The Man Who Was Born Again

by Paul Busson

  “Almighty...!’’ Garnitter was about to cry out, but Hoibusch instantly stopped his mouth with his hand.

  We held our breath desperately. The wide capital in falling down had buried the pillows - and the miserable head of poor Haymon, who had crawled back to his place without being noticed. His legs were grotesquely twisted, his hands clutched at the bedclothes on his breast, but all the rest of him lay under the murderous stone - a thick dark snake of blood glittering in the candlelight, trickling out from under the straw.

  “Lights out again,” ordered the Junker at the door in a hoarse whisper. “They are coming.”

  We stood in the dark on both sides of the door, ready to strike as soon as it opened.

  The resounding footsteps of the landlord and his sharp-nosed wife came down the passage. They talked loudly as they threw the door open.

  There, for an instant, they stood. The landlord held in his left hand a large stable lantern and his right was gripping a well-edged hatchet; the fury behind him was armed with a butcher’s knife. Then, in a flash, Hoibusch’s blade was spitting the man, and Garnitter’s ran through the throat of the hideous woman. She fell back squealing like a doomed pig. The landlord was dead on the spot, pierced through the heart. The woman made only a few convulsive kicks ere she lay still by his side.

  “Are you here, you bloody dog!” cried Garnitter, and he stamped his boot on the dead man’s belly. Upstairs the dog was howling.

  “The dog - Bärbel!” exclaimed Hoibusch. “We must get hold of the slut, or else she will get away and set her master’s accomplices on us!”

  He and the Junker hastened out with the lantern to find the woman.

  Garnitter and I stayed behind. We examined the four holes in the ceiling and the ropes by which the stone could be pulled up again. We tried to get Haymon from under it. But the stone was too heavy for us to lift, and when we tried to drag him out by his feet, his head bones crunched so dreadfully that we let go in horror.

  In the distance we heard a shot followed by the howling of the dog.

  Then a shuffling and whimpering sounded near, and Hoibusch and Sollengau entered, dragging forward the wench, garbed in smock and skirt. They had tom her out of her bed, where she had covered herself with a blanket and was pretending to be asleep. They had tied her hands with a rope.

  “I am not guilty!” Bärbel wailed when she saw us. Then, “Jesus, Mary!” she screamed, for she had put her bare foot in a pool of blood.

  “Confess, you whore, or we will lay you down dead at their side,” said Hoibusch sternly. “Did not you set the dog at us? Confess, I tell you!”

  “Oh, my bloody Saviour! What am T to confess?” The wailing girl fell on her knees. “I have committed no crime, except that I went to listen to you when my mistress sent me. I had no idea that they meant murder!”

  “But what is this, you shameless slut?” said Hoibusch in a harsh voice. He produced something he had been concealing behind him. Jewels and gold flashed out - a necklace of almandine with finely wrought clasps.

  The girl was pale with terror. She looked wildly round.

  “Speak," commanded Hoibusch. He spoke coolly and lifted the point of his blade to her bare breast. A red drop showed itself. “Tell us where you got these.”

  “Alas! Mercy!” cried Bärbel, squirming violently. “From the lady in the cellar - "

  Suddenly she fell down in convulsions. Foam showed itself on her lips. The sight of her was pitiful to see. But Hoibusch remained untouched.

  “You’ve learnt your part very well, you robber’s whore,” he said; “stop your spitting and get up.” And again he pricked her with the point of the sword. She sprang up like a cat, in spite of her tied hands.

  “Ach,” she said desperately, “I’d better be done with at once than - "

  She made such a quick and vigorous spring at Hoibusch's sword, and only narrowly did it escape running through her. But Hoibusch was on his guard, and he let the sword fall so quickly that she only tore her smock so that her dark breasts showed.

  “To the column with her,” cried Gamitter, and in spite of her fighting and shrieking the three students dragged her to the column and bound her with ropes beside dead Haymon. Leaving her in this silent and awful company all the four of us went away, taking the lantern with us. We only left the candle as a death-light for the murdered man.

  As we moved along the passage we heard the yells and wails of our captive. I must confess that they roused me to compassion, for I felt that it was not wholly her fault that she had become what she was. Doubtless from her childhood she had been in the clutches of a cruel destiny; an uncared-for girlhood, her instincts too early awakened, the bad uses her childish body was put to, poverty, misery, and lack of love - all these had produced their evil consequences. Who was I to condemn her, knowing as I did the dark recesses of my own soul?

  But however enlightened the three students might be and however good at heart, they would have regarded me with disgust at this moment and in the presence of the murdered man, if I had given vent to my thoughts, and I would have been of no help to her. So I remained silent, and only grieved about the perverse ways of men, and about the thousands of children left to grow up without any care taken of them; and not only the children of the poor, for was not I myself an example?

  I followed on sadly after the others, who had taken a bunch of keys from the landlord’s belt and descended into the cellar. On the landing there lay, as big as a calf, the dog killed by Gamitter.

  Under a heap of empty wine-bottles and other rubbish we found an iron door, sought out the key in the bunch and opened it. Rusty dust flew in our face, and then - we sprang back in horror.

  Some twenty corpses lay there, dried up, eaten by rats, bereft of all clothes. A horrible jumble of crushed faces and mouths, tangled hair, broken teeth. A black tongue, sticking out sideways, jammed hands, dried clots of blood, splintered bones.

  We ran at top speed up the stairs, and out of doors, and sat down on the mossy stone bullets, horror-stricken, breathing heavily and let the rain fall on us. In the east, a new day was dimly dawning.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  When it became quite light we gave oats and hay to the landlord’s grey horse and harnessed him. Hoibusch went to look at the girl. She was hanging helplessly in her cords. Afterwards they went up to the host’s bedroom, rummaging about in the cupboards and chests. There they found a great hoard of gold and silver coins, ornaments, rich clothes, fine linen and many weapons.

  Meantime I stole into the chamber where lay our poor Haymon.

  The girl was awake and her face glistened with tears. I went up to her and with the knife that I had taken from the dead landlord I quietly cut the cords, so that she might get out of them by herself.

  “Wait until you hear us drive away,” I said, “and then make your escape.”

  A ray of hope passed over the dejected face in which for all its corruption the innocent child was still to be identified.

  “Gracious sir!” she stammered...

  “Keep quiet,” I interrupted, “and don’t move until we are gone. Perhaps you may once again become honest, my girl. I lay a wager on it.”

  “Every day I shall pray for you, gracious sir,” she whispered. “May He have mercy on you as you have had mercy on Bärbel.”

  I went out hastily.

  When the three students emerged I asked them to keep me out of this affair, as I had important business at Krottenriede Castle, and the lengthy legal proceedings would interfere with all my plans. They promised to do so. and as the Castle lay on their route to the town we drove off towards the high-road all together, in the grey morning, still obsessed by last night’s horror.

  ”I am a bit sorry for the young creature at the column,” said Garnitter after a while. "I am not quite sure that she had anything to do with it. If she did go to listen, it was because she had to, and if some of the booty did come her way - ”

  “What’s this silly talk about?” Hoi
busch interrupted, whipping up the lame grey horse “Gamitter. you’re a long-winded philosopher and don’t understand anything about legal business. I know Roman law and my Carpzov sufficiently to say offhand what her sentence must be - and will be. And I’ll warrant my opinion is shared by Baron von Dronte and Sollengau as well.”

  But Gamitter refused to be browbeaten. “There is also such a thing as a Jus Divinum.” he retorted, “and evidently you know nothing at all about it. It has nothing to do with learning, there are no paragraphs in it and no hair-splittings and a knowledge of it is oftener found in simple people than in those who glory like peacocks in their green and golden tails, but have disgustingly inhuman voices.”

  “Do you mean to insult me?” asked Hoibusch, holding up the reins.

  “No quarrelling, gentlemen,” I said hastily. “Let us rather be grateful to Providence for saving us from a sudden death.”

  “This is also my opinion.” chimed in the Junker.

  Thus was peace re-established, and the Philosopher shook hands with the Lawyer.

  But however much we tried to shift our conversation to brighter subjects the dreadful night kept returning to our minds. For although we had been lucky enough to escape, there remained the victims, the miserable people in the cellars, and our companion, Haymon, the last of the Barons Treidelsperg...

  It was about noon, while we were traversing a heath which gradually merged into a forest, that we came on an old shepherd guarding his flock, and asked the way to Castle Krottenriede.

  “The gentlemen must drive a long way round,” said the old man, stroking his sheepdog. “Or else you may get out and take the narrow path across the wood to the right. It leads straight up to the Castle.” And he added that he was a shepherd in the Castle service.

  I climbed down from the cart, collected my belongings, and shook hands with my gallant companions, wishing them all happiness in the days to come. I gave a long glance at Gamitter; I had at first liked Hoibusch the best, but now Gamitter pleased me better on account of his kind-heartedness, and I was sorry I had not talked more with him.

  Once again I begged them not to mention me to the magistrate, as I had not used arms or been wounded. Moreover, I was engaged in other business, which was of paramount importance to me.

  They readily promised to do as I asked them, and drove on to seek out the Coroner’s bailiffs for the inquest on the robbers’ lair. They intended also to take measures for the Christian burial of the corpses in the cellar, to recover Haymon’s body from under the stone of death, and likewise to bury him.

  As I turned to go, Hoibusch stood up in the cart and cried out:

  “Baron von Dronte, it is easy to see that you are on the Philosopher’s side, and to please you I shall arrange that Barbel escapes with her life, and only goes to prison!”

  I waved to him and walked slowly away.

  When they were out of sight I sat down beneath the trees and wept. I shed grievous tears for Haymon and for the days of our youth.

  The path I had taken by the shepherd’s advice was an old disused bridle-path which ascended the hill rather steeply. Falling water and landslides had destroyed many yards of the track here and there, and I was greatly inconvenienced by my baggage as I clambered up the steep clayey slope. But the higher I mounted the better the path became; all kinds of bushes held the ground together and saved the path from crumbling away completely.

  The walk took me rather a long time, and it was late before I reached the top of the Castle hill. At a turn of the path I stood unexpectedly in front of Castle Krottenriede, where, as I passionately hoped, it would at length be granted to me to hear Evli speak.

  If there was anything that looked more gloomy, neglected and sombre than the “Bullet Mill,” it was tins Castle. An enormous grey stone box confronted me with shutters that had been painted in red and white stripes, but had now faded and hung slantwise on their hinges. It stood surrounded by mighty weather-beaten poplars, withered at their tops. There were two ponds of sluggish brown water, lined with weather-worn stones and grown over with poisonously green water weeds. A weathercock, representing a lion rampant, bent by storms and eaten with rust, stood on the steep and dilapidated roof. Some of the window-panes were grey with dust, others had nothing but fragments of glass sticking out from the mildewy frames. A large rubbish heap of broken bottles, rags, bones and ashes rose almost in front of the principal entrance. This was a Gothic doorway with a coat of arms carved over it, representing a Moor’s head with an arrow protruding from one of his eyes.

  Nobody was to be seen, so I stepped over the Castle threshold, and was attacked immediately by a pack of hounds. Before the furious hounds could get hold of me, however, a man appeared and whipped them back into their kennels. The iron grating of these kennels had been torn off; he put it in its place and propped it up with several stones. He was young but his face was sullen and wrinkled, and I noticed that both his ears had been cut off, evidently a long time ago.

  I was about to address him, but at that moment there came out of a door a monstrously fat, white-haired man, with a red face and glowing. He approached me, and asked in sharp tone my name and business.

  I named myself, and at once his face assumed an expression of delight. He stretched out his hand and cried out very loudly as he shook mine: "How? What? A Dronte? Melchior Dronte? Perhaps a son of my old boon companion and fellow-huntsman?”

  And when he heard the name and last residence of my dead father, he embraced me and shook me by the shoulders. His breath reeked of wine...

  “My dear Baron, I am delighted," he cried , "I am delighted, the bottom of my eighty-year huntsman’s heart, to make your acquaintance! Your late father was a huntsman comme il faut, and in these lousy times there are few like him. Ay, ay! How the years run on; here is Melchior whose birth we toasted in the Duke’s great silver bowl - we called it the Sow’s belly. I knew him as a baby with dirty diapers, and now he has grey hair on his temples. But what matter? The lean Huntsman may have loaded his gun with the bullet that will floor the old deer I am, but let us still be merry, my dear Baron. The sound of your name revives in me the memory of those chivalrous days.”

  I thanked him, but I was strangely and disagreeably struck by his having been my father’s friend. Nor did the sullen man without ears, who received an order to find me a room, please me over much.

  “But now I must introduce myself in form,” said the old man, and he pulled himself up stiffly: “I am Eustace von Trolle und Heist, the Master of the Hounds of the late Duke of Stoll-Wessenburg. I have lived for twenty years in Krottenriede. on a small income, among owls and crows. No, Junker, the idea did not enter our heads, your father’s and mine, when we held the head of the Serenissimus for the wine to run out of him.”

  We strolled up and down the cool avenue in the castleyard. I felt a tormenting unrest in my heart, and noted indifferently the hundreds of carved stags’ heads, boars’ tusks and antlers that decorated the walls, covered with spider-webs and hung with swallows’ nests. The ground was carpeted with almost hairless wolves’ skins and worn out deer-hides. Their impaired condition seemed to emphasise the general impression of neglect and decay. And this old man beside me was that old Heist of whom my father had told me how he had killed the court poet in a duel, and of whom Gudel had spoken with such disgust.

  “Ay, ay!” said the Master of the Hounds, stopping in his walk and drawing a pinch of snuff into his purple nose. “Morte de ma vie, Dronte, you are no child now, and it will not shock you if I tell you that your father and I were the best studs about court. Do they still talk about the time when we stood one of Her Grace’s chambermaids on her head and filled her with champagne, so that Serenissimus almost died of laughing. Or how one dark night we pinched Annemarie Sassen’s arse so hard that she screamed for help and Her Grace swore to have us publicly whipped, no matter what rank. Oh, those were fine times, sassa, wild days. What do you young people know of such things?”

  To entice him away f
rom these recollections, which reminded me too terribly of all the evil I associated with my father, I asked him about the man without ears, whom he had sent to find a room for me.

  “That one?” laughed the old man. “It is a former Magister who has knocked about a little everywhere. He has been at the Grand Signior’s court, though he does not seem to have prospered, for it was there that he had his ears cut off at the bridge in Stamboul. He has been living here for some years, and does all the scribbling business, in return for board and lodging and a few coppers: I keep him at a distance.”

  At that moment the man came up noiselessly behind us; a sour

  smile on his careworn lips betrayed to me that he had heard those last words. Dryly, and without any intonation, he reported to his master: “A room has been found, worshipful Master of the Hounds, the hall of the former court of justice. The roof is in tolerable order and won’t leak in case of rain. The bed has been provided with sufficient bedding, the windows have been washed, and it would seem they are whole. The gentleman may stay there, but - if only-------”

  “Don’t lose your time chattering about buts and ifs,” the old man snorted, “just say what is the drawback, you learned ass!”

  The sullen man did not so much as blink at this piece of rudeness.

  “As long as the gentleman is not afraid of the ghosts that haunt those old rooms.”

  “You three-horned dromedary!” cried the Master of the Hounds, and stamped his foot. “Enough that it is the hall of justice. What is there for supper?”

  “A haunch of venison with various jellies, boiled tench with millet and grape tart” said the Magister.

  “Good. Go back to your scribbling.”

  The grey man went off, his back bent.

  “You don’t treat the poor fellow very well,” I could not help saying.

  “These lettered scoundrels must be snubbed in this way, or else the are overcome by presumption and insolence,” laughed Trolle.

  “Believe me. Dronte, there is nobody that must be kept down and kicked as much as the learned set. It is they who try to make the common people discontented. A rascal is he who gives more than he has... But I will show you to your room.”