Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (17 page)

In this account Dr. Petersen stressed the
strong constitution and the excellent build of the mother, which
should have allowed a very easy delivery. Only the exceptionally
rare presentation of the baby caused the complications to take
place that in the end made it impossible to save both mother and
child.

It was further mentioned that the child, a
girl, while being pulled out of the mother’s body began an
extraordinary shrieking that was so shrill and penetrating that
neither gentlemen nor the midwife had ever experienced anything
like it before in other births. The screams sounded almost as if
the child were experiencing unbelievable pain at being so violently
separated from the mother’s womb.

The screams became so penetrating and
dreadful that they could scarcely bear the horror of it. His
colleague, Dr. Perscheidt, broke into a cold sweat and had to sit
down. After the birth the infant immediately became quiet and
didn’t even whimper.

The midwife while bathing the delicate and
thin child immediately noticed an unusually developed atresia
Vaginalis where the legs halfway down to the knees had grown
together. After further investigation it was found to be only the
external skin that was binding the legs together and could be
corrected later through a quick operation.

As for the mother, she had certainly endured
heavy pain and suffering without any chloroform, local
anesthesia–or even as much as a Scopolamine-morphine injection. She
was hemorrhaging so badly they could not risk further stress to her
heart. She screamed the entire time for all those long hours and
only during the moment of birth itself did the dreadful shrieks of
the infant drown out the screams of the mother.

Her moans became weaker, some two and a
half-hours later she lost consciousness and died. The direct cause
of death was a torn uterus and the resulting hemorrhage.

The body of the prostitute, Alma Raune, was
assigned for dissection since her relatives in Halberstadt raised
no claims and refused to pay the cost of burial when they were
notified. The Anatomy professor Holzberger used it in his lectures
and assigned parts of it to each of his students to study. These
certainly contributed vastly to their education except for the
head, which had been given to senior medical student Fassman of the
Hansea fraternity. He was supposed to prepare it as a finished
skull but forgot it over vacation. He decided that he already had
enough skulls and no longer needed to clean it. Instead he
fashioned a beautiful dice cup out of the top of the skull. He
already had five dice that had been made from the vertebrae of the
executed murderer Noerrissen and now they needed a suitable dice
cup.

Senior medical student Fassman was not
superstitious, but he maintained that his dice cup served him
extremely well when playing for his morning half-pint. He sang such
high praise for his skull dice cup and bone dice that they
gradually acquired a certain reputation. First with his own
friends, then within his fraternity and finally over the entire
student body.

Senior medical student Fassman loved his dice
cup and almost saw it as blackmail when his Excellency Privy
Councilor ten Brinken asked him to give up his famous dice cup and
dice at the time of his exam. It so happened that he was very weak
in gynecology and the professor had a reputation for giving very
strict and difficult exams. The result was that he passed his exam
with flying colors. For as long as he owned it, the dice cup
brought him good luck.

There is one other curious thing that remains
in the story of these two people that without ever seeing each
other became Alraune’s father and mother, how they were brought
together in a strange manner even after their death. The Anatomy
Building janitor, Knoblauch, threw out the remaining bones and
tatters of flesh into a common shallow grave in the gardens of the
Anatomy Building. It was behind the wall where the white roses
climb and grow so abundantly–

All sins, my dear girl, are brought here by
the hot south wind from out of the desert. Where the sun burns
through endless centuries there hovers over the sleeping sands a
thin white haze that forms itself into soft white clouds that float
around until the desert whirlwinds roll them and form them into
strange round eggs that contain the sun’s blazing heat.

There the basilisk slinks around through the
pale night. In a strange manner the moon, the eternally infertile
moon, fathered it. Yet its mother, the desert sand, is just as
infertile as the other is. It is the secret of the desert. Many say
it is an animal but that is not true. It is a thought that has
grown where there is no soil or no seed. It sprang out of the
eternally infertile and took on a chaotic form that life can not
recognize. That is why no one can describe this creature. It is
fashioned out of nothingness itself.

But what the people say is true. It is very
poisonous. When it eats the blazing eggs of the sun that the
whirlwinds create in the desert sands purple flames shoot out of
its eyes and its breath becomes hot and heavy with horrible
fumes.

But the basilisk, pale child of the moon,
does not eat all of the vapory eggs. When it is sated and
completely filled with hot poison it spits green saliva over the
eggs still lying there in the sand and scratches them with sharp
claws so the vile slime can penetrate through their soft skin.

As the early morning winds arise a strange
heaving like moist violet and green colored lungfish can be seen
growing under the thin shells.

Throughout the land at noon eggs burst as the
blazing sun hatches crocodile eggs, toad eggs, snake eggs and eggs
of all the repulsive lizards and amphibians. These poisonous eggs
of the desert also burst with a soft pop. There is no seed inside,
no lizard or snake, only a strange vapory shape that contains all
colors like the veil of the dancer in the flame dance. It contains
all odors like the pale sanga flowers of Lahore, contains all
sounds like the musical heart of the angel Israfael and it contains
all poisons as well like the basilisk’s own loathsome body.

Then the south wind of mid-day blows in,
creeping out of the swamps of the hot jungles and dances over the
desert sands. It takes up the fiery creatures of the sun’s eggs and
carries them far across the blue ocean. They move with the south
wind like soft vapory clouds, like the loose filmy night garments
of a priestess.

That is how all delightful, poisonous plagues
fly to our fair north–

Our quiet days are cool, sister, like the
northland. Your eyes are blue and know nothing of hot desire. The
hours of your days are like the heavy blue clusters of wisteria
dropping down to form a soft carpet. My feet stride lightly through
them in the glinting sunlight of your arbor.

But when the shadows fall, fair sister, there
creeps a burning over your youthful skin as the haze flies in from
the south. Your soul breathes it in eagerly and your lips offer all
the red-hot poisons of the desert in your bloody kisses–

Then it may not be to you that I turn, fair
sister, sleeping child of my dreamy days–When the mist lightly
ripples the blue waves, when the sweet voices of the birds sing out
from the tops of my oleander, then I may turn to the pages in the
heavy leather bound volume of Herr Jakob ten Brinken.

Like the sea, my blood flows slowly through
my veins as I read the story of Alraune through your quiet eyes in
unending tranquility. I present her like I find her, plain, simple,
like one that is free of all passions–

But then I drink the blood that flows out of
your wounds in the night and it mixes with my own red blood, your
blood that has been poisoned by the sinful poisons of the hot
desert. That is when my brain fevers from your kisses so that I
ache and am tormented by your desires–

Then it might well be that I tear myself
loose from your arms, wild sister– it might be that I sit there
heavily dreaming at my window that looks out over the ocean while
the hot southerly wind throws its fire. It might be that I again
take up the leather bound volume of the Privy Councilor, that I
might once more read Alraune’s story–through your poison hot eyes.
Then the ocean screams through the immovable rocks– just like the
blood screams through my veins.

What I read then is different, entirely
different, has different meaning and I present her again like I
find her, wild, hot–like someone that is full of all passions!

Deals with how the child Alraune grew up.

T
HE
acquisition of the dice cup is mentioned by
the Privy Councilor in the leather bound book. From that point on
it was no longer written in the distinct and clear hand of Dr.
Petersen but in his own thin, hesitating and barely legible
script.

But there are several other short entries in
the book that are of interest to this story. The first refers to
the operation taken to correct the child’s Atresia Vaginalis
performed by Dr. Petersen and the cause of his untimely demise.

The Privy Councilor mentions that in
consideration of the savings he had made through the death of the
mother and the good help of his assistant doctor through the entire
affair he granted a three month summer trip vacation with all
expenses paid and promised a special bonus of a thousand Marks as
well. Dr. Petersen was extremely overjoyed about this trip. It was
the first big vacation he had ever taken in his life. But he
insisted upon performing the simple operation beforehand even
though it could have easily been put off for a much longer time
without any special concern.

He performed the operation a couple days
before his scheduled departure with excellent results for the
child. Unfortunately he, himself, developed a severe case of blood
poisoning–What was so astonishing was that despite his almost
exaggerated daily care for cleanliness–it was scarcely forty-eight
hours later that he died after very intense suffering.

The direct cause of the blood poisoning could
not be determined with certainty. There was a small wound on his
left upper arm that was barely perceptible with the naked eye. A
light scratch from his little patient might have inflicted it.

The professor remarked how already twice in
this matter he had been spared a great sum of money but did not
elaborate any further.

It was then reported how the baby was kept
for the time being in the clinic under the care of the head nurse.
She was an unusually quiet and sensitive child that cried only once
and that was at the time of her holy baptism performed in the
cathedral by Chaplain Ignaz Schröder.

Indeed, she howled so fearfully that the
entire little congregation–the nurse that carried her, Princess
Wolkonski and Legal Councilor Sebastian Gontram as the godparents,
the Priest, the sexton and the Privy Councilor himself–couldn’t
even begin to do anything with her. She began crying from the
moment she left the clinic and did not stop until she was brought
back home again from the church.

In the cathedral her screams became so
unbearable that his Reverend took every opportunity to rush through
the sacred ceremony so he and those present could escape from the
ghastly music. Everyone gave a sigh of relief when it was all over
and the nurse had climbed into the carriage with the child.

It appears that nothing significant happened
during the first year in the life of this little girl whom the
professor named “Alraune” out of an understandable whim. At least
nothing noteworthy was written in the leather bound volume.

It was mentioned that the professor remained
true to his word and even before the child was born had taken
measures to adopt the girl and composed a certified will making her
his sole heir to the complete exclusion of all his other
relatives.