Free The Black Spider by Jeremías Gotthelf Page B

the devil was reminding her of the promised child; and she rushed after folk in hellish fear to persuade them in no uncertain words to make the sacrifice required by the pact. But the others were little troubled by this; what was tormenting Christine did not hurt them, and what she was suffering was in their opinion her own responsibility, and if they could no longer escape from her, they said to her: ‘That’s your affair! Nobody has promised a child, and therefore nobody is going to give one.’ She set about her own husband with furious words. He fled like the rest, and when he could no longer avoid her he cold-bloodedly told her that it would get better all right, it was a spot such as many people had; once it had taken its course, the pain would cease, and it would be easy to disperse it.
    Meanwhile, however, the pain did not cease, each leg was hell-fire, the spider’s body hell itself, and when the woman’s appointed time came, Christine felt as if a sea of fire were surging around her, as if fiery knives were boring into her marrow, as if fiery whirlwinds were rushing through her brain. But the spider swelled and arched itself up, and its eyes glared visciously from behind the short bristles. When Christine found no sympathy anywhere in her burning agony and saw that a woman in labour was strongly guarded, she burst forth like a madwoman along the road where the priest would have to come.
    The latter was coming up the slope at a quick pace, accompanied by the sturdy sexton; the hot sun and the seep road did not slow down their walk, for it was a matter of saving a soul and of preventing an eternal misfortune; coming from a visit to a sick parishioner who lived a long way off, the priest was anxious on account of the fearful delay he had experienced. In desperation, Christine threw herself before him in the road, clasped his knees, begged for release from her hell, for the sacrifice of the child that was not yet born, and the spider swelled still more, gleamed terrible and black in Christine’s red swollen face, and with terrifying glances it glared at the priest’s holy requisites. But the priest pushed Christine quickly to one side and made the holy sign; he saw the enemy well enough, but desisted from the fight in order to save a soul. But Christine started up stormed after him and did her utmost to stop him; yet the sexton’s strong hand held the woman off from the priest, and the latter could just arrive in time to protect the house, to receive the infant into his consecrated hands and to place it into the hands of Him Whom hell never overcomes.
    Meanwhile Christine had been undergoing a terrible struggle outside. She wanted to have the unbaptized child in her hands and wanted to force her way into the house, but strong men prevented her. Gusts of wind buffeted against the house and yellow lightning hissed round it, but the hand of the Lord was above it, the child was baptized, and Christine circled round the house in vain and without power. Seized by ever wilder hellish torture, she emitted sounds which did not resemble sounds that might come from a human breast; the cattle quivered in their sheds and tore loose from their halters, while the tops of the oak trees in the forest rustled in terror.
    Inside the house there was rejoicing over the new victory, the impotence of the green huntsman, the vain writhings of his accessory, but Christine lay outside, thrown onto the ground by dreadful pains, and her face was seized by labour pains such as no woman in child birth has ever experienced on this earth, and the spider in her face swelled higher and higher and burned ever more searingly through her limbs.
    Then Christine felt as if her face were bursting open, as if burning coals were being born, coming to life and crawling away over her face, over all her limbs, as if her whole face were coming to life and crawling away red-hot over all her body. In the pale light from the lightning she now saw black little