Krakatit/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
At the station he had to wait an hour and a half. He sat down in the corridor shivering with cold. His wounded hand pulsated painfully. He closed his eyes and immediately it seemed to him that this aching hand was growing, that it was as big as a head, as a gourd, as a cauldron, and that all over it the flesh was twitching feverishly. At the same time he felt oppressively faint and a cold sweat kept on breaking out on his forehead. He did not dare to look at the dirty, muddy floor covered with spittle—his stomach would have risen. He tore off his collar and fell half asleep, gradually overpowered by an infinite indifference. He had the impression that he was a soldier, lying wounded in the open field; where . . . where are they fighting all the time? Then there sounded in his ears a loud ringing, and someone shouted . . . “Tynice, . . . Duchcov, . . . Moldava! Take your seats!”
Now he was sitting in the railway carriage next to the window and feeling inordinately gay, as if he had got the better of somebody or had escaped from them; yes, now he was on the way to Tynice and nothing could stop him. Almost giggling with delight he settled down in his corner and began to observe his fellow-travellers with amazing eagerness. In front of him sat some sort of a tailor with a thin neck, a slight dark woman, and then a man with an extraordinarily expressionless face; next to Prokop was a terribly fat gentleman whose stomach could not settle down between his legs, and, further away, somebody else, but that didn’t matter. Prokop did not dare to look out of the window—it made him feel giddy. Ra-ta-ta-ra-ta-ta the train thumped out, vibrating and rattling with the feverishness of its movement. The head of the tailor swung to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left; the dark lady in some curious fashion bounced stifly up and down on the same spot, the expressionless face vibrated and jerked like a bad film in a cinema. And his fat neighbour was simply a heap of jelly which jumped, shook and hopped in the most extraordinarily entertaining manner. Tynice, Tynice, Tynice, scanned Prokop to the beat of the wheels; faster, faster! The train grew heated through its haste; it became warm in the carriage and Prokop began to sweat; the tailor had now two heads on two thin necks; both heads shook and knocked against one another until they rattled. The dark lady jumped up and down on her seat in the most amusing and yet offensive way; she deliberately put on the expression of a wooden doll. The expressionless face disappeared; in its place there sat a body with its arms folded in a dead manner on its lap; the hands jumped about, but the body had no head.
Prokop exerted all his strength in order to see it properly. He pinched his leg, but it was no use; the body remained headless and lifelessly responded to the vibration of the train. Prokop became horribly uncomfortable. He nudged his fat neighbour with his arm; but the neighbour only quivered still more like a jelly. It seemed to Prokop that the fat body was voicelessly tittering at him. He was unable to look at it any longer; he turned to the window, but there, out of the void, appeared a human face. At first he could not make out why it disconcerted him so; he stared at it with wide-open eyes to realize finally that it was another Prokop whose eyes were fixed on him with terrible earnestness. “What does he want?” said Prokop, terror-stricken. “My God! have I left that parcel in Thomas’s room?” He hastily went through his pockets and found the parcel in the inside one of his coat. Then the face in the window smiled and Prokop felt better. Finally he plucked up courage to look at the headless body and saw that all that had happened was that the man had pulled over his face a coat that was hanging from the rack and was asleep behind it. Prokop would have done the same but was afraid that some one would take the sealed package out of his pocket. And yet it was important for him to sleep; he was intolerably tired; he would never have been able to imagine that it was possible for him to be so tired. He dropped off, awoke with a start and dropped off again. The dark lady had one head bobbing on her shoulder and held the other in her lap with both hands; and as for the tailor, instead of him there were sitting empty, bodyless clothes, out of the top of which projected a porcelain pestle. Prokop fell asleep but suddenly started up with a feverish conviction that they were already in Tynice. Somebody outside had shouted the name out, or the train had stopped.
He rushed out and saw that it was already evening; two or three people were getting out at a tiny station with blinking lights behind which was an unknown and foggy darkness. They told Prokop that he could only get to Tynice by a postwagon, if there was still room in it. The postwagon proved to consist of a coach-box behind which was a trough for packages, and the postman and some passenger or other had already taken their seats.
“Will you take me to Tynice, please?” said Prokop.
The postman shook his head in infinite dejection. “Can’t be done,” he answered after a moment.
“Why . . . how is that?”
“There’s no more room,” said the postman, having considered the matter.
Tears of self-pity came into Prokop’s eyes. “How far is it. . . on foot?”
The postman reflected sympathetically. “Well, an hour,” he said.
“But I . . . can’t walk it! I’ve got to get to Dr. Thomas’s!” protested Prokop, crushed.
The postman thought for a moment. “Are you . . . going . . . asa patient?”
“I feel bad,” mumbled Prokop; actually, he was trembling with weakness and fever.
The postman again considered the matter and shook his head. “But it can’t be done,” he said finally.
“If only you could make. . . a little room. . .”
On the coach-box there was no sound. The postman pulled at his beard; then, without saying a word, he got down, did something at the side and silently went off to the station. The passenger on the coach-box remained motionless.
Prokop was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit down on the edge of the pavement. “I shall never get there,” he felt desperately; “I shall remain here until . . . unti. . .”
The postman returned from the station bringing with him an empty tub. Somehow he attached it to the platform of the coach-box and looked at it reflectively. “Sit down there,” he said finally.
“Where?” asked Prokop.
“Well . . . on the coach-box.”
By some superhuman effort, as if some magical power were lifting him up, Prokop got on to the coach-box. The postman did something with the reins and there he was sitting in the tub with his legs hanging down over the side. “Hey,” said he.
The horse made no movement, but only trembled.
The postman made another thin, guttural “r-r-r,” The horse whisked its tail.
“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.”
The post-wagon moved off. Prokop convulsively gripped a railing at his side; he felt that it was beyond his strength to keep his place on the coach-box.
“R-r-r-r-r.” It seemed that this high, whirring note somehow galvanized the old horse. It limped along, twitching its tail.
“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.” They were going along an avenue of bare trees. It was pitch dark, save where the flickering strip of light from the lantern moved over the mud. Prokop clung to the railing feeling that he had already completely lost control of his body, that he must be careful not to fall, that he was infinitely weak. Some lighted window or other, an avenue, a dark field. “R-r-r-r.” The horse trotted along, moving its legs stiffly and unnaturally, as if it had already been dead for a long time.
Prokop cast a surreptitious glance at his fellow-traveller. He was an old man with a scarf wrapped round his neck. All the time he was chewing something, rolling it about in his mouth and periodically spitting. And then Prokop remembered that he had seen this face somewhere before. It was the loathsome face from the dream, which ground its rotten teeth until they crumbled and then spat them out in fragments. It was wonderful and horrible.
“R-r-r-r-r-r.” There was a turn in the road, they climbed up a hill and then descended again. Somebody’s estate,—the barking of a dog,—a man passing along the road and wishing them good-night. The houses increased in number; they were reaching the top of the hill. The post-wagon swung round, another high “R-r-r-r-r” and it suddenly drew up.
“This is where Dr. Thomas lives,” said the postman.
Prokop wished to say something but was unable to do so. He wanted to let go of the railing, but could not. His fingers were frozen.
“Well, here we are,” said the postman again. Once more he called out, and Prokop slipped down from the coach-box, trembling with his whole; body. As if performing a remembered action, he opened the gate and rang at the door. Inside there was to be heard a fierce barking and a young voice called out: “Honzik, quiet!” The door opened and, scarcely able to move his tongue, Prokop inquired, “Is the doctor at home?”
A moment of silence; then the young voice said, “Come in.”
Prokop stood in the warm sitting-room. On the table was a lamp, supper was laid, there was a smell of beech wood. An old gentleman with his spectacles pushed up on to his forehead rose from the table, came over to Prokop and said: “Well, what can I do for you?”
Prokop tried to remember dully what exactly it was that he had come for. “I . . . that is to say . . .” he began, “is your son at home?”
The old gentleman looked at Prokop attentively. “He isn’t. What do you want with him?”
“George . . .” mumbled Prokop, “I’m . . . his friend and I am bringing him . . . I have to give him . . .” He hunted about in his pocket and found the sealed package. “It’s . . . an important matter and . . . and. . . .”
“George is in Prague,” the old gentleman interrupted him. “But do sit down.”
Prokop was profoundly astonished. “But he said . . . he said . . . that he was coming here. I mu—must give him. . . .” The floor began to sway beneath his feet and he started to slip forward.
“A chair, Annie,” shouted the old gentleman in an extraordinary voice.
Prokop still had time to hear himself cry out before he collapsed on to the ground. A boundless, darkness swept over him and then there was nothing.