Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Around eleven o’clock?” The assistant doctor made a somewhat
dubious face. “Isn’t that a little late? His Excellency is in the habit of
going to bed around that time and after such a strenuous day.”
“His Excellency must exert himself a little bit longer today
doctor.” Frank Braun decided. “Deliver the message. The hour is
certainly not too late for our purpose. It’s almost too early–In fact, it
would be better if it were twelve o’clock instead–That way if poor
uncle is too tired he can rest a bit ahead of time. Goodbye Doctor–
until this evening.”
He stood up, nodded curtly and left. He bit his teeth together,
feeling at the same moment as his lips closed just how childish, how
much of a mad mess it all was. He was almost ashamed of how he had
treated the good doctor, how small he had been, how cheap his joke
was. All of his nerves and sinews screamed for action–and instead he
let his thistle headed brain scatter in a thousand directions–while he
played childish pranks!
Dr. Petersen watched him go.
“He is full of pride,” he said to himself. “Not once did he offer to
shake my hand.”
He ordered another coffee, added a little cream and deliberated
while smearing butter on another slice of bread.
Then with innermost conviction, “Pride goes before the fall!”
Very satisfied with this wholesome common wisdom he bit into
the white bread and raised the cup to his mouth.
It was closer to one o’clock that evening when Frank Braun
finally appeared.
“Excuse me uncle,” he said lightly.
“Now dear nephew,” replied the Privy Councilor. “We have been
waiting way too long!”
“I had something better to do uncle, and by the way you are not
waiting here because of me but only because of your purpose.”
The professor squinted over at him. “Youngster–” he began, but
he controlled himself. “No, let it go. I am grateful that you have come
here to help me nephew. Are you ready to go now?”
“No,” declared Frank Braun blinded in childish defiance. “I will
have a whiskey soda first. We have enough time.”
That was his nature now, driving everything to the limit,
sensitive and thin skinned to every little word, taking offence at even
the slightest provocation. He always said harsh things to others but
couldn’t endure the softest rebuke or criticism himself. He could feel
how the old gentleman was hurt by his actions but knew the real
reason his uncle was hurt was because he needed his stupid young
nephew, that is what really sickened and offended his uncle.
It almost felt like a put down that the Privy Councilor was so
completely oblivious, couldn’t see through the shabby surface
behavior, couldn’t understand the blonde defiance for what it really
was. While he on the other hand had to resist whether he wanted to or
not, be more of a pirate than he really was, pull the mask still tighter
and go his insolent way like he had discovered on the Montmartre,
shock the bourgeois.
He leisurely emptied his glass, then stood up negligently like a
bored, melancholy prince, “Whenever you gentlemen are ready.”
He looked down on his guests from above as if they were
infinitely beneath him.
“Innkeeper, a cab.”
They left. The Privy Councilor was quiet, his upper lip hung
down deeply, fat tear ducts drained over his cheeks. His mighty ears
stuck out on both sides and the glittering right eye shone green in the
dark.
“He looks like an owl,” thought Frank Braun. “Like an ugly old
owl searching for a mouse.”
Dr. Petersen sat open mouthed in the front seat. He couldn’t
comprehend the unbelievable behavior of the nephew towards his
uncle.
It wasn’t long before the young man once more found his
equilibrium–Why should he get angry at the old ass? In the end his
good side came out as he helped the Privy Councilor out of the cab.
“Here we are,” he cried. “Please step inside.”
“Café Stern” it said on the large sign illuminated with electric
lights. They went inside, down long rows of small marble tables and
through a crowd of noisy and yelling people. Finally they sat down.
This was a good place. Many women sat around all decked out with
enormous hats and colorful silk blouses, multitudes of flesh waiting
for customers. They were spread out lounging around like window
displays.
“Is this one of the better places?” the Privy Councilor asked.
The nephew shook his head. “No Uncle Jakob, not at all. We
wouldn’t find what we wanted there–This might even be too good.
We need the bottom dregs.”
In the back a man in a greasy tight fitting suit sat at a piano
continually playing one popular song after another. At times a few
drinkers bellowed out words to the songs until the bouncer came over
to quiet them down and tell them that this was a respectable place and
they couldn’t do that.
Little clerks ran around and a couple good citizens from the
province sat at a nearby table making advances and talking dirty to
the prostitutes. A waiter swung between the tables bringing an
unappetizing brown sauce in glasses and a yellow one in cups. It was
called bouillon and the other Melange. He also carried a full carafe of
schnapps with little striped shot glasses.
Two women came up to their table and asked for coffee. It was
no big deal; they just sat down and ordered.
“The blonde perhaps?” whispered Dr. Petersen.
But the attorney waved him away. “No, no not at all–She is only
flesh. Not much better than your monkeys.”
A short one in the back of the room caught his eye. She was dark
and her eyes seethed with eagerness. He stood up and waved to her.
She loosened herself from her companion and came over to him.
“Listen–” he began.
But she said, “Not tonight, I already have a gentleman–
Tomorrow if you want.”
“Get rid of him,” he urged. “Come with us. We are looking for
something special.”
That was tempting. “Tomorrow– can’t it wait until tomorrow
darling? I really can’t tonight. He’s an old customer. He paid twenty
Marks.”
Frank Braun gripped her arm, “I will pay much more, a lot more.
Do you understand? You will have it made. It’s not for me–It’s for the
old man over there. He wants something special.”
She stopped. Her gaze followed his eyes to the Privy Councilor.
“Him, over there?”
She sounded disappointed. “What would he be wanting?”
“Lucy,” screamed the man at her table.
“I’m coming,” she answered. “Not tonight. We can talk about it
tomorrow if you want. Come back here around this time.”
“Stupid woman,” he whispered.
“Don’t be angry. He will kill me if I don’t go with him tonight.
He’s always that way when he’s drunk. Come tomorrow–do you hear
me? And leave the old man–Come alone. You won’t need to pay if
you don’t like it.”
She left him standing and ran over to her table.
Frank Braun saw how the dark gentleman with the starched felt
hat bitterly reproached her. Oh yes, she had to remain true to him–for
tonight. He went through the hall slowly looking at the prostitutes but
couldn’t find any that looked corrupt enough. There was still a last
residue of self-respect, some instinctive certainty of belonging to
some other class of society.
No, there were none of the lowest of the low. The pert and saucy
ones that had their own way, that knew what they wanted to be,
whores. He could hardly define what it was that he was looking for. It
was a feeling. She must love what she does, he thought, and want no
other. She would not be like these others that through some chance
unfortunate coincidence had wound up here.
These upright little women would have been workers, waitresses,
secretaries or even telephone operators if their lives had only been just
a little bit different. They were only prostitutes because the coarse
greed of males made it that way.
No, the one he was looking for should be a prostitute. Not
because she couldn’t be anything else, but because every inch of her
body screamed for new embraces, because under the caresses of one
lover, her soul already longed for the kisses of another. She needed to
be a prostitute just like he–he hesitated. What was he? Tired and
resigned, he finished his thought, just like he needed to be a dreamer.
He returned back to the table, “Come uncle. She is not here. We
will go some other place.”
The Privy Councilor protested but his nephew wouldn’t listen.
“Come uncle,” he repeated. “I promised you that I would find
someone and I will find her.”
They stood up, paid, went across the street and then further to the
north.
“Where,” asked Dr. Petersen.
The attorney didn’t answer, just kept walking, and looking at the
big signs on the coffeehouses. Finally he stopped.
“Café–Drinks–Gentlemen,” he murmured. “That would be
right.”
These dirty rooms were furnished in every style imaginable. To
be sure, the little white marble tables stood here as well and plush red
sofas were stuck against the walls. The rooms were lit with the same
electric bulbs and the same flat-footed waiters shoved through the
crowd in sticky suit coats.
But there was no pretense. Everything appeared just as it really
was. The air was bad, smoky and stuffy, but when you breathed it in
you felt better and freer somehow. There was no constraint and
students sat at nearby tables drinking their beer and talking dirty with
the women. They were all confident, sure of themselves, as mighty
floods of filth flowed out of their lips. One of them, small and fat with
a face full of dueling scars appeared inexhaustible and the women
neighed and bent over writhing with resounding laughter.
Pimps sat around on the walls playing cards or sitting alone,
staring at the drunken musicians and whistling along while drinking
their schnapps. Once in awhile a prostitute would come in, go up to
one of them, speak a few hurried words and then disappear again.
“This will do!” Frank Braun said. He waved to the waiter,
ordered cherry water and told him to send a few women over to the
table. Four came but as they sat down he saw another going out the
door, a tall, strong woman in a white silk blouse with luxurious fiery
red hair springing out from under a little hat. He leaped up and rushed
out into the street after her.
She went up the road slowly, indolently, lightly rocking her hips.
She curved to the left and entered into a doorway. Glowing red letters
arched over it, “North Pole Dance Hall”. He stepped across the dirty
yard after her and entered into the smoky hall almost the same time
she did but she didn’t notice. She stood standing out in front looking
over the dancing crowd.
It was noisy with yells and shouts; men and women whirled
around moving their legs till the dust flew high as the harsh words of
the Rix Dorfer howled through the music. It was rough, crude and
wild as the dancers pushed through each other and the crowd was
certainly growing.
He liked the Croquette and the Likette that they danced over on
the Montmartre and in the Latin Quarter on the other side of the Seine
and fell into them easily. They were lighter, more grand and full of
charm. There was none of that in this shoving, seething mass, not the
slightest twinge of what the French girls called “focus”.
But a hot blood screamed out of the Rix Dorfer, a wild passion
was driving the dancers crazy throughout the dance hall. The music
stopped and the dance master collected money in his dirty sweaty
hands from the women, not from the men. Then he bowed to the
audience and gestured grandly for the band in the gallery to start a
new dance.
But the crowd didn’t want the Rhinelander. They screamed at the
conductor, yelling at him to stop but the orchestra played on battling
against the will of the dance hall, secure high above and behind their
balustrade.
Then the Maitre pressed out onto the floor. He knew his women
and his fellows, held them solidly in his hand and would not be
intimidated by drunken yells or threatening raised fists. But he also
knew when he had to give in.
“Play the Emil,” he called up. “Play the Emil!”
A fat female in a huge hat wound her arm around the dance
master’s dusty suit coat.
“Bravo, Justav. That was well done!”
His influence spread like oil over the raging crowd. They
laughed, pressed onto the dance floor, cried “Bravo”, and slapped him
whole heartedly on the back or playfully punched him in the belly.
Then, as the waltz began he broke out in song, screaming and hoarse:
“Emil, you are a plant,
You climb all over me!
Are always quick to kiss
And that’s why I love you!”
“Alma,” cried out someone in the middle of the room. “There’s
Alma!”
He left his partner standing, sprang up and grabbed the red haired
prostitute by the arm. He was a short dark fellow with smooth hair
curling tight against his forehead and bright piercing eyes.
“Come,” he cried, grabbing her tightly around the waist.
The prostitute danced. More daring than the others, she pranced
the waltz letting her partner whirl her quickly around. After a few
beats she was completely into the dance, throwing her hips around,
bending forward and backward, pressing her body up against her
partner in constant contact. It was shameless, vulgar and brutally
sensual.
Frank Braun heard a voice near him, saw the dance master
watching the prostitute with keen appreciation.
“Damn, that whore can swing her ass!”
Oh yes, she could swing her ass! She swung it high and cheeky
like a flag, like a storm filled banner of naked lust, like the Baroness
Gudel de Gudelfeld swung hers for the applause of the Crown Prince.
She doesn’t need any ornaments thought Frank Braun as his eyes
followed her down the hall and back. He quickly stepped up to her as
the music stopped and laid his hand on her arm.
“Pay first,” the dark haired man laughed at him.
He gave the man a coin. The prostitute looked him over with a
quick look, examining him from top to bottom.
“I live nearby,” she said. “Scarcely three minutes in the–”

Read Full Post »