Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (27 page)

Describes how Wolf Gontram was put into the
ground because of Alraune.

K
ARL
Mohnen was not the only one around that time
that fell under the deceptive wheels of his Excellency’s
magnificent machine. The Privy Councilor completely took over the
large People’s Mortgage Bank, which had been under his influence
for a long time. At the same time he took possession and control
over the wide many-branched Silver Frost Association that had their
little savings banks in every little village under the flag of the
church.

That didn’t happen without sharp friction
since many of the old employees that had thought their positions
permanent were reluctant to cooperate with the new regime.

Attorney Manasse, together with Legal
Councilor Gontram, legal advisor for these transactions, acted in
as many ways as possible to soften the transition without hindering
it. His Excellency’s lack of regard made things severe enough and
everything that did not appear absolutely necessary to him was
thrown away out of hand without further thought. Using right
dubious means he pushed to the side other little district
associations and banks that opposed him and refused to submit to
his control.

By now his superior might extended far into
the industrial district as well–everything that had to do with the
earth–coal, metals, mineral water, water works, real estate,
buildings, agriculture, road making, dams, canals–everything in the
Rhineland more or less depended on him.

Since Alraune had come back into the house he
handled things with fewer scruples than ever. From the time he
first became aware of her influence on his success he showed no
more regard to others, no restraint or consideration.

In long pages in the leather volume he
explains all of these affairs. Evidently it gave him joy to speak
of each new undertaking that was of little value with almost no
possibility of success–it was only of these things that he would
grab up–and finally attribute their success to the creature that
lived in his house.

From time to time he would solicit advice
from her without entrusting her with the particulars, asking only,
“Should I do it?”

If she nodded, he did it and would drop it
immediately if she shook her head. The law had not appeared to
exist anymore to the old man for a long time now. Earlier he had
spent long hours talking things over with his attorneys, trying to
find a way out, a loophole or twist of phrase that would give him a
back door. He had all possible gaps in the law books studied, knew
all kinds of tricks and whistles that made outright evil deeds
legally acceptable. It had been a long time now since he had
troubled himself with such evasions.

Trusting only on his power and his luck he
broke the law many times knowing full well that no judge would
stand up with the plaintiff to balance the scales. His lawsuits
multiplied as well as complaints against him. Most were anonymous,
including those the authorities themselves entered against him.

But his connections extended as far into the
government as they did the church. He was on close terms with them
both. His voice in the provincial daily papers was decisive. The
policies of the ArchBishop’s palace in Cologne, which he supported,
gave him even greater backing. His influence went as far as Berlin
where an exceptionally meritorious medal was given to him at an
unveiling of a monument dedicated to the Kaiser. The hand of the
All Highest himself placed the medal around his neck and was
documented publicly.

Really, he had steered a good sum of money
into the building of the monument–but the city had paid dearly for
the real estate on which it stood when they were required to
purchase it from him.

In addition to these were his title, his
venerable age, his acknowledged services to the sciences. What
little public prosecutor would want to press charges against him? A
few times the Privy Councilor himself pressed charges at some of
these accusations. They were seen as gross exaggerations and
collapsed like soap bubbles.

In this way he nourished the skepticism of
the authorities toward his accusers. It went so far that in one
case when a young assistant judge was thoroughly convinced, clear
as day, against his Excellency and wanted to intervene, the
District Attorney without even looking at the records declared:

“Stupid stuff! Grumblers screaming–We know
that! It would only make us look like fools.”

In this case the grumbler was the provisional
director of the Wiesbaden Land Museum which had purchased all
manner of artifacts from the Privy Councilor. Now he felt defrauded
and wanted to publicly declaim him as a forger of antiquities.

The authorities didn’t take up the case but
they did notify the Privy Councilor who defended himself very well.
He wrote his own personal publication that was inserted into a
special Sunday edition of the “Cologne News”. The beautiful
human-interest story carried the title, “Taking care of our
Museums”.

He didn’t go on about any of the accusations
against him, but he attacked his opponent viciously, destroyed him
completely, placing him as a know nothing and cretin. He didn’t
stop until the poor scholar lay unmoving on the floor. Then he
pulled his strings, let his wheels turn–after less than a month
there was a different director in the museum.

The head district attorney nodded in
satisfaction when he read the notice in the paper.

He brought the page over to the assistant
judge and said, “Read that, colleague! You can thank God that you
asked me about it and avoided such a fatal error.”

The assistant judge thanked him, but was not
absolutely convinced.

In early February on Candlemass all the
sleighs and autos traveled to “The Gathering”. It was the great
Shrovetide Ball of the community. The Royalty was there and around
them circled anyone in the city that wore uniforms or colored
fraternity armbands and caps.

Professors circled there as well, along with
those from the court, the government, city officials, rich people,
Councilors to the Chamber of Commerce and wealthy
industrialists.

Everyone was in costume. Only the declared
chaperones were allowed to dress as false Spaniards. The old
gentleman himself had to leave his dress suit at home and come in a
black hooded robe and cowl. Legal Councilor Gontram presided at his
Excellency’s large table. He knew the old wine cellar and
understood it, the best vintages and how to procure them.

Princess Wolkonski sat there with her
daughter Olga, now Countess Figueirea y Abrantes, and with Frieda
Gontram. Both were visiting her for the winter.

Then there was Attorney Manasse, a couple of
private university speakers, professors and even a few officers and
of course the Privy Counselor himself who had taken his little
daughter out for her first ball.

Alraune came dressed as Mademoiselle de
Maupin wearing boy’s clothes in the style of Beardsly’s famous
illustrations. She had torn through many wardrobes in the house of
ten Brinken, stormed through many old chests and trunks. She
finally found them in a damp cellar along with piles of beautiful
Mechlin lace that an ancient predecessor had placed there. It is
certain the poor seamstress who created them would have cried tears
to see them treated like that.

This lacey women’s clothing that made up
Alraune’s cheeky costume netted still more fresh tears–she scolded
the dressmaker that could not get just the right fit to the
capricious costume, the hair dresser that Alraune beat because she
couldn’t understand the exact hair style Alraune wanted and who
couldn’t lay the chi-chi’s just right, and the little maid whom she
impatiently poked with a large pin while getting dressed.

Oh, it was a torture to turn Alraune into
this girl of Gautier’s, in the bizarre interpretation of the
Englishman, Beardsly.

But when it was done, when the moody boy with
his high sword-cane strutted with graceful pomp through the hall
there were no eyes that didn’t greedily follow him, no old ones or
young ones, of either men or women.

The Chevalier de Maupin shared his glory with
Rosalinde. Rosalinde, the one in the last scene–was Wolf Gontram,
and never did the stage see a more beautiful one. Not in
Shakespeare’s time when slender boys played the roles of his women.
Not even later since Margaret Hews, the beloved of Prince Rupert,
was the first woman to play the part of the beautiful maiden in “As
You Like It”.

Alraune had the youth dressed and with
infinite care had brought him up to this point. She taught him how
to walk, how to dance, how to move his fan and even how he should
smile.

And now, even as she appeared as a boy and
yet a girl kissed by Hermes as well as Aphrodite in her Beardsly
costume; Wolf Gontram embodied the character of his compatriot,
Shakespeare, no less.

He was in a red evening gown and train
brocaded with gold, a beautiful girl, and yet a boy as well.
Perhaps the old Privy Councilor understood all of it, perhaps
little Manasse, perhaps even Frieda Gontram did a little as her
quick look darted from one to the other. Other than that it was
certain that no one else did in that immense hall of the Gathering
in which heavy garlands of red roses hung from the ceiling.

But everyone felt it, felt that here was
something special, of singular worth. Her Royal Highness sent her
adjutant to fetch them both and present them to her. She danced the
first waltz with him, playing the gentleman to Rosalinde, then as
the lady with the Chevalier de Maupin. She clapped her hands loudly
during the minuet when Théophile Gautier’s curly headed boy bowed
and flirted with Shakespeare’s sweet dream girl directly in front
of her.

Her Royal Highness was an excellent dancer
herself, was first at the tennis courts and the best ice skater in
the city. She would have loved to dance through the entire night
with only the two of them. But the crowd wanted their share as
well. So Mademoiselle de Maupin and Rosalinde flew from one set of
arms into another, soon pressing into the muscular arms of young
men, soon feeling the hot heaving breasts of beautiful women.

Legal Councilor Gontram looked on
indifferently. The Treves punch bowl and its brewed contents
interested him much more than the success of his son. He attempted
to tell Princess Wolkonski a long story about a counterfeiter but
her Highness wasn’t listening.

She shared the satisfaction and happy pride
of his Excellency ten Brinken. Felt herself a participant in the
creation and bringing into the world of this creature, her
Godchild, Alraune.

Only little Manasse was bad tempered enough,
cursing and muttering under his breath.

“You shouldn’t dance so much boy,” he hissed
at Wolf. “Be more careful of your lungs!”

But young Gontram didn’t hear him.

Countess Olga sprang up and flew out to
Alraune.

“My handsome chevalier,” she whispered.

The boy dressed in lace answered, “Come here
my little Tosca!”

He wheeled her around to the left and circled
through the hall, scarcely giving her time to breathe, brought her
back to the table breathless and kissed her full on the mouth.

Frieda Gontram danced with her brother,
looking at him for a long time with her intelligent gray eyes.

“It’s a shame that you are my brother,” she
said.

He didn’t understand her at all.

“Why?” he asked.

She laughed, “Oh, you stupid boy! By the way,
your answer ‘Why?’ is entirely correct. It shouldn’t make any
difference at all should it? It is only the last shred of those
morals that our stupid education has given us. Like putting lead
weights in our virtuous skirts to keep them long, stretched smooth
and modest. That’s what it is, my beautiful little brother!”

But Wolf Gontram didn’t understand one
syllable. She laughed, left him standing there, and took the arm of
Fräulein ten Brinken.

“My brother is a more beautiful girl that you
are,” she said. “But you are a sweeter boy.”

“And you,” laughed Alraune, “my blonde
abbess, you prefer sweet boys?”

She answered, “What is permitted for Héloise?
It went very badly for my poor Abalard, you know. He was slender
and delicate just like you are! There I can learn much about
self-modesty.

But you, my sweet little boy, you appear like
a strange priest with a new and fresh doctrine. One that would harm
no one.”

“My doctrine is ancient and venerable,” said
the Chevalier de Maupin.

“That is the best covering for such sweet
sin,” laughed the blonde abbess.

She took a goblet from the table and handed
it to him.

“Drink, sweet boy.”

The countess came up with hot pleading eyes,
“Let me have him!”

But Frieda Gontram shook her head. “No,” she
said sharply. “Not him! Fair game, if you like–”

“She kissed me,” insisted Tosca and Héloise
scoffed.

“Do you believe you are the only one
tonight?”

She turned to Alraune, “Decide, my Paris. Who
shall it be? The worldly Lady or the pious one?”

“For today?” asked Fräulein de Maupin.

“Today–and as long as you want!” cried
Countess Olga.

The fancy dressed boy laughed, “I want the
abbess–and Tosca as well.”

He ran laughing over to a blonde Teuton that
was strutting as a red executioner with a mighty axe made of
cardboard.

“You–brother-in-law,” she cried. “I’ve got
two mama’s. Will you execute them, both of them?”

The student straightened up and raised both
arms high.

“Where are they?” he bellowed.

But Alraune found no time to answer; the
Colonel of the 28th regiment had snatched her up for the
two-step.

–The Chevalier de Maupin stepped onto the
professors’ table.