Read Hanns Heinz Ewers Alraune for Free Online Page A

the blood, my blood and your blood.”
    He drank and reached out to shake hands with
his nephew.
    “You will write mother like I want you to?”
asked Frank Braun.
    “Yes, I will,” replied the old man.
    The student said, “Thank you Uncle
Jakob.”
    He took the outstretched hand and shook
it.
    “Now go, you old Don Juan, call the
Communicants! They both look beautiful in their sacred gowns, don’t
they?”
    “Hmm,” said the uncle. “Don’t they look good
to you?”
    Frank Braun laughed. “Me? Oh, my God! No,
Uncle Jakob, I am no rival, not today. Today I have a higher
ambition–perhaps when I am as old as you are!–But I am not the
guardian of their virtue. Those two celebrating roses will not
improve until they have been plucked. Someone will, and soon–Why
not you? Hey Olga, Frieda! Come on over here!”
    But neither girl came over. They were
hovering around Dr. Mohnen, filling his glass and listening to his
suggestive stories. The princess came over; Frank Braun stood up
and offered her his chair.
    “Sit down, sit down!” she cried. “I have
absolutely nothing to chat with you about!”
    “Just a few minutes, your Highness. I will go
get a cigarette,” the student said. “My uncle has been waiting all
night for a chance to give you his compliments. He will be
overjoyed.”
    The Privy Councilor was not overjoyed about
it. He would have much rather had the little princess sitting
there, but now he entertained the mother–
    Frank Braun went to the window as the Legal
Councilor and Frau Marion went up to the Grand Piano. Herr Gontram
sat down on the piano bench, turned around and said.
    “I would like a little quiet please. Frau
Marion would like to sing a song for us.”
    He turned to the Lady, “What would you like
after that dear Frau?–Another one I hope. Perhaps ‘Les
Papillions’ ? or perhaps ‘Il Baccio’ from Arditti?–Give
me the music for them as well!”
    The student looked across, she always looked
good, this old, well-formed lady. He believed she really had all
the adventures that she related. At one time she had been the fiery
Diva of Europe. Now she lived in this city that was still stuck
back in the fourth century in her little villa. She took long walks
through her gardens every evening, put flowers on the graves of her
dead hounds and cried for a half-hour.
    Now she sang. She had lost her magnificent
voice years ago, but there was still a rare magic in her
performance, out of the old school. The smile of the conqueror lay
on her rouged lips and the thick face paint attempted to capture
the former sweetness of her features. Her thick sweaty hands played
with her ivory fan and her eyes searched the room as if trying to
scratch and pull the applause out of the audience.
    Oh yes, she certainly fit in here, Madame
Marion Vère de Vère, fit in this house, like all the others that
were guests. Frank Braun looked around. There sat his dear uncle
with the princess and behind them leaning against the door stood
Attorney Manasse and Chaplain Schöder. The long, gaunt, dark
chaplain was the best wine connoisseur on the Mosel and the Saar.
It was nearly impossible to find a wine cellar that he had not gone
into and sampled. Schröder had written a never-ending clever book
about the abstruse philosophy of Plotinus and at the same time had
written the skits for the Puppet Theater in Cologne. He was
particularly enthusiastic about the first Napoleon. He hated the
Prussians and anyone that spoke of the Kaiser. Every year on the
fifth of May he traveled back to Cologne and the Minority Church
where he celebrated a High Mass for the tormented dead of the
“Grand Army”.
    There sat large, gold spectacled, Stanislaus
Schacht, candidate for a degree in Philosophy, in his sixteenth
semester, too fat, too lazy to get off his chair. For years he had
lived as a lodger at the widow of Professor Dr. von Dollinger’s
house. For a long time now he had been installed as the new master
of the house. She was