The Witch of Cologne

‘Or speak softly in Latin. It is a tongue you know, I believe?’

‘A tongue I know and love,’ she murmurs in that language.

‘Was it to study such ideas that you abandoned your mother country for Holland?’

‘It was a natural curiosity.’

‘Really? I have always been taught that in a woman the desire for knowledge is not natural, that the female role is confined to that of nurturer, and sometimes to commerce—but perhaps my teachers were wrong.’

‘Evidently. For I am a woman and yet I have complete comprehension of many of the new philosophers.’

He laughs, delighted. She smiles with him. Again the flare of desire licks at his groin. Imbued with new confidence he moves closer.

‘Tell me of Spinoza, what kind of man is he?’

She breathes in sharply: he has stepped over a boundary. Sensing that his interest is personal, she wonders what he wants from her—a confession that will condemn her or a genuine insight into the reclusive philosopher? Why should a canon of the cathedral take an interest in a Jewish heretic who has been excommunicated from his own people? Unless to entrap her.

‘Why do you wish to know, pray? For your own interest or for that of the emperor?’

‘I may appear a puppet but from this moment the strings are cut. You may trust me.’

‘Trust is won not given.’

‘I saved your life.’

‘You merely delayed my execution.’

‘I sincerely hope not. Fräulein, I assure you, you may confide in me. I swear on the Holy Bible itself: I will not betray you.’

‘A grave pledge indeed. Does this man interest you so much?’

‘He fascinates me. I believe he may hold the key to a bridge between two worlds: the old order I belong to and a new one that could be the future.’

She shifts her weight and rests her head briefly on her hand.

‘Deus sive natura: the natural world is God; God is the natural world. All that lies within it makes up an infinite divine substance that possesses infinite forms of phenomena—this is Spinoza’s belief. Amor intellectualis Dei: the intellectual love of God. If we can achieve this, we will always feel part of the divine substance.’

‘Your mentor is a hard taskmaster. Are you able to rein in your own passion and drive to surrender to such an arid system of belief? Would it not be easier to draw comfort from the old ways of your own religion?’

‘Canon, I am foremost a thinker. I know too much to retreat down the path of ignorance and mysticism. Spinoza’s God sits comfortably with what I have experienced through my own observations.’

‘You are a most unusual woman. I have not met a creature like you.’

‘Forgive me my eccentricities; do not condemn me to death for them.’

Outside, the town crier sounds ten o’clock and the hailstorm stops as quickly as it started. Somewhere a door slams. Detlef has the feeling that he will remember this moment always: the shape of her hands; the way the light from the fire curls around one side of her face; the lilt of her voice, gentle but deep and so musical it is hard for him to focus on her words; the clarity of her very presence which cuts straight to the protector within him. All these impressions culminate to make everything appear infinitely more brilliant.

Secretly overwhelmed, Detlef is at a loss for words. He is content just to be there with her, to drink in her nearness, the light shining off her black hair, as time melts away.

‘I saw nothing.’ Ruth breaks the silence.

Detlef looks up, perplexed by the reference.

‘When I was drowning I saw nothing—no angel of death, no Holy Spirit. For a moment I thought I saw my mother, but it was trickery, merely the mind abandoning conscious thought.’ But her voice sounds uncertain.

‘How can you live without faith?’

‘You are wrong, Canon, I have faith. I fight to have faith in nature, in knowledge and, despite all, in the goodwill of mankind.’