The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century (33 page)

‘“That stanchion was put there by my grandfather,” he said; “the sign of the
Bœuf-gras
was hung on it, from father to son, for a hundred and fifty years; it does nobody any harm, not even the hay-carts that pass under it, because it’s more than thirty feet high; those who don’t like it have only to look another way, and then they won’t see it.”

‘People’s excitement gradually cooled down, and for several months nothing new happened. Unfortunately, a student of Heidelberg, on his way to the University, came to the
Bœuf-gras
and asked for a bed. He was the son of a pastor.

‘Who could suppose that the son of a pastor would take into his head the idea of hanging himself to the stanchion of a public-house sign, because a furrier and a soldier had hung themselves there before him? It must be confessed, Master Christian, that the thing was not very probable – it would not have appeared more likely to you than it did to me. Well –’

‘Enough! enough!’ I cried; ‘it is a horrible affair. I feel sure there is some frightful mystery at the bottom of it. It is neither the stanchion nor the chamber —’

‘You don’t mean that you suspect the landlord? – as honest a man as there is in the world, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Nuremberg?’

‘No, no! Heaven keep me from forming unjust suspicions of any one; but there are abysses into the depths of which one dares not look.’

‘You are right,’ said Toubec, astonished at my excited manner; ‘and we had much better talk of something else. By-the-bye, Master Christian, what about our landscape, the view of Sainte-Odile?’

The question brought me back to actualities. I showed the broker the picture I had just finished. The business was soon settled between us, and Toubec, thoroughly satisfied, went down the ladder, advising me to think no more of the student of Heidelberg.

I would very willingly have followed the old broker’s advice, but when the devil mixes himself up with our affairs he is not easily shaken off.

In solitude, all these events came back to my mind with frightful distinctness.

The old woman, I said to myself, is the cause of all this; she alone has planned these crimes, she alone has carried them into execution; but by what means? Has she had recourse to cunning only, or really to the intervention of the invisible powers?

I paced my garret, a voice within me crying, ‘It is not without purpose that Heaven has permitted you to see Flédermausse watching the agony of her victim; it was not without design that the poor young man’s soul came to wake you in the form of a night-moth! No! all this has not been without purpose. Christian, Heaven imposes on you a terrible mission; if you fail to accomplish it, fear that you yourself may fall into the toils of that old woman! Perhaps at this moment she is laying her snares for you in the darkness!’

During several days these frightful images pursued me without cessation. I could not sleep; I found it impossible to work; the brush fell from my hand, and, shocking to confess, I detected myself at times complacently contemplating the dreadful stanchion. At last, one evening, unable any longer to bear this state of mind, I flew down the ladder four steps at a time, and went and hid myself beside Flédermausse’s door, for the purpose of discovering her fatal secret.

From that time there was never a day that I was not on the watch, following the old woman like her shadow, never losing sight of her; but she was so cunning, she had so keen a scent, that without even turning her head she discovered that I was behind her, and knew that I was on her track. But nevertheless, she pretended not to see me – went to the market, to the butcher’s, like a simple housewife; only she quickened her pace and muttered to herself as she went.

At the end of a month I saw that it would be impossible for me to achieve my purpose by these means, and this conviction filled me with an inexpressible sadness.

‘What can I do?’ I asked myself. ‘The old woman has discovered my intentions, and is thoroughly on her guard. I am helpless. The old wretch already thinks she sees me at the end of the cord!’

At length, from repeating to myself again and again the question, ‘What can I do?’ a luminous idea presented itself to my mind.

My chamber overlooked the house of Flédermausse, but it had no dormer window on that side. I carefully raised one of the slates of my roof, and the delight I felt on discovering that by this means I could command a view of the entire antique building can hardly be imagined.

‘At last I’ve got you!’ I cried to myself; ‘you cannot escape me now! From here I shall see everything – the goings and comings, the habits of the weasel in her hole! You will not suspect this invisible eye – this eye that will surprise the crime at the moment of its inception! Oh, Justice! it moves slowly, but it comes!’

Nothing more sinister than this den could be looked on – a large yard, paved with moss-grown flagstones; a well in one corner, the stagnant water of which was frightful to behold; a wooden staircase leading up to a railed gallery, from the balustrade of which hung the tick of an old mattress; to the left, on the first floor, a drain-stone indicated the kitchen; to the right, the upper windows of the house looked into the street. All was dark, decaying, and dank-looking.

The sun penetrated only for an hour or two during the day the depths of this dismal sty; then the shadows again spread over it – the light fell in lozenge shapes upon the crumbling walls, on the mouldy balcony, on the dull windows. Clouds of motes danced in the golden rays that not a motion of the air came to disturb.

Oh, the whole place was worthy of its mistress!

I had hardly made these reflections when the old woman entered the yard on her return from market. First, I heard her heavy door grate on its hinges, then Flédermausse, with her basket, appeared. She seemed fatigued – out of breath. The border of her cap hung down upon her nose, as, clutching the wooden rail with one hand, she mounted the stairs.

The heat was suffocating. It was exactly one of those days when insects of every kind – crickets, spiders, mosquitoes – fill old buildings with their grating noises and subterranean borings.

Flédermausse crossed the gallery slowly, like a ferret that feels itself at home. For more than a quarter of an hour she remained in the kitchen, then came out and turned her mattress-tick, swept the stones a little, on which a few straws had been scattered; at last she raised her head, and with her green eyes carefully scrutinised every portion of the roof from which I was observing her.

By what strange intuition did she suspect anything? I know not; but I gently lowered the uplifted slate into its place, and gave over watching for the rest of that day.

The day following Flédermausse appeared to be reassured. A jagged ray of light fell into the gallery; passing this, she caught a fly, and delicately presented it to a spider established in an angle of the roof.

The spider was so large, that, in spite of the distance, I saw it descend round by round of its ladder, then, gliding along one thread, like a drop of venom, seize its prey from the fingers of the dreadful old woman, and remount rapidly. Flédermausse watched it attentively; then her eyes half-closed, she sneezed, and cried to herself in a jocular tone:

‘Bless you, beauty! – bless you!’

For six weeks I could discover nothing as to the power of Flédermausse: sometimes I saw her peeling potatoes, sometimes spreading her linen on the balustrade. Sometimes I saw her spin; but she never sang, as old women usually do, their quivering voices going so well with the humming of the spinning-wheel. Silence reigned about her. She had no cat – the favourite company of old maids; not a sparrow ever flew down into her yard, in passing over which the pigeons seemed to hurry their flight. It seemed as if everything were afraid of her look.

The spider alone took pleasure in her society.

I now look back with wonder at my patience during those long hours of observation; nothing escaped my attention, nothing was indifferent to me; at the least sound I lifted my slate. Mine was a boundless curiosity stimulated by an indefinable fear.

Toubec complained.

‘What the devil are you doing with your time, Master Christian?’ he would say to me. ‘Formerly, you had something ready for me every week; now, hardly once in a month. Oh, you painters! people may well say, “Idle as a painter!” As soon as they have a few kreutzer before them, they put their hands in their pockets and go to sleep!’

I myself was beginning to lose courage. With all my watching and spying, I had discovered nothing extraordinary. I was inclining to think that the old woman might not be so dangerous after all – that I had been wrong, perhaps, to suspect her. In short, I tried to find excuses for her. But one fine evening, while, with my eye to the opening in the roof, I was giving myself up to these charitable reflections, the scene abruptly changed.

Flédermausse passed along her gallery with the swiftness of a flash of light. She was no longer herself: she was erect, her jaws knit, her look fixed, her neck extended; she moved with long strides, her grey hair streaming behind her.

‘Oh, oh!’ I said to myself, ‘something is going on – attention!’

But the shadows of night descended on the big house, the noises of the town died out, and all became silent. I was about to seek my bed, when, happening to look out of my skylight, I saw a light in the window of the green chamber of the
Bœuf-gras
– a traveller was occupying that terrible room!

All my fears were instantly revived. The old woman’s excitement explained itself – she scented another victim!

I could not sleep all that night. The rustling of the straw of my mattress, the nibbling of a mouse under the floor, sent a chill through me. I rose and looked out of my window – I listened. The light I had seen was no longer visible in the green chamber.

During one of these moments of poignant anxiety – whether the result of illusion or of reality – I fancied I could discern the figure of the old witch, likewise watching and listening.

The night passed, the dawn showed grey against my window-panes, and, slowly increasing, the sounds and movements of the re-awakened town arose. Harassed with fatigue and emotion, I at last fell asleep; but my repose was of short duration, and by eight o’clock I was again at my post of observation.

It appeared that Flédermausse had passed a night no less stormy than mine had been; for, when she opened the door of the gallery, I saw that a livid pallor was upon her cheeks and skinny neck. She had nothing on but her chemise and a flannel petticoat; a few locks of rusty grey hair fell upon her shoulders. She looked up musingly towards my garret; but she saw nothing – she was thinking of something else.

Suddenly she descended into the yard, leaving her shoes at the top of the stairs. Doubtless her object was to assure herself that the outer door was securely fastened. She then hurried up the stairs, taking three or four steps at a time. It was frightful to see! She rushed into one of the side rooms, and I heard the sound of a heavy box-lid fall. Then Flédermausse reappeared in the gallery, dragging with her a lay-figure the size of life – and this figure was dressed like the unfortunate student of Heidelberg!

With surprising dexterity the old woman suspended this hideous object to a beam of the over-hanging roof, then went down into the yard, to contemplate it from that point of view. A peal of grating laughter broke from her lips – she hurried up the stairs, and rushed down again, like a maniac; and every time she did this she burst into fresh fits of laughter.

A sound was heard outside the street door; the old woman sprang to the figure, snatched it from its fastening, and carried it into the house; then she reappeared and leaned over the balcony, with outstretched neck, glittering eyes, and eagerly-listening ears. The sound passed away – the muscles of her face relaxed, she drew a long breath. The passing of a vehicle had alarmed the old witch.

She then, once more, went back into her chamber, and I heard the lid of the box close heavily.

This strange scene utterly confounded all my ideas. What could that lay-figure mean?

I became more watchful and attentive than ever. Flédermausse went out with her basket, and I watched her to the top of the street; she had resumed her air of tottering agedness, walking with short steps, and from time to time half-turning her head, so as to enable herself to look behind out of the corners of her eyes. For five long hours she remained abroad, while I went and came from my spying-place incessantly, meditating all the while – the sun heating the slates above my head till my brain was almost scorched.

I saw at his window the traveller who occupied the green chamber at the
Bœuf-gras
; he was a peasant of Nassau, wearing a three-cornered hat, a scarlet waistcoat, and having a broad laughing countenance. He was tranquilly smoking his Ulm pipe, unsuspicious of anything wrong. I felt impelled to call out to him, ‘My good fellow, be on your guard! Don’t let yourself be fascinated by the old woman! – don’t trust yourself!’ But he could not have understood a word I said, even if he had heard me.

About two o’clock Flédermausse came back. The sound of her door opening echoed to the end of the passage. Presently she appeared alone, quite alone, in the yard, and seated herself on the lowest step of the gallery-stairs. She placed her basket at her feet and drew from it, first several bunches of herbs, then some vegetables – then a three-cornered hat, a scarlet velvet waistcoat, a pair of plush breeches, and a pair of thick worsted stockings – the complete costume of a peasant of Nassau!

I reeled with giddiness – flames passed before my eyes.

I remembered those precipices that drew one towards them with irresistible power – wells that have had to be filled up because of persons throwing themselves into them – trees that have had to be cut down because of people hanging themselves upon them – the contagion of suicide and theft and murder, which at various times has taken possession of people’s minds, by means well understood; that strange inducement, for example, which makes people yawn because they see others yawn – kill themselves because others kill themselves. My hair rose upon my head with horror!