“The young painter?”
“Yes. In fact, he was not a painter but a sculptor. His name was Torsten Vetterlund. Well, he was a man of very powerful physique and his natural inclinations were sadistic — not very much so, but slightly. This girl, Nina von Gerstein, succeeded in turning him into a neurotic masochist. You understand why?”
Carlsen nodded. Fallada said with surprise: “You do?”
Carlsen said: “She couldn’t suck energy from a sadist.”
“Quite. The sadist wants to absorb, not to be absorbed. So she had to change his sexual orientation. And she did this by satisfying all his desires — all his sadistic fantasies — until he had become dependent on her. Finally, he was her slave, and then she could begin to steal his energy.”
Fallada asked: “How did you cure him?”
“Ah, that was interesting. I noticed immediately that there was something contradictory about his symptoms. After this girl left him, he became an exhibitionist, exposing himself to women in the street. That was clearly masochism — he was enjoying the self-humiliation. But he also told me he had developed the desire to undress children and bite them. That was obviously sadism. Of course, many sadists have an element of masochism, and vice versa. But I became convinced that he was trying to overcome his masochism by developing his sadism. He told me about his sexual fantasies before he met Nina; they were all mildly sadistic. He told me about a prostitute he used to visit — a girl who allowed him to tie her up before they had intercourse. And the solution became obvious. I had to encourage him to develop the sadistic tendency again. He began going back to the prostitute. Then he met an assistant in a shoe shop who liked to be whipped before she made love. He married her, and they lived perfectly happily.”
“And the vampirism stopped?”
“Yes, it stopped. I cannot claim any credit for the cure. He had already started to cure himself before he came to see me.”
Carlsen smiled wryly. “By the same logic, I should try to turn myself into a masochist.”
Geijerstam snapped his fingers; he said with sudden excitement: “No, but you have reminded me of something. Something I had forgotten for a long time.” He stared out over the water, frowning, as they waited for him to go on. Suddenly, he stood up. “I want to introduce you to one of my tenants.”
Fallada said: “I didn’t know you had any.”
“Come.” He began to stride away up the hill. Fallada glanced at Carlsen and shrugged. They followed him up a path that ran beside the stream. Geijerstam said over his shoulder: “You remember I told you about the Well of Saint Eric? There is an old Lett woman — she lives in my cottage. She has second sight.”
The path became steep, and the thick carpet of pine needles made it treacherous. The trees were so close together that hardly any sunlight was able to penetrate. After five minutes, Carlsen and Fallada were breathing heavily. Geijerstam, hurrying in front, seemed unaffected. He turned to wait for them. “I am glad I thought of bringing you to see her. She is a remarkable woman. She used to live near Skarvsjo, but the villagers were afraid of her. Her appearance is a little –” The rest of his words were drowned by the noisy barking of a dog. An enormous animal with fur the colour of yellow clay bounded towards them. When Geijerstam held out his hand, it sniffed him, then trotted beside him as he walked on.
Geijerstam paused on the edge of a clearing. The ground was strewn with granite boulders. A small wooden cottage stood on the far side. The stream ran past it, cascading over a waterfall. Geijerstam called: “Labrït, mate.” There was no reply. He said to Carlsen: “Why don’t you look at the well, while I see if she is awake?” He pointed up the hill, to a small granite erection. “That is the Well of Saint Eric. If you have arthritis, gout or leprosy, you should bathe in it.”
They climbed the steps to the well, the dog running ahead. The kiosk was built of slabs or roughly hewn granite on which the lichen looked like green velvet. The water flowed from under an immense slab that lay across the entrance. Carlsen knelt on this and looked inside. The water was perfectly clear, but so deep that it was impossible to see the bottom. He was reminded for a moment of the port glass of the Hermes; at the same time, with hallucinatory clarity, he seemed to see the hulk of the derelict, as if reflected in the depths of the water. The illusion lasted only for a moment. He put his hand into the water; it was freezing cold, and after a moment, it made his bones ache.
He stood up, leaning on the wall. Fallada said: “Are you all right?”
Carlsen smiled. “Oh, yes. I think perhaps I am going mad. But otherwise I’m all right.”
The Count appeared at the bottom of the slope. Beside him stood a woman dressed in brown. As they moved closer, Carlsen saw that she had no nose and that one eye was larger than the other. Yet the effect was not repellent. Her cheeks were as red as apples.
Geijerstam said: “This is Moa.” He spoke to her in Lettish, introducing Fallada and Carlsen. She smiled and dropped them a curtsy. Then she gestured for them to enter the house. It struck Carlsen that in spite of her deformity, she produced an impression of youth and sweetness.
The room was large and curiously bare; it was heated by a big iron stove in the centre. A coarse woven mat covered the floor. The only items of furniture were a low bed, a table, a cupboard and an old-fashioned spinning wheel. Carlsen was intrigued by a flight of steps that ran up the wall to a railed platform; it appeared to lead nowhere.
She spoke to them in Lettish, pointing to the floor. Geijerstam said: “She is apologising for the lack of chairs and explaining that she always sits on the floor. It is a kind of. . . mystical discipline.”
She gestured to the cushions near the wall. Carlsen and Fallada sat down. She leaned over Carlsen, looked into his face and placed a hand on his forehead. Geijerstam translated her words: “She wants to know if you are ill.”
“Tell her I don’t know. That’s what I’d like to know.”
She opened the cupboard and took out a length of string. One end was wound around a spindle; the other end was weighted with a wooden bead, about an inch in diameter. Geijerstam said: “She is going to test you with a pendulum.”
“What does it do?”
“You could say it is a kind of lambda meter. It measures your field.”
Fallada said: “For some odd reason, it works. We used to have an old servant who could do it.”
“What is she doing now?”
“Measuring the correct length for a man — about two feet.” The old woman was carefully measuring the string against a meter rule, unwinding it from the spindle. She spoke to Carlsen. Geijerstam said: “She wants you to lie down on the floor.”
Carlsen stretched himself out on his back, looking up at her as she stood over him. The pendulum, held out at arm’s length, began to swing backwards and forwards. After a few moments, it began to swing with a circular motion. From the movements of her lips, he could see that she was counting. About a minute later, the pendulum returned to a backward and forward motion. She smiled and spoke to Geijerstam. He said: “She says there is nothing wrong with you. Your health field is exceptionally strong.”
“Good. What is she going to do now?”
The old woman was lengthening the string.
“More tests.”
Again she held the pendulum over him. This time he could sense Geijerstam’s tension. He watched curiously as the motion of the pendulum changed from its normal back-and-forward oscillations into a circular swing. Her lips moved, counting. She said something in a low voice to Geijerstam. When the pendulum returned to its oscillations, she lowered it onto the floor, shaking her head. She stood looking down at Carlsen, frowning thoughtfully, Geijerstam said: “All right, you can sit up.”
“What did all that mean?”
Geijerstam spoke to the old woman in Lettish; her reply lasted for several minutes. Carlsen tried hard to follow; he had picked up a few words of Lettish when training in Riga. Now he recognised the word “bistams,” meaning dangerous, and the noun “briesmas” — danger. Geijerstam said: “Ne sieviete?” and she shrugged and said: “Varbut.” She picked up the pendulum, still speaking, and held it out over him as he sat, leaning against the wall. After a few moments, it began its circular motion. She moved across to Fallada and held it over his stomach. This time it continued to oscillate back and forth. She shrugged: “Loti atvainojos.” She tossed the pendulum onto the bed.