The Dark Domain

by Stefan Grabinski

  Exuberant life seethed and overflowed noisily beyond the confines of the station. The chaotic bustle of the passengers, the exhortations of the porters, the sound of whistles, the noise of released steam all merged into a giddy symphony in which one became lost, surrendering the diminished, deafened self onto the waves of a mighty element to be carried, rocked, dazed … .

  The railway employees were working at a quick pace. Traffic officials, standing out in their red caps, appeared everywhere – giving orders, clearing the absentminded from the tracks, and passing a swift, vigilant eye on trains at their moment of departure. Conductors were in a constant rush, walking with speedy steps through the lengthy coaches. Signalmen gave concise yet effective instructions – commands for departure. Everything went along at a brisk tempo, marked off to the minute, to the second – everyone’s eyes were involuntarily checking the time on the white double-dial clock above.

  Yet a quiet spectator standing to the side would have, after a brief observation, received impressions incompatible with the ostensible order of things.

  Something had slipped into the standard regulations and traditional course of activities; some type of undefined, though weighty obstacle opposed the sacred smoothness of rail travel.

  One could deduce this from the nervous, exaggerated gestures of the railwaymen and their restless glances and anticipating faces. Something had broken down in the previously exemplary system. Some unhealthy, terrible current circulated along its hundredfold-branched arteries, and it permeated to the surface in half-conscious flashes.

  The zeal of the railwaymen reflected their obvious willingness to overcome whatever had stealthily wormed its way into a perfect structure. Everyone was in two or three places at once to forcefully suppress this irritating nightmare, to subordinate it to the regular demands of work, to the wearisome but safe equilibrium of routine chores.

  This was, after all, their area, their ‘region,’ exercised through many years of diligent application, a terrain which, it seemed, they knew through and through. They were, after all, exponents of that sphere of practical work where to them, the initiated, nothing should be unclear, where they, the representatives and sole interpreters of the entire complicated train system, could not and should not be caught unawares by any type of enigma. Why, for a long time everything had been calculated, weighed, measured – everything, though complex, had not passed human understanding – and everywhere there was a precise moderation without surprises, a regularity of repeated occurrences foreseen from the start!

  They felt, then, a collective responsibility toward the great mass of the travelling public to whom was owed complete peace and safety.

  Meanwhile their inner perplexity, flowing in vexatious waves over the passengers, was picked up by the public.

  If it had at least concerned a so-called ‘accident,’ which, admittedly, one couldn’t foresee but which later on, after its occurrence, could be somehow explained – certainly against an accident even they, the professionals, were helpless but not desperate. But something totally different was at issue here.

  Something incalculable like a chimera, capricious like madness had arrived, and it shattered with one blow the traditional arrangement of things.

  Therefore, they felt ashamed of themselves and humiliated before the public.

  At present it was most important that the problem should not spread, that ‘the general public’ should not find out anything about it. It was appropriate to conceal any counter-measures so that this strange affair would not come to light in the newspapers and create a public uproar.

  So far the secret had been miraculously confined to the circle of the railwaymen. A truly amazing solidarity united these people: they were silent. They communicated with each other by telling glances, specific gestures, and a play on well-chosen words. Thus far the public did not know anything about any problem.

  And ‘the problem’ was indeed strange and puzzling.

  For a certain time there had appeared on the nation’s railways a train not included in any known register, not entered in the count of circulating locomotives – in a word, an intruder without patent or sanction. One couldn’t even state what category it belonged to or from what factory it had originated, as the brief space of time it allowed itself to be seen made any determination in this respect impossible. In any event, judging by the incredible speed with which it moved before the dumbfounded eyes of onlookers, it had to occupy a very high standing among trains: at the very least it was an express.

  Yet most distressing was its unpredictability. The intruder turned up everywhere, suddenly appearing from some railway line to fly by with a devilish roar along the tracks before disappearing in the distance. One day it had been seen near the station at M.; the following day it appeared in an open field beyond the town of W.; a couple of days later it flew by with petrifying impudence near a lineman’s booth in the district of G.

  At first it was thought that the insane train belonged to an existing line and that only tardiness or a mistake by the officials concerned had failed to ascertain its identity. Therefore, inquiries began, endless signalling and communications between stations – all to no avail: the intruder simply sneered at the endeavours of the officials, usually appearing where it was least expected.

  Particularly disheartening was the circumstance that nowhere could one catch, overtake or stop it. Several planned pursuits to this end on one of the most technologically advanced engines created a horrible fiasco: the terrible train immediately took the lead.

  Then the railway personnel began to be seized by a superstitious fear and a stifled rage. An unheard of thing! For quite a few years the coaches and cars had run according to a established plan that had been worked out at headquarters and approved by government officials – for years everything had been able to be calculated, to be more or less foreseen, and when some ‘mistake’ or ‘oversight’ occurred, it could be understood and corrected. Then suddenly an uninvited guest slips onto the tracks, spoiling the order of things, turning regulations upside down, and bringing confusion and disarray to a well-regulated organization.

  Thank goodness the interloper had not brought about any disaster. This was something which generally puzzled them from the very beginning. The train always appeared on a track which was free at the time; so far it had not caused a collision. Yet one could occur any day now. Indeed, that’s where things seemed to be heading. From a role as the hunted, the intruder became the hunter, and started to directly menace the smooth running, old order of things. Unlike in the beginning when it avoided other trains, the unknown train now seemed to be getting closer to its regular-running comrades. Already it had shot by an express on its way to O.; a week ago it barely avoided a passenger train between S. and F.; the other day it was only by a miracle that it successfully avoided the express from W.

  Station-masters trembled at the news of these near misses, which had been occurring with more frequency. Only double tracks and the quick judgement of engine drivers had thus far avoided a collision. Yet the affair could end tragically any day.

  For a month the station-master at Horsk had also been leading an unpleasant existence. In constant anxiety before an unexpected visit of the mysterious train, he was almost continually vigilant, not deserting by day or night the signal-box that had been entrusted to him nearly a year ago as a token of recognition for ‘his energy and uncommon efficiency.’ And the post was important, for the Horsk station was one of the most important and busy railway junctions in the whole country.

  Today, faced with a greatly increased number of passengers, his work was particularly difficult.

  Evening was slowly falling. Electric lights flashed up, reflectors threw off their powerful projections. In the green glow of junction-signals, rails started to glitter with a gloomy-metallic glaze that curved along with the cold iron serpents. Here and there, in the shadowy twilight, a conductor’s lamp flickered faintly, a lineman’s signal bunked. In the distance, far beyond the sta
tion, where the emerald eyes of lanterns were already being extinguished, a semaphore was making night signals.

  Here, leaving its horizontal position, the arm of the semaphore rose to an angle of forty-five degrees: the passenger train from Brzesk was approaching … .

  One could already hear the panting respiration of the locomotive, the rhythmic clatter of the wheels; one could already see the bright-yellow glass of its front. The train was heading into the station … .

  From its open windows lean out the golden locks of children, the curious faces of women; welcoming kerchiefs are waved.

  The throngs waiting on the platform push toward the coaches, outstretched hands on both sides tend toward a meeting … .

  What kind of commotion is that to the right? Strident whistles rend the air. The station-master is shouting something in a hoarse, wild voice.

  ‘Away! Get back, run! Reverse steam! Backwards! Backwards! … Collision!!’

  The masses throw themselves in a dense onrush toward the barriers, breaking them … . Frenzied eyes instinctively look to the right – where the railway service has gathered – and see the spasmodic, aimlessly frantic vibrations of lanterns endeavouring to turn back a train, which with its entire momentum is coming from the opposite side of the same track occupied by the Brzesk passenger train. Shrill whistles cut the desperate responses of horns and the hellish tumult of people. In vain! The unexpected locomotive is getting closer with terrifying velocity; the enormous green lights of the engine weirdly push aside the darkness, the powerful pistons move with fabulous, possessed efficiency … .

  From a thousand breasts a horrible alarm bursts out, a cry swelled by a fathomless panic:

  ‘It’s the insane train! The madman! On the ground! Help! On the ground! We’re lost! Help! We’re lost!’

  Some type of gigantic, grey mass passes by – an ashen, misty mass with cut-out windows from end to end; one can feel the gust of a satanic draft from these open holes, hear the flapping, maddeningly blown-about blinds; one can almost see the passengers’ spectral faces … .

  Suddenly something strange occurs. The insane train, instead of shattering its comrade, passes through it like a mist; for a moment one can see the two fronts of the trains go through each other, one can see the noiseless grazing of the coach walls, the paradoxical osmosis of gears and axles; one more second, and the intruder permeates with lightning fury through the train’s solid body and disappears somewhere in the field on the other side. Everything quietens down … .

  On the track, before the station, the intact Brzesk passenger train stands peacefully. About it, a great bottomless silence. Only from the meadows in the distance comes the low chirp of crickets, only along the wires above flows the gruff chat of the telegraph … .

  The people on the platform, the railwaymen, the clerks rub their eyes and look about in amazement:

  Had what they seen really happened or was it just a bad hallucination?

  Slowly, all eyes, united in the same impulse, turn toward the Brzesk train – it continues to stand silent and still. From inside, lamps burn with a steady, quiet light, at the open windows the breeze plays gently on the curtains … .

  A grave silence inhabits the cars; no one is disembarking, no one is leaning out from within. Through the illuminated quadrangle windows one can see the passengers: men, women and children; everyone whole, uninjured – no one has received even the most minor contusion. Yet their state is strangely puzzling … .

  Everyone is in a standing position, facing the direction of the vanished phantom locomotive. Some terrible force has bewitched these people, holding them in dumb amazement, some strong current has polarized this assembly of souls to one side. Their outstretched hands indicate some unknown goal, an aim surely distant; their inclined bodies lean to the distance, to a stunning, misty land far away; and their eyes, glazed by wild alarm and enchantment, are lost in boundless space … .

  So they stand and are silent; no muscle will twitch, no eyelid will fall. So they stand and are silent … .

  Because through them has passed a most strange breath, because they have been touched by a great awakening, because they are already … insane … .

  Suddenly strong and familiar sounds were heard, wrapped in the security of the familiar – strokes as firm as a heart when it beats against a healthy chest – steady sounds of habit, for years proclaiming the same thing … .

  ‘Ding-dong’ – and a pause – ‘ding-dong … ding-dong …’

  The signals were operating … .

  STRABISMUS

  He had attached himself to me, I don’t know how or when.

  His name was Brzechwa, Jozef Brzechwa. What a name! Something about it fastens and hooks onto the nerves, irritating them with its grating resonance. He was cross-eyed. He especially saw poorly out of his right eye, which peered out in a stone gaze under ruddy lashes. His small, brick-coloured face grimaced perpetually in a malicious sneer of half-irony, as if in this sorry way it could avenge its own ugliness and squalor. A tiny, rusty moustache, twirled rakishly upward, moved constantly, like the pincers of a poisonous scarabaeus – sharp, stinging, evil.

  A horrible man.

  He was agile, elastic as a ball, slender-figured, of medium build; he walked with a light, elusive step and could slip into a room without being noticed.

  I couldn’t stand him from the first time I saw him, and felt an indescribable disgust whenever I looked at him, particularly as his physical features suited his character.

  This person was extremely different from me in his disposition, tastes and behaviour. That is why I felt such a strong antipathy towards him. He was my living antithesis, with whom there could be no reconciliation. Maybe precisely because of this he latched himself onto me with a rabid passion, as if sensing my natural aversion toward him.

  He probably experienced particular delight in seeing how unsuccessfully I tried to extricate myself from the nets he was always ensnaring me with. He was my inseparable companion in cafés, on walks, at the club; he knew how to worm his way into the circles of my nearest acquaintances; what’s more, he could conquer the favour of women to whom I was closely connected. He knew of my smallest plans, my slightest movements.

  More than once, so as to be free of looking at his loathsome physiognomy for even just a single day, I would escape unseen by carriage or automobile to the outskirts of town, or else, with no prior word betraying my intention, I would set out for another locality. How can I describe my amazement when, after a while, Brzechwa would suddenly spring up, as if from under the ground, saying with a sneering sweet smile how happy he was at our unexpected, pleasant meeting!

  It finally reached the point where his presence inspired a superstitious fear in me and I considered him my evil spirit or demon. His annoying cat-like movements, the cunning narrowing of his eyes, and, most of all, his strabismus, with the cold glossiness of the scleras, curdled my blood with inconceivable dread, while simultaneously stirring up boundless rage.

  And he knew perfectly well the easiest way to infuriate me. He was always able to agitate my most sensitive nerves. As soon as he had discovered my tastes and what I held important, he took every opportunity to deride them so savagely that it seemed he wanted to exclude any opposition.

  One point of contention fundamentally separating us was the question of individualism, which I always defended with ardent passion. I have a feeling that around this very axis revolved our entire antagonism.

  I was a staunch admirer of everything personal, original, unique, self-contained. Brzechwa, to the contrary, scoffed at every kind of individualism, considering it a chimera of presumptuous fools. Hence, he didn’t believe in any inventiveness or ingeniousness, reducing them to the influences of environment, race, the ‘spirit of the times,’ and so on.

  ‘I even believe,’ he would drawl more than once, criss-crossing his eyes in my direction, ‘that each one of us contain several individuals who fight for that worthless scrap, the so-called “soul
.”’

  This obvious banter was meant to elicit a passionate reaction on my part. Realizing this, I would pretend that I hadn’t heard anything and ignore him. Then he would be on the lookout for another opportunity to pronounce his ‘collective position,’ as he termed it.

  Whenever I displayed admiration and rapture for some new work of art or scientific invention, Brzechwa, with cynical calm, would attempt to prove the groundlessness of my adoration, or else he would silently sit opposite me and transfix me with his frightful strabismus, a smile of malicious sarcasm never leaving his open lips.

  He didn’t feel any aesthetic thrills at all: beauty didn’t act upon him in any sense of the word. Instead, he was a sports enthusiast. There wasn’t an automobile race, a cycling competition or soccer match in which he didn’t shine. He fenced like a master, was a great shot, and had the reputation of being a first-class swimmer. Education and scholars he ignored, holding to the maxim nihil novi sub sole. Despite this, one couldn’t deny his great intelligence, which showed itself in witty and vitriolic sayings. Of a hot-headed nature, he was unable to endure opposition, and had continual rows and countless affairs of honour, from which he always emerged successful.

  A strange thing, however: he was never offended by anything I said, however uncivil or insulting my words. I alone had the privilege of insulting him. Apparently he saw this as my due for his never-ending sneering and pestering. Perhaps there was another reason – but what, I don’t know.

  Sometimes I would intentionally exaggerate to goad him into a serious quarrel that would end our relationship. A fruitless activity. Sensing what was happening, he would dismiss my moral condemnation with his very sweet smile and turn everything into a joke … .