The Fiery Angel (4 page)

After that the angel did not appear at all for many a day, and Renata fell into an extreme state of gloom, for she loved Madiël more than all the children of men, more than all the fleshless creatures and the Lord God Himself. Days and nights did she spend in tears, astonishing all those around her by her unconsolable despair; she lay for long hours like one dead, beat her head against the walls, and even sought voluntary death, thinking, if only for a single moment in the next life, thus to see her beloved. Unceasingly she addressed prayers to Madiël, beseeching him to return to her, promising with due solemnity to submit in all matters to his righteous choice if only she might feel once again the nearness of his presence. At last, when strength was already leaving Renata, Madiël appeared to her in a dream, saying: “As you desire to join me in bodily union, so will I appear to you in the image of a man; wait for me seven weeks and seven days.”

Roughly two months after this vision, Renata made the acquaintance of a young Count who came to their lands from Austria. He was clad in white garments; his eyes were blue and his hair as if of fine gold thread, so Renata at once recognised him as—Madiël. But the visitor did not want to show that they knew one another, and he styled himself Count Heinrich von Otterheim. Renata tried by all means to attract his attention, not even disdaining the help of a sorceress and the use of love philtres. Whether these unworthy means were effective, or whether the Count sought Renata of his own accord is not known; in any case he disclosed to her his heartfelt love and requested that she secretly leave the parental roof with him. Renata did not hesitate a moment, and the Count, at night, drove away with her and lived with her in his family castle on the River Danube.

Renata spent two years at the castle of the Count and according to her words they were as happy as no one else in the world has been since the fall of our forefather in Paradise. They lived constantly close to the world of angels and demons, and they engaged in a great scheme that was to bring happiness to all the peoples of the earth. One thing alone grieved Renata—nothing would persuade Heinrich to confess that he was Madiël and an angel, and he stubbornly persisted that he was a loyal subject of Duke Ferdinand. However, towards the end of the second year of their life together, the soul of Heinrich suddenly became possessed by dark thoughts; he became gloomy, sad and sorrowful and all at once, in the night, without giving anyone warning, he left his castle, riding off no one knew whither. Renata waited for him several weeks, but without her protector she knew not how to defend herself from the attacks of evil spirits, and they began to torment her without mercy. Not desiring to stay longer in the castle, where she was no more mistress, she decided to leave and to return to her parents. The fiendish powers left her no peace, even on her journey, and perhaps to-night, had I not hastened to her assistance, they would have destroyed her for ever.

Thus related Renata, and I think her narrative occupied more than an hour, though here I have rendered it much more shortly. Renata spoke without looking at me, expecting from me neither contradiction nor agreement, as if not even addressing herself to me, but as if confessing to some invisible confessor. Neither in relating of incidents that had undoubtedly shaken her cruelly, nor in speaking of matters that to most would seem shameful and that the majority of women would prefer to conceal, did she betray either emotion or shame. I must note that the earlier part of Renata’s story, though she then spoke much more incoherently and disconnectedly, I retained clearly. All that happened to her after her flight from the parental home, on the other hand, remained very confused to me. I learned later that it was in that latter part of her narrative that she had concealed a great deal and, more particularly, related much not in accordance with reality.

Scarcely had she uttered the last words, than Renata suddenly weakened entirely, as if her strength had just been enough to tell the story to its end. She glanced in my direction as if with surprise, then sighed deeply, fell with her face into the pillow and closed her eyes. I wanted to get up from her couch, but, softly embracing me with her arms, with tender compulsion she made me lie next to her. Not surprised by anything that might happen in that unusual night, and obedient, I lay down on the bed next to this woman, then still a complete stranger to me, not quite knowing how to behave towards her. Affectionately she encircled my neck and, pressing against me with almost naked body, she immediately fell asleep, soundly and undisturbed. It was already light with the blue light of dawn, and after what we had experienced I almost laughed to see how we both lay, strangers in a strange hostelry in a forest wilderness, yet embraced in one bed like brother and sister beneath a parental roof.

When I had convinced myself that Renata was sleeping quietly, I carefully freed myself from her embrace, for I felt the need of fresh wind on my face and to be alone. Attentively I gazed at the face of the sleeping woman, and it appeared soft and innocent, like the images of children in the pictures of Fra Beata Angelico at Fiesole; almost incredible did it seem to me that, so short a while ago, the Devil had possessed this woman. Softly I left the room, donned my tall hat and made my way down, and, as everybody in the house was still asleep, I drew back the bolts of the door myself, and straightway found myself in the wood. There I walked along a solitary path amidst the heavy trunks of beeches, dearer to me than the slim palms and guaiacums of America, and listened to the early chirruping of the birds, that greeted me as a familiar language.

I have never belonged to the number of those persons who, following the philosophers of the peripatetic school, maintain that in nature there are no disembodied spirits, denying the existence of demons and even that of holy angels. I have always held, though before meeting with Renata I had never actually been a witness of anything miraculous, that both observation and experiment, the two primary foundations of knowledge, prove undeniably the presence in our world, side by side with mankind, of other spirit forces, who are considered by Christians to compose the spiritual armies of Christ and the hordes of Satan. And I remembered also the words of Lactantius Firmianus, who maintains that at times guardian angels are tempted by the charms of young maidens, the souls of whom it is their duty to protect from sin. None the less, many details in the strange narrative of Renata seemed to me hardly credible and indeed inadmissible. Admitting that this woman I had encountered actually was in the power of the Devil, I was unable to distinguish where the deceits of the Spirit of Evil ended and where her own lies began.

Thus tormenting myself with guesses and misunderstandings, I wandered at length along the paths of the unknown forest, and the sun was already risen high when I returned to the roadside hostelry in which I had spent the night. At the gate stood the hostess, a corpulent woman, red-faced and of stern appearance, more like the leader of a band of robbers, who, however, recognising me, greeted me with all courtesy, calling me lord knight. I decided to use this convenient opportunity to find out about the mysterious lady, and, approaching, I enquired with a voice of indifference, as if I only desired to gossip for want of something better to do—who was the woman whose room was next to mine.

And this, roughly word for word, was the unexpected answer that the hostess gave to me:

“Ah, Lord Knight, it were better you did not ask me about her, for my kind heart led me, maybe, to commit a mortal sin when I gave asylum to a heretic and one who has signed a pact with the Devil. Though she is not from our parts I know her history, for I was told it by a good friend of mine, an itinerant merchant from her part of the country. This woman who pretends to be so modest is in truth nothing but a whore, and by various machinations she penetrated into the confidence of Count Otterheim, a man of most noble family, whose castle is a little below Speier, on the Rhine. She so ensorcelled the young count, who, already in his early childhood, had lost his parents, persons worthy and respected, that instead of taking unto himself a fair wife and serving his master, the Kurfürst of Pfalz, he occupied himself with alchymy, magic and other deeds of blackness. Would you believe it, from the day this besom took up habitation in his castle, each night they altered their shape—he into a were-wolf, she into a were-wolf bitch—and scoured the neighbourhood; how many they slew during that time—children, foals, sheep, it is hard to say. Then they brought evil and blight upon the people, caused the milk of cows to run dry, called up thunder, ruined the crops of their enemies, and committed hundreds of other crimes by means of their magic powers. But suddenly the Saint Crescentia of Dietrich appeared in a vision to the Count and denounced his sinful conduct. The Count then became penitent, accepted his cross, and set off barefoot to the holy grave of God, ordering his servants to drive his concubine from the castle, whence she went, wandering from village to village. If I gave her shelter, Lord Knight, it was only because I then knew nothing of her history, but, seeing how, by day and by night, she now pines and moans for her sinful soul cannot rest, I shall not endure her to stay another four-and-twenty hours, for I do not wish to abet the Enemy of Mankind.”

This speech of the hostess, who related a great deal more that I do not remember, filled my soul with shame and remorse. I was not of course distressed at the fact that I had spent a few hours in bed with a woman who might really have been guilty of repulsive crimes, for I do not admit the possibility of transmittance of spiritual infection by mere contact and, moreover, I had no reason to believe all that the hostess had told me. But from her words I could at least see without question in how many particulars this lady had deceived me in her nocturnal relation of her life, if only in that she had persuaded me that the castle of her paramour stood in an Austrian archdukedom, when in reality it was here, in the neighbourhood, on our native Rhine. It appeared to me as though my companion of the night, seeing in me a newly arrived and simple sailor, had wanted to befool me, and this thought so fogged my mind with indignation, that I forgot even the obvious signs of possession of the unfortunate creature by the Devil, of which I had myself been recent witness.

But even while I stood before the hostess as she continued her plaints, not knowing what to do, the door opened and upon the threshold appeared Renata herself. She was attired in a long cape of silk, blue in colour and with a hood that covered her face, and in a pink bodice with white and blue trimmings—as are dressed the noble ladies of Köln. She held herself proud and free as a Duchess, so that I scarcely recognised in her the devil-distracted creature of my night’s vigil. Probably, in the modest attire of a Spanish mariner, I looked to her a pauper and a simpleton. However, finding me with her eyes, Renata walked straight towards me with her light step, that always suggested the flight of a bird.

I took my hat off before the lady, and she said hurriedly but commandingly:

“Rupprecht, we must ride away from here at once, immediately. I cannot stay here, not an hour more.”

It must be thought that the voice of Renata contained some especial charm for me, or that at our very first meeting she had taken the opportunity to attract me by some secret means of witchcraft known to her, for despite that which I had been thinking of her only a few moments ago, I found nothing to say in contradiction of her words, indeed accepted them as an order disobedience of which was impossible. And when the hostess of the hostelry, suddenly changing her polite tone to one extremely rude, began to demand from Renata the money she owed her for her room, I hastened to say that everything would be paid her fairly. Then I asked Renata whether she had a horse to continue the road, for in such remote districts it is not easy to find a good one.

“I have no horse,” said Renata to me. “But from here it is not far to the town. You can lift me into your saddle and lead the horse by the rein. And in the town it will not be difficult to buy another mount.”

She ordered me and all my goods about as if I were her servant or a bought slave.

And, to justify myself in my own eyes in a measure, I thus addressed myself:

“What matter even though I spend some coins and some days extra in travel. The girl is attractive and worth such a sacrifice; and, after the labours of my journey, I am entitled to the usual diversion. And, moreover, she laughed at me yesterday and I must show her that I am not so simple and uncouth as she supposes. Now, I shall amuse myself with her during the journey, until she bores me, and then I shall leave her. And as far as the fact that the Devil is after her is concerned, that is hardly my business, and I am not likely to be frightened of any devil in my relations with a pretty woman, I, who never feared the redskins with their poisoned arrows.”

Thus I reasoned with myself, trying to convince myself that my meeting with Renata was merely a droll incident, one of those that men, smiling, relate to their fellows in alehouses, and, deliberately, with self-importance, I felt my taut and heavy belt, reminding myself of the song I had heard the evening before:

Ob dir ein Dirn gefelt,

So schweig, hastu kein Gelt.

Fortifying our strength in the inn with milk and bread, we made ready to depart. I helped Renata to mount my horse, which had quite recovered overnight. To the bundle with my goods was added another package, though not a heavy one. Renata was as merry as a turtle-dove, laughed a great deal, joked and parted on friendly terms with the hostess. At last we struck the road, Renata on horseback, I walking by her side, holding the horse by the rein or leaning on the pommel. All the inhabitants of the inn crowded at the gate to see us off and take leave of us, not without mockery. And I was ashamed to turn my head and look at them.

F
ROM the hostelry, for a time the road still led through the woods. It was cool and shady, and Renata and I talked without tiring, the while we slowly made our way onward. I was not a stranger to society, despite my soldier’s life, for in Italian cities I had often had occasion to visit both carnival masques and theatrical performances, and later, in New Spain, I used to attend the evening gatherings in local wealthy houses, where reigns by no means the barbarism of a wilderness, as many think, but where, on the contrary, elegant ladies play the lute, the zither and the flute, and dance the algada, the passionesa, the mauresque and the other latest dances with their cavaliers. Trying to show Renata that under my rough sailor’s jacket hid one who was no stranger to education, I was happily surprised to find in my partner’s conversation a sharpness of wit and a breadth of knowledge unusual in a woman, so that involuntarily all my mental faculties took guard, like an experienced fencer meeting unexpectedly a skilful blade in his opponent. Of the manifestations of the night we said not a word, and one might have imagined, to see how gaily we were talking, that I was peacefully escorting a lady away from some sumptuous tournament.