I want to rush up to them, to beg their forgiveness, to explain everything.
“I didn’t know…” I whisper under my breath.
All those years ago, when I watched that witch—that woman—being executed, because I had named her, I was terrified by the power of witches. Just like everyone else, always like everyone else. She struggled; someone had grabbed hold of her, and the sword struck her neck. And I had stood and watched that woman whom I pointed the finger at. Only then did I see that there was no malice or strength in her gaze, just grief and sorrow. I could see the black bile of death in those eyes. Fear and ignorance had sealed the fate of all those people, my own fear and ignorance—those tools of the Devil, those demons. I am to blame, because I was that superstitious child who had no idea what he was doing. I condemned them; I pointed the finger; I said the word.
“Witch!” I shouted out.
That woman is also here now, on one of the beds at the back. But I will never find her. These men and women were killed because I accused them of witchery. They were taken to the hillside, their heads were chopped off, and the ground was mired in blood. I have had to see it again and again in my dreams. Bodies and heads thrown onto the flames, lying amid burning branches. The peasants were hanging around the execution site, heads hung low. They came to slit my throat while I slept. I woke up screaming, and I fled. They would have caught me and killed me if I had not managed to run to the church. There was no one in there: the dark space was empty apart from a few chickens wandering across the flagstones. The men came through the door, knives in hand. Behind them, the sky was growing lighter as dawn broke. That was when the pastor came and saw what was happening.
“Be on your way,” he had said. They turned round and walked away, and I was left alone with the chickens. The next morning the pastor took me to the execution mound and spoke about superstition, about the black bile and about phantasms. I realized that the only way I could survive was to give up believing in witches, to recognize that witchery was just an apparition, an illusion. But it was still not over. The horror of what happened remains in my soul; I have to bear it wherever I go. It is there in my eyes for all to see.
I turn round, close the door and leave the building. The trees—dark, nearly black, dripping with water—press in on me. As I walk on they gradually become lower and lower, eventually giving way to dark-green bushes and undulating meadowland. I watch a parade of glow-worms crawling along an invisible blade of grass—not just lone dots, but a whole constellation of them proceeding through the damp autumn night, hundreds of shimmering lights. It is as if those lights mark a boundary between two different worlds. And I am standing there between them.
Someone is approaching across the dark meadow, but the cold light of the glow-worms is too weak for me to see them properly. The figure gets closer; it comes right up to me, and now I can feel someone’s breath against my face.
SATURDAY
A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. Complete darkness apart from a few coals smouldering in the fireplace, glimmering like glow-worms. Laurentius sat up and looked about in confusion. The fire in the hearth did not properly illuminate the room; it just shaded it lighter in places, making it possible to make out the depth of some of the objects. The knocking at the door continued, but it sounded more enquiring than insistent in tone.
“Wait a moment!” Laurentius called out.
He pulled his cape round him, stumbled sleepily towards the door, and yanked it open, looking annoyed. Standing there in the wavering candlelight was the maid, dressed in a nightshirt, her hair down. She was looking straight at him with an alarmed expression on her face.
“Was that you, yelling?” she asked.
“Me, yelling?” Laurentius didn’t at first understand the question. He had to stop and think for a moment and ask himself if it had indeed been him. He had been told that he moaned and groaned in his sleep several times before. That hadn’t been a surprise to him, since his dreams were often troubled, and took him to places from which he had to flee. He had decided that his dreams needed to be scientifically investigated, and he had always written them down, categorized them and analysed them, but he hadn’t achieved much clarity. Although it was widely believed that dreams were divinely inspired, or that they revealed future events, Laurentius was convinced that they were nothing more than random thoughts, traces of memories left behind in the brain. They accumulated on top of each other, intertwining and combining in the most astonishing of ways. If they did provide a view of the future, that was only because the future was potentially present in everything he saw. Every image, every act, potentially contained its own final purpose, its eventual actuality.
“Yes, I heard someone yelling,” the maid explained. “I’m not sure why, but I decided to come and have a look. These days there is always some sort of trouble occurring. People moaning and groaning out on the streets, women giving birth too early. Some people fear that the end times are nigh, that at any moment the horned beast will come to rule over us all. I’ve also had some dreams recently which just don’t bear thinking about. I wake up, and my body is dripping wet all over, like I’ve been to the sauna, and all manner of ghoulish monsters are chasing me. I can’t even bring myself to talk to the pastor about it,” she said, blushing in embarrassment.
Laurentius tried to smile reassuringly. “I’m sure it is all just a coincidence. I’ve always been a pretty poor sleeper; I have all sorts of odd dreams. But I am confident that they don’t have any particular significance.”
“Oh really?” said the maid, seeming to take childish cheer in that. “Our pastor is generally very concerned about dreams. He says that they are often meant to show us things to come.”
“That’s just idle chatter; these days no one actually believes that dreams warn us of future troubles,” Laurentius said dismissively, but then it occurred to him that it probably wasn’t appropriate to contradict the maid’s pastor like that. “It may sometimes be true, but the majority of theologians are of the view that prophetic dreams are actually very rare.”
Laurentius felt some relief at being able to speak so openly. There was something down-to-earth and sensible about this girl, which had a calming and reassuring effect on him. He groped in his cape pocket for his watch and had a quick glance at the time.
“Dreams are like hallucinations; they are the fruits of our imagination,” he started explaining hurriedly. “The things which occur in our dreams are caused by phantasms, the images which come from inside us and are linked to our own fears and yearnings. Let us suppose, for example, that we see something really awful happen in real life. That image is then preserved inside us, and it may combine with images from previous days, or with previous experiences we have had. Often the things we see and do in our dreams aren’t actually our own actions at all. One might ask, therefore, whether we have freedom of action in our dreams or not.”
Noticing that the girl was not responding in any way, Laurentius nodded and continued expounding. “The majority of us have had dreams where we find ourselves doing things which we would consider improper if we were awake. If we have freedom in our dreams, should we feel guilty about these things? Are we even free when we are awake? Granted, when we are dreaming we sometimes don’t know what we are doing. But sometimes we do things which we do know to be wrong. In those cases, are we free or not? It may seem to us that we are. But if we really are, then should we be held responsible for the things we do?”
Laurentius noticed the growing look of incomprehension on the girl’s face, and realized that all his arguments had been intended more to convince himself. He decided to leave his last theoretical question unanswered, and stood there rocking back and forth on his heels awkwardly.
“Forgive me, but I don’t even know your name,” he eventually said, deciding to change the subject.
“Madlin,” the girl said with a nod and a smile.
“You know what, Madlin,” Laurentius began. “Perhaps you could light the fire and then bring me a
mug of beer? I don’t think I will go back to bed now; best to get on with the day. It’s nearly five anyway.”
“Yes, it does look like it’s nearly getting-up time. I will go and fetch the logs right away. Master Laurentius should wait here.”
Laurentius watched as she left. For some reason he was in a cheerful, light-hearted mood. It even occurred to him that he could start work on the main theses of his disputation.
It was as if the girl’s sensible and down-to-earth demeanour had made his troubles seem less serious, had eased them. He realized that he really did need someone by his side, someone to talk to. Perhaps he should have rented a room with someone, rather than relying on the maid to keep him company. People might draw all sorts of conclusions about that, and as things currently stood he didn’t want to attract any bother. But it would be a lot of trouble to find someone to move in with now, and he couldn’t be sure it would help.
Laurentius sat down at the table and lit the candle. The Alsted text was now much easier to read, and he soon started making notes. By the time the maid had arrived back with the breakfast and beer he had already managed to write the first draft outline of his disputation.
“There we are,” said Laurentius happily. “I’ve done a good part of the work already. Come and sit with me to eat.”
“I’m not so sure. The landlady wouldn’t like it if she found out. I could get into all sorts of trouble,” the maid replied.
“It’s not as if I’m asking you to come to bed with me,” Laurentius tried to joke, but he only succeeded in making himself blush. “I just want you to keep me company for a while; it’s boring to eat alone.”
The girl positioned herself warily at the foot of the bed, and sat there tense and upright.
“I’ll sit here for a little while then, but I really can’t stay for long,” she said.
“Very well,” Laurentius said with a nod, and he took a bite of the bread which the maid had brought. But he stopped dead in mid-mouthful. The taste was unbearable. Yesterday’s bread roll had tasted much better, even if it had been in his bag the whole day and was rock hard and covered in dust. It had still been quite appetizing.
He put the half-eaten piece of bread down onto the table and sighed. “Actually, I don’t think I want to eat now after all—maybe you would like this instead?”
Madlin shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose I could take it with me. It would somehow be strange to start eating it in front of you.”
“Don’t worry, it’s quite all right by me,” said Laurentius, trying to help her overcome her shyness.
The maid seemed reluctant, but she got up and took the bread out of his hand. With a barely suppressed sigh, she hesitantly started eating it. Laurentius watched as the bread crumbs dropped to the floor, and he realized that he was in fact terribly hungry. But he was quite sure that he couldn’t eat another mouthful himself. He might be able to force down a swig or two of the sour beer.
“By the way, I’m quite sure that I saw another girl here earlier,” he said to break the silence, which had started to become awkward. “She had black hair. I assumed that she must live in this house as well. She said her name was Clodia.”
Madlin stopped eating for a moment. But instead of answering she just shook her head, and carried on chewing.
She eventually managed to swallow the mouthful of dry bread. “I don’t know anyone by that name. But these days all sorts come loitering around here. We should probably lock the doors at night—anyone could get in. I occasionally hand out leftover food to the starving folk who have started wandering about, purely out of Christian compassion. But I’ll make sure that nothing like that happens again, don’t you worry on that account.”
The maid was evidently a little flustered, but she didn’t seem particularly surprised by Laurentius’ question.
“She gave the impression of being a most pleasant and well-educated young lady,” Laurentius continued.
Madlin shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea… but I will make you an infusion; I’ll put some raspberry twigs in hot water—that works very well for over-arousal.” She gave Laurentius a friendly smile, cleaned up the breadcrumbs from her lap, and got up with a purposeful look on her face. “And I’ll make a fire, a nice big one—that should soon warm the place up. Don’t you worry. Just try to stay calm.”
She slipped out through the door, leaving Laurentius sitting there, confused. He had not been able to deduce anything at all from her expression, but he was pretty sure that Madlin knew who Clodia was. She knew, but for some reason she couldn’t tell anyone. Maybe Clodia was the landlady’s daughter, but she was a weak-willed girl who had to be kept in her room? Maybe there had been some love story which had gone awry and she was banished from the public gaze until the gossip subsided. It might even be possible that the former tenant had made her pregnant (some scandal had been mentioned, after all), and now the family was waiting for the child to be born in secret, trying to keep the shameful truth hidden. But she hadn’t looked like she was pregnant, Laurentius pondered. And her behaviour had been pretty bizarre—maybe she was just mad? Maybe there was another reason altogether why she had to hide herself away? Could he even be sure that she actually existed?
Laurentius shook his head and sat down at the table again, trying to calm himself down as Madlin had advised. He picked up the sheets of paper and started to examine the theses he had written for his disputation systematically. Then he selected some suitable citations and started to make footnotes for them. But the sound of people bustling about and talking in the kitchen below prevented him from concentrating. He tried hard to make out the individual words, and he even leant down towards the fireplace, in the hope that he would be able to hear what was being said through the chimney. But to no avail. He turned back to his text, rested his head in his hands, and focused his gaze on the sentences, trying to push his way through them by force—but the words just seemed hollow. Something was bothering him about the conversation which had just taken place. Maybe Madlin really did know something? And who was she talking to down there?
He stood up with a determined look on his face and went downstairs. It was still pitch black outside, and he had to feel his way along the corridor and grope for the door. It looked like Madlin had indeed lit the lamp in the kitchen, but the light didn’t reach the yard through the windows or the chinks in the door, and there seemed to be no other lights shining nearby. The wind was howling, and blowing wet gusts of rain into his face.
“Good morning,” someone said from somewhere very close by.
“Morning,” said Laurentius, looking round in agitation. There, standing on the steps a couple of paces away from him, was the girl with dark hair.
“You again,” said Laurentius. “Who are you?”
“You were right, I do live here,” said Clodia. “But you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone. And don’t trouble Madlin with your questions any more; she has nothing to tell you. You’re just tormenting the poor girl for no reason.”
Laurentius looked straight at her and immediately felt that he had nothing more to ask.
“Very well, I won’t ask you anything more. But I would like to meet you again all the same. The bread roll you gave me yesterday was the only thing I have been able to eat over the past few days. It tasted like honey; everything else I eat just tastes rotten.”
Clodia smiled. “I will bring breakfast to your room.”
SATURDAY MORNING
“A CCORDING TO ARISTOTLE there are three forms of the soul: the vegetative, the sensitive and the rational. Vegetative and sensitive souls exist in all living things, but the rational soul is found only in humans.”
Laurentius was writing. The words were coming easily, and he only had to stop to reflect when it seemed that his arguments were in danger of conflicting too much with Platonist and Cartesian positions. After all, Luther himself had been opposed to Aristotle and warned against taking his philosophizing too seriously, demonstrating that Platonism wa
s in every respect superior to Peripatetic philosophy. Descartes had in fact been of exactly the same view, and had eventually arrived at philosophical positions which were almost pure Platonism. Aristotle had been highly regarded at the beginning of the century, but by now, as the century drew to a close, attitudes had changed completely. In any case, Laurentius needed to be careful not to contradict contemporary philosophical views excessively.
“Although man is indeed alive and capable of sensation from the moment of his birth, his rational soul is actualized over time.”
That was the thesis which always caused the most problems, because it suggested that there were people who lacked a rational soul. Of course that was wrong—every single person had a soul, even as an embryo, but it was yet to be actualized. Just as tomorrow follows today: it may not yet exist, but it is inexorably in the process of coming into existence, subject to what happened yesterday and today.
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