If you watched the video I suggested in my last post you will remember it references a book written by Chan Thomas called “The Adam and Eve Story”. The CIA banned this book because it gave information that was considered classified. This information told of the normal cycles of destruction that occurred every 12,000 years. This book is available online so I downloaded a copy and read it. This book combined with the above mentioned video are pretty convincing evidence that top government officials and the elite not only believe in this, but are heavily invested in it on a global basis.
There was an addition to the book at the back which was added later describing experiments with mice in low density magnetic environments. It was said that these mice turned “criminal” becoming both violent and even cannibalistic. They also appeared less intelligent.
I was immediately reminded of a book on my book shelf, “Magnetism and its Effects on Living Systems” by Albert Roy Davis and Walter C. Rawls. This book described experiments with chicken eggs that were placed near a magnet until the chicks hatched. The control group was not magnetized but one group was treated with the north pole magnetic radiation and the other treated with the south pole magnetic radiation.
The results showed definite genetic alteration had occurred. The chicks treated with north pole magnetic radiation were thin, scrawny, highly nervous and more intelligent than the control group. The chicks treated with south pole magnetic radiation were larger, more muscular, aggressive, cannibalistic and less intelligent that the control group. Interestingly both treated groups were healthier and lived longer than the chicks of the control group!
As we consider our highly polarized society it may be possible to recognize these traits within ourselves. As earth’s magnetic fields grow weaker do our own auras or magnetic fields attempt to grow stronger to compensate? Definitely food for thought. My book also said that the Russians had scientifically studied these things far more than the western nations and were far ahead of us.
Russia has fully stocked and functional nuclear bomb shelters for its population, but I begin to wonder if those are really intended as nuclear bomb shelters or instead shelters for the coming polar shift? In any case, we in the United States don’t have these shelters although there are rumored underground facilities for the military. . . I’m simply bringing up the possibility that we might have such shelters, but they are not for the masses. Europe has plenty of underground shelters that it has used during both World Wars.
In my next post we will continue the study of the strictly physical aspects of these naturally occurring cycles of destruction and where we are right now. . .
by Paul Rohrer with 3 illustrations by Otto Linnekogel
Translated by Joe Bandel
“Back then we rode with smuggled goods over the mountains,” shouted Michael.
He was drunk and lying on a stone park bench with his jacket unbuttoned. His hand, wearing ten rings from our most dangerous robberies, clutched the stone head of the arm rest. There was the ring of Count Corzan, the Bishop of Valona’s emerald, the ruby of the Duchess of Acra, and other rings bearing fiery glittering jewels.
“We knew that Don Lorenzo with his Venetian livery was tracking us through the ravines. There was a full moon like today when we made our move and killed him right in the middle of his fancy masked ball.”
The rest of us crouched, stretched out in the grass and cursed because the old Castilian had spoiled the drunken celebration for us and for Michael. What devil had made him start talking about the ghost of Don Lorenzo? We had successfully arrived at the lonely bay unnoticed and had delivered our Lombard silk, Skadar velvet, jewelry and spice boxes to our customers in the city. Now we just wanted to sleep peacefully in the ruins of the half fallen down castle. But an old man kept hopping about incessantly on his pillar of a stump, a Dutch flute in his toothless mouth. He was indifferent to the pleading of our captain.
“Don Lorenzo still lives here among the flowers and trees that he has planted,” he repeated. And with a shaky hand he drew a wide semicircle through the air and over the nighttime park. “There is no plant that is not his. The wild roses are his desire, the thorny undergrowth his hatred, the tangled vindictive pines his twisted hands.”
“Then I want to sleep where he sleeps,” bellowed Michael suddenly, and his passion made chills run up our spines. “I want to sleep in the room where he took my woman. It will be his evil conscience against my own! Give me a light!”
Horror seized us. The meal in the green meadow, which had started so happily, which had left us with nothing more than a couple of buxom whores, threatened to become a fight against the invisible. All of the fellows had already experienced the plundering of a Turkish galley in battle and that of a coastal village. They knew what a mandrake or statue of St. John was used for, and that all creatures are not of this world.
“He is crazy,” one shouted. Several of us wanted to grab Michael and take him forcefully down to the beach and onto the ship. But he pulled his sword out of its sheathe. With flat, furious blows the captain drove away everyone from around his body until he stood alone next to the stone bench. But we, who knew his rages,fled into the shadows of the nearest trees, almost more astonished at his rage than over the composure with which the Castilian lifted his lantern and waited for Michael. Michael ordered him forward with a curt wave of his hand, and he limped forward, as if leading Michael to see some rare painting, and not a single person cared enough about their own salvation to take the opportunity to go along.
“A scoundrel,” I wheezed, “who is leading him to his folly.”
But a growl around the circle proved that no one had any desire to be separated from their bottle and put their own fates at risk. Meanwhile the yellow glow of the lantern snaked through the high grass, which year out and year in had never been mowed, until it reached the pointed arch of the gate. When Michael disappeared through it into the immense black mass of the castle with its spacious wings that surrounded the park I lost track of him. There was something in the manner in which he became more distant as he moved away, it seemed to me as if he was under some supernatural compulsion rather than his own will— his movements took on those of a puppet, and this impression became so strong— that a boundless inexplicable fear arose inside me.
Solidly determined not to let him down, I broke away from the others and hurried toward the castle. The murmur of the night wind whispered around its facade and bent the tops of the trees that rose out of the swampy moat next to it.
Already the lantern, which had slipped through the gateway hall, made the outline of the portcullis visible for a moment, then quickly lit up the arch and rushed across the courtyard. In the meantime I bit open one of the cartridges that I always carried on my bandoleer, and with trembling fingers poured the powder into the gun barrel. Then with a loaded weapon I followed the winding path, as the two ahead of me moved through crumbling halls and echoing corridors. Not as much as a whispered word flew between them. You could only hear the clumping of the old man and the sonorous, massive footsteps of Michael. I stopped at the heads of their long shadows and soon stepped onto the bristling silhouette of the caretaker, then on the edge of the braids, that looked like snakes protecting the captain’s skull.
Blinded mirrors upon the walls reflected back the broken eye of a window, colorful silk draperies wrapped around the stage. In one chamber musical instruments lay in a heap as if they had been discarded while fleeing from a masked ball that had been interrupted. Since the night of that murder, when we had stormed the crowded festival with torches and daggers and avenged Michael’s honor, the life of the castle had fallen off like the patched rags of a beggar’s corpse. No one had dared to even carry away so much as a wig. And ever since then our galleon was often anchored in the bay, the wild park served our wild joys and the dry oleander provided the fires, with which we kept the merchants away and lured them into the dangerous limestone reefs. But even the boldest of us had never dared to reenter the castle itself.
I don’t know whether it was necessary or it was the malice of the Castilian, that we had to wander through all those dead rooms, through corridors and cellars, and even through a chapel which still smelled of rotting incense. They finally ended up in one room, in whose alcove stood a canopy bed. Then I heard them speaking softly, while I, from behind a chest, peeked through the doorway. The beam of light from the raised lantern played over that very bed, over the golden decorations, over the frescoes on the walls, from which the plaster was peeling off, and over the thick cobwebs on the window panes.
“Don Lorenzo’s bedroom,” I heard the old man say. Michael was sunk down in an armchair. He dug his fingers into his eye sockets and groaned in memory. You didn’t need to know him to know that he would have liked to tear Lorenzo’s corpse from out of the grave and rip it to pieces.
“Michael,” I called and jumped out, “come back!”
The captain rose up and broke out into a crazed laughter.
“Where is there to go?” He asked. “I must seek him out again. He shall not believe that I was a coward!”
But something troubled me much more than his frenzied laughter. Suddenly the old Castilian was missing.
“Where is your guide?” I replied in terror.
Michael looked at me without understanding. What guide? Was I so drunken from the plundered Malvasia wine that I was seeing ghosts in my delirium?
“God in heaven,” I screamed in growing horror and threw myself against the door which I had just came through. It was locked. Despite that it appeared to only be made of light wood it would not give way as I tried to spring it with Michael’s sword.
“A rusty lock,” he sneered.
By then I was jumping, crazy as a rat in a trap, against the window, trying to check whether escape was possible there. I wiped the cobwebs away from the window panes with the sleeve of a gold embroidered jacket which I had snatched from the councilor of Ragusa. You could see right down to the bay, in the middle of which our pirate galleon lay at anchor. The full moon made the mountains appear as if covered in snow, and the sea flowed like molten silver. Low on the horizon stood some narrow, supernaturally white banks of clouds. However, as I contemplated the plunge from the heights of the window down to the park, it was not the impossibility of escape from that cursed room that curdled my blood, but something else entirely.
The largest of the pines, which Don Lorenzo had at one time planted down at the edge of the meadow and beneath which we had enjoyed our evening, had left their places. They now stood gloomy and majestic in the open space half way between the castle and our earlier camp.
“You lie,” hissed Michael, when I called out in a strangled voice for him to come and look. “Why should his trees be wandering around?”
Breathlessly we marked the countless blossoms of wild daffodils that covered the meadow, to see if the trees were actually moving. It was difficult to tell for sure, but soon there was no doubt that the pines were dragging their rigid crowns up the slope with a terrible slowness, pushing forward like a snail in its house.
Now it was Michael who suddenly tore himself out of his stupor, and howling, turned away from the window and crashed against the door. I myself, stepped back. Weak with terror I leaned against the wall and watched the efforts of the captain. With his bullish power he smashed the heavy top of a table against the opening. The wood splintered under the terrible impact, yet the door gave way as little as if it were the wall. The terrible tale of the Castilian took form. Don Lorenzo’s ghost invisibly filled the things around us with a cruel vengeance, which had been denied him in life. I felt how his and Michael’s passion began to wrestle for the last time, and without hearing anything with my body, my brain heard, as if a fire passed through the walls and the ceiling, through the plaster and stone, a deep breath of the murdered that trickled down, and in which the moon mixed its pale light with that of the lantern. I would have much rather been standing in a losing battle next to the large deck lantern of our galleon.
While the captain struggled against the wall, I saw how a dark mass slowly rose up in a clear corner of the window. It was the top of a pine swelling and growing right before my eyes.
“Michael,” I groaned.
Then he saw it and with a curse tore the pistol away from me. Before I could stop him, he aimed it and fired at the strange creature. The new powder cap, which I had placed on the pistol the day before did it’s duty.
Michael’s shot thundered terribly loud in the small room. The flash of fire struck against the window pane. It rattled as the bullet went through it, and the powerful smoke of gunpowder filled the room.
But it was as if by this deed the moon had been extinguished, and we immediately stood in front of a completely dark window.
“What is that?” I screamed and raised the lantern. The smoke roiled back and forth, but through it I could see that the pine was now pressing its branches against the glass. They were no longer calm like they had seemed before. The light brown wood curled and rolled back and forth like a snake, and even in the poor light, the long needles trembled as if they were the fingers of this terrible living tree. They pushed against the window panes. They tried to push through everywhere. And then it happened. The glass gave way and bulged inward like a viscous mass. But through the round hole, which the bullet had made, a slender branch had already slipped through and pressed even further into the room.
The captain stood at the end of the bed, in one hand the smoking pistol, the other was so scratched from the wood that all the blood which had drained from his face seemed to be dripping from his fingers. Then a delicate, thin crackling announced that the window could not withstand any more pressure and was going to give way. With heavy knees I crashed once more against the door. I don’t know if it opened by itself or even if some ghost chased me through the desolate castle until I came to the courtyard and collapsed at the fountain. My companions found me there the next morning. They had to use blasting powder to clear the way to Michael’s room. He lay dead on the four poster bed. There was not a single trace of what had happened there during the night, except for one tender pine needle, that was stuck in his chest right through his heart. We gambled with dice for the ten precious rings that were mementos of our ten greatest pirate adventures which he wore on his hand. The emerald of the Bishop of Valona, the ruby of the Duchess of Acra, and all the others. Then we buried our captain and as a funeral service threw a burning torch into the cursed building. Since there was no wind at that time, our galleon lay for three more days in the glowing embers of the fire that was painted over the sea.
In many ways it is ironic that during Buddha’s lifetime people were so trapped in the present moment of physical reality that they really had to struggle to meditate. In today’s world we live so much in our heads that we have to struggle to perceive physical reality when it is right in front of us! I will just give an obvious example of being so caught up in reading a book that you are not aware of the passage of time or even aware of your physical body. Properly understood this is a high state of Samadhi! It has become so common that you don’t think of it as unusual.
This inside out and upside down characteristic pervades our modern society. Another example is collective belief and politically correct behavior as it reinforces echo chamber thought that has no relation to actual physical reality. The human mind will always find “perfect” music of less interest than “imperfect” music. It quickly gets bored of that which is too rythmical and structured. Personal empowerment is not in becoming clones of each other but in the ability to think outside the box; it lies not in commonality, but in creatively exploring new areas.
In this respect adaptability and creativity is life and sameness is death. There is growth and there is stagnation. Magic always comes out of our personal blind spots! We will always outgrow our present circumstances. What was once a perfect fit will someday be too confining and restrictive. What was once our salvation will someday become our prison!
The thing is that we all evolve and grow at different rates and are each at different levels of development. One size can never fit all. Society evolves through cycles in which the gifted are allowed to move forward for a space and then they are blocked while the slower ones are forced to catch up.
That is what is currently happening within our world. The slower ones are being forced to catch up to the rest of us and this is creating cognitive dissonance! Their view of reality is increasingly not matching their personal life experience.
Again the irony is that materialists are so stuck in their heads that organic realities and the multidimensional nature of reality and the soul do not exist for them. By the same token there are people who are so convinced of make believe realities that they have lost touch with reality as well.
The ancient mystery schools were created for the purpose of mental and emotional healing as well as the development of the soul and its powers. Their function was to help us live in this life and to prepare us for the next. Many adepts and masters have traveled along this path and the way is well marked and known although each path is individual.
The bottom line is are you living in fear or are you inspired? Is your outer world a prison or an adventure? Gaia has ascended taking us with her and our individual life circumstances are now firmly crystallizing around us. As the new energy of the coming year comes in this winter solstice our new lives will truly begin. Your present circumstances will begin to magnify and it will become more and more difficult to make changes in the mold that we have cast for ourselves.
Der Orchideengarten is the world’s first illustrated fantasy magazine. This issue was published in the German language in 1919. This is the first English translation of these stories and contains the original cover and artwork. It includes: Death by Classified by Fyodor Sologub; OM! by Max Rohrer; Rumplebumm by Richard Theuringer; The Masked Ball by Hanns Reiser; The Deluge by Will Scheller. All translations by Joe Bandel; Layout and design by John Hirschhorn-Smith.
Many of you don’t know that I translate German horror stories as a hobby. I just finished translating this story and am offering it as a Halloween gift to all my readers! It is a story that will be published in Der Orchideengarten Vol 1, no. 11 which I am currently working on. Enjoy!
Death by Classified
By Fyodor Sologub, translation by Joe Bandel
Resanow suddenly felt weak, tired, and wilted. His thoughts were occupied more and more with death. It seemed to him that there was no sweeter resting place than between the fir boards of a coffin.
Suddenly he was overcome with the desire to do something different from his daily routine.
He sat alone in his silent room and studied the classified ads in the “Nowoje Wremja”. He was looking for something. He compared them and selected one.
His pale face which had already begun to wither, expressed perplexity and indecision. In his absent-mindedness he reached out with his pencil and the tip struck the lamp shade.
His hand trembled. The pencil tip tapped against the glass. He smiled. He said to himself:
“I am getting old.”
He lowered his eyes again; they had once been so lively and full of humor and now were tired and indifferent as he looked calmly and attentively at the newspaper.
Finally, he chose one of the classified ads. An educated, intelligent, and good-looking lady found herself in dire straits and asked a noble person to loan her fifty rubles. She would agree to any terms. The address read: Post office No. 17, general delivery. Present receipt Nr. 205824.
Resanow took a yellow, rough sheet of paper out of a box with the letterhead and water mark “Margaret Mill”.
With a sad smile on his lips, he wrote to her:
“Dear Madame!
I will give you the amount you ask for, neither as a loan nor as a gift; but for a service which I can only indicate briefly in this letter. There is not much to say. Since you claim to be intelligent, you will easily understand what I ask of you. That you come to me in the form of my Death. The more attractive it is the better— and act accordingly. If you understand and make this a fun game, the fee will be ample enough for you to live on. Are we agreed? Are you too afraid? Do you understand what I desire of you? If you are in agreement and not afraid and understand me correctly, then write me back, so I can meet with you for the first time. 5 o’clock in the afternoon would be the most suitable time for me. Respond by special delivery. Cash on delivery receipt Nr. 384384 for three ruble notes. I want to pick up the letter on Thursday.”
The three newly printed and issued 1905 ruble notes crackled uncomfortably, like the starched dress of a first communicant. The number 384 was repeated twice. This seemed strange and meaningful to him.
He thought to himself:
“And if? . . .”
He smiled weakly.
“Well, even if . . .”
He did not sign the letter. He sealed it and carried it to the mailbox. The maid could pick it up in the morning.
When he was back in his room, he wondered what the unknown woman looked like. Was she skinny, ugly, with an impoverished brown face, yellow teeth and thin strands of reddish hair beneath a wind and rain battered hat and a comical feather stuck in a ribbon hatband?
Or young, shy, and gentle, a seamstress with her delicate fingers pricked by her needle, with a pale waxy face and a large, sulking mouth?
Or a drunken, painted up, cheeky street whore with a screeching voice and crude manners?
Or an uncouth provincial lady in impossible clothes, with impossible manners, an unwashed neck, one abandoned by her husband or that had not found a lover?
“How will she, how will my Death appear? My own Death?”
“Perhaps she will meet me in a dark corridor, so that when I put my wretched gold into her cold hand, I won’t even see her face?”
On Thursday he went to the main post office. The summer day in the capitol was dusty, hot, and noisy. Here and there the houses had been plastered and whitewashed, and they gave off an unpleasant odor. Yet he felt cheerful, and the familiar restaurants seemed festive to him.
He did not hurry. He went into the Leiner and drank a glass of beer. He did not meet any of his acquaintances. Who could meet with him now? That would be an extremely unusual coincidence.
Around four o’clock he stepped through the open gate into the glass roofed hall of the new main post office. He remembered the old dirty hole that once had served as a post office. Today even the employees looked elegant.
He stopped and stood in front of the kiosk where the stationary was sold. A rotating stand showed him all sorts of sweet banalities that only post cards could give.
“Are these for sale?” He asked the saleswoman.
The cute girl with a bored expression shrugged her rounded shoulders.
“What do you want?” She asked him in a hostile tone. “Stationary, envelopes, postcards?”
He looked at her carefully. He saw the small curls on her forehead, the porcelain white complexion and the blue pupils and said:
“I don’t need anything.”
He went on. Opposite the main entrance in a large four cornered stall sat three young girls behind a double counter handing out letters. The public stood outside. A fat lady with a wart on her nose asked for a letter with the name Ruslan-Swonarjowa?
“What is your name? Swonarjowa?” asked the postwoman, whose face reminded one of the color of a roll, and she went to the box with the letters.
“Ruslan-Swonarjowa!” cried the lady with the wart, in a frightened whisper.
And as the postwoman with the bread-colored face stepped up to the counter with a packet of letters in her hand, the lady with the wart said:
“I have a double name: Ruslan-Swonaryova.”
A red-haired gentleman stood next to the lady with a stiff hat in his hand and followed the movements of the second postwoman with restless eyes; the prettiest of the three, she was looking through a packet of letters and appeared immensely proud of what she was doing. The gentleman appeared to be expecting a “sensitive and frivolous” letter. He was extremely nervous and made an uncomfortable and miserable impression.
The third postwoman, who was plump and red cheeked had a broad face and her chestnut brown mane was combed and parted deeply at her forehead. She laughed merrily at some private matter. She turned for a moment to the other two, who smiled and laughed as well, as if she had told them something very funny.
Resanow silently handed her his three ruble notes. He eyed the three girls and determined that they were all young, healthy, and pretty. The postal administration had certainly added some elegance to their new building.
He was reminded of the newspaper dispute between this postal worker and a petitioner that he had seen somewhere the other day. The petitioner had not been allowed to sell newspapers at the post office because she was skinny, ugly, and withered from hunger and poverty, and already over thirty-two years old. He closed his eyes and in front of him immediately appeared an emaciated, pale, frightened face with wide open eyes and nervously twitching lips. Someone whispered quietly, but clearly:
“I have nothing to keep me alive.”
Someone else answered just as calmly:
“Then don’t live!”
Resanow opened his eyes. He looked balefully at the plump postwoman, who was busy looking for his cipher. Several letters and postcards were thrown onto the table one after the other. Her laugh was so disgusting and insistent.
Finally, she handed him a letter in a narrow envelope and put all the other letters away.
“I don’t have anything else.”
“I don’t need anything else,” said Resanow in annoyance.
He moved to the side, sat down on a bench in front of a pillar and opened the letter. He did it in a hurry, but otherwise he remained calm.
Large, narrow letters, delicate punctuation marks, a regular, calm, and unexpectedly beautiful handwriting.
“Dear Sir!
I am in agreement. I am not afraid. I understand everything. On Thursday at six o’clock. Michael’s Park, the avenue to the right of the entrance. A white dress. Your letter in my right hand.
Your Death.”
A postal employee rang the bell. The hall emptied. Resanow went to a Viennese restaurant. He ate a quick lunch and drank wine.
At half past five he was already at the park.
She stood under a tree at the beginning of an avenue near the entrance. Her white dress rose from out of the dark green of the silent park.
She was slender, pale, very quiet and calm. While he was walking up to her, she looked him over carefully. She had gray, calm eyes that did not reveal anything. But her gaze was tense and watchful. The expression of her face, which was by no means pretty, was cheerful and humble. The smile on her generous mouth was sweet and sad.
“My dearest Death!” He said softly.
He remained standing in front of her and reached out his hand in greeting, suddenly seized by a strange unrest.
She remained silent. She took his letter from out of her right hand, put it into her left and squeezed his hand with hers, which was noticeably narrow, cool, and gentle.
He asked:
“Have you been waiting for me long?”
She answered, every word articulated slowly, in a lifeless monotone and deadly silent voice:
“You didn’t expect me. You thought that it would be someone other than me.”
It seemed to him that a strangely cold breath streamed from her. The folds of her white dress were so still and motionless. The simple white straw hat with a white ribbon that she wore high above her hair threw a yellow shadow across her face.
As she stood in front of Resanow, she leaned forward and with the tip of her parasol drew a fine line in the sand between them from left to right.
He asked:
“So, you want to be my Death?”
Her answer sounded so calm:
“I am your Death.”
And he asked again, while a shiver ran over him:
“Aren’t you afraid to play such a sinister role?”
She answered:
“Death fears the living and shows no one its face. You are quite well the first, of the living, who has seen the human face of his Death.”
He said:
“You play your role too quickly and too conscientiously. Tell me, what is your name?”
She replied with a sad, soft smile:
“I am your Death, your white, quiet, stormless Death. Breath quickly, your hours are numbered.”
He wrinkled his brow and said:
“You are an educated woman; you are in need and ask for money. What has brought you to this, that you accept all my terms and agree to play such an uncanny role?”
She answered:
“I am hungry, sick, tired and sad.”
He laughed and said:
“By all means rest. Why are you standing? Please sit down on a bench.”
They went a few steps further and sat down. She drew an intricate pattern in the sand with the tip of her parasol.
He said:
“You are hungry. If you want, we can go to a restaurant, and I can get you something to eat. I also want to give you the money that you asked for. Tell me, is there anything else that I can do for you?”
“I will take everything from you that you care to give: your money and your soul.”
He started. Then he said with a laugh:
“You play your role most excellently!”
She answered:
“I came. My hour will soon strike. I will wait.”
He took his wallet out of his pocket.
In the small middle compartment, closed with a steel clasp, lay the five gold pieces which he had prepared for her. He took them out. She silently reached out her narrow, pale, soft, and steady hand. Delicate lines crossed her white palm in a clear, simple network.
The five gold pieces made a light click as one by one they were placed in her cold, motionless hand. Her delicate, long, white fingers slowly closed, and her hand quietly slid to a pocket on the side of her white skirt.
He thought to himself:
“My poor gold. — my last gift. — the poor earnings of a day laborer, — the miserable earnings for a superhuman work. — that is what I give you, my beloved!”
Did he only think these words, or did he say them aloud? They sounded so clear in his ears. Such a deep grief weighed down upon his heart!
She looked at him sadly with her gray eyes and smiled. Then she leaned forward, and the tip of her parasol rustled swiftly through the sand.
She whispered:
I have taken your gold and will also take your soul. You have given me your gold and you will give me your soul as well.”
He said softly:
You have received my gold because I have given it to you. But how will you take my soul? How do you plan to take it?”
She answered:
“When my hour strikes, I will come to you to fetch your soul and you will give it to me. You will give it to me because I am your Death, and you cannot outrun me.”
This felt unbearably harsh to him, and he said with a cutting voice, to drown out his pain and fear:
You live in a furnished room. You are seeking a position or employment. Your name is Marie or Anna. What is your name anyway?
And he screamed, seized by a sudden hatred:
“Tell me what your name is!”
And she dispassionately replied:
“I am your Death.”
Her words sounded so hopeless and merciless. He started and hung his head. Discouraged he asked her:
“You need my gold, because you are hungry and tired, but my soul, — why do you need my soul?”
“With your gold I will buy bread and wine. I will eat and drink, and also give my death brood something to eat. Then I will take your soul. I will carefully take it out of your body, will carry it on my back, will goe with it into that dark room, where your and mine invisible Master dwells, go down and hand your soul over to Him. He will squeeze it and capture its sap in a deep bowl, into which my silent tears will also fall. — and then He will take my silent tears mixed with the sap of your soul and sprinkle them among the midnight stars.”
The strange words sounded so stiff and slow, like a strange incantation.
People passed by, voices rang out all around. Equipment rolled past outside on the pavement. Light footed children ran past, laughing. — everything was hidden behind the magical veil of her slow words. The colorful, joyful evening of the vanishing day disappeared as if in a cloud of incense.
He was sad, tired, and indifferent. He said softly:
“When the trembling of my soul reaches up to the stars and in those distant worlds an insatiable thirst for lust and life ignites — what will happen to me? I will be here rotting in a dark grave, which indifferent people will scratch out for me. What do I receive from your high sounding promises? What? Tell me!”
She replied with a mild smile:
“In blissful sleep is eternal rest.”
He said:
“Eternal rest! Is that your consolation?”
“I comfort any way I can,” she replied with the same stiff, gentle smile.
He stood up and walked to the park exit:
Behind him he heard her soft footsteps.
For a long time, he walked through the streets of the city, and she always followed him. Once in awhile he quickened his pace, as if to outrun her. — then she also went faster; she gathered the hem of her white dress with her delicate fingers and ran after him. If he stopped and looked back, he would see her in front of a shop window looking at the displays. When he got angry, turned around and walked toward her; she would quickly run across the street or hide in a doorway or shop entrance.
And she pursued him with her gray, calm, watchful eyes. Incessantly she pursued him.
“I will take a cab,” he said to himself.
He was amazed that this simple thought had not occurred to him earlier.
But when he spoke to a cab driver, she came closer. She stood right next to him and breathed her cold and sadness upon him. And she smiled.
He told himself angrily:
“She will sit with me in the coach. I can’t outrun her on foot or by coach.”
The coachman demanded sixty kopecks.
“Thirty,” said Resanow, and then walked away quickly.
The coachman cursed.
Resanow climbed up to the third floor and stood in front of the door leading to his apartment. He rang the bell. Meanwhile light footsteps came up the stairs. He rang a second time impatiently. A cold wave of fear came over him. He wanted to be inside his apartment before she could see which door he entered. There were four apartments on each floor.
She came closer and closer. Her white dress shimmered in the semi-darkness of the stairwell. She came nearer and her gray eyes looked watchfully into his own frightened eyes as he finally entered his apartment taking one backward glance.
He pulled the door shut behind him and turned the key. In the semi-darkness of the corridor, he remained standing and looked with sad eyes at the door. He felt, — as if the door had suddenly become transparent, — that she silently, with a mild smile on her lovely lips, stood outside the door and lifted her pale face to read the apartment number so that she could remember it.
Then he listened as her footsteps slowly went away.
Resanow stepped into his study.
“She is gone.” A voice said clearly.
Another hopeless, calm voice replied:
“She will come back.”
He waited. It became darker and darker. His heart tightened. His thoughts were unclear and confused. He felt dizzy as waves of hot and cold ran over him.
He thought:
“What will she do now? Perhaps she will buy something to eat, then go home and feed her hungry death brood. That is what she called her own children. How many children did she have? What did they look like? Were they as quiet as she was, his dearest Death? Starved, skinny, white, shy? Unseemly, with those same watchful eyes, just as dear, as hers, my white Death?”
She is feeding her death brood. Then she will go to sleep. Then she will come back here. Why?
Suddenly he was overcome by a burning curiosity.
Of course, she will come back. Why else would she have followed him to the doorstep of his apartment? But how will she come? How will she fulfill her task, this strange lady, who for money was prepared to do anything and wanted to be his own Death?
Maybe she is not a woman at all, but Death incarnate? Perhaps she will come here and take his soul from out of his sinful, weak body?
He laid down on the sofa and wrapped himself in a plaid blanket. A cruel-sweet fever sent shivers through all his limbs.
What strange thoughts came to his mind! She was very smart and conscientious. She wanted to honestly earn the money that he had given her and was trying to play her role to perfection.
But why was she so cold?
Well, because she was poor, starving, tired and ill.
She was tired from work. She had too much to do:
Has sewn the entire day,
Is tired, is sick . . .
She wandered around sick and hungry, searching. Her poor death brood was waiting, with wide open hungry mouths.
And he remembered her face, the earthly, human face of his Death.
The face was so familiar to him, her features so intimate.
Her face emerged more and more clearly in his memory, that known, trusted and beloved face.
“Who is she, my white Death? My sister?
It is difficult for me because I am sick.
Dear brother, stay with me!
And if you are my eternal sister, my white Death— what does it matter to me, that you appear to me here in this incarnation as a woman, who has met me through a classified ad and lives in a common apartment house?
I have placed my poor, clinking gold, my pathetic gift into her cold hand. She has taken the gold in her freezing hand and wants to also take my soul. She will carry me into the dark room, and the face of the Master will appear before me. — My own eternal face because I am the Master. I have brought my soul to life and have commanded Death to come and take me.”
And he waited.
It was night. The doorbell softly rang. No one heard it. Resanow threw off the blanket and crept softly into the anteroom. The screeching of the key in the lock was much too loud. The door opened and she stood on the threshold.
He stumbled back into the darkness of the anteroom. He asked, as if he were surprised:
“Is it you?”
She said:
“I came. My hour has struck. It is time.”
He closed the door and went through the dark rooms into his study. He heard her light footsteps behind him.
In the darkness of his room, she snuggled up to him and kissed him with tender and sinless kisses.
“Who are you?” He asked.
She answered:
“You called me, and I came. I am not afraid, and you should not be afraid either. I will give you the last sweetness that life has to give— the kiss of Death. And your death shall be easy and sweet because of the poison.”
He asked:
“And you?”
She answered:
“I already told you that I will climb down that singular path with your soul which now stands open to us.”
“And your brood?”
“I sent them on ahead, so they can go before us and open the door.”
“When will you take my soul?” He asked again.
And she snuggled up tenderly against him and whispered:
“The dagger is sharp; it’s sting gives pleasure.”
And she snuggled up against him once more and kissed him.
Then the sting of the poisoned dagger touched his neck. A sweet fire ran like lightning through all his veins, and he lay dead in her arms.
With a second sting of the poisoned dagger, she killed herself and fell down dead on top of his corpse.
Der Orchideengarten was the worlds first fantasy magazine published in the German language in 1919 and this is the first English translation with the original artwork. Stories include: Hop Frog by Edgar Allan Poe; The Assembly by A. M. Frey; Cafe Lazarus by Max Krell; Plague by Alexander von Bernus. Translation by Joe E. Bandel; layout and design by John Hirschhorn-Smith.
Der Orchideengarten Vol 1 No 9 was first published in the German language in 1919 and this is the first English translation of this historical fantasy magazine. It includes the original art and stories. Der Orchideengarten was the worlds first fantasy magazine. This issue contains the stories and poems: The Diary of Dr. Hederson by Horst H. Wehner; The Holy Pillar by S. von Vegesack; Of the Man Krapp by Emil Lucka; The White Flute by Erich Mosse. Translation is by Joe E. Bandel; editing and layout is by John Hirschhorn-Smith.
Finally got this issue out and only one story left on the next issue so they are coming! Slow but sure.
Der Orchideengarten is the world’s first illustrated fantasy magazine and was published in the German language in 1919. This is the first time it has been published in the English language with the original artwork. Stories and poems include: “No One and Everyone” by Oskar Maria Graf; “The Wake” by Apuleius; “The Suicide” by Klarbund; “The Gray Mill” by H. Steinitzer; “The Head of the Condemned” by Alexander Dumas; “The Balcony” by Max Rohrer; “A Dream” by Will Scheller. Translations by Joe E. Bandel and layout by John Hirschhorn-Smith.
Der Orchideengarten was published in the German language in 1919 and this is the first time most of these stories and artwork have been published in the English language. Stories and Poems include: “The Hashish Dream” by Richard Euringer; “The Devil” by Guy de Maupaasant; “From the Ways of the Hanged” by Siegfried Aram; “The Blazing Flame” by Karl and Joseph Capek; all translations by Joe E. Bandel; Edit and layout by John Hirschhorn-Smith.
I’m back! Sorry it has taken so long! I almost forgot how to do this! I will be doing two magazines this month to kind of catch up and then go back to one a month. There should be no problem now that I am retired and have more time to work on these projects.
Der Orchideengarten was the world’s first illustrated fantasy magazine and published in the German language in 1919. This is the first time these stories have been translated into the English language. The original artwork is included. This issue of Der Orchideengarten contains: Franz Schoenberner- The Dying Lantern; Leonhard Stein- The Electric Piano; Rudolf Fuchs- Sleigh Ride; Paul Verlaine- Major Muller’s Hand; E. Scupin- Castle Valnoir. Translations by Joe Bandel. Technical editor John Hirschhorn-Smith. In my opinion this issue is the strongest and best to date!
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