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The uproarious merriment of a wedding-feast burst forth into the
night from a brilliantly lighted house in the "gasse" (narrow
street). It was one of those nights touched with the warmth of
spring, but dark and full of soft mist. Most fitting it was for a
celebration of the union of two yearning hearts to share the same
lot, a lot that may possibly dawn in sunny brightness, but also
become clouded and sullen—for a long, long time! But how merry and
joyous they were over there, those people of the happy olden times!
They, like us, had their troubles and trials, and when misfortune
visited them it came not to them with soft cushions and tender
pressures of the hand. Rough and hard, with clinched fist, it laid
hold upon them. But when they gave vent to their happy feelings and
sought to enjoy themselves, they were like swimmers in cooling
waters. They struck out into the stream with freshness and courage,
suffered themselves to be borne along by the current whithersoever
it took its course. This was the cause of such a jubilee, such a
thoughtlessly noisy outburst of all kinds of soul-possessing gayety
from this house of nuptials.
"And if I had known," the bride's father, the rich Ruben Klattaner,
had just said, "that it would take the last gulden in my pocket,
then out it would have come."
In fact, it did appear as if the last groschen had really taken
flight, and was fluttering about in the form of platters heaped up
with geese and pastry-tarts. Since two o'clock—that is, since the
marriage ceremony had been performed out in the open street—until
nearly midnight, the wedding-feast had been progressing, and even
yet the sarvers, or waiters, were hurrying from room to room. It was
as if a twofold blessing had descended upon all this abundance of
food and drink, for, in the first place, they did not seem to
diminish; secondly, they ever found a new place for disposal. To be
sure, this appetite was sharpened by the presence of a little
dwarf-like, unimportant-looking man. He was esteemed, however, none
the less highly by every one. They had specially written to engage
the celebrated "Leb Narr," of Prague. And when was ever a mood so
out of sorts, a heart so imbittered as not to thaw out and laugh if
Leb Narr played one of his pranks. Ah, thou art now dead, good fool!
Thy lips, once always ready with a witty reply, are closed. Thy
mouth, then never still, now speaks no more! But when the hearty
peals of laughter once rang forth at thy command, intercessors, as
it were, in thy behalf before the very throne of God, thou hadst
nothing to fear. And the joy of that "other" world was thine, that
joy that has ever belonged to the most pious of country rabbis!
In the mean time the young people had assembled in one of the rooms
to dance. It was strange how the sound of violins and trumpets
accorded with the drolleries of the wit from Prague. In one part the
outbursts of merriment were so boisterous that the very candles on
the little table seemed to flicker with terror; in another an
ordinary conversation was in progress, which now and then only ran
over into a loud tittering, when some old lady slipped into the
circle and tried her skill at a redowa, then altogether unknown to
the young people. In the very midst of the tangle of dancers was to
be seen the bride in a heavy silk wedding-gown. The point of her
golden hood hung far down over her face. She danced continuously.
She danced with every one that asked her. Had one, however, observed
the actions of the young woman, they would certainly have seemed to
him hurried, agitated, almost wild. She looked no one in the eye,
not even her own bridegroom. He stood for the most part in the
door-way, and evidently took more pleasure in the witticisms of the
fool than in the dance or the lady dancers. But who ever thought for
a moment why the young woman's hand burned, why her breath was so
hot when one came near to her lips? Who should have noticed so
strange a thing? A low whispering already passed through the
company, a stealthy smile stole across many a lip. A bevy of ladies
was seen to enter the room suddenly. The music dashed off into one
of its loudest pieces, and, as if by enchantment, the newly made
bride disappeared behind the ladies. The bridegroom, with his
stupid, smiling mien, was still left standing on the threshold. But
it was not long before he too vanished. One could hardly say how it
happened. But people understand such skillful movements by
experience, and will continue to understand them as long as there
are brides and grooms in the world.
This disappearance of the chief personages, little as it seemed to
be noticed, gave, however, the signal for general leave-taking. The
dancing became drowsy; it stopped all at once, as if by appointment.
That noisy confusion now began which always attends so merry a
wedding-party. Half-drunken voices could be heard still intermingled
with a last, hearty laugh over a joke of the fool from Prague
echoing across the table. Here and there some one, not quite sure of
his balance, was fumbling for the arm of his chair or the edge of
the table. This resulted in his overturning a dish that had been
forgotten, or in spilling a beer-glass. While this, in turn, set up
a new hubbub, some one else, in his eagerness to betake himself from
the scene, fell flat into the very débris. But all this tumult was
really hushed the moment they all pressed to the door, for at that
very instant shrieks, cries of pain, were heard issuing from the
entrance below. In an instant the entire outpouring crowd with all
possible force pushed back into the room, but it was a long time
before the stream was pressed back again. Meanwhile, painful cries
were again heard from below, so painful, indeed, that they restored
even the most drunken to a state of consciousness.
"By the living God!" they cried to each other, "what is the matter
down there? Is the house on fire?"
"She is gone! she is gone!" shrieked a woman's voice from the entry
below.
"Who? who?" groaned the wedding-guests, seized, as it were, with an
icy horror.
"Gone! gone!" cried the woman from the entry, and hurrying up the
stairs came Selde Klattaner, the mother of the bride, pale as death,
her eyes dilated with most awful fright, convulsively grasping a
candle in her hand. "For God's sake, what has happened?" was heard
on every side of her.
The sight of so many people about her, and the confusion of voices,
seemed to release the poor woman from a kind of stupor. She glanced
shyly about her then, as if overcome with a sense of shame stronger
than her terror, andsaid, in a suppressed tone:
"Nothing, nothing, good people. In God's name, I ask, what was there
to happen?"
Dissimulation, however, was too evident to suffice to deceive them.
"Why, then, did you shriek so, Selde," called out one of the guests
to her, "if nothing happened?"
"Yes, she has gone," Selde now moaned in heart-rending tones, "and
she has certainly done herself some harm!"
The cause of this strange scene was now first discovered. The bride
has disappeared from the wedding-feast. Soon after that she had
vanished in such a mysterious way, the bridegroom went below to the
dimly-lighted room to find her, but in vain. At first thought this
seemed to him to be a sort of bashful jest; but not finding her
here, a mysterious foreboding seized him. He called to the mother of
the bride:
"Woe to me! This woman has gone!"
Presently this party, that had so admirably controlled itself, was
again thrown into commotion. "There was nothing to do," was said on
all sides, "but to ransack every nook and corner. Remarkable
instances of such disappearances of brides had been known. Evil
spirits were wont to lurk about such nights and to inflict mankind
with all sorts of sorceries." Strange as this explanation may seem,
there were many who believed it at this very moment, and, most of
all, Selde Klattaner herself. But it was only for a moment, for she
at once exclaimed:
"No, no, my good people, she is gone; I know she is gone!"
Now for the first time many of them, especially the mothers, felt
particularly uneasy, and anxiously called their daughters to them.
Only a few showed courage, and urged that they must search and
search, even if they had to turn aside the river Iser a hundred
times. They urgently pressed on, called for torches and lanterns,
and started forth. The cowardly ran after them up and down the
stairs. Before any one perceived it the room was entirely forsaken.
Ruben Klattaner stood in the hall entry below, and let the people
hurry past him without exchanging a word with any. Bitter
disappointment and fear had almost crazed him. One of the last to
stay in the room above with Selde was, strange to say, Leb Narr, of
Prague. After all had departed, he approached the miserable mother,
and, in a tone least becoming his general manner, inquired:
"Tell me, now, Mrs. Selde, did she not wish to have 'him'?"
"Whom? whom?" cried Selde, with renewed alarm, when she found
herself alone with the fool.
"I mean," said Leb, in a most sympathetic manner, approaching still
nearer to Selde, "that maybe you had to make your daughter marry
him."
"Make? And have we, then, made her?" moaned Selde, staring at the
fool with a look of uncertainty.
"Then nobody needs to search for her," replied the fool, with a
sympathetic laugh, at the same time retreating. "It's better to
leave her where she is."
Without saying thanks or good-night, he was gone.
Meanwhile the cause of all this disturbance had arrived at the end
of her flight.
Close by the synagogue was situated the house of the rabbi. It was
built in an angle of a very narrow street, set in a framework of
tall shade-trees. Even by daylight it was dismal enough. At night it
was almost impossible for a timid person to approach it, for people
declared that the low supplications of the dead could be heard in
the dingy house of God when at night they took the rolls of the law
from the ark to summon their members by name.
Through this retired street passed, or rather ran, at this hour a
shy form. Arriving at the dwelling of the rabbi, she glanced
backward to see whether any one was following her. But all was
silent and gloomy enough about her. A pale light issued from one of
the windows of the synagogue; it came from the "eternal lamp"
hanging in front of the ark of the covenant. But at this moment it
seemed to her as if a supernatural eye was gazing upon her.
Thoroughly affrighted, she seized the little iron knocker of the
door and struck it gently. But the throb of her beating heart was
even louder, more violent, than this blow. After a pause, footsteps
were heard passing slowly along the hallway.
The rabbi had not occupied this lonely house a long time. His
predecessor, almost a centenarian in years, had been laid to rest a
few months before. The new rabbi had been called, from a distant
part of the country. He was unmarried, and in the prime of life. No
one had known him before his coming. But his personal nobility and
the profundity of his scholarship made up for his deficiency in
years. An aged mother had accompanied him from their distant home,
and she took the place of wife and child.
"Who is there?" asked the rabbi, who had been busy at his desk even
at this late hour and thus had not missed hearing the knocker.
"It is I," the figure without responded, almost inaudibly.
"Speak louder, if you wish me to hear you," replied the rabbi.
"It is I, Ruben Klattaner's daughter," she repeated.
The name seemed to sound strange to the rabbi. He as yet knew too
few of his congregation to understand that this very day he
performed the marriage ceremony of the person who had just repeated
her name. Therefore he called out, after a moment's pause, "What do
you wish so late at night?"
"Open the door, rabbi," she answered, pleadingly, "or I shall die at
once!"
The bolt was pushed back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past
the rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand
was not sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to
address her, she had vanished past him and had disappeared through
the open door into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again
bolted the door.
On re entering the room he saw a woman's form sitting in the chair
which he usually occupied. She had her back turned to him. Her head
was bent low over her breast. Her golden wedding-hood, with its
shading lace, was pulled down over her forehead. Courageous and
pious as the rabbi was, he could not rid himself of a feeling of
terror.
Click Here for
Part II
The Silent Woman
A Classic Horror Story
by
Leopold Kompert |
