Anarchistbanjo's World

Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

But Wolf Gontram didn’t understand one syllable. She laughed,
left him standing there, and took the arm of Fräulein ten Brinken.
“My brother is a more beautiful girl that you are,” she said. “But
you are a sweeter boy.”
“And you,” laughed Alraune, “my blonde abbess, you prefer
sweet boys?”
She answered, “What is permitted for Héloise? It went very
badly for my poor Abalard, you know. He was slender and delicate
just like you are! There I can learn much about self-modesty.
But you, my sweet little boy, you appear like a strange priest
with a new and fresh doctrine, one that would harm no one.”
“My doctrine is ancient and venerable,” said the Chevalier de
Maupin.
“That is the best covering for such sweet sin,” laughed the
blonde abbess.
She took a goblet from the table and handed it to him.
“Drink, sweet boy.”
The countess came up with hot pleading eyes, “Let me have
him!”
But Frieda Gontram shook her head. “No,” she said sharply.
“Not him! Fair game, if you like–”
“She kissed me,” insisted Tosca and Héloise scoffed.
“Do you believe you are the only one tonight?”
She turned to Alraune, “Decide, my Paris. Who shall it be? The
worldly lady, or the pious one?”
“For today?” asked Fräulein de Maupin.
“Today–and as long as you want!” cried Countess Olga.
The fancy dressed boy laughed, “I want the abbess–and Tosca as
well.”
He ran laughing over to a blonde Teuton that was strutting as a
red executioner with a mighty axe made of cardboard.
“You–brother-in-law,” she cried. “I’ve got two mama’s. Will
you execute them, both of them?”
The student straightened up and raised both arms high.
“Where are they?” he bellowed.
But Alraune found no time to answer; the Colonel of the 28th
regiment had snatched her up for the two-step.
–The Chevalier de Maupin stepped onto the professors’ table.
“Where is your Albert?” asked the professor of literature.
“Where is your Isabella?”
“My Albert is running around here somewhere, Herr Professor,”
answered Alraune. “He appears in two dozen different versions in this
very ballroom!”
“As for Isabella”–her eyes searched around the room–“Isabella,”
she continued, “I will present her to you as well.”
She stepped up to the professor’s daughter; a fifteen year old,
timid thing that looked at her with large amazed blue eyes.
“Will you be my page, little gardener?” she asked.
The flaxen haired girl said, “Yes, gladly–If you want me to!”
“You must be my page when I am a lady,” the Chevalier
instructed, “and my maid when I go as a gentleman.”
The little girl nodded.
“How is that, Herr Professor?” laughed Alraune.
“Summa cum Laude!” acknowledged the professor. “But leave
my dear little Trudi here with me.”
“Now I ask!” cried the Fräulein ten Brinken and she turned to a
short, round botanist.
“Which flowers bloom in my garden, Herr Professor?”
“Red hibiscus,” answered the botanist. He knew the flora of
Ceylon very well, “golden lotus and white temple flowers.”
“Wrong!” cried Alraune. “Entirely wrong! Do you know, Herr
Rifleman from Harlem? Which flowers grow in my garden?”
The art professor looked at her sharply, a light smile tugged at
his lips.
“Les fleurs du mal; the flowers of evil,” he said. “Aren’t they?”
“Yes,” cried Mlle. de Maupin. “Yes, you’ve got it right.”
“But they don’t bloom for you my dear scientist. You must
patiently wait until they are dried and pressed into a book or in a
frame after the varnish dries.”
She pulled her pretty sword, bowed, saluted and snapped her
sword-cane back together. Then she turned around on her heel,
danced a few steps with the Baron von Manteuffel from Prussia,
heard the light voice of her Royal Highness and sprang quickly up to
the table of the princess.
“Countess Almaviva,” she began. “What do you desire from
your faithful cherubim?”
“I’m really disappointed with him,” said the princess. “He has
really earned a beating, scampering around the hall with one
scoundrel after another!”
“Don’t forget the Susanna’s either,” laughed the prince-escort.
Alraune ten Brinken pulled her lips into a pout. “What should
such a poor boy do,” she cried, “who knows nothing of this evil
world?”
She laughed, took the lute from the shoulder of the adjutant who
was standing in front of her dressed as Frans Hals. She strummed,
stepped back a few paces and sang:
“You, who instinctively
Know the ways of the heart
Tell me, is it love
That burns so here in mine?”
“From whom do you want advice cherubim?” asked the princess.
“Doesn’t my Countess Almaviva know?” Alraune gave back.
Her Royal Highness laughed, “You are very daring, my page!”
Cherubim answered, “That is the way of pages!”
He lifted the lace on the sleeves of the princess and kissed her on
the hand–a little too high on the arm and a little too long.
“Shall I bring you Rosalinde?” he whispered, and he read the
answer in her eyes.
Rosalinde danced past–not a moment’s rest was she allowed this
evening. The Chevalier de Maupin took her away from her dance
partner, led her up the steps to the table of her Highness.
“Give her something to drink,” she cried. “My beloved thirsts.”
She took the glass the princess handed to her and placed it to
Wolf Gontram’s red lips. Then she turned to the prince consort.
“Will you dance with me, wild outrider from the Rhine?”
He laughed coarsely and pointed to his gigantic brown riding
boots with their immense spurs.
“Do you believe that I can dance in these?”
“Try it,” she urged, and pulled him by the arm away from where
he was sitting.
“It will be alright! Only don’t trample me to death or break me,
you rough hunter.”
The prince threw a doubtful glance at the delicate thing in
perfumed lace, then put on his buckskin gloves and reached out to
her.
“Then come, my little page,” he cried.
Alraune threw a hand kiss over to the princess, waltzed through
the hall with the heavy prince. The people made room for them and it
went well enough diagonally across and then back. He raised her high
and whirled her through the air so that she screamed. Then he got
entangled in his long spurs–oops! They were both lying on the dance
floor.
She was up again, like new, reaching out her hand to him.
“Get up Herr Outrider. I can’t very well lift you.”
He raised his upper body, but when he tried to get onto his right
foot a quick “ouch!” came out of his mouth. He steadied himself with
his left hand, tried to get up again, but it didn’t work. An intense pain
took his Majesty across the foot.
There he sat, big and strong, in the middle of the dance floor and
couldn’t get himself up. Several came up and tried taking off the
mighty boot, which covered his entire leg, but it wouldn’t go. The
foot had swelled up so quickly they had to cut away the tough leather
with sharp knives. Professor Dr. Helban, Orthopedic, examined him
and determined the anklebone was broken.
“I’m done with dancing for today,” grumbled the prince-escort.
Alraune stood at the front of the thick circle that surrounded him,
near her pressed the red executioner. A little song occurred to her that
she had heard the students howling at night.
“Tell me,” she asked. “How does that song go, the one about the
fields, the forests and the strong man’s strength?”
The tall Teuton was thoroughly drunk and reacted as if someone
had thrown a coin into an automated machine. He swung his axe high
into the air and bellowed out:
“He fell on a stone.
He fell on a–crack, crack, crack –
He fell on a stone!
Broke three ribs in his body
In the fields and the forests
And all of his strength–
And then his right –crack, crack, crack
And then his right leg!”
“Shut up!” whispered a fraternity brother to him. “Are you
entirely crazy?”
That quieted him. But the good natured prince laughed.
“Thanks for the appropriate serenade! But you can save the three
ribs–My leg here is completely enough!”
They carried him out on a chair, helped him into his sleigh. The
princess left the ball with him. She was not at all happy about the
incident.
Alraune sought out Wolf Gontram, found him still sitting at the
abandoned Royal table.
“What did she do?” she asked quickly. “What did she say?”
“I don’t know,” answered Wölfchen.
She took his fan, hit him sharply on the arm.
“You do know,” she insisted. “You must know and you must tell
me!”
He shook his head, “But I really don’t know. She gave me
something to drink and smoothed back the hair on my forehead. I
believe she also squeezed my hand, but I can’t say exactly, don’t
know exactly all that she said. A couple of times I said, ‘Yes.’ But I
wasn’t listening to her at all. I was thinking about something entirely
different.”
“You are terribly stupid Wölfchen,” said the Fräulein
reproachfully. “You were dreaming again! What were you dreaming
about this time?”
“About you,” he replied.
She stamped her feet in anger.
“About me! Always about me! Why are you always thinking
about me?”
His large deep eyes pleaded with her.
“I can’t help it,” he whispered.
The music began, interrupting the silence that the going away of
the Royalty had caused. “Roses of the South” sounded soft and
seductive. She took his hand, pulled him out with her.
“Come, Wölfchen, we will dance!”
They stepped out and turned around. They were alone in the
large hall. The gray bearded art professor saw them, climbed up on
his chair and shouted:
“Quiet, special waltz for the Chevalier de Maupin and his
Rosalinde!”
Hundreds of eyes rested on the beautiful couple. Alraune was
highly aware of it and felt the admiration with every step that she
took. But Wolf Gontram noticed nothing, he only felt, as he lay in her
arms and was carried by the soft sounds. His heavy black eye lashes
lowered, shadowing his deep, dreamy eyes.
The Chevalier de Maupin led, certain, as confidant as a slender
page that has lived on the smooth dance floor since the cradle. His
head was bowed slightly forward, his left hand held two of
Rosalinde’s fingers while the right rested on the golden knob of the
sword-cane that he had pushed down through the lace trimmed sash
till the other end showed behind him. His powdered hair curled like
tiny silver snakes, a smile spread his lips revealing smooth white
teeth.
Rosalinde followed every light pressure. Her red and gold train
slid smoothly over the floor and her figure grew out of it like a
graceful shaped flower. Her head lay back, white ostrich plumes
dangled heavily from her large hat. She was worlds away from
everyone else, enraptured by the garlands of roses that hung
throughout the hall. They passed under them again and again on their
way around the dance floor.