Hugh Lamb – The Invisible Eye: Tales of Terror by Emile Erckmann and Louis Alexandre Chatrian (страница 12)
‘Listen, Peter,’ cried the old woman, at the end of a moment. ‘Listen, you have been the cause of all that has happened to us.’
‘I,’ cried the old man huskily, angrily, ‘I! of what have I been the cause?’
‘Yes,’ she went on. ‘You never took pity on our lad. You forgave nothing. It was you who prevented his marrying that girl!’
‘Woman,’ cried the old man, ‘instead of accusing others, remember that his blood is on your own head. During twenty years you have done nought but hide his faults from me. When I punished him for his evil disposition, for his temper, for his drunkenness, you – you would console him, you would weep with him, you would secretly give him money, you would say to him, “your father does not love you; he is a harsh man!” And you lied to him that you might have the greater portion of his love. You robbed me of the confidence and respect that a child should have for those who love him and correct him. So then, when he wanted to marry that girl, I had no power to make him obey me.’
‘You should have said “yes”,’ howled the woman.
‘But,’ said the old man, ‘I had rather say no, because my mother, my grandmother, and all the men and women of my family would not be able to receive that pagan in heaven.’
‘In heaven,’ chattered the woman. ‘In heaven!’
And the daughter added in a shrill voice: ‘From the earliest time I can remember, our father has only bestowed upon us blows!’
‘Because you deserved them,’ cried the old man. ‘They gave me more pain than they did you.’
‘More pain! Ha! ha! ha! more pain!’
At that moment, a hand touched my arm. It was Blitz. A ray of the moon, falling on the window-panes, scattered its light around. His face was white, and his stretched-out hand pointed to the shadows. I followed his finger with my eyes, for he evidently was directing my attention to something, and I saw the most terrible sight of which I have a memory – a shadow, motionless, appeared before the window, against the light surface of the river. This shadow had a man’s shape, and seemed suspended between heaven and earth. Its head hung down upon its breast, its elbows stood out square beside the body, and its legs straight down tapered to a point.
As I looked on, my eyes round, wide opened with astonishment, every feature developed in that wan figure. I recognised Saphéri Mutz; and above his bent shoulders I saw the cord, the beam, and the outline of the gibbet. Then, at the foot of this deathly apparition, I saw a white figure, kneeling, with long dishevelled hair. It was Gredel Dick, her hands joined in prayer.
It would seem as though all the others, at the same time, saw that strange apparition as well as myself, for I heard them breathe: ‘Heaven! Heaven have mercy on us!’
And the old woman, in a low choking voice, murmured: ‘Saphéri is dead!’
She commenced to sob.
And the daughter cried: ‘Saphéri! Saphéri!’
Then all disappeared, and Theodore Blitz, taking me by the hand, said: ‘Let us go.’
We set off. The night was fine. The leaves fluttered with a sweet murmur.
As we went on, horrified, along the great Alley des Plantanes, a mournful voice from afar off sang upon the river the old German song:
‘The grave is deep and silent,
Its borders are terrible!
It throws a sombre mantle
It throws a sombre mantle
Over the kingdom of the dead.’
‘Ah!’ said Blitz, ‘if Gredel Dick had not been there we should have seen the
The voice afar off, growing feebler and feebler, answered the murmur of the tide:
‘Death does not find an echo
For the song of the thrush,
The roses which grow on the grave,
The roses which grow on the grave,
Are the roses of grief.’
The horrible scene which had unfolded itself to my eyes, and that far-off melancholy voice which, growing fainter and fainter, at length died away in the distance, remain with me as a confused mirage of the infinite, of that infinite which pitilessly absorbs us, and engulfs us without possibility of our escape. Some may laugh at the idea of such an infinity, like the engineer Rothan; some may tremble at it, as did the burgomaster; some may groan with a pitiable voice; and others may, like Theodore Blitz, crane themselves over the abyss in order to see what passes in the depths. It all, however, comes to the same thing in the end, and the famous inscription over the temple of Isis is always true:
I am he that is.
No one has ever penetrated the mystery which envelops me.
No one shall ever penetrate it.
I have always professed the highest esteem, and even a sort of veneration for the Rhine’s noble wine; it sparkles like champagne, it warms one like Burgundy, it soothes the throat like Bordeaux, it fires the imagination like the juice of the Spanish grape, it makes us tender and kind like lacryma-christi; and last, but not least, it helps us to dream – it unfolds the extensive fields of fancy before our eyes.
In 1846, towards the end of autumn, I had made up my mind to perform a pilgrimage to Johannisberg. Mounted on a wretched hack, I had arranged two tin flasks along his hollow ribs, and I made the journey by short stages.
What a fine sight a vintage is! One of my flasks was always empty, the other always full; when I quitted one vineyard, there was the prospect of another before me. But it quite troubled me that I had not any one capable of appreciating it to share this enjoyment with me.
Night was closing in one evening; the sun had just disappeared, but one or two stray rays were still lingering among the large vine-leaves. I heard the trot of a horse behind me. I turned a little to the left to allow him to pass me, and to my great surprise I recognised my friend Hippel, who as soon as he saw me uttered a shout of delight.
You are well acquainted with Hippel, his fleshy nose, his mouth especially adapted to the sense of taste, and his rotund stomach. He looked like old Silenus in the pursuit of Bacchus. We shook hands heartily.
The aim of Hippel’s journey was the same as mine; in his quality of first-rate connoisseur he wanted to confirm his opinion as to the peculiarities of certain growths about which he still entertained some doubts.
So we continued our route together. Hippel was extremely gay; he traced out our route among the Rhingau vineyards. We halted occasionally to devote our attention to our flasks, and to listen to the silence which reigned around us.
The night was far advanced when we reached a little inn perched on the side of a hill. We dismounted. Hippel peeped through a small window nearly level with the ground. A lamp was burning on a table, and by it sat an old woman fast asleep.
‘Hallo!’ cried my comrade; ‘open the door, mother.’
The old woman started, got up and came to the window, and pressed her shrunken face against the panes. You would have taken it for one of those old Flemish portraits in which ochre and bistre predominate.
As soon as the old sybil could distinguish us she made a grimace intended for a smile, and opened the door for us.
‘Come in, gentlemen – come in,’ cried she with a tremulous voice; ‘I will go and wake my son; sit down – sit down.’
‘A feed of corn for our horses and a good supper for ourselves,’ cried Hippel.
‘Directly, directly,’ said the old woman assiduously.
She hobbled out of the room, and we could hear her creeping up stairs as steep as a Jacob’s ladder.
We remained for a few minutes in a low smoky room. Hippel hurried to the kitchen, and returned to tell me that he had ascertained there were certain sides of bacon by the chimney.
‘We shall have some supper,’ said he, patting his stomach; ‘yes, we shall get some supper.’
The flooring creaked over our heads, and almost immediately a powerful fellow with nothing but his trousers on, his chest bare, and his hair in disorder, opened the door, took a step or two forward, and then disappeared without saying a word to us.
The old woman lighted the fire, and the butter began to frizzle in the frying-pan.
Supper was brought in; a ham put on the table flanked by two bottles, one of red wine, the other of white.
‘Which do you prefer?’ asked the hostess.
‘We must try them both first,’ replied Hippel, holding his glass to the old woman, who filled it with red.
She then filled mine. We tasted it; it was a strong rough wine. I cannot describe the peculiar flavour it possessed – a mixture of vervain and cypress leaves! I drank a few drops, and my soul became profoundly sad. But Hippel, on the contrary, smacked his lips with an air of satisfaction.
‘Good! very good! Where do you get it from, mother?’ said he.
‘From the hillside close by,’ replied the old woman, with a curious smile.
‘A very good hillside,’ returned Hippel, pouring himself out another glass.
It seemed to me like drinking blood.
‘What are you making such faces for, Ludwig?’ said he. ‘Is there anything the matter with you?’
‘No,’ I answered, ‘but I don’t like such red wine as this.’