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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 275- 279

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, family, fiction, life, writing on January 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

It took a very long time until I recovered from the intense
pain that hit me at the renewed new loss and to regain my
equilibrium.
Soon after this incident, my father fell ill and died,
occupied to his last breath with the care for my and my
mother’s further life. A few weeks later, my mother caught a
severe cold, which turned into a severe pneumonia. I held her
hand in mine until her last breath and had the consolation of
hearing from her mouth shortly before her death, a saying that
was well known to me:
“Thank God, we will meet again!”
Nevertheless, I cried bitter tears because she had left me.
I had long since been offered a well-paid position in the
institution and my modest needs were amply provided for.
In my free time, after careful consideration, I wrote the
long story of my life as Melchior Dronte and this brief
description of the hitherto peaceful existence that I led under
the name of Sennon Vorauf, and provided the whole with a
preface. I now pack and seal the described sheets and will mark
them with the name of Kaspar Hedrich who in the meantime
has completed his studies and, like his late father, has become a
doctor.
He lives in a nearby town, and when the right time has
come, this completed manuscript will perhaps give him an
explanation of my being, and it may be that it will put death in
a different and less gloomy light for him and others than it may
have appeared to them so far.
Some thoughts, which are difficult to put into words, of
whose comforting truth I have convinced myself, cannot be
shared with anyone. Everyone must find them in his own way,
to the beginning of which I believe I have led everyone who
seriously and devotedly strives to explore the truth.
It was about time that I did it. For great misfortune is in
store for those who are now living —.
To the Imperial and Royal Palace – Command Center
in Tirana.

The charge of desertion is filed against the infantryman
Sennon Vorauf, assigned to Searchlight Division No. 128/ B for
unauthorized absence from his post.
Herr Wenzel Switschko, First Lieutenant.
Herrn Wolgeborn regimental physician Dr. Kaspar
Hedrich
Field post 1128
Dear Herr Regimental Doctor! I regret to inform you that
a report has been made to the Royal Headquarters that our
friend Sennon Vorauf has deserted. Dear Herr Regimental
Doctor it is not true that he deserted, but it was like this. I and
Vorauf and Corporal Maierl went for a walk in the Albanian
town of Tiranna, and Vorauf had been acting very funny
already the entire day and all of a sudden I was scared when he
said:
“Thank God we will meet again.”
He was very kind to us and he gave his silver watch to
Maierl and gave me a ring with a red stone.
“Keep this for a souvenir,” he said, and so I said,
“Sennon, what are you doing?”
Meanwhile we went to a Tekkeh of the Halveti dervishes,
this one was a wooden house where there were coffins of holy
Muhamedan Dervishes with green cloth on them by the door
and Vorauf said: “I am called,” and went inside.
Then the corporal said, “Vorauf, how dare you! It is
strictly forbidden for soldiers to enter the sacred places of the
Muhamedans, but he went in, so we waited for him and after a
while a dervish came out with a black turban and a small beard,
a handsome man and he had a brown robe and a rosary with a
yellow beads around his neck and this dervish gave us a
friendly greeting, it was strange and we saluted him and again
we waited for a long time, but no one came. So I went to the
house where the dervishes live and in the meantime Herr
Corporal Maierl stayed at the Tekkeh to watch, so one of the
dervishes with a grey beard went along with me to the Tekkeh
and searched for Sennon. Then he returned and said there was
no one inside, so we looked at each other, went home and the
corporal reported to the commander Herr Lieutenant
Shwitschko and then he cried with me about Sennon and today
it’s been five days and there is no Sennon to be found, so only
our Lord knows where he is, and the regimental doctor knows
that he was a dear friend, and you might not know Maierl says
he was a holy man, he did so much good for all of us and gave
away his things. I wanted to report this, and if the Herr
regimental doctor wanted to come it is a whole riddle with
Sennon and I greet you obediently,
Herr Leopold Riemeis. Infantryman, searchlight
128/B.
It is around midnight.
Below my windows the country road runs out into the
flat countryside, endless, gray. The wind rustles in the poplars.
It picks at my windowpanes. Ghost fingers, huh? No, it’s just
the old leaves, which held out so splendidly in the freezing
winter storms and which now the damp wind picks off, one by
one. Down with them! Should one think it possible that I, Dr.
Kaspar Hedrich, a man of exact science, the author of the book
“The so-called occult phenomena. A Completion”, yet here I sit,
a beaten man.
Must I now recant, or what should I begin? Did I see as a
boy of fourteen sharper and better than I do now?
I must go back. I have to get rid of the thick sheets of
paper that my boyhood friend, Sennon Vorauf, left with his
strange, squiggly handwriting, with a pale blue ink, as if the
whole thing were a bundle of letters or diary pages from the
eighteenth century. Did he do this on purpose? It does not
correspond at all with his straight and sincere nature. If ever a
man was honest with himself and others, if anyone was
passionate about the truth, it was Sennon Vorauf. For that I will
put my hand in the fire.
After the horrible war, after all the misfortunes, the
stupidity and hatred that have been brought to my country, I
have returned home. And the first thing I find is this thick, now
unsealed and read pack of closely written pages, which was left
with me while I was with malaria patients in Alessio or Lesch,
as the Shiptars call it, a poisonous and sad summer and was
summoned to Tirana by a soldier’s letter to look for Sennon.
But I have to go back; I have to look at things from the
beginning. Maybe Sennon is looking over my shoulder or is
looking, even invisibly, in at the window. Who can know?
We were together a lot in childhood. In his writings, he
mentions the mysterious incident that took place on the river
journey and in which he saved my life. Also my father, who
had lived in the Orient for a long time, also believed it. He told
me so himself. Only I, I told myself later that a rapid onset of a
cold fever after I had rescued myself from the water-hole had
fooled myself into believing that he had saved me.
And what happened later? I once went very early in the
morning to pick up Sennon according to my habit. He was still
in bed, his mother told me to go in and wake him up. I entered.
Sennon was lying on his back in bed with his eyes open and
staring. His chest did not rise and fall. I saw, already at that
time with the observation of a doctor and practiced it
unconsciously, that his breathing had stopped. I became restless
and put my hand on my friend’s chest. His heart stood still.
Fear gripped me. Was I supposed to go to Frau Vorauf in
despair with the terrible news that her son, to whom she had
been attached with an uncommonly tender love, was lying dead
in bed? Thick tears dripped from my eyes, and I could not take
my eyes off the calm and stylish face of my dearest playmate.
Then it was as if I looked into the fine red mark that Sennon
wore like an Indian caste badge between the curved brows, a
luminous mist seemed to come out of the air and only became
denser as it neared him. But this lasted only a very short time,
and while I was still stunned with amazement at the bedside,
life came back into the rapt look of my friend, his eyes moved,
his usual sweet smile (never have I seen a person smile so
enchantingly as him), played around his lips and as if
awakened he said, “Is it you, Kaspar?”
In the manner of a boy, I immediately informed him of
my just made perceptions and added that I had been on the
point of either calling his mother in or to call him back to life
by shaking him and pouring cold water on him. Then he looked
at me seriously and asked me that if I should ever find him in
such a state again, not to call him to life by force and to prevent
the attempts of others in this regard.
“It is worse than what is called dying, when the thin cord
between soul and body is torn. It is a pain which nothing can
compare to,” he said sternly, and nodded to himself.
I was used to incomprehensible speeches from him. He
often muttered names to himself, the meaning of which was
quite incomprehensible to me, named people with whom he
could not possibly have come into contact with. But I was a
boy, didn’t think much about such things, and thought to myself:
“Today he’s crazy again, that Sennon!”

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 205- 209

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bible, faith, god, jesus, writing on January 12, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

With that, he stood up, told me to eat the meal he had
ordered, a chocolate pudding with jams, and then to go to sleep.
I saw him slowly leave the room, with a friendly face,
holding a stick with a golden pomegranate daintily pressed to
his chin. After a few days I got up, and this all the more gladly,
as in the last days various noises, coming from the outside,
such as shouts, whistles and voices, had disturbed the silence of
my room.
With the help of the servant of the inn, I dressed and had
my hair done, during which I perceived that the silver hoop of
old age had fully descended on my head during my illness. The
good-natured servant told me many horror stories from France,
where blood flowed in streams and a human life was not worth
three pennies. The plague of the frenzy for freedom was
already spreading, and even in this otherwise calm and quiet
old-fashioned little town, all kinds of disgusting and unpleasant
things had happened in the last few days, which had been of
the journeymen and the erection of a liberty tree. However, the
city council had wisely submitted a petition to the highest
authority for cavalry and a battalion of infantry, which, as the
princely book keeper Gailer had informed him confidentially,
should be complied with as soon as possible.
When I had finished, I slowly descended to the dining
room and found there at the common table, to my great delight,
Doctor Schlurich, who immediately left his place and sat down
next to me.
We naturally got into a conversation about the exciting
events in the city, which had become like a faint flame to the
immense blaze of purple in France, but still seemed worthy of
attention. I said that I felt a great desire to go to the city of
Paris, to study the immense changes there at close quarters and
observe them. I could not conceal from him that the movement
that had begun there was of great interest to me, was
meaningful for the whole of mankind and downright promising.
Doctor Schlurich looked at me with a very thoughtful
look and said that he was somewhat surprised to see a
nobleman from an old and famous lineage see anything but
cheap disgust in these events. The profound upheaval which
was only in its infancy could not possibly be welcomed by a
caste whose privileged existence rests on an artificial nimbus
and a carefully sanctified tradition. He asked me, however, not
to misunderstand him. Because his initial astonishment about
my behavior was a thoroughly joyful one.
I replied that I had suffered a self-inflicted humiliation in
my youth that had given me the opportunity to go to school
among people of the lowest classes, which, whether it was
good or bad, had given me the opportunity as a student of
freeing myself from all arrogance and conceit of status. In
addition, I had gained the valuable awareness that the so-called
differences in standing were created by artificially erected and
easily removable barriers, which had arisen and were
maintained, to deprive the children of the poor from any better
education and the cultivation of their noble feelings, which
later on resulted in their crudeness and ignorance. The
undeniable merits of the society to which the nobility and the
refined bourgeoisie enjoyed, were only the result of a carefully
conducted education. If this could only once be shared not just
with the privileged classes, but with all members of the human
race, humanity would not only protect itself with the noblest
weapon, but it would also bring an immeasurable abundance of
talents and abilities into a new light that has never existed
before. Indeed those places, where they shyly blossom in spite
of all the pressure, and are suppressed as dangerous to the state
without any knowledge.
“You are a nobleman in the inner sense of the word,” said
the doctor and bowed.
I felt the blush of shame rise to my face, and silently I
thought of many things in my life, which were of an ugly
nature and would always remain as stains on me.
“However, cher haran,” the doctor continued, “I don’t
know whether, if you were to ask for my advice, I would advise
you, to witness the great upheaval in the immediate vicinity,
that is to say, in Paris. Consider:
If one cleans a neglected place in his garden, in order to
grow useful and lovely plants, and removes the old stones and
debris, ugly worms, woodlice, centipedes and all kinds of nasty
creatures, which now crawl from their dark places, run around
and fall on each other in sudden greed. So it is also with those
social changes that are called revolutions. Until the noble core,
the light of freedom, shows itself, there is abominable work to
be done, which perhaps people can only see who look back
after many years, but to those who experience it, their souls are
filled with such horror that they no longer recognize anything
else, and even lose hope. Revolutions are filled with filth,
blood, shouting, evil deeds, wild development of the animal
instincts and base greed, and it takes a long time for the jet of
fire that shoots up to become pure and free of filthy cinders,
and the dominion of the senseless to move into the hands of
sensible men.”
A wild yelling and screaming outside the windows
interrupted him. In the dining room there was a hurried pushing
back of the chairs and jumping up. One saw people outside
walk by on the street, first individually, then dense masses, and
behind them came a closed united front of dragoons, which
struck with the flat of their swords and thus cleared the street.
All this passed quickly, the shouting and the clattering hoof
beats on the cobblestones disappeared, and in a few minutes
the street was quiet again, covered with lost hats, sticks and
other things.
“Our good Germans are slowly maturing,” Doctor
Schlurich returned back to the table. “And many a thing will
still pass over our people, until they are able to assert inner and
outer freedom, from which, by the way, even the French will
still be without. The merit, however, of having made a start
could be left to them, if one did not have to concede it from the
standpoint of higher justice from the English viewpoint.
Nevertheless, Herr Baron: The Germans will, after much
suffering and hardship be the chosen ones, from whom the
salvation of the world emanates. This is my belief.”
We were silent for a long time, and our conversation
turned to other things. I learned that Doctor Schlurich, born in
Köllen, had settled here, not so much to earn money, which in
his circumstances was not necessary, but in order to calmly
work on unknown phenomena of a psychical nature, with
whose research he was mainly concerned. Here he had made a
very special find. Namely, in a house of the city lived a
Demoiselle Köckering, who, in the company of various doctors
was often put into a magnetic sleep and in this state was asked
questions about the past and the future, as well as the most
diverse things to which she answered completely and correctly.
If I happened to be interested in such secrets of nature, which
only the unintelligent can connect with ghosts and devils, it
would be easy for him to introduce me there. Since the person
must be kept secret and lives from her art, it is, however,
customary to give a douceur in gold at the first entrance.
I was immediately ready to be led by him into the house,
and thanked him for his trust.
When it began to dawn, we went on our way.
A cool, damp wind was blowing from the Rhine. The wet
air penetrated chillingly through our coats. In several streets we
were stopped by patrols on horseback with loaded carbines, but
were allowed to pass as persons of distinction.
After some wandering we found the house “Zum
silbernen Schneck”, in which the demoiselle lived.
Only after knocking several times was the door opened to
us by a man, who was finally able to hide his hesitation for fear
of the craftsmen and ship’s servants, who, together with the evil
folk from the taverns, hooting “Ca ira” and hammering on the
gates, had raged in the alley a short while ago to get the
prostitutes living in the house next door and take them with
them. Soldiers would have quickly driven the screamers away
and then would themselves have gone through the door with
the red lantern.
We climbed the narrow staircase by the light of the
tallow candle that dripped between his fingers, and after a
special kind of knock, were led into a bright, octagonal
chamber, whose windows were tightly curtained. There was
nothing to be seen in it but an armchair upholstered in worn
brocade, next to which, on two small tables, burned many-
armed candlesticks, and in front of it a row of ordinary wooden
armchairs, on which some men sat waiting. They turned their
heads toward us. Both could be easily classed among the
scholars by their dress and the expression of their faces.
Doctor Schlurich and I approached the waiting people
and gave our names, which was answered in the same way.
“-especially the prophecies of the demoiselle should be
strictly examined,” one of the gentlemen, who was addressed
as “Spectability” continued his speech, which was interrupted
by our entrance.
“All the more so, as the man who pretends to put her into
a magnetic sleep collects one louisdor per person. My esteemed
colleague Professor Fulvius, who watched the demonstration
was not satisfied in all respects. Those bluish efflorescence’s
which you could observe perfectly, on the hands of
Emmerentia Gock in Ebersweiler, who is said to be possessed
by the devil, are completely absent, and everything that is
going on is just limited to some at times certainly astonishing
messages about the lives and fates of the people present.”
“Whereby it is respectfully to be noted,” said a small,
skinny man with a reddish wig in the highest falsetto “that the
prophesies of the woman, in so far as they refer to the future,
are completely worthless scientifically, because at present they
are unverifiable.”

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 195- 199

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus on January 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I remained mute with amazement. It seemed to me as if I
were standing in front of an open gate, which I had carelessly
passed, without knowing that behind it was hidden the solution
to all questions.
“Understand me, brother. I’ll show you the way.”
“The wish at the moment of death –“, I said to myself.
“To take the consciousness beyond death — to save the memory
–“
“You have understood. Farewell!”
Slowly glittering in the twilight, his figure became
indistinct, only his face still shone.
“Stay, stay with me -” I wanted to call, but no sound
came out of my mouth.
Then he said slowly and clearly words, whose meaning I
no longer understood:
“Hamd olsun -tekrar görüschdüjümüze!”
I was awake, didn’t see him anymore.
“Isa bektschi!” I shouted. “Stay with me!”
But only my own hoarse voice echoed in the wide space.
Why had I understood him before and now I didn’t? And
it had been the same language – I remembered it as one
remembers a blown note whose tone, the sequence of which is
fading more and more from memory.
Hastily I spoke the unknown words to myself twice, three
times, until they were indelibly burned into my memory like
the words of a prayer recited a thousand times.
Why did my heart ache so much?
How many questions I still had to ask! How I would have
liked to ask him about Aglaja, about Zephyrine, about the
haunting of the night of hell.
Didn’t he say we were one?
“I am you?”
He was in me, and only from me could the answer come.
From the depths of consciousness, when the hidden would
awake. When the state occurred, in which all riddles spread out
legibly, like clear writing.
So calmly my heart beat, free from all fear, free from
expectation, and so safe and happy was I as a child in a
mother’s arms.
“Death, where is thy sting?”
Like distant, comforting ringing these words from the
holy book came to me. There was no death for the one who
wanted to live. Life for all eternity, life until complete
purification, until the purification, until the glorious emergence,
until the conscious being in God. Tears of joy ran down my
cheeks.
Everything was only a wandering in the darkness, and to
me shone a faint glimmer of the inextinguishable light that
shines at the end of the path through the eternities. As far as it
might be, as much fear and hardship still lurked at the sides of
the path – which led to the goal. Isa, the guardian, had shown it
to me. What could happen to me, and who could harm the
immortal part of me?
The door opened. The Magister Hemmetschnur came to
my bed, holding in his hand a silver cup with a cool potion of
mint and sugar water.
“You must have met a strange monk on the stairs,” I said
quickly. “A man in a brown robe with a black turban, and
yellow beads around his neck.”
“The fever is rising -” he grumbled peevishly to himself.
“No, no,” I implored him. “The stranger was with me just
now, standing there before my bed. He could not have gone
unnoticed.”
And I described Ewli to him once again and urged him to
call him back in a hurry.
“Baron,” said the magister. “You have had a dream. For
half an hour I’ve been sitting on a chair by the corridor window
reading in front of your door. No one has entered your room, so
no one could have come out of your room. That’s what
common logic says.”
Exhausted, I sank back into my pillows.
“Dreamed -?”
Like a bitter taste it came to my tongue. But then I started
up again up.
“Hemmetschnur, you have been in Stambul for a long
time, and many languages are known to you. What does the
sentence I am about to recite to you mean?”
And slowly, emphasizing word by word exactly, I recited
to him the last sentence which had reached me:
“Hamd olsun tekrar görüschdüjümüzel”.
The magister’s eyes snapped open. His mouth remained
open. Then he wiped his face with his hand, looked at me again
and shook his head:
“By the diamond of the Great Mogul! Baron -it is the
purest Turkish!”
“What does it mean? I want to know what it means!”
I demanded in my impatience.
He drew a deep breath, looked at me with a shy look and
spoke:
“It means, thank God, we will meet again!”
“Thank God!”
I repeated with a sigh. I laughed with joy and patted his
haggard hand that held the cup.
“Strange things are happening in this witch’s room this
day,” he nodded at me. “The man, that you have seen, Baron
Dronte–that’s what the Islamic dervishes look like and no
others. This is stranger than strange!”
“I also want to give you the means so that you can escape
from this house, Herr Magister”, I said quickly. “You have had
to stay until now, I can see that. But since it is for my sake that
you martyred yourself here, it is also my duty to help you!”
Then he fell to his knees before my bed, so that the cup
fell to the ground and spilled its contents.
“God bless you deeply, you great and kind man!” he
sobbed and kissed my hand. “A little longer and I would have
escaped in another way, hanging from the window cross, and
rather in the deepest underworld than in the mill of the
miserable days here.”
He picked up the cup.
“I hasten to bring another drink, gracious lord!” he cried,
laughing and crying and ran out.
My eyes fell closed.
Delicious languor held me embraced.
“Thank God – we shall meet again!”
Thank God! Thank God!
Now, whatever would come, would come. And nothing
of what had been in my life, neither good nor bad, had
happened without a reason.
Thank God!
It was mostly quiet around me, and only the thanks came
and went. I preferred that to when the old man stomped in, sat
down on my bed, sprinkled everything with snorting tobacco
and started to tell dirty stories, or told adventures from his and
my father’s old days.
The one I got along best with was the magister, who was
busy and ready to serve me. I felt his grateful look. Most of all
I was pleased that he did not want to leave, although he had
been given good travel money, but thought to wait until I was
undoubtedly well and in good health.
He provided me with all the necessities, and when it
became too bad with the beard, he barbered me with great skill.
When I was alone again, I took the hand mirror that he had left
on the bedside and looked into it. Yellow and haggard my face
looked out of it and silver frost lay on my hair. Yes, I had
grown old, old and tired. With melancholy I looked at the
leafless crowns of the poplars in front of my windows, which,
like me, seemed doomed to die soon, but this melancholy was
mixed with a joyful confidence. With strong hope I thought of
the stone that I had seen in the graveyard of my homeland, the
stone that bore the saying of Herr Thomas More: Non omnis
moriar, I will not die completely.
Again I held with an uncertain hand the round mirror in
front of my face, and as I held the glass a little obliquely, a
sweet woman’s face with red hair appeared, which was only a
little darker than the gold hood that adorned it. It was the
portrait hanging on the wall of Lady Heva Weinschrötter,
which had been reflected back. The gray eyes looked at me half
questioningly, half knowingly, around the mouth seemed to
play a secret smile but it changed under my gaze into a heart-
broken expression. I could no longer turn my eyes away from
her; I could not resist the compulsion that was pressing in on
me.
The roundness of the mirror widened, shrouded
everything like a fine moon mist, and drew me under its spell.
Gradually, I felt as if I were among people of another time and
was one of them.
Wasn’t it this room-? A table stretched out on the wall,
and I was sitting there myself in a black coat trimmed with
narrow strips of fur. Two equally dressed people were to my
right and left, and at the narrow end of the table the deeply
stooped and blinking Magister Hemmetschnur wrote. It was
him, even though he was wearing a white monastic habit and
over it a black throw-over. And in front of the table, with
loosened, copper-gold hair, stood Lady Heva Weinschrötter –
no, for God’s sake, it was Zephyrine in the dark gray, blood-
encrusted torture shirt, from which her snow-white skin shone.
She looked at me with crazy eyes; her ankles were blue, her
hands were tied to a black leather rope, which ran through the
top of the bare iron ring in the vaulted ceiling, and its other end
was held by a human being in his coarse hand, who gazed with
small, treacherously puffy eyes out from the holes of a dull red
girdle that covered his face and broad shoulders.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 190- 194

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, god, jesus, life, writing on January 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Somebody came, put me in a cradle and sang to me, so
that I could fall asleep.
But I was awake again in a moment. Lying in the bed
with the angel heads, I saw in the first morning light the
candles, the light rectangles of the windows, I wanted to move,
but my limbs were too heavy.
“You have a fever!” said a dull voice.
Next to me, in a patched robe, sat the magister stirring
something in a glass.
“I happened to see you in the meadow outside doing
strange leaps, Baron,” said Hemmetschnur. “Johann and I ran
out there and with great difficulty put you to bed. That is all I
know. If I had not still been up the entire night over the cursed
wood bills who knows whether we would not have picked you
up frozen to death in the cold dew.”
He held the glass to my lips, and I drank.
“Am I sick then?” I asked.
A great weakness was in me.
“It seems so,” he returned. “I knew how it would turn out
if one had to lie in this room at night, and especially on the last
of April, at Walpurgis. The master of the hound is already up
and asks vehemently what the noise in the break of day was all
about. I must tell him; otherwise all hell will break loose. Get
some sleep and next time keep your hands off things that are
not fun to play with!”
And he pointed with his finger at the blue pot that lay
shattered on the floor.
His face seemed to me to be as morose and off color as
the nasty day that was slowly creeping up. I closed my eyes
and called inside with all my might for the Ewli, who did not
want to appear to me.
I had indeed become seriously ill and lay weak and faint
in the four-poster bed, whose bruised angel heads made faces at
me when the fever heat rose.
The magister took good care of me, and the master of the
hound appeared once, with his foot still wrapped, sat next to
me for a while and again told me a stunt that he and my father
had performed at the duke’s court, by putting a large water frog
into the night gown of a distinguished lady.
In the evening between eleven and half past eleven I
heard his loud singing. I distinguished the manner of a hunter’s
song:
“A little fox I want to catch,
Red as my beloved’s hair.”
This song made me weep in my weakness, and I thought
with new, hot tears of my Zephyrine in the rose bushes, as she
had said, “I carry under my heart a little vixen of the female
sex,” and how horribly it had turned out.
And yet it had been so long ago that I was allowed to
believe that the pain in my chest had cried itself to death.
My eyes became wet around Aglaja, too, and I saw her
again with the glittering crown of the dead in the flickering of
the candles.
What purpose had my unhappy, miserable life served? To
whom had it been of any use? Passions, all the garbage of sins,
and wicked ghosts were its contents, and now the path
descended gently toward the end. Oh, how I resented myself so
deeply when I looked back at the lost years! Hardworking
farmers plowed their meager field in trickling sweat, craftsmen
worked their hands without rest for the sake of their daily bread,
doctors sat at the beds of the sick, full of care and heavy with
knowledge, scholars researched and pondered with
extinguished lamps, musicians delighted with the sweet playing
of the human heart. And me? Here I lay, a diseased trunk that
bore neither leaves nor blossoms and was devoid of any fruit of
life. Hans Dampf himself had not staggered more uselessly
through existence than I had. But suffering, suffering had been
heaped upon me to the fullest extent, and now I felt more than
pain. For within me was the terrible feeling of purposelessness
and the ripeness of decay.
“Everything served your purification,” said a soft and
mild voice in a language that was completely foreign to me.
Yet I understood it, as if it were my own.
Beside my bed, in the twilight, stood, enclosed in a very
fine, clear bluish light of its own, Ewli.
It was him. Under the black turban between the arches of
the brows was the red horizontal mark; the eyes shone like
black fires, in which the noble, brownish face was without
wrinkles. Around the neck and on the chest were yellow amber
beads on the reddish-brown cloth of the robe.
“Who are you -?” I asked.
My voice was toneless, like the voices one hears in a
dream.
“I am here,” it wafted toward me.
Around the red lips, which crowned a small black beard,
went a mild, understanding smile, which was like a soft caress
for me.
“At last you have come -” I whispered.
“I have come.”
“Is this your true form?” I asked.
“It is the shape you gave me.”
“I gave you?”
“You chose this shape.”
I suddenly saw myself as a child, immersed in adoring in
front of the glass lintel, under which stood the small image of
the one who now appeared to me, as he had so often before. I
feared very much that he would slip away this time too, but
Ewli, as if he had guessed my fear, smiled softly and said, “You
are close to me.”
Then it was as if I saw, over his shoulder, a distorted,
mischievous face with yellow, piercing eyes, and I cried out,
“Another is also close to me!”
“He is everywhere,” answered Ewli. “He always walked
beside you and beside me.”
“Fangerle -” I groaned.
“To name is to call,” the voice continued. “Give him no
name, and he is no more.”
The sickeningly grinning face behind him disappeared
into the half-light, and was no more. A golden gleam entered
the eyes which looked at me benignly, like a reflection of
immeasurable glory.
“You have walked so deeply through hardship and
torment, that he has no more power over you. You are near the
goal, brother.”
“Help me!” I moaned. “I am so weak -.”
“You are tired from the long way and still have more to
walk. Only you alone can help you, for I am you,” he said.
“I don’t understand you -“
I lifted my aching head.
“What then is the goal?”
“Eternal life,” he said, and in that moment, the gloomy
chamber became so dazzlingly bright, that I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again and feared to look into the
void, I saw, to my indescribable consolation, that Ewli was still
with me.
“I am Isa Bektschi, Isa the guardian,” I heard him say.
“So you watch over me?”
“Always over you.”
“And where is my path going, Isa Bektschi?”
With a trembling heart, I looked at him.
“To the rebirth,” he replied, and over his unspeakably
beautiful face, once more shone a bright radiance.
“But death-“
“The immortal returns to God,” It sounded solemnly.
“Every man’s immortal?” I asked, reaching out to him.
“Every human being.”
“So everyone is reborn, Ewli?” Sweet hope descended
upon me.
“Twofold is the way of rebirth according to the law,” he
spoke, and his voice was deep like the sound of bells.
“Unconscious and conscious.”
Fear seized me at this word.
“And I -?” I groaned out. “Help me, Brother!”
“Only you can.”
Agonizing effort was in me, the ardent desire to
understand.
I wanted to stand up, to ask, to plead – but I could not. I
looked at him imploringly, praying in mute fear that he would
stay. But he spoke quietly and insistently, and from his gaze
poured a bright glow into my soul.
“Take note! A powerful ruler and wise man once had a
villain put to death, and there was a voice in him that no human
being should end another man’s life prematurely. When now
the condemned knelt on the blood leather to receive the fatal
stroke he looked at the ruler with a look in which there was so
much fervent hatred that the wise ruler was frightened. Then
the ruler said:
“If you desist from evil, I will give you life.”
Then the evildoer laughed and cried out, “You only dare
not let me be killed, for you fear the revenge that my departed
spirit will take on you.”
The ruler looked at him and said:
“As little as your head, separated from your body can
move towards me and pronounce the word revenge, that is how
little I fear revenge from you!”
The condemned man laughed and shouted.
“Executioner, do your duty!”
The sword fell down, and to the horror of those present,
the head of the slain man rolled towards the ruler, stood in front
of him on the cut neck and formed with the lips, clearly
recognizable, the word “Revenge!”, while the gaze took on a
horrible rigidity due to the extreme effort and willpower. The
faithful saw it in great fear. Then the wise man spoke:
“Fear nothing! I may have done wrong in having this
man killed, yet I have protected myself from his anger. For, see,
he had to use all his willpower at the moment of death in order
to carry out what I had told him. And thereby no power has
remained for his later evil intentions. His will has been
consumed in a useless effort, and when he returns, he will be
without consciousness of what has happened to him. If only he
had thought of how to retain consciousness beyond death, he
would have become an Ewli, one who returns. But no evil one
can become an Ewli!”

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 160- 164

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, fiction, jesus, short-story, writing on January 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

Our entrance attracted noisy attention. Immediately they
dragged Görg to the table and quickly brewed a mixture in a
mug of beer, wine, spit and pipe juice, which he had to empty
immediately as a toast to the well-being of the four senses. But
me they mockingly addressed as “Your Honor” and asked if I
did not know that one has to make three bows and a scrape of
the foot when entering, such an illustrious group or if the fine
gentleman felt like a few passes with the rapier. This I could
have in a moment.
“Are you still acting so wild, Bavarian Haymon?” I asked
and had to smile wistfully, when I recognized my old Order
brother.
He sat there with his mouth open, as if he had been
struck by a blow.
“I know you well,” I said, stepping close to him. “Even if
time has run away!”
“Pinch me, Hoibusch, pinch me!” he sputtered and
nudged the student next to him. “A ghost stands before me-“
“Ei, what, a ghost!” said I. “its Mahomet and no other!”
Something like a pathetic joy was in me, that I saw him
again, although degenerated and aged before his time. And on
the lapels of his skimpy coat he still wore the letters of our
secret slogan, artfully entwined from silver wire:
“Vivat circulus fratrum amicitiae!”
Long live the brotherly circle of the Order of Friendship.
I pointed with my finger and said smilingly:
“Vivat, crescat, floreat!”
Then he jumped up on both feet and shouted:
“Murderous hail of bombs! Stinking foxes, kneel down!
An old Amiciste stands before you, Mahomet, who has wiped
more blood from his thrusting blade than runs in your sour
veins. O brother of heart! What a race has taken our place!
Drinking from little cups, crying for their mothers when they
run out of veal…and run into the lecture hall with their pens
and notebooks. -O the old times! O Amicitial!”
He threw his long arms around me, kissed me
resoundingly on both cheeks, and the tears trickled from his
inflamed eyes.
“And now here, by my green side, Herr Brother, and that
none open their mouth till Mahomet has told us about the best
of his famous life experiences – Hey, Ball Mill Innkeeper, hey,
Bärbel, jump and swing and bring as much wine as the table
can bear. And the farmer shall join in the drinking!”
But he had gone out and was no longer to be seen.
The innkeeper now approached the table very politely
and asked what we wanted. I looked at him with a certain
horror. In his one eye was a false squint, the other lay as a
white, blind glass ball between slitted eyelids. A fiery red cut
scar, shaped like an ‘S’, ran across the bald skull, eye and the
cheek, to the fat double chin. I knew that murderers marked
traitors with such a cruel mark.
Soon there were large bowls of venison on the table
along with flagons of wine on the table, and a wild carousing
began, in which I participated with caution. My heart was
loaded with feelings that had nothing to do with those of the
people at the table, and I had enough to answer Haymon’s
questions. The three others were listening quite modestly and
the girl looked at us like a cow at a new gate.
When the candles had burned down and Haymon’s
tongue grew heavier and heavier, I first learned how his life
had turned out, how, when all his parents’ property was gone,
he had to be glad to be able to crawl under somewhere as a
town clerk. And that was also the end since his hand was so
shaky from the continued drunkenness that his squiggles were
no longer legible. Now he had set out to find one of his former
tenants who had become rich, from whom he thought he could
still claim something, however little it was, and while
wandering he had met the three students today and continued
together on the path with them. After a long wandering back
and forth in the wild forest they had found the lonely Ball Mill
about two hours before I arrived with Görg, and were glad to
find a roof for the night, even more so, as a whizzing west
wind brought up ever wilder clouds and the earth smelled of
rain.
Now, however, the many wines had won Bavarian
Haymon’s heart completely and utterly, and with many gulps,
belches and weeping he could not do enough to remember
those wild times full of youthful foolishness and exuberance in
the magical false light of memory, keeping the good and the
pleasant, but completely forgetting the excess of adversity and
bitter worries. And after each sentence he spoke, he let a new
cup trickle down his skinny, knitted neck, while the three
young students only dared to talk quietly in a whisper so as not
to interrupt the dialogue of their mossy superior. I was hurting
enough. Friendship and youth were gone.
“Strike and heavy death, Herr Brother!” He cried out one
more time, “What kind of guys we were! Do you still
remember the same night, how tall Heilsbronner gave up the
ghost in the road dirt? How the brave Montanus emptied the
glass boot into his gullet for the last time? O brother, Finch has
also perished, drowned in the Murg, and the Portugieser has
rotted alive in the Spittel in Erlangen, so badly did the Dancing
Lily, with whom he had lived, make such a mess of him. And
Wechler, I don’t know if you would still know him, has become
a cathedral lord and no longer acknowledges me. O vanitas,
vanitatum vanitas! Gone are all the oaths and brotherly love!
Hey, Bärbel! Where is that bitch in heat? Give me some light!
Are we to remain in this hellish darkness? The three vixens
have enough money to pay for several candles!”
Then the innkeeper came out from behind the tiled stove,
where he had been lurking without our knowledge and said
rudely and hoarsely that it was bedtime, and new candles had
to be fetched from afar. Only a stump remained, and that was
just enough to find the sleeping room.
One of the young boys wanted to say something but
another one next to him, a quiet, nice boy who, as I had
observed the whole time, had drunk almost nothing and was
quite sober quickly nudged him and said softly, but in such a
way that I could hear it:
“Quiet, Hans! We may yet need your candles!”
The lout of a landlord without further ado took the last
candle, which was barely enough for a quarter of an hour, from
the table and mumbled, “Now whoever wants to sleep, let him
follow me. Who does not like it can squat in the dark room.
Nothing more will be poured out!”
Haymon wanted to stay, but I quickly took him under the
arm, and so we went behind the innkeeper and his big dog to
find our resting place.
We walked through a long corridor with several thick,
dusty or boarded-up windows. Haymon’s intoxication came out
as we walked, and I heard him say something about a
goddamned town piper, who he wanted to wipe out.
Meanwhile I remembered that the farmer was not with us.
“Where is my driver?” I asked the innkeeper, whose giant
shadow slid along the wall.
“Rehwang?” he grumbled, half looking around. “He’s
long since gone home with his harness.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I was annoyed. “What
shall I do tomorrow?”
The hulking fellow stopped in front of a door and
shrugged his shoulders.
“If the gentleman had drunk less and had paid attention
to Rehwang, he could easily have kept him here. It’s not my job
to care about such things.”
He threw a sidelong glance with his one-eye at me.
“And who knows if tomorrow will be so urgent.”
I kept silent, and he pushed open a wooden door with his
foot, holding his hand in front of the stump in the tin
candelabra.
We entered and found ourselves in a large, completely
empty hall, which had probably once been the pouring floor. In
the middle of the room stood, oddly enough, a thick, round
column, which supported the main beam of the ceiling on a
wide annulus. Star-shaped around this column were five berths,
better than we had thought. On clean, fresh straw were coarse,
but white sheets laid down, hard against the pillar there was a
head cushion for everyone, and five thick red-woolen blankets
were spread out for covering.
“We don’t have any better than this in the Ball Mill,” said
the innkeeper, as if embarrassed.
“The gentlemen must make do.”
We testified that we were satisfied, and so he, smiling
and bending down, put the burning light on a stool, showed us
the little luggage that was ours, and under the evil growl of his
mutt, wished us a good night. We heard him shuffle away
through the hallway and then throw the heavy front door shut,
sliding the bar and locking it with the turning of a key.
The two who had led Haymon so far now let him slide
gently onto one of the beds, and it was not two minutes before
he began to snore and mumble meaningless words, which the
wine had given him. A frightening restlessness was in me, and
some dark foreboding lay warningly and heavy in the pit of my
stomach. I took the light and looked around. Sooty cobwebs
hung like banners of mourning from the old beams of the
ceiling; the three small windows with their blinded, lead-lined
bull’s-eye panes could not be opened. A choking musty cellar
odor brooded in the wide room with the column. The wide ring
it wore at the top had recently been whitewashed, so that it
stood out glaringly against the lurid ceiling.
When I turned around, I saw that my feelings were
shared by the three students. None of them made any
preparations to visit the tempting beds or to put their swords
away.
“It smells like old blood in here,” said the bright-eyed
Hoibusch, who had already impressed me with his sobriety and
calmness at the table.
Also Hans Garnitter, who was lighting the candles said,
“This is where the devil is supposed to spend the night!” and
the third, a young gentleman of Sollengau, who gradually
became free of the wine spirits, nodded apprehensively.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 150- 154

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, fiction, god, jesus, writing on December 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

I assured the spiritual gentleman most eagerly that I had
seen the aforementioned man from afar several times in my life,
but that I had never spoken a word to him.
The priest looked at me and shook his head.
“So the experience is now again a miracle and in need of
some explanation. Namely, when the old woman and the tailor
went their way with the brushwood and I was alone with the
stranger in the brown robe and eye to eye with him, I felt the
natural desire to learn from him something about his origin and
the destination of his journey. Moreover, there was in his look
and in the truly noble features of his face such a strong
attraction that it was impossible for me to keep my eyes off
him. That he was from the Orient, I recognized easily by his
appearance. And since I had once learned the Arabic language
years ago, I dared to use this language and the solemn greeting
‘Salem aleikum!’, that is: Peace be with you!”
And in this tongue the stranger exceedingly kindly and
sweetly gave this beautiful blessing back to me and added:
“When the sun sets for the third time, a man will appear in this
place who is looking for me. Call him your guest!”
And when I agreed to this, moved by a peculiar emotion,
and added the question of where I should direct the newcomer,
he only answered:
“To the big house at the end of the forest.”
With that he bowed his head with a beautiful gesture and
went to the forest, from which Nenin had fetched her
brushwood. But no sooner had the first bushes covered him,
when it occurred to me that there could be many of them,
especially if locks are also included. And then I ran after him,
in order to get more details out of him. But no matter how I
searched and called, I could find no trace of him. Certainly he
had gone his way with quicker steps than I had suspected, and
disappeared from my sight. I also confess that this experience
had upset me so much that I can no longer say today how long
I stood in thought while he walked away from me. This makes
it easy to explain his disappearance without the assumption of a
supernatural event.
After these words, silence descended upon us, and we sat
for a long time, each occupied with his own thoughts. That
which I would have liked to say, I had to keep to myself.
Nothing could have moved me to reveal to another, even if he
might be as worthy and as trustworthy as this priest, the dark
and hidden ways of my life. And that is what I would have had
to explain to him, even casually, my inexplicable connection to
Ewli. But was there an explanation at all? Was it not rather that
by the last appearance of the miracle man everything had only
become more confused and unclear?
Unless, and this thought seized me with penetrating force,
that the friend of my childhood, now that old age had taken me
in its weary arms, considered that the time had come to reveal
himself to me. Then, of course the appearance at the baker’s,
the broken wagon wheel, the Arabic-speaking priest were clear,
even if unusual signposts to that place, to the “great house”,
where at last the inexplicable and incomprehensible things in
my life would find an explanation of some kind.
“Well – in any case, it is good not to forget the arts
practiced in younger years,” my host interrupted my thoughts.
“And so I am glad that for once in this life I have unexpectedly
and strangely used my knowledge of Arabic!
“I wish, reverend Herr, that I had been in your place, and
skilled in the same language, to be able to speak with Ewli.”
Hastily, the clergyman put the pipe down on the table and
looked me in the face with an almost frightened look and
repeated:
“Ewli? How do you come up with that word?”
I saw that now, after all, I had to share somewhat of the
role that the man from the East had played in my life, and I told
him in short words about the incident in my earliest childhood,
with the little wax man under the glass and the collapsing
ceiling above my shell bed, and how the figurine disappeared
in this accident and was never found and how he was always
called “The Oriental or Ewli” without my knowing what this
last word meant.
The priest drummed his fingers on the table, shook his
head several times as if to deny a thought that was trying to
emerge, and at last he only managed to utter only one word:
“Mysterium!”
“Whether the word Ewli implies a name or a
characteristic I do not know. It comes from my grandfather,
who brought the rarity back from the lakeside city of Venice
and held it in high esteem. When I was a child, there was –“
With great, hitherto unseen vivacity, my host interrupted
me:
“So listen then, Baron Dronte, how divine providence
often intervenes in human life and how, according to the will of
the Most High, people must find each other and have to
communicate with each other, that no coincidence, as it is
called, could ever bring to light. Today, when I made the
necessary arrangements for your reception, I was called to a
dying man, named Milan Bogdan, a very elderly cottager, who
had been an Austrian soldier and who had been given his
severance pay and had come here many years ago with this and
a few guilders he had saved. He stayed, got married and had a
small sprite which he had obtained, perhaps from the eternal
gardens of God. This old Croatian imperial soldier was a good
and righteous man and, moreover, a good Catholic Christian, in
whom it was my pleasure to visit not only for the sake of his
faith, but also for his diligence and his peaceableness. He has
been lying for a long time, and as often as the barber has
drained the water from him, it rises to his heart again and
brings danger of death. That’s why Bogdan had already
received the last sacraments two days ago with much devotion.
And so I was surprised that he hurriedly asked for me today.
But I went to him without hesitation, and when I saw that he
had sent his old wife and his two sons out of the room I said
that this was not necessary, since he had a clean account with
the good Lord and that a new confession was certainly not
necessary. But he fiercely insisted on his will, and so they left
him alone with me, and I sat down at his bedside.
“What else is troubling you, dear son?” I asked.
“Nothing is distressing me – nothing, reverend,” he said
with a heavy heart. “My sins are forgiven. And yet I cannot
sleep quietly in God’s bosom until a pious and learned man
explains to me an event that happened to me when I was a
soldier and which I think about now more than ever.”
So I challenged him to talk unabashedly, and then he
explained something to me, which I share with you, Baron
Dronte, as something that is not under the seal of confession
and, above all, a strange fact, especially for you.
Bogdan was thus abducted as a young infantryman in a
battalion on the Turkish border during a skirmish on the Sow,
as the river flowing into the Danube is called, by wild
Bashibozuks. In Turkish captivity he had to do hard work in a
treadmill that irrigated the fields of a mountain. Apart from the
work, he was not badly off, and was allowed to move freely in
the small town of his imprisonment. Thus he met a young Turk
of great beauty, but with a mark between his eyebrows, who
took very kindly care of the poor prisoner and did him a lot of
good without any reward. But as it often happens in the
unsanitary regions there, Bogdan came down with the heavy
misery or blood dysentery so that he became more miserable
and weaker and could no longer eat any food. The young Turk
cared for him faithfully and showed a lot of sorrow, often
asking Bogdan whether he could be allowed to grant him a
wish. And when it came to the last and Bogdan could hardly
speak any more for weakness, he smiled and said to the Turk:
“As bad as I am, brother, I could be helped if I could
drink from the colored glass that stands on my mother’s table,
from the plum brandy which is in our cellar in Zagreb.”
Then the Turk went out the door. Bogdan became weaker
and weaker, and he gave his soul to God. When not an hour
had passed, the Turk entered the door again and carried in his
hand the glass painted with colorful flowers which Bogdan’s
mother had filled with strong plum brandy and held it to the
lips of the sick man. He drank and fell into a deep sleep. When
he awoke, he asked for his savior. But no one seemed to know
anything about him. In his dilemma he called Hodja, the
Mohammedan priest, and told him what had happened to him
and how strange it was that the Turk had traveled so many
miles there and back in an hour. Then Hodja said:
“Know that your friend was an Ewli. One who has died
and came back. Good to you, that you have a guide through the
kingdom of Death!”
Bogdan recovered and in an exchange of prisoners came
back to his homeland. And there his mother told him that on
the day of his recovery, a stranger knocked on her door and
asked for the colored glass and brandy. And without
understanding she gave him both, and after a short time there
was another knock at the window, the stranger stood and
pushed the empty glass back to her and spoke:
“Rejoice, mother, your son returns!”
And so it happened. – This, Baron Dronte, is what the
dying soldier told me this afternoon and asked me if it was a
sin that in the hour of his death he had thought so much on
Ewli, his face and the red mark between his eyebrows.
I replied that he should rather turn his thoughts to the
Lord Jesus. He was doing this with all his might, was Bogdan’s
answer, but the face of the Lord Jesus in his thoughts without
his intervention took on the features of Ewli. I saw that the
poor man was in agony of conscience, and yet he could not
master this image. I comforted him and said that it was up to
the Lord and Savior alone to decide in which form he would
show himself to him. Then Bogdan smiled and said that it was
now easy for him to go and that nothing could rob him of the
hope of a further life.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 145- 149

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bible, christianity, faith, god, jesus on December 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

“Never again -,” he groaned, leaning on his brother.
“Terrible — I had – already crossed the – threshold.”
“What’s the matter with you, Eusebius?”
“The hunchback -” he cried out. “Two heads – two
children’s heads -.”
And without consciousness he collapsed, saved from a
heavy fall by his brother’s arm. He looked at me helplessly,
spat bloody sputum and stammered:
“Enough, Lord – enough! Have mercy!”
I pressed a large gift into his hand. His poor, gaunt face
beamed with joy for a moment, and then he held out the gold to
the fainting man and shouted:
“Look here, Eusebius – look here!”
He let go of the body of the brother, who twitched softly,
gently let it slide to the ground and pointed to the gap in the
wall of the tent.
“It took a lot out of him this time,” he whispered. “The
day is already coming up. – Was the Lord pleased?”
Full of compassion for these poor people, inwardly
stirred in my innermost being, and yet with a bright glow of
supersensible hope in my chest, I walked through the gray,
rain-soaked morning towards the awakening city.
For a long time I lived quietly and absorbed only in the
memory of happy days in a small, secluded place and thought
to end my life there.
One morning, however, in front of the baker’s shop, a
casserole appeared which became of great importance for me.
A foreign artisan, who had wanted to buy bread, was accused
by the baker of trying to cheat him with fake money, amidst a
large crowd of curious people. The poor fellow, well
acquainted with the cruel punishments that were set for such
misdemeanors, fought back with all his might, when he saw me
coming, cried out with a loud voice:
“Lord, help me! Protect me!”
The people, all of whom knew me and had come to me
for the insignificant good deeds I had done to one person and
another, but especially to the children, held affection for me,
made room for me, and some of them said:
“That’s right! The Lord Baron shall decide whether it is a
gold piece or merely a bad penny, which the lad has put on the
baker’s table.”
I looked at the gold piece. It was a Turkish Zechine like
the five I had kept from the treasure in the ruin. The curly
writing on the coin appeared not only to the baker, but also to
the other people as so nonsensical that they ignored the weight
of the gold, but took it as a false ducat and the fellow for a bag
cutter.
When the people were enlightened and we weighed the
piece on the baker’s gold scales, and for greater certainty tested
it against a stone the poor wandering cloth shearer still had a
number of silver and copper coins change in addition for his
bread. I asked him how he had come into possession of the
coins, which were certainly an extremely rare type of coin. And
then I received an answer, which completely and forever
destroyed my hitherto quiet life like a fiery bolt of lightning.
A nearby stranger had given him the money, said the lad,
and told him to go to this place, where he would learn more.
Half-starved, he was trudging along the street, when a
handsome man with a black cloth around his forehead, had
come towards him. He denied trying to cheat anyone and had
gotten the money from him. Breathlessly I asked whether he
had been dressed like some kind of monk. But the lad
remembered only a black headscarf and the beautiful, dark eyes
of the mild benevolent man. He had turned around and looked
after the stranger, but he had completely disappeared from the
long, straight road.
This information, together with the certainty that the
mysterious man from the Orient was not even three days
journey from here and had shown himself in the flesh, excited
me to such an extent that I ordered a special mail coach for the
next day, to possibly follow his trail, until I would be face to
face with him and find answers to all the questions that had
occupied me for many years, indeed all my life. When I
gathered together money for the journey, I also got hold of the
Turkish zechins. I was amazed and frightened. There were only
four left. A strange feeling came over me, a search for a
memory. But it sank again, and a new mystery remained.
The next day I was already riding merrily along in the
coach and with changed horses had reached the large forest,
late in the afternoon, through which the road led to the village,
not far from the place where the honest cloth shearer had come
to his golden zechine. But just as we passed the village and the
coach driver was merrily singing the “Jäger aus Kurpfalz” on
his horn, the wheel broke and the poor musician was torn off
the seat by the reins wrapped around his left hand by the falling
horse to such an extent that he could only rise with a groan and
with a pained face explained that he needed to put cold
compresses on his sore shoulder before he could hold the reins
again. Also the fallen bay, who had skinned his knee, needed
rest and treatment. If the coach didn’t want to become a wreck
between the village and the town both people and animals
needed to be treated.
Indecisively, I stood in the midst of the astounded village
youth by the badly battered coach, when an old woman came
up to me and said:
“Your quarters are ready, as we were told, and also the
postman can get a bed and a bite to eat. There is room for the
nags in the reverend gentleman’s stable!”
I was very surprised at this reception and asked who had
announced me and whether the whole thing wasn’t a
misunderstanding? There was certainly an inn in the village
where one could stay if necessary.
“No, Herr,” the woman continued and went ahead of me
as a guide without further ado. “We have no inn here, and
strangers of repute whom chance brings here, are accustomed
to stay in the parsonage, which is in the vicarage, which is built
on a large scale and contains enough furnished rooms. The
preparations for the lord, however, have been ordered by the
Reverend. Nothing else is known to me, other than that the
parish priest, who is currently with a dying man, instructed me
to keep a watchful eye on the road and not to miss the
announced guest.”
In the meantime we had arrived at the stately house next
to the church, and I stepped through the door, above which
hung, on iron chains, the bones of extinct animals on iron
chains, into a hallway paved with gray bricks, and from there
into a vaulted, white-painted room, in the middle of which
stood a large table with leather chairs. On the wall was a rack
with many books, among which I noticed the works of
Paracelsus. On top of them were stuffed birds of a rare kind, as
the storm sometimes brings them here from foreign zones, and
all kinds of minerals and fossilized ammonium horns. On the
simple desk by the window was enthroned the figure of a
woman holding a child in her arms, and in my opinion was as
much the mother of our Lord and Savior as a pagan goddess.
Above a black painted prayer stool hung with arms
outstretched, the face of a silent suffering person, the Savior on
the cross.
After a while the old woman put a brass lamp on the
table and the room was filled with a friendly yellow light, the
priest entered almost at the same time.
He was a tall man with gray hair and a face, from which
smart and thoughtful eyes peered out. Friendly, he offered me
his hand, looked at me attentively and asked me to be his guest
at the table. After the meal he wanted to solve for me the riddle
that the knowledge of my arrival had thrown me into. Also the
mail coach driver had already been accommodated and the
carriage was at the blacksmith’s, and the horses, were safe in
the stable.
Immediately, the table was set and the food was served,
which consisted of a larded pike in cream. We drank a light
currant wine with it. When we were finished with the meal the
priest asked if he might be allowed to smoke tobacco, and lit a
pipe.
I must confess that, in spite of the inner calm I had
learned to regard everything that happened as an unchangeable
providence, and a great curiosity seized me, in which way the
clergyman could have been informed of my imminent arrival,
and I requested him to enlighten me about this strange matter,
after my name and state had been pronounced.
“It is indeed, as you say, strange- worthy enough,” he
replied and blew blue smoke in great clouds away from himself.
“Three days ago I went down the village street according to my
habit to pray my breviary.
A couple of people who came toward me astonished me
so much at the sight of them, that I stopped and let them
approach. I knew the woman. It was eighty year old Nenin,
who, in spite of her old age and her weakness at this time of the
day, gathered together a large bundle of brushwood. It had
always been a sight, to see the weak old woman, who was still
active in such a way, swaying under her load. And not
infrequently, I had unceremoniously asked some loitering,
partying lad to take the burden from the poor woman and carry
it home. This time, however, she came without the usual
piggyback and seemed to me upright, almost as if rejuvenated
next to her companion, who, as she said, had voluntarily taken
the burden from her and loaded it effortlessly on his shoulders.
The man, however, with whom she went, had in any case an
appearance that would astonish anyone in this country. Namely
he wore-“
“A brown robe and a black headscarf or a turban of such
color and amber beads around his neck –“, I finished,
quivering with expectation.
The priest looked at me without astonishment and said:
“So then the following miracle partially dissolves into
nothing. I say partially, for it remains wonderful that neither the
old woman nor the tailor who happened to come from the field,
who loaded the bundle of brushwood onto his handcart and
drove Nenin home with it, seemed to see anything special or
conspicuous in the man dressed so strangely. Through later
questions I became convinced that the two people had not even
been aware of the unusual costume. But the other thing, namely
that this man informed me of your arrival and predicted it for
today is now explained by the fact that you obviously know
him and have certainly spoken to him of your journey.”

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 95- 99

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged faith, fiction, god, short-story, writing on December 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »

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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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 90- 94

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, faith, fiction, short-story, writing on December 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

A muffled shot woke me up, which was answered by a
loud scream. A wild noise began, shots rang out, people
shouted and screamed, cursing, wailing loudly and pleading in
piteous tones. Muffled blows, which fell down, and stifled
whining, plus the angry yipping and growling of dogs, who had
something between their teeth, startled me. I jumped up and
wanted to go out the door. It was locked.
But soon the key turned in the lock and a small, gasping
and excited boy of about eight years rushed in and stuttered:
“The mayor wants you to come!”
As I stepped out into the open, in the light of torches and
lanterns, I saw the old man in the middle of a bunch of well-
armed peasants and in front of him, cruelly tied up with ropes,
a beardless frizzy head with a flat nose and powerful jaw bones.
“Step forward!” commanded the white-haired peasant
and beckoned to me. “Well, Frieder, look at him. Do you know
this man?”
He turned to the bound robber.
“How could I not know Dietlieb?” smirked the villain,
glad to be able to exercise his malice on a blameless man, and
thrust his chin at me. “He is the only one of my good
journeymen, whom I sent on a scouting mission and who has
not yet been massacred by you. You will have to die now,
Dietlieb!”
A shudder ran through me at so much wickedness. A
threatening murmur rose around me, gun barrels flashed,
pointed at my chest. I wanted to speak, but a gesture of the
mayor’s hand commanded me and everyone else to silence.
Nevertheless, one of them shouted out, that I should be struck
down and not allowed to speak.
“Shut up, grocer!” the mayor thundered at him, and
immediately there was a deep silence. He pointed at me.
“When did you go out on business?” he asked Frieder.
When did he join your gang?” he asked Frieder. “Can
you swear that he was with you?”
“By the blood of St. Willibrord, he was there!” cried
Frieder and looked at me with diabolic lust. “As we marched
toward the village, after the clock struck nine, I sent him ahead
with the lump for the dog.”
“He’s lying!” shouted one of the bunch. “The one with
the lump of poison in a copper box lies behind the dunghill.
Old Kolb has burned it down!”
“And I say it before God’s throne: He was with and must
now also go with me to the tower and then on to Master
Hansen’s dance floor,” seethed Frieder.
I could not speak for horror.
“Enough!” the old man ordered Frieder. “Wicked,
devilish, damned sinner, you who want to bring innocent blood
to the gallows with you! Know that the gentleman has been
sitting with me in the inn since the noon bell, and gave honest
warning about the signs on the wayside shrine. So now follow
your companions into eternal darkness!”
The robber laughed uproariously, and saliva ran down his
chin.
“Only time will tell, you poisonous, teething, sheared
peasant’s knoll! I am deprived of the fun of the honest donkey,
whom I have never seen, as a companion on the straw, so it is
also just and my malice must remain without sugar. And now
holla, you peasant steeds, lead me with proper reverence into
your little cottage and deliver me tomorrow in the right way to
the tower, if you don’t mind the journey.”
He added a laugh and neighed like a horse, to mock the
country folk, who had listened to his insolent speech with their
mouths open. Then, however, they looked expectantly at their
chief.
The mayor stepped up to the prisoner like a black,
looming shadow and said in a firm voice:
“Friederich Zabernikel, as you are called by your right
name, we do not need a city court and no tower. You may say
one Lord’s Prayer and then you hang. This is your verdict.”
Then Frieder let out a terrible roar, so that his eyeballs
popped out of their sockets. raced in his fetters, stamped in the
snow and bent raging under the horny fists that held him. They
waited quietly until he became still and gazed fearfully around
him.
“You do not have the right of the sword, you may not
deny anyone’s life,” he stammered. “Where is your tripod?
Think well of what is right.”
“We know,” said the sheriff gravely, “bad deeds justify
some things that are not written in the law of the land. Will you
pray, Friederich, do it soon, for thy time is up.”
“No need to pray, and no Lord God,” cried the frightened
one wildly. “If you want to murder without right, then murder. I
have also helped many a one over! That were a plague in your
coarse stomachs -”
“Shame!”
A heavy sooty blacksmith’s hand moved threateningly in
front of the man’s pale face.
“Do you have another request?” asked the old man. Then
Frieder laughed, almost merrily.
“Because Schinder-Susel has told me, that I would have
to kick the air on an apple tree once and because I now have to
do it after all, she shall be wrong. I want to do the last hop on a
pear tree-“
“In Zeitler’s garden,” said one of them half aloud, and so
the procession set off with crackling torches. Behind them ran
the women and children. The firelight went red over the
glittering snow. With weak knees I followed.
In a large orchard they threw the rope over a warty trunk,
tied the noose and picked up the bound man.
“Pray – pray -” he gasped, then they let go.
Frieder distorted his face hideously and cackled:
“May Beelzebub hear me, that you bastards and your
filthy brood may perish, shrivel up, and be swallowed up with
leprosy, pestilence and -“
By then they had already put an end to his blasphemies.
His feet twitched and kicked wildly in the air, flapping back
and forth, until two boys tied them and hung on to them. When
they let go, the legs stretched still from the body, on which the
head with the red cap stood crooked and dark, through the thin
line of the vine cord tied to the gnarled branch.
“You see it, Heiner,” said one fellow to the other. “She’s
always right! This is an apple tree, and over there is the pear
tree, which you wanted to point out to us.”
“So Schinder-Susel, of whom we were told, can do more
than cook mush,” he laughed back. “Tomorrow in the first gray
we’ll scrape him and the others in.”
“So, squire,” spoke the mayor close beside me, “now
come and sleep away the haunting. Tomorrow no soul will
know any more of Frieder and his brotherhood, and for you it
will be good to keep silent about what you have seen.”
I merely nodded and walked beside him toward the inn.
But then I suddenly stopped, grabbed the mayor by the arm,
looked him in the face and said.
“How did you know how to interpret the signs on the
statue?”
Bright light fell from the windows, singing and laughter
sounded.
The man stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. His
gaze sank deeply into mine.
“Friend,” he said, and a bitter smile crossed his wrinkled
face, “you have a right to ask that question. Well then – perhaps
I have been through the same school as you yourself. Perhaps I
have often put my ear to the mouth of a poor sinner who was
lying on the rack, or once I slept with a poor sinner who
blabbed at night what her red mouth concealed during the day.
It also happens that an innocent person is put into chains and
has to listen to what the gallows birds tell each other of tricks
and intrigues. There you have plenty of food for thought about
me. And if I put it right into your hands, written what I have
learned as an old man in my younger years – that would not
help you either.
Remember: One knows nothing of the other, and even if
the other were his brother in the flesh. – Come, I will show you
your berth.”
At last, with the money I had found, I was once again
dressed as a cavalier, I had reached home and stood before the
gate, through which I as a boy had often gone in and out and
through which my mother, my father’s father and Aglaja had
been carried away.
I stood and stared. What did the person who opened the
door to me say?
-That the Baron of Dronte ate grapes for dessert the
previous summer and was stung by a wasp and died a painful
choking death from a swollen throat.
He had constantly demanded with gestures that he be cut
with a penknife, where he pointed out the throat below the
thrush but no one had dared to do this. So it had been inhuman
to look at and to hear, how he, with his hands around himself
and rolling his eyes terribly, rattled, strangled and whistled for
several hours, until at last there were no more gasps or wild
tossing and turning of the body, the soul was gone. But the
house and farm had now become the property of the Lord of
Zochte, but was not yet occupied. The Noble Foundation, to
which everything fell, had agreed to the sale of the inheritance
to Zochte.
The man did not know me, but thought I was a former
guest of my father, and when I asked about the son Melchior,
he shrugged his shoulders and said that the young gentleman
after all kinds of bad pranks had fallen into the hands of the
recruiters and was either buried somewhere in the ground or
had decayed and evaporated. No one had heard of him.
I asked with anxious curiosity about Phoebus. He had
remained as an imperial standard bearer squire. I received the
answer that he had stayed in front of the enemy.
And who had arranged the legacy of the old Baron’s
estate? That was the Notary Mechelde, inside the city.
I turned my horse and rode slowly past everything, the
wall with the roof tiles on top, which surrounded the park, the
old trees, which rustled as before, the fish pond and the
forester’s house and saw from afar the arbor and cypresses of
the cemetery.

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 85- 89

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books, faith, fiction, short-story, writing on December 18, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte by Paul Busson and translated by Joe E Bandel

When I wanted to go I noticed that a few steps behind
me was a lean, white-haired, very stately and upright peasant,
who looked at me with a less than friendly and piercing look.
“I suppose the gentleman is coming to see us?” he said
lurkingly. “I will show him the way to the inn.”
And with that he walked beside me.
The village mutt, which wanted to come at me with loud
barking, gave way with retracted tail before his hard look. The
people before the houses pulled their caps before him.
“Here it is.”
The peasant pointed to the door of a large house, in front
of which a couple of fellows stood chatting quietly.
“Enter.”
That sounded like an order and gave me a jolt.
“Ei, is this the only inn in the big town?” I turned
mockingly to my companion. “And how do you know that I
want to enter this one?”
He looked me sharply in the face with his cold, blue eyes
and replied only briefly:
“It is best for the Lord to enter here!”
I complied with the strange compulsion, entered and sat
down at a table on the wall under the deer antlers. The old man
sat down with me, had wine brought, set fire to a short silver-
beaten burl pipe and said:
“You look like a man of status in spite of your rather
scuffed clothes. The question is how you have come to so
lonely a wandering?”
“Aren’t you being a bit too curious, Herr Mayor,” I
replied. This was the title he had been given by the little girl
when she had poured the wine.
“Curiosity, as you call it, is the right of the established
against strangers. Besides, here I am the authority. So you want
to tell me something about your status, name and what you are
doing. Its better speaking over a glass than on the bench in the
basement, if one is the judge and the other is the indicted.”
This sounded like a threat, and I would certainly have
responded sharply if there had not been something special in
the man’s nature and especially in the look of the man, there
was something that I did not want to resist. The mayor also
knew how to get answers to the questions that he addressed to
me so cleverly and forcefully that I, not knowing why myself,
shared my entire life to him with the greatest frankness. I
admitted that I had deserted from the army of the great king,
not out of cowardice, but to flee the cruelty of a state that
seemed to me to be an excess of servitude and annihilation of
free will which had become abhorrent to me.
“Young Herr,” said the old man thoughtfully. “In such a
way it can still take a good course with you. As I hear from
your speeches, you have had pity on the poor man, and that is a
great and precious rarity among people. To what extent your
unprotected youth pushed you into ruin, I cannot judge for the
time being. But I hope that a suspicion which distresses me and
which is very threatening to you, will prove to be false.”
“What suspicion?” I asked, astonished.
“Be patient,” said the mayor. “Where will your
wanderings take you?”
“To my homeland,” I answered.
“Tell me,” he continued, again looking sharply at me.
“Why did you stand so long in the snow looking at the wayside
shrine?”
Gradually, his imperious way of asking put me in harness,
and I briefly asked him whether he thought of himself as a
judge who had a poor rascal before him.
“That is what I think.”
He laid his hand firmly on my arm.
“You know that I am the mayor of this village and as
such I ask you: Do you have anything to tell me about the
welfare of the village?”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Your village is threatened by a
grave danger.”
It was as if a kindly glow flitted across his weathered
face. But it became immediately serious again, and he said,
apparently indifferently:
“Gee up! Who told you that fairy tale?”
“It’s not a fairy tale,” I said, glad to bring in my nearly
almost committed grave omission. “Believe me, you are in
danger!”
“Go ahead and speak, Squire.”
“There are certain signs,” I said, “by which the murderers
and the marauders announce their wickedness to each other. I
found such signs on your wayside shrine. Now you know why I
stopped in the snow.”
He made a movement as if he wanted to reach out his
hand to me, but dropped it and asked dryly, where I got such
dubious knowledge. I reminded him that I had already told him
about my time with the gypsies, who understood such things
well.
The old man laughed briefly and his wrinkled face came
near.
“Perhaps it true that I also know something about such
things?” he murmured.
“You?”
I shook my head doubtfully.
“We could try it out,” he said and poured me some wine.
“Describe the signs to me, and then let’s interpret them together
like the old magicians of whom we read in the scriptures.”
“Very well,” I said. “There were on the Wayside Shrine: a
full moon, a one, three houses, the first two of which are
crossed out, and the third not, a comb with teeth, a snake or a
viper, two dice with five on top, three crosses, each in a square,
two of which are crossed out and one of which is not, a knife,
two shoes, a rooster and the letter F.”
“Quite so.”
The old man nodded and took a thoughtful sip from his
glass, “Now let’s divide ourselves in the work. You, valiant
squire, point out to me the rogue’s signs up to the two fives of
the dice, and then I will explain the rest of the drawings that
have been on the Wayside Shrine since yesterday.”
“We could leave the interpreting for later. Better to take
precautions now -“
“Don’t be concerned,” he rebuffed. “It will be on my, the
village mayor’s cap, if something is missed, you are in no way
to blame. And now off with your gypsy wisdom!”
“So listen,” I began. “The signs are thus to read: On the
first day of the full moon we gather. The target is for the third
house in the village. This all means the moon, the one and the
not crossed out third house. A comb with teeth indicates: a
sharp dog is on guard. Then the snake means a lump of poison,
to make the watch dog dumb.”
“It’s my house,” nodded the white-haired man, “which
they have in mind, and my Packan, who admittedly will not
take a lump from a stranger’s hand. You have interpreted well.
Now it is my turn.”
“Better let me.”
“Chamber. Two fives on the dice: that is ten o’clock at
night, because the moon is in front; three crosses, each in a
square, two painted: get in at the third window. A knife:
murders quickly and safely. The shoes: then make haste away
with the loot, but first put the red rooster on the roof as it is
shown, so that the fire will erase all the evidence. And F? What
does that mean?”
He looked at me with a smile.
“That’s a name sign,” I replied quickly. “You can’t get the
name itself from it. Certainly it is the captain, whom the others
obey.”
“The F means Frieder,” said the old man, “and this devil
of a fellow is the leader of five journeymen murderers who
have drawn themselves from the Spessart region and call
themselves the Red Hat, as Frieder likes to wear a fox-red cap.
Now you also know the name sign.”
“A good guess,” I admitted.
“Now I may trust you, young Herr.”
The mayor extended his hand to me, which he had
previously refused to do.
“Even though it stinks that you know how to read tines.
You know that earlier I took you for one of their henchmen and
spies, when you were at the wayside shrine and looked at the
signs so devoutly. Hey, Hannes, Matz, and Kilian!” he shouted
loudly.
In an instant the door opened, and three tree-strong
fellows with rifles, sabers and two huge gray shepherds’ or
catchers’ dogs came straight towards me with ropes in their
hands.
“Leave the gentleman!” the mayor waved them off. “Go
back to the others and tell them that this one is a righteous man
and no one may harm him. Make it very clear, as I have shown
you. Veit and Leberecht at the sloe bush, old Knolb and Heger’s
boy on the roof of the first house, four in the ditch, two behind
the dung heap, ten in Heger’s stable and the others, as the case
may be. Let them come right on in, don’t bother taking
prisoners. The five helpers may kiss the snow, Frieder, the one
with the red cap, we want alive.”
The strong fellows looked at me and laughed.
“So we would have soon sent the wrong man on his way
to heaven,” said one of them, nudging the two others, who
burst out with their boorish laughter. The dogs growled and
pulled their chops from their white teeth.
“Now go again!” the old man instructed them, and
immediately they stomped heavily out the door.
Outside the last light lay blue and darkening on the white
land.
The old man ordered me not to leave the inn for the time
being.
Later, the taciturn tavern maid, who answered all my
questions with a “Don’t know.” brought me a chicken roasted
on a spit and a jug of red wine.
Once, when I felt the urge to go out, one of the dogs
struck close to me. So I had to stay and wait until everything
was over, and tired from the long way and sleepy from eating
and drinking, I fell into a half slumber.

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Posts Tagged ‘faith’

The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 275- 279

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 190- 194

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The Rebirth of Melchior Dronte: pages 85- 89

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