The Fiery Angel (9 page)

In such cares the time passed till evening, and nothing had been omitted or forgotten by the hour when the twilight, fallen early owing to the clouds, began to fill the room with heavy darkness. I know not whether my emotions were those of a man, who, having suffered torture in prison, now awaits the appointed hour at which he is to be led forth to execution, but there was in me a dull weakness and a stubborn stupidity. I drifted down each minute, as a boat with no helmsman drifts down a rapid stream.

Scarcely had the darkness thickened perceptibly when the knockings on the wall sounded again, and Renata asked hastily whether it were our acquaintance of yesterday—Elimer. The answer was given that in truth it was he. Then began a repetition of the previous evening, with this distinction, that the first knocking demon was soon joined by other demons, who also gave us their names: Rizzius, Ulrich, and others that I cannot remember. Each had his own peculiar knockings—thus, Elimer knocked clearly and definitely, Rizzius so that he was hardly heard, Ulrich with such blows that one might fear the wall would break. The demons willingly answered all our questions, as far as was possible, by knockings, and they were not at all abashed by the names of the saints, or of the Lord God Himself, uttered by Renata. At the same time there flared up in various parts of the room, near the floor, flames like those on a marsh, and, rising to the height of two elbows, they went out, diffusing. But by this time even my very soul was carried away towards all that is implied by the expression of Horace,
scire nefas,
and even the obvious stigmata of Hell no longer weakened me nor dismayed my will.

I now regret that, having dared to embark upon such a doubtful undertaking as commerce with knocking demons, I did not profit by the conversation to find out more concerning their nature and power. But that evening both Renata and I were so engrossed by the expected coming of Heinrich, that I had not in me enough curiosity to conduct a long inquisition. I had time to find out only that in their world there are rivers and lakes and trees and fields, and that it is inhabited partly by devils previously created by God as good beings, but who rebelled with Lucifer, and in part by the souls of people who have died and who, though they are unworthy of Hell, have not obtained the hope of Purgatory and are condemned to weary on earth until the Second Advent, that they are glad to converse with human beings, who appear to them as tiny flames in darkness, but that they cannot approach all of them, only those who have special faculties.

This was the little that I thought of asking. But Renata put an interminable number of questions to each who spoke, leading indeed all to one end: whether it be true that Heinrich will come to her to-day? And all those that gave answers replied to her only ‘yes.’ Then Elimer told us that we must wait for Heinrich in the darkness that surrounded us: that he will enter on the stroke of midnight: that he is already in the town and changing his attire. At this last answer Renata desired by all means to know every detail of his new costume, and she tirelessly mentioned all the garments that her Heinrich had worn, and also named all the items and accessories of manly attire, and all the colours of cloth, so that Elimer might be able with a simple ‘yes’ to depict all the image of Heinrich. We learned that he wore the green costume of a huntsman, such as is worn in Bavaria, with brown frogs, a green hood, a light belt studded with gems, and blue boots.

Then Elimer said that Heinrich had already left his dwelling and was coming to us, that he was passing now along one street, now along another, that now he was approaching the doors of our house. My heart beat so fiercely that I heard its dull beats, and for the last time I questioned the demon:

“If the Count is entering the outer door, knock thrice.”

Came three knocks. I repeated:

“If the Count is mounting the staircase, knock thrice.”

Came three knocks. In a hoarse voice Renata said to me:

“Rupprecht, begone and do not return.”

Her face looked terrifying to me and, swaying like one wounded, I walked towards an exit into a gallery, whence it was possible to descend into the courtyard of our house, but, noticing that Renata, drunk with expectation, was not looking at me, I tarried by the door, for an invincible curiosity urged me to look, if only once, upon the face of this Count, then still mysterious to me. But minutes went by and the Count did not appear, and no steps were heard behind the door, and all around was quiet and unchanged. Many minutes passed, and carefully I approached Renata who stood at the table.

Gasping, Renata asked:

“Elimer! If Heinrich is near knock thrice!”

There was no answer and she asked again:

“Elimer! If you are here knock thrice!”

There was no answer, and in extreme despair Renata exclaimed for the third time:

“Rizzius! Ulrich! Answer—will my Heinrich come?”

There was no answer.

Suddenly the whole of her strength left Renata and she would have fallen as if struck by a bullet, had I not caught her. I do not know whether the demon with whom we had just conversed so friendlily, or her former enemy, entered into her, but once more I was witness of a terrible torment like that of the country inn. Only it seemed to me as though this time the spirit did not enter the whole body of Renata, but possessed only a part of it, for she was able to defend herself in some degree, though all her body writhed and turned horribly, twisting out the limbs as though the bones would break through muscle and skin. Again I had no means to help the racked creature, and could only look into Renata’s face, completely distorted as if someone else looked out from her eyes, and watch all the monstrous twists of her body, until at last the demon released her of his own will, and she rested in my arms, feeble, like a tender bough draggled in a whirlpool. I carried Renata to her room, into her bed, where she wept long and helplessly, now altogether speechless, unable to utter a word.

Thus ended the second day of our stay in Köln and the fifth day of my acquaintance with Renata. Those five days, despite the multitude of the various incidents compressed within them, have remained chiselled in my soul with such vividness that I can recall the minutest events, nearly every word spoken by Renata, or by me in reply to hers, and all my thoughts, as though they had taken place but yesterday. And if I had not thought it necessary to be short, for the description of yet more remarkable happenings is still before me, I might have related that which I experienced in this short time with many further details than I have set down here.

N
OT only, no doubt, the sufferings to which the demon who tortured her had subjected Renata, but also the despair that had replaced her tantalising hopes—made her as weak as if she had been through a long and complicated illness. The morning after that night in which we had in vain waited for Count Heinrich, Renata was quite definitely not strong enough to rise from her bed, could not move her left hand, and complained that she felt as though a sharp nail were being hammered into her head—so she had to spend several days in bed. It was my great happiness to care for her like a nurse, to feed her and give her to drink as one would a small, helpless child, to watch over her tired sleep and search amongst my poor store of medical learning for means to alleviate her condition. Though Renata accepted my ministrations with the queenly condescension usual to her, I could justly conclude, both from the expression of her eyes and from isolated sentences, that she valued my faithfulness and my care, and this rewarded me to overflowing for all my recent sufferings. And after the first five days with Renata, which had been like an incessant whirlpool amongst rocks, there now came for me days soft and sad, but sweet, each so like the last, that one might have taken them for but one day, only reflected in many mirrors.

Returning now in thought to that time, I feel the talons of sorrow clutching at my heart, and I am inclined, with murmur against the Creator, to regard this memory as the most cruel of His gifts. And yet I cannot restrain myself from describing, though shortly, the apartments in which our tragic fate was accomplished, and the even daily tenor of our life that, in spite of all changes, remained constant until the fatal hour of our first parting.

As Renata spoke to me neither of the relatives that she had made believe to possess in Köln, nor of her desire to leave me, I took care to prepare for her more comfortable quarters. I chose for her that room, out of the three on the upper floor, which was destined by Martha for the most exalted of her lodgers, and which accordingly was furnished with a certain luxury. At the wall to the right of the entrance, on a small podium mounted by three steps, stood a handsome wooden bed, with a half-canopy also of wood, and decorated with cloth, pillows edged with lace and a satin coverlet. Another considerable feature was the fireplace of coloured tiles of rare workmanship, such as often one does not find even in Milan, and against the outer wall was stood a large wardrobe, carved and with inlaid decorations. Between the windows was placed a handsome table with curved legs, in the corner behind the bed a folding prie-dieu, and the furniture of the room was completed by chairs, a lectern for reading, and a large Italian mirror hung on the left of the entrance. I remember the interior with the utmost vividness and now, as I write these words, it seems to me as if I have only to rise at any time and open the door—and once more I shall walk into the room of Renata and see her with her head drooping on the carved desk of the lectern or pressing her cheek against the cold glass circles of the window.

The room of Renata was separated from mine by a narrow corridor that gave on to a covered gallery, which half encircled the house and from which one could descend straight down by a staircase, without passing through the lower floor. My room, which was destined by Martha for less wealthy lodgers, was furnished plainly, but none the less better and more pleasantly than the rooms in regular hostelries. And there was at our disposal another, yet a third room, much smaller and quite separate, the entrance into it being straight from the landing of the inner staircase; at first we had not thought of using this little closet and I paid for its rent only to escape neighbours. In fact, apart from us, there lived in the small solitary house only Martha, a woman who, though it is true she loved to gossip, did not willingly entertain guests, and so even in gay and noisy Köln we were as much cut off from people as Merlin in the charmed wood of Viviane.

Old Martha was convinced that my young wife and I were enjoying ourselves, and of course she in no wise suspected how strangely we passed our days. Receiving from me a good allowance, she served us willingly and with care, effecting all my commissions and watching well over our table: in the morning for breakfast we usually received fried eggs, sausage, cheese, eggs in shell, baked chestnuts and fresh rolls; and in the evening at supper—mutton, sucking-pigs, geese, carp, pike, and I usually had at the same time a bottle of Rhinewine or Malvasia. Martha was surprised that I did not wish to renew any of my former friendships with anyone, and many times she tried to persuade me to visit the aged Ottfried Gerard, my former teacher, but I, on the contrary, strictly forbade her even to mention my arrival in Köln. However, Martha did not obey my order very faithfully, for at times attempts were made to greet me in the street by persons among whom I recognised not only my former drinking companions, but even magisters or the University—however, I made them understand that they were mistaken in their greetings and took me for another.

During the illness of Renata and the first days of her convalescence we spent whole hours in conversation, and now she listened with great eagerness to my stories of New Spain, wondering at the great deal I had seen during my life. Sometimes she caressingly stroked my face with her fingers, saying, as if to a small child: “What a clever learned Rupprecht I have!” But for a long time we spoke not a single word hinting either of Count Heinrich or of the power of the hostile demons who threatened Renata, and when—as happened several times—we heard in the evening darkness again the familiar knockings, we hastened to blow up the fire and talk of other things, and the knockings ceased of themselves. At such times, however, the obvious nearness of unseen foes confused not only me but Renata with cruel fear, and then she did not send me away to my room, but allowed me to spend the night with her—sometimes at the foot of her bed, sometimes again under one coverlet, though as man and woman we remained strangers to each other. And I even found in this torturing nearness a special charm and sweetness, as if one were to enjoy the deep cuts of a sharp blade insensibly dividing the flesh.

Towards the very end of August, Renata was so far recovered that we began to take long walks in the town, for the most part wandering to the shore of the Rhine, somewhere up its stream, beyond the Hanseatic quay, and there sitting on the ground we watched the dark and mighty waters of the great river, unchanged since the day of great Cæsar who forded them, yet changing every minute. This uniform view, day after day, brought ever new thoughts to our minds and new words to our lips, and our conversations seemed as inexhaustible as the Rhine itself, though it is quite possible it only appeared to us that we were conversing continuously. In any case I felt vividly as though all the chaos of knowledge and information that I had read in various books and gathered during the changing fortunes of my life—now passing under the clear scrutiny of Renata, by agency either of her severe condemnations, or of her penetrating corrections—was gradually being welded to one enormous and unified mass, as from molten pigs of iron is welded a shapely bell, that can sound far and high.

However, with all the meekness and submissiveness of Renata, there yet lived in her an unsatisfied weariness that would not release her heart from its poisonous fangs, so that as the strength of Renata grew, there revived in her all the stubbornness of her desire, flung like the hand of a compass always toward one point. I had no other occupation than to watch over the transparency and cloudlessness of the horizon of Renata’s soul, and soon I noticed that nefarious signs were foretelling another storm, for no more was I a novice in the navigation of those latitudes. But, though I was warned, the storm blew so impetuously that I had no time to reef in my sails, and the galleas of my life was once more whirled round like a child’s top.