Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (21 page)

In response to the Privy Councilor’s pointed
question Fräulein Becker declared that the torturing of animals
never came up during those years at the Vynteelen School. At least
no incidents had ever been discovered. On the other hand, Alraune
had made the lives of the other children miserable as well as those
of all the instructors, both male and female.

Especially the poor music instructor who
always placed his snuffbox on the mantel in the hall during class
so he would not be tempted to use it. From the moment of Alraune’s
entrance into the school the most remarkable things had been found
in it. For example, thick spider webs, wood lice, gunpowder,
pepper, writing sand black with ink and once even a chopped up
millipede. Several girls were caught doing it and punished–but
never Alraune.

Yet she always showed a passive resistance
toward the musician, never practiced and during class laid her
hands in her lap and never raised them to play an instrument. But
when the professor finally complained in despair to the principal
Alraune quietly declared that the old man was lying. At that point
Mlle. de Vynteelen personally attended the next hour and saw that
the little girl knew her lesson exquisitely, could play better than
any of the others and showed a remarkable talent.

The Head Mistress reproached the music
instructor heavily. He stood there speechless and could say nothing
other than, “But it is incredible, incredible!”

From then on the little schoolgirls only
called him “Monsieur Incredible”. They called after him whenever
they saw him and pronounced the words like he did, as if they
didn’t have any teeth in their mouths either.

As for the Miss, she scarcely ever
experienced a quiet day. New stupid pranks were always being played
on her. They sprinkled itch powder in her bed and one time after a
picnic placed a half dozen fleas in it. Then the key to her
wardrobe was missing, then the hooks and eyelets were torn from the
dress that she wanted to wear. Once as she was going to bed she was
almost frightened to death by an effervescent powder reaction in
her chamber pot. Another time so many stinging insects flew through
her open window that she screamed out for help. Then the chair she
sat on was smeared with paint or with glue or she found a dead
mouse or an old chicken head in her pocket.

And so it merrily continued, the poor Miss
could hardly enjoy an hour of her life. Investigations took place
and those girls found guilty were always punished but it was never
determined to be Alraune even though everyone was convinced that
she was the mastermind behind all the pranks.

The only one that angrily rejected this
suspicion was the English woman herself. She swore the girl was
innocent up until the day she left the de Vynteelen Institute.

“This hell,” she said, “only shelters one
sweet little angel.”

The Privy Councilor grinned as he noted in
the leather volume, “That sweet little angel is Alraune.”

As for herself, Fräulein Becker related to
the Professor that she had avoided coming into contact with the
strange little creature from the very start. That had been easy for
her since she was mostly occupied in working with the French and
English students. She only had to instruct Alraune in gymnastics
and sewing. As for the latter subject, she had quickly exempted her
from it when she had seen that not only did Alraune have no
interest in sewing, she showed a downright aversion to it.

But in calisthenics, which by the way Alraune
always excelled in, she always acted as if she never noticed the
joking around the child did. She only once had a little
confrontation with her and that was just after Alraune’s entrance
into the school. She had to confess that unfortunately Araune had
gotten the better of her.

By chance she had overheard Alraune telling
her schoolmates about her stay in the convent. The boasting and
cheeky bragging was so abominable that she took it as her duty to
intervene. On one hand the little one told how splendid and
magnificent the convent was and on the other hand she told truly
murderous stories about the various misdeeds of the pious
sisters.

She herself had been brought up in the Sacré
Couer convent in Nancy and knew very well how simple and plain it
was and knew as well that the nuns were the most harmless creatures
in the world. So she called Alraune into her office and reproached
her for telling such fraudulent stories. She also demanded that the
girl immediately tell her schoolmates that she had not been telling
the truth. When Alraune stubbornly refused, she declared that she
would tell them herself.

At that Alraune rose up on her toes, looked
straight at her and quietly said, “If you tell them that, Fräulein,
I will tell them that your mother has a little cheese shop in her
home.”

Fräulein Becker confessed that she had become
weak and given in to a false shame. She let the child have her way.
There had been something so deliberate and calculated in the soft
voice of the child in that moment that she had become afraid. She
left Alraune standing there and went to her room happy to avoid an
outright quarrel with the little creature.

It wasn’t long before she received her
deserved punishment for denying her good mother. By the next day
Alraune had already told all the students about her mother’s cheese
shop and it cost a lot of effort to again win back the respect
which she lost throughout the Institute.

But things were much worse for Alraune’s
schoolmates then they were for the instructors. There was not one
student in the entire school that had not suffered because of her.
Strangely enough it appeared that every new bit of mischief seemed
to make her even more popular. She made a point to sacrifice
everyone that appeared to stand against her until they were all on
her side. She was more popular than any of the other girls.

Fräulein Becker reported some of the worst
cases to the Privy Councilor and they were mentioned in the leather
volume.

Blanche de Banville had just returned from
vacation with her parents in Picardy. The hot-blooded
fourteen-year-old had fallen head over heels in love with her
cousin who was the same age as she was. She wrote to him from Spa
as well and he answered, addressing her letters B.d.B., hold at
post office until claimed by addressee. Then he must have found
something better to do with his time, in any case no more letters
came.

Both Alraune and little Louison knew about
her secret. Naturally Blanche was very unhappy and cried through
entire nights. Louison sat with her and tried to comfort her. But
Alraune declared that it was wrong to console her, her cousin had
been unfaithful and betrayed her. Now Blanche needed to die of
unrequited love. That was the only way to repay her false lover and
make things right. Then for the rest of his life he would be
tormented by the furies. She knew several famous stories where it
had been like that.

Blanche was agreeable to the dying part but
it did not go well. Food always tasted good to her despite her
great pain. That’s when Alraune declared that if Blanche couldn’t
die of a broken hearth she must find some other way to bring it
about. She recommended a dagger or a pistol–but they didn’t have
either one.

Blanche could not be persuaded to jump out
the window, push a hatpin into her heart or hang herself. She just
wanted to swallow something, nothing else. Soon Alraune had some
new advice. There was a bottle of Lysol in Mlle. de Vynteelen’s
medicine chest–Louison must steal it. Unfortunately there was only
a little bit left in the bottle so Louison had to scratch the
phosphorus heads off a couple boxes of matches as well.

Blanche wrote several farewell letters, one
to her parents, the principal and her traitorous lover. Then she
drank the Lysol and swallowed the matchheads–They both tasted
horrible enough. Just to be certain Alraune had her swallow three
packets of needles–She herself, by the way, was not present at this
suicide attempt. She had gone to her room under the pretence of
being a lookout after Blanche had sworn on the crucifix to follow
her instructions exactly.

That evening little Louison sat on the bed
with her friend. Crying miserably she handed over first the Lysol,
then the match heads and finally the packets of needles. Blanche
became very ill from these threefold poisons and was soon writhing
and screaming in pain. Louison screamed with her and their screams
roared through the entire house. Then she ran out of the room and
fetched the Head Mistress and the teachers yelling that Blanche was
dying.

Blanche de Banville did not die. A capable
doctor quickly gave her an effective emetic that brought the Lysol,
phosphorus and needle packets back up again. Still, one of the
needle packets had opened up in her stomach and a half dozen
needles had gotten loose. They wandered through her body and in the
course of her life came out again in all kinds of places painfully
reminding the little suicide of her first love.

Blanche lay in bed sick for a long time and
had a lot of pain. It appeared that she had been punished enough.
Everyone sympathized with her, was good to her and granted her
slightest wish. She wished for nothing else but that her two
friends that had helped her, Alraune and little Louison, not be
punished. She pleaded and begged for so long that the principal
finally promised. That was why Alraune was not thrown out of the
school.

Then it was Hilde Aldekerk’s turn. She loved
the Berlin style cakes that were sold in the German confectionery
at Place Royal. She claimed she could eat twenty. Alraune bet that
she couldn’t polish off thirty. Whoever lost the bet had to pay for
the cakes. Hilde Aldekerk won–but she got so sick that she had to
stay in bed fourteen days.

“Glutton,” said Alraune ten Brinken. “It
serves you right!”

From that point on the only thing all the
little girls called fat, round Hilda was “Glutton”. She howled
about it for awhile but then got used to her new nickname and
finally became one of Alraune’s most faithful companions, just like
Blanche de Banville.

Fräulein Becker reported that Alraune had
only one time been seriously punished at the school and strangely
enough, unjustly. On a full moon night the French teacher stumbled
out of her room terrified. She woke the entire household with her
screams and yelled that a white ghost was sitting on the balustrade
of her balcony. No one would go into her room until they finally
woke up the porter who armed himself with a club and went
inside.

The ghost turned out to be Alraune who was
sitting there in her white night gown and staring with wide-open
eyes into the moon. She could not say how she got there. The
principal took the playing ghost as a very bad prank. Only much
later did it come out that the girl had been seen on several
different occasions sleep walking under the influence of the full
moon.

Interestingly enough Alraune accepted this
unjust punishment–to copy a chapter out of “Tèlèmaque”–without
protest and conscientiously carried it out on a free afternoon. She
would have most certainly rebelled and resisted any just
punishment.

Fräulein Becker concluded, “I fear that your
Excellency will not experience much joy from your daughter in the
future.”

The Privy Councilor replied, “That might well
be, but up to now I believe that I am very well satisfied with
her.”

He did not let Alraune come home for vacation
the last two years. Instead he permitted her to travel with her
school friends, once to Scotland with Maude McPherson, then with
Blanche to her parents in Paris and finally with the two Rodenburgs
to their family estate in Münster.

He didn’t have any reports from these
episodes in Alraune’s life and could only imagine how she occupied
herself during these vacations. It was a satisfaction to him to
think of how this creature he had created extended her influence
outward in ever expanding circles.

In the newspaper he read that during the
summer in which Alraune was at Boltenhagen the green and white
colors of the old Count Rodenberg did exceedingly well at the track
and his stud brought in a considerable winnings.

He also learned that Mlle. de Vynteelen had
received an unexpected inheritance that placed her in the position
of needing to close the school so she didn’t take any new students
and only kept her old students until they graduated.

He attributed both of these things to the
presence of Alraune and was half convinced that she brought gold
into the other houses she had stayed at, the convent in Nancy, at
Reverend McPherson in Edinburgh and the home of the Banvilles on
Haussmann Boulevarde. She had made good threefold on her little
deviltries.

He felt that all these people ought to feel
gratitude to his child, this strange girl that went abroad out into
the world bringing gifts and strewing roses upon the life paths of
all those that had the fortune to meet her. He laughed as it
occurred to him that those roses also had sharp thorns capable on
inflicting many beautiful wounds as well.

“By the way,” he asked Fräulein Becker. “How
are things going with your dear mother?”

“Why thank you for asking, your Excellency,”
she answered. “Mother can’t complain. Her business has grown
considerably better during the last few years!”

“Really,” said the Privy Councilor and he
gave orders that all cheeses, the Emmenthall, Roquefort, Chester
and old Höllander, from now on were to be purchased from Frau
Becker on Münster Street.