The Fiery Angel (3 page)

Up a rickety staircase, in darkness, I was conducted to a tiny room on the second floor, narrow and uneven in width, like the case of a viola. Whilst in Italy a softly laid bed, and an appetising supper with a bottle of wine, can always be found even in the cheapest hotels, travellers in our country—except the rich, who carry dozens of stuffed bales with them on mules—still have to be content with black bread, inferior beer and a night on old straw. Stuffy and narrow seemed my first shelter in my native land to me, especially after the clean, almost polished bedrooms in the houses of the Netherland merchants whose doors had been opened to me by my letters of recommendation. But I had experienced worse nights indeed during my arduous travels across Anahuac, so, drawing my leather cape about me, I tried as soon as possible to nod my head off into sleep, not heeding a drunken voice that sang in the lower hall a song new to me, the words of which, however, became fixed in my mind:

Ob dir ein Dirn gefelt

So schweig, hastu kein Gelt
.

How surprised should I have been, if, as I fell asleep, some prophetic voice had told me that this was to be for me the last evening of one life, after which another was to begin! My fate, having transported me across the Ocean, had held me on my journey exactly the right number of days, and then brought me, as if to a destined march-stone, to this house so distant from town and village, where the fatal meeting awaited me. A learned Dominican monk would have seen in it the obvious expression of the will of God; an enthusiastic Realist would have found in it reason to deplore the complicated linkage of causes and effects, that do not fit into the revolving circles of Raymundus Lullius; while I, when I think of the thousands and thousands of chances that were necessary for me to chance that very evening on my way to Neuss into that small wayside inn—I lose all sense of differentiation between the ordinary and the supernatural, between
miracula
and
natura
. I can only suppose that my first meeting with Renata was, in a smaller way, just as miraculous as all the marvels and buffetings that later we lived through together.

Midnight, probably, had long passed, when I suddenly awoke, roused all at once by something unexpected. My room was bright with the silver-blue light of the moon, and the stillness around was as if all earth, and heaven itself, had died. But then, in this stillness, I distinctly heard in the next room, behind a partition of planks, a woman whisper and cry out feebly. Though wise is the proverb that says the traveller bears enough to worry about on his own back and should not pity the shoulders of others, and though I have never been distinguished by exaggerated sentimentality, yet the love of adventure, to which I have been inclined since childhood, could not fail to rouse me to the defence of a lady in distress, to protect whom, indeed, as a man who had spent whole years in battle, I had a knightly claim. Rising from bed and unsheathing my sword half way, I left my room and, even in the dark passage in which I found myself, easily distinguished the door to the room from which the voice had come. I asked loudly whether anyone required protection, and, when I had repeated these words a second time and no one had replied, I thrust at the door, breaking a small bolt, and entered.

It was then that I beheld Renata for the first time.

In a room as cheerless as my own and also lit brightly by the moonlight, there stood, in shaking terror, a woman stretched against the wall, her hair loose and flowing. No other human being was there, for all the corners of the room were clearly lit and the shadows lying on the floor were clear-cut and distinct; and yet, shielding herself, she thrust out her arms in front of her as if someone were advancing towards her. In this movement there was something terrifying in the extreme, for one could not fail to understand that she was threatened by some invisible apparition. Seeing me, the woman, uttering a fresh cry, rushed to meet me, fell on her knees before me as if I were a messenger from Heaven, seized me convulsively and said, panting:

“At last it is you, Rupprecht! I have no more strength!”

Never, before that day, had Renata and I met, and she saw me as much for the first time as I saw her, and yet she called me by my name as simply as if we had been friends from childhood. I tried not to show my surprise and, laying my hand lightly on her shoulder, asked whether it were true that she was being pursued by an apparition. But the woman had no power to answer me and, weeping and laughing by turns, she pointed with her trembling hand where, to my eyes, there was nothing but a ray of moonshine. I must not here deny that the unusual nature of all the surrounding circumstances, together with the consciousness of the presence of inhuman powers, had seized my whole being with a dull terror that I had not experienced since early youth. More to soothe the frantic lady than because I myself believed in the efficacy of the act, I unsheathed my sword completely, and, grasping it by the blade, I pointed the cross-like hilt before me, repeating some mystic words taught me by an Indian who invoked the demon Anjan. But the woman, beginning to tremble, fell on her face as if in a convulsion of imminent death.

I did not think it proper to my honour to flee from thence, though I realised immediately that an evil demon had now taken possession of the unfortunate creature and was fearfully tormenting her from within. I swear by the pure blood of Christ—never till that day had I witnessed such convulsions nor suspected that a human body could be so incredibly distorted! The woman stretched out painfully and in defiance of all natural usage, so that her neck and breast became as firm as wood and as straight as a cane, then she suddenly bent forward so that her head and chin approached her toes and the veins in her neck became monstrously taut, then, by reversal, she miraculously thrust herself backwards, and the nape of her neck became twisted inside her shoulder, towards the small of her back and her thigh high raised. I watched these ecstasies of torment as if made of stone, practically without horror and without curiosity, as I would watch a representation of the torments that await us in hell.

Then the woman ceased to knock herself against the hard planks of the floor, and the distorted features of her face little by little became more endowed with reason, but she still bended and unbent convulsively, again protecting herself with her hands, as if from an enemy. I guessed then that the Devil had come out of her and was outside her body and, drawing the woman to me, I began to repeat the words of the holy prayer that, I have heard, is always employed at exorcisms:
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna
. In the meantime the moon was already setting beyond the tops of the forest, and, in measure that the morning twilight took possession of the room, shifting the shadow from the wall to the window, the woman who lay in my arms came gradually to. But the darkness still breathed on her, like the cold tramontana of the Pyrenean Mountains, and she trembled all over as if from the frost of winter.

I asked: had the spirit departed.

Opening her eyes and glancing round the room, as if recovered from a swoon, she answered me:

“Yes, he dissolved, for he saw that we were well armed against him. He can attempt nothing against a strong will.”

These were the second words that I had heard from Renata. Having uttered them, she began to weep, shivering in a fever, and she wept so that the tears rolled down her cheeks without restraint and moistened my fingers. Reflecting that the lady would not recover warmth on the floor, and in a measure reassured, I raised her without effort, for she was of small stature and slight, and carried her to the bed that stood near by. There I covered her with a coverlet that I found in the room and tried to soothe her with quiet words.

But the woman, still weeping, became seized by yet another access of excitement, and, catching my hand, said:

“Now, Rupprecht, I must relate to you the whole story of my life, for you have saved me and it is your right to know everything of me.”

In vain I persuaded the lady to rest and sleep—she, it seemed to me, did not even hear my words, but, firmly clasping my fingers and looking away from me, began to talk quickly—quickly. At first I did not understand her speech, with such impetuosity did she pour out her thoughts and so unexpectedly did she turn from one subject to another. But gradually I learned to distinguish the main flow in the unrestrained torrent of her words and I realised that she was, actually, telling me of herself.

Never afterwards, even in the days of our most trusted intimacy, did Renata relate to me so consecutively the story of her life. True, even that night, not only did she keep silence about her parents and the place where she spent her childhood, but even, as I later had the opportunity of convincing myself without doubt, she in part concealed many later events, and in part related them falsely—whether intentionally or owing to her weakness I do not know. None the less, for a long time I knew only of Renata that little she related to me in this feverish story, therefore I must give it here in detail. Only, I cannot manage to reproduce exactly her disordered speech, hurried and disconnected, I shall have to replace it by a colder narrative.

Naming herself by that single name which alone I know, even to this day, and mentioning her first years so perfunctorily and obscurely that her words were not retained by my memory, Renata at once came to the event that she herself considered fatal to her lot.

Renata was eight years old when for the first time there came into her room, in a ray of sunshine, an angel, as if all flaming, and clad in snow-white robes. His face shone, his eyes were blue as the skies, and his hair as of fine gold thread. The angel named himself—Madiël. Renata was not frightened in the least, and they played, she and the angel, all that day with dolls. After that the angel came often to her, nearly every day, and he was always gay and kind, so that the girl came to like him better than her relatives and playmates. With inexhaustible inventiveness did Madiël amuse Renata with jokes or stories, and, when she was upset, he comforted her tenderly. Sometimes with Madiël came his comrades, also angels but not flaming ones, clothed in capes of scarlet and of purple; but they were less kind. Strictly Madiël forbade Renata to tell anyone of his secret visitations, and even had Renata disobeyed his request, no one would have believed her, for they would have thought her lying or pretending.

Not always did Madiël appear in the image of an angel, but often in other guises, especially if Renata had little time to be alone. Thus in summer Madiël would often fly to her as a huge flaming butterfly with white wings and golden antennæ, and Renata would conceal him in her long tresses. In winter he sometimes took the shape of a distaff, so that the girl could carry him with her everywhere without parting from him. Sometimes, also, Renata would recognise her heavenly friend in a plucked flower, or in a tiny coal that fell out upon the hearth, or in a nut that she broke with her teeth. At times Madiël would come into Renata’s bed and, snuggling to her like a cat, pass with her the time till morn. During such nights the angel would carry Renata away on his wings, far from her home, and show her strange cities, famous cathedrals and even the shining abodes that are not of this earth—and at daybreak, without knowing how, she would always find herself again in her bed.

When Renata had grown up somewhat, Madiël declared to her that she should be a saint, like Amalia of Löthringen, and that that was the reason and purpose for which he had been sent. He spoke to her a great deal of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, of the blissful submission of the Virgin Mary, of the mystic paths to the sealed gates of the earthly paradise, of Saint Agnes, inseparable from her meek lamb, of Saint Veronica, eternally standing before the image of her Saviour, and of many other things and persons that could not but guide her thoughts into pious channels. According to Renata’s words, even if she had previously had doubts whether it were true that her mysterious visitor was a messenger from Heaven, they could not but dissolve like smoke after these conversations, for a servant of Satan could certainly not have pronounced such a quantity of saintly names without experiencing extreme pains. Further, Madiël even appeared once to Renata in the image of Christ Crucified, when from his pierced and fiery hands streamed a flame-crimson blood.

The angel insistently exhorted Renata to lead the strict life of a saint, to seek purity of heart and clarity of mind, and she began to keep all the fast days established by Holy Church, to visit Mass every day and to pray a great deal in the solitude of her room before the image of the crucifix. Often did Madiël force Renata to submit herself to cruel trials: to go out into the frost naked, to hunger and abstain from drink for many days and nights on end, to flagellate her thighs with knotted ropes or torture her breasts with sharp points. Renata spent whole nights on her knees, and Madiël, remaining with her, would strengthen her in her exhaustion, as the angel strengthened the Saviour in the Garden of Gethsemane. At Renata’s urgent request Madiël touched her hands, and on the palms showed sores, like the stigmata of Christ’s wounds upon the cross, but she concealed these wounds carefully from everyone. In those days, because of her divine aid, there appeared in Renata the gift of working miracles and, like the most devout King of France, she healed many by a single touch of her hand, so that in the whole district she was famed as holy.

Having attained development, and remarking that maidens of her age had sweethearts or betrothed, Renata approached her angel with an insistent demand that she too should be bodily joined, and to him, for according to his own words love was higher than all else, and what could be sinful in the closest possible union of those who love? Madiël was much saddened when Renata thus made known to him her passionate desires; at these words—thus she related—his face became all ashy-flaming, like the sun looked at through smoked mica. He firmly forbade Renata even to think of matters of the flesh, reminding her of the bliss unbounded of the righteous souls in Heaven, where enter none who yield themselves up to carnal temptations. But Renata, not daring to insist openly, decided to attain her aim by cunning. As in the days of childhood, she prayed Madiël to pass the night with her in her bed—and there, embracing him and not releasing him from her arms, she urged him by all means to unite with her. But the angel, inflamed with vast anger, dissolved himself into a column of fire and vanished, scorching Renata’s hair and shoulders.