III

 

 

Here end the memoirs of the unfortunate, most excellent prince. Yet on the basis of his antemortem, muddled as it is transcendentally lucid, we just might be able to contrive what happened in the tower. –

He skulked into the tower and climbed the stairs. “I have left both doors open,” he recalled; “if they enter the blue room, they can follow right behind me. But that’s ridiculously irrelevant; ridiculous and irrelevant is everything, All.”

We shall not endeavor to give a more detailed account of his mental state. Certainly not because it would be “artless,” or because it should derive completely of its own accord from the final pages of his diary, only because it is beyond the scope of human representation, whether artistic, philosophical, scientific, or any other sort. Art is wretched, like all things human. Whether by artistic or other means, one can only convey the base, the human, and barely tolerably at that. Not the Great Mystery. The prince proceeded toward the Daemoness poised between Dream and Postmortality; in a state of “wakefulness,” Dream is almost inconceivable, Postmortality completely so. Sternenhoch’s Lunacy became Superlunacy, which is Eternity and the All. The earthly lay far below him. A moment later he, the most abject moriturus, became a god. – And perhaps “forever” –.

He opened the first door to the dungeon – slowly and with a smile. He smelled something ... “The smoke of a Virginia cigar,” he said to himself, “hers. Well of course, what else could I have expected ... Everything is tremendously beautiful. And She most certainly mine in eternity. – Sst! ... A rustling – from within ... Well of course.”

The key made a ghastly scraping sound in the door, red from rust. And the prince saw the dungeon illuminated, not by his own dim, puny lantern, but by another, sitting on the ground – – and then by some kind of weak, mysterious white light. The roaring of diaphanous lions rumbled more and more horribly; the old tower quaked.

And the rose and green spots – were not to be seen. In the place where they had been was something white. He drew closer. A woman’s garment, snow-white. A face covered with a white kerchief, pressed by white hands. And the whole thing was trembling and twitching and writhing like a ghost. – And beneath it – something rose and green ...

“She was lying on the straw! Naturally, why would she have lain on the stone! She came here from the cellar. She is alive after all. It almost makes me sorry. It dilutes the magic. But – nonsense! Alive – dead – both the same. Dead is alive, alive is dead. The world is nothing but an animated corpse; even a tiger in its magnificent leap – only a galvanized cadaver!”

He knelt beside the woman in white. “Helga!”

The white body stopped trembling and for a long time did not stir.

“Helga, is it You, my wife?”

The body writhed, moaned, and did not speak.

He tenderly removed the handkerchief from her face. “No, no, for God’s sake!” roared an inhuman voice. “You shall be damned, and I as well! I cannot look upon you! ...”

He sat down beside her and waited patiently. “What if it is not She?” the thought occurred to him narcotically. “Did she send another woman here? But what does that matter. All women are – She.”

“I have come,” he could finally hear, in a monotone – “out of curiosity. To determine whether today, this very day, you would have sufficient courage to come here. I have been informed of everything; in a quarter-hour they’ll put you in a straitjacket; and I know you don’t believe I am real.”

“So you are really alive, then?”

“Only your bad conscience, terrified to the point of madness, could have any doubt on that score. Listen: only the courage you showed to cast me in here impressed me somewhat and diminished my aversion toward you. And today, seeing your fearlessness in coming, I have respect for you. And for a woman this can grow into love ... I think now I could bear you quite well. Prince, the reason I’ve come today is to make a humble proposition – marital cohabitation unto death ... He is dead; I, disappointed by life, blasé, spleenish, without means or support. My financial outlook is atrocious, my rabbits all died suddenly, and I have come to realize I lack artistic talent. And those five-thousand marks annually would simply not last me. I would like to be a princess again in the eyes of the world. My one goal now: to be a great lady. If you will accept me in mercy, I will be a model and obedient wife in everything.”

“I will do everything, Helga, that you desire. But what you have said is unseemly – No: even this is beautiful; everything is simply beautiful, everything indifferent.” – –

– “You are speaking unusually wisely today,” – escaped after a moment from beneath the kerchief. “You are somehow different. – I love you – – – and I wish for us, here, before you go – temporarily – to the loony bin – to consummate our second marriage – here, here – in this very place!”

Not moving her hands from her face, she embraced him with her bare legs and pulled him to herself. He submitted, but it was not Libido, unless a metaphysical one: kissing all – and solely for that reason, Her as well ... –

As soon as his hands touched her cheeks, however, she immediately gave a terrible shriek ... And she continued to shriek, like a banshee, drowning out the thunder, seemingly for an eternity –

Suddenly, her shrieking turned to laughter, and the Daemoness’s legs again embraced the prince’s body, laughing all the while ... “Come here, oh, come, oh, come! ...”

And the prince, majestically passive, again fell on the princess ... – “Yes, yes, yes! I shall remain faithful, until eternity, through every hell! ...”

Again he touched her, not with his hands – –. And now the Daemoness remained calm, only a tiny, hellish chuckle pierced her kerchief – –.

But – – an instant later – : “You – You – You – are here?” – she screamed in horror, not exposing her eyes. “Don’t come now, don’t come here now, for the love of God!”

Sternenhoch looked around. A few feet away he spied a dim, greenish shadow ... flickering and at the same time miraculously more serene than the sun. And it was the enormous figure of a man, with a face that crushed with a mere look, youthful and yet so majestically, divinely mature – –.

– – “Right now, you say?” wailed the Daemoness. “But right now – impossible –.”

The prince did not hear the reply. – “Impossible this is the easiest and the sweetest thing there is, you say?” she cried again.

And now Sternenhoch could hear, without sound, only in his soul, certain words.

“You yourself are impossible! And the word has become Flesh!”

“Dearest – I cannot!”

“You will! You wanted at once to break free from him! Him! Intending to take the most terrible revenge on him, you would be taking the most terrible revenge on yourself!” – –

“Yes, I wanted to! I cannot do otherwise ...”

“It’s over, it’s over! It has been won! Simply take hold of your victory!”

“Don’t wave that awful whip over me so terribly! I’ve spent enough time with him – there – there! But Your – more horrible than all the others –.”

“Sweeter! Just one last step – hey – hey!”

“Stop! I – will submit myself – to him – and I will not disappear! ... Do not unveil my eyes! Better to put them out!”

“Halfway to salvation! Uncover your eyes! Look bravely!”

“If I look, I will lose the strength to submit, and a terrible hell lies before me as far as the eye can see – –”

“Only if you look will you find the strength to submit.”

“To look will be my destruction; semi-blindness is all I can bear!”

“Only the bearable is unbearable; and destruction is Radiance. It comes thundering nearer and nearer, now enveloping You, do you not see it, Woman?”

“I don’t want to disintegrate, though it be in the All-Radiance. I want to remain Self!”

“The All-Radiance alone is Self. Your Holy Radiance alone is the All; your Own Gloriole alone is You!”

“I am afraid of my own white, formless ghost and loathe it; it is sheer Nothing.”

“A moth fears the day. O Soul, the most luminous of all and therefore the darkest of all, superabundant Radiance: You, who have fallen in love with Darkness, drinking it until you have drowned in it!: Ascend into Your and My eternal home! Come to Me!”

And the prince saw the shadow, blazing into a flame ever whiter and more powerful, grow, cut through the ceiling of the cell, and lift His supermajestic, benevolently terrible face to the clouds, above the clouds, to the stars, above the stars ... And from the infinite distances resounded the final, blazing words of a god:

“I, Your husband On High and since Eternity, descended and became human only in order to liberate You from the swamp of Night. It failed – there; succeeded here! I sent You into the crimson hells and guided Your every step, as well as those of the one who is awaiting Your Salvation here. Through him have I given You relief and hastened Your Victory, through him am I throwing You in the pool Your lifeline – kindest in my cruelty! ... Come to me, into the infinite Radiance, O woman of Mine!” –

The Voice luminously rumbled to a halt. At its end a shot pealed from the heavens. A lightning bolt struck the tower, and as if it had set the black walls on fire, a mysterious, white light suddenly multiplied and grew, as a conflagration, ever larger.

But the Daemoness kept her face covered. She tugged several times at her kerchief but exposed only her mouth. And she began to convulse terribly, as if invisible, mighty hands were violently shaking her.

“That awful, unbearable, inescapable Light penetrates even my closed eyelids,” – she moaned. “Hell behind me – red – a white hell before me ... But this is worse ... And He? ... only my imagination ... I will not discard my Self.”

Then the prince spoke, delicately:

“You shall find yourself; You did not have Yourself. We do not have our Selves until we have all, until all inside our Selves melts into love. What is the most benevolent seems the most terrible to someone who, like all people!, is accustomed only to cruelty. What is the most revolting is the most delectable. My Helga, obey Him! He is one of the greatest gods!”

“Could – you – hear him?”

“And see him.”

“All of it – only – my – hocus pocus!” she whispered with feminine obstinacy ... “Well, I’m alive, you lunatic!”

“You are Alive; though the clothing you’re lying on contains – no straw! – I do not see it, but I know it – –”

– – “Do you know everything, then –?”

“You came here to – submit to me and through this to escape the scarlet hell; today is our last Day. You walked here as if to an execution; dining on dead toads is no small feat; and I was more revolting than a dead toad. Though Your eyes were veiled, You could not go through with it, so You fell back on your original intent: to give yourself to me as quickly as possible – and then to disappear suddenly from underneath me and diabolically leave me, having awakened from heavenly delight, lying on – – a skeleton, covered in awful slime, worms – –. This was to be the final blow of your revenge. But in that moment – He came. To save You. Not me. For I am no longer afraid. Only now can I make out something under you ...”

And pulling something hideous from under the pink fabric – – he kissed it.

“Oh!” she screamed – – and threw off her kerchief. Her eyes remained closed. “Helmut – no longer does the slightest spark of vengeance smolder within me. Yet that isn’t enough – I must also – love you ... Your spirit is beautiful now – – why is your body so repulsive?”

“Perhaps it isn’t, dear Helga. Only what we see through the prism of our hatred and revulsion is repulsive. Only hatred is worthy of hatred, only revulsion is revolting; no, not even that. You, Soul, freed of the shackles of the body, do you not yet see this?”

“Oh, disembodied soul! more blind than a mole underground!”

“My Eternal Helga, O sleeping Goddess! I stand on the border between death and Life; lying behind me – death; crashing down on me – Life. I see both – by God’s Mercy – Your mercy – His mercy – of the Great Unknown. You wanted to destroy me; and you have created from the most wretched of men – one of God’s Elect ... through suffering and insanity. Blessed is my fate. Blessed are all the wounds inflicted by You upon me! Blessed is Your Husband! Thanks to You! I am not God and Radiance like You; yet I am a reflection of the Divine Radiance, and thus It as well. I am the dirt under Your fingernail, Sublime One; and even that is enough for me: through this as well am I You, You – for Eternity ... The most abased dog, beaten to the point of death, is also God. All, even You, is only a reflection of the Divine Radiance – and God Himself is only His Own Reflection –”

“How your voice sounds! Golden and sublime ... Give me your hand ... How small and soft it is ... What – what – what just shivered through me so delightfully? As if I had been touched – by His ...” She twisted sensually. “Good God – – is that – you?”

And involuntarily, from sheer longing, she opened her eyes. The heavens roared for the last time. The white Light multiplied itself hundreds of times. The flames of the lanterns became invisible, like a match-fire in the blaze of the afternoon sun. And every one of the old walls’ black stones was a magical diamond of the sun.

– – “Who’s there? ... Oh! It isn’t you –. Yet it is – it is – your childlike, childish expression – but how exquisite you are! A seraph! a god! a sungod – the sun itself ... Everything around has become radiant with Your diamond light ... Oh, that I was blind for so long and did not see Your Splendor! Oh, that You were so blind you didn’t see it yourself – so that I couldn’t catch sight of it ... And how great and powerful you are, towering over the stars, like – Him ... He and You – you are one! You and I – we are one! In the All-Radiance. O Ocean of My White Light, infinite, which you are in everything! You of Perfection, how tender and sweet you are! My Ghost – amorous one! over the primordial Chaos Triumphant, you are Harmony supreme! everything You are not is mere dissonance and pitiful! But all is You, it only needs to be seen; everything is You as soon as it knows it is You! ... Only now, looking upon You, both majestic and meek, both divine and humiliated, I know what Divine Omnipresence is, what All and everything and One are ... Oh, how sweet is Revulsion, how luminous is Blindness! How delightful Pain, beautiful Hideousness, truthful Falsehood – and the Night, how supersolar! ... Oh come, You, My Eternal Beauty – penetrate me, illuminate the Awakened and Redeemed – –!”

And she swiftly yanked the prince down on top of her. He felt a pain on his face, but so strangely, as if someone else, someone beneath him, were feeling it ...

The Eternal Light roared around them delectably – – –

Just at the moment, and in the place when and where the stormy, western thunderclouds had set in the east, the sun came out. The castle servants, Sternenhoch’s relatives, and the doctors slunk, astonished, into the tower – and into the dungeon. With restrained horror they lit the lanterns. For the prince’s lantern had gone out, having been doused by a Higher Light ... And then they saw him, lying on something rose and green and – – he was moving – – –

They ran away. Some fainted. They came back. They tore the prince off, while he kept moving ... he was unseeing, smiling luminously.

One of the servants, who was said to have the gift of second sight, claimed that on entering the cell he saw it illumined by a snow-white glimmer such as is not found on earth; it quickly vanished and in an instant went out in the darkness.

The bones of the arms and legs of a year-old corpse were coiled in ropes. In what was left of the mouth, some filthy rags were found, which science recognized as pieces of sock. The same science stated that traces of undigested blood were in the “stomach” and declared that death had occurred, after about 14 days, due to hemorrhaging; the bound woman had bitten to shreds her shoulders, knees, absolutely everything she could reach with her teeth. Otherwise, she would presumably have lived several days longer. She acted this way, asserted the scientists, to alleviate her thirst. In our judgment, however, she suicided. –

When he plunged onto the corpse, Prince Sternenhoch wounded himself on the exposed nasal bone of its face. The Daemoness was merciful toward him even here! – – He died two days later of blood poisoning. Up until the final onset of unconsciousness he was – constantly smiling and happy, like a young man to whom a girl has just confessed her love. He uttered, the super-lunatic, more magnificent thoughts in one minute than a normal intelligent person utters in an entire lifetime. He was delirious, of course; e.g., he confused his wife with the sun’s radiance –.

Those at his bedside in the hour of his death did not see him with the Eye with which She beheld the true image of his soul, become bright in the dungeon. In spite of this, they did not recognize him and whispered in awe: “How beautiful he is!” Even for earthly vision his pathetic little face had truly become rather handsome ... He had thinned remarkably and his nose had become more refined; his transcendentally smiling, thick lips pressed together to form an almost tight line; his forehead had miraculously broadened; and his closed eyes conveyed more than before, when they were seeing ...

And in the moment when they were closing the coffin over him, his face blazed mystically, as if with its own light, beneath the gaze of the sun. It had not come out the whole day long – and a dark cloud closed over it again the instant the lid closed over the head of the Humble Victor.

Then the Goddess sent the cast-off Garment of His Sacred Soul a final, solar kiss. –