Anarchistbanjo's World

Homo Sapiens by Stansislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

Author’s Preface

Dedicated to the sculptor Gustav Vigeland

Due to various circumstances, I was compelled to tear apart what organically belongs together and to publish the three parts of *Homo Sapiens* separately. Thus, it came about that the first part appears last, but it is obvious that those who do not intend to misunderstand me from the outset will now read the *Homo Sapiens* novel series in its entirety and judge it as a whole, not as individual parts.

Chapter I.

Falk leapt up in a rage. What was it now? 

He didn’t want to be disturbed in his work, especially now, when he had finally resolved to start working again. 

Thank God! Not a friend. Just a postman. 

He meant to toss the card aside. It could wait. But then, suddenly: Mikita! A flush of heat surged through him. 

Mikita, my dear Mikita. 

He skimmed the card: “Be at home tomorrow afternoon. I’m back from Paris.” 

That was probably the most he’d written in ages, since that famous essay he’d indulged in years ago. 

Falk burst into hearty laughter. 

That marvelous essay! That he wasn’t expelled back then… New Year’s impressions, penned in the form of a New Year’s greeting in the most extravagant phrases; every sentence two pages long. 

And then—no, wasn’t that glorious? Old Fränkel… how he ranted! Well, the affair was dicey… 

Falk recalled how he’d persuaded Mikita to write an apology, in which a splendid pun ran as the underlying theme: What is permitted to a Schiller shouldn’t be permitted to a student? 

And then, the next day. They wrote the apology through the entire night, went to sleep in the early morning, and sent an excuse letter to Fränkel. 

Falk still couldn’t fathom how they got away with it. That splendid excuse: It was obvious that one couldn’t attend school after working all night on an apology. 

Twenty pages long… Now, though, he had to work. 

He sat back down, but the mood for work had vanished. He tried to force himself, fishing for thoughts, chewing on his pen, even scribbling a few lines that were utterly banal: no, it wouldn’t do. 

Another time, he’d surely have fallen into one of those familiar funereal moods that he had to drown in alcohol. This time, he was glad. 

He leaned back in his chair. 

Vividly, he saw the dreadful garret where they’d both lived during their final year at the gymnasium. Three windows in one wall, never to be opened lest the panes fly out. Every wall covered top to bottom with mold. And cold, God have mercy. 

How one early morning they awoke and looked around the room in astonishment: 

“Remarkably fresh air in here,” said Mikita. “Yes, remarkable.” 

And it was a wonder without bounds over this strange phenomenon. 

Yes, it became clear later. It was so cold that birds froze and fell from the sky. 

Falk stood up. Yes, those were his fondest memories. 

And that lanky fellow who always lent them books—what was his name again? 

He couldn’t recall the name for a long time. Then, at last: Longinus. 

A peculiar man. 

Falk thought back to how Mikita had secretly gained access to Longinus’s always-locked room and taken a book he wouldn’t lend. 

Suddenly, one Sunday—yes, there must have been fresh air in the room again… He woke up. A strange scene: Mikita in his shirt, key in hand, Longinus utterly outraged, trembling with rage. 

“Open the door!” Longinus hissed with theatrical pathos. “Put the book back, then I’ll open it for you.” 

Longinus, in a heroic pose, pacing back and forth, back and forth, in great cothurnus strides. 

“Open the door!” he roared hoarsely. “Put the book back!” 

Longinus was foaming. Suddenly, he approached Falk. 

“You’re a fine, educated man. You can’t tolerate my rights being infringed in any way.” 

Yes, Longinus always spoke in very refined and well-composed phrases. 

“Well, I’m sorry, Mikita has the key.” 

Now Longinus solemnly advanced to Mikita’s bed: “I deny you any form of education.” 

That was the gravest insult he’d ever uttered. 

“Open the door! I’ve been violated and yield the book to you.” God, how they laughed! And it was Sunday. They were supposed to be in church. They always skipped church. They were far too committed atheists. 

But it was risky. The fanatical religion teacher prowled about the church… 

Ha, ha, ha. 

Falk recalled how he once sat in church opposite his “flame”—yes, he sat on the catafalque, wanting to appear properly graceful and intriguing, and remained through the entire endless mass in a rather uncomfortable pose, one he’d seen in a depiction of Byron at Shelley’s grave. 

What a scandal that caused! 

Now he tried to muster himself for work again, but he couldn’t gather his thoughts. They all flitted and buzzed in his mind around that glorious time. 

He chewed absently on his pen and repeated: What a glorious time! 

How they’d suddenly discovered Ibsen, how *Brand* turned their heads. 

All or nothing! Yes, that became their motto. 

And they sought out the dives of the poor and gathered the proletarian children around them. 

Again, Falk saw himself in the garret. 

Five in the morning. A clatter of wooden clogs on the stairs, as if someone were dragging a cannon upstairs.  

Then the door opened, and in marched, single file: a boy, a girl—two boys—two girls, the whole room full. 

All around the stove, gathered at the large oak table. “Mikita, get up! I’m insanely tired.” Mikita cursed. 

He couldn’t get up. He’d worked all night on a Latin essay. 

With a jolt, they both sprang up, furious and full of hatred toward each other. 

The chattering of teeth in that cold! 

And now: he at the stove, puffing and cursing because the wood wouldn’t catch fire, Mikita at the large milk kettle, warming it with methylated spirits. 

Gradually, they softened. 

The children fell upon the milk and bread like young beasts of prey—Mikita, watching from the side, beaming, happy. 

And then: Children, out! 

Now they looked at each other amicably as usual. Falk felt a warmth around his heart. 

He’d long forgotten that. There was, God knows, a great, beautiful meaning in it. 

Then, usually, shame for catching themselves in sentimentality—no, they called it aesthetics—and, finally, a quarrel. 

“The *Nibelungenlied* is really just empty, foolish drivel.” Mikita knew Falk’s weak spots well. 

Of course, he wouldn’t admit that. He argued with incredible zeal and sliced the breakfast bread. 

Mikita was cunning. He always entangled Falk in a dispute and let him cut the bread, because Falk, in his fervor, never noticed how tedious it was. 

And suddenly: Good Lord, two minutes past time. Books snatched up and off to school in a frantic gallop. He in front, Mikita limping behind. Had he cured that bunion by now? 

Now Falk usually noticed he was hungry—Mikita had eaten all the bread, the splendid fellow.

Then… Falk faltered. 

*Brand* transposed onto the erotic. All or nothing… He faltered again. 

He had, in truth, destroyed Janina’s entire future. Hmm, why couldn’t she just let go of him? And how he had tormented her with *Brand*’s demands and *Brand*’s harshness. 

OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Chapter 9

Ottane’s picture, which is to become Max Heiland’s masterpiece, still stands on the easel.

A layman might perhaps say that it is finished, but the master still finds something to improve; it is to be his masterpiece, and that must not be given up so carelessly.

“Any random lady from society can be painted down as fast as the hands can manage. There sits the model, and there is the canvas. Stroke, stroke, stroke—one only needs to paint what one sees. That’s mass-produced goods, what one gets before the brush. With you, it’s different, Ottane! You are unique in the world, Ottane!”

And: “You mustn’t grow impatient with me, Ottane! You pose the greatest challenge to my art. With you, Ottane, I must also paint what one cannot see—the soul.”

When Max Heiland says “Ottane,” it’s always like music; it flatters the ear like an Italian aria. And one becomes just a little dizzy in the head from it, and the heart beats a bit stronger too.

It also beats stronger when one enters Heiland’s atelier. Not only because it lies so heavenward under a glass roof in Spiegelgasse and one must climb many stairs, but perhaps also because it has, so to speak, something exciting about it. All painters like to surround themselves with beautiful, rare, and gleaming things; all would gladly elevate their outward existence into the extraordinary—if only they had the means. But few have them. Max Heiland, of course, need deny himself nothing; the women crowd to him to be painted, money plays no role—perhaps because he despises it. His atelier, therefore, is no bare hole like that of a colleague who paints animal pieces or still lifes, bought by petty bourgeois and officials, or who sits with his easel outside before the landscape.

When one enters Max Heiland’s studio, it’s as if one steps into the splendid chamber of a Venetian noble. Persian carpets and animal pelts, Italian glassware, weapons, armors, embroideries on the walls, church vestments thrown over inlaid chairs and Turkish divans, carved cabinets and chests stand about. Vases of man-height, in which dry grasses, thistles, peacock feathers, and artificial flowers are united into bouquets. East and West seem to have poured their treasures over the master; the past and the new age have heaped their precious items here. And amid all this clutter, absorbed by him, sprayed over it, is the scent of women, of many women who were here, some of whom were shameless enough to offer their naked bodies to the painter. Art, they say, art is the justification for that, but Ottane couldn’t bring herself to do it, no, she would be incapable of it.

Now no other women come here except Ottane. Max Heiland says so at least; he has had a barrier put up at the entrance, he turns everyone away to concentrate all his energy on Ottane’s picture. Only Hermine comes with her to the sessions; she doesn’t pay, she is the chaperone, as Heiland calls her; she doesn’t disturb much, for most of the time Karl Schuh comes along. Then they stand by the window or sit in a corner, behind a brocade curtain, and speak quietly with each other.

And sometimes Therese Dommeyr also sweeps in. She certainly disturbs a bit more; she laughs a lot, peeks curiously into every corner, lifts all the cloths as if she is looking for someone hidden underneath, throws herself onto a divan, and drinks a sweet liqueur that Heiland pours for her from a cut-glass carafe. But she seems to have a kind of house right here, which she exercises without hesitation; there’s nothing to be done about it, even if it’s sometimes annoying. The master himself occasionally grows impatient when she behaves so unruly and expressive, as if to suggest that the others were merely tolerated by her and as if she were the main figure. He frowns, becomes taciturn, whistles between his teeth, and deliberately overlooks her.

But she pays little heed to that, continues to laugh, and finds it immensely entertaining to watch the master paint. Her quick little eyes dart between the model and the painting, she praises both, the original and the copy, but sometimes, when Ottane unexpectedly casts a glance at her, she has the impression that a hostile malice darkens in those eyes. And if only she would at least stop her often rather embarrassing jokes. What, for example, is the meaning of her saying one day: “So, Maxi, that would have been a fine embarrassment for you if you had to give one of us a golden apple as a new Paris. I think you’d know even less than he what to do with it.” Isn’t that really malicious, to ask such questions? The master looks very annoyed and clearly doesn’t know what to say.

It’s only a stroke of luck that Karl Schuh is there; he has such a bright, cheerful voice and calls from the window: “Well, we’ve had an Athena, but a Juno is still missing us, and for that we have Venus twice!” With that, he makes his cheekiest rogue face, winks with his eye, and dangles his legs like a street urchin while sitting on the windowsill. Then everyone laughs, and the mythological embarrassment is over.

Overall, though—aside from Therese Dommeyr, as mentioned—these are the most beautiful hours Ottane has ever lived. She has nothing to do but sit quietly and chat with Max Heiland. He questions her about everything—her youth in Blansko, Reinhold, her father—and then he holds up his own grand life against her small, confined one, telling stories from Rome, Paris, Naples, Venice. He has been everywhere; he truly knows the whole world; he mentions the names of crowned heads, prominent figures, as if they were as familiar to him as the grocer downstairs in the neighboring house.

But it’s most beautiful when they are completely alone, for Karl Schuh thinks it’s by no means necessary for Hermine and he to sit up here the whole time; they could just as well go for a walk in the meantime; he finds that Hermine’s face has a pallor from staying indoors; he finds that exercise could only be beneficial for her. Even today, he persuaded her after a bit of coaxing to leave Ottane and the master with his art alone and go out with him onto the street.

It is the week before Christmas; much snow has fallen in the last few days, and narrow paths have had to be shoveled, narrow paths between towering snow walls. If one doesn’t want to walk single file, one must press close together. The clear, calm cold colors Hermine’s face red, which only now reveals how pretty she really is with her beautifully arched brows and the wonder of her eyes beneath them.

Schuh also keeps talking nonstop; he has a lot to report. He has given up Daguerreotypy now—a good business, but in the long run boring, always bringing the faces of indifferent people onto the plate; besides, there are now quite a few people in Vienna doing the same and making a living from it. Now Schuh has turned to galvanoplasty, a new process that utilizes electricity to produce small metal art objects.

At the “Hof,” the Christmas market is set up. Booths are lined up into alleys, filled with apples and nuts, toys for children—jumping jacks, dolls, nutcrackers, balls—a world of colorful things. Heavily wrapped women sit in the booths and at the stalls, warming pans between their legs, red noses frozen under watchful little eyes.

“Look at the children,” says Schuh, “isn’t that adorable?”

Children swarm around in groups, led by their mothers, crowding before the mountains of fruit and toys; but there are also many among them who are alone with their longing and their pitiful, daring Christmas hope. A tiny tot in a thin little coat stands before a mountain of apples, a mix of red, golden yellow, and wine green, his gaze unable to move away—hungry, captive looks.

Karl Schuh buys a few apples, a handful of nuts, stuffs everything into the tot’s pocket: “There you go! Run!”

The tot stares, doesn’t understand, looks at the strange man, and then suddenly sets off at a trot—the strange man might change his mind.

“Don’t you love children?” asks Schuh. “I think it would be so nice to have children of my own. As a child, things didn’t go well for me; I always wished a strange man would come and stuff apples into my pocket. I thought, perhaps the dear God might once walk the market in disguise and stop by me, giving me a jumping jack or a sheep made of red sugar.” Oh yes, Hermine probably loved children too, but in her heart something is buried, something living is entombed there; it dares not emerge, it doesn’t even venture to stir, for fear of sinking even deeper.

Otherwise, though, Schuh is very absorbed with his galvanoplasty. He begins talking about it again and again, then interrupts himself, laughing, shows Hermine a group, a whole regiment of little Krampuses with small wooden ladders and hats made of black paper, and then returns to galvanoplasty.

As they are now pressed even closer together by the crowd, he gently slips his hand into Hermine’s muff, where it’s warm and cozy, and tries to grasp her hand. But then Hermine pulls her fingers away; she makes a small turn, taking the muff with her and depriving Schuh’s hand of its shelter.

Athena! thinks Schuh, disappointed, always only Pallas Athena—cool, chaste, devoted only to science—her soul locked, surrounded by thick walls through which no heartbeat from next door can be heard.

A group of young people pushes past, students; they force their way ruthlessly through the crowd; the bustle of the Christmas market is merely an obstacle on their path—no, they aren’t here for the children’s toys; their expressions are full of bitterness, their gestures speak of rebellion.

“Reinhold!” calls Hermine.

Yes, Reinhold is among them; he heard his sister, detaches himself from the group, and approaches the two hesitantly and embarrassedly.

“What’s wrong with them?” asks Schuh, looking after the students. “What’s gotten under their skin?”

Reinhold pulls them into a narrow side alley between the booths. “We want,” he whispers, “to go to Haidvogel’s inn in Schlossergäßchen. The police are said to have disbanded the Ludlamshöhle.”

“The Ludlamshöhle,” says Schuh, “that’s that society of writers and actors… what does it have to do with politics?”

“Nothing, not the slightest bit. That’s just it. But the police found a poster saying: ‘This time Saturday is on a Sunday!’ Because this time the meeting is on Sunday instead of Saturday.”

“Oh dear, and the police can’t figure that out,” laughs Schuh. “And so it’s suspicious.”

OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Tell me,” the sick woman’s voice complained, “what is that over there? I’ve been seeing it all this time.”

“What do you see?” asked Reichenbach.

“It’s like a large five of cards, four spots arranged in a square and a fifth in the middle, all faintly glowing. What is that?”

Reichenbach looked around; his eyes tried to pierce the darkness; he saw no glowing five of cards, nowhere in the pitch blackness even a hint.

“Where do you see the glow?” Reichenbach took a few steps at random, bumped into something, changed direction, and groped further.

“How do you feel, gracious lady?” asked Eisenstein.

“It cools me,” said the sick woman quietly, “that feels good; the Baron is coming toward my bed.”

“Do you feel that?” And Reichenbach pressed on in the direction he had taken.

“No, please,” cried the Hofrätin in distress, “stop, stay where you are. Don’t go further. Now a warm breeze comes from you. I feel sick; I believe you are ill, Baron.”

“You’re mistaken there,” laughed Reichenbach, “I’m not the slightest bit unwell.”

“How do you perceive that?” asked Eisenstein.

“I don’t know, I can’t say. But I believe the Baron is sick or will become sick.”

“I can reassure you, Frau Hofrätin, you are certainly mistaken.”

One could hear that the sick woman moved restlessly in the bed. “I want to know what this five means. It frightens me when I don’t know.”

“One must bring light…” Eisenstein considered, “the Baron and I see nothing.”

“Let light come for a moment,” the Hofrätin groaned, “I want to know.”

Eisenstein, after some searching, found the door, opened it, and called for the maid. Although the anteroom was unlit, a faint twilight already penetrated the deep darkness. And after a while, the maid came with the lamp.

The Hofrätin lay pale, with wide eyes in the bed, staring at the opposite wall. “There… over there,” she said, and a faint hand rose.

“Where did you see the five?” Reichenbach asked again, for there was nothing but a wall with a small chest of drawers, a little bookcase, and then a double door leading to the next room. “Where… there? There?”

He pointed to the chest of drawers, the bookcase, to the pictures on the wall.

“No, much larger, as big as the door and right in the middle.”

It suddenly occurred to Reichenbach that there was the double door, and it had a hinge fitting on each side and the lock and handle in the middle—together five metal spots, a large five of cards.

“Were the spots that high?” asked Reichenbach, stretching toward the top edge of the door.

“Yes… they may have been there.”

“It’s the door,” Reichenbach turned to Eisenstein, “the fittings are brass.”

They were brass, fine, but did brass glow in the darkness? What peculiar ability did this woman possess that she saw metal glowing in the blackness?

“May I,” said Eisenstein quickly, “since we now have light, I would like to show the Baron Reichenbach something, gracious lady.” He pulled something from his pocket, a piece of iron, red-painted at one end—a magnet, a common bar magnet.

The sick woman turned restlessly; she wanted to be alone again at last, but the men were seized by the ruthless zeal of science. “We’ve already tried it. Please close your eyes.” And Eisenstein comes slowly toward the bed and places the red end of the magnet rod into the Hofrätin’s left hand.

She lies with closed eyes, and her fingers clasp the iron; her features smooth out a little. “Please, how do you feel the touch?”

“Cool.”

Eisenstein takes the magnet from her hand, turns it around, and places it back into her left hand.

“How do you feel that?”

The sick woman groans; her face expresses disgust: “Warm! Repulsive!”

Eisenstein looks up at the Freiherr, who stands there shaking his head. A silent question: What do you say now? The doctor removes the magnet, gives it back to the patient, now with one end, now with the other, then two, three, four times in a row with the same end, in random alternation; whenever the Hofrätin grasps the north pole, she feels the iron cool and soothing; when she has the south pole between her fingers, it feels warm and unpleasant. She obediently keeps her eyes closed, but her answers remain certain; she doesn’t err a single time.

“Is it for this reason that you spoke of a kinship with magnetism?” Reichenbach asks finally.

“Wait?” And now Eisenstein places the magnet in the patient’s right hand.

She twists her face and breathes in gasps. “How do you perceive that?”

“Warm and repulsive.”

It is the north pole that she now holds in her right hand. With with wide-open eyes, Reichenbach stares at the slender fingers trembling around the iron. Reversed? The opposite effect from the left? Yes, by God, exactly reversed—what was soothing on the left is tormenting on the right, what was painful on the left is pleasant on the right. Eisenstein continues his experiments—ten times, twelve times—checking the phenomenon on the left hand in between; no error blurs the picture.

Then the sick woman impatiently opens her eyes, gasping: “Leave me alone at last. I can’t anymore. I cannot tolerate the light any longer.”

“Yes, yes, gracious lady,” Eisenstein soothes, “we are finished. We’ll leave now. Drink the tea I prescribed, and try to sleep. I’ll see you again tomorrow.”

Then the men stand outside the door; Eisenstein’s looks ask clearly: Well, did I exaggerate? Did I call you here for nothing? Am I now also a man or not? A man like Schuh, eh?

Reichenbach’s eyes burn inwardly. “What interpretation do you have for that… for all these phenomena?”

Eisenstein has no interpretation; he shrugs his shoulders: “The key eludes me for now. But I believe this is a matter that concerns not only the physician but also the physicist, and that’s why I asked you to come.” Eisenstein has played a trump card; he feels it, he knows that Reichenbach is gripped by the problem. Eisenstein has become an important figure. He has unleashed the passion of thought in the Freiherr, his only passion; he has shown him something new, and forced his way into the fortified house and to Hermine; oh ho, what this Schuh can do, Eisenstein can do too—make himself indispensable—and now he will surely succeed in making up for the lead that Schuh has.

The men trudge wordlessly side by side through the dark streets in slushy snow. Under a streetlamp, Reichenbach stops, seized by a thought. “Perhaps they are rays… a kind of rays emanating from things…”

He breaks off, overwhelmed by his thoughts, and Eisenstein eagerly confirms: “It could also be, in a way, a kind of rays…”

He feels with satisfaction how furiously his companion’s mind is working. In this head, it’s now a wild tumult. It’s a volcano, a sea of flames, a tumbling chaos, a roaring, a battling, a hissing of blazing thoughts; the skull walls stand under a pressure as if they must burst; the Blansko furnace, all the blast furnaces of the world, are mere panting kettles compared to it; their glow is a pitiful little fire.