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THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
W*W YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGE
BY
KAREL CAPEK
gorft
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1927
All rights reserved
Set up and printed. Published May, 1927.
pran^Cu
public Hbtafy
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Advertisement . i
II. The Karburator . 8
III. Pantheism . 16
IV. God in the Cellar . 25
V. Bishop Linda . 34
VI. The Board-Meeting . 45
VII. Developments . 53
VIII. The Dredge . 60
IX. The Ceremony . 71
X. Saint Ellen . 79
XI. The First Blow Struck . 87
XII. Doctor Blahous . 96
XIII. The Chronicler’s Apology .... 103
XIV. The Land of Plenty . no
XV. Disaster . 120
XVI. In the Mountains . 129
XVII. The Hammer and Star . 138
XVIII. In the Night Editor’s Room . . . 144
XIX. The Process of Canonization . . . 153
XX. St. Kilda . 160
v
Contents
yi
CHAPTER PAGE
XXI. The Telegram . 170
XXII. The Old Patriot . 177
XXIII. The Augsburg Imbroglio .... 186
XXIV. The Napoleon of the Mountain
Brigade . 195
XXV. The So-Called Greatest War . . 202
XXVI. The Battle of Hradec Kralove . . 209
XXVII. A Coral Island in the Pacific . . 216
XXVIII. At Seven Cottages . 223
XXIX. The Last Battle . 230
XXX. The End of Everything .... 236
THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGE
\
THE ABSOLUTE AT LARGE
CHAPTER I
THE ADVERTISEMENT
ON New Year’s Day, 1943, C. H. Bondy, head of the great Metallo-Electric Company, was sitting as usual reading his paper. He skipped the news from the theatre of war rather disrespectfully, avoided the Cabinet crisis, then crowded on sail (for the People’s Journal, which had grown long ago to live times its ancient size, now afforded enough canvas for an ocean voyage) for the Finance and Commerce section. Here he cruised about for quite a while, then furled his sails, and abandoned himself to his thoughts.
“The Coal Crisis!” he said to himself. “Mines getting worked out; the Ostrava basin suspending work for years. Heavens above, it’s a sheer disas¬ ter! We’ll have to import Upper Silesian coal. Just work out what that will add to the cost of our manu¬ facturers, and then talk about competition. We’re in a pretty fix. And if Germany raises her tariff, we may as well shut up shop. And the Industrial Banks going down, too ! What a wretched state of affairs !
2
The Absolute at Large
What a hopeless, stupid, stifling state of affairs! Oh, damn the crisis!”
Here G. H. Bondy, Chairman of the Board of Directors, came to a pause. Something was fidget¬ ing him and would not let him rest. He traced it back to the last page of his discarded newspaper. It was the syllable tion, only part of a word, for the fold of the paper came just in front of the T. It was this very incompleteness which had so curiously impressed itself upon him.
“Well, hang it, it’s probably iron production,” Bondy pondered vaguely, “or prevention, or, maybe, restitution. . . . And the Azote shares have gone down, too. The stagnation’s simply shocking. The position’s so bad that it’s ridiculous. . . . But that’s nonsense: who would advertise the restitu¬ tion of anything? More likely resignation. It’s sure to be resignation.”
With a touch of annoyance, G. H. Bondy spread out the newspaper to dispose of this irritating word. It had now vanished amid the chequering of the small advertisements. He hunted for it from one column to another, but it had concealed itself with provoking ingenuity. Mr. Bondy then worked from the bottom up, and finally started again from the right-hand side of the page. The contumacious “tion” was not to be found.
Mr. Bondy did not give in. He refolded the
3
The Advertisement
paper along its former creases, and behold, the detestable TION leaped forth on the very edge. Keep¬ ing his finger firmly on the spot, he swiftly spread the
paper out once more, and found - Mr. Bondy
swore under his breath. It was nothing but a very modest, very commonplace small advertisement :
Invention.
Highly remunerative, suitable for any factory, for imme¬ diate sale, personal reasons. Apply R. Marek, Engineer, Brevnov, 1651.
, “So that’s all it was!” thought G. H. Bondy. “Some sort of patent braces; just a cheap swindle or some crazy fellow’s pet plaything. And here I’ve wasted five minutes on it ! I’m getting scatter¬ brained myself. What a wretched state of affairs ! And not a hint of improvement anywhere!”
He settled himself in a rocking-chair to savour in more comfort the full bitterness of this wretched state of affairs. True, the M.E.C. had ten factories and 34,000 employees. The M.E.C. was the lead¬ ing producer of iron. The M.E.C. had no com¬ petitor as regards boilers. The M.E.C. grates were world-famous. But after thirty years’ hard work, gracious Heavens, surely one would have got bigger results elsewhere .
G. H. Bondy sat up with a jerk. “R. Marek, Engineer; R. Marek, Engineer. Half a minute:
/
4 The Absolute at Large
mightn’t that be that red-haired Marek — let’s see, what was his name ? Rudolph, Rudy Marek, my old chum Rudy of the Technical School? Sure enough, here it is in the advertisement: ‘R. Marek, Engi¬ neer.’ Rudy, you rascal, is it possible? Well, you’ve not got on very far in the world, my poor fellow! Selling ‘a highly remunerative invention.’ Ha ! ha ! ‘. . . for personal reasons.’ We know all about those ‘personal reasons.’ No money, isn’t that what it is? You want to catch some jay of a manufacturer on a nicely limed ‘patent,’ do you? Oh, well, you always had rather a notion of turning the world upside down. Ah, my lad, where are all our fine notions now! And those extravagant, ro¬ mantic days when we were young!”
Bondy lay back in his chair once more.
“It’s quite likely it really is Marek,” he reflected. “Still, Marek had a head for science. He was a bit of a talker, but there was a touch of genius about the lad. He had ideas. In other respects he was a fearfully unpractical fellow. An absolute fool, in fact. It’s very surprising that he isn’t a Professor,” mused Mr. Bondy. “I haven’t set eyes on him for twenty years. God knows what he has been up to ; perhaps he’s come right down in the world. Yes, he must be down and out, living away over in Brevnov, poor chap . . . and getting a living out of inventions ! What an awful finish!”
The Advertisement
5
He tried to imagine the straits of the fallen in¬ ventor. He managed to picture a horribly shaggy and dishevelled head, surrounded by dismal paper walls like those in a film. There is no furniture, only a mattress in the corner, and a pitiful model made of spools, nails, and match-ends on the table. A murky window looks out on a little yard. Upon this scene of unspeakable indigence enters a visitor in rich furs. “I have come to have a look at your inven¬ tion.” The half-blind inventor fails to recognize his old schoolfellow. He humbly bows his tousled head, looks about for a seat to offer to his guest, and then, oh Heaven ! with his poor, stiff, shaking fingers he tries to get his sorry invention going — it’s some crazy perpetual motion device — and mum¬ bles confusedly that it should work, and certainly would work, if only he had ... if only he could buy. . . . The fur-coated visitor looks all around the gar¬ ret, and suddenly he takes a leather wallet from his pocket and lays on the table one, two (Mr. Bondy takes fright and cries “That’s enough!”) three thou¬ sand-crown notes. (“One would have been quite enough . . . to go on with, I mean,” protests some¬ thing in Mr. Bondy’s brain.)
“There is . . . something to carry on the work with, Mr. Marek. No, no, you’re not in any way indebted to me. Who am I? That doesn’t matter. Just take it that I am a friend.”
*
6 The Absolute at Large
Bondy, found this scene very pleasant and touch¬ ing.
“I’ll send my secretary to Marek,” he resolved; “to-morrow without fail. And what shall I do to¬ day? It’s a holiday; I’m not going to the works. My time’s my own ... a wretched state things are in! Nothing to do all day long! Suppose I went round to-day myself.”
G. H. Bondy hesitated. It would be a bit of an adventure to go and see for oneself how that queer fellow was struggling along in Brevnov.
“After all, we were such chums ! And old times have their claim on one. Yes, I’ll go!” decided Mr. Bondy. And he went.
He had rather a boring time while his car was gliding all over Brevnov in search of a mean hovel bearing the number 1651. They had to inquire at the police-station.
“Marek, Marek,” said the inspector, searching his memory. “That must be Marek the engineer, of Marek and Co., the electric lamp factory, 1651, Mixa Street.”
The electric lamp factory! Bondy felt disap¬ pointed, even annoyed. Rudy Marek wasn’t living up in a garret, then ! He was a manufacturer and wanted to sell some invention or other “for personal reasons.” If that didn’t smell of bankruptcy, his name wasn’t Bondy.
7
The Advertisement
“Do you happen to know how Mr. Marek is doing?” he asked the police inspector, with a casual air, as he took his seat in the car.
“Oh, splendidly!” the inspector answered. “He’s got a very line business.” Local pride made him add, “The firm’s very well known”; and he ampli¬ fied this with: “A very wealthy man, and a learned one, too. He does nothing but make experiments.”
“Mixa Street!” cried Bondy to his chauffeur.
“Third on the right!” the inspector called after the car.
Bondy was soon ringing at the residential part of quite a pretty little factory.
“It’s all very nice and clean here,” he remarked to himself. “Flower-beds in the yard, creeper on the walls. Humph! There always was a touch of the philanthropist and reformer about that confounded Marek.” And at that moment Marek himself came out on the steps to meet him; Rudy Marek, awfully thin and serious-looking, up in the clouds, so to speak. It gave Bondy a queer pang to find him neither so young as he used to be nor so unkempt as that inventor; so utterly different from what Bondy had imagined that he was scarcely recognizable. But before he could fully realize his disillusionment, Marek stretched out his hand and said quietly, “Well, so you’ve come at last, Bondy! I’ve been expecting you I”
CHAPTER II
THE KARBURATOR
« T ’ve been expecting you !” Marek repeated, when X he had seated his guest in a comfortable leather chair. Nothing on earth would have induced Bondy to own up to his vision of the fallen inventor. “Just fancy !” he said, with a rather forced gaiety. “What a coincidence ! It struck me only this very morning that we hadn’t seen one another for twenty years. Twenty years, Rudy, think of it!”
“Hm,” said Marek. “And so you want to buy my invention.”
“Buy it?” said G. H. Bondy hesitatingly. “I really don’t know ... I haven’t even given it a thought. I wanted to see you and - ”
“Oh, come, you needn’t pretend,” Marek inter¬ rupted him. “I knew that you were coming. You’d be sure to, for a thing like this. This kind of inven¬ tion is just in your line. There’s a lot to be done with it.” He made an eloquent motion with his hand, coughed, and began again more deliberately. “The invention I am going to show you means a bigger revolution in technical methods than Watt’s
8
9
The Karburator
invention of the steam-engine. To give you its nature briefly, it provides, putting it theoretically, for the complete utilization of atomic energy
Bondy concealed a yawn. “But tell me, what have you been doing all these twenty years?”
Marek glanced at him with some surprise.
“Modern science teaches that all matter — that is to say, its atoms — is composed of a vast number of units of energy. An atom is in reality a collection of electrons, i.e. of the tiniest particles of electricity.”
“That’s tremendously interesting,” Bondy broke in. “I was always weak in physics, you know. But you’re not looking well, Marek. By the way, how did you happen to come by this playth . . . this, er . . . factory?”
“I ? Oh, quite by accident. I invented a new kind of filament for electric bulbs. . . . But that’s noth¬ ing; I only came upon it incidentally. You see, for twenty years I’ve been working on the combustion of matter. Tell me yourself, Bondy, what is the greatest problem of modern industry?”
“Doing business,” said Bondy. “And are you married yet?”
“I’m a widower,” answered Marek, leaping up excitedly. “No, business has nothing to do with it, I tell you. It’s combustion. The complete utiliza¬ tion of the heat-energy contained in matter! Just
IO
The Absolute at Large
consider that we use hardly one hundred-thousandth of the heat that there is in coal, and that could be extracted from itl Do you realize that!”
“Yes, coal is terribly dear!” said Mr. Bondy sapiently.
Marek sat down and cried disgustedly, “Look here, if you haven’t come here about my Karbura- tor, Bondy, you can go.”
“Go ahead, then,” Bondy returned, anxious to conciliate him.
Marek rested his head in his hands, and after a struggle came out with, “For twenty years I’ve been working on it, and now — now, I’ll sell it to the first man who comes along! My magnificent dream! The greatest invention of all the ages ! Seriously, Bondy, I tell you, it’s something really amazing.”
“No doubt, in the present wretched state of affairs,” assented Bondy.
“No, without any qualification at all, amazing. Do you realize that it means the utilization of atomic energy without any residue whatever?”
“Aha,” said Bondy. “So we’re going to do our heating with atoms. Well, why not? . . . You’ve got a nice place here, Rudy. Small and pleasant. How many hands do you employ?”
Marek took no notice. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s all the same thing, whatever you call it — the utilization of atomic energy, or the com-
1 1
The Karburator
plete combustion of matter, or the disintegration of matter. You can call it what you please.”
“I’m in favour of ‘combustion’ 1” said Mr. Bondy. “It sounds more familiar.”
“But ‘disintegration’ is more exact — to break up the atoms into electrons, and harness the electrons and make them work. Do you understand that?”
“Perfectly,” Bondy assured him. “The point is to harness them!”
“Well, imagine, say, that there are two horses at the ends of a rope, pulling with all their might in opposite directions. Do you know what you have then ?”
“Some kind of sport, I suppose,” suggested Mr. Bondy.
“No, a state of repose. The horses pull, but they stay where they are. And if you were to cut the rope - ”
“ — The horses would fall over,” cried G. H. Bondy, with a flash of inspiration.
“No, but they would start running; they would become energy released. Now, pay attention. Mat¬ ter is a team in that very position. Cut the bonds that hold its electrons together, and they will . . .”
“Run loose !”
“Yes, but we can catch and harness them, don’t you see? Or put it to yourself this way: we burn a piece of coal, say, to produce heat. We do get a
12
The Absolute at Large
little heat from it, but we also get ashes, coal-gas, and soot. So we don’t lose the matter altogether, do we?”
“No. — Won’t you have a cigar?”
“No, I won’t. — But the matter which is left still contains a vast quantity of unused atomic energy. If we used up the whole of the atomic energy, we should use up the whole of the atoms. In short, the matter would vanish altogether.”
“Aha! Now I understand.”
“It’s just as though we were to grind corn badly — as if we ground up the thin outer husk and threw the rest away, just as we throw away ashes. When the grinding is perfect, there’s nothing or next to nothing left of the grain, is there? In the same way, when there is perfect combustion, there’s noth¬ ing or next to nothing left of the matter we burn. It’s ground up completely. It is used up. It returns to its original nothingness. You know, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make matter exist at all. Take away its existence, compel it not to be, and you thereby release an enormous supply of power. That’s how it is, Bondy.”
“Aha. That’s not bad.”
“Pfliiger, for instance, calculates that one kilo¬ gramme of coal contains twenty-three billions of calories. I think that Pfliiger exaggerates.”
“Decidedly.”
The Karburator 13
“I have arrived at seven billions myself, theoreti¬ cally. But even that signifies that one kilogramme of coal, if it underwent complete combustion, would run a good-sized factory for several hundred hours !”
“The devil it does!” cried Mr. Bondy, springing from his chair.
“I can’t give you the exact number of hours. I’ve been burning half a kilogramme of coal for six weeks at a pressure of thirty kilogrammetres and, man alive,” said the engineer in a whisper, turning pale, “it’s still going on . . . and on . . , . and on.”
Bondy was embarrassed; he stroked his smooth round chin. “Listen, Marek,” he began, hesitat¬ ingly. “You’re surely ... er ... a bit ... er . . . overworked.”
Marek’s hand thrust the suggestion aside. “Not a bit of it. If you’d only get up physics a bit, I could give you an explanation of my Karburator 1 in which the combustion takes place. It involves a whole chapter of advanced physics, you know. But you’ll see it downstairs in the cellar. I shovelled half a kilogramme of coal into the machine, then I shut it up and had it officially sealed in the presence
1 This name which Marek gave to his atomic boiler is, of course, quite incorrect, and is one of the melancholy results of the ignorance of Latin among technicians. A more exact term would have been Komburator, Atomic Kettle, Karbowatt, Disintegrator, Motor M, Bondymover, Hylergon, Molecular Disintegration Dynamo, E. W., and other designations which were later proposed. It was, of course, the bad one that was generally adopted.
14
The Absolute at Large
of witnesses, so that no one could put any more coal in. Go and have a look at it for yourself — go on — go now! You won’t understand it, anyway, but — go down to the cellar! Go on down, man, I tell you !”
“Won’t you come with me?” asked Bondy in astonishment.
“No, you go alone. And ... I say, Bondy . . . don’t stay down there long.”
“Why not?” asked Bondy, growing a trifle sus¬ picious.
“Oh, nothing much. Only I’ve a notion that per¬ haps it’s not quite healthy down there. Turn on the light, the switch is just by the door. That noise down in the cellar doesn’t come from my machine. It works noiselessly, steadily, and without any smell. . . . The roaring is only a ... a ventilator. Well, now, you go on. I’ll wait here. Then you can tell me . . .”
* * * * *
Bondy went down the cellar steps, quite glad to be away from that madman for a while (quite mad, no doubt whatever about it) and rather worried as to the quickest means of getting out of the place alto¬ gether. Why, just look, the cellar had a huge thick reinforced door just like an armour-plated safe in a bank. And now let’s have a light. The switch was just by the door. And there in the middle of the
i5
The Karburator
arched concrete cellar, clean as a monastery cell, lay a gigantic copper cylinder resting on cement sup¬ ports. It was closed on all sides except at the top, where there was a grating bedecked with seals. Inside the machine all was darkness and silence. With a smooth and regular motion the cylinder thrust forth a piston which slowly rotated a heavy fly-wheel. That was all. Only the ventilator in the cellar window kept up a ceaseless rattle.
Perhaps it was the draught from the ventilator or something — but Mr. Bondy felt a peculiar breeze upon his brow, and an eerie sensation as though his hair were standing on end; and then it seemed as if he were being borne through boundless space; and then as though he were floating in the air without any sensation of his own weight. G. H. Bondy fell on his knees, lost in a bewildering, shining ecstasy. He felt as if he must shout and sing, he seemed to hear about him the rustle of unceasing and innumer¬ able wings. And suddenly someone seized him vio¬ lently by the hand and dragged him from the cellar. It was Marek, wearing over his head a mask or a helmet like a diver’s, and he hauled Bondy up the stairs.
Up in the room he pulled off his metal head-cov¬ ering and wiped away the sweat that soaked his brow.
“Only just in time,” he gasped, showing tre¬ mendous agitation.
CHAPTER III
PANTHEISM
H. Bondy felt rather as though he were
VJ • dreaming. Marek settled him in an easy chair with quite maternal solicitude, and made haste to bring some brandy.
“Here, drink this up quickly,” he jerked out hoarsely, offering him the glass with a trembling hand. “You came over queer down there too, didn’t
you?”
“On the contrary,” Bondy answered unsteadily. “It was ... it was beautiful, old chap ! I felt as if I were flying, or something like that.”
“Yes, yes,” said Marek quickly. “That’s exactly what I mean. As though you were flying along, or rather soaring upward, wasn’t that it?”
“It was a feeling of perfect bliss,” said Mr. Bondy. “I think it’s what you’d call being trans¬ ported. As if there was something down there . . . something ...”
“Something — holy?” asked Marek hesitatingly.
“Perhaps. Yes, man alive, you’re right. I never go to church, Rudy, never in my life, but down in
Pantheism *7
that cellar I felt as if I were in church. Tell me, man, what did I do down there?”
“You went on your knees,” Marek muttered with a bitter smile, and began striding up and down the room.
Bondy stroked his bald head in bewilderment.
“That’s extraordinary. But come, on my knees? Well, then, tell me what . . . what is there in the cellar that acts on one so queerly?”
“The Karburator,” growled Marek, gnawing his lips. His cheeks seemed even more sunken than before, and were as pale as death.
“But, confound it, man,” cried Bondy in amaze¬ ment, “how can it be?”
The engineer only shrugged his shoulders, and with bent head went on pacing up and down the room.
G. H. Bondy’s eyes followed him with childish astonishment. “The man’s crazy,” he said to him¬ self. “All the same, what the devil is it that comes over one in that cellar? That tormenting bliss, that tremendous security, that terror, that overwhelming feeling of devotion, or whatever you like to call it.” Mr. Bondy arose and poured himself out an¬ other dash of brandy.
“I say, Marek,” he said, “I’ve got it now.”
“Got what?” exclaimed Marek, halting.
“That business in the cellar. That queer psychi-
1 8 The Absolute at Large
cal condition. It’s some form of poisoning, isn’t it? . .
Marek gave an angry laugh. “Oh, yes, of course, poisoning!”
“I thought so at once,” declared Bondy, his mind at rest in an instant. “That apparatus of yours produces something, ah . . . er . . . something like ozone, doesn’t it? Or more likely poisonous gas. And when anyone inhales it, it . . . er . . . poisons him or excites him somehow, isn’t that it? Why, of course, man, it’s nothing but poisonous gases; they’re probably given off somehow by the combustion of the coal in that . . . that Karburator of yours. Some sort of illuminating gas or paradise gas, or phosgene or something of the sort. That’s why you’ve put in the ventilator, and that’s why you wear a gas-mask when you go into the cellar, isn’t it? Just some confounded gases.”
“If only there were nothing but gases!” Marek burst out, shaking his fists threateningly. “Look here, Bondy, that’s why I must sell that Karbura¬ tor ! I simply can’t stand it — I can’t stand it . . . I can’t stand it,” he shouted, well-nigh weeping. “I never dreamed my Karburator would do anything like this . . . this . . . terrifying mischief! Just think, it’s been going on like that from the very be¬ ginning ! And every one feels it who comes near the thing. You haven’t any notion even yet, Bondy. But our porter caught it properly.”
Pantheism 19
“Poor fellow!” said the astonished Bondy, full of sympathy. “And did he die of it?”
“No, but he got converted,” cried Marek in despair. “Bondy, you’re a man I can confide in. My invention, my Karburator, has one terrible de¬ fect. Nevertheless, you’re going to buy it or else take it from me as a gift. You will, Bondy — even if it spews forth demons. It doesn’t matter to you, Bondy, so long as you can get your millions out of it. And you’ll get them, man. It’s a stupendous thing, I tell you - ; but I don’t want to have any¬
thing more to do with it. You haven’t such a sensi¬ tive conscience as I have, you know, Bondy. It’ll bring in millions, thousands of millions; but it will lay a frightful load upon your conscience. Make up your mind!”
“Oh, leave me alone,” Mr. Bondy protested. “If it gives off poisonous gases, the authorities will pro¬ hibit it, and there’s an end of it. You know the wretched state of affairs here. Now in America
“It isn’t poisonous gases,” Marek exclaimed. “It’s something a thousand times worse. Mark what I tell you, Bondy, it’s something beyond human reason, but there’s not a scrap of deception about it. Well, then, my Karburator actually does burn up matter, causes its utter combustion, so that not even a grain of dust remains. Or rather, it breaks it up, crushes it, splits it up into electrons, consumes it,
20
The Absolute at Large
grinds it — I don’t know how to express it — in short, uses it up completely. You have no idea what a colossal amount of energy is contained in the atoms. With half a hundredweight of coal in the Karbura- ator you can sail right round the world in a steam¬ ship, you can light the whole city of Prague, you can supply power for the whole of a huge factory, or anything you like. A bit of coal the size of a nut will do the heating and the cooking for a whole family. And ultimately we shan’t even require coal ; we can do our heating with the first pebble or hand¬ ful of dirt we pick up in front of the house. Every scrap of matter has in it more energy than an enor¬ mous boiler; you’ve only to extract it. You’ve only to know how to secure total combustion! Well, Bondy, I can do it; my Karburator can do it. You’ll admit, Bondy, that it has been worth while toiling over it for twenty years.”
“Look here, Rudy,” Bondy began slowly, “it’s all very extraordinary — but I believe you, so to speak. On my soul, I do believe you. You know, when I stood in front of that Karburator of yours, I felt that I was in the presence of something over- poweringly great, something a man could not with¬ stand. I can’t help it: I believe you. Down there in the cellar you have something uncanny, some¬ thing that will overturn the whole world.”
“Alas, Bondy,” Marek whispered anxiously,
Pantheism 21
“that’s just where the trouble is. Listen, and I’ll tell you the whole thing. Have you ever read Spinoza?”
“No.”
“No more had I. But now, you see, I am begin¬ ning to read that sort of thing. I don’t understand it — it’s terribly difficult stuff for us technical people — but there’s something in it. Do you by any chance believe in God?”
“I? Well, now . . . ” G. H. Bondy deliberated. “Upon my word, I couldn’t say. Perhaps there is a God, but He’s on some other planet. Not on ours. Oh, well, that sort of thing doesn’t fit in with our times at all. Tell me, what makes you drag that into it?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” said Marek in a hard voice. “I don’t want to believe. I have al¬ ways been an atheist. I believed in matter and in progress and in nothing else. I’m a scientific man, Bondy; and science cannot admit the existence of God.”
“From the business point of view,” Mr. Bondy remarked, “it’s a matter of indifference. If He wants to exist, in Heaven’s name, let Him. We aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“But from the scientific point of view, Bondy,” cried the engineer sternly, “it is absolutely intol¬ erable. It’s a case of Him or science. I don’t as-
22
The Absolute at Large
sert that God does not exist; I only assert that He ought not to exist, or at least ought not to let Him¬ self be seen. And I believe that science is crowding Him out step by step, or at any rate is preventing Him from letting Himself be seen; and I believe that that is the greatest mission of science.”
“Possibly,” said Bondy calmly. “But go on.”
“And now just imagine, Bondy, that - But
wait, I’ll put it to you this way. Do you know what Pantheism is? It’s the belief that God, or the Ab¬ solute, if you prefer it, is manifest in everything that exists. In men, as in stones, in the grass, the water — everywhere. And do you know what Spinoza teaches? That matter is only the outward manifes¬ tation, only one phase of the divine substance, the other phase of which is spirit. And do you know what Fechner teaches?”
“No, I don’t,” the other admitted.
“Fechner teaches that everything, everything that is, is penetrated with the divine, that God fills with His being the whole of the matter in the world. And do you know Leibniz? Leibniz teaches that phys¬ ical matter is composed of psychical atoms, monads, whose nature is divine. What do you say to that?”
“I don’t know,” said G. H. Bondy. “I don’t un¬ derstand it.”
“Nor do I. It’s fearfully abstruse. But let us assume, for the sake of argument, that God is con-
Pantheism 23
tained in all forms of physical matter, that He is, as it were, imprisoned in it. And when you smash this matter up completely, He flies out of it as though from a box. He is suddenly set free. He is re¬ leased from matter as illuminating gas is from coal. You have only to burn one single atom up com¬ pletely, and immediately the whole cellar is filled with the Absolute. It’s simply appalling how quickly it spreads.”
“Hold on,” Mr. Bondy interrupted. “Say that all over again, but say it slowly.”
“Look at it like this then,” said Marek. “We’re assuming that all matter contains the Absolute in some state of confinement. We can call it a latent imprisoned force, or simply say that as God is omnipresent He is therefore present in all matter and in every particle of matter. And now suppose you utterly destroy a piece of matter, apparently leaving not the slightest residue. Then, since all matter is really Matter plus Absolute, what you have destroyed is only the matter, and you’re left with an indestructible residue — free and active Abso¬ lute. You’re left with the chemically unanalysable, immaterial residue, which shows no spectrum lines, neither atomic weight nor chemical affinity, no obedience to Boyle’s law, none, none whatever, of the properties of matter. What is left behind is pure God. A chemical nullity which acts with mon-
24
The Absolute at Large
strous energy. Being immaterial, it is not subject to the laws of matter. Thence, it already follows that its manifestations are contrary to nature and downright miraculous. All this proceeds from the assumption that God is present in all matter. Can you imagine, for the sake of argument, that He is really so present?”
“I certainly can,” said Bondy. “What then?”
“Good,” said Marek, rising to his feet. “Then it’s the solemn truth.”
CHAPTER IV
GOD IN THE CELLAR
GH. Bondy sucked meditatively at his cigar.
• “And how did you find it out, old chap?” he asked at last.
“By the effect on myself,” said the engineer, resuming his march up and down the room. “As a result of its complete disintegration of matter, my Perfect Karburator manufactures a by-product : pure and unconfined Absolute, God in a chemically pure form. At one end, so to speak, it emits mechanical power, and at the other, the divine principle. Just as when you split water up into hydrogen and oxy¬ gen, only on an immensely larger scale.”
“Hm,” said Mr. Bondy. “And then—?”
“I’ve an idea,” continued Marek cautiously, “that there are many of the elect who can separate the material substance in themselves from the divine substance. They can release or distil the Absolute, as it were, from their material selves. Christ and the miracle-workers, fakirs, mediums, and prophets have achieved it by means of their psychic power.
25
26
The Absolute at Large
My Karburator does it by a purely mechanical pro¬ cess. It acts, you might say, as a factory for the Absolute.”
“Facts,” said G. H. Bondy. “Stick to facts.”
“These are facts. I constructed my Perfect Kar¬ burator only in theory to begin with. Then I made a little model, which wouldn’t go. The fourth model was the first that really worked. It was only about so big, but it ran quite nicely. But even while I was working with it on this small scale, I felt peculiar physical effects — a strange exhilaration — a ‘fey’ feeling. But I thought it was due to being so pleased about the invention, or to being overworked, perhaps. It was then that I first began to prophesy and perform miracles.”
“To do what?” Bondy cried.
“To prophesy and perform miracles,” Marek re¬ peated gloomily. “I had moments of astounding illumination. I saw, for instance, quite clearly, things that would happen in the future. I predicted even your visit here. And once I tore my nail off on a lathe. I looked at the damaged finger, and all at once a new nail grew on it. Very likely I’d formed the wish, but all the same it’s queer and . . . ter¬ rible. Another time — just think of it — I rose right up into the air. It’s called levitation, you know. I never believed in any rubbish of that kind, so you can imagine the shock it gave me.”
God in the Cellar 27
“I can quite believe it,” said Bondy gravely. “It must be most distressing.”
“Extremely distressing. I thought it must be due to nerves, a kind of auto-suggestion or something. In the meanwhile I erected the big Karburator in the cellar and started it off. As I told you, it’s been run¬ ning now for six weeks, day and night. And it was there that I first realized the full significance of the business. In a single day the cellar was chock-full of the Absolute, ready to burst with it; and it began to spread all over the house. The pure Absolute pentrates all matter, you know, but it takes a little longer with solid substances. In the air it spread as swiftly as light. When I went in, I tell you, man, it took me like a stroke. I shrieked out aloud. I don’t know where I got the strength to run away. When I got upstairs, I thought over the whole business. My first notion was that it must be some new intoxicating, stimulating gas, developed by the process of complete combustion. That’s why I had that ventilator fixed up, from the outside. Two of the fitters on the job “saw the light” and had visions; the third was a drinker and so perhaps to some extent immune. As long as I thought it was only a gas, I made a series of experiments with it, and it’s interesting to find that any light burns much more brightly in the Absolute. If it would let itself be confined in glass bulbs, I’d fill lamps with it; but it
28
The Absolute at Large
escapes from any vessel, however thick you make it. Then I decided it must be some sort of Ultra-X-ray, but there’s no trace of any form of electricity, and it makes no impression on photo-sensitive plates. On the third day, the porter and his wife, who live just over the cellar, had to be taken off to the sana¬ torium.”
“What for?” asked Bondy.
“He got religion. He was inspired. He gave religious addresses and performed miracles. His wife uttered prophecies. My porter had been a thoroughly hard-headed chap, a monist and a free¬ thinker, and an unusually steady fellow. Well, just fancy, from no visible cause whatever, he started healing people by laying on of hands. Of course, Bondy, he was reported at once. The district health officer, who is a friend of mine, was tremendously upset about it; so, to avoid any scandal, I had the porter sent to a sanatorium. They say he’s better now; quite cured. He has lost the power to per¬ form miracles. I’m going to send him on the land to recuperate. . . . Then I began to work miracles myself and see into the future. Among other things, I had visions of gigantic, swampy primeval forests, overgrown with mosses and inhabited by weird mon¬ sters — probably because the Karburator was burning Upper Silesian coal, which is of the oldest forma-
God in the Cellar 29
tion. Possibly the God of the Carboniferous Age is in it.”
Mr. Bondy shuldered. “Marek, this is frightful !”
“It is indeed,” said Marek sorrowfully. “Gradu¬ ally I began to see that it wasn’t gas, but the Abso¬ lute. The symptoms were terrible. I could read people’s thoughts, light emanated from me, I had a desperate struggle not to become absorbed in prayer and preach belief in God. I tried to clog the Kar- burator up with sand, but I was seized with a bout of levitation. That machine won’t let anything stop it. I don’t sleep at home nowadays. Even in the factory there have been several serious cases of illumination among the workmen. I don’t know where to turn, Bondy. Yes, I’ve tried every possible isolating material that might prevent the Absolute from get¬ ting out of the cellar. Ashes, sand, metal walls, nothing can keep it back. I’ve even tried covering the cellar with the work of Professor Krejci, Spencer, Haeckel, and all the Positivists you can think of: would you believe it, the Absolute goes calmly through even that stuff ! Even papers, prayer- books, Lives of the Saints, Patriotic Song-books, university lectures, best-sellers, political treatises, and Parliamentary Reports, present no obstacle to it. I’m simply desperate. You can’t shut it up, you can’t soak it up. It’s mischief let loose.”
3° The Absolute at Large
“Oh, but why?” said Mr. Bondy. “Does it really mean such mischief ? Even if all this were true . . . is it such a disaster?”
“Bondy, my Karburator is a terriffic thing. It will overturn the whole world, mechanically and socially. It will cheapen production to an unbeliev¬ able extent. It will do away with poverty and hunger. It will some day save our planet from freezing up. But, on the other hand, it hurls God as a by-product into the world. I implore you, Bondy, don’t underrate what it means. We aren’t used to reckoning with God as a reality. We don’t know what His presence may bring about — say, socially, morally, and so on. Why, man, this thing affects the whole of human civilization 1”
“Wait a minute !” said Bondy thoughtfully. “Per¬ haps there’s some charm or other that would exor¬ cise it. Have you called in the clergy?”
“What kind of clergy?”
“Any kind. The denomination probably makes no difference in this case, you know. Perhaps they could do something to stop it.”
“Oh, that’s all superstition!” burst out Marek. “Leave me alone with your parsons! Catch me giving them a chance to make a miraculous shrine out of my cellar ! Me, with my views !”
“Very well,” declared Mr. Bondy. “Then I’ll call them in myself. You never can tell. . . .
3i
God in the Cellar
Come, it can’t do any harm, anyway. After all, I haven’t anything against God. Only He oughtn’t to interfere with business. Have you tried nego¬ tiating with Him in a friendly spirit?”
“No,” admitted the engineer.
“That was a mistake,” said Bondy dryly. “Per¬ haps you could come to some agreement with Him. A proper formal contract, in something like this style : ‘We guarantee to produce You discreetly and continuously to an extent to be fixed by mutual agree¬ ment; in return for which You pledge yourself to refrain from any divine manifestations within such and such a radius from the place of origin.’ What do you think — would He consider these terms?”
“I don’t know,” answered Marek uneasily. “He seems to have a decided inclination in favour of becoming independent of matter once more. Still, perhaps ... in His own interests . . . He might be willing to listen. But don’t ask me to do it.”
“Very well, then!” Bondy agreed. “I’ll send my own solicitor. A very tactful and capable fellow. And then again . . . er . . . . one might
perhaps offer Him some church or other. After all, a factory cellar and its surroundings are rather . . . well . . . undignified quarters for Him. We ought to ascertain His tastes. Have you tried yet?”
32
The Absolute at Large
“No; it would suit me best to flood the cellar with water.”
“Gently, Marek, gently. I’m probably going to buy this invention. You understand, of course, that . . . I’ll send my experts over first . . . we’ll have to look into the business a little further. Perhaps it’s only poisonous fumes, after all. And if it actually turns out to be God Himself, that’s all right. So long as the Karburator really works.”
Marek got up. “And you wouldn’t be afraid to install the Karburator in the M.E.C. works?”
“I’m not afraid,” said Bondy, rising, “to manu¬ facture Karburators wholesale. Karburators for trains and ships. Karburators for central heating, for houses, offices, factories, and schools. In ten years’ time all the heating in the world will be done by Karburators. I’ll give you three per cent, of the gross profits. The first year it will only be a few millions, perhaps. Meanwhile you can move out, so that I can send my men along. I’ll bring the Suffragan Bishop up to-morrow morning. See that you keep out of his way, Rudy. I don’t like seeing you about here in any case. You are rather abrupt, and I don’t want to offend the Absolute to start with.”
“Bondy,” Marek whispered, horror-stricken. “I
God in the Cellar 33
warn you for the last time. It means letting God loose upon this world!”
“Then,” said G. H. Bondy, with dignity, “He will be personally indebted to me to that extent. And I hope that He won’t show me any ill-feeling.”
CHAPTER V
BISHOP LINDA
Aijout a fortnight after New Year’s Day, Marek was sitting in Bondy’s business office. “How far have you got?” Bondy had just asked, raising his head from some papers over which he was bending.
“I’ve finished,” said the engineer. “I’ve given your engineers detailed drawings of the Karburator.
That bald-headed fellow — what’s his name - ”
“Krolmus.”
“Yes, Krolmus has simplified my atomic motor amazingly — the transformation of electronic energy into motor power, you know. He’s an able fellow, my boy, is Krolmus. And what other news is there?”
G. H. Bondy went on writing assiduously.
“We’re building,” he said after a while. “Seven thousand bricklayers on the job. A factory for Karburators.”
“At Vysocany. And we’ve increased our share capital. A billion and a half. Our new invention’s getting into the papers. See for yourself,” he added, tipping half a hundredweight of Czech and foreign
34
Bishop Linda 35
papers into Marek’s lap, then buried himself in the documents on his desk.
“I haven’t been for a fortnight,” said Marek gloomily.
“Haven’t been where?”
“I haven’t been to my little factory out at Brevnov for a fortnight. I — I daren’t go there. Is anything being done there?”
“Mphm.”
“And what about my Karburator?” asked Marek, controlling his anxiety.
“It’s still running.”
“And what about . . . the other thing?”
The Chief sighed and laid down his pen. “Do you know that we had to have Mixa Street closed?”
“Why?”
“People kept going there to pray. Whole pro¬ cessions of them. The police tried to disperse them, and seven people lost their lives. They let them¬ selves be knocked over like sheep.”
“I feared as much, I feared as much,” muttered Marek in despair.
“We’ve blocked the street with barbed wire,” Bondy went on. “We had to clear the people out of the neighbouring houses — religious manifesta¬ tions all over them, you know. A commission of the Ministries of Health and Education is occupying them now.”
36
The Absolute at Large
“I expect,” said Marek with a breath of relief, “that the authorities will prohibit my Karburator.”
“Oh, no they won’t,” said G. H. Bondy. “The Clerical party are making a fearful row about your Karburator, and for that very reason the progressive parties have taken it under their wing. In reality no one knows what it’s all about. It’s evident that you don’t read the papers, man. It’s developed into a quite needless attack upon clericalism, and the Church happens to have a little right on its side in this case. That confounded Bishop informed the Cardinal Archbishop - ”
“What Bishop?”
“Oh, some Bishop by the name of Linda, quite a sensible man in other respects. You see, I took him up there as an expert, to inspect the wonder¬ working Absolute. His inspection lasted a full three hours, and he spent the whole time in the cellar, and . .
“He got religion?” burst out Marek.
“Not a bit of it! Perhaps, he’s had too long a training with God, or else he’s a more hard-baked atheist than you ; I don’t know. But three days later he came to me and told me that from the Catholic standpoint God cannot be brought into the matter, that the Church absolutely rejects and forbids the pantheistic hypothesis as heresy. In short, that this isn’t any legal, duly recognized God, supported by
Bishop Linda 37
the authority of the Church, and that, as a priest, he must declare it false, perverse, and heretical. He talked very reasonably, did his Reverence.”
“So he wasn’t conscious of any supernatural mani¬ festations down there?”
“He underwent them all: illuminations, miracu¬ lous powers, ecstasy, everything. He doesn’t deny, either, that these things happen there.”
“Well, then, tell me, how does he explain it?”
“He simply doesn’t. He said that the Church does not explain, but merely prescribes or prohibits. In short, he definitely refused to compromise the Church with any new and untried God. At least, that’s what I understood him to mean. Do you know that I’ve bought that church up on the White Mountain ?”
“Why?”
“It’s the nearest one to Brevnov. It cost me three hundred thousand, man. Both in writing and by word of mouth I offered it to the Absolute down in the cellar to induce it to move over there. It’s quite a pretty baroque church; and besides, I ex¬ pressed my readiness to undertake any necessary alterations. And here’s a queer thing: just a few steps from the church, at No. 457, there was a fine case of ecstasy the night before last — one of our erectors; but in the church itself nothing miraculous
38
The Absolute at Large
happened, nothing whatever. There was even one case right out in Vokovice and two in Kosire, while at the Petrin wireless station there’s practically an epidemic of religion. All the wrieless operators on duty up there are sending out ecstatic messages of their own accord, a sort of new gospel to the world at large: God coming down again to the earth to ransom it, and so forth. Just imagine the scandal ! Now the progressive papers are going for the Post Office, and the fur’s fairly flying. They’re screaming about Clericalism showing its horns, and rubbish of that kind. Nobody as yet suspects that this has any connection with the Karburator. Marek,” Bondy added in a whisper, “I’ll tell you something, but it’s a dead secret. A week ago it attacked our Minister for War.”
“Whom!” cried Marek.
“Hush, quietly. The Minister for War. He ‘saw the light’ all of a sudden in his villa at Dejvice. The following morning he assembled the garrison of Prague, talked to them about eternal peace, and exhorted the troops to become martyrs. Of course he had to resign at once. The papers stated that his health had suddenly broken down. And that’s how matters stand, my friend.”
“In Dejvice already !” groaned the engineer. “It’s terrible, Bondy, the way it’s spreading.”
“It’s amazing,” said Bondy. “The other day a
Bishop Linda 39
man shifted his piano from the infected Mixa Street area out to Pankrac. In twenty-four hours the whole house was down with it.”
Here the Chairman was interrupted. A servant entered to announce a caller in the person of Bishop Linda. Marek hurriedly rose to take his leave, but Bondy forced him to resume his seat, saying, “Just sit still and say nothing. The Bishop’s really a charming man.” At that moment the Suffragan Bishop Linda came into the room.
He was a small, jolly person with gold spectacles and a comical mouth puckered up in clerical fashion in pleasant childish folds. Bondy introduced Marek to him as the owner of the ill-omened cellar at Brevnov. The Bishop rubbed his hands with delight while the wrathful engineer spluttered out something about being “delighted to have the honour,” with a dogged expression that said clearly, “Confound you for a canting humbug!” The Bishop pursed his lips and turned quickly to Bondy.
He began briskly, without beating about the bush. “I’ve come to you on a very delicate errand. Very delicate indeed,” he repeated with relish. “We have been discussing your . . . ahem . . . your
affair in the Consistory. His Eminence, the Arch¬ bishop, wishes to settle this regrettable incident with as little publicity as possible. You understand. This objectionable business about the miracles. Oh, I’m
40
The Absolute at Large
sorry. I have no wish to hurt the feelings of Mr.
. . . er . . . the proprietor . .
“Please go on,” Marek conceded gruffly.
“Well, then, in a word, the whole scandal. His Eminence declares that from the standpoint of both reason and faith there can be nothing more offen¬ sive than this godless and blasphemous perversion of the laws of Nature. . . .”
“I beg your pardon!” Marek broke out dis¬ gustedly. “Would you mind leaving the laws of Nature to us? After all, we don’t interfere with your dogmas !”
“You are mistaken,” cried the Bishop gaily. “Quite mistaken. Science without dogma is only a heap of doubts. What is worse, your Absolute opposes the laws of the Church. It contradicts the doctrine of the holy sacraments. It does not regard the traditions of the Church. It seriously violates the doctrine of the Trinity. It pays no attention to the apostolic succession. It does not even submit to the rites of exorcism. And so on. In short, it behaves itself in a manner which we must severely discountenance.”
“Come, come,” suggested Bondy propitiatingly. “Up to the present its behaviour has been very . . . dignified.”
The Bishop raised his finger warningly.
4i
Bishop Linda
“Up to the present; but we don’t know how it will behave next. Look here, Mr. Bondy,” he sud¬ denly said in a confidential tone, “it is to your interest that there should be no unpleasantness. To our interest, too. You would like to settle it quickly, like a practical business man. So should we, as the representatives and servants of the Lord. We can¬ not permit the rise of some new God or possibly a new religion.”
“Thank Heaven,” Mr. Bondy sighed with relief. “I knew we should come to an agreement.”
“Splendid!” cried the Bishop, his eyes sparkling with happiness through his spectacles. “An agree¬ ment, that’s the thing. The venerable Consistory decided that in the interests of the Church it would place your . . . er . . . Absolute provisionally under its patronage. It would attempt to bring it into harmony with Catholic doctrine. It would pro¬ claim the premises in Brevnov known as No. 1651 a miraculous shrine and place of pilgrimage. . . .”
“Oho!” growled Marek, and leaped to his feet.
“Permit me,” said the Bishop with an imperious motion. “A miraculous shrine and place of pilgrim¬ age — with certain conditions, of course. The first condition is that on the aforesaid premises the pro¬ duction of the Absolute should be limited to the smallest possible quantity, and that it should be only
42
The Absolute at Large
weak, almost innocuous, very much diluted Absolute, whose manifestations would be less uncontrollable and more irregular, rather as at Lourdes. Other¬ wise we cannot assume the responsibility.”
“Very well,” agreed Mr. Bondy. “And what else?”
“Further,” continued the Bishop, “it is to be manufactured only from coal obtained at Male Svantovice. As you know, there is a miraculous shrine of the Virgin in that district, so that with the aid of this particular coal we might establish at No. 1651 Brevnov a centre for the worship of Our Lady.”
“Undoubtedly,” assented Mr. Bondy. “Any¬ thing more?”
“In the third place, you must bind yourself not to manufacture the Absolute at any other place or time.”
“What?” cried G. H. Bondy, “and our Kar- burators - ”
“ — Will never come into operation, with the exception of the one at Brevnov, which remains the property of the Holy Church, and will be under her management.”
“Nonsense,” protested G. H. Bondy. “The Karburators shall be manufactured. In three weeks’ time ten of them will be erected. In the first six months there will be twelve hundred. In the
Bishop Linda 43
course of a year, ten thousand. Our arrangements have gone as far as that already.”
“And I tell you,” said the Bishop quietly and sweetly, “that at the end of that year not a single Karburator will be running.”
“Why not?”
“Because mankind, whether believers or unbe¬ lievers, cannot do with a real and active God. We simply cannot, gentlemen. It is out of the question.”
“And I tell you,” Marek interposed vehemently, “that the Karburator shall be made. I’m in favour of them myself now. I mean to have them precisely because you don’t want them. In spite of you, my Lord Bishop, in spite of all superstition, in spite of all Rome ! And I mean to be the first to cry” — here the engineer took breath, then burst out with unmelodious enthusiam — “Success to the Perfect Karburator !”
“We shall see,” said the Bishop with a sigh. “You gentlemen will live to be convinced that the vener¬ able Consistory was right. In a year’s time you will stop the manufacture of the Absolute of your own accord. But, oh, the damage, the devastation it will bring to pass in the meantime! Gentlemen, in the name of Heaven, do not imagine that the Church brings God into the world. The Church merely confines Him and controls Him. And you two unbelievers are loosing Him upon the earth like a
44 The Absolute at Large
flood. The ship of Peter will survive even this deluge; like the Ark of Noah, it will ride out this inundation of the Absolute — but your modern society,” cried the Bishop with a mighty voice, “that will pay the price!”
CHAPTER VI
THE BOARD-MEETING
u ENTLEMEn” — it was G. H. Bondy addressing
V_J the meeting of the Board of Directors of the M.E.C. (the Metallo-Electrical Company) held on February 20th — “I have to inform you that one building of our new group of factories at Vysocany has been completed and began production yesterday. In a very few days the standardized production of Karburators will be in full swing, beginning with eighteen finished machines per day. In April we expect to turn out sixty-five per day; by the end of July two hundred per day. We have laid down fifteen kilometres of private line, chiefly for our coal supply. Twelve boiler furnaces are now being erected. We have begun the building of new quar¬ ters for our workmen.”
“Twelve boiler furnaces?” Dr. Hubka, the leader of the opposition, asked at a venture.
“Yes, twelve for the time being,” confirmed Bondy.
“That’s strange,” Dr. Hubka declared.
“I ask you, gentlemen,” said Bondy, “what is
45
46 The Absolute at Large
there strange about having twelve boilers? For a huge group of factories like this . .
“Of course, of course,” came from several quarters.
Dr. Hubka smiled ironically.
“And why the fifteen kilometres of railway line?”
“For the transport of coal and raw materials. We are reckoning on a daily consumption of eight truckloads of coal until we have things properly under way. I don’t know what Dr. Hubka’s objec¬ tion to our getting coal in can be.”
“I’ll give you my objection,” cried Dr. Hubka, leaping up. “It’s that the whole business looks highly suspicious. Yes, gentlemen, extremely sus¬ picious. Mr. Bondy has forced us to erect a factory for Karburators. The Karburator, he assured us, is the only power-supply of the future. The Kar¬ burator, as he expressly stated, can develop a thou¬ sand horse-power from a single bucket of coal. And now he is talking about twelve boiler furnaces and whole trtickloads of coal for them. Gentlemen, I ask you, why then shouldn’t a single bucket of coal give sufficient power for our whole factory? Why are we erecting boiler furnaces when we’ve got atomic motors? Gentlemen, if the Karburator is not an utter swindle, I don’t see why our Chairman did not arrange for our own new factory to be equipped to be run by Karburator power. I don’t
47
The Board-Meeting
see it, and no one else will see it. Why hasn’t our Chairman sufficient confidence in these Karburators of his to install them in our establishment? Gentle¬ men, it’s shockingly bad advertisement for our Kar¬ burators if their manufacturer himself will not or cannot use them. I beg you, gentlemen, to ask Mr. Bondy to give us his reasons. For my part, I have formed my own opinion. That is all I have to say, gentlemen.”
Thereupon Dr. Hubka sat down resolutely, and victoriously blew his nose.
The members of the Board of Directors remained silent and dejected. Dr. Hubka’s indictment was all too clear. Bondy did not raise his eyes from his papers; not a muscle of his face moved.
“M — m no,” growled old Rosenthal, anxious for peace. “Our Chairman will explain. Yes, yes, it can all be explained, gentlemen, I think, m — m — er, yes — very satisfactorily. Dr. Hubka is surely mm — hm — hm — yes, yes — with regard to what he has told us.”
The Chairman at last raised his eyes. “Gentle¬ men,” he said quietly, “I have read you the expert report of our engineers on the Karburator. The facts are precisely as there stated. The Karburator is no swindle. We have already built ten of them for testing purposes. They all work perfectly. Here are the proofs. Karburator No. i drives the
48
The Absolute at Large
suction pump on the Sazava River, and has been running without attention for fourteen days. No. 2, the dredge on the Upper Vltava, is working spen- didly. No. 3 is in the testing laboratory of the Brno Technical Institute. No. 4 was damaged in trans¬ port. No. 5 is supplying the city of Hradec Kralove with light. That is the ten-kilo pattern. The five- kilo pattern, No. 6, is running a mill at Slany. No. 7 has been installed to provide central heating for a block of buildings in the New Town. Mr. Machat, the proprietor of that block, is with us to-day. Would you mind, Mr. Machat?”
The elderly gentleman of that name awoke as from a dream. “I beg your pardon?”
‘We were asking how your new central-heating system is working.”
“What? What heating do you mean?”
“In your new block of buildings,” said Bondy gently.
“What block of buildings?”
“In your new houses.”
“In my houses? I haven’t any houses.”
“Come, come, come!” Mr. Rosenthal exclaimed. “You put them up only last year.”
“I did?” said Machat in tones of surprise. “Oh, yes, you’re right, so I did. But, you see, I have given those houses away, now. I gave them all away.”
The Board-Meeting 49
Bondy looked at him very attentively. “And to whom did you give them, Mr. Machat?”
Machat flushed slightly. “Well, to poor people. I’ve let poor families occupy them. You see, I . . . I came to the conclusion that . . . well, in short, poor people have got them now, I mean.”
Mr. Bondy kept his eyes on Machat like an exam¬ ining magistrate. “Why, Mr. Machat?”
“I ... I couldn’t help it,” Machat stammered. “It took me like that. Our lives should be holy, I mean.”
The Chairman drummed nervously on the table. “And what about your family?”
Machat began to smile beatifically. “Oh, we’re all of the same mind in that matter. Those poor people are such saints. Some of them are ill. My daughter is looking after them, you know. We’ve all changed so tremendously.”
G. H. Bondy dropped his eyes. Machat’s daugh¬ ter Ellen, the fair-haired Ellen, with her seventy millions, tending the sick! Ellen, who was ready to be, who ought to be, who had half consented to be, Mrs. Bondy! Bondy bit his lip; things had turned out nicely !
“Mr. Machat,” he began, in subdued tones, “I only wanted to know how the new Karburator was doing the heating on your premises.”
5° The Absolute at Large
“Oh, splendidly! It’s so beautifully warm in every one of the houses ! Just as though they were being warmed with eternal love! Do you know,” said Machat rapturously, wiping his eyes, “whoever enters there becomes at one stroke a changed man. It is like Paradise there. We are all living as if we were in Heaven. Oh, come and join us !”
“You see, gentlemen,” said Bondy, controlling himself with an effort, “that the Karburators work exactly as I promised you they would. I ask you to waive any further questions.”
“We only want to know,” cried Dr. Hubka pug¬ naciously, “why, in that case, you don’t arrange for our new works to be run by Karburator power? Why should we use expensive coal for heating when we’re supplying atomic energy to other people? Is Mr. Bondy disposed to let us have his reasons?”
“By no means,” Bondy declared. “Our heating will be done with coal. For reasons known to my¬ self, the Karburator system will not suit our pur¬ poses. Let that suffice, gentlemen. I regard the whole affair as a question of confidence in me.”
Machat made himself heard. “If you only knew how wonderful it feels to be in a state of holiness ! Gentlemen, take my sincere advice. Give away all that you possess! Become poor and holy! Deliver yourselves from Mammon, and glorify the one God!”
5i
The Board-Meeting
“Come, come,” Mr. Rosenthal tried to calm him down. “We know you for a kind and upright man, Mr. Machat — yes, yes, extremely so. And I have every confidence in you, Mr. Bondy, you know. I tell you what, send me one of those Karburators for my own heating apparatus! I’ll give it a trial, gentlemen. What’s the use of all this talking? What about it, Mr. Bondy?”
“We are all brothers in God’s sight!” continued the radiant Machat. “Gentlemen, let us give the factory to the poor! I move that we change the M.E.C. into a religious community of ‘The Humble of Heart.’ Let us be the seed from which the tree of God shall spring. The Kingdom of God on earth!”
“I demand a hearing,” shouted Dr. Hubka.
“Come, now, Mr. Bondy,” pleaded old Rosenthal in mollifying tones. “You see I am on your side! Lend me one of those Karburators, Mr. Bondy!”
“For God Himself is descending upon the earth,” Machat continued in great excitement. “Hearken to His message : Be ye holy and simple ; open your hearts to the infinite; let your love be unbounded. Let me tell you, gentlemen - ”
“I demand the floor,” yelled Dr. Hubka hoarsely.
“Silence !” shouted Bondy, pale and with gleaming eyes, as he rose with the whole authority of his massive frame. “Gentlemen, if the factory for Kar¬ burators does not suit your fancy, I will take it over
52
The Absolute at Large
under my own personal charge. I will compensate you to the last penny for all the expenditure so far incurred. I resign my position, gentlemen. I beg to take my leave.”
Dr. Hubka darted forward. “But, gentlemen, I protest! We all protest! We will not part with the manufacture of Karburators ! A spendid line like that, gentlemen ! No, thank you, we are not to be hoodwinked into handing over a valuable busi¬ ness. With your permission, gentlemen - ”
Bondy rang the bell. “Friends,” he said gloomily, “we will leave this for the time being. It seems to me that our friend Machat is . . . er . . .
slightly indisposed. As far as the Karburator is concerned, gentlemen, I guarantee you a dividend of one hundred and fifty per cent. I move that the discussion be now closed.”
Dr. Hubka took the floor. “I move, gentlemen, that every member of the Board of Directors shall receive one Karburator for testing purposes, so to speak.”
Bondy looked at all present. His features twitched. He tried to say something, but he only shrugged his shoulders and hissed between his teeth, “As you please.”
CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENTS
«TT ow do we stand in London?”
jL i “M.E.C. shares were quoted at 1470 yes¬ terday. The day before yesterday they were 750.” “Good!”
“Mr. Marek has been made an honorary member of ten learned societies, and is certain to be awarded the Nobel Prize.”
“Good!”
“There’s a rush of orders from Germany. Over five thousand Karburators wanted.”
“Aha!”
“Nine hundred orders from Japan, too.”
“Look at that now!’
“Czechoslovakia doesn’t show much interest. Three fresh inquiries.”
“Hm. That’s all one might expect. A wretched state of affairs here, you know.”
“The Russian Government wants two hundred immediately.”
“Good! What’s the total?”
“Thirteen thousand orders.”
“Good! How far have we got with the buildings?”
53
54
The Absolute at Large
“The division for atomic motor-cars has got the roof on. The section for atomic flying-machines will begin work during the week. We are laying the foundations for the atomic locomotive works. One wing of the department for ships’ engines is already in operation.”
“Wait a minute. You should start calling them automobiles, atomotors and atomotives, you know. How is Krolmus getting along with the atomic cannon?”
“He’s already constructing a model at Pilsen. Our atomic cyclecar is doing its thirty thousandth kilometre on the Brussels racing-track. It has done two hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. We have had seventeen thousand orders for our half-kilo atomotors in the last two days.”
“A minute ago you told me that the total was thirteen thousand.”
“Thirteen thousand stationary atomic boilers. Eight thousand of the central-heating apparatus. Nearly ten thousand atomobiles. Sixty hundred and twenty atoplanes. Our A.7 has flown from Prague to Melbourne, Australia, without a stop; all on board safe and sound. Here is the telegram.”
Bondy drew himself up. “Why, my young friend, that’s splendid!”
“The agricultural machinery department has five thousand orders in. In the section for small power-
Developments 55
engines, twenty-two thousand. One hundred and fifty atomic pumps. Three atomic presses. Twelve atomic blast furnaces. Seventy-five atomic wireless stations. One hundred and ten atomic locomotives, all for Russia. We have established general agencies in forty-eight different capitals. The American Steel Trust, the Berlin General Electric Company, the Italian Fiat, Mannesmann, Creusot, and the Swedish steel-works are all making us offers of amalgamation. Krupp’s are paying any price for our shares.”
“What about the new issue?”
“Thirty-five times over-subscribed. The financial papers predict a super-dividend of two hundred per cent. The other papers are talking of nothing but this business; politics, sport, technology, science, everything’s Karburator. We’ve had seven tons of newspaper cuttings from our agent in Germany, four hundredweight from France, and a truckload from England. The scientific and technical literature dealing with atomotors, to be published this year, is estimated at sixty tons. The Anglo-Japanese war has been broken off owing to the lack of public interest. In England alone there are nine hundred thousand coal-miners out of work. There has been a rising in the Belgian coalfields; about four thou¬ sand killed. More than half the mines in the world have ceased working. The surplus petroleum in
56 The Absolute at Large
Pennsylvania has set the oil-fields ablaze. The fire’s still raging.”
“The fire’s still raging,” repeated Bondy, as though in a dream. “The fire’s still raging. My God, then, we have won!”
“The Chairman of the Mining and Smelting Company has shot himself. The Stock Exchange has simply gone mad. We stand at 8,000 to-day in Berlin. The Cabinet is in permanent sitting, and want to proclaim a state of siege. This isn’t an invention, Chief, it’s a revolution!”
The Chairman and the General Manager of the M.E.C. looked at each other in silence. Neither of them was a poet, but in that moment their very souls were singing.
The manager drew his chair closer and said in a low voice, “Chief, Rosenthal has gone crazy.”
“Rosenthal!” exclaimed G. H. Bondy.
The manager nodded mournfully. “He has become an orthodox Jew, and he’s gone in for Talmudic mysticism and Cabalism. He has given ten millions to the cause of Zionism. Not long ago he had a terrible quarrel with Dr. Hubka. You’ve surely heard that Hubka has joined the Bohemian Brethren.”
“What, has Hubka got it too?”
“Yes, I think the Board of Directors must have caught it from Machat. You were not present at
Developments 57
the last meeting, Chief. It was terrible; they talked religion until morning. Hubka moved that we hand over our establishments to the workers. Luckily, they forgot to take a vote on it. They were like men possessed.”
Bondy gnawed at his fingers. “What on earth am I to do with them?”
“Hm, nothing whatever. It’s a nervous disease of the age. Something of the sort crops up now and again in the papers, too, but they’re so full of the Karburators that they haven’t space for anything else. There’s an appalling number of cases of religious mania. It’s a physicial epidemic or some¬ thing. The other day I saw Dr. Hubka preach¬ ing to a crowd of people in front of the Industrial Bank about seeking the inward light and making straight the path for God. Fearfully incoherent stuff. He wound up by performing miracles. Forst is at it too. Rosenthal is nothing short of insane. Miller, Homola and Kolator came out with a proposal for voluntary poverty. We can’t possibly have another board-meeting. It’s a regular mad¬ house, Chief. You’ll have to take the whole idiotic business in hand.”
“But, man, this is simply awful,” groaned G. H. Bondy.
“It is indeed. Did you hear about the Sugar Bank? All the officials there were seized with it
s8 The Absolute at Large
at one fell swoop. They opened the safes and gave away the money to anyone who came. They finished by burning bundles of banknotes on a bonfire in the main hall. Religious Bolshevism, I should call it.”
“In the Sugar Bank? . . . Hasn’t the Sugar
Bank one of our Karburators?”
“Yes. For central heating. The Sugar Bank was the first to install one. Now the police have closed the Bank. Even the confidential clerks and the directors were affected.”
“Send word round that the sale of Karburators to banks is forbidden.”
“But why?”
“I forbid it, and that’s enough! Let them do their heating with coal!”
“It’s a bit too late. All the banks are already putting in our heating system. It’s being installed in the Houses of Parliament and in all the Govern¬ ment departments. The central Karburator at Stvanice, which is to light the whole of Prague, is finished. It is a fifty-kilo monster, a magnificent machine. It is to be ceremoniously set in motion at six o’clock the day after to-morrow, in the presence of the President, the Burgomaster, the City Council, and the representatives of the M. E. C. You must be present. You of all people!”
“God forbid!” Mr. Bondy shouted, horror-
Developments 59
stricken. “No, no, Heaven defend me from that! I will not go !”
“But, Chief, you must. We can’t send Rosenthal or Hubka there. Why, they’re raving mad. They would make dreadful speeches. It’s the honour of the firm that’s at stake. The Burgomaster of Prague has prepared a speech in our honour. The representatives of foreign Governments and the foreign Press will be there. It’s to be a great occasion. As soon as the street lamps light up, military bands are going to play salutes and fanfares in the streets, the Male Voice Choirs and the other Choral Societies will sing, there’ll be fireworks and a salute of a hundred and one guns, the Castle will be illuminated, and I don’t know what. Chief, you simply must be there.”
G. H. Bondy arose in great torment of spirit. “God! oh God I” he whispered, “if it be possible, remove this cup. . . .”
“Will you be there?” repeated the manager inexorably.
“God! oh God! why hast Thou forsaken me?”
CHAPTER VIII
THE DREDGE
TflE dredge M. E. 28 stood motionless in the evening twilight above Stechovice. The Paternoster shovel had long since ceased heaving up the cold sand from the bed of the Vltava River. The evening was mild and calm, fragrant with new- mown hay and the breath of the woodlands. A tender orange glow still lingered in the north-west. Here and there a wave glittered with unearthly splendour amid the reflections of the sky — gleamed, murmured and blent itself with the shining surface of the stream. A skiff was coming towards the dredge from Stechovice. It made slow progress against the rapid current, and stood out upon the glowing river like a black water-beetle.
“Someone is coming over to see us,” Kuzenda, the skipper, said quietly, from his seat in the rear of the dredge.
“Two of ’em,” said Brych, the stoker, after a pause.
“Yes, and I know who it is, too,” said Kuzenda.
60
6 1
The Dredge
“The sweethearts from Stechovice,” said Brych.
“I’d better make them some coffee,” Kuzenda decided, and went below.
“Now then, youngsters,” Brych shouted to the boat. “To the left! Left! Give us your hand, lass. There we are. Up she comes!”
“Me and Joe,” the girl announced on reaching the deck, “we — we’d like to - ”
“Good evening,” said the young workman who climbed up after her. “Where is Mr. Kuzenda?”
“Mr. Kuzenda is making coffee,” said the stoker. “Take a seat. Look, there’s someone else coming across. Is that you, baker?”
“That’s me,” a voice rang back. “Good evening, Mr. Brych. I’ve got the postman and the game- keeper with me.”
“Come up then, brothers,” said Mr. Brych. “We can begin while Mr. Kuzenda is getting the coffee ready. Who else is coming?”
“I am,” came a voice from the side of the dredge. “My name’s Hudec, and I’d very much like to hear you.”
“You are very welcome, Mr. Hudec,” the stoker shouted down. “Come up, will you? — there’s a ladder here. Half a minute and I’ll give you a hand, Mr. Hudec, seeing you’ve never been here before.”
“Mr. Brych,” three people shouted from the bank.
6 2
The Absolute at Large
“Send the boat across for us, will you? We’d like to come over.”
“Go and fetch them over, you below,” said Mr. Brych, “that all may hear the word of God. Brothers and sister, please sit down. It’s not dirty here now that we do our heating with a Karburator. Brother Kuzenda will bring you some coffee, and then we can start. Welcome, young people. Come right up.” With this Mr. Brych took his place by the opening down which ran the ladder to the inte¬ rior of the dredge. “Halloa there, Kuzenda, ten on deck.”
“Right!” cried a beard-muffled voice from the depths. “I’m just bringing it.”
“Come, friends, sit down,” said Brych, briskly indicating suitable seats. “Mr. Hudec, we have nothing but coffee here; I don’t expect you’ll mind.”
“Why should I?” returned Mr. Hudec. “I just wanted to see your — to be present at your — seance.”
“Our service,” Brych mildly corrected him. “We are all brothers, here, you know. Let me tell you, Mr. Hudec, that I was a drunkard and Kuzenda was in politics, and the grace of God came upon us, and our brethren and sisters here,” he said pointing round him, “come to us in the evenings to pray for the same gift of the spirit. The baker here had asthma, and Kuzenda cured him. Come now, baker, tell us yourself how it happened.”
63
The Dredge
“Kuzenda laid hands on me,” said the baker softly and rapturously, “and all at once such a feeling of warmth began to pour through my chest. You know, something just snapped in me, and I began to breathe as if I was flying about in the sky.”
“Wait a bit, baker,” Brych corrected him. “Kuzenda didn’t lay his hands on you. He hadn’t any notion he was going to work a miracle. He simply went like this with his hand, and then you said that you could breathe easily. That’s the way it was.”
“We were there when it happened,” said the young girl from Stechovice. “And the baker had a ring of light around his head, and then Mr. Kuzenda charmed away my consumption, didn’t he, Joe?”
The young fellow from Stechovic said, “That’s the honest truth, Mr. Hudec. But what happened to me is queerer still. I wasn’t straight, Mr. Hudec; I’d already been in jail for theft, and for another job besides. Mr. Brych here could tell you.”
“Oh, it wasn’t as bad as all that.” Mr. Brych dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “All that you needed was grace. But there’s some very queer things happen here, Mr. Hudec, on this spot. But perhaps you will find it out for yourself. Brother Kuzenda can give it you properly because he used to go to meetings before. Look, here he comes.”
Everyone turned towards the opening leading
64
The Absolute at Large
from the deck to the engine-room. From the open¬ ing there emerged a bearded face, wearing the forced, embarrassed smile of one who is being shoved from behind and is trying to pretend that nothing is happening. Mr. Kuzenda was visible now from the waist up, carrying in both hands a large tin tray on which stood cups and tins of preserves; he smiled uncertainly as he rose higher and higher. His feet could soon be seen on a level with the deck, and still Mr. Kuzenda and his cups went on rising in the air. About eighteen inches above the opening he stopped and began groping with his feet. There he hung unsupported in the air, apparently doing his utmost to get his feet to the ground.
Mr. Hudec was like a man in a dream. “What is the matter, Mr. Kuzenda?” he exclaimed, almost in terror.
“Nothing, nothing,” Kuzenda replied evasively, still trying to draw himself down from the air with his feet; and Mr. Hudec was reminded of a picture of the Ascension that in his childhood had hung above his little cot, and how Our Lord and the Apostles in precisely the same manner were hanging in the air and paddling with their feet, but showing less amazement on their faces.
Suddenly Mr. Kuzenda moved forward and floated, floated over the deck through the evening air as though a gentle breeze might carry him away;
65
The Dredge
now and again he raised his feet as if he wanted to step out firmly or something, and he was visibly concerned for his cups.
“I say, come and take this coffee,” he said hastily. Brych, the stoker, held both hands up to him and took charge of the tray and the cups. Then Kuzenda let his feet hang down, crossed his arms on his breast, and hung there motionless, with his head a little on one side, and said, “Welcome, brothers. Don’t be afraid because I’m flying. It is only a sign. Will you take the cup with the flowers on, young lady.”
The stoker passed the cups and tins round. No one dared to speak. Those who had never been there before gazed in wonder on the levitation of Kuzenda. The guests of longer standing sipped their coffee slowly, and seemed, between the sips, to be praying.
“Have you finished?” asked Kuzenda after a while, opening wide his colourless, rapt eyes. “Then I’ll begin.” So saying, he cleared his throat, medi¬ tated for a while, and began: “In the name of the Father! Brethren and sisters, on this dredge, where signs of grace are shown to us, we are gathered together for worship. We need not send away the unbelievers and mockers as the spiritualists do. Mr. Hudec came as an unbeliever, and the gamekeeper has been looking forward to a little bit of fun. You
66
The Absolute at Large
are both welcome; but listen so that you may see that it is by grace I know you. You, gamekeeper, drink far too much; you drive the poor from the forest, and curse and swear even when there is no need. Do it no more. And you, Mr. Hudec, are a better-class thief. You know very well what I mean. And you’re shockingly bad-tempered. Faith will reform and redeem you.”
Utter stillness reigned on the deck. Mr. Hudec gazed steadfastly at the floor. The gamekeeper sobbed and sniffed, and fumbled with trembling hands for his pocket.
“I know what it is, gamekeeper,” said Kuzenda gently from above. “You’d like to smoke. Don’t be afraid to light up. Make yourself quite at home.”
“Look at the little fish,” whispered the young girl, pointing down to the smooth surface of the Vltava. “Look, Joe, the carp have come to listen, too.”
“They’re not carp,” came from the exalted Kuzenda. “They’re perch or dace. And, Mr. Hudec, you mustn’t worry about your sins. Look at me : I once cared for nothing but politics. And I tell you, that, too, is a sin. There’s no need to weep, gamekeeper; I didn’t mean to be hard on you. He who once experiences grace can see right into men’s hearts. You can see into people’s souls too, can’t you, Brych?”
The Dredge 67
“I can,” said Mr. Brych. “The postman here is thinking this minute how fine it would be if you could help his little daughter. She’s got scrofula, hasn’t she, postman? Mr. Kuzenda will help her right enough if you bring her here.”
“It’s easy to mock and talk about superstition,” said Kuzenda. “Brothers, if anyone had told me about miracles and God before this, I should have laughed at him. That’s the kind of man I was. When we got this new machine that runs without fuel for the dredge, all our dirty heavy work ceased. Yes, Mr. Hudec, that was the first miracle that happened here — this Karburator, that does every¬ thing by itself, as though it had a mind. Even the dredge floats by itself wherever it ought to go. And look how steady it is. Do you notice, Mr. Hudec, that the anchors aren’t down? It stands still without being anchored, and floats off again when it’s needed to clear the river-bed; it starts itself and stops itself. We, that’s Brych and me, don’t have to touch a single thing. Will anyone dare tell me that isn’t a miracle? And when we saw all this, we began to think it over, didn’t we, Brych, until it all became clear to us. This is a sacred dredge, it is an iron church, and we are only here as its priests. If in old times God could appear in a well or in an oak- tree, and sometimes even like a woman, as with the ancient Greeks, why should He not appear on a
68
The Absolute at Large
dredge? Why should He shun machinery? A machine is often cleaner than a nun, and Brych keeps everything here as bright and shining as if it was on a sideboard. However, that’s by the way. And let me tell you, God is not so infinite as the Catholics assert. He is about six hundred metres in diameter, and even then is weak towards the edges. He is at His strongest on the dredge. Here He performs miracles, but on the bank He only does inspirations and conversions, and in Stechovice, with a favour¬ able wind, you only notice a kind of holy fragrance. Not long ago some oarsmen from the Czech Rowing Club were paddling by in the Lightning, close to us, and grace descended on all of them. Such is His power. And what this God wishes us to do, one can only feel here within,” Kuzenda declared, with an emphatic gesture towards his heart. “I know that He cannot bear politics and money, intellect, pride, and self-conceit. I know He dearly loves both men and beasts, that He is very glad when you come here, and that good deeds are pleasing to Him. He is a thorough democrat, brethren. We, Brych and me, that is, feel that every penny burns us until we’ve bought coffee for everybody. One Sunday recently, there were several hundred people here, even sitting on both banks of the river, and behold, our coffee multiplied itself so that there was enough for everybody . . . and what splendid coffee it
69
The Dredge
was! But such things, brethren, are only outward appearances. The greatest miracle is the influence He has on our feelings. It is so intensely beautiful that it fairly makes one shiver. Sometimes you feel as if you could die of love and happiness, as if you were one with the water below, with all the animals, with the very earth and stones, or as if gigantic arms were holding you embraced; oh, words cannot utter what you feel. Everything around you is sounding and singing, you understand the speech of voiceless things, the water and the wind, you see deep into everything, how one thing is linked with another and with you ; at one stroke you grasp every¬ thing better than if you had read it in print. Some¬ times it comes upon one like a fit, so that one foams at the mouth; but often it acts quite slowly and penetrates to one’s tiniest little vein. And now, brothers and sisters, do not be afraid; two police officers are just coming across in a boat to ‘disperse’ us because we are holding an unauthorized assembly. Just keep calm and have faith in the God of the dredge.”
It was already dark; but the entire deck of the dredge and the faces of those present were glowing with a tender light. The splash of oars was heard below the dredge, then the boat stopped alongside. “Hi, there !” cried a man’s voice. “Is Mr. Kuzenda there?”
70
The Absolute at Large
“Yes, he is here,” answered Kuzenda in the voice of an angel. “Come right up, brethren of the police. I know that the innkeeper of Stechovice has laid information against me.”
Two policemen mounted to the deck. “Which of you is Kuzenda?” asked the sergeant.
“I am, sir,” said Kuzenda, rising higher in the air. “Kindly come up here to me, sergeant.” And forthwith both police officers rose into the air and floated upwards towards Kuzenda. Their feet groped desperately for some support, their hands clutched wildly at the yielding air, and one could hear their quick and frightened breathing.
“Don’t be afraid, officers,” said Kuzenda beatifi- cally, “and say after me this prayer: O God, our Father, who are incarnate in this vessel . . .”
“O God, our Father, who are incarnate in this vessel,” repeated the sergeant in choking voice.
“O God, our Father, who are incarnate in this vessel,” Mr. Hudec began in a loud voice, and he fell on his knees, and on the deck a chorus of voices mingled with his own.
CHAPTER IX
THE CEREMONY
Cyril Keval, district reporter on the staff of the Prague People’s Journal, hurried into eve¬ ning-dress for the occasion and dashed off to Stvanice just after six o’clock in the evening, to write up the ceremonial opening of the new Central Karburator Electric Power Station for Greater Prague. He shouldered his way through the curious crowds that overflowed the whole Petrov quarter, penetrated the three ranks of police, and reached a small con¬ crete structure decorated with flags. From inside the little building could be heard the objurgations of the workmen, who were, of course, behind time with the erecting of the machine, and were now trying to catch up. The whole Central Power Station was an insignificant affair, no bigger than a public con¬ venience. Old Cvancara of the Venkov was walking pensively up and down in front of it, looking some¬ what like a meditative heron.
“Well, my friend,” he said quietly to the young journalist, “it’s safe to bet on something happening to-day. I’ve never yet seen a function where there
7i
72
The Absolute at Large
wasn’t some silly incident or other. And I’ve been at it now, young fellow, for forty years.”
“But it is amazing, isn’t it, sir?” Keval returned. “Fancy this little building lighting the whole city of Prague and driving the trams and trains for sixty kilometres round, besides supplying power for thou¬ sands of factories and — and - ”
Mr. Cvancara shook his head sceptically. “We’ll see, my young friend, we’ll see. Nothing nowadays can surprise any of us of the old guard, but” — and here Cvancara lowered his voice to a whisper — “well, just look round and you’ll see that they haven’t even got a reserve Karburator handy. Suppose this one broke down, or even, say, went up in the air, what then — do you see what I mean?”
Keval was annoyed at not having thought of this himself, so he dissented. “That’s out of the ques¬ tion, sir,” he began. “I have reliable information. This power station here is only for show. The real Central Station is somewhere else; it’s . . . it’s . . .” he whispered, and pointed with his finger, “right down underground, I mustn’t say where. Haven’t you noticed, sir, that they are continually repairing the streets in Prague?”
“They’ve been doing it these forty years,” said Mr. Cvancara gloomily.
“Well, there you have it,” Keval lied trium¬ phantly. “Military reasons, you know. A huge sys-
73
The Ceremony
tem of underground passages, storehouses, powder- magazines, and so on. My information is quite trustworthy. They’ve got sixteen underground Karburator fortresses right round Prague. On the surface there’s not a trace of it, only football fields, a mineral-water stand, or a patriotic monument. Ha, ha! Do you see now? That’s why they’re putting up all these memorials.”
“Young man,” observed Mr. Cvancara, “what does the present generation know of war? We could tell them something. Aha, here comes the Burgomaster.”
“And the new Minister for War. You see, I told you so. The Director of the Technical Institute. The Chairman of the M.E.C. The Chief Rabbi.”
“The French Ambassador, the Minister of Public Works. I say, my friend, we’d better see about getting inside. The Archbishop, the Italian Ambassador, the President of the Senate, the Chief of the Sokol organization; you’ll find that there’s somebody they’ve left out.”
Just then Mr. Cyril Keval gave up his place to a lady, and so was separated from the doyen of the journalists and lost his place near the entrance through which the endless stream of the personages invited was pouring. Then the strains of the national anthem were heard, and the orders to the guard of honour rang out, proclaiming the arrival
74
The Absolute at Large
of the Chief of State. Accompanied by a retinue of gentlemen in top-hats and uniforms, the President advanced along the crimson carpet towards the little concrete structure. Mr. Keval stood on tiptoe, con¬ founding himself and his politeness.
“I’ll never get in now,” he said to himself. “Cvancara is right,” he went on ruminating. “They always do something silly. Fancy putting up that little hut for an imposing ceremony like this. Ah well, the Czechoslovak Press Bureau will supply the speeches, and one can soon work up the trim¬ mings — deep impressiveness of the occasion, magnificent progress, enthusiastic reception for the President - ”
A sudden hush within the building made itself felt outside, and someone began to reel off the official address. Mr. Keval yawned and sauntered round the little building with his hands in his pockets. It was getting dark. The guards were in full-dress uniform with white gloves and rubber truncheons. Crowds of people were standing tightly packed along the banks. The opening address was far too long, as usual. Who was it speaking, anyway?
Then Keval noticed a little window in the concrete wall of the Central Station about two metres from the ground. He looked around, then leapt up like a flash, caught hold of the grating, and drew his clever head up to the window. Aha, the speaker was the Burgomaster of Greater Prague, all red in the face;
75
The Ceremony
beside him stood G. H. Bondy, Chairman of the representing the contracting firm, biting his lips. The President had his hand on the lever of the machine, ready to press it down at a given signal: an instant later the festal illuminations of the whole of Prague would flare out, the bands would play, the fireworks would begin to blaze.
The Minister of Public Works was turning and twisting nervously; doubtless he was to speak when the Burgomaster had finished. A young Army officer was pulling at his tiny moustache, the Ambassadors were pretending to be giving their whole souls to the address, of which they understood not a single word, two Trade Union delegates were not moving an eyelash — in short, “the proceedings passed off without a hitch,” Mr. Keval said to him¬ self as he jumped down again.
He then ran five times round the whole Stvanice district, came back to the Central Power Station, and again sprang up to the little window. The Burgomaster was still speaking. Straining his ears, Keval could hear “. . . And then came the disas¬ trous period of the Battle of the White Mountain.” He dropped down the wall again quickly, sat down, and lit a cigar. It was already very dark. Over¬ head the little stars twinkled through the branches of the trees. “It’s surprising that they didn’t wait until the President pressed the lever to light up too,” Keval said to himself. Otherwise, Prague was
76 The Absolute at Large
in darkness. The black stream of the Vltava rolled on without a lamp reflected in its waters. Every¬ thing quivered with expectation of the solemn moment that was to bring the light.
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 Burgo¬ master 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 Diplo¬ matic 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 some¬ thing 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
77
The Ceremony
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 Strelecky Island; Hradcany, Petrin, 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 1 6 soared up from Vysehrad 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 Karlin.
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.
78
The Absolute at Large
“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
FEW days after these occurrences G. H. Bondy
jL was wandering through the streets of Prague, a cigar between his teeth, thinking things over. Any¬ one 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 with¬ out 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.
79
8o
The Absolute at Large
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 med¬ dling 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.
8i
Saint Ellen
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 1’ 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 up¬ heaval; 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
82
The Absolute at Large
is threatening the Skoda arsenal; it is busy at Jab- lonec 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,
Saint Ellen 83
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
84
The Absolute at Large
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 com¬ munity !
“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 indis¬ creet 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 any¬ thing 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.
Saint Ellen 85
“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
86
The Absolute at Large
nature. He’s simply impossible, Ellen, utterly im¬ possible. 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 mor¬ tals. Farewell, Ellen; or rather — good-bye for
ever.
CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST BLOW STRUCK
Exactly how it happened has not yet been estab¬ lished, but just at the very time when the little factory belonging to R. Marek, Engineer, 1651 Mixa Street, Brevnov, 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 round¬ about 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.
87
88
The Absolute at Large
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 fly¬ wheel 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 splen¬ dours 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
89
The First Blow Struck
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 per¬ formed its circuit with a strange resplendence, sub¬ limity, stateliness, like a festal day . . . now
whirling round with an impassioned velocity, now rocking gently like a vessel laden with the rich per¬ fumes 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 silvery 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 pro¬ claimed 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.
9o
The Absolute at Large
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 Para¬ dise, 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 Vysehrad 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 strok¬ ing 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.
9i
The First Blow Struck
Now he could clearly see how the earth was heav¬ ing 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. Grip¬ ping 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 ter¬ rible 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.
Then the orchestrion played a song of thanks¬ giving. It sounded like a chorus of survivors of a shipwreck, with the rough voices of the sailors mingling with the prayers of children. Over the unleashed tempest there bent a rainbow of melody (in B minor) and the heavens opened in the happy radiance of pizzicati on the violins. The castaways
92
The Absolute at Large
on Binder’s merry-go-round stood there silent with their heads bare. The women’s lips moved softly in silent prayer, and the children, forgetting the horrors they had passed through, plucked up courage to stroke the hard muzzle of the deer and the supple neck of the swan. The white horses patiently allowed the little limbs to clamber into the saddles ; sometimes one of them neighed or pawed knowingly with his hoof. The earth was turning more slowly now, and Jan Binder, a tall figure in his sleeveless striped jersey, began in his unpractised style to make a speech.
“Well, good people, here we have landed out of the whirl and confusion of the world. Here we have peace amid the storm. Here we are with God, as safe as in our beds. It is a sign that we should flee from the tumult of the world and find refuge in the arms of God. Amen.” Thus and in like manner spoke Jan Binder, and the people on the merry-go- round listened as if they were in church.
At last the earth stopped spinning, the orchestrion played a soft and reverent voluntary, and the people jumped down from the merry-go-round. Jan Binder told them that there was no charge, and dismissed them, converted and uplifted. And when towards four o’clock the mothers and children and the old pensioners were taking their afternoon walk between Zlichov and Smichov, the orchestrion again began to
93
The First Blow Struck
play, and the earth once more went flying round, and again Jan Binder brought everybody safe on to the deck of the merry-go-round and calmed them with a suitable address. At six o’clock people came from their day’s work, sweethearts emerged at eight, and at ten the pleasure-seekers left the public-houses and picture-palaces; all of them in turn were overcome by the dizzy whirling of the earth, brought to safety in the embrace of the merry-go-round, and strength¬ ened for their future life by the apt exhortations of Jan Binder.
After a week of this hallowed work, Binder’s merry-go-round forsook Zlichov and went roaming along the bank of the Vltava up to Chuchle and Zbraslav, and so reached Stechovice. It had been working in Stechovice for four days with tremendous power, when an incident of a somewhat mysterious character took place.
Jan Binder had just finished his sermon and dis¬ missed his new disciples with a blessing. At that moment there approached out of the darkness a black and silent body of people. At their head walked a tall, bearded man, who went straight up to Binder.
“Now then,” he said, trying to master his excite¬ ment, “pack up at once, or - ”
Binder’s adherents heard this and returned to their teacher. Conscious of having his people at
94 The Absolute at Large
the back of him, Binder declared firmly, “Not till it rains.”
“Control yourself, sir,” said another excited man. “It’s Mr. Kuzenda speaking to you.”
“Leave him to me, Mr. Hudec,” cried the bearded man. Til soon settle with him myself. I’m telling you for the second time; clear out with that thing or, in the name of the Lord, I’ll smash it up for you.”
“And as for you,” said Jan Binder, “get out of here or, in the name of the Lord, I’ll knock the teeth out of your head.”
“God Almighty!” shouted Brych, the stoker, forcing his way through the crowd to the front. “Just let him try!”
“Brother,” said Kuzenda soothingly, “let us first try to settle it quietly. Binder, you are carrying on foul witchcraft here, and we’ll not put up with it so close to the sacred shrine of our dredge.”
“Your dredge is a fraud!” said Binder decisively.
“What did you say?” cried Kuzenda, cut to the quick.
“Your dredge is a fraud!”
What happened next it is hard to disentangle into any logical sequence. It seems that the first blow was struck by the baker from Kuzenda’s camp, but Binder landed him a blow on the head with his fist. The gamekeeper struck Binder on the chest with his gunstock, but directly afterwards he lost his gun, and
95
The First Blow Struck
some Stechovice youth from Binder’s camp used it to knock out Brych’s front teeth and smash Mr. Hudec’s hat in. Kuzenda’s postman tried to throttle a youth on Binder’s side. Binder leaped forward to help the boy, but a girl from Stechovice flung herself on him from behind, and bit him in the arm just where he had had the Bohemian lion tattooed. One of Binder’s party drew a knife, and Kuzenda’s followers seemed to be falling back, but a smaller group of them dashed on to the merry-go-round and broke off the deer’s antlers and the elegantly arching neck of one of the swans. The merry-go-round gave a deep groan and heeled over, its roof falling right upon the struggling mob. Kuzenda was struck by a pole and knocked unconscious. It all happened in darkness and silence. When people came rushing up, Binder had a broken collar-bone, Kuzenda lay there unconscious, Brych was spitting out teeth and blood, and the girl from Stechovice was sobbing hysterically. The rest had fled.
CHAPTER XII
DOCTOR BLAHOUS
hat youthful savant Doctor Blahous, Ph.D.,
X only fifty-five years of age, and now Lecturer in Comparative Religion at the University of Prague, rubbed his hands as he sat down before his quarto sheets of paper. With a few swift strokes he set down his title — “Religious Phenomena of Recent Times” — and began his article with the words: “The controversy over the definition of the idea of ‘religion’ has lasted ever since the days of Cicero”; then he gave himself up to his thoughts.
“I’ll send this article to the Prague Times ” he said to himself, “and just you wait, my revered col¬ leagues, and see what a stir it will make ! It’s lucky for me that this religious epidemic has broken out just now 1 It will make it a very topical little article. The papers will say, ‘That youthful savant, Dr. Blahous, has just published a penetrating study,’ etc. Then I’ll be given the Assistant Professorship, and old Regner will burst with fury.”
Whereupon the youthful savant rubbed his wrin¬ kled hands until the bones cracked blithely, and again began to write. When towards evening his landlady
Doctor Blahous
97
came to inquire what he would like for supper, he was already on the sixtieth page, among the Fathers of the Church. At eleven o’clock (and page 115) he had arrived at his own definition of the idea of religion, which differed from his predecessor’s by precisely one word. After this he dealt succinctly with the methods of the exact science of religion (with a few shrewd hits at his opponents), and so brought to an end the brief introduction to his little article.
Shortly after midnight our lecturer wrote the following passage : “It happens that quite recently various phenomena of a religious and occult char¬ acter have occurred which deserve the attention of the exact science of religion. Although its main purpose is undoubtedly to study the religious customs of nations long since extinct, nevertheless even the living present can afford the modern [Dr. Blahous underlined the word] student numerous data which mutatis mutandis throw a certain light on cults long vanished, which can only be the subject of conjecture.”
Then, with the aid of newspaper reports and evidence given verbally, he gave a description of Kuzendism, in which he found traces of fetish-wor¬ ship and even totemism (the dredge being made a sort of Totem God of Stechovice) . In the case of the Binderians, he worked out their relationship to the
98
The Absolute at Large
Dancing Dervishes and ancient orgiastic cults. He touched upon the phenomena witnessed at the open¬ ing of the Power Station, and deftly showed their connection with the fire-worship of the Parsees. In Machat’s religious community he discovered the characteristics of the fakirs and ascetics, He cited various examples of clairvoyance and miraculous healing, which he compared very aptly to the magic practised by the old negro tribes of Central Africa. He went on to deal with mental contagion and mass- suggestion, introducing historical references to the Flagellants, the Crusades, Millenarianism and “run¬ ning amok” among the Malays. He threw light upon the recent religious movement from two psycho¬ logical points of view, ascribing it to pathological cases in degenerate hysterical subjects, and to a collective psychical epidemic among the superstitious and mentally inferior masses. In both cases he demonstrated the atavistic occurrence of primitive forms of worship, the tendency to animistic pan¬ theism and shamanism, a religious communism reminiscent of the Anabaptists, and a general sur¬ render of reasoning power in favour of the grossest impulses of superstition, witchcraft, occultism, mysti¬ cism, and necroma icy.
“It is not for us to decide,” Dr. Blahous went on writing, “to what extent this is due to quackery and imposture on the part of individuals bent on exploit-
Doctor Blahous 99
ing human credulity; a scientific inquiry would doubtless show that the alleged ‘miracles’ of the thaumaturgists of to-day are only old and well-known devices of trickery and suggestion. In this connec¬ tion we would recommend the new ‘religious com¬ munities,’ sects, and circles now daily springing into existence to the attention of our police authorities and psychoanalysts. The exact science of religion confines itself to establishing the fact that all these religious phenomena are at bottom nothing but examples of barbaric atavism, and a hotch-potch of the most rudimentary forms of worship still sub¬ consciously active in the human imagination. It has only needed a few fanatics, charlatans, and notorious swindlers to revive among the peoples of Europe, under the veneer of civilization, these prehistoric elements of religious belief.”
Dr. Blahous got up from his desk. He had just finished the three hundredth and forty-sixth page of his little article, but still he did not feel weary. “I must think out an effective finish,” he said to himself; “some reflections on>-, progress and science, on the suspicious benevolence of the Government towards religious heterodoxy, and on the necessity of presenting a fighting front reaction, and so forth.”
The youthful savant, borne on the wings of his enthusiasm, went to the window and leaned out into
100
The Absolute at Large
the quiet night. It was half-past four in the morning. Dr. Blahous looked out on the dark street, shivering a little with the cold of the night. Everywhere was the stillness of death, not a glimmer of light showed in any human habitation. The Lecturer raised his eyes to the sky. It was already paling a little, but it still shone in its infinite sublimity, sown with stars. “How long it is since I looked at the sky!” came suddenly into the scholar’s mind. “Good heavens, it is more than thirty years !”
And then he felt a delicious coolness about his brow, as though someone had taken his head in cool and spotless hands. “I’m so lonely,” the old man sighed, “so terribly lonely all the time! Yes, stroke my hair a little. Alas, it is thirty long years since anyone’s hand was laid upon my brow!”
Dr. Blahous stood there in the window, stiff and shaking. “There is something here all about me,” he suddenly perceived with a sweet and overwhelm¬ ing emotion. “Dear God, I am not alone after all! Someone’s arm is around me, someone is beside me; oh, if he would only stay !”
If his landlady had entered the room a little later, she would have seen him standing in the window with both arms raised on high, his head flung back, and an expression of the utmost rapture on his face. But then he shuddered, opened his eyes, and as if in a dream went back to his desk.
Doctor Blahous ioi
“On the other hand, however, it is impossible to doubt,” he wrote rapidly, heedless of all that he had already written, “that God cannot now reveal Him¬ self otherwise than in primitive forms of worship. With the decay of faith in modern times our connec¬ tion with the old religious life has been broken. To bring us back to Him, God must begin again from the beginning and do as He did with the savages in olden times: at first He is an idol, a fetish; the idol of a group, a clan or a tribe; He animates all nature and works through a witch-doctor. This evolution of religion is being repeated before our eyes, begin¬ ning with its prehistoric forms and working upwards to the loftier types. It is possible that the present religious wave will divide into several streams, each striving for supremacy to the disadvantage of the others. We must expect an era of religious struggles which will surpass the Crusades in their fury and obstinacy and the last World Wars in their scope. In our godless world the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be established without great sacrifices and confusion of doctrine. Nevertheless I say unto you: Give yourself up with your whole beings to the Absolute ; believe in God, in whatsoever form He may declare Himself to you. Behold even now He cometh to set up on our earth, and perchance on other planets of our system also, the everlasting Empire of God, the Czardom of the Absolute. Ere it is too late, I
102 The Absolute at Large
say yet again unto you : Humble yourselves before Him!”
This article by Dr. Blahous did actually appear. Not in its entirety, to be sure. The editor published part of his discussion of the new sects and the whole of his conclusion, with a cautious note to the effect that this paper by the youthful savant was certainly characteristic of our times.
Blahous’s article did not cause any stir, for it was overshadowed by other events. Only that youthful savant, Dr. Regner, Lecturer in Philosophy, read it with immense interest and afterwards proclaimed in various places: “Blahous is impossible. Utterly impossible. How on earth can a man have the nerve to pose as an expert on religion when he actually believes in God?”
CHAPTER XIII
THE CHRONICLER’S APOLOGY nd now permit the chronicler of the Absolute
JT\. to call your attention to his painful situation. First of all, he is in the act of writing Chapter XIII, well aware that this unlucky number will have a fatal influence on the clarity and completeness of his exposition. There is going to be a mix-up of some kind in this unfortunate chapter, you may be sure. Of course, the author could quite calmly head it Chapter XIV, but the observant reader would feel that he had been cheated out of Chapter XIII, and no one could blame him, since he has paid to have the whole narrative. Besides, if you are afraid of the number thirteen, you have only to skip this chapter. It will certainly not cause you to lose much light on the obscure affair of the Factory for the Absolute.
But the other embarrassments of the chronicler are much more serious. He has described as co¬ herently as he could the origin of the factory and its prosperity. He has called your attention to the occurrences due to certain of the Karburator cylin¬ ders in Mr. Machat’s buildings, at the Zivno
103
io4 The Absolute at Large
Industrial Bank, in the textile works at Upice, aboard Kuzenda’s dredge, and on Binder’s merry- go-round. He has described the tragic experience of Blahous, the result of long-range infection, induced by the free and mobile Absolute, which had evidently begun to spread in a serious fashion, although after no definite plan.
But now you must remember that since the begin¬ ning of the whole affair countless thousands of Karburators of the most diverse types had been manufactured. Trains, flying-machines, automobiles, and ships driven by this most economical of all motors discharged along their routes whole clouds of the Absolute, just as in other days they used to leave a trail of dust, smoke, and smells. You must remem¬ ber that thousands of factories all over the world had already scrapped their old boilers and equipped themselves with Karburators; that hundreds of Government departments and offices, hundreds of banks, exchanges, wholesale and export firms, as well as huge restaurants, hotels, military barracks, schools, theatres, tenements, thousands of newspaper offices and clubs, cabarets, and households were being heated by the latest M.E.C. Central-Heating Kar- burator. You must remember that the Stinnes interests with all their ramifications had amalga¬ mated with the M.E.C., and that the American Ford works had flung themselves into mass-production
The Chronicler’s Apology 105
which hurled thirty thousand finished Karburators out upon the world every day.
Well, bearing all this in mind, just recall what happened with each of those Karburators whose history has been presented to you. Multiply these incidents a hundred thousand times, and you will grasp at once the unhappy position of the present chronicler. How gladly he would journey with you after each new Karburator, see it loaded on the wagon, and offer a bit of hay or bread or a lump of sugar to the heavy draught-horses, with their broad and kingly backs, which drag the new copper cylinders on the rattling lorry to the factory ! How gladly he would look on while they set it up, standing with his hands behind his back and giving the erectors his advice, and then wait until it was set in motion 1 How eagerly then he would peer into people’s faces to note when “it” would begin to affect them, when the Absolute would creep into their being by the nose or ears or any other part, and begin to dissolve the hardness of their nature, over¬ power their personal tendencies, and cure their moral wounds; to watch the Absolute turn them up with its heavy plough, warm them, master them, and shape them anew; to see it lay open to them a world so marvellous and yet intrinsically so human, of wonders, ecstasy, enlightenment, inspiration and belief 1 For you must know that the chronicler
io6 The Absolute at Large
admits that he is incapable of writing a history. Where the historian uses the press or pounder of his historical learning, documentary lore, abstracts, synthesis, statistics, and other professional devices, to squeeze thousands and hundreds of thousands of little vital personal incidents into a dense and arbi¬ trary conglomerate known as “a historical fact,” “a social phenomenon,” “a mass movement,” “evo¬ lution,” “the mind of the race,” or “historical truth” in general, the chronicler sees only the individual cases and even finds them pleasing in themselves.
Now suppose that he had to describe and explain, say, pragmatically, progressively, theoretically, and synthetically, the “religious wave” which swept over the whole world before the year 1950. Once he sees this grandiose task before him, he begins collecting the “religious phenomena” of his own time; and there, in the course of these researches, he comes, for example, upon Jan Binder, ex-variety artiste, wandering from place to place in his striped jersey with his atomic merry-go-round. Historical syn¬ thesis, of course, requires the chronicler to omit the striped jersey, the merry-go-round, even Jan Binder himself, and retain as the “historical nucleus” or scientific result, only the discovery that “these religious phenomena from the very outset affected the most diverse classes of society.”
The Chronicler’s Apology 107
Well, then, the chronicler must here and now con¬ fess that he cannot cast aside Jan Binder, that he is fascinated by his merry-go-round, and that even that striped jersey of his interests him far more than any “synthetic outline” whatever. To be sure, this displays complete scientific incompetence, empty dilettantism, the narrowest historical outlook, or anything else you like ; yet if the chronicler could give rein to his personal inclinations, he would go off on his travels with Jan Binder as far as Budejovice, then to Klatovy, Pilsen, Zlutice, and so on. It is with regret that he leaves him in Stechovice and waves his hand and cries, “Good-bye, Binder, you sturdy fellow, and good-bye, merry-go-round! We shall never meet again.”
Bless my soul, it was with just the same feeling that I left Kuzenda and Brych on the Vltava dredge. I should have liked to spend many and many an evening with them, for I love the Vltava and all running water in general, and evenings on the water in particular, and I took an unusual liking to Mr. Kuzenda and Mr. Brych as well. As for Mr. Hudec, the baker, the postman, the gamekeeper, and the sweethearts from Stechovice, I believe that they, too, would be worth knowing intimately, as anyone is, as all of you are, as is every living human being. But I must push on, and I have hardly time enough to wave my hat to you. Good-bye, Mr. Kuzenda;
io8 The Absolute at Large
good-night, Mr. Brych. My thanks for that one evening on board the dredge.
Of you, too, Dr. Blahous, I must take my leave. I should like to spend many a year with you and describe your whole career . . . for is not the life of a university lecturer rich and exciting, after its fashion ? Give my regards to your landlady at least.
Everything there is, is worth observing.
And that is why I should like to accompany each new Karburator on its way. I should become acquainted with fresh people every day, and so would you, and that is always worth while. Just to peep through one’s spyglass into their lives, to see their hearts, to watch their personal faith and personal salvation come into being, to linger amid the new marvels of human saintliness — that is what would lure me on ! Just picture to yourself a beggar, a ruling chief, a bank-manager, an engine-driver, a waiter, a rabbi, a major, a writer on political economy, a cabaret comedian, men of every possible calling; and imagine a miser, a sensualist, a glutton, a sceptic, a hypocrite, a sneak, a career-hunter, men of every possible human passion — what diverse, endlessly varying, strange and surprising instances and phenomena of heavenly grace (or, if you like, poisoning with the Absolute) one could meet, and how absorbing it would be to study each one of them. What gradations of faith there would be, from the
The Chronicler’s Apology I09
ordinary believer to the fanatic, from the penitent to the miracle-worker, from the convert to the fiery apostle. If one could only embrace it all! If one could only extend a hand to each of them! But it is useless ; that great work will never be completed, and the chronicler, having renounced the honour of distilling scientifically all his historical material, turns away with sorrow from the individual cases which it is not permitted him to relate.
I wish I could stay a little longer with Saint Ellen ! I wish I need not treacherously abandon our friend, R. Marek, undergoing a rest cure at Spindelmuhl! I wish I could reveal the workings of the brain of that industrial strategist, G. H. Bondy. All in vain; the Absolute has already flooded the world, and has become a mass-phenomenon; and the chronicler, regretfully looking backward, must reconcile himself to a summary description of a few of the social and political events which inevitably ensued.
Come, then, let us enter upon a new range of facts.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LAND OF PLENTY
IT has often happened to the chronicler (and surely to many of his readers) that when for any reason whatever he has gazed at the night sky and the stars, and realized with mute amazement their prodigious number and their inconceivable distance and dimensions, and told himself that each of those glittering dots was a gigantic flaming world or a whole living planetary system, and that there were possibly billions, say, of such dots; or when he has looked down to a far horizon from a high mountain (it happened to me in the Tatras), and has seen beneath him fields and woods and mountains, and right in front of him dense forest and grass lands, all of it more than luxuriant, running riot, life exuberant and alarming in its richness — and when he has noted in the grass myriads of blossoms, tiny beetles, and butterflies, and has mentally multiplied this mad pro¬ fusion by the vast expanses stretching away before him to Heaven knows where, and has added to these expanses the millions of other expanses equally crowded and luxuriant, which compose the surface of our earth; at such a moment it has often happened
no
Ill
The Land of Plenty
that the chronicler has bethought him of the Creator, and has said to himself: “If someone made or created all this, then we must admit that it is a terrible waste. If anyone wanted to show his power as a Creator, there was no need to create such an insane quantity of things. Excess is chaos, and chaos is something like insanity or drunkenness. Yes, the human intellect is staggered by the over-profusion of this creative achievement. There is simply too much of it. It’s boundlessness gone mad. Of course, He who is Infinite from His very birth is accustomed to huge proportions in everything, and has no proper standard (for every standard implies finiteness) or, rather, has no standard whatsoever.”
I beg you not to regard this as blasphemy; I am only endeavouring to set forth the disproportion between human ideas and this cosmic superabund¬ ance. This wanton, purposeless, well-nigh feverish excess of everything that exists appears to the sober human eye more like creativeness run wild than conscientious and methodical creation. That is what I wish to say, with all due respect, before we return to our story.
You are already aware that the process of perfect combustion invented by Marek practically proved the presence of the Absolute in every form of matter. One might put it this way (only as a hypothesis, of course), that before the creation of
1 1 2
The Absolute at Large
all things the Absolute existed in the form of an Infinite Free Energy. For some cogent physical or moral reason, this Free Energy began to be creative. It became Working Energy, and following the laws of inversion, it was transformed into a state of Infinite Imprisoned Energy. It lost itself some¬ how in its own handiwork, i.e. in created matter, and remained there latent, as if under a spell. And if this is hard to understand, I cannot help you.
And now, apparently as a result of the perfect combustion effected by Marek’s atomic motors, this imprisoned energy was liberated, freed of the fetters of matter which had held it fast. It became once more Free Energy or active Absolute, as free as it was before the Creation. It was the sudden release of that same inscrutable and unresting power which had already manifested itself once in the Creation of the World.
If the whole cosmos at once were to undergo complete combustion, the first act of creation might be repeated; for that would indeed be the end of the world, a complete liquidation which would make possible the establishment of a new world-firm, Cosmos the Second. Meanwhile, as you know, Marek’s Karburators were only burning up the material world by kilogrammes at a time. Being thus released in small quantities only, the Absolute
The Land of Plenty iJ3
either did not feel sufficiently strong to begin creating again at once, or perhaps did not wish to repeat itself. Anyhow, it decided to express itself in two ways, one of them to some extent traditional and the other distinctly modern.
The traditional manner in which it began to exert itself was, as you already know, the religious one. This embraced all varieties of illumination, conver¬ sion, moral effects, miracles, levitations, ecstasies, predictions, and, above all, religious faith. Here the Absolute burst into the personal and social life of the people over paths already well trodden, but to an extent hitherto unheard of. After a few months of its activity there was practically not a single person on earth who had not experienced, if only for a moment, that religious shock by which the Absolute made known its presence to his soul. We will return to the subject of this psychological onset of the Absolute later on, when it will be necessary to depict its catastrophic consequences.
The other form of manifestation of the existence of the Absolute at large was something entirely new. The Infinite Energy which had once busied itself with the creation of the world apparently took cog¬ nizance of the altered conditions, and flung itself into manufacture. It did not form something out of nothing, but it made finished goods out of raw material. Instead of indulging in pure creation, it
1 14 The Absolute at Large
took its place at the machines. It became the Infinite Artisan.
Suppose that some factory or other, say a place where tacks were manufactured, had installed a Perfect Karburator in place of a steam-engine as the cheapest form of plant. The Absolute constantly emanating from the atomic motor learnt the whole process of manufacture in a single day, by virtue of its innate intelligence, and flung itself with all its uncontrollable energy or, perhaps, ambition into this occupation. It began to manufacture tacks on its own account. Once it started, nothing could stop it. Without anyone in control of it, the machine vomited forth tacks. The supplies of iron ready to be manu¬ factured into tacks raised themselves of their own accord, one piece after another, thrust themselves through the air, and inserted themselves in the proper machines. It was at first an uncanny thing to see. When these supplies were exhausted, iron sprouted out of the earth, the ground round the factory exuded pure iron as if it were being drawn by suction from the depths of the earth. This iron then raised itself into the air to the height of about one metre and slid jerkily into the machinery as if it were being pushed in. Please note this carefully; I may have said “the iron raised itself” or “the iron slid,” but all eye-witnesses give it as their impression that the iron was lifted by sheer force by an inexor-
The Land of Plenty 115
able but invisible power, and with a might so manifest and concentrated that they were seized with horror. It was plain to the eye that it was being done by the exercise of terriffic effort.
Probably some of you have toyed with spiritual¬ ism and have seen something of “table-lifting.” If so, you will bear me out in this — that the table certainly did not rise as though it had lost its material weight, but rather moved with a sort of spasmodic effort; it creaked in all its joints, and quivered, and fairly reared, until finally it leaped up in the air as if lifted by a power which was struggling with it for mastery.
But how am I to describe the frightful, silent struggle which forced iron to raise itself from the depths of the earth, which pressed it into bars, threw these into the machines, and smashed them up into tacks? The bars twisted like withies, fought against the motion that pushed them forward, rattled and grated amid the silence of that which wrestled with them, soundless and substanceless. All contem¬ porary reports speak of the horror of the scene. It was a very miracle, but do not imagine that a miracle is something fabulously easy and effortless ; it rather seems that the performance of a genuine miracle entails intense and exhausting exertions. But though the labours of the Absolute might make a great call upon its powers, the most astounding thing about its
n6 The Absolute at Large
new activities was the copiousness of its output. Thus, to keep to the department already mentioned, the one solitary tack factory which the Absolute had in its power poured forth night and day so many tacks that they were piled up in mountains in the yard, and eventually broke down the fences and blocked up the street.
Let us stick to this instance of the tacks for the time being. It shows you the whole nature of the Absolute, just as inexhaustible and extravagant as it was at the time of the Creation. Once it had thrown itself into production, it did not trouble about distribution, consumption, market, or ultimate object; it did not trouble about anything: it simply devoted its gigantic energy to pouring forth tacks. Being itself infinite in essence, it knew neither measure nor limitation in anything, even in the matter of tacks.
You can well imagine how the workmen in such a factory were startled by the performances of the new motive power. For them it was a case of wholly unexpected and unfair competition, something that made their labour altogether superfluous; and they would quite rightly have protected themselves against this assault of the capitalism of the Man¬ chester School on the working classes by at least demolishing the factory and hanging its proprietors, if the Absolute had not surprised and overpowered
\
The Land of Plenty 117
them by its first method of attack, religious illumina¬ tion of every form and degree. Meantime they experienced levitations, prophecies, miracle-working, visions, supernatural cures, sanctification, love for their neighbours, and other conditions equally unnatural, not to say miraculous.
On the other hand, you can easily guess how the proprietor of such a tack-factory would greet this divine mass-production. He might certainly rejoice, discharge all his workmen, with whom he was in any case well-nigh worried to death, and rub his hands over the volcanic gush of tacks which it cost not a penny to produce. But on the one hand, he himself was sure to fall a victim to the psychic effects of the Absolute, and hand over the whole factory on the spot to his workmen, his brothers in God, as their common property; while on the other hand he very soon realized that those mountains of tacks were utterly valueless because he would find no market for them.
It is true that the workmen no longer had to stand at the machines and carry bars of iron, and were part-proprietors of the factory besides. But in a few days’ time it became evident that it was necessary to get rid, somehow or other, of the hundred-ton mountains of tacks which had ceased to be saleable goods. At first some attempts were made to send the tacks off in wagon-loads to imaginary addresses;
n8 The Absolute at Large
later on, there was nothing for it but to cart them off to huge dumps outside the city. This removal of the tacks kept all the workmen busy for a full fourteen hours a day, but they did not grumble, being illuminated by the divine spirit of love and of mutual service.
Forgive me for spending so much time over these tacks. The Absolute was ignorant of industrial specialization. It invaded the spinning-mills with equal ardour, and there not only performed the miracle of making sand into ropes, but even spun it into thread. In the weaving and fulling mills and in the stocking factories it laid hold on the entire textile department, and reeled off without pause millions of kilometres of everything that can be cut with scissors. It took possession of the iron works, the rolling mills, the foundries, the factories for agricultural machinery, the sawmills, timber works, rubber works, sugar-mills, chemical works, fertilizer works, nitrogen and naphtha plants, printing works, paper-mills, dye works, glass works, potteries, boot and shoe factories, ribbon works, forges, mines, breweries, distilleries, creameries, flour-mills, mints, motor works, and grinding plants. It wove, spun, knitted, forged, cast, erected, sewed, planed, cut, dug, burned, printed, bleached, refined, cooked, filtered, and pressed for twenty-four to twenty-six jhours a day. Harnessed to agricultural machines in
The Land of Plenty 119
the place of tractors, it ploughed, sowed, harrowed, weeded, cut, harvested and threshed. In every department it augmented the raw material and mul¬ tiplied the output hundreds of times. It was inex¬ haustible. It simply squandered its activity. It had found a quantitative expression for its own infinitude : over-production.
The miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the desert was repeated on a colossal scale in the miraculous multiplication of tacks, boards, nitrates, pneumatic tyres, rolls of paper, and manu¬ factured articles of every kind.
Thus there ruled in the world a state of boundless plenty of all that men could need. But men need everything, everything but boundless plenty.
CHAPTER XV
DISASTER
OF course, in our own orderly and (one might well say) blessed times of general scarcity, we simply cannot imagine the social evil that boundless plenty could be. To us it seems that to find ourselves all of a sudden amid unlimited supplies of everything we wanted would be nothing short of the Earthly Paradise. It would be all to the good, we think; there would be enough of everything for everybody — and Lord ! how prices would come down !
Well, then, the economic catastrophe which befell the whole world at the period we are describing, as a result of the interference of the Absolute in indus¬ try, arose from the fact that people could get every¬ thing they wanted, not merely at a low pirce, but simply for nothing. You might help yourself, free of charge, to a handful of tacks, to go into your boot- soles or into the floor; you could just as easily help yourself to a whole cartload of tacks gratis — only I ask you, what would you do with them? Would you haul them a hundred kilometres off and then give them away? You wouldn’t do that; for when you stood before that avalanche of tacks, wh?t you
120
Disaster
1 2 1
saw was not tacks — relatively useful objects — but something perfectly valueless and senseless in its profusion, something as purposeless as are the stars in the sky. Of course, such a mound of new and shining tacks was often an uplifting sight, and even inspired poetical reflections as do the stars in the sky. They seemed created to be gazed upon in silent wonder. It was a fine sight in its way, as a piece of landscape, just as the sea is from that point of view. But then again, you don’t take the sea away in carts into the interior of the country where there is no sea. There is no economic distribution for sea-water — and now there was none for tacks.
And while in one place there spread this sparkling ocean of tacks, in another only a few kilometres farther off there was not a tack to be had. Having become economically worthless, they had disappeared from the shops. If anyone wished to knock one into his shoe or put one into his neighbour’s mattress, he sought for it in vain. There weren’t any, just as there is no sea at Slany or Caslav. Where were you then, you business men of days gone by, who used to buy the necessities of life so cheap in one place and sell them so dear in another? Alas, you had vanished, for heavenly grace had descended upon you. You had grown ashamed of your gains; you had shut up your shops to reflect upon the brother¬ hood of man; you had given away your possessions,
122
The Absolute at Large
and never again would you desire to enrich your¬ selves by the distribution of those things which are needed by all your brethren in God.
No value means no market. No market means no distribution. No distribution means no goods. And no goods means greater demand, higher prices, bigger profits and larger businesses. And you had turned your backs upon gain and conceived an uncon¬ trollable antipathy to all figures whatsoever. You had ceased to look upon the material world with the eyes of consumption, market, and sale. You stood with clasped hands staring at the beauty and the profusion of the world. And in the meanwhile the supply of tacks ran out. At last none remained. Only somewhere, far away, they were piled up as by an inexhaustible avalanche.
Even you, ye master bakers, went out in front of your shops, and cried, “Come then, children of God, in the name of Christ, our Master, come and take these loaves and flour and biscuits and rolls. Have pity on us and take them for nothing.”
And you, ye drapers, brought your bales of cloth and rolls of linen out into the street, and wept with joy as you cut off five or ten metre lengths for every¬ one who went by, and begged them for the love of God to accept your little gift; and only when your shop was completely empty of its wares did you fall on your knees and thank God that He had given
Disaster 123
you the opportunity to clothe your neighbours as He clothes the lilies in the field.
And you, ye butchers and dealers in cooked meats, you took baskets of meat and sausages and polonies on your heads, and went from door to door, and knocked or rang, and begged everybody just to help themselves to whatever they fancied.
And all you who sell boots, furniture, tobacco, bags, spectacles, jewels, carpets, whips, ropes, tin- war, china, books, false teeth, vegetables, medicines, or whatever else one can think of — all of you, touched by the breath of God, poured out into the street, a prey to the generous panic born of grace divine, and gave away all you possessed; after which, either coming together or standing on the threshold of your emptied shops and warehouses, you declared to one another with glowing eyes, “Now, brother, I have eased my conscience.”
In a few days it became evident that there was nothing left to give away. But there was also nothing left to buy. The Absolute had pillaged and completely cleaned out every place of business.
Meanwhile, far away from the cities, there poured from the machines millions of metres of wool and linen, Niagaras of lump sugar, all the teeming, magnificent and inexhaustible profusion of the divine over-production of every kind of goods. Some feeble efforts to divide and distribute this flood of
124
The Absolute at Large
commodities were quelled at the outset. It simply could not be mastered.
For that matter, it is possible that this economic catastrophe had also another cause: currency infla¬ tion. You see, the Absolute had likewise taken possession of the Government mints and printing establishments, and every day it flung out upon the world hundreds of millions of banknotes, coins, and securities. Utter devaluation was the result : before Jong a packet of five thousand mark notes meant nothing more than so much waste paper. Whether you offered a halfpenny or half a million for a child’s lollypop, it was all the same from the business point of view : you wouldn’t get the lollypop, anyhow, for they had all disappeared. Figures had lost all sig¬ nificance. This collapse of the numerical system is, in any case, the natural consequence of the infinitude and omnipotence of God.
At the same time, food shortage and even famine had already made themselves felt in the cities. The organization for the maintenance of supplies had broken down completely for the reasons just mentioned.
Of course there were Ministries of Supply, Com¬ merce, Social Welfare, and Railways, and by our ideas it should have been possible to get control of the gigantic stream of factory production in time, prevent the goods from spoiling, and transport them
Disaster 125
carefully to the places which the liberality of the Absolute had despoiled. Unhappily this plan was not followed. The personnel of each of the Minis¬ tries were the victims of grace in unusual power, and spent their office hours in joyful prayer. In the Ministry of Supply a lady clerk named Sarova con¬ trolled the situation, preaching on the subject of the Seven Degrees; in the Ministry of Commerce the head of a department, Mr. Winkler, proclaimed a severe asceticism which resembled the teachings of the Hindu Yoga. True, this excessive zeal lasted only a fortnight, being succeeded (doubtless through special inspiration from the Absolute) by a period of extraordinary devotion to duty. The depart¬ ments responsible worked feverishly day and night to avert a breakdown of food supplies, but appar¬ ently it was even then too late. The only result was that each department produced daily from fifteen to fifty-three thousand bills and enactments, which by decree of the Inter-Ministerial Commission were carted away daily on motor lorries to the Vltava River.
The food situation assuredly offered the most terrible problem. Luckily, however, there remained (I am, of course, describing conditions only in our own country) Our Jolly Farmers. And here, gentlemen, you must learn that from time imme¬ morial we have had the saying: “With all due
1 26 The Absolute at Large
respect to anyone else, our countryfolk are the back¬ bone of the nation.” In fact, there’s an old rhyme about it, something like this: “Who is the man so strong and tall, Whose daily labour feeds us all? The farmer 1”
Who was the man with whom the feverish prodigality of the Absolute came to a halt; who was the man who stood unmoved amid the panic of the markets of the world; who was the man who did not fold his hands in his lap, who did not let himself be carried off his feet, but “remained faithful to the law of his being” ? Who was the man so strong and tall whose daily labour fed us all? The farmer!
Yes, it was the farmer (and the same thing hap¬ pened elsewhere), who by his conduct saved the world from starvation. Just imagine the conse¬ quences if he had been seized, like the townsfolk, with the mania for giving everything away to the poor and needy; if he had given away all his corn, his cows and calves, his chickens and geese and potatoes. Within a fortnight famine would have stalked through the cities, and the countryfolk them¬ selves would have been sucked dry, starved out, left stripped of all their supplies. Thanks to our sturdy farmer, this was not to be. Whether you explain it after the event, as being due to the marvellous instinct of the country-dweller, or to his steadfast, pure, deep-rooted tradition, or finally to the fact
Disaster 127
that in the rural districts the Absolute was less potent, because in the small argricultral holdings the Karburator was not so widely used as in industry — in short, explain it as you please, the fact remains that amid the general collapse of the economic and financial structure, and of the whole market, the farmer gave nothing away. He did not give away even a wisp of straw or a grain of oats. Calm and unmoved amid the ruins of the old industrial and commercial order, our farmer went on selling what he had. And he sold it dear. He sensed through some mysterious instinct the calamitous significance of over-production, and so he put on the brakes in time. He did this by raising his prices, however crammed his granaries might be. And it is a testi¬ mony to the amazing soundness of the core of our countryfolk that without saying a word to each other, without any organization, led only by the redeeming inward voice, they raised their prices everywhere and for everything. By thus putting up the price of everything, the farmer saved it from destruction. In the midst of insensate profusion he preserved an island of scarcity and costliness. He foresaw, of a surety, that thereby he was saving the world.
For while other goods, being made valueless by being given away gratis, vanished from the market at once as a natural result, foodstuffs continued to
128
The Absolute at Large
be sold. Of course you had to go out into the country to fetch them. The baker and butcher and retailer had nothing they could give you except brotherly love and pious words. So you took up your knapsack and went a hundred and twenty kilometres out. You went from farm to farm, and in one place you bought a kilo of potatoes in exchange for a gold watch, in another an egg for a pair of opera-glasses, in another a kilo of bran for a harmonium or a type¬ writer. And so you had something to eat. You see, if the farmer had given it all away, you would have been done for long ago. But the farmer saved even a pound of butter for you — of course only in order to dispose of it for a Persian rug or a costly national costume.
Well, who brought the mad communistic experi¬ ments of the Absolute to a halt? Who did not lose his head amid the epidemic of righteousness ? Who withstood the disastrous tide of superabundance and saved us from destruction without sparing our persons or our purses?
Who is the man so strong and tall
Whose daily labour feeds us all ?
The farmer!
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE MOUNTAINS
IT was noon at the Hut in Bear Valley. Rudolf Marek sat curled up on the veranda; he looked at a newspaper, but he soon folded it up again, and gazed out over the far-stretching chain of the Giant Mountains. Stillness, a vast and crystalline stillness, lay upon the mountains, and the man curled up in the chair straightened himself and took a deep breath.
Then the tiny figure of a man appeared from below making towards the Hut.
“How pure the air is here!” thought Marek on his veranda. “Here, Heaven be praised, the Abso¬ lute is still latent, it still lies under a spell, hidden in everything, in these mountains and forests, in the sweet grass and the blue sky. Here it does not rush about all over the place, waking terror or working magic; it simply dwells in all matter, a God deeply and quietly present, not even breathing, only in silence watching over all. . . Marek clasped his hands in a mute prayer of thankfulness. “Dear God, how pure the air is here !”
129
130
The Absolute at Large
The man who had come up from below stopped under the veranda.
“Well, Marek, so I’ve found you at last!”
Marek looked up, not greatly pleased. The man who stood before him was G. H. Bondy.
“So I’ve found you at last!” Bondy said again.
“Come along up, then,” said Marek, with obvious reluctance. “What the deuce has brought you here ? Heavens, man, you do look queer !”
G. H. Bondy did indeed look sunken and yellow; he had gone very grey about the temples, and lines of weariness made dark shadows around his eyes. He seated himself without a word beside Marek and squeezed his hands together between his knees.
“Come now, what’s wrong with you?” Marek pressed him after a painful silence.
Bondy raised his arms.
“I’m going to retire, old man. You see, it’s got me too . . . me!”
“What, religion?” shouted Marek, recoiling as though from a leper.
Bondy nodded. Was it not a tear of shame that trembled on his lashes? Marek whistled softly. “What — it’s got you now? My poor old fellow!”
“No,” cried Bondy quickly, wiping his eyes. “Don’t think I’m not all right at present; I’ve got under, you might say, Rudy, I’ve beaten it. But, do you know, when it came over me, it was the very
In the Mountains 13 1
happiest moment of my life. You have no idea, Rudy, what tremendous will-power it takes to shake that off.”
“I can well believe it,” said Marek gravely. “And tell me, what sort of . . . er . . . symptoms did you have?”
“Love for my neighbour,” Bondy whispered. “Man, I was frantic with love. I would never have believed it possible to feel anything like it.”
There was silence for a moment.
“So, then, you’ve ...” Marek began.
“I’ve thrown it off. Rather like a fox that gnaws its own leg off when it’s caught in a trap. But I’m still confoundedly weak after the struggle. An utter wreck, Rudy. As if I’d have typhoid. That’s why I’ve come here, to pick up again, you see. ... Is it all clear up here?”
“Quite clear; not a single trace of it so far. You can only sense it . . . in Nature and everything; but then one could do that before — one always could, in the mountains.”
Bondy kept a gloomy silence. “Well, and what do you make of it all?” he said absently, after a while. “Have you any notion up here of what’s going on down below?”
“I get the papers. Even from the papers one can to a certain extent deduce what is happening. Of course these journalists distort everything; still, any-
132
The Absolute at Large
one who can read. ... I say, Bondy, are things really so awful?”
G. H. Bondy shook his head.
“A lot worse than you think. Simply desperate. Listen,” he whispered brokenly. “He’s everywhere by now. I think that . . . that He’s got a definite plan.”
“A plan?” cried Marek, leaping to his feet.
“Don’t shout so. He has some kind of plan, my friend. And He’s going about it deuced cleverly. Tell me, Marek, what is the greatest power in the world?”
“England,” said Marek without hesitation.
“Not at all. Industry is the greatest power in the world. And the so-called ‘proletariat’ are like¬ wise the greatest power in the world. Do you see the scheme now?”
“No, I don’t see it at all.”
“He has got control of them both. He has both industry and the masses in His power. So every¬ thing is in His grasp. Everything goes to show that He is thinking of world-supremacy. That’s how things are, Marek.”
Marek sat down. “Wait a bit, Bondy,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a good deal about it up here in the mountains. I’ve been following up everything and comparing the signs. I tell you, Bondy, I don’t even give a thought to anything else. I certainly
133
In the Mountains
don’t know what He is aiming at, but I do know this, Bondy, that He’s following no particular plan. He doesn’t know Himself what He wants and how to get it. Possibly He wants to do something big, but doesn’t know how to set about it. I’ll tell you something, Bondy. So far He’s only a force of Nature. Politically, He’s a fearful ignoramus. In the matter of economics He’s a simple savage. After all, He ought to have submitted to the Church; she has had experience. . . . You know, He sometimes strikes me as being so childish. . . .”
“Don’t you believe it, Rudy,” G. H. Bondy returned heavily. “He knows what He wants. That’s why He plunged into large-scale industry. He is far more up to date than we ever thought.”
“That is only His play,” urged Marek. “He only wants something to occupy Himself with. Don’t you see, there’s a sort of god-like boyishness about it. Wait, I know what you want to say. Asa worker He is tremendous. It is simply amazing what He can bring off. But, Bondy, it is so sense¬ less that there can’t be any plan in it.”
“The most senseless things in history were syste¬ matically prosecuted plans,” declared G. H. Bondy.
“My dear Bondy,” said Marek quickly. “Look at all the papers I have here. I follow up every step He takes. I tell you that there isn’t a scrap of consistency about them. They’re all merely the
134
The Absolute at Large
improvisations of omnipotence. He performs tre¬ mendous tricks, but at random, disconnectedly, con¬ fusedly. His activity isn’t organized a scrap. He came into the world altogether too unprepared. That’s where His weakness lies. He impresses me, but I see His weak points. He is not a good organ¬ izer, and perhaps never has been. He has flashes of genius, but He is unsystematic. I’m surprised that you haven’t got the better of Him, Bondy, a wide¬ awake fellow like you.”
“You can’t do anything with Him,” Bondy asserted. “He attacks you in your innermost soul, and you’re done for. When He can’t convince you by reason, He sends miraculous enlightenment upon you. You know what He did with Saul.”
“You are running away from Him,” said Marek, “but I am running after Him, and I’m close at His heels. I know a bit about Him already, enough to get out a warrant for Him! Description: infinite, invisible, and formless. Place of residence: every¬ where in the vicinity of atomic motors. Occupa¬ tion: mystical Communism. Crimes for which He is wanted: alienation of private property, illegal practice of medicine, offences against the Public Assemblies Act, interference with officials in the execution of their duty, and so forth. Distinguish¬ ing marks : omnipotence. In short, have Him arrested.”
In the Mountains 13 5
“You’re making fun of it,” sighed G. H. Bondy. “Don’t do it. He has beaten us.”
“Not yet!” cried Marek. “Look here, Bondy. He doesn’t know how to govern yet. He has got into a fearful muddle with His new undertakings. For instance, He has gone in for over-production instead of first building up a miraculous railway system. Now He’s in the mire Himself — what He produces has no value. That miraculous profusion of everything was a fearful fiasco. In the second place, He turned the brains of the authorities with His mysticism and upset the whole machinery of Government, which otherwise He could now be using to maintain order. You can make revolutions any¬ where else you like, but not in the Government offices; even if the world’s to be brought to an end, the thing to do is to destroy the universe first and take the Government offices afterwards. That’s how it is, Bondy. And in the third place, like the crudest of doctrinaire Communists, He has done away with the currency and thereby with one stroke paralysed the circulation of commodities. He did not know that the laws of the market are stronger than the laws of God. He did not know that production without trade is utterly senseless. He knew nothing whatever. He behaved like . . . like a . . . well, to put it shortly, as if He would destroy with one hand what He made with the other. Here we have
13& The Absolute at Large
miraculous profusion, and along with it disastrous shortage. He is all-powerful, yet He’s achieved only chaos. I believe that He once did really create the laws of Nature, the primordial lizards, the mountains, and anything else you like. But business, Bondy, our modern industry and commerce, that I swear He did not create, for He simply doesn’t know a thing about it. No, Bondy, industry and commerce are not of God.”
“Hold on,” said G. H. Bondy. “I know that the consequences of His acts are calamitous . . . immeas¬ urable. . . . But what can we do about it?”
“For the time being, nothing. My dear Bondy, I just study and compare. It is a second Babel. Here, for instance, you have the Roman Catholic publications expressing the suspicion that ‘the con¬ fusions of these times of religious excitement are being deliberately organized with Satanic subtlety by the Freemasons.’ The Nationalist Press blames the Jews, the Socialists of the Right blame those of the Left, the Agrarian party attacks the Liberals; it’s killing. And mind you, we’re not really in the whirlpool yet. In my opinion, the whole thing is only just beginning to get into a tangle. Come here, Bondy, I want to tell you something.”
“Well?”
“Do you think that He . . . you know what I mean . . . that He’s the only one there is?”
In the Mountains J37
“I don’t know,” replied Bondy. “And is it of any special importance?”
“Immense importance,” Marek answered. “Come closer, Bondy, and prick up your ears.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE HAMMER AND STAR
“TJkother Senior Warden, what do you see in
X3 the East?” asked the Worshipful Master. He was dressed all in black, wore the white leather apron, and held the silver gavel in his hand.
“I see the Masters assembled in the Temple and ready for labour,” said the Senior Warden.
The Worshipful Master gave a knock with his gavel.
“Brother Junior Warden, what do you see in the West?”
“I see the Masters assembled in the Temple and ready for labour.”
The Worshipful Master knocked three times with his gavel. “Let the labour begin.”
The Brothers of the Free French Masonic Lodge, “The Hammer and Star,” took their seats, never taking their eyes off the Worshipful Master, G. H. Bondy, who had called them together at such an unusual time. The lodge was as quiet as a church between the black-draped walls with the maxims of the craft woven in the hangings. Bondy, the Wor¬ shipful Master, was pale and thoughtful.
138
139
The Hammer and Star
“Brothers,” said the Worshipful Master after a while, “I have summoned this unusual meeting . . . for this . . . er . . . unusual labour, which in . . . er . . . unusual opposition to the secret precepts of our Order ... is no mere formality. I know . . . that I am violating the solemn and consecrated form of our labour ... in asking you to come to a decision upon ... a really serious . . . and public matter . . . of the highest importance.”
“The Worshipful Master in the Chair has the right to order our labour,” declared the Judex Formidabilis, causing general agitation among his hearers.
“Well, then,” began G. H. Bondy, “it concerns the systematic attacks . . . upon our Order recently begun ... by the Clerical party. They state that our secret activities ... of the last hundred years . . . are connected with certain extraordinary . . . and regrettable occurrences ... in the industrial and spiritual field. The Clericalist papers assert that the Masonic Lodges . . . have brought about . . . deliberately . . . this unfettering of demoniacal powers. I ask you . . . what we ought to do ... in the present time of calamity . . . for the benefit of mankind . . . and for the honour of the Most High. This subject is now open for discussion.”
After a moment’s solemn silence the Junior Warden arose.
140 The Absolute at Large
“Brothers, at this historic moment, I welcome, so to speak, the impressive words uttered by our Worshipful Master. He spoke, so to speak, of regrettable occurrences. And indeed, we who con¬ cern ourselves, so to speak, only with the welfare of mankind, are bound to declare all these regrettable miracles, illuminations, fits of love for one’s neigh¬ bour, and other disturbances to be occurrences which are, so to speak, in the highest degree regrettable. We must with all the discretion we owe to our Order decline all connection, so to speak, with these regret¬ table facts which, so to speak, do not agree with the traditional and progressive principles of our Great Order. Brothers, these regrettable principles are, so to speak, in fundamental disagreement with it, as our Worshipful Master very rightly said, since the Clericals, so to speak, have taken up arms against us, and if we have in mind, so to speak, the highest interests of mankind. I therefore move that we should express our agreement in the fullest sense of the word, as the Worshipful Master in the Chair very rightly said, these regrettable occurrences,”
Judex Formidabilis now rose.
“Brother Worshipful Master, I should like to say a few words. I have to observe that certain occur¬ rences have been spoken of here in a very regrettable manner. I am of opinion that those occurrences are not so regrettable as our Brother Junior Warden
The Hammer and Star 14 1
thinks. I am really not aware which occurrences Brother Junior Warden is alluding to, but if he has in mind the religious meetings which I myself attend, then I am of the opinion that he is mistaken. Indeed, I will say frankly that I consider that he is entirely in error.”
“I move,” suggested another brother, “that we should take a vote on whether the said occurrences are regrettable or not.”
“And I move,” said another, taking the floor, “that we elect a smaller committee, of some three members, say, to investigate these regrettable occurrences.”
“I am in favour of five members.”
“I vote for twelve.”
Judex Formidabilis was heard to say, “Excuse me, brothers, I have not yet finished speaking.”
The Worshipful Master rapped with his gavel.
“I call upon Brother Judex Formidabilis.”
“Brothers,” began Judex gently, “we will not quarrel who is to have the floor. The occurrences concerning which several regrettable opinions have been expressed here are of a character that deserves attention, interest, yes, and even respect. I do not deny that I am a member of several religious circles who have received divine grace in especial power. I trust that this is not inconsistent with the discipline of the Freemason.”
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The Absolute at Large
“Not at all,” said several voices.
“Moreover, I have to admit that I myself have been priviliged to perform a few minor miracles. I think that this does not conflict with my rank and degree.”
“Certainly not.”
“May I therefore, speaking from my own expe¬ riences, state that the aforesaid occurrences are, on the contrary, praiseworthy, uplifting, and moral, that they contribute to the welfare of mankind and the glory of the Most High, and therefore — from the Masonic standpoint — there can be no objection to them. I move that our Lodge should declare its neutrality with respect to all these manifestations of the divine presence.”
The Senior Warden rose and said: “Brothers, I certainly don’t believe in any of this stuff, and I’ve seen nothing of it; all the same I’m in favour of standing up for religion. I don’t think that there’s anything in it, but is there any reason why we should say so? I therefore move that we secretly let it be known that we have the very best information about the whole business, and that we approve of things going on as they are.”
The Worshipful Master raised his eyes and said: “I call the attention of the brethren to the fact that the Industrial Federation has elected the Absolute as its honorary President. Further, that the M.E.C.
143
The Hammer and Star
shares, the so-called Absolute Stock, may go up still higher. In this connection I may say that a donor who wishes to remain unknown has contributed one thousand shares to the Benevolent Fund of our Lodge. The meeting will now proceed.”
The Junior Warden announced: “I beg to with¬ draw, so to speak, the regrettable occurrences. From the higher point of view I entirely agree. I move that we discuss the matter from the higher point of view.”
The Worshipful Master raised his eyes and said: “I have to inform you that the Grand Lodge intends to issue instructions relating to the recent occur¬ rences. The Grand Lodge recommends the Masters to join religious circles and organize them in the Masonic sense for the instruction of apprentices in the craft. The new Temples are to be conducted in an enlightened and anticlerical spirit. It is desirable to examine the various doctrines — monism, absti¬ nence, Fletcherism, vegetarianism, and so forth. Each circle is to be instructed in a different faith in order to test out practically which is the best for the welfare of mankind and for the glory of the Most High. These activities are obligatory on all Masters by decree of the Grand Lodge. The meet¬ ing will now proceed.”
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE NIGHT EDITOR S ROOM
he largest Catholic or popular newspaper, The
X People’s Friend, had not a very large editorial staff, and so at 9.30 p. m. there were only two men in the room — Kostal, the night editor (Heaven knows why night editors’ pipes have such an amazing stink), and Father Jost, who sat writing the leader for the next issue and whistling between his teeth.
At that moment Novotny, the printer, came in with the wet proofs.
“Well, how about the leader, gentlemen, the leader?” he growled. “When are we going to set it?”
Father Jost stopped humming. “Ready in a minute, Novotny,” he said quickly. “There’s just a word I can’t get. Have we already had ‘satanic machinations’ ?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Aha. And has ‘treacherous onslaught’ been used too?”
“Yes, we’ve had that.”
“ ‘Knavish imposture’ ?”
144
145
In the Night Editor’s Room
“We ran that to-day.”
“‘Impious fabrication’?”
“At least six times,” said Kostal.
“That’s a pity,” sighed Father Jost. “I think ■we’ve been a bit too lavish with our ideas. How did you like to-day’s leader, Novotny?”
“Strong stuff,” said the printer. “But we ought to be getting on with the setting.”
“Ready in a minute,” Father Jost replied. “I think our friends in higher quarters were satisfied with this morning’s issue. You’ll see, his Lordship the Bishop will call on us. ‘Jost,’ he’ll say, ‘you let them have it properly.’ Have we used ‘maniacal ravings’ ?”
“Yes.”
“What a pity! We must bring up fresh guns and blaze away. ‘Jost,’ his Lordship said to me not long ago, ‘Up and at them ! Everything may have its day, but we shall stand for ever and aye.’ Mr. Novotny, can’t you think of any suitable phrase?”
“Well, couldn’t you say ‘criminal narrow-minded¬ ness’ or ‘perverse malignity’ ?”
“That would do splendidly,” said Father Jost, with a sigh of relief. “Where do you get all these bright ideas from, Novotny?”
“From the old files of The People’s Friend. But that leader, your Reverence.”
“You shall have it at once. Just wait a minute:
146 The Absolute at Large
‘The criminal narrow-mindedness or perverse malig¬ nity which with the idolatries of Baal sullies the pure waters from the rock of Peter ! — aha, now we shan’t be long — sullies the pure waters, rock of Peter, there we are — and sets up thereon the golden calf whose name is the Devil or the Absolute — ’ ”
“Have you got the leader?” came a voice from the door of the night editor’s room.
“Laudetur Jesus Christus, my Lord Bishop,” ejaculated Father Jost.
“Have you got the leader?” repeated' Bishop Linda, coming hurriedly into the room. “Who was it that wrote this morning’s leader ? Heaven forgive me, what a pretty mess you’ve made with it. What idiot wrote it?”
“I ... I did,” stammered Father Jost, retreat¬ ing; “Bishop . . . Your Lordship ... I thought • • •
“You’ve no right to think,” roared Bishop Linda, his eyeglasses flashing at him eerily. “Here, take the thing”; and crumpling up that morning’s issue of The People’s Friend in his hand, he flung it at Jost’s feet. “I thought! Look at him, he thinks! Why didn’t you telephone? Why didn’t you ask what you were to write? And you, Kostal, how could you put it in the paper? You thought, too, did you? Novotny!”
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed the trembling printer.
In the Night Editor’s Room 147
“Why did you have that stuff set up in type? Did you think, too?”
“Oh, no, sir,” protested the printer. “I have to set what they send me. . . .”
“Nobody has to do anything but what I want,” Bishop Linda declared decisively. “Jost, sit down and read the drivel you put together this morning. Read it, I tell you.”
“For a long time past,” Father Jost read, in trem¬ bling tones, from his own leading article — “for a long time past the public has been disturbed by the knavish imposture . . .”
“What?”
“Knavish imposture, my lord,” groaned Father Jost. “I thought — I — I see now . . .”
“What do you see?”
“That ‘knavish imposture’ is a little too forcible.”
“So I should think. Read on!”
“. . . knavish imposture carried on with the
so-called Absolute ... by means of which the Freemasons, the Jews and other progressives are befooling the world. It has been scientifically demonstrated . . .”
“Look at Jost ! Look at him !” cried Bishop Linda. “He has scientifically demonstrated some¬ thing! Read on.”
“. . . scientifically demonstrated,” stammered the unfortunate Jost, “that the so-called Absolute
I4S
The Absolute at Large
. . . is just as impious a deception ... as the tricks performed by mediums. . . .”
“Stop,” said the Bishop with a sudden amiability. “Take down the following leading article: ‘It has been scientifically demonstrated . . .’ Have you got that? . . . ‘demonstrated that I, Father Jost, am a jackass, a dolt and an idiot.’ . . . Have you got that?”
“Yes,” whispered Jost, utterly bewildered. “Please go on, my . . . my lord.”
“Throw that into the waste-paper basket, my son,” said the Bishop, “and open your stupid ears. Have you read to-day’s papers?”
“Yes, my 1 . . .”
“Ah, well, I don’t know. This morning, my reverend fried, there appeared first of all a com¬ munication from the Monist Association, asserting that the Absolute is that Unity which the Monists have always proclaimed to be God, and that there¬ fore the cult of the Absolute is in complete corre¬ spondence with the doctrine of Monism. Did you read that?”