The Fiery Angel (10 page)

As lately as that evening, going to sleep, after a long talk during which we had touched upon all matters, from the fate of our Empire to the lyric verses of the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega, Renata had spoken tenderly to me: “Dearest Rupprecht, at last I am rested a little. I feel as though I had died and were now living a second life, beyond my due. There is no blood within me and there can be no human happiness in me, but there is still in this world your care and your caress.” Lulled by these words, I fell asleep on the wooden planks of the podium, near Renata’s bed, couched more sweetly than others on a bed of down, and, sensing through my slumber the nearness of the satin coverlet, I said to myself happily: “She is near.”

But in the morning, waking suddenly as if jarred, I saw above me the eyes of Renata weary with gloom as she sat up in the bed, her mouth awry, and, somehow realising at once the change that had occurred in her, I exclaimed in despair:

“Renata, what is the matter with you?”

I addressed her thus because she herself had asked me to call her by her name and to address her familiarly, as friends do one another, but she answered me:

“What could there be the matter with me? Nothing at all—I am as well as yesterday!”

I said:

“But why is your face so sorrowful?”

Renata spoke with that brusqueness that invariably showed in her during her fits of moodiness:

“Do you suppose that I can laugh for ever? I am not one of those who are ready to dance with no reason! And why should I rejoice? What is there in my life that is so gay?”

I walked out of Renata’s room and for a long time stood near the door leading to the gallery, gazing at the brown tiles of the neighbouring roofs, and it was only after a considerable lapse of time that I dared to return to Renata and see that she was sitting at the window ledge, her face deathly and expressionless. At first I offered her breakfast, but she shook her head without uttering a word; and when I called to her to walk to the river’s bank she said to me severely:

“What do you want me for? Nobody is keeping you—go if you think it amusing to walk through dirty streets, amidst sweating and noisy crowds, and if you want to convince yourself that the Rhine is still there in the same old place!”

From that conversation onwards Renata fell for many days into a dark depression, from which it was impossible to shake her by any argument or by any effort. When I tried to persuade her that it was unreasonable and harmful thus to abandon herself to despair, she either remained silent in reply, or bluntly exposed to my view all the imperfection and ugliness of the world, doomed to sin and suffering, as compared with the divine beauty of the promised Eden, and she pointed out that a Christian has no reason to rejoice, indeed it is only proper for him to weep. She could find an inexhaustible store of arguments against the pleasures of life and no magister could have conducted a dispute with such cleverness as that with which she proved to me that there are thousands of just causes for despair—so that I, at last, could not find what to retort, what to say in answer.

The favourite pastime of Renata now became the visitation of churches, whither she went forbidding me to follow her. But I naturally disobeyed her injunction and, shielded behind pillars, watched in the Church of Saint Cecilia, or of Saint Peter, or in yet some other, while Renata stayed whole hours bent in prayer, her eyes glued to the altar, hearing through the whole Holy Mass without a single movement. Despite the fact that the Faith is in our days strongly shaken by reform and heresies, nevertheless the temples were for the most part full, both of sorrowing souls come to seek comfort of the Almighty, and of idlers come from habit, or to meet a gossip, or to wink to a pretty neighbour. We were soon picked out as a strange couple by all this varied conglomeration, and it came to me to hear, bandied about in whispers, many and various stupid rumours regarding us. But Renata of course did not notice the curiosity she excited, and I paid no attention, for it gave me an inexpressible delight just to look at Renata and imbibe her image with my eyes, as the drunkard imbibes the juice of the vine with his lips. It was there and within those walls, as I stood listening to the rhythmic harmony of the organ and imagining at times that it was the Mexican forest that rustled around me, that the thought was born in me to take Renata beyond the Ocean, and I think to this day that, had I been able to execute this purpose, I could have saved both her life and her soul.

In these evenings, which we spent together, we now exchanged rôles, as champions fighting with rapiers exchange places, for it was I who became the listener and Renata untiringly talked to me about herself, comforting and torturing herself with reminiscences. Too well do I remember how in her rich room, by the light of two wax candles and with curtains drawn, we two would sit facing each other with glasses of Malvasia—for, though she refused food, Renata drank wine willingly—and thus spent almost whole nights through. Once more Renata made up her mind to talk to me of Count Heinrich, relating to me still further and further particulars about him, describing his eyes and his eyebrows, his hair and his body, repeating those of his words that she remembered, relating minute incidents of their lives, depicting to me their mutual caresses in such detail that my jealousy flared up like a burning flame. Renata began often to compare me with her lover, and she experienced the greatest joy in exposing to me all the baseness of my soul and all the commonness of my face, as compared with the angelic features of Madiël and the godliness of his thoughts. Not infrequently the exaltation created in Renata by her words once more discharged itself in an uncontrollable flood of tears, and we two would drink this mixture of Malvasia and tears, until at last I would carry the helpless Renata to her bed and, also crying, kiss her feet and the hem of her dress.

This life of ours also lasted about a week, and I suppose my heart would have borne the tension of continuous pain for no longer space. But the emotional ecstasy of Renata ended as suddenly as it was born, and thereafter she spent a whole Sunday kneeling nearly all day in the Church of the Holy Apostles, raining reproaches on me with especial cruelty in the evening—and on the Monday morning she changed to a tenderness, that was yet false by all appearances, and instead of going to Mass bade me walk with her, as in those other days of ours, to the Rhine. I went uneasy in heart, for in truth these present hours were only the outer image of our former friendliness, and only a make-shift of our recent intimacy. Though—as I often afterwards became convinced—Renata would many times say that which one could not regard as true, yet she did not know how to tell a lie, having schemed a lie, and her pretending was so obvious that it roused in my soul not so much indignation as compassion. I made no sign that I saw through her play-acting, and I waited to find out whither the plot would lead me, until, at home, Renata after many insignificant words said to me:

“Answer me, Rupprecht, tell me whether you love me more than the salvation of your soul?”

I assured her of my love with an oath, being interested to see whither this question would lead. But Renata, several times requiring me to confirm my assurances, showed no desire to go into explanations, and only continued to show me an exaggerated tenderness.

In the morning of Tuesday (it will be seen in a moment why I remember exactly what day it was) Renata unexpectedly asked me to give her money, and I hastened to offer her some gold coins. But she took only a few silver joachimsthalers and went out, throwing on her cape, and with especial strictness forbidding me to follow her. Though once again I did not obey her request, she contrived this time to deceive my surveillance, as watchful as that of a spy of the Inquisition, and to lose herself somewhere amid the narrow passages near the market. I had to wait for her alone with growing uneasiness, while fearsome thoughts came into my mind, that she had left me, and only towards evening did she reappear, very tired and pale, carrying, with her a small bag containing some objects. And even all that quite childish joy that possessed me on seeing the returned Renata could not dumb in my soul the sly voice of curiosity.

Contrary to her custom, Renata asked for food, then she wanted to drink some wine, and then invented other delays, postponing the conversation she had planned, and only when the darkness began to gather, the darkness that always gives courage, did she begin to speak, not without solemnity. Roughly, what she said to me was this:

“Dearest Rupprecht! You see well that I can no longer live in this fashion. All my soul will stream out in tears: either I shall have to be put in my coffin or I shall become so ugly that even I would not desire to show myself to the eyes of him whom I love. One of two courses must be chosen: either life, and then to occupy oneself with its cares, or death—and then honestly to offer it one’s hand. But you know and see and realise that I can live only if Heinrich is with me. To revive I must hear his voice; to be happy, I have only to look into his eyes. With him I can accomplish all and Heaven itself is open to me, but without him I gasp like a fish on the shore. I must find Heinrich, and he will tell me whether I am condemned to life or to death. But where across the length and breadth of all the German lands shall we seek one man, who indeed is so powerful that if he chooses he can even cease to be among men? To examine every town and village in our search—is it not the same as to feel throughout a haystack to find a lost thin silk thread? Is it not clear that to make such an effort is to tempt the Lord Himself?”

Surprised at the sobriety and consecutiveness of the speech of Renata, who at times could reason like an excellent scholastic, I replied that I considered her logic correct and waited to hear what
ergo
she would deduce from her
quia
. Then in a voice much more excited and with a face much more inspired, Renata began to speak, thus:

“You have been witness, Rupprecht, that I have prayed. I have sent to the Creator all the prayers in my power, and pledged all the vows a woman has strength to fulfil, and perhaps even more! But the Lord has remained deaf to my murmuring and there is only One Power that can help me—only One to whom I can now apply. But I shall never agree to soil my soul with a deadly sin, for my soul is given to Heinrich, and he is light and he is pure, and nothing dark must come near him. Therefore you, Rupprecht, who have sworn that you love me more than the salvation of your soul, must take even this sin and this sacrifice upon yourself.”

At first I failed to grasp the purport of this speech, and replied to Renata by asking her of what Power and of what Other she was thinking, but Renata looked at me mysteriously, with a face like the images of the Maya, and only approached to me her big eyes, not saying a word, until suddenly I understood and cried out:

“You speak of the Devil, Renata!”

And Renata replied to me:

“Yes!”

Then there ensued a discussion between us. However I may have been enmeshed by my passion for this woman, however ready I may have been to obey her least sign, to do what was pleasing to her, yet such an unheard of request stirred my whole soul to its very depths. I said first of all that it was hardly possible the Lord God would not know how to distinguish the really guilty one, and that even if I were to lose my soul by having recourse to the help of the Enemy of Man, she would no less lose hers for sending me to do this work, for the murderer is ever less guilty than he who bribes him; further—that it was doubtful whether the Ruler of Hell himself could render any assistance in such an undertaking, for he is busy catching human souls, and not in taking poll-lists of the population, where who lives, and especially was it unlikely that he would know about Count Heinrich, for he by Renata’s own description, was a saint, and certainly not subject to the rule of the subterranean powers, being able to blind and divert the eyes of the servants of Beelzebub at his will; lastly, that most decidedly I did not know the roads leading to the Realms of Tartary, that much of the stories of pacts and contracts with the Devil were mere grandmother’s tales, that perhaps magic itself was but deceit and misapprehension, and that in any case we should not find it easy to hire a guide capable of directing us in good faith straight to Satan.

Thus I spoke with irritation, at times myself not believing my own words, and now for the first time allowing myself to be rude and even mocking in my treatment of Renata, but she, opposing me weakly, invited me to watch what she was about to do. From the small bag she had brought, she took out a few sprigs of herb: heather, verbena, wolf’s bane, orache, and yet another herb with white flowers, the name of which I do not know. With her left hand Renata plucked the leaves from the herbs and threw them over her head on to the floor, but then she gathered them again and placed them on the table in a circle. Next she plunged a knife into the table surface in the middle of the circle, tied its handle round with string, passed the end of the string to me and said, looking at me attentively:

“Command it thrice to milk, in the name of
Him
.” Silently watching all this bedevilment, I involuntarily pronounced thrice:

“In the name of the Devil, milk!”

Immediately from under the knife poured a few drops of milk, and Renata joyfully clapped her hands, embraced my shoulders and kept on exclaiming:

“Rupprecht! Dearest Rupprecht! You can! You have the power!”

I, quite angry by this time, demanded that she should cease to fool me with her tricks, but Renata, changing her joyful tone to a caressing one, began to persuade me, pressing against me as against a lover and looking into my face:

“Rupprecht! What matters the salvation of your soul if you but love me? Must not love be above all, and must not all be sacrificed to it, even the Bliss of Paradise? Do what I desire, for my sake, and after Heinrich you shall be the first for me in the whole world. And who knows, perhaps the Righteous Judge will not condemn you for that you have loved so much, and will not sentence you to the Burning Gehenna, but only to the temporary tortures of Purgatory. And I with my Madiël—I swear to you by the Virginity of the Mother of God—we will not forget to send prayers after you even from the Gardens of Paradise!”