Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

Then she takes the child, washes him, changes him, and tucks
him into bed. Wülfche never stirs, lies quiet, still and contented. Then
he falls asleep, beaming blissfully, the ghastly black cigar stub always
in his lips.
Oh yes, she was right, this tall woman. She understands children,
at least Gontram children.
During the dinner and into the evening they eat and the Legal
Councilor talks. They drink a light wine from the Ruwer. Frau
Gontram finishes first and brings the spiced wine.
Her husband sniffs critically.
“I want champagne,” he says.
She sets the spiced wine on the table anyway. “We don’t have
any more champagne. All that’s left in the cellar is a bottle of
Pommery.”
He looks intently at her over his spectacles, shakes his head
dubiously.
“Now you know you are a housewife! We have no champagne
and you don’t say a word about it? What? No, champagne in the
house! Fetch the bottle of Pommery– Spiced wine is not good
enough.”
He shakes his head back and forth, “No champagne. Imagine
that!” He repeats. “We must procure some right away. Come woman;
bring my quill and paper. I must write the princess.”
But when the paper is set in front of him, he pushes it away
again. He sighs.
“I’ve been working all day long. You write woman, I’ll dictate to
you.”
Frau Gontram doesn’t move. Write? She’s a complete failure at
writing!
“I can’t,” she says.
The Legal Councilor looks over at Manasse.
“See how it is, Colleague? Can’t she do this for me? I am so
exhausted–”
The little Attorney looks straight at him.
“Exhausted?” He mocks, “From what? Telling stories? I would
like to know why your fingers always have ink on them, Legal
Councilor. I know it’s not from writing!”
Frau Gontram laughs. “Oh Manasse, that’s from last Christmas
when he had to sign as witness to the children’s bad behavior!–
Anyway, why quarrel? Let Frieda write.”
She cries out the window to Frieda. Frieda comes into the room
and Olga Wolkonski comes with her.
“So nice to have you here,” the Legal Councilor greets her.
“Have you already eaten this evening?”
Both girls have eaten down in the kitchen.
“Sit here Frieda,” bids her father. “Right here.”
Frieda obeys.
“Now, take the quill and write what I tell you.”
But Frieda is a true Gontram child. She hates to write. Instantly
she springs up out of the chair.
“No, no,” she cries. “Olga should write, she is so much better
than I am.”
The princess stays on the sofa. She doesn’t want to do it either.
But her friend has a means to make her submit.
“If you don’t write,” she whispers. “I won’t lend you any sins for
the day after tomorrow.”
That did it. The day after tomorrow is Confession and her
confession slip is looking very insufficient. Sins are not permitted
during this time of First Communion but you still need to confess.
You must rigorously investigate, consider and seek to see if you can’t
somehow find yet another sin. That is something the princess
absolutely can’t understand.
But Frieda is splendid at it. Her confession slip is the envy of the
entire class. Thought sins are especially easy for her. She can discover
dozens of magnificent sins easily at a time. She gets this from Papa.
Once she really gets started she can attend the Father Confessor with
such heaps of sins that he never really learns anything.
“Write Olga,” she whispers. “Then I’ll lend you eight fat sins.”
“Ten,” counters the princess.
Frieda Gontram nods. It doesn’t matter to her. She will give
away twenty sins so she doesn’t have to write.
Olga sits at the table, picks up the quill and looks questioningly.
“Now write,” says the Legal Councilor.
“Honorable Princess–”
“Is this for Mama?” the princess asks.
“Naturally, who else would it be for? Write!”
“Honorable Princess–”
The princess doesn’t write. “If it’s for Mama, I can only write,
‘Dear Mama’.”
The Legal Councilor is impatient.
“Write what you want child, just write!”
She writes, “Dear Mama!”
Then the Legal Councilor dictates:
“Unfortunately I must inform you that there is a problem. There
are so many things that I must consider and you can’t consider things
when you have nothing to drink. We don’t have a drop of champagne
in the house. In the interests of your case please send us a basket of
spiced champagne, a basket of Pommery and six bottles of–”
“St. Marceaux!” cries the little attorney.
“St. Marceaux,” continues the Legal Councilor. That is namely
the favorite of my colleague, Manasse, who so often helps.
With best Greetings,
Your–”
“Now see, Colleague!” he says. “You need to correct me! I
didn’t dictate this letter alone but I will sign it single handedly, and he
puts his name on it.
Frieda turns away from the window, “Are you finished? Yes?
Well, I can only say that you didn’t need to write the letter. Olga’s
Mama is coming and she’s in the garden now!”
She had seen the princess a long time ago but had kept quiet and
not interrupted. If Olga wanted to get ten beautiful sins she should at
least work for them!
All the Gontrams were like that, father, mother and children.
They are very, very unwilling to work but are very willing to let
others do it.
The princess enters, obese and sweaty, large diamonds on her
fingers, in her ears, around her neck and in her hair in a vulgar display
of extravagance.
She is a Hungarian countess or baroness. She met the prince
somewhere in the Orient. A marriage was arranged, that was certain,
but also certain, was that right from the beginning it was a fraud on
both sides.
She wanted the marriage to make her impossible pregnancy
legal. The prince wanted the same marriage to prevent an
international scandal and hide his small mistake. It was a net of lies
and impudent fraud, a legal feast for Herr Sebastian Gontram,
everything was in motion, and nothing was solid. Every smallest
assertion would prompt legal opposition from the other side. Every
shadow would be extinguished through a court ruling.
Only one thing stayed the same, the little princess. Both the
prince and the princess proclaimed themselves as father and mother
and claimed her as their own. This product of their strange marriage is
heir to many millions of dollars. The mother has the advantage, has
custody.
“Have a seat, princess!”
The Legal Councilor would sooner bite his tongue than call this
woman, ‘Highness’. She is his client and he doesn’t treat her a hair
better than a peasant woman.
“Take your coat off!” but he doesn’t help her with it.
“We have just written you a letter,” he continues and reads the
beautiful letter to her.
“But of course,” cries the princess. “I will take care of it first
thing tomorrow morning!”
She opens her purse and pulls out a heavy envelope.
“Look at this, Honorable Legal Councilor. I came straight here
with it. It is a letter from Lord, Count Ormes of Greater-
Becskerekgyartelep, you know him.”
Herr Gontram furrows his brow. This isn’t good. The King
himself would not be permitted to demand him to conduct any
business while at home. He stands up and takes the letter.
“That’s very good,” he says. “Very good. We will clear this up
in the morning at the office.”
She defends herself, “But it’s very urgent! It’s very important!”
The Legal Councilor interrupts her, “Urgent? Important? Let me
tell you what is urgent and important, absolutely nothing. Only in the
office can a person judge what is urgent and important.”
He reproaches her, “Princess, you are an educated woman! You
know all about proper manners and enjoy them all the time. You must
know that you don’t bring business home at night.”
She persists, “But I can never catch you at the office Honorable
Legal Councilor. During this week alone I was–”
Now he is almost angry. “Then come next week! Do you think
that all I do is work on your stuff alone? Do you really believe that is
all I do? Do you know what my time alone costs for the murderer
Houten? And it’s on my head to handle your millions as well.”
Then he begins to tell a funny story, incessantly relating an
unending imaginary story of a strange crime lord and the heroic
attorney that brings him to justice for all the horrible sex murders that
he has committed.
The princess sighs, but she listens to him. She laughs once in
awhile, always in the wrong places. She is the only one of all his
listeners that never knows when he lies and also the only one that
doesn’t understand his jokes.
“Nice story for the children!” barks Attorney Manasse.
Both girls are listening eagerly, staring at the Legal Councilor
with wide-open eyes and mouths. But he doesn’t allow himself to be
interrupted. It is never too early to get accustomed to such things. He
talks as if sex murderers were common, that they happen all the time
in life and you can encounter dozens of them every day.
He finally finishes, looks at the hour, “Ten already! You children
must go to bed! Drink your spiced wine quickly.”
The girls drink, but the princess declares that she will under no
circumstances go back to her house. She is too afraid and can’t sleep
by herself, perhaps there is a disguised sex murderer in the house. She
wants to stay with her friend. She doesn’t ask her Mama. She asks
only Frieda and her mother.
“You can as far as I’m concerned,” says Frau Gontram. “But
don’t you oversleep! You need to be in church on time.”
The girls curtsey and go out, arm in arm, inseparable.
“Are you afraid too?” asks the princess.
Frieda says, “What Papa was saying is all lies.”
But she is still afraid anyway and at the same time strangely
longing for these things. Not to experience them, oh no, not to know
that. But she is thinking how she wants to be able to tell stories like
that! Yes, that is another sin for confession! She sighs.
Above, they finish the spiced wine. Frau Gontram smokes one
last cigar. Herr Manasse stands up to leave the room and the Legal
Councilor is telling the princess a new story. She hides her yawn
behind her fan, attempts again to get a word in.
“Oh, yes, dear Legal Councilor,” she says quickly. “I almost
forgot! May I pick your wife up at noon tomorrow in the carriage? I’d
like to take her with me into Rolandseck for a bit.”
“Certainly,” he answers. “Certainly, if she wants to.”
But Frau Gontram says, “I can’t go out.”
“And why not?” the princess asks. “It would do you some good
to get out and breathe some fresh spring air.”
Frau Gontram slowly takes the cigar out from between her teeth.
“I can’t go out. I don’t have a decent hat to wear–”
The Princess laughs as if it is a good joke. She will also send the
Milliner over in the morning with the newest spring fashions.
“Then I’ll go,” says Frau Gontram. “But send Becker from
Quirinusjass, they have the best.”
“And now I must go to sleep–good night!”
“Oh, yes, it is time I must get going too!” the princess cries
hastily.
Legal Councilor escorts her out, through the garden and into the
street. He helps her up into her carriage and then deliberately shuts the
garden gate.
As he comes back, his wife is standing in the house door, a
burning candle in her hand.
“I can’t go to bed yet,” she says quietly.
“What,” he asks. “Why not?”
She replies, “I can’t go to bed yet because Manasse is lying in
it!”
They climb up the stairs to the second floor and go into the
bedroom. In the giant marriage bed lies the little attorney pretty as can
be and fast asleep. His clothing is hung carefully over the chair, his
boots standing nearby. He has taken a clean nightgown out of the
wardrobe and put it on. Near him lies his Cyclops like a crumpled
young hedgehog.
Legal Councilor Gontram takes the candle from the nightstand
and lights it.
“And the man insults me, says that I’m lazy!” he says shaking
his head in wonderment.
“–And he is too lazy to go home!”
“Shh!” Frau Gontram says. “You’ll wake everyone up.”
She takes bedding and linen out of the wardrobe and goes very
quietly downstairs and makes up two beds on the sofas. They sleep
there.
Everyone is sleeping in the white house. Downstairs by the
kitchen the strong cook, Billa, sleeps, the three hounds next to her. In
the next room the four wild rascals sleep, Philipp, Paulche, Emilche
and Josefche. Upstairs in Frieda’s large balcony room the two friends
are sleeping. Wülfche sleeps nearby with his black tobacco stub. In
the living room sleep Herr Sebastian Gontram and his wife. Up the
hall Herr Manasse and Cyclops contentedly snore and way up in the
attic sleeps Sophia, the housemaid. She has come back from the dance
hall and lightly sneaked up the stairs.
Everyone is sleeping, twelve people and four sharp hounds. But
something is not sleeping. It shuffles slowly around the white house–
Outside by the garden flows the Rhine, rising and breasting its
embankments. It appears in the sleeping village, presses itself against
the old toll office.
Cats and Tomcats are pushing through the bushes, hissing,
biting, striking each other, their round hot glittering eyes possessed
with aching, agonizing and denied lust–
In the distance at the edge of the city you hear the drunken songs
of the wild students–
Something creeps all around the white house on the Rhine,
sneaks through the garden, past a broken embankment and overturned
benches. It looks in pleasure at the Sunday antics of the love hungry
cats and climbs up to the house. It scratches with hard nails on the
wall making a loose piece of plaster fall, pokes softly at the door so
that it rattles lightly like the wind.
Then it’s in the house shuffling up the stairs, creeping cautiously
through all the rooms and stops, looks around, smiles.
Heavy silver stands on the mahogany buffet, rich treasures from
the time of the Kaiser. But the windowpanes are warped and patched
with paper. Dutchmen hang on the wall. They are all good paintings
from Koekoek, Verboekhuoeven, Verwee and Jan Stobbaerts, but
they have holes and the old golden frames are black with spider webs.
These magnificent beauties came from the ArchBishop’s old hall. But
the broken crystal is sticky with flyspecks.
Something haunts the still house and each time it comes it breaks
something, almost nothing, an infinite smallness, a crack. But again
and again, each time it comes, the crack grows in the night. There is a
small noise, a light creaking in the hall, a nail loosens and the old
furniture gives way. There is a rattle at the swollen shutters and a
strange clanking between the windowpanes.
Everyone sleeps in this big house on the Rhine but something
slowly shuffles around.

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