Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (24 page)

“That damned female!” he murmured.

She brought out the blonde, blue eyed boys to
him, white in their fresh pajamas and set one on each knee. Slowly
he became happy and at ease with his laughing children. Then after
his boys were in bed, he sat outside on the stone bench smoking his
cigarette, strolled through the village and through the ancient
garden of the Brinkens, talking things over with his wife.

“No good can come of it,” he said. “She
rushes and rushes. No speed is fast enough for her. Fourteen
speeding tickets in three weeks–”

“You don’t have to pay them,” said Frau
Lisbeth.

“No,” he said. “But I am notorious for it.
The police take out their notebooks whenever they see the white car
with ‘I.Z.937’ on it!”

He laughed, “Well, they aren’t wrong in
taking our number. We deserve every one of our tickets.”

He quieted, took a wrench out of his pocket
and played with it. His wife pushed her arm under his, took his cap
off and stroked back his tangled hair.

“What does she want anyway?” she asked.

She took pains to make her voice sound
innocent and indifferent.

Raspe shook his head, “I don’t know Lisbeth.
She is crazy. That’s what it is and she has some damned way about
her that makes people do what she wants even when they are entirely
against it and know that it is wrong.”

“What did she do today?” his wife asked.

He said, “No more than usual. She can’t stand
to see another car in front of us. She must pass it and even if it
has thirty more horsepower than ours, she wants to catch up to it.
‘Catch it,’ she says to me and if I hesitate she lightly touches my
arm with her hand and I let loose as if the devil himself were
driving the machine.”

He sighed, brushed the cigarette ash off his
pants.

“She always sits next to me,” he continued.
“and just her sitting there makes me really upset and nervous. All
I can think about is what kind of foolishness she’s going to make
me do this time. Her greatest joy is jumping the car over
obstacles, boards, sand piles and things like that. I’m no coward,
but there should be some purpose to it if you are going to risk
your life every day. ‘Just drive,’ she says. ‘Nothing will happen
to me.’ She is calm when she jumps over a road ditch at one hundred
kilometers/hour. It’s possible that nothing can happen to her, but
some time I’m going to make a mistake, tomorrow or the next
day!”

Lisbeth pressed his hand. “You must simply
try to not obey her. Say ‘No’ when she wants to do something
stupid! You are not permitted to take such chances with your life.
It is not fair to us, to me or the children.”

He looked straight at her, still and calm. “I
know that. It’s not fair to you or even to myself. But you see,
that’s just it. I can not say ‘No’ to the Fräulein. Nobody can.
Look how young Herr Gontram runs after her like a puppy dog, look
at the way the others are happy to fulfill all of her foolish
notions! Not one of all the people in the household can endure
being around the Fräulein. Yet everyone of them will do what she
wants even if it is stupid or disgusting.”

“That’s not true!” said Lisbeth. ”Froitsheim,
the coachman, won’t, not at all.”

He whistled, “Froitsheim! You’re right. He
turns around and walks away whenever he sees her. But he is almost
ninety years old and hasn’t had any blood in his body for a long
time.”

She looked at him in surprise, “Does she stir
your blood then, Matthieu? Is that why you must do what she
wants?”

He evaded her eyes and looked down at the
ground. But then he took her hand and looked straight at her.

“Well you see Lisbeth, I don’t know what it
is. I’ve often thought about it, what it really is. When I see her
I get so angry that I could strangle her. When she’s not there I
run around full of fear that she might call me.”

He spit on the ground. “Damn it all!” he
cried. “I wish I was rid of this job! Wish I had never accepted
it.”

They talked it over, turning it this way and
that, weighing everything for and against it and finally they came
to the conclusion that he should give his notice. But before doing
that he should go into the city the very next day and look for a
new position.

That night Frau Lisbeth slept peacefully for
the first time in months but Matthieu-Maria didn’t sleep at all. He
requested a leave of absence the next morning and went to the job
placement office in the city. He was really lucky. The agent took
him to meet with a Councilor of the Chamber of Commerce that was
looking for a chauffeur and he got the job. He received a higher
salary than what he had been getting, fewer work hours and didn’t
have to do anything with horses.

As they stepped out of the house the agent
congratulated him. But he had a feeling as if there was nothing he
should be thankful for, as if he would never work at this new
job.

Still, it made him happy to see his wife’s
eyes light up in joy when he told her.

“In fourteen days,” he said. “If only the
time was already gone!”

She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.
“Not fourteen days. Do it tomorrow! You must insist, talk with the
Privy Councilor.”

“That won’t do any good,” he replied. “He
would inform the Fräulein and then–”

Frau Lisbeth grasped his hand. “Leave it
alone!” she decided. “I will speak with the Fräulein myself.”

She left him standing there, went across the
courtyard and announced herself. While she waited she considered
exactly what she wanted to say so they would be permitted to leave
that very morning. But she didn’t need to say anything at all. The
Fräulein only listened, heard that he wanted to go without notice,
nodded curtly and said that it was all right.

Frau Lisbeth flew back to her man, embraced
and kissed him.

“Only one more night and the bad dream will
be over.”

They must pack quickly and he should
telephone the Councilor to the Chamber of Commerce to tell him that
he could begin his new job the next morning. They pulled the old
trunk out from under the bed and her bright enthusiasm infected
him. He pulled out his iron bound chest as well, dusted it off and
helped her pack, passing things to her. He ran into the village to
hire a boy to bring a cart for hauling things away. He laughed and
was content for the first time in the house of ten Brinken.

Then, as he was taking a cook pot from the
stove and wrapping it in newspaper Aloys, the servant, came.

He announced, “The Fräulein wants to go
driving.”

Raspe stared at him and didn’t say a
word.

“Don’t go!” cried his wife.

He said, “Please inform the Fräulein that as
of today I am no longer–”

He didn’t finish. Alraune ten Brinken stood
in the door.

She said, “Matthieu-Maria, I let you go
tomorrow. Today you will go driving with me.”

Then she left and behind her went Raspe.

“Don’t go! Don’t go!” screamed Frau
Lisbeth.

He could hear her screams but didn’t know who
it was or where they came from. Frau Lisbeth fell heavily onto the
bench. She heard both of their steps as they crossed the courtyard
to the garage. She heard the iron gate creak open on its hinges,
heard the auto as it drove out onto the street and heard as well
the short blast of the horn. That was the farewell greeting her
husband always gave each time he left for the city. She sat there
with both hands on her lap and waited, waited until they brought
him back. Four farmers carried him in on a mattress and laid him
down in the middle of the room among the trunks and boxes. They
undressed him, helped wash him and did as the doctor commanded. His
long white body was full of blood, dust and dirt.

Frau Lisbeth knelt beside him without words,
without tears. The old coachman came and took the screaming boys
away. Then the farmers left and finally the doctor as well. She
never asked him, not with words or with her eyes. She already knew
the answer that he would give.

Once in the middle of the night Raspe woke up
and opened his eyes. He recognized her, asked for some water and
she gave him some to drink.

“It is over,” he said weakly.

She asked, “What happened?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know. The
Fräulein said, ‘Faster, Matthieu-Maria’. I didn’t want to do it.
Then she laid her hand on mine and I felt her through my glove and
I did it. That’s all I know.”

spoke so softly that she had to put her ear
next to his mouth to hear and when he was quiet she whispered.

“Why did you do it?”

Again he moved his lips, “Forgive me Lisbeth!
I had to do it. The Fräulein–”

She looked at him, startled by the hot look
in his eyes, and her tongue suddenly cried out the thought almost
before her brain could even think it.

“You, you love her?”

Then he raised his head the width of a thumb
and murmured with closed eyes, “Yes, yes– I –love driving–with
her.”

Those were the last words he spoke. He sank
back into a deep faint and lay like that until the early morning
when he passed away. Frau Lisbeth stood up. She ran to the door and
old Froitsheim took her into his arms.

“My husband is dead,” she said.

The coachman made the sign of the cross and
made to go past her into the room but she held him back.

“Where is the Fräulein?” she asked quickly.
“It she alive? Is she hurt?”

The deep wrinkles in the old face deepened,
“Is she alive?–Whether she even lives! She’s standing over there!
Wounded? Not a scratch. She just got a little dirty!”

He pointed with trembling fingers out into
the courtyard. There stood the slender Fräulein in her boy’s suit,
setting her foot into the laced fingers of a Hussar, swinging up
into the saddle.

“She telephoned the cavalry captain,” said
the old coachman. “Told him she had no groom this morning, so the
count sent that fellow over.”

Lisbeth ran across the courtyard.

“He is dead!” she cried. “My man is
dead.”

Alraune ten Brinken turned around in the
saddle, toyed with the riding whip.

“Dead,” she said slowly. “Dead. That’s really
too bad.”

She lightly struck her horse and walked it up
to the gate.

“Fräulein,” screamed Frau Lisbeth. “Fräulein,
Fräulein–”

Frau Lisbeth ran to the Privy Councilor
overflowing with all her despair and hatred. The Privy Councilor
let her talk until she quieted down. Then he said that he
understood her pain and was not offended at what she had said. He
was also prepared, despite the notice, to pay three months of her
husband’s wages. But she needed to be reasonable, should be able to
see that her husband alone carried the blame for the regrettable
accident.

She ran to the police and they were not even
polite to her. They had seen it coming, they said. Everyone knew
that Raspe was the wildest driver on the entire Rhine. They had
done their duty many times by trying to warn him. She should be
ashamed of herself for trying to lay the blame on the young
Fräulein! Had she ever been seen driving? Yesterday or ever?

Then she ran to an attorney, then a second
and a third. But they were honest people and told her that they
could not move forward with a lawsuit even when she wanted to pay
in advance. Oh, certainly, anything was possible and conceivable,
why not? But did she have any proof? No, none at all. Well then!
She should just go quietly back home. There was nothing that she
could do. Even if everything that she said was true and could be
proved–her husband would still carry the blame. He was a grown man,
a skilled and experienced chauffeur, while the Fräulein was an
inexperienced scarcely grown thing–

So she went back home. She buried her husband
in the little cemetery behind the church. She packed all her things
and loaded them onto the cart herself. She took the money the Privy
Councilor had given her, took her boys and left.

A couple of days later a new chauffeur moved
into her old living quarters. He was short, fat and drank a lot.
Fräulein ten Brinken didn’t like him and seldom went driving alone
with him. He never got any speeding tickets and the people said
that he was a good driver, much better than wild Raspe had
been.

“Little moth,” said Alraune ten Brinken when
Wolf Gontram stepped into the room one evening.

The beautiful eyes of the youth glowed.

“You are the candle flame,” he said.

Then she spoke, “You will burn your beautiful
wings and then you will lie on the floor like an ugly worm. Be
careful Wolf Gontram.”

He looked at her and shook his head.

“No,” he said. “This is the way I want
it.”

And every long evening he flew around the
flame. Two others flew around it as well and got burned. Karl
Mohnen was one and the other was Hans Geroldingen. It was a matter
of honor for Dr. Mohnen to court her.

“A perfect match,” he thought. “Finally, she
is the right one!”

And his little ship rushed in with full
sails. He was always a little in love with every woman but now his
brain burned under his bald head, making him foolish, letting him
feel for this one girl everything that he had felt for dozens of
other women one after the other back through the years. Like always
he made the assumption that Alraune ten Brinken felt the same the
same ardent desire toward him, a love that was boundless, limitless
and breathless.

One day he talked to Wolf Gontram about his
great new conquest. He was glad the boy rode out to Lendenich–as
his messenger of love. He had the boy bring many greetings, hand
kisses and small gifts from him. Not just one red rose, that was
for gentlemen. He was both lover and beloved and needed to send
more, flowers, chocolates, petit fours, pralines, and fans,
hundreds of little things and knick-knacks. The small bit of good
taste that he did have and which he had so successfully taught to
his ward melted in the blink of an eye in the flickering fire of
his love.