‘You’ve had a nightmare,’ said Meta. ‘I know how it is: you hide your head under the covers when you wake up.’
‘No, that’s not it,’ said Frida. ‘I hadn’t been dreaming. I just woke up, that’s all, and then…How can I make you understand? There’s a great fear in my room.…’
‘Good heavens, that doesn’t explain anything!’ I said.
Frida shook her head in despair:
‘I’d rather sit outside in the rain all night than go back to that room. No, I won’t go back!’
‘I’m going to see what’s happening up there, you fool!’ said Eleonore, throwing a shawl over her shoulders.
She hesitated for a moment before her father’s old rapier, hanging among some university insignia. Then she shrugged, picked up the candlestick with its pink candles, and walked out, leaving a perfumed wake behind her.
‘Oh, don’t let her go there alone!’ cried Frida, alarmed.
We slowly went to the staircase. The flickering glow of Eleonore’s candlestick was already vanishing on the attic landing.
We stood in the semidarkness at the foot of the stairs. We heard Eleonore open a door. There was a minute of oppressive silence. I felt Frida’s hand tighten on my waist.
‘Don’t leave her alone,’ she moaned.
Just then there was a loud laugh, so horrible that I would rather die than hear it again. Almost at the same time, Meta raised her hand and cried out, ‘There!…There!…A face.…There.…’
The house became filled with sounds. The councillor and Frau Pilz appeared in the yellow haloes of the candles they were holding.
‘Fräulein Eleonore!’ sobbed Frida. ‘Dear God, how are we going to find her?’
It was a frightening question, and I can now answer it: We never found her.
Frida’s room was empty. The candlestick was standing on the floor and its candles were still burning peacefully, with their delicate pink flames.
We searched the whole house and even went out on the roof. We never saw Eleonore again.
We could not count on the help of the police, as will soon be seen. When we went to the police station, we found that it had been invaded by a frenzied crowd; some of the furniture had been overturned, the windows were covered with dust, and the clerks were being pushed around like puppets. Eighty people had vanished that night, some from their homes, others while they were on their way home!
The world of ordinary conjectures was closed to us; only supernatural apprehensions remained.
Several days went by. We led a bleak life of tears and terror.
Councillor Hühnebein had the attic sealed off from the rest of the house by a thick oak partition.
One day I went in search of Meta. We were beginning to fear another tragedy when we found her squatting in front of the partition with her eyes dry and an expression of anger on her usually gentle face. She was holding her father’s rapier in her hand, and seemed annoyed at having been disturbed.
We tried to question her about the face she had glimpsed, but she looked at us as though she did not understand. She remained completely silent. She did not answer us, and even seemed unaware of our presence.
All sorts of wild stories were being repeated in the town. There was talk of a secret criminal league; the police were accused of negligence, and worse; public officials had been dismissed. All this, of course, was useless.
Strange crimes had been committed: savagely mutilated corpses were found at dawn. Wild animals could not have shown more ardent lust for carnage than the mysterious attackers. Some of the victims had been robbed, but most of them had not, and this surprised everyone.
But I do not want to dwell on what was happening in the town; it will be easy to find enough people to tell about it. I will limit myself to the framework of our house and our life, which, though narrow, still enclosed enough fear and despair.
The days passed and April came, colder and windier than the worst month of winter. We remained huddled beside the fire. Sometimes Councillor Hühnebein came to keep us company and give us what he called courage. This consisted in trembling in all his limbs, holding his hands out toward the fire, drinking big mugs of punch, starting at every sound, and crying out five or six times an hour, ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear?…’
Frida tore some of the pages out of her Bible, and we found them pinned or pasted on every door and curtain, in every nook and cranny. She hoped that this would ward off the spirits of evil. We did not interfere, and since we spent several days in peace we were far from thinking it a bad idea.
We soon saw how terribly mistaken we were. The day had been so dark, and the clouds so low, that evening had come early. I was walking out of the living room to put a lamp on the broad landing – for ever since the terrifying night we had placed lights all over the house, and even the halls and stairs remained lighted till dawn – when I heard voices murmuring on the top floor.
It was not yet completely dark. I bravely climbed the stairs and found myself before the frightened faces of Frida and Frau Pilz, who motioned me to be silent and pointed to the newly built partition.
I stood beside them, adopting their silence and attention. It was then that I heard an indefinable sound from behind the wooden wall, something like the faint roar of giant conch shells, or the tumult of a faraway crowd.
‘Fräulein Eleonore,…’ moaned Frida.
The answer came immediately and hurled us screaming down the stairs: a long shriek of terror rang out, not from the partition above us, but from downstairs, from the councillor’s apartment. Then he called for help at the top of his lungs. Lotte and Meta had hurried out onto the landing.
‘We must go there,’ I said courageously.
We had not taken three steps when there was another cry of distress, this time from above us.
‘Help! Help!’
We recognized Frau Pilz’s voice. We heard her call again, feebly.
Meta picked up the lamp I had placed on the landing. Halfway up the stairs we found Frida alone. Frau Pilz had disappeared.
At this point I must express my admiration of Meta Rückhardt’s calm courage.
‘There’s nothing more we can do here,’ she said, breaking the silence she had stubbornly maintained for several days. ‘Let’s go downstairs.…’
She was holding her father’s rapier, and she did not look at all ridiculous, for we sensed that she would use it as effectively as a man.
We followed her, subjugated by her cold strength.
The councillor’s study was as brightly lighted as a traveling carnival. The poor man had given the darkness no chance to get in. Two enormous lamps with white porcelain globes stood at either end of the mantelpiece, looking like two placid moons. A small Louis XV chandelier hung from the ceiling, its prisms flashing like handfuls of precious stones. Copper and stone candlesticks stood on the floor in every corner of the room. On the table, a row of tall candles seemed to be illuminating an invisible catafalque.
We stopped, dazzled, and looked around for the councillor.
‘Oh!’ Frida exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look, there he is! He’s hiding behind the window curtain.’
Lotte abruptly pulled back the heavy curtain. Herr Hühnebein was there, leaning out the open window, motionless.
Lotte went over to him, then leapt back with a cry of horror.
‘Don’t look! For the love of heaven, don’t look! He…he…his head is gone!’
I saw Frida stagger, ready to faint. Meta’s voice called us back to reason:
‘Be careful! There’s danger here!’
We pressed up close to her, feeling protected by her presence of mind. Suddenly something blinked on the ceiling, and we saw with alarm that darkness had invaded two opposite corners of the room, where the lights had just been extinguished.
‘Hurry, protect the lights!’ panted Meta. ‘Oh!…There!…There he is!’
At that moment the white moons on the mantelpiece burst, spat out streaks of smoky flame, and vanished.
>
Meta stood motionless, but she looked all around the room with a cold rage that I had never seen in her before.
The candles on the table were blown out. Only the little chandelier continued to shed its calm light. I saw that Meta was keeping her eyes on it. Suddenly her rapier flashed and she lunged forward into empty space.
‘Protect the light!’ she cried. ‘I see him! I’ve got him!…Ah!…’
We saw the rapier make strange, violent movements in her hand, as though an invisible force were trying to take it away from her.
It was Frida who had the odd but fortunate inspiration that saved us that evening. She uttered a fierce cry, picked up one of the heavy copper candlesticks, leapt to Meta’s side, and began striking the air with her gleaming club. The rapier stopped moving; something very light seemed to brush against the floor, then the door opened by itself, and a heartrending clamor arose.
‘That takes care of one of them,’ said Meta.
One might wonder why we stubbornly went on living in that murderously haunted house.
At least a hundred other houses were in the same situation. People had stopped counting the murders and disappearances, and had become almost indifferent to them. The town was gloomy. There were dozens of suicides, for some people preferred to die by their own hands rather than be killed by the phantom executioners. And then, too, Meta wanted to take vengeance. She was now waiting for the invisible beings to return.
She had relapsed into her grim silence; she spoke to us only to order us to lock the doors and shutters at nightfall. As soon as darkness fell, the four of us went into the living room, which was now a dormitory and dining room as well. We did not leave it until morning.
I questioned Frida about her strange armed intervention. She was able to give me only a confused answer.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It seemed to me I saw something.…A face.…I don’t know how to say what it was.…Yes, it was the great fear that was in my room the first night.’
That was all I could get out of her.
One evening toward the middle of April, Lotte and Frida were lingering in the kitchen. Meta opened the living-room door and told them to hurry. I saw that the shadows of night had already invaded the landings and the hall. ‘We’re coming,’ they replied in unison.
Meta came back into the living room and closed the door. She was horribly pale. No sound came from downstairs. I waited vainly to hear the footsteps of the two women. The silence was like a threatening flood rising on the other side of the wall.
Meta locked the door.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘What about Lotte and Frida?’
‘It’s no use,’ she said dully.
Her eyes, motionless and terrible, stared at the rapier. The sinister darkness arrived.
It was thus that Lotte and Frida vanished into mystery.
Dear God, what was it? There was a presence in the house, a suffering, wounded presence that was seeking help. I did not know whether Meta was aware of it or not. She was more taciturn than ever, but she barricaded the doors and windows in a way that seemed designed more to prevent an escape than an intrusion. My life had become a fearful solitude. Meta herself was like a sneering specter.
During the day, I sometimes came upon her unexpectedly in one of the halls; in one hand she held the rapier, and in the other she held a powerful lantern with a reflector and a lens that she shone into all the dark corners.
During one of these encounters, she told me rather impolitely that I had better go back to the living room, and when I obeyed her too slowly she shouted furiously at me that I must never interfere with her plans.
Her face no longer had the placid look it had worn as she leaned over her embroidery only a few days before. It was now a savage face, and she sometimes glared at me with a flame of hatred in her eyes. For I had a secret.…
Was it curiosity, perversity, or pity that made me act as I did? I pray to God that I was moved by nothing more than pity and kindness.
I had just drawn some fresh water from the fountain in the wash-house when I heard a muffled moan: ‘Moh.…Moh.…’
I thought of our vanished friends and looked around me. I saw a well-concealed door that led into a storeroom in which poor Hühnebein had kept stacks of books and paintings, amid dust and cobwebs.
‘Moh.…Moh.…’
It was coming from inside the storeroom. I opened the door and looked into the gray semidarkness. Everything seemed normal. The lamentation had stopped. I stepped inside. Suddenly I felt something seize my dress. I cried out. I immediately heard the moaning very close to me, plaintive, supplicating, and something tapped on my pitcher.
I put it down. There was a slight splashing sound, like that of a dog lapping, and the level of the water in my pitcher began to sink. The thing, the being, was drinking!
‘Moh!…Moh!…’
Something caressed my hair more softly than a breath.
‘Moh.…Moh.…’
Then the moaning changed to a sound of human weeping, almost like the sobbing of a child, and I felt pity for the suffering invisible monster. But there were footsteps in the hall; I put my hands over my lips and the being fell silent.
Without a sound, I closed the door of the secret storeroom. Meta was coming toward me in the hall.
‘Did I hear your voice just now?’ she asked.
‘Yes. My foot slipped and I was startled.…’
I was an accomplice of the phantoms.
I brought milk, wine, and apples. Nothing manifested itself. When I returned, the milk had been drunk to the last drop, but the wine and the apples were intact. Then a kind of breeze surrounded me and passed over my hair for a long time.…
I went back, bringing more fresh milk. The soft voice was no longer weeping, but the caress of the breeze was longer and seemed to be more ardent.
Meta began looking at me suspiciously and prowling around the storeroom.
I found a safer refuge for my mysterious protégé. I explained it to him by signs. How strange it was to make gestures to empty space! But he understood me. He was following me along the hall like a breath of air when I suddenly had to hide in a corner.
A pale light slid across the floor. I saw Meta coming down the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. She was walking quietly, partially hiding the glow of her lantern. The rapier glittered. I sensed that the being beside me was afraid. The breeze stirred around me, feverishly, abruptly, and I heard that plaintive ‘Moh!…Moh!…’
Meta’s footsteps faded away in the distance. I made a reassuring gesture and went to the new refuge: a large closet that was never opened.
The breeze touched my lips and remained there a moment. I felt a strange shame.
May came.
The twenty square feet of the miniature garden, which poor, dear Hühnebein had spattered with his blood, were dotted with little white flowers.
Under a magnificent blue sky, the town was almost silent. The cries of the swallows were answered only by the peevish sounds of closing doors, sliding bolts, and turning keys.
The being had become imprudent. He sought me out. All at once I would feel him around me. I cannot describe the feeling; it was like a great tenderness surrounding me. I would make him understand that I was afraid of Meta, and then I would feel him vanish like a dying wind.
I could not bear the look in Meta’s fiery eyes.
On May 4, the end came abruptly.
We were in the living room, with all the lamps lighted. I was closing the shutters. Suddenly I sensed his presence. I made a desperate gesture, turned around, and met Meta’s terrible gaze in a mirror.
‘Traitress!’ she cried.
She quickly closed the door. He was imprisoned with us.
‘I knew it!’ she said vehemently. ‘I’ve seen you carrying pitchers of milk, daughter of the devil! You gave him strength when he was dying from the wound I gave him on the night of Hühnebein’s death. Yes, your phantom is vulnerable! He’s going to die
now, and I think that dying is much more horrible for him than it is for us. Then your turn will come, you wretch! Do you hear me?’
She had shrieked this in short phrases. She uncovered her lantern. A beam of white light shot across the room, and I saw it strike something like thin, gray smoke. She plunged her rapier into it.
‘Moh!…Moh!…’ cried the heartrending voice, and then suddenly, awkwardly, but in a loving tone, my name was spoken. I leapt forward and knocked over the lantern with my fist. It went out.
‘Meta, listen to me,’ I begged, ‘have pity.…’
Her face was contorted into a mask of demoniac fury.
‘Traitress!’ she screamed.
The rapier flashed before my eyes. It struck me below the left breast and I fell to my knees.
Someone was weeping violently beside me, strangely beseeching Meta. She raised her rapier again. I tried to find the words of supreme contrition that reconcile us with God forever, but then I saw Meta’s face freeze and the sword fell from her hand.
Something murmured near us. I saw a thin flame stretch out like a ribbon and greedily attack the curtains.
‘We’re burning!’ cried Meta. ‘All of us together!’
At that moment, when everything was about to sink into death, the door opened. An immensely tall old woman came in. I saw only her terrible green eyes glowing in her unimaginable face.
A flame licked my left hand. I stepped back as much as my strength allowed. I saw Meta still standing motionless with a strange grimace on her face, and I realized that her soul, too, had flown away. Then the monstrous old woman’s eyes, without pupils, slowly looked around the flame-filled room and came to rest on me.
I am writing this in a strange little house. Where am I? Alone. And yet all this is full of tumult, an invisible but unrestrained presence is everywhere. He has come back. I have again heard my name spoken in that awkward, gentle way.…
Here ends the German manuscript, as though cut off with a knife.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 47