The Invasion of France in 1814 by Erckmann-Chatrian
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CAVE OF LUITPRANDT
All through the battle, till the close of night, the good people ofGrandfontaine had observed the poor crazy Yegof standing upon the crestof the Little Donon, and, his crown on his head, with his sceptre heldaloft, like a Merovingian king, shouting commands to his phantomarmies. What passed through his mind when he saw the utter rout of theGermans no one can say; but at the last cannon-shot he disappeared.Where did he betake himself? On this point the people of Tiefenbachhave the following story:--
At that time there lived upon the Bocksberg two singularcreatures--sisters--one named "little Kateline," and the other "greatBerbel." These creatures, who were almost in tatters, had taken uptheir abode in the "Cave of Luitprandt," so called, according to oldchronicles, because the German king, before invading Alsace, had causedto be interred in that immense vault of red sandstone the savage chiefswho had fallen in the battle of Blutfeld. The hot spring which alwaysbubbles in the middle of the cavern protected the eerie sisters fromthe sharp colds of winter; and the woodcutter, Daniel Horn, ofTiefenbach, had been good enough to fill up the largest entrance to therock with heaps of brushwood. By the side of the hot spring there isanother, cold as ice and clear as crystal. Kateline, who always drankof its waters, was scarce four foot high, thick-set and bloated; andher cowering figure, her round eyes and enormous goitre, rendered herwhole appearance peculiarly suggestive of a big turkey-hen in areverie. Every Sunday she carried into Tiefenbach a great basket,which the people of the place filled with boiled potatoes, crusts ofbread, and occasionally, on high days, with cakes and other remains oftheir festivals;--with which she reascended breathlessly to her rockyhome, muttering, gibbering, and behaving in the absurdest way.Meanwhile Berbel took care to drink from the cold spring: she wasgaunt, one-eyed, scraggy as a bat, with a flat nose, large ears, agleaming eye, and thrived upon the booty obtained by her sister.Seldom did she descend from the Bocksberg, except in July, at the timeof greatest heat--when she proceeded to launch her incantations--herenchanting-wand a withered thistle--against the crops of those who hadfailed to contribute to her sister's basket. These imprecations werealways believed to be followed by dire storms, hail, and destructivevermin without stint: whence they came to be dreaded as the plague, andthe hag herself to be regarded as a weather-witch (_Wetterhexe_), while"little Kateline" was looked upon as the good genius of Tiefenbach andits neighborhood. In such wise Berbel folded her arms and took herease in her cave, while her sister went gibbering along the highways.
Unfortunately for the sisters, Yegof had for many years established hiswinter-quarters in "Luitprandt's cavern;" and it was thence he setforth every spring on a visit to his innumerable chateaux andfeudatories, as far as Geierstein in the Hundsrueck. Every year,therefore, toward the end of November, after the first snows, hearrived with his raven, to the accompaniment of piercing cries fromWetterhexe.
"What have you to grumble at?" he would say, while installing himselfin the place of honor. "Are you not intruders upon my domain, and am Inot truly good to permit two such useless old hags (_Valkyries_) tostay in the Valhalla of my fathers?"
Then Berbel, in a rage, used to overwhelm him with abuse, whileKateline gave vent to her dissatisfaction in thick unintelligibleutterances; but he, regardless of both, lit his old box pipe and sethimself to describe his endless peregrinations to the ghosts of theGerman warriors buried in the cavern sixteen centuries before, callingupon each of them by name, and addressing them as personages stillliving. From this it will be understood with what disgust the arrivalof the maniac came to be regarded by Kateline and Berbel; in fact forboth it was nothing less than a calamity.
Now in the year we are speaking of, Yegof, having failed to return tothem at the proper time, induced the sisters to believe that he wasdead and to rejoice at the idea of seeing no more of him. But for manydays Wetterhexe had remarked an extraordinary movement going on in theneighboring gorges, and men marching off in bodies, shouldering theirmuskets, from the sides of Falkenstein and Donon. Clearly somethingwas taking place out of the common. Recollecting that the year beforeYegof had informed the phantoms of the cave that his armies, incountless hosts, were coming to invade the country, the sorceress wasseized with a vague apprehension and anxiety to learn the cause of somuch agitation; but no one came up to the cave, and Kateline havingmade her rounds on the previous Sunday, could not have been induced tostir out for the gift of a kingdom.
In this state of apprehension, Wetterhexe went and came upon the sideof the mountain and became hourly more restless and irritable. Duringthe whole of that Saturday events assumed quite another aspect. Fromnine o'clock in the morning deep and heavy explosions began to growllike a continuous storm among the thousand echoes of the mountain;while far away in the direction of Donon, the swift lightnings swept upacross the sky among the peaks; then toward night the dischargesdeepening in intensity filled the silent gorges with an indescribabletumult. At every report the Hengst, the Gantzlee, the Giromani, andthe Grosmann cliffs seemed to echo to their lowest depths.
"What can it be?" cried Berbel. "Has the end of the world come?"
Then re-entering her lurking-place, and finding Kateline crouched inher corner and munching a potato, Berbel shook her roughly and hissedout:--"Fool! have you got no ears? Is there anything that you fear?You are good for nothing but eating, drinking, and mumbling. Oh, youidiot!"
She snatched away the potato in a rage, and then seated herself by theside of the hot spring, which was sending up its gray fumes to theroof. Half an hour after, the darkness having become intense and thecold excessive, she made a fire of brushwood, which shed its palegleams upon the blocks of red sandstone and lit up the farthest cornerof the cave, where Kateline was now asleep, huddled in the straw, withher chin upon her knees. Without, the noisy tumult had ceased. Thenwithdrawing the brushwood curtain from the mouth of the cave, shepeered out into the darkness, and returned to crouch down, by thespring. With her large lips compressed, her eyes closed, and the greatround wrinkles playing upon her cheeks, she drew round her knees an oldwoollen covering, and appeared to fall asleep. Throughout the cavernthere was no sound, except that of the congealed vapor, which fell backat long intervals into the spring with a strange splashing noise.
This silence lasted for about two hours; midnight was approaching, whenall of a sudden a distant sound of footsteps, mingled with discordantcries, was heard outside the cave. Berbel listened, and at onceperceived that they were human cries. Then she rose, trembling, and,armed with her thistle-wand, proceeded to the entrance of the cave;whence, through the screen of brushwood, she saw, at fifty pacesdistant, Yegof advancing toward her in the moonlight. He was alone,but gesticulating and waving his sceptre, as if myriads of invisiblebeings were about him.
"Hark, ye red men!" he was shrieking, with, beard sticking up on end,his hair streaming about his head, and his dog-skin upon his arm."Hark, ye red men! Roog! Bled! Adelrik! hark! Will ye not hear meat last? Do you not see they are coming? Behold them cleaving the skylike vultures. Hark to me. Let this miserable race be annihilated!Ha, ha! it is you, Minau! it is you, Rochart ... ha! ha!" Andaddressing the dead upon the Donon, he called upon them defiantly, asif they were standing before him; and then fell back a step at a time,striking the air, uttering imprecations, encouraging his phantoms, andcasting about him as if in close fight. The sight of this terriblestruggle against beings who were invisible caused Berbel to shudderwith fright, and to fancy her hair stiffening upon her head. Shesought to hide herself; but just at the moment a strange noise frombehind drew her attention, and her terror may be imagined when she sawthe hot spring bubbling with more than usual activity and sending outclouds of steam, which rose and broke away in separate masses towardthe entrance of the cavern; and while these clouds like phantoms wereslowly advancing in close order, Yegof appeared upon the scene,shouting hoarsely:--
"You come at last! you heard me then!"
Thus sayi
Yegof, with face which appeared shrunken in the pale moonlight, hissceptre held high, his great beard flowing down his breast, and hiseyes flaming, saluted each phantom with a wave of the hand, addressingit by name:
"Hail, Bled! Roog, hail! and you, my brave men, all hail! The houryou have been expecting for ages is at hand: the eagles are whettingtheir beaks and the soil is thirsting for blood. Remember Blutfeld!"
YEGOF SALUTED EACH PHANTOM WITH SPARKLING EYES.]
At this point Berbel's terror seemed to hold her transfixed; but soonthe last volumes of gray mist disappeared out of the cavern and meltedinto the sky. Seeing which the crazy montagnard marched fiercely intothe cave, and seating himself by the spring, with his great headbetween his hands, and his elbows on his knees, looked down into theboiling water with a haggard stare.
Kateline was now awake and venting her guttural moans; whileWetterhexe, more dead than alive, was furtively watching the maniacfrom the farthest corner of the cave.
"They have all gone up from the earth!" exclaimed Yegof, suddenly."All, all! They have gone to reanimate the courage of my youths, andinspire them with contempt of death!"
And again lifting up his face, which seemed impressed with deepanguish, he cried, fixing his wolfish eyes on Wetterhexe:--
"Oh, thou descendant of the sterile valkyries, thou who hast nurturedwithin thy bosom no life-breath of warriors, nor ever filled their deepgoblets at the festive board, nor regaled them with the smoking fleshof the wild boar, for what purpose art thou good? To spin shrouds forthe dead. Ha! take thy distaff and spin night and day; for thousandsof brave men are slumbering in the snow! ... They fought well....Yes, they did all that men could do; but the time had not come, ... nowthe ravens are fighting for their carcasses!"
Then in accents of uncontrollable rage, snatching the crown off hishead together with handfuls of hair--"Ah, cursed race," he exclaimed,"will you always be barring our passage? Were it not for you we hadalready conquered Europe; the red men would have been masters of theworld.... And I have bowed my head before the leader of this race ofcurs.... I asked him for his daughter, instead of seizing and carryingher away as the wolf carries the lamb! ... Ah! Huldrix, Huldrix!"
Then changing this rhapsody--"Listen, listen, valkyrie!" he cried in ahoarse voice, and pointing his finger with great solemnity.
Wetterhexe listened. A great gust of wind rose up through the night,shaking the old forest-trees heavy with their load of frost. Often andoften had the sorceress in the winter nights heard the soughing of thenorth wind and paid it no attention, but now she was overwhelmed withfear! And as she stood there all trembling, a hoarse cry was heardwithout; and almost at the same time the raven Hans, sweeping beneaththe rock, set himself to describe great circles overhead, flapping hiswings with a frightened air, and uttering melancholy cries.
Yegof became pale as death. "Vod, Vod! what has thy son Luitprandtdone for thee? Why choose him rather than another?"
For some seconds he stood as though amazed: then, suddenly transportedby savage enthusiasm and brandishing his sceptre, he dashed out of thecavern.
Two minutes afterward, Wetterhexe, standing at the entrance of therock, followed him with anxious eyes.
He went straight on, with neck stretched forward and long strides. Youwould have thought him a wild beast upon the prowl. Hans went beforehim, hopping from place to place.
In a moment they disappeared down the Blutfeld gorge.