The Dedalus Book of German Decadence

by Ray Furness

  Decomposition drew the dead man’s mouth apart, he seemed to be smiling, he was dreaming of a happy star, of a fragrant summer’s evening. His liquescent lips quivered, as if at a fleeting kiss.

  ‘How I love you. I have loved you so much. Shall I tell you how much I love you? The way you walked through the poppy field, a fragrant poppy flame yourself, you had drunk in the whole evening. And your dress, billowing round your ankles, was a wave of fire in the setting sun. But your head was inclined in the light, and your hair was still burning, still ablaze from all my kisses.

  So you walked, and kept on turning round to look back at me. And for a long time the lantern in your hand still swayed like a glowing rose in the twilight.

  I will see you again tomorrow. Here, below the window of the chapel, here, where the light of the candles falls down, turning your hair into a forest of gold, here, where the narcissi rub their heads against your ankles, tenderly, like delicate kisses.

  I will see you again, every evening at the hour of twilight. We will never leave each other. How I love you! Shall I tell you how much I love you?’

  And the dead man quivered gently with bliss on his white mortuary table as the metal chisels in the hands of the doctors broke open the bones of his temples.

  Georg Heym: ‘Die Sektion’ in Der Dieb. Ein Novellenbuch, Rowohlt, Leipzig, 1913.

  Hanns Heinz Ewers: Alraune

  How can you deny, my dearest, that creatures exist – neither humans, nor plants – strange creatures which spring from the perverse pleasures of absurd ideas?

  You know, my gentle darling, that the law is good, as is that which is strictly normal. The great God is good who created these norms, these rules and stipulations. And good is the man who respects these laws, who treads the paths of humility and patience, following faithfully the path of the God of goodness.

  But the Prince who hates goodness is of another kind. He shatters the laws and the norms. He creates – and this you must understand – against nature.

  He is evil, he is wicked. And wicked is the man who follows him, for he is a child of Satan.

  It is evil – evil in the extreme – to interfere with the eternal laws, to tear them with impious hand from their everlasting foundation.

  The evil one may do this, for Satan helps him, Satan, who is a powerful Lord: he creates according to his own proud destiny. He may do such things as shatter the laws, reverse the natural order and stand it on its head. But let him beware: it is deception and blind illusion that he creates. It rears up, and grows into the skies, but ultimately it collapses and buries in its fall the arrogant knave who conceived it.

  * * * *

  His Excellency Jakob ten Briken, doctor of medicine, professor and Privy Councillor created the strange girl – against nature. He created her, he alone, even if the thought belonged to another. And this creature, whom they christened and called Mandra Gora, grew up and lived like a normal human being. What she touched, turned to gold and where she gazed, all senses laughed in exultation. But whomsoever her poisoned breath defiled, his senses screamed in pain, and from the ground on which her dainty feet had trod there sprang the pale flowers of death. One man struck her dead, the man who first thought her into existence: Frank Braun, the man who stood apart from life.

  It was not for you, my blonde little sister, that I wrote this book. Your eyes are blue and good, and know nothing of sin. Your days are like the heavy blossoms of blue wistaria, dropping gently upon a soft carpet: thus my gentle footsteps quietly pass through the sun-dappled arbour of your tender days. It was not for you, my blonde child, the lovely sister of my dream-still days, that I wrote this book.

  But for you I wrote it, for the wild, sinful sister of my torrid nights. When darkness falls, when the cruel sea devours the lovely radiance of the sun, a quick, poisonous shaft twitches across the waves. This is the first, quick laughter of sin, darting at the timid day’s fear of death. And sin rears up above the silent waters, ever higher, and exults in flaming, ochre, crimson, deep violet colours. And sin breathes through the depth of night, spewing her venomous breath through all the land.

  You would feel happy in her hot breath. Your eyes widen, and your young breasts rise in insolence. Your nostrils tremble, your clammy hands spread wide. The decent veils of gentle mornings fall, and the serpent rears from the stygian womb of night. Then, sister, your wild soul rears, rejoicing in vileness, replete with poisons. And from torment and blood, from kisses and degradation, your soul exults and shrieks – through all the heavens and all the hells.

  Sister of my sins: I wrote this book for you.

  […]

  The Princess was asking the Professor about his latest experiments. Would she be able to come again and look at the remarkable frogs, the amphibians and the pretty monkeys? Of course she could come. She should also look at the new breed of roses, at his villa in Mehlemer, also the new arbour of camelias which the gardener was planting.

  But the Princess found the frogs and monkeys far more interesting than roses and camelias. And so he began to tell her about his experiments in transferring genes, and with artificial insemination. He told her that he had just made a pretty little frog with two heads, and another with fourteen eyes on its back. He explained how he cut the genes out of a tadpole and transferred them to another individual. And how the cells merrily developed in the new body and subsequently spawned forth heads and tails, eyes and legs. He told her about his experiments with monkeys, told her that he had two long-tailed monkeys whose virginal mother, who was now suckling them, had never seen a male.

  She found this particularly interesting. She wanted to know all the details, and desired to know everything that he did; he had to translate the terms in Latin and Greek into basic German. And the Professor revelled in indecent expressions and gestures. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth and dribbled over his heavy, pendulous bottom lip. He enjoyed this game, this babbling coprolalia, savouring lubriciously the sound of indecent expressions. And then, when he had arrived at a particularly repulsive word he threw in ‘Your Highness’, and enjoyed the prurient tingle of the contrast.

  But she hung upon his every work, flushed, excited, almost trembling, and drew through every pore this brothel-like atmosphere which cloaked itself in the rarefied aura of scientific discourse.

  ‘Do you only fertilize monkeys, Professor?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘No’, he replied, ‘rats and guinea pigs as well. Would you like to be present, Your Highness, when I …’ He lowered his voice, and almost spoke in a whisper.

  ‘Yes!’ she cried, ‘Yes! This I must see! I would love to! When?’ She then added – but her attempt at dignity was not convincing – ‘For, you know, nothing interests me more than medical study. I think I would have been a very good doctor.’

  He looked at her, grinning broadly. ‘But of course, Your Highness!’ He then entertained the idea that she would make an even better madame in a brothel. But he had her in his net. He began to talk again about the roses and the camelias in his villa on the Rhine. It was inconvenient for him, and he had only taken it on out of kindness. But the site was excellent, not to mention the view. And perhaps, if Her Highness would deign to visit him, they could –.

  Princess Volkonsky decided immediately, without losing a moment. ‘But of course, naturally I could take the villa!’ She saw Frank Braun go by and called out to him. ‘Mr Braun, Mr Braun, please come over here! Your uncle has promised to show me some of his experiments, isn’t that extraordinarily charming! Have you ever seen any?’

  ‘No’, Frank Braun replied, ‘I’m not interested in that kind of thing.’

  He turned to go, but she had him by the sleeve. ‘Give me a cigarette, and, yes, a glass of champagne.’ She was unhealthily excited, and perspiration pearled across her rolls of fat. Her crude senses, whipped up by the old man’s shameless descriptions, sought an outlet, and broke in a cascade over the young man.

  ‘Tell me, young student,’ she panted, her great breasts threa
tening to burst her bodice, ‘Tell me … do you think … that your uncle … with all his knowledge, his scientific experiments … do you think he could artificially create human beings?’

  She knew perfectly well that he did not do such things, but she felt compelled to carry on the conversation, at any price, and especially with this young and handsome student.

  Frank Braun burst out laughing, instinctively sensing the direction her thoughts were taking. ‘But of course, Your Highness’, he said quietly. ‘Certainly. My uncle is experimenting in this very area, and has discovered a new process that is so subtle that the poor woman in question knows nothing about it. Nothing at all: until one fine day she finds that she is pregnant, in the fourth or fifth month. Be careful when you are with my uncle, Your Highness, who knows whether or not you –.’

  ‘For Heavens sake!’ the Princess screamed.

  ‘Yes, that would be disagreeable’ he cried, ‘especially if one had none of the pleasure beforehand!’

  * * * *

  CRASH!

  Something fell from the wall and struck Sophie the maid on the top of her head. She let out a yell and dropped the silver tray with all the coffee cups.

  ‘Oh the lovely Sèvres …,’ said Frau Gontram, quite unperturbed. ‘What was it, then?’

  Dr Mohnen took it upon himself to look after the sobbing girl; he cut away a strand of hair, bathed the gaping wound and staunched the blood with iron chloride. He did not neglect to pat her on the cheek and quietly fondled her firm breasts. He gave her some wine to drink and whispered gently in her ear.

  All sorts of extraordinary objects were hanging on the wall: an idol from the South Seas, half male, half female, striped in bold reds and yellows; two old riding boots, massive and heavy, with powerful Spanish spurs; various rusty weapons; a doctor’s diploma, printed on grey silk, from the Jesuit College in Seville and inscribed with the name of an earlier Gontram; a remarkable ivory crucifix, inlaid with gold; a Buddist rosary made of large, green jade beads …

  But the thing had been hanging at the very top, the thing that had now jumped down: you could clearly see the rip in the wallpaper which the nail had torn away from the brittle mortar. It was a brown, dusty object made of a rock-hard root, and it looked like an ancient wizened mannikin.

  Well, well, it’s our mandrake!’ exclaimed Frau Gontram. ‘Well, it certainly was a good job that our Sophie was walking underneath – she comes from the Eifel, and they’re all thick-headed from there! If it had been Wolfie, now, our lad, the nasty little mannikin would certainly have split his head open!’

  And Herr Gontram continued: ‘That’s been in the family for the last two hundred years. It was supposed to have played a silly prank before: my grandfather remembered how it had jumped on his head one night. But he was probably inebriated: he enjoyed a drink or two.’

  ‘What is it, then?’ asked a lieutenant of the Hussars.

  ‘Well, it’s supposed to bring money into the house.’ replied Herr Gontram. ‘That’s an old legend anyway; old Manasse would be able to tell us. Come on then, away you go, Mr. Polyhistoricus! What is the legend about the mandrake?’

  But the little lawyer was not keen. ‘Nothing, only what everyone knows.’

  ‘Nobody knows it, nobody. You greatly over-rate our modern educational system,’ the lieutenant replied.

  ‘Come on, Manasse, don’t keep us waiting,’ said Mrs Gontram. ‘I’ve always wanted to know what the ugly old thing was meant to be.’

  So he began. He spoke dryly, in a scholarly fashion, as though he were reading out of a book. He did not stumble over his words, scarcely raised his voice. And he swung the root in his right hand, back and forth, like a baton.

  ‘Mandrake, Mandragora, also called Mandragola – Mandragora officinarum. A plant of the solanaceous family, found around the Mediterranean basin, in south-east Europe and as far as Asia and the Himalayas. The leaves and blossoms are narcotic, were used in earlier times as an opiate and were used during operations in the famous medical school in Salerno. The leaves could also be smoked and the fruits were made into aphrodisiacs. They were supposed to incite lust and make men potent. Jacob used them for his little trick with Laban’s flocks; the plant is called Dudaian in the Pentateuch. But it is the root which plays the most important part in the old stories. As early as Pythagoras you find a reference to its remarkable similarity to an old man or woman: in his time they believed that it could make you invisible, that it could weave magic or, conversely, act as a talisman against witchcraft. The German legends concerning the mandrake derive from the early Middle Ages, from the time of the Crusades. The criminal, hanged stark naked at the crossroads, would ejaculate his last drop of sperm at the moment his neck was broken. The seed falls onto the earth and fertilizes it: a mandrake is born, either male or female. The local people went out at night to dig it up: the shovel had to be placed in the earth exactly on the stroke of midnight. But it was wise to block up your ears with wool and wax because when the mannikin was drawn out of the earth it would shriek in such a hideous way that you would faint in terror – you can find this referred to in Shakespeare. Then you would take it home and look after it well, give it a little of every meal to eat, and wash it in wine on holy days. It brought you luck in law-suits, and in war, was an amulet against witchcraft and brought good luck into the house. It gave grace to the one who owned it, could tell fortunes, made women lovely and eased their child-bearing. But, despite all this, it brought sorrow and torment, wherever it was. Other members of the household were dogged by ill fortune, and it drove its owner to greed, lust and manifold iniquities. It finally destroyed him, and drove him to hell. And yet mandrakes were very popular, were often sold and fetched high prices. It is said that Wallenstein carried a mandrake around with him for the whole of his life, and the same is said of England’s polygamous King Henry the Eighth.’ Manasse stopped, and threw the hard piece of wood on to the table.

  ‘Most interesting, yes, most interesting,’ said Count Geroldingen. ‘I am most grateful to you for your little lecture, Sir.’

  But Madame Marion declared that she would not for one moment tolerate such a thing in her home, and stared with eyes wide open at Mrs Gontrum’s rigid, bony, mask-like face.

  Frank Braun moved swiftly towards the Professor. His eyes were shining, and he seized the old gentleman by the shoulder.

  ‘Uncle Jakob …’

  ‘Well, what is it, my boy?’ asked the Professor. But he got up, and followed his nephew to the window.

  ‘Uncle Jakob,’ the student said again. ‘This is what you need! This is far better than silly tricks with frogs, and monkeys, and small children. Come on, Uncle, go down the road that nobody has gone before!’ His voice was shaking and he nervously exhaled smoke from his cigarette.

  ‘I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying …’

  ‘You must understand! Weren’t you listening to what he was saying? Make a mandrake, a mandragora! Something that is alive, that has flesh and blood! You can do it, Uncle, you and no one else on earth!’

  The Professor looked at him, uncertain, doubtful. But there was such conviction in the student’s voice, such strength of belief, that he involuntarily hesitated.

  ‘Speak more clearly, Frank,’ he said, ‘I really don’t know what you mean.’

  His nephew hastily shook his head. ‘Not now, Uncle … I’ll take you home, if you will allow me.’

  […]

  They crossed the yard and entered the long low house from the right. It was basically an enormous room with a tiny antechamber and a few small offices. The massive bookshelves ran along the walls, packed with thousands of volumes. There were also low glass cabinets dotted around the room, full of Roman artefacts; many a Roman grave had been excavated and robbed of its tenaciously guarded treasures. Thick carpets covered the floors; there were also a few writing desks, arm chairs and sofas.

  They entered, and the Professor threw the mandrake – a gift from the Gontrams – on to t
he divan. They lit the candles, drew the armchairs together, and sat down. The servant uncorked a dusty bottle.

  ‘You may go’, said his master, ‘but do not go to bed yet. The young gentleman will be leaving later, and you must lock up.’ ‘Now?’ and he turned to his nephew.

  Frank Braun drank. He picked up the mannikin and played with it. It was somewhat moist, and almost seemed to be supple.

  ‘Yes, it’s quite recognisable’, he murmured. ‘There are its eyes, look at them. A nose sticking out, and a mouth gaping wide. Look, Uncle, doesn’t it look as though it’s grinning? The arms are somewhat stunted, and the legs are joined down to the knees. It’s a strange object …’ He lifted it up, and looked at it from all sides. Look round Mandrake!’ he cried. ‘This is your new home! This is where you belong, in the house of Jakob ten Brinken, and it is better than the Gontram’s home … You are old’, he continued, ‘four hundred, perhaps six hundred years old or more. They hanged your father because he was a murderer or a horse-thief or had written some scurrilous verse against a great nobleman in armour or a cardinal. It doesn’t matter what he did : they called him a criminal then, and they hanged him. And then he squirted his last drop of life out into the earth and produced you, you strange creature. And mother earth received in her fruitful womb this parting gift of the criminal and laboured and brought you forth. She, the most gigantic, most powerful one, bore you, an ugly, wretched mannikin! And they dug you out at midnight, at the cross roads, shaking with dread, with howling, screaming incantations. And then, when you first saw the light of the moon, you saw your father’s body, hanging on the gallows, all brittle bones and rotting fragments of flesh. And they took you with them, those who had strung him up, – your father. They grabbed you, and dragged you home – you were meant to make them rich! Pure gold and young love! They knew well you would also bring torment, and desperation, and finally a wretched death. They knew that but they still dug you up and took you with them : they accepted all this, for wealth and love.’