of cows. How far
might it be to Balttin? Sixteen, sixteen kilometres.
Dry leaves, nothing but dry leaves.

A little after mid-day he sat down on a pile of
pebbles; he could go no farther. A peasant’s cart
approached; the driver drew up and looked at the
exhausted man. “Can I give you a lift?” Pro¬
kop nodded gratefully and sat down next to him
without a word. Later the cart drew up in a little
town. “Here we are,” said the peasant. “Where
exactly are you going?” Prokop got down and
went on by himself. How far might it be to Balttin ?

It began to rain, but Prokop could go no farther

340

Krakatit

and remained leaning against the wall of a bridge.
Underneath was a cold, foaming current. Suddenly
a car approached the bridge, slowed down and then
stopped. Out of it sprang a man in a leather coat
who came up to Prokop. “Where are you going?”
It was Mr. d’Hemon, with goggles over his Tartar
eyes and looking like an enormous shaggy beetle.
“I’m going to Balttin; they’re looking for you.”

“How far is it to Balttin?” whispered Prokop.

“Forty kilometres. What do you want there?
They’ve issued a warrant for your arrest. Come
along, I’ll take you away.”

Prokop shook his head.

“The Princess has left,” continued Mr. d’Hemon
quietly. “Early this morning, with Uncle Rohn.
Chiefly so that she should forget ... a certain
unpleasant experience in connection with running
over somebody.”

“Is he dead?” breathed Prokop.

“Not yet. In the second place, the Princess, as
you possibly know, has consumption seriously.
They’re taking her to somewhere in Italy.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows.”

Prokop stood up, swaying. “In that case - ”

“Will you come with me?”

“I don’t . . . know. Where?”

“Where you like.”

“I should like to go . . .to Italy.”

“Come along.” Mr. d’Hemon helped Prokop
into the car, threw a fur rug over him and slammed
the door to. The car started off.

And again the countryside began to unroll itself,

Krakatit 341

but curiously, as if in a dream and backwards; a
little town, an avenue of poplars, pebbles, a bridge,
a village. The snorting car climbed zig-zag fashion
up a long hill; and here was the cross-roads where
they had parted. Prokop raised himself up and
would have jumped out of the car, but Mr. d’Hemon
drew him back, and put the car into top speed. Pro¬
kop closed his eyes and now they were no longer
going along the road but had mounted into the air
and were flying. He felt the pressure of the air on
his face and the impact of scraps of cloud like rags.
The noise of the motor became a deep, prolonged
roar. Below there was still probably the earth, but
Prokop was afraid to open his eyes and see again
the flying avenue. Quicker! To be smothered!
Quicker still ! His chest was constricted by terror
and dizziness, he could hardly breathe, and gasped
with delight at the wild way in which they tore
through space. The car slipped up and down hills
and valleys while from somewhere beneath their feet
there came the cries of people and the whining of a
dog. Sometimes they turned almost lying over on
their sides, as if they had been caught up by a tor¬
nado. Now again they were flying straight ahead,
pure speed, whizzing across country like an arrow.

He opened his eyes. Misty darkness, a row of
lights shining through it, lights of a factory. Mr.
d’Hemon drove the car in and out of the traffic in
the streets, slipped through a suburb which seemed
to be in ruins and they were again in the open. In
front of the car stretched two long antennas of light
which fell on rubbish, mud, stones. The car whirled
round corners, the exhaust drumming like a machine

342 Krakatit

gun, and then threw itself at a long stretch of road
as if it were winding it in. To the right and the left
was a criss-cross pattern of narrow valleys between
hills. The car turned off into it and plunged into
woods, noisily twisting its way upwards and
dropping head first into further valleys. The vil¬
lages breathed rings of light into the thick fog and
the car flew on, roaring and leaving behind it clouds
of sparks, rushing down hills, and climbing in spirals
higher, higher, higher. At last it jumped over some¬
thing and lurched. Stop ! They pulled up in black
darkness; no, it was a house. Mr. d’Hemon stepped
out of the car, breathing heavily, knocked at the door
and engaged some people in conversation. A mo¬
ment later he returned with a can of water and
poured its contents into the hissing radiator; in
the bright light of the car’s lamps he looked in his
fur coat like a devil from some story for children.
Then he went round the car, felt the tyres, raised
the hood and said something, but Prokop, utterly
exhausted, was already half asleep. Then he again
became conscious of the everlasting rhythmic vibra¬
tion and fell asleep in the corner of the car, having-
no idea what was happening beyond the continuous
shaking. He only recovered consciousness when the
car had stopped in front of a brightly lighted hotel
amongst stretches of snow. The air was sharp and
cold.

He woke up numb and worn out. “This . . .
this isn’t Italy,” he stammered, surprised.

“Not yet,” said Mr. d’Hemon, “but come and
have something to eat.” He led Prokop, who was
dazzled by so many lights, to an isolated table. A

Krakatit

343

white tablecloth, silver, warmth, a waiter like an
ambassador. Mr. d’Hemon did not even sit down,
but walked up and down the room looking at the
tips of his fingers. Prokop, heavy and sleepy,
dropped into a chair; it was a matter of complete
indifference to him whether he ate or not. All the
same he drank some hot soup, poked at one or two
dishes, scarcely able to hold the fork, twisted a glass
of wine in his fingers and burnt his throat with some
scalding coffee. Mr. d’Hemon still did not sit down
but went on walking up and down the room, every
now and then taking a mouthful as he went along.
When Prokop had finished eating he gave him a
cigar and lit up himself. “So,” he said, “and now
to business.

“From now,” he began, still walking up and down,
“I shall be for you simply . . . Comrade Daimon.
I will introduce you to our people; they’re not far
away. You mustn’t take them too seriously;
amongst them there are desperadoes, people evading
justice from all the corners of the world, fanatics,
babblers, doctrinaires and dilettante Salvationists.
Don’t ask them for their programme; they are only
material which we use for our purposes. The chief
thing is that we can put at your disposal an extensive
secret international organization which has its
branches everywhere. The only programme is direct
action. Through this we’ll get hold of everybody
without exception. They’re already crying for it,
like children for a new toy. Anyway they’ll find the
fascination of a ‘new programme of action,’ ‘de¬
struction inside the head’ irresistible. After the first
successes they’ll follow you like sheep — especially if

344 Krakatit

you weed out from their leaders the people I shall
indicate to you.”

He spoke smoothly like an experienced orator,
that is to say thinking all the time about something
else, and with such self-evident truth that he made
doubt or resistance impossible. It seemed to Pro-
kop that he had heard him on some occasion or
other before.

“Your situation is unique,” Daimon continued,
still walking up and down the room. “You have
already rejected the proposal of a certain Govern¬
ment, and you behaved like a sensible man. What
Can I offer you compared to what you can obtain
by yourself? You’d be mad to hand over your
secret to anybody. You have in your possession a
means by which we can overcome all the powers of
the earth. I have unlimited confidence in you. Do
you want fifty or a hundred million pounds? You
can have them within a wreek. It is enough for me
that at present you are the sole owner of Krakatit.
Our people have fourteen and a half ounces in their
possession, brought by a Saxon comrade from Bait-
tin, but these fools haven’t the slightest understand¬
ing of what your chemistry means. They keep it like
a sacred relic in a porcelain box and three times a
week nearly come to blows over the question of
what government building they are going to blow
up into the air. Anyway, you’ll hear them. There’s
no danger to you from that quarter. There’s not
a scrap of Krakatit in Balttin. Mr. Thomas is
evidently near to abandoning his experiments - ”

“Where is George — George Thomas?” asked
Prokop.

Krakatit

345

“At the Powder Works in Grottup. But they
are already sick of him there with his everlasting
promises. And even if by chance he does succeed
in preparing it he won’t derive much benefit from
the fact. I can answer for that. In short, you
alone have Krakatit in your power and you won’t
give it to anybody. You will have at your disposi¬
tion human material and all the ramifications of our
organization. I will give you a printing press which
I maintain myself. And finally you will also have
the use of what the newspapers refer to as the
‘Secret Wireless Station,’ that is, our illegal wire¬
less station which, by means of so-called anti-waves
or extinguishing sparks, causes your Krakatit to
explode at a distance of from one to two thousand
miles. Those are your cards. Do you want to
play?”

“What . . . what do you mean?” said Prokop.
“What am I to do with it all?”

Comrade Daimon stopped and looked at Prokop
fixedly. “Do what you like. You will do great
things. Who can suggest anything further to you?”

CHAPTER XLVII

Daimon drew up a chair and sat dowTn. “Yes,”
he began reflectively, “it’s almost impossible
to believe it. There’s simply no analogy in history
to the power which you have in your hands. You
will be able to conquer the world with a handful
of people, as Cortez conquered Mexico. No, that’s
not the right image. With Krakatit and the wire¬
less station you can checkmate the world. It’s
amazing but it’s true. All you need is a handful of
white powder and you can blow up what you like
any instant you please. Who can stop you? Actu¬
ally you are the uncontrolled master of the world.
You will be able to give orders, without anyone even
seeing you. It’s amusing. You can attack Portugal
or Sweden; in three, four days they will ask for
peace and you will dictate contributions, laws, fron¬
tiers, anything that occurs to you. At that moment
there’s only one controlling force, and that’s you
yourself.

“You think that I’m exaggerating? I’ve a lot of
very efficient fellows here, capable of everything.
You decide for a lark to make war on France. One
day at midnight there go up in the air the minis¬
tries, the Banque de France, the post-offices, power
stations, railway stations and a few barracks. The
next night you explode aerodromes, arsenals, iron
bridges, munition factories, ports, lighthouses and

346

Krakatit 347

main roads. At present we have only seven aero¬
planes; you sprinkle Krakatit where you like; then
you turn on a switch in the station and there you are.
Well, would you like to try?”

Prokop felt that it was all a dream. “No !
Why should I do such a thing?”

Daimon shrugged his shoulders: “Because you
must. Force . . . will out. Why should some
State do it on your account, when you can do it
yourself? I don’t know what you couldn’t do; you
must begin to experiment. I can assure you that
you’ll acquire a taste for it. Do you want to be the
ruler of the world? Good. Do you want to blow
up the world? You can. Do you want to make it
happy by forcing upon it continual peace, God, a
new order, a revolution or something of the sort?
Why not? You’ve only to begin. It doesn’t matter
about the programme. Finally you will only do
what you are compelled to do through the conditions
which you have yourself created. You can destroy
banks, kings, industrialism, armies, eternal injustices
or what you like; as you go along you will see what
you want to do. Begin where you like and the rest
will follow by itself. Only don’t look for analogies
in history. Don’t ask yourself what you may do;
your situation is unprecedented. There is no
Dzhinghiz Khan or Napoleon to tell you what you
have to do or to say what your limits are. Nobody
will be able to give you advice; nobody will be able
to abuse your power. You must be alone if you
want to take things to their limits. Don’t let any¬
body come near you who would set you any bound¬
aries or suggest any particular line of action.”

348

Krakatit

“Not even you, Daimon?” asked Prokop sharply.

“No, not even me. I am on the side of power.
I am old, experienced and rich; all I want is that
something should be done along lines laid down by
a man. My old heart will be contented with what
you will do. Think out the most daring, beautiful,
heavenly schemes you can and impose them by the
right of your power; this will reward me for serving
you.”

“Give me your hand, Daimon,” said Prokop, full
of suspicion.

“No, it would burn you,” smiled Daimon. “I’ve
an old, age-long fever. What was I saying? Yes,
one of the possibilities of strength is force. Force
has the capacity for setting things in motion; you
would not be able to help the fact that everything
finally revolves round yourself. Get used to this
beforehand; regard people merely as your instru¬
ments or as instruments of the ideas which you
evolve. You want to do an enormous amount of
good; as a result you will be extremely severe. Stop
at nothing in your efforts to achieve your magnifi¬
cent ideals. Incidentally that will come by itself.
At present it seems to you that it would be beyond
your strength to rule the earth — I don’t know in
what way. You will, and this will not be beyond the
strength of your instruments; your power will go
further than any sober reflection.

“Arrange your affairs in such a way that you
are dependent on nobody. This very day I shall
have you elected as the President of the Intelligence
Commission. This will mean that you will have the
secret station in your own hands; in any case it is

Krakatit 349

situated in a plant which is my own private prop¬
erty. In a moment you will see our various com¬
rades; don’t frighten them by announcing any great
plans. They are expecting you and will receive you
with enthusiasm. Give them a few phrases about
the good of humanity or anything you like; other¬
wise you will become involved in the chaos of opin¬
ions which are usually described as political
convictions.

“You must decide for yourself whether your first
attacks will be on political or economic lines, that is
to say whether you will begin by bombarding mili¬
tary objects or factories and railway lines. The
first is more effective and the second more funda¬
mental. You can begin a general attack all round
or you can choose one sector. You can cause a
revolution either privately or publicly, or you can
declare war. I don’t know what your proclivities
are; anyway, it doesn’t matter about the form as
long as you reveal your power. You are the highest
court of appeal in the world; you can pass judgment
on anybody you like and our people will execute it.
Do not consider human lives. Work on a large
scale; there are milliards of lives in the world.

“Listen, I’m an industrialist, a journalist, a
banker, a politician, anything you like. In short,
I’m accustomed to calculate, consider the circum¬
stances and work on limited possibilities. Just for
this reason I must tell you — and this is the only
advice which I propose to give you before you
assume power — don’t make calculations or look
round you. The moment you look back you will
turn into a pillar like Lot’s wife. I am reason; but

350

Krakatit

if I cast my eyes upwards I at once want to become
insane and irresponsible. Everything which exists
inevitably collapses out of the chaos of limitless¬
ness into nothing, and this by way of number; every
powerful force is opposed to this progressive de¬
cline; everything which is noble wants to become
limitless. The force which does not flow beyond
its original frontiers is doomed. You have in your
hands the possibility of achieving enormous things;
are you worthy of utilizing or are you simply going
to play about with it? I’m an old, practical man
and I tell you: You will think of wild and frenzied
deeds, of action on an unprecedented scale, of incred¬
ible demonstrations of human power. In actuality
you will only achieve half or a third of what you
propose to do, but that which you succeed in doing
will be tremendous. Attempt the impossible so that
at least you will achieve something which has never
been thought possible before. You know what a
tremendous thing experiment is: good, the thing
which all the rulers of the world fear most is that
they should have to do something new, something
unheard of, something perverse. There’s nothing
more conservative than ruling over human beings.
You are the first man in the world who can regard
the whole world as his laboratory. This is the High
Place of temptation; everything is given you not
simply for you to exercise your power on it, but that
you may transform it and create something better
than their miserable, cruel world. There is need
again and again of a creator of the world, but a
creator who is only a ruler is a fool. Your thoughts
will be orders; your dreams will be historic revolu-

Krakatit

35i

tions, and, if you do no more than make yourself
remembered, that will be enough. Take what is
yours.

“And now we must go. They are waiting for us.”

CHAPTER XLVIII

Daimon started the engine and jumped into the
car. “We shall be there in a moment.” The
car dropped down from the Hill of Temptation into
a broad valley, flew through a silent night, flashed
past a number of country houses and drew up in
front of a long wooden house surrounded by alders;
it looked like an old mill. Daimon sprang out of
the car and led Prokop to the foot of some wooden
steps, but here their path was barred by a man with
his collar turned up. “The password?” he asked.
“One Piece,” said Daimon and removed his goggles.
The man stepped back and Daimon hurried on. They
came into a large, low room, which looked like a
schoolroom; two rows of seats, a platform, a desk
and a blackboard. The only difference was that the
place was full of smoke and noise. The benches
were crammed with people who were wearing their
hats. They were all quarrelling with one another;
some red-haired lout was shouting something from
the platform, while at the desk there stood a dry,
pedantic old man, desperately ringing a bell.

Daimon went straight up to the platform and
mounted it. “Comrades,” he cried, and his voice
was as inhuman as that of a seagull. “I have
brought some one to you. Comrade Krakatit ”
There was a dead silence and Prokop felt himself
seized and mercilessly examined by fifty pairs of

352

Krakatit

353

eyes. As if in a dream, he stepped on to the plat¬
form and looked round the smoky room not knowing
what to do. “Krakatit, Krakatit,” there resounded
below and the noise grew into a shout: “Krakatit!
Krakatit! Krakatit!” In front of Prokop there
was standing a beautiful tousled girl who gave him
her hand: “Good luck, comrade!” a brief, hot pres¬
sure, eyes with a burning glance which promised
everything, and immediately afterwards a dozen
other hands : rough, firm and dried up by the heat,
moist and cold, spiritualized. Prokop found him¬
self surrounded by a chain of hands which seized
his own. “Krakatit! Krakatit!”

The pedantic old man rang his bell like a mad¬
man. When this failed to achieve anything he
rushed up to Prokop and shook his hand; it was dry
and leathery, as if made of parchment, and behind
his cobbler’s glasses there shone an enormous joy.
The crowd roared with enthusiasm and then grew
quiet. “Comrades,” said the old man, “you have
greeted Comrade Krakatit with spontaneous delight
. . . with spontaneous and living delight, delight
which I should also like to express in my capacity
of president. We also have to greet President Dai-
mon . . . and to thank him. I invite Comrade
Krakatit to take his seat . . . as a guest ... in
the president’s chair. I invite the delegates to
declare whether the meeting is to be presided over
by me ... or by President Daimon.”

“Daimon !”

“Mazaud!”

“Daimon !”

“Mazaud! Mazaud!”

354

Krakatit

“To the devil with your formalities, Mazaud,”
cried Daimon. “You are presiding and that’s
enough.”

“The meeting continues,” cried the old man.
“Delegate Peters has the floor.”

The red-headed man again began to address the
meeting. It appeared that he was making an attack
on the English Labour Party, but nobody took any
notice of him. All eyes were resting on Prokop.
There in the corner were the large, dreamy eyes
of a consumptive; the bulging, blue ones of some old,
bearded gentleman; the round and glittering glasses
of a professor; sharp little eyes peering out of great
clots of grey hair; careful, hostile, sunken, childish,
saintly and base eyes. Prokop’s glance wandered
about the tightly packed benches. Suddenly he
looked away sharply as if he had burnt himself; he
had encountered the glance of the tousled girl, a
glance which could have only one meaning. He
looked instead at an extraordinarily bald head
beneath which hung a narrow coat; it was impos¬
sible to tell whether the creature was twenty or fifty
years old, but before he had decided the point the
whole head was furrowed by a broad, enthusiastic
and respectful smile. One look tormented him the
whole time; he looked for it among the others but
could not find it.

Delegate Peters stutteringly finished his speech
and sank down on to a bench, very red in the face.
All eyes were fixed on Prokop in tense and com¬
pelling expectation. Mazaud muttered a few formal
words and bent down to Daimon. There was a
breathless silence, and then Prokop rose to his feet,

Krakatit

355

not knowing what he was going to do. “Comrade
Krakatit has the floor,” announced Mazaud, rub¬
bing his dry hands.

Prokop looked round him with dazzled eyes:
What ought he to do ? Speak? Why? Who were
these people? He caught sight of the gentle eyes
of the consumptive, the severe and scrutinizing
gleam of spectacles, blinking eyes, curious and
strange eyes, the bright, melting glance of the beau¬
tiful girl who in her absorption had opened her hot,
sinful lips. In the front bench the bald and fur¬
rowed little man hung upon his words with attentive
eyes. Prokop gave him a smile.

“Friends,” he began quietly and as if in a dream,
“last night ... I paid a tremendous price. I lived
through . . . and lost ...” He made an effort
to pull himself together. “Sometimes one experi¬
ences . . . such pain that . . . that it ceases to be
one’s own. You open your eyes and see. The uni¬
verse is overcast and the earth holds her breath in
agony. The world must be redeemed. You would
be unable to bear your pain if you only suffered alone.
You have all gone through hell, you all - ”

He looked round the room; everything had be¬
come fused into a sort of dully glowing subterranean
vegetation. “Where have you got Krakatit?” he
asked, suddenly irritated. “What have you done
with it?”

The old Mazaud carefully took up the porcelain
relic and put it into his hand. It was the very box
which he had once left in his laboratory hut near
Hybsmonka. He opened the lid and dug with his
fingers into the granulated powder, rubbed it, tritu-

356

Krakatit

rated it, smelt it, put a speck of it on his tongue. He
recognized its strong, astringent bitterness and tasted
it with delight. “That’s good,” he said with relief
and pressed the precious object between his palms, as
if he were warming on it his numbed hands.

“It is you,” he said under his breath, “I know
you; you are an explosive element. Your moment
will come and you will liberate everything. That’s
good.” He looked about uneasily from under his
eyebrows. “What do you want to know? I only
understand two things: The stars and chemistry.
It’s beautiful . . . the endless stretches of time,
the eternal order and steadfastness, the divine archi¬
tecture of the universe. I tell you . . . there’s
nothing more beautiful. But what do I care about
the laws of eternity? Your moment will come and
you will explode. You will liberate love, pain,
thought, I don’t know what. Your greatest triumph
will last only for a second. You are not part of
the endless order or of the millions of light years.
Explode with the most lofty flame. Do you feel
yourself shut in? Then burst to pieces the mortar.
Make a place for your sole moment. That’s good.”

He himself did not clearly understand what he
was saying, but he was carried on by an obscure
impulse to express something which immediately
evaded him again. “I . . . I’m only a chemist. I
know matter and . . . understand it; that’s all.
Matter is broken up by air and water, splits, fer¬
ments, rots, burns, absorbs acid or disintegrates;
but never, you hear, never with all that gives up
what it contains. Even if it goes through the whole
cycle, even if some fragment of earth becomes in-

Krakatit

357

corporated in a plant and then in living flesh and
then becomes a cell in the brain of a Newton, dies
with him and again disintegrates, it still does not
give up its power. But if you compel it . . .by
force ... to split up and liberate its strength,
then it explodes in a thousandth of a second, then
at last it exercises the force which it contains. And
perhaps it was not even asleep; it was only bound,
suffocated, struggling in the darkness and waiting
for its moment to come. To release everything!
That is its right. I, I must release everything.
Have I not only to expose myself to corrosion and
wait . . . ferment in an unclean way . . . disin¬
tegrate and then ... all at once . . . release the
whole man? Best of all . . . best of all in one
supreme moment . . . and through everything. . . .
For I believe that it is good to release everything.
Whether it’s good or bad. Everything in me is
interfused; good and bad and the highest. That is
the redemption of man. It doesn’t lie in anything
which I have done, it’s become a part of me . . .
like a stone in a building. And I must fly to pieces
... by force . . . like an explosive charge. And
I won’t ask what it is that I may be bursting.
There’s a need in me ... to liberate the highest.”

He struggled with words, endeavouring to express
the inexpressible, lost it with every word, furrowed
his brow and examined the faces of his listeners to
see if anyone had any idea of what he was trying
and failing, to express. He found a glowing sym¬
pathy in the clear eyes of the consumptive, and con¬
centrated effort in the entranced blue ones of the
shaggy giant at the back. The shrivelled little man

358

Krakatit

drank in his words with the complete devotion of a
believer, and the beautiful girl, half lying down,
received them with tender shudderings of her body.
But the other faces gaped at him unsympathetically,
inquiringly, or with increasing indifference. Why
exactly was he talking to them?

“I have lived through,” he continued hesitatingly
and already somewhat irritated, “I have lived
through ... as much as a man can live through.
Why am I telling you this ? Because that alone is not
enough for me, because ... so far I am not re¬
deemed; the highest was not in it. That’s . . .
buried in a man like energy in matter. You must
disturb matter to make it release its force. You
must free man, disturb him, split him up for him to
flame up to his highest. Ah, that would . . . that
would be too much . . . for him not to find that
... he had reached . . . that ...”

He began to stammer, became morose, threw
down the box containing the Krakatit and sat down.

CHAPTER XLIX

There was a moment of tense silence.

“And is that all?” said a mocking voice from
the middle of the hall.

“That’s all,” said Prokop, disgusted.

“It is not all,” Daimon stood up. “Comrade
Krakatit assumed that the delegates would be good

enough to understand - ”

“Oho !” there resounded from the middle of the
hall.

“Yes. Delegate Mezierski must have patience
and let me finish. Comrade Krakatit has graphi¬
cally explained to us that it is necessary,” and Dai-
mon’s voice again was like the screeching of a bird,
“that it is necessary to inaugurate a revolution with¬
out paying attention to the theory of stages; a level¬
ling and disruptive evolution in the course of which
humanity will release the highest which is hidden
within. Man must explode to release everything.
Society must explode to find the highest good within
itself. You here have spent years in disputing the
question of the highest good of humanity. Com¬
rade Krakatit has shown us that it is sufficient to
cause humanity to explode in order for it to flame
up higher than you have wished it to in your debates.
And we must not bother about what is destroyed by
the explosion. I say that Comrade Krakatit is
right.”

359

3 6o Krakatit

“Yes, yes, yes!” There was a sudden burst of
shouting and clapping. “Krakatit! Krakatit!”

“Silence!” shouted Daimon. “And his wrords,”
he continued, “have all the more weight because
they are supported by the actual power of bringing
about this explosion. Comrade Krakatit is not a
man of words, but of deeds. He has come here to
convert us to direct action. And I tell you that it
will be more terrible than anyone has dared to
dream. And the explosion will take place to-day, to¬
morrow, within a week - ”

His words were drowned in an indescribable con¬
fusion. A wave of people poured from the seats and
surrounded Prokop. They embraced him, seized
his hands and cried: “Krakatit! Krakatit!” The
beautiful girl struggled wildly, her hair loose, trying
to make a way for herself through the crowd of
people. Thrown forward by the pressure from
behind, she pressed herself against his breast. He
tried to push her away, but she put her arms round
him and passionately whispered something in a for¬
eign language. Meanwhile, on the edge of the plat¬
form, a man wearing spectacles was slowly and
quietly demonstrating to the empty benches that
theoretically it was not permissible to deduce socio¬
logical conclusions from inorganic matter. “Kra¬
katit, Krakatit,” roared the crowd. No one would
sit down although Mazaud was ringing his bell all
the time like a dustman. Suddenly a dark young
man sprang on to the platform and waved the box
of Krakatit above their heads.

“Silence,” he roared, “and down with you! Or
I will throw it under your feet!”

Krakatit 361

There was a sudden silence; the crowd evacuated
the platform and drew back. Above there was left
only Mazaud, his bell in his hand, confused and at a
loss what to do, Daimon, leaning on the table, and
Prokop, on whose neck there was still hanging the
dark-haired Mamad.

“Rossi,” cried a number of voices. “Down with
him! Down with Rosso!” The young man on the
platform looked wildly round the room with his
burning eyes. “Let nobody move! Mezierski
wants to shoot at me. I shall throw it,” he shouted
and flourished the box.

The crowd recoiled, growling like an enraged
animal. Two or three people put up their hands,
and others followed them. There was a moment of
oppressive silence.

“Get down,” shouted old Mazaud. “Who gave
you permission to speak?”

“I shall throw it,” threatened Rosso, taut like a
bow.

“This is against the regulations,” said Mazaud
excitedly. “I protest and . . . leave the chair.”
He threw the bell on the ground and stepped down
from the platform.

“Bravo, Mazaud,” said an ironical voice. “You’ve
helped him.”

“Silence,” cried Rosso, and threw back the hair
from his forehead. “I’m speaking. Comrade
Krakatit has told us: Your moment will come and
you will explode; make room for this unique mo¬
ment. Good, I’ve taken his words to heart.”

“It wasn’t meant like that!”

“Long live Krakatit !”

362

Krakatit

Some one began to whistle.

Daimon caught Prokop by the arm and dragged
him to a door somewhere behind the blackboard.

“Hiss away,” continued Rosso mockingly. “None
of you hissed when this foreign gentleman stood in
front of you and . . . made room for his moment.
Why shouldn’t anyone else try?”

“That’s right,” said a satisfied voice.

The beautiful girl stood in front of Prokop to
protect him with her body. He tried to push her
away.

“That’s not true,” she shouted with burning eyes.
“He . . . he is . . .”

“Be quiet,” said Daimon.

“Anyone can preach,” said Rosso feverishly. “As
long as I have this in my hand I can preach too. It’s
all the same to me whether I go out or not. Nobody
may leave this room! Galeasso, watch the door!
So, now we can discuss matters.”

“Yes, now we can discuss matters,” echoed Dai¬
mon sharply.

Rosso turned round to him like lightning, but at
that moment the blue-eyed giant dashed forward
with his head lowered like a ram’s; and, before
Rosso could turn round, seized his legs and pulled
them from under him. Rosso fell from the plat¬
form head first. In the middle of a tense silence he
rolled over and struck his head against the floor
while the lid of the porcelain box rolled under the
benches.

Prokop rushed across to the unconscious body;
Rosso’s chest, and face, the floor, the pools of blood

Krakatit

363

beneath him, were all covered with the white dust of
Krakatit. Daimon held him back and at that mo¬
ment there was a loud cry and several people rushed
on to the platform. “Don’t tread on Krakatit, it
will explode,” ordered some cracked voice, but the
people had already thrown themselves on the ground
and were collecting the white powder into match¬
boxes, struggling, writhing in a heap on the ground.

“Shut the door,” roared somebody. The lights
went out. At that moment Daimon kicked open
the little door behind the blackboard and dragged
Prokop out into the darkness.

He turned on a pocket electric lamp. They were
in a windowless hovel, with tables piled on top of
one another, trays for beer, a lot of musty clothing.
He quickly dragged Prokop on further: the unsav¬
oury black hole of a staircase, black and narrow
steps leading downwards. Half-way down them
they were overtaken by the tousled girl. “I am
going with you,” she whispered, and dug her fingers
into Prokop’s arm. Daimon led them out into a
yard, turning the light of the pocket lamp about him;
around there was black darkness. He opened a
gate and they found themselves on the road. Before
Prokop could reach the car, struggling to throw off
the girl, the motor had begun to throb and Daimon
was at the wheel. “Quickly!” Prokop threw him¬
self into the car, the girl behind him. There was a
jerk and the car flew into the darkness. It was
icily cold and the girl shivered in her thin clothes.
Prokop wrapped her up in a fur rug and himself
settled in the other corner. The car was racing along

Krakatit

364

a bad, soft road, tossing from one side to another,
pulling up and then noisily accelerating again. Pro-
kop was angry and moved awray whenever the motion
of the vehicle threw him against the girl. But she
nestled against him. “You’re cold, aren’t you?”
she whispered, opened the rug and wrapped him in
it, pressing herself against him. “Get warm,” she
breathed with a lewd smile and pressed herself
against him with her whole body. She was hot and
yielding, as if she were naked. Her loose hair
exuded a wild and bitter scent, tickled his face and
fell across his eyes. She spoke to him in some for¬
eign language, repeating something again and again
more and more softly. Then she took the .lobe of
his ear between her delicately chattering teeth, and
suddenly she was lying on his chest and placing her
lips on his in a moist, unclean, sophisticated kiss.
He pushed her away roughly. She drew back deeply
offended, sat farther away from him, and wTith a
movement of her shoulder jerked off the fur rug.
There was an icy wind blowing; he took up the rug
and again passed it round her. She threw herself
about wildly, tore off the rug and let it fall on the
floor of the car. “As you like,” growled Prokop,
and turned away.

The car turned into a firm stretch of road and
immediately accelerated. Of Daimon nothing was
to be seen but the back of his shaggy coat. Prokop
sobbed with the coldness of the wind and looked
round at the girl. She had twined her hair round
her neck and was shivering with cold in her thin
clothes. He was sorry for her, and again took the

Krakatit

365

rug and threw it over her. She pushed it away in
fury and then he wrapped her up in it from her head
to her heels, as if she were a package, and clasped
her in his arms: “Don’t move!”

“What are you up to?” threw out Daimon casu¬
ally from the wheel. “Well ...”

Prokop pretended that he had not heard this
piece of cynicism, but the package in his arms began
to giggle quietly.

“She’s a good girl,” continued Daimon calmly.
“Her father was an author.” The package nodded
and Daimon told Prokop a name so famous, so
sacred and pure that he was positively aghast and
involuntarily relaxed his grasp. The package
twisted round and bounced on his lap; from beneath
the rug there projected a pair of beautiful, wicked
legs, which childishly kicked about in the air. He
drew the rug over her so that she should not be cold,
but she seemed to regard this as a game, was con¬
vulsed with laughter, and went on kicking her legs
about. He held her as firmly as he could, but her
hands slid out from the rug and played over his face,
pulled his hair, tickled his neck and found their way
in between his lips. At length he let her go on; she
felt about his forehead, found it severely furrowed,
and drew back as if she had been burned. Now it
was a venturesome child’s hand which did not know
what it was allowed to do. It gently and surrep¬
titiously approached his face, touched it, drew away,
touched it again, smoothed it and at last timidly
rested on his rough cheek. From the rug there
came the sound of deep breathing.

366

Krakatit

The car slid through a sleeping town and shot into
the open country. “Well,” said Daimon, turning
round, “what do you think of our comrades?”

“Quietly,” whispered the motionless Prokop,
“she’s asleep.”

CHAPTER L

The car drew up in a dark, wooded valley. Pro-
kop made out in the half light some large towers
and slag heaps. “Well, here we are,” muttered Dai-
mon. “This is my mine and forge; that’s nothing.
Out you get!”

“Am I to leave her here?” asked Prokop softly.
“Who? Ha, ha! your beauty. Wake her up,
we’re stopping here.”

Prokop carefully stepped out of the car, carrying
her in his arms. “Where am I to put her?”

Daimon unlocked the door of a desolate-looking
house. “What? Wait, I’ve got a few rooms here.
You can put her . . . I’ll show you.”

He turned on the light and led him along a num¬
ber of cold passages through some offices. Finally
he turned into a room and switched on the light.
Prokop found himself in a repulsive, unventilated
room containing an unmade bed. The blinds were
drawn down. “Aha!” said Daimon, “evidently
some friend of mine has spent the night here. It’s
not very beautiful, eh? Well, put her down on the
bed.”

Prokop carefully deposited the heavily breathing
package. Daimon was walking up and down the
room, rubbing his hands. “Now we’ll go to our
station. It’s on the top of the hill, about ten minutes
away. Or would you rather stay here?” He

367

368

Krakatit

stepped over to the sleeping girl and lifted the rug
so that she was uncovered as far as the knees.
“She’s beautiful, eh? It’s a pity I’m so old.”

Prokop frowned and covered her up again.
“Show me your station,” he said shortly. A smile
trembled on Daimon’s lips. “We’ll go.”

He led him through the yard. There were lights
in the factory, and there was to be heard the throb¬
bing of machinery. About the yard there saun¬
tered the fireman, his sleeves rolled up and a pipe in
his mouth. To the side was a belt with a row of
trucks for the mine, the girders of its supports
standing out like the ribs of a lizard. “We’ve had
to close three pits,” explained Daimon. “They
didn’t pay. I should have sold them a long time
ago if it hadn’t been for the station. This wray.”
He began to ascend a steep footpath leading up
through the wood to the top of the hill. Prokop
could only follow him by sound ; it was a black night,
and from time to time heavy drops fell from the
branches of the pines. Daimon stopped, breathing
with difficulty. “I’m old,” he said, “I can’t get my
breath as I used to. I’ve got to depend on people
more and more. . . . There’s no one at the station
to-day; the telegraphist has remained below with
the others . . . but that doesn’t matter. Come on!”

The top of the hill was cut about as if it had been
the scene of a battle; abandoned towers, a wire
cable, enormous deserted slag heaps and on the top
of the largest of them a wooden shed with an aerial
above it. “That’s ... the station,” panted Dai¬
mon. “It stands on forty thousand tons of magne¬
sia. A natural condenser, you see ? The whole hill

Krakatit 369

. . . is an enormous network of wires. Some time
or other I’ll explain it to you in detail. Help
me up.” He scrambled over the loose surface of
the slag heap, the heavy gravel tumbling noisily
under his feet, but here at last, anyway, was the
station.

Prokop drew back, unable to believe his eyes; it
was his own laboratory shed at home in the fields
near Hybsmonka ! The same unpainted door, a
pair of planks, lighter in colour, where repairs had
been made, knots in the wood which looked like eyes.
As if in a dream he felt the wall : yes, the same bent,
rusty nail which he himself had once driven in!
“Where did you get this from?” he cried excitedly.

“What?”

“This shed.”

“It’s been here for years,” said Daimon indiffer¬
ently. “Why are you so interested in it?”

“Nothing.” Prokop ran round the shed feeling
the walls and windows. Yes, there was the crack,
the fault in the wood, the broken pane in the window,
the place where the knot had fallen out and the piece
of paper stuck over the inside of the hole. With
trembling hands he examined all these wretched
details; everything was as it had been, every¬
thing. . . .

“Well,” said Daimon, “have you finished your
inspection? Open the door, you’ve got the key.”

Prokop felt for the key in his pocket. Of course,
he had with him the key of his old laboratory . . .
there at home. He thrust it into the padlock,
opened it, and went inside. There, as if at home,
he mechanically reach.ed out to the left and turned

370

Krakatit

on the light; instead of a button there was a nail —
again as at home. Daimon followed him in. God,
there was his sofa, his wash-stand, the jug with the
broken rim, the sponge, the towel, everything. He
turned round and looked into the corner; there he
saw the old green stove with its pipe mended with
wire, the box with coal dust at the bottom, and the
broken arm-chair with failing legs, with the wire and
tow still sticking out of it. There wTas the same tack
projecting from the floor, the burnt plank and the
clothes cupboard. He opened it, and there fell out
an old pair of trousers.

“It’s not very magnificent,” said Daimon. “Our
telegraphist is a — well, queer sort of fellow. What
do you think of the apparatus?”

Prokop turned to the table as if in a dream. No,
that wasn’t there, no, no, no, that didn’t belong
there. Instead of the chemical apparatus there
stood at one end of the bench a powerful wireless
apparatus, with condensers, a variometer, and a
regulator. A pair of ear phones lay on the table.
Under the table was the usual transforming appa¬
ratus and at the other end . . .

“That’s the normal station,” explained Daimon,
“for ordinary conversation. The other is our extin¬
guishing station. With it we send out those anti¬
waves, contra-currents, magnetic storms, or what¬
ever you like to call them. That’s our secret. Can
you understand it?”

“No.” Prokop quickly looked over a piece of
apparatus which was completely different from any¬
thing he had ever seen. There was a quantity of
resistances, a sort of wire screen, something resem-

Krakatit

37i

bling cathode pipe, several isolated drums or some¬
thing of the sort, an extraordinary coherer and a
taster with contacts; he could not make out what it
all meant. He left the apparatus and looked up at
the ceiling to see if there was on it that extraordin¬
ary marking on the wood which always at home
recalled to him the head of an old man. Yes, it was
there. And there also was the little mirror with
the corner broken off. . . .

“What do you think of the apparatus?” asked
Daimon.

“It’s . . . your first model, eh? It’s still too
complicated.” His eyes fell on a photograph which
was supported on an induction spool. He took it
up and examined it; it represented the head of an
extraordinarily beautiful girl. “Who’s this?” he
asked hoarsely.

Daimon looked at it over his shoulder. “Surely
you recognize her? That’s your beauty whom you
carried here in your arms. A lovely girl, eh?”

“How did she get here?”

Daimon grinned. “Well, probably our tele¬
graphist worships her. Wouldn’t you like to turn
on that large switch? That one with a lever. He’s
that shrunken little man. Didn’t you notice him?
He was sitting in the front row.”

Prokop threw the photograph down on the table
and turned on the switch. A blue spark ran across
the metal screen. Daimon’s fingers played on the
taster and short blue sparks began to flash all over
the apparatus. “So,” said Daimon in a satisfied
tone, watching the display motionlessly.

Prokop grasped the photograph with burning

372 Krakatit

hands. Yes, of course, it was the girl down there
below, there could be no doubt about that, but if
... if, for instance, she had a veil, and was wear¬
ing a fur covered with drops of moisture . . . and
little gloves — Prokop ground his teeth. It was
impossible that she should resemble her so! He
half closed his eyes in the effort to catch a retreating
vision. Again he saw the girl with the veil, press¬
ing to her breast the sealed package and now, now
she turned on him a pure and desperate glance.

Beside himself with excitement, he compared the
photograph with the form in his mind’s eye. Good
heavens, what exactly did she look like? He didn’t
know, he thought, with sudden fear. He only
knew that she was veiled and beautiful. She was
beautiful and veiled, and he had noticed nothing
more, nothing more. And this picture here with
the large eyes and delicate and serious mouth, was
that the one . . . the one asleep down there? But
she had her lips half open, sinful and half-opened
lips and loosened hair and didn’t look like that,
didn’t look like that. Before his eyes was the veil
covered with rain drops. No, that was nonsense;
it could not be the girl down there, it was nothing
like her. This was the face of the girl with the veil
who came in anguish and consternation; her brow
was calm and her eyes darkened with pain. Against
her lips there was pressing her veil, a thick veil with
drops of moisture on it. Why didn’t he raise it, so
as to see what she was like?

“Come along, I have something I want to show
you,” said Daimon, and dragged Prokop outside.

Krakatit 373

They stood on the top of the slag heap. Beneath
their feet the sleeping earth stretched out of sight.
“Look over there,” said Daimon, pointing to the
horizon, “do you see anything?”

“Nothing. “No, there’s a tiny light. It’s shin¬
ing faintly.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Then there was a faint sound, like the moaning of
the wind on a still night.

“That’s that,” said Daimon triumphantly, and
took off his hat. “Good-night, comrades.”

Prokop turned to him inquiringly.

“Don’t you understand?” said Daimon. “The
noise of the explosion has only just reached us.
Fifty kilometres as the crow flies. Exactly two and
a half minutes.”

“What explosion?”

“Krakatit. Those idiots collected it in match¬
boxes. I don’t think we shall be bothered with
them any more. We’ll call a new conference . . .
elect a new committee - ”

“Did— you - ?”

Daimon nodded. “It was impossible to work
with them. Up to the very last moment they quar¬
relled about tactics. There’s certainly a fire there.”

A faint red light was to be seen on the horizon.

“The inventor of our apparatus was there as well..
They were all there. Now you can take it into your
own hands. Listen how quiet it is. And yet from
these wires a silent and exact cannonade is going out
into space. Now we have interrupted all wireless
communications and the telegraphists are hearing
in their ears, crack, crack! Let them rage. Mean-

374

Krakatit

while Mr. Thomas, somewhere in Grottup, is trying
to complete the preparation of Krakatit. He’ll
never do it. And if he did! At the moment at
which he had completed his synthesis it wTould be the
end. Work away, station, send out your sparks
secretly and bombard the w'hole of the universe.
Nobody, nobody beside yourself will be the ruler of
Krakatit. Now there is only you, you alone.” He
put his hand on Prokop’s shoulder and silently indi¬
cated in a circle the whole wrorld. Round them was
a deserted and starless darkness; only on the hori¬
zon was there to be seen the dull glow of a con¬
flagration.

“Ah, I’m tired,” yawned Daimon. “It was a
good day. We’ll go down.”

■4,

CHAPTER LI

DAIMON hurried along. “Where exactly is Grot-
tup ?” asked Prokop on a sudden impulse, when
they had descended.

“Come,” said Daimon, “I’ll show you.” He led
him into the factory office to a map hanging on the
wall. “Here,” and he indicated on the map with
his enormous nail a little circle. “Wouldn’t you
like to drink something? This sort of thing warms
you up.” He poured out a glassful of some jet-black
liquid for Prokop and himself. “Your health.”
Prokop tossed down his portion and gulped; it
was red-hot and as bitter as quinine; his head began
to spin dizzily. “Any more?” said Daimon through
his yellow teeth. “No? A pity. You don’t want
to keep your little beauty waiting, eh?” He drank
glass after glass. His eyes flashed with a green
light, he wanted to babble but could not master his
tongue. “Listen, you’re a good chap,” he said.
“Get to work to-morrow. Old Daimon will give you
everything you ask for.” He rose unsteadily and
made him a low bow. “Now everything’s in order.

And now — wa-wait - ” He began to talk all

possible languages at once. As far as Prokop was
able to understand, it was unutterable filth. Linally
he hummed some senseless song, threw himself
about as if in a fit and lost consciousness. Yellow7
foam appeared on his lips.

375

376 Krakatit

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” cried Pro-
kop, shaking him.

Daimon opened his glassy eyes with difficulty.
“What . . . what’s up?” he muttered, raised him¬
self up a little and shook himself. “Aha ! I’m
. . . I’m . . . That’s nothing.” He rubbed his
forehead and yawned convulsively. “Yes, I’ll show
you to your room, eh?” He was horribly pale and
his Tartar face had suddenly grown flabby. He
walked uncertainly as if his limbs were numbed.
“Come then.”

He went straight to the room in which they had
left the girl sleeping. “Ah,” he cried from the
doorway, “the beauty has woke up. Come in,
please.”

She was kneeling by the hearth. Evidently she
had just lit the fire and was looking into a crackling
flame. “Look how she’s arranged it,” said Daimon
appreciatively. Certainly the stuffy and depressing
aspect of the room had disappeared in the most
extraordinary way; it was now pleasant and unpre¬
tentious like a room in one’s own home.

“How clever you are,” said Daimon admiringly.
“Girl, you ought to settle down.” She stood up
and became red and confused. “Don’t be fright¬
ened now,” said Daimon. “Here’s the comrade
you like.”

“1 es, I like him,” she said simply, and went over
and closed the window and pulled down the blinds.

The stove threw a pleasant heat into the bright
room. “Child, you’ve made everything very nice,”
said Daimon, gratified, warming his hands. “I
should like to stay here.”

Krakatit

377

“Please go away,” she cried quickly.

“At once, my dear,” said Daimon, grinning. “1
. . . I feel lonely without people. Look, your

friend seems to be struck dumb. Wait, I’ll talk to
him.”

She suddenly became angry. “Don’t say any¬
thing to him! Let him behave as he wants to !” He
raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. “What?
what? You don’t mean to say that you lo - ”

“What’s that to do with you?” she interrupted
him, her eyes flashing. “Who wants you here?”

He laughed quietly, leaning against the stove.
“If you knew how that suits you! Girl, girl, has
it really at last happened seriously to you? Show
me !” He tried to take hold of her chin. She drew
back, pale with rage, showing her teeth.

“What? You even want to bite? Who were

you with yesterday, that you are so - Aha ! I

know. Rosso, eh?”

“That’s not true,” she cried with tears in her
voice.

“Leave her alone,” said Prokop sternly.

“Well, well, it doesn’t matter,” muttered Dai¬
mon. “Anyway, I mustn’t interfere with you, eh?
Good-night, children.” He stepped back, pressed
himself to the wall and before Prokop realized the
fact, had disappeared.

Prokop drew a chair up to the crackling stove and
stared into the flames without even looking round at
the girl. He heard her walking about the room
hesitatingly on the tips of her toes, putting some¬
thing straight. He did not know what she was
doing. She was now standing still silently. There

37 8 Krakatit

is an extraordinary power in flames and flowing
water; you stare at them, become bewildered, cease
to think, know nothing, and are unable to recollect
anything, but before you there is represented every¬
thing that has ever happened without form and out¬
side time.

There was the sound of one slipper being thrown
down after the other; evidently she was taking her
shoes off. Go to sleep, girl, when you are asleep
we shall see who it is whom you resemble. Very
quietly she crossed the room and then stopped.
Again she arranged something. God alone knew
why she wanted to have everything so clean and tidy.
And suddenly she knelt down in front of him,
stretching out her comely arms to his feet. “Shall
I take off your boots for you?” she said gently.

He took her head between his palms and turned
it towards him. She was beautiful, submissive and
extraordinarily serious. “Did you ever know
Thomas?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

She reflected and then shook her head.

“Don’t lie! You . . . you . . . Have you a
married sister?”

“I haven’t!” She tore herself sharply out of
his grasp. “Why should I lie? I’ll tell you every¬
thing deliberately so that you shall know — I’m a -
fallen girl.” She hid her face against his knees.
“They all . . . so that you shall know - ”

“Even Daimon?”

She did not answer but only shivered. “You
. . . you may kick me . . . I’m . . . don’t touch
me . . . I’m ... if you knew ...” She was
unable to go on.

Krakatit

379

“Leave that,” he cried in pain and raised her head
by force. Her eyes were wide open with despera¬
tion and anxiety. He let go her head again and
moaned. The resemblance was so striking that he
gulped with horror. “Be quiet, at least be quiet,”
he said in a strangled voice.

She again pressed her face against him. “Let
me ... I must tell you everything ... I began
when I was thir . . . thirteen ...” He covered
her mouth with his hands; she bit it and continued
her terrible confession through his fingers. “Be
quiet,” he cried, but the words tore themselves out
of her, her teeth chattered, she trembled and went
on. Somehow he managed to silence her. “Oh,”
she moaned, “if you knew . . . the things that
people do ! And every one, every one is so rough
with me . . . as if I was . . . not even an animal,
not even a stone !”

“Stop,” he said, beside himself, and, not knowing
what to do, smoothed her head with the trembling
stumps of his fingers. Appeased, she sighed and
became motionless; he could feel her hot breath
and the beat of the artery in her neck.

She began to giggle quietly. “You thought that
I was sleeping, there, in the car. I wasn’t asleep, I
did it on purpose . . . and expected you to behave
. . . like the others. Because you knew the sort of
thing I was . . . and . . . you only became angry
and held me as if I were a little girl . . . as if I were
something sacred ...” Although she was laugh¬
ing, tears suddenly came into her eyes. “Suddenly
— I don’t know why — I was more happy than I had
ever been — and proud — and frightfully ashamed,

38°

Krakatit

but ... it was so beautiful - ” With trembling

lips she kissed his knees. “You . . . you didn’t
even wake me up . . . and laid me down . . . as if
I were something precious . . . and covered my

legs, and said nothing - ” She burst into tears.

“I’ll, I’ll wait on you, let me . . . I’ll take your
boots off. . . . Please, please don’t be angry that
I pretended that I was asleep ! Please - ”

He wanted to raise her head; she kissed his hands.
“For God’s sake, don’t cry!’’ he gulped out.

She drew herself up, surprised, and stopped cry¬
ing. “Why are you reproaching me?” He tried
to raise her face; she defended herself writh all her
strength and entwined herself round his legs.
“No, no, no,” she gasped, laughing, and at the same
time frightened. “I’m plain — I’ve been crying.
You, you wouldn’t like me,” she breathed gently hid¬
ing her face. “It was so long . . . before you
came ! I’ll wait on you and write your letters. . . .
I’m learning to use a typewriter and I know five
languages. You won’t drive me away, will you?
When you took such a long time to come I thought
what I would do . . . and he spoilt everything and
spoke as if . . . as if I were . . . But that isn’t
true . . . I’ve already told you everything. I’ll
. . . I’ll do what you tell me. ... I want to be
decent - ”

“Stand up, I beg you!”

She squatted down on her heels, folded her hands
in her lap and looked at him as if entranced. Now
. . . she was no longer like the one with the veil;
he recalled the sobbing Annie. “Don’t cry any
more,” he said gently and uncertainly.

Krakatit 3Sl

“You are beautiful,” she whispered admiringly.
He grew red and muttered something or other.
“Go ... to bed,” he gulped and stroked her burn¬
ing cheek.

“Do you hate me?” she whispered, blushing.

“No, nothing of the sort.” She did not move,
and gazed at him with anxious eyes. He bent down
and kissed her. She kissed him back clumsily, in
confusion, as if she were kissing a man for the first
time. “Go to bed,” he muttered, worried, “I’ve
still . . . something which I must think out.”

She got up obediently and quietly began to un¬
dress. He sat down in a corner so as not to disturb
her. She took off her clothes without any shame,
but also without the least frivolity. Simply, without
hurrying, she laid aside her underclothes, slowly
took the stockings off her strong and well-shaped
legs. She became reflective, looked down on the
ground, like a child began to observe her long toes,
and glanced at Prokop. She laughed and whis¬
pered: “I’m being quiet.” Prokop in his corner
was hardly breathing: it was again she, the girl
with a veil; this powerful, beautiful and developed
body belonged to her; she would lay aside her
clothing piece by piece in the same lovely and serious
way, her hair would fall like that over her composed
shoulders, she would reflectively stroke her full arms
in the same manner. . . . He closed his eyes, his
heart beating violently. Have you never seen her,
closing your eyes in the most complete solitude, seen
her standing in the quiet light of the lamp amongst
her family, turning her face towards you and saying
something which you couldn’t somehow catch?

382

Krakatit

Have you never, rubbing your hands between your
knees, seen beneath your eyelids the constrained
movement of her hand, a simple and noble move¬
ment in which was the whole of the peaceful and
silent joy of home? Once she appeared to you,
seen from behind, her head bent over something,
and on another occasion you saw her reading by the
light of the evening lamp. Perhaps this now was
only a continuation and would disappear if you were
to open your eyes, and you would be left with noth¬
ing but solitude.

He opened his eyes. The girl was lying in bed,
covered up to her chin, her eyes turned towards him
in passionate and submissive love. He came over
to her, and bent over her face, studying her features
with sharp and impatient attention. She looked at
him interrogatively and made room for him at her
side. “No, no, no,” he muttered and stroked her
lightly on the forehead. “Go to sleep.” She
obediently closed her eyes and hardly seemed to
breathe.

He returned to his corner on tiptoe. No, she’s
not like her, he assured himself. He had an idea
that she was watching him through her half-closed
eyes. This tortured him; he could not even think.
He became irritated, and turned his head away.
Finally he sprang up and crossed the room softly to
look at her. Her eyes were closed and she was
breathing very quietly; she was beautiful and un¬
resisting. “Sleep,” he whispered. She made a tiny
movement of assent with her head. He turned out
the light, and rubbing his hands returned on tiptoe
to his corner near the window.

Krakatit

383

After a long, painful interval he crept to the door
like a thief. Would she wake? He hesitated with
his hand on the catch, opened it with a beating heart,
and stole out into the yard.

It was not yet day. Prokop looked about amongst
the slag heaps, and then climbed over the fence.
He dropped on to the ground, brushed the dirt off
his clothes and made for the main road.

It was all that he could do to see his way. He
looked about him, trembling with cold. Where,
where exactly should be go? To Balttin?

He went on for a few steps and then stopped,
looking down at the ground. Now to Balttin ? As¬
sailed by a fit of rough, tearless crying he turned
back.

To Grottup !

CHAPTER LI I

The paths of the world twist in a curious way.

If you were to follow out all your steps and
all the journeys you have made, what an intricate
design they would make! For by his steps every
one traces out his map of the world.

By the time that Prokop found himself standing
in front of the grille before the factories at Grottup,
it was already evening. The factory consisted of a
great stretch of sheds, illuminated by the dull globes
of arc lamps; the lights were still showing from one
or two windows. Prokop thrust his head through
the bars of the grille and cried: “Hallo!”

The doorkeeper, or perhaps the guard, came up.
“What do you want? It’s forbidden to enter.”

“Excuse me, is Mr. Engineer Thomas still with
you?”

“What do you want with him?”

“I must speak to him.”

“. . . Mr. Thomas is still in the laboratory.
You can’t see him.”

“Tell him . . . tell him that his friend Prokop is
waiting for him . . . that he has something which
he wishes to give him.”

“Get farther away from the grille,” muttered the
man, and called some one.

A quarter of an hour later some one in a long
white coat came up to the grille.

384

Krakatit 385

“Is that you, Thomas?” cried Prokop in a low
voice.

“No, I’m the laboratory assistant. Mr. Thomas
can’t come. He has important work. What do you
want?”

“I must speak with him urgently.”

The laboratory assistant, a stout and active little
man, shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m afraid it’s no good. Mr. Thomas isn’t free
to-day even for a second.”

“Are you making Krakatit?”

The assistant snorted evasively. “What’s that to
do with you ?”

“I must . . . warn him of something. I’ve some¬
thing to give him.”

“You can give it to me. I’ll take it to him.”

“No, I’ll . . . I’ll only give it to him. Tell
him - ”

“All the same, you could leave it with me.” The
man in the white coat turned on his heel and went
off.

“Wait,” cried Prokop. “Give him this. Ex¬
plain to him . . . explain to him. ...” He drew
out of his pocket the crumpled package and passed
it through the grille. The assistant took it sus¬
piciously with the tips of his fingers and Prokop felt
as if he had torn himself away from something.
“Tell him that . . . that I’m waiting here and that
I should like him to ... to come here!”

“I’ll give it him,” said the assistant and went
away.

Prokop squatted down on his heels. On the other
side of the partition a silent shadow continued to

3 86 Krakatit

watch him. It was a frosty night, tjhe bare branches
of the trees stretched into the fog, there w~as a
slimy and chilly feeling in the air. A quarter of an
hour later some one came up to the grille — a pale
youth, evidently suffering from lack of sleep, with
a face the colour of curds.

“Mr. Thomas says that he thanks you very much
and that he can’t come and that you mustn’t wait,”
he announced mechanically.

“Wait,” said Prokop impatiently through his
teeth. “Tell him that I must see him, that . . .
that it’s a question of his life. And that I will give
him anything that he wants if . . . if he will only let
me know the name and address of the lady from
whom I brought him the parcel. You understand?”

“Mr. Thomas only told me to say that he thanks
you very much,” repeated the lad in a sleepy voice,
“and that you are not to wait - ”

“But — the devil,” groaned Prokop through his
teeth, “I’ll explain when he comes and shan’t move
until then. And tell him that he must leave his
work or that . . . he’ll go up in the air, see?”

“Please,” said the youth dully.

“Ask him to come here ! And to give me that
address, only that address, and say that then I’ll
give him everything, have you understood?”

“Please.”

“Well, go then, quickly, for heaven’s - ”

He waited in feverish impatience. Was that the
step of a human being within? He had a sudden
vision of Daimon, twisting his violet mouth and
staring at the blue sparks of his apparatus. And
this idiot Thomas didn’t come ! He was preparing

Krakatit

387

something over there where one could see the lighted
window and had no idea that he was being bom¬
barded, that with his quick hands he was digging
a grave for himself. Was that a step? No one
came.

Prokop was rent by a hoarse cough. I’ll give
you everything, madman, if you will only come and
tell me her name ! I want nothing, nothing except
to find her. I’ll give you everything if you will
only tell me this one thing! His eyes stared into
the distance and now she was standing in front of
him, veiled, with dry leaves at her feet, pale and
extraordinarily serious in this darkness. She twisted
her hands on her breast and had already given him
the parcel. She looked at him with deep, attentive
eyes; her veil and fur were covered with drops of
moisture. “You were unforgettably kind to me,”
she said softly in a muffled voice. She raised her
hands to him and again he was convulsed by a fierce
cough. Oh, was nobody coming? He threw him¬
self at the grille, trying to force his way through.

“Stay where you are, or I shoot,” cried the shadow
from the other side. “What do you want here?”

Prokop drew back. “Please,” he said desper¬
ately in a hoarse voice, “tell Mr. Thomas . . . tell
him ...”

“Tell him yourself,” the voice interrupted him
illogically, “but keep away.”

Prokop again squatted down on his heels. Per¬
haps Thomas would come when his experiment again
missed fire. Certainly, he would not be able to
discover how Krakatit was prepared; then he would
come and call Prokop. . . . He sat hunched up

388 Krakatit

like a beggar. “Look here,” he said at length. “I’ll
give you . . . ten thousand if you’ll let me

through.”

“I’ll have you arrested,” answered the voice
sharply and inexorably.

“I . . . I . . .” stammered Prokop. “I only
want to know that address. See? I only want to
know that . . . I’ll give you anything if you will
only get it for me! You . . . you’re married, and
have children, but I . . . I’m alone . . . and I
only want to find ...”

“Keep quiet,” scolded the voice. “You’re drunk.”

Prokop became silent and rocked himself on his
heels. “I must wait,” he reflected dully. “Why
does nobody come? I’ll give him everything, Kra¬
katit and everything else if he’ll only . . . ‘You
were unforgettably kind to me.’ No, God preserve
me, I’m a bad man, but you, you awakened in me
the passion of tenderness. I would do anything in
the world to earn a look from you; you know why
I’m here. The most beautiful thing about you is
that you have the power of making me serve you.
That’s why, you see, I can’t help loving you !”

“What’s up with you?” came the voice from the
other side of the grille. “Are you going to be quiet
or not?”

Prokop stood up: “Please, please tell him - ”

“I’ll set the dog on you!”

A white figure, accompanied by the glowing end
of a cigarette, sauntered up to the partition. “Is
that you, Thomas?” cried Prokop.

“No. Are you still here?” It was the labora¬
tory assistant. “Man, are you mad?”

Krakatit

389

“Is Mr. Thomas coming, please?”

“He wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” said the
assistant contemptuously. “He doesn’t need you.
In a quarter of an hour we shall have it ready, and
then, gloria victoria ! Then I shall have a drink.”

“Please tell him that . . . that I want that
address !”

“That’s already been dealt with by the boy,” said
the assistant. “Mr. Thomas tells you to go to hell.
Do you think that he’ll leave his work just now when
the great moment is being reached? We’re on the
point of making it and then — there we are.”

Prokop screamed out in horror : “Run and tell
him — quickly — that he mustn’t turn on the high fre¬
quency current ! He must stop it ! Or — something
will happen — run as fast as you can ! He doesn’t
know ... he doesn’t know that Daimon — for
God’s sake stop him !”

“Pooh!” the assistant broke into a short laugh.

“Mr. Thomas knows what he’s doing and you - ”

Here the butt of the cigarette flew through the par¬
tition. “Good-night!”

Prokop sprang to the grille.

“Hands up,” came a cry from the other side,
and the guard’s whistle sounded piercingly. Prokop
took to flight.

He ran along the main road, jumped over the
ditch at the side, and ran over the soft ground,
stumbling over a ploughed field. He fell over,
picked himself up, and dashed on. He stopped
with a beating heart. All around him was darkness
and deserted fields. Now they wouldn’t be able to
catch him. He listened; all was quiet. He could

390

Krakatit

hear nothing but the sound of his own breath. But
what — what if Grottup should be blown into the
air? He clutched his head and ran on further,
descending into a deep valley, scrambling up on the
other side, and then limping over more ploughed
fields. He felt the acute pain of his old wound
and a burning sensation in his chest. He could go
no further, sat down on a stone and looked at Grot-
tup, mistily glowing with its arc lamps. It seemed
like a bright island in the midst of boundless dark¬
ness. It was oppressively dark, and yet within a
radius of thousands and thousands of miles a terrible
and unremitting attack was being launched. Dai-
mon on his Magnetic Hill was precisely and silently
bombarding the whole world. In all directions
waves were being sent out which would ignite the
first grain of Krakatit which they encountered any¬
where in the world. And there, in the dead of
night, bathed in this pale light, an obdurate, wrong¬
headed man was working, bending over a secret
process of transformation. “Thomas, look out!”
cried Prokop, but his voice was lost in the darkness
like a stone thrown into a pond by some childish
hand.

He sprang up, trembling with fear and cold, and
dashed on further, as far as he could from Grottup.
He found himself in the middle of some swampy
place and stopped. Had he heard the noise of an
explosion? No, all was quiet, and with a new access
of terror he clambered up a slope, slipped on to
his knees, sprang up again and dashed on, rushing
into some bushes, tearing his hands, slipping about,
and then descending again. He drew himself up,

Krakatit 39 1

brushed away the sweat with his bleeding hands, and
ran on.

In the middle of a field he came across something
white — a cross which had been overturned. Breath¬
ing heavily, he sat down on its vacant support. He
was now a long way from the ruddy glow over
Grottup, which was already on the horizon; it now
seemed to be on the surface of the ground. Pro-
kop breathed a deep sigh of relief; there was no
sound; perhaps Thomas’s experiment had failed and
the terrible thing would not happen. He listened
cautiously; no, nothing was to be heard but the cold
dripping of water in some gutter underground and
the beating of his heart.

Then an enormous black mass was thrown into
the air over Grottup and all the lights went out.
The next moment, as if the darkness had been torn
asunder, a pillar of fire leapt into the air, spread
terribly and liberated a tremendous body of smoke.
Directly afterwards came an impact through the
air, something cracked, the trees began to rustle,
and — crash ! A terrible blow, as with a whip, an
uproar, a shattering blow. The earth trembled
and torn-off leaves whirled through the air. Snatch¬
ing for air, and holding on with both hands to the
support of the cross, so as not to be swept away,
Prokop stared wildly at the roaring furnace.

And the heavens shall be cleaved by a fiery power
and the voice of God shall be heard in the thunder.

Two more masses went up, one after the other,
and were broken up by a band of fire. Then came
the sound of a still more terrible explosion — evi¬
dently the ammunition stores. A roaring mass flew

392

Krakatit

into the air, exploded, and came down in the form
of a ray of sparks. The roar changed into a pound¬
ing bombardment; in the stores there were exploding
rockets which flew up like sparks from an anvil. A
purple fire glowed on the horizon, and there was a
continuous succession of reports like the noise of a
machine gun. A fourth and fifth explosion fol¬
lowed with the noise of a howitzer. The fire spread
on both sides and soon half the horizon was a flame.

Only then could he distinguish the sound of the
crackling of the timber in Grottup, but this was still
nearly obscured by the explosion of the arsenal. A
sixth explosion resounded firm and clear — evidently
kresylite. As a sort of accompaniment, came the
deeper note of the explosion of casks filled with
dynamite. A huge flaming projectile flew half-way
across the sky, leaving an enormous trail of flame
behind it. Another flame sprang up, went out, and
reappeared a short distance away, but the noise of
the explosions only arrived a few seconds later. For
a moment it was so quiet that one could hear the
crackling of the fire, like that of broken brushwood.
Then there was a further rending explosion and
above the Grottup factories there sprang up a flame
which spread to the town of Grottup.

Aghast with fear, Prokop picked himself up and
staggered on further.

CHAPTER LIII

He ran along the main road, breathing heavily,
passed over the top of the hill, and descended
into a valley. The ruddy flow disappeared behind
him. There disappeared also the objects lit up by
the dull glow and the shadows thrown by it. It
was as if everything was drifting confusedly away,
motionless, as if it were being carried on the breast
of an immense river, a river untroubled by any
wave and unvisited by any bird. He grew afraid
of the beat of his own feet in the midst of this silent
and immense flux of everything; he relaxed his
pace, trod more softly, and went on through the
milky darkness.

In front of him on the road die saw the twinkling
of a light. He wanted to avoid it, stopped and
hesitated. A lamp on a table, the remains of fire
in a stove, a lantern looking for a path, while some
worn-out moth beat its wings against the flickering
light. He approached it without hurrying, as if
not sure of himself. He stopped, warmed himself
from a distance at the unsteady fire, came nearer
with a fear that he would again be driven away. A
short distance away he stopped again; it was a
cart with a covering of cloth. On one of the shafts
was hanging a lighted lantern which threw trembling
handfuls of light on to. a white horse, white stones,

393

394 Krakatit

and the white stumps of birch trees at the side of the
road. On its head the horse had a rough sack and
was crunching some oats. It had a long, silver mane
and a tail which had never been clipped. At its
head there stood a little old man with a white beard
and silver hair. He also in colouring was coarse
and pale, like the covering over the cart. He
stamped about, reflecting, saying something to him¬
self and twisting the white mane of the horse in his
fingers.

Then he turned round, looking blindly into the
darkness, and asked in a trembling voice : “Is that
you, Prokop? Come along, I’ve been waiting for
you.”

Prokop was not surprised, but only inordinately
relieved. “I’m coming,” he said, “but I’ve been
running I”

The old man stepped up to him and took hold of
him by the coat. “You’re quite wet,” he said re¬
proachfully. “You mustn’t catch cold.”

“Old man,” said Prokop hoarsely, “do you know
that Grottup has exploded?”

The old man shook his head regretfully. “And
what a lot of people must have been killed! You
ran away, eh? Sit down on the coach-box, I’ll give
you a lift.” He stumped over to the horse and
slowly removed the sack of oats. “Hi, hi, that’s
enough,” he mumbled. “We must get along, we’ve
a guest.”

“What have you got in the cart?” asked Prokop.

The old man turned round to him and smiled.
“The world,” he said. “Haven’t you ever seen the
world?”

Krakatit

395

“No, I haven’t.”

“Then I’ll show you — wait.” He put the nose¬
bag away and, without hurrying, began to undo the
covering on the other side. Then he threw it back,
revealing a box into which had been inserted a spy¬
hole covered with a glass. “Wait a moment,” he
said, looking for something on the ground. He
picked up a small branch, squatted on his heels over
the light, and lit the wick, all this slowly and seri¬
ously. “Now, burn nicely, burn,” he said to it, shel¬
tering it with his hands. Then he placed it inside
the box, lighting it up. “I use oil,” he explained.
“Some of them have carbide . . . but that carbide
hurts the eyes. And then one day it explodes and
there you are; besides, you might hurt somebody.
And oil, that’s like in a church.” He bent down to
the little window, and peered through it with his
pale eyes. “You can see nicely,” he whispered, de¬
lighted. “Have a look. But you must bend down,
so as to be . . . little . . . like a child. That’s
right.”

Prokop stooped down to the spy-hole. “The
Grecian Temple in Girgent,” began the old man,
“on the island of Sicily, dedicated to God or to
Juno. Look at those pillars. They are made so
carefully that a whole family can eat on each stone.
Think what work that means ! Shall I go on turn¬
ing? — The view from the Mountain of Penegal in
the Alps at sunset. Then the snow is lit up with a
strange and beautiful light, as it’s shown there.
That’s an Alpine light and that other mountain is
called Latemar. Further? — The sacred city of
Benares; the river is sacred and cleanses the sinful.

39 6 Krakatit

Thousands of people have found there what they
sought.”

The pictures were carefully drawn and coloured
by hand. The colours had faded a little and the
paper had a tinge of yellow, but the charming, varie¬
gated effect of the blues, greens, yellows and reds
of the people’s clothing and the pure azure of the
sky remained; every blade of grass wTas drawn with
love and care.

“That sacred river is the Ganges,” concluded the
old man reverently, and turned the handle further.
“And this is Zahur, the most beautiful castle in the
world.”

Prokop simply glued his eye to the hole. He saw
a magnificent castle with graceful cupolas, lofty
palms, and a blue waterfall. A tiny figure with a
turban in which was stuck a feather, with a purple
coat, yellow pantaloons, and a Tartar sabre was
greeting with a low bow a lady dressed in white,
who was leading by the bridle a prancing horse.
“Where . . . where is Zahur?” whispered Prokop.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Some¬
where over there,” he said uncertainly, “where it is
most beautiful. Some find it and some do not.
Shall I go on?”

“Not yet.”

The old man drew away a little and stroked the
leg of the horse. “Wait, nonono, wait,” he said
gently. “We must show it him, see? Let him
enjoy himself.”

“Turn on, grandfather,” said Prokop. He saw
in succession the harbour at Hamburg, the Kremlin,
a polar landscape with the Northern Lights, the

Krakatit 397

Volcano of Krakatau, Brooklyn Bridge, Notre-
Dame, a native village in Borneo, Darwin’s house,
the wireless station in Poldhu, a street in Shanghai,
the Victoria Falls, the Castle of Gernstein, the petro¬
leum wells in Baku. “And this is the explosion in
Grottup,” explained the old man, and Prokop saw
coils of reddish smoke being thrown high up in
the air by a yellow flame. In the midst of the
smoke and flames could be discerned fragments of
human bodies. “More than five thousand people
perished. It was a great disaster,” sighed the old
man. “That’s the last picture. Well, have you seen
the world?”

“No, I haven’t,” muttered Prokop, stupefied.

The old man shook his head in disappointment.
“You want to see too much. You will have to live
for a long time.” He blew out the little lamp and,
muttering to himself, slowly covered the box up
again. “Sit down on the coach-box, we’ll go on.”
He pulled off the sack which was covering the horse’s
back and put it over Prokop’s shoulders. “So that
you shan’t be cold,” he said, and sat down next to
him. He took the reins in his hand and whistled
quietly. The horse set off at a gentle trot. “Hi !
Now then,” sang the old man.

They passed along an avenue of birches, by cot¬
tages half drowned in the mist, a serene and sleeping
countryside. “Grandfather,” Prokop found him¬
self saying, “why has all this happened to me?”

“What?”

“Why have I come up against so many things?”

The old men reflected. “It only seems like that,”
he said finally. “What happens to a man comes

39 8 Krakatit

out of himself. It all winds out of you as if from
a skein.”

“That isn’t true,” Prokop protested. “Why did
I meet the Princess? Grandfather, perhaps . . .
you know me. You know that I’ve been looking
for . . . that other one, you understand? And yet
it happened that — why? Tell me!”

The old man considered this, munching with his
soft lips. “It was your pride,” he said slowly.
“Sometimes it happens to a man like that, he doesn’t
know why, but it’s because he has it in him. And
he begins to throw himself about - ” He illus¬

trated what he was saying with the whip, so that
the horse became uneasy and increased its pace.
“P-r-r-r, what, what?” he cried to it in a thin voice.
“You see, it’s the same as when some little chap
gives himself airs; he upsets everybody. And there’s
no need to make such a fuss. Sit still and watch the
road and you’ll get there all right.”

“Grandfather,” cried Prokop, half closing his
eyes in pain, “have I done wrong?”

“Yes and no,” said the old man cautiously.
“You’ve hurt people. If you had been sensible
you wouldn’t have done it. One must be sensible.
And a man must realize the meaning of everything.
For instance . . . you can burn a hundred crown
note, or use it to pay your debts. If you burn it it
looks more, but . . . it’s the same with women,”
he concluded unexpectedly.

“Did I behave badly?”

“What?”

“Was I wicked?”

“. . . You weren’t clean inside. A man . . .

Krakatit 399

must think more than feel. And you threw your¬
self at everything.”

“Grandfather, that was through Krakatit.”
“What?”

“I ... I made a discovery — and through
that - ”

“If it hadn’t been in you it wouldn’t have been
in the discovery. A man does everything out of
himself. Wait and consider; think and try and
remember what your discovery came from and how
it was made. Think about that carefully and then
say what you know. Hi, no, no, no, p-s-s !”

The cart rumbled over the rough road, the white
horse moving its legs in a tremulous and quaint trot.
The light danced over the ground, lighting up trees
and stones, while the old man bumped up and down
on his seat, singing softly to himself. Prokop was
rubbing his forehead. “Grandfather,” he whis¬
pered.

“Well?”

“I’ve forgotten!”

“What?”

“I . . . I’ve forgotten how to . . . make . . .
Krakatit!”

“There you are,” said the old man calmly. “So
you have found out something.”

CHAPTER LIV

O Prokop it was as if they were passing through

1 the quiet countryside in which he had spent his
childhood, but it was very foggy and the light from
the lantern penetrated no further than the side of
the road, beyond which there was a silent and
unknown land.

“Hohohot,” cried the old man, and the horse
turned off the road right into that veiled, silent
world. The wheels dug into soft grass. Prokop
made out a shallow valley, on each side of which
were leafless thickets, between which was a beautiful
meadow. “P-r-r-r,” cried the old man and slowly
got down from the coach-box. “Get out,” he said,
“we’ve arrived.” He slowly undid the traces. “No¬
body will come after us here.”

“Who?”

“. . . The police. There must be order . . .
but they always want all sorts of papers . . . and
permits . . . and where you are coming from . . .
and where you are going. It’s all more than I can
understand.” He unharnessed the horse, saying to
him quietly: “Keep quiet and you shall have a piece
of bread.”

Prokop stepped down from the cart, numbed by
the journey. “Where are we?”

“Over there where there’s that hut,” said the
old man vaguely. “You will sleep it off and be all

400

Krakatit

401

right.” He took the lantern from the shaft and
threw its light on to a small wooden shed, for hay
or something of the sort, but decrepit, poor and
crazy. “And I’ll make a fire,” he said in his sing¬
ing voice, “and get you some tea. When you’ve
sweated you’ll be well again.” He wrapped Pro-
kop up in the sack and put down the light in front
of him. “Wait while I fetch some wood. Stay
here.” He was just on the point of going off when
something occurred to him. He thrust his hand
into his pocket and looked at Prokop interrogatively.

“What is it, grandfather?”

“I . . . don’t know if you would like to . . .
I’m a star reader.” He brought his hand out of his
pocket again. Through his fingers there was peer¬
ing a little white mouse with red eyes. “I know,”
he babbled on quickly, “that you don’t believe in
such things, but . . . he’s a pretty little chap —
Would you like to?”

“I should.”

“That’s good,” said the old man, delighted.
“S-s-s-s-s — ma — la, hop!” He opened his hand and
the little mouse nimbly ran along his sleeve up to his
shoulder, sniffed delicately at his hairy ear and hid
in his collar.

“He’s a beauty,” breathed Prokop.

The old man’s face glowed with pleasure. “Wait
and see what he can do,” and he ran to the cart,
rooted about in it, and returned with a box full of
tickets arranged in series. He gave the box a shake,
gazing with his shining eyes into the distance. “Show
him, mouse, show him his love.” He whistled be¬
tween his teeth like a bat. The mouse sprang up,

402 Krakatit

ran along his arm, and jumped on to the box. Hold¬
ing his breath, Prokop watched its rosy little paws
searching among the tickets. Finally it took one
in its little teeth and tried to pull it out. Somehow
or other it succeeded, shook its head and at once
seized the next one, pulling that out also. Then it
sat up on its hind legs, gnawing at its tiny paws.

“This is your love,” whispered the old man,
elated. “Out with it.”

Prokop took hold of the ticket and bent over the
light. It was the photograph of a girl . . . the
one whose hair was all loose; her lovely breast was
bare, and the eyes were the same, passionate and
deep — Prokop recognized her. “Grandfather,
that’s not the one !”

“Show me,” said the old man with surprise, tak¬
ing the picture out of his hand. “Ah, that’s a pity,”
he croaked regretfully. “Such a beauty 1 Lala,
Lilitko, that isn’t the one, nanana ks ks ma — la !”
Fie put the photograph back in the box and again
softly whistled. The little mouse looked about with
its red eyes, again took the same ticket in its teeth
and tugged with its head. But the ticket would not
come out; instead it pulled out the next.

Prokop took up the picture; it was Annie, a photo¬
graph taken in the village; she did not know what
to do with her arms, had her Sunday clothes on and
stood there silly and beautiful — “That’s not her,”
whispered Prokop. The old man took the picture
from him, smoothed it and appeared to be saying
something to it. He looked at Prokop uneasily and
sadly and again gave a faint whistle.

“Are you angry?” asked Prokop shyly.

Krakatit 403

The old man said nothing and looked musingly
at the mouse. Again the little creature tried to pull
out the same ticket; but no, it was impossible and
it extracted the next one instead. This was a picture
of the Princess. Prokop moaned and let it fall on
to the ground. The old man silently bent down and
picked it up.

“Let me try myself,” cried Prokop hoarsely, and
thrust his hand into the box. But the old man
stopped him: “That’s not allowed!”

“But she . . . she’s there,” said Prokop through
his teeth. “The right one’s there!”

“Everybody’s there,” said the old man, caressing
the box. “Now you shall have your planet.” He
whistled quietly, and the mouse ran along his arm
and drew out a green slip of paper. A moment
later it was back again; evidently Prokop fright¬
ened it. “Read it to yourself,” said the old man,
carefully putting the box away. “I’ll be fetching
some wood — and don’t be worried.”

He stroked the horse’s side, stowed the box away
in the bottom of the cart and set off for the thicket.
His light-coloured coat disappeared in the darkness.
The horse watched him for a moment and then
jerked his head and followed him. “Ihaha,” the
old man could be heard saying, “so you want to
come with me? Ah! Hoty, hotyhot, ma-ly!”

They disappeared in the fog and Prokop remem¬
bered the green ticket. “Your planet,” he read by
the flickering light. “You are an honourable man,
with a good heart and more learned than others in
your profession. You will have to suffer a lot of
opposition, but if you avoid impetuousness and arro-

404 Krakatit

gance you will obtain the respect of your neighbours
and an exalted position. You will lose much but
you will later be rewarded. Your unlucky days are
Tuesdays and Fridays. Saturn Conj. b. b. Martis.
DEO gratias.”

The old man loomed out of the darkness with his
arms full of sticks. Behind him appeared the white
head of the horse. “Well,” he whispered tensely
and with a certain amount of the shyness of an
author, “did you read it? Is it a good planet?”

“It is, grandfather.”

“There you are,” said the old man, relieved,
“everything will turn out all right, praise be to
God.” He put down the armful of brushwood and,
muttering happily, lit a fire in front of the hut.
Then he again rummaged in the cart, produced a
kettle and stumped off for some water. “In a min¬
ute, in a minute,” he murmured. “Boil, boil, w^e
have a guest.” He ran about like an agitated hos¬
tess. In a moment he had come back again with
some bread and bacon, at which he sniffed with
delight. “And salt, salt,” he cried, slapping him¬
self on the forehead. He ran back to the cart. At
last he had settled down by the fire. He gave Pro-
kop the larger portion and himself slowly munched
every mouthful. Prokop was suffering from smoke
in the eyes or something of the sort; tears ran down
his face as he ate. The old man gave every other
mouthful to the horse, whose head was bent over his
shoulder. And suddenly, through a veil of tears,
Prokop recognized him : it was the old, wrinkled
face which he had always seen on the wooden ceil¬
ing of his laboratory ! How often had he not looked

Krakatit

405

at it when going off to sleep ! And in the morning
when he woke up it was completely different — noth¬
ing but knots, dampness and dust.

The old man smiled. “Does it taste good? Ah,
at last it’s boiling!” He bent over the kettle, raised
it with an effort and limped off to the cart. In a
moment he was back with a couple of mugs. “Just
hold it a minute.” Prokop took one of the mugs;
on it was painted in gold the name “Ludmila,” sur¬
rounded with a garland of forget-me-nots. He
read the name twenty times and tears came into his
eyes. “Grandfather,” he whispered, “is . . . that
. . . her name?”

The old man looked at him with sad, tender eyes.
“So that you know,” he said softly, “it is.”

“And . . . shall I never find her?”

The old man said nothing but only blinked rapidly.
“Hold it out,” he said uncertainly, “I’ll give you
some tea.”

Prokop held out the mug with a trembling hand
and the old man carefully poured into it some strong
tea. “Drink it while it’s warm,” he said gently.

“Th — thank you,” sobbed Prokop and took a sip
of the sharp-tasting drink.

The old man stroked his long hair reflectively.
“It’s bitter,” he said slowly, “it’s bitter, isn’t it?
Wouldn’t you like a bit of sugar?”

Prokop shook his head. He felt the bitter taste
of tears, but his breast was filled with a generous
warmth.

The old man sipped at his mug noisily. “And
now look,” he said, so as to make things easier,
“what I’ve got painted on mine.” He handed him

40 6

Krakatit

his mug; on it was depicted an anchor, a heart and
a cross. “That’s faith, love and hope. Don’t cry
any more.” He stood over the fire with his hands
clasped. “Dear one, dear one,” he said softly, “you
will not achieve the highest and you will not release
everything. You tried to tear yourself to pieces
by force, but you have remained whole and you will
neither save the world nor smash it to pieces. Much
in you will remain closed up, like fire in a stove; that
is good, it is sacrifice. You wanted to do too great
things, and you will instead do small ones. That is
good.”

Prokop knelt down in front of the fire, not dar¬
ing to raise his eyes. He knew now that it was God
the Father who was speaking to him.

“It is good,”' he whispered.

“It is good. You will do things which will help
people. He whose thoughts are full of the highest
turns away his eyes from people. Instead you will
serve them.”

“That is good,” whispered Prokop, on his knees.

“Now you see,” said the old man, pleased, and
squatted down on his heels. “Tell me, what’s this —
what do you call it? Your invention?”

Prokop raised his head. “I’ve . . . forgotten.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the old man reassured
him. “You’ll take up other things. Wait a mo¬
ment, what was it I was going to say? Aha ! Why
was there such a great explosion? That’s more
people injured. But look about and search; perhaps
you’ll find . . . well, perhaps only such pf-pf-pf,”
he said, blowing out his soft cheeks, “you see? So
that it should only be puf-puf . . . and do some-

Krakatit 407

thing which will work for people, do you under¬
stand?”

“You mean,” muttered Prokop, “some sort of
cheap energy, eh?”

“Cheap, cheap,” agreed the old man, delighted.
“So that it could be very useful. And shine, and
warm, you understand?”

“Wait,” said Prokop reflectively, “I don’t know
— that would mean experimenting all over again
. . . from the other end.”

“That’s it. Start from the other end and there
you are. There, you see, you’ve something to begin
with right away. But leave that other. I’ll get
your bed ready.” He got up and limped off to the
cart. “Hato hot ma-ly,” he sang, “we’re going to
bed.” He returned with a rough mattress. “Come
along,” he said, took the lantern and led the way
into the wooden shed. “There’s straw enough,”
he croaked as he made the bed ready, “for all three
of us. Praise be to God.”

Prokop sat down on the straw. “Grandfather,”
he cried, amazed, “look!”

“What?”

“There, on the wall.” On each of the planks
forming the side of the hut there had been written
large letters in chalk. Prokop read them by the
flickering light of the lantern : K . . . R . . . A
...K...A...T...

“That’s nothing, that’s nothing,” muttered the
old man reassuringly and quickly rubbed them out
with his cap. “That’s all over. Just lie down and
I’ll cover you with a sack. So.”

He went to the doorway. “Dadada ma-ly,” he

Krakatit

408

sang in his trembling voice and the horse thrust its
beautiful silver head through the door and rubbed
its nose against the old man’s coat.

“Come in, come in,” he said, “and lie down.”

The old horse ambled into the shed, scratched
with its hoofs the opposite wall and knelt down.
“I’ll find a place between you,” said the old man,
“he’ll breathe on you and you'll be warm. So.”

He sat down quietly near the door. Behind him
could still be seen the glow of the dying fire, and
the pale blue eyes of the horse, turned on him. The
old man muttered something to him, nodding his
head. . . .

Prokop closed his eyes in bliss. “Why . . . why,
it’s my old father,” he said to himself. “God! how
old he’s grown ! His neck’s become scraggy - ”

“Prokop, are you asleep?” whispered the old
man.

“No,” answered Prokop, trembling with love.

The old man began to sing gently a strained and
quiet song: “Lalala hou, dadada pan, binkili bunkili
hou ta ta. . . . ”

Then Prokop fell into a sweet and healing sleep,
free from all dreams.

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Capek, Karel, 1890-1938
Krakativ Translated by Lawren

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