by Joe Bandel
Then he went back through the gate and across the courtyard. The old coachman sat on the stone bench in front of the stables. He saw him raise his arm and wave to him and he hurried across the flagstones.
“What is it old man?” he whispered.
Froitsheim didn’t answer, just raised his hand, pointing upward with his short pipe.
“What?” he asked. “Where?”
But then he saw. On the high roof of the mansion a slender, naked boy was walking, quietly and confidently. It was Alraune. Her eyes were wide open, looking upward, high above at the full moon. He saw her lips move, saw how she reached her arms up into the starry night. It was like a request, like a burning desire.
She kept moving, first on the ridge of the roof, then walking along the eaves, step by step. She would fall, was going to fall! A sudden fear seized him, his lips opened to warn her, to call out to her.
“Alr–”
He saw her lips move, saw how she reached her arms up into the starry night.
But he stifled the cry. To warn her, to call her name–that would mean her death! She was asleep, was safe–as long as she slept and wandered in her sleep. But if he cried out to her, if she woke up–then, then she would fall down!
Something inside him demanded, “Call out! Then you will be saved. Just one little word, just her name–Alraune! You carry her life on the tip of your tongue and your own as well! Call out! Call out!”
His teeth clenched together, his eyes closed; he clasped his hands tightly together. But he sensed that it had to happen now, right now. There was no going back; he had to do it! All his thoughts fused together forming themselves into one long, sharp, murderous dagger, “Alraune–”
Then a clear, shrill, wild and despairing cry sounded out through the night–“Alraune–Alraune!”
He tore his eyes open, stared upward. He saw how she let her raised arms drop, how a sudden shudder went through her limbs, how she turned and looked back terrified at the large black figure that crept out of the dormer window. He saw how Frieda Gontram opened her arms wide and stumbled forward–heard once more her frightened cry,
“Alraune”.
Then he saw nothing more. A whirling fog covered his eyes; he only heard a hollow thud and then a second one right after it. Then he heard a weak, clear cry, only one. The old coachman grabbed his arm and pulled him up. He swayed, almost fell–then sprang up and ran with quick steps across the courtyard, toward the house.
He knelt at her side, cradled her sweet body in his arms. Blood, so much blood covered the short curls. He laid his ear to her heart and heard a faint beating.
“She still lives,” he whispered. “Oh, she still lives.”
He kissed her pale forehead. He looked over to the side where the old coachman was examining Frieda Gontram. He saw him shake his head and stand up with difficulty.
“Her neck is broken,” he said.
What was that to him? Alraune still lived–she lived.
“Come old man,” he cried. “We will carry her inside.”
He raised her shoulders a little–then she opened her eyes, but she didn’t recognize him.
“I’m coming,” she whispered. “I’m coming–”
Then her head fell back–
He sprang up. His sudden, raging and wild scream echoed from the houses and flowed with many voices across the garden.
“Alraune, Alraune! It was me–I did it!”
The old coachman laid a gnarled hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
“No, young Master,” he said. “Fräulein Gontram called out to her.”
He laughed shrilly, “But I wanted to.”
The old face became dark, his voice rang harshly, “I wanted to.”
The servants came out of their houses, came with lights and with noise, screaming and talking until they filled the entire courtyard. Staggering like a drunk he swayed toward the house, supporting himself on the old man’s arm.
“I want to go home,” he whispered. “Mother is waiting.”
Finale
It is late in the summer, the hollyhocks now raise their heads away from the stalks. The mallows scatter their dull tones in tired colors, pale yellow, lilac and soft pink. When you knocked my love, the spring was young. When you entered through the narrow gate into my dream garden the swift little swallows were singing their welcome to the daffodils and the yellow primrose.
Your eyes were blue and kind and your days were like heavy clusters of light blue wisteria dropping down to form a soft carpet. My feet walked lightly there through the sun glistening pathways of your arbor–Then the shadows fell and in the night eternal sin climbed out of the ocean, coming here from the south, created out of the glowing fires of the desert sands.
She spewed forth her pestilent breath in my garden strewing her rutting passion beneath her veil of beauty. Wild sister, that’s when your hot soul awoke, shameless, full of every poison. You drank my blood, exulted and screamed out from painful tortures and from passionate kisses.
Your marvelous sweet nails that your little maid, Fanny, manicured grew into wild claws. Your smooth teeth, glowing like milky opals, grew into mighty fangs. Your sweet childish breasts, little snow-white kittens, turned into the rigid tits of a murderous whore. Your golden curls hissed like impassioned vipers and the lightning that unleashed all madness reposed in your soft jeweled eyes which caught the light like the glowing sapphire in the forehead of my golden Buddha.
But gold lotus grew in the pool of my soul, extended themselves with broad leaves upon the vast shallows and covered the deep horrors of the whirling maelstrom. The silver tears that the clouds wept lay like large pearls upon their green leaves, shining through the afternoons like polished moonstones.
Where the acacia’s pale snow once lay the laburnum now throws its poisonous yellows–There, little sister, I found the great beauty of your chaste sins and I understood the pleasures of the saints.
I sat in front of the mirror, my love, drank out of it the over abundance of your sins while you slept on summer afternoons, in your thin silk shift on white linen. You were a different person, my dear, when the sun laughed in the splendor of my garden–sweet little sister of my dream filled days. You were an entirely different person, my dear, when it sank into the sea, when the horrors of darkness softly crept out of the bushes–wild, sinful sister of my passionate nights–But I could see by the light of day all the sins of the night in your naked beauty.
Understanding came to me from out of the mirror, the ancient gold framed mirror, which saw so many games of love in that wide turret room in the castle of San Costanzo. The truth, which I had only glimpsed in the pages of the leather bound volume, came to me from out of that mirror. Sweetest of all are the chaste sins of the innocent.
That there are creatures–not animal–strange creatures, that originate out of villainous desires and absurd thoughts–that you will not deny, my love, not you.
Good is the law; good are all the strict rules. Good is the God that created them and good is the man that carefully observes them.
But there is the child of Satan who with arrogant hands brazenly rips the eternal laws from their appointed place. The Evil One, who is a mighty Lord, helps him–that he might create out of his own proud will–against all nature.
His work towers into the heavens– nd yet falls apart and in its collapse buries the arrogant fool that conceived it–
Now I write this for you, sister, this book–I ripped open old, long forgotten scars, mixed their dark blood with the bright and fresh blood of my latest torments. Beautiful flowers grow out of such soil, fertilized by blood.
All that I have told you, my love, is very true–yet I take it from the mirror, drink out of its glass the realizations of my latest experiences and apply them to earlier memories and original events.
Take this book sister. Take it from a wild adventurer who was an arrogant fool–and a quiet dreamer as well–Take if from one, little sister, that has run closely alon
gside such a life–
Miramar–Lesina–Brion
April–October 1911
The End
Table of Contents
Galeotto
Arsis
Chapter 1
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Intermezzo
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Finale