The Invisible Eye: Tales of Terror by Emile Erckmann and Louis Alexandre Chatrian

These ruins, situated some twenty minutes from the village, seemed quite insignificant; they were some pieces of dilapidated walls, four to six feet high, which stretched out in the midst of the heather. Archaeologists call them the aqueducts of Seranus, the Roman camp of the Holderlock, or the remains of Théodoric, according to their whim. The only thing which was really remarkable in these ruins was the stairway of a chamber hewn from the rock.

In a manner contrary to spiral stairs, instead of concentric circles narrowing at each step, the spiral of this one got wider, so that the bottom of the cistern was three times wider than the entrance. Was it a whim of architecture, or rather some other reason which gave rise to this bizarre structure? Little does it matter! The fact is that there resulted from it in the cistern this vague roaring such as can be heard by pressing a seashell to one’s ear, and that one can hear the steps of the travellers on the gravel, the stirring of the air, the rustling of the leaves, and even the distant words of those passing along at the foot of the hill.

And so our three characters climbed the little path, between the vines and the kitchen-gardens of Hirchwiller.

‘I can see nothing,’ said the burgomaster, raising his nose mockingly.

‘Nor I,’ repeated the constable, imitating the tone of the other.

‘It is in the hole,’ murmured the shepherd.

‘We shall see, we shall see,’ took up the burgomaster.

Thus it was that after a quarter of an hour they arrived at the entrance to the chamber. The night was bright, clear, and perfectly calm. As far as the eye could see the moon outlined nocturnal landscapes of bluish lines, studded with slender trees, whose shadows seem sketched in black pencil. The heather and the broom in blossom perfumed the air with their sharp smell and the frogs of a neighbouring pool sang their full-throated chorus, interrupted with silences. But all these details escaped our fine countrymen. Their sole thoughts were of catching the ‘spirit’.

When they reached the stair, all three stopped and listened, then looked into the darkness. Nothing appeared, nothing stirred.

‘Confound it,’ said the burgomaster. ‘We have forgotten to bring a candle. You go down, Kasper, you know the way better than me. I’ll follow.’

At this suggestion the shepherd stepped back suddenly. If left to his own devices the poor man would have taken flight. His woeful countenance made the burgomaster burst out laughing.

‘Ah well, Hans, since he doesn’t want to go down, you show me the way,’ he said to the constable.

‘But, master burgomaster,’ said the latter, ‘you are well aware that there are steps missing. We would risk breaking our necks!’

‘Well then, what are we to do?’

‘Yes, what are we to do?’

‘Send your dog,’ resumed Pétrus.

The shepherd whistled for his dog, showed him the stairs, urged him down; but he was no more willing than the rest to try his luck.

At that moment a bright idea struck the constable.

‘Hey, Mr Burgomaster,’ he said. ‘If you were to fire a shot into it …’

‘Indeed,’ exclaimed the other, ‘you are right. One will see clearly, at least.’

And without hesitation the good fellow approached the stair, levelling his gun.

But because of the acoustic effect described earlier, the ‘spirit’, the marauder, the individual, who was actually in the chamber, had heard everything. The idea of being shot at didn’t appeal to him, for in a piercing, high-pitched voice he shouted out: ‘Stop! Don’t shoot! I’m coming up!’

Then the three dignitaries looked at each other, chuckling, and the burgomaster, leaning forward again into the opening, exclaimed in a coarse voice: ‘Hurry up, you rogue, or I’ll shoot! Hurry up!’

He cocked his gun. The click appeared to hasten the ascent of the mysterious character. Stones could be heard rolling. However it took another minute before he appeared, the chamber being over sixty feet deep.

What was this man doing in the midst of such darkness? He must be some great criminal! Thus at least thought Pétrus Mauerer and his assistants.

At last a vague shape emerged from the shadow, then slowly a small man, four and a half feet tall at the most, thin, in rags, his face wizened and yellow, his eyes sparkling like those of a magpie and his hair untidy, came out shouting: ‘What right have you to come and trouble my studies, you wretches?’

This grandiloquence hardly matched his clothes and his appearance, so the indignant burgomaster replied: ‘Try and show some respect, you rogue, or I’ll start by giving you a thrashing.’

‘A thrashing!’ said the little man, hopping with anger and standing right under the burgomaster’s nose.

‘Yes,’ resumed the former, who couldn’t help but admire the courage of the pygmy, ‘if you don’t answer satisfactorily the questions that I am going to put to you. I am the burgomaster of Hirchwiller, here is the village constable and the shepherd with his dog. We are stronger than you … be sensible and tell me who you are, what you are doing here, and why you don’t dare appear in broad daylight. Then we can see what shall be done with you.’

‘All that’s none of your business,’ answered the little man in his curt voice. ‘I shall not answer you.’

‘In that case, march,’ said the burgomaster, grasping him by the nape of the neck. ‘You’ll spend the night in prison.’

The little man struggled but in vain. Completely exhausted, he said (not without some nobility), ‘Let me go, sir. I yield to force. I shall follow you.’

The burgomaster, who wasn’t lacking in manners himself, became calmer in his turn.

‘Your word?’ he said.

‘My word!’

‘Fine … Quick march!’

And that is how on the night of 29 July 1835 the burgomaster captured a small red-haired man, as he emerged from the cave of Geierstein.

On their return to Hirchwiller, the vagabond was double-locked in, not forgetting the outside bolt and the padlock. Afterwards everyone went to recover from their exertions. Pétrus Mauerer, once in bed, pondered over this strange adventure till midnight.

The next day, about nine o’clock, Hans Goerner, the constable, having received orders to bring the prisoner to the town-hall, so that he could undergo a new examination, went with four sturdy lads to the cell. They opened the door, quite curious to look at the will-o’-the-wisp. They saw him hanging by his tie from the bars of the skylight. Several say that he was still kicking … others that he was already stiff. Whichever it was, someone ran off to get Pétrus Mauerer, to inform him of the fact. What is certain is that at the arrival of the latter, the little man had breathed his last.

The magistrate and the doctor of Hirchwiller drew up a formal report of the catastrophe. The unknown man was buried and all was settled.

Now about three weeks after these events, I went to see my cousin Pétrus Mauerer. I am his closest relative and, consequently, his heir. This circumstance maintains an intimate relationship between us. We were dining together, chatting of this and that, when the burgomaster told me the little story as I have just related it.

‘It’s strange, cousin,’ I said to him, ‘really strange. And you have no other information on this unknown man?’

‘None.’

‘Have you found anything that could put you on the track of his intentions?’

‘Absolutely nothing, Christian.’

‘But after all, what could he have been doing in the chamber? What was he living on?’

The burgomaster shrugged his shoulders, filled our glasses, and answered me: ‘Your health, cousin.’

‘And yours.’

We remained silent for some moments. It was impossible for me to accept the sudden end of the adventure. In spite of myself I gloomily pondered over the sad fate of certain men who appear and disappear in this world, like the grass in the fields, without leaving the slightest memory or the slightest regret.

‘Cousin,’ I resumed, ‘how long would it take from here to the ruins of Geierstein?’

‘Twenty minutes at the most. Why?’

‘Because I would like to see them.’

‘You know that today we have a meeting of the town council and I cannot accompany you.’

‘Oh! I shall be able to find them on my own.’

‘No, the constable shall show you the way, he has nothing better to do.’ My dear cousin called his servant.

‘Katel, get Hans Goerner … make him hurry up … It’s two o’clock. I must go.’

The servant went out and the constable wasn’t long in coming. He received orders to guide me to the ruins.

While the burgomaster was making his way solemnly to the council chamber, we were already going up the hill. Hans Goerner pointed out the remains of the aqueduct. At this point the rocky ridges of the plateau, the bluish distances of the Hundsrück, the dismal dilapidated walls, covered in a dark ivy, the tolling of the bell of Hirchwiller, summoning the dignitaries to the meeting, the constable panting, clinging to the brushwood … took on in my eyes a sad, harsh hue. It was the story of this poor hanged man which stained the horizon.

The stairway to the chamber appeared very strange, its spiral elegant. The prickly bushes in the clefts of each step, the deserted appearance of the surroundings, all were in harmony with my sadness. We descended. Soon the bright point of the opening which seemed to grow narrower and narrower and to assume the form of a star with curved rays, alone sent us its pale light.

When we reached the bottom of the chamber what a superb view awaited us of those stairs lit up underneath, throwing their shadows with wonderful regularity. Then I heard the buzzing which Pétrus had told me about; the huge granite conch had as many echoes as stones!

‘Since the little man, has anyone come down here?’ I asked the constable.

‘No, sir. The peasants are afraid. They think that the hanged man will return.’

‘And you?’

‘Me, I’m not curious.’

‘But the magistrate … his duty was …’

‘Humph! What would he be doing in the “Owl’s Ear”?’

‘They call this the Owl’s Ear?’

‘Yes.’

‘It is almost that,’ I said, looking up. ‘This inverted vault forms the outer ear very well, the underneath part of the steps represents the drum, and the bends of the stairway the cochlea, the labyrinth and the opening of the ear. That then explains the murmuring that we can hear: we are at the bottom of a colossal ear.’

‘That is very possible,’ said Hans Goerner, who seemed to understand nothing of my observations.

We were on our way back up. I had already taken the first steps when I felt something snap beneath my foot. I bent down to see what it could be and I noticed at the same time a white object in front of me. It was a sheet of torn paper. As for the hard matter that had been pulverized, I recognized a sort of pot made of glazed stoneware.

‘Ho! Ho!’ I said to myself, ‘this will be able to throw some light on the burgomaster’s story for us.’

And I joined Hans Goerner, who was by now waiting for me at the kerb of the cistern.

‘Now, sir,’ he shouted to me, ‘where would you like to go?’

‘First of all let us sit down a little, we shall see presently.’

And I found a place on a large stone, while the constable let his hawk-like eyes gaze all around the village, to discover marauders in the gardens, if there were any.

I carefully examined the stoneware vessel, of which no more than a fragment remained. This fragment took the shape of a funnel, lined with down on the inside. It was impossible for me to make out its purpose. Next I read the piece of paper, which was written on in a very steady hand. I transcribe it here according to the text. It seems to be a continuation of another sheet, for which I have since searched in the vicinity of the ruin, but in vain.

My ‘microeartrumpet’ has therefore the double advantage of multiplying ad infinitum the intensity of sounds, and of being able to fit the ear, which in no way impedes the observer. You cannot imagine, my dear master, the charm that one feels on hearing these thousands of imperceptible sounds which, on fine summer days, blend into one mighty buzzing. The bee has his song like the nightingale, the wasp is the warbler of the mosses, the cicada is the lark of the tall grasses, in this the mite is the wren – it has only a sigh, but this sigh is melodious!

This discovery which, from the sentimental point of view, makes us live the life of universal nature, surpasses in its importance all that I could say about it.

After so many sufferings, privations, and worries how happy it is in the end to gather the rewards of our labours! With what leaps the soul rises up to the divine author of these microscopic worlds, whose splendour is revealed to us. What then are these long hours of anguish, hunger, scorn which overwhelmed us in the past? Nothing, sir, nothing! Tears of gratitude wet our eyes. One is proud to have bought through suffering new joys for humanity and to have contributed to its improvement. But however vast, however admirable are the first results of my ‘microeartrumpet’, its advantages are not limited to that alone. There are others more positive, more material in some respects, and which can be translated into figures.

Just as the telescope causes us to discover myriads of worlds, completing their harmonious revolutions in the infinite, so too my ‘microeartrumpet’ extends the sense of hearing beyond all the limits of possibility. Thus, sir, I shall not stop at the circulation of the blood and vital fluids in the living body; you hear them running with the impulsiveness of cataracts, you perceive them with a distinctness which terrifies you, the slightest irregularity in the pulse, the lightest obstacle strikes you and has on you the effect of a rock against which break the waves of a torrent.

It is undoubtedly a tremendous conquest for the development of our physiological and pathological knowledge, but it is not on this point that I insist.

By pressing your ear to the ground you hear the hot springs surging at immeasurable depths, you assess their volume, the currents, the obstacles.

Would you like to go any further? Enter an underground chamber sufficiently large to pick up a considerable quantity of sounds; then, at night, when all is asleep, when nothing disturbs the inner sounds of our globe, listen!

Sir, all that it is possible for me to tell you at present, because in the midst of my abject misery, my privations, and often my despair, I have only a few lucid moments left to gather together geological observations, all that I can assert for you is that the bubbling incandescent lava, the glow of boiling substances is something terrifying and sublime, and which can only be compared to the impression of the astronomer sounding the endless depths of the universe with his telescope.

However, I must admit that these impressions need to be studied further and classified methodically, so as to draw from them fixed conclusions. Consequently as soon as you condescend, my dear and worthy master, to send to me at Neustadt the small sum that I ask to provide for my basic needs, we shall see that we agree with a view to establishing three subterranean observatories, one in the valley of Catania, the other in Iceland, and the third in one of the valleys of Capac-Uren, Songay, or Cayembé-Uren, the deepest of the Cordilleras, and as a consequence …

Here the letter stopped.

I was dumbfounded. Had I read the ideas of a madman, or rather the fulfilled inspirations of a genius? What was I to say? or think? Thus this man, this wretch, living at the bottom of a den like a fox, dying of hunger, had perhaps been one of those chosen people, whom the Supreme Being sends to earth, to enlighten future generations.

And this man had hanged himself out of disgust and despair! His request had not been answered when he only asked for a piece of bread in exchange for his discovery. It was horrible.

A long time, a very long time, I stayed there, dreaming, thanking heaven for having limited my intelligence to the everyday needs for life, for not having wanted to make myself superior to the common crowd. Finally the constable seeing me staring, my mouth wide open, ventured to touch my shoulder: ‘M. Christian,’ he said to me, ‘look it is getting late. The burgomaster must have returned from the meeting.’

‘Ah! That’s right!’ I exclaimed, crumpling up the paper. ‘On our way.’

We climbed down the hill again.

My worthy cousin received me, his face beaming, on the threshold of his house: ‘Well, well! Christian! Have you found anything of this idiot who hanged himself?’

‘No.’

‘As I suspected. He was some madman who escaped from Stefansfeld or elsewhere. Indeed he did well to hang himself. When one is good for nothing, it’s the simplest thing.’

The following day I left Hirchwiller. I shall never go back.

THE WHITE AND THE BLACK

I

At that time we passed our evenings at Brauer’s alehouse, which opens upon the square of Vieux-Brisach. After eight o’clock there used to drop in, one by one, Frederick Schultz the notary; Frantz Martin the burgomaster, Christopher Ulmett the magistrate; the counsellor Klers; the engineer Rothan; the young organist Theodore Blitz; and some others of the chief townsfolk, who all sat around the same table and drank their foaming bok-bier like brothers.

The apparition of Theodore Blitz, who came to us from Jena with a letter of recommendation from Harmosius – his dark eyes, his brown dishevelled hair, his thin white nose, his metallic voice, and his mystic ideas – occasioned us some little disquiet. It used to trouble us to see him rise abruptly and pace two or three times up and down the room, gesticulating the while, mocking with a strange air the Swiss landscapes with which the walls were adorned – lakes of indigo-blue, mountains of an apple-green, paths of brilliant red. Then he would seat himself down again, empty his glass at a gulp, and commence a discussion about the music of Palestrina, about the lute of the Hebrews, about the introduction of the organ into our churches, about the shophar, the sabbatic epochs, etc. He would knit his brows, plant his sharp elbows on the edge of the table, and lose himself in deep thought. Yes, he perplexed us not a little – we others who were grave and accustomed to methodical ideas. However, it was necessary to put up with it; and the engineer Rothan himself, in spite of his bantering spirit, in the end grew calm and no longer continued to contradict the young organist when he was right.

Theodore Blitz was plainly one of those nervously organised beings who are affected by every change of temperature. The year of which I speak was extremely warm; we had several heavy storms towards the autumn, and folk began to fear for the wine harvest.

One evening all our little world was gathered, according to custom, around the table, with the exception of the magistrate Ulmett and the organist. The burgomaster talked about the weather and great hydraulic works. As for me I listened to the wind gamboling without amongst the plane-trees of the Schlossgarten, to the drip of the water from the spouts, and to its dashing against the windows. From time to time one could hear a tile blown off a roof, a door shut to with a bang, a shutter beat against a wall. Then would arise the great clamour of the storm, sweeping, sighing, and groaning in the distance, as if all the invisible powers were seeking and calling on one another in the darkness, while living things hid themselves, sitting in corners, in order to escape a fearful meeting with them.

From the church of Saint-Landolphe nine o’clock sounded, when Blitz hurriedly entered, shaking his hat like one possessed, and saying in his husky voice: ‘Surely the Evil One is about his work! The white and the black are having a tussle. The nine times nine thousand nine hundred and ninety thousand spirits of Envy battle and tear themselves. Go, Ahriman! Walk! Ravage! Lay waste! The Amschaspands are in flight! Oromage veils her face! What a time, what a time!’

And so saying he walked round the room, stretching his long skinny limbs, and laughing by jerks.

We were all astounded at such an entry, and for some seconds no one spoke a word. Then, however, the engineer Rothan, led on by his caustic humour, said: ‘What nonsense is that you are singing there, M. Organist? What do Amschaspands signify to us? or the nine times nine thousand nine hundred and ninety thousand spirits of Envy? Ha! ha! ha! It is really comic. Where on earth did you pick up such strange language?’

Theodore Blitz stopped suddenly short in his walk and shut one eye, while the other, wide open, shone with a diabolic irony.

When Rothan had finished: ‘Oh, engineer,’ said he; ‘oh! sublime spirit, master of the trowel, and mortar, director of stones, he who orders right angles, angles acute, angles obtuse, you are right – a hundred times right.’

He bent himself with a mocking air, and went on: ‘Nothing exists but matter – the level, the rule, and the compass. The revelations of Zoroaster, of Moses, of Pythagoras, of Odin – the harmony, the melody, art, sentiment, they are all dreams, unworthy of an enlightened intellect such as yours. To you belongs the truth, the eternal truth. Ha! ha! ha! I bow myself before you: I salute you; I prostrate myself before your glory, imperishable as that of Nineveh and of Babylon.’

Finishing his speech, he made two little turns on his heels, and uttered a laugh so piercing that it was more like the crowing of a cock at daybreak.

Rothan was getting angry, when at the moment the old magistrate Ulmett came in, his head protected by a great otter-skin cap, his shoulders covered by his bottle-green greatcoat bordered with fox-skin. His hands hung down beside him, his back was bent, his eyes were half-closed, his big nose was red, and his large cheeks were wet with rain. He was as wet as a drake.

Outside the rain fell in torrents, the gutters gushed over, the spouts disgorged themselves, and the ditches were swollen into little rivers.

‘Ah, heavens!’ cried the good fellow. ‘Perhaps it was foolish to come out on such a night, and after such work too – two inquests, verbal processes, interrogatories! The bok-bier and old friends, though, would make me swim across the Rhine.’

And muttering these words he put off his otter-skin cap and opened his great pelisse to take out his long tobacco-pipe and his pouch, which he carefully laid down upon the table. After that he hung his greatcoat and his hat up beside the window, and called out: ‘Brauer!’

‘Well, M. Magistrate, what do you want?’

‘You would do well to put to the shutters. Believe me, this storm will wind up with some thunder.’

The innkeeper went out and put the shutters to, and the old magistrate, sitting down in his corner, heaved a deep sigh.

‘You know what has happened, burgomaster?’ he asked in a solemn voice.

‘No. What has occurred, my old Christopher?’

Before he replied M. Ulmett threw a glance around the room.

‘We are here alone, my friends,’ said he, ‘so I am able to tell you. About three o’clock this afternoon some one found poor Gredel Dick under the sluice of the miller at Holderloch.’

‘Under the sluice at Holderloch?’ cried all.

‘Yes; a cord round her neck.’

In order to understand how these words affected us it is necessary that you should know that Gredel Dick was one of the prettiest girls in Vieux-Brisach; a tall brunette, with blue eyes and red cheeks; the only daughter of an old anabaptist, Petrus Dick, who farmed considerable portions of the Schlossgarten. For some time she had seemed sad and melancholy – she who had beforetime been so merry in the morning at the washing-place, and in the evening at the well in the midst of her friends. She had been seen crying, and her sorrow had been ascribed to the incessant pursuit of her by Saphéri Mutz, the postmaster’s son – a big fellow, thin, vigorous, with an aquiline nose and curling black hair. He followed her like a shadow, and never let her off his arm at the dances.