Latest / The Scorpion by Anna Elisabet Weirauch. / 13 - The Scorpion.

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13 - The Scorpion. · The Scorpion by Anna Elisabet Weirauch.

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Myra was glad to get out on the street. The
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: keen east wind and the rain mixed with hail cut
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: her face and felt good to her. She walked so
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: fast that Gisela found it too difficult to keep up.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: She felt as if she were being grievously insulted on
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: all sides, and as if she might avenge herself by
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: letting the rain lash her as she hurried through the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: cold dark night. Myra and Icarus walked down a street
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: that echoed with the cold and was feathered with the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: fine frost. Did you wonder? asked Icarus. Why I spoke
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so ostentatiously about my friends at the table? It was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: because I have had a little dispute with Miss Peters.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Miss Peters is really a splendid person, but somewhat strict
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: in her judgments, or I should rather say is somewhat
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: limited in her understanding of things. What she doesn't understand
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: she tosses altogether into one pot and damns eternally, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: among such understandable things, of course, is included a friendship
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: like that of Sophie and Nora. She flung about words
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: like abnormal and perverse and unnatural, and intimated that it
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: was no place for you. For me. Myra was astonished.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: How on earth did you come to be talking of me?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: To be quite frank, we began with you, Achaerius explained
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: with a laugh that pleaded for forgiveness. Yes, yes, one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: never knows how important one is to others or what
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: interesting conversation one makes. Seriously, we never know who our
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: enemies are or who is going to pick us to
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: pieces next. Conversely, we don't know our friends either or
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: who is looking out for our wheel and woe. Nora
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: told me recently that she had known you a long time,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: said Myra with a gently insistent effort to turn the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: conversation from herself. A very long time. She sighed with
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: relief as Icarus changed the subject. I knew her when
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: she was still the beautiful Nora Zierne, the most popular
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of dancers, the most daring of riders. She had hundreds
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of suitors, and out of those hundreds of course she
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: had to pick hers felt. He stopped for a moment
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: with a bitter laugh. He was diseased, wasn't he? asked Myra. Oh,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: if you know that much, there's no indiscretion in my
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: telling you more. He was cured, so called, as he
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: used proudly to relate to anyone who wanted or did
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: not want to listen to him, but not to his
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: wife and her family. Hirsfeld was an oldest son and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: he wanted an heir. And an heir did arrive, but
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it was covered with pimples from the day it was born.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: What that most maternal of women suffered with that child
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: can never be told. And all of us, his so-called friends,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: we looked at the child and looked at one another
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and knew that it would never be anything else but
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a child. But not one of us dared say a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: word to the young mother. Meanwhile she hoped and hoped
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and cherished the unhappy little worm. rejoicing at the tiniest
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: sign of progress. There wasn't much progress to rejoice at.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: At an age when other children were running around, shouting
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and crowing, he would lie on his pillow, hardly turning
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: his head when someone shook something bright before his eyes.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: He'll be a thinker, Nora said then and smiled a
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: heart-rending smile. But when at four years he could not
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: speak a word and would merely utter an incoherent babble,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: she hid him and hid herself from the world. She
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: never left her own house, she received no one. She
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: shut herself and her child in the most impenetrable solitude.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: She still cherished him, played with him, strove tirelessly and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: futilely to make something human out of him. But Mr.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Herzfeld needed an heir. In another six months the unhappy
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: woman was once more in hope. Oh God, she really
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: did hope. At this point a friendly doctor took the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: matter in hand. That is to say, he let fall
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a careless, but honestly indignant word about the irresponsibility of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: bringing babies into the world, and when she questioned him
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and would not let him go, he asked in great
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: astonishment if she really did not know what was wrong
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: with her child, and since she did not, he told her.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Certainly he was entirely within his rights in doing so,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: but he reproached himself bitterly afterwards, for that very day
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Nora was hurt by a fall from a hayloft, and
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: suffered such severe internal injuries that she was never well again.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Whereupon Herzfeld procured a divorce. Is he still alive? asked Myra. Why?
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You made a face when you asked me that as
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: though you intended to kill him if he were. But
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you can rest easy, he is dead. He came to
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: quite a dramatic end or rather, his end had quite
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a dramatic beginning. Imagine, that man intended to marry a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: second time after he divorced Nora. A beautiful innocent young
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: girl from one of the best families. You have no
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  Speaker 1: idea what qualms of conscience Nora suffered at that time.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: She knew the bride, she knew her parents and she
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: knew particularly Herzfeld, her former husband. But despite the fact
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that she knew him so well, she must still have
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: loved him. Somewhere in the innermost recesses of her heart
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: were still the ruins of a strong passion. And it
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: seemed a crime to her to accuse the man. Besides,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: everybody would have called it an act of petty revenge.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, it would be a far greater
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: crime to let the poor girl make such a marriage
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: out of ignorance. Good God, said Myra, did she do it?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Nora was so helpless she could scarcely move, and the
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: situation was further complicated by the fact that the girl
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: had already been in love with Herzfeld while he was married,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and regarded his wife, if not hostily, at least with suspicion.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Nora has often told me that in her desperate dilemma
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: she used to pray for a miracle. And the miracle happened.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: The wedding did not take place. The bridegroom did not appear.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: When they went to fetch him, he hid himself in
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the stable and began shooting with his revolver. At last
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: he was overpowered and taken to an institution. He lived
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: a few months longer subject to delusions of persecution and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: raving madness. Then he died. Softening of the brain. When
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the cause of his death became known, one of his
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: former cronies observed that it was the first time anyone
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: suspected Herzfeld of having a brain. They walked on a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: while in silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Then
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Icarus looked up with sudden resolution. Once more his face
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: was irradiated by that fugitive, friendly smile. But you have
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: got me off my subject very insidiously. I've told you
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a long story, but not a word about what I
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: was instructed to tell you. and not only instructed what
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you of my own free will.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Must you? asked Myra with imploring eyes. Do you really
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: believe there is anything you can tell me? I know
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that you mean well by me, and I am grateful
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to you for it. But I feel so strongly, perhaps
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: because I am so young and have just come of age,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that only I can help myself and that I must
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: help myself. I know that I will not always find
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the best and the shortest way, and I haven't even
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: any goal, or only insofar as it may be a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: goal to want to know life whole, as far as
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: it is possible for a woman to do so, its
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: light and its shadowy sides, its merits and demerits, just
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: as one gets to know a person, whom one loves.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: If you love life, said Icarus with an accommodating persistence,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: you must approach it very discreetly, and if you have
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: no goal or only the desire to see as much
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: as possible in the paths of your own selecting, then
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: you should be careful not to end up in a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: blind alley from which there is no escape. Don't be
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: angry with me, but I have been guilty of watching
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you on the quiet. I've seen you twice a day
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: at least in the last two months. In the course
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: of the years I have acquired some little knowledge of people,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and the impression you make is not that of a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: person who loves life, but of one who is not
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: afraid of death. Myra was already ringing the doorbell, and
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: she turned to him. Is that a contradiction? Can't one
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: do both? Love life and not be afraid of death?
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Perhaps they belong together. I will make it my motto
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  Speaker 1: and write it large over all my days and ways.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Love life and be not afraid of death. I know
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a still better motto, said Icarus. It is possible to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: turn the sentence about. Then I will make it my motto.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: The maid opened the door. To Myra's questioning glance Icarus
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: shook his head slightly. Some other time. They were sitting
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: together in the early twilight of a winter's day, Nora, Sophie,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Icarus and Myra. It was already dark in the room
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: features of the person sitting next one, but nobody wanted
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the light. Myra had asked after John, and Sophie told
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: her with anger and perturbation that he was the victim
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: of some very hateful gossip. Someone had informed his friend,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: the fat old drinker, in a very ugly way, that
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: his money was making it possible for young Craft to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: pursue his studies, or rather that Will Craft was squandering his, drinker's,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: money at cards and on women. Nora had defended John,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: even though she saw him in no very transfiguring light,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and his relationship with drinker was always incomprehensible and painful
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: to her. She had never ceased to believe that his
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: friendship for Will Craft was an entirely ideal infatuation. And
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: suppose it weren't, said Sophie stubbornly. Whenever a human bargain
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is struck the buyer is to blame. The person who
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: sells himself is always an extremity, and it is bad
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: enough that it is possible for a rich swine like
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: him to buy a share in a human creature. His
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: demand to have him wholly and solely to himself is insolence.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Every transaction must be honest, said Icarus in his gentle
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: reflective way. No, Sophie became excited. Whoever buys a human
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: being with his filthy money for the gratification of his
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: base little lusts ought to be deceived. There ought to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: be things that cannot be bought, that really cannot be bought,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: whether it's love of honor or fame or talent or nobility,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the buyer is always the first on the scene, thumping
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: his money bags and commanding, I want that, do this
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: for me, I can pay. It is not until then
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that the commodity appears. Do you suppose that the idea
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: would ever enter the head of a poor musician to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: offer his songs, the most precious things he possesses, to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: a rich money grubber so that they may appear under
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the latter's name? No, that idea could flower only in
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the mind of a rich money grubber. I know many
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: such cases, from the most innocent beginnings when the well-fed
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: son of a middle-class father has his poor, but talented
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: schoolmate compose his love letters for him for a handful
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of cigarettes, to those first nights at the opera when
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a gentleman takes his bows as the composer who has
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: never written a line of music and couldn't write one. Ah,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: the world is a rather disgusting place. One can only
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: be happy by having as little to do with it
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: as possible. We sit here on our island, and Norina,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and many as are the ships that touch here, they
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: all voyage on again. No one may settle on our domain.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: For the rest, all I have to say is, that
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: drinker should be happy that his fate is not that
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of the poor fellow who shot himself a week ago
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: because a gang of extortioners were slowly throttling him, and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: the unhappy man preferred to be dead than always living
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in the shadow of the jail. Icarus shook his head.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: To think that this medieval punishment still exists. But there
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: must be some protection for children and people not yet
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of age, Nora declared. Even when those minors happen to
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: be over twenty-one, there is a very true saying that
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: where there is no accuser, there is no judge. When
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: two mature people live with one another, it is no
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: more the concern of any official body than is the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: private life of a married couple. Unfortunately, I must say,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: in most cases, where there is punishment, there must first
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: have been accusation, and where someone accuses, he must first
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: feel that he has suffered an injustice. Paragraph 165 is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: a cloak for scoundrels and extortioners. Icarus objected more vehemently
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: than was his wont, and no protection at all for
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: children of whatever age. Children endure in silence and make
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: no accusations. When a case does come to light, then
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the world cries out in indignation. But there are thousands
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of cases of such crimes committed against children which never
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: see the light of day. That can't be possible, said Sophie,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: her voice vibrant with emotion. In the whole world there
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: cannot be a thousand monsters to whom a child is
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: not something sacred. Icarus laughed a harsh lifeless laugh. I
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: will describe to you one case one out of thousands.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: One case out of the thousands where the criminal goes unapprehended.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I knew a family, a well-to-do and respected family, clever,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: kindly parents, who had four healthy, talented children boys. The
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: mother could not take care of the needs of four
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: growing boys unassisted, besides it would not have been the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: proper thing to do, so they hired a maid for
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the lads. A half-educated person, as is customary, with an
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: agreeable exterior, good references and all possible recommendations. This made
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: delighted in nothing more than to inform the boys of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: matters against which they had been carefully guarded. The unhappy
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: children were thus completely under her thumb. They knew that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: they were doing forbidden things. They were tangled up in
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the terrible concept of sin and prayed to God for succor.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The infamous woman had an inexhaustible imagination and constantly invented
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: new devices to whip up the resisting and jaded children.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: They became more and more miserable. everything possible was done
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: for them, they were sent to expensive baths, accompanied, of course,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: by their maid. From time to time, one of the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: boys would resolve to confess everything to his mother, but
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: he got no farther than the resolve. Such things were
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: too frightful to confess to the gentlest of mothers. Perhaps
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: you can imagine what kind of childhood such children enjoyed.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Exhausted in body and soul, disinclined to play or work,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: in spite of their talents hardly able to pass through school,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: living in everlasting fear of discovery, of punishment, of sickness,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: of hell, and never able to withstand their vices, slinking
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: more and more like shadows through the days, living only
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: in the perilous practices of the night. When the maid
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: left to continue her work in another family, it was
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: too late. Not one of the four recovered. One shot
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: himself the night after his marriage. The second remained an
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: unhappy monomaniac, and after a complete nervous breakdown had to
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: be taken to a sanitarium. The two youngest turned their
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: backs on everything that suggested Eros. One an ascetic took
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: refuge in a monastery. The other dragged his way through
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: a drab and joyless world, shrinking from all human companionship.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: The woman is probably an esteemed children's maid to this
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: very day, under whose prudent care more charges are being ruined.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Nobody said anything. The darkness had slowly filled the whole room,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: leaving the windows hardly more than pale gray oblongs. Oh,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: said Sophie. Myra seemed to hear her voice trembling with
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: angry tears and seemed to feel her clench her fist.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: She ought to be hanged. Then you'd have to hang
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a great many people, said Icarus quietly. Again the heavy
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: silence weighed on them. There was a knock. Somebody opened
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the door. A ray of light stabbed the darkness, a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: voice tore the silence. Here is the newspaper, said the maid,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: stopping in surprise at the door. Shall I turn on
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the lights, madam? Yes, do, Martha. The light was like
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a trumpet blast. They all bowed their heads to escape
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: its glare, knitting their brows and blinking their eyes. None
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of them had the courage to look at the others.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Sophie took the paper from the maid and began to
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: read aloud. the most indifferent things in the world, things
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: that could interest nobody. But all of them feigned interest
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and everybody had something to say, so that a lively
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: conversation ensued, made up entirely of trifling remarks. Icarus left
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: before the conversation had died down again. They continued to
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: speak of various things after he was gone, but they
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: seemed no longer able to sustain an effectively frivolous conversation.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Sophie had a saving idea. She proposed a game of
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: scat so that they could sit together for a little
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: longer and have something to occupy their minds, but suddenly,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the game, she let the hand
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: holding her card sink to the table. He has one
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: brother in the insane asylum, she said as if she
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: had been thinking of nothing else all the while. I know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: said Nora just as seriously, and another in a monastery.