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

  "You are proud!" said Prince Achorgen and his eyes grew darker. "There are few women like that in Mullerdom! And Muller needs women like that! — You will no longer be required to dance! He offers you complete freedom of movement on all the floors! You will taste all the pleasures and delights in the heavenly regions of Gedonia if you promise him one single night!"

  "I'd rather die," the princess muttered darkly.

  "This is precisely the reply Muller is anticipating! If you threw yourself into his arms, he would despise you! He loves a challenge, rebellion, betrayal, — not only on the part of men but also of women. He will continue seducing you for as long as you resist. After he conquers you, he may at best name a street after you."

  Prince Achorgen placed a small bronze lamp on the table, directly under the convex glass in the ceiling. As he lit it, a flame flared out and a grey-blue membrane covered the glass.

  Unexpectedly, the prince then laughed. It was a wild, defiant laughter directed at the ceiling. Green light flashed in his eyes.

  "Now, my dear delightful little Tamara, — Ohisver Muller has gone blind and deaf for ten minutes! We can do whatever we like, he can't see us... Don't be afraid of Muller — I am here. Only I can rescue you from his clutches! — See, I will betray my master for a single one of your white royal smiles!"

  He wanted to take her hands in his, but the princess recoiled in horror.

  The prince became sad.

  "No! — Don't be afraid of me! I won't harm you. I only wanted to show you my power! As for your love — I'll have to earn it. Come with me! — I'll show you what Mullerdom looks like behind the scenes. All the mechanisms, miracles and magic of divine invisibility, omnipresence and omniscience! — It's a very complex system and there are only two of us who know all about it — Muller and myself! Will you come with me?"

  "Go — I am with you," whispered Brok and lightly stroked her elbow.

  The princess surprised him by seizing his hand and squeezing it tightly. Brok withdrew it at once but the monstrous face of Prince Achorgen showed no undue concern.

  "Will you come?" he asked almost imploringly. The princess timidly looked around and then said quietly: "I will."

  As they plummeted in the softly upholstered lift into an abyss, Brok once more felt the peculiar illness on his eyelids. — As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw a completely different world around him. And it looked so terribly real as if it were not a dream at all! The accursed cave inside a hollow skull he had seen in the very first dream kept returning to his mind; the same little yellow lamp... And Muller's all-seeing glass eye turned in this skull into a round hole left by a decayed eyeball.

  Then again it becomes a small window in a building opening into a wild white storm. Instead of a thousand floors, there are only three, made of grey boards, with living skeletons lying on them curled up in a foetal position. Their chins are warmed between their knees and their mouths breathe onto their numb chests. But it is only when he closes his eyes that he can see all this. — As soon as he opens them again, he finds himself back in Mullerdom. He is falling next to the princess and opposite the parrot-like face of Prince Achorgen who had betrayed God Muller.

  How long have we been flying?

  Careful!

  Just don't close your eyes. The dream is following you.

  To assure himself that the princess was not a dream, he touched her elbow with his finger and she smiled for him.

  We are flying to Gedonia...

  XXVI

  Monte Carlo in Gedonia · Prima ballerina · "I don’t believe in your stars... " · Caesar Marlok, God of the Great Sun The princess raises her stakes · "This'll befor the journey!"

  A red hall in the shape of a perfect cone is flooded with lights. On the top of a round table standing in the centre, the figurine of a ballerina made of ivory dances on tiptoe. Brok approaches the table to see a polished inlay of precious metals, stones and wood, representing a map of the world. The ballerina is pirouetting on the tips of her toes made of diamonds. Players bet on colours of states, empires and islands. The winning colour is the one the ballerina's diamond toe rests on when she stops dancing. If she ends up standing on the sea, the winnings go to the owner of the casino. The smaller the space people bet on, the bigger their winnings.

  The whirling ballerina dances over countries, seas and islands in circles that become smaller and smaller as she crosses the Urals and pirouettes over Siberia. But then she turns south, across the Gobi desert — and she begins wavering, teetering — until she collapses exhausted at the edges of East India.

  "Moon yellow — Singapore! — number 29 wins!"

  All eyes rest on a gaunt yellow face.

  "The Manchurian Governor ShaRa," they whisper. The winner is expressionless, only his Oriental eyes glitter as he watches the flood of gold coming his way. — And the ballerina is dancing again, the gold jingles, piles of golden mulldors grow and tumble.

  Petr Brok is standing at the table and he places his hand on a large heap of gold coins. All this could be mine if I wanted it! — Only now does he appreciate what his hand could do among the mountains of gold. So this is the location of the Liquid Mountains mentioned by the old man upstairs? — One labourer's year of work is worth one mulldor! — What a staggering exchange rate!

  "One mulldor — six billion lira!" a mouth is shouting behind the grille of a small window set in an oblique wall.

  Brok takes a coin from the nearest pile. One side features the sun, the other — stars!

  But who are these people with parted goatees throwing handfuls of gold on the colourful map of the world? This is how you throw grain to chickens!

  "Look over there, Princess," Achorgen leans over to his lady companion. "That's the new King of Sicily, Malcolm Brooks Pasha. And next to him, the one-eyed man with a golden collar, that's Genghis Khan La Marten, leaseholder of the Sahara. — He always wins everywhere, except here he's losing in the ballerina game. The man in purple with a triangle on his chest is Muller's Bishop, Sixtus, a former horse trader. And that black man over there? — That's the boxer Kaymann. He's talking to Admiral D'Artois who's rented the title Emperor of all Waters and Governor of Oceans. The fat man next to him is Esaul DarGust, the seasonal inspector of the African coast. He can afford to lose; he's in charge of Mul-ler's treasures. Behind him is Lord Evers, the secret editor-in-chief of all the newspapers of the old continent. And that pixie with the green goatee? Owner of a shipping company on Mars."

  "I don't believe in your stars!" the princess suddenly cried out so loudly that several astonished goatees turned to look at her.

  "For God's sake, be quiet!" Prince Achorgen whispered angrily and squeezed her wrist. Then he went on in a more friendly tone: "If that green-bearded dwarf hears you, that'll be the end of you!"

  "Don't they know it's all a fraud?"

  "Be quiet! Don't shout! They all know and yet they pretend to believe it!" he said and then he raised his voice, glancing fearfully towards the convex lens in the ceiling: "That is the will of our benefactor!"

  At that moment, he was approached by an imposing handsome old white man. His perfectly bald, sweating head reflected the crystal chandelier suspended from the top of the cone-shaped ceiling.

  Their right hands clasped each other.

  "Praised be Muller, Caesar!" Achorgen exclaimed cordially. "What's new on your sun?"

  "Thank you for asking, dear Prince," said the old man and his forehead creased with long wrinkles. "Nothing but worries... I visited a week ago... it is indeed difficult to be a just god! I fully understand the Great Muller when he complains to me about his divine duties."

  "This is Princess Tamara," Achorgen introduced his companion. — "Caesar Marlok, God of the Great Sun A3."

  "I've heard about you, Princess. Apparently you travelled as far as ZB1 in the Dwarf Galaxy."

  The princess wanted to protest but Achorgen squeezed her wrist once more and quickly said: "Of course, she wanted little dolls to play with, a tiny liv
ing human doll to bring back to her room. — She's still a child, Caesar. — And how is the game going for you? Have you been lucky?" he asked to change the subject.

  "I bet consistently on the black field of Hindustan," replied the bald skull. "I won once and, with those winnings, I can now lose 468 times. — It's a small country, Prince."

  "Do you want to play?" Achorgen asked the princess.

  The princess smiled dreamily. "I will," she said. "I'll place my bet on the Kingdom of Moravia where my old father is the ruler. It lies on the shores of the Baltic

  Sea."

  "I wouldn't recommend that," advised Achorgen. "See how tiny your 'kingdom' looks on the skin of the world? Like a mosquito on the body of a mammoth."

  "But I'll bet on it all the same, the kingdom I have lost. perhaps I'm going to win back my lost dream."

  "If you win," Achorgen grimaced, "I'll grant you your kingdom on top of the gold."

  "And will I be able to go there?" the princess asked naïvely and clapped her hands.

  "Of course," whispered the prince into her little ear. "I'll personally accompany you there on my swallow."

  The princess places her bet on a tiny, barely visible red drop no-one had bet on before. The winnings could be enormous.

  The ballerina starts pirouetting again, setting out from the Island of Pride which has become the centre of the world. She glides with her diamond toe over countries and seas, followed by fervent eyes. She dashes over the azure of oceans, then balances across the grey field of the Balkans, dances over mountains and rivers towards the north, but no-one sees the hand that guides her movement.

  Now a sudden cramp shakes her limbs signalling that her dance will soon be over. — A few more drunken movements and the ballerina falls, touching the red drop on the shore of the Baltic Sea with her diamond toe.

  It is Petr Brok's doing.

  The princess rakes in an entire mountain of gold followed by incredulous looks.

  "That'll pay for the journey!" she exults while Achor-gen swaps the gold for a few grains of solium in the Exchange Office. He hides them in a pouch, and leads the princess to the door.

  They enter a different hall in the shape of a six-pointed star, the glow of which is multiplied into the distance by countless mirrors. — The table in the centre also has six points and there is another ballerina dancing on it.

  Brok takes a close look. It is not the map of the world, but a black sky dotted with stars. This is where they play for stars. Brok would like to find out more but there is no time. Prince Achorgen hurries through the hall, dragging the princess behind him.

  XXVII

  The bedroom of blissful dreams · Pleasures of the six senses Heavenly creatures under a transparent ceiling are concerned... · The bitten-off finger

  They find themselves in yet another hall, no less remarkable, except that this one serves as a bedroom and a film studio in one. Sleeping bodies are sprawled on divans covered with astrakhan, unseeing eyes half out of their sockets and dilated pupils growing like ink drops on blotting paper. Above them, whirring cameras with reels of film direct their lenses into the eyes of the sleepers.

  "This is the bedroom of blissful dreams," Achorgen announced. "The drugs smuggled here by West-West-er's charlatans have the miraculous capacity to make the pupils of the dreamers reflect the wild, exotic, incredible dreams unfolding in their minds. The company

  DREAMFILM

  pays these wretches debilitated by half-lethal doses of dream pills. The films are then projected onto the silk screens of Gedonia's cinemas."

  The prince leaned closer to the princess and said in a protectively familiar tone, "I'll show you the film reflected in the eyes of a drunk who uses exclusively FOKA — you'll be astonished at the magnificent fantasy of love! — I can tell you that the films are in three-dimensional colour, and DREAMFILM uses them to show erotic fantasies on non-existent stars to would-be emigrants."

  They found themselves on the threshold of a spacious hall flooded with light so bright that Brok was temporarily blinded. — When he could finally see, he registered several impressions all at once.

  First: roses falling from the ceiling. They are not really roses; rose-like snow is falling all around on the colourful barricades and nests made of piled-up rubber cushions of all sizes and hues.

  Soon his ears caught a sweet, muted melody, as if walled-in; poignant with its illusion of coming from a distance. This is the song of a violin on the top of a high mountain, the weeping of a cello somewhere at the bottom of an abyss...

  Brok raised his hand to catch the rose-like snowflakes sprayed around by a crystal fountain in the centre of the hall. He felt a sweet burning chill; it was the pleasure of fire in the freezing cold and the sensation of ice in the middle of a blaze. Insatiable thirst tortured his tongue, while being quenched at the same time...

  The bodies of sleeping men and women are lazily sinking into cushions, strings of pearls and tassels on their hips their only attire. The rose-like snowflakes fall on their parted lips, backs, bellies and limbs. Naked female slaves carry around on their heads golden bowls overflowing with wondrous fruits and delicacies.

  The eyes of the sleepers are wide open towards the ceiling. What is there? The ceiling is a transparent floor with naked men and women dancing on it. — Hips swaying and grinding to the rhythm of music, arms reaching out into the air for signs of love and passion, legs parting into splits as if the dancers have no bones in their bodies.

  "These are the pleasures of the six senses and their worshippers," Achorgen explained to the princess who covered her eyes with her hands.

  "Taste these flakes — it is the snow of love from ANDRADIA star. Just stick out the tip of your tongue — and you'll immediately forgive those worshipping its goddess."

  He held the princess's elbow and stretched her hand into the snowstorm blowing out of the fountain. The princess suddenly shivered and raised her face to the roselike shower. She half closed her eyes and parted her lips. Achorgen smiled triumphantly.

  "Look up there, my child! — That's where you were meant to be dancing — your hips were to provide a spectacle for these impotent worshippers! But now you can taste these pleasures yourself, and not only these. I'll show you more intense ones, since we're still only at the threshold of heaven!"

  Prince Achorgen put his arm around the princess's waist and gently drew her to him. She did not resist. If Brok were to look into her face at that moment, he would have seen her eyelids trembling with desire, nostrils quivering with passion, mouth opening to catch the rose-like flakes...

  But instead, Brok was watching one of the pleasure-seekers in whom he recognised the old admiral with his fake mask of kindness and dark glasses. Chin turned upwards, he was stretching himself hedonistically, sinking in feather-down blankets up to his waist, a silver star festering on his naked chest. Brok was curious to hear what he was talking about with the others, all naked and prone on their backs, eyes lazily staring at the ceiling, from time to time shaking off the dew as snowflakes thawed on their bodies.

  "Do you believe in miracles, Admiral?"

  "Nonsense!"

  "How will you explain what's been happening in Mullerdom lately?"

  "Of course, our Great Muller has great enemies! He can only be proud of that."

  "So far, he has destroyed everyone who had dared to stand in his way!"

  "But today — the danger comes from elsewhere."

  "Do you mean from above, Signore?"

  "So far we can only see delightful things above us."

  "The revolution of delicate legs, the stormy waves of hips."

  "Look, Cardinal, I would recognise those gorgeous legs among millions.!"

  "Sula May. I can see she has learned to dance."

  "And that pair of virginal calves."

  "Hee, hee, hee! Have you not kissed them yet?

  "Muller is not afraid of the devil himself."

  "No doubt! But if he wants to destroy the devil, he has to be
able to see him first!"

  "Look! That's Anna Marton dancing now! Sun Evolution!"

  "The slaves' revolt has come closer by sixty floors." "A floor every day!"

  "Oh, that means they still have two years to reach the sky! Vítek of Vítkovice has gone mad, they say..." "No! He's been murdered!"

  "Poisoned!"

  "I heard he aged fifty years overnight!"

  "Look, Kaja Warand is dancing the roulette on the map of the world!"

  "She cost me sixty thousand! I bet on Syria a hundred times — and lost!"

  "But can you tell me, Admiral, who could be so audacious.?"

  "You can hear a voice..."

  "But where is the body? The body that would shed blood. The body that would plummet to the ground." "A man without a body!" "Nonsense!"

  "He is God!"

  "He is a sheer force!" "A voice from beyond the grave!" "The call of the universe!" "Hostility of the stars!"

  "This is no metaphysics, Sirdar! This danger is worse than all the forces and voices from the stars or from the bowels of the earth — He is simply a man!"

  "A man? — Have you gone mad?"

  "Not just one, a group of people who have infiltrated us, the honest servants of Great Muller! They move among us and they worship Muller together with us; they carry membership cards of our clubs and have enough gold to penetrate all the secrets of Mullerdom! — Yes, gentlemen, there are traitors amongst us!"

  "And what about the fight in Hotel Eldorado? And the showdown at the stock exchange?

  "And the scandal in Muller's sanctuary?"

  "Shots were fired in Eldorado!"

  "And in the cathedral!"

  "The secret of UNIVERSE has been betrayed!" "UNIVERSE stocks have fallen from forty thousand to twenty!"

  "I have hundreds of them!"

  "If we don't destroy that strange force, it'll destroy us!" "What are you afraid of? We've got Muller on our side!"