OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 7
The carriage stopped, and Reichenbach ordered the coachman to drive up the road to Kobenzl; he himself took to the forest paths.
He had been with Liebig at the naturalists’ convention in Graz, had accompanied the famous friend to Munich, had been able to convince himself everywhere that his reputation held not only among specialist colleagues but had also penetrated into the consciousness of the other contemporaries, insofar as they concerned themselves with science at all. One could have spoken of a height of life; the sum of what had been achieved was great. One was a Freiherr, people looked up to one, intellectual Vienna streamed to Reichenbach’s evenings, everyone considered himself fortunate to be invited, one had really become something like the successor to Baron Jacquin, that ambitious wish too had been fulfilled; one had one’s hands in a dozen enterprises, one scattered inspirations in abundance, the working power was equal to the unheard-of demands on capacity, resistances were crushed with unrelenting force.
The Freiherr climbed the forest path upward, the foot sank into autumn leaves, the October day rejoiced in colorfulness; gold-gilded, the unfolded landscape stretched out to the one looking back.
He had made the journey from Linz by steamboat, the carriage had waited in Nussdorf, and now Reichenbach walked through his forest, after which he had longed and which now denied him the longed-for.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, one could be satisfied; one ruled fate, people were subjects, and another might have been content to know his barns were full. But Reichenbach was incapable of stopping, of basking, of resting; an insatiable urge drove him forward; it all lay so plainly, on the plain of ordinariness; emptiness yawned at him. He feared this feeling of desolation and loneliness amid the tumult of work. A friend was lacking, as the late Altgraf had been one. A woman might still have been found, not a Friederike Luise to be sure, but something living, something sparkling with mood, that would have brought a different movement into the monotony of his existence, other than the rise and fall of burden and relief.
Blows resounded through the forest, then came the cracking of branches and a crash that shook the ground. Somewhere trees were being felled; Reichenbach followed the sound, broke through a thicket, and came to a clearing. Trunks lay crisscross; the woodcutters were at work, and on a beech sat the steward Ruf, smoking his pipe. It was a new, silver-mounted pipe; Ruf went to great expense with pipes—he might have about fifty, by rough estimate, which Friederike had to clean and maintain.
He had soon after Reichenbach’s departure given up his position in the Salm service and followed Reichenbach to his estate Reisenberg. Moved by his devotion, Reichenbach had made him steward. That was a different sphere of influence than in Blansko, where the The young prince counted the trees and went after the old women if they gathered kindling in the forest. Here one could act with great liberality and had a free hand in everything. They had done Reichenbach a favor; he made no secret of his pleasure at being able to employ a deserter from the enemy’s camp. He would gladly have taken the old Johann too, but he was probably long since driving some heavenly cloud chariot.
When the steward Ruf saw the Freiherr climbing over the tree trunks, he tucked the pipe into his pocket, stood up, and took a few steps toward him: “The Herr Baron…” he said, “the Herr Baron is back already?”
His eyes glittered moistly in somewhat swollen lids; a faint, sweetish smell hung about the man. And on top of that, he smelled of pipe, and Reichenbach detested the dirty and vulgar habit of smoking.
“You yourself sent the carriage to Nussdorf, Ruf! I came on foot through the forest.”
“Certainly, Herr Baron!” said Ruf, showing an uncertain smile.
“Are the trees here already ripe for felling?” The Freiherr did not recall having heard that felling was to take place here. He gave his steward free rein, but he wanted to know what was going on in his forest.
“Ripe for felling,” said the steward, striking one of the trunks with his stick; indeed, they were ripe for felling—not all, but most of them; the forest was, in this spot, namely too dense, much too dense; it was necessary to thin it.
“And who buys the wood then?”
Well, the wood is bought by Morris Hirschel, a timber merchant; the Herr Baron had surely heard of him—he had trees felled all over the Vienna Woods, even in the state forests, but he paid decent prices.
Reichenbach walked on. This position had clearly gone to Ruf’s head; he perhaps led a somewhat too lively life, he had little friends with whom he played cards through the nights; recently, Reichenbach had seen him down in Grinzing, a woman on the left, a woman on the right, and in an advanced tipsy mood. This Vienna—how had that always grumpy Grillparzer called it! Capua of the spirits. The best principles wavered, and if one didn’t keep a firm hand on the purse, the money slipped away. Was it really for this reason that the girl, Friederike, sometimes had tearful eyes? But apart from that, Ruf was still a capable fellow and knew his business.
On the terrace, Ottane and Hermine were waiting and greeted their father, and then Ottane said that the father should go straight to his study, where Doctor Semmelweis was sitting. She had told him that the father wouldn’t be long.
“The Semmelweis? What does he want?”
Ottane didn’t know, but he had been there twice already, and she hadn’t wanted to send him away again today.
Doctor Semmelweis had taken a book from the cupboard and was leafing through it. When Reichenbach entered, he pushed it back and said: “Your treatise in the last Yearbook for Chemistry and Physics is excellent! If only I could write like that!”
Reichenbach acknowledged the praise with a dismissive hand gesture; oh, such things were really of no importance, one wrote them down in a few hours when the material was ready in one’s head. And wouldn’t the doctor like to have a cup of coffee with him? Perhaps over there with the children.
“Forgive me… I forgot, you’re coming from a journey. No, not over there… rather here, if it suits you. I’m troubling you… but it’s an urgent matter.”
Reichenbach pulled the embroidered cord of the bell and ordered coffee from Severin.
Semmelweis had thrown himself into a chair so forcefully that it rolled back a piece and bumped against a table, on which a rack of reagent vials teetered with a clinking sway. He noticed none of it; his gaze went out the window, his fingers drumming a stormy general march on the armrest.
“The scoundrels won’t let me get ahead,” he muttered to himself.
At the time when Reichenbach had met Doctor Semmelweis in the salon of Baron Jacquin, the young physician had been a self-satisfied, balanced man. Now he was consumed by bitterness and sorrow, like by a malignant ulcer; his soul was filled with .the leprosy of bitterness had struck, and the wrinkles of misanthropy were etched into his face.
“Tell me yourself,” Semmelweis continued, “aren’t those criminals who resist saving people? Doctors who would rather let thousands of women die than admit that Doctor Semmelweis is right. Blockheads, fools who refuse to see the proof that lies plain before them!”
Reichenbach knew something of the battle that Doctor Semmelweis was waging, but not enough to take any definite stance on it. It was some kind of feud among the doctors at the university and the clinics; this German-Hungarian Semmelweis had caused an uproar, and Hebra had hinted at something about it.
Cautiously probing, Reichenbach said: “One always has the closed majority against oneself when one dares something new. I know that well—they came down on me when I dealt with the meteorite fall in Hungary—”
Flushing red with anger up to his thinning hair, Semmelweis interrupted the Freiherr: “Oh, come off it. Meteorites… that squabbling could go on for ten years; here it’s about living people, about putting an end to a crime against poor women!”
Reichenbach grew somewhat stiff and aloof; after all, the cosmic origin of meteorites was not such a completely trivial matter. Somewhat coolly, he watched as his agitated visitor sprang from the chair and paced between the tables and apparatus. There wasn’t much space for it, and there was a danger that he might knock something over.
“There the women,” Semmelweis continued, “are being carried off like flies by childbed fever on our obstetric clinics. Sometimes the mortality is terrifying; entire rows of beds next to each other empty out within a few days. And do you know what the cause of childbed fever is?”
Now Reichenbach recalled that this was the discovery about which Hebra had spoken as a great matter. It suddenly occurred to him that the poor Frau Ruf had also lost her life to this disease back then. He gave no answer, but he looked at Semmelweis intently; yes, if he had really figured out how to protect the young mothers from it!
Semmelweis stopped in front of Reichenbach and fixed his gaze on him threateningly. “Do you know what the cause is? Corpse poison! The cadaver particles sticking to the hands of the doctors. But also filth from living organisms. Why is the mortality so high at the first obstetric clinic and so low at the second? Because at the first, the women are examined by young doctors who come from the dissection rooms and other patients, and at the second only by midwife trainees who have nothing to do with corpses. And why do even the women who are surprised by labor on the street or in house entrances come through happily? They come through happily if they are taken home, and they die on us at the clinic.”
“Yes, if it is so,” Reichenbach said hesitantly. “It is so, you can rely on it. It’s as clear as day. I had a friend, a professor of state medicine; a doctor cut him with a scalpel during a dissection, and my friend died of corpse poisoning. And it’s the same finding as with childbed fever. Why? Because the cause is the same.
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Now only the Schuh with his pictures remains for us,” the baron growls grimly, “a stroke of luck that we still have him.”
The Schuh leans over there against the wall, legs crossed, head propped against his arm, in a challengingly picturesque pose. He takes no notice of the glances …drawing attention to himself, and when the people ask: “Who is that?” then one or the other will say: “Don’t you know him? That’s the Schuh, the Karl Schuh, the one with the gas microscope and the camera obscura, who’s making such a sensation in Vienna now. He gave demonstrations in the university hall and in the Theresianum in the Society of Physicians and even before the Imperial Family in Schönbrunn. The Baron von Reichenbach met him through the late Baron Jacquin, and he knows why he invited him. Just wait and see what we’ll get to see.”
“I beg you, dear Herr Schuh,” says the baron, “are you ready now to present your pictures?”
Karl Schuh bows: “Certainly, Herr Baron. But you promised that your gracious Fräulein daughter would sing. Everyone is tense, everyone full of joyful anticipation for a refined artistic enjoyment.”
Reichenbach makes a contemptuous hand gesture. “Hermine’s singing master has fallen ill, and there’s no one to accompany her.”
“Is that all?” says Schuh, as a modest self-confidence swells his chest, “I dare to take on the accompaniment.”
“Are you musical too, you jack-of-all-trades?” Reichenbach marvels.
“A little. As I said, if the gracious Fräulein will do me the honor…”
“Come,” and the baron pulls the young man by the hand toward Hermine, who is still desperately rummaging through the sheet music and doesn’t know how she should manage it, to retreat without causing a stir. “Here is the rescuer in need,” says Reichenbach, “Herr Schuh will accompany you.”
Hermine glances shyly up at the young man; this stranger is to accompany her, the risk only grows greater thereby, and a ghastly catastrophe will be the inevitable end. But the young man nods to Hermine with a laugh; he has a merry, good-natured, confident face; he winks roguishly, is not in the least intimidated by the crowd of people in the garden hall, and says: “It’ll be fine. What do you have there?”
A quick glance through the sheet music; “ta-ta … ta-ta-ta-ta,” he hums and takes a few grips on an invisible keyboard: “Well then, if you want to venture it… that’s no witchcraft at all.”
Something of his nonchalance and daring flows invigoratingly over to Hermine. It is no small thing to sing, worn down by the conversation with Doctor Eisenstein and the scene with her father, and in the uncertainty of whether she will find accord with this strange man.
But after the first bars, it becomes lighter in Hermine, a timid glimmering of hope for a happy outcome. At first she had sung as if in a stupor, the notes dancing before her eyes, scarcely hearing herself, crushed by the consciousness of having to sacrifice herself to the Moloch who sat there with fifty heads and gawked at her. But her accompanist masters the piano; he commands it more freely, less pedantically than her teacher, and yields to her in all things. Now Hermine sees the notes again and hears herself and overcomes her uncertainty and sings songs by a half-forgotten Viennese musician named Franz Schubert, of whom the old Meisenbiegel thinks highly.
The Moloch applauds, naturally, how could it do otherwise when the daughter of the house sings? There is no enthusiasm in it, however; this music goes too little into the ear—who is this Franz Schubert, after all?
But then the arias come. From Norma, from The Sleepwalker, there the audience roars, and the applause rages so genuinely and persistently that Hermine must encore “The White Lady.” It is a great success, almost as great as that of Dommeyr, and everyone claps, and Dommeyr embraces the singer, kisses her on the forehead, and says: “It is a crime, my child, if you do not go on the stage.”
Hermine stands radiant, and there is an infinite gratitude in her for the young man who has helped her to this triumph. She would gladly say a good word for him, but he is already away from the piano, for now he comes to his true domain.
The Baron von Reichenbach announces that Herr Karl Schuh will demonstrate his gas microscope and his camera obscura.
“Naturally, in the house of the scholar, science cannot be absent,” remarks the great Liebig to his neighbor, the dermatologist Hebra.
It turns out, however, to be more entertaining than most guests expect. Some preparations are necessary; a white screen is stretched, Schuh sets up an apparatus, and then the candles are extinguished.
Max Heiland uses the opportunity to lean over Dommeyr, as if whispering something in her ear, and kisses her bare shoulder.
The limelight hisses on, and then a bright circle appears on the stretched screen. Into it, the young man now conjures all sorts of strange things: the dotted canals of the conifers, the spiral air vessels of insect larvae, the Purkinje sweat canals, the vascular branchings on the hair bulb, the structure of bones, the enamel substance of the tooth, even the blood corpuscles of the frog.
A thoroughly serious matter, but Karl Schuh handles it wittily and entertainingly. He says: “So that the esteemed ladies know what their enchanting alabaster teeth really look like.”
Or: “Not just with beets and radishes, but also with the most beautiful women’s hair, it depends on healthy roots.”
They are all otherwise invisible things, unveiled secrets of nature, a penetration into the realm of the smallest and most inconspicuous, into a world of overwhelming wonders that the researcher alone normally enters, but which is here brought before all eyes.
No one, however, is so captivated by all of this as Hermine. She sits, surrounded by darkness, all eyes, spellbound by the light circle on the screen. What she wrests from nature through laborious work at the microscope is here laid out before her with seemingly playful ease. Everything this young man tackles seems to yield to him, to submit to his will; one has to do with a person whom life offers no resistances. It is sunshine over him, while one oneself sits on the shady side, oppressed by the heaviness of the blood, incapable of the élan and speed of existence. But there are bridges, airy bridges of double commonality between her and him, not only music, but also science.
And now Karl Schuh is finished and explains only that he is striving with all zeal to further perfect his apparatus and that it is merely a matter of producing an even more light-strong objective, upon which quite different results would then be showable.
And then he too reaps the applause of his very stimulated and satisfied audience. The professors Schrötter, Hebra, and Unger draw near in conversation; Count Coronini and Señor Cevallos y León, attaché at the Spanish embassy, express themselves very approvingly; even the great Liebig honors him with a few words.
Suddenly a commotion arises in the middle of the hall, an unrest, a pressing toward a point; a clump of people balls itself together. It has the appearance as if someone is unwell; certainly someone has become ill; yes, Frau Hofratin Reißnagel has just fainted from her chair.
The attending doctors busy themselves about her, but the young Doctor Eisenstein takes command: “It is nothing… I know it… the Frau Hofratin often suffers under such attacks… it is the heat, the many people, the closed windows… I beg you, make way.”
The Frau Hofrätin is carried into the Chinese room, where it is airier; she is laid on the sofa and washed with ether from Reichenbach’s laboratory. While she slowly revives, the guests depart; they have really stayed too long, and the way back to the city is far, but it has been an exceedingly beautiful evening, successful in every respect, except for the little incident with the Hofrätin, but now it is time to go.
Reichenbach shakes hands, smiles, and lets no one notice that he has a disappointment to overcome, because no one has come forward to point out in a little speech that this festival actually had a special occasion underlying it. It would have been fitting to say something comparable, for example, that one had gathered for the first time today in the house of a Freiherr von Reichenbach or something like that. In any case, it is his wish that no fuss be made of it; but it is certainly not his wish that the painter Heiland takes the Dommeyr’s cloak from the servant’s hand and drapes it over her shoulders himself, and that they then go off together, as if they were glad of their escape.
Karl Schuh stands before him and bows: “Will you be so kind as to have my apparatus returned to me tomorrow?”
“May I keep it for two more days? I would like to examine it more closely. In general, dear friend, I have much to discuss with you. You are a bright mind and a skilled practitioner, from whom even I can still learn a thing or two. And your piano playing—my utmost respect!”
“Won’t you occasionally make music with Hermine here and there? With the old Meisenbiegel, it’s no longer the right thing. Come, you will always be welcome to the father and the daughter.”
“If I may?” Karl Schuh beams with obvious delight, “Nothing could please me more.”
Now everything is gone; even the Frau Hofrätin has been stowed in the carriage and driven home with her husband and Eisenstein. The servants begin to clear up; Reichenbach wanders with hands clasped behind his back, sullenly through the discomfort of the ruins that remain after a festival. In front of the buffet in the rose room, Reinhold siphons remnants from the destroyed bowls and heaps them on a plate.
“Where were you?” asks Reichenbach, “I didn’t see you the whole evening?”
Reinhold startles at the sudden address. He hadn’t heard his father coming and had thought Reichenbach had already withdrawn. One is never safe from the father; he ambushes one often from behind, as if he were always lying in wait. It is vexing to feel caught and to stand there like a schoolboy.
“I could only come late,” says Reinhold with rising defiance, “Schuh was just showing his pictures.”
“Where were you?” asks Reichenbach, “it is strange that you seem to place no value on participating in your father’s gatherings. It was downright embarrassingly noticeable that you were absent.”
Naturally, no one noticed, but for educational reasons it is always appropriate to bring the criminal’s sin to his consciousness. “And I ask you,” the Freiherr continues, “put down the plate when you speak to me. It is not fitting that you stand there with the plate in your hand when you speak to your father.”
Reinhold folds and quickly sets the plate down among the cleared bowls. Yes, the father knows how to deal with budding disobedience in the twinkling of an eye.
“I was in the city,” Reinhold stammers, “in the Chemical Society. We have…”
“I will tell you where you were. You were with your big-mouth heroes, those students whose second word is freedom, those people’s benefactors who only stoke discontent and want to turn everything upside down. Those people are no company for you; remember that, you must take care that you are the son of the Freiherr von Reichenbach. A son of the Freiherr von Reichenbach must not associate with revolutionaries. Understood!”
Reinhold stands at attention, and after Reichenbach has sent a long, stern, threatening gaze after his words, he lets the chastened one go, to look once more at his silkworms before going to sleep.
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Certainly, certainly,” Reißnagel assured him eagerly, “your attacked honor has been restored spotless. The opponents had to admit that you were falsely accused of not having made your inventions yourself, and that you had proceeded honestly and conscientiously in the conduct of business. But there is still this second lawsuit regarding the final accounting…”
He paused regretfully, deeply saddened by the wickedness of the world in withholding what was due to a man like Reichenbach.
“Well,” said Reichenbach, carefully concealing his triumphant feelings behind an air of equanimity, “just today, Doctor Neumann wrote to me that he has reached a settlement with the Salm heirs.”
“Well, and?” burst forth the Privy Councillor, in utmost tension of his entire being.
“I will be paid out one hundred forty-nine thousand gulden in Convention currency, in cash!” It gave him immense satisfaction to lay this out so calmly in front of this witness.
“Children!” screamed the actress, kicking her legs, “and this man hasn’t said a word about it until now. Wins such a monstrous lawsuit… a hundred, forty-nine… Children, help me, I’m getting dizzy, I can’t even pronounce such a huge amount of money…”
“I had more coming to me,” Reichenbach interjected, “it was a settlement. I only got a portion of it.”
“Oh come on, settlement this, settlement that… a chunk of money like that doesn’t come into the house every day. And here we are drinking Nussberger. You’re a cheapskate, dear Baron. There ought to be champagne for that.”
This exuberant, whirling, uninhibited creature enchanted Reichenbach precisely through such outbursts of playful high spirits. Art, duty, profession—that was one side of life; why shouldn’t one, detached from them, be merry and bold and wild? Reichenbach couldn’t do it, and neither the tender, clinging Ottane nor the serious, somewhat plaintive Hermine could draw such laughter from him. But a spitfire like Therese went bustling through everyday life, sparkling and fizzing like fireworks.
Reichenbach looked at the exuberant tragedienne with a smile: “Your wish, Your Highness, is my command.” And he bowed.
“Bravo! Very good!” Therese called after him, “for court chamberlain roles, I could recommend you to the Burgtheater.”
In the Chinese room, Reichenbach encountered Ottane. She came toward him with quick steps, a bright, cheerful expression on her face, inwardly elated. “Well, Father?”
“You’ve done splendidly,” Reichenbach praised, taking her hand, “one wouldn’t even notice that the lady of the house is actually missing.”
A faint shadow of disappointment darkened the young face: “Aren’t you satisfied with me?”
Ottane’s task was to oversee the household; she took her duties seriously, attending to everything, and she believed that even today she had omitted nothing to make the festival worthy and splendid. What did her father find to criticize? Or was there something to the malicious hissing of some older ladies, that her father was paying conspicuous attention to the beautiful Dommeyr?
“Not satisfied?” said Reichenbach, laughing a bit awkwardly and forcedly, “very satisfied, in fact. You’re my little housewife, my sunshine. But isn’t the burden a bit too heavy for such young shoulders?”
Ottane straightened her young shoulders: “I can bear it, if you have trust in me.”
“Yes, yes… then it’s all right.”
The youthful buoyancy overcame the small discomfort, and perhaps now, since she could credit herself with a little slight, she might boldly bring up the great request.
“May I… I have a favor to ask, Father,” said Ottane hesitantly, slipping her arm caressingly into her father’s.
“What is it, my child?”
“I would like… oh, I don’t dare.”
“Out with it. Am I such an ogre?”
“Well—” and now the timid face flushed, “—well, Max Heiland, the great painter, would like to make a portrait of me. May I…?”
“Heiland? Well, Heiland, he is a great artist, after all…”
“All the ladies from the first circles are having themselves portrayed by him,” Ottane continued quickly.
Reichenbach did not particularly like the painter; rumors whispered of certain relations between him and Dommeyr, and he had actually only been invited on Therese’s account, but the circumstances were such that one could not well say no.
“In God’s name,” Reichenbach decided with fatherly mildness, “let yourself be painted by him too. But let Hermine accompany you to the sittings!”
“Father!” Ottane took his face between her hands and kissed him on the forehead.
“Are you so delighted because you’re entering art history? Well! And now, please, have the champagne brought.”
The champagne had of course been chilling for a long time, and its appearance had only awaited the cue.
Therese Dommeyr had spoken the monologue of the Maid of Orleans. It was remarkable what a change came over the woman as soon as she stepped onto a stage, even if it was only a small wooden scaffold covered with a carpet. All exuberance fell away from her; she became the high priestess of art entirely, standing before the red velvet curtain, regal. Inaccessible, transported above all that is common, and she spoke the verses like long-rolling waves, like song.
The people were enraptured, enchanted, felt themselves gifted and graced.
Therese Dommeyr had already drunk six glasses of champagne beforehand; no one could tell.
But as the applause crashed over her, a gentle intoxication came over her. She slipped behind the curtain into the cabinet that lay next to the small stage, through a door into the corridor and into the blue room, where Max Heiland was waiting.
“Servus, Max!” she said and gave him a smack on the cheek.
“Excellent! Unsurpassable!” the painter praised, “that’s how I’d like to paint you once, in stage ecstasy!”
“If one can’t paint the other ecstasies well,” Therese laughed.
“And how’s your old man doing?”
“I believe, if I offered him the little finger, he’d take my whole hand.”
The painter suddenly grabbed her hips and wanted to pull her to him.
“No kissing!” the actress warded him off, “the people are coming.”
The admirers pressed in, surrounded Therese and hung on the hands that she had to let them have, several on each hand.
“Like leeches,” Therese laughed.
And now Hermine is to sing.
Hermine is very excited. Despite her evasion, the young Doctor Eisenstein has managed to corner her, outside on the terrace, as it grew dark and everyone was just going into the garden hall to hear Dommeyr. She had only wanted to catch a bit of fresh air and gather herself after all the hustle, prepare inwardly; he must have lain in wait for her exactly, and it is right into the conversation she wanted to avoid, and she had to say all the embarrassing things that her father had charged her with.
“How can your father demand that you sit at the microscope your whole life?” Eisenstein asks.
And: “Your father is a tyrant!” Eisenstein says bitterly.
One can think that; one has often said it to oneself; but one cannot admit it when another says it aloud, and so the conversation took a quite bitter, harsh end. No, Hermine certainly does not love Doctor Eisenstein, no question of it, but he is after all a young man who is courting a young girl’s hand—no small thing in the life of a young girl. And if one is not exactly pretty, my God, not exactly ugly, but also not pretty, by no means as pretty as Ottane… and with time one will get a crooked back from the microscopicing and the eyes will lose their sparkle.
And now Hermine is to sing, still stirred up from this conversation.
The great excitement after Dommeyr’s monologue has subsided, everyone has taken their places again, everyone is tense, the father makes an impatient face.
He comes up to Hermine, who still makes no move to mount the podium. “What are we waiting for?” he asks impatiently.
“Meisenbiegel isn’t here yet!” Hermine answers nervously.
“Isn’t the carriage back?”
“He hasn’t come back yet.”
Ah, Hermine’s teacher, the singing master Meisenbiegel, is an old gentleman; gout nests in his bones, asthma rattles in his chest, and in his head, the throbbing rages all too often. A good teacher, an excellent teacher, but frail, blown about by every draft. Two days ago, at the last singing lesson, he had complained of a cold; certainly a cough or sniffles has come of it.
“Nothing else will remain,” Reichenbach considers, “but to ask the Schuh to show his gas microscope first, and you sing afterward.”
But then the baron catches sight of Severin, who stands at the door and makes signs to him. “Well, there we have it,” he says after listening to the servant, “your Master Meisenbiegel is lying in bed, making his reckoning with heaven and sweating. Such an old ram… lays himself down to die every two weeks. Who is to accompany you now?”
He looked at Hermine angrily, as if she were somehow complicit in the poor old Meisenbiegel lying in bed and sweating. She could certainly not help it, but in any case, the program was in question; who was to accompany her now—a bitter embarrassment, no doubt.
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 6
The lord of Reisenberg Castle had been ennobled.
His king, the King of Württemberg, had lifted him from plain citizenry to the rank of baron. His youthful attempt to flee to Tahiti, for which he’d been imprisoned at Hohenasperg, was forgiven and forgotten. He’d been awarded the Royal Württemberg Crown Order, named an honorary citizen of Stuttgart, and now, back home, his contributions to science, especially its practical applications, were deemed so great that he could rightly be made Baron von Reichenbach.
The newly minted baron occasionally said it meant nothing to him, just something for others, but perhaps it was why he hosted this grand gathering today. This wasn’t openly declared or even hinted at, yet the guests likely thought as much when they arrived, one by one, and saw the new baronial crest carved in stone above the castle entrance.
Reisenberg Castle was originally a Jesuit country house, later acquired by Count Kobenzl, whose name gradually became tied to both hill and castle among the people. Now the old count’s crest above the entrance had been chipped away and in its place, the Reichenbach crest had been set.
“Is Reichenbach a Rosicrucian?” Professor Schrötter asks, pausing with Court Councillor Reißnagel before the door.
“Why?” the Councillor’s wife wonders.
“Don’t you see the cross with roses on the crossbars in his crest?”
“Rosicrucian—what’s that?” the Councillor’s wife asks, a slender, delicate lady with translucent pale cheeks and ever-dreamy, searching eyes.
“Rosicrucians?” her husband explains leisurely. “They’re an order, a society. They’re said to possess remarkable secrets.”
“If Reichenbach has a secret,” Professor Schrötter smiles, “it’s how to make money.”
Reißnagel chuckles. “Think so, my dear friend? It’s not that simple with the earning. He earns plenty, sure, but he’s got passions that devour money. And is the Ternitz ironworks really so profitable? You know, Reichenbach does me the honor of asking my advice now and then—on business matters, of course, not science…” He chuckles again. The Councillor’s wife hasn’t taken her eyes off the crest. “And the star in the bottom right, with arrows shooting out?”
“Those must be the meteorites, the shooting stars,” Professor Schrötter says after some thought, “that Reichenbach deals with.”
“Are the Hungarian ones included too?” Reißnagel chuckles. The councillor chuckles, and then the two men laugh in shared malicious glee.
“How’s it really going with that?” the councillor asks then, as they finally enter the garden hall and hand their coats to the servants. “What does science say about it?”
“Well, the matter has turned into a thorough embarrassment. Reichenbach has misfired once. The so-called meteorite fall in Hungary has become a fiasco for him. He calculated three hundred fifty thousand million little stones and claimed that our mountains, in part, so to speak, fell from the sky. To the Neptunian and Plutonian mountain formations, he added the Jovian ones, as he calls them. And it turned out that his Hungarian meteorites are ordinary bean ores, which have nothing to do with the sky and occur in masses on Earth. But against the opinion of the Court Mineral Cabinet, he sticks to his view. He has a thick skull.”
“Yes, he does,” the councillor confirms. “He’s a strange man altogether. A clear head, that you have to admit, but sometimes his imagination plays a trick on him. Imagination is something for poets and such folk, but not for officials, and certainly not for scholars.” And then, with a meaningful glance at his wife, he adds: “Too much imagination and enthusiasm is not for us ordinary mortals anyway.” Yes, imagination certainly holds no power over Councillor Reißnagel; his head looks like a well-ordered registry, everything filed by shelf numbers in compartments, and his rounded little belly guarantees the thoroughly earthly direction of his life philosophy.
“There are so many people here,” the Councillor’s wife says anxiously. “I should’ve stayed home.” She doesn’t handle such crowds of bodies well; a disagreeable feeling rises from the haze, a mix of human breath and various odors making her restless. She can’t quite express it, but it’s anything but comfortable.
Then the rising waves of social bustle separate them. There are indeed many people in the cheerful garden hall and adjoining rooms, and Schrötter spots Reichenbach’s famous guest, Professor Liebig—he must go greet him.
To Councillor Reißnagel and his wife joins their house doctor, the young Dr. Eisenstein. He kisses the gracious lady’s hand and inquires about her health. “That’s another of Reichenbach’s passions,” the councillor says. “Inviting so many people. He thinks he has to emulate Baron Jacquin, who for thirty or forty years gathered everyone in Vienna with name or reputation. But the heathen money that costs!” With that, he takes a plate from the servant appearing before him, scoops goose liver pâté from the silver dish, and secures a glass of wine on the nearby console table. “Who’s that young man over there talking to Ottane?”
Dr. Eisenstein can provide the answer. The young man with the laughing face, the lion’s mane, and the audacious tie is, of course, a painter, the painter Max Heiland, of whom so much is said nowadays, a genius, everyone wants to have themselves painted by him, a rat catcher after whom the women run, it is said that the noblest ladies are happy to be allowed to pose for him.
For geniuses, Councillor Reißnagel has only a contemptuous growl. “They may make money, but it’s all just hocus-pocus; geniuses are only a nuisance for a decent official, an unreliable element that one can’t trust. Genius and revolution, that somehow go together.” But then his small eyes sparkle with a cold, amused light: “Aha, the host! And of course with Therese Dommayer!” He wipes his mouth, swallows the Nussberger—by the way, a splendid Nussberger—and steers eagerly toward Reichenbach and the actress.
“You haven’t given me an answer yet, gracious lady!” says Dr. Eisenstein, leading the councillor’s wife apparently casually from the garden hall onto the terrace.
Beneath the terrace, the forest mountains slope in wonderful lines down to the plain, and below lies the city with its thousands of lights in the soft darkness of the summer evening. City and river and mountains, peacefully merging, an intimate clinging together of human existence and landscape. But the young doctor isn’t interested in the landscape; he has spotted Hermine’s light blue dress outside. Was it an unfavorable coincidence or deliberate evasion that Hermine has always slipped away from his approach until now?
“I had another attack yesterday,” the councillor’s wife complains. “I almost sent for you. It was the same as always—first raging headaches, everything becomes so loud and glaring and stupefying, smells, lights, pressing in on me from all sides, hostile and threatening, then a twilight where I lose consciousness. When I came to, I was sitting on the bench in the garden. I don’t know how I got there.”
“We should try the magnetic cure after all,” the doctor says distractedly, searching with his eyes for the light blue dress he had just seen over there next to the large iron dog from the Blansko foundry.
“Oh, my husband won’t hear of it,” sighs Frau Pauline. “He thinks nothing of magnetic cures and says my whole illness is nothing but imagination.”
Meanwhile, Reichenbach has led the plump, always cheerful Therese Dommayer to the buffet and piled a mountain of sweets on her plate. Although Therese Dommayer is a great tragedienne, the greatest since time immemorial, in everyday life she has a great fondness for sweets. She saves the grand tones for the stage; her daily life is closer to a bright laugh, a silvery chime—it would be nice if this bell-like laughter could be heard more often, as much as possible.
“It’s quite nice in your city house too, dear Baron,” she says, “but out here, you first realize what a poor dog one is if you’re always stuck in the city. How divine nature is! We theater folk—good heavens, sometimes one wishes the devil would take the whole thing. She blinked slyly up at Reichenbach and then made a wistfully swelling face. “Oh yes, you rich folks have it good.”
A scent rose from her bare shoulders, Reichenbach bent slightly embarrassed over her: “Aren’t you richer than anyone else? Rich in your art! Rich in the admiration of your contemporaries!”
She swatted at Reichenbach with her hand and replied, chewing with full cheeks: “Contemporaries, you’re right, dear Baron, contemporaries! That’s just it. How long does the whole glory last? A few years. Then it’s over, especially for a woman. And then it goes: the mime’s posterity weaves no wreaths. Sometimes one has a longing: to be away from the world-famous stages, married, have a good husband, have children.” She tilted her head in an inimitable, flowing melancholy.
Councillor Reißnagel arrived at that moment very uninvited, no, he was not welcome at all. He wore his oiliest smile on his face, and his belly broadly pushed the air before him. He had to express his most submissive congratulations orally to the host for his elevation to baronial rank and for this illustrious company today, which in no way fell short of that of the late Baron Jacquin, indeed, on the contrary, through the presence of an artist like the divine Dommayer, gave a consecration often missed at Jacquin’s.
Therese nodded and calmly shoved a piece of cake into her mouth.
One could not say otherwise, the councillor continued, than that a lucky star hovered over this house, a downright Napoleonic lucky star. And if now, moreover, this process—this somewhat protracted and certainly costly process with the Salm heirs—should also come to a satisfactory conclusion…
“You know, of course,” Reichenbach interrupted, “that I won the first lawsuit…”
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 5
Silkworms are a tricky bunch. They need warmth, but not too much, fresh air but no drafts. They’re more delicate than you’d imagine, and above all, stubborn—they’ll only eat mulberry leaves. But mulberry trees don’t grow around Vienna like limes, birches, or chestnuts. You have to bring the leaves from afar, which raises costs, and the worms don’t seem to like leaves that aren’t freshly picked.
Even if you refresh the leaves with water, dry them, and do everything humanly possible, one day, for no clear reason, the silkworms stop eating. Something suddenly doesn’t suit them. They stop feeding and shrink into empty husks, or they swell, grow grotesquely fat, and burst, dissolving into mush. It happens alarmingly fast—in a few days, not a single worm is left alive.
Reichenbach has endured three such mass die-offs of his silkworms. But you can’t leave anything untried, so he starts a fourth time.
“You know,” Reichenbach said to his famous guest, the chemist Liebig, “you mustn’t shy away from personal sacrifices to launch an industry. Imagine if we succeed, if we can produce the silk we need—how much wealth that’d bring to the land.”
Liebig paused. “Maybe the critters don’t take to your Viennese climate. Maybe they’re just homesick. Your wine thrives better here, anyway. And frankly, you should stick to chemistry—that’s your field.”
Liebig was headed to the naturalists’ convention in Graz and had accepted Reichenbach’s invitation to be his guest, using his city apartment on Bäckergasse, his carriage, and one of his lackeys. Today, though, he’d come to Reisenberg for the feast Reichenbach was hosting. He arrived early that afternoon so his host could show him the estate. Count Kolowrat had wanted to appoint Liebig to the university, and Reichenbach hinted the idea was his, claiming he’d moved heaven and earth to secure the scholar to win for Vienna. The negotiations fell through, but the friendship forged then endured.
And because of this friendship, Liebig felt obliged to speak plainly about what struck him during the tour. “Look,” he said, “a man shouldn’t want too much at once. Or if he does, it should all stem from one center. But you’re scattering your strength—estates here and in Gutenbrunn, in Galicia, ironworks in Ternitz and Gaya, and now this silkworm business. Why not stick to your true field and build there? Why let others reap the fruits of your groundwork? Sell, who apprenticed with you, started tar distillation in Offenbach, and Hofmann found the tar base kyanol there. That’s a big deal you let slip away.”
“It’ll be no less big,” Reichenbach insisted, “if I succeed in founding a local silk industry. Once these trees grow and the worms get fresh leaves…”
They walked the road from Sievering to Reichenbach’s castle, known locally as Kobenzl, a road he’d lined with mulberry trees on both sides. But for now, the delicate fodder saplings were mere twigs, pitiful brooms, and if the worms had to get their food from elsewhere, countless generations might still perish.
Liebig saw that Reichenbach was one of those people who can’t pass a wall without wanting to bash through it, learning only from their own failures. But it was regrettable, deeply regrettable, to see him stray so far from his true calling.
Before the castle, Reichenbach excused himself, asking the baron to stroll in the garden or sit in the library until he’d changed.
But after leaving Liebig, he didn’t go straight to his dressing room. Instead, he wanted to quickly check the silkworm room. A double door sealed it from the hall to shield the delicate creatures from drafts. As he opened the first door, he heard someone weeping inside.
Indeed, there sat Friederike on the floor, sobbing bitterly.
It was a large, bright room with whitewashed walls, lined with wide wooden racks stacked with wire trays for the silkworms. And amid the racks, fifteen-year-old Friederike sat on the floor, crying wretchedly.
Lost in grief, she didn’t hear Reichenbach approach, wholly surrendered to her tears, as if she’d dissolve into a stream. She started when she heard his voice: “Now, now, little one, why such crying?”
When Reichenbach spoke to the child, he always slipped back into his native Swabian dialect, which he usually suppressed with great effort. But despite the kindness in his words, Friederike pressed her hands tighter to her face, tears flowing even more freely. The little Friederike, whom Frau Friederike Luise had once christened, had grown into a lanky, angular girl. Everything about her was sharp-edged, but her brown hair, in contrast to her otherwise plain frame, hung in two heavy braids down her back.
“Come now, little one! What’s so terrible?” Reichenbach asked again.
Finally, sobbing with heaving shoulders, she stammered, “They… won’t… eat… anymore!”
What, the silkworms wouldn’t eat again? Reichenbach stepped to one of the racks and saw that, indeed, the same thing that had happened before was starting again. The wretched, spoiled, delicate little beasts had stopped feeding. They lay still, no longer crawling, motionless on the wire mesh. Some had half-raised their bodies, as if rearing up in a desperate spasm before freezing in place. A nudge with his finger toppled them. A few showed faint signs of life, but most were already free of hunger’s cares. Just last evening, even this morning, they’d nibbled at the leaves, and now, inexplicably suddenness and for unfathomable reasons, the great dying had come over them again. The entire colony was clearly on the verge of collapse.
“Yes, yes,” Reichenbach said mournfully, “they won’t eat anymore.” But as the child sobbed harder, he steadied himself, giving his voice a brighter, comforting tone: “Nothing to be done. These critters just don’t like it here. No one’s to blame… least of all you.”
Little Friederike Ruf had begged to care for the silkworms, wanting to do something, especially something she knew Reichenbach cared about. She could be trusted with the task—no one had been more diligent, more attentive, kept the racks cleaner. If disaster had struck again, Friederike bore the least blame; she’d overlooked nothing and surely rejoiced more than anyone in their thriving.
Now she lifted her hands from her face and rose to her knees. A delicate, clever child’s face emerged. Tears still streamed from her eyes, her lips trembled, but she looked up at Reichenbach with gratitude and trust.
“You can’t let your spirits sink,” Reichenbach continued confidently. “One day we’ll succeed, figure out what’s wrong. Now, you must pick out the dead worms, and we’ll see if we can save the rest.”
He stroked the child’s wavy crown, and from the touch, joy flowed into her young, yearning soul. Yes, now she could laugh again and spring to her feet. Reichenbach wasn’t even out the door before she began clearing away the worms ravaged by the plague.
At the end of the hall, where the stairs rose to the upper floor, Reichenbach paused before a door and, after a brief hesitation, entered.
The corner room had two windows. One was draped with vine leaves over a curved iron grille; in the bright light of the other stood a long table with books and plant specimens.
Hermine was still bent over the microscope.
“It’s time to get dressed,” Reichenbach urged. “Our guests will arrive soon.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Maybe you could sing something today.”
“I think,” Hermine said timidly, “my voice isn’t quite right today.”
“Not right? What nonsense is that? Are you a theater princess? Theater princesses can afford to be ‘out of voice’—it always sounds interesting. You don’t need to make yourself interesting. If you sing poorly, people will say, ‘Well, she’s a botanist, it’s not her field, but for a woman devoted to science, she sings remarkably well.’ And if you sing well, they’ll say, ‘She’s a botanist too, and the late Baron Jacquin called her his most gifted student, and she’s already made a name for herself in the scientific world with her discoveries about plant anatomy. It’s remarkable that she sings so well too. Besides, you really do sing well—why else did I spend so much on your lessons if you’re suddenly not going to sing? So you’ll sing, and that’s that. I’ve already sent Severin with the carriage for Meisenbiegl.”
“Yes, Father!”
From the door, he added, “Oh—and one more thing. Dr. Eisenstein will be here today. He’s an ambitious young man, a capable doctor, you can’t deny him that. He’s got all sorts of unusual, new ideas; he’ll make something of himself. But he’s too eager for you and has hinted he’ll soon ask me a certain question. I don’t like it, and it shouldn’t suit you either. You have other plans, other goals—you’ve already turned down professors, councillors, barons, counts, and rich factory owners. So if he gets any ideas, make it clear his suit won’t find a warm welcome, not from you, not from me. Let him spare himself the trouble. I hope you understand.”
The old count spoke without undue solemnity, yet Reichenbach sensed something weighty behind it, an inner shift toward something new.
“And what’ll happen here without you?” Reichenbach asked.
“It’s a blessing I have you, Reichenbach,” the old count replied, a wistful smile in his voice. “You don’t need me. It’s as good as if I were here. No task is too much.” Perhaps he truly smiled now, but it wasn’t visible.
“And tomorrow I’ll come by the factory again,” the old count added, then left.
Frau Paleczek appeared with a light and set the table, but as she brought the plates, she suddenly wailed and ran out. After a while, Susi brought the supper instead.
“Where’s Paleczek?” Reichenbach asked.
“She’s sitting in the kitchen crying,” Susi said, but then her composure broke too. She swallowed hard, abruptly sobbing, pulled her apron over her face, and ran out.
After poking at his food, Reichenbach rose and went to the children’s room. It had been fumigated with sulfur and juniper and sprayed with vinegar, still smelling sharp. The children lay in freshly made beds but weren’t asleep yet.
“Have you done your assignments for tomorrow?” Reichenbach asked, standing by Reinhold’s bed.
“Herr Futterknecht said,” Reinhold admitted hesitantly, “we don’t need to do assignments for tomorrow.”
“So!” Reichenbach said, nothing more. Then: “Good night! Sleep now.” He shook Reinhold’s hand, stroked Hermine’s forehead, and bent to kiss Ottane’s cheek.
The child flung her arms up, wrapped them around his neck, and pulled him close. “Papa,” she whispered, “I’ll always be good and love you so much.”
The painfully sweet tenderness of such clinging melted the stiffness in his limbs, and Reichenbach held Ottane close.
“I promised Mutti,” the child whispered, “and she’ll always come to me and tell me what the sky-sheep sing.”
“When did you promise Mutti?” Reichenbach asked, just as softly.
“Tonight—when she was with me.”
Tonight? Tonight? What could that mean, tonight? A sudden stab of dread seared his heart. Troubled, shaken to his core, Reichenbach tucked the blanket over Ottane and went to the next room, where the drawings for the new furnace still lay on the desk.
The furnace was built to Reichenbach’s plans and exceeded all expectations. It roared, spat, and glowed, producing nearly as much charcoal as the wood fed into it, and most importantly, showed no tendency for unexpected mischief.
Once it was running smoothly, Reichenbach decided it was time to restart the abandoned Doubrowitzer hammer mill. So he put it back into operation. Then he thought it was time to build a drilling rig. He built one, installing a drilling machine—naturally, the largest in Austria,and could bore cylinders over twelve feet in diameter.
Then Reichenbach turned to agriculture, starting, as agreed with the old count, to grow sugar beets, which naturally required a sugar factory. Since farming was foreign to him, with no innate knowledge of it, nothing became more important than beets and sugar. Some things succeeded, others failed, and years passed. Looking back on New Year’s Eve, it felt like each year had only begun the day before yesterday.
Meanwhile, the old count traveled the world, writing long letters to Reichenbach about his findings.
The old count wrote that he and Lord Rumford conducted experiments on gas expansion, especially gunpowder, nearly blowing themselves up once.
He wrote that he’d heard of Jenner’s vaccination discovery, calling it a magnificent invention, and was now vaccinating himself. He sent vaccine and needles to Reichenbach for free distribution, later adding a self-written treatise on cowpox.
Reichenbach replied that it was indeed a great invention, but the people wanted no part of it. Meanwhile, the workshop was now producing hydraulic presses, water-lifting, and conveyor machines.
The old count wrote that he was now studying the Loserdorre cattle breed disease, to be fought with iron-containing hydrochloric acid, and he sent a self-written pamphlet on it. He was also on the trail of a remedy for rabies, likely in a cyanide compound. But against cholera, no cure could be found.
Reichenbach replied that the Brno censor was a fool for banning the old count’s pamphlet. As for rabies, he begged him, for God’s sake, to be careful with sick animals. Meanwhile, he was shipping barrel hoops to Singapore, cookware to Haiti, iron stoves to Turkey, and creosote to America and Egypt. He said nothing about cholera or its treatment.
Sometimes the old count came home. His eyes had a restless glint; he laughed loudly, sat in Reichenbach’s sofa corner, smoked like a chimney, and drank heavy wine. He looked over the books, made a few tweaks to the machines, then vanished again for days. During one such visit, Forester Ruf came and said, “Can you believe, Herr Director, the old count stopped by my place today?”
“So what?” Reichenbach asked. Why shouldn’t the old count visit Ruf? He roamed the valley, dropping in on folks, asking how they were, urging them and their children to get vaccinated against smallpox. Sometimes he liked to wander the woods in shabby, tattered clothes, like a traveling journeyman, chatting with old peasant women to beg from those who didn’t know him, only to richly reward them afterward if they gave him something. Why shouldn’t he have visited Forester Ruf?
“Well, but,” Ruf said hesitantly, “you won’t believe it. He sent Schnuparek’s widow, who’s watching the child, away, and when I came in, he was crawling under the table with the girl on all fours, barking like a dog, fooling around. He brought her a big new doll, too, and when he left, I saw money tucked in the mirror frame.”
“Why shouldn’t he give you money, Ruf?” Reichenbach said. “He probably remembered being at your girl’s christening and how different things were then.”
“But I don’t know if I can keep it,” Ruf stammered, flushed with embarrassment. “It’s a whole hundred gulden. The old count must’ve made a mistake.”
“Keep it!” Reichenbach urged. Yes, great lords sometimes had such generous whims, and perhaps the old count, with his incognito wandering and gift-giving, took after a caliph who’d done similar things. But Ruf shouldn’t thank him—the old count didn’t like being reminded of his kindnesses.
The old count never stayed home long. He’d look around briefly, bring gifts for Reichenbach’s children, praise their growth, looks, and progress, discuss business and new scientific plans with Reichenbach. But Friederike Luise was never mentioned.
Then the old count went on his way again.
He wrote: He had been admitted to the Société Harmonique in Strasbourg, where new and remarkable insights into human nature were to be gained. He was increasingly convinced that hidden forces lay in the human soul—a mysterious agent, a magnetic fluid, stretching into the incomprehensible. Mesmerism was merely a casual name for it. The laws of this natural force were still little explored, and he urged Reichenbach to study it, believing his skill and persistence could greatly advance science.
Reichenbach, grappling with sugar beets and tenants, thought something irreverent. Mesmerism, he felt, was for people with too much time, and it could slide down his back. A few months later, a letter arrived: the old count had become politically suspect in Strasbourg, likely because the French government had once seized his ancestral castle in the Ardennes. Facing arrest, he chose to slip away, continuing his studies in Vienna.
Then no further news came until a thick letter arrived, addressed in a stranger’s hand with black seals. It stated that the old count Hugo zu Salm-Reifferscheidt had unexpectedly died in Vienna of a heart ailment, leaving his heirs, his father the old prince, the widow, and his son, the young count, instructed before his death to renew the general power of attorney for Herr Karl Reichenbach. The enclosed power of attorney was signed in accordance with the deceased’s wishes.
This was written not by the old prince, the widow, or the young count, but by the old princely lawyer, Dr. Gradwohl.
In the midst of a heated argument with the chief accountant over booking certain items, the door opens, and old Johann enters.
He had knocked, of course, but with the shouting as the general director defended his view, no one heard it. Old Johann hasn’t grown younger since that glorious night of the meteor fall—a parchment-stretched skeleton, cheekbones nearly piercing his skin, nose crooked over a sunken mouth, but his eyes hold a strange brightness, as if seeing things clearer than younger eyes, perhaps through them. He had accompanied the late old count on his travels, not always a restful job, judging by what Johann occasionally lets slip. At any rate, he returned to the Rajzter castle quite aged and worn, and for a while, he was allowed to rest and do nothing. But then they pulled him out again, and the young count said Johann was far from too old to do nothing but smoke his pipe and whistle to his starling. The young count, barely made prince after his grandfather’s death, brought a sharper edge to everything, tightening all that was loose.
And the young prince thought old Johann far from frail enough to eat his bread for free, still capable of sitting on the coachbox, so long as it wasn’t the wild Lipizzaners hitched up. He could still save them a second coachman.
Now old Johann announces that the carriage waits outside and that His Princely Grace requests General Director Reichenbach to Rajtzer Castle. He says “requests,” though His Princely Grace simply said: Reichenbach should come.
A veil rift shimmered as Tobal left Rafe’s valley, a faint tremor in the air marking his departure. Rafe explained the best way to survive in the winter was to hunt the larger animals like the deer. Each kill would provide enough food for a week or more, and in the winter, it was very important to have some food set aside for emergencies and for when the weather really got bad. Winter was also the best time for trapping animals for their fur. He would need some winter clothing before it got really cold, and this was as good a time to learn as any. He could make some things now while the furs were prime and keep them at Rafe’s camp until he needed them.
In the meantime, it was spring, and life was abundant. Flowers bloomed in the meadows, and insects flew and crawled all over. Tobal learned to make containers and drinking cups out of the green bark of birch trees, the rough texture soothing under his fingers, and boiled water in them. He used them to make teas and ointments that kept the deerflies and ticks away, the bitter taste lingering on his tongue. His skin became tanned, and his muscles hardened from constant exposure and work. He could stay outside in any weather and walk the entire day without being exhausted. By the end of the second week, Tobal was living completely on his own food. He was not only finding food but was providing food for Rafe to eat. He still had trouble cooking though—nothing he cooked tasted as good as the mouthwatering victuals Rafe provided, the salted jerky soup a savory highlight. Still, Rafe never complained. Tobal learned the importance of keeping his knife razor sharp, the edge biting into his calloused hands, both of them—keeping the one from his initiation on his belt and his old knife strapped to his right leg above his ankle just as Rafe did.
By the end of the second week, he was getting bored with the monotony of the daily grind and the constant need to keep busy. He was looking forward to something new. They moved out from Rafe’s small valley and traveled in different directions, meeting up at designated spots on the map every other day. Tobal became proficient with the map and with triangulating where he was at any given time, his intuition pulling him toward uncharted paths. He spent some evenings alone and others with Rafe. The evenings he spent with Rafe were spent creating different kinds of shelters and sleeping in them. He was amazed at how many things could be used for shelter. But they all had the bed made of soft fragrant pine boughs, and he followed the first rule of never sleeping on the ground if it could be avoided.
Leaning trees that had fallen provided shelter when combined with the gray poncho material. Two trees and his walking stick lashed between them became an impromptu tent. Lean-to shelters were easily made, and he also made a small teepee using the gray blanket material. The need for water was always present, and he never strayed too far from a good supply of it. He learned where to look for fresh water springs and waterholes. He also learned to collect rainwater with his poncho or blanket and fill his canteens and other containers. Rainwater was fresh and didn’t need to be boiled. Water from stagnant pools needed to be boiled before drinking.
He practiced continuously with the sling and his bow. He got his first deer at the end of the third week. He was really excited, even though there was too much meat. They spent two days slicing and smoking it into jerky that could be stored away to eat later. It made his pack much heavier, and he cached some carefully in a tree, marking the spot on his map so he could return to it later. Once in a while, they would see an air sled in the distance with a medic on it. They would wave, and sometimes the medic would wave back. Medics were not allowed to interfere with the Apprentice degrees unless there was an emergency, but they did keep an eye on things.
It was during the fourth and final week that Rafe asked Tobal to look at the map and decide where he was going to solo. He should also start thinking about where he was going to be training people. He recommended Tobal stay roughly within 60 miles of the gathering spot. “Where are the others?” he asked Rafe curiously. “We don’t move around too much unless we are training someone,” Rafe answered. “The Journeymen usually find a permanent spot, and no one bothers them. Many of the older Apprentices do too. That’s why we haven’t seen anyone. Still, a lot of the nicer spots have been taken, and it’s getting harder to find an area that someone has not at least passed through. We encourage the newbies to stay within 30 miles of the gathering spot so we can keep an eye on them. Since there are normally not more than seven or eight training at any given time, there is lots of space, and it’s easy to stay out of each other’s way.”
Tobal enjoyed the rugged outdoor lifestyle and the solitude. He felt a quiet confidence in his growing ability to survive and was looking forward to his own solo that was rapidly approaching. The fourth week was different than the first three. It was travel, travel, and more travel. Rafe knew where several people lived, and they set out to visit them. A shadow flickered among the trees one day—a rogue, perhaps—hinting at unseen danger. The meaning was clear: Rafe wanted Tobal to be able to go for help and find someone if it was needed. He also wanted Tobal to know who his friends were. Once, when they were going through the woods, Rafe stopped him and motioned him to be silent. He pointed at three figures in black that were going through the woods at a fast dogtrot.
“There are some people, particularly in the Journeyman degree,” Rafe said later, “that have gone off the deep end and gone rogue. These Journeymen will ambush a person, destroy his or her belongings, take their supplies, and leave them helpless. It is a real danger that must always be kept in mind. Fortunately, the rogues do not stay close to the gathering spot. They are not very good woodsmen and can barely survive on their own during the winter. That’s probably why they prey on others. Usually, they prey on other Journeymen that have set up permanent camps and take their winter supplies. It always pays to be careful. If possible, know whom you are visiting; some might make you welcome, and some camps might be dangerous. I don’t think there is any danger of being killed,” Rafe said, “but there is always the possibility of being injured and put in the hospital or something. The medics might not be able to get there in time. If you ever run across something that is not yours, leave it alone. There is no need to get anyone pissed off because you messed with their stuff.”
With that final warning, they headed back toward the gathering spot and the monthly circle celebration. Circle was different this time around, and Tobal whistled merrily as he traveled the path into camp. He didn’t see anyone on the trail, and no one tried to stop him or Rafe. Rafe seemed amused at Tobal’s whistling but didn’t say anything about it. He only whistled a few short bars at two sharp turns in the trail, and that was it. People were setting up teepees and gathering wood for the fires. There was a lot of work to do, and Tobal joined in with enthusiasm. He helped dig the roasting pits where the bigger animals were being prepared. It felt good to work alongside other clansmen and joke with them. He was grateful to contribute, and as evening came closer, he wondered what the night would bring.
Everyone was changing into robes. All clan members at circle wore robes that they kept in one of the storage buildings. A black-robed guard was handing them out. There was no reason to haul robes around all month when they were only used here. Tobal was given a long gray robe similar to the one he had gotten at sanctuary. “Just bring it back tomorrow when you’re done with it,” was all the guard told him. It turned out only four newbies were being initiated that night. Tobal made some new friends and was hanging out with them. They were all Apprentices. Zee was a raven-haired girl with shoulder-length hair and a good sense of humor. She had been one of Rafe’s students and was training her first newbie. Nicky, the newbie, had just arrived at sanctuary two weeks ago and was being initiated as Apprentice that night but would be waiting till next month before starting her solo.
Wayne was a stocky, good-natured fellow with sandy hair. He had been an Apprentice for two years and wasn’t in any hurry to make it to Journeyman. He didn’t have any student and hadn’t been training anyone for the past few months. He was more interested in being with his girlfriend, who was also an Apprentice. His girlfriend, Char, had curly brown hair and a ready smile. They were always seen together at circle. Tobal remembered both of them from last circle. It was easy to tell they were in love. A tall, lanky, sandy-haired kid was soloing the same time he was. They hit it off right away during last month’s initiation. In fact, all six that had been initiated last month were soloing this month. Kevin was more nervous about his solo than Tobal was. It made Tobal realize Rafe was a very uncommon teacher and extremely good at teaching others what they needed to know. Most soloists didn’t have the quality of training or the experience Rafe had given him. Kevin kept thinking about bad things that might happen in the woods, things that hadn’t occurred to Tobal since his first weeks of training. Many clansmen were excited about the six of them soloing, and they were given lots of support and encouragement.
Nicky kept staring at Tobal’s face; finally, she blurted out, “What happened to your face anyway?” Tobal was caught by surprise and off guard. “I was attacked by a wild animal that knocked me down. I fought it off and was really lucky,” he lied. “I almost lost the sight in this eye,” and he fingered the long scar around his right eye. Nicky said, “It makes you look kind of sexy and dangerous,” and it was her turn to blush. Rising to her feet, she crossed over to where Tobal was sitting and crouched down in front of him, putting her arms around his neck. “Very sexy,” she whispered and kissed him deeply and passionately on the lips, pulling his hand against the top of her breasts where her robe lay casually open at the top. Then she stood back up and walked toward the kitchen to refill her mug of beer. Tobal was stunned, then pleased. In this camp, there were many scars and tattoos, and each one had a story. In fact, the more scars or tattoos a person had, the more stories that went with them. Wayne was planning on getting matching tattoos with Char. They were debating what tattoos would look right and the best places to have them.
There was an awkward silence, but it passed, and everyone started talking again about the coming solo. After a while, one of the red-cloaked figures came toward their group. She was a medic named Ellen. Tobal recognized her as the High Priestess who initiated him. She asked if everyone was ready for circle. A few hours later, Tobal and the others were at the circle entrance, waiting and watching as it was cast and purified. The older members were gathered around. The central bonfire was piled high, and the smaller fires at each of the quarters burned merrily. The High Priestess and High Priest cast the circle, and Tobal watched with interest as they worked closely together.
They stood together before the stone altar that was set on the northern side of the central fire. The High Priestess handed the High Priest a bowl of water. As he held it, she put the tip of her knife into it. “I purify you spirit of water, banishing all impurities and illusion. May you be charged with the power, strength, and love of the Lord and Lady. Blessed be!” Then the High Priest put the bowl of water back on the altar and picked up a bowl of rock salt, handing it to the High Priestess. She held the bowl as he put the tip of his knife into it. “I purify you spirit of salt, banishing all impurities and evil. May you be charged with the power, strength, and love of the Lord and Lady. Blessed Be!” Then he took the bowl of consecrated salt from the High Priestess as she picked up the bowl of consecrated water. They faced each other, and he poured the salt slowly into the bowl of water and set his empty bowl down on the altar. He stayed there as the High Priestess set her bowl on the altar and began casting the circle with her knife. She started in the northwest corner of the circle directly where Tobal and the others were standing and moved deosil, walking the perimeter of the circle, saying, “May this circle be a meeting place of love, joy, and truth. Shield us against evil, protect us, and direct the power we shall raise tonight. In the name of the Lord and Lady, So mote it be.”
The High Priest joined her as they both came back to the circle entrance. With her knife, she opened a pathway for them to enter the circle. Then she and the High Priest began to admit members into the circle with a hug and kiss, spinning them clockwise into the circle. The High Priestess greeted the males, and the High Priestess greeted the females into the circle until everyone was within the circle and seated. The entry was sealed, and the High Priest took the bowl of water and started at the North signal fire behind the altar, sprinkling it with the water and salt mixture. He continued around the circle, stopping at each quarter, sprinkling the water and salt mixture, intoning, “I purify you with water.” Coming once more to the North, he continued around the circle, sprinkling each member with water and blessing him or her.
As he was doing this, a different Master in a red cloak took up a smoking smudge of sage and stopped at each quarter, waving the smoking smudge, saying, “I purify you with air.” She continued around the circle, blessing and purifying each circle member. Another Master took a flaming torch from the central bonfire and purified the circle and members with fire. Only the High Priestess and High Priest had their hoods down. The other red-cloaked figures had large hoods that covered their faces and hid their identities. Tobal only recognized Ellen as the High Priestess. A Yggdrasil root pulse trembled beneath the fire, a faint hum grounding the energy.
The High Priestess went to the East of the circle and drew an invoking pentagram of air with her knife. “Watchtowers of the East, powers of air. I call upon you to be with us tonight.” Moving along the edge of the circle to the South Quarter, she traced a matching invoking pentagram of fire in the air in front of the signal fire. “Watchtowers of the South, powers of fire. I call upon you to be with us tonight.” Moving to the west, she traced an invoking pentagram of water in front of that signal fire. “Watchtowers of the west, powers of water. I call upon you to be with us tonight.” Moving to the North, she traced an invoking pentagram of earth in front of that signal fire. “Watchtowers of the North, powers of Earth. I call upon you to be with us tonight.” Tobal suddenly felt an electrical tension that filled the circle. It was a powerful energy but also quiet and balanced. He sensed each of the four energies and wondered at their uses, a psychic flicker brushing his mind with a distant fear.
Returning to the altar in the North, the High Priestess made the sign of the cross and turned with her back facing the altar. Her robe slipped to the ground, displaying her naked body in the firelight. The High Priest with his right forefinger touched her right breast, left breast, womb, and back up to her right breast, making a downward-pointing triangle. “I invoke and call upon the eternal Lady that is deep within you and has always been within you from the birth of your physical body and from the birth of your eternal soul. Join us in peace and love within our circle and give us your blessings.” The High Priest stepped back and waited silently. The High Priestess opened her eyes, and Tobal could swear it was not the same person. Her eyes and voice took on a power and authority that filled the entire circle, a transcendent Hel surge warming his intuition.
“Let there be Love.” Slowly they traded places, and the High Priest stood with his back to the altar, and his robe slid to the ground, exposing his hard and muscled figure. The High Priestess with power and authority touched him first on the center of the forehead, then the left shoulder, the right shoulder, and back to the forehead once more, making an upward-pointing triangle. “I invoke and call upon the eternal Lord that is deep within you and has always been within you since the birth of your physical body and the birth of your immortal soul. Join us in energy and light within our circle and give us your blessings.” Then she stood back and waited. The High Priest opened his eyes and responded, spreading his arms wide in blessing.
“Let there be Light!” Tobal could feel energy filling the circle. It was charged with a type of static electricity, and he was feeling hot and stuffy, almost a little uncomfortable. He also felt the presence of the Lord and Lady within the High Priest and High Priestess and wondered at it, their Hel energy pulsing through him.
The High Priestess and the High Priest then stood side by side, facing the East, holding hands as she intoned the charge of the Lord and Lady as he first heard it during his initiation. He felt deeply stirred at the memory, and suddenly he could see and feel both the Lord and Lady leaving the High Priest and High Priestess and taking their place above the central fire. He sensed them in his mind, looking down in blessing and filling the circle with love, peace, and healing. It seemed they looked directly toward him and smiled in welcome.
Then the drums began, and members began to dance deosil around the circle. Tobal joined reluctantly at first and then with growing passion. They danced slowly and then more wildly as the energy level rose. The drums beat more rapidly, and the dancers became crazed, throwing off robes and dancing naked in the firelight. They leapt and sang in ecstasy, moving around the fire alone and as partners, losing themselves to the beat and rhythm of the drums. Tobal gave himself to the pounding rhythm and to the Lord and Lady. He was dancing for them. The drums beat faster and faster until the dancers were sweat-streaked but showed no sign of stopping. A sudden signal from the High Priestess brought complete and abrupt silence to the entire circle as everyone turned and looked at her. The tension and energy in the circle were overpowering. “Lord and Lady,” she shouted, “We ask you to send your blessings and our blessings out to those in special need this night. We especially ask you to bless and assist those that are about to solo. Be with them and guide their steps so they may return successfully to us in a month’s time. So mote it be!” “So mote it be,” the entire circle replied, and Tobal felt such a wave of energy and love wash over him that he was swept out of his body and up once more into the arms of the Lady, this time as a baby. She gazed lovingly into his eyes as his consciousness faded away.
Tobal woke as someone helped him back to the edge of the circle where his robe was lying. That wasn’t the end, though, because Nicky’s initiation began. Again, he experienced the buildup of energy, only this time it was directed at Nicky. Again, in his mind’s eye, he saw the Lord and Lady taking their place above the central fire. Later, there were people standing in relaxed bunches around fires, drinking and eating. Instinctively, he knew the circle had done some powerful magick that night, and that his solo would be blessed. As the gathering wound down, Ellen, the High Priestess, approached him. “I noticed you faint when the Lord and Lady blessed you,” she said gently. “You might be sensitive to them and want to know more. I’m holding a special meditation group tomorrow morning for those interested in studying their mysteries and shifting to other realms. You’re welcome to join if you’d like—not everyone does.” Tobal nodded, intrigued.
This was quite different from the wild party he had experienced last month. There was a feeling of joy, friendship, and goodwill as people joked and talked with each other, helping themselves to enormous quantities of food and drink. They gradually moved into small groups to quietly sit together and talk far into the night. He made a special point of welcoming Nicky into the clan. He spent time chatting with Zee and noticed Angel was back from sanctuary. She was limping slightly but otherwise seemed to be doing well. He met another Apprentice named Tara. He had noticed her dancing and made a special point to meet her. Wayne and Char were both there, laughing at some of the stories Rafe was telling. It was a good party, and he felt warm and happy when he finally made his way to bed.
That night, after the party, Tobal drifted into a Niflheim dream—his parents trapped in a rune-lit cell, whispering, “Find the shard to break the veil.” Groggily, he woke, the vision lingering. The next morning, with the fresh magical energy lingering from the previous night’s blowout, Tobal attended the meditation, joining a small group in a quiet clearing. As they closed their eyes, a powerful vision enveloped him—the Lord and Lady stood before a shimmering lake, their voices urging, “Go south, to the lake, where a fragment awaits.” The vision faded, leaving him with a clear pull toward that destination, and he set out directly on his solo adventure.
Tobal’s solo wasn’t the way he envisioned it. He left circle on the 2nd morning when everyone else was leaving. He had decided to explore some country he hadn’t visited before, seeking a place with adequate water and a potential base camp. Guided by his vision of the Lord and Lady that morning, he felt compelled to head south. His map showed a small lake about a hundred miles south, a spot he’d noticed before but now felt drawn to explore. Though it was beyond the recommended 30-mile radius, no strict rules confined him. The circle’s energy had shifted his plans, pulling him toward the lake, and it felt right. He headed east until he found a small stream feeding into it, whistling lightly as he started out. The day was bright and warm, and he kept an eye out for food, setting up a leisurely camp by the stream. Late May brought a chill to the evenings but pleasant days.
After building a shelter and gathering firewood, he roasted a rabbit caught with his sling. As it cooked, he fetched the last wood and set fish traps for morning. Earlier, he’d retrieved smoked jerky from a cache. Mixing it with greens, he made a hearty soup to pair with the rabbit—a satisfying meal enhanced by the salt he’d gotten at circle. With survival routine now second nature thanks to Rafe’s training, his mind turned to the terrain ahead. Settling under blankets, he listened to the fire’s crackle and felt its light on his face. The Lord and Lady’s protective presence filled his mind, a Hel surge warming his intuition, and he drifted into a peaceful sleep, waking only to stoke the embers.
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“I’d like to know—what the Viennese would say,” Reichenbach quips.
“I thought,” the old count continues, ignoring the jest, “if this turns out alright for me, nothing will happen to your wife.”
“What’s supposed to happen to my wife?” Reichenbach asks.
“I’m worried about her. Her good heart puts her in danger. Don’t let your wife go to the sick. She can’t help them anyway.”
Reichenbach promises a husbandly command, and after the next glass of wine, they part. As Reichenbach climbs down from the carriage at his house, the old count calls after him: “And tell your wife I fell in the water for her sake. But next time, I’ll definitely bring back a stalactite. She’ll have to be patient till then.”
Reichenbach steps into the house, finding Reinhold loitering in the hall with a frightened face, clearly idle.
“Where’s your mother?” Reichenbach asks, eager to share his tale. He’ll ask Friederike Luise, Guess where I’ve been? She’ll be a bit shocked, scold him, but end up happy seeing his joy at their success. Then he’ll tease her that the old count is head over heels for her.
“Where’s your mother?” he asks again, three steps up the stairs, as Reinhold hasn’t answered.
Reinhold stands rigid, eyes fixed on his father’s face, wide with fear—his mother’s eyes. “Mother’s sick. She’s in bed.”
“In bed…?”
“And Peter’s gone to fetch the doctor…”
Reichenbach races up the stairs, taking three at a time.
Chapter 4
The night before Friederike Luise’s light went out, Reichenbach sat in his study, plans for the new wood-carbonization furnace spread before him, complete with changes and improvements born of past failures. One couldn’t endlessly stare into fate’s empty eye sockets; he had to force himself to turn his mind elsewhere. Sitting by the sickbed, waiting, was unbearable. Waiting for what? The inevitable, signaled clearly enough by Dr. Roskoschny’s averted gaze and head-shaking? For a man used to mastering life, gripping it with both fists, kneading his will into things, this was intolerable. Sitting at the edge of grief and despair, powerless to help, was beyond his strength.
There were the drawings and sketches—shut-off valves, serpentine heating tubes, exhaust ducts, condensers, bellows—but even as Reichenbach pulled himself together and spurred his focus, he could draw and calculate for an hour. In the second hour, his attention waned, and it rose around him like water, dissolving his limbs.
It was a green, glowing flood, like the water in the Punkva cave, and he drifted on a raft over it. He saw stones on the bottom, the play of fish, and then a face swam just below the surface—his own, of course. He had never seen himself so closely, every feature sharper than in any mirror. Yet there was something strange in the familiar, something mysterious, unsettling, fearsome. Yes, that’s how it must be, Reichenbach thought, when the veils are stripped away. Veils? he wondered immediately. Why that word?
He jolted, somehow pulled away from his blueprints by the question, feeling as if someone in the next room had spoken the word aloud.
Reichenbach listened intently, but all was silent. His head swam from the sharp odors of the fumigated house.
Next door was the children’s bedroom. The children were gone; they couldn’t stay with their sick mother—the doctor forbade it, and the old count insisted they be taken to his castle. Beyond the empty children’s room was the room where Friederike Luise fought her hopeless battle for life, the marital bedroom now overshadowed by death. Frau Paleczek was with the sick woman. She wouldn’t be kept from keeping vigil, as all the maids except Susi had fled, and even Susi couldn’t be persuaded to approach the bed. Strangely, Frau Paleczek’s heavy steps had softened, her bass voice now gentle.
Perhaps Friederike Luise had spoken in her fever, or Paleczek had said something, or someone had called for Reichenbach. He stood and went to the children’s room, Distant lightning flared silently through the night, a faint glow from the lantern above the front door creeping through the windows, just bright enough to reveal the three empty children’s beds.
Then Reichenbach saw a figure standing among the beds, a mere shadow, tall, fleeting, indistinct—but surely, yes, none other than Friederike Luise.
“How did you get here? What are you doing?” Reichenbach asked, astonished.
“I was with the children,” Friederike Luise’s voice answered softly, sadly. With the children, Reichenbach wanted to ask, but the shadow was suddenly gone. The empty beds stood there, and lightning flickered over the valley. No door had creaked, but somehow Friederike Luise must have slipped out, and if he hurried, he might catch her climbing back into her bed. A wild hope of a sudden turn for the better surged through him.
But when Reichenbach opened the door, his wife lay in her pillows, face turned to the wall, so faintly nestled he could hardly believe she’d stood before him moments ago. Frau Paleczek sat beside her, her dark face bent over a worn prayer book.
“Was my wife up?” Reichenbach asked.
Paleczek stared at him through owl-round reading glasses. “Up? Oh, Jesus, Mary, the gracious lady hasn’t stirred for two hours. I think she’s sleeping. That’s good.”
“But I saw her—” Reichenbach wanted to say. He held back, realizing exhaustion, inner brokenness, and hopeless longing had clouded his senses.
When Frau Paleczek thought the sick woman’s sleep was a good, healing one, she was mistaken. It opened a dark gate for the patient, who passed through at dawn without regaining consciousness—a rare mercy, Dr. Roskoschny said, almost a gift from heaven.
Frau Paleczek set to washing the body, though washing cholera victims was forbidden. She refused to let the body be covered with quicklime, as regulations required, and Dr. Roskoschny turned a blind eye, feeling Friederike Luise shouldn’t be lumped with the mass of other victims.
Remarkably, news of her death spread quickly among the people. Though she was buried on her death day with no pomp, her simple coffin drew an unusually large following. Usually, only a few close relatives trailed behind, hasty and timid, some even seeming relieved when the earth thudded into the grave. But people couldn’t seem to tear themselves away from Friederike Luise’s coffin. The sobbing wrapped around the coffin like a web, cloaking it in a blanket woven from the heart’s emotion. Everyone found it fitting that, after the pastor’s blessing, the old count stepped to the grave to speak.
He didn’t get far. “We’ve come to say farewell, Friederike Luise—” he began, but his voice broke, tears streamed down, he shook his head, and stepped back. Then people approached Reichenbach, shaking his hand; some gently touched the heads of the children standing meekly nearby. Most did so silently, though a few felt compelled to offer words of comfort. Reichenbach had held himself together with composure, never losing control for a moment. Everything had been strangely vivid, but now, as it was essentially over and faces kept appearing and turning away in an endless stream, a veil fell over his clarity. Many faces he didn’t recognize; others he named only after long thought. There was Mandrial, the pastor; the broad cheekbones likely belonged to the chemist Mader; the timid dog-like eyes to the tutor Futterknecht; and that wretched expression to Forester Ruf, who said something about six children…
Yes, yes, Reichenbach had heard something about it. He recalled now, in the days when Friederike Luise fought against death, something about his seven children. Six had died, and only little Friederike, the deceased’s godchild, was still alive.
Friederike Luise had likely caught the germ of the disease from Ruf’s children. Yes, that’s how things were connected—everything somehow intertwined, however incomprehensible it seemed.
Then Reichenbach climbed the stairs in his house, and someone walked beside him—the old count Hugo zu Salm, personally baptized by Maria Theresa. A little later, Reichenbach sat on the sofa in the living room, the old count beside him, the house otherwise eerily empty. There were likely three children somewhere in the house, but with Futterknecht, who ensured they stayed quiet.
The day was dreary and cool. Reichenbach shivered, saying, “Autumn’s not far now, and the doctor thinks the cholera will stop then.” It could stop now, having taken its toll.
Then a voice came, as if from deep darkness: “It was a sin… a sinful thought… you cast such things into the world, and there are indeed evil spirits around us, waiting for such thoughts. They seize them and turn them into weapons. It’s my fault.”
Reichenbach perked up, realizing the voice had been speaking for a while. “What’s your fault?” he asked.
“I shouldn’t have linked my life with hers. I shouldn’t have done it, back when I fell in the water. That thought: if I escape, nothing will happen to her. It was as if they let me go to take her instead. I’m to blame for her death. It just sprang up in me so suddenly.”
“How can you talk like that?” Reichenbach protested. “Ask the doctor—she caught it from Ruf’s children.”
“Yes, yes… but that doesn’t get to the root of it. It’s the life force that decides in the end. And I want to get to the bottom of things.” As darkness fell, the old count rose. “You’ll have to work without me for a while. Lord Rumford has invited me to England for some experiments he wants my help with. And Richter in Berlin wants to conduct a few trials together. Then I’ll study English wool-spinning. And in Strasbourg, there’s a Société Harmonique exploring Mesmerism—I’d like to look into that too. I’ve been planning it for a long time.”
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 3, pages 33-38
“Where are the gentlemen headed?” Friederike Luise asks, brushing past the reproach.
Reichenbach mumbles something about inspecting the forest, then they shake hands and go their separate ways. The old count is silent for a moment, then says, “She has such a beautiful confidence. Maybe she’s right—how could something like that touch her? Wouldn’t it make you despair of God? But you shouldn’t let her.”
Reichenbach grumbles about allowing or not allowing and not letting anyone interfere, and how stubborn she can be, but deep down, he’s glad he saw Friederike Luise and held her warm, firm hand in his for a moment.
They stride out briskly now, and Reichenbach shifts the conversation to the damned furnace, still burning, which must be extinguished before they can build a new one. It’s the same path they took that moonlit night of the meteor fall, passing the hunting lodge and entering the Od Valley, always upstream along the Punkva, which they plan to tackle today. They reach the spot where the Punkva emerges from the rock a second time, and then it grows quiet beside them; the living water now flows within dead stone. And now they’re at the place where the little river vanishes into the cliff, and the narrow valley feels livelier again, with that voice of the water beside them. At last, they reach the spot where the Punkva first emerges from the rock, out of a wide, dark cave, its stone vault dipping low to the water’s surface.
The miners Franta and Hadraba are already waiting with two rafts, ropes, lamps, and all the gear for a journey into the underworld. The rafts are simple—each made of two planks, cross-latticed, with two more planks on top, just wide and long enough for a man to lie on and use his hands as paddles.
“Has the water level dropped?” Reichenbach asks.
“About a foot and a half, please, sir!” Franta replies.
Franta and Hadraba, the two miners from Willimowit, had to clear stones and boulders from the outlet on Reichenbach’s orders. They also dug a deep channel in the streambed to speed the water’s flow. And now the water has indeed dropped—perfectly, by about a foot and a half. Last week, when Reichenbach tried alone, the water in the first cave was too high to go further.
Reichenbach and the old count exchange a glance, reading readiness in each other’s eyes. They shed their clothes, tie ropes around their waists, and, in shirts and underdrawers, carefully slide onto the wobbly planks, still held at the shore by the helpers. At the front of each raft, a small oil lamp smokes in a glass tulip on a short stem, A waterproof pouch with tinder is nailed to the planks.
Reichenbach turns his head. Beside him lies the old count, arms spread, hands dangling in the water, smiling at him.
“Go!” Reichenbach commands. Franta and Hadraba give the rafts a push, and hands paddle on either side of the planks. Man and craft become flat fish with two short fins and a murky red, smoldering, stalked light organ at the head.
Dark, eerily quiet, the waterway emerges from under the stone arch, leading into the earth’s belly. The countercurrent is barely felt; the wooden fish paddle forward. It grows dim, the anxious red light pushing against rock that sinks, dipping into the flood. The water path turns left, daylight fades behind them, rock and water nearly touch.
“At this spot,” Reichenbach says, “last week I had to push the raft under the water. Not needed today. Just keep paddling behind me.” His voice rings painfully loud, as if through a megaphone. He shouldn’t speak, the old count thinks—no, the human voice shouldn’t sound so bold here, where something might sleep that’s better left undisturbed. Here, one should only whisper.
Cautiously, the men inch forward, one behind the other, through the low entrance, the lamp’s glass tulip nearly scraping the ceiling. But then the stone canopy above their heads recedes, the light breathes freely, stretching toward the ceiling of a cave polished smooth by spring floods and thunderstorms.
Dark openings in the walls lead onward. Reichenbach paddles toward the largest, his compass before him. “We’re heading straight for the Macocha. Maybe this is the same water as at its bottom,” he says.
He’s talking again, the old count thinks, feeling they should be silent here, like fish.
They glide into a second, roomier cave. Stalactites hang from the ceiling, large and small, snowy white. At the tip of each clings a tiny water droplet. For the first time, human eyes behold this marvel of millennia. A cold droplet falls on the old count’s shirt, stinging like a needle between his shoulder blades.
The vault sinks toward the water again. “Will we make it through?” Reichenbach asks before the narrow gap. “We’ve got to try.” He pushes the raft to the wall, wedges it under the rock, arches his back, presses against the ceiling, forcing himself and the frail planks underwater, keeping only the light—the searching, forward-probing eye—above, unextinguished.
How long is this perilous passage? Will their breath hold? A gamble with little chance of turning back. For the old count, left behind, it’s a painful wait, an almost unbearable strain on his soul. Fear? Hardly, but a sudden realization of the reckless audacity of their venture grips him. Something unknown glares from the darkness and solitude. He pushes away troubling thoughts, silences his conscience to stay strong. All reproaches must fall silent now; he thinks only of Friederike Luise, her eyes, the pressure of her hand that sent a spark through his veins, like dwelling on the eyes and hands of a sacred icon.
Then a voice comes from the crevice, a strained sound: “Keep going. It’s alright!”
Without hesitation, the old count pushes his raft underwater, feels the icy flow envelop him, shoves with his back, paddles with his hands, holds his breath tight in his compressed chest. Just when he thinks he can’t bear it any longer, the raft surfaces, air rushing back.
The two rafts float in a hall, its vault soaring beyond the reach of their light, lost in darkness above their heads.
“This is as far as we go!” Reichenbach says. They paddle along the walls, encrusted and coated with limestone, sloping into the water everywhere except the entry point. A white curtain of rippling folds hangs from the darkness to the water’s surface. As Reichenbach passes, he raps his knuckle against the stalactite. It rings like a bronze bell—music of the underworld.
“We’d need a very dry year,” Reichenbach says. “Maybe then it’d work. Today, we turn back.”
They squeeze through the passage into the second cave, where stalactites hang. Take one, the old count thinks, for Friederike Luise—a trophy from the underworld.
He kneels on the raft, eyes searching for the finest, largest stalactite, reaching out, but the planks slip from under him. He stumbles, grasps for support, and plunges thrashing into the water. A spray shoots up, falls back, dousing both lamps. Reichenbach clings to his rocking raft, seeing a struggling body in glassy green, wild, frantic, aimless movements stirring air bubbles. This isn’t the steady confidence of a swimmer at ease in water—it’s a desperate fight against death. A moment’s hesitation, then he tears the rope from his waist, ties a loop, and as the sinking man’s flailing brings him briefly to the surface, throws the line over his head and arms.
“Calm! Stay calm!” Reichenbach urges, pulling the old count close and paddling with one hand to the drifting raft. “Try to climb up now!”
Obediently, the old count grabs the planks, slides them under himself, rolls his body onto them, and scrambles aboard. Then he lies still, exhausted, surrendering to the reclaimed sense of life.
“You can’t even swim, can you?” Reichenbach asks reproachfully.
“I can swim,” the old count gasps, “swim well, just as I can ride, shoot, and fence. But I don’t know what happened. A paralysis… like a stone around my body… I was pulled down…” He adds, “If it weren’t for you…”
Reichenbach doesn’t reply, his attention now wholly captured by something else. He only now realizes why, despite the lamps going out, they aren’t in darkness. Light radiates from the depths, the water glowing in emerald green, like liquid bottle glass flecked with gold, so clear you can see the rocky bottom, every stone, and the trout standing still or flashing their white bellies in swift turns—green stars, meteors of the deep.
The walls, ceiling, and stalactites shimmer in this green reflection, drawn under the rocks. Waves stirred by paddling hands cast their glimmer onto the stone, bringing it to life. When you scoop water and pour it out, a spray of sparkling gems falls back. It’s daylight’s light, the green forest light of trees, absorbed by the water and carried beneath the rocks—a fairy-tale harmony of elements: water, stone, and light.
The feeble human wit of the lamps had hidden this wonder; now, with them extinguished, it shines in unveiled splendor. They need no further light, finding their way through this green enchanted realm back through the cave’s mouth to the miners Franta and Hadraba, who are a bit worried, and to old Johann, who has arrived with the carriage as the old count ordered.
Soaking wet, the two men lie in the grass to dry off a bit before diving into the basket old Johann brought. As they clink their first glasses, the old count furrows his brow, turning serious: “Do you think thoughts can weigh like stones, stopping you from swimming?” For a moment, it seems he wants to say more, but seeing Reichenbach’s skeptical face, he suppresses the urge and forces his old smile. “And now, on top of everything, you’re my lifesaver! Cheers!”
“Oh, don’t talk about it,” Reichenbach grumbles. But deep down, it’s not unpleasant to be his master’s lifesaver, all else aside. There are still a few things he’d like to see settled his way.
After a pause, the old count adds, “You know what I thought when I suddenly couldn’t swim?”
by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 3
Three days after the christening feast, Frau Paleczek was back in the forester’s small cottage, but in a different role than before.
She had a corpse to wash—the body of Frau Ruf, who had died of childbed fever. Despite all brave resistance, death had won out, and Dr. Roskoschny’s hope of pulling her through was dashed. Medicine could name the thing raging in the new mother’s veins, straining her body and twisting her face in agony—childbed fever—but it couldn’t say where it came from or offer a real cure. In the end, it had to leave the outcome to God.
And now Frau Paleczek bent her face, black as the Virgin of Częstochowa or Kiritein, over the ashen one on the red-checkered pillow, dressing the deceased in a clean gown.
And then she said, “Jesus, Mary… seven children… such a pretty young woman… and seven little children … such misery… such misfortune. What’ll you do now, Herr Ruf?”
The forester sits in the corner, head in his hands, silent. What should he do? What can he do? He doesn’t know—seven little children, one a tiny infant, and their mother dead.
“For a few days, I can help out,” Paleczek grumbles in her deepest bass, full of pity, “but I can’t stay long, of course—I’ve got my own business to tend to.” Then, after folding the deceased’s hands over her chest, an idea strikes her. “Maybe your wife’s sister could come, your sister-in-law in Lettowitz. Right?”
The sister-in-law in Lettowitz. Maybe, perhaps the sister-in-law. But the forester is paralyzed, unable to stir. Just three days ago, he was a happy man, a man of importance, sitting between Frau Director and the pastor, bringing home a slight buzz—not from beer or schnapps, but from wine, fine wine like the gentry drink at the castle. And now look at him: seven children, and his wife dead!
Everyone feels great pity for him, all of them. They all come to the funeral, even Frau Director Reichenbach, and many weep as the coffin is lowered into the grave and the six orphans begin to sob. The old count is visibly moved, subdued and distracted in a way wholly unlike him—one might almost say timid. He speaks to no one and leaves after the funeral, heading straight home without looking at anyone. It clearly hits him hard that the woman has died—she used to help out at the castle often. Then Frau Director Reichenbach pulls Ruf aside and says, “You’ve got it tough now, Herr Ruf, but you must keep your head up and trust in God.”
Oh, keep his head up—if only it were that easy, if his head weren’t so heavy, sinking to his chest again and again. Worries weigh like lead.
“I’ll send Susi to you,” says Frau Director. “She’s good with children—she was the eldest of nine at home and had to look after the others. And I’ll come check on you every day.”
That lightens his head a good bit, enough for the forester to lift it and look into Frau Director’s eyes. His hand, no longer so limp, meets hers as she reaches out.
For a few days, Ernsttal and Blansko buzz with talk of Frau Ruf’s death—how young she looked, despite all those children, and how cheerful she always was. They speak of the tragedy of seven motherless children, of Frau Director Reichenbach’s kindness in taking them under her wing, and of the old count sending Ruf a heap of money—a saint of a man, that old count! The talk might have gone on longer, but then comes the news that the machinist Schnuparek, on Sunday, leaving the factory tavern walking out, is struck by sudden illness. A searing pain grips his gut, as if he’d drunk sulfuric acid, tearing his insides apart, turning him inside out. He clutches his stomach, groans, roars, and finally, everything goes black before his eyes.
They find Schnuparek in the roadside ditch, thinking at first he’s drunk, but Schnuparek isn’t drunk—he’s sick. They lift him and carry him to bed. Then Dr. Roskoschny is fetched. He puts on his gravest face, orders vinegar sprayed and juniper burned, and declares it’s cholera that’s struck Schnuparek.
It can no longer be hidden: cholera has come to the land. Now everyone knows what the falling stone from the sky meant. It foretold cholera, the great dying with no escape. There it is—laughing off such things and mocking the fear as foolishness does no good. The great lords don’t know any better than the common folk, and it might’ve been wiser to leave those ill-fated stones where they fell in the forest instead of picking them up and hauling them to the laboratory, as Reichenbach did. Surely they were poisonous, surely they carried the disease.
But what good is the whispering and grumbling now? The specter is here, its first shadow cast over the christening feast, standing among the people, reaching into houses and huts, snatching the farmer from the field, the worker from the lathe, the mold, the furnace, the miner from the pit, the clerk from his books.
Forester Ruf decides it’s time to fetch his sister-in-law from Lettowitz. Two of Frau Director Reichenbach’s maids have fled home to their village, where it might be safer, so Susi is hard to spare, and Frau Director can’t spend all day with the children.
But when Ruf arrives in Lettowitz, he finds his sister-in-law in bed. A few hours ago, she had to lie down, gripped by searing pain in her gut, moaning and groaning, her face burning with fever, blue spots visible on her chest.
Ruf sits with the sick woman for half an hour, giving her drops of Jerusalem miracle balm, good for everything—frostbite, toothache, gout, headaches—then leaves, deeply troubled and at a loss, heading home.
Plenty of fresh air, preaches Dr. Roskoschny, plenty of fresh air and movement.
Work grinds to a halt; people are sick or hiding. This gives Reichenbach time to explore the strange land fate has brought him to. He believes one must know how to gain something from every situation, even making misfortune serve a purpose.
Years ago, when he was at the chemical laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute in Vienna, the old count Hugo met Salm-Reifferscheidt, this region was as foreign to the Swabian as some stretch of the Congo or Niger. Even then, the two men took a liking to each other, bonding over their scientific pursuits. When the old prince handed over the estates and factories to his son to retire, the old count promptly summoned Reichenbach. That was many years ago, and the ironworks and laboratory have consumed so much time and energy that little else could take hold.
Now, though, there’s a chance to look around. It’s a remarkable landscape, these forests in the heart of Moravia—a stretch of limestone with strange sinkholes, caves, and karst rivers. There’s the Macocha, or “Stepmother” in German, a chasm so deep you could set Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Tower in it; caves with bones of prehistoric animals and ancient firepits; underground domes and passages with stalactites. And the rivers! They surge from a rocky maw, dark and unfathomable, only to vanish again into mysterious depths after a brief run above ground.
Reichenbach roams with a geologist’s hammer, tapping cave walls, digging in clay-filled crevices. Then a desire grips him to uncover the secrets of the Punkva River. Others have tried and failed before him, but he will succeed; what others botch only spurs him to push to the utmost.
It’s settled: Reichenbach and the chemist Mader are to venture together, each on a light raft, to probe the Punkva River’s secrets. It must be done discreetly—Friederike Luise shouldn’t know yet; no, it’s better not to tell her, as she’s no fan of such risky undertakings. Reichenbach waits for Mader, then realizes he should say goodbye to Friederike Luise. There’s no real danger, but still, one doesn’t just slip away without a word.
“Where’s your mother?” he asks Reinhold.
Reinhold stands at attention. “She just left for Forester Ruf’s—one of the children is sick, and she’s going to check on them.”
Reichenbach paces impatiently in the garden, plucks a green caterpillar from a rosebush and crushes it, then cuts an unruly vine from the arbor with his knife. Mader’s taking his time—always taking his time. Someone needs to give him a good shake.
Someone passes by the bushes outside. But it’s not Mader—it’s the old count. “Mader sent me,” he smiles. “I’ve switched places with him.”
“What? Mader? Switched?”
“It’s not very nice of you,” the old count says good-naturedly, feigning offense, “keeping secrets from me. Why not take me along, Reichenbach? You know I’m keenly interested in such things. I tried it once long ago with a canoe, but it didn’t work out.”
“So Mader couldn’t keep his mouth shut?”
“Thank God, or I’d have missed out on the fun.”
“But—you know a fellow from Vienna nearly drowned trying to swim it. If his wife hadn’t pulled him out…”
“Does your wife know?”
“No,” Reichenbach says, “she mustn’t find out.”
Then the old count asks, as Reichenbach did earlier, “Where’s your wife?” Perhaps he asks because he thinks it wise to shake her hand before embarking on something rather unusual. He seems uneasy to hear Friederike Luise isn’t home.
“Well, then, let’s go in God’s name,” he says finally.
They walk on foot to avoid drawing attention or involving too many people. But as they pass near the forester’s cottage, they spot Friederike Luise on the meadow path. The old count stops, his face lighting up with joy. “I haven’t had the chance to see you in ages, gracious lady.”
“You were at Ruf’s?” Reichenbach asks.
“Yes, Lada’s very sick—the third eldest. The doctor just arrived and sent me home at once. He was almost rude, told me not to dare come back.”
“Does he think—?” Reichenbach hesitates, reluctant to say the word, as if speaking it aloud carries danger.
“Please be careful,” the old count urges, concerned. “What good does it do? You can’t help, and you have children at home.”
Anarchistbanjo's World 