Anarchistbanjo's World

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

No more than the salon anarchist Herr John Henry Mackay… You all preach a peaceful overthrow, a replacement of the broken wheel by a new one while the wagon is in motion. Your whole dogma structure is quite idiotic, precisely because it is so logical, for it is based on the omnipotence of reason. But until now everything has arisen through unreason, through stupidity, through purposeless chance.” 

“And you sent Czerski to make the stupidity,” Kunicki sneered. 

“I hope with all my soul that he does something terribly stupid. I hope it definitely, and namely in the conviction that the few revolutionaries who were hanged, shot or executed have penetrated a thousand times deeper into the consciousness of the dissatisfied popular masses than your party with the theoretical Marx-Lassallean watered soups can ever penetrate.” 

Kunicki laughed scornfully and tried to be quite pointed. 

“You know, Herr Falk, after everything I have now heard from you, one could make quite peculiar thoughts about you. Just as I hear you speak now, I heard a lock-spy speak in Zurich.” 

Now the moment is here, thought Falk. 

“Do you believe that I am a lock-spy?” Kunicki smiled even more maliciously. 

“I only emphasize the indeed very strange similarity of your speech…” 

In the same moment Falk bent far over the table and slapped Kunicki with full force. 

Kunicki jumped up and threw himself on Falk. 

But Falk grasped his both arms and clutched them so tightly that Kunicki could not tear himself loose despite the most furious efforts. 

Falk became very angry. 

“We will not fight here after all. I stand entirely at your disposal if you want satisfaction. By the way, I am stronger than you, you risk very fatal beatings.” 

He let him go and pushed him back. 

Kunicki looked deathly pale, foam came to his lips. Then he put on his coat and went staggering out of the room without a word. 

Falk sat down, Olga remained standing at the window and stared at him. Falk crept back into his brooding. 

This silence lasted probably half an hour. Suddenly he stood up. 

“He will surely send me a challenge?” 

It was like a quiet triumph in his words. 

“You wanted it. You provoked him. You forced him to it. And now you triumph over it. You find that this is easier than suicide.” 

She laughed nervously and stretched out her hand. 

“So you have no more strength, you want it after all. And you said that you love my love, and I believed that you would not do it for the sake of my love. You lied. You love no one.” 

“I love you—” said Falk mechanically. 

“No, no, you love no one. You love your pain, you love your cold, cruel curiosity, but not me.” 

She came into ever greater excitement. Her lips trembled and the eyes became unnaturally wide. 

“I love you!” repeated Falk tonelessly. 

“Don’t lie, don’t lie anymore. You never loved me. What am I to you? Could you have lived for my sake? You said: stay with me, I need your love, but did you think for a moment that I live only for your sake? You have enough love around you, but whom do I have, what do I have, except your cold, cruel curiosity that chained you to me. Did you think of me now?” 

“I always think of you,” said Falk very sadly. 

She wanted to say something, but her voice broke, her face froze, and again Falk saw the tears run over the mute face. She turned quickly to the window. But in the next moment she came to him and grasped him with desperate passion by the arms. 

“Do you want to die?” 

He stared at her as if he had not understood her. “Do you want to die?” she repeated in frenzy. “Yes.” 

“Yes?” she cried out. “Yes.” 

She let her arms sink. 

“I do not love you. I do not love you as I loved you… Why don’t you give me a shilling when you get millions? Are you so poor, are you really so poor…?” 

She stepped back and looked at him with tormenting despair. 

But in this moment Falk threw himself on his knees, grasped her dress and kissed it with long fervor. 

She sank down on him, she grasped his head, she kissed him on his eyes, on his hair, on his mouth. She could not satiate herself on the head she loved so unspeakably with all the torment, with all the painful renunciation. 

Suddenly she started up violently and staggered back. “You do not love me!” 

Her voice was tired and broken. 

Falk did not answer. He sat down, supported his head in both hands and suffered. He had never suffered so. 

The impotence of his soul had now completely broken him. There was really no way out anymore. Now his soul became dull, only now and then some indifferent thought flashed up. 

Olga sat down on her bed and looked at him fixedly. 

He suddenly raised his eyes to her, they stared at each other an eternity, he smiled madly and lowered his eyes. 

Suddenly he said, as to himself: 

“I slapped him because he is only a louse.” 

“You are sick, Falk. Only now do I see that your head is sick.” She looked at him with growing astonishment. 

“You were always sick. You are not normal.” 

“Not normal?” he asked. “Not normal? You are probably right. I often asked myself if I am not mad in the end. But my madness is different from that of other people… Yes, my head is sick. The disgust kills me…” 

He sat with deeply bowed head and spoke very softly. 

“The disgust for myself, the disgust for people eats at me like gangrene… I could perhaps have done something, but the senseless debaucheries ate away my will. I went and destroyed and suffered… Oh, how terribly I suffered. But I had to do it, half from a demonic incomprehensible urge. People succumbed to my suggestions… But what should I talk about it. I have talked enough… In the end it is only my vanity that speaks so… It actually pleases me that I had this power… I also repent nothing, perhaps I would start anew if I got fresh strength from somewhere. 

He stood up. 

“Now I will go. You did me wrong: I loved you very much.” 

He bent over her hand and kissed it. The hand trembled violently. At the door he stopped. 

“If it goes badly, you understand, Kunicki is a famous shot, yes, then will you now and then look in on Janina?… She was good to me… It is shameful that I had to intervene so deeply in her life…” 

He looked at her and smiled strangely. “Will you do that?” 

She nodded with her head. 

“Well, farewell Olga, and—and… Yes, who knows, perhaps we will not see each other again.” 

She stared at him speechlessly and then waved violently with her hand. “Yes, yes… I go.”