Chapter Thirty Two-B

I began to think that the friend of my childhood had at last found the time fit to reveal himself to me now that age was gradually taking me into its weary arms. This would give reason for everything. The incident at the baker’s, the broken carriage-wheel, the Arabic-speaking priest all was clear, each was a strange signpost pointing towards the big house, where everything that was inexplicable and incomprehensible in my life would at last find its proper solution.

 

“Anyhow, it is a good thing not to forget what we learnt when we were young.”

 

My host had broken the silence.

 

“And I am very pleased to have been able to use my knowledge of Arabic in such an unexpected and uncommon way.”

 

“I would have been happy, reverend sir, to be in your place, and to have been familiar with the language, and able to speak to the Evli.”

 

The priest laid down his pipe and stared at me with an expression almost of fear.

 

“Evli?” he repeated. “How came you to know the word?”

 

I saw that I was to reveal something of the part the Man from the East had played in my life, and so I told him briefly what had happened in my earliest childhood the accident to the wax statuette under the glass case and the ceiling falling on to my bed. The statuette, I said, which disappeared after this accident, had never been given any other name than the Man from the East, or Evli. Although no one about me knew at all what this last word meant.

 

The priest drummed his fingers on the table, and shook his head repeatedly, as if an idea was forcing itself on him with which he disagreed. More than once he seemed about to speak, but he uttered one word only:

 

“Mystery!”

 

“Whether the word Evli is a name,” I went on, “or whether it means something of significance, I do not know. I heard it first from my great-uncle, who brought the statuette from Venice and considered it of great value. When I was a child…”

 

My host interrupted me at that point with more vivacity than he had shown hitherto.

 

“Then listen, Baron Dronte,” he said, “listen how wonderfully Divine Providence influences human life, and how by the will of the Almighty are people brought together to reveal things to each other in a way that no chance, as they call it, could ever have invented.

 

“This very day,” he continued, “as I was making preparations for your reception, I was summoned to a dying man. He was the aged cotter, Milan Bogdan, who had been a soldier in the Austrian army. With his certificate of leave and the few guldens he had saved up for many years he came to live here. He married, and acquired a small holding, which he may by this time have exchanged for the eternal Gardens of the Lord. He has been a brave and honest Croatian soldier in the Imperial army, and a good Catholic.

 

He won my esteem not only by his piety, but also by his industry and peacefulness. He had been an invalid a long time. No matter how often he is tapped, the fluid rises to his heart again, and he is in danger of death. He received the last sacrament two days ago with great piety.

 

“I was somewhat astonished, therefore, at being sent for by him again today, and in a great hurry. I went to him, of course, without delay. When I saw him sending his old wife and two sons out of the room, I remarked that this was unnecessary, as he had already settled his account with his Lord cleanly and honestly, and a new confession would be superfluous. But he insisted; and so they left me alone with him and I sat down by his bed.

 

“‘What is it that oppresses you, dear son?’ I asked him.

 

“‘Oppresses me? Nothing, your reverence,’ he answered, breathing hoarsely. ‘My sins have been pardoned, and yet I cannot go to rest in the peace of God, not until some pious and learned man has explained something that happened to me when I was a soldier. I think about it now more than ever before.'”

 

“I told him to speak out, and he related a matter which I will repeat to you, for it was not told me under the seal of confession, and will be of considerable interest to you.

 

“Bogdan was a young infantry soldier in a battalion garrison on the Turkish frontier. In the course of a skirmish on the Sava, as the river that falls into the Danube is called, he was taken prisoner by wild Bashibazouks and carried away. In his Turkish captivity he had to do hard work on the tread-wheel that irrigated the fields of a certain Bey. Otherwise he was not treated badly, and was allowed to move about freely in the little village where he was kept.

 

“He made the acquaintance of a young Turk, very handsome, but with a curious mark between the eyes. He was very friendly to the prisoner and rendered him many services without any payment. As it often happens in those unhealthy climates, our Bogdan had a very severe attack of dysentery. He waxed weaker and weaker, and could not take any food. The young Turk nursed him and showed much concern about him, often asking Bogdan whether he could not do anything else for him. When the end seemed very near and Bogdan had become so weak he could hardly speak, he said to the Turk:

 

‘Though it is so bad with me, brother, I believe I could be saved if I drank the plum-brandy that lies in our cellar at Zagrebbut only out of the glass with flowers painted on it that stands on my mother’s table.’ ”

 

The Turk, saying nothing, went out of the room. Bogdan became weaker and weaker, and commended his soul to God. But an hour had not passed before the Turk returned, carrying in his hand the painted glass that had stood on Bogdan’s mother’s table. It was filled with the strong plum-brandy. The Turk held it to the sick man’s lips: he drank it and fell asleep. When he woke again, he asked questions about the man who had saved him. But no one seemed able to tell him anything.

 

“In his affliction he called for the Khojah, the Mahommedan priest, and told him what had happened and how miraculous it was that the Turk should have been able to run so many miles there and back in less than an hour. The Khojah answered:

 

‘Know then that thy friend was an Evli, one who has died and returned. Thou art fortunate and blessed to have him for thy guide through the Realms of Death.’

 

“Bogdan recovered, and at the next exchange of prisoners he returned home. His mother told him that on the day he began to recover a stranger had knocked at her door and asked for the painted glass and the brandy. She had given him both without hesitation. A little later there was a knock at the window. It was again the stranger. He handed her back the empty glass, saying:

 

‘Rejoice, Mother, thy son will come back.’ And so it happened….

 

“This, Baron Dronte, is what the dying soldier told me this afternoon. He asked whether it were a sin to think so much about an Evli in his last hour, about his face and the red mark between his brows. I told him he had better turn his thoughts to the Lord Jesus. He was trying to, with all his power, he replied, but the Face of the Lord Jesus always assumed in his mind the features of Evli. As I saw that the poor man’s conscience suffered from his being unable to master this vision, I consoled him and said that the Lord and Saviour was present to his pious heart, and for Him alone was it to choose in what form He presented Himself. Bogdan smiled, and said that he felt relieved, and that nothing could now rob him of his hope in a future life.”

 

I jumped up from the table. As if a bright light were suddenly shining down I saw with great clearness what it was that linked up all the baffling mysteries of my life. But I saw for a moment only. Dark veils soon hid the vision that was unknown to my ordinary senses.

 

“May I beg a great favour?” I asked.

 

“If it is in my power to grant it.”

 

“Take me to this Bogdan, this dying man.”

 

“Come along,” said the priest.

 

Quietly we reached the little house at the end of the village. A light glimmered through the tiny dim window-panes. We heard the murmur of many voices, and when we entered the low room we saw men and women praying on their knees. The old man was lying on a very humble bed. His small wrinkled face stood out against a blue pillow and was lighted by the shine of a taper that was burning at his head. Silently we approached. He breathed heavily, his eyes looked glassy, and his mouth was open.

 

I saw at once that this man on his deathbed could not answer the questions that were burning on my lips. But then a wonderful thing happened. His staring eyes slowly turned toward me. The face, already touched by the relentless finger of Death, quivered slightly; a joyful smile came to the thin, sunken lips, and before I knew what he was doing he half rose up and in a sobbing voice, weak with age, he exclaimed:

 

“Ah, you have come at last!”

 

Radiant joy was shining out of his eyes, and on all his face. Then his head fell back on to the pillows, a grey shadow ran over his face, and he lay rigid. The priest passed his hand gently over the old soldier’s eyelids.

 

“Rest in peace, thou faithful servant,” he murmured. “Let us pray.”

 

We repeated the Lord’s prayer after him, and as he and I left the room I felt that every eye was watching me. The dead man had imagined that he recognised in me his friend Evli. The priest did not speak until we were in his hospitable house again, and then he looked at me with a disturbed look.

 

“It must have been the scar,” he said, as if to himself.

 

“What scar?” I asked in astonishment.

 

“The red scar between your eyebrows, Baron Dronte. But no,” he cried suddenly, “we must not dwell on these things any longer. We must not tempt the Lord! … I will show you your room, Baron, if you are ready.”

 

I bowed, murmured my thanks, and followed him. When we had reached the room that was prepared for me he suddenly took me by the shoulders and looked for some time into my face.

 

“Please excuse this impolite behaviour,” he said, “but these experiences are too inexplicable and bewildering for an old man like me. I am not in a state to solve for myself the awful riddles of Providence. I would rather be alone. So please do not be angry with me if I do not talk. Out of the whirlpool of these uncanny happenings I escape into a safe refuge! I escape to the faith in Him who moves everything, to His supreme will, and to the peace of prayer!”

 

“Pray for me, too, honourable sir,” I asked, deeply moved.

 

The next moment I was alone. I groped restlessly in my mind for a solution, turning to my feelings when my reason could give me no help. But an impenetrable dark wall was before me, shutting me off from the knowledge I sought, and try as I would, I failed to find in that wall the door that leads to Truth. Now and then a feeble cry of presentiment would flash out in the sleepless night as it were through a chink in the wall. But all that I strove after in the deepest and darkest recesses of my soul remained as unattainable and elusive as ever.

 

 

Chapter Thirty Two-A

Chapter Thirty Two

 

For a long time I lived quietly in a place, tiny and out of the way, that was steeped in the recollection of happier times. There, I thought, I would end my days. But one fine morning an incident occurred that proved a turning-point in my life. An apprentice, unknown in the country, entered the village baker’s shop to buy bread, and was accused by the tradesman of having attempted to pass false money. A crowd gathered. The poor fellow, well aware of what cruel punishment followed such an act, defended himself desperately, and when he beheld me approaching, he cried out:

 

“Help me, sir! Save me!”

 

I was well known to the people. I had gained their friendliness by small kindly acts, especially to the children. They made way for me as I came up, and one man said:

 

“Good! The Baron will decide whether the lad has put on the baker’s counter a gold coin or a piece of bad token money.”

 

I examined the money. It was a Turkish sequin, similar to the five coins which I still preserved from my discovery among the ruins. The curiously curled lettering had been so undecipherable to the baker and the other people that they paid no attention to the weight of the gold, regarding a coin of the Grand Signior as a gambling counter, and the lad as a cut purse. I explained the facts.

 

The coin was weighed on the baker’s scales, and, for greater sureness, even tested on the stone. Therefore the poor wandering carder was not punished after all; he was given a lot of silver and copper coins for change. When the incident was ended I asked him how he had come upon this coin, which I had no doubt was very rare in the neighbourhood. His answer broke like lightning into my hitherto quiet life, destroying, completely and for ever, my recently gained serenity. A stranger had given him the coin, he explained, and had told him to come to the village to have it changed, where he would learn more.

 

He had encountered the stranger as he was trudging along the road, weary and half-starved; a handsome man, he was, wearing a black turban. He had asked the man for a coin, and had received the gold piece. Breathless, I asked the boy whether the charitable traveller was dressed like a monk. But the only things the lad remembered were the black turban and the handsome, dark eyes. He had, indeed, looked back as he passed on, but the stranger was no more to be seen, though the road ran perfectly straight for a long distance. This news, added to my previous knowledge that the mysterious Man from the East had appeared not three days’ journey from here, excited me so greatly that at once I ordered a post-chaise and resolved to trace him, come what may. I would not stop until I stood face to face with him and received an answer to all the questions that had disturbed me for many years for, indeed, the whole of my life.

 

When I was examining my money for the journey I came upon the Turkish sequins, and what I saw amazed and frightened me. Only four of them remained instead of five! A bewildering feeling assailed me a vain wish to recollect something. Then it disappeared, leaving behind it a new riddle in my life. Next day I started on my journey in the post-chaise. During late afternoon, after a change of horses, I reached the great wood that lay on the road to the town, near which the honest carder had received his golden sequin.

 

Just as we were passing a village and the postilion was lustily blowing on his horn the “Huntsman from the Palatinate,” a wheel broke, and the postilion, struck by the shaft as the horses plunged, was so violently thrown off the box that he could only lift himself with difficulty. His face was distorted by pain as he declared that he would have to bandage his bruised shoulder before he could again manage the reins. Also the fallen horse had bruised its knee and needed additional treatment. If we went on with the journey to-day, he vowed, we would surely come to grief. Undecided, I was standing near to the luckless carriage, surrounded by a wondering crowd of village children, when an old woman approached and addressed me immediately.

 

“Your lodging is ready,” she said, “according to your orders, and the postilion will also find bed and food. There is room for the horses in his Reverence’s stables.”

 

I was vastly gratified, but no less astonished. I asked the dame who had announced my arrival, and whether there was not some misunderstanding.

 

“There must be an inn in the village,” I said; “I will find my lodging.”

 

“No, sir,” continued the woman, and without more ado she walked on before me as a guide.

 

“We have no inn, and strangers of quality who are brought here by chance always stop at the parsonage, which is spacious and has plenty of rooms. But you, sir, have been quite particularly bespoken and recommended to his Reverence. The priest, who is at present at the bed of a dying man, told me to have an eye on the road so as not to miss the visitor he was expecting.”

 

Meanwhile we had reached a handsome-looking house that stood near the church. We passed through the gate, over which, on a heavy iron chain, hung bones of gigantic extinct animals, and bewildered I went down a pathway paved with grey tiles, and eventually came into a vaulted, white-washed room, furnished with a large table and leather chairs. Against the wall stood many shelves of books, among which I noticed the works of Paracelsus.

 

On the top of the bookcases were stuffed birds of rare species and all manner of minerals and petrified ammonites. The tiny statuette of a woman, green with rust, stood on a plain writing-table by the window. She held a child in her arms, and for all I could tell might just as well have been the Mother of our Lord and Saviour as a pagan goddess. There was also a black praying-stool, and over it the Redeemer hung on the Cross with extended arms, inclining His forgiving face towards human sinners.

 

Presently the old woman brought in a brass lamp and the room was filled with a homely yellow light; and almost immediately afterwards the priest appeared. He was a tall man with grey hair. He had a healthy face, and clever, thoughtful eyes. He extended his hands to me in a friendly way, looked at me attentively, and begged that I would be his guest at table. After the meal he would explain to me how he had been informed of my approaching arrival. The post-boy, he added, had also been lodged comfortably, and the carriage mended by the blacksmith.

 

The table was laid for supper, and the meal brought in stuffed pike in cream, to which we drank a light hock. When we had finished our simple repast, the pastor asked permission to smoke and lighted his pipe. In spite of that inner calm which helped me to regard everything that happened as an unavoidable fate, I felt a strong curiosity to learn by what means the clergyman had been warned of my arrival. I therefore informed him of my name and position, and begged him to explain this wonderful circumstance.

 

“As you say, it is indeed rather wonderful,” he began, and he thoughtfully puffed out large clouds of blue smoke. “Three days ago I was walking down the high street, reading my breviary as I went past the houses a habit of mine. I met two people whose appearance astonished me so much that I stopped to watch them come up. One of them I knew well enough. It was the eighty-year-old Nene.

 

Notwithstanding her years and weakness she brings home from the forest every evening a bundle of dead wood. It is always a pitiful sight to see the poor old woman, who is still obliged to do this work, staggering along in such a way, and I have often ordered some idle hanger-about to take the burden from her and carry it to her house. But this time she was without her bundle. She looked almost upright, almost young again, and she walked by the side of her companion, who had taken the bundle from her of his own accord and placed it without effort on his own shoulders. The man, however, was in any case an uncommon sight in this part of the world. He wore”

 

“A brown gown and a black kerchief or a turban of the same colour, and amber beads round his neck,” I broke in, trembling with expectation.

 

The parson looked at me without any sign of surprise.

 

“So the mystery of what I have still to tell is partly raised,” he said. “I say partly raised because there still remains something mysterious in the fact that neither the old woman nor Michael Schneider, who chanced to be coming in from the fields and politely invited Nene to put her bundle into his wheelbarrow neither of them appeared to see anything uncommon or striking about the strangely-dressed man. By questioning them later on, I ascertained that they were even unaware of his unusual dress. As for his informing me about your arrival and fixing it for today, this is now explained by the fact that you evidently know him and probably spoke to him about your journey.”

 

I assured the priest most emphatically that though I had often seen the man at a distance, I had never exchanged a word with him. The parson looked at me and shook his head.

 

“So the phenomenon again becomes mysterious and calls again for explanation,” he said reflectively. “For when the old woman and Michael Schneider went their way with the wood, and I remained standing in the road face to face with the stranger in the brown gown, I naturally felt a wish to know something about where he came from and what was the purpose of his journey. Besides, his truly noble features and expression were so attractive that I found it impossible to turn my eyes away from him.

 

“By his dress I recognised him without difficulty for an Oriental. As I had long ago studied Arabic, I ventured to avail myself of that language for the solemn greeting. I called out, ‘Salem aleikum’that is, ‘Peace be with thee!’

 

“The stranger at once returned the benediction with extreme courtesy and friendliness and added in the same tongue: ‘When the sun is setting for the third time from hence, a man will come to this place. He is seeking me. Make him thy guest.’

 

“I replied that I would, and went on to ask him where I was to direct the new-comer; he only replied, ‘To the great house at the end of the forest.’ And it was toward the forest that he set off when he had inclined his head gracefully in farewell.

 

“No sooner had he disappeared among the trees than the thought occurred to me that there were probably many large houses in the forest, especially if castles were also to be included in the definition. I ran after him to obtain a more exact address. But vainly I searched and called, I could not find a trace of him. He had, doubtless, walked on faster than I expected, and passed out of my reach.

 

“But I must confess that my experience had disturbed me so much that I can now no longer say how long I stood thinking while he was walking away. So his disappearance may be easily explained without seeking the help of any supernatural phenomenon.”

 

Silence fell between us when he had finished, and we sat for a long time, each of us deep in his own thoughts. I would have liked to say something, but no I must keep it to myself. Nothing could have justified me in disclosing the dark and hidden windings of my life to anybody, be it even to one so worthy and trust-inspiring as this priest. I would have been obliged to confide in him completely if I had wished to explain, even summarily, my inexplicable relation with Evli. But had I any explanation at hand? Had not everything become still more puzzling and bewildering, since the mystery man’s last apparition?

 

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty One

 

God had purified my heart in the fire of pain. With intense conviction I felt this as I prepared myself in solitude and fasting for the evening at the magician’s. How different became all my being since the dreadful hour when my darling glided away from me into the land of shadows! My former irascibility, and the arrogance of which I had so often been guilty, my love of good eating and dissipation of all sorts, and my inclination to lust all these faults had left me. They were uninteresting and stale. The attractive light in which life offered itself to other men was veiled from me by the grey dust of mortality.

 

One idea was fixed in my heart like adamant: the conviction that I was to see Zephyrine again. She and Aglaia (for now I knew that they had been created by God as one and the same being) were destined for me from the beginning, though they were ever and again taken away from me in accordance with the unknown purpose of the Eternal Powers. Throughout the third day I remained in my room at the inn, shutting myself away from intruders by pretending indisposition and urgent need of rest.

 

As night drew on and the clock-hand approached eleven, I left my inn and took the road to the Liretwaldchen. The weather was damp and warm, a spring wind rustled in the roof tiles and made the weather-cocks creak. The paths were dry. Dark clouds followed each other in long succession past the bright moon, like strange animals chasing each other. I was held up by night-rounds and police patrols on several occasions and obliged to show my documents. I answered their questions in such a way as to make them conclude that I was on the way to a secret love-meeting, about which, as a gentleman, I could give no further details.

 

This false pretence was distasteful enough to me, but it enabled me to continue my journey without delay, and when a puff of wind put out the lanterns I was even shown my way by a police patrol through the darkness. It was not easy to find the Lustwaldchen. Even when I reached it I repeatedly lost my way among the formless huts and booths, which looked different in the dark than they had done by daylight.

 

But the magician and his brother appeared to have been on the look-out, for as I was about to walk off in the wrong direction I was accosted by a man whom I easily recognised as the harlequin. He took me by the arm and said in a low and hurried voice:

 

“This way, Baron, this is the way. We have been waiting for you quite a long time.”

 

He led me past dark wagons and canvas huts to a large booth. A very feeble bluish light issued from the crevices in its plank walls. My guide unfastened a string-latch and I passed through the door. The next moment I was standing (as I immediately recognised) on the little stage behind the curtain. The scenery representing a churchyard was still in its place. The sides of the stage were shut off by dark curtains; and I was surrounded by an almost complete square of movable walls. Oil lamps diffused a feeble but singularly agreeable and cool light, so that in a few minutes I could see plainly. I sat down by invitation on a tolerably comfortable chair that had been set for me. A low brazier in which burned some feebly glowing coals stood in the centre of the stage. The brother of the magician came toward me.

 

“Do not speak to him when he comes,” he whispered.

 

“Have you brought something that belonged to the person you wish to see?”

 

I took from my pocket the silver ring which held the fire-opal, and, after a moment’s hesitation, handed it to him. He vanished through one of the curtains, reappearing with a bowl containing some grains in it and a little tripod, and he placed them beside the brazier. Then the curtain in front of me moved violently, and the magician appeared. He was wrapped in a dark, wide mantle, and wore on his head a white band, of the kind I had seen on old pictures. His face was grey and sunken, his eyes were half closed. He walked forward towards the brazier as though he did not see me, his hands outstretched as a blind man’s hands are outstretched. Close behind him walked his brother, directing him with his hands and helping him to find the stool.

 

The sorcerer sat there motionless. The brother took up one of his helpless hands, unclasped its fingers (this seemed to require a certain effort) and placed the ring in the palm; whereupon the hand closed itself again. Then he drew up another stool for himself and strewed the grains out of the brass bowl over the crackling coals. A fragrant blue smoke rose up that smelt like the precious frankincense the Catholic Church uses on high feast days. The magician sat motionless before me, without giving the slightest sign that he heeded my presence. Behind him sat his brother, on whose lean and hollow cheeks an advanced stage of consumption, as I noticed for the first time, had put the plain mark of early death.

 

But now the magician’s eyes were fixed on me with a staring, lifeless look. A humming, chirping melody arose, and I discovered that the brother was holding a jew’s-harp in his teeth, the forefinger of his right hand keeping the tongue of the little instrument in constant vibration. The magician’s head sank obliquely towards his right shoulder and his mouth fell open. The hand that held the ring began to twitch slightly. So we sat for some time in the blue light, the drone and hum of this soporific music rising and falling…. Suddenly between the open lips of the motionless man I noticed something like the end of a shining bluish-white cloth, which gradually pushed forth.

 

A light issued from it, gradually becoming more brilliant. Simultaneously a knocking and tapping began behind my chair. The noise occasionally shifted itself to the planks of the floor, but always it returned to the chair. Several times as I distinctly heard the short, sharp knocks at my back I involuntarily looked round. But no one was there, although the knocking went on with undiminished force. The white tissue that hung out of the sleeping man’s mouth and almost down to his breast disappeared as suddenly as it had made its appearance. With a loud crash at the left arm of my chair the knocking ceased.

 

A profound silence followed, the brother again taking the bowl of incense and strewing grains over the coals. Something cold and sticky quite unexpectedly touched my cheek and glided past my forehead. I made a movement, but my hand only grasped at the empty air. Then a large snow-white hand appeared at the magician’s shoulder its fingers so flat that it looked almost like a glove. It lengthened into a disproportionately long arm, that in a few moments rested on his lap as if it were his third arm; and again everything faded and disappeared. The sleeper began to stir restlessly. His body rocked backwards and forwards, he raised a monotonous chant-complaint, of which I could not distinguish the words. The knocking sounded on the plank floor and behind my chair once more, becoming violent; and an empty stool, that stood against the curtain and had escaped my notice, made four or five frog-like jumps towards me. This made me realise that strong magnetic fluids, proceeding from the slumbering magician, were beginning to operate.

 

The trembling melody of the piper grew louder and quicker, and the magician’s swaying movements changed to violent, convulsive jerks, producing a very uncanny effect that was enhanced by the vapour rising and spreading until the two men were shadow-like and altogether unreal. Suddenly I thought I saw, lying beside the dull-glowing brazier, a luminous piece of folded cloth that had not been there before. Something moved inside it, in a strange manner, as if a tiny child or a little animal were trying to get free from its folds. But the luminous cloth (or was it a luminous mist?) rapidly grew in height, became taller and narrower until it seemed about to assume a human form.

 

I looked on in painful expectation, straining my sight to the utmost, and then I saw folds of clothing and limbs take shape. It was a figure a human figure rising up before me. And all suddenly, paralysed by joyous terror, I beheld, pale and almost transparent, the beloved face of Zephyrine. Her motionless gaze was fixed on me; and then there appeared something on her dear head something that shone and spread light Aglaia’s burial wreath…. I would have sprang to my feet, seeking to clasp my arms about my beloved wife, so terribly missed, so ardently longed for. But veils rose before my eyes, my feet were as if encased in leaden shoes, and my heart threatened to stop beating…. And in that moment everything disappeared.

 

I saw only the rough boarding, the smouldering sweet fumes and the magician, now fallen from his stool and lying in convulsions on the floor, his eyeballs rolling. The music ceased, and the brother hurried forward and raised the magician from the boards. With his cloth-covered hand he reached into the magician’s mouth and pulled out his tongue. With a wild choking groan the sorcerer opened his eyes, looked round and sighed deeply.

 

“Wake up, Eusebius,” shouted the brother, shaking him gently. “Wake up! Wake up!”

 

The magician looked first at one of us and then at the other, letting his eyes wander as if he were unable to realise where he was. He shuddered violently, putting his hand to his forehead as he stared at me.

 

“Two!” he gasped. “There were two of them two!”

 

The brother had brought a tin goblet and a bottle, and he poured out a dark, strongly-scented wine into the cup and held it up to his brother’s lips. The magician drank in thirsty gulps, and when he had taken breath, he drank again. I chanced to touch my face. It was wet with tears. After many efforts, and with the help of his assistant, the necromancer got up and tottered across to me. His face was drawn and covered with perspiration.

 

“The ring” he stammered.

 

I took the silver treasure from him, carefully returning it to my great-coat.

 

“But why two?” he asked, stretching towards me a hand that trembled violently. “Why were there two, sir?”

 

I nodded, and answered:

 

“They were two and yet there is only one.”

 

“Never again,” he groaned, and staggered against his brother. “Dreadful I had passed the threshold”

 

“What’s the matter with you, Eusebius?” the brother asked.

 

“The hunchback,” he cried, “and the child… two heads … a monster!”

 

With that he collapsed unconscious, and was only prevented from falling heavily by his brother, who looked at me helplessly, spat out blood, and stuttered:

 

“Enough, sir, enough! Have mercy on us.”

 

I pressed a large sum of money into his hand. His poor lean face shone for a moment with joy, as he held out the gold to his helpless brother.

 

“Look at this, Eusebius,” he cried, “just look at this!”

 

Gently he let his brother’s convulsed body sink to the ground. Then he pointed to the opening in the canvas wall.

 

“He has had it badly this time,” he whispered. “The day is breaking were you satisfied, sir?”

 

Full of compassion for these poor people, deeply and strangely moved, and yet with a bright ray of transcendent hope to hearten me, I returned through the grey-dripping morning to the awakening town.

 

Chapter Thirty-B

The show was over, and the audience went away completely satisfied. Instead of departing with the rest I approached the stage.. My conjecture had been right. The invulnerable apparition was a reflection, thrown on the stage through an obliquely placed glass plate, in front of which an actor, lying on a kind of sledge, played the ghost.

 

The glass plate was composed of three equal pieces of glass, and the two perpendicular lines of shade which I noticed from the audience had at once suggested to me this explanation. I realised that I was the only member of the audience left behind, and I made for the door. But I was not alone. A man had noiselessly glided up to me, no doubt suspicious about my intentions. I at once recognised him as the actor who played the magician and afterwards the man in the churchyard.

 

I excused myself for lingering. I explained that my interest was merely scientific, that I had just been ascertaining the correctness of my hypothesis, and that my curiosity was now satisfied. It was not my intention to spoil his performance by divulging what I had discovered.

 

“The gentleman is evidently a man of knowledge,” said the man, bowing very politely. “Have I also the honour of seeing before me a master of White Magic?”

 

“Oh no,” I replied. “I was only interested in ascertaining whether the excellent effect produced by that phantom was brought about by hollow mirrors or by oblique glass plates. Glass plates of that size are very expensive, I think, and are manufactured, if I am not mistaken, only in Venice.”

 

“I observe that the gentleman is excellently informed,” replied the conjurer. “The three plates are the most valuable of all our possessions; they require the greatest care when they are moved.”

 

I thanked him in a few words, and went towards the curtain beyond which the harlequin was again screaming to attract an audience.

 

“If, however, the gentleman will take some notice of my own craft…” said the magician hesitatingly.

 

He made a motion with his hand toward the ground on which we were standing. I was assailed by a swift presentiment….

 

“What you see here,” he went on, “is calculated to meet the taste of the uneducated and thus procure us a miserable livelihood. But for adepts I am the necromancer Master Eusebius Wohlgast, of Oedenburg, and indeed I have been honoured by having bestowed on me the title, ‘the Hungarian Dr. Faust.’ I should be very much mistaken, sir your appearance announcing deep and unconcealed grief if your wishes were not intent, passionately intent, on again seeing a beloved person torn away by cruel death.”

 

I smiled bitterly.

 

“You think me simpler than I am, Sir Magician Wohlgast,” I retorted. “With the vapour of poisonous herbs, which veil all clear understanding, and with a concealed magic lantern, it is easy to make people see whatever they are willing to believe in.”

 

The man shook his head with good-humoured tolerance, and answered gently and modestly:

 

“Men of my profession, living in covered wagons, must be prepared for the public to take them to be wandering jugglers, mountebanks and quacks. To do away with this suspicion in my case, I explicitly declare that if you wish to avail yourself of my services in this respect I shall ask for no fee of any sort. I leave it entirely to you to reward me or to leave me unrewarded if you feel you are duped. I know very well at whose service to place my ability, and I am not concerned with gain, however much I have to reckon on subsidiary earnings.

 

“After all, I have lately had the supreme honour of obeying a wish of this sort expressed by his Imperial Roman Majesty. This took place in the room of the Freemasons’ Lodge at the sign of the Three Fires. His Majesty was so deeply affected by an apparition from the other world that he was laid up in bed for several days, until his mind recovered from the shock. In spite of this I was very handsomely rewarded for my work. The fact may serve as proof to you, that neither His Majesty nor the nobles then present regarded me as an impostor; they left the Freemasons’ temple in silence and awe. I narrowly escaped a prosecution which Her Majesty the Empress ordered against me when she was told of the real cause of the indisposition of Her Majesty’s Consort.”

 

Contradictory emotions rose in me. The man appeared to be honest, and full of confidence in his strange abilities. But my mistrust was not so easily put aside.

 

“Who, or whose spirit, did you raise before His Majesty?” I asked.

 

“I am not free to speak of this even to the most trusted of courtiers. And it is altogether contrary to my rules of conduct to give a third party any information about what you, sir, may see in the event of my devoted services being taken into your consideration.”

 

My desire to test the man’s ability grew as he spoke, and I said:

 

“If it were possible for you to call back a departed person, one who is dear to me beyond anything, I would give you good proof of my gratitude.”

 

He made a movement as if to suggest his indifference.

 

“That, sir, is to your discretion, for in spite of all outward signs to the contrary, I easily recognise you for a nobleman of quality.”

 

“What am I to do then, and when will this incantation take place?” I asked hurriedly.

 

Two people had entered the tent, obliging us to talk in a whisper.

 

“Will you please be here three days from now at half an hour before midnight? And for a day beforehand you must absolutely refrain from all food and all drink, except pure water. After that a cleaning of your body and some clean clothes are necessary. You must also bring with you an object of one kind or another that belonged to the woman you desire me to call back, preferably something she carried about her. Absolute secrecy is a necessary condition. Otherwise all my efforts will be fruitless.”

 

“I understand,” I said. “I will do as you tell me. Is this all?”

 

“As far as you are concerned, it is all.”

 

“And you?”

 

“I must fast also, but for the whole three days. The performances here will be carried on by my brother and an assistant,- that I may prepare myself in solitude for the hour of incantation.”

 

I looked at him doubtfully. But the booth had become so crowded that further conversation was impossible. The Hungarian magician took no further notice of me, but went out, and so did I. I observed that he said a few hurried words to the harlequin, who nodded gravely.

 

“In three days,” I said in a low voice as I passed him.

 

“About midnight,” he replied, disappearing in the crowd before the booth.

 

When after a while I purposely passed that way the man who had played the harlequin was now standing before the entrance to the booth, dressed as a sorcerer, and inviting people to step forward. I was in deep thought as I walked back to my inn.

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-A

Chapter Thirty

I became as a hollow hull, a lifeless, dressed-up body. My daily habits were nothing to me. I took food without relish, and only when it was put before me. I would fall asleep sitting in a chair, or find myself in bed fully dressed. My eyes were dim, my clothes, which I seldom changed, became unclean and old. I never knew the time of day; I felt neither heat nor cold. I let my servants do whatever they liked.

 

At times I would be seized with a terrible yearning, and search restlessly through the rooms and the garden, calling the names of Zephyrine and Aglaia. Throughout long days I sat by my wife’s grave, and I only went away when the gravediggers reminded me politely that it was closing time.

 

When she had died her favourite dog Amando could not be driven away from her last resting-place; he refused food and drink and soon he died of grief and hunger. The gravediggers led me to a plot of unconsecrated ground in a corner of the churchyard where they had buried him.

 

When at last I began to feel the healing influence of time, I summoned a notary and had my house and garden transformed into an asylum for deformed children, investing a considerable sum of money to maintain it. I moved my belongings to the Hotel of the Golden Lamb and gradually made my preparations for departure from a town where everything hurt and distressed me; for everything reminded me of Zephyrine.

 

The only tokens of her memory that I preserved were a lock of her hair and the ring with the fire-opal that had belonged to Aglaia before her. Zephyrine’s fingers had been as slender and as delicate as my cousin’s. As for the lock of my wife’s hair, I had put it in my aunt’s pale blue casket, and there it got accidentally mixed up with Aglaia’s, and the two could no longer be distinguished or separated.

 

I planned to go to some distant country, far away. When I roamed about the streets, I would often notice that people drew each other’s attention to me. Then they would tap their foreheads significantly with their fingers and laugh outright. But this brutal rudeness did not in the least affect me. In my aimless wanderings from place to place I came to an amusement place outside the town, called Lustwaldchen.

 

A fair was in full swing, entirely devoted to the amusements of the people. I was relieved to find that no one took any notice of my appearance; which had become rather striking through the nervous convulsions that showed on my face, a consequence of my sufferings.

 

The fair-ground was full of booths and huts, of performing bears, muffin-men, soothsayers and marionette theatres. There were pedlars and hawkers of every kind. To the sound of a tuneless music girls and lads swung round on wooden horses, painted blue and white, or red and yellow. I came to a tent and heard the shrill sounds of trumpets and rattle of drums.

 

A sword-swallower in spangled trousers stood surrounded by loafers; his neck was bent back; and near by was a tub of vinegar, into which dirty hands were diving for cucumbers. Suddenly, in the thick of the throng I saw Laurette. She was leaning on the arm of a man, tall, lean and dark-faced. She looked as if she was about to die of laughter, so entertained was she by the coarse and common jokes of a Hans Wurst who pulled his pants down and showed his backside to a hairy devil.

 

Two southern-looking footmen in dark liveries followed at a respectful distance behind Laurette and her companion. She did not see me. I walked on without any thought for the weariness of my feet. At last I halted before a large booth which had painted on its wall a picture representing an old wizard standing in front of a blazing fire. He wore a pointed hat, and a scarf with the figures of the zodiac painted on it was draped over his shoulders. His left hand was buried in his wavy white beard, and in his right he held a little magician’s rod with which he was conjuring. In the smoke stood a vaguely drawn veiled white figure, with closed eyes. Beneath the picture, which was painted with some skill but in screaming colours, I read an inscription:

 

THE FAMOUS NECROMANCER, MAGICIAN AND MASTER OF THE SEVEN FREE ARTS, ARCADIUS CHRYSOPOMPOS OF OEDENBURG, CALLED THE HUNGARIAN DR. FAUST.

 

A harlequin stood at the entrance to the booth. He wielded a crude lyre and a brass horn, and with mad gestures and loud cries was urging the public to step in and see the performance, which was about to begin. Two grenadiers in white uniforms, accompanied by brightly-dressed, buxom girls, were the first to respond to the invitation. They mounted the three steps and passed through a red curtain, which the crier raised. They were followed by the straggling citizens and their wives, and some young people of either sex.

 

Drawn by a vague impulse, I also went in and took my place among all these people, sitting on benches in front of the small, badly lighted stage. After a few coarse scenes, all ending with the harlequin having his ears boxed by the magician, the main performance began, and proved to be exactly what I had expected. The magician with the sham beard impressed the yokels with a series of clever conjuring and card tricks.

 

Then he cooked an omelette in a hat that had been rather unwillingly lent by a citizen. He produced out of it endless ribbons, little white rabbits, and an aquarium with little fishes in it. Then he pounded a gold watch in a mortar, only to produce it again uninjured from the bag of a girl in the audience, who giggled with confusion. And now came the moment for his more difficult feats.

 

He tore off the heads of a white and a black dove and healed them in the twinkling of an eye, but so that the black bird received a white head, and the white bird a black head. This trick upset my squeamish senses, and I felt inclined to get up and leave the booth. But I needed to pass along the crowded rows of onlookers, obliging everyone to rise from his seat; so I shut my eyes instead for a short time, and ere long I felt my sickness pass away.

 

The applause and wondering murmur of the audience forced me once more to open my eyes. The scene on the stage had changed to represent a well-executed painting of a moonlit churchyard. A thin, beardless man, wrapped in a black mantle, was walking up and down between the headstones and crosses, reciting a monologue. The churchyard, he said, was haunted by a ghost; he wished to get hold of the evildoer who was certain to lurk behind the apparition, and destroy his power.

 

Twelve strokes sounded on a gong behind the scenes, announcing midnight. As the last stroke died away, it was followed by a cunningly-contrived moaning of wind, and a figure completely wrapped up in white shrouds came floating among the crosses towards the beardless man. For a moment the man seemed to be frightened, but he quickly drew his sword and ran it through the ghost. We could plainly see the glistening blade go through the ghost’s body again and again, apparently without harming it. Then the man threw his sword away and took to his heels. The curtain fell while the ghost performed a triumphant dance.

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine

 

Summer had gone, the flowers had long since withered, and red and yellow leaves came fluttering down from the trees. Then the icy Boreas caught the first snowflakes and drove them against the windows of the chamber where Zephyrine was lying in her travail. During the night she had become feverish; so that the midwife shook her head, saying:

 

“I don’t like the case at all. You must send for a doctor at once! She is much too weak.”

 

In our neighbourhood there was one good physician, the grey-haired Dr. Anselm Hosp. I sent for him in all haste. While I awaited his coming I sat in the next room, stopping my ears so that I might not hear the cries and wild groans of my wife. Hope of a happy issue had dwindled, for the pains and suffering had by now lasted several days. Zephyrine’s poor body was terribly exhausted. There was no doubt that some cause was preventing a simple and natural birth, some cause which even the midwife could not understand.

 

Then I remembered that hateful smell of bitter almonds, lingering even after all these months. Zephyrine had assured me that she had upset and smashed the scent-bottle I had brought to her after the hunchback’s hideous appearance in the garden, which seemed to me the explanation why we could not get rid of the smell. Then why was I suddenly seized with such an anxiety about the hunchback’s gift?

 

The old doctor came at last, carrying a large black bag, that rattled with his instruments. This sharp rattle pierced through me, limb and marrow. Quietly we stole to the bed. I was stricken with terror when I saw my Zephyrine’s agonised face and her large bright eyes wandering and flickering. Dark red flushes blazed out on her ghastly cheeks.

 

“You…” she sighed, hardly audibly.

 

“Darling, tell me: did you taste that liquid he brought in the phial?”

 

A faint smile flickered across the suffering mouth.

 

“Only three drops once a day.”

 

“Ah!” I cried in dismay. “Why did you do it?”

 

I almost rebuked her.

 

“Why did you tell me you had not touched the poison when I asked you before?”

 

“You longed so for a son.”

 

Her words came like a breath of air. Then an expression of pain appeared in her wide-open eyes, her hands clutched the bedclothes, and the convulsions returned, and she screamed. The doctor made a rapid examination, and beckoned me into the next room.

 

“Baron,” he said, “to my regret I have to tell you that your wife must undergo a very drastic operation. Your wife cannot give birth in the normal fashion, and I must perform a Caesarian operation.”

 

I staggered back.

 

“A Caesarian,” I stuttered.

 

The doctor looked at the ground.

 

“It is a drastic operation because, although a strong and healthy woman could withstand it all right, the Baroness’s great weakness and fever make it a dangerous and uncertain business. The introduction into her system of some external poison has complicated the matter…. I cannot conceal this from you. Moreover, I must operate at once with only the nurse to help me, though a second surgeon is really indispensable. But I cannot risk waiting the length of time it would take for a carriage to go to town and come back again.”

 

I was stunned, as if by a physical blow. I could hardly realise it. Zephyrine in mortal danger! It was impossible. It was nonsense. What would become of me! what meaning was there in life? The Man from the East of whom I thought every day with gratitude had by his appearance in Griechengasse led me up to the greatest happiness of my life. Was it only that I might so cruelly forfeit it and sink into the darkest abyss of suffering? No, it could not be, it was impossible. If she died, I would die also.

 

A cry of terrible pain tore me from my thoughts. The doctor had returned to my wife’s room; I made to follow him, but he motioned me earnestly and decidedly to stay outside and await the result of his operation. I fell back into a chair. Helpless and numbed, I looked vacantly at the snowdrift through the window. A church bell sounded in the falling dusk of the autumn day and a dog began to howl. I recognised its bark. It was Amando, Zephyrine’s favourite.

 

The prolonged shrill howl almost drove me to madness. My fears were increased, for I well knew what power of presentiment is possessed by devoted animals.

 

Sobs and stifled cries came from the next room. I heard the doctor breathing hard as he made some exhausting effort. I heard him give orders in an undertone, heard the lamenting exclamations of the midwife, the clanking of vessels and metallic objects, the splashing of water and the moving of chairs. What terrible things were going on! Then came a woman’s cry. But it was not Zephyrine’s, it was the nurse crying.

 

What had caused it? I distinctly heard the doctor reproving her in an angry but muffled voice. I trembled all over. I gripped the back of my chair. Silence came, the silence of death. The doctor appeared. He looked round in confusion. By the light of the wax candles that I had lighted I saw that his face was dripping with sweat. His hands were red.

 

“You must summon up all your courage,” he said to me slowly, and a solemn expression came over his face. “Step in and make the sacrifice of concealing your own suffering, so that the dying may depart peacefully.”

 

I felt a burning grief, my breath almost ceased; I clenched my teeth and slowly went into the next room. Through a veil of tears which in spite of my resolve came down pouring from my eyes, I saw something lying on the table, covered with a sheet. Its very outline filled me with horror. Then I approached the bed and knelt down. With a great effort Zephyrine opened her eyes. Her face was white as snow, her lips bore traces of her own teeth. I took her hand; it was as light and as cool as a rose-leaf; I pressed it to my heart. She smiled, and her lips moved.

 

“It is a little son,” she whispered, “as I prayed heaven for and a vixen for me a little Aglaia. Later on I may see the children yes?”

 

The doctor was standing on the other side of the bed, and he motioned to me. I took the cue.

 

“Certainly, darling,” I answered, “as soon as you have slept.”

 

I thought then that my heart would burst. But a look of fear appeared in her eyes. She tried to raise herself, and fell back helpless.

 

“Or is it must I die?” she stammered.

 

“Zephyrine!” I cried, and covered her hand with kisses. “Do not speak in this way, it is wrong! Everything is going on well. You must only sleep, rest and gain strength, after what you have suffered.”

 

“I have suffered gladly for me and for you,” she smiled. “Oh, I should so like to remain with you always.”

 

Her hand drew me with unexpected force.

 

“I want your face to be near me!”

 

I approached as near as possible. Her weary eyes suddenly widened, fixing themselves on me with an expression of terrible hunger. I was transfixed by her stare…. I sat there for a long time…. Then somebody came behind me and touched my arm.

 

“You have held out bravely, Baron.”

 

It was the doctor.

 

“She has passed away easily and happily.”

 

Only now did I see in Zephyrine’s angel face the holy mirror of Eternity. I could neither weep nor think. Surely it was Aglaia who lay there! White and beautiful. White and beautiful as the image I bore in my heart. Was the church bell still ringing? Or was it my blood beating and booming in my ears? The doctor interrupted my brooding.

 

“Do you feel strong enough,” he asked, “to give a thought to the cause of all this?”

 

Nothing mattered now, she was dead. But the sight that confronted my eyes when I looked up was so dreadful that it tore from me a sobbing cry. I reeled back and scarcely felt any sensation when my head knocked against the doorpost. There lay my baby, a monster! A small normal body, but on its shoulders two necks and two heads…. one with dark hair, one with light.

 

“A true hermaphrodite, male and female together,” said the doctor.

 

I threw up my hands, and ran past the nurse into the other room, flinging myself on to the table, dry sobs choking my throat. The doctor followed me. He sat down beside me in silence, and waited. When I had regained my self-control I told him about the phial the wretch had left us, and of my criminal thoughtlessness in leaving it undestroyed. Dr. Hosp thought for a while.

 

“I remember,” he said, “hearing of an Italian doctor who had succeeded in producing monstrous deformities by certain poisons. But to me such trespassing in the secret workshop of Nature seems incredible….”

 

A terrible thought occurred to me. Without taking any more notice of the doctor, without listening to his anxious questions as to what I was about, I tore open my gun case and drew out a double-muzzled pistol. Then I seized my hat and mantle, and rushed out into the snowstorm. As I reached the gate of the garden, a carriage drove slowly past. I hailed the coachman, and ordered him to drive me as fast as his horses could go to the house called “zum Fassel.”

 

He looked at me stupidly. I took out a few gold coins and pressed them into his hand. He doffed his hat very low. The whip whistled, the horses sprang forward. By the time I had recovered my senses I was standing in the dark lobby of the house. Someone was wiping my face with a wet sponge, smelling of lavender and vinegar. A single question was in my mind.

 

“Has he gone?”

 

“Yes, sir, believe me ’tis true,” said a stout dame, “and thank God for it.

 

It is two months since the rascal left, stealing away in the night. His belongings have been seized by the magistrate.”

 

She added something about Postremo having performed an unlawful operation on a young girl who then died.

 

“Gone!” I laughed like a madman, and was helped into the waiting carriage and driven away.

 

The snow whirled, the wind whistled through the open windows. Houses slipped past, their windows blind and dark. Zephyrine was dead! dead… Never would she live again.

 

 

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Eight

 

Good fortune was with us, and events moved along smoothly. My money purchased the necessary papers and we were married in a small parish church not far from Vienna, so that it was not long before we found ourselves with nothing to fear from the law. Nor, it seemed, had we anything to fear from Postremo himself. I quit my lodgings, dismissed the servant I had employed, and we purchased a little house at Grinzing, a delightful place hidden in a garden of bushes and trees. With the help of clever workmen our new home was fitted up most pleasantly.

 

An unclouded summer of bliss went by, each day bringing us nearer together. At moments of intense emotion I would sometimes call Zephyrine “Aglaia.” This strange behaviour seemed neither to offend nor astonish her, although I had often talked about my dearly beloved lost cousin and of their mutual resemblance. Once she said to me:

 

“I am yours, whatever name you like to call me.”

 

She resembled Aglaia especially in her great love for flowers and animals. Our garden was full of roses, and fragrant with the warm sweet scent of the red rose, the acid scent of the white rose, and the delicate scent of the yellow rose. All the flower-beds glowed with colour, and the garden was a sea of balmy odours. Puppies and kittens frolicked round us, birds chirruped in the branches, and swift lizards scampered over the gravel paths. Soon after our house was finished Zephyrine felt herself with child. Heavy of body and pale she sat in our favorite retreat among the thick, flowering bushes.

 

“It will be a boy with dark hair like its father.” I jested.

 

“No, it is a little girl I have under my heart,” she smiled back. “And she shall be called Aglaia.”

 

I kissed her and looked lovingly into her grey, gold-glinting eyes. I saw that a trace of fear still lingered in them. I carefully propped up her pillows and thought how happy we would be again when the hour of difficulty was past.

 

Suddenly her face assumed an expression of nameless horror. Her eyes were staring at something over my shoulder. The dogs barked fiercely in their kennels. I turned swiftly. Behind me stood the hunchback doctor! A disagreeable smell of bitter almonds began to dominate the scent of flowers. I seized the monster by the chest and shook him.

 

“You scoundrel,” I growled. “Now I have you; you won’t get away alive.”

 

The hunchback was purple in the face. He panted out something I could not understand. But Zephyrine understood it. She uttered a piercing shriek, and when I swung back to her, she was lying motionless. At that moment I felt a burning pain in my right hand. It was suddenly paralysed. I loosened my hold, my arm dropping helplessly, numb and heavy. Horrified I saw the man coolly wipe a drop of blood from a small glistening lancet he had stabbed me with while I was off my guard.

 

“Oh, it’s all right,” he laughed, putting the weapon back into his pocket. “Una piccola paralisi, does not last longcinque minuti! You no attack me, I no stab you!”

 

He pulled a little box out of another pocket and held it to his foster-daughter’s nose. Zephyrine sneezed loudly, and at once recovered consciousness.

 

“My uncle!” she said, and a shudder ran through her.

 

“Si, si, lo zio,” he grinned, “il padre, if she likes, if Zephyrine does! You not expected me, Signore? O cattivo, cattivo. What have you done? Eh?”

 

“Wait for me here,” I said. “First I must free my wife of the sight of you, and carry her indoors. After that I shall be at your disposal.”

 

He laughed, and sprawled his ugly shape across one of the benches, a malignant smile on his face. My paralysed arm had already recovered, as he prophesied, from the effect of the poisonous wound, and I assisted Zephyrine indoors. But again she collapsed, and it took some time for me to get her to her room and help her into bed. Sobbing, she begged me not to expose myself to any new danger; for in spite of his deformity Postremo was one of the most violent and dangerous of men. I promised her all she asked in order to pacify her: then I took a loaded pistol and went back into the garden, resolved to stop at nothing.

 

When I returned to our favourite arbour among the rose-bushes, which had so abruptly ceased to be an undiscovered place of refuge, the ugly doctor still sat there, gnashing his yellow teeth and growling to himself. A lot of beautiful roses had been plucked to pieces and trampled cruelly. I was furious. I could not speak. I could only point to the devastation. The gnome contemptuously spat and kicked at the maltreated flowers.

 

“This for you and la putana rossa.You me understand?” he cried. “O Dio, Dio! I am ruined. You have robbed me of twenty thousand ducats.”

 

“Dog of a pimp!” I cried, and again I raised my hand threateningly. He promptly brought out the poisoned lancet and held it so that the blade glistened ominously in the sunlight.

 

“Next time the arm will no more get better,” he threatened. “Attenzione! you make no jokes with me! Be seated, my Lord Dronte.”

 

I sat down and listened in silent fury to his complaints. It was a low calumny, he declared, to say that he had wished to sell the girl for vile purposes to Count Korony. Had not I heard of the young bedfellows of King David? Did not I know that in England, as a result of discoveries by the famous Professor Graham, regular courses of rejuvenation had been started for the old? They slept with untouched virgins and gained fresh life from the aura of the young. Did I not know that every possible precaution was taken to preserve the honor of the girl? Who could dare to call an approved medical practice pimping?

 

And finally, who was to reimburse the twenty thousand ducats he, Dr. Postremo, had lost by my kidnapping of Zephyrine? Hey? With remarkable self-control I replied that he was wasting his time. I was ready, I said, to pay damages to the sum of five hundred ducats, and no more. In any case, the sum he demanded considerably exceeded my possibilities. He squinted his eyes, wrung his hands, and renewed his demands. He began to whimper when he recognised that his efforts would be in vain, and eventually declared himself to be satisfied with a thousand ducats. Reluctantly I went indoors and got the money, though I felt the loss of it very acutely. But no sacrifice was too great for Zephyrine’s peace. When I returned, bringing two hundred ducats, all I possessed at home, and a draft on my banker’s for the remainder, I noticed on the table a small phial containing a transparent oily liquid.

 

“Here is the money,” I said, handing over the rolls of gold and the bill.

 

He carefully examined everything before he put the money into his coat pocket.

 

“And now…!” I said curtly, pointing to the path leading down the garden.

 

“You wait! you wait!” he chattered, drawing my attention to the flask. “A little what do you call it? You give three drops to the mother every day and you will have un bello ragazzoa son and si volete a little girl anche!”

 

Again I pointed down the garden.

 

“Va bene,” he muttered. “Addio, Barone.”

 

Slowly he shuffled along the path, dragging his hump as a snail drags its shell. I followed him slowly until the garden gate was shut behind him and the furious barking of the dogs in the kennels ceased. But through the bushes I distinctly saw him shaking his fists at our house, with a hideous grimace, his lips muttering inaudible words. The scent-bottle was still on the table. My first instinct was to throw it into the bushes. But instead I took it into my hand and drew forth the stopper. Again that smell of bitter almonds assailed me. It seemed to cling to everything.

 

I did not smash the phial against a stone, nor did I pour its contents on to the ground. I know not what urged me to take it with me and show it to Zephyrine.

 

“Three drops a day and a son is vouchsafed us, the rascal said; and, if we like, a girl also!”

 

I tried to laugh….

 

“Are you really so anxious to have a son, darling?” breathed Zephyrine, a faint blush suffusing her poor pale face.

 

“Oh, yes,” I answered without thinking, as I clasped her tenderly in my arms.

 

What did the money matter, I felt at that moment! All I possessed I would have given away for her, the only one. Gladly would I have earned my bread in the sweat of my brow for her dear sake.

 

Chapter Twenty Seven-B

Thinking it some rare and peculiar marble I touched the slightly greasy, ovular slab and learnt, to my disgust, that it was the polished section of a petrified corpse, one of the kind that, as I had heard, were skilfully prepared in Bologna. On the window-sill stood a glass case containing a completely distorted, deformed chameleon. At first I thought the creature was dead, but then it slowly fixed its protuberant eye on me and changed its colour into a dusty red….

 

A curtain rustled behind me. A white figure stood motionless, with eyes half closed. Zephyrine! At once I caught her in my arms. I murmured gentle words as I drank in the intoxicating scent of her hair. I covered her white face with kisses.

 

“I have found you at last,” I whispered. “I shall never leave you again.”

 

I was overwrought with happiness.

 

“I knew you would come,” she said.

 

With her little hands she clung to my shoulders, and I heard from her lips the appeal she had written down on the slip of paper which I had received in the gambling-house.

 

“Save me! Save me! Take me with you!…”

 

The sound of her pleading voice filled me with ecstasy. I was stirred deeply, moreover. I was ready to do anything she might wish.

 

“Are you in danger, Zephyrine?” I asked.

 

She nodded quickly several times and again pressed close to me. For one brief moment I thought of the severe penalties imposed by the Empress’s law court on those whom they regarded as seducers. I had heard of the fate of a nobleman who had induced the wife of a certain courtier and special favourite to elope with him: he was arrested and carried away to the dungeon of Spielberg, where he was forced to stand half submerged in a stream of sewage, a pepper-filled iron pear in his mouth, gnawed by rats until he died horribly.

 

But the ecstasy of my happiness stilled all my qualms, and drove away all reflection, and at once I prepared to take her away. The girl gave a plausible explanation to the grey-haired old woman; and, corroborating my own words by a fresh shower of gold, I assured her that we were only going out for a short walk. The woman, who did not seem to be greatly attached to her master, opened the door for us: we went quietly and quickly down the stairs, trembling in apprehension of an unpleasant encounter.

 

We passed along the streets without an instant’s pause. Zephyrine was protected from curious eyes by her mantle and thick veil, and we entered my rooms in Himmelspfortegasse unnoticed even by my fellow-lodgers. Zephyrine told me everything. She was an orphan, and when she was only four years of age Postremo took her to live with him, pretending charity. At first he treated her well, and even gave her a careful education.

 

But events revealed that this good beginning was not prompted by kindness. For when Zephyrine had completed her sixteenth year (a few months before I met her), Doctor Postremo informed her that it was now time for her to show her gratitude to him, and incidentally by doing so she would lay the foundations of her own fortune.

 

It seemed that Count Johann Nepomuk Korony, the mummy-like old man I had seen at the card-table, was ready to pay the Doctor’s debts, which were not inconsiderable, if Zephyrine would agree to become his bedfellow. In the enjoyment of this new existence the hoary, worn-out monster would be able to regain some of his lost youth and interest in life. Also the scoundrel hoped that the untouched maiden could relieve him of a certain gallant disease without catching it herself.

 

Postremo made his explanation to her with cynical outspokenness. Her tears and entreaties caused him only to make a last attempt to retrieve his fortune at the card-table. And it was on the evening which brought such fortune to me that his final hope of doing so was dashed. Since then, more than ever before, he had kept the girl under lock and key, for he was convinced that she would attempt anything to save herself.

 

I realised that I had turned up at the eleventh hour. For the man in whose company I had seen Dr. Postremo at the Greek coffee-house was no other than Count Korony’s chamberlain, and there was no doubt that the wretched Postremo was making the final arrangements for carrying out the nefarious scheme. The poor girl was in a state of continuous terror, for she knew well that the doctor was a past-master in the preparation of stupefying drugs, that were capable of taking away all free will. She had taken only the scantiest food for many days lest she fell a victim to her jailer’s hellish contrivances. And yet all the time she felt the dreadful moment approaching nearer and nearer, the moment in which she would be surrendered into the power of the lewd, spider-like old man.

 

The narrative, as I listened to it, was often interrupted by her tears and her words stumbled pitifully as she lived over again the martyrdom of those last trembling days, with all hope of help from me slowly vanishing. I sent my servant out for a meal, as a pretext to get him away. She was mine, and only death could separate us. Every moment of our happiness was too valuable to be missed. It was clear to both of us that we were destined for each other through all eternity, and it cost her neither tears nor hesitation to become wholly mine.

 

We felt no awkwardness, no shyness before each other. A holy, irresistible desire drove us to become one body and soul, and it occurred to neither of us to strengthen the eternity of our love with oaths. Everything, we felt, had to be as it was and had been fore-ordained by eternal laws. When I held her for the first time in my arms, and watched over the sleep of my dearest of all, I was suddenly seized with an inexplicable feeling and plunged into ecstasy.

 

At first I was overcome by a great dread, as if we were menaced by tongues of fire. Then I heard a clock in the endless distance, striking: ding-ding-dong. The smell of apples and strange wood surrounded me, memories overwhelmed me, and before I was aware of what I was saying, my lips called Aglaia! Aglaia!

 

 

Chapter Twenty Seven-A

Chapter Twenty Seven

 

Ardently I pursued my search for Zephyrine. The house called “zum Fassel” was easy to find, but it would have been foolish of me to have attempted to enter Dr. Postremo’s lodging on any trivial pretext. After all, I would not be able to speak to Zephyrine in his presence, and, even if we succeeded in exchanging a few words, every one of them would be overheard. I reflected also that after the night at the gaming-hall the doctor might possibly have formed a bad opinion of me. My best plan, I decided, was to wait and watch for a moment when the doctor was away and his niece at home. Otherwise I had best leave all to luck, and hope to meet Zephyrine some time when she would be going out of doors.

 

Therefore I spent all of my time outside the house, never losing sight of its door. But fortune was not with me. The opportunity I sought for did not come. Then something happened that deeply impressed me. It gave rise in my mind, moreover, to a series of puzzling and tormenting questions, and at the same time it filled me, strange though the fact may seem, with confidence. I was walking down the neighbouring Greek Street to partake of a hurried meal at an inn. Scattered groups of Greek and Turkish traders were discussing their business in the street, according to their Oriental custom, and I was obliged to slow down in order to make my way through the throng, so engrossed seemed everybody in their conversation.

 

I was threading tortuously along, when suddenly at the further end of the street I beheld something that threw me into the greatest perturbation. A man in a black turban, his radiant eyes fixed in my direction, seemed to be advancing towards me. I distinctly saw his clear-cut features, the amber necklace, his red-brown gown. At once when I recovered my control I vowed that this time I would approach him. I began making my way vigorously through the astonished and annoyed crowd of traders, and was obliged momentarily to turn my eyes away from the man I was pursuing. When I again looked his way he had, alas, disappeared, just as he had done on every occasion that brought me within reach of him. I hurried on as fast as I could towards the turn of the street, but it was in vain. Neither to right nor left could my eyes discover him. I saw none but strange people, indifferently coming or going their way. My sense of bafflement was complete.

 

Instinctively I felt that the apparition of this extraordinary man signified that an important and decisive event was close upon me. I decided to make inquiries from one of the Levantine merchants I had so rudely pushed aside. I felt that it was just possible that an Oriental living in Vienna and going about in Oriental dress must be known to some of them. Therefore I retraced my steps, and addressed an old Turk with a white beard and a good-natured face, who wore a sable-trimmed mantle even on that hot day, and, judging by the behaviour of the people about him, was much respected. Apologising as politely as I could for my importunity, I proceeded to make my inquiries.

 

The Turk touched his mouth and forehead with his right hand, and replied in tolerable German with equal politeness. He did not know the man, he said, nor had he ever seen him. But his eyes had turned to a tiny red scar which had been made on me by the broken glass case. He dwelt on it with an intent and unfathomable expression.

 

Then in a voice full of respect he said:

 

“You, sir, who bear the mark of Evli, do you put questions to me?”

 

I did not understand his meaning. Again I described the stranger’s turban and mantle.

 

“It is the dress of the Halweti Dervishes,” answered the Turk, bowing low. “Grant me your goodwill, Effendim.”

 

He stepped back and away. Immediately the other Turks besieged him with questions, and his answers were given in an undertone. He seemed to be spreading an extraordinary idea concerning me, for when I had to pass the group again they all bowed before me and drew up on either side of my path. I could only hurry past in confusion.

 

I took my simple meal in a chophouse, very disturbed within me, and puzzling my brain all the while about the apparition that I had never succeeded in approaching. After I finished eating I went again to take up my post before the sign of “zum Fassel.” On my way there I passed a Greek coffee-house and casually glanced into its shadows. To my joy and amazement, the first thing I saw there was the hunchback figure of Dr. Postremo. He was sitting at a backgammon board on which the pieces were scattered in disorder.

 

He was gesticulating excitedly to a black-haired man with a long crooked nose, who sat smiling sarcastically. After a while the hunchback’s angry feelings were quieted, the pieces were again disposed in order, and the game recommenced. I realised then that the house of “zum Fassel” had another door which had escaped my notice, and which was used by the Italian. It was now or never. I entered and asked the first person I met the whereabouts of the doctor’s lodging. I received the surly reply that it was on the second floor. Without difficulty I found the door bearing his name. It had also a bell-handle in the form of a hand giving the fig. Just as I was reaching out to ring the bell a little grey woman came up from the street and opened the door with a latch-key. When she was inside, I pushed past her.

 

“Do not be frightened, good dame,” I said in a low voice, stepping close to her; “I must speak at once to Mademoiselle Zephyrine.”

 

At the same moment I pressed a few imperial ducats into her hand. The effect was excellent. The ugly old woman grinned and led me at once through the dark entrance into a badly-lighted room. There was an odour of bitter almonds everywhere.

 

“Wait here a minute,” she muttered and left me.

 

My gaze wandered round the room. It was an uncanny place. Two skeletons, bending forward in a horrible way, stood in a dark corner; one could recognise that the spines and shoulder-blades had in their lifetime formed humps, like that which Dr. Postremo carried on his own back. Perhaps he had wished to study through them his deformed anatomy. On a table in another part of the room, only half concealed by a green hanging, large glass vessels contained human organs, swimming in a transparent liquid. A dried brain, like the kernel of a gigantic nut, lay on another table whose polished slab was made with a kind of stone I had never seen. It bore a network of grey, greenish, blue and pink curves, white angular spots, and sharply delineated spaces of dark red between them.

Chapter Twenty Six-B

Her look expressed horror. Then aloud:

 

“Baron, do not tease Apollonius, or else he tells me the nastiest things that take away all my sleep.”

 

“No, no,” I exclaimed, recovering my courage. “It was I who won, you devilish brute!”

 

The grey creature laughed, inclining his head, and looking at me malevolently.

 

“Donum grati defuncti.”

 

“Why does nobody wring this mischievous vermin’s neck?” I exclaimed in a rage. “Give him some peach kernels and make him hold his peace.”

 

Laurette shook her head.

 

“He eats no poison.”

 

“Murderer! Murderer!” grated Apollonius, and he beat his wings.

 

“I suppose it is you who have committed murder, you foul creature!” I shouted, and I shook my fist at him. “You must be a soul damned by God and atoning for your sins in your present form.”

 

At that a heavy, almost human, groan came from the perch, the groan of a tormented soul. The parrot gave me a terrible and hopeless look, and hung his head. He slowly drew his ugly lids over his eyes, and then I beheld, with a secret shudder, two tears fall from them! But the next moment he was staring at me with such horrid malice that any compassion I felt was instantly evaporated. Then I caught sight of the disturbed countenance of the beautiful Laurette, and I thought how disobliging and upsetting my behaviour must appear to her. To atone for my mistake, I decided to turn the affair into a joke. So I bowed to the bird with comic politeness, and said briskly:

 

“Do not be angry, worthy Apollonius, I did not mean to offend your wisdom. I am converted. I doubt no more your marvellous gift for seeing the past and the future. Cannot we be friends, O king of all parrots?”

 

The bird shook with laughter, noisily clapped his beak and whistled. Then, with dreadful distinctness, he shook his head in the negative, for all the world like a human being.

 

“So we cannot be friends?” I went on, winking at the same time to Laurette. “I am sorry, for I wanted your assistance. I would have liked to ask you a question about a certain hunchback I am trying to find.”

 

My question was, of course, intended for Laurette, and I was about to explain it to her, when a rattle came from the perch.

 

“Dottore Postremo.”

 

“What business have you with him?” Laurette interrupted quickly.

 

Her tone betrayed astonishment.

 

“Why, do you know him?” I asked; I was unable to conceal my eagerness.

 

She blushed deeply.

 

“Merely by chance,” she replied, with embarrassment.

 

“What is the matter with him?”

 

“He is an Italian doctor. Many women go to him to be rid of the unpleasant consequences of pleasant hours…. He is a man of very bad reputation, and the courts have often been on his track. But it has never been possible to prove anything against him. You must not think, though, that he is my doctor.”

 

I smiled politely.

 

“How could I, my beautiful Laurette!”

 

“He is also said to have a very pretty adopted daughter or niece who is with him,” she continued. And as if struck by a new thought, she looked at me searchingly. “Quite a young girl. He lives at a house called ‘zum Fassel.'”

 

She lowered her eyes and looked at me from under her eyelids.

 

“Be careful,” she added, “he is capable of anything.”

 

“You are mistaken, Laurette,” I said, uncaring whether or not it was the truth, “I am not looking for an adventure.”

 

The damned bird startled me by breaking in with a wild mocking laugh. Laurette sighed reproachfully.

 

“Apollonius sees through you,” she said. “You always had an inclination towards youth and innocence, Baron von Dronte.”

 

“Your remark arouses a memory in me,” I smilingly answered, “that has been so unforgettable and so precious that it has lit up the whole of my life, like a star.”

 

“Oh you are as gallant as ever!” she cried.

 

She offered me her hand to kiss, and rose up, eager and, it seemed to me, joyful. I too rose up, but it was to take my departure. I was bewildered by contradictory and disturbing feelings.

 

“Tell me,” I said, turning and again addressing the bird. “As I have not succeeded in winning your friendship, how shall I fare in the future!”

 

“Your head off! Your head off!” screamed the parrot, and leered at me with the delight of a devil.

 

I turned my back on the uncanny creature and went out of the room. Laurette accompanied me. I found myself in the yellow room. Hardly had the curtain fallen behind us than I saw her turn pale. I had just time to prevent her from falling by taking her in my arms. I laid her down on a small sofa and looked round. On one of the tables was a golden flagon, and I moistened her forehead with the highly scented essence. She opened her eyes slowly.

 

“The horrid creature frightened me,” she murmured.

 

Then clasped her arms round my neck. But I gently disengaged myself.

 

“I am a prisoner,” she suddenly whispered in a tone of desperation. “That satanic brute guards me better than any human being could do. Do you hear how angry he is there, screaming and beating his wings? This is his sign for the maid to come and take charge of me. But she is not at home, I have sent her away on an errand. We are alone….”

 

Again her soft, round arms were clasped round my neck, and before I could realise my position her hot, red lips were on mine.

 

“Lorle, poor Lorle,” I whispered…. But all the time my thoughts were for Zephyrine, in the house of the hunchback doctor.

 

Gently I unfastened Laurette’s arms and looked at her.

 

“Forget me, Lorle,” I said. “Do not stake all your happiness for this one moment.”

 

At once a flame flashed in her eyes.

 

“Thank you for your kind consideration,” she answered harshly. “Now I know there is someone else, and that I am nothing to you.”

 

“Lorle!” I stammered.

 

“Go! Go!” she said, and the tears stood in her eyes. “It is no use trying to deceive me!”

 

I went out of the room, shutting the door between me and a sobbing woman.