Chapter III

The Witch of Prague

by F. Marion Crawford

He had been deceived in supposing that he must inevitably find the
names of those he sought upon the ordinary registers which chronicle
the arrival and departure of travellers. He lost no time, he spared
no effort, driving from place to place as fast as two sturdy
Hungarian horses could take him, hurrying from one office to another,
and again and again searching endless pages and columns which seemed
full of all the names of earth, but in which he never found the one
of all others which he longed to read. The gloom in the narrow
streets was already deepening, though it was scarcely two hours after
mid-day, and the heavy air had begun to thicken with a cold gray
haze, even in the broad, straight Przikopy, the wide thoroughfare
which has taken the place and name of the moat before the ancient
fortifications, so that distant objects and figures lost the
distinctness of their outlines. Winter in Prague is but one long,
melancholy dream, broken sometimes at noon by an hour of sunshine, by
an intermittent visitation of reality, by the shock and glare of a
little broad daylight. The morning is not morning, the evening is not
evening; as in the land of the Lotus, it is ever afternoon, gray,
soft, misty, sad, save when the sun, being at his meridian height,
pierces the dim streets and sweeps the open places with low, slanting
waves of pale brightness. And yet these same dusky streets are
thronged with a moving multitude, are traversed ever by ceaseless
streams of men and women, flowing onward, silently, swiftly, eagerly.
The very beggars do not speak above a whisper, the very dogs are
dumb. The stillness of all voices leaves nothing for the perception
of the hearing save the dull thread of many thousand feet and the
rough rattle of an occasional carriage. Rarely, the harsh tones of a
peasant, or the clear voices of a knot of strangers, unused to such
oppressive silence, startle the ear, causing hundreds of eager,
half-suspicious, half-wondering eyes to turn in the direction of the
sound.

And yet Prague is a great city, the capital of the Bohemian
Crownland, the centre of a not unimportant nation, the focus in which
are concentrated the hottest, if not the brightest, rays from the
fire of regeneration kindled within the last half century by the
Slavonic race. There is an ardent furnace of life hidden beneath the
crust of ashes: there is a wonderful language behind that national
silence.

The Wanderer stood in deep thought under the shadow of the
ancient Powder Tower. Haste had no further object now, since he had
made every inquiry within his power, and it was a relief to feel the
pavement beneath his feet and to breathe the misty frozen air after
having been so long in the closeness of his carriage. He hesitated as
to what he should do, unwilling to return to Unorna and acknowledge
himself vanquished, yet finding it hard to resist his desire to try
every means, no matter how little reasonable, how evidently useless,
how puerile and revolting to his sounder sense. The street behind him
led directly towards Unorna's house. Had he found himself in a more
remote quarter, he might have come to another and a wiser conclusion.
Being so near to the house of which he was thinking, he yielded to
the temptation. Having reached this stage of resolution, his mind
began to recapitulate the events of the day, and he suddenly felt a
strong wish to revisit the church, to stand in the place where
Beatrice had stood, to touch in the marble basin beside the door the
thick ice which her fingers had touched so lately, to traverse again
the dark passages through which he had pursued her. To accomplish his
purpose he need only turn aside a few steps from the path he was now
following. He left the street almost immediately, passing under a low
arched way that opened on the right-hand side, and a moment later he
was within the walls of the Teyn Kirche.

The vast building was less gloomy than it had been in the
morning. It was not yet the hour of vespers, the funeral torches had
been extinguished, as well as most of the lights upon the high altar,
there were not a dozen persons in the church, and high up beneath the
roof broad shafts of softened sunshine, floating above the mists of
the city without, streamed through the narrow lancet windows and were
diffused in the great gloom below. The Wanderer went to the monument
of Brahe and sat down in the corner of the blackened pew. His hands
trembled a little as he clasped them upon his knee, and his head sank
slowly towards his breast.

He thought of all that might have been if he had risked
everything that morning. He could have used his strength to force a
way for himself through the press, he could have thrust the multitude
to the right and left, and he could have reached her side. Perhaps he
had been weak, indolent, timid, and he accused himself of his own
failure. But then, again, he seemed to see about him the closely
packed crowd, the sea of faces, the thick, black mass of humanity,
and he knew the tremendous power that lay in the inert, passive
resistance of a vast gathering such as had been present. Had it been
anywhere else, in a street, in a theatre, anywhere except in a
church, all would have been well. It had not been his fault, for he
knew, when he thought of it calmly, that the strength of his body
would have been but as a breath of air against the silent,
motionless, and immovable barrier presented by a thousand men,
standing shoulder to shoulder against him. He could have done
nothing. Once again his fate had defeated him at the moment of
success.

He was aware that some one was standing very near to him. He
looked up and saw a very short, gray-bearded man engaged in a minute
examination of the dark red marble face on the astronomer's tomb. The
man's head, covered with closely-cropped gray hair, was half buried
between his high, broad shoulders, in an immense collar of fur, but
the shape of the skull was so singular as to distinguish its
possessor, when hatless, from all other men. The cranium was
abnormally shaped, reaching a great elevation at the summit, then
sinking suddenly, then spreading forward to an enormous development
at the temple just visible as he was then standing, and at the same
time forming unusual protuberances behind the large and pointed ears.
No one who knew the man could mistake his head, when even the least
portion of it could be seen. The Wanderer recognised him at once.

As though he were conscious of being watched, the little man
turned sharply, exhibiting his wrinkled forehead, broad at the brows,
narrow and high in the middle, showing, too, a Socratic nose half
buried in the midst of the gray hair which grew as high as the
prominent cheek bones, and suggesting the idea of a polished ivory
ball lying in a nest of grayish wool. Indeed all that was visible of
the face above the beard might have been carved out of old ivory, so
far as the hue and quality of the surface were concerned; and if it
had been necessary to sculpture a portrait of the man, no material
could have been chosen more fitted to reproduce faithfully the deep
cutting of the features, to render the close network of the wrinkles
which covered them like the shadings of a line engraving, and at the
same time to give the whole that appearance of hardness and
smoothness which was peculiar to the clear, tough skin. The only
positive colour which relieved the half tints of the face lay in the
sharp bright eyes which gleamed beneath the busy eyebrows like tiny
patches of vivid blue sky seen through little rifts in a curtain of
cloud. All expression, all mobility, all life were concentrated in
those two points.

The Wanderer rose to his feet.

"Keyork Arabian!" he exclaimed, extending his hand. The little
man immediately gripped it in his small fingers, which, soft and
delicately made as they were, possessed a strength hardly to have
been expected either from their shape, or from the small proportions
of him to whom they belonged.

"Still wandering?" asked the little man, with a slightly
sarcastic intonation. He spoke in a deep, caressing bass, not loud,
but rich in quality and free from that jarring harshness which often
belongs to very manly voices. A musician would have discovered that
the pitch was that of those Russian choristers whose deep throats
yield organ tones, a full octave below the compass of ordinary
singers in other lands.

"You must have wandered, too, since we last met," replied the
taller man.

"I never wander," said Keyork. "When a man knows what he wants,
knows where it is to be found, and goes thither to take it, he is not
wandering. Moreover, I have no thought of removing myself or my goods
from Prague. I live here. It is a city for old men. It is saturnine.
The foundations of its houses rest on the silurian formation, which
is more than can be said for any other capital, as far as I know."

"Is that an advantage?" inquired the Wanderer.

"To my mind. I would say to my son, if I had one--my thanks to a
blind but intelligent destiny for preserving me from such a
calamity!--I would say to him, 'Spend thy youth among flowers in the
land where they are brightest and sweetest; pass thy manhood in all
lands where man strives with man, thought for thought, blow for blow;
choose for thine old age that spot in which, all things being old,
thou mayest for the longest time consider thyself young in comparison
with thy surroundings.' A man can never feel old if he contemplates
and meditates upon those things only which are immeasurably older
than himself. Moreover the imperishable can preserve the
perishable."

"It was not your habit to talk of death when we were
together."

"I have found it interesting of late years. The subject is
connected with one of my inventions. Did you ever embalm a body? No?
I could tell you something singular about the newest process."

"What is the connection?"

"I am embalming myself, body and mind. It is but an experiment,
and unless it succeeds it must be the last. Embalming, as it is now
understood, means substituting one thing for another. Very good. I am
trying to purge from my mind its old circulating medium; the new
thoughts must all be selected from a class which admits of no decay.
Nothing could be simpler."

"It seems to me that nothing could be more vague."

"You were not formerly so slow to understand me," said the
strange little man with some impatience.

"Do you know a lady of Prague who calls herself Unorna?" the
Wanderer asked, paying no attention to his friend's last remark.

"I do. What of her?" Keyork Arabian glanced keenly at his
companion.

"What is she? She has an odd name."

"As for her name, it is easily accounted for. She was born on
the twenty-ninth day of February, the year of her birth being
bisextile. Unor means February, Unorna, derivative adjective,
'belonging to February.' Some one gave her the name to commemorate
the circumstance."

"Her parents, I suppose."

"Most probably--whoever they may have been."

"And what is she?" the Wanderer asked.

"She calls herself a witch," answered Keyork with considerable
scorn. "I do not know what she is, or what to call her--a sensitive,
an hysterical subject, a medium, a witch--a fool, if you like, or a
charlatan if you prefer the term. Beautiful she is, at least,
whatever else she may not be."

"Yes, she is beautiful."

"So you have seen her, have you?" The little man again looked
sharply up at his tall companion. "You have had a
consultation----"

"Does she give consultations? Is she a professional seer?" The
Wanderer asked the question in a tone of surprise. "Do you mean that
she maintains an establishment upon such a scale out of the proceeds
of fortune-telling?"

"I do not mean anything of the sort. Fortune-telling is
excellent! Very good!" Keyork's bright eyes flashed with amusement.
"What are you doing here--I mean in this church?" He put the question
suddenly.

"Pursuing--an idea, if you please to call it so."

"Not knowing what you mean I must please to call your meaning by
your own name for it. It is your nature to be enigmatic. Shall we go
out? If I stay here much longer I shall be petrified instead of
embalmed. I shall turn into dirty old red marble like Tycho's effigy
there, an awful warning to future philosophers, and an example for
the edification of the faithful who worship here."

They walked towards the door, and the contrast between the
appearance of the two brought the ghost of a smile to the thin lips
of the pale sacristan, who was occupied in renewing the tapers upon
one of the side altars. Keyork Arabian might have stood for the
portrait of the gnome-king. His high and pointed head, his immense
beard, his stunted but powerful and thickset limbs, his short, sturdy
strides, the fiery, half-humorous, half-threatening twinkle of his
bright eyes gave him all the appearance of a fantastic figure from a
fairy tale, and the diminutive height of his compact frame set off
the noble stature and graceful motion of his companion.

"So you were pursuing an idea," said the little man as they
emerged into the narrow street. "Now ideas may be divided variously
into classes, as, for instance, ideas which are good, bad, or
indifferent. Or you may contrast the idea of Plato with ideas
anything but platonic --take it as you please. Then there is my idea,
which is in itself, good, interesting, and worthy of the embalming
process; and there is your idea, which I am human enough to consider
altogether bad, worthless, and frivolous, for the plain and
substantial reason that it is not mine. Perhaps that is the best
division of all. Thine eye is necessarily, fatally, irrevocably evil,
because mine is essentially, predestinately, and unchangeably good.
If I secretly adopt your idea, I openly assert that it was never
yours at all, but mine from the beginning, by the prerogatives of
greater age, wider experience, and immeasurably superior wisdom. If
you have an idea upon any subject, I will utterly annihilate it to my
own most profound satisfaction; if you have none concerning any
special point, I will force you to accept mine, as mine, or to die
the intellectual death. That is the general theory of the idea."

"And what does it prove?" inquired the Wanderer.

"If you knew anything," answered Keyork, with twinkling eyes,
"you would know that a theory is not a demonstration, but an
explanation. But, by the hypothesis, since you are not I, you can
know nothing certainly. Now my theory explains many things, and,
among others, the adamantine, imperishable, impenetrable nature of
the substance vanity upon which the showman, Nature, projects in fast
fading colours the unsubstantial images of men. Why do you drag me
through this dismal passage?"

"I passed through it this morning and missed my way."

"In pursuit of the idea, of course. That was to be expected.
Prague is constructed on the same principle as the human brain, full
of winding ways, dark lanes, and gloomy arches, all of which may lead
somewhere, or may not. Its topography continually misleads its
inhabitants as the convolutions of the brain mislead the thoughts
that dwell there, sometimes bringing them out at last, after a
patient search for daylight, upon a fine broad street where the
newest fashions in thought are exposed for sale in brightly
illuminated shop windows and showcases; conducting them sometimes to
the dark, unsavoury court where the miserable self drags out its
unhealthy existence in the single room of its hired earthly
lodging."

"The self which you propose to preserve from corruption,"
observed the tall man, who was carefully examining every foot of the
walls between which he was passing with his companion, "since you
think so poorly of the lodger and the lodging, I wonder that you
should be anxious to prolong the sufferings of the one and his lease
of the other."

"It is all I have," answered Keyork Arabian. "Did you think of
that?"

"That circumstance may serve as an excuse, but it does not
constitute a reason."

"Not a reason! Is the most abject poverty a reason for throwing
away the daily crust? My self is all I have. Shall I let it perish
when an effort may preserve it from destruction? On the one side of
the line stands Keyork Arabian, on the other floats the shadow of an
annihilation, which threatens to swallow up Keyork's self, while
leaving all that he has borrowed of life to be enjoyed, or wasted by
others. Could Keyork be expected to hesitate, so long as he may hope
to remain in possession of that inestimable treasure, his own
individuality, which is his only means for enjoying all that is not
his, but borrowed?"

"So soon as you speak of enjoyment, argument ceases," answered
the Wanderer.

"You are wrong, as usual," returned the other. "It is the other
way. Enjoyment is the universal solvent of all arguments. No reason
can resist its mordant action. It will dissolve any philosophy not
founded upon it and modelled out of its substance, as Aqua Regia will
dissolve all metals, even to gold itself. Enjoyment? Enjoyment is the
protest of reality against the tyranny of fiction."

The little man stopped short in his walk, striking his heavy
stick sharply upon the pavement and looking up at his companion, very
much as a man of ordinary size looks up at the face of a colossal
statue.

"Have wisdom and study led you no farther than that
conclusion?"

Keyork's eyes brightened suddenly, and a peal of laughter, deep
and rich, broke from his sturdy breast and rolled long echoes through
the dismal lane, musical as a hunting-song heard among great trees in
winter. But his ivory features were not discomposed, though his white
beard trembled and waved softly like a snowy veil blown about by the
wind.

"If wisdom can teach how to prolong the lease, what study can be
compared with that of which the results may beautify the dwelling?
What more can any man do for himself than make himself happy? The
very question is absurd. What are you trying to do for yourself at
the present moment? Is it for the sake of improving the physical
condition or of promoting the moral case of mankind at large that you
are dragging me through the slums and byways and alleys of the
gloomiest city on this side of eternal perdition? It is certainly not
for my welfare that you are sacrificing yourself. You admit that you
are pursuing an idea. Perhaps you are in search of some new and
curious form of mildew, and when you have found it--or something
else--you will name your discovery Fungus Pragensis, or Cryptogamus
minor Errantis--'the Wanderer's toadstool.' But I know you of old, my
good friend. The idea you pursue is not an idea at all, but that
specimen of the genus homo known as 'woman,' species 'lady,' variety
'true love,' vulgar designation 'sweetheart.'"

The Wanderer stared coldly at his companion.

"The vulgarity of the designation is indeed only equalled by
that of your taste in selecting it," he said slowly. Then he turned
away, intending to leave Keyork standing where he was.

But the little man had already repented of his speech. He ran
quickly to his friend's side and laid one hand upon his arm. The
Wanderer paused and again looked down.

"Is it of any use to be offended with my speeches? Am I an
acquaintance of yesterday? Do you imagine that it could ever be my
intention to annoy you?" the questions were asked rapidly in tones of
genuine anxiety.

"Indeed, I hardly know how I could suppose that. You have always
been friendly--but I confess--your names for things are
not--always----"

The Wanderer did not complete the sentence, but looked gravely
at Keyork as though wishing to convey very clearly again what he had
before expressed in words.

"If we were fellow-countrymen and had our native language in
common, we should not so easily misunderstand one another," replied
the other. "Come, forgive my lack of skill, and do not let us
quarrel. Perhaps I can help you. You may know Prague well, but I know
it better. Will you allow me to say that I know also whom it is you
are seeking here?"

"Yes. You know. I have not changed since we last met, nor have
circumstances favoured me."

"Tell me--have you really seen this Unorna, and talked with
her?"

"This morning."

"And she could not help you?"

"I refused to accept her help, until I had done all that was in
my own power to do."

"You were rash. And have you now done all, and failed?"

"I have."

"Then, if you will accept a humble suggestion from me, you will
go back to her at once."

"I know very little of her. I do not altogether trust her--"

"Trust! Powers of Eblis--or any other powers! Who talks of
trust? Does the wise man trust himself? Never. Then how can he dare
trust any one else?"

"Your cynical philosophy again!" exclaimed the Wanderer.

"Philosophy? I am a mysosophist! All wisdom is vanity, and I
hate it! Autology is my study, autosophy my ambition, autonomy my
pride. I am the great Panegoist, the would-be Conservator of Self,
the inspired prophet of the Universal I. I--I--I! My creed has but
one word, and that word but one letter, that letter represents Unity,
and Unity is Strength. I am I, one, indivisible, central! O I! Hail
and live for ever!"

Again the little man's rich bass voice rang out in mellow
laughter. A very faint smile appeared upon his companion's sad
face.

"You are happy, Keyork," he said. "You must be, since you can
laugh at yourself so honestly."

"At myself? Vain man! I am laughing at you, and at every one
else, at everything except myself. Will you go to Unorna? You need
not trust her any more than the natural infirmity of your judgment
suggests."

"Can you tell me nothing more of her? Do you know her well?"

"She does not offer her help to every one. You would have done
well to accept it in the first instance. You may not find her in the
same humour again."

"I had supposed from what you said of her that she made a
profession of clairvoyance, or hypnotism, or mesmerism--whatever may
be the right term nowadays."

"It matters very little," answered Keyork, gravely. "I used to
wonder at Adam's ingenuity in naming all living things, but I think
he would have made but a poor figure in a tournament of modern
terminologists. No. Unorna does not accept remuneration for her help
when she vouchsafes to give it."

"And yet I was introduced to her presence without even giving my
name."

"That is her fancy. She will see any one who wishes to see her,
beggar, gentleman, or prince. But she only answers such questions as
she pleases to answer."

"That is to say, inquiries for which she is already prepared
with a reply," suggested the Wanderer.

"See for yourself. At all events, she is a very interesting
specimen. I have never known any one like her."

Keyork Arabian was silent, as though he were reflecting upon
Unorna's character and peculiar gifts, before describing them to his
friend. His ivory features softened almost imperceptibly, and his
sharp blue eyes suddenly lost their light, as though they no longer
saw the outer world. But the Wanderer cared for none of these things,
and bestowed no attention upon his companion's face. He preferred the
little man's silence to his wild talk, but he was determined, if
possible, to extract some further information concerning Unorna, and
before many seconds had elapsed he interrupted Keyork's meditations
with a question.

"You tell me to see for myself," he said. "I would like to know
what I am to expect. Will you not enlighten me?"

"What?" asked the other vaguely, as though roused from sleep.

"If I go to Unorna and ask a consultation of her, as though she
were a common somnambulist, and if she deigns to place her powers at
my disposal what sort of assistance shall I most probably get?"

They had been walking slowly forward, and Keyork again stopped,
rapping the pavement with his iron-shod stick, and looking up from
under his bushy, overhanging eyebrows.

"Of two things, one will happen," he answered. "Either she will
herself fall into the abnormal state and will answer correctly any
questions you put to her, or she will hypnotise you, and you will
yourself see--what you wish to see."

"I myself?"

"You yourself. The peculiarity of the woman is her duality, her
double power. She can, by an act of volition, become hypnotic,
clairvoyant-- whatever you choose to call it. Or, if her visitor is
at all sensitive, she can reverse the situation and play the part of
the hypnotiser. I never heard of a like case."

"After all, I do not see why it should not be so," said the
Wanderer thoughtfully. "At all events, whatever she can do, is
evidently done by hypnotism, and such extraordinary experiments have
succeeded of late--"

"I did not say that there was nothing but hypnotism in her
processes."

"What then? Magic?" The Wanderer's lip curled scornfully.

"I do not know," replied the little man, speaking slowly.
"Whatever her secret may be, she keeps it, even when speaking in
sleep. This I can tell you. I suspect that there is some other being,
or person, in that queer old house of hers whom she consults on grave
occasions. At a loss for an answer to a difficult scientific
question, I have known her to leave the room and to come back in the
course of a few minutes with a reply which I am positive she could
never have framed herself."

"She may have consulted books," suggested the Wanderer.

"I am an old man," said Keyork Arabian suddenly. "I am a very
old man; there are not many books which I have not seen and partially
read at one time or at another, and my memory is surprisingly good. I
have excellent reasons for believing that her information is not got
from anything that was ever written or printed."

"May I ask of what general nature your questions were?" inquired
the other, more interested than he had hitherto been in the
conversation.

"They referred to the principles of embalmment."

"Much has been written about that since the days of the
Egyptians."

"The Egyptians!" exclaimed Keyork with great scorn. "They
embalmed their dead after a fashion. Did you ever hear that they
embalmed the living?" The little man's eyes shot fire.

"No, nor will I believe in any such outrageous impossibilities!
If that is all, I have little faith in Unorna's mysterious
counsellor."

"The faith which removes mountains is generally gained by
experience when it is gained at all, and the craving for explanation
takes the place, in some minds, of a willingness to learn. It is not
my business to find explanations, nor to raise my little self to your
higher level, by standing upon this curbstone, in order to deliver a
lecture in the popular form, upon matters that interest me. It is
enough that I have found what I wanted. Go and do likewise. See for
yourself. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You are
unhappy, and unhappiness is dangerous, in rare cases fatal. If you
tell me to-morrow that Unorna is a charlatan, you will be in no worse
plight than to-day, nor will your opinion of her influence mine. If
she helps you to find what you want--so much the better for you--how
much the better, and how great the risk you run, are questions for
your judgment."

"I will go," answered the Wanderer, after a moment's
hesitation.

"Very good," said Keyork Arabian. "If you want to find me again,
come to my lodging. Do you know the house of the Black Mother of
God?"

"Yes--there is a legend about a Spanish picture of our Lady once
preserved there--"

"Exactly, it takes its name from that black picture. It is on
the corner of the Fruit Market, over against the window at which the
Princess Windischgratz was shot. I live in the upper story.
Good-bye."

"Good-bye."