by Paul Busson
“The magistrate wants you to come,” he stammered.
And I followed him. When I came into the street I saw by the light of torches and lanterns the old man standing in the midst of a group of armed peasants. Before him, bound with ropes, waited a beardless curly-headed fellow, with a flat nose and a strong chin.
“Come here, young gentleman,” ordered the grey-haired peasant, beckoning to me. “Now, Frieder,” he said, turning to the fettered thief, “look well at this man, do you know him?”
“How can I help knowing friend Dietlieb?” grinned the rascal, jerking his chin at me, plainly relishing the opportunity to use his evil will on another. “He is the one of my good company whom I sent to spy out the land, the only one who has not yet been massacred by you pigs of peasants. But your turn’s coming, friend Dietlieb!”
I was shocked terribly by this sudden set-back, shuddering to meet with so much wickedness. A threatening murmur rose up, gleaming guns were pointed at me. I made as if to speak, but a gesture from the magistrate commanded everybody’s silence, although one of the peasants managed to shout that I must be shot down at once and not allowed to waste time in talking.
“Keep your peace, Kramer!” thundered the magistrate, and immediately a deep hush prevailed. He pointed towards me.
“Can you swear this man is one of you?” he asked Frieder.
“When did he leave you to come spying?”
“By the blood of St. Wilibrod he was one of us. He was with us!”
Frieder looked at me with devilish joy.
“As we were advancing on the village, after nine at night, I sent him in front with the poisoned meat for the dog.”
“You’re a liar!” declared a man in the crowd; “the rogue who came with the poisoned food in a copper box is lying yonder behind the dungheap. Old Kolbe shot him down.”
But Frieder was unabashed.
“And I repeat before God’s throne,” he shouted, “this fellow was one of us, and will stay with us, for he’s got to go to the jail and then to Master Hans’s dancing ground with me!” I was so disgusted that it was as if I had been stricken dumb. I could not say a word.
“Enough,” replied the magistrate.
Addressing Frieder he said:
“Vicious, devilish, damned sinner, you wished to stain yourself with innocent blood, even in this your last hour! Be it known to you, that this gentleman has been with me at the inn since the hour of noon: it was he who warned us and pointed to the signs on the statue. Follow your friends, Frieder, into eternal darkness.”
Frieder laughed shrilly and the spittle ran down his chin.
“You’re real wise, you poisonous old fool! If you have done me out of the fun of having next me on the straw this honest ass, that I never set eyes on before, it’s all right, and my situation must remain without a piece of sugar to sweeten it. Well, well! You fools of peasants, take me with proper ceremony to your lock-up and then, tomorrow, to the town jail in accordance with the law if you are not afraid of the journey!”
He laughed and neighed like a horse, trying his best to insult the country-folk who listened with open mouths to the insolent speech. Then they looked expectantly at their leader. The magistrate stepped up to the prisoner like a black threatening cloud, saying in a firm voice:
“Friedrich Zabernickel, which is your real name, we need no court and no jail. You may say your last prayer, and then you hang. That is your sentence.
” Frieder was a different man as he heard it. He was stricken with fear, and uttered a shriek so terrible that his eyes seemed to start out of his head. He raged and struggled in his cords, stamped madly in the snow, and writhed and twisted under the hard hands that held him close. The men waited stolidly until he was quiet again and gazed around fearfully.
“You don’t have the Right of the Sword. You can’t sentence me. You daren’t hang me! Where are your lawful gallows?”
And then, noting the inexorable faces around him:
“Think twice what you are doing, it is not lawful.”
“We know what we are doing,” answered the magistrate, earnestly. “Bad cases like yours justify proceedings that are not sanctioned in the laws of the land … If you wish to pray, you’d better do so at once. Your time is up.”
“I want no prayers, I have no use for your Lord God,” wildly cried the wretched criminal. “If you want to do murder against the law, do it. I have also done it. May the pest devour your dirty bellies!”
“Foul mouth!” growled the village smith and his heavy hand moved threateningly before the man’s livid face.
“Have you anything more to say?” asked the magistrate.
Frieder gave a mad laugh.
“Susel Schinder predicted that one day I would walk in the air on an apple tree. I want her prophecy to turn false, so if you’ve no objection I’ll make my last skip from a pear tree.”
“There’s one in Zeitler’s garden,” said one of the peasants in an undertone; and the procession started towards Zeitler’s garden, with crackling torches lighting the way.
A few women and even children followed behind. The torchlight spread over the glistening snow. Full of dread I went also; I was shivering uncontrollably. We came to a large orchard. At once the men threw the rope deftly over a gnarled pear tree and lifted the prisoner.
“A prayer, a prayer!” he begged.
They let him down. He distorted his face terribly and began chattering at top speed.
“May Beelzebub hear me, and may these houndish knaves and all their filthy breed perish, and become crooked and black with leprosy, pest and”
A sudden end came to his blasphemies. His feet struggled and kicked about in the air until two lads tied them together and hung on them. When they had finished, the legs dangled lifelessly. The head with the red cap stood out dark, slung to the knotty branch by the taut, thin line of rope. At the end one of the lads pointed to the tree, and then:
“Do you see, Heiner?” he said.
“Yes,” said the other. “You are right, after all! It’s an apple tree, and the pear tree’s over there.”
“So the Susel Schinder he spoke of could do more things than make jam!”
It was decided that the bodies of Frieder and his comrades should be buried at daybreak, and the ghastly gathering broke up.
“Well, young gentleman,” said the old magistrate, coming across to me, “you’d better come and get some sleep. Tomorrow not a soul will know anything about Frieder and his men and it would be just as well if you are silent about what you have seen here.”
I nodded, and walked at his side towards the inn. Suddenly I stopped. Taking the white-haired man’s arm and looking into his face, I said:
“How comes it that you also, Mr. Magistrate, understood those signs on the statue?”
He too halted, put his hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with penetrating eyes.
“Friend,” he said, and a bitter smile passed over his wrinkled face, “you have a right to ask this question. I’ll answer it:I have been through the same school as you. Perhaps I also have heard something from a poor sinner lying on the rack, or from a woman sleeping by my side who may have chattered out at night what her red mouth kept in during the day. Moreover, it happens sometimes that an innocent man is put in chains, and while he is lying on the hard jail-planks he has an opportunity of overhearing all about the tricks and dodges that jailbirds speak of to each other...”
“There, my friend, you have enough food for reflection about me! And if I were to write down the story of my early years and give it to you to read, it would not help you much more. Mark you, in my opinion no man knows anything about another, even if he be his brother... Come, I want to show you where you can sleep.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Finally, newly outfitted and clothed like a gentleman, I once again stood before my old home. I stood before the door, through which as a boy I had so often passed, and over whose threshold my mother, my father’s father, and litt
le Aglaia had been carried to their last resting-place. I was rooted there, for I had been stricken motionless at the news just given to me.
Last summer as the Baron von Dronte, my father, was eating grapes at dessert a wasp flew out of the fruit-basket and stung him in the neck, which quickly became so swollen that it threatened to stifle him. He demanded help by signs, begging the servants with gestures to make an opening in his windpipe with a pen knife. Toward the end he looked hardly human, and he died thrashing around and heaving, rolling his eyes and making rattling noises. The house and estate had been sold to Herr von Zochte, who had not yet moved in.
The servant who told me of my father’s death did not know me. He took me for a casual guest of Baron von Dronte; when I asked about the son Melchior, he only shrugged his shoulders and said that the young gentleman had fallen into all sorts of bad ways and eventually into the hands of the recruiters. Either he was killed or had deserted from the army, for no one had heard anything more about him. I asked with frightened curiosity after Phöbus Merentheim. I was told that he had been killed by the enemy, as a cavalry ensign in the Imperial service. And who was the old man’s executor? It was the notary Mechelde, down in the town.
I turned my horse’s head and rode slowly over the whole place, along by the slate-covered wall that ran round the park, and past the old trees that made the same rustling noise as of yore. And as I rode by the fish-pond and the forester’s lodge I saw in the distance the cedars of the churchyard.
In his grey room the notary Mechelde received me with stiff dignity. Dusty-grey paper-files lined the walls up to the smoky ceiling and the mummy-like man himself was grey, even to the green shade over his eyes. He offered a chair to me, examined my certificate of matriculation, the only document I had in my possession, and after poring awhile over some of his books told me that my late father had bequeathed more than half his property to noble Chapters and Orders of chivalry; that he had settled a large sum on the village church for the purchase of an organ; and that he had left numerous bequests to his huntsmen and also for the keep of his favourite hounds.
After this a sum of about fifteen thousand thalers remained for me, the only natural heir. I was entitled to receive it whenever I liked. I asked that I might see the will, and he accordingly produced it from a cupboard. It was all covered with stains, the notary explaining to me that as the old gentleman was dying he had tried to cancel with a goose quill the passage which referred to me as his “reprobate son Melchior von Dronte.” But his hand could not carry out his wishes, and his breathing became so difficult that a paroxysm of coughing sprinkled the paper with his blood.
During the explanation the notary drummed his spider-fingers on the top of the desk impatiently, and I thus realised that my presence was far from agreeable to him. But I resolved to take no notice of his scant politeness. I asked him to supply me with information as to what my father had said about me, for I still hoped to hear of some evidence of forgiveness, some trace of his paternal affection. The grey lawyer turned his feeble eyes on me and, as he twisted the gold signet ring on his finger with his left hand, said dryly:
“It is really outside my duty, Baron von Dronte, to repeat the confidential utterances of my clients. But if you are anxious to hear what your father said about you, I must confess that every time your name was mentioned he used words which I am neither willing nor entitled to repeat. In particular, the old gentleman seems to have entertained doubts as to whether his only descendant and heir to his name was worthy to use the old coat of arms and title, and this sentiment may have influenced his Lordship’s last testament, for in it he bequeathed to me his signet ring. I wear it now on my right forefinger.”
He stretched out his lean finger, showing me the ring with the Dronte coat of arms engraved on its stone, a sardonyx with three golden roses. Unconsciously my hand clenched. The notary glanced nervously at the bell which stood near his desk. Then he smiled complacently. I controlled myself, and went towards the door. But before I had reached it he hastily called me back and told me he had forgotten something.
My aunt, Aglaia’s mother, had bequeathed to me a little sealed box at her death, which preceded my father’s. This box was now in his keeping and he wished to deliver it to me at once. He fumbled for a while under the cover of his desk. Then he passed a receipt for me to sign, and after I had put down my name on the paper he handed over a box covered with faded blue silk, and sealed at the corners.
“And now,” he concluded, “Herr von Dronte will excuse me if I turn to urgent business...”
I left the grey room with a heavy heart. I was deeply affected to learn that my father’s hardness had lasted to his death. I was not thinking of the money. It did not distress me that I had received only a purse of fifteen thousand thalers instead of rich fields and meadows, forests and lakes, three well-to-do villages and all the other possessions that were now being sold by the cautious Chapter to the rich Zoechte.
What I felt genuinely sorry about was that of all the thousands of little things which had belonged to my mother not a single article was to be mine. I would have been very happy, in a melancholy way, if I could only have had the Dutch clock with the angel and the little Death, or my mother’s silver bride’s-goblet, or even the egg that was cleverly made up of seven different kinds of wood and on which she used to mend my stockings when I was a child.
Expelled from my home and denied any warmth of welcome, I retraced the long distance from the lawyer’s and directed my steps towards the graveyard. Fresh green leaves were budding on the trees that lined the road, and my spurs rubbed against the first flowers by the roadside. Larks rose trilling as they disappeared in the sky. The day was beautiful, but I was floundering in darkness. I entered the broad iron gateway to the quiet garden of the dead. I thought I would like to take leave for ever of one who never had a word of kindness for me and yet called himself my father. I walked bareheaded among the iron crosses, urns and stone angels.
The sky, that was blue only a moment ago, now became overcast by grey clouds, and the birdsong was hushed. A chill breath of wind came over the hill and set the tall bright grasses swaying. A single sunbeam, narrow and golden, fell across a square stone that bordered the path and bore a half-effaced epitaph. As it reached the epitaph the worn letters became suddenly decipherable, and I read:
“Non omnis moriar! I shall not wholly die.”
My eyes filled with tears of joy at the words, and my heart swelled with hope, sweet and vague. I was well acquainted with this inscription, first written by a Roman poet, and taught to me during my history lessons. The Englishman Sir Thomas More had repeated it just before his venerable head fell under the executioner’s axe. This was the first time that I had felt dimly and with awe the infinite meaning of the words. But the sunbeam faded, and the dull grey drizzle of a spring shower brought me back to my senses. I stamped my feet, and the clanking of my spurs drove away my day-dreams, which had threatened to lose themselves in the infinite.
I wandered across the churchyard to the family vault, behind whose rusty doors my mother and my harsh father slept together, and my grandmother, aunt, and the beloved Aglaia also. I gazed with deep feeling at the little rose bush that I remembered had been planted by my aunt a few days after Aglaia’s death. It was now become a handsome growth, and its branches were sprinkled with tiny little leaves of the tenderest green. In summer it would flower with red roses.
“How I would love always to carry about with me a red rose from your grave, Aglaia,” I said in a low voice, and I stooped as though I would touch the little bush.
I had a sudden fancy that its roots had found their way to her, and that she felt her loving hand touching them... Then, all at once, I was so startled that I nearly cried out aloud in the solemn calm of the churchyard. Yonder by a freshly-dug grave, not yet uncovered, a man sat on a half-broken, mossy stone. I recognised him: how could I forget one whose repulsive appearance had so often haunted my waking dreams? He still wore his broad
hat and his brass-studded wallet, and he looked at me impudently and defiantly with the same yellow goat’s eyes.
“It’s me all right,” he croaked. “It’s Fangerle. It isn’t long, is it, since I last had the pleasure of seeing your Lordship.”
I gave no reply. In my pocket I carried a loaded pistol that I grasped firmly.
“Ay, ay, your Lordship,” sniggered the ugly fellow, grimacing hideously; “I was there when they hanged Friedrich Zabernickel, but I kept well in the background.”
He broke into a bleating laugh, and his eyes glimmered in the shadow of his hat.
“What is your business here?” I asked.
He laughed again, and the sound was like the clinking of broken glass. With his yellow hand he pointed to the open grave at my side, from which the gravediggers’ spades had thrown earth, bones and a brownish skull with hair still clinging to it.
“A new one, Baron,” the man hissed, “and I am waiting for the soul-mouse.”
He tapped his wallet. A shrill, plaintive cry proceeded from it.
“Let me alone with your nonsense,” I ordered, trying to conceal my horror.
A cold raindrop struck me on the face, and startled me, I was so much on edge. The man twisted his face into a frightful grimace, and his eyes sparkled evilly as he opened his mouth agape and reproduced the dreadful scream that Heiner Fessl had uttered in his mortal anguish.
“I-ii-iii”
“Dog and devil!”
I rapped out, losing control of myself entirely. I whipped the pistol out of my pocket like lightning and brought the muzzle to his wrinkled face and fired. For a moment I could see nothing through the blue smoke, and when it dispersed, very slowly because of the rain, the fellow was scurrying away among the distant monuments and tombstones. I heard his repulsive squeal of laughter. And again it seemed to me that a large owl-like bird went sweeping between the trees and the wall... Then I heard the sound of people hurrying towards me.