Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (4 page)

“Now write,” says the Legal Councilor.

“Honorable Princess–”

“Is this for Mama?” the princess asks.

“Naturally, who else would it be for?
Write!”

“Honorable Princess–”

The princess doesn’t write. “If it’s for
Mama, I can only write, ‘Dear Mama’.”

The Legal Councilor is impatient.

“Write what you want child, just write!”

She writes, “Dear Mama!”

Then the Legal Councilor dictates:

“Unfortunately I must inform you that there
is a problem. There are so many things that I must consider and you
can’t consider things when you have nothing to drink. We don’t have
a drop of champagne in the house. In the interests of your case
please send us a basket of spiced champagne, a basket of Pommery
and six bottles of–”

“St. Marceaux!” cries the little
attorney.

“St. Marceaux,” continues the Legal
Councilor. That is namely the favorite of my colleague, Manasse,
who so often helps.

With best Greetings,

Your–”

“Now see, Colleague!” he says. “You need to
correct me! I didn’t dictate this letter alone but I will sign it
single handedly, and he puts his name on it.

Frieda turns away from the window, “Are you
finished? Yes? Well, I can only say that you didn’t need to write
the letter. Olga’s Mama is coming and she’s in the garden now!”

She had seen the princess a long time ago but
had kept quiet and not interrupted. If Olga wanted to get ten
beautiful sins she should at least work for them!

All the Gontrams were like that, father,
mother and children. They are very, very unwilling to work but are
very willing to let others do it.

The princess enters, obese and sweaty, large
diamonds on her fingers, in her ears, around her neck and in her
hair in a vulgar display of extravagance.

She is a Hungarian Countess or Baroness. She
met the prince somewhere in the Orient. A marriage was arranged,
that was certain, but also certain, was that right from the
beginning it was a fraud on both sides.

She wanted the marriage to make her
impossible pregnancy legal. The prince wanted the same marriage to
prevent an international scandal and hide his small mistake. It was
a net of lies and impudent fraud, a legal feast for Herr Sebastian
Gontram, everything was in motion, and nothing was solid. Every
smallest assertion would prompt legal opposition from the other
side. Every shadow would be extinguished through a court
ruling.

Only one thing stayed the same, the little
princess. Both the prince and the princess proclaimed themselves as
father and mother and claimed her as their own. This product of
their strange marriage is heir to many millions of dollars. The
mother has the advantage, has custody.

“Have a seat, princess!”

The Legal Councilor would sooner bite his
tongue than call this woman, ‘Highness’. She is his client and he
doesn’t treat her a hair better than a peasant woman.

“Take your coat off!” but he doesn’t help her
with it.

“We have just written you a letter,” he
continues and reads the beautiful letter to her.

“But of course,” cries the princess. “I will
take care of it first thing tomorrow morning!”

She opens her purse and pulls out a heavy
envelope.

“Look at this, Honorable Legal Councilor. I
came straight here with it. It is a letter from Lord, Count Ormes
of Greater-Becskerekgyartelep, you know him.”

Herr Gontram furrows his brow. This isn’t
good. The King himself would not be permitted to demand him to
conduct any business while at home. He stands up and takes the
letter.

“That’s very good,” he says. “Very good. We
will clear this up in the morning at the office.”

She defends herself, “But it’s very urgent!
It’s very important!”

The Legal Councilor interrupts her, “Urgent?
Important? Let me tell you what is urgent and important, absolutely
nothing. Only in the office can a person judge what is urgent and
important.”

He reproaches her, “Princess, you are an
educated woman! You know all about proper manners and enjoy them
all the time. You must know that you don’t bring business home at
night.”

She persists, “But I can never catch you at
the office Honorable Legal Councilor. During this week alone I
was–”

Now he is almost angry. “Then come next week!
Do you think that all I do is work on your stuff alone? Do you
really believe that is all I do? Do you know what my time alone
costs for the murderer Houten? And it’s on my head to handle your
millions as well.”

Then he begins to tell a funny story,
incessantly relating an unending imaginary story of a strange crime
lord and the heroic attorney that brings him to justice for all the
horrible sex murders that he has committed.

The princess sighs, but she listens to him.
She laughs once in awhile, always in the wrong places. She is the
only one of all his listeners that never knows when he lies and
also the only one that doesn’t understand his jokes.

“Nice story for the children!” barks Attorney
Manasse.

Both girls are listening eagerly, staring at
the Legal Councilor with wide-open eyes and mouths. But he doesn’t
allow himself to be interrupted. It is never too early to get
accustomed to such things. He talks as if sex murderers were
common, that they happen all the time in life and you can encounter
dozens of them every day.

He finally finishes, looks at the hour. “Ten
already! You children must go to bed! Drink your spiced wine
quickly.”

The girls drink, but the princess declares
that she will under no circumstances go back to her house. She is
too afraid and can’t sleep by herself, perhaps there is a disguised
sex murderer in the house. She wants to stay with her friend. She
doesn’t ask her Mama. She asks only Frieda and her mother.

“You can as far as I’m concerned,” says Frau
Gontram. “But don’t you oversleep! You need to be in church on
time.”

The girls curtsey and go out, arm in arm,
inseparable.

“Are you afraid too?” asks the princess.

Frieda says, “What Papa was saying is all
lies.”

But she is still afraid anyway and at the
same time strangely longing for these things. Not to experience
them, oh no, not to know that. But she is thinking how she wants to
be able to tell stories like that! Yes, that is another sin for
confession! She sighs.

Above, they finish the spiced wine. Frau
Gontram smokes one last cigar. Herr Manasse stands up to leave the
room and the Legal Councilor is telling the princess a new story.
She hides her yawn behind her fan, attempts again to get a word
in.

“Oh, yes, dear Legal Councilor,” she says
quickly. “I almost forgot! May I pick your wife up at noon tomorrow
in the carriage? I’d like to take her with me into Rolandseck for a
bit.”

“Certainly,” he answers. “Certainly, if she
wants to.”

But Frau Gontram says, “I can’t go out.”

“And why not?” the princess asks. “It would
do you some good to get out and breathe some fresh spring air.”

“Frau Gontram slowly takes the cigar out from
between her teeth. “I can’t go out. I don’t have a decent hat to
wear–”

The Princess laughs as if it is a good joke.
She will also send the Milliner over in the morning with the newest
spring fashions.

“Then I’ll go,” says Frau Gontram. “But send
Becker from Quirinusjass, they have the best.”

“And now I must go to sleep–good night!”

“Oh, yes, it is time I must get going too!”
the princess cries hastily.

Legal Councilor escorts her out, through the
garden and into the street. He helps her up into her carriage and
then deliberately shuts the garden gate.

As he comes back, his wife is standing in the
house door, a burning candle in her hand.

“I can’t go to bed yet,” she says
quietly.

“What,” he asks. “Why not?”

She replies, “I can’t go to bed yet because
Manasse is lying in it!”

They climb up the stairs to the second floor
and go into the bedroom. In the giant marriage bed lies the little
attorney pretty as can be and fast asleep. His clothing is hung
carefully over the chair, his boots standing nearby. He has taken a
clean nightgown out of the wardrobe and put it on. Near him lies
his Cyclops like a crumpled young hedgehog.

Legal Councilor Gontram takes the candle from
the nightstand and lights it.

“And the man insults me, says that I’m lazy!”
he says shaking his head in wonderment.

“–And he is too lazy to go home!”

“Shh!” Frau Gontram says. “You’ll wake
everyone up.”

She takes bedding and linen out of the
wardrobe and goes very quietly downstairs and makes up two beds on
the sofas. They sleep there.

Everyone is sleeping in the white house.
Downstairs by the kitchen the strong cook, Billa, sleeps, the three
hounds next to her. In the next room the four wild rascals sleep,
Philipp, Paulche, Emilche and Josefche. Upstairs in Frieda’s large
balcony room the two friends are sleeping. Wülfche sleeps nearby
with his black tobacco stub. In the living room sleep Herr
Sebastian Gontram and his wife. Up the hall Herr Manasse and
Cyclops contentedly snore and way up in the attic sleeps Sophia,
the housemaid. She has come back from the dance hall and lightly
sneaked up the stairs.

Everyone is sleeping, twelve people and four
sharp hounds. But something is not sleeping. It shuffles slowly
around the white house–

Outside by the garden flows the Rhine, rising
and breasting its embankments. It appears in the sleeping village,
presses itself against the old toll office.

Cats and Tomcats are pushing through the
bushes, hissing, biting, striking each other, their round hot
glittering eyes possessed with aching, agonizing and denied
lust–

In the distance at the edge of the city you
hear the drunken songs of the wild students–

Something creeps all around the white house
on the Rhine, sneaks through the garden, past a broken embankment
and overturned benches. It looks in pleasure at the Sunday antics
of the love hungry cats and climbs up to the house. It scratches
with hard nails on the wall making a loose piece of plaster fall,
pokes softly at the door so that it rattles lightly like the
wind.

Then it’s in the house shuffling up the
stairs, creeping cautiously through all the rooms and stops, looks
around, smiles.

Heavy silver stands on the mahogany buffet,
rich treasures from the time of the Kaiser. But the windowpanes are
warped and patched with paper. Dutchmen hang on the wall. They are
all good paintings from Koekoek, Verboekhuoeven, Verwee and Jan
Stobbaerts, but they have holes and the old golden frames are black
with spider webs.

Something sneaks through the still house

These magnificent beauties came from the
ArchBishop’s old hall. But the broken crystal is sticky with
flyspecks.

Something sneaks through the still house and
each time it comes it breaks something, almost nothing, an infinite
smallness, a crack. But again and again, each time it comes, the
crack grows in the night. There is a small noise, a light creaking
in the hall, a nail loosens and the old furniture gives way. There
is a rattle at the swollen shutters and a strange clanking between
the windowpanes.

Everyone sleeps in this big house on the
Rhine but something slowly shuffles around.

Expains how the idea for Alraune came
about.

T
HE
sun had already set and the candles were
burning on the chandelier in the Festival room as Privy Councilor
ten Brinken entered. He appeared festive enough in his dress suit.
There was a large star on his white vest and a gold chain in the
buttonhole from which twenty small medals dangled.

The Legal Councilor stood up, greeted him,
and then he and the old gentleman went around the room with
threadbare smiles, saying kind words to everyone. They stopped in
front of the celebrating girls and the old gentleman took two gold
rings out of a beautiful leather case and formally presented them.
The one with a sapphire was for blond Frieda and the ruby was for
dark Olga. Then he gave a very wise speech to both of them.