Anarchistbanjo's World

Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

The professor laughed and said, “She brings money into the
house.”
He knew very well that these things happened in a natural way,
that it was only the result of his intense occupation with these things
of the earth. But still there was some connection with the little
creature and he played with the thought.
He took a very risky speculation and bought enormous properties
along the broad path of Villen Street. He had the earth dug up and
every handful of dirt searched. He did business taking great calculated
risks, putting a mortgage bank back on a sound financial basis when
everyone else thought it would go bankrupt in a very short time. The
bank held together. Whatever he touched went the right way.
Then through a coincidence he found a mineral water spring on
one of his properties in the mountains. He had it barreled and hauled
away. That is how he came into the mineral water line buying up
whatever was available in the Rhineland until he almost had a
monopoly in that industry. He formed a little company, hung a
nationalistic cloak around it, declaring that a person had to make a
stand against the foreigners, the English that owned Apollonaris.
The little owners flocked around this new leader, swore by “His
Excellency”, and when he formed a joint company gladly allowed
him to reserve the controlling shares for himself. It was a good thing
they did, the Privy Councilor doubled their dividends and dealt
sharply with the outsiders that had not wanted to go along.
He pursued a multitude of things one right after the other–they
had only one thing in common–they all had something to do with the
earth. It was just a whim of his, this thought that Alraune drew gold
out of the earth and so he stayed with those things that had something
to do with the earth. He didn’t really believe it for a second, but he
still entered into even the wildest speculation with the certain
confidence that it would succeed as long as it dealt with the earth.
He refused to deal with anything else without even looking into
it, even highly profitable stock market opportunities that appeared
with scarcely the slightest risk. Instead he bought huge quantities of
extremely rotten mining concerns, buying into ore as well as coal,
then trading them in a series of shady deals. He always came out–
“Alraune does it,” he said laughing.
Then the day came when this thought became more than a joke
to him. Wölfchen was digging in the garden, behind the stables under
the large mulberry tree. That was where Alraune wanted to have her
subterranean palace. He dug day after day and once in awhile one of
the gardener’s boys would help.
The child sat close by; she didn’t speak, didn’t laugh, just sat
there quietly and watched. Then one evening the boy’s shovel gave a
loud clang. The gardener’s boy helped and they carefully dug the
brown earth out from between the roots with their bare hands. They
brought the professor a sword belt, a buckle and a handful of coins.
Then he had the place thoroughly dug up and found a small treasure –
genuine Gaelic pieces, rare and valuable. It was not really
supernatural. Farmers all around sooner or later found something,
why shouldn’t there be something hidden in his garden as well?
But that was the point. He asked the boy why he had dug in that
particular spot under the mulberry tree and Wölfchen said the little
one wanted him to dig there and nowhere else. Then he asked Alraune
but she remained silent.
The Privy Councilor thought she was a divining rod, that she
could feel where the earth held its treasure. He laughed about it. Yes,
he still laughed. Sometimes he took her along out to the Rhine along
Villen Street and over to the ground where his men were digging.
Then he would ask dryly enough,” Where should they dig?”
He observed her carefully as she went over the field to see if her
sensitive body would give some sign, some indication, anything that
might suggest–
But she remained quiet and her little body said nothing, later
when she understood what he wanted she would remain standing on
one spot and say, “Dig.”
They would dig and find nothing. Then she would laugh lightly.
The professor thought, “She’s making fools of us.” But he always dug
again where she commanded. Once or twice they found something, a
Roman grave, then a large urn filled with ancient silver coins.
Now the Privy Councilor said, “It is coincidence.”
But he thought, “It could also be coincidence.”
One afternoon as the Privy Councilor stepped out of the library
he saw the boy standing under the pump. He was half-naked with his
body bent forward. The old coachman pumped, letting the cold stream
pour over his head and neck, over his back and both arms. His skin
was blazing red and covered with small blisters.
“What did you do Wölfchen?” He asked.
The boy remained quiet, biting his teeth together, but his dark
eyes were full of tears.
The coachman said, “It’s stinging nettles. The little girl beat him
with stinging nettles.”
Then the boy defended himself, “No, no. She didn’t beat me. I
did it myself. I threw myself into them.”
The Privy Councilor questioned him carefully yet only with the
help of the coachman was he able to get the truth out of the boy. It
went like this:
He had undressed himself down to his hips, thrown himself into
the nettles and rolled around in them, but–at the wish of his little
sister. She had noticed how his hand burned when he accidentally
touched the weed, had seen how it became red and blistered. Then she
had persuaded him to touch them with his other hand and finally to
roll around in them with his naked breast.
“Crazy fool!” The Privy Councilor scolded him. Then he asked if
Alraune had also touched the stinging nettles.
“Yes,” answered the boy, but she didn’t get burned.
The professor went out into the garden, searched and finally
found his foster-child. She was in the back by a huge wall tearing up
huge bunches of stinging nettles. She carried them in her naked arms
across the way to the wisteria arbor where she laid them out on the
ground. She was making a bed.
“Who is that for?” he asked.
The little girl looked at him and said earnestly, “For Wölfchen!”
He took her hands, examined her thin arms. There was not the
slightest sign of any rash.
“Come with me,” he said.
He led her into a greenhouse where Japanese primroses grew in
long rows.
“Pick some flowers,” he cried.
Alraune picked one flower after another. She had to stretch high
to reach them and her arms were in constant contact with the
poisonous leaves. But there was no sign of a burning rash.
“She must be immune,” murmured the professor and wrote a
concise thesis in the brown leather volume about the appearance of
skin rashes through contact with stinging nettles and poison primrose.
He proposed that the reaction was purely a chemical one, that the
little hairs on the stems and leaves wounded the skin by secreting an
acid, which set up a local reaction at the place of contact.
He attempted to discover a connection as to whether and to what
extent the scarcely found immunity against these primroses and
stinging nettles had to do with the known insensibility of witches and
those possessed. He also wanted to know whether the cause of both
phenomenon and this immunity could be explained on an auto-
suggestive or hysterical basis.
Now that he had once seen something strange in the little girl he
searched methodically for things that would validate this thought. It
was mentioned at this spot as an addendum that Dr. Petersen thought
it was completely trivial and disregarded the fact in his report that the
actual birth of the child took place at the midnight hour.
“Alraune, was thus brought into this life in the time honored
manner,” concluded the Privy Councilor.
Old Brambach had come down from the hills; it had taken four
hours to come from beyond the hamlet of Filip. He was a semi-invalid
that went through the hamlets in the hill country selling church raffle
tickets, pictures of saints and cheap rosaries. He limped into the
courtyard and informed the Privy Councilor that he had brought some
Roman artifacts with him that a farmer had found in his field.
The professor had the servants tell him that he was busy and to
wait, so old Brambach waited there sitting on a stone bench in the
yard smoking his pipe. After two hours the Privy Councilor had him
called in. He always had people wait even when he had nothing else
to do. Nothing lowered the price like letting people wait, he always
said.
But this time he really had been busy. The director of the
Germanic museum in Nuremburg was there and was purchasing items
for a beautiful exhibit called “Gaelic finds in the Rhineland”.
The Privy Councilor did not let Brambach into the library but
met with him in the little front room instead.
“Now, you old crippled rascal, let’s see what you have!” he
cried.
The invalid untied a large red handkerchief and carefully laid out
the contents on a fragile cane chair. There were many coins, a couple
of helmet shards, a shield pommel and an exquisite tear vial. The
Privy Councilor scarcely turned to give a quick squinting glance at the
tear vial.
“Is this all, Brambach?” he asked reproachfully and when the old
man nodded he began to heartily upbraid him. He was so old now and
still as stupid as a snotty nosed youngster! It had taken him four hours
to get here and would take him four hours to go back. Then he had to
wait a couple hours as well. He had frittered the entire day away on
that trash there! The rubbish wasn’t worth anything. He could pack it
back up and take it with him. He wouldn’t give a penny for the lot!
How often did he have to tell people again and again, “Don’t run
to Lendenich with every bit of trash?”
It was stupid! It was better to wait until they had a nice
collection and then bring everything in at one time! Or maybe he
enjoyed the walk in the hot sun all the way here and back from Filip?
He should be ashamed of himself.
The invalid scratched behind his ear and then turned his brown
cap in his fingers very ill at ease. He wanted to say something to the
professor, most of the time he was very good at haggling a higher
price for his wares. But he couldn’t think of a single thing, only the
four miles that he had just come–exactly what the professor was now
berating him for. He was completely contrite and comprehended
thoroughly just how stupid he had been so he made no response at all.
He requested only that he be allowed to leave the artifacts there so he
wouldn’t have to haul them back. The Privy Councilor nodded and
then gave him half a Mark.