Anarchistbanjo's World

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

XIV.

Falk wandered restlessly through the city all day. 

He finally sat in a café and spent several hours there. He was so tired that he could find no strength to get up and get the newspapers. Ask a waiter? No, it hurt just to open his mouth. 

Yet he felt a bit of joy, how beautifully everything arranged itself… and Kunicki is after all a famous shot. Tomorrow everything is over. Good so. 

He actually wondered that the whole thing was so indifferent to him, and it was after all about life… life! He giggled cheerfully. Life! 

Finally he collected himself. When he came home, he felt so exhausted that he lay down on the bed immediately; he was about to fall asleep. 

Then he sat up abruptly. 

He had to speak with Isa after all. Who knows if he would return tomorrow. He had to inform her in any case, without arousing her suspicion, about the most important affairs. 

But he could also do that in writing. And again he lay down. Otherwise she could get bad thoughts. No! Better to write a letter. 

Suddenly he became strangely awake. His brain was shaken and came into operation. 

It now became finally clear to him that tomorrow his death march awaited him. A slight shiver ran through his limbs. It was something like fear… Quite surely fear and unrest, although revolver heroes otherwise do not have fear… 

The whole process became alive in him with such disgustingly intrusive clarity. 

He will have to stand calmly, before his eyes the pistol muzzle will flicker like a black point, then he will clearly hear the cock click, quite clearly, yes, perhaps even as a strong noise. 

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With difficulty he pushed everything back into himself. 

He yawned. But his yawning seemed affected to himself. 

He had to go to Isa and play piquet with her, that would calm him. Afterwards he could consider the whole story… 

But fear crept up in him and his heart beat terribly. Kunicki after all shot the poor Russian down immediately… 

And leave all this behind: Isa and the whole future… He stopped. 

Where did the self-lie of the future suddenly creep from now? That was a ridiculous lie. Ha, ha, ha… How one can unconsciously lie to oneself… Strange… Naturally it wanted to argue further in me: everything is not so bad as it looks… Everything could still become good. 

And suddenly he shot up like mad. 

Kruk cannot come back to Germany after all. He is sentenced to five years. 

He ran around like possessed. 

Then Isa can never find out. He always opened the letters himself. 

A moment of such immediate, animal feeling of happiness he had never felt before. 

He came completely out of his senses with joy, a terrible life frenzy rose in him. He thought of nothing, only one single, fixed idea roared and whirled in his brain. Only now quickly away! 

Kunicki? Kunicki? What does Kunicki concern me, what does honor concern me, what does shame concern me. Now quickly away, away. 

His brain clung with the last despair strength to this straw. 

Then he suddenly began to laugh in rage and fury. 

Ha, ha, ha… Now I begin to play comedy before myself. As if that could help me over the disgust and the lie! Ha, ha, ha: everything could still become good. 

He suddenly thought of the comical, little Jew from whom he once wanted to borrow money. The Jew naturally had no money, but Falk should console himself, everything would still become good. 

And then a heartfelt cheerfulness came over him that he had not felt for a long time. 

Yes, so he could now go to Isa, he was really cheerful and happy. When he entered the salon, his glance fell by chance on the picture and this mad despair orgy of the sky… But he was cheerful and happy. 

In the dining room he listened. From Isa’s room came sobbing and moaning… 

It shot through him like lightning, he staggered back. His heart stopped. 

He stepped to the door and knocked timidly. No answer. Only a sudden violent cry. He now knocked violently and rattled the door. Isa! Isa! he cried desperately. 

A deep moaning was the answer. 

He became possessed in a moment. An unheard-of rage took possession of him. 

Open! he cried. Again no answer. 

Then an animal fury seized him. His senses left him. He suddenly threw himself with his whole strength against the door, broke it open and fell staggering into the room. 

Isa jumped from the sofa, wild and distraught. 

“What do you want here? Go then! Go then to your mistress,” she cried raging. 

Falk stood and trembled so violently that he had to hold onto the table. “Go then! Go then!” cried Isa and ran desperately back and forth, as if she feared he would seize her. 

“Isa!” he finally managed to bring out. 

“Leave me! Leave!” she cried senselessly and stopped her ears with her fingers. “I want to hear nothing. Go then! I cannot see you! I have disgust for you!” 

Falk stood there and stared at her madly. He heard only this hoarse, screaming voice in which a hysterical laughter and crying fought each other. It occurred to him that he had never heard Isa scream before. 

Isa came into rage. She stamped with her feet, cried a few inarticulate sounds, then ran around the table to the door. 

Falk came to his senses. He held her by the arms. She struggled desperately with him, but he held her tighter and tighter, bit himself as it were with his fingers into her arms. 

“Let me go!” she cried with an unnatural voice. He let her go and stood before the door. 

“I will go, but first you shall hear me,” he flared up furiously. 

“I want to hear nothing. I hate you! I beg you! I have disgust for you. You soil me! Go then to your mistress.” 

Suddenly she fell backwards onto the sofa in a wild crying cramp. In senseless fear Falk jumped toward her. 

The slender, frail body twitched and writhed in his arms as if kneaded by a foreign power. From the throat of the tormented woman came spasmodic cries and sobs that were unnatural, as if an animal had uttered them.  

Falk carried her to the balcony, grasped a carafe of water, moistened her forehead and temple, but suddenly she rose again and pushed him back furiously. 

In the next moment she sank together, she threw herself on the sofa, breathed heavily; the strength seemed to leave her, for she crawled more and more together. 

Then she threw herself up again with sudden jerk and stood proud and cold before Falk. 

“What do you want then still?” 

“Nothing, nothing more.” He stammered and looked at her with mad, glazed eyes. 

“Nothing, nothing,” he repeated softly. 

“You must make clear to yourself that between us everything is over, that I will not remain one hour longer with you under one roof… I do not want,” she cried raging… “Let me go then.” 

She threw herself at him and tried to push him out the door. 

It became quite dark before his eyes, he was no longer master of his animal rage attack, he seized her and threw her with full strength onto the sofa. 

She jumped up, wanted to flee, her hair had loosened, he grasped her by the hair, tore half mad at it and dragged her back again. 

“I will kill you, I will kill you,” he grinned in a second of complete confusion of senses. 

She no longer resisted, everything broke in her—she became still for a moment. 

Falk shot up in horrible fear.