Free The Motion Demon by Stefan Grabinski, Miroslaw Lipinski

and the dark-green and black torsos of the cars began to pass by at an ever greater tempo; from one of the compartments the malicious head of some rascal leaned out, who, sighting the helpless standing man below, thumbed his nose derisively at him. Finally, the last car went by, and closing off the chain of its comrades with its wide, black back, it quickly slid out into the world. Kluczka looked for a moment with a plaintive glance at the disappearing train and lowered his suitcase sluggishly, in an intense image of resignation and grief. Then, under the crossfire of the ironical glances of the railroad functionaries, he dragged himself back to the waiting room.
    Here the rows of waiting customers were dissipated; the main contingent had flowed out with train; the remaining passengers were waiting for a locomotive that ran on a side line, going south, in the direction of the mountains. There was plenty of time left: the next train was leaving after six in the evening.
    Kluczka took a comfortable seat in the corner of the hall, blocked himself in with his suitcase, which he placed on the table opposite him, and taking out of his pocket a small packet, he started to partake of his modest afternoon snack. He felt comfortable in this snug nook, hidden in the darkness that was beginning to reach feebly into the hall here and there. He lazily straightened out his legs, leaned against the arm of the plush settee, and with complete pleasure gave himself over to absorbing the atmosphere of the waiting room and the station.
    Mr Agapit Kluczka, by profession a judiciary clerk, was a passionate devotee of the railroad and travel. The environment of the railroad acted like a narcotic upon him, thrilling his entire being. The smell of smoke, locomotives, the sour scent of gas light, the specific stuffiness of the smoke and soot spilling out to the station corridors turned his head deliciously, dazed his consciousness and the clarity of his thinking. Had it not been for the wretched state of his health, he would have become a conductor so that he could ride continually from one end of the country to the other. He was immensely jealous of the constant vigour of railroad functionaries, that never-ending jumping from the train to the ground, from the ground to the train, riding and riding without a break until the day a wooden coffin would come. Unfortunately fate had rooted him to a little green table, tied him with a cord of boredom to piles of dust-covered deeds and papers. A law clerk….
    He glanced once again in the depths of his wallet and with a bitter smile slipped it back to his pocket.
    ‘Thirty zlotys,’ he whispered out with a sigh, ‘and today is just the 5th. If it weren’t for this cursed money situation, I could have been at Kostrzan before the night arrived, together with all those lucky ones.’
    The thought of such an occurrence transferred him in one leap to the noisy environment of the Kostrzan station, plunging him into the tumult of voices, the chaos of signals, and the shiver of bells. From under his closed eyelids rolled out slowly two large silent tears that fell onto his short reddish moustache. . . .
    Suddenly he came to. He rubbed his eyes quickly, twirled up his moustache, and straightening himself in the settee, he looked about the waiting room. He was met by the usual boredom of stations yawning with the contemplative grey monotony of repeated occurrences. The quiet of the hall was maybe broken from time to time by the dry cough of a consumptive, the heavy, traversing gait of a bored passenger, or the murmur of well-behaved children by the window asking something of their parents. The figures of the functionaries moved at times beyond the windows of the waiting room, or the red stain of a railway official’s cap flitted by. Somewhere from a distance came the hysterical whistle of a soaring engine….
    Kluczka focused his glance on the closest neighbour to his left, an old Jew—dozing in his gabardine for