The Fiery Angel

by Valery Bruisov

  “You are not my father, nor my brother, nor my husband; you have no right to detain me by your side. If you think that by spending a few guldens you have bought my body, you are mistaken, for I am not a woman from a house of pleasure. I go where I list, and you cannot force me to stay with you by threats if your companionship be distasteful to me.”

  In despair, I began to speak volubly, much of what I said I cannot now recall, at first reproaching Renata, then humbly beseeching her and clasping her hands to retain her, but she shrank away from me with contempt, and perhaps even with disgust, and replied shortly but stubbornly that she wished to be alone. Strangers began to take note of our dispute, and when with especial insistence, I urged Renata to follow me she threatened to seek protection from my assaults with the city reiters, or simply with any good people.

  Then, deciding on hypocrisy, I spoke as follows:

  “Noble lady, my knightly duty does not permit me to leave a lady alone, in the evening, amidst a crowd of strangers. The streets are not safe by twilight, for robbers and misbehaving revellers are abroad. I do not fear to face the guard, for my conscience is guiltless of any crime, but to part with you now I will not agree, for anything in the world. Lastly, by all that is holy, I swear to you that to-morrow morning, if you still desire it, I shall give you final and complete freedom, shall not burden you with my presence, and shall not dream of attempting to trace where you have gone.”

  Probably realising that I would not relent, Renata submitted with that indifference with which submit those sorely ill, to whom all is one, and, closing her cape to conceal her face, she followed me through the city gate. I ordered the baggage to be carried to a widow of my acquaintance, one Martha Ruttmann, who since the death of her husband had lived by letting out rooms to travellers. She dwelt not far from the church of Saint Cecilia, in an old, low, two-storied house, herself living below, and letting out the upper floor for money. To reach her we had to traverse the whole town, and Renata did not let slip a word the whole way, nor did she bend back the edge of her hood.

  To my surprise, Martha at once recognised in the sunburnt mariner the beardless scholar who had caroused at her board in the years gone by, and was as glad to see me as if I had been a relative; she began to spoil me, prattling:

  “Ah, Master Rupprecht! Did I ever hope to see you again? Look, all these ten years I’ve not forgotten you! Master Gerard did say that you ran off with the landsknechts, and I thought that only your bones were left, whitening somewhere in the fields of Italy. And look, what a strapping and stern and handsome man you have become—the spit and image of St. George on the holy painting! Step upstairs; there I have rooms disengaged and ready: there’s not much business now—everyone tries to get into the hostelries, so that affairs are slack, trade goes down, it’s not as in bygone days.”

  In a quiet voice I ordered her to prepare all the upstairs rooms for myself and my wife, saying that I should pay in good Rhine gold, and Martha, sensing money in my purse as a hunting dog senses game, became even twice as polite and admiring. Walking backwards before us, she led the way to the upper floor, but, while Martha fussed, getting everything ready for the night and questioning me with many gossiping asides, Renata played throughout the dumb part in a comœdia, not even unveiling her face, as if in fear that she might be recognised. But as soon as we were left alone, she at once said to me commandingly:

  “You will sleep, Rupprecht, in that room there, and do not dare to come to me unless I call.”

  I looked Renata in the face and made no sound in reply, but I walked out with such a weight upon my soul as if I had been condemned to be branded with a hot iron. I wanted either to weep, or to thrash this woman who had so strange a power over me. I gritted my teeth and said to myself: “All right, all right then; if only you give me the chance, I shall repay you alb for alb”—and at the same time it seemed to me as though it would be heavenly bliss only to sit once more at Renata’s bedside and stroke her hair until my hand was exhausted. Not daring to disobey her injunction, I agonised in bed, like one drunk, to whom the world sways like the deck of a caravel, until weariness overmastered my bitter-angry thoughts. Till the morning, however, nightmares suffocated me and I seemed to see the beldam of Geerdt, astride on my bosom, roaring and drinking blood as it spouted from my breast, while Renata with a youth in flaming robes floated past through a blue garden amid gigantic lilies, and I crawled after them like a toad, my heavy limbs powerless to part from the earth.

  None the less, the habit of the camp woke me with its drum at the customary hour, and I had time to put myself in order and freshen my head before Renata summoned me. But she called in a voice stern and Callous, and when I heard the comfortless words that she addressed to me I felt as though I were swallowing all the green waters of the ocean waves with not one tiny sail on the whole horizon.

  This is what Renata said to me, not mentioning anything of her yesterday’s intention of leaving me:

  “Listen, Rupprecht! We must find Heinrich this very day, I do not wish to wait one day longer. We must find him, though we have to tramp through the whole town. Let us go then!”

  I would have replied to this commanding speech that I could be of but little help in the search for Count Heinrich, never having seen him face to face, but so imperative was Renata’s gaze that I found neither words nor voice, and when, lowering her hood, quickly and determinedly, she rushed out into the street, I moved after her like a shadow tied to her. And never will I forget those frantic rushings from church to church, through every street, that we carried out that day! Not once, but many times, did we comb the whole of Köln from Saint Cunibert to Saint Severin and from the Holy Apostles to the shore of the Rhine, and it became clear that Renata was not for the first time in this city. First of all she dragged me to the Cathedral, but, tarrying there but little, she rushed to the Town Hall, circled round it, scanning the Market and the Square, and past Hürzenich she nearly ran to the ancient Mary of the Capitol. At the leaf of this sumptuous trefoil we wearied silently for some time, Renata with greedy eyes studying every figure as it appeared far away upon the street, and I, at her side, making a supreme effort of will to appear unconcerned and care-free. Then Renata seized me by the hand and dragged me quickly, quickly, either pursuing or fleeing from pursuit, first towards Saint George, where the masons, who were building a new and luxurious porch, gazed at us in astonishment, then to Saint Panteleon. And later still we encountered Saint Gereon with his holy hosts, were sighed after by the eleven thousand immaculate virgins who rest with Saint Ursula, glared at by the huge eye of the Minorites, and at last we came back to the quay side of the Rhine, beneath the shadow of the imposing tower of Saint Martin, where Renata waited with such certainty and confidence as though it were here that she had been foretold a meeting by a voice from Sinai, while I dully watched and studied the bustling life of the docks, saw how the vessels sailed up and away, and the lading and unlading of many-hued barges, marked how men fuss and fret, always busying themselves over something and always hurrying somewhere, and all the time I reflected that they had no concern with two strangers, hiding near a church wall.

  It was, judging by the sun, long past noon, when I at last dared to address a summons to Renata:

  “Should we not return home? You are tired; dinner is prepared for us.”

  But Renata looked at me with contempt and replied: “If you are hungry, Rupprecht, go and dine; I feel no need.”

  Soon again we resumed our disorderly running from street to street, but with each hour it became more disorderly, for Renata herself was losing faith, though with stubbornness and obstinacy she still carried out her purpose: inspecting the passers-by, tarrying at the cross-roads, peering into the windows of houses. Before me flitted familiar buildings—our University, and the Bursaries, where my schoolfellows used to live, Kneck College, Laurence’s, the XVIth. Houses, and other churches again—Saint Clare, Saint Andrew, Saint Peter—and though I knew Köln well before, from this day I
know it as though I had both been born in it and spent my whole life only within its walls. I must say that I, a man accustomed to difficult marches across the savannah, and to whom it has happened for whole days on end to pursue a fleeing enemy, or on the contrary myself to retreat from pursuit—I felt myself overcome and nearly falling from tiredness, though Renata seemed tireless and unchanged: she was possessed by some frenzy of seeking, and there was no power to stop her and no means to bring her to reason. I do not recollect after what journeyings and twistings we found ourselves in the evening once more in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral, and there, vanquished at last, Renata sank down upon a stone, leant against the wall and remained motionless.

  I seated myself near by, not daring to speak, and prey to a dull, numb weariness that filled all my limbs like thick lead. Above my eyes towered the grey bulk of the forepart of the Cathedral, with its temporary roof, with towers as yet unbegun, but none the less imposing in the boldness of its design. And strangely enough, at this moment, forgetting my condition and Renata, forgetting weariness and hunger, I began, as I now remember well, to reflect upon the details of the Cathedral and its building. I recalled the plans of the Cathedral, that I happened to have seen, and the stories of its construction, the names of the good craftsman Gerhard and of His Eminence the Archbishop Heinrich von Virneburg, and I decided for myself that, like its brothers the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Rome and the Cathedral of the Birth of the Holy Mother of God in Milan, never would it be fated to rise in its proper grandeur; to raise to its heights the heavy materials required for its completion, and to erect perfectly the arrows of its spires according to their plan—are tasks far surpassing our means and forces. While, if ever human science and the art of building attain such a measure of perfection as to render these tasks possible and easy, men will of course have lost so much of their primitive faith that they will no longer wish to labour to enrich the House of God.

  My meditation was interrupted by Renata herself, who said to me shortly and simply:

  “Rupprecht, let us go home.”

  I rose with difficulty and followed Renata like one in irons; but, in thinking then, not without relief, that all the events of the day were done I was mistaken: the most startling lay yet in wait for us.

  When we reached our home I bade Martha prepare food for us, but Renata did not want even to touch anything and, as if with great difficulty, she swallowed a few baked beans and would not drink more than two mouthfuls of wine. Then she went to her bed and stretched herself on it in complete prostration, like one paralysed, weakly warding off my touches and, to all my words, only shaking her head negatively. Approaching, I lowered myself to my knees near the bed and looked silently into her eyes, which suddenly became staring and devoid of meaning or expression—and thus I remained for a long time, in this posture, which thenceforward and for many weeks became habitual to me.

  This was the very hour that fate chose to add yet another link to the chain dragging me to my perdition, and to transform me, for the first time, from a spectator and observer of devilish schemes to their accomplice and abettor. With that same frankness with which I relate of myself in this book both the good and the bad, I want to relate this event also, that I may show how the Devil knows means by which, hardly perceptibly, he may lead a man astray, to his own ways.

  While we were thus plunged into darkness and silence, as into some black depth—there suddenly sounded above us a strange and quite exceptional cracking knock upon the wall. I looked round surprised for, apart from us two, there was nobody in the room, and at first I did not say anything. But after some interval, when the selfsame knock occurred a second time, I softly asked Renata:

  “Did you hear that knock? What can it be?”

  “Renata answered me in an indifferent voice:”

  “It is nothing. That happens often. It is the tiny ones.”

  I asked her again:

  “What tiny ones?”

  She answered me quietly:

  “The tiny demons.”

  This reply so interested me that, though I was reluctant to worry Renata in her weakened state, nevertheless I dared to question her, seeing that she understood something of which I had only a nebulous conception. With great reluctance, and pronouncing the words with difficulty, Renata informed me that the lower demons, who are always present in human circles, occasionally manifest their presence to those who are not protected from them by knocking on the walls and different objects, or by moving various things. To this Renata added that when, by her acquaintance with Madiël, her eyes were opened to the secret world, she even saw these very demons, who are always of human appearance and clothed, unlike angels, in capes, not light or brilliant, but dark, grey or smoke-black in colour, but that they are however, enveloped in a kind of glow, and in moving they float noiselessly rather than walk, and to disappear they dissolve like clouds.

  I must not conceal the fact, and I will say here and now, that Renata later gave another explanation of the knockings that to many will perhaps appear more simple and natural, but, from everything, I gather that it was his first one that was true, and even if she were mistaken about them, it was only in that she did not recognise in them the usual devices of the Devil, who seeks ever to enmesh the soul in his dubious webs. But at that time I had no occasion even to reflect upon what she said, for I gave myself up wholly to a feeling of astonishment at the nearness to us of the world of demons, that, for the most of human beings, is as if situated on the further side of some inaccessible ocean that can be traversed only in the galleys of magic and sorcery. And, moreover, while Renata spoke, the knockings sounded gay upon the wall above her bed, as if confirming her words. But as never, and in no circumstances of my life, did the torch of free experimentation, lit in my soul by the books of the great humanists, flicker out in me, addressing myself to the knocking being I asked with extreme daring:

  “If you who make these knockings are truly a demon, and if you hear my words, knock thrice.”

  At once, clearly, there resounded three knocks, and at the moment they were as terrifying as if an invisible hammer were knocking through my skull at my brain. But quickly, overpowering this weakness, with renewed daring and not comprehending the dark abyss towards which I was thrusting myself, I asked again:

  “Are you a friend to us or an enemy? If a friend—knock thrice.”

  Immediately sounded three knockings. After these Renata, too, rose in her bed, and her eyes became alive again as she asked:

  “In the name of God I conjure you, Knocker, speak! Do you know anything of my master, Count Heinrich? If you know, knock thrice.”

  Three knocks sounded.

  Then an uncontrollable trembling seized Renata and, sitting up, she seized my hand and, pressing it with her thin fingers, she quickly began to put questions to our conversationist, one after another; where is Count Heinrich? how soon will he return? when will she see him? how angry is he with her?—questions to it would be very difficult to reply with knockings. But, intervening, I tried to bring some system into the conversation and established that three knocks would always mean an affirmation, two a negation, after which we only had to put our questions in such a way that they could be answered by a single “yes” or “no.” It did not then occur to me that commerce with infernal powers might be sinful, or even dangerous, indeed I was even ready to pride myself on the new method of demonomancy I had invented, and a long conversation ensued between us and our guest.

  We asked him: who is he, whether he be a demon? And that he answered us, yes. Then we asked him, what is he called? And by going through a number of names and all the sounds of the alphabet, we learned that his name was Elimer. Then we asked him whether he knew Count Heinrich, and that he answered us, yes. We asked whether Count Heinrich were in Köln, and to that he replied, no. We asked, would Count Heinrich arrive in Köln, and to that he replied, yes. We asked: when? soon? not to-day? perhaps to-morrow? and learned that it would be to-morrow. Then, continuing our
questioning, we learned that we must await Count Heinrich the next evening, not going out anywhere, in this very room, that he will find his own way to Renata, that he has not forgotten her, that he is not angry with her, that he has forgiven all, loves her as before, and wishes to be with her.

  All these answers were to Renata as the words of the Saviour ‘talipha, kumi’ to the dead virgin. She too revived, and, forgetting her weariness, she tirelessly put one question after another, nearly always about the selfsame thing with the words but slightly altered, only to hear once more this ‘yes’ so sweet to her. And when in the affirmative knocking there was some especial hope for her, she fell back into the pillow with a light sigh as if in ecstasy, swooning for a moment as if after some rapturous exaltation, and softly spoke to me: “You heard, Rupprecht, you heard?”

  Thus it continued for more than an hour, until the knockings, at first growing weaker as if he who knocked was tiring, finally ceased altogether. But even after their cessation Renata for a long time could not quieten down, and, happy, she repeated to herself and me her questions and the answers of the demon, or made me repeat them, assuring me and herself “But I knew that I should see Heinrich here! But I felt so and I said so! For I had reached the limit of agony, and more weariness my heart could not have borne!” And Renata condescendingly stroked my hair and my face, gave me her hand to kiss, and pressed herself against me as if accustoming herself to the future caresses of her lover, and I found no release for my despair, but had to listen to her voice and touch her fingers with my lips. And the torment of her raptures lasted until long after midnight, despite our weariness, and I listened to Renata rejoicing like a child, still kneeling by her bed, so that at last, when she bade me go to my bed and sleep, I could scarcely stand upon my numb legs.