After some further altercation, she consented to submit to the terms dictated to her.
On the following day, my friend Hoffmeister returned to Berlin, where he had some business to transact, on which depended much of his future happiness. He promised to pay me another visit in the course of a week or ten days.
I spent the first three or four days very comfortably, though I was still very nervous, and in a weak state of health. On the morning of the fifth day, the old woman (who had by some means discovered my profession) asked me if I required a subject for the purpose of dissection. This was what I had long been seeking for, but my efforts to obtain one had hitherto been fruitless. I asked the sex, and she informed [pg 687] me it was a male. I was delighted with the offer, and at once acquiesced in the terms. Toward nightfall it was arranged that the corpse should be conveyed to the castle.
I know not from what cause, but, during the whole of the day, I was in a very abstracted and desponding state of mind, and began to regret that I had agreed to take the body through the mediation of the old woman, whom I almost conceived to be in league with Beelzebub himself.
The day had been exceedingly sultry, and toward evening the sky became overcast with huge masses of dark clouds. The wind, at intervals, moaned fitfully, and as it swept through the long corridors of the building, strongly resembled the mournful and pitiful tones of a human being in distress. The trees that stood in front of the house ever and anon yielded to the intermitting gusts of wind, and bowed their heads as though in submission to a superior power. There was no human being to be seen out of doors, and the cattle, shortly before grazing upon some distant hills, had already been removed. The river flowed sluggishly past, its brawling breaking occasionally upon the ear when the wind was inaudible. Suddenly the wind ceased, and large drops of rain began to fall; presently afterward, it came down in torrents. It was a fearful night. Frequent peals of thunder smote upon the ear; now it seemed to be at a distance, now immediately overhead. Vivid flashes of lightning were at intervals seen in the distant horizon, illumining for a moment, with supernatural brilliancy, the most minute and insignificant objects. In the midst of the tempest, I fancied I heard a rumbling noise at a distance. It grew more distinct; the cause of it was rapidly approaching. I looked earnestly out of the window, and I thought I could discern a moving object between the interstices of the trees. I was not mistaken. It was the vehicle conveying the dead body. It came along at a rapid pace. It was just in the act of turning an angle of the road, when a tree, of gigantic proportions, was struck by the electric fluid to the ground. The horse shied, and the car narrowly escaped being crushed beneath its ponderous weight. The men drove up to the entrance, and speedily took the box containing the body from the car, and placed it in a room which I showed them into. I directed them to take the body out of the box, and place it upon a deal board, which I had laid horizontally upon a couple of trestles. The corpse was accordingly taken out. It was that of a finely-grown young man. I laid my hand upon it; it was still warm, and I fancied I felt a slight pulsation about the region of the heart. Anxious to dismiss the men as soon as possible, and fearing that the old woman might be imposing upon me, I asked the price.
“Siebzig Thaler, mein Herr,” said the man.
“Danke, danke—tausendmal,” said he, as I counted the money into his hand.
At this instant a vivid flash of lightning illumined, for a second or two, the livid and ghastly corpse of the man, rendering the object horrible to gaze upon.
“Gott im Himmel! was für ein schrecklicker Stürm!” exclaimed the man to whom I had paid the money.
In a few minutes the men departed, and I stood at the window watching them, as they drove furiously away. At length they disappeared altogether from my view.