Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (25 page)

The cavalry captain would often go traveling
with him. They had been friends for many years. Count Geroldingen
had once been nurtured by Dr. Mohnen’s treasures of wisdom just as
Wolf Gontram was now being nurtured. Dr. Mohnen had a vast
storehouse and gave it out by the handfuls, happy to find someone
that would make use of it.

The two of them would go off on adventures
together. It was always the doctor that met the ladies and made
their acquaintance. Later he would introduce the count as his
friend and boast about him. Often enough it was the Hussar officer
who finally plucked the ripe cherries from the tree which Karl
Mohnen had discovered.

The first time he had pangs of conscience and
considered himself as low as they came. He tormented himself for a
couple of days and then openly confessed to his friend what he had
done. He made vehement excuses saying the girl had made such
advances toward him that he had no choice but to submit to her. He
was glad that it had happened because now he knew the girl was not
worthy of his friend’s love.

Dr. Mohnen made nothing about it, saying that
it didn’t matter to him at all, that it was completely all right.
Then he gave the example of the Mayan Indians in the Yucatan. It
was customary for them to say, “My wife is also my friend’s
wife”.

But Count Geroldingen could tell his friend
was sick about it so the next time a new acquaintance of the doctor
preferred him, he didn’t say anything. Thus it happened over the
years that quite a few of Dr. Mohnen’s women also became the
handsome cavalry captain’s women as well, exactly like in the
Yucatan. Only there was this difference, most of them had never
been the doctor’s women at all.

He was the chicari, the beater, that tracked
down the game and drove it out into the open–but the hunter was
Hans Geroldingen. Yet he was quiet about it, had a good heart and
didn’t want to hurt his friend’s feelings. So the beater never
noticed when the hunter shot and held himself up as the most
glorious Nimrod on the Rhine.

Dr. Mohnen would often say, “Come along
count. I’ve made a new conquest, a picture beautiful English girl.
I picked her up yesterday at the open air concert and am meeting
her tonight on the banks of the Rhine.”

“But what about Elly?” the cavalry captain
would reply.

“Replaced,” declared Karl Mohnen grandly.

It was phenomenal how easily he could
exchange his current flame for a new one. As soon as he found
someone new he was simply done with the old one and didn’t care
about her at all. The girls never made any troubles for him either.
In that respect he far surpassed the Hussar who always had
difficulty letting go and even more difficulty in getting his women
to let go of him. For those reasons it required all the energy and
persuasive skill of the doctor to take him along to meet some new
beauty.

This time he said, “You must see her captain.
God, I’m so happy that I have come so lightly through all my
adventures and never been caught. Finally I’ve found the right one!
She’s enormously rich, enormously. His old Excellency has over
thirty million, perhaps forty. Well, what do you say count? His
foster daughter is pretty as a picture and fresh as a blossom on a
tree limb! By the way, speaking in strict confidence, the little
bird is already in my net. I have never been so certain of
things!”

“Yes, but what about Fräulein Clara?”
returned the cavalry captain.

“Gone,” declared the doctor. “Just today I
wrote her a letter saying that my work load had become so
overwhelming that I simply had no more time left for her.”

Geroldingen sighed; Fräulein Clara was a
teacher in an English finishing school. Dr. Mohnen had met her at a
local dance and later introduced him to her. She loved the cavalry
captain and he had hoped that for once Dr. Mohnen would take her
away from him. He had to start thinking seriously about getting
married. Sooner or later it had to happen, his debts were growing
and he needed to find some solution.

“Write her the same thing!” cried Karl
Mohnen. “God, if I can do it, you can do it as well. You’re just
her friend! You have too much conscience man, much too much
conscience.”

He wanted to take the count with him to
Lendenich, to give him a reason for visiting with the little
Fräulein ten Brinken.

He hit his friend lightly on the shoulder;
“You’re as sentimental as a freshman, count! I leave one sitting
and you blame yourself, always the same old song! But consider what
stands to be won this time, the richest heiress on the Rhine. No
delay is permitted!”

The cavalry captain rode out there with his
friend and fell no less deeply in love with the strange creature
who was so very different from all the others that had offered
their red lips for him to kiss. As he went back home that night he
felt the same way he had that time twenty years ago when for the
first time he had taken for himself the girl that his friend
adored.

Over the years this had happened so often and
he had been so successful at it that his conscience no longer
bothered him. But he was ashamed of himself now. This time it was
entirely different. His feelings toward this half child were
different and he knew that his friend’s emotions were different as
well.

There was one thing that consoled him; Dr.
Mohnen would certainly not win Fräulein ten Brinken. His chances of
doing that were much less than they had been with any of the other
women. Really, this time he was not even sure if she would be
interested in him. When it came to this little doll all of his
natural confidence had completely deserted him.

As far as young Gontram was concerned, it
appeared that the Fräulein liked to have her handsome page, as she
called him, around. But it was just as clear that he was nothing
more than a plaything for Alraune without any will of his own.

No, neither of these two were rivals, not the
smooth talking doctor nor the handsome youth. The cavalry captain
seriously weighed his chances for the first time in his life. He
was from an ancient and noble family and the King’s Hussars were
considered the finest regiment in the West.

He was slender and well built, still looked
young enough and was soon to be promoted to Major. He was a
dilettante, and versed well enough in all the arts. If he had to be
honest with himself he would have to admit that it would not be
easy to find a Prussian cavalry officer with more interests or more
accomplishments than he had. Truthfully it was not surprising that
both women and girls threw themselves around his neck. Why
shouldn’t Alraune do the same? She could search for a long time
before she found anyone better. Even more, as the adopted daughter
of his Excellency, she had the only thing that he couldn’t offer,
money, and she had it in such immense abundance! The two of them
would make an excellent couple, he thought.

Wolf Gontram was in the house sacred to St.
Nepomuk every evening and at least three times every week he
brought the cavalry captain and the doctor along with him. The
Privy Councilor withdrew after the meal, coming in only
occasionally for a half hour at a time, listening to them,
observing for a bit and withdrawing again, “testing the waters” as
he called it.

The three lovers sat around the little
Fräulein, looking at her and making love to her, each in their own
way.

The young girl enjoyed the attention for
awhile but then it began to bore her. Things were getting too
monotonous and a little more color was needed to liven up the
evenings in Lendenich.

“They should do something,” she said to Wolf
Gontram.

The youth asked, “Who should do
something?”

She looked at him, “Who? Those two! Dr.
Mohnen and the count.”

“Tell them what they should do,” he replied.
“I’m sure they will do it.”

Alraune looked at him astonished, “How should
I know what they should do? They have to figure that out
themselves.”

She put her head in her hands and stared out
into the room.

“Wouldn’t it be nice Wölfchen, if they dueled
each other? Shot each other dead–both of them?”

Wolf Gontram opined, “Why should they shoot
each other dead? They are best friends.”

“You are a stupid boy, Wölfchen!” said
Alraune. “What does that have to do with it? Whether they are best
friends or not? Then they must become enemies.”

“Yes, but why? There is no purpose to
it.”

She laughed, grabbed his curly head and
kissed him quickly right on the nose.

“No, Wölfchen. There is no purpose at all–Why
should there be? But it would be something different, would be a
change–Will you help me Wölfchen?”

He didn’t answer. She asked again, “Will you
help me Wölfchen?”

He nodded.

That evening Alraune deliberated with young
Gontram on how they could arrange things to incite the two friends
so that one of them would challenge the other to a duel. Alraune
considered, spinning one plan after another and proposing it.
Wölfchen Gontram listened and nodded but was still hesitant.

Alraune calmed him.

“They don’t need to be serious about it. Very
little blood is shed at duels and afterward they will be like
brothers again. It will strengthen their friendship!”

That brightened him up and he helped her
think things through. He explained to her the various little
weaknesses of them both, where the one was sensitive and where the
other–

So her little plan grew. It was no finely
crafted scheme at all, was much more quite childish and naïve. Only
two people that were blindly in love would ever stumble over such a
crude stone.

His Excellency noticed that something was up.
He questioned Alraune and when she wouldn’t talk he questioned
young Gontram. He learned everything he wanted to from the boy,
laughed and gave him a few beautiful suggestions for the little
plan as well.

But the friendship between the two was
stronger than Alraune had believed. Dr. Mohnen was so rock solidly
convinced of his own irresistible nature that it took her over four
weeks to turn things around and bring him to the impression that
the captain might just take the field this time and likewise to
give the captain the impression that for once the doctor might just
triumph over him.

The count and Karl Mohnen both thought that
it was time to speak privately with each other and settle things
but Fräulein ten Brinken understood such confidential talks and
always found ways to hinder them. One evening she would invite the
doctor and not the cavalry captain. Next time she would go riding
with the count and leave the doctor waiting for her at some garden
concert.

Each considered themselves as her favorite
but also had to recognize that her behavior toward the other was
not entirely indifferent either. It was the old Privy Councilor
himself that finally fanned the glowing spark into high flames.

He took his office manager to one side and
had a long talk with him, said that he was very satisfied with his
performance and would not be unhappy at all to see someone as
dedicated as he was to someday become his successor. Really, he
would never try to influence the decision of his child. Still, he
wanted to warn him that there was someone, whom he did not want to
name, that was fighting against him, in particular all kinds of
rumors of his loose living were spreading and reaching the
Fräulein’s ear.

His Excellency then had almost the same talk
with the cavalry captain, except that in this case he remarked that
he would not take it unkindly if his daughter married into such a
prestigious old family like the Geroldingen’s.

During the next few weeks the two rivals
strongly avoided any encounters with each other while doubling
their attentions toward Alraune. Dr. Mohnen, especially, let none
of her desires go unfulfilled. When he heard that she craved a
charming seven-stranded pearl necklace that she had seen at a
jeweler’s on Schilder Street in Cologne he immediately went there
and bought it. Then when he saw that for a moment the Fräulein was
really delighted over his gift he believed he had most certainly
found the way to her heart and began to shower her with all kinds
of beautiful jewels.

For this purpose he had to help himself to
the money in the cash box at the ten Brinken offices. But he was so
sure of his cause that he did it with a light heart and considered
the little forced borrowing as something he was entitled to that he
would immediately replace as soon as he received the dowry of
millions from his father-in-law. He was certain that his Excellency
would only laugh over his little trick.

His Excellency did laugh–but a little
differently than the good doctor had thought. On the very same day
that Alraune received the strands of pearls he rode into the city
and determined immediately where the suitor had found the means for
purchasing the gift. But he didn’t say a word.

Count Geroldingen could give no pearls. There
was no cash box for him to plunder and no jeweler would loan him
anything on credit. But he wrote sonnets for the Fräulein that were
really very beautiful! He painted her in her boy’s clothing and
played violin, not Beethoven whom he loved, but Offenbach, whom she
liked to listen to.

Then on the birthday of the Privy Councilor
the collision finally came. They had both been invited and the
Fräulein had privately asked each one to escort her to the table.
They both came up to her when the servant announced that dinner was
served. Each considered the intrusion of the other as tactless and
each said–and half suppressed–a few words.

Alraune waved Wolf Gontram over.

“If the gentlemen can’t agree–” she said,
laughing and took his arm.

It was a little quiet at the table at first.
The Privy Councilor had to do most of the talking. But soon both
lovers were warm. They drank to the health of the birthday child
and his charming daughter. Karl Mohnen gave a speech and the
Fräulein threw a couple of glances at him that made the hot blood
pound in the cavalry captain’s temples. But later, at dessert she
laid her little hand lightly on the count’s arm–only a second–but
long enough to make the round fish eyes of the doctor pop out of
his head. When she stood up she allowed both to lead her away; she
danced with them both as well.