“Up there I never speak to anybody. Only a sort of hut made of planks, you understand? Ha! ha! How frightened you were of those heads! But I won’t give you up! Don’t be frightened of anything! I won’t give you up.”
She looked at him with eyes distended with horror. “But you simply must not go!”
Prokop grew dispirited and became suddenly weak. “No, you mustn’t take any notice of what I’m saying. I’ve been talking nonsense, haven’t I? I simply wanted you not to think about that hand. So that you shouldn’t be frightened. It’s all over now.” He got control of himself again and became stiff and almost sulky through his very concentration. “I shall go to Tynice and find Thomas. I shall give him the parcel and say that it comes from a young lady whom he knows. Is that right?”
“Yes,” said the girl with some hesitation, “but really you must not—”
Prokop tried to muster a supplicatory smile. His heavy scared face suddenly grew beautiful. “Leave it to me,” he said quietly, “it’s … for you.”
The girl blinked her eyes; a sharp feeling had suddenly driven her nearly to tears. She inclined her head silently and gave him her hand. He raised his shapeless left hand. She looked at him interrogatively and pressed it warmly. “Thank you so much,” she said quickly, “goodbye!”
In the doorway she stopped as if she wished to say something. Twisting the handle, she waited.
“Am I to … to convey any greeting to him?” asked Prokop with a wry smile.
“No,” she said quietly and gave him a quick glance. “Au revoir.”
The door closer behind her. Prokop looked after her and suddenly he felt mortally heavy and weak, his head began to swim, and it cost him an immense effort to take a single step.
VI
At the station he had to wait an hour and a half. He sat down in the corridor shivering with cold. His wounded hand pulsated painfully. He closed his eyes and immediately it seemed to him that this aching hand was growing, that it was as big as a head, as a gourd, as a cauldron, and that all over it the flesh was twitching feverishly. At the same time he felt oppressively faint and a cold sweat kept on breaking out on his forehead. He did not dare to look at the dirty, muddy floor covered with spittle—his stomach would have risen. He tore off his collar and fell half asleep, gradually overpowered by an infinite indifference. He had the impression that he was a soldier, lying wounded in the open field; where … where are they fighting all the time? Then there sounded in his ears a loud ringing, and someone shouted … “Tynice, … Duchcov, … Moldava! Take your seats!”
Now he was sitting in the railway carriage next to the window and feeling inordinately gay, as if he had got the better of somebody or had escaped from them; yes, now he was on the way to Tynice and nothing could stop him. Almost giggling with delight he settled down in his corner and began to observe his fellow-travellers with amazing eagerness. In front of him sat some sort of a tailor with a thin neck, a slight dark woman, and then a man with an extraordinarily expressionless face; next to Prokop was a terribly fat gentleman whose stomach could not settle down between his legs, and, further away, somebody else, but that didn’t matter. Prokop did not dare to look out of the window—it made him feel giddy. Ra‑ta‑ta‑ra‑ta‑ta the train thumped out, vibrating and rattling with the feverishness of its movement. The head of the tailor swung to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left; the dark lady in some curious fashion bounced stiffly up and down on the same spot, the expressionless face vibrated and jerked like a bad film in a cinema. And his fat neighbour was simply a heap of jelly which jumped, shook and hopped in the most extraordinarily entertaining manner. Tynice, Tynice, Tynice, scanned Prokop to the beat of the wheels; faster, faster! The train grew heated through its haste; it became warm in the carriage and Prokop began to sweat; the tailor had now two heads on two thin necks; both heads shook and knocked against one another until they rattled. The dark lady jumped up and down on her seat in the most amusing and yet offensive way; she deliberately put on the expression of a wooden doll. The expressionless face disappeared; in its place there sat a body with its arms folded in a dead manner on its lap; the hands jumped about, but the body had no head.
Prokop exerted all his strength in order to see it properly. He pinched his leg, but it was no use; the body remained headless and lifelessly responded to the vibration of the train. Prokop became horribly uncomfortable. He nudged his fat neighbour with his arm; but the neighbour only quivered still more like a jelly. It seemed to Prokop that the fat body was voicelessly tittering at him. He was unable to look at it any longer; he turned to the window, but there, out of the void, appeared a human face. At first he could not make out why it disconcerted him so; he stared at it with wide-open eyes to realize finally that it was another Prokop whose eyes were fixed on him with terrible earnestness. “What does he want?” said Prokop, terror-stricken. “My God! have I left that parcel in Thomas’s room?” He hastily went through his pockets and found the parcel in the inside one of his coat. Then the face in the window smiled and Prokop felt better. Finally he plucked up courage to look at the headless body and saw that all that had happened was that the man had pulled over his face a coat that was hanging from the rack and was
