Episode 16: "BUT WHAT CAN WE DO?! WHAT CAN WE DO?!"


New weekly meeting in the “salon" of Johanna Schopenhauer, the hostess or “salonnière”. Goethe, Tieck, Wieland, Adele Schopenhauer, Caroline Walsolz, Dorothea and Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis are the guests on this occasion. Arthur Schopenhauer is also present this once, exhibiting a face like a rainy day, seated in an armchair with the crutches next to him. As is customary at this time of year, all are gathered around the fireplace. Wieland is the first to take the floor:
“There is one thing really troubling to me. And not only to me but to Tieck also, and maybe to all of you”. “What is it?” the hostess asks. But they are interrupted by the peevish Arthur Schopenhauer: "It doesn't trouble to me in the least. What's more, I give a hoot". Automatically his mother rebukes him:
“Arthur, watch your language! Besides, you don’t even know what the thing that worries Wieland is."
“Whatever it is, I care a damn. Everything is pure illusion. Nothing really exists.”
“My bonnet exists, that's for sure”, Mrs. Walsolz comments. “Cost me an eye, you know.”
Meanwhile, Johanna is reprimanding his son: “Arthur! You promised me that you would intervene as little as possible. Otherwise I will be forced to expel you from my salon.” Then, she turns to Wieland: “Please, continue. We’re very interested.”
“I guess all of us here present have noticed a clamorous absence lately.”
"You mean the gingerbread cakes with which our hostess used to delight us?” Mrs. Walsolz asks.
"No, I mean our English friend and colleague, Lord Byron.”
“Oh, that!” Schlegel exclaims. “Of course we have noticed it. But I don’t think there's cause for concern. Surely he will be experiencing a love affair somewhere.”
“Tieck and I have an alternative theory. Right, Tieck?”
“Yes indeed. We suspect that Byron has been kidnapped by beings from another planet!”
There is a general murmur of surprise in the midst of which the laughs of Arthur Schopenhauer stand out.
“How the hell have you reached that conclusion?” Dorothea asks.
“What about the mysterious light that has been flying over our sky lately?” Wieland answers. And then it's Schlegel's turn:
"Are you implying that this light has taken over Lord Byron?”
“Serves him right for being such a libertine!” Arthur Schopenhauer exclaims.
Mrs. Schopenhauer stands up, indignant:
-Arthur! Go to your room immediately! That's an order!
Arthur grabs his crutches and limps off. When he disappears, Wieland reclaims the floor:
“That light is only the wrapper of a flying machine. I have seen it with my own eyes. And I assure you that it can not be from this planet.”
Then, Goethe rises ceremoniously to make a speech:
"Dear friends, the theory of Wieland and Tieck is not as farfetched as it seems at first sight. The Duke Karl August himself has sighted such a ship not many days ago. With regard to its origin, it would be foolhardy to say that our planet is the only inhabited place in the entire galaxy. And, all things considered, it would not be strange that, in those other planets, a much more advanced civilization than ours would have developed. By the way, Mrs. Schopenhauer, wouldn't you have an onion?
Mrs. Schopenhauer emits a shrill scream that makes everybody's hair stand on end. In view of her reaction, Goethe rushes to rectify: "Forget it!", and sits down. But it has not been the mention of the onion what has caused her unexpected reaction. It is that she suddenly has remembered the bumpy  palmistry session she had with Lord Byron. She explains to her guests what happened on that occasion: how she clearly saw in Byron's palm a being from another planet, a hermaphrodite being with long mustaches with the tips pointing upwards.
"Goodness! (Novalis exclaims) The thing is serious! What will our English colleagues say?! One of them comes to visit us and is kidnapped by extraterrestrials! We can’t allow them to take Lord Byron to another planet. We must do something!”
The others show their agreement with the words of Novalis.
Then Schlegel gets a nervous breakdown: he gets up all of a sudden and starts running around the room with his eyes bulging and his arms raised, shouting: “But what can we do?! What can we do?!”
“We must begin house-to-house searches” Tieck says.
Mrs. Walsolz gets up and goes to the exit:
"I'm going to search my own house.”



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"THE DEAD WISH GOOD NIGHT" (a paranormal tale)

Image
One day, during breakfast, Sir William Barret announced that he wanted to test his mediumistic gifts. Henry Sidgwick asked him what was he based on to suppose that he possessed such gifts. He replied that when he was ten years old, he once dreamed of his father and when he woke up he found his father in the family room sitting in his favorite chair reading “The Times”. Then, he suddenly lowered the newspaper and, pointing to his son with his finger, asked "Have you read the Bible?". This story had a strong emotional impact on the members of the SPR, until Barret clarified that at that time his father still lived and resided in the old house in Sussex with the rest of the family. Still, Barret was so insistent that Sidgwick ended up agreeing to the whim of his friend and organized a séance for that same evening. In the early afternoon, a wagon stopped in front of the entrance to the SPR headquarters and two large wooden boxes were moved to the living room where the séance was
Read more

WHAT IS A THRILLER MOVIE?

Image
Metaphorically speaking, a thriller is nothing more than a maze (or a mess) through which a series of disreputable characters circulate trying to find something. In the most emblematic case (that of John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon"), everyone tries to find a falcon, nobody knows why. Not because they like the elegant flight of such birds (since this particular falcon is unable to fly due to a problem in its constitution: it’s made of gold) but for some other reason that escapes me. The detective (Humphrey Bogart) is brought into this damn mess by a ‘femme fatale’ (Mary Astor). Unfortunately, in addition to this fatal woman, there is also a wide assortment of fatal men, all of whom cause trouble for Humphrey Bogart. To begin with, they kill his partner, who was the mastermind of the detective agency, thus leaving the business brainless. At this very moment, the viewers are beginning to adjust to the idea that they will be home late for tea time. If the dead man had been
Read more

"THE TALENTED ALIEN" (a paranormal tale)

Image
I will tell you how the Society for Psychical Research first heard about what we call today flying saucers or Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO), but in 1890 (when this story is placed) they still did not have a name. (The testimonies referred to them as "that"). It turns out that in Burnley, County of Lancashire, lived a man capable of interpreting the song "If Ever I Cease to Love" with the laces of his shoes. For Sir Henry Sidgwick, this was an unprecedented paranormal phenomenon. As Sidgwick was the president of the Society nobody dared to contradict him, and that is how an expedition was organized to the county of Lancashire. (For the musician in question it was impossible to travel since he lacked other shoes than those he used to make music and they went out of tune if he walked with them.) Early in the morning, the four members chosen for the mission embarked on a stagecoach surrounded by the expressions of affection and gratitude from the rest of the SPR mem
Read more