Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
It was very stupid of her to torment herself with that. He had nothing on his heart. On the contrary, he had not been so cheerful for a long time. He hardly knew what suffering meant now. No, no… He only perhaps had a little desire to torment other people. He did that very gladly, he had a boundless need for love, and he felt it most intensely when he tormented people. Oh, he could stretch her on the rack in quite different ways, just to see this hot, devoted love flare up so fiercely in her torment. He could tell her the most incredible stuff, that he was married, for example, that he already had a child and that her child was born a bastard. Couldn’t she understand these instincts? Besides, she shouldn’t take him too seriously. He didn’t always have his five senses together.
But Janina was not calmed.
“No, no, dear Erik, I understand very well what you mean, but it’s not like that with you. I can distinguish very well…” She thought for a while.
“Tell me, is Czerski making you so restless?” Falk pricked up his ears.
“Czerski? Czerski? Hm… Yes, I will probably have a lot of trouble.”
“Why?”
“No, not exactly trouble… but…” Falk suddenly broke off.
“He sat about a year and a half in prison?” “Yes, almost.”
“Strange that he was released just now…” Janina looked at him questioningly.
“Why is that strange?” Falk looked up in surprise.
“Did I say it was strange? I was thinking of something quite different. But what I wanted to say… he probably looks very bad… Well, yes, of course… Hm, I’m sorry for him. He is an extremely capable fellow, only so reckless… Now he has probably become a complete anarchist. That is natural… Did he cry?”
“No, he was very calm. He said he was prepared for it. Only reproached me for not having spoken completely honestly with him… Then he took the child, looked at it for a long time and asked about the father.”
“You told him? Yes of course. Why shouldn’t you. He, he… I don’t need to be ashamed that I helped a good citizen into existence… He, he… you see, Jania, sometimes I have to laugh nervously like that, but it comes from being so overtired… Life is not as easy as you think in your youthful high spirits… Well, laugh at the nice joke…”
But Janina did not laugh. She looked broodingly at the floor. Falk became irritated.
Why was she so sad? Could he really go nowhere without being presented with sad and mournful faces?
Janina was startled by his vehemence.
He controlled himself and tried to smooth it over.
“The little Erik is healthy, isn’t he? Yes, of course. But you are probably still very weak… Hm, it’s not easy to give birth to a child…”
He looked at a picture hanging above the bed.
“You drew that picture with me back then… Hm… Do you still remember? It was so terribly hot: you had a bright red sailor blouse on and when you lay over the drawing board like that… He, he, he… That’s how it started…”
Janina looked at him seriously.
“It would have been better if I had never met you.” “So? Why then?”
“No, no… I don’t know. I was happy with you.” “But?”
“I am afraid of you. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you do. I have known you now for ten years… Yes, ten years since I first saw you… I was not yet fourteen, I was with you almost daily for a time and I know nothing, nothing about you. I don’t believe you are open with me… Sometimes it seems to me that your words come quite mechanically, without you knowing exactly what you are saying… No, no, you are not happy. That is the only thing I know about you. Sometimes I become quite mad with pain. I want to crawl into you to see what is going on inside you… You don’t love me at all, you say it openly, and yet I must do everything for you, I don’t know why. I am like a small child to you, yes, will-less like a two-year-old child… What is it about you?”
Falk looked at her smiling. “The stronger will.”
“Perhaps you would love me if my will were strong?” “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I tolerate no other will beside mine.” Falk went to the window.
The uncanny silence struck him. “Is it always so quiet here?”
“Yes, at night.”
He looked at the wide asphalt courtyard, four stories from four sides. A real prison yard. Opposite in the second floor he saw a window lit.
He went to the table and poured fresh water into the glass.
“It’s strange that Stefan managed to cross the border. But poor Czerski had to pay. There was probably a house search at your place too?”
“Yes, but they left me alone.”
“Hm, hm… I’m very sorry for him… He loved you very much, didn’t he?” Janina did not answer.
Falk looked at her, drank hastily and stepped to the window again. “Well, I must go.”
Janina looked at him pleadingly.
“Don’t go, Erik, stay with me today, stay…” He became restless.
“No, Jania, no, don’t ask me that. Demand nothing from me. It is so beautiful when I can come to you and go again when I want.”
Janina sighed heavily.
“Why do you sigh, Jania?”
She suddenly burst into tears.
He became impatient, but sat down again. She controlled herself with difficulty.
“You are right. Go, go… It was just a moment… I suddenly became so restless. Always do what you want…”
Her voice trembled. They were silent for a long time.
“I probably can’t see the little one now?… I’ll come tomorrow or the day after anyway.”
He stood up.
“Does Stefan write to you often?” “Rarely…”
“Strange that he knew nothing about our relationship. I mean the earlier relationship three years ago…”
“He was in America then.”
“Right! God, how forgetful I am… Well, goodbye… I’ll probably come tomorrow.”
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