Death and Mr. Pickwick

by Stephen Jarvis

  ‘She is pretty, isn’t she?’ said the man, whose eyes were also narrow and sallow. When Georg did not reply, the man said: ‘Come, do join me. I knew a girl who resembled her, some years ago.’ When Georg hesitated, the man said: ‘She has set you a hunting challenge, hasn’t she?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Georg was as astonished as when the girl revealed awareness of his name, though not as delighted.

  ‘The girl I knew set me one too. Come, let us take a seat together. Tell me how you are doing with the challenge.’

  He joined the man and explained that whenever he saw a rabbit, he took aim but his hand shook, and he always missed.

  ‘The challenge is impossible for me,’ he said. ‘I am too nervous. Even if I were to kill a rabbit, I know it wouldn’t be enough. Her true taste is venison. Oh, what is the point of going hunting? But she enslaves me.’

  The man said: ‘You could call upon help.’

  A confused expression formed on Georg Schmid’s face. The expression altered to distinct unease, especially in the eyes, as if Georg had an inkling of the man’s meaning. There was a strained murmur in Georg’s voice as he asked: ‘What kind of help?’

  The man reached into his pocket and took out a flattened musket ball. ‘This hit the very heart of a deer. Yet I did not aim at the heart. I aimed above, through the antlers, so as to miss the animal entirely. The bullet still found its billet, right in the deer’s chest.’

  ‘You are very lucky, sir,’ said Georg. ‘How I wish I had your good fortune.’ He gave an agitated laugh and rose to go, but the man gripped Georg’s wrist.

  ‘These bullets are charmed,’ whispered the man. ‘Were you to wear a blindfold – were you even to fire over your shoulder, in the opposite direction to the deer – they would infallibly hit their mark. If you join me on St Abdon’s Day, I shall cast more freikugeln like these.’

  Georg Schmid turned his head to see whether anyone was listening. There was no one. The girl was leaning over the counter, laughing with the handsome Herr Weber, who had wrapped a fox-fur stole around her neck.

  Georg turned to face the sallow man again. ‘This is blasphemy,’ he whispered. ‘It is damnation.’

  ‘Damnation? No. He who casts freikugeln will rise from his coffin as a ghost, and hunt for ever in the forests. He will be an immortal hunter. But before then – think of the pleasures you would win in this life!’ Georg Schmid cast another look towards the girl, and saw she was bestowing a thank-you kiss on the cheek of Herr Weber. As he turned to the sallow man again, he took fright and endeavoured to leave once more, but the man tightened his hold upon Georg’s wrist. ‘You could prove to her that you are the greatest marksman in Bohemia. Would she not be yours then? I tell you, Georg Schmid—’

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘Were I to use these bullets, I would be nothing. I would be a fraud.’

  ‘You would have shown that you have the courage to cast the freikugeln. Most would not dare. You have a stout heart, Georg Schmid. That is what she sees in you. That man who laughs with her now, that Herr Weber – he is a coward, for all his skill with a gun. She is yours, Schmid, if you cast the freikugeln.’

  Schmid attempted to pull away for a third time, but the man’s sallow eyes opened to their fullest extent, and Schmid’s willpower vanished.

  ‘Have you never walked in the forest at night,’ said the man, ‘and felt a presence behind you, though no man could be seen? I know you have. It was the soul of one who had courage, one who cast the bullets. Seize immortality, Schmid!’

  *

  Three weeks later, Georg Schmid sat opposite his father, who knitted his brows in concentration on the document in front of him.

  Georg put down his quill. ‘I have just realised something, Father.’

  ‘Have you?’ He did not stop reading.

  ‘I have just put the date on this letter, and I realise that today is St Abdon’s Day.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘The saint of barrel-makers.’

  His father looked up and a broad blossoming of pleasure came to the older man’s face. He rubbed his hands together, and it was not because the room was cold.

  After several hours, the father sat snoring in his armchair. Georg took the tankard from the pudgy fingers, and drained it – not that there was much more than froth. The youth had himself drunk little, but he was safe in the knowledge that his father would be stupefied until dawn. Georg opened the door to the street. The moon had gone a little beyond full, and was obscured behind drifting clouds, which cleared as soon as he stepped outside. He could hear faint sounds of singing, and as he approached the inn, he saw the girl dancing with Herr Weber in the candlelight, with the other drinkers clapping along. Georg could swear that she cast a glance towards himself, even as Weber held her hand in the air.

  Exactly as the sallow man had instructed, Georg waited at a tree by the crossroads. The night was warm. Suddenly a deer ran out of the forest. The creature’s eyes caught the moon, then its hooves pattered past and it vanished into the forest again. Moments later, Georg felt a startling tap upon his neck. It was the sallow man. ‘I did not hear you approach,’ said Georg.

  ‘A good hunter is silent.’ The man carried an irregularly bulging sack, from which a pair of blacksmith’s tongs protruded. He motioned Georg to a patch of scrubby ground beside the crossroads.

  ‘What if we are seen?’ said Georg.

  ‘No man will see us. But others will. They will try to stop us, or delay our progress. Delay is damnation. If all our work is not done between eleven and midnight, our souls are lost. Now remove your clothes. Hurry!’

  They both stripped naked. Georg watched his collaborator crouch, and pull at weeds in the dry earth. The grass grew thin here, and in a short while all vegetation was gone, and the earth exposed. The man plucked out a few pebbles, and tossed them away, then smoothed the earth with his hands and feet. He took a hunting knife from the sack, and he angled the blade towards Schmid so it glinted in the moon, like the deer’s eyes before. The man said: ‘You will see the moon reflected once again tonight, Schmid.’ He used the knife to draw a circle into the earth around himself, and scratched mysterious characters at the circumference.

  ‘What language is that?’ said Georg.

  ‘I cannot read it myself. But I know our names are among the characters.’

  The man emptied the contents of the sack on to the ground: a human skull, a bullet mould, forging tools, lead tiles, a crucible, and a smaller sack containing coal.

  ‘You should know where I got the tiles from, Schmid.’

  ‘I do not wish to know.’

  ‘I shall tell you in any case. I stole them from a church. Now, let us wait a moment.’ He looked to the sky. Schmid was about to speak, but the man hushed him. There was a flash of summer lightning and the rum-ble of thunder. ‘Ha! He knows! I shall tell you about this skull, Schmid – I dug it up from the same church’s graveyard. It belonged to a woman. The last time she breathed, she was giving birth to a child. The molten lead must pass through the eye sockets, and drip into the bullet mould. Now – step into the ring.’

  ‘I do not have the courage.’

  ‘Satan is your protector now. Come.’ He stretched out a hand. ‘Join me, and the girl and immortality are yours.’

  Schmid took the hand and crossed the circumference.

  ‘We will not leave until the deed is done,’ said the man. He heaped the coals under the crucible.

  ‘You have forgotten the kindling. I shall get some.’

  ‘No! We do not need it. Your words will start the fire. You must now deny the Trinity, Schmid.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Deny the Trinity, Schmid!’

  In a small, weak voice, Schmid repudiated the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. As he completed ‘I deny the Holy Ghost’, the pile of coals glowed.

  ‘Deny them again! And again!’

  At each repetition of the blas
phemy, the coals glowed the more, until they were on fire.

  ‘We cannot delay, Schmid. The bullets must be cast before midnight.’ He snipped pieces of lead into the crucible, and muttered strange incantations under his breath. The metal began to liquefy.

  ‘What is that sound?’ said Schmid in fear, looking to left and right, seeing nothing but hearing a distant bass-register groan. The man did not reply, but as the metal continued to melt, the groan became louder; and as the contents of the crucible attained perfect liquidity, they caught the moon’s reflection – at that moment, there was a wailing and a screaming. Voices that Schmid seemed to recognise said: ‘No, no.’ The next instant, the circle was surrounded by spirits, pleading for Georg to desist. He glimpsed visions of his long-dead mother, and his grandfather, and tiny brothers and sisters who had died as children, all in ragged shrouds. They reached out with spectral hands towards the circle. Their faces bore the most sorrowful expressions that Schmid had ever witnessed. As the spirit of his mother looked towards him, Schmid’s eyes filled with tears, and he started to raise himself, to leave the circle.

  He was grasped by his collaborator. ‘Have courage, Schmid! Think of the girl you desire!’

  Schmid watched as his mother’s spirit faded, and the sounds grew quieter, until they were no more. ‘I have failed her,’ he said.

  Now the sallow man used the tongs to raise the crucible. ‘Hold the skull in position,’ he said. This time, Schmid showed no resistance, as if he had resigned himself to his fate. The lead was poured and the moulds filled.

  ‘Now, keep silent, Schmid. Utter not a word, no matter what happens. Not one word.’ The man lowered his head and began to chant. An uncanny frost started to form upon the outside of the moulds, so cold that the sallow man’s breath became visible. Schmid shivered, and he hugged himself to keep warm.

  Then came another noise, a peculiar rumbling, deeper in pitch than thunder, as though an earthquake were under way. The soil within the ring spat upwards and particles hit Schmid’s face and he winced as each struck. Then came the sound of a horse’s hooves, approaching from afar.

  There appeared in the distance, down one road of the crossroads, the black shape of a rider, discernible only from flashes of light around its silhouette. As the horse came near, Georg Schmid observed in terror, wherever he looked, in every direction, glimpses of horns and bat-like wings, red sparks, claws and beaks, and the wailing of spirits in agony. The galloping was now so loud that Schmid had to cover his ears.

  The dark horseman, hooded and cloaked, pulled on his reins at the edge of the circle. The horse whinnied, but it sounded like a screech owl.

  In a voice of absolute determination, the horseman said: ‘The bullets are mine.’ Only his wan mouth could be seen, as the rest of his face was shadowed by the hood.

  The sallow man continued to chant.

  The horseman turned to Schmid: ‘The bullets are mine!’

  The chanting ceased with one incomprehensible word, and the sallow man raised his head and smiled at Schmid, then at the horseman, then at Schmid again, who saw the horseman’s lips open.

  ‘The bullets are—’

  ‘Have them!’ Schmid shouted. He rose to his feet and grabbed the mould, which chilled his fingers.

  The sallow man’s mouth opened in a scream of ‘No!’

  Georg Schmid threw the mould beyond the circle. The horseman reached under his cloak, and tossed a handful of black dust. Immediately, dense, choking smoke billowed up, and Schmid and the sallow man fell back, covering their mouths, scarcely able to breathe, their eyes teeming with unstoppable tears. Schmid saw the horse rear up – its hooves were raised high above his head. Then the hooves descended to strike the ground.

  *

  Georg Schmid’s eyes opened. He could hear the dying echo of the clap of the hooves upon the earth. He was no longer outside. He saw vertical metal bars, and a paunchy man beyond them, and the belt around the paunch, dangling a collection of keys. Georg Schmid was in jail.

  *

  ‘SCHMID,’ SAID EDWARD HOLMES, ‘WAS found at the crossroads soon after dawn, more dead than alive. He was taken to the authorities and charged with satanic practices. A warrant was issued for the other man’s arrest, but he was never found. So Schmid went for trial and he made a full confession. He appeared truly contrite. Full of shame. At the trial, though, witnesses said that they had never seen Schmid speaking to a man in the inn. The barmaid too was called, and she said that she knew of no such man. All this created the impression that Schmid had fabricated the sallow man’s existence. It was a lie, the prosecutors said, to reduce his own culpability. The judge condemned Schmid to be burnt to death. Schmid gave out a terrible wail. His father collapsed in court.

  ‘But because he was so young, the sentence was commuted to imprisonment, with hard labour, for six years. And from this incident, Carl Maria von Weber was inspired to write Der Freischütz. I have no idea as to whether he was related to the Weber who brought the barmaid rabbits.’

  ‘It is an extraordinary story,’ said Seymour. ‘I see great possibilities for turning it into a painting. I would show all the spirits wailing around the ring. I am intrigued by the girl too. If I were to paint her, she would wear a necklace of Bohemian garnets. No wait, Edward – a heart-shaped pendant, with a garnet at its centre, surrounded by white stones, probably diamonds, but some are missing. She seeks the souls of men – and for each soul she captures for Satan, she inserts another white stone around the garnet. You have inspired me, Edward.’

  ‘Well, I am glad of that,’ said Holmes, ‘but now I must be on my way. Oh – I almost forgot. I must ask you: how do you spell the street where you are living now? I know you can’t spell, Robert, but Jane remarked that you spell the street differently every time you write to her.’

  ‘No one seems to know how the street is spelt. I feel quite at home with that.’

  *

  Seymour returned to Rosoman or Rosomon or Rosamund or Rosomond or Rosomans Street, passing the darkened shops selling stoves, as well as pots and pans of all sizes and even laxative powders, should they be needed. It was late when he inserted the key in his door, but just as he did so, the sounds of good cheer from the London Spa Tavern, two doors away, flared up. The brightly lit tavern was more inviting than his darkened hall.

  Sitting beside a lamp in the tavern’s window, he sketched the casting of the bullets from Der Freischütz, showing the molten lead dripping through the eyeholes of the skull, and the naked Schmid looking on in fear. Around this scene he drew the wailing spectres, the dark horseman, the bat wings, the beaks and the claws, as though all came at once. He added apparitions not mentioned by Holmes – dancing skeletons and witches. He finished his drink, returned to his studio and lit the lamp there. Sketches soon piled up at his feet, as though he sought infinite variation on unearthly horror.

  During the next month, Seymour immersed himself in books on Germanic legend. There came sketches of witches gathering on Walpurgisnacht on the Brocken, the tallest peak of the Harz mountain range. Then came a scene from Scott’s The Antiquary, in which a giant stalked the Brocken’s crags, tearing up a pine tree by the roots. Then he drew the Spectre of Brocken, a gigantic ghost, looming up over the mountain’s peak.

  After pencil, he turned to paint, and once again the subject was the casting of the bullets. To portray the weird fire under the crucible, he applied the paint in thick, uneven daubs, so that when light caught the surface, it flickered as the viewer changed position.

  The conception emerged of a grand painting, a work capturing the multiplicity of Germanic myths on a single canvas. The boldness of the work invigorated Seymour, and he could hardly keep still as the enterprise took hold of his mind. He knew he had found the idea for his second submission to the academy. The ambition of the painting, the path it opened, and the future it could create – all these combined with his tenderest feelings for his cousin. After midnight, he wrote a letter to Jane.

  His heart op
ened to her. He wrote: ‘Fame and fortune are valueless to me, unless they pour the blessings of life around you. I am too aware of my own small portion of anything that can attract regard – and so it is dangerous for one such as I to express delight in another who twines herself around my heart and absorbs my thoughts. I lay the happiness of my whole existence at your feet, Jane. To see you frown is to see a cloud in my life, to see you smile to feel the sunshine.’

  He paused and then wrote: ‘I have shut myself in here. I have worked, hour after hour, I have applied myself, until now when it is after midnight, and yet my mind still pours forth its inventions. Just as my heart teems with love for you, which I can but inadequately express in words, my dearest Janey.’

  Three days later, he opened the door at midday, and saw Edward Holmes.

  ‘Jane asked me to deliver this by hand to you.’ Holmes passed a letter to his cousin as he entered the hall. ‘She wanted to come in person – but she felt, if I may say, overwhelmed. Your declaration has had a profound effect.’

  Edward walked into the studio, and saw all the studies on Germanic myth spread around the room. ‘So this is what you are working on.’

  ‘You are to blame, Edward.’

  ‘Well, you are not the only one with thoughts of Germany. Let us go to the tavern, and I shall explain.’

  ‘I must read Jane’s letter first.’

  ‘No, read it when I am gone. She discussed it with me – do not blush, Robert! She does not in any way rebuff you. I warned her of course what a scoundrel you are. But do you know an amusing thing?’

  ‘Things you find amusing do not amuse everyone, Edward.’

  ‘She told me a line you had written in your letter, that whenever you saw her frown it was like a cloud in your life, and that whenever you saw her smile it was your sunshine. But she was so overcome with excitement and joy that, when she told me, she got your words mixed up – and it took on completely the opposite meaning. So it was as though whenever you saw her frown it was a ray of sunshine, and whenever you saw her smile it was a cloud. Isn’t that amusing?’