LITMIR.BIZ

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the cemetery. I turned round. A vast Gothic hall, the ceiling adorned with heavy mouldings, took my eye. I was in the hunting-lodge of Hans Burckart, the Count of Barth. An antique spinet was placed between two of the windows. I passed my fingers over the keys absent-mindedly. The slack wires knocked together with the strange, twangling, ironic voice of teethless old women humming over the melodies of their youth.

      At the end of the hall was the half-vaulted alcove, with great red curtains and a four-poster bed. The sight reminded me that I had been six hours in the saddle. And, undressing with a smile of unspeakable satisfaction, ‘This is the first time,’ I said, ‘I have slept in my own bed.’ And lying down, my eyes bent on the immense plain, already bathed in shadows, I felt my eyelids grow heavy in pleasant fashion. Not a leaf murmured; the noises of the village died one by one away … the sun had sunk … some golden gleams marked his trail in infinite space … I soon fell asleep.

      It was night, and the moon shone in all her glory when I awoke with no apparent cause. The vague fragrances of summer came through the window to me. The air was filled with the sweet scent of the new hay. I stared around in surprise, for when I tried to get up to close the window, by some inconceivable thing, my body slept on, heavy as lead, while my head was perfectly free. With all my efforts to rise, not a muscle responded. I felt my arms by my side completely inert … my legs were stretched out, motionless; my head moved in vain. The deep, cadenced breathing of my body frightened me … my head fell back on the pillow, exhausted by its efforts. ‘Am I paralysed in my limbs?’ I asked myself. ‘Kasper Haas, the master of so many vineyards and fat pasturages, cannot even move this clod of clay that he really owns? O God!… What does it mean?’

      And as I was thinking in this melancholy way, a slight sound attracted my attention. The door of my alcove opened; a man dressed in some stiff stuff like felt, as the monks of Saint Gualber in Mayence are … a large grey felt hat with a hawk’s plume in it … his hand buried to the elbow in hide gloves … entered the hall. His bell-shaped boots came above his knees; a heavy gold chain, charged with decorations, hung from his neck. His tanned, bony face, with hollow eyes, wore a look of keen sadness, and there were horrible greenish tints on it.

      He walked the hall with hard, firm step, like the tick-tack of a clock; and with his hand on the guard of an immense sword, striking the floor with his heel, he cried, ‘This is mine!… Mine … Hans Burckart … Count of Barth!’

      It was like an old rusty machine grinding out necromantic words. It made my flesh creep. But at the same time the door at the other end opened, and the Count of Barth disappeared through it. I heard his automatic step descend a stair that never seemed to come to an end. The sound of his footfall on each step grew fainter and fainter, as though he were descending to the fiery depths of the earth.

      As I still listened, hearing nothing, lo! suddenly the great hall was filled with many people. The spinet sounded … they danced … they sang … made love and drank good wine. I saw against the blue background of the moon, young ladies loll round the spinet; their cavaliers, clad in fabulous lace, and numberless knick-knacks, sat with crossed legs on gold-fringed stools, leaning forward, tossing their heads, waddling about, making themselves pleasant. The little withered fingers of an old lady, with a nose like a parrot’s beak, clicked on the keys of the spinet; bursts of thin laughter rocketed left and right, ending in a mad rattle that made the hairs stand up in my neck.

      All this society of folly and grace and fine manners exhaled a smell of rose water and mignonette soured by old age. I made again some superhuman efforts to get rid of this nightmare. Impossible! But at the same moment one of the young ladies said: ‘Gentlemen, make yourselves at home … This domain—’

      She did not have the time to finish. A silence of death followed her words. I looked around. The phantasmagoria had disappeared.

      Then the sound of a horn struck my ears. Outside, horses were prancing, dogs barking, and the moon, calm, contemplative, shone into my alcove. The door opened, as by a wind, and fifty hunters, followed by young ladies, two hundred years old, with long trailing gowns, filed majestically from one hall to the other. Four serfs also passed, bearing on their stout shoulders a stretcher of oak branches on which rested – bleeding, frothy at the mouth, with glazed eyes – an enormous wild boar. I heard the sound of the horn still louder outside. Then it died away in the woodlands like the sleepy cry of a bird … and then … nothing!

      As I was thinking of this strange vision, I looked by chance in the silent shadows, and was astonished to see the hall occupied by one of those old Protestant families of bygone days, calm, dignified, and solemn in their manners. There was the white-haired father, reading a big Bible; the old mother, tall and pale, spinning the household linen, straight as a spindle, with a collar up to her ears, her waist bound by fillets of black ratteen; then the chubby children with dreaming eyes leaning on the table in deep silence; the old sheep dog, listening to his master; the old clock in its walnut case, counting the seconds; and farther away, in the shadow, the faces of girls and the features of lads in drugget jackets and felt hats, discussing the story of Jacob and Rachel by way of declaring their love.

      And this worthy family seemed to be convinced of the holy truths; the old father, with his cracked voice, continued the edifying story with deep emotion:

      ‘This is your promised land … the land of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob … which I have designed for you from the beginning of the world … so that you shall grow and multiply there like the stars of the sky. And none shall take it from you … for you are my beloved people, in whom I have put my trust.’

      The moon, clouded for a few moments, grew clear again, and hearing nothing more I turned my head. The calm cold rays lighted up the empty hall; not a figure, not a shadow … The light streamed on the floor, and, in the distance, some trees lifted their foliage, sharp and clear, against the luminous hillside.

      But suddenly the high walls were hidden in books. The old spinet gave way to the desk of a learned man, whose big wig showed to me above an armchair of red leather. I heard the goose-quill scratching the paper. The writer, lost in thought, did not stir. The silence overwhelmed me. But great was my surprise when the man turned in his chair, and I recognised in him the original of the portrait of the Jurist Gregorius that is No. 253 in the Hesse-Darmstadt Picture Gallery. Heavens! how did this great person descend from his frame? That is what I was asking myself when in a hollow voice he cried, ‘Ownership, in civil law, is the right to use and abuse so far as the law of nature allows.’ As this formula came from his lips, his figure grew dimmer and dimmer. At the last word he could not be seen.

      What more shall I tell you, my dear friends? During the following hours I saw twenty other generations succeed each other in the ancient castle of Hans Burckart … Christians and Jews, lords and commoners, ignorant people and learned, artists and philistines, and all of them claimed the place as their legitimate property. All thought themselves the sovereign masters of the property. Alas! the wind of death blew them out of the door. I ended by becoming accustomed to this strange procession. Each time one of these worthy persons cried, ‘This is mine!’ I laughed and murmured, ‘Wait, my friend, wait, you will vanish like the rest.’

      I was weary when, far away, very far away, a cock crowed, and with his piercing voice awoke the sleeping world. The leaves shook in the morning wind, and a shudder ran through my body. I felt my limbs were at last free, and rising on my elbow I gazed with rapture over the silent countryside … But what I saw was scarcely calculated to make me rejoice. All along the little hill-path that led to the graveyard climbed the procession of phantoms that had visited me in the night. Step by step they advanced to the lich-gate, and in their silent march, under the vague grey shadowy tints of the rising dawn, there was something terrible. As I looked, more dead than alive, my mouth gaping, my forehead bathed in a cold sweat, the leaders of the procession seemed to melt into the old weeping willows. There remained only a little number of spectres. And I was beginning to recover my breath, when my uncle Christian, the last figure in the procession, turned round under the old gate, and motioned to me to come with him. A voice, far away … ironical, cried: ‘Kasper … Kasper … Come … This land is ours!’

      Then everything disappeared, and a purple line, stretching across the horizon, announced the dawn.

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