“He walked in a funny way before,” Mock thought as he slid into his leather slippers, “nothing changed.” He emerged from the alcove in his nightshirt, over which he had thrown a quilted dressing gown. In his hand was the bottle of cognac. He raised the hatch in the corner of the room and went down into the butcher’s shop. He squatted next to the heavy metal grille that covered the drain and listened for the squeaking of rats. He heard nothing. He sat on the counter and put the bottle to his lips. After a few swigs he tied some string around its neck, hid it in the drain and replaced the grille. Now his father would not find the bottle and pour it out. He went back upstairs and lowered the hatch, thinking about the rats he occasionally saw on the ground floor. Sitting heavily on his bed, he extinguished the candle and was sure he would soon be overcome by the sleep of a drunkard: heavy, thick, and free of nightmares. “It’s a good thing I didn’t tell him about my dreams.” He did not think kindly of Doctor Kaznicz’s wise eyes as he drifted off. His suppositions were correct: he did not dream of anything.
2. IX.1919
Eureka! I think I have found the clue that will enable me to continue, after all my endless searching. Today I came across a very interesting passage in Augsteiner, a quotation from a letter by Pliny the Younger. We read one of his letters in secondary school — trivial, charming holiday reading. This was towards the end of the school year, after a whole year of read the cripplingly difficult and dull-as-ditchwater Livy. That letter was light relief for us, if any Latin text can be considered light relief and not merely a superhuman exercise for the brain. It was a beautiful story about a boy swimming on a dolphin. I had not known that this same Pliny also wrote about ghosts. I quote the most important fragments of this letter in my clumsy translation:
“In Athens there was a house which was large and spacious, yet sinister and and surrounded by ill fame. In the night’s silence, at first as if from a distance and then ever closer, the clanking of iron would be heard, and if one listened carefully, the rattling of chains. Shortly afterwards a phantom would appear: a thin old man, dirty and emaciated, with a matted beard and his hair standing on end. There were chains on his hands and manacles on his feet. He shook them as he walked.
“The terrified inhabitants passed long sleepless nights of horror and gloom. Sleeplessness was followed by sickness, ever-increasing fear by death. Even by day, though the ghost had withdrawn, the memory of it tormented the household. It seemed to them that the spectre still glided before their eyes — fear tormented them for longer than what had caused it. So the house was uninhabited and condemned to being deserted; and all that it contained seemed to belong to this horror.
“The building was put up for sale — should someone ignorant of such great misfortune wish to buy or rent it.
“There arrived in Athens at this time a philosopher named Atenodor, who read the announcement about this sale or rental. Intrigued by the low price, he enquired about everything in great detail and when he learned the whole truth he nevertheless — or all the more so — rented the mysterious house.
“As dusk fell he ordered his bed to be made up in the front part of the house and asked for some tablets on which to write, as well as a graver and a candle. His family, on the other hand, he settled in the inner rooms. He tried to occupy his mind, eyes and hands solely with writing, so that none of the phantoms he had heard about and no unnecessary fears would arise in his idle mind.
To begin with there was nothing but silence, but a short time later the rattle of chains and clanging of manacles could be heard. The philosopher did not look up, did not set down his graver and remained deaf to the noise. The noise, on the other hand, grew louder and could already be heard on the threshold, already in the room …
He looked up and recognized the apparition that had been described to him. The spectre stood wagging its finger as if beckoning Atenodor. Atenodor, however, reached once again for his graver and wax tablets. Meanwhile the ghost continued to rattle its manacles, now almost above the philosopher’s head. Atenodor looked at it again, and the ghost made the same sign as before. So he stood, picked up the candle and followed the phantom. It moved slowly, dragging its heavy chains. As it turned into the courtyard of the building, it suddenly dissolved into thin air. Atenodor remained alone. He picked up some leaves and grass and used them to mark out the spot where the spectre had disappeared.
“The following day he went to the administration and asked that the yard be dug up at that exact spot. Bones, bare and gnawed, were found bound by chains. Only they remained; the body had, over the years, perished in the soil. These remains were gathered up and officially buried. Ever since then ghosts have, fortunately, ceased to torment the household.”
What conclusion can be drawn from Pliny’s text? Man’s spiritual element can be abstracted, and then perceived through its urge to return, which must be appropriately contrived. Maybe this is a way of activating clusters of spiritual energy. We shall see. I have conducted an experiment; time will verify its results. How did I do it? I isolated the man and forced him to confess to his adultery in writing. It was a terrible confession for him to have to make since he was permeated to the bone with middle-class morality. I brought this man to a certain place late at night. He was bound and gagged. I freed his right hand, tied him to a chair and then asked him once again to deny what he had written previously, promising him that if he obeyed I would give this second letter to his wife. He feverishly scribbled something down. I took the second letter, the denial, and slipped it down the drain. I witnessed his fury and his pain. “I’m going to come back here,” his eyes told me. Then I took the man out to the carriage and drove away. Later I killed him, leaving him where he was sure to be found. His ghost will return and draw the attention of the inhabitants of that place to the drain.
BRESLAU, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3RD, 1919
TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
Doctor Cornelius Ruhtgard, specialist in sexually transmitted diseases, received patients in his five-room apartment at Landsbergstrasse 8, near South Park, on Wednesdays. The apartment occupied the entire first floor of the detached tenement building, so its windows looked out in all four directions. From one of the bathrooms stretched a view of the park, which was now being admired by a young woman pulling on a long-legged undergarment after her thorough examination. Doctor Ruhtgard sat in his surgery writing out a prescription for Salvarsal. He smiled as he thought of her earnest protestations that over the past year, that is, ever since the death of her husband in the war, she had not had intercourse. The state of her health clearly indicated otherwise, and the time she last surrendered to the above-mentioned act — with all its consequences — could be established to within a few days. Pretending to take her at her word, he walked her to the door, then returned to his surgery and gazed out of the window. His patient approached a smart Daimler parked by a lamp post. She did not get into the car but, clearly upset, explained something to the person inside. Ruhtgard knew what would happen next; he could almost hear the infected man yelling with fury and the tyres squealing as the automobile violently pulled away.