Anarchistbanjo's World

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

“Never again -,” he groaned, leaning on his brother.
“Terrible — I had – already crossed the – threshold.”
“What’s the matter with you, Eusebius?”
“The hunchback -” he cried out. “Two heads – two
children’s heads -.”
And without consciousness he collapsed, saved from a
heavy fall by his brother’s arm. He looked at me helplessly,
spat bloody sputum and stammered:
“Enough, Lord – enough! Have mercy!”
I pressed a large gift into his hand. His poor, gaunt face
beamed with joy for a moment, and then he held out the gold to
the fainting man and shouted:
“Look here, Eusebius – look here!”
He let go of the body of the brother, who twitched softly,
gently let it slide to the ground and pointed to the gap in the
wall of the tent.
“It took a lot out of him this time,” he whispered. “The
day is already coming up. – Was the Lord pleased?”
Full of compassion for these poor people, inwardly
stirred in my innermost being, and yet with a bright glow of
supersensible hope in my chest, I walked through the gray,
rain-soaked morning towards the awakening city.
For a long time I lived quietly and absorbed only in the
memory of happy days in a small, secluded place and thought
to end my life there.
One morning, however, in front of the baker’s shop, a
casserole appeared which became of great importance for me.
A foreign artisan, who had wanted to buy bread, was accused
by the baker of trying to cheat him with fake money, amidst a
large crowd of curious people. The poor fellow, well
acquainted with the cruel punishments that were set for such
misdemeanors, fought back with all his might, when he saw me
coming, cried out with a loud voice:
“Lord, help me! Protect me!”
The people, all of whom knew me and had come to me
for the insignificant good deeds I had done to one person and
another, but especially to the children, held affection for me,
made room for me, and some of them said:
“That’s right! The Lord Baron shall decide whether it is a
gold piece or merely a bad penny, which the lad has put on the
baker’s table.”
I looked at the gold piece. It was a Turkish Zechine like
the five I had kept from the treasure in the ruin. The curly
writing on the coin appeared not only to the baker, but also to
the other people as so nonsensical that they ignored the weight
of the gold, but took it as a false ducat and the fellow for a bag
cutter.
When the people were enlightened and we weighed the
piece on the baker’s gold scales, and for greater certainty tested
it against a stone the poor wandering cloth shearer still had a
number of silver and copper coins change in addition for his
bread. I asked him how he had come into possession of the
coins, which were certainly an extremely rare type of coin. And
then I received an answer, which completely and forever
destroyed my hitherto quiet life like a fiery bolt of lightning.
A nearby stranger had given him the money, said the lad,
and told him to go to this place, where he would learn more.
Half-starved, he was trudging along the street, when a
handsome man with a black cloth around his forehead, had
come towards him. He denied trying to cheat anyone and had
gotten the money from him. Breathlessly I asked whether he
had been dressed like some kind of monk. But the lad
remembered only a black headscarf and the beautiful, dark eyes
of the mild benevolent man. He had turned around and looked
after the stranger, but he had completely disappeared from the
long, straight road.
This information, together with the certainty that the
mysterious man from the Orient was not even three days
journey from here and had shown himself in the flesh, excited
me to such an extent that I ordered a special mail coach for the
next day, to possibly follow his trail, until I would be face to
face with him and find answers to all the questions that had
occupied me for many years, indeed all my life. When I
gathered together money for the journey, I also got hold of the
Turkish zechins. I was amazed and frightened. There were only
four left. A strange feeling came over me, a search for a
memory. But it sank again, and a new mystery remained.
The next day I was already riding merrily along in the
coach and with changed horses had reached the large forest,
late in the afternoon, through which the road led to the village,
not far from the place where the honest cloth shearer had come
to his golden zechine. But just as we passed the village and the
coach driver was merrily singing the “Jäger aus Kurpfalz” on
his horn, the wheel broke and the poor musician was torn off
the seat by the reins wrapped around his left hand by the falling
horse to such an extent that he could only rise with a groan and
with a pained face explained that he needed to put cold
compresses on his sore shoulder before he could hold the reins
again. Also the fallen bay, who had skinned his knee, needed
rest and treatment. If the coach didn’t want to become a wreck
between the village and the town both people and animals
needed to be treated.
Indecisively, I stood in the midst of the astounded village
youth by the badly battered coach, when an old woman came
up to me and said:
“Your quarters are ready, as we were told, and also the
postman can get a bed and a bite to eat. There is room for the
nags in the reverend gentleman’s stable!”
I was very surprised at this reception and asked who had
announced me and whether the whole thing wasn’t a
misunderstanding? There was certainly an inn in the village
where one could stay if necessary.
“No, Herr,” the woman continued and went ahead of me
as a guide without further ado. “We have no inn here, and
strangers of repute whom chance brings here, are accustomed
to stay in the parsonage, which is in the vicarage, which is built
on a large scale and contains enough furnished rooms. The
preparations for the lord, however, have been ordered by the
Reverend. Nothing else is known to me, other than that the
parish priest, who is currently with a dying man, instructed me
to keep a watchful eye on the road and not to miss the
announced guest.”
In the meantime we had arrived at the stately house next
to the church, and I stepped through the door, above which
hung, on iron chains, the bones of extinct animals on iron
chains, into a hallway paved with gray bricks, and from there
into a vaulted, white-painted room, in the middle of which
stood a large table with leather chairs. On the wall was a rack
with many books, among which I noticed the works of
Paracelsus. On top of them were stuffed birds of a rare kind, as
the storm sometimes brings them here from foreign zones, and
all kinds of minerals and fossilized ammonium horns. On the
simple desk by the window was enthroned the figure of a
woman holding a child in her arms, and in my opinion was as
much the mother of our Lord and Savior as a pagan goddess.
Above a black painted prayer stool hung with arms
outstretched, the face of a silent suffering person, the Savior on
the cross.
After a while the old woman put a brass lamp on the
table and the room was filled with a friendly yellow light, the
priest entered almost at the same time.
He was a tall man with gray hair and a face, from which
smart and thoughtful eyes peered out. Friendly, he offered me
his hand, looked at me attentively and asked me to be his guest
at the table. After the meal he wanted to solve for me the riddle
that the knowledge of my arrival had thrown me into. Also the
mail coach driver had already been accommodated and the
carriage was at the blacksmith’s, and the horses, were safe in
the stable.
Immediately, the table was set and the food was served,
which consisted of a larded pike in cream. We drank a light
currant wine with it. When we were finished with the meal the
priest asked if he might be allowed to smoke tobacco, and lit a
pipe.
I must confess that, in spite of the inner calm I had
learned to regard everything that happened as an unchangeable
providence, and a great curiosity seized me, in which way the
clergyman could have been informed of my imminent arrival,
and I requested him to enlighten me about this strange matter,
after my name and state had been pronounced.
“It is indeed, as you say, strange- worthy enough,” he
replied and blew blue smoke in great clouds away from himself.
“Three days ago I went down the village street according to my
habit to pray my breviary.
A couple of people who came toward me astonished me
so much at the sight of them, that I stopped and let them
approach. I knew the woman. It was eighty year old Nenin,
who, in spite of her old age and her weakness at this time of the
day, gathered together a large bundle of brushwood. It had
always been a sight, to see the weak old woman, who was still
active in such a way, swaying under her load. And not
infrequently, I had unceremoniously asked some loitering,
partying lad to take the burden from the poor woman and carry
it home. This time, however, she came without the usual
piggyback and seemed to me upright, almost as if rejuvenated
next to her companion, who, as she said, had voluntarily taken
the burden from her and loaded it effortlessly on his shoulders.
The man, however, with whom she went, had in any case an
appearance that would astonish anyone in this country. Namely
he wore-“
“A brown robe and a black headscarf or a turban of such
color and amber beads around his neck –“, I finished,
quivering with expectation.
The priest looked at me without astonishment and said:
“So then the following miracle partially dissolves into
nothing. I say partially, for it remains wonderful that neither the
old woman nor the tailor who happened to come from the field,
who loaded the bundle of brushwood onto his handcart and
drove Nenin home with it, seemed to see anything special or
conspicuous in the man dressed so strangely. Through later
questions I became convinced that the two people had not even
been aware of the unusual costume. But the other thing, namely
that this man informed me of your arrival and predicted it for
today is now explained by the fact that you obviously know
him and have certainly spoken to him of your journey.”