Against my will, I opened the thing and bought it at once. It was a long time since anything had excited or surprised me; the effect on me of this casket, with the mask and strip of parchment, was like a glass of cool water to a man dying of thirst. I immediately put it in my pocket.
The Jew was still nodding to me gratefully and muttering blessings. He disappeared as he had come: I looked away for a moment, and when I turned back to the table, he was gone; in the end he had not dared to take the money; the gold coin lay beside my arm. I was sorry about that. I would have been happy to give the poor fellow the money. I never saw him again.
I made my way home as quickly as possible. I had a very pleasant apartment close to the Madeleine. I sent my servant out to bring some cold supper. After I had eaten I gave the casket and its contents a thorough examination. In vain I searched my books to see if anything was known of a magician called Folter, whose “true gems” lay before me.’
A further fit interrupted Kerdac. The doctor, constantly expecting the end, was in an inexplicable state of excitement, and the minutes seemed to drag before the pale lips opened to continue their story.
‘I must hurry,’ he stammered. ‘I shall go downhill fairly rapidly from now. I was talking about that first evening? Well, it took me weeks of thinking and searching, weeks of torment, before I found the secret. It was one evening in September when I put the mask on once again and inserted the month’s stone, the chrysolite, into the round hole. It was something I had tried a hundred times. And as I had done a hundred times before, I stared through the thin disc towards the light. In contrast to former attempts, this time I decided to wait until something – anything at all – appeared, and I was prepared to wait the whole night if necessary. How long it took I cannot say. A very long time, certainly. Later on it happened more quickly. Well, there I sat for hours, spellbound, looking through the yellow stone. Then suddenly, involuntarily I would say, I started calling out the name Lilith countless times.
All at once it seemed as if something like a small cloud was forming in the centre of the transparent disc. But no … now it seemed to be outside, in the corner of the room. My critical faculties began to fall asleep; all I could do was to stare fixedly at the yellow cloud, watching it grow and grow, watching the movement within it. It was as if I were paralysed. The figure of a woman became clearer and clearer … a naked woman with long hair. Then I must have lost consciousness, for when I moved my hands again I felt as if I was waking from sleep, and the apparition had disappeared.
My first idea was that it was a vivid hallucination, which could only be explained by self-hypnosis, by the systematic overstimulation of the optic nerves. Then I went out. The whole evening, even in the theatre – a mindless vaudeville – the name Lilith kept appearing inside me. I remember that I had read various things about it: a she-devil, Adam’s first wife, the succubus of the Middle Ages.
I was dreadfully tired, and went home early. Once I was in bed I fell asleep almost immediately. And I awoke almost as quickly, from contact with a body close to me. There was a woman in my room, beautiful as a vision, veiled in long, golden hair which crackled as it flowed over her shoulders. The web of gold gave off blue sparks.
And the strange thing was that I felt neither surprise nor terror. It seemed quite natural that she had come. I knew that this slim, supple body was that of my lover, the she-devil Lilith. Oh … I had known her before. It was surely not the first time I saw her. I knew those sweet lips, those bright, blue eyes with the tiny pupils which were mere slits, like those of a cat. And I looked for the little drop of blood she bore like a ruby on her lower lip. I knew that it was always there, trembling, on her pale-red mouth. The yellowish, dusky light too, in which I saw my room, seemed something long familiar.
But those were not thoughts going through my mind … there was only feeling … I felt everything … it was all inexpressibly clear and yet impossible to put into words. Just like the thoughts you might have of music … or colours … I don’t know how to put it. On this and other nights, thoughts that took the form of words, ideas, were something alien, crudely physical, that would have torn me from her arms.
Imagine you could perceive sounds, harmonies with all your senses … feel, smell, see them … No! I can’t tell you what it was like … It was bliss. I dissolved into a dark, purple flame … I fainted from joys that no one can even guess at. I swirled up in bewitching eddies of light … bodiless and yet feeling with all my senses … I was one with the woman, one single, godlike being…
When I was woken by the gentle shaking of my servant it was past midday. I got out of bed and staggered across the floor; I was dazed, tired, drained. There was a livid mark on my neck, and on the crumpled pillow a shining spot. It was blood, Lilith’s farewell kiss!
That day I avoided people. I did not want to see anyone. The light faded, evening came. I was in my bed once more, awaiting my lover, as my burning eyelids closed. But I slept the whole night through, a deep, dreamless sleep. She did not come, because I had not called her.
From that time on I lived for the night, and the day, with its noise and all its brightly lit ugliness, was a nightmare for me. At night I was a king, there was nothing on earth to compare with my glory, and I gave little heed to my wretched body, which paid for the flights of my spirit with fevers and anaemia. I regarded my body as a worthless machine, which was just to be kept going as long as possible. I could scarcely be bothered to have enough to eat.
But oh my friend, those nights! They all came when I called them in their months: Eve, the mother of mankind, in the beauty of her youth, with silky down on her arms and legs and a child’s smile playing round her innocent lips; Astarte, the dark-brown goddess with the sultry eyes, dressed in gold, with cool, heavy jewellery; Selina, pale and sweet in her silver-blue tunic; Roxana with the scent of amber and yellow roses. With the blonde Poppaea I wandered through shimmering colonnades, her violet cloak rustling softly as I kissed her white face. Diana, supple and sunburnt, awaited me under the cork-oaks of the Pyrenees, and with Semiramis in her silver helmet I stood surrounded by the intoxicating glory of the blooms that filled her garden. Undine twined her thin girl’s arms around me and, with a laugh, shook glittering drops from her green hair. To the dull thump of the hand drum, the piercing note of the whistle and the cascading harp Salome danced the dance that had once charmed Herod; her dark-green veils were spattered with the blood of John the Baptist. Oh, I can still hear Helen’s soft, enchanting laughter and see the broad, bronze belt which jingled as it slipped from her slim waist…
Ah, my lost bliss! Finally I did what was forbidden. The idea lodged within me and tormented me: Nahema! I struggled and suffered. And I was defeated. On the first day of June…
I called her. She was the most beautiful of all and wore a wide cloak, grey and fine as the wings of a bat. Beside her everything seemed lifeless, pain and joy knew no bounds, every nerve seemed to respond individually, every sensation to grow to an extreme of intensity. I wept tears of joy and waited for the night, I only started to live when twilight fell, the twilight that was the colour of her cloak. And she came, night after night. The other stones had lost their power for me.
Then came the horror. It came wrapped in her cloak. Her divine body began to change … every night she seemed older … wrinkles appeared on her forehead . . ugly shadows ringed her eyes. Years seemed to separate one night from the next.
In the end she was a lemur with loose, parchment skin and a toothless mouth. She tortured me with disgusting caresses. She came every night … and … she told me I must die … so that she might be rejuvenated. I must kill myself. She said it all the time, even by day she whispered it in my ear. The man in Vienna had been compelled to obey. In German Folter means … torture …’
Kerdac suddenly let out a shrill cry and opened his eyes wide. His jaw fell to his chest.
Dr. Klaar started violently and bent down to him: Jerome Kerdac was dead. A little black blood trickled out
of the bullet-wound. The doctor called the servant and went down the staircase with unsteady steps. He took the casket with him.
He had already been sitting for more than four hours looking through the mask. The thin, polished aquamarine glowed a greenish-blue before his throbbing eye. There was a deathly hush in the room. He had spoken the name and seen a little cloud form, but his reason kept watch and woke him from his trance again and again. My God! It was nonsense! Angrily he tore off the mask and rubbed his inflamed eye.
It was one of those evenings when the heart of the lonely is seized with a wild melancholy, a leaden sense of lost time; one of those days when withered hopes and desires we thought dead assert their power over us. Then we are visited by a dismal procession of thoughts and ideas, which we imagined we had long since overcome.
Dr. Klaar made his glum way home from the third-class inn where the young doctors used to take their meals. He almost burst into tears at the sight of his room with the smoking lamp, the furniture upholstered in cheap cotton rep and the ugly, cold stove. But then he managed to pull himself together and put his mood down to the nervous strain of the events of the afternoon. After that he calmed down a little.
It was the second time he had woken with a start. Something wet or cold had touched his face and he had the impression that a faint shadow had moved away from his bed and evaporated in the darkness of one of the corners of the room. He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the steady flame of the night-light. Then he went back to sleep.
A few minutes later he gave such a violent start that he was out of bed before he was completely awake. Something was scurrying away from him … the figure of a girl, almost transparent … now it was gone. On the bedside rug were two elongated damp patches, on the floor the damp marks of tiny, slim feet…
Dr. Klaar gave a scream like a startled animal. The dampness quickly evaporated and the floor took on its old appearance again. The doctor was still standing by his bed, babbling to himself.
And then he gave another scream. ‘Undine! That is madness! I’m going mad …’
Quivering all over, he tore open the window. Icy autumnal air flowed over his face. He collapsed in a trembling fit and clasped his head in both hands as he crouched on the floor. Then he jumped up, grabbed the casket like one possessed and tipped the stones out; one after the other he flung them into the darkness, and down below the brittle discs splintered on the cobblestones. The parchment and mask he held over the flickering candle; he did not feel the flame as it blazed up round his fingers.
Shivering, he sat on a hard wooden chair in the middle of the room, waiting in mortal fear for the clear, grey light of dawn which was slowly, slowly creeping across the roofs.
Sergeant Anton Lerch
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
On the 22nd of July, 1848, before six o’clock in the morning, a reconnaissance party, the second squadron of Wallmoden’s Cuirassiers, one hundred and seven cavalrymen under the command of their captain, Baron Rofrano, set off from the mess in San Alessandro and rode towards Milan. The whole of the open, shining landscape was immersed in an indescribable calm; from the peaks of the distant mountains morning cloud rose into the gleaming sky like silent smoke-clouds; the maize stood motionless, and villas and churches shone out from among groves of trees that looked as if they had been washed. Scarcely had the troop advanced a mile beyond the last outposts of their own army than they saw the glint of arms among the maize fields and their advance party announced enemy infantry. The squadron formed up by the road for the attack. The bullets hissing over their heads with a strangely loud noise, almost a miaow, they charged across the fields, driving a company of men with a variety of weapons in front of them like quails. They were men from Manara’s Legion with strange headgear. The prisoners were put in the charge of a corporal and eight men and sent to the rear. The advance party reported suspicious figures outside a beautiful villa with a drive flanked by ancient cypresses leading up to it. Sergeant Anton Lerch dismounted, took twelve men armed with rifles, surrounded the windows and captured eighteen students from the Pisa Legion, all handsome, well-mannered young men with white hands and long hair. Half an hour later the squadron captured a man in the dress of a peasant from Bergamo who aroused suspicion by his exaggeratedly harmless and inconspicuous behaviour. Sewn into his coat lining were extremely important and detailed plans regarding the setting-up of a volunteer corps in the Giudicaria and its cooperation with the Piedmontese army. Around ten o’clock in the morning a herd of cattle fell into their hands. Immediately afterwards they were opposed by a strong enemy detachment, from which they came under fire from behind a graveyard wall. The front line under their lieutenant, Count Trautsohn, jumped the low wall and cut down the enemy as they rushed between the graves in confusion before the greater part of them escaped into the church and then out through the sacristy door into a dense thicket. The twenty-seven new prisoners stated that they were Neapolitan volunteers under papal officers. The squadron had one dead. A detail, consisting of Corporal Wotrubek and dragoons Holl and Haindl, rode round the thicket and came upon a light howitzer drawn by two horses which they took by slashing with their swords at the guards, grabbing the horses by the bridle and forcing them round. As he had sustained a slight wound, Corporal Wotrubek was sent back to headquarters to report the successful skirmishes and other pieces of good fortune. The prisoners were again sent back, but the howitzer was retained by the squadron which, after the escort had left, still numbered seventy-eight men.
Since, according to their statements, the various prisoners were unanimous that Milan had been completely abandoned by enemy troops, both regular and irregular, and had been denuded of guns and other military equipment, the captain could not resist giving both himself and the dragoons the opportunity of riding into this large and beautiful city, lying there defenceless. Amid the peal of the midday bells, the four trumpets sounding a thunderous advance to the steely glitter of the sky, jingling against a thousand window-panes and sparkling in reflection on seventy-eight cuirasses: seventy-eight upraised naked blades; the streets left and right like a disturbed ant-hill, filling with astonished faces; figures disappearing, blanching and cursing, in house doorways, drowsy windows thrust open by the bare arms of unknown beauties; past Santa Babila, San Felde, San Carlo, the famous marble cathedral, San Satiro, San Giorgio, San Lorenzo, San Eustorgio; their ancient bronze doors all opening and the hands of silver saints and bright-eyed women in brocade waving from the candlelight and clouds of incense; ever on the alert for shots from a thousand attics, dark entrances, low shops, seeing nothing but adolescent girls and boys with their white teeth and dark hair; looking out on all this from a trotting horse with gleaming eyes from behind a mask of blood-spattered dust; in by the Porta Venezia, out by the Porta Ticinese: thus the fine squadron rode through Milan.
Not far from the latter gate, where there was an esplanade planted with handsome plane trees, Sergeant Lerch thought he saw a female face that he recognised at the ground-floor window of a newly built, bright yellow house. Curiosity made him turn round in the saddle and, since at the same time his horse started stepping rather awkwardly, so that he suspected it had picked up a stone in one of its front shoes, since also he was at the rear of the squadron and could fall out without fuss, all this made him decide to dismount, which he did after he had guided his horse so its front half was in the entrance of the house in question. Hardly had he lifted the second white-socked forefoot of his bay, to check the hoof, than the door of a room in the house which gave directly onto the entrance actually opened to reveal a buxom, almost young woman in somewhat dishevelled dishabille, and a bright room with window-boxes, in which were a few pots of basil and some red geraniums plus a mahogany cabinet and a group of mythological figures in biscuit ware, became visible behind her to the sergeant, whilst at the same time in a pier glass his sharp eye spotted the opposite wall, which was taken up by a large white bed and a concealed door, through which a corpulent, clean-shaven, oldish man was j
ust retreating.
Meanwhile, however, the sergeant had remembered the woman’s name and many other things besides: that she was the widow or divorced wife of a Croatian corporal in the pay corps, that nine or ten years ago in Vienna he had spent a number of evenings, often late into the night, with her, in company with another man, her actual lover at that time, and now his eyes sought her former slim but voluptuous form beneath her present plumpness. She, however, stood there and smiled at him in a slightly flattered Slav manner, which sent the blood pulsing through his strong neck and behind his eyes, whilst a certain affectation in the way she spoke to him, as well as her dishabille and the room furnishings, somewhat intimidated him. At that moment however, as he watched a large fly crawl over the comb stuck in her hair and concentrated solely on raising his hand to drive the fly away and then letting it fall onto the back of her white, warm yet cool neck, he was filled from head to toe with the sense of the victorious skirmishes and other good fortune of the day, so that his heavy hand drew her head toward him, and said, ‘Vuic’ – her surname had certainly not crossed his lips for ten years and her first name he had forgotten – ‘in a week we are going to move into the city and these will be my quarters,’ nodding in the direction of the half-opened door to the room. As he was speaking, he heard several doors slam in the house and felt his horse pulling him away, first of all by a mute tug at the bridle, then by a neigh to the other horses. He mounted and rode off after the squadron without any other answer from Frau Vuic than an embarrassed laugh as she threw her head back. But the words he had spoken asserted their power. Slightly aside from the main column and no longer riding at such a smart trot under the heavy, metallic glow of the sky, his vision trapped in the cloud of dust accompanying them, the sergeant became more and more immersed in the room with the mahogany furniture and pots of basil and at the same time in a civilian atmosphere, which still had a martial tinge, an atmosphere of comfort and agreeable violence with no officer to give him orders, a life in slippers, the hilt of his sabre sticking through the left-hand pocket of his dressing gown. The corpulent, clean-shaven man, who had disappeared through the concealed door, something half way between a priest and a retired valet, played an important role in his daydreams, almost more than the beautiful, wide bed and Frau Vuic’s delicate white skin. At times the clean-shaven man played the role of a deferential friend on familiar terms with him who recounted court gossip, brought tobacco and capons, at others he had his arm twisted, was forced to pay for Lerch’s silence, was associated with all kinds of subversive activities, was in collusion with the Piedmontese, a papal cook, a procurer, the owner of suspicious properties with dark summer-houses for political meetings, and he grew into a huge, bloated figure in whose body you could drill twenty bung-holes and draw off gold instead of blood.
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000 Page 9