by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 3
Three days after the christening feast, Frau Paleczek was back in the forester’s small cottage, but in a different role than before.
She had a corpse to wash—the body of Frau Ruf, who had died of childbed fever. Despite all brave resistance, death had won out, and Dr. Roskoschny’s hope of pulling her through was dashed. Medicine could name the thing raging in the new mother’s veins, straining her body and twisting her face in agony—childbed fever—but it couldn’t say where it came from or offer a real cure. In the end, it had to leave the outcome to God.
And now Frau Paleczek bent her face, black as the Virgin of Częstochowa or Kiritein, over the ashen one on the red-checkered pillow, dressing the deceased in a clean gown.
And then she said, “Jesus, Mary… seven children… such a pretty young woman… and seven little children … such misery… such misfortune. What’ll you do now, Herr Ruf?”
The forester sits in the corner, head in his hands, silent. What should he do? What can he do? He doesn’t know—seven little children, one a tiny infant, and their mother dead.
“For a few days, I can help out,” Paleczek grumbles in her deepest bass, full of pity, “but I can’t stay long, of course—I’ve got my own business to tend to.” Then, after folding the deceased’s hands over her chest, an idea strikes her. “Maybe your wife’s sister could come, your sister-in-law in Lettowitz. Right?”
The sister-in-law in Lettowitz. Maybe, perhaps the sister-in-law. But the forester is paralyzed, unable to stir. Just three days ago, he was a happy man, a man of importance, sitting between Frau Director and the pastor, bringing home a slight buzz—not from beer or schnapps, but from wine, fine wine like the gentry drink at the castle. And now look at him: seven children, and his wife dead!
Everyone feels great pity for him, all of them. They all come to the funeral, even Frau Director Reichenbach, and many weep as the coffin is lowered into the grave and the six orphans begin to sob. The old count is visibly moved, subdued and distracted in a way wholly unlike him—one might almost say timid. He speaks to no one and leaves after the funeral, heading straight home without looking at anyone. It clearly hits him hard that the woman has died—she used to help out at the castle often. Then Frau Director Reichenbach pulls Ruf aside and says, “You’ve got it tough now, Herr Ruf, but you must keep your head up and trust in God.”
Oh, keep his head up—if only it were that easy, if his head weren’t so heavy, sinking to his chest again and again. Worries weigh like lead.
“I’ll send Susi to you,” says Frau Director. “She’s good with children—she was the eldest of nine at home and had to look after the others. And I’ll come check on you every day.”
That lightens his head a good bit, enough for the forester to lift it and look into Frau Director’s eyes. His hand, no longer so limp, meets hers as she reaches out.
For a few days, Ernsttal and Blansko buzz with talk of Frau Ruf’s death—how young she looked, despite all those children, and how cheerful she always was. They speak of the tragedy of seven motherless children, of Frau Director Reichenbach’s kindness in taking them under her wing, and of the old count sending Ruf a heap of money—a saint of a man, that old count! The talk might have gone on longer, but then comes the news that the machinist Schnuparek, on Sunday, leaving the factory tavern walking out, is struck by sudden illness. A searing pain grips his gut, as if he’d drunk sulfuric acid, tearing his insides apart, turning him inside out. He clutches his stomach, groans, roars, and finally, everything goes black before his eyes.
They find Schnuparek in the roadside ditch, thinking at first he’s drunk, but Schnuparek isn’t drunk—he’s sick. They lift him and carry him to bed. Then Dr. Roskoschny is fetched. He puts on his gravest face, orders vinegar sprayed and juniper burned, and declares it’s cholera that’s struck Schnuparek.
It can no longer be hidden: cholera has come to the land. Now everyone knows what the falling stone from the sky meant. It foretold cholera, the great dying with no escape. There it is—laughing off such things and mocking the fear as foolishness does no good. The great lords don’t know any better than the common folk, and it might’ve been wiser to leave those ill-fated stones where they fell in the forest instead of picking them up and hauling them to the laboratory, as Reichenbach did. Surely they were poisonous, surely they carried the disease.
But what good is the whispering and grumbling now? The specter is here, its first shadow cast over the christening feast, standing among the people, reaching into houses and huts, snatching the farmer from the field, the worker from the lathe, the mold, the furnace, the miner from the pit, the clerk from his books.
Forester Ruf decides it’s time to fetch his sister-in-law from Lettowitz. Two of Frau Director Reichenbach’s maids have fled home to their village, where it might be safer, so Susi is hard to spare, and Frau Director can’t spend all day with the children.
But when Ruf arrives in Lettowitz, he finds his sister-in-law in bed. A few hours ago, she had to lie down, gripped by searing pain in her gut, moaning and groaning, her face burning with fever, blue spots visible on her chest.
Ruf sits with the sick woman for half an hour, giving her drops of Jerusalem miracle balm, good for everything—frostbite, toothache, gout, headaches—then leaves, deeply troubled and at a loss, heading home.
Plenty of fresh air, preaches Dr. Roskoschny, plenty of fresh air and movement.
Work grinds to a halt; people are sick or hiding. This gives Reichenbach time to explore the strange land fate has brought him to. He believes one must know how to gain something from every situation, even making misfortune serve a purpose.
Years ago, when he was at the chemical laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, the old count Hugo met Salm-Reifferscheidt, this region was as foreign to the Swabian as some stretch of the Congo or Niger. Even then, the two men took a liking to each other, bonding over their scientific pursuits. When the old prince handed over the estates and factories to his son to retire, the old count promptly summoned Reichenbach. That was many years ago, and the ironworks and laboratory have consumed so much time and energy that little else could take hold.
Now, though, there’s a chance to look around. It’s a remarkable landscape, these forests in the heart of Moravia—a stretch of limestone with strange sinkholes, caves, and karst rivers. There’s the Macocha, or “Stepmother” in German, a chasm so deep you could set Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Tower in it; caves with bones of prehistoric animals and ancient firepits; underground domes and passages with stalactites. And the rivers! They surge from a rocky maw, dark and unfathomable, only to vanish again into mysterious depths after a brief run above ground.
Reichenbach roams with a geologist’s hammer, tapping cave walls, digging in clay-filled crevices. Then a desire grips him to uncover the secrets of the Punkva River. Others have tried and failed before him, but he will succeed; what others botch only spurs him to push to the utmost.
It’s settled: Reichenbach and the chemist Mader are to venture together, each on a light raft, to probe the Punkva River’s secrets. It must be done discreetly—Friederike Luise shouldn’t know yet; no, it’s better not to tell her, as she’s no fan of such risky undertakings. Reichenbach waits for Mader, then realizes he should say goodbye to Friederike Luise. There’s no real danger, but still, one doesn’t just slip away without a word.
“Where’s your mother?” he asks Reinhold.
Reinhold stands at attention. “She just left for Forester Ruf’s—one of the children is sick, and she’s going to check on them.”
Reichenbach paces impatiently in the garden, plucks a green caterpillar from a rosebush and crushes it, then cuts an unruly vine from the arbor with his knife. Mader’s taking his time—always taking his time. Someone needs to give him a good shake.
Someone passes by the bushes outside. But it’s not Mader—it’s the old count. “Mader sent me,” he smiles. “I’ve switched places with him.”
“What? Mader? Switched?”
“It’s not very nice of you,” the old count says good-naturedly, feigning offense, “keeping secrets from me. Why not take me along, Reichenbach? You know I’m keenly interested in such things. I tried it once long ago with a canoe, but it didn’t work out.”
“So Mader couldn’t keep his mouth shut?”
“Thank God, or I’d have missed out on the fun.”
“But—you know a fellow from Vienna nearly drowned trying to swim it. If his wife hadn’t pulled him out…”
“Does your wife know?”
“No,” Reichenbach says, “she mustn’t find out.”
Then the old count asks, as Reichenbach did earlier, “Where’s your wife?” Perhaps he asks because he thinks it wise to shake her hand before embarking on something rather unusual. He seems uneasy to hear Friederike Luise isn’t home.
“Well, then, let’s go in God’s name,” he says finally.
They walk on foot to avoid drawing attention or involving too many people. But as they pass near the forester’s cottage, they spot Friederike Luise on the meadow path. The old count stops, his face lighting up with joy. “I haven’t had the chance to see you in ages, gracious lady.”
“You were at Ruf’s?” Reichenbach asks.
“Yes, Lada’s very sick—the third eldest. The doctor just arrived and sent me home at once. He was almost rude, told me not to dare come back.”
“Does he think—?” Reichenbach hesitates, reluctant to say the word, as if speaking it aloud carries danger.
“Please be careful,” the old count urges, concerned. “What good does it do? You can’t help, and you have children at home.”
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