Anarchistbanjo's World

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

“I will venture on it,” I said.
“You, a person of noble heart, will not be harmed by the
room, although –” he faltered and bit his lips.
“Although?” I pressed him.
“I, Baron, would not like to sleep here, and if there were
only one other place in the house, where it does not trickle in
by the ceiling or blow through empty window holes, I would
have chosen it for you rather than this damned courtroom! But
now I wish you a restful night!”
He bowed low and left.
I was alone, and took the candlestick to look around.
The wide chamber had been decorated with precious
leather wallpaper, which was now, of course, everywhere
damaged and tattered on the wall. It showed in hundredfold the
Treffenheid coat of arms with the Moor’s head, which had an
arrow shaft sticking out from the eye. Under it on a ribbon was
to be read the heraldic motto:
“One dies – another lives.”
In the corner next to the door stood a two-sleeper four-
poster bed with twisted columns and angels’ heads, the gilding
of which was worn away. At the lead-framed windows, which
had small gaps, the pale moon wandered behind wisps of
clouds, and a withered, broom-like poplar treetop sometimes
poked at the rickety panes. A table and a few chairs had just
been put there for me, as could be seen from the dust on the
floor.
More remarkable than all this, however, were two large
paintings, which were next to each other on the wall, separated
by a horizontally stretched out naked human arm, extending
from a red sleeve which, was holding a simple executioner’s
sword.
I approached the paintings with the light. The first one
was rich in small figures, and I had to look for a long time in
the restless candlelight until I recognized a procession on the
dark canvas, which was leading the sinner in a cart with solemn
seriousness to the place of execution. Under the picture, on a
white background, it read:
“If you have patience in pain,
It will be very useful to you,
Therefore give yourself willingly to it.”
The unknown painter had understood it, and painted into
the faces of the accompanying persons, secretly and
immediately recognizable to everyone, stupidly proud dignity,
thoughtlessness, malice, cruelty, indifference, and cowardly
contentment; but from the face of the man on the execution cart
cried out fear, and the staring look was almost a longing for the
final redemption by the redcoat, who stood tiny and distant on
the scaffolding.
This image made me fall into a depth of consciousness or
foreboding, which filled me with fearful darkness for several
minutes. It told me that something had happened or was about
to happen, and from my soul a voice spoke barely audibly:
“I know —.”
The roots of my hair were on fire, drops of sweat covered
the inside surface of my hands. But what it was, I could no
longer grasp with my mind, for as quickly as it came, it sank
again into a dark abyss. I turned my gaze from the terrible
image, ducked under the threatening sword arm, so as not to
touch it, and lifted the light towards the other painting.
A fine and cutting stab went through my heart. This face,
blissful and childlike, with reddish shimmering braids under a
small hood, with the delicate nose and the small mouth, with
the curved eyebrows, it was…
“Aglaja,” I whispered softly, and the heavy candlestick
almost fell from my hand.
But then it seemed to me as if a sad, dark glow went over
the lovely face. No, not Aglaja! It was Zephyrine who was
looking at me, as if she were breathing. The slender hand,
coming from a lace ruff, wore a silver ring of woven serpentine
bodies with a fire opal and held daintily between pointer finger
and thumb were three crimson roses and a snowy lily. But what
was written underneath, confused me in the face, which always
showed a beloved face. I ran my hand over my eyes and read
the characters under the painting:
Likeness of Lady Heva Weinschrötter,
Canoness to St. Leodegar, accused of sorcery
and sentenced to the sword
In the year anno 1649.
And then I stood for a long time, until the candles began
to crackle and the wax dripped. – What was appearance and
what was truth? The night had passed quietly except for some
creaking and cracking in the room and in the floor as is natural
in such old buildings.
The new day was of dull light and unfriendly, full of
wind and falling drops. There was a rustling in the walls, as of
rats.
The servant, who brought my breakfast, informed me that
the master of the hound was suffering from gout and would not
be visible before the evening. I should not enter uninvited into
his room, because he had a saddle pistol next to him loaded
with rock salt and pig bristles, and in his piercing pain he was
well able to burn one on me and everyone, as he had already
done to magister Hemmetschnur once before.
So I looked once more in the gloomy light of the room, at
the ruined face which was now even more clearly visible than
in the candlelight. I also discovered the trapdoor in the floor,
through which one could enter the dungeons and chambers
under the earth. And whatever I did, the gray eyes of the
painting of Lady Heva Weinschrötter followed me. But as I,
mindful of the evening’s feelings, looked firmly and attentively
at the rosy face under the gold hood, it seemed to me strange
and distant to me. The resemblance to Aglaja-Zephyrine faded
into the distance and finally disappeared completely.
While wandering around in the spacious chamber I
discovered opposite my bed a door so carefully fitted into the
wallpaper that it was easy to miss. When I pushed its creaking
hinges, I came into a narrow chamber with racks, in front of
which were rotten curtains of shot green damask, all covered
with dust. When I pushed them aside, I found in the
compartments whole bundles and piles of old files, and all sorts
of formerly confiscated corpora delicti, such as knives,
hatchets, bludgeons, rotten wheel locks, thieves’ hooks, gypsy
casting rods and the like, and attached to each item was a
carefully written note. Some I read:
“The knife, with which Matz from the Schellenlehen
stabbed Schieljörg,” and “Explosive and grenade called, Reb
Moische, the Hendl from Poland”. Finally I came to an earthen,
smoky pot, blue-glassed, which was tightly tied with a pig’s
bladder and on the square parchment on the handle, was
written in brownish faded ink:
“Numerus 16. Flying or witch ointment, found under the
bed of the lady of hell, and dug out of the earth.”
This relic of one of the women who had stood here
during the inquisition, aroused my curiosity very much, and I
hid it near my bed, in order to visit it later.
At the midday meal, only the magister appeared, who
asked me politely about the night spent and then said that I was
the first to have been granted a quiet sleep in this room. After
the meal I went for a walk with him despite the rain showers
and gusts of wind, and talked to him. The knowledge of this
man was astonishing, his exact knowledge of languages, and I
could not help but ask him, how he, with his erudition, could
not have found anything better than that of his unworthy
clerical services for the old master of the hound, who seemed
to take special pleasure to humiliate and make fun of his
education in front of others.
He heaved a deep sigh and said that if he only had
enough money so that he could reach the city of Paris, or only
to Strasbourg in the former German land, which the French had
stolen, it would be better for him in an instant. There he would
have friends who would gladly continue to take care of him.
But even if he had as much as he needed for the journey, he
would still have to be on his guard. For the master of the hound,
as he said, had already impudently threatened him, the
magister, and would not refrain from accusing him of
embezzlement and to have him punished, which he, as a poor
and helpless man, was unknown and without any ability to
defend himself.
I said nothing, but made up my mind, to help this
unjustly tormented person, if I could.
For dinner, the gentleman from Trolle and Heist was
brought to the table in a carrying chair, his right foot bound
thickly and sweating with pain. It was hardly possible to hold a
conversation with him, and only in view of the fact that I had to
stay here at all costs, I allowed myself to be subjected to
various of his quarrelsome and irritable moods. It was worse
with the magister than with me, he threw a pig’s bone at his
head for no reason and as for the hunters who were waiting for
him, he would spit wine at them or hit them with a stick. At ten
o’clock he began to drink murderously again, and at about
eleven he started his howling anguished chant. But the
intoxication did not work this time, and I saw how he looked in
fear with puffy eyes into the corner of the chamber devastated
by the fall of the wall. Finally- he hurled a heavy mug in the
direction of the apparition visible to him, laughed, and then
sank down, muttering to himself several times something about
a useless rhyme smith and court poet, and then sank into a
frenzied sleep, whereupon they lifted him up in the carrying
chair and carried him away.