while in the casks beneath you there vibrates silently the terrible potential of explosion . . .
Naturally Prokop did not write these things down; to him they were only a secret melody, which lent wings to the heavy phrases of the technical exposition. For him there was more phantasy in a bare formula and more blinding beauty in an index of explosiveness. And so he wrote his poem in symbols, figures, and the frightful jargon of scientific terminology.
He did not come down to breakfast. Annie came in and silently brought it to him. He thanked her, and then remembered his dream and was somehow unable to look at her. He stared obstinately into a corner. God knows how it was possible, but he nevertheless saw every golden hair on her bare arms. He had never noticed them so much before.
Annie was standing quite near him. “Are you going to write?” she asked in some uncertainty.
“I am,” he muttered and wondered what she would say if he were suddenly to put his head on her breast.
“The whole day?”
“The whole day.”
She was moving off, greatly impressed. She had firm, small and broad breasts, a fact of which she was probably unaware. But what did it matter!
“Is there anything you want?”
“No, nothing.”
It was silly. He would have liked to bite her arm or something. Women never seem to realize how much they disturb men.
