Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers)

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

  “Daughter of Zion be glad—,” but he couldn’t finish because the fat pastor began a droning eulogy over at the other funeral.

  The Chief Rider waited another five minutes, ten minutes, but the pastor would not stop and was making it bad for me.

  “Such a speech will speed the decomposition of my corpse considerably,” I thought to myself.

  The Chief Rider thought so too and looked at his watch. But the pastor talked and talked.

  Finally it was too long for the Chief Rider. He had only been paid for two hours. He commanded anew and all forty-five Red Riders let out once more:

  “Daughter of Zion be glad!”

  The pastor fought on and would not give in. But what is the power of a preacher against forty-five Red Riders? I felt solid satisfaction that the youths were winning and my modern funeral would clear the battlefield and put the old middle class world to shame.

  The pastor stopped. But the clergy can never really be defeated. That will not do. He spoke to a couple of gentlemen in top hats and they in turn spoke to some guards. The guards put their helmets on their heads and came over to my grave. They were eager to speak with the Chief Rider but he held his position.

  “We are doing our job,” he said coldly.

  “Do you have a permit?” one of the guards asked.

  “Certainly!” the Chief Rider answered and reached into his wallet. “Here it is. An official permit for my Red Riders!”

  “Hmm,” remarked the guard. “A permit for burials?”

  “The Red Riders will do anything!” the Chief declared bravely.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” I cried in my crate.

  “No one here shouts Bravo!” the guard yelled.

  He demanded that all the Red Riders leave but the Chief Rider would not. He was not yet finished with the celebration that he had been commissioned and paid for. He was an honorable man and his highest principle was a strict sense of duty. He requested that the guards leave in an orderly way.

  “Such a shrewd citizen!” I thought. “Now it will get into the press and make good publicity for him.”

  The guards yelled but the Chief Rider yelled even louder. Slowly all the professors, judges, military officers and wealthy industrialists came over from the other funeral and mixed in. When the pastor came it was entirely too late.

  He saw the Red Riders in their red caps and jackets with cigarettes in their mouths.

  “Pfui!” he said.

  Then he took his glasses off and set them on my crate.

  “ ‘Fragile’, ‘Do not drop’, What’s going on here?” he asked sharply.

  It was little Fritz that gave him the dreadful answer. He really couldn’t smoke and the cigarette was making him sick. He bent forward and then back and then forward again in even faster motion. That’s when the accident happened all over the black gown of the pastor.

  At first he was speechless, but then everyone was trying to give him his or her handkerchiefs. He got hold of himself and declared seriously:

  “That really oversteps all boundaries. I am publicly offended.”

  “I am also publicly offended,” voiced a gentleman with twenty-seven medals.

  “We have jurisdiction because we are publicly offended,” said the guards.

  Things were getting much too colorful for me. I saw that I must come to the help of my hard-pressed Red Riders. I shoved the lid open, stood up and cried in wrath.

  “And I, gentlemen, for your disrespectful participation in my burial, I am publicly offended!”

  The pastor stared horrified into the grave.

  “Is this a Christian burial?” he stammered.

  “No,” I said. “This is a modern burial with Red Riders.”

  I sat on my crate, jammed my eyepiece into my eye and glared at the people. I was in pajamas but had been afraid of getting too cold in the grave so I had brought my fur coat along as well. That made quite an impression on the gentlemen since it was the middle of summer. No one was paying attention to the funeral of the Privy Councillor, that was for certain.

  “Get out of here, go away!” I started. “I paid for this grave and it belongs to me. I am legally dead and can have a little fun if I want! Go away! Here in this hole and in this crate I am Master of the house and I advise you not to trespass.”

  “This is a scandal,” said the gentleman with the medals. “This is a malicious scandal.”

  Then the Public Prosecutor came.

  “There must be an end to this foolish charade,” he hissed at me. “I arrest you in the name of the Law. I request the guards do their duty.”

  The guards climbed into the hole and laid their wide paws on my shoulders, but I looked at them sharply and said.

  “Have you lost all respect for the sanctity of the dead?”

  “He is not dead! He is a fraud!” the very angry Public Prosecutor cried.

  “Really?” I laughed. “Just a moment, I will offer the guards my death certificate. Here, satisfy yourselves. And by the way,” I went on. “If this slip from the county doctor is not enough, prove it yourself, you old ass!”

  The gentleman with the medals stuck his nose in the air, sniffed, and moved back.

  “The Devil!” he cried.

  “Please keep the boundary of decency and good manners my friend,” I admonished. “Bear in mind where we are. It is a torrid red-hot July day and almost noon. I am a corpse. I have a right to stink!”

  But the Public Prosecutor wouldn’t calm down.

  “That means nothing to me,” he declared. “I see only that a rude public nuisance has begun and the public nuisance demands legal atonement. I request the guards lay the gentleman in his crate and bring him along. Everyone else, please follow me!”

  The guards grabbed me. I attempted to offer resistance but they were much stronger than I and quickly stuck me into the crate and carried me out of the cemetery to the carriage. Everyone followed. The gentlemen climbed into their light carriages and the Red Riders sprang onto their bicycles. Even the gravedigger came with.

  The only thing I was happy about was that the Privy Councillor whose old fashioned funeral I had so disturbed was now all alone and lying abandoned. The stupid fellow must really be annoyed.

  My crate sat on a beam of wood and a fat policeman sat up on top. Thank God I could see a little through a knothole. We traveled back through the city at a sharp trot, and then we halted in front of the court building.

  “Room 41,” cried the Public Prosecutor.

  The guards carried my crate and me inside. Everyone else pushed hastily into the room. The District Court Judge sat above between his lay magistrates.

  The Public Prosecutor stopped a long speech. He apologized for so suddenly interrupting the proceedings but some very urgent, pressing, really brooking no delay business needed to be dealt with. Then he told the entire course of events and what had happened.

  “The fellow claims to be dead,” he closed, “and is in possession of an authentic legal death certificate.”

  The District Court Judge let me get out of my crate.

  “Is there a doctor in the audience?” he asked.

  Three gentlemen came forward, an ordinary doctor, a staff doctor and a psychiatrist, the director of the State Lunatic Asylum. They examined me while holding handkerchiefs over their noses. They made it really short.

  “He is most certainly a corpse!”

  I had won.

  “I would like to charge the Public Prosecutor with violation of a corpse,” I said.

  “Let the accused stand here for the time being,” moved the Chairman.

  “Not any longer dear Sir,” I replied. “I am in a condition of—”

  “Observe the dignity of the court,” he interrupted me. “I would like you to be fined.”

  “Permit you to—”

  “Be quiet!” he yelled.

  “No,” I said. “I will not be quiet. As a Prussian I have the right to freely express myself in word, writing or image.”

&nbs
p; He laughed. “We are not in Prussia any more! And besides, you are not a Prussian, you are a corpse!”

  “I’m not a Prussian any more?”

  “No.”

  “Then I am a dead Prussian.”

  “And a dead Prussian,” he trumped me, “absolutely has no civil rights. Even you must understand that!”

  I thought about it. He was right. I was vexed but quieted.

  “You stand here,” he began again, “accused of gross misconduct, resisting arrest and contempt of court. Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  “I am a corpse,” I whimpered downcast.

  “That is no excuse,” asserted the judge. “It would be nice if corpses and especially Prussian corpses could go unpunished for all misdemeanors. But that would be contrary to what is said about corpses, that they are quiet to the highest degree, well mannered and take great pains to be well behaved. You should, so to speak, be setting a shining example of virtue for all living citizens. As a former Prussian you should know that is the first duty! And that goes for all types of so-called corpses.

  This case is entirely unheard of, that a deceased individual has become indignant and even more, openly stands in front of me. Nothing like this has ever happened in all my long years of practice. Have you ever been convicted?”

  “Yes,” I stood straight. “Seventeen times. For contempt, for two fights, for spreading malicious pamphlets as well as for all the misdemeanors I stand here accused of!”

  “You are back sliding,” he stressed. “It appears that you don’t want to remain quiet!”

  “I was always innocent,” I stammered.

  “Always innocent,” scorned the Judge. “I wonder, will you quit these misdemeanors? Will you learn from this?”

  I sealed my fate.

  “I don’t care about any of that at all. Leave me in peace! I am a corpse, and you are an idiot and all of you are idiots!”

  The chairman raised his hand, but before he could say a word the public prosecutor stood up.

  “I propose the accused should be transferred to the insane asylum for six weeks and his state of mind observed.”

  The psychiatrist, the director of the asylum, came forward quickly and declared.

  “Under these circumstances the insane asylum must refuse to take the accused for six weeks. I can’t risk the danger of keeping him that long!”

  There was a small pause; then one of the jurors asked.

  “Yes, but what are we going to do with him?”

  “We are going to give him a fine,” said the judge.

  “That won’t do you any good,” I remarked. “I am dead and don’t have any more money than when I was alive. I gave out my last coin for a proper burial! The Chief of the Red Riders made a contract with me.”

  “Then he must certainly not go free under any circumstances,” said the public prosecutor.

  “But the prison won’t take him any more than the insane asylum!” the chairman objected.

  He was very inconsolable. I believed I had won when suddenly the unctuous pastor came to their assistance.

  “I think I can make a suitable proposal gentlemen!” he said. “I believe it would be best if the deceased, the accused, were given a Christian burial.”

  “I don’t want a Christian burial!” I cried wildly.

  But the pastor paid no attention to me. “A very Christian and very civilized burial.” he went on, “I believe in this case it would put things right for the charity and honor of the court and for all decent thinking people. It would also to a certain extent cause this confused spirit of the accused to be punished and regret his actions. This is dangerous but if I am permitted to inter the deceased in this way I believe he will remain quiet, unmoving and won’t cause any more problems in the future.”

  “Very good! Very good!” the chairman nodded, the public prosecutor nodded, both jurors nodded, everyone nodded.

  I screamed furiously and turned in my despair to the Chief Red Rider.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I am very sorry,” he said. “We were only paid for two hours and they have run out. The Red Riders will do anything—that is our highest principle—but— only when we are paid!”

  No one sympathized with me. I defended myself the best I could but was quickly overpowered. They stuck me in a black coffin and carried me out.

  The pastor held a eulogy for me free, without pay. I don’t know what he said because I plugged my ears.

  Brute force has conquered. What is the use of turning over three times whenever a public prosecutor or district court judge walks past my grave?

  Anthropoovaropartus

  A Word Pro Domo for the Professional and the Amateur

  The 2nd December issue of the London “Medical Review” contained the entire short notice. It found its way into all the newspapers of the world.

  The two Edinburg doctors, Professor Paidscuttle and Dr. Feesemupp, after long experimentation and several attempts had finally invented the “Anthropoovaropartus”. It would take the egg from a human female and grow it in accordance with nature. This technology would be suitable to bring about an eerie change in the life of mankind.

  Both gentlemen were carefully guarding the secret for the present but it stood to hope that it wouldn’t be long until a public announcement would be made.

  I was looking over this interesting announcement and a compelling urge came over me to publicly explain the truth; that the idea of the “Anthropoovaropartus”, a machine that would grow the eggs of the human female, belonged to me and they should have talked to me first.

  Unfortunately I had been such an ass that instead of a patent I only had a pattern for protection. For the sake of my Fatherland and for myself I wanted to see this eerie machine that grew human eggs in accordance with nature and determine if I had been robbed. I wanted to know if the materialization of my thought had been obtained.

  At least I will preserve the glory for each of us. Both Scottish scholars likely put down everything about their invention of the “Anthropoovaroparatus” so there can be no dispute over that. I am compelled to name unique witnesses that can prove my side of the story.

  They are:

  superintendent of public schools Dr. Schulze of Kőpenick and the foreign maiden Frida Knäller.

  (Current whereabouts unknown by the police)

  On the night of 4 to 5 November 1903 I traveled with the superintendent for three hours through the early morning down Friedriche St. On the corner of Orianienburger St. we met up with F. Knäller whom he wanted to strike up an acquaintance with.

  I had felt the need to bring these two different people together as matchmaker in an unceremonious way to see if they would like each other. I observed explicitly a possible annoyance and unpleasantness in the air and didn’t push it. On the contrary, I felt compelled to pay for some food and drink.

  I find that subtlety is a precondition of the law when you can’t get what you want. You can gather from this that I am as good a lawyer as a distinguished physician, which gives my discovery certain characteristics of both.

  At 117 Friedriche St. I entered the pub “Hulking Hound” with them for the aforesaid purpose of warming the pair up a bit toward each other. I can say that Superintendent Dr. Schulze went out of his way to be pleasant while F. Knäller showed a remarkable dislike toward him in her behavior. In her opposition she was determined to break the lively and vivacious spirit of the pedagogue.

  I ordered a quantity of stimulating beverages in the hopes that it would lighten things up a bit and we gradually became engrossed in deeper, more scholarly questions.

  F. Knäller had read in “Mine-Haha” of the fetal movements of the unborn child and its transformation. She wanted to know from the educated superintendent if there was a solution to the female question wherein some steps could be taken in consideration of the financially distressed farmer and the academic youth to make their lives easier.

  We talked all around this subject of pregnancy and al
ways kept coming back to the main point of inadequate health care. The superintendent finally said in conclusion “The only way the egg could get the nourishment it needed was through its connection to the mothers womb”.

  I would like to say in that moment as he spoke this fateful sentence, a hundred words that had up till now only been phrases to me became palpable reality. I recognized the symbol in the painting from Sais and it ripped the veil from my eyes. I held the Philosophers Stone in my hand. I had laid the egg of Columbus. I sighed deeply three times and felt that in a single second I had found the solution to the social question and to everything else.

  Then the superintendent to whom I was indebted raised his hand but I pressed it back down and ordered the 17th round of grog. While the beverage was being brought I calmed myself a bit while another wretched witness, Taxi driver 2nd Class No. 7468, came up and sat at a nearby table.

  I stood up, looked at my watch and gave the following speech:

  “You will want to note this moment well ladies and gentlemen. It marks a revolution in the unseemly life history of humanity that we have up to now seen. It is now precisely 4 hours and 19 minutes! Furthermore you will want to consider my person and impress upon your memory that in this moment the man stands before you that can bring the greatest victory to mankind if you will let him continue.

  You, Miss Knäller, only snore. Would you give more special attention to my words if you knew the destiny you have been given to sit here as the singular representative of your sex and that through me you will strike a blow that will raise up and advance civilization a hundred thousand years?

  We have been talking about the female question. Why is it that in the war with the male the female always appears to take the weaker part?

  We all know: it is your sexual occupation. It is a fact that the female must carry and then bear children, and if that is not the case must otherwise regularly suffer in a disagreeable manner a reminder from nature of her femininity. We want to apply some lever and find a solution that will lessen the severity of your periods.