Anarchistbanjo's World

Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

Finale
It is late in the summer, the hollyhocks now raise their heads
away from the stalks. The mallows scatter their dull tones in tired
colors, pale yellow, lilac and soft pink. When you knocked my love,
the spring was young. When you entered through the narrow gate into
my dream garden the swift little swallows were singing their welcome
to the daffodils and the yellow primrose.
Your eyes were blue and kind and your days were like heavy
clusters of light blue wisteria dropping down to form a soft carpet. My
feet walked lightly there through the sun glistening pathways of your
arbor–Then the shadows fell and in the night eternal sin climbed out
of the ocean, coming here from the south, created out of the glowing
fires of the desert sands.
She spewed forth her pestilent breath in my garden strewing her
rutting passion beneath her veil of beauty. Wild sister, that’s when
your hot soul awoke, shameless, full of every poison. You drank my
blood, exulted and screamed out from painful tortures and from
passionate kisses.
Your marvelous sweet nails that your little maid, Fanny,
manicured grew into wild claws. Your smooth teeth, glowing like
milky opals, grew into mighty fangs. Your sweet childish breasts, little
snow-white kittens, turned into the rigid tits of a murderous whore.
Your golden curls hissed like impassioned vipers and the lightning
that unleashed all madness reposed in your soft jeweled eyes which
caught the light like the glowing sapphire in the forehead of my
golden Buddha.
But gold lotus grew in the pool of my soul, extended themselves
with broad leaves upon the vast shallows and covered the deep
horrors of the whirling maelstrom. The silver tears that the clouds
wept lay like large pearls upon their green leaves, shining through the
afternoons like polished moonstones.
Where the acacia’s pale snow once lay the laburnum now throws
its poisonous yellows–There, little sister, I found the great beauty of
your chaste sins and I understood the pleasures of the saints.
I sat in front of the mirror, my love, drank out of it the over
abundance of your sins while you slept on summer afternoons, in your
thin silk shift on white linen. You were a different person, my dear,
when the sun laughed in the splendor of my garden–sweet little sister
of my dream filled days. You were an entirely different person, my
dear, when it sank into the sea, when the horrors of darkness softly
crept out of the bushes–wild, sinful sister of my passionate nights–But
I could see by the light of day all the sins of the night in your naked
beauty.
Understanding came to me from out of the mirror, the ancient
gold framed mirror, which saw so many games of love in that wide
turret room in the castle of San Costanzo. The truth, which I had only
glimpsed in the pages of the leather bound volume, came to me from
out of that mirror. Sweetest of all are the chaste sins of the innocent.
That there are creatures–not animal–strange creatures, that
originate out of villainous desires and absurd thoughts–that you will
not deny, my love, not you.
Good is the law; good are all the strict rules. Good is the God
that created them and good is the man that carefully observes them.
But there is the child of Satan who with arrogant hands brazenly
rips the eternal laws from their appointed place. The Evil One, who is
a mighty Lord, helps him–that he might create out of his own proud
will–against all nature.
His work towers into the heavens– and yet falls apart and in its
collapse buries the arrogant fool that conceived it–
Now I write this for you, sister, this book–I ripped open old, long
forgotten scars, mixed their dark blood with the bright and fresh
blood of my latest torments. Beautiful flowers grow out of such soil,
fertilized by blood.
All that I have told you, my love, is very true–yet I take it from
the mirror, drink out of its glass the realizations of my latest
experiences and apply them to earlier memories and original events.
Take this book sister. Take it from a wild adventurer who was an
arrogant fool–and a quiet dreamer as well–Take if from one, little
sister, that has run closely alongside such a life–

Miramar–Lesina–Brion
April–October 1911