He started out of his sleep covered with a terrible 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 resting 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 unable to breathe and began to suffocate, hiccoughing
with horror. Now I’m 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 she had a box, a por-ce-lain box containing something
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 Princess, which were fixed on him agitatedly and
passionately; 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 Prokop 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 Carson.
They were making love to one another with abrupt, mechanical gestures,
like those of marionettes. 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 Princess, 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 having seen somewhere a dirty parcel tied up with
string, but where was it? They found it in a cupboard; 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 began to sweat
profusely; he was so weak that he scarcely breathed. The Princess at
once sent for the 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 mandarins, 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, forgetting 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
announced, and thereupon emptied a full glass of the benzine which was
kept for washing bandages, evidently 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 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, I’m
absolutely calm. I felt a fluid oozing out of my finger-tips. It could
certainly have been photographed. A sort of ultra-radiation.”
The specialists returned, sent Krafft out of the room in spite of his
protests and again took Prokop’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 collapsed after sixty hours
of watching by Prokop’s bedside. In addition she was extremely anæmic 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 announced that the terrible explosives that Prokop had invented
during the last few days had shown themselves to be as dangerous as
sawdust. In short Prokop must have already been feverish when he prepared
them. The patient accepted this information 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 atmosphere become a little strained.
Meanwhile, in the other wing of the castle, the Princess was coughing
painfully and receiving a report 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 his
teeth and looking impatiently at his watch. From the other side with
awkward, convulsive movements 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? Hagen
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 twenty-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 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 began to whirl round and round, passing over the dead until she
disappeared into the darkness of the night.