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

This was all the easier for me because many of our
classmates thought that Sennon, for all his affection, was a
little disturbed. But nevertheless, they all liked him, and I know
of no instance of anyone teasing him, arguing with him, or
holding his peculiarities against him, as children are wont to do.
Even the crudest of us knew that he deserved love and
consideration, for he was the kindest and most helpful person
even in his youth. Every occasion to do good to others was
welcome to him. Even if it was only the small sorrow about a
bad grade that he had received – Sennon would not rest until he
had made the afflicted person cheerful again with his loving
consolation. I myself was very attached to him, and when he
rebuked me in his gentle way, it had more effect on me than if
it had come from my own good father.
Yes, now in this spring midnight, when the wind passes
over my roof and invisible feet seem to walk along the street,
ever onward, toward an unreachable goal, everything that was
lost in the whirlpool of the young years and in the lost, terrible,
unfruitful time of this insane war sinks to the bottom of the
soul. I remembered the summer day when, to my amazement, I
saw the songbirds in the meadow on the head and shoulders of
the resting Sennon and a little weasel was sniffing at his hands.
A weasel! The shyest of all animals! And how everything
disappeared when I stepped up to him. I also remember how
Sennon helped a sick drunkard, the Pomeranian-Marie, who,
seized by severe nausea, fell to the floor with a blue face. He
picked her up, and stroked her forehead softly with his hand,
whereupon she smiled at him and continued on her way,
completely recovered. Like I was there, when blood was
spurting out of a sickle cut and it stopped when he stepped up
to it, and how the flames on the roof of the carpenter’s roof
shrank, twitched and went out, as Sennon appeared and
reached out his hand. I saw it with my own eyes. How could I
have held all this in such low regard that I forgot it? How sorry,
how unspeakably sorry I am for the years I spent so dully
beside him. I would give all my exact science to do it over.
No, I cannot approach the matter with emotional regret.
I was foolish – like all young people. When I came home
for vacations, I found that contact with the worker in Deier and
Frisch’s optical workshop was not appropriate. I preferred to go
with Herr Baron Anclever from the District Headquarters and
the dragoon lieutenant Herr Leritsch.
I cannot change it. It was like that.
But then I came to my senses. Herr Professor Schedler’s
lectures about psychic phenomena were the ones that pulled me
out of the silly life I had fallen into. I began to look into the
depths, into the twilight abyss, diving into which held a greater
incentive than chasing after little dancers, drinking sparkling
wine and conferring with morons about neck ties, pants cuts,
and race reports. I threw them out of my inner life, as one
removes useless junk from a room in which one wants to settle
into. But I also forgot about Sennon.
Oh, what have I lost! I put my cheek on the last leaf of
writing on which his hand rested in farewell. I call his name
and look at the black window panes in the nonsensical hope
that his dear, serious and yet so joyful face may appear behind
the glass instead of the darkness outside. Everything that I now
long for so unspeakably, was close to me, so close! I only had
to reach out my hand, just to ask. Nobody gives me an answer
now, and all my knowledge fails me. Or shall I console myself
with the vague excuse that Sennon Vorauf had a so-called “split
consciousness” and that the Ewli of Melchior Dronte could be
nothing else than an allegorical revival of the sub
consciousness, that became the second ego of Vorauf?
No, I can’t reassure myself with the manual language of
science. For I am mistaken about all of it —
When I came to Albania, occupied by us, in the course of
the war and went from Lesch to Tirana, in order to establish a
home in that cool city, with its ice-cold, shooting mountain
waters at the foot of the immense mountain wall of the Berat,
for my poor malaria convalescents, I saw Sennon Vorauf for
the last time. It was exactly that day that a searchlight crew had
just returned from Durazzo via the Shjak bazar. Among the
crew members that were searching for their quarters I
recognized Sennon.
I immediately approached him and spoke to him. His
smile passed over me like sunshine from the land of youth. He
was tanned and erect, but otherwise looked completely
unchanged. I did not notice a single wrinkle in his masculine,
even face. This smoothness seemed very strange and unusual to
me. For in the faces of all the others who had to wage war in
this horrible country, showed misery, hunger, struggles and
horrors of all kinds, and everyone looked tired and aged.
We greeted each other warmly and talked of old days.
But time was short. I had meetings and many worries about the
barracks, for the construction of which everything that was
necessary was missing. Our ships were torpedoed; nothing
could be brought in by land. Everything had to be brought in
from Lovcen, floated across Lake Scutari, and then from
Scutari brought overland in indescribable ways. Every little
thing. And boards were no small matter. I negotiated with
people whose brains were made up of regulations and fee
schedules. It was bleak; I felt like I was covered in paste and
old pulp dust. All this disturbed me. I promised Sennon I would
see him soon. He smiled and shook my hand. Oh, he knew so
surely—-!
In the afternoon a man from his department, Herr
Leopold Riemeis, came to me and had himself examined. He
had survived the Papatatschi fever but was still very weak. I
involuntarily asked him about his comrade Herr Sennon Vorauf.
His face was radiant. Yes, Herr Sennon Vorauf! He had saved
his life. A colleague, I thought and smiled. He had naturally of
course also, as I did at the time, taken a fever dream for truth.
But I was curious, gave Riemeis a cigarette and let him tell the
story.
Riemeis was a Styrian, a farmer’s son. Sluggish in
expression, but one understood him quite well. It had happened
like this: In a small town, in Kakaritschi, he, Riemeis, had been
struck down by fever. But it was already hellish. He was
burned alive, his skin was full of ulcers, and on other days he
would have liked to crawl into the campfire because of chills.
And there was no medicine left. The senior physician they had
with them shook his head. In eight days Riemeis was a skinned
skeleton, and not even quinine was left, it had long since been
eaten up.
“Go, people!” The senior physician addressed the platoon.
“If any of you has quinine with you, he should give it to
Riemeis, maybe the fever will go down, or we’ll have to bury
him in a few days.”
They would have gladly given it away, but if there is
none left, there is none left. My God, and there were already
crosses on all the roads of the cursed land, under which our
poor soldiers lay – in the foreign, poisoned earth.
“There you go, Riemeis -” said the doctor and patted him
on the shoulder. “There’s nothing that can be done.” And left.
Riemeis had a burning head that day, but he understood the
doctor quite well, “There’s just nothing that can be done.”
Sennon was sitting next to Riemeis’ bed. It was at night.
“Sennon, a water, I beg you!” moaned the sick man.
But Sennon gave no answer. He sat with his eyes wide
open and did not hear. Riemeis looked at him fearfully. And
then it happened. Something glittering fell from the forehead of
Sennon and hit the clay floor. And then Sennon moved, looked
around, smiled at his comrade, bent down and picked up a
round bottle, in which were small, white tablets. Quinine
tablets. A lot of them. From the depot in Cattaro.
Our peasants are strange. They didn’t say anything to the
doctor, but they put their heads together and whispered.
“My grandfather told -“.
They did not question Sennon about it. They were shy.
But they surrounded him with love and reverence, took
everything from him, did all the work for him, and listened to
his every word. And they understood well that it was precisely
on his heart that all the suffering of the poor lay, who were
driven into this killing, without even being considered worthy
of questioning. This is not an accusation. Our country was in
danger. Even those in power over there did not ask anyone.
How else could they have waged war? How could they take
revenge on us because we were more efficient and industrious?
But why do I speak of these things! It will take a long time
until mankind will be able to judge justly again. So Sennon
Vorauf.
He bore the woe of the earth, all the misery of countless
people, and his heart wept day and night. Even though he
smiled. They understood well, his comrades, and it would not
have been advisable for anyone to approach Vorauf. Not even a
general. The people had gone wild through their terrible
handiwork. But there was no opportunity. Never has there been
a more well-behaved, more dutiful man than Vorauf, but they
all thought that shooting at people – no, no one could have
made him do that. Riemeis said.
Oh, I had to go and mark out the ground for the barracks.
I asked Riemeis to give Sennon my best regards. I would come
tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow! Already that evening I had to leave
for Elbassan.
Then came the letter from Riemeis to me and a copy of
the desertion notice.
But fourteen days passed before I could leave for Tirana.
A full fourteen days. I hoped that Vorauf would have been
found after all.
First I visited the commander of Vorauf’s department,
who had filed the complaint, Herr Lieutenant Wenceslas
Switschko. I found a fat, limited, complacent man with
commissarial views, for whom the case was clear. Vorauf, a so-
called “intelligent idiot”, had deserted, and the Tekkeh he had
disappeared into certainly had a second exit. One already
knows the hoax. But, woe betide if he were brought in! Well, I
gave up and went to the people. Riemeis received me with tears
in his eyes. Corporal Maierl, too, a good-natured giant, a
blacksmith by trade, had to swallow a few times before he
could speak. They recounted essentially what was written in
Riemei’s letter to me. We went to the Tekkeh of the Halveti
dervishes. Slate-blue doves cooed in the ancient cypresses. A
rustling stream of narrow water rushed past the wooden house
and the snow covered crests of the Berat Mountains shone
snow-white high above the pink blossoming almond trees and
soft green cork oaks. In the open vestibule of the Tekkeh stood
large coffins with gabled roofs, covered with emerald green
cloths. On each of them lay the turban of the person who had
been laid to rest.

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

I suddenly saw differently, more unclearly, with physical
eyes. My mother was standing in front of me, shaking my arm
violently and shouting.
“For God’s sake! Child, wake up! Wake up!”
I was sitting on the stove bench, so terribly frightened
and breathless that my heart almost stopped. My mother told
me then that she had seen me looking up at random with open,
unmoving eyes. She had asked me what was wrong with me,
and when I did not answer, she went to me worriedly. But
despite the initial gentle touching and then more and more
violent shaking, I sat there as if completely dead, without
breath or any other sign of life, until I finally to her
unspeakable joy came out of the deep faint and back to my
senses.
After half an hour, however, our neighbor, the doctor,
came to thank me for having saved Kaspar’s life with so much
courage and determination. Kaspar had come home wet and
completely frozen to death and had told that he had fallen in on
the arm of the river and had been close to death from
exhaustion. In his fear he had without thinking that this must be
in vain, called my name several times. There I was, who had
probably returned to my usual favorite place, and suddenly
stepped out of the bank of willows, went straight to him, and
with a jerk of incomprehensible strength pulled him from the
wet and cold grave and thus saved him. But when he wanted to
thank me, I was suddenly no longer there and despite all calling
and searching remained untraceable. And then Kaspar,
completely frozen and stiff, ran home, where he, filled with hot
tea, was lying under three feather bed covers and sweating.
It now came to a friendly meeting that ended with mutual
astonishment on both sides, friendly contradiction between my
mother and doctor Hedrich, with my mother pointing out that
she had not left the room for a moment, whereas the doctor
pointed out the specific manner in which Kaspar had recounted
his experience. But when my mother, continuing her
description, spoke of the inexplicable condition into which I
had, however, fallen at the time when the accident happened,
the doctor looked at me with a peculiar look and said:
“Well, well, were you in the end -? But no! Kaspar may
have brought home a little fever, and there the boundaries
between dream and experience disappear!”
With that, after a friendly goodbye, he went out of the
parlor. But then he poked his head once more through the door,
looked at me and said:
“Nevertheless, I thank you, Sennon, and ask you from the
bottom of my heart to continue to watch over my Kaspar, for
you seem to me a good watchman, a Bektschi, as the Turks
say!”
This word, the meaning of which was not obvious to me
at the time, nevertheless put me in the most violent excitement,
and my mother, who must have probably attributed this to the
rising fever, avoided telling my father, who was returning home,
about the incident, probably mainly in order to spare me
questions and thus to spare me new aggravations. It was only
some time after this mysterious event that she told me that a
certain apparition on my body at that time had filled her with
indescribable horror. The narrow scar, which I had as a
congenital birthmark between the eyebrows, just above the root
of my nose, had been visible to her during the unconsciousness
from which she awakened me by force, when a flickering blue
light that looked like the sparks that Kaspar and I let jump out
of a Leyden jar, and this glow went out instantly, when she
shook me hard, but flickered up again more weakly after I
awoke to life, and then gradually faded away. It seemed to her,
she said to me, as if that with the extinguishing of this magical
light my death had occurred, and the thought had shot through
her that perhaps her frightened intervention had suddenly
become fatal to me. Fortunately, I then returned to life.
Later, we avoided talking about the experience any
further, and I believe that she never spoke of it to my father.
But I was so preoccupied with the wonderful ability that had
been revealed to me that it was many nights before I was free
from the recurring dream. Today, on the other hand, I know,
since I have become fully aware of everything, I know that
during those nights, without full consciousness, but also not
completely unconsciously, I left my body and undertook
wanderings, the results of which are too unimportant to be
worth mentioning here.
In any case, the discovery of this power, which I had at
my disposal, brought my thoughts on other and bolder paths
than before, and it was this that was of greatest use to me on
the arduous path to true knowledge.
My and Kaspar’s paths soon diverged to the extent that
insofar as he continued to attend the Gymnasium, while I, at
my father’s request, went to the optic workshop. Because my
parents were poor and reckoned that I, too, would gradually
contribute to the household with love. I was in agreement with
their plan and left secondary school without a moment’s
hesitation.
The fine, great skill and later not insignificant
mathematical knowledge gave me great pleasure. Soon I had
the opportunity during free hours to immerse myself in the
wonderful world of the microscope, and under the guidance of
my father, whose scientific education, despite his modesty, I
began to make all kinds of preparations,
I learned how to color almost invisible cell nuclei and
make them clearly visible, and studied the enigmatic behavior
of the tiniest living creatures, with algae, mosses and molds,
and daily discovered new, wonderful relationships, which
perhaps would have escaped the attention of real scholars, as a
result of their methodical, strictly goal-oriented way of
working.
Thus I was happy in my work and in the security of my
domestic life as only a human being could be. Really there
were little annoyances with young people of my age who did
not want to understand or even considered it disrespectful that I
preferred to stay away from their pleasures and above all
showed no desire for the company of girls, which almost
completely dominated the lives of my comrades. However, I
always succeeded in making them understand in a friendly
manner that the work on my education was above all else and
that the time would probably come later for me too when I
could be accepted into their carefree circle with pleasure.
Gradually I got the reputation of being a strange and
solitary person but I managed to get people to not care much
about me and let me go my own way. My parents, especially
my father, would certainly have preferred it if I had not
separated myself too much from my comrades. But
nevertheless they left me a free hand in such matters and
surrounded me with unchanged and tender love. I suffered
from the fact that I had to be different by nature from my
companions of the same age. But it was precisely in those years
that the insight into the wild adventures of my expired life, as
Melchior Dronte became perfectly clear to me, and the terrible
knowledge about things of eternity worked so powerfully on
me that I urgently needed the solitude, in order to cope with the
impressions that weighed heavy on me.
How I would have liked to have had some person with
whom I could have talked about the survival of consciousness
after the destruction of the body! It would have been a great
relief for me to be understood in the crushing abundance of
contrary views. But with whom would I have been able to
share such unheard-of experiences, perhaps to be attributed to a
diseased imagination, between sleep and waking, death and life?
Perhaps, my mother, insofar as the horror of hearing these
things would have allowed her, with the unfathomable
foreboding of women to have come closer to me emotionally.
But words would have been in vain here, too. So I remained
alone for myself and had to endure the dark agony, of
experiencing once more the events of a past time, and go so
deeply into the night, until everything appeared in the smallest
details as the sharpest memory and gradually blended into the
overall picture that gradually emerged.
How could I have liked the women and girls of the city
whom I knew, since there was only one thing that disturbed the
peace of my soul: the longing for that woman who was
deceptively always disappearing in the double figure of Aglaja
and Zephyrine, and also the only one that could bring
fulfillment to my present life?
And the only punishment that could punish me for the
transgressions of Melchior Dronte, or for my own
transgressions, was the tormenting search, the burning desire
for the face I loved above all else, the brief reunion and the
recent slipping away of this being, to whom I was drawn with
frantic longing.
On my eighteenth birthday this happened to me: I had,
yielding to long insistence, arranged a Sunday excursion, with
two friends, to which Kaspar also belonged, which made a
small train journey necessary. We stood at the station in the
early morning of that day, to await the preparations of the local
train, consisting of smaller and older cars, when, with a
thunderous pounding, a long-distance train passed through the
station at a moderate speed.
I was standing at the very front of the ramp and could see
the faces looking out of the broad window frames of the
distinguished train. Most of them were strangers who had
come from far away and were heading for the large port city on
the still distant seacoast, in order to take ships to foreign parts
of the world, especially to the United States.
Suddenly, it was as if a bright glow appeared and turned
everything around me into an almost unbearable light. In a
white dress, pale and beautiful, as I had seen her the previous
night under the flickering of candles in the coffin, Aglaja stood
in the window of a passing car. I recognized her immediately.
Golden red curls blew in the wind around her forehead, her
beautiful gray eyes were fixed on me with sweet terror, and the
small hand that rested on the wooden bar of the lowered
window, suddenly loosened itself and pressed upon the heart
beneath the young breast.
Oh, I saw that she was no different from me, that she
deeply felt that we still had to pass by each other without being
able to hold on to each other, that we were not yet permitted to
unite into one blessed being, the divine consisting of the soul of
man and woman. Certainly she only felt what I knew. But this
feeling of the woman corresponded to the knowledge of the
man and was as valuable and in this case certainly as painful. It
was only a short, agonizing moment, when I was allowed to
see with bodily eyes what once, measured against eternity, was
no less fleeting and transient, and had been close. And it
became clear to me that my way to perfection was still quite far
and that many impure things would have to fall away before I
could enter eternal peace as a perfected one. I was only a
returned one.

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