Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (2 page)

We read of Lancelot one

day for pleasure, how love

constrained him. We were alone

and without any suspicion

A Galeotto indeed, that book,

and he who wrote it. That day

we read no more.

Dante, The Inferno V 127

We read once–Oh, what was it, Isolde?

On a summer afternoon in the foliage of the
summer house

The little book was red and the edges were
gold–

A tame dove sat on your shoulder–We were
entirely alone

And the carrier of the plague was the world
around us.

No little breeze stirred the leaves–there we
read – Was it the love

Tragedy of the couple from Rimini, run
through by a spear?

Was it the dream song of Lancelot? What was
it then?

–Was it the sultry heartfelt song of longing,
which Echegaray wrote?

Was it Tristan’s love drunken journey on the
ocean?

I don’t know what it was. Yet what clings
fast in my brain

Is how you softly laid your right hand on
mine, my sweet love.

And my fingers loosened your braids–That is
when you looked into my eyes

And in their depths lay the magic word that
was true, the right word

At the right moment. Our hearts pounded, the
sun burned and our souls

Demanded their destiny–Thick was the foliage
that encircled our love.

We were entirely alone in a green tent–exiled
into some fairyland of legend.

You were the Queen: I was the hero. The
cupola, the Galeotto,

That made our love Possible–was the entire
world!

-Hanns Heinz Ewers

Will you deny, dear girl, that creatures can
exist that are– not human – not animal – strange creatures created
out of absurd thoughts and villainous desires?

You know good, my gentle girl, good is the
Law; good are all our rules and regulations; good is the great God
that created these regulations, these rules, these laws.

Good also is the man that values them
completely and goes on his path in humility and patience in true
obedience to our good God.

But there is another King that hates good. He
breaks the laws and the regulations. He creates – note this well –
against nature. He is bad, is evil, and evil is the man that would
be like him. He is a child of Satan.

It is evil, very evil to go in and tamper
with the eternal laws and with insolent hands rip them brazenly out
of place.

He is happy and able to do evil – because
Satan, who is a tremendous King, helps him. He wants to create out
of his prideful wish and will, wants to do things that shatter all
the rules, that reverse natural law and stand it on its head.

But he needs to be very careful: It is only a
lie and what he creates is always lunacy and illusion. It towers up
and fills the heavens – but collapses at the last moment and falls
back to bury the arrogant fool that thought it up –

His Excellency Jacob Ten Brinken, Dr. med.,
Ord. Professor and Counselor created a strange maiden, created her
– against nature. He created her entirely alone, though the thought
belonged to another.

This creature, that was baptized and named
Alraune, grew up and lived as a human child. Whatever she touched
turned to gold, where ever she went became filled with wild
laughter.

But whoever felt her poisonous breath,
screamed at the sins that stirred inside them and on the ground
where her feet lightly tread grew the pale white flower of death.
It struck dead anyone that was hers except Frank Braun, who first
thought of her and gave her life.

It’s not for you, golden sister, that I write
this book. Your eyes are blue and kind. They know nothing of sins.
Your days are like the heavy blue clusters of wisteria dropping
down to form a soft carpet. My feet stride lightly and softly
through them as I enter the glittering sunlight in the arbor of
your gentle days. I don’t write this book for you my golden child,
gracious sister of my dream filled days –

But I write it for you, you wild sinful
sister of my hot nights. When the shadows fall, when the cruel
ocean devours the beautiful golden sun there flashes over the waves
a swift poisonous green ray. That is Sins first quick laugh over
the alarmed dying day.

That’s when you extend yourself over the
still water, raise yourself high and proclaim your arrival in
blighted yellows, reds and deep violet colors. Your sins whisper
through the deep night and vomit your pestilent breath wide
throughout all the land.

And you become aware of your hot touch. You
widen your eyes, lift your perky young breasts as your nostrils
quiver and you spread wide your fever moistened hands.

Then the gentle civilized day splits away and
falls to give birth to the serpent of the dark night. You extend
yourself, sister, your wild soul, all shame, full of poison, and of
torment and blood, and of kisses and desire, exultant outward in
joyous abandon.

I write about you, through all the heavens
and hells – sister of my sins – I write this book for you!

Describes the house on the Rhine before the
thought of Alraune came into the world.

T
HE
white house in which Alraune was thought into
existence existed long before she was born–long before she was even
conceived. This house lay on the Rhine a little out of the city on
the large Villa Street leading out to the old Archbishop’s Palace
where the university is today. That is where it lies and Legal
Councilor Sebastian Gontram and his family once lived there.

You walk in from the street, through the long
ugly garden that has never seen a gardener. You come to the house,
from which stucco is falling, search for a bell and find none. You
call and scream and no one comes. Finally you push the door open
and go inside, climb up the dirty, never washed stair and suddenly
a huge cat springs through the darkness…

Or even better–

The large garden is alive with a thousand
monkeys. They are the Gontram children: Frieda, Philipp, Paulche,
Emilche, Josefehe, and Wülfche. They are everywhere, in the boughs
of trees, creeping through the earth in the mine pits. Then there
are the hounds, two cheeky spitzes and a Bastard Fox terrier. In
addition there is a dwarf pinscher that belongs to Attorney
Manasse. He is quite the thing, like a brown quince sausage, round
as a barrel , scarcely larger than a hand and called Cyclops.

The yard is filled with noises and screams.
Wülfche, scarcely a year old, lies in a child’s wagon and screams
high obstinate screams for hours. Only Cyclops can beat this record
and he yelps, hoarse and broken, incessantly. Wülfche never moves
from his place, only screams, only howls.

The Gontram rogues are resting in the bushes
late in the afternoon. Frieda, the oldest, should be looking out
for them, taking care that her brothers are behaving. But she
thinks they are behaving and sits under the decaying Lilac leaves
with her friend, the little Princess Wolkonski.

The two chatter and argue, thinking that they
soon will become fourteen years old and can get married, or at
least have a lover. Right now they are both forbidden from all this
and need to wait a little longer. It is still fourteen days until
their first Holy Communion. Then they get long dresses, and then
they will be grown up. Then they can have a lover.

She decides to become very virtuous and start
going to the May devotions at church immediately. She needs to
gather herself together in these days, be serious and sensible.

“–and perhaps also because Schmitz will be
there,” says Frieda.

The little Princess turns up her nose,
“Bah–Schmitz!”

Frieda pinches her under the arm, “–and the
Bavarian, the one with the blue cap!”

Olga Wolkonski laughs, “Him? He is–all air!
Frieda, you know the good boys don’t go to church.”

That is true, the good ones don’t do that.
Frieda sighs. She swiftly gets up and shoves the wagon with the
screaming Wülfche to the side, and steps on Cyclops who is trying
to bite her ankles. No, no, the princess is right. Church is not
the answer.

“Let’s stay here!” she decides. The two girls
creep back under the Lilac leaves.

All the Gontram children have an infinite
passion for living. They can’t say how they know but deep inside,
they feel in their blood that they will die young, die fresh. They
only have a small amount of time compared to what others are given
and they take this time in triple, making noise, rushing, eating
and drinking until they are saturated on life.

Wülfche screams in his wagon, screaming for
himself alone as well as for three other babies. His brothers fly
through the garden making themselves numerous, as if they were four
dozen and not just four. They are dirty, red nosed and ragged,
always bloody from a cut on the finger, a scraped knee or some
other good scratch.

When the sun sets the Gontram rascals quietly
sweep back into the house, going into the kitchen for heaping
sandwiches of buttered bread laid thick with ham and sausage. The
maid gives them water to drink colored lightly with red wine.

Then the maid washes them. She pulls their
clothes off and sticks them in wooden tubs, takes the black soap,
the hard brush and scrubs them. She scrubs them like a pair of
boots and still can’t get them clean. Then she sticks the wild
young ones back in the tubs crying and raving and scrubs them
again.

Dead tired they fall into their beds like
sacks of potatoes, forgetting to be quiet. They also forget to
cover up. The maid takes care of that.

Around this time Attorney Manasse comes into
the house, climbs up the stairs, knocks with his cane on a few
doors and receiving no answer finally moves on.

Frau. Gontram moves toward him. She is tall,
almost twice the size of Herr Manasse. He is a dwarf, round as a
barrel and looks exactly like his ugly dog, Cyclops. Short stubble
stands out all over him, out of his cheeks, chin and lips. His nose
appears in the middle, small and round like a radish. When he
speaks, he barks as if he is always snapping.

“Good evening Frau Gontram,” he says. “Is my
colleague home yet?”

“Good evening attorney,” says the tall woman.
“Make yourself comfortable.”

“Why isn’t my colleague home yet?–and shut
that kid up! I can’t understand a single word you are saying.”

“What?” Frau Gontram asks. Then she takes the
earplugs out of her ears. “Oh yes,” she continues. “That Wülfche!
You should buy a pair of these things Attorney. Then you won’t hear
him.

She goes to the door and screams, “Billa,
Billa–or Frieda! Can’t you hear? Make Wülfche quiet!”

She is still in apricot colored pajamas. Her
enormous chestnut brown hair is half-pinned up and half-fallen
down. Her black eyes appear infinitely large, wide, wide, filled
with sharp cunning and scorching unholy fires. But her skeletal
face curves in at the temples, her narrow nose droops and her pale
cheeks spread themselves tightly over her bones. Huge patches burn
lividly on–

“Do you have a good cigar attorney?” she
asks.

He takes his case out angrily, almost
furiously.

“How many have you already smoked today Frau
Gontram?”

“Only twenty,” she laughs. “But you know the
filthy things are four pennies apiece and I could use a good one
for a change. Give me the thick one there! – and you take the dark,
almost black Mexican.”

Herr Manasse sighs, “Now how are you doing?
How long do you have?”

“Bah,” she made a rude sound. “Don’t wet
yourself. How long? The other day the doctor figured about six
months. But you know how precise they are in that place. He could
just as well have meant two years. I’m thinking it’s not going at a
gallop. It’s going at a pretty trot along with the galloping
consumption.