The House of a Thousand Floors (CEU Press Classics) Read online

  The leader walked through the corridor with assured, triumphant steps until he was standing by the net. Then he kicked it, as if it were a mere bundle of dirty laundry, and asked Orsag:

  "What does he look like?"

  Brok shivered.

  Is it possible that this blind man can see me? — I myself don't know what I look like! Can someone else tell me? My god, how terrified I am of those round lenses burning their way right into my soul! — I'm afraid, afraid to look into them!

  And blind Orsag is already turning the serrated circles behind his ears to adjust the sharpness of the lenses. The hairy giant is the first to interrupt the curious silence with a question that had been hanging in the air:

  "Well, Orsag, tell us the truth. What is he wearing?"

  "He's not wearing anything," says Orsag. "He's naked!"

  "Naked!" "Ooooh!"

  The ladies are horrified and their heart-shaped lips turn into ellipses.

  "What shamelessness!"

  One of the ladies, with a powdered bosom overflowing from her low-cut dress, faints. Others flee.

  And Brok feels a wave of mad joy!

  The blind man can't see my clothes! — How lucky, how lucky! I have my wallet with documents on me! If Orsag saw it, that would be the end of everything!

  In the meantime, Orsag approaches Brok and examines him from up close. He says,

  "He's white! — His eyes are white, his mouth, his hair — all white! It seems to me even his blood is white!"

  Then he opens Brok's mouth like a skilful horse trader and says,

  "He's thirty years old!"

  The ladies had meanwhile recovered and begun to move closer.

  "Is he handsome?" asked a brunette with gypsy eyes and red-painted nipples.

  "How can you ask such a question, Miss Laura? He's naked!"

  "Why immediately think the worst.?" "How dare you, Countess?"

  "I believe he's hiding his nakedness better than many of us, ladies!"

  "But he's wearing no clothes at all!" "Are you imagining him like that?" "Fantasising?"

  "Chains!" A voice clattered among the sound of jingle bells like a heavy chain dropped on the ground. It was the general speaking to the hairy giant. His order was fulfilled in seconds.

  XXXV

  Once again it starts with the little lamp Petr Brok keeps his word · Night, plans, escape · The disintegrating kingdom · There will be no happiness in the world as long as Mullerdom stands

  Petr Brok had been lying half-conscious, his hands and feet tied to a deep darkness. There were no days or nights in this abyss. From time to time, a little yellow light flashed through his mind, shining dimly though rotting attic beams...

  This space with grey cocoons is already part of his dreams. Brok suddenly possesses his human body, visible, full of pain, covered with smelly rags.

  From time to time, he would wake up from these dreams and thank God for not having a body and for being a mere voice caught in a net.

  This abyss without time or space unexpectedly came to an abrupt end. A white light appeared and thus space returned into the four white walls. A voice could be heard under the light:

  "My beloved — my beloved, where are you?"

  The princess!

  And indeed, her hand is still on the light switch, but her eyes are already with him.

  She was black like the first time he saw her at the counter of Universe Company.

  "Princess!"

  The ropes loosened, his body stretched its back, a wild pleasure of extended tendons sang at the back of his knees.

  "Come on!"

  She took him by the hand and they tiptoed out. The central lift.

  Dark corridors, dead staircases and again halls followed by more halls.

  But an electric torch shone in the princess's hand, showing the way with a single ray of light.

  "It's night," Brok whispered.

  "Yes, it is night, but Muller can bring the day on any time he pleases! He would light up all the sleeping suns above our heads if he knew about our escape. That's why we have to find our way out of Mullerdom as soon as possible!"

  "Out of Mullerdom? Do you know the way? Would you be able to escape?"

  "Of course, my strange unknown lover! — Are you satisfied with me? While they caught you, a miserable god, in a trap, I was running around looking for you, preparing."

  Brok shook his head:

  "It's impossible to get out of Mullerdom! — And if it's possible, why didn't you escape back to your kingdom a long time ago?"

  "I couldn't do it on my own. But I've thought of an excellent ploy. I know where Lord Humperlink lives, the one who kidnapped me from my native land. You will pretend to be Muller — or rather, not Muller, just his voice. You'll order Humperlink to take me back where he brought me from. He won't realise anything's amiss. Muller's voice gives orders to all his subjects! None of them have ever seen his face!"

  "We'll see! We'll see!"

  And the princess continues, carried away by a magical vision:

  "There's a port! — Today it's suspended in mid-air like a table, its edge attached to the wall of Mullerdom. Steel swallows converge here when gold blossoms for Muller. But in the darkness I had penetrated, I could see only the dead metal sleep of these winged sailing boats. Among them I found a small blue bird with a seat for two! You and me... We'll fly to my kingdom..."

  The last words were themselves ready to take off. They contained distance and its sweet end. — But the voice at her side sounded hunched, low above the ground:

  "I can't! I mustn't! You go alone, Princess, I'll stay here — as long as..."

  "Then I'll stay, too!" the princess cried out.

  "And how will I hide you, how will I protect you from his revenge? — I myself can hide in a ray of light, in his very eye! — But what shall I do with you? How will I hide your eyes from his? Your hands from his clutches?"

  "I know best what could be in store for me, my love. How many times I have fled but now I know this will be the last time! He'd let me run away only to catch me again when he got tired of the game. Then he laughed at me through his spies and agents who were waiting at the end of each of my journeys. Today, by your side, I'm not afraid of his monsters! I fear only his suns, waiting to ambush us in the darkness. I know that today is the last time — but without you, what kind of escape would that be? The blue colibri's waiting — come, kidnap me!

  My father's crying on his throne, the last king of the dynasty of white beards. He has no-one he could leave his kingdom to. His only daughter had been carried away by a wizard and the first rosehip grew under the tower... The park around the castle has become overgrown. The branches of the plane trees are pressing at the walls and scraping the plaster away. The larch has sunk its teeth into the battlements. The lilac has pushed its way through the windows and ivy has sneaked up the majestic staircase. Heather and thyme are blossoming on the ledges. My bedroom is overrun with wild roses."

  "My poor sad rosehip fairytale! It'll be difficult to bid you farewell but I can't leave Mullerdom. and you can't stay — go home, fly away! Wait! Tell your father with the white beard what a strange groom you have! Tell him I'll come to ask for your hand one day, a day similar to all the previous ones. And even you won't recognise me because you'll be able to — see me! I don't know what will happen to me when I kill Ohisver Muller. Something will become fulfilled, something will end; a terrible light will go out. Something will collapse. This impossible senseless colossus of a thousandfold madness that weighs down on my mind so heavily! Looming above the world like the insane idea of a drunken devil, it throws its black shadow even over your disintegrating native kingdom at the end of the world.

  There will be no happiness and peace in the world as long as Muller is alive and Mullerdom stands. But it will fall!

  It will fall on its own the moment He dies!

  That's when dawn will break in my mind and the sun will rise again."

  The princess is liste
ning, but her lips are silent, swallowed by darkness.

  All the chambers they pass through feel alike with their velvety black silence. — There are many strange objects in them, lying unexpectedly and without any particular reason on the tiles, parquet floors and carpets. They lose their names and language in the darkness. They float at the bottom of the chambers, black, rectangular, mocking. They suddenly appear at the end of the beam of light as if on a fishing rod: the grimace of a grotesquely broken edge, a collapsed shape, slimy shapelessness. The foot stumbles, slips and sinks deep. Something has cracked! Something has splashed! Something is sticking! Something has to be avoided from afar.

  "What ugly things," whispers Brok.

  "They're not things. — This is the end of them, the destruction of things!"

  "What things?"

  "Traces of debauchery. This is what heaven looks like after the heavenly inhabitants are gone. Let's walk through here as fast as we can so that we don't run into the army of female slaves who'll come to clean these divine stables."

  XXXVI

  Aviators Street · Seagull Lord Humperlink The sun over Mullerdom · Brok bid the Princess farewell · The seat next to her remained empty

  They wandered through a labyrinth of narrow streets whose names awoke in the darkness, stretching in the pale light of the princess's beam. Finally, they reached an iron-clad corridor named

  "We're here," whispered the princess and stopped Brok in front of the last door. It was locked. The key had been taken out from the inside and the keyhole was dark.

  They quickly made a plan. The princess walked to the end of the street and switched off her torch. Brok pressed his mouth to the keyhole and called into the darkness:

  "Lord Humperlink, Seagull! Waste no time, saddle the Blue Colibri and prepare to take off!"

  He put his ear to the keyhole: nothing. And then his eye: darkness.

  Brok raised his voice and repeated the order. This time he could hear a noise behind the door. Then silence again.

  Brok called out for the third time.

  And lo! The noise turned into the patter of bare feet. Someone cursed in a low voice. And then — a light came on behind the door and could be seen through the keyhole.

  A dishevelled man in a nightshirt looks around with a puzzled expression. Suddenly he leaps to the door and opens it. He has a gun in his hand, suspicion in his eyes, and a predatory desire to pierce the mouth that had been calling through the keyhole.

  A hollow darkness yawned through the open door. The man stepped across the threshold and suspiciously looked left and right. Brok took advantage of this moment and slipped into his bedroom where he climbed onto the table under the convex glass on the ceiling. When Lord Humperlink returned, Brok called to him and this time his voice came from above:

  "Lord Humperlink, Seagull! A black lady is awaiting you at the end of Aviators' Street. She is Princess Tamara whom you had kidnapped on my orders from the Moravian Kingdom. Now I order you to take her back where you brought her from without delay! That is my will!"

  Lord Humperlink listened to the order standing to attention, with an expression of reverent fear in his face and with his hands by his sides, fingers splayed.

  "At once, my Lord!" he cried obediently and quickly began to dress. He put on a leather outfit and a helmet with two glass-covered openings. He lit up a torch and set out.

  The princess had been waiting at the end of the street. She appeared from the darkness exposed by the blood red light of the torch, leaning against the wall, black and silent.

  "Follow me!" beckoned Lord Humperlink's torch. Brok tiptoed behind them.

  They reached a cast iron gate. Lord Humperlink held the torch close to a black ring in the nostrils of a steel lion guarding the gate. In a moment, as soon as the ring was covered with soot, the wings of the gate silently flew open.

  Abrupt, joyful daylight chased away the darkness. The enormous dazzling globe of sun swam in the blue waters of the sky — an incredible sight!

  Brok was blinded.

  The sun!

  Real, living, genuine sun! And here — it is night!

  He found himself on a wide platform surrounded on three sides with glass hangars. Lord Humperlink disappeared into one of them.

  Brok quickly approached the princess: "Farewell, farewell, farewell!"

  Unable to find any other words, he grew silent and planted long kisses on her forehead, her eyes, her hair. He left her mouth, half-opened in expectation, until last. She wanted to say something but her moist burning lips set his blood on fire. He saw her again undressing in front of the mirror, as if facing the surface of a swimming pool into which she was slowly submerging her nakedness.

  Now he has her for a brief moment, leaning backwards in his arms, head thrown back, suffering from love, smiling in glorious sadness under the fiery globe of the sun.

  "Will you come later? — Will you follow me for sure?" "I will! — For sure!"

  And how will I recognise you? Tell me a word, a single word you'll whisper to me when you come to us?... Quickly, tell me! So that I'll know you..."

  The sound of an engine could be heard in front of the hangar. The princess trembles in his arms.

  "Well, tell me, my beloved, who are you?"

  "Petr Brok!"

  The princess stepped back and stared at the emptiness in astonishment.

  "Petr Brok? — You 're Petr Brok?" "I am! — Do you know me?"

  I have never seen Petr Brok. But I have heard."

  "What did you hear? But hurry! The Seagull is approaching."

  "I know that Petr Brok once had a different name. He was the only son of the King of Andalusia but he ran away and became a robber!"

  "A robber?"

  "Yes! And what a robber! He would break into bank vaults, open safes with explosives, and the gold he found he would give to the poor. A robber who stole from robbers."

  "I don't know... I know nothing. I remember nothing."

  The police were after him for five years but they never caught him! Then, when he grew tired of that game, he gave himself up and became a detective. A detective and a prince! Yes, that's — Petr Brok!"

  The blue steel colibri sat in the middle of the platform buzzing impatiently. Lord Humperlink waved from inside.

  "Farewell, Princess!"

  "Tell me once more: Petr Brok — is that you?"

  "It is!"

  The last embrace plays out in front of the astonished Lord Humperlink and the princess climbs into the back of the blue colibri.

  The seat next to her remains empty —

  XXXVII

  Sirens and alarms · Λ warrant is issued for Petr Brok 's arrest · Muller's residence · Brok comes close to Muller · First, one must bathe

  When the princess became nothing more than a black dot on the blue horizon, Brok returned to Mullerdom and quietly closed the gate behind him. He didn't want to leave any clues that could lead their pursuers to this suspended airfield. Then he decided he would take a rest in Lord Humperlink's empty bedroom until dawn broke in Mullerdom.

  But when the gate closed behind him, he found himself in complete darkness. How he regretted not having asked the princess to leave him the electric beam she had used to show them the way. — He groped around in the dark — and stopped in shock!

  A shrill alarm sounded above his head, like a whistle with two fingers stuck in a mouth. Then sirens, and finally the corridor leapt out of the darkness under the impact of sudden light.

  Windows and doors are thrown open and sleepy, goggle-eyed faces appear in them.

  "What happened? What's the matter?"

  A booming voice comes crashing down from the ceiling in response:

  "Petr Brok has escaped!”

  "Catch him!"

  A horde of half-naked individuals come running in from a side street. Daggers, sticks, revolvers, nets, lassos, gas masks. — The loaf-shaped lamps on the ceiling shed light on their confused faces, where the terror of the pursued mingles
with the ecstasy of pursuit.

  Brok joined this colourful crowd as if he wanted to take part in his own chase. He was hoping to find out what they knew about his disappearance and where they were headed. — Thank God they had no idea the princess had escaped!

  After a long madcap race through the winding streets, they reached a round square under a glass bell. In a circle around it were the administrative buildings on this floor. One of them, a kind of town hall with a small tower, was covered with various decrees and public notices. Among them was an old warning concerning a breakout of the plague on the 489th floor and a decree about the closure of all exits until the last inhabitants died.

  Another notice announced mobilisation against the uprising of slaves on the proletarian floors.

  The CREMATORIUM Association advertised painless burning of old and diseased tenants on the floor.

  The notorious UNIVERSE offered special discounts for immigrants from this floor to Star L9.

  The BROTHERHOOD OF LORD MULLER announced an extraordinary service to honour the blessed Baroness Hortense Muller.

  But everyone rushed towards a black poster bleeding with red letters. It read:

  ARREST WARRANT

  To all tenants on the 376th floor!

  The invisible devil Petr Brok who had been taunting our Great Lord Ohisver Muller and was captured yesterday in the globe of green mirrors has escaped!

  A warrant has been issued for his arrest by the highest order.

  As it is expected that he will continue playing his tricks and disturbing the peaceful lives of Mullerdoms inhabitants, all those living on the 376th floor are advised to be vigilant and to closely guard the streets and their abodes, and report any suspicious movements betraying the presence of the invisible provocateur immediately at the town hall in the ninth department.