The Master of the Day of Judgment Read Online Free PDF Page A

soliloquy."
    "I have my own conception of the character," Dr Gorski said with cool impertinence. "But please — you're the actor, I'm always willing to learn."
    Eugen Bischoff rewarded him with a glance full of malice and contempt. In the process of transforming himself into the Shakespearean king he was no longer faced with Dr Gorski, but with his wretched brother Clarence.
    "Listen," he said. He rapped out the word as if he were giving an order. "I'm going over to the pavilion for a few minutes. Meanwhile open the window. It's intolerable here because of the smoke. I shan't be long."
    "Are you going to put on make-up? Why, Eugen? We'll do without it," Dina's brother said.
    Eugen Bischoff's eyes flickered and shone. Never before had I seen him in such a state of excitation, and he said something very strange.
    "Make-up? No. What I want is to see the button on the uniform. You must leave me alone for a while. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."
    He went out, but came back immediately.
    "Listen," he said. "That Semblinsky, that great Semblinsky of yours. Do you know what he is? He's a fool. I once saw him as Iago, it was a disaster."
    Then he went. I saw him walking quickly across the garden, talking to himself and gesticulating, he was already in the world of Richard III, in Baynard's Castle. In his hurry he nearly knocked over his old gardener, who was still kneeling on the lawn cutting the grass, though by now it was quite dark outside. Then he disappeared, and a moment later the pavilion windows were brightly lit, scattering tremulous shafts of light and shifting shadows into the big, quiet, night-time garden.

FOUR
    Dr Gorski was still declaiming Shakespearean verse with false pathos and absurdly extravagant gestures. Eugen Bischoff having left the room, he did this partly out of sheer enthusiasm for Shakespeare, partly out of pig-headedness, and partly to pass the time pending the actor's return. Being completely carried away by this time, he had got to King Lear and, to the distress of the rest of us, insisted on singing the jester's songs in that hoarse voice of his to any tune that came into his head. Meanwhile the engineer sat silently in his armchair, chainsmoking and gazing at the pattern of the carpet at his feet. He could not get the young naval officer's story out of his head, his tragic and puzzling suicide left him no peace. Every now and then he started up and looked with amazement at the singing doctor, shaking his head as at a strange and extraordinary phenomenon, and once he tried to drag him back to the world of rational reality.
    He leaned forward and took Dr Gorski's wrist.
    "Listen, doctor, there's one thing that I simply can't understand. Listen to me for a moment, please. Let us assume it was suicide on a sudden impulse. But in that case why did he lock himself in his room a quarter of an hour beforehand? Why should he lock himself in his room if he was thinking of suicide? Why? Explain that to me, please."
    "That lord that counsell'd thee
    To give away thy land
    Come place him here by me
    Do thou for him stand ..."
     
    That was Dr Gorski's only reply, apart from an irritable gesture as if he were shooing away a fly that was bothering him.
    "Oh, stop that nonsense," the engineer said to him. "He locked the door a quarter of an hour beforehand. So the presumption is that he had plenty of time to make his preparations. But then he jumped out of the window. An officer who has a revolver and a whole box of ammunition in a drawer of his desk does not do that."
    Dr Gorski did not allow himself to be diverted by such considerations from his Shakespearean recitation. The small, slightly malformed gnome, standing in the middle of the room, completely carried away by his performance and plucking the strings of an imaginary lute, provided a comic interlude when he sang
    "The sweet and bitter fool
    Will presently appear ..."
     
    The engineer at last realised the hopelessness of trying to get him to take an