Читать книгу The Sublime Jester - Ezra S. Brudno - Страница 5

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The evening proved still more exciting for Albert. He remained seated with rapt attention, listening to the talk of his elders. For relatives had dropped in—Uncle Salomon and Aunt Braunelle and Aunt Hanna—and all talked enthusiastically. His father, David, however, did most of the talking. There was something of the gambler’s optimism in David Zorn. It did not take much to make him over-sanguine. Pacing up and down the room, he ran his fingers through his well-trimmed blond beard, and from time to time paused to take a mouthful of Assmanshauser, his favorite vintage, of which he had opened a bottle in celebration of the great event.

The father’s feverish speech stirred the boy’s volatile imagination. Albert became restless and, unobserved, left the house for the Marktplatz, where he hoped to find a few loitering friends.

But the large square was deserted; not a single youngster in front of the town-hall, not a pedestrian in sight. Even the squeaky-voiced vendor of apple tarts had left his post in front of the bronze statue in the centre of the Marktplatz. There was quiet everywhere, the quietness of a town occupied by the enemy. For this was during the period when Gunsdorf was occupied by Napoleon’s troops.

Albert made his way back through one of the dark streets and as he turned a corner caught the sound of quick footsteps back of him. But before he had time to think he was struck with a fishing rod, and above the clatter of his fleeing assailant came the donkey-call in Shorty Fritz’s familiar voice—“Al—ber’! Al—ber’!”.

Albert wandered back home, a great pain in his head. As he walked past St. Andrew’s church, the pallor of the moon resting upon the Jesuit saints in the shadowy niches, he turned his eyes away with a sense of dread. There was venom in his heart. Somehow he blamed those sculptured saints for his present sufferings. Strange feelings possessed him. Melancholy enveloped his whole being. What if his father should bring back millions from Amsterdam? Every Fritz and every Kunz would still run after him and call: “Al—ber’ ”.

He entered his home stealthily as if he feared his mother might hear his very thoughts, and when he retired he lay in bed, a prey to strange fantasies. Soon, however, his roving thoughts, like twilight merging into night, turned into a web of dreams ...

The world was coming to an end. God was standing in a garden of colorful flowers placed in the midst of waving wheat-fields, the marble bust of the broken Grecian goddess in his grandfather’s garden glistening in the sun. Then God rolled up the nodding flowers and waving grain stalks as one rolls up a carpet and, after placing them in a huge wagon, lifted up a great heap of apple blossoms and honeysuckle and piled them, too, into the van.

“Yes, all this goes to Amsterdam,” God was saying to Albert’s father, who was gathering armsful of golden leaves and loading them into the large vehicle.

Then Uncle Salomon climbed a high ladder—it was the same ladder the sexton climbed to trim the candles in the great chandelier—and took the sun out of the sky. For a moment he held it in the hollow of his hands, as the sexton often did when filling the large lamp with oil, while Johann Traub, the tailor, who stood nearby, donned a white shroud.

It sounded strange to hear Johann speak Hebrew, for Albert knew the tailor was dead and he had only spoken German, and he wondered if all dead people spoke Hebrew. But then Uncle Salomon began to climb down the ladder, with the sun under his arm, and it grew darker and darker—and only a few stars, suspended from the sky by rainbow-colored ribbons, were emitting bits of flashing light, and presently the gorgeous ribbons broke and the stars dropped like live sparks flying out of a chimney on a winter night ...

“Everything packed?”

It was the voice of God, who was now seated on the box of the colossal van, and lashing the fiery steeds, the van disappeared in a cloud of silvery dust, leaving Albert behind in darkness and in tears. He peered into space, but could see nothing—nothing but an endless stretch of darkness. Finally he began to move aimlessly and wandered and wandered until he reached a freshly dug grave. Leb, the grave-digger, with spade in hand, was in the grave, digging deeper and deeper and singing merrily: “Everybody is dead—everybody is dead!” he hummed in his Westphalian dialect. Then he turned around and said, “Shove him in.”

There was no one else around but himself. Albert wondered to whom the grave-digger was speaking. Presently he noticed a very aged woman, a toothless hag. She stepped forward, holding the head of a man in her apron. Harry shuddered at the sight of the decapitated head and wanted to flee, but could not move. He stood paralyzed. He wanted to cry but his voice was gone. Then the toothless hag flung the head into the grave, gave a fiendish, blood-curdling laugh, and jumped in after it and began to dance. She danced as he had often seen drunken peasants dance—shaking her head from side to side and moving her legs wearily.

“Now I must run—they are coming,” the grave-digger exclaimed and suddenly vanished.

Albert trembled in every limb. He was again alone, with nothing but the open grave before him. The darkness around him seemed impenetrable. He could not see an inch away. Only strange voices of invisible men reached his ears, with the sound of autumn leaves in his ears. Then flashes of lightning came and revealed to him a line of men, in single file, coming through a gap in a ruined wall. He could not see the men’s faces but they wore little crucifixes over their breasts and swayed ornamental containers of frankincense such as he had seen in the Franciscan cloister. The next moment a strange light appeared and he saw himself surrounded by black robed priests, with mitres on their heads, and one of them gave him a sharp cut with a fishing rod and jeered. “Your inheritance!—your inheritance!”

“What’s the matter, Albert?—You gave such a shriek.”

He opened his eyes and beheld his mother at the foot of his bed.

“I had a dreadful dream—” he muttered.

“Always your dreams,” the mother said, smiling affectionately, as she walked out of the room.