The Dedalus Book of German Decadence (18 page)

On such days he would go to the parks on the far side of the Moldau bridge, where the secluded quiet of the paths assured solitary mornings. Only occasionally would the step of a stray passer-by crunch across the gravel. Red-cheeked schoolgirls dashed past, the black-and-white costumes of anaemic governesses shimmered through the leaves. Blaugast stood in the shadow of a bend overhung with luxuriating bushes. Like an animal, whose deranged instincts implanted uncontrollable actions, he lay in wait for his prey. Whenever the bright red of a sunshade, a swirling skirt or a chequered scarf announced the approach of a woman, he would step out of his niche and expose himself. Arms outstretched, pale and infirm, he stood there motionless, barring passage. The horrified woman’s flight, her hysterical fear, her horror at the sight of him gave him relief.

That was the last pleasure he enjoyed in his collapse, a game from the underworld, which was gradually asserting its power over him. The thorny road of his destiny, the fruit of his passion were lying outspread, were ripe for the end.

Extracts from Paul Leppin:
Blaugast: Ein Roman aus
dem alten Prag
Langen/Müller, Munich/Vienna, 1984.

(First published; originally intended for publication
1933).

A delicate, alabaster-yellow finger thrusts itself into blue-black locks, an insatiable, knowing gaze pours out.

Before her hatred rises up the wild, handsome figure of the zealot faun, whom they call the Preacher of the Wilderness.

Adonis!

Within her, a rage of Venus finds its own justification.

The red lamp, stabbing, stabbing, stinging, stinging.

And the air as oppressive, as hot as the grass-sultry blood in her body.

‘If he will make me suffer, me, the Princess, then he must die.’

‘O John, John!’

A bath; precious ointments.

Intoxicating she was as she rose and went into the bright morning light, and full of desire as she went out of the bright morning light, bending into a dungeon full of the dread of destiny.

Well, you obstinate man, still the hard, strange words of penitence directed at the Jewess, when before you stands nothing but Roman reason and Greek manners?

Still the same obsessions under that tangled mane? And I, I want your sighs, your tower of strength, and the quivering of your powerful heart, you man apart, chaste and solitary. I want you to live for me, do you hear? Is that so hard?

And she smiles.

And John, a tall figure ripened to sinewy strength by the desert sun, rising from the fetterstone at the entrance of the daughter of the royal house, speaks in deep, soft, forceful tones, ‘Princess, you know that there is no contempt within me, for love touches me, and in return for your affection, wild and foolish though it be, I would give you the best I can wish: salvation. May my voice, the rough voice that prepares the way of the Lord, claw the frippery and wantonness from you, so that at last your soul may see the light and demand salvation and accept the sign of cleansing from me.

For I would make you a boundless gift of the highest thing I acknowledge in myself, my prayer, and prostrate myself with it day and night before the throne of God, that your grace might grow!’

‘There you go again, preaching your baptism of repentance! Just wait, I’ll send my own preacher, my love, the red preacher – the executioner!

Until then, my darling, fare thee well.’

And Samson was avenged of his Delilah.

An Aphrodite of a landscape rose in fragrance from round the pool and the sun breathed through the foliage, warm and coy, like a bride nestling against a happily beating breast.

Merrily mocking flowers, odoursome rising sap, ripe blue air!

Everything received its due – and she? Reduced to wretchedness for such a rough recluse!

Full of determination, she went in.

Now she wanted peace – a clean cut! Cut off the member that was irritating her, because of the hostile refusal in the mind of the man to whom it was attached! –

Puzzled, Herod looked up, Herod, who had not yet sacrificed the Semitic, almost Assyrian splendour of his locks to curt Roman imperiousness.

What is she doing? And what does she look –

Then there is a chinking of fine chains, a glimmer, and a shimmer of the folds in the shot silk of the dancing, teasing garment; the arm, like a butterfly brushing the swaying cloth, the delicate arm, whispers, ‘Do me no harm!’

Folds and limbs in grace, swing and begin to race. And movement blossoms into motion; the drift of a friendly smile  …  a Medusa turned friendly awhile – And once more menacing darkness clouds the features, which just now shone with such feigned allure  …  a Medusa’s head, with snakes garlanded, in noble-horrific-petrifying constancy.

And he awakes as from mesmeric sleep; sighing heavily, completely drained he almost has to pinch himself. And now, intoxicated, the seal of a sumptuous, thoroughly royal kiss is placed on cunning, smouldering, close-drawn patience.

And trembling almost, he throws open all the gates of generosity, ‘What do you want, Herodias, what do you want for that, that, that marvellous, caressing dance; it has sucked out my soul, what do you want, my daughter?’

‘What it is worth, its due reward – the head of John!’

‘Then take it!’

Ill and exhausted, at the end of both desire and affection, Herod turns away and staggers up.

But content, indeed intensely happy, ignoring her stepfather’s moroseness, indifferent now to it, Herodias hurries off with the rhythm of the dance still in her step, so to speak, one of the Horae on an errand of vengeance, a Pandora pleased with her gracefully destructive mission.

And she hurries to him herself.

He does not look at her, he kneels down and prays.

She stands there for a while then goes out – embarrassed. Almost all pleasure in her triumph has gone, so little effect it has had.

Great, noble, alone between himself and the Almighty, John remains buttoned up in happy contemplation since no longer distracted from himself by his office of the voice crying in the wilderness of the royal city, no longer directed towards this petty, alien earth, which keeps opening up in its course; thus he remains, strong, robust, too much a man and full of the simplicity of solitude for piety as such, thus he remains until the evening darkens and the red preacher quietly beckons.

And it turned doubly red.

Warm with pity, the early evening curved down like the cheek of a dreaming angel.

And now there is blood on their love, blood on their nights. She does not groan with remorse. But she feels so unsatisfied, restless, strange, so transformed into desolation. Such a soulless life, so faustinian, so anointed with fear, of such Ovidian sultriness. She has to anaesthetise herself, draw up her ruler’s pride around her, something which before, in voluptuous evil, though actually virginal innocence, she did not need to do.

She finds herself at bottom so petty, so petty, so sick and timid.

But then again, it is as if something from the past, something deep and great, the blood that was spilt that night, were raising her up from afar, at the same time ennobling her.

And when she is old and grey and counts on death, something fearful and soft comes into her thoughts, as if she is to meet again the strange man who rejected her.

To
meet
again?

Peter Hille: ‘Herodias. Novellette’ first published in
Moderner Musen-Almanach,
E. Albert, Munich, 1893.

It was late at night when he returned.

He sat down at the writing desk and stared without thinking at the magnificent bouquet, tied with a broad red ribbon.

At one end was inscribed, in golden letters, a mystical, woman’s name.

Nothing more.

And again he felt the long, lilac-soft
frisson
which overwhelmed him when he had received this bouquet on the podium.

They had thrown flowers at him, and bouquets had rained down at his feet – but this one, with the red ribbon and the mystical name: who could have sent it?

He did not know.

It was as though a small warm hand had touched his, no, not touched, had caressed it lasciviously, had kissed it with hot fingers  …

And she, whose name had so confused him  …

Perhaps she had kissed the flowers before receiving them, had pressed her face into the soft flowery nest before arranging them as a bouquet, had pressed the rich floral tribute to her heart and rolled, naked and panting with passion, across the flowery bed  …

And the flowers still exhaled the perfume of her body and trembled still with the furtive, hot whispers of her desire  …

She must have loved him, had known him for many, many days and, shuddering, had considered long before daring to send him these flowers  …  He knew it, he was certain of it  …  He was certain that she loved him, for only girls who are in love could send such flowers.

He closed his eyes and listened.

He saw enormous, magical roses, black, bloodthirsty, white, on long stems, roses that swayed back and forth. They bent down, lower and lower, then reared proudly upwards, tempting and laughing, exulting in their glory.

He saw tuberose plants, white as Bethlehem stars, with fine delicate stems with bluish veins  …  He saw ancient trees of white and red azaleas, heavily weighted with a mass of white, downy blossom, lovely to see, as lovely as the ball gowns on the wondrous maiden-figures of noble ladies long since dead  …  he saw orchids on lips, hot and gaping, lustful, poisonous lips, and lilies with wombs wide and waiting for chaste delights, saw narcissi and begonias and camelias: a tidal wave of intoxicating, poisonous colour and drunken, sucking perfume overwhelmed him  …

The gentle, May-like scent of lilac poured forth within him, mixing with the still, child-like serenade of shepherds’ pipes in the warm nights of Spring, the shrill purple of the roses roared like a lustful howl of triumph  …  the lilies embraced his heart with their chaste arms  …  orchids sucked lubriciously at him with their red tongues  …  the tuberoses danced around him with a white, cold gleam  …  the drunken scent of acacia blossoms poured their aphrodisiac poison into him, impregnated with the lightning-hot storms of summer; and all these perfumes, cool and soft as the eyes of girls ignorant of their sexuality, hot and lustful as the arms of raving courtesans, poisonous and screaming as the gaze of a trampled otter; all this poured itself into him, soaked through him, saturated him: he was intoxicated, weakened  …  he felt unable to move his limbs, unable to distinguish one impression from another; he saw no colours, sensed no odours, everything was one.

In the depths a wide, open stubble field arose within him, barren, sad, heavy as the groaning of bells in the Maundy Thursday dusk, in the distance was gleaming the glittering edge of a distant lake, bedded in the sleep-heavy heat of midday, here and there the slim stem of a mullein rose up as though it had broken through the earth’s searing crust and was threatening the heavens with a triumphant fist; here and there a few stunted juniper bushes were growing, twisted into strange shapes as though they were sick with the poisons of corpses which once manured the earth; and here and there in the stretches of sand there dreamed the blue calyces of chicory, longing for the sunset when they might close their blossoms and drink in, shuddering, the graveyard magic of the lonely heath  …

And he also saw cross-roads on the tracks between the swamps and the steep ditches. The hour of midnight was approaching, full of horror and torment  …  A will o’ the wisp flickered up, quick as thought, above the marshy pools, a silent, mysterious effulgence  …  and a dog started to bark in a neighbouring village, then another, answering with a long, drawn-out whine, and then the sharp sound of the night watchman’s horn, and then silence again, silence which penetrated, deep and black, into the darkest abysses, drawing everything into itself, my Today, my Tomorrow, laming every step and every movement, and making me so lonely, so remote and a stranger to reality.

And before his eyes his homeland arose in a whole variety of pictures: a gigantic sheet, ripped and torn into green rags of barley, into white fields of heather, golden carpets of rye, blood-red fields of wheat with ears as heavy as whips  …  the whole earth is drunk with May, lustful in its glorious blossom, monstrous in its creative madness, in the nuptial majesty of pious love, the whole earth, right up to the boundary of the white church upon the hill.

The bells poured their broad streams of euphony down upon the flat land and the waves of a mighty hymn washed through the fields during the Corpus Christi procession: the white dresses of the girls are gleaming between the black bushes and the thick foliage, girls who are scattering flowers at the feet of the priests carrying the Holy Sacrament, and the long peasant coats are blue, tied with a wide red sash  …

He twitched and started up, lusting for greater longing  …

Endless  …  in miraculous configurations, a wedding procession on a day in July. The broad sobbing of the violins, made from the bark of the lime-tree, the hoarse groaning of the basses which jangle with the coins that the bridegroom has tossed into them, and a jubilant cry which cuts through the air at regular intervals: Hooray! And then again a funeral procession in late autumn on rain-sodden country roads  …  A couple of girls are carrying the white coffin of a child and then a solemn pilgrimage wending its way to the miraculous picture of a Saint, then again  …  oh, endless, measureless  …

His eyes slowly darkened; only a few vague, ragged pictures slid sluggishly and tentatively across his brain  …  His soul grew dusky, rocked in tender dreaming and extinguished – until suddenly rearing up in a mighty song.

The malicious enchantment of the flowers, the intoxicating poison of exotic blooms, and the paradise of his homeland made his soul resound with the thundering, brazen steps of knights who seemed to be cast in bronze and who made the earth tremble under their victorious, exultant marching, and then his soul melted in the sobbing moans of a mother lamenting the death of her first-born  …  his soul grew verdant in the myrtle wreath of epithalamia, it raged and roared in the drunken tavern dance, stamping and shouting, it shot upwards with a wild shriek like the mullein’s bloom upon the searing hot earth of the fallow field, the whole song paved itself into a dark, wild bed, it dried, drew backwards, yet only to burst forth again more powerfully and finally flooded the plain itself  …