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 not knowing what he was going to do. “Comrade Krakatit has the floor,” announced Mazaud, rubbing his dry hands.

Prokop looked round him with dazzled eyes: What ought he to do? Speak? Why? Who were these people? He caught sight of the gentle eyes of the consumptive, the severe and scrutinizing gleam of spectacles, blinking eyes, curious and strange eyes, the bright, melting glance of the beautiful girl who in her absorption had opened her hot, sinful lips. In the front bench the bald and furrowed little man hung upon his words with attentive eyes. Prokop gave him a smile.

“Friends,” he began quietly and as if in a dream, “last night I paid a tremendous price. I lived through and lost ” He made an effort to pull himself together. “Sometimes one experiences such pain that  that it ceases to be one’s own. You open your eyes and see. The universe is overcast and the earth holds her breath in agony. The world must be redeemed. You would be unable to bear your pain if you only suffered alone. You have all gone through hell, you all”

He looked round the room; everything had become fused into a sort of dully glowing subterranean vegetation. “Where have you got Krakatit?” he asked, suddenly irritated. “What have you done with it?”

The old Mazaud carefully took up the porcelain relic and put it into his hand. It was the very box which he had once left in his laboratory hut near Hybsmonka. He opened the lid and dug with his fingers into the granulated powder, rubbed it, tritu-