Krakatit/part 2

 

Needless to say, the distinguished surgeon did not recognize the work of the military butcher. He stretched out Prokop’s leg again, put it into plaster, and concluded by saying that he would probably be lame for life.

There began for Prokop a succession of delightful and lazy days. Krafft read him passages from Swedenborg and Mr. Paul and others from the Court Calendar, while the Princess saw to it that the patient’s bed was surrounded by a magnificent selection of volumes from the world’s literature. Finally Prokop got tired even of the Calendar, and began to dictate to Krafft a systematic work on destructive chemistry. Curiously enough he became most fond of Carson, whose insolence and lack of consideration impressed him more and more, for beneath it he found the grandiloquent plans and crazy fantasy of an out-and-out international militarist. Mr. Paul was in an ecstasy of delight. He was now indispensable night after night, and could dedicate every breath and every step of his faltering legs to Prokop’s service.

You lie encased in matter, like the stump of a tree; but can you not feel the crepitation of terrible and unknown forces in that inert matter which binds you? You luxuriate on magnificent pillows charged ​with more power than a cask of dynamite; your body is a sleeping explosive, and even the faded, trembling hand of Mr. Paul contains more explosive force than a capsule of melinite. You lie motionless in an ocean of immeasurable, unanalyzable, unutilized forces; you are surrounded not by the walls of the room, quiet people and the rustling branches of trees, but by an ammunition store, a cosmic magazine prepared for the most frightful deed. You tap matter with your finger as if you were testing casks of ekrasite to see if they are full.

Prokop’s hands had become transparent through lack of use, but on the other hand they had acquired an extraordinary sense of touch. They felt and detected the potential power of detonation of whatevery they encountered. A young body had an enormous explosive tension, while Dr. Krafft, an enthusiast and an idealist, had a relatively weak capacity for explosion. Carson’s index of detonaation approached that of tetranitraniline, and Prokop recalled with a shudder the cool touch of the Princess’s hand, which revealed to him the terrible explosive power of this haughty amazon. He racked his brains in trying to decide whether the potential explosive energy of the organism depended upon the presence of certain enzymotic or other substances or on the chemical composition of the cells themselves, which constituted charges par excellence. Be that as it may, he would have liked to know how that dark proud girl would explode.

And now Mr. Paul wheeled Prokop about the park in a bathchair. Mr. Holz proved superfluous, but was active, as he had revealed great talent as ​a masseur, and Prokop felt a beneficial explosive force flowing from his powerful fingers. If the Princess came across the patient in the park she said something with complete and precisely calculated politeness, and Prokop to his annoyance never understood how she managed to do it, for he himself was always either too rough or too friendly. The rest of the household regarded Prokop as a marvel; this gave them the right not to take him seriously, and allowed him to be as rude to them as he liked. On one occasion, the Princess drew up near him with the whole of her escort; she left the gentlemen to wait, sat down by Prokop’s side, and asked him about his work. Prokop, wishing to be as obliging to her as possible, embarked on a long technical explanation, as if he were giving a lecture before an international chemical congress. Prince Suwalski and some cousin or other began to laugh and nudge one another, at which Prokop grew furious, turned to them, and said that it was not them whom he was addressing. All eyes turned on Her Excellency, for it was her task to put this unpolished plebeian in his place; but the Princess smiled indulgently, and sent them off to play tennis. While she was looking after them with eyes narrowed to a slit Prokop scrutinized her out of the corner of his eye; for the first time he really noticed what she was like. She was rigid, thin, and with an excess of pigmentation in her colouring, strictly speaking not beautiful. She had small breasts, ungainly legs, magnificent hands indicative of race, a scar on her proud forehead, deep-set eyes with a sharp glance, dark brown under her sharp nose, full ​and haughty lips; well, yes, after all almost pretty. What were her eyes really like?

Then she turned fully round and Prokop became confused. “They say that you are able to discover the character of things by touching them,” she said quickly. “Krafft was talking about it.” Prokop smiled at this feminine description of his peculiar chemotaxis. “Well, yes,” he said, “one feels how much force a thing has; that’s nothing.” The Princess gave a quick glance at his hand, and then looked round the park; there was nobody about.

“Show me,” muttered Prokop, and opened his scarred hand. She laid on it the smooth tips of her fingers; a sort of flash passed through Prokop, his heart began to beat violently, and the mad idea came into his head: “Supposing I closed my hands!” Then he proceeded to knead and press in his rough paw the firm, burning flesh of her hand. His head suddenly became filled with a drunken giddiness; he saw the Princess close her eyes and draw her breath sharply through her half-open lips, while he also closed his eyes and, setting his teeth, whirled down into the swirling darkness. Her hand struggled feverishly and wildly with its thin sinuous fingers, fingers which were writhing to get free, which twisted like serpents, which dug their nails into his skin, and then suddenly pressed convulsively against his flesh, Prokop’s teeth chattered with ecstasy; the trembling fingers played on his wrist, red circles appeared before his eyes, a sudden sharp and burning pressure and the thin hand tore free from his grasp. Exhausted, Prokop opened his eyes; there was a noisy beating inside his head; the green and golden garden ​again presented itself to his eyes, which were blinded by the light of day. The Princess had grown deathly pale, and bit her lips with her sharp teeth; through the slits of her eyes there flashed a boundless resistance.

“Well?” she said sharply.

“Virginal, unfeeling, libidinous, proud and capable of violent anger—inflammable as tinder—and wicked. You are wicked; you are fiery through your very cruelty, arrogant and heartless; you are wicked and overcharged with excitability; inaccessible, filled with curiosity, hard, hard on yourself, fire and ice, ice and fire——”

The Princess nodded silently. “Yes.”

“Of no use to anybody; haughty, incapable of loving, poisoned and burning—ardent, and everything around you leaves you indifferent.”

“I must be severe with myself,” whispered the Princess. “You don’t know——” She waved her hand and got up. “Thank you. I will send Paul to you.”

Having thus relieved himself of his personal offended bitterness, Prokop began to think of the Princess more kindly. Finally he became annoyed that she now evidently avoided him. He prepared some friendly phrases to say to her at the first opportunity, but the opportunity did not offer itself.

At the castle there arrived Prince Rohn, known as Mon Oncle Charles, the brother of the late Princess, a refined and polished cosmopolitan, amateur of everything possible, très grand artiste, as they say. He had written a number of historical novels, and ​was an extraordinarily pleasant personality. He exhibited a particular liking for Prokop, and spent whole hours with him. Prokop profited a great deal from his contact with this charming old gentleman, acquired from him a certain finish, and realized that there were other things in the world besides destructive chemistry. Mon Oncle Charles possessed an enormous fund of anecdotes. Prokop turned the conversation on to the Princess, and heard with interest what a malicious, madcap, proud, and magnanimous girl she was, how on one occasion she had fired at her dancing master and on another had wanted to have a piece of her skin cut off for transplantation on to the limb of a nurse who had received some burns; when permission to do this was refused, in her rage she smashed a window of the most valuable glass. Le bon oncle also brought young Egon along to Prokop, whom he set up as an example to the young man with such extravagant praise that the unfortunate Prokop became as confused as Egon himself.

After five weeks he was going about on crutches. He visited the laboratory more and more, working like a nigger until the pain in his foot began again, so that on the way home he literally hung on the attentive Holz. Mr. Carson glowed with pleasure when he saw Prokop again so peaceable and industrious, and from time to time threw out allusions to Krakatit; but this was a subject which Prokop positively would not hear about.

One evening there was an important soirée at the castle. Prokop prepared a coup for this occasion. The Princess was standing in a group of generals ​and diplomatists when the doors opened and there entered—without a stick—the obstinate prisoner, who was thus making his first visit to the company in the castle. Oncle Charles and Carson ran forward to meet him while the Princess confined herself to giving him a quick discriminating glance over Prokop had the head of the Chinese Minister. Prokop had imagined that she would come to greet him, but when he saw that she remained with two old ladies, both of them with their dresses cut incredibly low, his brow clouded, and he retired into a corner, bowing with a bad grace to the distinguished personages to whom Carson introduced him as “a distinguished scientist,” “our eminent guest,” and the like. It was as if Mr. Carson had assumed the rôle of Holz, for he never left Prokop for a moment. As the evening went on Prokop became desperately bored; he retired still deeper into his corner and glowered at the whole world. Now the Princess was talking with various dignitaries, one of them an admiral and the other some famous foreign lion. The Princess glanced quickly in the direction in which Prokop was standing sullenly, but at that moment the claimant to some lost throne or other came up to her and led her off in the opposite direction. “Well, I’m of home,” muttered Prokop, and decided in the depths of his dark soul that within three days he would make a further attempt to escape. Just then the Princess approached him and held out her hand, “I’m so glad that you are well again.”

Prokop forgot all the education he had received from Oncle Charles. Making a heavy movement with his shoulders which was intended for a bow, ​he said in a surly tone: “I thought that you did not even see me.” Mr. Carson disappeared as quickly as if he had sunk through the earth.

The Princess wore a low-necked dress which had the effect of confusing Prokop. Whichever way he might look he saw her firm swarthy flesh and smelt the fragrance of her delicate scent.

“I hear that you are working again,” said the Princess. “What exactly are you doing?”

“Well, one thing and another,” answered Prokop, “nothing particularly important.” Here was a chance to repair his insulting behaviour in seizing her hand, but what on earth could he say by way of expiation? “If you would like me to,” he mumbled, “I could . . . make an experiment with your powder.”

“What sort of experiment?”

“An explosive. You’ve enough on you to charge a cannon.”

The Princess smiled. “I didn’t know that powder was an explosive?”

“Everything is an explosive . . . if you treat it properly. You yourself——”

“What?”

“Nothing. A latent explosion. You are terribly explosive.”

“When I am treated properly,” smiled the Princess, and suddenly grew serious. “Wicked, unfeeling, violent, curious, and proud, eh?”

“A girl who wants to sacrifice her skin . . . for an old woman.”

The Princess flared up. “Who told you that?”

“Mon Oncle Charles,” babbled Prokop.

​The Princess grew stiff, and was suddenly a hundred miles away. “Ah, Prince Rohn,” she corrected him dryly. “Prince Rohn talks a great deal. I’m glad that you are all right.” A brief nod of the head and Willy glided across the room at the side of some one in uniform, leaving Prokop to rage in a corner.

Nevertheless, the next morning Mr. Paul brought Prokop something precious, which the Princess had sent by her femme de chambre.

It was a box of brownish powder, with a penetrating scent.

Prokop, working inclined over this box of powder, was disturbed and excited by this strong feminine scent; it was as if the Princess herself was in the laboratory and was bending over his shoulder.

In his youthful ignorance he had never realized that powder was nothing but starch; he had regarded it as inorganic colouring. Well, starch is a magnificent thing, let us say, for damping too powerful explosives, because in itself it is dull and unresponsive; even more so when it becomes an explosive itself. He had no idea how to begin with it, and buried his head in his hands, pursued by the penetrating scent of the Princess. He did not leave the laboratory even at night.

The people at the castle whom he liked best ceased to visit him, as he was always shut off from them by his work and treated them impatiently, absorbed all the time in the cursed powder. What the devil was he to try next? After five days he began to see the light; he feverishly studied aromatic nitroamines, after which he began the slowest synthetic work which he had ever done in his life. One night the powder lay in front of him, unchanged in appearance and exuding its penetrating scent; a brown Powder, reminiscent of a woman’s healthy complexion.

He stretched himself out on the divan, completely ​exhausted. It seemed to him that he saw a placard with the inscription “Powderite, the finest explosive powder for the complexion,” and on the placard was a picture of the Princess putting out her tongue at him. He tried to turn away, but two bare brown arms stretched out from the placard and, medusalike, drew him towards her. He pulled a clasp-knife out of his pocket and ripped it up. Then he had a fear that he had committed a murder, and dashed away along the street in which he had lived years before. He came upon a panting motor-car and leapt into it shouting, “Drive quickly.” The car started off, and only then for the first time did he notice that the Princess was sitting at the wheel with a leather helmet on her head in which he had not seen her before. At a turning in the road someone threw himself in front of the car, evidently to stop it; there was an unearthly ery, the wheels lurched over something soft, and Prokop woke up.

He realized that he was feverish, got up, and looked about the laboratory for some kind of drug. He found nothing except pure alcohol; he took a good pull at it, burnt his mouth and throat, and again lay down with his head spinning. He saw before him a few formule, some flowers, Annie, and a confused train journey; then everything became fused, and he fell into a deep sleep.

In the morning he obtained permission to make an experiment on the artillery ground, a fact which caused Carson extraordinary delight. Prokop refused the help of a single laboratory assistant, and saw to it himself that a passage was dug in the sandstone as far from the castle as possible, in the ​part of the ground where there were not even any electrical wires, so that a special fuse was necessary. When everything was prepared he informed the Princess that at four o’clock precisely he would explode her box of powder. He gave particular instructions to Carson to clear the sheds in the vicinity and unconditionally prohibited the presence of anybody within a circle of half a mile; he further demanded that on this occasion he should not be accompanied by Holz. Mr. Carson considered all this fuss to be somewhat excessive, but conceded all Prokop’s demands.

A quarter of an hour before the appointed time Prokop carried the box of powder to the seat of the explosion with his own hands, sniffed for the last time with a certain satisfaction at the Princess’s scent and put it in the hole. Then he placed beneath it a mercury capsule, connected with a Bickford cord timed for five minutes, took up his position a short distance away, and waited with his watch in his hand until it should be five minutes to four.

Aha, now he would show this proud girl what he could do. This would be an explosion really worthwhile, something different from the pop-guns on the White Mountain, when one had to keep one’s eye open for a policeman the whole time; it would be a magnificent detonation, a column of fire reaching up to Heaven, a marvellous force, a noise like thunder; the heavens would be cleaved by a fiery power and lightning made by the hand of man.

Five minutes to four. Prokop quickly lit the cord and made off for all he was worth with his watch in his hand, limping slightly. Three minutes; ​quicker! Two minutes, and then he saw to his right the Princess, accompanied by Carson, making her way to the site of the explosion. For a second he was rigid with terror, and then shouted to them a warning. Mr. Carson stopped, but the Princess went on without even looking round. Carson trotted after her, evidently trying to persuade her to turn back. Overcoming the sharp pain in his leg, Prokop dashed after her. “Lie down,” he roared, “for God’s sake lie down!” His face was so terribly distorted with anger and horror that Mr. Carson turned pale, made two leaps, and lay down at the bottom of a deep ditch. The Princess continued her way; she was now not more than two hundred yards from the hole. Prokop dashed his watch on the ground, seizing hold of her shoulder. “Lie down,” he yelled. The Princess swung round, giving him a terrible look for having taken such a liberty. Then Prokop took her in both his hands, threw her on to the ground, and fell on top of her with all his weight.

Her wiry lean body wriggled desperately beneath him. “Serpent,” hissed Prokop, and breathing heavily forced the Princess back with all the strength of his chest. The body underneath him arched itself and slipped to the side. Strangely enough not a word came through the closed lips of the Princess; she only breathed shortly and quickly, struggling feverishly. Prokop thrust his knees between her legs, so that she should not slip away, and placed his palms over her ears, realizing in a flash that the explosion might break her ear-drums. Her sharp nails dug into his neck, and in his face he felt the ​savage gnawing of four sharp eye-teeth. “Beast,” gasped Prokop, and attempted to shake off this aggressive animal; but she would not allow him. A hoarse noise came from her throat, and her body braced itself and undulated in wild convulsions. The familiar penetrating scent overpowered Prokop’s senses; his heart beat agitatedly, and he had a wild desire to jump up, ignoring the explosion which would take place now in a few seconds. Then he felt the struggling knees pressing themselves to his leg and two arms twined themselves convulsively round his neck; on his face he felt the hot, moist, trembling contact of her lips and tongue. He moaned with agony, and sought the Princess’s lips with his own. At this moment there was a frightful explosion, and a column of earth and stones was torn out of the earth. Something gave Prokop a violent blow on the crown of the head, but he hardly realized it, for at that instant he was kissing her mouth, tongue, teeth, her parted and trembling lips. Suddenly her elastic body collapsed beneath him, shuddering. He had an impression that Mr. Carson had stood up and was watching him, but hastily threw himself on the ground again. Trembling fingers caressed Prokop’s neck with wonderful and intolerable sweetness; parched lips kissed his face and eyes with tiny trembling kisses, while Prokop thirstily thrust his lips against the beating warmth of a fragrant neck. “Darling, darling,” came a hot whisper into his ears, delicate fingers were passed through his hair, and a soft body pressed its full length against him. Prokop pressed his lips on hers in an endless kiss.

Sss! Thrust away by her elbow, Prokop jumped ​up and rubbed his forehead as if he were drunk. The Princess sat up and arranged her hair. “Give me your hand,” she ordered coolly, hastily looked round, and then quickly pressed the hand which he had stretched out against her burning face. Suddenly she pushed it away, stood up, and, rigid, gazed with large eyes into the distance. Prokop felt quite embarrassed. He was about to approach her again, but she made a nervous movement with her shoulder, as if she were shaking something off. He saw that she was biting her lips deeply. Only then did he remember Carson, whom he found some distance away lying on his back—but not in the ditch—and gazing up happily at the blue sky. “Is it all over?” he said, without getting up, and twiddled his thumbs on his stomach. “I’m frightfully afraid of such things. Can I get up now?” He jumped up and shook himself like a dog. Magnificent explosion,” he said enthusiastically, and again looked, as it were casually, at the Princess.

The Princess turned round; she was as white as a sheet, but had herself completely under control. “Was that all” she asked carelessly.

“My God,” cried Carson, “as if that were not enough! One little box of powder! Man, you’re a magician, a devil, the king of hell or some one like that. What? Really. The king of matter. Princess, behold the king! A genius, eh? A unique person. Honestly, compared to him we’re ragpickers. What name have you given to the stuff?” The disconcerted Prokop regained his equilibrium. “Let the Princess christen it,” he said, glad to be able to rise to the occasion. “It’s . . . hers.”

​The Princess trembled. “You might call it ‘Vicit,’” she said sharply through her teeth.

“What?” cried Mr. Carson. “Aha! Vicit. That means ‘he conquered,’ eh? Princess, you’re a genius! Vicit! Magnificent. Aha! Hurrah!”

But through Prokop’s head there flashed another and a terrible etymology. Vitium. Vice. He looked with horror at the Princess, but it was impossible to read any answer on her strained face.

Mr. carson ran ahead to the seat of the explosion. The Princess—evidently on purpose—lingered behind. Prokop thought that she had something to say to him, but she only pointed with her finger at his face. Prokop quickly felt his face; on it he found the bloody traces of her teeth, and, picking up a handful of soil, rubbed it over the marks, as if he had been struck by a clod at the explosion.

The hole in which the powder had been placed had become a crater about fifteen feet across. It was difficult to calculate the power of the explosion, but Carson estimated it at five times that of oxyliquid. “Fine stuff,” he said, “but a bit too strong for ordinary usage.” Mr. Carson took the whole conversation in hand, slipping adroitly over its serious gaps. When on the way back he took leave of them with an affability that was somewhat too evident, saying that he had this and that to do, Prokop became conscious of an oppressive weight. What was he to talk about now? For some curious reason he had the impression that he must not refer in any way to the dark and mysterious happening which took place at the same time as the explosion when “the heavens were cleft by a fiery power.” He entertained a bitter and unpleasant feeling that the Princess had coldly dismissed him like a lackey with ​whom—with whom—— He clenched his fists in his disgust, and began to mumble something of secondary interest about the horses; the words stuck in his throat, and the Princess accelerated her step noticeably, evidently wishing to get back to the castle as soon as possible. Prokop limped heavily, but did not let her see that he was doing so. Having reached the park, he wished to take leave of her, but the Princess turned down a side path. He followed her irresolutely; then she drew close to his shoulder, turned back her head and placed her thirsty lips on his own.

The Princess’s chow, Toy, scented the approach of his mistress, and, whining with delight, rushed towards her across the lawn. And here he was! But what was this? He stopped. The Big Unfriendly Person was shaking her, they were biting one another, swaying in a silent and desperate struggle. Oho! his Lady was beaten, her arms sank, and she lay moaning in the arms of the Big Person; now he was crushing her. And Toy began to cry “Help! help!” in his dog’s language.

The Princess tore herself out of Prokop’s arms. “Even the dog, even the dog,” she smiled nervously. “Let’s go!” Prokop’s head was spinning; it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could make a few steps. The Princess hung on to him (Insanity! Supposing somebody . . .), drawing him along, but her legs suddenly failed her; she gripped his arm with her fingers, as if she wished to tear it or something of the sort, drew in her breath sharply, knitted her brows, and a dark light came into her eyes. Then with a hoarse sob, seeking his lips, she flung ​her arms round his neck, so that he staggered. Prokop crushed her in his arms; a long breathless embrace, and her body, stretched taut like a bow, collapsed softly and helplessly against him. She lay on his breast with closed eyes. Sweet and meaningless phrases came from her lips; she allowed her face, neck and hair to be covered with his violent kisses, moving her head as if she were intoxicated and did not know what she was doing. Submissive, half swooning, utterly tender; perhaps happy at this moment with an inexpressible happiness. O God, what a trembling and lovely smile there was on her lips!

Suddenly she opened her eyes widely and slipped out of his embrace. They were two yards away from the main avenue. She passed her hands over her face, like a person awakening from a dream, moved away, and leaned her forehead against the trunk of an oak. Scarcely had Prokop released her from his rough hands than his heart began to beat violently with emotion, with an emotion of shame and degradation. Christ! for her he was only a servant whom she used to excite her emotions when she had nothing better to do, when she was unable to bear her solitude, or something of the sort. Now she had kicked him away, like a dog, so that . . . she could do the same thing again with somebody else. He went up to her and put his hand firmly on her shoulder. She turned round gently with a shy, almost frightened and humiliated smile. “No, no,” she whispered, twisting her fingers. “Please, not——”

Prokop’s heart swelled with a sudden wave of ​tenderness, “When shall I see you again?” he asked.

“To-morrow, to-morrow,” she murmured anxiously, and turned back towards the castle. “I must go. Now I can’t——’

“When to-morrow?” insisted Prokop.

“To-morrow,” she repeated nervously, drew her cloak more closely round her shivering body, and hurried off, Prokop at her side. In front of the castle she held out her hand to him. “Au revoir.”

Her fingers were still twisting feverishly; he would have drawn her again towards him. “You mustn’t, you mustn’t,” she whispered, and left him with a last burning kiss.

No greater damage than this was done by the explosion of Vicit. A few chimneys were knocked over on the adjacent barracks, and the rush of air burst a number of windows. The large windows in Prince Hagen’s room were also broken. The crippled old gentleman had with great difficulty risen to his feet, and stood like a soldier waiting for a further catastrophe.

The company in the castle were sitting over their coffee one evening when Prokop entered, his eyes searching for the Princess. He was unable to bear the devouring torture of uncertainty. The Princess turned pale, but the jovial Uncle Rohn at once grasped Prokop’s hand and congratulated him on his magnificent achievement, etc., etc. Even the haughty Suwalski inquired with interest whether it was true that the gentleman was able to turn every ​substance into an explosive. “Take sugar, for instance,” he said, and was simply astounded when Prokop grunted something to the effect that sugar had been used as an explosive even during the Great War. For some time Prokop was the centre of interest; but he stammered, and, although he answered all the questions that were put to him, was chiefly occupied in trying to ascertain the meaning of the provocative glances of the Princess. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on her with terrible attention. The Princess was as if on thorns.

Then the conversation changed, and Prokop had the impression that nobody any longer took any interest in him. These people understood one another so well, conversed so easily, and touched lightly and with enormous interest on things which he simply did not understand or had never even heard of. Even the Princess became quite animated; there you are, you see, she had a thousand times as much in common with these gentlemen as she had with him! His brow darkened, he did not know what to do with his hands, a blind anger began to rage within him. Then he put down his coffee cup so violently that it cracked.

The Princess turned horrified eyes on him, but the charming Oncle Charles saved the situation by telling a story about a sea captain who was able to crush a beer bottle in his fingers. Some fat person, a cousin of sorts, asserted that he could do the same thing. Thereupon they ordered a bottle to be brought in, and one after the other attempted to smash it in this manner. The bottle was a heavy one of black glass, and no one was able to break it,

​“‘Now you,” ordered the Princess, with a quick glance at Prokop.

“I shan’t be able to,” muttered Prokop, but the Princess drew up her eyebrows in such a commanding way that Prokop got up and seized the bottle by its neck. He stood motionless, did not, like the others, contort himself with the effort which he was making, but the muscles in his face stood out as if they were going to burst. He looked like a primitive man who was preparing to kill somebody with a club. His lips were twisted with the strain, his face as it were intersected with powerful muscles, his shoulders loose, as if he were defending himself with the bottle against the attack of a gorilla, and he turned his bloodshot eyes on the Princess. There was a silence. The Princess got up with her eyes fixed upon him. Her lips were drawn back over her clenched teeth, and the tendons stood out on her swarthy face. Her eyebrows were drawn and she breathed quickly, as if she, too, were making a terrible physical effort. They stood opposite one another in this manner, their faces contorted, looking into one another's eyes like two desperate opponents. Convulsive tremors ran through their bodies from head to heel. No one breathed; nothing was to be heard but the hoarse panting of these two. Then there was a crunching sound, the jingle of breaking glass, and the bottom of the bottle fell with a crash on to the floor.

The first to recover himself was Mon Oncle Charles, who paced up and down for a moment and then rushed up to the Princess. “Minnie,” he whispered rapidly, and lowered her, almost fainting, ​into an arm-chair. Kneeling in front of her, by exerting all his strength he opened her convulsively clenched fists; her palms were covered with blood, so deeply had she driven the nails into the flesh. “Take that bottle out of his hand,” ordered le bon Prince, and drew back one of the Princess’s fingers after the other.

“Bravo!” cried Prince Suwalski and began to applaud loudly. Meanwhile Von Graun had seized Prokop’s right hand, which was still grasping fragments of the bottle, and forced open his fingers. “Water,” he cried, and the fat cousin, agitatedly looking round, grasped a table cover, soaked it in water and put it on Prokop’s forehead.

“Ahahah!” cried Prokop with relief. The attack was over but his head was still swirling from the sudden flow of blood and his knees trembled with weakness.

Oncle Charles was massaging on his knees the twisted, quivering fingers of the Princess. “Games of this sort are dangerous,” he muttered, while the Princess, completely exhausted, was hardly able to draw her breath. But on her lips there trembled a wry but victorious smile. “You helped him,” said the fat cousin, “that’s what it was.”

The Princess stood up, hardly able to move her legs. “The gentlemen will excuse me,” she said weakly, giving Prokop such a burning glance with her eyes that he grew terrified lest the others should notice it. She left the room on the arm of Uncle Rohn. It was now necessary to celebrate Prokop’s feat somehow or other. The company was a good-natured one, consisting largely of young men who ​were only too ready to show their appreciation of such a heroic deed. Prokop rose enormously in their estimation through the fact that he had broken the bottle and afterwards demonstrated his ability to consume an incredible quantity of wine and liqueurs without finding himself under the table. By three o’clock in the morning Prince Suwalski was triumphantly kissing him, and the fat cousin, almost with tears in his eyes, was addressing him familiarly in the second person singular. Then they began jumping over chairs and kicking up a frightful row. Prokop smiled at everyone and his head was in the clouds. But when they tried to take him off to the only fille de joie to be found in Balttin, he broke free of them, announced that they were drunken cattle and that he was off to bed.

But instead of executing this sensible project he wandered into the dark park and for a long time examined the front of the castle, looking for a certain window. Mr. Holz stood dreaming fifteen yards away, leaning against a tree.

The next day it rained. Prokop wandered about the park, angry with himself at the thought that as a result he probably would not see the Princess at all. But she ran out bareheaded into the rain. “Only for five minutes,” she whispered, out of breath, and was about to kiss him. Then she caught sight of Mr. Holz. “Who’s that man?”

Prokop looked round quickly. “Who?” By this time he was so accustomed to his shadow that he had ceased to realize that it was always with him. “That’s . . . my guard, see?”

The Princess turned her commanding eyes on Mr. Holz, who instantly thrust his pipe into his pocket and retired some distance away. “Come,” whispered the Princess and drew Prokop into a summer-house. They sat there, not daring to kiss one another, for Mr. Holz was waiting near by, steadily getting soaked. “Your hand,” ordered the Princess quietly, and her passionate fingers grasped the disfigured stumps of Prokop’s paw. “Darling, darling,” she said, and went on: “you mustn’t look at me like that in front of people. I simply don’t know what to do. One day I shall throw my arms round your neck in public and then there’ll be a scandal, O God!” The Princess was simply aghast at the thought.

“Did you go to those girls last night?” she asked ​suddenly. “You mustn’t, now you’re mine. Darling, darling, it’s so hard for me—why don’t you speak? I’ve come to tell you that you must be careful. Mon Oncle Charles is already on our track. Yesterday you were wonderful!” Her voice betrayed impatience and anxiety. “Do they watch you all the time? Everywhere? Even in the laboratory? Ah, c’est bête! When you broke that bottle yesterday I could have come over and kissed you. You were so magnificently angry. Do you remember the night when you broke your chain? Then I went after you blindly, blindly——”

“Princess,” Prokop interrupted her in a hoarse voice, “there is something you must tell me. Is all this the whim of a great lady or . . .?”

The Princess let go of his hand. “Or what?”

Prokop turned his desperate eyes to her. “Are you only playing with me——”

“Or?” she concluded, with evident delight in torturing him.

“Or do you—to a certain extent——”

“—Love you, eh? Listen,” she said, placing her hands behind her head and looking at him through half-closed eyes, “if at any time it seemed to me that . . . that I loved you, really loved you insanely, then I should attempt to . . . destroy myself.” She clicked her tongue as she had before on that occasion with Premier. “I should never leave you, if once I fell in love with you.”

“You lie,” cried Prokop, furious, “you lie! I couldn’t bear the thought that this was only . . . a flirtation. You’re not so corrupt as that! It’s not true!”

​“If you know that,” said the Princess with quiet dignity, “why do you ask me?”

“I want to hear you say so,” said Prokop through his teeth, “I want you to say . . . directly . . . what I am to you. That’s what I want to hear!”

The Princess shook her head.

“I must know,” said Prokop fiercely, “otherwise—otherwise——”

The Princess smiled wearily and put her hand on his. “No, I beg you, don’t, don’t ask me to tell you.”

“Why?”

“You would have too much power over me,” she said quietly, and Prokop trembled with delight.

From outside there came the discreet cough of Mr. Holz, and behind the bushes in the distance could be seen the silhouette of Uncle Rohn. “Look, he’s searching for us,” whispered the Princess. “You musn’t appear this evening.” Their hands grew quiet; the rain hissed on the roof of the summer-house; they were spattered with cool drops. “Darling, darling,” whispered the Princess and put her face near Prokop’s. “What a thing you are! A big nose, bad-tempered, covered with scars. They say that you’re a great scientist. Why aren’t you a prince?”

Prokop made a movement of impatience.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “You’re angry again. And you’ve called me a beast and worse things. You won’t have any mercy for what I do . . . for what I’m going to do. . . . Darling,” she concluded, and stretched out her hand towards his face.

​He bent over her; they kissed in reconciliation. Above the noise of the rain came that of the approaching steps of Mr. Holz.

It’s impossible, impossible! The whole day Prokop wandered about trying to catch sight of her. “You mustn't appear this evening.” Of course, you don’t belong to their society; she feels more free among those swells. It was extraordinary; in the depths of his soul Prokop was aware that he did not really love her, yet he was tortured, full of anger and humiliation. That evening he wandered about the park in the rain thinking of the Princess sitting in the salon in an atmosphere of gaiety and freedom; he felt like a mangy dog which had been kicked out into the rain. There is nothing more painful in life than to be ashamed.

Now we’ll put an end to all this, he decided. He ran home, hurried into evening dress and burst into the smoking-room as he had the evening before. The Princess looked very unhappy, but directly she caught sight of Prokop her lips relaxed into a smile of delight. The other young people welcomed him with friendliness; only Oncle Charles was a shade more formal. The Princess warned him with her eyes: be careful! She hardly spoke at all, as if somehow she was disconcerted; but nevertheless she found an opportunity to slip into Prokop’s hand a crumpled note. “Darling, darling,” she had scrawled in pencil in large letters, ‘‘what have you done? Leave us.” He screwed the piece of paper into a ball. No, Princess, no, I shall remain here. I enjoy seeing your relations with these perfumed ​idiots. For this passionate obstinacy he was rewarded by a burning glance from the Princess. She began to joke with Sulwalski; Von Graun, with all the men, was malicious, cruel, impertinent, laughing at them all pitilessly. Now and then she gave Prokop a quick glance as if to ask him whether he was satisfied with the bodies of her admirers which she was laying at his feet. But he was not satisfied. He frowned and with his eyes asked for five minutes confidential conversation. Then she stood up and led him to some picture or other. “Be sensible, only be sensible,” she whispered feverishly, stood on tiptoe and gave him a warm kiss on the mouth. Prokop was aghast at this insane action; but nobody saw them, not even Oncle Rohn, who otherwise noticed everything with his melancholy, intelligent eyes.

Nothing more happened that day. Nevertheless Prokop tossed on his bed, biting the pillows. And in the other wing of the castle the Princess did not sleep the whole night.

The next morning Paul brought Prokop a perfumed note, without saying from whom it came. “My dear friend,” it ran, “we shall not meet to-day. I don’t know what I shall do. I am terribly impetuous; please be more sensible than I am. (A few lines were scratched out.) Don’t walk past the castle, or I shall run out to you. Please do something to rid yourself of that horrible guard. I’ve had a bad night. I look terrible and don’t want you to see me to-day. Don’t come to us. Mon Oncle Charles is already throwing out hints. I ​shouted at him and am not on speaking terms with him. Dear, advise me: I’ve just got rid of my maid as they’ve told me that she has an affair with a groom and visits him. I can’t stand that. I could have hit her in the face when she confessed it. She was beautiful and cried, and I enjoyed watching her tears. Imagine, I’d never noticed before the way in which tears come. They well up, run down the cheek quickly, stop and then catch up the others. I cannot cry. When I was small I screamed until I was blue in the face, but I never cried. I drove the girl away an hour ago. I hated her and could not bear her to stand near me. You’re right, I’m wicked and full of anger, but how could she dare to do that? Darling, I beg you to speak with her. I’ll have her back and behave to her as you’d like me to. I only want to see that you are able to forgive a woman for such things. You know that I’m wicked and filled with envy. I’m so angry that I don’t know what to do. I should like to see you but I cannot now. Don’t write to me. My love to you.”

Prokop read this to the accompaniment of a wild tune on the piano in the wing of the castle. He wrote: “I see that you do not love me. You are inventing all sorts of obstacles and you do not wish to compromise yourself. You are tired of torturing a man who did not force himself upon you. I thought the position was different and now I am ashamed and realize that you wish to end things. If you don’t appear in the Japanese summer-house this afternoon, I shall assume that this is the case and do all I can not to bother you any more.”

Prokop sighed with relief. He was not used to ​writing love letters. This one seemed to him to be written sincerely and directly. Mr. Paul ran round with it; the noise of the piano in the other wing was suddenly cut short and all was quiet.

Meanwhile Prokop had run off to Carson. He met him near the workshops and went straight to the point: Could he be allowed to go about without Holz? He was prepared to take an oath that until further notice he would not attempt to escape. Mr. Carson grinned significantly. But certainly, why not? He could be as free as a bird, aha! go where he liked and when he liked, if he would oblige him in one detail: give up Krakatit. Prokop grew furious: “I’ve given you Vicit: what more do you want? Man, I’ve told you that you won’t get Krakatit even if you cut my head off!”

Mr. Carson shrugged his shoulders and expressed his regret that in that case there was nothing to be done, since anyone who carried Krakatit under his hat was a public danger, a classical case of preventative supervision. “Get rid of Krakatit, and there you are,” he said. “It’ll be worth your while. Otherwise . . . otherwise we shall have to consider sending you somewhere else.”

Prokop, who was just about to fall upon him, suddenly stopped, mumbled that he understood, and ran home. Perhaps there’s an answer, he said to himself; but there was none.

In the afternoon Prokop began his wait in the Japanese summer-house. Until four o’clock he was filled with anxious, disturbing hope: now—now she may come every moment. After four o’clock he could not bear to sit down any longer; he paced ​about the summer-house like a jaguar in a cage, picturing himself embracing her knees, trembling with ecstasy and fear. Mr. Holz discreetly retired into the shrubbery. By five o’clock Prokop was overpowered by a horrible feeling of disillusionment. Then he suddenly thought: perhaps she will come at dusk, of course she will! He smiled to himself. Behind the castle the sun set in its autumnal gold. The branches of the trees stood out sharply and rigidly, one could hear the beetles rustling in the fallen leaves, and, before one realized it, the bright light of day had turned into a golden twilight. The first evening star appeared on the green horizon, the earth grew dark beneath the pale heavens, the bat began its erratic flight and from somewhere the other side of the park could be heard the muffled sound of bells as the cows returned to the farm, filled with warm milk. In the castle one window lighted up after the other. Was it already evening Stars of heaven, how often had not the small boy gazed at you in wonder from the edge of the wild thyme, how often had not the man turned to you, waiting, suffering, sometimes sobbing under his cross.

Mr. Holz appeared out of the darkness. “Are you going?”

“No.”

To drink the cup of your humiliation until the morning; for it was clear that she would not come. Now it is necessary to drink this cup of bitterness, at the bottom of which is truth, to intoxicate yourself with pain, to pile up suffering and shame until you writhe like a worm and are stupefied by agony. ​You tremble in anticipation of happiness; now give yourself up to pain, which is the narcotic of the person who is suffering. It is night, already night, and she does not come.

Prokop’s heart was lit up by a sudden ray of joy: she knows that I am waiting (she must know). She will steal out in the night when everyone is asleep and fly to me with her arms opened and her mouth full of the sweetness of kisses. We shall embrace in silence, drinking inexpressible realizations from one another’s lips. She will come, pale even in the darkness, trembling with the cold fear which can accompany joy, and give me her bitter lips. She will step out of the black night. . . .

In the castle the lights began to go out. . . .

In front of the summer-house could be discerned the figure of Mr. Holz, his hands in his pockets. His exhausted attitude indicated that “there’s been enough of this.” Meanwhile in the summer-house Prokop, with a savage, contemptuous smile on his face, was stamping out the last sparks of hope, hanging on for a desperate minute, for the last minute of waiting would signify the end of everything. Midnight sounded from the distant town. It was the end.

Prokop rushed home through the dark park, hurrying for no reason at all. He ran bent with dejection. Five paces behind him there trotted, yawning, Mr. Holz.

The end of everything. It was almost a relief, at least something certain and restful, and Prokop entered into the fact with his usual thoroughness. Good, it’s over. There's nothing to fear now. She remained away on purpose. That’s enough, that slap in the face is enough; that’s the end. He sat in an arm-chair, incapable of getting up, continuing to intoxicate himself with his humiliation. A servant who had been given the sack. She was shameless, proud, heartless. She had given him up for one of her admirers. Well, it was over; all the better.

Every time he heard a step in the passage Prokop raised his head in excited anticipation, the existence of which he would not admit to himself. Perhaps it was a letter. No, nothing. She didn’t think him worth even an apology. It was the end.

Mr. Paul shuffled up a dozen times with the old question in his pale eyes: Did the gentleman want anything? No, Paul, nothing. “Wait, have you a letter for me?” Mr. Paul shook his head. “Good, you can go.”

Prokop felt as if there was a lump of ice in his chest. This desolation was the end. Even if the door opened, and she herself were standing there, he would still say: The end! “Darling, darling,” Prokop heard her whisper, and then he burst out in ​desperation: “Why have you humiliated me so? If you were a chambermaid, I should forgive you your haughtiness, but as a princess you cannot be excused. Do you hear? It’s the end, the end!”

Mr. Paul opened the door: “Does the gentleman require anything?”

Prokop stopped short; he had said the last words aloud. “No, Paul. Have you any letter for me?”

Mr. Paul shook his head.

The day grew more and more oppressive; it was as if he was entangled in a horrible spider’s web. It was already evening. Then he heard some voices whispering in the passage, and Mr. Paul entered in delighted haste. “Here is a letter for you,” he whispered triumphantly, “shall I turn on the lights?”

“No.” Prokop crushed the thin envelope in his fingers and became aware of the familiar, penetrating scent; it was as if he was trying by smelling to see what was inside. The point of ice dug deeper in his heart. Why did she wait until the evening to write? Because she has nothing to say but: You musn’t come to us this evening. All right, Princess, if it’s the end, then it’s the end. Prokop jumped up, found in the darkness a clean envelope and placed the letter inside it, unopened. “Paul, take this at once to Her Excellence.”

Scarcely had Paul left the room than Prokop wished to call him back. But it was too late and he realized painfully that what he had just done was irrevocable. Then he threw himself on the bed and stifled in the cushions something which was tearing itself out of his mouth against his will.

Mr. Krafft came in, probably as the result of an ​alarm from Paul, and did all he could to calm and distract his lacerated friend. Prokop ordered some whisky, drank it, and by an effort recovered himself. Mr. Kraft sipped some soda-water, and assented to everything which Prokop said, although he was agreeing to things which were in direct opposition to his glowing idealism. Prokop cursed, reproached himself, used the most coarse and crude expressions as if it relieved his feelings to besmirch everything, spit on it, trample on it and destroy it. And he overflowed with obscenities, turned women inside out and abused them in the most violent possible terms. Mr. Kraft, sweating with horror, agreed with everything which the enraged genius threw out. Then Prokop’s vehemence exhausted itself, he became silent, frowned and drank more than was good for him. Then he lay on the bed, fully dressed, rocking himself from side to side and gazing with large eyes into the swirling darkness.

The next morning he got up, calm and disgusted, and immigrated to his laboratory for good. But he did nothing but lounge about the room, kicking a sponge in front of him. Then he had an idea. He compounded a terrible and instable explosive and sent it to the office, hoping that a really dramatic catastrophe would follow. Nothing happened. Prokop threw himself on the couch and slept uninterruptedly for sixteen hours.

He awoke like another man, sober, steady and cold. He felt utterly indifferent to what had happened before he fell asleep. He again began to work assiduously and methodically on the explosive disintegration of atoms, and theoretically arrived at ​such terrible conclusions that his hair stood on end in horror at the nature of the forces among which we live.

Once in the middle of his calculations he was seized by a sudden feeling of restlessness. “Probably I’m tired,” he said to himself, and went out into the open air for a bit, bareheaded. Without realizing what he was doing he made his way to the castle, mechanically ran up the stairs and went along the passage to the guests’ quarters. Paul was not in his usual seat. Prokop went inside. Everything was as he had left it, but in the air was the familiar scent of the Princess, “Absurd, absurd,” thought Prokop. “Suggestion or something of the sort; I’ve been smelling the strong smells of the laboratory too long.” Nevertheless he was painfully excited.

He sat down for a moment and was surprised how far away everything was. All was quiet in the castle, the quietness of the afternoon. And yet had not something changed? He heard muffled steps in the corridor, probably those of Paul, and went outside. It was the Princess.

Surprise and what was almost horror threw her back against the wall, and she stood deathly pale, her eyes wide open, and her lips twisted as if in pain. What did she want in the guests’ wing Perhaps she is going to Suwalski, thought Prokop suddenly, and something in him froze. He made a step forward as if he was going to throw himself upon her, but instead made a noise in his throat and ran out. Did he feel hands pulling him back? You must not look back! Away, away from here! ​Only when he was a long way from the castle, in the middle of the sandy artillery ground, did he throw himself down on his face. For there is only one pain greater than that of humiliation—that of hatred. Ten yards to the side sat the serious and concentrated Mr. Holz.

The night which followed was heavy and oppressive, unusually black. There was going to be a storm. At such moments people are extraordinarily irritable and unable to control their actions.

About eleven o’clock Prokop burst out of the door of his laboratory and stunned Mr. Holz so thoroughly with a chair that he was able to escape from him into the darkness of the night. A few moments later two shots were heard from the neighbourhood of the factory station. Low down on the horizon there were flashes of lightning, followed by a more intense darkness. But from the top of the wall near the entrance there came a bright ray of violet light which lit up the whole of the station, the trucks, the ramps, and the piles of coal. It also lit up a dark figure which ran in a zig-zag path, fell to the ground and then disappeared again in the darkness. The figure then made its way amongst the barracks towards the park; several other figures threw themselves on it. The searchlight then turned on the castle; two more shots, and the running figure plunged into the bushes.

Shortly afterwards the window of the Princess’s room rattled. She jumped up and at that moment there flew into the room a stone wrapped up in a crumbled piece of paper. On one side of the sheet ​was something illegible, scribbled with a broken pencil, and on the other a series of reproaches written in a small handwriting. The Princess threw on her clothes, but at that moment another report was heard behind the lake—according to the sound, that of a rifle which was loaded with something more than a blank cartridge. But before the Princess had time to leave the room she saw through the window two soldiers dragging along something dark which struggled and tried to throw them off. He was not wounded, then.

The horizon continued to be lit up with long, yellow flames. But the storm which would have cleared the air did not break.

The sobered Prokop again threw himself headlong into work in the laboratory, or at least forced himself to work. Mr. Carson had just left him. He was in a cold rage and had announced unequivocally that everything pointed to Prokop's being transferred as early as possible to some safer place. If he refused to respond to lenient treatment, they would have to resort to harsher measures. Well, it was all the same, nothing mattered. The testtube broke in Prokop’s fingers.

In the hall Mr. Holz was waiting with his head wrapped in bandages. Prokop offered him some money as a compensation for the injury, but he would not accept it. Well, let him do as he liked. So he was to be transferred somewhere else—very well. Curse these test-tubes! They break one after another.

In the hall there was the sound of some one being ​awakened suddenly from dreaming. Probably another visit. Prokop did not trouble to turn round from the lamp he was using. The door creaked. “Darling!” whispered somebody. Prokop staggered, gripped the table and turned round as if in a dream. The Princess was standing with her hand against the door-post, pale, with a dark, fixed look in her eyes, pressing her hands to her breast as if to muffle the beating of her heart.

Trembling all over, he went across to her and with his fingers touched her cheeks and shoulders as if he could not believe that it was she. She placed her cold fingers on his mouth. Then she looked back into the hall. Mr. Holz had disappeared. . . .

She sat motionless on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chin, her hair falling across her face and her hands clasped convulsively around her neck. He was afraid of what he had done, and kissed her knees, hands, hair, grovelled on the floor and poured out entreaties and endearments; she did not see or hear. It seemed to him that she trembled with revulsion at his every touch.

Then she quietly got up and went over to the glass. He approached her on tiptoe, hoping to surprise her, but then he caught sight of her reflection. She was looking at herself with an expression so wild, terrible, and desperate, that he was horrified. She turned round and fell on his shoulder. “Am I ugly? Do I revolt you? What have I done, what have I done?” She pressed her face against his chest. “I’m stupid, you see? I know . . . I know that you’re disappointed. But you mustn’t be contemptuous of me, you understand?” She nestled against him like a repentant young girl. “You won’t escape, will you? I’ll do anything you like, you see? As if I were your wife. Darling, darling, don’t leave me to think; I shall become horrible to myself again if once I think; you’ve no idea what my thoughts are. Don’t leave me now—— ” Her trembling fingers caressed his neck; he raised her ​head and kissed her, murmuring all sorts of things in his ecstasy. Color came back into her face and she became beautiful again. “Am I ugly?” she whispered, happy and dazed, between his kisses, “I should like to be beautiful for your sake. Do you know why I came? I expected that you would kill me.”

“And if you had known what was going to happen,” whispered Prokop, rocking her in his arms, “would you have come?”

The Princess nodded. “I am horrible. What must you think of me! But I won’t let you think.” He embraced her quickly and raised her from the couch. “No, no,” she implored, resisting him. But she lay still with moist eyes, her fingers playing with the hair on his heavy forehead. “Dear, dear,” she sighed, “how you have tortured me these last few days! Do you?” She did not say the word “love.” He assented passionately: “And you?”

“Yes. You should have seen it already. Do you know what you are? You are the most beautiful horrible man that ever had a big nose. Your eyes are as bloodshot as a St. Bernard’s. Is it through your work? Perhaps you wouldn’t be so nice if you were a prince. Ah! Stop!”

She slipped out of his embrace and went to the mirror to comb her hair. She examined herself attentively and then made a deep bow in front of the glass. “There’s the Princess,” she said, pointing to her image, “and here,” she added, indicating herself, “is your girl, you see? Did you realize that you possess a princess?”

​Prokop made an abrupt movement. “What does that matter?” he cried, bringing down his fist heavily on the table.

“You must choose, the princess or the girl. You can’t have the princess; you may worship her from the distance but you may not kiss her hand, and you must not ask her whether she loves you. A princess may not do such things; she has behind her a thousand years of noble blood. Did you know that we used to be kings? Ah, you know nothing, but you ought to know at least that a princess lives in a glass case and you may not touch her. But you can have the ordinary woman, this dark girl. Stretch out your hand and she is yours, like anything else. Now you must choose between the two.”

Prokop was again chilled. “Princess,” he said heavily.

She came over to him and seriously kissed his cheek. “You’re mine, you understand? You darling! You see that you have a princess. And are you proud that you have a princess? What a terrible thing the princess must have done to cause anyone to grow haughty for a couple of days! I knew, I knew from the first moment I saw you that you wanted the princess; from anger, from a masculine sense of power or something like that. For this reason you hated me so much that you desired me and I ran after you. Do you think that I am annoyed with myself? On the contrary, I am proud that I have done it. That’s something, isn’t it? To lower oneself so quickly, to be a princess, a great lady and then to come . . . to come alone . . .”

Her words threw Prokop into consternation. ​“Stop,” he begged her and took her into his trembling arms. “I’m not your equal . . . in birth . . .”

“What did you say? Equal? Do you think that if you had been a prince I should have come to you? If you wanted me to treat you like an equal I shouldn’t have been with you . . . like this,” she cried. “There’s a big difference, you understand?” Prokop’s hands fell. “You shouldn’t have said such a thing,” he said through his teeth, recoiling.

She threw her arms round his neck. “Darling, darling, let me speak! Am I reproaching you? I came . . . alone . . . because you wanted to escape or to get yourself killed, I don’t know what; any girl would have done the same. . . . Do you think that I was wrong to do it? Tell me! Did I do wrong? You don’t understand,” she said, wincing, “you don’t understand!”

“Wait,” cried Prokop. He extricated himself from her embrace, and paced up and down the room. Suddenly he was blinded by a sudden hope. “Do you believe in me? Do you believe that I shall do something? I can work terribly hard. I’ve never thought about fame, but if you wished it . . . I’d exert all my strength! You know that Darwin was carried to his coffin by dukes? If you wished, I could do . . . tremendous things. I can work—I could change the face of the world. Give me ten years and you’ll see——”

It seemed as if she was not listening to him. “If you were a prince it would be enough to look at you, give you one’s hand and you would know, you would know, you musn’t doubt—it wouldn’t ​have to be demonstrated to you . . . ten years! Would you be true to me for ten days! In ten minutes you will become gloomy, dear, and grow angry at the fact that the Princess does not want you . . . because she is a princess and you are not a prince, see? And then, try as I may to convince you, it will be in vain; no demonstration will be great enough, no humiliation sufficiently deep. He would have me run after him, offer myself to him, do more than any other girl, I don’t know what! What am I to do with you?” She came up to him and offered him her lips. “Wil you be true to me for ten years, then?”

He seized hold of her, sobbing. “There,” she whispered and stroked his hair. “So you’re pulling at the chain? And yet I should have remained just as I was. Darling, darling, I know that you will leave me.” She sank into his arms. He lifted her up and forced open her closed lips with his kisses.

She lay still with her eyes closed, hardly breathing, and Prokop, bending over her, his heart oppressed, contemplated the inscrutable serenity of her hot, strained face. She extricated herself from his embrace as if in a dream. “What have you got in all those bottles? Are they poison?” She examined his shelves and instruments. “Give me some poison or other.”

“Why?”

“In case they want to take me away from here.”

Her serious face made him anxious, but to appease her he poured a solution of chalk into a small box, but at that moment she pounced on some ​crystals of arsenic. “Don’t take that!” he cried, but she had already placed it in her bag.

“I see you will be a great man,” she said softly. “I never imagined such things. Did you say that Darwin was carried to his grave by dukes? Who were they?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

She kissed him. “You are nice! Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Well . . . the Duke of Argyll and . . . the Duke of Devonshire,” he muttered.

“Really!” she considered this, frowning. “I should never have imagined . . . that scientists were so . . . And you only mentioned it incidentally!” She put her arms round his shoulders, as if for the first time. “And you, you could——? Really?”

“Well, wait until I am buried.”

“Ah, if that were only very soon,” she said reflectively with naïve cruelty. “You’d be wonderful if you were famous. Do you know what I like the most?”

“No.”

“I don’t, either,” she said musingly, and turned and kissed him. “I don’t know. Whoever and whatever you were——” She moved her shoulders with a gesture of impatience. “It’s for always, you understand?”

Prokop recoiled from this relentless monogamy. She stood before him, muffled up to her eyes in her blue fox fur and looked at him in the twilight with glistening eyes. “Oh!” she cried suddenly and sank back into a chair, “my legs are trembling.” She smoothed and rubbed them with naïve shameless​ness. “How shall I be able to ride? Come, darling, come and see me to-day. Mon Oncle Charles is away to-day, and even if he weren’t it’s all the same to me.” She got up and kissed him. “Au revoir.”

In the doorway she stopped, hesitated, and came back to him. “Kill me, please,” she said, her hands hanging limp by her side, “kill me.” He put his hands on her: “Why?”

“So that I shan’t have to go away . . . and so that I shall never have to be here.” He whispered into her ear: “. . . To-morrow.”

She looked at him, and submissively bent down her head; it was . . . a sign of assent.

When she had been gone some time he also went out into the half-light. Some one a hundred yards away got up from the ground and rubbed the dirt off his clothes with his sleeve. The silent Mr. Holz.

When he joined the company that evening, still not able to believe what had happened, and in an acute state of tension, he found her looking so beautiful that he scarcely knew her. She was conscious of the burning glance with which he enveloped her, glowed with pleasure, and, indifferent to the presence of the others, gave him ardent looks in return. There was a new guest at the castle, named d’Hémon, a diplomat, or something of the sort, Mongolian in appearance, with purple lips and a short black beard. He was evidently thoroughly familiar with physical chemistry; Becquerel, Planck, Niels Bohr, Milliken and similar names simply poured out of his mouth. He had read about Prokop and was extremely interested in his work. Prokop allowed himself to be diverted, talked at some length and forgot for a moment to look at the Princess. As a result he received such a kick on the shin that he positively jumped and all but returned it. The kick was accompanied by a passionately jealous glance. At that moment he was obliged to answer a stupid question put by Prince Suwalski regarding the nature of this energy that they are always talking about. He grasped the sugar-bowl and gave the Princess such a bitter look that she imagined that he was going to throw it at her. He then went on to explain to the Prince that if all the ​energy which it contained could be liberated at the same moment it would be sufficient to hurl Mont Blanc and Chamonix into the air; but that, as it happened, such a thing could never take place.

“But you’ll do it,” said d’Hémon seriously and definitely.

The Princess leaned over towards them: “What were you saying?”

“I was saying that he will do it,” repeated Monsieur d’Hémon with perfect simplicity.

“There you are,” said the Princess loudly, and sat down victoriously. Prokop grew red and did not dare to look at her.

“And if he does do it,” she asked breathlessly, “will he be terribly famous? Like Darwin?”

“If he does it,” said Monsieur d’Hémon without hesitation, “kings will consider it an honour to carry his coffin. That is, if there are still any kings.”

“Rubbish,” muttered Prokop, but the Princess glowed with inexpressible delight. He would not have looked at her for anything in the world; embarrassed, he mumbled something or other, crumbling a piece of sugar in his fingers. Finally he ventured to lift his eyes. She looked at him directly, with passionate love. “Do you?” she said to him under her breath. He understood only too well what she meant: Do you love me?—but he pretended that he had not heard and quickly looked at the tablecloth instead. God! that girl’s mad, or else she deliberately wants. . . . “Do you?” came to him across the table, still more loudly and urgently. He nodded quickly and looked at her with eyes filled with happiness. Luckily in the ​midst of the general conversation nobody noticed them; only Monsieur d’Hémon preserved his discreet and remote expression.

The conversation roved all over the place until suddenly Monsieur d’Hémon, evidently an exceptionally well-informed man, began to talk to Von Graun about his genealogy up to the thirteenth century. The Princess listened with extraordinary interest, whereupon the new guest talked instead about her ancestry, without the slightest difficulty. “Enough,” cried the Princess when he had reached the year 1007, when the first Hagen founded a barony in Esthonia, having murdered somebody or other; for the genealogical experts had been unable to go back any further. But Monsieur d’Hémon continued: This Hagen or Agen the One-armed was clearly a Tartar Prince, captured in the course of an expedition into the district of Kamsk. Persian history mentions a certain Khan Agan, who was the son of Giw Khan, King of the Turkomans, the Uzbeks, Sards and Kirghiz, while he again was the son of Weiwus, the son of the conqueror Li-taj Khan. This “Emperor” Li-taj is referred to in the Chinese chronicles as the ruler of Turkoman, Altai and Western Thibet, who had slain as many as fifty thousand people, amongst whom was a Chinese Governor, round whose head he had had twisted a wet rope, until the bones broke. Nothing was known of Li-taj’s ancestors. More might be discovered if access was ever gained to the archives in Lhassa. His son, Weiwus, who was regarded even by the Mongolians as being rather wild, was beaten to death with tent-poles in Kara Butak. His son ​Giw Khan depopulated Chiv and extended his activities as far as Itil or Astrachan, where he became famous for having plucked out the eyes of two thousand people and driven them into the Kuban Steppe. Agan Khan continued in his footsteps, having sent out expeditions as far as Bolgar or the Simbirsk of to-day, where he was taken prisoner, his right hand amputated and kept as a hostage until the time when he was able to flee to Balt among the Livs who then inhabited the district. There he was baptized by the German bishop, Gotilly or Gutilly and—probably through religious zeal—murdered in the cemetery in Verro the sixteen-year-old heir to the Pechorski barony, taking his sister to wife. Through this bigamy he was able to extend his territory as far as Lake Pejpus. See the chronicles of Nikifor, where he is referred to as “Prince Agen,” while the Osel Chronicle alludes to him as “Rex Aagen.” His descendants, concluded Monsieur d’Hémon quietly, were driven out, but never dethroned.

Monsieur d’Hémon then got up, bowed, and remained standing. His remarks produced an enormous sensation. The Princess simply drank in every one of his words, as if this line of Tartar cutthroats was the finest in the world. Prokop watched her with dismay; she did not even wince at the story of four thousand eyes having been plucked out. Involuntarily he looked for Tartar features in her face. She was extraordinarily beautiful, drew herself up and enveloped herself in her own dignity; suddenly there was such a distance between her and all the others that they all became as formal as if ​it were a state banquet, not daring to look at her directly. Prokop wanted repeatedly to strike the table, say something rough, disturb this frozen scene. She sat with eyes cast down, as if she were waiting for something, and across her face there flashed something like impatience. The company looked at one another interrogatively, at the dignified Monsieur d’Hémon, and at last one by one rose to their feet. Prokop also stood up, not realizing what was happening. What on earth could it mean? They all stood quite stiffly with their arms at their sides looking at the Princess. Then she raised her eyes like some one who is expressing thanks for homage, and they all sat down. Only when Prokop was in his seat again did he realize with consternation that they had all just made obeisance to their ruler. He suddenly became so angry that he broke into a sweat. Heavens, that he should have taken part in such a farce! How on earth was it possible that they did not burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the comedy which they had just played?

He was getting ready to laugh with the others, when the Princess rose. All the others did the same, and Prokop was convinced that now the ice would break. He looked around him and his eyes fell on the fat cousin, who, his arms hanging down at his sides, was approaching the Princess, inclined slightly forwards; surely it must all be a joke. The Princess spoke to him and nodded her head; the fat cousin bowed and retired. What was happening? Now the Princess gave a quick glance at Prokop, but he did not move. The rest stood on tiptoe and watched him fixedly. Again the Princess made a ​sign with her eyes; still he did not move. The Princess stepped towards an old, one-armed major from the artillery, covered with medals. The major was just drawing himself up when she turned aside and was suddenly quite close to Prokop.

“Darling, darling,” she said in a clear soft voice, “do you——? You’re getting angry again. I should like to kiss you.”

“Princess,” said Prokop in a thick voice, “what does this farce mean?”

“Don’t shout like that. It’s more important than you imagine. Do you know that they now want to give me in marriage?” She trembled with horror. “Darling, go away now. Go down the passage to the third room on the right and wait there for me. I must see you.”

“Listen,” Prokop wanted to say, but she only inclined her head and moved suavely across to the old major.

Prokop could not believe his eyes.

Could such things happen? Was it not really a carefully arranged performance? Were the different people taking their rôles seriously? The fat cousin took him by the arm and discreetly led him aside. “Do you know what this means?” he whispered excitedly. “The old Hagen is paralyzed. It’s a ruling family! Did you see that heir to a throne? There was to be a marriage, but it didn’t come off. That man is certainly sent here purposely. God, what a pedigree!” Prokop got free of him. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, walked down the passage as slowly as possible and went into the appointed room. It was a sort of little boudoir for ​drinking tea, with shaded lights, everything lacquered, black porcelain and other rubbish. Prokop strode about this miniature apartment with his hands behind his back, buzzing like a blow-fly which hits its head against the glass of a window-frame. Sacra, things were altered and for the sake of a lousy Tartar pedigree which a decent person would be ashamed of. . . . A nice reason! And on account of a handful of such Huns these idiots crawled along on their bellies and she, she herself . . . The blow-fly butted the glass in a frenzy. Now. . . . This Tartar princess would come in and say: Darling, darling all is over between us; you must realize that the granddaughter of Li-taj Khan can’t love the son of a cobbler. Tap, tap; he heard in his head the noise of his father’s hammer and he could almost smell the odour of the leather and of the cobbler’s wax; and his mother, in a blue apron, was standing, flushed, over the stove. . . .

The blow-fly buzzed desperately. “We shall see, Princess! What have you let yourself in for, man? When she comes you must knock your forehead on the floor and say: Pardon, Tartar princess, I shall not show myself in your presence again. . . .”

In the little room there was a faint smell of quince, and the light was dull and soft. The desperate fly continued to strike its head on the glass and complain in a voice that was almost human. What have you let yourself in for, idiot?

The Princess suddenly glided noiselessly into the room. At the door she reached out for the switch and turned out the light. In the darkness Prokop ​felt a hand which lightly touched his face and then passed round his neck. He took the Princess in his arms; she was so supple and almost incorporate, that he touched her fearfully as if she were something fragile. She covered his face with her aerial kisses and whispered something which he could not catch; he felt his hair being delicately stroked. Then he felt her sinuous body yielding, the arm round his neck pressed him more closely and her moist lips moved on his own, as if they were speaking voicelessly. Trembling all over, she grasped Prokop more and more firmly, pulled down his head, pressed herself to him with her breasts and knees, twined both her arms round him; a passionate, agonizing embrace, the moaning of a creature which is being suffocated; they staggered in a convulsive, insane embrace. Never to leave go. To devour one another! To fuse into one being or to die! She was sobbing helplessly, but he freed himself from the terrible grip of her hands. She swayed as if she were intoxicated, pulled a handkerchief out of her bosom and wiped her lips, and without saying a word passed into the adjacent room.

With a splitting head Prokop remained in the darkness. This last embrace seemed to him to mean farewell.

The fat cousin was right. The old Hagen was becoming more and more paralyzed, though he had not yet succumbed to the disease. He now lay helpless, surrounded by doctors, trying to open his left eye. Uncle Rohn and his relations were suddenly sent for; and the old Prince tried once more to open his eye so as to look again at his daughter and make some signal.

She ran out of the room, bareheaded, and rushed outside to Prokop who had been waiting for her in the park for some time. Completely ignoring Holz she kissed and clung to him passionately. She made hardly any allusion to her father and Uncle Charles, absorbed in something, harassed and affectionate. She pressed herself against him and then suddenly became distant and preoccupied. He began to poke fun at the Tartar dynasty . . . a little too pointedly. She gave him an expressive look and changed the conversation, talking about the previous evening. “Until the last moment I thought that I wouldn’t go to you. Do you know that I am nearly thirty? When I was fifteen I fell terribly in love with our chaplain. I went to him to confess, simply in order to get a nearer sight of him, and because I was ashamed to say that I had stolen or lied I told him that I had been unchaste; I didn’t know what that meant, and the poor man had a lot ​of work to find out the truth. Now I couldn’t confess,” she concluded quietly, and made a bitter movement with her mouth.

Prokop was disturbed by her continued self-analysis, in which he saw a morbid desire for self-torture. He tried to find something else to talk about and discovered to his consternation that if they did not speak about love they had nothing to say to one another. They were standing on the bastion. It gave the Princess a certain relief to return to her past, to confess small but important things about herself. “Soon after I confessed we had a dancing master who fell in love with my governess, a stout woman. I heard about it and . . . saw them. It disgusted me. Oh! But all the same I spied on them and . . . I couldn’t understand. And then one day when we were dancing I suddenly understood, when he pressed himself against me. After that I wouldn’t let him touch me; in the end . . . I fired a shot-gun at him. We had to dismiss them both.

“At that time . . . I was terribly worried by mathematics; I simply hadn’t a head for it, you see? My teacher was a famous man, but unpleasant; you scientists are all extraordinary. He set me an exercise and looked at his watch; it had to be done in an hour. And when I had only five, four, three minutes left and I had still done nothing . . . my heart began to thump and I had such a horrible feeling——” She dug her fingers into Prokop’s arm and drew in her breath. “Then I got to like those lessons.

“When I was nineteen they selected a husband ​for me; you wouldn’t believe it. And because by that time I understood everything I made my fiancé promise that he would never touch me. Two years later he died in Africa. I pined so much—through being romantic or something of the sort—that they never tried to make a match for me again. I thought that I’d got the question settled for ever.

“And I forced myself, you know, to believe that I had some obligation to him and that I ought to be true to him even after his death, until finally I grew to believe that I had been in love with him. Now I see that all the time I was only acting to myself and that I had never felt anything more than foolish disillusion.

“It’s curious, isn’t it, that I’m telling you all these things about myself? You know, it’s a great relief to speak about oneself like this without keeping anything back.

“When you arrived I thought to begin with that you were like that professor of mathematics. I was even frightened of you, darling. He’ll give me an exercise to do, I thought, and my heart began to beat again.

“A horse simply intoxicated me. When I was on a horse I felt that I didn’t need love. And I rode insanely.

“I always imagined that love was something vulgar and . . . terribly revolting. You see, I still can’t deal with it; at the same time it frightens me and masters me. And now I’m glad that I’m like any other woman. When I was little I was afraid of water. They showed me the strokes of swimming on dry land, but I would not go near the lake; I ​got the idea that it was full of spiders, and one day I was suddenly seized by some sort of courage or desperation, shut my eyes, cried out and sprang in. Don’t ask me how proud I was afterwards; it was as if I had passed an examination, as if I knew everything, as if I had changed into another person. As if I had grown up at last. . . .”

That evening she came into the laboratory, uneasy and worried. When he took her into his arms she said agitatedly: “He’s opened his eye, he’s opened his eye, oh!” She was thinking of the old Hagen; in the afternoon she had had a long conversation with Uncle Rohn but would not speak about it. It seemed that she was striving to get away from something; she threw herself into Prokop’s arms so passionately and devotedly that he had the impression that she wanted to blot everything out at all costs. Finally she lay still, her eyes closed, completely limp. He thought that she had fallen asleep but then she began to whisper: “Darling, I shall do something terrible, but you mustn’t leave me. Swear to me, swear to me,” she insisted wildly and sprang to her feet, immediately, however, getting control of herself again. “Ah! no. What could you swear to do? I’ve read in the cards that you will go away. If you want to, do it now before it’s too late.”

Prokop naturally jumped up, saying that she wanted to get rid of him, that her Tartar pride had rushed to her head, and similar things. She became very excited and charged him with being base and harsh, saying that he would answer for it, that . . . ​that . . . But scarcely had she said it than she flung her arms round his neck, repentant: “I’m a beast. I wasn’t thinking of that. You know, a princess ought never to shout, but I shout at you . . . as if I were your wife. Strike me, I beg you. Wait, I’ll show you that I’m capable. . . .}” She released him and suddenly, as she was, began to tidy up the laboratory, wetting a cloth under the tap and cleaning the whole floor on her knees. She meant it for an act of repentance, but somehow she found the work pleasant, became radiant, worked with a will, humming to herself a song which she had picked up somewhere from the servants. He wanted to raise her to her feet. “No; wait,” she defended herself, “there’s a bit over there.” And she crawled with the cloth underneath a chair.

“Come here,” she said in a moment, surprised. Still mumbling reproaches he sat down next to her. She was squatting, her arms clasped round her knees. “Just see what a chair looks like from underneath. I’ve never seen such a thing before.” She placed on his face a hand which was still damp from the wet rag. “You’re as rough as the under side of this chair; that’s the most lovely thing about you. I’ve only seen other people on their smooth, polished side, but you, when one first looks at you, you’re like a beam with cracks in it—everything that holds the human frame together. If one runs one’s finger over you one gets a splinter in it, but all the same you're beautifully made. One begins to realize something else . . . something more important than what one gets from the smooth side. That’s you.”

​She nestled against him. “I feel as if I were in a tent, or a log hut,” she whispered, entranced. “I never used to play with dolls, but sometimes . . . secretly . . . I used to go out with the gardener’s boys and climb trees with them. . . . Then they wondered at home why my clothes were torn. And when I used to climb with them my heart beat with fear so wonderfully. When I’m with you I have the same wonderful fear that I had then.

“Now I’m thoroughly hidden,” she said happily, leaning her head against his knees. “Nobody can find me, and I’m rough, like the bottom of that chair; an ordinary woman, not thinking about anything, only being soothed. . . . Why is a person so happy when he’s hidden? Now I know what happiness is: One must close one’s eyes and become tiny . . . quite tiny, waiting to be discovered. . . .”

She rocked herself to and fro contentedly while he smoothed her dishevelled hair; but her widely opened eyes looked past his head into the distance.

Sudenly she turned her face to him. “What were you thinking about?”

He moved his eyes away shyly. He could not tell her that he saw before him the Tartar princess in all her glory, a proud and commanding figure which now. . . in pain and yearning. . . .

“Nothing, nothing,” he muttered, looking down at the happy and contented face against his knees, and stroked her dark cheek, which flushed with tender passion.

HE would have done better if he had not come that evening, but he compelled himself to because she had forbidden him to appear. Oncle Charles was particularly charming to him. By an unlucky accident he had seen the two of them on an inappropriate occasion pressing one another’s hands; finally he had put up his monocle to see better, upon which the Princess snatched her hand away and blushed like a schoolgirl. Oncle Charles came across to her, drew her aside, and whispered something into her ear. After that she did not return, but Rohn appeared instead and engaged himself in conversation with Prokop, evidently trying to sound him. Prokop behaved like a hero, and betrayed nothing, which at least appeared to please the old gentleman. “In society one must be extremely careful,” he concluded, rebuking and advising him at the same time. Prokop was greatly relieved when he was left alone to reflect on the significance of this last remark.

The worst of it was that something was evidently being prepared behind the scenes; the older members of the family were positively bursting with importance.

When the next morning Prokop was walking round the castle he was approached by a chambermaid who informed him breathlessly that he was ​wanted in the birch wood. He made his way there and waited for a long time. Finally the Princess arrived, moving with the long, beautiful steps of a Diana. “Hide yourself,” she whispered rapidly. “Uncle is following me.” They ran off hand in hand and disappeared behind the thick foliage of a lilac bush; Mr. Holz, after having searched for them for some time, sat down on the grass, resigned. Then they caught sight of the light hat of Uncle Rohn. He was walking quickly, looking out on both sides of him. The Princess’s eyes glistened with delight, like those of a young faun. In the bushes there was a damp and musty smell; the twigs and leaves were covered with spiders’ webs. Without even waiting for the danger to pass, the Princess drew Prokop’s head towards her. Between his teeth he felt her kisses, like wild berries, bitter and yet pleasant. The game was so delightful, new and surprising that it was if they were seeing one another for the first time.

And that day she did not come to him; beside himself with every sort of suspicion, he made his way to the castle. She was waiting for him, walking with her arms round Egon’s neck. Directly she caught sight of him she let go of the boy and came up to him, pale, distraught, mastering a certain desperation. “Uncle knows that I’ve visited you,” she said. “God, what will happen! I think that they will send you away. Don’t move now; they’re watching us from the window. I spoke this afternoon with . . . with . . .” she shivered . . . “with the manager, you know. We quarrelled . . . Oncle Charles wanted me simply to leave you, to let you ​escape or something of the sort. The manager was furious and wouldn’t hear of such a thing. It looks as if they are sending you somewhere else. . . . Darling, come here to-night; I’ll come out to you, I’ll evade . . . them. . . .”

And she actually came, breathless, sobbing with dry and anxious eyes. “To-morrow, to-morrow,” she wanted to say, but at that moment a firm and friendly hand descended on her shoulder. It was Uncle Rohn. “Go back, Minna,” he ordered sternly. “And you wait here,” he added, turning to Prokop. Putting his arm round her shoulder he led her back into the castle. A moment later he came back again and took Prokop by the arm. “My friend,” he said sympathetically, “I understand you young people only too well and . . . I feel with you.” He made a gesture of hopelessness with his hand. “Something has taken place which should not have happened. I don’t wish to . . . and of course I can’t reproach you. On the contrary, I realize that . . . obviously. . . .” Clearly this was a bad beginning and le bon prince tried another road. “My dear friend, I respect you and I really like you very much. You are an honest man and . . . a genius; an unusual combination. I have rarely felt such sympathy for anybody. I know that you will go a long way,” he said with relief. “You believe that my intentions are friendly?”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Prokop calmly.

Le bon oncle became confused. “I am sorry, extraordinarily,” he jerked out, “because I cannot tell you what I want to say unless we have the fullest possible confidence in one another. . . .”

​“Mon prince,” Prokop interrupted him politely, “as you know, I am not here in the enviable position of a free man. I think that under the circumstances I’ve no cause to have faith. . . .”

“Y-yes,” sighed Oncle Rohn, pleased with the turn that the conversation had taken. “You’re perfectly right. You are up against the painful fact that you’re a prisoner, eh? You know, that’s just what I was going to speak about. My dear friend, as far as I’m concerned . . . From the very beginning . . . I passionately condemned this idea of keeping you . . . in captivity. It’s illegal, brutal and . . . in view of your importance, simply inexcusable, I took various steps . . . some time ago, you understand,” he added quickly. “I intervened in the highest places but . . . in view of a certain international tension the higher officials are in a panic. You are confined here under the accusation of espionage. Nothing can be done,” and the Prince bent down to Prokop’s ear, “unless you can succeed in escaping. Trust me, and I’ll provide the means. I give you my word.”

“What means?” Prokop threw out carelessly.

“I shall simply . . . arrange it myself. I’ll take you in my car—and they can’t stop me, you understand. The rest later. Where do you want to go?”

“Leave it; I don’t want to go away,” answered Prokop definitely.

“Why?” said Oncle Charles, surprised.

“To begin with . . . I don’t want you, Prince, to take any risks. A person like yourself——”

“And in the second place?”

​“In the second place I’m beginning to like it here.”

“And further, further?”

“Nothing further,” smiled Prokop, enduring the serious, scrutinizing glance of the Prince.

“Listen,” said Oncle Rohn after a moment, “I did not mean to tell you. But the point is that in a day or so you are to be transferred elsewhere, to a fortress. Still under the accusation of espionage. You mustn’t imagine. . . . My dear friend, get away while there is still time!”

“Is that true?”

“Honestly it is.”

“Then . . . then I am obliged to you for warning me.”

“What do you propose to do?”

“Well, I shall make my arrangements,” said Prokop bloodthirstily. “Mon prince, you may inform HER that it isn’t done . . . as easily as that.”

“What? What do you mean?” stammered Oncle Charles.

Prokop made a gesture in the air with his hand as if he were throwing something imaginary in front of him. “Bang,” he said.

Oncle Charles drew back. “You intend to defend yourself?”

Prokop said nothing, but stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning darkly and reflecting.

Oncle Charles, pale and fragile in the nocturnal darkness, stepped up to him. “Do you . . . love her as much as that?” he said quickly, gulping with emotion.

Prokop did not answer. “You love her,” repeated ​Rohn, and embraced him. “Be strong. Leave her and go away! You can’t stay here, you must realize that. What would it lead to? For God’s sake have pity on her. Save her from a scandal. Can you really imagine that she could ever be your wife? It may be that she is in love with you but—she is too proud; she wouldn’t forego the title of Princess. . . . Oh, it’s impossible, it’s impossible! I don’t wish to know what there was between you, but if you love her, go away! Go at once, this very night! In the name of love, go away, friend, I beg you in her name. You’ve made her the most unhappy woman—isn’t that enough? Protect her if she’s not able to protect herself! Do you love her? Then sacrifice yourself!”

Prokop stood motionless, his head bent, and le bon prince felt that this black rough trunk was splitting inside with pain. His heart was torn in sympathy, but he had still one more card to play; if it was not successful he would have to give in.

“She’s proud, fantastic, wildly ambitious; she’s been like that from childhood. And now we have received the valuable information that she’s a princess whose pedigree is equal to that of anyone else’s. You don’t realize what that means to her. To her and to us. It may be prejudice but . . . such things are our life. Prokop, the Princess is going to be married. She is marrying a Grand Duke without a throne—a decent and amenable person—but she, she will fight for the crown, for fighting is her nature, her mission, her pride. At last her life-long dream is being realized. And now you’re standing between ​her and her future. But she’s already decided; she’s only torturing herself with reproaches——”

“Aha!” cried Prokop. “So it’s that way, is it? And—you think that I shall give way now? Wait and see!”

And before Oncle Rohn could realize what was happening he had hurried off in the darkness to the laboratory. Mr. Holz silently behind him.

When they reached the laboratory he wanted to slam the door in Holz’s face, so as to fortify himself inside, but Mr. Holz just had time to whisper the words: “The Princess.”

“What’s that?” said Prokop, turning round sharply.

“She has instructed me to remain with you.”

Prokop was unable to disguise his delighted surprise. “Has she paid you?”

Mr. Holz shook his head and for the first time a smile passed across his parchment-like face. “She gave me her hand,” he said respectfully. “I promised her that nothing should happen to you.”

“Good. Have you got the gun? Now you shall watch the door, Nobody must come in, you understand?”

Mr. Holz nodded and Prokop made a thorough strategical examination of the laboratory, considered as a fortress.

Fairly satisfied, he collected on the table all the metal vessels and boxes which he could get together, and further, to his great delight, discovered a heap of nails. Then he set to work.

The next morning Mr. Carson, with a fine assumption of casualness, wandered down to Prokop’s laboratory. When some distance away he made him out standing in front of the building, evidently ​practising throwing stones. “A very healthy sport,” he shouted cheerfully.

Prokop hastily put on his coat again. “Healthy and useful,” he answered readily. “What do you want me for?”

The pockets of his coat bulged out and something rattled inside them. “What have you got in your pockets?” asked Mr. Carson carelessly.

“Nitric acid,” said Prokop. “And explosives.”

“H’m. Why do you carry it in your pockets?”

“Oh, just for a joke. Is there anything you want to say to me?”

“Nothing at the moment. Particularly not at this moment,” said Mr. Carson uneasily, keeping at a fair distance. “And what have you got in those—those boxes?”

“Nails. And here,” he said, bringing a little box out of his pockets, “is some Benzoltetraoxozonid, a novelty, the dernier cri. Eh?”

“Don’t wave it about,” said Mr. Carson, retreating to a safer distance. “Is there any request you have to make?”

“Request?” said Prokop pleasantly. “I should be obliged if you would tell THEM something. To begin with, that I’m not going.”

“Good. That’s to be understood. And further?”

“And further, if anybody should inadvertently attack me . . . or try to make an assault onme . . . I hope that it isn’t your intention to murder me.”

“Certainly not. Honestly.”

“You can come nearer.”

“You won’t go up in the air?”

“I shall be careful. I only wanted to ask you ​to stop anybody entering my fortress while I’m away from it. There’s an explosive fuse on the door. Be careful; there’s a trap behind you.”

“Explosive?”

“Only Diazobenzolperchlorate. You must warn people. Nobody’ s to come near here, see? Further, I’ve certain reasons . . . to believe that I’m in danger. I should be grateful to you if you would arrange for Holz to protect me personally . . . against every sort of attack. And he should be armed.”

“No,” said Carson loudly. “Holz will be transferred.”

“What?” protested Prokop. “I’m afraid to be alone, you understand? Kindly instruct him.” So saying he approached Carson threateningly, rattling as if he was made of nothing but tin and nails.

“All right then,” said Carson hastily. “Holz, you are to look after Mr. Prokop. If anybody wishes to approach him Devil take it, do what you like. Is there anything else you want?”

“Nothing for the moment. If I want anything I’ll come to you.”

“Thank you very much,” said Carson, and quickly removed himself from the dangerous area. The first thing he did was to dash to his office and telephone the necessary instructions in all directions. But there was a rattling in the corridor and Prokop burst into the room, fully charged with bombs.

“Listen,” said Prokop, white with anger. “Who gave orders that I should not be allowed into the park? If that order isn’t withdrawn immediately——”

​“Just keep a little farther off, yes?” cried Carson, holding on to his desk. “What do I care about the park? Go——”

“Wait,” Prokop interrupted him and compelled himself to explain patiently: “Let us take it that there are occasions when . . . when a person is not absolutely indifferent as to what happens,” he said quickly. “You understand me?” Rattling and clattering he crossed over to the calendar on the wall. “Tuesday, to-day is Tuesday! And here, here I have——” he searched feverishly in his pockets and finally brought to light a porcelain soap box carefully tied up with a piece of string. “So far four ounces. You know what it is?”

“Krakatit? You’re bringing it to us?” said Mr. Carson, his face lit up with a sudden hope. “But then, of course——”

“Nothing of the sort,”’ grinned Prokop and put the box back in his pocket. “But if you irritate me, then . . . then I shall strew it about where I want to, see?”

“See?” repeated Carson mechanically, completely crestfallen.

“Well, just see that that lad is removed from the entrance. I want to go into the park.”

Mr. Carson cast a rapid glance over Prokop and then spat on the floor. “Bah!” he said with feeling, ‘I’ve arranged this badly!”

“You have,” agreed Prokop. “But it didn’t occur to me before that I had this card in my suit. Well?”

Carson shrugged his shoulders. “For the present, God! this is no small matter! I am extremely glad ​that I’m able to assist you. Honestly, extremely glad. And you? Will you give us six ounces?”

“I won’t. I shall destroy it myself but . . . to begin with I want to see whether our old treaty still holds. Free movement, and all the rest, eh? You remember?”

“The old agreement,” roared Mr. Carson. “The devil take the old agreement. At that time you weren’t—you hadn’t yet relations with——”

Prokop sprang towards him, rattling loudly. “What did you say? What hadn’t I?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Mr. Carson hastened to say, blinking his eyes quickly. “I don’t know. Your private affairs are nothing to do with me. If you want to walk about the park that’s your affair, eh? Only for God’s sake go and——”

“Listen,” said Prokop suspiciously, “No cutting off the current to my laboratory. Because——”

“Good, good,” Mr. Carson assured him. “The status quo, eh? Good luck.—Ugh! a cursed fellow,” he added irritatedly when at last Prokop had left the room.

Still rattling, Prokop made his way to the park, as heavy and solid as a howitzer. In front of the castle was standing q collection of gentlemen, but no sooner had they caught sight of him in the distance than they retired in some confusion, evidently having been informed of this highly charged and furious individual; their backs expressed the highest degree of indignation that such a thing should be allowed. Then Prokop came upon Mr. Krafft walking with Egon and giving him peripatetic instruction. As soon as he saw Prokop, he left Egon and ran across ​to him. “Will you shake hands with me?” he asked, and grew red at his own heroism. “I shall certainly be dismissed for this,” he said proudly. Prokop learnt from Krafft that the report had spread through the castle like lightning that he, Prokop, was an anarchist, and that the heir to the throne was expected that very evening. . . . That they proposed to telegraph to His Excellence to postpone his arrival, and were holding a big family council about it.

Prokop approached the castle. Two flunkeys in the passage flew out of his path and pressed themselves against the wall, allowing this charged, clanging assailant to pass without a word. The family council was being held in the large hall. Oncle Rohn was anxiously walking up and down, the elder members were tremendously excited about the perversity of anarchists, the fat cousin was silent, and some other gentlemen were warmly advocating that soldiers should be sent against this wild person: he would either have to give himself up or be shot. At that moment the doors opened and Prokop crashed into the room. His eyes sought the Princess. She was not there, but all the rest of the company stood up rigid with terror, awaiting the worst. Prokop addressed Rohn in a hoarse voice: “I’ve only come to tell you that nothing will happen to the royal heir. Now you know.” He nodded sharply and walked out of the room as solid as a statue.

The passage was empty. He crept along as quietly as he was able to the Princess’s apartments and waited in front of the door, motionless as the knight in armour downstairs in the vestibule. A chambermaid came out, screamed at the sight of the scarecrow and hastily retired. A moment afterwards she opened the door again and, scared out of her life, and careful to keep out of his way, silently motioned him in, after which she again disappeared. The Princess came forward to meet him. She was wearing a long cloak and had evidently only just got out of bed. The hair over her forehead was tangled and damp as if she had just removed a cold compress. She was extremely pale and not looking attractive. She put her arms round his neck and put forward a pair of lips which were feverishly dry. “You are good,” she whispered, half swooning. “I’ve got the most frightful headache! I hear that your pockets are full of bombs! I’m not frightened of you. Go away now, I’m looking ugly. I’ll come to you at mid-day; I shan’t go down to dinner. I’ll tell them I’m not well. Go.” She touched his mouth with her sore, peeling lips and hid her face so that he should not see her.

Accompanied by Mr. Holz, Prokop returned to the laboratory; everybody whom he encountered ​stopped and then took to flight, some at times even taking shelter in a ditch. He again threw himself into his work as if possessed, mixed materials together which nobody would have dreamed of associating, armed with a blind certainty that he could convert them into explosives. He filled flasks, match-boxes, tins for preserved food, everything that came into his hands. The table, window-ledges and the floor were covered with them and he went on until he simply had nowhere to put the stuff. In the afternoon the Princess appeared, veiled and wrapped up to the eyes in her cloak. He ran towards her and would have taken her in his arms, but she repulsed him. “No, no, to-day I’m ugly. Please go on working; I’ll watch you.”

She sat down on the edge of a chair directly opposite to the frightful arsenal of explosives. Prokop with set lips was rapidly weighing and mixing something which hissed and smelt bitter. Then he filtered it with the greatest care. She watched him, her hands motionless, her eyes burning. Both were thinking that the royal heir was to arrive that day.

Prokop was looking for something on a shelf on which were ranged various acids. She stood up, raised her veil, put her arms round his neck and placed her dry, closed lips against his mouth. They swayed about between the rows of bottles containing unstable oxozobenzol and terribly powerful fulminates, dumb and convulsed, but again she pushed him away and sat down, covering her face with her hands. Prokop set to work again still more quickly, like a baker making bread, and this time it was to be the most diabolical substance which man ever prepared, ​a violent and frightfully sensitive oil, the incarnation of swiftness and inflammability. And now here it was, transparent as water and fluid as ether; a terrible and incalculable destructive agent. He looked round to see where he had placed the flask containing this nameless substance. She laughed, took it out of his hand and held it clasped in her hands on her lap.

Outside Mr. Holz suddenly cried “Stop” to somebody. Prokop ran out. Oncle Rohn was standing extremely near the explosive trap.

Prokop went up to him. “What do you want?”

“Minna,” said Oncle Charles sweetly, “she’s not well and so——”

Prokop made a face. “Come and fetch her,” he said and led him in.

“Ah, Oncle Charles!’ The Princess greeted him kindly. “Come and look, this is frightfully interesting.”

Oncle Rohn looked carefully at her and about the room and was evidently relieved. “You shouldn’t have come, Minna,” he said reproachfully.

“Why not?” she objected innocently.

He looked helplessly at Prokop. “Because . . . because you are feverish.”

“I’m better now,” she said quietly.

“But still you shouldn’t . . .” said le bon prince, frowning seriously.

“Mon Oncle, you know that I always do what I want to,” she said, making an end to this family scene. At that moment Prokop was removing from a chair a little box containing some explosives. “Do sit down,” he said politely to Rohn.

​Oncle Charles did not seem to be pleased at the situation. “I’m not . . . stopping you in your work?” he asked of Prokop aimlessly.

“Not in the least,” said Prokop, rolling some substance in his fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“Making explosives. Please, that bottle,” he said, turning to the Princess.

She gave it him and added openly and provocatively, “Do you——?” Oncle Rohn recoiled as if he had been struck but soon gave himself up to contemplating the rapid, though extremely cautious, way in which Prokop was pouring some drops of a yellow liquid on to a piece of clay.

He coughed and asked: “How do you ignite that?”

“By shaking it,” answered Prokop shortly, continuing to pour out the liquid.

Oncle Charles turned to the Princess. “If you are frightened, Uncle,” she said dryly, “you needn’t wait for me.” He sat down resignedly and tapped with his stick on a tin box which had once contained Californian peaches. “What does that contain?”

“That’s a hand-grenade,” explained Prokop. “Hexani trofenyl methylnitramin. Feel the weight of it.”

Oncle Rohn become flurried. “Wouldn’t it perhaps be better to be a little more careful?” he asked, twisting in his fingers a match-box which he had picked up from the desk.

“Certainly,” agreed Prokop and took it out of his hand. “That's chlorargonat. Not to be played with.”

​Oncle Charles frowned. “All this gives me a rather disturbed feeling,” he said sharply.

Prokop threw the box down on the table. “What? And I also had a disturbed feeling when you threatened to send me to a fortress.”

“. . . I can say,” said Rohn, accepting the reproach, “that all that . . . made no impression on me.”

“But it made an enormous impression on me,” said the Princess.

“Are you afraid that he will do something?” said le bon prince, turning to her.

“I hope that he will do something,” she said optimistically. “Do you think that he’s not capable of it?”

“I have no doubt about it,” said Rohn. “Shall we go now?”

“No. I should like to help him.”

Just then Prokop was breaking a metal spoon in his fingers. “What’s that for?” she asked him curiously.

“I’ve run out of nails,” he said gruffy. “I’ve nothing to fill the bombs with.” He looked round in search of something made of metal. Then the Princess stood up, blushed, hastily peeled off one of her gloves and removed a gold ring from her finger. “Take this,” she said softly, her eyes cast down. He took it, wincing; it was almost a ceremony . . . as if they were being betrothed. He hesitated, weighing the ring in his hand; she raised her eyes to him in urgent and burning inquiry. Then he nodded seriously and placed the ring at the bottom of a tin box.

​Oncle Rohn blinked his bird-like eyes with melancholy concern.

“Now we can go,” whispered the Princess.

That evening the heir to the throne arrived at the castle. At the entrance was drawn up a ceremonial escort; there were official greetings and other functions; the park and the castle were specially illuminated. Prokop sat on a small mound in front of his laboratory, and watched the castle with sombre eyes. Nobody entered it; save for the lights coming from the windows all was quiet and dark.

Prokop heaved a deep sigh and stood up. “To the castle?” asked Mr. Holz, and transferred his revolver from the pocket of his trousers to that of his everlasting mackintosh. When they passed through the park the lights in it had already been extinguished. On two or three occasions some being or other retired into the bushes on their approach and about fifty paces behind them they could hear all the time the sound of some one following them over the fallen leaves. Otherwise all was deserted, terribly deserted. But in one wing of the castle the large windows stood out a bright yellow.

It was autumn, already autumn. Was the water still dripping into the well at Tynice with a silver note? There was not even a wind, yet there was a sort of chill which seemed to run either along the ground or through the trees. Up in the sky a falling star traced a red band of light.

A number of gentlemen in evening dress, magnificent looking and satisfied with themselves, came out on to the terrace at the top of the castle steps, ​yawned, smoked and laughed a little and then retired. Prokop sat motionless on a seat, twisting a little metal box in his disfigured fingers. Now and then, like a child, he rattled it about. Inside was the broken spoon, the ring and the nameless substance.

Mr. Holz approached cautiously. “She can’t come to-day,” he said respectfully.

“I know.”

Lights appeared in the windows of the guest’s suite. They were those of the “Prince’s apartments.” And now the whole castle was illuminated, aerial and unsubstantial as in a dream. Everything was to be found within: unheard of wealth, beauty, ambition, fame and dignity, breasts covered with orders, amusements, the art of living, delicacy, wit and self-regard—as if they were different people, different from the like of us. . . .

Again Prokop rattled his little box like a child. Gradually the lights went out in the windows; that light which was still on belonged to Rohn and that red one to the bedroom of the Princess. Uncle Rohn opened the window to enjoy the cool of the evening and then began to pace from the door to the window, from the window to the door, uninterruptedly. No movement was to be seen in the room of the Princess.

Then even Uncle Rohn put out his light and there was only one left. Would human thought find a means of forcing its way through this hundred or two metres of dumb space and reach the waiting mind of another being? What message have I for ​you, Tartar Princess? Sleep, it is already autumn; andi if some sort of God exists, may he smooth your feverish brow.

The red light went out.

The next morning he decided not to go into the park; he felt rightly that there would be difficulties there. He took up a position in a rather low-lying and deserted part of the grounds in which the direct path from the castle to the laboratory was intercepted by an old, overgrown rampart. He climbed on to the top of it whence, more or less hidden, he could see the corner of the castle and a small part of the park. He liked the place and buried there some of his hand-grenades. He divided his attention between watching the path, a beetle running at his feet, and the sparrows perched on the swinging branches. Once a robin settled there for a moment, and Prokop, holding his breath, gazed at its dark neck; it piped a note or two, twitched its tail and f-r-r-—it was gone. Below in the park the Princess was walking along by the side of a tall young man while they were followed at a respectful distance by a group of gentlemen. The Princess was looking to the side and moving her hand as if she had in it a switch and was flicking the ground with it. Nothing more was to be seen.

An hour later Uncle Rohn appeared with the fat cousin. Then again nothing. Was it worth while waiting there?

It was almost mid-day. Suddenly round the corner of the castle there appeared the Princess, head​ing straight in his direction. “Are you there?” she called in a subdued tone. “Come down and then to the left.”

He slid down from the rampart and pushed his way through the bushes in the direction indicated. There against the wall was a heap of all sorts of objects: rusty hoops, tin pots full of holes, old top hats, filthy rags; God knows how such things had accumulated in the castle. And in front of this miserable pile was standing the Princess, fresh and beautiful, and childishly biting her fingers. “I used to come here to be angry, when I was little,” she said. “Nobody knows of the place. Do you like it here?”

He saw that she would be annoyed if he was not pleased with it. “I like it,” he said quickly.

Her face glowed with pleasure and she put an arm round his neck. “You dear! I used to put an old pot on my head, you know, as a crown and pretended to myself that I was the reigning princess. ‘What may Her Excellency deign to want?’ ‘Harness the four-in-hand; I’m going to Zahur.’ You know, Zahur, that was the place I’d invented. Zahur, Zahur! Darling, is there really such a place in the world? Come, we’ll go to Zahur! Discover it for me, you who know so much——”

She had never been so fresh and joyful as to-day. So much so that it filled him with jealousy, with a passionate suspicion. He took her in his arms and pressed her to him. “No,” she defended herself, “don’t. Be reasonable. You are Prospero, the Prince of Zahur, and you’ve only disguised yourself as a magician in order to abduct me. I don’t know. ​But Prince Rhizopod has come for me from the Kingdom of Alicuri-Filicuri-Tintili-Rhododendron, a horrible, horrible man with a church candle instead of a nose and cold hands. Hu! And I’m just going to become his wife when you suddenly appear and say: ‘I’m the Magician Prospero, the hereditary Prince of Zahur.’ And my Uncle Metastasio will fall on your neck and they will begin to ring bells, blow trumpets and fire——”

Prokop realized well enough that her playful chatter conveyed something very, very important, so refrained from interrupting her. She kept her arm round his neck and rubbed her fragrant face against his rough one. “Or wait; I’m Princess of Zahur and you are the Great Prokopo-Kopak, King of Spirits. But I’m under a curse, they’ve said over me the words: ‘ore ore baléne, magot malista manigoléne’ and so I’m to be given to a fish, a fish with fishy eyes and fishy hands and fishy in its whole body. and he’s going to take me away to the fishes’ castle. And then the Great Prokopo-Kopak arrives on his magic carpet and carries me off—Au revoir!” she concluded suddenly and kissed him on the lips. She was still smiling, clear and rosy as she had never been before, and left him to brood gloomily over the ruins of Zahur. And in God’s name, what did it all mean? She clearly wanted him to help her; pressure was being put on her and she relied on him. . . expected him somehow to save her! Heavens! what was he to do?

Deep in thought, Prokop wandered back to the laboratory. Clearly . . . nothing was left but the Big Attack, but where was he to begin it? He had ​already reached the door and was feeling in his pocket for the key. Then he suddenly recoiled and broke into curses. The outer door of the building was barricaded with iron cross-pieces. He pulled at them in a frenzy but could not move them.

To the door was affixed a piece of paper on which were the words: “In accordance with the instructions of the Civil Authorities this building is closed on account of having been used irregularly for storing explosives without the required precautions having been taken. Par. 216 & 217 d.lit.F tr.z. and No. 63,507. M.1889.” Underneath was an illegible signature and below that, written with a pen, the words: “Mr. Eng. Prokop is to report at the quarters of Sgt. Gerstensen, Barrack No. III.”

Mr. Holz carefully examined the barricade with the eye of an expert but finally only whistled and thrust his hands into his pockets; there was absolutely nothing to be done. Prokop, white with rage, walked all round the building. The explosive trap had been dug up and, as before, there was a grille in front of each window. He hastily took stock of all his munitions; five small bombs in his pockets, four larger ones buried in the Zahur rampart; one could not do much with them. Beside himself with anger he hurried to the office of that cursed Carson: “Wait, you louse, and see what I’ll do with you!” But on arriving there he was told by a servant that the manager was away and was not returning. Prokop pushed him out of the way and penetrated into the office. Carson was not there. He quickly went through all the offices, causing consternation among all the officials, down to the girl ​at the telephone. Carson was nowhere to be seen.

Prokop ran back to the Zahur rampart, so that he could at least save his bombs. And then he found that the whole rampart, including the tangle of brushwood and the rubbish heap, was surrounded by a fence of barbed wire; a real entanglement of the type used in the War. He tried to loosen the wire but only succeeded in tearing his hands. Sobbing with anger he somehow succeeded in getting through it, to find that his four large bombs had been removed. He nearly cried with helplessness. To make matters worse an unpleasant drizzle began to fall. He crawled back, his clothes torn to rags and his hands and face bleeding, and hurried to the castle in the hope of finding there the Princess, Rohn, or the heir to the throne. In the vestibule he was stopped by the blonde giant he had encountered once before, who was determined this time to be torn to pieces rather than let him pass. Prokop took one of his little boxes of explosives out of his pocket and shook it threateningly. The giant blinked his eyes but did not yield. Suddenly he dashed forward and seized Prokop round the shoulders. Holz struck him in the chest with his revolver with all his strength. The giant roared and let go, and three men, who had appeared suddenly, as if out of the earth, and were about to hurl themselves on Prokop, hesitated for a moment and then stepped back against the wall. Prokop stood with the box in his raised hand, ready to throw it under the feet of the first one who moved, and Holz, who was definitely on the side of revolution, waited with his ​revolver ready. In front of them were four pale men, inclined a little forward, three of them with revolvers in their hands. There was evidently going to be a fight. Prokop moved strategically to the stairs and the four men also moved in the same direction. Behind, some one ran away. There was a deathly silence. ‘Don’t shoot,’ whispered one of them sharply. Prokop could hear the ticking of his watch. From the floor above came the sound of cheerful voices; no one there knew what was happening. As the exit was still open, Prokop retired towards the door, covered by Holz. The four men near the steps remained as motionless as if they were carved out of wood and Prokop made his way back into the open.

There was still a cold and unpleasant drizzle. What was he to do now? He rapidly considered the situation and decided to fortify himself in the swimming bath on the lake. But from there he could not watch the castle. As the result of another sudden decision, Prokop ran off to the quarters of the guard, with Holz behind him. He broke into them just at the time when the old doorkeeper was having his dinner. The old man was completely unable to realize why he was being driven away “by force and under a threat of death”; he shook his head and went to the castle to complain about it. Prokop was extremely satisfied at having captured this position. He closed the iron gates leading to the park and finished the old man’s dinner with the greatest relish. Then he collected everything which he could find in the house that resembled chemicals: coal, salt, sugar, glue, dried paint and other mate​rials and considered what he could make of them. Meanwhile Holz spent his time in looking out, and converting the windows into portholes—a rather unnecessary step in view of his having only four cartridges. Prokop set up his laboratory in the kitchen; there was a frightful smell but in the end he had succeeded in making a small quantity of high explosive.

The enemy did not launch any attack; they evidently did not want to cause a scandal while they still had such a distinguished guest in their midst. Prokop racked his brains to think of a way of wiping out the castle. He cut off the telephone, but there still remained three gates, without counting the road to the factory by the Zahur rampart. He was forced to abandon the plan of surrounding the castle on all sides.

It rained unceasingly. The window of the Princess’s room opened and a white figure wrote large characters in the air with its hand. Prokop was unable to decipher them but nevertheless stood in front of his own little house and wrote provocative messages in the air, waving his arms like a windmill. In the evening Dr. Krafft ran across to the rebels. In his lofty excitement he had forgotten to arm himself in any way; his mission was a purely moral one. Later on Mr. Paul shuffled over, bringing with him in a basket a magnificent cold supper and quantities of champagne and red wine; he asserted that he had not come on anyone else’s behalf. Nevertheless Prokop carefully impressed upon him that he was to say—he did not say to whom—that “he thanked them and would not give him​self up.” At their splendid supper Dr. Krafft ventured to drink wine for the first time, probably to show his manliness; the result was that he became idiotically dumb, while Prokop and Mr. Holz began to sing military songs. It was true that they sang different songs in different languages, but from a distance, especially in the rain and darkness, they achieved a sort of melancholy harmony.

Finally some one in the castle opened his window to hear better and then attempted to accompany them on the piano. But soon he began to play the Eroica instead and then to strike chords aimlessly. When the lights in the castle had gone out Prokop erected an enormous barricade in front of the door, and the three heroes quietly went off to sleep. They were awakened the next morning by the knocking of Mr. Paul, who arrived with three cups of coffee on a tray.

It continued to rain. Armed with a white flag, the fat cousin arrived to propose to Prokop that he should give in; in return he should get back his laboratory. Prokop announced that he would not do so, that before that he would allow himself to be blown into the air. Further, that he was going to do something; let them wait and see! On receiving this dark threat the cousin withdrew. In the castle they were evidently very displeased at the fact that the proper entrance was blockaded, but did not make a fuss about it.

Dr. Krafft, the pacifist, was overflowing with wild and belligerent proposals. He wanted to cut off the current from the castle and cut off their water supply; to manufacture some sort of poison gas, and release it in the castle. Holz had discovered a lot of old newspapers; he produced a pair of pince-nez from some mysterious pocket and spent the whole day in reading, looking extraordinarily like a university lecturer. Prokop was painfully bored; he was burning to take some military step but did not know how to set about it. Finally he left Holz to guard the little house and went out with Krafft into the park.

There was nobody to be seen in it; the enemy’s forces were concentrated in the castle. He walked ​round it to the side on which it was adjoined by the sheds and stables. “Where's Whirlwind?” he suddenly asked. Krafft indicated a small window about nine feet from the ground. “Lean against the wall,” whispered Prokop, climbed on to his back and then stood on his shoulders so as to look inside. Krafft nearly fell under his weight, and to make matters worse Prokop was dancing on his shoulders—what was he doing? A heavy window-frame fell on the ground and a quantity of rubble crumbled down from the wall. Suddenly a beam also dropped and the terrified Krafft raised his head to see two legs disappearing through the window.

The Princess was just giving Whirlwind a piece of bread and looking reflectively at his beautiful eyes when she heard the noise in the window and saw in the twilight of the stable the familiar mutilated hand which was removing the wire screen from the window. She placed her hands on her mouth to prevent herself crying out.

Head first, Prokop fell on to Whirlwind’s back, jumped down, and there he was, certainly torn, but intact, out of breath and attempting a smile. “Quiet,” said the Princess fearfully, for there was a groom just behind the door. Then she threw her arms round his neck: “Prokopokopak!” He pointed to the window outside. ‘“Where?” whispered the Princess, kissing him.

“To the doorkeeper.”

“You stupid! How many are there of you?”

“Three.”

“You can see it’s no good!” She stroked his face. “Don’t attempt it.”

​Prokop considered whether there was any other way of abducting her, but it was dark inside the stable, and the smell of a horse is somehow exciting. Their eyes gleamed and they kissed passionately. Suddenly she broke away and recoiled, whispering: “Go away! Go!” They stood opposite one another trembling and with a feeling that the passion which possessed them was an unclean one. He looked away and idly turned a rung in the ladder; only then did he regain control of himself. He swung round towards her and saw that she was biting her hankerchief. She pressed it to her lips and handed it him without a word, as a reward or as a souvenir. And he kissed his arm on the place where her distracted hand had rested. Never had they loved one another so wildly as at that moment, when they were unable to speak and feared to touch one another.

Then there was the sound of steps grating in the gravel outside. The Princess made a sign to him. Prokop swung himself up the ladder, seized some hook or other in the ceiling and, feet first, slipped out of the window. When he had reached the ground again Dr. Krafft threw his arms round him in delight. “You’ve cut the horses’ tendons, eh?” he whispered bloodthirstily; he evidently considered this as a necessary military precaution.

Prokop silently made his way back to the guard’s house, impelled by anxiety regarding Holz. When still some distance away he saw the terrible thing that had happened: two men were standing in the gate, a gardener was erasing from the sand the traces of a struggle, the gate was half open,—and ​Holz was gone. But one of the men had a handkerchief tied round his hand; Mr. Holz had bitten him seriously.

Prokop returned to the park, gloomy and speechless. Dr. Krafft imagined that his superior was concocting another offensive plan and therefore did not disturb him; but Prokop, sighing deeply, sat down on a stump and became absorbed in the contemplation of some torn rag or other. On the path there appeared a workman, pushing in front of him a wheelbarrow full of dead leaves. Krafft, seized with suspicion, set on him and gave him a most terrible beating, in the course of which he lost his spectacles. Then he took the wheelbarrow, representing the spoils of the victory, and hurried back with it to Prokop. “He’s run off,” he announced, and his short-sighted eyes shone with triumph. Prokop only grunted and continued to examine the snow-white object which fluttered in his hands. Krafft occupied himself with the wheel-barrow, trying to think what the trophy would be good for. Finally it occurred to him to turn it upside down: “We can sit on it!”

Prokop picked himself up and went towards the lake, Dr. Krafft following him with the wheel-barrow, probably for the transport of the future wounded. They established themselves in a swimming bath built out on posts over the water. Prokop went round the cubicles. The largest was that belonging to the Princess and still contained a mirror, a handful of hair, a couple of hairpins, a shaggy bathing-robe and some sandals, intimate and abandoned objects. He forbade Krafft to enter it and ​settled down with him in the men’s cubicle on the other side. Krafft was radiant; he now possessed a fleet consisting of two Rob Roys, a canoe and a tub-shaped boat which was relatively a super-dreadnought. Prokop spent a long time in silently walking up and down the platform over the grey lake and then disappeared into the Princess’s cubicle, sat down on her couch, took the shaggy bathing-gown into his hands and buried his face in it. Dr. Krafft, who, in spite of his incredible lack of observation, had some inkling of his secret, respected his feelings, and went about the place on tiptoe, baling out the water from the warship with a tin and getting together some suitable oars. He displayed considerable military talents, ventured on to the bank and carried stones of all sizes to the bathing-place, including huge ones torn out of a neighbouring wall. Then, plank by plank, he tore up the bridge connecting the bathing-place with the bank. From the material which he thus obtained he was able to barricade the entrance, and he further discovered some priceless rusty nails which he bent into the blades of the oars, points upwards. In this way he obtained a powerful and really dangerous arm.

Having put everything in order and seen that it was all right he wished to report to his superior what he had done, but Prokop was still shut up in the Princess’s cubicle and was so quiet that it seemed as if he were not breathing. So Dr. Krafft remained alone on the floating platform, which splashed coldly on the surface of the water. Now and then there was a plop! as some fish leapt out of the water and fell back again, and sometimes a ​rustling in the rushes. Dr. Krafft began to feel uneasy in the midst of this solitude.

He coughed in front of his leader’s cubicle and now and then said something under his breath to attract his attention. Finally Prokop came out with his lips set and a wild look in his eyes. Krafft showed him over the new fortress, and pointed out everything, finally demonstrating to him when the enemy would come within range of a stone; in indicating this he very nearly fell into the water. Prokop said nothing but put his arm round his neck and kissed him, and Dr. Krafft, quite rosy with delight, would have done ten times as much for him as he had already.

They sat down on a seat near the water, at the spot where the Princess used to bask in the sun. Clouds began to get up in the west and a sickly strip of yellow sky appeared an infinite distance away. The whole of the lake began to glow, broke into ripples, and became suffused with a pale and gentle light. Dr. Krafft developed impromptu a completely new theory of eternal warfare, the control of power, and the salvation of the world through heroism. Everything that he said was in painful contrast with the torturing melancholy of this autumnal twilight, but luckily Dr. Krafft was short-sighted, and in addition, an idealist, and, as a consequence, completely independent of the influence of his chance surroundings. Apart from the cosmic beauty of the moment, they were both conscious of being cold and hungry. And then on the land they heard the short, quick steps of Mr. Paul, who approached with a basket on his arm, looking to ​the right and left and periodically calling out in his little old voice: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” Prokop went across to him on the warship and tried to force him to say who had sent him. “Nobody, please,” asserted the old man; “but my daughter Elizabeth is the housekeeper.” He would have talked further about his daughter Elizabeth, but Prokop stroked his white hair and told him to tell this nameless person that he was well and strong.

That day Dr. Krafft drank alone, gossiped, philosophized, and again expressed his contempt for all philosophy; action, he maintained, was everything. Prokop sat trembling on the Princess’ seat and all the time kept his eye on one star. God knows why he selected that particular one, which was a yellow one in the constellation of Orion. It was not true that he was well; he had pains in the places in which he had suffered from them in Tynice, his head was spinning and he was trembling with fever. When he wanted to say anything his tongue somehow failed him, and his teeth chattered so much that Dr. Krafft became sobered and almost uneasy. He hastily stretched Prokop out on the couch in the cubicle and covered him with all sorts of things, including the Princess’s bathing-gown. He also placed a cold compress on his forehead. Prokop asserted that he had a cold; about midnight he went off to sleep, semi-delirious and a prey to the most terrible dreams.

The next morning the first to be woke up by Paul’s calling was Dr. Krafft. He wanted to jump up but found that he was stiff all over, as he had been frozen the whole night and had slept curled up like a dog. When he finally somehow pulled himself together he found that Prokop had gone; one of the boats of his fleet was rocking against the bank. He became very anxious about his superior and would have set out to look for him if he had not been afraid of deserting the fortress which he had barricaded so carefully. He improved it as best he could and looked round for Prokop with his short-sighted eyes.

Meanwhile Prokop, who had woke up absolutely prostrated, with a taste of mud in his mouth, chilly, and a little dazed, had been for some time high in the foliage of an old oak in the park, from which he could see the whole of the front of the castle. He felt very giddy, held on to the branches firmly and was afraid to look straight below him for fear of falling.

This part of the park was evidently regarded as being safe; even.the older members of the family ventured at least as far as the castle steps, the gentlemen went about in groups of two or three and a cavalcade of them was making its way along the main road. The old doorkeeper was again at his ​post. Soon after ten o’clock the Princess herself came out, accompanied by the heir to the throne, and set out for the Japanese pavilion. Prokop suddenly felt giddy; it seemed to him that he was falling head downwards; he convulsively clutched at the branches, trembling all over. Nobody followed them; on the contrary, all the rest quickly left the park and collected together in front of the castle. Probably a definitive conversation or something of the sort. Prokop bit his lips so as not to cry out. It took an immense time, perhaps an hour or even five hours. And then the heir ran back alone, his face red and his fists clenched. The party of gentlemen in front of the castle broke up and they drew back to make way for him. The heir ran up the steps without looking either to the right or to the left. At the top he was met by the bareheaded Uncle Rohn. They spoke together for a moment, le bon prince passed his hand across his forehead and both went inside. The gentlemen in front of the castle again gathered into groups, thrust their heads together and finally stole away one by one. Five automobiles drew up before the castle.

Prokop, clutching at the branches, slipped down the tree until he hit the ground heavily. He wanted to run to the Japanese pavilion, but he was almost comically incapable of controlling his legs; his head was swimming, he felt as if he were wading through dough and somehow he couldn’t find the pavilion, as everything in front of his eyes was dull and shifting about. At last he reached it. The Princess was sitting inside, whispering something to herself with severe lips and swishing her switch through the ​air. He collected all his strength so as to come in as cavalierly as possible. She rose and came to meet him: “I was expecting you.” He sat down next to her, very nearly on top of her, since he saw her as being a great distance away. He laid his hand on her shoulder, forcibly holding himself straight, swaying a little and biting his lips; he thought that he was talking. She also said something, but he could not understand her; everything was taking place as if under water. Then came the sound of the horns of the departing cars.

The Princess made a sudden movement, as if her legs had failed her. Prokop saw before him a white, vague face, in which were two dark cavities. “This is the end,” he heard close and clear, “the end. Darling, I’ve sent him away!” Had he been in full possession of his senses he would have seen her as if carved out of ivory, frozen, beautiful in her pain at the highest moment of her sacrifice; but he only blinked, trying to master the trembling of his eyelids, and it seemed to him that the floor was rising beneath his feet and tilting over. The Princess pressed her hands to her forehead and staggered; he wanted to take her into his arms, to carry her, to support her in her exhaustion after her great deed, but instead he fell without a sound at her feet, collapsing as if he was nothing but a heap of rags.

He did not lose consciousness; his eyes wandered about; he tried to understand where he was and what was happening to him. He had the idea that some one, trembling with fear, was raising him up; he wanted to help himself, but could do nothing. “It’s only . . . entropy,” he said, and it seemed to ​him that this characterized the situation and he repeated the word several times. Then something began to run about inside his head making a noise like a weir; his head slipped heavily out of the trembling fingers of the Princess and crashed on to the ground. The Princess jumped up wildly and ran for help.

He had no clear idea of what happened next. He felt that three people were lifting him and slowly dragging him along as if he were made of lead. He heard their heavy, dragging steps and quick breath and was surprised that they could not carry him with their fingers alone, like a rag. Some one held his hand the whole time; he turned round and recognized the Princess. “You are good, Paul,” he said to her gratefully. Then began a confused, breathless movement; they were carrying him up the steps, but Prokop thought that they were all falling together to the bottom of an abyss. “Don’t push so,” he roared and his head spun so much that he ceased to take anything in.

When he opened his eyes he found that he was again in the guest’s quarters and that Paul was undressing him with trembling fingers. At the head of the bed was standing the Princess, with widely opened eyes. Prokop’s mind was hopelessly confused. “I fell from a horse, eh?” he muttered. “You . . . were . . . there, eh? Bang, ex-explosion. Litrogly—nitrogry—mikro—Ch2 On2 O2). Com—pli—cated fracture.” He felt the touch of a small, cool hand on his forehead and became quiet. Then he caught sight of the butcher-doctor and dug his nails into somebody’s cold fingers “I don’t ​want you,” he roared, for he was afraid that there would be pain again, but the butcher only placed his head on his chest and breathed heavily. In front of him he saw a pair of dark and angry eyes which fascinated him. The butcher got up and said to somebody behind: “Influenza and pneumonia. Take Her Excellence away. It’s infectious.” Some one spoke as if under water and the doctor answered: “If it develops into inflammation of the lungs—then——” Prokop realized that he was lost and that he would die, but the knowledge left him completely indifferent; he had never imagined that it would be so simple. “A hundred and five,” said the doctor. Prokop had one wish: that they would let him sleep until the time came for him to die, but instead they wrapped him up in something cold,—ough! At last they began to whisper. Prokop closed his eyes and knew no more about anything.

When he woke up, two dark, elderly gentlemen were standing over him. He felt very much better. “Good-morning,” he said and tried to raise himself up. “You mustn’t move,” said one of the gentlemen and gently pushed him back into the pillows. Prokop obediently lay still. “But I’m better, am I not?” he asked contentedly. “Naturally,” said the other gentleman evasively, “but you mustn’t move about. Quietness, you understand?”

“Where’s Holz?” asked Prokop suddenly.

“Here,” came a voice from the corner, and Mr. Holz appeared at the end of the bed with a terrible scratch and a blue mark on his face, but otherwise as dry and skinny as ever. And behind him was Krafft, Krafft, who had been forgotten in the bathing-place, ​with red and swollen eyes as if he had been howling for three days. What had happened to him Prokop smiled at him to comfort him. Then Mr. Paul came up on tiptoe, holding a napkin to his lips. Prokop was delighted that they were all there; his yes wandered about the room and behind the two dark gentlemen he caught sight of the Princess. She was deathly pale and was looking at Prokop with melancholy eyes which somehow frightened him. “I’m all right now,” he whispered, as if excusing himself. She questioned one of the gentlemen with her eyes and he gave a resigned nod. Then she came up to the bed. “Do you feel better?” she asked softly. “Darling, are you really better?”

“Yes,” he said uncertainly, somewhat oppressed by the serious behaviour of everybody. “Almost completely recovered, only—only——” Her steadfast gaze filled him with confusion and almost with anxiety; he felt uncomfortable and constrained.

“Do you want anything?” she asked, bending over him.

Her glance filled him with a terrible fear. “To sleep,” he whispered, so as to be free of it.

She looked inquiringly at the two gentlemen. One of them gave a brief nod and looked at her—with curious seriousness. She understood and turned still more pale. “Sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice and turned to the wall. Prokop looked round him in surprise. Mr. Paul had his napkin pressed to his lips, Holz was standing like a soldier, blinking his eyes, and Krafft was simply blubbering, leaning against a cupboard and blowing his nose noisily.

​“But what ” cried Prokop, and tried to raise himself up, but one of the gentlemen placed on his forehead a hand which was so soft and kind, so reassuring and pleasant to the touch, that he at once calmed down and sighed with relief. A moment later he was asleep.

He awoke in a-curious state of semi-consciousness. There was no light but that of the lamp on the table, and beside the bed the Princess was sitting, dressed in dark clothes, looking at him with gleaming, bewitching eyes. He quickly closed his own so as not to see her, so much was he embarrassed.

“Darling, how are you?”

“What’s the time?” he asked confusedly.

“Two.”

“In the day?”

“In the night.”

“Really,” he said in surprise, and began to weave again the dark thread of sleep. At moments he just opened his eyes, glanced at the Princess and went off again. Why was she looking at him so hard? Some one moistened his lips with a spoonful of wine; he swallowed it and mumbled something or other. Finally he fell into a deep, heavy sleep.

He awoke to find that one of the gentlemen in black was carefully listening to his heart. Five others stood round.

“Incredible,” said the dark gentleman. “He has a heart of iron.”

“Shall I die?” asked Prokop suddenly. The dark gentleman almost jumped with surprise.

​“We shall see,” he said. “If you’ve been able to get through such a night. How long have you been going about with it?”

“With what?” said Prokop, astonished.

The dark gentleman waved his hand. “Quiet,” he said, “only quiet.” Prokop, although he felt miserably ill, could not help smiling; when doctors have no idea what to do they always prescribe quiet.

Then the one with the pleasant hands said to him: “You must believe that you will get better. Faith works miracles.”

He started out of his sleep covered with a terrible sweat. Where—where was he? The ceiling undulated and swung to and fro above him; no, no, no, it was falling, descending with a screwlike motion, slowly coming down like a gigantic hydraulic press. Prokop wanted to shout, but was unable to do so, and now the ceiling was so low that he could distinguish a transparent fly which was resting on it, the grain of the material with which it was covered, every inequality on its surface. And still it continued to descend and Prokop watched it with breathless horror, unable to make any sound louder than a hiss. The light went out, and black darkness took its place; now it would crush him. Prokop already felt the touch of the ceiling on his hair and uttered a voiceless cry. Aha! now he had found the door, pulled it open and dashed outside. Even there there was the same darkness, or rather not darkness, but fog, fog so thick that he was unable to breathe and began to suffocate, hiccoughing with horror. Now I’m being strangled, he thought, and took to flight in terror, treading upon—upon—some sort of living bodies, which were still writhing. He bent down and felt beneath his hands a young breast. That—that was Annie, he thought, and passed his hand over her head; but instead of a head ​she had a box, a por-ce-lain box containing something slimy and spongy like a lung. He felt utterly revolted and tried to draw his hand away, but the thing adhered to it, attached itself and began to creep up his arm, It was Krakatit, a damp and resinous sepia with the gleaming eyes of the Princess, which were fixed on him agitatedly and passionately; the thing moved about his naked body looking for a place on which to sit down upon him. Prokop was unable to breathe, struggled with it, dug his fingers into this yielding, sticky matter—and woke up.

Mr. Paul was bending over him and placing a cold compress on his chest.

“Where’s—where’s Annie?” mumbled Prokop with relief and closed his eyes. Breathless and perspiring he found himself running across a ploughed field. He did not know where he was going in such a hurry but he hastened along until his heart was nearly splitting with the strain and he groaned with anxiety lest he should arrive too late. And here at last was the house; it had neither doors nor windows, only above it a clock, the hands of which marked five minutes to four. And Prokop knew in a flash that when the big hand reached twelve the whole of Prague would be hurled into the air. “Who’s stolen my Krakatit?” he roared, and tried to climb up the wall so as to stop the hand at the last minute. He sprang up and dug his nails into the plaster, but only slid down, leaving a long scratch on the wall. Screaming with horror, he flew off somewhere to get assistance. He burst into the stables, to find the Princess standing there with Car​son. They were making love to one another with abrupt, mechanical gestures, like those of marionettes. When they saw him they joined hands and began to jump quicker, quicker and ever quicker.

Prokop looked up and saw the Princess bending over him with closed lips and burning eyes. “Beast!” he grunted with dull contempt and quickly closed his eyes again. His heart beat wildly and rapidly. His eyes were stung with sweat and he felt a salty taste in his mouth. His tongue was stuck to his palate and in his throat was a blind, dry thirst. “Do you want anything?” asked the Princess, very close to him. He shook his head. She thought that he was again sleeping, but after a while he said hoarsely: “Where’s that parcel?”

She thought that he was delirious and did not answer. “Where’s that parcel?” he repeated, knitting his brows authoritatively. “Here, here,” she said quickly, and thrust between his fingers a piece of paper which she happened to have in her hand. He quickly crumpled it into a ball, and threw it away.

“That’s not it. I—I want my parcel. I—I want my parcel.”

As he continued to repeat these words and began to rage, she sent for Paul. Paul remembered having seen somewhere a dirty parcel tied up with string, but where was it? They found it in a cupboard; there you are! Prokop clasped it in both hands and held it to his breast. Appeased, he fell into a deep sleep. Three hours later he again began to sweat profusely; he was so weak that he scarcely breathed. The Princess at once sent for the ​doctors. His temperature fell lower and lower and his pulse almost stopped. They wanted to give him a camphor injection at once, but the local doctor, who felt very shy and provincial amongst such mandarins, was of the opinion that if they did the patient would never wake up. “At any rate he would pass out in his sleep, eh?” said the famous specialist. “You are right.”

The Princess, completely exhausted, went to lie down for an hour on being told that nothing more could be done. Dr. Krafft remained with the patient, having promised her that he would let her know the position in an hour’s time. He sent no message and the agitated Princess came to see for herself. She found Krafft standing in the middle of the room waving his arms and talking at the top of his voice about telepathy, quoting Richet, James and somebody else, while Prokop was listening to him with clear eyes, now and then interposing the objections of a scientific and limited sceptic. “I’ve resurrected him, Princess,” shouted Krafft, forgetting everything, “I concentrated my mind on the fact of his recovery; I—I made passes over him with my hands, see? Radiation of ods. But that sort of thing exhausts one! I feel as weak as a fly,” he announced, and thereupon emptied a full glass of the benzine which was kept for washing bandages, evidently taking it for wine, so excited was he by his success. “Tell me,” he shouted, “have I made you well or not?”

“You have,” said Prokop with friendly irony.

Dr. Krafft collapsed into an arm-chair. “I myself did not realize that I have such a powerful ​aura,” he said contentedly. “Shall I pass my hands over you again?”

The Princess looked from one to another of them in consternation. Then she smiled and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She stroked Krafft’s ruddy hair and ran out of the room.

“Women can’t stand anything,” said Krafft proudly; “you see, I’m absolutely calm. I felt a fluid oozing out of my finger-tips. It could certainly have been photographed. A sort of ultra-radiation.”

The specialists returned, sent Krafft out of the room in spite of his protests and again took Prokop’s temperature, felt his pulse and all the rest of it. His temperature was higher, his pulse ninety-six, and he had developed some sort of an appetite. After this the mandarins retired to the other wing of the castle where their services were needed, for the Princess was in a fever, and had completely collapsed after sixty hours of watching by Prokop’s bedside. In addition she was extremely anemic and ill in several other ways.

The next day Prokop was already sitting up in bed and receiving visits. Almost all the company had already left; only the fat cousin remained alone in boredom. Carson arrived rather agitated, but the meeting turned out all right. Prokop made no allusion to what had passed, and finally Carson announced that the terrible explosives that Prokop had invented during the last few days had shown themselves to be as dangerous as sawdust. In short Prokop must have already been feverish when he prepared them. The patient accepted this information ​quite calmly and smiled, in fact, for the first time. “Well,” he said affably, “all the same I frightened you all pretty thoroughly.”

“You did,” admitted Carson willingly. “I’ve never been so frightened about myself and the factory before.”

Krafft dragged himself into the room pale and exhausted. He had spent the night celebrating his possession of a miraculous gift by drinking large quantities of wine and now he felt utterly miserable. He lamented the fact that his power had left him for ever and announced that he had decided for the future to devote himself to yoga.

Uncle Charles also arrived, very friendly and subtly reserved. Prokop appreciated the fact that he had fallen back into the style of a month before, again addressing him in the plural. Only when the conversation turned on the Princess did the atmosphere become a little strained.

Meanwhile, in the other wing of the castle, the Princess was coughing painfully and receiving a report from Paul every half-hour as to what Prokop was eating, saying and doing.

He again became feverish and his terrible dreams returned. He saw in front of him a dark shed containing an endless row of casks of Krakatit. In front of the shed an armed soldier was marching to and fro, to and fro; nothing more, but it was terrible. It seemed to him that he was again in the war; before his eyes there stretched a vast field, covered with dead. They were all dead and he was dead too, and frozen to the ground. Only Mr. Carson trotted over the corpses, cursing between ​his teeth and looking impatiently at his watch. From the other side with awkward, convulsive movements there approached the crippled Hagen; he was moving with amazing rapidity, jumping like a pony. Carson greeted him carelessly and said something to him. Prokop strained his ears to catch what they were saying but could not hear a single word; perhaps the wind was carrying them away. Hagen pointed to the horizon with a preternaturally long and shrivelled hand; what were they saying? Hagen turned round, put his hand to his mouth and took out a golden set of teeth and his jaws as well; now instead of a mouth he had a great black hole which giggled voicelessly. With the other hand he extracted one enormous eye from its socket, and, holding it in his fingers, held it close down to the faces of the dead. Meanwhile the gold set of teeth in his other hand was screeching: “Seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three.” Prokop was unable to move, as he were dead. The horrible bloodshot eye touched his face and the horse’s set of teeth counted: “Seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty-nine.” Now Hagen disappeared in the distance, still counting, and across the corpses there jumped the Princess, with her skirts drawn up shamelessly high. She approached Prokop waving in her hands a Tartar bunchuk, as if it were a whip. She stood over Prokop, tickling him under the nose with it, and sticking the point of her shoe into his head, as if trying to find out whether he was dead. The blood trickled down his face, although he was really dead, so dead that he felt within him his heart ​frozen as hard as a bone; all the same he could not bear the sight of her well-shaped legs. “Darling, darling,” she whispered, pulled down her skirt, knelt down by his head and passed her hands lightly across his chest. Suddenly she pulled out of his pocket that carefully tied-up parcel, jumped up, and angrily tore it into pieces which she threw into the air. Then with her arms stretched out she began to whirl round and round, passing over the dead until she disappeared into the darkness of the night.

From the time when the Princess fell ill he did not see her any more, but several times a day she wrote him short and passionate notes which hid more than they revealed. He heard from Paul that she was again able to move about her rooms and could not understand why she did not come and visit him. He himself was already out of bed and waited every minute for her to send for him. He did not know that meanwhile she had developed tuberculosis seriously and was actually spitting blood. She did not write to him about it, evidently fearing that it would make him turn from her at the thought that on his lips there were still burning the traces of the kisses which she had once given him. And principally, principally she was afraid of not controlling herself and again kissing him with passionate lips. He had no idea that the doctors had discovered traces of infection in his own lungs, a fact which had driven the Princess to desperation and self-condemnation. He knew nothing, grew angry at the fact that she was so evasive now that he was completely well, and became frightened when another day passed without the Princess expressing the wish to see him. I’ve made her tired of me, he thought; I’ve never been anything more for her than a momentary distraction. He suspected her of all sorts of things, did not want to descend to insisting ​on a meeting, hardly wrote to her and did nothing but wait in an arm-chair for her to come, or at least to let him know what had happened. There were a few sunshiny days and he ventured into the park, wrapped up in a rug. He wanted to wander about by himself with his dark thoughts near the lake, but there were always with him Krafft, Paul, Holz, Rohn, or the charming! and dreamy poet Charles, who always had something on the tip of his tongue but never said it. Instead he discoursed on science, personal courage, success and heroism and God knows what else. Prokop listened with one ear; he had the impression that the Prince was making a special effort for some reason or other to interest him in ambition. Then one day he received a roughly scrawled note from the Princess, telling him to wait and not to be shy. Directly afterwards Rohn introduced him to a laconic old gentleman in whose bearing everything revealed the officer disguised as a civilian. The laconic gentleman inquired of Prokop what he proposed to do in the future. Prokop, somewhat nettled by his tone, answered sharply and magnificently that he was going to exploit his inventions.

“Military inventions?”

“I’m not a soldier.”

“Your age?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Occupation ?”

“None. And yours?”

The laconic person became rather confused. “Do you intend to sell your inventions?”

“No.” He felt that he was being examined and ​sounded officially. This irritated him and he answered very shortly and only here and there would he give them a fragment of his erudition and this only because he saw that it pleased Rohn particularly. Actually the Prince was radiant and was all the time looking at the laconic gentleman, as if to ask him: “Well, what do you say to that miracle?” But the laconic gentleman said nothing and finally took leave of them politely.

The next day Carson appeared very early in the morning, rubbing his hands and evidently full of something extremely important. He babbled all sorts of nonsense, all the time trying to sound Prokop. He threw out all sorts of vague words, like “future,” “career” and “splendid success,” but would say nothing more, while Prokop did not like to ask any questions. And then there arrived a strange and important letter from the Princess: “Prokop, today you will have to make a decision. I have done so and do not regret the fact. Prokop, at this last moment I assure you that I love you and will wait for you as long as may be necessary. And even if we must separate for a time—and this must be so, since your wife may not be your lover—even if we separate for years, I shall always be your dutiful betrothed. I am already so happy about it, that I simply cannot speak of it; I walk about my room overpowered and repeat your name. Darling, darling, you cannot imagine how unhappy I’ve been since this happened to us. And now do what is necessary for me to be able really to call myself your W.”

Prokop couldn’t understand what it all meant; he read it several times and simply was unable to ​believe that the Princess meant quite simply . . . he wanted to run round to see her but was too agitated and bewildered. Was this again some feminine extravagance which was not to be taken literally and which he really didn’t understand? While he was reflecting like this Uncle Charles entered, accompanied by Carson. Both looked so . . . official and serious that it flashed through Prokop’s head: “They’ve come to say that they’re sending me away to that fortress; the Princess has been plotting, and now here we are!” He looked round for some weapon, in case it should come to force, selected a marble paper-weight and sat down, mastering the beating of his heart.

Uncle Rohn looked at Carson, and Carson looked at Rohn with the mute question of who was to begin. Then Uncle Rohn said: “What we’ve come to tell you is . . . to a certain extent . . .” He was beginning as usual hesitatingly, but suddenly he pulled himself together and continued more confidently: “My dear friend, what we have come to tell you is something very important . . . and discreet. It is not only in your interests that you should do this . . . but on the contrary . . . To put it shortly, it was first of all her idea and . . . as far as I am concerned, after careful consideration . . . in any case we must leave her out of it; she is self-willed and passionate. Apart from that, it appears that she’s taken it into her head . . . in fact from every point of view it would be better to find a suitable way out of the difficulty,” he concluded with relief. “The General Manager will explain the position.”

​Carson, as the General Manager, put on his spectacles very seriously. He looked quite disturbingly important and very different from what he had ever been like before. “I consider it an honour,” he began, “to interpret to you the wishes of our highest military circles, who wish you to connect yourself with our army . . . naturally only with the highest technical service, with duties which are related to your work, and that straight away in the capacity of—so to speak . . . I mean to say, that it is not a military custom to employ civilian specialists apart from war, but in your case, in consideration of the fact that the present situation approximates very closely to that of war, and with special regard to your exceptional significance, which is enhanced by the present conditions, and . . . and taking also into consideration your peculiar position or rather, to put it more precisely, your extremely private obligations——”

“What obligations?” Prokop interrupted him hoarsely.

“Well,” stammered Carson, somewhat embarrassed, “I mean . . . your interests, your relation. . . .”

“I never spoke to you about any interest,” said Prokop sharply.

“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, as if refreshed by this rudeness, “of course you didn’t; there was no need to. We didn’t flaunt that up at the castle. Of course not. Purely personal considerations, that’s what I mean. Powerful intervention, you understand? Of course you’re a foreigner—but that’s been arranged,” he added quickly. “It’ll be enough ​if you put in a demand to become a citizen of our State.”

“Aha !”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, only aha!”

“Aha! that’s all, eh? All you have to do is to make a formal demand and . . . apart from that . . . Well, you will understand of course that . . . that we should demand some guarantee, eh? You will have to earn the right to the honour which is being bestowed on you . . . for exceptional services, eh? Let’s assume that . . . that you hand over to the Army Council . . . you understand, that you hand over . . .”

There was a dead silence. The Prince looked out of the window and Carson’s eyes disappeared behind the glitter of his glasses. Prokop was deeply uneasy.

“. . . that you hand over . . . simply hand over . . .” gulped Carson, also breathing with difficulty.

“What?”

Carson wrote a large K in the air with his finger. “Nothing further,” he said, relieved. “The next day you’ll get a document nominating you as an extra statum captain in the engineers . . . stationed in Balttin. Straight away. So.”

“That is to say only a captain to begin with,” said Uncle Charles. “We haven’t ventured any farther. But we have been given a guarantee that if it should suddenly come to a war——”

“Within a year,” cried Carson, “within a year at the latest.”

​“—as soon as war breaks out—whenever and with whomever it may be—you will be appointed a general in the engineers. And should—as the result of the war—the form of government be changed you would also be given the title of Excellence and . . . in short at least a baronetcy to begin with. Even with regard to this . . . we have been given an assurance . . . from the highest quarters,” concluded Rohn almost inaudibly.

“And who told you that I should like that?” said Prokop icily.

“But my God!” cried Carson, “who wouldn’t? They’ve promised me the rank of knight; it doesn’t mean anything to me, but it’s not given me on my own account. But for you it would have quite special significance.”

“So you expect,” said Prokop slowly, “that I shall hand you over Krakatit.”

Mr. Carson would have sprung into the air, but Uncle Charles restrained him.

“We take it,” he began seriously, “that you will do everything, or . . . it may be . . . make every sacrifice, to save Princess Hagen from any sort of illegal and . . . impossible position. Under certain conditions . . . the Princess is allowed to marry a soldier. As soon as you are a captain your position will be regularized . . . by a strictly secret engagement. The Princess will of course go away and return as soon as she can secure a member of the ruling house as bridegroom for the wedding. Until then . . . until then we expect you to earn the right to a marriage which we feel to be good both for you and for her. Give me your hand. You need ​not decide just yet. Consider the matter carefully, consider what your duties are and the sacrifices which you have to make. I could appeal to your ambition, but I am speaking only to your heart. Prokop, she is suffering beyond her strength and bringing to love a greater sacrifice than any other woman. And you too have suffered. Prokop, you are suffering with your conscience, but I will not try to exert any pressure on you because I have confidence in you. Consider the matter carefully, and tell me later . . .”

Mr. Carson nodded his head, this time really deeply touched.

“That’s so,” he said. “I don’t come of any sort of family myself, but I must say that . . . that . . . I tell you, that woman has race. God! one can see straight away . . .” He struck the region of his heart with his fist and blinked his eyes. “Man, I’d throttle you if you weren’t worthy . . .”

Prokop was not listening. He sprang up and marched up and down the room with his face distorted with rage. “I—I must, eh?” He ground out hoarsely. “So I must? Good. If I must . . . you’ve diddled me! But I didn’t want——”

Uncle Rohn stood up and quietly put his hand on his shoulder. “Prokop,” he said, ‘you must decide yourself. We don’t want to hurry you; consult with the best that there is in you. Ask God, love or conscience or feeling or I don’t know what. But remember that this does not only concern you but her who loves you so much that she’s ready to . . .” He waved his hand hopelessly. “Au revoir!”

It was an overcast day and rain was falling in a fine drizzle. The Princess continued to cough and was alternately hot and cold, but she could not stay in bed. Impatiently she awaited Prokop’s answer. She looked out of the window to see if he might be coming, and again sent for Paul. The answer was always the same: Mr. Prokop was walking up and down his room. And did he say anything? No, nothing. She dragged herself from one wall to the other and then sat down again, rocking her body to and fro to calm her feverish anxiety. Oh, it was too much to be borne! Suddenly she began to write to him a long letter, entreating him to marry her, and saying that he must not give up a single one of his secrets, that she would enter his life and be faithful to him, whatever might happen. “I love you so much,” she wrote, “that there is no sacrifice which is too great for me to make for you. Test me, remain poor and unknown; I will follow you as your wife and never be able to return to the world which I left. I know that you only love me a little and that with a small part of your heart; but you will get used to me. I have been proud, wicked and passionate; now all is changed, all my familiar surroundings are strange to me, I have ceased to be——” She read the letter through and ​then tore it into pieces, moaning softly. It was evening. There were still no news of Prokop.

Perhaps he will come without announcing himself, she thought, and in impatient haste she put on her evening clothes, terribly agitated. She stood in front of her mirror and examined herself with burning eyes, horribly dissatisfied with her clothes, the way her hair was dressed, and everything possible. She covered her heated face with a thick layer of powder, and bedecked herself with jewels. But she seemed to herself to be ugly, impossible and awkward, “Hasn’t Paul come?” she asked every moment. At last he arrived: Nothing new; Mr. Prokop was sitting in darkness and had not ordered the lights to be lit.

It was already late and the Princess, utterly exhausted, was sitting in front of her glass. The powder was peeling off her burning cheeks, she looked positively grey and her hands were numb. “Undress me,” she ordered her maid weakly. The fresh, sturdy girl took off one ornament after another, loosened her clothes and wrapped her in a diaphanous peignoir. Just as she was about to begin combing the loose hair of the Princess, Prokop burst into the room, unannounced.

The Princess recoiled and became even more pale. “Go, Marie,” she breathed and drew the peignoir over her thin chest. “Why . . . have you come?”

Prokop leaned against a cupboard, his face pale and his eyes bloodshot. “So,” he said through his teeth, “that was your plan, eh? You arrange things for me nicely!”

She stood up as if she had been given a blow: ​“What—what are you saying?” Prokop ground his teeth. “I know what I’m saying. The idea was that . . . that I should give you Krakatit, eh? They’re getting ready for a war, and you, you,” he cried, “you are their tool! You and your love! You and your marriage, you spy! And I—I was to be lured into it so that you could kill, so that you could avenge yourselves——”

She sank into a chair with her eyes wide open with horror; her whole body was shaken by a terrible dry sob. He wanted to throw himself upon her, but she prevented him with a movement of her frozen hand.

“Who are you?” Prokop ground out. “You are a princess? Who persuaded you to this? Do you realize, you worthless creature, that you would have killed thousands and thousands of men, that you would have helped them to destroy cities, and that our world, our world and not yours, would have been obliterated! Obliterated, smashed to fragments, wiped out! Why did you do it?” he cried, and fell on his knees and crawled towards her. “What did you want to do?”

She raised to him a face full of horror and aversion and edged away from him. He bent his face over the spot where she had been sitting and began to cry with the heavy, crude sobs of a raw youth. She would have knelt next to him, but controlled the impulse to do so and retreated still further, pressing her convulsively twisted fingers to her breast. “So,” she whispered, “this is what you think?” .

Prokop was being suffocated by the weight of his pain. “Do you know,” he cried, “what war is? ​Do you know what Krakatit is? Have you never realized that I’m a man? And that—I have a contempt for you! That is why I was good to you! And if I had given up Krakatit it would all have been over; the Princess would have gone away, and I——” He sprang up, beating his head with his fists. “And to think that I wanted to do it! A million lives for the sake of—no, two million dead! Ten million dead! That—that for the sake of a marriage with a princess, eh? To lower oneself so far for that! I was mad! Aa-ah!” he roared, “I loathe you!”

He was terrible, like some monster, with froth on his lips, swollen face and the eyes of a madman. She pressed herself to the wall, deathly pale, with staring eyes and lips twisted with horror.

“Go,” she wailed, , go away!”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said hoarsely, “I shan’t kill you. I always loathed you; even when—even when you were mine, I was horrified and didn’t believe you even for an instant. And yet, yet I—I shan’t kill you. I—know quite well what I’m doing. I—I——” He looked round, picked up a bottle of eau de Cologne, poured a generous quantity of it over his hands and rubbed it on his forehead. “Aha!” he cried, “aha-ha! Don’t—be afraid! No—no——”

He calmed down a little, sat down on a chair and put his face in his hands. “Now,” he began hoarsely. “Now, now we must talk, eh? You see that I’m quiet. Not even . . . not even my fingers are trembling. . . .” He stretched out his hand to show her, but it trembled so that it was frightful to ​look at it. “We can . . . undisturbed, eh? I’m quite calm again. You can dress. Now . . . your uncle told me that . . . that I’m obliged . . . that it’s a question of honour for me to make it possible for you . . . to repair your slip and that I must . . . simply must . . . earn the right to a title . . . sell myself, and pay for the sacrifice which you——”

She got up deathly pale and wanted to say something. “Wait,” he interrupted her. “I haven’t yet— You all thought . . . and have your own ideas about honour. But you made a terrible mistake. I’m nota nobleman. I’m . . . the son of a cobbler. That doesn’t matter much, but . . . I’m a pariah, you understand? An absolutely commonplace person. I haven't any honour. You can drive me away like a thief or send me off to a fortress. I won’t give it up. I won’t give Krakatit up. You may think . . . that I’m base. You can tell them . . . what I think about war. I was in the war and I saw poison gases . . . and know what people are capable of. I won’t give up Krakatit. Why should I trouble to explain it all to you? You won’t understand me; you’re simply a Tartar princess and too lofty. . . . I only want to tell you I won’t give it up and I humbly thank you for the honour—incidentally, I’m engaged already; I certainly don’t know her, but I’ve betrothed myself to her—that’s my baseness again. I’m sorry that. . . I’m not worthy of your sacrifice.”

She stood as if petrified, digging her nails into the wall. It was painfully quiet. He got up slowly and heavily: “Have you anything to say?”

​“No,” she said quietly and her large eyes continued to gaze into the distance. She looked exquisitely young and tender in her peignoir; he would have knelt down and kissed her trembling knees.

He approached her, wringing his hands. ‘“Princess,” he said in a controlled voice, “now they’ll take me away as a spy or something of the sort. I shan’t try to defend myself. I am prepared for whatever happens. I know that I shall never see you again. Have you anything to say to me before I leave?”

Her lips trembled, but she said nothing. Oh God! why was she staring like that into the distance?

He drew near her. “I loved you,” he said, “I loved you more than I am able to say. I am a base and rough man, but I can tell you that . . . that I loved you differently . . . I took you . . . and held on to you through fear that you might not be mine, that you would escape me; I wanted to make sure; I could never believe it; and so I——” Not realizing what he was doing, he placed his hand on her shoulder; she trembled under the thin peignoir. “I loved you . . . desperately . . .”

She turned her eyes on him. “Darling,” she whispered and her pale face was flushed for a moment. He bent down and kissed her trembling lips; she made no resistance.

“What,” he ground his teeth, “I love you now?” With rough hands he tore her from the wall and enveloped her in his embrace. She struggled as if she were mad, so powerfully that if he had released his grip she would have fallen on the floor. He held her more closely, staggering himself through ​her desperate resistance. She writhed with clenched teeth and hands pressed convulsively against his chest; her hair fell over her face and she bit it to prevent herself shrieking and tried to push him away as if she was having an attack of epilepsy. It was incredible and horrible; he was conscious of only one thing: that he must not let her fall on the ground and that he must avoid knocking any chairs over. What . . . what would he do if she evaded, him? He would sink through the earth for shame. He drew her to him and buried his lips in her tangled hair; he encountered a burning forehead. She turned away her head with revulsion and tried still more desperately to free herself of the iron grip of his arms.

“I’ll give up Krakatit,” he heard his own voice say, to his horror. “I’ll give it up, you hear? I’ll give up everything! A war, a new war, millions of dead. It’s all the same to me. Do you want me to? Say one word—I’m telling you, that I’ll give up Krakatit! I swear that I’ll . . . I love you, do you hear? What . . . whatever happens! Even . . . even if I had to destroy the whole world—I love you!”

“Let me go,” she wailed, struggling.

“I can’t,” he groaned, his face buried in her hair. “I’m the most miserable man on earth. I’m a traitor to the whole world. To the whole human race. Spit in my face, but don’t dr—drive me away! Why can’t I let you go? I’ll give you Krakatit, you hear? I’ve sworn to; but then forget me! Where—where’s your mouth? I’ma monster, but kiss me! I’m lost——” ​He swayed as if he were about to fall and now she could slip out of his grasp. He stretched out his arms vaguely and she threw the hair back from her face and offered him her lips. He took her in his arms, quiet and passive, and kissed her closed lips, her burning cheeks, her neck, her eyes; he was sobbing hoarsely and she made no effort to defend herself. Then he grew frightened by her motionless passivity, let her go and drew back. She staggered, passed her hand over her forehead, smiled weakly—and put her arms round his neck.

They sat together, their eyes staring into the semi-darkness. He could feel the feverish beating of her heart; for these hours they had not spoken; she had kissed him insatiably and then wrenched herself away. Now she had turned her face away and was gazing feverishly into the darkness..

He sat with his hands clasped round his knees. Yes, lost; caught in a trap, fettered, he had fallen into the hands of the Philistines. And now that would take place which must take place. They were putting the weapon into the hands of those who would use it. Thousands upon thousands would perish. Look! was there not in prospect an endless waste covered with ruins? This was a church and that a house; there were the remains of a man. Force was a terrible thing and all evil came from it. A curse on force, the unregenerated spirit of wickedness. Like Krakatit, like himself.

Creative and industrious human weakness, all that is good and noble comes from you. Your work is to bind and link together, to assemble parts and preserve what has been built up. Cursed be the hand which liberates force! Cursed be he who loosens the fetters which bind the elements! Humanity is only a little boat on an ocean of forces; ​and you, you have let loose a storm, the like of which has never been seen.

Yes, he was letting loose a storm of a kind which has never been known before; he was handing over Krakatit, liberating an element which would blow the boat of humanity into pieces. Thousands upon thousands would perish. Towns and peoples would be wiped off the face of the earth. There would be no limit to the power of anyone who had this weapon in his hands and a corrupted heart. He, Prokop, had done it. Passion is terrible, the Krakatit of human hearts; and all evil comes from it.

He looked at the Princess—without contempt, torn by disturbing passion and sympathy. What was she thinking about now, motionless and as if in a trance? He bent down and kissed her shoulder. It was for this that he was giving up Krakatit. He would give it up and go away so as not to see the terror and shame following his defeat. He would pay the terrible price for his love and go away.

He made a gesture of helplessness. Why did they let him go? What was the use of Krakatit to them while he was still able to give it to others? Ah, that was why they wanted to keep him a prisoner for ever! Ah, that was why he must sell himself to them soul and body! He would remain here, here, fettered by passion, and for ever he would hate this woman; he would struggle in the throes of cursed love, and all the time he would be inventing hellish devices . . . and he would be serving them. . . .

She turned to him with a breathless look. He sat motionless, the tears running down his coarse, ​rough face. She looked at him with a fixed stare, her eyes full of painful scrutiny; he did not realize that she was doing so, half closed his eyes and remained stupefied by his defeat. Then she quietly got up, turned on the light over the dressing-table and began to dress.

He was recalled to her existence by her throwing a comb down upon the table. He watched her with surprise as with both her arms raised she braided her dishevelled hair. “To-morrow . . . to-morrow I will give them it,” he whispered. She did not answer; she was holding some hair-pins in her mouth and rapidly coiling her hair round her head. He followed all her movements. She hastened feverishly, again blushed and looked down at the ground, then tossed her head and set to work again all the more quickly. Then she stood up, carefully examined her reflection in the glass, and powdered her face as if there was nobody else in the room. She went into the next room, returning with a scarf over her head. Sitting down again, she rocked her body to and fro in meditation; then she nodded her head and again went into the next room.

He got up and softly went over to her dressing-table. God! what a collection of curious and charming objects! Scent-bottles, lipsticks, little boxes, creams, every possible sort of toy. Here was woman’s trade: eyes, smiles, strong and disturbing scents— His mutilated fingers passed trembling over all these fragile and mysterious objects; he experienced a sort of irritation and excitement, as if they were touching something which was forbidden.

She came back into the room wearing a leather ​coat and cap. She was pulling on a heavy pair of gloves. “Get ready,” she said in a colourless voice, “we’re going.”

“Where?”

“Where you like. Get together what you need, but quickly, quickly!”

“What does this mean?”

“Don’t waste time asking questions. You mustn’t remain here, you see? They won’t let you go. Are you coming?”

“For . . . how long?”

“For ever.”

His heart began to thump. “No . . . no, I won’t go!”

She came up to him and kissed his face. “You must,” she said quietly. “I’ll tell you when we’re once outside. Come to the front of the castle, only quickly, while it’s still dark. Now go, go!”

He went back to his room as if in a dream, collected all his papers, his priceless and endless notes, and quickly looked round. Was that all? “No, I won’t go,” flashed through his head, and leaving the papers where they were he ran outside. In front of the castle was standing a throbbing car with the lights turned off; the Princess was already at the wheel. “Quickly, quickly,” she whispered. “Are the doors open?”

“They are,” answered the sleepy chauffeur in a hoarse voice, pulling down the hood of the car.

A shadow appeared from the back of the car and stopped in front of them.

Prokop stepped up to the open door of the car. “Princess,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I’ve . . . ​decided that I’ll . . . give up everything and stay.”

She was not listening. Inclined forwards, she was staring attentively at the spot where that shadow fused with the darkness. “Quickly,” she said suddenly, seized Prokop by the arm and pulled him into the car beside her. A single movement and the car had begun to slide forward. At that moment a light appeared in one window of the castle and the shadow sprang out of the darkness. “Halt!” it cried and threw itself in front of the car; it was Holz.

“Out of the way,” cried the Princess, closed her eyes and opened the throttle full. Prokop raised his hand in horror; there was an inhuman roar and the wheels lurched over something soft. Prokop was about to spring out of the car, but at that moment it swung round the corner of the drive, so that the door slammed to by itself and the machine hurled itself into the darkness. With horror he turned round to the Princess. He could scarcely recognize her with her leather cap, bent forward over the wheel. “What have you done?” he cried.

“Quiet,” she said sharply through her teeth, still inclined forward. He caught sight of three figures in the distance on the white road; she slowed down and drew up close to them. It was the military guard. “Why are your lights off?” asked one of the soldiers. “Who are you?”

“The Princess.”

The soldiers raised their hands to their caps and drew back. “The password?”

“Krakatit.”

​“Please put on your lights. Who have you with you, please? Your pass, please.”

“One moment,” said the Princess calmly and went into first speed. The car simply jumped forward; the soldiers were only just able to get out of the way. ‘Don’t shoot,” cried one of them, and the car flew into the darkness. They went round a sharp corner and continued almost in the opposite direction. Two soldiers approached the car.

“Who’s on duty?” she asked coldly.

“Lieutenant Rohlauf,” answered the soldier.

“Send for him!”

Lieutenant Rohlauf came running out of the guardhouse, buttoning up his uniform.

“Good-evening, Rohlauf,” she said amicably. “How are you? Please let me out.”

He stood still respectfully, but looked doubtfully at Prokop: “Delighted, but . . . has the gentleman a pass?”

The Princess smiled. “It’s only a bet, Rohlauf. To Brogel and back in thirty-five minutes. You don’t believe me? Don’t make me lose my bet.” Stripping off her glove, she gave him her hand from the car. “Au revoir, yes? Look in some time.” He clicked his heels and kissed her hand, bowing deeply. The soldiers opened the barrier and the car moved off. “Au revoir!” she called back.

They whirled along an endless avenue. Now and then there flashed past the light of some human habitation; in a village a child was crying, behind a fence a dog became excited at the dark, flying car. “What have you done?” cried Prokop. “Do you know that Holz has five children and a crippled ​sister? His life is worth five times as much as yours and mine! What have you done?”

She did not answer. With knitted brows and clenched teeth she was watching the road, raising her head higher every now and then to see better. “Where do you want to go?” she asked suddenly at a cross-roads high above the sleeping countryside.

“To hell,” he said through his teeth.

She stopped the car and turned round to him seriously. “Don’t say that! Do you think that I haven’t wanted a hundred times to crash us both into some wall or other? Let me tell you that we should both go to hell. I know that there’s a hell. Where do you want to go?”

“I want . . . to be with you.”

She shook her head. “That’s no good. Do you remember what you said? You’re engaged and . . . you want to save the world from something terrible. Well, do it. You must keep yourself pure; otherwise . . . otherwise it’ll be bad. And I can’t . . .” She passed her hand along the steering wheel. “Where do you want to go? Where do you live?”

He clasped her in his arms with all his strength. “You’ve . . . killed Holz! Don’t you . . .”

“I know,” she said quietly. “Do you imagine that I can’t feel? It seemed as if my own bones were being crushed and I see him in front of me all the time, all the time the car is rushing at him, and again and again he runs forward——” she shivered. “Well, where? To the right or the left?”

“Is this the end?” he asked quietly.

She nodded. “It is the end.”

​He opened the door, sprang out of the car and stood before it. “Go on,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Drive over me.”

She reversed and drove back a few yards. “Come, we must go farther. I’ll take you at least to the frontier. Where do you want to go?”

“Back,” he said through his teeth, “back with you.”

“With me you can’t either go back or go forward. Don’t you understand? I must do this to see, to be certain that I love you. Do you think that I could hear what you told me again? You can’t go back; you would either have to give up . . . what you don’t want to give up and mustn’t, or they’d take you away, and I——” She let her hands fall into her lap. “You see, I’ve thought of what it would mean if I were to go on with you. I should be able to, I should certainly be able to, but . . . you’ve got a fiancée somewhere—go to her. Do you know it never occurred to me to ask you about her. When one’s a princess one thinks that one’s alone in the world. Do you love her?”

He looked at her with eyes which were full of torture; yet he couldn’t deny——

“There you are,” she breathed. “You darling, you simply cannot lie! But listen. When I considered— What was I to you? What was it that I did? Did you think of her when you were in love with me? How you must have hated me! No, say nothing! Don’t take away from me the strength to say these last words.”

She wrung her hands. “I loved you! I loved you, man, as much as I could ever love ​more. And you, you were so loath to believe it that finally you shattered even my faith. Do I love you? I don’t know. When I see you there I could thrust a knife into my breast; I should like to die and I don’t know what else, but do I love you? I—I don’t know. And when you took me into your arms . . . for the last time I felt something . . . impure in me . . . and in you. Forgive my kisses; they were . . . unclean,” she breathed. “We must part.”

She was not looking at him and did not listen to what he said in reply. Suddenly her eyelashes began to tremble, and then her eyes filled with tears. She wept silently, her hands on the wheel. When he tried to approach her she moved the car away.

“Now you’re no longer Prokopokopak,” she whispered, “you are an unhappy, unhappy man. You see, you pull at your chain . . . as I do. It was . . . a wrong sort of link that joined us, and yet when one tears oneself away it is as if one left every-thing behind, one’s heart, one’s soul. . . . Can there be good in a man when he is so empty?” Her tears fell more quickly. “I loved you, and now I shall never see you again. Out of the way, I’m turning round.”

He did not move.

She drew the car close up to him. “Good-bye, Prokop,” she said softly, and began to go backwards along the road. He ran after her, but the car began to retire more and more rapidly.

Then it vanished altogether.

He stood still and strained his ears in terror, fearing to hear the sound of the car crashing off the road somewhere at a corner. Was not that the sound of a motor in the distance? Was that terrible and deathly silence the end? Beside himself. Prokop dashed down the road after her. Running down the serpentine road, he finally reached the end of the slope. But not a trace of the car was to be seen. He rushed back again, examining the road on each side, clambered down, tearing his hands whenever he caught sight of anything conspicuous, but it always proved to be only a stone or a bush, and he again scrambled up and pounded along the road, staring into the darkness, in case he should come upon a pile of wreckage, and under it . . .

He was again back at the cross-roads; it was here that she had begun to disappear into the darkness. He sat down on a milestone. It was quiet, utterly quiet. Above him were the cold stars. Was the dark meteor of the car flying along somewhere? Would there never be a sound, the cry of a bird, the barking of a dog in a village, some sign of life? But everything was bathed in the majestic silence of death. And this was the end, the silent, dark and icy end of everything—a desert surrounded by darkness and silence—an icy desert in which time stood still. If only it were the end of the world! The ​earth would open and above the noise of the tempest would be heard the words of the Lord: I take you back to myself, weak and miserable creature; there was no purity in you and you set free evil forces. Loved one. I will make you a bed out of nothingness.

Prokop began to tremble beneath the crown of thorns of the universe. And now human suffering was nothing and had no value; he was a tiny, shrivelled up, trembling bubble at the bottom of an abyss. Good, good; you say that the world is infinite, but if I could only die!

In the east the sky began to go pale. The road and the white stones could already be seen clearly. Look, here were the marks of wheels in the dead dust. Prokop picked himself up, numb and cold, and started to walk. Downhill, towards Balttin.

He went on without stopping. Here was a village, an avenue lined with blackberries, a little bridge over a dark and silent river. The mist disappeared and the sun began to shine through; again a grey and cold day, red roofs, a herd of cows. How far might it be to Balttin? Sixteen, sixteen kilometres. Dry leaves, nothing but dry leaves.

A little after mid-day he sat down on a pile of pebbles; he could go no farther. A peasant’s cart approached; the driver drew up and looked at the exhausted man. “Can I give you a lift?” Prokop nodded gratefully and sat down next to him without a word. Later the cart drew up in a little town. “Here we are,” said the peasant. '“Where exactly are you going?” Prokop got down and went on by himself. How far might it be to Balttin?

It began to rain, but Prokop could go no farther ​and remained leaning against the wall of a bridge. Underneath was a cold, foaming current. Suddenly a car approached the bridge, slowed down and then stopped. Out of it sprang a man in a leather coat who came up to Prokop. “Where are you going?” It was Mr, d’Hémon, with goggles over his Tartar eyes and looking like an enormous shaggy beetle. “"I’m going to Balttin; they’re looking for you.”

“How far is it to Balttin?” whispered Prokop.

“Forty kilometres. What do you want there? They’ve issued a warrant for your arrest. Come along. I’ll take you away.”

Prokop shook his head.

“The Princess has left,” continued Mr, d’Hémon quietly. “Early this morning, with Uncle Rohn. Chiefly so that she should forget . . . a certain unpleasant experience in connection with running over somebody.”

“Is he dead?” breathed Prokop.

“Not yet. In the second place, the Princess, as you possibly know, has consumption seriously. They’re taking her to somewhere in Italy.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows.”

Prokop stood up, swaying. “In that case——

“Will you come with me?”

“I don’t . . . know. Where?” “Where you like.” “I should like to go . . . to Italy.”

"Come along.” Mr, d’Hémon helped Prokop into the car, threw a fur rug over him and slammed the door to. The car started off.

And again the countryside began to unroll itself, ​but curiously, as if in a dream and backwards; a little town, an, avenue of poplars, pebbles, a bridge, a village. The snorting car climbed zig-zag fashion up a long hill; and here was the cross-roads where they had parted. Prokop raised himself up and would have jumped out of the car, but Mr, d’Hémon drew him back, and put the car into top speed. Prokop closed his eyes and now they were no longer going along the road but had mounted into the air and were flying. He felt the pressure of the air on his face and the impact of scraps of cloud like rags. The noise of the motor became a deep, prolonged roar. Below there was still probably the earth, but Prokop was afraid to open his eyes and see again the flying avenue. Quicker! To be smothered! Quicker still! His chest was constricted by terror and dizziness, he could hardly breathe, and gasped with delight at the wild way in which they tore through space. The car slipped up and down hills and valleys while from somewhere beneath their feet there came the cries of people and the whining of a dog. Sometimes they turned almost lying over on their sides, as if they had been caught up by a tornado. Now again they were flying straight ahead, pure speed, whizzing across country like an arrow.

He opened his eyes. Misty darkness, a row of lights shining through it, lights of a factory. Mr. d’Hémon drove the car in and out of the traffic in the streets, slipped through a suburb which seemed to be in ruins and they were again in the open. In front of the car stretched two long antennæ of light which fell on rubbish, mud, stones. The car whirled round corners, the exhaust drumming like a machine ​gun, and then threw itself at a long stretch of road as if it were winding it in. To the right and the left was a criss-cross pattern of narrow valleys between hills. The car turned off into it and plunged into woods, noisily twisting its way upwards and dropping head first into further valleys. The villages breathed rings of light into the thick fog and the car flew on, roaring and leaving behind it clouds of sparks, rushing down hills, and climbing in spirals higher, higher, higher. At last it jumped over something and lurched. Stop! They pulled up in black darkness; no, it was a house. Mr. d’Hémon stepped out of the car, breathing heavily, knocked at the door and engaged some people in conversation. A moment later he returned with a can of water and poured its contents into the hissing radiator; in the bright light of the car's lamps he looked in his fur coat like a devil from some story for children. Then he went round the car, felt the tyres, raised the hood and said something, but Prokop, utterly exhausted, was already half asleep. Then he again became conscious of the everlasting rhythmic vibration and fell asleep in the corner of the car, having no idea what was happening beyond the continuous shaking. He only recovered consciousness when the car had stopped in front of a brightly lighted hotel amongst stretches of snow. The air was sharp and cold.

He woke up numb and worn out. “This , this isn’t Italy,” he stammered, surprised.

“Not yet,” said Mr, d’Hémon, “but come and have something to eat.” He led Prokop, who was dazzled by so many lights, to an isolated table. A ​white tablecloth, silver, warmth, a waiter like an ambassador. Mr. d’Hémon did not even sit down, but walked up and down the room looking at the tips of his fingers. Prokop, heavy and sleepy, dropped into a chair; it was a matter of complete indifference to him whether he ate or not. All the same he drank some hot soup, poked at one or two dishes, scarcely able to hold the fork, twisted a glass of wine in his fingers and burnt his throat with some scalding coffee. Mr. d’Hémon still did not sit down but went on walking up and down the room, every now and then taking a mouthful as he went along. When Prokop had finished eating he gave him a cigar and lit up himself. “So,” he said, “and now to business.

“From now,” he began, still walking up and down, “I shall be for you simply . . . Comrade Daimon. I will introduce you to our people; they’re not far away. You mustn’t take them too seriously; amongst them there are desperadoes, people evading justice from all the corners of the world, fanatics, babblers, doctrinaires and dilettante salvationists. Don’t ask them for their programme; they are only material which we use for our purposes. The chief thing is that we can put at your disposal an extensive secret international organization which has its branches everywhere. The only programme is direct action. Through this we’ll get hold of everybody without exception. They’re already crying for it, like children for a new toy. Anyway they’ll find the fascination of a ‘new programme of action,’ ‘destruction inside the head’ irresistible. After the first successes they’ll follow you like sheep—especially if ​you weed out from their leaders the people I shall indicate to you.”

He spoke smoothly like an experienced orator, that is to say thinking all the time about something else, and with such self-evident truth that he made doubt or resistance impossible. It seemed to Prokop that he had heard him on some occasion or other before.

“Your situation is unique,” Daimon continued, still walking up and down the room. “You have already rejected the proposal of a certain Government, and you behaved like a sensible man. What can I offer you compared to what you can obtain by yourself? You’d be mad to hand over your secret to anybody. You have in your possession a means by which we can overcome all the powers of the earth. I have unlimited confidence in you. Do you want fifty or a hundred million pounds? You can have them within a week. It is enough for me that at present you are the sole owner of Krakatit. Our people have fourteen and a half ounces in their possession, brought by a Saxon comrade from Balttin, but these fools haven’t the slightest understanding of what your chemistry means. They keep it like a sacred relic in a porcelain box and three times a week nearly come to blows over the question of what government building they are going to blow up into the air. Anyway, you'll hear them. There’s no danger to you from that quarter. There’s not a scrap of Krakatit in Balttin. Mr. Thomas is evidently near to abandoning his experiments——”

“Where is George—George Thomas?” asked Prokop.

​“At the Powder Works in Grottup. But they are already sick of him there with his everlasting promises. And even if by chance he does succeed in preparing it he won’t derive much benefit from the fact. I can answer for that. In short, you alone have Krakatit in your power and you won’t give it to anybody. You will have at your disposition human material and all the ramifications of our organization. I will give you a printing press which I maintain myself. And finally you will also have the use of what the newspapers refer to as the ‘Secret Wireless Station,’ that is, our illegal wireless station which, by means of so-called anti-waves or extinguishing sparks, causes your Krakatit to explode at a distance of from one to two thousand miles. Those are your cards. Do you want to play?”

“What . . . what do you mean?” said Prokop. “What am I to do with it all?”

Comrade Daimon stopped and looked at Prokop fixedly. “Do what you like. You will do great things. Who can suggest anything further to you?”

Daimon drew up a chair and sat down. “Yes, he began reflectively,” it ’s almost impossible to believe it. There’s simply no analogy in history to the power which you have in your hands. You will be able to conquer the world with a handful of people, as Cortez conquered Mexico. No, that’s not the right image. With Krakatit and the wireless station you can checkmate the world . It’s amazing but it’s true. All you need is a handful of white powder and you can blow up what you like any instant you please. Who can stop you? Actually you are the uncontrolled master of the world. You will be able to give orders, without anyone even seeing you. It’s amusing. You can attack Portugal or Sweden; in three, four days they will ask for peace and you will dictate contributions, laws, frontiers, anything that occurs to you. At that moment there’s only one controlling force, and that’s you yourself.

“You think that I’m exaggerating? I’ve a lot of very efficient fellows here, capable of everything. You decide for a lark to make war on France. One day at midnight there go up in the air the ministries, the Banque de France, the post-offices, power stations, railway stations and a few barracks. The next night you explode aerodromes, arsenals, iron bridges, munition factories, ports, lighthouses and ​main roads. At present we have only seven aeroplanes; you sprinkle Krakatit where you like; then you turn on a switch in the station and there you are. Well, would you like to try?”

Prokop felt that it was all a dream. “No! Why should I do such a thing?”

Daimon shrugged his shoulders: “Because you must. Force . . . will out. Why should some State do it on your account, when you can do it yourself? I don’t know what you couldn’t do; you must begin to experiment. I can assure you that you’ll acquire a taste for it. Do you want to be the ruler of the world? Good. Do you want to blow up the world? You can. Do you want to make it happy by forcing upon it continual peace. God, a new order, a revolution or something of the sort? Why not? You’ve only to begin. It doesn’t matter about the programme. Finally you will only do what you are compelled to do through the conditions which you have yourself created. You can destroy banks, kings, industrialism, armies, eternal injustices or what you like; as you go along you will see what you want to do. Begin where you like and the rest will follow by itself. Only don’t look for analogies in history. Don’t ask yourself what you may do; your situation is unprecedented. There is no Dzhinghiz Khan or Napoleon to tell you what you have to do or to say what your limits are. Nobody will be able to give you advice; nobody will be able to abuse your power. You must be alone if you want to take things to their limits. Don’t let anybody come near you who would set you any boundaries or suggest any particular line of action.”

​“Not even you. Daimon?” asked Prokop sharply.

“No, not even me. I am on the side of power. I am old, experienced and rich; all I want is that something should be done along lines laid down by a man. My old heart will be contented with what you will do. Think out the most daring, beautiful, heavenly schemes you can and impose them by the right of your power; this will reward me for serving you.”

“Give me your hand. Daimon,” said Prokop, full of suspicion.

“No, it would burn you,” smiled Daimon. “I’ve an old, age-long fever. What was I saying? Yes, one of the possibilities of strength is force. Force has the capacity for setting things in motion; you would not be able to help the fact that everything finally revolves round yourself. Get used to this beforehand; regard people merely as your instruments or as instruments of the ideas which you evolve. You want to do an enormous amount of good; as a result you will be extremely severe. Stop at nothing in your efforts to achieve your magnificent ideals. Incidentally that will come by itself. At present it seems to you that it would be beyond your strength fo rule the earth—I don’t know in what way. You will, and this will not be beyond the strength of your instruments; your power will go further than any sober reflection.

“Arrange your affairs in such a way that you are dependent on nobody. This very day I shall have you elected as the President of the Intelligence Commission. This will mean that you will have the secret station in your own hands; in any case it is ​situated in a plant which is my own private property. In a moment you will see our various comrades; don’t frighten them by announcing any great plans. They are expecting you and will receive you with enthusiasm. Give them a few phrases about the good of humanity or anything you like; otherwise you will become involved in the chaos of opinions which are usually described as political convictions.

“You must decide for yourself whether your first attacks will be on political or economic lines, that is to say whether you will begin by bombarding military objects or factories and railway lines. The first is more effective and the second more fundamental. You can begin a general attack all round or you can choose one sector. You can cause a revolution either privately or publicly, or you can declare war. I don’t know what your proclivities are; anyway, it doesn’t matter about the form as long as you reveal your power. You are the highest court of appeal in the world; you can pass judgment on anybody you like and our people will execute it. Do not consider human lives. Work on a large scale; there are milliards of lives in the world.

“Listen. I’m an industrialist, a journalist, a banker, a politician, anything you like. In short. I’m accustomed to, calculate, consider the circumstances and work on limited possibilities. Just for this reason I must tell you—and this is the only advice which I propose to give you before you assume power—don’t make calculations or look round you. The moment you look back you will turn into a pillar like Lot’s wife. I am reason; but ​if I cast my eyes upwards I at once want to become insane and irresponsible. Everything which exists inevitably collapses out of the chaos of limitlessness into nothing, and this by way of number; every powerful force is opposed to this progressive decline; everything which is noble wants to become limitless. The force which does not flow beyond its original frontiers is doomed. You have in your hands the possibility of achieving enormous things; are you worthy of utilizing or are you simply going to play about with it? I’m an old, practical man and I tell you: You will think of wild and frenzied deeds, of action on an unprecedented scale, of incredible demonstrations of human power. In actuality you will only achieve half or a third of what you propose to do, but that which you succeed in doing will be tremendous. Attempt the impossible so that at least you will achieve something which has never been thought possible before. You know what a tremendous thing experiment is: good, the thing which all the rulers of the world fear most is that they should have to do something new, something unheard of, something perverse. There’s nothing more conservative than ruling over human beings. You are the first man in the world who can regard the whole world as his laboratory. This is the High Place of temptation; everything is given you not simply for you to exercise your power on it, but that you may transform it and create something better than their miserable, cruel world. There is need again and again of a creator of the world, but a creator who is only a ruler is a fool. Your thoughts will be orders; your dreams will be historic revolu​tions, and, if you do no more than make yourself remembered, that will be enough. Take what is yours.

“And now we must go. They are waiting for us.”

Daimonstarted the engine and jumped into the car. “We shall be there in a moment.” The car dropped down from the Hill of Temptation into a broad valley, flew through a silent night, flashed past a number of country houses and drew up in front of a long wooden house surrounded by alders; it looked like an old mill. Daimon sprang out of the car and led Prokop to the foot of some wooden steps, but here their path was barred by a man with his collar turned up. “The password?” he asked. “One Piece,” said Daimon and removed his goggles. The man stepped back and Daimon hurried on. They came into a large, low room, which looked like a schoolroom; two rows of seats, a platform, a desk and a blackboard. The only difference was that the place was full of smoke and noise. The benches were crammed with people who were wearing their hats. They were all quarrelling with one another; some red-haired lout was shouting something from the platform, while at the desk there stood a dry, pedantic old man, desperately ringing a bell.

Daimon went straight up to the platform and mounted it. “Comrades,” he cried, and his voice was as inhuman as that of a seagull. “I have brought some one to you. Comrade Krakatit.” There was a dead silence and Prokop felt himself seized and mercilessly examined by fifty pairs of ​eyes. As if in a dream, he stepped on to the platform and looked round the smoky room not knowing what to do. “Krakatit. Krakatit,” there resounded below and the noise grew into a shout: “Krakatit! Krakatit! Krakatit!” In front of Prokop there was standing a beautiful tousled girl who gave him her hand: “Good luck, comrade!” a brief, hot pressure, eyes with a burning glance which promised everything, and immediately afterwards a dozen other hands: rough, firm and dried up by the heat, moist and cold, spiritualized. Prokop found himself surrounded by a chain of hands which seized his own. “Krakatit! Krakatit!”

The pedantic old man rang his bell like a madman. When this failed to achieve anything he rushed up to Prokop and shook his hand; it was dry and leathery, as if made of parchment, and behind his cobbler’s glasses there shone an enormous joy. The crowd roared with enthusiasm and then grew quiet. “Comrades,” said the old man, “you have greeted Comrade Krakatit with spontaneous delight . . . with spontaneous and living delight, delight which I should also like to express in my capacity of president. We also have to greet President Daimon . . . and to thank him. I invite Comrade Krakatit to take his seat . . . as a guest . . . in the president’s chair. I invite the delegates to declare whether the meeting is to be presided over by me . . . or by President Daimon.”

“Daimon!”

“Mazaud!”

“Daimon!”

“Mazaud! Mazaud!”

​“To the devil with your formalities. Mazaud,” cried Daimon. “You are presiding and that’s enough.”

“The meeting continues,” cried the old man. “Delegate Peters has the floor.”

The red-headed man again began to address the meeting. It appeared that he was making an attack on the English Labour Party, but nobody took any notice of him. All eyes were resting on Prokop. There in the corner were the large, dreamy eyes of a consumptive; the bulging, blue ones of some old, bearded gentleman; the round and glittering glasses of a professor; sharp little eyes peering out of great clots of grey hair; careful, hostile, sunken, childish, saintly and base eyes. Prokop’s glance wandered about the tightly packed benches. Suddenly he looked away sharply as if he had burnt himself; he had encountered the glance of the tousled girl, a glance which could have only one meaning. He looked instead at an extraordinarily bald head beneath which hung a narrow coat; it was impossible to tell whether the creature was twenty or fifty years old, but before he had decided the point the whole head was furrowed by a broad, enthusiastic and respectful smile. One look tormented him the whole time; he looked for it among the others but could not find it.

Delegate Peters stutteringly finished his speech and sank down on to a bench, very red in the face. All eyes were fixed on Prokop in tense and compelling expectation. Mazaud muttered a few formal words and bent down to Daimon. There was a breathless silence, and then Prokop rose to his feet, ​not knowing what he was going to do. “Comrade Krakatit has the floor,” announced Mazaud, rubbing his dry hands.

Prokop looked round him with dazzled eyes: What ought he to do? Speak? Why? Who were these people? He caught sight of the gentle eyes of the consumptive, the severe and scrutinizing gleam of spectacles, blinking eyes, curious and strange eyes, the bright, melting glance of the beautiful girl who in her absorption had opened her hot, sinful lips. In the front bench the bald and furrowed little man hung upon his words with attentive eyes. Prokop gave him a smile.

“Friends,” he began quietly and as if in a dream, “last night . . . I paid a tremendous price. I lived through . . . and lost . . .” He made an effort to pull himself together. “Sometimes one experiences . . . such pain that . . . that it ceases to be one’s own. You open your eyes and see. The universe is overcast and the earth holds her breath in agony. The world must be redeemed. You would be unable to bear your pain if you only suffered alone. You have all gone through hell, you all——”

He looked round the room; everything had become fused into a sort of dully glowing subterranean vegetation. “Where have you got Krakatit?” he asked, suddenly irritated. “What have you done with it?”

The old Mazaud carefully took up the porcelain relic and put it into his hand. It was the very box which he had once left in his laboratory hut near Hybsmonka. He opened the lid and dug with his fingers into the granulated powder, rubbed it, tritu​rated it, smelt it, put a speck of it on his tongue. He recognized its strong, astringent bitterness and tasted it with delight. “That’s good,” he said with relief and pressed the precious object between his palms, as if he were warming on it his numbed hands.

“It is you,” he said under his breath, “I know you; you are an explosive element. Your moment will come and you will liberate everything. That’s good.” He looked about uneasily from under his eyebrows. “What do you want to know? I only understand two things: The stars and chemistry. It’s beautiful . . . the endless stretches of time, the eternal order and steadfastness, the divine architecture of the universe. I tell you . . . there’s nothing more beautiful. But what do I care about the laws of eternity? Your moment will come and you will explode. You will liberate love, pain, thought, I don’t know what. Your greatest triumph will last only for a second. You are not part of the endless order or of the millions of light years. Explode with the most lofty flame. Do you feel yourself shut in? Then burst to pieces the mortar. Make a place for your sole moment. That’s good.”

He himself did not clearly understand what he was saying, but he was carried on by an obscure impulse to express something which immediately evaded him again. “I . . . I’m only a chemist. I know matter and . . . understand it; that’s all. Matter is broken up by air and water, splits, ferments, rots, burns, absorbs acid or disintegrates; but never, you hear, never with all that gives up what it contains. Even if it goes through the whole cycle, even if some fragment of earth becomes in​corporated in a plant and then in living flesh and then becomes a cell in the brain of a Newton, dies with him and again disintegrates, it still does not give up its power. But if you compel it . . . by force . . . to split up and liberate its strength, then it explodes in a thousandth of a second, then at last it exercises the force which it contains. And perhaps it was not even asleep; it was only bound, suffocated, struggling in the darkness and waiting for its moment to come. To release everything! That is its right. I, I must release everything. Have I not only to expose myself to corrosion and wait . . . ferment in an unclean way . . . disintegrate and then . . . all at once . . . release the whole man? Best of all . . . best of all in one supreme moment . . . and through everything. . . . For I believe that it is good to release everything. Whether it’s good or bad. Everything in me is interfused; good and bad and the highest. That is the redemption of man. It doesn’t lie in anything which I have done, it’s become a part of me . . . like a stone in a building. And I must fly to pieces . . . by force . . . like an explosive charge. And I won’t ask what it is that I may be bursting. There’s a need in me . . . to liberate the highest.”

He struggled with words, endeavouring to express the inexpressible, lost it with every word, furrowed his brow and examined the faces of his listeners to see if anyone had any idea of what he was trying and failing, to express. He found a glowing sympathy in the clear eyes of the consumptive, and concentrated effort in the entranced blue ones of the shaggy giant at the back. The shrivelled little man ​drank in his words with the complete devotion of a believer, and the beautiful girl, half lying down, received them with tender shudderings of her body. But the other faces gaped at him unsympathetically, inquiringly, or with increasing indifference. Why exactly was he talking to them?

“I have lived through,” he continued hesitatingly and already somewhat irritated, “I have lived through . . . as much as a man can live through. Why am I telling you this? Because that alone is not enough for me, because . . . so far I am not redeemed; the highest was not in it. That’s . . . buried in a man like energy in matter. You must disturb matter to make it release its force. You must free man, disturb him, split him up for him to flame up to his highest. Ah, that would . . . that would be too much . . . for him not to find that . . . he had reached . . . that. . .”

He began to stammer, became morose, threw down the box containing the Krakatit and sat down.

There was a moment of tense silence.

“And is that all?” said a mocking voice from the middle of the hall.

“That’s all,” said Prokop, disgusted.

“It is not all,” Daimon stood up. “Comrade Krakatit assumed that the delegates would be good enough to understand——”

“Oho!” there resounded from the middle of the hall.

“Yes. Delegate Mezierski must have patience and let me finish. Comrade Krakatit has graphically explained to us that it is necessary,” and Daimon’s voice again was like the screeching of a bird, “that it is necessary to inaugurate a revolution without paying attention to the theory of stages; a levelling and disruptive evolution in the course of which humanity will release the highest which is hidden within. Man must explode to release everything. Society must explode to find the highest good within itself. You here have spent years in disputing the question of the highest good of humanity. Comrade Krakatit has shown us that it is sufficient to cause humanity to explode in order for it to flame up higher than you have wished it to in your debates. And we must not bother about what is destroyed by the explosion. I say that Comrade Krakatit is right.”

​“Yes, yes, yes!” There was a sudden burst of shouting and clapping. “Krakatit! Krakatit!”

“Silence!” shouted Daimon. “And his words,” he continued, “have all the more weight because they are supported by the actual power of bringing about this explosion. Comrade Krakatit is not a man of words, but of deeds. He has come here to convert us to direct action. And I tell you that it will be more terrible than anyone has dared to dream. And the explosion will take place to-day, tomorrow, within a week: His words were drowned in an indescribable confusion. A wave of people poured from the seats and surrounded Prokop. They embraced him, seized his hands and cried: “Krakatit! Krakatit!” The beautiful girl struggled wildly, her hair loose, trying to make a way for herself through the crowd of people. Thrown forward by the pressure from behind, she pressed herself against his breast. He tried to push her away, but she put her arms round him and passionately whispered something in a foreign language. Meanwhile, on the edge of the platform, a man wearing spectacles was slowly and quietly demonstrating to the empty benches that theoretically it was not permissible to deduce sociological conclusions from inorganic matter. “Krakatit. Krakatit,” roared the crowd. No one would sit down although Mazaud was ringing his bell all the time like a dustman. Suddenly a dark young man sprang on to the platform and waved the box of Krakatit above their heads.

“Silence,” he roared, “and down with you! Or I will throw it under your feet!”

​There was a sudden silence; the crowd evacuated the platform and drew back. Above there was left only Mazaud, his bell in his hand, confused and at a loss what to do, Daimon, leaning on the table, and Prokop, on whose neck there was still hanging the dark-haired Mænad.

“Rossi,” cried a number of voices. “Down with him! Down with Rosso!” The young man on the platform looked wildly round the room with his burning eyes. “Let nobody move! Mezierski wants to shoot at me. I shall throw it,” he shouted and flourished the box.

The crowd recoiled, growling like an enraged animal. Two or three people put up their hands, and others followed them. There was a moment of oppressive silence.

“Get down,” shouted old Mazaud. “Who gave you permission to speak?”

“I shall throw it,” threatened Rosso, taut like a bow.

“This is against the regulations,” said Mazaud excitedly. “I protest and . . . leave the chair.” He threw the bell on the ground and stepped down from the platform.

“Bravo, Mazaud,” said an ironical voice. “You’ve helped him.”

“Silence,” cried Rosso, and threw back the hair from his forehead. “I’m speaking. Comrade Krakatit has told us: Your moment will come and you will explode; make room for this unique moment. Good, I’ve taken his words to heart.”

“It wasn’t meant like that!”

“Long live Krakatit!”

​Some one began to whistle.

Daimon caught Prokop by the arm and dragged him to a door somewhere behind the blackboard.

“Hiss away,” continued Rosso mockingly. “None of you hissed when this foreign gentleman stood in front of you and . . . made room for his moment. Why shouldn’t anyone else try?”

“That’s right,” said a satisfied voice.

The beautiful girl stood in front of Prokop to protect him with her body. He tried to push her away.

“That’s not true,” she shouted with burning eyes. “He . . . he is . . .”

“Be quiet,” said Daimon.

“Anyone can preach,” said Rosso feverishly. “As long as I have this in my hand I can preach too. It’s all the same to me whether I go out or not. Nobody may leave this room! Galeasso, watch the door! So, now we can discuss matters.”

“Yes, now we can discuss matters,” echoed Daimon sharply.

Rosso turned round to him like lightning, but at that moment the blue-eyed giant dashed forward with his head lowered like a ram’s; and, before Rosso could turn round, seized his legs and pulled them from under him. Rosso fell from the platform head first. In the middle of a tense silence he rolled over and struck his head against the floor while the lid of the porcelain box rolled under the benches.

Prokop rushed across to the unconscious body; Rosso’s chest, and face, the floor, the pools of blood ​beneath him, were all covered with the white dust of Krakatit. Daimon held him back and at that moment there was a loud cry and several people rushed on to the platform. “Don’t tread on Krakatit, it will explode,” ordered some cracked voice, but the people had already thrown themselves on the ground and were collecting the white powder into match-boxes, struggling, writhing in a heap on the ground.

“Shut the door,” roared somebody. The lights went out. At that moment Daimon kicked open the little door behind the blackboard and dragged Prokop out into the darkness.

He turned on a pocket electric lamp. They were in a windowless hovel, with tables piled on top of one another, trays for beer, a lot of musty clothing. He quickly dragged Prokop on further: the unsavoury black hole of a staircase, black and narrow steps leading downwards. Half-way down them they were overtaken by the tousled girl. “I am going with you,” she whispered, and dug her fingers into Prokop’s arm. Daimon led them out into a yard, turning the light of the pocket lamp about him; around there was black darkness. He opened a gate and they found themselves on the road. Before Prokop could reach the car, struggling to throw off the girl, the motor had begun to throb and Daimon was at the wheel. “Quickly!” Prokop threw himself into the car, the girl behind him. There was a jerk and the car flew into the darkness. It was icily cold and the girl shivered in her thin clothes. Prokop wrapped her up in a fur rug and himself settled in the other corner. The car was racing along ​a bad, soft road, tossing from one side to another, pulling up and then noisily accelerating again. Prokop was angry and moved away whenever the motion of the vehicle threw him against the girl. But she nestled against him. “You’re cold, aren’t you?” she whispered, opened the rug and wrapped him in it, pressing herself against him. “Get warm,” she breathed with a lewd smile and pressed herself against him with her whole body. She was hot and yielding, as if she were naked. Her loose hair exuded a wild and bitter scent, tickled his face and fell across his eyes. She spoke to him in some foreign language, repeating something again and again more and more softly. Then she took the lobe of his ear between her delicately chattering teeth, and suddenly she was lying on his chest and placing her lips on his in a moist, unclean, sophisticated kiss. He pushed her away roughly. She drew back deeply offended, sat farther away from him, and with a movement of her shoulder jerked off the fur rug. There was an icy wind blowing; he took up the rug and again passed it round her. She threw herself about wildly, tore off the rug and let it fall on the floor of the car. “As you like,” growled Prokop, and turned away.

The car turned into a firm stretch of road and immediately accelerated. Of Daimon nothing was to be seen but the back of his shaggy coat. Prokop sobbed with the coldness of the wind and looked round at the girl. She had twined her hair round her neck and was shivering with cold in her thin clothes. He was sorry for her, and again took the ​rug and threw it over her. She pushed it away in fury and then he wrapped her up in it from her head to her heels, as if she were a package, and clasped her in his arms: “Don’t move!”

“What are you up to?” threw out Daimon casually from the wheel. “Well. . .”

Prokop pretended that he had not heard this piece of cynicism, but the package in his arms began to giggle quietly.

“She’s a good girl,” continued Daimon calmly. “Her father was an author.” The package nodded and Daimon told Prokop a name so famous, so sacred and pure that he was positively aghast and involuntarily relaxed his grasp. The package twisted round and bounced on his lap; from beneath the rug there projected a pair of beautiful, wicked legs, which childishly kicked about in the air. He drew the rug over her so that she should not be cold, but she seemed to regard this as a game, was convulsed with laughter, and went on kicking her legs about. He held her as firmly as he could, but her hands slid out from the rug and played over his face, pulled his hair, tickled his neck and found their way in between his lips. At length he let her go on; she felt about his forehead, found it severely furrowed, and drew back as if she had been burned. Now it was a venturesome child’s hand which did not know what it was allowed to do. It gently and surreptitiously approached his face, touched it, drew away, touched it again, smoothed it and at last timidly rested on his rough cheek. From the rug there, came the sound of deep breathing.

​The car slid through a sleeping town and shot into the open country. “Well,” said Daimon, turning round, “what do you think of our comrades?”

“Quietly,” whispered the motionless Prokop, “she’s asleep.”

The car drew up in a dark, wooded valley. Prokop made out in the half light some large towers and slag heaps. “Well, here we are,” muttered Daimon. “This is my mine and forge; that’s nothing. Out you get!”

“Am I to leave her here?” asked Prokop softly.

“Who? Ha, ha! your beauty. Wake her up, we’re stopping here.”

Prokop carefully stepped out of the car, carrying her in his arms. '“Where am I to put her?”

Daimon unlocked the door of a desolate-looking house. “What? Wait. I’ve got a few rooms here. You can put her . . . I’ll show you.”

He turned on the light and led him along a number of cold passages through some offices. Finally he turned into a room and switched on the light. Prokop found himself in a repulsive, unventilated room containing an unmade bed. The blinds were drawn down. “Aha!” said Daimon, “evidently some friend of mine has spent the night here. It’s not very beautiful, eh? Well, put her down on the bed.”

Prokop carefully deposited the heavily breathing package. Daimon was walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands. “Now we’ll go to our station. It’s on the top of the hill, about ten minutes away. Or would you rather stay here?” He ​stepped over to the sleeping girl and lifted the rug so that she was uncovered as far as the knees. “She’s beautiful, eh? It’s a pity I’m so old.”

Prokop frowned and covered her up again. “Show me your station,” he said shortly. A smile trembled on Daimon’s lips. “We’ll go.”

He led him through the yard. There were lights in the factory, and there was to be heard the throbbing of machinery. About the yard there sauntered the fireman, his sleeves rolled up and a pipe in his mouth. To the side was a belt with a row of trucks for the mine, the girders of its supports standing out like the ribs of a lizard. “We’ve had to close three pits,” explained Daimon. “They didn’t pay. I should have sold them a long time ago if it hadn’t been for the station. This way.” He began to ascend a steep footpath leading up through the wood to the top of the hill. Prokop could only follow him by sound; it was a black night, and from time to time heavy drops fell from the branches of the pines. Daimon stopped, breathing with difficulty. “I’m old,” he said, “I can’t get my breath as I used to. I’ve got to depend on people more and more. . . . There’s no one at the station to-day; the telegraphist has remained below with the others . . . but that doesn’t matter. Come on!”

The top of the hill was cut about as if it had been the scene of a battle; abandoned towers, a wire cable, enormous deserted slag heaps and on the top of the largest of them a wooden shed with an aerial above it. “That’s . . . the station,” panted Daimon. “It stands on forty thousand tons of magnesia. A natural condenser, you see? The whole hill ​. . . is an enormous network of wires. Some time or other I’ll explain it to you in detail. Help me up.” He scrambled over the loose surface of the slag heap, the heavy gravel tumbling noisily under his feet, but here at last, anyway, was the station.

Prokop drew back, unable to believe his eyes; it was his own laboratory shed at home in the fields near Hybsmonka! The same unpainted door, a pair of planks, lighter in colour, where repairs had been made, knots in the wood which looked like eyes. As if in a dream he felt the wall: yes, the same bent, rusty nail which he himself had once driven in! “Where did you get this from?” he cried excitedly.

“What?”

“This shed.”

“It’s been here for years,” said Daimon indifferently. “Why are you so interested in it?”

“Nothing.” Prokop ran round the shed feeling the walls and windows. Yes, there was the crack, the fault in the wood, the broken pane in the window, the place where the knot had fallen out and the piece of paper stuck over the inside of the hole. With trembling hands he examined all these wretched details; everything was as it had been, everything. . . .

“Well,” said Daimon, “have you finished your inspection? Open the door, you’ve got the key.”

Prokop felt for the key in his pocket. Of course, he had with him the key of his old laboratory . . . there at home. He thrust it into the padlock, opened it, and went inside. There, as if at home, he mechanically reached out to the left and turned ​on the light; instead of a button there was a nail—again as at home. Daimon followed him in. God, there was his sofa, his wash-stand, the jug with the broken rim, the sponge, the towel, everything. He turned round and looked into the corner; there he saw the old green stove with its pipe mended with wire, the box with coal dust at the bottom, and the broken arm-chair with failing legs, with the wire and tow still sticking out of it. There was the same tack projecting from the floor, the burnt plank and the clothes cupboard. He opened it, and there fell out an old pair of trousers.

“It’s not very magnificent,” said Daimon. “Our telegraphist is a—well, queer sort of fellow. What do you think of the apparatus?”

Prokop turned to the table asif ina dream. No, that wasn’t there, no, no, no, that didn’t belong there. Instead of the chemical apparatus there stood at one end of the bench a powerful wireless apparatus, with condensers, a variometer, and a regulator. A pair of ear phones lay on the table. Under the table was the usual transforming apparatus and at the other end . . .

“That’s the normal station,” explained Daimon, “for ordinary conversation. The other is our extinguishing station. With it we send out those antiwaves, contra-currents, magnetic storms, or whatever you like to call them. That’s our secret. Can you understand it?”

“No.” Prokop quickly looked over a piece of apparatus which was completely different from anything he had ever seen. There was a quantity of resistances, a sort of wire screen, something resem​bling cathode pipe, several isolated drums or something of the sort, an extraordinary coherer and a taster with contacts; he could not make out what it all meant. He left the apparatus and looked up at the ceiling to see if there was on it that extraordinary marking on the wood which always at home recalled to him the head of an old man. Yes, it was there. And there also was the little mirror with the corner broken off. . . .

“What do you think of the apparatus?” asked Daimon.

“It’s . . . your first model, eh? It’s still too complicated.” His eyes fell on a photograph which was supported on an induction spool. He took it up and examined it; it represented the head of an extraordinarily beautiful girl, “Who’s this?” he asked hoarsely.

Daimon looked at it over his shoulder. ‘Surely you recognize her? That’s your beauty whom you carried here in your arms. A lovely girl, eh?”

“How did she get here?”

Daimon grinned. “Well, probably our telegraphist worships her. Wouldn’t you like to turn on that large switch? That one with a lever. He’s that shrunken little man. Didn’t you notice him? He was sitting in the front row.”

Prokop threw the photograph down on the table and turned on the switch. A blue spark ran across the metal screen. Daimon’s fingers played on the taster and short blue sparks began to flash all over the apparatus. “So,” said Daimon in a satisfied tone, watching the display motionlessly.

Prokop grasped the photograph with burning ​hands. Yes, of course, it was the girl down there below, there could be no doubt about that, but if . . . if, for instance, she had a veil, and was wearing a fur covered with drops of moisture . . . and little gloves—Prokop ground his teeth. It was impossible that she should resemble her so! He half closed his eyes in the effort to catch a retreating vision. Again he saw the girl with the veil, pressing to her breast the sealed package and now, now she turned on him a pure and desperate glance.

Beside himself with excitement, he compared the photograph with the form in his mind’s eye. Good heavens, what exactly did she look like? He didn’t know, he thought, with sudden fear. He only knew that she was veiled and beautiful. She was beautiful and veiled, and he had noticed nothing more, nothing more. And this picture here with the large eyes and delicate and serious mouth, was that the one . . . the one asleep down there? But she had her lips half open, sinful and half-opened lips and loosened hair and didn’t look like that, didn’t look like that. Before his eyes was the veil covered with rain drops. No, that was nonsense; it could not be the girl down there, it was nothing like her. This was the face of the girl with the veil who came in anguish and consternation; her brow was calm and her eyes darkened with pain. Against her lips there was pressing her veil, a thick veil with drops of moisture on it. Why didn’t he raise it, so as to see what she was like?

“Come along. I have something I want to show you,” said Daimon, and dragged Prokop outside. ​They stood on the top of the slag heap. Beneath their feet the sleeping earth stretched out of sight. “Look over there,” said Daimon, pointing to the horizon, “do you see anything?”

“Nothing. “No, there’s a tiny light. It’s shining faintly.”

“Do you know what it is?”

Then there was a faint sound, like the moaning of the wind on a still night.

“That’s that,” said Daimon triumphantly, and took off his hat. “Good-night, comrades.”

Prokop turned to him inquiringly.

“Don’t you understand?” said Daimon. “The noise of the explosion has only just reached us. Fifty kilometres as the crow flies. Exactly two and a half minutes.”

“What explosion?”

“Krakatit. Those idiots collected it in matchboxes. I don’t think we shall be bothered with them any more. We’ll call a new conference . . . elect a new committee——”

“Did—you——?”

Daimon nodded. “It was impossible to work with them. Up to the very last moment they quarrelled about tactics. There’s certainly a fire there.”

A faint red light was to be seen on the horizon.

“The inventor of our apparatus was there as well. They were all there. Now you can take it into your own hands. Listen how quiet it is. And yet from these wires a silent and exact cannonade is going out into space. Now we have interrupted all wireless communications and the telegraphists are hearing in their ears, crack, crack! Let them rage. Mean​while Mr. Thomas, somewhere in Grottup, is trying to complete the preparation of Krakatit. He’ll never do it. And if he did! At the moment at which he had completed his synthesis it would be the end. Work away, station, send out your sparks secretly and bombard the whole of the universe. Nobody, nobody beside yourself will be the ruler of Krakatit. Now there is only you, you alone.” He put his hand on Prokop’s shoulder and silently indicated in a circle the whole world. Round them was a deserted and starless darkness; only on the horizon was there to be seen the dull glow of a conflagration.

“Ah. I’m tired,” yawned Daimon. “It was a good day. We’ll go down.”

Daimon hurried along. “Where exactly is Grottup?” asked Prokop on a sudden impulse, when they had descended.

“Come,” said Daimon, “I’ll show you.” He led him into the factory office to a map hanging on the wall. “Here,” and he indicated on the map with his enormous nail a little circle. “Wouldn’t you like to drink something? This sort of thing warms you up.” He poured out a glassful of some jet-black liquid for Prokop and himself. “Your health.” Prokop tossed down his portion and gulped; it was red-hot and as bitter as quinine; his head began to spin dizzily. “Any more?” said Daimon through his yellow teeth. “No? A pity. You don’t want to keep your little beauty waiting, eh?” He drank glass after glass. His eyes flashed with a green light, he wanted to babble but could not master his tongue. “Listen, you’re a good chap,” he said. “Get to work to-morrow. Old Daimon will give you everything you ask for.” He rose unsteadily and made him a low bow. “Now everything’s in order. And now—wa-wait——” He began to talk all possible languages at once. As far as Prokop was able to understand, it was unutterable filth. Finally he hummed some senseless song, threw himself about as if in a fit and lost consciousness. Yellow foam appeared on his lips.

​“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” cried Prokop, shaking him.

Daimon opened his glassy eyes with difficulty.

“What . . . what’s up?” he muttered, raised himself up a little and shook himself. “Aha! I’m . . . I’m . . . That’s nothing.” He rubbed his forehead and yawned convulsively. “Yes. I’ll show you to your room, eh?” He was horribly pale and his Tartar face had suddenly grown flabby. He walked uncertainly as if his limbs were numbed. “Come then.”

He went straight to the room in which they had left the girl sleeping. “Ah,” he cried from the doorway, “the beauty has woke up. Come in, please.”

She was kneeling by the hearth. Evidently she had just lit the fire and was looking into a crackling flame. “Look how she’s arranged it,” said Daimon appreciatively. Certainly the stuffy and depressing aspect of the room had disappeared in the most extraordinary way; it was now pleasant and unpretentious like a room in one’s own home.

“How clever you are,” said Daimon admiringly. “Girl, you ought to settle down.” She stood up and, became red and confused. “Don’t be frightened now,” said Daimon. “Here’s the comrade you like.”

“Yes. I like him,” she said simply, and went over and closed the window and pulled down the blinds.

The stove threw a pleasant heat into the bright room. “Child, you’ve made everything very nice,” said Daimon, gratified, warming his hands. “I should like to stay here.”

​“Please go away,” she cried quickly.

“At once, my dear,” said Daimon, grinning. “I . . . I feel lonely without people. Look, your friend seems to be struck dumb. Wait. I’ll talk to him.”

She suddenly became angry. “Don’t say anything to him! Let him behave as he wants to!” He raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. “What? what? You don’t mean to say that you lo——”

“What’s that to do with you?” she interrupted him, her eyes flashing. “Who wants you here?”

He laughed quietly, leaning against the stove. “If you knew how that suits you! Girl, girl, has it really at last happened seriously to you? Show me!” He tried to take hold of her chin. She drew back, pale with rage, showing her teeth.

“What? You even want to bite? Who were you with yesterday, that you are so—— Aha! I know. Rosso, eh?”

“That’s not true,” she cried with tears in her voice.

“Leave her alone,” said Prokop sternly.

“Well, well, it doesn’t matter,” muttered Daimon. “Anyway. I mustn’t interfere with you, eh? Good-night, children.” He stepped back, pressed himself to the wall and before Prokop realized the fact, had disappeared.

Prokop drew a chair up to the crackling stove and stared into the flames without even looking round at the girl. He heard her walking about the room hesitatingly on the tips of her toes, putting something straight. He did not know what she was doing. She was now standing still silently. There ​is an extraordinary power in flames and flowing water; you stare at them, become bewildered, cease to think, know nothing, and are unable to recollect anything, but before you there is represented everything that has ever happened without form and outside time.

There was the sound of one slipper being thrown down after the other; evidently she was taking her shoes off. Go to sleep, girl, when you are asleep we shall see who it is whom you resemble. Very quietly she crossed the room and then stopped. Again she arranged something. God alone knew why she wanted to have everything so clean and tidy. And suddenly she knelt down in front of him, stretching out her comely arms to his feet. “Shall I take off your boots for you?” she said gently.

He took her head between his palms and turned it towards him. She was beautiful, submissive and extraordinarily serious. “Did you ever know Thomas?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

She reflected and then shook her head.

“Don’t lie! You . . . you . . . Have youa married sister?”

“I haven’t!” She tore herself sharply out of his grasp. “Why should I lie? I’ll tell you everything deliberately so that you shall know—I’m a fallen girl.” She hid her face against his knees. “They all . . . so that you shall know——”

“Even Daimon?”

She did not answer but only shivered. “You . . . you may kick me . . . I’m . . . don’t touch me . . . I’m . . . if you knew . . .” She was unable to go on.

​“Leave that,” he cried in pain and raised her head by force. Her eyes were wide open with desperation and anxiety. He let go her head again and moaned. The resemblance was so striking that he gulped with horror. “Be quiet, at least be quiet,” he said in a strangled voice.

She again pressed her face against him. “Let me . . . I must tell you everything . . . I began when I was thir . . . thirteen . . .” He covered her mouth with his hands; she bit it and continued her terrible confession through his fingers. “Be quiet,” he cried, but the words tore themselves out of her, her teeth chattered, she trembled and went on. Somehow he managed to silence her. “Oh,” she moaned, “if you knew . . . the things that people do! And every one, every one is so rough with me . . . as if I was . . . not even an animal, not even a stone!”

“Stop,” he said, beside himself, and, not knowing what to do, smoothed her head with the trembling stumps of his fingers. Appeased, she sighed and became motionless; he could feel her hot breath and the beat of the artery in her neck.

She began to giggle quietly. “You thought that I was sleeping, there, in the car. I wasn’t asleep. I did it on purpose . . . and expected you to behave . . . like the others. Because you knew the sort of thing I was . . . and . . . you only became angry and held me as if I were a little girl . . . as if I were something sacred . . .” Although she was laughing, tears suddenly came into her eyes. “Suddenly—I don’t know why—I was more happy than I had ever been—and proud—and frightfully ashamed, ​but . . . it was so beautiful——“ With trembling lips she kissed his knees. “You . . . you didn’t even wake me up . . . and laid me down . . . as if I were something precious . . . and covered my legs, and said nothing——” She burst into tears. “I’ll, I’ll wait on you, let me . . . I’ll take your boots off. . . . Please, please don’t be angry that I pretended that I was asleep! Please——”

He wanted to raise her head; she kissed his hands. “For God’s sake, don’t cry!” he gulped out.

She drew herself up, surprised, and stopped crying. “Why are you reproaching me?” He tried to raise her face; she defended herself with all her strength and entwined herself round his legs. “No, no, no,” she gasped, laughing, and at the same time frightened. “I’m plain—I’ve been crying. You, you wouldn’t like me,” she breathed gently hiding her face. “It was so long . . . before you came! I’ll wait on you and write your letters. . . . I’m learning to use a typewriter and I know five languages. You won’t drive me away, will you? When you took such a long time to come I thought what I would do . . . and he spoilt everything and spoke as if . . . as if I were . . . But that isn’t true . . . I’ve already told you everything. I’ll . . . I’ll do what you tell me. . . . I want to be decent——”

“Stand up. I beg you!”

She squatted down on her heels, folded her hands in her lap and looked at him as if entranced. Now . . . She was no longer like the one with the veil; he recalled the sobbing Annie. “Don’t cry any more;” he said gently and uncertainly.

​“You are beautiful,” she whispered admiringly. He grew red and muttered something or other. “Go . . . to bed,” he gulped and stroked her burning cheek.

“Do you hate me?” she whispered, blushing.

“No, nothing of the sort.” She did not move, and gazed at him with anxious eyes. He bent down and kissed her. She kissed him back clumsily, in confusion, as if she were kissing a man for the first time. “Go to bed,” he muttered, worried, “I’ve still . . . something which I must think out.”

She got up obediently and quietly began to undress. He sat down in a corner so as not to disturb her. She took off her clothes without any shame, but also without the least frivolity. Simply, without hurrying, she laid aside her underclothes, slowly took the stockings off her strong and well-shaped legs. She became reflective, looked down on the ground, like a child began to observe her long toes, and glanced at Prokop. She laughed and whispered: “I’m being quiet.” Prokop in his corner was hardly breathing: it was again she, the girl with a veil; this powerful, beautiful and developed body belonged to her; she would lay aside her clothing piece by piece in the same lovely and serious way, her hair would fall like that over her composed shoulders, she would reflectively stroke her full arms in the same manner. . . . He closed his eyes, his heart beating violently. Have you never seen her, closing your eyes in the most complete solitude, seen her standing in the quiet light of the lamp amongst her family, turning her face towards you and saying something which you couldn’t somehow catch? ​Have you never, rubbing your hands between your knees, seen beneath your eyelids the constrained movement of her hand, a simple and noble movement in which was the whole of the peaceful and silent joy of home? Once she appeared to you, seen from behind, her head bent over something, and on another occasion you saw her reading by the light of the evening lamp. Perhaps this now was only a continuation and would disappear if you were to open your eyes, and you would be left with nothing but solitude.

He opened his eyes. The girl was lying in bed, covered up to her chin, her eyes turned towards him in passionate and submissive love. He came over to her, and bent over her face, studying her features with sharp and impatient attention. She looked at him interrogatively and made room for him at her side. “No, no, no,” he muttered and stroked her lightly on the forehead. “Go to sleep.” She obediently closed her eyes and hardly seemed to breathe.

He returned to his corner on tiptoe. No, she’s not like her, he assured himself. He had an idea that she was watching him through her half-closed eyes. This tortured him; he could not even think. He became irritated, and turned his head away. Finally he sprang up and crossed the room softly to look at her. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing very quietly; she was beautiful and unresisting. “Sleep,” he whispered. She made a tiny movement of assent with her head. He turned out the light, and rubbing his hands returned on tiptoe to his corner near the window.

​After a long, painful interval he crept to the door like a thief. Would she wake? He hesitated with his hand on the catch, opened it with a beating heart, and stole out into the yard.

It was not yet day. Prokop looked about amongst the slag heaps, and then climbed over the fence. He dropped on to the ground, brushed the dirt off his clothes and made for the main road.

It was all that he could do to see his way. He looked about him, trembling with cold. Where, where exactly should be go? To Balttin?

He went on for a few steps and then stopped, looking down at the ground. Now to Balttin? Assailed by a fit of rough, tearless crying he turned back.

To Grottup!

The paths of the world twist in a curious way. If you were to follow out all your steps and all the journeys you have made, what an intricate design they would make! For by his steps every one traces out his map of the world.

By the time that Prokop found himself standing in front of the grille before the factories at Grottup, it was already evening. The factory consisted of a great stretch of sheds, illuminated by the dull globes of arc lamps; the lights were still showing from one or two windows. Prokop thrust his head through the bars of the grille and cried: “Hallo!”

The doorkeeper, or perhaps the guard, came up. “What do you want? It’s forbidden to enter.”

“Excuse me, is Mr. Engineer Thomas still with you?”

“What do you want with him?”

“I must speak to him.”

“. . . Mr. Thomas is still in the laboratory. You can’t see him.”

“Tell him . . . tell him that his friend Prokop is waiting for him . . . that he has something which he wishes to give him.”

“Get farther away from the grille,” muttered the man, and called some one.

A quarter of an hour later some one in a long white coat came up to the grille.

​“Is that you. Thomas?” cried Prokop in a low voice.

“No. I’m the laboratory assistant. Mr. Thomas can’t come. He has important work. What do you want?”

“I must speak with him urgently.”

The laboratory assistant, a stout and active little man, shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m afraid it’s no good. Mr. Thomas isn’t free to-day even for a second.”

“Are you making Krakatit?”

The assistant snorted evasively. “What’s that to do with you?”

“I must . . . warn him of something. I’ve something to give him.”

“You can give it to me. I’ll take it to him.”

“No. I’ll . . . I’ll only give it to him. Tell him——”

“All the same, you could leave it with me.” The man in the white coat turned on his heel and went off.

“Wait,” cried Prokop. “Give him this. Explain to him . . . explain to him. . . .” He drew out of his pocket the crumpled package and passed it through the grille. The assistant took it suspiciously with the tips of his fingers and Prokop felt as if he had torn himself away from something. “Tell him that . . . that I’m waiting here and that I should like him to . . . to come here!”

”I’ll give it him,” said the assistant and went away.

Prokop squatted down on his heels. On the other side of the partition a silent shadow continued to ​watch him. It was a frosty night, the bare branches of the trees stretched into the fog, there was a slimy and chilly feeling in the air. A quarter of an hour later some one came up to the grille—a pale youth, evidently suffering from lack of sleep, with a face the colour of curds.

“Mr. Thomas says that he thanks you very much and that he can’t come and that you mustn’t wait,” he announced mechanically.

“Wait,” said Prokop impatiently through his teeth. “Tell him that I must see him, that . . . that it’s a question of his life. And that I will give him anything that he wants if . . . if he will only let me know the name and address of the lady from whom I brought him the parcel. You understand?”

“Mr. Thomas only told me to say that he thanks you very much,” repeated the lad in a sleepy voice, “and that you are not to wait.

“But—the devil,” groaned Prokop through his teeth, “I’ll explain when he comes and shan’t move until then. And tell him that he must leave his work or that . . . he’ll go up in the air, see?”

“Please,” said the youth dully.

“Ask him to come here! And to give me that address, only that address, and say that then I’ll give him everything, have you understood?”

“Please.”

“Well, go then, quickly, for heayen’s——”

He waited in feverish impatience. Was that the step of a human being within? He had a sudden vision of Daimon, twisting his violet mouth and staring at the blue sparks of his apparatus. And this idiot Thomas didn’t come! He was preparing ​something over there where one could see the lighted window and had no idea that he was being bombarded, that with his quick hands he was digging a grave for himself. Was that a step? No one came.

Prokop was rent by a hoarse cough. I’ll give you everything, madman, if you will only come and tell me her name! I want nothing, nothing except to find her. I’ll give you everything if you will only tell me this one thing! His eyes stared into the distance and now she was standing in front of him, veiled, with dry leaves at her feet, pale and extraordinarily serious in this darkness. She twisted her hands on her breast and had already given him the parcel. She looked at him with deep, attentive eyes; her veil and fur were covered with drops of moisture. “You were unforgettably kind to me,” she said softly in a muffled voice. She raised her hands to him and again he was convulsed by a fierce cough. Oh, was nobody coming? He threw himself at the grille, trying to force his way through.

“Stay where you are, or I shoot,” cried the shadow from the other side. “What do you want here?”

Prokop drew back. “Please,” he said desperately in a hoarse voice, “tell Mr. Thomas . . . tell him . . .”

“Tell him yourself,” the voice interrupted him illogically, “but keep away.”

Prokop again squatted down on his heels. Perhaps Thomas would come when his experiment again missed fire. Certainly, he would not be able to discover how Krakatit was prepared; then he would come and call Prokop. . . . He sat hunched up ​like a beggar. “Look here,” he said at length. “I’ll give you . . . ten thousand if you’ll let me through.”

“I’ll have you arrested,” answered the voice sharply and inexorably.

“I . . . I . . .” stammered Prokop. “I only want to know that address. See? I only want to know that . . . I’ll give you anything if you will only get it for me! You . . . you’re married, and have children, but I . . . I’m alone . . . and I only want to find . . .”

“Keep quiet,” scolded the voice. “You’re drunk.”

Prokop became silent and rocked himself on his heels. “I must wait,” he reflected dully. “Why does nobody come? I’ll give him everything. Krakatit and everything else if he’ll only . . . ‘You were unforgettably kind to me.’ No. God preserve me. I’m a bad man, but you, you awakened in me the passion of tenderness. I would do anything in the world to earn a look from you; you know why I’m here. The most beautiful thing about you is that you have the power of making me serve you. That’s why, you see. I can’t help loving you!”

“What’s up with you?” came the voice from the other side of the grille. “Are you going to be quiet or not?”

Prokop stood up: “Please, please tell him——”

“I’ll set the dog on you!”

A white figure, accompanied by the glowing end of a cigarette, sauntered up to the partition. “Is that you, Thomas?” cried Prokop.

“No. Are you still here?” It was the laboratory assistant. “Man, are you mad?”

​“Is Mr. Thomas coming, please?”

“He wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” said the assistant contemptuously. “He doesn’t need you. In a quarter of an hour we shall have it ready, and then, gloria victoria! Then I shall have a drink.”

“Please tell him that . . . that I want that address!”

“That’s already been dealt with by the boy,” said the assistant. “Mr. Thomas tells you to go to hell. Do you think that he’ll leave his work just now when the great moment is being reached? We’re on the point of making it and then—there we are.”

Prokop screamed out in horror: “Run and tell him—quickly—that he mustn’t turn on the high frequency current! He must stop it! Or—something will happen—run as fast as you can! He doesn’t know . . . he doesn’t know that Daimon—for God’s sake stop him!”

“Pooh!” the assistant broke into a short laugh. “Mr. Thomas knows what he’s doing and you——” Here the butt of the cigarette flew through the partition. “Good-night!”

Prokop sprang to the grille.

“Hands up,” came a cry from the other side, and the guard’s whistle sounded piercingly. Prokop took to flight.

He ran along the main road, jumped over the ditch at the side, and ran over the soft ground, stumbling over a ploughed field. He fell over, picked himself up, and dashed on. He stopped with a beating heart. All around him was darkness and deserted fields. Now they wouldn’t be able to catch him. He listened; all was quiet. He could ​hear nothing but the sound of his own breath. But what—what if Grottup should be blown into the air? He clutched his head and ran on further, descending into a deep valley, scrambling up on the other side, and then limping over more ploughed fields. He felt the acute pain of his old wound and a burning sensation in his chest. He could go no further, sat down on a stone and looked at Grottup, mistily glowing with its arc lamps. It seemed like a bright island in the midst of boundless darkness. It was oppressively dark, and yet within a radius of thousands and thousands of miles a terrible and unremitting attack was being launched. Daimon on his Magnetic Hill was precisely and silently bombarding the whole world. In all directions waves were being sent out which would ignite the first grain of Krakatit which they encountered anywhere in the world. And there, in the dead of night, bathed in this pale light, an obdurate, wrongheaded man was working, bending over a secret process of transformation. “Thomas, look out!” cried Prokop, but his voice was lost in the darkness like a stone thrown into a pond by some childish hand.

He sprang up, trembling with fear and cold, and dashed on further, as far as he could from Grottup. He found himself in the middle of some swampy place and stopped. Had he heard the noise of an explosion? No, all was quiet, and with a new access of terror he clambered up a slope, slipped on to his knees, sprang up again and dashed on, rushing into some bushes, tearing his hands, slipping about, and then descending again. He drew himself up, ​brushed away the sweat with his bleeding hands, and ran on.

In the middle of a field he came across something white—a cross which had been overturned. Breathing heavily, he sat down on its vacant support. He was now a long way from the ruddy glow over Grottup, which was already on the horizon; it now seemed to be on the surface of the ground. Prokop breathed a deep sigh of relief; there was no sound; perhaps Thomas’s experiment had failed and the terrible thing would not happen. He listened cautiously; no, nothing was to be heard but the cold dripping of water in some gutter underground and the beating of his heart.

Then an enormous black mass was thrown into the air over Grottup and all the lights went out. The next moment, as if the darkness had been torn asunder, a pillar of fire leapt into the air, spread terribly and liberated a tremendous body of smoke. Directly afterwards came an impact through the air, something cracked, the trees began to rustle, and—crash! A terrible blow, as with a whip, an uproar, a shattering blow. The earth trembled and torn-off leaves whirled through the air. Snatching for air, and holding on with both hands to the support of the cross, so as not to be swept away. Prokop stared wildly at the roaring furnace.

And the heavens shall be cleaved by a fiery power and the voice of God shall be heard in the thunder.

Two more masses went up, one after the other, and were broken up by a band of fire. Then came the sound of a still more terrible explosion—evidently the ammunition stores. A roaring mass flew ​into the air, exploded, and came down in the form of a ray of sparks. The roar changed into a pounding bombardment; in the stores there were exploding rockets which flew up like sparks from an anvil. A purple fire glowed on the horizon, and there was a continuous succession of reports like the noise of a machine gun. A fourth and fifth explosion followed with the noise of a howitzer. The fire spread on both sides and soon half the horizon was a flame.

Only then could he distinguish the sound of the crackling of the timber in Grottup, but this was still nearly obscured by the explosion of the arsenal. A sixth explosion resounded firm and clear—evidently kresylite. As a sort of accompaniment, came the deeper note of the explosion of casks filled with dynamite. A huge flaming projectile flew half-way across the sky, leaving an enormous trail of flame behind it. Another flame sprang up, went out, and reappeared a short distance away, but the noise of the explosions only arrived a few seconds later. For a moment it was so quiet that one could hear the crackling of the fire, like that of broken brushwood. Then there was a further rending explosion and above the Grottup factories there sprang up a flame which spread to the town of Grottup.

Aghast with fear. Prokop picked himself up and staggered on further.

He ran along the main road, breathing heavily, passed over the top of the hill, and descended into a valley. The ruddy flow disappeared behind him. There disappeared also the objects lit up by the dull glow and the shadows thrown by it. It was as if everything was drifting confusedly away, motionless, as if it were being carried on the breast of an immense river, a river untroubled by any wave and unvisited by any bird. He grew afraid of the beat of his own feet in the midst of this silent and immense flux of everything; he relaxed his pace, trod more softly, and went on through the milky darkness.

In front of him on the road he saw the twinkling of a light. He wanted to avoid it, stopped and hesitated. A lamp on a table, the remains of fire in a stove, a lantern looking for a path, while some worn-out moth beat its wings against the flickering light. He approached it without hurrying, as if not sure of himself. He stopped, warmed himself from a distance at the unsteady fire, came nearer with a fear that he would again be driven away. A short distance away he stopped again; it was a cart with a covering of cloth. On one of the shafts was hanging a lighted lantern which threw trembling handfuls of light on to a white horse, white stones, ​and the white stumps of birch trees at the side of the road. On its head the horse had a rough sack and was crunching some oats. It had a long, silver mane and a tail which had never been clipped. At its head there stood a little old man with a white beard and silver hair. He also in colouring was coarse and pale, like the covering over the cart. He stamped about, reflecting, saying something to himself and twisting the white mane of the horse in his fingers.

Then he turned round, looking blindly into the darkness, and asked in a trembling voice: “Is that you. Prokop? Come along. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Prokop was not surprised, but only inordinately relieved. “I’m coming,” he said, “but I’ve been running!”

The old man stepped up to him and took hold of him by the coat. “You’re quite wet,” he said reproachfully. “You mustn’t catch cold.”

“Old man,” said Prokop hoarsely, “do you know that Grottup has exploded?”

The old man shook his head regretfully. “And what a lot of people must have been killed! You ran away, eh? Sit down on the coach-box. I’ll give you a lift.” He stumped over to the horse and slowly removed the sack of oats. “Hi, hi, that’s enough,” he mumbled. “We must get along, we’ve a guest.”

“What have you got in the cart?” asked Prokop.

The old man turned round to him and smiled. “The world,” he said. “Haven’t you ever seen the world?”

​“No. I haven’t.”

“Then I’ll show you—wait.” He put the nosebag away and, without hurrying, began to undo the covering on the other side. Then he threw it back, revealing a box into which had been inserted a spyhole covered with a glass. “Wait a moment,” he said, looking for something on the ground. He picked up a small branch, squatted on his heels over the light, and lit the wick, all this slowly and seriously. “Now, burn nicely, burn,” he said to it, sheltering it with his hands. Then he placed it inside the box, lighting it up. “I use oil,” he explained. “Some of them have carbide . . . but that carbide hurts the eyes. And then one day it explodes and there you are; besides, you might hurt somebody. And oil, that’s like in a church.” He bent down to the little window, and peered through it with his pale eyes. “You can see nicely,” he whispered, delighted. “Have a look. But you must bend down, so as to be . . . little . . . like a child. That’s right.”

Prokop stooped down to the spy-hole. “The Grecian Temple in Girgent,” began the old man, “on the island of Sicily, dedicated to God or to Juno. Look at those pillars. They are made so carefully that a whole family can eat on each stone. Think what work that means! Shall I go on turning?—The view from the Mountain of Penegal in the Alps at sunset. Then the snow is lit up with a strange and beautiful light, as it’s shown there. That’s an Alpine light and that other mountain is called Latemar. Further?—The sacred city of Benares; the river is sacred and cleanses the sinful. ​Thousands of people have found there what they sought.”

The pictures were carefully drawn and coloured by hand. The colours had faded a little and the paper had a tinge of yellow, but the charming, variegated effect of the blues, greens, yellows and reds of the people’s clothing and the pure azure of the sky remained; every blade of grass was drawn with love and care.

“That sacred river is the Ganges,” concluded the old man reverently, and turned the handle further. “And this is Zahur, the most beautiful castle in the world.”

Prokop simply glued his eye to the hole. He saw a magnificent castle with graceful cupolas, lofty palms, and a blue waterfall. A tiny figure with a turban in which was stuck a feather, with a purple coat, yellow pantaloons, and a Tartar sabre was greeting with a low bow a lady dressed in white, who was leading by the bridle a prancing horse. “Where . . . where is Zahur?” whispered Prokop.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Somewhere over there,” he said uncertainly, “where it is most beautiful. Some find it and some do not. Shall I go on?”

“Not yet.”

The old man drew away a little and stroked the leg of the horse. ‘Wait, nonono, wait,” he said gently. We must show it him, see? Let him enjoy himself.”

“Turn on, grandfather,” said Prokop. He saw in succession the harbour at Hamburg, the Kremlin, a polar landscape with the Northern Lights, the ​Volcano of Krakatau, Brooklyn Bridge, NotreDame, a native village in Borneo, Darwin’s house, the wireless station in Poldhu, a street in Shanghai, the Victoria Falls, the Castle of Gernstein, the petroleum wells in Baku. “And this is the explosion in Grottup,” explained the old man, and Prokop saw coils of reddish smoke being thrown high up in the air by a yellow flame. In the midst of the smoke and flames could be discerned fragments of human bodies. “More than five thousand people perished. It was a great disaster,” sighed the old man. “That’s the last picture. Well, have you seen the world?”

“No. I haven’t,” muttered Prokop, stupefied.

The old man shook his head in disappointment. “You want to see too much. You will have to live for a long time.” He blew out the little lamp and, muttering to himself, slowly covered the box up again. “Sit down on the coach-box, we’ll go on.” He pulled off the sack which was covering the horse’s back and put it over Prokop’s shoulders. “So that you shan’t be cold,” he said, and sat down next to him. He took the reins in his hand and whistled quietly. The horse set off at a gentle trot. “Hi! Now then,” sang the old man.

They passed along an avenue of birches, by cottages half drowned in the mist, a serene and sleeping countryside. “Grandfather,” Prokop found himself saying, “why has all this happened to me?”

“What?”

“Why have I come up against so many things?”

The old men reflected. “It only seems like that,” he said finally. “What happens to a man comes ​out of himself. It all winds out of you as if from a skein.”

“That isn’t true,” Prokop protested. “Why did I meet the Princess? Grandfather, perhaps . . . you know me. You know that I’ve been looking for . . . that other one, you understand? And yet it happened that—why? Tell me!”

The old man considered this, munching with his soft lips. “It was your pride,” he said slowly. “Sometimes it happens to a man like that, he doesn’t know why, but it’s because he has it in him. And he begins to throw himself about——” He illustrated what he was saying with the whip, so that the horse became uneasy and increased its pace. “P-r-r-r, what, what?” he cried to it in a thin voice. “You see, it’s the same as when some little chap gives himself airs; he upsets everybody. And there’s no need to make such a fuss. Sit still and watch the road and you’ll get there all right.”

“Grandfather,” cried Prokop, half closing his eyes in pain, “have I done wrong?”

“Yes and no,” said the old man cautiously. “You’ve hurt people. If you had been sensible you wouldn’t have done it. One must be sensible. And a man must realize the meaning of everything. For instance . . . you can burn a hundred crown note, or use it to pay your debts. If you burn it it looks more, but . . . it’s the same with women,” he concluded unexpectedly.

“Did I behave badly?”

“What?”

“Was I wicked?”

“. . . You weren’t clean inside. A man . . . ​must think more than feel. And you threw yourself at everything.”

“Grandfather, that was through Krakatit.”

“What?”

“I . . . I made a discovery—and through that——”

“If it hadn’t been in you it wouldn’t have been in the discovery. A man does everything out of himself. Wait and consider; think and try and remember what your discovery came from and how it was made. Think about that carefully and then say what you know. Hi, no, no, no, p-s-s!”

The cart rumbled over the rough road, the white horse moving its legs in a tremulous and quaint trot. The light danced over the ground, lighting up trees and stones, while the old man bumped up and down on his seat, singing softly to himself. Prokop was, rubbing his forehead. “Grandfather,” he whispered.

“Well?”

“I’ve forgotten!”

“What?”

“I . . . ve forgotten how to . . . make . . . Krakatit!”

“There you are,” said the old man calmly. “So you have found out something.”

To Prokop it was as if they were passing through the quiet countryside in which he had spent his childhood, but it was very foggy and the light from the lantern penetrated no further than the side of the road, beyond which there was a silent and unknown land.

“Hohohot,” cried the old man, and the horse turned off the road right into that veiled, silent world. The wheels dug into soft grass. Prokop made out a shallow valley, on each side of which were leafless thickets, between which was a beautiful meadow. “P-r-r-r,” cried the old man and slowly got down from the coach-box. “Get out,” he said, “we’ve arrived,” He slowly undid the traces. “Nobody will come after us here.”

“Who?”

“. . . The police. There must be order . . . but they always want all sorts of papers . . . and permits . . . and where you are coming from . . . and where you are going. It’s all more than I can understand.” He unharnessed the horse, saying to him quietly: “Keep quiet and you shall have a piece of bread.”

Prokop stepped down from the cart, numbed by the journey. “Where are we?”

“Over there where there’s that hut,” said the old man vaguely. “You will sleep it off and be all ​right.” He took the lantern from the shaft and threw its light on to a small wooden shed, for hay or something of the sort, but decrepit, poor and crazy. “And I’ll make a fire,” he said in his singing voice, “and get you some tea. When you’ve sweated you’ll be well again.” He wrapped Prokop up in the sack and put down the light in front of him. “Wait while I fetch some wood. Stay here.” He was just on the point of going off when something occurred to him. He thrust his hand into his pocket and looked at Prokop interrogatively.

“What is it, grandfather?”

“I . . . don’t know if you would like to . . . I’m a star reader.” He brought his hand out of his pocket again. Through his fingers there was peering a little white mouse with red eyes. “I know,” he babbled on quickly, “that you don’t believe in such things, but . . . he’s a pretty little chap—Would you like to?”

“I should.”

“That’s good,” said the old man, delighted. “S-s-s-s-s—ma—la, hop!” He opened his hand and the little mouse nimbly ran along his sleeve up to his shoulder, sniffed delicately at his hairy ear and hid in his collar.

“He’s a beauty,” breathed Prokop.

The old man’s face glowed with pleasure. “Wait and see what he can do,” and he ran to the cart, rooted about in it, and returned with a box full of tickets arranged in series. He gave the box a shake, gazing with his shining eyes into the distance. “Show him, mouse, show him his love.” He whistled between his teeth like a bat. The mouse sprang up, ​ran along his arm, and jumped on to the box. Holding his breath. Prokop watched its rosy little paws searching among the tickets. Finally it took one in its little teeth and tried to pull it out. Somehow or other it succeeded, shook its head and at once seized the next one, pulling that out also. Then it sat up on its hind legs, gnawing at its tiny paws.

“This is your love,” whispered the old man, elated. Out with it.”

Prokop took hold of the ticket and bent over the light. It was the photograph of a girl . . . the one whose hair was all loose; her lovely breast was bare, and the eyes were the same, passionate and deep—Prokop recognized her. “Grandfather, that’s not the one!”

“Show me,” said the old man with surprise, taking the picture out of his hand. “Ah, that’s a pity,” he croaked regretfully. “Such a beauty! Lala. Lilitko, that isn’t the one, nanana ks ks ma—la!” He put the photograph back in the box and again softly whistled. The little mouse looked about with its red eyes, again took the same ticket in its teeth and tugged with its head. But the ticket would not come out; instead it pulled out the next.

Prokop took up the picture; it was Annie, a photograph taken in the village; she did not know what to do with her arms, had her Sunday clothes on and stood there silly and beautiful—“That’s not her,” whispered Prokop. The old man took the picture from him, smoothed it and appeared to be saying something to it. He looked at Prokop uneasily and sadly and again gave a faint whistle.

“Are you angry?” asked Prokop shyly.

​The old man said nothing and looked musingly at the mouse. Again the little creature tried to pull out the same ticket; but no, it was impossible and it extracted the next one instead. This was a picture of the Princess. Prokop moaned and let it fall on to the ground. The old man silently bent down and picked it up.

“Let me try myself,” cried Prokop hoarsely, and thrust his hand into the box. But the old man stopped him: “That’s not allowed!”

“But she . . . she’s there,” said Prokop through his teeth. “The right one’s there!”

“Everybody’s there,” said the old man, caressing the box. “Now you shall have your planet.” He whistled quietly, and the mouse ran along his arm and drew out a green slip of paper. A moment later it was back again; evidently Prokop frightenéd it. “Read it to yourself,” said the old man, carefully putting the box away. “I’ll be fetching some wood—and don’t be worried.”

He stroked the horse’s side, stowed the box away in the bottom of the cart and set off for the thicket. His light-coloured coat disappeared in the darkness. The horse watched him for a moment and then jerked his head and followed him. “Ihaha,” the old man could be heard saying, “so you want to come with me? Ah! Hoty, hotyhot, ma-ly!”

They disappeared in the fog and Prokop remembered the green ticket. “Your planet,” he read by the flickering light. “You are an honourable man, with a good heart and more learned than others in your profession. You will have to suffer a lot of opposition, but if you avoid impetuousness and arro​gance you will obtain the respect of your neighbours and an exalted position. You will lose much but you will later be rewarded. Your unlucky days are Tuesdays and Fridays. Saturn Conj. b. b. Martis. DEO gratias.”

The old man loomed out of the darkness with his arms full of sticks. Behind him appeared the white head of the horse. ‘Well,’ he whispered tensely and with a certain amount of the shyness of an author, “did you read it? Is it a good planet?”

“It is, grandfather.”

“There you are,” said the old man, relieved, “everything will turn out all right, praise be to God.” He put down the armful of brushwood and, muttering happily, lit a fire in front of the hut. Then he again rummaged in the cart, produced a kettle and stumped off for some water. “In a minute, in a minute,” he murmured. “Boil, boil, we have a guest.” He ran about like an agitated hostess. In a moment he had come back again with some bread and bacon, at which he sniffed with delight. “And salt, salt,” he cried, slapping himself on the forehead. He ran back to the cart. At last he had settled down by the fire. He gave Prokop the larger portion and himself slowly munched every mouthful. Prokop was suffering from smoke in the eyes or something of the sort; tears ran down his face as he ate. The old man gave every other mouthful to the horse, whose head was bent over his shoulder. And suddenly, through a veil of tears, Prokop recognized him: it was the old, wrinkled face which he had always seen on the wooden ceiling of his laboratory! How often had he not looked ​at it when going off to sleep! And, in the morning when he woke up it was completely different—nothing but knots, dampness and dust.

The old man smiled. “Does it taste good? Ah, at last it’s boiling!” He bent over the kettle, raised it with an effort and limped off to the cart. Ina moment he was back with a couple of mugs. “Just hold it a minute.” Prokop took one of the mugs; on it was painted in gold the name “Ludmila,” surrounded with a garland of forget-me-nots. He read the name twenty times and tears came into his eyes. “Grandfather,” he whispered, “is . . . that . . . her name?”

The old man looked at him with sad, tender eyes. “So that you know,” he said softly, “it is.”

“And . . . shall I never find her?”

The old man said nothing but only blinked rapidly. “Hold it out,” he said uncertainly, “I’ll give you some tea.”

Prokop held out the mug with a trembling hand and the old man carefully poured into it some strong tea. “Drink it while it’s warm,” he said gently.

“Th—thank you,” sobbed Prokop and took a sip of the sharp-tasting drink.

The old man stroked his long hair reflectively. “It’s bitter,” he said slowly, “it’s bitter, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you like a bit of sugar?”

Prokop shook his head. He felt the bitter taste of tears, but his breast was filled with a generous warmth.

The old man sipped at his mug noisily. “And now look,” he said, so as to make things easier, “what I’ve got painted on mine.” He handed him ​his mug; on it was depicted an anchor, a heart and a cross. “That’s faith, love and hope. Don’t cry any more.” He stood over the fire with his hands clasped. “Dear one, dear one,” he said softly, “you will not achieve the highest and you will not release everything. You tried to tear yourself to pieces by force, but you have remained whole and you will neither save the world nor smash it to pieces. Much in you will remain closed up, like fire in a stove; that is good, it is sacrifice. You wanted to do too great things, and you will instead do small ones. That is good.”

Prokop knelt down in front of the fire, not daring to raise his eyes. He knew now that it was God the Father who was speaking to him.

“It is good,” he whispered.

“It is good. You will do things which will help people. He whose thoughts are full of the highest turns away his eyes from people. Instead you will serve them.”

“That is good,” whispered Prokop, on his knees.

“Now you see,” said the old man, pleased, and squatted down on his heels. “Tell me, what’s this—what do you call it? Your invention?”

Prokop raised his head. “I’ve . . . forgotten.”

“That doesn’t matter,” the old man reassured him. “You'll take up other things. Wait a moment, what was it I was going to say? Aha! Why was there such a great explosion? That’s more people injured. But look about and search; perhaps you’ll find . . . well, perhaps only such pf-pf-pf,” he said, blowing out his soft cheeks, “you see? So that it should only be puf-puf . . . and do some​thing which will work for people, do you understand?”

“You mean,” muttered Prokop, “some sort of cheap energy, eh?”

“Cheap, cheap,” agreed the old man, delighted. “So that it could be very useful. And shine, and warm, you understand?”

“Wait,” said Prokop reflectively, “I don’t know—that would mean experimenting all over again . . . from the other end.”

“That’s it. Start from the other end and there you are. There, you see, you’ve something to begin with right away. But leave that other. I’ll get your bed ready.” He got up and limped off to the cart. “Hato hot ma-ly,” he sang, “we’re going to bed.” He returned with a rough mattress. “Come along,” he said, took the lantern and led the way into the wooden shed. “There’s straw enough,” he croaked as he made the bed ready, “‘for all three of us. Praise be to God.”

Prokop sat down on the straw. “Grandfather,” he cried, amazed, “look!”

“What?”

“There, on the wall.” On each of the planks forming the side of the hut there had been written large letters in chalk. Prokop read them by the flickering light of the lantern: K . . . R . . . A . . . K . . . A . . . T . . .

“That’s nothing, that’s nothing,” muttered the old man reassuringly and quickly rubbed them out with his cap. “That’s all over. Just lie down and I’ll cover you with a sack. So.”

He went to the doorway. “Dadada ma-ly,” he ​sang in his trembling voice and the horse thrust its beautiful silver head through the door and rubbed its nose against the old man’s coat.

“Come in, come in,” he said, “and lie down.”

The old horse ambled into the shed, scratched with its hoofs the opposite wall and knelt down. “I’ll find a place between you,” said the old man, “he’ll breathe on you and you’ll be warm. So.”

He sat down quietly near the door. Behind him could still be seen the glow of the dying fire, and the pale blue eyes of the horse, turned on him. The old man muttered something to him, nodding his head. . . .

Prokop closed his eyes in bliss. “Why . . . why, it’s my old father,” he said to himself. “God! how old he’s grown! His neck’s become scraggy——

“Prokop, are you asleep?” whispered the old man.

“No,” answered Prokop, trembling with love.

The old man began to sing gently a strained and quiet song: “Lalala hou, dadada pan, binkili bunkili hou tata. . . .”

Then Prokop fell into a sweet and healing sleep, free from all dreams.

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