“Mr. Thomas isn’t at home?” asked the girl.
“Thomas has gone away,” said Prokop, with some hesitation. “Last night.”
“Where?”
“To Tynice, to his father.”
“And he returns?”
Prokop shrugged his shoulders.
The girl bent her head down, her hands pulling at something. “And did he tell you why … why?”
“He did.”
“And you think that … that he will do it?”
“What?”
“That he will shoot himself.”
In a flash Prokop remembered that he had seen Thomas put a revolver into his suitcase. “Tomorrow, perhaps, we’ll make an explosion,” he again heard him mutter through his teeth. He did not wish to say anything. He looked very serious.
“Oh my God!” said the girl, “but this is terrible. Tell me. …”
“What?”
“If only somebody could follow him! If only somebody could say—could give him—you understand, don’t you, that he mustn’t do it! If only somebody could go after him today—”
Prokop looked at her hands which were twisting desperately.
“I will go there for you,” he said quietly. “As it happens I’ve got to go somewhere in that direction. If you wish it I—”
The girl raised her head. “Could you really?” she cried joyfully, “could you … ?”
“I’m an old … colleague of his, you see,” explained Prokop. “If you would like to send him a message … or send … I would willingly. …”
“You are really very good,” breathed the girl.
Prokop reddened a little. “That’s nothing,” he defended himself. “As it happens … I’ve some free time. … I should like to go away somewhere and also, generally speaking—” He waved his hand in embarrassment. “It’s not worth talking about. I will do anything that you wish.”
The girl blushed and looked quickly in another direction. “I really don’t … know how to thank you,” she said in confusion. “I am really very sorry that … you. … But it is so important—you’re his friend. Don’t you think perhaps that I myself—” Then she got control of herself and turned her clear eyes on Prokop. “I must send him something. From somebody else. I cannot tell you.”
“There is no need to,” said Prokop quickly. “I shall give it him and that’s all there is about it. I am so glad that I am able … that I can help him. … Is it raining then?” he asked suddenly, looking at the drops of moisture on her fur.
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s good,” said Prokop. He was actually thinking how pleasantly cool it would be if he could put his forehead against the fur.
“I haven’t got it with me,” she said, standing up. “It will only be a small parcel. If you could wait … I’ll bring it you in two hours’ time.”
Prokop bowed; and in doing so he was afraid of losing his equilibrium. In the doorway she turned round and gave him a direct look. “Au revoir.” She was gone.
Prokop sat down and closed his eyes. The drops of rain on the fur; a thick and bedewed veil; a curiously distant voice; scent; uneasy hands in small tight gloves; a clear and disturbing glance from beneath firm, elegant eyebrows; her hands on her lap; the soft folds of her dress over her strong knees. Oh, little hands in tight gloves! Scent, a dark and vibrant voice, a smooth, pale face. Prokop dug his teeth into his quivering lips, sad, and confused and brave. Blue-grey eyes, eyes clean and full of light. Oh God, how her veil pressed against her lips!
Prokop groaned and opened his eyes. “And she’s Thomas’s girl,” he said to himself, with blind fury. “She knew the way; it wasn’t the first time she had been there. Perhaps here … here in this very room. …” Prokop dug his nails into his palms in intolerable agony. “And I, like a fool, suggest that I shall go after him! I, idiot that I am, am to take him a letter! What … have I to do with her?”
Then he had a saving thought. I will dash off home to my laboratory at the top of the house—and she—let her come here! Let her do what she wants to! Let … her go after him herself, if … it’s so important to her—
He looked round the room; he saw the tumbled bed and straightened it a little as he was accustomed to at home. Then it seemed to him that it was not tidy enough, so he did it again, smoothed it and then set about cleaning up the whole place, even trying to arrange the curtains in nice folds. After which he sat down with a dizzy head and a chest which was thumping painfully, and waited.
V
It seemed to him that he was walking about in an enormous kitchen garden. All around was nothing but cabbage heads, not simply heads, but heads which grinned and were slimy from the creatures which had crawled over them; gibbering heads, blear-eyed, monstrous, watery, pimpled and swollen. They were growing on cabbage stumps, and creeping over them were repulsive green caterpillars. And now across the garden there ran towards him the girl with the veil over her face. She raised her skirts a little and jumped over the heads. But under each of them there suddenly sprouted bare, horribly thin and hairy hands, which clutched at her feet and her skirts. The girl screamed in fear, and raised her skirts still higher, above her strong knees, showing her white legs, and tried to spring out of the way of these grasping tentacles. Prokop closed his eyes; he could not bear the sight of her white strong legs and was nearly mad with dread lest those green heads should defile her. He cast himself on the ground and chopped
