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

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

  The place where we lay was an unfortunate one. To the right of us rose a wall of rock; to the left fell the ravine, not very steeply, and yet uncomfortably enough in the darkness. The path between was very narrow. I rolled up one coat and made a pillow for Ussolo; he lay on the second one. I spread the cover and the third coat over him. In spite of all he froze; one fit of cold fever shook him after another. After a while he began to fight for breath; he gasped, and it seemed as if his lungs could work only with difficulty. He said nothing, only groaned softly from time to time.

  Sibylla knelt beside him; she, too, didn’t say a word, but seemed utterly petrified. So I chattered on, and told him that the torment was over now, and that the sergeant-major would soon be back with proper help. I could think of nothing else that was appropriate and said the same thing over again—I must have said it a hundred times in the course of that God-forsaken night. But indeed, it didn’t matter at all what I said, since neither of the others listened. Sometimes he would be less stifled, but then an attack would come again; the dizziness recurred regularly.

  Hour followed hour. The night faded and the mists crept in from the mountains. Day came, and the cold damp wind of the morning swept through the ravine. At times, when he lay quietly, we thought that he was getting better, but soon a violent trembling would overtake him again; at moments, too, he was unconscious. He had sharp and violent pains at the base of his hand; the hand was terribly swollen and the wound was a deep bluish red. Toward six o’clock in the morning he had convulsions; he raised his body up high and let it fall back heavily. Then he began to twitch in his muscles, the fingers of his well hand curved convulsively and his legs pushed forward in violent spasms. We had trouble holding him, but he became quieter again; soon, however, the smothering would begin again and with it the cold fever.

  Eight o’clock came; Raimondi should have been back long ago according to my calculation. Ussolo had grown a little quieter by this time and seemed to be asleep; so I thought it would be best if I were to start out and look for the sergeant- major. I jumped up and ran along the path that led to Cimego as fast as my legs would carry me. After about an hour I met Raimondi, and with him were the priest and three young men from Cimego.

  ‘Is he still alive?’ cried the sergeant-major.

  I nodded and went back with them. Raimondi looked like a wild man, his handsome uniform was covered all over with dirt; his hands and face were smeared with blood and sweat. He had taken a wrong step, had fallen down and broken his lantern. Then he had sought his way in the darkness, had lost it, and only noticed at the break of day that he had wandered into a wrong valley. Thus he had had to go back, and only through the help of a goat-herd whom he met on the way had he found the way to Cimego. There he had immediately fetched the priest from the very celebration of the mass, and had then run back with the others.

  While he was still telling me this, we suddenly heard a wild and fearful cry. We recognized Sibylla’s voice and ran on like mad. Raimondi was far ahead, behind him leaped the priest of Cimego holding up his black robe with both hands. He was an excellent man; if he could not arrive in time to use his medicine he still hoped not to be too late to administer the last consolation of the church to the dying man.

  But he was too late for either. When we emerged from the ravine we saw a dead man lying before us. His face was hideously distorted, the eyes protruded far out from their sockets. His right hand held his coat in a convulsive grasp; his legs were drawn far up. Before him stood Sibylla, erect, but with her body bent forward—just the way she goes and stands now. We paid little attention to her at first and busied ourselves with Ussolo, rubbed him, poured wine between his open lips and held the spirits of ammonia to his nose. But we soon realized that it was too late, and that all was over with him. We covered him with a coat and turned to his betrothed.

  We asked her in what manner he had died, but she gave us no answer. We urged her and saw clearly that she understood us—her lips moved, but her mouth was dumb; she had lost her power of speech. Her eyes were dry, no tears fell, and not once in all these years—not even at his grave—has she been able to weep. The priest took her in his arms and tried to straighten her; he failed and he asked me to help him. We all helped—but she remained as stiff as she was—her trunk bent straight forward. We didn’t want to believe it, grasped her roughly and used force: nothing availed.

  To this day I don’t know what happened in those last two hours of Ussolo’s life. I have often asked Sibylla in later years and begged her to write it down for me. But she has covered her face with her hands, shuddered and shaken her head. So I finally gave up the attempt. It must have been terrible—one could read that in her face! Her features were distorted and fixed as if she had seen hell open. And this expression of terror did not disappear, but remained, and only as the years passed, as her face became wrinkled and dark, and as she aged before her time, did this expression gradually fade. Today there is little trace of it left.

  But the terrible convulsive cramp that crippled her did not yield, nor did she ever speak again. We made litters and carried her and Ussolo to Cimego. He lies buried there.

  That is the story of the beautiful Sibylla and her poor betrothed.”

  The guard took a deep breath and drank three large glassfuls of wine to conceal his emotion.

  Frank Braun asked, “And was no attempt made to cure her?”

  “No attempt?” laughed Drenker. “We did everything we could, Raimondi and I! When we carried her back to her native village, her old man was drunk as usual. He shouted and scolded and would have liked to beat her in his blind rage. So Ussolo’s mother took her in. Later we drove her to the city, but the physician said that he could not help her, and that she would have to be taken to Innsbruck. There she lay in the hospital for years. They tormented her thoroughly with all kinds of methods and experimented around with her. But there was nothing to be done, and finally they sent her back home again—as crooked and stiff as ever. In the meantime her father died—drowned in the lake when he was thoroughly drunk again; her inheritance consisted of debts.

  She continued to live with Ussolo’s mother, and still clings to the ruined hut, although the old woman has been dead a long time. She doesn’t need much, of course, and she gets a few kreuzers by begging on the road when the stage passes. She has become a crippled, ugly old beggar woman, but as long as Aloys Drenker lives he will be kind to her.”

  Intoxication and Art

  While I accept in general the position of scholars that the consumption of alcohol will cause a reduction of an individual’s abilities, possibly after a short spontaneous enhancement. I nevertheless assert that a narcotic induced intoxication can play an important part in artistic creation.

  Van Bleuten framed the questions of his study like the clever judge who through cross-examination gets the answers that he wants to hear out of witnesses that are unskilled and not legally trained. If he had changed his questions just a little bit he would have received entirely accurate although contrary answers to his questionnaire.

  But first it must be stated that his study is entirely worthless for scientific and statistical purposes. Many of his questions have no real value.

  For example, Dr. M. Hirschfeld organized a study to determine sexual feelings of members of the Federation of Metal Workers and students of the Charlottenburger student body. Each respondent was given a card with questions on it. All they had to do was complete the questionnaire and throw it into the mailbox without naming names. It was estimated that due to the anonymity only 10% of the respondents treated it like a joke and gave worthless responses. It was allowed that the great majority answered truthfully.

  It was known from the very beginning that van Bleuten would publish full names along with their responses. It was not a scientific study. Instead of going to the wide public the questions went to a group of writers whose position on the alcohol question was already known. Consider as well that there is hardly any other profession so much
in the public eye and dependent on public opinion. It takes no prophet to know that these writers would answer the questions in a “politically correct” way to make a good impression.

  You can not deny that the Temperance Movement has made extraordinary progress and likely belongs to our future-fortunately for our country! What a miracle it is then that the overwhelming majority of respondents answered in favor of it!

  Unfortunately the Temperance Movement has smuggled in a bad companion across from England with it, one that has always been close on its heels, hypocrisy! Who wouldn’t like a count of the honorable, upstanding Temperance dignitaries that sit in the back rooms of TeaHouses in England and the States secretly guzzling their whiskey? They have long been the subjects of English cartoons and jokes. Certainly the open drunkard is more likeable than the hypocrite that preaches water and secretly drinks schnapps!

  I would have never thought van Bleuten would bring the hypocrisy surrounding this public issue into his questions in such a frightening way. The plea for abstinence in several questions is only a grotesque joke.

  For example when the extremely gifted poet of the cosmos, Paul Scheerbart, makes the phase:

  “In my opinion there is no interaction between alcohol and poetry. But yes, the effect of alcohol does compromise poetry.”

  This is the same foolish nonsense as when the poet designates himself in Furriers as the “Supreme Authority” of writers. It is a mockery of the question itself, but is not noticed. He has no idea of what goes on in the creative work of strong personalities or even of our best-known German comedians.

  Another factor is that many serious constant drinkers cloaked themselves in the innocent mantle of Temperance and it became their garment as they answered the clever questions that van Bleuten supplied.

  These questions were:

  1 Do you regularly take alcohol in some form before artistic work and what effect do you ascribe to it?

  2 If you don’t regularly take alcohol before artistic work, but have occasionally done so, did you observe an increase or inhibition in your work performance?

  3 Your viewpoint on the alcohol question in general and especially your observations on the interaction between alcohol and poetry are valuable to us.

  But alcohol is just one of many more or less used narcotics. If van Bleuten wanted to limit his questions to alcohol he should have at least asked the sub-question:

  “In addition to or instead of alcohol do you make use of any other narcotic?”

  Then for example it would be obvious that the responses of anti-alcohol respondents that were cocaine users would be worthless. A few respondents were aware of this deficiency in the questions. They spoke of their enjoyment of nicotine while still clinging to the narrow borders of the questions and considered themselves competent apostles of temperance.

  It was almost laughable for the insider when one of the gentlemen, an outspoken morphine user, proudly wrapped himself in his toga and stormed against alcohol. When you have one hundred Marks it is the same whether you possess it in paper, gold, silver, nickel or copper. Likewise it is the same for the fact of intoxication, whether it is produced by alcohol, hashish, cocaine or mescaline. He should never have limited his questions to just alcohol, but attempted to answer the connection between narcotics and poetry with the understanding that stimulants like tea and coffee are also narcotics. The issue is not whether they are “Temperate” and abstain from alcohol but whether they abstain from any other narcotic as well!

  I am convinced that the outcome would have been very different. Yes, perhaps if they were all honest they would have to concede that there is scarcely one writer that doesn’t use some stimulant, consciously or unconsciously.

  Van Bleauten’s questions contain nothing about the difference between using narcotics as stimulants for artistic creation and how artistic works are created through the intoxication itself. Naturally the vast majority of respondents didn’t either.

  Stimulants are now so extraordinarily diverse and intermixed so often that it seems almost impossible to note anything about their use. Alcohol can hardly even be considered.

  Question 1 could be answered negatively by almost anyone. The rotten apples of Schiller, the tops of Wagner, Balzac’s dressing gown for Wilde, the violet paper of one, the cat on the writing desk of another, a bowl of mocha, Greek pottery, a bush of chrysanthemums- these and hundreds of other things are all stimulants. By themselves they have absolutely nothing to do with artistic creation. They are unique and it is seldom known how they evoke creative art out of the psyche.

  But the majority of van Bleuten’s questions are framed in such a way that they are only related to the use of alcohol as a stimulant and therefore with good reason could be rejected. Anyone without a wine bottle near his inkstand could proudly answer the first question negatively.

  Herbert Eulenberg writes with priceless humor:

  “I never drink immediately before or during the work of alcohol.”

  This is directly honest. It could be inserted into fifty other replies. In fact, the use of alcohol as a stimulant, or any other narcotic, is completely irrelevant. Its use in getting “there and back” awakens no more interest than the use of any other coincidental stimulant.

  The question that counts is this:

  “Can the intoxication induced by a narcotic help contribute to the creation of a work of art?”

  I will answer that question here. It is not only capable of it, but can even under certain conditions spawn completely new works of art. I will prove that it is capable, that it is the “law of the artist” that the “alcohol question” only points at. It is a law like all the other customs and laws that govern the artist.

  In general it is certain that an individual’s intelligence determines what he is able to accomplish in the state of ecstasy. It is precisely this state of ecstasy that is important, not whether it is achieved naturally or through the use of narcotics. If the creator of a magnificent work of art uses natural means to achieve ecstasy so much the better, but the grandeur of his work is no less if that is not the case. This remains true of most artistic creations.

  The causes that bring about suitable conditions for artistic ecstasy are not as common as blackberries. The ecstatic inner experiences of every living person come less frequently as the person ages. The mature person is less capable of inducing an artistic ecstasy through natural means. The youth swims in ecstasy and passion but doesn’t know what to do with it. The mature person knows what to do but the ecstasy and passion may stay away for months and years at a time.

  That is the truth behind these phrases:

  “The passion of youth, the tranquility of age.”

  “The average life of the talented artist: In youth, passion without skill. In old age, skill without passion and never a completed work of art!”

  However, if the intoxication produced by a narcotic is capable of producing a suitable state of ecstasy under certain conditions, why not use it? Because it is not natural? Ice machines produce ice that is just as cold as the ice on frozen ponds. The value of a great work of art is completely independent of whether it was created out of the ecstasy of a great love or that of a wine bottle.

  The real issue is whether this ecstasy remains unconscious or can be brought into consciousness and worked with, not if it was brought about naturally or artificially. A creation through intoxication is as difficult to put into words as a creation through the emotions of heartbreak and misery. But both intoxication and strong emotions are capable of vibrating the strings of the artist and perhaps occasionally producing a state of ecstasy.

  This creation of a state of artistic ecstasy is always accompanied by a physical, thoroughly sober mental state. The most beautiful state of intoxication is not capable of bringing art out of a person that has none inside to begin with. You can take any person off the street and put him into the most beautiful hashish delirium and it will never result in the creation of a work of art unless they are paint
ers, sculptors, poets or musicians in the first place. Such experiments with intoxication will be completely futile.

  In any case the habitual use of any narcotic over a long period of time is to be avoided. In most cases the habitual user finds it increasingly more difficult to achieve the needed condition of ecstasy. This includes the habitual drinker, smoker, morphine user, cocaine user and hashish user. Opium alone appears to consistently lead to ecstasy. It is also the only narcotic not intended for artistic creation. Such use leads to only random and unpredictable results making it the narcotic of choice for pleasure instead.

  The artistic process of working through intoxication and bringing art into conscious awareness is gained only later after both the intoxication and the emotions are gone. Short sentences, words and symbols written down while intoxicated are often enough to call up, even years later, the entire sequence of memories and images of the original experience. That is the moment when it can be fashioned into a work of art.

  Here are a few ways the artist can work through intoxication to obtain material that can later be fashioned into works of valuable art.

  Enhancement of memories, including the remembrance of early childhood. (Hashish)

  Profusion of images, intense color scales. (Peyote)

  Grotesque distortion of everything seen, chaotic emergence of new forms. (Muscarin)

  Deep mood swings that last for weeks, division of the personality, living with two or more “I’s”. (Hashish)

  Inner rhythm, capturing the necessity of dance. (Kava Kava)

  Unlimited refinement of all the senses, the process of spontaneous artistic creation. (Hashish)