Krakatit by Karel Čapek

At the station he had to wait an hour and a half. He sat down in the corridor shivering with cold. His wounded hand pulsated painfully. He closed his eyes and immediately it seemed to him that this aching hand was growing, that it was as big as a head, as a gourd, as a cauldron, and that all over it the flesh was twitching feverishly. At the same time he felt oppressively faint and a cold sweat kept on breaking out on his forehead. He did not dare to look at the dirty, muddy floor covered with spittle -- his stomach would have risen. He tore off his collar and fell half asleep, gradually overpowered by an infinite indifference. He had the impression that he was a soldier, lying wounded in the open field; where. where are they fighting all the time? Then there sounded in his ears a loud ringing, and someone shouted. "Tynice,. Duchcov,. Moldava! Take your seats!"

Now he was sitting in the railway carriage next to the window and feeling inordinately gay, as if he had got the better of somebody or had escaped from them; yes, now he was on the way to Tynice and nothing could stop him. Almost giggling with delight he settled down in his corner and began to observe his fellow-travellers with amazing eagerness. In front of him sat some sort of a tailor with a thin neck, a slight dark woman, and then a man with an extraordinarily expressionless face; next to Prokop was a terribly fat gentleman whose stomach could not settle down between his legs, and, further away, somebody else, but that didn't matter. Prokop did not dare to look out of the window -- it made him feel giddy. Ra‑ta‑ta‑ra‑ta‑ta the train thumped out, vibrating and rattling with the feverishness of its movement. The head of the tailor swung to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left; the dark lady in some curious fashion bounced stiffly up and down on the same spot, the expressionless face vibrated and jerked like a bad film in a cinema. And his fat neighbour was simply a heap of jelly which jumped, shook and hopped in the most extraordinarily entertaining manner. Tynice, Tynice, Tynice, scanned Prokop to the beat of the wheels; faster, faster! The train grew heated through its haste; it became warm in the carriage and Prokop began to sweat; the tailor had now two heads on two thin necks; both heads shook and knocked against one another until they rattled. The dark lady jumped up and down on her seat in the most amusing and yet offensive way; she deliberately put on the expression of a wooden doll. The expressionless face disappeared; in its place there sat a body with its arms folded in a dead manner on its lap; the hands jumped about, but the body had no head.