Anarchistbanjo's World

Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Third Chapter
The Lower Austrian Waldviertel is for the
contemplative. It offers no surprises for restless
travelers who need a new sensation at every bend to
stave off boredom. One shouldn’t expect the dramatic
tension of towering rock formations, soaring peaks,
or dark gorges, nor the infinite feelings stirred by the
sea. But it holds a wealth of subtle, enchanting
beauties—the grace of gently rolling forested hills,
the charm of winding rivers dotted with ancient
castles and small towns, dusty and seemingly
forgotten by history.
A railway runs through the Kremstal. Every half-
hour, the train stops, huffs briefly, disgorges a few
passengers who disembark slowly, dawdle across the
platform, and drift into the dusty towns.
Ruprecht von Boschan stood on a forested hill,
gazing into the valley where a little train was stirring
again, groaning as if pleading for pity. He sought a
phrase for this landscape. “It sings the green forest
tune,” he thought. “It’s like a folk song—intimate, as
if known forever. You hear a heart beating.” He
turned from the clearing he’d entered and continued
through the woods. He wore tourist garb. “For I am a
seeker,” he said to himself, “a seeker with staff in
hand.”
With this staff, he occasionally struck tree trunks,
the sound echoing through the forest. He loved such
noises—trees calling to one another, the echo racing
deeper into the green darkness. From time to time, he
pulled out his map to check his route.
Ahead walked a peasant.
“Hey, cousin!” Ruprecht called. The man didn’t
turn. After a while, Ruprecht caught up. “Hey,
cousin!” he said again. “Heading to Vorderschluder?”
When the peasant still didn’t reply, Ruprecht
bellowed, “Are you deaf?”
The man looked at him. “No need to shout,” he
said with a faint dialect twang. “I hear you fine. I just
don’t always fancy answering. In the woods, I prefer
my own company.”
A peculiar one, Ruprecht thought. The man’s
appearance was odd too. His head and stocky peasant
frame didn’t match. That wasn’t a peasant’s face,
with its sharp nose, shrewd eyes, and curious French-
style mustache. A resemblance to Napoleon III made
Ruprecht smile. But the eyes were sky-blue. A
Napoleonic head with blue eyes on a peasant body—
nature loves its grotesque games, he concluded.
“You could be alone if you wanted,” Ruprecht
said.
They walked on silently. After a while, the peasant
spoke, having covertly studied Ruprecht from the
side. Ruprecht had passed muster, deemed worthy of
conversation. Was he going to Vorderschluder, and
what was his business there?
“Just a tourist,” Ruprecht said. “Here for the
scenery.”
“Aye, we’ve got scenery,” the man said, pointing
his pipe stem ahead, where a tower and a fiery red
church roof peeked through a gap in the trees,
vanishing behind the green forest wall. “There’s the
village.”
What’s the village like? Ruprecht asked.
Just a village, like any other.
Nothing special?
What’s special? A castle, a factory, that’s it.
Who owns the castle?
Frau Dankwardt. Now Ruprecht had reached his
goal. He’d hidden his purpose for visiting
Vorderschluder to learn more. But here, progress
stalled. A barrier seemed to rise. When he asked who
Frau Dankwardt was, a wary glance met him. The
peasant puffed furiously on his long-cold pipe, then
produced a tobacco pouch and an ancient lighter,
restuffing and relighting it. “Well, then!” he muttered
into the first blue clouds.
From his experience with peasants, Ruprecht
deduced Frau Dankwardt wasn’t much loved in the
village.
“Know her, maybe?” the man asked, peering
through his pipe smoke with eyes like blue sky
behind clouds.
Time to lie. “No,” Ruprecht said.
“Well… she’s beautiful, mind. Very fine. Plenty
fell for her. Her three men were fools for her. The
factory clerks, too—all of ’em—and that Baron
Kestelli rides over from Rotbirnbach every other day.
Right beautiful.”
Ruprecht, who’d built an altar to her beauty,
worshipping in awe, knew this best. He understood
why men loved her. But he wanted the “but” lurking
behind the praise.
“But…” the peasant continued after a silent puff,
“she’s no good soul. Not that she skips church—she’s
there every Sunday. Gives the priest money for the
poor at Christmas, too. But it’s all show. No one
trusts her. I’d not want her as my wife.”
Ruprecht smiled, picturing this Napoleonic
peasant beside the lovely, lithe, witty woman, but
stifled it to avoid suspicion. “Why not?” he asked
innocently.
“Well…” Three large blue-gray smoke balls
drifted from the peasant’s mouth corner. “Stay
longer, and you’d know.”
Fair enough—hard to dispute.
“They say she’s a trud,” the man said. “You know,
a witch who comes at night, sucking folks’ blood.
Nonsense, no such thing. Though Maradi, the
Weißenstein innkeeper, swears he saw her naked in
the woods one night, like witches are. But Maradi
also saw a water sprite once… turned out to be an
otter. Still, it’s true her men had no good life with
her. The last, Herr Dankwardt, such a fine man—
quiet, decent, all for books and family. A model for
anyone. The first two were good men, too. And she
killed all three…”
He stopped, startled at confiding so much to a
stranger. The word seemed cloaked in a red, bloody
mantle, hovering before them like an ominous bird.
“Killed?” Ruprecht asked, uneasy, struck by the
man’s convinced tone.
The peasant smoked like an engine hauling a fleet
of wagons. “Well, aye,” he muttered in the cloud.
“Folks talk… not meant like that. She drove her men
to death with endless nagging and strife, that’s what’s
meant. The first fled to Tyrol, never returned. The
second had a stroke after a row. The third, he took it
all so hard, he wasted away, like he was draining
out… always headaches, then suddenly dead. That’s
how it was.”
The men emerged from the woods, the village
below. Across the river, spanned by an old stone
bridge, stood the castle, aloof from the village houses
like a lord keeping the rabble at bay. On one side, just
below the last houses, squatted the square, ugly,
yellow paper factory. Forested hills ringed a basin, its
floor traced by a silver snake of a river. The basin
brimmed with sunlight, the rustle of hillside woods,
and a hum from the village.
“Well, goodbye!” the peasant said. “You head to
the village; I’m over there. My cottage’s by the
woods. I’m Rotrehl, the violin-maker, so you know,
if you ever want a fine fiddle. My violins are right
famous.” His blue eyes gleamed with an artist’s
pride.
“Rotrehl?” Ruprecht said. “Tell me, wasn’t there
once a Frenchman in your family?”
A solemn smile spread across the violin-maker’s
face. “Aha… you mean the resemblance! You think
so too? Yes, everyone says it!” He stroked his French
mustache. “A Frenchman? Frenchmen passed
through here once. Must be nigh on a hundred years
ago… it’s in my books. I do look like Napoleon,
don’t I? In the village, they call me ‘Krampulljon’—
the fools don’t know better. So, goodbye!” With that,
he turned to go, but after a few steps, glanced back.
“Head to the Red Ox in the village. They’ve got wine
worth drinking.” It was his thanks for Ruprecht
noting the likeness.
Ruprecht did stop at the Red Ox, finding a warm-
hearted landlady who served him a slice of sausage
and a glass of wine with a smile that could make even
a poor vintage palatable. Fortified, he crossed the
stone bridge. Four baroque barons, two at each end,
gazed down at him. He whistled a tune, passing
between them, and climbed toward the castle. Its
massive gate bore a wooden snout above the arch.
The structure showed its modern walls grafted onto
ancient ruins. The courtyard blended old and new—
Romanesque double windows in the upper story
contrasted with contemporary renovations. A fine,
ancient linden shaded a well; beneath it, a bright
dress. Ruprecht’s heart raced. But it was only Miss
Nelson, the governess.
As he approached, hat in hand, two little girls
rushed over, clinging to him. Touched, he realized
they recognized him, remembered him. He lifted and
kissed them.
Had he stayed long in Abbazia, they asked, and
what had he done since? They’d often told Mama
about him.
Hoisting three-year-old Lissy onto his shoulder,
Ruprecht danced in a circle, singing to a childish
melody:
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Where’s your Mama? Isn’t your
Mama here? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Yes… Mama’s gone out,” five-year-old Nelly
answered for her giggling sister. “She’s with Uncle
Norbert in the carriage. But we can meet her—I
know the way she’ll return.”
“Hurrah, we’ll meet her! Just us three! Miss must
stay home.”
The governess protested it was too much trouble
for Herr von Boschan. Overruled, she was hissed at
and forcibly reseated by the girls. Straw hats were
donned, and with Uncle Ruprecht between them, they
descended the castle hill. They ran to the brook,
where Ruprecht feigned plunging into the water. The
girls squealed, but he halted, tucked one under each
arm, and leapt across. What an adventure! On the
meadow, they raced on, heedless of shoes squelching
in mud. At the forest’s edge, they stopped, laughing,
flushed, and took the footpath to the road curving
around a wooded hill to the river bridge.
“Who’s Mama with? Oh, Uncle Norbert! What
kind of uncle is he?” Ruprecht felt a twinge of shame,
prying through the girls, but he needed to know his
rival.
Nelly’s blonde head pondered. “Uncle Norbert…
he’s a baron uncle…”
Kestelli, Ruprecht thought. “Do you love Uncle
Norbert dearly?” he pressed.
Both girls chimed in unison, “No—not at all!”
“Why not?”
“He never plays with us,” they said. “He ignores
us, just makes big eyes at Mama, like he wants to eat
her.”
Let’s arm for battle with this Kestelli, Ruprecht
vowed. He won’t devour your Mama.
They hadn’t gone far when Frau Dankwardt’s
carriage rounded the bend. “Mama! Mama!” the girls
cried. Ruprecht stood roadside, waving his hat.
“My God, it’s you—how lovely!” Frau Dankwardt
said, leaning over the carriage door to offer her hand.
Her eyes said: You found me? I know you’ve been
searching. Ruprecht kissed her gray glove. That scent
again—rotting fruit, hay, drying blood. That
bewildering, dangerous aroma. He had to stay
composed, cautious, treading a narrow ledge above
an abyss, pulled by a thousand sacred-unholy forces.
“I was wandering near your castle,” he said. “It’s a
magnet mountain, drawing my ship.”
A veiled homage.
Frau Dankwardt introduced them. To Baron
Kestelli’s name, she added, “A good acquaintance!”
Ruprecht called himself, “An old friend!” An old
friend trumps a good acquaintance, he thought. Let’s
see, Baron, let’s see.
They climbed in. Ruprecht sat opposite Frau
Dankwardt, Lissy on his lap. Nelly perched on the
driver’s seat. In a surge of joy, Ruprecht felt every
pulse of energy alive within him. He recounted his
doings since Abbazia—business matters first, as his
long travels had left urgent cases with his lawyer. Old
friends needed signs of life. Finally, he’d felt the urge
to refresh himself with an autumnal hike. Sitting still
wasn’t for him; limbs needed stirring.
Frau Helmina’s eyes, fixed on his face, repeated: I
understand—you’ve always sought me.
Meanwhile, Baron Kestelli felt a fist at his throat.
A wild chant roared in his head: A bond, surely; this
man aims to displace me.
At the castle courtyard, Ruprecht leapt out,
helping Helmina down. Miss Nelson rustled over in
black silk, taking the girls. While Helmina spoke
with her, Ruprecht turned to the baron. God—this
callow youth with sparse white-blonde hair on a long
skull, wrinkled yellow skin at the nape! High-born,
clearly, but utterly insignificant. He won’t devour
Frau Helmina.
They exchanged pleasantries.
“You’re my guest, of course,” Helmina said to
Boschan. “No fuss.”
Ruprecht made none. “I expected no less,” he said,
“…among such dear old friends…” He smiled.
Helmina smiled. Their gazes locked. The baron
paled.
“You may use my carriage, Herr Baron,” Helmina
said. “Your coachman’s late again, as usual.
Goodbye! Come, Herr von Boschan. The valet will
show you to your rooms.”
Alone with the girls and Miss Nelson, Helmina
knelt, pulling Lissy between her knees. Nelly leaned
on her shoulder. “Tell me,” she asked, “would you
like a new Papa?”
“Oh, yes!” Lissy cried eagerly, but Nelly said
thoughtfully, “Not Uncle Norbert!”
“Who, then?”
“Uncle Ruprecht!” Lissy and Nelly shouted
together.
Helmina turned to the governess. “Hear what the
children say!”