Anarchistbanjo's World

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

Only one thing stood firm in my heart: the certainty that I
would see Zephyrine again. She and Aglaja, because they were
one and the same creature of God, destined for me and taken
from me again and again for the unknown purposes of eternal
powers.
During the day I had stayed in my inn room and had
answered every disturbance with the indication of indisposition
and the need for rest. In the course of the night, as the hand
approached the eleventh hour, I left the house and took the long
way to the pleasure grove.
The weather was damp and mild, and the spring wind
rattled under the roof tiles and made the weather vanes creak.
The path was dry. A long train of dark clouds chased across the
bright moon, like strange, stretched out running animal shapes.
Once or twice I was stopped by roundabouts or police
check points and was forced to show my papers and to arrange
my answers to the questions in such a way that it could be
inferred that I was on a secret love affair, which would be
unthinkable for a gentleman. In such a way, which caused me
enough displeasure, it was possible for me to get through and
even in the Egyptian darkness under the lanterns blown out by
the storm, ask for further directions from the public. For it was
not at all easy for me in such great darkness, which was
illuminated only at times by the crescent moon, to find the way
to the Lustwäldchen.
There I went astray a few times between the shapeless
tents and booths, which in the powerful darkness looked
completely different than in broad daylight. But the Magus and
his brother seemed to have attentively been on the lookout for
me, because when I, after looking around in vain tried to go in
another direction, a man suddenly stepped up to me, whom I
recognized as the harlequin, grabbed my wrist and said softly
and quickly:
“Come, Baron – we have been waiting for a long time.”
He led me between the darkened wagons and the canvas
tents to a large booth, from the crevices of which a very dim,
bluish light penetrated, opened a slit somewhere on the wall
and gently pushed me in front of him. The next moment I was
standing on the small stage behind the lowered curtain.
In the background still hung the cemetery scene with the
crosses and tombstones from the performance. The sides of the
stage were closed with dark curtains, so that I found myself in
a square of moving walls.
A few oil lamps made of blue glass gave a weak but
immensely pleasant and cold light, in which one saw quite well
after some habituation. I sat down at the invitation of the
brother in a reasonably comfortable chair that had been placed
for me. A copper basin with weakly glowing coals stood before
me. The brother approached me and whispered:
“Don’t speak to him when he comes. -Have you brought
the property of the person you wish to see?”
After some persuasion, I took the silver ring with the fire
opal out of my vest pocket and put it into his hand, and he went
to one of the side curtains, in the folds of which he disappeared.
Immediately he placed a bowl with grains in it next to the coal
fire and a small three-legged stool.
Then the curtain opposite me moved violently, and the
magus appeared. He was clothed in a dark, wide robe and wore
around his head a white cloth, as I had already seen in old
pictures. His face was pale gray and decayed, his eyes half
closed. He did not seem to see me and walked with his hands
stretched out in front of him like a blind man towards the
ember pan. His brother came quickly behind him, guided him
with his hands and pushed him down on the stool. Motionless
the magician remained seated. The brother took one of his
hands hanging down, opened, as it seemed to me, the closed
fingers, and put the ring in his hand, which immediately closed
again. Then he pushed up a similar stool for himself and
scattered grains from the copper bowl over the crackling and
smoldering coals. Immediately a blue, pleasantly fragrant
smoke rose up with a similar fragrance as that precious incense,
used by the Catholic Church on high feast days.
Immobile and without any sign of attention, the magus
sat in front of me and slightly behind him the brother, on whose
haggard and hollow-cheeked face the traces of progressed
pulmonary addiction were easily recognizable as the seal of an
early death. I turned my attention to the other again and now
saw that his eyes were directed at me with a fixed, lusterless
look. At the same time a swelling, melodic humming and
ringing began and I discovered that the brother had a Jew’s
harp between his teeth and was playing it with the index finger
of the right hand keeping the tongue of the instrument in a
constant buzz.
The Magus sat there for the time being in unchanged
posture. Slowly, however, his head sank crookedly against his
right shoulder, and his mouth opened. The hand that held the
ring began to twitch softly. Thus we sat for some time in the
blue light, and the hum and whisper of the music rose and fell.
Suddenly, however, I noticed between the open lips of
the motionless magus something that looked like the end of a
bluish-white, luminous cloth, which gradually began to emerge.
Moreover, it began to throb and knock behind my chair,
and this sound momentarily continued with even greater force
into the wooden floor, to then rise again into the chair, so that I
had to listen several times to the short, sharp blows with the
greatest clarity at my back and involuntarily looked around.
But there was no one behind or beside me, although the
knocking continued with undiminished strength. The white
tissue came out of the mouth of the sleeper almost to his chest
and then disappeared just as quickly as it had come, and the
knocking ceased with a crashing blow in the left armrest of my
armchair. In the deep silence the brother reached past the
magus once again into the incense bowl on the floor and
sprinkled grains on the coals. Something cold touched my
cheek unexpectedly and stroked my forehead. I reached out
quickly, but grabbed the empty air. But on the Magus’s
shoulder a large snow-white hand appeared, with its flat fingers
shaped almost like a glove. But then it stretched in an
excessively long, arm-like gesture over his head, sank down,
and lay quietly for a while like a third arm on his knee, until
everything faded away in a few moments and became invisible.
However, the sleeper now began to become restless, swayed
back and forth with his upper body and let a quiet, wailing
singsong be heard, whose words I could not understand.
It began to knock again very strongly against the floor
and then against my chair, and an empty stool, which stood at
the curtain and which I had overlooked so far, did four or five
frog-like leaps towards me, then turned around, stayed for a
while with its three legs stretched out in the air, and then began
to turn slowly in circles on the seat board. I suspected that
strong magnetic fluids were now active, which had been
obviously lying in deep slumber at the beginning. But at the
same time the trembling melody of the player strengthened and
accelerated, and the so far rocking motions of the magus
changed into violent and convulsive twitching, which seemed
very uncanny, all the more so because the newly nourished
fragrant smoke intensified and the two persons opposite me
appeared quite shadowy and unreal.
Then it seemed to me as if a folded, shimmering piece of
white cloth was lying there next to the charcoal basin, which
had not been there before. It moved in its center in an
incomprehensible way, as if a very small child or an animal
were covered by the linen and caused it to rise. But quickly the
strange cloth or the luminous mist grew in height, became
taller and narrower and seemed to want to take on the shape of
a human being. I looked in the utmost expectation straining to
see and believed to perceive the folds of a garment and limbs.
It was a human figure that arose before me.
And all at once, as if paralyzed by joyful fright, I saw the
completely pale and almost transparent beloved face of
Zephyrine, her eyes were fixed on me – but then something
grew out of the delicate head, from fine threads – glittering and
shining – Aglajas’ crown of the dead –
I wanted to jump up, to wrap my arms around the woman
that I so ardently longed for – But before my eyes veils were
laid, my feet were stuck in leaden shoes, my heart stood still.
Everything had disappeared. I saw only the raw stage
floor, the smoky, sweet smoke, the magus, who had fallen from
the stool with his eyeballs twisted and lay in convulsions. The
music fell silent.
Feet thumped on the flooring. The brother hurriedly
pulled the magus up, ran his cloth-wrapped hand into his
mouth and pulled out his tongue. With a wild gasp the
magician opened his eyes, looked around him and heaved a
sigh.
“Wake up, Eusebius!” cried the brother, shaking him
gently. “Wake up! Wake up!”
The magus looked first at him, then at me, and then let
his gaze go in circles, as if he first had to think about where he
was. He shuddered violently, grabbed his forehead with his
hand, stared at me and gurgled:
“Two–two there were–two–“
The other hurriedly fetched a tin cup and a bottle, poured
a dark, strong-smelling wine into the vessel and held it to the
brother’s lips. He drank in greedy gulps, put it down, and drank
again.
I discovered that my cheeks were wet with tears.
After a long effort, aided by his assistant, the
necromancer stood up and walked swaying toward me. His
face was slack and covered with sweat.
“The ring –” he stammered.
I took the silver jewel and kept it with me.
“Why two?”
He stretched out his hand toward me. It was trembling
violently.
“Why two, Herr?”
I nodded and said softly, “There were two, and yet there
is only one.”