Anarchistbanjo's World

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

Fourteenth Chapter
Summer had arrived, and with it the summer
guests, bringing streams of sunlight and wealth to the
Kamp valley.
On a June evening, a carriage descended the final
curves of the forest road from Gars. An ordinary
vehicle, like any other, but extraordinary for its cargo
of compassion and purest love. Two people sat
within. A pale, beautiful young woman with gently
waved blonde hair wore a soft, flowing dress loosely
gathered beneath her chest. Half-reclining in her
corner, she let her wise, slightly sorrowful eyes
wander. They were drinking eyes, filled with much
yearning and joy, but also much resignation. The man
beside her strove for a correctness softened by
devotion. His clothing, collar, English mustache, and
manicured hands were mirrors of fashionable
perfection. His devotion was expressed by the arm
curved behind her shoulders, as if to make his ever-
present protection a comforting delight.
When the carriage jolted over the drainage ruts of
the steep road, like an old circus horse recalling
forgotten tricks, he shouted at the driver, “Drive
carefully… I told you!”
The driver grumbled, braking harder, so the
carriage creaked and groaned, inching along like a
snail. Thus, they reached Vorderschluder and the
door of the “Red Ox,” where the landlady offered her
warmest, most unctuous smile of welcome. These
were the distinguished guests who had reserved all
five front rooms on the first floor two weeks earlier.
The man leapt from the carriage, the driver
clambered down, but the young woman remained
leaning in her corner. Her smile was anxious, sad,
pleading the world’s forgiveness.
“Bring a chair,” the man told sturdy Resi. She
stared, astonished. One never stopped learning. Did
city women now need chairs to alight? Surely a
pampered princess, one who supposedly slept in
gloves.
But, reluctantly fetching the chair, she saw the
beautiful young woman wasn’t spoiled but a poor
paralytic, needing to be carried upstairs in the chair.
With infinite care and tenderness, the husband
oversaw the transport, supporting her back, holding
her dangling hand, asking ten times if all was well,
and snarling at helpers for any minor misstep.
“Let it be,” the invalid protested.
“No… we must insist you’re treated gently from
the start.”
Tears welled in the Red Ox landlady’s eyes. First,
the pity was unbearable—such youth, beauty, and
sweetness so afflicted. Second, balm flowed for the
husband, so devoted and tender. Her late husband, the
Ox landlord, could never have shown such sacrifice.
He’d turned surly when she ailed. With these
thoughts, she went to the kitchen, mingling tears with
the cook, chambermaid, and Resi, who’d returned
from upstairs with touching details. Schorsch, sadly
absent, would’ve wept too, the chambermaid said,
despite being a man with a less soft heart.
Unable to bear it, she grabbed a registration form
and pencil, rushing upstairs. With her finest curtsy,
she said, “Please,” placing paper and pencil on the
table. The man eyed the short, grubby pencil, licked
from use, then drew a gold fountain pen from its case
and wrote.
The young woman, still in the chair she’d been
carried in, gazed out. My God, how beautiful she
was. The chambermaid swallowed, her simple heart
yearning to do something kind for her. Such tiny,
rosy ears—not just the evening glow spreading wide
outside. Oh God, she thought, what use is wealth if
she can’t take a step?
The man finished. “When the luggage arrives,” he
said, “send the yellow suitcase and wheelchair up at
once—they’re essential.”
On the stairs, the chambermaid read the form:
Surname and First Name: Fritz Gegely, Occupation:
Writer, Birthplace: Linz, and so forth, ending with a
proud flourish: Travel Documents: None! Amid the
questions, it noted: Accompanied by: Wife. This
irked her; her pity and affection so fixed on the
paralyzed woman that, if justice ruled, she should’ve
topped the form, with the husband relegated to
“Accompanied by.”
Meanwhile, Fritz Gegely toured the five rooms of
their summer quarters, lips curled in mockery. It was
rurality supreme. Furniture painted a ghastly yellow,
walls daubed with hideous patterns, and the
pictures… Christ on the Cross, a garish van Dyck
print, hair-raising. In the bedroom, the late Ox
landlord in oil and vinegar, painted by an artist who’d
bartered a two-week stay. The artist supplied the oil
of mischief, the landlord the vinegar of forced
cheer—or vice versa. The deceased looked ready to
step from his frame at night and perch on a sleeper’s
chest. Under a glass dome crouched a wax scene: a
blind beggar with a child, a fitting companion to the
landlord. A plaster poodle in the last room completed
the set, perched on the white tiled stove, bearing
years of dust in its folds with canine stoicism.
Fritz Gegely returned from his sardonic survey to
Frau Hedwig. “Well, here we are…” he said.
Hedwig turned to him. “Do you like it?” she
asked, uncertain.
“Oh, yes!” he laughed. “We’re in a curiosity
cabinet… an ethnographic museum of Kamp valley
life.”
Hedwig grew uneasy. “You can’t expect these
simple folk to match your refined taste. When our
trunks arrive, you’ll set out your comforts, your dear
trinkets, and make these rooms your own…”
“Never,” Fritz snapped, glaring around. “These
rooms resist it. They’re steeped in smug, peasant
malice. Look—the cupboard doors squeak; to fetch a
shirt button, you get a concert, scales up and down.
The windows don’t close. A breeze will give us a
nightly rattle. There’s surely mouse holes behind the
furniture. I’m certain the beds creak. That’s a
summer retreat—for rustic art fools, not me. For
blockheads diving into the ‘folk soul,’ seeking the
‘wellspring’… how did I end up here? How does
Fritz Gegely land in Vorderschluder?”
“I feared you’d be unhappy,” the invalid said
softly. “We won’t stay long… I don’t want you
always cross.”
“Oh, please,” the poet retorted sharply. “We’ll
stay as planned. I have a will too. I’ll adapt…
protective mimicry… surely I can muster that much
resolve… or do you think me incapable even of
that?”
Hedwig waved off his words.
“Stop,” he said, irritated. “I know why you
dragged me to this backwater. You want me out of
the world’s sight. Yes… we could’ve gone to Ostend
or a Swedish spa… but you insisted on
Vorderschluder. Why? I’m not that foolish. I know
you think little of me. But I’m not that dim. I’m to
vanish… into oblivion… curtain down, show’s over.
Fritz Gegely’s memory must fade… because my
name carries scandal. The man who stole a
manuscript from Heidelberg’s university library…”
“We’ll go to Ostend tomorrow if you wish,”
Hedwig said, tears in her eyes. Silent, clear tears
traced a familiar path from wide, unblinking, fearful
eyes. Her translucent, invalid hands twisted in her
lap.
Fritz Gegely strode to the door, peered out, then
returned, lowering his voice. “Run off again? That’d
be rich. My name’s in their hands now… passed from
mouth to mouth. ‘Oh, that’s the poet of Marie
Antoinette, the Heidelberg thief—you know!’ And
we’d flee tomorrow? No, the hypocrites would say,
‘See, he can’t stay put, it’s his conscience, he’s
restless, cursed like Ahasuerus.’ We must stay.”
Hedwig reached out both hands. “Fritz, why
torment yourself… and me? That wretched affair
must be forgotten. The doctors ruled you weren’t
responsible. Everyone knows. Those aware of your…
confusion know you were acquitted and in a
sanatorium.”
But Gegely stayed clear, pacing behind the table.
Her hands sank alone.
“That’s it. Everyone knows—they handle my
name with tongs… like a hot coal. The tongs are
‘temporary insanity.’ They smirk with pity. Pity
shames.”
Hedwig shook her head. “Fritz,” she whispered,
timidly, “what should I say, then?”
He ignored her. “Those sheep-heads… instead of
explaining my case through the radiant phenomenon
of the artist, they pin it to their paltry judicial medical
terms. Fine for tailors and glovemakers dealing in
‘temporary insanity.’ Talk that way about a fifteen-
year-old schoolboy killing himself or his fourteen-
year-old sweetheart from grammar school. Or a
hysterical maid swallowing phosphorus.