KRAKATIT
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK—BOSTON—CHICAGO—DALLAS
ATLANTA—SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON—BOMBAY—CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
KRAKATIT
BY
KAREL ČAPEK
_Translated by_
LAWRENCE HYDE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1925
_All rights reserved_
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
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 substance 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 penetrating eyes which
were fixed on him. He struck 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 Prokop, 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 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 chemistry 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 Hybsmonka.” 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....”
“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 itself—I only left a little
powder on the table, see? All the rest I col—collected in a snuff-box.
There was only a l-l—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 cartridge. Terrible energy. I ... I thought at
first that it was the por-porcel-por-ce-lain, polcelain, porcelene ...
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!”
“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 twisting movement with his whole
body and fell on the ground unconscious.