The Motion Demon (13 page)

‘At news of this, a huge commotion arose in town. Nothing else was talked about save the puzzling metamorphoses. After a month a new sensation: the bewitched ladies and gentlemen slowly regained their original look, reverting to their time-honoured outward appearance.’

‘And was the car disinfected this time?’ asked some woman with interest.

‘No, my dear lady, these precautionary measures were waived. On the contrary, the rail authorities surrounded the car with special care when it became apparent that the railroad could derive great profit from it. Special tickets were even printed up to gain entrance to this wonderful car, so-called “transformation tickets”. The demand was naturally huge. At the front of the queue were long columns of old ladies, ugly widows, and spinsters insisting on the travel tickets. The candidates voluntarily inflated the cost; they paid three to four times in excess of the price; they bribed clerks, conductors, even porters. In the car, before the car, and under the car dramatic scenes were played out, sometimes passing over into bloody fights. Several grey-haired women expired in one skirmish. This horrible example did not, however, cool down the lust for rejuvenation: the massacre continued. Finally, the entire disturbance was put to an end by the wonderful car itself. After two weeks of transformation activity, it suddenly lost its strange power. Stations took on a normal appearance; the cadres of old men and women retreated back to their firesides and cozy sleeping nooks.’

The hunchback stopped talking, and in the midst of the din of stirred voices, laughter, and jokes on the subject presented by the story, he slipped furtively from the car.

Ryszpans followed him like a shadow. He was intrigued by this railwayman with the darned-at-the-elbow shirt who had expressed himself more properly than many an average intellectual. Something drew him to the man, some mysterious current of sympathy impelled him towards the eccentric invalid.

And pulling the professor after him, he turned left, where the compartments broke off into a thin corridor leading to the platform. Unusually, no one was here. The railwayman showed his companion the wall enclosing the last car.

‘Do you see that small ledge at the top? It’s a concealed lock. It’s hidden for the use of railway dignitaries in exceptional cases. In a moment, we’ll see it more clearly.’

He moved aside the ledge, took out from his pocket a conductor’s key and, putting it in the opening, turned it. At that moment, a steel blind smoothly rolled up, revealing a small,

The functionary looked at the professor with an expression of anticipation. Ryszpans did not hurry with a question. He frowned, set in his monocle tighter, and sank into thought. After a moment, not looking at his companion, he began:

‘I was struck by the contrast between the humourous occurrences you had related and the serious elucidation which preceded them. If I remember correctly, you said that puzzling events have been occurring in recent times which are heading towards some goal. If I understood the tone of your words well, you were speaking seriously; one had the impression that you consider this goal as grave, maybe even decisive….’

A mysterious smile brightened up the hunchback’s face:

‘And you were not mistaken, sir. The contrast will disappear if we’ll understand these “amusing” manifestations as a mocking summons, a provocation, and a prelude to other manifestations, deeper ones, like tests of strength before the release of an unknown energy.’

‘All right!’ exclaimed the professor. ‘
Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas
. I suspected something of the sort. Otherwise I wouldn’t have initiated this discussion.’

‘You belong, sir, to a rare few. So far I’ve found only seven individuals on this train who have comprehended these affairs in depth, and who have declared themselves ready to venture with me into the labyrinth of consequences. Maybe I’ll find in you an eighth volunteer?’

‘That will depend on the depth and quality of the explanations that you owe me.’

‘Certainly. That is why I’m here. To begin with, you should know that these mysterious cars came onto the line straight from a siding.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that before they were let out into circulation, they rested for a long time on a siding and breathed in its atmosphere.’

‘I don’t understand. In the first place, what is a siding?’

‘A spurned offshoot of rail, a solitary branch of track stretching out from 50 to 100 metres, without exit, without an outlet; closed off by an artificial hill and a barrier; like a withered branch of a green tree, like the stump of a mutilated hand….’

A deep, tragic lyricism flowed from the railwayman’s words. The professor looked at him in amazement, as he went on:

‘Neglect is all about: weeds overgrowing rusty rails; wanton field grass, oraches, wild chamomile plants, and thistles. Over to the side the plates of a decrepit switch are falling off; the glass of the lantern is broken, a lantern that doesn’t have anyone to light the way for at night. And why should it? After all, the track is closed; you wouldn’t be able to go up more than a hundred metres. Not too far away the engine traffic is vibrant with activity, the railway’s arteries pulsate with life. Here it is eternally quiet. Sometimes a switching engine loses its way onto the track, sometimes an unattached coach reluctantly crowds in; now and then a freight car worn out by riding will enter for a longer rest, reeling heavily, lazily, to stand in silence for entire months or years. On a decaying roof a bird will build a nest and feed its young, in the cracks of a platform weeds will proliferate, a wicker branch will burst forth. Above the rusted rails, a broken-down semaphore dips its dislocated arms and blesses the melancholic ruins….’

The voice of the railwayman broke. The professor sensed his emotion; the lyricism of the description astounded and thrilled him at the same time. But from whence came that touch of mournfulness?

After a while, the professor said, ‘I felt the poetry of the siding, but I’m unable to explain to myself how its atmosphere could cause the aforementioned manifestations.’

‘From this poetry,’ enlightened the hunchback, ‘flows a deep theme of yearning—a yearning towards unending distances whose access is closed off by a landmark, a nailed-up wooden barrier. There, beside it, trains speed by, engines hurry away into the wide, beautiful world; here, the dull border of a grassy hill. A yearning of the handicapped. Do you understand, sir? A yearning without a hope of realization creates contempt and feeds upon itself, until it overgrows through the strength of its desires the fortunate reality of —privilege. Hidden energies are born, forces accumulate for years. Who knows if they will not explode with the elements? And then they will transcend commonplaceness to fulfill higher tasks more beautiful than reality. They reach beyond it….’

‘And where can one find that siding? I assume that you have a particular place in mind?’

‘Hmm, that depends,’ he said, smiling. ‘For certain there was a point of exit. But there are many sidings everywhere, by every station. It could be this one, it could be that one.’

‘Yes, yes, but I’m talking about the one from which those cars came.’

The hunchback shook his head impatiently:

‘We do not understand one another. Who knows—maybe that mysterious siding can be found everywhere? One only has to know how to seek it out, track it down—one has to know how to run into it, drive up to it, to enter into its grove. So far, only one person has succeeded in this….’

He stopped and gazed deeply at the professor with eyes opalescent with violet light.

‘Who?’ asked the other mechanically.

‘Trackwalker Wior. Wior, the hunchbacked, cruelly handicapped by nature trackwalker, is today the king of the sidings and their sad spirit, yearning for release.’

‘I understand,’ murmured Ryszpans.

‘Trackwalker Wior,’ finished the railwayman passionately, ‘formerly a scholar, thinker, philosopher—thrown by the vagaries of fate among the rails of scorned track—a voluntary watchman over forgotten lines—a fanatic among people….’

Darkness reigned outside. Lamplights peering out into space from quadrangle windows moved quickly along the slopes in a fleeting reconnaissance: the train was proceeding alongside some empty meadows and pastures….

A man came up to the professor, requesting a light. Ryszpans blew out the ashes from his cigar and politely handed the cigar to the stranger.

‘Thank you.’ The engineer introduced himself: ‘Znieslawski.’

A conversation was struck up.

‘Have you noticed how empty it has suddenly become?’ Znieslawski asked, casting an eye about. ‘The corridor is completely deserted. I glanced into two compartments to discover pleasurably that both had plenty of room.’

‘I wonder what it’s like in the other classes,’ replied Ryszpans.

‘We can take a look!’

And heading towards the end of the train, they passed through several cars. Everywhere they noticed a substantial decrease in the number of travellers.

‘Strange,’ said the professor. ‘Less than half an hour ago the crush was still terrible; within that short period the train has just stopped once.’

‘That’s right,’ confirmed Znieslawski. ‘Apparently many people must have left the train at that time. I don’t understand how such a discharge of passengers could occur at one station—and an insignificant one, at that.’

They sat down on one of the benches in a second-class compartment. By the window two men were talking in an undertone. Ryszpans and Znieslawski caught a part of their conversation:

‘You know,’ a bureaucratic-looking passenger was saying, ‘something is telling me to get off this train.’

‘That’s odd!’ answered the other. ‘It’s the same with me. A stupid feeling. I must be in Zaszum today and must go this way— nevertheless, I will get off at the next station and wait for the morning train. What a waste of time!’

‘I’ll do likewise, though it is also inconvenient for me. I’ll be late for work by several hours. But I can’t do anything else. I won’t go farther on this train.’

‘Excuse me,’ Znieslawski cut in, ‘what exactly impels both of you gentlemen to make such an inconvenient departure from this train?’

‘Maybe,’ countered the passenger calmly. ‘But I’m not ashamed of it. The feeling which I’m now experiencing is so special, so
sui generis
, that it can’t be defined by what we generally call fear.’

Znieslawski glanced knowingly at the professor.

‘Maybe we should go farther up?’

After a while, they found themselves in a nearly deserted third-class compartment. Here, in the fumes of cigar smoke, sat three men and two women. One of the latter, a comely townswoman, was talking to her companion:

‘That Zietulska is strange! She was going to Zupnik with me, and meanwhile she gets off halfway, four miles before her destination.’

‘She didn’t say why?’ questioned the second woman.

‘She did, but I don’t believe her. She supposedly grew faint and couldn’t ride the train farther. God knows what the truth is.’

‘What about those fellows who were so loudly promising themselves a good time at Gron tomorrow morning—didn’t they get off at Pytom? They became quieter after we left Turon and began pacing about the car—and then it was suddenly as if someone had swept them out of the compartment. You know, even I feel strange here….’

In the next car both men became sensitized to a mood of nervousness and anxiety. People were rapidly taking down their luggage from overhanging nets, impatiently looking through windows, pressing against one another towards the platform exit.

‘What the devil?’ muttered Ryszpans. ‘A thoroughly distinguished group—all elegant ladies and gentlemen. Why do these people want to get off at the nearest station? If I remember, it is some out-of-the-way little place.’

‘Indeed,’ admitted the engineer. ‘It is Drohiczyn, a stop in the middle of a field, a God-forsaken hole. Apparently there’s only the station, a post office, and a police station. Hmm…interesting! What are they going to do there in the middle of the night?’

He glanced at his watch.

‘It’s only two.’

The professor shook his head. ‘I’m reminded of some interesting conclusions a certain psychologist reached after thoroughly studying fatality statistics in railway accidents.’

‘What kind of conclusions?’

‘He claimed the losses were not as great as one would suppose. The statistics showed that trains that met with an accident were always less occupied than others. Apparently people got off in time or else they completely refrained from a ride on the deadly trains; others were stopped right before their trip by some unexpected obstacle; a portion were suddenly seized with ill-health or some longer sickness.’