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 downstairs 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 eyelids 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 her 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 beautiful
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 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
wondered 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 Balkans, 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 believe 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 following
announcement: “KRAKATIT! Will Eng. P. send his address? Carson, Poste
Restante.” Nothing 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 announcement.... “KRAKATIT! Will Eng.
P. send his address?” and then “Carson, Poste Restante.”
Prokop sat down as if he had been struck with a club. Why—why did I ever
take that cursed paper 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 before him the film that had become blurred in his memory;
a desperate, unduly protracted contest in the laboratory with this heavy,
dull, apathetic substance; 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 miraculously 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 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 débris 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 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 ... I forgot everything; 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 twentieth 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 disappeared? When he had
discovered, however, that this was not the case he experienced a sort
of compulsion 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 impression 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 unconsciousness; 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 instead 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 remote fragrance.
He put it down on the table and began to walk up and down the room. He
would have given a lot to know what 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 muttering 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 that girl and promise—no; no promises from such a waster. But
he would go to her and tell her everything. And then he would disappear
from her eyes forever.
Satisfied with this cavalier decision, Prokop 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.