Anarchistbanjo's World

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

Since the candle threatened to go out, I asked Garnitter to
come out with his treasures, and soon there was a new light
burning in the candlestick.
“Hang cloaks or blankets in front of the windows, so that
they do not see the light from outside,” I admonished, and
immediately they went to carry out the advice. In the meantime
I looked at the door. There was probably a strong wooden latch
on the outside, but there was no way to secure it from the
inside. The hinges, however, seemed quite freshly oiled to me,
and I brought it to the attention of the others.
“That bastard of an Innkeeper is up to something,” the
squire from Sollengau blurted out, “and because there are four
of us, since the drunk is not to be counted, we must be hellishly
on the watch, because the host can get help from the
Spillermaxen Gang or from the blue whistlers.”
I said nothing and continued my investigation. The floor
was made of tamped earth, the walls had been built up with
solid blocks and cement and were ancient, and the ceiling had
no visible opening and consisted of heavy, dark beams, such as
one can only rarely still find in such length and strength.
Then Hoibusch emitted a low whistle and beckoned me
hastily. He was standing by the pillar. We trod on the rustling
straw and followed his groping hand with the light. And there
we saw something that revealed to us the trace of the satanic
trickery that was at play here.
In its entire length, from top to bottom, the rough stone
column was smoothly polished as if something heavy often slid
up and down on it and transformed the roughness of the
friction points into polished grooves. And seized by the same
thought, we looked upward at the ring or the capital of the
column, which with its excessive projection and mighty width
enclosed the column. It stood out brightly white in its fresh
coat of paint, and was separated from the narrow, circular space
of the column itself, so that this heavy load, when it was
loosened at the top, could fall down.
And it was precisely in the area of this ring that our head
pillows were arranged around the column.
Haymon straightened up halfway in his sleep and
stammered with wide-open eyes:
“Don’t you want to rest, Montanus? – You can’t get ducats
from your Mary, brother – let go, put away the blue hand–” and
then he vomited out the wine and food from his stomach,
which had long since been ruined, and defiled himself nastily.
“Pull him away from this death-trap” I shouted.
Then they grabbed him by the legs and pulled him away
from the dangerous bed, but he crawled back in his madness,
while we continued and once again he was dragged away. Then
he seemed to want to keep quiet and remained lying down.
“Shh!” whispered Garnitter, who was listening at the door.
We quickly extinguished the light and stayed as quiet as a
mouse. Light footsteps came along the corridor.
“Bärbel, the false hussy -“.
“Shh!”
She listened at the door, leaned. The wood creaked softly,
Haymon chattered in his sleep.
“What say you of sulphurous flames, Portugieser? – Great
hell, brother, how it stinks from your throat! I won’t give you
my hand, you are black all over, you devil- roast -“.
Quietly she scurried away from the door, down the
corridor.
We heard Haymon rustling in the straw, hitting the floor
with his foot and stretching with a groan.
Footsteps again. The boys quietly drew their long blades;
I drew the pistol, my thumb on the hammer, finger on the
trigger, without cocking it. It coughed, scrabbled at the door.
Then it slunk away again.
“They think they’re safe now, the murderous hounds,”
said Hoibush. On the ceiling above us something slid. A low
rattle arose. A dull unintelligible voice spoke something. A
whirring, a grinding, a whooshing fall–
Boom! – It struck heavy and pounding, softly muffled.
Feet drummed like madly on the clay floor, leathery,
clapping…- in our room.
“Strike fire, Hoibusch!” cried the squire hoarsely.
Pink, pink! The tinder glowed up, the sulfur- twitched
blue and sizzled with acrid stench, the candle burned -.
“Almighty!” Garnitter wanted to cry out, but Hoibusch
quickly put his hand over his mouth.
It took our breath away. The wide column ring had
crashed down and buried the head cushions and the unfortunate
head of poor Haymon, who had crawled back in the dark
without our knowledge. His feet were spread apart, his hands
were clasped on his chest in the robe and the rest of him lay
under the murder stone. Like a thick, dark snake, glistening in
the candlelight his blood coagulated in the straw.
“Lights out!” commanded the squire. “They’re coming!”
Ready to strike, we stood on either side of the door in the
darkness. Speaking loudly with echoing footsteps the landlord
and his pointy-nosed wife came down the corridor and pushed
open the door.
There they stood. The innkeeper carried in his left hand a
large stable lantern, in his right fist a sharp axe, and the fury
behind him was clutching a butcher’s knife. We only saw them
for a moment. Hoibusch’s blade went through the guy, and
Garnitter slit through the yellow neck of the woman, so that she
fell down with the squeal of a stuck pig. The host was dead in
an instant, speared through the heart like a starting boar. The
woman was still wriggling, and then lay still on her side.
“Are you dead, bloodhound?” shouted Garnitter and
kicked at the dead man’s belly with his foot. Up in the house
the dog howled.
“The dog! The wench!” cried Hoibusch. “We have to
catch the wench; otherwise she will run away and send the
host’s henchmen after us!”
He and the squire set off with the lantern to look for the
woman.
Now Garnitter and I saw the four holes in the ceiling and
the ropes hanging, by which the stone could be pulled up again.
We set about freeing the dead Haymon. But the stone was
too heavy for us to lift, and when we pulled on the feet of the
murdered man, the bones of the crushed head crunched so
horribly that we had to let go with a shudder.
Then we heard a shot, the wailing of the dog, and then a
dragging and a whimpering, and immediately Hoibusch and the
one from Sollengau came with the woman in shirt and smock,
whom they had dragged out of bed, where she had been under
the blankets and had fallen asleep. They had tied her hands
with a calf rope.
“I am innocent,” whined Bärbel when she saw us.
“Jesus Maria!” she shrieked out, as she stepped with her
naked foot into the pools of blood in which the landlord and the
landlady lay.
“Confess, whore, or we’ll lay you down next to the two of
them!
Both!” said Hoibusch calmly. “Did you not set the dog on
us? Confess, I say to you!”
“O thou bloody savior! What shall I confess?” Howled
the strumpet and fell on her knees. “I have done nothing,
except that I went to listen at the woman’s command to see if
everyone was asleep. I have never known of murder in my life”.
“And what is this, you shamed woman?” cried Hoibusch
in a strong voice and produced something he had been hiding
behind his back. Stones and gold flashed – a necklace with
almandines and artfully forged links shone in the light.
The girl’s face was white with fear and she looked around
with confused glances.
“Red!” said Hoibusch quite coldly, and put the point of
the blade on her bare breast, so that a small little red drop
sprang up.
“Ouch! Mercy -” clamored Bärbel as she squirmed to and
fro. “From the lady in the cellar -“.
Then she fell down in convulsions, and foam poured out
of her mouth. It was a pity to look at. But Hoibusch remained
unmoved.
“You have learned your art of eye-rolling well, you
robber whore!” he said. “Stop making foam out of saliva, and
get up!”
And once more he tickled her with the point of his rapier.
Then, in spite of her tied hands, she sprang to her feet like a cat
and cried out in despair:
“Well, if that’s what it is, I’d rather be dead right now
than let the gallows man sound me out with the thumbscrews!”
And she made such a swift and violent push against the
drawn blade, so that it missed going through her body by a hair.
But Hoibusch was on guard, and immediately let go of the
handle, so she only slashed her shirt so that her dark breast
bulged out.
“To the pillar with her!” cried Garnitter, and the three
students dragged her there in spite of biting and shrieking, and
bound her by body and legs next to the dead Haymon, so that
they could remain in silent and terrible company. For we took
the lantern with us and left the room with its sweetish haze of
blood, leaving only the candle burning as a death light for the
deceased. As we stood in the corridor, we heard the shrill
screams of the tied up woman.
And I must confess it: I took pity on her, because I felt
that it was not only her fault that she had to become like this.
Surely an evil fate had clawed at her from childhood; an
unguarded youth, instincts unleashed at an early age, abuse,
which one with her child body already suffered, poverty,
misery and lack of love did a terrible work on her. Was I
allowed to judge, when I opened the abysses of my own soul?
But as clever as the three students were, and as good as the
heart of one or the other might be, at this hour and in view of
the poor dead they would have looked at me with disgust if my
thoughts had become spoken aloud, and I would not have
helped anyone. So I kept silent and mourned in silence how
wrong people’s customs are, and how thousands and thousands
of children grow up without any care. And not only the brood
of the poor people –. How had it been with myself?