“We must do something,” hissed Karl. “Or they’ll storm the house!”
Greta nodded. She leaned over Johann, held his hand, and murmured soothingly.
“It’s going to be all right, Uncle,” she whispered. “You have nothing to fear.”
He thrashed about once more and struck Greta on the head. She was hurled aside, and the people on the street began shouting again.
“Did you hear that? The devil’s up there!” cried the younger woman. “I bet it’s that other doctor and he’s invoking the devil right now. Just think of his big black dog! The fellow’s in league with Satan.”
Stones and lumps of ice came flying through the window again; someone rattled the front door, and Greta heard Elsbeth cry out in fear. She was downstairs with the boy and must have been frightened to death. A burning torch was flung onto the roof, but it slid down the wet shingles and dropped into the lane without causing any harm. Still, one of the men was ready to throw the next torch.
In her desperation, Greta threw herself on Johann and held him down with her whole body. Then she started doing what she’d done in the Wasgau: she prayed. She muttered the verses she’d learned from her uncle Valentin and which now appeared like gleaming seashells at low tide.
“From the rear and the front you encompassed me, and you placed your pressure upon me,” she murmured, haltingly at first and then more and more steadily. “Even darkness will not obscure anything from you, and the night will light up like day, as darkness so is the light.”
And the miracle happened once more.
The doctor calmed down. With each word of the ancient psalm, Johann became quieter, his rapid twitching slowing until he finally passed out with exhaustion.
“. . . and see whether there is any vexatious way about me, and lead me in the way of the world,” concluded Greta with a trembling voice. “Amen.”
Suddenly Johann opened his eyes again. He looked at Greta with perfect clarity for a brief moment. Then he reached out his hand and stroked her hair.
“My daughter,” he whispered so quietly that only Greta could hear. “Apple of my eye, don’t leave me. My only, my beloved daughter . . . stay with me . . .”
Then his eyes fell shut again. Greta sat beside him as if she had turned to stone. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Had the doctor spoken in a fever—had he been confused? And yet so much that had happened in the last few years would suddenly make sense if it were true. But she found the thought incredibly difficult to accept.
My daughter.
Greta felt myriad puzzle pieces fall into place in an instant. Soundlessly and with shaking lips, she repeated Johann’s words.
My daughter. My only, my beloved daughter.
“As you can hear, my son went back to sleep despite the racket you’ve been making,” said Agrippa to the drunken mob. “Go home now before I am forced to report this incident to the city. If you leave now you have nothing to fear.”
He slammed the shutters closed and listened. It seemed like the people were indeed leaving. Agrippa gazed at Greta, who was still on her knees, bent over Johann. She was sweating and shaking as if from heavy labor. But neither Karl nor Agrippa had heard Faust’s whispered words.
My only, my beloved daughter. Apple of my eye.
“I owe you my gratitude, girl,” said Agrippa.
Greta barely heard him. When she finally turned to look at him, she noticed that the scholar was also shaking, his earlier composure gone. “You saved my family. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, I wouldn’t believe it.” He shook his head. “You called upon God, and God helped! The devil had taken hold of Faust’s body, but you banished him and saved your uncle. Divine miracles really exist.”
Agrippa didn’t know that another miracle had just happened to Greta.
Or was it a curse?
Johann dreamed.
He stood on a wide, barren plain, the wind whistling and howling like a thousand wild ghosts. Suddenly he could make out another sound, very faintly at first, then louder and louder. It was the galloping of horses. Now he could see three black dots on the horizon, rapidly approaching.
Three horsemen headed straight for Johann. Pouring rain set in, scourging him.
The first horseman was pale, chalk-faced, and he wore a red cap with a rooster’s feather. The second rider was a knight with blond hair and the beautiful face of an angel.
The third horseman had no face.
Where the face should have been were curling wafts of black smoke, and in the place of hair writhed worms and snakes. In his right hand the third horseman held a long sword that he now raised up and swung above his head. Then it swooshed down.
The devil is on earth and he walks among the mortals.
With a hoarse cry, Johann woke up.
Agrippa leaned over him and wiped the sweat off his brow with a cloth. When he saw that Johann had opened his eyes, he smiled.
“Welcome back to the realm of the living, my friend. I thought you’d never wake up.”
“I . . . I had another fit?” asked Johann.
Agrippa nodded. “The very moment the mob approached my house. But all went well.”
“How . . . how long was I asleep?” Johann’s head ached as if the sword really had struck him.
Agrippa cocked his head to one side and studied him with the professional gaze of a physician. “Two whole days. How are you feeling?”
Johann shot up. “But the trial—”
“Didn’t take place.” Agrippa gently pushed his friend back into bed. “You didn’t miss anything. Well, at least not the trial.”
They were in one of the many bedrooms of the Agrippas’ grand house. There was a brazier in the room and furs and rugs on the floor. Johann was lying in a four-poster bed with
