The end of everything. It was almost a relief, at least something
certain and restful, and Prokop entered into the fact with his usual
thoroughness. 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 humiliation. 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 would still say: The end! “Darling, darling,” Prokop heard her
whisper, and then he burst out in 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 gentleman 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 whispered triumphantly, “shall I turn on the
lights?”
“No.” Prokop crushed the thin envelope in his fingers and became aware of
the familiar, penetrating 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 mustn’t come to us this evening. All right, Princess, 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 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 became 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 uninterruptedly for sixteen hours.
He awoke like another man, sober, steady and cold. He felt utterly
indifferent to what had happened before he fell asleep. He again began
to work assiduously and methodically on the explosive disintegration of
atoms, and theoretically arrived at 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 was seized by a sudden feeling
of restlessness. “Probably I’m 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 way 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 went inside. Everything was as he had left it, but in the
air was the familiar scent of the Princess. “Absurd, absurd,” thought
Prokop. “Suggestion or something of the sort; I’ve 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 was 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 outside. 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!
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 oppressive, 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, followed 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 was something
illegible, scribbled with a broken pencil, 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, yellow flames. But the
storm which would have cleared the air did not break.
* * * * *
The sobered Prokop again threw himself headlong 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 unequivocally 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 awakened suddenly
from dreaming. Probably another visit. Prokop did not trouble to turn
round from the lamp he was using. The door creaked. “Darling!” whispered
somebody. Prokop staggered, 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....