The golden pot, p.8
The Golden Pot, page 8
The student had already transcribed Arabic, so that this first assignment did not seem so difficult. “How those crowfeet crept into my lovely English script only God and the Archivarius Lindhorst may know,” he said to himself, “but I swear upon my life that they didn’t come from my hand,” With every well-formed word that landed on the parchment his confidence grew, and so did his skill. The archivarius’s quills did indeed lend themselves to a lovely line, and the enigmatic ink flowed pitch black and compliantly onto the blinding white parchment. As Anselmus worked away assiduously and with intense concentration, he felt ever more at ease in the solitude of the workroom; he had already completely committed himself to the task, which he hoped to complete successfully, when at the stroke of three the archivarius called him to lunch at a well-appointed table in the room next door. The archivarius was in a particularly chipper mood; he asked after the student’s friends, Deputy Rector Paulmann and Registrar Heerbrand, and found many laudatory things to say about the latter. Anselmus found the good old Rhine wine quite delicious, and it made him more talkative than usual. At the stroke of four he rose from the table to get to work, and this punctuality appeared to please the archivarius.
If he had managed to effectively copy the Arabic script before the meal, the work now went all the more smoothly. Indeed, he could not fathom the speed and ease with which he now managed to mimic the ruffled characters of that foreign script. It was as if a voice emanating from his inmost soul whispered distinctly in his ear, “Oh, how could you complete this task if you did not keep her ever in mind and close to your heart, if you did not believe unflinchingly in her and her love?”
Then, in a quiet whisper came a crystal-clear reply: “I am close to you— close— close— I will help you— take heart— stick to it, dear Anselmus!— I will do my all to make you mine!”
And just as he took in every word with total rapture, the foreign characters became ever more comprehensible – he hardly even had to look at the original – it was as if a pale impression of the characters had already landed on the parchment, and all he had to do was trace them in black with a steady hand. In this manner he kept on working, infused with a sweet scent and the soothing sound of the beloved voice, until, at the stroke of six, the Archivarius Lindhorst came striding into the room and approached the work table with the same singular smile as before. Anselmus silently rose from the table, and the archivarius kept studying him with that mocking look, but no sooner did the old man glance at the transcription than every last drop of sarcasm drained from his lips and all his facial muscles tightened into an expression of utter solemnity. He no longer seemed like the same person. His eyes, which ordinarily sparkled with fire, now regarded Anselmus with an indescribably benevolent expression, his otherwise pale cheeks were infused with a soft redness, and in place of the ever-present irony that ordinarily kept his mouth clamped shut, his soft graceful lips now looked like they were about to burst into soul-searching speech. His entire figure reared up taller and statelier, his dressing gown fell like a king’s mantel in wide folds around his chest and shoulders, and a narrow golden band glistened like a crown from the white curls that graced his high and open brow.
“Young man,” the archivarius spoke in a muffled, solemn tone of voice, “my dear young man, even before it dawned on you, I recognized all the secret sentiments that bind you to that which is most cherished and holy to me! Serpentina loves you! A singular destiny awaits you, the fateful threads of which span a chasm of hostile forces, which will be fulfilled once she becomes yours, and if, as an essential dowry, you may lay claim to her precious possession, the golden pot. But your future happiness in higher spheres will depend on your willingness to fight for it. Hostile forces will confront you, and only the inner strength of your resistance to their rude assault can save you from disgrace and ruin. The tasks I ask of you amount to your apprenticeship; if you stick with it and persevere in what you’ve begun, faith and insight will allow you to achieve your immediate goal. Hold her true in your heart and she who loves you will help you attain the splendid treasure of the golden pot, and be happy for ever after. Be well! The Archivarius Lindhorst awaits you tomorrow at noon in his cabinet! Until then!”
With these words the archivarius gently nudged the student out the door, which he then locked behind him, and Anselmus now found himself in the room in which he had eaten, whose only door led out into the hallway.
Stunned by all the wondrous things he’d seen and heard, the student lingered in the street before the front door. A window opened above him and he looked up to see the old man, the Archivarius Lindhorst, dressed as usual in his light gray robe. “What’s the matter, my dear Herr Anselmus,” he called. “What are you brooding about? Can’t get your mind off the Arabic? Give my best regards to Deputy Rector Paulmann if you drop by at his place, and be sure to be here tomorrow at noon on the dot. You’ll find the pay for today’s work in your right vest pocket.”
Anselmus did indeed find the shiny coin in the designated pocket, but the sight of it hardly cheered him up. “God knows where all this will lead,” he said to himself, “but even if some spook has got me in the grip of madness, I’ve still got my precious Serpentina under my skin, and I’d rather go under than give up on her affection – of this I’m firmly convinced, and no hostile force can uproot it. Can such a conviction be based on anything but Serpentina’s love?”
Seventh Vigil
How Deputy Rector Paulmann knocked the ashes from his pipe and went to bed. Rembrandt and the demonic Brueghel. The magic mirror and Doctor Eckstein’s remedy for an unknown illness.
At last Deputy Rector Paulmann knocked the ashes from his pipe, and remarked, “It’s high time to get a good night’s rest.”
“Yes, indeed,” Veronica concurred, concerned at her father’s being up later than usual, for the clock had just struck ten. No sooner did the deputy rector retire to his bedroom and the sound of her sister Fränzchen’s deep, steady breathing make itself manifest – proof of her having fallen fast asleep – than Veronica, who had pretended to go to sleep, quietly got up out of bed, flung on her clothes, slipped into her coat, and escaped out into the street.
Ever since the moment Veronica left old Liese’s house, she could not get Anselmus out of her mind. She herself could not make hide or hair of that strange voice inside her that kept repeating again and again that his rebuffs of her affection were fomented by a hostile presence that kept him in its clutches, but whose grip on him she could sever with the help of magical means. Her trust in old Liese grew day by day, and even her first impression of her uncanny and horrific appearance faded little by little, so that everything that initially seemed bizarre and strange about her relations with the old woman only retained a luster of quaintness and fancy which she now found quite enticing. She therefore firmly resolved, even at the risk of being caught sneaking off and getting herself embroiled in a thousand troubles, to pursue this equinox adventure come what may. The fateful night on which old Liese promised to offer help and solace had finally come, and having long since quelled any concerns she might have had about wandering at night, Veronica felt elated. Quick as an arrow she shot through the lonesome streets, oblivious to the storm wind blowing and the thick raindrops it flung against her face. With a muffled drone, the bell in the steeple sounded eleven o’clock as Veronica stood before the old woman’s house, soaked to the skin.
“Here already, my dear! Wait just a minute!” came a cry from above. A moment later, the old woman stood at the door carrying a basket, and accompanied by her black cat. “Come, let us go now, and carry out the actions that will favor our purpose on this fateful night,” she said, reaching with a cold hand for trembling Veronica and passing her the basket, while she herself carried a cauldron, a trivet, and a spade. By the time they got to the open fields it had stopped raining, but the storm blew ever more fiercely; a thousand voices wafted in the wind, and it was as if a heartrending scream burst from the black clouds that clustered together and soon draped everything in a dense darkness. But striding forward at a steady clip, the old woman cried out with a shrill voice: “Light, light, my lad!” Blue bolts of lightning sidled round and clashed directly in front of them, and Veronica realized that it was the cat emitting crackling sparks and lighting their way as it leapt ahead. Its fearfully horrid feline whine filled the air in brief intervals when the storm let up.
It almost knocked the wind out of her, as if ice-cold claws tore at her heart of hearts. But, taking pains to pull herself together, and clinging all the more tightly to the old woman, she said, “What must be done must be done, come what may!”
“Quite right, my little darling!” the old woman replied, “Stand firm, and I’ll give you a lovely gift, and Anselmus to boot!”
At last, the old woman came to a halt and said, “We have arrived!” She dug a hole in the ground, filled it with coal, and set the tripod over it, upon which she placed the cauldron. All this she did with strange gesticulations, while the cat curled around her feet. Sparks spewed from its tail, and these lit a fire. Soon the coals began to glow and after a short while blue flames danced under the tripod. Veronica flung off her coat and veil and knelt down beside the old woman, who clasped her hands tightly and glared at her with sparkling eyes. Now the curious clumps that the old woman had plucked from the basket and dropped into the cauldron – flowers, metals, herbs, animals? Impossible to tell the difference! – began to seethe and simmer. The old woman let go of Veronica’s hand and grasped an iron ladle, which she dipped into the bubbling brew and stirred while Veronica, at her behest, was made to cast her fixed gaze into the cauldron and focus all her thoughts on Anselmus. Then the old woman got busy again, casting into the cauldron sparkling scraps of metal and a lock of hair cut from Veronica’s tangle of curls, as well as a ring she’d worn a long time, all the while emitting indecipherable, shrill sounding screeches and cries that tore through the night and egged on the cat that kept whining and groaning.
Would that you, esteemed reader, had been on the road to Dresden on that fateful 23rd of September. Just imagine: in vain, come nightfall, they had tried to make you stay on at the last coach stop. The genial innkeeper maintained that it was storming and raining too hard, and that in any case, it was a bad omen for anyone to venture out in the dark on such an equinox night, but you took no heed of such counsel, and rightfully thought to yourself, “I’ll pay the coachman a silver dollar’s tip and get to Dresden by 1 am at the latest, where a warm meal and a cozy bed await me at the Golden Angel, or the Helm, or the stately old City of Naumberg Inn.” And as the coach drives out into the darkness you suddenly see strange lights flickering in the distance.
Drawing near, you notice a ring of fire, in the midst of which a cauldron is burning, emitting billows of smoke, with red bolts of lightning and sparks shooting forth, and two figures seated beside it. The road runs straight through the ring of fire, but the horses snort and stamp their feet and rear up. The coachman curses and pleads and whips the horses, but they refuse to budge. Instinctively, you leap out of the carriage and race a few steps forward. Now you catch sight of the slender, comely girl in the thin white nightgown kneeling beside the cauldron. The storm has unraveled her braids and her long chestnut hair flutters freely in the wind. That angelically lovely face is lit up by the glaring flames shooting out from under the tripod, but terror casts an icy deathlike pallor upon it, and you can read her dread and horror in her blank look, in her upturned eyebrows, and in her mouth torn open to emit a scream of mortal terror that remains stuck in her throat, riddled by the nameless torment that clamps down on her breast. Her little hands are raised up, pressed tightly together, as if she were praying for a guardian angel to shield her from the demons of hell that, heeding the call of some potent magic spell, are about to appear. She kneels there motionless, like a marble statue. Just opposite her, a tall, haggard, copper-colored old crone with a hooked hawk’s nose and sparkling cat’s eyes squats on the ground, her naked, bony arms poking out from under a black cloak; she stirs a hellish brew, cackling and crying with a raspy voice above the raging, roaring wind.
I’m quite convinced, esteemed reader, that even if you had never before been stricken by fear and dread, the sight of this Rembrandtian or hellish Brueghelian tableau flashed on the canvas of life would have made the hair stand up straight on your head. But you could not tear your eyes from the poor girl entangled in these demonic machinations and, like a bolt of lightning, the electric shock that shot through your every fiber and nerve instantly fired up your brave resolve to defy the dark forces in that ring of fire. The flames consumed your dread, or rather, the resolve to come to her rescue was born of this very dread, the thought itself germinated in the throes of fear and horror, spawned by the intensity of its grip. You felt as if you were some kind of guardian angel to whom the petrified girl was pleading for help, as if you were driven then and there to draw your pistol and without any hesitation send the old crone to kingdom come!
Yet as the thought churned in your mind, you cried out, “Hey there!” or “What’s going on there?” or “What the devil are you up to?” The coachman then blasted on his horn, the old crone stirred around in her bubbling brew, and everything vanished lickety-split in a thick cloud of smoke. I dare not venture to guess if you might have ever found the girl, searching for her with all your heart in the pitch-black darkness, but you would at least have broken the grip of that old crone and lifted the spell of that ring of fire into which Veronica had wandered.
But neither you nor anyone else, esteemed reader, rolled or strolled by on the 23rd of September, that stormy night so favorable to the evil work of witches, and Veronica had to crouch by that cauldron, frightened to death, until the dark deed was almost done. She was aware of the wind howling and billowing around her, of all manner of repugnant voices bellowing and blathering at the same time, but she dared not open her eyes as she sensed that the sight of the ghastly and horrific spectacle that surrounded her could well plunge her into irremediable madness.
The old woman had stopped stirring the contents of the cauldron, the cloud of smoke got thinner and thinner, and finally only a faint spirit-flame kept burning under the cauldron. Then the old woman cried, “Veronica, my child, my little darling, cast your gaze into the residue in the pot. What do you see? What do you see?” But Veronica could not bring her lips to reply, regardless of the fact that she saw all sorts of figures swirling around, one by one emerging ever more clearly. Then all at once, peering back at her tenderheartedly and reaching out his hand to her, she spotted the student Anselmus at the bottom of the cauldron. “Oh my God,” she cried, “it’s Anselmus, Anselmus!”
The old woman hopped to it, opening a spout at the base of the cauldron. Glowing, molten metal poured out, sizzling and sputtering, filling a small mold she set beside it. Then the old crone jumped up and, swinging herself around with wild, grotesque gesticulations, she shrieked, “Our work is done! Thanks, my lad! You kept watch— Up and at ‘em! Up and at ‘em!— He’s coming!— Bite his head off!”
But a mighty wind squall burst about them, as if a giant eagle swooped down and batted its wings, and a terrible voice cried out: “Hey, hey!— you miserable rabble— enough is enough— you had your fun— now better run!”
Howling, the old crone collapsed; Veronica lost consciousness. She came to again in broad daylight, snug in bed, with her sister Fränzchen proffering a steaming cup of tea. “What in heaven’s name is wrong with you, sister?” she said. “Here I am, standing before you for an hour or more, while you lie there unconscious, moaning and groaning, scaring the living daylights out of us! Father stayed home from school today on account of you and will be coming back any minute now with the doctor.”
Veronica silently accepted the tea; as she drank, all manner of terrifying images from the night before flashed before her eyes. “Then was it all nothing but an awful nightmare that tormented me?” she asked herself. “But I really did go visit the old woman! It was the 23rd of September! Or did I already fall sick yesterday and just imagine those strange goings on? And all that made me sick was thinking incessantly of Anselmus and of that strange old woman who pretended to be Liese and just put one over on me.”
Fränzchen, who had gone out, came back in again with Veronica’s soaking-wet coat in hand. “Just look, dear sister,” she said, “at the state of your coat. Last night’s storm tore the window open and toppled the chair on the back of which it hung; the rain came pouring in and drenched your coat.” These words fell as a heavy blow, since they confirmed for Veronica that it wasn’t the stuff of bad dreams that tormented her, but that she really had gone to visit the old woman. The thought of it elicited a tremor of terror, and a fever chill convulsed her every limb. Gripped by spasms of cold shudders, she pulled the blanket over her head, but in doing so felt something hard pressing against her breast. She reached for it with her hand; it seemed to be some sort of medallion. When Fränzchen dashed off again with her wet coat, she pulled it out and saw that it was a small, round, brightly polished metal mirror. “Why, it’s a gift from the old woman,” she called out cheerfully, and it was as if fiery rays shot out of the mirror that pierced her heart of hearts and provided soothing warmth. The fever chill faded, and she felt infused by an indescribable sense of comfort and well-being. She could not stop thinking of Anselmus, and as she focused her thoughts ever more and more intensely on him, his friendly smile flashed back at her from the mirror like a live miniature portrait.
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