The Absolute at Large/Chapter 11
Chapter XI
The First Blow Struck
Exactly how it happened has not yet been established, but just at the very time when the little factory belonging to R. Marek, Engineer, 1651 Mixa Street, Břevnov, was garrisoned by detectives and surrounded by a cordon of police, unknown malefactors stole the original Marek Karburator. Despite the most active search, not a trace of the stolen machine was found.
Not long afterwards Jan Binder, the proprietor of a merry-go-round, was looking round the premises of a dealer in old iron in Hastal Square with a view to purchasing a little naphtha motor to run his roundabout and its orchestrion. The dealer offered him a big copper cylinder with a piston, and said it was a very economical motor; all one had to do was to shovel in a little coal, and it would run for months. Jan Binder was seized with a strange, almost blind faith in the copper cylinder, and he bought it for three hundred crowns. Then he hauled it away on a truck with his own hands to his merry-go-round, which was standing out of action near Zlichov.
Jan Binder took off his coat, unloaded the copper cylinder from the cart, and set to work whistling softly. He fixed a wheel on the axle where the flywheel used to be, and ran a belt over this wheel to another axle which drove the orchestrion with one end and the merry-go-round with the other. Then he oiled the bearings, put them into a wheel, and stood there, in his broad-striped jersey, with his hands in his pockets, puckering his lips for a whistle and waiting pensively to see what would happen next. The wheel went round three times, then stopped; presently it quivered, wobbled, and then began to turn quietly and smoothly. Then the orchestrion started with all its little drums and whistles, the merry-go-round gave itself a shake as if waking from sleep, creaked in all its joints, and began glidingly to revolve. The silver fringes gleamed, the white steeds with their showy trappings and red bridles seemed to set in motion their princely equipages, the deer with its wildly staring eyes swept round, poised as for a leap, the swans with their elegantly arching necks drew in a circle their white and sky-blue vessels; and so all a-glitter, and to the accompaniment of blaring music, the merry-go-round rotated its splendours before the unwinking eyes of the Three Graces painted on the orchestrion, now carried away on the rush of its own melodies.
Jan Binder still stood there with his lips pursed and his hands in his pockets. He gazed upon his merry-go-round as though in a dream, seemingly entranced by something new and lovely. By this time he was no longer alone. A tear-stained dirty child dragged its young nurse up to the merry-go-round and stopped in front of it with great round eyes and mouth wide open, rigid with wonderment. The little nurse, too, opened wide her eyes and stood there like one enraptured. The merry-go-round performed its circuit with a strange resplendence, sublimity, stateliness, like a festal day . . . now whirling round with an impassioned velocity, now rocking gently like a vessel laden with the rich perfumes of India, now floating like a golden cloud high in the heavens; it seemed to soar upwards, sundered from the earth, it seemed to sing. But no, it was the orchestrion that was singing; now with the joyous voices of women mingling with a 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 proclaimed the coming of a conqueror or, it might be, a whole army with flashing fiery swords. And who was it singing that glorious hymn? Thousands of people were waving branches of palm, the heavens opened, and, heralded by rolling drums, the song of God Himself descended upon the earth.
Jan Binder raised his hand, but at that moment the merry-go-round stopped and leaned towards the little child. The child tripped on to the merry-go-round as if it were entering the open gates of Paradise, and the nursemaid followed as though in a trance and seated it in one of the boats drawn by swans. "Free rides to-day!" said Binder hoarsely; the orchestrion burst out jubilantly, and the merry-go-round began to turn as though it would soar up into the sky. Jan Binder reeled. What could this mean? Why, it wasn't the merry-go-round that was turning now, but the whole earth was spinning round and round. The Zlichovsky Church was describing a gigantic curve, the Podol Sanatorium and Vyšehrad were setting off together for the other bank of the Vltava. Yes, the whole earth was turning about the merry-go-round, circling faster and faster, humming like a turbine; only the merry-go-round stood firm in the centre, rocking gently like a ship with white horses, deer and swans roving about the deck, and a little child leading its nurse by the hand and stroking the animals. Yes, yes, the earth was spinning furiously, and only the merry-go-round was a lovely island of quiet and repose. And Jan Binder, dizzy and sick, raised his arms, and let the mad earth carry him staggering towards the merry-go-round, seized one of the rods, and swung himself up on to its peaceful deck.
Now he could clearly see how the earth was heaving and tossing like a stormy sea. And look, there were terrified people rushing out of their houses, waving their hands, stumbling and falling as though borne along by a gigantic whirlwind. Holding tightly to his rod, Binder stooped down to them and shouted, "Here, people, this way!" And the people seeing the shining merry-go-round calmly uplifted above the reeling earth, staggered towards it. Gripping the rod, Binder held out his free hand and pulled them up from the heaving earth: children, grandmothers, old men, all stood on the deck of the merry-go-round, taking breath again after their terrible fright, and looking down in dismay upon the earth spinning below them. Binder had just helped them all up, when a little black puppy came running by, yelping with fear, and tried to leap aboard; but the earth carried him faster and faster round the merry-go-round. Binder squatted down, reached out his hand, and grabbed the puppy by the tail, and lifted it into safety.
Then the orchestrion played a song of thanksgiving. 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 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 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 strengthened 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 dismissed 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 excitement, "pack up at once, or"
Binder's adherents heard this and returned to their teacher. Conscious of having his people at 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. "I'll 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 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.