As long as he lived, Eszterhazy was never to be entirely sure. But he was to become sure enough.
And still the assaults continued.
About ten a.m. and there was Colonel Count Cruttz. Unusual. For one thing; for another, what was it the older man was muttering to himself? It sounded like Saint Vitus. An invocation? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In Bella—
The Hospice of Saint Vitus in Bella at the time of its founding had been just that—a hospice for pilgrims seeking cure for what might have been (in modern terms) chorea, cerebral palsy, ergot poisoning, certain sorts of lunacy, or . . . many things indeed. By and by most people had learned not to bake bread from moldy rye, and the rushing torrents of the pilgrimages had slowed to trickles; still, the prolongedly lunatic had to be lodged somewhere, it being no longer fashionable to lose them in the forest or lock them in a closet: and so, by the time of King Ignats Salvador (the Empire did not yet exist), the Hospice had become the Madhouse and St. Vitus’s Shrine its chapel. It was quite true that besides the common enclosures there was a secluded cloister for insane nuns and, far on the other side, one for mad monks and priests; it was not true, common reports notwithstanding, that there was also one for barmy bishops.
“Good mid-morning to you, Colonel Count Cruttz; very well, then: Fritsli.”
“Mi’ morning, Engli. Say, you are a gaffer at St. Vitus, ain’t you?”
“I am one of the Board of Governors, yes.”
“Well, I want a ticket. Morits. One of my footmen.” The colonel-count looked haggard.
Dr. Eszterhazy reached out from a pigeon-hold a dreaded “yellow ticket,” a Form For Examination Prior to Commitment: sighed. “Poor Morits. Well, this should get him seen to, promptly;” he signed it large. And, did he not, “poor Morits” indeed might gibber and howl for hours in the public corridors, waiting his turn on standby. “What has happened to him? Morits, mmm. Pale chap, isn’t he?”
Master confirmed that man was indeed a pale chap. That was him. What had happened! Man had gone mad, was what happened. In the night, not long before dawn. Screams had rocked the house—and it was an old house with thick walls, too. Insane with terror, Morits. “Mostly he just screamed and tried to hide himself in his own armpits, but when you could make out what he was saying while screaming, why, it was always the same thing. Always the same thing. Always.” Cruttz turned his haggard gaze on Eszterhazy.
Who asked, “And what was that? This . . .‘the same thing’ . . . ?”
Cruttz wet his lips. Repeated, “ ‘On the ceiling! On the ceiling! The witch-man! On the ceiling!’ ”
“The . . . ‘witch-man’? Who and what was that?”
Heavily: “That is who and what and which the people call this Hell-hound, Melanchthon Mudge.”
Silence. Then, “Very well, then. One understands ‘the witch-man.’ But. What and what does he mean by ‘on the ceiling’?”
A shrug. “I am damned if I know. And I feel that just by knowing the fiend I might be damned. And so poor Morits has been screaming, struggling, be pissing himself for hours now, and brandy hasn’t helped and neither has holy water nor holy oil and so I’ve come for the yellow ticket. See?”
Eszterhazy saw only scantly. “Had the man . . . Morits . . . ever before showed signs of—?”
Reluctantly: “Well . . . yes . . . sort of. Nervous type of chap, always was. Which is all that keeps me from shooting down that swine like a mad dog with my revolver-pistol.” That, and—the Emperor having indicated a keen dislike for having people shot down like mad dogs with revolver-pistols—that and the likelihood of such an action’s being surely followed by a ten-year exile to the remote wilderness of Little Byzantia, where the company of the lynx, the bear, and the wild boar might not suffice for the loss of more cosmopolitan company.
Colonel Count Cruttz took up the “yellow ticket” and as he was doing so and murmuring some words of thanks and farewell, his eyes met Eszterhazy’s. The latter felt certain that the same thought was in both their minds: was Mudge punishing the house in which he had been humiliated? Was Mudge doing this? Was Mudge not doing this? And, if so, what might Mudge not do next?
One was soon enough to learn.
Quite late that morning as he was being examined in St. Vitus by the Admitting Physician, pale Morits not only ceased struggling, but—upon being instructed to do so—had stood up. Quietly. Dr. Smitts applied the stethoscope. And Morits, pale Morits, gave a great scream, blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and—“I caught him in my arms. The stethoscope was pulled from my ears as he fell, but I had heard enough,” said Dr. Smitts.
“What did you hear?”
“I heard his heart leap. And then I heard it stop. Oh, of course, I did what I could do for him. But it never started again. No. Never.”
“Never . . .”
Was this what Mudge had done next?
Eszterhazy thought it was.
Later, some years later, Eszterhazy was to acquire as his personal body-servant the famous Herrekk, a Mountain Tsigane, who stayed on with him . . . and on and on . . . But that was later. This year the office was being filled (if filled was not too strong a verb) by one Turt, who had qualified by some years as a barber; and if experience folding towels well enough had not made Turt exquisite in the folding and unfolding of and other cares pertaining to Eszterhazy’s clothes . . . well . . . one could not have everything. Could one? Turt awoke him; Turt brought, first, the hot coffee, and next the hot water and the scented shaving-soap. Next Turt would bring the loose-fitting breakfast-gown and on a tray the breakfast, which—perhaps fortunately—Turt did not himself cook. Turt meant to do well, Turt clearly meant to do better than he did, and it was not Turt’s fault that he breathed so very heavily. Turt (short for Turtuscou) was a Romanou, and it was a fact of social life in the Triune Monarchy that sooner or later one’s Romanou employee would vanish away on what the English called “French leave” and return . . . by and by . . . with some fearsome story of dreadful death and incapacitating illness amongst far-away family; if/when this ever happened, Eszterhazy had determined to terminate Turt’s service. But Turt, though not bothersomely bright, was bright enough, and either saw to it that all his near of kin stayed in good health or else he simply allowed them to die without benefit of his attendance in whatever East Latin squalor pertained to them around the mouth of the Ister.
On this morning Eszterhazy, dimly aware of great pain, was more acutely aware of Turt’s breathing more heavily than usual. Had Turt gasped? Had Turt cried out? If so, why! Eszterhazy sat bolt up in bed. “Dominů, Dominů!” exclaimed Turt.
“What? What?”—heavily, anguished.
For reply Turt pointed to the floor. What was on the floor? Turt’s Lord looked.
Blood on the floor.
Instantly the pain flared up. Instantly, Eszterhazy remembered. He had been sleeping soundly and calmly enough when something obliged him to wake up. Some dim light suffused the room. Some ungainly shape was present, visible, in the room. Something long, attenuated, overhead. Something overhead. Something barely below the ceiling. Something which turned over as a swimmer turns over in water. Something with a human face. The face of Mr. Mudge, the medium. How it glared at him, with what hate it glared down at him. Its lips writhed up, and, The ring! it said. The ring, the ring! I must have the ring! It made a swooping, scooping gesture with one long, long incredibly long lengthened arm. That was the first pain. What was it which the hand now held and showed to him? It was a heart which it held and showed to him; a human heart. And, whilst the words echoed, echoed, Ring! Ring! the fingers tightened and the fingers squeezed and that was the second pain. The third. The—