The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and his Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren
Authors: Carl-Johan Vallgren
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of dead children; and after that had dreamed her father was coming to rape her.
This was not altogether far from the truth. Several of the girls, especially those who had not been driven to prostitution by war or by hunger, or been thrown out of their homes after some scandal involving their honour, had been victimised by their fathers or brothers. Some were conscious of what incest was, others were not. Fräulein Strittmater was one of the latter. Never in her life would she admit that the mental image which came to her in the boy’s presence was an exact reenactment of the scene within her home’s four walls, staged not once but repeatedly from her sixth birthday until, one night in an August thunderstorm, aged fourteen, she had run away. It was a scene her conscious mind had rejected, had thrown overboard like bulky ballast to save her from going under. Instead she had blamed it all on her weak nerves after the snake bite, and thereafter, to be on the safe side, had avoided being alone in the same room with Hercule.
Other girls claimed they heard strange voices of ghosts or the “little people”, blaming it on the brothel lying so close to a churchyard known for accepting suicides. Yet others, again, realised it was Hercule speaking inside themselves, or else put it down to idle imaginings due to fatigue after a whole night in the service of love. And though some had their suspicions, most hadn’t the least inkling of Hercule’s gift since he learned as time moved on that it was not merely dangerous, but also fraught with responsibility.
From the time of his christening, when death had granted him a reprieve of uncertain duration, Hercule Barfuss became the exception in a house where love had to be paid for. It was on him, on the altar of unconditional love, that Madam Schall’s girls lavished their purest feelings. His appearance didn’t frighten them, for they had learned from experience to fear the monstrosity of the soul, not of the body. On the contrary, he fortified them. Now they knew for certain there was someone whose lot in life was worse than their own. He could come and go as he pleased, and from the day Magdalena Holt ceased bottle-feeding him he was no longer tied to any girl in particular, except Henriette Vogel.
For Hercule, Madam Schall had only one rule: from six p.m., when the first clients began to arrive, he had to keep out of sight.
Everyone understood why, though she gave no reason. He was such a terrifying sight she was afraid he would deter customers. So from six p.m. until late at night when the last of her guests had gone he was kept locked in one of the servants’ rooms on the top floor.
During those hours the house became businesslike, filled with a singular atmosphere. Lovesick men turned up looking shamefaced or passionate. Each chose the lady of his heart in one of the halls where the girls sat in a row, perfumed and scantily clad in honour of love, and disappeared with her into one of the meagre private rooms, with its washbowl, towels and bunk. The house turned into a ship with a cargo of dreams and there were times when Hercule had a weird sensation of being rocked to sleep on the open sea.
At the end of his extraordinary career Hercule would think back on the atmosphere he had inhaled in his room late at night. On his inner wavelength he would listen to every secret: the students’ nervousness on their first amorous nights, gentlemen’s murmured declarations of love, the latent fear in the girls’ giggles, the sabre duel of two sergeant majors out in the garden as they fought over some new arrival. All the thoughts in seventeen languages. He would recall the sad odours of loveless affection, of the soul’s wilting flowers and the heart’s frozen watercourse; the pain as champagne glasses clinked in hollow toasts. The excitement of quarrels and fights. The light from fireworks. Drunks’ mindlessness, fiascos and defeats. Sorrow in its every aspect, and a thousand
This was not altogether far from the truth. Several of the girls, especially those who had not been driven to prostitution by war or by hunger, or been thrown out of their homes after some scandal involving their honour, had been victimised by their fathers or brothers. Some were conscious of what incest was, others were not. Fräulein Strittmater was one of the latter. Never in her life would she admit that the mental image which came to her in the boy’s presence was an exact reenactment of the scene within her home’s four walls, staged not once but repeatedly from her sixth birthday until, one night in an August thunderstorm, aged fourteen, she had run away. It was a scene her conscious mind had rejected, had thrown overboard like bulky ballast to save her from going under. Instead she had blamed it all on her weak nerves after the snake bite, and thereafter, to be on the safe side, had avoided being alone in the same room with Hercule.
Other girls claimed they heard strange voices of ghosts or the “little people”, blaming it on the brothel lying so close to a churchyard known for accepting suicides. Yet others, again, realised it was Hercule speaking inside themselves, or else put it down to idle imaginings due to fatigue after a whole night in the service of love. And though some had their suspicions, most hadn’t the least inkling of Hercule’s gift since he learned as time moved on that it was not merely dangerous, but also fraught with responsibility.
From the time of his christening, when death had granted him a reprieve of uncertain duration, Hercule Barfuss became the exception in a house where love had to be paid for. It was on him, on the altar of unconditional love, that Madam Schall’s girls lavished their purest feelings. His appearance didn’t frighten them, for they had learned from experience to fear the monstrosity of the soul, not of the body. On the contrary, he fortified them. Now they knew for certain there was someone whose lot in life was worse than their own. He could come and go as he pleased, and from the day Magdalena Holt ceased bottle-feeding him he was no longer tied to any girl in particular, except Henriette Vogel.
For Hercule, Madam Schall had only one rule: from six p.m., when the first clients began to arrive, he had to keep out of sight.
Everyone understood why, though she gave no reason. He was such a terrifying sight she was afraid he would deter customers. So from six p.m. until late at night when the last of her guests had gone he was kept locked in one of the servants’ rooms on the top floor.
During those hours the house became businesslike, filled with a singular atmosphere. Lovesick men turned up looking shamefaced or passionate. Each chose the lady of his heart in one of the halls where the girls sat in a row, perfumed and scantily clad in honour of love, and disappeared with her into one of the meagre private rooms, with its washbowl, towels and bunk. The house turned into a ship with a cargo of dreams and there were times when Hercule had a weird sensation of being rocked to sleep on the open sea.
At the end of his extraordinary career Hercule would think back on the atmosphere he had inhaled in his room late at night. On his inner wavelength he would listen to every secret: the students’ nervousness on their first amorous nights, gentlemen’s murmured declarations of love, the latent fear in the girls’ giggles, the sabre duel of two sergeant majors out in the garden as they fought over some new arrival. All the thoughts in seventeen languages. He would recall the sad odours of loveless affection, of the soul’s wilting flowers and the heart’s frozen watercourse; the pain as champagne glasses clinked in hollow toasts. The excitement of quarrels and fights. The light from fireworks. Drunks’ mindlessness, fiascos and defeats. Sorrow in its every aspect, and a thousand
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