Anarchistbanjo's World

Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

Intermezzo
All sins, my dear girl, are brought here by the hot south wind
from out of the desert. Where the sun burns through endless centuries
there hovers over the sleeping sands a thin white haze that forms itself
into soft white clouds and floats around until the desert whirlwinds
roll them and form them into strange round eggs that contain the
sun’s blazing heat.
There the basilisk slinks around through the pale night. In a
strange manner the moon, the eternally infertile moon, fathered it. Yet
its mother, the desert sand, is just as infertile as the other is. It is the
secret of the desert. Many say it is an animal but that is not true. It is
a thought that has grown where there is no soil or no seed. It sprang
out of the eternally infertile and took on a chaotic form that life can
not recognize. That is why no one can describe this creature. It is
fashioned out of nothingness itself.
But what the people say is true. It is very poisonous. When it eats
the blazing eggs of the sun that the whirlwinds create in the desert
sands purple flames shoot out of its eyes and its breath becomes hot
and heavy with horrible fumes.
But the basilisk, pale child of the moon, does not eat all of the
vapory eggs. When it is sated and completely filled with hot poison it
spits green saliva over the eggs still lying there in the sand and
scratches them with sharp claws so the vile slime can penetrate
through their soft skin.
As the early morning winds arise a strange heaving like moist
violet and green colored lungfish can be seen growing under the thin
shells.
Throughout the land at noon eggs burst as the blazing sun
hatches crocodile eggs, toad eggs, snake eggs and eggs of all the
repulsive lizards and amphibians. These poisonous eggs of the desert
also burst with a soft pop. There is no seed inside, no lizard or snake,
only a strange vapory shape that contains all colors like the veil of the
dancer in the flame dance. It contains all odors like the pale sanga
flowers of Lahore, contains all sounds like the musical heart of the
angel Israfael and it contains all poisons as well like the basilisk’s
own loathsome body.
Then the south wind of mid-day blows in, creeping out of the
swamps of the hot jungles and dances over the desert sands. It takes
up the fiery creatures of the sun’s eggs and carries them far across
the blue ocean. They move with the south wind like soft vapory
clouds, like the loose filmy night garments of a priestess.
That is how all delightful, poisonous plagues fly to our fair
north–
Our quiet days are cool, sister, like the northland. Your eyes are
blue and know nothing of hot desire. The hours of your days are like
the heavy blue clusters of wisteria dropping down to form a soft
carpet. My feet stride lightly through them in the glinting sunlight of
your arbor.
But when the shadows fall, fair sister, there creeps a burning
over your youthful skin as the haze flies in from the south. Your soul
breathes it in eagerly and your lips offer all the red-hot poisons of the
desert in your bloody kisses–
Then it may not be to you that I turn, fair sister, sleeping child of
my dreamy days–When the mist lightly ripples the blue waves, when
the sweet voices of the birds sing out from the tops of my oleander,
then I may turn to the pages in the heavy leather bound volume of
Herr Jakob ten Brinken.
Like the sea, my blood flows slowly through my veins as I read
the story of Alraune through your quiet eyes in unending tranquility. I
present her like I find her, plain, simple, like one that is free of all
passions–
But then I drink the blood that flows out of your wounds in the
night and it mixes with my own red blood, your blood that has been
poisoned by the sinful poisons of the hot desert. That is when my
brain fevers from your kisses so that I ache and am tormented by your
desires–
Then it might well be that I tear myself loose from your arms,
wild sister– it might be that I sit there heavily dreaming at my window
that looks out over the ocean while the hot southerly wind throws its
fire. It might be that I again take up the leather bound volume of the
Privy Councilor, that I might once more read Alraune’s story–
through your poison hot eyes. Then the ocean screams through the
immovable rocks– just like the blood screams through my veins.
What I read then is different, entirely different, has different
meaning and I present her again like I find her, wild, hot–like
someone that is full of all passions!