Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/219

 his sorrow vanished, and when the stream of paper was flowing past him, illuminated by an oblique, dazzling light, it made him feel giddy for the first time. Then when the icy draught struck his temples again and he felt that boring pain in his jaws, his strength left him, and a hard, mad fury took its place such as he had never felt in all his life. What he had turned over in his mind for the last two hours had now become an unalterable resolve: ‘If I am here for the last time, he is!’

When this terrible thought had first occurred to him, he had rejected it with the comment: ‘It would serve him right!’ But it returned again and again; it rode upon his neck like a demon which would not be shaken off. It was as if every sharp stab of pain in his temples spurred him on to it.

From out the tumult of vociferous metallic noises which struck the vault with endless shrieks from throats neither knowing nor needing respite, there seemed to come to him the crying of his infants, the twins. It went on without ceasing, worrying him with its monotony, and at times he imagined he could see the two little heads reflected on the interminable white strip, as he had seen them on the white pillow before he left his home. He