Anarchistbanjo's World

Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

Chapter Nine
Speaks of Alraune’s lovers and what happened to them.
THESE were the five men that loved Alraune ten Brinken:
Karl Mohnen, Hans Geroldingen, Wolf Gontram, Jakob ten
Brinken and Raspe, the chauffeur. The Privy Councilor’s
brown volume speaks of them all and this story of Alraune
must speak of them as well.
Raspe, Matthieu-Maria Raspe, came with the Opel automobile
that Princess Wolkonski gave to Alraune on her seventeenth birthday.
He had served with the Hussars but now he not only had to drive the
car, he had to help the old coachman with the horses as well. He was
married and had two little boys. Lisbeth, his wife, took care of the
laundry in the house of ten Brinken. They lived in the little cottage
near the library right beside the iron-gated entrance to the courtyard.
Matthieu was blonde, big and strong. He understood his work
and used his head as well as his hands. The horses obeyed his touch
just as well as the automobile did. Early one morning he saddled the
Irish mare of his Mistress, stood in the courtyard and waited. The
Fräulein slowly came down the steps from the mansion. She was
dressed as a young boy wearing yellow leather gaiters, a gray riding
suit and a little riding cap to cover her hair.
She did not use the stirrup but had him lace his fingers together,
stepped into them and stayed like that for a short second before
swinging herself up astride the saddle. Then she hit the horse a sharp
blow with the whip so that it reared up and tore out through the open
gate. Mattheiu-Maria had all kinds of trouble mounting his heavy
chestnut gelding and catching up to her.
Brown haired Lisbeth closed the gate behind them. She pressed
her lips together and watched them go–her husband whom she loved
and Fräulein ten Brinken whom she hated.
Somewhere out in the meadow the Fräulein came to a stop,
turned around and let him catch up.
“Where should we ride today, Matthieu-Maria?” she asked.
He said, “Wherever the Fräulein commands.”
Then she tore the mare around and galloped further.
“Jump Nellie!” she cried.
Raspe hated these morning rides no less than his wife did. It was
as if the Fräulein rode alone, as if he were only air, a part of the
landscape, or as if he did not exist at all to his mistress. But then when
she did take the trouble to notice him for even a second he felt still
more annoyed. For then it was certain that she was going to demand
something unusual of him once more.
She stopped at the Rhine and waited quietly until he came up to
her side. He rode as slow as he could, knowing that she had come up
with some new notion and hoped she would forget it by the time he
got there. But she never forgot a notion.
“Matthieu-Maria,” she said, “should we swim across?”
He raised objections knowing ahead of time that it would be
useless.
“The banks on the other side are too steep,” he said. “You can’t
climb back up out of the water, especially right here where the current
is so rapid and–”
He got angry. It was all so pointless, the things his mistress did.
Why should they ride across the Rhine? They would get all wet and
cold. He would be lucky not to come down with a cold from it. It was
all for nothing, once more for nothing. He made up his mind to stay
behind. She could do her foolishness alone. What was it to him? He
had a wife and children–
That was as far as he got before riding into the stream. He
plunged deep into the water with his heavy Mecklenburger and had all
kinds of trouble arriving safely somewhere onto the rocks on the other
side. He shook himself off angrily and swore, then rode out of the
stream at a sharp trot up to his mistress. She gave him a brief sardonic
glance.
“Did you get wet, Matthieu-Maria?”
He remained quiet, insulted and angry. Why did she have to call
him by his forename? Why was she so familiar with him? He was
Raspe, the chauffeur, and not a stable boy. His brain found a dozen
good replies but his lips didn’t speak them.
Another day they rode to the dunes where the Hussars practiced.
That was even more embarrassing to him. Many of the officers and
non-commissioned officers knew him from the time he had served
with the regiment.
The mustached sergeant of the 2nd squadron called out derisively
to him.
“Well Raspe, are you going to ride with us awhile?”
“The devil take that crazy female,” growled Raspe.
But he galloped along at the rear and during the attack rode at the
side of the Fräulein. Then Count Geroldingen, cavalry captain, came
over with his English piebald to chat with the Fräulein. Raspe stayed
back but she spoke loud enough so that he could hear.
“Well count, how do you like my esquire?”
The cavalry captain laughed, “Splendid! Well suited for such a
young prince as yourself!”
Raspe wanted to box his ears, the Fräulein’s as well, and the
sergeant’s, and the entire squadron that was grinning at him. He was
embarrassed and turned red as a schoolboy.
But the afternoons were even worse when he had to go driving
with her in the automobile. He sat in his place behind the wheel
squinting at the door and sighed in relief when someone came out of
the house with her, suppressed a curse when she came out alone.
Often he had his wife find out if she wanted to go driving alone.
Then he would quickly take a few parts out of the machine and lie
under it on his back, greasing and cleaning them as if he were
repairing something.
“We can’t go driving today Fräulein,” he would say.
Then he would smile in satisfaction after she was out of the
garage. One time it didn’t go so well for him. She stayed there in the
garage quietly waiting. She didn’t say anything, but it seemed to him
as if she knew very well what he was up to. Then he slowly bolted
everything back together.
“Ready?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You see,” she said, “how better it goes when I’m here Matthieu-
Maria.”
When he came back from that drive, when his Opel was once
more in the garage and he was setting down to the meal his wife set
out for him, he trembled, he was pale and his eyes stared at nothing.
Lisbeth didn’t ask, she knew what it was about.
“That damned female!” he murmured.
She brought out the blonde, blue eyed boys to him, white in their
fresh pajamas and set one on each knee. Slowly he became happy and
at ease with his laughing children. Then after his boys were in bed, he
sat outside on the stone bench smoking his cigarette, strolled through
the village and through the ancient garden of the Brinkens, talking
things over with his wife.
“No good can come of it,” he said. “She rushes and rushes. No
speed is fast enough for her. Fourteen speeding tickets in three
weeks–”
“You don’t have to pay them,” said Frau Lisbeth.
“No,” he said. “But I am notorious for it. The police take out
their notebooks whenever they see the white car with ‘I.Z.937’ on it!”
He laughed, “Well, they aren’t wrong in taking our number. We
deserve every one of our tickets.”
He quieted, took a wrench out of his pocket and played with it.
His wife pushed her arm under his, took his cap off and stroked back
his tangled hair.
“What does she want anyway?” she asked.
She took pains to make her voice sound innocent and indifferent.
Raspe shook his head, “I don’t know Lisbeth. She is crazy.
That’s what it is and she has some damned way about her that makes
people do what she wants even when they are entirely against it and
know that it is wrong.”
“What did she do today?” his wife asked.
He said, “No more than usual. She can’t stand to see another car
in front of us. She must pass it and even if it has thirty more
horsepower than ours, she wants to catch up to it. ‘Catch it,’ she says
to me and if I hesitate she lightly touches my arm with her hand and I
let loose as if the devil himself were driving the machine.”
He sighed, brushed the cigarette ash off his pants.
“She always sits next to me,” he continued, “and just her sitting
there makes me really upset and nervous. All I can think about is what
kind of foolishness she’s going to make me do this time. Her greatest
joy is jumping the car over obstacles, boards, sand piles and things
like that. I’m no coward, but there should be some purpose to it if you
are going to risk your life every day. ‘Just drive,’ she says. ‘Nothing
will happen to me.’ She is calm when she jumps over a road ditch at
one hundred kilometers/hour. It’s possible that nothing can happen to
her, but some time I’m going to make a mistake, tomorrow or the next
day!”
Lisbeth pressed his hand. “You must simply try to not obey her.
Say ‘No’ when she wants to do something stupid! You are not
permitted to take such chances with your life. It is not fair to us, to me
or the children.”
He looked straight at her, still and calm. “I know that. It’s not
fair to you or even to myself. But you see, that’s just it. I can not say
‘No’ to the Fräulein. Nobody can. Look how young Herr Gontram
runs after her like a puppy dog, look at the way the others are happy
to fulfill all of her foolish notions! Not one of all the people in the
household can endure being around the Fräulein. Yet everyone of
them will do what she wants even if it is stupid or disgusting.”
“That’s not true!” said Lisbeth. ”Froitsheim, the coachman,
won’t, not at all.”
He whistled, “Froitsheim! You’re right. He turns around and
walks away whenever he sees her. But he is almost ninety years old
and hasn’t had any blood in his body for a long time.”
She looked at him in surprise, “Does she stir your blood then,
Matthieu? Is that why you must do what she wants?”
He evaded her eyes and looked down at the ground. But then he
took her hand and looked straight at her.
“Well you see Lisbeth, I don’t know what it is. I’ve often thought
about it, what it really is. When I see her I get so angry that I could
strangle her. When she’s not there I run around full of fear that she
might call me.”
He spit on the ground. “Damn it all!” he cried. “I wish I was rid
of this job! Wish I had never accepted it.”
They talked it over, turning it this way and that, weighing
everything for and against it and finally they came to the conclusion
that he should give his notice. But before doing that he should go into
the city the very next day and look for a new position.
That night Frau Lisbeth slept peacefully for the first time in
months but Matthieu-Maria didn’t sleep at all. He requested a leave of
absence the next morning and went to the job placement office in the
city. He was really lucky. The agent took him to meet with a
Councilor of the Chamber of Commerce that was looking for a
chauffeur and he got the job. He received a higher salary than what he
had been getting, fewer work hours and didn’t have to do anything
with horses.
As they stepped out of the house the agent congratulated him.
But he had a feeling as if there was nothing he should be thankful for,
as if he would never work at this new job.
Still, it made him happy to see his wife’s eyes light up in joy
when he told her.
“In fourteen days,” he said. “If only the time was already gone!”
She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “Not fourteen days.
Do it tomorrow! You must insist, talk with the Privy Councilor.”
“That won’t do any good,” he replied. “He would inform the
Fräulein and then–”