Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/40

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28
The Absolute at Large

escapes from any vessel, however thick you make it. Then I decided it must be some sort of Ultra-X-ray, but there's no trace of any form of electricity, and it makes no impression on photo-sensitive plates. On the third day, the porter and his wife, who live just over the cellar, had to be taken off to the sanatorium."

"What for?" asked Bondy.

"He got religion. He was inspired. He gave religious addresses and performed miracles. His wife uttered prophecies. My porter had been a thoroughly hard-headed chap, a monist and a freethinker, and an unusually steady fellow. Well, just fancy, from no visible cause whatever, he started healing people by laying on of hands. Of course, Bondy, he was reported at once. The district health officer, who is a friend of mine, was tremendously upset about it; so, to avoid any scandal, I had the porter sent to a sanatorium. They say he's better now; quite cured. He has lost the power to perform miracles. I'm going to send him on the land to recuperate. . . . Then I began to work miracles myself and see into the future. Among other things, I had visions of gigantic, swampy primeval forests, overgrown with mosses and inhabited by weird monsters—probably because the Karburator was burning Upper Silesian coal, which is of the oldest forma-