OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Severin seemed far from sharp-witted; no, he was no longer the old Severin—brisk, dutiful, self-assured. Something had stripped his former grandeur; he no longer looked down on things as before, or he might have shown more surprise or joy at Hermine’s arrival or paid some attention to little Karl. He took it oddly lightly. “Yes,” he laughed, “take you to the Herr Baron… that’s for Frau Rosina now… or not, as she pleases. She never does, really—no one gets to the Herr Baron.”
“And you put up with that?”
“I… I’m no longer in the Herr Baron’s service. He sent me away. I live down in Grinzing now, but I climb up every day and sit on that bench.”
“Who is this woman?”
Severin winked slyly: “She’s everything now… she’s the only one with the Herr Baron. Frau Rosina Knall, used to be a nurse at the maternity clinic, then housekeeper for Hofrat Reißnagel. She came up with messages from the Hofrat, and maybe she liked it here so much she stayed with the Herr Baron.”
“We want to see Father!” said Hermine.
But that seemed a plan requiring no help from Severin. He was entirely sidelined, a nobody here. Frau Rosina Knall stood guard with her midwife and housekeeper fists; there was no getting past her. Oh, Frau Rosina Knall knew her craft. She’d bitten everyone away, claimed everything for herself. No one could reach the Herr Baron. No one managed it like she did. Severin spun his hand in a half-circle, as if brushing something aside, and winked cheerfully. She couldn’t use anyone, couldn’t stand spectators.
Yes, that’s how it was, but Severin came up from Grinzing daily and sat on that bench—she couldn’t drive him off. She tried once, but he raised his stick, and she backed off, leaving him alone since. It was pleasant sitting on that bench in the sun.
Then one day, Frau Rosina Knall tries to get up in the morning and falls back into bed with a cry. For days, she’d felt a sharp pain in her legs, dragging herself through the house. Today, her legs are swollen to twice their size—something serious is wrong; she can’t force herself to stand. She manages only to crawl on all fours to the kitchen, pull the large iron pot from the cupboard, retrieve the stuffed old stocking from it, and crawl back to bed with it.
By noon, the Freiherr notices he hasn’t had breakfast and that it’s unusually quiet. He goes to his housekeeper’s room and finds Frau Rosina moaning, unable to move, in bed.
He thinks a doctor and a nurse are needed; Frau Rosina’s legs look like they have phlebitis.
No, no, no doctor, no nurse, she shrieks and rants—it’ll get better, she’ll surely be up by afternoon, tomorrow at the latest, if the Herr Baron could manage alone until then.
But the Baron insists a doctor must come and isn’t swayed by the raging torrent of words. Frau Rosina remains helpless in bed, her heart full of curses and hateful glares at the door—a venomous, bloated spider forced to watch a fly tear through her web.
The Freiherr goes to the dairy and asks the stable hand Franz, still there from his time, to send a boy to fetch a doctor and perhaps inquire who might take on Frau Rosina’s care.
Franz is happy to send the boy, but as for a nurse for Frau Rosina, he’d like to oblige the Herr Baron, but he fears no one would be willing, even for a whole gulden a day.
Is that so, Reichenbach muses, and why not?
Franz hesitates to explain, so the Freiherr leaves without an answer. He doesn’t return to the castle immediately; he needs some air, a sudden longing for the forest stirring within him. How long since he was last in the forest? Is he really as ill as Frau Rosina always claims? His hearing is a bit weak, but otherwise, he has no complaints. A tired heart, true, and occasional dizzy spells—that’s all. My God, he’s no longer a youth. No reason to keep him indoors, forcing teas and compresses on him. It’s as if a thick wall has collapsed, and he can escape over the rubble into the open. Now he can think again about pursuing his travel plans. With Fechner, the renowned psychophysicist and philosopher in Leipzig, he’s developed a long chain of correspondence about Od; it’s urgent to complement these written exchanges with a personal discussion. Reichenbach has no sensitive with such convincing abilities to offer irrefutable proof. Perhaps one could be found in Leipzig—he needn’t let Frau Rosina’s objections hold him back.
He can still do as he pleases. Despite his loyal housekeeper’s undeniable merits and maternal concern for his rest and health, he should be able to pursue his intentions. Much has come crashing down on him, but he’s far from finished. On the contrary, his thoughts reach further than ever; he now knows Od is the carrier of life force itself, the bearer of the soul in all nature, opening new, bolder insights into the universe’s mysteries.
Yes, everything looks different in the forest than at home in rooms smelling of tea, where Frau Rosina shuffles about in felt slippers. The forest has waited long for Reichenbach. But the forest is patient, unlike a person; it holds no grudges, standing there waiting, and when you finally come, it is kind and generous, exuding more calm than all Frau Rosina’s teas.
When Reichenbach returns to the castle, an old man sits on a terrace bench, and another stands before him, preaching. With a booming voice, as if addressing a vast crowd, he declares: “And so, to end the slaughter, I’ve resolved unyieldingly to confront anyone who dares spread errors about childbed fever. If you believe there’s a puerperal miasma in your sense, that’s criminal nonsense. My doctrine exists to be spread by medical teachers, so the medical staff, down to the last village surgeon and midwife, acts on it. My doctrine is meant to banish the horror from maternity wards, to preserve the wife for the husband, the mother for the child.”
There’s no doubt the preacher is none other than Semmelweis, though Reichenbach might not have recognized him otherwise—so bloated is his body, so swollen his pale face with heavy bags under his eyes, so erratic his large, fleshy hands.
Surely, the listener, good old Severin, never claimed there was a distinct puerperal miasma.
Reichenbach approaches the professor: “Dear Semmelweis, I’m delighted—”
“Silence!” Semmelweis snaps furiously, “I’ll have you arrested!” He climbs onto the bench, pulls out a bell like one tied to goats, and rings it shrilly, persistently. Then he turns to Reichenbach: “It’s a fact that corpses on dissection tables often enter a state of decomposition that transfers to the blood in a living body. The slightest cut with a scalpel used for dissection causes a life-threatening condition.”
“My dear Semmelweis,” Reichenbach says as gently as possible, “you don’t need to convince me. And the medical world is now, in fact, coming around to your views.”
“Who are you?” Semmelweis thunders.
“I’m Freiherr von Reichenbach!”
“Freiherr von Reichenbach? Oh, yes.” Semmelweis shields his eyes as if dazzled by light. “I know you! And you really believe my doctrine has prevailed?”
“I wish I were as far with my Od as you are. You’ve achieved success. Even Virchow recently declared you’re right.”
A mad gleam dances in Semmelweis’s eyes again. “I’ll ruthlessly expose those scoundrels. Now pay attention—I’ll read you the midwives’ oath.”
He drops the bell and fumbles for a sheet of paper in his inner coat pocket, trying to unfold it.
But Reichenbach grabs his hand and pulls it down, drawing the man off the bench. “Calm down. I already know the formula and follow it. Come into the castle with me. You sought me out.”
Semmelweis nods and mutters, “Yes, you’re Freiherr von Reichenbach. That’s good, very good. I came to Vienna; Hebra invited me to see his new sanatorium.” Suddenly, he tears free, stoops for the bell under the bench, and begins ringing it furiously again.
“Why do you keep ringing that bell?” Reichenbach asks.
The sly look on Semmelweis’s face is more heart-wrenching than his contortions of rage: “Here in Austria,” he says loftily, climbing back onto the bench, “in Austria, don’t you think we must hang everything on the big bell, my dear sir?”
“And why climb the bench?”
Semmelweis’s face gleams with cunning: “So you hear me better! The endometritis, metritis, and puerperal thrombophlebitis…”
“I already know all that,” Reichenbach soothes, “come inside with me now.” He makes a quick decision. It’s necessary to get Semmelweis into the castle and, through Severin—who has backed away from the disturbed man’s proximity and watches from a few steps away—to urgently notify one of his friends.
“You’re Freiherr von Reichenbach, aren’t you?” Semmelweis asks. “You know everything, but perhaps you don’t know that your own daughter Ottane died of childbed fever.”
No blow could strike Reichenbach’s core more cruelly, but Semmelweis likely knows nothing of pity or responsibility. “Ottane,” the Freiherr says bravely, “Ottane died in Venice of typhus.”
“No, you can be certain she died of childbed fever. The child was stillborn, but the mother needn’t have been lost. Those Italian ignoramuses who want nothing to do with me killed Ottane. They called in Doctor Sattler, my student, but it was too late. He told me everything.”
Is this horror believable? Does the madman speak from his obsession fixed on one point? Or is he telling the truth? It seems his mind is now clear and ordered, as if a lucid moment has broken through his derangement.
Semmelweis steps deliberately down from the bench and lays one of his large hands on Reichenbach’s shoulder. Perhaps he senses the terrible uncertainty he’s brought upon his friend. “Don’t think,” he says sadly, “that I’m lying to you! Something’s wrong with my head, that’s true. I must go to Gräfenberg for the cold-water cure. My wife and little Antonie are with me in Vienna, and tomorrow we travel on to Gräfenberg. My assistant, Doctor Bathory, is also with us. But as for poor Ottane, dear friend… she’s among the victims, that’s the truth.”
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