CHAPTER XX
The next day Prokop woke up with a terribly heavy head and at first could not realize where exactly he was; he waited for the sound of the clucking of the chickens or the resonant barking of Honzik. Slowly he realized that he was no longer in Tynice; that he was in bed in the hotel to which Carson had brought him completely drunk, roaring like an animal. Only when he put his head under a stream of cold water did he recall the happenings of the evening and could have sunk through the ground with shame.
They drank even during the meal, but only a little, enough to make them both very red in the face, and then went somewhere in the car along the edge of some woods so as to clear their heads. Prokop chattered the whole time without respite while Carson chewed the end of his cigar, nodded from time to time and said: “You will be a big man.” “Big man,” “big man,”’ echoed in Prokop’s head like the note of a gong; if only in such glory he could be seen by . . . that girl with the veil! He nearly burst with importance in talking to Carson, who only nodded his head like a mandarin and added fuel to the flame of his insane pride. In his ardour Prokop nearly fell out of the car; he was explaining his conception of the World Institute for Destructive Chemistry, Socialism, Marriage, the Education of
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