The Angel of the West Window Page 17

  Straightway I recognised in the woman’s face my Lady Elizabeth and would have cried aloud for joy but that a sudden pain did stop me, for I saw and felt the man’s head not as my own, but as that of a younger man; it was in every feature more carefree than the one I have borne on my neck since the days of my innocence. I would fain have been deceived by a regret for my lost youth that whispered to me that this scion of the tree was myself in days gone by, but I refused to let pity dim my eye and saw that it was not myself in the double head but one far off, one who rose out of the spring at my feet, one beyond my reach – Another! – –

  And pain raged within me that it was not I but Another of my blood and seed, One from the latter days, who should inherit the crown and be conjoined indissolubly with my Elizabeth. And in my anger and fury I raised my arm against the tree – against myself – as if to fell it. But, from the marrow of my backbone, the tree spoke:

  “Thou fool! Dost thou still not see thyself? What is time? What is metamorphosis? – After a hundred years and more, still I am: I after a hundred graves; I after a hundred resurrections! Wilt thou raise thy hand to the tree and art thyself but a branch thereof and no more than a drop in the spring at thy feet?!”

  Shaken to the core, I raised my eyes to the top of tree and saw the double head move its lips and I heard a call as from a great height and distance that almost exhausted itself in its course to my ear:

  “One that holds to his faith, lives in the end! – Cleave unto me and we shall be one! – Be alive to thyself and thou shalt be alive to me – to Baphomet!”

  I sank to my knees at the foot of the tree and embraced its trunk most reverently; and I wept such that I could no longer see the vision through the veil of tears, and when my eyes were clear once more I perceived the faint glow of my chamber lamp as the first light of morning filtered through the chinks in the shutters. I could still hear the voice from the tree, as if it came from within me:

  “Wilt thou become immortal? – Dost thou know that the way of this metamorphosis leads through many trials of fire and water? Base matter must suffer much torment before it can be transmuted.”

  – – –

  Three times now I have been shown the Image and the Meaning and the Way in these morning visions. The Way which will lead me to myself, after time and after the grave – whenever that may be, is a two-fold Way. One Way is uncertain, chancy, like a bread crumb cast upon the ground that the birds might eat up before I take that road. Nonetheless, I will essay it, for if it succeed it will be of mighty assistance in that future beyond time for me to remember myself – for what is immortality if not remembrance?

  Therefore I choose the magic Way of the Script and set down in writing my fate and what has been revealed to me on the pages of this diarium, which I have hallowed and by certain means protected against the assaults of time and of evil spirits. Amen.

  But Thou, thou Other, who shalt come after me and read this book at the end of the Days of the Tree: remember whence thou came and that thou arose from the silver spring that waters the tree and that the tree sends forth. And if thou shouldst hear the murmur of thy stream and feel the branches of the tree grow through thy flesh, then I, John Dee, Lord of the Manor of Gladhill, do beseech thee that thou look within thy soul and wake thyself from the grave of time and know: Thou art I! – – –

  There is, however, another Way which I must follow for my sake, as I live here in the flesh and in the Castle of Mortlake: that is the Way of the alchymical transubstantiation of the body and of the soul, that both may achieve immortality in this present time.

  And it is not only since this morning that I have known of this Way; I have been following it now for three years and I have reason to believe that the vision vouchsafed me on three mornings together is a result, the first fruits, so to speak, of my constant labour in this vineyard. It is two years ago that I came to understand the true nature of alchymy and at Christmas-tide in the year of our Lord 1579 I had a chymical laboratorium built here in Mortlake and equipped with all necessary devices – and I have bound to me a most capable assistant who came to see me unannounced on Christ’s Birthday and who since then has served me honourably and showed himself above all expectation well versed and experienced in the mystical art. This same assistant, of whom I have grown right fond and call my friend, is one Master Gardner by name. He enjoys my trust, for he always looks after my interest and is ever ready with good counsel: this I wish to state and acknowledge here with due gratitude. For it saddens me that in recent days there have been increasing signs that his great knowledge and, especially, the trust I place in him, has made him stuffed up with pride and obstinacy so that he often contradicts me, gives me unasked-for warnings and unwelcome admonitions. I hope he will desist from this and show me the respect due to his lord and – well-disposed – master. Our quarrel touches not only on the proper methods in the practice of the art of alchymy; he also thinks it behoves him to oppose my conference with the good spirits from the other world beyond which I succeeded in establishing in remarkable fashion a short time ago. That it is impossible that in this matter I should be the prey of satanic demons, as he does suppose, or the plaything of the spirits of earth and air, is to be seen in the fact that every conjuration of the world beyond is begun and ended with a fervent prayer to God and to the Saviour of all creatures, Jesus Christ. The voices and spirits that manifest themselves appear so godfearing and all they do and say is done and said expressly in the name of the Holy Trinity that I cannot and will not believe Gardner’s warning that they are masked demons. Their counsels, namely how to prepare the philosopher’s stone and the elixier of life, run quite contrary to those that he does profess to know, so that I think they wound his pride who thinks he knows all things. Such humours are not uncommon in human nature but I am not minded to bear his interference any longer, however well-meant it may be. I believe that my assistant is wrong when he avers that the only man who is secure against the wiles of the evil inhabitants of the world beyond is one who has undergone within himself all the occult ceremonies and processes of the spiritual rebirth, namely: the mystical baptism with water, blood and fire, the appearance of letters on the skin, the taste of salt on the tongue, hearing the sound of the cock-crow and other things, for example to hear a baby crying in the womb. What is to be understood by all this, he does not say; he maintains he is bound by a vow of silence.

  As I was yet in two minds, thinking that perhaps after all I was being deceived by works of the devil, yesterday, when my assistant was absent, I conjured the spirits in the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost to appear and tell me whether they knew of a certain Bartlett Greene and whether he had been found worthy to be called their friend and companion. First I heard a strange whistling laughter in the air, which perplexed me, but straightway after the spirits appeared and repudiated such a suggestion with great uproar and all around me from the walls and floor curious metallic voices rang out, ordering me to to abjure any companionship with that selfsame minion of Black Isaïs, and later they told me in the presence of my old friends, Harry Price and Edmund Talbot, as a token of their omniscience, a secret known only to myself and that I had even kept hidden from my wife Jane. They spurned all suspicion against the inhabitants of the world beyond and told me that my relationship with Bartlett Greene could only be dissolved if I disposed of the coal scrying-glass that he had given me in the Tower. And in the Name of God they ordered me put this stone or coal crystal from me straightway and to consign it to the fire as a sign of my contrition.

  This was a glorious triumph over the doubts of my assistant Gardner, who said not a word when I told him what the spirits had ordained; in my innermost heart I renounced him. As my chief desire was to break with everything which might remind me of Bartlett Greene, or even bind me to him, early this morning I took the coal out of its hiding place and burnt it before Gardner’s eyes in a fierce fire in the alchymical furnace. I was no little astonished – Gardner showed no si
gn of surprise and observed the whole matter earnestly – to see the cool, smooth stone flare up in a green blaze without smoke and disappear, leaving no trace of ash or cinder.

  Since then a day and a night have passed and in that night the head of Bartlett Greene appeared with a mocking grin; I presume he was grinning to conceal the fury he must have felt that I had consigned his coal scrying-glass to the flames. Then he disappeared in green smoke which distorted his features so that for a moment it seemed they had been transformed into those of a face I did not recognise – the face of a man, unknown to me, whose hair lay so close upon his cheeks that it almost seemed he had no ears. But that must have been my imagining. Thereupon I dreamed I saw the tree on Gladhill once more and heard its voice that said:

  “Seek to further the healing process: matter must be mortified that the elixir of eternal life shall be extracted from it.” That filled me with trepidation and a melancholy which continued long after I awoke, so that I felt a great urge to ask Gardner’s counsel, whether he thought I was threatened with some misfortune; I felt it would be fickleness in me to turn to the man whom I had already repudiated in my heart but strangely my fear outweighed my pride. I went to our laboratorium. But instead of Gardner I found a polite but brief letter from him in which he bade me farewell “for a long, long time, if not for ever”. – – –

  I was no little surprised when, at about the hour of ten in the morning, my servant announced a visitor and an unknown man entered the room who, as I could see straightway, had had both ears cut off. The scars around the earholes told me that this mutilation must have taken place but a little while ago, perhaps for some crime against the laws of the land. As I knew that in these days all too often it is innocent people who are condemned to this punishment, I determined not to condemn him out of hand for it. I was strengthened in this by the fact that his features bore no similarity to those of the face I had dreamed of during the night. I presumed it must have been a prognostic dream for the following day. The stranger was taller than I, broader and of coarser features, which suggested no very noble parentage. His age was difficult to determine, for his almost chinless face with a receding forehead and impudent, beak-like nose was in part concealed by long hair and a full, somewhat unkempt beard. He seemed to be fairly young and I guessed he was in his late thirties. He later confided in me that he was not yet twenty-eight; that would make him younger than my wife, Jane Fromont. And yet at such an age this man claims to have travelled throughout these islands and undertaken many journeys to France and the Dutch provinces. His features bear witness to the truth of this: his expression is of a restless adventurer and one, to judge by his furrowed face, who has suffered cruelly under the plough of fate.

  He came up close to me and said in a low voice that he had important matters to relate which would brook no interruption, for which reason I should lock the door from the inside. When this was done he took from a pocket concealed within his coat an old book of parchment leaves, bound in pigskin and with many strange characters and signs on its pages. He opened it and pointed to one especial passage. Before I could read the ancient, florid script, he abruptly asked me in a quivering voice and with a strange, flickering look in his piercing, mouse’s eyes, whether I could explain to him what a ‘projection’ was?

  From this I straightway saw that he had only a faint notion of the alchymical transmutation of metals. Thus I answered him that I did possess this knowledge, which was in truth a matter of mere chemistry, and explained to him the process of projection according to the rules of science. He listened intently and seemed content. As he then left the book in my hand, I soon realised I was holding a work of inestimable value, namely instructions how to make the philosopher’s stone for the alchymical preparation of the body and the extraction of the elixier of immortality both here and beyond. I sat there, benumbed in mind, unable to bring a word out yet unable, either, to conceal my feelings; my face must have revealed a whole host of excited passions, for I saw that the stranger kept a sharp eye on me and that nothing of my ferment escaped him. Nor did I think to conceal anything from him; I closed the book with a snap and said, “Truly, a most excellent book. What do you purpose with it?” “To make the elixier and the stone, according to the directions therein”, – as he answered he made a great effort to keep back the fear and greed which yet shone brightly in his eye. “For that, first of all someone must read the book who can understand it,” I objected.

  “Are you able to perform it – and will you give your word as a gentleman and swear an oath on Christ’s Body and Blood?”

  I answered that I was willing to try, but that was not to say my efforts would be crowned with success: there were many books containing such directions for the preparation of the red and white powders and yet all labour according to their receipts had been in vain.

  At these words the face of my visitor was a battleground of passions that raged within his soul; distrust and triumph, darkest doubt and self-important pride pursued each other across his features with the speed of clouds on a wild night. Suddenly he tore open the shirt across his breast and took out a leathern pouch which he had kept concealed on his bare skin. He reached into it and held his hand out towards me – it held Mascee’s two ivory spheres! I recognised them at once, for they bore the signs I had scratched upon them before I threw them out of the window at the time when Bishop Bonner’s henchmen were searching for me to cast me into the Tower. This time I managed to conceal my thoughts and feelings better and I asked the stranger with apparent unconcern why he had produced the spheres in such mysterious fashion and what was special about them. At this he, without a word, opened the white sphere and showed me the fine grey powder it contained. I was astonished, for the colour and texture of the materia immediately called to mind the frequent descriptions I had read of the materia transmutationis of the alchymical adepts. A whirlwind of the wildest thoughts rushed through my mind: how was it that in that night of terror before my arrest I had not found the secret of these spheres, which were so easy to unscrew?! How was it possible that I had toyed with the spheres for hours, but instead of opening them had laboriously scratched signs on the hard ivory case and then, in a dark fit of revulsion, had thrown them out of the window? Had I then, thirty years ago, held the secret of life in my hand and, like a child that casts away a jewel as a worthless pebble, in my blindness discarded this divine gift and plunged into a sea of troubles and disappointment through my misunderstanding of the meaning of “Greenland”!

  Whilst I, with my gaze fixed on the open hemisphere, remained sunk in such dark thoughts, which he presumably took for doubt and distrust, my guest carefully unscrewed the red ivory sphere and from the hollow cup shone the glow of the royal powder, the “Red Lion”! There was not for one second the possibility that I might be mistaken. I had too often read about such flaky purple granules in the best works of the old adepts to have been wrong about the nature of this material. I was almost overcome by the tangle of different thoughts that lay hold on me from all sides. I merely nodded dumbly when the stranger asked in a hoarse voice:

  “And what is your opinion of this, Dr. Dee?”

  I gathered all the strength of will I could muster and asked back:

  “How did you come to be in possession of these two spheres?”

  The stranger hesitated, then said irresolutely:

  “First I would have your opinion on the book and the spheres.”

  I answered:

  “I think that we must first test out their worth. If both live up to the promise of their appearance then it is a right royal possession.”

  My visitor mumbled something which sounded like an expression of satisfaction. then he said:

  “I am glad that you are honest. I believe you are to be trusted. You are not one of those practitioners of the black arts who seek to defraud others of their lawful gain and profit. For that reason I have come to you, for you are a gentleman and a man of honour. If you will advise me and help me we will go equ
al shares.”

  I replied that he would do well to trust me and that it was my opinion that it was worth making a trial with the book and the substances in the two spheres. After we had discussed the terms of a contract to regulate our work together and vowed to trust each other, I asked him how he had come into possession of these things. In reply he recounted the following remarkable story:

  Both book and spheres came from the grave of St. Dunstan, of that he was sure. When, thirty years ago now, the mob of the Ravenheads under their captain, a certain notorious Bartlett Greene, broke open the tomb, they found the body of the holy Bishop untouched by putrefaction, as if he had been buried that same day; the book, it was said, he held in his folded hands and the spheres were fixed to his mouth and forehead in some mysterious manner. The plundering heretics were sore disappointed to find no jewels about the corpse, as Greene had dreamed, and in their rage they had cast the body of the Bishop into the flames of the burning church. But the spheres and the book had been sold for a few pence to a Russian by the plunderers as they had no use for them.

  “Aha! Mascee!” I thought to myself and questioned my visitor with mounting excitement:

  “And you? How did they come into your possession?”

  “Before myself, the last owner of these objects was an old man, formerly a secret agent for Bloody Bishop Bonner, who died in madness many years ago. He kept a bawdy-house in London” – which, the stranger added with a cynical laugh, he had often visited and slept at. “I had seen them there and immediately decided I must have them, for I had long known that St. Deniol had been a great adept with knowledge of alchymy. And it was just in time that I managed to procure them, for in the self-same night the secret agent was – – – that is, he died all of a sudden,” the stranger swiftly corrected himself. “I learnt from a wench who resided in the bawdy-house that the old whoremaster had been charged by the Bloody Bishop to seek the spheres and the book, but that when he had discovered them he concealed his find and kept them for himself. For a time the spheres had mysteriously disappeared, but then just as mysteriously reappeared.