The Master of the Day of Judgment

by Leo Perutz

  "There he is," said the engineer. "Good evening, Pfisterer."

  "Good evening. Don't disturb me," the red-haired individual replied without looking up.

  "What are you working on, may I ask?"

  "The thesis of a young idiot who badly wants a doctorate. Waiter, some stewed pears with a disgusting amount of syrup, and a Turkish coffee à la Pfisterer. I've got to finish this by eleven o'clock."

  "Let me have a look. May I?" the engineer said, and picked up one of the handwritten sheets. "Pectins and glycosides as vegetable-flavouring substances," he read. "Since when have you been a chemistry expert, for heaven's sake?"

  "I know as much about it as the members of the faculty at the university," the great scholar replied, and went on with his writing.

  "Can you spare a moment, Pfisterer? I need some information."

  "If you must, but make it snappy. The boy's coming at eleven o'clock to fetch his life's work."

  "Is there a painter known to the history of art as the Master of the Day of Judgment?"

  "Giovansimone Chigi, a well-known master, a pupil of Piero di Cosimo. Next question."

  "Lived when?"

  "1520, in Florence, you ignoramus."

  "Did he commit suicide?"

  "No. He died mentally deranged in the monastery of the Seraphic Brothers of the Seven Dolours."

  The polymath put down his pen and looked up. He had a glass eye and on his right cheek a red birth-mark.

  "Is that all you want to know?"

  "Thank you, yes."

  "Your thank you doesn't get me very far. You put three questions to me, as Mime did to Wotan, the Father of All. Now it's my turn, and I'm putting three questions to you, Solgrub. No. 1. How are you off for cash?"

  "I've paid your bill."

  "Splendid. I don't know that I've any other questions to put to you. Solgrub, go your way. I've long since noticed that you've disgracefully gone over to the moneyed section of humanity. Disgusting. Get out of my sight."

  We drank our Allasch standing.

  "Mentally deranged," the engineer muttered. "He has stronger weapons than I suspected. Mentally deranged? Nonsense. I fought in the east and I'm not afraid of his Last Judgment."

  SEVENTEEN

  A strange idea struck me at breakfast next morning. I tried to drive it away by thinking of more serious and important matters, but it would not leave me in peace and kept coming back, so I ended by giving in to it. I rose, took five of the white tablets the chemist had given me, and dissolved them in a glass of water. My eyes fell on the packed suitcases that were still in the room, for I had been intending to go away. Now I would have to abandon the project, for that absurd and crazy idea of mine had put it out of court.

  However, when I sat down at my desk, the idea no longer seemed quite so stupid and ridiculous. Sleeping dreamlessly from one night to the next, cheating the devil of a grey autumn day, breaking the tyranny of the hours by an easy movement of the hand — something inside me murmured: Why wait? Do it now.

  I picked up the glass and held it in my hand. No, not yet, I told myself, I've got to go out. There were some important matters to be attended to, things that I could not postpone. Later on, I muttered to myself, perhaps this evening, and I put the glass back on the desk.

  When I came back at midday I found a note from the engineer on the desk.

  "I have some important news for you," it said. "I appeal to you urgently not to go away or do anything until I've spoken to you. I'll be with you this afternoon."

  I had not intended to go out again in any case, so I stayed at home. I took a book from the book case and settled down at my desk.

  At about five o'clock a storm broke — thunder, lightning, a real cloudburst. If I hadn't shut the windows quickly the room would have been flooded. Then I stayed by the window and watched people scurrying for shelter. The street was swept clean of human beings in a moment — that amused me. Then the bell rang. There he is, I said to myself, he would turn up in a storm like this.

  Important news. Well, we'll see. I did not hurry. I put the book I had been reading back in its place, picked up a sheet of paper from the floor, and put the armchair in front of the desk back where it belonged. Then I walked out of the room.

  "Vinzenz, where's the gentleman who asked for me?" I called out. No-one had asked for me. The afternoon post had brought me the long-awaited letter from Jolanthe, the young lady of the Stavanger fjord. A big white envelope with no seal and no trace of perfume — that was just like her. I had called her Jolanthe in jest, after the heroine of some French novel the title of which I had forgotten. The name had not met with her approval, however, it was not her style, her name was Auguste. Well, she had written at last, this was the letter she had promised. That's good, I said to myself, now it's my turn to write. She kept me waiting long enough, now she can wait a bit, I said to myself, and put the letter unopened into a pigeon-hole in the desk.

  At seven o'clock I gave up waiting. By that time it was dark, rain was still pattering on the windowpanes and black clouds hung over the roofs. He won't be coming any more, it's too late, I said to myself. Won't this rain ever stop? The glass into which I had dropped the white tablets was still there. No, not yet, it's not the right time yet. First I must put my papers in order. I had kept putting off that troublesome job, but it had to be done. Documents, notices, maps, crumpled or folded letters, ballast accumulated over the years — I could hardly find my way about the jumble in the desk. I told Vinzenz to make a fire in the grate, the room grew warm and comfortable, and I took a pile of dusty paper from the bottom drawer — and by some strange chance on the top of the pile were my exercise books from the military academy. I looked through one of them, and was struck by the clumsy writing of a sixteen-year-old.

  The Territorial Reserve acts in support of the armed forces as a whole. Universal conscription. This must be served in person — substitution is not permitted. Krakow, Vienna, Graz, Budapest, Pozsony. Nine Territorial Reserve and six Honved territorial districts. Mother's birthday Wednesday hastily written in the margin. Mountain artillery. Portable recoil-operated quick-firing gun with removable shield, baggage train, took vehicle, eight mules for transport of rations. Tuesday the 16th, route march, fall in four a.m.

  The dawn of my life, that's how it all began. Away with the rubbish, into the fire with it.

  Letters from my guardian, who died half a life-time ago. Photograph of a girl I could not remember, with a date, 24 February 1902, written on the back, and with the words: Let it be true friendship that brings us together. The diary of a girl who died young, begun on 1 January 1901 at Dr Demeter's sanatorium, Merano. A big sketch done with coloured pencils. Details of the sale of 1200 cubic metres of beech and oak wood sent me by my estate manager. A catalogue in my own handwriting of my collection of Javanese and Annamite pictures on cloth, together with a letter of thanks from the Natural History Museum, anthropology department, for presenting the collection to them. A map of the Rottenmanner Tauern. An engraved invitation to a court ball. Letters and more letters, and a more recent photo given me when I said goodbye to the daughter of the Dutch consul in Rangoon at the bottom of which she had written something in Singhalese characters. "You'll never find out what I wrote, so don't try," she told me, and as I looked at the photo now I still didn't know whether the curly writing meant love or hate. Into the flames with it all. The picture from Rangoon wouldn't catch fire at first, but the heat was too great, and fire consumed the proud eyes, the slightly furrowed brow, the slender figure and the undeciphered message.

  "I'm sorry, I'm very late," a voice said suddenly from the door. "Are you alone, baron? Isn't Solgrub here yet?"

  I jumped to my feet. I must have failed to hear the doorbell. I was dazzled by the glow of the fire, and in the semi-darkness I could not make out who this caller was. "I knocked, but there was no answer," this late visitor said, and closed the door behind him. "Hasn't Solgrub been here?"

  He took a pace nearer, light
from the table lamp fell on his face, and at last I recognised him. He was Felix, Dina's brother. What on earth could have brought him here?

  "Solgrub? No, I haven't seen him since yesterday," I said.

  "Then he'll be here soon," Felix said, and took the seat I offered him.

  "Solgrub, my old friend Solgrub, has an idée fixe. He believes you to be totally uninvolved in the events that led to Eugen Bischoff's death, and he asked me to be here so that he could tell me the results of his inquiries in your presence."

  I listened in silence and said nothing.

  "We two know what really happened, baron," Felix went on. "My old friend Solgrub is a fantastical fellow, and has a slight tendency to make a fool of himself. He connects the suicide of a young lady who is completely unknown to me with that of my brother-in-law, and he talks about an experiment from which he expects to draw important conclusions, and he insists on the influence of a mysterious stranger — heaven knows I didn't find it very easy to listen quietly to him. If I have understood him correctly, his system of erroneous deductions is based on the fact that Eugen Bischoff fired two shots, one at an unknown target and the other at himself. If Solgrub does as I expect, that is, if he confesses his error to us, I will tell him the answer to the riddle of the first shot. Eugen Bischoff had never used his revolver, so he fired a trial shot before turning the weapon against himself. That's the obvious explanation. Strange that Solgrub isn't here yet."

  "Do you want to wait for him?" I asked abruptly, because I wanted to put an end to this conversation.

  "If I'm not disturbing you."

  "Then allow me to continue with what I was doing."

  I did not wait for an answer, but took a packet of letters from the desk and began to look through them.

  "That green Bosnian prayer mat," said Felix, his eyes wandering through the semi-darkness of the room. "How long ago was it that I last sat here facing it? I was a volunteer in your regiment, and I came here to ask your advice in a matter that was very close to my heart. Eheu fugaces . . . That time you talked to me like a friend, baron ... Is everything going into the fire, baron?"

  "Yes, everything. Rubbish from the past. The engineer won't be coming any more tonight. It's nine o'clock."

  "He certainly will be coming."

  "In the meantime can I offer you something? Sherry? A cup of tea?"

  "No, thank you. But may I ask you for the glass of water that's on the desk?"

  "I don't advise you to drink that," I said, and rang for Vinzenz. "Those are the sleeping pills I prepared for tonight."

  "For tonight," Felix repeated quietly, with a long, piercing look at me.

  A few minutes passed. Vinzenz came in, I gave him the order, and he went out noiselessly. I continued dealing with those old papers.

  "I was wrong not to ask you up this morning," Felix said suddenly. "When I looked out of the window again half an hour later you had gone. Perhaps you had the entirely intelligible wish ..."

  I interrupted, not with a word or a gesture, but with a look of surprise.

  "I saw you in the garden in front of the villa, walking up and down in the rain — or was I mistaken?" he went on, slightly disconcerted.

  "What time was that?"

  "Ten o'clock."

  "That's hardly possible," I replied calmly. "At ten o'clock I was at my lawyer's. I was with him from nine to nearly eleven. "

  "Then I was deceived by a quite extraordinary resemblance."

  "Presumably," I said and felt anger mounting inside me. He was still convinced he had seen me standing outside the villa windows hoping to catch a glimpse of Dina, I could read that in his eyes. I could contain myself no longer, a wild desire overcame me, a desire to hurt him, to wound him in his pride. I felt for the picture, which I found at once, the picture I had never shown anyone. For a second I held it in my hand, I held it in a way that he could not fail to see it, I saw him grow pale and the hand in which he was holding a glass of water trembled — and then with a casual gesture I threw it into the fire.

  Cramp seized me, I felt a stab near my heart, the memory of a winter night flashed through my mind, I wanted to grab the picture back from the flames with my bare hands, but I controlled myself and watched it burn to ashes. All was dark in front of my eyes, all I could see was the glow in the fireplace and the white-bandaged hand and nothing else.

  I heard Felix's voice. "Now I have the answer for which I came here," he said. "To tell the truth, I was not sure what your intentions were and I used the night to prepare for all eventualities by committing to paper the matter that concerns us both. Now, of course — I have understood you, baron. You have made your decision, and it's final. Otherwise you would not have parted with that picture."

  He produced a big white envelope from his breast pocket and held it so that I could see to whom it was addressed.

  "This is the letter," he said. "It has become unnecessary. Permit me to use the opportunity that has presented itself."

  He threw the letter, which was addressed to the commanding officer of my regiment, into the fire.

  At that moment I realised that the time had come and that my fate was sealed and, as this certainty dawned on me, the day that was just drawing to a close underwent a strange transformation in my mind. It seemed to me that from early morning the only idea in my head had been that I must die because I had betrayed my word of honour, and everything I had been busy with that day now revealed to me its secret meaning. It had not been a mere mood that made me destroy my papers — I had done it because I wanted to die — I must leave nothing behind in this world of unremitting, prying curiosity. I had left unopened the long awaited letter from Norway, the letter from Jolanthe — whatever it contained, there was no point in opening it. And there the glass was waiting for me, the glass that meant sleep, sleep with no awakening.

  "The bell rang," Felix said. "That's Solgrub. Let him come and spin his fairy tales. He won't change your decision."

  I heard footsteps, Solgrub, the engineer was coming, I feared the moment when he would walk in, whatever he was going to say would sound crazy, ridiculous, absurd. I saw the derision on Felix's lips.

  "Come along, Solgrub, come in," he called out. "Come in and tell us your news."

  Not the engineer, but Dr Gorski appeared in the doorway.

  "So it's you, doctor," Felix said. "Are you looking for Solgrub?"

  "No, I was looking for you. I was at your place, and they sent me here."

  "Who sent you here?"

  "Dina. I haven't told her. I told her nothing. Solgrub . . ."

  "What about Solgrub?"

  Dr Gorski took a step forward, stopped and gazed at me.

  "Solgrub — at seven o'clock, I was still holding my surgery when the telephone rang. 'Who's speaking?' — 'Doctor, for heaven's sake, doctor. ' 'Who is it?' I asked, I didn't recognise the voice — 'Doctor, for heaven's sake, tell Felix . . .' — 'Solgrub!' I exclaimed, 'is that you? What has happened?' — 'Get back,' he yelled in a voice that was no longer human, 'Get back.' After that I heard nothing except what sounded like a chair being upset. I rang again, but there was no answer. I dashed down, took a taxi, dashed upstairs, no-one opened the door — I dashed down again like a maniac and fetched a locksmith — he opened it with a skeleton key — Solgrub was lying flat on the floor, with the receiver in his hand ..."

  "Suicide?" Felix asked, with a dazed look in his eyes. "No, heart failure. It was the experiment," Dr Gorski said. "There's no doubt that he was the victim of his experiment."

  "And what was it he wanted to tell me in his last moments?"

  "He wanted to tell you the name of his murderer, Eugen Bischoff's murderer."

  "His murderer? Didn't you say it was heart failure?"

  "The murderer has many weapons, and that is one of them. I know where to find him. We must make him innocuous. Solgrub is dead, and now it's up to us. Do you hear, Felix? And you, baron ..."

  "Please don't count on me," I replied, "I'm engaged all day
tomorrow."

  Felix turned towards me, and our eyes met. "No," he said. "Not now."

  He took the glass that was on the desk and emptied the contents on the floor.

  EIGHTEEN

  On the morning after Solgrub's funeral we met in the front garden of a small café near the city park away from the main thoroughfares. It was a bright, rather frosty day. Street traders came to our table and offered us pears, grapes, blackthorn branches and winter cherries, and a Bosnian had knives and walking sticks for sale. The proprietor's tame jackdaw hopped about looking for crumbs. Felix had asked for newspapers, but did not look at them, and we sat there gazing across at the park and exchanging monosyllabic remarks about the time of year, holiday plans, and Dr Gorski's unpunctuality.

  At last, at about nine o'clock he appeared. He apologised. He came straight from the hospital, where he had done the night round, and he had performed an operation at seven a.m. He drank a cup of hot black coffee standing at the counter.

  "That's my breakfast," he said. "That, followed by a cigar. Sheer poison for the nerves. My only advice to you is not to follow my example."

  Then we set off.

  "Swedes, cabbage, pickled herring, cheap cigarettes," Dr Gorski remarked as we climbed the stairs to the Albachary flat. "This is just the right atmosphere for the task ahead. We're humble people, baron, and it's only natural that you should need a loan. Not a big one, let us say two or three thousand kronen, and you've brought your sureties with you. The man's certainly mistrustful, we mustn't startle him. One more flight of stairs. Let us hope he's in, otherwise we shall have to wait."

  Herr Gabriel Albachary was in. The red-haired manservant showed us into a drawing room cluttered with objets d'art of all styles and periods. Herr Albachary appeared almost immediately. He was a short gentleman of exaggerated, almost dandified elegance, with moustache dyed a deep black, a monocle and a heliotrope perfume discernible from a distance of ten paces.