Krakatit/Chapter 50

by Karel Čapek

CHAPTER L

 

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 resembling 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. Meanwhile 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.”