The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000

by Mike Mitchell

  On her forehead is a red birthmark.

  Leonhard does not move. He knows that the people outside have come to kill him, knows that it is the shadow with devil’s horns he casts on the snow, an empty nothing he can dispel with a movement of his hand, that has aroused the wrath of the superstitious crowd. But he knows too that the body they will kill is only a shadow, just as they are shadows, mere phantasms in the sham world of ever-rolling time, and that shadows are also subject to the law of the circle.

  He knows that the old woman with the blood-mark and his mother’s features is his daughter and that she brings the end, closing the circle: the soul’s roundabout journey through the mists of birth and rebirth back to death.

  Extracts from: The Great Bestiary of Modern Literature

  Franz Blei

  THE KAFKA: The Kafka is a magnificent and very rarely seen moon-blue mouse, which eats no flesh, but feeds on bitter herbs. It is a bewitching sight, for it has human eyes.

  THE MEYRINK: The Meyrink is the only mooncalf which dropped to earth and which is now in captivity. It is occasionally put on show by its captor. For a while pregnant women were banned from viewing it, because of the occurrence of a few premature births caused by shock, but the ban has been lifted, since women with child are by now so accustomed to the sight that it raises no more than a gentle smile. Officers of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army and German Deputies wanted to ban the public exhibition of the Meyrink because, so they said, it gave a distorted reflection of them in its one big eye. The owner succeeded in proving, however, that the reflection was not distorted, but that it was the object which distorted the eye of the Meyrink. The numbers visiting the Meyrink have declined considerably since the appearance of so many other mooncalves running around free; whether they all dropped from the moon is impossible to say, but they have certainly been dropped on the head.

  THE SCHNITZLER: Schnitzler is the name of a racehorse which runs at Freudenau out of the Fischer stable and which, in its day, was a favourite with all the ladies and girls-about-town of Vienna because of the melancholy mettle it used to show. People would bet on Schnitzler because they liked it, even though they knew it would not even be placed. Because Schnitzler was such a favourite, and to encourage the granddaughters of the girls-about-town to come to Freudenau, the Jockey Club has agreed to let Schnitzler, whenever and as long as it runs, always come third, even if it pulls up after the first lap. Long may it run.

  Folter’s Gems

  Paul Busson

  With a violent jolt the cab stopped outside a large house in a fashionable part of town. The young doctor jumped down and rushed past the porter up the broad staircase. The servant who had just telephoned him from the coffee house was waiting by the half-open door on the first floor. On the small brass plate stood the name: Jerome Kerdac.

  Once the doctor had entered, the servant immediately closed the door behind him, took his coat and hat and, with trembling hands, ushered him into a large room that was in semi-darkness; a flick of the switch and it was flooded with bright light from a chandelier of Venetian glass.

  Dr. Klaar went up to the wide bed in which the sick man lay. A thin wisp of bluish gunsmoke was still twirling round in the light. There was a smell of scorched linen. The doctor’s foot knocked against a hard object: it was the revolver with which Kerdac had shot himself.

  The man in the bed had his eyes closed. His gaunt white face was motionless and his breathing weak. The doctor bent down over him and lifted the bedcover, which had been drawn up. He had placed the barrel of the gun below his left breast. There was a small, round hole with dark edges, a few spidery splashes of blood on his shirt next to the burnt patches round the bullet hole in his shirt, and that was all. Carefully, the doctor ran his hand over the man’s back as he lay there unconscious. The bullet was still in the body. There seemed to be some damage to the heart; whether that was the case or not, there was not much that could be done for him.

  Dr. Klaar got the servant to repeat his story, which he did with much sobbing and stammering, he had obviously not yet recovered from the shock. For some time now, he said, the Master had been melancholy and highly irritable; there had often been weeks when, without actually being ill, he had refused to leave his bed and he had eaten nothing for days on end. Sometimes he had seemed to be feverish, had rambled and seen horrible threatening visions. At night especially, he had often groaned and cried out loud, and several times he, the servant, had woken with a fright and hurried into the bedroom to stand by the Master. He, however, had always reprimanded him harshly for this and finally forbidden him once and for all from entering the bedroom at night unless he rang for him. Today the Master had had a particularly bad day, had moaned and groaned a great deal and had not had a bite to eat. At half past five in the evening he had rung for him and sent him out to do some shopping, which should have taken him about an hour. However, he had not quite finished his work and had still been in the house some twenty minutes later when the sound of a muffled report came from the bedroom. And when he had seen that the Master had shot himself he had immediately run to the telephone and had rung up the Café Central where, as he happened to know, the gentlemen from the hospital used to go to read the papers. That had been a quarter of an hour ago.

  ‘Good,’ said the doctor. ‘Bring me paper and ink and then take what I write down to the police station at once. It is my duty to report this immediately.’

  At that moment the doctor noticed that Kerdac had opened his eyes wide and that his lips were moving. He hurried across to where his patient was breathing heavily.

  ‘Send my servant back to his room,’ whispered Kerdac. ‘I would like to talk to you.’

  Dr. Klaar told him to stay calm, he was just going to write something to send to the chemist’s.

  ‘The chemist’s, oh really?’ groaned the injured man. ‘I heard everything that was said. Why the police? It will soon all be over. I have something important I would like to tell you.’

  He broke off and began to fidget with the blanket. His face was becoming visibly more emaciated and his nose stood out.

  The Hippocratic face, thought the doctor, and he realised that in that case it really did not matter if the police should receive his report ten minutes later.

  He decided to allow the dying man to have his way, told the servant to stay at the ready in his own room and sat down close to his patient, who raised his top lip in a grateful smile. He felt unwilling to subject the poor man to the torture of a further examination. It was his opinion that the bullet was lodged in the lower part of the pericardium. It was a miracle that the organ could still function. It would continue to pump the blood laboriously round his body for a while, the heartbeat becoming more and more sluggish.

  ‘Feel under my pillow,’ murmured Kerdac. The doctor did as he asked and pulled out a slim casket of reddish-brown morocco leather. There was a coat of arms stamped on the lid, which gleamed dully with the patina of age. It showed a winged snake with a woman’s head. Beneath it was written in Gothic script: A Folter.

  ‘Have a good look at it,’ said Kerdac. ‘I’m not going to die just yet. I feel fine.’ His eyelids slid down so that the doctor started forward. Kerdac was lying motionless and his breathing was regular, even if very weak.

  Dr. Klaar opened the casket. It was lined with velvet that had once been white, but had long since yellowed. In twelve semicircular compartments lay twelve thin, polished stones, smooth and transparent, with a crumbling black silk mask over them, like a protective covering. The mask had only one round opening, over the right eye, with a kind of raised lip, as if it were made for a small eye-glass to fit in. There was a narrow strip of parchment in the mask on which words in similar Gothic lettering were printed, or written by a skilful hand.

  The doctor gave his patient a questioning glance and then, when he kept his eyes tight shut, looked back at the strip. He found it completely incomprehensible, both the heading and the rest:

  Folter’s True Gem
s

  Januarius. – Hyacinth. – Eve.

  Februarius. – Amethyst. – Poppaea.

  Martius. – Heliotrope. – Salome.

  Aprilis. – Sapphire. – Selina.

  Maius. – Emerald. – Diana.

  +Junius. – Chalcedony. – Nahema.+

  Julius. – Cornelian. – Astarte.

  Augustus. – Onyx. – Semiramis.

  September. – Chrysolite. – Lilith.

  October. – Aquamarine. – Undine.

  November. – Topaz. – Roxana.

  December. – Chrysoprase. – Helen.

  Call them all, except only Nahema.

  Dr. Klaar read it aloud. Like a fading echo, there came from the lips of the wounded man, ‘ … but not Nahema.’

  And then Kerdac gave both the stranger by his bedside and the familiar objects in his room an astonished look, as if he had just woken from a deep sleep.

  ‘I was unconscious?’ he asked in a weak voice. ‘I could feel myself sinking … deeper and deeper into the blackness …’

  A violent tremor ran through his body. His hand felt for the doctor’s.

  ‘Tell me … doctor … there is … no hope, then? If you were to operate … ?’

  Dr. Klaar instinctively looked away and tried to comfort the man with the usual meaningless phrases, to give him new heart. It was not the first time he had sat by a suicide’s bed and witnessed the terrible awakening, the sudden recognition of a senseless, pathetic act which could not be undone. He thought of the poor seamstress who had died of phosphorus poisoning in his hospital three weeks ago; right until the very end all her thoughts, all her hopes had been concentrated on recovery, in spite of her wretched life, which she had tried to bring to a messy and excruciating end. Had she managed to recover, it would have meant nothing other than a continuation of her via dolorosa, doubly hard to bear because of the tiny, deformed and nameless creature that she, abandoned like a beast in the wild, had brought into the world in her icy attic. Happy were those who managed to kill themselves quickly, who slipped over into death during sleep, or whose end struck them like lightning in their prime, so quickly that they had no time for thought.

  Kerdac had tears in his eyes when he saw the doctor’s expression. But he was brave enough to come to terms with it.

  ‘Then I will tell you everything,’ he said softly. ‘You will be the only one to know.’

  ‘You shouldn’t talk too much,’ replied Dr. Klaar, with an uncertain glance at the clock. He was surprised to find himself still sitting here, instead of making the mandatory report.

  ‘Please … do stay …’

  A deep moan followed by a sobbing gasp indicated a painful convulsive fit. Kerdac clutched the doctor’s hand as firmly as he could with his helplessly weak fingers, as if he was afraid he would be left to die alone and wanted to hold him there. When he had recovered somewhat, he began to gabble; gradually his voice calmed down and became clearer, although it was so soft that the doctor had to hold his ear close to the injured man’s lips to keep him from overexerting himself. During the whole of his story, Dr. Klaar kept the strange casket in his hand.

  ‘No one will mourn for me,’ said Kerdac, ‘there is no one who loves me. I have been alone since I was ten years old, completely alone. Do you know how sad that is? Do you know how a poor, timid lad like that can suffer in his cheerless existence? Huh! No one can know! … It was a long time ago … Later, when I left the institution where I spent the whole of my bleak childhood, they sent me to university. At the age of twenty-four I received a letter from the Chancery Court; my fortune, which until then had been administered by a grumpy old lawyer who otherwise did not concern himself at all with his ward, was paid out to me. I registered the fact with the dull indifference, the lethargy, which had become second nature to me. My circumstances were better than before. I had a large apartment decorated by a talented designer and buried myself in my books. Buying books, by the way, was the sole luxury I had allowed myself so far.

  Presumably as a result of my lonely life, which had turned me in upon myself, I became interested in rare and occult works. With time I collected a great number of such books, from Agrippa of Nettesheim to modern, spiritualist works. I devoted my energies passionately to deciphering unknown oriental manuscripts. At the same time I tried to practise magic. But apart from fleeting experiences and unusual dream-visions, which were probably the result of the obligatory incense burnt, some of which doubtless contained hallucinogenic substances, there was nothing that brought me closer to the mysteries I was seeking to fathom. Over the years I became acquainted with a few people who secretly concerned themselves with such matters and claimed to have seen more than I did. Perhaps they did really believe it. Once I came across a man who was said to be possessed of unheard-of magic powers and who pretended to be an Oriental. His disciples listened to his fantasies with imperturbable patience; in reality he was just a petty swindler who used his talent to pay for some of the minor comforts of life. His “magnetic healing” was the thing that caused the authorities to have him deported back to his native Bavaria. So that led to nothing, either. Would you dry my forehead please, doctor?’

  Kerdac’s forehead was covered with large beads of sweat, and Klaar gently patted it with a towel. Perhaps it might be possible to lengthen this wretched life a little; the needle with the injection which he had kept at the ready easily penetrated the loose skin of his lower arm. The injection seemed to do Kerdac some good, he took a deep breath and continued in a somewhat more lively tone,

  ‘I told you that as an example of the many disappointments I suffered. It was always the same. For ten rupees, a fakir in India, in Dharwangar, showed me the famous miracle of the mango tree. As he repeated his incantations, a young, light-green shoot appeared from the seed he had planted and grew higher and higher each time after he had covered it with a cloth. Finally I grabbed the pot with the seed from the fellow, in spite of his screams: the seed had been carefully split and a mango seedling very cleverly concealed within it. In the cloth were four other seedlings, each larger than the other.

  Why am I telling you this? To show you that I am no novice in these matters and quite capable of distinguishing sham from reality; to make you understand that what drove me to fire that wretched bullet into my chest was more than the dreams of a fevered mind. It was real, of a reality that was so beautiful and yet so awful, that no living person can imagine the degree of horror I have lived through.

  After the experiences I have described, I banished my magic books to the depths of a huge, locked cupboard and set off to travel, unencumbered by mental baggage. It was no good. The rapid change of scene did not cheer up my melancholy temperament. If the Mediterranean sun shone more brightly on others, if the roses in Fiesole had a nasty odour which I found oppressive, if the blue sea smelled of fish and seaweed, then the fault lay within me. There must be something wrong with my eye, my hearing must have a string with an ugly note. How else could I explain why all I saw of a beautiful woman was the smut that the wind had blown onto her cheek and her veil had smudged? Why all I heard in a Beethoven concerto were the opening bars of a vulgar song repeated over and over again? Why, at a play that moved other people to the depths of their souls, could I only see the grubby scenery and the wrinkles of the actor who played the young lover? It was me! I was the cause of my own suffering!

  Once I was in love, madly, unreasonably; I could not live without her. It may sound like an empty cliché, yet it still expressed the truth. This time I saw no physical defects. But I was tormented by a fiendish jealousy. I knew she was deceiving me and at the same time I knew that was not the case. Can you understand? I could not help it. There was something compelling me to think the worst of the woman I loved, and I tormented the only woman there was for me in the world with my insulting suspicions and my sarcastic words of rejection until, hurt and deeply wounded in her most tender feelings, she left me, her face bathed in tears. And with that my life was really over, tha
t is what has destroyed me. Of that I am sure.’

  Kerdac gave a deep sigh. A great weakness accompanied by a quivering of the muscles suddenly came over him, appearing to presage his rapid demise. But this time it passed, and he continued:

  ‘I cannot remember anything that has given me real joy. I have tried everything and been disappointed by everything. It was my own shortcoming, I was incapable of joy. Eventually I gave up all attempt to enrich my life as pointless and fell back into my old state of complete apathy. I got up when I had had enough sleep, ate, drank and made my bored and futile way round the city.

  One evening – I was living in Paris at the time – I was sitting in a boulevard café drinking a glass of beer. It was a warm, rainy day in spring. The lights were reflected in the wet cobblestones. The people streamed past; occasionally one would split off from the throng and come into the café; others who left it were immediately swallowed up by the living stream. I almost found it amusing to observe all these little scenes, which were like a symbol of life.

  Suddenly I realised that a man had sat down at my table, something which made me very uneasy. I gave him a hostile look. It was a miserable, poorly dressed Jew with a reddish, unkempt beard and restless, anxious eyes. He drank his sweet liqueur with tiny sips and tried to take up as little space as possible. When he saw that I had noticed him he started and sketched a bow. After a while he addressed me in bad French, with the characteristic singing intonation of the Jews. He spoke very hesitantly, as if he was very embarrassed and I soon realised what he wanted. He had, he said, arrived in Paris only that day, with his wife and three small children, one of whom was very ill. He wanted to settle down here, but he had spent the whole day running round without success and he was starving and dog-tired. His wife was waiting for him, somewhere far out in the suburbs, and he hadn’t a sou in his pocket to buy bread for his children. I gave him an irritated look, my first thought was that he was one of those countless importunate beggars who make a better living from some paltry speech they have got off by heart than many an honest working man. But his eyes looked at me with such passionate, desperate pleading in them and were fixed in such anxious expectation on my face that, contrary to my intention, I pushed a five-franc piece across the table to him. He erupted in such a flood of thanks and loud blessings that he was becoming a perfect pest. And when he went on to ask me whether I would not be willing to buy something from him I told him rather sharply it was time he disappeared. But he stayed calmly in his seat and took the casket that you have in your hand, doctor, out of his pocket and handed it to me. It had belonged, he said, to a fine gentleman in Vienna who had shot himself; he had bought it from the sale of his effects. It must be very rare and very old. He had asked his rabbi what it was, but he had commanded him to burn it and under no circumstances to sell it. But that would be a waste, and he was poor. Would I give him twenty francs for it?