The hot springs at Spinbronn, situated in Hundsrück some leagues from Pirmesens, at one time enjoyed a magnificent reputation. All those who suffered from gout or kidney troubles in Germany used to congregate there. The wild aspect of the country did not deter them. They stayed in pretty cottages at the bottom of the pass and bathed in the waterfall, which fell in thick sheets of foam from a cave at the top of a cliff. They drank a decanter of mineral water or two a day, and the resident doctor, Daniel Hâselnoss, who gave out his prescriptions wearing a large wig and a chestnut-coloured suit, did excellent business.
Today the waters at Spinbronn feature no longer in the ‘Codex’; in this poor village, you can see only wretched woodcutters, and, sad to relate, Dr Hâselnoss has long gone! All of which is the result of a series of very strange occurrences which Councillor Hans Bremer of Pirmesens related to me one summer evening.
‘You of course know, Maître Frantz,’ he said to me, ‘that the spring at Spinbronn comes out of a sort of cave, approximately fifteen feet high and twelve to fifteen feet wide; the water has a temperature of 67°C and is briny. As for the cave, it is entirely covered on the outside with moss, ivy, and brushwood and no one knows its depth, since hot vapours prevent anyone from entering.
‘However, a peculiar thing had been remarked since the last century, that some of the birds of the neighbourhood, thrushes, turtle-doves, and hawks, were often seen to fly in but never to come out. No one knew to what mysterious influence they should attribute this peculiarity.
‘In 1801, during the watering season, perhaps owing to the unusually heavy rain that year, the spring became more abundant, and one day the bathers who were walking at the bottom on the lawn saw a human body, dead white, falling from the waterfall.
‘You may judge for yourself, Maître Frantz, the general panic. Naturally it was thought that in years gone by a murder had been committed at Spinbronn, and that the body of the victim had been thrown into the spring. But the body weighed no more than twelve pounds, and Dr Hâselnoss deduced from this that it must have lain in the sands for more than three centuries, to have been reduced to this state of desiccation.
‘This line of reasoning, though very plausible, did not prevent a crowd of bathers, who were naturally upset at having drunk from the salty water, from leaving at the end of that day. Those who were genuine sufferers with gout and their kidneys consoled themselves … but more breaking up inside the cavern occurred for all the debris, mud, and rubbish which was in the cave was disgorged over the ensuing days; a real charnel house came down from the mountain, skeletons of animals of every sort – quadrupeds, birds, reptiles – in short all the worst horrors imaginable.
‘Hâselnoss immediately published a pamphlet pointing out that all these bones came from an antediluvian world, that they were fossil bones which had accumulated there in a sort of hollow during the deluge that is four thousand years before Christ, that as a consequence they could be considered genuine stones, that people should not be disgusted by them … But his work had scarcely reassured the gout sufferers, when, one fine morning, the corpse of a fox, then that of a hawk with all its feathers, fell from the waterfall.
‘It was impossible to maintain any longer that these remains were previous to the flood. Consequently the feeling of disgust was so great that everyone hastened to pack his belongings and go off to take the waters elsewhere.
‘“What a disgrace!” exclaimed the beautiful ladies … “What a horror!” “That’s where the virtue of these mineral waters comes from … We would rather die from kidney stones than continue such treatment!”
‘After eight days only a huge Englishman remained at Spinbronn, who had at the same time gout in both hands and the feet and who was known as Sir Thomas Haverburch, Commodore. He lived in great style, as was the custom of British people in a foreign country.
‘This character, big and fat, with a florid complexion, but whose hands were literally knotted with gout, would have swallowed broth made with dead bodies if he thought it would cure his infirmity. He laughed a great deal at the departure of the other invalids and took up residence in the prettiest cottage, halfway up the hill, declaring his intention of spending the winter at Spinbronn.’
At this point Councillor Bremer slowly inhaled a generous pinch of snuff, as if to rekindle his memories; he shook the delicate lace of his shirt frill with the tips of his fingers and continued.
‘Five or six years before the revolution of 1789, a young doctor from Pirmesens, called Christian Weber, had set off for San Domingo in the hope of there making his fortune. He had effectively amassed some one hundred thousand pounds in the exercise of his profession, when the revolt of the negroes broke out.
‘There is no need for me to remind you of the barbaric treatment which our unfortunate compatriots suffered in Haiti. Dr Weber had the good fortune to escape the massacre and to save a part of his fortune. He then travelled to South America, and spent several years in French Guiana. In 1801 he returned to Pirmesens and established himself at Spinbronn, where Dr Hâselnoss handed over his house and his dead practice.
‘Christian Weber brought with him an old negress called Agatha – an awesome creature, with a short squat nose, lips as big as your fist, her head covered in a triple row of scarves in garish colours. This poor old woman loved red; she had hooped earrings which dangled as far as her shoulders, and the mountain people of Hundsrück would come from twenty miles around to stare at her.
‘As for Dr Weber, he was a tall, gaunt man, invariably dressed in a sky-blue coat with swallow-tails and in buckskin breeches. He wore a pliable straw hat and boots with bright yellow tops, on the front of which dangled two silver tassels.
‘He wasn’t very talkative; his laugh had something of a nervous twitching in it, and his grey eyes, usually calm and meditative, shone with an unnatural glow at the slightest sign of contradiction. Each morning he would go for a walk on the mountain, letting his horse roam and whistling, always in the same monotone, the same melody from a negro song. This eccentric had brought back from his travels a number of boxes full of weird insects, some of them bronzy-black and as big as eggs, others small and scintillating like sparks. He seemed to be much more fond of these than of his patients and from time to time, on his way back from his strolls, he brought back some butterflies pinned to the band of his hat.
‘He had hardly settled into Hâselnoss’s huge house than he filled its farmyard with foreign birds, Barbary geese with scarlet cheeks, guinea-fowl, and a white peacock which usually perched on the garden wall and which shared with the negress the admiration of the mountain folk.
‘If I am going into details, Maître Frantz, it’s because they remind me of my early youth. Dr Weber turned out to be at the same time both my cousin and my tutor, and on his return to Germany, he had come to get me and install me in his home at Spinbronn. Black Agatha at first inspired in me some fear, and it was only with some difficulty that I could get used to her unusual features. She was a good woman, she could make spicy dishes well, she hummed strange songs in a guttural voice at the same time snapping her fingers and rhythmically raising her fat legs in turn, so that I ended up liking her very much.
‘Dr Weber had, quite naturally, made friends with Sir Thomas Haverburch, who was in his eyes his most prominent patient, and I wasn’t long in realizing that these two eccentrics had long sessions together. They chatted about various mysteries, like the transmission of energy, and they indulged in certain bizarre gestures which they had both observed in the course of their travels, Sir Thomas in the East and my tutor in the Americas. I found it very intriguing.
‘As happens with children, I was always on the look-out for what they seemed to want to hide from me. But despairing in the end of discovering anything I resolved to ask Agatha. The poor old woman, after making me promise to say nothing about it, confessed to me that my tutor was a sorcerer. Moreover, Dr Weber exercised a peculiar influence over the negress’s mind and this lady, normally so cheerful and always ready to amuse herself at the slightest thing, trembled like a leaf, when, by chance, her master’s grey eyes fell on her.
‘All this, Maître Frantz, seems to have no connection with the springs of Spinbronn … But, wait, just wait … You will see by what a strange string of circumstances my story is related to this.
‘I told you that birds would go into the cave and not come out, and even other bigger animals. After the final departure of the bathers, some inhabitants of the village remembered that a young girl, called Loïsa Müller, who lived with her old invalid grandmother in a cottage on the slope of the hill, had suddenly disappeared about five years ago. She had set off one morning to look for grass in the forest, and since then no one had ever heard of her again, except that a few days later, some woodcutters who were coming down from the mountain had found her apron and her sickle a few paces from the cave.
‘Since then it was obvious to everyone that the body that had fallen from the waterfall, and about which Hâselnoss had said such very nice things, was none other than that of Loïsa Müller. The poor young girl had undoubtedly been drawn into the cavern by the mysterious influence to which even weaker things were subjected almost daily.
‘This influence, what was it? No one knew. But the inhabitants of Spinbronn, superstitious like all mountain folk, claimed that the devil lived in the cave, and the terror spread in the surrounding districts.
‘Now, one July afternoon in 1802, my cousin was working on a new classification of the insects in his boxes. He had taken several quite curious ones from them the evening before. I was beside him, holding a lighted candle in my hand and in the other a needle that I heated.
‘Sir Thomas, sitting down, his chair leaning against the edge of a window and his feet on a stool, watched us working and smoked a cigar.
‘I was on very good terms with Sir Thomas Haverburch, and I used to accompany him every day to the woods in his barouche. He enjoyed listening to me chattering in English and wanted to make of me, he would say, a real gentleman.
‘When he had labelled all his butterflies, Dr Weber at last opened the box of his biggest insects and said: “Yesterday I caught a magnificent stag-beetle, the great Lucanus Cervus of the oaks of Hartz. It has this peculiarity that its right claw forks into five branches. It’s a rare species.”
‘At the same time I gave him the needle, and as he pierced the insect before fixing it on to the cork strip, Sir Thomas, who up to then was impassive, got up, and drawing near a box, began to consider the crab spider from Guiana that it contained with a feeling of horror that strikingly portrayed itself on his fat red face.
‘“There,” he exclaimed, “is the most hideous work of creation! I only have to see it and I feel myself shaking all over.” In fact a sudden pallor spread all over his face.
‘“Bah!” said my tutor, “all that’s just a childish phobia. You heard your nurse cry out when she saw a spider, you were afraid, and you have retained the impression. But if you looked at the spider through a powerful microscope, you would be amazed at the perfection of its organs, at their admirable arrangement, and at their very elegance.”
‘“It disgusts me,” cut in the Commodore abruptly. “Ugh!” He turned on his heel.
‘“Oh! I don’t know why,” he said, “the spider has always made my blood run cold.”
‘Dr Weber started to laugh, and I, who shared Sir Thomas’s feelings, exclaimed: “Yes, cousin, you should take this nasty creature out of the box. It is disgusting. It mars all the others.”
‘“You little animal,” he said to me, his eyes sparkling, “who is forcing you to look at it? If it doesn’t please you, off you go elsewhere!”
‘Evidently he was angry. Sir Thomas, who was then in front of the window looking at the mountain, turned round suddenly, came and took me by the hand, and said to me in a kindly way: “Your tutor, Hans, loves his spider. We prefer the trees and the grass. Let’s go for a walk.”
‘“Yes! Go!” shouted the doctor, “and return for supper at six.” Then raising his voice, “No hard feelings, Sir Haverburch!”
‘Sir Thomas wanted to drive himself and dismissed his servant. He made me sit beside him on the same seat and we set off for the Rothalps.
‘While the carriage slowly climbed the sandy path, a sadness that I could not control took hold of my soul. Sir Thomas, for his part, was serious. He was aware of my sadness and said to me: “You don’t like spiders, Hans, no more do I. But, thank Heaven, there are no dangerous ones in this country. The crab spider which your tutor has in his box comes from French Guiana. It lives for years, in the huge swampy forests constantly filled with humid vapours and burning gases; it needs this temperature to live. Its web, or to be more precise, its huge net, envelops an entire thicket. It captures birds in it, just like our spiders catch flies. I have seen others in the collections of those people who study such things but it could not live long in this cold climate. All those that ever escaped no doubt perished very quickly. But chase from your mind these revolting images and have a pull at my old Burgundy!”
‘Then, turning round, he lifted up the lid of the second seat and took out of the straw a sort of a gourd, from which he filled to the brim a leather cup and handed it to me.
‘The carriage, harnessed to a small horse from the Ardennes, thin and nervous as a goat, climbed up the precipitous path. Myriads of insects buzzed in the heather. On the right, a hundred paces at the most, stretched above us the dark edge of the forests of Rothalps, whose sinister depths, full of brambles and rank weeds, revealed now and then some clearings, flooded with light. On our left, tumbled the stream of Spinbronn. The higher we climbed the more the silvery sheets of water floating in the abyss took on an azure hue, and redoubled their thundering roar.
‘I was enthralled by the spectacle. Sir Thomas, leaning back on his seat, his knees up to his chin, gave way to his customary dreaming, while the horse, straining with its legs and leaning its head on the harness, so as to balance the carriage, suspended us as it were from the edge of the rock. Soon, however, we reached a shallower slope, surrounded with shadows. I had still got my head turned and my eyes lost in the boundless view. At the sight of the shadows I turned around and saw, within a hundred paces, the cave of Spinbronn. The surrounding underwood was magnificently green, and the spring, which before falling from the plateau stretched over a bed of sand and black pebbles, was so limpid that one would have thought it frozen over, had not light wisps of steam covered its surface.
‘The horse had just stopped of its own accord to breathe. Sir Thomas, standing up, gazed for a few seconds at the scenery.
‘“How calm everything is,” he said; then after a moment’s silence, “If you weren’t here, Hans, I would willingly take a bathe in the pool.”
‘“But, Commodore,” I said to him, “why not go for a bathe? I can very easily go for a short stroll roundabouts. There is on the mountain nearby a huge pasture all covered with strawberries. I shall go and pick some of them. I shall be back in an hour.”
‘“I’d really like to, Hans, it’s a good idea. Dr Weber claims that I drink too much burgundy. You have to fight wine with mineral water. This sandy bed pleases me.”
‘Then both of us having climbed down, he tied the horse to the trunk of a small birch tree and shook my hand as if to say to me, “You can go.”
‘I saw him sit down on the moss and take off his boots. As I moved away he turned round and shouted: “In an hour, Hans!” These were his last words.
‘An hour later I returned to the spring. The horse, the carriage, and Sir Thomas’s clothes were the only things to be seen. The sun was setting. The shadows lengthened. There was no bird song under the foliage, not an insect buzzed in the tall grasses; a deathly silence hovered over the solitude.
‘This silence terrified me. I climbed on to the rock which towers over the cave. I looked right and left. No one! I called out. No reply! The sound of my voice, repeated by the echoes, made me afraid. Night was coming down slowly. An indescribable anguish oppressed me. Suddenly the story of the young girl who had disappeared came to my mind; and I started to run down. But, having arrived in front of the cave, I stopped, overcome by an inexpressible terror. Glancing into the black shadow of the spring, I could see two motionless red blobs … then huge lines splashing about in a peculiar way in the midst of the darkness, and this at a depth where perhaps no human eyes had yet penetrated. Fear gave to my sight, to all my senses, a subtlety of perception unheard of. For some seconds I heard, quite clearly, a cicada singing its evening lament on the edge of the wood. Then my heart, for a moment stilled by emotion, started to beat furiously and I heard nothing else!
‘Then, uttering a terrified cry, I ran off, leaving behind the horse, the carriage. In less than twenty minutes, leaping over rocks, brushwood, I had reached the threshold of our house, burst through the front door, and shouted in a choked voice: “Run! Run! Sir Haverburch is dead! Sir Haverburch is in the cave!”
‘After these words, uttered in the presence of my tutor, old Agatha, and two or three people invited that evening by the doctor, I fainted. I have learned since that I was delirious for an hour.
‘The entire village went off to look for the Commodore. Christian Weber had dragged them off. At ten o’clock in the evening, the entire crowd came back, bringing with them the coach and, in the coach, Sir Haverburch’s clothes. They had discovered nothing. It was impossible to go ten steps into the cave without being suffocated by the hot vapours from the spring.
‘During their absence Agatha and I had remained seated in the corner of the chimney. I, muttering in terror incoherent words, she, her hands crossed on her knees, her eyes wide open, going from time to time to the window to see what was going on, because one could see from the foot of the mountain torches running through the woods. One could hear voices, far away, hailing one another in the night.
‘When her master approached, Agatha started to tremble. The doctor came in suddenly, pale, his lips tight, despair imprinted on his face. About twenty woodcutters followed him in confusion, with their large wide-rimmed felt hats, their weather-beaten faces, waving the remnants of their torches. Hardly were they in the room than the sparkling eyes of my tutor seemed to look for something. He saw the negress, and without a single word being exchanged between them, the poor woman started to cry out.
‘“No! No! I don’t want to!”
‘“And I want to!” replied the doctor harshly.
‘You might have said that the negress had been seized by an invincible power. She shuddered from head to toe and, Christian Weber pointing out a seat for her, she sat on it with a corpse-like rigidity.
‘All those present, witnesses of this frightening spectacle, good-living people of coarse primitive manners, but full of pious sentiments, crossed themselves, and I, who didn’t know then, even by name, the terrible magnetic power of the will, I started to tremble, thinking that Agatha was dead.
‘Christian Weber had gone up to the negress and passed his hand over her brow in a rapid movement.
‘“Are you there?” he said.
‘“Yes, master.”
‘“Sir Thomas Haverburch?”
‘At these words she had a renewed trembling fit.
‘“Can you see him?”
‘“Yes! Yes!” she said in a choking voice. “I see him.”
‘“Where is he?”
‘“Up there! At the bottom of the cave! Dead!”
‘“Dead!” said the doctor. “How?”
‘“The spider! Oh, the dreadful crab spider! Oh!”
‘“Calm yourself,” said the doctor, quite pale. “Tell us clearly.”
‘“The crab spider has him by the throat … he is there … at the bottom … under the rock … swathed in cobwebs … Ah!”
‘Christian Weber turned a cold look to those present, who, stooping in a circle, their eyes popping out of their heads, listened. I heard him murmur: “Horrible! Horrible!” Then he resumed.
‘“Can you see him?”
‘“I can see him.”
‘“And the spider. Is it big?”
‘“Oh! Master, never … never have I seen one so huge, neither on the banks of the Mocaris nor in the lowlands of Konanama … It is as big as my head!”
‘There was a lengthy silence. All those present looked at each other, their faces livid, their hair standing on end. Christian Weber alone appeared calm. Having passed his hands several times over the brow of the negress, he began.
‘“Agatha, tell us how death struck Sir Haverburch.”
‘“He was bathing in the pool of the stream … The spider saw him from behind, his back naked. It was hungry, it had been fasting for a long time. It saw him, his arms on the water. Suddenly, it dashed out, as quick as lightning, and placed its claws around the Commodore’s neck, and he shouted ‘My God! My God!’ It bit him and ran off. Sir Haverburch collapsed into the water and died. Then the spider came back and surrounded him with its web, and swam gently, gently as far as the bottom of the cave. It pulled the thread. Now it’s completely black.”
‘The doctor turned towards me, no longer afraid. He said: “Is it true, Hans, that the Commodore went for a bathe?”
‘“Yes, cousin.”
‘“At what time?”
‘“At four o’clock.”
‘“At four o’clock. It was very hot, wasn’t it?”
‘“Ah, yes!”
‘“That’s it!” he said, beating his brow. “The monster could come out without fear!”
‘He uttered some unintelligible words, then, looking at the mountain folk: “My friends!” he exclaimed. “That’s where this mass of debris comes from … the body, the skeletons which frightened the bathers … that’s what has ruined you all … It’s a crab spider – God knows where it came from – but it’s there … hiding in its web … and on the lookout for its prey from the bottom of the cave! Who can tell the number of its victims?”
‘Then, filled with a sort of rage he left, shouting: “Bring faggots! Faggots!”
‘All the woodcutters followed him in the utmost confusion. Ten minutes later, two big coaches laden with faggots slowly climbed the hill. A long procession of woodcutters, backs bent, axes over their shoulders, followed them into the middle of the dark night. My tutor and I walked in front, holding the horses by the bridle. The melancholy moon dimly lit up this funereal procession. From time to time the wheels creaked, then the carriages, raised up by the stony ruggedness of the path, fell back into the ruts with a heavy jolt.
‘Drawing near the cave, our procession halted. The torches were lit and the crowd moved forward towards the abyss. The limpid water, flowing over the sand, reflected the bluish flames of the resinous torches, whose beams lit up the tops of the black pines leaning over the rock.
‘“We must unload here,” said the doctor. “Then we must block the entrance to the cave.”
‘And it was with a feeling of terror, that each one set to his task of carrying out their orders. The faggots fell from the top of the carts. Some stakes, placed below the opening of the spring, prevented the water from dragging them off.
‘At about midnight the entrance to the cave was literally shut. The water whistling beneath, poured out right and left over the moss. The upper faggots were perfectly dry. Then Doctor Weber, seizing hold of a torch, set fire to them himself. The flames, rushing up from twig to twig, crackling angrily, soon leapt up to the sky, chasing before them clouds of smoke.
‘It was a strange and wild spectacle, to see these huge woods with their quivering shadows lit up in this way.
‘The cave disgorged a black smoke, which gradually increased until it was pouring out. All around waited the woodcutters, sombre and motionless, their eyes fixed on the entrance. And I myself, though fear made me tremble from head to toe, was unable to take my eyes away from it.
‘We had already been waiting a quarter of an hour, and the doctor was beginning to get impatient, when a black object, with long hooked legs, suddenly appeared in the shadow and scuttled towards the opening.
‘A general uproar resounded around the pile of faggots. The spider, chased by the fire, went back into its cave. Then, choked by the smoke, it returned to the charge and rushed to the middle of the flames. Its long hairy legs caught the flames and shrivelled up. It was as big as my head and a violet crimson; I can only describe it as a bladder full of blood – the blood of Sir Thomas Haverburch!
‘One of the woodcutters, afraid of seeing it cross the fire, threw his axe at it, and hit it so well that its blood for a moment covered all the fire around it. But then the flames burned up more fiercely above and consumed the horrible insect.’
‘Such, Maître Frantz, is the strange event that destroyed the fine reputation that the waters of Spinbronn previously enjoyed. I can assure you of the scrupulous accuracy of my account. But as far as explaining it to you, that would be impossible. However, it is not absurd to imagine that insects, subjected to the raised temperature of certain spring waters, which provide for them the same conditions of existence and development as the scorching climates of Africa and South America, can reach incredible sizes. Dr Weber was of the opinion that the spider must have escaped from someone’s collection and found the hot cave before it was killed by the cold climate.
‘Be that as it may, my tutor, thinking that it would be impossible after this event to revive the waters of Spinbronn, resold Hâselnoss’s house, and returned to South America with his negress and his insect collections. I was sent to boarding school in Strasbourg, where I stayed till 1809.
‘The chief political events of the era at this time absorbed the attention of Germany and France and the facts that I have just related to you went completely unnoticed.
‘But nobody drinks the waters of Spinbronn even to this day.’