Anarchistbanjo's World

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

Ruprecht stood pensively in the dark, then climbed
the stairs, where Jana waited at the top. Sleep was
impossible. First, another glass of wine to calm
himself. The news had shaken him. So much had
surfaced—radiant youth, a blonde girl’s face… it
gleamed like treasure unearthed from a barrow. One
more glass…
“You can go, Jana,” he said.
But Jana stood in the room’s center, staring at his
master.
“What is it?”
“Master… you must come to the cellar. I need to
show you something.”
“Another secret? I’m exhausted. But fine, if you
insist.”
“Not by the stairs,” Jana said. “Better no one
knows you went with me. Over there…”
Beside the heavy cabinet with armored men was a
hidden panel door, so well-concealed Ruprecht had
only found it after careful search. Even Helmina
claimed ignorance. “This old castle may hold more
such secrets,” she’d said. Indeed, Ruprecht had found
similar features in other rooms—secret doors,
pivoting paintings, hollow walls, the full medieval
romantic apparatus spared by the imaginative Count
Erwin Moreno during renovations. It was the era of
Grillparzer’s The Ancestress. Such things were a
point of pride. “I find it almost eerie,” Helmina had
remarked. “Eerie? No!” Ruprecht smiled. “Feudal,
high feudal! Pity we don’t have a white lady
heralding the owners’ deaths.” At the flash in
Helmina’s eyes, he’d added, “It’s odd no one’s
noticed… shows how little we heed our
surroundings.”
The castle was a fox’s den, but these secrets were
harmless. Dark stairways led to passages, doors to
hidden chambers, pivoting paintings to empty niches.
If they once held purpose, they were now mere
mood-setters.
Behind the study’s panel door, a narrow spiral
staircase descended past a lightless chamber to a
ground-floor corridor, ending behind old oak
paneling near a garden glass door.
Jana led with a lamp. The steps creaked under
their tread. From the staircase’s end, it was a short
walk to the cellar entrance. Jana hadn’t locked the
rusty iron door, opening it silently, plunging ahead
into the damp dark.
The cellar held many rooms. The first were
stocked with provisions, then wood and coal stores.
At the back, behind a wooden gate, lay the wine,
entrusted to Lorenz’s care. Each barrel bore a neat
label noting vintage and origin. In the rear, bottled
wines nestled in sand, dusty bottles aligned in orderly
groups, their patina-covered labels facing up.
A faint trickling guided Ruprecht through the
bottle rows to the cellar’s end.
Jana raised the lamp, pointing to a dark patch on
the wall. Water had broken through, spurting between
stones, carving a path in the sand. Bottles here were
jumbled, half-submerged in sodden ground. At the far
end, a dark opening gaped. Clearly, water had cleared
a blocked hole in the wall, now cascading in small
falls, widening it as it carried soft muck away. “Have
you been down there?” Ruprecht asked.
“No, Master, but I think we should see where it
leads.” Without hesitation, Jana knelt and crawled
into the hole, lamp in hand. Ruprecht lit his way, arm
extended. He wanted to smile at his servant’s
suspicion and this adventurous probe into the castle’s
depths, but he was strangely tense. As Jana slid
halfway down, he found footing, taking the lamp.
Ruprecht followed swiftly.
They entered a lower, empty cellar, its walls
arching close overhead. Water stood ankle-deep, with
no drain. Ruprecht felt dampness seep through his
shoes.
Jana shone the light around. Nothing. Opposite
was another low doorway, steps leading up.
“Onward,” Ruprecht said, seized by explorer’s
zeal.
The next room was empty too, its air stifling, the
lamp dim. They searched the vault, squeezing
through a narrow gap into another chamber.
More vaults followed—some up, some down, a
passage, then more rooms.
Finally, they descended slick steps deep below.
Ruprecht tested the walls. “We must be near the
tower. These stones are giant-laid.”
Jana stood by a small wall opening, too narrow to
crawl through. He thrust his arm with the lamp into
the dark, casting wary glances like harpoons.
“Nothing,” Ruprecht said. “Let’s turn back. I’m
soaked.”
Jana turned, horror in his gaze. “Master,” he said,
“look here.”
Ruprecht approached, craning past Jana’s
outstretched arm. The lamp’s light didn’t reach far.
Nothing was visible in its glow. Beyond the lit circle,
something seemed to emerge—a yellowish shape,
like a rotting pumpkin… a human face, grimacing in
distortion.
Ruprecht recoiled. “Jana,” he said, gripping the
Malay’s arm, “there’s a corpse.”
“I see three dead men,” Jana nodded.
“Jana—Jana!” Ruprecht leaned against the wall,
staring into the Malay’s face.
“Yes… Master!”
Only their breathing and the lamp’s faint, anxious
hum broke the deep silence.
“It could be from long ago…” Ruprecht said
finally. “Castles like this didn’t coddle prisoners.
Bodies can preserve for centuries in cellar air. I’ve
seen it often.”
Jana peered through the opening again. “Master,”
he said, “their clothes are like yours. The people in
the yellow hall’s paintings wear different ones.”
“We can’t get in,” Ruprecht said, eyeing the
massive, unyielding stones. “Impossible without
tools.”
“Leave the dead in peace, Master! It’s enough you
know three corpses lie under this thick tower. You
should leave this castle.”
“It’s Helmina’s castle, Jana! Helmina’s castle! I
see you think she knows.”
“Yes! She’ll kill you, Master! Come away. Return
to India.”
“No, Jana, I can’t. I must see if you’re right. This
adventure must be faced.”
“You’ll be careless… you’ll betray yourself…
then you’re lost.”
Ruprecht straightened. “Haven’t I proven I can
keep silent? You’ll see! It’s good I know this… Let’s
go back. Take my wet suit, erase all traces, Jana…
No one must know we were here tonight… Besides, I
can’t believe you’re right. Helmina knows nothing of
this… it’s nonsense. People don’t just vanish
nowadays.”
Jana met his master’s gaze. Horror gave way to
iron resolve. Ruprecht’s face was taut but calm, as
Jana knew from Indian jungle hunts.