The Black Spider (New York Review Books Classics)

by Jeremias Gotthelf

  And indeed such a storm was raging as had not often been seen in human memory. Storm winds roared from every cleft and chasm, gusting from all sides, and all these winds converged at Sumiswald, where every cloud became a warring army, each assailing the next, attacking its life force in a wild melee of cloud as the storm took root there, thrusting forth bolt after bolt; and bolt after bolt struck the earth as if the storm meant to carve out a passage through the middle of the earth to the other side. Without respite thunder bellowed, the storm howled its wrath, the clouds’ bosom had burst open and great floods poured forth. Watching this great battle of clouds erupt with such violence and force, the priest made no reply to the sexton, but he did not sit down again either; an ever greater terror gripped him, and he felt a powerful urge to race out into the raging elements, hesitating only for the sake of his companions. Then it seemed to him that over the thunder’s fearsome roar he heard the bloodcurdling cry of a woman in despair. And then the thunder became the voice of God cursing his dilatoriness with fearful wrath, and at once he set out, disregarding the others’ protests. Out into the fiery storm he strode, into the winds’ fury, the floods unleashed by the clouds; slowly and unwillingly the others followed.

  The wind bellowed and howled and roared until it sounded like the trumpet blast heralding the Last Judgment and the end of all worlds, and sheaves of flame rained down upon the village as if to set every last hut on fire; but the servant of the One who gives the thunder its voice and commands the lightning has nothing to fear from these fellow servants of the same master, and he who walks God’s path can safely entrust himself to God’s storms. And so the priest strode without fear through the raging winds on the road to Kilchstalden, carrying the blessed holy weapons at his side and with God in his heart. But the other two did not follow with the same resolution, for their hearts held something different; they did not want to make their way down Kilchstalden—not in such weather, not in the depths of night—and Hans had an additional reason to be reluctant. They begged the priest to turn back, to take other paths—Hans knew shorter ones, the sexton better ones—and both warned of the waters sure to be raging in the valley of the swollen Grüne. But the priest would not listen, he disregarded their words; driven by a wondrous force, he hastened upon wings of prayer in the direction of Kilchstalden, his feet striking no stones, his eyes blinded by no flash; trembling far behind him, and protected, or so they fancied, by the sacred host the priest carried, Hans and the sexton followed.

  But when they had left the village behind them and reached the place where the Stalden descends into the valley, the priest stopped short and shielded his eyes with his hand. Down below the chapel, a red feather shimmered in the lightning’s glow, and the priest’s sharp eye beheld a swarthy head rising out of a green thicket, and upon this head the red feather swayed. And as he continued to gaze, he saw on the opposite slope, flying swift as could be as if driven before the wind’s most violent gusts, a wild figure hurrying toward this dark head upon which, like a banner, the red feather waved.

  This sight filled the priest with the holy battle lust that seizes warriors whose hearts are consecrated to God when they sense the presence of the Evil One, just as a seed is seized by the urge to grow when life enters it, or a flower by the need to unfurl; the will to take action seizes the hero when his enemy raises his sword. And like a parched man plunging into a river’s cool waters, or a hero into battle, the priest sprang down the slopes of the Stalden, plunging into the fierce battle, thrusting himself between the green huntsman and Christine, who had been just about to place the child in his arms, plunged right between them, hurling before him the three highest holy names as he raised the sacred host to the green man’s face, sprinkling holy water on the child and striking Christine at the same time. With a dreadful cry of pain the green man bolted off, shooting into the distance like a streak of fiery red until the earth devoured him; struck by the holy water, Christine crumpled with a horrific hissing sound like wool in fire, like lime in water, shrinking into a ball, hissing and spitting fire, every part of her shrinking but the bloated black terrifying spider in her face, and she shrank and shriveled into it until only the spider was left sitting venomous and defiant atop the child, its eyes shooting thunderbolts of fury in the priest’s direction. The priest sprinkled holy water that struck the spider, hissing like ordinary water on a hot stone; the spider grew larger and larger, stretching its black legs over the child and fixing the priest with an ever more baleful gaze; and then the priest, seized by a courage born of faith, reached out a bold hand to grasp hold of it. It was as if he were grasping a bundle of fiery thorns, but undaunted he kept his grip and then hurled the foul creature aside, took up the child, and raced with it as quick as he could to its mother’s side.

  Now that his battle was over, the clouds’ battle also ceased, and quickly they retreated to their dark chambers; soon silent starlight flickered in the valley where not long before the fiercest battle had raged, and the priest, almost breathless, reached the house where so heinous a deed had been perpetrated against mother and child.

  The mother lay unconscious, having sent forth her life along with her piercing cry; beside her, deep in prayer, sat the old woman, who still trusted in God, believing Him mightier than the devil was evil. But when the priest brought the child, he brought life back to the woman. Awaking, she beheld her child once more, and blissful joy streamed through her such as only angels in heaven know, and in the mother’s arms the priest baptized the child in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and now it was forever safe from the devil’s clutches unless it voluntarily wished to enter them. But God would guard against this, for the child’s soul had been entrusted to His care although its body had been poisoned by the spider.

  Soon the soul of the child departed, its little body scorched as if by flames. The poor mother wept of course, but when each part goes to the place where it belongs, the soul to God and the body to earth, consolation comes with time—sooner for some, later for others.

  As soon as the priest had carried out his holy office, he began to feel a strange tingling in the hand and arm with which he had seized and hurled the spider. Small black spots appeared on his hand, and as he watched they swelled and grew, and his heart quivered with deathly pangs. Blessing the women, he hastened home, for as a faithful soldier he wished to return the hallowed weapons to their place so that another might wield them after him. His arm swelled to enormous size, with black blisters rising ever higher, and he struggled with a deathly exhaustion, but it did not overcome him.

  When he came to Kilchstalden, he saw Hans, the ungodly father who had been missing all this time. Hans was lying on his back in the middle of the road. His face was swollen and charred, and right in the middle—huge, black, and terrifying—sat the spider. As the priest approached, the spider puffed itself up, the hairs on its back venomously erect, its eyes flashing baleful glances, like a cat preparing to spring into the face of her mortal enemy. The priest began to recite a psalm, holding out the hallowed weapons before him, and the spider recoiled, it crept long-legged down from the blackened face and disappeared in the hissing grass. So now the priest returned home, restored the sacred host to its place, and with violent pangs wracking his body, consigning it to death, his soul waited in sweet tranquillity to join its God, for whom it had nobly striven in valiant battle, and soon God brought it peace.

  But a sweet peace calmly awaiting its Lord was not to be found down in the valley, nor upon the mountain peaks.

  From the moment when Christine had raced down the mountainside with the stolen child, hastening to the devil, an unholy terror had struck the hearts of the peasants. During the terrifying storm, they had trembled in deathly fear, for their hearts knew full well that if God’s hand were to come down to destroy them, it would be more than deserved. When the storm had passed, the news went from house to house that the pastor had brought the child back and baptized it but that since then neither Hans nor Christi
ne had been seen.

  The dawn discovered many pallid faces, and the lovely sunshine did not lend them its hues, for they knew that the most terrible thing of all still lay before them. Then they heard that the priest had died, covered in black blisters, Hans was found with his horrible face, and there was strange, confused talk of the terrible spider into which Christine had been transformed.

  It was a fair harvest day, but not a single hand stirred to its toils; the peasants gathered as people do on the day following a day of a great misfortune. Only now did they truly feel in their quaking souls what it meant to buy ransom from earthly misery and torments at the cost of an immortal soul. There was a God in heaven who would take merciless revenge for injustice inflicted on poor defenseless babes. And so they clustered together, trembling and wailing, and no one dared go home, and yet there was divisiveness and quarreling among them, each blamed the others, each claimed to have warned and cautioned the others, and each was in favor of punishing the guilty, while insisting that he and his household not be punished. And if, in this awful hour of quarreling and waiting, they had known some new, innocent victim to turn on, any one of them would have committed the vilest outrage in the hope of saving his own skin.

  Then a terrible shriek came from the middle of the crowd, as if someone had set his foot upon a burning thorn, as if his foot were being nailed to the earth with nails of fire, as if flames were shooting through his marrow. The crowd flew apart, all eyes drawn to the foot to which the hand of the screaming man was pointing. On this foot sat the spider, black and huge, glowering balefully, maliciously all around. The blood froze in their veins, the breath in their breasts, and the sight in their eyes, while the spider calmly, maliciously peered about, and then the man’s foot turned black, and in his body it felt as if fire were hissingly, furiously doing battle with water; fear burst the bonds of horror, and the crowd scattered. But with wondrous speed the spider abandoned its first seat, scurrying across the foot of one man, the heel of another, and flames shot through their bodies, and their terrible cries made the others flee even faster. Like the wind, like startled game flying as the hunter gives chase, they fled in mortal fear to their huts, each of them imagining the spider at his heels, they barred their doors and yet were unable to stop trembling with unspeakable fear.

  And for one day the spider was gone, no dying cries were heard, people were forced to leave their barricaded homes, they had to provide for their beasts and for themselves, and so, deathly afraid, they did. For where was the spider now, here perhaps, about to set itself down unexpectedly on a foot? And the one who was most cautious where he set his feet and who peered most sharply with his eyes would suddenly see the spider sitting on his hand or foot, or racing across his face, sitting fat and black upon his nose and peering into his eyes, and flaming thorns lodged themselves in his marrow and hellfire engulfed him until he lay dead.

  And so the spider was first nowhere, then here, then there, then down in the valley, then up in the mountains; it streaked through the grass, dropped from the ceiling, popped out of the ground. In the middle of the day, when the peasants sat around their pot of porridge, it would appear glowering at one end of the table, and before they had recovered from their terror, it had raced across all their hands and sat at the head of the table atop the skull of the paterfamilias, surveying the table and all the hands that were turning black. It dropped onto people’s faces at night, surprised them in the woods, pursued them in the stables. There was no avoiding this creature, it was everywhere and nowhere, none could protect himself while awake and there was no safety in sleep. When people thought themselves safest, out in the open air, perched in a treetop, fire would creep up their spines and they would feel the spider’s blazing feet at the back of their necks as it peered over their shoulders. The child in its cradle, the graybeard on his deathbed were not spared; it was a scourge such as had never been heard of before, and dying of it was more dreadful than anything ever experienced, and even more dreadful than the death itself was the nameless fear of this spider that was everywhere and nowhere and that—just as a person thought himself in safety—might appear glowering before him with its message of death.

  News of this curse had of course soon traveled to the castle, and here too it had brought forth terror and quarrels—at least to the extent that quarreling was permitted under the order’s rules. Von Stoffeln was afraid this scourge could visit them as it had their livestock before, and the departed priest had said several things that began to trouble his soul. The priest had said to him that all the sufferings he inflicted on the peasants would come back to haunt him, but von Stoffeln hadn’t believed him then because it seemed to him that God would differentiate between a knight and a peasant, otherwise why would he have created them so different? But now he was fearful that everything might come to pass as the priest had said, and so he had harsh words for his knights and declared that severe punishments would be visited upon them all because of their frivolous words. But the knights were unwilling to take the blame, each thrust the responsibility upon the others, and though no one said this, yet all of them were of the opinion that in the end it concerned only von Stoffeln himself, since on closer inspection he was to blame for all that had occurred. They also singled out the young knight from the Polish campaign who had spoken with the most frivolity about the castle and had most incited von Stoffeln to undertake the new construction and the presumptuous walk. He was still quite young, and yet he was the wildest of them all, and where derring-do was required, he was always at the fore; he was like a heathen and feared neither God nor devil.

  This knight could see what the others were thinking though they dared not utter their thoughts directly, and he also saw their secret fear. And so he mocked them, saying that if they were so afraid of a spider, how would they fare in the face of dragons? Then he armed himself well and rode out into the valley, boasting that he would not return until his steed had trampled the spider and his fist had crushed it. Fierce hounds leapt about him, the falcon sat upon his fist, his lance hung from his saddle, and the horse reared up lustily; half in malice, half in fear, they watched him ride away from the castle, remembering the night they had watched at Bärhegen, where worldly weapons had proved powerless against this adversary.

  He rode along the edge of a fir forest towards the nearest farm, his sharp eye darting glances around and above him. When he beheld the house and the people around it, he called to his dogs, and removed the hood from his falcon’s head, while his dagger rattled in its sheath. When the falcon turned its dazzled eyes to the knight, awaiting his signal, it sprang up from his fist and shot into the air, the dogs that had leapt to his side now howled and raced off with their tails between their legs. In vain did the knight ride and shout; his animals did not return to him. Then he rode to where the people were, wishing to question them, and they stood waiting until he drew close. Then they shrieked in horror and fled to the woods and the ravine, for atop the knight’s helmet sat the spider, black and swollen to supernatural size, glowering balefully, maliciously all around. The knight was carrying the very thing he sought and did not know it; in ardent fury he shouted and gave chase to the people fleeing before him, shouting ever more furiously, riding ever faster, bellowing ever more dreadfully, until he and his steed tumbled over a cliff and down into the valley. There his body was found, and his helmet; the spider’s feet had burned their way through the helmet and into his brain, igniting the most horrific flames there, until death overtook him.

  And now the fear in the castle was redoubled: They barricaded themselves inside and yet did not feel safe; they sought spiritual weapons, but for a long time found no one able and willing to wield them. Finally a distant cleric was lured to Bärhegen with money and promises; when he arrived, he declared that, armed with holy water and holy words, he was eager to set out to battle this evil adversary. But instead of readying himself for this battle with fasting and prayers, he breakfasted along with the knights and lost count of the cups he d
rained while feasting on venison and bear. Meanwhile he spoke at length of his heroic deeds of the spirit, and the knights spoke of their worldly ones, and the cups they drained went uncounted, and the spider was forgotten. Then in an instant all life was blotted out, hands froze where they were, clutching cup or fork, mouths hung open, and all eyes were riveted on a single point. Only von Stoffeln drained his cup, finishing his story of a heroic deed performed in the land of the heathen. But on his head sat the spider, swollen up huge and glowering at the knights seated there, but the knight did not feel it. But then the fire began to stream through his brain and blood, he gave a dreadful cry and grasped at his head, but the spider was no longer there, with terrible speed it had raced across the faces of all the knights, no one could stop it; one after the other they cried out, seared by these flames, and then the spider sat atop the cleric’s tonsure, gazing down at the gruesome scene. The cleric wanted to use the cup his hand was still grasping to quench the fire that was blazing from his head down into marrow and bone, but to no avail: The spider stayed where it was, glowering from its throne as it surveyed the carnage until the last knight had uttered his last cry and drawn his last breath.