The Dracula Papers, Book I: The Scholar's Tale

by Reggie Oliver

  “You hear that noise?” I said, indicating the door at which fists were hammering. “There’s some sort of trouble down there. Darnatz wants all available men to assemble here. Some sort of uprising.”

  The officer questioned us no further but darted down a corridor. Presently we heard an alarm bell ring. We began to move quickly through a maze of passages, looking always for a way up. Sometimes we met a detachment of guards, but always we shouted and pointed downwards. Quite by accident we found ourselves in the armoury. I put on a uniform and it was thus dressed that I emerged with Razendoringer into the open air again. We had come out by a little unwatched postern gate below the citadel of The Tombs.

  I could not resist a glance back at the Castle where confusion reigned, thanks to our escape, but Razendoringer tugged at my sleeve and we were off again, he leading. He had taken from the armoury a crossbow and a quiver full of bolts. It seemed a huge thing for him to carry and I begged him to abandon it, but he would not.

  “I have always wanted one of these,” he said. And I admit that not for one moment did he show signs of fatigue whereas I was beginning to droop with exhaustion. We threaded our way through the streets of Wittenberg as the first grey streaks of dawn began to creep over the city.

  We walked quietly, not avoiding people when we saw them. Razendoringer as always bustled in front. He seemed to know the place like his own hand. We had to pass through the main square, and in it we found that a great bonfire had been built up, partly of faggots, partly of old furniture and more valuable items. A great crowd had assembled, some of whom were pitching wooden statues and even paintings onto the flames. In front of the fire, his long arms raised above his head, stood a giant of a man, barefooted and dressed in a single coarse garment. His white hair was abundant but there were still traces of black in his beard. His eyebrows were thick and dark. This was Brother Saul.

  What with the noise of the crowd and the crackling of the flames it was hard to tell what he was saying, but he seemed to rule the chaos that was turning round him. Only one word I could distinguish, coming from him and the surrounding crowd: “Repent!” “Repent!” Again and again. Some bowed before him in weeping submission. Some had stripped to the waist and were scourging themselves or were being scourged by others. I saw women lay their jewellery at his feet. I saw men cut their own purses and scatter gold coins on the ground before him: all this in the glare of the fire and the raw, grey light of early morning.

  Razendoringer wanted to pull me away — by reason of his shortness he could see little himself — but I was fascinated. I knew I must go but could not prevent myself from shuffling forward, sometimes pushing people out of the way with the pike I had acquired from the armoury. I came close to Brother Saul, ten or so feet from his right and a little behind him. I could now see clearly his features in profile. There was on him a look that I had not seen before, but it was one which I have seen many times since. The eyes were bright but somehow glazed and removed from ordinary things. They might have been the eyes of one intoxicated by drink or some powerful herb except that they had about them a sense of concentration, a frightening singleness of vision. They were the eyes, as I know now, of a man in the grip of the greatest of all stimulants, that of absolute power. I truly believe that if he had told any person there — except the dwarf and myself, I think— to hurl themselves into the flames they would have done so. As it was, I saw him seize a great book from one man, look through its pages, pronounce the word “Vanity!” and throw the volume upwards and behind him into the flames. It was a mighty throw and on another occasion would have excited much admiration, but there and then it seemed a small feat for such a great man. The book fell into the fire near to me and I could see from the pages that spilled out from it that it was a first printing of my learned friend Spankemius’s treatise on the influence of the seven planets. It pained me very much to see this immortal work burning like a rotten branch. I would have plucked it out of the flames too had not discretion and another spectacle intervened.

  For into a half circle that had been left clear in front of Brother Saul were brought three young people, two men and a woman. One of them I recognised. He was a pupil of mine, a most apt and diligent young man, indeed everything that a student should be (but seldom is in these wicked times in which I write). I knew his first name for it was Martin, like my own. He was bound, as were the others, by strong ropes round the middle. The legs were free and curious paper crowns had been set on their heads. The men and women who brought them forward were common folk of the town, coarse people of no account. But now they set about accusing these three unfortunates of the most base and unimaginable crimes, of witchcraft and deviltry.

  They had been discovered, all three, in the upper room of an inn (the Silver Key it was) unclothed and in the performance of an act. What this act was I could not tell, for some said one thing and some another, and with each telling the horror of it increased. The three looked stunned and uttered nothing in their defence. I wanted to cry out to Martin to save himself but the smoke and my own tears choked me. Then Brother Saul cut short all further accusations and ordered the three to be thrown into the flames. The great crowd roared its approval. There was a great deal of shoving now because everyone was anxious to catch a glimpse of their agony. But through the roar I heard the piercing scream of the young woman, a cry of pure animal terror. Then Brother Saul proclaimed that furthermore they were to be stripped before they went into the flames. This, he said, was so that people might truly see how the damned looked in Hell, and might all the more repent because of it. The people yelled its approval.

  It was the work of a moment to strip them but it was not so easy to push them into the flames. For besides the struggles of these young people — and terror endowed them with prodigious strength — every time they were brought to the fire the heat drove their persecutors back. Meanwhile Brother Saul raged and stormed at their lack of zeal.

  Then pikes were used, and someone produced a pitchfork with which they were prodded, crying and struggling, into the inferno. At that time I had never seen a young woman, and one so beautiful, naked before. Horror and lust contended within me and I stood transfixed by the scene. The others around me bathed less reluctantly in the savagery of it all. But who is to say which was the greater hypocrite that day — I or them?

  I saw Martin goaded into the flames and his flesh bubble and turn black. I cried aloud and the tears blinded my eyes. My reason left me and I only wanted now to save them. The dwarf took hold of my arm and whispered to me that it was too late, that I would die in the attempt and save nobody. It was time to run. The dawn was coming up. As suddenly as it had come my rage and grief left me and was replaced by numbness. In truth I had no desire to live in a city where such things happened. I might go to savage places but I would never encounter such lustful cruelty as this. Men and women burnt, immortal works of wisdom tossed on a bonfire — were these not signs of the end of all things?

  They were not. For as I learned many years later, the reign of Brother Saul lasted in all only eleven days. And on the eleventh day the last item to be committed to that great conflagration was Brother Saul himself. Such is the way of the world and the fickleness of men.

  III

  The sun rising, we hurried through the all but empty streets and reached the cross-roads outside the city gates. There stood Verney with the horses and some mules for the baggage. He looked at us with the fury of exhausted patience.

  “What kept you?” he shouted. “I was in danger a hundred times and would have gone.”

  “You should have done so and saved yourself,” I said, as we mounted (Razendoringer pillion behind Verney). We trotted a little way and the quiet after the tumult of the city was very great.

  “But you risked your life for mine,” said Verney at last. “I could not forget that.”

  On we went a little way and I asked how it was that Razendoringer had come to save me. Verney said that the dwarf knew many things and had once been
of service to Darnatz, Governor of the Tombs prison. I asked in what way but got no answer.

  The first part of our journey into Transylvania was easily accomplished. I had been given detailed instructions as to what town I should stop in each night and even at what inn I should put up. We kept to the chief roads where there was much traffic and little danger of being waylaid by brigands.

  Some strange incidents befell us on the first part of that journey, but only one which has a bearing on later events. On the third day, just outside Augsburg, we fell in with a strange group of pilgrims. It was difficult to tell whether they were young or old, so ragged were their clothes and so grimy and verminous were their persons. They were reluctant to communicate with us and spent their time wailing and punishing their bodies with leather thongs. I could not say whether they were followers of Christ or of any other God, for I did not ask them, but the man they called their master was a Jew named Issachar. His skin was white and taut, his hair hung in grizzled cascades down his back and, even though he did not scourge himself, he seemed madder than his followers, for his eyes burned and he spoke barely a word. I also noticed a curious thing about him: that though we were on the road together for many days I never once saw him take anything to eat or drink. No doubt this was why his followers were so much in awe of him. His slightest whim — usually indicated by a gesture — was satisfied by them. The fact that he showed nothing but the greatest contempt for these devotees only seemed to add to their fervour.

  Verney and Razendoringer made a point of avoiding Issachar the Jew, but I was drawn to him by curiosity and perhaps compassion, for I saw nothing but despair in his face. Then one evening when we had made a camp together by the roadside, there being no inn, I came up to him where he sat alone staring into the fire. I greeted him and sat down beside him.

  “Can you not see that I wish to be left alone?” he said.

  To which I replied, “Can you not see that I wish to talk to you?”

  Surprisingly, he considered this an adequate reason for continuing the conversation. I plied him with questions which he answered either not at all or evasively, so I began to volunteer information about myself. He did me the honour of saying that he had heard of me and how I was called Doctor Polymathus. And yet that might have been a more suitable name for him. Whatever subject I touched upon he seemed to know more than I. His erudition was enormous and all the more astonishing for being so carelessly worn. He seemed to be acquainted with every country in the known world and even told me of uncharted islands and continents in such a way that I half believed he had been there. Yet there were no signs of great age about him. I would not have put him above forty were it not for the deep sense of weariness about the eyes. The irises I recall were pale grey as if the colour had faded from them.

  I asked him about Transylvania and he knew it well. He talked of incidents in its history a hundred, two hundred years back with great clarity as if he had been present at them but about the present monarch Issachar was either unwilling or unable to give information. I asked him why men and women followed him scourging themselves when he did nothing to encourage them.

  “There are some who will follow after any wonder,” he replied. “They punish themselves because I tell them that the greatest freedom is freedom from the body. It is not enough to be merely indifferent to bodily needs. One must if possible be wholly independent. Only the absolute dissolution of death emancipates us fully.”

  “But can we not learn something from what our senses tell us?”

  “One thing. That death is the only blessing.”

  “And yet the beauty of the world—”

  “The opening of a flower or the sun on a cascade of waters are merely signs. Trapped within the confines of our bodies we can only witness beauty; we cannot embrace it or become part of it. For the true beauty is underneath the appearance and lies in the unity which connects all things that the body separates. Therefore a sense of beauty, fully realised, is a kind of torture. Perhaps those who follow me are not so foolish. They are being taught that the one thing needful is to be prepared for the liberation of death. Having suffered all things they fear nothing, not even Death. And fear is the great tyrant of this world.”

  I was young then. My eyes were clear, I had no aching joints and I still had most of my teeth. It was difficult to understand what he said, though I find more truth in it now. I asked him how he came to believe what he had told me. He moved closer to me, which I did not like, for there was something infinitely cold about his presence. He grasped my shoulder with a wiry, marble-white hand.

  “Do you mean to say you do not know who I am? I am Issachar the Jew. Have you not heard the legend? It is all true. I have been alive — if you can call it living — for over fifteen centuries.”

  “The Wandering Jew?”

  “Even him. Do you not believe me?”

  I am still not sure whether I believe him, but what I have seen since then has convinced me that such things are possible. I can only say that with those steel grey eyes fixed on me I found it hard not to be persuaded. Somewhere behind them I saw pain and loss and a burning sense of indignation.

  “Then, if the story is correct, you knew—”

  “Yes, I knew the Nazarene. What do you want to learn about him? What he looked like? Most people do. But I have described him so many times that I do not know now if I remember the man himself or some imagined and rehearsed memory of him. He was a little man, a fraction less than you, I fancy. His hair was black and straight, his nose long. He had very big feet for his height and his eyes were large and set rather closely together. No, he was not a fine man to look at, but he had the most exquisite and melodious speaking voice I have ever heard. When he spoke by the shores of Galilee you could hear him on a hillside a quarter of a mile away. And yet his tone was easy and conversational. Most of his followers were either fools or villains.”

  “You were condemned to wander this earth for ever for insulting him, were you not?”

  “No. It was not like that. Everyone who hears me either disbelieves me or alters the story to suit their own doctrines and prejudices. They do not like the Nazarene to be a little man; they want me to be a villain and not a victim.”

  “I will believe what you say. I am a scholar, not an inventor.”

  Issachar smiled. “My family lived in Jerusalem. My father was a shoemaker and I followed his trade. My mother sometimes brought in extra money by her gifts of divination and the casting of horoscopes. Her gifts in that direction were genuine but not outstanding. Frequently she lost all inspiration and was forced to resort to trickery. But though I followed my father’s profession my inclinations sided with my mother. I studied all the tricks and subterfuges (which some have called magic) by which the human brain is forced to yield up its secrets. For every man and woman carries an uncharted universe about in his head. In us lies Africa and all the firmament of stars. Only this wall of flesh lies between us and the infinite.” And here he struck himself such a vicious blow on the chest that I was astonished he did not cry out with the pain of it.

  “Even as a young man I was oppressed by the thought of time which takes away our will and ambition before we have had an opportunity to venture them. There was so much to know and see and enjoy in life that even a full term of seventy years unoppressed by sickness or disability was insufficient. The wisdom of age is rarely attained and seldom long enjoyed. All these thoughts passed through my mind as I made shoes at Jerusalem, or as I studied the minor means of divination, through the tossing of coins and the examination of entrails, the contemplation of stars or the patterns and hues in decaying cheeses.

  “Then I heard of a new preacher who came from Galilee and was talking of eternal life. ‘Believe in me,’ he would say ‘and you shall have eternal life.’ At first I paid no heed. There were scores of preachers and teachers in Judaea at that time. But the phrase ‘eternal life’ kept returning to me. So one day I set out to see this man.

  “That day he was
sitting in a boat and teaching. I remember my first sight of him vividly even now, that small, insignificant little man with the long straight hair and the straggle of beard, sitting upright in the fishing boat. His clear voice rang out to us and echoed faintly against the mountains behind. He spoke of the time having come, the kingdom, repentance, renunciation. I do not remember the exact words. He spoke, as has been said, with authority. The manner was not insistent or bullying, and almost without emphasis. He seemed to invite us as equals to accept his words. It was as if he so believed in the absolute truth of what he was saying that he needed no arts of persuasion to convey it. For this reason I was at once convinced.

  “My belief in him was so strong that I gave up everything to join the group, thirty or so (ten of whom were women), who followed him about the country. But this was a curious and unsatisfying period, for, while he acknowledged my presence, and I remember the small frown that always furrowed his brow whenever he spoke to me, he seemed constantly to be protected from too much familiarity by a group of a dozen or so men, commonly called ‘the twelve’, who claimed to be his intimates. I could see no special merit in them, except perhaps that most of them came from Galilee like him. When he was not surrounded by crowds, he would often withdraw by himself, or, occasionally, with the twelve. The rest of us seemed to be little more than camp followers — I repaired shoes — with all the griefs and none of the privileges attached to those who go after a penniless prophet.”

  He smiled and gestured towards his own ragged followers who were drooped or huddled outside the glow of firelight. “I have no favourites,” he said. “They are all alike to me.”

  “It was we — the camp followers — who had to beg for food to feed us all, we who got the smallest share. Sometimes there was a feast for us if the Nazarene had healed the sick in a village, but we had the lowest place in it. Our Master would sometimes look at us questioningly as if he wondered why we were there. The twelve for the most part treated us with indifference, sometimes even contempt. The only exception, as far as I was concerned, was one Judas Iscariot. His name is reviled now, but he was a friend to me and I will not betray him. He came to me more than once for divinations but in that time I had almost lost the art I inherited from my mother. One day the signs would be bright and favourable and the next day they would be dark, and there was no reason behind it all. It was as if some power, infinitely stronger than mine, was turning everything around it to confusion. But in spite of my failure, this Judas would talk to me as an equal, which the other disciples, for all the meanness of their upbringing, would not.