Somewhere a window is torn from its hinges and shatters on the cobbles with a piercing cry: the mortal anguish of objects that have been created by human hand.
Has the moon fallen out of the sky, is it wandering over the earth? A glowing white sphere makes its hesitant way through the air, swaying, sinking, rising, floating aimlessly, until, suddenly seized with a wild fury, it explodes with a clap of thunder. The earth quakes in uncontrollable terror.
More and more of the spheres arrive. One of them scours the bridge, rolling slowly, slyly over the planks, then circles round one beam, seizes it with a roar and smashes it into splinters.
“Ball-lightning!” I had read about it in one of my childhood books, thinking its mysterious motions a myth, and now here it is, in all its destructive reality! Blind beings, balls of electricity, bombs of the cosmic abyss, demon’s heads without eyes, ears, mouths or noses, risen from the depths of the earth and the air, tornadoes whirling round a nucleus of hatred, without organs of perception, but with a primitive consciousness that gropes around in search of victims for its destructive fury.
What terrible power they would possess if they had human shape! Is it my unspoken question that has attracted this glowing sphere that suddenly swings out of its orbit and flies towards me? But close to the balustrade it sheers off, glides towards a wall then sails in through an open window and out of another; then it stretches out and, with a crash of thunder, a tongue of fire blasts a shell-hole in the sand, making the house tremble and the dust spurt up to where I am sitting.
The flash, as blinding as a white sun, sears my eyes; for a second my body is illuminated with such incandescence that its image charges my eyelids and etches itself on my consciousness.
“Can you see me at last, Medusa?”
“Yes, I can see you, accursed mortal!” and a red sphere rises out of the earth. Half-blind, I can sense it is growing bigger and bigger. Now it is hovering over my head, a meteor of boundless fury.
I spread my arms wide: invisible hands grasp mine with the ‘clasp’ of the Order, uniting me with the invisible chain which stretches to infinity.
That which was corruptible in me has been consumed by fire, transformed by death into a flame of life.
Erect I stand in the purple robe of fire, girded about with the bloodstone sword.
Dissolved for ever with corpse and sword.
Books by Gustav Meyrink published by Dedalus
The Golem
Walpurgisnacht
The Green Face
The White Dominican
The Angel of the West Window
The Opal (and other stories)
The Dedalus Meyrink Reader
Dedalus has also published the first English language biography of Gustav Meyrink:
Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink by Mike Mitchell
COPYRIGHT
Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,
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ISBN printed book 978 1 873982 55 6
ISBN e-book 978 1 907650 75 8
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Publishing History
First published in Germany in 1921
First published by Dedalus in 1994
First ebook edition in 2012
Translation & Introduction copyright © Dedalus 1994
Printed in Finland by W. S. Bookwell
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A C.I.P. Listing for this book is available on request.
The White Dominican Page 17