Count Karlstein

by Philip Pullman

  “For an extra fee they can have their fortunes told by the Magnetized Princess. Have you ever been Magnetized?”

  “No, never—”

  “Very easy. You close your eyes, I make the mystic passes, and then you open your eyes and look Magnetic. Very easy. Like this!”

  I stood as he showed me, and he pretended to Magnetize me. He was right—it was quite simple.

  “Now, if you are a princess, you must have a crown and some kind of robe. There! This will do—” He draped a tablecloth around me. “And for the crown—the very coronet of Charlemagne,” he said, producing an ancient crown of gold and setting it gently on my head.

  “Isn’t it very precious?” I said. “I don’t want to break it or anything—”

  “Extremely precious. But I can easily make another. Yes, you’re much better than my servant Max—a very good-hearted fellow, but a booby. If I Magnetized him, he’d fall over and drop the Skull and overturn the Cabinet and put his foot right through the crystal ball, and I don’t know what besides. Now let me show you how the Flying Devil works. There is a spring, here, which you must release when I give the signal….”

  And I was helpless. For the next two hours I was rehearsed rigorously in all the Mysteries of the Cabinet, until my head was reeling and my arms were aching; and it was only when I could stand up no longer that he allowed me to stop and ordered some food and wine to be brought in. I had not had an opportunity to tell him that I was hungry, somehow; he had a very forceful Character.

  He allowed me to rest for ten minutes or so, and then it was back to work. I tried to tell him about Charlotte and the trouble we were in, but although he listened, I could tell that his mind was on the coming performance. He would suddenly leap to his feet and describe an Effect that he had just thought of, and insist that I try it there and then, and repeat it constantly until I had it perfect; and gradually, as the evening (and the performance) drew nearer, I came to realize that I had fallen into the hands of the most disconcerting of all specimens of Humanity, viz. the Genius.

  Time swept past in a Phantasmagoria of Skulls and crystal balls and Flying Devils and Spiritual Bells and playing cards and the Illusion of the Broken Watch, and more knobs and handles and switches and levers than I would have thought it possible to fit into a single Cabinet, until I began to feel that if I had not been Magnetized before, I was truly Magnetized now; and then the clock on the wall struck the hour of nine—the doctor hastily draped the robe around me, set the crown on my head, whispered a last instruction, thrust me into the Cabinet, and closed the door.

  Darkness surrounded me. I could hear the audience assembling. The performance was about to begin.

  Since there was no point in even beginning to look for Lucy, I stayed on the road (for all that the wind tried to blow me off it) and made my way back to the village and the warm kitchen of the Jolly Huntsman. Ma welcomed me, and clucked and fussed over the weal the count’s whip had made on my neck, and sat me down with a bowl of soup and some wine, and then turned back to her work; for she was nearly distracted by busyness.

  The inn was full to bursting. The roar of songs, the clatter of dishes, the shouts of laughter, and the calls for food made the rafters ring. Elise and Hannerl were running in and out of the kitchen, their arms full of dishes—full one way, piled high with steaming sausages and cabbage and mounds of dumplings, and empty the other—dishes that ended this round tour in the sink, where, before long, I found myself up to the elbows in hot water. Taking the easy way out, perhaps, instead of trudging like King Wenceslas through the snow in the hope of finding some trace of Lucy. But when I’d thought that far, another load of dishes would arrive and be set down perilously on the wet draining-board and I had to start all over again.

  What I really wanted, I now realized, was to talk to Peter. Maybe I could manage to get down to the cellar if there was a moment later on….

  “Why’s it so busy?” I asked Ma, during a rare interval in her rushing from the kitchen to the parlor and back again.

  “What? Oh, it’s Doctor Cadaverezzi’s performance! I thought everyone in the valley had heard about it.”

  “Oh, yes! I did know—but I’d forgotten. He gave me that poster to put up.”

  “He thought he’d have to cancel it earlier.”

  “Why?”

  “His servant’s disappeared. You don’t know the half of it—it’s been all go down here. First of all there was that nonsense of Sergeant Snitsch’s, with the papers and all—and then Doctor Cadaverezzi lost his servant. He wanted him to help set the Cabinet up—I don’t know what he does with it, but, my word, it looks impressive—and he couldn’t find the fellow anywhere. And he hasn’t turned up yet. But then he found someone else, apparently, and when I came down he said it was all right, he could go on with the performance after all. But he’d need the parlor to himself for the afternoon, to rehearse. And of course I said that was fine, and he just got on with it. A real gentleman. And handsome! Oh, Hildi, if your ma’s not here in the morning, it’s because she’s run off with Doctor Cadaverezzi!”

  Well, well, I thought; Ma in love. Of course, she wasn’t really, and it was just the excitement of the shooting contest and the novelty of having a performer in the inn and so on; and perhaps she’d had a drop of the Johannisberger wine I saw all frosty in the corner. Certainly she wouldn’t have spoken like that if Peter’d been there to guffaw at her. At least she seemed to have stopped worrying about him for a while. But the main thing—I had to keep reminding myself—was Lucy. It was the first question I’d asked when I got to the inn, and the answer had been: no, she hadn’t turned up here—no one had seen her. I just had to keep hoping.

  Doctor Cadaverezzi’s performance was arranged for nine o’clock, and when the great old wooden clock in the parlor ticked and lurched its way round to that time, the air of excitement was so thick you could hardly see through it—though that might have been the smoke from the bright China pipes many of the visitors were smoking. Silent, red-faced men, with an air of huge secret enjoyment, as if they were in on a joke that no one else suspected; men from far away in clothes that looked like costumes from a play; stout, slow-moving men, like elderly bears; brisk, dark-featured men, like monkeys; men who couldn’t speak a word of German and who had to point to what they wanted and mime and make faces to explain; men with pale faces from the great forests further north; men with sunburned faces and bright narrow eyes, from the snowy glare of the mountains—all of them come for the shooting contest, of course. And then there were the villagers: the raucous boys, Peter’s pals, sharp and easy and full of themselves, flirting with Elise and Hannerl; wide-eyed children at their mothers’ skirts; middle-aged men who sipped their wine and talked energetically with their fellows; older men who took great care to settle themselves comfortably in a corner and get their pipes going nicely, reckoning that the height of their present ambitions.

  And when all this company had crowded into the parlor—Elise and Hannerl at the back, tea towels flung over one shoulder, arms folded, and an attentive young huntsman beside each of them in case they should need an escort to find their way outside during any interval that Doctor Cadaverezzi might allow for, and finally Ma and me, standing on a table by the streaming window—when all this was ready and the show about to begin, I had the first of two surprises that came my way that night.

  Because the parlor door opened, and, preceded by the beaming, sneezing, hand-wiping form of Herr Arturo Snivelwurst, hair pomaded Napoleonically and drippy little nose bright cherry-red, came the dark, glowering figure of my late employer, Count Karlstein. And he looked up at me, standing close enough for me to spit in his eye if I’d cared to, and—bowed! There was a nasty air of ironical triumph about him, as distinctive as the odor of cloves about someone with the toothache. The company fell silent; those who knew him because they did, and those who didn’t because something about him told them they ought to.

  “Good evening,” he said in his rasping voice, that
metallic tone that appeared when he was trying to be genial. “I have heard of the wonders of this Doctor Cadaverezzi and I have come to patronize his performance.”

  Snivelwurst was motioning to some of the audience to move aside, and within a minute or two Count Karlstein, with his sniffling, snuffling, sneezing secretary beside him, was seated and provided with wine.

  Then Doctor Cadaverezzi, who must have been watching the whole thing from behind the curtain, began his performance.

  First of all, a gong was struck—a mighty, Chinese sound, somehow accompanied by invisible dragons and the fumes of opium. Then the curtains were whisked aside, and there beside the Cabinet, lit by some garish and sinister light, was the doctor himself—bowing suavely and fixing his glittering eyes on, seemingly, everyone at once. There was a burst of applause that he’d done nothing to deserve except stand there and look impressive; but some people are like that—you’d sooner watch them clean their boots than anyone else walk a tightrope across a cage of hungry tigers. Magnetism—that’s what it is.

  He held up his hand, and the applause halted.

  “My friends: you have no doubt seen many traveling players—fortune-tellers, threadbare actors pretending to be Harlequin or Julius Caesar or Hamlet—of course you have. Please do not confuse me with people of that sort. I have spent a lifetime in the lonely pursuit of knowledge; I have been privileged to serve many monarchs. I was physician to the Great Mogul in India, I was Privy Councillor to the noble Alfonso, King of Brazil. I have risked my life in exploring distant regions of the earth, where no traveler’s foot had been set before. And the fruits of all my researches, the treasures I have spent my life assembling, are here in this mystic Cabinet!”

  A gong sounded again; the audience was hushed. “First,” said the doctor, “I shall introduce you to my personal attendant from the world of spirits—a devil from Lapland. Springer, to me!” He snapped his fingers. There was a puff of smoke from the Cabinet, a loud whizzing sound, and something small and red and horny and whiskery flew out of one of the apertures in the Cabinet and landed neatly in his hand.

  And then there came an interruption.

  “Nothing but a doll on a spring!” sneered Count Karlstein. “The man’s a fraud!”

  One or two of the men in the audience nodded. Doctor Cadaverezzi looked like thunder. I thought he was going to lose them for a moment; they’re a hard bunch to please, as many players had found to their cost. But I didn’t know Doctor Cadaverezzi. Suddenly a smile of childlike innocence spread over his features, like a bubble of pure delight.

  “Next,” he said, “I shall show you a trick that has baffled audiences from Paris to Peru. Has anyone got a watch that I may borrow?”

  “Yes! Yes!” shouted Count Karlstein. “Use this one!”

  Doctor Cadaverezzi pretended to be unwilling, but as no one else offered a watch, he had to take Count Karlstein’s.

  “You’ll see,” said the count gleefully as Doctor Cadaverezzi made his way back to the front, “he’ll pretend to smash it. I’ve seen this trick before!”

  Doctor Cadaverezzi held up a large red-spotted handkerchief and placed the watch inside it. “Your watch is in here, my lord,” he said, wrapping it up.

  “Of course it is!” said the count, enjoying himself hugely.

  “Now I shall take this very heavy mallet,” said the doctor, holding it up, “and smash the watch to pieces.”

  “Go on, then!” called the count, laughing loudly. “I know how it’s done, Snivelwurst! I’ve seen Goldini do this. Yes, go on, smash it!”

  “With your permission, then,” said Doctor Cadaverezzi politely, “I shall strike your watch with the mallet and break it to pieces.”

  “Go on, go on!” Count Karlstein waved impatiently. Doctor Cadaverezzi put the wrapped-up watch on a small table next to him and struck it several heavy blows with the mallet.

  In between the blows, the count was explaining to the audience that the watch wasn’t there at all—that it was up Cadaverezzi’s sleeve and that he’d shortly produce it from the other side of the room or from someone’s hat. Snivelwurst, by this time, was nodding and beaming and rubbing his hands at Cadaverezzi’s coming discomfiture; and poor Ma, by my side, was almost beside herself with bitterness at Count Karlstein’s spoilsport behavior.

  Finally, when the handkerchief had been well and truly battered, Doctor Cadaverezzi almost humbly picked it up and carried it to Count Karlstein, who was now roaring with laughter.

  “Your watch, my lord,” he said.

  “Ha, ha! My watch! You don’t think I fell for that, do you?” cried Count Karlstein. He took the handkerchief and held it high, showing it to everyone. “Let’s have a look, then,” he said, and opened it up. His expression changed as he pulled out a string of cogs, springs, bits of broken glass and bent silver, and a long watch chain. “What’s this?” he demanded.

  “Your watch, as I explained,” said Doctor Cadaverezzi. “I said I was going to smash it, and these ladies and gentlemen will bear witness to the fact that you told me to go ahead and do it.”

  Murmurs of agreement and nods came from the audience, who didn’t like the count.

  “But—but—”

  “So that is just what I have done.” Doctor Cadaverezzi shrugged, with all the melancholy politeness in the world; but a sparkle in his eyes told me, and the rest of the audience, that he’d won this little contest.

  And the best was yet to come. As Count Karlstein sat down angrily and turned to Snivelwurst, the doctor produced an identical red handkerchief from somewhere else and took out of it…Count Karlstein’s watch! He looked at it with droll pride, slipped it into his breast pocket, and patted it with satisfaction. This little mime took only a second, but the audience saw it and roared with approving laughter—which only annoyed Count Karlstein the more, as he didn’t know what they were laughing at.

  And so Doctor Cadaverezzi moved on, having captured his audience completely. They all knew, now, that he was a trickster—that if you turned your back on him, he’d pick your pocket; but it didn’t seem to matter, as they were all in a high good humor. And he did it so well, with such a delight in his own tricks, that you couldn’t help but enjoy it. So now we saw what all the strange knobs and handles and levers on the Cabinet were for: this one, for instance, worked a device called the Chromoeidophusikon, and Hans Pfafferl was shoved up out of the front row by his pals and made to press his face close to the eyepiece while Doctor Cadaverezzi turned a handle and a little windmill on top of the Cabinet revolved, and loud bangs and whizzing sounds and whistles came from inside. Hans was seeing, the doctor assured us, a clockwork representation of the Battle of Bodelheim, with musical, optical, and ballistical effects—and when Hans staggered away from the Cabinet, his face was printed a medley of colors that made him look like a savage from one of the heathen lands Doctor Cadaverezzi claimed to have visited. He didn’t understand the laughter at all.

  Finally, there came the climax of the show.

  The Chinese gong sounded once, twice, three times, and Doctor Cadaverezzi struck an attitude of awe, as if some terrifying supernatural event was about to take place. Indeed, according to him, it was.

  “The hour of the Ibis is at hand!” he announced in solemn tones. “As prophesied in the ancient almanacs, we are about to witness the rebirth of that sacred princess known to the high priests as Nephthys! She has slumbered in the pyramids for ten thousand years—but tonight she shall rise and speak to us in the hieroglyphics of her native tongue. Ladies and gentlemen—the princess Nephthys!”

  Some strange chords were sounded on a muffled harp and a cloud of smoke rolled out of the Cabinet; and from out of the smoke, robed in white and with a diadem of gold on her brow, her hands folded across her breast and her eyes cast mystically upward, stepped my second surprise of the night: Lucy.

  So she had come here! And—

  In a second or so, Count Karlstein—he’d already risen from his chair—would have her in his grasp
. There was only one thing to do.

  “Fire! Fire!” I shouted, and jumped down and flung the door wide. “Help! Fire! Fire!”

  It worked. Within a moment, the whole parlor was in an uproar. Those at the back looked around nervously, those at the front struggled to push their way to the back, those in the middle were caught uncertainly between the two of them. And I stood outside, banging two trays together and yelling at the top of my voice. Soon the door was jammed, and arms and legs and roaring heads were all flailing this way and that, trying to get out.

  But in the second or so after I’d shouted, I’d seen Lucy open her eyes, startled, and look first at me and then, horrified, at Count Karlstein. What Doctor Cadaverezzi was doing, I had no idea, but Count Karlstein and Snivelwurst were struggling against the press of people, trying to reach the front of the parlor while everyone else was making for the back. I hoped—for I couldn’t see—that Lucy would have the time and the sense to get away.

  But meanwhile the people who’d been in the parlor were milling around and shouting, calling for buckets of water, for blankets to stifle the flames, and for axes to chop down doors and let out anyone behind them; and some were yelling to others to open all the windows wide to let out the smoke, and others were yelling even louder not to, since it’d let in a draft to fan the flames—and not a single person realized that there was no fire at all. I didn’t like it. It was disturbing to see that cheerful, lively audience turn in a moment into a confused mob. I slipped through the middle of them and into the kitchen. There was a back way out, through the scullery and the outhouse, and I stumbled through, banging my legs on buckets and crates and making, I daresay, a lot of noise. I hoped Peter wouldn’t hear and poke his silly head out of the cellar to see what was going on.

  There is a narrow alley behind the Jolly Huntsman, and as I reached it, I was just in time to see, disappearing out of the other end of it, the form of a tall man with a cloak and a large hat. Doctor Cadaverezzi! I set off after him, not daring to call his name in case Count Karlstein had found his way out and was nearby. He’d be after Cadaverezzi, too, now. I reached the other end of the alley, which opened out into the road that led down to the bridge, and looked around, breathless.