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Ten Days in a Mad-House
(Chapter IV: Judge Duffy and the Police)
by Nellie Bly
But to return to my story. I kept up my role until the assistant matron, Mrs. Stanard, came in. She tried to persuade me to be calm. I began to see clearly that she wanted to get me out of the house at all hazards, quietly if possible. This I did not want. I refused to move, but kept up ever the refrain of my lost trunks. Finally some one suggested that an officer be sent for. After awhile Mrs. Stanard put on her bonnet and went out. Then I knew that I was making an advance toward the home of the insane. Soon she returned, bringing with her two policemen–big, strong men–who entered the room rather unceremoniously, evidently expecting to meet with a person violently crazy. The name of one of them was Tom Bockert.
When they entered I pretended not to see them. “I want you to take her quietly,” said Mrs. Stanard. “If she don’t come along quietly,” responded one of the men, “I will drag her through the streets.” I still took no notice of them, but certainly wished to avoid raising a scandal outside. Fortunately Mrs. Caine came to my rescue. She told the officers about my outcries for my lost trunks, and together they made up a plan to get me to go along with them quietly by telling me they would go with me to look for my lost effects. They asked me if I would go. I said I was afraid to go alone. Mrs. Stanard then said she would accompany me, and she arranged that the two policemen should follow us at a respectful
distance. She tied on my veil for me, and we left the house by the basement and started across town, the two officers following at some distance behind. We walked along very quietly and finally came to the station house, which the good woman assured me was the express office, and that there we should certainly find my missing effects. I went inside with fear and trembling, for good reason.
A few days previous to this I had met Captain McCullagh at a meeting held in Cooper Union. At that time I had asked him for some information which he had given me. If he were in, would he not recognize me? And then all would be lost so far as getting to the island was concerned. I pulled my sailor hat as low down over my face as I possibly could, and prepared for the ordeal. Sure enough there was sturdy Captain McCullagh standing near the desk.
He watched me closely as the officer at the desk conversed in a low tone with Mrs. Stanard and the policeman who brought me.
“Are you Nellie Brown?” asked the officer. I said I supposed I was. “Where do you come from?” he asked. I told him I did not know, and then Mrs. Stanard gave him a lot of information about me–told him how strangely I had acted at her home; how I had not slept a wink all night, and that in her opinion I was a poor unfortunate who had been driven crazy by inhuman treatment. There was some discussion between Mrs. Standard and the two officers, and Tom Bockert was told to take us down to the court in a car.
In the hands of the police.
“Come along,” Bockert said, “I will find your trunk for you.” We all went together, Mrs. Stanard, Tom Bockert, and myself. I said it was very kind of them to go with me, and I should not soon forget them. As we walked along I kept up my refrain about my trucks, injecting occasionally some remark about the dirty condition of the streets and the curious character of the people we met on the way. “I don’t think I have ever seen such people before,” I said. “Who are they?” I asked, and my companions looked upon me with expressions of pity, evidently believing I was a foreigner, an emigrant or something of the sort. They told me that the people around me were working people. I remarked once more that I thought there were too many working people in the world for the amount of work to be done, at which remark Policeman P. T. Bockert eyed me closely, evidently thinking that my mind was gone for good. We passed several other policemen, who generally asked my sturdy guardians what was the matter with me. By this time quite a number of ragged children were following us too, and they passed remarks about me that were to me original as well as amusing.
“What’s she up for?” “Say, kop, where did ye get her?” “Where did yer pull ‘er?”
“She’s a daisy!”
Poor Mrs. Stanard was more frightened than I was. The whole situation grew interesting, but I still had fears for my fate before the judge.
At last we came to a low building, and Tom Bockert kindly volunteered the information: “Here’s the express office. We shall soon find those trunks of yours.”
The entrance to the building was surrounded by a curious crowd and I did not think my case was bad enough to permit me passing them without some remark, so I asked if all those people had lost their trunks.
“Yes,” he said, “nearly all these people are looking for trunks.”
I said, “They all seem to be foreigners, too.” “Yes,” said Tom, “they are all foreigners just landed. They have all lost their trunks, and it takes most of our time to help find them for them.”
We entered the courtroom. It was the Essex Market Police Courtroom. At last the question of my sanity or insanity was to be decided. Judge Duffy sat behind the high desk, wearing a look which seemed to indicate that he was dealing out the milk of human kindness by wholesale. I rather feared I would not get the fate I sought, because of the kindness I saw on every line of his face, and it was with rather a sinking heart that I followed Mrs. Stanard as she answered the summons to go up to the desk, where Tom Bockert had just given an account of the affair.
“Come here,” said an officer. “What is your name?”
“Nellie Brown,” I replied, with a little accent. “I have lost my trunks, and would like if you could find them.”
“When did you come to New York?” he asked.
“I did not come to New York,” I replied (while I added, mentally, “because I have been here for some time.”)
“But you are in New York now,” said the man.
“No,” I said, looking as incredulous as I thought a crazy person could, “I did not come to New York.”
“That girl is from the west,” he said, in a tone that made me tremble. “She has a western accent.”
Some one else who had been listening to the brief dialogue here asserted that he had lived south and that my accent was southern, while another officer was positive it was eastern. I felt much relieved when the first spokesman turned to the judge and said:
“Judge, here is a peculiar case of a young woman who doesn’t know who she is or where she came from. You had better attend to it at once.”
I commenced to shake with more than the cold, and I looked around at the strange crowd about me, composed of poorly dressed men and women with stories printed on their faces of hard lives, abuse and poverty. Some were consulting eagerly with friends, while others sat still with a look of utter hopelessness. Everywhere was a sprinkling of well-dressed, well-fed officers watching the scene passively and almost indifferently. It was only an old story with them. One more unfortunate added to a long list which had long since ceased to be of any interest or concern to them.
Nellie before Judge Duffy.
“Come here, girl, and lift your veil,” called out Judge Duffy, in tones which surprised me by a harshness which I did not think from the kindly face he possessed.
“Who are you speaking to?” I inquired, in my stateliest manner.
“Come here, my dear, and lift your veil. You know the Queen of England, if she were here, would have to lift her veil,” he said, very kindly.
“That is much better,” I replied. “I am not the Queen of England, but I’ll lift my veil.”
As I did so the little judge looked at me, and then, in a very kind and gentle tone, he said:
“My dear child, what is wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong except that I have lost my trunks, and this man,” indicating Policeman Bockert, “promised to bring me where they could be found.”
“What do you know about this child?” asked the judge, sternly, of Mrs. Stanard, who stood, pale and trembling, by my side.
“I know nothing of her except that she came to the home yesterday and asked to remain overnight.”
“The home! What do you mean by the home?” asked Judge Duffy, quickly.
“It is a temporary home kept for working women at No. 84 Second Avenue.”
“What is your position there?”
“I am assistant matron.”
“Well, tell us all you know of the case.”
“When I was going into the home yesterday I noticed her coming down the avenue. She was all alone. I had just got into the house when the bell rang and she came in. When I talked with her she wanted to know if she could stay all night, and I said she could. After awhile she said all the people in the house looked crazy, and she was afraid of them. Then she would not go to bed, but sat up all the night.”
“Had she any money?”
“Yes,” I replied, answering for her, “I paid her for everything, and the eating was the worst I ever tried.”
There was a general smile at this, and some murmurs of “She’s not so crazy on the food question.”
“Poor child,” said Judge Duffy, “she is well dressed, and a lady. Her English is perfect, and I would stake everything on her being a good girl. I am positive she is somebody’s darling.”
At this announcement everybody laughed, and I put my handkerchief over my face and endeavored to choke the laughter that threatened to spoil my plans, in despite of my resolutions.
“I mean she is some woman’s darling,” hastily amended the judge. “I am sure some one is searching for her. Poor girl, I will be good to her, for she looks like my sister, who is dead.”
There was a hush for a moment after this announcement, and the officers glanced at me more kindly, while I silently blessed the kind-hearted judge, and hoped that any poor creatures who might be afflicted as I pretended to be should have as kindly a man to deal with as Judge Duffy.
“I wish the reporters were here,” he said at last. “They would be able to find out something about her.”
I got very much frightened at this, for if there is any one who can ferret out a mystery it is a reporter. I felt that I would rather face a mass of expert doctors, policemen, and detectives than two bright specimens of my craft, so I said:
“I don’t see why all this is needed to help me find my trunks. These men are impudent, and I do not want to be stared at. I will go away. I don’t want to stay here.”
So saying, I pulled down my veil and secretly hoped the reporters would be detained elsewhere until I was sent to the asylum.
“I don’t know what to do with the poor child,” said the worried judge. “She must be taken care of.”
“Send her to the Island,” suggested one of the officers.
“Oh, don’t!” said Mrs. Stanard, in evident alarm. “Don’t! She is a lady and it would kill her to be put on the Island.”
For once I felt like shaking the good woman. To think the Island was just the place I wanted to reach and here she was trying to keep me from going there! It was very kind of her, but rather provoking under the circumstances.
“There has been some foul work here,” said the judge. “I believe this child has been drugged and brought to this city. Make out the papers and we will send her to Bellevue for examination. Probably in a few days the effect of the drug will pass off and she will be able to tell us a story that will be startling. If the reporters would only come!”
I dreaded them, so I said something about not wishing to stay there any longer to be gazed at. Judge Duffy then told Policeman Bockert to take me to the back office. After we were seated there Judge Duffy came in and asked me if my home was in Cuba.
“Yes,” I replied, with a smile. “How did you know?”
“Oh, I knew it, my dear. Now, tell me were was it? In what part of Cuba?”
“On the hacienda,” I replied.
“Ah,” said the judge, “on a farm. Do you remember Havana?”
“Si, senor,” I answered; “it is near home. How did you know?”
“Oh, I knew all about it. Now, won’t you tell me the name of your home?” he asked, persuasively.
“That’s what I forget,” I answered, sadly. “I have a headache all the time, and it makes me forget things. I don’t want them to trouble me. Everybody is asking me questions, and it makes my head worse,” and in truth it did.
“Well, no one shall trouble you any more. Sit down here and rest awhile,” and the genial judge left me alone with Mrs. Stanard.
Just then an officer came in with a reporter. I was so frightened, and thought I would be recognized as a journalist, so I turned my head away and said, “I don’t want to see any reporters; I will not see any; the judge said I was not to be troubled.”
“Well, there is no insanity in that,” said the man who had brought the reporter, and together they left the room. Once again I had a fit of fear. Had I gone too far in not wanting to see a reporter, and was my sanity detected? If I had given the impression that I was sane, I was determined to undo it, so I jumped up and ran back and forward through the office, Mrs. Stanard clinging terrified to my arm.
“I won’t stay here; I want my trunks! Why do they bother me with so many people?” and thus I kept on until the ambulance surgeon came in, accompanied by the judge.
Ten Days in a Mad-House
(Chapter IV: Judge Duffy and the Police)
by Nellie Bly (1864 – 1922)
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive A-B, Bly, Nellie, Nellie Bly, Psychiatric hospitals
Franz Kafka
Forschungen eines Hundes
Wie sich mein Leben verändert hat und wie es sich doch nicht verändert hat im Grunde! Wenn ich jetzt zurückdenke und die Zeiten mir zurückrufe, da ich noch inmitten der Hundeschaft lebte, teilnahm an allem, was sie bekümmert, ein Hund unter Hunden, finde ich bei näherem Zusehen doch, daß hier seit jeher etwas nicht stimmte, eine kleine Bruchstelle vorhanden war, ein leichtes Unbehagen inmitten der ehrwürdigsten volklichen Veranstaltungen mich befiel, ja manchmal selbst im vertrauten Kreise, nein, nicht manchmal, sondern sehr oft, der bloße Anblick eines mir lieben Mithundes, der bloße Anblick, irgendwie neu gesehen, mich verlegen, erschrocken, hilflos, ja mich verzweifelt machte. Ich suchte mich gewissermaßen zu begütigen, Freunde, denen ich es eingestand, halfen mir, es kamen wieder ruhigere Zeiten – Zeiten, in denen zwar jene Überraschungen nicht fehlten, aber gleichmütiger aufgenommen, gleichmütiger ins Leben eingefügt wurden, vielleicht traurig und müde machten, aber im übrigen mich bestehen ließen als einen zwar ein wenig kalten, zurückhaltenden, ängstlichen, rechnerischen, aber alles in allem genommen doch regelrechten Hund. Wie hätte ich auch ohne die Erholungspausen das Alter erreichen können, dessen ich mich jetzt erfreue, wie hätte ich mich durchringen können zu der Ruhe, mit der ich die Schrecken meiner Jugend betrachte und die Schrecken des Alters ertrage, wie hätte ich dazu kommen können, die Folgerungen aus meiner, wie ich zugebe, unglücklichen oder, um es vorsichtiger auszudrücken, nicht sehr glücklichen Anlage zu ziehen und fast völlig ihnen entsprechend zu leben. Zurückgezogen, einsam, nur mit meinen hoffnungslosen, aber mir unentbehrlichen kleinen Untersuchungen beschäftigt, so lebe ich, habe aber dabei von der Ferne den Überblick über mein Volk nicht verloren, oft dringen Nachrichten zu mir und auch ich lasse hie und da von mir hören. Man behandelt mich mit Achtung, versteht meine Lebensweise nicht, aber nimmt sie mir nicht übel, und selbst junge Hunde, die ich hier und da in der Ferne vorüberlaufen sehe, eine neue Generation, an deren Kindheit ich mich kaum dunkel erinnere, versagen mir nicht den ehrerbietigen Gruß.
Man darf eben nicht außer acht lassen, daß ich trotz meinen Sonderbarkeiten, die offen zutage liegen, doch bei weitem nicht völlig aus der Art schlage. Es ist ja, wenn ichs bedenke – und dies zu tun habe ich Zeit und Lust und Fähigkeit -, mit der Hundeschaft überhaupt wunderbar bestellt. Es gibt außer uns Hunden vierlei Arten von Geschöpfen ringsumher, arme, geringe, stumme, nur auf gewisse Schreie eingeschränkte Wesen, viele unter uns Hunden studieren sie, haben ihnen Namen gegeben, suchen ihnen zu helfen, sie zu erziehen, zu veredeln und dergleichen. Mir sind sie, wenn sie mich nicht etwa zu stören versuchen, gleichgültig, ich verwechsle sie, ich sehe über sie hinweg. Eines aber ist zu auffallend, als daß es mir hätte entgehen können, wie wenig sie nämlich mit uns Hunden verglichen, zusammenhalten, wie fremd und stumm und mit einer gewissen Feindseligkeit sie aneinander vorübergehen, wie nur das gemeinste Interesse sie ein wenig äußerlich verbinden kann und wie selbst aus diesem Interesse oft noch Haß und Streit entsteht. Wir Hunde dagegen! Man darf doch wohl sagen, daß wir alle förmlich in einem einzigen Haufen leben, alle, so unterschieden wir sonst durch die unzähligen und tiefgehenden Unterscheidungen, die sich im Laufe der Zeiten ergeben haben. Alle in einem Haufen! Es drängt uns zueinander und nichts kann uns hindern, diesem Drängen genugzutun, alle unsere Gesetze und Einrichtungen, die wenigen, die ich noch kenne und die zahllosen, die ich vergessen habe, gehen zurück auf die Sehnsucht nach dem größten Glück, dessen wir fähig sind, dem warmen Beisammensein. Nun aber das Gegenspiel hierzu. Kein Geschöpf lebt meines Wissens so weithin zerstreut wie wir Hunde, keines hat so viele, gar nicht übersehbare Unterschiede der Klassen, der Arten, der Beschäftigungen. Wir, die wir zusammenhalten wollen, – und immer wieder gelingt es uns trotz allem in überschwenglichen Augenblicken – gerade wir leben weit von einander getrennt, in eigentümlichen, oft schon dem Nebenhund unverständlichen Berufen, festhaltend an Vorschriften, die nicht die der Hundeschaft sind; ja, eher gegen sie gerichtet. Was für schwierige Dinge das sind, Dinge, an die man lieber nicht rührt – ich verstehe auch diesen Standpunkt, verstehe ihn besser als den meinen -, und doch Dinge, denen ich ganz und gar verfallen bin. Warum tue ich es nicht wie die anderen, lebe einträchtig mit meinem Volke und nehme das, was die Eintracht stört, stillschweigend hin, vernachlässige es als kleinen Fehler in der großen Rechnung, und bleibe immer zugekehrt dem, was glücklich bindet, nicht dem, was, freilich immer wieder unwiderstehlich, uns aus dem Volkskreis zerrt.
Ich erinnere mich an einen Vorfall aus meiner Jugend, ich war damals in einer jener seligen, unerklärlichen Aufregungen, wie sie wohl jeder als Kind erlebt, ich war noch ein ganz junger Hund, alles gefiel mir, alles hatte Bezug zu mir, ich glaubte, daß große Dinge um mich vorgehen, deren Anführer ich sei, denen ich meine Stimme leihen müsse, Dinge, die elend am Boden liegenbleiben müßten, wenn ich nicht für sie lief, für sie meinen Körper schwenkte, nun, Phantasien der Kinder, die mit den Jahren sich verflüchtigen. Aber damals waren sie stark, ich war ganz in ihrem Bann, und es geschah dann auch freilich etwas Außerordentliches, was den wilden Erwartungen Recht zu geben schien. An sich war es nichts Außerordentliches, später habe ich solche und noch merkwürdigere Dinge oft genug gesehen, aber damals traf es mich mit dem starken, ersten, unverwischbaren, für viele folgende richtunggebenden Eindruck. Ich begegnete nämlich einer kleinen Hundegesellschaft, vielmehr, ich begegnete ihr nicht, sie kam auf mich zu. Ich war damals lange durch die Finsternis gelaufen, in Vorahnung großer Dinge – eine Vorahnung, die freilich leicht täuschte, denn ich hatte sie immer-, war lange durch die Finsternis gelaufen, kreuz und quer, blind und taub für alles, geführt von nichts als dem unbestimmten Verlangen, machte plötzlich halt in dem Gefühl, hier sei ich am rechten Ort, sah auf und es war überheller Tag, nur ein wenig dunstig, alles voll durcheinander wogender, berauschender Gerüche, ich begrüßte den Morgen mit wirren Lauten, da – als hätte ich sie heraufbeschworen – traten aus irgendwelcher Finsternis unter Hervorbringung eines entsetzlichen Lärms, wie ich ihn noch nie gehört hatte, sieben Hunde ans Licht. Hätte ich nicht deutlich gesehen, daß es Hunde waren und daß sie selbst diesen Lärm mitbrachten, obwohl ich nicht erkennen konnte, wie sie ihn erzeugten – ich wäre sofort weggelaufen, so aber blieb ich. Damals wußte ich noch fast nichts von der nur dem Hundegeschlecht verliehenen schöpferischen Musikalität, sie war meiner sich erst langsam entwickelnden Beobachtungskraft bisher natürlicherweise entgangen, hatte mich doch die Musik schon seit meiner Säuglingszeit umgeben als ein mir selbstverständliches, unentbehrliches Lebenselement, welches von meinem sonstigen Leben zu sondern nichts mich zwang, nur in Andeutungen, dem kindlichen Verstand entsprechend, hatte man mich darauf hinzuweisen versucht, um so überraschender, geradezu niederwerfend waren jene sieben großen Musikkünstler für mich. Sie redeten nicht, sie sangen nicht, sie schwiegen im allgemeinen fast mit einer großen Verbissenheit, aber aus dem leeren Raum zauberten sie die Musik empor. Alles war Musik, das Heben und Niedersetzen ihrer Füße, bestimmte Wendungen des Kopfes, ihr Laufen und ihr Ruhen, die Stellungen, die sie zueinander einnahmen, die reigenmäßigen Verbindungen, die sie miteinander eingingen, indem etwa einer die Vorderpfoten auf des anderen Rücken stützte und sie sich dann so ordneten, daß der erste aufrecht die Last aller andern trug, oder indem sie mit ihren nah am Boden hinschleichenden Körpern verschlungene Figuren bildeten und niemals sich irrten; nicht einmal der letzte, der noch ein wenig unsicher war, nicht immer gleich den Anschluß an die andern fand, gewissermaßen im Anschlagen der Melodie manchmal schwankte, aber doch unsicher war nur im Vergleich mit der großartigen Sicherheit der anderen und selbst bei viel größerer, ja bei vollkommener Unsicherheit nichts hätte verderben können, wo die anderen, große Meister, den Takt unerschütterlich hielten. Aber man sah sie ja kaum, man sah sie ja alle kaum. Sie waren hervorgetreten, man hatte sie innerlich begrüßt als Hunde, sehr beirrt war man zwar von dem Lärm, der sie begleitete, aber es waren doch Hunde, Hunde wie ich und du, man beobachtete sie gewohnheitsmäßig, wie Hunde, denen man auf dem Weg begegnet, man wollte sich ihnen nähern, Grüße tauschen, sie waren auch ganz nah, Hunde, zwar viel älter als ich und nicht von meiner langhaarigen wolligen Art, aber doch auch nicht allzu fremd an Größe und Gestalt, recht vertraut vielmehr, viele von solcher oder ähnlicher Art kannte ich, aber während man noch in solchen Überlegungen befangen war, nahm allmählich die Musik überhand, faßte einen förmlich, zog einen hinweg von diesen wirklichen kleinen Hunden und, ganz wider Willen, sich sträubend mit allen Kräften, heulend, als würde einem Schmerz bereitet, durfte man sich mit nichts anderem beschäftigen, als mit der von allen Seiten, von der Höhe, von der Tiefe, von überall her kommenden, den Zuhörer in die Mitte nehmenden, überschüttenden, erdrückenden, über seiner Vernichtung noch in solcher Nähe, daß es schon Ferne war, kaum hörbar noch Fanfaren blasenden Musik. Und wieder wurde man entlassen, weil man schon zu erschöpft, zu vernichtet, zu schwach war, um noch zu hören, man wurde entlassen und sah die sieben kleinen Hunde ihre Prozessionen führen, ihre Sprünge tun, man wollte sie, so ablehnend sie aussahen, anrufen, um Belehrung bitten, sie fragen, was sie denn hier machten – ich war ein Kind und glaubte immer und jeden fragen zu dürfen -, aber kaum setzte ich an, kaum fühlte ich die gute, vertraute, hündische Verbindung mit den sieben, war wieder ihre Musik da, machte mich besinnungslos, drehte mich im Kreis herum, als sei ich selbst einer der Musikanten, während ich doch nur ihr Opfer war, warf mich hierhin und dorthin, so sehr ich auch um Gnade bat, und rettete mich schließlich vor ihrer eigenen Gewalt, indem sie mich in ein Gewirr von Hölzern drückte, das in jener Gegend ringsum sich erhob, ohne daß ich es bisher bemerkt hatte, mich jetzt fest umfing, den Kopf mir niederduckte und mir, mochte dort im Freien die Musik noch donnern, die Möglichkeit gab, ein wenig zu verschnaufen. Wahrhaftig, mehr als über die Kunst der sieben Hunde – sie war mir unbegreiflich, aber auch gänzlich unanknüpfbar außerhalb meiner Fähigkeiten -, wunderte ich mich über ihren Mut, sich dem, was sie erzeugten, völlig und offen auszusetzen, und über ihre Kraft, es, ohne daß es ihnen das Rückgrat brach, ruhig zu ertragen. Freilich erkannte ich jetzt aus meinem Schlupfloch bei genauerer Beobachtung, daß es nicht so sehr Ruhe, als äußerste Anspannung war, mit der sie arbeiteten, diese scheinbar so sicher bewegten Beine zitterten bei jedem Schritt in unaufhörlicher ängstlicher Zuckung, starr wie in Verzweiflung sah einer den anderen an, und die immer wieder bewältigte Zunge hing doch gleich wieder schlapp aus den Mäulern. Es konnte nicht Angst wegen des Gelingens sein, was sie so erregte; wer solches wagte, solches zustande brachte, der konnte keine Angst mehr haben. – Wovor denn Angst? Wer zwang sie denn zu tun, was sie hier taten? Und ich konnte mich nicht mehr zurückhalten, besonders da sie mir jetzt so unverständlich hilfsbedürftig erschienen, und so rief ich durch allen Lärm meine Fragen laut und fordernd hinaus. Sie aber – unbegreiflich! unbegreiflich! – sie antworteten nicht, taten, als wäre ich nicht da. Hunde, die auf Hundeanruf gar nicht antworten, ein Vergehen gegen die guten Sitten, das dem kleinsten wie dem größten Hunde unter keinen Umständen verziehen wird. Waren es etwa doch nicht Hunde? Aber wie sollten es denn nicht Hunde sein, hörte ich doch jetzt bei genauerem Hinhorchen sogar leise Zurufe, mit denen sie einander befeuerten, auf Schwierigkeiten aufmerksam machten, vor Fehlern warnten, sah ich doch den letzten kleinsten Hund, dem die meisten Zurufe galten, öfters nach mir hinschielen, so als hätte er viel Lust, mir zu antworten, bezwänge sich aber, weil es nicht sein dürfe. Aber warum durfte es nicht sein, warum durfte denn das, was unsere Gesetze bedingungslos immer verlangen, diesmal nicht sein? Das empörte sich in mir, fast vergaß ich die Musik. Diese Hunde hier vergingen sich gegen das Gesetz. Mochten es noch so große Zauberer sein, das Gesetz galt auch für sie, das verstand ich Kind schon ganz genau. Und ich merkte von da aus noch mehr. Sie hatten wirklich Grund zu schweigen, vorausgesetzt, daß sie aus Schuldgefühl schwiegen. Denn wie führten sie sich auf, vor lauter Musik hatte ich es bisher nicht bemerkt, sie hatten ja alle Scham von sich geworfen, die elenden taten das gleichzeitig Lächerlichste und Unanständigste, sie gingen aufrecht auf den Hinterbeinen. Pfui Teufel! Sie entblößten sich und trugen ihre Blöße protzig zur Schau: sie taten sich darauf zugute, und wenn sie einmal auf einen Augenblick dem guten Trieb gehorchten und die Vorderbeine senkten, erschraken sie förmlich, als sei es ein Fehler, als sei die Natur ein Fehler, hoben wieder schnell die Beine und ihr Blick schien um Verzeihung dafür zu bitten, daß sie in ihrer Sündhaftigkeit ein wenig hatten innehalten müssen. War die Welt verkehrt? Wo war ich? Was war denn geschehen? Hier durfte ich um meines eigenen Bestandes willen nicht mehr zögern, ich machte mich los aus den umklammernden Hölzern, sprang mit einem Satz hervor und wollte zu den Hunden, ich kleiner Schüler mußte Lehrer sein, mußte ihnen begreiflich machen, was sie taten, mußte sie abhalten vor weiterer Versündigung. »So alte Hunde, so alte Hunde!« wiederholte ich mir immerfort. Aber kaum war ich frei und nur noch zwei, drei Sprünge trennten mich von den Hunden, war es wieder der Lärm, der seine Macht über mich bekam. Vielleicht hätte ich in meinem Eifer sogar ihm, den ich doch nun schon kannte, widerstanden, wenn nicht durch alle seine Fülle, die schrecklich war, aber vielleicht doch zu bekämpfen, ein klarer, strenger, immer sich gleich bleibender, förmlich aus großer Ferne unverändert ankommender Ton, vielleicht die eigentliche Melodie inmitten des Lärms, geklungen und mich in die Knie gezwungen hätte. Ach, was machten doch diese Hunde für eine betörende Musik. Ich konnte nicht weiter, ich wollte sie nicht mehr belehren, mochten sie weiter die Beine spreizen, Sünden begehen und andere zur Sünde des stillen Zuschauens verlocken, ich war ein so kleiner Hund, wer konnte so Schweres von mir verlangen? Ich machte mich noch kleiner, als ich war, ich winselte, hätten mich danach die Hunde um meine Meinung gefragt, ich hätte ihnen vielleicht recht gegeben. Es dauerte übrigens nicht lange und sie verschwanden mit allem Lärm und allem Licht in der Finsternis, aus der sie gekommen waren.
Wie ich schon sagte: dieser ganze Vorfall enthielt nichts Außergewöhnliches, im Verlauf eines langen Lebens begegnet einem mancherlei, was, aus dem Zusammenhang genommen und mit den Augen eines Kindes angesehen, noch viel erstaunlicher wäre. Überdies kann man es natürlich – wie der treffende Ausdruck lautet – >verreden<, so wie alles, dann zeigt sich, daß hier sieben Musiker zusammengekommen waren, um in der Stille des Morgens Musik zu machen, daß ein kleiner Hund sich hinverirrt hatte, ein lästiger Zuhörer, den sie durch besonders schreckliche oder erhabene Musik leider vergeblich zu vertreiben suchten. Er störte sie durch Fragen, hätten sie, die schon durch die bloße Anwesenheit des Fremdlings genug gestört waren, auch noch auf diese Belästigung eingehen und sie durch Antworten vergrößern sollen? Und wenn auch das Gesetz befiehlt, jedem zu antworten, ist denn ein solcher winziger, hergelaufener Hund überhaupt ein nennenswerter Jemand? Und vielleicht verstanden sie ihn gar nicht, er bellte ja doch wohl seine Fragen recht unverständlich. Oder vielleicht verstanden sie ihn wohl und antworteten in Selbstüberwindung, aber er, der Kleine, der Musik-Ungewohnte, konnte die Antwort von der Musik nicht sondern. Und was die Hinterbeine betrifft, vielleicht gingen sie wirklich ausnahmsweise nur auf ihnen, es ist eine Sünde, wohl! Aber sie waren allein, sieben Freunde unter Freunden, im vertraulichen Beisammensein, gewissermaßen in den eigenen vier Wänden, gewissermaßen ganz allein, denn Freunde sind doch keine Öffentlichkeit und wo keine Öffentlichkeit ist, bringt sie auch ein kleiner, neugieriger Straßenhund nicht hervor, in diesem Fall aber: ist es hier nicht so, als wäre nichts geschehen? Ganz so ist es nicht, aber nahezu, und die Eltern sollten ihre Kleinen weniger herumlaufen und dafür besser schweigen und das Alter achten lehren.
Ist man soweit, dann ist der Fall erledigt. Freilich, was für die Großen erledigt ist, ist es für die Kleinen noch nicht. Ich lief umher, erzählte und fragte, klagte an und forschte und wollte jeden hinziehen zu dem Ort, wo alles geschehen war, und wollte jedem zeigen, wo ich gestanden war und wo die sieben gewesen und wo und wie sie getanzt und musiziert hatten und, wäre jemand mit mir gekommen, statt daß mich jeder abgeschüttelt und ausgelacht hätte, ich hätte dann wohl meine Sündlosigkeit geopfert und mich auch auf die Hinterbeine zu stellen versucht, um alles genau zu verdeutlichen. Nun, einem Kinde nimmt man alles übel, verzeiht ihm aber schließlich auch alles. Ich aber habe dieses kindhafte Wesen behalten und bin darüber ein alter Hund geworden. So wie ich damals nicht aufhörte, jenen Vorfall, den ich allerdings heute viel niedriger einschätze, laut zu besprechen, in seine Bestandteile zu zerlegen, an den Anwesenden zu messen ohne Rücksicht auf die Gesellschaft, in der ich mich befand, nur immer mit der Sache beschäftigt, die ich lästig fand genau so wie jeder andere, die ich aber – das war der Unterschied – gerade deshalb restlos durch Untersuchung auflösen wollte, um den Blick endlich wieder freizubekommen für das gewöhnliche, ruhige, glückliche Leben des Tages. Ganz so wie damals habe ich, wenn auch mit weniger kindlichen Mitteln – aber sehr groß ist der Unterschied nicht – in der Folgezeit gearbeitet und halte auch heute nicht weiter.
Mit jenem Konzert aber begann es. Ich klage nicht darüber, es ist mein eingeborenes Wesen, das hier wirkt und das sich gewiß, wenn das Konzert nicht gewesen wäre, eine andere Gelegenheit gesucht hätte, um durchzubrechen. Nur daß es so bald geschah, tat mir früher manchmal leid, es hat mich um einen großen Teil meiner Kindheit gebracht, das glückselige Leben der jungen Hunde, das mancher für sich jahrelang auszudehnen imstande ist, hat für mich nur wenige kurze Monate gedauert. Sei’s drum. Es gibt wichtigere Dinge als die Kindheit. Und vielleicht winkt mir im Alter, erarbeitet durch ein hartes Leben, mehr kindliches Glück, als ein wirkliches Kind zu ertragen die Kraft hätte, die ich dann aber haben werde.
Ich begann damals meine Untersuchungen mit den einfachsten Dingen, an Material fehlte es nicht, leider, der Überfluß ist es, der mich in dunklen Stunden verzweifeln läßt. Ich begann zu untersuchen, wovon sich die Hundeschaft nährt. Das ist nun, wenn man will, natürlich keine einfache Frage, sie beschäftigt uns seit Urzeiten, sie ist der Hauptgegenstand unseres Nachdenkens, zahllos sind die Beobachtungen und Versuche und Ansichten auf diesem Gebiete, es ist eine Wissenschaft geworden, die in ihren ungeheuren Ausmaßen nicht nur über die Fassungskraft des einzelnen, sondern über jene aller Gelehrten insgesamt geht und ausschließlich von niemandem anderen als von der gesamten Hundeschaft und selbst von dieser nur seufzend und nicht ganz vollständig getragen werden kann, immer wieder abbröckelt in altem, längst besessenem Gut und mühselig ergänzt werden muß, von den Schwierigkeiten und kaum zu erfüllenden Voraussetzungen meiner Forschung ganz zu schweigen. Das alles wende man mir nicht ein, das alles weiß ich, wie nur irgendein Durchschnittshund, es fällt mir nicht ein, mich in die wahre Wissenschaft zu mengen, ich habe alle Ehrfurcht vor ihr, die ihr gebührt, aber sie zu vermehren fehlt es mir an Wissen und Fleiß und Ruhe und – nicht zuletzt, besonders seit einigen Jahren – auch an Appetit. Ich schlinge das Essen hinunter, aber der geringsten vorgängigen geordneten landwirtschaftlichen Betrachtung ist es mir nicht wert. Mir genügt in dieser Hinsicht der Extrakt aller Wissenschaft, die kleine Regel, mit welcher die Mütter die Kleinen von ihren Brüsten ins Leben entlassen: »Mache alles naß, soviel du kannst.« Und ist hier nicht wirklich fast alles enthalten? Was hat die Forschung, von unseren Urvätern angefangen, entscheidend Wesentliches denn hinzuzufügen? Einzelheiten, Einzelheiten und wie unsicher ist alles. Diese Regel aber wird bestehen, solange wir Hunde sind. Sie betrifft unsere Hauptnahrung. Gewiß, wir haben noch andere Hilfsmittel, aber im Notfall und wenn die Jahre nicht zu schlimm sind, könnten wir von dieser Hauptnahrung leben, diese Hauptnahrung finden wir auf der Erde, die Erde aber braucht unser Wasser, nährt sich von ihm, und nur für diesen Preis gibt sie uns unsere Nahrung, deren Hervorkommen man allerdings, dies ist auch nicht zu vergessen, durch bestimmte Sprüche, Gesänge, Bewegungen beschleunigen kann. Das ist aber meiner Meinung nach alles; von dieser Seite her ist über diese Sache grundsätzlich nicht mehr zu sagen. Hierin bin ich auch einig mit der ganzen Mehrzahl der Hundeschaft und von allen in dieser Hinsicht ketzerischen Ansichten wende ich mich streng ab. Wahrhaftig, es geht mir nicht um Besonderheiten, um Rechthaberei, ich bin glücklich, wenn ich mit den Volksgenossen übereinstimmen kann, und in diesem Falle geschieht es. Meine eigenen Unternehmungen gehen aber in anderer Richtung. Der Augenschein lehrt mich, daß die Erde, wenn sie nach den Regeln der Wissenschaft besprengt und bearbeitet wird, die Nahrung hergibt, und zwar in solcher Qualität, in solcher Menge, auf solche Art, an solchen Orten, zu solchen Stunden, wie es die gleichfalls von der Wissenschaft ganz oder teilweise festgestellten Gesetze verlangen. Das nehme ich hin, meine Frage aber ist: »Woher nimmt die Erde diese Nahrung?« Eine Frage, die man im allgemeinen nicht zu verstehen vorgibt und auf die man mir bestenfalls antwortet: »Hast du nicht genug zu essen, werden wir dir von dem unseren geben.« Man beachte diese Antwort. Ich weiß: Es gehört nicht zu den Vorzügen der Hundeschaft, daß wir Speisen, die wir einmal erlangt haben, zur Verteilung bringen. Das Leben ist schwer, die Erde spröde, die Wissenschaft reich an Erkenntnissen, aber arm genug an praktischen Erfolgen; wer Speise hat, behält sie; das ist nicht Eigennutz, sondern das Gegenteil, ist Hundegesetz, ist einstimmiger Volksbeschluß, hervorgegangen aus Überwindung der Eigensucht, denn die Besitzenden sind ja immer in der Minderzahl. Und darum ist jene Antwort: »Hast du nicht genug zu essen, werden wir dir von dem unseren geben« eine ständige Redensart, ein Scherzwort, eine Neckerei. Ich habe das nicht vergessen. Aber eine um so größere Bedeutung hatte es für mich, daß man mir gegenüber, damals als ich mich mit meinen Fragen in der Welt umhertrieb, den Spott beiseiteließ – man gab mir zwar noch immer nichts zu essen – woher hätte man es gleich nehmen sollen -, und wenn man es gerade zufällig hatte, vergaß man natürlich in der Raserei des Hungers jede andere Rücksicht, aber das Angebot meinte man ernst, und hie und da bekam ich dann wirklich eine Kleinigkeit, wenn ich schnell genug dabei war, sie an mich zu reißen. Wie kam es, daß man sich zu mir so besonders verhielt, mich schonte, mich bevorzugte? Weil ich ein magerer, schwacher Hund war, schlecht genährt und zu wenig um Nahrung besorgt? Aber es laufen viele schlecht genährte Hunde herum und man nimmt ihnen selbst die elendste Nahrung vor dem Mund weg, wenn man es kann, oft nicht aus Gier, sondern meist aus Grundsatz. Nein, man bevorzugte mich, ich konnte es nicht so sehr mit Einzelheiten belegen, als daß ich vielmehr den bestimmten Eindruck dessen hatte. Waren es also meine Fragen, über die man sich freute, die man für besonders klug ansah? Nein, man freute sich nicht und hielt sie alle für dumm. Und doch konnten es nur die Fragen sein, die mir die Aufmerksamkeit erwarben. Es war, als wolle man lieber das Ungeheuerliche tun, mir den Mund mit Essen zustopfen – man tat es nicht, aber man wollte es -, als meine Fragen dulden. Aber dann hätte man mich doch besser verjagen können und meine Fragen sich verbitten. Nein, das wollte man nicht, man wollte zwar meine Fragen nicht hören, aber gerade wegen dieser meiner Fragen wollte man mich nicht verjagen. Es war, so sehr ich ausgelacht, als dummes, kleines Tier behandelt, hin- und hergeschoben wurde, eigentlich die Zeit meines größten Ansehens, niemals hat sich später etwas derartiges wiederholt, überall hatte ich Zutritt, nichts wurde mir verwehrt, unter dem Vorwand rauher Behandlung wurde mir eigentlich geschmeichelt. Und alles also doch nur wegen meiner Fragen, wegen meiner Ungeduld, wegen meiner Forschungsbegierde. Wollte man mich damit einlullen, ohne Gewalt, fast liebend mich von einem falschen Wege abbringen, von einem Wege, dessen Falschheit doch nicht so über allem Zweifel stand, daß sie erlaubt hätte, Gewalt anzuwenden? – Auch hielt eine gewisse Achtung und Furcht von Gewaltanwendung ab. Ich ahnte schon damals etwas derartiges, heute weiß ich es genau, viel genauer als die, welche es damals taten, es ist wahr, man hat mich ablocken wollen von meinem Wege. Es gelang nicht, man erreichte das Gegenteil, meine Aufmerksamkeit verschärfte sich. Es stellte sich mir sogar heraus, daß ich es war, der die andern verlocken wollte, und daß mir tatsächlich die Verlockung bis zu einem gewissen Grade gelang. Erst mit Hilfe der Hundeschaft begann ich meine eigenen Fragen zu verstehen. Wenn ich zum Beispiel fragte: Woher nimmt die Erde diese Nahrung, – kümmerte mich denn dabei, wie es den Anschein haben konnte, die Erde, kümmerten mich etwa der Erde Sorgen? Nicht im geringsten, das lag mir, wie ich bald erkannte, völlig fern, mich kümmerten nur die Hunde, gar nichts sonst. Denn was gibt es außer den Hunden? Wen kann man sonst anrufen in der weiten, leeren Welt? Alles Wissen, die Gesamtheit aller Fragen und aller Antworten ist in den Hunden enthalten. Wenn man nur dieses Wissen wirksam, wenn man es nur in den hellen Tag bringen könnte, wenn sie nur nicht so unendlich viel mehr wüßten, als sie zugestehen, als sie sich selbst zugestehen. Noch der redseligste Hund ist verschlossener, als es die Orte zu sein pflegen, wo die besten Speisen sind. Man umschleicht den Mithund, man schäumt vor Begierde, man prügelt sich selbst mit dem eigenen Schwanz, man fragt, man bittet, man heult, man beißt und erreicht – und erreicht das, was man auch ohne jede Anstrengung erreichen würde: liebevolles Anhören, freundliche Berührungen, ehrenvolle Beschnupperungen, innige Umarmungen, mein und dein Heulen mischt sich in eines, alles ist darauf gerichtet, ein Entzücken, Vergessen und Finden, aber das eine, was man vor allem erreichen wollte: Eingeständnis des Wissens, das bleibt versagt. Auf diese Bitte, ob stumm, ob laut, antworten bestenfalls, wenn man die Verlockung schon aufs äußerste getrieben hat, nur stumpfe Mienen, schiefe Blicke, verhängte, trübe Augen. Es ist nicht viel anders, als es damals war, da ich als Kind die Musikerhunde anrief und sie schwiegen.
Nun könnte man sagen: »Du beschwerst dich über deine Mithunde, über ihre Schweigsamkeit hinsichtlich der entscheidenden Dinge, du behauptest, sie wüßten mehr, als sie eingestehen, mehr, als sie im Leben gelten lassen wollen, und dieses Verschweigen, dessen Grund und Geheimnis sie natürlich auch noch mitverschweigen, vergifte das Leben, mache es dir unerträglich, du müßtest es ändern oder es verlassen, mag sein, aber du bist doch selbst ein Hund, hast auch das Hundewissen, nun sprich es aus, nicht nur in Form der Frage, sondern als Antwort. Wenn du es aussprichst, wer wird dir widerstehen? Der große Chor der Hundeschaft wird einfallen, als hätte er darauf gewartet. Dann hast du Wahrheit, Klarheit, Eingeständnis, soviel du nur willst. Das Dach dieses niedrigen Lebens, dem du so Schlimmes nachsagst, wird sich öffnen und wir werden alle, Hund bei Hund, aufsteigen in die hohe Freiheit. Und sollte das Letzte nicht gelingen, sollte es schlimmer werden als bisher, sollte die ganze Wahrheit unerträglicher sein als die halbe, sollte sich bestätigen, daß die Schweigenden als Erhalter des Lebens im Rechte sind, sollte aus der leisen Hoffnung, die wir jetzt noch haben, völlige Hoffnungslosigkeit werden, des Versuches ist das Wort doch wert, da du so, wie du leben darfst, nicht leben willst. Nun also, warum machst du den anderen ihre Schweigsamkeit zum Vorwurf und schweigst selbst?« Leichte Antwort: Weil ich ein Hund bin. Im Wesentlichen genau so wie die anderen fest verschlossen, Widerstand leistend den eigenen Fragen, hart aus Angst. Frage ich denn, genau genommen, zumindest seit ich erwachsen bin, die Hundeschaft deshalb, damit sie mir antwortet? Habe ich so törichte Hoffnungen? Sehe ich die Fundamente unseres Lebens, ahne ihre Tiefe, sehe die Arbeiter beim Bau, bei ihrem finstern Werk, und erwarte noch immer, daß auf meine Fragen hin alles dies beendigt, zerstört, verlassen wird? Nein, das erwarte ich wahrhaftig nicht mehr. Ich verstehe sie, ich bin Blut von ihrem Blut, von ihrem armen, immer wieder jungen, immer wieder verlangenden Blut. Aber nicht nur das Blut haben wir gemeinsam, sondern auch das Wissen und nicht nur das Wissen, sondern auch den Schlüssel zu ihm. Ich besitze es nicht ohne die anderen, ich kann es nicht haben ohne ihre Hilfe. – Eisernen Knochen, enthaltend das edelste Mark, kann man nur beikommen durch ein gemeinsames Beißen aller Zähne aller Hunde. Das ist natürlich nur ein Bild und übertrieben; wären alle Zähne bereit, sie müßten nicht mehr beißen, der Knochen würde sich öffnen und das Mark läge frei dem Zugriff des schwächsten Hündchens. Bleibe ich innerhalb dieses Bildes, dann zielen meine Absicht, meine Fragen, meine Forschungen allerdings auf etwas Ungeheuerliches. Ich will diese Versammlung aller Hunde erzwingen, will unter dem Druck ihres Bereitseins den Knochen sich öffnen lassen, will sie dann zu ihrem Leben, das ihnen lieb ist, entlassen und dann allein, weit und breit allein, das Mark einschlürfen. Das klingt ungeheuerlich, ist fast so, als wollte ich mich nicht vom Mark eines Knochens nur, sondern vom Mark der Hundeschaft selbst nähren. Doch es ist nur ein Bild. Das Mark, von dem hier die Rede ist, ist keine Speise, ist das Gegenteil, ist Gift.
Mit meinen Fragen hetze ich nur noch mich selbst, will mich anfeuern durch das Schweigen, das allein ringsum mir noch antwortet. Wie lange wirst du es ertragen, daß die Hundeschaft, wie du dir durch deine Forschungen immer mehr zu Bewußtsein bringst, schweigt und immer schweigen wird? Wie lange wirst du es ertragen, so lautet über allen Einzelfragen meine eigentliche Lebensfrage: sie ist nur an mich gestellt und belästigt keinen andern. Leider kann ich sie leichter beantworten als die Einzelfragen: Ich werde es voraussichtlich aushalten bis zu meinem natürlichen Ende, den unruhigen Fragen widersteht immer mehr die Ruhe des Alters. Ich werde wahrscheinlich schweigend, vom Schweigen umgeben, nahezu friedlich, sterben und ich sehe dem gefaßt entgegen. Ein bewundernswürdig starkes Herz, eine vorzeitig nicht abzunützende Lunge sind uns Hunden wie aus Bosheit mitgegeben, wir widerstehen allen Fragen, selbst den eigenen, Bollwerk des Schweigens, das wir sind.
Immer mehr in letzter Zeit überdenke ich mein Leben, suche den entscheidenden, alles verschuldenden Fehler, den ich vielleicht begangen habe, und kann ihn nicht finden. Und ich muß ihn doch begangen haben, denn hätte ich ihn nicht begangen und hätte trotzdem durch die redliche Arbeit eines langen Lebens das, was ich wollte, nicht erreicht, so wäre bewiesen, daß das, was ich wollte, unmöglich war und völlige Hoffnungslosigkeit würde daraus folgen. Sieh das Werk deines Lebens! Zuerst die Untersuchungen hinsichtlich der Frage: Woher nimmt die Erde die Nahrung für uns? Ein junger Hund, im Grunde natürlich gierig lebenslustig, verzichtete ich auf alle Genüsse, wich allen Vergnügungen im Bogen aus, vergrub vor Verlockungen den Kopf zwischen den Beinen und machte mich an die Arbeit. Es war keine Gelehrtenarbeit, weder was die Gelehrsamkeit, noch was die Methode, noch was die Absicht betrifft. Das waren wohl Fehler, aber entscheidend können sie nicht gewesen sein. Ich habe wenig gelernt, denn ich kam frühzeitig von der Mutter fort, gewöhnte mich bald an Selbständigkeit, führte ein freies Leben, und allzu frühe Selbständigkeit ist dem systematischen Lernen feindlich. Aber ich habe viel gesehen, gehört und mit vielen Hunden der verschiedensten Arten und Berufe gesprochen und alles, wie ich glaube, nicht schlecht aufgefaßt und die Einzelbeobachtungen nicht schlecht verbunden, das hat ein wenig die Gelehrsamkeit ersetzt, außerdem aber ist Selbständigkeit, mag sie für das Lernen ein Nachteil sein, für eigene Forschung ein gewisser Vorzug. Sie war in meinem Falle um so nötiger, als ich nicht die eigentliche Methode der Wissenschaft befolgen konnte, nämlich die Arbeiten der Vorgänger zu benützen und mit den zeitgenössischen Forschem mich zu verbinden. Ich war völlig auf mich allein angewiesen, begann mit dem allerersten Anfang und mit dem für die Jugend beglückenden, für das Alter dann aber äußerst niederdrückenden Bewußtsein, daß der zufällige Schlußpunkt, den ich setzen werde, auch der endgültige sein müsse. War ich wirklich so allein mit meinen Forschungen, jetzt und seit jeher? Ja und nein. Es ist unmöglich, daß nicht immer und auch heute einzelne Hunde hier und dort in meiner Lage waren und sind. So schlimm kann es mit mir nicht stehen. Ich bin kein Haarbreit außerhalb des Hundewesens. Jeder Hund hat wie ich den Drang zu fragen, und ich habe wie jeder Hund den Drang zu schweigen. Jeder hat den Drang zu fragen. Hätte ich denn sonst durch meine Fragen auch nur die leichtesten Erschütterungen erreichen können, die zu sehen mir oft mit Entzücken, übertriebenem Entzücken allerdings, vergönnt war, und hätte ich denn, wenn es sich mit mir nicht so verhielte, nicht viel mehr erreichen müssen. Und daß ich den Drang zu schweigen habe, bedarf leider keines besonderen Beweises. Ich bin also grundsätzlich nicht anders als jeder andere Hund, darum wird mich trotz allen Meinungsverschiedenheiten und Abneigungen im Grunde jeder anerkennen und ich werde es mit jedem Hund nicht anders tun. Nur die Mischung der Elemente ist verschieden, ein persönlich sehr großer, volklich bedeutungsloser Unterschied. Und nun sollte die Mischung dieser immer vorhandenen Elemente innerhalb der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart niemals ähnlich der meinen ausgefallen sein und, wenn man meine Mischung unglücklich nennen will, nicht auch noch viel unglücklicher? Das wäre gegen alle übrige Erfahrung. In den wunderbarsten Berufen sind wir Hunde beschäftigt. Berufe, an die man gar nicht glauben würde, wenn man nicht die vertrauenswürdigsten Nachrichten darüber hätte. Ich denke hier am liebsten an das Beispiel der Lufthunde. Als ich zum erstenmal von einem hörte, lachte ich, ließ es mir auf keine Weise einreden. Wie? Es sollte einen Hund von allerkleinster Art geben, nicht viel größer als mein Kopf, auch im hohen Alter nicht größer, und dieser Hund, natürlich schwächlich, dem Anschein nach ein künstliches, unreifes, übersorgfältig frisiertes Gebilde, unfähig, einen ehrlichen Sprung zu tun, dieser Hund sollte, wie man erzählte, meistens hoch in der Luft sich fortbewegen, dabei aber keine sichtbare Arbeit machen, sondern ruhen. Nein, solche Dinge mir einreden wollen, das hieß doch die Unbefangenheit eines jungen Hundes gar zu sehr ausnützen, glaubte ich. Aber kurz darauf hörte ich von anderer Seite von einem anderen Lufthund erzählen. Hatte man sich vereinigt, mich zum besten zu halten? Dann aber sah ich die Musikerhunde, und von der Zeit an hielt ich es für möglich, kein Vorurteil beschränkte meine Fassungskraft, den unsinnigsten Gerüchten ging ich nach, verfolgte sie, soweit ich konnte, das Unsinnigste erschien mir in diesem unsinnigen Leben wahrscheinlicher als das Sinnvolle und für meine Forschung besonders ergiebig. So auch die Lufthunde. Ich erfuhr vielerlei über sie, es gelang mir zwar bis heute nicht, einen zu sehen, aber von ihrem Dasein bin ich schon längst fest überzeugt und in meinem Weltbild haben sie ihren wichtigen Platz. Wie meistens so auch hier ist es natürlich nicht die Kunst, die mich vor allem nachdenklich macht. Es ist wunderbar, wer kann das leugnen, daß diese Hunde in der Luft zu schweben imstande sind, im Staunen darüber bin ich mit der Hundeschaft einig. Aber viel wunderbarer ist für mein Gefühl die Unsinnigkeit, die schweigende Unsinnigkeit dieser Existenzen. Im allgemeinen wird sie gar nicht begründet, sie schweben in der Luft, und dabei bleibt es, das Leben geht weiter seinen Gang, hie und da spricht man von Kunst und Künstlern, das ist alles. Aber warum, grundgütige Hundeschaft, warum nur schweben die Hunde? Welchen Sinn hat ihr Beruf? Warum ist kein Wort der Erklärung von ihnen zu bekommen? Warum schweben sie dort oben, lassen die Beine, den Stolz des Hundes verkümmern, sind getrennt von der nährenden Erde, säen nicht und ernten doch, werden angeblich sogar auf Kosten der Hundeschaft besonders gut genährt. Ich kann mir schmeicheln, daß ich durch meine Fragen in diese Dinge doch ein wenig Bewegung gebracht habe. Man beginnt zu begründen, eine Art Begründung zusammenzuhaspeln, man beginnt, und wird allerdings auch über diesen Beginn nicht hinausgehen. Aber etwas ist es doch. Und es zeigt sich dabei zwar nicht die Wahrheit – niemals wird man soweit kommen -, aber doch etwas von der tiefen Verwirrung der Lüge. Alle unsinnigen Erscheinungen unseres Lebens und die unsinnigsten ganz besonders lassen sich nämlich begründen. Nicht vollständig natürlich – das ist der teuflische Witz -, aber um sich gegen peinliche Fragen zu schützen, reicht es hin. Die Lufthunde wieder als Beispiel genommen: sie sind nicht hochmütig, wie man zunächst glauben könnte, sie sind vielmehr der Mithunde besonders bedürftig, versucht man sich in ihre Lage zu versetzen, versteht man es. Sie müssen ja, wenn sie es schon nicht offen tun können – das wäre Verletzung der Schweigepflicht -, so doch auf irgendeine andere Art für ihre Lebensweise Verzeihung zu erlangen suchen oder wenigstens von ihr ablenken, sie vergessen machen – sie tun das, wie man mir erzählt, durch eine fast unerträgliche Geschwätzigkeit. Immerfort haben sie zu erzählen, teils von ihren philosophischen Überlegungen, mit denen sie sich, da sie auf körperliche Anstrengung völlig verzichtet haben, fortwährend beschäftigen können, teils von den Beobachtungen, die sie von ihrem erhöhten Standort aus machen. Und obwohl sie sich, was bei einem solchen Lotterleben selbstverständlich ist, durch Geisteskraft nicht sehr auszeichnen, und ihre Philosophie so wertlos ist wie ihre Beobachtungen, und die Wissenschaft kaum etwas davon verwenden kann und überhaupt auf so jämmerliche Hilfsquellen nicht angewiesen ist, trotzdem wird man, wenn man fragt, was die Lufthunde überhaupt wollen, immer wieder zur Antwort bekommen, daß sie zur Wissenschaft viel beitragen. »Das ist richtig«, sagt man darauf, »aber ihre Beiträge sind wertlos und lästig.« Die weitere Antwort ist Achselzucken, Ablenkung, Ärger oder Lachen, und in einem Weilchen, wenn man wieder fragt, erfährt man doch wiederum, daß sie zur Wissenschaft beitragen, und schließlich, wenn man nächstens gefragt wird und sich nicht sehr beherrscht, antwortet man das Gleiche. Und vielleicht ist es auch gut, nicht allzu hartnäckig zu sein und sich zu fügen, die schon bestehenden Lufthunde nicht in ihrer Lebensberechtigung anzuerkennen, was unmöglich ist, aber doch zu dulden. Aber mehr darf man nicht verlangen, das ginge zu weit, und man verlangt es doch. Man verlangt die Duldung immer neuer Lufthunde, die heraufkommen. Man weiß gar nicht genau, woher sie kommen. Vermehren sie sich durch Fortpflanzung? Haben sie denn noch die Kraft dazu, sie sind ja nicht viel mehr als ein schönes Fell, was soll sich hier fortpflanzen? Auch wenn das Unwahrscheinliche möglich wäre, wann sollte es geschehen? Immer sieht man sie doch allein, selbstgenügsam oben in der Luft, und wenn sie einmal zu laufen sich herablassen, geschieht es nur ein kleines Weilchen lang, ein paar gezierte Schritte und immer wieder nur streng allein und in angeblichen Gedanken, von denen sie sich, selbst wenn sie sich anstrengen, nicht losreißen können, wenigstens behaupten sie das. Wenn sie sich aber nicht fortpflanzen, wäre es denkbar, daß sich Hunde finden, welche freiwillig das ebenerdige Leben aufgeben, freiwillig Lufthunde werden und um den Preis der Bequemlichkeit und einer gewissen Kunstfertigkeit dieses öde Leben dort auf den Kissen wählen? Das ist nicht denkbar, weder Fortpflanzung, noch freiwilliger Anschluß ist denkbar. Die Wirklichkeit aber zeigt, daß es doch immer wieder neue Lufthunde gibt; daraus ist zu schließen, daß, mögen auch die Hindernisse unserem Verstande unüberwindbar scheinen, eine einmal vorhandene Hundeart, sei sie auch noch so sonderbar, nicht ausstirbt, zumindest nicht leicht, zumindest nicht ohne daß in jeder Art etwas wäre, das sich erfolgreich wehrt.
Muß ich das, wenn es für eine so abseitige, sinnlose, äußerlich allersonderbarste, lebensunfähige Art wie die der Lufthunde gilt, nicht auch für meine Art annehmen? Dabei bin ich äußerlich gar nicht sonderbar, gewöhnlicher Mittelstand, der wenigstens hier in der Gegend sehr häufig ist, durch nichts besonders hervorragend, durch nichts besonders verächtlich, in meiner Jugend und noch teilweise im Mannesalter, solange ich mich nicht vernachlässigte und viel Bewegung hatte, war ich sogar ein recht hübscher Hund. Besonders meine Vorderansicht wurde gelobt, die schlanken Beine, die schöne Kopfhaltung, aber auch mein grau-weiß-gelbes, nur in den Haarspitzen sich ringelndes Fell war sehr gefällig, das alles ist nicht sonderbar, sonderbar ist nur mein Wesen, aber auch dieses ist, wie ich niemals außer acht lassen darf, im allgemeinen Hundewesen wohl begründet. Wenn nun sogar der Lufthund nicht allein bleibt, hier und dort in der großen Hundewelt immer wieder sich einer findet und sie sogar aus dem Nichts immer wieder neuen Nachwuchs holen, dann kann auch ich der Zuversicht leben, daß ich nicht verloren bin. Freilich ein besonderes Schicksal müssen meine Artgenossen haben, und ihr Dasein wird mir niemals sichtbar helfen, schon deshalb nicht, weil ich sie kaum je erkennen werde. Wir sind die, welche das Schweigen drückt, welche es förmlich aus Lufthunger durchbrechen wollen, den anderen scheint im Schweigen wohl zu sein, zwar hat es nur diesen Anschein, so wie bei den Musikhunden, die scheinbar ruhig musizierten, in Wirklichkeit aber sehr aufgeregt waren, aber dieser Anschein ist stark, man versucht ihm beizukommen, er spottet jeden Angriffs. Wie helfen sich nun meine Artgenossen? Wie sehen ihre Versuche, dennoch zu leben, aus? Das mag verschieden sein. Ich habe es mit meinen Fragen versucht, solange ich jung war. Ich könnte mich also vielleicht an die halten, welche viel fragen, und da hätte ich dann meine Artgenossen. Ich habe auch das eine Zeitlang mit Selbstüberwindung versucht, mit Selbstüberwindung, denn mich kümmern ja vor allem die, welche antworten sollen; die, welche mir immerfort mit Fragen, die ich meist nicht beantworten kann, dazwischenfahren, sind mir widerwärtig. Und dann, wer fragt denn nicht gern, solange er jung ist, wie soll ich aus den vielen Fragen die richtigen herausfinden? Eine Frage klingt wie die andere, auf die Absicht kommt es an, die aber ist verborgen, oft auch dem Frager. Und überhaupt, das Fragen ist ja eine Eigentümlichkeit der Hundeschaft, alle fragen durcheinander, es ist, als sollte damit die Spur der richtigen Fragen verwischt werden. Nein, unter den Fragern der Jungen finde ich meine Artgenossen nicht, und unter den Schweigern, den Alten, zu denen ich jetzt gehöre, ebensowenig. Aber was wollen denn die Fragen, ich bin ja mit ihnen gescheitert, wahrscheinlich sind meine Genossen viel klüger als ich und wenden ganz andere vortreffliche Mittel an, um dieses Leben zu ertragen, Mittel freilich, die, wie ich aus eigenem hinzufüge, vielleicht ihnen zur Not helfen, beruhigen, einschläfern, artverwandelnd wirken, aber in der Allgemeinheit ebenso ohnmächtig sind, wie die meinen, denn, soviel ich auch ausschaue, einen Erfolg sehe ich nicht. Ich fürchte, an allem anderen werde ich meine Artgenossen eher erkennen als am Erfolg. Wo sind denn aber meine Artgenossen? Ja, das ist die Klage, das ist sie eben. Wo sind sie? Überall und nirgends. Vielleicht ist es mein Nachbar, drei Sprünge weit von mir, wir rufen einander oft zu, er kommt auch zu mir herüber, ich zu ihm nicht. Ist er mein Artgenosse? Ich weiß nicht, ich erkenne zwar nichts dergleichen an ihm, aber möglich ist es. Möglich ist es, aber doch ist nichts unwahrscheinlicher. Wenn er fern ist, kann ich zum Spiel mit Zuhilfenahme aller Phantasie manches mich verdächtig Anheimelnde an ihm herausfinden, steht er dann aber vor mir, sind alle meine Erfindungen zum Lachen. Ein alter Hund, noch etwas kleiner als ich, der ich kaum Mittelgröße habe, braun, kurzhaarig, mit müde hängendem Kopf, mit schlürfenden Schritten, das linke Hinterbein schleppt er überdies infolge einer Krankheit ein wenig nach. So nah wie mit ihm verkehre ich schon seit langem mit niemandem, ich bin froh, daß ich ihn doch noch leidlich ertrage, und wenn er fortgeht, schreie ich ihm die freundlichsten Dinge nach, freilich nicht aus Liebe, sondern zornig auf mich, weil ich ihn, wenn ich ihm nachgehe, doch wieder nur ganz abscheulich finde, wie er sich wegschleicht mit dem nachschleppenden Fuß und dem viel zu niedrigen Hinterteil. Manchmal ist mir, als wollte ich mich selbst verspotten, wenn ich ihn in Gedanken meinen Genossen nenne. Auch in unseren Gesprächen verrät er nichts von irgendeiner Genossenschaft, zwar ist er klug und, für unsere Verhältnisse hier, gebildet genug und ich könnte viel von ihm lernen, aber suche ich Klugheit und Bildung? Wir unterhalten uns gewöhnlich über örtliche Fragen und ich staune dabei, durch meine Einsamkeit in dieser Hinsicht hellsichtiger gemacht, wieviel Geist selbst für einen gewöhnlichen Hund, selbst bei durchschnittlich nicht allzu ungünstigen Verhältnissen nötig ist, um sein Leben zu fristen und sich vor den größten üblichen Gefahren zu schützen. Die Wissenschaft gibt zwar die Regeln; sie aber auch nur von Ferne und in den gröbsten Hauptzügen zu verstehen ist gar nicht leicht, und wenn man sie verstanden hat, kommt erst das eigentlich Schwere, sie nämlich auf die örtlichen Verhältnisse anzuwenden – hier kann kaum jemand helfen, fast jede Stunde gibt neue Aufgaben und jedes neue Flecken Erde seine besonderen; daß er für die Dauer irgendwo eingerichtet ist und daß sein Leben nun gewissermaßen von selbst verläuft, kann niemand von sich behaupten, nicht einmal ich, dessen Bedürfnisse sich förmlich von Tag zu Tag verringern. Und alle diese unendliche Mühe – zu welchem Zweck? Doch nur um sich immer weiter zu vergraben im Schweigen und um niemals und von niemand mehr herausgeholt werden zu können.
Man rühmt oft den allgemeinen Fortschritt der Hundeschaft durch die Zeiten und meint damit wohl hauptsächlich den Fortschritt der Wissenschaft. Gewiß, die Wissenschaft schreitet fort, das ist unaufhaltsam, sie schreitet sogar mit Beschleunigung fort, immer schneller, aber was ist daran zu rühmen? Es ist so, als wenn man jemanden deshalb rühmen wollte, weil er mit zunehmenden Jahren älter wird und infolgedessen immer schneller der Tod sich nähert. Das ist ein natürlicher und überdies ein häßlicher Vorgang, an dem ich nichts zu rühmen finde. Ich sehe nur Verfall, wobei ich aber nicht meine, daß frühere Generationen im Wesen besser waren, sie waren nur jünger, das war ihr großer Vorzug, ihr Gedächtnis war noch nicht so überlastet wie das heutige, es war noch leichter, sie zum Sprechen zu bringen, und wenn es auch niemandem gelungen ist, die Möglichkeit war größer, diese größere Möglichkeit ist ja das, was uns beim Anhören jener alten, doch eigentlich einfältigen Geschichten so erregt. Hie und da hören wir ein andeutendes Wort und möchten fast aufspringen, fühlten wir nicht die Last der Jahrhunderte auf uns. Nein, was ich auch gegen meine Zeit einzuwenden habe, die früheren Generationen waren nicht besser als die neueren, ja in gewissem Sinn waren sie viel schlechter und schwächer. Die Wunder gingen freilich auch damals nicht frei über die Gassen zum beliebigen Einfangen, aber die Hunde waren, ich kann es nicht anders ausdrücken, noch nicht so hündisch wie heute, das Gefüge der Hundeschaft war noch locker, das wahre Wort hätte damals noch eingreifen, den Bau bestimmen, umstimmen, nach jedem Wunsche ändern, in sein Gegenteil verkehren können und jenes Wort war da, war zumindest nahe, schwebte auf der Zungenspitze. Jeder konnte es erfahren; wo ist es heute hingekommen, heute könnte man schon ins Gekröse greifen und würde es nicht finden. Unsere Generation ist vielleicht verloren, aber sie ist unschuldiger als die damalige. Das Zögern meiner Generation kann ich verstehen, es ist ja auch gar kein Zögern mehr, es ist das Vergessen eines vor tausend Nächten geträumten und tausendmal vergessenen Traumes, wer will uns gerade wegen des tausendsten Vergessens zürnen? Aber auch das Zögern unserer Urväter glaube ich zu verstehen, wir hätten wahrscheinlich nicht anders gehandelt, fast möchte ich sagen: Wohl uns, daß nicht wir es waren, die die Schuld auf uns laden mußten, daß wir vielmehr in einer schon von anderen verfinsterten Welt in fast schuldlosem Schweigen dem Tode zueilen dürfen. Als unsere Urväter abirrten, dachten sie wohl kaum an ein endloses Irren, sie sahen ja förmlich noch den Kreuzweg, es war leicht, wann immer zurückzukehren, und wenn sie zurückzukehren zögerten, so nur deshalb, weil sie noch eine kurze Zeit sich des Hundelebens freuen wollten, es war noch gar kein eigentümliches Hundeleben und schon schien es ihnen berauschend schön, wie mußte es erst später werden, wenigstens noch ein kleines Weilchen später, und so irrten sie weiter. Sie wußten nicht, was wir bei Betrachtung des Geschichtsverlaufes ahnen können, daß die Seele sich früher wandelt als das Leben und daß sie, als sie das Hundeleben zu freuen begann, schon eine recht althündische Seele haben mußten und gar nicht mehr so nahe dem Ausgangspunkt waren, wie ihnen schien oder wie ihr in allen Hundefreuden schwelgendes Auge sie glauben machen wollte. – Wer kann heute noch von Jugend sprechen. Sie waren die eigentlichen jungen Hunde, aber ihr einziger Ehrgeiz war leider darauf gerichtet, alte Hunde zu werden, etwas, was ihnen freilich nicht mißlingen konnte, wie alle folgenden Generationen beweisen und unsere, die letzte, am besten.
Über alle diese Dinge rede ich natürlich mit meinem Nachbarn nicht, aber ich muß oft an sie denken, wenn ich ihm gegenübersitze, diesem typischen alten Hund, oder die Schnauze in sein Fell vergrabe, das schon einen Anhauch jenes Geruches hat, den abgezogene Felle haben. Über jene Dinge mit ihm zu reden wäre sinnlos, auch mit jedem anderen. Ich weiß, wie das Gespräch verlaufen würde. Er hätte einige kleine Einwände hie und da, schließlich würde er zustimmen – Zustimmung ist die beste Waffe – und die Sache wäre begraben, warum sie aber überhaupt erst aus ihrem Grab bemühen? Und trotz allem, es gibt doch vielleicht eine über bloße Worte hinausgehende tiefere Übereinstimmung mit meinem Nachbarn. Ich kann nicht aufhören, das zu behaupten, obwohl ich keine Beweise dafür habe und vielleicht dabei nur einer einfachen Täuschung unterliege, weil er eben seit langem der einzige ist, mit dem ich verkehre, und ich mich also an ihn halten muß. »Bist du doch vielleicht mein Genosse auf deine Art? Und schämst dich, weil dir alles mißlungen ist? Sieh, mir ist es ebenso gegangen. Wenn ich allein bin, heule ich darüber, komm, zu zweit ist es süßer«, so denke ich manchmal und sehe ihn dabei fest an. Er senkt dann den Blick nicht, aber auch zu entnehmen ist ihm nichts, stumpf sieht er mich an und wundert sich, warum ich schweige und unsere Unterhaltung unterbrochen habe. Aber vielleicht ist gerade dieser Blick seine Art zu fragen, und ich enttäusche ihn, so wie er mich enttäuscht. In meiner Jugend hätte ich ihn, wenn mir damals nicht andere Fragen wichtiger gewesen wären und ich nicht allein mir reichlich genügt hätte, vielleicht laut gefragt, hätte eine matte Zustimmung bekommen und also weniger als heute, da er schweigt. Aber schweigen nicht alle ebenso? Was hindert mich zu glauben, daß alle meine Genossen sind, daß ich nicht nur hie und da einen Mitforscher hatte, der mit seinen winzigen Ergebnissen versunken und vergessen ist und zu dem ich auf keine Weise mehr gelangen kann durch das Dunkel der Zeiten oder das Gedränge der Gegenwart, daß ich vielmehr in allem seit jeher Genossen habe, die sich alle bemühen nach ihrer Art, alle erfolglos nach ihrer Art, alle schweigend oder listig plappernd nach ihrer Art, wie es die hoffnungslose Forschung mit sich bringt. Dann hätte ich mich aber auch gar nicht absondern müssen, hätte ruhig unter den anderen bleiben können, hätte nicht wie ein unartiges Kind durch die Reihen der Erwachsenen mich hinausdrängen müssen, die ja ebenso hinauswollen wie ich, und an denen mich nur ihr Verstand beirrt, der ihnen sagt, daß niemand hinauskommt und daß alles Drängen töricht ist.
Solche Gedanken sind allerdings deutlich die Wirkung meines Nachbarn, er verwirrt mich, er macht mich melancholisch; und ist für sich fröhlich genug, wenigstens höre ich ihn, wenn er in seinem Bereich ist, schreien und singen, daß es mir lästig ist. Es wäre gut, auch auf diesen letzten Verkehr zu verzichten, nicht vagen Träumereien nachzugehen, wie sie jeder Hundeverkehr, so abgehärtet man zu sein glaubt, unvermeidlich erzeugt, und die kleine Zeit, die mir bleibt, ausschließlich für meine Forschungen zu verwenden. Ich werde, wenn er nächstens kommt, mich verkriechen und schlafend stellen, und das so lange wiederholen, bis er ausbleibt.
Auch ist in meine Forschungen Unordnung gekommen, ich lasse nach, ich ermüde, ich trotte nur noch mechanisch, wo ich begeistert lief. Ich denke zurück an die Zeit, als ich die Frage: »Woher nimmt die Erde unsere Nahrung?« zu untersuchen begann. Freilich lebte ich damals mitten im Volk, drängte mich dorthin, wo es am dichtesten war, wollte alle zu Zeugen meiner Arbeiten machen, diese Zeugenschaft war mir sogar wichtiger als meine Arbeit; da ich ja noch irgendeine allgemeine Wirkung erwartete, erhielt ich natürlich eine große Anfeuerung, die nun für mich Einsamen vorbei ist. Damals aber war ich so stark, daß ich etwas tat, was unerhört ist, allen unsern Grundsätzen widerspricht und an das sich gewiß jeder Augenzeuge von damals als an etwas Unheimliches erinnert. Ich fand in der Wissenschaft, die sonst zu grenzenloser Spezialisierung strebt, in einer Hinsicht eine merkwürdige Vereinfachung. Sie lehrt, daß in der Hauptsache die Erde unsere Nahrung hervorbringt, und gibt dann, nachdem sie diese Voraussetzung gemacht hat, die Methoden an, mit welchen sich die verschiedenen Speisen in bester Art und größter Fülle erreichen lassen. Nun ist es freilich richtig, daß die Erde die Nahrung hervorbringt, daran kann kein Zweifel sein, aber so einfach, wie es gewöhnlich dargestellt wird, jede weitere Untersuchung ausschließend, ist es nicht. Man nehme doch nur die primitivsten Vorfälle her, die sich täglich wiederholen. Wenn wir gänzlich untätig wären, wie ich es nun schon fast bin, nach flüchtiger Bodenbearbeitung uns zusammenrollten und warteten, was kommt, so würden wir allerdings, vorausgesetzt, daß sich überhaupt etwas ergeben würde, die Nahrung auf der Erde finden. Aber das ist doch nicht der Regelfall. Wer sich nur ein wenig Unbefangenheit gegenüber der Wissenschaft bewahrt hat – und deren sind freilich wenige, denn die Kreise, welche die Wissenschaft zieht, werden immer größer – wird, auch wenn er gar nicht auf besondere Beobachtungen ausgeht, leicht erkennen, daß der Hauptteil der Nahrung, die dann auf der Erde liegt, von oben herabkommt, wir fangen ja je nach unserer Geschicklichkeit und Gier das meiste sogar ab, ehe es die Erde berührt. Damit sage ich noch nichts gegen die Wissenschaft, die Erde bringt ja auch diese Nahrung natürlich hervor. Ob sie die eine aus sich herauszieht oder die andere aus der Höhe herabruft, ist ja vielleicht kein wesentlicher Unterschied, und die Wissenschaft, welche festgestellt hat, daß in beiden Fällen Bodenbearbeitung nötig ist, muß sich vielleicht mit jenen Unterscheidungen nicht beschäftigen, heißt es doch: »Hast du den Fraß im Maul, so hast du für diesmal alle Fragen gelöst.« Nur scheint es mir, daß die Wissenschaft sich in verhüllter Form doch wenigstens teilweise mit diesen Dingen beschäftigt, da sie ja doch zwei Hauptmethoden der Nahrungsbeschaffung kennt, nämlich die eigentliche Bodenbearbeitung und dann die Ergänzungs-Verfeinerungs-Arbeit in Form von Spruch, Tanz und Gesang. Ich finde darin eine zwar nicht vollständige, aber doch genug deutliche, meiner Unterscheidung entsprechende Zweiteilung. Die Bodenbearbeitung dient meiner Meinung nach zur Erzielung von beiderlei Nahrung und bleibt immer unentbehrlich, Spruch, Tanz und Gesang aber betreffen weniger die Bodennahrung im engeren Sinn, sondern dienen hauptsächlich dazu, die Nahrung von oben herabzuziehen. In dieser Auffassung bestärkt mich die Tradition. Hier scheint das Volk die Wissenschaft richtigzustellen, ohne es zu wissen und ohne daß die Wissenschaft sich zu wehren wagt. Wenn, wie die Wissenschaft will, jene Zeremonien nur dem Boden dienen sollten, etwa um ihm die Kraft zu geben, die Nahrung von oben zu holen, so müßten sie sich doch folgerichtig völlig am Boden vollziehen, dem Boden müßte alles zugeflüstert, vorgesprungen, vorgetanzt werden. Die Wissenschaft verlangt wohl auch meines Wissens nichts anderes. Und nun das Merkwürdige, das Volk richtet sich mit allen seinen Zeremonien in die Höhe. Es ist dies keine Verletzung der Wissenschaft, sie verbietet es nicht, läßt dem Landwirt darin die Freiheit, sie denkt bei ihren Lehren nur an den Boden, und führt der Landwirt ihre auf den Boden sich beziehenden Lehren aus, ist sie zufrieden, aber ihr Gedankengang sollte meiner Meinung nach eigentlich mehr verlangen. Und ich, der ich niemals tiefer in die Wissenschaft eingeweiht worden bin, kann mir gar nicht vorstellen, wie die Gelehrten es dulden können, daß unser Volk, leidenschaftlich wie es nun einmal ist, die Zaubersprüche aufwärts ruft, unsere alten Volksgesänge in die Lüfte klagt und Sprungtänze aufführt, als ob es sich, den Boden vergessend, für immer emporschwingen wollte. Von der Betonung dieser Widersprüche ging ich aus, ich beschränkte mich, wann immer nach den Lehren der Wissenschaft die Erntezeit sich näherte, völlig auf den Boden, ich scharrte ihn im Tanz, ich verdrehte den Kopf, um nur dem Boden möglichst nahe zu sein. Ich machte mir später eine Grube für die Schnauze und sang so und deklamierte, daß nur der Boden es hörte und niemand sonst neben oder über mir.
Die Forschungsergebnisse waren gering. Manchmal bekam ich das Essen nicht und schon wollte ich jubeln über meine Entdeckung, aber dann kam das Essen doch wieder, so als wäre man zuerst beirrt gewesen durch meine sonderbare Aufführung, erkenne aber jetzt den Vorteil, den sie bringt, und verzichte gern auf meine Schreie und Sprünge. Oft kam das Essen sogar reichlicher als früher, aber dann blieb es doch auch wieder gänzlich aus. Ich machte mit einem Fleiß, der an jungen Hunden bisher unbekannt gewesen war, genaue Aufstellungen aller meiner Versuche, glaubte schon hie und da eine Spur zu finden, die mich weiter führen könnte, aber dann verlief sie sich doch wieder ins Unbestimmte. Es kam mir hierbei unstrittig auch meine ungenügende wissenschaftliche Vorbereitung in die Quere. Wo hatte ich die Bürgschaft, daß zum Beispiel das Ausbleiben des Essens nicht durch mein Experiment, sondern durch unwissenschaftliche Bodenbearbeitung bewirkt war, und traf das zu, dann waren alle meine Schlußfolgerungen haltlos. Unter gewissen Bedingungen hätte ich ein fast ganz präzises Experiment erreichen können, wenn es mir nämlich gelungen wäre, ganz ohne Bodenbearbeitung – einmal nur durch aufwärts gerichtete Zeremonie das Herabkommen des Essens und dann durch ausschließliche Boden-Zeremonie das Ausbleiben des Essens zu erreichen. Ich versuchte auch derartiges, aber ohne festen Glauben und nicht mit vollkommenen Versuchsbedingungen, denn, meiner unerschütterlichen Meinung nach, ist wenigstens eine gewisse Bodenbearbeitung immer nötig und, selbst wenn die Ketzer, die es nicht glauben, recht hätten, ließe es sich doch nicht beweisen, da die Bodenbesprengung unter einem Drang geschieht und sich in gewissen Grenzen gar nicht vermeiden läßt. Ein anderes, allerdings etwas abseitiges Experiment glückte mir besser und machte einiges Aufsehen. Anschließend an das übliche Abfangen der Nahrung aus der Luft beschloß ich, die Nahrung zwar niederfallen zu lassen, sie aber auch nicht abzufangen. Zu diesem Zwecke machte ich immer, wenn die Nahrung kam, einen kleinen Luftsprung, der aber immer so berechnet war, daß er nicht ausreichte; meistens fiel sie dann doch stumpf-gleichgültig zu Boden und ich warf mich wütend auf sie, in der Wut nicht nur des Hungers, sondern auch der Enttäuschung. Aber in vereinzelten Fällen geschah doch etwas anderes, etwas eigentlich Wunderbares, die Speise fiel nicht, sondern folgte mir in der Luft, die Nahrung verfolgte den Hungrigen. Es geschah nicht lange, eine kurze Strecke nur, dann fiel sie doch oder verschwand gänzlich oder – der häufigste Fall – meine Gier beendete vorzeitig das Experiment und ich fraß die Sache auf. Immerhin, ich war damals glücklich, durch meine Umgebung ging ein Raunen, man war unruhig und aufmerksam geworden, ich fand meine Bekannten zugänglicher meinen Fragen, in ihren Augen sah ich irgendein Hilfe suchendes Leuchten, mochte es auch nur der Widerschein meiner eigenen Blicke sein, ich wollte nichts anderes, ich war zufrieden. Bis ich dann freilich erfuhr – und die anderen erfuhren es mit mir – daß dieses Experiment in der Wissenschaft längst beschrieben ist, viel großartiger schon gelungen als mir, zwar schon lange nicht gemacht werden konnte wegen der Schwierigkeit der Selbstbeherrschung, die es verlangt, aber wegen seiner angeblichen wissenschaftlichen Bedeutungslosigkeit auch nicht wiederholt werden muß. Es beweise nur, was man schon wußte, daß der Boden die Nahrung nicht nur gerade abwärts von oben holt, sondern auch schräg, ja sogar in Spiralen. Da stand ich nun, aber entmutigt war ich nicht, dazu war ich noch zu jung, im Gegenteil, ich wurde dadurch aufgemuntert zu der vielleicht größten Leistung meines Lebens. Ich glaubte der wissenschaftlichen Entwertung meines Experimentes nicht, aber hier hilft kein Glauben, sondern nur der Beweis, und den wollte ich antreten und wollte damit auch dieses ursprünglich etwas abseitige Experiment ins volle Licht, in den Mittelpunkt der Forschung stehen. Ich wollte beweisen, daß, wenn ich vor der Nahrung zurückwich, nicht der Boden sie schräg zu sich herabzog, sondern ich es war, der sie hinter mir her lockte. Dieses Experiment konnte ich allerdings nicht weiter ausbauen, den Fraß vor sich zu sehen und dabei wissenschaftlich zu experimentieren, das hielt man für die Dauer nicht aus. Aber ich wollte etwas anderes tun, ich wollte, solange ichs aushielt, völlig fasten, allerdings dabei auch jeden Anblick der Nahrung, jede Verlockung vermeiden. Wenn ich mich so zurückzog, mit geschlossenen Augen liegenblieb, Tag und Nacht, weder um das Aufheben, noch um das Abfangen der Nahrung mich kümmerte und, wie ich nicht zu behaupten wagte, aber leise hoffte, ohne alle sonstigen Maßnahmen, nur auf die unvermeidliche unrationelle Bodenbesprengung und stilles Aufsagen der Sprüche und Lieder hin (den Tanz wollte ich unterlassen, um mich nicht zu schwächen) die Nahrung von oben selbst herabkäme und, ohne sich um den Boden zu kümmern, an mein Gebiß klopfen würde, um eingelassen zu werden, – wenn dies geschah, dann war die Wissenschaft zwar nicht widerlegt, denn sie hat genug Elastizität für Ausnahmen und Einzelfälle, aber was würde das Volk sagen, das glücklicherweise nicht so viel Elastizität hat? Denn es würde das ja auch kein Ausnahmefall von der Art sein, wie sie die Geschichte überliefert, daß etwa einer wegen körperlicher Krankheit oder wegen Trübsinns sich weigert, die Nahrung vorzubereiten, zu suchen, aufzunehmen und dann die Hundeschaft in Beschwörungsformeln sich vereinigt und dadurch ein Abirren der Nahrung von ihrem gewöhnlichen Weg geradewegs in das Maul des Kranken erreicht. Ich dagegen war in voller Kraft und Gesundheit, mein Appetit so prächtig, daß er mich tagelang hinderte, an etwas anderes zu denken als an ihn, ich unterzog mich, mochte man es glauben oder nicht, dem Fasten freiwillig, war selbst imstande, für das Herabkommen der Nahrung zu sorgen und wollte es auch tun, brauchte aber auch keine Hilfe der Hundeschaft und verbat sie mir sogar auf das entschiedenste.
Ich suchte mir einen geeigneten Ort in einem entlegenen Gebüsch, wo ich keine Eßgespräche, kein Schmatzen und Knochenknacken hören würde, fraß mich noch einmal völlig satt und legte mich dann hin. Ich wollte womöglich die ganze Zeit mit geschlossenen Augen verbringen; solange kein Essen kommen sollte, würde es für mich ununterbrochen Nacht sein, mochte es Tage und Wochen dauern. Dabei durfte ich allerdings, das war eine große Erschwerung, wenig oder am besten gar nicht schlafen, denn ich mußte ja nicht nur die Nahrung herabbeschwören, sondern auch auf der Hut sein, daß ich die Ankunft der Nahrung nicht etwa verschlafe, andererseits wiederum war Schlaf sehr willkommen, denn schlafend würde ich viel länger hungern können als im Wachen. Aus diesen Gründen beschloß ich, die Zeit vorsichtig einzuteilen und viel zu schlafen, aber immer nur ganz kurze Zeit. Ich erreichte dies dadurch, daß ich den Kopf im Schlaf immer auf einen schwachen Ast stützte, der bald einknickte und mich dadurch weckte. So lag ich, schlief oder wachte, träumte oder sang still für mich hin. Die erste Zeit verging ereignislos, noch war es vielleicht dort, woher die Nahrung kommt, irgendwie unbemerkt geblieben, daß ich mich hier gegen den üblichen Verlauf der Dinge stemmte, und so blieb alles still. Ein wenig störte mich in meiner Anstrengung die Befürchtung, daß die Hunde mich vermissen, bald auffinden und etwas gegen mich unternehmen würden. Eine zweite Befürchtung war, daß auf die bloße Besprengung hin der Boden, obwohl es ein nach der Wissenschaft unfruchtbarer Boden war, die sogenannte Zufallsnahrung hergeben und ihr Geruch mich verführen würde. Aber vorläufig geschah nichts dergleichen, und ich konnte weiterhungern. Abgesehen von diesen Befürchtungen war ich zunächst ruhig, wie ich es an mir noch nie bemerkt hatte. Obwohl ich hier eigentlich an der Aufhebung der Wissenschaft arbeitete, erfüllte mich Behagen und fast die sprichwörtliche Ruhe des wissenschaftlichen Arbeiters. In meinen Träumereien erlangte ich von der Wissenschaft Verzeihung, es fand sich in ihr auch ein Raum für meine Forschungen, trostreich klang es mir in den Ohren, daß ich, mögen auch meine Forschungen noch so erfolgreich werden, und besonders dann, keineswegs für das Hundeleben verloren sei, die Wissenschaft sei mir freundlich geneigt, sie selbst werde die Deutung meiner Ergebnisse vornehmen und dieses Versprechen bedeute schon die Erfüllung selbst, ich würde, während ich mich bisher im Innersten ausgestoßen fühlte und die Mauern meines Volkes berannte wie ein Wilder, in großen Ehren aufgenommen werden, die ersehnte Wärme versammelter Hundeleiber werde mich umströmen, hochgezwungen würde ich auf den Schultern meines Volkes schwanken. Merkwürdige Wirkung des ersten Hungers. Meine Leistung erschien mir so groß, daß ich aus Rührung und aus Mitleid mit mir selbst dort in dem stillen Gebüsch zu weinen anfing, was allerdings nicht ganz verständlich war, denn wenn ich den verdienten Lohn erwartete, warum weinte ich dann? Wohl nur aus Behaglichkeit. Immer nur, wenn mir behaglich war, selten genug, habe ich geweint. Danach ging es freilich bald vorüber. Die schönen Bilder verflüchtigten sich allmählich mit dem Ernsterwerden des Hungers, es dauerte nicht lange und ich war, nach schneller Verabschiedung aller Phantasien und aller Rührung, völlig allein mit dem in den Eingeweiden brennenden Hunger. »Das ist der Hunger«, sagte ich mir damals unzähligemal, so als wollte ich mich glauben machen, Hunger und ich seien noch immer zweierlei und ich könnte ihn abschütteln wie einen lästigen Liebhaber, aber in Wirklichkeit waren wir höchst schmerzlich Eines, und wenn ich mir erklärte: »Das ist der Hunger«, so war es eigentlich der Hunger, der sprach und sich damit über mich lustig machte. Eine böse, böse Zeit! Mich schauert, wenn ich an sie denke, freilich nicht nur wegen des Leides, das ich damals durchlebt habe, sondern vor allem deshalb, weil ich damals nicht fertig geworden bin, weil ich dieses Leiden noch einmal werde durchkosten müssen, wenn ich etwas erreichen will, denn das Hungern halte ich noch heute für das letzte und stärkste Mittel meiner Forschung. Durch das Hungern geht der Weg, das Höchste ist nur der höchsten Leistung erreichbar, wenn es erreichbar ist, und diese höchste Leistung ist bei uns freiwilliges Hungern. Wenn ich also jene Zeiten durchdenke – und für mein Leben gern wühle ich in ihnen – durchdenke ich auch die Zeiten, die mir drohen. Es scheint, daß man fast ein Leben verstreichen lassen muß, ehe man sich von einem solchen Versuch erholt, meine ganzen Mannesjahre trennen mich von jenem Hungern, aber erholt bin ich noch nicht. Ich werde, wenn ich nächstens das Hungern beginne, vielleicht mehr Entschlossenheit haben als früher, infolge meiner größeren Erfahrung und besseren Einsicht in die Notwendigkeit des Versuches, aber meine Kräfte sind geringer, noch von damals her, zumindest werde ich schon ermatten in der bloßen Erwartung der bekannten Schrecken. Mein schwächerer Appetit wird mir nicht helfen, er entwertet nur ein wenig den Versuch und wird mich wahrscheinlich noch zwingen, länger zu hungern, als es damals nötig gewesen wäre. Über diese und andere Voraussetzungen glaube ich mir klar zu sein, an Vorversuchen hat es ja nicht gefehlt in dieser langen Zwischenzeit, oft genug habe ich das Hungern förmlich angebissen, war aber noch nicht stark zum Äußersten, und die unbefangene Angriffslust der Jugend ist natürlich für immer dahin. Sie schwand schon damals inmitten des Hungerns. Mancherlei Überlegungen quälten mich. Drohend erschienen mir unsere Urväter. Ich halte sie zwar, wenn ich es auch öffentlich nicht zu sagen wage, für schuld an allem, sie haben das Hundeleben verschuldet, und ich konnte also ihren Drohungen leicht mit Gegendrohungen antworten, aber vor ihrem Wissen beuge ich mich, es kam aus Quellen, die wir nicht mehr kennen, deshalb würde ich auch, so sehr es mich gegen sie anzukämpfen drängt, niemals ihre Gesetze geradezu überschreiten, nur durch die Gesetzeslücken, für die ich eine besondere Witterung habe, schwärme ich aus. Hinsichtlich des Hungerns berufe ich mich auf das berühmte Gespräch, im Laufe dessen einer unserer Weisen die Absicht aussprach, das Hungern zu verbieten, worauf ein Zweiter davon abriet mit der Frage: »Wer wird denn jemals hungern?« und der Erste sich überzeugen ließ und das Verbot zurückhielt. Nun entsteht aber wieder die Frage: »Ist nun das Hungern nicht eigentlich doch verboten?« Die große Mehrzahl der Kommentatoren verneint sie, sieht das Hungern für freigegeben an, hält es mit dem zweiten Weisen und befürchtet deshalb auch von einer irrtümlichen Kommentierung keine schlimmen Folgen. Dessen hatte ich mich wohl vergewissert, ehe ich mit dem Hungern begann. Nun aber, als ich mich im Hunger krümmte, schon in einiger Geistesverwirrung immerfort bei meinen Hinterbeinen Rettung suchte und sie verzweifelt leckte, kaute, aussaugte, bis zum After hinauf, erschien mir die allgemeine Deutung jenes Gespräches ganz und gar falsch, ich verfluchte die kommentatorische Wissenschaft, ich verfluchte mich, der ich mich von ihr hatte irreführen lassen, das Gespräch enthielt ja, wie ein Kind erkennen mußte, freilich mehr als nur ein einziges Verbot des Hungerns, der erste Weise wollte das Hungern verbieten, was ein Weiser will, ist schon geschehen, das Hungern war also verboten, der zweite Weise stimmte ihm nicht nur zu, sondern hielt das Hungern sogar für unmöglich, wälzte also auf das erste Verbot noch ein zweites, das Verbot der Hundenatur selbst, der Erste erkannte dies an und hielt das ausdrückliche Verbot zurück, das heißt, er gebot den Hunden nach Darlegung alles dessen, Einsicht zu üben und sich selbst das Hungern zu verbieten. Also ein dreifaches Verbot statt des üblichen einen, und ich hatte es verletzt. Nun hätte ich ja wenigstens jetzt verspätet gehorchen und zu hungern aufhören können, aber mitten durch den Schmerz ging auch eine Verlockung weiter zu hungern, und ich folgte ihr lüstern, wie einem unbekannten Hund. Ich konnte nicht aufhören, vielleicht war ich auch schon zu schwach, um aufzustehen und in bewohnte Gegenden mich zu retten. Ich wälzte mich hin und her auf der Waldstreu, schlafen konnte ich nicht mehr, ich hörte überall Lärm, die während meines bisherigen Lebens schlafende Welt schien durch mein Hungern erwacht zu sein, ich bekam die Vorstellung, daß ich nie mehr werde fressen können, denn dadurch müßte ich die freigelassen lärmende Welt wieder zum Schweigen bringen, und das würde ich nicht imstande sein, den größten Lärm allerdings hörte ich in meinem Bauche, ich legte oft das Ohr an ihn und mußte entsetzte Augen gemacht haben, denn ich konnte kaum glauben, was ich hörte. Und da es nun zu arg wurde, schien der Taumel auch meine Natur zu ergreifen, sie machte sinnlose Rettungsversuche, ich begann Speisen zu riechen, auserlesene Speisen, die ich längst nicht mehr gegessen hatte, Freuden meiner Kindheit -, ja, ich roch den Duft der Brüste meiner Mutter -, ich vergaß meinen Entschluß, Gerüchen Widerstand leisten zu wollen, oder richtiger, ich vergaß ihn nicht; mit dem Entschluß, so als sei es ein Entschluß, der dazu gehöre, schleppte ich mich nach allen Seiten, immer nur ein paar Schritte und schnupperte, so als möchte ich die Speise nur, um mich vor ihr zu hüten. Daß ich nichts fand, enttäuschte mich nicht, die Speisen waren da, nur waren sie immer ein paar Schritte zu weit, die Beine knickten mir vorher ein. Gleichzeitig allerdings wußte ich, daß gar nichts da war, daß ich die kleinen Bewegungen nur machte aus Angst vor dem endgültigen Zusammenbrechen auf einem Platz, den ich nicht mehr verlassen würde. Die letzten Hoffnungen schwanden, die letzten Verlockungen, elend würde ich hier zugrunde gehen, was sollten meine Forschungen, kindliche Versuche aus kindlich glücklicher Zeit, hier und jetzt war Ernst, hier hätte die Forschung ihren Wert beweisen können, aber wo war sie? Hier war nur ein hilflos ins Leere schnappender Hund, der zwar noch krampfhaft eilig, ohne es zu wissen, immerfort den Boden besprengte, aber in seinem Gedächtnis aus dem ganzen Wust der Zaubersprüche nicht das Geringste mehr auftreiben konnte, nicht einmal das Verschen, mit dem sich die Neugeborenen unter ihre Mutter ducken. Es war mir, als sei ich hier nicht durch einen kurzen Lauf von den Brüdern getrennt, sondern unendlich weit fort von allen, und als stürbe ich eigentlich gar nicht durch Hunger, sondern infolge meiner Verlassenheit. Es war doch ersichtlich, daß sich niemand um mich kümmerte, niemand unter der Erde, niemand auf ihr, niemand in der Höhe, ich ging an ihrer Gleichgültigkeit zugrunde, ihre Gleichgültigkeit sagte: er stirbt, und so würde es geschehen. Und stimmte ich nicht bei? Sagte ich nicht das Gleiche? Hatte ich nicht diese Verlassenheit gewollt? Wohl, ihr Hunde, aber nicht um hier so zu enden, sondern um zur Wahrheit hinüber zu kommen, aus dieser Welt der Lüge, wo sich niemand findet, von dem man Wahrheit erfahren kann, auch von mir nicht, eingeborenem Bürger der Lüge. Vielleicht war die Wahrheit nicht allzuweit, und ich also nicht so verlassen, wie ich dachte, nicht von den anderen verlassen, nur von mir, der ich versagte und starb.
Doch man stirbt nicht so eilig, wie ein nervöser Hund glaubt. Ich fiel nur in Ohnmacht, und als ich aufwachte und die Augen erhob, stand ein fremder Hund vor mir. Ich fühlte keinen Hunger, ich war sehr kräftig, in den Gelenken federte es meiner Meinung nach, wenn ich auch keinen Versuch machte, es durch Aufstehen zu erproben. Ich sah an und für sich nicht mehr als sonst, ein schöner, aber nicht allzu ungewöhnlicher Hund stand vor mir, das sah ich, nichts anderes, und doch glaubte ich, mehr an ihm zu sehen als sonst. Unter mir lag Blut, im ersten Augenblick dachte ich, es sei Speise, ich merkte aber gleich, daß es Blut war, das ich ausgebrochen hatte. Ich wandte mich davon ab und dem fremden Hunde zu. Er war mager, hochbeinig, braun, hie und da weiß gefleckt und hatte einen schönen, starken forschenden Blick. »Was machst du hier?« sagte er. »Du mußt von hier fortgehen.« »Ich kann jetzt nicht fortgehen«, sagte ich, ohne weitere Erklärung, denn wie hätte ich ihm alles erklären sollen, auch schien er in Eile zu sein. »Bitte, geh fort«, sagte er, und hob unruhig ein Bein nach dem anderen. »Laß mich«, sagte ich, »geh und kümmere dich nicht um mich, die anderen kümmern sich auch nicht um mich.« »Ich bitte dich um deinetwillen«, sagte er. »Bitte mich aus welchem Grund du willst«, sagte ich. »Ich kann nicht gehen, selbst wenn ich wollte.« »Daran fehlt es nicht«, sagte er lächelnd. »Du kannst gehen. Eben weil du schwach zu sein scheinst, bitte ich dich, daß du jetzt langsam fortgehst, zögerst du, wirst du später laufen müssen.« »Laß das meine Sorge sein«, sagte ich. »Es ist auch meine, sagte er, traurig wegen meiner Hartnäckigkeit, und wollte nun offenbar mich aber vorläufig schon hier lassen, aber die Gelegenheit benützen und sich liebend an mich heranzumachen. Zu anderer Zeit hätte ich es gerne geduldet von dem Schönen, damals aber, ich begriff es nicht, faßte mich ein Entsetzen davor. »Weg!« schrie ich, um so lauter, als ich mich anders nicht verteidigen konnte. »Ich lasse dich ja«, sagte er langsam zurücktretend. »Du bist wunderbar. Gefalle ich dir denn nicht?« »Du wirst mir gefallen, wenn du fortgehst, und mich in Ruhe läßt«, sagte ich, aber ich war meiner nicht mehr so sicher, wie ich ihn glauben machen wollte. Irgendetwas sah oder hörte ich an ihm mit meinen durch das Hungern geschärften Sinnen, es war erst in den Anfängen, es wuchs, es näherte sich und ich wußte schon, dieser Hund hat allerdings die Macht dich fortzutreiben, wenn du dir jetzt auch noch nicht vorstellen kannst, wie du dich jemals wirst erheben können. Und ich sah ihn, der auf meine grobe Antwort nur sanft den Kopf geschüttelt hatte, mit immer größerer Begierde an. »Wer bist du?« fragte ich. »Ich bin ein Jäger«, sagte er. »Und warum willst du mich nicht hier lassen?« fragte ich. »Du störst mich«, sagte er, »ich kann nicht jagen, wenn du hier bist.« »Versuche es«, sagte ich, »vielleicht wirst du noch jagen können.« »Nein«, sagte er, »es tut mir leid, aber du mußt fort.« »Laß heute das Jagen!« bat ich. »Nein«, sagte er, »ich muß jagen.« »Ich muß fortgehen, du mußt jagen«, sagte ich, »lauter Müssen. Verstehst du es, warum wir müssen?« »Nein«, sagte er, »es ist daran aber auch nichts zu verstehen, es sind selbstverständliche, natürliche Dinge.« »Doch nicht«, sagte ich, »es tut dir ja leid, daß du mich verjagen mußt, und dennoch tust du es.« »So ist es«, sagte er. »So ist es«, wiederholte ich ärgerlich, »das ist keine Antwort. Welcher Verzicht fiele dir leichter, der Verzicht auf die Jagd oder darauf, mich wegzutreiben?« »Der Verzicht auf die Jagd«, sagte er ohne Zögern. »Nun also«, sagte ich, »hier ist doch ein Widerspruch.« »Was für ein Widerspruch denn?« sagte er, »du lieber kleiner Hund, verstehst du denn wirklich nicht, daß ich muß? Verstehst du denn das Selbstverständliche nicht?« Ich antwortete nichts mehr, denn ich merkte – und neues Leben durchfuhr mich dabei, Leben wie es der Schrekken gibt -, ich merkte an unfaßbaren Einzelheiten, die vielleicht niemand außer mir hätte merken können, daß der Hund aus der Tiefe der Brust zu einem Gesange anhob. »Du wirst singen«, sagte ich. »Ja«, sagte er ernst, »ich werde singen, bald, aber noch nicht.« »Du beginnst schon«, sagte ich. »Nein«, sagte er, »noch nicht. Aber mach dich bereit.« »Ich höre es schon, obwohl du es leugnest«, sagte ich zitternd. Er schwieg. Und ich glaubte damals, etwas zu erkennen, was kein Hund je vor mir erfahren hat, wenigstens findet sich in der Überlieferung nicht die leiseste Andeutung dessen, und ich versenkte eilig in unendlicher Angst und Scham das Gesicht in der Blutlache vor mir. Ich glaubte nämlich zu erkennen, daß der Hund schon sang, ohne es noch zu wissen, ja mehr noch, daß die Melodie, von ihm getrennt, nach eigenem Gesetz durch die Lüfte schwebte und über ihn hinweg, als gehöre er nicht dazu, nur nach mir, nach mir hin zielte. – Heute leugne ich natürlich alle derartigen Erkenntnisse und schreibe sie meiner damaligen Überreiztheit zu, aber wenn es auch ein Irrtum war, so hat er doch eine gewisse Großartigkeit, ist die einzige, wenn auch nur scheinbare Wirklichkeit, die ich aus der Hungerzeit in diese Welt herübergerettet habe, und sie zeigt zumindest, wie weit bei völligem Außer-sich-sein wir gelangen können. Und ich war wirklich völlig außer mir. Unter gewöhnlichen Umständen wäre ich schwerkrank gewesen, unfähig, mich zu rühren, aber der Melodie, die nun bald der Hund als die seine zu übernehmen schien, konnte ich nicht widerstehen. Immer stärker wurde sie: ihr Wachsen hatte vielleicht keine Grenzen und schon jetzt sprengte sie mir fast das Gehör. Das Schlimmste aber war, daß sie nur meinetwegen vorhanden zu sein schien, diese Stimme, vor deren Erhabenheit der Wald verstummte, nur meinetwegen; wer war ich, der ich noch immer hier zu bleiben wagte und mich vor ihr breitmachte in meinem Schmutz und Blut? Schlotternd erhob ich mich, sah an mir hinab; so etwas wird doch nicht laufen, dachte ich noch, aber schon flog ich, von der Melodie gejagt, in den herrlichsten Sprüngen dahin. Meinen Freunden erzählte ich nichts, gleich bei meiner Ankunft hätte ich wahrscheinlich alles erzählt, aber da war ich zu schwach, später schien es mir wieder nicht mitteilbar. Andeutungen, die zu unterdrücken ich mich nicht bezwingen konnte, verloren sich spurlos in den Gesprächen. Körperlich erholte ich mich übrigens in wenigen Stunden, geistig trage ich noch heute die Folgen.
Meine Forschungen aber erweiterte ich auf die Musik der Hunde. Die Wissenschaft war gewiß auch hier nicht untätig, die Wissenschaft von der Musik ist, wenn ich gut berichtet bin, vielleicht noch umfangreicher als jene von der Nahrung, und jedenfalls fester begründet. Es ist das dadurch zu erklären, daß auf diesem Gebiet leidenschaftsloser gearbeitet werden kann als auf jenem, und daß es sich hier mehr um bloße Beobachtungen und Systematisierungen handelt, dort dagegen vor allem um praktische Folgerungen. Damit hängt zusammen, daß der Respekt vor der Musikwissenschaft größer ist als vor der Nahrungswissenschaft, die erstere aber niemals so tief ins Volk eindringen konnte wie die zweite. Auch ich stand der Musikwissenschaft, ehe ich die Stimme im Wald gehört hatte, fremder gegenüber als irgendeiner anderen. Zwar hatte mich schon das Erlebnis mit den Musikhunden auf sie hingewiesen, aber ich war damals noch zu jung. Auch ist es nicht leicht, an diese Wissenschaft auch nur heranzukommen, sie gilt als besonders schwierig und schließt sich vornehm gegen die Menge ab. Auch war zwar die Musik bei jenen Hunden das zunächst Auffallendste gewesen, aber wichtiger als die Musik schien mir ihr verschwiegenes Hundewesen, für ihre schreckliche Musik fand ich vielleicht überhaupt keine Ähnlichkeit anderswo, ich konnte sie eher vernachlässigen, aber ihr Wesen begegnete mir von damals an in allen Hunden überall. In das Wesen der Hunde einzudringen, schienen mir aber Forschungen über die Nahrung am geeignetsten und ohne Umweg zum Ziele führend. Vielleicht hatte ich darin Unrecht. Ein Grenzgebiet der beiden Wissenschaften lenkte allerdings schon damals meinen Verdacht auf sich. Es ist die Lehre von dem die Nahrung herabrufenden Gesang. Wieder ist es hier für mich sehr störend, daß ich auch in die Musikwissenschaft niemals ernstlich eingedrungen bin und mich in dieser Hinsicht bei weitem nicht einmal zu den von der Wissenschaft immer besonders verachteten Halbgebildeten rechnen kann. Dies muß mir immer gegenwärtig bleiben. Vor einem Gelehrten würde ich, ich habe leider dafür Beweise, auch in der leichtesten wissenschaftlichen Prüfung sehr schlecht bestehen. Das hat natürlich, von den schon erwähnten Lebensumständen abgesehen, seinen Grund zunächst in meiner wissenschaftlichen Unfähigkeit, geringer Denkkraft, schlechtem Gedächtnis und vor allem in dem Außerstandesein, das wissenschaftliche Ziel mir immer vor Augen zu halten. Das alles gestehe ich mir offen ein, sogar mit einer gewissen Freude. Denn der tiefere Grund meiner wissenschaftlichen Unfähigkeit scheint mir ein Instinkt und wahrlich kein schlechter Instinkt zu sein. Wenn ich bramarbasieren wollte, könnte ich sagen, daß gerade dieser Instinkt meine wissenschaftlichen Fähigkeiten zerstört hat, denn es wäre doch eine zumindest sehr merkwürdige Erscheinung, daß ich, der ich in den gewöhnlichen täglichen Lebensdingen, die gewiß nicht die einfachsten sind, einen erträglichen Verstand zeige, und vor allem, wenn auch nicht die Wissenschaft so doch die Gelehrten sehr gut verstehe, was an meinen Resultaten nachprüfbar ist, von vornherein unfähig gewesen sein sollte, die Pfote auch nur zur ersten Stufe der Wissenschaft zu erheben. Es war der Instinkt, der mich vielleicht gerade um der Wissenschaft willen, aber einer anderen Wissenschaft als sie heute geübt wird, einer allerletzten Wissenschaft, die Freiheit höher schätzen ließ als alles andere. Die Freiheit! Freilich, die Freiheit, wie sie heute möglich ist, ist ein kümmerliches Gewächs. Aber immerhin Freiheit, immerhin ein Besitz. –
Franz Kafka
(1883-1924)
Forschungen eines Hundes
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Franz Kafka, Kafka, Franz, Kafka, Franz, Natural history
The Memento
by O. Henry
Miss Lynnette D’Armande turned her back on Broadway. This was but tit for tat, because Broadway had often done the same thing to Miss D’Armande. Still, the “tats” seemed to have it, for the ex-leading lady of the “Reaping the Whirlwind” Company had everything to ask of Broadway, while there was no vice versa.
So Miss Lynnette D’Armande turned the back of her chair to her window that overlooked Broadway, and sat down to stitch in time the lisle-thread heel of a black silk stocking. The tumult and glitter of the roaring Broadway beneath her window had no charm for her; what she greatly desired was the stifling air of a dressing-room on that fairyland street and the roar of an audience gathered in that capricious quarter. In the meantime, those stockings must not be neglected. Silk does wear out so, but—after all, isn’t it just the only goods there is?
The Hotel Thalia looks on Broadway as Marathon looks on the sea. It stands like a gloomy cliff above the whirlpool where the tides of two great thoroughfares clash. Here the player-bands gather at the end of their wanderings, to loosen the buskin and dust the sock. Thick in the streets around it are booking- offices, theatres, agents, schools, and the lobster-palaces to which those thorny paths lead.
Wandering through the eccentric halls of the dim and fusty Thalia, you seem to have found yourself in some great ark or caravan about to sail, or fly, or roll away on wheels. About the house lingers a sense of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of anxiety and apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth. Without a guide you wander like a lost soul in a Sam Loyd puzzle.
Turning any corner, a dressing-sack or a cul-de-sac may bring you up short. You meet alarming tragedians stalking in bath-robes in search of rumoured bath-rooms. From hundreds of rooms come the buzz of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the ready laughter of the convened players.
Summer has come; their companies have disbanded, and they take their rest in their favourite caravansary, while they besiege the managers for engagements for the coming season.
At this hour of the afternoon the day’s work of tramping the rounds of the agents’ offices is over. Past you, as you ramble distractedly through the mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled, starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things, and a swish of silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odour of gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young comedians, with versatile Adam’s apples, gather in doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from somewhere comes the smell of ham and red cabbage, and the crash of dishes on the American plan.
The indeterminate hum of life in the Thalia is enlivened by the discreet popping—at reasonable and salubrious intervals—of beer-bottle corks. Thus punctuated, life in the genial hostel scans easily—the comma being the favourite mark, semicolons frowned upon, and periods barred.
Miss D’Armande’s room was a small one. There was room for her rocker between the dresser and the wash-stand if it were placed longitudinally. On the dresser were its usual accoutrements, plus the ex- leading lady’s collected souvenirs of road engagements and photographs of her dearest and best professional friends.
At one of these photographs she looked twice or thrice as she darned, and smiled friendlily.
“I’d like to know where Lee is just this minute,” she said, half-aloud.
If you had been privileged to view the photograph thus flattered, you would have thought at the first glance that you saw the picture of a many-petalled, white flower, blown through the air by a storm. But the floral kingdom was not responsible for that swirl of petalous whiteness.
You saw the filmy, brief skirt of Miss Rosalie Ray as she made a complete heels-over-head turn in her wistaria-entwined swing, far out from the stage, high above the heads of the audience. You saw the
O. Henry
(1862 – 1910)
The Memento
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Henry, O.
Oscar Wilde
(1854 – 1900)
The Doer of Good
It was night-time and He was alone.
And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and went towards the city.
And when He came near He heard within the city the tread of the feet of joy, and the laughter of the mouth of gladness and the loud noise of many lutes. And He knocked at the gate and certain of the gatekeepers opened to Him.
And He beheld a house that was of marble and had fair pillars of marble before it. The pillars were hung with garlands, and within and without there were torches of cedar. And He entered the house.
And when He had passed through the hall of chalcedony and the hall of jasper, and reached the long hall of feasting, He saw lying on a couch of sea-purple one whose hair was crowned with red roses and whose lips were red with wine.
And He went behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said to him, ‘Why do you live like this?’
And the young man turned round and recognised Him, and made answer and said, ‘But I was a leper once, and you healed me. How else should I live?’
And He passed out of the house and went again into the street.
And after a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came, slowly as a hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours. Now the face of the woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the eyes of the young man were bright with lust.
And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and said to him, ‘Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?’
And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, ‘But I was blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I look?’
And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman and said to her, ‘Is there no other way in which to walk save the way of sin?’
And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and said, ‘But you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way.
And He passed out of the city.
And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the roadside a young man who was weeping.
And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and said to him, ‘Why are you weeping?’
And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer, ‘But I was dead once and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?’
Oscar Wilde, 1894
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive W-X, Wilde, Oscar, Wilde, Oscar
The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Holmes had read carefully a note which the last post had brought him. Then, with the dry chuckle which was his nearest approach to a laugh, he tossed it over to me.
“For a mixture of the modern and the medieval, of the practical and of the wildly fanciful, I think this is surely the limit,” said he. “What do you make of it, Watson?”
I read as follows:
46, OLD JEWRY,
Nov. 19th.
Re Vampires
SIR:
Our client, Mr. Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and
Muirhead, tea brokers, of Mincing Lane, has made some
inquiry from us in a communication of even date concerning
vampires. As our firm specializes entirely upon the as
sessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our
purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr. Fergu
son to call upon you and lay the matter before you. We
have not forgotten your successful action in the case of
Matilda Briggs.
We are, sir,
Faithfully yours,
MORRISON, MORRISON, AND DODD.
per E. J. C.
“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared. But what do we know about vampires? Does it come within our purview either? Anything is better than stagnation, but really we seem to have been switched on to a Grimms’ fairy tale. Make a long arm, Watson, and see what V has to say.”
I leaned back and took down the great index volume to which he referred. Holmes balanced it on his knee, and his eyes moved slowly and lovingly over the record of old cases, mixed with the accumulated information of a lifetime.
“Voyage of the Gloria Scott,” he read. “That was a bad business. I have some recollection that you made a record of it, Watson, though I was unable to congratulate you upon the result. Victor Lynch, the forger. Venomous lizard or gila. Remarkable case, that! Vittoria, the circus belle. Vanderbilt and the Yeggman. Vipers. Vigor, the Hammersmith wonder. Hullo! Hullo! Good old index. You can’t beat it. Listen to this, Watson. Vampirism in Hungary. And again, Vampires in Transylvania.” He turned over the pages with eagerness, but after a short intent perusal he threw down the great book with a snarl of disappointment.
“Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with walking corpses who can only be held in their grave by stakes driven through their hearts? It’s pure lunacy.”
“But surely,” said I, “the vampire was not necessarily a dead man? A living person might have the habit. I have read, for example, of the old sucking the blood of the young in order to retain their youth.”
“You are right, Watson. It mentions the legend in one of these references. But are we to give serious attention to such things? This agency stands flat-footed upon the ground, and there it must remain. The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply. I fear that we cannot take Mr. Robert Ferguson very seriously. Possibly this note may be from him and may throw some light upon what is worrying him.”
He took up a second letter which had lain unnoticed upon the table while he had been absorbed with the first. This he began to read with a smile of amusement upon his face which gradually faded away into an expression of intense interest and concentration. When he had finished he sat for some little time lost in thought with the letter dangling from his fingers. Finally, with a start, he aroused himself from his reverie.
“Cheeseman’s, Lamberley. Where is Lamberley, Watson?”
“lt is in Sussex, South of Horsham.”
“Not very far, eh? And Cheeseman’s?”
“I know that country, Holmes. It is full of old houses which are named after the men who built them centuries ago. You get Odley’s and Harvey’s and Carriton’s — the folk are forgotten but their names live in their houses.”
“Precisely,” said Holmes coldly. It was one of the peculiarities of his proud, self-contained nature that though he docketed any fresh information very quietly and accurately in his brain, he seldom made any acknowledgment to the giver. “I rather fancy we shall know a good deal more about Cheeseman’s, Lamberley, before we are through. The letter is, as I had hoped, from Robert Ferguson. By the way, he claims acquaintance with you.”
“With me!”
“You had better read it.”
He handed the letter across. It was headed with the address quoted.
DEAR MR HOLMES [it said]:
I have been recommended to you by my lawyers, but
indeed the matter is so extraordinarily delicate that it is most
difficult to discuss. It concerns a friend for whom I am
acting. This gentleman married some five years ago a Peruvian
lady the daughter of a Peruvian merchant, whom he had
met in connection with the importation of nitrates. The lady
was very beautiful, but the fact of her foreign birth and of
her alien religion always caused a separation of interests and
of feelings between husband and wife, so that after a time
his love may have cooled towards her and he may have
come to regard their union as a mistake. He felt there were
sides of her character which he could never explore or
understand. This was the more painful as she was as loving
a wife as a man could have — to all appearance absolutely
devoted.
Now for the point which I will make more plain when we
meet. Indeed, this note is merely to give you a general idea
of the situation and to ascertain whether you would care to
interest yourself in the matter. The lady began to show
some curious traits quite alien to her ordinarily sweet and
gentle disposition. The gentleman had been married twice
and he had one son by the first wife. This boy was now
fifteen, a very charming and affectionate youth, though
unhappily injured through an accident in childhood. Twice
the wife was caught in the act of assaulting this poor lad in
the most unprovoked way. Once she struck him with a stick
and left a great weal on his arm.
This was a small matter, however, compared with her
conduct to her own child, a dear boy just under one year of
age. On one occasion about a month ago this child had
been left by its nurse for a few minutes. A loud cry from the
baby, as of pain, called the nurse back. As she ran into the
room she saw her employer, the lady, leaning over the baby
and apparently biting his neck. There was a small wound in
the neck from which a stream of blood had escaped. The
nurse was so horrified that she wished to call the husband,
but the lady implored her not to do so and actually gave her
five pounds as a price for her silence. No explanation was
ever given, and for the moment the matter was passed over.
It left, however, a terrible impression upon the nurse’s
mind, and from that time she began to watch her mistress
closely and to keep a closer guard upon the baby, whom she
tenderly loved. It seemed to her that even as she watched
the mother, so the mother watched her, and that every time
she was compelled to leave the baby alone the mother was
waiting to get at it. Day and night the nurse covered the
child, and day and night the silent, watchful mother seemed
to be lying in wait as a wolf waits for a lamb. It must read
most incredible to you, and yet I beg you to take it seri
ously, for a child’s life and a man’s sanity may depend
upon it.
At last there came one dreadful day when the facts could
no longer be concealed from the husband. The nurse’s nerve
had given way; she could stand the strain no longer, and
she made a clean breast of it all to the man. To him it
seemed as wild a tale as it may now seem to you.He knew
his wife to be a loving wife, and, save for the assaults
upon her stepson, a loving mother. Why, then, should
she wound her own dear little baby? He told the nurse that
she was dreaming, that her suspicions were those of a
lunatic, and that such libels upon her mistress were not to be
tolerated. While they were talking a sudden cry of pain was
heard. Nurse and master rushed together to the nursery.
Imagine his feelings, Mr. Holmes, as he saw his wife rise
from a kneeling position beside the cot and saw blood upon
the child’s exposed neck and upon the sheet. With a cry of
horror, he turned his wife’s face to the light and saw blood
all round her lips. It was she — she beyond all question –
who had drunk the poor baby’s blood.
So the matter stands. She is now confined to her room.
There has been no explanation. The husband is half de
mented. He knows, and I know, little of vampirism beyond
the name. We had thought it was some wild tale of foreign
parts. And yet here in the very heart of the English Sussex –
well, all this can be discussed with you in the morning. Will
you see me? Will you use your great powers in aiding a
distracted man? If so, kindly wire to Ferguson, Cheeseman’s,
Lamberley, and I will be at your rooms by ten o’clock.
Yours faithfully,
ROBERT FERGUSON
P. S. I believe your friend Watson played Rugby for
Blackheath when I was three-quarter for Richmond. It is the
only personal introduction which I can give.
“Of course I remembered him,” said I as I laid down the letter. “Big Bob Ferguson, the finest three-quarter Richmond ever had. He was always a good-natured chap. It’s like him to be so concerned over a friend’s case.”
Holmes looked at me thoughtfully and shook his head.
“I never get your limits, Watson,” said he. “There are unexplored possibilities about you. Take a wire down, like a good fellow. ‘Will examine your case with pleasure.’ “
“Your case!”
“We must not let him think that this agency is a home for the weak-minded. Of course it is his case. Send him that wire and let the matter rest till morning.”
Promptly at ten o’clock next morning Ferguson strode into our room. I had remembered him as a long, slab-sided man with loose limbs and a fine turn of speed which had carried him round many an opposing back. There is surely nothing in life more painful than to meet the wreck of a fine athlete whom one has known in his prime. His great frame had fallen in, his flaxen hair was scanty, and his shoulders were bowed. I fear that I roused corresponding emotions in him.
“Hullo, Watson,” said he, and his voice was still deep and hearty. “You don’t look quite the man you did when I threw you over the ropes into the crowd at the Old Deer Park. I expect I have changed a bit also. But it’s this last day or two that has aged me. I see by your telegram, Mr. Holmes, that it is no use my pretending to be anyone’s deputy.” .
“It is simpler to deal direct,” said Holmes.
“Of course it is. But you can imagine how difficult it is when you are speaking of the one woman whom you are bound to protect and help. What can I do? How am I to go to the police with such a story? And yet the kiddies have got to be protected. Is it madness, Mr. Holmes? Is it something in the blood? Have you any similar case in your experience? For God’s sake, give me some advice, for I am at my wit’s end.”
“Very naturally, Mr. Ferguson. Now sit here and pull yourself together and give me a few clear answers. I can assure you that I am very far from being at my wit’s end, and that I am confident we shall find some solution. First of all, tell me what steps you have taken. Is your wife still near the children?”
“We had a dreadful scene. She is a most loving woman, Mr. Holmes. If ever a woman loved a man with all her heart and soul, she loves me. She was cut to the heart that I should have discovered this horrible, this incredible, secret. She would not even speak. She gave no answer to my reproaches, save to gaze at me with a sort of wild, despairing look in her eyes. Then she rushed to her room and locked herself in. Since then she has refused to see me. She has a maid who was with her before her marriage, Dolores by name — a friend rather than a servant. She takes her food to her.”
“Then the child is in no immediate danger?”
“Mrs. Mason, the nurse, has sworn that she will not leave it night or day. I can absolutely trust her. I am more uneasy about poor little Jack, for, as I told you in my note, he has twice been assaulted by her.”
“But never wounded?”
“No, she struck him savagely. It is the more terrible as he is a poor little inoffensive cripple.” Ferguson’s gaunt features softened as he spoke of his boy. “You would think that the dear lad’s condition would soften anyone’s heart. A fall in childhood and a twisted spine, Mr. Holmes. But the dearest, most loving heart within.”
Holmes had picked up the letter of yesterday and was reading it over. “What other inmates are there in your house, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Two servants who have not been long with us. One stablehand, Michael, who sleeps in the house. My wife, myself, my boy Jack, baby, Dolores, and Mrs. Mason. That is all.”
“I gather that you did not know your wife well at the time of your marriage?”
“I had only known her a few weeks.”
“How long had this maid Dolores been with her?”
“Some years.”
“Then your wife’s character would really be better known by Dolores than by you?”
“Yes, you may say so.”
Holmes made a note.
“I fancy,” said he, “that I may be of more use at Lamberley than here. It is eminently a case for personal investigation. If the lady remains in her room, our presence could not annoy or inconvenience her. Of course, we would stay at the inn.”
Ferguson gave a gesture of relief.
“It is what I hoped, Mr. Holmes. There is an excellent train at two from Victoria if you could come.”
“Of course we could come. There is a lull at present. I can give you my undivided energies. Watson, of course, comes with us. But there are one or two points upon which I wish to be very sure before I start. This unhappy lady, as I understand it, has appeared to assault both the children, her own baby and your little son?”
“That is so.”
“But the assaults take different forms, do they not? She has beaten your son.”
“Once with a stick and once very savagely with her hands.”
“Did she give no explanation why she struck him?”
“None save that she hated him. Again and again she said so.”
“Well, that is not unknown among stepmothers. A posthumous jealousy, we will say. Is the lady jealous by nature?”
“Yes, she is very jealous — jealous with all the strength of her fiery tropical love.”
“But the boy — he is fifteen, I understand, and probably very developed in mind, since his body has been circumscribed in action. Did he give you no explanation of these assaults?”
“No, he declared there was no reason.”
“Were they good friends at other times?”
“No, there was never any love between them.”
“Yet you say he is affectionate?”
“Never in the world could there be so devoted a son. My life is his life. He is absorbed in what I say or do.”
Once again Holmes made a note. For some time he sat lost in thought.
“No doubt you and the boy were great comrades before this second marriage. You were thrown very close together, were you not?”
“Very much so.”
“And the boy, having so affectionate a nature, was devoted, no doubt, to the memory of his mother?”
“Most devoted.”
“He would certainly seem to be a most interesting lad. There is one other point about these assaults. Were the strange attacks upon the baby and the assaults upon yow son at the same period?”
“In the first case it was so. It was as if some frenzy had seized her, and she had vented her rage upon both. In the second case it was only Jack who suffered. Mrs. Mason had no complaint to make about the baby.”
“That certainly complicates matters.”
“I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Holmes.”
“Possibly not. One forms provisional theories and waits for time or fuller knowledge to explode them. A bad habit, Mr. Ferguson, but human nature is weak. I fear that your old friend here has given an exaggerated view of my scientific methods. However, I will only say at the present stage that your problem does not appear to me to be insoluble, and that you may expect to find us at Victoria at two o’clock.”
It was evening of a dull, foggy November day when, having left our bags at the Chequers, Lamberley, we drove through the Sussex clay of a long winding lane and finally reached the isolated and ancient farmhouse in which Ferguson dwelt. It was a large, straggling building, very old in the centre, very new at the wings with towering Tudor chimneys and a lichen-spotted, high-pitched roof of Horsham slabs. The doorsteps were worn into curves, and the ancient tiles which lined the porch were marked with the rebus of a cheese and a man after the original builder. Within, the ceilings were corrugated with heavy oaken beams, and the uneven floors sagged into sharp curves. An odour of age and decay pervaded the whole crumbling building.
There was one very large central room into which Ferguson led us. Here, in a huge old-fashioned fireplace with an iron screen behind it dated 1670, there blazed and spluttered a splendid log fire.
The room, as I gazed round, was a most singular mixture of dates and of places. The half-panelled walls may well have belonged to the original yeoman farmer of the seventeenth century. They were ornamented, however, on the lower part by a line of well-chosen modern water-colours; while above, where yellow plaster took the place of oak, there was hung a fine collection of South American utensils and weapons, which had been brought, no doubt, by the Peruvian lady upstairs. Holmes rose, with that quick curiosity which sprang from his eager mind, and examined them with some care. He returned with his eyes full of thought.
“Hullo!” he cried. “Hullo!”
A spaniel had lain in a basket in the corner. It came slowly forward towards its master, walking with difficulty. Its hind legs moved irregularly and its tail was on the ground. It licked Ferguson’s hand.
“What is it, Mr. Holmes?”
“The dog. What’s the matter with it?”
“That’s what puzzled the vet. A sort of paralysis. Spinal meningitis, he thought. But it is passing. He’ll be all right soon — won’t you, Carlo?”
A shiver of assent passed through the drooping tail. The dog’s mournful eyes passed from one of us to the other. He knew that we were discussing his case.
“Did it come on suddenly?”
“In a single night.”
“How long ago?”
“It may have been four months ago.”
“Very remarkable. Very suggestive.”
“What do you see in it, Mr. Holmes?”
“A confirmation of what I had already thought.”
“For God’s sake, what do you think, Mr. Holmes? It may be a mere intellectual puzzle to you, but it is life and death to me! My wife a would-be murderer — my child in constant danger! Don’t play with me, Mr. Holmes. It is too terribly serious.”
The big Rugby three-quarter was trembling all over. Holmes put his hand soothingly upon his arm.
“I fear that there is pain for you, Mr. Ferguson, whatever the solution may be,” said he. “I would spare you all I can. I cannot say more for the instant, but before I leave this house I hope I may have something definite.”
“Please God you may! If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I will go up to my wife’s room and see if there has been any change.”
He was away some minutes, during which Holmes resumed his examination of the curiosities upon the wall. When our host returned it was clear from his downcast face that he had made no progress. He brought with him a tall, slim, brown-faced girl.
“The tea is ready, Dolores,” said Ferguson. “See that your mistress has everything she can wish.”
“She verra ill,” cried the girl, looking with indignant eyes at her master. “She no ask for food. She verra ill. She need doctor. I frightened stay alone with her without doctor.”
Ferguson looked at me with a question in his eyes.
“I should be so glad if I could be of use.”
“Would your mistress see Dr. Watson?”
“I take him. I no ask leave. She needs doctor.”
“Then I’ll come with you at once.”
I followed the girl, who was quivering with strong emotion, up the staircase and down an ancient corridor. At the end was an iron-clamped and massive door. It struck me as I looked at it that if Ferguson tried to force his way to his wife he would find it no easy matter. The girl drew a key from her pocket, and the heavy oaken planks creaked upon their old hinges. I passed in and she swiftly followed, fastening the door behind her.
On the bed a woman was lying who was clearly in a high fever. She was only half conscious, but as I entered she raised a pair of frightened but beautiful eyes and glared at me in apprehension. Seeing a stranger, she appeared to be relieved and sank back with a sigh upon the pillow. I stepped up to her with a few reassuring words, and she lay still while I took her pulse and temperature. Both were high, and yet my impression was that the condition was rather that of mental and nervous excitement than of any actual seizure.
“She lie like that one day, two day. I ‘fraid she die,” said the girl.
The woman turned her flushed and handsome face towards me.
“Where is my husband?”
“He is below and would wish to see you.”
“I will not see him. I will not see him.” Then she seemed to wander off into delirium. “A fiend! A fiend! Oh, what shall I do with this devil?”
“Can I help you in any way?”
“No. No one can help. It is finished. All is destroyed. Do what I will, all is destroyed.”
The woman must have some strange delusion. I could not see honest Bob Ferguson in the character of fiend or devil.
“Madame,” I said, “your husband loves you dearly. He is deeply grieved at this happening.”
Again she turned on me those glorious eyes.
“He loves me. Yes. But do I not love him? Do I not love him even to sacrifice myself rather than break his dear heart? That is how I love him. And yet he could think of me — he could speak of me so.”
“He is full of grief, but he cannot understand.”
“No, he cannot understand. But he should trust.”
“Will you not see him?” I suggested.
“No, no, I cannot forget those terrible words nor the look upon his face. I will not see him. Go now. You can do nothing for me. Tell him only one thing. I want my child. I have a right to my child. That is the only message I can send him.” She turned her face to the wall and would say no more.
I returned to the room downstairs, where Ferguson and Holmes still sat by the fire. Ferguson listened moodily to my account of the interview.
“How can I send her the child?” he said. “How do I know what strange impulse might come upon her? How can I ever forget how she rose from beside it with its blood upon her lips?” He shuddered at the recollection. “The child is safe with Mrs. Mason, and there he must remain.”
A smart maid, the only modern thing which we had seen in the house, had brought in some tea. As she was serving it the door opened and a youth entered the room. He was a remarkable lad, pale-faced and fair-haired, with excitable light blue eyes which blazed into a sudden flame of emotion and joy as they rested upon his father. He rushed forward and threw his arms round his neck with the abandon of a loving girl.
“Oh, daddy,” he cried, “I did not know that you were due yet. I should have been here to meet you. Oh, I am so glad to see you!”
Ferguson gently disengaged himself from the embrace with some little show of embarrassment.
“Dear old chap,” said he, patting the flaxen head with a very tender hand. “I came early because my friends, Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, have been persuaded to come down and spend an evening with us.”
“Is that Mr. Holmes, the detective?”
“Yes.”
The youth looked at us with a very penetrating and, as it seemed to me, unfriendly gaze.
“What about your other child, Mr. Ferguson?” asked Holmes. “Might we make the acquaintance of the baby?”
“Ask Mrs. Mason to bring baby down,” said Ferguson. The boy went off with a curious, shambling gait which told my surgical eyes that he was suffering from a weak spine. Presently he returned, and behind him came a tall, gaunt woman bearing in her arms a very beautiful child, dark-eyed, golden-haired, a wonderful mixture of the Saxon and the Latin. Ferguson was evidently devoted to it, for he took it into his arms and fondled it most tenderly.
“Fancy anyone having the heart to hurt him,” he muttered as he glanced down at the small, angry red pucker upon the cherub throat.
It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Holmes and saw a most singular intentness in his expression. His face was as set as if it had been carved out of old ivory, and his eyes, which had glanced for a moment at father and child, were now fixed with eager curiosity upon something at the other side of the room. Following his gaze I could only guess that he was looking out through the window at the melancholy, dripping garden. It is true that a shutter had half closed outside and obstructed the view, but none the less it was certainly at the window that Holmes was fixing his concentrated attention. Then he smiled, and his eyes came back to the baby. On its chubby neck there was this small puckered mark. Without speaking, Holmes examined it with care. Finally he shook one of the dimpled fists which waved in front of him.
“Good-bye, little man. You have made a strange start in life. Nurse, I should wish to have a word with you in private.”
He took her aside and spoke earnestly for a few minutes. I only heard the last words, which were: “Your anxiety will soon, I hope, be set at rest.” The woman, who seemed to be a sour, silent kind of creature, withdrew with the child.
“What is Mrs. Mason like?” asked Holmes.
“Not very prepossessing externally, as you can see, but a heart of gold, and devoted to the child.”
“Do you like her, Jack?” Holmes turned suddenly upon the boy. His expressive mobile face shadowed over, and he shook his head.
“Jacky has very strong likes and dislikes,” said Ferguson, putting his arm round the boy. “Luckily I am one of his likes.”
The boy cooed and nestled his head upon his father’s breast. Ferguson gently disengaged him.
“Run away, little Jacky,” said he, and he watched his son with loving eyes until he disappeared. “Now, Mr. Holmes,” he continued when the boy was gone, “I really feel that I have brought you on a fool’s errand, for what can you possibly do save give me your sympathy? It must be an exceedingly delicate and complex affair from your point of view.”
“It is certainly delicate,” said my friend with an amused smile, “but I have not been struck up to now with its complexity. It has been a case for intellectual deduction, but when this original intellectual deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent incidents, then the subjective becomes objective and we can say confidently that we have reached our goal. I had, in fact, reached it before we left Baker Street, and the rest has merely been observation and confirmation.”
Ferguson put his big hand to his furrowed forehead.
“For heaven’s sake, Holmes,” he said hoarsely; “if you can see the truth in this matter, do not keep me in suspense. How do I stand? What shall I do? I care nothing as to how you have found your facts so long as you have really got them.”
“Certainly I owe you an explanation, and you shall have it. But you will permit me to handle the matter in my own way? Is the lady capable of seeing us, Watson?”
“She is ill, but she is quite rational.”
“Very good. It is only in her presence that we can clear the matter up. Let us go up to her.”
“She will not see me,” cried Ferguson.
“Oh, yes, she will,” said Holmes. He scribbled a few lines upon a sheet of paper.”You at least have the entree, Watson. Will you have the goodness to give the lady this note?”
I ascended again and handed the note to Dolores, who cautiously opened the door. A minute later I heard a cry from within, a cry in which joy and surprise seemed to be blended. Dolores looked out.
“She will see them. She will leesten,” said she.
At my summons Ferguson and Holmes came up. As we entered the room Ferguson took a step or two towards his wife, who had raised herself in the bed, but she held out her hand to repulse him. He sank into an armchair, while Holmes seated himself beside him, after bowing to the lady, who looked at him with wide-eyed amazement.
“I think we can dispense with Dolores,” said Holmes. “Oh, very well, madame, if you would rather she stayed I can see no objection. Now, Mr. Ferguson, I am a busy man wlth many calls, and my methods have to be short and direct. The swiftest surgery is the least painful. Let me first say what will ease your mind. Your wife is a very good, a very loving, and a very ill-used woman.”
Ferguson sat up with a cry of joy.
“Prove that, Mr. Holmes, and I am your debtor forever.”
“I will do so, but in doing so I must wound you deeply in another direction.”
“I care nothing so long as you clear my wife. Everything on earth is insignificant compared to that.”
“Let me tell you, then, the train of reasoning which passed through my mind in Baker Street. The idea of a vampire was to me absurd. Such things do not happen in criminal practice in England. And yet your observation was precise. You had seen the lady rise from beside the child’s cot with the blood upon her lips.”
“I did.”
“Did it not occur to you that a bleeding wound may be sucked for some other purpose than to draw the blood from it? Was there not a queen in English history who sucked such a wound to draw poison from it?”
“Poison!”
“A South American household. My instinct felt the presence of those weapons upon the wall before my eyes ever saw them. It might have been other poison, but that was what occurred to me. When I saw that little empty quiver beside the small birdbow, it was just what I expected to see. If the child were pricked with one of those arrows dipped in curare or some other devilish drug, it would mean death if the venom were not sucked out.
“And the dog! If one were to use such a poison, would one not try it first in order to see that it had not lost its power? I did not foresee the dog, but at least I understand him and he fitted into my reconstruction.
“Now do you understand? Your wife feared such an attack. She saw it made and saved the child’s life, and yet she shrank from telling you all the truth, for she knew how you loved the boy and feared lest it break your heart.”
“Jacky!”
“I watched him as you fondled the child just now. His face was clearly reflected in the glass of the window where the shutter formed a background. I saw such jealousy, such cruel hatred, as I have seldom seen in a human face.”
“My Jacky!”
“You have to face it, Mr. Ferguson. It is the more painful because it is a distorted love, a maniacal exaggerated love for you, and possibly for his dead mother, which has prompted his action. His very soul is consumed with hatred for this splendid child, whose health and beauty are a contrast to his own weakness.”
“Good God! It is incredible!”
“Have I spoken the truth, madame?”
The lady was sobbing, with her face buried in the pillows. Now she turned to her husband.
“How could I tell you, Bob? I felt the blow it would be to you. It was better that I should wait and that it should come from some other lips than mine. When this gentleman, who seems to have powers of magic, wrote that he knew all, I was glad.”
“I think a year at sea would be my prescription for Master Jacky,” said Holmes, rising from his chair. “Only one thing is still clouded, madame. We can quite understand your attacks upon Master Jacky. There is a limit to a mother’s patience. But how did you dare to leave the child these last two days?”
“I had told Mrs. Mason. She knew.”
“Exactly. So I imagined.”
Ferguson was standing by the bed, choking, his hands outstretched and quivering.
“This, I fancy, is the time for our exit, Watson,” said Holmes in a whisper. “If you will take one elbow of the too faithful Dolores, I will take the other. There, now,” he added as he closed the door behind him, “I think we may leave them to settle the rest among themselves.”
I have only one further note of this case. It is the letter which Holmes wrote in final answer to that with which the narrative begins. It ran thus:
BAKER STREET,
Nov. 21st.
Re Vampires
SIR:
Referring to your letter of the 19th, I beg to state that I
have looked into the inquiry of your client, Mr. Robert
Ferguson, of Ferguson and Muirhead, tea brokers, of Minc
ing Lane, and that the matter has been brought to a satisfac
tory conclusion. With thanks for your recommendation, I
am, sir,
Faithfully yours,
SHERLOCK HOLMES.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930)
The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Arthur Conan Doyle, Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sherlock Holmes Theatre, Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Rip Van Winkle
(A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker)
by Washington Irving
By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre.
CARTWRIGHT
The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm.
The result of all these researches was a history of the province during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since. There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestionable authority.
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to say that his time might have been better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affection; yet his errors and follies are remembered “more in sorrow than in anger,” and it begins to be suspected, that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folks, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne’s Farthing.
* * *
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky, but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen-pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual, with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rip’s composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar’s lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone-fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word Rip was ready to attend to anybody’s business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; every thing about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do; so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.
His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother’s heels, equipped in a pair of his father’s cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house – the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-pecked husband.
Rip’s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of his master’s going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods – but what courage can withstand the ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman’s tongue? The moment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broom-stick or ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the village; which held its sessions on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy summer’s day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman’s money to have heard the profound discussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sundial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband in habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. “Poor Wolf,” he would say, “thy mistress leads thee a dog’s life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!” Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfuly in his master’s face, and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in the blue highlands.
On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing, “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” He looked round, but could see nothing but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: “Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!” – at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked to his master’s side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the stranger’s appearance. He was a short square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion – a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist – several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and mutually relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence; for though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange and incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked familiarity.
On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with that of the guide’s. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes: the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat set off with a little red cock’s tail. They all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned within him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game.
By degrees Rip’s awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes – it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. “Surely,” thought Rip, “I have not slept here all night.” He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of liquor – the mountain ravine – the wild retreat among the rocks – the woe-begone party at ninepins – the flagon – “Oh! that flagon! that wicked flagon!” thought Rip – “what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!”
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roysterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen.
He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening’s gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual activity. “These mountain beds do not agree with me,” thought Rip; “and if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle.” With some difficulty he got down into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his companion had ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall over which the torrent came tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man’s perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps homeward.
As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when to his astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors – strange faces at the windows – every thing was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains – there ran the silver Hudson at a distance – there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always been – Rip was sorely perplexed – “That flagon last night,” thought he, “has addled my poor head sadly!”
It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay – the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed – “My very dog,” sighed poor Rip, “has forgotten me!”
He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears – he called loudly for his wife and children – the lonely chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was silence.
He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village inn – but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, “the Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.” Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes – all this was strange and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even this was singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.
There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens – elections – members of congress – liberty – Bunker’s Hill – heroes of seventy-six – and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.
The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired “on which side he voted?” Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, “Whether he was Federal or Democrat?” Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone, “what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?” – “Alas! gentlemen,” cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, “I am a poor quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!”
Here a general shout burst from the by-standers – “A tory! a tory! a spy! a refugee! hustle him! away with him!” It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking? The poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who used to keep about the tavern.
“Well – who are they? – name them.”
Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, “Where’s Nicholas Vedder?”
There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a thin piping voice, “Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the church-yard that used to tell all about him, but that’s rotten and gone too.”
“Where’s Brom Dutcher?”
“Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point – others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony’s Nose. I don’t know – he never came back again.”
“Where’s Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?”
“He went off to the wars too, was a great militia general, and is now in congress.”
Rip’s heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not understand: war – congress – Stony Point; – he had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?”
“Oh, Rip Van Winkle!” exclaimed two or three, “Oh, to be sure! that’s Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree.”
Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up the mountain: apparently as lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name?
“God knows,” exclaimed he, at his wit’s end; “I’m not myself – I’m somebody else – that’s me yonder – no – that’s somebody else got into my shoes – I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and every thing’s changed, and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!”
The by-standers began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. “Hush, Rip,” cried she, “hush, you little fool; the old man won’t hurt you.” The name of the child, the air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. “What is your name, my good woman?” asked he.
“Judith Gardenier.”
“And your father’s name?”
“Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it’s twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of since – his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl.”
Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering voice:
“Where’s your mother?”
“Oh, she too had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New-England peddler.”
There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. “I am your father!” cried he – “Young Rip Van Winkle once – old Rip Van Winkle now! – Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?”
All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, “Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle – it is himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor – Why, where have you been these twenty long years?”
Rip’s story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and the self-important man in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and shook his head – upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage.
It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.
To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip’s daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip’s son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business.
Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.
Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times “before the war.” It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war – that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England – and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was – petticoat government. Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.
He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle’s hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all hen-pecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon.
NOTE – The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Emperor Frederick der Rothbart, and the Kypphauser mountain: the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity:
“The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice and signed with a cross, in the justice’s own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. D. K.”
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
Rip Van Winkle (A Posthumous Writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker)
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: #Short Stories Archive, Archive I-J, Tales of Mystery & Imagination
Franz Kafka
Das Schweigen der Sirenen
Beweis dessen, daß auch unzulängliche, ja kindische Mittel zur Rettung dienen können:
Um sich vor den Sirenen zu bewahren, stopfte sich Odysseus Wachs in die Ohren und ließ sich am Mast festschmieden. Ähnliches hätten natürlich seit jeher alle Reisenden tun können, außer denen, welche die Sirenen schon aus der Ferne verlockten, aber es war in der ganzen Welt bekannt, daß dies unmöglich helfen konnte. Der Sang der Sirenen durchdrang alles, und die Leidenschaft der Verführten hätte mehr als Ketten und Mast gesprengt. Daran aber dachte Odysseus nicht, obwohl er davon vielleicht gehört hatte. Er vertraute vollständig der Handvoll Wachs und dem Gebinde Ketten und in unschuldiger Freude über seine Mittelchen fuhr er den Sirenen entgegen.
Nun haben aber die Sirenen eine noch schrecklichere Waffe als den Gesang, nämlich ihr Schweigen. Es ist zwar nicht geschehen, aber vielleicht denkbar, daß sich jemand vor ihrem Gesang gerettet hätte, vor ihrem Schweigen gewiß nicht. Dem Gefühl, aus eigener Kraft sie besiegt zu haben, der daraus folgenden alles fortreißenden Überhebung kann nichts Irdisches widerstehen.
Und tatsächlich sangen, als Odysseus kam, die gewaltigen Sängerinnen nicht, sei es, daß sie glaubten, diesem Gegner könne nur noch das Schweigen beikommen, sei es, daß der Anblick der Glückseligkeit im Gesicht des Odysseus, der an nichts anderes als an Wachs und Ketten dachte, sie allen Gesang vergessen ließ.
Odysseus aber, um es so auszudrücken, hörte ihr Schweigen nicht, er glaubte, sie sängen, und nur er sei behütet, es zu hören. Flüchtig sah er zuerst die Wendungen ihrer Hälse, das tiefe Atmen, die tränenvollen Augen, den halb geöffneten Mund, glaubte aber, dies gehöre zu den Arien, die ungehört um ihn verklangen. Bald aber glitt alles an seinen in die Ferne gerichteten Blicken ab, die Sirenen verschwanden förmlich vor seiner Entschlossenheit, und gerade als er ihnen am nächsten war, wußte er nichts mehr von ihnen.
Sie aber – schöner als jemals – streckten und drehten sich, ließen das schaurige Haar offen im Winde wehen und spannten die Krallen frei auf den Felsen. Sie wollten nicht mehr verführen, nur noch den Abglanz vom großen Augenpaar des Odysseus wollten sie so lange als möglich erhaschen.
Hätten die Sirenen Bewußtsein, sie wären damals vernichtet worden. So aber blieben sie, nur Odysseus ist ihnen entgangen.
Es wird übrigens noch ein Anhang hierzu überliefert. Odysseus, sagt man, war so listenreich, war ein solcher Fuchs, daß selbst die Schicksalsgöttin nicht in sein Innerstes dringen konnte. Vielleicht hat er, obwohl das mit Menschenverstand nicht mehr zu begreifen ist, wirklich gemerkt, daß die Sirenen schwiegen, und hat ihnen und den Göttern den obigen Scheinvorgang nur gewissermaßen als Schild entgegengehalten.
Franz Kafka
(1883-1924)
Das Schweigen der Sirenen
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Franz Kafka, Kafka, Franz, Kafka, Franz
The Mortal Immortal
by Mary Shelley
July 16, 1833. — This is a memorable anniversary for me; on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year!
The Wandering Jew? — certainly not. More than eighteen centuries have passed over his head. In comparison with him, I am a very young Immortal.
Am I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it. I detected a grey hair amidst my brown locks this very day — that surely signifies decay. Yet it may have remained concealed there for three hundred years — for some persons have become entirely white-headed before twenty years of age.
I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. I will tell my story, and so contrive to pass some few hours of a long eternity, become so wearisome to me. For ever! Can it be? to live for ever! I have heard of enchantments, in which the victims were plunged into a deep sleep, to wake, after a hundred years, as fresh as ever: I have heard of the Seven Sleepers — thus to be immortal would not be so burthensome: but, oh! the weight of never-ending time — the tedious passage of the still-succeeding hours! How happy was the fabled Nourjahad! — But to my task.
All the world has heard of Cornelius Agrippa. His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me. All the world has also heard of his scholar, who, unawares, raised the foul fiend during his master’s absence, and was destroyed by him. The report, true or false, of this accident, was attended with many inconveniences to the renowned philosopher. All his scholars at once deserted him — his servants disappeared. He had no one near him to put coals on his ever-burning fires while he slept, or to attend to the changeful colours of his medicines while he studied. Experiment after experiment failed, because one pair of hands was insufficient to complete them: the dark spirits laughed at him for not being able to retain a single mortal in his service.
I was then very young — very poor — and very much in love. I had been for about a year the pupil of Cornelius, though I was absent when this accident took place. On my return, my friends implored me not to return to the alchymist’s abode. I trembled as I listened to the dire tale they told; I required no second warning; and when Cornelius came and offered me a purse of gold if I would remain under his roof, I felt as if Satan himself tempted me. My teeth chattered — my hair stood on end; — I ran off as fast as my trembling knees would permit.
My failing steps were directed whither for two years they had every evening been attracted, — a gently bubbling spring of pure living water, beside which lingered a dark-haired girl, whose beaming eyes were fixed on the path I was accustomed each night to tread. I cannot remember the hour when I did not love Bertha; we had been neighbours and playmates from infancy, — her parents, like mine were of humble life, yet respectable, — our attachment had been a source of pleasure to them. In an evil hour, a malignant fever carried off both her father and mother, and Bertha became an orphan. She would have found a home beneath my paternal roof, but, unfortunately, the old lady of the near castle, rich, childless, and solitary, declared her intention to adopt her. Henceforth Bertha was clad in silk — inhabited a marble palace — and was looked on as being highly favoured by fortune. But in her new situation among her new associates, Bertha remained true to the friend of her humbler days; she often visited the cottage of my father, and when forbidden to go thither, she would stray towards the neighbouring wood, and meet me beside its shady fountain.
She often declared that she owed no duty to her new protectress equal in sanctity to that which bound us. Yet still I was too poor to marry, and she grew weary of being tormented on my account. She had a haughty but an impatient spirit, and grew angry at the obstacle that prevented our union. We met now after an absence, and she had been sorely beset while I was away; she complained bitterly, and almost reproached me for being poor. I replied hastily, —
“I am honest, if I am poor! — were I not, I might soon become rich!”
This exclamation produced a thousand questions. I feared to shock her by owning the truth, but she drew it from me; and then, casting a look of disdain on me, she said, —
“You pretend to love, and you fear to face the Devil for my sake!”
I protested that I had only dreaded to offend her; — while she dwelt on the magnitude of the reward that I should receive. Thus encouraged — shamed by her — led on by love and hope, laughing at my later fears, with quick steps and a light heart, I returned to accept the offers of the alchymist, and was instantly installed in my office.
A year passed away. I became possessed of no insignificant sum of money. Custom had banished my fears. In spite of the most painful vigilance, I had never detected the trace of a cloven foot; nor was the studious silence of our abode ever disturbed by demoniac howls. I still continued my stolen interviews with Bertha, and Hope dawned on me — Hope — but not perfect joy: for Bertha fancied that love and security were enemies, and her pleasure was to divide them in my bosom. Though true of heart, she was something of a coquette in manner; I was jealous as a Turk. She slighted me in a thousand ways, yet would never acknowledge herself to be in the wrong. She would drive me mad with anger, and then force me to beg her pardon. Sometimes she fancied that I was not sufficiently submissive, and then she had some story of a rival, favoured by her protectress. She was surrounded by silk-clad youths — the rich and gay. What chance had the sad-robed scholar of Cornelius compared with these?
On one occasion, the philosopher made such large demands upon my time, that I was unable to meet her as I was wont. He was engaged in some mighty work, and I was forced to remain, day and night, feeding his furnaces and watching his chemical preparations. Bertha waited for me in vain at the fountain. Her haughty spirit fired at this neglect; and when at last I stole out during a few short minutes allotted to me for slumber, and hoped to be consoled by her, she received me with disdain, dismissed me in scorn, and vowed that any man should possess her hand rather than he who could not be in two places at once for her sake. She would be revenged! And truly she was. In my dingy retreat I heard that she had been hunting, attended by Albert Hoffer. Albert Hoffer was favoured by her protectress, and the three passed in cavalcade before my smoky window. Methought that they mentioned my name; it was followed by a laugh of derision, as her dark eyes glanced contemptuously towards my abode.
Jealousy, with all its venom and all its misery, entered my breast. Now I shed a torrent of tears, to think that I should never call her mine; and, anon, I imprecated a thousand curses on her inconstancy. Yet, still I must stir the fires of the alchymist, still attend on the changes of his unintelligible medicines.
Cornelius had watched for three days and nights, nor closed his eyes. The progress of his alembics was slower than he expected: in spite of his anxiety, sleep weighted upon his eyelids. Again and again he threw off drowsiness with more than human energy; again and again it stole away his senses. He eyed his crucibles wistfully. “Not ready yet,” he murmured; “will another night pass before the work is accomplished? Winzy, you are vigilant — you are faithful — you have slept, my boy — you slept last night. Look at that glass vessel. The liquid it contains is of a soft rose-colour: the moment it begins to change hue, awaken me — till then I may close my eyes. First, it will turn white, and then emit golden flashes; but wait not till then; when the rose-colour fades, rouse me.” I scarcely heard the last words, muttered, as they were, in sleep. Even then he did not quite yield to nature. “Winzy, my boy,” he again said, “do not touch the vessel — do not put it to your lips; it is a philtre — a philtre to cure love; you would not cease to love your Bertha — beware to drink!”
And he slept. His venerable head sunk on his breast, and I scarce heard his regular breathing. For a few minutes I watched the vessel — the rosy hue of the liquid remained unchanged. Then my thoughts wandered — they visited the fountain, and dwelt on a thousand charming scenes never to be renewed — never! Serpents and adders were in my heart as the word “Never!” half formed itself on my lips. False girl! — false and cruel! Never more would she smile on me as that evening she smiled on Albert. Worthless, detested woman! I would not remain unrevenged — she should see Albert expire at her feet — she should die beneath my vengeance. She had smiled in disdain and triumph — she knew my wretchedness and her power. Yet what power had she? — the power of exciting my hate — my utter scorn — my — oh, all but indifference! Could I attain that — could I regard her with careless eyes, transferring my rejected love to one fairer and more true, that were indeed a victory!
A bright flash darted before my eyes. I had forgotten the medicine of the adept; I gazed on it with wonder: flashes of admirable beauty, more bright than those which the diamond emits when the sun’s rays are on it, glanced from the surface of the liquid; and odour the most fragrant and grateful stole over my sense; the vessel seemed one globe of living radiance, lovely to the eye, and most inviting to the taste. The first thought, instinctively inspired by the grosser sense, was, I will — I must drink. I raised the vessel to my lips. “It will cure me of love — of torture!” Already I had quaffed half of the most delicious liquor ever tasted by the palate of man, when the philosopher stirred. I started — I dropped the glass — the fluid flamed and glanced along the floor, while I felt Cornelius’s gripe at my throat, as he shrieked aloud, “Wretch! you have destroyed the labour of my life!”
The philosopher was totally unaware that I had drunk any portion of his drug. His idea was, and I gave a tacit assent to it, that I had raised the vessel from curiosity, and that, frightened at its brightness, and the flashes of intense light it gave forth, I had let it fall. I never undeceived him. The fire of the medicine was quenched — the fragrance died away — he grew calm, as a philosopher should under the heaviest trials, and dismissed me to rest.
I will not attempt to describe the sleep of glory and bliss which bathed my soul in paradise during the remaining hours of that memorable night. Words would be faint and shallow types of my enjoyment, or of the gladness that possessed my bosom when I woke. I trod air — my thoughts were in heaven. Earth appeared heaven, and my inheritance upon it was to be one trance of delight. “This it is to be cured of love,” I thought; “I will see Bertha this day, and she will find her lover cold and regardless; too happy to be disdainful, yet how utterly indifferent to her!”
The hours danced away. The philosopher, secure that he had once succeeded, and believing that he might again, began to concoct the same medicine once more. He was shut up with his books and drugs, and I had a holiday. I dressed myself with care; I looked in an old but polished shield which served me for a mirror; methoughts my good looks had wonderfully improved. I hurried beyond the precincts of the town, joy in my soul, the beauty of heaven and earth around me. I turned my steps toward the castle — I could look on its lofty turrets with lightness of heart, for I was cured of love. My Bertha saw me afar off, as I came up the avenue. I know not what sudden impulse animated her bosom, but at the sight, she sprung with a light fawn-like bound down the marble steps, and was hastening towards me. But I had been perceived by another person. The old high-born hag, who called herself her protectress, and was her tyrant, had seen me also; she hobbled, panting, up the terrace; a page, as ugly as herself, held up her train, and fanned her as she hurried along, and stopped my fair girl with a “How, now, my bold mistress? whither so fast? Back to your cage — hawks are abroad!”
Bertha clasped her hands — her eyes were still bent on my approaching figure. I saw the contest. How I abhorred the old crone who checked the kind impulses of my Bertha’s softening heart. Hitherto, respect for her rank had caused me to avoid the lady of the castle; now I disdained such trivial considerations. I was cured of love, and lifted above all human fears; I hastened forwards, and soon reached the terrace. How lovely Bertha looked! her eyes flashing fire, her cheeks glowing with impatience and anger, she was a thousand times more graceful and charming than ever. I no longer loved — oh no! I adored — worshipped — idolized her!
She had that morning been persecuted, with more than usual vehemence, to consent to an immediate marriage with my rival. She was reproached with the encouragement that she had shown him — she was threatened with being turned out of doors with disgrace and shame. Her proud spirit rose in arms at the threat; but when she remembered the scorn that she had heaped upon me, and how, perhaps, she had thus lost one whom she now regarded as her only friend, she wept with remorse and rage. At that moment I appeared. “Oh, Winzy!” she exclaimed, “take me to your mother’s cot; swiftly let me leave the detested luxuries and wretchedness of this noble dwelling — take me to poverty and happiness.”
I clasped her in my arms with transport. The old dame was speechless with fury, and broke forth into invective only when we were far on the road to my natal cottage. My mother received the fair fugitive, escaped from a gilt cage to nature and liberty, with tenderness and joy; my father, who loved her, welcomed her heartily; it was a day of rejoicing, which did not need the addition of the celestial potion of the alchymist to steep me in delight.
Soon after this eventful day, I became the husband of Bertha. I ceased to be the scholar of Cornelius, but I continued his friend. I always felt grateful to him for having, unaware, procured me that delicious draught of a divine elixir, which, instead of curing me of love (sad cure! solitary and joyless remedy for evils which seem blessings to the memory), had inspired me with courage and resolution, thus winning for me an inestimable treasure in my Bertha.
I often called to mind that period of trance-like inebriation with wonder. The drink of Cornelius had not fulfilled the task for which he affirmed that it had been prepared, but its effects were more potent and blissful than words can express. They had faded by degrees, yet they lingered long — and painted life in hues of splendour. Bertha often wondered at my lightness of heart and unaccustomed gaiety; for, before, I had been rather serious, or even sad, in my disposition. She loved me the better for my cheerful temper, and our days were winged by joy.
Five years afterwards I was suddenly summoned to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. He had sent for me in haste, conjuring my instant presence. I found him stretched on his pallet, enfeebled even to death; all of life that yet remained animated his piercing eyes, and they were fixed on a glass vessel, full of roseate liquid.
“Behold,” he said, in a broken and inward voice, “the vanity of human wishes! a second time my hopes are about to be crowned, a second time they are destroyed. Look at that liquor — you may remember five years ago I had prepared the same, with the same success; — then, as now, my thirsting lips expected to taste the immortal elixir — you dashed it from me! and at present it is too late.”
He spoke with difficulty, and fell back on his pillow. I could not help saying, —
“How, revered master, can a cure for love restore you to life?”
A faint smile gleamed across his face as I listened earnestly to his scarcely intelligible answer.
“A cure for love and for all things — the Elixir of Immortality. Ah! if now I might drink, I should live for ever!”
As he spoke, a golden flash gleamed from the fluid; a well-remembered fragrance stole over the air; he raised himself, all weak as he was — strength seemed miraculously to re-enter his frame — he stretched forth his hand — a loud explosion startled me — a ray of fire shot up from the elixir, and the glass vessel which contained it was shivered to atoms! I turned my eyes towards the philosopher; he had fallen back — his eyes were glassy — his features rigid — he was dead!
But I lived, and was to live for ever! So said the unfortunate alchymist, and for a few days I believed his words. I remembered the glorious intoxication that had followed my stolen draught. I reflected on the change I had felt in my frame — in my soul. The bounding elasticity of the one — the buoyant lightness of the other. I surveyed myself in a mirror, and could perceive no change in my features during the space of the five years which had elapsed. I remembered the radiant hues and grateful scent of that delicious beverage — worthy the gift it was capable of bestowing — I was, then,IMMORTAL!
A few days after I laughed at my credulity. The old proverb, that “a prophet is least regarded in his own country,” was true with respect to me and my defunct master. I loved him as a man — I respected him as a sage — but I derided the notion that he could command the powers of darkness, and laughed at the superstitious fears with which he was regarded by the vulgar. He was a wise philosopher, but had no acquaintance with any spirits but those clad in flesh and blood. His science was simply human; and human science, I soon persuaded myself, could never conquer nature’s laws so far as to imprison the soul for ever within its carnal habitation. Cornelius had brewed a soul-refreshing drink — more inebriating than wine — sweeter and more fragrant than any fruit: it possessed probably strong medicinal powers, imparting gladness to the heart and vigour to the limbs; but its effects would wear out; already they were diminished in my frame. I was a lucky fellow to have quaffed health and joyous spirits, and perhaps a long life, at my master’s hands; but my good fortune ended there: longevity was far different from immortality.
I continued to entertain this belief for many years. Sometimes a thought stole across me — Was the alchymist indeed deceived? But my habitual credence was, that I should meet the fate of all the children of Adam at my appointed time — a little late, but still at a natural age. Yet it was certain that I retained a wonderfully youthful look. I was laughed at for my vanity in consulting the mirror so often, but I consulted it in vain — my brow was untrenched — my cheeks — my eyes — my whole person continued as untarnished as in my twentieth year.
I was troubled. I looked at the faded beauty of Bertha — I seemed more like her son. By degrees our neighbors began to make similar observations, and I found at last that I went by the name of the Scholar bewitched. Bertha herself grew uneasy. She became jealous and peevish, and at length she began to question me. We had no children; we were all in all to each other; and though, as she grew older, her vivacious spirit became a little allied to ill-temper, and her beauty sadly diminished, I cherished her in my heart as the mistress I idolized, the wife I had sought and won with such perfect love.
At last our situation became intolerable: Bertha was fifty — I twenty years of age. I had, in very shame, in some measure adopted the habits of advanced age; I no longer mingled in the dance among the young and gay, but my heart bounded along with them while I restrained my feet; and a sorry figure I cut among the Nestors of our village. But before the time I mention, things were altered — we were universally shunned; we were — at least, I was — reported to have kept up an iniquitous acquaintance with some of my former master’s supposed friends. Poor Bertha was pitied, but deserted. I was regarded with horror and detestation.
What was to be done? we sat by our winter fire — poverty had made itself felt, for none would buy the produce of my farm; and often I had been forced to journey twenty miles to some place where I was not known, to dispose of our property. It is true, we had saved something for an evil day — that day was come.
We sat by our lone fireside — the old-hearted youth and his antiquated wife. Again Bertha insisted on knowing the truth; she recapitulated all she had ever heard said about me, and added her own observations. She conjured me to cast off the spell; she described how much more comely grey hairs were than my chestnut locks; she descanted on the reverence and respect due to age — how preferable to the slight regard paid to mere children: could I imagine that the despicable gifts of youth and good looks outweighed disgrace, hatred and scorn? Nay, in the end I should be burnt as a dealer in the black art, while she, to whom I had not deigned to communicate any portion of my good fortune, might be stoned as my accomplice. At length she insinuated that I must share my secret with her, and bestow on her like benefits to those I myself enjoyed, or she would denounce me — and then she burst into tears.
Thus beset, methought it was the best way to tell the truth. I reveled it as tenderly as I could, and spoke only of a very long life, not of immortality — which representation, indeed, coincided best with my own ideas. When I ended I rose and said,–
“And now, my Bertha, will you denounce the lover of your youth? — You will not, I know. But it is too hard, my poor wife, that you should suffer for my ill-luck and the accursed arts of Cornelius. I will leave you — you have wealth enough, and friends will return in my absence. I will go; young as I seem and strong as I am, I can work and gain my bread among strangers, unsuspected and unknown. I loved you in youth; God is my witness that I would not desert you in age, but that your safety and happiness require it.”
I took my cap and moved toward the door; in a moment Bertha’s arms were round my neck, and her lips were pressed to mine. “No, my husband, my Winzy,” she said, “you shall not go alone — take me with you; we will remove from this place, and, as you say, among strangers we shall be unsuspected and safe. I am not so old as quite to shame you, my Winzy; and I daresay the charm will soon wear off, and, with the blessing of God, you will become more elderly-looking, as is fitting; you shall not leave me.”
I returned the good soul’s embrace heartily. “I will not, my Bertha; but for your sake I had not thought of such a thing. I will be your true, faithful husband while you are spared to me, and do my duty by you to the last.”
The next day we prepared secretly for our emigration. We were obliged to make great pecuniary sacrifices — it could not be helped. We realized a sum sufficient, at least, to maintain us while Bertha lived; and, without saying adieu to any one, quitted our native country to take refuge in a remote part of western France.
It was a cruel thing to transport poor Bertha from her native village, and the friends of her youth, to a new country, new language, new customs. The strange secret of my destiny rendered this removal immaterial to me; but I compassionated her deeply, and was glad to perceive that she found compensation for her misfortunes in a variety of little ridiculous circumstances. Away from all tell-tale chroniclers, she sought to decrease the apparent disparity of our ages by a thousand feminine arts — rouge, youthful dress, and assumed juvenility of manner. I could not be angry. Did I not myself wear a mask? Why quarrel with hers, because it was less successful? I grieved deeply when I remembered that this was my Bertha, whom I had loved so fondly and won with such transport — the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, with smiles of enchanting archness and a step like a fawn — this mincing, simpering, jealous old woman. I should have revered her grey locks and withered cheeks; but thus! — It was my work, I knew; but I did not the less deplore this type of human weakness.
Her jealously never slept. Her chief occupation was to discover that, in spite of outward appearances, I was myself growing old. I verily believe that the poor soul loved me truly in her heart, but never had woman so tormenting a mode of displaying fondness. She would discern wrinkles in my face and decrepitude in my walk, while I bounded along in youthful vigour, the youngest looking of twenty youths. I never dared address another woman. On one occasion, fancying that the belle of the village regarded me with favouring eyes, she brought me a grey wig. Her constant discourse among her acquaintances was, that though I looked so young, there was ruin at work within my frame; and she affirmed that the worst symptom about me was my apparent health. My youth was a disease, she said, and I ought at all times to prepare, if not for a sudden and awful death, at least to awake some morning white-headed and bowed down with all the marks of advanced years. I let her talk — I often joined in her conjectures. Her warnings chimed in with my never-ceasing speculations concerning my state, and I took an earnest, though painful, interest in listening to all that her quick wit and excited imagination could say on the subject.
Why dwell on these minute circumstances? We lived on for many long years. Bertha became bedrid and paralytic; I nursed her as a mother might a child. She grew peevish, and still harped upon one string — of how long I should survive her. It has ever been a source of consolation to me, that I performed my duty scrupulously towards her. She had been mine in youth, she was mine in age; and at last, when I heaped the sod over her corpse, I wept to feel that I had lost all that really bound me to humanity.
Since then how many have been my cares and woes, how few and empty my enjoyments! I pause here in my history — I will pursue it no further. A sailor without rudder or compass, tossed on a stormy sea — a traveller lost on a widespread heath, without landmark or stone to guide him — such I have been: more lost, more hopeless than either. A nearing ship, a gleam from some far cot, may save them; but I have no beacon except the hope of death.
Death! mysterious, ill-visaged friend of weak humanity! Why alone of all mortals have you cast me from your sheltering fold? Oh, for the peace of the grave! the deep silence of the iron-bound tomb! that thought would cease to work in my brain, and my heart beat no more with emotions varied only by new forms of sadness!
Am I immortal? I return to my first question. In the first place, is it not more probably that the beverage of the alchymist was fraught rather with longevity than eternal life? Such is my hope. And then be it remembered, that I only drank half of the potion prepared by him. Was not the whole necessary to complete the charm? To have drained half the Elixir of Immortality is but to be half-immortal — my For-ever is thus truncated and null.
But again, who shall number the years of the half of eternity? I often try to imagine by what rule the infinite may be divided. Sometimes I fancy age advancing upon me. One grey hair I have found. Fool! do I lament? Yes, the fear of age and death often creeps coldly into my heart; and the more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life. Such an enigma is man — born to perish — when he wars, as I do, against the established laws of his nature.
But for this anomaly of feeling surely I might die: the medicine of the alchymist would not be proof against fire — sword — and the strangling waters. I have gazed upon the blue depths of many a placid lake, and the tumultuous rushing of many a mighty river, and have said, peace inhabits those waters; yet I have turned my steps away, to live yet another day. I have asked myself, whether suicide would be a crime in one to whom thus only the portals of the other world could be opened. I have done all, except presenting myself as a soldier or duelist, an objection of destruction to my — no, not my fellow mortals, and therefore I have shrunk away. They are not my fellows. The inextinguishable power of life in my frame, and their ephemeral existence, places us wide as the poles asunder. I could not raise a hand against the meanest or the most powerful among them.
Thus have I lived on for many a year — alone, and weary of myself — desirous of death, yet never dying — a mortal immortal. Neither ambition nor avarice can enter my mind, and the ardent love that gnaws at my heart, never to be returned — never to find an equal on which to expend itself — lives there only to torment me.
This very day I conceived a design by which I may end all — without self-slaughter, without making another man a Cain — an expedition, which mortal frame can never survive, even endued with the youth and strength that inhabits mine. Thus I shall put my immortality to the test, and rest for ever — or return, the wonder and benefactor of the human species.
Before I go, a miserable vanity has caused me to pen these pages. I would not die, and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I quaffed the fatal beverage; another year shall not elapse before, encountering gigantic dangers — warring with the powers of frost in their home — beset by famine, toil, and tempest — I yield this body, too tenacious a cage for a soul which thirsts for freedom, to the destructive elements of air and water; or, if I survive, my name shall be recorded as one of the most famous among the sons of men; and, my task achieved, I shall adopt more resolute means, and, by scattering and annihilating the atoms that compose my frame, set at liberty the life imprisoned within, and so cruelly prevented from soaring from this dim earth to a sphere more congenial to its immortal essence.
Mary Shelley (1797 – 1851)
The Mortal Immortal
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive S-T, Mary Shelley, Shelley, Mary
The Five Orange Pips
by Arthur Conan Doyle
When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes cases between the years ’82 and ’90, I am faced by so many which present strange and interesting features that it is no easy matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are points in connection with it which never have been, and probably never will be, entirely cleared up.
The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man’s watch, to prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time — a deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of them present such singular features as the strange train of circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe.
It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell’s fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother’s, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.
“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”
“Except yourself I have none,” he answered. “I do not encourage visitors.”
“A client, then?”
“If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlady’s.”
Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit.
“Come in!” said he.
The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety.
“l owe you an apology,” he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his eyes. “I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber.”
“Give me your coat and umbrella,” said Holmes. “They may rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the south-west, I see.”
“Yes, from Horsham.”
“That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite distinctive.”
“I have come for advice.”
“That is easily got.”
“And help.”
“That is not always so easy.”
“I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal.”
“Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards.”
“He said that you could solve anything.”
“He said too much.”
“That you are never beaten.”
“I have been beaten four times – three times by men, and once by a woman.”
“But what is that compared with the number of your successes?”
“It is true that I have been generally successful.”
“Then you may be so with me.”
“I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me with some details as to your case.”
“It is no ordinary one.”
“None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal.”
“And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family.”
“You fill me with interest,” said Holmes. “Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important.”
The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out towards the blaze.
“My name,” said he, “is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.
“You must know that my grandfather had two sons — my uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence.
“My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson’s army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.
“He didn’t mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he used to be fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would make me his representative both with the servants and with the tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or anyone else to enter. With a boy’s curiosity I have peeped through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such a room.
“One day — it was in March, 1883 — a letter with a foreign stamp lay upon the table in front of the colonel’s plate. It was not a common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. ‘From India!’ said he as he took it up, ‘Pondicherry postmark! What can this be?’ Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he still held in his trembling hand, ‘K. K. K.!’ he shrieked, and then, ‘My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!’
” ‘What is it, uncle?’ I cried.
” ‘Death,’ said he, and rising from the table he retired to his room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his over-powering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small brass box, like a cashbox, in the other.
” ‘They may do what they like, but I’ll checkmate them still,’ said he with an oath. ‘Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.’
“I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the envelope.
” ‘I wish you, John,’ said my uncle, ‘to witness my will. I leave my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can’t say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper where Mr. Fordham shows you.’
“I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever, and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by man or devil. When these hot fits were over however, he would rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him, like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it were new raised from a basin.
“Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when we went to search for him, face downward in a little green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, brought in a verdict of ‘suicide.’ But I, who knew how he winced from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed, however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the bank.”
“One moment,” Holmes interposed, “your statement is, I foresee, one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and the date of his supposed suicide.”
“The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks later, upon the night of May 2d.”
“Thank you. Pray proceed.”
“When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and ‘Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register’ written beneath. These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle’s life in America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier. Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.
“Well, it was the beginning of ’84 when my father came to live at Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the January of ’85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the breakfast-table. There he was, sitting with a newly opened envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the outstretched palm of the other one. He had always laughed at what he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but he looked very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon himself.
” ‘Why, what on earth does this mean, John?’ he stammered.
“My heart had turned to lead. ‘It is K. K. K.,’ said I.
“He looked inside the envelope. ‘So it is,’ he cried. ‘Here are the very letters. But what is this written above them?’
” ‘Put the papers on the sundial,’ I read, peeping over his shoulder.
” ‘What papers? What sundial?’ he asked.
” ‘The sundial in the garden. There is no other,’ said I; ‘but the papers must be those that are destroyed.’
” ‘Pooh!’ said he, gripping hard at his courage. ‘We are in a civilized land here, and we can’t have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the thing come from?’
” ‘From Dundee,’ I answered, glancing at the postmark.
” ‘Some preposterous practical joke,’ said he. ‘What have I to do with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such nonsense.’
” ‘I should certainly speak to the police,’ I said.
” ‘And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.’
” ‘Then let me do so?’
” ‘No, I forbid you. I won’t have a fuss made about such nonsense.’
“It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate man. I went about, however, with a heart which was full of forebodings.
“On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from danger when he was away from home. In that, however, I was in error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram from the major, imploring me to come at once. My father had fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in bringing in a verdict of ‘death from accidental causes.’ Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads. And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, and that I was well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been woven round him.
“In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an incident in my uncle’s life, and that the danger would be as pressing in one house as in another.
“It was in January, ’85, that my poor father met his end, and two years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that this curse had passed way from the family, and that it had ended with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in which it had come upon my father.”
The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried orange pips.
“This is the envelope,” he continued. “The postmark is London — eastern division. Within are the very words which were upon my father’s last message: ‘K. K. K.’; and then ‘Put the papers on the sundial.’ “
“What have you done?” asked Holmes.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“To tell the truth” — he sank his face into his thin, white hands — “I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight and no precautions can guard against.”
“Tut! tut!” cried Sherlock Holmes. “You must act, man, or you are lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for despair.”
“I have seen the police.”
“Ah!”
“But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with the warnings.”
Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. “Incredible imbecility!” he cried.
“They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in the house with me.”
“Has he come with you tonight?”
“No. His orders were to stay in the house.”
Again Holmes raved in the air.
“Why did you not come to me,” he cried, “and, above all, why did you not come at once?”
“I did not know. It was only today that I spoke to Major Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come to you.”
“It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than that which you have placed before us — no suggestive detail which might help us?”
“There is one thing,” said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted paper, he laid it out upon the table. “I have some remembrance,” said he, “that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single sheet upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction. Beyond the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I think myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is undoubtedly my uncle’s.”
Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from a book. It was headed, “March, 1869,” and beneath were the following enigmatical notices:
4th. Hudson came. Same old platform.
7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St. Augustine.
9th. McCauley cleared.
10th. John Swain cleared.
12th. Visited Paramore. All well.
“Thank you!” said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it to our visitor. “And now you must on no account lose another instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told me. You must get home instantly and act.”
“What shall I do?”
“There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass box which you have described. You must also put in a note to say that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in such words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, you must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do you understand?”
“Entirely.”
“Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the guilty parties.”
“I thank you,” said the young man, rising and pulling on his overcoat. “You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall certainly do as you advise.”
“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so l trust that you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every particular.” He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come to us from amid the mad elements — blown in upon us like a sheet of sea-weed in a gale — and now to have been reabsorbed by them once more.
Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling.
“I think, Watson,” he remarked at last, “that of all our cases we have had none more fantastic than this.”
“Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four.”
“Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the Sholtos.”
“But have you,” I asked, “formed any definite conception as to what these perils are?”
“There can be no question as to their nature,” he answered.
“Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue this unhappy family?”
Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. “The ideal reasoner,” he remarked, “would, when he had once been shown a single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to utilize all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits in a very precise fashion.”
“Yes,” I answered, laughing. “It was a singular document. Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the main points of my analysis.”
Holmes grinned at the last item. “Well,” he said, “I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which has been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster all our resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the American Encyclopaedia which stands upon the shelf beside you. Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for the lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis that it was fear of someone or something which drove him from America. As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by considering the formidable letters which were received by himself and his successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those letters?”
“The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the third from London.”
“From East London. What do you deduce from that?”
“They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship.”
“Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that the probability — the strong probability — is that the writer was on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and its fulfillment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days. Does that suggest anything?”
“A greater distance to travel.”
“But the letter had also a greater distance to come.”
“Then I do not see the point.”
“There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always sent their singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought the writer.”
“It is possible.”
“More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay.”
“Good God!” I cried. “What can it mean, this relentless persecution?”
“The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way as to deceive a coroner’s jury. There must have been several in it, and they must have been men of resource and determination. Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may. In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an individual and becomes the badge of a society.”
“But of what society?”
“Have you never –” said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and sinking his voice –“have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?”
“I never have.”
Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. “Here it is,” said he presently:
“Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was used for political purposes, principally for the terrorizing of the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic but generally recognized shape — a sprig of oak-leaves in some parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death would unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organization of the society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the perpetrators. For some years the organization flourished in spite of the efforts of the United States government and of the better classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year 1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.
“You will observe,” said Holmes, laying down the volume, “that the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. You can understand that this register and diary may implicate some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered.”
“Then the page we have seen –“
“Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, ‘sent the pips to A, B, and C’ — that is, sent the society’s warning to them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.”
It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came down.
“You will excuse me for not waiting for you,” said he; “I have, I foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of young Openshaw’s.”
“What steps will you take?” I asked.
“It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. I may have to go down to Horsham, after all.”
“You will not go there first?”
“No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the maid will bring up your coffee.”
As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a chill to my heart.
“Holmes,” I cried, “you are too late.”
“Ah!” said he, laying down his cup, “I feared as much. How was it done?” He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved.
“My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading ‘Tragedy Near Waterloo Bridge.’ Here is the account:
“Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, which should have the effect of calling the attention of the authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages.”
We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and shaken than I had ever seen him.
“That hurts my pride, Watson,” he said at last. “It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that I should send him away to his death –!” He sprang from his chair and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and unclasping of his long thin hands.
“They must be cunning devils,” he exclaimed at last. “How could they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now!”
“To the police?”
“No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may take the flies, but not before.”
All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o’clock before he entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, washing it down with a long draught of water.
“You are hungry,” I remarked.
“Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since breakfast.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a bite. I had no time to think of it.”
“And how have you succeeded?”
“Well.”
“You have a clue?”
“I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!”
“What do you mean?”
He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote “S. H. for J. O.” Then he sealed it and addressed it to “Captain James Calhoun, Bark Lone Star, Savannah, Georgia.”
“That will await him when he enters port,” said he, chuckling. “It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him.”
“And who is this Captain Calhoun?”
“The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first.”
“How did you trace it, then?”
He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with dates and names.
“I have spent the whole day,” said he, “over Lloyd’s registers and files of the old papers, following the future career of every vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in ’83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were reported there during those months. Of these, one, the Lone Star, instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to one of the states of the Union.”
“Texas, I think.”
“I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must have an American origin.”
“What then?”
“I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the bark Lone Star was there in January, ’85, my suspicion became a certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present in the port of London.”
“Yes?”
“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight.”
“What will you do, then?”
“Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who has been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder.”
There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of the boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters “L. S.” carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930)
The Five Orange Pips
(from: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes )
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Arthur Conan Doyle, Doyle, Arthur Conan
Feuille d’Album
by Katherine Mansfield
He really was an impossible person. Too shy altogether. With absolutely nothing to say for himself. And such a weight. Once he was in your studio he never knew when to go, but would sit on and on until you nearly screamed, and burned to throw something enormous after him when he did finally blush his way out-something like the tortoise stove. The strange thing was that at first sight he looked most interesting. Everybody agreed about that.
You would drift into the café one evening and there you would see, sitting in a corner, with a glass of coffee in front of him, a thin dark boy, wearing a blue jersey with a little grey flannel jacket buttoned over it. And somehow that blue jersey and the grey jacket with the sleeves that were too short gave him the air of a boy that has made up his mind to run away to sea. Who has run away, in fact, and will get up in a moment and sling a knotted handkerchief containing his nightshirt and his mother’s picture on the end of a stick, and walk out into the night and be drowned. . . . Stumble over the wharf edge on his way to the ship, even. . . . He had black close-cropped hair, grey eyes with long lashes, white cheeks and a mouth pouting as though he were determined not to cry. . . . How could one resist him? Oh, one’s heart was wrung at sight. And, as if that were not enough, there was his trick of blushing. . . . Whenever the waiter came near him he turned crimson-he might have been just out of prison and the waiter in the know . . . .
“Who is he, my dear? Do you know?”
“Yes. His name is Ian French. Painter. Awfully clever, they say. Someone started by giving him a mother’s tender care. She asked him how often he heard from home, whether he had enough blankets on his bed, how much milk he drank a day. But when she went round to his studio to give an eye to his socks, she rang and rang, and though she could have sworn she heard someone breathing inside, the door was not answered. . . . Hopeless!”
Someone else decided that he ought to fall in love. She summoned him to her side, called him “boy,” leaned over him so that he might smell the enchanting perfume of her hair, took his arm, told him how marvellous life could be if one only had the courage, and went round to his studio one evening and rang and rang. . . . Hopeless.
“What the poor boy really wants is thoroughly rousing,” said a third. So off they went to café’s and cabarets, little dances, places where you drank something that tasted like tinned apricot juice, but cost twenty-seven shillings a bottle and was called champagne, other places, too thrilling for words, where you sat in the most awful gloom, and where someone had always been shot the night before. But he did not turn a hair. Only once he got very drunk, but instead of blossoming forth, there he sat, stony, with two spots of red on his cheeks, like, my dear, yes, the dead image of that rag-time thing they were playing, like a “Broken Doll.” But when she took him back to his studio he had quite recovered, and said “good night” to her in the street below, as though they had walked home from church together. . . . Hopeless.
After heaven knows how many more attempts-for the spirit of kindness dies very hard in women-they gave him up. Of course, they were still perfectly charming, and asked him to their shows, and spoke to him in the café but that was all. When one is an artist one has no time simply for people who won’t respond. Has one?
“And besides I really think there must be something rather fishy somewhere . . . don’t you? It can’t all be as innocent as it looks! Why come to Paris if you want to be a daisy in the field? No, I’m not suspicious. But –”
He lived at the top of a tall mournful building overlooking the river. One of those buildings that look so romantic on rainy nights and moonlight nights, when the shutters are shut, and the heavy door, and the sign advertising “a little apartment to let immediately” gleams forlorn beyond words. One of those buildings that smell so unromantic all the year round, and where the concierge lives in a glass cage on the ground floor, wrapped up in a filthy shawl, stirring something in a saucepan and ladling out tit-bits to the swollen old dog lolling on a bead cushion. . . . Perched up in the air the studio had a wonderful view. The two big windows faced the water; he could see the boats and the barges swinging up and down, and the fringe of an island planted with trees, like a round bouquet. The side window looked across to another house, shabbier still and smaller, and down below there was a flower market. You could see the tops of huge umbrellas, with frills of bright flowers escaping from them, booths covered with striped awning where they sold plants in boxes and clumps of wet gleaming palms in terra-cotta jars. Among the flowers the old women scuttled from side to side, like crabs. Really there was no need for him to go out. If he sat at the window until his white beard fell over the sill he still would have found something to draw . . . .
How surprised those tender women would have been if they had managed to force the door. For he kept his studio as neat as a pin. Everything was arranged to form a pattern, a little “still life” as it were-the saucepans with their lids on the wall behind the gas stove, the bowl of eggs, milk jug and teapot on the shelf, the books and the lamp with the crinkly paper shade on the table. An Indian curtain that had a fringe of red leopards marching round it covered his bed by day, and on the wall beside the bed on a level with your eyes when you were lying down there was a small neatly printed notice: GET UP AT ONCE.
Every day was much the same. While the light was good he slaved at his painting, then cooked his meals and tidied up the place. And in the evenings he went off to the café, or sat at home reading or making out the most complicated list of expenses headed: “What I ought to be able to do it on,” and ending with a sworn statement . . . “I swear not to exceed this amount for next month. Signed, Ian French.”
Nothing very fishy about this; but those far-seeing women were quite right. It wasn’t all.
One evening he was sitting at the side window eating some prunes and throwing the stones on to the tops of the huge umbrellas in the deserted flower market. It had been raining – the first real spring rain of the year had fallen-a bright spangle hung on everything, and the air smelled of buds and moist earth. Many voices sounding languid and content rang out in the dusky air, and the people who had come to close their windows and fasten the shutters leaned out instead. Down below in the market the trees were peppered with new green. What kind of trees were they? he wondered. And now came the lamplighter. He stared at the house across the way, the small, shabby house, and suddenly, as if in answer to his gaze, two wings of windows opened and a girl came out on to the tiny balcony carrying a pot of daffodils. She was a strangely thin girl in a dark pinafore, with a pink handkerchief tied over her hair. Her sleeves were rolled up almost to her shoulders and her slender arms shone against the dark stuff.
“Yes, it is quite warm enough. It will do them good,” she said, puffing down the pot and turning to someone in the room inside. As she turned she put her hands up to the handkerchief and tucked away some wisps of hair. She looked down at the deserted market and up at the sky, but where he sat there might have been a hollow in the air. She simply did not see the house opposite. And then she disappeared.
His heart fell out of the side window of his studio, and down to the balcony of the house opposite-buried itself in the pot of daffodils under the half-opened buds and spears of green. . . . That room with the balcony was the sitting-room, and the one next door to it was the kitchen. He heard the clatter of the dishes as she washed up after supper, and then she came to the window, knocked a little mop against the ledge, and hung it on a nail to dry. She never sang or unbraided her hair, or held out her arms to the moon as young girls are supposed to do. And she always wore the same dark pinafore and the pink handkerchief over her hair. . . . Whom did she live with? Nobody else came to those two windows, and yet she was always talking to someone in the room. Her mother, he decided, was an invalid. They took in sewing. The father was dead. . . . He had been a journalist-very pale, with long moustaches, and a piece of black hair falling over his forehead.
By working all day they just made enough money to live on, but they never went out and they had no friends. Now when he sat down at his table he had to make an entirely new set of sworn statements. . . . Not to go to the side window before a certain hour: signed, Ian French. Not to think about her until he had put away his painting things for the day: signed, Ian French.
It was quite simple. She was the only person he really wanted to know, because she was, he decided, the only other person alive who was just his age. He couldn’t stand giggling girls, and he had no use for grown-up women. . . . She was his age, she was-well, just like him. He sat in his dusky studio, tired, with one arm hanging over the back of his chair, staring in at her window and seeing himself in there with her. She had a violent temper; they quarrelled terribly at times, he and she. She had a way of stamping her foot and twisting her hands in her pinafore . . . furious. And she very rarely laughed. Only when she told him about an absurd little kitten she once had who used to roar and pretend to be a lion when it was given meat to eat. Things like that made her laugh. . . . But as a rule they sat together very quietly; he, just as he was sitting now, and she with her hands folded in her lap and her feet tucked under, talking in low tones, or silent and tired after the day’s work. Of course, she never asked him about his pictures, and of course he made the most wonderful drawings of her which she hated, because he made her so thin and so dark. . . . But how could he get to know her? This might go on for years . . . .
Then he discovered that once a week, in the evenings, she went out shopping. On two successive Thursdays she came to the window wearing an old-fashioned cape over the pinafore, and carrying a basket. From where he sat he could not see the door of her house, but on the next Thursday evening at the same time he snatched up his cap and ran down the stairs. There was a lovely pink light over everything. He saw it glowing in the river, and the people walking towards him had pink faces and pink hands.
He leaned against the side of his house waiting for her and he had no idea of what he was going to do or say. “Here she comes,” said a voice in his head. She walked very quickly, with small, light steps; with one hand she carried the basket, with the other she kept the cape together. . . . What could he do? He could only follow. . . . First she went into the grocer’s and spent a long time in there, and then she went into the butcher’s where she had to wait her turn. Then she was an age at the draper’s matching something, and then she went to the fruit shop and bought a lemon. As he watched her he knew more surely than ever he must get to know her, now. Her composure, her seriousness and her loneliness, the very way she walked as though she was eager to be done with this world of grown-ups all was so natural to him and so inevitable.
“Yes, she is always like that,” he thought proudly. “We have nothing to do with-these people.”
But now she was on her way home and he was as far off as ever. . . . She suddenly turned into the dairy and he saw her through the window buying an egg. She picked it out of the basket with such care-a brown one, a beautifully shaped one, the one he would have chosen. And when she came out of the dairy he went in after her. In a moment he was out again, and following her past his house across the flower market, dodging among the huge umbrellas and treading on the fallen flowers and the round marks where the pots had stood. . . . Through her door he crept, and up the stairs after, taking care to tread in time with her so that she should not notice. Finally, she stopped on the landing, and took the key out of her purse. As she put it into the door he ran up and faced her.
Blushing more crimson than ever, but looking at her severely he said, almost angrily: “Excuse me, Mademoiselle, you dropped this.”
And he handed her an egg.
Feuille d’Album
by Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923)
From: Bliss, and other stories
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, DRUGS & MEDICINE & LITERATURE, Katherine Mansfield, Mansfield, Katherine
The Tomb
by H. P. Lovecraft
“Sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam.”
(Virgil)
In relating the circumstances which have led to my confinement within this refuge for the demented, I am aware that my present position will create a natural doubt of the authenticity of my narrative. It is an unfortunate fact that the bulk of humanity is too limited in its mental vision to weigh with patience and intelligence those isolated phenomena, seen and felt only by a psychologically sensitive few, which lie outside its common experience. Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal; that all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism.
My name is Jervas Dudley, and from earliest childhood I have been a dreamer and a visionary. Wealthy beyond the necessity of a commercial life, and temperamentally unfitted for the formal studies and social recreations of my acquaintances, I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little-known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there; but of this I must say little, since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me. It is sufficient for me to relate events without analysing causes.
I have said that I dwelt apart from the visible world, but I have not said that I dwelt alone. This no human creature may do; for lacking the fellowship of the living, he inevitably draws upon the companionship of things that are not, or are no longer, living. Close by my home there lies a singular wooded hollow, in whose twilight deeps I spent most of my time; reading, thinking, and dreaming. Down its moss-covered slopes my first steps of infancy were taken, and around its grotesquely gnarled oak trees my first fancies of boyhood were woven. Well did I come to know the presiding dryads of those trees, and often have I watched their wild dances in the struggling beams of a waning moon—but of these things I must not now speak. I will tell only of the lone tomb in the darkest of the hillside thickets; the deserted tomb of the Hydes, an old and exalted family whose last direct descendant had been laid within its black recesses many decades before my birth.
The vault to which I refer is of ancient granite, weathered and discoloured by the mists and dampness of generations. Excavated back into the hillside, the structure is visible only at the entrance. The door, a ponderous and forbidding slab of stone, hangs upon rusted iron hinges, and is fastened ajar in a queerly sinister way by means of heavy iron chains and padlocks, according to a gruesome fashion of half a century ago. The abode of the race whose scions are here inurned had once crowned the declivity which holds the tomb, but had long since fallen victim to the flames which sprang up from a disastrous stroke of lightning. Of the midnight storm which destroyed this gloomy mansion, the older inhabitants of the region sometimes speak in hushed and uneasy voices; alluding to what they call “divine wrath” in a manner that in later years vaguely increased the always strong fascination which I felt for the forest-darkened sepulchre. One man only had perished in the fire. When the last of the Hydes was buried in this place of shade and stillness, the sad urnful of ashes had come from a distant land; to which the family had repaired when the mansion burned down. No one remains to lay flowers before the granite portal, and few care to brave the depressing shadows which seem to linger strangely about the water-worn stones.
I shall never forget the afternoon when first I stumbled upon the half-hidden house of death. It was in mid-summer, when the alchemy of Nature transmutes the sylvan landscape to one vivid and almost homogeneous mass of green; when the senses are well-nigh intoxicated with the surging seas of moist verdure and the subtly indefinable odours of the soil and the vegetation. In such surroundings the mind loses its perspective; time and space become trivial and unreal, and echoes of a forgotten prehistoric past beat insistently upon the enthralled consciousness. All day I had been wandering through the mystic groves of the hollow; thinking thoughts I need not discuss, and conversing with things I need not name. In years a child of ten, I had seen and heard many wonders unknown to the throng; and was oddly aged in certain respects. When, upon forcing my way between two savage clumps of briers, I suddenly encountered the entrance of the vault, I had no knowledge of what I had discovered. The dark blocks of granite, the door so curiously ajar, and the funereal carvings above the arch, aroused in me no associations of mournful or terrible character. Of graves and tombs I knew and imagined much, but had on account of my peculiar temperament been kept from all personal contact with churchyards and cemeteries. The strange stone house on the woodland slope was to me only a source of interest and speculation; and its cold, damp interior, into which I vainly peered through the aperture so tantalisingly left, contained for me no hint of death or decay. But in that instant of curiosity was born the madly unreasoning desire which has brought me to this hell of confinement. Spurred on by a voice which must have come from the hideous soul of the forest, I resolved to enter the beckoning gloom in spite of the ponderous chains which barred my passage. In the waning light of day I alternately rattled the rusty impediments with a view to throwing wide the stone door, and essayed to squeeze my slight form through the space already provided; but neither plan met with success. At first curious, I was now frantic; and when in the thickening twilight I returned to my home, I had sworn to the hundred gods of the grove that at any cost I would some day force an entrance to the black, chilly depths that seemed calling out to me. The physician with the iron-grey beard who comes each day to my room once told a visitor that this decision marked the beginning of a pitiful monomania; but I will leave final judgment to my readers when they shall have learnt all.
The months following my discovery were spent in futile attempts to force the complicated padlock of the slightly open vault, and in carefully guarded inquiries regarding the nature and history of the structure. With the traditionally receptive ears of the small boy, I learned much; though an habitual secretiveness caused me to tell no one of my information or my resolve. It is perhaps worth mentioning that I was not at all surprised or terrified on learning of the nature of the vault. My rather original ideas regarding life and death had caused me to associate the cold clay with the breathing body in a vague fashion; and I felt that the great and sinister family of the burned-down mansion was in some way represented within the stone space I sought to explore. Mumbled tales of the weird rites and godless revels of bygone years in the ancient hall gave to me a new and potent interest in the tomb, before whose door I would sit for hours at a time each day. Once I thrust a candle within the nearly closed entrance, but could see nothing save a flight of damp stone steps leading downward. The odour of the place repelled yet bewitched me. I felt I had known it before, in a past remote beyond all recollection; beyond even my tenancy of the body I now possess.
The year after I first beheld the tomb, I stumbled upon a worm-eaten translation of Plutarch’s Lives in the book-filled attic of my home. Reading the life of Theseus, I was much impressed by that passage telling of the great stone beneath which the boyish hero was to find his tokens of destiny whenever he should become old enough to lift its enormous weight. This legend had the effect of dispelling my keenest impatience to enter the vault, for it made me feel that the time was not yet ripe. Later, I told myself, I should grow to a strength and ingenuity which might enable me to unfasten the heavily chained door with ease; but until then I would do better by conforming to what seemed the will of Fate.
Accordingly my watches by the dank portal became less persistent, and much of my time was spent in other though equally strange pursuits. I would sometimes rise very quietly in the night, stealing out to walk in those churchyards and places of burial from which I had been kept by my parents. What I did there I may not say, for I am not now sure of the reality of certain things; but I know that on the day after such a nocturnal ramble I would often astonish those about me with my knowledge of topics almost forgotten for many generations. It was after a night like this that I shocked the community with a queer conceit about the burial of the rich and celebrated Squire Brewster, a maker of local history who was interred in 1711, and whose slate headstone, bearing a graven skull and crossbones, was slowly crumbling to powder. In a moment of childish imagination I vowed not only that the undertaker, Goodman Simpson, had stolen the silver-buckled shoes, silken hose, and satin small-clothes of the deceased before burial; but that the Squire himself, not fully inanimate, had turned twice in his mound-covered coffin on the day after interment.
But the idea of entering the tomb never left my thoughts; being indeed stimulated by the unexpected genealogical discovery that my own maternal ancestry possessed at least a slight link with the supposedly extinct family of the Hydes. Last of my paternal race, I was likewise the last of this older and more mysterious line. I began to feel that the tomb was mine, and to look forward with hot eagerness to the time when I might pass within that stone door and down those slimy stone steps in the dark. I now formed the habit of listening very intently at the slightly open portal, choosing my favourite hours of midnight stillness for the odd vigil. By the time I came of age, I had made a small clearing in the thicket before the mould-stained facade of the hillside, allowing the surrounding vegetation to encircle and overhang the space like the walls and roof of a sylvan bower. This bower was my temple, the fastened door my shrine, and here I would lie outstretched on the mossy ground, thinking strange thoughts and dreaming strange dreams.
The night of the first revelation was a sultry one. I must have fallen asleep from fatigue, for it was with a distinct sense of awakening that I heard the voices. Of those tones and accents I hesitate to speak; of their quality I will not speak; but I may say that they presented certain uncanny differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, and mode of utterance. Every shade of New England dialect, from the uncouth syllables of the Puritan colonists to the precise rhetoric of fifty years ago, seemed represented in that shadowy colloquy, though it was only later that I noticed the fact. At the time, indeed, my attention was distracted from this matter by another phenomenon; a phenomenon so fleeting that I could not take oath upon its reality. I barely fancied that as I awoke, a light had been hurriedly extinguished within the sunken sepulchre. I do not think I was either astounded or panic-stricken, but I know that I was greatly and permanently changed that night. Upon returning home I went with much directness to a rotting chest in the attic, wherein I found the key which next day unlocked with ease the barrier I had so long stormed in vain.
It was in the soft glow of late afternoon that I first entered the vault on the abandoned slope. A spell was upon me, and my heart leaped with an exultation I can but ill describe. As I closed the door behind me and descended the dripping steps by the light of my lone candle, I seemed to know the way; and though the candle sputtered with the stifling reek of the place, I felt singularly at home in the musty, charnel-house air. Looking about me, I beheld many marble slabs bearing coffins, or the remains of coffins. Some of these were sealed and intact, but others had nearly vanished, leaving the silver handles and plates isolated amidst certain curious heaps of whitish dust. Upon one plate I read the name of Sir Geoffrey Hyde, who had come from Sussex in 1640 and died here a few years later. In a conspicuous alcove was one fairly well-preserved and untenanted casket, adorned with a single name which brought to me both a smile and a shudder. An odd impulse caused me to climb upon the broad slab, extinguish my candle, and lie down within the vacant box.
In the grey light of dawn I staggered from the vault and locked the chain of the door behind me. I was no longer a young man, though but twenty-one winters had chilled my bodily frame. Early-rising villagers who observed my homeward progress looked at me strangely, and marvelled at the signs of ribald revelry which they saw in one whose life was known to be sober and solitary. I did not appear before my parents till after a long and refreshing sleep.
Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night; seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal. My speech, always susceptible to environmental influences, was the first thing to succumb to the change; and my suddenly acquired archaism of diction was soon remarked upon. Later a queer boldness and recklessness came into my demeanour, till I unconsciously grew to possess the bearing of a man of the world despite my lifelong seclusion. My formerly silent tongue waxed voluble with the easy grace of a Chesterfield or the godless cynicism of a Rochester. I displayed a peculiar erudition utterly unlike the fantastic, monkish lore over which I had pored in youth; and covered the flyleaves of my books with facile impromptu epigrams which brought up suggestions of Gay, Prior, and the sprightliest of the Augustan wits and rimesters. One morning at breakfast I came close to disaster by declaiming in palpably liquorish accents an effusion of eighteenth-century Bacchanalian mirth; a bit of Georgian playfulness never recorded in a book, which ran something like this:
Come hither, my lads, with your tankards of ale,
And drink to the present before it shall fail;
Pile each on your platter a mountain of beef,
For ’tis eating and drinking that bring us relief:
So fill up your glass,
For life will soon pass;
When you’re dead ye’ll ne’er drink to your king or your lass!
Anacreon had a red nose, so they say;
But what’s a red nose if ye’re happy and gay?
Gad split me! I’d rather be red whilst I’m here,
Than white as a lily—and dead half a year!
So Betty, my miss,
Come give me a kiss;
In hell there’s no innkeeper’s daughter like this!
Young Harry, propp’d up just as straight as he’s able,
Will soon lose his wig and slip under the table;
But fill up your goblets and pass ’em around—
Better under the table than under the ground!
So revel and chaff
As ye thirstily quaff:
Under six feet of dirt ’tis less easy to laugh!
The fiend strike me blue! I’m scarce able to walk,
And damn me if I can stand upright or talk!
Here, landlord, bid Betty to summon a chair;
I’ll try home for a while, for my wife is not there!
So lend me a hand;
I’m not able to stand,
But I’m gay whilst I linger on top of the land!
About this time I conceived my present fear of fire and thunderstorms. Previously indifferent to such things, I had now an unspeakable horror of them; and would retire to the innermost recesses of the house whenever the heavens threatened an electrical display. A favourite haunt of mine during the day was the ruined cellar of the mansion that had burned down, and in fancy I would picture the structure as it had been in its prime. On one occasion I startled a villager by leading him confidently to a shallow sub-cellar, of whose existence I seemed to know in spite of the fact that it had been unseen and forgotten for many generations.
At last came that which I had long feared. My parents, alarmed at the altered manner and appearance of their only son, commenced to exert over my movements a kindly espionage which threatened to result in disaster. I had told no one of my visits to the tomb, having guarded my secret purpose with religious zeal since childhood; but now I was forced to exercise care in threading the mazes of the wooded hollow, that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept suspended from a cord about my neck, its presence known only to me. I never carried out of the sepulchre any of the things I came upon whilst within its walls.
One morning as I emerged from the damp tomb and fastened the chain of the portal with none too steady hand, I beheld in an adjacent thicket the dreaded face of a watcher. Surely the end was near; for my bower was discovered, and the objective of my nocturnal journeys revealed. The man did not accost me, so I hastened home in an effort to overhear what he might report to my careworn father. Were my sojourns beyond the chained door about to be proclaimed to the world? Imagine my delighted astonishment on hearing the spy inform my parent in a cautious whisper that I had spent the night in the bower outside the tomb; my sleep-filmed eyes fixed upon the crevice where the padlocked portal stood ajar! By what miracle had the watcher been thus deluded? I was now convinced that a supernatural agency protected me. Made bold by this heaven-sent circumstance, I began to resume perfect openness in going to the vault; confident that no one could witness my entrance. For a week I tasted to the full the joys of that charnel conviviality which I must not describe, when the thing happened, and I was borne away to this accursed abode of sorrow and monotony.
I should not have ventured out that night; for the taint of thunder was in the clouds, and a hellish phosphorescence rose from the rank swamp at the bottom of the hollow. The call of the dead, too, was different. Instead of the hillside tomb, it was the charred cellar on the crest of the slope whose presiding daemon beckoned to me with unseen fingers. As I emerged from an intervening grove upon the plain before the ruin, I beheld in the misty moonlight a thing I had always vaguely expected. The mansion, gone for a century, once more reared its stately height to the raptured vision; every window ablaze with the splendour of many candles. Up the long drive rolled the coaches of the Boston gentry, whilst on foot came a numerous assemblage of powdered exquisites from the neighbouring mansions. With this throng I mingled, though I knew I belonged with the hosts rather than with the guests. Inside the hall were music, laughter, and wine on every hand. Several faces I recognised; though I should have known them better had they been shrivelled or eaten away by death and decomposition. Amidst a wild and reckless throng I was the wildest and most abandoned. Gay blasphemy poured in torrents from my lips, and in my shocking sallies I heeded no law of God, Man, or Nature. Suddenly a peal of thunder, resonant even above the din of the swinish revelry, clave the very roof and laid a hush of fear upon the boisterous company. Red tongues of flame and searing gusts of heat engulfed the house; and the roysterers, struck with terror at the descent of a calamity which seemed to transcend the bounds of unguided Nature, fled shrieking into the night. I alone remained, riveted to my seat by a grovelling fear which I had never felt before. And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde? Aye! I would claim my heritage of death, even though my soul go seeking through the ages for another corporeal tenement to represent it on that vacant slab in the alcove of the vault. Jervas Hyde should never share the sad fate of Palinurus!
As the phantom of the burning house faded, I found myself screaming and struggling madly in the arms of two men, one of whom was the spy who had followed me to the tomb. Rain was pouring down in torrents, and upon the southern horizon were flashes of the lightning that had so lately passed over our heads. My father, his face lined with sorrow, stood by as I shouted my demands to be laid within the tomb; frequently admonishing my captors to treat me as gently as they could. A blackened circle on the floor of the ruined cellar told of a violent stroke from the heavens; and from this spot a group of curious villagers with lanterns were prying a small box of antique workmanship which the thunderbolt had brought to light. Ceasing my futile and now objectless writhing, I watched the spectators as they viewed the treasure-trove, and was permitted to share in their discoveries. The box, whose fastenings were broken by the stroke which had unearthed it, contained many papers and objects of value; but I had eyes for one thing alone. It was the porcelain miniature of a young man in a smartly curled bag-wig, and bore the initials “J. H.” The face was such that as I gazed, I might well have been studying my mirror.
On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows, but I have been kept informed of certain things through an aged and simple-minded servitor, for whom I bore a fondness in infancy, and who like me loves the churchyard. What I have dared relate of my experiences within the vault has brought me only pitying smiles. My father, who visits me frequently, declares that at no time did I pass the chained portal, and swears that the rusted padlock had not been touched for fifty years when he examined it. He even says that all the village knew of my journeys to the tomb, and that I was often watched as I slept in the bower outside the grim facade, my half-open eyes fixed on the crevice that leads to the interior. Against these assertions I have no tangible proof to offer, since my key to the padlock was lost in the struggle on that night of horrors. The strange things of the past which I learnt during those nocturnal meetings with the dead he dismisses as the fruits of my lifelong and omnivorous browsing amongst the ancient volumes of the family library. Had it not been for my old servant Hiram, I should have by this time become quite convinced of my madness.
But Hiram, loyal to the last, has held faith in me, and has done that which impels me to make public at least a part of my story. A week ago he burst open the lock which chains the door of the tomb perpetually ajar, and descended with a lantern into the murky depths. On a slab in an alcove he found an old but empty coffin whose tarnished plate bears the single word “Jervas”. In that coffin and in that vault they have promised me I shall be buried.
The Tomb (1917)
by H. P. Lovecraft (1890 – 1937)
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Lovecraft, H.P., Tales of Mystery & Imagination
The World and the Door
by O. Henry
A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U.S. vice-consul at La Paz—a person who could not possibly have been congnizant of half of them.
As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in puncturing it by affirming that I read in a purely fictional story the other day the line: “ ‘Be it so,’ said the policeman.” Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.
When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor and man-about-New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went “down the line,” bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of all-night cafés, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface and introduction.
As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account in a city where the man who cuts your slice of beef behind the free-lunch counter rides to work in his own automobile. But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and showily as though he were only a clerk squandering a week’s wages. And, after all, the bartender takes no interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you up on his cash register than in Bradstreet.
On the evening that the material allegation of facts begins, Hedges was bidding dull care begone on the company of five or six good fellows— acquaintances and friends who had gathered in his wake.
Among them were two younger men—Ralph Merriam, a broker, and Wade, his friend.
Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus Circle they hove to long enough to revile the statue of the great navigator, unpatriotically rebuking him for having voyaged in search of land instead of liquids. Midnight overtook the party marooned in the rear of a cheap café far uptown.
Hedges was arrogant, overriding and quarrelsome. He was burly and tough, iron-gray but vigorous, “good” for the rest of the night. There was a dispute—about nothing that matters—and the five-fingered words were passed—the words that represent the glove cast into the lists. Merriam played the rôle of the verbal Hotspur.
Hedges rose quickly, seized his chair, swung it once and smashed wildly down at Merriam’s head. Merriam dodged, drew a small revolver and shot Hedges in the chest. The leading roysterer stumbled, fell in a wry heap, and lay still.
Wade, a commuter, had formed that habit of promptness. He juggled Merriam out a side door, walked him to the corner, ran him a block and caught a hansom. They rode five minutes and then got out on a dark corner and dismissed the cab. Across the street the lights of a small saloon betrayed its hectic hospitality.
“Go in the back room of that saloon,” said Wade, “and wait. I’ll go find out what’s doing and let you know. You may take two drinks while I am gone—no more.”
At ten minutes to one o’clock Wade returned.
“Brace up, old chap,” he said. “The ambulance got there just as I did. The doctor says he’s dead. You may have one more drink. You let me run this thing for you. You’ve got to skip. I don’t believe a chair is legally a deadly weapon. You’ve got to make tracks, that’s all there is to it.”
O. Henry
(1862 – 1910)
The World and the Door
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Henry, O.
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