By ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN
On the 29th of July, 1835, Kasper Boeck, a shepherd of the little village of Hirschwiller, with his large felt hat tipped back, his wallet of stringy sackcloth hanging at his hip, and his great tawny dog at his heels, presented himself at about nine o’clock in the evening at the house of the burgomaster, Petrus Mauerer, who had just finished supper and was taking a little glass of kirchwasser to facilitate digestion.
This burgomaster was a tall, thin man, and wore a bushy gray mustache. He had seen service in the armies of the Archduke Charles. He had a jovial disposition, and ruled the village, it is said, with his finger and with the rod.
“Mr. Burgomaster,” cried the shepherd in evident excitement.
But Petrus Mauerer, without awaiting the end of his speech, frowned and said:
“Kasper Boeck, begin by taking off your hat, put your dog out of the room, and then speak distinctly, intelligibly, without stammering, so that I may understand you.”
Hereupon the burgomaster, standing near the table, tranquilly emptied his little glass and wiped his great gray mustachios indifferently.
Kasper put his dog out, and came back with his hat off.
“Well!” said Petrus, seeing that he was silent, “what has happened?”
“It happens that the spirit has appeared again in the ruins of Geierstein!”
“Ha! I doubt it. You’ve seen it yourself?”
“Very clearly, Mr. Burgomaster.”
“Without closing your eyes?”
“Yes, Mr. Burgomaster—my eyes were wide open. There was plenty of moonlight.”
“What form did it have?”
“The form of a small man.”
“Good!”
And turning toward a glass door at the left:
“Katel!” cried the burgomaster.
An old serving woman opened the door.
“Sir?”
“I am going out for a walk—on the hillside—sit up for me until ten o’clock. Here’s the key.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then the old soldier took down his gun from the hook over the door, examined the priming, and slung it over his shoulder; then he addressed Kasper Boeck:
“Go and tell the rural guard to meet me in the holly path, and tell him behind the mill. Your spirit must be some marauder. But if it’s a fox, I’ll make a fine hood of it, with long earlaps.”
Master Petrus Mauerer and humble Kasper then went out. The weather was superb, the stars innumerable. While the shepherd went to knock at the rural guard’s door, the burgomaster plunged among the elder bushes, in a little lane that wound around behind the old church.
Two minutes later Kasper and Hans Goerner, whinger at his side, by running overtook Master Petrus in the holly path.
All three made their way together toward the ruins of Geierstein.
These ruins, which are twenty minutes’ walk from the village, seem to be insignificant enough; they consist of the ridges of a few decrepit walls, from four to six feet high, which extend among the brier bushes. Archaeologists call them the aqueducts of Seranus, the Roman camp of Holderlock, or vestiges of Theodoric, according to their fantasy. The only thing about these ruins which could be considered remarkable is a stairway to a cistern cut in the rock. Inside of this spiral staircase, instead of concentric circles which twist around with each complete turn, the involutions become wider as they proceed, in such a way that the bottom of the pit is three times as large as the opening. Is it an architectural freak, or did some reasonable cause determine such an odd construction? It matters little to us. The result was to cause in the cistern that vague reverberation which anyone may hear upon placing a shell at his ear, and to make you aware of steps on the gravel path, murmurs of the air, rustling of the leaves, and even distant words spoken by people passing the foot of the hill.
Our three personages then followed the pathway between the vineyards and gardens of Hirschwiller.
“I see nothing,” the burgomaster would say, turning up his nose derisively.
“Nor I either,” the rural guard would repeat, imitating the other’s tone.
“It’s down in the hole,” muttered the shepherd.
“We shall see, we shall see,” returned the burgomaster.
It was in this fashion, after a quarter of an hour, that they came upon the opening of the cistern. As I have said, the night was clear, limpid, and perfectly still.
The moon portrayed, as far as the eye could reach, one of those nocturnal landscapes in bluish lines, studded with slim trees, the shadows of which seemed to have been drawn with a black crayon. The blooming brier and broom perfumed the air with a rather sharp odor, and the frogs of a neighboring swamp sang their oily anthem, interspersed with silences. But all these details escaped the notice of our good rustics; they thought of nothing but laying hands on the spirit.
When they had reached the stairway, all three stopped and listened, then gazed into the dark shadows. Nothing appeared—nothing stirred.
“The devil!” said the burgomaster, “we forgot to bring a bit of candle. Descend, Kasper, you know the way better than I—I’ll follow you.”
At this proposition the shepherd recoiled promptly. If he had consulted his inclinations the poor man would have taken to flight; his pitiful expression made the burgomaster burst out laughing.
“Well, Hans, since he doesn’t want to go down, show me the way,” he said to the game warden.
“But, Mr. Burgomaster,” said the latter, “you know very well that steps are missing; we should risk breaking our necks.”
“Then what’s to be done?”
“Yes, what’s to be done?”
“Send your dog,” replied Petrus.
The shepherd whistled to his dog, showed him the stairway, urged him—but he did not wish to take the chances any more than the others.
At this moment, a bright idea struck the rural guardsman.
“Ha! Mr. Burgomaster,” said he, “if you should fire your gun inside.”
“Faith,” cried the other, “you’re right, we shall catch a glimpse at least.”
And without hesitating the worthy man approached the stairway and leveled his gun.
But, by the acoustic effect which I have already pointed out, the spirit, the marauder, the individual who chanced to be actually in the cistern, had heard everything. The idea of stopping a gunshot did not strike him as amusing, for in a shrill, piercing voice he cried:
“Stop! Don’t fire—I’m coming.”
Then the three functionaries looked at each other and laughed softly, and the burgomaster, leaning over the opening again, cried rudely:
“Be quick about it, you varlet, or I’ll shoot! Be quick about it!”
He cocked his gun, and the click seemed to hasten the ascent of the mysterious person; they heard him rolling down some stones. Nevertheless it still took him another minute before he appeared, the cistern being at a depth of sixty feet.
What was this man doing in such deep darkness? He must be some great criminal! So at least thought Petrus Mauerer and his acolytes.
At last a vague form could be discerned in the dark, then slowly, by degrees, a little man, four and a half feet high at the most, frail, ragged, his face withered and yellow, his eye gleaming like a magpie’s, and his hair tangled, came out shouting:
“By what right do you come to disturb my studies, wretched creatures?”
This grandiose apostrophe was scarcely in accord with his costume and physiognomy. Accordingly the burgomaster indignantly replied:
“Try to show that you’re honest, you knave, or I’ll begin by administering a correction.”
“A correction!” said the little man, leaping with anger, and drawing himself up under the nose of the burgomaster.
“Yes,” replied the other, who, nevertheless, did not fail to admire the pygmy’s courage; “if you do not answer the questions satisfactorily I am going to put to you. I am the burgomaster of Hirschwiller; here are the rural guard, the shepherd and his dog. We are stronger than you—be wise and tell me peaceably who you are, what you are doing here, and why you do not dare to appear in broad daylight. Then we shall see what’s to be done with you.”
“All that’s none of your business,” replied the little man in his cracked voice. “I shall not answer.”
“In that case, forward, march,” ordered the burgomaster, who grasped him firmly by the nape of the neck; “you are going to sleep in prison.”
The little man writhed like a weasel; he even tried to bite, and the dog was sniffing at the calves of his legs, when, quite exhausted, he said, not without a certain dignity:
“Let go, sir, I surrender to superior force—I’m yours!”
The burgomaster, who was not entirely lacking in good breeding, became calmer.
“Do you promise?” said he.
“I promise!”
“Very well—walk in front.”
And that is how, on the night of the 29th of July, 1835, the burgomaster took captive a little red-haired man, issuing from the cavern of Geierstein.
Upon arriving at Hirschwiller the rural guard ran to find the key of the prison and the vagabond was locked in and double-locked, not to forget the outside bolt and padlock.
Everyone then could repose after his fatigues, and Petrus Mauerer went to bed and dreamed till midnight of this singular adventure.
On the morrow, toward nine o’clock, Hans Goerner, the rural guard, having been ordered to bring the prisoner to the town house for another examination, repaired to the cooler with four husky daredevils. They opened the door, all of them curious to look upon the Will-o’-the-wisp. But imagine their astonishment upon seeing him hanging from the bars of the window by his necktie! Some said that he was still writhing; others that he was already stiff. However that may be, they ran to Petrus Mauerer’s house to inform him of the fact, and what is certain is that upon the latter’s arrival the little man had breathed his last.
The justice of the peace and the doctor of Hirschwiller drew up a formal statement of the catastrophe; then they buried the unknown in a field of meadow grass and it was all over!
Now about three weeks after these occurrences, I went to see my cousin, Petrus Mauerer, whose nearest relative I was, and consequently his heir. This circumstance sustained an intimate acquaintance between us. We were at dinner, talking on indifferent matters, when the burgomaster recounted the foregoing little story, as I have just reported it.
“’Tis strange, cousin,” said I, “truly strange. And you have no other information concerning the unknown?”
“None.”
“And you have found nothing which could give you a clew as to his purpose?”
“Absolutely nothing, Christian.”
“But, as a matter of fact, what could he have been doing in the cistern? On what did he live?”
The burgomaster shrugged his shoulders, refilled our glasses, and replied with:
“To your health, cousin.”
“To yours.”
We remained silent a few minutes. It was impossible for me to accept the abrupt conclusion of the adventure, and, in spite of myself, I mused with some melancholy on the sad fate of certain men who appear and disappear in this world like the grass of the field, without leaving the least memory or the least regret.
“Cousin,” I resumed, “how far may it be from here to the ruins of Geierstein?”
“Twenty minutes’ walk at the most. Why?”
“Because I should like to see them.”
“You know that we have a meeting of the municipal council, and that I can’t accompany you.”
“Oh! I can find them by myself.”
“No, the rural guard will show you the way; he has nothing better to do.”
And my worthy cousin, having rapped on his glass, called his servant:
“Katel, go and find Hans Goerner—let him hurry, and get here by two o’clock. I must be going.”
The servant went out and the rural guard was not tardy in coming.
He was directed to take me to the ruins.
While the burgomaster proceeded gravely toward the hall of the municipal council, we were already climbing the hill. Hans Goerner, with a wave of the hand, indicated the remains of the aqueduct. At the same moment the rocky ribs of the plateau, the blue distances of Hundsrück, the sad crumbling walls covered with somber ivy, the tolling of the Hirschwiller bell summoning the notables to the council, the rural guardsman panting and catching at the brambles—assumed in my eyes a sad and severe tinge, for which I could not account: it was the story of the hanged man which took the color out of the prospect.
The cistern staircase struck me as being exceedingly curious, with its elegant spiral. The bushes bristling in the fissures at every step, the deserted aspect of its surroundings, all harmonized with my sadness. We descended, and soon the luminous point of the opening, which seemed to contract more and more, and to take the shape of a star with curved rays, alone sent us its pale light. When we attained the very bottom of the cistern, we found a superb sight was to be had of all those steps, lighted from above and cutting off their shadows with marvelous precision. I then heard the hum of which I have already spoken: the immense granite conch had as many echoes as stones!
“Has nobody been down here since the little man?” I asked the rural guardsman.
“No, sir. The peasants are afraid. They imagine that the hanged man will return.”
“And you?”
“I—oh, I’m not curious.”
“But the justice of the peace? His duty was to—”
“Ha! What could he have come to the Owl’s Ear for?”
“They call this the Owl’s Ear?”
“Yes.”
“That’s pretty near it,” said I, raising my eyes. “This reversed vault forms the pavilion well enough; the under side of the steps makes the covering of the tympanum, and the winding of the staircase the cochlea, the labyrinth, and vestibule of the ear. That is the cause of the murmur which we hear: we are at the back of a colossal ear.”
“It’s very likely,” said Hans Goerner, who did not seem to have understood my observations.
We started up again, and I had ascended the first steps when I felt something crush under my foot; I stopped to see what it could be, and at that moment perceived a white object before me. It was a torn sheet of paper. As for the hard object, which I had felt grinding up, I recognized it as a sort of glazed earthenware jug.
“Aha!” I said to myself; “this may clear up the burgomaster’s story.”
I rejoined Hans Goerner, who was now waiting for me at the edge of the pit.
“Now, sir,” cried he, “where would you like to go?”
“First, let’s sit down for a while. We shall see presently.”
I sat down on a large stone, while the rural guard cast his falcon eyes over the village to see if there chanced to be any trespassers in the gardens. I carefully examined the glazed vase, of which nothing but splinters remained. These fragments presented the appearance of a funnel, lined with wool. It was impossible for me to perceive its purpose. I then read the piece of a letter, written in an easy running and firm hand. I transcribe it here below, word for word. It seems to follow the other half of the sheet, for which I looked vainly all about the ruins:
“My micracoustic ear trumpet thus has the double advantage of infinitely multiplying the intensity of sounds, and of introducing them into the ear without causing the observer the least discomfort. You would never have imagined, dear master, the charm which one feels in perceiving these thousands of imperceptible sounds which are confounded, on a fine summer day, in an immense murmuring. The bumble-bee has his song as well as the nightingale, the honey-bee is the warbler of the mosses, the cricket is the lark of the tall grass, the maggot is the wren—it has only a sigh, but the sigh is melodious!
“This discovery, from the point of view of sentiment, which makes us live in the universal life, surpasses in its importance all that I could say on the matter.
“After so much suffering, privations, and weariness, how happy it makes one to reap the rewards of all his labors! How the soul soars toward the divine Author of all these microscopic worlds, the magnificence of which is revealed to us! Where now are the long hours of anguish, hunger, contempt, which overwhelmed us before? Gone, sir, gone! Tears of gratitude moisten our eyes. One is proud to have achieved, through suffering, new joys for humanity and to have contributed to its mental development. But howsoever vast, howsoever admirable may be the first fruits of my micracoustic ear trumpet, these do not delimit its advantages. There are more positive ones, more material, and ones which may be expressed in figures.
“Just as the telescope brought the discovery of myriads of worlds performing their harmonious revolutions in infinite space—so also will my micracoustic ear trumpet extend the sense of the unhearable beyond all possible bounds. Thus, sir, the circulation of the blood and the fluids of the body will not give me pause; you shall hear them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent are dashing!
“It is doubtless an immense conquest in the development of our knowledge of physiology and pathology, but this is not the point on which I would emphasize. Upon applying your ear to the ground, sir, you may hear the mineral waters springing up at immeasurable depths; you may judge of their volume, their currents, and the obstacles which they meet!
“Do you wish to go further? Enter a subterranean vault which is so constructed as to gather a quantity of loud sounds; then at night when the world sleeps, when nothing will be confused with the interior noises of our globe—listen!
“Sir, all that it is possible for me to tell you at the present moment—for in the midst of my profound misery, of my privations, and often of my despair, I am left only a few lucid instants to pursue my geological observations—all that I can affirm is that the seething of glow worms, the explosions of boiling fluids, is something terrifying and sublime, which can only be compared to the impression of the astronomer whose glass fathoms depths of limitless extent.
“Nevertheless, I must avow that these impressions should be studied further and classified in a methodical manner, in order that definite conclusions may be derived therefrom. Likewise, as soon as you shall have deigned, dear and noble master, to transmit the little sum for use at Neustadt as I asked, to supply my first needs, we shall see our way to an understanding in regard to the establishment of three great subterranean observatories, one in the valley of Catania, another in Iceland, then a third in Capac-Uren, Songay, or Cayembé-Uren, the deepest of the Cordilleras, and consequently—”
Here the letter stopped.
I let my hands fall in stupefaction. Had I read the conceptions of an idiot—or the inspirations of a genius which had been realized? What am I to say? to think? So this man, this miserable creature, living at the bottom of a burrow like a fox, dying of hunger, had had perhaps one of those inspirations which the Supreme Being sends on earth to enlighten future generations!
And this man had hanged himself in disgust, despair! No one had answered his prayer, though he asked only for a crust of bread in exchange for his discovery. It was horrible. Long, long I sat there dreaming, thanking Heaven for having limited my intelligence to the needs of ordinary life—for not having desired to make me a superior man in the community of martyrs. At length the rural guardsman, seeing me with fixed gaze and mouth agape, made so bold as to touch me on the shoulder.
“Mr. Christian,” said he, “see—it’s getting late—the burgomaster must have come back from the council.”
“Ha! That’s a fact,” cried I, crumpling up the paper, “come on.”
We descended the hill.
My worthy cousin met me, with a smiling face, at the threshold of his house.
“Well! well! Christian, so you’ve found no trace of the imbecile who hanged himself?”
“No.”
“I thought as much. He was some lunatic who escaped from Stefansfeld or somewhere—Faith, he did well to hang himself. When one is good for nothing, that’s the simplest way for it.”
The following day I left Hirschwiller. I shall never return.
The Invisible Eye
About this time (said Christian), poor as a church mouse, I took refuge in the roof of an old house in Minnesänger Street, Nuremberg, and made my nest in the corner of the garret.
I was compelled to work over my straw bed to reach the window, but this window was in the gable end, and the view from it was magnificent, both town and country being spread out before me.
I could see the cats walking gravely in the gutters; the storks, their beaks filled with frogs, carrying nourishment to their ravenous brood; the pigeons, springing from their cotes, their tails spread like fans, hovering over the streets.
In the evening, when the bells called the world to the Angelus, with my elbows upon the edge of the roof, I listened to their melancholy chimes; I watched the windows as, one by one, they were lighted up; the good burghers smoking their pipes on the sidewalks; the young girls in their red skirts, with their pitchers under their arms, laughing and chatting around the fountain “Saint Sebalt.” Insensibly all this faded away, the bats commenced their rapid course, and I retired to my mattress in sweet peace and tranquillity.
The old curiosity seller, Toubac, knew the way to my little lodging as well as I did, and was not afraid to climb the ladder. Every week his ugly head, adorned with a reddish cap, raised the trapdoor, his fingers grasped the ledge, and he cried out in a nasal tone:
“Well, well, Master Christian, have you anything?”
To which I replied:
“Come in. Why in the devil don’t you come in? I am just finishing a little landscape, and you must tell me what you think of it.”
Then his great back, seeming to elongate, grew up, even to the roof, and the good man laughed silently.
I must do justice to Toubac: he never haggled with me about prices; he bought all my paintings at fifteen florins, one with the other, and sold them again for forty each. “This was an honest Jew!”
I began to grow fond of this mode of existence, and to find new charms in it day by day.
Just at this time the city of Nuremberg was agitated by a strange and mysterious event. Not far from my dormer window, a little to the left, stood the Inn Boeuf-Gras, an old auberge much patronized throughout the country. Three or four wagons, filled with sacks or casks, were always drawn up before the door, where the rustic drivers were in the habit of stopping, on their way to the market, to take their morning draught of wine.
The gable end of the inn was distinguished by its peculiar form. It was very narrow, pointed, and, on two sides, cut-in teeth, like a saw. The carvings were strangely grotesque, interwoven and ornamenting the cornices and surrounding the windows; but the most remarkable fact was that the house opposite reproduced exactly the same sculptures, the same ornaments; even the signboard, with its post and spiral of iron, was exactly copied.
One might have thought that these two ancient houses reflected each other. Behind the inn, however, was a grand old oak, whose somber leaves darkened the stones of the roof, while the other house stood out in bold relief against the sky. To complete the description, this old building was as silent and dreary as the Inn Boeuf-Gras was noisy and animated.
On one side, a crowd of merry drinkers were continually entering in and going out, singing, tripping, cracking their whips; on the other, profound silence reigned.
Perhaps, once or twice during the day, the heavy door seemed to open of itself, to allow a little old woman to go out, with her back almost in a semicircle, her dress fitting tight about her hips, an enormous basket on her arm, and her hand contracted against her breast.
It seemed to me that I saw at a glance, as I looked upon her, a whole existence of good works and pious meditations.
The physiognomy of this old woman had struck me more than once: her little green eyes, long, thin nose, the immense bouquets of flowers on her shawl, which must have been at least a hundred years old, the withered smile which puckered her cheeks into a cockade, the lace of her bonnet falling down to her eyebrows—all this was fantastic, and interested me much. Why did this old woman live in this great deserted house? I wished to explore the mystery.
One day as I paused in the street and followed her with my eyes, she turned suddenly and gave me a look, the horrible expression of which I know not how to paint; made three or four hideous grimaces, and then, letting her palsied head fall upon her breast, drew her great shawl closely around her, and advanced slowly to the heavy door, behind which I saw her disappear.
“She’s an old fool!” I said to myself, in a sort of stupor. My faith, it was the height of folly in me to be interested in her!
However, I would like to see her grimace again; old Toubac would willingly give me fifteen florins if I could paint it for him.
I must confess that these pleasantries of mine did not entirely reassure me.
The hideous glance which the old shrew had given me pursued me everywhere. More than once, while climbing the almost perpendicular ladder to my loft, feeling my clothing caught on some point, I trembled from head to foot, imagining that the old wretch was hanging to the tails of my coat in order to destroy me.
Toubac, to whom I related this adventure, was far from laughing at it; indeed, he assumed a grave and solemn air.
“Master Christian,” said he, “if the old woman wants you, take care! Her teeth are small, pointed, and of marvelous whiteness, and that is not natural at her age. She has an ‘evil eye.’ Children flee from her, and the people of Nuremberg call her ‘Fledermausse.’”
I admired the clear, sagacious intellect of the Jew, and his words gave me cause for reflection.
Several weeks passed away, during which I often encountered Fledermausse without any alarming consequences. My fears were dissipated, and I thought of her no more.
But an evening came, during which, while sleeping very soundly, I was awakened by a strange harmony. It was a kind of vibration, so sweet, so melodious, that the whispering of the breeze among the leaves can give but a faint idea of its charm.
For a long time I listened intently, with my eyes wide open, and holding my breath, so as not to lose a note. At last I looked toward the window, and saw two wings fluttering against the glass. I thought, at first, that it was a bat, caught in my room; but, the moon rising at that instant, I saw the wings of a magnificent butterfly of the night delineated upon her shining disk. Their vibrations were often so rapid that they could not be distinguished; then they reposed, extended upon the glass, and their frail fibers were again brought to view.
This misty apparition, coming in the midst of the universal silence, opened my heart to all sweet emotions. It seemed to me that an airy sylph, touched with a sense of my solitude, had come to visit me, and this idea melted me almost to tears.
“Be tranquil, sweet captive, be tranquil,” said I; “your confidence shall not be abused. I will not keep you against your will. Return to heaven and to liberty.” I then opened my little window. The night was calm, and millions of stars were glittering in the sky. For a moment I contemplated this sublime spectacle, and words of prayer and praise came naturally to my lips; but, judge of my amazement, when, lowering my eyes, I saw a man hanging from the crossbeam of the sign of the Boeuf-Gras, the hair disheveled, the arms stiff, the legs elongated to a point, and casting their gigantic shadows down to the street!
The immobility of this figure under the moon’s rays was terrible. I felt my tongue freezing, my teeth clinched. I was about to cry out in terror when, by some incomprehensible mysterious attraction, my glance fell below, and I distinguished, confusedly, the old woman crouched at her window in the midst of dark shadows, and contemplating the dead man with an air of diabolic satisfaction.
Then I had a vertigo of terror. All my strength abandoned me, and, retreating to the wall of my loft, I sank down and became insensible.
I do not know how long this sleep of death continued. When restored to consciousness, I saw that it was broad day. The mists of the night had penetrated to my garret, and deposited their fresh dew upon my hair, and the confused murmurs of the street ascended to my little lodging. I looked without. The burgomaster and his secretary were stationed at the door of the inn, and remained there a long time; crowds of people came and went, and paused to look in; then recommenced their course. The good women of the neighborhood, who were sweeping before their doors, looked on from afar, and talked gravely with each other.
At last a litter, and upon this litter a body, covered with a linen cloth, issued from the inn, carried by two men. They descended to the street, and the children, on their way to school, ran behind them.
All the people drew back as they advanced.
The window opposite was still open; the end of a rope floated from the crossbeam.
I had not dreamed. I had, indeed, seen the butterfly of the night; I had seen the man hanging, and I had seen Fledermausse.
That day Toubac made me a visit, and, as his great nose appeared on a level with the floor, he exclaimed:
“Master Christian, have you nothing to sell?”
I did not hear him. I was seated upon my one chair, my hands clasped upon my knees, and my eyes fixed before me.
Toubac, surprised at my inattention, repeated in a louder voice:
“Master Christian, Master Christian!” Then, striding over the sill, he advanced and struck me on the shoulder.
“Well, well, what is the matter now?”
“Ah, is that you, Toubac?”
“Eh, parbleu! I rather think so; are you ill?”
“No, I am only thinking.”
“What in the devil are you thinking about?”
“Of the man who was hanged.”
“Oh, oh!” cried the curiosity vender. “You have seen him, then? The poor boy! What a singular history! The third in the same place.”
“How—the third?”
“Ah, yes! I ought to have warned you; but it is not too late. There will certainly be a fourth, who will follow the example of the others. Il n’y à que le premier pas qui coûte.”
Saying this, Toubac took a seat on the corner of my trunk, struck his match-box, lighted his pipe, and blew three or four powerful whiffs of smoke with a meditative air.
“My faith,” said he, “I am not fearful; but, if I had full permission to pass the night in that chamber, I should much prefer to sleep elsewhere.
“Listen, Master Christian. Nine or ten months ago a good man of Tübingen, wholesale dealer in furs, dismounted at the Inn Boeuf-Gras. He called for supper; he ate well; he drank well; and was finally conducted to that room in the third story—it is called the Green Room. Well, the next morning he was found hanging to the crossbeam of the signboard.
“Well, that might do for once; nothing could be said.
“Every proper investigation was made, and the stranger was buried at the bottom of the garden. But, look you, about six months afterwards a brave soldier from Neustadt arrived; he had received his final discharge, and was rejoicing in the thought of returning to his native village. During the whole evening, while emptying his wine cups, he spoke fondly of his little cousin who was waiting to marry him. At last this big monsieur was conducted to his room—the Green Room—and, the same night, the watchman, passing down the street Minnesänger, perceived something hanging to the crossbeam; he raised his lantern, and lo! it was the soldier, with his final discharge in a bow on his left hip, and his hands gathered up to the seam of his pantaloons, as if on parade.
“’Truth to say, this is extraordinary!’ cried the burgomaster; ‘the devil’s to pay.’ Well, the chamber was much visited; the walls were replastered, and the dead man was sent to Neustadt.
“The registrar wrote this marginal note:
“’Died of apoplexy.’
“All Nuremberg was enraged against the innkeeper. There were many, indeed, who wished to force him to take down his iron crossbeam, under the pretext that it inspired people with dangerous ideas; but you may well believe that old Michael Schmidt would not lend his ear to this proposition.
“’This crossbeam,’ said he, ‘was placed here by my grandfather; it has borne the sign of Boeuf-Gras for one hundred and fifty years, from father to son; it harms no one, not even the hay wagons which pass beneath, for it is thirty feet above them. Those who don’t like it can turn their heads aside, and not see it.’
“Well, gradually the town calmed down, and, during several months, no new event agitated it. Unhappily, a student of Heidelberg, returning to the university, stopped, day before yesterday, at the Inn Boeuf-Gras, and asked for lodging. He was the son of a minister of the gospel.
“How could anyone suppose that the son of a pastor could conceive the idea of hanging himself on the crossbeam of a signboard, because a big monsieur and an old soldier had done so? We must admit, Master Christian, that the thing was not probable; these reasons would not have seemed sufficient to myself or to you.”
“Enough, enough!” I exclaimed; “this is too horrible! I see a frightful mystery involved in all this. It is not the crossbeam; it is not the room—”
“What! Do you suspect the innkeeper, the most honest man in the world, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Nuremberg?”
“No, no; may God preserve me from indulging in unjust suspicions! but there is an abyss before me, into which I scarcely dare glance.”
“You are right,” said Toubac, astonished at the violence of my excitement. “We will speak of other things. Apropos, Master Christian, where is our landscape of ‘Saint Odille’?”
This question brought me back to the world of realities. I showed the old man the painting I had just completed. The affair was soon concluded, and Toubac, well satisfied, descended the ladder, entreating me to think no more of the student of Heidelberg.
I would gladly have followed my good friend’s counsel; but, when the devil once mixes himself up in our concerns, it is not easy to disembarrass ourselves of him.
In my solitary hours all these events were reproduced with frightful distinctness in my mind.
“This old wretch,” I said to myself, “is the cause of it all; she alone has conceived these crimes, and has consummated them. But by what means? Has she had recourse to cunning alone, or has she obtained the intervention of invisible powers?” I walked to and fro in my retreat. An inward voice cried out: “It is not in vain that Providence permitted you to see Fledermausse contemplating the agonies of her victim. It is not in vain that the soul of the poor young man came in the form of a butterfly of the night to awake you. No, no; all this was not accidental, Christian. The heavens impose upon you a terrible mission. If you do not accomplish it, tremble lest you fall yourself into the hands of the old murderess! Perhaps, at this moment, she is preparing her snares in the darkness.”
During several days these hideous images followed me without intermission. I lost my sleep; it was impossible for me to do anything; my brush fell from my hand; and, horrible to confess, I found myself sometimes gazing at the crossbeam with a sort of complacency. At last I could endure it no longer, and one evening I descended the ladder and hid myself behind the door of Fledermausse, hoping to surprise her fatal secret.
From that time no day passed in which I was not en route, following the old wretch, watching, spying, never losing sight of her; but she was so cunning, had a scent so subtile that, without even turning her head, she knew I was behind her.
However, she feigned not to perceive this; she went to the market, to the butcher’s, like any good, simple woman, only hastening her steps and murmuring confused words.
At the close of the month I saw that it was impossible for me to attain my object in this way, and this conviction made me inexpressibly sad.
“What can I do?” I said to myself. “The old woman divines my plans; she is on her guard; every hope abandons me. Ah! old hag, you think you already see me at the end of your rope.” I was continually asking myself this question: “What can I do? what can I do?” At last a luminous idea struck me. My chamber overlooked the house of Fledermausse; but there was no window on this side. I adroitly raised a slate, and no pen could paint my joy when the whole ancient building was thus exposed to me. “At last, I have you!” I exclaimed; “you cannot escape me now; from here I can see all that passes—your goings, your comings, your arts and snares. You will not suspect this invisible eye—this watchful eye, which will surprise crime at the moment it blooms. Oh, Justice, Justice! She marches slowly; but she arrives.”
Nothing could be more sinister than the den now spread out before me—a great courtyard, the large slabs of which were covered with moss; in one corner, a well, whose stagnant waters you shuddered to look upon; a stairway covered with old shells; at the farther end a gallery, with wooden balustrade, and hanging upon it some old linen and the tick of an old straw mattress; on the first floor, to the left, the stone covering of a common sewer indicated the kitchen; to the right the lofty windows of the building looked out upon the street; then a few pots of dried, withered flowers—all was cracked, somber, moist. Only one or two hours during the day could the sun penetrate this loathsome spot; after that, the shadows took possession; then the sunshine fell upon the crazy walls, the worm-eaten balcony, the dull and tarnished glass, and upon the whirlwind of atoms floating in its golden rays, disturbed by no breath of air.
I had scarcely finished these observations and reflections, when the old woman entered, having just returned from market. I heard the grating of her heavy door. Then she appeared with her basket. She seemed fatigued—almost out of breath. The lace of her bonnet fell to her nose. With one hand she grasped the banister and ascended the stairs.
The heat was intolerable, suffocating; it was precisely one of those days in which all insects—crickets, spiders, mosquitoes, etc.—make old ruins resound with their strange sounds.
Fledermausse crossed the gallery slowly, like an old ferret who feels at home. She remained more than a quarter of an hour in the kitchen, then returned, spread out her linen, took the broom, and brushed away some blades of straw on the floor. At last she raised her head, and turned her little green eyes in every direction, searching, investigating carefully.
Could she, by some strange intuition, suspect anything? I do not know; but I gently lowered the slate, and gave up my watch for the day.
In the morning Fledermausse appeared reassured. One angle of light fell upon the gallery. In passing, she caught a fly on the wing, and presented it delicately to a spider established in a corner of the roof. This spider was so bloated that, notwithstanding the distance, I saw it descend from round to round, then glide along a fine web, like a drop of venom, seize its prey from the hands of the old shrew, and remount rapidly. Fledermausse looked at it very attentively, with her eyes half closed; then sneezed, and said to herself, in a jeering tone, “God bless you, beautiful one; God bless you!”
I watched during six weeks, and could discover nothing concerning the power of Fledermausse. Sometimes, seated upon a stool, she peeled her potatoes, then hung out her linen upon the balustrade.
Sometimes I saw her spinning; but she never sang, as good, kind old women are accustomed to do, their trembling voices mingling well with the humming of the wheel.
Profound silence always reigned around her; she had no cat—that cherished society of old women—not even a sparrow came to rest under her roof. It seemed as if all animated nature shrank from her glance. The bloated spider alone took delight in her society.
I cannot now conceive how my patience could endure those long hours of observation: nothing escaped me; nothing was matter of indifference. At the slightest sound I raised my slate; my curiosity was without limit, insatiable.
Toubac complained greatly.
“Master Christian,” said he, “how in the devil do you pass your time? Formerly you painted something for me every week; now you do not finish a piece once a month. Oh, you painters! ‘Lazy as a painter’ is a good, wise proverb. As soon as you have a few kreutzers in possession, you put your hands in your pockets and go to sleep!”
I confess that I began to lose courage—I had watched, spied, and discovered nothing. I said to myself that the old woman could not be so dangerous as I had supposed; that I had perhaps done her injustice by my suspicions; in short, I began to make excuses for her. One lovely afternoon, with my eye fixed at my post of observation, I abandoned myself to these benevolent reflections, when suddenly the scene changed: Fledermausse passed through the gallery with the rapidity of lightning. She was no longer the same person; she was erect, her jaws were clinched, her glance fixed, her neck extended; she walked with grand strides, her gray locks floating behind her.
“Oh, at last,” I said to myself, “something is coming, attention!” But, alas! the shadows of evening descended upon the old building, the noises of the city expired, and silence prevailed.
Fatigued and disappointed, I lay down upon my bed, when, casting my eyes toward my dormer window, I saw the room opposite illuminated. So! a traveler occupied the Green Room—fatal to strangers.
Now, all my fears were reawakened; the agitation of Fledermausse was explained—she scented a new victim.
No sleep for me that night; the rustling of the straw, the nibbling of the mice under the floor, gave me nervous chills.
I rose and leaned out of my window; I listened. The light in the room opposite was extinguished. In one of those moments of poignant anxiety, I cannot say if it was illusion or reality, I thought I saw the old wretch also watching and listening.
The night passed, and the gray dawn came to my windows; by degrees the noise and movements in the street ascended to my loft. Harassed by fatigue and emotion I fell asleep, but my slumber was short, and by eight o’clock I had resumed my post of observation.
It seemed as if the night had been as disturbed and tempestuous to Fledermausse as to myself. When she opened the door of the gallery, I saw that a livid pallor covered her cheeks and thin throat; she had on only her chemise and a woolen skirt; a few locks of reddish gray hair fell on her shoulders. She looked toward my hiding place with a dreamy, abstracted air, but she saw nothing; she was thinking of other things.
Suddenly she descended, leaving her old shoes at the bottom of the steps. “Without doubt,” thought I, “she is going to see if the door below is well fastened.”
I saw her remount hastily, springing up three or four steps at a time—it was terrible.
She rushed into the neighboring chamber, and I heard something like the falling of the top of a great chest; then Fledermausse appeared in the gallery, dragging a manikin after her, and this manikin was clothed like the Heidelberg student.
With surprising dexterity the old woman suspended this hideous object to a beam of the shed, then descended rapidly to the courtyard to contemplate it. A burst of sardonic laughter escaped from her lips; she remounted, then descended again like a maniac, and each time uttered new cries and new bursts of laughter.
A noise was heard near the door, and the old woman bounded forward, unhooked the manikin and carried it off; then, leaning over the balustrade with her throat elongated, her eyes flashing, she listened earnestly. The noise was lost in the distance, the muscles of her face relaxed, and she drew long breaths. It was only a carriage which had passed.
The old wretch had been frightened.
She now returned to the room, and I heard the chest close. This strange scene confounded all my ideas. What did this manikin signify? I became more than ever attentive.
Fledermausse now left the house with her basket on her arm. I followed her with my eyes till she turned the corner of the street. She had reassumed the air of a trembling old woman, took short steps, and from time to time turned her head partly around, to peer behind from the corner of her eye.
Fledermausse was absent fully five hours. For myself, I went, I came, I meditated. The time seemed insupportable. The sun heated the slate of the roof, and scorched my brain.
Now I saw, at the window, the good man who occupied the fatal Green Chamber; he was a brave peasant of Nassau, with a large three-cornered hat, a scarlet vest, and a laughing face; he smoked his pipe of Ulm tranquillity, and seemed to fear no evil.
I felt a strong desire to cry out to him: “Good man, be on your guard! Do not allow yourself to be entrapped by the old wretch; distrust yourself!” but he would not have comprehended me. Toward two o’clock Fledermausse returned. The noise of her door resounded through the vestibule. Then alone, all alone, she entered the yard, and seated herself on the interior step of the stairway; she put down her basket before her, and drew out first some packets of herbs, then vegetables, then a red vest, then a three-cornered hat, a coat of brown velvet, pants of plush, and coarse woolen hose—the complete costume of the peasant from Nassau.
For a moment I felt stunned; then flames passed before my eyes.
I recollected those precipices which entice with an irresistible power; those wells or pits, which the police have been compelled to close, because men threw themselves into them; those trees which had been cut down because they inspired men with the idea of hanging themselves; that contagion of suicides, of robberies, of murders, at certain epochs, by desperate means; that strange and subtile enticement of example, which makes you yawn because another yawns, suffer because you see another suffer, kill yourself because you see others kill themselves—and my hair stood up with horror.
How could this Fledermausse, this base, sordid creature, have derived so profound a law of human nature? how had she found the means to use this law to the profit or indulgence of her sanguinary instincts? This I could not comprehend; it surpassed my wildest imaginations.
But reflecting longer upon this inexplicable mystery, I resolved to turn the fatal law against her, and to draw the old murderess into her own net.
So many innocent victims called out for vengeance!
I felt myself to be on the right path.
I went to all the old-clothes sellers in Nuremberg, and returned in the afternoon to the Inn Boeuf-Gras, with an enormous packet under my arm.
Nichel Schmidt had known me for a long time; his wife was fat and good-looking; I had painted her portrait.
“Ah, Master Christian,” said he, squeezing my hand, “what happy circumstance brings you here? What procures me the pleasure of seeing you?”
“My dear Monsieur Schmidt, I feel a vehement, insatiable desire to sleep in the Green Room.”
We were standing on the threshold of the inn, and I pointed to the room. The good man looked at me distrustfully.
“Fear nothing,” I said; “I have no desire to hang myself.”.
“À la bonne heure! à la bonne heure! For frankly that would give me pain; an artist of such merit! When do you wish the room, Master Christian?”
“This evening.”
“Impossible! it is occupied!”
“Monsieur can enter immediately,” said a voice just behind me, “I will not be in the way.”
We turned around in great surprise; the peasant of Nassau stood before us, with his three-cornered hat, and his packet at the end of his walking stick. He had just learned the history of his three predecessors in the Green Room, and was trembling with rage.
“Rooms like yours!” cried he, stuttering; “but it is murderous to put people there—it is assassination! You deserve to be sent to the galleys immediately!”
“Go—go—calm yourself,” said the innkeeper; “that did not prevent you from sleeping well.”
“Happily, I said my prayers at night,” said the peasant; “without that, where would I be?” and he withdrew, with his hands raised to heaven.
“Well,” said Nichel Schmidt, stupefied, “the room is vacant, but I entreat you, do not serve me a bad trick.”
“It would be a worse trick for myself than for you, monsieur.”
I gave my packet to the servants, and installed myself for the time with the drinkers. For a long time I had not felt so calm and happy. After so many doubts and disquietudes, I touched the goal. The horizon seemed to clear up, and it appeared that some invisible power gave me the hand. I lighted my pipe, placed my elbow on the table, my wine before me, and listened to the chorus in “Freischütz,” played by a troupe of gypsies from the Black Forest. The trumpets, the hue and cry of the chase, the hautboys, plunged me into a vague reverie, and, at times rousing up to look at the hour, I asked myself gravely, if all which had happened to me was not a dream. But the watchman came to ask us to leave the salle, and soon other and more solemn thoughts were surging in my soul, and in deep meditation I followed little Charlotte, who preceded me with a candle to my room.
We mounted the stairs to the third story. Charlotte gave me the candle and pointed to the door.
“There,” said she, and descended rapidly.
I opened the door. The Green Room was like any other inn room. The ceiling was very low, the bed very high. With one glance I explored the interior, and then glided to the window.
Nothing was to be seen in the house of Fledermausse; only, in some distant room, an obscure light was burning. Some one was on the watch. “That is well,” said I, closing the curtain. “I have all necessary time.”
I opened my packet, I put on a woman’s bonnet with hanging lace; then, placing myself before a mirror, I took a brush and painted wrinkles in my face. This took me nearly an hour. Then I put on the dress and a large shawl, and I was actually afraid of myself. Fledermausse seemed to me to look at me from the mirror.
At this moment the watchman cried out, “Eleven o’clock!” I seized the manikin which I had brought in my packet, and muffled it in a costume precisely similar to that worn by the old wretch. I then opened the curtain.
Certainly, after all that I had seen of the Fledermausse, of her infernal cunning, her prudence, her adroitness, she could not in any way surprise me; and yet I was afraid. The light which I had remarked in the chamber was still immovable, and now cast its yellow rays on the manikin of the peasant of Nassau, which was crouched on the corner of the bed, with the head hanging on the breast, the three-cornered hat pulled down over the face, the arms suspended, and the whole aspect that of absolute despair.
The shadows, managed with diabolical art, allowed nothing to be seen but the general effect of the face. The red vest, and six round buttons alone, seemed to shine out in the darkness. But the silence of the night, the complete immobility of the figure, the exhausted, mournful air, were well calculated to take possession of a spectator with a strange power. For myself, although forewarned, I was chilled even to my bones.
How would it, then, have fared with the poor, simple peasant, if he had been surprised unawares? He would have been utterly cast down. Despairing, he would have lost all power of self-control, and the spirit of imitation would have done the rest.
Scarcely had I moved the curtain, when I saw Fledermausse on the watch behind her window. She could not see me. I opened my window softly; the window opposite was opened! Then her manikin appeared to rise slowly and advance before me. I, also, advanced my manikin, and seizing my torch with one hand, with the other I quickly opened the shutters. And now the old woman and myself were face to face. Struck with sudden terror, she had let her manikin fall!
We gazed at each other with almost equal horror. She extended her finger—I advanced mine. She moved her lips—I agitated mine. She breathed a profound sigh, and leaned upon her elbow. I imitated her.
To describe all the terrors of this scene would be impossible. It bordered upon confusion, madness, delirium. It was a death struggle between two wills; between two intelligences; between two souls—each one wishing to destroy the other; and, in this struggle, I had the advantage—her victims struggled with me.
After having imitated for some seconds every movement of Fledermausse, I pulled a rope from under my skirt, and attached it to the crossbeam.
The old woman gazed at me with gaping mouth. I passed the rope around my neck; her pupils expanded, lightened; her face was convulsed.
“No, no!” said she, in a whistling voice.
I pursued her with the impassability of an executioner.
Then rage seemed to take possession of her.
“Old fool!” she exclaimed, straightening herself up, and her hands contracted on the crossbeam. “Old fool!” I gave her no time to go on blowing out my lamp. I stooped, like a man going to make a vigorous spring, and, seizing my manikin, I passed the rope around its neck, and precipitated it below.
A terrible cry resounded through the street, and then silence, which I seemed to feel. Perspiration bathed my forehead. I listened a long time. At the end of a quarter of an hour I heard, far away, very far away, the voice of the watchman, crying, “Inhabitants of Nuremberg, midnight, midnight sounds!”
“Now justice is satisfied!” I cried, “and three victims are avenged. Pardon me, O Lord!”
About five minutes after the cry of the watchman, I saw Fledermausse attracted, allured by my manikin (her exact image), spring from the window, with a rope around her neck, and rest suspended from the crossbeam.
I saw the shadow of death undulating through her body, while the moon, calm, silent, majestic, inundated the summit of the roof, and her cold, pale rays reposed upon the old, disheveled, hideous head.
Just as I had seen the poor young student of Heidelberg, just so did I now see Fledermausse.
In the morning, all Nuremberg learned that the old wretch had hanged herself, and this was the last event of that kind in the Street Minnesänger.
