Anarchistbanjo's World

Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Fourteenth Chapter
Summer had arrived, and with it the summer
guests, bringing streams of sunlight and wealth to the
Kamp valley.
On a June evening, a carriage descended the final
curves of the forest road from Gars. An ordinary
vehicle, like any other, but extraordinary for its cargo
of compassion and purest love. Two people sat
within. A pale, beautiful young woman with gently
waved blonde hair wore a soft, flowing dress loosely
gathered beneath her chest. Half-reclining in her
corner, she let her wise, slightly sorrowful eyes
wander. They were drinking eyes, filled with much
yearning and joy, but also much resignation. The man
beside her strove for a correctness softened by
devotion. His clothing, collar, English mustache, and
manicured hands were mirrors of fashionable
perfection. His devotion was expressed by the arm
curved behind her shoulders, as if to make his ever-
present protection a comforting delight.
When the carriage jolted over the drainage ruts of
the steep road, like an old circus horse recalling
forgotten tricks, he shouted at the driver, “Drive
carefully… I told you!”
The driver grumbled, braking harder, so the
carriage creaked and groaned, inching along like a
snail. Thus, they reached Vorderschluder and the
door of the “Red Ox,” where the landlady offered her
warmest, most unctuous smile of welcome. These
were the distinguished guests who had reserved all
five front rooms on the first floor two weeks earlier.
The man leapt from the carriage, the driver
clambered down, but the young woman remained
leaning in her corner. Her smile was anxious, sad,
pleading the world’s forgiveness.
“Bring a chair,” the man told sturdy Resi. She
stared, astonished. One never stopped learning. Did
city women now need chairs to alight? Surely a
pampered princess, one who supposedly slept in
gloves.
But, reluctantly fetching the chair, she saw the
beautiful young woman wasn’t spoiled but a poor
paralytic, needing to be carried upstairs in the chair.
With infinite care and tenderness, the husband
oversaw the transport, supporting her back, holding
her dangling hand, asking ten times if all was well,
and snarling at helpers for any minor misstep.
“Let it be,” the invalid protested.
“No… we must insist you’re treated gently from
the start.”
Tears welled in the Red Ox landlady’s eyes. First,
the pity was unbearable—such youth, beauty, and
sweetness so afflicted. Second, balm flowed for the
husband, so devoted and tender. Her late husband, the
Ox landlord, could never have shown such sacrifice.
He’d turned surly when she ailed. With these
thoughts, she went to the kitchen, mingling tears with
the cook, chambermaid, and Resi, who’d returned
from upstairs with touching details. Schorsch, sadly
absent, would’ve wept too, the chambermaid said,
despite being a man with a less soft heart.
Unable to bear it, she grabbed a registration form
and pencil, rushing upstairs. With her finest curtsy,
she said, “Please,” placing paper and pencil on the
table. The man eyed the short, grubby pencil, licked
from use, then drew a gold fountain pen from its case
and wrote.
The young woman, still in the chair she’d been
carried in, gazed out. My God, how beautiful she
was. The chambermaid swallowed, her simple heart
yearning to do something kind for her. Such tiny,
rosy ears—not just the evening glow spreading wide
outside. Oh God, she thought, what use is wealth if
she can’t take a step?
The man finished. “When the luggage arrives,” he
said, “send the yellow suitcase and wheelchair up at
once—they’re essential.”
On the stairs, the chambermaid read the form:
Surname and First Name: Fritz Gegely, Occupation:
Writer, Birthplace: Linz, and so forth, ending with a
proud flourish: Travel Documents: None! Amid the
questions, it noted: Accompanied by: Wife. This
irked her; her pity and affection so fixed on the
paralyzed woman that, if justice ruled, she should’ve
topped the form, with the husband relegated to
“Accompanied by.”
Meanwhile, Fritz Gegely toured the five rooms of
their summer quarters, lips curled in mockery. It was
rurality supreme. Furniture painted a ghastly yellow,
walls daubed with hideous patterns, and the
pictures… Christ on the Cross, a garish van Dyck
print, hair-raising. In the bedroom, the late Ox
landlord in oil and vinegar, painted by an artist who’d
bartered a two-week stay. The artist supplied the oil
of mischief, the landlord the vinegar of forced
cheer—or vice versa. The deceased looked ready to
step from his frame at night and perch on a sleeper’s
chest. Under a glass dome crouched a wax scene: a
blind beggar with a child, a fitting companion to the
landlord. A plaster poodle in the last room completed
the set, perched on the white tiled stove, bearing
years of dust in its folds with canine stoicism.
Fritz Gegely returned from his sardonic survey to
Frau Hedwig. “Well, here we are…” he said.
Hedwig turned to him. “Do you like it?” she
asked, uncertain.
“Oh, yes!” he laughed. “We’re in a curiosity
cabinet… an ethnographic museum of Kamp valley
life.”
Hedwig grew uneasy. “You can’t expect these
simple folk to match your refined taste. When our
trunks arrive, you’ll set out your comforts, your dear
trinkets, and make these rooms your own…”
“Never,” Fritz snapped, glaring around. “These
rooms resist it. They’re steeped in smug, peasant
malice. Look—the cupboard doors squeak; to fetch a
shirt button, you get a concert, scales up and down.
The windows don’t close. A breeze will give us a
nightly rattle. There’s surely mouse holes behind the
furniture. I’m certain the beds creak. That’s a
summer retreat—for rustic art fools, not me. For
blockheads diving into the ‘folk soul,’ seeking the
‘wellspring’… how did I end up here? How does
Fritz Gegely land in Vorderschluder?”
“I feared you’d be unhappy,” the invalid said
softly. “We won’t stay long… I don’t want you
always cross.”
“Oh, please,” the poet retorted sharply. “We’ll
stay as planned. I have a will too. I’ll adapt…
protective mimicry… surely I can muster that much
resolve… or do you think me incapable even of
that?”
Hedwig waved off his words.
“Stop,” he said, irritated. “I know why you
dragged me to this backwater. You want me out of
the world’s sight. Yes… we could’ve gone to Ostend
or a Swedish spa… but you insisted on
Vorderschluder. Why? I’m not that foolish. I know
you think little of me. But I’m not that dim. I’m to
vanish… into oblivion… curtain down, show’s over.
Fritz Gegely’s memory must fade… because my
name carries scandal. The man who stole a
manuscript from Heidelberg’s university library…”
“We’ll go to Ostend tomorrow if you wish,”
Hedwig said, tears in her eyes. Silent, clear tears
traced a familiar path from wide, unblinking, fearful
eyes. Her translucent, invalid hands twisted in her
lap.
Fritz Gegely strode to the door, peered out, then
returned, lowering his voice. “Run off again? That’d
be rich. My name’s in their hands now… passed from
mouth to mouth. ‘Oh, that’s the poet of Marie
Antoinette, the Heidelberg thief—you know!’ And
we’d flee tomorrow? No, the hypocrites would say,
‘See, he can’t stay put, it’s his conscience, he’s
restless, cursed like Ahasuerus.’ We must stay.”
Hedwig reached out both hands. “Fritz, why
torment yourself… and me? That wretched affair
must be forgotten. The doctors ruled you weren’t
responsible. Everyone knows. Those aware of your…
confusion know you were acquitted and in a
sanatorium.”
But Gegely stayed clear, pacing behind the table.
Her hands sank alone.
“That’s it. Everyone knows—they handle my
name with tongs… like a hot coal. The tongs are
‘temporary insanity.’ They smirk with pity. Pity
shames.”
Hedwig shook her head. “Fritz,” she whispered,
timidly, “what should I say, then?”
He ignored her. “Those sheep-heads… instead of
explaining my case through the radiant phenomenon
of the artist, they pin it to their paltry judicial medical
terms. Fine for tailors and glovemakers dealing in
‘temporary insanity.’ Talk that way about a fifteen-
year-old schoolboy killing himself or his fourteen-
year-old sweetheart from grammar school. Or a
hysterical maid swallowing phosphorus.

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Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

But Wolf Gontram didn’t understand one syllable. She laughed,
left him standing there, and took the arm of Fräulein ten Brinken.
“My brother is a more beautiful girl that you are,” she said. “But
you are a sweeter boy.”
“And you,” laughed Alraune, “my blonde abbess, you prefer
sweet boys?”
She answered, “What is permitted for Héloise? It went very
badly for my poor Abalard, you know. He was slender and delicate
just like you are! There I can learn much about self-modesty.
But you, my sweet little boy, you appear like a strange priest
with a new and fresh doctrine, one that would harm no one.”
“My doctrine is ancient and venerable,” said the Chevalier de
Maupin.
“That is the best covering for such sweet sin,” laughed the
blonde abbess.
She took a goblet from the table and handed it to him.
“Drink, sweet boy.”
The countess came up with hot pleading eyes, “Let me have
him!”
But Frieda Gontram shook her head. “No,” she said sharply.
“Not him! Fair game, if you like–”
“She kissed me,” insisted Tosca and Héloise scoffed.
“Do you believe you are the only one tonight?”
She turned to Alraune, “Decide, my Paris. Who shall it be? The
worldly lady, or the pious one?”
“For today?” asked Fräulein de Maupin.
“Today–and as long as you want!” cried Countess Olga.
The fancy dressed boy laughed, “I want the abbess–and Tosca as
well.”
He ran laughing over to a blonde Teuton that was strutting as a
red executioner with a mighty axe made of cardboard.
“You–brother-in-law,” she cried. “I’ve got two mama’s. Will
you execute them, both of them?”
The student straightened up and raised both arms high.
“Where are they?” he bellowed.
But Alraune found no time to answer; the Colonel of the 28th
regiment had snatched her up for the two-step.
–The Chevalier de Maupin stepped onto the professors’ table.
“Where is your Albert?” asked the professor of literature.
“Where is your Isabella?”
“My Albert is running around here somewhere, Herr Professor,”
answered Alraune. “He appears in two dozen different versions in this
very ballroom!”
“As for Isabella”–her eyes searched around the room–“Isabella,”
she continued, “I will present her to you as well.”
She stepped up to the professor’s daughter; a fifteen year old,
timid thing that looked at her with large amazed blue eyes.
“Will you be my page, little gardener?” she asked.
The flaxen haired girl said, “Yes, gladly–If you want me to!”
“You must be my page when I am a lady,” the Chevalier
instructed, “and my maid when I go as a gentleman.”
The little girl nodded.
“How is that, Herr Professor?” laughed Alraune.
“Summa cum Laude!” acknowledged the professor. “But leave
my dear little Trudi here with me.”
“Now I ask!” cried the Fräulein ten Brinken and she turned to a
short, round botanist.
“Which flowers bloom in my garden, Herr Professor?”
“Red hibiscus,” answered the botanist. He knew the flora of
Ceylon very well, “golden lotus and white temple flowers.”
“Wrong!” cried Alraune. “Entirely wrong! Do you know, Herr
Rifleman from Harlem? Which flowers grow in my garden?”
The art professor looked at her sharply, a light smile tugged at
his lips.
“Les fleurs du mal; the flowers of evil,” he said. “Aren’t they?”
“Yes,” cried Mlle. de Maupin. “Yes, you’ve got it right.”
“But they don’t bloom for you my dear scientist. You must
patiently wait until they are dried and pressed into a book or in a
frame after the varnish dries.”
She pulled her pretty sword, bowed, saluted and snapped her
sword-cane back together. Then she turned around on her heel,
danced a few steps with the Baron von Manteuffel from Prussia,
heard the light voice of her Royal Highness and sprang quickly up to
the table of the princess.
“Countess Almaviva,” she began. “What do you desire from
your faithful cherubim?”
“I’m really disappointed with him,” said the princess. “He has
really earned a beating, scampering around the hall with one
scoundrel after another!”
“Don’t forget the Susanna’s either,” laughed the prince-escort.
Alraune ten Brinken pulled her lips into a pout. “What should
such a poor boy do,” she cried, “who knows nothing of this evil
world?”
She laughed, took the lute from the shoulder of the adjutant who
was standing in front of her dressed as Frans Hals. She strummed,
stepped back a few paces and sang:
“You, who instinctively
Know the ways of the heart
Tell me, is it love
That burns so here in mine?”
“From whom do you want advice cherubim?” asked the princess.
“Doesn’t my Countess Almaviva know?” Alraune gave back.
Her Royal Highness laughed, “You are very daring, my page!”
Cherubim answered, “That is the way of pages!”
He lifted the lace on the sleeves of the princess and kissed her on
the hand–a little too high on the arm and a little too long.
“Shall I bring you Rosalinde?” he whispered, and he read the
answer in her eyes.
Rosalinde danced past–not a moment’s rest was she allowed this
evening. The Chevalier de Maupin took her away from her dance
partner, led her up the steps to the table of her Highness.
“Give her something to drink,” she cried. “My beloved thirsts.”
She took the glass the princess handed to her and placed it to
Wolf Gontram’s red lips. Then she turned to the prince consort.
“Will you dance with me, wild outrider from the Rhine?”
He laughed coarsely and pointed to his gigantic brown riding
boots with their immense spurs.
“Do you believe that I can dance in these?”
“Try it,” she urged, and pulled him by the arm away from where
he was sitting.
“It will be alright! Only don’t trample me to death or break me,
you rough hunter.”
The prince threw a doubtful glance at the delicate thing in
perfumed lace, then put on his buckskin gloves and reached out to
her.
“Then come, my little page,” he cried.
Alraune threw a hand kiss over to the princess, waltzed through
the hall with the heavy prince. The people made room for them and it
went well enough diagonally across and then back. He raised her high
and whirled her through the air so that she screamed. Then he got
entangled in his long spurs–oops! They were both lying on the dance
floor.
She was up again, like new, reaching out her hand to him.
“Get up Herr Outrider. I can’t very well lift you.”
He raised his upper body, but when he tried to get onto his right
foot a quick “ouch!” came out of his mouth. He steadied himself with
his left hand, tried to get up again, but it didn’t work. An intense pain
took his Majesty across the foot.
There he sat, big and strong, in the middle of the dance floor and
couldn’t get himself up. Several came up and tried taking off the
mighty boot, which covered his entire leg, but it wouldn’t go. The
foot had swelled up so quickly they had to cut away the tough leather
with sharp knives. Professor Dr. Helban, Orthopedic, examined him
and determined the anklebone was broken.
“I’m done with dancing for today,” grumbled the prince-escort.
Alraune stood at the front of the thick circle that surrounded him,
near her pressed the red executioner. A little song occurred to her that
she had heard the students howling at night.
“Tell me,” she asked. “How does that song go, the one about the
fields, the forests and the strong man’s strength?”
The tall Teuton was thoroughly drunk and reacted as if someone
had thrown a coin into an automated machine. He swung his axe high
into the air and bellowed out:
“He fell on a stone.
He fell on a–crack, crack, crack –
He fell on a stone!
Broke three ribs in his body
In the fields and the forests
And all of his strength–
And then his right –crack, crack, crack
And then his right leg!”
“Shut up!” whispered a fraternity brother to him. “Are you
entirely crazy?”
That quieted him. But the good natured prince laughed.
“Thanks for the appropriate serenade! But you can save the three
ribs–My leg here is completely enough!”
They carried him out on a chair, helped him into his sleigh. The
princess left the ball with him. She was not at all happy about the
incident.
Alraune sought out Wolf Gontram, found him still sitting at the
abandoned Royal table.
“What did she do?” she asked quickly. “What did she say?”
“I don’t know,” answered Wölfchen.
She took his fan, hit him sharply on the arm.
“You do know,” she insisted. “You must know and you must tell
me!”
He shook his head, “But I really don’t know. She gave me
something to drink and smoothed back the hair on my forehead. I
believe she also squeezed my hand, but I can’t say exactly, don’t
know exactly all that she said. A couple of times I said, ‘Yes.’ But I
wasn’t listening to her at all. I was thinking about something entirely
different.”
“You are terribly stupid Wölfchen,” said the Fräulein
reproachfully. “You were dreaming again! What were you dreaming
about this time?”
“About you,” he replied.
She stamped her feet in anger.
“About me! Always about me! Why are you always thinking
about me?”
His large deep eyes pleaded with her.
“I can’t help it,” he whispered.
The music began, interrupting the silence that the going away of
the Royalty had caused. “Roses of the South” sounded soft and
seductive. She took his hand, pulled him out with her.
“Come, Wölfchen, we will dance!”
They stepped out and turned around. They were alone in the
large hall. The gray bearded art professor saw them, climbed up on
his chair and shouted:
“Quiet, special waltz for the Chevalier de Maupin and his
Rosalinde!”
Hundreds of eyes rested on the beautiful couple. Alraune was
highly aware of it and felt the admiration with every step that she
took. But Wolf Gontram noticed nothing, he only felt, as he lay in her
arms and was carried by the soft sounds. His heavy black eye lashes
lowered, shadowing his deep, dreamy eyes.
The Chevalier de Maupin led, certain, as confidant as a slender
page that has lived on the smooth dance floor since the cradle. His
head was bowed slightly forward, his left hand held two of
Rosalinde’s fingers while the right rested on the golden knob of the
sword-cane that he had pushed down through the lace trimmed sash
till the other end showed behind him. His powdered hair curled like
tiny silver snakes, a smile spread his lips revealing smooth white
teeth.
Rosalinde followed every light pressure. Her red and gold train
slid smoothly over the floor and her figure grew out of it like a
graceful shaped flower. Her head lay back, white ostrich plumes
dangled heavily from her large hat. She was worlds away from
everyone else, enraptured by the garlands of roses that hung
throughout the hall. They passed under them again and again on their
way around the dance floor.

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Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

He looked around timidly. 

“I want to tell you something, only to you alone, because you made such an extraordinary impression on me, right the first time I saw you. The man who my wife… whom my wife seduced, also told me such extraordinary things about you.” 

Falk became very impatient. He hardly understood half of his speech. He felt alternately heat and cold in his body. At times he believed he was near fainting. 

“Hurry; I am sick. I have a strong fever.” The stranger looked at him with a strange smile. 

“I know it, I know it very exactly. I had it very bad in the last time.” 

Suddenly he became even paler, he became quite green in the face and moved quite close to Falk. 

“He told me that I should come to you to make you happy. Today, when you ran away from me…” 

A cold shiver ran down Falk’s back. Was it really a vision? A raging fear seized him as he saw the stranger’s eyes fixed unceasingly on him. 

“How? What—what do you mean?” “I want to make you happy.” 

He was silent and seemed to brood deeply. 

Falk looked at him distractedly. Then cold sweat broke out on his forehead, he began to tremble. The lowest button was missing from the stranger’s coat. Where had he seen the man? Yesterday, yes yesterday… But then it was only in the dream, in the fever. 

The stranger seemed to struggle for expression. 

“Do you know, Herr Falk, a feeling of calm? No, you naturally don’t know it… It is actually no calm… it is a feeling of such absolute harmony… One feels no pain, one no longer feels a body; one is redeemed from all bodily. One sinks into something infinite. The spaces have widened; the miles become millions of miles, the most miserable huts become palaces… You no longer know where you are, you know no path and no direction…” 

His eyes shone in a rapt ecstasy. 

Again Falk felt slow, cold shivers run down his back. 

“In one second you can live through centuries, on a piece of earth you can see a thousand cities—oh, and the happy splendor, the splendor!” 

His eyes suddenly became quite fixed and his face distorted painfully. 

“At first I felt an inhuman fear… When the ground suddenly began to waver under me, when I suddenly felt transported to foreign cities, it happened that I threw myself on my knees in the middle of the street and begged the passers-by to hold me. I asked them to let me hold only the hem of their clothes… Oh, they were hard times of trial.” 

“Do you suffer from epilepsy?” asked Falk shaken. 

“No, no…” the stranger smiled insanely. “I am not sick. I am happy. And I came to bring you happiness, to you alone, because you made this extraordinary impression on me, and because you were his friend…” 

He moved the chair even closer to Falk so that he whispered in his ear. “It is hard, very hard, but just try it. Drive all thoughts away. All, all! They are the mightiest support of the spirit that will not believe, of the spirit that doubts eternally. Drive everything from the brain so that you remain pure from doubt, then sit down and collect yourself so that the forces of the whole organism flow together to one point, so that you feel yourself only as a point, a trembling atom in world space… Then wait long, patiently… Then it comes suddenly over you, like a horrible chaos it comes over you, you will see an abyss, terrible ghosts crawl out of all corners. 

His eyes tore unnaturally wide open. 

“You will hear horrible voices, the walls will become bodily and will step toward you to crush you… You will experience torments against which human torment is a joy, a pleasure… Suddenly everything disappears… Something leads you out, the whole life streams before the eyes in infinite clarity… there is no more riddle, no secret—one can read in the soul of another like in an open book…” 

“Why do you come to me with this, why?” whispered Falk. 

The stranger did not hear his question. 

“Then there is no more torment,” he continued, “no pain, no hate. I love the man who took the woman from me, I followed him with you, I wanted to save him, but in the moment of death one must not disturb…” 

Now it shot through Falk’s head like lightning. Everything became clear to him. He trembled violently and held onto the armrest so as not to collapse. 

“The man shot himself today!” he cried hoarsely. The stranger smiled strangely. 

“Yes,” he said after a while. Falk came completely out of himself. 

“What do you want from me?” he stammered almost unconsciously. 

“You caused his death, Falk. He was like wax in your hands, you were his god, and you destroyed his soul. You made him a criminal against himself and others. Listen to me, follow me…” 

“I did not do it! Can I help it that he perished from his debauchery?” 

The stranger looked at him sternly. 

“Oh, how hardened your heart is… You know well what you did to him. Why are you so pale, why do you tremble? He lies on your conscience.” 

“Who, who?” 

“Grodzki,” said the stranger softly. 

Falk groaned tormentingly, and his head sank to his chest. But suddenly he came completely out of his senses, he straightened up and cried: 

“I do not repent it. I want to ruin and destroy the whole world. I laugh at your mystical revelations. I don’t need them. I need no happiness. I spit on happiness. I repent that I destroyed and ruined too little, do you understand me?” 

He suddenly stopped. 

The stranger was completely transformed. His eyes expressed an uncanny fear. They ran restlessly around. 

“The spirit of evil! the spirit of evil!” he repeated with trembling lips. 

Suddenly his face became clear and his voice mild. 

“You are sick, Falk, I will not disturb you… I followed you, I was afraid for you, how you stood there at the corner and trembled and waited for the shot.” 

Again he became restless. He leaned far toward Falk, his voice trembled violently. 

“I… I…” he stammered with difficulty… “followed you. You sat long with him… did he not speak about my wife?… He left her… she is perishing.” 

“Nothing, nothing did he tell me… just go! You are killing me… go then!” 

Falk felt that he could not hold himself any longer. 

“You are so sick, Falk, so sick…” He went slowly out the door. Falk heard and saw nothing more. A dizziness seized him, the room began to turn around him, he sank and fell into unconsciousness.

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Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

Indeed, the new and old faiths had collided. For
now, the new faith gripped the old by the scruff,
thrashing it. Bolstered by numbers and fueled by
fervor from the Hotel Bellevue, the new faith
outmatched the old, still seeking its zeal at the Red
Ox.
The banquet guests had barely settled at the long
tables in the Red Ox’s transformed dance hall when a
man burst in, shouting, “The socialists are coming!
They’ve a red flag and are all drunk!”
This news pierced Mathes Dreiseidel’s heart. He
feared losing his feast’s reward. He cursed his God
and parson for scheduling the rite before the meal,
robbing him of his due.
The district captain, seated at the head table to
Helmina’s left, set down his napkin and glared at the
alderman. “This is disastrous!” he said. “Such things
in my district. I don’t tolerate this. If only the
gendarmes were here. Such sloppiness…”
But the rebels were already there, launching a
furious assault on the pious crowd outside, scattering
them into alleys and over fences. They filled the
street, yelling, waving hats and cudgels, flaunting
their defiance of authority.
The plump, appetizing Red Ox landlady stood at
the kitchen door, lamenting Schorsch’s absence at
military drills. Glancing at the tables, she debated
clearing them before the brawl began. Half her dishes
were borrowed from Gars, and such occasions risked
breakage.
The parson stepped to the window, hoping to pour
soothing words over the uproar. But they drowned
him out with murderous howls, brandishing the red
flag to flaunt their oath.
The district captain tried next, pale but composed,
regretting no reporter was there to immortalize his
poise. He thrust out his chest, summoning his voice
to pierce the din. But his words were swept away like
a mandolin’s note in a gale.
He retreated, snapping at the alderman, “Now you
stand there, mute… why didn’t you prepare? This
happens in my district…”
The rebels, emboldened, surged forward. The door
flew open, Rauß stormed in, Maurerwenzel close
behind, and a dense throng of comrades packed the
steps, head to head.
The factory director mustered courage, advancing
toward them. “Dear people…!” he began.
Rauß flailed the air, bellowing, “What do you
want? Do what we want, and we’ll be your dear
people again. Not before! Got it? We’re here to
watch the gentry gorge on our sweat and blood…”
God, if Schorsch were here, the landlady thought,
ordering the tables cleared.
Rauß saw and roared, “Oh no—leave it! That’s set
for us too. We’ll sit at this table. We’ll show you the
future state!” From the stair’s crush, a voice shouted,
“Long live the republic!”
“Come,” Ruprecht said to Helmina, “we’re
leaving. I’ve had enough.”
“We can’t get out,” Helmina whispered, terrified.
“Just come!” He pulled her up, striding toward the
door. Rauß’s dull mind dredged up irony. “Your
Grace, Herr Baron… perhaps you’d like an honor
guard?”
“Let me out, I said,” Ruprecht repeated calmly.
“And the lovely Frau Baronin—no, that won’t do.
She gave so much for the banner; she can’t run now.
The best part’s coming. The real fun. Our
consecration.”
The workers jeered. Maurerwenzel slapped his
knees in glee. Ruprecht glanced around. Helmina’s
entourage stood frozen. Some twitched, but caution
quashed their bravery: a fight now would spark a
slaughter. The farmers’ faces gleamed with delight at
this woman’s humiliation, their instincts and wives’
gossip aligned against her.
Then, something unexpected happened. Ruprecht
released Helmina’s arm, stepping toward Rauß as if
to speak. Suddenly, two fists shot out, slamming like
steel pistons into the ruffian’s gut. Rauß yelped,
doubling over. In the same breath, Ruprecht seized
his arm, twisted it back, and hurled the lanky man
over his shoulder into the hall, landing at the district
captain’s feet—a lithe, tripping jiujitsu move from Japan.
The farmers gaped. Even the wildest fair hadn’t
seen such a feat.
Rauß groaned on the floor. Another followed—
Maurerwenzel, loyal aide, lunging to avenge his
leader. Ruprecht took Helmina’s arm and strode
down the steps through the rebels, who now parted
for him.
At the bridge, where baroque saints gazed at their
rippling reflections, their carriage trailed, dust
swirling. The coachman grinned, cracking his whip in
victory. Ruprecht and Helmina climbed in. Just then,
a cart with eight gendarmes rolled up from the other
side. The scrawny horses trotted frantically,
gendarmes clinging to seats and ladder rungs to
arrive intact for battle.
Their task was easy, the fight swiftly won. The
rebels glimpsed the eight cork helmets’ gleaming
spikes and felt the rifles’ persuasive butts, then fled.
With limping, whimpering Rauß and Maurerwenzel— sporting a swollen bruise over his
left eye—at their core, they retreated to the Hotel
Bellevue.
The red flag was found next day in the alderman’s
garden, drooping sadly in a thornbush, flapping
feebly.
The interrupted banquet resumed. The Red Ox
landlady reset what she’d cleared, and appetites
surged. Only Mathes Dreiseidel lacked hunger.
During the fray, he’d slipped into the kitchen behind
the dishes. To salvage something, he’d embraced a
platter of pork roast and kraut salad so fervently that
his insides had no room left.
When Helmina and Ruprecht returned to the
castle, she immediately retreated to her room and
locked the door. She wanted to see no one. She was
beside herself. Ruprecht’s victory over the rabble-
rouser Rauß felt like her own defeat. Two crushing
blows in one day for her. Two triumphs for Ruprecht.
He had thwarted her cunning with his vigilance and
caution. And he had lifted her from fear—yes, a
trembling fear. She had seen clear proof of his
regained strength. Helmina raged against herself. In
the afternoon, Lorenz knocked, reporting that Herr
Anton Sykora had arrived and wished to see her. But
she was ill, she’d stay in her room, she regretted…
Lorenz’s urgent tone availed nothing.
“No… no… no!” Helmina screamed. “Tell him to
go. I won’t see him!” Only in the evening did she
emerge from her lair. Ruprecht hadn’t approached
her door all day. He’d dined without her, chatted with
the children, and sent them off with Miss Nelson.
Now he sat in a fine, comfortable Biedermeier chair,
smoking a cigarette, awaiting Helmina.
She came. A hesitant shadow in the doorway.
Then she entered, slowly closing the door. A glowing
ember in the dark showed where Ruprecht sat. She
approached him slowly.
“Ruprecht!” she gasped.
“It’s you, Helmina,” his voice calm as ever.
She lunged at him, furious, hate-filled, biting his
hand, pressing her lips to his throat. Ruprecht smiled.
She couldn’t see it in the dark, but she felt it. She
gripped him fiercer, as if to kill that smile.

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Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

He wanted to think, but the fear paralyzed his thinking: in his brain was a 

whirling, glowing confusion, around his eyes the world danced torn in purple flakes… 

In the next moment he became calm again. He went quickly forward, where did he go only? where? 

There! Yes, there the street ended and now came the park. 

He jerked violently. Fear and fever shook him, he could not go further, his knees wobbled, and again the world flickered before his eyes torn in millions of circling, scattering ball sparks. 

He did not know what happened to him. He closed his eyes, but something forced him to stare there, clearly at a point, at the terrible: there lay Grodzki. 

Now he felt no fear anymore, only a cruel curiosity. By the way, he did not see him quite clearly, it was only the head there. The eyes were closed and the mouth was open. He stared long at the mask face, but suddenly he became raging because he felt that he could not move from the spot. He tried tormentingly to lift the hand, it did not go. Now he had to apply all power to sink down and crawl away on the hands. He could not, he could also not turn the eyes away. 

A wild despair fevered in him. It suddenly seemed to him as if the eyelids of the death mask opened to a slit and winked at him maliciously. 

That was horrible! 

But the eyes blinked clearly, and gradually the half-open mouth distorted to a hideous grimace. Then he felt the ice-cold hand brush his skin, how the corpse cold glided over his whole body… 

He started up as if shot up from a terrible thrust. 

He looked around confused. Where was he? That was only a dream… The cursed fever! 

If only it did not come again. The fear tore at his brain. He took mechanically his collar off. The shirt button had fallen off. He searched for it with a strange eagerness for a time, he became more and more eager and angry, searched everywhere around, rummaged with a raging greed with the hands on the floor, crawled under the bed, searched under the desk, with growing rage, in a 

paroxysm of despair he threw the objects around and finally a kind of rabies seized him. He wept and gnashed his teeth and tore the carpet from the floor. There lay the button. Now he was satisfied. He was happy. He had never been so happy. He placed it carefully on the desk, looked again to see if it was really there and sat down with infinite satisfaction at the window. It was quite light. 

Suddenly he came completely to consciousness. So that was really a strong fever. Should he perhaps call Isa? Oh no, no, she would die of unrest. But he should have morphine in the house. That was an unforgivable negligence that he had not provided himself with it… 

Now he had to watch with all energy that he would not become unconscious. These horrible dreams… He stood up and opened the window, but the strength left him—only a little calm, quite a little. He lay down on the bed again. 

It became quiet. He saw a thousand lights flicker up on the wide moor ridges and disappear again. The willows on the way moaned and groaned like sarcophagus doors resting on old rusty hinges… Sarcophagus? No, no, absolutely no sarcophagus—it sounded like a distant ice drift, no—like wheel rolling on distant paths… He listened. From the nearby village he heard a dog bark, another answered him with long, whining lament… 

Suddenly he heard the same long, whining sound repeat behind his back. 

His heart stopped beating. 

Again, stronger… a horrible, suppressed sobbing, then again a shrill cry… 

He turned in convulsive fear agony: it was nothing. Nothing was there, but he felt it close behind him, he heard it incessantly whine and sob… 

A wild rage rose in him. What do you want? he cried. I didn’t do it! I am not to blame! I didn’t do it! he cried senselessly. Marit, Marit, let me go! 

But then it seemed to him as if he were whipped, that fiery welts ran down his back. He cried out shrilly and began to run. He had to get rid of it, he had to… But the ground was softened after the long rains, he did not get from the spot, then he sank into 

a deep ditch, panting he worked himself up, but in the same moment he felt a fist grab him from behind, it tore him back into the mud. He sank under, it tore him down, he suffocated, the mud poured into his mouth, but in the last death struggle he tore himself loose, crawled out, and again he began to run and again he felt it close behind him whining, sobbing. He lost his senses, his strength left him, he could not go further, it shot through his head in horrible despair. 

Suddenly he stopped as if rooted. An old man stood in the middle of the market and stared at him. He could not bear the gaze, he turned away, but wherever he looked, he saw a hundred cruel, greedy eyes that devoured his soul, tore at his nerves, eyes that spat revenge and surrounded him like a glowing fire wreath. He ducked, he wanted to steal away, but everywhere were these greedy eyes, desperately he looked ahead and saw the old man—Marit’s father! Murderer! he cried to him and suddenly a hundred fists rose that were to rain down on him and stamp him deep into the ground… With a mad leap he flew over the crowd, ran into his house, with a jump he sprang up the stairs and threw the door into the lock. 

He waited, crouched close to the wall. A while passed. It was like an eternity. He heard his blood pound so hot at the temples that he feared it could be heard and betray him. His throat constricted, tighter and tighter: in the next moment he would not be able to breathe. Now the strength left him completely. His teeth chattered and he sank to his knees. He crouched, he pressed himself against the wall, tighter, the wall had to hold him securely… 

It knocked. 

He started. His teeth chattered audibly. That was Marit! That was surely Marit! 

It knocked again. An eternity passed. 

Then he saw the door slowly begin to open. A mad fright stiffened his limbs, he threw himself with his whole body against the door, he braced himself against it with the last despair strength, but he was pushed further and further away, the door opened as if by itself, 

with horrible horror he saw the crack grow larger and larger, and there he saw two terrible eyes in which a madness pain had congealed. 

Falk let out a short, shrill cry. Before him stood a strange man. 

Was it a new vision? Was it reality? I have probably gone mad! it shot through his head like lightning. But by chance he saw the shirt button on the desk. It was no vision… A visit then. He climbed down from the bed, sat in the armchair and stared fearfully at the stranger who looked at him with a sick calm. 

They looked at each other a long time, probably two minutes passed. 

“Did you come from there?” Falk brought out with difficulty and pointed to the door. 

The stranger nodded. 

Falk brooded, a memory shot through his head. 

“I spoke with you yesterday in the restaurant?” 

“Yes. You don’t know me. But I know you. I have seen you often. Forgive me that I surprise you so, but I must speak with you… I believe you had a heavy dream. I know it, in the last time it was quite the same with me… You cried out, naturally, when one wakes so suddenly… You are namely a very nervous person and so I said to myself, I must stare at you, then you will wake immediately. You perhaps know that nervous and short-sighted people are awakened by firm staring. Now you don’t seem short-sighted, consequently you must be very nervous. I stared at you at most two seconds. By the way, I noticed it immediately yesterday when you asked me if I wanted to arrest you. You didn’t let me come to word. I did seek you for a whole time, but yesterday it was quite, quite by chance that I met you.” 

“How did you get in?” 

“The corridor door was open, here I knocked at random, and when no one answered, I entered. I have namely seen you often. A man spoke much of you. I saw you a few times in his company.” 

“But what do you want, what do you want from me,” Falk cried angrily at him. 

The stranger seemed to take no notice of his excitement. 

“I heard very much about you. The man by the way seduced my wife, no, forgive me, one doesn’t seduce women, I believe one is seduced by women.” 

“What do you want?” Falk cried almost unconscious. 

Again the stranger looked at him with the same calm gaze for a time. 

“Don’t interrupt me, Herr Falk… No, no, one doesn’t seduce women. I namely have a theory of my own there… Man is a louse, a slave of woman, and the slave doesn’t seduce the mistress.” 

“There are enough coachmen who have begotten children with their mistresses,” Falk threw at him with malicious scorn. 

The stranger seemed to overhear it. 

“Woman created man… Woman was the first… Woman forced man to develop his forces far beyond himself, to educate his brain beyond itself…” 

He suddenly confused himself and looked at Falk with mad, clumsy smile. 

“See,” he said after a while and smiled mysteriously, “what did primitive man take the club in his hand for the first time? Only in the fight for the female, only to beat his rival to death. Isn’t that so?” 

“No, it is not true,” said Falk harshly. 

“Well, you will naturally say that he swung the club in the so-called struggle for existence… No! You are wrong. The struggle for existence came only when it was about satisfying sex… through the means of sex nature first made clear to man that it is worth living at all and taking up the struggle for existence.” 

He suddenly became very pale and restless. 

“But I did not come to develop my theories to you. It is something else, something quite else.” 

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Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel

The mixed Court of Honor, composed of officers and fraternity
members, were reasonable enough and settled on a single exchange of
bullets at twenty paces. That couldn’t do much mischief and honor
would be served.
Hans Geroldingen smiled as he heard the verdict and bowed in
agreement. But Dr. Mohnen turned very pale. He had calculated that
they would declare the duel unnecessary and demand each side to
apologize to the other. It was only one bullet but it could still strike!
Early the next morning they solemnly traveled out into Kotten
forest in civilian clothes. There were seven carriages, three Hussar
officers and the regiment doctor, then Dr. Mohnen and with him Wolf
Gontram, two Saxonia fraternity brothers, one from the Phalia
fraternity as the impartial guest official who was acting as umpire,
one for Dr. Peerenbohm, the fraternity doctor, an old gentleman from
the hills, along with carriages for the fraternity seconds and the two
officer seconds as well as an assistant for the regimental doctor.
His Excellency ten Brinken was there as well. He had offered his
medical help to his office manager, then searched out his old medical
case and had everything polished up like new.
For two hours they rode through the laughing dawn. Count
Geroldingen was in a very good mood. He had received a little letter
from Lendenich the evening before. There was a four-leaf clover
inside and a slip of paper with one word on it, “Mascot”. He put the
letter in his lower left vest pocket. It made him laugh and dream of all
kinds of good things.
He chatted with his comrades, make jokes about the childish
duel. He was the best pistol shot in the city and joked that he would
like to shoot a button off the doctor’s coat sleeve. But you could never
be sure of these things, especially with a strange pistol. It would be
much better to just shoot into the air. It would be a mean trick if the
good doctor got so much as even a scratch.
But Dr. Mohnen, who sat together in the carriage with the Privy
Councilor and young Gontram, said nothing at all. He had also
received a small letter that carried the large slanting letters of Fräulein
ten Brinken. It contained a dainty golden horseshoe. But he never
once really looked at his mascot, only murmured something about
childish superstition and threw the letter on his writing desk.
He was afraid, truly and horribly afraid. It poured itself like dirty
mop water over the short-lived enthusiasm of his love. He chided
himself for being a complete idiot, getting up this early in the morning
only to go riding out to the slaughter. He had a hot burning desire to
apologize to the cavalry captain and be done with it. This feeling
battled inside him against the feeling of shame that he would feel in
front of the Privy Councilor and perhaps even more in front of Wolf
who had believed all his tales of heroic deeds.
Meanwhile he gave himself a heroic appearance, attempted to
smoke a cigarette and look around calmly. But he was white as chalk
when the carriage stopped in the woods and they set off down a
narrow footpath to a broad clearing.
The doctors prepared their medical instruments. The umpire
opened the pistol case and loaded the murderous weapons. He
carefully weighed the powder so that both rounds were equally
powerful. They were beautiful weapons that belonged to the umpire.
The seconds chose for their clients, drew straws–short looses,
long wins. The cavalry captain smiled at all the solemnity, which no
one was really taking seriously. But Dr. Mohnen turned away and
stared at the ground. Then the umpire stepped out twenty paces taking
such immense leaps that the officers looked with disapproving faces.
It did not seem right to them that the umpire was making a farce of it
and that proper decorum meant so little.
“The clearing is too small!” Major Von der Osten cried out
sarcastically to him.
But the tall umpire answered calmly, “Then the gentlemen can
stand in the woods. That would be even better.”
The seconds led the principals to their places. The umpire once
more challenged them to reconcile, but didn’t even wait for an
answer.
“Since a reconciliation is refused by both sides,” he continued, “I
ask the gentlemen to wait on my command–”
A deep sigh from the doctor interrupted him. Karl Mohnen stood
there with trembling knees, the pistol fell out of his shaking hand, his
face was as pale as a shroud.
“One moment,” cried the fraternity doctor across to the other
side as he hurried with long strides up to him. The Privy Councilor,
Wolf Gontram, and both gentlemen from Saxonia followed.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dr. Peerenbohm.
Dr. Mohnen gave no answer; he was completely undone and
simply stared straight ahead.
“Now what’s wrong with you doctor?” repeated his second,
taking the pistol up from the ground and pressing it back into his
hand.
But Karl Mohnen remained quiet. He looked as if he were drunk.
Then a smile slid over the broad face of the Privy Councilor. He
stepped up to one of the Saxons and whispered into his ear:
“He had an accident.”
The fraternity brother didn’t understand him right away.
“What do you mean, your Excellency?” he asked.
“Can’t you smell!” whispered the old man.
The Saxons gave a quick laugh but kept the seriousness of the
situation. They only took out their handkerchiefs and pressed them
over their noses.
“Incontinentia alvi,” declared Dr. Peerenbohm appreciatively.
He took a little flask out of his vest pocket, put a couple drops of
tincture of opium on a lump of sugar and handed it to Dr. Mohnen.
“Here, chew on this,” he said and pressed it into the doctor’s
mouth. “Now pull yourself together. Seriously–a duel is a very
frightening thing!”
But the poor doctor heard nothing, saw nothing, and did not
notice the bitter taste of opium on his tongue. He confusedly sensed
that the people were leaving him.
Then he heard the loud voice of the umpire, “One.”
It rang in his ears–Then “Two,”–at the same time he heard a
shot. He closed his eyes, his teeth chattered, his head was spinning.
“Three.”
It sounded from the edge of the woods. Then his own pistol went
off and the loud explosion so close stunned him so that his legs gave
way. He didn’t fall, he collapsed like a dead pig, broadly setting down
on the dew fresh ground.
He sat like that for a minute, although it seemed like an hour.
Then it occurred to him that it was over.
“It’s over,” he murmured with a happy sigh.
He felt himself all over–no, he wasn’t wounded. Only, only his
trousers were ruined. But what was going on? Nobody was paying
any attention to him, so he got up by himself, amazed at the immense
speed with which his vitality returned to him.
With deep gulps he drank in the morning air. Oh how good it
was to be alive!
Over at the other end of the clearing he saw a tight cluster of
people standing together. He polished his Pince-nez and looked
through it. Everyone had their back turned toward him. He slowly
started across, recognized Wolf Gontram who was standing a long
way back. Then he saw two kneeling and someone lying down in the
middle. Was it the cavalry captain? Could he have been shot? Had he
even fired?
He made a little detour through the high fir trees, came out closer
and could now see perfectly. He saw how the count caught sight of
him, saw how he weakly beckoned with his hand. They all made
room for him as he stepped into the circle. Hans Geroldingen
stretched his right hand out to him. He kneeled down and grasped it.
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I didn’t really want to–”
The cavalry captain smiled, “I know, old friend. It was a
coincidence. A God damned coincidence!”
Just then a sudden pain seized him; he moaned and groaned
miserably.
“I just wanted to tell you doctor, that I’m not angry at you,” he
continued weakly.
Dr. Mohnen didn’t answer; a violent twitch went around the
corners of his mouth. His eyes filled with tears. Then the doctors
pulled him to the side and occupied themselves once more with the
wounded man.
“Nothing can be done,” whispered the regimental doctor.
“We must try getting him to the clinic as quickly as possible,”
said the Privy Councilor.
“It would not do us any good,” replied Dr. Peerenbohn. “He
would die on us during the transport and only give him unnecessary
misery and pain.”
The bullet was in the abdomen; it had penetrated through all the
intestines and impacted against the spine where it was now lodged. It
was as if it had been drawn there by a mysterious force, straight
through Alraune’s letter, through the four-leaf clover and the beloved
word, “Mascot”.
It was the little attorney Manasse that saved Dr. Mohnen. When
Legal Councilor Gontram showed him the letter he had just received
from Lendenich, he declared that the Privy Councilor was the most
base, low down, scoundrel that he had ever known. He implored his
colleague to not deliver the letter to the District Attorney’s office until
the doctor was safe.
It was not about the duel–The authorities had begun proceedings
for that on the same day. No, it was about the embezzlement at his
Excellency’s office. The attorney himself ran to the delinquent and
hauled him out of bed.
“Get up!” he snapped. “Dress! Pack your suitcase! Take the next
train to Antwerp and board a ship as quickly as possible! You are an
ass! You are a camel! How could you do such a stupid thing?”
Dr. Mohnen rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He couldn’t
understand what all the fuss was about. The way he stood with the
Privy Councilor–
But Herr Manasse didn’t let him finish.
“How you stand with him?” he barked. “Yes, you stand just
splendidly with him! Magnificent! Unsurpassed! You fool–It is his
Excellency himself that has ordered the Legal Councilor to go to the
District Attorney’s office because you have stolen money out of his
cash box!”
At that Karl Mohnen decided to crawl out of bed. It was
Stanislaus Schacht, his old friend, that helped him get away. He
studied the departure schedules, gave him the money that was needed
and hired the taxi that would take him to Cologne.
It was a sad parting. Karl Mohnen had lived for over thirty years
in this city. Every house, almost every stone held a memory for him.
His roots were here; here alone his life had meaning. Now he was
thrust forth, head over heels, out into some strange–
“Write me,” said fat Schacht. “What will you do?”
Karl Mohnen hesitated, everything appeared utterly destroyed,
collapsed and in pieces. His life had become a confused rubbish pile.
He shrugged his shoulders; his good-natured eyes had a forlorn
look.
“I don’t know,” he murmured.
But then the old habit crept across his lips and he smiled through
his tears.
“I will find a wife,” he said. “There are many rich girls over
there–in America.”

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Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel

At breakfast, Helmina asked casually where he’d
been.
“Oh,” Ruprecht replied just as casually, “at the
notary in Gars.”
Helmina perked up. “The notary? So you’re
buying the communal fields?”
“No, not as your steward—personal business.”
“I’m not allowed to know, of course,” she said
mockingly, masking unease. “You’ve been so
mysterious lately.”
“Why not tell you? I was there… about my will.”
Ruprecht spoke slowly, without emphasis, but
Helmina felt it like a harpoon.
“What’s that mean?” she snapped, turning sharply.
“I thought… those matters were settled by our
marriage contract.”
Ah, she was hit, writhing. Good. “I haven’t
touched that, Helmina,” Ruprecht said. “It stands,
naturally. I’d never dream of altering such an
agreement unilaterally… without telling you. How
could you think that? That’d lack gallantry. No, it
stays as is.”
Helmina stared, eyes wide, their sparkle gone,
gray and ashen. Ruprecht’s tone held menacing
confidence; she dropped her mask.
“I don’t understand how you’d think of this,”
Ruprecht continued, a light reproach dancing like
jest. “Have you given me reason to regret our
agreement? You’re a charming wife overall. Moody
at times? My God, what woman isn’t? I’m quite
content in our marriage. We still love each other,
don’t we? I feel fulfilled. I have my purpose. You’ll
grant I can be proud of my successes. If my
management plan holds and weather permits, your
estate will yield a much higher profit this year… it
was downright clever to plant beets and onions…”
He drifted, rambling about onions, beets, and
wine, as if that were the point, while Helmina’s throat
tightened, her fingers twitching. Behind his words,
she sensed a raised fist. “You still haven’t said what
you did at the notary,” she interrupted, unable to bear
the uncertainty.
“Oh, right…” Ruprecht said. “I just added a
codicil… to our inheritance contract… for my death.”
“Your death?” Helmina swallowed. Suddenly
facing danger, her instincts tensed. “Was that
necessary? Who thinks of dying?” she said warily.
“I decided after much thought, for precise reasons.
‘Step’ is too strong—it’s a steplet. Just conditions for
my death; I want assurance certain wishes dear to me
are followed. I’ve detailed what must happen if I die,
sealed it, and left it with the notary. No one will
know its contents until I’m gone… not even you,” he
added, smiling.
“I just think,” Helmina said, forcing steady
breaths, “you’ve time to ponder such things.”
Ruprecht shrugged, looking abashed. “You
know… death strikes swiftly. We’ve had a recent
example. Poor Jana… who’d have thought it?”
“That frightened you?” Helmina’s voice was clay-
heavy.
“And another thing,” Ruprecht went on. “I’ve felt
unwell lately. You must’ve noticed. A general
malaise… headaches, limb pain. I tried hiding it, but
it was stronger than me… I wasn’t at my best. You’ll
understand, in such weakness, one’s less resilient.
Thoughts of death creep in. You realize you’re frail,
with so many ways death can catch you.”
A pale, subterranean smile tried to rise on
Helmina’s face, failing to break through. “I say you
got scared.”
“Wouldn’t you call it caution? Lately, I’ve felt
much better. The apathy’s gone, I’m fresher, my
strength’s returning. Now I see how ill I was. Yes…
it was an illness. But I’m recovering.”
“Why didn’t you confide in me?” Helmina said.
“I’d have cared for you…”
“I know, Helmina. By the way, my friend Wetzl,
the chemist at our wedding… a top radium research
specialist, he says… I sent him a detailed account of
my condition, and he claims it matches all symptoms
of radium poisoning. Exactly the same effects as
prolonged radium exposure. He’s experienced in this.
My description fits perfectly, he says. The scalp
redness is especially telling. Prolonged exposure can
even kill. I’ve left a full account with him… for
science’s sake.”
Helmina stood, lightly bracing her right hand on
the table. No agitation showed. Her slender hands
were eerily lifeless, knuckles white, nails blue, as if
they’d endured a painful grip. “You’ll excuse me,”
she said. “I must dress. I’ll be late for the
consecration.”
She left. In her room, rage and fear overwhelmed
her. They’d been outwitted. Ruprecht had uncovered
everything, securing himself. No doubt the notary’s
document detailed it all. This explained his improved
health, which Lorenz dismissed as a fleeting rally
before collapse. They were trapped. Ruprecht had
donned armor, invulnerable, triumphant. Helmina felt
crushed, her inner beast raging.
From her dressing chair, she saw banners waving
in the valley. Cannon shots boomed from the hills, a
parade of plump, rolling beasts. She wanted to lash
out. Rage overpowered fear. Against Ruprecht’s
homespun cunning and Indian sharpness, they were
powerless. A long hatpin lay on her vanity. For a
moment, she was tempted to jab it into her maid’s
bared arm, as Roman matrons did with slaves.
When ready, she found Ruprecht waiting by her
carriage in the courtyard. “You’re coming?” she
asked, furious.
“Of course,” he said calmly. “I don’t like it, but I
won’t have people say we’re at odds. Let them see
we’re in harmony.”
Helmina shrugged, climbing in. They rode down
the castle hill in silence.
“Thank God, she’s here,” the parson said as their
carriage parted the crowd. The onlookers watched
silently as Helmina and Herr von Boschan alighted.
They knew she’d funded the banner most, yet she
hadn’t won their hearts. An instinctive resistance
held.
The parson’s study buzzed with activity.
Helmina’s followers dominated: factory clerks, her
staff, the stationmaster, and a telegraphist whose desk
brimmed with sweet verse. He was their secret king,
dreaming: If you knew, fair lady, what I could give,
none here could match. Blissful in his imagined sins,
he bowed thrice to Helmina, his life’s sacrament.
She dazzled, wearing a gray dress with black
diagonal trim accentuating her hips’ curve. The
deputy clerk gaped, entranced.
The district captain was introduced, offering witty
remarks on the day’s significance. Then Ruprecht
and Anton Sykora met. Helmina, hesitantly,
presented him as Dankwardt’s friend who’d visited
last winter. She sensed new suspicion in Ruprecht’s
measured gaze, gnashing inwardly at her wavering
confidence. A spiteful glee hissed: Sykora would
gape if he knew what had happened.
The ceremony began. The head teacher led the
white-clad girls from the garden, their song bright
and joyous. Flags fluttered in the warm air, cannons
roared. The Karl Borromaeus Society formed around
the banner. As the parson emerged, followed by
guests, the bells pealed. The procession crossed the
village square, a short path. The girls vanished into
the church’s wide door while the parsonage still
poured out dignitaries.
Among the crowd, unnoticed, stood Schiereisen.
Content to blend in, he sought to observe without
being seen. That morning, he’d passed Rotrehl’s
door, pausing to invite him. He found Rotrehl
communing with Napoleon, receiving a curt reply: let
the village fools sort their nonsense alone. Jérome
Rotrehl fit them like a sickle in a sheath or a violin in
a manger. Leave him be. Schiereisen saw the recent
beating had scarred Rotrehl’s proud, ancestral soul,
leaving bruises. He left him with Napoleon, and
downhill, violin notes trailed—soft, shy children.
Rotrehl was soothing his battered spirit.
On the square, Schiereisen joined Mathes
Dreiseidel, who stood puffing his pipe. His broad
back offered just enough cover for a stocky man like
Schiereisen. Mathes had his own story. A Karl
Borromaeus Society committee member, he’d been
excluded from the ceremony due to space limits and
the parson’s wish to balance peasant influence. Only
six of ten committee members could join, and Mathes
was among those ousted by lot. He’d rallied his
eloquence, vowing not to miss the feast if barred
from the rite as a dignitary.
After negotiations, the four excluded committee
members were allowed to attend the feast. Thus,
Mathes Dreiseidel stood among the onlookers with
mixed feelings. He belonged with those bareheaded
men circling the veiled banner toward the church.
Though humbled now, he’d be exalted later. The
church rite was more honorable, but the meal was
merrier. At the feast, no one would guess he’d missed
the ceremony.
The dignitaries emerged. The district captain
beside the parson, then Frau Helmina with Herr von
Boschan. Behind them—Schiereisen nearly jolted
forward—came Anton Sykora, head of Vienna’s
“Fortuna” matchmaking agency. He leaned in,
whispering to Helmina, who turned and nodded.
The church organ roared, all registers unleashed.
The head teacher, leading his white-clad girls to the
altar, raced to the loft, attacking the instrument with
frothing zeal. The last guests—Helmina’s clerks and
factory staff—entered, followed by the pressing
crowd. Mathes Dreiseidel parted from Schiereisen,
swept into the tide of the curious and devout, while
Schiereisen wandered through the village and down
the slope.
Under a linden, where a picnic bench stood
halfway up the hill, Schiereisen paused, tightening
his web’s threads. He was genuinely glad Ruprecht
looked hale today, as if fresh strength filled a once-
drained body. Perhaps his warning helped. Ruprecht
said nothing, and Schiereisen knew Helmina’s
husband wouldn’t aid his quest. A peculiar man, this
Boschan. Schiereisen’s focus had shifted—not
Helmina, shrouded in unsolved crimes, but Ruprecht,
whose clear confidence was more enigmatic, was
now central. Schiereisen wasn’t a mere detective; his
work was a calling, not a trade. Beyond solving
cases, he sought to deepen his understanding of
humanity, always tactful, never patronizing his
clients, upholding his profession’s dignity.
He sat a half-hour under the linden, watching
sunspots dance through trembling leaves. The bells,
the procession’s return, and their entry into the Red
Ox wove a faint tapestry of sound and color in his
mind. Suddenly, a loud jeering and howling erupted
from the village, jarring him from thought. Before the
Red Ox, a throng swirled—upraised arms with
cudgels, a red flag bleeding in the sunlight.
Schiereisen knew the old and new faiths had clashed.
But this wasn’t his concern. He dealt not with mass
unrest but errant individuals. For such spectacles, a
superior smile sufficed, rooted in his philosophical
calm.

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Homo Sapiens: In the Maelstrom by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel

He looked again with wide, expressionless eyes at Falk. 

“I saw a picture. The man goes in patent shoes and turned-up trousers into the realm of death. The man goes without fear, with chic. Two lilies grow on each side. Below death yawns. The whole thing is boring for death. And the stupid humans make so much fuss about it… The picture made a great impression on me then… Do you understand the blasé death? Do you understand what that means: a death for which death is indifferent and boring?” 

He was silent long. 

“I also have no fear. I would have absolutely no fear if I wanted to shoot myself in the brain. But I want to die with dignity and in beauty, I don’t want my brain to splash out on all sides… Now you see: I have fear of the few seconds when my brain will still live after the heart is already dead. I will live through my whole life in these few seconds, live through again. An unheard-of life frenzy will befall me: everything I experienced will seem so beautiful to me. An unheard-of despair to come back into life will seize me, a raging fear that these few seconds will soon end, that in one second I perhaps can no longer think. I will see every blade of grass, I will count every leaf above me, I will think of a thousand small things to keep the brain awake… The thoughts will confuse themselves more and more. In the last thousandth of a second I will still think of her,—still a terrible jerk through the whole body, then a fiery circle begins to dance before my eyes, a circle in a wild, whirling movement. I will stare at it as it fades and shrinks together: now as big as a plate, now as a small ring… still a horrible jerk of fear that it should disappear now—but now it is only a tiny point, a laughing point in the glowing eye of nothingness—Grodzki smiled insanely—then it is over.” 

A terrible feeling of fear whirled in painful shiver over Falk’s whole body. But only for a moment. He became calm with a blow. At the same time he felt a tormenting curiosity stir and grow. He would like to suck himself into him now. There was a secret there that he did not know, that perhaps could make clear to him the last reasons of existence. But his brain was as if fogged, every moment it became black before his eyes and every time he reached for the wine glass. 

Suddenly he saw again with uncanny clarity Grodzki’s face. He involuntarily imprinted the features. So that is how one looks who wants to die in the next hour… Strange! No, not strange: the face resembled completely a death mask, not a muscle stirred in it; it was frozen. He bent far over the table and asked mysteriously. 

“Will you really do it?” “Yes… Today.” 

“Today?” “Yes.” 

They stared at each other for a time. But Grodzki seemed to see nothing more. He was quite absent-minded, no, not absent, he no longer thought at all. 

Suddenly Grodzki moved quite close to Falk and asked with mysterious eagerness. 

“Don’t you believe that the holy John erred when he said: in the beginning was the word?” 

Falk looked at him startled. Grodzki seemed suddenly confused. His eyes were unnaturally widened, they resembled two black, glowing balls. 

“That is lie. The word is only an emanation, the word was created from sex… Sex is the immanent substance of existence… See, in me the waves of its evolution broke. I am the last! You are only transition, a small link in the chain. But I am the last. I stand a thousand times higher than you. You are development dung and I am God.” 

“God?” asked Falk in growing horror. 

“I will become God immediately.” “God is the last of nothingness, the foam that nothingness threw up. I am more, for I am the last wave of being.” 

He stretched high, a proud triumph poured over his face. 

“God is the pity and the despair and the boredom of nothingness, but I am the will of the proudest creation of being. The will of my brain am I!” he cried triumphantly, but sank immediately again into himself. 

A morbid impatience suddenly began to rage in Falk. If it lasted longer, he would not be able to endure it. The fever would burst his brain. If the person would only go. If it would only be over quickly. The seconds became eternities to him. He had trouble sitting calmly. He could not wait, a rage of impatience trembled in him and his heart beat so violently as if it wanted to burst the chest. 

Suddenly Grodzki rose slowly, quite as if he did not know what he was doing, he went as in sleep to the door. Here he stopped thoughtfully. Suddenly he awoke. 

“You Falk, do you really believe that there are devil lodges?” 

“I believe nothing, I know nothing, perhaps in New York, in Rome, I don’t know…” he raged with impatience. 

Grodzki brooded. Then he went slowly out. 

Falk breathed relieved. But suddenly a terrible unrest grew in him. It seemed to him as if he had only now actually understood what Grodzki wanted to do. 

He wanted to think, but he could not. Only his unrest became greater with every second. An animal, unreflected fear rose in him, his heart stopped for a moment. 

He reached for his hat and put it away again, then he searched for money, with convulsive haste he rummaged through all pockets, finally found it in the vest pocket, called for the waiter, threw him everything he had in his hand and ran to the street. 

From afar he saw Grodzki standing at a street clock. 

Falk pressed himself anxiously against a wall so that Grodzki would not discover him by chance, and again he felt the raging impatience that it should finally end once. 

Now he finally saw him go. With strange clarity he saw every movement, he studied this peculiar, dragging gait. He believed he could calculate when the foot would rise and when it would come to stand again. He saw the balance of the body shift with the accuracy of a machine in the same path. 

Then he became distracted. He tried to go inaudibly. That took much effort and his toes began to hurt, but he became calmer by it. He could only not understand what this tormenting curiosity and this impatience meant. 

He followed Grodzki along the street and saw him disappear in a park. 

Falk became so weak that he had to lean against a corner house to not fall. Everything in him was so tense that the slightest sound hurt him. He heard a cab drive in the distance, then he heard a laugh… he trembled more and more violently, his teeth chattered. 

Now it must come… He closed his eyes. Now… now… his heart constricted. He suffocated. 

Then it shot through his brain, he could miss the shot. The blood roared and surged in his head. Perhaps he could not hear at all! 

He listened tensely. 

He will perhaps not shoot himself, he thought suddenly and clenched his fists in a paroxysm of rage. He only wanted to fool him. He will not shoot himself at all! he repeated in growing rage. 

“He only coquetted with the thought…” In this moment he heard the shot. 

A sudden fright shot through his limbs. He wanted to cry out, his soul struggled to cry, horribly to cry, but his throat was as if constricted, he could not bring out a sound. 

Suddenly he felt a wild joy that it was over, but in a moment his soul turned into a wild hate against this person who had caused him this torment. 

He listened. It was quiet. Now he devoured himself with every nerve into this quiet, he could not listen enough, it seemed to him as if this calm poured into him. 

Then he felt a hot, burning curiosity to see the man, to look into his eyes, the fading fire whirl… He made a step forward cautiously, stopped, drew deep breath, and with a jerk a horrible fear seized him, it seemed to him as if he had committed a murder, his knees trembled, the blood dammed to the heart. 

He began to go, trembling as if every limb had become independent, he went uncertainly, stumbled, staggered… 

Suddenly he heard steps behind his back, he remembered at once that he had heard them before too, he applied his last strength, began to go faster and faster and finally to run senselessly. His legs tumbled over each other. He could not get away fast enough. Something tore him back. He ran faster and faster, in the head it roared and pounded: in the next second all vessels would burst… 

Bathed in sweat, he came into the hallway of his house and collapsed on the stairs. 

How long he lay so, he did not know. When he came to consciousness again, he climbed slowly and quietly up the stairs, came noiselessly into his room and threw himself on the bed. 

Suddenly he found himself on the street again. He was very astonished. He did not know at all how he came out of the house. The door was locked though. He did not remember locking it, but he could remember very well the hand movement when turning the key. 

He stood thoughtfully. 

He had surely locked the door… Strange, strange… And there at the corner a new house. That he had not seen it earlier! He read on the front an inscription with huge letters: Mourning Magazine… He started… He really did not need to look at the house. He had no time for that, no, really no time at all. He only wondered that he suddenly became restless. Why so suddenly? A man passed. He had a long coat of which the lowest button was missing. He saw that quite clearly… 

Now he came over a large square on which many carriages drove back and forth, but he saw no people and heard not the slightest noise, on the contrary: it was a death silence around him.  It became uncanny to him. A nameless fear crept unstoppably higher and higher up, from below up, from the root depths of his spinal cord—root depths?

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