Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune (28 page)

“Where is your Albert?” asked the professor
of literature. “Where is your Isabella?”

“My Albert is running around here somewhere,
Herr Professor,” answered Alraune. He appears in two dozen
different versions in this very ballroom!”

“As for Isabella–her eyes searched around the
room–Isabella,” she continued, I will present her to you as
well.”

She stepped up to the professor’s daughter; a
fifteen year old, timid thing that looked at her with large amazed
blue eyes.

“Will you be my page, little gardener?” she
asked.

The flaxen haired girl said, “Yes, gladly–If
you want me to!”

“You must be my page when I am a lady,” the
Chevalier instructed, “and my maid when I go as a gentleman.”

The little girl nodded.

“How is that, Herr Professor?” laughed
Alraune.

“Summa cum Laude!” acknowledged the
professor. “But leave my dear little Trudi here with me.”

“Now I ask!” cried the Fräulein ten Brinken
and she turned to a short, round botanist.

“Which flowers bloom in my garden, Herr
Professor?”

“Red hibiscus,” answered the botanist. He
knew the flora of Ceylon very well, “golden lotus and white temple
flowers.”

Wrong!” cried Alraune. “Entirely wrong! Do
you know, Herr Rifleman from Harlem? Which flowers grow in my
garden?”

The art professor looked at her sharply, a
light smile tugged at his lips.

“Les fleurs du mal; the flowers of evil,” he
said. “Aren’t they?”

“Yes,” cried Mlle. de Maupin. “Yes, you’ve
got it right.”

“But they don’t bloom for you my dear
scientist. You must patiently wait until they are dried and pressed
into a book or in a frame after the varnish dries.”

She pulled her pretty sword, bowed, saluted
and snapped her sword-cane back together. Then she turned around on
her heel, danced a few steps with the Baron von Manteuffel from
Prussia, heard the light voice of her Royal Highness and sprang
quickly up to the table of the princess.

“Countess Almaviva,” she began. “What do you
desire from your faithful cherubim?”

“I’m really disappointed with him,” said the
princess. “He has really earned a beating! Scampering around the
hall with one scoundrel after another.”

“Don’t forget the Susanna’s either,” laughed
the prince-escort.

Alraune ten Brinken pulled her lips into a
pout. “What should such a poor boy do,” she cried, “who knows
nothing of this evil world?”

She laughed, took the lute from the shoulder
of the adjutant who was standing in front of her dressed as Frans
Hals. She strummed, stepped back a few paces and sang:

“
You, who instinctively

Know the ways of the heart

Tell me, is it love

That burns so here in mine?”

“From whom do you want advice cherubim?”
asked the princess.

“Doesn’t my Countess Almaviva know?” Alraune
gave back.

Her Royal Highness laughed, “You are very
daring, my page!”

Cherubim answered, “That is the way of
pages!”

He lifted the lace on the sleeves of the
princess and kissed her on the hand–a little too high on the arm
and a little too long.

“Shall I bring you Rosalinde?” he whispered,
and he read the answer in her eyes.

Rosalinde danced past–not a moment’s rest was
she allowed this evening.

The Chevalier de Maupin took her away from
her dance partner, led her up the steps to the table of her
Highness.

“Give her something to drink,” she cried. “My
beloved thirsts.”

She took the glass the princess handed to her
and placed it to Wolf Gontram’s red lips. Then she turned to the
prince consort.

“Will you dance with me, wild outrider from
the Rhine?

He laughed coarsely and pointed to his
gigantic brown riding boots with their immense spurs.

“Do you believe that I can dance in
these?”

“Try it,” she urged, and pulled him by the
arm away from where he was sitting.

“It will be alright! Only don’t trample me to
death or break me, you rough hunter.”

The prince threw a doubtful glance at the
delicate thing in perfumed lace, then put on his buckskin gloves
and reached out to her.

“Then come, my little page,” he cried.

Alraune threw a hand kiss over to the
princess, waltzed through the hall with the heavy prince. The
people made room for them and it went well enough diagonally across
and then back. He raised her high and whirled her through the air
so that she screamed. Then he got entangled in his long spurs–oops!
They were both lying on the dance floor.

She was up again, like new, reaching out her
hand to him.

“Get up Herr Outrider. I can’t very well lift
you.”

He raised his upper body, but when he tried
to get onto his right foot a quick “ouch!” came out of his mouth.
He steadied himself with his left hand, tried to get up again, but
it didn’t work. An intense pain took his Majesty across the
foot.

There he sat, big and strong, in the middle
of the dance floor and couldn’t get himself up. Several came up and
tried taking off the mighty boot, which covered his entire leg, but
it wouldn’t go. The foot had swelled up so quickly they had to cut
away the tough leather with sharp knives. Professor Dr. Helban,
Orthopedic, examined him and determined the anklebone was
broken.

“I’m done with dancing for today,” grumbled
the prince-escort.

Alraune stood at the front of the thick
circle that surrounded him. Near her pressed the red executioner. A
little song occurred to her that she had heard the students howling
at night.

“Tell me,” she asked. “How does that song go?
The one about the fields, the forests and the strong man’s
strength?”

The tall Teuton was thoroughly drunk and
reacted as if someone had thrown a coin into an automated machine.
He swung his axe high into the air and bellowed out:

“
He fell on a stone.

He fell on a–crack, crack, crack –

He fell on a stone!

Broke three ribs in his body

In the fields and the forests

And all of his strength–

And then his righ –crack, crack, crack

And then his right leg!”

“Shut up!” whispered a fraternity brother to
him. “Are you entirely crazy?”

That quieted him. But the good natured prince
laughed.

“Thanks for the appropriate serenade! But you
can save the three ribs–My leg here is completely enough!”

They carried him out on a chair, helped him
into his sleigh. The princess left the ball with him. She was not
at all happy about the incident.

Alraune sought out Wolf Gontram, found him
still sitting at the abandoned Royal table.

“What did she do?” she asked quickly. “What
did she say?”

“I don’t know,’ answered Wölfchen.

She took his fan, hit him sharply on the
arm.

“You do know,” she insisted. “You must know
and you must tell me!”

He shook his head, “But I really don’t know.
She gave me something to drink and smoothed back the hair on my
forehead. I believe she also squeezed my hand, but I can’t say
exactly, don’t know exactly all that she said. A couple of times I
said, ‘Yes.’ But I wasn’t listening to her at all. I was thinking
about something entirely different.”

“You are terribly stupid Wölfchen,” said the
Fräulein reproachfully. “You were dreaming again! What were you
dreaming about this time?”

“About you,” he replied.

She stamped her feet in anger.

“About me! Always about me! Why are you
always thinking about me?

His large deep eyes pleaded with her.

“I can’t help it,” he whispered.

The music began, interrupting the silence
that the going away of the Royalty had caused. “Roses of the South”
sounded soft and seductive. She took his hand, pulled him out with
her.

“Come, Wölfchen, we will dance!”

They stepped out and turned around. They were
alone in the large hall. The gray bearded art professor saw them,
climbed up on his chair and shouted:

“Quiet! Special waltz for the Chevalier de
Maupin and his Rosalinde.”

Hundreds of eyes rested on the beautiful
couple. Alraune was highly aware of it and felt the admiration with
every step that she took. But Wolf Gontram noticed nothing, he only
felt, as he lay in her arms and was carried by the soft sounds. His
heavy black eye lashes lowered, shadowing his deep, dreamy
eyes.

The Chevalier de Maupin led, certain, as
confidant as a slender page that has lived on the smooth dance
floor since the cradle. His head was bowed slightly forward, his
left hand held two of Rosalinde’s fingers while the right rested on
the golden knob of the sword-cane that he had pushed down through
the lace trimmed sash till the other end showed behind him. His
powdered hair curled like tiny silver snakes, a smile spread his
lips revealing smooth white teeth.

Rosalinde followed every light pressure. Her
red and gold train slid smoothly over the floor and her figure grew
out of it like a graceful shaped flower. Her head lay back, white
ostrich plumes dangled heavily from her large hat. She was worlds
away from everyone else, enraptured by the garlands of roses that
hung throughout the hall. They passed under them again and again on
their way around the dance floor.

The guests pressed to the edges, those in
back climbed up on chairs and tables. They watched, breathless.

“I congratulate you, your Excellency,”
murmured Princess Wolkonski.

The Privy Councilor replied, “Thank you, your
Highness. You see that our efforts have not been entirely in
vain.”

They changed directions, the Chevalier led
his Lady diagonally across the hall, and Rosalinde opened her eyes
wide, throwing quiet, astonished glances at the crowd surrounding
them.

“Shakespeare would kneel if he saw this
Rosalinde,” declared the professor of literature.

But at the next table little Manasse barked
from his chair down to Legal Councilor Gontram.

“Stand up and look just this once, Herr
Colleague! Look at that! Your boy looks just like your departed
wife–exactly like her!”

The old Legal Councilor remained sitting
quietly, sampling a new bottle of Urziger Auslese.

“I can’t especially remember any more how she
looked, “ he opined indifferently.

Oh, he remembered her well, but what did that
have to do with other people?

The couple danced, down through the hall and
back. Rosalinde’s white shoulders rose and fell faster, her cheeks
grew flushed–but the Chevalier smiled under his powder and remained
equally graceful, equally certain, confident and nimble.

Countess Olga tore the red carnations out of
her hair and threw them at the couple. The Chevalier de Maupin
caught one in the air, pressed it to his lips and blew her a kiss.
Then all the others grabbed after colorful flowers, taking them out
of vases on the tables, tearing them from clothing, loosening them
from their hair, and under a shower of flowers the couple waltzed
to the left around the hall carried by the sounds of “Roses of the
South”.

The orchestra started over and over again.
The musicians, dulled and over tired from nightly playing, appeared
to wake up, leaning over the balustrade of the balcony and looking
down. The baton of the conductor flew faster, hotter rushed the
bows of the violinists and in deep silence the untiring couple,
Rosalinde and the Chevalier de Maupin, floated through a sea of
roses, colors and sounds.

Then the conductor stopped the music. Then it
broke loose. The Baron von Platten, Colonel of the 28th cried out
with his stentorian voice down from the gallery:

“A cheer for the couple! A cheer for Fräulein
ten Brinken! A cheer for Rosalinde!”

The glasses clinked and people shouted and
yelled, pressing onto the dance floor, surrounding the couple,
almost crushing them.

Two fraternity boys from Rhenania carried in
a mighty basket full of red roses they had purchased downtown
somewhere from a flower woman. A couple Hussar officers brought
champagne. Alraune only sipped, but Wolf Gontram–overheated,
red-hot and thirsty, guzzled the cool drink greedily, one goblet
after another.

Alraune pulled him away, breaking a path
through the crowd. The red executioner sat in the middle of the
hall. He stuck out his long neck, held out his axe to her with both
hands.

“I have no flowers,” he cried. “I myself am a
red rose. Pluck me!”

Alraune left him sitting, led her lady
further, past the tables under the gallery and into the
conservatory. She looked around her. It was no less full of people
and all of them were waving and calling out to them. Then she saw a
little door behind a heavy curtain that led out to a balcony.

“Oh, this is good!” she cried. “Come with
Wölfchen!”

She pulled back the curtain, turned the key,
and pressed down on the latch. But five coarse fingers rested on
her arm.

“What do you want there?” cried a harsh
voice.

She turned around. It was Attorney Manasse in
his black hooded robe and mask.

“What do you want outside?” he repeated.

She shook off his ugly hand.

“What is it to you?” she answered. “We just
want to get a breath of fresh air.”

He nodded vigorously, “That’s just what I
thought! Exactly why I followed you over here. But you won’t do it,
will not do it!”

Fräulein ten Brinken straightened up, looked
at him haughtily.

“And why shouldn’t I do it? Perhaps you would
like to stop us?”

He involuntarily sagged under her glance, but
didn’t give up.

“Yes, I will stop you, I will! Don’t you
understand that this is madness? You are both over heated, almost
drenched in sweat–and you want to go out onto the balcony where it
is twelve degrees below zero?”