The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
The performance, which began with a few rough slaps for the harlequin, was as I had much expected with the magician, dressed as on the figurehead. With his beard hung around his neck he performed a series of quite artful sleight-of- hand and card tricks, baked an omelet in a hat, which a fat citizen hesitantly offered, fetched endless ribbons, white barnyard rabbits and a glass jar with floating little fishes from it and finally crushed a golden watch in a mortar, only to find it unharmed in the purse of an embarrassed giggling girl. Then he moved on to the more difficult arts and tore off the heads of a white dove and a black dove and healed them in the twinkling of an eye, so that the black bird had a white head, and the white bird now had a black head. But this showpiece produced such a violent nausea in me that I wanted to get up and leave the room. But since I would have had to fight my way through the crowded rows of people sitting and would have had to make everyone get up, I closed my eyes for a while until I felt that the discomfort was subsiding. When I looked up again, through murmurs of applause and the admiration of the spectators, I saw the well-done picture of a moonlit cemetery on the stage. A slender, beardless man, wrapped in a black cloak, walked up and down between the grave crosses and told in his soliloquy, that a ghost often appeared here, and that he wanted to find out who the evil doer was that was certainly behind the appearance of such spirits. Behind the stage the midnight hour was signaled by twelve tinkling bells, and after the fading of the last stroke, which was followed by an artificially generated whirring of the wind, a being wrapped in white shrouds floated between the crosses and approached the man. This man seemed to be frightened at first, but then he swiftly drew his sword and stabbed the ghost. One saw clearly, how the flashing blade went through the body of the ghost, without doing him any harm. But now the boastful one threw the sword away and fled, whereupon the white creature performed a triumphant dance and the curtain rushed down. The performance was over, and the audience departed highly satisfied. I also stood up and approached the stage. My guess was correct. The invulnerable apparition was a mirror image, through a slanting glass plate, in front of which, lying on a kind of platform, an actor made the ghost, whose image was thrown onto the stage. The glass plate was made of three equal pieces, set together, and the two dark, vertical stripes of shadow, which had been visible on the stage during the performance, had immediately led me to this assumption. I now thought of leaving and noticed that there was no one left in the audience but me. But nevertheless I was not alone. Inaudibly a person had crept up to me, probably unaware of my intentions, and even though I faced him so unexpectedly, I recognized in him the sleight of hand magician in a robe as well as the cemetery fencer. I apologized and told him that I only had a scientific interest in how it was done and was fully satisfied with it. In no case was it my intention, to retell what I had discovered, which by the way had been known to me for a long time, to impair his success. “The gentleman is obviously a connoisseur,” the man said very politely and bowed. “Perhaps I have the honor of seeing a master of white magic before me?” “Not this one,” I replied. “I only wanted to know whether the excellent effect produced by the phantom was created with the help of large concave mirrors or with the sloping glass plate. Glass plates of such size are, as far as I know very precious and, as I understand it, are made only in Venice” “I see that the gentleman is excellently instructed,” replied the magician. “The three plates are our most valuable possessions and require a great deal of caution when traveling.” I thanked him with a few words and went toward the curtain, in front of which the harlequin was once again making noise and shouting. “If, however, the gentleman wished to make use of my actual art,” said the other, falteringly, and made a gesture with his hand toward the ground on which we were standing. A foreboding seized me. “What you see here,” said the other, “serves only the curiosity of the uneducated people and the acquisition of the bare necessities of life. For the deeply initiated, I am the necromancer Magister Eusebius Wohlgast from Ödenburg, and I have indeed already been honored with the name of the Hungarian Dr. Faust. I would have to be very wrong, if the wishes of the gentleman, whose outward appearance already announces the deepest and unhealed sorrow, not to offer the most glowing reunion with a beloved person who had been torn from him by cruel death.” I laughed bitterly. “You think I am more simple-minded than I am, Herr Magus Wohlgast,” I returned. “With the smoke of poisonous herbs, which completely cloud the clear mind, and with a hidden laterna magica, one can show gullible people what they wish to see.” The man shook his head with a smile and replied gently and modestly: “People of my standing, who live in moving wagons, must put up with being counted among the great crowd of wandering jugglers and swindlers. To dispel this suspicion, I expressly declare to you that I do not claim any salary if you want to accept my services in this respect. It is entirely up to you whether or not you want to give me a reward after the work is done, or under the impression of having been duped, to refrain from such. I also know very well in whose service I put my art, and remain unconcerned about profit, as much as I have to reckon with a net income. Incidentally, I recently enjoyed the extremely high honor of receiving such a request from His Imperial Roman Majesty in the rooms of the Masonic Lodge “To the Three Fires”. Although His Majesty, as a result of a very gripping apparition which moved him to the other world, was frightened and had to spend a few days in bed until his insulted mind had calmed down again. I was granted a very handsome reward. It may serve as a testimony to you that neither His Majesty nor the noble gentlemen present regarded me as an impostor, but rather left the temple of the Freemasons very moved and in silence. Yes, it was even said to protect me from the persecution that Her Majesty the Empress ordered to be instituted against me, when she discovered through an informant gentleman the cause of the illness of her husband.” Contradictory feelings stirred in me. The man seemed to me to be honest and sure of his rare abilities. But my distrust could not be eliminated so quickly. “Whom or whose spirit did you make appear before His Majesty?” I asked. “To speak of that to anyone, even a trustworthy cavalier, I am neither permitted, nor is it in my habits,” he declined. “I would also decline to communicate with third persons about apparitions which might come to the Lord if my most humble services were to be called upon.” My desire to experience this man’s art grew at his words and I spoke: “If it would be possible for you to call back a person, who has departed from this life and is very dear to me, I would be more than grateful to you.” He made a dismissive movement. “That is left to the discretion of the Lord, who is, in spite of all the negligence of his exterior caused by his grief, is a distinguished nobleman.” “So how should I behave, and when should this summoning go ahead?” I asked quickly, because two people had already entered the tent and forced us to speak quietly. “I ask the Lord to be here in three days, half an hour before midnight. On the day when the work is to take place, the Lord must abstain absolutely from all food and drink, with the exception of pure water. Then a purification of the body and fresh, clean clothes are needed. In addition, an object should be brought that was the property of the deceased person, if possible, something that was worn on the body. Strictest secrecy against anyone, whoever it may be, is a commandment, the non-observance of which makes all in vain.” “I have understood and will observe all this,” I said. “Nothing else is required?” “Nothing more for the gentleman.” “And you?” “I, my lord, must fast from today, a full three days, fast. My brother and our assistant will hold the performance here. I must prepare myself in solitude until the hour of the invocation.” I looked at him doubtfully, but the place was so filled to such an extent that further conversation was not possible. The Hungarian Magus did not pay any further attention to me, but walked right away toward the curtain. I saw him speaking some hasty words with the colorfully dressed harlequin, who nodded seriously. “So in three days -” I said in passing. “Around midnight,” he replied, and disappeared into the crowd in front of the booth. When I deliberately passed by after a while, the harlequin had disappeared, and the man, who until then had attracted the public with his multicolored costume, was now standing in the robe in front of the entrance and invited the audience to enter. In deep thought, I started on my way home to my inn. God himself had annealed my soul in the furnace of pain. I felt it deeply in the loneliness of the day, on which I prepared myself fasting for the evening with the Magus. How different my whole being had become since that hour, when my beloved had slipped away into the realm of shadows. The old irascibility which had still sometimes flashed up in me, the arrogance, of which I often enough made myself guilty, the addiction to the pleasures of the table and diversions of various kinds, the tendency to lust – all this had fallen away from me and seemed to me void and stale. The glamour, with which life presents itself to a man, was extinguished for me under the gray dust of transience.
“If I had to say where I thought the problem was, I’d say it was in having us train six newbies before moving on. We could probably get by with training four or five instead.”
Then Tobal grinned at Zee and Kevin. “Still, that’s because we are good trainers. There are some people out here that still struggle to survive after two years. I would hate to train with them. I guess the bottom line is if you can survive out here for a year you must know what you are doing.”
“You have always done a good job training newbies,” Zee told him. “No one has ever complained about your training.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever complained about Becca, Fiona or Nikki either,” he reminded her. “I guess the best thing is to trust the Council of Elders to make these decisions for us.” He looked at Zee, “I have heard you are the most thorough trainer out here. You teach things many of us don’t even think about.”
She blushed and looked pleased. “Thank you Tobal. That was a very nice thing to say.”
Kevin nodded and gave her a squeeze. “We’d better get going. I want to get out of this rain.”
They laughed and with a final wave headed toward one of the shelters. Sarah’s, Anne’s, Derdre’s, Seth’s and Crow’s newbies were all going to be initiated along with Zee’s, Kevin’s, Fiona’s, Becca’s and Nikki’s. That was ten initiations and it was going to be a long night Tobal thought as he watched and listened to the Council of Elders.
Crow had proclaimed his newbie ready to solo but the Elders had not approved demanding one more month of training. Crow was pretty upset at this and it took quite a while before he was calmed down. He felt he was being picked on because he was so young and from the village. Tobal felt Crow had gotten a bad break and sympathized with him. Still it was true. No one else really knew him yet.
At circle Llana made quite an impression with her wolf cubs. She strolled in with the two cubs trailing at her heels. Tobal had not even been sure she would show up or that he would get his chevron. He hadn’t seen her since she had left to give her grandfather the message. The cubs were nervous and kept very close to her. He was glad to see her for several different reasons.
Tobal was officially recognized and given his 6th chevron along with the secret location where he was to be initiated into the 2nd degree in two weeks during the new moon. As soon as he could he moved over to where Llana was tying the cubs to a tree and kneeled down to scratch one of the pups behind the ears and smiled as it recognized him.
“Is your grandfather ok?” He asked.
She smiled, “Hi Tobal” and gave him a kiss and a hug. “Grandfather is doing fine. He was very excited to hear about Adam Gardener, Sarah’s father, and agreed that Adam was in serious danger so he left right away to talk with him.”
Then her face got very serious. “Someone broke into the store while they were talking and they needed to teleport out to escape. Neither one of them has been back to the store since. That was how close it was. They didn’t see who it was but they are assuming it was some of General Grant’s men. They also believe it is too dangerous to go back.”
She looked at him. “I gave your wand to grandfather since I thought he might need it. I hope that is ok?”
Tobal nodded, “I couldn’t take it with me to the Journeyman place anyway. It would not be safe there. Someone might discover it.”
“Tobal,” she said. “There has been a change in my plans. Grandfather and Adam have agreed to train both Crow and me in time travel to the locations that are open to us. We feel it is better to have four of us able to time travel than just two in case something happens to one of us.”
He swallowed a bitter lump in his throat. “That means you are going to quit the program?”
She nodded quietly. “We’re counting on you to stay in the program. I can meet you once or twice a month and continue your training so you will be ready to time travel as soon as possible. Without med-alert bracelets we will have much more freedom to come and go and meet with people.”
“How soon will that be,” he said in despair. “How soon will I be able to time travel?”
She sensed his disappointment and put her right hand gently on his shoulder. “You have learned a lot,” she told him quietly. “But there is still a lot to learn. Perhaps by the time you are a medic you will be ready. The ability to teleport is the key to the entire process. When you have learned how to do that you will be ready. In the meantime you will continue within the program itself. As Ron and Rachel’s son they will be watching you in the hopes that you will have the same abilities that your parents did. They will allow you to have as much training as possible before they attempt to use you. It is almost certain you will be chosen to be trained for Federation time travel.”
“Do I need to join those people?”
“We need to know exactly where your parents are kept if we are going to help them,” she reminded him. “We will also need someone on the inside that knows their way around. Crow is going to start training a group to teleport and time travel at the village. I am going to be working with you and your group.”
“Your group?” He asked puzzled.
“Yes, your group,” she smiled. “You didn’t think you were going to be doing this alone did you?”
“Well, kind of,” he admitted.
“As you continue through the training you will meet people you trust and become friends with,” she told him. “ Some of them will be chosen to continue on within the time travel program. If you and I also teach them the teleportation process in secret they will test well enough to be chosen. Your group can then infiltrate the organization.”
“How long will all of this take,” he said in despair. “My parents are dying!”
“Your parents have been dying for twenty years,” she said softly. “ They will stay alive as long as they know we are coming. They have told me that. We will need between one and two years to get your group trained and ready. That means you will all be medics by then.”
“When will I be able to talk with my parents like you and Crow do? I mean when I’m not at circle or astral projecting to the cave I can’t reach them.”
“That should start happening soon,” she told him. “Your coming initiation should assist in that process. In the meantime keep practicing your meditations and astral projection exercises. And remember, you can talk to your parents and learn from them already. Ask them what you should do.”
“You said we will continue meeting each month,” Tobal said. “When and where will we meet next?”
“Let’s meet in the morning three days after every circle at your base camp,” she decided. “That will work for starters. Later we can find a better location if we want to.”
They left it at that and he noticed Llana and the wolf cubs were gone shortly after that. She didn’t stay for circle or to talk with any of the others. He realized she had come just to talk with him and to make sure he got his sixth chevron.
Even with ten initiations there was a shortage of newbies and Tobal noticed that several clansmen including Tyrone, Mike and Butch were not at circle. They were presumably waiting at sanctuary for more newbies and had been waiting the entire month. Tempers were flaring around the newbie situation.
Mike was angry and so were Tara and Nick who decided to just stay together for the month. Wayne and Char didn’t really care and were back together. There were five other clansmen really angry about the newbie situation. It had reached the point where four Apprentices simply left for the coast. That was more than the monthly one or two that normally elected to drop out of the program.
Tobal had been doing some heavy thinking about the newbie situation and realized that most of the problems were because Nikki, Fiona, Becca and himself had all trained newbies within a month and created a bottleneck situation with the newbies. They were getting their training too fast. There had been a problem when Rafe was training newbies one a month but this was far worse since Rafe was just one person. Now there were several people training that fast. Tobal decided to talk to Ellen about it after circle that evening.
Angel was High Priestess for the circle and Tobal noticed Dirk was acting High Priest for the first time. He was closely monitored by the old High Priest but went through the entire ritual himself. Tobal thought he had done a good job. He could feel the Lord and Lady during each of the initiations but was not able to contact them. It seemed they were focused entirely on the initiates for some reason.
The ten initiations took a long time and he missed chatting with Becca and the others. He did sit beside Ellen though and asked her about making all the training two months long for everyone.
She turned an amused eye toward him, “The Council of Elders has already discussed that in depth. We decided if a newbie is properly trained and ready to solo we have no right to prevent them. If some people can do the training within a month they have the right to do so. If some trainers are motivated to move through the ranks more quickly than others they should be allowed to do that also.”
“But what about all the bad feelings among the clansmen?” He asked. “What about the shortage of newbies?”
Ellen sighed, “Fiona, Becca and Nikki are the only ones left that are training newbies that quickly. They are trying to get their last newbies right now. No one else is trying to train that fast and the problem will go away when they become Journeymen. It is not right to punish them for being good trainers. We did not punish you or Rafe.”
“All in all,” she continued. “It is an effective system and we are inclined to keep things the way they are.”
Tobal nodded and changed the subject as Rafe sat down and joined them at one of the pauses between initiations.
“So what has been happening with the City Council this past month?”
“Not much,” Ellen replied. “Last month’s meeting was cancelled. The mayor contacted us and said they were not ready for a meeting yet. The mayor had dark circles under his eyes and looked a lot older than I remembered. This must be pretty hard on him.”
Tobal changed the subject. “Rafe, you have an air sled now?”
Rafe was wearing his red Master’s robe for the first time to circle. “It’s over there.” He pointed to a location slightly outside of the gathering spot. “I’m still not sure how fast it will go.” He chuckled and glanced at Ellen.
She looked at Rafe with a concerned look. “It’s not a toy Rafe. There have been several air sled deaths.”
He pouted, “I’m just kidding. Don’t take me so serious. Besides,” he continued glumly, “They watch us like a hawk. I can’t get away with anything.”
He brightened a bit. “But I am going to check out some of those forbidden areas that are marked on this map though. Maybe I will have something interesting to add by next month.”
Tobal had almost forgotten the map of forbidden locations Rafe had gotten from Ellen several months ago. Without an air sled Rafe had not been able to check any of them out.
Ellen protested, “Rafe, I don’t really think you should be doing things like that right now. Things are getting dangerous and we don’t really know what we are up against.”
“Checking out these forbidden locations is one way of finding out what we are up against,” was Rafe’s stubborn reply.
“I’ve got an idea,” Tobal said suddenly.
Then he explained the situation with Crow and Llana and how Crow was going to take one group and start training them to teleport and be time travelers while Llana’s group would remain within the system but receive the same training.
“Count me in,” Rafe said.
“Me too,” was Ellen’s reply.
“Good,” said Tobal. “I will tell Llana to start meeting with each of you and training you in what you need to know. She won’t be wearing a med-alert bracelet anymore and can meet you just about anywhere you decide. She won’t show up on any of the monitors.”
He looked at Rafe. “You could even take her by air sled and drop her off at some of those forbidden locations and let her check them out. Then she could teleport out with the information about the area. I think she can only teleport to a place she has been before but once she knows where it is she would be able to go back when ever she wanted.”
Ellen and Rafe looked at Tobal and at each other and nodded. It seemed like a fairly good plan. They would be waiting for Llana to contact them. In the meantime Tobal would set things up with Llana and get his Journeyman initiation.
Both Ellen and Rafe said they were going to be at his Journeyman initiation. He had almost forgotten about it. The secret location turned out to be a cave. Tobal hadn’t realized there were so many caves in the area. He scouted the area ahead of time looking for trails that led into it. He found a safe hiding spot for the things that belonged to his parents and left them in a bundle to pick up later after his initiation.
Finally satisfied that he knew where he was supposed to go he went into the camp itself. No one had said anything about coming early and the late spring weather made travelling a bit uncertain. He felt it was better to show up early than to show up late. It was only a few hours early and they would be expecting him.
He decided the best course of action was to stay on the path and make no sudden moves remembering what had happened with Fiona. It turned out he didn’t need to be so cautious. Turning a corner in the path were two guards standing in the middle of the path as a roadblock. They had a small fire going and there was a lived in occupied look that made Tobal suspect this camp was always guarded.
They greeted him warmly and one guard remained on the trail while he was escorted to a chamber and told to wait. After about an hour of silence someone came for him and again his guide was female. This time it was a girl Tobal knew as Lea dressed in a black robe and hood that covered her honey colored hair.
“Do you seek the Light and Wisdom of our secret circle,” she asked as she approached him in the darkness.
“Yes, I do.”
“There is no Light for you here. In the Apprentice degree you have received all of our light. What you need now is more darkness so the Light within you can shine forth more brightly. That is how you will attain the wisdom of our circle. Will you permit me to be your guide into the darkness?” She asked.
Tobal was surprised and a little shaken by this and wondered what he was getting himself into but he remembered Rafe and knew it couldn’t be too bad.
“I will permit you to be my guide,” he told her.
“You must leave everything behind if you are to enter this degree,” she told him. Then she told him to strip completely. She fastened a large blindfold around his eyes so he couldn’t see anything and taking his left hand led him further into the cave. In the other hand she carried a burning torch. Tobal sensed the light from the torch but couldn’t see anything through the fabric of the blindfold. His guide led him for some way and then stopped. A bundle of clothing was pressed into his hands and he was told to dress himself.
“Are you willing to receive the darkness,” she asked him?
“Yes.”
“What are the two passwords into our sacred circle, she asked.
“Perfect love and perfect trust,” he replied.
“No, in this degree these are reversed. In this degree you must have perfect trust to find perfect love. In this degree we study the duality of opposites inherent in all of nature. Think upon these things as you wait on my return.”
She told him to sit down where he was and took his blind fold off. As his eyes adjusted to the glare of the torch she told him it was very important he stay where he was because the cave was large and he could get lost or killed if he wandered away in the darkness without knowing where he was going. She was going to go and see if things were ready for the initiation. In the meantime he was to quietly meditate and prepare himself.
She turned and left him sitting in the darkness. As he watched the torch grew smaller in the distance and then disappeared altogether as she turned a corner. He had never experienced such total darkness and it was unnerving. For a moment he fought the impulse to get up and run after her remembering what had happened with Fiona. In the darkness the rock and earthy feeling of the cave seemed to close in on him and press against his ribs making it hard to breathe.
There was a sound in the darkness behind him and a bolt of panic and fear tried to tear itself loose and gain control over him. It took a massive effort of will to fight the feelings back. He began concentrating on his breathing and centering as Crow had taught him. He deliberately pulled the earth energy up from the ground and from all around him and encircled himself with it and called on the Lord and Lady to be there with him.
In the blackness of the cave he began to see glowing lights and couldn’t tell if he was seeing them with his physical eyes or in his mind’s eye. There simply was not any way of knowing if they were figments of his imagination or if they were real. He wanted to believe they were real but whenever he tried to focus and look at them directly they would disappear. This continued for some time.
He could feel his heart beating and pulsing in his throat and arms and in his heart itself. It was a slow steady rhythm that seemed to comfort and protect him. It seemed like hours had passed and he wondered if he had been forgotten but was not particularly worried. He had found his center and surrounded himself with protection. Then he heard someone coming and saw the faint gleams of light from the torch.
The light blinded his eyes as Lea came up to him and told him they were ready. She handed a second torch to him and lit it.
“You carry your own light into our circle.” She told him. “In the Apprentice degree there were two passwords. What were they?”
“Perfect love and perfect trust.” He replied.
“And what are the passwords into the Journeyman degree?”
“Perfect trust and perfect love.” He replied.
“Remember these passwords.” She said. “You will need them to gain entry into our sacred circle.”
As Tobal was led deeper into the cave it opened into an enormous cavern. Torches had been placed around at various points for lighting and there was no large fire in the center of the cave. The smoke from the torches rose and lost itself high in the vaulted ceiling finding escape through some hidden airway. Four small fires marked the four quarters of the circle at a smooth and level spot in the cavern floor.
A circle had been formed by dark hooded figures standing silently waiting for him. The High Priest and High Priestess were dressed in red robes with large hoods that hid their faces. Looking at them, Tobal couldn’t make out who they were. The hooded figures around the circle looked eerie in the flickering torchlight. He was halted at the edge of the circle.
Lea pulled him forward. “An Apprentice is among us proven by the elements of nature and of the earth. He wishes to join his light with our own so our community might be more illumined and our wisdom grow. He further wishes to follow the ancient craft and learn the ways of our sacred circle.”
The High Priest came over and stood in front of Tobal staring intently into his eyes.
“I must remind you that this is not a matter to be lightly taken. Your immortal soul will be deeply committed to the path of the Lord and Lady. Do you desire to have your destiny joined with theirs?”
“I do.”
“Do you seek the way that reaches beyond life and death? Will you serve the Lord and reverence the Lady? Will you keep secret from the unworthy that which we show you?”
Tobal replied affirmatively to each of these questions in turn.
“So be it. Child of Earth enter the path of darkness.” Stepping back he motioned for Tobal to walk in front of him into the circle. But his guide quickly restrained him.
“You can’t enter our sacred circle unpurified.” She said. Then taking a bowl of water from the High Priest she sprinkled him with it.
“I purify you with water.”
She waved the torch over him, in front of him and behind him.
“I purify you with fire.”
Then the High Priest stepped forward once more.
“There are two passwords that will allow you to enter our sacred circle. What are they?”
Tobal replied, “Perfect trust and perfect love.”
“Then lead us with your light into the greater darkness.” Said the High Priest. “Show us the way.”
Tobal’s guide tugged him widdershins toward the North quarter and Tobal led the silent party to the small fire signifying the North quarter. He stood silently before the fire wondering what to do for several minutes as they bowed respectfully and waited. The cave’s chill seeped into his bones, stirring echoes of the altar’s glow from his astral visits, a faint reassurance in the void. Then he felt his guide nudging him toward the west and he led the party to the quarter of the circle representing west and water. As before they remained standing silent before the watchtower with bowed heads. Again his guide nudged him forward toward the south.
After paying homage to the watchtower of the south Tobal led them to the Watchtower of the East where the process was repeated. Then Tobal was nudged by his guide to continue widdershins until they arrived at the entrance path into the circle itself. The High Priest roared out in anger.
“Seize Him!”
Taking his knife the High Priest pressed it against Tobal’s chest and cried out in anger.
“We trusted you and you have only led us in a large circle. We have arrived back at the beginning. Why have you done this to us?”
Tobal had no answer to give and his guide remained silent.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Enter and make the sacrifice, of concealing your own pain, so that the dying may fall asleep without a soul martyr.” I felt a burning pain that took my breath, clenched my teeth and went slowly into the next room. Through the veil of tears that, despite all my intentions, inexorably ran from my eyes, I saw a small table, with a bloodstained sheet that covered, something lying there, the mere outlines of which sent horror through my nerves. Then I stepped up to the bed and knelt down. Zephyrine opened her eyes with great effort. Her face was white as snow; her lips were torn by her own teeth. I grasped her hand, light and cool as a rose petal, and pressed it to my heart. Then she smiled. Whispering, her lips moved. “It -is- a – little – son – as I – asked for it – from heaven – and for me a little vixen -a little Aglaja- Later may I see the children – ?” The doctor, who was standing on the other side of the bed beckoned to me, “Yes.” “Certainly, dearest -as soon as you are asleep,” I said, thinking that my heart must burst. But suddenly fear entered her gaze. She tried to straighten up, but fell back powerlessly. “Or – must- I- die?” “Zephyrine!” I cried and covered her hand with kisses. “Don’t talk like that -you sin. Everything is fine. Only you must sleep, rest and gain new strength after what you have suffered.” “I – have suffered it – gladly – for you-and for me,” she smiled. “I am so -joyful- that I -may- stay -with- you.” Her hand pulled -me- closer- with a strange strength. “But I want- your face – to stay – close – to – me.” I drew as close to her as I could. Her tired eyes suddenly widened, fastened on me with an expression of thirsty desire, held me tightly – her gaze remained staring deep into my eyes. I sat like that for a long time. Then someone stepped behind me and touched my arm. It was the doctor. “You have held your own, poor Herr Baron. She crossed over easily and blissfully.” And only then I saw that on Zephyrine’s angelic face was the holy radiance of eternity. I could not cry, could not think. Aglaja lay before me. White and beautiful, as I carried her image in my heart. Was the bell still ringing? Or was it the raging blood that hummed in my ears? “Do you feel strong enough to look at the cause of death?” the doctor pulled me out of my brooding. It was all so indifferent now that she was dead. But the sight that now came to me was so terrible that it forced a sobbing cry from me. I drew back and barely felt it when my head hit the door jamb. A small well-formed torso lay there. And this small body carried on the shoulders two necks, and on the necks sat two heads. One of them had fine, dark hair, the other one golden red curls. “Moreover, this strange monster was a true hermaphrodite, man and woman at the same time -“ I fought back, ran past the crying midwife into the other room, threw myself over the table, and a dry sob choked my throat. The doctor sat down silently next to me and waited. When I had regained my composure I told him about the drops that that wretch had talked us into and which I had left undestroyed in recklessness. Doctor Hosp thought for a long time and then said: “I remember having heard once, that an Italian doctor had succeeded by certain poisons to produce monstrous deformities of the fruit in pregnant women. But it seems to me not very credible, that such interventions in the most secret workshop of nature -“ A terrible thought rose in me. Without caring any more about the doctor, without listening to his anxious questions about what I was going to do next. I tore open the door of the weapons cabinet, took out a double barreled pistol, tore my hat and coat from the hook and rushed out into the snowfall. Just as I stepped out of the garden, a carriage drove slowly by. I shouted to the driver to take me to the Fassl house as fast as the horses could run. He looked at me stupidly. I took several gold pieces, pressed them into his hand. He pulled his hat, the blow worked. The whip whistled, the horses leaped out. When I came to, I was standing in the half-dark hallway of the house. Someone was rubbing me over the face with a wet sponge that smelled of lavender vinegar. Only one word droned in my head, “- Gone -“ “Yes, Herr, you must believe me,” said a stolid woman. “Thank God that the crook is gone. Already two months ago he left in the night and fog, and his things have been taken away by the court.” I heard something else about a young girl who had died after a forbidden operation that Postremo had performed. Gone! I let out a maniacal laugh. I was taken to the waiting carriage, and I left. The snow swirled, the wind whistled through the open windows. The houses moved with night-blind windows. She was dead, she was dead! Never again —. I was only an empty shell, clothes draped on a soulless body. I ate now and then, fell asleep on chairs, and found myself dressed in bed. My eyes were inflamed, my clothes, which I never changed, unclean and damaged. I did not know the time of neither day, felt neither heat nor cold and let my people do as they pleased. Sometimes burning longing ate at me, and I ran restlessly through the rooms and the garden sobbing, calling Zephyrine’s name, calling her Aglaja, too, to lure her back. For days I sat at her grave, until the gravediggers kindly reminded me that the gates were closed. And to my consolation they showed me the corner where the unconsecrated ground was, a little under which lay my wife’s favorite dog, Amando. Amando, who had come to her last resting place, would not leave, had refused food and drink and had died of grief and hunger. When I began to feel the healing effect of time, I sent for a notary public and gave the house and garden, along with a sufficient sum to a foundation for crippled children, who from birth had to carry miserable and deformed bodies from birth. I myself moved into the large inn “Golden Lamb” and made my departure from the city, where everything pained me; since I was reminded by everything and everyone, that just a short while ago Zephyrine’s eyes had rested on it. From her I had kept only a little tuft of her hair and the silver ring with the fire opal, which first Aglaja and then she had worn. Her fingers had been as slender and fine as those of my cousin. The little curl of Zephyrine’s, however, mixed so much with Aglaja’s in Muhme’s pale blue box, that one could no longer distinguish and separate them. I wanted to go to a foreign country. Just far away from here. When I walked haphazardly through the streets I often noticed that I bumped into people and they looked at me strangely. Ordinary people in their unconcerned way probably pointed at their own foreheads and laughed. All this did not touch me in any way. So, wandering aimlessly outside the city, I came to a place called Lustwäldchen. There it was taken care of that the attention of the people remained active. Nobody cared about my behavior, which, even unconscious to myself, was certainly conspicuous enough by nervous twitches in the face and other consequences of my mental suffering. Here there were various booths and huts, dancing bears, cake bakers, fortune tellers, canvas theaters, plus vendors and all kinds of market criers. Boys and girls frolicked together in a circle on blue and white or yellow and red painted wooden horses to the sound of music. I passed tents from which came the false cries of trumpets and the sound of drums. A sword swallower in tinsel trousers stood with his neck bent back in a circle of gawkers, and next to him dirty hands were fishing pickles out of a barrel. And in the midst of the swarm I saw – like an unreal apparition – Laurette on the arm of a tall, lean man with a brown face. She wanted to pour out with laughter at the crude and mean jokes of a buffoon, who pulled off his pants on a podium and showed a hairy devil’s butt. Two southern servants in dark livery stood behind the couple. Laurette did not see me. I walked on, ignoring the fatigue of my feet, and then stopped in front of a large booth on which a painting on canvas captivated me. In front of a smoking fire stood an old wizard with pointed cap, and a ribbon with the signs of the zodiac slung around his shoulder and hips. His left hand was buried in his white beard; the right held a small staff toward the smoke, in which a figure wrapped in a white veil, with closed eyes appeared dimly. Under this not completely artless image, but nevertheless in screaming colors, the following was written to read: “The famous necromancer, magician and magister of the seven liberal arts Arkadius Chrysopompus from Ödenburg, called the Hungarian Doctor Faust.” A colorful harlequin, who just a moment ago was playing the tinkling sounds of a Savoyard lyre was now sounding a brass horn, inviting the audience with all kinds of joking, contorted gestures and loud shouting to visit the performance that was about to begin. Two grenadiers in white coats, who had colorfully dressed, busty girls on their arms, were the first to enter. Then went a few citizens with their wives and some young people of both sexes went up the three steps, paid a pittance and pushed their way through the red curtain, which the crier lifted. For some reason I followed and soon sat in the midst of the people on a bench in front of the small, dimly lit stage.
The Rebirth of Malchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
In an intemperate fury, unable to speak a word, I pointed at the devastation. The gnome spat at the maltreated flowers and struck at them with his foot. “This is for you and la putana – you understand me?” he shouted. “O Dio, Dio! I am ruined. You have caused me to lose twenty thousand ducats!” “You bawdy dog!” I snorted at him and raised my hand again. He quickly drew his lancet from his pocket and flashed it in the sun. “Next time it will not be good for your arm,” he threatened. “Pay attention! You will not have any fun with me! But take a seat, my Herr of Dronte! “ I sat down and listened in mute rage to the whining conversation he was now starting. It was a vile outrage that he had been accused of playing matchmaker of the girl to Count Korony. Have I never heard of King David’s virgin bedfellows? Was it unknown to me that in England Doctor Graham discovered a rejuvenation cure for old men, who are treated with virgins in the same bed, so that the withered body can be renewed by the youthful aura of the girls? And did I not know that for such a curative every conceivable precaution is taken, so that the honor of the girl remains unharmed! Who could dare to confuse such a medically proven healing method with the shameful expression “matchmaking”? And who finally would give him the twenty thousand ducats that I had deprived him of by kidnapping Zephyrine. Hey? I answered him with great self-control, that his efforts were in vain. I was gladly prepared to pay him compensation of five hundred gold pieces. The money exceeded my assets by a significant amount. He rolled his eyes, wrung his hands and renewed his attempts. He began to haggle, and when he realized that his efforts were in vain, he declared himself satisfied with a sum of one thousand ducats. That was his last word. With a heavy heart I went into the house and fetched the money, the loss of which hit me hard. But for Zephyrine’s peace of mind, this sacrifice was not too great. When I went back to him with two hundred ducats and a bill of exchange for my banker, he had placed a small crystal flask on the table, in which there was an oily clear liquid. “Here’s the money -,” I said, pushing the gold rolls and the paper toward him. He sniffed them most carefully and shoved everything into the pockets of his coat. “And now -!” I said, pointing to the path that led to the garden door. “Wait! Wait!” he cackled and pointed to the vial. “A little
how do you say? – Gift. Give every day’ three drops to the Mother, and you will have a bello ragazzo – a son – and also, se volete, a little girl -“ I pointed again. “Va bene,” he murmured. “Addio, Barone!.” Slowly he shuffled down the path, his hump dragging like a snail its house. I followed him slowly, until the garden door had closed behind him and the furious barking of the dogs in the kennel had slowly died away. Through the bushes of the fence, however, I could clearly see how he with a grisly grimace, his lips moving in inaudible words, shook both fists against our house. When I returned, the flask was still on the table. I made a movement to throw it in the bushes. But then I took it in my hand, pulled out the glass stopper and smelled it. Again, the smell of bitter almonds that seemed to cling to everything that was in its vicinity. I didn’t smash the shiny thing against a stone, did not pour its oily contents onto the earth. Some curiosity drove me to take it with me and to tell Zephyrine about it. “Three drops a day, and a son is sure for us,” said the villain. And, if we want, a girl, too!” I tried to laugh. “Do you wish so much for a son, my dear?” breathed Zephyrine, and a fine blush passed over her pale, poor face. “Oh, yes,” escaped me, as I took her in my arms. What did I care about the money? Everything I had, I would have given for her, the only one, and with pleasure I would have, like countless ones in the shadow of life earn bread for her and me with my hands. The flowers had long since faded, red and yellow leaves danced from the trees, and the icy Boreas drove the first flakes against the windows of the parlor where Zephyrine lay in pain. Fever had set in during the night; the quickly summoned midwife shook her head and said: “The woman does not please me at all; a doctor must come and come quickly! She is also too weak to get down on the chair.” There was only one competent doctor in the vicinity, the white-haired Doctor Anselm Hosp, and I hurriedly sent for him. While I waited in the next room and covered my ears to not hear the shrieking cries and the confused moaning of my wife, my hope for a good outcome darkened more and more. The pain and labor had lasted for days; the poor body of Zephyrine was terribly distended, and convulsions passed over it. There was no doubt that an obstacle stood in the way of the simple and natural course of the birth, the nature of which even the wise woman could not discern. Then I noticed that the odor of bitter almonds, which I detested still lingered in the house. Zephyrine, to whom I had given the vial with the drops of Postremos right after the ugly scene in the garden, claimed at that time to have knocked it over and broken the crystal vial, which is why the smell of almonds would not go away. Why did the thought of the gift of the hunchback suddenly seem so frightening? The old doctor came with a big black bag in which instruments clinked. This sharp clinking went through my marrow and legs. I stepped quietly with him to the bed of the woman in labor and was startled when I saw the distorted, dilapidated, face of my Zephyrine covered with cold sweat, in which her large, bright eyes wandered and flickered. Sharp dark red spots stood out from the bloodless cheeks. “You -” she sighed barely audibly. I stepped close to her and whispered: “Dearest, confess the truth – have you tasted of the hunchback’s potion?” A faint smile flitted across her suffering face. “Only three drops -every day-“ “Why did you do it?” I snapped at her. “Why did you tell a lie, when I asked for the poisoner’s bottle?” “You -wanted- a- son- so – badly.” Like a breath, the words came to me. Then an expression of agony came into the wide-open eyes, the body stretched, the hands reached for the knotted cloths that had been tied to the bedposts for support. And how she cried out -! The doctor made a brief examination and then beckoned me into the next room. “Baron,” said the doctor, “I am sorry to have to tell you that it is a case of displacement of the child and therefore the necessity of sectio caesarea has occurred.” I staggered back. “A Caesarean section?” I stammered. The doctor looked down at the floor. “This bloody procedure, which, properly performed, is usually survived by strong and healthy women, but in our case, because of the terrible weakness of the Baroness and especially in the case of the high fever, the cause of which must be an external poisoning of the blood, it is a dangerous and uncertain operation. I cannot conceal this from you. Besides, I must operate immediately and only with the help of the midwife, although a second doctor would normally be necessary. But I don’t dare wait any longer until a carriage can go to the city and back.” I felt as if I had been struck hard on the forehead. What, Zephyrine in mortal danger? That wasn’t possible. That was nonsensical. What would become of me? Where was the meaning of life? Had the man from the Orient, whom I thought of every day with great gratitude, with his appearance in the Greeks’ alley brought the highest happiness of my life, so that I would now lose it so cruelly and be pushed into the abyss of nameless pain? No, that could not be, that was impossible. If she died, I would die too. A cry of the most terrible pain tore me out of my contemplations. I wanted to follow the doctor into my wife’s room, but he beckoned me sternly and resolutely to go outside and await the outcome of his terrible undertaking. I let myself fall down on a chair, bare of all will and looked dully into the flakes outside. A bell called with a deep sound in the sinking glow of the autumn day, and a dog began to howl. I recognized him by the voice. His name was Amando and he was Zephyrine’s favorite. This high, drawn howl made me almost insane and increased my fear, since I was well aware of the foreboding of loyal animals. In between came sobbing sounds, suppressed cries from the next room. I heard the doctor groaning in some strenuous activity, giving half-loud orders, hearing the plaintive exclamations of the midwife, the clinking of vessels and metallic things, the splashing of water and the moving of chairs. Terrible things were going on in there. Then a woman cried out. But it was not Zephyrine who screamed. It was the wailing midwife. Why did she scream? Clearly was to be heard, as the doctor rebuked her in an angry, suppressed voice. I held on to the back of my heavy chair, my whole body shaking. Then it was quiet inside, dead quiet. The doctor stepped out and looked around confusedly. In the light of the wax candles that I had lit, I noticed that his face was dripping. His hands showed reddish marks. Wordlessly I looked at his mouth. “You need inner strength,” he said slowly, and a solemn glow spread over his face.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
“I won’t leave you — again,” I affirmed, drunk with happiness. “I knew you would come,” she whispered softly. She clung to my shoulders with her small hands and repeated the words that she had scribbled in a flying hurry on the piece of paper I had taken from the gambling house. “Save me! Save me! Take me with you!” This unexpected and scarcely hoped for turn of my adventure filled me with the deepest delight. I was immediately ready to do anything she might ask. “So you are in danger?” I asked. She quickly nodded her head several times and once again nestled her tender body against me again pleadingly. For a short moment I thought of the severe punishments with which the Empress’ courts used to deal with kidnappers. It had been said that a nobleman who had kidnapped the wife of a distinguished courtier and special favorite and fled with her to his estate, was seized and taken to the dungeons of Spielberg, where he was forced to stand with up to half of his body in liquid filth, with an iron pear filled with pepper in his mouth, gnawed on by rats, and had perished in the most horrible way. But the sweetness of a happiness, which already stunned me in the mere expectation, stifled any fear, indeed any deliberation in me. After a credible excuse, which the girl told to the old gray woman, and after my assurance, supported by a new shower of gold, that it was only a short walk, the woman, who did not seem to be at all inclined toward the doctor, let us go out the door, and we climbed down the stairs, both of us worried about an unpleasant encounter. We strode swiftly, Zephyrine under the cover of a cloak and a thick veil, down the street and unnoticed by my housemates, reached the quarters in Himmelpfort Street. There I learned everything I needed to know about the poor child. She was a four-year-old orphan, when Postremo took her in under the pretext of charity. During her childhood she was treated well and even received a very careful education. But this was not out of philanthropy, as had recently come out. A few months ago, when Zephyrine had reached the age of sixteen, Postremo told her that now the time had come for her to prove her gratitude to him and at the same time to establish her own happiness. That mummy-like Count Johann Nepomuk Korony, whom I had seen at the gaming table at that time had agreed to pay his, Postremos, considerable debts, if Zephyrine would be his mistress in return, so that his almost completed life might once more be renewed. Moreover, the monster hoped that the untouched girl would, through her devotion be exposed to a certain genteel disease from him without being seized by it herself. Postremo had explained all this to the unfortunate child with cynical sincerity, and her tears and entreaties had only succeeded in doing one thing, that he once again made the attempt to improve his situation at the Pharaoh’s table. On that gruesome and for me nevertheless so happy evening, this last hope of the completely ruined gambler collapsed and now he was holding the girl more than ever under seclusion, probably because he trusted that she would do everything to save herself. My appearance had taken place at the most extreme hour. For that suspicious person with whom I had seen him in the Greek coffee house was none other than the valet of Count Korony, and there was no doubt that the miserable Postremo was making the final preparations for his and the count’s crime. The poor child was in the greatest fear, for she was well aware that the doctor was a master in the preparation of anesthetic medicines, which were able to eliminate all free will. For days, she had eaten only the most meager food, so as not to fall victim to the demonic arts of her jailer, but still she saw the horrible moment inexorably approaching, which would put her in the grip of the spider-fingered lecherous old man. While she told me, almost crying, of the agonies of the last days and of her almost collapsing hope for my help, I sent my servant to fetch a meal, to get him out of the house. For I knew that this child was my own and that only death could separate us. Every moment of happiness that lay ahead of me was too precious to miss. It was clear to both of us without many words that we had always been destined for each other, and it cost the lovely and pure girl neither bridal tears nor difficult resolutions, to become completely mine. A holy and irresistible desire drove us to become one body and one soul, and neither of us could think of binding the eternity of our love by vows. We felt no shame in front of each other. Everything was as it had to be and fulfilled according to eternal laws. When I held the young, naked body in my arms for the first time and guarded the sleep of the dearest of all creatures, I was suddenly seized by an inexplicable sensation which carried me away: first I was overcome by great fear, as if we were threatened by lambent flames. Then I heard a clock strike in the infinite distance. The smell of apples and foreign wood was around me, and as if by themselves my lips formed the word: Aglaja! Everything had turned out perfectly. With money I had managed to get the most necessary papers, and in a small village not far from the capital our wedding ceremony had taken place, so that I no longer had anything to fear from the spies of the morals commission and probably also from Postremo. I had soon acknowledged my lodging, given the servant some money and dismissed him and for a little money I purchased a little house in Grinzing, hidden in the bushes and trees, which I furnished with the help of skilled and understanding craftsmen. Unclouded sunny days passed over us, and that unhappy time that soon follows the excess of happiness and is well known to all married couples, was spared us. It was as if each day brought us closer and more ardently together. Often it happened to me that I called Zephyrine “Aglaja” in times of the highest emotion. But this peculiarity seemed to neither hurt nor astonish her, although I often told her of my dead, beloved cousin and of her resemblance to the girl who had been taken from me so early. Once she said: “I am yours under all the names you want to give me.” She also shared with Aglaja a great love of flowers and animals. We had the garden full of rose bushes in all colors, the glowing scent of the red, the tartness of the white and the delicate yellow blossoms. On all the flower beds a riot of colors, and a sea of flowers balmy fragrances wafted over us. Young animals played around us, dogs and cats, birds twittered in the branches, and nimble lizards glided over the gravel of the paths. Very soon after the completed establishment of the house Zephyrine felt like a mother. Heavy-bodied and pale, she sat in our favorite place between dense, flower-bearing bushes. “It will be a boy with dark hair like his Father,” I joked. “No, I carry a little vixen of the female gender under my heart,” she smiled back. “And she shall be called Aglaja.” I kissed her and looked into her gray, gold-spotted eyes, at the bottom of which there was still hidden something fearful. Carefully I moved the pillow in the back of the delicate woman and thought to myself how happy I would be when she had her difficult hour behind her. Then I saw a namelessly horrified expression on her face, and her gaze was fixed on something behind me. The dogs thrashed furiously in the kennel. I turned around immediately. Behind me stood the hunchbacked doctor with the thick black eyebrows and the upturned nose. An unpleasant pungent smell of bitter almonds suddenly overpowered the scent of flowers. With a grasp I seized the shapeless figure at the chest and shook it back and forth. “Scoundrel!” I gritted between my teeth. “Have I got you now? You can’t escape me alive-“ The hunchback turned blue-red and gasped something I did not understand. The woman let out a loud scream, and when I looked around, she was in a deep swoon. At that moment I felt a burning sting on my right wrist. My hand, which still held the coat of the hunchback, was suddenly paralyzed, the fingers came loose, and the whole arm sank down dead at my side, dull and heavy. Horrified, I saw how the man indifferently wiped away a drop of blood from the flashing lancet with which he had stabbed me and put it back in the pocket of his coat. “Oh it doesn’t matter!” he laughed. “Unapiccola para- lisi! Doesn’t last long – five minutes! You don’t attack me, I won’t attack you!” He pulled a small can out of his vest and held it under the nose of his daughter. Zephyrine sneezed violently and immediately regained consciousness. “Grandfather -,” she said, as a shudder came over her. “Si, si, lo zio!” he feigned. “Il padre, if you will, Zephyrine! Haven’t you expected me, Signore?” he addressed me. “O cattivo, cattivo! What have you done? Eh?” “I did not expect you here!” I told him. “For the time being, I’ll keep my wife away from the sight of you and bring her to the house, and then I am at your disposal.” He sat down on one of the chairs with a mischievous laugh. My stunned arm had already recovered from the effect of the poisonous sting, so that I could support the wavering woman and bring her into the house. In front of the front door she was overcome by violent vomiting, and only after a while was I was able to put her to bed in our bedroom. Sobbing, she begged me not to expose myself to any more danger. Despite his crippled body Postremo was one of the most dangerous and determined people. I reassured her as well as I could, and went to my room where I picked up a pistol with a live round, and then determined, went to the garden. When I arrived at our favorite spot in the rose bushes, which was no longer an undiscovered refuge, the ugly monkey was sitting there and bared his yellow teeth. A lot of the beautiful roses lay torn off, torn apart and trampled on the ground.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
The accursed bird intervened with a wild laughter between them. “Apollonius sees through you.” Laurette let out a small reproachful sigh. “You’ve always been a lover of youth and innocence, Baron Dronte.” “That remark touches something in me that is unforgettable and valuable enough to shine like a bright star for my entire life.” “Oh – you are gallant!” She offered me her hand to kiss, and stood up, excited and glowing, as it seemed to me. I rose and resolved to leave her now- constrained by conflicting and peace less feelings. “How will I fare?” I addressed the bird once again. “Since I did not succeed in winning your friendship -?” “Off with his head! Off with his head!” the beast screamed shrilly and looked at me with devilish joy. I paid no more attention to the parrot and left. Laurette accompanied me to the yellow room. The curtain had hardly been drawn when I perceived a sudden pallor in her, and just in time I was able to save her from falling by taking her in my arms. I laid her quickly on a small sofa and looked around. On a table stood a golden flask. I pulled the stopper and rubbed the strongly scented essence on her temples. She slowly opened her eyes. “The abominable one frightened me so”, she flirted and wrapped her arms around my neck. Gently, I pulled free. “I am a captive,” she lamented softly, “the satanic beast guards me better than humans have been able to do. Do you hear how it screams and beats with its wings? That is the signal for the paid maid to come in and look after me. But she is not here, I sent her to him with a note — we are alone -.” Again her soft arms wrapped around my neck, and before I knew it her hot red lips were sucking at my mouth. Lorle-poor Lorle-, I thought, and then the most burning longing for Zephyrine, whom I hoped to find in the hunchbacked doctor’s house. Tenderly I loosened her arms and looked into her eyes: “Forget me, Lorle,” I admonished softly. “Don’t put your happiness at risk for the sake of a fleeting minute.” A flame flashed in her eyes. “I thank you for your concern for me,” she said harshly. “Now I know that you love another. And that I am nothing to you anymore!” “Lorle -!” I stammered. “Go! Go!” she said, and tears stood in her eyes. “Why are you trying to lie?” Then I walked slowly through the yellow room and closed the door between me and the sobbing woman. I passionately pursued my research. The house “Zum Fassel” was soon found, but it seemed foolish to enter Doctor Postremo’s apartment under any pretext. I certainly would not have succeeded in entering his mansion with the fair Zephyrine in his presence, and even if this could have happened by chance, not a word between us would have remained unheard. That the doctor must have had a bad memory of me from the gambling house was another factor. It was therefore necessary to find a time in which either the doctor was away from home and the niece was in the apartment, or hope for the luck to see Zephyrine on one of her exits. But although I spent all my time on such scouting, and opened the door of the spacious house, which was inhabited by many people, neither the one nor the other opportunity presented itself. Then something happened to me, which newly shook me and tormented me with puzzling questions and, strange as it sounds, at the same time filled me with confidence. I was walking through the nearby Greeks alley, to take a quick meal in an inn. Groups of Greek and Turkish merchants were plying their business on the street, according to the custom of the Orient transplanted here, and it sometimes took patience to get through the obstacle of those eagerly talking and absorbed in their trade. Just now I was about to look for a way through such a crowd of people, when I saw an apparition at the end of the narrow alley, which put me in great excitement. A man with a black turban, his bright eyes fixed on me, and seemed to want to meet me. I saw clearly his pure features, the amber necklace around his neck, the reddish-brown robe. This time I had to get close to him. I forcefully made my way through the astonished merchants, and I had to take my eyes off the man in the robe for only a second and when I looked in that direction again, he had disappeared, as he had every time I was close to reaching him. I hurried as fast as I could to the exit of the narrow alley, but it was in vain. Neither to the right nor to the left, my eyes saw nothing but indifferent people who slowly or quickly made their way. Desperate and with the feeling that the sight of the unusual man meant something important and decisive, which must be imminent, I came up with the idea of the Levant merchants who had just been pushed aside, in the hope that a person living in Vienna, who walked along in oriental costume, must be known to them. So I went back the way I came and spoke to an old Turk with a good-natured face and a long white beard, who, despite the warmth, was wearing a precious coat, trimmed with sable fur, and seemed to be very respectable, judging by the behavior of the bystanders. With polite words, I asked him to forgive me for the nuisance, and immediately added my inquiry about the man who had disappeared from me. The Turk touched his forehead and mouth with his right hand and replied to me in fairly good German exceedingly politely that he did not know this man and that he had never seen him. At the same time his eyes were fixed with a strange expression on the small red scar, which I owed to the fall of broken glass, when I, still a child, escaped the collapsing ceiling of my room, and said with a peculiar expression of reverence: “You, Lord, who bear the mark of Ewli, ask questions of me?” I did not understand what he meant, and described the turban and the robe of the stranger. “It is the clothing of the Halveti dervishes”, said the Turk, bowing to me. “Grant me your goodwill, Effendi!” He stepped back, and I saw the others pestering him with questions, to which he answered quietly. What he said seemed to have been about me, because when I passed through the crowd once more, they all bowed to me and voluntarily formed a kind of trellis, through which I strode half ashamedly. I took a simple meal in a restaurant with uneasy feelings and thoughts of the stranger, whom I could not approach. Then I wanted to return to my post opposite the house “Zum Fassel”. On the way I passed by the Greek coffeehouse and involuntarily took a quick glance through the windows. There I saw to my joyful astonishment the hunchbacked figure of Doctor Postremo. He was sitting bent over a Backgammon board, on which the stones were jumbled, and talked with waving hands to a mockingly smiling, black-haired and yellow-skinned man with long, crooked nose, whose behavior had obviously infuriated him. I stopped and noticed that the stones were immediately again in position and a new game began. Thus the house had still another exit, which had escaped my attention and which the Italian used. Now or never I had to dare. I quickly entered the building and asked the first person who met me on the dark stairs, for the doctor’s apartment. Sullenly I was given the information that it was located on the second floor. I effortlessly found the door with the name and a bell pull, with the figure of a yellow hand pointing to it. Just as I reached out my fingers for it, a shadowy gray woman came scurrying up the stairs, slipped past me and inserted a key into the door lock. When she entered and looked at me questioningly, I quickly pushed past her and said: “Don’t be alarmed, good woman. I must speak to the Demoiselle Zephyrine at once -.” At the same time I pressed a prepared number of imperial ducats into her withered hand. That seemed to do the trick. The ugly hag grinned and pulled me through a gloomy corridor into a half-dark chamber, which, like the whole apartment was filled with the smell of bitter almonds. “Wait here!” she hissed and scurried out. Not without uneasiness and expecting an ambush I let my eyes wander around the eerie room. In one corner stood two human, gruesomely bent over skeletons, where one could see that the curved spine and the arched shoulder blades during life had formed a hunchback, like the one Postremo himself had on his back. Perhaps he had wanted to study his own mutated limb structure. On a rack, whose green curtain was only half drawn, blue, brown and yellowish organs floated in large glass vessels in clear liquid. A dried brain lay like the core of a giant nut on a table, whose top was formed from some type of polished rock that was unknown to me. Gray, greenish blue and rose-colored snake-like figures with white angular spots in them and dark red, sharply bordered sections – was this colored marble? I ran my fingers over the greasy, egg-round slab and suddenly realized with disgust that here was the smoothed cut surface of a fossilized corpse before me, as they knew how to make in Bologna. In a glass box at the window sat a completely twisted, misshapen chameleon, which I at first thought was dead, until it slowly turned its protruding eye on me and turned its gray color into a dirty red. Then a curtain rustled in the background. A white figure stood motionless, with half-closed eyes. “Zephyrine!” I enfolded her in my arms, and sung a thousand tender words into her little ear, drank in the heady scent of her hair and covered her white face with kisses.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
I looked around the distinguished room in which I was kept waiting, and looked closely at the only picture, a man with olive-brown, finely chiseled features, dark, sad eyes, of rather unattractive facial formation, wearing a canary yellow uniform with red lapels and under the coat, which was open, a black breastplate. Then the maid reappeared, lifted the curtain and asked me to enter with a curtsy. I entered a boudoir entirely in gleaming gold with precious furniture and a brocade-covered resting bed, on which Laurette half sat, half lay. She smilingly held her hand out to me from a cloud of lace and thin silk, smiling, and I was again struck anew by the unusual charm that her pretty, rosy face radiated under the artful coiffure. But while I stared at her, not at all to her displeasure, enraptured, that disgusting, shrill laughter sounded close to us, and only then I noticed a chubby, bald-headed parrot of gray color, from whose crooked beak came the laughter. If my whole mind had not been filled with the image of that sweet child’s face and the reddish-gold hair, I would hardly have felt at ease in the presence of this blossomed woman, who had stirred my first emotions of love. I felt that I could not have restrained myself for long, and all the more so because Laurette, with consummate art, soon showed me a part of her perfectly beautiful breast, soon the noble shape of a leg or the curve of her classic arm. Nevertheless, I could not resist the desire to remind the distinguished lady of those days, when she was still called Lorle and had kissed me in the honeysuckle arbor behind her father’s house. But she slipped away from me in a playful mastery of the conversation, and thus forced me to respect the boundaries she wished to keep. Yes, when I, fired by my blissful memories, dared to touch her bare arm with my hand, she struck me on my fingers and pointed with peculiar, even serious, significance at the parrot, who was entertaining himself by wiping his beak on the silver perch. “Take care, my all too friendly cavalier, beware of this bird,” she said softly, as if she were afraid that the ruffled beast might be listening. “Apollonius does not like it when one caresses me in his presence. Besides, my little finger tells me, dear Baron, that you have not come to court me, but that you have called on my willingness to serve you in some other way.” “I cannot deny it,” I replied, somewhat affected, although it seems unclear to me from where you, my dear Laurette, have received such wisdom.” “Ei!” she laughed, “Don’t I have my soothsayer and at the same time protector and guardian next to me?” and less loudly she added: “It can be called a true good fortune, that the good Apollonius is becoming somewhat hard of hearing and is no longer able to overhear all that is spoken.” The fact that she lowered her voice seemed indeed to disgust the bird. He rolled his ball-eyes, stepped from one foot to the other, and struck the cage bar with his beak, so that it rang. “Louder!” he cried. “You see?” said Laurette, glancing shyly at him. “He’s in a bad mood today.” “He looks like an old Hebrew, your Apollonius,” I said aloud. “It is believed that animals of his species live to be over a hundred years old.” “Hihihi! Hehehe! I’m an animal?” cried the bird. “A hundred years! Imbecile!” “What do you mean, he speaks French?” I turned to the beautiful one. “He speaks all languages,” whispered Laurette. “Take care! He guards me, tells everything to the Spanish envoy – whose mistress I am,” she added hesitantly, her cheeks flushing slightly. “But Apollonius also bears witness to events and is able to see into the future.” Now I knew who the pimp was to whom she owed her well-being, and so naturally a faint feeling of jealousy would have arisen at this discovery. Not being of a jealous nature, I felt nothing of the kind. Nevertheless, I felt sadness and remorse that this once pure and benign child through my fault had been taken from the peaceful and safe shelter of her parents’ home to the glittering and uncertain splendor of a life based only on lust. At the same time, however, I clearly recognized that her restraint towards me was not due to gratitude towards a present friend and lover, but rather the fear of the treacherous gossip of the feathered fowl to which she obviously attributed intellect and human-like malice. That through such thoughts the extremely ugly, bald- headed animal became even more repugnant and hated by me than already at the first sight, is understandable. I was tempted to interact with the chattering bird. Or at least to check in every way, to what extent Laurette’s description about his intelligence was justified. How could this small, round bird’s head, behind these rigid, rolling eyes be anything different from that of other animals? The repeating and coincidentally making sense of learned words and randomly putting together learned words might be suitable to cause strange, astonishing effects. But I could not and did not believe in a human-like thinking ability. The only thing I understood was Laurette’s caution to speak softly, so that the hard-of-hearing bird would not parrot them back at inopportune times. I myself had heard a story, in which a starling, also a talking animal, had betrayed his mistress by singing in front of her husband in the most melting tones the first name of a young gentleman, who had been suspected for a long time of being the favored lover of the housewife. Without waiting for Laurette’s warm gesture, I turned to the parrot, looked at him and said: “Well, Apollonius, if you are really so clever as you are, tell me who won the most money the day before yesterday at the Pharaoh’s?” The bird ruffled its feathers, twisted its eyeballs in a ghastly way, chuckled a few times, and then cackled: “Defunctus” – the dead one. I looked at him, unable to speak a word. “I beg you, Melchior, let him go,” said Laurette quickly and quietly, and in her gaze there was fear. Then she said loudly, “Baron, don’t tease Apollonius, or he’ll tell me the nastiest things that deprive me of sleep at night. “It was I who won, infernal beast!” I cried, and pulled myself together. The gray one laughed and said with his head bent forward, eyeing me maliciously: “Donum grati defunctil”-a gift from the grateful dead. “Why don’t you turn the collar on such vicious vermin?” I angrily prodded. “Give him some peach pits and get some peace with it.” She shook her head. “He eats no poison, fair Herr! Little killer! Little murderer!” chuckled Apollonius and flapped his wings. “Perhaps you have murdered yourself, chewy, disgraceful beast!” I screamed and shook my fist at him. “Perhaps you are a soul damned by God and must now repent in the form of an animal!” There came a heavy, almost human sigh from the bar, a groan from a tortured chest. The parrot looked at me with a fearful and horribly desolate look, and hung its head. Slowly he pulled the nictitating skin over his eyes, and with an inner tremor I looked – by God in heaven! -, I saw two tears dripped from the eyes of the animal. But this lasted only a moment, because immediately after that he stared at me with such appalling insolence that I became hot and cold and my rising of pity quickly disappeared. But when I saw the troubled face of the beautiful Laurette, I thought how naughty and disturbing for her peace my behavior must have seemed to her, and to rectify my mistake, I decided to turn the matter into a joke. I bowed therefore with ironic politeness before the animal and said in a cheerful tone: “Do not be angry with me, venerable Apollonius, I did not mean to offend your wisdom. I am now converted and no longer doubt in your wonderful gift to see the past and the future. Would it not be possible to make friends with you, king of all parrots?” The feathered one shook with laughter, clucked his beak and whistled. Then he moved his head quite distinctly, after human style, violently denying, back and forth. “So we can’t be friends?” I continued and winked at Laurette. “I would have liked to ask a question – about a hunchback I’m looking for -.” My question was for Laurette, of course, and I was about to explain myself further, when it came buzzing from the bar: “Dottore Postremo.” “What do you want with him?” said Laurette, in astonishment. “Do you know him?” I asked, unable to conceal my excitement. A deep blush passed over her face. “As it happens –” she replied sheepishly. “What is it about him?” “He’s an Italian doctor — a lot of women go to see him who wish to remove the unpleasant consequences of a few pleasant hours. He has a reputation, and the courts have often dealt with him. But nothing could ever be proved. – But you must not think, Baron, that I might -“ I laughed politely, “How could I, beautiful Laurette?” “He is said, by the way, to have a very beautiful foster- daughter or niece,” she went on, looking at me lurkingly. “A girl who has hardly blossomed. He lives in the house called Zum Fassel.” She lowered her eyes and looked at me from under her lids. “Be careful! The man is capable of anything!” “You are mistaken, Laurette,” I lied. “It’s not a question of adventures.”
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
On the other side of the bankholder an old man leaned low in the chair with almost extinguished eyes, whose long fingers crawled like spider legs out of the lace cuffs when it was necessary to reach for gold. A daunting, ugly, hunchbacked person with a deep brown face, finger-thick, coal-black eyebrows and sharp, thin lips ate sweets from a gold paper bag, and the pungent smell of bitter almonds, which I had already noticed when I entered the room. Between him and a dark green, silver-laced hussar with hairy hands shyly sat a young girl all huddled together, who immediately attracted my attention. Nevertheless my glance also took in as well a man in expensive clothes, whose nose consisted of fiery red turkey flaps and a high official, judging from his embroidered jacket, who turned a blue-white, blind horse’s eye toward me. All the people at that gaming table were somehow marked in some way. But the young girl, whose completely unexpected charm so deeply touched me, had an indescribable resemblance to my Aglaja, my dead cousin, was of perfect grace and beauty and looked like a wonderful flower in a heap of rubbish. She looked at me with a pleading and help-seeking look, as it were that penetrated my heart like sweet fire, and in a moment filled it with fierce tenderness. It was as if Aglaja were sitting opposite me in a slightly changed form, with a silent plea for protection and salvation from some danger. Soon I heard her name, which the hunchback pronounced in a strange German and always in a harsh commanding tone: “Zephyrine.” And every time the monster spoke of some service from the fair and lonely child, the toothless mouth of the spider- fingered old man, whom they called Count Korony, lit up with an unspeakably repugnant and lascivious grin. I immediately made up my mind to approach this girl, who I loved at first sight and to offer her my services, of which she seemed to need. This feeling became so violent in me, that I could hardly control myself and several times I was tempted to approach her, especially when her gray, gold-flecked eyes looked at me and I could see Aglaja’s unforgettable stars directed at me. Nevertheless, I was wise enough not to admit a completely incomprehensible affection and to wait for a favorable moment, which would allow the inconspicuous beginning of a conversation. Meanwhile, the game was played very high, and the bankholder with the hooded eye raked in whole mountains of gold. Apart from him, the feisty Spanish Jewess was in luck. At first I played well and doubled twice, but I lost on the very next play. And little by little I got into a heat, tried to quickly bring back what I had lost and again and again repeatedly lost. The girl’s gaze clung sadly to me, and once it was as if she reminded me with an almost imperceptible wink of her eye to be careful and to keep an eye on the bankholder. I had to reach deeper and deeper into my money cat, more and more of my gold pieces went into the hands of the bankholder and the fat woman, and as midnight approached, I realized with a nameless horror that my cash was exhausted and only a few gold pieces were my own. Bitter remorse seized me for my imprudence. Too late I thought of the fact that such secret playhouses were only set up for the catching of bullfinches, and I remembered how often I had heard that the apparent opposing players after the departure of the plundered divided the profit that had been taken from their victim. This was thanks to the skilful way in which they worked together. But as much as I was on my guard after Zephyrine’s secret hint and looked at the bankholder’s hands, I could find little wrong that would have given me the right to declare the game invalid and demand the lost money back. But even then my rebellion would have been in vain and ridiculous because these numerous people were prepared for such things. I didn’t even know where this house was located and would never be able to find it the next day! In despair, I bet two of my four remaining gold pieces, when the clock on the mantelpiece of the fireplace struck midnight and played a hoarse, mournful gavotte. At that moment the double door was opened, and a strange, hollow-eyed man, dressed entirely in black mourning livery pushed a new player in a wheelchair to the table. It was an ancient, quite frail old man with a white wig, just like the servant, only more expensively dressed in black. His face betrayed great wisdom, but also an eventful life. For it was crisscrossed by countless wrinkles and furrows. But the waxy color and the strange immobility of the wrinkles gave this well- educated head of a witty old man something eerily corpse-like and dead. Uncertain memories penetrated agonizingly on me. Unconcerned about the poorly concealed astonishment of the table company, the old man slid a roll of money onto the cloth and immediately joined in the game without speaking a word. Whispering, everyone looked at him. It seemed to me that the candles had been burning darker since he had come into the hall with his servant. Then the man in the wheelchair turned two black, lusterless eyes on me and said with a voice that seemed to come from unfathomable depths: “Herr von Dronte, I invite you to play with me en compagnie!” I only managed to nod. Like mist it sank on Zephyrine’s lovely face, on her shimmering hair, on the ring-laden hands of the Spanish Jewess and the nimble fingers of the bankholder. The cards fell. Silently, the old man slipped me half of his winnings, a whole roll of golden sovereigns. The bankholder mumbled something between his teeth, the fat woman was wiping sweat and grease powder from her forehead, and the hussar uttered a half-loud Hungarian curse. Again the cards fell, thin old man’s fingers pushed new gold pieces to me. The time passed, fell in golden drops down on me. I saw that people from the other tables stood up, that a ring of curious faces surrounded us. But all were silent. Only the quiet fall of cards, the few words necessary for the game and the metallic, fine clink were heard. Soon I could no longer put both hands around the gold treasure in front of me. I began stealthily to fill my money cat. When it was full to bursting I stuffed the ducats into my pockets. Already I had three times more money than I had possessed when I entered this house. The coattails hung down heavily, the vest bulged at the pockets. Everyone lost – the man with the horse eye, the fat Jewess, the bankholder, the hussar, the red-nosed one, the courtly one, the count, the hunchback next to Zephyrine. With trembling hands they rummaged in pockets and bags, their faces shone with sweat, the spit shine of the brows melted into sooty blackness, their eyes gawked –. I was rich. I could not even accommodate any more gold. Then the clock on the fireplace gave the single stroke of the hour after midnight and began to play the out-of-tune gavotte. Immediately the black servant grabbed the chair, and the old man, looking frail and suffering, nodded to me with a faint smile, and the wheelchair passed soundlessly through the open door through which it had entered an hour ago. I jumped up and hurried out of the completely frozen group of people around the table to express my thanks to him. No one hindered me. I still felt how an ice-cold, small, trembling hand sought mine, and I clenched my fingers around a folded piece of paper, which she pushed toward me. I ran as fast as I could into the anteroom. Where was the man in the wheelchair? A sleepy servant handed me my coat, hat and sword. I gave him a few gold foxes and hurried down the stairs. The old woman stood at the gate as if she had just let someone out. She opened the door indifferently. While walking I heard the raging, shouting and wild curses in the rooms upstairs. But I had no time; I had to thank my rescuer. But the street was empty. Nowhere a trace of the old man. I ran into side alleys. Nothing. Nowhere a sound. How had he disappeared so quickly? Then – suddenly – I saw with terrible, indescribable clarity, like a picture on a dark background, the chapel with the dead man before me, from whose defenseless hand I was supposed to take a cross – for Fangerle, the desecrator of the corpse. Half fainting, I leaned against a wall, and I almost fell from fright, as the hinges of the lantern over me shrieked in the wind. I still held Zephyrine’s note in my cramped hand, I unfolded it and read: “Save me!” In my great desire to protect Zephyrine from a danger unknown to me, but of which she was well aware, I remembered my childhood friend Lorle, with whom I had met on the day of my arrival in Vienna in such an unusual way. As strong as my nostalgia for her body had been, the acquaintance with a being who reminded me in the deepest way of Aglaja, had been enough to cool my desires with regard to the beautiful Laurette Triquet, as she now called herself, and her sensual embers. But no one could be of better help to me, in my hitherto futile effort to find this beloved girl and her hunchbacked guardian than that clever girl and, judging from her rise, she was in possession of valuable relations. In Schönlatern Street, I was directed to an old house, which, similar to that gambling house, from the outside didn’t show any of the comfort and beauty of its furnishings. A magnificent marble group, the robbery of Proserpina, stood at the foot of the stone stairs I was climbing, and Venetian Moorish boys, painted in gold and colors, stood in their wooden immobility on their heels, holding up lanterns. The cute chambermaid, who, with coquettish skirts walked in front of me up the stairs, opened the door to a pale yellow silk room for me, then disappeared with an apology through the heavy curtain held by cupids, behind which there was a small door. At the opening of this I briefly heard a shrieking laughter, which filled me with astonishment, since I had never met a person with such a hideously piercing voice.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
There was a loud calling and it came closer. Two gravediggers, an old man and a sturdy young fellow, came running with bludgeons and confronted me. What had happened here and why had I shot? I talked to them and described to them the guy with the satchel, who once before had been suspiciously at an unburied corpse in the past, and also at the execution of the blacksmith Fessl in a tree and with his new corpse-desecrating behavior, had now put me in such a rage that I fired my pistol at him, but apparently did him no harm, after he had laughed, escaped and flitted away. They listened to me calmly and seriously, and the old man nodded his head as if to indicate that the man was well known to him, and that he, like me hated him to his very soul. Then he asked me my name, and when I told him, he said: “The Baron may now do as he pleases. We have the vested right to punish offenses against the sanctity of the place on the spot, or to punish the offence if the penalties are not paid to the court. For shooting on consecrated ground, a man shall pay only one silver thaler.” I threw the man two thalers. But he gave one of them back to me and said: “I am not allowed to take excess money. It is only a pity that your shot will never been able to harm him. -“ “What do you mean? Is he frozen?” I asked. The boy laughed, and the old man shrugged: “If the gentleman has not buried a cross in his bullet mold, as it should never be lacking and thus imprints itself on the leaden birdie, then he has not even hurt him, however powerful the weapon may otherwise be.” “I do not carry a cross on the bullets.” “So it’s a pity about the shot and about the penalty for it.” The old man cradled the hairless head back and forth. “But the fact that the Lord can see him is significant.” “Why?” “Not everyone can see him, only the blessed.” the younger man interjected. “Like, for example, father here, who has often shooed him from fresh graves, and I would give anything if I could ever catch sight of him. But I am days and nights in vain and have not seen him. And yet he has been there.” “Who is that fellow?” asked I fiercely. “Fangerle,” said the old man, making a cross. “Is it a man or is it-?” But they gave me no more answer and looked toward the entrance in the quietly falling rain. From there, with singing and many-voiced prayer came a funeral procession. “I always thought that he would show himself at the graves of the miserly,” the old man muttered and climbed into the pit. They did not pay any further attention to me, and when I asked again, the boy said gruffly, “It is better for the Lord to pray!” Confused and saddened in my soul, I walked away along the side paths to reach the exit, while the coffin of the miser was swaying towards the open pit. Before the post coach left, I noticed the faded and sealed box that the notary had given me as an inheritance from my Muhme, Aglaja’s mother. I tore off the lacquer seal and lifted the lid. On the white, yellowed silk rested a red-gold curl of my unforgettable, beloved cousin and her silver finger ring, which I had often seen on her small child’s hand. It was formed with the finest art from two slants which wound around a round-cut fire opal. I pressed countless kisses on the mysteriously shining and iridescent stone, on the silvery, scaly adder’s liver, which had once held a finger of the sweetest hand, and called out the name that had been cut into my heart and painfully scarred there.
But on the evening of the day I arrived in the great city of Vienna and marveled at the life in the streets, the many carriages, the many carts, and sedan chairs, adventures of such a peculiar kind happened to me that I thought of the influence on my life of dark and sinister powers. The first thing I encountered was of course of noble origin and graceful species. When I walked across the square on which St. Stephen’s Cathedral stretches its stone carving into the sky, I was caught in a crowd of carriages and sedan chairs, and was so close to a very distinguished, finely painted sedan chair with two dark red liveried porters, that I had to stand close to the lowered side window eye to eye with the occupant. But who can describe the astonishment I felt when I recognized in the highly toupeed, nobly dressed lady, Sattler Höllbrich’s Lorle? She too knew me again immediately, for she uttered a slight cry and called my name. With my hat drawn, I remained, enraptured by her unimaginable, fully blossomed beauty, enhanced by small arts, and asked in quiet, urgent pleading words for an early reunion. She pointed with a short, openly fearful movement towards the dark red carriers and then said very loudly, “Well, Doctor, you can bring the new ointment for my complexion to my house. Just ask for Madame Laurette Triquet in Schönlatern Street.” With that she nodded at me pathetically, in fact condescendingly, and gave the porters a sign to go on. After an exquisite dinner, I left my room in the evening and went to Himmelpfort Street quarter again and thought to mingle a little with the evening walkers who were glad of the pleasant breeze after the hot day. Already for some time I thought I had noticed an extremely graceful and neatly dressed young lad following after me at every turn. And really, it did not take long, and then he was beside me and said half aloud: “If you desire exceptionally good and amusing company and would like to play a game, I would be prepared to take the gentleman to a house where you can find such things of the best quality.” Gladly willing to spend my evening hours in a pleasant way, and hoping to increase my money supply I agreed to follow the man. He modestly went ahead as a guide, only looking back from time to time to see if I was behind him. After a long back and forth through dark, poorly lit and bumpy streets, we finally reached a crooked and very narrow alley. In front of a large gate, the young man stopped and made four quick knocks with the knocker, followed by two stronger ones. We had to wait a while and I noticed how a dark eye looked at us through a crack in the most precise way. Then, however, in the large gate, which was covered with heavy iron plates, a small door was opened, in which an older, cunning looking woman appeared and looked at us with a burning candle for quite a long time. Only when my guide quietly whispered something that seemed to me to be a word of recognition or a password, the woman stepped back so that we could pass her. We walked over a large, damp, ivy-covered courtyard, in which water poured from a triton’s mouth, and then climbed a steep, barely lit spiral staircase. On the second floor, my apparently disinterested guide asked to be let in the same way as downstairs, and when the servant opened the double doors to let me enter, I stood for a moment as if dazzled in the brightness, the hundreds of fragrant wax candles spread. A gold dressed lackey took our swords, hats and cloaks from us and told us to go on. I saw at once that the ugly, dilapidated outer appearance of the isolated house, the unpleasant darkness on the stairs and in the courtyard were only intended to keep away the curious, and the lavish furnishings and the abundance of light into concealment. For here the walls sparkled with gold, magnificent tapestries partially concealed the scarlet silk wallpapers, the floor was bare and smooth as glass, hundreds of candles burned in Venetian prismatic chandeliers and silver chandeliers. On tables with priceless plates of Malachite, lapis lazuli and ruin marble stood the most exquisite delicacies and drinks. “The Baron of Dronte might like to go to the playroom,” said my pale guide with a smile. “How do you know me?” I asked not very friendly. The young man smiled superiorly. “We take an interest in all strangers of distinction who arrive, and are informed by the Stagecoach drivers in good time. Thus I know that the Baron has taken lodgment with the widow Schwebs- küchlein, and I made it my business to introduce the Baron to a certainly agreeable circle, in which equally chivalrous amusement, as well as something from Fortuna’s horn of plenty.” During this speech we stepped into brightly lit, magnificent adjoining rooms, in which Pharaoh and Landsknecht were being played at several tables. The players hardly turned their heads toward me, when my name was shouted loudly, because at the largest of the tables, where I was standing at, all eyes were fixed on the Bankholder, who was putting on his apron. Muffled exclamations rang out from everywhere like “Va tout!” or “Va banque!” and the soft clinking and rolling of the louisdors on the green cloth that was stretched over the stone slabs of the tables. I reached for the money cat, which I was wearing under my vest as a precaution against thieves, and approached the large table. Immediately the young man, who had brought me here, offered me a comfortable armchair and then disappeared, when I sat down with a light greeting. Before I began to play, I looked at the people with whom I was dealing, and found that I had stumbled into a gathering of distorted images. The bankholder had a colorless, pinched face, which had been devastated by a restless and wild life. He wore over the right sunken eye a black cloth patch, a square piece of cloth on a ribbon, which crossed the forehead and ran further behind the right ear. Next to him sat a tremendously obese, heavy- breathing woman with a white powdered pumpkin head, fanning her pressed-up bosom. She was tastelessly covered with pearls and jewels of all kinds and seemed to me to be a Spanish Jewess, judging by her facial features. Enthroned beside her, upright and haughty under half-closed lids, a very skinny woman of standing, whose yellow monkey face had been plastered with beautiful patches in the form of palms, butterflies and little birds. Her bloodless fingers rummaged greedily in a whole pile of gold pieces that lay in front of her.
The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel
The notary Mechelde welcomed me with stiff dignity in his gray room. Gray bundles of documents stood on the wall up to the smoky ceiling, and the whole rickety man was gray except for the green eyeshade from which he blinked. He pushed me a chair, checked my matriculation certificate, the only document I called my own, checked his books, and then he told me, that my father, resting in God, had left more than half of his fortune to noble foundations and orders of knighthood, a large amount to the purchase of an organ for the village church and furthermore- numerous legacies for the best of his dogs. Thus would remain for me, his only natural heir, an amount of about fifteen thousand thalers that I could receive from the court at any time. At my request to see the testament he took a stained paper out of the cupboard and explained to me the sullied appearance of the writing with the fact that the old gentleman in articulo mortis, almost asphyxiating, had tried to find the passage in which of me as the “wayward” son Melchior, Baron von Dronte”, was spoken of with the goose quill. But in the middle of a beginning, which the bloated hand was no longer able to perform, the shortness of breath set in so terribly that a sobbing spasmodic cough sprayed the expectoration on the paper and so spattered it with reddish spots. During these explanations the notary drummed with his spidery fingers so impatiently on the lid of his desk, that I could see how little he cared for my company. But when, unconcerned about his lowly manner and politeness, I asked him to allow me to make occasional requests for my father’s words about me (in which I hoped to find a sign of forgiveness and of paternal affection), the gray file clerk turned his inflamed eyes on me and said, with his left hand on the gold signet ring of his right hand and with a dry expression: “I don’t think it’s my place to pass on confidential statements of my clients. However, if this is a special favor for you, Baron Dronte, I must tell you that your father adds words to every mention of your name, which I am neither willing nor called to repeat. In particular, the old man seemed to have doubts that existed in his mind as to whether his only son and name bearer was worthy to use the old coat of arms and title. And this feeling may have prevailed at his Grace’s final decree, which entrusted me with the possession of this coat of arms on my right index, the signet ring of the deceased, which was located with the testament! And he stretched out his scrawny, black-clawed finger towards me, on which sat the ring, in whose sardonyx our coat of arms with the three golden roses was artfully cut. Involuntarily my hand clenched into a fist. The notary took a quick look at the colorful glass beads next to his desk and smiled with satisfaction. I bowed briefly and headed for the door. But before I had reached it, he hastily called me back and explained that he had forgotten. My Muhme, Aglaja’s mother, had given me a sealed box at my father’s death, which was in his safekeeping and which he would now give to me. He rummaged and searched for a while under the lid of his desk, slipped me a piece of paper, and confirmation for signature and after I had put my name on the paper, he gave me a box covered with yellowed blue silk, which was sealed at the edge. “And now the Herr Lord of Dronte will excuse me if I turn my attention to more urgent business.” I left the gray room, my chest constricted, and shaken by my father’s harshness beyond death. It was not about the money. I did not mourn the fact that instead of a castle, rich fields, meadows, woods and ponds, instead of three prosperous villages along with many other possessions and goods, which had been sold to the rich Zochtes by the endowed foundations. What hurt me so bitterly was the fact that, of all the thousands of things that had belonged to my mother, not a single one of the familiar furniture and pictures, not a single piece had come to me. And if it were only the Dutch clock with the palm tree angel and the hammering little dead man or just my mother’s silver bridal cup, or perhaps even the round egg made of seven kinds of wood, on which she had stuffed my childhood stockings, I would have been full of satisfied melancholy. So then, outcast and devoid of all love I took the long way back that I had ridden, and turned toward the cemetery. Green, tender leaves sprouted from the trees that lined the road, and my spurs brushed against the first flowers along the roadside. Larks rose warbling and disappeared in the bright blue. The day was so beautiful, and darkness wafted within me! When I entered the quiet garden of the eternally resting in order to pay my respects and say goodbye forever to the dead man, who had not found a word of kindness for me and yet had called himself my father, I was struck by the memory of the nasty experience with that young maid, whose outcry and indignation had caused me to be horrified by the arbitrariness and crudeness of the powerful, to which I too was to belong. The subsequent disgust of that night was so strong that I wanted to turn back, in order not to enter the earth, under which the dead man lay. But after a short inner struggle, I nevertheless went on, probably because I knew that nothing would ever cause me to return to the places of my unfortunate youth. So I walked with my hat pulled off between the iron crosses, urns and stone angels. The sky, which had been so blue just a moment before, had turned gray with quickly rising clouds, and the thousand fold song of the birds in the trees suddenly fell silent. Wind showers ran over the hills and made the light, long grass bend. A single ray of sunlight fell narrow and golden on a square stone next to the path, on which was written a half-blurred, barely legible name and a saying. This saying was hit by the ray of light, so that I could see the damaged letters clearly and interpret them: Non omnis moriar! “I will not die completely.” These words immediately sank to the bottom of my soul, and an unspeakable consolation emanated from it, which filled my eyes with tears of joy and my heart with a sweet, indefinite hope. These words of the Roman poet was also well known to me from the history lessons. The Englishman Herr Thomas More had spoken it before his head fell under the axe of the executioner. Strange that only today the day had come when I sensed and shuddered at the immense significance of the saying. But the ray of sunlight faded, and the dull gray of the coming spring rain brought me to my senses. I stamped my foot, and the clink of the spur woke me from dreams that threatened to be lost in infinity. I continued walking until I reached the heir-funeral, behind whose heavy, rust-stained doors, besides my hard father, my mother, my grandfather, my Muhme, and my beloved Aglaja, slept, and I looked at the rose tree that Muhme had planted here a few days after the girl’s death. It had grown into a stately trunk, and its branches were covered with tiny, delicate green leaves. In the summertime it would glow with red roses. – “I would gladly have carried a rose from your grave with me forever, Aglaja,” I said softly and stroked the little tree. I thought that the fine ends of the roots might have found their way down to her and that she would feel it when a loving hand touched the smooth trunk. But then I was so frightened that I would have cried out loudly for the little one in the solemn silence of the cemetery. To my right hand, next to a freshly dug, still unlabeled grave, squatted on a half sunken mossy stone slab one whom I had never forgotten and whose hideous demeanor and appearance often haunted me in waking dreams. He still wore the broad hat, had the nail-studded hunting satchel and stabbed at me cheeky and mocking with his yellow goat eyes, the hooked nose bent like a vulture’s beak and the wrinkled mouth warts contorted. “It’s me again,” he croaked. “Hasn’t been long, Your Grace, that I have had the pleasure of seeing you.” I did not answer. In my coat pocket I had a well-loaded derringer, the handle of which nestled in my hand. “Yes, yes,” chuckled the fellow, making a face, “It is Fangerle, your grace Lord Baron. I was with them as they hanged Friederich Zabernikel, but kept myself nicely in the background.” He burst out into a bleating laugh, and his eyes glimmered in the shadow of the hat brim. “What are you looking for here?” I burst out. He laughed again, and it sounded like the clink of glass panes. With his yellow hand he pointed to the open pit at my side, from which the grave digger’s spade had been spilling sand, earthy bones and a brownish skull, to which hair still stuck, and hissed: “A new one, Baron, and here I wait for the soul mouse.” At this he tapped on his satchel, at which there was inside a shrill, piteous whistle. “Let me be content with your nonsense,” I cried, seized with horror. A cold raindrop struck me in the face so that I flinched. Then he twisted his face into a terrible grimace, his eyes glittered, opened his gaping mouth and mimicked that ghastly scream that Heiner Fessl made in his fear of death in front of the Rabenstein. “J-i-i-ii!” “Dog!” I roared, tore the derringer out of my pocket, cocked it in a flash with my thumb, thrust the barrel into his wrinkled face and shot à bout portant. In the blue cloud of smoke I saw nothing, and when it disappeared, only slowly, in the dampness of the rain, the coat of the guy fluttered already far away between the tombstones and bushes, from where an adverse, shrieking laughter rang out. And again it seemed to me, as if a large owl-like bird flew away between the trees and over the wall.
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