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

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Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers) Page 8

by Hanns Heinz Ewers


  From my point of view pregnancy and childbirth in this modern setting now appear thoroughly inadequate and obsolete. We have a moral obligation!

  You, Superintendent should especially honor this time. It is sad that men forbid pregnant women, who are willing to produce new sons for the Fatherland, to set foot on the street. Almost daily we see women and virgins wandering around in most inappropriate circumstances.

  I ask you, what impression does this make on the innocent maid that is growing up? The innocent child wonders. She questions, “Where did I come from?” She goes for days experiencing things she should never experience. This is so far from hygienic! I ask, is this condition healthy for women? Simply no, it is not. All suffer down there, some more, some less, but it is acceptable to none.

  Then there is the birth! The labor is very intense and many women even collapse from the pain.

  Aesthetically speaking, the time of pregnancy that paints a fat womb on every woman is now over, thank God!

  The newborn is equally as ugly and goes contrary to our perception of beauty. I am speaking out of an experience with my girl friend, Miss Niedlich. I told her the baby looked like a noisome scarlet Aztec frog, but the mother found her child very beautiful. This is a certain sign that child bearing undermines the aesthetic experience.

  If I need to give any more proof I can point to the frightful and horrifying state of modern medicine. It is unworthy and adverse to childbirth and to civilization.

  Now I personally don’t have anything against this manner of childbirth. In general it is worthy, serves to propagate the human race and normally I wouldn’t say a word against it. Unfortunately my fellowmen have spoken many words about it because they are asses. So I won’t stay quiet either about the facts of perpetual child bearing and how the female could be improved from the ground up and not have to endure so much.

  My Dear Superintendent, you said, ‘The only way the egg could get the nourishment it needed is through its connection to the mothers womb’. You have no idea what these words have given to humanity!

  Yes, we could separate the womb of this woman of the future from the exemplary egg that she carries! We could give her back her womb and from now on, if this was done our women could lay eggs!

  We are only mortal humans and can’t transform into a swan like Jupiter and our women can’t lay eggs. For the singer in the myth this is only a slight difficulty because a God finds the solution. Today we are capable of finding this solution for ourselves. Where can we find this knowledge?

  Let us consider our predecessor, the hen that lays eggs with shells. It holds the missing piece in which the egg is grown in its womb and then with the nourishment of lime grows a shell around it and finally passes the entire egg through its body.

  In women sadly, this egg is nourished through the connection to the womb along with its contractions and discomfort. This connection must be severed and an alternate way of nourishing the egg manufactured and put into place.

  This could be something along the lines of the successful Uteroenterostomie performed at Harvard University by Professor Babywater but in a different, new direction with continued success. You could reconnect the umbilical cord to a new source of nourishment and give the fetus what it needs for the best health and growing bones.

  Perhaps if we made an entire generation of youth through this operation they would later acquire the hereditary ability to lay eggs and being male or female would not be as important anymore.

  If that is not the case and I personally doubt very much if it would be; then we could soon be enlightened enough to make the small infringement of an operation and clip the small boys making them into females as well.

  Our pregnant women would then need to take lots of lime and phosphorus in order to produce the important egg shell and through therapy or mechanical means bring about the momentary contractions that must be applied to bring about the quick laying of the egg.

  Perhaps later this would not be needed anymore and our great granddaughters could lay eggs as nice and pretty as the best hen.

  The famous poultry breeder Poulain d’Or in Cambray found a process to enlarge the ovaries and fortify their propagation through the application of the Yohimbin-Speculum on the one hand along with Radium treatments on the other with amazing success in the increase of life energy and reproductive growth.

  If it had been done with our women instead, they would have not once a month, but every day-and especially adept women twice a day-effortlessly laid a magnificent egg like the greatest swan.

  We only think of enriching our future national health by nourishing it on a daily basis.

  In Germany we have around 20 million women between fifteen and forty-five years of age. They could comfortably lay 25 million eggs every day that would supplement our national need for more workers. That is precisely what is needed for our national prosperity along with a deepening of our economy and consumption of more products.

  Everyone could hatch a fertilized egg in an Ovaro-Embryo-Paedo-Nursery that would ensure the good simple connection every egg in our day requires.

  The betterment of the race also grows in my consideration. Through the process of natural selection we could take eggs only from select, exemplary, especially beautiful, powerful, healthy and clever women. We could avoid eggs from weak, sick, dumb and ugly women and not let them hatch.

  My idea could easily answer and bring clarity to half a dozen other questions that exist around the world today, like the need to support the fragile head of the infant when you hold it.

  Or the social question: Socialist Democratic eggs simply would not be hatched; only liberal eggs on a very limited scale.

  The Polish question, the Jewish question, the gypsy question, the anti-military question: Polish, Jewish, gypsy, anti-military eggs would not be hatched.

  For America the Negro question, the Chinese question, the Japanese question: Negro, Chinese and Japanese eggs would not be hatched.

  The Balkan question that is coming here, the one that gets people so worked up that they throw each other around. In every village is a landscape or a different populace. In one district only Bulgarians, in another only Greeks and in another only Turkish eggs would be hatched. In a single generation everything would be in better order. The Balkan question would be resolved

  The criminal question, the religious question: criminals, Atheists and Monists are simply not hatched. It would certainly be best if only good Catholic eggs were allowed to hatch.

  And yes, the free artists with their obscenities and rubbish in word and picture that so infest the world could now be cleansed as well. Eggs of upstanding thinkers, musicians, painters and poets and of any connected with them would under no circumstances be permitted to hatch.

  In this way the coming generation could remove the arts entirely and link the world in good patriotic pathways.

  But if the good citizen could certify or prove his good character to the egg hatchery, his wife would be allowed to produce a beautiful egg. If she couldn’t lay an especially beautiful one, an even more splendid one could be given to him or he could buy one and write his name on it before it is placed in its glass case in the distinguished nest at the hatchery.

  If he was especially interested he could go there now and then, to take peep at it, particularly during the fourth quarter when the little fellow bursts out of his shell. It would certainly be amusing.

  Otherwise two years later he could come back as a daddy and fetch him for the first time from the clean room at the Ovaro-Embryo-Paedo-Nursery where the child has been kept.

  The entire indecency of today’s childbirth would be avoided, the aesthetic would have triumphed as well as the moral. The female question would be resolved as well with the wife being perfectly equal to the husband. Her body would once more belong to her and not be disturbed by the little bit of egg laying required. On the contrary, she would be an even greater asset to her husband because an egg or two is always worth something!

>   Even more, in this manner…”

  As soon as I reached this point I realized that strange gurgling noises were coming from Superintendent Dr. Schultze and unpleasantly mixing with the soft snores of F. Knäller. In the meantime cab driver 2nd Class No. 7468 had caught up with us, polished off eighteen rounds of grog during my speech and was now sleeping.

  I woke him up and reproached him for his negligence but reconciled later and drank Schmollis with him. He then took it upon himself to take me back home and bring me to bed.

  We left my friend, Superintendent Dr. Schulze of Köpenick, to the keeping of F. Knäller. What happened to him after that I have no idea.

  So those are the simple facts. They are the only witnesses that can prove my part in the creation of the “Anthropoovaropartus”. Their statements would naturally be very valuable to me in establishing my rights.

  Sadly I can only guess at the rest, and can’t prove any of it.

  All I know is the police don’t know the present whereabouts of F. Knäller. They have both been gone from Berlin for two years now and it’s likely they ended up in London.

  I am convinced they made the acquaintance of Professor Paidscuttle or Dr. Feesemupp in Piccadilly and these two gentlemen treacherously made off with my idea of the “Anthropoovaropartus”.

  These sons of Scotland may get all the coin but nevertheless, the great thought, the great idea of producing a pure and superior German youth still belongs to me!

  The Death of Baron Jesus Maria von Friedel

  And the gods heard the plea of the nymph Salmacis and united her body with that of her lover, the beautiful son of Hermes and Aphrodite.

  —Aristobulos

  The male sex is born out of the sun and the female springs out of the earth. But the moon is created out of both, is created as a third, rare and strange—

  —Eryximachus

  No, no, it is not at all true that Baron Jesus Maria von Friedel committed suicide. What really happened is that he shot her; or the other way around, that she shot him. I only know that you can not speak of it being suicide.

  I knew him well enough, met him at times again and again in foreign lands. Here and there I heard of him through acquaintances. I don’t know more details of his death than any of the others, only what was printed in the papers and what his lawyer confirmed—even the information that he had killed himself in the bath.

  Here is my calendar. In the fall of 1888 Baron Friedel rode in a hurdle race as a very young lieutenant of the Yellow Dragoons. That was in Graz. I remember it very well, how proud his uncle, the Colonel of the regiment, was of him as he flew in first place over the ribbon.

  “Look at that splendid boy go! He would have been an old woman without me!”

  Then he explained to us how scarcely more than a year ago he had found the boy at his sister’s. She was an old maid in Mährischen. There at castle Aibling one old and two young aunts were bringing up the orphaned youth.

  “Three crazy females!” the Colonel laughed. “And his tutor, knowing him, he was the fourth! He was a poet and sang of the female soul. He saw a saint in every slut.

  I don’t want to do him wrong because he taught him all he knows. The boy already knows more at fifteen than our entire regiment, that is including our doctor.

  If only that was all he knows! But the others, it was horrible! The women taught him embroidery, lace making, crochet, knitting and more charming things of that nature. It was like he was made out of candy. It was so bad that when you saw him you felt like you had just drank sugary sweet almond milk!

  How all five voices screamed when I took him out of there! The boy screamed the worst. I grabbed him by the hair. Only the memory of my brother kept me strong. But I didn’t have the slightest hope, you know, of ever making a man out of that blouse-wearing boy.

  By the Devil! Now look who’s a smart Lieutenant in the Yellow?”

  Grinning, the Colonel told us of the advancement of his nephew. How his nephew could drink even him under the table and how he had been the first to lead the charge in two battles against the Teutons. He was an excellent fencer, second to none in Graz, swashing his saber around like a riding whip.

  “You have never seen anything like it, and on a horse—well you have just seen that. And the women, Holy St. Barbara, no cavalry lieutenant on either side of the Leitha river has had such a debut. When he was at War School in Vienna his landlady had three young daughters. Now all three virgins are expecting. He will gladly pay the alimony. He is a splendid boy, my nephew, Jesus Maria!”

  I met him five years later in Kolomyia, in the Ukraine, of all places. He was there with ####. I will not use her name. She still travels around the world today and all the provincial newspapers exalt at her rendition of the classical play Medea. At that time her name rang like gold in the Hofburg Theater. This theatrical trip through the miserable holes of Galicia and the German-Bohemian Bukovina was remarkable enough.

  Naturally I went to this curious performance and the tragedienne assaulted us with Schiller’s Demetrius. Baron Friedel faint-heartedly recited his pretty sounding little poem. I applauded enthusiastically. The Kolomyians took me as an authority because I was in my dinner jacket so the evening was a complete success.

  I dined with both of them after the performance. It was apparent their trip was also a kind of honeymoon as well, a very strange one at that.

  Since he had left the service he was receiving a nice handsome bit of change from his aunts. The tragedienne had an ample amount of money as well and threw it out the window with both hands as fast as she earned it.

  What was the purpose of this theatrical tour through Europe’s most miserable lands? That was not the only mystery. Everyone knew the star was a man hater. Many still remembered the scandal when she slipped off one night with the Countess Schöndorf. That had happened about two years ago from that very night.

  A short time later her director slapped her on the face during a rehearsal because she was having an affair with his wife. Never before or since did anyone ever hear of the great star of Medea having a Jason. But I saw how she kissed the Baron’s hands over the dishes. I believe alcohol brought the two of them together—I, myself, could tell a hundred funny anecdotes about this drink happy heroine. That night she made herself right at home with a wineglass full of cognac before soup.

  But he didn’t drink a drop, had become a teetotaler. How did that ever happen? Today I understand this remarkable love affair, but at the time I couldn’t make any rhyme or reason out of it.

  Later Baron Friedel traveled a lot. I encountered him once in awhile, but only fleetingly, scarcely for an hour at a time. I have established that he accompanied Amundsen on his first trip to the North Pole. Later he was adjutant to Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil during the Boer wars. He was wounded during the siege of Mafeking and captured by the English at Hartebeestfontein in South Africa.

  At some point a book of poetry appeared by him and a very interesting work about Theotocopuli, whom his contemporaries called “El Greco”. This was the result of a journey to Spain. What astounded me so much was that the estate of the Baron was filled with the remarkable distorted portraits of this painter. In that way Jesus Maria Friedel was the only person I’ve ever known that valued these silver and black representations.

  I met him again at a meeting of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in Berlin. He sat across from me between Mrs. Inez Seckel and police commissioner, Mr. Von Treskow. He was drinking again, smoking and listening very intently to the lecture.

  It was about Hirschfeld’s sharp separation between heterosexual and homosexual individuals. This long-standing question had finally been resolved and now for the first time practical work could be done with it.

  We only spoke briefly but I remember what he said to me while we were getting our coats from the cloakroom.

  “These Gentlemen think everything is so very simple, but believe me, there are some cases that require some other form of explanation.”
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br />   Furthermore I know Friedel had stayed for a long time with a lady in Stockholm that was performing a funny and disrespectful Intermedio based on Strindberg’s Hanna Paj. This full throated devout village cleric screamed in his face in priestly exasperation. It was a repeat of the classical Medea but here the Baron needed to play his particular part in the Intermedio as well. It was much more difficult to perform.

  Later the Baron was involved in some scandalous affair in Vienna in which he was publicly humiliated. It was scarcely mentioned in the papers and I know almost nothing about it. I’ve only heard that as a consequence his relatives suddenly cut off any support from that day on and that he sold all of his possessions and went to America.

  A year later I heard his name brought up by chance in the editorial office of the German “La Plata” newspaper in Buenos Aires. I asked about him and learned that Baron Friedel had worked for half a year as a writer for the newspaper. Before that he had presided as majordomo over a ranch in Argentina. More recently someone had also seen him working as a coachman in Rosario. Nevertheless he was no longer there and was now somewhere in Paraguay gadding about.

  That was where I found him again and it was under very remarkable circumstances. But first I need to tell a little about the people that choose to call Paraguay “The Promised Land”. It is an odd community, so much so that someone should write a book about it.

  It once attracted a person that hated all the Jews and found Germany too progressive. He thought he could save the world when he vigorously screamed “Heilo”. He had red hair and a red beard. His blue eyes blazed out into the world.

  “Ah, you would like Dr. Förster,” once said my friend attorney Philippson.

  He was right. You had to love him with his joyful belief in impossible ideals and heartfelt stupidity; not only him, but all of those that leave home searching for a meadowed utopia somewhere in the world.

  Elisabeth Förster-Nietzche came with him, his gaunt, blue stockinged wife. She went back to Europe after many years and rummaged around in her great brother’s papers after his death playing the left behind “Pythia” and amazing harmless citizens with the words “My brother Nietzche”. But he is dead and there is no one that can rescue him from such sisterly love.

 

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