Free The Fiery Angel by Valery Bruisov Page A

well, to reflect upon the details of the Cathedral and its building. I recalled the plans of the Cathedral, that I happened to have seen, and the stories of its construction, the names of the good craftsman Gerhard and of His Eminence the Archbishop Heinrich von Virneburg, and I decided for myself that, like its brothers the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Rome and the Cathedral of the Birth of the Holy Mother of God in Milan, never would it be fated to rise in its proper grandeur; to raise to its heights the heavy materials required for its completion, and to erect perfectly the arrows of its spires according to their plan—are tasks far surpassing our means and forces. While, if ever human science and the art of building attain such a measure of perfection as to render these tasks possible and easy, men will of course have lost so much of their primitive faith that they will no longer wish to labour to enrich the House of God.
    My meditation was interrupted by Renata herself, who said to me shortly and simply:
    “Rupprecht, let us go home.”
    I rose with difficulty and followed Renata like one in irons; but, in thinking then, not without relief, that all the events of the day were done I was mistaken: the most startling lay yet in wait for us.
    When we reached our home I bade Martha prepare food for us, but Renata did not want even to touch anything and, as if with great difficulty, she swallowed a few baked beans and would not drink more than two mouthfuls of wine. Then she went to her bed and stretched herself on it in complete prostration, like one paralysed, weakly warding off my touches and, to all my words, only shaking her head negatively. Approaching, I lowered myself to my knees near the bed and looked silently into her eyes, which suddenly became staring and devoid of meaning or expression—and thus I remained for a long time, in this posture, which thenceforward and for many weeks became habitual to me.
    This was the very hour that fate chose to add yet another link to the chain dragging me to my perdition, and to transform me, for the first time, from a spectator and observer of devilish schemes to their accomplice and abettor. With that same frankness with which I relate of myself in this book both the good and the bad, I want to relate this event also, that I may show how the Devil knows means by which, hardly perceptibly, he may lead a man astray, to his own ways.
    While we were thus plunged into darkness and silence, as into some black depth—there suddenly sounded above us a strange and quite exceptional cracking knock upon the wall. I looked round surprised for, apart from us two, there was nobody in the room, and at first I did not say anything. But after some interval, when the selfsame knock occurred a second time, I softly asked Renata:
    “Did you hear that knock? What can it be?”
    “Renata answered me in an indifferent voice:”
    “It is nothing. That happens often. It is the tiny ones.”
    I asked her again:
    “What tiny ones?”
    She answered me quietly:
    “The tiny demons.”
    This reply so interested me that, though I was reluctant to worry Renata in her weakened state, nevertheless I dared to question her, seeing that she understood something of which I had only a nebulous conception. With great reluctance, and pronouncing the words with difficulty, Renata informed me that the lower demons, who are always present in human circles, occasionally manifest their presence to those who are not protected from them by knocking on the walls and different objects, or by moving various things. To this Renata added that when, by her acquaintance with Madiël, her eyes were opened to the secret world, she even saw these very demons, who are always of human appearance and clothed, unlike angels, in capes, not light or brilliant, but dark, grey or smoke-black in colour, but that they are however, enveloped in a kind of glow, and in moving they float noiselessly rather than walk, and to disappear they