The Fiery Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

her by her unconsolable despair; she lay for long hours like one dead, beat her head against the walls, and even sought voluntary death, thinking, if only for a single moment in the next life, thus to see her beloved. Unceasingly she addressed prayers to Madiël, beseeching him to return to her, promising with due solemnity to submit in all matters to his righteous choice if only she might feel once again the nearness of his presence. At last, when strength was already leaving Renata, Madiël appeared to her in a dream, saying: “As you desire to join me in bodily union, so will I appear to you in the image of a man; wait for me seven weeks and seven days.”
    Roughly two months after this vision, Renata made the acquaintance of a young Count who came to their lands from Austria. He was clad in white garments; his eyes were blue and his hair as if of fine gold thread, so Renata at once recognised him as—Madiël. But the visitor did not want to show that they knew one another, and he styled himself Count Heinrich von Otterheim. Renata tried by all means to attract his attention, not even disdaining the help of a sorceress and the use of love philtres. Whether these unworthy means were effective, or whether the Count sought Renata of his own accord is not known; in any case he disclosed to her his heartfelt love and requested that she secretly leave the parental roof with him. Renata did not hesitate a moment, and the Count, at night, drove away with her and lived with her in his family castle on the River Danube.
    Renata spent two years at the castle of the Count and according to her words they were as happy as no one else in the world has been since the fall of our forefather in Paradise. They lived constantly close to the world of angels and demons, and they engaged in a great scheme that was to bring happiness to all the peoples of the earth. One thing alone grieved Renata—nothing would persuade Heinrich to confess that he was Madiël and an angel, and he stubbornly persisted that he was a loyal subject of Duke Ferdinand. However, towards the end of the second year of their life together, the soul of Heinrich suddenly became possessed by dark thoughts; he became gloomy, sad and sorrowful and all at once, in the night, without giving anyone warning, he left his castle, riding off no one knew whither. Renata waited for him several weeks, but without her protector she knew not how to defend herself from the attacks of evil spirits, and they began to torment her without mercy. Not desiring to stay longer in the castle, where she was no more mistress, she decided to leave and to return to her parents. The fiendish powers left her no peace, even on her journey, and perhaps to-night, had I not hastened to her assistance, they would have destroyed her for ever.
    Thus related Renata, and I think her narrative occupied more than an hour, though here I have rendered it much more shortly. Renata spoke without looking at me, expecting from me neither contradiction nor agreement, as if not even addressing herself to me, but as if confessing to some invisible confessor. Neither in relating of incidents that had undoubtedly shaken her cruelly, nor in speaking of matters that to most would seem shameful and that the majority of women would prefer to conceal, did she betray either emotion or shame. I must note that the earlier part of Renata’s story, though she then spoke much more incoherently and disconnectedly, I retained clearly. All that happened to her after her flight from the parental home, on the other hand, remained very confused to me. I learned later that it was in that latter part of her narrative that she had concealed a great deal and, more particularly, related much not in accordance with reality.
    Scarcely had she uttered the last words, than Renata suddenly weakened entirely, as if her strength had just been enough to tell the story to its end. She glanced in my direction as if with surprise, then sighed deeply, fell