Anarchistbanjo's World

Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

He wanted to think, but the fear paralyzed his thinking: in his brain was a 

whirling, glowing confusion, around his eyes the world danced torn in purple flakes… 

In the next moment he became calm again. He went quickly forward, where did he go only? where? 

There! Yes, there the street ended and now came the park. 

He jerked violently. Fear and fever shook him, he could not go further, his knees wobbled, and again the world flickered before his eyes torn in millions of circling, scattering ball sparks. 

He did not know what happened to him. He closed his eyes, but something forced him to stare there, clearly at a point, at the terrible: there lay Grodzki. 

Now he felt no fear anymore, only a cruel curiosity. By the way, he did not see him quite clearly, it was only the head there. The eyes were closed and the mouth was open. He stared long at the mask face, but suddenly he became raging because he felt that he could not move from the spot. He tried tormentingly to lift the hand, it did not go. Now he had to apply all power to sink down and crawl away on the hands. He could not, he could also not turn the eyes away. 

A wild despair fevered in him. It suddenly seemed to him as if the eyelids of the death mask opened to a slit and winked at him maliciously. 

That was horrible! 

But the eyes blinked clearly, and gradually the half-open mouth distorted to a hideous grimace. Then he felt the ice-cold hand brush his skin, how the corpse cold glided over his whole body… 

He started up as if shot up from a terrible thrust. 

He looked around confused. Where was he? That was only a dream… The cursed fever! 

If only it did not come again. The fear tore at his brain. He took mechanically his collar off. The shirt button had fallen off. He searched for it with a strange eagerness for a time, he became more and more eager and angry, searched everywhere around, rummaged with a raging greed with the hands on the floor, crawled under the bed, searched under the desk, with growing rage, in a 

paroxysm of despair he threw the objects around and finally a kind of rabies seized him. He wept and gnashed his teeth and tore the carpet from the floor. There lay the button. Now he was satisfied. He was happy. He had never been so happy. He placed it carefully on the desk, looked again to see if it was really there and sat down with infinite satisfaction at the window. It was quite light. 

Suddenly he came completely to consciousness. So that was really a strong fever. Should he perhaps call Isa? Oh no, no, she would die of unrest. But he should have morphine in the house. That was an unforgivable negligence that he had not provided himself with it… 

Now he had to watch with all energy that he would not become unconscious. These horrible dreams… He stood up and opened the window, but the strength left him—only a little calm, quite a little. He lay down on the bed again. 

It became quiet. He saw a thousand lights flicker up on the wide moor ridges and disappear again. The willows on the way moaned and groaned like sarcophagus doors resting on old rusty hinges… Sarcophagus? No, no, absolutely no sarcophagus—it sounded like a distant ice drift, no—like wheel rolling on distant paths… He listened. From the nearby village he heard a dog bark, another answered him with long, whining lament… 

Suddenly he heard the same long, whining sound repeat behind his back. 

His heart stopped beating. 

Again, stronger… a horrible, suppressed sobbing, then again a shrill cry… 

He turned in convulsive fear agony: it was nothing. Nothing was there, but he felt it close behind him, he heard it incessantly whine and sob… 

A wild rage rose in him. What do you want? he cried. I didn’t do it! I am not to blame! I didn’t do it! he cried senselessly. Marit, Marit, let me go! 

But then it seemed to him as if he were whipped, that fiery welts ran down his back. He cried out shrilly and began to run. He had to get rid of it, he had to… But the ground was softened after the long rains, he did not get from the spot, then he sank into 

a deep ditch, panting he worked himself up, but in the same moment he felt a fist grab him from behind, it tore him back into the mud. He sank under, it tore him down, he suffocated, the mud poured into his mouth, but in the last death struggle he tore himself loose, crawled out, and again he began to run and again he felt it close behind him whining, sobbing. He lost his senses, his strength left him, he could not go further, it shot through his head in horrible despair. 

Suddenly he stopped as if rooted. An old man stood in the middle of the market and stared at him. He could not bear the gaze, he turned away, but wherever he looked, he saw a hundred cruel, greedy eyes that devoured his soul, tore at his nerves, eyes that spat revenge and surrounded him like a glowing fire wreath. He ducked, he wanted to steal away, but everywhere were these greedy eyes, desperately he looked ahead and saw the old man—Marit’s father! Murderer! he cried to him and suddenly a hundred fists rose that were to rain down on him and stamp him deep into the ground… With a mad leap he flew over the crowd, ran into his house, with a jump he sprang up the stairs and threw the door into the lock. 

He waited, crouched close to the wall. A while passed. It was like an eternity. He heard his blood pound so hot at the temples that he feared it could be heard and betray him. His throat constricted, tighter and tighter: in the next moment he would not be able to breathe. Now the strength left him completely. His teeth chattered and he sank to his knees. He crouched, he pressed himself against the wall, tighter, the wall had to hold him securely… 

It knocked. 

He started. His teeth chattered audibly. That was Marit! That was surely Marit! 

It knocked again. An eternity passed. 

Then he saw the door slowly begin to open. A mad fright stiffened his limbs, he threw himself with his whole body against the door, he braced himself against it with the last despair strength, but he was pushed further and further away, the door opened as if by itself, 

with horrible horror he saw the crack grow larger and larger, and there he saw two terrible eyes in which a madness pain had congealed. 

Falk let out a short, shrill cry. Before him stood a strange man. 

Was it a new vision? Was it reality? I have probably gone mad! it shot through his head like lightning. But by chance he saw the shirt button on the desk. It was no vision… A visit then. He climbed down from the bed, sat in the armchair and stared fearfully at the stranger who looked at him with a sick calm. 

They looked at each other a long time, probably two minutes passed. 

“Did you come from there?” Falk brought out with difficulty and pointed to the door. 

The stranger nodded. 

Falk brooded, a memory shot through his head. 

“I spoke with you yesterday in the restaurant?” 

“Yes. You don’t know me. But I know you. I have seen you often. Forgive me that I surprise you so, but I must speak with you… I believe you had a heavy dream. I know it, in the last time it was quite the same with me… You cried out, naturally, when one wakes so suddenly… You are namely a very nervous person and so I said to myself, I must stare at you, then you will wake immediately. You perhaps know that nervous and short-sighted people are awakened by firm staring. Now you don’t seem short-sighted, consequently you must be very nervous. I stared at you at most two seconds. By the way, I noticed it immediately yesterday when you asked me if I wanted to arrest you. You didn’t let me come to word. I did seek you for a whole time, but yesterday it was quite, quite by chance that I met you.” 

“How did you get in?” 

“The corridor door was open, here I knocked at random, and when no one answered, I entered. I have namely seen you often. A man spoke much of you. I saw you a few times in his company.” 

“But what do you want, what do you want from me,” Falk cried angrily at him. 

The stranger seemed to take no notice of his excitement. 

“I heard very much about you. The man by the way seduced my wife, no, forgive me, one doesn’t seduce women, I believe one is seduced by women.” 

“What do you want?” Falk cried almost unconscious. 

Again the stranger looked at him with the same calm gaze for a time. 

“Don’t interrupt me, Herr Falk… No, no, one doesn’t seduce women. I namely have a theory of my own there… Man is a louse, a slave of woman, and the slave doesn’t seduce the mistress.” 

“There are enough coachmen who have begotten children with their mistresses,” Falk threw at him with malicious scorn. 

The stranger seemed to overhear it. 

“Woman created man… Woman was the first… Woman forced man to develop his forces far beyond himself, to educate his brain beyond itself…” 

He suddenly confused himself and looked at Falk with mad, clumsy smile. 

“See,” he said after a while and smiled mysteriously, “what did primitive man take the club in his hand for the first time? Only in the fight for the female, only to beat his rival to death. Isn’t that so?” 

“No, it is not true,” said Falk harshly. 

“Well, you will naturally say that he swung the club in the so-called struggle for existence… No! You are wrong. The struggle for existence came only when it was about satisfying sex… through the means of sex nature first made clear to man that it is worth living at all and taking up the struggle for existence.” 

He suddenly became very pale and restless. 

“But I did not come to develop my theories to you. It is something else, something quite else.”