Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
horrible sex murders that he has committed.
    The princess sighs, but she listens to him.
She laughs once in awhile, always in the wrong places. She is the
only one of all his listeners that never knows when he lies and
also the only one that doesn’t understand his jokes.
    “Nice story for the children!” barks Attorney
Manasse.
    Both girls are listening eagerly, staring at
the Legal Councilor with wide-open eyes and mouths. But he doesn’t
allow himself to be interrupted. It is never too early to get
accustomed to such things. He talks as if sex murderers were
common, that they happen all the time in life and you can encounter
dozens of them every day.
    He finally finishes, looks at the hour. “Ten
already! You children must go to bed! Drink your spiced wine
quickly.”
    The girls drink, but the princess declares
that she will under no circumstances go back to her house. She is
too afraid and can’t sleep by herself, perhaps there is a disguised
sex murderer in the house. She wants to stay with her friend. She
doesn’t ask her Mama. She asks only Frieda and her mother.
    “You can as far as I’m concerned,” says Frau
Gontram. “But don’t you oversleep! You need to be in church on
time.”
    The girls curtsey and go out, arm in arm,
inseparable.
    “Are you afraid too?” asks the princess.
    Frieda says, “What Papa was saying is all
lies.”
    But she is still afraid anyway and at the
same time strangely longing for these things. Not to experience
them, oh no, not to know that. But she is thinking how she wants to
be able to tell stories like that! Yes, that is another sin for
confession! She sighs.
    Above, they finish the spiced wine. Frau
Gontram smokes one last cigar. Herr Manasse stands up to leave the
room and the Legal Councilor is telling the princess a new story.
She hides her yawn behind her fan, attempts again to get a word
in.
    “Oh, yes, dear Legal Councilor,” she says
quickly. “I almost forgot! May I pick your wife up at noon tomorrow
in the carriage? I’d like to take her with me into Rolandseck for a
bit.”
    “Certainly,” he answers. “Certainly, if she
wants to.”
    But Frau Gontram says, “I can’t go out.”
    “And why not?” the princess asks. “It would
do you some good to get out and breathe some fresh spring air.”
    “Frau Gontram slowly takes the cigar out from
between her teeth. “I can’t go out. I don’t have a decent hat to
wear–”
    The Princess laughs as if it is a good joke.
She will also send the Milliner over in the morning with the newest
spring fashions.
    “Then I’ll go,” says Frau Gontram. “But send
Becker from Quirinusjass, they have the best.”
    “And now I must go to sleep–good night!”
    “Oh, yes, it is time I must get going too!”
the princess cries hastily.
    Legal Councilor escorts her out, through the
garden and into the street. He helps her up into her carriage and
then deliberately shuts the garden gate.
    As he comes back, his wife is standing in the
house door, a burning candle in her hand.
    “I can’t go to bed yet,” she says
quietly.
    “What,” he asks. “Why not?”
    She replies, “I can’t go to bed yet because
Manasse is lying in it!”
    They climb up the stairs to the second floor
and go into the bedroom. In the giant marriage bed lies the little
attorney pretty as can be and fast asleep. His clothing is hung
carefully over the chair, his boots standing nearby. He has taken a
clean nightgown out of the wardrobe and put it on. Near him lies
his Cyclops like a crumpled young hedgehog.
    Legal Councilor Gontram takes the candle from
the nightstand and lights it.
    “And the man insults me, says that I’m lazy!”
he says shaking his head in wonderment.
    “–And he is too lazy to go home!”
    “Shh!” Frau Gontram says. “You’ll wake
everyone up.”
    She takes bedding and linen out of the
wardrobe and goes very quietly downstairs and makes up two beds on
the sofas. They sleep there.
    Everyone is sleeping in the