The Cheat

By Karel Capek

"The Cheat" is a novel written by the Czech writer Karel Capek, in 1938. It was Capek's final work of fiction - and was only partially finished at the time of his death - leaving the interested reader with a truly fascinating puzzle. Karel Capek (1890 - 1938) was a famous Czech novelist and playwright, who is best remembered for his influence on the genre of science fiction. Many of these earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing this classic work now in affordable, high quality, modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sabine Press
• Release date: Sep 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528764933

Karel Capek

Karel Capek was born in 1890 in Czechoslovakia. He was interested in visual art as a teenager and studied philosophy and aesthetics in Prague. During WWI he was exempt from military service because of spinal problems and became a journalist. He campaigned against the rise of communism and in the 1930s his writing became increasingly anti-fascist. He started writing fiction with his brother Josef, a successful painter, and went on to publish science-fiction novels, for which he is best known, as well as detective stories, plays and a singular book on gardening, The Gardener’s Year. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times and the Czech PEN Club created a literary award in his name. He died of pneumonia in 1938.

Book preview

CONTENTS

1. JUDGE ŠIMEK

A Friend of my Youth

2. MRS. JITKA HUDCOVÁ

Ariel

3. DR. V. B.

At the University

4. MRS. KARLA FOLTÝNOVÁ

My Husband

5. PROFESSOR STRAUSS

Abaelardus and Héloïse

6. DR. J. PETRU

The Text of Judith

7. VÁŠA AMBROŹ

Maecenas

8. TWO NOTES

9. JAN TROJAN

The Instrumentation of Judith

THE STATEMENT OF THE AUTHOR’S WIFE

10. A BROADCAST TALK BY KAREL ČAPEK

11. KAREL ČAPEK, DEMOCRAT AND HUMANIST

by H. John McLachlan, M.A., B.D.

12. KAREL ČAPEK

A Tribute by the P.E.N.

13. TO KAREL ČAPEK

A Broadcast Talk by his Czech Publisher

14. A TRIBUTE

by his Chief English Publisher, Stanley Unwin

I. JUDGE ŠIMEK

A Friend of My Youth

I first came across Beda Folten when I was just over sixteen; in thosé days, of course, in the school notebooks he used to sign himself Bedřich Foltýn. I had come from another district into the sixth form of the Grammar School that Folten was attending, and chance, which so often decides the fates of young people, put me next to him on the same carved and time-worn bench.

I remember Foltýn in the sixth¹ as if I had seen him yesterday: a lanky boy with a fine skin, and with thick golden-brown hair, slightly wavy, in which it was clear that he took great pride; he had pale blue, myopish, protruding eyes, a long nose and a very receding chin; large moist hands with which he never knew what to do, and altogether the rank and embarrassed gaucherie of a boy in his teens. He always had a look in his face as if he had been offended by something which had called forth his silent and touchy scorn. On first acquaintance I didn’t care for him much; also I noticed at once that he had not a single friend in the class, and that he shunned with great disdain all connection with the boys in general.

I was not much of a scholar, but at any rate I struggled along stubbornly and sullenly with school life, lessons and with the masters; I was rather a short, stumpy and unattractive brat, and this filled me with a fighting spirit and a resolve to stand my ground. Because of that, perhaps, I fought my way through school with many scars, but all the same victoriously. With Foltýn things did not go so well; he had a passionate longing to excel, and at the same time he was a hopeless funk; he slaved at home like a nigger, but when he was called upon in school his chin began to tremble, and he couldn’t get out a single word; he only gulped with nervousness until his Adam’s apple ran up and down his long, soft neck. Sit down, Foltýn, the teacher used to spit out almost with disgust. If only you’d try to think about mathematics instead of your hair! Foltýn sat down crushed, he swallowed and his watery blue eyes filled with tears, all the while moving his lips as if he had only just found the right answer. So that you couldn’t see that he was on the verge of breaking down, he would frown, offended, and blow himself up terribly; by this he tried to make you understand that he thought very little of the low mark that he had got, of the teacher and of the school as a whole. The teachers didn’t like him; they pestered him whenever they could. I was sorry for him when he used to stand like that beside me with his chin all trembling and with his Adam’s apple running up and down; and I tried to help him. At first, God knows, he used to be offended. Keep your mouth shut, won’t you? he muttered in a rage, his eyes full of tears when the classical master made him sit down, having just let him pass; I never ask favours from anybody! But in a short time he got used to the idea of my helping him; he took more trouble over learning his lessons, and with more ambition than me; he was gifted and receptive above the average, but he had no confidence at all, or something; I never knew anything properly, but I had more courage. Quite soon Foltýn came to rely on me, he, even accepted it from me as an obvious service;, he used to be deadly offended with me when I hadn’t written out his work for him, and he looked so puffed up and so miserable at the same time that I almost had to beg his pardon. And that’s why I kept on helping him.

As far as I know he came from as poor a family as I did; his father was an office clerk or something like that. He lived with an aunt; she was an old single lady belonging to the one-time local gentry, but how she maintained herself the good Lord only knows, perhaps by taking lodgers; but how anybody can live from having a poor student as a lodger, that passes my understanding. It always seamed to me that she lived like a moth on old wool shawls and wraps. Her Bedříšek, as she called him, she loved very dearly, and she spoiled him as much as was possible in those miserable conditions. They torment Bedíšek, she used to complain, because he is so much more gifted than they are; but one day he will show them what he has in him, and they will all be ashamed!

I don’t care, aunty, what anybody thinks of me, Fricek used to say dolefully and haughtily, shaking his well-groomed mane. If it weren’t for daddy, I’d run away from that stupid school. I know what I would do to make them all sit up!

I used to go to their house to do his homework with him. They lived in a little room and a kitchen; half of the room was taken up by an agreeably hoarse piano, a reminiscence of the time when aunty, with hanging curls, as you could see her in an old photograph, learned to play The Virgin’s Prayer and Evening Bells. Bit by bit, as is necessarily the only way with boys at puberty, we became closer friends. We were a strange pair: he lanky with a girlish complexion, blue eyes and a golden lamb-like fleece, myself stolid, rather dark, with tufts of hair combed up and looking like a hedgehog—well, the fellows used to laugh at this, partnership. One day we were sitting together and talking about all sorts of things; it was already growing dark, the fire glowed in the stove, and my heart almost ached with an excess of some sudden and nameless emotion: Fricek sat still, only running his long pale hand through his hair. Wait a moment, he whispered mysteriously, and disappeared into the kitchen. In a second he came back again; he had on some sort of a purple jacket and he moved as if he were walking in his sleep, as if he were floating in the air. Without a word he raised the lid of the piano, sat down on the stool, and began to improvise. I knew that he was learning to play the piano, but this was new to me, Fricek played, moving from one tune to another, with his head thrown back, and his eyes closed; then again he bent right down to the keyboard as if he had broken down, and then he just let his fingers rustle over the keys. As the melody grew stronger he straightened up as if that forte would support and carry him; then with exultation, with all his might he stormed over the keyboard and threw his head back; he remained like that even after the sound from the piano had ceased, with pale eyes, staring into another world, and breathing heavily as if exhausted.

I’m no good at music; I can be moved by a barrel-organ just as much as by some music of the spheres, but which is the better I cannot tell. Foltýn’s musical ecstasy almost terrified me; for some reason I was a little ashamed, and at the same time I was thrilled by it.

That was grand, I declared in appreciation. Fricek woke up as if from a dream, he ran his hand across his forehead, and got up. Excuse me, he apologized, but when it comes over me, then I must. . . . It is more powerful than I am.

And why have you put on that purple coat? I blurted out.

Fricekshrugged his shoulders. I always wear it when I’m playing. Otherwise I can’t create, can you understand?

To be truthful, I couldn’t understand it a bit, but I wasn’t sure if it didn’t belong in some way to music. Foltýn came towards me, and held out his hand. Listen, Šimek, not a word about this to anybody. This is our secret.

What is? I enquired densely.

That I am an artist, whispered Foltýn. You know, the fellows would laugh at me, and the masters would hate me still more because of it. In any case, they can see that I just sneer at what they teach. . . . You don’t know how much I feel humiliated when I have to swot up those verbs and formulae of theirs! I sit there in that class and I hear music, music. . . .

And how long have you known that you are an artist?

A long time now. Two years ago I got in at a concert . . . that was amazing! That man played until his hair fell down on the keys. . . . There I realized it. Wait, he whispered mysteriously, touch me here, my temples! Can you feel?

What? I was puzzled. All I could feel was his hair, curly and dense like a poodle’s fur.

My temples stick out. That means abnormal musical talent. That’s a known fact, he added indifferently. "The same as the span of the fingers. I can stretch over ten keys quite easily. Don’t you worry, I want to be absolutely certain that I shall get somewhere with it in art. And I can feel it, Šimek, I’m quite sure about it——"

I remember that as if it occured only to-day. It was already dark in his aunt’s room, except that from time to time it lit up when a glowing coal fell through the grate. We sat hand in hand, two poor bewildered boys; his hand was unpleasantly cold and damp, but just then I squeezed it enraptured, with a heart overflowing with love and enthusiasm. Fricek, I whispered, Fricek——

Call me Beda, Foltýn corrected me gently, but not in school, only between us two, you know. That is my musical name: Beda Folten. Nobody must know this. Beda Folten, he repeated gloatingly. What name would you like for yourself?

Šimon, I said without hesitating. You don’t write verses, Beda?

Verses, he drawled slowly. Why, do you?

Yes, I do. So now what had been oppressing me with jealousy for some time was out at last. You mustn’t think, Fricek, that you are the only one with a great secret! So far I have only tried my hand in a couple of note books, I added modestly.

Fricek put his arm round my shoulder. So you are a poet? You see, I should never have thought that. Šimon, will you let me see those verses?

Some other time, I muttered shyly. And why don’t you write yourself?

Fricek gazed into the darkness. "Me! It’s queer, sometimes I think in verses; suddenly I begin to hum something, and it’s a poem. I shouldn’t be even able to write it down; it just murmurs and flows out of me of its own——"

I was a little peeved because it came so easily to him; I had to sweat out my verses with great labour, almost with blood, gnawing the pen and scratching out furiously what I had written; apparently it was because I was a sullen, stubborn, proletarian fellow—most likely I hadn’t that proper inner grace! I never thought much of my verses; but now I was worried because perhaps, after all, it wasn’t in me, and I was only forcing myself into writing them. Now, of course, I know that it was all