Seven Gothic Tales (41 page)

“They all warned me so strongly against her that naturally the first thing which I did on the following day was to go to her house, in the street which had been pointed out to me. On that occasion I found her only a highly intelligent and agreeable woman. She took all my orders, and talked to me of my journey and even of my character and career. A red-haired young man came in while I was there, and went out again, who looked much like a revolutionist, but to whom she paid but little attention.

“While she was completing all these bonnets for me, the atmosphere of Lucerne was darkening more and more; a thunderstorm hung over the town. My uncle, who held a high position in the town council, foresaw disaster He sent my aunt and his daughters away to his château, and advised me to go with them. But I felt that I could not go away without having seen Madame Lola again, and having collected my goods from her.

“On the day on which I went to her at last, the disturbance in the streets was so great that I had to approach her abode by a network of little side streets, and even that was extremely difficult. But upon entering the house I found it, from doorway to garret, one seething mass of armed people streaming in and out, the whole place indeed like a witch’s cauldron. There was no time to talk of bonnets. She herself, standing on the counter, discoursing and directing the people, at the sight of me jumped straight into my arms. ‘Ah,’ she cried, ‘your heart has driven you the right way at last!’ And the whole crowd, she with it, at this moment advanced out of the house and down the street. It dragged me with it, or I was so filled with the very enthusiasm of the woman that I went freely. In this way, in a second, I was whirled into a barricade fight, and on to the barricades, always at the side of Madame Lola.

“She was loading the guns and handing them to the combatants, and she was using for the terrible task all the verve and adroitness which she had used in trimming her bonnets. Now all the people around her, although they were brave, were afraid,
and had reason to be so; but she was not in the least afraid. As she handed the rifles to the men on the barricade, she handed them with the weapons some of her own fearlessness. I saw this on their faces. And it was strange that I myself was at the time convinced that nothing could harm her, or could harm me as long as I was with her. I remembered our old cook at Coburg telling me that a cat has nine lives. Madame Lola, I thought, must have in her the life of nine cats. At that moment I really saw her as something more than human, although she was, as I think I told you, no lady of noble birth, but only a milliner of Lucerne, not young.

“It was then that I myself, carried away by the rage around me, seized a rifle and fired into the crowd of soldiers and town militia which was slowly advancing up the street against us. My own uncle De Watteville, for all I knew, might be leading them, but I had no thought for him. At the same moment I was struck down, I know not how, and dropped like dead.

“When I woke up I was in a small room, in bed, and Madame Lola was in the room with me. As I tried to move I found that my right leg was all done up in bandages. She gave a great exclamation of joy at seeing me awake, but then approached with her finger on her lips. In the darkened room she told me of how the fight was over, and how I had killed the chaplain of the Bishop of St. Gallen. She begged me to be very still, first because my leg had been broken by a shot, and secondly, because things were still upset in Lucerne. I was in great danger and must be kept a secret in her house.

“I was there in the garret of her house, for three weeks, being nursed by her. The fighting was still going on, and I heard shots. But of this, of my wound, of what I had done and what my people would say, even of my dangerous position, I hardly thought. It seemed to me that I had, somehow, got up very high outside the world in which I used to live, and that I was now quite alone there, with her. A doctor came to see me from time to time.
Nobody else came, but Lola would put on her shawl and leave me for a while, begging me to keep very quiet till she came back. These hours when she was away were to me infinitely long.

“But while I was with her we talked together much. When I have since thought of it, I remember that she did not say a great deal, but that I myself talked as well as I have always wished to do. Altogether, I understood life and the world, myself and God even, while I was in the garret. In particular we talked of the great things which I was to do in life. I had, you understand, already done enough to be known amongst people, but both of us felt that this was only the beginning.

“I understood that many of her friends had left Lucerne, and that she was exposing herself to dangers for my sake, and I begged her to go away. No, she said, she would not leave me for anything in the world. First of all, after what I had done, the revolutionists of Lucerne looked upon me as a brother, and would all be ready to die for my sake. But more than that, she explained, blushing deeply, in case we were found by the tyrants of the town or their militia, she and I must both insist that we had taken no part in the fight, but were here together because of a love affair. She would have to pose as my mistress, and I as her lover, while my wound would be said to have been given me by a jealous rival. These words of hers, although the whole thing was only a comedy, again made me feel extraordinarily happy, and made me dream of what I would do when I got well again. Yes, I do not know if any real love affair could possibly have made me as happy.

“At last one evening she told me that the doctor had declared me to be out of danger, and that we must part. She was leaving Lucerne herself that night. I was to go away, secretly, in the early morning. A friend, she said, would place his carriage at my disposal, and himself escort me out of town. A sort of terror came over me at her words. But I was too slow. I did not know what was the matter with me till it was too late. Madame Lola went on talking gently to me. I was, she said, to have something
for my trouble, and she would give me all the bonnets that she had in her shop. ‘For I myself,’ she said, ‘am not coming back to Lucerne.’ So with the assistance of her little maid she made the journey up and down the stairs twelve times, each time loaded with bandboxes, which she placed around me. I began to laugh, and in the end could not stop again, for I found myself nearly drowned in bonnets of all the colors of the rainbow, trimmed with flowers, ribbons, and plumes. The floor, the bed, chair, and table were covered with them, probably the prettiest bonnets in all the world. ‘Now,’ she said, when she had filled the room with them, ‘here you have the wherewithal to conquer the hearts of women.’ She herself put on a plain bonnet and shawl, and took my hand. ‘Do not ever,’ said she, bear me any grudge. I have tried to do you good.’ She put her arms around my neck, kissed me, and was gone. ‘Lola!’ I cried, and sank back in my chair in a faint. I passed, when I woke up, a terrible night. There was not a single pleasant thing for me to think of The image of the curate of the Bishop of St. Gallen also began to worry me, and it seemed to me that I had nothing to turn to in all the world.

“Lola was as good as her word. The next morning an elderly Jewish gentleman, of great elegance, presented himself in my garret, and at the foot of the stair I found his handsome carriage waiting for me. He drove me through the town, where here and there I still saw traces of the fighting, and entertained me pleasantly on the way. As we were nearing the outskirts of the city he said to me: ‘The Baron de Watteville’s carriage will meet us at such and such a park. But the feelings of Monsieur your Uncle have been hurt by your behavior, and he has charged me to say that he prefers you to continue your journey straight on, so that he and you should not meet until later.’

“ ‘But does my uncle,’ I exclaimed in great surprise, ‘know of what has happened to me?’

“ ‘Yes,’ said the old Jew, ‘he has indeed known all the time. The Baron has much influence with the clergy of Lucerne, and
it is doubtful whether we could have done without him.’ He said no more, so we drove on in silence, I in a disturbed mind.

“My uncle’s carriage was indeed waiting near a park, as the Jew had said. As we stopped, a man got out of it and slowly came up to meet us, and I recognized the red-haired young man whom I had seen in Lola’s house on my first visit there, and later, I now remembered, on the barricade. He now looked as if he had gone through much. He limped when he walked, and his face was very pale and stern as he bowed to my companion. Still, as he looked around at me, he suddenly smiled. ‘So this,’ I heard him say, ‘is Madame Lola’s little caged goldfinch?’

“ ‘Yes,’ said the old Jew, smiling, ‘that is her golem.’

“Then I did not know what I found out later, that the word
golem
, in the Jewish language, means a big figure of clay, into which life is magically blown, most frequently for the accomplishment of some crime which the magician dares not undertake himself. These golems are imagined to be very big and strong.

“The two saw me into my uncle’s carriage, and we took leave of one another. I drove on, but I had too much to think of now, and I did not know where to find myself again. The smell of gunpowder of the barricades, our talks of God and Lola’s kiss in the attic, together with all these bonnets which she had given me, all ran before my eyes, like the colored spots which you see before your eyes when you have for a long time been looking at the sun. I have not been able, since then, to think much of those great deeds which I was to perform. I cannot even remember what they were. But still, I have killed the curate of the Bishop of St. Gallen, and I must be careful until I get out of this country. I have seen a doctor, who tells me that my leg has been so skillfully put together that it is as if it had never been broken.”

“And so you are,” I said, “trying to find this woman, and searching for her everywhere, lying awake at night?”

“You guess that?” said Pilot. “Yes, I am looking for her. I do
not know what to think or feel about anything until I shall see her again. Still she was not young, you know, and no woman of noble birth, but only a milliner of Lucerne.”

Now I had heard Pilot’s tale. And while I had been listening to it, I had been frightened more than once. There were many things in it alarming to my ears. I thought, I have not been drunk a single time since I lost Olalla, till tonight. It is obvious that when I drink now, even as much as two bottles of this Swiss wine, my head betrays me. That comes from thinking, for a long time, of one single thing only. This tale of my friend’s is too much like a dream of my own. There is much in his woman of the barricades which recalls to me the manner of my courtesan of Rome, and when, in the middle of his story, an old Jew appears like a djinn of the lamp, it is quite clear that I am a little off my head. How far can I be, I wonder, from plain lunacy?

To clear up this question I went on drinking.

The Baron Guildenstern, during the course of Pilot’s narration, had from time to time looked at me with a smile, and sometimes winked at me. But as it drew on he had lost his interest in it, and had had a new bottle brought in. Now he opened it, and refilled the glasses.

“My good Fritz,” he said, laughing, “I know that ladies love their bonnets. A husband to them means a person who will buy them bonnets of all possible shapes and colors, God bless him. But it is a poor article of dress to get off a woman. I have let them keep the bonnet on after everything else had gone; and as to having it flung at your head, I prefer the chemise.”

“Have you never, then, paid your court to a woman without getting the chemise?” Pilot asked, a little nervously, looking straight in front of him at things far away.

The Baron watched him attentively, as if he were on the point of finding out that a failure and an unsatisfied appetite might have a value for some kinds of people. “My dear friend,” he said,
“I will tell you an adventure of mine in return for your confession”:

“Seven years ago I was sent by the colonel of my regiment in Stockholm, the Prince Oscar, to the riding school of Saumur. I did not stay my term out there, as I got into some sort of trouble at Saumur, but while I was there I had some pleasant hours in the company of two rich young friends of mine, one of whom was Waldemar Nat-og-Dag, who had come with me from Sweden. The other was the Belgian Baron Clootz, who belonged to the new nobility, and possessed a large fortune.

“Through letters of introduction of old aunts of ours, my Swedish friend and I dropped for a time into a curious community of old ruined Legitimists of the highest aristocracy, who had lost all that they had in the French Revolution, and who lived in a small provincial town near Saumur.

“They were all of them very aged, for when they had been young the ladies had had no dowries to marry on, and the gentlemen no money to maintain a family in the style of their old names, so there had been no younger generation produced. They could thus foresee the near end of all their world, and with them to be young was synonymous with being of the second-best circles. The ladies held their heads together over my aunts’ letters, wondering at the strangeness of conditions in Sweden, where the nobility still had the courage to breed.

“It all bored me to death. It was like being put on a shelf with a lot of bottles of old wine and old pickle pots, sealed and bound with parchment.

“In these circles there was much talk of a rich young woman who had for a year been renting a pretty country house outside the town. I had seen it myself, within its walled gardens, on my morning rides. In the beginning she interested me as little as possible. I thought her only one more of the company of Beguines. I wondered, though, how it was that the qualities of youth and
prosperity were in her no faults, but on the contrary seemed to endear her to all the dry old hearts of the town.

“They themselves eagerly furnished me the explanation, informing me that this lady had consecrated her life to the memory of General Zumala Carregui, who had been, I believe, a hero and a martyr to the cause of the rightful king of Spain, and had been killed by the rebels. In his honor she dressed forever in white, lived on lenten food and water, and every year undertook a pilgrim’s voyage to his tomb in Spain. She gave much charity to the poor, and kept a school for the children of the village, and a hospital. From time to time she also had visions and heard voices, probably the sweet and martial voice of General Zumala. For all this she was highly thought of. That she had, before his death, stood in a more earthly relation to the martyr in no way damaged her reputation. The collection of old maids of both sexes were on the contrary much intrigued by the idea of experience in this holy person, as were, very likely, the eleven thousand martyrized virgins of Cologne when they were, in paradise, introduced to the highly ranking saint of heaven, St. Mary of Magdala.