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At that moment the watchman announced the hour of eleven. I rapidly dressed the dummy I had brought with me like the one prepared by the old witch. I then drew apart the window-curtains.
Certainly, after all I had seen of the old woman – her infernal cunning, her prudence, and her address – nothing ought to have surprised even me; yet I was positively terrified.
The light, which I had observed at the back of her room, now cast its yellow rays on her dummy, dressed like the peasant of Nassau, which sat huddled up on the side of the bed, its head dropped upon its chest, the large three-cornered hat drawn down over its features, its arms pendant by its sides, and its whole attitude that of a person plunged in despair.
Managed with diabolical art, the shadow permitted only a general view of the figure, the red waistcoat and its six rounded buttons alone caught the light; but the silence of night, the complete immobility of the figure, and its air of terrible dejection, all served to impress the beholder with irresistible force; even I myself, though not in the least taken by surprise, felt chilled to the marrow of my bones. How, then, would a poor countryman taken completely off his guard have felt? He would have been utterly overthrown; he would have lost all control of will, and the spirit of imitation would have done the rest.
Scarcely had I drawn aside the curtains than I discovered Fledermausse on the watch behind her window-panes.
She could not see me. I opened the window softly, the window over the way softly opened too; then the dummy appeared to rise slowly and advance towards me; I did the same, and seizing my candle with one hand, with the other threw the casement wide open.
The old woman and I were face to face; for, overwhelmed with astonishment, she had let the dummy fall from her hands. Our two looks crossed with an equal terror.
She stretched forth a finger, I did the same; her lips moved, I moved mine; she heaved a deep sigh and leant upon an elbow. I rested in the same way.
How frightful the enacting of this scene was I cannot describe; it was made up of delirium, bewilderment, madness. It was a struggle between two wills, two intelligences, two souls, one of which sought to crush the other; and in this struggle I had the advantage. The dead were on my side.
After having for some seconds imitated all the movements of Fledermausse, I drew a cord from the folds of my petticoat and tied it to the iron stanchion of the signboard.
The old woman watched me with open mouth. I passed the cord round my neck. Her tawny eyeballs glittered; her features became convulsed.
‘No, no!’ she cried, in a hissing tone; ‘no!’
I proceeded with the impassibility of a hangman.
Then Fledermausse was seized with rage.
‘You’re mad! you’re mad!’ she cried, springing up and clutching wildly at the sill of the window; ‘you’re mad!’
I gave her no time to continue. Suddenly blowing out my light, I stooped like a man preparing to make a vigorous spring, then seizing my dummy slipped the cord about its neck and hurled it into the air.
A terrible shriek resounded through the street; then all was silent again.
Perspiration bathed my forehead. I listened a long time. At the end of an hour I heard far off – very far off – the cry of the watchman, announcing that midnight had struck.
‘Justice is at last done,’ I murmured to myself; ‘the three victims are avenged. Heaven forgive me!’
I saw the old witch, drawn by the likeness of herself, a cord about her neck, hanging from the iron stanchion projecting from her house. I saw the thrill of death run through her limbs and the moon, calm and silent, rose above the edge of the roof, and shed its cold pale rays upon her dishevelled head.
As I had seen the poor young student of Heidelberg, I now saw Fledermausse.
The next day all Nuremberg knew that ‘the Bat’ had hung herself. It was the last event of the kind in the Rue des Minnesängers.
THE OWL’S EAR (#u178dcf7c-9018-52e6-8797-b16226043927)
On a warm evening in July 1835, Kasper Boeck, a shepherd of the small village of Hirchwiller, presented himself before the burgomaster, Pétrus Mauerer, who had just finished his supper and was having a glass of Kirsch to help his digestion.
The burgomaster, tall and wiry, with his upper lip covered with a huge grey moustache, had in days gone by served in the armies of the arch-duke Charles. His was a bantering disposition, he had the village under his thumb, it was said, and ruled it with a rod of iron.
‘Mr Burgomaster!’ exclaimed the shepherd.
But Pétrus Mauerer, without waiting for the end of his speech, frowned and said to him: ‘Kasper Boeck, start by removing your hat, remove your dog from the room, and then speak clearly, intelligibly, without stammering, so that I can understand you.’
Kasper took out his dog and returned with his hat off.
‘Ah well!’ said Pétrus, seeing him silent. ‘What’s going on?’
‘What’s going on is that the “ghost” has appeared again in the ruins of Geierstein!’
‘Ah! I suspected it. Did you get a good look at it?’
‘Very good, Mr Burgomaster.’
‘Without shutting your eyes?’
‘Yes, Mr Burgomaster. I had my eyes wide open. It was a fine moonlit night.’
‘What shape did it have?’
‘That of a small man.’
‘Good!’ And turning towards a glass door on his left, ‘Katel!’ the burgomaster shouted.
An old female servant half-opened the door.
‘Sir?’
‘I am going to take a walk on the hill. You will wait for me till ten o’clock. Here is the key.’
‘Yes, master.’
Then the old soldier took down a gun from above the door, checked its priming, and slung it across his shoulder; then addressing Kasper Boeck: ‘You will alert the constable to meet me in the small holly bush lane behind the mill,’ he said. ‘Your “ghost” must be some marauder … but if it turns out to be a fox, I will have myself a magnificent hat with long flaps made of it.’
Mauerer and the humble Kasper went out. The weather was splendid, the stars clear and innumerable. While the shepherd went and knocked at the constable’s door, the burgomaster disappeared up a small lane of alder trees, which wound its way behind the old church. Two minutes later Kasper and the constable Hans Goerner, a pistol at his hip, ran to join Master Pétrus in the holly-lined lane. The three of them proceeded together to the ruins of Geierstein.
These ruins, situated some twenty minutes from the village, seemed quite insignificant; they were some pieces of dilapidated walls, four to six feet high, which stretched out in the midst of the heather. Archaeologists call them the aqueducts of Seranus, the Roman camp of the Holderlock, or the remains of Théodoric, according to their whim. The only thing which was really remarkable in these ruins was the stairway of a chamber hewn from the rock.
In a manner contrary to spiral stairs, instead of concentric circles narrowing at each step, the spiral of this one got wider, so that the bottom of the cistern was three times wider than the entrance. Was it a whim of architecture, or rather some other reason which gave rise to this bizarre structure? Little does it matter! The fact is that there resulted from it in the cistern this vague roaring such as can be heard by pressing a seashell to one’s ear, and that one can hear the steps of the travellers on the gravel, the stirring of the air, the rustling of the leaves, and even the distant words of those passing along at the foot of the hill.
And so our three characters climbed the little path, between the vines and the kitchen-gardens of Hirchwiller.
‘I can see nothing,’ said the burgomaster, raising his nose mockingly.
‘Nor I,’ repeated the constable, imitating the tone of the other.
‘It is in the hole,’ murmured the shepherd.
‘We shall see, we shall see,’ took up the burgomaster.
Thus it was that after a quarter of an hour they arrived at the entrance to the chamber. The night was bright, clear, and perfectly calm. As far as the eye could see the moon outlined nocturnal landscapes of bluish lines, studded with slender trees, whose shadows seem sketched in black pencil. The heather and the broom in blossom perfumed the air with their sharp smell and the frogs of a neighbouring pool sang their full-throated chorus, interrupted with silences. But all these details escaped our fine countrymen. Their sole thoughts were of catching the ‘spirit’.
When they reached the stair, all three stopped and listened, then looked into the darkness. Nothing appeared, nothing stirred.
‘Confound it,’ said the burgomaster. ‘We have forgotten to bring a candle. You go down, Kasper, you know the way better than me. I’ll follow.’
At this suggestion the shepherd stepped back suddenly. If left to his own devices the poor man would have taken flight. His woeful countenance made the burgomaster burst out laughing.
‘Ah well, Hans, since he doesn’t want to go down, you show me the way,’ he said to the constable.
‘But, master burgomaster,’ said the latter, ‘you are well aware that there are steps missing. We would risk breaking our necks!’
‘Well then, what are we to do?’
‘Yes, what are we to do?’
‘Send your dog,’ resumed Pétrus.
The shepherd whistled for his dog, showed him the stairs, urged him down; but he was no more willing than the rest to try his luck.
At that moment a bright idea struck the constable.
‘Hey, Mr Burgomaster,’ he said. ‘If you were to fire a shot into it …’
‘Indeed,’ exclaimed the other, ‘you are right. One will see clearly, at least.’
And without hesitation the good fellow approached the stair, levelling his gun.
But because of the acoustic effect described earlier, the ‘spirit’, the marauder, the individual, who was actually in the chamber, had heard everything. The idea of being shot at didn’t appeal to him, for in a piercing, high-pitched voice he shouted out: ‘Stop! Don’t shoot! I’m coming up!’
Then the three dignitaries looked at each other, chuckling, and the burgomaster, leaning forward again into the opening, exclaimed in a coarse voice: ‘Hurry up, you rogue, or I’ll shoot! Hurry up!’
He cocked his gun. The click appeared to hasten the ascent of the mysterious character. Stones could be heard rolling. However it took another minute before he appeared, the chamber being over sixty feet deep.
What was this man doing in the midst of such darkness? He must be some great criminal! Thus at least thought Pétrus Mauerer and his assistants.
At last a vague shape emerged from the shadow, then slowly a small man, four and a half feet tall at the most, thin, in rags, his face wizened and yellow, his eyes sparkling like those of a magpie and his hair untidy, came out shouting: ‘What right have you to come and trouble my studies, you wretches?’
This grandiloquence hardly matched his clothes and his appearance, so the indignant burgomaster replied: ‘Try and show some respect, you rogue, or I’ll start by giving you a thrashing.’
‘A thrashing!’ said the little man, hopping with anger and standing right under the burgomaster’s nose.
‘Yes,’ resumed the former, who couldn’t help but admire the courage of the pygmy, ‘if you don’t answer satisfactorily the questions that I am going to put to you. I am the burgomaster of Hirchwiller, here is the village constable and the shepherd with his dog. We are stronger than you … be sensible and tell me who you are, what you are doing here, and why you don’t dare appear in broad daylight. Then we can see what shall be done with you.’
‘All that’s none of your business,’ answered the little man in his curt voice. ‘I shall not answer you.’
‘In that case, march,’ said the burgomaster, grasping him by the nape of the neck. ‘You’ll spend the night in prison.’
The little man struggled but in vain. Completely exhausted, he said (not without some nobility), ‘Let me go, sir. I yield to force. I shall follow you.’
The burgomaster, who wasn’t lacking in manners himself, became calmer in his turn.
‘Your word?’ he said.
‘My word!’
‘Fine … Quick march!’
And that is how on the night of 29 July 1835 the burgomaster captured a small red-haired man, as he emerged from the cave of Geierstein.
On their return to Hirchwiller, the vagabond was double-locked in, not forgetting the outside bolt and the padlock. Afterwards everyone went to recover from their exertions. Pétrus Mauerer, once in bed, pondered over this strange adventure till midnight.
The next day, about nine o’clock, Hans Goerner, the constable, having received orders to bring the prisoner to the town-hall, so that he could undergo a new examination, went with four sturdy lads to the cell. They opened the door, quite curious to look at the will-o’-the-wisp. They saw him hanging by his tie from the bars of the skylight. Several say that he was still kicking … others that he was already stiff. Whichever it was, someone ran off to get Pétrus Mauerer, to inform him of the fact. What is certain is that at the arrival of the latter, the little man had breathed his last.
The magistrate and the doctor of Hirchwiller drew up a formal report of the catastrophe. The unknown man was buried and all was settled.
Now about three weeks after these events, I went to see my cousin Pétrus Mauerer. I am his closest relative and, consequently, his heir. This circumstance maintains an intimate relationship between us. We were dining together, chatting of this and that, when the burgomaster told me the little story as I have just related it.
‘It’s strange, cousin,’ I said to him, ‘really strange. And you have no other information on this unknown man?’
‘None.’
‘Have you found anything that could put you on the track of his intentions?’
‘Absolutely nothing, Christian.’
‘But after all, what could he have been doing in the chamber? What was he living on?’
The burgomaster shrugged his shoulders, filled our glasses, and answered me: ‘Your health, cousin.’
‘And yours.’
We remained silent for some moments. It was impossible for me to accept the sudden end of the adventure. In spite of myself I gloomily pondered over the sad fate of certain men who appear and disappear in this world, like the grass in the fields, without leaving the slightest memory or the slightest regret.
‘Cousin,’ I resumed, ‘how long would it take from here to the ruins of Geierstein?’
‘Twenty minutes at the most. Why?’
‘Because I would like to see them.’
‘You know that today we have a meeting of the town council and I cannot accompany you.’
‘Oh! I shall be able to find them on my own.’
‘No, the constable shall show you the way, he has nothing better to do.’ My dear cousin called his servant.
‘Katel, get Hans Goerner … make him hurry up … It’s two o’clock. I must go.’
The servant went out and the constable wasn’t long in coming. He received orders to guide me to the ruins.
