HS04 - Unholy Awakening Read Online Free PDF

the tiled floor, while my metal-tipped shoes had set off an instant clicking and tapping as I followed her about. And even more oddly, I noticed that she wore no stockings. Her legs were as bare as the legs of a peasant woman who would rather work barefoot than consume her precious clogs.
    ‘Can you understand the burdens brought by such an inconstant state of mind?’
    I could have answered, but I did not. I knew the ravages of old age. I had seen dementia take possession of the most rational man that the kingdom of Prussia has ever produced. Professor Immanuel Kant, the metaphysician, had been immune to every idle mental caprice, critical of every human frailty, throughout his long and profitable life. And yet, before the end, even Kant had become the opposite of himself. He had been trans formed into a different person. A creature lost in a world without rules, a world where rational thought no longer held dominion.
    ‘What does your father do?’ I asked.
    ‘What did he do,’ she corrected me gently. ‘Seeing him today, you’d not believe his story. Erwin Rimmele was once the owner of four merchant banking houses along the coast between Danzig and Tallin. Not a thaler escaped his attention. Numerous clerks kept the accounts which shipowners and rich merchants entrusted to his care. But then a shadow fell upon his mind. Not all at once, but slowly, imperceptibly. He became forgetful of names, of people that he had known a life time, and, worst of all, of transactions that he ought to have been following attentively. Finally, even words began to fail him.’ She flagged, and sighed out loud. ‘As you know, sir, in Prussia these days it is the mode to blame everything on Napoleon, but even the French invasion washed clean over my father’s head. He has lost his path in a mental fog, and there’s no finding his way out of the wood. He no longer recognises what was once familiar. He does not always recognise me ! And this uncertainty terrifies him more than anything.’
    I gave her a moment to collect herself before I spoke.
    ‘Why come to Lotingen, then? Why choose this house? This was a monastery once. Later, a military barracks. It…it hardly seems the sort of place to take up residence.’
    Emma Rimmele looked up with dreadful seriousness, but she did not speak.
    The leaves outside the window cast a greenish light across her features.
    Suddenly, she shook her head and smiled.
    I did not know where to look. If I expected demure femininity, she confounded me at every move. We might have been old friends. I could see quite clearly that she was upset, still frightened, though she would not resort to tears. Quite the opposite. She projected strength of character. There was nothing affected in her manner, no feigned timidity or manipulative use of a supposed female weakness. She did not appeal to masculine sympathy, nor seem to look for any grain of comprehension. She behaved towards me as one might towards a brother or a sister, confiding whatever came into her mind with candid directness.
    ‘My great concern,’ she went on, ‘is to avoid change. I try to keep him on the old, familiar paths, hoping that his memory will come back to him. If only for a moment. Just one,’ she said, holding up her index finger for emphasis. ‘A normal day would be a miracle, sir, and yet I dare to hope that miracles are possible. I set out purposely to find a house like this one in Lotingen. That is, a house as similar as possible to the house that we were forced to leave.’
    ‘Forced?’
    She nodded. ‘Our home was seized not long ago by the French. They lodged the officers of a cavalry regiment there. My father does not notice details; size and scale are every thing to him. If I could find a house of roughly the same layout and dimensions, I thought, it would be for the best. I had to remove him from our home, in any case. The rowdy behaviour of the French intruders made life impossible. And shortly after they arrived, my