“Didn’t you tell us about a legend connected with Elsbethstein, Lipotin? Something about a lady of the castle called Elsbeth, who drank of the water of life here?”
“Someone or other told me something of the kind, yes”, said Lipotin dismissively; “I couldn’t remember the whole story any more. It just came to me this afternoon; I intended it more as a joke.”
“We could ask one of the workmen in the courtyard”, remarked the Princess, casually.
“It’s an idea.”
We made our way slowly back to the inner courtyard.
Lipotin took out his ivory cigarette case and offered it to one of the workmen.
“Who does the ruin actually belong to?”
“Nobody.”
“But it must belong to somebody!”
“Nobody. Ask the old gardener in there!” muttered one of the group and continued to clean his spade with a wooden splint as carefully as if it had been a surgical instrument. The others laughed and exchanged knowing looks.
One young lad looked longingly at the cigarette case, and when Lipotin held it out to him he became talkative.
“He’s not quite right in the head, the old man. He pretends he’s the castle steward, but nobody takes him seriously, he’s just not quite right in the head. I think he’s a gardener or something like that, at least he’s always digging up the ground. He’s not from hereabouts. And ancient. My grandfather knew him. Nobody knows where he came from. Ask him yourself.” The young workman suddenly dried up; the mattocks thumped into the earth again, once more the spades heaved clods of earth out of the ditch. Not another word could be got out of the workers.
We set off for the keep, Lipotin in the lead. A door of rotten wood held together with rusty wrought iron bands guarded the entrance. When we pushed it open it screeched like some animal startled out of a deep sleep. A decrepit old oak staircase, that had clearly once been richly decorated with carvings, led up into a blackness barred with slanting strips of light falling from above.
Lipotin squeezed through an arched entrance, whose massive wooden door was half off its hinges, into a kind of kitchen. We followed.
I started:
There in the skeleton of an armchair – there were still strips of leather hanging down – lay the corpse of a white-haired old man. On the broken stove was a cracked earthenware pot with a little pool of milk in the bottom. Next to it was a mouldy crust of bread.
Suddenly the old man, whom I had assumed was dead, opened his eyes and stared at us.
At first I thought my eyes must be deceiving me: the old man was dressed in rags which had buttons with a coat of arms on them and a few gold threads so that they looked like a livery from a former century; together with his yellow face as dried as a mummy’s this all suggested we were in the presence of a corpse, long since forgotten and decayed.
Lipotin was undaunted: “May we go up the tower, steward, to look at the view from the top?”
The answer he received – after politely repeating his request – was strange enough:
“There is no need today. Everything has been taken care of already.”
As he spoke the old man kept shaking his head, though it was not clear whether this was from old age or to emphasise his refusal.
“What has been taken care of?” Lipotin shouted in his ear.
“Going up and keeping a lookout. She will not be coming today now.”
We assumed the old man was expecting someone. In the dim recesses of his consciousness he probably thought we had come to help him keep an eye open for his visitor. Probably someone who brought him his frugal meals.
The Princess took out her purse and hastily handed a gold coin to Lipotin:
“Give that to the poor devil. He’s obviously weak in the head. Let’s go.”
Suddenly the old man opened his eyes wide and looked at us one after the other; but not in the face, rather he looked over our heads. “It’s all right”, he murmured, “it’s all right. Go on up. Perhaps my Lady is coming after all.”
“Which lady?” – Lipotin handed the old man the Princess’ gift but he rejected the money with a hasty gesture:
“The garden has been taken care of; there is no need for a reward. The Lady will be content. If only she did not stay away for so long. When winter comes I cannot water the flowers any more. I have been waiting for ... for ...”
“Well, how long have you been waiting, old man?”
“Old man? – But I’m not old. No, no I’m not old. Waiting keeps you young. I’m young, as you can see.”
The words sounded funny but we did not feel like laughing.
“And how long have you been here, my good fellow?” Lipotin persisted.
“How ... long ... have I been here? How should I know that?” the old man shook his head.
“Think! You must have come up here for the first time once? Or were you born up here?”
“No, no I came up here. That is right. I came up here, thank God! And when? You can’t count time.”
“Can you not remember where you were before?”
“Before? But I wasn’t anywhere before.”
“But my good fellow! Where were you born, if not up here?”
“Born? I wasn’t born; I was drowned.”
The more meaningless the mad old man’s answers seemed to become, the more uncanny they seemed to me and my curiosity began to torment me to uncover the perhaps trivial secret of this shipwrecked mariner on the shores of life. The workman’s words: “He’s always digging up the ground”, came back to me. Was it some treasure that the old man kept searching for in the ruins and was it that that had driven him mad?
Jane and Lipotin seemed to be in the grip of the same curiosity. Only the Princess was standing to one side in a proud indifference which I had not noticed in her before; in vain she kept trying to
