by Karel Čapek
When Keval had finished his cigar, he went back to the Power Station and once more hoisted himself up to the little window. The Burgomaster was still talking, and his face was now of a purple bordering on blackness. The Chief of State was standing with his hand on the lever, the personages present were talking together in low tones, only the foreign Ambassadors listened on unmoving. At the very back, the head of Mr. Cvancara could be seen nodding drowsily.
Sheer physical exhaustion brought the Burgomaster to an end, and the Minister of Public Works began speaking. He was obviously cutting his sentences down unmercifully to shorten his address. The Chief of State was now holding the lever in his left hand. Old Billington, the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, had passed away on his feet, preserving even in death the expression of an attentive listener. Then the Minister put an end to his speech as though with an axe.
G. H. Bondy raised his head, looked about with heavy eyes, and said a few words, apparently something to the effect that the M.E.C. was handing over its work to the public for the use and benefit of our metropolis, and so concluded. The Chief of State drew himself erect and pressed the lever. Then, in an instant, the whole of Prague shone out as a vast expanse of light, the crowds cheered, the bells in all the steeples began to swing, and from the Marianske fort there sounded the first boom of the cannon.
Still hanging to his grating, Keval looked around towards the city. Flaming rockets shot up from Střelecky Island; Hradčany, Petřin, and even Letna, were aglow with garlands of electric lamps, distant bands began competing with each other, illuminated biplanes circled above Stvanice, while the immense V 16 soared up from Vyšehrad all bedecked with lanterns. The crowds removed their hats, the police stood like statues, their hands raised to their helmets in salute. Two batteries boomed out from the bastions, answered by the monitors from near Karlín.
Keval again pressed his face to the bars to see the conclusion of the ceremonies over the Karburator taking place inside. The next instant he uttered a hoarse cry, rolled his eyes, and once more squeezed himself still closer to the window. Then he uttered something like “Oh, God!”, loosened his hold on the grating, and dropped heavily to the earth. Before he had actually reached the ground, someone rushing away from the place knocked into him. Keval seized him by the coat, and the man looked round. It was G. H. Bondy; he was as pale as death.
“What has happened, sir?” Keval stammered. “What are they doing in there?”
“Let go of me,” Bondy panted. “For Christ’s sake, let go. And get out of here, as quick as you can.”
“But what has happened to them in there?”
“Let me go,” shouted Bondy; and knocking Keval back with his fist, he disappeared among the trees.
Trembling all over, Keval supported himself against the trunk of a tree. From the interior of the concrete building came sounds as of savages chanting a hymn.
A few days later the Czechoslovak Press Bureau published the following obscure statement:
Contrary to the reports issued by a local publication which have obtained some currency abroad, we are able to state on the very best authority that no improper incidents of any kind took place on the occasion of the formal opening of the Karburator Central Power Station. In connection with this, the Burgomaster of Greater Prague has resigned his office and has gone into the country to recuperate. Mr. Billington, doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, is, contrary to published reports, well and active. The fact is that all present declare that nothing in their experience has ever made so powerful an impression upon them. Every citizen has the right to fall to the earth and worship God, and the performance of miracles is not in conflict with any official position whatever in a democratic State. It is in any case decidedly improper to connect the Chief of State with regrettable incidents occasioned only by insufficient ventilation, combined with excessive strain upon the nerves.
CHAPTER X
SAINT ELLEN
A few days after these occurrences G. H. Bondy was wandering through the streets of Prague, a cigar between his teeth, thinking things over. Anyone who met him would have thought that he was looking at the pavement; but Mr. Bondy was really looking into the future. “Marek was right,” he was saying to himself, “Bishop Linda even more so. It was simply impossible to bring God to earth without a confounded lot coming of it. People could do what they liked, but it was going to shake the banks and do goodness knows what with industry. A religious strike broke out at the Industrial Bank to-day. We installed a Karburator there, and within two days the officials declared the bank’s property to be a sacred trust for the poor. That couldn’t have happened when Preis was manager. No, it certainly would never have happened.”
Bondy sucked at his cigar in great depression. “Well, what about it?” he said to himself. “Are we to throw the whole thing up? Orders worth twenty-three millions came in to-day. It can’t be stopped now. It means the end of the world, or something. In two years’ time everything will have come down crash. There are several thousand Karburators at work in the world already, every one of them pouring forth the Absolute day and night. And this Absolute is fiendishly clever, too. It has an insane desire to exert itself, no matter how. There you are, it hasn’t anything to do, for thousands of years it’s had nothing to do, and now we’ve let it off the chain. Just look at what it’s doing at the Industrial Bank, for instance. It keeps the bank’s books all on its own, does the accounts, carries on the correspondence. It gives orders to the Board of Directors in writing. It sends its clients fervent epistles about showing love by works. What’s the result? The Industrial Bank shares are mere waste paper: it would take a kilo of them to buy a bit of cheese. That’s what happens when God starts meddling with banking.
“The Oberlander firm, a textile factory in Upice, is bombarding us with despairing telegrams. A month ago they put in a Karburator in place of a boiler. Splendid, the machines are going strong: all’s well. But suddenly the spinning-jennies and looms begin to work all by themselves. When a thread breaks, it simply splices itself again, and on they go. The workmen just look on with their hands in their pockets. They’re supposed to knock off at six o’clock. The spinners and weavers go home. But the looms go running on by themselves. They go on running all night and all day, for three whole weeks, weaving, weaving, weaving without a pause. The firm wires us: ‘In the devil’s name, take the finished goods off us, send us raw material, stop the machines!’ And now it has got hold of the factory of Buxbaum Brothers, Morawetz and Co., by sheer long-range infection. There are no raw materials in the place. They lose their heads and fling rags, straw, earth, whatever comes handy, into the machines; well, even that stuff, if you please, gets woven into kilometres of towels, calico, cretonne, and everything imaginable. There’s a terrific upheaval; the prices of textiles are coming down with a crash; England is raising her protective tariff; and our neighbouring states are threatening us with a boycott. And the factories are wailing, ‘For the love of Heaven, take the finished goods away at least. Cart them away; send us men, lorries, motor trains; stop the machines!’ In the meantime, they’re suing us for damages. A damnable life! And we hear the same thing from all sides, from everywhere where a Karburator has been installed.
“The Absolute wants work. It clings furiously to life. Once it created the earth! now it has flung itself into manufacture. It has captured Liberec and the Brno cotton works, Trutnov, twenty sugar factories, sawmills, the City Brewery in Pilsen; it is threatening the Skoda arsenal; it is busy at Jablonec and in the Jachymov mines. In many places people are dismissing their workmen; in others they’ve taken fright, closed the factories, and are just letting the machine go ahead inside. It’s insane over-production. Factories that haven’t got the Absolute are stopping production altogether. It’s ruin.
“And I,” said Mr. Bondy to himself, “am a patriot. I will not let our country be brought to ruin. Besides, there are our own establishments here. Very well, from to-day onward we will cancel all orders from Czechoslovakia. What
has been done is done; but from this moment not a single Karburator shall be set up in the land of the Czechs. We’ll flood the Germans and the French with them; then we’ll bombard England with the Absolute. England is conservative, and won’t have anything to do with our Karburators. Well, we’ll drop them on her from airships like big bombs. We’ll infect the whole industrial and financial world with God, and preserve only our own country as an island of civilization and honest labour free from God. It is a patriotic duty, so to speak, and besides, we have our own factories to consider.”
The prospect gladdened G. H. Bondy’s heart.
“At any rate we’ll gain time to invent some sort of protective mask against the Absolute. Damn it, I’ll set aside three millions myself for purposes of research into protective measures against God. Better say two millions to start with. All the Czechs will go about wearing their masks, while all the rest—ha! ha!—will be getting drowned in the Absolute. At any rate their industries will go under.”
Mr. Bondy began to look upon the world less darkly. “There’s a young woman going by. Nice springy walk. I wonder what she looks like from the front.” Mr. Bondy quickened his step, passed her, suddenly stepped respectfully to one side, then seemed to change his mind again, and turned on his heel so abruptly that he almost ran right into her.
“You, Ellen,” he said hastily. “I had no idea, that—that—”
“I knew that you were following me,” said the girl standing still with downcast eyes.
“You knew it?” said Bondy, greatly pleased. “I was just thinking about you.”
“I could feel your bestial desires,” said Ellen quietly.
“My what?”
“Your bestial desires. You did not recognize me. You only appraised me with your eyes as if I were for sale.”
G. H. Bondy frowned. “Ellen, why do you wish to hurt my feelings?”
Ellen shook her head. “They all do it. They’re all alike, every one of them. One rarely meets a look that is pure.”
Mr. Bondy pursed his lips for a whistle. Aha, so that’s what it is! Old Machat’s religious community!
“Yes,” Ellen replied to his thoughts. “You ought to come and join us.”
“Oh, of course,” cried Mr. Bondy; and in his mind he said, “A nice girl like this! It’s a shame.”
“Why is it a shame?” asked Ellen gently.
“Oh, come, Ellen,” protested Bondy. “You are a thought-reader. That isn’t fair. If people were to read each other’s thoughts they could never decently associate with one another. It’s very indiscreet of you to know what I am thinking.”
“What am I to do?” said Ellen. “Everyone who knows God has this same gift. Every one of your thoughts is born in my mind as soon as in yours. I don’t read it, I have it myself. If you only knew how purifying it is when one can judge of every hidden baseness!”
“Hm,” muttered Mr. Bondy, trembling lest anything should cross his mind.
“It is indeed,” Ellen assured him. “It has cured me, with the help of God, of the love of riches. I should be ever so glad if the scales were to fall from your eyes, too.”
“God forbid,” exclaimed G. H. Bondy, horrified. “But tell me, do you understand everything that you . . . er . . . see in people like this?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Then listen to me, Ellen,” said Bondy. “I can tell you everything, for you’d read it in me in any case. I could never marry a woman who would be able to read my thoughts. She could be religious to her heart’s content, boundlessly charitable to the poor; I’m able to afford it, and besides, it’s good publicity. I’d put up even with virtue, Ellen, for love of you. I’d put up with anything. I have loved you after my fashion, Ellen. I can tell you so because you can read it for yourself. But, Ellen, neither business nor society is possible without thoughts that are not disclosed. And marriage, above all things, is impossible without thoughts that are not disclosed. It is unthinkable, Ellen. And even if you find the holiest of men, don’t marry him as long as you can read his thoughts. A little illusion is the only bond between mortals that never breaks. Saint Ellen, you must not marry.”
“Why not?” said Saint Ellen in soft tones. “Our God is not opposed to nature; He only sanctifies it. He does not ask us to mortify ourselves. He bids us live and be fruitful. He wants us to . . .”
“Stop,” Mr. Bondy interrupted her. “Your God doesn’t understand. If He takes away our illusions He is doing something confoundly opposed to nature. He’s simply impossible, Ellen, utterly impossible. If He were a reasonable being, He would realize it. He’s either wholly inexperienced or else completely and criminally destructive. It’s a great pity, Ellen. I haven’t anything against religion, but this God doesn’t know what He ought to want. Depart into the wilderness, Saint Ellen, with your second sight. You are out of place among us mortals. Farewell, Ellen; or rather—good-bye for ever.”
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST BLOW STRUCK
E XACTLY how it happened has not yet been established, but just at the very time when the little factory belonging to R. Marek, Engineer, 1651 Mixa Street, Břevnov, was garrisoned by detectives and surrounded by a cordon of police, unknown malefactors stole the original Marek Karburator. Despite the most active search, not a trace of the stolen machine was found.
Not long afterwards Jan Binder, the proprietor of a merry-go-round, was looking round the premises of a dealer in old iron in Hastal Square with a view to purchasing a little naphtha motor to run his roundabout and its orchestrion. The dealer offered him a big copper cylinder with a piston, and said it was a very economical motor; all one had to do was to shovel in a little coal, and it would run for months. Jan Binder was seized with a strange, almost blind faith in the copper cylinder, and he bought it for three hundred crowns. Then he hauled it away on a truck with his own hands to his merry-go-round, which was standing out of action near Zlichov.
Jan Binder took off his coat, unloaded the copper cylinder from the cart, and set to work whistling softly. He fixed a wheel on the axle where the flywheel used to be, and ran a belt over this wheel to another axle which drove the orchestrion with one end and the merry-go-round with the other. Then he oiled the bearings, put them into a wheel, and stood there, in his broad-striped jersey, with his hands in his pockets, puckering his lips for a whistle and waiting pensively to see what would happen next. The wheel went round three times, then stopped; presently it quivered, wobbled, and then began to turn quietly and smoothly. Then the orchestrion started with all its little drums and whistles, the merry-go-round gave itself a shake as if waking from sleep, creaked in all its joints, and began glidingly to revolve. The silver fringes gleamed, the white steeds with their showy trappings and red bridles seemed to set in motion their princely equipages, the deer with its wildly staring eyes swept round, poised as for a leap, the swans with their elegantly arching necks drew in a circle their white and sky-blue vessels; and so all a-glitter, and to the accompaniment of blaring music, the merry-go-round rotated its splendours before the unwinking eyes of the Three Graces painted on the orchestrion, now carried away on the rush of its own melodies.
Jan Binder still stood there with his lips pursed and his hands in his pockets. He gazed upon his merry-go-round as though in a dream, seemingly entranced by something new and lovely. By this time he was no longer alone. A tear-stained dirty child dragged its young nurse up to the merry-go-round and stopped in front of it with great round eyes and mouth wide open, rigid with wonderment. The little nurse, too, opened wide her eyes and stood there like one enraptured. The merry-go-round performed its circuit with a strange resplendence, sublimity, stateliness, like a festal day . . . now whirling round with an impassioned velocity, now rocking gently like a vessel laden with the rich perfumes of India, now floating like a golden cloud high in the heavens; it seemed to soar upwards, sundered from the earth, it seemed to sing. But no, it was the orchestrion that was singing; now with the joyous voices of women mingling with a silv
ery rain of music falling from harps; and now it was the roar of a forest or a great organ, but from the depths of the forest birds fluted their songs and came and settled on your shoulders. Golden trumpets proclaimed the coming of a conqueror or, it might be, a whole army with flashing fiery swords. And who was it singing that glorious hymn? Thousands of people were waving branches of palm, the heavens opened, and, heralded by rolling drums, the song of God Himself descended upon the earth.
Jan Binder raised his hand, but at that moment the merry-go-round stopped and leaned towards the little child. The child tripped on to the merry-go-round as if it were entering the open gates of Paradise, and the nursemaid followed as though in a trance and seated it in one of the boats drawn by swans. “Free rides to-day!” said Binder hoarsely; the orchestrion burst out jubilantly, and the merry-go-round began to turn as though it would soar up into the sky. Jan Binder reeled. What could this mean? Why, it wasn’t the merry-go-round that was turning now, but the whole earth was spinning round and round. The Zlichovsky Church was describing a gigantic curve, the Podol Sanatorium and Vyšehrad were setting off together for the other bank of the Vltava. Yes, the whole earth was turning about the merry-go-round, circling faster and faster, humming like a turbine; only the merry-go-round stood firm in the centre, rocking gently like a ship with white horses, deer and swans roving about the deck, and a little child leading its nurse by the hand and stroking the animals. Yes, yes, the earth was spinning furiously, and only the merry-go-round was a lovely island of quiet and repose. And Jan Binder, dizzy and sick, raised his arms, and let the mad earth carry him staggering towards the merry-go-round, seized one of the rods, and swung himself up on to its peaceful deck.
Now he could clearly see how the earth was heaving and tossing like a stormy sea. And look, there were terrified people rushing out of their houses, waving their hands, stumbling and falling as though borne along by a gigantic whirlwind. Holding tightly to his rod, Binder stooped down to them and shouted, “Here, people, this way!” And the people seeing the shining merry-go-round calmly uplifted above the reeling earth, staggered towards it. Gripping the rod, Binder held out his free hand and pulled them up from the heaving earth: children, grandmothers, old men, all stood on the deck of the merry-go-round, taking breath again after their terrible fright, and looking down in dismay upon the earth spinning below them. Binder had just helped them all up, when a little black puppy came running by, yelping with fear, and tried to leap aboard; but the earth carried him faster and faster round the merry-go-round. Binder squatted down, reached out his hand, and grabbed the puppy by the tail, and lifted it into safety.
