The Count of Nideck / adapted from the French of Erckmann-Chartrian

by Ralph Browning Fiske; Erckmann-Chatrian

I was about to seize her by the hair when, at the end of the long gallery, beneath the oval archway that opened upon the ramparts, I saw—the Count of Nideck! The Count of Nideck, whom I thought dying, clad in a huge wolf-skin, with its upper jaw projecting like a visor over his eyebrows, the claws resting on his shoulders, and the tail dragging behind him over the flagstones. He wore heavy boots, a silver clasp fastened the wolf-skin at his throat, and his expression, except for the dull, icy look in his eyes, bespoke the strong man born to command,—the master.

In the presence of such a personage my ideas became vague and confused. Flight was impossible. I had presence of mind enough left, however, to throw myself into an embrasure of the window.

The Count entered the chamber and fixed upon the old woman a rigid stare. They held a whispered conversation, of which I was able to hear nothing, but their gestures were full of meaning. The old hag pointed to the bed. They moved to the fireplace on tiptoe, and there in the shadow of the triforium the Black Plague unrolled a large bundle, grinning hideously meanwhile. Hardly had the Count caught sight of the sack, before he sprang to the bedside and disappeared between the curtains, which stirred in a strange fashion. I could only see one leg still resting on the floor, and the wolf's tail moving back and forth. They seemed to be enacting a mock murder scene.

Nothing could have been more horrible than this mute representation of such an act. The old creature approached the bed in turn, and spread out her sack on the floor beside it. The curtains still moved, and their shadows danced upon the walls. Then a great movement succeeded. The old creature and the Count together crowded the bed clothes into the sack, stamping them down with the haste of a dog scratching a hole in the earth, and the Lord of Nideck, throwing the shapeless bundle over his shoulder, started for the door. A sheet dragged behind him, and the old woman followed him with her torch. They crossed the court.

My knees trembled and almost refused to support my weight; a prayer rose involuntarily to my lips. Two minutes had not passed before I was on their footsteps, dragged along by a subtle, irresistible curiosity. I crossed the court at a run, and was about to enter the Gothic Tower, when I perceived a deep, narrow pit at my feet, and into its depths wound a staircase, down which I saw the hag's torch turning, turning about the stone baluster like a firefly, until it became lost in the distance.

I descended in turn the first steps of the staircase, guiding my course by the distant glimmer, when it suddenly disappeared. The old woman and the Count had reached the bottom of the precipice. Soon the steps ceased. I looked around me and discovered on my left hand a ray of moonlight that found its way into the pit through a low door, across the nettles and brambles laden with hoar-frost. I put aside these bushes, clearing away the snow with my feet, and found myself at the foot of Hugh's donjon-tower. Who would have supposed that such a hole led up to the Castle? Who had shown it to the old woman? I did not stop to answer these questions. The vast plain lay before me, flooded with a light almost equal to that of day. To the right stretched the dark extent of the Black Forest, with its perpendicular rocks, its gorges and ravines. The night air was still and bitter cold; I felt exalted by the keen atmosphere. My first glance was to discover the direction which the old woman and the Count had taken. Their tall, dark forms were moving slowly up the mountain side some two hundred paces in advance of me, and stood out against the background of the heavens studded with innumerable stars. I came close up to them at the bottom of the next ravine. The Count moved slowly on, the winding-sheet still dragging behind him. His attitude and movements, like those of his companion, were automatic in their precision.

On they went, some twenty paces before me, following the hollow road to the Altenberg, now in the shadow, now in the full light, for the moon was shining with surprising brilliancy. A few clouds followed her, and seemed as if stretching out their great arms to seize her; but she evaded them, and her rays, cold as a blade of steel, cut me to the heart.

I would gladly have turned back, but an invisible power impelled me to follow this funeral procession. Even to this hour, I still see in fancy the path that winds beneath the colonnades of the Black Forest. I hear the snow crunching beneath my step, and the fallen leaves rustling in the gently stirring north wind. I still see myself following those two silent figures, and I try in vain to explain to myself the mysterious impulse which caused me to dog their footsteps.

At last we reached the forest and proceeded amongst the naked beeches, the dark shadows of whose higher boughs intersected the lower branches and traced their outlines on the snow-covered path. Sometimes I fancied I heard some one behind me; I would turn quickly around, but could see nothing.

We gained at length the line of crags on the summit of the Altenberg, behind which the torrent of the Schneeberg rushes earlier in the year, but now there was only a mere thread of water slowly trickling beneath its thick covering of ice. The vast solitude no longer had its murmurs, its warblings, and its thunder; its oppressive stillness inspired fear. The Count and the old woman found a gap in the rocks, up which they mounted quickly and apparently without effort, while I was obliged to scramble up, clinging to the bushes in order to follow them.