The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

Wojnicz returns to the guesthouse. He is told to record his treatments in a small notebook, including long walks through the mountains and regular meals. The door of the guesthouse is open, and Wojnicz wanders inside. He discovers a human body: It is Klara, Willi Opitz’s wife. She has been laid out on a table after dying by suicide. Wojnicz is petrified, realizing that this is the same woman who—just a few hours earlier—had brought him breakfast. 

Opitz appears behind him, explaining that Raimund has been sent to fetch the authorities who will take her body away. Wojnicz is “badly shaken” (29). Klara Opitz, he realizes, reminded him of his nanny, Gliceria. In his memories, Gliceria always appears as a wrinkled old woman. With his mother dead and his father emotionally distant, the young Wojnicz grew very close to Gliceria. His father abhorred any kind of “soft upbringing that encouraged girlishness, mawkishness and passivity” (30). In contrast to his pragmatic, serious father, Gliceria indulged the young Wojnicz. Seeing the dead woman, Gliceria suddenly comes “back to him in all the forms and details that constitute the essence of a woman, such as pleats, wrinkles, frills, bodices, yokes and lace—the entire heathen world of materials designed to cover the female body” (33).

Wojnicz decides to go out. Walking through the town, he passes the small churches and large houses. The town has been redeveloped to cater to the wealthy patrons of the sanatorium. The edges of the town give way to dense forests and mountain trails. Later, Wojnicz returns to the guesthouse for supper. He joins the five other guests, as well as Opitz himself. The narrator introduces the audience to the guests via their shoes, as Wojnicz introduces himself to his fellow diners. 

As well as Frommer and Opitz, there is Longin Lukas (a Catholic traditionalist and gymnasium teacher from Königsberg), August August (a socialist-humanist, classical philologist, and writer from Vienna), and Thilo von Hahn (a student of the Beaux-Arts and connoisseur of the landscape from Berlin). They dine at the table where “only a few hours ago the body of Frau Opitz had been lying” (37). August offers his sympathies to Opitz and, in his speech, assures the guesthouse owner that “life must go on” (38).

Opitz apologizes for the food; since Klara was the cook, Raimund has been drafted in to cook this meal. The men discuss the unknowability of women, as well as the differences between men and women. The female brain, Lukas insists, “is quite simply smaller” (39) than male brains. The guests ask Opitz what might have caused his wife’s death, but Opitz does not know. She may have been homesick for her Czech homeland, he suggests. Wojnicz tries to join the philosophical conversation but gags on his food.

Eventually, the meal is put aside and Opitz fetches a bottle of the local liqueur known as Schwärmerei. The men drink Schwärmerei, which is “sweet and bitter all at once” (42). It has a calming, clarifying, intoxicating effect which Wojnicz cannot quite explain. They resume their debate. Thilo becomes bored and retires for the night. Wojnicz continues to drink as the guests top up his glass. When he is “mildly intoxicated” (43), he feels as though the whole room looks different. 

The guests continue to talk about women and philosophy. Wojnicz would like to join their discussion about the decline of the West, but he is seized by “the weakness of timidity” (44). Instead, he sits and sighs, which is where the narrator leaves the scene.

When Wojnicz does leave, he has the feeling that he has “unwittingly ended up in a war of some kind” (45). On the way to his bedroom, he hears strange noises from the attic. As he ponders the sound, Thilo drags Wojnicz into his bedroom. 

Thilo is evidently sick; he is pale and trembling. Nevertheless, he warns Wojnicz that this is “a nasty place” (46). He suspects that Klara Opitz did not die by suicide, claiming that “people get murdered here” (47). The town is cursed, he believes, as each year a person is ripped apart in the forest. Wojnicz does not believe his fellow patient, though he is unsure of his disbelief. Thilo shares a box of candies as he talks about his “wretched life” (48). His bedroom, Wojnicz notices, has been converted into a studio. Thilo studies art and landscapes, the evidence of which is scattered around the room.

Still feeling “the strange effect of the Schwärmerei” (49), Wojnicz listens to Thilo talk about the feeling of death and secrecy in the town. In particular, he warns Wojnicz about Opitz, whom Thilo suspects killed his wife. Wojnicz inquires about the other guests. Thilo suspects that Lukas must be a Russian spy, while not everyone may actually be ill, claiming they are simply here to hide. Thilo does not trust August or Frommer. Wojnicz suspects that Thilo is “trying to tell him something else entirely” (51) but he cannot determine what. 

Their conversation is interrupted by Opitz. Thilo invents an excuse for Wojnicz’s presence in his room, allowing Wojnicz to slip away. As he leaves, he has a sudden sense that everything is “extremely unreal” (52). Haunted by the image of Frau Opitz’s body, he remembers hunting pheasants with his father. Wojnicz would deliberately miss, pretending as though he was taking part in the hunt but remaining separate at the same time.

Several days pass as Wojnicz settles into his new routine. Since there is no cemetery in the town, Klara Opitz is buried in a cemetery in a different town. Wojnicz and Opitz’s other guests plan to take part in the funeral procession. 

Though Wojnicz is determined to learn more about Frau Opitz’s death, August warns him of the dangers of trying to scrutinize the behavior of women. Wojnicz should not be worried about the woman’s death, August says, because they “disregard death” (59) in the town of Görbersdorf. Dr. Brehmer is buried near the sanatorium that he founded so that, even in death, he can keep a close eye on the facility. The sanatorium is now run by Dr. Semperweiss, who parks his expensive Mercedes saloon outside the Kurhaus where it can be readily admired.

The memorial service takes place almost two weeks after the death. Wojnicz finds the Protestant service to be “quite strange” (61); it is not like the Catholic funerals to which he is accustomed. During the service, his attention is drawn to a tall, beautiful woman in a hat. The sight of her awakens within him “an intense longing for something familiar, yet impossible to define” (62). He remembers his father teaching him that women are fickle and treacherous. 

Wojnicz leaves the service early and passes through the whispering crowd. In the cemetery in the nearby town, Wojnicz notes that the “old and crowded” (65) graveyard will soon run out of space for new burials. He thinks of his own mother’s death, shortly after he was born, and thinks about how the dead are remembered in this town. In the graveyard, many of the headstones have the same names, including the surname Opitz. Many of the newer graves, however, are occupied by people from far-flung places. Wojnicz watches Frau Opitz’s coffin being lowered into the grave.