From The Journal of an Orange Tree-A

From the Journal of an Orange Tree

(Aus dem Tagebuche eines Orangen-baumes, Das Grauen 1914)

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

Translated by Joe Bandel

Translation copyright Joe Bandel 2010

“Oh, how many sorcerers, how many sorceresses, are there among us, of whom no one knows!”

Ariosto: Orlando Furioso. Ges. VIII, 1.

Isle of Porquerolles, June 1905

Dear Herr Medical Councilor, after careful consideration and with well thought out intent I will follow your wish and fill out the pages of this notebook that you have given me. It will deal only with the battle between the two of us, with you as the head doctor of this private lunatic asylum and me, the patient that was committed here three days ago. The complaint on which I was forcibly admitted here, excuse a student of law if he prefers to use a legal image!—Is that I “Suffer from the delusion of being an orange tree”.

Now Herr Medical Councilor, attempt to provide evidence that my delusion is false. If you succeed in convincing me that your opinion is correct I will be instantly “healed”. Isn’t that true? Prove to me that I am a man like all the others and merely suffering from a complete nerve collapse or pathological monomania like many thousands of sick people in all the sanitariums of the world. If you can prove this to me you will have given me back my life again, the neurosis will be blown away in an instant.

On the other hand, I, as the accused, have the right to prove the truth by presenting factual evidence myself. It is the purpose of these lines, dear Herr Medical Councilor, to convince you of the undisputable truth of my assertion. You see that I think very objectively, every word is calmly weighed. I heartily regret the scene I made the day before yesterday. It distresses me very much that I disturbed the tranquility of your house through my silly behavior.

Please consider though, that if someone like you, dear Medical Councilor, or some other healthy person was suddenly tricked and deceitfully brought into an insane asylum he would not behave much differently. Our hour-long conference yesterday evening has calmed me completely. I know that my relatives and fraternity brothers only wanted what was best for me when they brought me here. Now I also believe that it was the best thing.

If I succeed in convincing you, Herr Medical Councilor, a psychiatrist of world renown, of the correctness of my assertion, then even the greatest skeptics must bow before this so-called “miracle”. You ask me to write in this notebook as detailed an autobiography as possible, a curriculum vitae of the course of my life, as well as my thoughts about what you call my “delusion”. I understand quite well, that you, a true servant of science, want to get as true as possible a picture of the illness out of the patient himself. I wish to comply with even the smallest of your wishes, under the definite assumption that you, after recognizing your error, will offer me a helping hand as I from hour to hour take on the real form of a tree. When you look through my papers, Herr Medical Councilor, which have been in your possession for some time now, you will find the announcement of my doctoral exam and a detailed curriculum that contains the outward particulars of my life. Therefore I can be very brief here.

You will gather from the documents that I am the son of a Rheinish industrialist, took my final exam at 18 years, served my one-year term with a Berlin guard regiment, enjoyed my youth as a student of law at various universities, in between times made a series of greater and lesser travels and finally moved here to Bonn to prepare for my bar exam and doctoral exam. All of that has just as little interest for you, Herr Medical Counselor, as it does for me.

The history that we are interested in first began on 22 February of last year. On that day at a Fasching Ball I made the acquaintance of the—at the danger of appearing ridiculous I will write it down—sorceress who has transformed me into an orange tree. It is completely necessary to say a few words about this lady, to whom I was introduced at this celebration. Frau Emy Steenhop has a very striking appearance that irresistibly draws all eyes to her. I won’t try to describe her allure; you would just smile at it as an exaggeration of someone in love. Yet it is a fact, of all my friends and acquaintances, there was not one of us that was not captivated in a moment, that did not consider himself lucky for any glance, for any word that she might bestow upon him.

At that time Frau Emy Steenhop had been living for some two months in a spacious garden villa on Koblenz Street, which she had furnished exceptionally tastefully. She kept an open house in which the officers of the King’s hussars and the members of the most respected fraternities gathered every evening. It is true that no ladies associated with her, yet I am convinced that is only because, as Frau Steenhop so frequently laughingly explained, “Even the dead could not endure such women’s chatter”. The lady associated even less with any other families in Bonn at that time. It is understandable that the gossip in the little town soon occupied itself with the conspicuous stranger who drove her snow white 64 hp Mercedes through the streets daily. Soon scandalous rumors went from mouth-to-mouth about the nightly orgies on Koblenz Street.

The clerics fought a vicious campaign and even brought out an absurd story entitled “A Modern Messalina”.—its beginning words were “Quousque tandem”—in any case, the highly refined gentleman should at least edit his document.

[Translator’s note:  “Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra” is a Latin phrase from Marcus Tullius Cicero’s first speech against Catilina. It means “How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?”.]

I can assure you, and am convinced that all the gentlemen that ever had the honor of being received by Frau Emy Steenhop would agree that nothing ever happened in her house that would go against the strictest social forms in the least. A hand kiss—that was the only thing the lady permitted her worshipers—and that was all that ever happened, except once the little hussar colonel was permitted to press his military mustache on her white forearm. Frau Emy Steenhop had us all on such short strings that we were well behaved like pages and served our lady in a romantic, almost chivalrous fashion.

Nevertheless, it happened. Her house suddenly became desolate. On 16 May I had traveled back home for my mother’s birthday. When I returned, to my amazement, I discovered that further visits to the house of the beautiful Frau were forbidden. It was a command given by the ranking officer of the hussar regiment. The fraternities immediately followed this example for their members as well. I asked on what grounds; my fraternity brothers shared that a regimental order was binding on them as well. It was not possible for a house fraternity to reverse such an order. Indeed, both institutions had great respect for each other and many fraternity members served with the hussars or belonged to the regiment as reserve officers. Not even the officers themselves knew the basis of the colonel’s actions.

Yet they presumed that it had something to do with the sudden disappearance of Lieutenant Bohlen, though they didn’t have the slightest idea why. Harry von Bohlen was personally close to me, so that same evening I went to the hussar officers club in order to perhaps learn more particulars. The colonel received me very cordially, invited me to have a glass of champagne, but avoided speaking of the affair. When I finally asked right to his face, he curtly, but politely, refused to answer. I made one last attempt and said:

“Herr Colonel! Your orders and those of the fraternity are certainly binding for your officers and fraternity students, but they are not binding for me. I can still quit my association and then be master of my own affairs.”

“Do whatever you want!” the colonel answered carelessly.

“I beg you to patiently listen to me for a moment,” I continued. “Perhaps another would not miss the house on Koblenz Street that much. He might sigh at times with regret as he remembered the beautiful evenings and then finally forget them. But I—”

He interrupted me. “Young man,” he cried. “You are the fourth person that has given me this speech! Two of my lieutenants and one of your fraternity brothers were already here the day before yesterday. I have given both lieutenants furlough and they are now preparing to leave. I have given your fraternity brother the same advice. I can only tell you the same thing as well. You must forget, do you hear!—One sacrifice is enough!”

“At least explain a little of it to me, Herr Colonel!” I pressed. “I don’t know anything at all and there is nowhere else to find out. Does your order have anything to do with the disappearance of Bohlen?”

“Yes,” said the colonel.

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “And I fear I will never know.”

I grabbed onto both of his hands. “Tell me what you know,” I begged, and I felt that there was a tremor in my voice that must compel him to answer.

“For God’s sake, tell me what happened to Bohlen and why you gave that command.”

He pulled himself loose and said, “Thunderation, it really seems to be much worse with you than with the others!”

He poured both mugs full and pushed mine over to me.

“Drink, drink,” he cried.

I downed the champagne and bent forward.

“Tell me,” he continued and looked at me sharply, “weren’t you the one that recited the poem that time?”

How Eleven Chinese Devoured Their Bride-B

“And Jackie seduced her?” I asked.

“Entirely correct,” nodded the land assessor. “The Chinese here live on nothing. They only save and save through the day and through the year until they have enough to go back home with a full purse. There is only one thing they can’t renounce and that is the desires of the flesh in any form. They are horny as apes and can’t stop themselves. They must have something so the eleven fellows went out and bought a pig. From an economical standpoint it is certainly a clever idea, you could scarcely find anything cheaper.

They all live together in a basement apartment and the sow lives there with them. Jackie, the son of the house manager, was hiding and saw the entire obscenity go down.  Then, when my Chinese were at work he snuck into the cellar and climbed into the circular pen with their lover. With him it made an even dozen. When the Chinese found out the jealousy grew so strong in their love-struck fruitcake souls that they beat the red-haired rascal half to death.”

“Thunderation!” I cried. “That looks very bad. Does Judge Mc Ginty know all this?”

“Naturally he knows,” answered Fritz Lange. “Jackie’s father had the Chinese arrested. They apologized for the atrocity and for mishandling the boy but when they found out they were going to prison they started screaming that Jackie was the 12^th and in league with them. That’s when he first learned from the Chinese what really happened.”

“What will the outcome be?”

“Twenty years in prison is the minimum according to the Law in the State of Illinois. They are not as mild here as they are across the ocean! And I have lost my best workers! But there is still a chance. The case is still with the police and has not yet gone to court. I’ve always been on friendly terms with the police. I need you to take this to Judge Mc Ginty.”

He reached into a bag and brought out a large piece of Nephritis, Imperial Jade, of the most glorious green color and wonderfully cut into the shape of an enormous turkey. It was easily worth more than a few hundred dollars.

“Here,” he cried. “The fellows have given me this. It is something very valuable that can possibly get them out of this jam. Take this to Judge Mc Ginty; I think he will talk with you.”

So I took the stone and went to Mc Ginty but he was not home. His wife greeted me. She was pretty and distinguished despite being fifty-four years old and she understood the situation. I gladly showed her my lump of jade and her eyes got bigger and bigger.

“I received this as a present,” I said weakly. ” I wondered if your husband was interested in it. I could really use a few dollars right now.”

At that moment Mc Ginty came.

“Buy it!” His wife cried out to him. “I’ve been wishing for a piece like that for many years. He’s letting it go really cheap, only-“

The Judge took the glorious piece and set it down on the table.

“Come with me,” he said. “I don’t want her to hear our little chat.”

He took me around back despite the pleading of his wife who stood with both hands clasped together in front of her.

“God, I’ve got fifty dollars,” she cried after us.

“What’s this about?” He asked me out on the street.

“It’s like this,” I said. “You know about those Chinese that were arrested yesterday. My friend Lange needs his workers and wants them released. The fellows gave him this stone to sell so they could get some money for their defense.”

Mc Ginty looked at me sharply.

“I know it’s not right-, “he began. “What do you know about this?”

“Nothing special,” I lied. “They beat up a fourteen year old.”

“Nothing else?” The honorable Judge asked.

He winked at me and gave me a poke in the ribs.

“Nothing that I can remember,” I laughed.

Judge Mc Ginty chuckled, and then he said. “Good, I will buy this stone because my wife wants it so badly. But I can’t give you more than ten dollars for it. There, that is enough for your defense. Go quickly to Jim Mc Namus, the lawyer, you know him. Give him the ten dollars-wait a minute,” He put down another. “There, he gets one for each. The rascal Murphy must defend his son because he is Irish, he won’t talk.

Tell Mc Namus to be in court at 6:00 this evening to get this over with quickly. Now, please excuse me. I must go to my wife and bring her this little thing she is so madly in love with.”

He played with the stone on the table.

Judge Mc Ginty knew what he was talking about. I was at the criminal court that evening. A policeman said that the eleven coolies had beaten the young Murphy. The rascal said nothing. The Chinese said nothing. The defense asked for a mild sentence.

Judge Mc Ginty ruled that each pay a dollar to the state and another in damages to the father of the youth. Fritz Lange immediately paid the twenty-two dollars and another twenty-five for the cost of the proceedings. Everyone went home happy. It didn’t take over five minutes.

A week later Fritz Lange stopped by. I should go with him to his Chinese, he said. They wanted to thank me. So I went with him. We went down into the cellar, all eleven were there and so was the young red-haired rascal Murphy.

They were very polite to me, offered me Saki and a little rice. Then the feast began. It was pork sausage. They had been taken in once and paid dearly.

“We are not doing that again,” they said.

So they slaughtered their bride, and consumed her with enviable appetites.

I like to think that I am moderately open minded and unprejudiced. I am no food critic, but it was a bit too much for me.

How Eleven Chinese Devoured Their Bride-A

How Eleven Chinese Devoured Their Bride

By Hanns Heinz Ewers Revised Edition of Grotesken 1928

Story copyright Wilfried Kugel

Translation copyright Joe E. Bandel

Copyright Joe E. Bandel

This is a story about sodomy and bestiality. Most people don’t understand such things and don’t like them. That’s all right, but, if you were born a Tartar there would be no question that sodomite stories are always very funny.

If a case comes before the court, the Judge, Public Prosecutor, clerk, Lawyer and curiously even the Justice of the Peace all see the humor in it. Only the public can’t see the humor. It is out of the question because the morality of the Public must not be endangered in any way.

So enjoy this mild story of our black gowned family. Naturally it is a light hearted story that will not seduce anyone into sodomy or bestiality. Especially when he sees how this abomination can get a poor devil stuck into prison for a couple years just for a small bit of pleasure.

That is still mild and humane says the Law. Things were not always so light. We read that our dear God rained both pitch and brimstone on the contaminated cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroying them to the ground.

Only the noble Lot and his daughters were spared. His wife was turned into a naked pillar of salt simply because she once turned to look back toward these abominable cities.

Now the Lot family was not completely morally strong all the time. The behavior of the God fearing family was such that the one and only God sent angels to deliver them from this decline into abomination. How their countrymen desired these messengers and wanted to go out with them! Lot got them drunk and pleaded with them to take his daughters and use their blessed wombs instead!

How do you say, they looked pretty only after you had a few drinks?

Nevertheless this is a funny enough story in spite of all the pitch and brimstone. Funny too are the sodomite abominations in our time.

Yet they have been horribly punished. Sodomites have been crucified, quartered, drowned, broken on the wheel, burned at the stake and still they exist in all parts of the world. The weed of sodomy and bestiality is constantly new and blooming over the entire world. No pure gardener of high morals has ever been able to eradicate it from the garden of humanity.

Impassioned human lust will always explore all possible desires of the flesh. The beat of time appoints individuals across the country and in the city. Soon here, soon there, the false God, Sodom, needs a sacrifice.

The second half of the 11th century was a blooming period for sodomy and it existed in the Order of the Templars, the infamous secret sodomite society. A small group of sodomites existed as well in Sicily and the Abruzzo. The head of their organization was in India.

Today in southern China a pretty piece from Tunis and far into the Caucasus exists an abominable city of sodomy with a temple that holds all their secret love techniques. It has followers in all the large cities of the world.

In all countries, in one city or another there is a place where sodomy and bestiality are now blooming. First it is a bird, then a four footed beast that is strangely popular.

In the Rhienland in the old city of Mettmann the court is known for producing such amusing cases and almost as amusing punishments. The worthy citizens complain to the court and curse that which I applaud!

My friend, Justice of the Peace John, wanted to write his doctoral thesis about it.

“The Origin and Cultural Development linking the district of Mettmann to the second paragraph of Statute 175 R.-Str.-G.-B  from the 12th century to today.”

But the Heidelberg Judicial Faculty had little sympathy for this theme. They suggested he choose to write instead about the indebtedness of the District Hubbelrath to the movement of the common people which is certainly very important but not half as humorous.

No one can deny that there is a humorous side to every single case of sodomy or bestiality. From the “Golden Ass” of Apuleius into modern times there is a long chain of droll and amusing anecdotes. These are all harmless crimes. It is a crying shame that medical knowledge never applies in these cases. In criminal law books all around the world the worst tortures known can be found.

These are promoted not only by the common people but by the higher class, the so-called educated rabble. The sturdy masses merely see these incidents as humorous. Boccaccio, Aretino, Voltaire, Goethe and Balzac all have highly polished jokes about it.

Heine’s sarcastic poem begins:

“Zu Berlin im Alten Schlosse

Sehen wir in Stein gemetz,

Wie ein Weib mit einem Rosse

Sodomitisch sich ergötzt.”

 

[Translator’s note:

“In an old castle in Berlin

We see chiseled in stone

How a woman with a steed

Amused herself through sodomy.”]

The Royal family has never forgotten this mockery of their illustrious ancestor depicted in this joke as a steed lustful woman. Who can really be further offended? Friedrich the Great had a great laugh over it even though he stopped work on Voltaire’s rough draft of him with his greyhounds because it was not to his taste.

He found himself in good company with Voltaire’s “Pucelle”, which depicted the virgin, Joan of Arc, after her conquest of Orleans riding an ass into a bedroom. Voltaire really intended the love as only allegory and the ass signifying the Catholic Church.

Such humor is known to date from the 18^th century and while not appreciated by the common folk was by the Lords that ruled over them. They rewrote the language and revised an old judgment where a poor fellow that had been caught in obscenities with a goat should be burned at the stake. “The offender must burn,” so declared the Law. The clever Lords revised it to read, “The goat must burn”.

Friedrich the Great was an animal lover with a great sense of humor. When a cavalry member was caught making love to his mare he hung them both along with a sign that read, “The fellow wanted to be transferred to the infantry”. Today he would hardly be reported by his comrades.

The sodomy and bestiality in hidden bloom during World War I was so pervasive there were constant jokes about it. A cow is called Mrs. Sergeant-Major Lieutenant in the East and such four legged soldier wives exist in all armies around the world.

That is simply the way things are and no cleric or Judge can change it. Everyone knows that centaurs, fauns, and other mythological beasts come from the interbreeding of human and animal species. We all know they come about through this horrible obscenity but no one really sees any wrong in it.

It is the same with this incidentally full blooded adventure of the eleven Chinese that I will now relate. This story of strange love is not meant to be taken in an evil way.

So, there were these eleven Chinese in Chicago-

But no, I must begin it differently. My friend Fritz Lange lived in Chicago. He owned a laundry business. Really he was a land assessor and gambled on the hounds, but not in this story.

Over in America a man can do what he wants. He can be a waiter, dishwasher, bill poster, carriage maker or anything. Fritz finally had some luck and married the daughter of a Laundry owner. He began working there to learn the business so that when the old man died he could take over and do well with it.

Now he had built it into a mighty laundry business with a dozen pickup and delivery points scattered throughout the city. One day he came to me very excited. I needed to help him. Eleven of his workers had been arrested. Chinese naturally, they are equally the best and the cheapest washers in the city. I could help him because I knew the criminal Judge that had the case.

It was Judge Mc Ginty, whom I played stud poker with twice a week. Now Mc Ginty was a sociable man and liked to talk. He didn’t want the eleven fellows to get off easily and it would be hard to get them released. The eleven Chinese were confined because they had beaten up a God wretched pathetic red-haired fourteen year old Irish rascal named Jackie Murphy.

“Why did they beat him up?” I asked.

“He seduced the bride,” said Fritz Lange.

“That’s not going to be good,” I opinioned. “Judge Mc Ginty is very much a son of Erin and will certainly decide for the young rascal against the yellow brothers. Still, many a man can be persuaded by whiskey.”

“It is so dangerous!” My friend Lange cried. “The bride, that’s what my Chinese call her! The bride is not the bride of just one, but strangely of all eleven! To them she is not just a feminine being of white or yellow color! In short, the bride of the eleven is not human. To be entirely correct she is curiously enough a four legged sow!”

Carnival in Cadiz

Carnival in Cadiz

By Hanns Heinz Ewers (from Grotesken 1928, Karneval in Cadiz)

Translated by Joe Bandel

Translation copyright Joe Bandel 2010

There were some that said there was a machine inside or there were little wheels that rolled under the tree; others thought it might have come from the English cruiser, perhaps a cadet or lieutenant from the ship had learned the trick from an Indian magician. It was almost certain that someone had been inside the tree trunk — (But no! Said those that had smashed it to pieces. There had been nothing inside!) —The only thing certain was that one Rose Monday afternoon the walking tree trunk was there in the market place of the white city of Cadiz and as a consequence of its unexplainable presence the heads of all the citizens and all the strangers there were as confused as the syntax of these beautiful sentences.

Before three o’clock in the afternoon the marketplace and the adjoining streets were all full of people. Everyone was out on the streets on this clear and sunny day, strolling up and down, laughing as they passed by each other.  The women wore veils or lacy shawls adorned with red carnations and white tuberoses, which were called nards and were not considered funeral flowers there at all. They wore their only possessions on their bodies; at home there might have been only a wobbly table and some rickety chairs in a room. Here on the streets they strolled around in lace and patent leather shoes wearing diamonds and colored stones on their fingers, ears, in their hair and on their arms.

Every brothel had its doors closed on this day — the city’s prostitutes, powdered and painted, ran on the streets. The sailors from the ships in the harbor, English, German and Scandinavian, sat at tables in front of pubs, drinking wine from Jerez and Malaga and crying out to the prostitutes. Yet the Moors from Tangier and Ceuta were sober Moroccan seamen dressed in white burnooses and turbans. They snuck quietly and unnoticed through the crowd, only their eyes burned with the greedy passions of pirates from the reef. The ladies, in their veils and lace shawls adorned with red carnations and white nards, sat in carriages that slowly circled around.

There were no boos or yells anywhere, only happy shouts and laughter. Many of the people were dressed in masks and adventurous costumes, wildly sewn together out of colorful rags. There were a mixture of Chinese, Indians, gauchos, and Turks. There were fake swords, long noses, high stilts and pumpkin heads; curious misunderstood representations of Captain Fracassa, Pantalone and the Harlequin. One had glued together clothing and a pointed hat out of newspaper; another ran around as a white kitchen stove with his arms, legs and head sticking out. A couple street urchins had large horns on their heads and long tails tied to their backsides. They charged at all the people, and everyone, male and female, took up the game in a moment, taking their handkerchiefs in both hands playing the toreador. They made splendid cape movements with their arms, media veronicas without moving their feet, quites, molinetes and gaoneras. The spectators applauded and cried: “Ole!” They threw paper streamers, confetti and hollowed out eggs filled with flour, as well as carnations and nards.

Then at three o’clock they saw the tree trunk. No one had noticed where it came from— it was there, in the middle of the marketplace. It moved slowly through the crowd to one end of the marketplace and without turning around came back to the other end.

It appeared to be a thick tree trunk fully 7 feet tall. Down below, the roots did not appear to be touching the pavement, but floated about one-inch above it. Many of the limbs had broken out with fresh green leaves; above, the crown was covered with thin, but strongly animated branches that completely covered and filled out the crown of the tree. The trunk was apparently hollow, and strong enough to comfortably hide a person inside. It appeared to be an old willow, that had grown remarkably straight and whose completely smooth bark had an almost unnatural sheen to it.

At first no one paid any attention to this stupid tree trunk that moved at a turtle’s pace across the marketplace. It stopped for a moment at one end in front of a lamp post, then without turning around moved back across the marketplace in the same exact straight line it had followed before. Of all the costumes, all the foolishness, that people saw that Carnival day, it was without a doubt the most boring and tasteless joke of all.

But the tree trunk did not trouble itself about the crowd. It walked with infinite slowness back and forth across the marketplace. And even though the press of people was very heavy, after a while, it appeared as if there was a little more free space around the tree trunk. It was as if the people, without being aware of it, were keeping a small distance away from it.

Then one of the street urchins that was playing Toro charged at it. His bull horns bounced against the trunk and in a moment he lay on the stones howling. The walking tree had not yielded a bit, but continued relentlessly walking along its stupid path. The people laughed, but the laughter sounded a little strained.

Gradually the free space between the tree trunk and the heaving masses became larger. The women especially, turned away when they got too close to it, always moving in ever-increasing circles to get around it. Every one of these people at the marketplace was full of all kinds of superstitions, but not one of them paid any attention to this God forsaken tree. And yet they pulled away, they didn’t know why. There was something there. And so it happened that the line the tree walked back and forth on remained completely free of people.

Then, the people gradually got irritated. They mumbled about this astonishingly stupid joke, calling the tree names and cursing at it. The person who was running around as a kitchen stove showed how courageous he was. He grabbed onto one of the limbs and gallantly led the tree trunk like a lady at a concert dance. The crowd laughed at that and the kitchen stove grinned, proud of his success. But suddenly his features distorted, he let go of the branch and fearfully ran away. Then a couple of hearty mule drivers beat at it with clubs. The tree paid no attention, moving slowly forward at the same pace, exactly on its old course, back and forth across the white marketplace. The mule drivers dropped their clubs and slumped back into the crowd.

Then one of the sailors sprang up from the bar table, a ruddy blond fellow with fluttering ribbons on his beret. He broke through the people, stormed up, seized a limb and in a moment was sitting on top of it laughing and waving his beret.

“Ole!” Rejoiced the crowd, “Ole!”

The burden did not appear to disturb the tree trunk. It moved slowly along on its course without wavering. It carried the lusty sailor across the marketplace to the lamp post, then back again without turning around. That appeared to be what confused the sailor. He was now riding backwards and he didn’t like it. His laughter died; he pulled his hat solidly down onto his head and didn’t shout any more. The laughter and the cries of the crowd were frozen in the blink of an eye and they became quiet as well. What had once seemed comical did not seem that way anymore at all.

Suddenly the sailor rose up in the middle of the branches, a great fear showed on his face. He jumped down and ran as quickly as he could back to his table. The crowd drew back with him, pressing evermore out into the streets that surrounded the marketplace. Finally the entire marketplace was empty and abandoned except for the horrible tree trunk slowly moving across the broad stones in a straight line toward the light post and back without turning around.

Back and forth, once, once again, and again, many times. The people were no longer laughing and celebrating. There were no more paper streamers, no confetti, and no flowers. No one moved anymore, they just stood there, silent and stunned, staring out at the walking tree trunk. Then a couple of women began shrieking and the men called for the police. But they had little desire to interfere.

Finally the sailors came up. As they pushed through the crowd the tree trunk stood quietly, entirely alone in the empty marketplace. The seamen pushed at it with their hands and threw their shoulders against it. The tree trunk didn’t move. They shouted, cursed, pulled out their knives and stabbed it. Finally a couple of street workers brought axes and hatchets. They began chopping it down.

The marketplace resounded with the loud chopping. They chopped off the limbs and the branches. Every single one of them were howling and celebrating. And with every chop the crowd howled wild curses. A giant Swede gave the final blow. He swung the ax twice around his head like a timber Jack in Montana and brought it down sharply, almost vertically. He chopped the first hole in the trunk.

From then on it went quickly. The axes fell in rhythm. The tree stood like before, did not yield, did not move. Then for the first time, as a great hole was chopped into it, it sank. It was as if its power had gone away. They threw it down, kicked it with their feet and rolled it across the marketplace. Then they raised it up again and enlarged the hole so they could comfortably look inside and examined the hollow trunk. There was nothing inside, nothing at all.

Still, there were people that thought there must have been a machine inside it. Others said that mischievous seamen had placed it there, from the English cruiser — perhaps a cadet or lieutenant from the ship had learned the trick from an Indian magician. There must have been someone inside the tree trunk, that was certain — (but no, said the sailors that had destroyed it, there had been nothing inside, nothing at all!) —The only thing certain was that the walking tree trunk was there on Rose Monday afternoon at the turn of the century in the marketplace of the white city of Cadiz.

The Water Corpse

By Hanns Heinz Ewers

Translation copyright Joe E. Bandel

Once there was a young man that looked at the world with somewhat different eyes than those that lived around him. He dreamed at noon and around midnight thoughts would flutter out that those sitting around him found very foolish. They called him a butter yellow fool. But he believed he was a poet.

When they laughed at his verses he laughed too and they didn’t notice how much it hurt him. It hurt him so much that he went outside and walked to the Rhine whose muddy floodwaters were slapping against the shack on the old toll bridge. It was only a coincidence that he didn’t jump into the waters that time. It was only because he met a friend that said, “Come along with to the tavern!”

He sat there in the tavern and drank, first with his friend, Joseph Shöfer and after that with Maximi Grünhäuser and Forster Kirchenstück. That’s when a few lines came to him and he wrote them down on the wine list with his pencil. Later when his colleagues, the assistant judge, public prosecutor and two county court judges, came in he read the lines to them.

“…In a carp pond there once swam a pale blue and slimy soft water corpse.”

He told how the carps amused themselves over the corpse; each conjecturing, how one would say something good and the other say something bad about it.

Then he continued:

“However, an old centenarian boy rejoiced at the good godsend. He didn’t speak a word. He ate and ate, forgetting the rest of the world and thinking, “There has never been such a beautiful, slimy soft and pale blue water corpse in this pond.”

You should have seen his colleagues then, the assistant judge, public prosecutor and the two county court judges!

“Man!” said the public prosecutor. “Don’t take it wrong because I’m always kidding you! You are a genius! You will become famous!”

“Magnificent!” cried the blonde county court judge. “Magnificent! That comes from legal training! Goethe was cut out of such wood!”

“Habemus Poetam!” exulted the round as a barrel attorney.

They all told him that he was a poet, a genuine poet, a one of a kind poet, “fit” for these times and “modern”.

The young man laughed and gave them a shove because he thought they were playing a joke on him. But when he saw they were really serious he got up and left the tavern. In an instant he was sober again, so sober that he nearly went back to the Rhine.

So that’s how it was. When he felt like a poet they considered him a fool. Now when he was fooling around they declared him a poet.

Naturally the public prosecutor was right. The young man became famous. He recited his verses everywhere, on large and small stages, from podiums in lecture halls. He would make his mouth round like a fishes mouth, smack his lips like a carp and begin:

“In a carp pond there once swam a pale blue and slimy soft water corpse.”

Of course you know that his colleagues, the assistant judge, public prosecutor and the two county court judges had not been exaggerating. You know all that, how people gave him praise and recognition, cheered and applauded him in every German city. You know how actors, speakers and toastmasters every where took up his poetry and how his fame and glory spread even farther. You know how musicians set his verse to music, sang it and strove to enhance the smacking sound of the carp to make it even more natural sounding. You know all of that…

The young man thought, “That’s all well and good. Let them cheer and applaud. Let them proclaim my wine inspired verse as great poetry. Let them! It will make me famous, known every where and then I can perform what I really want to.”

That’s what the young man thought and so he revealed the story of the pale blue and slimy soft water corpse to many thousands of delighted ears and told no one how disgusting it all was to him. First he would bite his lip, make a charming face and then pucker up into a carp face.

The young man forgot that the highest virtue of a German, one that he demanded of poets as well, was to be true, to always sing in the same tune as the first song and never change it on any account. If they sang anything else it would ring false, be objectionable and not be true and the loyal German would despise it.

But now this young man was dreaming of lilies, orchids, yellow mallow and tall chestnut blossoms. The audiences laughed out loud and turned their backs on him, but not every where. The upper class was so cultured and refined from early childhood on that they didn’t laugh as he performed his new routine one evening at the theater on Ringstrasse. He spoke of the soul of flowers with a quiet voice, after the court opera singer and the longhaired musicians. They didn’t laugh; they even applauded and found it very cute. That’s how cultured and refined they were.

But the young man still felt that the ladies and gentlemen were bored and was not at all surprised when one called out, “The Water Corpse!”

He wouldn’t do it until the lady of the house stepped up to him, “Yes please, Herr Doctor, The Water Corpse.”

He sighed, bit his lip, made the puckered up carp face and performed the horrible story for the three thousandth two hundred and twenty eighth time. He almost choked on it –

But the ladies and gentlemen applauded and cheered him on. Then he saw an old lady spring up from her chair, give a hoarse, short scream and sink back down again. The gentlemen brought cologne water and washed the unconscious woman’s forehead and temples. The young man knelt at her feet and kissed her hand. He felt that he loved this woman like he did his own mother.

When she opened her eyes her first glance was of him. She pulled her hand away as if from an unclean animal and screamed, “Get him away!”

At that he sprang up and ran away into a back corner of the hall. He sat down and put his head in his hands. He sat there while they escorted the old lady down the stairs to her carriage. He knew everything, knew it all even before they said a word to him. It was the fulfillment of an expectation, something he always knew would happen one day.

When they came up to him with their, “Terrible! Most frightful!”; with their, “Tragedy of life!” and “Cruel coincidence!”

He was not at all surprised.

“I already know,” he said. “The old lady lost her only son a few years ago. He drowned in the lake and it was months before they found the grisly, unrecognizable corpse. She, the mother, herself, had to identify the corpse didn’t she?”

They nodded.

At that the young man straightened up and almost screamed, “And in order to amuse you monkeys I have made a fool of myself and caused this unlucky mother such pain! So laugh! Laugh!”

He made the puckered up carp face:

“In a carp pond once swam a pale blue and slimy soft water corpse.”

But this time they didn’t laugh. They were much too cultured and refined for that.

The White Maiden

Naples, May 1907

Donald Mac Lean was waiting at the coffeehouse. As Lothar entered he called out to him:

“Finally! I believed you weren’t coming.”

Lothar sat down and poked at the lemonade the girl brought him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Mac Lean bent forward a little.

“It will be interesting for you,” he said. “You’ve studied the transformations of Aphrodite? –Well then, perhaps you will see a new manifestation of the foam born one.”

Lothar yawned, “Oh! –Really?”

“Really,” said Mac Lean.

“Excuse me a minute,” Lothar continued. “Venus is the true daughter of Proteus, but I believe I know all of her variations. I spent over a year in Bombay with Klaus Petersen–”

“So?” said the Scotsman.

“So? –You know Klaus Petersen don’t you? Herr Klaus Petersen of Hamburg has a talent, is perhaps a genie! –The Marshal Gilles de Rais was a charlatan–compared to him!”

Donald Mac Lean shrugged his shoulders, “He is not the only one with talent!”

“Certainly not! But just wait. As you know Oscar Wilde was my good friend and I have known Inez Secket through long years. Each of these could produce a complete transformation that was sensational!”

“Yet not all of them,” the painter threw in.

“Not all?” Lothar drummed on the table. “But the best of them! – In short, I know Venus as she turns into Eros. I know her as she puts on leather and swings the scourge. I know Venus as the bloodthirsty Sphinx who sinks her claws into the tender flesh of children. I know the Venus that dances lewdly in rotting carrion, and I know the black love goddess for whom the Priest sprays his disgusting sacrifice over the virgin’s white body at Satan’s black Mass.

Laurette Dumont took me along to her animal park. I know what few know, how rare and stimulating the secret appeal of bestiality is! Still more, in Geneva I have discovered Lady Kathlin Mac-Murdoch’s secret, which no other living person knows! I know the depraved Venus–or should I say the purest–the marriage of humans to flowers! –Do you still believe the goddess of love can choose a guise that will be new to me?”

Mac Lean slowly slurped at his strega.

“I promise you nothing,” he said.  “I only know that Duke Ettore Aldobrandino has been back in Naples again for three days. I met him yesterday at the Toledo.”

“I would be happy to make his acquaintance,” replied Lothar. “I’ve often heard of him. He is one of the few people that understands how to make art out of life–and–has the means to do it.”

“I believe I don’t have to explain him to you,” continued the Scottish painter. “You shall soon see for yourself. The Duke is giving a party the day after tomorrow and I would like to introduce you!”

“Thank you,” said Lothar.

The Scott laughed.

“Aldobrandini was very good humored when I met with him. It happens that the time to which he invited me is unusual–five o’clock in the afternoon–I’m entirely certain that something is up. I believe the Duke has a very special surprise for his friends and if that is the case you can be certain we will experience something unheard of. The Duke never travels on well trod paths.”

“Let’s hope you are right,” sighed Lothar. “May I have the satisfaction of picking you up the day after tomorrow?”

“Thank you very much,” responded the painter.

*                           *

*

“Largo San Domenico!” cried Mac Lean to the coachman. “Palazzo Corigliano!”

They both climbed up the broad baroque steps. An English servant led them into the salon. They found seven or eight gentlemen, all in tails and a priest in a violet cassock on the lower level. Mac Lean introduced his friend to the Duke who shook Lothar’s hand.

“I thank you for coming,” he said with a charming smile. “I hope you will not be disappointed.”

He excused himself and turned with a loud voice to address all those present.

“Gentlemen!” he said. “I beg your pardon to have inconvenienced you at such an untimely hour–but I am placed in a tight spot. The little doe that I have the honor of presenting to you today is unfortunately from an extraordinarily proper and upstanding family. It is only with great difficulty that she can come here and she must under all circumstances be back home by half past seven this evening so that her Mama, Papa and the English governess won’t notice. That, gentlemen, is one of the things a Cavalier must take into consideration! And now I beg you to excuse me for a few minutes. I still have a few preparations to make. Meanwhile if you would be so good as to partake of some refreshments!”

The Duke waved to his servants, bowed a couple more times and then went out. A gentleman with a giant Victor Emanuel mustache came up to Lothar. It was di Nardis, the political editor of the Pungolo, who wrote under the pseudonym of “Fuoco”.

“I bet we will be seeing an Arabian parody,” he laughed. “The Duke has just returned from Baghdad.”

The priest shook his head.

“No, Don Goffrelo,” he said. “We will be enjoying a little piece from the Roman Renaissance. The Duke studied Valdomoni’s secret history, ‘The Borgia’, for a year. The director of the Reich’s archives in Severino e Sosio only let him read them after long begging.”

“Well we shall certainly see,” said Mac Lean. “Meanwhile would you give me tomorrows racing tips that you promised me?”

The editor pulled out his notebook and became absorbed with the priest and the Scottish painter in turf talk. Lothar slowly ate orange sherbet from a crystal plate. He studied the beautiful golden spoon that showed the crest of the Aldobrandini’s, a scalloped crossbar between six stars. After half an hour the servant pushed the curtains back.

“The Duke invites you!” he cried.

He led the gentlemen through two small rooms, then opened a double door, let everyone enter and closed it quickly behind them. They found themselves in a large, very long room that was now very dimly lit. The floor was covered in wine red carpet. The windows and doors were thoroughly covered with heavy curtains of the same color and the ceiling was as well. The walls, which were completely empty, were covered in the same wine red fabric and the few chairs and divan were upholstered with it too. The back of the room was completely dark and only with effort could you make out an instrument covered with a heavy red cloth.

“I beg the gentlemen to take their places,” cried the Duke.

He sat down and the others followed his example. The servant stepped quickly from one golden wall lamp to another putting out the few candles. As the room became entirely dark they heard a soft music coming from the harpsichord A series of soothing sounds flowed lightly through the hall.

“Palestrina,” murmured the priest softly. “You see that you were wrong with your Arabian guess, Don Goffredo.”

“Well,” answered the editor just as quietly, “did you do any better with your thought of Cesare Borgia?”

They could tell the instrument was an ancient spinet. The simple tones awoke a strange sensation in Lothar. He thought back, but couldn’t recognize the feeling, what it really was. In any case it was something that he hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Di Nardis leaned over to him, so close that the long mustache tickled his cheek.

“I feel it!” he whispered into his ear. “I never knew that I could still be so naïve!”

Lothar felt the same way. After awhile the silent servant lit two candles. A faint, almost sinister glimmer fell through the hall. The music went on–

“And yet,” whispered Lothar to his neighbor, “and yet there is a strange menace to the sound. I would like to say it’s an innocent menace.”

The silent servant lit a couple more candles. Lothar stared at the red color that filled the room like a bloody haze–

The blood color almost choked him. The sounds were like a dim white light rising and his soul clung to them, but the red pressed itself back and dominated, gaining the upper hand. The silent servant lit still more candles.

“I can’t bear much more,” Lothar heard the editor murmur between his teeth.

Now the hall was half lit up.

The red pressed in and covered everything. The white light of the innocent music became fainter–fainter–

Then a shape stepped past the spinet and up to the front. It was a young maiden wrapped in a large white cloth. She stepped slowly into the middle of the hall, a bright, shining white cloud in the red fire. Then the maiden stopped and stood still. She spread her arms apart so that the cloth surrounding her fell down. The cloth kissed her feet like silent swans, but the white of the maiden’s body glowed even more.

Lothar leaned back and unconsciously raised a hand to his eyes.

“She’s almost blinding,” he breathed.

She was a young, scarcely developed girl of a delightful, budding immaturity, a sovereign innocent in need of no defense and yet with a certain promise of awakening desire and extreme fulfillment. Her blue-black hair was parted in the middle, waved over her temples and ears and around the back where it was pinned into a heavy knot. Her large black eyes looked straight out at the gentlemen, indifferent, without seeing anyone. Her lips seemed to smile, a strange unconscious smile of menacing innocence and her radiant white flesh glowed so brightly that all the surrounding red appeared to recede. She rang out of the music like jubilation–

Now for the first time Lothar noticed that the girl carried a snow-white dove on her hand. She bowed her head down a little and raised her hand, stroking the white dove on its little head. The dove kissed the white maiden that stroked it, that gently scratched its little head and lightly pressed the little animal against her breasts. The white dove raised its wings a little and snuggled tightly, tightly, against the glowing flesh.

“Blessed dove!” whispered the priest.

Then with a quick, sudden movement the white maiden raised the dove with both hands high into the air straight over her head. She threw her head back and with a strong pull tore the white dove apart. Then, without a drop disturbing her face, the red blood flowed down in long streams over her shoulders and breasts, over the radiant body of the white maiden.

All around the red pulled itself back together. It was as if the white maiden sank, trembling, seeking help, cowering down into a mighty bath of blood. From all sides the voluptuous fire crept up to it. The floor opened itself like an avenging fire, a terrible red that devoured the white maiden–

The next second the trapdoor closed again. The silent servant tore the curtain back and quickly led the gentlemen into the adjoining room. No one seemed to feel like speaking. They quietly took their coats and went downstairs.

The Duke was gone.

*                           *

*

“Gentlemen!” said the editor of the Pungolo to Lothar and the Scottish painter when they reached the street. “Would you like to eat dinner at Bertolini’s Terrasse?”

The three went there. They quietly drank their champagne, quietly stared out at the cruel beauty of Naples that the last rays of the evening sun immersed in a glowing fire.

The editor pulled out a notebook and wrote down a few numbers.

Sixteen = blood, four = dove, twenty one = virgin

A beautiful trio,” he said. “I will play them this week in the lottery!”

Eleven Thousand Virgins and the Four Holy Three Kings-B

There sat Peter Schmitz. He had used the time to brew a mighty midwife’s bowl of tea. Finchen asked if there was any alcohol in it. My friend proclaimed that it was a most innocent drink, only tea and citrus and such gentle things—The small amount of wine and Arrack—that were mixed in were completely harmless.

So, she drank and seemed to acquire a taste for it. It can’t be denied that her mood quickly lifted and with the twist of a hand Schmitz was back in her good graces. She asked him if he had been able to do any studying and he answered in the affirmative. But he thought they should eat first, then he would gladly share his wisdom. He sat next to Miss Bertha on the sofa and honestly devoted himself to looking after her.

In the “Eternal Lamp” you eat very well and my friend Schmitz got on with it shoving delicacies together with exceptional enthusiasm—This and the hot Devil’s bowl after six hours of Religious Art—In short, it was a huge success for him.

Nevertheless the knowledge hungry creature from the city of Angels wanted more. She kept interrupting his drinking and eating and cuddling with her thirst for more. At last he stopped.

“Now I know the entire story,” he began. “We Cologners are famous for our saints. We have very many. But perhaps the most famous are the eleven thousand virgins and the four Holy Kings.”

“Four,” cried Finchen. “There were only three!”

“There were four,” insisted Schmitz. “Our song of the three Kings begins:

—The four kings with their star, Kaspar, Melcher, Baltes, Bern—

The friendly Bertha came to his aid. She was very happy and excited that she could add to the discussion.

“Yes, that is correct,” she cried. “It says that in the “Boys Horn of Wonder. —and the four kings were quite rotten company. They ate and drank and wouldn’t willingly pay for anything! —“

“Three, Three!” Finchen demanded. “It is called ‘Three Kings Day’ and the three Holy Kings!”

But my friend remained unyielding.

“You still don’t understand.” He explained, “Because you have heard the hymns of the Church of England and they don’t have the proper Catholic feel. But perhaps your Lutheran soul might permit clarification. The Holy Trinity is only one Being! Why can’t the four be three?”

“But over the High Altar there were only three glowing letters,” groaned Finchen. “a ‘C’, a ‘M’, and a ‘B’!”

“That doesn’t matter,” declared Schmitz. The glowing bowl had given him courage.

“Very well, the ‘M’ can mean both ‘Manoli’ and the ‘Muratti’ of the cigarette advertisement. The ‘B’ can be an advertisement for the three Kings or ‘Balthazar’ or even ‘Bernard’! Dear Maiden, you will not come near these things with external reason but must instead experience them much more deeply and feel them!

As long as you only aesthetically enjoy the Madonna paintings and the bones of the saints, as long as you don’t feel it with your religion your soul will dangle hopelessly— like a limp dick! —

“What is that,” demanded Finchen. “What do you mean: a limp dick?”

But my friend Peter was way over his head. “I can’t be detained with that right now,” he cried. “You must ask another man from Cologne about it sometime. It is more important to comprehend the mysticism of the sacred numbers. Do you notice this formula is the central theory for Friedrich Schlegel in his ‘Herkeles Musagetes’.

It goes:

‘You still don’t know the sprightly three and the cultured four?

Truly—God wishes it so—You will never find the One!’

Finch looked at him quite dumbfounded. But Peter took a mighty gulp and continued.

“Now I must first relate to you the story of our eleven thousand sacred virgins. These beloved maidens were all from England. They were the first English encampments that we had in Cologne. It didn’t last long and all eleven thousand were killed almost as soon as they arrived. That is why their bones are so sacred.

It is true that we Cologners never touched a curly hair. Our fear and concern was of the Huns that would suddenly visit. We believed the English would send another eleven thousand young men to add to their eleven thousand virgins.  The next time when the Huns were up to their old game the young men would be here to help fight.

We would hold the bones of the virgins in mighty respect. It was all very nice and very strongly believed. Unfortunately it was only a pious wish!

The leader of the eleven thousand virgins was a king’s daughter named Ursula. She was just as devout as she was chaste and resolved with her friends Kordula and Pinnosa and another ten thousand nine hundred and ninety seven other maidens to make a pilgrimage to Rome. They set off on ships sailing over the sea from England and up the Rhein.

They got out in Bosel, walked over the Alps back into Italy and made their formal visit to the Holy Father in Rome. Then the eleven thousand virgins all came back the same way again but this time ended up in Cologne.

It was a massacre. St. Kordula tried to save herself by hiding under the deck. But her sorrow was so great on the next day that her enthusiasm to be a martyr grew and she clambered around. Angry Huns subsequently killed her as well.

“So, my dear Lady,” Schmitz continued. “That is how the story goes. You can’t blame me anymore for not informing you about the sacred history of my father city.

Still, there is something I must add. I believe there is something not quite right or even better, I believe only half of it. I am inclined to believe the eleven thousand English Ladies came here. We can see daily what great partiality the English have for our dear city, Cologne. I can also believe in the chastity and virginity of the King’s daughter. We know that applied virtue can bring to pass a triumph over the vice.

But what every true Cologner must clarify about the legendary story is how the Huns slaughtered all eleven thousand. The Ladies from England were not completely killed off but took refuge in the old left wing of the Cathedral, the part built by Master Heinrich. Furthermore, they are still alive today! They are all taking part in the most important and active industry of our city.”

“They are still alive?” Gasped Finchen. She peered into her glass. “What do they do?”

“Hear me out,” Schmitz cried. “We have an old Colgnish tune. It is anonymously written and little known but we still hear it. He bellowed out:

‘In Cologne on the Rhein

Where the three Kings hail

They want virgins to go there

Eleven thousand virgins

It is shipped in large casks

Eau de Cologne we call it!’

“Shame on you!” Cried the stylish Finchen. “How can you attempt—“

But Schmitz interrupted her. “Just wait Miss, You will be glad to see that it is really true. The secret manufacture of Colognes waters is carefully guarded. But how can it be that after several hundred years the secret has still not leaked out?

All over the world people would have been making Eau de Cologne for a long time now. If they knew how! But they can’t. Where could they find eleven thousand sacred virgins? And how about this. There are only a few companies that have brotherly stock in this singular virgin product. Business is good and the virgins no longer need to work. They only need to drink:

Old style Colgnish beer, Mosel wine and especially midwife tea bowls.

They do it gladly for the English. Besides, the more you drink, the more you can—make! The more you make, the more you can earn. It is a type of piece work.”

“That is unheard of!” Cried Finchen angrily. “It is a screaming cruelty to heaven. The—“

“No, no,” Peter Schmitz attempted to quiet her. “It is and it isn’t. The Ladies do it gladly, and dear Miss Finchen, by the thirst you have and by the splendid gulping you can do, you might have a chance at becoming one of the eleven thousand sacred virgins. The Cologne-Water-Business is so magnificent that it can scarcely fill the orders they have.

The company mill in the street, for example, employs several thousand sacred virgins. Enough to number 4711. Therefore this sacred number is marked on all their products and glitters on all their Eau de Cologne bottles.

House Hymann across from Gülich place—With a hard ‘G’ please—Has only six hundred Cologne Water making virgins but they have all been specially selected for their distinguished product and its glorious aroma. It is said that for such a purpose they must drink turpentine before going to bed.

Johann Maria Farina employs over two thousand sacred water makers across from Jülich place. —With a soft ‘J’ please and a German ‘ü’ like in gegenüber. —

Then there is Maria Clementine Martin across from the Cathedral. The ‘K’ appears in their house name ‘Kloister Frau’ named after the virgin Kordula who trained them personally in the development of ‘Eau de Cologne Double’.

Some seven hundred—“

“It is a disgrace, a monkey show!” Finchen cried in highest rage.

Her face was glowing hot as the midwife’s bowl and almost as red as a turkey cock.

“It is an obscenity that preys specifically upon undeserving foreign maidens! I will send a cable back to the American press and they will make an end to this business. We will boycott your Eau de Cologne. No upstanding American would use it anymore if they knew how it was made!”

“Oh God,” lamented Schmitz, “Don’t do that!”

“I will do much more than that!” Stormed Finchen. “I will form an alliance with the English Ladies. I will not rest until all eleven thousand go on strike!”

She called for the InnKeeper to bring her fur coat and hat. She picked up her purse and gloves and sailed out.

I don’t travel over to Cologne any more with education hungry foreign women. Schmitz had it right. They fall apart when they experience the power of a real religion.

Eleven Thousand Virgins and the Four Holy Three Kings-A

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

Translated by Joe Bandel

Copyright Joe Bandel

Eleven Thousand Virgins and the Four Holy Three Kings

By Hanns Heinz Ewers (1926) Revised Grotesken. Von Eilftausand Jungfrauen und den Vier heiligen Dreikönigen

We were traveling across to Cologne. Why would we want to do that? Simply because if a man has a feminine friend in Dusseldorf and wants to go sight seeing he travels to Cologne and the man from Cologne likewise travels to Dusseldorf.

It only takes forty minutes and everything is entirely different. You can also in this same time travel to Krefeld or Essen, to Duisburg or Elbefeld or to a dozen different nearby cities. That doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you are going to someplace different. I was traveling to Cologne with style this time. Her name was Finchen. I could see three other things that were stylish as well.

First, Finchen did not travel alone. I had to take her plump friend Bertha along.

Second, Bertha was in second class and not here.

Third, the stylish Finchen explained that she only traveled to proper, educational places. First she must see the Cathedral, then the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, then to St. Gereonen, then—

Now to see all of this would take all week, not just four hours. But Finchen wanted to be home by dark. You can’t see much more if you needed to travel back from Cologne.

On the sixth of January we traveled across and were already in the Cathedral by eight-o-clock. A friend of mine was already there waiting. He was supposed to escort the plump Bertha. His name was Schmitz—What else would a man be named in Cologne? —Peter Schmitz.

It was well for him that he had a passion for large women. He radiated when he had something wobbly to cuddle and squeeze.

Now the sixth of January—it is a shame that I must say this, In old Christian times all the people knew but now today even the ones that live on the Rhein scarcely do —The sixth of January is also Three Kings Day.

Clever Finchen noticed and wondered what was going on. So many people in the Cathedral were celebrating and over the High Altar electric light bulbs were arranged in glowing letters that spelled out: C.M.B.

“What do these letters mean?” She asked lightly.

By the way, she was not from the Rhein but from distant California where the people are also highly devoted but more to oranges and movies than to old buildings, bones and Saints.

So I said that it was apparently a lighted advertisement for cigarettes.

“The ‘B’ means ‘Batschar’ and the ‘M’ stands for ‘Muratti’ or perhaps for ‘Manoli’ or perhaps for both companies. They all put up such offensive advertisements. The ‘C’ is apparently a misprint. They must have forgotten the small crossways line that would make it a ‘G’ and that would be for ‘Garbaty’.”

My friend Schmitz grinned, nodded and said, “It could mean that!”

The honest Bertha appeared enlightened by my explanation. But the stylish Finchen didn’t believe a word of it. She declared furthermore that no one would permit an advertisement for cigarettes in a church. Then she ran over to the red jacketed Cathedral attendant.

He confirmed that she was entirely correct and the ArchBishop would never permit such a thing. Furthermore, it was a sacred advertisement for the Holy Three Kings:

The ‘B’ didn’t mean ‘Batschar’ at all, it meant ‘Balthasar’; the ‘M’ meant ‘Manoli’ or ‘Melchior’ instead of ‘Muratti’; and ‘C’ in no way meant ‘Garbaty’ but ‘Kaspar’!

“Now,” I excused myself. “I was a little correct about the ‘C’ being a misprint. If there had been a true ‘K’ for the Holy King Kaspar I would have recognized it easily!”

But Finchen said it was a stupid excuse, that I was an uneducated man and should keep my mouth shut. So we took the red jacketed fellow along. He traveled around with us and talked like a waterfall. Finchen thought it was all very instructive, especially about the sacred bones. She showed an extraordinary comprehension but in the middle of the explanation said that she had enough and would look more next time.

Peter Schmitz was staying back with Bertha. I thought I saw him make a tender pass at her near a side alcove. We met up with them both at a portal further along. My friend thought Bertha was a real handful, a good Catholic maiden and an outlander. Even more endearing, she was in the need of a good education.

Next we went to St. Gereonen where, thank God, there was no Sexton or attendant to encounter. We clattered around in the crypt. Schmitz declared that the sacred bones of the eleven thousand virgins must be down there somewhere but we didn’t find as much as a small collar bone.

That’s when Finchen again insulted me for having such a useless friend that knew absolutely nothing! She discovered an old solitary Mother praying on a bench way in back. She waited until there was a small pause in the prayer and asked where we could find the sacred remains of the virgins.

The pious Mother was very angry and said they couldn’t be seen here. They were in St. Ursula’s and by the way, today was Three Kings Day and the eleven thousand virgins could only be viewed on Ursula Day. Then only at nighttime when they go outside and are carried around St. Ursula’s church.

But this church belonged to St. Gereonen who was known as the general of the Theban Legion—Of whom all were martyrs. There were many more than eleven thousand and by their sacrifice were probably more successful than Ursula with her virgins—She could only recommend we would be better off visiting St. Gereonen and his Legion. Finchen thanked her for the good information.

Then to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. There Schmitz took his leave saying he had an important business appointment but could meet us at the “Eternal Lamp” in two hours. The old swindler—Business in Cologne on Three Kings Day! —It was my thought that he was trying to pass as a true Cologner and had never set foot in the museum. He didn’t want to be put on the spot and asked any more questions or get scolded again.

Finchen dismissed him very ungratefully. If he wanted to get back in favor with her again he needed to read a few books. He should study up on the Sacred Virgins and the Holy Kings and tell her about them at the afternoon meal. Naturally Schmitz promised to do so.

My truth shines from the light of the old Rheinish Masters—When instructing people from California it is easy—I rummaged through all my knowledge, every possible long forgotten and fallen bit of information. I don’t know if everything was right, if I had it all right, but in any case I was making an excellent impression on Finchen.

That is until I started talking about the Master of the Holy Family and St. Bartholomew’s Altar. With hawk eyes I referred to Stephen Lochner which contained difficult words in the Liesdorfer School of Speech. A museum attendant couldn’t have done it more beautifully, only more correctly.

All I really knew was the fellow with the big hole in his leg was St. Rochas and the Lady with the tongs was St. Apollonia who suffered from a toothache. It was so well done that Finchen’s regard for my knowledge climbed to an extraordinary degree.

I rushed from room to room as the Rosicrucian Master and the portly Bertha whose lover waited at the “Eternal Lamp” valiantly rushed along with.

But it didn’t matter, the eager to learn maiden from California didn’t have the capacity for any more nor the inclination to come along.

She stayed there. I thought to myself that there must be an atavistic impulse in her. She came out of Los Angeles and the painting was called simply “La Ciudad de la Nuestra Seňora de Los Angeles”.

No wonder that she had a secret love for all the Madonnas. She stood for a half-hour in front of “Madonna with Cetch” and simply wouldn’t leave “Madonna of the Rose Arbor”.

The dear God must have understood and sent splendid snowy weather. It became so gloomy in the museum that you couldn’t recognize any more paintings.

It didn’t help—Finchen had to be separated from all the beloved Saints. Three hours passed before we were finally in the “Eternal Lamp”.

Mamaloi-H

October 30.

I think Adelaide has gone mad. She screamed and beat upon the door. I couldn’t run fast enough to open it. She rushed directly to the boy, snatched him up and almost smothered him with her caresses. The little fellow began to cry pitifully. But she did not let go of him; kissed him, embraced him. I actually feared she would suffocate him.

Her behavior is really shocking. She says no word, but quite apparently she has been successful. She no longer tastes my meals; her anxiety seems to have disappeared. This surely means that all danger is past. But still she continues to follow me like a dog. At dinner she sat silently by my side without touching a bite; but, not for a second did she take her eyes off me.

Something terrible seems to be brewing in her mind, but she does not speak; not the tiniest word does she say. I don’t want to torment her, for I see how the poor woman is consumed with love for me.

I will take every step to get away from here as quickly as possible. I have already spoken with the Hamburg-American agent. He is not opposed to the deal, but he wants to pay hardly one-fourth of what my business is worth, and that only on the installment plan. And yet, I shall probably accept. After all, I have made my share in safety for a long time and can afford to make a transaction at a loss. God, how happy Adelaide will be when I tell her about it! Then I shall marry her, for the boy’s sake. She really deserves it. And when everything is in readiness, I shall say: —Now, child, pack your things.—She will be mad with joy!

 

November 11.

My negotiations seem to be progressing satisfactorily. Even the cablegram from the agent’s bank has come, stating that they stand ready to advance him the necessary cash. This does away with the principal obstacle; the details can be easily settled, since I am more than willing to compromise. The fellow knows this and insists upon calling me his “friend and benefactor.” Well, I don’t blame him for not being able to hide his joy over such a marvelous transaction.

It is rather hard for me to keep my secret from Adelaide. Her condition gets worse and worse. Well, she probably will be able to stand it another week, and then her joy will be so much the greater. She called on her voodoo brethren a few times, and each time she returned in a still more desperate condition. I don’t understand it at all, since all danger seems to have passed. All doors are now open at night as they used to be and even the cooking she leaves to the other servants. What else can it be?

She hardly speaks a word now. But her love for me and the boy grows each day, grows almost boundless. This love has something uncanny about it which almost takes my breath away. If I take the boy on my knee and play with him, she shrieks, rushes from the room, throws herself on the bed and sobs as if her heart were breaking.

She must be ill and almost contaminates me with her strange disease. I shall bless the moment when we are able to leave this terrible hole with its horrible secrets.

 

November 15.

This morning she was quite beside herself. She wanted to do a few errands, taking the child with her. Thus she bid me farewell, but in a most unnatural way. Her eyes had long ago become red and inflamed from crying, but this morning entire cataracts fell from them. She could not tear herself from my arms; time and again she held the boy for me to kiss—I was quite moved by the scene. Thank God, the Hamburg-American agent came directly afterwards to bring the contracts for my signature. Now the names are affixed to them and the bank check is in my hands. This house is no longer mine; I begged the buyer to permit me to stay another few days.

“Half a year, if you want to!” he said.

But I promised that I would not want to stay even another week. Saturday the steamer for St. Thomas is leaving, and by then everything must be ready.

Now I shall put flowers on the table. When she returns, she shall hear the joyous news.

 

5 P. M.

This is horrible! Adelaide did not come back; she did not come, I say! She did not come! I ran in to town; nobody had seen her. I returned home; she had not arrived. I went to the garden to look for the old hag; she was not there. I ran to her hut—and found her, bound to a pillar.

“At last you have come—at last! Hurry, before it is too late!”

I cut her loose; it was difficult to get anything out of the half-crazed woman.

“She has gone to the honfoû—the mamaloi,” she stammered. “To the  honfoû with her child. They bound me so I could not warn you.”

I ran back to the house to get my pistols. I am writing these lines while my horse is being saddled. Oh God, what may… Please God…!

 

November 16.

I rode through the woods.

I do not think I thought about anything; only this: you must get there in time—you must get there in time!

The sun had gone down when I crossed the clearing. Two fellows caught hold of my reins. I slashed my whip across their faces. I jumped off, threw the reins over the strawberry tree. Then I rushed into the honfoû, thrusting the crowd right and left.

I know I cried out. There, in the red light, stood the mamaloi on the basket, the snake coiled around her blue ribbon. And, high above her head, she held my child by the throat. And she choked it, choked it, choked it!

I must have shrieked. I tore my Brownings from my pocket and fired. Two shots; one at her face, the other at her heart. She tumbled from the basket. I sprang forward and lifted up the child. I realized immediately that it was dead, but still so warm, so very warm.

Right and left I shot into the crowd. They pushed and fell aside; they howled, bellowed and shrieked. I tore the torches from the walls and hurled them into the thatch. It burned like tinder.

I mounted my horse and rode back, carrying the dead child home. I did save my child; not from death but from the teeth of those black devils. On my desk I found this letter—I don’t know how it got there:

“You had betrayed Cimbi-Kita and they wanted to kill you. But they will spare you if I sacrifice my child. I love it so; but I love you still more. Therefore I will do what Cimbi-Kita demands. I know that you will drive me from you when you hear what I have done. Therefore I shall take poison and you will not see me again. But you will know how much I love you. For now you are quite safe.

I love you dearly.

Adelaide.”

 

*                           *

*

 

Now my life lies shattered before me. What shall I do? I know no more. I shall put these pages into an envelope and dispatch them. That is one bit of work left to do. And then?

 

*                           *

*

 

I answered immediately. My letter was sent in care of the steamship agent, with the note: —Please forward.—I got it back with another note: “Addressee dead.”

 

 

 

Mamaloi-G

August 26, 1907.

Adelaide is beside herself with joy; she has her boy! But that isn’t all. The boy is white, and that makes her proud beyond belief. All negro children, as is well known, are not black at birth, but rather pink-looking, just like the children of white people. But, whereas these become white, negro children grow black, or at least brown, in the case of hybrids. Adelaide knew this, of course, and, with tears in her eyes, waited for her child to get black. She never let it from her arms, not even for a second, as if she could prevent it from acquiring its natural color. But hour after hour passed; and day after day; and her child became white and remained white—snow—white, in fact, whiter than myself. If it had not had black, kinky hair, nobody would have believed it to be of negro blood. Not until three weeks had passed did Adelaide permit me to take it in my arms. I never held a child in my arms; it was a strange feeling when the little fellow laughed at me and milled about with its little arms. What force he already has in his tiny fingers, particularly in his thumb—which, of course, have three joints—really a marvelous fellow!

It is a pure joy to watch the mother standing in the store behind the counter, the pink miracle bottles piled up before her. Her strong, black bosom laughs from her red blouse, and the healthy white baby drinks mightily. Really, I feel well in my old days, and as young as ever. In my happiness over the birthday of my son, I have sent a large extra remittance to my dear brother. I can easily afford it; there will always be enough for the boy.

 

September 4.

I had sworn to myself that I would never again have anything to do with the voodoo crowd, unless it were in connection with my miracle water. Now I had to busy myself once more with them, after all; not as a participant this time, but as an attacker.

 

 

Yesterday the old hag who weeds my garden came crying to me. Her great-grandchild had disappeared. I consoled her by saying he probably had run into the woods. She, too, had believed so at first, and had searched for days; but now she knew that the bidangos had caught him. He was being held in a hut outside the village and next week he was to be sacrificed in honor of Cimbi-Kita, Azilit and Dom Pèdre. I promised to help her and rode off on my mission. When I got to the thatched hut a black fellow stepped before me, whom I recognized as the dancer of the devil-priest. I pushed him aside and went inside. There I found the boy squatting in a big box, bound hand and foot. Big pieces of corn-bread soaked in rum lay next to him. He stared at me from stupid, animal eyes. I cut him loose and took him away, the priest not daring to interfere. I had the boy taken directly aboard a Hamburg-American liner leaving that night. To the captain I gave a letter to a business friend in St. Thomas, who was to take care of the boy. Thus he is safe. Had he remained here he would have fallen victim to the sacrificial knife before long. This voodoo crowd doesn’t easily let go of someone they have destined for slaughter. The old crone sobbed with joy when she heard that her only happiness—incidentally, an utterly helpless rascal—was safe aboard ship. Now she has nothing to fear; when he returns he will be a man, capable himself of offering sacrifices.

As a matter of fact, my action pleased me personally, too. It is assort of revenge for the mulatto boys who disappeared from my courtyard. The old woman has told me they, too, met the fate that was planned for her great-grandchild.

 

September 10.

For the first time in many months I have had another quarrel with Adelaide. She learned that I had saved Phylloxera’s great-grandchild, and asked me about it. The priests of Cimbi-Kita had destined the boy to die; how could I dare to tear him from their strong clutches?

In all this time we had never said another word about voodoo, ever since the day, shortly after the sacrificial feast, when she had voluntarily told me that she had resigned her office as mamaloi. She could no longer remain a priestess, she said, because she loved me too much. I had laughed at the time, but inwardly I was pleased, nevertheless.

Now she began once more with this terrible superstition. At first I tried to argue with her, but gave it up soon enough, realizing that I could not take away from her a belief which she had absorbed with her mother’s milk. Besides that I recognized that her reproaches sprang from her love for me, and out of her great fear for my safety. She cried and sobbed, and nothing I could do would quiet her.

 

September 15.

Adelaide is impossible. Everywhere she sees shadows. She remains close by my side, like a dog who wants to protect me. Now this, to be sure, is touching, but also annoying; particularly because the boy, whom she never leaves alone, has quite a remarkable voice. Everything I eat she prepares herself; and, not content with this, she tastes everything before she permits me to eat it. Now I know that these negroes are great poison mixers who know their botany thoroughly, but I don’t believe that any one of them would dare to use his science on me. So I laugh at Adelaide—but, nevertheless, I don’t feel any too well about it.

 

September 24.

So they have already taken away from me my “soul”! I know this from Phylloxera; the old lady is no less excited and anxious for me than Adelaide. Today she came to warn me. I wanted to send Adelaide from the room, but she insisted upon listening. It seems that the priests have set afoot the rumor that I had betrayed Cimbi-Kita, to whom I had sworn allegiance; that I am a loup-garou, a werewolf who sucks the blood of children while they sleep. Thereupon some of the dijons stole my “soul” by shaping a likeness of me in clay and hanging it in the temple. This alone would be harmless enough, but it has a rather unpleasant feature: from now on I am a man without a soul, whom anyone may kill. In fact, he who does it accomplishes a good deed.

Nevertheless I do not consider the affair of great importance and do not intend to share the women’s fears. So long as my bloodhounds stand before my door, so long as my Brownings are at my bedside and so long as Adelaide prepares my food, I certainly don’t fear these black fellows.

“For ages no negro has dared to attack a white man!” I consoled Adelaide.

But she answered: “They no longer consider you a white man! They count you as one of them since you swore allegiance to Cimbi-Kita!”

 

October 2.

I pity the poor woman so much. She follows me like a shadow; not for a second does she leave me out of her sight. She hardly sleeps at night, sitting on a chair at my bedside and guarding my sleep.

She no longer weeps; quietly, silently she walks beside me as if she were wrestling with a great resolution.

How would it be if I gave up my business here? I don’t want to go to Germany; not because I fear to collide again with its silly laws—long ago I ceased to bother with other women, since I have had Adelaide and the boy. But, I really cannot bring a negress along as my wife. I might retire to St. Thomas. Adelaide would certainly feel at home there. I could build a beautiful country seat and might start some new kind of business, if I must have some occupation. If I could only sell my stuff here for a fairly decent sum.

I am writing in my work-room which looks like a fortress. Adelaide has gone out; she did not say where she was going, but I am positive she wants to bargain with the voodoo crowd. The three dogs are in the room before the locked door; my revolver is handy on my desk. It is really ridiculous—as if a negro would dare harm a hair on my head in broad daylight! But I had to give in to Adelaide’s wishes. She went alone; the child lies next to me on the couch and sleeps. I hope she will bring home good news.