chemicals, had also been taken away. He found himself nearly crying.
Until late in the night he remained sitting on his soldier’s palliasse and blankly stared at his looted work-room. At moments he consoled himself by thinking that he would remember everything that he had made a note of in the course of twelve years; but when he tried to repeat some experiment in his head he found, in spite of his most desperate efforts, that it was impossible; then he gnawed his mutilated fingers and groaned.
Suddenly he was awakened by the rattling of a key. It was fully light, and as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world a man came into the room and made towards the table. He sat down with his hat still on, muttering and scratching at the zinc on the table. Prokop cried out from the palliasse: “What do you want here, man?”
Extraordinarily surprised, the man turned around and looked at Prokop without a word.
“What do you want here?” repeated Prokop excitedly. The man said nothing; to crown everything he put on his spectacles and gazed at Prokop with enormous interest.
Prokop ground his teeth, for there was prepared within him a fearful insult. But at this point the man glowed with the most human feeling, sprang out of the chair and suddenly looked as if he were joyfully wagging his tail. “Carson,” he said rapidly introducing himself, and added in German: “God, I am glad that you have come back! You undoubtedly read my announcement?”
