Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular Tales

by Gottfried Keller

And now there were left but a few more, decent and respectable citizens, people against whom nothing could be urged reasonably, and it was these between whom the final choice and decision lay. The smallest bid was made by the gravedigger of the cemetery next the town cathedral, a quiet and good man, who also possessed an excellent wife and, so he thought, a suitable place where to keep such a prisoner in safe custody, and who certainly had already had charge of several other prisoners before.

To this man, then, Kuengolt was given in charge, and was taken at once to his house which was situated between the cemetery and a side street. Dietegen went along in order to see how she would be housed. It turned out that her quarters would be an open, small antechamber of the house itself, immediately adjoining the graveyard and only separated from it by an iron fence. There, as it seemed, the sexton was in the habit of keeping his prisoners during the warm season of the year, while for the winter he simply admitted them into his own dwelling room, a slender chain fastening them to the tile stove.

But when Kuengolt found herself in her prison and was separated merely by a fence from the graves of the dead, moreover saw near by the old deadhouse filled with skulls and bones, she began to tremble and begged they would not leave her there all through the night. But the sexton's wife who was just dragging in a straw mattress and a blanket, and also hid the sight of the graves by suspending a curtain, answered that this request could not be listened to, and that her new abode would be wholesome for her moral welfare and as a means of repenting her sins. And she could not be shaken in this resolve.

But Dietegen replied: "Be quiet, Kuengolt, for I am not afraid of the dead or of any spook, and I will come here every night and keep watch in front of the iron fence until you, too, will no longer fear."

He said this, however, in an aside to her, so that the woman could not overhear it, and then he left for home. There he found the saddened forester who had just reached an understanding with Violande that they would not celebrate their wedding until after Kuengolt's release from prison and after the scandal created by the occurrence should have had time to blow over. During all their discussion of the matter Violande kept still as a mouse, glad that she as the prime author of the whole mischief should have escaped all the consequences, for the magical philtre had been hers, as we know.

When the early hours of evening were over and midnight approaching, Dietegen began to make good his promise. He started unobserved, took his sword and a flask of choice wine along, and climbed from the high slope down into the valley and so to town, and there he swung himself fearlessly over the graveyard wall, strode across the graves themselves, and at last stood in front of Kuengolt's new abode. She sat breathlessly and shaking with fright upon her straw mattress, behind the curtain, and listened with freezing blood to every noise, even the slightest, that struck her ear. For even before this ghostly hour of twelve she had undergone several convulsions of dread and unreasoning fear. In the deadhouse, for instance, a cat had slyly climbed over the bones, and these had clattered somewhat. Then also the night wind had moved the bushes growing over the tombs, so that they made a weird noise, and the iron rooster that served as a weather vane on top of the church roof had creaked mysteriously, making an awful sound never heard in daytime. So that the girl was in a frenzy of terror.

When she therefore heard the steps nearing more and more, Kuengolt had a new fit of fright, and shook like a leaf. But when he stretched his hands through the iron bars of the fence and pushed back the curtain, so that the full moon lit up the whole dark space around her, and in a low voice called her name, she rose quickly, ran in his direction and stretched out both hands to him.

"Dietegen!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears, the first she had been able to shed since that ominous day; for until that hour she had lived as though smitten with paralysis, dazed and benumbed.

Dietegen, however, did not take her hand, but instead handed her the flask of wine, saying: "Here, take a mouthful! It will do you good."

So she drank, and also ate of the dainty wheaten bread of her father's house that he had brought along. And by and by her courage was restored, and when she clearly perceived that he had no mind to converse any more with her, she retired silently to her couch and cried without a stop, till at last she sank into a quiet sleep.