The Black Spider (11 page)

Only a few servants were spared in the castle, those who had never made fun of the peasants; it was they who related how terrible it had been. The feeling that the knights had what they deserved was no consolation for the peasants, whose terror became ever greater and more horrible. Many a one tried to escape. Some wanted to leave the valley, but it was precisely these who became the spider’s victims. Their corpses were found strewn on the road. Others fled to the high hills, but the spider was up there before them, and when they thought they had saved themselves, there was the spider sitting on their necks or faces. The monster become more and more evil and devilish. It no longer came upon people unawares, injecting the fire of death unexpectedly; it would lurk in the grass for someone, or hang over him from a tree, staring poisonously at him. Then such a one would flee as far as his feet could carry him, and if he stood still in his breathlessness the spider would be squatting in front of him and staring poisonously at him. If he fled once more and once more had to slow down, it would again be in front of him; and only if he could flee no further did it crawl slowly up to him and kill him.

Then some people in their despair attempted resistance to see if it might not be possible to kill the spider; they threw huge stones at it when it sat before them in the grass, or hit out at it with club or axe; but it was all in vain, for the heaviest stone could not crush it nor the sharpest axe wound it; it would squat unawares on a man’s face and crawl up to him unhurt. Flight, resistance, everything was in vain. At that all hope was lost, and despair filled the valley and brooded over the heights.

Up to that time there was one house only which the monster had spared and where he had never appeared; it was the house where Christine had lived and from which she had stolen the child. As the spider, she had attacked her own husband in lonely pastureland, where his corpse had been found mauled hideously as none other had been, the features distorted in unspeakable pain; it was he upon whom it had wreaked its most terrible wrath, it was the husband for whom it had prepared the most terrible final encounter. But nobody saw how it happened.

The spider had not yet come to the house; whether it was saving it up till last or whether it was afraid of approaching it, nobody could guess.

But fear had entered there no less than at other places.

The devout woman had recovered her health and had no fear on her own account, but was considerably afraid for her faithful little boy and his little sister; she watched over them day and night, and the faithful grandmother shared her cares and her vigilance. And together they prayed God that He might keep their eyes open as they were on the watch and that He would illumine and strengthen them so that they might save the innocent children.

As they kept watch through the long nights it often seemed to them as if they could see the spider glimmering and glittering in a dark comer, or as if it were peering in at them through the window; then their fear increased, for they knew no way of protecting the children from the spider, and so they prayed the more ardently to God for His counsel and support. They had collected all kinds of weapons to have handy, but when they heard that the stone lost its heaviness and the axe its sharpness, they put them aside again. Then the idea came to the mother more and more clearly and vividly that if someone would dare to grasp the spider with his hand, it would be possible to overcome it. She had also heard of people who, when stone-throwing proved useless, had attempted to crush the spider in their hands, though without success. A fearful stream of fire which convulsed through hand and arm destroyed all strength and brought death to the heart. It seemed to her that if she could not succeed in crushing the spider, she might well be able to grasp hold of it, and God would lend her sufficient strength to put it away in some place where it would be harmless. She had already often heard tell of knowledgeable men imprisoning demons in a hole in a cliff or in wood which they had closed with a peg, and so long as no one pulled out the peg, the demon would have to remain pinned down in the hole.

The spirit moved her more and more to attempt something similar herself. She bored a hole in the window-post which was nearest to her at her right hand as she sat by the cradle; she prepared a peg which fitted closely into the hole, blessed it with holy water, put out a hammer and prayed day and night to God for strength to accomplish the deed. But sometimes the flesh was stronger than the spirit, and heavy sleep pressed on her eyes; then she saw the spider in her dreams, leering on her little boy’s golden hair, then she started up out of her dream and touched her boy’s locks. But there was no spider there, and a smile played on his little face in the way children smile when they see their angel in a dream; but the mother seemed to see the spider’s poisonous eyes glittering in every corner of the room, and for a long time she could not go to sleep.

In this way sleep had once overcome her after she had been keeping strict watch, and it encircled her closely. Then it appeared to her as if the pious priest, who had died in saving her child, were rushing up to her from far spaces and were calling to her from the distance: ‘Wake up, woman, the enemy is here!’ He called thus three times, and it was not until the third time that she wrested herself from the tight bonds of sleep; but as she wearily raised her heavy eyelids, she saw the spider, swollen with poison, crawling slowly up to the little bed towards the face of her boy. Then she thought of God and seized the spider with rapid grasp. Then streams of fire emanated from the spider, piercing the faithful mother through hand and arm to her heart; but motherly fidelity and motherly love made her keep her hand tightly closed, and God gave her strength to hold out. Amid thousandfold pains of death she forced the spider with her one hand into the hole that had been prepared, and with the other hand she pressed the peg over the hole and then hammered it fast.

Inside there was a roaring and a raging as when whirlwinds struggle with the sea, the house swayed on its foundations, but the peg held fast and the spider remained imprisoned. The faithful mother, however, was still overjoyed that she had saved her children; she thanked God for His grace, then she too died the same death as all the others, but her motherly fidelity blotted out the pains, and the angels accompanied her soul to God’s throne, where all heroes are who have given their lives for others and risked everything for the sake of God and their beloved ones.

Now the Black Death was at an end. Peace and life came back to the valley. The black spider was seen no more at that time, for it stayed imprisoned in that hole, where it remains still now.”

“What, in that black piece of wood there?” the godmother cried and started up from the ground in one movement as if she had been sitting on an anthill. She had been sitting against that piece of wood when she had been inside the room. And now her back was burning, she turned round, she looked behind her, felt over herself with her hand and could not escape from the fear that the black spider was sitting on her neck.

The others also felt their hearts constricted after the grandfather had finished talking. A great silence had come over them. Nobody cared to venture a joke, nor did anyone feel inclined to assent to the story; each preferred to listen for the first word of the other so that they could adjust their own remarks accordingly, for that is the easiest way to avoid making mistakes. Then the midwife came running along; she had called to them several times already without getting an answer, and her face burned deep red, it was as if the spider had been crawling about on it. She began to scold them because nobody would come, however loudly she might call. That really did seem to her to be a queer business; when the food was all ready, nobody would come to the table, and if after all it was spoiled, they would say it was all her fault; she knew well enough how these things happened. Nobody could eat fat meat like that indoors once it had gone cold and anyway it wouldn’t be good for them to do so. Now the people did come, but quite slowly, and none of them was willing to be the first at the door; the grandfather had to go first. This time it was not so much the usual custom of not wanting to give the impression that they could not wait to get at the food; it was the hesitation which befalls all people when they stand at the entrance to a gruesome place, though really there was nothing gruesome inside. The handsome decanters of wine, freshly filled, gleamed brightly on the table; two sleek hams shone forth; mighty roast joints of veal and mutton were steaming; fresh Bernese cakes lay between the dishes of meat, places of fritters and plates with three kinds of cake on them had been squeezed in between, and the pots of sweetened tea were not missing either. Thus it was a lovely sight, and yet they all paid little attention to it, but instead they all looked around with frightened glances, wondering if the spider might not be glittering out of some corner, or even be staring down at them from the magnificent ham with its poisonous eyes. It could not be seen anywhere, and yet nobody paid the usual compliments (What were they thinking, to go on putting so much in front of them? Whoever was going to eat it? They’d already had more than enough.), but everybody crowded down to the lower end of the table and nobody wanted to be at the top. It was useless asking the guests to come to the top end of the table and to point to the empty places there; they stood at the bottom end as if nailed there. In vain the father of the newborn child poured out the wine and called to them to come along and drink a health, it was all ready. Then he took the godmother by the arm and said, “You be the most sensible and set an example!” But the godmother resisted with all her strength, and that was not little, saying “I’m not going to sit up there again, not for a thousand pounds! I can feel something stinging up and down my back, as if somebody was playing about it with nettles. And if I sat over there by the window-frame, I should feel the terrible spider on my neck all the time.”

“That’s your fault, grandfather,” the grandmother said. “Why do you bring up such subjects! That sort of thing does no good these days and can only do harm to the whole house and family. And if one day the children come home from school crying and complaining that the other children have been baiting them that their grandmother was a witch and was shut up in the window-post, well, that’ll be you’re fault.”

“Be quiet, grandmother!” the grandfather said. “Nowadays everything soon gets forgotten again and nobody keeps things long in their memory, as they used to. They wanted to hear about the business from me, and it is better for people to hear the exact truth rather than to make something up for themselves; truth can bring our house no dishonor. But come and sit down! Look, I’ll sit down myself in front of the peg in the window-post. After all, I’ve sat there many thousands of days already without fear or hesitation, and therefore without danger. Only if ever evil thoughts happened to rise within me which could give the devil a hold, I had the feeling that there was a purring behind me, like a cat purring when you play with it and stroke its fur and it feels comfortable; and I had a queer, strange feeling up my back. But otherwise the spider keeps itself as still as a mouse inside there, and so long as we here outside do not forget God, it has to go on waiting within.”

Then the guests took heart and sat down, but nobody moved up really close to the grandfather. Now at last the father could begin serving; he placed a mighty piece of roast meat on his neighbor’s, the godmother’s, plate and she cut a small piece off and placed what remained on her neighbor’s plate, removing it from her fork with her thumb. In this manner the piece of meat was passed on, until someone said he thought he would keep it now, for there would certainly be more where that piece came from; a new piece now began the rounds. While the father was pouring out wine and serving, and the guests were telling him what a busy day he was having today, the midwife went round with the sweet tea, which was strongly spiced with saffron and cinnamon, and offered it to everybody, saying that if anybody was fond of it, all they had to do was to say so, it was there for everybody. And if anyone said he did like it, she poured tea into his wine, saying she was fond of it too, it made it easier to stand up to the wine and didn’t give you a headache. They ate and drank. But scarcely was the noise over, which always occurs when people are sitting behind new dishes of food, when everyone became quiet again, and faces grew serious; it was clear that all thoughts were turned to the spider. Eyes glanced shyly and furtively at the peg behind the grandfather’s back, and yet everyone was reluctant to take up the subject again.

Then the godmother cried out loud and almost fell off her chair. A fly had passed over the peg, she had believed that the spider’s black legs were creeping out of the hole, and her whole body trembled with terror. People hardly had time to make fun of her, for her fright was a welcome reason for beginning to talk afresh about the spider, and once a matter has really touched our mind, it does not easily let it go again.

“But listen here, cousin,” the elder godfather said, “Hasn’t the spider ever got out of the hole since then? Has it always stayed inside all these hundreds of years?”

“Oh,” the grandmother said, “It would be better to be quiet about the whole business”; after all they had been talking the whole afternoon about it.

“Oh, Mother,” the cousin said, “you let your old man talk, he’s been entertaining us very well, and nobody will hold the business against you, after all you’re not descended from Christine. And you won’t succeed in turning our thoughts away from the subject; and if we’re not allowed to talk about it, we shan’t talk about anything else, and then we shan’t be entertained anymore. Now, grandfather, come and talk, your old woman won’t begrudge us!”

“Oh, if you want to insist, you can, as far as I am concerned, but it would have been more sensible to have started on something different now, and specially now that night is on the way,” the grandmother said. Then the grandfather began, and all the faces became tense once more.