OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“I’d like to know—what the Viennese would say,” Reichenbach quips.
“I thought,” the old count continues, ignoring the jest, “if this turns out alright for me, nothing will happen to your wife.”
“What’s supposed to happen to my wife?” Reichenbach asks.
“I’m worried about her. Her good heart puts her in danger. Don’t let your wife go to the sick. She can’t help them anyway.”
Reichenbach promises a husbandly command, and after the next glass of wine, they part. As Reichenbach climbs down from the carriage at his house, the old count calls after him: “And tell your wife I fell in the water for her sake. But next time, I’ll definitely bring back a stalactite. She’ll have to be patient till then.”
Reichenbach steps into the house, finding Reinhold loitering in the hall with a frightened face, clearly idle.
“Where’s your mother?” Reichenbach asks, eager to share his tale. He’ll ask Friederike Luise, Guess where I’ve been? She’ll be a bit shocked, scold him, but end up happy seeing his joy at their success. Then he’ll tease her that the old count is head over heels for her.
“Where’s your mother?” he asks again, three steps up the stairs, as Reinhold hasn’t answered.
Reinhold stands rigid, eyes fixed on his father’s face, wide with fear—his mother’s eyes. “Mother’s sick. She’s in bed.”
“In bed…?”
“And Peter’s gone to fetch the doctor…”
Reichenbach races up the stairs, taking three at a time.
Chapter 4
The night before Friederike Luise’s light went out, Reichenbach sat in his study, plans for the new wood-carbonization furnace spread before him, complete with changes and improvements born of past failures. One couldn’t endlessly stare into fate’s empty eye sockets; he had to force himself to turn his mind elsewhere. Sitting by the sickbed, waiting, was unbearable. Waiting for what? The inevitable, signaled clearly enough by Dr. Roskoschny’s averted gaze and head-shaking? For a man used to mastering life, gripping it with both fists, kneading his will into things, this was intolerable. Sitting at the edge of grief and despair, powerless to help, was beyond his strength.
There were the drawings and sketches—shut-off valves, serpentine heating tubes, exhaust ducts, condensers, bellows—but even as Reichenbach pulled himself together and spurred his focus, he could draw and calculate for an hour. In the second hour, his attention waned, and it rose around him like water, dissolving his limbs.
It was a green, glowing flood, like the water in the Punkva cave, and he drifted on a raft over it. He saw stones on the bottom, the play of fish, and then a face swam just below the surface—his own, of course. He had never seen himself so closely, every feature sharper than in any mirror. Yet there was something strange in the familiar, something mysterious, unsettling, fearsome. Yes, that’s how it must be, Reichenbach thought, when the veils are stripped away. Veils? he wondered immediately. Why that word?
He jolted, somehow pulled away from his blueprints by the question, feeling as if someone in the next room had spoken the word aloud.
Reichenbach listened intently, but all was silent. His head swam from the sharp odors of the fumigated house.
Next door was the children’s bedroom. The children were gone; they couldn’t stay with their sick mother—the doctor forbade it, and the old count insisted they be taken to his castle. Beyond the empty children’s room was the room where Friederike Luise fought her hopeless battle for life, the marital bedroom now overshadowed by death. Frau Paleczek was with the sick woman. She wouldn’t be kept from keeping vigil, as all the maids except Susi had fled, and even Susi couldn’t be persuaded to approach the bed. Strangely, Frau Paleczek’s heavy steps had softened, her bass voice now gentle.
Perhaps Friederike Luise had spoken in her fever, or Paleczek had said something, or someone had called for Reichenbach. He stood and went to the children’s room, Distant lightning flared silently through the night, a faint glow from the lantern above the front door creeping through the windows, just bright enough to reveal the three empty children’s beds.
Then Reichenbach saw a figure standing among the beds, a mere shadow, tall, fleeting, indistinct—but surely, yes, none other than Friederike Luise.
“How did you get here? What are you doing?” Reichenbach asked, astonished.
“I was with the children,” Friederike Luise’s voice answered softly, sadly. With the children, Reichenbach wanted to ask, but the shadow was suddenly gone. The empty beds stood there, and lightning flickered over the valley. No door had creaked, but somehow Friederike Luise must have slipped out, and if he hurried, he might catch her climbing back into her bed. A wild hope of a sudden turn for the better surged through him.
But when Reichenbach opened the door, his wife lay in her pillows, face turned to the wall, so faintly nestled he could hardly believe she’d stood before him moments ago. Frau Paleczek sat beside her, her dark face bent over a worn prayer book.
“Was my wife up?” Reichenbach asked.
Paleczek stared at him through owl-round reading glasses. “Up? Oh, Jesus, Mary, the gracious lady hasn’t stirred for two hours. I think she’s sleeping. That’s good.”
“But I saw her—” Reichenbach wanted to say. He held back, realizing exhaustion, inner brokenness, and hopeless longing had clouded his senses.
When Frau Paleczek thought the sick woman’s sleep was a good, healing one, she was mistaken. It opened a dark gate for the patient, who passed through at dawn without regaining consciousness—a rare mercy, Dr. Roskoschny said, almost a gift from heaven.
Frau Paleczek set to washing the body, though washing cholera victims was forbidden. She refused to let the body be covered with quicklime, as regulations required, and Dr. Roskoschny turned a blind eye, feeling Friederike Luise shouldn’t be lumped with the mass of other victims.
Remarkably, news of her death spread quickly among the people. Though she was buried on her death day with no pomp, her simple coffin drew an unusually large following. Usually, only a few close relatives trailed behind, hasty and timid, some even seeming relieved when the earth thudded into the grave. But people couldn’t seem to tear themselves away from Friederike Luise’s coffin. The sobbing wrapped around the coffin like a web, cloaking it in a blanket woven from the heart’s emotion. Everyone found it fitting that, after the pastor’s blessing, the old count stepped to the grave to speak.
He didn’t get far. “We’ve come to say farewell, Friederike Luise—” he began, but his voice broke, tears streamed down, he shook his head, and stepped back. Then people approached Reichenbach, shaking his hand; some gently touched the heads of the children standing meekly nearby. Most did so silently, though a few felt compelled to offer words of comfort. Reichenbach had held himself together with composure, never losing control for a moment. Everything had been strangely vivid, but now, as it was essentially over and faces kept appearing and turning away in an endless stream, a veil fell over his clarity. Many faces he didn’t recognize; others he named only after long thought. There was Mandrial, the pastor; the broad cheekbones likely belonged to the chemist Mader; the timid dog-like eyes to the tutor Futterknecht; and that wretched expression to Forester Ruf, who said something about six children…
Yes, yes, Reichenbach had heard something about it. He recalled now, in the days when Friederike Luise fought against death, something about his seven children. Six had died, and only little Friederike, the deceased’s godchild, was still alive.
Friederike Luise had likely caught the germ of the disease from Ruf’s children. Yes, that’s how things were connected—everything somehow intertwined, however incomprehensible it seemed.
Then Reichenbach climbed the stairs in his house, and someone walked beside him—the old count Hugo zu Salm, personally baptized by Maria Theresa. A little later, Reichenbach sat on the sofa in the living room, the old count beside him, the house otherwise eerily empty. There were likely three children somewhere in the house, but with Futterknecht, who ensured they stayed quiet.
The day was dreary and cool. Reichenbach shivered, saying, “Autumn’s not far now, and the doctor thinks the cholera will stop then.” It could stop now, having taken its toll.
Then a voice came, as if from deep darkness: “It was a sin… a sinful thought… you cast such things into the world, and there are indeed evil spirits around us, waiting for such thoughts. They seize them and turn them into weapons. It’s my fault.”
Reichenbach perked up, realizing the voice had been speaking for a while. “What’s your fault?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t have linked my life with hers. I shouldn’t have done it, back when I fell in the water. That thought: if I escape, nothing will happen to her. It was as if they let me go to take her instead. I’m to blame for her death. It just sprang up in me so suddenly.”
“How can you talk like that?” Reichenbach protested. “Ask the doctor—she caught it from Ruf’s children.”
“Yes, yes… but that doesn’t get to the root of it. It’s the life force that decides in the end. And I want to get to the bottom of things.” As darkness fell, the old count rose. “You’ll have to work without me for a while. Lord Rumford has invited me to England for some experiments he wants my help with. And Richter in Berlin wants to conduct a few trials together. Then I’ll study English wool-spinning. And in Strasbourg, there’s a Société Harmonique exploring Mesmerism—I’d like to look into that too. I’ve been planning it for a long time.”
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