The drunkard's imbecile formula occurred to him. "His wish is likely to be fulfilled," he thought; "he has now the chance of making a coffin for his daughter;" and in a bitterly ironical mood he determined to communicate to the old man, if he were still in possession of his faculties, his child's terrible end, and to demand the fulfilment of his promise.
He entered the gloomy passage. From a room on the right proceeded the gurgling cries of the thick, drunken voice which excited his involuntary disgust. Mingled with it was a spasmodic hissing and whizzing that he could not explain, till he had lifted the latch and witnessed a spectacle so horrible and revolting that, rich as the day had been for him in horrors, he recoiled before it faint and shuddering.
The old carpenter, his clothes half torn off, bleeding from the throat and arms, the moonlight bringing into prominence the hideous filthiness of the room, plunged about as if seized with an attack of St. Vitus's dance. Every limb quivered violently, and he foamed at the mouth. His eyes rolled in a maniacal frenzy, and the muscles of his face twitched convulsively. A huge plane hung from his right hand, the handle of which, formed in the shape of a ring, had grazed his knuckles, and which he vainly endeavoured to steady with his palsied fingers. Whenever he came to a wooden surface, whether on the table, the walls, or the planks that covered the floor, he tried to plane it, and this caused the hissing sound which always ended abruptly with a rasping jerk.
"It'll soon be ready now!" he cried. "One more blow" ... ssh ... "and the shaping's done." ... ssh ... ssh ... "Damn the bats . .. why can't they leave a man alone?" ... ssh ... ssh ... "Forwards ... Listen! Fire! fire! The Castle's on fire! Fire! fire! Keep out of the way, you baggage--if you tell any one you've seen me--with the tinder and the bundle of flax" ... ssh ... ssh ... "I won't finish your coffin." ... ss ... ssh ... "Get out of my sight, you snake." He lunged against Boleslav, who, with a presentiment of what ghastly disclosures were to be made to him, had planted himself in his way. The drunkard appeared to be labouring under the delusion that Boleslav was his daughter. "Go back-off the Cats' Bridge--the Baron shall get his deserts today--back--or----" He laid the plane against his cheek, and took aim; then, as if confronted by another vision, he yelled once more at the top of his voice, trembling with fright, "Fire! fire!" and made an attempt to creep under the table, planing the tattered tails of his coat as he went. "Fire! fire! Get away--I didn't do it! My daughter is a liar.... The flames are spreading. Fire! fire! Look at the flames!"
With the flames he seemed to reach the zenith of his delirium, and then gradually descended again to the bats, which he made a feint of chivying out of his way with his arms and legs, and then resumed planing the legs of the table.
"Nearly ready, dear sir." ... ssh ... ssh ... "Just a couple more boards." ... ss ... ssh ... "My daughter's debauched ... There can be no mistake," ... ss ... ssh ... "finely polished." ... ss ... "Now there she lies, and will howl no more." ... ssh ... "What, not gone yet? Your father'll drive you out." ... ss ... ssh ... "The Baron will get a shot lodged in his ribs to-day." ... ssh ... "We want extra hands. Hurrah, men!--Hurrah, Merckel!" ... ss ... "Come off the plank--down from the bridge, you beast. Have you any more French behind you? If you don't go at once----"
Here he made for Boleslav. He looked in the moonlight, with his tottering legs, his palsied head, and his flapping arms, like some ghastly phantasmal monster, whose limbs were pieced together by a hundred movable joints. Just as he was reaching his goal, the flames began to pursue him once more, and to escape from them he crept, with a piercing shriek this time, beneath a stack of wood, where, with dense swarms of bats, the fearful cycle of his delusions recommenced.
Boleslav, shaken to the foundations of his being by the awful truth the old man had revealed in his delirious ravings, felt he could no longer bear to gaze on such a hideous scene.
He fled from the house as if the imaginary flames which so terrified the maniac were pursuing him too, and he did not pause till he had left the village behind him, and found himself encompassed by the shadows of the ruins.