Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
VI.
Falk listened to Olga with nervous unrest.
She told him dryly, almost businesslike, of her visit to Czerski.
“Czerski is a fantasist,” he finally said. “Everything whirls confused in his head. I believe he even wants to build Fourierist phalansteries… He, he, he… Bakunin has completely turned his head…” “I don’t believe he is a utopian,” Olga spoke dryly and coldly.
“His train of thought is a bit confused, but original, and, as I think, not without prospect of success.”
Falk looked at her from the side.
“So, so… Do you really believe that? For all I care… It is extraordinarily sympathetic to me that he collides with the bourgeois code of law… But tell me, what is between him and Kunicki?”
“Kunicki shot a Russian in a duel in Zurich two years ago.”
“In a duel?”
“Yes. Strange enough. Then Czerski slapped him in a meeting.”
“Why then?”
“Czerski said he slapped not Kunicki, but his violation of the supreme principle of the party.”
Falk laughed scornfully.
“Wonderful! And what did Kunicki say?”
“What should he do? He couldn’t murder Czerski after all.”
“Strange fanatic! But now he wants nothing more to do with the party?”
“No.”
Falk pondered long.
“My act is my being—isn’t that what he said? Hm, hm…” Olga looked at him searchingly.
“You, Falk, tell me, is it really serious with you about our cause?”
“Why do you ask that?” “Because I want to know.”
Olga seemed unusually irritated and excited.
“Because you want to know? Well, for all I care. I mean nothing with your cause. What do I have to do with a cause? Humanity?! Who is humanity, what is humanity? I only know who you are and my wife, and my friend, and one more, but humanity, humanity: I don’t know that. I have never had anything to do with that.”
“What do you mean by that you yourself wrote almost all the proclamations and leaflets, that you give your money for agitation, that you…”
He interrupted her violently.
“But I don’t do that for humanity’s sake. Oh, how naive you are… Don’t you understand that it gives me a mad pleasure to open the eyes of the people down there a little? Isn’t it an unheard-of pleasure to observe how the poor wage slave suddenly becomes seeing?… Well, I don’t need to enumerate to you what all the poor slave down there gets to know… He, he, he… Isn’t it glorious to see how such a slave develops under the influence of so much light? And this divine spectacle, how the rulers scream to heaven for revenge out of rage and fear and make anti-subversion laws!… Ha, ha, ha… Look here—here I have a wonderful list of the enormous losses the mines had in the last strike. I ruined my whole fortune, or better, my wife’s fortune in this strike, but for that this unheard-of satisfaction! The Theodosius mine went bankrupt, the Etruria can hardly hold on anymore… I know him, the owner, he has gone quite gray with worries, this disgusting labor-power usurer… He, he… Never have I had such an intense feeling of satisfaction as when I saw him sitting there… I ruined him, not because he concerns me or because I believe in your cause, only, merely only out of personal interest in this grandiose spectacle… He, he, the poor fellow screamed for military, he wanted to have all workers shot down like dogs, he threatened to overthrow the government, oh, that was infinitely grand to see. And for this to see, should I not give the last penny?”
He became quite hoarse with excitement.
Olga looked at him long, long and smiled painfully.
“How you deceive yourself! But you don’t want to deceive me, do you?”
He stopped astonished, suddenly laughed, but remained very serious in a moment.
“So you believe in nobler motives in me?” She did not answer.
“Do you believe that?” he asked violently. But she was silent.
“You must tell me!” He stamped his foot, but controlled himself instantly.
“No, I don’t believe,” she finally said calmly, “that you should find satisfaction in such petty, malicious revenge. You lie completely pointlessly. I know very well that you gave the money for the strike because the consortium paid out twenty-five percent dividend and at the same time typhus had broken out among the mine workers.”
“Those were secondary reasons.”
“No, no, that is not true. You have found a pleasure for some time in slandering and making yourself bad: Czerski said very well that you would go to prison with joy if you could only find atonement for your sins in it.”
“Ha, ha, ha… You are quite unusually sharp psychologists.” He laughed with a forced ugly laugh.
“So you believe in high-minded motives in me? Ha, ha, ha… Do you know why I sent Czerski the money?”
He suddenly stopped.
She looked at him pale and confused. “You lie!”
“Do you know why?”
She became unusually excited and jumped up. “Say that you lie!”
Falk sat down and stared at her. “Is it true?” she asked hoarsely.
She bent down over him and looked at him fixedly with wide-open eyes.
“Did you really want to get rid of him?”
“No!” he suddenly cried out. “You are not cowardly.”
“No!”
She breathed deeply and sat down again. They were silent long.
“What do you want to do now with Janina?”
Falk became very pale and looked at her startled. “Did Czerski tell you that too?”
“Yes.”
He let his head sink and stared at the floor.
“I will adopt the child,” he said after a long pause.
“It is terrible what a demon you have in you. Why must you make yourself and others unhappy? Why? You are a very unhappy person, Falk.”
“Do you think so?”
He threw it out distractedly, walked back and forth a few times and stopped before her.
“Did you not believe for a second that I wanted to get rid of Czerski out of cowardice?”
“No!”
He took her hand and kissed it. “I thank you,” he said dryly.
He began to walk up and down again. A long pause arose. “When will Czerski leave?”
“Tonight.”
He stopped before her.
“I believe in your love,” he said slowly. “I love your love. You are the only being in whose presence I am good…”
She stood up confused.
“Don’t speak of it, why speak of it?… Terrible things are before you now… If you need me…”
“Yes, yes, I will come to you when the storm is over.” “Come when nothing else remains for you.”
“Yes.”
She went.
Suddenly Falk ran after her.
“Where does Czerski live?” She gave him the address.
“Do you want to go to him?” “Yes.”
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