by Paul Busson
“Baron,” said the Magister, “you have been dreaming. For quite an hour I have been sitting reading in a chair on the landing at your door. No one entered the room, and no one could have possibly left it. This is proved by common logic.”
Exhausted, I sank back into my pillows.
“Dreaming?” I felt a bitter taste on my tongue. But then I spoke again. “Hemmetschnur, you have been in Stamboul, and you know many languages. What does this sentence mean that I am going to repeat to you.”
And slowly, pronouncing every word distinctly, I repeated to him the last words that I had heard from Evli. “Hamd olsum-tekrar gördüğümüze. ”
The Magister raised his eyes. His mouth stood open in astonishment. He passed his hand over his face, stared at me again, and shook his head.
“By the diamond of the Great Mogul! Baron, it is the purest Turkish!”
“What does it mean? I want to know what it means!” I demanded impatiently.
“It means: Thank God, we shall meet again/ ”
“Thank God!” I repeated with a sigh. I laughed for joy and patted his hand which was holding out the cup.
“Strange things happen by daylight in this witch's room,” the Magister exclaimed. “Baron Dronte, the man you wanted to see - why, the Moslem Dervishes look exactly as you have described. This is stranger than strange.”
“I will give you the means of escaping from this house, Mr. Magister,” I said quietly, “now that I understand why you had to remain here until now. It was for my sake you led this martyr’s life; so is it my duty to help you out of it.”
He fell on his knees before my bed. letting fall the cup he held in his hand and spilling my medicine.
“God bless you a thousand times!” He sobbed and kissed my hand. “A little longer and I would have made my escape in another way - by hanging myself on the window bar. The bottom of hell would be better than my wretched life here.”
He picked up the cup.
“I will make haste and bring you another drink, merciful sir,” he cried, all laughter and tears as he ran away.
I closed my eyes. A dreamy languor held me in its embrace.
“Thank God we shall meet again.”
Thank God, thank God...
Now anything might happen. And nothing of what had happened in my life, whether good or evil, had been in vain.
Thank God.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Most of the time during my recovery I was alone with my thoughts. And truly they were more welcome visitors than the old boorish man who would tramp noisily in from time to time. He would let himself down with all his weight on to my bed, bestrew everything about me with snuff and begin telling me, as though I had asked for them, stories of his own and my father’s gallant years.
It was far easier to tolerate the Magister. who looked after me and was very helpful. The grateful expression of his face did me good. What pleased me most was that he was in no hurry to leave. I had provided him with sufficient money for his journey, but he preferred to wait until I was quite well. He procured for me all I wanted, and shaved me when my beard grew too long.
Once when he had left me, I took the little hand-mirror from the table by my bed and looked at myself. My face was yellow and emaciated, and my hair was sprinkled with silver hoar-frost. Yes, indeed, I was grown old, old and weary. With a feeling of melancholy I looked away through the windows at the leafless tops of the withered poplars, doomed like myself to an early death. But suddenly it dawned on me that there was hope in my melancholy. I had a reassuring memory of the stone in the churchyard of my native place: it bore Sir Thomas More’s great declaration: Non omnis moriar, I shall not wholly die.
Again I held up to my face the smooth looking-glass, and as I held it with an unsteady hand just a little slant-wise, I caught a glimpse in it of a sweet feminine face, with red hair only a little less bright than the golden coif that adorned it. It was the picture of Eva Weinschrötter reflected in the mirror from the wall opposite.
Her grey eyes gazed at me half-questioning, half-knowing, and an inward smile seemed to hover about her lips; but even as I looked her face changed to a heart-rending expression. My sight became riveted on it; I was helpless against its powerful attraction. Then the circle of the looking-glass widened, veiled everything like a fine-spun moon-mist, drawing me into its sphere of influence. Gradually I became aware that I was being surrounded by people of another time, and I myself was one of them.
Was it not in this room that...?
A table stood near the wall, and at the table I saw myself sitting, dressed in a black hood, striped with fur. Two men dressed in the same manner sat to the right and the left of me, and at the narrow end of the table sat Master Hemmetschnur, blinking as he bent over a parchment. Sure enough it was the Magister, though he wore a white monk’s frock and a black hood.
On the opposite side of the table, her copper-gold hair all loose, stood Eva Weinschrötter!... No, it was Zephyrine! She was apparelled in a dark grey smock covered with crusted blood, and her snow-white skin showed through it. She was looking at me wildly; there were blue circles above her ankles, her hands were bound behind her back with a greasy leather strap that ran through a smooth iron ring in the vaulted ceiling. The other end of the strap was held by a man whose small, maliciously glittering eyes peered through the eye-holes of a dull-red cowl which covered his face and his broad shoulders.
Overpowered with horror I looked at myself seated yonder. I saw my own eyes glittering eagerly and tremulously, I realised how narrow and evil was my mouth; and I heard myself saying with mercilessly cruel calmness:
“Weinschrötter, before we proceed to the second degree of the question, I ask you once more will you confess or will you not?”
A cry of despair came from the pinioned girl, but she shook her head, her hair moving like a red banner in the wind. The man in the cowl scraped at the brazier, stirring up flakes of fire - and plucked out a white-hot iron bar from the coals...
Then the dreadful vision broke up with a crash.
I had let fall the looking-glass. Its broken pieces were scattered across the floor.
The Magister came in. “Baron.” he said, “this means, alas, seven years of unhappiness!”
“I must go.” I answered wildly; “find a carriage for me. I will not stay in this room another night.”
“You are too weak to go yet, Baron,” he expostulated. “I could easily find a conveyance. Peter Geissler will willingly get his horses ready if I send for him. But it is a long way to the nearest town.”
“Find me a carriage.” I urged him. “I will not stay here.”
He went on shaking his head.
I was suddenly afraid of my room. It was here that the Man from the East had appeared to me, bringing comfort that counterbalanced all the pains and bewilderments of my life, but now I knew that these decayed walls were also haunted by demons, enemies to everything that lived. It was as if old cries of pain, curses and complaints still clung to the worn leather hangings; they were haunting the fissures of the masonry; and when twilight came they sounded out again - they conjured up nightmares of unutterable horror. And my weakened heart was incapable of coping with them. At the horrible witches’ Sabbath Bavarian Haymon had appeared to me among the ghosts and goblins, and even in the wild confusion of the orgy he had been a friend: “Take my advice,” he had said, “and see that you get away.” I was determined to follow his advice as soon as the carriage and horses could be brought to the door.
Neither my weakened body nor my mind, strained as they were to the utmost, could offer any resistance to the ghosts that surrounded me. But even apart from that, I could not hear the thought that in the night, when the heart beats more violently, and the mildewy walls come to life again and rustle and rumble. I should once more have to listen to my barbarous host howling his horrid songs yonder, until the rough wine would topple him over and silence him in a drunken sleep.
So I rose up by myself from
the bed. and holding on to the bedrail I stumbled across to the table and began to dress. The first exertion exhausted me so much that I had to lie down for a moment before I could continue. But slowly, painfully, I succeeded in getting myself into my brown travelling clothes, and then, with faltering hands I carried my belongings into my bag. I was ready to start.
I had to wait some time before the Magister returned, out of breath with running. He told me that Peter Geissler was waiting with his horses at the door. It was for me, he said, to induce the Master of the Hounds to allow him, Hemmetschnur, to accompany me. If he reached the Rhine it would be easy for him to escape into Prance where, he explained, the great Revolution was now in full flower and the Third Estate had possessed itself of all power.
I was arrested by this information, and persuaded the Magister to tell me about the wonders which the people of France seemed to be achieving. With sparkling eyes and an animated expression of which I had never thought him capable, he vowed by all that was holy that he would see the radiant dawn of Freedom break gloriously from the smoking ruins of shattered dungeons. I was so fascinated by the picture he drew that I too felt a great desire to go to Paris and see everything with my own eyes.
With the Magister’s help I descended the tumble-down stairs of Krottenriede for the last time, and knocked at the Master’s door. He sat at a table, whistling to himself. He was examining the parts of a gold-inlaid gun-lock that he had taken to pieces and was oiling with a feather dipped in a little bottle of marrow-oil.
He listened while I outlined my plans, but he refused to countenance them, saying that it was now the beginning of the season for shooting the red deer, and that he would never suffer the son of his old boon companion Dronte to leave him without having a lucky shot and winning a pair of antlers. As for taking away that cursed fellow, the crazy Magister, there could be no question about it, for he would be needed to write some severe manifestos to the neighbouring peasantry, who had again begun scouring and hunting with their dogs in the chase, a proceeding which was to be firmly stopped, and the miscreants severely punished.
I replied very politely that I could hardly stay any longer at Krottenriede, since I had important and urgent business to look to. Otherwise, in my state of health it would not have occurred to me to undertake a long journey in a peasant’s wagon. Whether or not he would take it on himself to let me depart in my feeble condition with no one to look alter me but the driver. I left to his conscience.
These words produced a certain impression on him. but he continued to shake his head, saying that it was precisely the Magister he was most concerned about. As a nobleman I must understand that Hemmetschnur was just the sort of wretch who would seize the opportunity of escaping. He. the Master, had good reason for keeping hold of the fellow: once or twice the timber accounts had not agreed, and indeed he felt inclined to lay hands on him there and then and keep him in jail until he should willingly return to food and whip and put aside all thought of trying to get away. After all. added the old cheat with a twinkle of his eye. he had never in his life seen a cheaper and better clerk, and this was why he would never allow him out of his sight it he could help it!
I repeated my request that the man might accompany me. At last the Master fell to my cunning eloquence and said he would commit him to Peter Geissler's charge and give the driver orders that the wretch without ears was to return with him as soon as they had taken me to my place of destination. The old man asked me to treat the conceited, learned ape as nothing more than a carrier of chamberpots and footman, and not to spare him a kick or a box on the ears when necessary. This he said was the best physic for such a fellow, who no doubt imagined himself to be better than a nobleman or a gallant soldier.
At that I shook hands with my host, pretending to he in a hurry to continue my packing. Instead of staying for dinner I called Hemmetschnur, who had been anxiously waiting in the antechamber - with the exception of the dining-room he was forbidden the Master’s rooms. We lost no time in getting into the vehicle that was waiting for us, and I ordered Geissler, the young peasant on the box, to drive off at once.
The carriage went rattling down the steep avenue and had covered about a thousand yards when a loud horn blast came to us from the Castle. The peasant made a movement to stop the horses. “His lord-ship is calling us back,” he said.
“You fool,” answered the Magister. “It is only Raub, the chief huntsman, blowing a farewell to the Baron. So get on.”
We drove forward, and the sounds of the horn, in which I clearly recognized the call “Rally” or “Return.” were soon lost on the fresh wind.
In the afternoon we halted at a small town. My weakness had increased. Half asleep I had listened to Hemmetschnur telling me the story of his lost ears. They were a severe punishment for a foolish escapade of his in Stamboul. Attracted by the signs and nods of a veiled Turkish lady he had scaled a wall; immediately he was seized by eunuchs, who, acting under the orders of a richly dressed man, cut off his ears there and then with a pair of shears. He fainted from pain and loss of blood, and the servants of the cruel man took him out into a deserted street and threw him on a dung-heap, where he remained in the burning heat of midday. The street dogs licked the blood off his wounds, and thus saved him from inflammation. Charitable Moslems picked him up and carried him to a monastery of Franciscans, who took care of him. Later on he discovered to his great mortification that the veiled lady was a hideous old hag, who wanted to divert herself, all of which was brought to such an end by her son-in-law, a powerful pasha.
I was not in a state to eat that afternoon, what of my weakness and the picture I saw before me of the Magister in his youth with the severed ears, and the mangy dogs licking his blood in the dusty street.
Towards evening we arrived at the town on the Rhine and drove up to an inn with the sign of the Imperial Apple. Hemmetschnur showed himself very anxious about me, and would have wished to remain. But I advised him to go ahead and cross the river before the town-gates were closed, lest a mounted envoy of the Master of the Hounds followed behind us to take him back to the Castle.
He was seized with such terror at the idea that his teeth chattered and he quickly obeyed me. Once more he kissed my hands, bowed over and over again. Pointing to the wide, peaceful stream he said: “Wherever I meet you again, my lord Baron, I will serve you without recompense and truly, for I am yours for blood and life.”
Then he was gone. Peter Geissler watched the Magister’s departure with a scratching of the head and wrinkling of the brow, but I gave him a sum of money, and as he drove away on the return journey I went into the inn.
“The gentleman’s face is burning with fever,” remarked the waiter as he showed me to my room. “Go straight to bed, sir, and I will send at once for Dr. Schlurich.”
He even helped me off with my clothes, and I felt the hot waves of a terrible sickness and the shivering of a fever. Then all became dark around me, and in the darkness endless rows of faces passed me in tormenting procession, faces more sullen and sulky than the Magister’s on the day I first saw Castle Krottenriede.
Chapter Thirty Eight
For weeks my life was on the brink of destruction, and my only succour was the image of Iza Bekchi, constantly present in my fevered dreams. At length a moment came when, waking as from a heavy slumber, I saw Dr. Schlurich sitting by my bed and was able to recognise him. He was a thin, middle-aged man, very gentlemanly and clever-looking. with a high and smooth forehead and beautiful eyes. His black suit was of the best material, his neckcloth was fastened with a priceless green emerald, and his hands were well cared for and white.
“My dear Baron,” he said in a pleasant and subdued voice, “I am glad to see that your illness has at last been overcome by your healthy constitution, and by your will to live.”
“And your skill,” I added politely.
“The beet nay skill can effect is to Help the mysterious forces contained in the body to defend themselves from impending dissolutio
n. At the most it can but call them out, it can soothe pain and restlessness. Of course I must also - except in rare cases - keep an eye on the ups and downs of the struggle. Sometimes, by means of some little trick of my trade, I am able to bring reinforcements to the man who has made up his mind not to die. This help may even sometimes be decisive, but on the whole the invalid has his remedy in himself. This time, dear sir, you turned back in good time from your journey deathwards.”
With these words he rose, advising me to do honour to the pudding of chocolate and jam which he had ordered for me, and to follow it with a good sleep.
He left the room slowly and with a friendly expression, pressing the golden pomegranate on the end of his stick to his chin.
A few days later I was able to get up, and I did so all the more willingly because strange and confused noises had begun to assail me from the streets - the discordant sound of trumpets, the growling murmur of voices - putting an end to the tranquillity of my chamber.
My chamber-groom helped me to dress. I noticed that during my illness the silver hoar-frost of age had finally settled on my head.
The garrulous and good-humoured servant told me a number of terrible stories about France, where blood was flowing in rivers and human life cheaper than a halfpenny. The contagion of freedom had begun to spread, and even in this quiet and old-world town all manner of disagreeable and dangerous happenings had occurred within the last few days. The climax to them was the great meeting of apprentices and the erection of a “Tree of Liberty.”
The town council, however, had acted with foresight. They petitioned the supreme authority to send them some cavalry and a battalion of infantry; and Gailer, gun-bearer to his Highness, had told the chamber-groom that they had received an answer to their petition, in which the troops were promised with the shortest delay.
When I was fully dressed I slowly descended the stairs into the dining-room, and to my great delight found Dr. Schlurich at the public table. At once he rose from his place and took a seat next to me.