Krakatit/Chapter 40
CHAPTER XL
It continued to rain. Armed with a white flag, the fat cousin arrived to propose to Prokop that he should give in; in return he should get back his laboratory. Prokop announced that he would not do so, that before that he would allow himself to be blown into the air. Further, that he was going to do something; let them wait and see! On receiving this dark threat the cousin withdrew. In the castle they were evidently very displeased at the fact that the proper entrance was blockaded, but did not make a fuss about it.
Dr. Krafft, the pacifist, was overflowing with wild and belligerent proposals. He wanted to cut off the current from the castle and cut off their water supply; to manufacture some sort of poison gas, and release it in the castle. Holz had discovered a lot of old newspapers; he produced a pair of pince-nez from some mysterious pocket and spent the whole day in reading, looking extraordinarily like a university lecturer. Prokop was painfully bored; he was burning to take some military step but did not know how to set about it. Finally he left Holz to guard the little house and went out with Krafft into the park.
There was nobody to be seen in it; the enemy’s forces were concentrated in the castle. He walked round it to the side on which it was adjoined by the sheds and stables. “Where's Whirlwind?” he suddenly asked. Krafft indicated a small window about nine feet from the ground. “Lean against the wall,” whispered Prokop, climbed on to his back and then stood on his shoulders so as to look inside. Krafft nearly fell under his weight, and to make matters worse Prokop was dancing on his shoulders—what was he doing? A heavy window-frame fell on the ground and a quantity of rubble crumbled down from the wall. Suddenly a beam also dropped and the terrified Krafft raised his head to see two legs disappearing through the window.
The Princess was just giving Whirlwind a piece of bread and looking reflectively at his beautiful eyes when she heard the noise in the window and saw in the twilight of the stable the familiar mutilated hand which was removing the wire screen from the window. She placed her hands on her mouth to prevent herself crying out.
Head first, Prokop fell on to Whirlwind’s back, jumped down, and there he was, certainly torn, but intact, out of breath and attempting a smile. “Quiet,” said the Princess fearfully, for there was a groom just behind the door. Then she threw her arms round his neck: “Prokopokopak!” He pointed to the window outside. ‘“Where?” whispered the Princess, kissing him.
“To the doorkeeper.”
“You stupid! How many are there of you?”
“Three.”
“You can see it’s no good!” She stroked his face. “Don’t attempt it.”
Prokop considered whether there was any other way of abducting her, but it was dark inside the stable, and the smell of a horse is somehow exciting. Their eyes gleamed and they kissed passionately. Suddenly she broke away and recoiled, whispering: “Go away! Go!” They stood opposite one another trembling and with a feeling that the passion which possessed them was an unclean one. He looked away and idly turned a rung in the ladder; only then did he regain control of himself. He swung round towards her and saw that she was biting her hankerchief. She pressed it to her lips and handed it him without a word, as a reward or as a souvenir. And he kissed his arm on the place where her distracted hand had rested. Never had they loved one another so wildly as at that moment, when they were unable to speak and feared to touch one another.
Then there was the sound of steps grating in the gravel outside. The Princess made a sign to him. Prokop swung himself up the ladder, seized some hook or other in the ceiling and, feet first, slipped out of the window. When he had reached the ground again Dr. Krafft threw his arms round him in delight. “You’ve cut the horses’ tendons, eh?” he whispered bloodthirstily; he evidently considered this as a necessary military precaution.
Prokop silently made his way back to the guard’s house, impelled by anxiety regarding Holz. When still some distance away he saw the terrible thing that had happened: two men were standing in the gate, a gardener was erasing from the sand the traces of a struggle, the gate was half open,—and Holz was gone. But one of the men had a handkerchief tied round his hand; Mr. Holz had bitten him seriously.
Prokop returned to the park, gloomy and speechless. Dr. Krafft imagined that his superior was concocting another offensive plan and therefore did not disturb him; but Prokop, sighing deeply, sat down on a stump and became absorbed in the contemplation of some torn rag or other. On the path there appeared a workman, pushing in front of him a wheelbarrow full of dead leaves. Krafft, seized with suspicion, set on him and gave him a most terrible beating, in the course of which he lost his spectacles. Then he took the wheelbarrow, representing the spoils of the victory, and hurried back with it to Prokop. “He’s run off,” he announced, and his short-sighted eyes shone with triumph. Prokop only grunted and continued to examine the snow-white object which fluttered in his hands. Krafft occupied himself with the wheel-barrow, trying to think what the trophy would be good for. Finally it occurred to him to turn it upside down: “We can sit on it!”
Prokop picked himself up and went towards the lake, Dr. Krafft following him with the wheel-barrow, probably for the transport of the future wounded. They established themselves in a swimming bath built out on posts over the water. Prokop went round the cubicles. The largest was that belonging to the Princess and still contained a mirror, a handful of hair, a couple of hairpins, a shaggy bathing-robe and some sandals, intimate and abandoned objects. He forbade Krafft to enter it and settled down with him in the men’s cubicle on the other side. Krafft was radiant; he now possessed a fleet consisting of two Rob Roys, a canoe and a tub-shaped boat which was relatively a super-dreadnought. Prokop spent a long time in silently walking up and down the platform over the grey lake and then disappeared into the Princess’s cubicle, sat down on her couch, took the shaggy bathing-gown into his hands and buried his face in it. Dr. Krafft, who, in spite of his incredible lack of observation, had some inkling of his secret, respected his feelings, and went about the place on tiptoe, baling out the water from the warship with a tin and getting together some suitable oars. He displayed considerable military talents, ventured on to the bank and carried stones of all sizes to the bathing-place, including huge ones torn out of a neighbouring wall. Then, plank by plank, he tore up the bridge connecting the bathing-place with the bank. From the material which he thus obtained he was able to barricade the entrance, and he further discovered some priceless rusty nails which he bent into the blades of the oars, points upwards. In this way he obtained a powerful and really dangerous arm.
Having put everything in order and seen that it was all right he wished to report to his superior what he had done, but Prokop was still shut up in the Princess’s cubicle and was so quiet that it seemed as if he were not breathing. So Dr. Krafft remained alone on the floating platform, which splashed coldly on the surface of the water. Now and then there was a plop! as some fish leapt out of the water and fell back again, and sometimes a rustling in the rushes. Dr. Krafft began to feel uneasy in the midst of this solitude.
He coughed in front of his leader’s cubicle and now and then said something under his breath to attract his attention. Finally Prokop came out with his lips set and a wild look in his eyes. Krafft showed him over the new fortress, and pointed out everything, finally demonstrating to him when the enemy would come within range of a stone; in indicating this he very nearly fell into the water. Prokop said nothing but put his arm round his neck and kissed him, and Dr. Krafft, quite rosy with delight, would have done ten times as much for him as he had already.
They sat down on a seat near the water, at the spot where the Princess used to bask in the sun. Clouds began to get up in the west and a sickly strip of yellow sky appeared an infinite distance away. The whole of the lake began to glow, broke into ripples, and became suffused with a pale and gentle light. Dr. Krafft developed impromptu a completely new theory of eternal warfare, the control of power, and the salvation of the world through heroism. Everything that he said was in painful contrast with the torturing melancholy of this autumnal twilight, but luckily Dr. Krafft was short-sighted, and in addition, an idealist, and, as a consequence, completely independent of the influence of his chance surroundings. Apart from the cosmic beauty of the moment, they were both conscious of being cold and hungry. And then on the land they heard the short, quick steps of Mr. Paul, who approached with a basket on his arm, looking to the right and left and periodically calling out in his little old voice: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” Prokop went across to him on the warship and tried to force him to say who had sent him. “Nobody, please,” asserted the old man; “but my daughter Elizabeth is the housekeeper.” He would have talked further about his daughter Elizabeth, but Prokop stroked his white hair and told him to tell this nameless person that he was well and strong.
That day Dr. Krafft drank alone, gossiped, philosophized, and again expressed his contempt for all philosophy; action, he maintained, was everything. Prokop sat trembling on the Princess’ seat and all the time kept his eye on one star. God knows why he selected that particular one, which was a yellow one in the constellation of Orion. It was not true that he was well; he had pains in the places in which he had suffered from them in Tynice, his head was spinning and he was trembling with fever. When he wanted to say anything his tongue somehow failed him, and his teeth chattered so much that Dr. Krafft became sobered and almost uneasy. He hastily stretched Prokop out on the couch in the cubicle and covered him with all sorts of things, including the Princess’s bathing-gown. He also placed a cold compress on his forehead. Prokop asserted that he had a cold; about midnight he went off to sleep, semi-delirious and a prey to the most terrible dreams.