A slim bamboo cane with a gold handle provides the
finishing touch.
Chapter 5: Conclusion
A scene of devastation far and wide.
Piles of rubble, marshy ground, broken bricks: the gigantic garbage tip that was once a city, still all wreathed in bluish morning mist.
Only the range of rocky mountains in the background are beginning to catch the gold of the rising sun.
The sky, although still fairly dark, is cloudless.
A bare-headed man with a large piece of baggage on his shoulder is forcing a way through the detritus with firm but elastic steps.
He is wearing a tail-coat with broad velvet lapels and narrow trousers stretched tight over his muscular legs, after the Viennese fashion of the 1860s.
But these items of dresswear are covered in scorch-marks and blood-stains, with many holes.
He looks like a burglar taking his swag to a safe place.
Now he puts his burden down on a large rock with the flat surface of a table and removes the filthy cover, revealing a brand-new leather suitcase with polished brass fittings.
Out of it Hercules Bell takes an elegant suit with modern underwear and starts to change.
Then he shaves himself carefully, checks his face in a hand-mirror, pulls out a new, broad-brimmed panama and lights his pipe.
His jaunty bearing and bronzed complexion give no hint of the trials and hardships he had been through, except for a slight greying of his raven hair at the temples.
The American is preparing to meet the advancing Europeans.
Lieutenant-general Rudinov sent an infantry unit on ahead as the advance guard.
Using every possible piece of cover, they had crept up to the smoking masonry, but with the best will in the world they could not discover any enemy.
When he received their report, the general decided to advance further.
Through his field glasses he spotted a small fort built on a rocky projection connected to the mountain.
The general had a few artillery units unlimber their guns and aim them at the high stronghold.
Then he sent out an envoy with white flags and a trumpeter to present an ultimatum to the enemy demanding they surrender at once to the Russians, hand over all weapons and property and immediately set free any citizens of European states in their custody.
However, all the envoy found was abandoned terrain covered in stones, most of which had been crushed to sand.
Here and there a few charred and smouldering beams were still sticking up out of the rubble.
It did not seem advisable to stay there any longer as the ground was sinking and turning into a morass, the ruins slowly slipping down.
There was no one there to whom they could present the ultimatum.
Their commanding officer was none too happy with this report.
They had been looking forward all too confidently to finding a well-filled treasury.
The decision was taken to advance as far as the mountain, observing, of
course, the strictest precaution.
Some of the staff officers obstinately refused
to abandon the idea of an ambush, camouflaged batteries etc.
Thus they found the small gate in the rock and, lying unconscious on the
bottom step, me.
It is to this fortunate circumstance that I owe the fact that I
escaped with my life. I was given an extremely friendly reception.
Journalists, who remembered my name from the past, kept wanting to
interview me. Various newspapers and magazines also wanted a photograph
of me with views of the place where the Dream city had stood.
I was too weak to satisfy all the demands being made on me and directed them to Mr. Bell, who had just arrived to join the Europeans.
Nothing was found of the temple inside the mountain.
The rock strata had shifted, blocking up all the entrances.
When I put forward this idea the geologists present shook their heads and gave me funny looks.
I could see they didn’t believe me, especially since the American was boasting that he had put an end to all this Patera nonsense by destroying the waxwork dummy.
We two were not the only ones to survive the catastrophe.
Soldiers patrolling the nearby jungle came across a small pack of half-naked creatures sitting in trees talking and gesticulating vigorously to each other.
It turned out that they too were Dreamlanders, six Jews, owners of grocer’s shops.
I heard later that they recovered surprisingly quickly and made substantial fortunes in the great cities of northern and western Europe.
Digging through a pile of still-warm ashes they also found a desiccated figure.
When the dust had been brushed off it was declared to be a mummy.
However, a military doctor found there was life left in it and, after intense efforts, succeeded in fanning the spark back into a flame.
Everyone clustered round to see the rescued person who, as it soon became apparent, was of the female sex.
A high-ranking Russian officer recognised her as his aunt, Princess X. He had her cleaned and done up and took her back home with him.
I went home via Tashkent, accompanied by a doctor.
When I reached Germany I had to stay in a clinic at first, to recover and to reaccustom myself to conditions in the outside world, especially the sunlight.
It took years before I felt more or less at home in my old environment and could settle back into my profession.
After sending a telegram, ‘Territory of the Dream state completely occupied’, all participants in the expedition maintained the silence proper for Europeans who have made fools of themselves.
The mystery of Patera was never solved. Perhaps the blue-eyed tribe were the real masters and used magic powers to galvanise a lifeless dummy into life, so creating and destroying the Dream Realm as they thought fit.
The American is still living. Everyone knows him. ~Alfred Kubin, The Other Side, Page 197-200
Epilogue: Man is a nothing with self-awareness. ~Julius Bahnsen
