Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm Read online

Chapter Two: The Corner

  Now many years passed without Hinzelmeier having experienced a repetition of the miracle; he thought not more about it, although his parents remained young and beautiful, as they had always been, and often in winter the wonderful rose scent surrounded them.

  In the lonely corridors of the upper floor Hinzelmeier was now seldom to be found; because the cat died of old age, and so his school perished on its own from a lack of students.

  It was for him almost already around those certain years when a beard begins to grow, that he went one afternoon in the old hall to see the white wall, because he wanted that evening to perform the shadow play "Nebuchadnezzar and his Nutcracker."  In this intention he went at the end of the hallway and examined the white wall opposite from top to bottom, when to his astonishment he saw the corner of a handkerchief hanging out of it.  He bent down to see it more precisely; in the corner was stitched the letters "A.H.," which could otherwise be none other than "Abel Hinzelmeier."  It was his mother's handkerchief.  Now a buzzing began in his head and the thoughts worked backwards, farther and farther, until they suddenly stopped in the first chapter of this story. Hereupon he attempted to pull the handkerchief out of the wall, which after somewhat painful experiments he was successful.  Then he hit, as did the lovely Mrs. Abel, three times with the cloth against the wall, and "one -- two -- three --!" it came soundlessly apart, and Hinzelmeier slipped through and stood -- where he least thought to arrive at -- on the attic floor of the house.  But there was no doubt, there stood the great-grandmother cabinet with the wobble-headed pagodas, beside it his own cradle and further back the rocking horse, simple worn-out equipment.  Alongside the beam on iron hooks hung like always his father's long coats and travel cape that turned if a draft roamed in through the sky-lit dormer window.  "Strange!" said Hinzelmeier.  "Why did mother always go through the wall?  But since he noticed among the familiar objects nothing noteworthy, he wanted to go through the bottom attic door back into the house.  But the door was not there.  He was puzzled for a moment and thought initially that he was mistaken, because he had come up from another direction than usual.  He turned and walked between the coats to the old cabinet, in order to orient himself correctly from there on, and right there opposite was the door.  He did not understand how he could have overlooked it.  But as he walked up to it, everything suddenly appeared again all so strange, that he began to doubt whether he was even before the right door.  But he knew this much: there were no others.  What puzzled him most was that the iron latch was missing and the key was removed, which would otherwise always be plugged.  He therefore put his eye to the keyhole, so he could perhaps perceive someone on the stairs or the landing who would let him out.  To his surprise, he saw not the dark stairs but a bright spacious room whose existence he had hitherto no idea.

  In the middle of it he saw a pyramid-shaped shrine, which was closed by two doors shimmering with gold and decorated with wonderful carvings.  Hinzelmeier did not know exactly whether the narrow keyhole confused his view, but it was almost as if the shapes of snakes and lizards in the brown leaf garland, which ran down the edging, rustled to and fro, sometime even stretching their supple heads over the gold background of the doors.  All this occupied the boy so, that he only now noticed the beautiful Mrs. Abel and her husband, who had knelt with bowed heads before the shrine.  He involuntarily held his breath to keep from being noticed, and now he heard the voices of his parents in a soft song:

  Rinke, ranke, rosy light,

  Open your shrine outright!

  And close us in tight,

  Rinke, ranke, rosy light!

  During the singing the animation of the reptiles in the foliage stiffened.  The golden doors opened slowly and showed inside the cabinet a crystal goblet, in which a half-opened rose stood on slender stern.  The calyx gradually opened, more and more, until one of the shimmering leaves peeled off and fell down between those kneeling.  But before it reached the ground, it scattered into the air with a ringing sound and filled the room with rose-colored mist.

  A strong rose scent emanated through the keyhole.  The boy pressed his eye to the opening, but he saw nothing except now and then a light that burst out in the reddish dim light and broke up and disappeared again.  After a while he heard footsteps at the door.  He wanted to jump up, but a violent pain on his forehead robbed him of his senses.