by Erckmann-Chatrian [Émile Erckmann & Alexandre Chatrian].
Originally published in Strange Stories (Contes Fantastiques). (D. Appleton & Co.; 1880).
I.
The year 1805 was the sixth year I spent at Heidelberg, studying transcendental philosophy. You know what university life is: it is a full existence—the existence of a grand seigneur. One rises at midday, smokes his old Ulm pipe, drinks one or two glasses of schnapps; then one buttons his polonaise up to his chin, adjusts his little Prussian cap above his left ear, and goes leisurely to listen for half an hour to the illustrious Professor Hasenkopf discuss such ideas as he may have selected a priori or a posteriori. Every one is at liberty to gape, or even to go to sleep, if he so elects.
The lecture over, one repairs to the brewery of "King Gambrinus," and stretches his legs out under a table. Pretty waitresses, in their black taffeta corsets, hasten to offer rye bread, sausage, ham, and beer. One sings the air of Schiller's "Robbers"; one drinks, one eats, and is oblivious to the care incident to this mundane existence. This routine you sometimes vary by putting your dog Hector through his paces, or by clasping the waist of Charlotte or Adelgunde, when, perchance, a general mêlée follows, in which blows are freely exchanged, tables are overturned, and glasses and chairs are broken. Then the watchman appears on the scene; you are seized, are conducted to the calaboose, where you are compelled to spend the night.
Thus pass the days, the months, and the years.
At Heidelberg one finds unfledged princes, dukes, and barons of high and low degree, and the sons of cobblers, pedagogues, and tradesmen. The young nobles band together, but all the others fraternize on an equal footing. In 1805 I was thirty-two years old, and my hair and beard already began to be streaked with gray. My liking for beer, tobacco, and sourkrout began to lessen; I felt the necessity of change. As for Hasenkopf, with his discourses on the discursive and the intuitive, the apodeictic and predictive, he had succeeded in filling my head with a veritable pot pourri. Not unfrequently I would stretch out my arms, and cry:
"Kasper Zaan! Kasper Zaan! it is not good to know too much. Nature no longer has any illusions for you. You may say, with Solomon, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'"
Such was my frame of mind, when, toward the end of the spring of the year 1805, a terrible event occurred, which taught me that I did not know everything, and that the career of a philosopher is not always strewn with roses.
Among my older comrades there was one Wolfgang Scharf, the most inflexible logician I have ever chanced to meet. Imagine a short, spare man, with hollow sockets, white lashes, red hair cut short all over his head, a close-cropped beard that comes up high on his sunken cheeks, and broad, muscular shoulders, covered with the rags of what was once a handsome garment. To see him slip along the walls, a loaf of bread under his arm, his shoulders thrown forward, and his eyes aglow with a strange light, was to see a picture that would not soon escape from the recollection. And yet my friend Wolfgang thought of nothing but metaphysics. For some five or six years he had lived on nothing but bread and water in a garret of the Old Shambles. Not once during all this time had he found a mug of beer or a glass of wine necessary to stimulate his ardor for science, or an ounce of animal food to give him strength for his sublime meditations. And yet, gaunt and half starved as the poor devil was, I was afraid of him. I say afraid, for, despite his apparent marasmic condition, his osseous frame was endowed with almost superhuman strength. The muscles of his jaws and of his hands protruded beneath the skin like so many rods of iron; and then, there was something sinister and forbidding in his look that was calculated to excite distrust.
This strange being, in his voluntary isolation, seemed to have preserved for me alone a sentiment akin to friendship. He came to see me from time to time, when, gravely seated in my arm-chair, he would acquaint me, more or less in detail, with his metaphysical lucubrations.
"Kasper," he asked, in an abrupt tone, "what is the soul?"
And I, glad to have an opportunity to display my erudition, replied with a doctoral air:
"According to Thales, it is a sort of magnet; according to Plato, a substance which moves of itself; according to Asclepiades, an excitation of the senses. Anaximander says it is a compound of earth and water; Empedocles says it is the blood; Hippocrates, a spirit diffused through the body; Xenophon, the quintessence of the four elements; Xenocrates—"
"Good, good!" he interrupted; "but you—what do you think the soul is?"
"I? I say, with Lactantius, that I don't know. I am by nature an Epicurean. Now, as you; know, according to the Epicureans, every conviction comes from the senses. The soul being something beyond the reach of the senses, I can consequently have no opinion with regard to it."
"Nevertheless, Kasper, we know that very many creatures in the animal kingdom, insects and fishes, for example, are deficient in one or more of the senses. Who knows if we possess all of them?—if there are not others of which we have not even a suspicion?"
"That is possible; but, being in doubt, I will refrain from venturing an opinion."
"Do you believe, Kasper, that we can know anything we do not learn?"
"Assuredly not. Every science is the product of study and experience."
"If that be true, how comes it that chickens no sooner leave the shell than they begin to run about and to search for food ? How comes it that they discover the hawk, though high above them, and run for safety under the mother's wings? Do they learn to recognize their enemy while they are in the shell?"
"That is instinct, Wolfgang. All the animals obey certain instincts."
"Then it seems that instinct consists in knowing what one has never learned?"
"Come, come!" I cried; "you ask me too much."
He smiled contemptuously, threw the corner of his well-worn mantle over his shoulder, and left me without adding a word.
I looked upon him as being a lunatic, but a lunatic of the most innocent description. Who would think it possible that a mania for metaphysics could, by any chance, be dangerous?
This gives a tolerable idea of Scharf's mental and physical condition, when the old vender of kücheln,[1] Catherine Wogel, suddenly disappeared. Catherine, with a basket suspended from her stork-like neck, was wont to present herself, about eleven o'clock, at the brewery of "King Gambrinus." The students were in the habit of indulging their love of pleasantry with her, often reminding her of some of her youthful escapades, of which she made no secret, and at the recollection of which she herself laughed heartily.
"Heaven bless us!" she would say, "we were not always fifty years old; we have had our merry hours in our time. Well, well! it's all past now. If those happy days could only come again!"
With this she would heave a sigh, which was the usual signal for a general laugh. Her disappearance was noticed on the third day.
"What in the world can have become of Catherine? Can she be ill? It doesn't seem possible; she was in such excellent spirits the last day she was here."
It was reported that the police were in search of her. As for me, I had no doubt that she had taken a trifle too much schnapps, and as she was going her nightly rounds had fallen into the river.
The next day, as I was on my way from Hasenkopf's lecture to the brewery, I met Wolfgang on the walk in front of the cathedral. The moment he caught sight of me, he hastened toward me with a triumphant air that made him appear quite other than I had ever seen him.
"I was looking for you, Kasper," said he; "I have been waiting for you for an hour. Come with me: I have triumphed at last!"
His look, his gestures, and the tones of his voice all betrayed great agitation; and when he seized me by the arm, and dragged me toward Tanners' Place, I was seized, in spite of myself, with an indefinable feeling akin to fear, and yet I had not the courage to resist.
The narrow street that we followed with hasty strides ran back of the cathedral, among a lot of houses as old as Heidelberg. The square roofs, the wooden galleries lumbered up with all manner of household utensils, the exterior flights of stairs with their worm-eaten steps; the innumerable ragged figures, some half starved and all curious, who leaned out of the windows to gaze at us as though they had never seen our like before; the long poles extending from one roof to another, hung with dripping hides; and then the dense smoke that escaped from the pipes that protruded from each story—all this reminded me of a resurrection of the Middle Ages. As the sky was clear, the sun shone here and there on the dilapidated walls and th@ motley scene, thereby adding to my emotion by the strangeness of the contrast.
There are moments when we all lose our presence of mind. It never once occurred to me that I should ask Wolfgang whither he was leading me.
After passing the quarter in which nothing was to be seen but misery and wretchedness, we reached an open place in front of the Old Shambles. Suddenly Wolfgang, whose dry, cold hand seemed to be riveted to my wrist, introduced me into an old ruin that stood between the aforetime hay-loft of the Landwehr and the store-house of the slaughter-yard.
"Go on before me," said he.
I coasted a rough wall, at the end of which there was a dilapidated winding staircase, which we ascended, though the accumulation of rubbish on the landings barely left us room to pass.
At every story my comrade would say, impatiently, "Higher! higher!" And yet I would pause, ostensibly to get breath and to examine the peculiar structure of the old ruin, but really to consider the advisability of beating a hasty retreat.
Finally, we arrived at the foot of a ladder, which extended up into a loft. I can not to this day understand how I could be so imprudent as to mount this ladder without pausing to make some inquiries, or to demand some explanation. It seems that madness is contagious.
Arrived at the top of the ladder, I stepped out on the littered floor, and looked about me. I found myself in an immense garret. In the roof there were three small windows, and in the center of the space there was a small table covered with books and papers. Over our heads there was a complication of small timbers reaching to the ridge-pole, which one instinctively felt ought to be, if it was not, the abiding-place of the bats of the neighborhood. It was impossible to look out, as the windows were some ten or a dozen feet above the floor.
At first I did not notice a low door, and a large air-hole above it, in the wall of the gable-end.
Wolfgang, without saying a word, pushed a box toward me, which did service for him as a chair; and then, taking from a dark corner a large stone pitcher in both hands, he drank deep of its contents, while I looked at him half bewildered.
"We are under the very roof of the old slaughter-house," said he, finally breaking silence and looking at me with a strange smile, as he replaced the pitcher. "The City Council has made an appropriation to build a new one beyond the city limits. I have been here now five years without paying any rent, and during all that time not a soul has clambered up here to disturb me in my studies."
Then, seating himself on some pieces of wood piled up in one corner, he continued:
"But to come to the question I would discuss with you. Are you sure, Kasper, that we have a soul?"
"Come now! come now!" I replied in no very amiable mood; "if you have brought me all the way up here to talk metaphysics, let me get out at once. When you met me I was just coming from Hasenkopf's lecture, and was on my way to the Gambrinus brewery, where I proposed to refresh my wasted energies with a substantial luncheon and some beer. I have had my usual dose of abstraction for the day, which is quite enough."
"What a material existence some people do lead!" said he, with a disdainful shrug. "You seem to me to live only to eat and drink. Do you know that I have spent days without eating a mouthful from sheer love of science?"
"Every one to his taste. You can live on syllogisms and abstract speculations, while I must have sausages and March beer."
He had become very pale, and his lips trembled with anger; but, controlling himself, he replied:
"Well, if you will not answer me, at least do me the favor to listen to my explanations. Every man feels the necessity of appreciation, and I want you to appreciate me. I want to see you amazed, confounded, by the sublime discovery I have just made. An hour's attention to what has cost me ten years' conscientious study is not too much, I think."
"Very well, go on—I'll listen; but hurry up."
Again there was a nervous contraction of the muscles of his face that made me more thoughtful. I began seriously to regret my imprudence in clambering up where I was in such company, and put on a graver mien with the view of conciliating the maniac. My attentive air seemed to have the intended effect, for after a moment's silence he resumed:
"You say you are hungry; very well, here is my loaf of bread and my pitcher of water. Eat and drink, but listen."
"My appetite can wait. Go on—I'm all attention."
He smiled scornfully, and continued:
"That we have a soul has been admitted from the earliest historic times. From the plant to man, every being lives, is animated; it, therefore, has a soul. Is it necessary to spend five or six years listening to Hasenkopf to reply to me, 'Yes, every organized being has at least one soul'? But the more perfect the organization, the more complicated it is, and the more numerous the souls. It is herein that animated beings are especially different the one from the other. The plant has but one soul, the vegetable soul; its functions are simple; it obtains nutrition from the air by means of the leaves, from the earth by means of the roots. The animal has two souls: first, the vegetable soul, the functions of which are the same as those of the soul of the plant, providing nutrition by means of the lungs and the intestines, which are veritable vegetables; second, the animal soul, the special function of which is to supply sensibility, and whose organ is the heart. Finally, man, who till now has embodied terrestrial creation, has three souls: the vegetable soul; the animal soul, the functions of which are performed as in the brute; and the human soul, which supplies reason, intelligence. Its organ is the brain. The nearer an animal approaches man in the perfection of its cerebral organization, the more it participates in this third soul. The animals which approach nearest to man in this particular are probably the dog, the elephant, and the horse. Man alone possesses this soul in all its fullness."
Here he paused, and fixed his eyes full upon me. After a moment he asked:
"Well, what have you to say to that?"
"Humph! it's a theory like any other; all it lacks is proof."
At this reply Wolfgang was seized with a sort of maniacal exaltation; he sprang to his feet, throwing his head back and his hands up.
"Ay, ay! the proof was wanting. That is what for ten years has tortured me; what for ten years has been the cause of my vigils, my sufferings, and privations! For it was on myself, Kasper, on myself that I wanted to experiment at first. Abstinence pressed this sublime conviction more and more upon me, but without my being able to prove its correctness. But, at last, I have it. You yourself shall hear these three souls proclaim themselves; you shall be convinced!"
After this enthusiastic outburst, which nearly chilled my blood, he suddenly relapsed into his wonted mood, and, seating himself at the table, continued.
"The proof is there behind that wall," said he, calmly, pointing to the gable-end of the building; "you shall see it directly, but first I must acquaint you more fully with the details of my theory. You know the opinion of the ancients with regard to the nature of the souls. In man they recognized four: caro, the flesh, a compound of earth and water which death dissolved; manes, the apparition that hovers about the tomb (the name comes from manere, to remain, to tarry); umbra, the shadow, more material than the manes, and disappearing alter having once returned to its former haunts; and, finally, spiritus, the spirit, the immaterial part of us, which ascends to the gods. This classification seemed to me correct. It was, however, necessary to decompose a human being, in order to establish the distinct existence of the three souls, independent of the flesh. Reason told me that every man, before attaining complete development, must of necessity pass through the existence of the plant or the brute; in other words, that Pythagoras's theory was the true one, though he was unable to demonstrate it. Well, the solution of the problem has been the study of my life. It was necessary to destroy in myself the three souls successively, and then to reanimate them. I had recourse to the most rigorous abstemiousness. Unfortunately, the human soul, in order to leave the animal soul unfettered, was of necessity the first to succumb. Hunger rendered me incapable of observing myself in the animal state; physical weakness rendered me incapable of judging fairly. After a great number of fruitless trials on my organization, I became convinced that there was only one way of compassing my object; namely, to experiment on another. But who would be willing to sacrifice himself to this kind of research?"
Wolfgang paused. His whole face was aglow with an expression of maniacal enthusiasm. After a moment he added:
"It became necessary for me to have a subject at any price. I determined to experiment in animam vilem."
"Great Heaven!" I thought; "this man is capable of anything."
"Do you understand me?" he asked.
"Perfectly," said I, with a glance at the ladder; "it became necessary for you to have a victim."
"To decompose," he added coldly.
"And have you found one?"
"Yes. I promised that you should hear the three souls. It will, perhaps, be somewhat difficult now; but yesterday you could have heard them, one after the other, howl and moan, entreat and threaten."
My extremities had become suddenly chilled, and as for my face, it seemed to me that all the blood had left it. Wolfgang was impassible. He proceeded to light a lamp, that usually served only to dimly illumine his nocturnal speculations, and, going to the large air-hole in the wall to the left, said to me, as he thrust the lamp into the dark space beyond:
"Come here. Look in here, and listen."
Despite a growing presentiment of evil, and my desire to retreat rather than advance, my curiosity, and, the conviction that the wiser course for me was to do his bidding, induced me to approach and look in the direction he pointed. There, by the pale rays of his lamp, I could see nothing but a dark space, extending some twelve or fifteen feet below the level on which we were standing, and which had no issue, seemingly, except the one leading into the garret. It appeared to me to be one of those out-of-the-way places which the butchers had used as a receptacle for such worn-out fixtures and tackle as were no longer serviceable.
"Look sharp," said Wolfgang, in a low tone. "Don't you see a bunch of old clothes huddled up in the corner yonder? That's old Catherine Wogel, the vender of ginger-snaps, who—"
At this moment he was interrupted by a piercing cry, that sounded very like the cry a cat utters when in distress. At the same time the seeming bunch of rags straightened up, assuming the dim outline of a woman, who ran her hands convulsively over the wall, apparently in search of some opening through which to effect her escape. I, more dead than alive, the cold sweat starting on my forehead, sprang back, and cried:
"Oh, horrible! horrible!"
"Eh—did you hear?" asked Wolfgang, with the triumphant smile of a demon. "Wasn't that the cry of a cat? Ha, ha, ha! What do you say to that? The old woman, before she became human, was one of the cat species. Now the brute reappears. Oh, hunger, and especially thirst, does wonders!"
The wailing of the poor old woman had ceased, and the madman, having placed his lamp on the table, added, by way of commentary:
"It is now four days since she had any food. I induced her to come here by pretending that I had a demijohn of kirschwasser to sell her. When I got her down where you see her, I closed the door on her. Her love of liquor works her destruction. She expiates her inordinate thirst in the interest of science. Ha, ha, ha! The first two or three days the human soul manifested itself with wondrous energy. She implored, supplicated, and protested her innocence, saying she had never done anything to me, and that, in any case, I had no right to be at once her judge and executioner. Then she would become furious and threatening, and overwhelm me with reproaches, calling me villain, wretch, monster, and Heaven knows what all. The third day—that was yesterday, Wednesday—the human soul completely disappeared, and the cat showed her claws at full length. She was hungry; her teeth became long; she began to mew and howl. Fortunately, we are pretty thoroughly isolated; if we were not, the people of the neighborhood would have thought, last night, that there was a regular pitched battle among all the cats of this side of the town. Her cries were enough to chill your blood. And now, do you know what will appear when the brute is exhausted? The vegetable soul will have its turn. That will be the last to perish. It is known that the hair and the nails of the dead continue to grow. There forms in the interstices of the cranium a sort of human lichen, called usnea, which is regarded as a kind of moss, and is supposed to be produced by the animal juices of the brain. Finally, the vegetable soul also will retire. You see, my friend, that the proof of the three souls is complete."
These were the ravings of a madman, and I should have so treated them; but the cry of old Catherine had penetrated to the very marrow of ray bones, and I was no longer master of myself; I had completely lost my presence of mind. But suddenly emerging from my bewilderment, my indignation knew no bounds. I sprang to my feet, seized the madman by the throat, and dragged him toward the opening in the floor.
"Wretch!" I cried, "by what right do you seize upon a fellow creature to satisfy your maniacal curiosity? I myself will deliver you into the hands of justice!"
My attack was so sudden and unexpected, and what he had done seemed to him so natural and justifiable, that at first he offered no resistance, and allowed himself to be dragged to the top of the ladder; but there, turning upon me with the ferocity of a wild beast, he in his turn grasped me by the neck, while his eyes shone with the ferocity of an enraged beast of prey. Despite my utmost endeavor to resist, he thrust me back against the wall with the greatest ease, holding me with one hand, while with the other he slid the bolt of the door leading to the dark hole. Divining his intention, I exerted myself to the utmost to free myself, but my antagonist seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength. After a short but desperate struggle, I felt myself again lifted from the floor. The next moment, to my horror, I was thrown headlong into the dark hole, while over my head I heard these strange words:
"Thus shall perish the flesh that revolts, and thus triumph the immortal soul!"
I had barely reached the bottom of the place, bruised and breathless, when the heavy door, some fifteen feet above me, closed, shutting out from my eyes the gray and uncertain light of the garret.
II.
As I fell to the bottom of the den, my consternation was such that I did not utter either complaint or remonstrance.
"Kasper," said I to myself, as I leaned against the wall, calm and resigned, "the question is now whether you shall be devoured by the old woman, or the old woman be devoured by you. Choose! As for trying to get out of here, it is useless. The maniac has you in his power, and he will be slow to release you. The walls are of well-laid stone, and the floor of heavy oak planks. No one knows you in the neighborhood, or saw you enter here; this is, consequently, the last place any one will think of looking for you. It is all over with you in this world; you have seen the sun for the last time. Your only resource is this Catherine Wogel; or rather, you are the only resource of each other."
This survey of my situation flashed through my mind with the rapidity of lightning, and gave me an affection of the nerves from which I did not recover for full three years; and when, at that moment, the pale, cadaverous face of Wolfgang, with his little lamp, appeared at the air-hole, and I, with my hands clasped in a prayerful attitude, attempted to utter an entreaty, I discovered that my efforts resulted only in producing a series of grimaces—not a sound came from my lips. He, as he witnessed my futile endeavor, smiled and muttered, just loud enough for me to hear him:
"Ha, the wretch! He entreats!"
This was my coup de grâce. I fell with my face down, and, in my despair, I should have remained long in this position but for fear of being attacked by the old woman. She, however, as yet had not stirred. Wolfgang had disappeared from the air-hole; I could hear him in the garret, moving his table and coughing in that dry, hacking way peculiar to dyspeptics. My hearing had suddenly become so acute that the least sound reached my ears, and made my flesh creep to the very ends of my fingers. I could hear the old woman gape, and, as I turned toward her, I imagined I could see her eyes glaring at me in the dark. At the same time I heard Wolfgang descend the ladder, and counted the steps one by one, until the sound disappeared in the distance. Where did the wretch go? I know not; but during the rest of the day and all the following night he did not return. It was not till about eight o'clock in the evening of the following day, when the old woman and I were making the very walls tremble with our cries, that he reappeared on the scene.
I had not closed my eyes. I was no longer either afraid or indignant. I was hungry, I was famished, and I knew that my hunger would increase.
Nevertheless, only faint sounds could be heard in the garret. I ceased my cries, and looked up at the air-hole. Wolfgang lighted his lamp; he was, doubtless, coming to see me, to speak to me. In this hope, I prepared a touching appeal; but the light of the lamp disappeared, and no one came.
This was, perhaps, the most terrible moment I experienced. I said to myself that Wolfgang, knowing I was not yet very materially weakened, did not deign to even look at me; that, in his eyes, I should not become interesting under two or three days, when I would be more dead than alive. It seemed to me that I could feel my hair grow gray on my head. Finally, my terror and despair became such that I lost consciousness.
Toward midnight I was awakened by a touch. I naturally shrank from it with disgust. At the same time a cat-like cry, or rather mournful wail, chilled my blood, and seemed to make my hair stand on end.
I expected to have a struggle with my poor old fellow sufferer, but her strength was gone; it was now her fifth day.
I recalled the words of Wolfgang: "When the brute is exhausted, the vegetable soul will have its turn. That is the last to perish. The hair and nails of the dead continue to grow. And then the lichen in the interstices of the cranium"—ugh! I imagined old Catherine reduced to this condition; that I could see her moss-covered cranium; that I was beside her, and that our souls put forth their humid vegetation in silence. This fantasy took such a powerful hold of my imagination that I no longer felt the gnawings of hunger. In a sitting posture, I pressed myself into one corner, with my eyes wide open, ready to profit by the first ray of light that should present itself.
It was not long before a faint glimmer made the outlines of my surroundings vaguely visible. I looked up. Wolfgang's pale face was at the air-hole. I had never seen it more expressionless. He seemed to feel neither satisfaction nor remorse; he simply observed me. If he had laughed, if he had seemed to enjoy his vengeance, I should have had some hope of moving him; but in the business-like look his features wore there was nothing to encourage me.
We remained for some time thus with our eyes fixed upon each other—I, a prey to that fear with which the victim looks upon his executioner; he, cold, calm, attentive, as one who contemplates the inert. The insect, transfixed with a needle, which the student observes with a microscope, if it thinks, if it comprehends, is rent by emotions which I that night learned to measure. I was doomed to die to satisfy the curiosity of a maniac. I saw that entreaty would be useless, and remained silent.
After having looked at me attentively for some minutes, seeming content with his observations, the monster turned his attention to old Catherine. I looked mechanically in her direction also. What I saw can not be pictured by human tongue. The skin of her face looked as though it was glued to the bones, and her limbs were so emaciated that they seemed ready to pierce the rags that covered them. But for the feverish glare of her eyes, she would have had the appearance of being dead. To add to the repulsiveness of the picture, there were two snails that had crawled up nearly to the elbow of one of her bare arms. The sight was more than I could bear. I closed my eyes convulsively, saying to myself:
"A day or two, and my condition will be like hers!"
When I opened my eyes, the lamp was gone.
"Wolfgang," I cried, "God is above us all! Wolfgang!"
As I feared, my cries elicited no response.
After again spending some hours in thinking, as best I could in the condition I was in, of my chances of escape, and again coming to the conclusion that I had none, I suddenly determined to die, and this resolution gave me a little calm. I rehearsed the arguments of Hasenkopf relative to the immortality of the soul, and for the first time I found them incontrovertible.
"Yes, our sojourn in this world," said I, "is only a period of probation. Injustice, cupidity, and evil passions dominate the heart of man. The feeble are crushed by the strong, the poor by the rich. Virtue in this world is a delusion, but in the next everything finds its true place and proper level. God sees the wrong of which I am the victim, and will recompense me for the suffering I endure; He will pardon me my inordinate appetites and excessive love of good living. Before admitting me among the elect, He wishes to purify and chasten me by a rigorous fast. I resign myself entirely into His hands," etc., etc.
Nevertheless, to be strictly truthful, I must confess that, despite my profound contrition, my regrets for the brewery and my joyous comrades, for the careless existence which is cheered by good wine and the merry song, made me heave many a long sigh. I could hear the crepitation of the frying, the gurgling of the bottles, the clinking of the glasses, and my stomach yearned and lamented in a manner that showed it was as yet far from being weaned from the world. It seemed in some sort to form an independent being in my organization, and to protest with much earnestness against the Hasenkopf philosophy.
The worst of my sufferings was my thirst. It was so hard to bear that I sucked the saltpeter of the wall to refresh myself.
When the day, of which I could get a faint glimpse, reappeared, I had a paroxysm of rage which knew no bounds.
"The monster is there," said I; "he has his loaf of bread and his big pitcher of water!"
Then I imagined him lifting the pitcher to his lips; it seemed to me that I could see torrents of water passing slowly down his throat. Oh, the wretch! Rage and despair took entire possession of me, and I strode about my dungeon, crying:
"Water! water! water!"
And old Catherine, from her corner, in a faint but agonizing tone, repeated after me:
"Water! water! water!"
In the midst of this scene Wolfgang's sallow face appeared at the air-hole for the third time. It was about eight o'clock. Seeing him, I stopped, and said:
"Wolfgang, look here: starve me to death if you will, but give me some water. Let me drink from your pitcher, and then, do what you will, I will not reproach you."
I paused for a reply, but not a syllable did he utter, whereupon I continued:
"What you are doing, however, is too cruel. You will have to answer for it before your God. With the old woman here it is a different matter. But I—I am your equal; I, too, am a student, and find your system very beautiful. I am capable of comprehending and appreciating you. Give me a swallow of water—do! Yours is the most sublime conception that ever was seen. It is quite certain that there are three souls. I ask nothing better than to be able to proclaim it. I shall be your most firm adherent. But come—are you not going to let me have just one swallow of water?"
The wretch! without deigning a word in reply, he withdrew.
My exasperation now knew no bounds. I threw myself against the wall with such violence that it is strange I did not break my bones.
In the midst of my fury I suddenly noticed that old Catherine had sunk down, seemingly more exhausted than ever, and the idea came upon me to drink her blood. Extreme necessity prompts men to do things the bare thought of which at other times brings a shudder; it develops in us the ferocity of the beast, and every sentiment of humanity and justice disappears before the instinct of self-preservation.
Red flames flitted before my eyes. Fortunately, as I bent down to the old woman, my strength failed me, and I fell, with my face buried in her rags, unconscious.
How long I remained in this condition I know not, but I was aroused from it in a singular manner, the recollection of which will for ever remain impressed upon my memory. I was aroused by what seemed to me to be the howling of a dog. This howling was feeble, but so plaintive and touching that one could not hear it without being moved. I raised myself up, wondering whence came complaints so much in harmony with my own condition. I listened, and judge of my astonishment when I discovered that it was my own involuntary moans and groans that I heard.
From this moment all recollection is effaced from my memory. What is certain, however, is that I remained for two days more in confinement under the eye of the maniac, whose enthusiasm on seeing his ideas triumph was such that he did not hesitate to invite several of our philosophers to his garret, in order to witness their astonishment and enjoy their admiration.
Six weeks afterward, I awoke in a little chamber in Saint Agatha Street, surrounded by a number of my friends, who congratulated me on having escaped with my life from the effects of this lesson in transcendental philosophy. When Louis Bremer brought me a mirror, and I saw myself, thinner than was Lazarus when he came out of the tomb, I could not keep back my tears.
Poor Catherine Wogel had given uP the ghost. As for me, I narrowly escaped haying a chronic gastritis for life; but, thanks to an excellent constitution, and above all to the care of my good friend Dr. Killian, I in a few months became as robust as ever.
It is hardly necessary to add that state authority laid a heavy hand on Wolfgang; but, instead of being hanged, he was, after long proceedings, placed in an asylum for the insane. There he still discourses on his theory of the three souls, and rails at the ingratitude of mankind, insisting that, if justice were done, monuments would be erected to commemorate his magnificent discovery.
1. German for little cakes.