Krakatit/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI
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.