"Cholera and Fear" / "Die Cholera und die Furcht"

"'Tis the season," said one of my colleagues, to explain the sudden influx in gifts from patients in a single morning clinic session. One woman who "stress bakes" brought her provider a veritable pyramid of goodies. Others picked up pre-packaged chocolates: foil-covered milk-chocolate balls, Ghirardelli squares, locally famous Sarris chocolate-covered pretzels. You can see that by the end of the day, we had made significant in-roads.

The same morning, the parents of one of my special-needs patients gave me a jar of home-made, preservative-free plum jelly. His father reassured me that he was evidence it was safe, as he had eaten it for years. I did once throw away the fish spread a patient made because my colleague pointed out it was made from "bottom-feeders" who consume who-knows-what, but I felt safe putting this on a bagel with cream cheese. It has an interesting sour-sweetness, and I am delighted they thought of me. Why, then, did I photograph it with my most recent column in the local medical society magazine? Because the parents mentioned they had seen my name in it while picking up the mail for a friend, read the poem and my translation, and were impressed. Since it has already come out, I will share it with you here.

„Die Cholera und die Furcht.“ Von Hermann Friedrichs.           

Schwüle Nacht—Am Thor der heil’gen Stadt,
Die einst Welt und Geist geknechtet hat,
Pocht ein Fremdling mit dem Schwertesknauf:

,,Hollah, Pförtner, schlieβ daβ Thor mir auf!“
            Schaurig dröhnt der Ruf durch Nacht und Graun,
Und des Wächters helle Augen schaun
Forschend in des Pilgers Angesicht:
,,Deiner Stimme, Fremdling, trau‘ ich nicht!

Harre drauβen bis der Morgen graut—

Diese Stadt hat Gott mir anvertraut!“
,,Gott ja sendet mich!“ ruft Jener wild.
,,Komm und prüfe meinen Wappenschild,
Hab‘ vor kurzem erst ihn aufgefrischt,
Wo der Nildunst mit dem Smum sich mischt—
Emsig mäht mein Schwert, wenn ich es schwinge,

Fiebergluthen stählen seine Klinge!“

            ,,Doch der Pförtner, vor Entsetzen bleich:

,,Dennoch,‘‘ spricht er, ,,wehr‘ ich dir mein Reich,
Leistet du mir nicht den heil’gen Schwur,
Mir zu nehmen tausend Seelen nur.
Denn ich weiβ, du bist ein Nimmersatt,

Schafft gern mehr, als Gott geboten hat.“
            Jener schwört. Der Pförtner läβt ihn ein.

Düster schleicht ein Schatten hinterdrein—
Eine Alte, bleich und abgezehrt,
Mit des Allgewalt’gen Schild beschwert.
            Fragend miβt der Pförtner die Gestalt,

Doch ihr Blick durchzuckt ihn meh und kalt—
,,Gott, erbarme dich der tausend Seelen!“
Spricht er schauernd, ,,laβ sie dir empfehlen!“

            Wochen flohn—Die Stadt füllt Schreckt und
Graus.

            Wild, verzweifelnd schaut der Pförtner aus

Nach den Bahren, die vorüberziehn,
Nach den Bürgern, die der Stadt entfliehen.
Heiβ durchwühlt die Adern ihm der Zorn,
Ihn verwundert bangen Zweifels Dorn.
Immer neue Bahren ziehn vorbei,
Immer lauter hallt das Wehgeschrei.
Ach! schon fünfmal tausend liegen todt,
Und noch immer mehrt sich Leid und Noth.
            Endlich kehrt der Gottgesandte wieder,
Läβt zur Rast sich mit der Alten nieder;
Doch der Pförtner fährt ihn grimmig an:

,,Tausend, schwurst du, ungefüger Mann!
Und du brachst den Eid?“

                                                Der Andre spricht:

,,Nein! Denn mehr als tausend schlug ich nicht!
Was darüber, nahm dir diese da,
Stets, auf Schritt und Tritt, war sie mir nah—”
            ,,Und wer ist dies Scheufel?“
                                                ,,Blicke hin,
‘s ist die Furcht, die schlimmste Würgerin!“

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“Cholera and Fear.”  By Hermann Friedrichs.

On a humid night that oppressed matter and spirit, a stranger banged on the door of the holy city
with the pommel of his sword. “Hollah, porter, unbar the gate for me!”
            The shout boomed gruesomely through the night, and the guard’s bright eyes looked searchingly at the pilgrim’s countenance: “I do not trust your voice, stranger! Wait outside until the morning dawns—God has entrusted me with this city!”
            “It is God who sends me!” replied the other roughly. “Come and examine my escutcheon [crest]. I’ve just cleaned it where the Nile miasma and desert sandstorm mingle. My sword reaps assiduously when I swing it, [for] the heat of fever hardens its blade.”
            The porter blanched at the horror: “Nevertheless,” he said, “I will defend my territory against you, if you do not render me the holy oath, that you will only take a thousand souls. Because I know that you are a glutton who likes to do more than God has allowed.”

            The other swore. The porter let him in. Grimly skulked a shadow behind him—an old woman, pale and emaciated, burdened with the shield of the omnipotent one.

            Questioningly the porter eyed the figure, but her stare seared through him, painful and cold. “God, embrace the thousand souls!” he shuddered, “May they be commended to your care!”

            Weeks flew by, and the city filled with terror and dread. The porter watched with fury and despair as the stretchers passed by and as citizens fled the city. Hot anger coursed through his veins, as the thorn of doubt deeply wounded him. Always new stretchers went by, always louder rang the painful cries. Ach! Already five times a thousand lay dead, and the suffering and need continued to increase.

            Finally, the One sent by God returned with the old woman and sat down to rest; grimly the porter rounded on them: “A thousand, you promised, reckless man! Didn’t you break your oath?” And other replied: “No!  Because I felled no more than a thousand!  What is more, you must understand, she was always close on my heels—”          

            “Who is this monster?”  

            “Look over there, ‘tis Fear, the most terrible destroyer!”

 
Citation: Hermann Friedrichs, “Die Cholera und die Furcht,” Die Gegenwart 26 (1884): 86.

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Miasmata, citizens fleeing in panic, a plague sent from God, a moral punch line warning of the evil of fear itself—surely these are not imagery one would associate with a modern, industrial, scientifically-advanced country. And yet, this poem was written not when Europe first encountered cholera in the politically restive early 1830s, nor in 1848 when revolution also broke out (again), nor even during repeat epidemics in 1853-55 or in 1866-75. “Cholera and Fear” appeared in the weekly family magazine Die Gegenwart in 1884. From Calcutta (now Kolkata), Dr. Robert Koch (1843-1910) had just announced that he had identified the cause: Vibrio cholerae. Coming so soon after his identification of Bacillus anthracis in 1896 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1882, it was yet another triumph for himself and the German state that financed his research in Germany, Egypt, and India.

Interestingly, at the dawn of the “bacteriological revolution” (c. 1880-1930), popular imagery of cholera included both reproductions of drawings of comma-shaped bacteria as seen through a microscope and vivid, medieval imagery like exotic mists and sword-bearing phantoms. Hermann Friedrichs’ (1854-1911) poem drew heavily from motifs of colonialism, Orientalism (West vs East, Europe vs Asia), and militarized nationalism then circulating in Imperial Germany

I thought a lot about this poem at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. I considered how older means of coping with disease and societal disruption mingled with new discoveries, such as the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence and then mRNA vaccines. While hand washing, mask wearing, and quarantine (or “social distancing”) are tried and true, we have had a hard time giving up xenophobia and the kind of isolationist mindset that hoards vaccine until it expires instead of sending it to low-resource countries. I wonder what future historians will think when they look back to this period and its ubiquitous spiky virions.