Page:Krakatit (1925).pdf/263

 drinking tea, with shaded lights, everything lacquered, black porcelain and other rubbish. Prokop strode about this miniature apartment with his hands behind his back, buzzing like a blow-fly which hits its head against the glass of a window-frame. Sacra, things were altered and for the sake of a lousy Tartar pedigree which a decent person would be ashamed of A nice reason! And on account of a handful of such Huns these idiots crawled along on their bellies and she, she herself The blow-fly butted the glass in a frenzy. Now This Tartar princess would come in and say: Darling, darling all is over between us; you must realize that the granddaughter of Li-taj Khan can’t love the son of a cobbler. Tap, tap; he heard in his head the noise of his father’s hammer and he could almost smell the odour of the leather and of the cobbler’s wax; and his mother, in a blue apron, was standing, flushed, over the stove

The blow-fly buzzed desperately. “We shall see, Princess! What have you let yourself in for, man? When she comes you must knock your forehead on the floor and say: Pardon, Tartar princess, I shall not show myself in your presence again”

In the little room there was a faint smell of quince, and the light was dull and soft. The desperate fly continued to strike its head on the glass and complain in a voice that was almost human. What have you let yourself in for, idiot?

The Princess suddenly glided noiselessly into the room. At the door she reached out for the switch and turned out the light. In the darkness Prokop