The Fiery Angel

by Valery Bruisov

  In the morning I awoke more exhausted than if I had been confined for half a year in a subterranean prison: my eyes could hardly look upon the light of day, and my consciousness was dull, like inferior glass. But Renata was at times as if of metal, hard and resilient, knowing no fatigue, and when I first met her glance—it was the same as it had been on the eve. Everything was still hazy to me, so that I was ready to doubt whether we two were alive, but Renata called to me already, with merciless insistence:

  “Rupprecht! It is time! It is time! We must go to Heinrich at once! I desire you to slay him soon, not later than to-morrow!”

  She gave me no time to gather my thoughts, she hurried me as on a ship in the hour of shipwreck when every moment is precious, and it was now I who submitted with the meekness of the android of Albertus Magnus. Without arguing, I dressed myself as smartly as I could, buckled on my sword, and followed Renata who led me along the deserted morning street, silently, unheeding of my words, as if in obedience to someone’s invincible will. At last we came to the home of Eduard Stein, large and sumptuous with cunning balconies and stucco frames round the windows, and, with the one and only word “here,” Renata, pointing out to me the heavy, chiselled doors, quickly turned and walked away as if leaving me alone with my conscience. However, even without looking after Renata, I felt at once that she would not go far, but would hide behind the nearest turning and wait for my reappearance at that door, so that, rushing up, she might grasp at once from me the news of our success.

  To tell the truth, I was so confused by the whirlwind of events that twirled me round that, contrary to my custom, I had no time attentively and narrowly to reflect upon my position. Only when grasping, in knocking, the door handle, of massive and refined workmanship, did I remember that I had not prepared the words of my conversation with Heinrich, and that in general I had no idea what I should do on entering this rich house. To tarry, however, there was no time, and with that courage with which a man, shutting his eyes, plunges into the deep, I knocked firmly and loudly metal against metal, and when a servant opened the door, I said that I must at all cost see Count Heinrich von Otterheim who was staying in the house, upon important business that brooked of no delay.

  The servant led me through the entrance hall, filled with tall, but elegant cupboards, then along a broad staircase with handsome balustrading, then further through an antechamber hung with pictures depicting various animals, and at last, knocking, opened a small door. I saw before me a narrow room with a panelled, decorated ceiling, with carved friezes along the walls and set all with wooden lecterns for books, from behind which came forward a young man, dressed elegantly, like a knight, in silk with slashed sleeves, with a golden chain on his breast and a multitude of small golden decorations. I realised that he was Count Heinrich.

  For a few moments, before beginning to speak, I studied this man with whom, without his knowledge, my fate had so long been miraculously linked, whose image I had tried so often to imagine, whom, at times, I had thought to be either a Heavenly spirit or the creation of a diseased imagination. Heinrich, outwardly, seemed to be not more than twenty years old, and in all his being, there was such a surplus of youth and freshness as it seemed as though nothing in the world could crush, so that one was inspired with awe and reminded involuntarily of youth eternal, with which mankind is endowed by the mysterious elixir in which the philosopher’s stone of the alchymists is dissolved. Heinrich’s face, beardless and half-youthful, was not so handsome as it was striking: his blue eyes deeply set under his somewhat thin lashes seemed like shards of the azure sky, the lips, perhaps a trifle too full, folded themselves involuntarily into a smile like that of an angel on a holy image, and his hair, in truth, like golden threads, for it was dry, sharp and thin and lay separately almost to strangeness, rose above his forehead like the nimbus of a saint. In every movement of Heinrich there was an impetuosity, not as of one running, but as of one flying, and had anyone insisted that he was a denizen of Heaven who had assumed human shape, I should perhaps have seen, sprouting behind his boyish shoulders, a pair of white swan’s wings.

  Count Heinrich was the first to break the silence, of course not long, but which had seemed protracted, by asking me what service he could render me, and his voice, that I heard now for the first time, seemed to me the most beautiful thing about him—singing, easily and quickly travelling through all the steps of the musical scale.

  Gathering all the forces of my wit, trying to speak fluently and easily, but yet not knowing even how I intended to terminate each sentence the first words of which I had begun—I embarked on a respectful speech. I said that I had heard a great deal about the Count, as a remarkable scientist, who, while yet young, had penetrated the forbidden mysteries of nature and all the secret doctrines, from Pythagoras and Plotinus to the teachers of our days; that from early childhood I had been drawn by an insatiable desire to comprehend the highest wisdom, to the search for the primary cause of all matter; that, by diligent and unremitting study, I had attained a certain height of understanding, but that I had become convinced, without room for doubt, that no man could penetrate the last mysteries by personal efforts alone, for the initiated, even from the days of Hiram, the builder of Solomon, had transmitted the basic truths only verbally to their disciples: that it was only as member of a society, in which the revelations of the peoples of remotest antiquity—the Hebrews, Chaldeans, Egyptians and Greeks—were handed down in succession as if from father to son, like the sacramental grace of the Church, that it was possible to achieve one’s aim on the road to knowledge; that, knowing the Count as one important and influential in the most considerable of these societies, which are each connected with the other by the oneness of their tasks and the oneness of their aim, I had recourse to him with the request—that he would help me to enter, as a humble disciple, the ranks of one of them.

  To my astonishment this half-boastful, half-hypocritical speech, in which I had tried to show off all my meagre information about the mysterious orders of the initiated—was greeted by Count Heinrich as something worthy of attention. Taking me, probably, for an initiate, though one standing outside the societies, Heinrich hastily and with extreme politeness pointed me to a bench, sat down himself and, looking into my face with sad and candid eyes, spoke to me as he would to a near friend:

  “First answer me”—he said to me—“are you related to us by the basic inclinations of your spirit? Are you animated, as we are, by hatred of the Beasts of the East and of the West? Have you accepted, as your first and final guide, the emblem of the Son of God, lit by the light? Do you thirst to rise to the Gates of Heaven, along the seven steps of lead, tin, brass, iron, bronze, silver and gold?”

  In truth, I understood little of all these strange questions, but similar expressions were no novelty for me who had just recently perused a multitude of books on magic, and, though the hour seemed to me the most important of my life, I was unable to master a sly temptation that beckoned me to discover how far the initiated understand each other. Recalling a few mysterious expressions I had encountered in the “Paemandra” and compositions of a like kind, I tried to reply to Heinrich in the language of his speech, and I took the greatest care that my words should have no relation to his, for this peculiarity I had noted in all the mysterious questions and answers. I said:

  “The emerald tablet of Hermes Trismegistus announces that that which is above resembles that which is below. But the pentagram, with its head pointing up, manifests the victory of the ternion over the binary, of the spirit over the flesh; and with its head pointing down—the victory of sin over good. All numbers are mysterious, but for preference the units express the divine, the tens—the heavenly, the hundreds—the earthly, the thousands—the future. How think you then that I should have come to you if I had not known how to distinguish the upper abyss from the lower abyss?”

  No sooner had I uttered these quite empty words, than I regretted my joke, for Heinrich rushed at me with the trustfulness of a
child, and exclaimed in such ecstasy as if I had disclosed to him something remarkable and previously unknown:

  “Ah, you are right, you are right! Of course! Of course! I understood at once that we were talking to the same purpose! And I was in no sense trying to test you! I only desired to warn you that, on the road to which you strive to attain, there are more thorns than sweet berries. The truth of truths is not opened at our secret meetings, like some little casket. The first word we address to the novice is—sacrifice. Only he who longs to sacrifice himself can become a disciple. Have you thought of the forerunners: the light Osiris slain by the dark Typhan? the god-like Orpheus torn to pieces by the Bacchantes? the divine Dionysius killed by the Titans? our Balder, the son of light, who fell by the arrow of the cunning Loki? Abel, murdered by the hand of Cain? Christ crucified? Two hundred years ago the Knights of the Temple paid with their lives for the highness of their aims and for the nobility with which they said to the rulers: ‘Thou shalt be king only while thou shalt act justly.’ Vergilius Maro describes the two doors from the world of shadows: the first is of ivory, but through it fly out only deceitful spirits, the second is of horn. I ask you only—do you pass through the door of lesser splendour by your own free choice?”

  Heinrich spoke all this with a passionate eagerness, pronouncing each word as though it were especially precious to him, or as though it were now rising to his lips for the first time in his life. Looking at this half-youth, half-child, in whom there was so much inner fire that an infinitesimal cause, like the light-hearted questioning of a stray traveller, was sufficient to fan it into tongues of flame—I felt wilting and dying in me all my hatred of him, all my malevolence. I listened to the remarkable roulades of his voice, that seemed to open before me blue, far-off vistas, looked into his eyes, that, as it seemed to me, despite the animation of his speech, remained sad as though holding in their deeps despair that had plunged therein—and felt like a snake that crawls from under a stone to bite, but is magicked by the tune of an African charmer. There was a moment when I was almost ready to exclaim: “Forgive me, Count, I have unworthily been mocking you!” But, checking my thought with horror on so dangerous a path, I shouted to myself “beware!” and hastened to take control over my soul, as a horseman over a runaway horse. And immediately, to give myself an opportunity of recovering my composure, I threw out another few words to Heinrich, saying to him:

  “I fear no trials, for I have long been unable to endure the knowledge freely accessible to us, which, in the expression of one sage, involves the assimilation of the scientist to his science, assimilatio scientis ad rem scitam. I seek that knowledge spoken of by Hermes Trismegistus as a wise sacrifice of soul and heart. And is it for him who seeks to fear roadside thorns?”

  Heinrich seized upon these words as upon a precious discovery and, as if able to speak endlessly on any subject, at once poured himself out in a long and again inspired speech. And again, without my wishing it, the phrases of this speech, delivered with an eagerness fit to convince and talk round his best friend, imprinted themselves in my memory so sharply that it is not difficult for me to resurrect them, almost word for word.

  “I understand you, I understand you”—he said—“only you are still mistaken in supposing it is within our power to hand out true knowledge, like a gift. Mystic knowledge is called so not because it is being wilfully concealed, but because it is of its nature hidden, in symbols. We have no peculiar truth, but we have emblems bequeathed to us as a heritage by antiquity, by that first people of the earth that lived in commerce with God and His angels. That people knew not the shadows of matter, but matter itself, and thus the symbols they left behind exactly express the substance of being. Eternal Justice required that, since we had lost this direct knowledge, we should attain bliss through the font of blindness and ignorance. But now we must unite all that has been gathered by our reason to the revelations of antiquity, and only of that union will come perfect knowledge. But believe me, a pure soul and a pure heart will help in this matter more than all the counsels of the wise. Virtue—that is the true philosopher’s stone.”

  At this point in his speech, Count Heinrich made pause, then, with a changed face and slightly wandering glance, he added, softly and in measure:

  “You too are aware that the days and the hours are fulfilled. You too, when silence comes, hear the sound of the opening of the gates. Softly, softly, hark! Do you hear—the steps are approaching! Do you hear—the leaves are falling from the trees?”

  These last words of Heinrich he pronounced in a voice that died away, making sign to me to keep silence, all tense, as if he really heard the sound of steps and the noise of falling leaves, and, bending to me, near, so near, his eyes, large and maddened, so that I felt alarmed and ill at ease. I tore my gaze away from Heinrich’s gaze, and, suddenly recoiling against the back of the bench, I changed my tone and said to him firmly and harshly:

  “Enough, Count, now I understand all that I wished to know.”

  Heinrich looked at me uncomprehending and enquired:

  “What have you understood and what did you wish to know?”

  I replied:

  “I have finally discovered that you are a deceiver and a charlatan, who has somewhere stolen the shreds of mystic knowledge and makes use of these stolen goods to pose an an initiate and a master.”

  At this unexpected attack, Heinrich involuntarily rose from the bench and, continuing to stare straight at me, made a few paces forward, as if desirous of demanding explanation of me. I waited without moving, not lowering my eyes, but before reaching me, Heinrich subdued his emotion and said humbly:

  “If you think thus, we have naught to talk about! Farewell! …”

  But I, urging myself down the slope, shouted at him:

  “Now it is you who are mistaken, thinking that you will pay thus cheaply for a deceit! There are sacred matters that may not be made a jest, and words that may not be uttered in vain! I call you to answer, Count Heinrich von Otterheim!”

  Heinrich answered me with a face of fury:

  “Who are you to come to me and suddenly address me in that tone? I shall not listen to you!”

  I replied solemnly:

  “Who am I? I am—the voice of your conscience and the voice of revenge!”

  As I spoke thus, I showed myself the eyes of Heinrich and reminded myself that Renata loved them, his hands, and told myself that she had kissed them, all his body, and tried to imagine how she had caressed it with ecstasy. As if with a huge bellows I blew up in my soul the fire of jealousy, and, like a general to his soldiers, I gave to my words the command: “courage!”

  Meanwhile Heinrich, probably thinking me a madman, said to me: “We shall speak later!”—and desired to leave the room. But I, in fear that if I did not make use of this meeting it might not repeat itself, barred his way and shouted, this time in earnest passion:

  “You, who speak of virtue, you I accuse of dishonour! I accuse you of having behaved towards a lady in a manner unbefitting to a knight! You carried away a maiden to your castle by deceit for your base, and perhaps even criminal purposes. You then spurned her and abandoned her. And when here, in the street, she begged you for indulgence, you insulted her in a way in which no man should insult a woman. I throw you my glove, and you will take it up, if you be a knight!”

  The effect of my words, which were not thought out, and which by all considerations I should not have said, surpassed my expectations, for Heinrich jerked away from me like a wounded stag, then, in extreme excitement, grasped a book from a lectern and, scarcely aware what he was doing, began to fumble its pages with trembling fingers, then at last turned round, and asked me in a strangled voice:

  “I do not know who you are. I can accept a challenge only from one equal to me in station. …”

  These words made me lose the last vestige of self-control, for, though I have no reason whatever to be ashamed of my descent from an honest medicus of a small town, yet I felt in Heinrich’s questio
n an undeserved insult, branding me, not for the first time as a matter of fact, as a man not of knightly house. And in this moment I could find nothing more dignified than, drawing back my head, to say with cold pride:

  “I am as much a knight as you are, and you will take no shame by meeting me in fair combat. So send your friends to-morrow, at noon to the Cathedral, to make terms with mine. Else it remains for me only to slay you as a coward and one who knows no honour.”

  Having uttered these words, I felt how disgraceful it was for me to lie at such a moment, and I was seized with shame and indignation, so that without adding anything I almost ran out of Heinrich’s room, quickly made my way down the sumptuous staircase, and, with an angry gesture, made the servant open the door before me. My face was plunged in the fresh wind of the light winter’s day, and my eyes into the clear blue skies, as into a tank of clear spring water, and I stood for a long time uncertain whether all that had occurred was real. Then I walked along the street, clinging somehow involuntarily to the walls, like a blind man feeling his way. And then suddenly appeared before me the face of Renata, frightened, pale and with dilated pupils. She wanted to ask me something, but I thrust her aside with such force that she almost fell, striking the corner of a house, and I ran on without saying a word.

  Chapter the Eighth

  Of my duel with Count Heinrich

  WHEN I had traversed several streets and had grown freshened by the movement and the cold, I regained the ability to think clearly and form deductions, and I said to myself:

  “Your duel with Count Heinrich is definitely decided. To retreat now would be unthinkable and ignoble. It remains, therefore, only to see that the affair is carried through as satisfactorily as possible.”

  Personally, I was never a supporter of duels, which have made such pernicious progress in France in recent times, and though I am familiar with the admirable words of Iohann Reuchlin: “Honour is the most beautiful of our possessions”—I have never been able to accept the view that honour leans upon the point of a sword, and is not based upon nobility in deeds and words. However, in days when even the wearers of crowns did not disdain to send each other challenges to single combat, I did not think it good to decline duels, and in my landsknecht time I appeared in them on more than one occasion. But now the position of affairs was complicated by the fact that, first of all, the challenger, and moreover without any real cause, was I, and, in the second instance, by the fact that the aim I placed before me was that of striking my opponent to death—and all this made my task heavy and hard, as if I were confronted with the duty of an executioner.