by Leo Perutz
“No,” the nameless man replied, “I’m here on earth. I’m alive.”
“Then why don’t you come in the daytime?”
“Because my horse travels too slowly by day. At night it soars over hedges and stiles, in one little hour five hundred miles.”
Maria Christine nodded vigorously. It pleased her that his horse should fly through the air so fast, and besides, the words had a familiar ring.
“When Herod’s palace came in sight,” she sang in her piping voice, “the king looked down and shone a light . . . The first time you came I thought it was Herod and didn’t want to see him. Why do you keep your hat pulled down so low? Are you Herod?”
“No. You know very well who I am.”
“Yes, I know it so I’m not afraid–I know you by your voice. And tomorrow, if Mother tells me again I was dreaming–”
“You were dreaming,” the nameless man said quietly but firmly.
Maria Christine fell silent. Something told her that she must keep her father’s furtive comings and goings to herself.
The nameless man kissed her on the brow and eyelids.
“Where’s your horse?” she asked.
“Not far away,” the nameless man replied. “Listen hard and you’ll hear it snorting in the darkness.” Then he disappeared among the alder bushes.
He came again. The third time he escaped from the bishop’s inferno his ascent of the cliff seemed easy and devoid of danger. He saw as he crossed his fields to the manor house–it no longer seemed so far to come–that the wheat and oats were thriving, and that the plough and harrow had done their work well.
He returned many times, his nocturnal conversations with Maria Christine being his one remaining solace in life. The thought that he would never see his wife again was hard to endure, but he forced himself not to dwell on it. As a branded slave in the bishop’s inferno, he could have no beloved wife. The child was all he had.
Meanwhile, word had come from the Swedish army that Christian von Tornefeld’s star was in the ascendant. The couriers who changed horses at Kleinroop had at first shaken their heads or shrugged their shoulders when Maria Agneta inquired after Herr von Tornefeld, who had joined the army with two servants; his name was unknown to them. After some weeks, however, they all had something new to report:
“Tornefeld? An officer of that name has lately distinguished himself on patrol.”
“If you mean Lieutenant Tornefeld of the Westgöta Cavalry, he acquitted himself so bravely at Yeresno, while our forces were crossing the river under enemy fire, that his colonel shook him by the hand in front of all his brother officers when the battle was over.”
“He was privileged to present His Majesty with a book, reputedly a bible from the time of Gustavus Adolphus.”
“Who hasn’t heard of Tornefeld?” a courier exclaimed two weeks later. “With only a handful of men, he captured four field guns and their limbers at Baturin.”
And again, after another few days:
“His Majesty has promoted him captain of cavalry.”
These tidings filled Maria Agneta with pride and joy, and also with a certain measure of confidence in the future. After so many victories and such great feats of arms, she told herself, peace could not be long in coming; and when word arrived that the Swedes had won another victory at Gorskva, and that Christian von Tornefeld, now colonel of the Småland Dragoons, had that evening been publicly kissed on both cheeks by His Majesty, she felt that the war was as good as over. The Muscovites would never risk another encounter with the Swedish army, and she would soon see her Christian once more.
Then came a period of time when the couriers had little to report. The Swedish army lay encamped before the palisades of Poltava.
One night in late July, the nameless man caught sight of his wife.
He had spoken with his daughter, as so often before, and was about to steal away through the garden when he heard a noise. He crouched and froze. An upstairs window opened and Maria Agneta leaned out.
He stood motionless among the alder bushes, not daring to breathe, but his heart pounded fit to burst. She must surely see him, he thought, but she did not; she looked up at the clouds drifting across the sky and drew in deep breaths of night air with the moonlight flowing over her hair and shoulders like molten silver. The garden was hushed. All that could be heard was the chirp of a belated cricket and the rustle of a bird in the leaves overhead.
The window closed, the vision vanished. The nameless man stood there spellbound for a full minute, gazing up at the house. Then he fled.
He fled from his own tempestuous thoughts, but they gave him no peace. He wrestled with them all day as he breathlessly hauled the cart from the quarry to the limekilns and from there to the quarry again. He was in a turmoil. She had been so close to him! Nothing would banish her nocturnal image from his mind’s eye.
Hadn’t she loved him and lived with him for seven long years? Mightn’t that love be strong enough to forgive what he had done in order to win her? He had deceived her and lied to her, but if he now told her everything–if he told her how it had all begun and how his blissful contentment had ended in utter misery–mightn’t he hope for forgiveness and a word of consolation? But if she shrank from the brand-mark on his brow–if she condemned and rejected him, what then?
In his bewildered state, he knew only one thing for certain: he could endure his present way of lie no longer.
By nightfall his mind was made up: he would go to her, reveal himself to her in all his wretchedness, and open his heart. He would tell her all that he had concealed from her for seven years.
But it was not to be: fate decreed otherwise.
That night, while he was scaling the cliff, a stone gave way beneath him. He slipped, clung there for an instant, and plunged into the abyss.
He lay at the foot of the cliff with shattered limbs, unable to cry out, unable to move. It hurt him even to breathe.
Toward midnight a guard came by with a lantern and saw him lying there.
“Where did you spring from?” he asked. “What happened to you?”
The nameless man pointed to the cliff.
“You mean you were trying to escape?” said the guard. “You see? You should have known better.”
He shone his lantern on the nameless man’s face. Seeing the bluish pallor of impending death on his cheeks and lips, he put the lantern down beside him.
“Stay there, don’t move. I’ll fetch the surgeon.”
The nameless man knew that he was dying. He had but one wish, one thought, but it filled him to the brim: Maria Christine must be told of his death. She must not think that her father, when he failed to return, had forgotten her, and she must say a Paternoster for his soul.
“Not the surgeon,” he whispered. “A priest.”
Footsteps receded, other footsteps approached. He opened his eyes and saw a man in a brown habit bending over him.
“Father,” he groaned, trying to raise himself a little, “there’s an old boil of evil deeds in my heart. The time has come to lance it. I wish to confess my sins.”
“Yes, Captain,” replied a voice he knew. “There you lie with your limbs crushed by rocks like St Stephen himself. You’re dying, Captain, so resign yourself.”
The nameless man sank back and closed his eyes. It was his old comrade Feuerbaum that had come to confess him.
“Bid farewell to this world,” the renegade friar intoned. “The world is mere outward show and its pleasures are worthless. Renounce your wealth, too. What use is your money now? You cannot take it with you into eternity.”
The nameless man knew that he would have to die unshriven, for Feuerbaum wanted one thing of him only: he was eager to know where his erstwhile captain had hidden his share of guilders and ducats.
“Beware the flames of hell, Captain,” Feuerbaum urged. “Be less stubborn and stiff-necked or they’ll engulf you. Your money can avail you nothing, but it could be of help to many another. Give it up, and your
soul will soar heavenwards like the lark at daybreak.”
The nameless man’s breath rattled in his throat.
“Why not play a trick on the Devil?” Feuerbaum suggested. “End your life with a good deed. If you tell me where you hid your money, you’ll cheat the Devil and God will welcome you with open arms.”
The nameless man said nothing.
“Go to hell, then,” Feuerbaum shouted angrily, “and may ten thousand devils tussle over your soul!”
But the nameless man was listening no longer. Another familiar figure now stood silent and motionless before him: the angelic swordbearer who had once accused him thrice in the cloudy vault of heaven.
“So it’s you,” the nameless man said without moving his lips. “Listen to me. I have often pondered on the divine court of justice, but it defied my comprehension. I think I understand it at last. You prayed for me once. Do so again now. My one desire is that my little daughter shall not believe, when I fail to return, that I have forgotten her. Let her be told that I am dead. She must not weep for me–I do not wish it–but let her say a Paternoster for my soul.”
The angel of death looked up at the stars and stood there like a shadow. Then, in mute accord, he inclined his noble head.
At noon the next day, news of the battle at Poltava was brought to Kleinroop by a Swedish officer with his arm in a sling. The Swedish army had been annihilated, he said. The king had fled, and among the dead was that pride and glory of the Swedish army, Colonel Christian von Tornefeld.
Maria Agneta stood there in frozen-faced silence. At first she could not grasp what had happened. When she did, she was too overwhelmed with grief to weep. It was not until she reached her bedchamber that the tears began to gush from her eyes.
Toward evening she sent for her daughter. When Maria Christine came, she took her in her arms and covered her face with kisses.
“Child,” she said in a low voice, “you will never see your father again. He has fallen in battle–they buried him three weeks since. You must join your hands and say a Paternoster for his soul.”
Maria Christine looked at her and shook her head. She couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it.
“He’ll return,” she said.
Maria Agneta’s eyes filled anew with tears.
“No,” she said sadly, “he’ll never return–never, don’t you understand? He’s in heaven. Join your hands and do your filial duty. He loved you just as I do, my treasure. And now, say a Paternoster for his soul.”
Maria Christine was about to shake her head again when she caught sight of something on the highroad: a cart with a coffin on it was approaching from the direction of the bishop’s estate. She clasped her hands together and bowed her head, and her lips moved in an unspoken prayer:
“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . I’m praying for that poor man in the coffin there. There’s no one to weep for him, may his soul rest in peace . . . And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Slowly, very slowly, the cart that was carrying the nameless man to his grave passed the window and disappeared from view.
