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

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Once I almost ruined everything when I asked her name. Without thinking I used the two single words that I had learned in the Momoskapan language and asked so often in the last few weeks.

  “Huatuchton Tuapli?” (What is your name?)

  There was a light trembling on the girl’s face and she answered in her language timidly with a frightened voice, “My name is Teresita.”

  I was startled and believed in that moment that the dream was lost. But the harsh ancestor that lived in her brain would not be driven out so easily. She laughed out loud again, smiling broadly and confidently.

  “Will you come with brother? Tomorrow I will cook some more of them. They are too dumb to learn anything, like how to make a cross.”

  It occurred to me to find out more of the life story of Teresita’s ancestor in this chopped up speech. He originated somewhere on the lower Rhine, had taken vows and been ordained as a Franciscan friar in Cologne. Then he had moved around mostly with Spanish rabble as an Army friar. He had been on the Rhine, in Bavaria and in Flanders. In Milano, Italy, he made the acquaintance of General Jon Kheern van Santanillas, who was going back to Mexico as the 5th governor after Cortez and was in his retinue on the well-known trip back to Honduras as well. Somehow he had come upon the blue Indians of Ystotasinta and brought the blessed Christian civilization to them.

  Teresita drank and drank. Her voice became more ungainly and the harsh voice became slurred. The chatter of the war priest became more boastful and wild. She told of the conquering of Quantutaccis that she herself led, saber in her right hand and cross in her left, of the three hundred Mayans that she burned in honor of Merida on Corpus Domini Day. She reveled in the murder and burning, in the lust of victory and having fun with the captured women and the rich booty in the temples. No one else had killed as many men or violated as many women in the entire land.

  “Hail, Viva El General Santanilla and Hail, hail Cologne!”

  The voice went wild in full-unbridled laughter as it screamed out, “If you want to brother, we can roast these blue rabble tomorrow, roast them all together! Would you like that? Each one could get their own wood and light it themselves! It would be great sport!”

  She emptied the mug again, “Answer brother. What? You don’t believe me! St. Anna! They will do anything that I want, these filthy pigs! You don’t believe me? Pay attention brother. I have taught them a fine trick!”

  She hit Kaziken with the whip. “Come here you old heathen dog! Your damned tongue has prayed often enough to your shabby devil gods before I brought you the Holy Virgin and salvation! Out with your blue monkey tongue that cries out to Tlahuiccalpantecuhtli, your lousy Pulque gods, Coatlicue, Iztaccihuatl and Tzontemoc, the filthy sun god that runs through the underworld. Out with it, out with it! Bite it off, bite your damned tongue off!”

  Teresita screamed and a hail of Momoskapanish words that I didn’t understand fell like lashes on the Elders ear. Then suddenly this mighty discharge in her language extinguished the centuries old memory in her brain. She sank together, her hands searching for support and finding none slowly her body fell to the earth. She cowered on the floor, pulled her legs together and a light sobbing shook her shoulders. I turned around to get the water jug for her and my gaze fell on old Kaziken.

  He stood behind me upright, head bowed back, eyes staring straight up and his tongue, his long violet tongue, stretched wide into the air as if he wanted to catch a fly on the ceiling. A deep gurgling rushed out his throat and his hands pressed against his naked breast, the nails clawing deep into the blue flesh. I didn’t understand it at all, only had a vague feeling that there was a horrible war playing out inside him, a desperate resistance against a sudden, immense and invincible compulsion.

  He struggled weak-minded against this horrible compulsion the white priest had laid down on him, this hellish compulsion of a murderous priest long since dead that had awakened and sprang across the centuries to once more utter that handful of fearful words that held the Elder in nameless torment.

  His time was running out. He stood there, a distressed animal that had to mutilate himself at the priest’s command. He had to obey, had to. Gripped in a wild convulsion the mighty teeth seized the tongue and bit it off. Then the lips took the bloody flesh and spit it out. I shuddered, wanted to call out, felt in my pocket to find something to help.

  Teresita crouched at my feet stroking my leg, kissing my mud-covered boots.

  “Sir, may I have the silver girdle?”

  My Mother the Witch

  This is what Doctor Kaspar Krazy Cat wrote to his brother:

  Dear brother,

  Thanks for your letter, the first in eight years. It could even be ten or twelve, and it certainly is an even longer time since I have written you. We hear about each other through our mother and that is good because seeing things through her eyes has kept mutual harmony and concord between us. We have held only love and friendship toward each other.

  The few times that we do occasionally meet are much too short and allow only the smallest shadow of the relationship that we should have.

  If I so suddenly reply to your long and detailed letter it is because I must. It is so you can become acquainted with some very weighty and important grounds that need to be considered.

  You write me dear brother, in light joy and enthusiasm. You are now almost fifty and like myself, have known women in all five parts of the world. You are certainly entitled to have your opinion and to express it as well.

  Now you are engaged and will get married in less than a week. The young lady is from the best family, very rich, very beautiful, blooming with health and intelligent as well. You love her as a Goddess—and even more! What else could a person ask for?

  You go on for ten passionate pages about how lucky you are. I believe every word, every single particular and take nothing as exaggeration.

  On the other hand, your high position, your income, your occupation, and your good looks—excuse the compliment, but every time I visit mother, I must look at your latest picture and listen to her enthusiastically sing your praises!

  She is rightfully proud of you and quite truthfully, I am no less proud of you. So, your decision to have her come live with you can be very joyous. Her age-old favoritism means nothing.

  In summary: I would not want to put the smallest cloud in the blue heaven of your happiness. I should celebrate with you and send you all best wishes in hopes that it can stay this way for you always!

  Instead of this I beg you urgently and imploringly to rise above your engagement. Don’t get married!

  You, dear brother, are as thoroughly healthy as I am. With such a healthy wife you should bring strong and healthy children into the world, as many as you might wish. As many as I, myself, have wished for until now.

  There is something in our family, whether it is on our father’s or mother’s side, it doesn’t really matter. In any case, it is something worth deep consideration at this time. Our father was old enough, was strong and healthy throughout his entire life. Our mother is over eighty years old and known throughout the entire city for her astonishing physical health, intellectual vigor and alertness.

  Nevertheless it is on her account that I must warn you dear brother. You know that a genetic trait is often not passed down from parent to child but skips a generation. I am now afraid that this special genetic trait of our mother’s might show up again in your offspring.

  I, myself, dear brother, have three or four times been in the same exact position that you are now in. But then I didn’t know what I know now, I didn’t know about the amazing nature of the woman that is our mother.

  It must be a completely secret instinct that saves me at the last minute, prevents me from taking that final step, and now you appear determined to get married as well.

  Each time my conduct appeared completely senseless to all my friends and acquaintances, yes, perhaps even insane. It was too extreme and turned my engagement into a hoax.

  I want t
o describe just one of these to you in a few words because it certainly is about this strange genetic trait.

  At that time I was going to marry a maid on the next day. I could claim about her everything that you write in your letter about your bride. Only at that time I had many other valid reasons for not getting married.

  I was without any means and had only been living free from debt for a little over a year. I believe I have told you about this before. My nerves were completely depressed for an entire month after; narcotics were the only possible way I could maintain myself. The truth was that it was this woman that I lived for, that I believed in and that I loved.

  On the evening before the day of the wedding celebration I went to bed with a strange feeling. Dear brother, you are now going to hear what really happened. I went to bed with the highest pleasant awareness that on the next morning my life was going to change.

  We are both, you and I, very good sleepers. Perhaps that is what keeps us so fresh. Two minutes after I pull the covers over me I am fast asleep. It’s that way today and has always been that way.

  This was one of the few nights in my life that I couldn’t sleep. It was not because I was pondering over something. There was a stranger brooding inside of me, some deep, secret slumbering thought that was struggling to get out.

  “I”, my awareness, could perceive it. I was indifferent to it but had a strange curiosity about this thought and wondered if it would come out or not. This went on for awhile but it wouldn’t come. Then I tried to get rid of it by thinking about other things.

  Naturally the first thing I thought of was my bride. I pictured myself standing with her, pictured the bridal veil and the orange blossoms.

  It was in that moment I felt the secret thought play in my subconscious, even with my bride, with the bridal veil, with the orange blossoms; there was something that I needed to do. This thought quickly sprang up and crossed over the boundary into awareness, clawed its way into my brain and stayed there.

  “Don’t go to the Justice of the Peace! Don’t bring her to church! Don’t marry her!”

  For a small moment I was terrified, but then the thought appeared so comical to me that I began laughing out loud. It occurred to me, how unbelievably stupid, how absurd, how cruel and how low it was! Would I make her so unhappy, perhaps drive her to suicide and myself as well? Would I do this to the person I loved and who loved me as much and perhaps loved me even more?

  Even though my position in the world was not that great, it was shear lunacy to hesitate even a second. Nevertheless, the thought stayed there, fixed and stubborn. “Don’t marry!”

  I tried to think of reasons why I shouldn’t get married, but found none. What always came to me instead was a resounding “Yes!”

  But the “No” Will-o-the-wisp circled around, appearing here and there but never giving a good reason. I put out an honest effort to go to sleep but it didn’t work. I got up, turned on the light, put on my kimono and ran around. I tried to read, smoked a cigarette and then another. I went from one room to another, staring at pictures and at furniture, opened the window and looked out.

  I tried in every way to get rid of the thought, but it wouldn’t leave me. It held me fast. “Don’t do it!”

  Finally I sat at the writing table and wrote a long letter to some woman I had once been in a relationship with, explaining to her why I could not go through with the marriage. It was a very stilted letter, completely overflowing with reasons why I would have no more to do with this woman that I had known for a year and a day.

  That was the first line I was aware of writing. After that I wrote the entire letter putting forth what she would say when she read it and further, what she would say a few hours later if I came to explain to her why I didn’t want to get married.

  Then I took a new piece of paper, I swear to you that it wasn’t “I” that wrote, but still in my hand the feather glided over the paper. It wrote to my bride:

  “It won’t work. I can not marry you. I don’t know why, but I can’t”

  My hand put this letter in an envelope and attached a stamp to it. My legs carried it to the post office and mailed it. I went back inside, climbed into bed and was asleep in the blink of an eye.

  On the next morning I remembered well enough what I had done. I was still consumed with the idea of escaping so I packed my suitcase, went to the train station, bought a ticket and left.

  That was many years ago. I have often deliberated over it, trying to find out why I acted the way that I did. Over and over again I force myself to confront the reality that I acted against common sense, destroyed my own happiness and crushed the one I loved in the most cruel way.

  Still, at the same time, I could never lose the feeling that I acted in the only possible way and did the right thing even though I could never find a valid reason, I could find only shadows.

  Another time something similar happened to me. First and above all, I was determined to this time to get married. But no matter how resolved I was, the nearer the day approached, the more uncomfortable I became until I panicked and once more refused to get married!

  I have searched continuously for the unconscious reason behind my behavior and have finally found it. I consider it a very valid reason unlike all the previous threadbare reasons in the past that I tried forcing myself to believe.

  I even once wrote a highly passionate refusal letter that ended in the sentence:

  “I will not give up my freedom: I can’t be imprisoned in a golden cage.”

  Another time—

  But I don’t want to bore you with memories of my life history. It’s enough to say that I have continuously lied to myself and imagined this or that reason was the basis of my running away from marriage. I see today that all my objections and reasons were utter nonsense that prevented me from seeing the truth.

  Today I know where this involuntary resistance comes from that holds me back every time I try taking such a decisive step. I have been visiting our mother for over three months now. It has been a very long time since I’ve seen her.

  I don’t have much else to do, so every day I spend many hours alone with her. Without this experience I would have never discovered the true reason. All week long I have been observing her. I once more began to have this same subconscious feeling that something was wrong and that I needed to search for it.

  I’ve searched and I’ve found!

  The answer is that you and I are not permitted to ever get married! The great possibility exists that the genetic trait our mother carries, the one that has skipped us, could carry into the next generation and our children could become what she is—a witch!

  I know you are laughing, perhaps later you will make a sad face, shake your head and more or less doubt my sanity.

  But it’s the reason! For the first time everything is clear to me. It was always right before my eyes but I couldn’t see it. This senseless, comical and childish word, “witch”, is not so funny. I doubted this understanding, and myself just as you will when you read this. But the understanding just goes deeper and deeper with each passing day.

  If you doubt what I say and still decide to continue, if I should fail in my attempt to explain the reality of the situation to you. I bear witness that if you continue in your heart’s desire you will commit what I consider a crime against humanity! If you marry you will beget children, bring witches into the world!

  Naturally you know as well as I do that is not easy to escape from the spell of our mother’s personality. Every child in the city knows her as well as every adult. When she goes out with her cane in the mornings there is always a friendly man or woman on every street corner that will help her over the curb and pay attention that no auto, bicycle, or streetcar comes too close to her.

  When she goes shopping, there is certain to be some child off the street that will come up and ask if they can carry her packages for her. On the crowded streetcar, in the bus or on the ferryboat not only the men stand up to offer their seats to he
r—no, all the men and women compete in offering her their seats before she can sit down.

  The kindness of the attendants in the opera, in the theater and the concert hall, as well as in the shops and guesthouses, where we occasionally eat supper, is amazing and almost shameful. It is as if these people were trying to prove their friendship to our mother.

  Every evening when I go for a short walk with her I am newly astounded. Gentlemen, Lady acquaintances or children always have flowers in their hands and hastily come up and give them to her when they see her. There is never a day that goes by without someone sending flowers in a vase or a pot to her house. I am employed every morning at watering these flowers and it takes me almost forty minutes if I’m lucky!

  I don’t know if she has written you about her name days. For a few years now she has felt that a single birthday in a long year is not enough and has determined to celebrate her name days. She looked them up in the calendar. As you know, her name is Johanna Nepomucia Hubertina Maria.

  Hubert occurs only once, in November, and Johann of Nepomuk occurs only once as well. But all the other Johann days and Marian days, it is a true delight! She has explained that she couldn’t decide on one or the other so she celebrates them all!

  Word soon got around and ever since then her family, acquaintances and neighbors have flowers sent to her house on dozens of these name days. Her balcony, the one that overlooks the cloister garden, is a veritable flower basket. She sits in the middle of them having tea with young people, painters, carpenters, musicians, singers and actors, male and female. It is a wide variety of people, really, but the fine arts always sets the tone.

  They are always young people! She doesn’t like old people. You and I, we are a little old for her, only, she sees us still as her children, always as little children. Our old mother certainly acts like all these young people as well. The people are always saying that she must have a secret youth potion, then they laugh.