Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Before, I was a worker in the Simplon Tunnel.” “Not bad, but grueling.” “One must do something for one’s health.” “You made a dazzling entrance yesterday. You’re the darling of Abbazia’s young ladies. If the fervor grows, you’ll get a torchlight parade tonight. That lasso throw was magnificent.” “Why else would I have spent two years in South America if not to learn such tricks?” Hugo settled at the small table between the petrified rolls, tipping his chair on two legs toward Boschan, arm draped over his friend’s seat. “Listen,” he said, “you owe me a favor. You won’t refuse me in the joy of our reunion. You’re moved, I can see it. How long has it been? Shameful, isn’t it? Not even a postcard from the Himalayas.” “It must be something dire you want,” Ruprecht said, “with such a preamble.” “Don’t say no, don’t break your friend’s hopeful heart. Here’s the deal: I’m organizing an Emperor’s celebration tomorrow, August 18. Can’t skip it. If I don’t do it, someone else will. Better me, since I’ve got taste. Big program: Isolde Lenz will sing, Bergler will sing, Walterskirchen will play. I’ve got a court concertmaster too. Andresen from the Burgtheater will recite modern poems. A retired general will play flute, thinking he owes it to Frederick the Great’s memory, as fine a soldier as he. But this program lacks a cornerstone.” “I’m the cornerstone?” “Yes! The World-Tree Ygdrasil of my program. Peter, the rock on which… and so forth. Please, no refusals. The other acts are solid, but you’re something unique, a rare spectacle. I’d be a poor planner to let you slip.” “I’m not keen, my dear.” Ernst Hugo laid a hand on Ruprecht’s knee, overflowing with charm, dripping eloquence, weaving wreaths of flattery. “I won’t let you go till you bless me. If you’re stumped on what to do, I’ll tell them about your Himalayan treks or whatever. Just take the stage. Success is guaranteed. I promise every girl and young woman will fall for you.” “You know that doesn’t tempt me. Women are usually dull.” “Still an ascetic desert saint? Still St. Anthony resisting all temptations?” “Ridiculous—you don’t think I practice abstinence for glory. I had a serious affair with a Japanese girl for a while. And as a Simplon Tunnel worker, I lived with an Italian woman, fighting knife duels over her every other day. That’s something. But your society ladies…! You must slog through flirting first. Flirting’s endlessly tedious.” “If women won’t sway you, do it for me. Years apart, we finally meet, and I’m shamed if my friend denies a small request. Truly, it’s an insult.” “Would it really mean so much if I agree?” “An extraordinary favor.” Hugo paused, eyeing a woman passing below on the promenade. He leaned over the balustrade, clearly trying to catch her notice. “A regal woman,” he murmured, “look at that attire. A little Paris on her. Good Lord! Know her?” “No,” Boschan said, finishing his morning cognac. “She’s a widow, fabulously rich. Half Abbazia’s in love with her. Born to conquer, her specialty’s the demonic, or so say those lucky enough to know her. I’m not among them yet. But back to business: you’d do me a huge favor by joining. There’s a Statthaltereirat from Graz with big ambitions, my serious rival. He nearly beat me to hosting the celebration. You’ll see, that won’t do. I’m up for promotion. Patriotic efforts impress higher-ups. So I outmaneuvered him. But he’ll be a harsh critic. If it’s not tip-top, he’ll flash his ironic smile… make witty jabs… that sarcastic fool!” Before Ruprecht’s eyes, the sea spun, rising in the sun’s climbing glare, shimmering like a vast turquoise, magically binding souls, drawing them in, dissolving petty drives and miseries into great joy. But this planner of patriotic fêtes felt none of it. Ruprecht leaned against a pillar, turning from Hugo. “What a dire conflict,” he said, “what a dramatic tangle! Oh, clashing forces—a struggle for lofty prizes! And all the while, you have the sea before you, in its full splendor, blessed by its beauty.” “How do you mean?” Hugo asked, fixing his water-blue eyes on the sea in surprise. “Well—you’ve invoked our friendship. I suppose I must help you skewer this hostile Statthaltereirat.”
Chapter Two Explains how the idea for Alraune came about. THE sun had already set and the candles were burning on the chandelier in the Festival room as Privy Councilor ten Brinken entered. He appeared festive enough in his dress suit. There was a large star on his white vest and a gold chain in the buttonhole from which twenty small medals dangled. The Legal Councilor stood up, greeted him, and then he and the old gentleman went around the room with threadbare smiles, saying kind words to everyone. They stopped in front of the celebrating girls and the old gentleman took two gold rings out of a beautiful leather case and formally presented them. The one with a sapphire was for blond Frieda and the ruby was for dark Olga. Then he gave a very wise speech to both of them. “Would you like to sit for a spell?” asked Herr Sebastian Gontram. “We’ve been sitting over there for four hours. Seventeen courses! Isn’t that something! Here is the menu, is there anything you would like?” The Privy Councilor thanked him, but he had already eaten. Then Frau Gontram came into the room in a blue, somewhat old- fashioned silk gown with a train. Her hair was done up high. “I can’t eat anymore ice cream,” she cried. “Prince Puckler had Billa put all of it on the cinnamon noodles!” The guests laughed. They never knew what to expect in the Gontram house. Attorney Manasse cried, “Bring the dish in here! We haven’t seen Prince Puckler or fresh cinnamon noodles all day!” Privy Councilor ten Brinken looked around for a chair. He was a small man, smooth shaven, with thick watery bags under his eyes. He was repulsive enough with swollen hanging lips, a huge meaty nose, and the lid of his left eye drooped heavy but the right stood wide open, squinting around in a predatory manner. Someone behind him said: “Good Day Uncle Jakob.” It was Frank Braun. The Privy Councilor turned around; it was very unusual to see his nephew here. “You’re here?” he asked. “I can only imagine why.” The student laughed, “Naturally! But you are so wise uncle. You look good by the way, and very official, like a university professor in proud dress uniform with all your medals. I’m here incognito–over there with the other students stuck at the west table.” “That just proves your twisted thinking, where else would you be sitting?” his uncle said. “When you once–” “Yes, yes,” Frank Braun interrupted him. “When I finally get as old as you, then I will be permitted–and so on–That’s what you would tell me, isn’t it? All heaven be praised that I’m not yet twenty Uncle Jakob. I like it this way much better.” The Privy Councilor sat down. “Much better? I can believe that. In the fourth Semester and doing nothing but fighting, drinking, fencing, riding, loving and making poor grades! I wrote your mother about the grades the university gave you. Tell me youngster, just what are you doing in college anyway?” The student filled two glasses, “Here Uncle Jakob, drink, then your suffering will be lighter! Well, I’ve been in several classes already, not just one, but an entire series of classes. Now I’ve left and I’m not going back.” “Prosit!” “Prosit!” The Privy Councilor said. “Have you finished?” “Finished?” Frank Braun laughed. “I’m much more than finished. I’m overflowing! I’m done with college and I’m done with the Law. I’m going to travel. Why should I be in college? It’s possible that the other students can learn from you professors but their brains must then comply with your methods. My brain will not comply. I find every single one of you unbelievably foolish, boring and stupid.” The professor took a long look at him. “You are immensely arrogant, my dear boy,” he said quietly. “Really?” The student leaned back, put one leg over the other. “Really? I scarcely believe that. But if so, it doesn’t really matter. I know what I’m doing. First, I’m saying this to annoy you a bit–You look so funny when you are annoyed, second, to hear back from you that I’m right. For example, you, uncle, are certainly a shrewd old fox, very intelligent, clever and you know a multitude of things–But in college weren’t you just as insufferable as the rest of your respected colleagues? Didn’t you at one time or another say to yourself that you wanted to perhaps just have some fun?” “Me? Most certainly not!” the professor said. “But that is something else. When you once–Well, ok, you know already–Now tell me boy, where in all the world will you go from here? Your mother will not like to hear that you are not coming home.” “Very well,” cried Frank Braun. “I will answer you.” “But first, why have you have rented this house to Gontram? He is certainly not a person that does things by the book. Still, it is always good when you can have someone like that from time to time. His tubercular wife naturally interests you as a medical doctor. All the doctors in the city are enraptured by this phenomenon without lungs. Then there’s the princess that you would gladly sell your castle in Mehlem to. Finally, dear uncle, there are the two teenagers over there, beautiful, fresh vegetables aren’t they? I know how you like young girls–Oh, in all honor, naturally. You are always honorable Uncle Jakob!” He stopped, lit a cigarette and blew out a puff of smoke. The Privy Councilor squinted at him poisonously with a predatory right eye. “What did you want to tell me?” he asked lightly. The student gave a short laugh, “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all!” He stood up, went to the corner table, picked up a cigar box and opened it. They were the expensive cigars of the Privy Councilor. “The smokes, dear uncle. Look, Romeo and Juliet, your brand. The Legal Councilor has certainly not spared any expense for you!” He offered one to the Privy Councilor. “Thank you,” growled the professor. “Thank you. Now once again, what is it that you want to tell me?” Frank Braun moved his chair closer. “I will tell you Uncle Jakob. But first I need to reproach you. I don’t like what you did, do you hear me? I know myself quite well, know that I’ve been wasting my life and that I continue–Leave that. You don’t care and I’m not asking you to pay any of my debts. I request that you never again write such a letter to our house. You will write back to mother and tell her that I am very virtuous, very moral, work very hard and that I’m moving on and such stuff. Do you understand?” “Yes, that I must lie,” said the Privy Councilor. “It should sound realistic and witty, but it will sound slimy as a snail, even to her.” The student looked at him squarely, “Yes uncle, you should even lie. Not on my account, you know that, but for mother.” He stopped for a moment gazing into his glass, “and since you will tell these lies for me, I will now tell you this.” “I am curious,” said the Privy Councilor a little uncertainly. “You know my life,” the student continued and his voice rang with bitter honesty. “You know that I, up until today, have been a stupid youth. You know because you are an old and clever man, highly educated, rich, known by all, decorated with titles and orders, because you are my uncle and my mother’s only brother. You think that gives you a right to educate me. Right or not, you will never do it. No one will ever do it, only life will educate me.” The professor slapped his knee and laughed out loud. “Yes, life! Just wait youngster. It will educate you soon enough. It has enough twists and turns, beautiful rules and laws, solid boundaries and thorny barriers.” Frank Braun replied, “They are nothing for me, much less for me than for you. Have you, Uncle Jakob, ever fought through the twists, cut through the wiry thorns and laughed at all the laws? I have.” “Pay attention uncle,” he continued. “I know your life as well. The entire city knows it and the sparrows pipe their little jokes about you from the rooftops. But the people only talk to themselves in whispers, because they fear you, fear your cleverness and your money. They fear your power and your energy. I know why little Anna Paulert died. I know why your handsome gardener had to leave so quickly for America. I know many more little stories about you. Oh, I don’t approve, certainly not. But I don’t think of you as evil. I even admire you a little perhaps because you, like a little king, can do so many things with impunity. The only thing I don’t understand is how you are successful with all the children. You are so ugly.” The Privy Councilor played with his watch chain. Then he looked quietly at his nephew, almost flattered. “You really don’t understand that?” The student replied, “No, absolutely not at all. But I do understand how you have come to it! For a long time you’ve had everything that you wanted, everything that a person could have within the normal constraints of society. Now you want more. The brook is bored in its old bed, steps here and there over the narrow banks–It is in your blood.” The professor raised his glass, reached it out to him. “Give me another, my boy,” he said. His voice trembled a little and certainly rang out with solemnity. “You are right. It is in the blood, my blood and your blood.” He drank and reached out to shake hands with his nephew. “You will write mother like I want you to?” asked Frank Braun. “Yes, I will,” replied the old man. The student said, “Thank you Uncle Jakob.” He took the outstretched hand and shook it. “Now go, you old Don Juan, call the Communicants! They both look beautiful in their sacred gowns, don’t they?” “Hmm,” said the uncle. “Don’t they look good to you?” Frank Braun laughed. “Me? Oh, my God! No, Uncle Jakob, I am no rival, not today. Today I have a higher ambition–perhaps when I am as old as you are!–But I am not the guardian of their virtue. Those two celebrating roses will not improve until they have been plucked. Someone will, and soon–Why not you? Hey Olga, Frieda! Come on over here!” But neither girl came over. They were hovering around Dr. Mohnen, filling his glass and listening to his suggestive stories. The princess came over; Frank Braun stood up and offered her his chair. “Sit down, sit down!” she cried. “I have absolutely nothing to chat with you about!” “Just a few minutes, your Highness. I will go get a cigarette,” the student said. “My uncle has been waiting all night for a chance to give you his compliments. He will be overjoyed.” The Privy Councilor was not overjoyed about it. He would have much rather had the little princess sitting there, but now he entertained the mother– Frank Braun went to the window as the Legal Councilor and Frau Marion went up to the Grand Piano. Herr Gontram sat down on the piano bench, turned around and said. “I would like a little quiet please. Frau Marion would like to sing a song for us.” He turned to the Lady, “What would you like after that dear Frau?–Another one I hope, perhaps ‘Les Papillions’? or perhaps ‘Il Baccio’ from Arditti?–Give me the music for them as well!”
Homo Sapiens: Under Way by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
VIII.
When they both stepped out the door, Falk became a little uneasy.
“He had sent the coachman home. The night was so splendid; he would so like to accompany her home on foot. It would also be good for her to refresh a little from the stupid society in the open air.”
Falk’s voice trembled slightly.
Marit spoke no word; a dark oppression almost took her breath away.
They stepped onto the open field; both thoughtful, silent.
Now the moment had come when one can look into the soul of the being one loves as into one’s own. Falk felt her soul like a roulette ball rolling from one boundary wall of his suggestions to the other:
“Wouldn’t she like to take his arm?
The path was very bad; it had many holes, one could easily sprain one’s foot.”
She took his arm silently. He pressed it very firmly to his chest and felt her tremble.
Falk knew that he couldn’t speak now; his voice would break.
He fought against this excitement; but his unrest grew and grew.
No, he gathered himself. No, not now!
That reminded him of the way peasants clumsily grab with both hands right away.
The moon poured pale streams of light on the meadows; in the distance one saw high-piled black heaps of peat.
Falk tried to master himself. He wanted to postpone the happiness he could now enjoy; he wanted to enjoy it slowly.
They stopped and contemplated the landscape.
Then they walked again, but didn’t look at each other; it was as if they felt a kind of shame before one another.
Now Falk stopped again.
“Strange: every time I see the peat heaps, I always have to think of a peculiar man from my home village.
He was a peat cutter for my father; naturally he drank, like almost all our farmhands, and had a great fixed idea.”
Falk instinctively sought to loosen and scatter the sexual concentration through stories; then he could overwhelm the girl all the more surely afterward.
“You know, from the peat bog at times will-o’-the-wisps rise, which move back and forth with fabulous speed.
The man now got it into his head that the will-o’-the-wisps were souls of deceased Freemasons; at that time the famous papal encyclical also appeared, in which it is written that the Freemasons are possessed by the evil one.
Now the man ran around all night and shot at the will-o’-the-wisps with an old pistol. With somnambulistic certainty he jumped over the widest peat ditches, crawled through the mud and densest undergrowth like a swamp animal, sometimes sank up to his neck in the marsh, worked himself out again and shot incessantly.
There lay a terrible tragedy in it. I saw him once after such a night. His eyes were bulging and bloodshot, the mud sat finger-thick on his clothes, he was completely soaked, the thick swamp water dripped from him; his hair was glued together into strands by the mud, but he was happy.
He swung the pistol back and forth and jumped and cried out with joy. For in this night he had shot a Freemason soul with a twenty-pfennig piece; as he watched, only a little heap of tar remained of the will-o’-the-wisp.
The pistol was his sanctuary from then on. But once he was locked in prison because he didn’t send his son to school. The boy stayed home alone—the mother had long since run away—and tended the goat on the peat meadows, the peat cutter’s only wealth.
Yes; now it occurred to the boy to fetch the pistol to frighten the neighbor’s child, whom he was also supposed to watch. He turned the pistol with the muzzle toward his mouth and held a burning match near the pan.
‘Watch out, now I’m shooting dead!’ He held the match ever closer. The child gets frightened, starts screaming, and in that moment
the pistol discharges: the boy gets the whole charge in his mouth. I had just come from school and was witness to the scene that I will never forget in my life.
The boy ran around in mad fear, blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and with every death scream the foam shot and gurgled forth in dark stream.
The child understood nothing and laughed heartily at the crazy jumps. Only the goat seemed to have understood it. In wild fear it had
torn itself from the stake to which it was tied; it jumped—no, you really can’t imagine it—it jumped over the long, skinny boy, and then over a wide ditch, and back again… it was terrible.
Marit was completely excited.
“That must have been gruesome! Did the boy die?” “Yes, he died.”
Again they walked silently side by side; they were quite, quite close.
“Good God, you looked wonderful today! You had an expression on your face, you know, an expression that I had seen on you only once before; yes, once a year ago. We were as happy as children and so happy; God knows, it was beautiful. And then we stood in the evening on the veranda. In the distance we heard the monastery bells ringing for the Ave Maria, and you stood there and looked ahead with the expression of unspeakable intimacy and bliss; it was like a sea of bright gold around you—and today I saw it again.”
Falk trembled.
“I looked at you the whole evening, I admired you and was happy and felt you quite close to me… to me.”
He pressed her even tighter to himself, his voice almost gasped. “Marit, I love you; I…”
His hand encircled hers. He felt how hot streams flowed into her.
“I came only because of you; I lay there in Paris and longed for you like mad; I had to come. And now you know; now I have a morbid desire to take you in my hands and press you so wild, so wild to my heart and breathe your breast against mine, hear your heart beat against mine.
Look, Marit, my gold, my everything; I will do everything, everything for you; you mustn’t resist; you give me an unnameable happiness; you give me everything by it; look, I have suffered so; my sweet girl, my sun, give me the happiness!”
Around them both, the hot, sexual atmosphere wove tighter and tighter. She could hardly breathe.
“I was so immeasurably unhappy all the time because I love you so endlessly; never have I loved a being as I loved you before.”
She felt above her two abyssal eyes shining like two stars; her head grew confused, she couldn’t think, understood only his hot, gasping words, which fell like hot blood drops into her soul, and above her she saw two abyssal stars that guided and pulled and tore at her.
She felt how he embraced her, how he sought her mouth, and felt his hot, feverish lips as they sucked into her lips.
She no longer resisted; her whole soul threw itself into the one kiss, she embraced him. It was like a jubilation that dances with wild leaps over an abyss. She kissed him.
Falk had not suspected this wild passion in her. A hot gratitude rose in him.
“You will be mine, Marit; you will be… will…”
Yes, that had to be… she felt it, that had to be… the eyes, the terrible eyes above her… and the voice… it sounded like a command.
Just let me—now—let me—to my senses—let…
Again they walked silently side by side, trembling, with bated breath.
Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel
Then she takes the child, washes him, changes him, and tucks him into bed. Wülfche never stirs, lies quiet, still and contented. Then he falls asleep, beaming blissfully, the ghastly black cigar stub always in his lips. Oh yes, she was right, this tall woman. She understands children, at least Gontram children. During the dinner and into the evening they eat and the Legal Councilor talks. They drink a light wine from the Ruwer. Frau Gontram finishes first and brings the spiced wine. Her husband sniffs critically. “I want champagne,” he says. She sets the spiced wine on the table anyway. “We don’t have any more champagne. All that’s left in the cellar is a bottle of Pommery.” He looks intently at her over his spectacles, shakes his head dubiously. “Now you know you are a housewife! We have no champagne and you don’t say a word about it? What? No, champagne in the house! Fetch the bottle of Pommery– Spiced wine is not good enough.” He shakes his head back and forth, “No champagne. Imagine that!” He repeats. “We must procure some right away. Come woman; bring my quill and paper. I must write the princess.” But when the paper is set in front of him, he pushes it away again. He sighs. “I’ve been working all day long. You write woman, I’ll dictate to you.” Frau Gontram doesn’t move. Write? She’s a complete failure at writing! “I can’t,” she says. The Legal Councilor looks over at Manasse. “See how it is, Colleague? Can’t she do this for me? I am so exhausted–” The little Attorney looks straight at him. “Exhausted?” He mocks, “From what? Telling stories? I would like to know why your fingers always have ink on them, Legal Councilor. I know it’s not from writing!” Frau Gontram laughs. “Oh Manasse, that’s from last Christmas when he had to sign as witness to the children’s bad behavior!– Anyway, why quarrel? Let Frieda write.” She cries out the window to Frieda. Frieda comes into the room and Olga Wolkonski comes with her. “So nice to have you here,” the Legal Councilor greets her. “Have you already eaten this evening?” Both girls have eaten down in the kitchen. “Sit here Frieda,” bids her father. “Right here.” Frieda obeys. “Now, take the quill and write what I tell you.” But Frieda is a true Gontram child. She hates to write. Instantly she springs up out of the chair. “No, no,” she cries. “Olga should write, she is so much better than I am.” The princess stays on the sofa. She doesn’t want to do it either. But her friend has a means to make her submit. “If you don’t write,” she whispers. “I won’t lend you any sins for the day after tomorrow.” That did it. The day after tomorrow is Confession and her confession slip is looking very insufficient. Sins are not permitted during this time of First Communion but you still need to confess. You must rigorously investigate, consider and seek to see if you can’t somehow find yet another sin. That is something the princess absolutely can’t understand. But Frieda is splendid at it. Her confession slip is the envy of the entire class. Thought sins are especially easy for her. She can discover dozens of magnificent sins easily at a time. She gets this from Papa. Once she really gets started she can attend the Father Confessor with such heaps of sins that he never really learns anything. “Write Olga,” she whispers. “Then I’ll lend you eight fat sins.” “Ten,” counters the princess. Frieda Gontram nods. It doesn’t matter to her. She will give away twenty sins so she doesn’t have to write. Olga sits at the table, picks up the quill and looks questioningly. “Now write,” says the Legal Councilor. “Honorable Princess–” “Is this for Mama?” the princess asks. “Naturally, who else would it be for? Write!” “Honorable Princess–” The princess doesn’t write. “If it’s for Mama, I can only write, ‘Dear Mama’.” The Legal Councilor is impatient. “Write what you want child, just write!” She writes, “Dear Mama!” Then the Legal Councilor dictates: “Unfortunately I must inform you that there is a problem. There are so many things that I must consider and you can’t consider things when you have nothing to drink. We don’t have a drop of champagne in the house. In the interests of your case please send us a basket of spiced champagne, a basket of Pommery and six bottles of–” “St. Marceaux!” cries the little attorney. “St. Marceaux,” continues the Legal Councilor. That is namely the favorite of my colleague, Manasse, who so often helps. With best Greetings, Your–” “Now see, Colleague!” he says. “You need to correct me! I didn’t dictate this letter alone but I will sign it single handedly, and he puts his name on it. Frieda turns away from the window, “Are you finished? Yes? Well, I can only say that you didn’t need to write the letter. Olga’s Mama is coming and she’s in the garden now!” She had seen the princess a long time ago but had kept quiet and not interrupted. If Olga wanted to get ten beautiful sins she should at least work for them! All the Gontrams were like that, father, mother and children. They are very, very unwilling to work but are very willing to let others do it. The princess enters, obese and sweaty, large diamonds on her fingers, in her ears, around her neck and in her hair in a vulgar display of extravagance. She is a Hungarian countess or baroness. She met the prince somewhere in the Orient. A marriage was arranged, that was certain, but also certain, was that right from the beginning it was a fraud on both sides. She wanted the marriage to make her impossible pregnancy legal. The prince wanted the same marriage to prevent an international scandal and hide his small mistake. It was a net of lies and impudent fraud, a legal feast for Herr Sebastian Gontram, everything was in motion, and nothing was solid. Every smallest assertion would prompt legal opposition from the other side. Every shadow would be extinguished through a court ruling. Only one thing stayed the same, the little princess. Both the prince and the princess proclaimed themselves as father and mother and claimed her as their own. This product of their strange marriage is heir to many millions of dollars. The mother has the advantage, has custody. “Have a seat, princess!” The Legal Councilor would sooner bite his tongue than call this woman, ‘Highness’. She is his client and he doesn’t treat her a hair better than a peasant woman. “Take your coat off!” but he doesn’t help her with it. “We have just written you a letter,” he continues and reads the beautiful letter to her. “But of course,” cries the princess. “I will take care of it first thing tomorrow morning!” She opens her purse and pulls out a heavy envelope. “Look at this, Honorable Legal Councilor. I came straight here with it. It is a letter from Lord, Count Ormes of Greater- Becskerekgyartelep, you know him.” Herr Gontram furrows his brow. This isn’t good. The King himself would not be permitted to demand him to conduct any business while at home. He stands up and takes the letter. “That’s very good,” he says. “Very good. We will clear this up in the morning at the office.” She defends herself, “But it’s very urgent! It’s very important!” The Legal Councilor interrupts her, “Urgent? Important? Let me tell you what is urgent and important, absolutely nothing. Only in the office can a person judge what is urgent and important.” He reproaches her, “Princess, you are an educated woman! You know all about proper manners and enjoy them all the time. You must know that you don’t bring business home at night.” She persists, “But I can never catch you at the office Honorable Legal Councilor. During this week alone I was–” Now he is almost angry. “Then come next week! Do you think that all I do is work on your stuff alone? Do you really believe that is all I do? Do you know what my time alone costs for the murderer Houten? And it’s on my head to handle your millions as well.” Then he begins to tell a funny story, incessantly relating an unending imaginary story of a strange crime lord and the heroic attorney that brings him to justice for all the horrible sex murders that he has committed. The princess sighs, but she listens to him. She laughs once in awhile, always in the wrong places. She is the only one of all his listeners that never knows when he lies and also the only one that doesn’t understand his jokes. “Nice story for the children!” barks Attorney Manasse. Both girls are listening eagerly, staring at the Legal Councilor with wide-open eyes and mouths. But he doesn’t allow himself to be interrupted. It is never too early to get accustomed to such things. He talks as if sex murderers were common, that they happen all the time in life and you can encounter dozens of them every day. He finally finishes, looks at the hour, “Ten already! You children must go to bed! Drink your spiced wine quickly.” The girls drink, but the princess declares that she will under no circumstances go back to her house. She is too afraid and can’t sleep by herself, perhaps there is a disguised sex murderer in the house. She wants to stay with her friend. She doesn’t ask her Mama. She asks only Frieda and her mother. “You can as far as I’m concerned,” says Frau Gontram. “But don’t you oversleep! You need to be in church on time.” The girls curtsey and go out, arm in arm, inseparable. “Are you afraid too?” asks the princess. Frieda says, “What Papa was saying is all lies.” But she is still afraid anyway and at the same time strangely longing for these things. Not to experience them, oh no, not to know that. But she is thinking how she wants to be able to tell stories like that! Yes, that is another sin for confession! She sighs. Above, they finish the spiced wine. Frau Gontram smokes one last cigar. Herr Manasse stands up to leave the room and the Legal Councilor is telling the princess a new story. She hides her yawn behind her fan, attempts again to get a word in. “Oh, yes, dear Legal Councilor,” she says quickly. “I almost forgot! May I pick your wife up at noon tomorrow in the carriage? I’d like to take her with me into Rolandseck for a bit.” “Certainly,” he answers. “Certainly, if she wants to.” But Frau Gontram says, “I can’t go out.” “And why not?” the princess asks. “It would do you some good to get out and breathe some fresh spring air.” Frau Gontram slowly takes the cigar out from between her teeth. “I can’t go out. I don’t have a decent hat to wear–” The Princess laughs as if it is a good joke. She will also send the Milliner over in the morning with the newest spring fashions. “Then I’ll go,” says Frau Gontram. “But send Becker from Quirinusjass, they have the best.” “And now I must go to sleep–good night!” “Oh, yes, it is time I must get going too!” the princess cries hastily. Legal Councilor escorts her out, through the garden and into the street. He helps her up into her carriage and then deliberately shuts the garden gate. As he comes back, his wife is standing in the house door, a burning candle in her hand. “I can’t go to bed yet,” she says quietly. “What,” he asks. “Why not?” She replies, “I can’t go to bed yet because Manasse is lying in it!” They climb up the stairs to the second floor and go into the bedroom. In the giant marriage bed lies the little attorney pretty as can be and fast asleep. His clothing is hung carefully over the chair, his boots standing nearby. He has taken a clean nightgown out of the wardrobe and put it on. Near him lies his Cyclops like a crumpled young hedgehog. Legal Councilor Gontram takes the candle from the nightstand and lights it. “And the man insults me, says that I’m lazy!” he says shaking his head in wonderment. “–And he is too lazy to go home!” “Shh!” Frau Gontram says. “You’ll wake everyone up.” She takes bedding and linen out of the wardrobe and goes very quietly downstairs and makes up two beds on the sofas. They sleep there. Everyone is sleeping in the white house. Downstairs by the kitchen the strong cook, Billa, sleeps, the three hounds next to her. In the next room the four wild rascals sleep, Philipp, Paulche, Emilche and Josefche. Upstairs in Frieda’s large balcony room the two friends are sleeping. Wülfche sleeps nearby with his black tobacco stub. In the living room sleep Herr Sebastian Gontram and his wife. Up the hall Herr Manasse and Cyclops contentedly snore and way up in the attic sleeps Sophia, the housemaid. She has come back from the dance hall and lightly sneaked up the stairs. Everyone is sleeping, twelve people and four sharp hounds. But something is not sleeping. It shuffles slowly around the white house– Outside by the garden flows the Rhine, rising and breasting its embankments. It appears in the sleeping village, presses itself against the old toll office. Cats and Tomcats are pushing through the bushes, hissing, biting, striking each other, their round hot glittering eyes possessed with aching, agonizing and denied lust– In the distance at the edge of the city you hear the drunken songs of the wild students– Something creeps all around the white house on the Rhine, sneaks through the garden, past a broken embankment and overturned benches. It looks in pleasure at the Sunday antics of the love hungry cats and climbs up to the house. It scratches with hard nails on the wall making a loose piece of plaster fall, pokes softly at the door so that it rattles lightly like the wind. Then it’s in the house shuffling up the stairs, creeping cautiously through all the rooms and stops, looks around, smiles. Heavy silver stands on the mahogany buffet, rich treasures from the time of the Kaiser. But the windowpanes are warped and patched with paper. Dutchmen hang on the wall. They are all good paintings from Koekoek, Verboekhuoeven, Verwee and Jan Stobbaerts, but they have holes and the old golden frames are black with spider webs. These magnificent beauties came from the ArchBishop’s old hall. But the broken crystal is sticky with flyspecks. Something haunts the still house and each time it comes it breaks something, almost nothing, an infinite smallness, a crack. But again and again, each time it comes, the crack grows in the night. There is a small noise, a light creaking in the hall, a nail loosens and the old furniture gives way. There is a rattle at the swollen shutters and a strange clanking between the windowpanes. Everyone sleeps in this big house on the Rhine but something slowly shuffles around.
Madame Bluebeard by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
First Chapter Police Commissioner Mirko Bovacs was at a loss. No, he wasn’t merely at a loss—he was utterly despairing. In all his years of service, nothing like this had ever happened. With an extraordinary— charitably, one might say superhuman—keenness of mind, he had identified, among Abbazia’s international crowd, the long-sought Innesvar bank robber in an unassuming Mr. Müller. And now, Mr. Müller refused to be arrested, perched instead on the roof of his small house, firing wildly with two Brownings. This defied all precedent. Once discovered, a criminal was supposed to concede defeat and submit. That, at least, was what any respectable crook was expected to do. No serious trouble was to be caused for the police; one simply vowed to play more cautiously next time. Initially, news of the bank robber’s unmasking spread fear and horror among the spa guests. To think they were exposed to such dangers! Patrons of the Hotel Royal, where Mr. Müller had dined several times, were beside themselves with agitation. “You really don’t know who you’re sitting with anymore,” said Hofrätin Kundersdorf. The young poet Bystritzky, who consorted only with elderly ladies and spared young girls not a glance, added dutifully, “This Müller… a man of the world… who’d have thought!” But when word got out that the bank robber was defending his stone cottage up in the vineyards, refusing to let any policeman near, the mood shifted to amusement. Soon, the beach and promenade lay deserted. The public had flocked to the vineyards as if to a fair, keeping a safe distance, of course, and seeking cover behind walls and houses. It was 5immensely entertaining to watch the police and gendarmes at a loss, and to see Mirko Bovacs darting about behind a gamekeeper’s hut, wringing his hands. Whenever a policeman or gendarme peeked to check if Mr. Müller was still on the roof, a shot rang out. The head ducked back faster than a seal’s. “What am I to do? What am I to do?” wailed the commissioner. “I’m becoming a laughingstock. This rogue is humiliating me before all of Europe. Damn him… he must come down. I’m ruined if we don’t get him. What crook will respect me then? Every lousy Italian pickpocket will laugh in my face. They’ll spit on my boots.” He roared at his men: “You scoundrels, you cowards, go hide behind your wives’ skirts, you bastards, you toads! You’re truly made of clay God forgot to fire. Get moving… it’s your duty… I’ll report you all!” But Constable Kristic, unshaken by anything, replied, “Commissioner, it’s our lives at stake. What do you expect? Duty’s duty. But where’s it written we must let ourselves be killed when we can just wait until hunger drives him down?” “So, you’d starve him out?” the commissioner shouted. “We could wait forever. Do you know if he’s got supplies for a year? Or two? We might all be dead—or pensioned—by then. If we could at least reach the neighboring house, fifteen paces away…” “Sir, what good’s that?” Kristic countered. “If we show ourselves, he shoots. He’s capable of picking us off. He’s already hit one gendarme in the foot. And Schusterschic got two holes in his cap for not ducking fast enough.” The commissioner peered cautiously around the corner. “What’s he doing? What’s he doing?” he stammered. “He’s mocking us. He’s pulled out a ham sandwich and is eating calmly. I’ll have a stroke, 6Kristic… has anyone seen such a thing? He’s eating a sandwich right in front of us.” Mr. Müller’s composure won the spa guests’ admiration. Even Hofrätin Kundersdorf couldn’t withhold praise for his cool-headedness, and Bystritzky chimed in with aphorisms on masculinity and the grandeur of criminal characters. As the day passed without change, bets were placed on how long Mr. Müller would hold out. The English dove into the wagering with zeal. Lord Stanhope bet a hundred pounds that the splendid bank robber wouldn’t be brought down for three days. No one took the bet, knowing Stanhope’s uncanny luck. “You can safely take the wager,” said an elegant man of about thirty-five to the hesitant group. “Go on, dare it. This Mr. Müller will be in police hands by tonight.” Lord Stanhope eyed the stranger calmly. “How can you claim that?” he asked slowly. “And if you’re so sure, why not bet yourself?” “I don’t bet,” the stranger replied, “when I know the outcome for certain.” “How can you know the outcome?” “How? Because I’ll bring that man down myself.” With a polite, curt bow, he descended toward the beach. Half an hour later, the stranger approached Commissioner Mirko Bovacs with a greeting. “Sir, what do you want here?” Bovacs shouted. “There’s shooting. Don’t cause trouble.” “I’m here to end the shooting,” the elegant stranger replied. Bovacs’s jaw dropped. His mind stalled. Clinging to the one remaining faculty—that a commissioner 7must never lose composure—he rubbed his hands together. But they felt like someone else’s hands. “Sir…” he said, “how will you…” “That’s my concern, once you permit me to assist.” “I warn you, don’t rely on the night. We saw that scoundrel has a barrel of pitch on the roof. He’ll likely light it when it’s dark.” “I won’t wait that long. In twenty minutes, it’s over. Be ready to seize him when I have him.” Shaking his head, Bovacs watched the stranger step from the gamekeeper’s hut. A shot rang out from the roof, but the man was already behind a garden wall. Bovacs marveled at the transformation. The polished gentleman, master of decorum, became an Indian. His body stretched like a lithe animal’s, limbs propelling him in an almost impossible crouch, half- lying, always concealed by stones, moving swiftly and surely once he found his path. After minutes, he vanished into a pile of rocks above. For Bovacs, an agonizing wait began. It galled him to owe a volunteer, but it beat prolonging the siege. “A blessed candle for Saint Joseph in Fiume,” he vowed silently, “if this works.” Kneeling, he watched the enemy. Beyond the two houses, a green evening sky spread, bottle-glass clear, sharpening every outline. Mr. Müller sat at the roof’s edge, smoking. A tiny light gleamed, a blue-pink cloud around his head. Suddenly, a figure shot from the neighboring house’s horizon—like a devil in a puppet show. Müller flinched, raising his Browning, but a thin snake whipped across, coiling around him, biting fast. No shot fired… Bovacs saw Müller leap up, but the snake tightened. Bovacs sprang, dancing, shouting, drawing 8his saber, striking stones. The rooftop struggle thrilled him, maddening, a beauty like a falcon’s flight or a heron’s strike. But the puppet play against the glass-green sky ended. Müller staggered, arms pinned, and vanished. “Go, go!” Bovacs roared, charging up the hill with his men. Below his stronghold, Müller lay, bound in tough coils, immobile, face blue-red. The lasso’s end was in the stranger’s hand, peering over the roof’s edge. The policemen and gendarmes pounced on the criminal, hauling him from the ground, eager to display their zeal. Mirko Bovacs approached the stranger as he descended from the roof. “Sir,” he panted, exhilarated, “ask anything of me. I’m entirely at your service.” “Then, please, give me a light,” the stranger replied. He’s not as young as he looks, Bovacs thought, as the match flared near the man’s face. The stranger took two puffs on his cigarette, coiled his lasso, tucked it into his pocket, and slipped sideways into the darkness of the now-fallen night, nodding a brief farewell to the commissioner. That same evening, news of these events swept through Abbazia. Those who hadn’t witnessed the spectacle borrowed their friends’ eyes to catch a fleeting glimpse. The authorities were irredeemably ridiculous, Mr. Müller earned sympathies, and a halo crowned the stranger. To Bystritzky’s chagrin, Hofrätin Kundersdorf declared him a most interesting young man. Bystritzky bristled when his elderly ladies found other young men intriguing. At ten o’clock, Court Secretary Ernst Hugo returned from a sailing trip in the Quarnero, ravenous. As he devoured his beefsteak, Franz, standing respectfully behind his guest’s chair, 9recounted the day’s events. Suddenly, Hugo stopped eating. He raised his napkin as if to wipe his mouth, let it fall, brushed his mustache with the back of his hand, and turned to Franz. His eyes were wide. “Good Lord!” he muttered, “that’s none other than my friend Ruprecht. It can only be Ruprecht.” It was indeed Ruprecht von Boschan, confirmed the next morning when Hugo arrived for breakfast at the Hotel Kaiser von Österreich. The hero of the previous evening sat on the terrace between two stout pillars resembling petrified prehistoric rolls. He stirred his coffee with a silver spoon, a Times before him, but he didn’t read, gazing instead at the sea, blue and silver-embroidered, swelling beyond the terrace. “Ruprecht!” Hugo cried, striking his famous embrace pose, Roman One, capital A. He performed it twice— first with the right arm, then the left atop—looking like a two-winged windmill, his massive hands poised to spin. “You’re still a mad hen,” Boschan murmured, yielding to the hearty embrace. “Where’ve you come from?” Hugo asked. “From down there,” Ruprecht replied, gesturing at the blue sea. “From the water? Are you Venus Anadyomene? Or posing as a sea god?” “I’ve been testing a submarine.” “Dangerous?” “Eh—manageable. Not much to it. It wasn’t a French submarine.” “And before?” “Before, I did some high-altitude climbs in the Himalayas.” “Sapperment! How high?” “Between seven and eight thousand…” “And before?”
Alraune by Hanns Heinz Ewers and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 1 Describes the house on the Rhine before the thought of Alraune came into the world. THE white house in which Alraune was thought into existence existed long before she was born–long before she was even conceived. This house lay on the Rhine a little out of the city on the large Villa Street leading out to the old Archbishop’s Palace where the university is today. That is where it lies and Legal Councilor Sebastian Gontram and his family once lived there. You walk in from the street, through the long ugly garden that has never seen a gardener. You come to the house, from which stucco is falling, search for a bell and find none. You call and scream and no one comes. Finally you push the door open and go inside, climb up the dirty, never washed stair and suddenly a huge cat springs through the darkness… Or even better– The large garden is alive with a thousand monkeys. They are the Gontram children: Frieda, Philipp, Paulche, Emilche, Josefehe, and Wülfche. They are everywhere, in the boughs of trees, creeping through the earth in the mine pits. Then there are the hounds, two cheeky spitzes and a Bastard Fox terrier. In addition there is a dwarf pinscher that belongs to Attorney Manasse. He is quite the thing, like a brown quince sausage, round as a barrel , scarcely larger than a hand and called Cyclops. The yard is filled with noises and screams. Wülfche, scarcely a year old, lies in a child’s wagon and screams high obstinate screams for hours. Only Cyclops can beat this record and he yelps, hoarse and broken, incessantly. Wülfche never moves from his place, only screams, only howls. The Gontram rogues are resting in the bushes late in the afternoon. Frieda, the oldest, should be looking out for them, taking care that her brothers are behaving. But she thinks they are behaving and sits under the decaying Lilac leaves with her friend, the little Princess Wolkonski. The two chatter and argue, thinking that they soon will become fourteen years old and can get married, or at least have a lover. Right now they are both forbidden from all this and need to wait a little longer. It is still fourteen days until their first Holy Communion. Then they get long dresses, and then they will be grown up. Then they can have a lover. She decides to become very virtuous and start going to the May devotions at church immediately. She needs to gather herself together in these days, be serious and sensible. “–and perhaps also because Schmitz will be there,” says Frieda. The little Princess turns up her nose, “Bah–Schmitz!” Frieda pinches her under the arm, “–and the Bavarian, the one with the blue cap!” Olga Wolkonski laughs, “Him? He is–all air! Frieda, you know the good boys don’t go to church.” That is true, the good ones don’t do that. Frieda sighs. She swiftly gets up and shoves the wagon with the screaming Wülfche to the side, and steps on Cyclops who is trying to bite her ankles. No, no, the princess is right. Church is not the answer. “Let’s stay here!” she decides. The two girls creep back under the Lilac leaves. All the Gontram children have an infinite passion for living. They can’t say how they know but deep inside, they feel in their blood that they will die young, die fresh. They only have a small amount of time compared to what others are given and they take this time in triple, making noise, rushing, eating and drinking until they are saturated on life. Wülfche screams in his wagon, screaming for himself alone as well as for three other babies. His brothers fly through the garden making themselves numerous, as if they were four dozen and not just four. They are dirty, red nosed and ragged, always bloody from a cut on the finger, a scraped knee or some other good scratch. When the sun sets the Gontram rascals quietly sweep back into the house, going into the kitchen for heaping sandwiches of buttered bread laid thick with ham and sausage. The maid gives them water to drink colored lightly with red wine. Then the maid washes them. She pulls their clothes off and sticks them in wooden tubs, takes the black soap, the hard brush and scrubs them. She scrubs them like a pair of boots and still can’t get them clean. Then she sticks the wild young ones back in the tubs crying and raving and scrubs them again. Dead tired they fall into their beds like sacks of potatoes, forgetting to be quiet. They also forget to cover up. The maid takes care of that. Around this time Attorney Manasse comes into the house, climbs up the stairs, knocks with his cane on a few doors and receiving no answer finally moves on. Frau Gontram moves toward him. She is tall, almost twice the size of Herr Manasse. He is a dwarf, round as a barrel and looks exactly like his ugly dog, Cyclops. Short stubble stands out all over him, out of his cheeks, chin and lips. His nose appears in the middle, small and round like a radish. When he speaks, he barks as if he is always snapping. “Good evening Frau Gontram,” he says. “Is my colleague home yet?” “Good evening attorney,” says the tall woman. “Make yourself comfortable.” “Why isn’t my colleague home yet?–and shut that kid up! I can’t understand a single word you are saying.” “What?” Frau Gontram asks. Then she takes the earplugs out of her ears. “Oh yes,” she continues. “That Wülfche! You should buy a pair of these things Attorney. Then you won’t hear him.” She goes to the door and screams, “Billa, Billa–or Frieda! Can’t you hear? Make Wülfche quiet!” She is still in apricot colored pajamas. Her enormous chestnut brown hair is half-pinned up and half-fallen down. Her black eyes appear infinitely large, wide, wide, filled with sharp cunning and scorching unholy fires. But her skeletal face curves in at the temples, her narrow nose droops and her pale cheeks spread themselves tightly over her bones. Huge patches burn lividly on– “Do you have a good cigar Attorney?” she asks. He takes his case out angrily, almost furiously. “How many have you already smoked today Frau Gontram?” “Only twenty,” she laughs. “But you know the filthy things are four pennies apiece and I could use a good one for a change. Give me the thick one there! – and you take the dark, almost black Mexican.” Herr Manasse sighs, “Now how are you doing? How long do you have?” “Bah,” she made a rude sound. “Don’t wet yourself. How long? The other day the doctor figured about six months. But you know how precise they are in that place. He could just as well have meant two years. I’m thinking it’s not going at a gallop. It’s going at a pretty trot along with the galloping consumption.” “You shouldn’t smoke so much!” The little attorney barks. She looks at him, her thin blue lips pulling high over gleaming teeth. “What? What Manasse? No more smoking? Now stop with the friendly airs! What am I supposed to do? Bear children all year long? The brats in this house already drive me crazy. That’s why it’s galloping–and I’m not supposed to smoke?” She blows a thick cloud of smoke into his face and makes him cough. He looks at her, half-poisoned, half-living, and admires her. He doesn’t take anything from anyone. When he stands before the bar he never tells a joke or minces words. He barks, snaps, bites without respect or the smallest fear.–But here, before this dried up woman whose body is a skeleton, whose head grins like a death’s head, who for a year and a day has stood three quarters in the grave and laughed at herself the last quarter, here he feels afraid. Her unrestrained shimmering locks are always growing, always thicker, always fuller as if pulling nourishment from her decaying body. Her perfect gleaming teeth clamp around a cigar; her eyes are enormous, without hope, without desire, almost without awareness but burning with fire–These leave him silent. They leave him feeling smaller than he really is, almost as small as his hound. Oh, he is very educated, Attorney Manasse is. She calls him a veritable conversational encyclopedia. It doesn’t matter what the topic of conversation, he can give the information in the blink of an eye. Now he’s thinking, has she given up on finding a cure? Is she in denial? Does she think that if she ignores death he will not come? Does she think death is not in this house? That when he does come, only then will she go? But he, Manasse, sees very well that death is here even though she still lives. He has been here all along hiding throughout the house, playing blind cow with this woman that wears his face, letting her abandon her numerous children to cry and race in the garden. Death doesn’t gallop. He goes at a pretty trot. She has that right. But only out of humor, only because he wants to make a joke, to play with this woman and her life hungry children like a cat plays with the fish in a fish bowl. Only this woman, Frau Gontram, thinks he is not even here. She lies on the lounge all day long smoking big dark cigars, reading never-ending books and wearing earplugs so she can’t hear the noise her children make–He is not here at all?–Not here? Death grins and laughs out of her withered mask, puffs thick smoke into his face. Little Manasse sees him perfectly enough. He stares at him, considers for a long time which great artist has painted this death. Is it Durer? Or Bocklin? Or some other wild harlequin death from Bosch, Breughel or a different insane, inexcusable death from Hogarth, from Goya, from Rowlandson, Rops or Callot? It is from none of these. Sitting before him is a real death, a death you can willingly go with. It is a good, proper and therefore romantic Rhinelander’s death. It is one you can talk with, that sees the comedy in life, that smokes, drinks wine and laughs. It is good that he smokes thought Manasse, so very good, then you can’t smell him– Then Legal Councilor Gontram comes into the room. “Good evening colleague,” he says. “Here already? That’s good.” He begins a long story about all that has happened during the day at the office and before the court. Purely remarkable things that only happen to lawyers once in a lifetime happen to Herr Gontram every day. These strange and often lusty occurrences are sometimes comic, often bloody and highly tragic. Not a word is true. The Legal Councilor has an incurable shyness of telling the truth. Before his morning bath, yes, even before he washes his face in the basin, from the moment his mouth first opens wide he lies. When he sleeps, he dreams up new lies. Everyone knows that he lies, but his stories are so lusty and interesting they want to hear them anyway. Even when they aren’t that good they are still entertaining. He is in his late forties with a short, very sparse beard and thinning hair. A gold pince-nez with a long black cord always hangs crookedly over his nose and helps his blue shortsighted eyes see to read. He is untidy, disorderly, unwashed, and always has ink spots on his fingers. He is a bad jurist and very much against doing any work, always supervising his junior lawyers but not doing anything himself. On this basis he oversees the office managers and clerks and is often not seen for weeks at a time. When he is there, he sleeps. If he is awake, once in awhile he writes a short sentence that reads, “Denied” and stamps the words “Legal Councilor” underneath. Nevertheless he has a very good practice, much better than the knowledgeable and shrewd Manasse. He understands the language of the people and can chat with them. He is popular with all the judges and lawyers because he never makes any problems and all his clients walk. For the accused and for the jury he is worth the gold he is paid, you can believe that. Once a Public Prosecutor said, “I ask the accused be denied extenuating circumstances, Legal Councilor Gontram is defending him.” Extenuating circumstances, his clients always get them, but Manasse seldom receives them despite his scholarly ways and sharp speeches. There is still more, Legal Councilor Gontram had a couple of big, important and provocative cases that created sensations throughout the land. In both cases he fought through the entire year and finally won. These cases suddenly awoke in him a strange energy that up until then had lain sleeping inside of him. The first was so full of tangles, a six times loser, nearly impossible case that went from lawyer to lawyer, a case with complicated international questions that he had no suspicion of when he took it. He just thought it was interesting and liked it. The Koschen brothers out of Lennep had been condemned to death three times. In a fourth resumption he continued on and won their freedom despite hair splitting circumstantial evidence. The other was a big million-dollar dispute over Galmeiberg Mfg. from Neutral-Moresnet that every jurist in three countries knew about. Certainly Gontram at the least had fought through to the very end and obtained a victorious verdict. Since then for three years he handles all the legal casework for Princess Wolkonski. Remarkably, this man never says a word about it, about what he really does. Instead he fills the ears of those he meets with lies, cheeky inventions of his legal heroics. Not a single syllable comes over his lips of the real events of his day. This makes it seem like he detests all truth. Frau Gontram says, “Dinner is just about ready and I’ve already set out a bowl of fresh Woodruff salad. Should I go get dressed?” “Stay the way you are woman,” the Legal Councilor decides. “Manasse won’t mind–” he interrupts himself, “Dear God, how that child screams! Can’t you hold him?” She goes past him with long, slow strides, opens the door to the antechamber where the maid has pushed the child’s wagon. She takes Wülfche, carries him in and sits him in a highchair. “No wonder he screams,” she says. He’s completely wet.” But she does nothing about it, leaving him to dry out by himself. “Be still, you little devil,” she continues. “Can’t you see I have company?” But Wülfche is determined to disturb the entire visit. Manasse stands up, pats him, strokes his chubby back, and brings him a Jack- in-the-box to play with. The child pushes the Jack-in-the-box away, bellows and screams incessantly. Cyclops accompanies him from under the table. Then Mama says, “Now wait, sugar drop. I have something for you.” She takes the chewed black cigar stub from out between her teeth and shoves it into the baby’s mouth. “There Wülfche, how do you like that? Well?” The child becomes still in the blink of an eye, sucking, pulling and beams, overjoyed, out of huge laughing eyes. “Now attorney, you see how you must deal with children?” says the tall woman. She speaks confidently and quietly, completely earnest. “But you men don’t understand anything at all about children.” The maid comes and announces that dinner is ready. While the others are going into the dining room she goes with unsteady steps up to the child. “Bah,” she says and rips the cigar stub out of his mouth. Immediately Wülfche starts to howl again. She takes him up, rocks him back and forth and sings him a melancholy lullaby from her Wolloonian homeland in Belgium. She doesn’t have any more luck than Herr Manasse. The child just screams and screams. She takes the cigar stub again, spits on it and rubs it against her dirty apron to make sure the fire is completely out and puts it back in Wülfche’s red mouth.
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
“Nothing!” said Fechner. He knew he was passing judgment, but what could he do? It was about science; no allowances could be made. Under other circumstances, he might have been relieved that the experiments failed, sparing him from taking a stand for Reichenbach. But one look at the Freiherr told him how merciless he’d had to be in the name of science. He said “Nothing” softly, but despite his hearing loss, Reichenbach caught the word.
“I can’t explain it,” Reichenbach murmured to himself. “Friederike has done far greater things. It may be… the long journey from Vienna to Leipzig, always along the telegraph wires. That must have had an odically adverse effect. The telegraph wires had an unfavorable odic influence.”
That was an explanation one couldn’t accept. But Reichenbach likely didn’t expect a response from Fechner; he raised his gaze like a sick beggar: “Now you’ll probably think me a fool or a fraud?”
“Certainly not,” Fechner hastened to assure him. He had to be cruel for science’s sake. Humanly, it was different. “We can try again later, perhaps. Or with another sensitive.”
“Yes, yes, with another sensitive,” Reichenbach said, and just then the door opened slightly, and the Professor’s wife poked her head in. It had taken long enough; the gentlemen should be done, and perhaps now a cup of coffee—
No, thank you, no coffee, much obliged, but it’s really time to go.
Reichenbach craves fresh air; sunshine is odically negative, he needs revitalization, a surge of life’s source. He pauses between the columns of the Roman House where Fechner lives, on the steps leading to the park. Hat off, Reichenbach wipes his damp forehead.
A hand reaches for his; he gently pushes it back. Yes, Friederike failed, utterly failed. Telegraph wires? Nonsense! Physics at all? Perhaps all physics is a night-view against the day-view. It was a grace, a grace of her purity. And that grace has been taken from Friederike.
About two weeks later, Friederike goes to Reichenbach’s room to bring him coffee, but he doesn’t answer her knock. They’re staying with the widow of a royal court porter from Dresden, who, after her husband’s death, rents rooms in her native Leipzig, taking in long-term guests with full care. Reichenbach’s and Friederike’s rooms are adjacent, so she’s always at hand. She insists on tending to the Freiherr, bringing his meals, and when she comes with coffee, he’s usually already working. He writes dozens of letters daily—to old friends, scientists, former sensitives. Though he doesn’t say so, Friederike believes he’s marshaling everything for a final battle to defeat the skeptics, summoning witnesses, perhaps urging sensitives to come to Leipzig for new experiments.
No replies have come yet. The only letter for the Freiherr was from Vienna.
“From Hermine,” Reichenbach said. “She writes that she regrets not seeing me before I left. And she asks if I’d allow her to come to Leipzig.”
Friederike expected this letter; she had written to Hermine, suggesting she come. Perhaps Reinhold could be persuaded too—not that Reichenbach is in danger, but it might help to distract him from his relentless brooding and surround him with love.
Now Reichenbach doesn’t answer Friederike’s knock, and when she enters, he lies in bed, staring at her with horrified eyes. His left hand hangs motionless over the bed’s edge; the right moves slightly, gesturing toward his mouth. Friederike realizes his speech is gone.
She doesn’t lose her composure, sending the porter’s widow for a doctor while staying with the patient. No, it’s surely not serious, she reassures his silent questions—a passing episode, a nervous collapse; in a few days, all will be well.
The doctor examines, asks questions, and declares it a minor stroke, temporary, insignificant—a few days’ rest, and all will be fine. Friederike had no doubts; there were signs already—his hearing loss, blurred vision, likely precursors.
Despite the doctor’s assurances, it’s a pitiful sight to see this man, who couldn’t seize enough life and sent his mind on endless conquests, now languishing, unable to help him.
But a few days later, as Friederike unfolds the newspaper to read to Reichenbach, he suddenly says, “Friederike.”
The words are thick, labored, but he speaks again; the silence has lifted. Friederike drops the paper, grasps his hands, and kisses them. Unable to restrain herself, she weeps.
“Friederike,” says the Freiherr, “how did it happen? How did you come back?” Has he been pondering this all along? He never asked until now. Should Friederike tell how it happened? She doesn’t know—perhaps a poison, paralyzing her soul. She can’t speak of the journey; it’s too horrific to recall. Only the end she remembers. She fled a dozen times, forced back, until a forester found and hid her in the woods. The poison must have lost its power then.
That’s how it was. And why did she return? She can’t say—it was all that remained in the world. Should she confess she’s loved Reichenbach since she could think, that he’s been her life’s center? No, she can’t speak it; it’s impossible—she’d sooner die than say it in dry words.
Reichenbach hasn’t taken his eyes off her as she speaks. Now he says, “I fear I’m to blame. Yes, yes… it could have been different.”
Then he turns his head toward a chair near the bed. Someone sits there, who must have entered during Friederike’s halting confession. “Final insights,” the Freiherr says, as if speaking to someone in the chair, “that may be true. I swore by physics and chemistry my whole life, but where are the boundaries, the transitions?”
He tilts his head, as if listening to a reply, then nods: “Indeed! Proofs—what do they mean? What’s subject to external proof ceases to be spirit. Truth can only be received and explained with the power of a believing heart. Faith is the same as love. Only love believes, and faith is the pinnacle of love.”
Friederike marvels at this dialogue with an empty chair. She doesn’t know it’s her father, Count Hugo, with whom Reichenbach speaks. But Reichenbach sees him in the chair; woods rustle around them, a faint light flickers, a bottle of wine stands on the table—likely Förster Hofstück’s.
“Yes,” Reichenbach smiles, “you’re right; the visible always flows into the invisible, the tangible into the incomprehensible, the sensory into the transcendent. Perhaps Od shapes our body, a radiant body that detaches and seeks those it loves. But even Od isn’t the final truth. When graves cease to glow odically, there’s still no end… no end…”
Reichenbach’s eyes close; he seems to have fallen asleep. But the sleep isn’t deep; he blinks occasionally and moves his lips.
After a quarter-hour, the alert gaze returns, strikingly bright: “Did you see my wife go out?” he asks.
Friederike isn’t afraid, not in the least, but she doesn’t know how to reply.
Reichenbach doesn’t wait for an answer: “She told me,” he continues, “that Hermine and Reinhold will come to me tomorrow.”
That’s possible; Friederike sent an urgent call to Vienna. They might arrive tomorrow if they hurry. Then Reichenbach drifts off again, through the evening into the night. His hand remains in Friederike’s, and she knows he’s overcome his disappointment, no longer holding her failure against her, nor the loss of the grace within her.
Around two in the morning, the Freiherr stirs again, as if Friederike’s thoughts have reached him, as if her thoughts crossed an odic bridge into him: “It’s not so important anymore… let those after me rack their brains… the great things must be found more than once.”
At noon the next day, Hermine, Schuh, and even Reinhold arrived. They couldn’t bring the child; the journey was too far. But there was a child, yes, a delightful little boy, and the grandfather had never seen him. They had brought him once, stood before the grandfather’s door, and had to leave without success. Then other things intervened—this trip to Leipzig, you see, always something came up; it must have been meant to be. But they wouldn’t let bitterness linger; now all obstacles were cleared, even Reinhold was here. Did the father know yet that he was now engaged and would soon marry? Yes, they’d arrange things differently henceforth, once the father was back on his feet and home.
Reichenbach’s eyes wandered from one to another but always returned to Friederike, who stayed modestly in the background. She wasn’t family; she didn’t want to take any love from those who came to give and receive it. But as Reichenbach’s gaze kept finding her, she felt boundless wonder and delight at how deeply connected they were again. She knew his thoughts without words; his looks said, “Go on, girl, we’ll stick together!” Yes, he spoke Swabian to her again, happy to see his kin, but with her, he spoke Swabian.
Toward evening, the court porter’s widow knocked and announced another visitor. The candles were already burning; Hermine knelt sobbing by the bed, and the two men sat silently across from each other at the table.
Professor Fechner was there; Professor Fechner wished to speak with the Herr Baron.
Professor Fechner had felt it his duty to come in person to report to the Freiherr. He had repeated the pendulum experiment with his wife as the subject, and it showed a clear deflection, then with a magnetic needle that was diverted—remarkable results, prompting him to reconsider his stance.
But when he saw the burning candles and Friederike about to open the window, he was startled and said awkwardly, “I’m sorry, I meant to bring good news.”
What remained of Freiherr von Reichenbach was beyond good or bad news. But a thought lingered, nourished by the blood of a living being, now set free, living on its own. It could rise above imperfection, return to its origins, and wait for its time to settle in other minds. That’s the superiority of thoughts over people: thoughts have time.
Homo Sapiens: Under Way by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
But I can imagine the astonishment of the Poles; just listen! When Bismarck expelled a few thousand Polish families from Prussia, he received the highest papal order; yes, the Order of Christ is very beautiful, and also very valuable. Now further! Hardly had the news of the insane murders subsided, which the Russians, with the approval of the Russian government, committed on the Polish Uniates in Kroze—by the way, murders that repeat themselves every day in Lithuania—when the Pope issues an encyclical to the bishops of Poland, in which he praises the great benevolence of the Tsardom with much praise—yes, please very much, it expressly states there, the Tsar is filled with the most intimate benevolence toward the Poles, he wants only their best.
No, Reverend Father, don’t take it amiss, but I didn’t like it at all when in your last sermon you tried to prove that the Pope once again let his paternal heart for the oppressed shine in unheard-of splendor.
That is superficial estimation; the matter hangs together quite differently. The Pope is determined by the French, with whom he sympathizes very much; yes, he is prompted by French policy to continually flirt with the Russians. In the whole encyclical, which I read very attentively, I find no paternal heart, on the contrary quite crude Vatican interests. And since I belong to the Catholic parish, it pains me deeply that church policy is so unbeautiful, yes—I want to express myself reservedly—unbeautiful, hypocritical, and uses cloaks of faith, hope, love for very earthly interests.
All those present looked at each other. They didn’t know what to say to it. That was really unheard-of bold, spoken in the presence of the monastery pastor. All eyes turned alternately to Falk and the pastor.
Marit had listened with pounding heart; mouth half-open, breath catching, she sat there and awaited the explosion.
The pastor was completely pale.
“You know, young man: You are much too young to solve the most important church questions with your intellect, infected by the heresy of foreign lands, and even less are you entitled to mock about it.”
Falk didn’t lose his composure for a moment.
“Yes, Reverend Father, what you say is very beautiful. In the end, it doesn’t concern me at all what you or the Pope or the German government do; that’s completely indifferent to me. But I permit myself to doubt whether the Church has really taken out a lease on all worldly wisdom from Providence. I actually permit myself to doubt that most excellently. It has recently immortalized itself in the question of Darwinism or rather in the dispute over the evolutionary principle.”
“And then, yes: can you tell me at which council the infallibility of the Pope in matters of politics was proclaimed?
Yes, yes; I know very well that according to tradition this kind of infallibility also exists, but I think that the papal nepotism in the Middle Ages is hardly the best recommendation for this kind of infallibility.
By the way, this is a topic that could lead to heated discussions, and that I want to prevent at all costs; one understands each other or one doesn’t, and I don’t feel called to force any suggestions on the company.”
It grew quiet; only the editor of the *Kreisblatt*, who had a reputation for social-democratic ideas, seemed very pleased.
He absolutely wanted to push Falk further: the man took no leaf before his mouth; he spoke as the beak grew.
“Yes, tell me, Herr Falk, you are an ultra-revolutionary, as I see. You now live in a monarchical state. Naturally you are not satisfied with such a condition. What do you say to a monarchical state constitution?”
The editor was already delighted to find his ideas confirmed before the reactionary elements.
“Hm; you know, Herr Editor, you pose a tricky question there. I was once in Helsingborg, and indeed with a friend who is an anarchist, but at the same time also a great artist. We stood on the ferry and looked at a splendid, ancient castle that Shakespeare already mentions in *Hamlet*.
Do you know what my friend, the anarchist, said? Yes, he said that what he would now say would certainly very much surprise me, but he had to admit that such splendid works were only possible under monarchical rule. Yes, absolutely; just look at the rule of the Bourbons in France, and compare it with the rule of the first republic. Look at the second empire and the infinitely rich artistic traditions that arose in it and that can only thrive in the splendor, extravagance, and lust of a royal court. Now you have here in Prussia a Frederick William IV, in Bavaria a Maximilian and a Ludwig. Take in hand the history of art, yes the
history of refinement of taste, of ennoblement of the human race, and you will decide for yourself.
No, I don’t want democracy; it flattens and vulgarizes humanity, makes it crude and directs it into narrow interest economics. Then the shopkeepers come to power, the tailors, tanners, and peasants, who hate everything beautiful, everything high. No, I don’t want the plebeian instincts unleashed against everything higher-bred.
The whole society seemed suddenly reconciled with Falk. But now came the backlash.
He sympathized nevertheless with all revolutionary ideas. Yes, he really did. He himself was not active; life interested him too little for that. He only watched and followed the development, somewhat like an astronomer in the eyepiece of his telescope follows the orbit of a star.
Yes, he really sympathized with the Social Democrats. For he had a faith that rested on the following premises. The postulated economic equality must by no means be confused with an equality of intelligences. He was now convinced that in a future association of humanity an oligarchy of intelligences would form, which would gradually have to come to power. Then of course the course of things would begin anew; but he hoped that such a rule would be a better beginning than that of the present cultural epoch, which had begun with wild barbarism.
The ruling class was impoverished, degenerated through inbreeding and excessive refinement. The danger of a crude, disgusting parvenu rule, the rule of money-bling and unclean hands, loomed. No, a thousand times no: that he didn’t want to live to see. Better to overthrow! He would gladly join.
The editor recovered; he seemed satisfied.
“Just one more question… What does Falk think of the current government?”
“The current government is the Kaiser, and for the Kaiser he had much sympathy. Yes, really; he pleased him extraordinarily. He had recently suddenly appointed the captain of the fire brigade to chief fire marshal. And why? Because he had excellently cordoned off the palace square during a parade. The appointment had not followed
bureaucratic principles; but therein lay precisely the beauty, the arbitrariness, the great soul. In short, everything so immensely to be appreciated: No, he really had very much sympathy for the Kaiser, and he drinks to the health of the German Kaiser!”
Those present looked at each other dumbfounded. But all rose and joined the toast.
The social-democratically tinged editor thought he would fall under the table; but he contented himself with a meaningless grin.
The table was cleared.
Falk instinctively felt two burning eyes fixed on him. He looked to the side and met Marit’s gaze hanging admiringly on him.
She lowered her eyes.
Falk went to her. They were very close; they were pushed forward by the many people crowding out of the dining room and pressed tightly against each other.
A warm stream flowed over Falk.
“Erik, you are splendid… a great man…” A dark flood wave colored her face.
Falk looked at her hotly. A glow of pride and love transfigured her features. “You are a real devil!” Herr Kauer came up. “That’s what I call speaking like a man! One of us would also like to say this and that sometimes, but we don’t dare. Just don’t spoil the girl for me; you mustn’t speak so revolutionarily to her.” Falk wanted to object.
“Now, now,” Herr Kauer soothed, “I have unconditional trust in you; you wear your heart on your tongue. Live well for me. In a week I’m back. You mustn’t leave on me, understand?”
Herr Kauer went.
“Oh, how splendidly you spoke… You can’t believe…” Marit looked at Falk full of admiration.
“Oh no, Fräulein Marit, that wasn’t spoken splendidly at all; against every one of these sentences a thousand objections could be made. But that may well be good for the gentlemen who draw their wisdom from the *Kreisblatt* and at most from some conservative newspaper that only has God and the Kaiser in its mouth. By the way, you also found what I said about the Pope well spoken?”
Marit hurried to answer.
“Yes certainly; she had now thought a lot, very much about all these things, and she had to give him complete right. Yes, he was right in most things, that she now saw.”
Falk looked at her astonished. He hadn’t expected that. That was really a strange metamorphosis.
“Why didn’t you come these whole two days? I expected you continuously and tormented myself unheard-of. Yes, I tormented myself very much, I must tell you openly.”
“Dear, good, gracious Fräulein, you probably know that best. I simply didn’t want to disturb the peace of your conscience. Yes, and then, you know, I am very nervous and mustn’t give myself too much to the sweet torment, otherwise the string might snap.”
Falk smiled.
Meanwhile, the editor joined them. He couldn’t digest the toast to the German Kaiser and now wanted to lead Falk onto thin ice.
“He would like to know how Herr Falk stood toward the anarchist murder acts. He was surely a soul-knower, a psychologist; how would he explain them?”
OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 25
“Shall I take the coffee set with the rose pattern?” Frau Professor Fechner asked, opening the door to her husband’s study, where he seemed to shiver in a woolen vest and fur cap despite the sun-warmed room.
“Yes, take the rose pattern!” her husband replied softly over his shoulder. The door closed, but it opened again, and the professor’s wife asked once more, “Or perhaps the forget-me-not one?”
“You can take the forget-me-nots too,” Fechner answered.
The door closed, but Fechner had only time to let out a small sigh of resignation before it opened again: “But the rose pattern is prettier!”
“That’s what happens,” the Professor smiled patiently, “when you have two coffee sets. By the way, Freiherr von Reichenbach is coming from Vienna, where they have the best coffee in the world, but he’s not coming to drink our Leipzig flower coffee, but for his Od.”
“What does he want from you?”
“What does he want?” Fechner pushed the green-tinted glasses he wore for his eye condition up onto his forehead. “He’s coming to me because I’m his last hope. The others have all abandoned him. Now he clings to me, hoping I’ll save him.”
“He wants to hitch his wagon to your reputation.”
The Professor’s wife was a diligent and ambitious housewife, yet she sometimes had a sharp understanding of her husband’s standing and influence. Her words carried a hint of concern for Fechner’s scientific reputation.
“Exactly,” Fechner confirmed. “It’s a questionable matter, this Od. Dangerous to get involved and oppose the general disbelief. But if it’s the truth, I’ll have to bear witness to it. And then they’ll call me as much a fantasist as this Reichenbach.”
“Very unpleasant!” said the Professor’s wife. She had little taste for scientific martyrdom; she preferred successes. Why should her husband risk his achievements for such a dubious cause? “He’s bombarded me with letters,” Fechner continued, “he’s berated me because I found a flaw in his research in my Moon Book. But since I’m the only one among his opponents who leaves room for understanding, he’s latched onto me. I declined his visit, was rude to the point of coarseness. But he’s unstoppable; he’s coming anyway.”
“I’ll take the forget-me-not pattern after all,” the Professor’s wife decided after a moment’s thought, and with that, she had settled the matter of Od as far as she was concerned.
But even the forget-me-not pattern wasn’t used. The Freiherr declined coffee, claiming he’d just had some, but the real reason was his agitation, too great to waste time on trivialities. He was eager to get to the heart of the matter and learn whether Fechner could be convinced. Everything seemed to hinge on this man; the fate of his entire doctrine rested on him. Never had the Freiherr been so wrought up. Fechner, this quiet man with a wise, refined face etched with patiently borne suffering, stood before him as the appointed judge, more authoritative than all the pompous, self-important scholars before who dispensed superior science.
“I turned to you,” he said, gripping Fechner’s hand tightly, unwittingly digging into his palm with trembling fingers, “because you defend the day-view of universal ensoulment against the night-view of soullessness that dominates science.”
“Yes, yes,” Fechner deflected, “it’s the idea that matters, but it can’t wander the world without proof. Even fully provable ideas require the strength to push them through. Think of poor Semmelweis…”
“What?” Reichenbach asked, cupping his ear.
Fechner realized he needed to speak louder and raised his voice. “Semmelweis! Lucky he didn’t have to endure the full misery of the asylum. Strange that he died of blood poisoning. It’s as if the demon he fought his whole life took revenge. The doctor who sought to stop infection in maternity wards cuts his finger during an operation and dies from it.” He had intended to bring up Semmelweis, not without the purpose of a cautionary comparison.
“Indeed,” said Reichenbach, “but the finest part of your letters is where you say you’re as cautious in belief as in disbelief. That’s the true impartiality of an honest and upright man of science. But most colleagues—”
“I would have liked,” Fechner interrupted, “to assemble a commission, but the colleagues refused to engage with a matter considered settled.”
“It’s already in my book: The Sensitive Human and Its Relation to Od,” Reichenbach said, speaking almost past Fechner. “Much depends on the sensitives. I’ve brought my best sensitive—my housekeeper, Fräulein Ruf, the daughter of a dear friend.”
Only now did Fechner turn his attention to the woman who had entered with Reichenbach and lingered by the door. She gave a shy, beaten impression, as if emphasizing her subservient role before the two men through her humble demeanor, though Reichenbach’s words were like outstretched hands, striving to draw her forward and place her as an equal beside him.
Yes, the Freiherr had showered Friederike with kindness and radiant warmth at home. He granted her days of rest and recovery, refraining from urging her to travel to Leipzig immediately, though he was eager to make the trip and force a decision. He spared her experiments—not a single one—knowing her gift wasn’t a skill to be trained like physical strength but a talent always present, ready for use. She should rest, gather herself, regain her self-assurance. Reichenbach could imagine the horrors she’d endured, ghastly, helplessly subjected to that monstrous will. His compassionate understanding was so great that he didn’t even ask—not even how she was ultimately saved. He respected her silence. Once, he said his eyes had only now opened to the vile old hag who held power over him, as if offering his own humiliation as comfort for hers. That he did, and he took her to the city to outfit her anew, as befitted the daughter of his dearest friend.
Yes, he had revealed this strange truth to her, perhaps to shock her back to herself, to help her regain a sense of her own worth.
All that had happened, but it couldn’t change that she still felt crushed, defiled, and unworthy of any love or kindness. At times, she suddenly couldn’t comprehend why she had returned to the Freiherr; she hadn’t accounted for it, and now it sometimes felt as if she should run away. Perhaps it would have been better to stay on the road—in a hayloft, a ditch, perishing somewhere in the dark.
So empty was she, drained, incapable of higher feeling, filled only with a bottomless fear of what was to come.
Professor Fechner understood the warm introduction from Reichenbach; he had before him a young lady, not a mere servant, and kindly invited her to sit. But then he thought it time to get to the point.
“We’ve corresponded about the basic experiments to start with,” he said. “We can move to others later. First, the simple facts. Everything is prepared as agreed. Here’s the horseshoe magnet, on the table with only the poles exposed, the rest covered with a cloth. The poles are unmarked, save for a small, invisible mark I’ve made for myself on one arm. You’re to use your left hand to distinguish the cooler North Pole from the other.”
He asked the Freiherr to stand farther away by the window—not out of mistrust, of course, just a precaution to rule out unintentional influence. “When you’re ready, we’ll begin.”
Friederike stood before the magnet. She raised her left hand and brought it near the two ends. There was no sensation in her hand—neither cool nor warm; just a piece of iron, with no living currents flowing into her. She lowered her hand and fixed a pleading gaze on Reichenbach. His face was tense and agitated; she had never seen the Freiherr like this. She knew everything for him now hung in the balance. Almost dazed, she raised her hand and pointed at one pole at random.
Fechner lifted the cloth, checked, and without comment, noted something in his notebook. Then he turned the magnet several times, placed it back, and covered it again. Friederike had tried to peek over his shoulder; no mark was visible. She was so confused she would have been ready to cheat.
“Please,” said Fechner.
He repeated the experiment seven times, then reviewed his notes and said with an awkward cough, “I’m sorry I can’t report a better result. Out of seven tries, the Fräulein identified the North Pole correctly only three times. By the principles of probability, that’s insufficient for proof.”
Reichenbach stood gray in the window’s light. He pulled a chair close and leaned on its back.
“Shall we move to the second experiment?” Reichenbach said after a pause.
A sulfur plate and a zinc plate lay on the table, both covered with paper, and Friederike was to determine, by holding her hand over them, which was sulfur and which was zinc.
Her hands felt dead. No sensation at all; she wanted to throw herself to the floor and scream. “I don’t know,” she said with a smile that strangely moved Fechner.
“It’s incomprehensible…” came a hoarse voice from the window. “Let’s try the pendulum experiment.”
“Perhaps it’s best we leave it for another time,” Fechner suggested. He pitied the woman, seeing her gesture—correctly interpreting it as a fleeting impulse to flee. But she knew how much was at stake for Reichenbach. He was here, refusing to back down, an old man with fading hearing and weakened sight. He had been unspeakably kind to her, asking only one thing in return: proof of his doctrine.
“Here’s the pendulum you sent me,” Fechner said, placing a bottle on the table, a small lead weight hanging from a thread inside its neck. It was agonizing waiting until the lead weight hung still; no one tried to break the oppressive silence.
Then Friederike raised her lifeless hand. She strained now, rattling the locked gates of her inner self, trying to force the currents that might make the pendulum swing. The pendulum didn’t budge; it hung rigid inside the bottle.
Homo Sapiens: Under Way by Stanislaw Przybyszewski and translated by Joe E Bandel
VII.
Marit’s whole face lit up with joy when she spotted Falk among the district commissioner’s guests.
But Falk had no hurry to greet her. He stood with the young doctor, deep in conversation.
And yet he had seen her; she had noticed his probing gaze.
Only later did he greet her coldly and stiffly in passing.
“Good God, where have you been hiding so long?” Herr Kauer shook Falk’s hand heartily. “I would so have liked to speak with you before my departure.”
“Departure?”
“Yes, I must go to my wife tonight by night train and entrust Marit to your protection.”
The young doctor joined the conversation; he absolutely wanted to know how far research in nerve anatomy had actually progressed. Herr Falk was surely a specialist in it.
“Yes, he hadn’t occupied himself with that for a long time; now he was a literary man and wrote novels. But he could give him some clarifications.”
“No direct contacts? Good God, how does the nerve current propagate then? No, that’s a revolution!”
Marit sat nearby; she listened tensely, while giving the councilor’s wife, who asked about Mama’s well-being, indifferent, distracted answers.
Words, foreign, learned words—Golgi… Ramón y Cajal… Kölliker… granular substance… arborisation terminale—flew over to her.
No, she understood not a word of it. Erik knew everything.
How small the clever doctor seemed to her, who also wanted to know everything and constantly boasted with his knowledge. Like a schoolboy he stood there.
A joyful pride filled her with hot jubilation.
They sat down to table.
The conversation gradually became more general; they came to important questions of the day.
Marit sat across from Falk; she sought to catch his gaze, but he always evaded it.
Didn’t he want to see her? And yet she had never longed so much for his gaze.
They spoke about the latest publication of the Settlement Commission in the Province of Posen.
“Well, he simply couldn’t understand it,” Falk spoke quickly and incisively. “They mustn’t accuse him of flirting with the Poles; absolutely not; but he simply didn’t understand it. They should make the contradiction clear to him. On the one hand, Prussia felt itself the mightiest nation in Europe, right? Yes, that was emphasized in every official speech, and in official circles they talked a lot! How did that rhyme with the Prussians so enormously fearing the ridiculous three to four million Poles? Yes, fearing! They banned the Polish language in schools; suppressed the Polish element wherever possible; deliberately made a large part of their own subjects into idiots and cretins, for he knew from personal observation that the children forgot Polish and adopted a ghastly idiom that wasn’t a language at all. They bought up estates, parceled and fragmented them, settled poor and mostly lazy German colonists everywhere, who could never replace the proverbial strength of the Polish peasant. The colonists finally fell completely into poverty, although they were given the greatest possible facilitations. Racial hatred was awakened. Why do all that? Is it really fear?”
“No, that demands the interest of the empire, the security of the country; the Poles were like worms that crawled everywhere and corroded the strong Germanic element,” interjected the district commissioner, who was a member of the commission.
“Good, fine; then they should abandon the stupid phrase about the power and strength of Prussian state consciousness and the like
and simply say: We are a weak state, we are no state, a bunch of Poles would suffice to polonize us and finally make a glorious Polish empire out of the polonized Prussia, and therefore we are compelled to exterminate the Poles.”
Falk grew excited.
“Good, I understand that: we are no nation, we want to become one, and this end sanctifies history. Then they should say: Whether moral or not, that’s indifferent to us, history knows no morality. Yes, that’s what we should say, gentlemen, quite brazenly, and then we should draw the résumé coldly smiling: We are a nation drummed together in three wars, we are a nation pieced together from war booty, that means no nation.”
“The résumé is completely wrong,” interrupted the district physician—he seemed very agitated—”completely, completely wrong. The Prussians only had to deal with a very restless and dissatisfied element. In Poland, new unrest could break out any day; the whole of Germany, the whole imperial unity could then come into question, for the Social Democrats were just waiting for a favorable opportunity.”
“No, what you’re saying, Herr District Physician! Do you want to set up an arms depot for the Poles? Or do you think that the imperial supplier Herr Isidor Löwe will accept orders from the Poles? Well, he has offered himself to the French too; but the Poles are not creditworthy, that’s where the dog is buried. And I ask you: three Prussian cannons would suffice to blow the Polish army armed with pitchforks, scythes, and hunting rifles off the face of the earth in five minutes.”
“This whole policy, precisely this petty, hypocritical fear policy, is psychologically completely crude, by the way. Just look at Galicia. There the Poles have their schools, yes even universities with Polish as the language of instruction, quite wonderful, pope-loyal universities, guided by the maxim that science is the Church’s most devoted handmaid. That’s certainly beautiful, and a beautiful sight it is when the professors go to church in quite wonderful official garb. They have also allowed the Poles to attend the Polish Diet in beautiful, oh, very beautiful national costume. Never have I seen more beautiful and better-dressed people than at the Diet in Lemberg.
The consequence, gentlemen: The Poles are excellent Austrian subjects. Patient, flexible, gentle, the true lambs of God. Have you ever heard of unrest instigated by Poles in Galicia? No, on the contrary: wherever heads need to be chopped off a Reich hydra, they preferably use Poles, and they are always ‘fresh,’ as Schiller says, ‘at hand.'”
“Has Falk learned nothing at all from Czech policy?” asked the district court counselor excitedly, who was also a member of the Settlement Commission.
“Yes, he had learned a great deal and therefore knew that this policy was completely different and had nothing to do with the one just discussed. The whole Czech policy was namely a policy of economic interests. That the Germans in Austria had so much trouble with the Czechs came from the fact that Czech industry was in a wonderful boom. It sought the widest possible sales area, accordingly had to displace the Germans everywhere, for it was clear: Czech producers, Czech consumers! The Germans also went to German producers.”
“Then,” Herr Kauer interjected, “the story would present itself that the Prussians are pursuing Czech policy. The Prussians can have, alongside the patriotic, primarily an economic interest in suppressing the Poles.”
“Bien, good, very good! Then the whole—I’ll now assume—interest policy is even much stupider than the fear policy.
I ask you: The German industry wants to create a sales area for itself in the Province of Posen. Now comes the Settlement Commission, buys up the estates, the estate owners naturally scatter to all winds, and the actual purchasing power is paralyzed. The estates are fragmented and occupied with poor colonists who can’t consume anything at all, for what they need, they produce themselves. Who is supposed to consume now?
The Polish industry, which is none, because it is completely destroyed by depriving it of the actual consumers, lies fallow; the German industry has not the slightest benefit; what remains, gentlemen? Stupidity remains, an unheard-of stupidity. Don’t be outraged, ladies and gentlemen; but isn’t it utterly stupid to use all one’s strength to ensure that a large piece of land, one’s own land, becomes impoverished?!”
Falk grew even more excited. His gaze grazed Marit’s glowing face, which seemed to devour every one of his words.
“Yes, the whole policy,” Falk nervously broke a piece of bread into crumbs and mechanically arranged them in rows—”this whole Prussian policy, ladies and gentlemen, is for me, for psychological and social-political reasons, completely incomprehensible. Or, well, it might be comprehensible perhaps like I can comprehend a stupid and therefore failed stock market speculation. But one Polish policy I really find completely incomprehensible—completely, ladies and gentlemen: the Vatican one!”
Again, his eye briefly grazed Marit’s face.
“Please, Reverend Father, no concern! You will completely agree with me. No really, please: it doesn’t occur to me in my wildest dreams to touch any religious topic, not a single question in which a pope is infallible. I will speak solely of politics, and in politics, Pope Leo is surely not infallible either. Right, no? So no.
I have seen Pope Leo, Leo XIII, in Rome. He is the most beautiful old gentleman I can imagine. He has an incredibly fine, aristocratic face and very fine white hands, he also writes good poems. Oh yes: they are composed in genuine Ciceronian Latin. Certain turns tasting of Ambrosian kitchen Latin should by no means detract from their value; at least that’s what the philologists told me. Now Pope Leo has the certainly very beautiful quality of feeling himself the born protector of all the oppressed. The Poles stand closest to his heart; for they are the most oppressed.
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