Krakatit

a vast field, covered with dead. They were all dead and he was dead too, and frozen to the ground. Only Mr. Carson trotted over the corpses, cursing between his teeth and looking impatiently at his watch. From the other side with awkward, convulsive movements there approached the crippled Hagen; he was moving with amazing rapidity, jumping like a pony. Carson greeted him carelessly and said something to him. Prokop strained his ears to catch what they were saying but could not hear a single word; perhaps the wind was carrying them away. Hagen pointed to the horizon with a preternaturally long and shrivelled hand; what were they saying? Hagen turned round, put his hand to his mouth and took out a golden set of teeth and his jaws as well; now instead of a mouth he had a great black hole which giggled voicelessly. With the other hand he extracted one enormous eye from its socket, and, holding it in his fingers, held it close down to the faces of the dead. Meanwhile the gold set of teeth in his other hand was screeching: “Seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty-one, one hundred and twenty-two, one hundred and twenty-three.” Prokop was unable to move, as he were dead. The horrible bloodshot eye touched his face and the horse’s set of teeth counted: “Seventeen thousand one hundred and twenty-nine.” Now Hagen disappeared in the distance, still counting, and across the corpses there jumped the Princess, with her skirts drawn up shamelessly high. She approached Prokop waving in her hands a Tartar bunchuk, as if it were a whip. She stood over Prokop, tickling him under the nose with it, and sticking the point of her shoe into his head, as if trying to find out whether he was dead. The blood trickled down his face, although he was really dead, so dead that he felt within him his heart frozen as hard as a bone; all the same he could not bear the sight of her well-shaped legs. “Darling, darling,” she whispered, pulled down her skirt, knelt down by his head and passed her hands lightly across his chest. Suddenly she pulled out of his pocket that carefully tied-up parcel, jumped up, and angrily tore it into pieces which she threw into the air. Then with her arms stretched out she began to whirl round and round, passing over the dead until she disappeared into the darkness of the night.

XLIII

From the time when the Princess fell ill he did not see her any more, but several times a day she wrote him short and passionate notes which hid more than they revealed. He heard from Paul that she was again able to move about her rooms and could not understand why she did not come and visit him. He himself was already out of bed and waited every minute for her to send for him. He did not know that meanwhile she had developed tuberculosis seriously and was actually spitting blood. She did not write to him about it, evidently fearing that it would make him turn from her at the thought that on his lips there were still burning the traces of the kisses which she had once given him. And principally, principally she was afraid of not controlling herself and again kissing him with passionate lips. He had no idea that the doctors had discovered traces of infection in his own lungs, a fact which had driven the Princess to desperation and self-condemnation. He knew nothing, grew angry at the fact that she was so evasive now that he was completely well, and became frightened when another day passed without the Princess expressing the wish to see him. I’ve made her tired of me, he thought; I’ve never been anything more for her than a momentary distraction. He suspected her of all sorts of things, did not want to descend to insisting on a meeting, hardly wrote to her and did nothing but wait in an armchair for her to come, or at least to let him know what had happened.

There were a few sunshiny days and he ventured into the park, wrapped up in a rug. He wanted to wander about by himself with his dark thoughts near the lake, but there were always with him Krafft, Paul, Holz, Rohn, or the charming and dreamy poet Charles, who always had something on the tip of his tongue but never said it. Instead he discoursed on science, personal courage, success and heroism and God knows what else. Prokop listened with one ear; he had the impression that the Prince was making a special effort for some reason or other to interest him in ambition. Then one day he received a roughly scrawled note from the Princess, telling him to wait and not to be shy. Directly afterwards Rohn introduced him to a laconic old gentleman in whose bearing everything revealed the officer disguised as a civilian. The laconic gentleman inquired of Prokop what he proposed to do in the future. Prokop, somewhat nettled by his tone, answered sharply and magnificently that he was going to exploit his inventions.

“Military inventions?”

“I’m not a soldier.”

“Your age?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Occupation?”

“None. And yours?”

The laconic person became rather confused. “Do you intend to sell your inventions?”

“No.” He felt that he was being examined and sounded officially. This irritated him and he answered very shortly and only here and there would he give them a fragment of his erudition and this only because he saw that it pleased Rohn particularly. Actually the Prince was radiant and was all the time looking at the laconic gentleman, as if to ask him: “Well, what do you say to that miracle?” But the laconic gentleman said nothing and finally took leave of them politely.

The next day Carson appeared very early in the morning, rubbing his hands and evidently full of something extremely important. He babbled all sorts of nonsense, all the time trying to