Free The Other Side by Alfred Kubin

here. It exerts a mysterious attraction on all the inhabitants which is beyond belief. At certain times the old tower is surrounded by swarms of men and women. A stranger would stop and stare in astonishment at the odd behaviour of the assembly. The people stamp nervously and keep looking up at the long, rusty hands above. Ask them what’s going on and you’ll get bemused, evasive answers. If you take a closer look, you’ll see two small entrances at the foot of the tower. Everyone is pushing their way towards them. If the crowd is large they form lines, the women watching anxiously, the men angrily, to make sure no one pushes in. The tension increases as the hands of the clock move round. One after another the people disappear, each spending a minute or two inside. When they emerge they all have profoundly satisfied, almost happy expressions on their faces. It’s not surprising, then, that my curiosity was aroused. I took the opportunity of asking one of my new acquaintances in the café about the clock, but received a dusty answer. It was, he said, indecent to talk about something like that and showed great stupidity into the bargain. ‘If you must know’, he added, ‘it’s the Great Clock Spell . Make a note of it!’ His indignation only made me all the more curious. It certainly destroyed my own original explanation that it must be some kind of attraction like a camera obscura or a waxworks. I determined to risk it myself but was mightily disappointed. D’you know what was in there? Your expectations are going to be dashed, too. You go into a small, empty cell full of nooks and crannies, partly covered with mysterious drawings, presumably symbols. You can hear the huge pendulum swinging back and forth behind the wall. Tick … tock … tick … tock. There’s water streaming down the stone wall, streaming down unendingly. I did the same as the man who came in behind me, stared at the wall and said, loud and clear, ‘Here I stand before thee.’ Then we went out again. I must have looked pretty baffled. The women have their own side with their own entrance, indicated by the same sign as all over the world. But the most remarkable part of it is this. Once I had been through the experience, I found that I gradually began to feel the compulsion too. At first it was just a tug I felt whenever I went past the tower, but over the next few days my unease grew and grew until I was being literally dragged towards it. Eventually I gave in, there was no point fighting it, and now I’m fine. There are smaller clock towers on the same model scattered all over the town. In the country every farm is said to have a replica in one corner of the room, where our peasants would have a crucifix. I go to mine every day at the same time. You can mock, if you like, but, ‘Lord, here I stand before thee.’



There is not much doing here as far as painting is concerned. Art objects are valued above all for their practical use. There are a few old painters scattered around and what I have seen are dark, thinly painted canvases, an autumnal offshoot of the Dutch old masters. You do come across really good things now and then in the houses of the rich–Ruysdaels, Breughels, Altdorfers and pictures by some of the primitives. Our Croesus, Alfred Blumenstich, the director of the Dreamland Bank, has a gallery of valuable paintings, including a Rembrandt and a genuine Grunewald, the existence of which no one in your world even suspects. It’s called ‘The Seven Deadly Sins Eating the Lamb of God’.
    There are no cheerful colours here, it’s more a place for line and tone. I have a nice little position on an illustrated paper, the Dreain Mirror . 400 crowns a month to do what I like when I like! There is another artist with the paper, a Nicholas Castringius whom I have not yet met. If you come I should be able to find you a place on the paper.
    That’s all for the moment, I’m afraid. I hope we’ll see each other again soon.
    Your old