2.
“But it has once again become summer, old man! What are our stories? A fireplace can’t be lit when it’s 16 degrees Celsius!”
“Madam, even if there is sheet lightning outside, we are nevertheless already deep into November. The tea table will do for today. Let only the kettle whistle. I for my part am happy with the accommodation. Of course –“
“What then, of course?”
“If the tea kettle is to represent the hearth, it must necessarily boil on a brazier, and certainly on peal coals, glowing red hot. It also provides a longer duration than that unpleasant apparatus.”
“Well, old man, for me it shouldn’t come on a can of gas!”
“Keep nevertheless the pharmacist’s flame of the spirit lamp! – However, meanwhile there is neither peat nor even a tea Komfort – you don’t even recognize that fact? –, so I’ll accept the gas can.”
“So, get on your soapbox. What do you have to tell?”
“Today as I was passing a newly opened milliner’s shop, I had a vivid memory of an old friend from back home. She was the daughter of a craftsman from a neighboring town and lived a long time in a little house whose courtyard bordered the garden of our dwelling house. Much against her inclination, she sought an income by fancy millinery work which she made for the women in the neighborhood. She in no way concealed that the business at present was going fairly poorly; and if she was able to give herself a free evening she shut her hated work in the dresser drawer and in place took one of her beloved books in hand, or she took herself to her pen and wrote a little story or some meaningful thoughts on paper. The limited nature of her living condition, coupled with the urge to take in all sorts of fine spiritual nourishment – for Rahel’s writings were her favorite food – produced by her an unusual but not uninteresting view of things for her; and we’ve had some entertaining chats together over the garden picket fence.
“Hans!”
“What is it, woman?”
“You left out something. – Through that house is a shortcut to the main street, and next to the road was the milliner’s shop. Confess: you sat between lilies and roses!”
“But ladies, my friend was in no way a St. Genevieve, but a sedate, lean person of 45!”
“But she had bright, brown eyes, Hans, and her lively red face bore witness to the excitability of her heart, and if she expressed her joy for our engagement with careful words, because of the naughty character of the young man’s visits could no longer be misconstrued, I could not ignore the veiled confession of mutual affection.”
“In no way do I want to diminish our mutual affection. That remark from my friend probably came from an virginal purity that can be called from time to time driving forth from being in a single state for too long a time. Because when she later got married and, to the astonishment of world, gave birth to a boy, she could not be persuaded initially to lay her boy on her chest because, as she put it, the child was of the opposite sex.”
“Hans! – You are lying. She had never married.”
“No? – Well, I confused the story. Be that as it may, this friend, of whom I preserve a faithful memory, was in secret at home in the supernatural as she was as the domestic affairs. Of her many stories to me however – forgive me, Clara! – only a dream in memory stays!
“There was – so she told me – long ago in our area a rich Dutch family who gradually came into possession of all the large farms in the area around my hometown – I say long ago because the fortune of the van A…, it did not last. In my childhood there only lived the old lady, the widow of the long-dead penny pincher van A…, the other members of the family had died, sometimes losing their lives in strange and violent ways; and of the immense possessions only an old gabled house in the city had been left behind, in which the last of that name lived the rest of her days in solitude. I often saw her, that narrow, sharply cut face bordered by her bonnet ribbons; but we kids were afraid of her, there was something in her eyes that scared us. There was also kinds of scary talk, not only about the acquisition of assets in earlier times, but also about the means by which the penny pincher had try to avoid ruin. Whether it was an abuse of office or whether it might have been something else, I don’t remember, but the surviving widow was considered the actual originator. Nevertheless, it was always a kind of holiday if, at the order of my parents, I spent a few minutes in the high room filled with old-fashioned curiosities. I can still see her before me, how she sat straight and stiff in her easy chair next to the glass cabinet, groping around between journals and ledgers or moving her gaunt fingers around a large piece of knitting. Only once have I met another person with her except for her old servant; and the short scene that I was eye-witness to at the time gave me a deep impression, without being able make the significance of it clear to myself. It was a ragged woman from the city standing in front of the old woman. Upon my entering she threw a valuable coin before the feet and then went out the door with jeering, passionate words. The woman van A…, who replied to none of this, now stood up from her chair without taking any notice of me, spent a long while to and fro in the room, wringing her hands and blurting half-loud plaintive words. – Suddenly one morning it was that she died, and soon in the afternoon I decided to sneak into the house of mourning and observed with mixed feelings of horror and curiosity, through the window of the room’s door, the wax face that jutted from the white pillow of the alcove bedstead. Then a few days later came the funeral; I ate with great relish the delicious butter kringels that were distributed during the neighborhood’s funeral feast, and saw from our stone stairs a coffin covered in a black cloth carried out of the old house and down the long street.
“A few weeks later I dreamt that I was playing in the twilight in our long hallway. In the increasing darkness all of a sudden a feeling of loneliness overcame me, and I was about to go into the room with my mother when the doorbell rang and I saw the old woman van A… enter. I was fully aware that she was dead and slipped as she came nearer and only barely slipped past her into the living room, where my mother had just ignited the light. While I ran to her and held tight to her apron, I noticed that the deceased was dressed in a colorful night jacket and a white woolen petticoat, like I sometimes saw her in the early morning hours. She walked to the small, enclosed oven bricked into the wall and with trembling hands caressed the brass knobs, while she turned her heard to my mother and said in a sad voice, ‘Ah, dear neighbor, may I warm up a bit? I am freezing!’ And while she stood still, sighing softly to herself for a while, I noticed that under the hem of her woolen coat several spots were burnt. -- -- How the dream ended, I don’t know; I thought the next morning about it not at all long and also told no one about it. But it came back. – A few nights later I dreamt that I was sitting as usual with my sewing beside my mother in the room, when it rang outside the front door. ‘See who it is,’ said my mother; and as I opened the door to see, there stood the woman van A… before me again, in the same clothing I saw her in the previous time. Overcome by the terrible horror, I jumped back and crawled along the wall under the table that stood in the corner by the window. Like the last time the woman went moaning quietly to herself to the oven. ‘I’m freezing, oh, I’m freezing!’ she said, and I distinctly heard her teeth chattering. From the glow of the light on the table I also noticed that she had bare feet, but oddly enough there were also burn wounds, and the wool coat was burnt far more than on the previous night. And she stood there constantly and clung herself with her hands on the oven, only occasionally uttering a sigh or a deep groan.
This time the dream would not let me forget it in the morning. During breakfast my father didn’t tolerate that we would suggest something upsetting or unpleasant would be raised. But later, as my mother got up and went into the kitchen, I followed her and told her exactly what I had dreamt on both nights. I can still see the dismay expressed on her face during my story. I had barely ended when she put her hands together over her head and cried in P
latt Deutsch, ‘Dear God in heaven, even in my dream!’ – Then she told me that in the same night she experienced the same dream as I. -- -- Later we did not experience this dream again.”
– – – – – – – – – –
“Where did the dead woman come from?”
“I can unfortunately give no answer.
“But two other questions strike me even more closely, the truth of which I have no reason to doubt, are even closer to me. Was one dream just the source of another, which obviously seemed to be the case in the story of the wolf, or was it a third, which was the original source of these two? –
“Let me tell you, however, about another incident.
“Some years ago I spent, as you know, a couple of weeks with my wife at my brother’s estate. If we had strolled that day between meadows and cornfields or even rode with the children in the nearby forest, in the evening there stood ready for us a very cozy tea table, at which one or the other neighboring landowners would make an appearance. On such an occasion my brother complained to his nextdoor neighbor, a man with whom it is very comfortable talking, that for some time small quantities of fruit had been constantly going missing from his ground without ever being able to discover the thief. After it was all talked through, as whatever might serve as clarification, Mr. B..r said, ‘With me, in a similar situation, it has gone according to the Proverb: God gives the lazy their sleep.’ After closer questioning he then told the following:
“’As you know, I took care of the trap door to my oat floor by locking the padlock and taking the key at bedtime to my bedroom. This is what I’ve done for many years. In the fall, before you came in the spring, I noticed several times when I came in the morning on the floor, that in the night someone, in apparent haste, was over at the oats. For it was rooted in at the one, then at the other end of the heap, and a lot of grains were scattered messily across the floor, where I had not noticed them in the evenings before though by chance I had been there. My first thought was that my coachman, who I for some time, to his great annoyance, had reduced rations for the horses, out of love for the poor animals had become a rogue. Alone out of the various reasons I abandoned that suspicion.
“’Then one night I dreamt that I stood in the moonlight on the oat floor at the window. How I had gotten there, I cannot state, because I was very well aware that the trap door was closed. Suddenly I heard the key turn in the padlock; immediately the door opens, and I see by the moonlight existing in the room a human face emerge from the stairs, such that I could clearly recognize an old worker who worked for me for many years and who I had not suspected. While he with his arm pushed back the door, he seemed to be aware of me, but the door closed and I saw no more.
“’But I awoke. The face was so vivid that my heart pounded, and there shined the moon so brightly in the room, exactly as I saw it in the dream. I wanted to get up and investigate the matter immediately, but I called myself just a fool; it was also cold outside, going through the courtyard, and the bed was so cozy and warm. In a word, I couldn’t bring myself and finally fell asleep again.
“’The next morning, as I sat for breakfast old Martin came up to me in the room. He looked confused, turned his hat in his hands, and stood for a while in front of me without being able to utter a word. “Do not chase me away, sir,” he said finally. “It is done out of a great need.” – “What do you mean, Martin?” I asked. – He looked at me. “I was already once at the bin again,” he said then, “but I was so frightened when I saw you standing there at the window.” – While I was perhaps at this moment no less frightened, I learned by and by the circumstances of the theft and the unfortunate circumstances that had made the honest man into a criminal.’
– – – – – – – – – –
“Here the narrator paused. I later learned from my brother that he then thoroughly helped old Martin and kept him until his death on the farm. -- -- So we have thus a story where someone awake was led to a vision by someone who was dreaming. – But the tea should be ready; is Clara perhaps so kind?”
“But what do you see then in the cup, old man? It is prepared as you instructed.”
“Oh dear! He who prophesizes from the teacup or even more from the cup of tea does it like the witch from coffee grounds. Namely, not perchance the fate, but rather the level of culture of the family, in the way the cup was presented, and if we here were not such undoubtedly educated people, I would believe, this might be one occasion to doubt it.”
“What is it, old man! Justify yourself, or – rather prophesize yourself for once; you have the cup in hand.”
“My dear lady, you will concede to me, that, just as beer is the enemy, so is tea the friend of the thinking man; and therefore it is likely the way this friend is handled- or rather mishandled in a house, how it is served and enjoyed, to justify all sorts of not quite misleading conclusions in the indicated reference.”
“This is a really shameless theory!”
“I want to go to sleep; for now follow the whole prescription for the making of tea.”
“No, Clare, it doesn’t follow, although to hear such a thing from a coastal person it could be beneficial for you.”
“Don’t be so rude, old man!”
“I punish myself with silence. But Mr. T. will tell you the story that I’ve since long detected in your face.”
“You have not seen incorrectly; something occurred to me, however, that is connected somewhat to the previous narrative, except that it goes even one step further.”
“We’re ready to listen.”
“A few years ago, as I stood in garrison in B. around Easter – so Captain von K. told me – the local officers wanted to give a farewell ball for the lovely foreigners with whom we danced much and gladly over the winter. An absolutely necessary repair was the reason we relinquished the hall of the casino and had to look around for another place. That was his difficulty in that in B. such spaces were not abundant. There was a committee of four stewards established, which I belonged, to whom was commissioned the whole arrangement of the affair, especially the ferreting out of the ballroom. Finally after much trouble it was found, in a big, fairly ramshackle home in the suburbs, in which in former years, as B. was still a university town, had served as public dance hall. Now it was used in the upper spaces as a granary; the immense hall itself was currently empty and unused. But while it might have enjoyed at the best of time only modest furnishing, now with the walls dripping from moisture, with the musty air behind the closed shutters, it seemed to me at my first entrance in reality like a large crypt. The more there was for us to do, the more the dance-hungry officer corps was discouraged. There was, however, a new obstacle to overcome. The leaseholder of the house had just purchased a quantity of corn that had to be stored for the next few days in the hall, because the garrets were almost full. We weren’t able to dispute it; we went to the owner’s agents, we chatted with him, we were gracious and brought it to the point that got the compliant man, apparently against his better judgment, to allow the grain to be stored in the upper rooms of the building. Then masons, carpenters, and decorators were put to work, and the old hall was ventilated, hammered, draped, and painted, and every done one or the other of us went there to oversee the work and direct it. – Suddenly, to my regret, I was assigned to H. There was no way out; I had to abandon the ball. In my place Captain von L., my oldest and most intimate childhood friend, entered at my suggestion the festival committee.
“A couple days after I had reached my new destination, I sat one afternoon busy writing letters in my room. I wrote to L., wanting to ask him to forward some of my personal possessions and the payment of some small debts. I also had much else on my mind that I needed to share with friends. So I sat, completely engrossed in my letter. But when I by chance happened to lift up my eyes again, I saw to my surprise L. standing in the corner of the room and staring strangely at me with exceptionally expressionless eyes. He did not speak, but h
e moved with a slow gesture of his hand to his lips and seemed to pull something out of his mouth. It seemed to me as if it were grains of corn. As I strained my eyes to see more clearly, the figure became indistinct, and soon I saw nothing but the bare walls. Only now, when I was again alone in the bright room, I felt the feeling of uncanniness; I got up and shut up my started letter in my secretary, because I could not bring myself to finish it.
“A few days later I received the news from other comrades that on that morning the hall, overloaded with grain, had collapsed. As they cleared the grain away, they found the body of Captain von L., who, since the workers were gone for lunch, at the time of the accident had stayed behind alone in the almost completely remodeled festival hall rooms.”
– – – – – – – – – –
“Horatio says it’s just imagination!”
“Who’s talking there? – You, Alexis? At last?”
“I stood at the door at the beginning of your story and listened as you progressed from the dreamer to the dying. There remains still one left, and if you want to listen, I will not shrink from taking that last step. – No, remain quietly seated! It can also be told from here.
“I have this strange story from a close relative who partially experienced it himself, partially learned later from a close source. He stopped temporarily several years ago in B., where at the time the Privy Medical Counselor W. lived among the well-known in academic and artistic circles. One evening, as he came into company with the mentioned W., the conversation fell on by reason of a recently published book, On the Life of the Soul, imperceptibly into that dark region, where we fumble around so much with uncertain fingers. They discussed the continued existence of the soul after the body passes away, and finally, the possibility of the influence of the dead on the living. The Counselor had in this last turn in the conversation sat silently in his easy chair. Now he raised his white powdered head and said, ‘Esteemed gentlemen, if something like that were possible, I would have undoubtedly experienced it, and I will not deny that sometimes I have such thoughts; however, it has never happened to me.’ Upon further urging he continued, ‘It is no secret here, I can tell this intimate circle well, especially you, who know and certainly honored him who it concerns. I think of our late friend, Privy Law Counselor Z. You will recall that he was ailing for years from a heart condition, until it suddenly brought his active life to an end. The sick man’s condition was such that the most differing opinions prevailed among the doctors who were brought in to advise. – During the final months I had with this worthy friend, who in no way gave in to delusions regarding his approaching death, various conversations ensued like what we have heard here tonight; he especially loved to indulge in hypothetical musings about a necessary connection of the body with the soul. Just from this I can explain it is that an otherwise rational man became afflicted by an almost incomprehensible fear of a future autopsy of his corpse, which he on the other hand could expect with good reason from the scientific curiosity of my colleagues.
“’So it happened one evening that I, who attended him in his last year in, at that time, consultation with Professor X, I gave him a solemn promise at his urgent request to prevent at the onset of death the opening of his body under any condition. – Shortly before this took place, I had to leave town by reason of an official commission, after which I transferred the care of him as for my other patients to Professor X. – After several days’ absence I returned to the city. It was already dark. As I drove past the house of Counselor Z., I was amazed to see that both living rooms were brightly lit, which it occurred to me because the window of the sick room also looked out towards the courtyard. I stopped the driver, and then I immediately went out of the coach into the house. When I entered the first room the scalpels and other equipment gleamed towards me from a cabinet top; and with it a significant smell, unmistakable for an anatomist. From the adjoining room I heard the voice of Professor X. dictating; I didn’t need to know anything more, I knew everything that happened. – When I opened the second door, I saw the dead body of my friend lying on the table, he was already opened, the intestines removed in part, the autopsy in full course. I was violently agitated, and instead of responding to the scholarly explanations of the doctor and his assisting physicians, I imparted to them my solemn promise given to the dead. Although the men wanted to only regard these as only comforting words that would be given to a sick person without the intention of their being fulfilled, they eventually promised me to desist from further proceedings and put the removed organs back into the body. I then left and went to my apartment, tired from the trip, full of pain from my friend’s death, and burdened with a mysterious sadness that I was not able to keep the word I had given him. It’s not been almost a year, but nevertheless – I have never been reminded of this.’
“The Medical Counselor was silent, and there arose a momentary silence among the company, which might have been meant for the memory of the deceased. All of a sudden however the attention of the audience went back to the narrator, who had left his chair and stood with outstretched hands in the direction of the listeners. In the wrinkled old face was the expression of the highest excitement that there was no mistaking his dismay. After a while one could hear him say softly, as if to himself, ‘It’s horrible!’ As the host of the house, one of his oldest friends, hereupon took him by the hand, he slowly straightened up and looked around his company, as if to make sure of where he was. ‘Esteemed gentlemen,’ he said then, ‘I just realized something – what and from where, excuse me from sharing with you. Only so much I want to say, that my previously expressed views should essentially be corrected. – At the same time I must ask myself to be released for the evening; I have a necessary task to do.’ The Medical Counselor took his hat and cane and left the company. When he was outside he walked across the market to the home of Professor X, whom he encountered in his study. He addressed him without further ado, “Do you still remember the Judicial Counselor, Herr Professor, and whose autopsy you directed?’ – ‘Certainly, Herr Doctor.’ – ‘Even the promise given to me on this occasion?’ – ‘Of course.’ – ‘But you have deceived me, Herr Colleague!’ – ‘I don’t understand, Herr Colleague.’ – ‘You will understand me if you only allow me to clear away some of the books there in the third shelf of your bookcase!” – And before the other could still respond, the excited old man already approached, and after he placed with trembling hands some volumes aside, he took out of the corner of the shelf a glass jar out in which there was a specimen in the alcohol. It was an unusually large human heart. – ‘It is the heart of my friend,’ he said, holding the glass in both hands; ‘I know it, but the dead must have it again, today, this very night!’ – The professor was shocked; he was sure that no one could have betrayed his secret possession to the doctor. But he admitted that in fact that evening his anatomical desires had succeeded over the suffering of his conscience. – The heart of the dead was laid that same night with the dead in his coffin.”
– – – – – – – – – –
“Whew! Who will rid me of this shiver?”
“Shiver? You speak like a modern literary storyteller.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because you only see the goose bumps in Horror.”
“Well, and how would it be different?”
“How would it be different? – If we consider correctly, the living human lives each for itself, in terrible loneliness; a lost point in the immeasurable and incomprehensible space. We forget it, but sometimes the feeling attacks us suddenly in the face of the incomprehensible and enormous; and that, I think, should be something to which we are able to call Horror.”
“Nonsense! Horror is when one night a bucket of fish is poured into bed; that I already know as well as that my shoes cost three Hellers.”
“You’re right, Clara! Or if one shines a light under the beds and dressers in the evening before going to sleep, and I know one who is very indu
strious in this work. It could even happen very soon, for it’s late, ladies and gentlemen, ‘bourgeois bedtime,’ as I almost said in this distinguished company.
Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm Page 16
