The Fiery Angel (29 page)

But the catastrophe that was to shatter these limits into dust, that was to fling us into the depths of other abysses, on to the points of other sharp rocks, still approached somehow unnoticed, as if fate crawled upon us, in a mask and on tip-toe, and seized us both from behind.

The day remains in my memory perhaps more vividly than any other day, and therefore I know that it was the fourteenth day of February precisely, a Sunday, the day of Saint Valentine. That day I was especially comforted by the tenderness of Agnes, and Matthew too was present, all three of us made more than a few jokes about the signs and customs associated with the holiday. Returning home, I was once more in a kind benignant mood, and was saying to myself: “The soul of Renata has been wounded by all that she has lived through. She must be given soothing quiet, as an invalid is given medicine. Who knows, perhaps after several months of clear and peaceful life, her love and her repentance will flow together into an even channel—and then will become possible for us that happy and busy life as husband and wife, of which, already, I am beginning to cease to dream.”

Armed with such good intentions, I entered Renata’s room and found her as usual amongst her books, poring over Latin folios, the sense of which she tried in vain to fathom. She was so interested by the content of the book, which remained dark to her, that she did not hear me as I approached, and, starting, she turned her clear eyes upon me only when I softly kissed her shoulder.

As if having forgotten all her cruel reproaches and plaints of yesterday, Renata said welcomingly to me:

“Rupprecht, how long I have waited for you to-day! Help me, I can see that this book is of great importance but I understand it ill. There are revelations here which, if we bear them in mind, will restrain us from many evils.”

I sat down at Renata’s side and saw that it was a book I had only recently unearthed at Glock’s, for it had long been out of print: a beautiful volume, printed in the town of Lübeck as late as the last century, under the title “
Sanctæ Brigittæ revelationis ex recensione cardinalis de Turrecremata
.” The book was open at the description of the journey of Saint Brigitta of Sweden across Purgatory, and of the kinds of tortures that she there observed. We immediately began to read of some sinful soul whose head was so tightly strapped by a heavy chain that his eyes, pressed out of their sockets, depended on their roots right down to his very knees, and so that his brain had burst and oozed through his ears and nose; further on was depicted the tortures of another soul, whose tongue was drawn through his open nostrils and hung down to his teeth; and yet further followed other forms of various tortures, flaying, complicated whippings, tortures with fire, boiling oil, nails and saws.

I never had the opportunity to read in this book the description of the agonies of Hell proper, but in the description of Purgatory I was interested merely by the power of the untrammelled fantasy, a great deal of which was lost however, owing to the bad exposition of the Cardinal, who was not quite firm in his Latin style. None the less, on Renata the visions of Saint Brigitta made a terrible impression, and, pushing away the fearsome book, she huddled against me, all atremble, evidently visualising to herself all the torments of after death; which must have opened before her eyes with all the vividness of things seen. With a feeling of genuine terror, like a child left alone in a dark room, she exclaimed at last:

“I’m afraid! I’m afraid! And they threaten all of us, every one, you and me also! Let us go and pray, Rupprecht, and may the Lord grant us life long enough to expiate all our sins!”

At this moment Renata in her simplicity and timidity was like some tiny baby village girl, whom a travelling monk frightens, hoping with her aid to sell the more
indulgentiæ
, and she was beloved and dear to me as words cannot express. I willingly followed her to the small altar that was in her room, and we kneeled, repeating the holy words:
Placare Christe servulis
. … This common prayer, spoken as we stood side by side like two statues in a church, and with our voices mingled like the scent of two adjacent growing flowers, decided our fate, for neither of us mastered the desires that suddenly rose from the bottom of our souls, as the snake rises from the basket in answer to the whistle of its charmer.

I do not wish to accuse Renata of responsibility for this last act, but I cannot take all the guilt of it upon myself, so let Him judge us in His good time Whom it behoves to judge and to forgive, in Whose hands the scales never falter, and from Whom the faces are concealed. But whichever of us may have been guilty of this last fall, the sorrow that overpowered Renata, as soon as the giddiness of passion was past, had not its equal in all the days that had gone before. Renata shrank from me with such astonishment and such trembling as if I had possessed her clandestinely in her sleep, or by rape, as Tarquinius took Lucretia, and the first two words she spoke cut my heart with their whip-lash more than all her former curses. These two words, full of fathomless agony, were:

“Rupprecht! Again!”

I seized Renata’s hands, desired to kiss them, spoke hurriedly:

“Renata, I swear by God, I swear by the salvation of my soul, I do not know myself how it happened! It is all only because I love you too much, because I am ready to face all the tortures of Brigitta only to kiss your lips!”

But Renata freed her fingers, ran into the middle of the room as if to be farther from me, and shouted at me, beside herself:

“You lie! You pretend! Again you lie! Dastard! Dastard! You are Satan! The Devil is in you! Lord Jesus Christ, shield me from this man!”

I tried to catch Renata, stretched out my arms to her, repeated to her some useless excuses and fruitless vows, but she shrank from me, shouting at me:

“Away from me! You are hateful to me! You are loathsome to me! It was in madness that I said I loved you, in madness and despair, for there was no other course left to me! But I trembled with repugnance when you embraced me! I hate you, accursed one!”

At last I said:

“Renata, why do you accuse only me, and not yourself? Are you not as guilty in giving in to my temptation, as I in yielding to yours? Or rather, is not God the guilty one, in that he created human beings a prey to weakness, and did not endow them with strength to combat sin?”

At this Renata stopped, as if terrified by my blasphemies, began to look round wildly, and, seeing a knife lying on the lectern, clutched it to her like a weapon of liberation:

“Here, here, look!”—she shouted at me in a hoarse voice—“Here is the weapon bequeathed to us by Christ Himself against the temptations of the flesh!”

Speaking thus, Renata struck herself in the shoulder with the blade, and blood stained the place of the wound, and in a moment streamed also from the sleeve of her robe. The thought that this paroxysm must be the last, and that after it would come complete loss of strength, flashed through my brain, and I made as if to catch Renata in my arms in anticipation of her fall. But, against my expectation, the wound only gave her new fury, and with redoubled indignation she pushed me away, threw herself to one side, and shouted at me again:

“Begone! Begone! I do not want you to touch me!”

Then, quite out of her mind and perhaps having fallen under the sway of an evil spirit, Renata made a swing and threw the knife she still held in her hand at me, so that I was barely able to escape the dangerous thrust. She then lifted some heavy volumes off the desk and began to throw them at me, like projectiles from a ballister, and after them all manner of small objects that were in the room.

Defending myself as best I could from this hailstorm, I desired to speak to her and bring her to her senses, but each new word of mine threw her into still greater irritation, each movement of mine infuriated her more and more. I saw her face, pale as never before and distorted with convulsions until it was unrecognisable, I saw her eyes, the pupils of which were dilated to double their normal size—and her whole figure, her whole body that trembled unceasingly, proved to me that she no longer ruled herself, that someone else was governing her body and her will. And then in that moment, listening to Renata’s repeated shouts: “begone! begone!” seeing into what fury my presence threw her, I came to a decision, precipitate perhaps, yet for which even to-day I dare not reproach myself: I decided really to leave the house, thinking that, without me, Renata would the sooner gain control over herself and quieten down. Moreover, I was unable to remain firm indefinitely, like a Marpessan rock, listening to ceaseless insults being hurled at me, and although my reason enabled me to realise that Renata was not responsible for them, yet it was not without difficulty that I restrained myself from shouting at her, in reply, accusations of my own.

Accordingly, I preferred to turn round and walk quickly out of the room, and I heard behind me the unrestrained rampaging laughter of Renata, as if she triumphed with some long-awaited victory. Bidding Martha go up and await the orders of her mistress, I threw on my cape and walked into the spring air, into the twilight of the approaching evening—and the narrow street, the tall Kölnish houses, and still more the white moon above them, seemed strange to me after the madhouse in which I had just been hearing screams, the gnashing of teeth, and laughter. I walked on, not thinking of anything, only taking in with my eyes the darkening blue of the skies, and suddenly I was startled to discover myself at the door of the house of the Wissmanns, whither my legs had carried me of their own accord. Of course I did not call on them a second time, but, crossing to the other side of the street, I peered at the windows, and it seemed to me that I recognised the dear and tender silhouette of Agnes. Comforted merely by this, and perhaps by my walk also, I turned slowly homewards.

But at our house I found Martha in confusion, and Renata’s room empty, and the floor strewn with her things, various parts of her garments, some rags, sundry pieces of string—everything betrayed the fact that here someone had been preparing a hasty departure. Of course I guessed at once what had happened, and extreme terror seized me, like an inexperienced magus who secretly invokes a demon to appear, and then falls incontinently face downwards at his horrible apparition. In excitement I began to question Martha, but she could explain to me but little:

“Mistress Renata”—thus mumbled Martha—“told me that you had bidden her farewell, and that she was going away for a few days. She ordered me help gather her things and pack, but forbade me to follow her. And I, I never contradict my masters, I don’t, and do all as they bid. I was only surprised that the arm of Mistress Renata was all smeared with blood, but I bandaged it with clean linen.”

To argue with the stupid old woman or to curse her was useless, and I ran, without response to her mutterings, with head uncovered into the street. It seemed to me that Renata could not have gone far, and I hoped to catch up with her, to beg her, supplicate her to return, make her listen to my prayers. I pushed into the rare evening passers-by, stumbled of my own accord into walls, and, heedless, with my heart beating like the hammer of a blacksmith, rushed through street after street, until the tinkle of the street chains began to be heard, and here and there flickered hand lanterns. Then I realised the hopelessness of my search, and returned home, shaken and lost.

Though I consoled myself with the thought that Renata had surely not had time enough to leave the city before the locking of the gates, nevertheless this first night that I spent without her was in truth horrible. First I threw myself upon my bed and waited in anguish, believing against all probability that, hark, a knock would sound at the door and Renata would return—greeting each rustle as a hope, as an omen. Then, leaping from the bed, I knelt and began to pray with the same fervour as that with which prayed Renata herself, imploring the All Highest to return her to me, to give her back to me cost what it may. I made a hundred vows, of which I pledged accomplishment if only Renata would return; swore to order a thousand Masses, swore to make ten thousand genuflexions, swore to set out on a pilgrimage to the tomb of God, agreed to give up in return every other joy of life that might yet be in store for me in the future—saw, myself, all the stupidity of these vows, and yet uttered them, compressing my hands together. Then I rushed into the vacated room of Renata, where all was yet alive with her, lay down on her bed, on that sheet to which only yesterday she had pressed her body, kissed her pillows and ground my teeth in them with agony, imagined Renata in my embraces, spoke to her all the passionate, all the tender words that I had omitted to utter during the days of our intimacy, and beat my head against the wall to restore awareness with the sensation of the pain. I do not know how I failed to lose my reason that night.

Dawn broke, and I was already up on my feet, already searching for Renata, already lying in wait for her at the town gates and on the quays from whence the barges sailed. But I did not find Renata anywhere, I did not find her at home—she did not return to me either that day, or the next, or on any of a long ladder of days—she did not come back to her room, evermore.

I
SHOULD probably be unable to describe in detail how I passed the first days after Renata’s departure, for they are swamped in my memory into one blurred smudge, as, in a fog, the docks, the surrounding houses, and the people moving to and fro upon the quays merge all into one. And never before, even when I had imagined the consequences of parting with Renata, had I conceived that despair would so invincibly seize me in its talons, as a mountain eagle a small lamb, and that I should feel so helpless and unprotected before the assaults of mad, insatiable desires. In those days all my soul was filled to the brim, over the brim, with the consciousness that the happiness of my life consisted in Renata alone, and that, without her, neither the sight of each day, nor the oncoming of each evening, had any purpose for me. The months I had spent with Renata represented themselves to me as a time of Eden happiness, and at the thought that I had hazarded them so lightly, I was ready to shout curses at myself in fury, and to strike myself in the face, as the most despicable of blackguards.