The Fiery Angel

by Valery Bruisov

  At this time I had no doubt whatever that the balance of fortune in the combat would be mine, for, though I had had no occasion to exercise my arm for a considerable time past, I had been one of the best fighters in my ranks with the long sword, while Count Heinrich, being entirely devoted to book studies and philosophical reflections could have had no opportunity (it seemed so to me then) to attain a sufficient perfection in the art of Ponce and Torres. I was dismayed by yet another matter—the fact that, with the exception of old Glock, there was no one in the whole city with whom I was acquainted, and I could not think of anyone to whom I might entrust the parley with the opponent and the arrangements for the encounter with him, according to the custom of duels. After long hesitation, I decided to knock upon the door of one of my old companions of the University, Matthew Wissmann, whose family had resided in Köln for many generations, and whom, therefore, rather than anyone else, after the many years that had passed, I was more likely to find in the same dwelling place as before, at the same old penates.

  My expectations were not deceived, for it turned out in truth that the Wissmanns still resided in their old dwelling, though it was not easy for me to search out their squat, old-fashioned house, composed of three stories overhanging each other, amidst the new, tall, altogether elaborate houses erected around it by our enterprising age. To my good fortune, Matthew happened to be at home, but I could scarcely recognise the youth who, though he was even then a trifle slow and clumsy, had been not void of parts and, indeed, had been my (though unsuccessful) rival in wooing the pretty wife of the baker—in the stout and staid overgrown tun, with sleepy eyes and a funny beard that left his chin bare, to whom I was led by the servant of the house. Of course he too could hardly recognise the scholar of those happy days, riotous and unbearded, in the man, scorched by the equatorial sun and bitten by the winds of the ocean, but when I told Matthew my name, and reminded him of our past friendship, he genuinely gladdened, his face creased in a good-natured smile, and through the layers of fat there shone the glint of something youthful, like a beam of light through a dull glass.

  Embracing me cordially and kissing me with his oily lips, Matthew said to me:

  “Do I remember Rupprecht! Brother—do I not remember you every time I get drunk! I swear by the pure blood of Christ that I miss you and no one else of all our former crowd. Well, crawl in, crawl into my den, make yourself seated and unloosen your tongue! And I shall bid them serve immediately two quarts of fair wine.”

  To Matthew’s sorrow I refused the wine, but for a long time I found it difficult to approach the unfolding of my business. Reluctant though I might be, I had to relate to Matthew all my adventures: the years at Losheim, my service as a landsknecht, the wanderings in Italy, the journey to New Spain and my expeditions there. And then Matthew did not scruple to tell me how, forgetting all the pranks of his youth, he had succeeded in the laborious calling of a university scientist. More than five years he had spent, having first mastered a few “art” sciences and defended several “sophisms” in disputes, in obtaining the title of bachelor; an equal number of years it had taken him to conquer the books of Aristotle, show his worth in declamation, and become a licentiate; this year, at last, he hoped to achieve the inceptia and become a magister, after which access to all the highest faculties would be open to him. Matthew spoke with such self-satisfaction of the sessions in council with the doctors and the rector, so sincerely feared the great “promotii” that confronted him, and so naively thought himself a scientist, that I did not deem it necessary to revive the ancient dispute between the “poets” and the “sophists,” though I saw clearly that neither the “Letters of Obscure Men” nor the famed reforms of recent years had had much effect in stirring the Idol of Köln, beneath whose shade so long ago I had wearied of scholastics!

  At last I succeeded in breaking through the stream of this narrative of a professor carried away by his glory, and somehow, concealing the true nature of affairs, in outlining my request. Matthew screwed up his face as if he had taken a dose of some bitter drug, but soon he found a cheerful aspect of my proposition to seize hold of, and once again was merry:

  “This is not in my line, brother!”—he said to me—“Nowadays, it is true, students too draw swords, but I hold by the old order—that a scientist is like a monk—weapons to him are like spectacles to an ass. But, none the less, come what may, for an old friend! And, moreover, I have no patience with this nobility that lifts up its noses in front of us! We sweat the doctorates out of ourselves, and they get learned degrees granted them by the princes or the Emperor. I’ve no doubt your Count, too, is one of these doctor-by-virtue-of-a-bull fellows! If you’ll undertake to stick him on a spit, I will do my best for you! …”

  I indicated the place arranged for the meeting for parley, explained where I lived myself, then took my leave, and Matthew came to see me to the street door. As we were crossing the dining-room filled with heavy furniture of old-fashioned German workmanship, there ran unexpectedly out of the neighbouring room a young girl in a pink dress, greenish apron and golden girdle, who, on meeting us, became confused, and stopped and knew not what to do. The slimness and tenderness of her image, the oval childish face, with the irregular drooping shadow of her long eyelashes over her blue eyes, the flaxen, golden tresses gathered beneath a white bonnet, this whole vision, appeared to me, accustomed to sights of sorrow and despair, to features distorted with passion and anger, as the passing flight of an angel would appear to a condemned spirit at the moment of entering its hell. I stopped also in confusion, not knowing whether to pass by, or to bow or speak, and Matthew, roaring with laughter, surveyed our embarrassment.

  “Sister, this is Rupprecht,”—he said—“a good fellow, whom sometimes we have recalled together. And this, Rupprecht, is my sister Agnes, whom you used to see then, thirteen years ago, as a baby girl, quite a tiny poppet. What are you staring at each other for, then, like a cat at a dog? Get acquainted! Maybe I shall match you together yet. Or you, brother, are perhaps married already, eh? Answer.”

  I cannot explain why, but I answered thus:

  “I am not married, dearest Matthew, but you should not put both me and the young lady to the blush with such words. Excuse me, Mistress Agnes, it has given me great pleasure to see you again, but I am pressed now, by the urgency of some affairs.”

  And, bowing low, I hastened to leave the house.

  I know not whether as result of the impression of this meeting, or independently of it, but, when I thought of returning home, I felt a feeling of revulsion, such as would inevitably be felt, were they endowed with sentience, by two magnets activated by similar poles. I felt it would be unbearable to be with Renata, to see her eyes, to hear her speech, to speak with her of Heinrich.

  For quite a long time I wandered through the streets of the city, pausing, for some reason, at certain corners, and hastening rapidly, for some reason, through other squares, but at last fatigue and cold forced me to seek shelter, and I walked into the first tavern that presented itself, sat alone in a corner, and asked for beer and cheese to be brought before me. The tavern was full of countrymen and harlots, for the day was a market day, and all about rose shouts, quarrels, recriminations, curses and abuse, backed up occasionally with a good cuff; but I felt happy in the stale, cold air and amidst the tumult of the drunken people. The coarse, brutal faces, the uncouth, illiterate speech, the obscene pranks somehow strangely blended with the turmoil within my soul, as the screams of the drowning blend in chorus with the howling of the tempest.

  Then an ill-shaven body, in a gay holiday dress, sat down beside me as if he had crawled out of an etching by Sebaldus Beham—and began a long speech about the poverty-stricken condition of the peasants, in no sense new, but not devoid of truth. He bewailed the burden of the discharges, of the service, of the dues, of the fines and every kind of impost, of usury, and of the prohibition upon engaging in artisanship in the villages, recalled the riot that had occurred ten years before, and
all this with threats, as if directly concerning me, as if I were responsible for it all. I tried to reply that I considered myself rather as one of the peasants, and that all I possessed had been earned by my own two hands, but of course my words were wasted, and I resigned myself to listening meekly—for it was all one to me what I listened to—as my chance companion threatened the knights and the burghers with flames and hay forks and gallows. …

  As it was I who treated my companion, he gradually, little by little, became quite drunk, and I was once more left alone in the general tumult of voices. Looking round, I saw a repulsive picture; here and there lay the forms of people, dead tipsy, in a corner two were hammering away at each other, clutching at one another’s hair, everywhere stood splashes of spilt beer and human vomit, and, in the midst of this, others continued their carousal or obscenely joked with the harlots, who were also tipsy and hideous, or tried to gamble with dirty cards. I suddenly visualised two images: the gloomy Renata and the radiant Agnes; felt surprised at myself for sitting in this dark and evil-smelling corner, and, paying the reckoning, I hastily walked out once more into the wintry cold. It was already twilight, and I listlessly stumbled home.

  While I was knocking at our door, my soul felt empty like a baled out well, but in the house it was immediately filled with solemn silence, which restored me irresistibly into the familiar circle of both thoughts and emotions. I could almost physically feel how there slid off from my face the expressions that had distorted it during the day, and how my lips folded into that soft smile with which I always met Renata’s eyes. With my heart beating fast in tremor, as on the first occasion I had ever done so, I opened the door into Renata’s room, and immediately, seeing her in her habitual pose at the window with her face pressed against its cold little round panes, I rushed to her and fell to my knees before her.

  Renata did not say a word about the rudeness with which I had thrust her away in the morning, did not reproach me for having returned so late, did not desire to know the substance of my conversation with Heinrich, but only, as if everything else were known to her, asked:

  “Rupprecht, when is your duel?”

  Not surprised, at the moment, at that question, I answered simply:

  “I do not know, it will be decided to-morrow. …”

  Renata did not utter another word, and lowered her eyelashes, while I stayed at her feet, motionless, resting my head against the window-ledge, my eyes raised to the figure sitting there, to the beloved, cherished, though irregular features, sinking every moment once more deeper and deeper into their charm, as if deeper and deeper into the depths of a bottomless whirlpool. I gazed on this woman, whom only yesterday I had caressed with all the imaginable busses of a contented lover, and to whose hand, to-day, I dared not even touch my reverent lips, and felt radiate from her whole being a witching power, that locked all my desires within its spell. Like thin chaff before the winnow, all the riotous thoughts and chance temptations of the day flew off and dispersed in greyish smoke, and there fell directly upon the threshing floor of my soul the full-weighted grain of my love and my passion. I did not wish to think either of Heinrich or of myself; I was happy, softly touching Renata’s hand; I was happy, that that was returning which had existed before, and that the minutes were passing, passing, passing unheeded.

  Thus, in silence, not daring to break it by a careless word, I could have stayed until morn and thought myself at the gate of Eden, but suddenly Renata lifted her head, touched my hair with her hand and said tenderly, as if continuing a conversation:

  “Dearest Rupprecht, but you must not kill him!

  “Startled, dragged out from beneath the spell, I asked:

  “I must not kill Count Heinrich?”

  Renata confirmed her words:

  “Yes, yes. He was not made for killing. He is light, he is beautiful, I love him! I am guilty before him—not he before me. I was like a blade that cut through all his hopes. One must bow before him, kiss him, obey his every whim. Do you hear, Rupprecht? If you as much as touch one hair of his head—his hair is of gold—if you shed but one drop of his blood, you will never hear more of me, never, never again!”

  I rose from my knees, folded my arms across my chest, and asked:

  “Then why did you not think of all this before, Renata? Why did you then force me to play the fool’s part in this comedy of the duel? May one dare to be light-hearted with matters of life and death?”

  My breath was cut short by my emotion, but Renata replied to me sharply:

  “If you dare to scold me, I shall not listen! But I forbid you, do you hear, forbid you to touch my Heinrich! He is mine, and I desire for him only happiness. I will not yield him to you, I will not yield him to anyone in the world! …”

  Making a last effort, I asked:

  “Then you have forgotten how he insulted you?”

  Renata exclaimed:

  “Oh, that was good! Oh, how beautiful it was! He cursed me! He wanted to strike me! Oh, let him crush me with his feet! He is my beloved! Dearest! I love him!”

  Then I said in a heavy voice:

  “I will execute all as you wish, Renata. But there is nothing else for us to speak about. Farewell!”

  I went away into my room, flung myself on to my bed, and it seemed to me as though I were being hunted down like an animal, chased into a circle of prickly hedge, which I had no power to break through, and as though I were fallen to the ground, waiting for the huntsmen to finish me off. I wanted either not to be, or to wake out of life as out of a dream, and for the first time I began to gain an inkling of the temptation—to lift one’s hand against oneself. Thinking of my fate, I decided that I would not speak to Renata of anything else, and that on the morrow I should go into the combat with lowered sword, and rejoice at feeling the steel of another within my breast. And, in imagining my body prostrate, covered with blood, in snow-clad grass, I experienced a sympathy and tender compassion for myself, as a child does to whom are read the sufferings of the saints.

  In the morning, however, in the sober rays of the sun, feeling somewhat reposed, I once more thought out my position and desired, all the same, to consult with Renata, finally and mercilessly, for her decisions were always as shifting as the outlines of a cloud and might easily have changed during the night; but it proved that Renata had risen before me and already left the house. I went then to Matthew, to suggest to him not to insist at the parley on decisively fatal terms, because for some instinctive reason I continued to endeavour to preserve my life, although at the time it seemed to me useful for no purpose; but Matthew, too, I did not happen to meet. Then, somehow deprived of volition, I returned home and gave everything into the hands of the Three Spinsters, like a man already condemned in any case to death, for whom the only choice yet open is either the axe or the gallows.

  After noon came Matthew, and the appearance of the robust, good-natured, fat man in our apartment of gloom and despair was strange; strange was his roaring, care-free laughter amidst the walls accustomed to reverberate with the sound of weeping and sighs. Matthew greeted me with these words:

  “Aha, brother, in vain did you yesterday assume the airs of a communicant. I’ve found out, I have, that you do not live alone here. Only, do not be alarmed, to my friends I am—a fish—mouth shut, for who is without sin? Only, it is not good to hide things from one’s friends! I shan’t take the pretty one away from you—I’m not one of those fellows.”

  And, when I interrupted Matthew’s speech and asked him to give a report of his parleys, he said:

  “All went like a ship sliding on butter. I’ll never let down a friend, not I, no wolf will ever eat him through my doing! There came from your Count a gilded popinjay, curtsying like a lass, his hair all curled. But I set him in his place! Next time he won’t boast of his knighthood in front of a good burgher. And your meeting is this very afternoon at three—why put it off?—in the wood near Lindenthal. Nobody will interfere with you there, and you can break every bone in the whipper-s
napper!”

  I listened to this, my sentence, without betraying any sign of emotion or dissatisfaction; in the most businesslike manner I arranged with Matthew about the various details of the encounter and asked him to call for me when the time had come. After having seen Matthew off, I ordered Martha to serve me dinner, for I did not wish weakness on my part to influence the outcome of the affair, and then, taking hold of my long sword, I began to exercise my arm, trying to regain the necessary suppleness. It was at this occupation that Renata found me, appearing in the doorway, all wrapped in a cloak, like some ghost, and, piercing me with her searching and threatening glance:

  “Rupprecht,”—she said—“you swore to me yesterday!”

  I replied:

  “I will fulfil what I have promised, Renata. But what if now Count Heinrich slay me?”

  Thrusting her head back, Renata said firmly:

  “And what of it, then?”

  I bowed ceremoniously as two opponents bow before the commencement of the combat, sheathed my sword, and again, as yesterday, left the room: for to gainsay Renata I had no will, and I did not wish to be weakened by her influence.