He woke up, covered with sweat, his teeth chattering. Thomas was standing over him in the act of laying another cold compress on his burning forehead.
“That’s good, that’s good,” mumbled Prokop, “now I shan’t sleep any more.” And he lay quietly and watched Thomas sitting near the lamp. George Thomas, he said to himself, and then Duras, and Honza Buchta, Sudik, Sudik, Sudik, and who else? Sudik, Trlica, Trlica, Pesek, Jovanovic, Madr, Holoubek, who wears spectacles, that was our year at chemistry. God, and who’s the other? Aha, Vedral, who was killed in ’sixteen, and behind him there sat Holoubek, Pacovsky, Trlica, Seba, all the men of the year. Then he suddenly heard the words: “Mr. Prokop to be examined.”
He became terribly frightened. At the desk sat Professor Wald, pulling with a dry hand at his beard, as usual. “Let’s hear,” said Professor Wald, “what you know about explosives.”
“Explosives, explosives,” began Prokop nervously, “their explosiveness lies in the fact that—that—that—that a large volume of gas is suddenly liberated which—which expands from the much smaller volume of the explosive mass. … I beg your pardon, that’s not right.”
“What?” asked Wald severely.
“I—I—I’ve discovered alpha explosives. The explosion takes place, that is to say, through the disintegration of the atom. The parts of the atom fly … fly.”
“Rubbish,” the professor interrupted him. “There are no such things as atoms.”
“There are, there are, there are,” said Prokop through his teeth. “Please, I’ll demonstrate to you. …”
“An obsolete theory,” said the professor gruffly. “There are no such things as atoms, only gumetals. Do you know what a gumetal is?”
Prokop sweated with fear. He had never heard the word in his life. Gumetal? “I don’t know,” he said in confusion.
“There you are,” said Wald dryly. “And yet you presume to offer yourself for examination. What do you know about Krakatit?”
Prokop stopped uneasily. “Krakatit,” he whispered, “that is … that is … a completely new explosive, which … which up to the present. …”
“How is it ignited? How? How does it explode?”
“By Hertzian waves,” croaked Prokop with relief.
“How do you know?”
“Because the Krakatit which I prepared exploded for no reason at all. Because … because there was no other reason. And because. …”
“Well?”
“… I synthesized it … du—du—during high frequency oscillation. This isn’t yet explained, but I think that … that there were some sort of electromagnetic waves.”
“There were. I know. Now write down the chemical formula for Krakatit.”
Prokop took up a piece of chalk and scribbled his formula on the board.
“Read it.”
Prokop read the formula aloud. Then Professor Wald stood up and suddenly said in a voice which was somehow completely different: “How does it run?”
Prokop repeated the formula.
“Tetrargon?” inquired the professor rapidly. “How much Pb?”
“Two.”
“How is it prepared?” inquired the voice, this time extraordinarily close. “The method! How is it prepared? How? How do you prepare Krakatit?”
Prokop opened his eyes. Thomas was bending over him with a pencil and notebook in his hand and breathlessly watching his lips.
“What?” mumbled Prokop uneasily. “What do you want? How … is it prepared?”
“You’ve got some strange idea into your head,” said Thomas and hid the notebook behind his back. “Sleep, man, sleep.”
IV
“Now I’ve blurted something out!” Prokop realized with the fragment of his brain that was most clear; but otherwise he was completely indifferent on the subject; all he wanted was to sleep, to sleep inordinately. He saw in front of him a sort of Turkey carpet, the pattern of which continually changed. It was nothing important and yet it somehow agitated him. Even in sleep he yearned to meet Plinius again.
