Karel Čapek

“ Bondy! Bondy bit his lip; things had turned out nicely!
"Mr. Machat," he began, in subdued tones, "I only wanted to know how the new Karburator was doing the heating on your premises."
"Oh, splendidly! It's so beautifully warm in every one of the houses! Just as though they were being warmed with eternal love! Do you know," said Machat rapturously, wiping his eyes, "whoever enters there becomes at one stroke a changed man. It is like Paradise there. We are all living as if we were in Heaven. ”

“ You, gamekeeper, drink far too much; you drive the poor from the forest, and curse and swear even when there is no need. Do it no more. And you, Mr. Hudec, are a better-class thief. You know very well what I mean. And you're shockingly bad-tempered. Faith will reform and redeem you."
Utter stillness reigned on the deck. Mr. Hudec gazed steadfastly at the floor. The gamekeeper sobbed and sniffed, and fumbled with trembling hands for his pocket.
"I know what it is, gamekeeper," said Kuzenda gently from above. "You'd like to smoke. Don't be afraid to light up. Make yourself quite at home." ”

“ You can make revolutions anywhere else you like, but not in the Government offices; even if the world's to be brought to an end, the thing to do is to destroy the universe first and take the Government offices afterwards. That's how it is, Bondy. And in the third place, like the crudest of doctrinaire Communists, He has done away with the currency and thereby with one stroke paralysed the circulation of commodities. He did not know that the laws of the market are stronger than the laws of God. He did not know that production without trade is utterly senseless. ”

“ You know, He sometimes strikes me as being so childish. . . ."
"Don't you believe it, Rudy," G. H. Bondy returned heavily. "He knows what He wants. That's why He plunged into large-scale industry. He is far more up to date than we ever thought."
"That is only His play," urged Marek. "He only wants something to occupy Himself with. Don't you see, there's a sort of god-like boyishness about it. Wait, I know what you want to say. As a worker He is tremendous. It is simply amazing what He can bring off. But, Bondy, it is so senseless that there can't be any plan in it." ”

“ Without anyone in control of it, the machine vomited forth tacks. The supplies of iron ready to be manufactured into tacks raised themselves of their own accord; one piece after another, thrust themselves through the air, and inserted themselves in the proper machines. It was at first an uncanny thing to see. When these supplies were exhausted, iron sprouted out of the earth, the ground round the factory exuded pure iron as if it were being drawn by suction from the depths of the earth. ”

“ It shows you the whole nature of the Absolute, just as inexhaustible and extravagant as it was at the time of the Creation. Once it had thrown itself into production, it did not trouble about distribution, consumption, market, or ultimate object; it did not trouble about anything: it simply devoted its gigantic energy to pouring forth tacks. Being itself infinite in essence, it knew neither measure nor limitation in anything, even in the matter of tacks.
You can well imagine how the workmen in such a factory were startled by the performances of the new motive power. ”

“ And therefore, I solemnly adjure you at this twelfth hour, when great and terrible dangers confront us on every hand, to urge our people to band themselves together in a union of the whole nation for the defence of our country. If a religious bond be necessary for this union, then let us be neither Protestants nor Catholics nor Monists nor Abstainers, but let us adopt a single, Slav, powerful, and brotherly Orthodox faith, which will unite us in one great Slav family and will secure for us in these stormy times the protection of a powerful Slav ruler. ”

“ G. H. Bondy shook his head.
"A lot worse than you think. Simply desperate. Listen," he whispered brokenly. "He's everywhere by now. I think that . . . that He's got a definite plan."
"A plan?" cried Marek, leaping to his feet.
"Don't shout so. He has some kind of plan, my friend. And He's going about it deuced cleverly. Tell me, Marek, what is the greatest power in the world?"
"England," said Marek without hesitation.
"Not at all. Industry is the greatest power in the world. And the so-called 'proletariat' are likewise the greatest power in the world. ”

“ The German Imperial Chancellor approached, and after listening for a while in silence, he said: "Yes, He knows just how to appeal to the people. In every case, He adopts the mentality of the country He is in. Considering His age, He is . . . hm . . . astoundingly elastic. We notice it in the countries just around us. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, He behaves like a colossal individualist. Everyone there has his own Absolute all to himself, so to speak. We ourselves have a State Absolute. With us the Absolute immediately developed into the higher consciousness of the State. ”

“ There's no need to weep, gamekeeper; I didn't mean to be hard on you. He who once experiences grace can see right into men's hearts. You can see into people's souls too, can't you, Brych?"
"I can," said Mr. Brych. "The postman here is thinking this minute how fine it would be if you could help his little daughter. She's got scrofula, hasn't she, postman? Mr. Kuzenda will help her right enough if you bring her here."
"It's easy to mock and talk about superstition," said Kuzenda. "Brothers, if anyone had told me about miracles and God before this, I should have laughed at him. ”

“ Rudy Marek wasn't living up in a garret, then! He was a manufacturer and wanted to sell some invention or other "for personal reasons." If that didn't smell of bankruptcy, his name wasn't Bondy.
"Do you happen to know how Mr. Marek is doing?" he asked the police inspector, with a casual air, as he took his seat in the car.
"Oh, splendidly!" the inspector answered. "He's got a very fine business." Local pride made him add, "The firm's very well known"; and he amplified this with: "A very wealthy man, and a learned one, too. He does nothing but make experiments." ”

“ It's something a thousand times worse. Mark what I tell you, Bondy, it's something beyond human reason, but there's not a scrap of deception about it. Well, then, my Karburator actually does burn up matter, causes its utter combustion, so that not even a grain of dust remains. Or rather, it breaks it up, crushes it, splits it up into electrons, consumes it, grinds it—I don't know how to express it—in short, uses it up completely. You have no idea what a colossal amount of energy is contained in the atoms. ”

“ Bondy, my Karburator is a terriffic thing. It will overturn the whole world, mechanically and socially. It will cheapen production to an unbelievable extent. It will do away with poverty and hunger. It will some day save our planet from freezing up. But, on the other hand, it hurls God as a by-product into the world. I implore you, Bondy, don't underrate what it means. We aren't used to reckoning with God as a reality. ”

“ Why, of course, man, it's nothing but poisonous gases; they're probably given off somehow by the combustion of the coal in that . . . that Karburator of yours. Some sort of illuminating gas or paradise gas, or phosgene or something of the sort. That's why you've put in the ventilator, and that's why you wear a gas-mask when you go into the cellar, isn't it? Just some confounded gases."
"If only there were nothing but gases!" Marek burst out, shaking his fists threateningly. "Look here, Bondy, that's why I must sell that Karburator! ”

“ Kilda is a little island, practically nothing more than a rock of pliocene tufa far to the west of the Hebrides. A few stunted birches, a handful of heather and dry grass, flocks of nesting seagulls and semi-arctic butterflies of the order Polyommatus are all that lives on this lost outpost of our hemisphere, out amid the endless beating of the seas and the equally endless procession of clouds for ever laden with rain. For that matter, St. Kilda has always been uninhabited, is now, and will for ever be so. ”

“ It is a hot October day, and one hero after another steps aside, turns his back upon the battle-field, eases himself, and lies down longing for peace in the shadow of the birch-tree. At last the whole thirteen of them are lying there, all the survivors of the Last Battle. One lays his weary head on his neighbour's boots, another rests his on the first man's back, undisturbed by his breathing. The last thirteen soldiers left in the world as asleep beneath a birch-tree. ”

“ Well, then, my dear son, you see this: that in every case they make the most solemn claim that the Absolute is their own private property, they do Him honour, and make Him splendid offers, appoint Him honorary member, patron, protector, and Heaven knows what else—and meanwhile on our side some crazy lunatic of a Father Jost—Jost, if you please, an insignificant object called Jost—shouts out to the universe that it's all a knavish imposture and a swindle already scientifically exposed. ”

“ Flakes the size of your hand, wet and heavy, flew whirling by so thickly that the dividing line between earth and air was lost. A man cannot see a step in front of him. He breathes the flakes in, wades on through the roaring blizzard that dashes high over his head, pushes on blindly as if he were cutting a little passage down there under the snow. He has but one overmastering instinct—to push on. He yearns for one thing only—to breathe something other than snow. He can no longer lift his feet from the snow; he drags them through the drifts reaching half-way to his hips ”

“ He is not a good organizer, and perhaps never has been. He has flashes of genius, but He is unsystematic. I'm surprised that you haven't got the better of Him, Bondy, a wide-awake fellow like you."
"You can't do anything with Him," Bondy asserted. "He attacks you in your innermost soul, and you're done for. When He can't convince you by reason, He sends miraculous enlightenment upon you. You know what He did with Saul."
"You are running away from Him," said Marek, "but I am running after Him, and I'm close at His heels. ”

“ No value means no market. No market means no distribution. No distribution means no goods. And no goods means greater demand, higher prices, bigger profits and larger businesses. And you had turned your backs upon gain and conceived an uncontrollable antipathy to all figures whatsoever. You had ceased to look upon the material world with the eyes of consumption, market, and sale. You stood with clasped hands staring at the beauty and the profusion of the world. And in the meanwhile the supply of tacks ran out. ”

“ After all, reason teaches one that sauerkraut ought only to be greased."
"And don't reason teach one one's religion."
"Our religion, certainly," said the Canon decisively. "But the others are not based on reason."
"Now we've got back again to just where we were before the war," sighed Mr. Brych.
"People are always getting back just where they used to be," observed Mr. Binder. "That's what Mr. Kuzenda is always saying. 'Binder,' he often says, 'the truth can never be defeated. ”

“ It's a great pity, Ellen. I haven't anything against religion, but this God doesn't know what He ought to want. Depart into the wilderness, Saint Ellen, with your second sight. You are out of place among us mortals. ”

“ We are not equal to the task, and if we were, we should perhaps be disappointed. Just picture to yourself this little Lieutenant Bobinet sitting on Les Aiguilles with Europe falling into ruin all about him—a battery of mountain guns in front of him, and below him a miniature world which could easily be shot to pieces from where he sat. Imagine that he has just read in an old copy of the Annecy Moniteur the leading article in which some M. Babillard calls for the strong hand of a helmsman who will steer the good ship France out of the raging storm toward new power and glory ”

“ Saint Ellen, you must not marry."
"Why not?" said Saint Ellen in soft tones. "Our God is not opposed to nature; He only sanctifies it. He does not ask us to mortify ourselves. He bids us live and be fruitful. ”

“ If anyone sets his mind on anything, he must have everybody else believe in it. And he won't let anyone alone. That's how it's all come about."
"Yes, yes," said Aunt Prouzova, yawning. "What's the use of it all?"
"Ah, yes," sighed Mrs. Blahous.
"That's the way things are in this world," added Mrs. Prouzova.
"And you women would like to go on cackling all day long," Grandfather Blahous concluded peevishly, and tottered off into the house. ”

“ Brych. "A man may certainly think that another religion is a bad one, but he oughtn't to think that the man who follows it is a low, vile, and treacherous fellow. And the same applies to politics and everything."
"And that's what so many people have hated and killed each other for," Father Jost declared. "You know, the greater the things are in which a man believes, the more fiercely he despises those who do not believe in them. ”

“ Then, in an instant, the whole of Prague shone out as a vast expanse of light, the crowds cheered, the bells in all the steeples began to swing, and from the Marianske fort there sounded the first boom of the cannon.
Still hanging to his grating, Keval looked around towards the city. Flaming rockets shot up from Střelecky Island; Hradčany, Petřin, and even Letna, were aglow with garlands of electric lamps, distant bands began competing with each other, illuminated biplanes circled above Stvanice, while the immense V 16 soared up from Vyšehrad all bedecked with lanterns. ”

“ Hubka pugnaciously, "why, in that case, you don't arrange for our new works to be run by Karburator power? Why should we use expensive coal for heating when we're supplying atomic energy to other people? Is Mr. Bondy disposed to let us have his reasons?"
"By no means," Bondy declared. "Our heating will be done with coal. For reasons known to myself, the Karburator system will not suit our purposes. ”

“ Who was the man so strong and tall whose daily labour fed us all? The farmer!
Yes, it was the farmer (and the same thing happened elsewhere) , who by his conduct saved the world from starvation. Just imagine the consequences if he had been seized, like the townsfolk, with the mania for giving everything away to the poor and needy; if he had given away all his corn, his cows and calves, his chickens and geese and potatoes. Within a fortnight famine would have stalked through the cities, and the countryfolk themselves would have been sucked dry, starved out, left stripped of all their supplies. ”

“ But how am I to describe the frightful, silent struggle which forced iron to raise itself from the depths of the earth, which pressed it into bars, threw these into the machines, and smashed them up into tacks? The bars twisted like withies, fought against the motion that pushed them forward, rattled and grated amid the silence of that which wrestled with them, soundless and substanceless. All contemporary reports speak of the horror of the scene. It was a very miracle, but do not imagine that a miracle is something fabulously easy and effortless ”

“ In our godless world the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be established without great sacrifices and confusion of doctrine. Nevertheless I say unto you: Give yourself up with your whole beings to the Absolute; believe in God, in whatsoever form He may declare Himself to you. ”

“ Instead of indulging in pure creation, it took its place at the machines. It became the Infinite Artisan.
Suppose that some factory or other, say a place where tacks were manufactured, had installed a Perfect Karburator in place of a steam-engine as the cheapest form of plant. The Absolute constantly emanating from the atomic motor learnt the whole process of manufacture in a single day, by virtue of its innate intelligence, and flung itself with all its uncontrollable energy or, perhaps, ambition into this occupation. It began to manufacture tacks on its own account. ”

“ It's that the whole business looks highly suspicious. Yes, gentlemen, extremely suspicious. Mr. Bondy has forced us to erect a factory for Karburators. The Karburator, he assured us, is the only power-supply of the future. The Karburator, as he expressly stated, can develop a thousand horse-power from a single bucket of coal. And now he is talking about twelve boiler furnaces and whole truckloads of coal for them. Gentlemen, I ask you, why then shouldn't a single bucket of coal give sufficient power for our whole factory? Why are we erecting boiler furnaces when we've got atomic motors? ”