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 something 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?”
“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 confused and painful.
Prokop would have liked to sink through the ground. “Annie,” he said at
last, breaking the painful silence, “I shall come back. I ... in a few
days.... You see, this is a very important business. A man ... after all
must consider ... his work. And he has, you know, certain ... certain
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 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 “_Au 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 for human impatience; human impatience
desperately 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 godfathers!” 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, perhaps for the hundredth time, drew out the
familiar package. With all possible delays, delays which gave him acute
pleasure, after all sorts of reflections 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 postscript: “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 discovered.
I beseech you not to abuse your terrible influence 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 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 unforgettably kind to me....” And that moment Prokop
would have pounded Thomas to death, that low, shameless scoundrel; but at
the same time he somehow 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 beautiful 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!