The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

J >> Julian Hawthorne >> The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations

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The one thing that made death bitter for him was the thought of his
children. The son had been sent for from Copenhagen, but as we
afterwards learned, he had been absent from the city, and therefore
did not arrive until shortly after his father had paid the penalty
for his crime.

I took the daughter into my home, where she was brought, half
fainting, after they had led her father from the prison. She had
been tending him lovingly all the days of his trial. What made
even greater sorrow for the poor girl, and for the district judge
who spoke the sentence, was that these two young people had
solemnly plighted their troth but a few short weeks before, in the
rectory of Veilbye. The son arrived just as the body of the
executed criminal was brought into my house. It had been permitted
to us to bury the body with Christian rites, if we could do it in
secret. The young man threw himself over the lifeless body. Then,
clasping his sister in his arms, the two wept together in silence
for some while. At midnight we held a quiet service over the
remains of the Rector of Veilbye, and the body was buried near the
door of Aalso church. A simple stone, upon which I have carved a
cross, still stands to remind the passer-by of the sin of a most
unfortunate man.

The next morning his two children had disappeared. They have never
been heard of since. God knows to what far-away corner of the
world they have fled, to hide their shame and their sorrow. The
district judge is very ill, and it is not believed that he will
recover.

May God deal with us all after His wisdom and His mercy!

O Lord, inscrutable are thy ways!

In the thirty-eighth year of my service, and twenty-one years after
my unfortunate brother in office, the Rector of Veilbye had been
beheaded for the murder of his servant, it happened one day that a
beggar came to my door. He was an elderly man, with gray hair, and
walked with a crutch. He looked sad and needy. None of the
servants were about, so I myself went into the kitchen and gave him
a piece of bread. I asked him where he came from. He sighed and
answered:

"From nowhere in particular."

Then I asked him his name. He sighed still deeper, looked about
him as if in fear, and said, "They once called me Niels Bruus."

I was startled, and said, "God have mercy on us! That is a bad
name. That is the name of a man who was killed many years back."

Whereat the man sighed still deeper and replied: "It would have
been better for me had I died then. It has gone ill with me since
I left the country."

At this the hair rose on my head, and I trembled in every limb.
For it seemed to me that I could recognize him, and also it seemed
to me that I saw Morten Bruus before me in the flesh, and yet I had
laid the earth over him three years before. I stepped back and
made the sign of the cross, for verily I thought it was a ghost I
saw before me.

But the man sat down in the chimney corner and continued to speak.
"Reverend father, they tell me my brother Morten is dead. I have
been to Ingvorstrup, but the new owner chased me away. Is my old
master, the Rector of Veilbye, still alive?" Then it was that the
scales fell from my eyes and I saw into the very truth of this
whole terrible affair. But the shock stunned me so that I could
not speak. The man bit into his bread greedily and went on. "Yes,
that was all Brother Morten's fault. Did the old rector have much
trouble about it?"

"Niels! Niels!" I cried from out the horror of my soul, "you have
a monstrous black sin upon your conscience! For your sake that
unfortunate man fell by the ax of the executioner!"

The bread and the crutch fell from his hand, and he himself was
near to falling into the fire. "May God forgive you, Morten!" he
groaned. "God knows I didn't mean anything like that. May my sin
be forgiven me! But surely you only mean to frighten me! I come
from far away, and have heard nothing. No one but you, reverend
father, has recognized me. I have told my name to no one. When I
asked them in Veilbye if the rector was still there, they said that
he was."

"That is the new rector," I replied. "Not he whom you and your
sinful brother have slain."

He wrung his hands and cried aloud, and then I knew that he had
been but a tool in the hands of that devil, Morten. Therefore I
set to work to comfort him, and took him into my study that he
might calm himself sufficiently to tell me the detail of this
Satan's work.

This was the story as he tells it: His brother Morten--truly a son
of Belial--cherished a deadly hatred toward pastor Soren Quist
since the day the latter had refused him the hand of his daughter.
As soon as he heard that the pastor's coachman had left him, he
persuaded Niels to take the place.

"Watch your chance well," he had said, "we'll play the black coat a
trick some day, and you will he no loser by it."

Niels, who was rough and defiant by nature, soon came to a quarrel
with his master, and when he had received his first chastisement,
he ran at once to Ingvorstrup to report it. "Let him strike you
just once again," said Marten. "Then come to me, and we will pay
him for it."

Then came the quarrel in the garden, and Niels ran off to
Ingvorstrup. He met his brother in the woods and told him what had
occurred.

"Did anyone see you on the way here?" asked Morten

Niels thought not. "Good," said Morten; "now we'll give him a
fright that he will not forget for a week or so."

He led Niels carefully to the house, and kept him hidden there the
rest of the day. When all the household else had gone to sleep the
two brothers crept out, and went to a field where several days
before they had buried the body of a man of about Niel's age, size,
and general appearance. (He had hanged himself, some said because
of ill-treatment from Morten, in whose service he was. Others said
it was because of unhappy love.) They dug up the corpse, although
Niels did not like the work, and protested. But Morten was the
stronger, and Niels had to do as he was ordered. They carried the
body back with them into the house.

Then Niels was ordered to take off all his clothes, piece by piece,
even to his shirt, and dress the dead man in them. Even his leaden
earring, which he had worn for many years, was put in the ear of
the corpse. After this was done, Morten took a spade and gave the
head of the corpse two crashing blows, one over the nose, the other
on the temple. The body was hidden in a sack and kept in the house
during the next day. At night the day following, they carried it
out to the wood near Veilbye.

Several times Niels had asked of his brother what all this
preparation boded. But Morten answered only, "That is my affair.
Do as I tell you, and don't ask questions."

When they neared the edge of the wood by Veilbye, Morten said, "Now
fetch me one of the coats the pastor wears most. If you can, get
the green dressing gown I have often seen him wear mornings."

"I don't dare," said Niels, "he keeps it in his bed chamber."

"Well, then, I'll dare it myself," said Morten. "And now, go your
way, and never show yourself here again. Here is a bag with one
hundred thalers. They will last you until you can take service
somewhere in another country. Go where no one has ever seen you,
and take another name. Never come back to Denmark again. Travel
by night, and hide in the woods by day until you are well away from
here. Here are provisions enough to last you for several days.
And remember, never show yourself here again, as you value your
life."

Niels obeyed, and has never seen his brother since that day. He
had had much trouble, had been a soldier and lost his health in the
war, and finally, after great trials and sufferings, had managed to
get back to the land of his birth. This was the story as told me
by the miserable man, and I could not doubt its truth.

It was now only too clear to me that my unfortunate brother in the
Lord had fallen a victim to the hatred of his fiendish enemy, to
the delusion of his judge and the witnesses, and to his own
credulous imagination.

Oh, what is man that he shall dare to sit in judgment over his
fellows! God alone is the Judge. He who gives life may alone give
death!

I did not feel it my duty to give official information against this
crushed and broken sinner, particularly as the district judge is
still alive, and it would have been cruelty to let him know of his
terrible error.

Instead, I gave what comfort my office permitted to the poor man,
and recommended him not to reveal his name or tell his story to
anyone in the district. On these conditions I would give him a
home until I could arrange for a permanent refuge for him in my
brother's house, a good distance from these parts.

The day following was a Sunday. When I returned from evening
service at my branch parish, the beggar had disappeared. But by
the evening of the next day the story was known throughout the
neighborhood.

Goaded by the pangs of conscience, Niels had gone to Rosmer and
made himself known to the judge as the true Niels Bruus. Upon the
hearing of the terrible truth, the judge was taken with a stroke
and died before the week was out. But on Tuesday morning they
found Niels Bruus dead on the grave of the late rector Soren Quist
of Veilbye, by the door of Aalso church.

Hungarian Mystery Stories

Ferencz Molnar

The Living Death

Here is a very serious reason, my dear sisters, why at last, after
an absence of twenty years in America, I am confiding to you this
strange secret in the life of our beloved and lamented father, and
of the old house where we were children together. The truth is, if
I read rightly the countenances of my physicians as they whisper to
each other by the window of the chamber in which I am lying, that
only a few days of this life remain to me.

It is not right that this secret should die with me, my dear
sisters. Though it will seem terrible to you, as it has to me, it
will enable you to better understand our blessed father, help you
to account for what must have seemed to you to be strange
inconsistencies in his character. That this secret was revealed to
me was due to my indolence and childish curiosity.

For the first, and the last, time in my life I listened at a
keyhole. With shame and a hotly chiding conscience I yielded to
that insatiable curiosity--and when you have read these lines you
will understand why I do not regret that inexcusable, furtive act.

I was only a lad when we went to live in that odd little house.
You remember it stood in the outskirts of Rakos, near the new
cemetery. It stood on a deep lot, and was roughly boarded on the
side which looked on the highway. You remember that on the first
floor, next the street, were the room of our father, the dining
room, and the children's room. In the rear of the house was the
sculpture studio. There we had the large white hall with big
windows, where white-clothed laborers worked. They mixed the
plaster, made forms, chiseled, scratched, and sawed. Here in this
large hall had our father worked for thirty years.

When I arrived, in the holidays, I noted a change in our father's
countenance. His beard was white, even when he did not work with
the plaster. Through his strong spectacles his eyes glittered
peculiarly. He was less calm than formerly. And he did not speak
much, but all the more did he read.

Why, we all knew that after the passing away of our mother he
became a bookworm, reading very often by candlelight until morning.

Then did it happen, about the fourth day after my arrival. I spent
my leisure hours in the studio; I carved little figures, formed
little pillar heads from the white plaster. In the corner a big
barrel stood filled with water. It was noon; the laborers went to
lunch.

I sat down close to the barrel and carved a Corinthian pillar.
Father came into the studio and did not notice me. He carried in
his hands two plates of soup. When he came into the studio he
closed the door behind him and looked around in the shop, as though
to make sure he was not observed. As I have said, he did not
notice me. I was astonished. Holding my breath, I listened.
Father went through the large hall, and then opened a small door,
of which I knew only so much that it led into a chamber three steps
lower than the studio.

I was full of expectation: I listened. I did not hear a word of
conversation. Presently father came back with the empty plates in
his hand. Somebody bolted the chamber's door behind him.

Father went out of the studio, and I, much embarrassed, crept from
behind the barrel.

I knew that the chamber had a window, which looked back toward the
plowed fields. I ran out of the studio and around the house. Much
to my astonishment, the chamber's window was curtained inside. A
large yellow plaid curtain hid everything from view. But I had to
go, anyway, for I heard Irma's voice calling from the yard:

"Antal, to lunch!"

I sat down to the table with you, my sisters, and looked at father.
He was sitting at the head of the table, and ate without saying a
word.

Day after day I troubled my head about this mystery in the chamber,
but said not a word to anybody. I went into the studio, as usual,
but I did not notice anything peculiar. Not a sound came from the
chamber, and when our father worked in the shop with his ten
laborers he passed by the small door as if beyond it there was
nothing out of the ordinary.

On Thursday I had to go back to Germany. On Tuesday night
curiosity seized me again. Suddenly I felt that perhaps never
would I know what was going on in my father's house. That night,
when the working people were gone, I went into the studio. For a
long time I was lost in my thoughts. All kinds of romantic ideas
passed through my head, while my gaze rested on that small
mysterious chamber door.

In the studio it was dark already, and from under the small door in
a thin border a yellow radiance poured out. Suddenly I regained my
courage. I went to the door and listened. Somebody was speaking.
It was a man's voice, but I did not understand what he was saying.
I was putting my ear close to the door, when I heard steps at the
front of the studio. Father came.

I quickly withdrew myself behind the barrel. Father walked through
the hall and knocked on the door softly. The bolt clicked and the
door opened. Father went into the chamber and closed the door
immediately and locked it.

Now all discretion and sense of honor in me came to an end.
Curiosity mastered me. I knew that last year one part of this
small room had been partitioned off and was used as a woodhouse.
And I knew that there was a possibility of going into the woodhouse
through the yard.

I went out, therefore, but found the woodhouse was closed. Driven
by trembling curiosity, I ran into the house, took the key of the
woodhouse from its nail, and in a minute, through the crevice
between two planks, I was looking into that mysterious little room.

There was a table in the middle of the room, and beside the wall
were two straw mattresses. On the table a lighted candle stood. A
bottle of wine was beside it, and around the table were sitting
father and two strangers. Both the strangers were all in black.
Something in their appearance froze me with terror.

I fled in a panic of unreasoning fear, but returned soon, devoured
by curiosity.

You, my sister Irma, must remember how I found you there, gazing
with starting eyeballs on the same mysteriously terrifying scene--
and how I drew you away with a laugh and a trifling explanation, so
that I might return and resume my ghastly vigil alone.

One of the strangers wore a frock coat and had a sunburned, brown
face. He was not old yet, not more than forty-five or forty-eight.
He seemed to be a tradesman in his Sunday clothes. That did not
interest me much.

I looked at the other old man, and then a shiver of cold went
through me. He was a famous physician, a professor, Mr. H----. I
desire to lay stress upon it that he it was, for I had read two
weeks before in the papers that he had died and was buried!

And now he was sitting, in evening dress, in the chamber of a poor
plaster sculptor, in the chamber of my father behind a bolted door!

I was aware of the fact that the physician knew father. Why, you
can recall that when father had asthma he consulted Mr. H----.
Moreover, the professor visited us very frequently. The papers
said he was dead, yet here he was!

With beating heart and in terror, I looked and listened.

The professor put some shining little thing on the table.

"Here is my diamond shirt stud," he said to my father. "It is
yours."

Father pushed the jewel aside, refusing the gift.

"Why, you are spending money on me," said the professor.

"It makes no difference," replied father; "I shan't take the
diamond."

Then they were silent for a long while. At length the professor
smiled and said:

"The pair of cuff buttons which I had from Prince Eugene I
presented to the watchman in the cemetery. They are worth a
thousand guldens."

And he showed his cuffs, from which the buttons were missing. Then
he turned to the sunburned man:

"What did you give him, General Gardener?"

The tall, strong man unbuttoned his frock coat.

"Everything I had--my gold chain, my scarf pin, and my ring."

I did not understand all that. What was it? Where did they come
from? A horrible presentiment arose in me. They came from the
cemetery! They wore the very clothes in which they were buried!

What had happened to them? Were they only apparently dead? Did
they awake? Did they rise from the dead? What are they seeking
here?

They had a very low-voiced conversation with father. I listened in
vain. Only later on, when they got warmed with their subject and
spoke more audibly, did I understand them.

"There is no other way," said the professor. "Put it in your will
that the coroner shall pierce your heart through with a knife."

Do you remember, my sisters, the last will of our father, which was
thus executed?

Father did not say a word. Then the professor went on, saying:

"That would be a splendid invention. Had I been living till now I
would have published a book about it. Nobody takes the Indian
fakir seriously here in Europe. But despite this, the buried
fakirs, who are two months under ground and then come back into
life, are very serious men. Perhaps they are more serious than
ourselves, with all our scientific knowledge. There are strange,
new, dreadful things for which we are not yet matured enough.

"I died upon their methods; I can state that now. The mental state
which they reach systematically I reached accidentally. The
solitude, the absorbedness, the lying in a bed month by month, the
gazing upon a fixed point hour by hour--these are all self-evident
facts with me, a deserted misanthrope.

"I died as the Indian fakirs do, and were I not a descendant of an
old noble family, who have a tomb in this country, I would have
died really.

"God knows how it happened. I don't think there is any use of
worrying ourselves about it. I have still four days. Then we go
for good and all. But not back, no, no, not back to life!"

He pointed with his hand toward the city. His face was burning
from fever, and he knitted his brows. His countenance was horrible
at this moment. Then he looked at the man with the sunburned face.

"The case of Mr. Gardener is quite different. This is an ordinary
physician's error. But he has less than four days. He will be
gone to-morrow or positively day after to-morrow."

He grasped the pulse of the sunburned man.

"At this minute his pulse beats a hundred and twelve. You have a
day left, Mr. Gardener. But not back. We don't go back. Never!"

Father said nothing. He looked at the professor with seriousness,
and fondly. The professor drank a glass of wine, and then turned
toward father.

"Go to bed. You have to get up early; you still live; you have
children. We shall sleep if we can do so. It is very likely that
General Gardener won't see another morning. You must not witness
that."

Now father began to speak, slowly, reverently.

"If you, professor, have to send word--or perhaps Mr. Gardener--
somebody we must take care of--a command, if you have--"

The professor looked at him sternly, saying but one word:

"Nothing."

Father was still waiting.

"Absolutely nothing," repeated the professor. "I have died, but I
have four days yet. I live those here, my dear old friend, with
you. But I don't go back any more. I don't even turn my face
backward. I don't want to know where the others live. I don't
want life, old man. It is not honorable to go back. Go, my
friend--go to bed."

Father shook hands with them and disappeared. General Gardener sat
stiffly on his chair. The professor gazed into the air.

I began to be aware of all that had happened here. These two
apparently dead men had come back from the cemetery, but how, in
what manner, by what means? I don't understand it perfectly even
now. There, in the small room, near to the cemetery, they were
living their few remaining days. They did not want to go back
again into life.

I shuddered. During these few minutes I seemed to have learned the
meaning of life and of death. Now I myself felt that the life of
the city was at a vast distance. I had a feeling that the
professor was right. It was not worth while. I, too, felt tired,
tired of life, like the professor, the feverish, clever, serious
old man who came from the coffin and was sitting there in his grave
clothes waiting for the final death.

They did not speak a word to each other. They were simply waiting.
I did not have power to move away from the crack in the wall
through which I saw them.

And now there happened the awful thing that drove me away from our
home, never to return.

It was about half-past one when someone tapped on the window. The
professor took alarm and looked at Mr. Gardener a warning to take
no notice. But the tapping grew louder. The professor got up and
went to the window. He lifted the yellow curtain and looked out
into the night. Quickly he returned and spoke to General Gardener,
and then both went to the window and spoke with the person who had
knocked. After a long conversation they lifted the man through the
window.

On this terrible day nothing could happen that would surprise me.
I was benumbed. The man who was lifted through the window was clad
in white linen to his feet. He was a Hebrew, a poor, thin, weak,
pale Hebrew. He wore his white funeral dress. He shivered from
cold, trembled, seemed almost unconscious. The professor gave him
some wine. The Hebrew stammered:

"Terrible! Oh, horrible!"

I learned from his broken language that he had not been buried yet,
like the professor. He had not yet known the smell of the earth.
He had come from his bier.

"I was laid out a corpse," he whimpered. "My God, they would have
buried me by to-morrow!"

The professor gave him wine again.

"I saw a light here," he went on. "I beg you will give me some
clothes--some soup, if you please--and I am going back again."
Then he said in German:

"Meine gute, theure Frau! Meine Kinder!" (My good wife, my
children.)

He began to weep. The professor's countenance changed to a
devilish expression when he heard this lament. He despised the
lamenting Hebrew.

"You are going back?" he thundered. "But you won't go back! Don't
shame yourself!"

The Hebrew gazed at him stupidly.

"I live in Rottenbiller Street," he stammered. "My name is Joseph
Braun."

He bit his nails in his nervous agitation. Tears filled his eyes.

"Ich muss zu meine Kinder," he said in German again. (I must go to
my children.)

"No!" exclaimed the professor. "You'll never go back!"

"But why?"

"I will not permit it!"

The Hebrew looked around. He felt that something was wrong here.
His startled manner seemed to ask: "Am I in a lunatic asylum?" He
dropped his head and said to the professor simply:

"I am tired."

The professor pointed to the straw mattress.

"Go to sleep. We will speak further in the morning."

Fever blazed in the professor's face. On the other straw mattress
General Gardener now slept with his face to the wall.

The Hebrew staggered to the straw mattress, threw himself down, and
wept. The weeping shook him terribly. The professor sat at the
table and smiled.

Finally the Hebrew fell asleep. Hours passed in silence. I stood
motionless looking at the professor, who gazed into the
candlelight. There was not much left of it. Presently he sighed
and blew it out. For a little while there was dark, and then I saw
the dawn penetrating the yellow curtain at the window. The
professor leaned back in his chair, stretched out his feet, and
closed his eyes.

All at once the Hebrew got up silently and went to the window. He
believed the professor was asleep. He opened the window carefully
and started to creep out. The professor leaped from his chair,
shouting:

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