KRAKATIT/part 1

 

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 pentrating 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 car​tridge. 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.

The first thing of which Prokop was conscious was that everything in him was being shaken and rattled and that some one was holding him firmly round the waist. He had a terrible fear of opening his eyes; he had an idea that everything would collapse on top of him. And when this didn’t happen be opened them and saw in front of him a vague square about which were moving misty balls and strips of light. He was unable to explain it; confusedly he watched the phantom shapes as they jumped about and slid away, having patiently resigned himself to anything which might be in store for him. Then he realized that the rattling was that of the wheels of a cab and that outside lights were slipping past in the fog. Exhausted by this act of observation he again closed his eyes and allowed himself to be carried away.

“Now lie down,” said a quiet voice above his head; “swallow an aspirin and you’ll be better. In the morning I’ll fetch a doctor, yes?”

“Who’s that?” asked Prokop sleepily.

“Thomas. You’re lying down at my place, Prokop. You’ve a fever. Where does it hurt you?”

“Everywhere. I feel giddy. So, you see . . .”

“Just lie quiet. I’ll boil you some tea and you’ll go off to sleep. It’s the result of excitement, see? ​A sort of nervous fever. It’ll be gone before morning.”

Prokop knitted his brows in the effort to remember. “I know,” he said carefully, after a moment. “Listen, some one must throw that box into the river. So that it won’t explode.”

“Don’t worry. Now stop talking.”

“Perhaps I could sit up. Aren’t I heavy?”

“No, lie down.”

“—and you’ve got my chemistry notebook,” Prokop remembered suddenly.

“Yes, you’ll get it back. But now stay quiet, do you hear?”

“My head’s so heavy.”

Meanwhile the cab was rattling up Jecna Street. Thomas was softly whistling a tune and looking out of the window. Prokop was breathing heavily and moaning quietly. The fog made the pavements damp and insinuated itself under one’s coat with its cold, wet slime. It was late and the streets were deserted.

“Here we are,” said Thomas loudly. The cab bumped more noisily over a square and turned off to the right. “Wait, Prokop, can you manage a couple of steps? I’ll help you.”

With an effort Thomas dragged his guest up to the second floor. Prokop seemed to himself to be without weight, and allowed himself to be quickly wafted up the stairs; but Thomas was breathing heavily and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“See, I’m like a thread,” said Prokop, surprised.

“Well,” said Thomas, panting, and opened the door of his flat.

​Prokop felt like a little child while Thomas was undressing him. “My mother,” he began, “when my mother, ever so long ago . . . father sat at the table, and mother carried me to bed, see?”

Then he was in bed, covered up to the chin, his teeth chattering and watching Thomas rapidly making a fire. He could have cried from self-pity and weakness, and he babbled the whole time; then a cold compress was placed on his forehead and he quieted down. He looked about the room; there was a scent of tobacco and women.

“You’re a rogue, Thomas,” he exclaimed seriously, “always having women.”

Thomas turned round. “Well?”

“Nothing. What exactly are you doing just now?”

Thomas waved his hand. “It’s bad, my friend. No money.”

“You womanize.”

Thomas only shook his head.

“And it’s a pity, you know,” began Prokop, with concern. “You could have—look, I’ve been at it for twelve years.”

“And what have you got out of it?” retorted Thomas sharply.

“Well, something here and there. I sold some explosive dextrine this year.”

“For how much?”

“For ten thousand. But that’s nothing. Rubbish. Only an explosive for mines. But if I had wished to . . .”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Fine. I’ve found out some methods for you!

​Nitrate of cerium, there’s an excitable monster for you, man; and chloride, chloride, tetrachloride of nitrogen, that’s exploded by light. You turn on the light, and bang! But that’s nothing. Listen,” he exclaimed, suddenly sticking his thin, terribly mutilated hand out of the bedclothes, “when I take anything in my hand, so . . . I feel the vibration of the atoms. Just like ants. Each kind of substance creeps differently, see?”

“No ”

“That’s power, see? Power in matter. Matter is terribly powerful. I . . . I feel it moving. It holds together . . . with an enormous effort. Once you loosen it inside, it disintegrates. Bang! Everything is an explosive. Every thought is a sort of explosion inside the head. When you give me your hand I feel as if something is exploding inside you. I’ve an extraordinary touch, man. And hearing. Everything is bubbling like effervescent powder. Tiny explosions again. There’s a noise going on in my head. . . . Ratata, like a machine gun.”

“Yes?” said Thomas. “And now swallow this aspirin.”

“Yes. Ex—explosive aspirin. Perchlorated acteylsalicacid. That’s nothing. Man, I’ve discovered an exothermic explosive. Water. Water is an explosive. Every material is really an explosive. The feathers in a feather bed are explosives. At present, you see, this has only a theoretical significance. And I’ve discovered atomic explosions. I—I—I—I’ve made alpha explosions. It disintegrates into plus electrons. No thermochemistry. Des-truc-tion. ​Destructive chemistry, man. That’s a tremendous thing, Thomas, purely scientific. At home I’ve got tables. . . . If only I had apparatus! But I’ve only eyes . . . and hands. . . . Wait, let me write it down!”

“Don’t you want to sleep?”

“I do. To-day—I’m—tired. And what have you been doing all this time?”

“Nothing. Life.”

“Life is an explosive, see? Bang, and a man is born and then, bang, he falls to pieces. And we think it lasts some years, see? Wait a moment, I’ve got something mixed, haven’t I?”

“It’s all right, Prokop. To-morrow, perhaps, we’ll make an explosion. That is, if I haven’t any money. But it’s all the same, just go to sleep.”

“I’ll lend it you if you like.”

“No, thanks, it wouldn’t be enough. Perhaps my father——” Thomas waved his arm.

“So you’ve still got a father,” said Prokop after a moment with sudden gentleness.

“Well, yes. A doctor in Tynice.” Thomas stood up and began to walk up and down the room. “I’m up against it. But don’t worry about me. I—I’ll do something. Sleep!”

Prokop quieted down. Through his half-closed eyes he watched Thomas sit down at the table and rummage among some papers. It was somehow delicious to listen to the rustling of paper and the quiet noise of the fire in the stove. The man bent forward over the table, supported his head ​with his hand and, it seemed, was hardly breathing; and to Prokop it was as if he was at home and looking at his elder brother, Joseph, studying electrical engineering in preparation for the examination the next day. He fell into a feverish sleep.

He dreamed that he heard a noise made by innumerable wheels. “It’s some factory or other,” he thought and ran up the steps. All at once he found himself standing in front of a large door, on which was a glass plate with the name: Plinius. Inordinately delighted, he went in. “Is Mr. Plinius in?” he asked of a girl sitting at a typewriter. “He’ll be here in a moment,” she answered and directly afterwards there appeared a tall, clean-shaven man with enormous circular spectacles. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

Prokop glanced inquiringly at his extraordinarily expressive face. His mouth was of the British variety, his forehead was covered with lines and had a wart the size of a sixpence, his chin was that of a cinema artist. “Are y—you Mr. Plinius?”

“Please,” said the tall man, and with an abrupt gesture indicated the way to his study.

“I am extremely . . . it’s a great honour for me,” stammered Prokop, taking a seat.

“What is it you want?” the tall man interrupted him.

“I’ve disintegrated matter,” announced Prokop. Plinius remained silent; he only played with a steel key and, behind his spectacles, closed his heavy lids.

“It’s like this,” began Prokop impetuously. “E-e-everything is disintegrating, you understand? ​Matter is fragile. But I can make it disintegrate all at once, bang! An explosion, if you comprehend me? Into smithereens. Into molecules. Into atoms. And I’ve also broken up atoms.”

“A pity,” said Plinius, after consideration.

“Why a pity?”

“It’s a pity to break anything. Even an atom. Well, go on.”

“I . . . break up the atom. I am aware that Rutherford has already . . . But that was only donkey work with radiation, you know. That’s nothing. The thing must be done en masse. If I were asked to I could explode a ton of bismuth in that way. It would blow up the whole world. Would you like me to?”

“Why would you do it?”

“It’s . . . scientifically interesting,” said Prokop, confused. “Wait, how shall I . . . It’s amazingly interesting.” He clutched his head. “One moment, my he-head’s splitting; it will be scientifically enormously interesting, eh? Aha!” he burst out, relieved, “now I can explain. Dynamite—dynamite smashes up matter into pieces, lumps, but benzoltrioxozonid reduces it to dust; it makes only a small hole but it disintegrates matter into submicroscopic fragments, see? That’s through the quickness of the explosion. Matter hasn’t time to get out of the way, it can’t even bl—break up, see? But I. . . I’ve accelerated the speed of detonation. Argonozonid. Chlorargonoxozonid. Tetrargon. And so on and on. And suddenly, after a certain speed, the power of explosion increases terribly. It increases . . . quadratically. I watch it, as if ​I were an idiot. Where does it come from, this energy?” demanded Prokop feverishly. “Tell me.”

“Well, perhaps from the atom,” suggested Plinius.

“Aha,” cried Prokop exultantly, and wiped the sweat away from his face. “That’s the amusing part of it. Simply from the atom. It throws the atoms together . . . and t-t-t—tears off the Beta layer . . . and the core disintegrates. It’s an Alpha explosion. Do you realize who I am? I am the first man, sir, who has overcome the coefficient of compressibility. I . . . I have extracted tantalum from bismuth. Listen, do you know the amount of power there is in one gramme of mercury? Four hundred and sixty-two millions of kilogramometres. Matter is frightfully powerful. Matter is a regiment which is marching without moving: one two, one two; but give it the right order and the regiment will attack. En avant! That’s the explosion, you understand? Hurrah!

Prokop was pulled up by his own exclamation; the beating in his head was so loud that he ceased to understand anything. “Excuse me,” he said, in order to cover his confusion, and with a shaking hand felt for his cigar case. “You smoke?”

“No.”

“Even the ancient Romans used to smoke,” Prokop assured him, and opened his case. Inside was nothing but some heavy fuses.

“Light up,” he urged, “this one’s a small Nobel Extra.” He himself bit off the end of a tetryl cartridge and looked round for matches. “Never mind,” he said, “but have you ever heard of explo​sive glass? A pity. Listen, I can make you explosive paper. You write a letter, someone throws it into the fire, and crash! The whole of the place collapses. Would you like that?”

“What for?” asked Plinius, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, I don’t know. Power must out. I’ll tell you something. If you were to walk on the ceiling, what would happen to you? To begin with I have no use for the theory of valency. Everything is possible. Listen, you hear that noise outside? That’s the grass growing; nothing but little explosions. Every seed is an explosive cartridge which goes off. Poof, like a rocket. And those fools think that there is no such thing as tautomerism. I’ll show them such merotropy that they’ll go off their heads. Pure laboratory experience, my dear sir.”

Prokop suddenly had a dreadful feeling that he was babbling nonsense. He tried to extricate himself from his position, but only jabbered all the more quickly, mixing everything up. Plinius nodded his head seriously and finally inclined his body forward more and more, as if he were bowing. Prokop gabbled confused formule, unable to stop himself, his eyes fixed on Plinius who was swinging backwards and forwards with increasing speed, like a machine. The floor began to move and lift under him.

“But stop it, man,” roared Prokop, terrified, and woke up.

Instead of Plinius he saw Thomas who grunted, ​“Don’t shout, please,” without turning round from the table.

“I’m not shouting,” said Prokop, and closed his eyes. Inside his head the blows had become faster and more painful.

It appeared that he was moving with the minimum velocity of light; in some way his heart was compressed. But that was only the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction, he explained to himself; soon he would become as flat as a pancake. And suddenly there appeared in front of him countless glass prisms; no, they were only endless, highly polished planes which intersected at sharp angles like models of crystals. He was thrown against the edge of one of them with terrible speed. “Look out!” he shouted to himself, for in a thousandth of a second he would be smashed to pieces; but at that moment he flew at an enormous speed towards the apex of a huge pyramid. Thrown back from this like a beam of light, he was cast against a wall as smooth as glass, slid along it, whizzed madly along walls set at angles, was hurled back against he knew not what. Cast away again he was falling on to a sharp angle, but at the last moment was thrown upwards again. Now he struck his head on a Euclidean plane and now fell headlong downwards, downwards into darkness. A sudden blow, a painful shuddering of his whole body, but he immediately picked himself up and took to flight. He tore along a labyrinthine passage and heard behind him the noise made by his pursuers; the passage became narrower and narrower, its walls came together with a frightful and inevitable movement; he became as thin as an awl, ​held his breath and dashed along in horror, so as to escape before the walls crushed him. They crashed behind him with a stony impact, while he whirled into a chasm. A frightful blow, and he lost consciousness. When he awoke he was in black darkness; he groped along the slimy stone walls and cried for help, but no sound came from his lips. Such was the darkness.

Shivering with fear, he stumbled about the bottom of the pit. He came upon a path along the side and followed it. Actually it consisted of steps, and above, an incredible distance away, there gleamed a tiny opening, as in a mine. Then he ran up endless and terribly steep stairs; but at the top there was nothing but a platform, a light metal platform which trembled above the dizzy abyss, and downwards there descended endless spiral steps of iron plates. And again he heard behind him the panting breath of his pursuers. Beside himself with fear he dashed down the twisting stairs, and behind him the steps of his enemies clanged upon the iron. Suddenly the spiral steps ended sharply in a void. Prokop shrieked, extended his arms and, still turning, fell into the gulf. His head spun, he saw and heard nothing; with legs that seemed to be bound he ran he knew not whither, dominated by a blind and terrible impulse to reach some place before it was too late. He ran more and more quickly along an endless vaulted corridor; from time to time the number changed on a semaphore, and always higher: 17, 18, 19. Suddenly he realized that he was running in a circle and that the numbers represented the circuits he had made. 40, 41! He was seized with the intolerable fear that he would never get ​away; he whizzed round at an insane speed, so that the semaphore moved like telegraph poles seen from an express train; and still more rapidly! Now the semaphore ceased to move and recorded at a lightning speed thousands and tens of thousands of revolutions, and still there was no exit from this tunnel, and the tunnel was smooth and polished and, as well, was itself rotating. Prokop sobbed with fear. This was Einstein’s universe and he must get there before it was too late! Suddenly there resounded a frightful cry. Prokop was aghast; it was the voice of his father, whom somebody was murdering. He tried to run still more quickly, the semaphore disappeared and everything was dark. Prokop felt along the walls and discovered a closed door, and behind it he again heard desperate wails and the noise of furniture being thrown about. Crying out with horror, he dug his nails into the door, scratched it and tore it into pieces, to find behind it the familar stairs which led him every day to his room when he was little. And upstairs his father was being suffocated, someone was strangling him and dragging him along the floor. Prokop flew upstairs, saw the familiar pail, his mother’s bread-cupboard, and the half-opened door into the kitchen, and there, inside, his father was making a rattling noise in his throat and begging someone not to kill him. Prokop wished to go to his aid, but some blind, mad force obliged him again to run in a circle, faster and faster, laughing convulsively, while the wailing of his father slowly died away. Incapable of escaping from this dizzy, senseless circle, he suddenly burst into a laugh of horror,

​He woke up, covered with sweat, his teeth chattering. Thomas was standing over him in the act of laying another cold compress on his burning forehead.

“That’s good, that’s good,” mumbled Prokop, “now I shan’t sleep any more.” And he lay quietly and watched Thomas sitting near the lamp. George Thomas, he said to himself, and then Duras, and Honza Buchta, Sudik, Sudik, Sudik, and who else? Sudik, Trlica, Trlica, Pesek, Jovanovic, Madr, Holoubek, who wears spectacles, that was our year at chemistry. God, and who’s the other? Aha, Vedral, who was killed in ’sixteen, and behind him there sat Holoubek, Pacovsky, Trlica, Seba, all the men of the year. Then he suddenly heard the words: “Mr. Prokop to be examined.”

He became terribly frightened. At the desk sat Professor Wald, pulling with a dry hand at his beard, as usual. “Let’s hear,” said Professor Wald, “what you know about explosives.”

“Explosives, explosives,” began Prokop nervously, “their explosiveness lies in the fact that—that—that—that a large volume of gas is suddenly liberated which—which expands from the much smaller volume of the explosive mass . . . I beg your pardon, that’s not right.”

“What?” asked Wald severely.

“I—I—I’ve discovered alpha explosives. The explosion takes place, that is to say, through the disintegration of the atom. The parts of the atom fly . . .} fly.”

“Rubbish,” the professor interrupted him. “There are no such things as atoms.”

​“There are, there are, there are,” said Prokop through his teeth. “Please, I’ll demonstrate to you . . .”

“An obsolete theory,” said the professor grufly. “There are no such things as atoms, only gumetals. Do you know what a gumetal is?”

Prokop sweated with fear. He had never heard the word in his life. Gumetal? “I don’t know,” he said in confusion.

“There you are,” said Wald dryly. “And yet you presume to offer yourself for examination. What do you know about Krakatit?”

Prokop stopped uneasily. “Krakatit,” he whispered, “that is . . . that is . . . a completely new explosive, which . . . which up to the present . . .”

“How is it ignited? How? How does it explode?”

“By Hertzian waves,” croaked Prokop with relief.

“How do you know?”

“Because the Krakatit which I prepared exploded for no reason at all. Because . . . because there was no other reason. And because . . .”

“Well?”

“. . . I synthesized it . . . du-du-during high frequency oscillation. This isn’t yet explained, but I think that . . . that there were some sort of electromagnetic waves.”

“There were. I know. Now write down the chemical formula for Krakatit.”

Prokop took up a piece of chalk and scribbled his formula on the board.

“Read it.”

​Prokop read the formula aloud. Then Professor Wald stood up and suddenly said in a voice which was somehow completely different: “How does it run?”

Prokop repeated the formula.

“Tetrargon?” inquired the professor rapidly. “How much Pb?”

“Two.”

“How is it prepared?” inquired the voice, this time extraordinarily close. “The method! How is it prepared? How? How do you prepare Krakatit ?”

Prokop opened his eyes. Thomas was bending over him with a pencil and notebook in his hand and breathlessly watching his lips.

“What?” mumbled Prokop uneasily. “What do you want? How . . . is it prepared?”

“You’ve got some strange idea into your head,” said Thomas and hid the notebook behind his back. “Sleep, man, sleep.”

Now I’ve blurted something out!” Prokop realized with the fragment of his brain that was most clear; but otherwise he was completely indifferent on the subject; all he wanted was to sleep, to sleep inordinately. He saw in front of him a sort of Turkey carpet, the pattern of which continually changed. It was nothing important and yet it somehow agitated him. Even in sleep he yearned to meet Plinius again. He tried to rid himself of his image; instead, he saw before him an abominable grinning face, which ground its yellow, rotten teeth until they were crushed, and then spat them out in pieces. He wanted to get away from this picture. The word “fisherman” came into his head, and presto there appeared to him a fisherman sitting above some grey water with a net full of fish. He said to himself “scaffolding,” and he actually perceived scaffolding to the last hook and rope. For a long time he amused himself by thinking of words and looking at the pictures which they called up; but then not even by exerting all his powers could he recall a single one. He made the most strenuous efforts to remember at least one word or thing, but in vain; and then through the horror of impotence he came out in a cold sweat. He decided that he must go to work methodically; he must begin from the beginning or he was lost. Luckily he remem​bered the word “fisherman”; but now there appeared before his eyes an empty petroleum tin. It was horrible. He said to himself “chair,” and he saw with astonishing clearness the tarred fence of a factory with a patch of dreary, dusty grass and some rusty hoops. This is insanity, he said to himself with cold clearness; this, gentleman, is typical madness, hyperofabula ugongi dugongi Darwin. This technical term for some unknown reason appeared to him to be excruciatingly funny. He positively gulped with laughter and woke up.

He was covered with sweat and had kicked off his bedclothes. With feverish eyes he watched Thomas, who was moving quickly about the room and throwing a few things into a suitcase; but he did not recognize him. “Listen, listen,” he began, “here’s a funny thing, listen, wait a moment, you must listen——” He wanted to tell him as a great joke this extraordinary technical designation, and was already smiling in anticipation; but for the life of him he was unable to recall how exactly it had run. He became annoyed and was silent.

Thomas put on an ulster and a cap; but when he had already picked up the suitcase he hesitated and sat down on the end of Prokop’s bed. “Listen, old chap,” he said with concern, “I’ve got to go away now. To my father, in Tynice. If he doesn’t give me any money I shan’t come back, see? But don’t be worried about that. The doorkeeper’s wife will come in the morning and bring you a doctor, yes?”

“What’s the time?” asked Prokop indifferently.

“Four. Five past four. Perhaps . . . there’s nothing you want, is there?”

​Prokop closed his eyes, resolved to take no further interest in anything in the world. Thomas covered him up carefully and all became quiet.

Suddenly he opened his eyes again fully. Above him he perceived an unfamiliar ceiling round the edge of which there ran an ornament which he had not seen before. He stretched out his hand for the table at his bedside, but groped in the air. Frightened, he turned round and saw, in the place of his laboratory desk, some sort of table with a small lamp. Where there used to be a window there was a screen; in the place of the wash-stand some door or other. This confused him enormously; he could not understand what was happening to him, or where he was. Conquering his giddiness, he sat up in bed. Slowly he realized that he was not at home, but could not remember how he got to be where he was. “Who is that?” he asked aloud on chance, controlling his tongue with difficulty. “Drink,” he said, after a moment, “drink.” It was painfully quiet. He got out of bed and, a little unsteadily, started to look for water. On the washstand he found a carafe and drank from it greedily; but when he was returning to the bed his legs gave way and he sank into a chair, unable to do any more. He sat there for a good hour, perhaps; then he began to shiver with cold, and became overwhelmed with self-pity, thinking that he was in some strange place, that he was not capable of even reaching the bed, and that he was alone, helpless, and without anyone to give him counsel. Suddenly he began to cry convulsively like a child.

When he had cried in this way for a bit his head ​became clearer. At last he was able to get to the bed and lie down with his teeth chattering; no sooner had he got some warmth into his body than he went off into a deep, swoon-like, dreamless sleep.

When he woke up the grey light of day was coming through the window; someone had pulled up the blind and created a certain amount of order in the room. He was unable to comprehend who had done this; but, on the other hand, he remembered the explosion of the day before, Thomas, and his departure. His head was splitting, he felt a weight on his chest, and he was tortured by a tearing cough. That’s bad, he said to himself, that’s really bad; I ought to have gone home and gone to bed there. He got up and began to dress. himself with long pauses. He felt as if something was exercising a horrible pressure on his chest. Then he sat down, indifferent to everything and breathing heavily.

Suddenly the bell rang briefly and lightly. With an effort he remembered himself and went to open the door. Outside was standing a young girl with a veil over her face.

“Does . . . Mr. Thomas live here?” she asked rapidly and confusedly.

“Please,” said Prokop and made way for her. When, hesitating a little, she had passed close by him into the room, he became conscious of a faint and elegant perfume which he inhaled with delight.

He gave her a seat by the window and sat down opposite her, holding himself as straight as he was able to. He felt that through this very effort he must appear to be severe and frozen, which embar​rassed both the girl and himself exceedingly. Behind her veil she bit her lip and cast down her eyes; oh, the delicious smoothness of her face, oh, what small hands and how extraordinarily excited! Suddenly she raised her eyes and Prokop held his breath with ecstasy, so beautiful did she seem to him.

“Mr. Thomas isn’t at home?” asked the girl.

“Thomas has gone away,” said Prokop, with some hesitation. “Last night.”

“Where?”

“To Tynice, to his father.”

“And he returns?”

Prokop shrugged his shoulders.

The girl bent her head down, her hands pulling at something. “And did he tell you why . . . why?”

“THe did.”

“And you think that . . . that he will do it?”

“What?”

“That he will shoot himself.”

In a flash Prokop remembered that he had seen Thomas put a revolver into his suitcase. “To-morrow, perhaps, we’ll make an explosion,” he again heard him mutter through his teeth. He did not wish to say anything. He looked very serious.

“Oh my God!” said the girl, “but this is terrible. Tell me . . .”

“What?”

“If only somebody could follow him! If only somebody could say—could give him—you understand, don’t you, that he mustn’t do it! If only somebody could go after him today——”

​Prokop looked at her hands which were twisting desperately.

“I will go there for you,” he said quietly. “As it happens I’ve got to go somewhere in that direction. If you wish it I——”

The girl raised her head. “Could you really?” she cried joyfully, “could you . . .?”

“I’m an old . . . colleague of his, you see,” explained Prokop. “If you would like to send him a message . . . or send . . . I would willingly . . .”

“You are really very good,” breathed the girl.

Prokop reddened a little. “That’s nothing,” he defended himself. “As it happens . . . I’ve some free time . . . I should like to go away somewhere and also, generally speaking——” He waved his hand in embarrassment. “It’s not worth talking about. I will do anything that you wish.”

The girl blushed and looked quickly in another direction. “I really don’t . . . know how to thank you,” she said in confusion. “I am really very sorry that . . . you. . . . But it is so important—you’re his friend. Don’t you think perhaps that I myself——” Then she got control of herself and turned her clear eyes on Prokop. “I must send him something. From somebody else. I cannot tell you.”

“There is no need to,” said Prokop quickly. “I shall give it him and that’s all there is about it. I am so glad that I am able . . . that I can help him. . . . Is it raining then?” he asked suddenly, looking at the drops of moisture on her fur.

“Yes, it is.”

“That’s good,” said Prokop. He was actually ​thinking how pleasantly cool it would be if he could put his forehead against the fur.

“I haven’t got it with me,” she said, standing up. “It will only be a small parcel. If you could wait . . . I’ll bring it you in two hours’ time.”

Prokop bowed; and in doing so he was afraid of losing his equilibrium. In the doorway she turned round and gave him a direct look. “Au revoir.” She was gone.

Prokop sat down and closed his eyes. The drops of rain on the fur; a thick and bedewed veil; a curiously distant voice; scent; uneasy hands in small tight gloves; a clear and disturbing glance from beneath firm, elegant eyebrows; her hands on her lap; the soft folds of her dress over her strong knees. Oh, little hands in tight gloves! Scent, a dark and vibrant voice, a smooth, pale face. Prokop dug his teeth into his quivering lips, sad, and confused and brave. Blue-grey eyes, eyes clean and full of light. Oh God, how her veil pressed against her lips!

Prokop groaned and opened his eyes. “And she’s Thomas’s girl,” he said to himself, with blind fury. “She knew the way; it wasn’t the first time she had been there. Perhaps here . . . here in this very room . . .” Prokop dug his nails into his palms in intolerable agony. “And I, like a fool, suggest that I shall go after him! I, idiot that I am, am to take him a letter! What . . . have I to do with her?”

Then he had a saving thought. I will dash off home to my laboratory at the top of the house—and she—let her come here! Let her do what she ​wants to! Let . . . her go after him herself, if . . . it’s so important to her——

He looked round the room; he saw the tumbled bed and straightened it a little as he was accustomed to at home. Then it seemed to him that it was not tidy enough, so he did it again, smoothed it and then set about cleaning up the whole place, even trying to arrange the curtains in nice folds. After which he sat down with a dizzy head and a chest which was thumping painfully, and waited.

It seemed to him that he was walking about in an enormous kitchen garden. All around was nothing but cabbage heads, not simply heads, but heads which grinned and were slimy from the creatures which had crawled over them; gibbering heads, blear-eyed, monstrous, watery, pimpled and swollen. They were growing on cabbage stumps, and creeping over them were repulsive green caterpillars. And now across the garden there ran towards him the girl with the veil over her face. She raised her skirts a little and jumped over the heads. But under each of them there suddenly sprouted bare, horribly thin and hairy hands, which clutched at her feet and her skirts. The girl screamed in fear, and raised her skirts still higher, above her strong knees, showing her white legs, and tried to spring out of the way of these grasping tentacles. Prokop closed his eyes; he could not bear the sight of her white strong legs and was nearly mad with dread lest those green heads should defile her. He cast himself on the ground and chopped off the first head with his clasp-knife. It squeaked like an animal and snapped at his hand with its rotten teeth. Now the second and the third head. Christ! would he be able to mow the enormous field before the girl reached the other end? Springing madly about, he trampled them ​down and kicked them; his feet become entangled in their thin sucker-like claws, he fell, was seized, torn and suffocated. Then everything disappeared.

Everything disappeared in whirling confusion. And suddenly he heard quite near the veiled voice: “I have brought you the parcel.” He sprang up and opened his eyes, and before him stood the girl from Hybsmonka, squint-eyed and pregnant, her stomach damp, and gave him something wrapped up ina damp rag. “It’s not her!” groaned Prokop painfully, and suddenly he saw before him the tall, dreary saleswoman who used to stretch his gloves for him on wooden sticks. “It’s not her!” Prokop repeated, and there appeared before him a puffy child on legs bent with rickets who . . . who shamelessly offered herself to him! “Go away,” cried Prokop, and then he saw an overturned can in the middle of a dried-up lawn and some cabbages covered all over with the traces of snails, and this picture would not disappear in spite of all his efforts to banish it.

At that moment the bell rang quietly, with a noise like the piping of a bird. Prokop dashed to the door and opened it. In the passage was standing the girl with the veil, pressing the parcel to her breast and panting for breath. “So it’s you,” said Prokop gently and, without knowing why, was profoundly touched. The girl came in, brushing him with her shoulder as she went past. Her scent moved Prokop painfully.

She remained standing in the middle of the room. “Don’t be angry, please,” she said quietly and somehow hastily, “that I have given you such a ​commission. You see you have no idea why . . . why I—if it’s really causing you any trouble——”

“I will go,” said Prokop in a hoarse voice.

The girl turned her clear serious eyes on him. “Don’t think anything bad of me. I am only afraid that Mr. . . . that your friend may do something which would drive a certain person to death. I have so much confidence in you. . . . You will save him, won’t you?”

“I shall be ever so glad to,” said Prokop softly in an uncertain voice which was not his own; to such an extent was he overcome with excitement. “I . . . what you wish. . . .” He turned his eyes away; he was afraid that he would blurt something out, that perhaps she would hear the loud beating of his heart. He was ashamed of his uncouthness.

And the girl also was infected by his confusion; she blushed terribly and did not know what to do with her eyes. “Thank you, thank you,” she tried to say in a voice which was also somehow uncertain, and she gripped the sealed packet which she held in her hand. There was a silence, a silence which induced in Prokop a sweet and painful dizziness. He felt feverishly that the girl was watching his face askance; and when he suddenly turned his eyes on her he saw that she was looking down on the ground, waiting till she was able to endure his look. Prokop felt that there was something which he ought to say to save the situation; instead he only moved his lips uneasily and trembled with his whole body.

Finally the girl touched his hand and whispered, “That parce——” Then Prokop forgot why he ​was holding his right hand behind his back and reached out for the large parcel. The girl turned pale and recoiled. “You are wounded,” she burst out. “Show me!” Prokop hastily hid his hand again. “It’s nothing,” he assured her quickly; “I just got a slight . . . slight wound.”

The girl, quite pale, drew in her breath sharply as if she herself felt the pain. “Why don’t you go to a doctor?” she said abruptly. “You mustn’t travel anywhere! I . . . I will send somebody else!”

“It’s healing already,” said Prokop, as if something precious were being taken away from him. “Really it’s almost . . . right again, only a scratch, and anyway what nonsense! Why shouldn’t I go? And then, in such matters . . . you can’t very well send a stranger. Really it doesn’t even pain me,—look!” And he shook his right hand.

The girl made a movement of sympathy which was yet severe. “You mustn’t go! Why didn’t you tell me? I. . . . don’t allow it! I don’t want——”

Prokop became extremely unhappy. “Look here,” he said hotly, “it really is nothing; I am used to such things. Look here,” and he showed her his left hand, almost the whole of the little finger of which was missing, while another had a twisted scar on the joint. “That’s the sort of occupation I have, you see?” He did not even notice that the girl shrank away from him with pale lips and was looking at a deep scar on his forehead stretching from the eyes to the hair. “There’s an explosion and there you are. Like a soldier, I get up and run off as fast as I can, you understand? Nothing can ​happen to me now. Give it to me!” He took the parcel out of her hand, threw it into the air and caught it again. “No need for anxiety. I’ll go like a gentleman. Do you know, it’s a long time since I have been anywhere. Do you know America?”

The girl remained silent and watched him with a pained expression.

“It’s all very well for them to say that they have new theories,” muttered Prokop feverishly through his teeth, “but wait; I’ll show them something when I have finished my calculations. It’s a pity that you don’t understand that sort of thing; I could explain it to you. I trust you, I trust you but not him. Don’t trust him,” he said earnestly, “take care. You are so beautiful,” he breathed enthusiastically.

“Up there I never speak to anybody. Only a sort of hut made of planks, you understand? Hal! ha! How frightened you were of those heads! But I won’t give you up! Don’t be frightened of anything! I won’t give you up.”

She looked at him with eyes distended with horror. “But you simply must not go!”

Prokop grew dispirited and became suddenly weak. “No, you mustn’t take any notice of what I’m saying. I’ve been talking nonsense, haven’t I? I simply wanted you not to think about that hand. So that you shouldn’t be frightened. It’s all over now.” He got control of himself again and became stiff and almost sulky through his very concentration. “I shall go to Tynice and find Thomas. I shall give him the parcel and say that it comes from a young lady whom he knows. Is that right?”

​“Yes,” said the girl with some hesitation, “but really you must not——

Prokop tried to muster a supplicatory smile. His heavy scared face suddenly grew beautiful. “Leave it to me,” he said quietly, “it’s . . . for you.”

The girl blinked her eyes; a sharp feeling had suddenly driven her nearly to tears. She inclined her head silently and gave him her hand. He raised his shapeless left hand. She looked at him interrogatively and pressed it warmly. “Thank you so much,” she said quickly, “good-bye!”

In the doorway she stopped as if she wished to say something. Twisting the handle, she waited.

“Am I to . . . to convey any greeting to him?” asked Prokop with a wry smile.

“No,” she said quietly and gave him a quick glance. “Au revoir.”

The door closer behind her. Prokop looked after her and suddenly he felt mortally heavy and weak, his head began to swim, and it cost him an immense effort to take a single step.

At the station he had to wait an hour and a half. He sat down in the corridor shivering with cold. His wounded hand pulsated painfully. He closed his eyes and immediately it seemed to him that this aching hand was growing, that it was as big as a head, as a gourd, as a cauldron, and that all over it the flesh was twitching feverishly. At the same time he felt oppressively faint and a cold sweat kept on breaking out on his forehead. He did not dare to look at the dirty, muddy floor covered with spittle—his stomach would have risen. He tore off his collar and fell half asleep, gradually overpowered by an infinite indifference. He had the impression that he was a soldier, lying wounded in the open field; where . . . where are they fighting all the time? Then there sounded in his ears a loud ringing, and someone shouted . . . “Tynice, . . . Duchcov, . . . Moldava! Take your seats!”

Now he was sitting in the railway carriage next to the window and feeling inordinately gay, as if he had got the better of somebody or had escaped from them; yes, now he was on the way to Tynice and nothing could stop him. Almost giggling with delight he settled down in his corner and began to observe his fellow-travellers with amazing eagerness. In front of him sat some sort of a tailor with a thin neck, a slight dark woman, and then ​a man with an extraordinarily expressionless face; next to Prokop was a terribly fat gentleman whose stomach could not settle down between his legs, and, further away, somebody else, but that didn’t matter. Prokop did not dare to look out of the window—it made him feel giddy. Ra-ta-ta-ra-ta-ta the train thumped out, vibrating and rattling with the feverishness of its movement. The head of the tailor swung to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left; the dark lady in some curious fashion bounced stifly up and down on the same spot, the expressionless face vibrated and jerked like a bad film in a cinema. And his fat neighbour was simply a heap of jelly which jumped, shook and hopped in the most extraordinarily entertaining manner. Tynice, Tynice, Tynice, scanned Prokop to the beat of the wheels; faster, faster! The train grew heated through its haste; it became warm in the carriage and Prokop began to sweat; the tailor had now two heads on two thin necks; both heads shook and knocked against one another until they rattled. The dark lady jumped up and down on her seat in the most amusing and yet offensive way; she deliberately put on the expression of a wooden doll. The expressionless face disappeared; in its place there sat a body with its arms folded in a dead manner on its lap; the hands jumped about, but the body had no head.

Prokop exerted all his strength in order to see it properly. He pinched his leg, but it was no use; the body remained headless and lifelessly responded to the vibration of the train. Prokop became horribly uncomfortable. He nudged his fat neighbour with his arm; but the neighbour only quivered still ​more like a jelly. It seemed to Prokop that the fat body was voicelessly tittering at him. He was unable to look at it any longer; he turned to the window, but there, out of the void, appeared a human face. At first he could not make out why it disconcerted him so; he stared at it with wide-open eyes to realize finally that it was another Prokop whose eyes were fixed on him with terrible earnestness. “What does he want?” said Prokop, terror-stricken. “My God! have I left that parcel in Thomas’s room?” He hastily went through his pockets and found the parcel in the inside one of his coat. Then the face in the window smiled and Prokop felt better. Finally he plucked up courage to look at the headless body and saw that all that had happened was that the man had pulled over his face a coat that was hanging from the rack and was asleep behind it. Prokop would have done the same but was afraid that some one would take the sealed package out of his pocket. And yet it was important for him to sleep; he was intolerably tired; he would never have been able to imagine that it was possible for him to be so tired. He dropped off, awoke with a start and dropped off again. The dark lady had one head bobbing on her shoulder and held the other in her lap with both hands; and as for the tailor, instead of him there were sitting empty, bodyless clothes, out of the top of which projected a porcelain pestle. Prokop fell asleep but suddenly started up with a feverish conviction that they were already in Tynice. Somebody outside had shouted the name out, or the train had stopped.

He rushed out and saw that it was already eve​ning; two or three people were getting out at a tiny station with blinking lights behind which was an unknown and foggy darkness. They told Prokop that he could only get to Tynice by a postwagon, if there was still room in it. The postwagon proved to consist of a coach-box behind which was a trough for packages, and the postman and some passenger or other had already taken their seats.

“Will you take me to Tynice, please?” said Prokop.

The postman shook his head in infinite dejection. “Can’t be done,” he answered after a moment.

“Why . . . how is that?”

“There’s no more room,” said the postman, having considered the matter.

Tears of self-pity came into Prokop’s eyes. “How far is it. . . on foot?”

The postman reflected sympathetically. “Well, an hour,” he said.

“But I . . . can’t walk it! I’ve got to get to Dr. Thomas’s!” protested Prokop, crushed.

The postman thought for a moment. “Are you . . . going . . . asa patient?”

“I feel bad,” mumbled Prokop; actually, he was trembling with weakness and fever.

The postman again considered the matter and shook his head. “But it can’t be done,” he said finally.

“If only you could make. . . a little room. . .”

On the coach-box there was no sound. The postman pulled at his beard; then, without saying a word, he got down, did something at the side and ​silently went off to the station. The passenger on the coach-box remained motionless.

Prokop was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit down on the edge of the pavement. “I shall never get there,” he felt desperately; “I shall remain here until . . . unti. . .”

The postman returned from the station bringing with him an empty tub. Somehow he attached it to the platform of the coach-box and looked at it reflectively. “Sit down there,” he said finally.

“Where?” asked Prokop.

“Well . . . on the coach-box.”

By some superhuman effort, as if some magical power were lifting him up, Prokop got on to the coach-box. The postman did something with the reins and there he was sitting in the tub with his legs hanging down over the side. “Hey,” said he.

The horse made no movement, but only trembled.

The postman made another thin, guttural “r-r-r,” The horse whisked its tail.

“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.”

The post-wagon moved off. Prokop convulsively gripped a railing at his side; he felt that it was beyond his strength to keep his place on the coach-box.

“R-r-r-r-r.” It seemed that this high, whirring note somehow galvanized the old horse. It limped along, twitching its tail.

“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.” They were going along an avenue of bare trees. It was pitch dark, save where the flickering strip of light from the lantern moved over the mud. Prokop clung to the railing feeling that he had already completely lost control of his ​body, that he must be careful not to fall, that he was infinitely weak. Some lighted window or other, an avenue, a dark field. “R-r-r-r.” The horse trotted along, moving its legs stiffly and unnaturally, as if it had already been dead for a long time.

Prokop cast a surreptitious glance at his fellow-traveller. He was an old man with a scarf wrapped round his neck. All the time he was chewing something, rolling it about in his mouth and periodically spitting. And then Prokop remembered that he had seen this face somewhere before. It was the loathsome face from the dream, which ground its rotten teeth until they crumbled and then spat them out in fragments. It was wonderful and horrible.

“R-r-r-r-r-r.” There was a turn in the road, they climbed up a hill and then descended again. Somebody’s estate,—the barking of a dog,—a man passing along the road and wishing them good-night. The houses increased in number; they were reaching the top of the hill. The post-wagon swung round, another high “R-r-r-r-r” and it suddenly drew up.

“This is where Dr. Thomas lives,” said the postman.

Prokop wished to say something but was unable to do so. He wanted to let go of the railing, but could not. His fingers were frozen.

“Well, here we are,” said the postman again. Once more he called out, and Prokop slipped down from the coach-box, trembling with his whole; body. As if performing a remembered action, he opened the gate and rang at the door. Inside there was to be heard a fierce barking and a young voice called ​out: “Honzik, quiet!” The door opened and, scarcely able to move his tongue, Prokop inquired, “Is the doctor at home?”

A moment of silence; then the young voice said, “Come in.”

Prokop stood in the warm sitting-room. On the table was a lamp, supper was laid, there was a smell of beech wood. An old gentleman with his spectacles pushed up on to his forehead rose from the table, came over to Prokop and said: “Well, what can I do for you?”

Prokop tried to remember dully what exactly it was that he had come for. “I . . . that is to say . . .” he began, “is your son at home?”

The old gentleman looked at Prokop attentively. “He isn’t. What do you want with him?”

“George . . .” mumbled Prokop, “I’m . . . his friend and I am bringing him . . . I have to give him . . .” He hunted about in his pocket and found the sealed package. “It’s . . . an important matter and . . . and. . . .”

“George is in Prague,” the old gentleman interrupted him. “But do sit down.”

Prokop was profoundly astonished. “But he said . . . he said . . . that he was coming here. I mu—must give him. . . .” The floor began to sway beneath his feet and he started to slip forward.

“A chair, Annie,” shouted the old gentleman in an extraordinary voice.

Prokop still had time to hear himself cry out before he collapsed on to the ground. A boundless, darkness swept over him and then there was nothing.

There was nothing; only when the mist lifted, as it were, for a time, there appeared the pattern which was painted on the walls, the carved cornice of a cupboard, the top of the curtains or the frieze on the ceiling. Or somebody's face bent over him as if over the mouth of a well; but its features were not to be discerned. Things were happening, somebody from time to time moistened his hot lips or raised his helpless body, but everything disappeared in snatches of dreaming which continued to drift away from him. And there were landscapes, patterns of carpets, differential calculations, balls of fire, chemical formule. From time to time something rose to the surface and took the form for a moment of a clearer dream, but immediately afterwards it dissolved again into the wide current of unconsciousness.

Finally there came moments when he awoke fully. Then he saw above him the warm ceiling with its stucco pattern; his eyes lighted on his own thin, deathly white hands, resting on the coloured coverlet. Beyond there appeared the frame of the bed, the cupboard and a white door; everything somehow pleasant, quiet and already familiar. He had not a notion where he was. He wanted to consider this problem; but his head was hopelessly weak. Everything began to grow confused again and he ​closed his eyes and rested, resigning himself to his weakness.

The door opened gently. Prokop opened his eyes and sat up a little in bed, as if something had raised him up. And there at the door was standing a girl, slender and bright, with clear eyes with an extraordinarily astonished look in them, lips half open with surprise, and holding to her breast a pile of white linen. Embarrassed, she remained motionless, only moving her long lashes, while her rosy face began shyly and uncertainly to smile.

Prokop’s face darkened. He made an effort to find something to say, but his head was completely empty. He moved his lips voicelessly and looked at the girl with severe eyes that were trying to recall something.

“I supplicate thee, O Queen,” came from his lips rapidly and involuntarily in Greek, “if indeed thou art a goddess of them that keep the wide heaven; to Artemis, then, the daughter of great Zeus, I mainly liken thee, for beauty and stature and shapeliness. But if thou art one of the daughters of men who dwell on earth, thrice blessed are thy father and thy lady mother, and thrice blessed thy brethren. Surely their souls ever glow with gladness each time they see thee entering the dance, so fair a flower of maidens.”

The girl made no movement. As if she were turned to stone, she listened to this greeting in an unknown language. On her smooth forehead there was so much confusion, her eyes blinked so childishly and with so much apprehension that Prokop continued with increased warmth to deliver the speech ​of Odysseus when cast on the shore , himself only vaguely realizing the meaning of the words.

“But he is of heart the most blessed,” he continued quickly, “beyond all other who shall prevail with lips of wooing , and lead thee to his home. Never have mine eyes beheld such an one among mortals, neither man nor woman; great awe comes upon me as I look on thee.”

The girl blushed deeply as if she understood the greeting of the Greek hero. An invincible and delightful embarrassment held her limbs. Prokop, twisting his hands on the coverlet, spoke as if he were praying.

“Yet in Delos,” he continued rapidly, “once I saw as goodly a thing; a young sapling of a palm tree springing by the altar of Apollo. For thither too I went, and much people with me, on that path, where my sore troubles were to be. Yea, and when I looked thereupon, long time I marvelled in spirit for never grew there yet so goodly a shoot from ground,—even in such wise as I wonder at thee, lady, and am astonished and do greatly fear to touch thy knees, though grievous sorrow is upon me.”

Yes, he was terribly frightened; but the girl was frightened too, and continued to press the linen to her breast without taking her eyes from Prokop, who hastened to continue his invocation.

“Yesterday, on the twentieth day, I escaped from the wine-dark deep, but all that time continually the wave bare me, and the vehement winds drave, from the isle Ogygia . And now some god has cast me on this shore, that hereto, methinks, some evil may betide me; for I trow not that trouble will cease. ​The gods ere that time will yet bring many a thing to pass.”

Prokop sighed deeply and raised his wasted hands in fear. “But, Queen, have pity on me, for after many trials and sore to thee first of all am I come, and of the other folk, who hold this city and land, I know no man. Nay, show me the town, give me an old garment to cast about me, if thou hadst, when thou camest here, any wrap for the linen.”

Now the girl’s face became a little brighter, her moist lips opened. Perhaps Nausicaa was speaking, but Prokop still wanted to bless her for the cloud of sympathy which made her face so rosy. “And may the gods grant thee all thy heart’s desire; a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give—a good gift, for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best.”

Prokop scarcely more than breathed the concluding words. He himself only understood with difficulty what he was saying; effortlessly it flowed out from some forgotten corner of memory. It was almost twenty years since he had heard that sweet melody of the Sixth Book. It afforded him almost physical relief to let it reel itself off in this manner; his head became lighter and clearer, he was almost in ecstasy in this pleasant weakness. An embarrassed smile trembled on his lips.

The girl smiled too, made a slight movement and said: “Well?” She made a step towards him and then burst out laughing. “What did you say?”

​“I don’t know,” said Prokop uncertainly.

Then the door, which had not been completely closed, was burst open and there dashed into the room something small and shaggy which whined with delight and jumped on to Prokop’s bed.

“Honzik!” cried the girl apprehensively. “What are you doing?” But the little animal was already licking Prokop’s face and in excited joy had snuggled down into the coverlet. Prokop wiped his face with his hand and was disconcerted to find that he had a full beard. “Bu—but,” he stammered, and became silent with surprise. The dog was in the seventh heaven; with overflowing devotion he bit at Prokop’s hands, yelped, and snorted, thrusting his wet muzzle up to his chest.

“Honzik!” cried the girl, “you’re mad! Leave the gentleman alone!” and she ran to the bed and took the dog in her arms. “Honzik, you are stupid!”

“Leave him alone,” said Prokop.

“But you’ve got a bad hand,” objected the girl with great seriousness, pressing the struggling dog to her breast.

Prokop regarded his right hand doubtfully. Across the palm there stretched a broad scar covered with a new, thin, red membrane which was pleasantly itching. “Where deep where am I?” said he in surprise.

“At our house,” said the girl, as if it were the most self-evident thing in the world, and Prokop was reassured at once. “At your house,” he said with relief, although he had no idea where that might be. “And how long?”

​“Three weeks. And all the time——”, she wanted to say something but stopped herself. “Honzik has been sleeping with you,” she added hurriedly, and for some reason or other blushed, holding the dog as if it were a little child. “Do you know about it?”

“I don’t,” replied Prokop. “Have I been asleep?”

“All the time,” she said quickly. “You were able to have a full sleep.” Then she put the dog down on the ground and drew nearer to the bed. “Do you feel better. . . . Do you want anything?”

Prokop shook his head; he could think of nothing which he wanted.

“What's the time?” he asked doubtfully.

“Ten. I don’t know what you are allowed to eat; wait till father comes. . . . Father will be so glad. . . . Don’t you want anything then?”

“A mirror,” said Prokop hesitatingly.

The girl burst out laughing and ran off.

There was a humming in Prokop’s head; he was continually trying to recall what had happened and it was continually escaping him. And now here was this girl again, she said something and handed him a mirror. Prokop tried to lift his hand; but it couldn’t be done. The girl placed the handle between his fingers but the mirror fell on to the coverlet. Then the girl suddenly became pale, grew anxious, and herself put the mirror in front of his eyes. Prokop looked and saw a face covered with hair and almost unrecognizable; he looked and was unable to understand and his lips began to tremble.

“Lie down, lie down again at once,” she ordered ​him in a tiny voice, almost crying, and quickly her hands placed the pillow ready for him. Prokop let himself fall on to his back and closed his eyes; just for a moment he would doze, he thought to himself, and then there would be a deep, lovely silence.

Someone pulled at his sleeve. Well, well,” said this someone, “we mustn’t sleep any more, eh?” Prokop opened his eyes and saw an old gentleman with a pink-bald head and a white beard, gold spectacles up on his forehead, and an extraordinarily bright look in his eyes. “No more sleep, my friend,” he said. “You’ve done that long enough; you don’t want to wake up in the next world.”

Prokop looked darkly at the old gentleman; he wanted to dream on a little longer. “What do you want?” he said finally in an irritated tone. “And . . . with whom have I the honour? . . .”

The old gentleman burst out laughing. “Dr. Thomas, if you please. . . . You haven’t yet deigned to recognize me, eh? But don’t bother about that. What may your name be?”

“Prokop,” said the invalid ungraciously.

“Well, well,” said the doctor contentedly. “I thought that you were the Sleeping Beauty. And now, Mr. Engineer,” he said energetically, “we must have a look at you. Don’t get cross.” He whisked a thermometer from under Prokop’s armpit and made a self-satisfied noise. “Ninety-nine. You’re like a fly, man. We must feed you up, what? Don’t move.”

Prokop felt on his chest a bald pate and a cold ear, which moved from one shoulder to the other ​and from his stomach to his neck, accompanied by an animated grunting.

“Well, thank God,” said the doctor finally, and settled his spectacles on his nose. “We'll fix up that little wheezing in the chest, and the heart—well, that’ll adjust itself, eh?” He bent over Prokop, poked his fingers through his hair and raised and lowered his eyelids with his finger. “No more sleeping, see?” he said, and at the same time looked at the pupils of his eyes. “We’ll get some books and do some reading. We’ll eat a little, drink a glass of wine and keep still. I shan’t bite you.”

“What’s the matter with me?” asked Prokop timidly. The doctor drew himself up. “Well, nothing now. Listen, where did you come from?”

“What?”

“We picked you up from the floor, and . . . where did you come from, man?”

“I don’t know. From Prague, perhaps,” Prokop recalled.

The doctor shook his head. “By train from Prague! With the membrane of your brain inflamed? Were you mad? Do you know what it is?”

“What?”

“Meningitis. The sleeping form of it, and added to that inflammation of the lungs. 104, eh? My friend, one doesn’t go out on expeditions when one has that sort of thing. And do you know that—well, shew me your right hand, quick!”

“That . . . was only a scratch,” Prokop justified himself.

“A nice sort of scratch. Blood poisoning, you understand? When you are well I shall tell you ​that you were . . . an ass. Forgive me,” he said with dignified warmth. “I very nearly said something stronger. An educated man, and he doesn’t know that he’s ill enough for three! How were you able anyway to keep on your feet?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Prokop, ashamed.

The doctor wished to go on talking but instead grunted and waved his hand. “And how do you feel?” he said sternly. “A little drunk, eh? No memory, eh? And,” he tapped his forehead, “a little weak, eh?”

Prokop remained silent.

“And now, Mr. Engineer,” said the doctor, “don’t do anything about it. It will last for some time. You understand me? You musn’t overwork your head. No thinking. It’ll come back . . . in bits. Only a temporary disturbance, a slight loss of memory, you see?”

The doctor shouted, sweated and grew agitated as if he were struggling with a deaf-mute. Prokop continued to watch him and then said quietly, “Shall I remain always weak-minded?”

“But no, no, no,” said the doctor excitedly. “Completely out of the question. Simply . . . for a certain time . . . a disturbance of the memory, disassociation, exhaustion and certain symptoms, you understand me? Irregularities in co-ordination, see? Rest. Quiet. Do nothing. You must thank God, my friend.”

“Survived,” he went on after a moment and in his delight blew his nose loudly. “Listen, I’ve never had such a case before. You arrived here completely delirious, crashed on to the ground and ​finis! What was I to do with you? It’s a long way to the hospital and the girl howled so much, and besides you came as a guest . . . to see George, eh? So we left you, you understand? Well, it didn’t bother us. But I’ve never had such an entertaining guest before. To sleep for twenty days! When my colleague cut your hand open you didn’t even stir, what do you think of that? A quiet patient, upon my soul. But that’s nothing, the great thing is that you are out of it.” The doctor slapped his thigh. “But, for God’s sake, no more sleeping! My friend, you might have gone to sleep for good and all, do you hear? For goodness’ sake try and get yourself under control! Drop it, see?”

Prokop nodded his head weakly; he felt as if a curtain had been drawn between him and actuality, a curtain which shrouded, disturbed and muted everything.

“Annie!” came an agitated voice. “The wine! Bring the wine!” Some quick steps, a conversation which seemed to be going on under water, and the cool flavour of wine caressed his throat. He opened his eyes and saw the girl bending over him. “You mustn\t sleep,” she said excitedly and her long hair trembled as if to the beating of her heart.

“I won’t sleep any more,” said Prokop submissively.

“I should like you not to,” said the doctor gruffly from the end of the bed. “A specialist is coming from the town for a consultation. We’ll let him see that we provincial medicos know something, too, eh? You must behave yourself nicely.” With unexpected dexterity he lifted Prokop up and thrust a ​pillow behind his back. “There, now you can sit up; and you won’t want to sleep until after dinner, what? I must go to my patients. And you, Annie, sit down now and gossip about something or other. Generally your mouth goes like a wheelbarrow, eh? And if he tries to sleep, call me. I shall know how to deal with him.” In the doorway he turned round and grunted. . . . “But . . . I’m glad about it, see? So be careful!”

Prokop’s eyes wandered to the girl. She sat a short distance away, her hands in her lap, and for the life of her could not think what to talk about. Then she raised her head and opened her lips slightly. One heard that she was saying something, but she was confused, gulped, and lowered her head still more. Her long eyelashes trembled on her cheeks.

“Father is so abrupt,” she said finally. “He’s so used to shouting . . .. to scolding . . .. the patients.” Here, unfortunately, she ran out of material; on the other hand—as if by a happy inspiration—she became conscious of her apron between her fingers, and began to arrange it in all sorts of interesting folds, her eyelashes still trembling.

“What’s that noise?” asked Prokop after a long pause.

She turned her head to the window; she had beautiful light hair and her lips were attractively moist. “It’s the cows,” she said with relief. “There’s a yard there, you see? Father has a horse ahd cart there. . . . His name is Fritz.”

“Whose?”

“The horse. You’ve never been to Tynice, have ​you? There’s nothing here. Only avenues and fields. . . . When mummy was still alive it was more cheerful; George used to come here. . . . But he hasn’t been here for over a year. He had a quarrel with father and . . . he doesn’t even write. We aren’t even allowed to speak of him—do you see him often?”

Prokop shook his head decidedly.

The girl sighed and became reflective. “He’s . . . . . . I don’t know. Funny, somehow. He did nothing but go about with his hands in his pockets, yawning. I know that’s nothing, but yet . . . Father is so glad that you are with us,” she concluded quickly and somewhat disconnectedly.

Somewhere outside a young cock began to crow hoarsely and comically. Immediately afterwards all the chickens became very excited and one could hear a wild “ko-ko-ko” and the triumphant yelping of a dog. The girl sprang up. “Honzik is chasing the chickens!” But she sat down again at once, having resolved to leave them to their fate. It was pleasantly silent.

“I don’t know what to talk about,” she said with the most beautiful simplicity. “Would you like me to read you the paper?”

Prokop smiled. She fetched the paper and started confidently on the leading article. The financial equilibrium, the Budget, uncovered credits . . . her charming and uncertain voice quietly read out these extraordinarily important items, and Prokop, who simply was not listening at all, was better off than if he had been soundly asleep.

And now Prokop was able to get out of bed for an hour or so every day; so far he was only capable of dragging his legs along somehow and there was not much question of talking to him. Whatever you said to him, he answered in a niggardly manner, excusing himself with a weak smile.

At mid-day—it was the beginning of April—he sat down on a seat in the garden. Next to him the wiry-haired terrier Honzik grinned for all he was worth, obviously proud of his function as companion, and through sheer delight he licked himself, and blinked his eyes when Prokop’s scarred left hand smoothed his warm, shaggy head. About this time the doctor usually ran out of his consulting room, his skull-cap slipping about his bald head, squatted down on his haunches and planted vegetables in the garden. With his short fat fingers he worked the heaps of soil and carefully arranged the beds for the young buds. Every now and then he became excited and grunted; he had stuck his pipe into the ground somewhere and was unable to find it. At this point Prokop arose and with the astuteness of a detective (for he spent his time in bed reading detective stories) went straight to it. Whereat Honzik shook himself noisily.

About then also Annie used to come and water her father’s flower-beds. Her right hand carried ​the can, her left swung in the air. A silver stream of water hissed into the new soil, and if Honzik happened to be near he caught it on his back or on his stupid, good-natured head, which led him to yelp desperately and seek protection with Prokop.

The whole of the morning patients kept on arriving at the consulting-room. In the waiting-room they coughed or were silent, each one thinking about his own suffering. Sometimes a terrible cry was to be heard when the doctor was pulling out the teeth of some little boy. Then Annie in a panic took shelter behind Prokop, pale, and quite beside herself, her long lashes trembling in her anxiety, waiting until the frightful affair was over, Finally the boy ran off wailing and Annie awkwardly apologized for her tender-heartedness.

It was different when there drew up before the doctor’s house a cart on the bottom of which straw had been spread and two old men carefully carried a seriously wounded man up the steps. He had a crushed hand or a broken foot, or his head had been split open by the kick of a horse. A cold sweat poured down his terribly pale forehead and he was quietly groaning with heroic self-control. A tragic silence descended upon the whole house; something serious was silently taking place in the consulting-room. The fat, jovial servant went about on the tips of her toes. Annie’s eyes were full of tears and her fingers trembled. Then the doctor would burst into the kitchen and shout for rum, wine, or water, and with redoubled gruffness cover up his acute sympathy. And the whole of the next day he would be silent, fly into cages and slam the doors.

​But there was also a holiday, the splendid annual function of the provincial doctor, the inoculation of the children. A hundred mothers nursed their squalling, yelling, or sleeping children; they filled up the consulting-room, the passage, the kitchen, and the garden. Annie was wildly excited and wanted to nurse, swaddle, and play with all these toothless, downy children in an ecstasy of exuberant motherhood. The doctor’s bald pate seemed to shine more than ever. From early in the morning he went about without his spectacles, so as not to frighten these scamps, and his eyes were filled with exhaustion and happiness.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night the bell would ring excitedly. Then voices were heard in the doorway, the doctor grumbled and Joseph had to harness the horse. Somewhere in the village, behind a lighted window, a new being was about to enter the world. It was already morning when the doctor returned, tired out, but contented, and strongly smelling of carbolic. Annie liked him best of all like that.

There were other people about the place; the fat, garrulous Nanda in the kitchen, who sang and clattered the whole day and was always being doubled up with laughter. Then the serious, whiskered coachman, Joseph. A historian, he was always reading history books and was delighted to expound the Hussite wars or the historical secrets of the country. Then the gardener from the castle, a great one for the girls, who appeared every day in the doctor’s garden, pruned his roses, clipped his bushes and convulsed Nanda with laughter. Then ​the above-mentioned shaggy and excited Honzik, who followed Prokop about, chased fleas and chickens and, best of all, liked to sit on the doctor’s coach-box. Fritz was an old horse, a little grey, a friend of the rabbits, good-natured and reliable. It was the height of pleasantness to smooth his warm and sensitive nostrils. Then a dark-haired boy who helped in the yard, in love with Annie, who, together with Nanda, made fun of him mercilessly. The foreman, an old fox, who played chess with the doctor, who became excited, grew angry and always lost the game. And other local characters, among whom an extraordinarily tedious surveyor with political interests who bored Prokop on the strength of being also a professional man.

Prokop read a lot, or at least pretended to. His scarred, heavy face did not reveal much, especially nothing of his desperate secret struggle with his disturbed memory. The last few years of study had particularly suffered; the most simple formule and processes were lost and Prokop jotted down in the margin of his book fragments of formule which came into his head when he was least thinking of them. Then he would leave the book and go to play billiards with Annie, since this was a game during which one had no need to talk. Annie was impressed by his leathery and impenetrable seriousness. He played with concentration, aimed with his eyebrows severely drawn together, and when the ball, as if on purpose, went in the wrong direction he opened his mouth in astonishment and indicated the proper destination with a movement of his tongue.

​Evenings by the lamp. Most talkative of the three was the doctor, an enthusiastic scientist without any knowledge of the subject. He was especially fascinated with the deeper mysteries of the universe: radio activity, the boundlessness of space, electricity, relativity, the origins of matter and of prehistoric man. He was an out-and-out materialist, and just for this reason experienced a sweet and secret fear when confronted with unsolved problems. Occasionally Prokop could not contain himself and corrected the German naïveté of his views. The old gentleman listened piously, and began to have an inordinate admiration for Prokop, especially when he could no longer understand what he was talking about—potentials of resonance or the quantum theory. Annie sat quietly, resting her chin on her hands. She did not even blink and, large-eyed, looked at Prokop and her father in turn.

And the nights, the nights were wide and quiet, as everywhere in the country. Now and then one could hear the rattle of chains from the cowshed or, nearer or farther away, the barking of a dog. A falling star flashed across the sky, the spring rain hissed in the garden or water dropped with a silver note into the deserted well. A clear, deep cold came in through the open window and one fell into a blessed sleep, untroubled by dreams.

Now things were better. Life returned to Prokop day by day. He felt a dulness in his head and he was always a little as if in a dream. There was nothing to do but to shew his appreciation of the doctor’s services and go on his own way. He announced this decision one day after supper but everybody received it in stubborn silence. Then the old man took Prokop by the arm and led him into the consulting-room. After a certain amount of beating about the bush he said gruffly that Prokop must not leave, that it was better for him to rest, that the battle was not yet won—in short, that he was to remain. Prokop vaguely defended himself; the fact was that he did not yet feel himself in the saddle and that he was a little demoralized by comfort. All talk of going away was postponed indefinitely.

Every afternoon the doctor shut himself up in his consulting-room. “Come in and see me, eh?” he said to Prokop casually. And Prokop found him surrounded by all sorts of bottles, crucibles, and powders. “There’s no apothecary in the town, you know,” explained the doctor, “I have to prepare the medicines myself.” And with his fat, trembling fingers he laid some powder on the pan of the small balance. His hand was uncertain, the scales twisted and jumped about; the old gentleman became agitated, wheezed, and small drops of sweat ​appeared on his nose. “I can’t see as well as I used to,” he said, excusing his old fingers. Prokop watched for a moment and then, saying nothing, took the scales from him. Two little taps and the powder was weighed to a milligram. And a second and a third powder in the same way. The delicate balance simply danced in Prokop’s fingers. “Just look at that,” said the doctor with admiration and watched Prokop’s crushed, knotty hands with their shapeless knuckles, broken nails, and short stumps in the place of one or two missing fingers. “Your fingers are wonderfully nimble, man!” In the course of a few moments Prokop had spread some ointment, measured off some drops of liquid, and heated a test-tube. The doctor glowed with pleasure, and stuck on the labels. In half-an-hour all the medicines were ready, and, in addition, there was a pile of powders in reserve. In a few days Prokop could read the doctor’s prescriptions and make them up. Bon!

One evening the doctor was poking about in the garden in the loose soil. Suddenly there was a frightful report in the house, and a moment after the noise of falling glass. The doctor dashed indoors and in the passage ran into the terrified Annie. “What has happened?” he cried.

“I don’t know,” replied the girl. “In the consulting-room.” . . . The doctor ran there and found Prokop on all fours picking potsherds and pieces of paper off the floor.

“What have you been doing?” cried the doctor.

“Nothing,” said Prokop, and got up guiltily. “A test-tube burst.”

​“And what, in God’s name, does this mean?” thundered the doctor, stopping suddenly; a stream of blood was pouring from Prokop’s left hand. “How did you tear your finger?”

“Only a scratch,” Prokop protested and hid his left hand behind his back.

“Show me,” cried the doctor and dragged him to the window. Half of one finger was hanging by the skin. The doctor rushed to the cupboard for his scissors and in the open door saw Annie, deathly pale. “What do you want?” he rapped out. “Be off, quick!” Annie did not move; she pressed her hands to her breast and looked as if she might swoon away any moment.

The doctor turned to Prokop. To begin with he did something with some wadding and then snapped the scissors. “Light,” he shouted to Annie. Annie dashed to the switch and turned it on. “And don’t stay here,” roared the old gentleman, dipping a needle into some benzine. “What can you do here? Some thread, quick!” Annie sprang to the cupboard and gave him a box full of thread. “And now away with you!”

Annie looked at Prokop’s back and did something else instead; she stepped closer, took the wounded hand and held it in both of hers. The doctor at the moment was washing his hands; he turned to Annie and was going to burst out with something but instead grunted: “All right, hold it firmly! And nearer the light!” Annie held the hand, her eyes blinking. When there was nothing to be heard but the doctor's heavy breathing she ventured to raise them. Below, where her father was working, all ​was bloody and revolting. She hastily glanced at Prokop; his face was turned away and twitched with pain. Annie shivered and swallowed her tears.

Meanwhile Prokop’s hand grew larger and larger; quantities of wadding, silk, and a good kilometre of bandages; finally an enormous white lump. Annie continued to hold the hand. Her knees shook; it seemed to her that this terrible operation would never be over. Suddenly her head began to swim and the next thing that she heard was her father saying: “Drink this quickly!” She opened her eyes and found that she was sitting in the armchair in the consulting-room and that her father was handing her a glassful of some stuff or other while Prokop was standing behind him, smiling and holding his bound hand, which looked like a huge doll, across his chest. “Drink it up,” repeated the doctor through his teeth. She swallowed the contents of the glass and nearly choked with coughing; it was murderously strong cognac.

“And now you,” said the doctor, and gave the glass to Prokop. Prokop was a trifle pale and valiantly awaited the scolding which was due to him. Finally the doctor himself drank, cleared his throat and said, “What exactly have you been doing?”

“An experiment,” said Prokop with the twisted smile of a guilty person.

“What? What experiment? Experiment with what?”

“Only billinghurst something with potassium chlorate.”

“What were you making?”

“An explosive,” whispered Prokop with the humiliation of a sinner.

​The doctor’s eyes moved to his bandaged hand. “And you’ve paid for it, my friend! It might have torn your hand off, eh? Does it hurt? But it suits you,” he added bloodthirstily.

“But, father,” said Annie, “leave him alone now!”

“What’s that to do with you?” grunted the doctor and caressed her with a hand which smelt of carbolic and iodoform.

After that the doctor kept the key of the consulting-room in his pocket. Prokop ordered a parcel of scientific books, went about with his arm in a sling and spent the whole day in study. The cherries had already begun to blossom, the sticky young leaves were glistening in the sun, the golden lilies were putting out heavy buds. Annie went about the garden with a buxom girl friend, their arms round one another’s waists, laughing all the time. They put their red faces together, whispered something, burst out laughing and began to kiss one another.

At last Prokop felt bodily well again. Like an animal, he basked in the sun, blinking his eyes. Then he would sigh and sit down to work, but would at once feel an inclination to move about and wander far into the country, passionately giving himself up to the joy of breathing. Sometimes he would meet Annie about the house or in the garden and try to say something. Annie would look at him out of the corner of her eye and not know what to do. Prokop would be equally at a loss and coves,his embarrassment by speaking in a gruff ​voice. He felt better, or at least more sure of himself, when he was alone.

In the course of his studies he noticed that there was a great deal that he had missed. There were all sorts of new developments, and he was obliged to orientate himself again. Chiefly he was afraid of not being able to remember his own work, for it was in connection with this that his memory suffered most. He worked like a mule, or else gave himself up to dreaming. He dreamt of new laboratory methods, and at the same time he was fascinated by bold and delicate theoretical calculations. When his dull brain proved incapable of splitting the thin hair of a problem he would grow angry with himself. He was conscious of the fact that his laboratory “destructive chemistry” opened up the most marvellous vistas in the theory of the constitution of matter. He came up against unexpected correlations, immediately afterwards to be oppressed by the laboriousness of his methods. Disgusted, he would throw everything down and plunge into reading some stupid novel; but even here he was haunted by the atmosphere of the laboratory. Instead of words he read only chemical symbols, mad formule full of elements hitherto undiscovered, which disturbed him even in his sleep.

That night he dreamed; it seemed to him that he was studying a highly technical article in the Chemist. He came across the symbol An Ni and did not know what to make of it. He reflected, bit his knuckles and suddenly realized that it stood for Annie. And then he saw her in the room, smiling, with her arms clasped at the back of her head. He went across to her, took her in his arms and began to kiss her on the lips. Annie fought wildly with her elbows and knees while he held her brutally and with one hand tore her clothes into long strips. He already had his hands on her young flesh. Annie struggled desperately, her hair fell over her face, and now, now she suddenly became weak and drooped. . . . Prokop threw himself upon her; but instead found in his arms nothing but long rags and bandages. He tore them and ripped them up, trying to disengage himself from them, and then he woke up.

He was exceedingly ashamed of his dream, dressed quietly, sat down at the window and waited for the dawn. There is no frontier between night and day. The sky becomes the slightest bit pale; there is still neither light nor sound; but the signal has been given to nature to awake! Now, while it is still night, morning has begun. The cocks crow, ​the animals move in their sheds. The sky turns to pearl, grows brighter and then rose-coloured; the earliest red streak appears in the east; the birds begin to chirp and the first man to go to work sets out with a swinging step.

The man of science also sat down to work. For a long time he bit his penholder, and then decided to set down the first words. For this was to be a big affair, the result of twelve years of experiment and reflection, work really paid for with his own blood. Of course this would only be a rough draft, or rather a sort of physical philosophy or poem, or a confession of faith. It would be a picture of the world composed of figures and equations. But these figures of an astronomical order measured something other than the sublimity of the firmament; he was calculating the instability and destructibility of matter.

Everything that exists is a dull, latent explosive; but whatever the index of its inertia may be, it represents only an insignificant fraction of its explosive power. Everything which takes place, the movement of the stars, tellurian work, entropy, active and insatiable life itself, all this is only on the surface, while invisibly and incalculably there is gnawing beneath it that explosive force which is called matter. Consider now that the cord which binds it is nothing more than a cobweb on the limbs of a sleeping titan. Give him strength to disturb it and he will tear the surface off the globe, and hurl Jupiter on to Saturn. And you, humanity, you are only a swallow which laboriously builds a nest under the roof of the cosmic powder magazine; you twitter in the eastern sun ​while in the casks beneath you there vibrates silently the terrible potential of explosion . . .

Naturally Prokop did not write these things down; to him they were only a secret melody, which lent wings to the heavy phrases of the technical exposition. For him there was more phantasy in a bare formula and more blinding beauty in an index of explosiveness. And so he wrote his poem in symbols, figures, and the frightful jargon of scientific terminology.

He did not come down to breakfast. Annie came in and silently brought it to him. He thanked her, and then remembered his dream and was somehow unable to look at her. He stared obstinately into a corner. God knows how it was possible, but he nevertheless saw every golden hair on her bare arms. He had never noticed them so much before.

Annie was standing quite near him. “Are you going to write?” she asked in some uncertainty.

“I am,” he muttered and wondered what she would say if he were suddenly to put his head on her breast.

“The whole day?”

“The whole day.”

She was moving off, greatly impressed. She had firm, small and broad breasts, a fact of which she was probably unaware. But what did it matter!

“Is there anything you want?”

“No, nothing.”

It was silly. He would have liked to bite her arm or something. Women never seem to realize how much they disturb men.

​Annie shrugged her shoulders, a little offended. “All right then.” And she was gone.

He got up and began to walk up and down the room. He was angry with himself and with her; and, the chief thing, he did not want to write any more. He collected his thoughts; but it simply would not go. He grew annoyed, and, in a bad frame of mind, strode from wall to wall with the regularity of a pendulum. One, two hours. Downstairs there was a rattling of plates; they were preparing lunch. He sat down at his papers again and put his head in his hands. A moment afterwards the servant came in and brought him his meal.

He pushed the food away almost untouched and cast himself irritably on the bed. It was clear that they had already had enough of him, that he also was tired of it all and that it was time to depart. Yes, the very next day. He made a few plans for his future work, without realizing why the process was so painful, and why he felt ashamed, and ended by falling into a deep sleep. He woke up late in the afternoon, with his soul clogged and his body demoralized by abominable slothfulness. He wandered about the room, yawned and, unable to think, became infinitely bored. It grew dark, and he did not even light the lamp.

The servant brought him his supper. He left it to grow cold and listened to what they were doing downstairs. He heard the chink of forks, the doctor grumbling and, directly after supper, slam the door of his room. All became quiet.

Convinced that he would meet nobody, Prokop pulled himself together and went into the garden. ​It was a moist and clear night. The lilac was already in blossom; Beetius stretched his starry arms across the sky; it was quiet but for the distant barking of a dog. Something white was leaning against the stone wall in the garden. Of course it was Annie.

“It’s a beautiful night,” he remarked, in order to say something, and leant against the wall next to her. Annie said nothing but only turned her face away and her shoulders trembled in an anxious and unaccustomed manner.

“That’s Beetius,” said Prokop hoarsely. “And above it . . . the Dragon and Cepheus, and over there is Cassiopeia, those four stars together. But you must look higher.”

Annie turned away from him and rubbed something away near her eyes. “There, where it’s clear,” said Prokop hesitatingly, “is Pollux, one of the twins. You mustn’t be angry with me. Maybe I was a bit rough with you, eh? I’m . . . something was worrying me, you see? You mustn’t take it to heart.”

Annie sobbed loudly. “And what’s . . . that one over there?” she said in a quiet, timid voice. “The brightest one of all, low down.”

“That’s Sirius, in the Great Dog. They also call it Alhaboa. And there right away to the left are Arcturus and Spica. There’s a falling star. Did you see it?”

“Yes. Why were you so angry with me this morning?”

“I wasn’t. I’m perhaps . . . sometimes . . . a bit crude; but I’ve had a hard life you know, ​too hard; always alone and . . . like an outpost. I can’t even talk properly. To-day I wanted . . . to write something beautiful . . . a sort of scientific prayer, so that everybody should understand it. I thought that .. . . that I’d read it to you; and then, everything dried up in me—one becomes ashamed of getting so excited. Or at least one should be able to say something. I’m stale, so to speak. You understand? I’m already growing grey.”

“But it suits you,” said Annie softly.

This aspect of the question took Prokop by surprise.

“Well, you know,” he said, in confusion. “It isn’t pleasant. It is already time . . . to bring one’s harvest home. What wouldn’t another do with all that I know! And I’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing from it all. I’m only . . . ‘berühmt’ and ‘célèbre’ and ‘highly esteemed’; and nobody here . . . knows anything about me. I think, you know, that my theories are pretty bad; I haven’t got a head for theory. But what I have discovered isn’t without value. My exothermic explosives . . . diagrams . . . and explosions of atoms . . . have a certain worth. And I have only published about a tenth of what I know. What wouldn’t another have done with it! I . . . don’t even understand their theories; they are so subtle, so rich . . . they only confuse me. My spirit is that of the kitchen. Put some stuff under my nose and I can tell by smelling it what to do with it. But to realize what follows from that . . . theoretically and philosophically, that I can’t do. I only know ​. . . facts; I create them; they’re my facts, do you understand? But still . . . I . . . feel some sort of truth in them; a great general truth . . . that changes everything . . . until it explodes. And this great truth is hidden in facts and not in words. And so one must go for facts, even if both one’s arms are torn off. . . .”

Annie, leaning against the wall, was scarcely breathing. Their gloomy guest had never said so much before—and, principally, had never spoken about himself. He had to struggle hard with words. There was wrestling within him an enormous pride, but also pain and shyness; and even when he spoke in terms of integral numbers Annie understood that something interior and humanly lacerated was taking place before her.

“But the worst of it is,” mumbled Prokop, “that sometimes . . . and especially now, it all seems to me to be stupid . . . and worthless. Even this final truth . . . in fact everything. It’s never happened to me before. Why? . . . Perhaps it would be wiser to give in . . . to everything”—(he indicated with his hands something surrounding them). “Simply to Life. A man mustn’t be happy; it softens him, you understand? Then everything else appears to be useless, small . . . and senseless. The best things . . . the best things are done by a man through desperation. Through anger, loneliness, being stunned. So nothing’s enough for him. I used to work like a maniac. But now, now I’ve begun to be happy. I’ve now learnt that perhaps . . . there’s something better than thinking. Here one only lives . . . and sees that it is something ​tremendous just to live. Like your Honzik, like a cat, like a chicken, Every animal understands that . . . and it seems to me so terrific, as if I have never lived before. And so . . . so I’ve again lost twelve years.”

His deformed right hand, sewn up God knows how many times, trembled on the wall. Annie was silent; she was resting her arms on the brick wall and looking up at the stars. Then something rustled in the shrubbery and Annie became frightened; she threw herself on Prokop’s shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Nothing; probably a marten; they come right into the yard after the chickens.”

Annie was reassured. Her young breasts, full and soft, were resting against Prokop’s right hand. She, perhaps, did not realize the fact herself, but Prokop was more aware of it than of anything else in the world. He was terribly afraid of moving his hand, for, in the first place, Annie would think that he had put it there on purpose, and in the second place, she would draw away from him. Curiously enough, as a result of this circumstance, he was unable to talk any further about himself and his wasted life. “I’ve——” he stammered in confusion, “I’ve never been so glad . . . so happy, as I am now. Your father is the finest man in the world, and you . . . you are so young . . .”

“I thought that you found me . . . too stupid,” said Annie quietly and happily. “You never spoke like that with me before.”

“True, never before,” said Prokop gruffly. Both became silent. He felt against his hand the light ​rising and falling of her breasts. He kept perfectly still and held his breath, and she, it seemed, was also holding her breath and trembling quietly, her eyes fixed on some spot in the distance. Oh, to caress and embrace her! Oh, the ecstasy of touching her for the first time! Involuntary and burning delight! Had you ever any adventure more intoxicating than this unconscious and self-sacrificing devotion? Timid and delicate body, like a drooping bud! If you could realize the agonizing tenderness of this rough youth's hand which, without moving, is caressing and holding you!

Annie suddenly drew herself up with an unnatural movement. Ah! girl, you haven't realized anything!” “Good-night,” said Annie quietly, her face pale and indistinct, and rather stiffly she gave him her hand. He stretched out his own faintly, as if it were broken, and stared fixedly in another direction. Didn’t she really wish to linger a little? No, she was already going. She hesitated; no, she stood still and pulled at the edges of some leaves. What more was there to be said? Good-night, Annie, and sleep better than I shall.

For there was certainly no question of going to bed now. Prokop threw himself down on the seat and put his head in his hands. Nothing, nothing had succeeded. Annie was pure and unconscious as a young doe, but enough of that; he was not a raw lad. Then a light showed in a window on the first floor. It was Annie in her bedroom.

Prokop’s heart beat wildly. He knew that it was shameful to watch her secretly; certainly as a guest he should not do such a thing. Finally he ​attempted to cough so that she should hear him; but somehow he found this to be false, and sat motionless like a statue, unable to take his eyes from the golden window. Annie moved to and fro, bent down, took a long time to do something or other. Aha! she was making her bed. Then she stood at the window, looking into the darkness, her hands behind her head exactly as he saw her in his dream. Now, now he would so gladly have liked to call to her; why did he not do so? But it was too late. Annie turned away and began to move about again. She was still there; no, she was sitting with her back to the window and slowly and reflectively taking her shoes off. Now, at least, he might depart, but instead he climbed up on to the seat, so as to see better. Annie turned round, already half undressed; she raised her bare arms and began to comb her hair. She moved her head and it all fell over her shoulder, gave it a shake and all this wealth of hair tumbled over her face and she set to work with the comb and brush until her head was as smooth as an onion.

Annie, a white virgin, stood motionless, with bent head, and braided her hair into two plaits. Her eyes were lowered and she whispered something to herself, smiled, and became ashamed. The strap of her chemise threatened to slip down. Plunged in reflection, she rubbed her white shoulder with a sort of delight, trembling with the cold.

The shoulder strap slipped still more dangerously, and the light was extinguished.

Never had he seen anything more white, more beautiful than that lighted window.

Early in the morning he found her scouring Honzik in a trough full of soapsuds. The little dog struggled desperately; but Annie, inexorable, laughing and splashed with water, soaped him energetically. “Look out!” she cried when Prokop was still some way off, “he will splash you!”

She looked like a young, enthusiastic mother. Oh God, how simple and beautiful everything is in this sunny world!

Even Prokup was unable to bear continued idleness. He remembered that the bell was out of order, and went off to repair the battery. He was just scraping some zinc when she softly approached him. Her sleeves were turned up above the elbows and her hands were wet from washing. “It won’t explode?” she asked with anxiety. Prokop was obliged to smile. She also smiled and splashed him with soapsuds; then with a serious face she came over to him and rubbed the splashes of soap off his hair. The night before she would not have ventured to do such a thing.

At mid-day she and Nanda carried a basket of washing into the garden to be bleached. Prokop shut his book with relief; he would not allow her to carry the heavy watering-can. He possessed himself of it and began to sprinkle the linen. The thick stream bubbled joyously on to the folds of tablecloths, white coverlets and the widely spread arms ​of shirts; the water hissed, guttered and formed little fiords and lakes. Prokop began to water white petticoats and other interesting things; but Annie took the can out of his hands and did it herself. Meanwhile Prokop sat down on the grass, inhaling with delight the damp smell and watching Annie’s beautiful and active hands.

Σοί δέ θεοί τόα δοῖεν, he remembered piously, σέβας μ’ἔχει είσορόωντα.

Annie sat down on the grass next to him. “What were you thinking about?” She blinked her eyes happily, dazzled by the brightness of the sun, blushed, and for some reason was inordinately happy. Plucking a full handful of fresh grass, she tried exuberantly to throw it on to his hair; but for some reason or other she suddenly felt a sort of shyness before this shaggy hero. “Have you ever been in love?” she asked inconsequently and quickly looked in another direction.

Prokop laughed. “I have. And you surely have already loved somebody?”

“I was silly once,” said Annie, and against her will grew red.

“A student?”

Annie only nodded and sucked a blade of grass. “It was nothing,” she said quickly. “And you?”

“I once met a girl who had the same sort of eyelashes that you have. Perhaps she was rather like you. She sold gloves or something of the sort.”

“And what else?”

“Nothing. When I went there again to buy some gloves, she was gone.”

​“And . . . were you fond of her?”

“I was.”

“And . . . did you ever . . .?”

“Never. Now my gloves are made by some one else.”

Annie concentrated her attention on the ground. “Why do you always hide your hands from me?”

“Because . . . because they are so knocked about,” said Prokop, and the poor fellow grew red.

“They are just as nice that way,” whispered Annie with her eyes cast down.

“Din—ner, din—ner,” cried Nanda from the house. “Goodness, already,” said Annie, and reluctantly got up.

After dinner the old doctor rested for a bit. “You know,” he excused himself, “I’ve been slaving this morning like a dog.” And a moment afterwards he was snoring away. They signalled to one another with their eyes and left the room on tiptoe; and even in the garden they spoke quietly, as if they respected his repose.

Prokop was obliged to narrate the story of his own life. Where he was born, where he grew up, that he had been as far. as America, the poverty which he had endured, what he had done and where. It did him good to go over his life in this way; he was astonished to find that it was more wonderful and complicated than he had imagined; but there was much which he was silent about, especially certain emotional experiences since, in the first place, they were of no significance, and, in the second, every man has certain things of which he cannot ​speak. Annie was as quiet as a mouse. It seemed to her somehow curious and amusing that Prokop had once been a child and a youth and something different from the gruff and extraordinary person by the side of whom she felt herself to be so small. Now she ceased to be afraid of touching him, tying his cravat and combing his hair. And for the first time she became conscious of his thick nose, his heavy and severe lips and his sombre, bloodshot eyes. It all seemed to her extraordinarily wonderful.

And now it was her turn to speak of her life. She had already taken breath and opened her lips; but suddenly she burst out laughing. What could she say about such an insignificant life, especially to a person who had once been buried by a shell for twelve hours in the War, had been in America, and who knows what else? “I have nothing to say,” she said directly. But is not such a “nothing” as valuable as the experience of a man?

It was late in the afternoon when they set off together on a sun-warmed path across the fields. Prokop was silent, and Annie caressed the prickly heads of the wheat with her hand as she went along. She brushed him with her shoulder, lingered and stopped—and then set off again two steps in front of him, pulling at the wheat with some curious compulsion to destruction. This sun-lit solitude finally weighed her down and made her nervous. We shouldn’t have come here, they both thought secretly, and in this oppressive disharmony they dragged out a shallow, fragmentary conversation. Finally here was their objective, a little chapel ​between two ancient lime trees. It was late in the afternoon, the time when the herdsmen begin to sing. In front of the chapel was a seat placed there for pilgrims; they sat down and became more silent than ever. A woman was kneeling on the steps of the chapel and praying, certainly for her family. Scarcely had she left when Annie knelt in her place. There was in this action something obviously and eternally feminine. Prokop felt himself to be very young by the side of the mature simplicity of this time-worn and sacred gesture. Finally Annie stood up, grew more serious, as it were ripened, having decided something, reconciled herself to it; it was as if she had become aware of something, as if she were heavy-laden, preoccupied, changed in some way. She carried something new within her; when they wandered back home in the twilight she answered only in monosyllables in a sweet and hushed voice.

During supper neither she nor Prokop spoke. Perhaps they were wondering when the old gentleman would go away to read his newspaper. The old gentleman muttered and scrutinized them over his spectacles; something had put him out, was not as it should be. The evening dragged on and on until the bell rang and a person from Sedmidoli or Lhota called for the doctor to attend a confinement. The old man was far from delighted, and finally forgot even to grumble. When already in the doorway with his bag in his hand he hesitated and said tersely . . . “Go to bed, Annie.”

Without a word she got up and slipped away from the table. For a long, long time she was occupied ​with something in the kitchen. Prokop smoked nervously, and was already about to go away. Then she returned, pale, as if frozen, and said with heroic self-control: “Would you care for a game of billiards?”—which meant that there was no question of going in the garden that evening.

It was a wretched game. Annie was terribly formal, played blindly, forgot her turn and scarcely spoke at all. And when she had missed a particularly easy shot Prokop showed her how she should have played . . . the left hand so, the cue held nearer the end. In showing her he touched her hand with his. Annie gave him a sharp, dark look, threw the cue on the ground, and ran out of the room.

What should he do? Prokop walked up and down the room, smoked and became annoyed. A curious girl; and why should she confuse him? Her stupid mouth, her narrow eyes, her smooth and burning face—well, a man isn’t made of wood. Why should it be wrong to stroke her face, to kiss her red cheeks, stroke her hair, her delicate hair at the nape of her young neck—a man isn’t made of wood. To caress her, take her in one’s arms, and kiss her reverently? How stupid, thought Prokop, annoyed; I’m an ass; I ought to be ashamed of myself—such a child, who never thinks of such things—Good; Prokop considered that he had dealt with this temptation, but it was not to be managed so quickly.

He stood still in front of the glass, sombre, biting his lips and bitterly considering his age.

Go to bed, old bachelor; you’ve saved yourself ​from being insulted; this young, stupid girl would laugh at you. More or less decided in his mind, Prokop stumped upstairs to his bedroom; the only thing which oppressed him was that he was obliged to go past Annie’s door. He went on tiptoe; perhaps the child was already sleeping. And suddenly he stopped with his heart beating wildly. The door of Annie’s room . . . was not closed. Inside there was darkness. What could this mean? And then inside he heard something like weeping.

He had an impulse to rush into the room; but something stronger sent him hurriedly downstairs and out into the garden. He stood in the thick shrubbery, pressing his hand to his heart, which was beating hard. Thank Christ that he did not go in to her! Annie was certainly kneeling, half dressed and crying into her pillow; why? And if he had gone in what would have happened? Nothing; he would have smoothed, smoothed her bright hair, already loose on her shoulders—O God! why did she leave the door open?

A light shadow glided out of the house towards the garden. It was Annie. She was dressed and her hair was not loose, but she pressed her hand to her temples to cool her burning forehead; and she was still sobbing from her recent crying. She went past Prokop as if she had not seen him, but made no resistance when he took her by the arm and led her to the seat. Prokop mustered a few words of consolation (but, in God’s name, on account of what?) Then suddenly he felt her head on his shoulder; once more she cried convulsively and in the midst of her sobs assured him that “it was ​nothing.” Prokop put his arms round her as if he were her uncle and not knowing what to say muttered something to the effect that she was a good girl and wonderfully lovable; upon which the sobs changed to long sighs (he felt somewhere on his arm a hot dampness) and it was all right. O Night, Queen of heaven, you lighten the breast of the aflicted and loosen the heavy tongue; you quicken, bless, endow with wings the quietly beating heart, oppressed and silent; the thirsty can drink of your endlessness. At some tiny point of space, somewhere between the pole and the Southern Cross, the Centaur and Lyra, something tender is taking place; some man for no reason at all feels himself to be the sole protector of this girl, with her face moist with tears, strokes her head and says—what exactly?—that he is so happy, so happy, that he loves so dearly, so terribly dearly this creature which is sobbing on his shoulder, that he will never leave her, and so on, in that vein.

“I don’t know what happened to me,” said Annie through her tears. “I—I so wanted to talk to you before . . .”

“And why did you cry?” asked Prokop.

“Because you took such a long time to come to me,” ran the surprising answer.

Something in Prokop weakened, the will or something of the sort. “Do . . . you . . . love me?” he said with difficulty, and his voice was as confused as that of a boy of thirteen. The head buried itself in his shoulder quickly and nodded.

“Perhaps . . . I should have come to you,” whispered Prokop, crestfallen. The head shook de​cidedly. “Now . . . I feel better,” sighed Annie after a moment. “Here it is so beautiful!” Most people would find it difficult to understand what there was attractive about a man’s shabby coat, smelling of tobacco; but Annie thrust her head into it and for nothing in the world would she have turned to look up at the stars, so pleasant was it in this dark and smoky resting place. Her hair tickled Prokop under the nose and had about it an exquisite fragrance. Prokop smoothed her drooping shoulders, smoothed her young neck and breast, and encountered nothing but palpitating devotion; then, forgetting everything, he roughly and brutally seized her head and began to kiss her on her moist lips. And, lo! Annie defended herself wildly, became quite paralyzed with fear and gasped out “No, no, no!” She again buried her face in his coat and he could almost hear the frightened beating of her heart. Prokop suddenly realized that she had probably been kissed for the first time.

Then he became ashamed of himself, grew extraordinarily serious and did not venture to do more than smooth her hair. This one may do . . . God, she’s still just a child and quite naïve! And now not a word that might besmirch this innocent young creature; not a thought which would coarsely interpret the confused emotions of this evening! In truth he did not know what he was saying; it had a crude melody and no syntax; it touched in turn upon the stars, love, God, the beauty of the night and some opera or other the name of which Prokop was quite incapable of recalling, but the notes of which were sounding intoxicatingly in his head. ​A few moments after it seemed to him that Annie had fallen asleep; he remained silent until he felt again on his shoulder the exquisite breath of sleepy attention.

At last Annie drew herself up, folded her hands in her lap and became reflective. “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it,” she said. “It seems to me impossible that it should have happened.”

Across the sky a star fell in a streak of light. There was a scent of honeysuckle, the peony slept closed up in a ball, a heavenly breath rustled through the tops of the trees. “I should like to stay here,” whispered Annie.

Once more Prokop had a silent struggle with temptation. “Good-night, Annie,” he said. “If . . . your father were to return . . .”

Annie obediently stood up. “Good-night,” she said and hesitated; and they stood opposite one another, not knowing what to do or how to come to an end. Annie was pale, her eyelids fluttered in agitation and she looked as if she were preparing herself for some heroic deed; but when Prokop, this time completely losing his head, took hold of her elbow she recoiled apprehensively and left him. He followed her along the garden path about a yard behind; when they reached the place where the shadow was darkest they evidently lost the way or something of the sort since Prokop struck somebody’s forehead with his teeth, kissed a cold nose and finally found with his mouth a pair of desperately closed lips. Forcing them apart, he violently kissed their moaning, burning moistness. Then Annie tore herself out of his arms, ran to the ​garden gate and began to sob. Prokop dashed after her to comfort her, covered her ears, hair and neck with kisses, but it was of no avail; she asked to be released, and turned to him a moist face, eyes full of tears, and a sobbing mouth. He kissed and caressed her and suddenly saw that she had ceased to resist him, that she had given herself up to whatever might come and perhaps was crying because of her own abruptness. Prokop became filled with masculine gallantry and, infinitely moved, kissed nothing but her desperate fingers, trembling and damp with tears. Now, now it was better. Now she again rested her face on his rough paw and he kissed her soft, hot mouth and she was reluctant for him to cease.

And now he held his breath, overcome with painful tenderness.

Annie raised her head. “Good-night,” she said softly, and quite simply offered him her mouth. Prokop bent down and implanted on it the most delicate kiss of which he was capable. He did not dare to accompany her farther but stood quite still for a moment and then took himself off to the other end of the garden, untouched by any ray of light from her window. There he remained motionless as if he were praying. But he was not praying; it was only the most wonderful night of his life.

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 folowing 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 twen​tieth 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, Prokep 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.

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 ina 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!

Directly he arrived at Prague he made for Thomas’s rooms. Outside the Museum he pulled himself up . . . curse, where exactly did Thomas live? He walked, yes, he walked, shaking with fever, along the road by the Museum; but from where? From which street? Swearing, Prokop wandered round the Museum looking for the most probable direction; he found nothing and went to the Inquiry Office of the police. George Thomas; the dusty official looked through a number of books. Engineer Thomas, George, that, please, is Smichov, such and such a street. Evidently an old address. Nevertheless Prokop flew into Smichov to such and such a street. The caretaker shook his head when he asked for George Thomas. He certainly used to live here, but more than a year ago; where he lived now nobody knew; incidentally he had left all sorts of debts behind him——

Crestfallen, Prokop wandered into a coffee-house. “KRAKATIT” hit him in the eyes from the back of a paper. “Will Eng. P. give his address? Carson, Poste Restante.” Well, this Carson will certainly know about Thomas . . . there must be some connection between them. All right then . . . “Carson, Poste Restante. Be at such and such coffee-house to-morrow at mid-day—Eng. Prokop.” Directly he had written this a new idea came into ​his head . . . the debts. He rushed off to the courts, the Inquiry Department. Yes, they knew Mr. Thomas’s address very well . . . a whole pile of undelivered circulars, official reminders, etc.; but it appeared that this Thomas, George, had disappeared without leaving a trace, and, especially, had furnished no one with his new address. All the same Prokop dashed off to the new address. The caretaker’s wife, encouraged by an adequate tip, at once recognized Prokop, who on one occasion had spent the night there. She informed him quite voluntarily that Mr. Engineer Thomas was a crook and a good-for-nothing. Further, that on that occasion he had gone off in the night and left him, the gentleman, in her care; that she had come upstairs three times to ask whether he needed anything, but that he, the gentleman, remained asleep and kept on talking to himself, and finally disappeared. And where on earth was Mr. Thomas? That night he had gone off and left everything lying about and had still not returned. All he had done was to send her some money from somewhere abroad, but he was still in debt for the new quarter. She had heard that they were going to sell his effects in the State Lottery if he didn’t report by the end of the month. He was nearly a quarter of a million in debt, so they said, and had made off. Prokop subjected the worthy woman to a cross-examination . . . did she knew anything about a certain young lady who was supposed to have relations with Mr. Thomas, who—came to his rooms and so on? The caretaker’s wife could not tell him anything; as far as women went, as many as twenty came to the place, some with ​veils over their faces and others “made up,” and all sorts. It was a scandal for the whole street. Prokop paid for the new quarter himself and in return obtained the key of the flat.

Inside there was the musty smell of rooms which have long been unoccupied and from which almost all life has departed. Only now did Prokop realize that he had wrestled with his fever amidst the most extraordinary luxury. Everywhere Bokhara or Persian carpets, on the walls tapestries and nude studies, a divan, arm-chairs, the dressing-table of a soubrette, the bathroom of a high-class prostitute, a mixture of luxury and vulgarity, lewdness and dissoluteness. And here, in the middle of all these abominations, she had stood pressing the package to her bosom, her clear, woeful eyes cast on the ground. And now, my God! she raised them in brave devotion. . . . What on earth could she have thought of him when she found him in this den? He must find her at least . . . at least to return her her money; even if it was for nothing else, for nothing more important . . . it was absolutely necessary to find her!

That is easy enough to say, but how? Prokop bit his lips in obstinate reflection. If he only knew where to look for George, he said to himself; finally he came upon a pile of correspondence which was waiting there for Thomas. Most of it consisted, naturally, of commercial letters, obviously chiefly bills. Then a few private letters which he turned over and sniffed with some hesitation. Perhaps in one of them there was a clue to his whereabouts, an address or something of the sort, which ​would enable him to find him . . . or to find her! He heroically repressed the inclination to open at least one letter; but he was alone there behind dirty windows, and everything seemed to exhale an atmosphere of base and secret corruption. And then, quickly overcoming all his scruples, he began to tear open the envelopes and read one letter after the other. A bill for Persian carpets, for flowers, for three typewriters; urgent reminders regarding goods given on commission; some mysterious transaction relating to a horse, foreign currency and twenty wagons of wood somewhere near Kremnice. Prokop could not believe his eyes; according to these documents Thomas was either a smuggler on a large scale, or an agent dealing in Persian carpets, or a speculator on the Exchange, very probably all three. In addition he did business in motor-cars, export certificates, office furniture and, obviously, all sorts of things. In one letter there was something about two million crowns, while in another, soiled and written in pencil, there was a threat of a complaint regarding some antique or other which he had wheedled from somebody. Everything together pointed to a long succession of deceptions, embezzlements, falsifications of export documents, as far as Prokop was able to understand; it was simply amazing that it had not all come out. One solicitor intimated briefly that such and such a firm had brought an action against Mr. Thomas for embezzling forty thousand crowns; it was in Mr. Thomas’s own interest to appear at his office, etc. Prokop was horrified; if it were all once found out what would not be the ramifications of this unutterable turpitude? ​He thought of the quiet house in Tynice and of the girl who had stood in the very room, desperately determined to protect that third person. He took up all Thomas’s commercial correspondence and ran to burn it in the stove, which he found full of charred papers. It was evident that Thomas himself had simplified conditions in this way before he left.

Good; that dealt with the commercial papers; there remained a few purely private letters, tender or dreadfully scrawled, and over these again Prokop hesitated in burning shame. But what on earth else was he to do? He was suffocating with embarrassment but he boldly opened the remaining envelopes. “Darling, I remember,” “a further meeting,”—and so on. A certain Anna Chvalova stated with the most touching orthographical mistakes that Jenicek had died “of an erruption.” Somebody else intimated that “he knew something that might interest the police but that he would be willing to discuss the question,” and that Mr. Thomas “certainly knew the price of his discretion”; there followed an allusion to “that house in Bret Street where Mr. Thomas knew whom to speak to if the affair was to be kept secret.” Then something about some business or other, the sale of some bills, signed “your Rosie.” The same Rosie stated that her husband had gone away. The same handwriting as in No. 1, a letter from a watering-place, nothing but bovine sentimentality, the unbridled passion of a fat and mature blonde, sweetened all over with ahs! reproofs, and lofty sentiments, apart from “sweetheart” and “ducky” and other abominations. Pro​kop positively felt bilious. A German letter, signed “G,” a deal in foreign currency, “‘sell these papers, I await your reply, P.S. Achtung, K. aus Hambourg eingetroffen.” The same “G”; a hasty and offended letter, the frigid use of the second person plural. “Send back that ten thousand, sonst wird K. dahinter kommen.” H’m. Prokop was deeply ashamed at having to penetrate into the malodorous obscurity of these disreputable affairs, but it was no good stopping now. Finally four letters signed M.; tearful, bitter and miserable, from which emerged the passionate history of some blind, airless, servile love. There were passionate demands, crawlings in the dust, desperate incriminations, frightful offerings of the writer’s self and more terrible self-torture; references to the children, the husband, the offer of a further loan, obscure allusions and the all too clear wretchedness of a woman at the mercy of passion. So this was her sister! To Prokop it was as if he saw before him the cruel and mocking lips, the taunting eyes, the aristocratic, proud, self-confident head of Thomas; he would have liked to smash it with his fist. But it was of no use; the miserable love of this woman told him nothing about . . . about this other one, who was for him so far without a name and whom he must seek out.

Nothing was left but to find Thomas.

To find Thomas . . . as if that were a simple matter! Prokop again made a general examination of the whole flat; he rooted in all the cupboards and drawers, finding old bills, love letters, photographs and other relics of Thomas’s youth, but nothing which was likely to help him with his quest. Well, it was natural enough that a person who had brought down so much on himself would have to disappear very definitely!

He again cross-questioned the caretaker’s wife; he certainly learnt all sorts of stories, but nothing which put him on Thomas’s trail. He tried to find out from the caretaker from where Thomas had sent the money from abroad. He had to listen to a whole sermon from an ungracious and rather unpleasant old man, who had suffered from every possible sort of catarrh and who enlarged upon the depravity of the young men of to-day. At the price of superhuman patience Prokop finally learnt that the money in question was not sent by Mr. Thomas but by an agent of the Dresdner Bank “Auf Befehl des Herrn Thomas.” He dashed off to the solicitor who had a claim prepared against the delinquent. The solicitor withdrew to an unnecessary extent into his professional secrecy; but when Prokop stupidly blurted out that he had some money to give to Thomas, the solicitor became more alive and ​demanded that he should hand it over to him. It cost Prokop a good deal of trouble to get away.

This taught him not to search for Thomas among people who had any sort of commercial connection with him.

At the next corner he stopped; what now? There remained only Carson. An unknown quantity who knew something and wanted something. Good. Carson then. Prokop found in his pocket the letter which he had forgotten to post and ran off to a letter-box.

But once there his hand dropped. Carson, Carson—yes, but he . . . what he wants is hardly a trifle. Devil take it, that fellow knew something about Krakatit and had got something up his sleeve—God knows what. Why was he looking for him? Evidently Thomas didn’t know everything, or he didn’t want to sell everything, or he laid down impossible conditions, and he, Prokop, like an ass, had to sell himself more cheaply. It must be something like that; but (and here Prokop for the first time grew terrified at the extent to which he was involved) what could he do with Krakatit when he got it? To begin with he must know very well what the substance is for, how it is handled, etc. Krakatit, my friend, is not snuff or a sleeping-powder for children. And in the second place, in the second place it was . . . too strong a tobacco for this world. Just imagine what could be done with it . . . let us say in a war. Prokop began to get frightened of the whole business. What devil was bringing that cursed Carson here? On all accounts he must stop, cost what it may——

​Prokop clutched at his head so markedly that passers-by stopped to look at him. For he remembered that up there in his laboratory shed in Hybsmonka he had left nearly four ounces of Krakatit! That is to say enough to blow off the earth I don’t know what,—the whole district! He became frozen with horror and ran for a tram. What did not hang upon these few minutes! He went through hell before the tram took him across the river; then he climbed the street as fast as he possibly could and finally reached the shed. It was locked up and Prokop vainly hunted in his pockets for something resembling a key; then, taking advantage of the twilight like a burglar, he broke open the window, pulled back the bolts and crawled home through the window.

He only needed to strike a match to see that the place had been plundered in the most methodical way possible. Certainly the bedding and a few sticks of furniture remained; but all the flasks, test-tubes, crushers, mortars, dishes and apparatus, spatulas and balances, all his primitive chemical kitchen, everything which had contained material upon which he had experimented, anything on which there might be left the slightest sediment or trace of any chemical, had disappeared. There was missing also the Porcelain box containing Krakatit. He pulled out a drawer of the table; all his papers and notes, every scrap of paper on which he had scribbled, the smallest relic of twelve years of experimental work, all had gone. Finally, even the spots and splashes had been scraped off the floor, and his overall, that ancient, ragged covering, positively encrusted with ​chemicals, had also been taken away. He found himself nearly crying.

Until late in the night he remained sitting on his soldier’s palliasse and blankly stared at his looted work-room. At moments he consoled himself by thinking that he would remember everything that he had made a note of in the course of twelve years; but when he tried to repeat some experiment in his head he found, in spite of his most desperate efforts, that it was impossible; then he gnawed his mutilated fingers and groaned.

Suddenly he was awakened by the rattling of a key. It was fully light, and as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world a man came into the room and made towards the table. He sat down with his hat still on, muttering and scratching at the zinc on the table. Prokop cried out from the palliasse: “What do you want here, man?”

Extraordinarily surprised, the man turned around and looked at Prokop without a word.

“What do you want here?” repeated Prokop excitedly. The man said nothing; to crown everything he put on his spectacles and gazed at Prokop with enormous interest.

Prokop ground his teeth, for there was prepared within him a fearful insult. But at this point the man glowed with the most human feeling, sprang out of the chair and suddenly looked as if he were joyfully wagging his tail. “Carson,” he said rapidly introducing himself, and added in German: “God, I am glad that you have come back! You undoubtedly read my announcement?”

​“I did,” answered Prokop in his stiff and ponderous German. “And what do you want here?”

“You,” said his guest completely delighted. “Do you know that I’ve been chasing you for six weeks? All the newspapers, all the detective institutes,—ha, ha, my dear sir, what do you say to that? Herr Gott, I am glad! How are you? Well?”

“Why have you stolen my things?” said Prokop gloomily.

“What do you mean, please?”

“Why have you stolen my things?”

“But, Mister Engineer,” said the cheerful little man, not in the least put out, “what are you saying? Stolen! Carson! That’s good, aha!”

“Stolen,” repeated Prokop meaningly.

“Tut, tut, tut,” protested Mr. Carson. “It’s all carefully stored. I arranged everything in order. My dear sir, how could you possibly leave it lying about like that? Anybody might have stolen it from you—what? Of course they could, my dear sir. They could have stolen it, sold it, made it public, eh? That goes without saying. They could have done that. But I’ve stored it for you, do you understand? Honestly, I have. That’s why I have been looking for you. You shall have everything back. Everything. That is,” he added with some hesitation and something steely flashed under his shiny spectacles, “that is . . . if you will be reasonable. But we shall come to an understanding, eh?” He added quickly: “You must become qualified. A wonderful career. Atomic explosions, disintegration of elements. Magnificent! Science, before every​thing science! We shall come to an understanding, eh? Honestly, you shall have everything back. So.”

Prokop was silent, overpowered by this avalanche of words, while Mr. Carson waved his arms and circulated about the laboratory inordinately delighted. “I’ve preserved everything, everything,” he said exuberantly. “Every fragment from the floor. Sorted out, stored away, ticketed, sealed. Aha! I could have gone off with everything, eh? But I’m honourable, my dear sir. I shall return everything. We must come to an understanding. You trust. Carson. A Dane by birth, formerly a lecturer in Copenhagen. And I’ve also studied theology. What does Schiller say? Dem Einen ist sie—ist sie—I’ve forgotten, but it’s something to do with science; amusing, eh? But don’t thank me. Later. So.”

Prokop had had no idea of thanking him, but Mr. Carson glowed like a self-righteous benefactor. “In your place,” he said enthusiastically, “in your place I should get——”

“Where is Thomas now?” Prokop interrupted him.

Mr. Carson gave him a searching look. “Well.” he said through his teeth after consideration, “we know about him. Oh, yes,” he said quickly, “you should provide yourself . . . provide yourself with the largest laboratory in the world. The very best instruments. The World’s Institute of Destructive Chemistry. You are right, a university chair is a stupidity. They only repeat old facts, eh? A waste of time. Institute a laboratory in the American style. An enormous laboratory, a brigade of assist​ants, everything that you want. And you mustn’t worry about money. Where do you déjeuner? I should so much like you to be my guest.”

“What do you really want?” Prokop burst out.

Then Mr. Carson sat down on the palliasse next to him, took him extraordinarily warmly by the hand and said suddenly in quite a different voice: “Keep cool. You can make millions and millions.”

Prokop looked at Mr. Carson in amazement. He was surprised to find that his face was no longer an insipid one, glowing with kindliness; it had grown serious and severe, the eyes of this zealous man had disappeared behind his heavy lids and only for an instant now and then did they flash out sharply. “Don’t be foolish,” he said emphatically. “Sell us Krakatit and the thing is done.”

“But how do you know . . .?” said Prokop hoarsely.

“I’ll tell you everything, honestly everything. Mr. Thomas came to us; he brought four ounces and the formula. Unfortunately he was not able to tell us the process. Neither he nor our chemists have so far been able to discover it, to discover how to make the stuff. Some sort of a trick, eh?”

“Yes.”

“H’m. Maybe we may come upon it without your assistance.”

“You won’t.”

“Mr. Thomas . . . knows something about it, but keeps it a secret. He worked for us behind locked doors. He’s a terribly bad chemist, but more artful than you are. At least he doesn’t blurt out what he knows. Why did you tell him? All he knows is to cadge money out of people. You should have come yourself.”

​“I didn’t send him to you,” muttered Prokop.

“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, “extremely interesting. Your Mr. Thomas came to us——”

“Where exactly?”

“To us. Factories in Balttin. Do you know it?”

“No.”

“A foreign concern. Marvellously up to date. An experimental laboratory for new explosives. We make keramit, methylnitrate, and such things. Chiefly military, you see? You’ll sell us Krakatit. Yes?”

“No. And is Thomas still with you?”

“Aha! Mr. Thomas; wait, that’s amusing. Now he comes to us and says: This is the legacy of my friend, Prokop, a chemist of genius; he died in my arms, and with his last breath, aha! he bequeathed it me. Aha! magnificent,—what?”

Prokop only smiled wryly. “And is Thomas still . . . in Balttin?”

“Wait a moment. Naturally, to begin with we kept him . . . as a spy. We get hundreds of them, you know. And we had this powder, Krakatit, tested.”

“And the result?”

Mr. Carson raised his hands to heaven. “Magnificent!”

“What’s the speed of detonation? How did you find Q? And t? The figures!”

Mr. Carson let his hands fall, so that they slapped on his knees and opened hig eyes very wide. “What figures, man! The first attempt . . . fifty per cent starch . . . and the crusher gauge was blown ​to smithereens. One engineer and two assistants . . . also in smithereens. Would you believe it? Attempt No. 2 . . . a Trauz block, ninety per cent vaseline, and bang! The roof went up and one workman was killed; nothing of the block remained but a fragment. Then we let the soldiers have a go at it; they laughed at us . . . said we knew as much about it as . . . a village blacksmith. We gave them a little; they rammed it into a gun with a lot of sawdust. Splendid results. Seven gunners blown up including a N.C.O. . . . they found one leg three kilometres away. Twelve dead in two days, there’s figures for you. Aha! magnificent, eh?”

Prokop wanted to say something, but gulped it down. Twelve dead in two days—the devil!

Mr. Carson rubbed his knees and glowed with pleasure. “The third day we gave it a rest. It makes a bad impression, you know, when . . . you have many such incidents. Then we only took a little Krakatit . . . about three decigrams . . . in glycerine and that sort of thing. The idiot of a lab. boy left a pinch lying about in the night when the laboratory was shut a——”

“It exploded?” cried Prokop.

“Yes. At ten thirty-five. The laboratory chemist was torn to shreds, not to speak of a couple of blocks of buildings. . . . About three tons of methylnitrate went up with it—in short about sixty killed. Naturally enough a tremendous investigation and all the rest of it. It turned out that nobody had been in the laboratory and that evidently it must have exploded——”

​“by itself,” interrupted Prokop, scarcely breathing.

“Yes. Was it the same with you?”

Prokop nodded gloomily.

“There you are,” said Carson quickly. “And not without a reason. Terribly dangerous stuff. Sell it to us and you won’t have to worry any more. What would you have done with it?”

“And what would you have done with it?” said Prokop through his teeth.

“We’ve . . . made arrangements about that. What does it matter blowing up a few fellows—but it would be a pity if you were to suffer.”

“But the Krakatit in the porcelain box didn’t explode,” said Prokop, still obstinately reflecting.

“Thank God, no. I should think not!”

“And it was at night,” Prokop reflected further.

“At ten thirty-five, precisely.”

“And . . . those few grains of Krakatit were lying on a zinc . . . on a metal plate,” Prokop went on.

“It was nothing to do with that,” burst out the little man with a worried expression, and he bit his lips and started pacing up and down the laboratory. “It was . . . perhaps only oxidization,” he said after a moment. “Some sort of chemical process. It didn’t explode when mixed with glycerine.”

“Because it isn’t a conductor,” jerked out Prokop. “Because it doesn’t ionize—I don’t know.”

Mr. Carson stopped and stood over him with his hands behind his back. “You’re very astute,” he said appreciatively. ‘You deserve to get a lot of money. It’s a pity you’re stuck here.”

​“Is Thomas still in Balttin?” asked Prokop, exerting all his strength so as to appear indifferent.

Something flashed behind Mr. Carson’s spectacles. “We’ve got our eye on him,” he said evasively. “He certainly won’t come back here. Come to us . . . you may find him, if—you—want him so very badly,” he said slowly and emphatically.

“Where is he?” repeated Prokop obstinately, making it quite clear that he would talk of nothing else.

Mr. Carson waved his hand airily. “Well, he’s made off,” and he gave Prokop an inscrutable glance.

“Made off?”

“Faded away. He wasn’t supervised carefully enough, and he was an artful bird. He undertook to prepare Krakatit for us. Experimented with it . . . about six weeks. Cost us a frightful amount of money. Then disappeared, the rotter. Didn’t know what to do,—what? Knows nothing.”

“And where is he?”

Mr. Carson bent over Prokop. “A rotter. Now he is offering Krakatit to some other state. And at the same time he stole our methylnitrate, the swine. Now he is playing the same trick on them.”

“Where?”

“Mustn’t say. Honestly, I mustn’t. And when he bolted I went, aha! to visit your grave. Piety—what? Chemist of genius, unknown to anyone here. That was a job if you like. Had to keep on advertising in papers like an idiot. Naturally the others got on to it, see? You understand me?”

“No.”

“Come and have a look,” said Mr. Carson ​briskly, and crossed to the opposite wall. “Here,” he said and tapped the boarding.

“What is it?”

“A spy-hole. Some one came here.”

“And who shot at him?”

“Well, I did. If you had crept through the window the same way a fortnight ago some one . . . would have let fly at you.”

“Who?”

“That’s all the same, this or that state. A good many foreign powers, my friends, have been knocking at this door. And meanwhile you were somewhere, aha! catching fish, eh? Marvellous fellow! But listen, my dear sir,” he said with sudden seriousness, “kindly give up coming here. Never, do you understand?”

“Rubbish!”

“Wait. You won't find a grenadier waiting for you. Very unpretentious-looking people. Nowadays this sort of thing . . . is done very discreetly.” Mr. Carson stopped near the window and drummed with his fingers on the glass. “You can’t believe how many letters I got in answer to my advertisement. About six Prokops introduced themselves. . . . Come and look, quick!”

Prokop came over to the window. “What is it?”

Mr. Carson silently pointed at the road with his short finger. On it a young man was twisting about on a bicycle in a desperate attempt to maintain his equilibrium, each wheel exhibiting a strong inclination to go in a different direction. Mr. Carson looked at Prokop inquiringly.

​“Apparently learning to ride,” said Prokop doubtfully.

“Frightfully inept, eh?” said Mr. Carson and opened the window. “Bob.”

The youth on the bicycle stopped instantly: “Yessr.”

“Go to the town for our car!” said Mr. Carson in English.

“Yessr.” And the young cyclist whisked off towards the town.

Mr. Carson turned away from the window. “An Irishman. Very smart lad. What was I going to say? Aha! About six Prokops appeared—meetings in different places, especially at night—amusing, eh? Read this.”

“Come to my laboratory at ten o’clock to-night, Eng. Prokop,” read Prokop as if in a dream. “But this is . . . practically . . . my handwriting!”

“You see,” grinned Carson. “My friend, things are warm. Sell the stuff, and be left in peace!”

Prokop shook his head.

Mr. Carson gave him a heavy, fixed look. “You can ask . . . let us say . . . twenty million. Sell us Krakatit.”

“No.”

“You will get everything back. Twenty million. Sell it, man!”

“No,” said Prokop heavily. “I don’t want anything to do . . . with your wars.”

“What’s your position here? A chemist of genius . . . and lives in a wooden hut! That’s the way your countrymen appreciate you! I know. ​A great man has no countrymen. Don’t let yourself be worried! Sell it and——”

“I don’t want to.”

Mr. Carson stuck his hands into his pockets and yawned. “Wars! Do you think they can be stopped? Pche! Sell it and don’t worry. You’re a scientist . . . what does the rest matter to you? Wars! Don’t be silly. While people have nails and teeth——”

“I shan’t sell it,” said Prokop through his teeth.

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders. “As you like. We shall discover it ourselves. Or Thomas will. Good.”

There was a moment of silence. “It’s all the same to me,” said Mr. Carson. “If you prefer it we’ll offer it to France, to England, where you like, even to China. Together, see? No one would buy it here. You would be a fool to sell it for twenty million. Trust Carson, eh?”

Prokop shook his head decisively.

“Character,” said Mr. Carson appreciatively. “All honour to it. I like that sort of thing enormously. Listen, I’ll tell you. An absolute secret. I swear it.”

“I’m not asking you for your secrets,” muttered Prokop.

“Bravo. A discreet fellow. Just my type, my dear sir.”

Mr. carson sat down and lit a very fat cigar, after which he reflected for a time. “Tchah!” he said at last. “So it exploded with you also. When was that? The date?”

“I can’t say now.”

“The day of the week?”

“I don’t know. I think . . . two days after Sunday.”

“Tuesday then. And at what time?”

“About . . . some time after ten in the evening.”

“Correct.” Mr. Carson thoughtfully blew out some smoke.

“With us it exploded . . . as you were pleased to express it, ‘by itself’ . . . on Tuesday at ten thirty-five. Did you notice anything at the time?”

“No. I was asleep.”

“Aha! It also explodes on Fridays, about half-past ten. On Tuesdays and Fridays. We tested it,” he explained in answer to Prokop’s fascinated look. “We left a milligram of Krakatit lying exposed and watched it day and night. It exploded on Tuesday and Friday at half-past ten. Seven times. Once also on a Monday at ten twenty-nine. So.”

Prokop was inwardly horrified.

“A sort of blue spark appears on it,” added Mr. Carson, absorbed, “and then it explodes.”

​It was so quiet that Prokop could hear the ticking of Carson’s watch.

“Tchah!” sighed Mr. Carson and rummaged desperately with his hand in his brush of red hair.

“What does it mean?” Prokop burst out.

Mr. Carson only shrugged his shoulders. “And what did you,” he said, “what did you think yourself when it exploded . . . ‘by itself,’ eh?”

“Nothing,” replied Prokop evasively. “I didn’t speculate . . . so far.”

Mr. Carson mumbled something uncomplimentary.

“That is,” Prokop corrected himself, “I thought that perhaps . . . it was done by electro-magnetic waves.”

“Aha! Electro-magnetic waves. We thought so too. A splendid idea, only idiotic. Unfortunately completely idiotic. So.”

Prokop was completely at a loss.

“To begin with,” continued Mr. Carson, “wireless waves don’t pass over the world only on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten! And secondly, my friend, you must imagine that we at once experimented accordingly. With short, long, all possible waves. And your Krakatit didn’t alter that much,” and he indicated a minute spot on his own nail. “But on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten it conceived the idea of exploding ‘by itself.’ And do you know what besides?”

Prokop of course did not. “This. For some time . . . about six months or something of the sort . . . the European wireless stations have been horribly annoyed. Something is interfering with ​their conversations, you know. Really. And as it happens . . . always on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten in the evening. What did you say?”

Prokop had said nothing, but only rubbed his forehead.

“Well, on Tuesdays and Fridays. They call it disturbed conversations. Something begins to crackle in the telegraphists’ ears, and there we are; it’s enough to send the fellows off their heads. Sad, eh?” Mr. Carson removed his spectacles and began to clean them with extreme care. “To begin with . . . to begin with they thought it was magnetic storms or something of the sort. But when they found that its office hours were always Tuesday and Friday . . . to cut the story short, Marconi S.F. Transradio, and various Ministries of Posts and Marine, Commerce, the Interior and I don’t know what, have agreed to pay twenty thousand pounds sterling to the smart fellow who can find out the cause of it.” Mr. Carson replaced his spectacles and smiled broadly. “They think that there is some illegal station in existence which amuses itself by interfering with conversations on Tuesdays and Fridays. Rubbish! A secret station which uses up twenty kilowatts for a joke! Fi!” And Mr. Carson spat contemptuously.

“On Tuesdays and Fridays,” said Prokop, “that is, regularly . . .”

“Extraordinary, eh?” leered Mr. Carson. “I’ve got it written down: on Tuesday on such and such a date at ten thirty-five and so many seconds a disturbance at all stations from Reval onwards, and so on. And a certain amount of your Krakatit ​explodes at the same instant ‘by itself,’ as you are good enough to express it. Eh? What? The same the next Friday at ten twenty-nine and a few seconds; a disturbance and an explosion. The next Tuesday at ten thirty-five explosion and disturbance. And so on. As an exception, not in accordance with the programme as it were, a disturbance on Monday at ten twenty-nine minutes, thirty seconds. Ditto explosion. Comes on the second. Eight times in eight cases. A joke, eh? What do you think about it?”

“I d—don’t know,” mumbled Prokop.

“There’s one thing,” said Mr. Carson after reflecting for a long time. “Mr. Thomas was working with us. He has no knowledge, but he has got hold of something. Mr. Thomas had a high frequency generator installed in his laboratory and shut the door in front of our noses. A rotter. It’s the first time I’ve heard of high frequency machines being used in ordinary chemistry, eh? What’s your idea?”

“Well . . . naturally,” said Prokop doubtfully, with an uneasy glance at his own brand-new generator in the corner.

Mr. Carson did not fail to notice this. ‘‘H’m,” he said. ‘You’ve the same sort of toy, eh? A pretty little transformer. What did it cost you?”

Prokop grew sullen, but Mr. Carson began to glow. “I think,” he said with growing expansiveness, “that it would be a magnificent thing if one could produce in some substance . . . let’s say with the help of high power currents . . . certain vibrations, set it in violent motion, loosen its interior ​structure so that one only had just to tap it, from a distance . . . with some waves or other . . . by an explosion, oscillations, or the devil knows what, and it would fly to pieces,—what? Bang! From a distance! What do you say to that?”

Prokop said nothing, and Mr. Carson, pulling at his cigar in delight, feasted his eyes on him.

“I’m not an electrician, you know,” he began after a moment; “it was explained to me by an expert, but I’ll be damned if I understood it. The fellow was all over me with electrons, ions, elementary quanta and I don’t know what; and, to finish up with, this professorial luminary stated that, to make a long story short, the thing was impossible. My friend, you’ve made a howler! You’ve done something which according to the greatest authorities is impossible . . .

“I tried to explain it myself,” he continued, “but not like that. Let us suppose that some one takes it into his head to . . . to make an unstable compound . . . from a certain lead salt. The salt in question does not behave as it should; it refuses to combine, eh? Then this chemist of ours tests everything possible . . . like a madman; and then remembers, let us say, that in the January number of the Chemist there was something about the said phlegmatic salt being a first-class coherer . . . a detector of electric waves. He gets an inspiration. An idiotic and sublime inspiration—that perhaps by the use of electric waves he can bring that cursed salt into a better frame of mind, eh? A man gets his finest inspirations through being stupid. So he ​gets hold of some comic transformer and sets to work; what he did is at present his secret, but in the end . . . he will achieve the synthesis he wants. He’ll achieve it. Or at least, the oscillation will do it. Man, I shall have to go down on all fours and start learning physics in my old age; I’m talking rubbish, eh?”

Prokop muttered something completely unintelligible.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Mr. Carson calmly. “As long as it holds together. I’m dull and I imagine that it has some sort of electro-magnetic structure. If this structure is disturbed, then . . . it disintegrates, eh? Luckily about ten thousand regular wireless stations and several hundred illegal ones preserve in our atmosphere the sort of electro-magnetic climate, the sort of—eh—eh—oscillatory bath which suits this structure. And so it holds together . . .”

Mr. Carson reflected for a moment. “And now,” he began again, “imagine that some devil has a means by which he can thoroughly disturb electric waves. Obliterate them or something of the sort. Imagine that—God knows why—he does this regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays at half-past ten o’clock at night. At that minute and second all wireless communication is interrupted all over the world; but at that minute and second something also happens in this unstable compound, in so far as it is not isolated. . . . In a porcelain box, for example; something in it is disturbed . . . cracks, and it . . . it . . .”

​“. . . explodes,” cried Prokop.

“Yes, explodes, disintegrates. Interesting,—what? One learned gentleman explained to me that—hell, what did he say? That—that——”

Prokop sprang up and seized hold of Mr. Carson’s coat. “Listen,” he burst out, violently excited, “if one were to . . . sprinkle . . . some Krakatit about . . . here, let us say . . . or simply about the place . . .”

“. . . then the next Tuesday or Friday at half-past ten it would explode. Tja. Don’t strangle me, man.”

Prokop released Mr. Carson and paced up and down the room gnawing his fingers in consternation.

“That’s quite clear,” he muttered, “that’s quite clear! Nobody must prepare Krakatit——”

“Besides Mr. Thomas,” suggested Carson sceptically.

“Leave me alone,” said Prokop. “He won’t be able to prepare it!”

“Well,” said Mr. Carson doubtfully, “I don’t know how much you told him.”

Prokop stopped as if rooted to the ground. “Imagine,” he said feverishly, “imagine, for instance . . . a war! Anyone who possessed Krakatit could . . . could . . . whenever he liked . . .”

“At present only on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

“. . . blowup . . . whole towns . . . whole armies . . . everything! All that is necessary is to sprinkle—can you imagine?”

“I can. Magnificent!”

“And therefore . . . for the sake of the world . . . I shall never, never give it up.”

​“In the interest of the world,” repeated Carson, “do you know, in the interest of the world the first thing is to get on the track of that——”

“What?”

“That cursed anarchist wireless station.”

“Do you mean to say,” stammered Prokop, “that . . . that perhaps . . .”

“We know,” Carson interrupted, “that there exist various transmitting and receiving stations. That regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays they certainly say something more than good-night. That they have at their disposition certain forces at present unknown to us: explosions, oscillations, sparks, rays or some other cursed things. Or certain counter-waves, counter-oscillations or whatever they may be called, something which just obliterates our waves, you understand?” Mr. Carson glanced about the laboratory. “Aha!” said he, and took up a piece of chalk. “It may be like this,” he went on, drawing a long arrow on the floor with the chalk, “or like this,” and he scribbled over the whole of the board and added, by wetting his finger, a dark streak. “So or so, you understand? Positive or negative. They either send new waves into our medium or interfere with ours at fixed intervals, you see? In both cases they can do without our control. Both systems are at present though technically and physically . . . a pure mystery. Hell!” said Mr. Carson and in a sudden access of anger broke the chalk into pieces, “that’s too much! To send secret messages by secret waves to a secret addressee who is doing—what do you think?”

​“Perhaps the Martians,” said Prokop, forcing himself to jest; but he was certainly not in the mood for doing so.

Mr. Carson looked at him with hostility and then neighed exactly like a horse. “Let us say the Martians. Magnificent! But let us rather say somebody on the earth. Let us say that some earthly power is sending out its secret instructions. Let us say that it has extremely serious reasons for escaping human control. Let us say that there exists some sort of . . . international service or organization, or the devil knows what, and that it has at its disposal certain mysterious forces, secret stations and the rest. In any case . . . in any case we have the right to be interested in those secret messages, eh? Whether they are from hell or from Mars. It’s simply in the interests of human society. You can imagine. . . . Well, my dear sir, they certainly won’t be wireless messages about Little Red Riding Hood. So.”

Mr. Carson moved rapidly up and down the shed. “One thing is certain to begin with,” he said loudly, “that the transmitting station in question is somewhere in Central Europe, approximately in the middle of the areas where these disturbances occur, eh? Relatively, it’s not very strong, as it only talks at night. All the worse; there’s no difficulty in finding the Eiffel Tower or Nauen, eh? My friend,” he shouted suddenly and stood still: “Imagine that in the very heart of Europe something extraordinary is being prepared. The organization has branches and offices, and the branches are in touch with one another; it has technical devices unknown to us, ​secret powers and, that you may know,” roared Mr. Carson, “it has also Krakatit, so!”

Prokop jumped up like a madman. “What!”

“Krakatit. Nine grammes and thirty-five decigrammes. All that we had left.”

“What did you do with it?” said Prokop fiercely.

“Experiments. We handled it as carefully as if . . . as if it were something very precious. And one evening——”

“What?”

“It disappeared. Including the porcelain box.”

“Stolen?”

“Yes,”

“And who—who——”

“Obviously the Martians,” grinned Mr. Carson. “Unfortunatey through the base collusion of a lab. boy who has disappeared—of course with the porcelain box.”

“When did that happen?”

“Well, just before they sent me here in search of you. An educated man, a Saxon. He left us not even a grain of powder. Now you know why I came.”

“And you think that it fell into the hands . . . of these mysterious people?”

Mr. Carson only snorted.

“How do you know?”

“I am certain. Listen,” said Mr. Carson, jumping about on his short legs, “do I look like a timid person?”

“N—no.”

“But I tell you that this frightens me. Honestly, I’m terrified. Krakatit . . that’s bad enough; and ​that unknown wireless station is still worse; and if they both fall into the same hands, then . . . good-morning. Then Mr. Carson will pack his bag and go off to the cannibals of Tasmania. You know, I shouldn’t like to see the end of Europe.”

Prokop only rubbed his hands together between his knees. “Christ, Christ,” he whispered to himself.

“Well, yes,” said Mr. Carson. “I’m only surprised, you know, that nothing . . . nothing large has gone up in the air already. All you have to do is to press some button or other and two thousand kilometres away—bang! And there you are. What else do you expect?”

“That’s clear,” said Prokop feverishly. “Krakatit mustn’t be given up. And Thomas—Thomas must be stopped . . .”

“Mr. Thomas,” said Carson rapidly, “would sell Krakatit to the Devil himself if he paid him for it. At the present moment Mr. Thomas is one of the most dangerous people in the world.”

“My God,” muttered Prokop desperately, “what are we to do now?”

Mr. Carson waited for some time. “It\s clear,” he said finally. ‘“Krakatit must be given up.”

“N-n-no! Never!”

“Given up. Simply because it’s a . . . decipherink key. It’s the very moment to do so, my dear sir. For goodness sake give it to anybody you like, only don’t make all this fuss about it. Give it to the Swiss or to the League of Aged Virgins or to the Devil’s grandmother; it will take them six months to realize that you are not insane. Or give it to us. We’ve already set up a receiving apparatus at Balttin. Just ​consider . . . infinitely rapid explosions of microscopic fragments of Krakatit. Ignited by an unknown current. Directly they turn on the switch somewhere the whole business starts off: t-r-r-r ta ta t-r-r-r t-r-r-r ta t-r-r-r ta ta. And there you are. Decipher it and you have the message. If only one had Krakatit!”

“I won’t give it up,” Prokop replied, covered with a cold sweat. “I don’t believe you. You would . . . make Krakatit for yourself.”

Mr. Carson only pulled down the corner of his mouth. “Well,” he said, “it’s only a question of . . . we’ll call a Conference. The League of Nations, The World Postal Union, The Eucharistic Congress or anything you like. For the sake of being in peace. I’m a Dane and have no use for politics. So. And you can give Krakatit to an International Commission. What’s the matter?”

“I—I’ve been ill for a long time,” Prokop excused himself, deathly pale. “I don’t feel quite well . . . and . . . I haven’t eaten for two days.”

“Weakness,” said Mr. Carson, sitting down next to him and putting his arm round his neck. “It’ll soon pass. You must go to Balttin. A very healthy region. And then you must go after Mr. Thomas. You shall have as much money as a millionaire. You'll be a big man. Well?”

“Yes,”’ whispered Prokop like a little child, and meekly allowed himself to be rocked.

“So so. Too much strain, see? That’s nothing. The chief thing . . . is the future. You’ve had a lot of poverty, man, eh? You’re a good chap, see? Now you’re better.” Mr. Carson ​smoked reflectively. “The future is something tremendous. You’ll get tons of money. You’ll give me ten per cent, eh? An international custom. You need Carson as well . . .”

In front of the shed there resounded the horn of a motor-car.

“Thank God,” said Carson with relief, “here’s the car. Well, my dear sir, we’ll be off.”

“Where?”

“For the moment, to eat.”

The next day Prokop woke up with a terribly heavy head and at first could not realize where exactly he was; he waited for the sound of the clucking of the chickens or the resonant barking of Honzik. Slowly he realized that he was no longer in Tynice; that he was in bed in the hotel to which Carson had brought him completely drunk, roaring like an animal. Only when he put his head under a stream of cold water did he recall the happenings of the evening and could have sunk through the ground with shame.

They drank even during the meal, but only a little, enough to make them both very red in the face, and then went somewhere in the car along the edge of some woods so as to clear their heads. Prokop chattered the whole time without respite while Carson chewed the end of his cigar, nodded from time to time and said: “You will be a big man.” “Big man,” “big man,”’ echoed in Prokop’s head like the note of a gong; if only in such glory he could be seen by . . . that girl with the veil! He nearly burst with importance in talking to Carson, who only nodded his head like a mandarin and added fuel to the flame of his insane pride. In his ardour Prokop nearly fell out of the car; he was explaining his conception of the World Institute for Destructive Chemistry, Socialism, Marriage, the Education of ​Children and other nonsense. But in the evening they began with a vengeance. Where it was they drank, God alone knows; it was terrible. Carson, his face inflamed and his hat pushed down over his eyes, paid for all sorts of strangers, while some girls were dancing. Somebody broke some glasses and Prokop, sobbing, told Carson about his terrible love for the mysterious woman. On remembering this, Prokop clutched his head with shame and mortification.

Then they put him, shouting “Krakatit,” into the car. Heaven knows where they went; they dashed along endless roads, while beside Prokop there jumped up and down a fiery red spot which must have been Mr. Carson with his cigar. Mr. Carson, who hiccoughed “quicker, Bob” or something of the sort. Suddenly at a corner two lights rushed at them, some voices cried out, the car swung off the road, and Prokop was thrown head first on the grass, which brought him to his senses. There was a sound of several violently disputing voices, accusations of drunkenness. Mr. Carson swore terribly and muttered “now we must go back,” upon which, with thousands of precautions, they carried Prokop, as if he were seriously wounded, into the other car. Mr. Carson sat down next to him and they set out for home, Bob remaining with the injured vehicle. Half-way back the seriously wounded man began to sing rowdily, and just before reaching Prague found that he was thirsty again. They were obliged to go with him to several bars before he quieted down.

Prokop studied his disfigured face in the glass ​with dark aversion. In this painful occupation he was interrupted by the hotel porter who, with due apologies, brought him a registration form to fill up. Prokop put down the necessary particulars and hoped that he had dealt with the matter; but scarcely had the porter read his name than he became excited and begged Prokop not to leave the room. A certain gentleman from abroad had asked him to telephone to him at his hotel the moment he learned that Eng. Prokop had arrived. If Mr. Eng. would allow it, etc. Mr. Eng. was so furious with himself that he would have allowed him to cut his throat. He sat down to wait, painfully resigning himself to enduring the pain in his head. In a quarter of an hour the porter was back and handed him a card. On it was printed:

SIR REGINALD CARSON
President of the International
Wireless Corporation
London

“Show him in,” ordered Prokop, and he was extremely surprised that that fellow Carson had not told him the evening before about his honours and that to-day he should have arrived so ceremoniously; he was also a little curious to see how Carson would look after that wild night. Then his eyes simply started out of his head with astonishment. There came into the room a completely strange gentleman, a good foot taller than the Mr. Carson of yesterday.

“Very glad to see you,” said the strange gentleman slowly, and bowed just as low as if he had been a telegraph pole.

​Prokop made an indeterminate noise and gave him a seat. The gentleman sat down on it squarely and began very leisurely to peel off a pair of magnificent kid gloves. He was a very tall and extraordinarily serious gentleman with a horse-like face with very precise lines on it. In his tie-pin was an enormous Indian opal, on his gold watch-chain an antique cameo. He had the enormous feet of a golf player, and was, in brief, every inch an English gentleman. Prokop was stupefied. “Please?” he managed to say finally, when the silence had become unbearable.

The gentleman was in no hurry. “Without doubt,” he began slowly in English, “without doubt you must have been surprised when you first came across my announcement in the paper. I assume that you are Eng. Prokop, the author of some extremely interesting articles on explosives.”

Prokop nodded silently.

“I am very glad to meet you,” said Sir Reginald without haste. “I have been wanting to see you in connection with a matter of great scientific interest and practically of great importance for our company, the International Wireless Corporation, whose president I have the honour to be. It is of no less importance for the International Union for Wireless Telegraphy, who have been so good as to elect me as their general secretary. You will certainly be somewhat astonished,” he continued without being out of breath, “that these important concerns should have sent me to see you when your distinguished work is in quite another field. Allow me.” With these words Sir Reginald opened his ​crocodile leather wallet and pulled out some papers, a writing block and a gold pencil.

“About nine months ago,” he began slowly, putting a pair of gold pince-nez on his nose so as to see better, “the European wireless stations noticed the fact——”

“Pardon me,” Prokop interrupted him, unable to control himself, “did you put those announcements in the papers?”

“Certainly I did. The stations became aware, then, of certain regular disturbances——”

“—on Tuesdays and Fridays, I know. Who told you about Krakatit?”

“I proposed to come to that later,” said this venerable gentleman somewhat reproachfully. “Well, I will pass over the details, assuming that to a certain extent you are informed regarding our aims and oh—eh—ah——”

“—regarding a secret international conspiracy, eh?”

Sir Reginald opened his pale blue eyes very wide. “Excuse me, but to what conspiracy do you refer?”

“Well, to those secret messages at night, to the secret organization which sends them out——”

Sir Reginald cut him short. “Fantasy,” he said regretfully, “pure fantasy. I am aware that the Tribune when our company advertised such a relatively large reward . . . circulated the report——”

“I know,” said Prokop quickly, afraid that this leisurely gentleman would begin to discuss the point.

“Yes. Pure invention. The whole business has nothing but a commercial basis. It is in the interests of a certain person to demonstrate the unre​liability of our stations, if you understand me. He wishes to undermine public confidence. Unfortunately our receivers and—ah—coherers are unable to discover the particular type of waves which bring this disturbance about. And since we have received reports to the effect that you have in your possession a certain substance or chemical which reacts in the most remarkable way to these disturbances——”

“Reports from whom?”

“From your colleague, Mr.—ah—Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas—ah.” Sir Reginald extracted a letter from the bundle of papers he had brought with him. “‘Dear Sir,’” he read with a certain amount of effort, “‘I have seen in the newspapers an announcement of a reward, etc., etc. As at the present moment it is impossible for me to leave Balttin, where I am at work in connection with a certain discovery, and as a matter of such importance cannot be dealt with by letter, I beg you to seek out in Prague a friend of mine with whom I have worked for many years, Mr. Eng. Prokop, who is in possession of a newly discovered substance, Krakatit, the tetrargon of a certain lead salt, the synthesis of which is made by utilizing the effect of a high frequency current. Krakatit reacts, as various exact experiments have demonstrated, to certain mysterious disturbing waves by a powerful explosion, from which it follows that it will have decisive significance for determining the nature of the waves in question. In view of the importance of the matter I would suggest, on behalf of myself and my friend, that the reward offered should be considerably rai——’” Sir Reginald cleared his throat. “That is really all,” ​he said. “We could discuss the question of the reward separately. Signed by Mr. Thomas in Balttin.”

“H’m,” said Prokop, possessed by a sudden serious suspicion, “that such a personal . . . unreliable . . . fantastic report should suffice for the International Wireless Corporation.”

“I beg your pardon,” retorted Sir Reginald, “needless to say we have received very precise reports regarding certain experiments in Balttin——”

“Aha! from a certain Saxon laboratory assistant, eh?”

“No. From our own representative. I’ll read you it now.” Sir Reginald again rummaged in his papers. “Here we are. ‘Dear Sir, the local stations have so far been unable to overcome the disturbances in question. Attempts at using greater power for transmission purposes have completely failed. I have received a report from a reliable informant to the effect that the military works in Balttin have acquired a certain quantity of some substance——’”

There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Prokop, and the waiter entered with a visiting card: “Some gentleman is asking.——”

On the card were the words:

MR. CARSON
Balttin

“Show him in,” said Prokop, suddenly violently angry and completely ignoring Sir Reginald’s gesture of protest. ​A moment afterwards the Mr. Carson of yesterday, his face bearing evident marks of lack of sleep, walked into the room and made towards Prokop, evidently delighted to see him again.

“One moment,” Prokop stopped him, “allow me me to introduce you. Mr. Carson, Sir Reginald Carson.”

Sir Reginald drew himself up but remained seated with unruffed dignity; but Mr. Carson, whistling with surprise, sank into a chair like a man whose legs have suddenly failed him. Prokop leaned against the door and stared at both of them with uncontrolled hostility. “Well?” he asked finally.

Sir Reginald began to put his papers away in his wallet. “Undoubtedly,” he said slowly, “it would be better for me to visit you some other time——”

“Please stay,” Prokop interrupted him. “Excuse me, gentlemen, are you by any chance related?”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Carson. “On the contrary.”

“Which of you is the real Carson?”

Nobody answered; there was a painful silence.

“Ask this gentleman,” said Sir Reginald coldly, “perhaps he will show you his papers.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” hissed Mr. Carson, “but after the other gentleman has done so first. So.”

“And which of you inserted that announcement in the papers?”

“I,” said Mr. Carson without the least hesitation, “my inspiration, my dear sir, I see that even in ​our sphere one comes across the unheard-of depravity of exploiting some one else’s idea. So.”

“Allow me,” Sir Reginald turned to Prokop with real moral indignation, “this is really too much. What would it have looked like if still another announcement had been made under another name! I was therefore obliged to accept the situation created by the other gentleman.”

“Aha!” burst out Mr. Carson aggressively, “and so the gentleman assumed my name for his purposes!”

“All I want to say is,” Sir Reginald defended himself, “that this gentleman is simply not named Carson.”

“What is his name then?” asked Prokop quickly.

“. . . I don’t know exactly,” said Sir Reginald contemptuously through his teeth.

“Carson,” said Prokop, turning to the engineer, “and who is this gentleman?”

“Competition,” said Mr. Carson with bitter humour. “This is the gentleman who wished to trap me with false documents. He certainly wanted to make me acquainted with some very charming people.”

“With the local military police,” muttered Sir Reginald.

Mr. Carson’s eyes flashed maliciously and he coughed warningly: “I beg you not to speak about it! Certainly——”

“Would the gentlemen like to explain anything to one another?” grinned Prokop from the door.

“No, nothing further,” said Sir Reginald with dignity; so far he had not considered the other Carson worthy of a single glance.

​“Now,” Prokop began, “first of all I should like to thank you both for your visit. Secondly, I am extremely glad to hear that Krakatit is in good hands, that is to say, in my own; for if you had the slightest hope of getting hold of it otherwise I should not have been so much in demand, eh? I am extremely obliged to you for the information which you have involuntarily given me.”

“Don’t exult too soon,” muttered Mr. Carson, “there remains——”

“—him?” said Prokop, indicating Sir Reginald.

Mr. Carson shook his head. “Good gracious, no! But a certain third person——”

“Excuse me,” said Prokop, annoyed, “you don’t surely think that I believe anything of what you told me last night?”

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders regretfully. “Well, as you like.”

“Thirdly,” Prokop continued, “I should be obliged if you would kindly tell me where Thomas is at present.”

“But I told you already,” said Mr. Carson quickly, “that I am not allowed to do so. Come to Balttin and there you are.”

“And you, sir,” Prokop turned to Sir Reginald.

“I beg your pardon,” said the latter, “but I prefer to keep that to myself.”

“Fourthly, I entreat you not to devour one another while I go out——”

“—for the police,” said Sir Reginald. “Quite right.”

“I am delighted that you share my opinion. Pardon my locking you in while I am away.”

​“Oh, please,” said Sir Reginald politely, while Mr. Carson would have protested desperately.

Greatly relieved, Prokop locked the door behind him and further stationed two waiters outside it, while he himself ran off to the nearest police-station; for he thought it best to let them know what had happened. It transpired that the matter was not to be arranged so easily. He was unable to accuse either of the strangers of having committed even any crime so unimportant as that of stealing silver spoons or playing faro; it cost him a great deal of effort to allay the suspicions of the official at the police-station, who evidently regarded him as insane. Finally—probably for the sake of being left in peace—he allotted Prokop a shabby and taciturn plain clothes detective. When they reached the hotel they found both waiters still valiantly guarding the door, surrounded by a group consisting of the entire personnel of the establishment. Prokop unlocked the door and the detective, having blown his nose loudly, stepped quietly into the room as if he were going to buy a pair of braces. It wasempty. Both the Carsons had disappeared.

The taciturn individual merely blew his nose again and made his way to the bathroom, which Prokop had completely forgotten. From there there was a window looking out on to the well of the hotel, and on the opposite wall was a window in the wall of the lavatory. The taciturn individual then proceeded to the lavatory. This led to another flight of steps. The door was locked, and the key had disappeared. The detective undid the door with a pass-key and opened it; inside he found it ​empty, but there were footmarks beneath the window. The taciturn individual locked the door again and said that he would go and fetch his superior.

His superior, an active little man and a first-rate criminal expert, did not take long to grasp the situation. He spent a good two hours in trying to extract from Prokop an explanation of his relation to the two gentlemen. It appeared that he had a strong desire to arrest at least Prokop, who had become terribly embarrassed in his explanation of his dealings with the two foreigners. Then he questioned the doorkeeper and the waiters and instructed Prokop to report himself at the police-station at six o’clock that evening, intimating that he would do better not to leave the hotel meanwhile.

Prokop spent the rest of the day in wandering about the room and reflecting with horror that he would probably be imprisoned; for how could he furnish an adequate explanation when he was determined not to mention Krakatit at any cost? The devil only knew how long such a detention might last; and then, instead of looking for her, the unknown one with a veil . . . Prokop’s eyes were full of tears; he felt so weak and soft that he grew positively ashamed. Finally he mustered all his determination and set out for the police-station.

They led him at once into an office which was furnished with a thick carpet, leather arm-chairs and a large box of cigars—that of the President. Near the writing-table Prokop was confronted with an enormous back like that of a boxer, inclined over some papers, a back which at the first glance inspired him with terror and submissiveness. “Sit down, ​Mr. Engineer,” said the back in a friendly tone, and there turned to Prokop a face no less monumental in build, appropriately placed on the neck of a wild bull. The powerful gentleman studied Prokop for a moment and then said: “Mr. Engineer, I will not force you to tell me what you have decided, after consideration, to keep to yourself. I know about your work. I have the impression that the matter had to do with a certain explosive prepared by you.”

“Yes.”

“The substance has a certain . . . shall we say military significance?”

“Yes.”

The powerful gentleman got up and shook hands with Prokop. “I should just like to express my thanks to you, Mr. Engineer, for not selling it to foreign agents.”

“Is that all?” breathed Prokop.

“Yes.”

“Have you arrested them?” Prokop burst out.

“Why?” smiled the gentleman. “We have no right to do so. So far it is only a matter of your secret and not of one belonging to our army . . .”

Prokop took the delicate hint and became confused. “The matter . . . hasn’t yet matured . . .”

“I believe you. I have confidence in you,” said the powerful man and again shook his hand.

That was all.

“I must set to work methodically,” Prokop decided. Good; and after reflecting for a long time and having a series of remarkable inspirations he evolved a course of action. . . .

To begin with, he inserted the following announcement in all the papers: “Mr. Thomas. The messenger with a wounded hand asks the lady in the veil for her address. Very important. P. Write ‘40,000’ to Box Office.” This formulation of the inquiry seemed to him to be very ingenious; he certainly did not know whether the young lady read the newspapers, and especially advertisements, at all, but still, who knows? Chance is a powerful factor. But instead of chance, circumstances came about which could have been foreseen, but which Prokop had not anticipated. In answer to the advertisement he received piles of correspondence, consisting mostly of bills, reminders, threats and insults addressed to the missing Thomas: “Let Mr. Thomas in his own interest furnish his address . . .” and so on. Further, there wandered into the office of the paper a lean person who, when Prokop called for the answers to his advertisement, stepped up to him and asked him where Mr. Thomas lived. Prokop was as rude to him as the circumstances permitted, whereupon the lean person produced his ​authority out of his pocket and emphatically warned Prokop not to misbehave himself. It was a question of a certain embezzlement and other disreputable matters. Prokop was able to convince the lean person that he himself was inordinately desirous of knowing where Mr. Thomas lived; after this adventure and after studying the replies to his advertisement his faith in the efficacy of such a method was seriously weakened. In any case the replies steadily decreased in number, becoming on the other hand more threatening in tone.

The next thing he did was to go to a private detective agency. There he explained that he was looking for a mysterious girl in a veil and attempted to describe her. The agency was quite prepared to furnish him with perfectly discreet information regarding her if only he could tell them her name, or address. There was nothing for him to do but to go away.

Then he got an inspiration of genius. In the package, which never left him day or night, there was, besides a number of smaller bank-notes, thirty thousand crowns done up in a wrapper, as is usually the custom when banks pay out large sums of money. The name of the bank was not on it; but it was at least highly probable that the girl had drawn the money from some institution or other the day that Prokop left for Tynice. Well, all he had to do was to find the exact date and then go round all the banks in Prague and ask them to give him the name of the person who on that day drew out thirty thousand crowns or something about that figure. Yes, to find the exact date; Prokop was ​certain that Krakatit had exploded on a Tuesday and it was probable that the girl had drawn the money on a Wednesday; but Prokop was uncertain of both the week and the month; it might have been in February or in March.

He made a tremendous effort to remember, or at least to calculate, when it was; but all his speculations were nullified by the fact that he had no idea how long he had lain ill. Good; they certainly must know at Tynice what week it was in which he descended upon them. Dazzled by this new hope, he sent a telegram to old Dr. Thomas: ‘Please telegraph date when I arrived at your house. Prokop.” He had scarcely sent off the wire when he was overcome with a feeling of remorse at having behaved so badly. To the telegram he obtained no answer. Just as he was about to abandon this trail it occurred to him that the caretaker’s wife at Thomas’s flat might remember the date. He flew off there; but the caretaker’s wife insisted that it was a Saturday. Prokop became desperate; then he received a letter written in the large and careful characters of a schoolgirl, to the effect that he had arrived at Tynice on such and such a day but that “father mustn’t know that I have written to you.” Nothing more. It was signed by Annie. For some some reason Prokop’s heart was torn by this couple of lines.

Now, having at last found the date he wanted, he rushed off to the nearest bank; could they tell him who on such and such a day had drawn, say, thirty thousand crowns? They shook their heads, saying that it was not the custom to furnish such informa​tion; but when they saw that he was completely disconcerted they consulted somebody behind and then asked him on whose account the money had been taken out; for certainly it had been drawn on a cheque, a deposit account or something of that sort. Naturally Prokop did not know. Further, they told him, it was possible that the person in question had only sold certain bills, in which case there would be no record of his name in their books. And when, finally, Prokop informed them that he had simply no idea whether the money was paid out by this particular bank or not they burst out laughing and inquired whether he was going round the two hundred and fifty-odd financial institutions, agencies and exchanges in Prague with the same question. So Prokop’s marvellous inspiration proved a complete failure.

There only remained the fourth possibility, the chance that he would meet her. Prokop tried to introduce method even into this possibility; he divided the map of Prague into sections and examined each one twice daily. One day he calculated the number of people he would meet in this way in one day and arrived at a total of nearly forty thousand; bearing in mind the total population of the city it worked out that the chances were one in twenty that he would meet her. Even this small probability gave him hope. There were certain streets and places in which she was more likely to reside, or along which she was likely to be walking; streets with acacias in bloom, venerable old squares, intimate corners of deep and serious life. It was surely impossible that she should be found in the ​sort of noisy and dreary street along which one only hurried. Nor amid the symmetrical desolation of characterless flats. Why, was it not possible that she lived behind those large, dark windows beyond which was to be found a shaded and refined quiet? Wandering as if in a dream, Prokop realized for the first time in his life what there was to be discovered in this town in which he had spent so many years of his existence; God! how many beautiful spots, where life unrolls itself, peaceful and mature, and entices one when one is distraught!

Numberless times Prokop dashed off in pursuit of young women who gave him the impression from a distance, for some reason, of being she whom he had only seen twice. He ran after them with a wildly beating heart; what if it should prove to be she! Heaven knows what instincts of divination led him to go after them. They were certainly mysterious, sad and beautiful, absorbed in themselves and wrapped in some sort of inaccessibility. Once he was almost certain that it was she; he was so excited that he had to stop for a moment to take breath; and at that moment the woman got into a tram and disappeared. For three days afterwards he waited near the stopping place, but never saw her again.

Worst of all were the evenings when, completely exhausted, he sat rubbing his hands on his knees and trying to evolve a new plan of campaign. God! he would never abandon the search for her; it may be that it was an obsession; that he was a lunatic, an idiot, a maniac; but he would never give up. The more she evaded him—the greater efforts ​would he make; it was . . . simply fate . . . or something.

Once he awoke in the middle of the night and it suddenly became inevitably clear to him that he would never find her in this way; that he would have to set out in search of George Thomas, who knew about her and could tell him what he wanted. Although it was the middle of the night he clothed himself, unable to wait until morning. He was unprepared for the incredible difficulties that awaited him in obtaining a passport; he could not understand what they wanted of him and alternately cursed and grew dejected in feverish impatience. Finally, finally the night came when an express carried him across the frontier. And now, to begin with, to Balttin!

Now it will be decided, Prokop felt.

It was decided very differently from the way he imagined.

He had conceived a plan of seeking out in Balttin the person who had given himself out to be Carson and of saying to him something like this: “Whatever happens, I spit on your money; lead me at once to George Thomas, with whom I have business, and in return you shall get a good explosive, say fulminate of iodine with a guaranteed detonation of some eleven thousand metres per second, or a certain acid with a good thirteen thousand, my dear sir, and you can do with it what you like.” They would simply be mad not to take advantage of such an offer.

From the outside the factory in Balttin seemed to him to be positively enormous; he was rather startled when, instead of a porter, he came upon a military sentry. He asked for Mr. Carson (of course that was not the fellow’s real name!); but the soldier passed him on without a word to his N.C.O. The latter said little more and led Prokop to the officer. “We’ve never heard of Engineer Carson here,” said the latter, “and what might the gentleman want with him?” Prokop announced that, strictly speaking, he wished to see Mr. Thomas. This made such an impression on the officer that he sent for the commandant.

The commandant, a very fat and asthmatic per​son, questioned Prokop in detail as to who he was and what he wanted; by this time there were at least five military persons in the office and they all stared at Prokop so hard that he simply sweated. It was evident that they were waiting for somebody, for whom they had meanwhile telephoned. When this somebody suddenly dashed into the room he proved to be nobody else but Mr. Carson; they addressed him as director, but Prokop never learned his real name. He cried out with delight when his eyes fell on Prokop, saying that he had been waiting for him for a long time and various other things. He at once telephoned to the “Castle” for the guest’s suite to be prepared, took Prokop by the arm and conducted him all over the factory. It appeared that what Prokop had taken for the factory was nothing but the guard’s and firemen’s quarters at the entrance; from there they went along a long road, bordered on each side by a fence about thirty feet high. Mr. Carson led Prokop to the end of this road and only then did he realize what the Balttin factories were really like: a whole town of munition sheds, designated by numbers and letters, hillocks covered with grass which, he told him, were magazines, a little farther on a siding with cranes and ramps, and behind it a number of buildings made of wood. “You see that wood over there?” said Mr. Carson pointing to the horizon. “Behind it are the first experimental laboratories. And there where you see those sand hills is the range. So. And here in the park is the castle. You’ll open your eyes when I show you the laboratories. Absolutely up to date. And now we’ll go to the castle.”

​Mr. Carson chattered on happily, but said nothing about what had happened or what was to happen in the future; they passed through the park and he showed him a rare variety of Amorphophallus and next to it a particular species of Japanese cherry; and then they came in sight of the Castle of Balttin, all overgrown with ivy. At the entrance was waiting a quiet and gentle old man in white gloves named Paul, who led Prokop straight to the guest’s apartments. Prokop had never been in such surroundings in his life: parquet flooring, empire style, everything old and valuable, so that he was afraid even to sit down. And before he had had time to wash his hands there was Paul with eggs, a bottle of wine and a glass, which he set down on the table as carefully as if he were waiting on a princess. Beneath the window was a yard covered with pale yellow sand; a groom in top boots was training a large dapple grey horse; beside him there stood a slight, dark girl who was watching the trotting of the horse through half-closed eyes and from time to time giving the groom some sort of brief orders, after which she knelt down and felt the animal’s hocks.

Mr. Carson then appeared with the swiftness of the wind, saying that he must now introduce Prokop to the general manager. He led him along a long white passage, adorned exclusively with antlers and lined with black carved chairs. A red-faced page wearing white gloves opened the door for them, Mr. Carson pushed Prokop inside into a sort of reception room and the door closed behind them. At a desk there was seated a tall old man, extraordinarily ​erect, as if he had just been taken out of a cupboard and prepared for the interview.

“Mr. Eng. Prokop, your Excellence,” said Mr. Carson, “Prince Hagen—Balttin.”

Prokop’s brow darkened and he jerked his head angrily, a movement which he evidently regarded as constituting a bow.

“Very—pleased—to welcome you,” said Prince Hagen and stretched out an inordinately long hand. Prokop again jerked his head.

“I—hope that—you will—enjoy yourself—among us,” continued the Prince, and then Prokop noticed that he was paralyzed in half his body.

“Do—honour us—with your presence at dinner,” continued the Prince, with evident anxiety on the score of his artificial teeth.

Prokop moved his feet nervously. “Excuse me, Prince,” he said finally, “but I am unable to stay here; I—I must leave this very day——”

“Impossible, quite impossible,” cried Mr. Carson from behind.

“I must leave to-day,” repeated Prokop obstinately. “I only wanted . . . to ask you the whereabouts of Thomas. I should be . . . pleased to offer you in return——”

“What?” cried the Prince, and looked at Mr. Carson with eyes wide with complete lack of comprehension. “What—does he want?”

“Leave that for the moment,” said Mr. Carson in Prokop’s ear. “Mr. Prokop means to say, your Excellence, that he was not prepared for your invitation. That doesn’t matter,” he went on, turning quickly to Prokop. “I’ve arranged for that. We ​shall dine to-day out on the lawn, so there is no question of evening clothes; you can go as you are. I’ve telegraphed for a tailor; no need for anxiety, my dear sir. Everything will be arranged by tomorrow. So.”

It was now Prokop’s turn to open his eyes wide. “What tailor? What does this mean?”

“It will be—a particular honour—for us,” the Prince concluded and gave Prokop his lifeless fingers.

“What does this mean?” raged Prokop when they were outside in the passage and seized Carson by the shoulder. “Tell me now, man, or——”

Mr. Carson neighed like a horse and slipped out of his grasp like a street urchin. “Or—what?” he laughed and flew off, bouncing like a ball. “If you can catch me I’ll tell you everything, honestly.”

“You clown,” thundered Prokop, furious, and set off after him. Mr. Carson, still neighing, flew down the stairs and slipped past the row of armoured knights into the park. There he squatted down like a hare in mockery of his pursuer. “Well,” he cried, “what will you do to me?”

“I’ll smash you to a jelly,” Prokop burst out, falling on him with his full weight. Carson slid away, squeaked with delight and leapt about the lawn like a hare. “Quick,” he sang out, “here I am,” and again he slipped out of Prokop’s hands and cried “I see you!” from behind the stump of a tree.

Prokop again set off after him silently with clenched fists, as serious and threatening as Ajax. He was already panting for breath when, looking ​round, he saw the dark Amazon watching him from the castle steps with half-closed eyes. He became exceedingly ashamed of himself, stopped, and had a sudden foolish fear that the girl would come across and feel his hocks.

Mr. Carson, suddenly quite serious again, strolled over to him with his hands in his pockets and said in a friendly manner: “Not enough training. You shouldn’t spend the whole day sitting. Exercise your heart. So. A-a-a-a,” he sang out, glowing, “haholihoo! The daughter of the old man,” he added softly. “Princess Willy, that is Wilhelmina Adelaide Maud and so on. An interesting girl, twenty-eight years old, a great horsewoman. I must introduce you,” he said aloud and dragged the protesting Prokop up to the girl. “Princess,” he called when they were still some distance away, “let me introduce to you—to a certain extent against his will—our guest, Engineer Prokop. A terribly irate person. Wants to kill me.”

“Good-morning,” said the Princess, and turned to Mr. Carson: “Do you know that one of Whirlwind’s hocks is inflamed?”

“My God!” said Mr. Carson, horrified. “Poor Princess!”

“Do you play tennis?”

Prokop was frowning darkly and did not even realize that the remark was addressed to him.

“He doesn’t,” Carson answered for him and dug him in the ribs. “You must play. The Princess lost to Lenglen by only one set, eh?”

“Because I was playing against the sun,” said the Princess, a little piqued. “What do you play?”

​Again Prokop did not realize that he was being addressed.

“Mr. Prokop is a scientist,” said Carson warmly. “He’s discovered atomic explosions and that sort of thing. A marvellous mind. Compared with him we’re nothing but helps in the kitchen. Scraping potatoes. But he,” and Mr. Carson whistled with amazement, “he’s a pure magician. If you want him to he’ll prepare hydrogen from bismuth. So, madame.”

The half-closed grey eyes glanced casually at Prokop, who stood still, thoroughly embarrassed and furious with Carson.

“Very interesting,” said the Princess and at once looked elsewhere. “Ask him to teach me about these things some time. We meet again then at mid-day, eh?”

Prokop bowed just in time and Carson dragged him off into the park. “Race,” he said appreciatively. “That woman has breeding. Haughty, eh? Wait till you know her better.”

Prokop stopped. “Listen, Carson, so that you will get it clear. I don’t intend to get to know anybody better. I am going away to-day or to-morrow, you understand?”

Mr. Carson chewed a piece of grass. “A pity,” he said. “It’s very nice here. Well, it can’t be helped.”

“The long and short of it is, where is Thomas——?”

“Wait until you are leaving. How did you like the old man?”

“What interest have I in him?” growled Prokop.

​“Well, yes, an antique. There for show. Unfortunately he has a paralytic stroke nearly every week. But Willy’s a marvellous girl. Then there’s Egon, a hobbledehoy, eighteen. Both orphans. Then the guests, some second cousin, Prince Suwalski, all sorts of officers, Rohlauf, Von Graun, you know, Jockey Club and Dr. Krafft, the tutor, and various others. You must come and see us this evening. Drink, none of the aristocracy, our engineers and people of that sort, see? Over there in my villa. It’ll be in your honour.”

“Carson,” said Prokop severely, “I want to speak seriously with you before I go.”

“There’s no hurry. Just rest yourself. Well, I must get back to my work. Do just what you like. No formalities. If you want to bathe, there’s a lake over there. We’ll talk seriously later. Make yourself comfortable. So.”

And he was gone.

Prokop wandered about the park, irritable and yawning through lack of sleep. He wondered what they wanted with him and contemplated with dissatisfaction his huge, ungainly boots and wornout trousers. Absorbed in these reflections he very nearly walked on to the tennis court, where the Princess was playing with two girls in white dresses. He hastily turned aside and set off towards what he imagined was the end of the park. But in that direction the park ended in a sort of terrace; a stone balustrade and below it a wall nearly forty feet high. From the terrace one had a view of the pine woods and of a soldier who was pacing up and down below with a fixed bayonet.

Prokop then set off to the part of the park which sloped away from the castle. There he found a lake with some bathing sheds, but overcoming the temptation to bathe, he went on into a beautiful coppice of birch trees. Here he came upon a lattice-work fence and a half effaced path leading to a gate; the gate was not completely closed and it was possible to pass through it into a pine wood. He walked quietly along over the slippery pine cones until he reached the edge of the wood. And there, damnation, was a fence surmounted by barbed wire, a good twelve feet high. How strong, he wondered, was the wire? He tested it carefully with his hands and ​feet until he noticed that his conduct had begun to interest a soldier with a fixed bayonet who was standing on the other side.

“A hot day, eh?” said Prokop, to pass it off.

“You are not allowed here,” said the soldier; and Prokop swung round and set off farther along the barbed-wire fence. The pine wood turned into scattered young trees, behind which were a few sheds and stables, evidently the yard belonging to the castle. He looked through the fence and inside there immediately began a frightful howling, yelping and barking, and a good dozen dogs, bloodhounds and wolfhounds, hurled themselves at the fence. Four pairs of unfriendly eyes looked out of four different doors. Prokop made some sort of greeting and wished to go farther, but one of the servants ran after him, saying that “You’re not allowed here,” after which he led him back to the gate at the end of the birch wood.

All this put Prokop into a very bad frame of mind. Carson must tell him which was the way out, he decided; he was not a canary, to be kept in a cage. Making a detour to avoid the tennis court he made his way to the road through the park, along which Carson had first led him to the castle. No sooner had he reached it than a fellow in a flat cap, who looked as if he had stepped out of a film, came up to him and asked where the gentleman might be going.

“Outside,” said Prokop shortly; but “You're not allowed here!” exclaimed the fellow in the cap; “this is the road to the munition barracks and anyone who wants to go along it must have a ​laisser-passer from the management. The gate leading outside directly from the castle is back there on the main road and to the left, please.”

Prokop went along the main road and to the left, please, until he was brought up by a large gate with a grating in it. The old doorkeeper went forward to open it for him. “Have you a ticket, please?”

“What sort of ticket?”

“A pass.”

“What sort of pass?”

“A ticket, giving you permission to go out.”

Prokop became furious. “Am I in a prison, then?”

The old man shrugged his shoulders regretfully: “I was instructed this morning, please.”

Poor wretch, thought Prokop, as if he could prevent anyone going out! A movement of the hand——

From the window of the doorkeeper’s house there looked out a familiar face, recalling that of Bob. Prokop left his train of thought unfinished, turned back, and wandered again towards the castle. The devil, he said to himself, they’re up to some curious tricks; it almost looks as if one were a prisoner here. Good; I’ll discuss this with Carson. To begin with, I’m not going to take any notice of their hospitality and shan’t join them at dinner. I’m not going to sit down with those young ladies who laughed at me behind my back on the tennis court. Infinitely dejected, Prokop returned to the rooms which had been assigned to him and threw himself down on a divan, giving himself up to his anger. A moment later Mr. Paul knocked at the door and ​asked with great kindness and concern whether the gentleman was going down to lunch.

“No, I’m not,” growled Prokop.

Mr. Paul bowed and disappeared. In a minute he had returned, pushing before him a little table on wheels, covered with glasses, fragile porcelain and silver. “What wine, please?” he asked tenderly. Prokop muttered something so as to be left in peace.

Mr. Paul went on tiptoe to the door and there took from two white paws a large dish. “Consommé de tortue,” he whispered and poured some out for Prokop, upon which the dish was borne away in the white claws. By the same route there arrived fish, meat, salad, and things which Prokop had never eaten in his life and did not even know how to deal with; but he was shy of exhibiting his embarrassment before Mr. Paul. To his surprise his wrath had somehow disappeared. “Sit down,” he ordered Paul, savouring the dry white wine with his nose and palate. Mr. Paul bowed considerately but remained standing.

“Listen, Paul,” Prokop continued, “do you think that I’m in prison here?”

Mr. Paul politely shrugged his shoulders: “I am unable to say, please.”

“Which is the way out?”

Mr. Paul reflected for a moment. “Along the main road and then to the left, please. Will the gentleman take coffee?”

“Well, perhaps.” Prokop burnt his throat with the superior Mocha, after which Mr. Paul handed him all the perfumes of Araby, contained in a ​cigar-box and a silver lighter. “Listen, Paul,” Prokop began again, biting the end of a cigar, “thank you. Did you ever know a certain Thomas here?”

Mr. Paul raised his eyes to heaven in an effort of recollection. “I didn’t, please.”

“How many soldiers are there here?”

Mr. Paul considered and made a calculation. “In the main guard about two hundred. That’s the infantry. Then the field militia, I don’t know how many. In Balttin-Dortum a squadron of hussars. Some gunners at the artillery ground in Balttin-Dikkeln.”

‘Why do they have field militia here?”

“This is a military camp, please. In connection with the munition factory.”

“Aha! And there’s only a guard just round this place?”

“Here there are only patrols, please. The chain is further away, behind the wood.”

“What chain?”

“The protective zone, please. No one is allowed to go there.”

“And if anyone wants to leave the place——”

“Then he must obtain a permit from the camp commandant. Does the gentleman require anything more?”

“No, thank you.”

Like a satiated Eastern potentate, Prokop stretched himself out on the divan. Well, we shall see, he said to himself; so far things were not so bad. He wished to reflect on the matter but instead could only remember the way in which Carson had jumped about in front of him. Supposing he hadn’t ​caught him? he thought and set off in pursuit. It was only a question of a jump of about fifteen feet; but Carson soared up like a grasshopper and flew smoothly over a clump of bushes, Prokop stamped his feet and rose after him, but he had scarcely raised his feet when he found himself skimming over the tops of the bushes. Another jump and he was flying God knows whither, not worrying any more about Carson. He glided about amongst trees, as light and as free as a bird; he tried a few movements with his legs and found himself rising higher. This pleased him inordinately. With powerful strokes he circled up and up. Below him, like a beautiful map, there appeared the prospect of the castle park with its arbours, lawns and serpentine paths; one could distinguish the tennis courts, the pond, the roof of the castle, the birch wood; over there was the yard with the dogs, and the pine wood and the wired fence, and to the right began the munition sheds and behind them the high wall. Prokop made his way through the air over the part of the park which he had not yet visited. On the way there he saw that what he had regarded as a terrace was really the old fortifications of the castle, a powerful bastion with a moat, evidently formerly filled from the lake. He was principally interested in that part of the park between the main entrance and the bastion; there there were overgrown paths and wild bushes, and a wall a good nine feet high, beneath which was some sort of a rubbish heap; beyond was a kitchen garden and round it a wall in which was a green gate; the other side of the gate ran the main road. “I’ll have a look in that ​direction,” said Prokop to himself, and descended a little. But at this point there appeared on the road a squadron of cavalry with drawn sabres, advancing directly upon him. Prokop drew his knees up to his chin, so that they should not slash at him; but through this movement received such an impulse that he once more flew up to a height like an arrow. When he looked down again he saw everything small as on a map; down on the main road there was moving a tiny battery of artillery, the polished muzzle of a gun was turned upwards, a small white cloud appeared and bang! The first shell flew over Prokop’s head. They’re firing at me, he thought, and quickly waved his arms so as to descend. Bang! Another shell whizzed passed Prokop’s nose. He took to flight as quickly as he was able. Bang! A third shell struck away his wings and Prokop shot head downwards to earth and woke up. Some one was knocking at the door.

“Come in,” cried Prokop, and sprang up, not knowing what it was all about.

There entered the room a white-haired aristocratic-looking gentleman in black, who bowed deeply.

Prokop remained standing and waited to see what the distinguished gentleman might say.

“Drehbein,” said the minister (at least!) and bowed again.

Prokop bowed equally deeply. “Prokop,” he introduced himself. “What can I do for you?”

“If you will kindly remain standing for a moment.”

​“Please,” said Prokop, frightened as to what was going to happen to him.

The white-haired gentleman studied Prokop attentively for a moment; then he walked round him and became absorbed in the contemplation of his back.

“If you would kindly draw yourself up a little.”

Prokop became as rigid as a soldier; what the devil——

“Allow me,” said the gentleman, and knelt down in front of Prokop.

“What do you want?” gasped out Prokop, recoiling.

“To take your measure.” And he drew out of his coat tails a tape measure and began to consider Prokop’s trousers.

Prokop receded as far as the window. “Stop it, will you?” he said, irritated. “I’ve ordered no clothes.”

“I’ve already received instructions,” said the gentleman respectfully.

“Listen,” said Prokop, recovering control of himself, “go to—I don’t want any clothes and that’s that! Do you understand?”

“Please,” agreed Mr. Drehbein, and he squatted down in front of Prokop, lifted his waistcoat and began to measure the top of his trousers. “Two inches more,” he noted, getting up. “Allow me.” And he slipped his hand along to Prokop’s armpit in a professional manner. “A little more free.”

“Good,” muttered Prokop and turned his back on him.

“Thank you,” said the gentleman and smoothed out a crease on the back of his coat.

​Prokop swung round, furious. “Take your hands away, man, or——”

“Excuse me,” said the gentleman and gently passed his arms round his waist. Before Prokop had time to fell him to the ground he had loosened his waistcoat strap, had stepped back and was regarding Prokop’s waist with his head on one side. “So,” he said, completely satisfied and bowed deeply. “I beg to take leave of you.”

“Go to the devil,” cried Prokop after him, and “It won’t be to-morrow now,” he said to himself, after which he began to pace from one corner of the room to the other. “Holy smoke, do these people imagine that I am going to stay here for six months?”

Then there was a knock at the door and Mr. Carson entered with a completely innocent face. Prokop, his hands behind his back, stopped him and measured him with melancholy eyes. “Who are you, man?” he said sharply.

Mr. Carson did not even blink, crossed his hands on his chest and bowed like a Turk.

“Prince Aladdin,” he said, “I am a djin, your slave. Instruct me and I will carry out your every wish. You’ve been to bye-byes? Well, your Excellence, how do you like it here?”

“Enormously,” said Prokop bitterly. “I should only like to know whether I’m a prisoner here, and if so, by what right.”

“A prisoner?” said Mr. Carson, astounded. “Good heavens, surely nobody’s been preventing your going into the park?”

“No, but going out of the park.”

​Mr. Carson shook his head sympathetically. “Unpleasant, eh? I’m terribly upset that you’re dissatisfied. Did you bathe in the lake?”

“No. How do I get out?”

“By the main exit, of course. Go straight on and then to the left——”

“And there I’ve to show a pass, eh? Only that I have none.”

“A pity,” said Mr. Carson. “Such pretty country round about.”

“Mostly masses of soldiers.”

“A lot of soldiers,” agreed Mr. Carson. “Well said.”

“Listen,” burst out Prokop and his forehead twitched with anger, “do you think that it’s pleasant to come upon a bayonet or a barbed-wire entanglement every few yards?”

“Where’s that?” said Mr. Carson, astonished.

“Everywhere at the edge of the park.”

“And what in God’s name is taking you to the edge of the park? You can walk about the middle; what more do you want?”

“So I am a prisoner?”

“God preserve us! So I shan’t forget it, here’s a pass for you. A laissez-passer to the factory, see? In case by any chance you would like to have a look at it.”

Prokop took the pass from him and became amazed; on it was his photograph, evidently taken the same day. “And with this I can get outside?”

“No,” said Mr. Carson quickly. “I shouldn’t advise you to. Generally speaking, I should be ​careful if I were you, eh? You understand? Come and look,” he said from the window.

“What is it?”

“Egon is learning to box. Phew, he’s caught it! That’s Von Graun, see? Aha! that kid’s got some spirit!”

Prokop looked with revulsion into the yard, where a half-naked lad, bleeding from the mouth and nose, and sobbing with pain and anger, was hurling himself again and again at an older opponent, to be thrown back every time more bloody and pitiful than ever. What he found particularly revolting was that the performance was being watched by the old Prince from a bathchair, laughing for all he was worth, while Princess Willy was chatting calmly all the time with a magnificently handsome man. Finally, Egon collapsed into the sand completely stupefied and allowed the blood to pour from his nose.

“Brutes!” roared Prokop, addressing the remark to no one in particular, and clenched his fists.

“You mustn’t be so sensitive here,” said Mr. Carson. “Severe discipline. Life . . . as in the army. We don’t treat anybody gently here,” he added, so pointedly that it seemed like a threat.

“Carson,” said Prokop seriously. “Am I here . . . as it were . . . in prison?”

“Good gracious, no! You’re only in a concern which is under supervision. A powder factory isn’t quite the same sort of thing as a barber’s shop, what? You must adapt yourself to the position.”

“I leave to-morrow,” Prokop burst out.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Carson and slapped him ​on the stomach. “A great wag! You'll come and see us this evening, eh?”

“I won’t go anywhere! Where’s Thomas?”

“What? aha! your Thomas. Well, at the moment a long way away. Here's the key of your laboratory. Nobody will disturb you. I’m sorry I’ve no time.”

“Carson!” Prokop wished to stop him, but he drew back before a gesture so commanding that he did not venture to come nearer; and Mr. Carson slid out of the room whistling like a trained starling.

Prokop made his way with his pass to the main entrance. The old man studied it and shook his head; the pass, he said, was only valid for exit C, the exit leading to the laboratories. Prokop went to exit C; the man out of the film with a flat cap examined the pass and pointed: straight ahead, then the third cross-road to the north. Prokop of course took the first road to the south; but after five steps he was stopped by a soldier: back and the third road to the left. Prokop ignored the third road to the left and went straight ahead across a meadow; in a moment three people appeared in front of him. He was not allowed to go this way. Then he obediently went along the third road to the north, and when he thought that there was no one watching him again turned off the road between some munition sheds. Here he encountered a soldier with a fixed bayonet who told him to go to cross-roads No. B11 Road N.6. Prokop tried his luck at each cross-road; he was always stopped and sent back to road B11 N.6; finally he learned reason and realized that a pass on which were the letters “C3n.wF.H.A.V11. ​N6.barV.7.F.b!” had some secret and unescapable significance which he was bound to recognize. So he now went where they directed him. The munition sheds were left behind, and instead were small concrete structures, all marked with numbers, evidently experimental laboratories or something of the sort, distributed amongst the sand dunes and pine woods. His path led to a completely isolated hut numbered V.7. On the door was a brass plate marked “Eng. Prokop.” Prokop brought out the key which Carson had given him and went inside.

He was confronted with a perfectly equipped laboratory for the chemistry of explosives—so complete and modern that Prokop held his breath with the delight of a specialist. On a nail there hung his old overall, in the corner was a military palliasse like the one he had had in Prague, and in the drawers of a magnificently appointed writing-table there lay, carefully classified and catalogued, all his printed articles and manuscript notes.

It was six months since Prokop had had any chemical apparatus in his hands.

He examined one instrument after another; everything of which he had ever dreamed was there, gleaming, brand-new and arranged with pedantic precision. There was a desk and a technical library, an enormous table covered with chemicals, cupboards containing delicate instruments, a chamber for experimental explosions, a room containing transformers, and apparatus of which he had never even heard. He had looked over about half these marvels when, following a sudden impulse, he rushed to the table for a certain barium salt, some nitrate acid, a few other things, and began an experiment in the course of which he succeeded in burning his fingers, smashing a test-tube to fragments and burning a hole in his coat. Satisfied with this beginning he sat down at the writing-table and jotted down two or three notes.

Then he had another look round the laboratory. It reminded him rather of a newly instituted perfumery. Everything was arranged too carefully; but after changing the places of a few things it became more to his taste, more intimate. In the midst of the most intense work he suddenly stopped himself.

“Aha!” he said, “this is how they're trying to ​catch me! In a minute Carson will arrive and begin talking about becoming a big man and that sort of thing.”

He sat down morosely on the palliasse and waited. When no one appeared he sat like a thief at the desk and began again on the barium salt. Anyway, he was here for the last time, he told himself. The attempt proved perfectly successful: the stuff burst with a long tongue of flame and cracked the glass case containing the balance. “Now I shall catch it,” he said to himself guiltily, when he saw the extent of the damage, and crept out of the laboratory like a schoolboy who had broken a window. Outside it was already dusk and a fine rain was falling. Ten paces in front of the shed stood a military guard.

Prokop slowly walked back to the castle along the road by which he had come. The park was deserted; a fine rain hissed in the branches of the trees, lights began to appear in the castle and the triumphant notes of a piano resounded in the darkness. Prokop made his way to a lonely part of the park between the main entrance and the terrace. Here all the paths had been overgrown and he plunged into the wet underbrush like a boar, every now and then stopping for a moment to listen and then making a way for himself again through the crackling bushes. At last he reached the edge of this jungle where the bushes stretched over an old wall not more than nine feet high. Prokop seized an overhanging branch so as to drop from it onto the other side of the wall; but under his solid weight the branch gave way with a sharp crack like a pistol shot, and Prokop fell heavily onto qa sort of rubbish heap. ​He remained seated with a beating heart. Surely someone would come after him now. But he heard nothing more than the dripping of the rain. He picked himself up and noticed a wall with a green gate, as he had seen it in his dream.

It was just the same save in one detail; the gate was open. He was greatly disconcerted. Either some one had just gone out of it or was shortly returning; in either case it meant that there was a person in the vicinity. What should he do? Suddenly decided, Prokop kicked the gate open and came out on the main road; and, sure enough, there outside was stumping about a short man in a mackintosh, smoking a pipe. They stood opposite one another, somewhat embarrassed as to how to begin. Naturally the more agile Prokop was the first to take action. Having chosen instantaneously one of a number of possibilities, he threw himself with all his force on the man with a pipe, and, butting him like a goat, threw him into the mud. Then he pressed his chest and elbows into the ground, rather doubtful as to what to do next; for he could hardly wring his neck like a chicken’s. The man underneath him never even let the pipe fall from his mouth and evidently was awaiting developments. “Surrender!” roared Prokop; but at that moment he received a blow from the man’s knee in the stomach and another from his fist under the chin, as a result of which he rolled into a ditch.

When he began to pick himself up he was greeted with another blow, while the man with the pipe remained quietly watching him from the road. “Again?” he said through his teeth. Prokop shook ​his head. Then the fellow fetched out an extraordinarily dirty hankerchief and began to clean Prokop’s clothes. “Mud,” he remarked and rubbed him assiduously.

“Back!” he said finally, and indicated the green gate. Prokop weakly assented. The man with the pipe led him as far as the old wall, and bent down, his hands on his knees. “Climb up,” he ordered. Prokop clambered on to his shoulders, the man drew himself up sharply with an “Up!” and Prokop, seizing an overhanging branch, found himself on the top of the wall. He was almost crying with shame.

And, to add to everything, when, scratched and swollen, and covered with mud, he crept humiliated up the steps of the castle to his suite, he met Princess Willy on the stairs, Prokop tried to pretend that he wasn’t there, or that he did not recognize her, or something of the sort, omitted to salute her and dashed upstairs like a statue made of mud. But just as he was passing her he caught her astonished, haughty, highly offended look. He stopped stockstill. “Wait,” he cried and rushed up to her. “Go,” he cried, “and tell them, tell them that . . . that I don’t care twopence for them and that . . . I don’t consent to be imprisoned, see? I don’t consent!” he roared and brought down his fist on the banisters so that they rattled, after which he dashed into the park again, leaving the Princess behind him pale and dumbfounded.

A few moments later some one almost obliterated by mud rushed into the porter’s house, knocked the old man over with an oak table, seized Bob by the throat and dashed his head against the wall so vio​lently that he lost consciousness, after which he possessed himself of the key, opened the door and ran out. Outside he came up against a sentry, who immediately challenged him and raised his rifle, but before he could fire somebody was shaking him violently, tore the gun out of his hands and broke his collar-bone with the butt. Then two sentries on duty near by ran up; the black being threw the rifle at them and slipped back into the park. Almost at the same moment the night guard at exit C was also attacked; something large and black, appearing from nowhere, suddenly began to hammer his lower jaw. The sentry, a blonde giant, was too astonished for a moment to whistle for assistance. Then this somebody, cursing terribly, let him go and ran back into the dark park. The guard was called out and a number of patrols began to search the grounds.

At about midnight somebody demolished the balustrade on the terrace and threw stones twenty Pounds in weight at the guard, which was passing thirty feet below. A soldier fired, producing from above a string of political insults—and then all was quiet. At that moment a detachment of cavalry arrived from Dikkeln, while the whole of the Balttin garrison were occupied in thrusting their bayonets into the underbrush. In the castle nobody attempted to sleep. At one a. m. an unconscious soldier without a rifle was found on the tennis court. Shortly afterwards an exchange of shots was heard in the birch wood; luckily nobody was injured. Mr. Carson, with a serious and careworn expression, insisted on sending Princess Willy back to the castle. Trembling through the cold more than anything else, she had ​ventured, for some reason or other, on to the battlefield. But the Princess, her eyes unusually widely open, asked him to be so good as to leave her alone. Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders and let her have her own mad way.

Although people were gathered round the castle as thick as flies, somebody continued to break the windows methodically from the bushes. There was a panic, accentuated by the fact that at the same time three or four rifle shots were heard from the main road. Mr. Carson looked exceedingly anxious.

Meanwhile the Princess was silently walking along an avenue of beech trees. Suddenly there appeared before her an enormous black creature, which stood still for a moment, clenched its fists, muttered something to the effect that it was a shame and a scandal, and then dived into the bushes again. The Princess turned back and stopped the patrol, saying that there was nobody there. Her eyes were wide and shining, as if she were feverish. A moment afterwards firing was heard from the bushes behind the lake; according to the noise it came from shotguns. Mr. Carson grumbled, saying that if the yard boys mixed themselves up in it he would pull their ears for them. He did not know that at that moment somebody had thrown a heavy stone at a valuable Danish hound.

At dawn they found Prokop sleeping soundly on a bench in the Japanese summer-house. He was terribly scratched and befouled and his clothes hung in rags; on his forehead he had a lump as big as his fist and his hair was clotted with blood. Mr. Carson shook his head over the sleeping hero of the ​night. Then Mr. Paul shuffled forward and carefully covered the snoring sleeper with a warm rug, produced a basin full of water, a towel, some clean linen and a brand-new tweed suit made by Mr. Drehbein and went away on tiptoe.

Two inconspicuous persons in plain clothes, with revolvers in their hip pockets, strolled up and down in the neighbourhood of the Japanese summer-house until morning with the unconcerned air of people who are waiting to observe the sunrise.

Prokop was waiting for all sorts of things to happen as a result of the night’s activity; nothing took place, except that he found himself followed about by the man with the pipe—the one being whom Prokop for some reason or other feared. This person bore the name of Holz—a name which was very expressive of his quiet and observant nature. Wherever Prokop went, Holz was five paces behind him. This drove him nearly mad and he tormented his attendant for a whole day in the most refined manner, running hither and thither up and down a short path and waiting fifty and a hundred times for Mr. Holz to get tired of turning face about every few steps. Mr. Holz, however, did not get tired. Then Prokop took to flight and ran three times round the whole park. Mr. Holz silently followed him without even taking his pipe out of his mouth, while Prokop became completely out of breath.

Mr. Carson did not show himself that day. Evidently he was too angry. Towards evening Prokop collected himself and went to his laboratory, accompanied, of course, by his silent shadow. Once in the laboratory, he wanted to lock himself in; but Mr. Holz stuck his foot in the door and came in with him. And, since an arm-chair had been provided in the hall, it was evident that Mr. Holz would remain there. Well, good. Prokop busied himself with some secret business while Mr. Holz coughed ​shortly and dryly in the hall. About two hours before dawn Prokop sprinkled some sort of fabric with petroleum, lit it and dashed outside as fast as he was able. Mr. Holz instantly sprang out of the arm-chair and followed him. When they were a hundred yards away from the building Prokop threw, himself into a ditch with his face on the ground; Mr. Holz remained standing over him and began to light his pipe. Prokop raised his head, and was about to say something to him, but stopped on remembering that conversation with Holz was forbidden on principle. Instead he stretched out his hand and pulled his legs from under him, “Look out!” he roared, and at that moment there was an explosion in the shed and fragments of stone and glass whistled over their heads. Prokop stood up, cleaned himself more or less and quickly, and ran off, followed by Mr. Holz. At the same moment there appeared the guard and a fire engine.

This was the first warning addressed to Mr. Carson. If he didn’t come and negotiate now, worse things would happen.

Mr. Carson did not come; instead there arrived a new pass for another experimental laboratory. Prokop was furious. All right, he said to himself, this time he would show them what he could do. He ran off to his new laboratory, reflecting on the form which his protest would take. He decided for explosive potash, ignited by water. But, arrived at the new laboratory, he found himself helpless. That Carson was a devil!

Adjacent to the laboratory were the quarters of the factory guard. In the garden a good dozen ​children were playing about in the dirt, and a young mother was endeavouring to appease a little red-faced creature that was yelling vigorously. On seeing Prokop’s irate visage it suddenly stopped. “Good-evening,” muttered Prokop, and wandered back with his fists clenched. Mr. Holz followed him five paces behind.

On the way to the castle he ran into the Princess on horseback accompanied by a whole cavalcade of officers. He would have turned off down a side path, but the Princess in a flash had ridden up to him. “If you would like to ride,” she said quickly, and her dark face flushed, “Premier is at your disposition.”

Prokop edged away from the careering Whirlwind. He had never been on a horse in his life, but would not have admitted this for anything in the world. “Thank you,” he said, “but there is no need . . . to sweeten . . . my imprisonment.”

The Princess frowned. It was certainly out of place to refer to the matter so directly in speaking to her; however, she controlled herself and, suavely combining a reproach and an invitation, answered: “I beg you not to forget that at the castle you are my guest.”

“That doesn’t matter to me,” mumbled Prokop obstinately, watching every movement of the nervous horse.

The Princess, irritated, made a movement with her foot; Whirlwind snorted and began to rear. “Don’t be frightened of him,” Willy threw out with a smile.

Prokop, furious, struck the horse a blow on the ​muzzle; the Princess raised her whip as if she wished to slash at his hand. All the blood rushed to Prokop’s head. “Look out,” he said through his teeth, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the Princess’s flashing ones. But at this point the officers became aware of the unfortunate incident, and cantered up to the Princess. “Hallo, what’s up?” cried the one who was riding in front on a black mare and made straight for Prokop. Prokop saw the horse’s head above him, seized hold of the bridle, and with all his force dragged it aside. The horse screamed with pain and reared up on its hind legs, while the officer flew into the arms of the tranquil Mr. Holz. Two sabres flashed in the sun; but quickly the Princess placed Whirlwind between Prokop and the officers. “Stop!” she ordered, “he is my guest!” and, giving Prokop a black look, she added: “Incidentally he is afraid of horses. Let me introduce you to one another. Lieutenant Rohlauf. Engineer Prokop. Prince Suwalski. Von Graun. The affair is settled, eh? When Rohlauf has mounted again we will go. Premier is at your disposition, sir. And please remember that here you are a guest. Au revoir!” The whips swished through the air, Whirlwind twisted round, and the cavalcade disappeared round the corner of the road. Only Mr. Rohlauf pranced round Prokop on his horse, fixing him with angry eyes, saying finally in a voice choked with anger: “You shall give me satisfaction, sir.”

Prokop swung round on his heel, returned to his room, and locked himself in. Two hours later a message was carried by the fragile Paul from the guest’s suite to the management. Immediately Mr. ​Carson ran to Prokop with a severe expression on his face; with a commanding gesture he pushed back Mr. Holz, who was quietly dreaming in an arm-chair outside the room, and went inside.

Mr. Holz took a seat in front of the castle and lit his pipe. From within there came a terrible roar, but Mr. Holz paid no attention to it; his pipe was not drawing properly. He unscrewed the stem, and in an expert manner cleaned it with a stalk of grass. From the guest’s suite could be heard the growling of two tigers whose teeth were fixed in one another; both roared, there was a sound of furniture being overturned, a moment of silence, and then a frightful cry from Prokop. People appeared from the garden; but Mr. Holz waved them away, and continued to occupy himself with his pipe. The uproar inside increased, both tigers roared still louder and threw themselves on one another in fury. Mr. Paul ran out of the castle as white as a sheet, lifting his terrified eyes to heaven. At that moment the Princess cantered up with her escort. When she heard the unholy turmoil in the guest's wing of the castle she smiled nervously, and quite unnecessarily gave Whirlwind a cut with the whip. Then the noise quieted down a little; one could hear the thundering of Prokop, who was threatening something and striking the table with his fist. Interspersed with this came the sound of a sharp voice which threatened and commanded. Prokop shouted passionate protests; but the sharp voice answered quietly and decidedly.

“By what right?” cried Prokop’s voice. The authoritative voice explained something with quiet ​and terrible emphasis. “But in that case, you understand, you’ll all go up in the air,” roared Prokop, and the uproar again became so terrific that Mr. Holz suddenly stuck his pipe in his pocket and ran into the castle. But again all became quiet. Only the sharp voice gave orders and enunciated clear phrases, to the accompaniment of a dark and threatening murmur; it was as if the conditions of an armistice were being dictated. Twice more there resounded Prokop’s frightful roar; but the sharp voice remained calm, apparently sure of its victory.

An hour and a half later Mr. Carson burst out of Prokop’s room, purple and covered with sweat, snorting and sombre, and hurried round to the Princess’s apartments. Ten minutes afterwards Mr. Paul, trembling with respect, announced to Prokop, who was gnawing at his fingers in his room: “Her Excellence.”

The Princess entered in evening dress, deathly pale, her eyebrows drawn with anxiety. Prokop came forward to meet her, and wished, apparently, to say something; but the Princess stopped him with a movement of her hand that was full of command and protest, and said in a strangled voice: “I’ve come . . . sir, to apologize to you for striking at you. I am infinitely sorry that it happened.”

Prokop flushed, and again wished to say something, but the Princess continued: “Lieutenant Rohlauf is leaving to-day. The Prince begs you to join us at dinner occasionally. Please forget the incident. Au revoir.” She quickly gave him her hand; Prokop touched the ends of her fingers. They were cold, and as if dead.

The fight with Carson seemed to clear the air a little. Prokop certainly announced that he intended to escape at the first opportunity; but he solemnly undertook that until that time he would refrain from any resort to force or to threats. In recognition of this, Mr. Holz was removed to a distance of fifteen paces, and Prokop was allowed, accompanied by him, to move freely in a circle of three miles from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, to sleep in the laboratory, and to dine where he wished. On the other hand, Mr. Carson quartered a woman and two children in the laboratory (as it happened, she was the wife of a workman who had been killed by an explosion of Krakatit), as a sort of moral guarantee against any “carelessness.” In addition Prokop was assigned a large salary, paid in gold, and he was left free to work or amuse himself as he wished.

Prokop spent the first few days after this adventure in studying the terrain within the three miles’ limit with a view to the possibilities it afforded of escape. In view of the protective zone, which functioned quite perfectly, the chances were exceedingly poor. Prokop thought out a few methods of murdering Mr. Holz; but luckily he discovered that this dry and sturdy being was supporting five children besides a mother and a lame sister—and that, in ​addition, he had behind him three years’ imprisonment for manslaughter.

It was a certain satisfaction to Prokop that he had won the passionate devotion of Mr. Paul, a retired butler, who was delighted that he again had some one to wait on; for the dear old man was very pained by the fact that he was considered too slow to wait at the Prince’s table. Prokop at times became nearly desperate at his oppressive and respectful attention. Further, Dr. Krafft, Egon’s tutor, who was as ruddy as a fox, and had been terribly unfortunate in his life, had also become attached to Prokop. He had received an unusual education, was a bit of a theosophist, and as well the most absurd idealist which it is possible to imagine. He approached Prokop with shyness, and admired him without shame, since he regarded him as at least a genius. He had been acquainted for some time with Prokop’s technical articles, and had even based on them a theosophical theory of the lowest plane of manifestation, or, in more ordinary language, of matter. He was also a pacifist, and, like all people with too exalted views, a bore.

Prokop finally grew sick of wandering aimlessly about inside the protective zone and began to visit the laboratory more and more. He studied his old notes, filled up a lot of gaps in them, and prepared and afterwards destroyed a large number of explosives, whose structure confirmed his most daring hypothesis. At this time he was almost happy, but in the evening he avoided people and languished under the calm glance of Mr. Holz, looking up at the clouds, the stars, and at the horizon.

​One other thing interested him enormously. Directly he heard the beat of horses’ hoofs he stepped to the window and watched the rider—whether it was a yard boy, some officer or other, or the Princess (with whom he had not exchanged a word since that day), with attentive eyes. He observed that the rider did not actually sit down as in a chair, but to a certain extent might be said to stand in the stirrups; that he used his knees and not his back; that he did not allow himself to be passively shaken about like a sack of potatoes by the movement of the horse, but actively adapted himself to it. Practically the process was probably very simple, but for the technical engineer who was watching the mechanism it appeared to be enormously complicated, especially when the horse began to rear, prance, or dance about in thoroughbred shyness. Prokop studied all this for hours, sheltered behind the window curtains; and one fine morning he ordered Paul to have Premier saddled. Mr. Paul became extremely disconcerted. He explained that Premier was a high-spirited and restless animal which had never been fully broken in, but Prokop merely repeated the order. His riding things were ready in the cupboard; he put them on with a faint feeling of vanity and went downstairs. Premier was already there, prancing about and dragging a groom round with him. Prokop endeavoured to appease the animal by stroking his nostrils, as he had seen other people do. The creature grew a little more calm, though his feet still dug into the sand. Prokop approached his side in a calculating manner, and was just raising his foot to the stirrup when Premier ​struck out like lightning with his hind legs, so that Prokop only just had time to get out of the way. The groom broke into a short laugh. That was enough. Prokop hurled himself at the horse, somehow got his foot into the stirrup and heaved himself into the saddle. For the next few moments he had no idea what was happening; everything spun round, somebody shouted, Prokop had one foot in the air while the other remained for some incredible reason in the stirrup. At last Prokop got established in the saddle, and gripped with his knees with all his strength. He did this just in time, for immediately afterwards Premier suddenly bucked violently; Prokop hastily leant back and feverishly tugged at the bridle. As a result the beast stood up on his hind legs; Prokop tightened his knees like a vice and put his face forward right between the horse’s ears, taking great care not to throw his arms around its neck, as he was afraid that this would appear foolish. He was practically only hanging on by his knees. Premier ceased to rear and began to twist round and round like a wolf dog; Prokop utilized this to get his other foot into the stirrup. ‘Don’t squeeze him so tightly,” shouted the groom; but Prokop was glad to feel the horse between his knees. The animal, more desperately than spitefully, made another attempt to throw his strange rider; he twisted and kicked, scattering the sand, and all the personnel of the kitchen ran out to watch this extraordinary circus. Prokop caught a glimpse of Mr. Paul, who was pressing a napkin to his lips in consternation, and then Dr. Krafft dashed out, his ruddy hair gleaming in the sun, and, at the risk of his own life, ​attempted to seize hold of Premier’s bridle. “Leave him alone,” shouted Prokop, inordinately proud, and dug his spurs into the horse’s side. Premier, to whom this had never happened before, shot off like an arrow into the park. Prokop drew in his head, so as to fall lightly if it came to the worst; he stood in the stirrups inclined forward, involuntarily adopting the seat of a jockey. When flashing past the tennis court in this manner, he noticed there several white figures; this filled him with fury, and he began to belabour Premier's haunches with his whip. At this the animal completely lost his head. After a number of disturbing sidelong jumps he sat down on his haunches so that it seemed that he would fall over; but instead he got up and flew across the lawn. Prokop realized that everything now depended on holding his head, if they were not both to turn a somersault. He dragged at the bit for all he was worth. Premier stopped short suddenly, covered with sweat, and then began to move at a reasonable trot. Victory was secured.

Prokop was extraordinarily relieved. Now at last he was able to apply what he had studied so carefully theoretically. The trembling horse allowed himself to be directed as his rider wished, and Prokop, as proud as a god, rode him back along the twisting paths of the park towards the tennis court. He caught a sight of the Princess, racket in hand, the other side of a bush, and spurred Premier into a gallop. At that moment the Princess clicked her tongue, Premier rose into the air and flew towards her like an arrow over the tops of some shrubs; and Prokop, completely unprepared for this ​advanced exercise, flew out of the saddle and descended on to the grass. He felt something go, and the next moment his senses were obliterated by pain.

When he recovered consciousness he saw in front of him the Princess, and three men in the embarrassed position of people who do not know whether to laugh at a joke or run for assistance. Prokop tried to move his left leg, which lay underneath him, twisted in a surprising manner. The Princess was watching him with an inquiring and at the same time frightened expression on her face.

“Now,” said Prokop firmly, “you've broken my leg for me.” He was in great pain, and the shock had confused his mind; nevertheless, he tried to stand up. When, for the second time, he came to, he was lying in the Princess’s lap, and she was wiping his sweat-covered forehead with a strongly scented handkerchief. In spite of the frightful pain in his leg, he was half in a dream. “Where is . . . the horse?” he babbled, and began to groan. Two gardeners lifted him on to a stretcher and carried him into the castle. Mr. Paul changed into everything in the world: an angel, a nurse, a mother. He ran about, arranged the pillows under Prokop’s head, and poured cognac down his throat; then he sat down at the head of the bed and allowed Prokop to crush his hand in his spasms of pain. Dr. Krafft stood near with eyes filled with tears, and Mr. Holz, evidently touched, cut away Prokop’s riding breeches and applied cold compresses to his thigh. Prokop groaned quietly, smiling for a moment now and then with his blue lips at Krafft ​or Mr. Paul. Then there appeared the regimental doctor, or rather butcher, accompanied by an assistant, who very soon started work on Prokop’s leg. “H’m,” he said, “compound fractiure of the femur and so on; at least six weeks in bed, my friend.” He produced two splints and then began a very unpleasant business. “Stretch his leg out,” ordered the butcher of his assistant, but Mr. Holz politely pushed aside the excited beginner and himself seized hold of the broken member with all his strength. Prokop bit into the pillows so as not to scream with agony like an animal, and caught sight of the pained face of Mr. Paul in which was reflected all his own torture. “A bit more,” said the doctor in a bass voice, feeling the fracture; Holz tugged silently and violently. Krafft ran out of the room gasping out something in complete desperation. Then the butcher quickly and adroitly fixed the splints in position, muttering something about putting the cursed leg into plaster the next day. At last it was all over; the pain was still terrible, and the stretched-out leg seemed to be dead, but at least the butcher had gone away. Mr. Paul still walked about the room on tiptoe, doing all he could to relieve the patient.

Then Mr. Carson dashed up in a car, and, mounting the steps four at a time, flew into Prokop’s room, which became filled with his sparkling sympathy. He was gay and comradely, chattered all sorts of nonsense at a tremendous speed, and suddenly began to smooth Prokop’s bristly hair in a friendly, and at the same time timid, manner. Prokop forgave his obdurate adversary and tyrant nine​tenths of his sins. Then something heavy was heard coming up the stairs, the door flew open and two lackeys with white gloves led in the crippled Prince. While still at the door he waved a preternaturally long and emaciated hand as if to prevent Prokop out of respect for him rising by some miracle and coming over to greet him; then he allowed himself to be placed on a chair and delivered himself of a few phrases of courtly sympathy.

Scarcely had this apparition disappeared than someone tapped at the door and Mr. Paul whispered something to a chambermaid. A moment after the Princess came in, still in her tennis things, her face expressing a mixture of obstinacy and repentance. She had come voluntarily to apologize for her clumsiness. But before she could say anything Prokop’s homely, hard, rough-cast face broke into a childish smile. “Now,” said the proud patient, “am I afraid of a horse or not?”

The Princess blushed so deeply that she became confused and angry with herself. But she soon regained her self-control, and at once became again the charming hostess. She told him that a distinguished surgeon was coming to see him, and inquired what he would like to eat, read, and so on, further instructing Paul to send a report on the patient’s health twice a day. Then, after putting something straight on the bed, she left the room with a brief nod of the head.

When, not long afterwards, the famous surgeon arrived in a car, he was obliged to wait for some hours, however much he might shake his head over it. Mr. Eng. Prokop had fallen into a deep sleep.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.