Anarchistbanjo's World

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

When I wanted to go I noticed that a few steps behind
me was a lean, white-haired, very stately and upright peasant,
who looked at me with a less than friendly and piercing look.
“I suppose the gentleman is coming to see us?” he said
lurkingly. “I will show him the way to the inn.”
And with that he walked beside me.
The village mutt, which wanted to come at me with loud
barking, gave way with retracted tail before his hard look. The
people before the houses pulled their caps before him.
“Here it is.”
The peasant pointed to the door of a large house, in front
of which a couple of fellows stood chatting quietly.
“Enter.”
That sounded like an order and gave me a jolt.
“Ei, is this the only inn in the big town?” I turned
mockingly to my companion. “And how do you know that I
want to enter this one?”
He looked me sharply in the face with his cold, blue eyes
and replied only briefly:
“It is best for the Lord to enter here!”
I complied with the strange compulsion, entered and sat
down at a table on the wall under the deer antlers. The old man
sat down with me, had wine brought, set fire to a short silver-
beaten burl pipe and said:
“You look like a man of status in spite of your rather
scuffed clothes. The question is how you have come to so
lonely a wandering?”
“Aren’t you being a bit too curious, Herr Mayor,” I
replied. This was the title he had been given by the little girl
when she had poured the wine.
“Curiosity, as you call it, is the right of the established
against strangers. Besides, here I am the authority. So you want
to tell me something about your status, name and what you are
doing. Its better speaking over a glass than on the bench in the
basement, if one is the judge and the other is the indicted.”
This sounded like a threat, and I would certainly have
responded sharply if there had not been something special in
the man’s nature and especially in the look of the man, there
was something that I did not want to resist. The mayor also
knew how to get answers to the questions that he addressed to
me so cleverly and forcefully that I, not knowing why myself,
shared my entire life to him with the greatest frankness. I
admitted that I had deserted from the army of the great king,
not out of cowardice, but to flee the cruelty of a state that
seemed to me to be an excess of servitude and annihilation of
free will which had become abhorrent to me.
“Young Herr,” said the old man thoughtfully. “In such a
way it can still take a good course with you. As I hear from
your speeches, you have had pity on the poor man, and that is a
great and precious rarity among people. To what extent your
unprotected youth pushed you into ruin, I cannot judge for the
time being. But I hope that a suspicion which distresses me and
which is very threatening to you, will prove to be false.”
“What suspicion?” I asked, astonished.
“Be patient,” said the mayor. “Where will your
wanderings take you?”
“To my homeland,” I answered.
“Tell me,” he continued, again looking sharply at me.
“Why did you stand so long in the snow looking at the wayside
shrine?”
Gradually, his imperious way of asking put me in harness,
and I briefly asked him whether he thought of himself as a
judge who had a poor rascal before him.
“That is what I think.”
He laid his hand firmly on my arm.
“You know that I am the mayor of this village and as
such I ask you: Do you have anything to tell me about the
welfare of the village?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Your village is threatened by a
grave danger.”
It was as if a kindly glow flitted across his weathered
face. But it became immediately serious again, and he said,
apparently indifferently:
“Gee up! Who told you that fairy tale?”
“It’s not a fairy tale,” I said, glad to bring in my nearly
almost committed grave omission. “Believe me, you are in
danger!”
“Go ahead and speak, Squire.”
“There are certain signs,” I said, “by which the murderers
and the marauders announce their wickedness to each other. I
found such signs on your wayside shrine. Now you know why I
stopped in the snow.”
He made a movement as if he wanted to reach out his
hand to me, but dropped it and asked dryly, where I got such
dubious knowledge. I reminded him that I had already told him
about my time with the gypsies, who understood such things
well.
The old man laughed briefly and his wrinkled face came
near.
“Perhaps it true that I also know something about such
things?” he murmured.
“You?”
I shook my head doubtfully.
“We could try it out,” he said and poured me some wine.
“Describe the signs to me, and then let’s interpret them together
like the old magicians of whom we read in the scriptures.”
“Very well,” I said. “There were on the Wayside Shrine: a
full moon, a one, three houses, the first two of which are
crossed out, and the third not, a comb with teeth, a snake or a
viper, two dice with five on top, three crosses, each in a square,
two of which are crossed out and one of which is not, a knife,
two shoes, a rooster and the letter F.”
“Quite so.”
The old man nodded and took a thoughtful sip from his
glass, “Now let’s divide ourselves in the work. You, valiant
squire, point out to me the rogue’s signs up to the two fives of
the dice, and then I will explain the rest of the drawings that
have been on the Wayside Shrine since yesterday.”
“We could leave the interpreting for later. Better to take
precautions now -“
“Don’t be concerned,” he rebuffed. “It will be on my, the
village mayor’s cap, if something is missed, you are in no way
to blame. And now off with your gypsy wisdom!”
“So listen,” I began. “The signs are thus to read: On the
first day of the full moon we gather. The target is for the third
house in the village. This all means the moon, the one and the
not crossed out third house. A comb with teeth indicates: a
sharp dog is on guard. Then the snake means a lump of poison,
to make the watch dog dumb.”
“It’s my house,” nodded the white-haired man, “which
they have in mind, and my Packan, who admittedly will not
take a lump from a stranger’s hand. You have interpreted well.
Now it is my turn.”
“Better let me.”
“Chamber. Two fives on the dice: that is ten o’clock at
night, because the moon is in front; three crosses, each in a
square, two painted: get in at the third window. A knife:
murders quickly and safely. The shoes: then make haste away
with the loot, but first put the red rooster on the roof as it is
shown, so that the fire will erase all the evidence. And F? What
does that mean?”
He looked at me with a smile.
“That’s a name sign,” I replied quickly. “You can’t get the
name itself from it. Certainly it is the captain, whom the others
obey.”
“The F means Frieder,” said the old man, “and this devil
of a fellow is the leader of five journeymen murderers who
have drawn themselves from the Spessart region and call
themselves the Red Hat, as Frieder likes to wear a fox-red cap.
Now you also know the name sign.”
“A good guess,” I admitted.
“Now I may trust you, young Herr.”
The mayor extended his hand to me, which he had
previously refused to do.
“Even though it stinks that you know how to read tines.
You know that earlier I took you for one of their henchmen and
spies, when you were at the wayside shrine and looked at the
signs so devoutly. Hey, Hannes, Matz, and Kilian!” he shouted
loudly.
In an instant the door opened, and three tree-strong
fellows with rifles, sabers and two huge gray shepherds’ or
catchers’ dogs came straight towards me with ropes in their
hands.
“Leave the gentleman!” the mayor waved them off. “Go
back to the others and tell them that this one is a righteous man
and no one may harm him. Make it very clear, as I have shown
you. Veit and Leberecht at the sloe bush, old Knolb and Heger’s
boy on the roof of the first house, four in the ditch, two behind
the dung heap, ten in Heger’s stable and the others, as the case
may be. Let them come right on in, don’t bother taking
prisoners. The five helpers may kiss the snow, Frieder, the one
with the red cap, we want alive.”
The strong fellows looked at me and laughed.
“So we would have soon sent the wrong man on his way
to heaven,” said one of them, nudging the two others, who
burst out with their boorish laughter. The dogs growled and
pulled their chops from their white teeth.
“Now go again!” the old man instructed them, and
immediately they stomped heavily out the door.
Outside the last light lay blue and darkening on the white
land.
The old man ordered me not to leave the inn for the time
being.
Later, the taciturn tavern maid, who answered all my
questions with a “Don’t know.” brought me a chicken roasted
on a spit and a jug of red wine.
Once, when I felt the urge to go out, one of the dogs
struck close to me. So I had to stay and wait until everything
was over, and tired from the long way and sleepy from eating
and drinking, I fell into a half slumber.