The Fiery Angel (30 page)
Of course I did everything within the limits of my power to find Renata. I questioned minutely the guards at each city gate, not grudging douceurs, demanding whether there had walked through, or ridden through, that gate any woman resembling Renata. I made every possible enquiry in hostelries and nunneries and other places in which she might have found asylum, and, I must confess, in this madness of mine I even addressed questions to houses of ill repute. I was not ashamed to carry my troubles into the street, and I went with my sorrows and enquiries to those neighbours of ours—Katherina and Margarita, with whom, at one time, Renata had a peculiar friendship. But in reply to all my enquiries I received only a shrugging of the shoulders, and, in some cases, when I questioned with undue excitement and with too passionate insistence—I received in return even cruel ridicule or simply oaths.
None the less, clutching to the baseless hope that I might meet Renata somewhere at a cross roads, I ran tirelessly about the streets and squares of the city, stood for hours upon the quays and markets, entered all the churches in which Renata had loved to pray, searching with inflamed gaze among the faces of the kneeling congregation, dreaming that in its midst I might distinguish the figure I knew only too well. A thousand times did I imagine how, coming face to face with Renata in some narrow passage, I should seize her by the cape if she strove to hasten away, fall upon my knees in the mud of the street, and say to her: “Renata, I am yours, yours again, for ever and utterly! Accept me as your slave, as a plaything, accept me as the Lord accepts a soul! Do with me what you will: crumble me as the potter crumbles his clay, command me—happy shall I be, to die for you!” In short, I myself suffered, with perfect exactitude, all that Renata before had suffered, seeking her Heinrich wildly through the streets of Köln, and, methinks, my feelings now in no way differed from the fiery madness of her days before.
The evening hours, which I spent at home, opened to me unlimited breadths of despair, and the time till the breaking of dawn was a period during which I submitted myself to merciless torture. Despite this, I held it would have demeaned me to have recourse to any soporific means, and I desired to drink not even one glass of wine, preferring to meet sorrow face to face, my visor up, like an honourable knight in a tournament, rather than purchase temporary quietude, at the price of forgetfulness of Renata. Again, as on that first night without Renata, I would pass from one room to the other, now locking myself in my own, that I might not see, that I might not be reminded of the objects that Renata touched and on which it was unbearable for me to look, now throwing myself once more on to that very bed in which she had slept, kissing the pillows that her cheeks had pressed, striving to recall all the tender words she had pronounced. Exhaustion would at last close my eyes, and then, in my sleep, she would droop into my embrace, snuggle to my bosom with her small, frail body, or walk to me through mirror-panelled halls, triumphant as a queen conferring upon me a crown, or, on the contrary, she would enter pale, ailing, exhausted, holding out her hands to me, pleading for protection … I would wake, as if falling from a tall tower of happiness, into the darkness and coldness of my dejection.
Thus, in dreams, I passed three or four days, and after that a last despair and a hopelessness unbounded possessed me so that I had not strength enough even to prosecute my searchings. The clock round I stayed in my rooms, alone in my despair, like a criminal locked in a cell with a savage ape that every moment hurls itself at him again and again, clutching at his throat with its strangling hands. At times I would summon Martha, and begin for the hundred and first time to question her concerning the circumstances attending Renata’s departure, especially stubbornly repeating the question: “So she said that she was leaving only for a few days?”—and torment the poor old woman till, shaking her head, she too would leave me, returning to the floor below. Then I would give myself up to reminiscences of Renata, poring in my mind over all the days and hours we had spent together, as a miser pours from one palm to the other the coins he has gathered, and sometimes laughing like an idiot, when there swam past in my memory some forgotten word, some forgotten glance of Renata. And again, I would invent various signs, each more senseless than the other, which did not so much deceive me, as somehow amuse me. So, looking through the window, I would say to myself:—“If that man should pass along the right of the street, Renata will return to me.” Or thus:—“If I can count up to a million, without getting confused, then she is still in Köln.” Or yet again:—“If I can remember by their names all my comrades of the University, then I shall meet her to-morrow.” And days passed in such a state of impotence and lack of volition, and it became more and more strange for me to think that I might ever return to mankind, while the image of Renata already began to seem to me not as the memory of a person of flesh and blood, but as some holy symbol.
Once I invented a new game, as follows: seated in the armchair I shut my eyes and imagined that Renata was there, in the room, that she was walking from the window to the table, to the bed, to the altar, that she approached me, touched my hair. In my enthusiasm, I as if in reality heard steps, the rustling of a dress, as if felt the touch of tender fingers, and the self-deception was painful and sweet. Thus I drank for whole hours the waters of fantasy, and tears not once filled my eyes, but suddenly my heart stopped and began at once to pulsate riotously, while my hands grew cold: I heard the real rustle of a dress, and distinct feminine steps in the room.
I opened my eyes: Agnes was before me.
With a slow, as if unconscious movement, Agnes approached me, knelt before me, as I had knelt before Renata, took my hand and whispered:
“Master Rupprecht, why did you not tell me of it long ago?”
And such was the compassion of her voice, and so heedfully did it touch the wounds of my heart, that I was not ashamed of my sorrow, nor alarmed at the presence of a stranger in this room. I pressed Agnes’ hand in turn, and said in reply to her, speaking as softly as she:
“Stay with me, Agnes, I thank you for having come.”
And at once, for nothing else filled my thoughts at that hour, I began to speak to Agnes of Renata, of our love, of my despair. At last there found satisfaction my thirst, that for long had tortured me, to describe aloud, loudly, my emotion, to determine, with exact details and mercilessly, my position—and words somehow escaped me against my will, without restraint, sometimes without any sequence, like those of a madman. I saw how Agnes grew paler at my avowals, how her clear and ever care-free eyes became veiled with tears, but already I had no power to curb myself, for the sight of another’s sorrow somehow lightened my own. And if Agnes tried to put in a word, to say something consoling, I forcibly interrupted her speech and continued my own with yet greater frenzy, as if some demon were carrying me on his wings into an abyss.
My mad outburst lasted probably about an hour, and at last Agnes, unable to bear longer the torture to which I was submitting her, suddenly fell upon the floor crying and repeating: “And of me, of me, you never even thought!” Here I came to my senses, lifted Agnes up, made her comfortable in the armchair, said that I was unboundedly grateful to her for her kindness, and truly, at that moment, I felt for her all the tenderness of an affectionate brother. And when Agnes had grown comforted, dried her reddened eyes and set in order her ruffled hair, and was about to hasten home so that her absence should not be noted, I, on my knees, implored her to come again on the morrow, if only for a minute. And after Agnes’ departure I experienced a strange peacefulness, like a wounded man who, having lain for long on the field of battle without succour, comes at last into the hands of a careful and attentive physician, who washes his deep wounds, not without a certain agonising pain, and dresses them with clean linen.
Agnes returned to me the next day, and then came on the third and the fourth, and began to appear in my rooms daily, finding some means to deceive the vigilant eye of her brother, and the argus glances of the neighbouring gossips. I certainly could not fail to guess why she came to me, and, still more, her tremblings when I chanced to touch her, the submissiveness of her glance, the timidity of her words, sufficiently explained to me that she felt towards me the whole tenderness of a first emotion. But that did not prevent me from torturing her with my confessions, for I needed Agnes only as a listener before whom I could freely speak of that which inhabited my soul, and in front of whom I could pronounce the name of Renata, so sweet to me. Thus, reflected in reverse, were repeated for me those hours during which myself I had had to listen to the stories of Renata about Heinrich, for now I was not the victim, but the executioner. And, looking at little Agnes, who came daily to me for tortures, I reflected that we four: Count Heinrich, Renata, myself and Agnes—were clamped together like cog-wheels in the mechanism of a clock, so that each bites into the other with its sharp points.
I will say that Agnes bore these trials with a fortitude unexpected in her, for love, evidently, endows all, even the weakest, with the strength of a Titan. Forgetting her maidenly modesty, she listened humbly to my recital of the days of my happiness with Renata—in which it pleased me to recall even the most intimate details. Overpowering her youthful jealousy, she followed me into Renata’s room, and allowed me to show her the corners favoured by Renata, the armchair in which she often sat, the prie-dieu at which she prayed, the bed at the foot of which I used to sleep, at times not daring to raise my eyes higher. I also made Agnes discuss with me the question of my best future course, and, in a timid, hesitating voice, she tried to convince me that it was absurd to go searching for Renata through all the cities of the German lands, especially as I did not even know the whereabouts of the birthplace of Renata, nor where lived her relatives.
However, it would not seldom happen that I omitted to temper my blows to the strength of the victim, and then Agnes, suddenly dropping her hands, would whisper to me: “I cannot endure any more!” and her whole body would somehow droop, as she either lowered herself in soft tears on to the floor, or prudishly pressed her face against the armchair. Then a true tenderness for the poor child would arise in me, and I would embrace her caressingly, so that our hair would mix and tangle, and our lips approach into a kiss, which to me, however, did not mean anything except friendship. It was perhaps for these short minutes that Agnes came to me, and, waiting for them, she was ready to accept all my insults.
More than a week went by in this way, and still I tarried in Köln, first, because in truth I had nowhere else to go, and, second, because my lack of will power still held me enmeshed as though in a thick net, and I was afraid to part from the last anchorage still left me upon earth—my attachment to Agnes. My soul in those days was so softened by all that I had lived through, that no one could have recognised in me a stern follower of the great conquistadors, who had led expeditions through the virgin forests of New Spain, but, on the contrary, wholy wrapped up in the alternations of my feelings, I resembled rather some “
cortegiano
,” so neatly described by the witty Baldassare Castiglione. And perhaps, not having the will to make a decisive step, I should have prolonged my strange mode of life yet for many a day, if an end had not been put to it by an incident that it would be more correct to regard as the natural consequence of all that had happened, rather than a chance.
One day, at the decline of the afternoon, to wit on Saturday the 6th of March, when Agnes, not having been able to bear the trials to which I had subjected her, was lying powerless on my knees, and I, again repenting of my cruelty, was softly kissing her—the door of the room we were in suddenly flew open, and on the threshold appeared Matthew, who, on seeing this unexpected picture, was as if stupefied by his surprise. At the appearance of her brother, Agnes jumped up with a cry, and flung herself confused against the wall, pressing her face against it, while I, feeling guilty, also did not know what to say—and for the course probably of a whole minute we represented, as it were, a dumb scene from the pantomime of a street theatre. At last, having recovered the gift of speech, Matthew spoke thus, in anger:
“This, brother, I had not expected of you! I thought anything you like about you—but of one thing I was certain—I thought you an honest fellow! And I wondering that he had ceased to call on me! Once it was every day, every day—and now—for two weeks he had not shown his face! So he has been tempting the chicken! And thought: now she will fly to me herself! No, brother, no, you’re mistaken, you won’t get out of this so easily!”
Speaking thus, and inflaming himself by his own words, Matthew advanced towards me with his fists almost uplifted, and in vain I attempted to bring him to reason. Later, remarking Agnes, Matthew hurled himself at her, and, panting still harder, began raining upon her obscene oaths and curses that I should never have dared to utter in the presence of a woman. Agnes wept still more frantically, on hearing these cruel accusations, trembled all over like a butterfly that has singed its wings in the fire, and fell to the floor half-unconscious. Here I definitely interfered in the matter and, shielding Agnes, said firmly to Matthew:
“My very dear Matthew! I am indeed guilty towards you, but perhaps not so heinously as you think. But your sister is not guilty of anything, and you must leave her in peace until you have heard my explanations. Let Mistress Agnes go home, while do you sit down and allow me to speak.”
The confidence of my tone acted on Matthew; he stopped cursing, and, grumbling heavily, lowered himself into the armchair.
“Well then, let’s hear your dialectics!”
I helped Agnes to rise from the floor, as she scarcely knew what she was doing, accompanied her to the door, and immediately locked it, pushing home the bolt. Then, returning to Matthew, I sat down opposite him, and began to speak, in as calm a voice as I could muster. As invariably happens with me at a moment when action is necessary—there now returned to me clearness of thought and firmness of will.