Finally I manage to loosen the ribbon with the help of a rusty old nail, which does just as well as the spearhead of Hywel Dda: out onto the floor rolls the coal scrying glass which the Emperor has sent back without greeting or explanation.
A dreary succession of memories drags slowly past; the bailiffs have auctioned off every last square yard of land around the ruin. Once more snow is drifting in through the gaps and holes. Between the stone flags the floor is covered with withered, frozen bracken, clover, bindweed and thistles.
The visits of my last friend, Talbot Price, are becoming less and less frequent. A dishevelled, grumpy old man himself, he sits at the hearth with me for hours on end without saying a word, his chin on his stout stick, his head quivering to and fro. Whenever he comes I have to go through the whole rigmarole of conjuring up the spirits: long prayers which Price, who is getting old and somewhat childish, lays great store by, complicated and meaningless ceremonies ... And Price keeps dropping off to sleep and I nod off too, now and again; – and when we wake up we have both forgotten what we were doing, or it is already evening and dark and cold. Then Price gets to his doddery feet and mutters:
“Till the next time, John, the next time.”
Price, whom I was expecting, has not come; instead there is a terrible storm brewing up. Although it is still early evening it is almost completely dark in the room. Lightning flickers. Its yellow glare brings fantastic shadows to life in the hearth. Mortlake is enveloped in rattling thunderclaps and never ending sheets of lightning. Bitter wrath warms my heart: let it strike me down! What more could I desire?! I pray for a bolt of lightning.
I pray – and suddenly realise that I am praying to “Il”, to the Green Angel of the West Window.
At that, a blaze of anger flares up within me, brighter than any lightning. My eye is suddenly clear: since that fearful seance in Doctor Hajek’s cellar in Prague the Green Angel has not appeared again and none of his promises have been fulfilled – except the miracle of my unbelievable, superhuman patience. Now, in the coruscating brilliance of a lightning flash, I seem to see the stone face of the Angel grinning out at me from the sooty darkness of the old hearth.
I leap to my feet. I half remember old, long forgotten incantations, which Bartlett Greene taught me before he set off for Bishop Bonner’s bonfire, formulae to be used in the hour of great danger when help is sought from the powers of the world beyond to whom sacrifice has been made; formulae which can also bring death.
Have I made sacrifice? Have I not made sacrifices enough in my life?! And automatically the long forgotten conjurations come to my lips complete, and fall like hammer blows. My soul still does not understand their meaning, but they arrive “on the other side;” syllables and words are heard by invisible ears, I sense it clearly; those on the other side obey, for the dead are drawn by dead words. Between the gnarled and pitted slabs of the rough hearth a pale face gradually takes shape – the face of Edward Kelley!
I am filled with wild, triumphant exultation: so now I have you in my power, my old comrade? I’m afraid I must disturb your restless sleep in the land of the shades, my dear ghost. I am truly sorry, but I am compelled to call upon your services, brother of my heart ... How long did I keep up this bitter, futile address to the dead charlatan? Sluggish hours seemed to drag by.
Finally I pull myself together and command Kelley by our mingled blood. At that I see the phantom move for the first time – the figure is racked by a long, icy shudder – as I command him by virtue of our commingled blood to call up the Green Angel immediately.
Terrified, Kelley makes pleading gestures: in vain. Desperately he writhes to escape the spell: in vain. Mutely he implores me to wait for a more favourable moment: in vain. With the suppressed fury of a torturer equally impelled by a determination to wring a confession from his victim as by a bloody, sadistic frenzy, I bind Bartlett Greene’s incantations tighter and tighter round Kelley’s spectral body. Slowly his cruelly tormented face dissolves into the stone figure of the great Green Angel.
It is as if the Angel is eating the defenceless Kelley alive.
Then the Angel is alone in the shadows of the fireplace.
Again I feel the paralysing look. Again my heart begins to pound, driving the blood to the extremities as a shield against the intense cold that creeps in from outside. But to my surprise the cold the Angel exhales seems to have no effect on an old man’s leathery skin. I realise the cold is already deep within me.
And I hear a musical voice, with which I am long familiar, like the voice of a cheerful, unfeeling child:
“What is thy will?”
“I know you keep your word.”
“Dost thou think I care aught for words?”
“Here on earth men believe it is God’s command that a word given is a faith pledged; that must hold on the other side, or else heaven and hell would tumble into chaos.”
“Take me at my word, then.”
“I shall take you at your word.”
Outside the storm continues unabated but to my ears the deafening crackle of lightning striking
