Fantastic Tales Page 3

  With kindness, my father raised me to my feet, then said to me: “My son, I forbid you to think of this marriage, and I do so for three reasons. First, it would be unseemly for you to become, as it were, your father’s brother-in-law. Secondly, the holy canons of the Church do not approve these kinds of marriages. Thirdly, I do not want you to marry Inesille.”

  Having given me his three reasons, my father turned his back on me and left.

  I retired to my bedroom, where I gave way to despair. My stepmother, whom my father immediately informed of what had hapened, came to find me and told me I was wrong to torture myself; that if I could not become Inesille’s husband, I could be her cortejo, that is to say, her lover, and that she would see to it; but at the same time, she declared her love for me and made much of the sacrifice she was making by yielding me to her sister. I listened only too avidly to these words that flattered my passion, but Inesille was so modest it seemed to me impossible that she could ever be persuaded to respond to my love.

  Meanwhile, my father decided to journey to Madrid, with the intention of securing the post of corregidor of Cordoba, and he took with him his wife and sister-in-law. He was to be away for no more than two months, but this time seemed very long to me, because I was separated from Inesille.

  When the two months were almost over, I received a letter from my father, in which he instructed me to go to meet him and wait for him at Venta Quemada, where the Sierra Morena began. It would have been no easy decision to travel by way of the Sierra Morena a few weeks earlier, but as it happened, Zoto’s two brothers had just been hanged. His gang was disbanded and the roads were supposed to be fairly safe.

  So I set out for Córdoba at about ten o’clock in the morning, and I spent the night at Andujar, where the landlord was one of the most talkative in Andalusia. I ordered a lavish supper at the inn, of which I ate some and kept the rest for my journey.

  The next day I dined at Los Alcornoques on what I had saved from the day before, and that same evening I reached Venta Quemada. I did not find my father there, but as he had instructed me in his letter to wait for him, I determined to do so, all the more willingly since I was in a roomy and comfortable hostel. The innkeeper who ran it at that time was a certain Gonzalez of Murcia, quite a decent fellow although a big-talker, who, sure enough, promised me a supper worthy of a Spanish grandee. While he busied himself preparing it, I went for a stroll along the banks of the Guadalquivir, and when I returned to the hostel, there I found a supper that was indeed not at all bad.

  When I had eaten, I told Gonzalez to make up my bed. Then I saw that he was flustered: he said things that did not make a great deal of sense. Finally he confessed that the inn was haunted by ghosts, that he and his family spent every night at a small farm on the banks of the river, and he added that if I wanted to sleep there too, he would have a bed made up for me next to his own.

  This proposal seemed to me quite unwarranted. I told him that he could go to sleep wherever he wanted to, and that he should send my men to me. Gonzalez obeyed, and withdrew, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

  My servants arrived a moment later. They too had heard talk of ghosts and tried to urge me to spend the night at the farm. Responding to their advice rather churlishly, I ordered them to make up my bed in the very room where I had supped. They obeyed me, albeit reluctantly, and when the bed was made, again they beseeched me, with tears in their eyes. Genuinely irritated by their admonitions, I allowed myself a display of emotion that put them to flight, and since it was not my custom to have my servants undress me, I easily managed without them in getting ready for bed. However, they had been more thoughtful than my behaviour towards them merited: by my bed, they had left a lighted candle, an extra candle, two pistols and a few books to read to keep myself awake; but the truth is I was no longer sleepy.

  I spent a couple hours alternately reading and tossing in my bed. Eventually I heard the sound of a bell or a clock striking midnight. I was surprised, because I had not heard the other hours strike. Soon the door opened, and I saw my stepmother enter. She was in her nightgown and held a candlestick in her hand. She tiptoed over to me with her finger on her lips, as though to impose silence upon me. Then she rested her candlestick on my bedside table, sat down on my bed, took one of my hands and spoke to me in these words:

  “My dear Alphonse, the time has come when I can give you the pleasures I promised you. We arrived at this tavern an hour ago. Your father has gone to sleep at the farm, but since I knew that you were here, I obtained leave to spend the night here with my sister Inesille. She is waiting for you, and preparing herself to refuse you nothing. But I must inform you of the conditions I have laid on your happiness. You love Inesille, and I love you. I am willing to bring you together, but I cannot bring myself to leave you alone with each other. I shall share your bed. Come!”

  My stepmother gave me no time to reply. She took me by the hand and led me along corridor after corridor, until we reached a door where she set about looking through the keyhole.

  When she had looked long enough, she said to me; “Everything is going well, see for yourself.”

  I took her place at the keyhole, and there indeed was the lovely Inesille in her bed, but she was far from showing the modesty I had always seen in her. The expression in her eyes, her agitated breathing, her flushed complexion, her posture—everything about her was clear evidence she was awaiting a lover.

  After letting me have a good look, Camille said to me: “My dear Pacheco, stay at this door. When the time is right, I shall come to let you know.”

  When she had gone in, I put my eye to the keyhole again and saw a thousand things I find hard to describe. First, Camille undressed with some deliberation, then getting into bed with her sister, she said to her:

  “My poor Inesille, is it really true that you want to have a lover? Poor child, you do not know how he will hurt you. First he will flatten you, press himself upon you, and then he will crush you, tear you.

  When Camille considered her pupil sufficiently indoctrinated, she came and opened the door to me, led me to her sister’s bed, and lay down beside us.

  What shall I say of that fateful night? I exhausted its pleasures and crimes. For a long time I fought against sleep and nature, the more to protract my diabolical gratification. At last I fell asleep, and I awoke the next day beneath the gallows on which Zoto’s brothers were hanged, lying between their vile corpses.

  HERE THE HERMIT interrupted the demoniac and said to me: “Well now, my son! What do you think of that? I believe you would have been very frightened to find yourself lying between two hanged men?”

  I replied: “Father, you insult me. A gentleman must never be afraid, and still less when he has the honour of being a captain in the Walloon Guards.”

  “But my son,” said the hermit, “have you ever heard tell of such an adventure befalling anybody?”

  I hesitated for a moment, after which I replied: “Father, if this adventure befell Signor Pacheco, it might have befallen others. I will be better able to judge if you would kindly tell him to continue his story.”

  The hermit turned to the demoniac, and said to him: “Pacheco, Pacheco! In the name of your Redeemer, I order you to continue your story.”

  Pacheco uttered a dreadful howl and continued in these words:

  I WAS HALF dead when I left the gibbet. I dragged myself off without knowing where I was going. At last I met some travellers who took pity on me and brought me back to Venta Quemada. There I found the innkeeper and my servants, who were greatly worried about me. I asked them if my father had slept at the farm. They replied that no one had come.

  I could not bear to stay any longer at the Venta, and I set out again on the road to Andujar. I did not arrive there until after sunset. The inn was full, a bed was made up for me in the kitchen, and I lay down in it. But I was unable to sleep, for I could not banish from my mind the horrors of the night before.

  I had left a lighted candle on the k
itchen hearth. Suddenly it went out, and at once I felt what seemed a deathly shudder that made my blood run cold.

  Someone pulled off my blanket. Then I heard a little voice saying: “It is Camille, your stepmother, I am cold, dear heart. Make room for me under your blanket.”

  Then another little voice said: “And this is Inesille. Let me get into your bed. I am cold, I am cold.”

  Then I felt an icy hand take hold of my chin. I summoned up all my strength to say out loud: “Avaunt, Satan!”

  Then the little voices said to me: “Why are you chasing us away? Are you not our darling husband? We are cold. We are going to make a little fire.”

  Sure enough, soon after I saw flames in the kitchen hearth. The flames became brighter and I saw not Inesille and Camille but Zoto’s two brothers, hanging in the fireplace.

  This sight scared the life out of me. I leapt out of bed. I jumped through the window and started to run through the countryside. For a moment I was able to cherish the fond belief that I had escaped these horrors; but I turned round and saw that I was being followed by the two hanged men. I started to run again, and I saw that the hanged men were left behind. But my joy was short-lived. These detestable creatures began to cartwheel and in an instant were upon me. I ran on, until finally my strength deserted me.

  Then I felt one of the hanged men seize me by the heel of my left foot. I tried to shake him off, but his brother cut in front of me. He appeared before me, rolling his eyes dreadfully, and sticking out a tongue as red as an iron drawn from the fire. I begged for mercy; in vain. With one hand he grabbed me by the throat, and with the other he tore out the eye I am now missing. In the place where my eye had been, he stuck his burning-hot tongue. With it he licked my brain and made me howl with pain.

  Then the other hanged man, who had seized my left leg, also wanted to leave his mark on me. First he began by tickling the sole of the foot he was holding. Then the monster tore the skin off it, separated all the nerves, bared them, and set to playing on them as though on a musical instrument; but since I did not render a sound that pleased him, he began to twist them, as one tunes a harp. Finally he began to play on my leg, of which he had fashioned a psaltery. I heard his diabolical laughter; while pain wrung dreadful howls out of me, the wailings of hell joined voice. But when it came to my hearing the damned gnashing their teeth, I felt as though they were grinding my every fibre. In the end I lost consciousness.

  The next day shepherds found me in the countryside and brought me to this hermitage, where I have confessed all my sins and here at the foot of the Cross I have found some relief from my ills.

  AT THIS POINT the demoniac uttered a dreadful howl and fell silent.

  Then the hermit spoke and said to me: “Young man, you see the power of Satan, pray and weep. But it is late. We must part company. I do not propose that you sleep in my cell, for Pacheco’s screams during the night might disturb you. Go and sleep in the chapel. There you will be under the protection of the Cross, which triumphs over evil spirits.”

  I told the hermit I would sleep wherever he wanted me to. We carried a little trestle bed to the chapel. I lay down on it and the hermit wished me good-night.

  When I was alone, Pacheco’s story came back to me. I found in it a great deal of similarity with my own adventures, and I was still reflecting on it when I heard the chimes of midnight. I did not know whether it was the hermit ringing the bell, or whether I was again dealing with ghosts. Then I heard a scratching at my door. I went to the door and asked: “Who goes there?”

  A little voice answered: “We are cold, open up and let us in, it is your darling wives here.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, you damnable gallows’ fodder,” I replied, “return to your gibbet and let me sleep.”

  Then the little voice said: “You jeer at us because you are inside a chapel, but come outside a while.”

  “I am just coming,” I instantly replied.

  I went to fetch my sword and tried to get out, but found the door locked. I told the ghosts, who made no response. I went to bed and slept until it was light.

  JOSEPH VON EICHENDORFF

  Autumn Sorcery

  (Die Zauberei im Herbste, 1808–1809)

  Eichendorff (1788–1857), who wrote both prose and poetry, is one of the most brilliant authors of German Romanticism. He is best represented by the novella Memoirs of a Lazy Man (1826). The novella I include here was his first, which he wrote at the age of twenty, though it was published posthumously. In it, Eichendorff gives us a Romantic version of a famous medieval legend: Tannhäuser’s sojourn in the pagan paradise of Venus, presented as the world of seduction and sin. This legend—which Wagner would later transform into an opera—would also inspire another tale by Eichendorff, The Marble Statue (1819), which has an Italian setting. But here the land of sin is a kind of twin of our own world, a parallel world that is sensual and anguishing at the same time. To pass from this world to the other is easy, and to return to our world is not impossible. But after having suffered being bewitched and having escaped, the man who wanted to expiate his guilt by becoming a hermit ultimately chooses the enchanted world and succumbs to it.

  ONE TRANQUIL AUTUMN AFTERNOON, when he was hunting, the knight Ubaldo found himself separated from his company. Riding through the thickly forested, lonely mountains, he saw coming towards him a man dressed in strange clothes. The unknown stranger did not notice the presence of the knight until he was standing before him. Ubaldo was shocked to see that while the man was wearing a magnificent, richly adorned doublet, it was faded and out of fashion. His face was handsome but pale and covered by a thick, unkempt beard.

  Mutually surprised, the two men greeted each other, and Ubaldo explained that—unfortunately—he was lost. The sun was hidden behind the mountains, and they were far away from any inhabited place. The stranger invited Ubaldo to spend the night with him. The next day, he added, he would show him the only way out of those forests. Ubaldo accepted and followed him through the deserted canyons.

  Soon they came to a high peak, at the foot of which there was a spacious cave, at the center of which was a stone, and on the stone a wooden crucifix. In the back of the cave was a rough bed of dry leaves. Ubaldo tied his horse at the entrance while his host silently brought some bread and wine. After he sat down, the knight, to whom the clothing the stranger wore did not seem appropriate for a hermit, could not keep from asking him who he was and what had brought him there.

  “Do not inquire into who I am,” the hermit replied dryly, and his face became somber and severe. Then Ubaldo noticed that the hermit listened attentively and fell into deep musings when the knight began to tell him about some of his journeys and the glorious jousts he’d been in in his youth. At last Ubaldo was exhausted and lay down on the bed of dry leaves his host had offered him. He immediately fell asleep, while the hermit sat on the ground at the entrance to the cave.

  In the middle of the night, Ubaldo, upset by disturbing dreams, awakened with a start and stood up. Outside, the moon bathed the silent outline of the mountains in clear light. He saw the stranger pacing back and forth outside the cave under the great trees. In a deep voice, he sang a song of which Ubaldo managed to understand only these words:

  Fear pulls me out of the cave.

  Old melodies call me.

  Sweet sin, leave me

  Or leave me prostrate on the ground.

  Before the magic of this song,

  Hiding me in the bowels of the earth.

  God! I would beseech you with fervor,

  But the images of the world always

  Always come between us,

  And the noise of the forests

  Fills my soul with terror.

  Severe God, I fear you!

  Oh break my chains too!

  To save all men

  You suffered a bitter death.

  I am lost at the gates of Hell.

  How forsaken I am!

  Jesus, help me in my anguish!

  W
hen he finished his song, he sat on a rock and seemed to whisper an imperceptible prayer that resembled a confused magic incantation. The noise of the brook near the mountains and the light whistle of the fir trees united in a single melody, and Ubaldo, overcome by sleep, fell back on his bed.

  Barely had the first rays of the morning sun begun to shine through the treetops when the hermit appeared before the knight to show him the path towards the canyons. Ubaldo joyfully mounted his horse, and his strange guide galloped silently beside him. Soon they reached the top of the mountain and contemplated the dazzling plain that suddenly appeared at their feet, with its rivers, cities, and fortresses in the beautiful morning light. The hermit seemed especially surprised: “Oh, how beautiful the world is!” he exclaimed, clearly moved. He then covered his face with both hands and hastened to bury himself again in the forests. Ubaldo, shaking his head, took the familiar road that led to his castle.

  Curiosity led him to seek out those solitary places again, and, with great effort, he managed to find the cave, where the hermit this time received him somberly and silently.

  Because of the song the hermit had sung the night of their first meeting, Ubaldo knew he sincerely wanted to expiate grievous sins, but it also seemed that his spirit was struggling in vain, against the enemy, because his behavior lacked the joyful confidence of a soul truly submissive to the will of God. Also, it frequently happened that when they were speaking seated next to each other, a restrained earthly anxiety would explode with a terrible force in the restless and fiery eves of that man, transforming his features and giving him features and giving him a say age air.

  That impelled the pious knight to visit more frequently—to help that vacillating spirit with all his strength. Nevertheless, the hermit never mentioned his name or previous life during all that time, and seemed fearful of his past. But with each visit he became more affable and trusting. At last, the good knight managed to convince the hermit to accompany him to his castle.