Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune Read Online Free PDF

white house.
Downstairs by the kitchen the strong cook, Billa, sleeps, the three
hounds next to her. In the next room the four wild rascals sleep,
Philipp, Paulche, Emilche and Josefche. Upstairs in Frieda’s large
balcony room the two friends are sleeping. Wülfche sleeps nearby
with his black tobacco stub. In the living room sleep Herr
Sebastian Gontram and his wife. Up the hall Herr Manasse and
Cyclops contentedly snore and way up in the attic sleeps Sophia,
the housemaid. She has come back from the dance hall and lightly
sneaked up the stairs.
    Everyone is sleeping, twelve people and four
sharp hounds. But something is not sleeping. It shuffles slowly
around the white house–
    Outside by the garden flows the Rhine, rising
and breasting its embankments. It appears in the sleeping village,
presses itself against the old toll office.
    Cats and Tomcats are pushing through the
bushes, hissing, biting, striking each other, their round hot
glittering eyes possessed with aching, agonizing and denied
lust–
    In the distance at the edge of the city you
hear the drunken songs of the wild students–
    Something creeps all around the white house
on the Rhine, sneaks through the garden, past a broken embankment
and overturned benches. It looks in pleasure at the Sunday antics
of the love hungry cats and climbs up to the house. It scratches
with hard nails on the wall making a loose piece of plaster fall,
pokes softly at the door so that it rattles lightly like the
wind.
    Then it’s in the house shuffling up the
stairs, creeping cautiously through all the rooms and stops, looks
around, smiles.
    Heavy silver stands on the mahogany buffet,
rich treasures from the time of the Kaiser. But the windowpanes are
warped and patched with paper. Dutchmen hang on the wall. They are
all good paintings from Koekoek, Verboekhuoeven, Verwee and Jan
Stobbaerts, but they have holes and the old golden frames are black
with spider webs.

    Something sneaks through the still house

    These magnificent beauties came from the
ArchBishop’s old hall. But the broken crystal is sticky with
flyspecks.
    Something sneaks through the still house and
each time it comes it breaks something, almost nothing, an infinite
smallness, a crack. But again and again, each time it comes, the
crack grows in the night. There is a small noise, a light creaking
in the hall, a nail loosens and the old furniture gives way. There
is a rattle at the swollen shutters and a strange clanking between
the windowpanes.
    Everyone sleeps in this big house on the
Rhine but something slowly shuffles around.

Chapter Two

    Expains how the idea for Alraune came
about.

    T HE sun had already set and the candles were
burning on the chandelier in the Festival room as Privy Councilor
ten Brinken entered. He appeared festive enough in his dress suit.
There was a large star on his white vest and a gold chain in the
buttonhole from which twenty small medals dangled.
    The Legal Councilor stood up, greeted him,
and then he and the old gentleman went around the room with
threadbare smiles, saying kind words to everyone. They stopped in
front of the celebrating girls and the old gentleman took two gold
rings out of a beautiful leather case and formally presented them.
The one with a sapphire was for blond Frieda and the ruby was for
dark Olga. Then he gave a very wise speech to both of them.
    “Would you like to sit for a spell?” asked
Herr Sebastian Gontram. “We’ve been sitting over there for four
hours. Seventeen courses! Isn’t that something! Here is the menu,
is there anything you would like?”
    The Privy Councilor thanked him, but he had
already eaten.
    Then Frau Gontram came into the room in a
blue, somewhat old-fashioned silk gown with a train. Her hair was
done up high.
    “I can’t eat anymore ice cream,” she cried.
“Prince Puckler had Billa put all of it on the cinnamon
noodles!”
    The guests laughed. They never knew what to
expect in the Gontram house.
    Attorney Manasse cried,