Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers)
Page 4
Wednesday 23 March
I know now that I love her. It must be so; she permeates me to the last fiber. The love of other people might be different but is the head, the ear, the hand, of each person the same as millions of others? No love is the same either. Especially my love, I know that for certain. But is it any less beautiful because it is different?
I am very fortunate in this love. If only it weren’t for the fear! Sometimes it sleeps, then I forget it. But then it wakes up again in minutes and won't leave me alone. It comes to me like a paltry mouse that fights against a large beautiful snake, trying to wrest itself from the snake’s powerful embrace. Just wait, you stupid little fear, soon this great love will devour you.
Thursday 24 March
I’ve made a discovery! I’m not playing with Clarimonde. She’s playing with me. This is how I found out. Yesterday evening I was thinking as usual about our game. I wrote down five new complicated series of movements wanting to surprise her with them in the morning. Each movement had its own number. I practiced doing them as quickly as possible, both forwards and backwards. Then I practiced them by only looking at the numbers. Then I practiced the ones I missed. Finally I practiced all the first and last movements of all five series. It was very laborious, but it made me very happy because they would bring me that much closer to Clarimonde the next time I saw her. I practiced for hours until it went like clockwork.
This morning I went to the window, we greeted each other and began the game. There and back, over and across, it was unbelievable how quickly she understood me, how she responded with her own movements in almost the same instant.
Then there was a knock at the door. It was the house servant bringing my boots back. I took them from him and was going back to the window when my glance fell on the piece of paper with my notes on it. That’s when I realized that I had not done a single one of the new movements.
I staggered and nearly fell. I grabbed the back of the chair to keep from falling. I didn’t believe it, looked at the paper again and again. It was true, I had been playing an entire series of new movements at the window and not one of them was mine. Again I had the feeling that a door was opening wide, her door. I was standing in front of it, staring inside- nothing, nothing, only the empty darkness.
I knew then that if I left I could still save myself. I perceived that I was free to go. Instead I stayed. It was because I was convinced that I was now holding the solution to the mystery solidly in both hands. “Paris! I could conquer Paris! I would be famous! For that small moment Paris was stronger than Clarimonde.
But now I scarcely even think of it any more. Now I only feel my love for her and this quiet, sensuous fear. But that moment gave me strength. I read through my first series of movements and did each one of them perfectly. Then I went back to the window. I noticed exactly what I was doing. None of the movements were the ones I wanted to do! Then I gave her the finger, but I kissed the windowpane instead. I wanted to drum on the window but I ran my fingers through my hair.
Clarimonde was certainly not doing what I did. I was doing what she did, and doing it so quickly, so lightning fast, that they almost happened at the same second. What I had believed to be true was now delusion and my own will appeared to be gone.
I had been so proud of my ability to influence her and manipulate her, when it was I, myself, that was being influenced and manipulated! Only the influence was so subtle, so weak, that it gave no hint of its existence. It was so soothing.
I made one more attempt. I put both hands in my pockets, steeling myself not to move. Then I looked over at her. I saw how she raised her hand, how she laughed lightly while giving me the finger. I didn’t move. I felt how my right hand tried to pull itself out of my pocket but I clutched the fabric tightly. Slowly after a few moments my fingers loosened by themselves. My hand came out of the pocket and raised itself. I gave her the finger and laughed.
It was as if I wasn’t doing it, it was some stranger instead. I was only observing. No, no. That wasn’t it! I, I was doing it and some stranger was observing me. It was a strong stranger that was making a great discovery, but it wasn’t me! What discovery had I made? I was just there to do what she wanted, Clarimonde, whom I loved with such a delicious fear.
Friday 25 March
I cut the telephone cord. I have no desire to be once more disturbed by the commissioner when the fateful hour comes.
Dear God! What did I just write? Not one word of it is true. It is as if someone other than myself is moving the writing quill.
But I will, will, will write all of this down in my journal. Write what is true. I am reluctant and it requires an immense effort, but I will do it. I will do just this one last thing.
I cut the telephone cord, well, because I had to. There it is, finally! Because I had to, had to—
This morning we stood at the window and played. The game was different than yesterday. She would make some move and I would resist as long as I could. But I finally had to give in, do what she wanted without any will of my own. I can’t tell you how wonderful and desirable a feeling it is, this surrender, this giving in to her will.
We were playing and then suddenly she stood up and went back into her room. It was so dark I couldn’t see her any more. She seemed to have disappeared into the darkness. Soon she came back, carrying a desk telephone in both hands just like mine.
She laughed, set it down on the windowsill, took a knife, cut through the cord, and then carried it back again. I fought with myself for a quarter of an hour. My fear was larger than it was before, but so was the delicious feeling of slowly succumbing to her will. Finally I picked up my telephone, cut through the cord and placed it back again on the desk.
So, it’s going to happen.
I’m sitting at my desk, I’ve already had my tea, and the house servant is just now taking the plates and dishes away. I asked him what time it was; my own clock has not been working right. It is fifteen minutes after five o’clock, fifteen minutes after five o’clock.
I know that when I look at her next, Clarimonde will do something. She will do something and I will have to do it also. I can see her now. She stands there and laughs. Now—
If only I could look away! Now she goes to the curtain—she takes up the cord. It is red—exactly like the one in my window. She makes a noose. She hangs the cord over the hook on the window crossbar. She sits there and laughs.
No, you can’t call it fear anymore, this thing I am feeling. It is a horrible anguish, a terror that I would not exchange for anything in the world. It is a compulsion so unheard of in its own way and yet so strangely sensuous in its inescapable cruelty.
I could easily run over there and do what she wants. But I wait, fight, and resist. I feel how it grows stronger with each passing minute.
I’m sitting here again. I quickly ran over there and did what she wanted, took the cord, made the noose and hung it on the hook. I don’t want to look at her anymore. I will just stare at this paper because I know what I will see when I look at her again. Then, at the sixth hour of the last day of the week I will see her and I will have to do what she wants. Then I will have to—
I will not look at her—
There, I just laughed out loud. No, I didn’t laugh; it was something inside of me that laughed. I know that I will not laugh over this. I will not and still I know most certainly that I will have to. I will have to look at her, have to, have to do it—
And then the rest—
I’m only waiting to draw this torture out as long as possible. Yes, that’s it. This breathless suffering is the highest, most sensuous pleasure imaginable. I write quickly, quickly, just to sit here a little longer, to draw out in these last seconds the ache of my love and desire as it rises to infinity.
Just a little more, a little longer—
Again the fear, again! I know that I will look at her, will stand up, and will hang myself. That’s not what I’m afraid of. Oh no! That is beautiful, that is exquisitely delicious.
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But there is something, somehow something that is still there- that happens then, something will come, it most certainly will come. The pleasure of my torment is so immense that I feel what happens next, oh, it must be just as unthinkably horrible!
Don’t think of it!
Someone is writing something, someone, something, it is all the same to me.
Only quickly, think, remember something—
My name—Richard Bracquemont, Richard Bracquemont, Richard—Oh, I can’t go any longer—Richard Bracquemont, Richard Bracquemont—Now, now, I need to look at her— Richard Bracquemont—I need—No—Just a little more—Richard—Richard Bracque—
The commissioner of the 9th precinct tried to repeat his phone call on the telephone but there was only static on the line. He arrived at Hotel Stevens at exactly five minutes after six o’clock. He found the corpse of student Richard Bracquemont in room # 7 hanging on the window crossbar in exactly the same position as his predecessors.
Only his face had a different expression. It was frozen in horrible terror; his eyes were bulging from their sockets. His lips were tightly shut and his strong teeth tightly clenched together. Between them was stuck a large black spider with remarkable violet polka dots. It was squashed and bitten in two.
The journal of the medical student lay on the desk. The commissioner read it and immediately went to the house across the street. He found out that the second floor had been empty and unlived in for over a month.
The Crucified Clown
The Pierrot,the clown, moved weakly as he slowly pulled his black shoes on over his stockings. When he stood the white trouser cuffs fell down and covered them. He put an enormous collared yoke over his shoulders with long, loose wide sleeves. Was everything in order? White silk with black pompoms, now the black velvet cap over his hair, then powder, lots of powder.
He walked out of the house onto Capressor Street, the children ran after him screaming and yelling:
“Pazzo! Pazzo!”
He didn’t pay any attention to them. He walked slowly as if in a dream, went through the street without looking around. The rascals left and headed back when he turned into the orange garden. He went behind the Certosa, the old cloister that until recently had served as a barracks. Strangers never went inside, even the German painters scarcely went there and it was the most beautiful place in Capri.
But it was also hard to find, was boarded up and closed. Then there was that scoundrel, old Nicola Vuoto, who hid behind the doors and windows of the ruins. He screamed, yelled and threw stones at anyone that trespassed over his ground.
Yet today he didn’t scream or throw stones. He was so surprised at the white figure walking in the sun that he hastily took a few quick steps back into the arbor where he stood watching in wonder. Finally it occurred to him that it must be a human.
He grumbled contemptuously, “Pazzo! Pazzo!”
Then he watched the departing back for a long time with a poisonous glance. The powdered Pierrot continued on. He sprang over a couple walls, clambered down several slopes, up another almost cat like with elastic, lazy movements. He went through a small myrtle wood, along the canteen and past the cliff.
Once he stopped and stood very still. Right there in front of him he saw two large vipers; they were a meter long. Yet these animals that so avoided human contact appeared not to have noticed his presence at all. They were so very occupied with each other.
The female fled up over the bushes and stones, the male chased her. Suddenly the female stood up like a candle, bowed her head back and struck at her pursuer. Yet he wrapped himself around her, arched himself into the height as her narrow body trembled and wound even tighter around his. The steel blue bodies glistened and shone in the sun. How beautiful they were, how beautiful!
The Pierrot stared and watched. Was that a crown he saw on the head of the snake? A golden wedding crown?
He continued much more slowly than before. At last he neared the Marelatta, the ruined Saracen tower that was glued to the slope near the cliff. Above him hung the old wall of Certosa, to the left sprang the Monte Tuora, to the right the Monte Solaro. Far in the distance gleamed the blue Italian Ocean.
He looked down. There below lay Piccola Marina with its fishermen huts. Just a little out from shore lie the Island of the Sirens, white spray surging around it in the blue waves. Further out were the Faraglioni cliffs, mighty and ponderous limestone formations extending upwards, growing out of the middle of the ocean.
This was the place of his rendezvous, his last rendezvous with the sun. He sat on the edge and let his legs dangle. He stared down for a moment. Then he took the glass and fat bellied flask out of his pocket. The dark, thick sciatica medicine bled into the glass.
The Pierrot drank. He drank to the sun, like he had once drank to the ocean when he was young down there in grotto Azzura. He emptied the glass in one draught, filled it up again. Once more he drank to the sun. Then he threw the glass and bottle far over the cliff.
He stood up, then backed up against the steep cliff wall to lie in the shadows. He stretched out along the rock. A little red spider crept over him, over the white pilot cloth and over the pompoms. It seemed so funny that a little red spider would climb over him. He trilled:
“Little—Red—Spider—Little—Red—Spider—”
Then he stretched his arms out wide on both sides and looked up. The blue up there above laughed and sang as if it wanted to take him away from everything. If he raised his head a little he could see the ocean, blue with little white clouds just like those in the sky above. Blue, luminous, radiant blue! He sucked it in with his eyes, touched it with his hands, let it soak into all his pores.
He listened to the music of the blue colors, closed his eyes and still saw them perfectly. He felt a soothing languor as his limbs lay like a corpse. He longed to dissolve into the whitish-blue mist that surrounded him like a soft gentle breath. Then it seemed to him as if his head rested on a woman’s yielding breasts. He noticed her breathing as they lightly lifted and fell.
He felt so protected and cared for; he didn’t want to move or open his eyes. He lay completely still, unmoving, as if he were slumbering. Then he breathed in a fragrance like peach blossoms. He noticed a thin white apparition near his feet. It was Lili. She knelt down and urgently pressed her pale childish cheeks against his shoe.
Ermina sat right beside him on the other side. She still wore red cherry blossoms in her blonde hair. She held his Spanish lute and again played the heavy, melancholy chord: “La Paloma”. Leisel laid her fine, angelic hand on the Pierrot’s heart.
But Clara was there as well. Her dark hair covered with layers of red cress flowers. Her gaze burned into him as if she wanted to scorch him. She spoke very slowly in her beautiful voice.
“Because you won’t wait for me,
Have robbed us of our time together,
Because I love you—that’s why I hate you.
Yes, I hate you from the bottom of my heart.
I shake wildly these iron shackles
That we have forged, that link us together.
It’s in your arms that I hate you the most
And I want to kill you with my kiss!”
His heart beat loudly—his eyes glanced thirstily at her.
“You raised this cup—Well, let’s drink!
You should burn with my last breath
And die with me as we sink into the flames together!”
The Pierrot smiled.
Mary Wayne stepped up to him. A light crackling went through her red hair and her lips quivered painfully. She didn’t seem to notice any of the others.
“You look so dead!” she said.
There were others there too. Lore and Stenie, the lovely little Anna, golden Katie and one other, the Neapolitan.
She stood away from the others, entirely alone and unmoving. The sun played on her deathly pallid face. She looked like a priestess, wore magnolias in her black hair and carried them in her pale hands.<
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He grieved, No, no. That wasn’t right—not her, not the one with magnolias in her hands and in her hair! But it was, it was on her breasts that his head had rested. Yet now she was standing to the side and his head rested once more on the hard stone.
“We are those that love you; stay with us and live,” they pleaded.
“I am your death and the one you love in your dreams,” she spoke.
“I wind myrtle around your feet,” said Constantine as Clara lay fluttering poppy leaves over him.
From them all streamed a curious fragrance as if from many-colored hyacinth, a voluptuous, desirous fragrance that came from the pale bodies of these women. Little blonde Anna kissed his eyes, Lore caressed his powdered cheeks and Liesel tried with fine fingers to smooth the bitter lines around his mouth. Stenie rocked her hips in light easy dance steps in rhythm to the Spanish song that played over and over again, the strange song of the white dove.
Then she came to him, the one with magnolias.
“I am the one you dream of and your death,” she spoke.
The others backed away and slowly without a word she laid a large red rose in each of his open hands.
Then he didn’t see any more. But the red roses scorched and burned into his hands, pinning him solidly to the stone.
Leaving red wounds, hot burning red wounds—
Delphi
There were two shepherds, Hyrkanos and Koretas.They were both well known in all the little villages in the region of Phocis, Elatia, Daulis, Delphi, Krissa and Aba.
Hyrkanos was tall, bull necked and his accent showed that he was descended from the old Lelegern, the original inhabitants of the region. Koretas was slender with curly hair, pale and dreamy like the Phlegyr that had come from Orchomenos and now made up the greatest part of the population.