Emil Kraepelin

“ Small wonder then that the mother adored him,—that she saw in him a gifted creature not to be approached by the common run of humanity. It had come to be Emil's custom to visit his mother at least once in a fortnight, and, from the moment that they met, those thin hands of hers had power in their caresses to transform him. Under their gentle touch, the fire of his mind dwindled, the warmth of his heart grew; the genius of a world was submerged in the son of a mother. ”

“ The ocean spread out before her with its salt, fresh scent; its vivifying breath blowing upon the beach, piled up little hillocks of sand. Sitting on the sand, propped up on both arms, Rachel steadfastly regarded the ocean and her mind returned to Emil. The next day, being Sunday, Simon would, no doubt, follow her. Perhaps he would have received further news of Emil's mother. If she died, how would Emil bear it? As he had no philosophy, a great grief might wreck him. And what could he hold to? Not Annie,—Annie was a broken reed;—not herself,—Simon would not permit it. ”

“ Every semblance of timidity vanished in Emil; he suddenly felt extraordinarily attracted to Sanin—not at all because he had saved his life the day before, but because he was such a nice person! He lost no time in confiding all his secrets to Sanin. He expatiated with special warmth on the fact that his mother was set on making him a shopkeeper, while he knew, knew for certain, that he was born an artist, a musician, a singer; that Pantaleone even encouraged him, but that Herr Klüber supported mamma, over whom he had great influence ”

“ Once settled in the hotel at Old Harbour, however, Emil abandoned the work in hand and fell to making a depth indicator. How think of anything else with the sea out there waiting to be plumbed? In vain Annie Lawless hinted that her father was anxious to install the press and counselled haste, as has been related, Emil destroyed her letters and went feverishly forward with his self-appointed task.
On the afternoon of the day of his meeting with Rachel he was in fine feather. The presence of the girl and the prospect of testing his invention filled him with animation. ”

“ He was now one of a large army, consisting of press men, lithographers, zinc men, clerks, artists, stenographers, bookkeepers. The majority of these men did their work methodically and as a matter of duty. When they quitted the factory at night, they forgot the labour that had occupied them during the day. With Emil, however, it was otherwise. ”

“ A whole series of investigations carried out in Kraepelin's laboratory in Heidelberg are of the greatest value for determining what the brain can do in the way of work and impressions.
An English specialist has maintained that the future, thanks to the modern school system, will be able to get along without originally creative men, because the receptive activities of modern man will absorb the cooperative powers of the brain to the disadvantage of the productive powers. ”

“ Franz and Emil are jolly little lads, quite after my own heart, for the mixture of German and American spirit in them produces a constant state of effervescence. ”

“ then in the darkness, broken only by the feeble murmuring of the sick man, the whispered prayers of the poor wife, the ceaseless swash of waves, Emil hid his face, and had an hour of silent agony that aged him more than years of happy life could have done. ”

“ Having put everything in order and seen that it was all right he wished to report to his superior what he had done, but Prokop was still shut up in the Princess’s cubicle and was so quiet that it seemed as if he were not breathing. So Dr. Krafft remained alone on the floating platform, which splashed coldly on the surface of the water. Now and then there was a plop! as some fish leapt out of the water and fell back again, and sometimes a rustling in the rushes. Dr. Krafft began to feel uneasy in the midst of this solitude. ”

“ He’s a terribly bad chemist, but more artful than you are. At least he doesn’t blurt out what he knows. Why did you tell him? All he knows is to cadge money out of people. You should have come yourself.”
“I didn’t send him to you,” muttered Prokop.
“Aha!” said Mr. Carson, “extremely interesting. Your Mr. Thomas came to us——”
“Where exactly?”
“To us. Factories in Balttin. Do you know it?”
“No.”
“A foreign concern. Marvellously up to date. An experimental laboratory for new explosives. We make keramit, methylnitrate, and such things. Chiefly military, you see? You’ll sell us Krakatit. ”

“ Emily pushed the chair into the sunlight and the little group crept up the path; while, all unconscious, Emil went leaping down the sands to bathe in the sea.
During her illness, Rachel had been besieged by feverish thoughts. Not a phase of the situation but she had gone over innumerable times. Finally her resolution was taken: she would see Emil no more. The decision was an arduous one and she raged to make it. Love for one man, overmastering love, as Nature wills it, was in conflict with unswerving loyalty to another ”

“ It is enough for me that at present you are the sole owner of Krakatit. Our people have fourteen and a half ounces in their possession, brought by a Saxon comrade from Balttin, but these fools haven’t the slightest understanding of what your chemistry means. They keep it like a sacred relic in a porcelain box and three times a week nearly come to blows over the question of what government building they are going to blow up into the air. ”

“ The stars and the moon; the darkness and the dream—they are all ours. Should you men persist in refusing us the franchise, you will wake in vain for the moon and the stars and the dream. You will see stars indeed, but other ones than you expect. ”

“ Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil’s hand. Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour—even before this boy, her brother. ”

“ They indulge in wild dances on the mountains, at night, invoking the gods of the nether world, indulging freely in the wildest form of boundless hilarity, and rivalling in their exuberance the mad sprouting of trees and herbs in spring. ”

“ Finally Prokop got tired even of the Calendar, and began to dictate to Krafft a systematic work on destructive chemistry. Curiously enough he became most fond of Carson, whose insolence and lack of consideration impressed him more and more, for beneath it he found the grandiloquent plans and crazy fantasy of an out-and-out international militarist. Mr. Paul was in an ecstasy of delight. He was now indispensable night after night, and could dedicate every breath and every step of his faltering legs to Prokop’s service.
You lie encased in matter, like the stump of a tree ”

“ Overhanging the brooks that ripple in gutters along the streets, are fine weeping willows, that afford a refreshing shade from the glowing sunbeams; their light green leaves and slim drooping boughs stand out in elegant contrast alike to the compact growth of the fruit-trees, to the dark foliage of the eucalyptus, to the pointed shoots of the arbor vitæ, and to the funereal hue of the cypress. ”

“ From this versatile genius, delightful in his rendering of the human figure and likeness, who evokes with equal facility the shimmering vistas of Venetian lagoons or the quaintness of an old French street, who can fascinate with a fleeting glimpse of a fish-shop, or make a lovely vision of a foggy reach of the Thames, we must now turn to one who has forever fixed in his plates a truthful yet ideal likeness of old Paris. ”

“ The benches were crammed with people who were wearing their hats. They were all quarrelling with one another; some red-haired lout was shouting something from the platform, while at the desk there stood a dry, pedantic old man, desperately ringing a bell.
Daimon went straight up to the platform and mounted it. “Comrades,” he cried, and his voice was as inhuman as that of a seagull. “I have brought some one to you. Comrade Krakatit.” There was a dead silence and Prokop felt himself seized and mercilessly examined by fifty pairs of eyes. ”

“ The rock on which we stand is rich with varied vegetation; gigantic sycamores and mimosas on the verge of the declivity, taller than the loftiest poplars, afford a welcome shade, their wondrous crowns of foliage springing from the topmost section of the stem and spreading wide their grateful canopy. ”

“ Daimon on his Magnetic Hill was precisely and silently bombarding the whole world. In all directions waves were being sent out which would ignite the first grain of Krakatit which they encountered anywhere in the world. And there, in the dead of night, bathed in this pale light, an obdurate, wrongheaded man was working, bending over a secret process of transformation. “Thomas, look out!” cried Prokop, but his voice was lost in the darkness like a stone thrown into a pond by some childish hand.
He sprang up, trembling with fear and cold, and dashed on further, as far as he could from Grottup. ”

“ A young body had an enormous explosive tension, while Dr. Krafft, an enthusiast and an idealist, had a relatively weak capacity for explosion. Carson’s index of detonaation approached that of tetranitraniline, and Prokop recalled with a shudder the cool touch of the Princess’s hand, which revealed to him the terrible explosive power of this haughty amazon. ”

“ Here, for miles, village after village, garden after garden, make one continuous chain, the various farmsteads being separated and overshadowed by tracts of oaks or pines. Every hundred steps an enchanting picture is opened to the eye, especially in places where the mountain exhibits its own interesting geological formation, or forms a background clothed with woods or blossoming heath. ”

“ ENGINEER PROKOP has perfected a secret formula called “Krakatit” for an explosive so powerful that in his hands the world would be a mere plaything, to be destroyed at a moment’s whim. How it is stolen from him in an incomplete state during his illness and the attempts of various military agencies to force him to reveal the missing ingredient which will enable them to dominate the earth is the actual story. ”

“ Prokop, the plebeian hero, a scientist concentrated on his astonishing discoveries about the disintegration of matter, is the first man to “overcome the coefficient of compressibility.” He has learned how to “accelerate the speed of detonation,” which, after a certain speed, increases the power of explosion terrifically. He has invented Krakatit, a few ounces of which, sprinkled about, can blow up whole towns or whole armies. As Daimon the Anarchist puts it, “with Krakatit and the wireless station you can checkmate the world. ”

“ Holz was removed to a distance of fifteen paces, and Prokop was allowed, accompanied by him, to move freely in a circle of three miles from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, to sleep in the laboratory, and to dine where he wished. On the other hand, Mr. Carson quartered a woman and two children in the laboratory (as it happened, she was the wife of a workman who had been killed by an explosion of Krakatit) , as a sort of moral guarantee against any “carelessness.” ”

“ The vision of the city of the dead dissolves into the scene of a teeming ant-hill; all is life and eagerness and bustle. The very eye grows confused at the labyrinth of wires stretching out like a giant cobweb over the space below, while the movements of the countless buckets making their transit backwards and forwards only add to the bewilderment. ”

“ As if in a dream, he stepped on to the platform and looked round the smoky room not knowing what to do. “Krakatit. Krakatit,” there resounded below and the noise grew into a shout: “Krakatit! Krakatit! Krakatit!” In front of Prokop there was standing a beautiful tousled girl who gave him her hand: “Good luck, comrade!” a brief, hot pressure, eyes with a burning glance which promised everything, and immediately afterwards a dozen other hands: rough, firm and dried up by the heat, moist and cold, spiritualized. Prokop found himself surrounded by a chain of hands which seized his own. “Krakatit! ”

“ Carson. “I’m only surprised, you know, that nothing . . . nothing large has gone up in the air already. All you have to do is to press some button or other and two thousand kilometres away—bang! And there you are. What else do you expect?”
“That’s clear,” said Prokop feverishly. “Krakatit mustn’t be given up. And Thomas—Thomas must be stopped . . .”
“Mr. Thomas,” said Carson rapidly, “would sell Krakatit to the Devil himself if he paid him for it. At the present moment Mr. Thomas is one of the most dangerous people in the world.” ”

“ Paul changed into everything in the world: an angel, a nurse, a mother. He ran about, arranged the pillows under Prokop’s head, and poured cognac down his throat; then he sat down at the head of the bed and allowed Prokop to crush his hand in his spasms of pain. Dr. Krafft stood near with eyes filled with tears, and Mr. Holz, evidently touched, cut away Prokop’s riding breeches and applied cold compresses to his thigh. Prokop groaned quietly, smiling for a moment now and then with his blue lips at Krafft or Mr. Paul. ”

“ Krakatit!” The beautiful girl struggled wildly, her hair loose, trying to make a way for herself through the crowd of people. Thrown forward by the pressure from behind, she pressed herself against his breast. He tried to push her away, but she put her arms round him and passionately whispered something in a foreign language. Meanwhile, on the edge of the platform, a man wearing spectacles was slowly and quietly demonstrating to the empty benches that theoretically it was not permissible to deduce sociological conclusions from inorganic matter. “Krakatit. Krakatit,” roared the crowd. ”