Anarchistbanjo's World

OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Chapter 1

Today, great things are underway at the Princely Salm Ironworks in Blansko—decisive, momentous things.

The new gigantic wood carbonization furnace has been burning for the third day now. It is a Leviathan of a furnace; it can devour eighty cords of wood at once, and when it’s really going strong, its voice becomes a prolonged roar that echoes through the valley. It recalls the exodus of the Jews from Egypt; its signs are a gigantic smoke cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The smoke cloud spirals out of the chimney like a yellow-and-brown mottled Nicene serpent, then gathers itself and rolls as a sluggish monster up the valley slopes, slowly disappearing into the forests amid shivering, tormented treetops. The pillar of fire is so bright that one can still read small print quite well from a thousand paces away.

Now the second machinist, Schnuparek, stands on the threshold of the chemical laboratory. Streams of sweat have carved bright furrows into his blackened face; he looks like a Negro with a skin disease, the whites of his eyes framing a frightened gaze. He twists his cap: “Your Grace… the acid has started to flow… but the gas…!”

The old count, who has been watching a tar distillation with Director Reichenbach and the chemist Mader, turns around: “That’s fine, Schnuparek, we’re coming. Just open both valves in the meantime.”

The old count and Reichenbach leave the chemist Mader alone with the tar distillation; they walk through the carpentry shop and then through the room where the artistic cast-iron pieces are displayed—statues after the antique, all sorts of Christian items, animals and large vases, the she-wolf from the Capitol, the Florentine Molosser hound, all cast in iron, very much to the buyers’ taste and cheap, cheap. The iron comes from the ground, and the wood grows in the immeasurable princely forests.

Between a Christ on the cross and the Capitoline she-wolf, they step out into the courtyard. The ground trembles, the windows of the long building in front of them rattle, the furnace hisses and roars. From the chimney, a hellish torch glows yellow and red into the encroaching twilight.

Black and helpless, people swarm before the wrath-trembling monster; the furnace doors glow, the pungent smell of wood acid forces the breath back and bores into the lungs. At the other end, at the valves of the distillation kettle, stands the first machinist Wostahlo, a small, stout creature of the underworld. In streams, the acid gushes from the pipes into the vats.

“Excellent,” praises the old count, “what’s the matter, then? It’s going splendidly.”

“I don’t know,” hesitates the machinist, “it seems to me it’s getting weaker.”

“Already now?” says Reichenbach. “Why, though?”

The furnace raises its voice to the roar of a prehistoric beast. “Like an old saurian,” laughs the old count.

“Exactly! Because it has to give up acid!” Reichenbach can’t help but say. But he walks around the furnace, places his hand on the wall of the cooling vessel where the pipes are supposed to release their heat. He pulls it back with a cry: “The water’s boiling!”

Schnuparek comes running: “Your Grace, please—the gas…!”

“Open all registers!” Reichenbach bellows back. “Let out the gas and hydrogen!”

It’s too late; a dull bang shakes the furnace. A giant fist lifts the thick walls, supported by heavy pillars—the entire armored vault—and slams it back down onto the ground.

And now there can be no doubt any longer: the stream of acid dries up, becomes thinner, just a thread, a trickle. It must have found another way out, pouring into the interior of the furnace. Boiling steam hisses out from the joints of the cooling system; the explosions follow one another more rapidly, the masonry sways.

“To the devil!” roars Reichenbach. “To the scoop wheel! Do we all want to blow up?”

The men have lost their heads, but Reichenbach’s roar brings them back to their senses. They run, illuminated by a firelight that bursts from the shattered heating system. The explosive gas inside the furnace hurls itself against the walls, hammering with destructive fists against its prison; the demons of fire exult and jeer. God knows what the acid is doing.

“Look,” says the old count, “now the thing’s starting to glow.”

Indeed, the iron plates of the cooling system take on a red glow, slowly from the inside out; the rivets expand with a sigh. The water has evaporated; fresh air comes through the burst furnace doors, fanning the blaze ever more. A mad screeching pierces from the trembling structure.

“Water!” Reichenbach’s voice cuts through the tumult. “Quickly! Fresh water!”

A worker comes running: “Jesus Christ, sir, the scoop wheel’s done for!”

“Done for?” Reichenbach thunders at him.

“Done for! It’s not working! Someone’s messed it up.”

Now we’re really all going to blow up, thinks Reichenbach. And he grabs the old count by the arm, pulling and pushing, trying to tear him away from the hissing, howling demon that has rebelled against human control, slipped from the command of their will—away, just away from here. His mortal fear is not for his own safety but for that of his friend.

But the stocky old count has the muscle of a wrestler and the sturdiness of a bear. At Legnano, he held off the French long enough for his corps, threatened with annihilation, to cross the Etsch.

For he will not budge, and no one can move him from the spot. He braces himself against them; if Reichenbach and he were to flee, everyone would run, and the furnace would burst into pieces.

The scoop wheel is ruined; they rush with water buckets, pouring against the tide. But on the glowing walls, the water hisses into boiling steam, atomizing into scalding clouds that no one can approach. And greedily, the cracked furnace mouth sucks in air, mixing it with the flames and the gas that rattles the structure.

“Pickaxes here!” shouts the old count. “Pickaxes and wet clay!”

The heat singes hair and skin; embers from above add to the blaze. Blue flames flicker over the shingles and the roof’s timber; sticky pitch falls in burning, bubbling clumps that sear into human flesh. The chimney has shattered; tar and pitch have caught fire, setting the roof ablaze.

The old count has thrown off his coat. In shirtsleeves, he grabs a pickaxe and shows his men what he wants. He has, after all, often worked alongside them in shirtsleeves before, with apron and trowel, demonstrating tricks and techniques in molding and casting. The tool thunders heavily against the glowing boiler walls, tearing open gaps; steam surges out, the sharp point bites in all directions, and the red serpents within become visible. From the modeling workshop, they drag in troughs of wet clay. They’ve grasped what the old count intends: through the torn-open walls, shovel after shovel of heavy, damp earth is thrust, clinging to the— coils of the pipes, enveloping them layer by layer. All hands shovel, sealing the cracks and fissures of the furnace, cutting off the air supply, throttling the breath of the fire.

Hours of struggle follow, and then the danger is averted. The flames rage on, devouring wood and coal, intoxicated by gas, but they are tamed within the furnace’s interior; the broken chains are thrown over them once more.

“I think we’ve done it,” says the old count. “Now we just have to wait until the fire burns itself out.”

“It’ll take a good while yet,” says Reichenbach.

The old count washes his face and hands in a wooden tub of water and puts his coat back on. “You believe that, Reichenbach,” he smiles contentedly, “let’s head to cooler territory for a bit. And we’ve earned a glass of wine, too.”

*

They rode in a light carriage to the hunting lodge up in the valley. Midnight hung over the peaks, crowned with gleaming constellations, edged with a pale shimmer of moonlight.

“It’ll be done differently next time,” said Reichenbach after a long silence, as they passed the sawmill. “Now I’ve figured it out. The furnace needs shut-off valves and heating tubes so the fire can’t get to the wood so easily, and the gas duct should be extended thirty cords long and cooled with flowing water. This mustn’t happen again. I was a real fool. The gentlemen are always smarter coming out of a meeting than when they go in.”

“Please, Reichenbach,” replied the old count, encouraging the horse with a click of his tongue, “don’t make such a fuss about it. Everyone makes mistakes; you learn from mistakes, and trying trumps studying. It’ll all work out. The main thing is that no greater misfortune happened. How easily could someone have lost their sight in an explosion—better red-hot than blind.”

Of all the misfortunes in the world, blindness seemed to the old count the cruelest. He had come close to it himself, back when, after returning from French captivity, he was struck by an eye affliction brought on by the hardships and toils of the campaign. He knew what it meant to see a gray veil fall over the world and to have to grope along the nearest objects with a stick.

In Reichenbach’s mind, a defiant thought flared: Now more than ever! “As long as you don’t give up, it’ll be fine. I won’t let go. But it’s still a blunder. And when bad luck piles onto stupidity—”

“What do you want?” comforted the old count. “You’ve got nothing to complain about! Haven’t you built up the entire operation? The ironworks, the rolling mill, the artistic castings, the steam engines we build—the first in Austria—the enameled goods that go as far as Haiti and Singapore, all that bears the name Reichenbach. What—”would it be just a small-time operation without you? And the creosote and paraffin, the picamar, the pittacal, the eupion, and all those things you’ve teased out of the tar. That’s all nothing?”