Phantoms of Breslau

wrote Spinoza and he was absolutely — par excellence! — right. But to the point.

From the erudite performance of some of our brothers (and this erudition was gleaned from Roscher’s mythological lexicon) we learned a great deal about the ancient avengers the Erinyes, black-skinned and wrapped in black clothing. These goddesses of vengeance, as we learned from Brother Eckhard of Prague, hid in morning mists or glided in dark, stormy clouds, and their hair and cloaks were charged with electricity because, as Plutarch writes, “fire flickered in their cloaks and viperous knots of hair”. These “bitches of Styx” rendered people mad with their ominous barking, infected germinating grains with their poisonous breath, lashed those who transgressed the laws of nature with their whip. (How well this fits in with our doctrine of Natura Magna Mater!) And how can one most keenly violate the laws of Nature? By killing her who gives life, by matricide, concluded Brother Eckhard. These natural ethics became the basis of the popular ancient notion of the Erinyes as goddesses of vengeance.

A heated discussion broke out after Brother Eckhart’s lecture. The first question concerned the universality of the Erinyes. Brother Hermann of Marburg asked whether the Erinyes are independent beings or whether they are allocated to one murdered person in particular? After all, argued Brother Hermann, Homer writes that following the suicide of Jocasta, mother of Oedipus, Oedipus was tormented not by Erinyes “in general” or “Erinyes as such”, but by his mother’s particular Erinyes. In Aeschylus we read that Orestes was tormented first by the Erinyes of his father, who had been hacked to death by his mother, and only later, after Orestes had taken vengeance for the death of his father in the same way on his mother, Clytemnestra, the murderess of her husband, only then did the Erinyes of Clytemnestra appear. The first, Agamemnon’s Erinyes, forced his son Orestes to avenge his father’s death, the second, Clytemnestra’s Erinyes, tormented the matricide. So the Erinyes, as Brother Hermann argues, belong to a particular, given soul: they are not independent or universal beings. Brother Hermann’s reasoning was convincing, and nobody disagreed with him.

I took the voice and agreed that after offering up the father of our bitter enemy in sacrifice, we will unleash specific Erinyes, those appropriate to the old man’s soul. I also said that the appearance of Jocasta’s Erinyes, those which tormented Oedipus, clearly demonstrates that the haunted person does not have to have killed with his own hands (after all, Jocasta committed suicide!) but he has to be the one to blame (and Oedipus is certainly to blame!). This is the basic principle of the Erinyes’ materializing!

I received applause and those assembled raised the other issue which had come up after the lecture given by Brother Eckhard of Prague. Namely, can the Erinyes take vengeance for patricide, or only for matricide? The Master argued the legitimacy of the former view, quoting the appropriate passages from Homer and Aeschylus. It was clear from these that the Erinyes of Laius, killed by his son Oedipus, haunt the murderer, proving that patricide, too, is a violation of nature’s laws. After the Master’s declaration, everything became clear: it would be right to offer the father of our sworn enemy in sacrifice. This father must be convinced, however, that he is dying because of his son. I told the assembly that we would make this known to him before his death, just as we made it known to that scabby harlot.

After that it was Johann of Munich who took the voice. He went back to the issue which had initially brought us together, and which we were supposed to be clarifying with the help of ancient literature, namely, since there were three Erinyes — Allecto, Megaera and Tisiphone — then is it necessary to make three offerings, each corresponding to the “essential” characteristics of a given Erinyes? The majority responded in the negative. First of all, reasoned Brother Johann, the triple and individualized Erinyes appear only in Euripides, and are therefore already removed in time from the primeval notion, from the most primitive (and therefore the most authentic!) beliefs; secondly, in later literature (mainly Roman!), they become confused and take each other’s places. For example, to one author Megaera is the personification of “relentless jealousy”, to another it is Tisiphone. It is evident from this that our second and possibly third sacrifices would be sacrifices offered in the dark, without any firm grounds — in other words, unnecessary sacrifices. The last word belonged to the Master. He supported Johann of Munich’s view and gave me instructions to offer in sacrifice only the father of our sworn enemy.

When they had all left, a feeling of irritation swept over me. The Master had not let me take the voice! I had not managed to say that the Erinyes do not have to be particles of a parent’s soul alone. In Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, the Erinyes are invoked against Deianira, who unwittingly killed her lover Heracles! And in the same author’s Electra, the Erinyes are called upon to avenge matrimonial infidelity! I have made a decision: I am going to kill the one who loves our greatest enemy, and I will make it known to her before she dies that she is dying through his fault and because of him! I will be releasing not only his father’s Erinyes, but also the Erinyes of the woman who is in love with him! In this way I will put an end to everything. I will bring down upon him a twofold attack of the Erinyes. Then they will sing out their dismal hymn inside his head, a song which, like the songs of the Tyrolean snow maidens, will drive him insane. And only then will he turn to an occultist for help. And only then will he get to know the truth and become aware of his mistake!

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 26TH, 1919

A QUARTER PAST TWELVE IN THE AFTERNOON

Kurt Smolorz sat at the marble table in the waiting room of his neigh-bour, the solicitor Doctor Max Grotzschl, lazily leafing through the Ostdeutsche Sport Zeitung. The articles did not particularly interest him. Only one thing interested Smolorz: how the instructions Mock was going to give him that day would complicate his evening rendez-vous with Baroness von Bockenheim und Bielau. He was soon to find out: the telephone on the marble table jumped and rang loudly. Smolorz lifted the round receiver from its cradle and held it to his ear. With his other hand he grasped the mouthpiece and brought it to his lips. He tilted back his chair with an expression of a man of the world.

“May I speak to Doctor Grotzschl?” said a woman’s quiet voice. He did not know how to react. Usually at moments like this, when he was at a loss as to know what to do, he scaled down his reactions and did nothing. So it was now. He simply looked at the receiver and replaced it on the cradle. The telephone rang again. This time Smolorz was not in such a predicament as a few seconds earlier.

“Go on, Smolorz.” He heard Mock’s hoarse bass. “Tell me what’s happened to my father!”

“There were noises in the house last night,” Smolorz mumbled. “He went to check and fell down the stairs. Fractured his leg and injured his head. The dog barked and woke the neighbours. A certain Mr Dosche took him to St Elisabeth Hospital. He’s in good care. Unconscious. On a drip.”

“Call Doctor Cornelius Ruhtgard immediately on seventeen sixty-three. If he’s not at home, call the Wenzel- Hancke Hospital. Tell him I want him to take care of my father.” Mock fell silent. Smolorz did not say anything either and, staring at the tube into which he had just spoken, wondered at the fundamental nature of telephone communications. “How’s our investigation going?” Smolorz heard Mock say.

“Twenty young female invalids in wheelchairs in the whole of Breslau. We visited them with Frenzel …”

“Frenzel has turned up?” Smolorz could hear the hoarse bass voice tremble with joy at the other end of the receiver.

“Yes. He’s a gambler. He was betting at Orlich’s. Arm-wrestling. He lost, and two days later went home broke.”

“And what? You showed Frenzel those women? Discreetly, I hope?”

“Yes. Discreetly. From a distance. Frenzel in a car, the women in the wheelchairs on the street. He recognized one of them. Louise Rossdeutscher, daughter of the physician Doctor Horst Rossdeutscher. The father is a big fish. Commissioner Muhlhaus knows him.”

“This Rossdeutscher, was he questioned?”

“No. Muhlhaus is prevaricating. Big fish.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, damn it, ‘big fish’?” growled the voice in the receiver. “Explain, Smolorz!”

“Commissioner Muhlhaus said he’s ‘an important person’.” Smolorz could not help being amazed by the fact that here he was, grasping all of Mock’s emotions over the telephone, even though the latter was hundreds of kilometres away from Breslau. “‘We have to proceed carefully. I know him.’ That’s what he said.”

“Is Rossdeutscher being watched?”

“Yes. All the time.”

“Good, Smolorz.” The crack of a match resounded in the receiver. “Now listen. I’m arriving in Breslau tomorrow, at 7.14 in the evening. At that very hour you’re to be waiting for me at Main Station. Wirth, Zupitza and ten of their men are to be with you. You’re going to show the girl I’m with — you know, it’s that red-headed Erika —