The Fiery Angel (35 page)

“In no event shall I agree to take part in a plot against a man who has never done me any evil and whom I consider to be very erudite. But out of respect for you, Count, I shall undertake nothing against your plan, and I promise you not to say a word to my companions about our conversation.”

When the Count accepted my decision, I felt it would have been unseemly to speak at once of my departure, and I decided to spend one more day at the castle, but I confess that I met Mephistophilis and Faustus not without embarrassment, like one guilty. And feeling myself neither landed on one shore or the other, as if in the field between two warring camps, I was yet less able than on the eve to show myself a gay companion, and from that very time was reputed in the castle as a gloomy and misanthropical man. However, I have noticed that in any given company we ever bear that selfsame mask that by chance we wore on our first time there, and thus it comes that each and every one of us bears a multitude of various masks, each in a different company.

The whole of the second day that we passed at the castle was spent in a hunt, given by the Count in honour of his guests, but which I shall not describe lest I wander too far into the by-ways in the course of my narrative. I will only say that, despite the early time of the year, the hunt might be considered an unqualified success, as it provided no little gaiety to its participants, and as a boar, an animal rare in those parts, was run to bay. Faustus, as yesterday, was the butt of various attacks, to which, again, reply was for the most part made by Mephistophilis, sometimes well-aimed, sometimes rather coarse, and in doing so he exhibited himself as what the Spaniards call
chocarrero
, and gained the undoubted favour of the ladies.

It was already late when we returned to the castle, with that brisk and fiery tiredness conferred by exercise in the open air, and again a generous supper awaited us, prepared in the same hall as yesterday. However, the Count did not wish to postpone his scheme, and hardly was hunger appeased when himself he turned to the doctor with the following speech:

“It is known unto us, respected doctor, that you have achieved such brilliant successes in the sphere of magic, that it would be misplaced to rank you only equal to any contemporary magician, even to the Spaniard Torralba (may it be light for his soul in the kingdom of Pluto), or the young Nostradamus, of whom so much noise is made nowadays. It is also known unto us that you have not denied the requests of others to show your skill, and that, for example, you enabled the Prince of Anhalt to see with his own eyes Alexander the Great of Macedonia and his consort, returned by your invocations from the shadows of Orcus to the light of Helios. Those assembled now add their prayers to mine, beseeching you to show us if only a particle of your wonder-working art.”

With strained attention I waited to hear what Doctor Faustus would reply, for in the request of the Count I saw clearly the springs and discs of the trap, and I longed that the doctor might check with sharp words this hypocritical speech. But, to my surprise, Doctor Faustus, who had behaved hitherto with extraordinary restraint, now replied thus, with some haughtiness:

“Gracious Count, in gratitude for your hospitality I may be agreeable to show you that little that my modest knowledge will permit me, and I trust that thereafter the Prince of Anhalt will have nothing to boast of before you.”

As I now interpret it, Faustus, offended by the attitude towards him of the Count and his courtiers, desired to prove to all of them that he did, in reality, possess powers unknown to them, and for the sake of this not altogether unworthy vanity, he resolved to lower magic to the level of a public experiment. But at that hour, under the influence of the Count’s suspicions, it seemed to me that the doctor had exposed himself as a hired charlatan in agreeing to the Count’s request, for only such are capable of invoking ghosts at any hour and in any place—so that I was ready to set him on a level with common quacks travelling the villages for the sale of various amulets, healing plasters, magic pills, thalers that always return, and the like. In the meantime Mephistophilis, rising, approached Faustus and began to speak persuasively in his ear, but the latter angrily shrugged his shoulders, as if saying “I will have it so,” and Mephistophilis walked away, annoyed.

As all had by now left the table, and were surrounding the doctor, expressing to him their gratitude for his decision, I made use of the general movement to leave the room, and went for a stroll in the deserted gallery, angry with myself for not having put into execution my resolution of yesterday, and, in general, with my soul feeling like an untuned viola. Curiosity, however, or, more exactly, a thirst for investigation of which I am not in the least ashamed, did not allow me to spend the evening away from the company, so that within half an hour I had returned to the hall, and was thus none the less a witness of the experiment in magic performed by Doctor Faustus, and which I shall describe here with impartiality, as I have hitherto described everything else, endeavouring not to add a single line to that which has imprinted itself in my memory.

In the hall the table and the chairs had been pushed aside into a corner, and all the company was seated on benches placed across the room, and, whispering and laughing, awaiting the beginning of the experiment as if it had been the representation of some gay pastoral. For the Count and Countess two chairs had been moved forward, and Mephistophilis, standing by them, was giving some kind of explanation, while Doctor Faustus, very pale, some distance away, was giving final directions to the servants. I placed myself at the very edge of the bench in the second row, whence it was convenient to observe all that took place.

When those present had quietened down in a measure, Doctor Faustus said:

“Gracious Count and Countess, kind ladies and famed knights! I shall now cause to appear before your very eyes the Queen Helena, consort of King MeneJaus, daughter of Tyndareus Leda, sister of Castor and Pollux—she who in Greece was named ‘the Fair.’ The Queen will appear before you in that same image and appearance she bore in life, and will walk your ranks, allowing you to look at her, and will remain in your company about five minutes, after which time she will have once more to disappear.”

Doctor Faustus spoke these words firmly, but I seemed to detect and hear in his voice a tension, and the look in his eyes was sharp set, so that one might have thought that he himself did not believe overmuch in the success of the enterprise he had undertaken. But, as soon as he had finished speaking, Mephistophilis added, sternly and commandingly:

“I must sincerely warn you, kind sirs, that so long as the Apparition be in our midst you must not pronounce a word, and still more, you must not address your speech to it, must not touch it, and, in general, not leave your seats—and to this you must give me your promise.”

The Count answered for everyone that they were agreeable to these terms, and then Mephistophilis gave an order to extinguish all the torches and candles that were in the room, except one far away candle, so that almost complete darkness fell. Gradually in the eeriness of this darkness and in the excitement of waiting began to die down all the whispers that still sounded and the rustlings of the dresses, until the whole company sank into darkness as into a black depth. Then, suddenly, in various corners of the room, were heard those same crackings and knockings that I had had occasion to hear with Renata, and my heart met these with mournful throbbing. Next swam slowly through the whole room shining stars, disappearing suddenly, and despite the fact that I was by then already no novice in magic manifestations, an involuntary trembling took possession of me.

At last, from the far away corner, a whitish cloud separated itself from the floor, and, rolling and swaying, began to rise, grow and expand, taking the shape of a human figure. A few moments thence there showed itself through the cloud a human face, the wisps of the mist folded themselves into the folds of a robe, and it was as if a live woman were floating towards us, indistinctly visible in the deep twilight of the room. At first the apparition approached the Count, and stood for some time before him, swaying, not advancing, then, still as slowly, as if of air, moved to the left and began to approach me. And, however much I was shaken by the sight, I did not forget to collect all my attention that I might study the apparition in all its details.

Helena, as far as I can remember, was not tall in stature, and was dressed in a mantle of royal purple, of the kind beloved by the painter, Andrea Mantegna; her hair, of golden colour, was loose, and so long that it fell to her very knees; she had eyes as black as coals, very vivid lips of a very tiny mouth, and a white neck, slender as a swan’s, and her whole appearance was not in any sense queenly, but seductive in the extreme. She glided past me extraordinarily rapidly and, continuing her path through the spectators, she approached Doctor Faustus, who, as far as could be seen in the half-darkness, rushed forward in extreme excitement and stretched out his arms towards the apparition. This movement surprised me very much, for it inclined me to suppose that the apparition was unexpected to Faustus himself.

But I had no time to think out the implications of this consideration, for there suddenly happened something of such a nature that it immediately interrupted our experiment, so tantalisingly begun. This was, when Helena, drawing away from the doctor, approached the cousin of the Count, who sat at the left end of the second row, the latter suddenly jumped up, courageously took the apparition in his arms, and in a loud voice shouted: “Lights!” Faustus at once rushed at him with an exclamation of sorrow and indignation, everyone else rose impetuously from their seats, and the servants, beforehand prepared for this, seized torches that they had until now held hidden somewhere, and all the hall was lit with their yellow light.

For some time nothing could be discerned in the tumult, which was as if here, among the elegant guests, a battle was being engaged, but the decisive intervention of the Count quickly induced everyone to calm down. We saw knight Robert, in whose hands was a silken rag of dark purple stuff, and who repeated stubbornly:

“She escaped out of my hands, search for her in the hall, she must be here!”

It was, however, evident to all that it would have been impossible for a live thing to have escaped from so many eyes, and it had to be admitted that the ghost of Helena the Greek had melted in the hands of the knight who had seized it, reverting to that same cloud from which it had been formed. Doctor Faustus complained bitterly to the Count that the promise that had been given had not been fulfilled, but Mephistophilis extinguished the discussion with these cold words:

“We should all be happy”—said he—“the doctor, that he invoked an apparition so seductive that the knight was unable to restrain his impulses, and the knight, that he did not suffer for his attempt to possess Helena the Greek; Deiphobus, as you know, was less fortunate: for that very same offence his nose and ears were hacked off.”

Certainly, such a speech was impertinent, and Mephistophilis might have had to answer for it, if the knight and the Count himself had not themselves felt somewhat ashamed, and been glad to settle the whole misunderstanding. The Count began some confused speech, half-apologetic and half-grateful to Faustus, and, under cover of the general conversation, I softly left the hall and retired to my room, as I felt suddenly ashamed of having taken part in the whole stupid affair. Whatever might have been the apparition I had witnessed, a real, magical resurrection of a person who lived in times immemorial, or a novel trick, such as those of which Mephistophilis had shown himself such a master—it seemed to me that we, the spectators, had played a contemptible part in it, and I desired as soon as possible to shake off from myself, as rain-water from a cape, all the heavy impressions of that evening.

I threw myself into bed, and when, some time later, Doctor Faustus knocked at my door in passing, I purposely did not answer, pretending to be already asleep.

T
HE invocation of Helena the Greek was the last adventure in my life that I shared with Doctor Faustus, for I parted from him on the very next day, being moved to it not only by the general attitude of my companions to me, but by yet another special circumstance.

As follows, waking up suddenly in the middle of the night, I heard indistinct talk coming from the neighbouring room, which had been allotted to my two companions of the road, and, involuntarily straining my attention, I distinguished the voice of Mephistophilis, who was saying:

“Thank Saint George and me that you succeeded with your experiment to-day, for there are matters to which one should not aspire twice. Do not imagine that all the universe, all the past and future, are your playthings.”

The voice of Faustus, raised and angry, replied:

“Argument is superfluous! I desire to see her once more, and you shall help me do so. And, if I be fated to break my neck in the attempt, what is the misfortune?”

The mocking voice of Mephistophilis retaliated:

“Mortals love to stake their lives, as a pauper to hazard his last thaler. Yet any fool can break his neck, it is for a wise man to consider whether an undertaking be worth the sweat.”

The angry voice of Faustus spoke:

“If you refuse to help me, we part to-morrow!”

The laughter of Mephistophilis was heard, strange and unpleasant, then his reply:

“All your dates are in terms of ‘to-morrow’! It were better for you first to think how to rid us of this youngster from Köln, who so meekly blinks his eyes at all your tales. I noticed yesterday that he was whispering with the Count for a whole hour, and I think we might expect from him any treachery.”

I was not at the time in any way affected by the insolent reference of Mephistophilis, for I expected nothing better from him, but on the contrary, I listened with deepest curiosity, waiting for the disputants, in the heat of their discussion, to expose the mystery of their strange relationship. Suddenly, how I myself have no idea, an insurmountable sleep seized me, and tight closed my hearing, as if Mephistophilis, instinctively guessing that I was eavesdropping, had placed the weakness upon me by means of a spell. What I had heard, however, was enough, so that in the morning, as soon as the impressions of the night had straightened themselves in my memory, I put the question to myself whether it were becoming for me to remain with Doctor Faustus, to whom I was evidently a burden, and accordingly I decided, after a short deliberation, that it would be more decent for me to part with my companions.