Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
XIII.
In the early morning Falk was awakened.
A gentleman was waiting in the salon on a very important matter. “Aha!” said Falk and dressed quickly.
When he entered the salon, he saw a person who bowed stiffly and extremely ceremoniously.
“From Kunicki? Isn’t that so? Well?”
He listened impatiently and distractedly to the other’s well-set speech.
“Severe demand? Yes, naturally. Just give your address, I will send my second to you. Only for God’s sake no stiffnesses, no ceremonies. Otherwise the conditions are quite indifferent to me. Naturally shoot to unconsciousness. Only no ceremonies…”
The stranger looked at Falk strangely, bowed and went.
“That is splendid, splendid.” Falk rubbed his hands cheerfully. Then he began to walk slowly up and down in the salon.
Suddenly a hot longing for Isa seized him. To tell her everything, to take her on his hands, to press her to him, so that they would become one in the raging elan of love.
But in the next moment a picture that hung over the piano chained him.
The sky: a row of broad, glaring stripes that lay unbalanced next to each other. Broad, brutal stripes; the whole like a wild cry of despair… And a beach with a long pier. Two people on the pier: she in a white dress. One actually saw only this white dress, and this white spot in the middle of the despair orgy of the sky looked like something horribly mysterious, something that made the nerves sick with curiosity and mad horror. He sucked himself with his whole soul into this white dress: That is she, the doom, the white lightning, the dancing world in chaos.
He looked away and examined with most tense attention a wilted orchid.
So he had to find a second now—naturally Geißler. He had no other. He no longer had a single person.
He searched long for his hat, went to Isa’s bedroom, listened, went quietly around again…
Now he had to go, otherwise he would no longer find Geißler at home.
Scarcely had he gone when Isa entered his room. She had fever in the night and nightmare. She wanted to speak with him, to calm herself…
She was very astonished when she no longer found him. She stood sadly, then sat down and looked around the room.
The room suddenly seemed so strange and so uncomfortable to her. She believed she clearly felt the sick, feverish atmosphere of this room… Everything lay confused together, on the desk she saw a large, colorfully scribbled sheet of paper.
She held the sheet in her hands and looked as if sunk before her. The sheet was written from bottom to top only with one word in the most varied typefaces: Ananke.
An indefinite torment constricted her heart. It became so sultry to her. She felt a deep sadness. It seemed to her as if her whole happiness had suddenly passed.
She actually did not understand where all this depression came from? She began to distract herself with all possible thoughts, but she could not get rid of the irritating unrest.
She collected herself, went into her bedroom and dressed slowly.
Suddenly the maid came in.
“A gentleman wishes to speak with you.” She handed Isa a card: Stefan Kruk.
Isa read and read the card. But that is impossible. Hadn’t Kruk fled from Germany? He is after all sentenced to several years in prison… A growing unrest began to hunt in her head. A confusion of thoughts shot through her brain. The feeling of something unusual filled her with sudden fright. She hurried and was hardly able to finish her toilet.
When she entered the salon, she saw Kruk quite unusually pale with wild, red eyes.
Isa stopped frightened.
“What is it? What is it?” she asked stammering.
“Where is your husband?”
She heard his hoarse voice tremble violently.
“He went away. But how do you come here, how could you expose yourself to this danger?”
Kruk looked at her as if he did not know where he was, as if he had forgotten himself.
Isa recoiled frightened.
“Your husband is a scoundrel,” he cried raging. “He dishonored my sister…”
Isa heard a few more words: mistress, bastard, seducer, then she understood nothing more.
Kruk came to his senses. He saw how all blood had left her face, how her lips became blue… She swayed, he caught her.
She came to quickly.
“My husband has a child now, now… a few weeks ago with your sister? Your… sister?! Child?”
She looked at him absently and stammered incessantly the word child… then she jumped toward him.
“That is impossible! Impossible…”
She grasped her head and walked a few steps. “A child!…”
She suddenly started.
“I must see it, I must see it… It is impossible. No, no…” She ran around.
“Why don’t you say a word? Say then that it is impossible… Oh God, oh God… So look for my hat, quick, my hat… How is that only possible… Ha, ha, ha, he asked me what I would say to it… Grand Dieu, c’est impossible… How pale you are, how dark… Just come quick, quick…”
She no longer knew what she did and what she said.
Only down in the cab did she come to her senses. They spoke no word with each other.
She had the feeling of a black, cool shadow over her brain, she laughed convulsively, sank together and again a desire to laugh suddenly overcame her.
She looked at Kruk almost roguishly.
“I recognized you immediately—I saw you twice in Paris… Oh, how you have changed, and how boundlessly pale you are… Mais c’est terrible, c’est terrible!”
She looked with mad glances out the window.
Suddenly she heard the rolling of another cab behind her back, the noise deafened her, she saw nothing more and heard nothing, repeated only quite mechanically: c’est terrible!
Finally the cab stopped, and immediately behind it another cab stopped. Kruk suddenly came into an unspeakable unrest…
In the moment when Isa had stepped out of the cab, she saw two men throw themselves on Kruk.
“In the name of the law…”
Kruk drew the revolver lightning fast, but in a moment he was thrown to the ground from behind…
A crowd formed. Isa stepped hastily into the hallway.
She supported herself against the wall so as not to fall. A dizziness raged in her. She sought convulsively to fight against it. Then she looked fixedly up the shining stair rail, heard a shouting on the street and saw a few children run past.
She looked around confused.
What did she want here?… Visit Erik’s mistress? Ha, ha… Great God! Erik’s mistress…
She collected herself and stepped into the courtyard. She stopped as if spellbound.
In a window of the courtyard ground floor she saw a pale, desperate face. The girl carried a child on her arm.
The two women stared at each other.
C’est elle! Isa said to herself half-aloud. She saw how the other recoiled in highest fright.
Isa went in. She knocked.
The door was opened fearfully and only half.
“But let me in…” she almost violently pushed Janina back… “I want to do nothing to you, only the child…”
She entered Janina’s room.
“But don’t tremble so, I really want to do nothing to you…” She laughed nervously… “Mais, c’est drôle… this little girl: Erik’s mistress, ha, ha, ha… Sit down then, you are pale, you will fall… God, how thin, how miserable you are. He sucked all your blood… And the little one there is your child, Falk’s child…”
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