Chapter XXIII

The Witch of Prague

by F. Marion Crawford

The Wanderer was not inclined to deny the statement which accorded
well enough with his total disbelief of the story Unorna had told
him. But he did not answer her immediately, for he found himself in a
very difficult position. He would neither do anything in the least
discourteous beyond admitting frankly that he had not believed her,
when she taxed him with incredulity; nor would say anything which
might serve her as a stepping-stone for returning to the original
situation. He was, perhaps, inclined to blame her somewhat less than
at first, and her changed manner in speaking of Kafka somewhat
encouraged his leniency. A man will forgive, or at least condone,
much harshness to others when he is thoroughly aware that it has been
exhibited out of love for himself; and a man of the Wanderer's
character cannot help feeling a sort of chivalrous respect and
delicate forbearance for a woman who loves him sincerely, though
against his will, while he will avoid with an almost exaggerated
prudence the least word which could be interpreted as an expression
of reciprocal tenderness. He runs the risk, at the same time, of
being thrust into the ridiculous position of the man who, though
young, assumes the manner and speech of age and delivers himself of
grave, paternal advice to one who looks upon him, not as an elder,
but as her chosen mate.

After Unorna had spoken, the Wanderer, therefore, held his
peace. He inclined his head a little, as though to admit that her
plea of madness might not be wholly imaginary; but he said nothing.
He sat looking at Israel Kafka's sleeping face and outstretched form,
inwardly wondering whether the hours would seem very long before
Keyork Arabian returned in the morning and put an end to the
situation. Unorna waited in vain for some response, and at last spoke
again.

"Yes," she said, "I was mad. You cannot understand it. I daresay
you cannot even understand how I can speak of it now, and yet I
cannot help speaking."

Her manner was more natural and quiet than it had been since the
moment of Kafka's appearance in the cemetery. The Wanderer noticed
the tone. There was an element of real sadness in it, with a leaven
of bitter disappointment and a savour of heartfelt contrition. She
was in earnest now, as she had been before, but in a different way.
He could hardly refuse her a word in answer.

"Unorna," he said gravely, "remember that you are leaving me no
choice. I cannot leave you alone with that poor fellow, and so,
whatever you wish to say, I must hear. But it would be much better to
say nothing about what has happened this evening--better for you and
for me. Neither men nor women always mean exactly what they say. We
are not angels. Is it not best to let the matter drop?"

Unorna listened quietly, her eyes upon his face.

"You are not so hard with me as you were," she said
thoughtfully, after a moment's hesitation, and there was a touch of
gratitude in her voice. As she felt the dim possibility of a return
to her former relations of friendship with him, Beatrice and the
scene in the church seemed to be very far away. Again the Wanderer
found it difficult to answer.

"It is not for me to be hard, as you call it," he said quietly.
There was a scarcely perceptible smile on his face, brought there not
by any feeling of satisfaction, but by his sense of his own almost
laughable perplexity. He saw that he was very near being driven to
the ridiculous necessity of giving her some advice of the paternal
kind. "It is not for me, either, to talk to you of what you have done
to Israel Kafka to-day," he confessed. "Do not oblige me to say
anything about it. It will be much safer. You know it all better than
I do, and you understand your own reasons, as I never can. If you are
sorry for him now, so much the better--you will not hurt him any more
if you can help it. If you will say that much about the future I
shall be very glad, I confess."

"Do you think that there is anything which I will not do--if you
ask it?" Unorna asked very earnestly.

"I do not know," the Wanderer answered, trying to seem to ignore
the meaning conveyed by her tone. "Some things are harder to do than
others----"

"Ask me the hardest!" she exclaimed. "Ask me to tell you the
whole truth----"

"No," he said firmly, in the hope of checking an outburst of
passionate speech. "What you have thought and done is no concern of
mine. If you have done anything that you are sorry for, without my
knowledge, I do not wish to know of it. I have seen you do many good
and kind acts during the last month, and I would rather leave those
memories untouched as far as possible. You may have had an object in
doing them which in itself was bad. I do not care. The deeds were
good. Take credit for them and let me give you credit for them. That
will do neither of us any harm."

"I could tell you--if you would let me--"

"Do not tell me," he interrupted. "I repeat that I do not wish
to know. The one thing that I have seen is bad enough. Let that be
all. Do you not see that? Besides, I am myself the cause of it in a
measure --unwilling enough, Heaven knows!"

"The only cause," said Unorna bitterly.

"Then I am in some way responsible. I am not quite without
blame--we men never are in such cases. If I reproach you, I must
reproach myself as well--"

"Reproach yourself!--ah no! What can you say against yourself?"
she could not keep the love out of her voice, if she would; her
bitterness had been for herself.

"I will not go into that," he answered. "I am to blame in one
way or another. Let us say no more about it. Will you let the matter
rest?"

"And let bygones be bygones, and be friends to each other, as we
were this morning?" she asked, with a ray of hope.

The Wanderer was silent for a few seconds. His difficulties were
increasing. A while ago he had told her, as an excuse for herself,
that men and women did not always mean exactly what they said, and
even now he did not set himself up in his own mind as an exception to
the rule. Very honourable and truthful men do not act upon any set of
principles in regard to truth and honour. Their instinctively brave
actions and naturally noble truthfulness make those principles which
are held up to the unworthy for imitation, by those whose business is
the teaching of what is good. The Wanderer's only hesitation lay
between answering the question or not answering it.

"Shall we be friends again?" Unorna asked a second time, in a
low tone. "Shall we go back to the beginning?"

"I do not see how that is possible," he answered slowly.

Unorna was not like him, and did not understand such a nature as
his as she understood Keyork Arabian. She had believed that he would
at least hold out some hope.

"You might have spared me that!" she said, turning her face
away. There were tears in her voice.

A few hours earlier his answer would have brought fire to her
eyes and anger to her voice. But a real change had come over her, not
lasting, perhaps, but strong in its immediate effects.

"Not even a little friendship left?" she said, breaking the
silence that followed.

"I cannot change myself," he answered, almost wishing that he
could. "I ought, perhaps," he added, as though speaking to himself.
"I have done enough harm as it is."

"Harm? To whom?" She looked round suddenly and he saw the
moisture in her eyes.

"To him," he replied, glancing at Kafka, "and to you. You loved
him once. I have ruined his life."

"Loved him? No--I never loved him." She shook her head,
wondering whether she spoke the truth.

"You must have made him think so."

"I? No--he is mad." But she shrank before his honest look, and
suddenly broke down. "No--I will not lie to you--you are too true--
yes, I loved him, or I thought I did, until you came, and I saw that
there was no one----"

But she checked herself, as she felt the blood rising to her
cheeks. She could blush still, and still be ashamed. Even she was not
all bad, now that she was calm and that the change had come over
her.

"You see," the Wanderer said gently, "I am to blame for it
all."

"For it all? No--not for the thousandth part of it all. What
blame have you in being what you are? Blame God in Heaven--for making
such a man. Blame me for what you know; blame me for all that you
will not let me tell you. Blame Kafka for his mad belief in me and
Keyork Arabian for the rest--but do not blame yourself--oh, no! Not
that!"

"Do not talk like that, Unorna," he said. "Be just first."

"What is justice?" she asked. Then she turned her head away
again. "If you knew what justice means for me--you would not ask me
to be just. You would be more merciful."

"You exaggerate----" He spoke kindly, but she interrupted
him.

"No. You do not know, that is all. And you can never guess.
There is only one man living who could imagine such things as I have
done--and tried to do. He is Keyork Arabian. But he would have been
wiser than I, perhaps."

She relapsed into silence. Before her rose the dim altar in the
church, the shadowy figure of Beatrice standing up in the dark, the
horrible sacrilege that was to have been done. Her face grew dark
with fear of her own soul. The Wanderer went so far as to try and
distract her from her gloomy thoughts, out of pure kindness of
heart.

"I am no theologian," he said, "but I fancy that in the long
reckoning the intention goes for more than the act."

"The intention!" she cried, looking back with a start. "If that
be true----"

With a shudder she buried her face in her two hands, pressing
them to her eyes as though to blind them to some awful sight. Then,
with a short struggle, she turned to him again.

"There is no forgiveness for me in Heaven," she said. "Shall
there be none on earth! Not even a little, from you to me?"

"There is no question of forgiveness between you and me. You
have not injured me, but Israel Kafka. Judge for yourself which of us
two, he or I, has anything to forgive. I am to-day what I was
yesterday and may be to-morrow. He lies there, dying of his love for
you, if ever a man died for love. And as though that were not enough,
you have tortured him--well, I will not speak of it. But that is all.
I know nothing of the deeds, or intentions, of which you accuse
yourself. You are tired, overwrought, worn out with all this--what
shall I say? It is natural enough, I suppose--"

"You say there is no question of forgiveness," she said,
interrupting him, but speaking more calmly. "What is it then? What is
the real question? If you have nothing to forgive why can we not be
friends as we were before?"

"There is something besides that needed. It is not enough that
of two people neither should have injured the other. You have broken
something, destroyed something--I cannot mend it. I wish I could."

"You wish you could?" she repeated earnestly.

"I wish that the thing had not been done. I wish that I had not
seen what I saw to-day. We should be where we were this morning--and
he perhaps would not be here."

"It must have come some day," Unorna said. "He must have seen
that I loved--that I loved you. Is there any use in not speaking
plainly now? Then at some other time, in some other place, he would
have done what he did, and I should have been angry and cruel--for it
is my nature to be cruel when I am angry, and to be angry easily, at
that. Men talk so easily of self-control, and self-command and
dignity, and self- respect! They have not loved--that is all. I am
not angry now, nor cruel. I am sorry for what I did, and I would undo
it, if deeds were knots and wishes deeds. I am sorry, beyond all
words to tell you. How poor it sounds now that I have said it! You do
not even believe me."

"You are wrong. I know that you are in earnest."

"How do you know?" she asked bitterly. "Have I never lied to
you? If you believed me, you would forgive me. If you forgave me,
your friendship would come back. I cannot even swear to you that I am
telling the truth. Heaven would not be my witness now if I told a
thousand truths, each truer than the last."

"I have nothing to forgive," the Wanderer said, almost wearily.
"I have told you so, you have not injured me, but him."

"But if it meant a whole world to me--no, for I am nothing to
you--but if it cost you nothing, but the little breath that can carry
the three words--would you say it? Is it much to say? Is it like
saying, I love you, or, I honour you, respect you? It is so little,
and would mean so much."

"To me it can mean nothing, unless you ask me to forgive you
deeds of which I know nothing. And then it means still less to
me."

"Will you say it, only say the three words once?"

"I forgive you," said the Wanderer quietly. It cost him nothing,
and, to him, meant less.

Unorna bent her head and was silent. It was something to have
heard him say it though he could not guess the least of the sins
which she made it include. She herself hardly knew why she had so
insisted. Perhaps it was only the longing to hear words kind in
themselves, if not in tone, nor in his meaning of them. Possibly,
too, she felt a dim presentiment of her coming end, and would take
with her that infinitesimal grain of pardon to the state in which she
hoped for no other forgiveness.

"It was good of you to say it," she said at last.

A long silence followed during which the thoughts of each went
their own way. Suddenly Israel Kafka stirred in his sleep. The
Wanderer went quickly forward and knelt down beside him and arranged
the silken pillow as best he could. Unorna was on the other side
almost as soon. With a tenderness of expression and touch which
nothing can describe she moved the sleeping head into a comfortable
position and smoothed the cushion, and drew up the furs disturbed by
the nervous hands. The Wanderer let her have her way. When she had
finished their eyes met. He could not tell whether she was asking his
approval and a word of encouragement, but he withheld neither.

"You are very gentle with him. He would thank you if he
could."

"Did you not tell me to be kind to him?" she said. "I am keeping
my word. But he would not thank me. He would kill me if he were
awake."

The Wanderer shook his head.

"He was ill and mad with pain," he answered. "He did not know
what he was doing. When he wakes, it will be different."

Unorna rose, and the Wanderer followed her.

"You cannot believe that I care," she said, as she resumed her
seat. "He is not you. My soul would not be the nearer to peace for a
word of his."

For a long time she sat quite still, her hands lying idly in her
lap, her head bent wearily as though she bore a heavy burden.

"Can you not rest?" the Wanderer asked at length. "I can watch
alone."

"No. I cannot rest. I shall never rest again."

The words came slowly, as though spoken to herself.

"Do you bid me go?" she asked after a time, looking up and
seeing his eyes fixed on her.

"Bid you go? In your own house?" The tone was one of ordinary
courtesy. Unorna smiled sadly.

"I would rather you struck me than that you spoke to me like
that!" she exclaimed. "You have no need of such civil forbearance
with me. If you bid me go, I will go. If you bid me stay, I will not
move. Only speak frankly. Say which you would prefer."

"Then stay," said the Wanderer simply.

She bowed her head slightly and was silent again. A distant
clock chimed the hour. The morning was slowly drawing near.

"And you," said Unorna, looking up at the sound. "Will you not
rest? Why should you not sleep?"

"I am not tired."

"You do not trust me, I think," she answered sadly. "And yet you
might --you might." Her voice died away dreamily.

"Trust you to watch that poor man? Indeed I do. You were not
acting just now, when you touched him so tenderly. You are in
earnest. You will be kind to him, and I thank you for it."

"And you yourself? Do you fear nothing from me, if you should
sleep before my eyes? Do you not fear that in your unconsciousness I
might touch you and make you more unconscious still and make you
dream dreams and see visions?"

The Wanderer looked at her and smiled incredulously, partly out
of scorn for the imaginary danger, and partly because something told
him that she had changed and would not attempt any of her witchcraft
upon him.

"No," he answered. "I am not afraid of that."

"You are right," she said gravely. "My sins are enough already.
The evil is sufficient. Do as you will. If you can sleep, then sleep
in peace. If you will watch, watch with me."

Then neither spoke again. Unorna bent her head as she had done
before. The Wanderer leaned back resting comfortably against the
cushion of the high carved chair, his eyes directed towards the place
where Israel Kafka lay. The air was warm, the scent of the flowers
sweet but not heavy. The silence was intense, for even the little
fountain was still. He had watched almost all night and his eyelids
drooped. He forgot Unorna and thought only of the sick man, trying to
fix his attention on the pale head as it lay under the bright
light.

When Unorna looked up at last she saw that he was asleep. At
first she was surprised, in spite of what she had said to him half an
hour earlier, for she herself could not have closed her eyes, and
felt that she could never close them again. Then she sighed. It was
but one proof more of his supreme indifference. He had not even cared
to speak to her, and if she had not constantly spoken to him
throughout the hours they had passed together he would perhaps have
been sleeping long before now.

And yet she feared to wake him and was almost glad that he was
unconscious. In the solitude she could gaze on him to her heart's
desire, she could let her eyes look their fill, and no one could say
her nay. He must be very tired, she thought, and she vaguely wondered
why she felt no bodily weariness, when her soul was so heavy.

She sat still and watched him. It might be the last time, she
thought, for who could tell what would happen to-morrow? She
shuddered as she thought of it all. What would Beatrice do? What
would Sister Paul say? How much would she tell of what she had seen?
How much had she really seen which she could tell clearly? There were
terrible possibilities in the future if all were known. Such deeds,
and even the attempt at such deeds as she had tried to do, could be
judged by the laws of the land, she might be brought to trial, if she
lived, as a common prisoner, and held up to the execration of the
world in all her shame and guilt. But death would be worse than that.
As she thought of that other Judgment, she grew dizzy with horror as
she had been when the idea had first entered her brain.

Then she was conscious that she was again looking at the
Wanderer as he lay back asleep in his tall chair. The pale and noble
face expressed the stainless soul and the manly character. She saw in
it the peace she had lost, and yet knew that through him she had lost
her peace for ever.

It was perhaps the last time. Never again, perhaps, after the
morning had broken, should she look on what she loved best on earth.
She would be gone, ruined, dead perhaps. And he? He would be still
himself. He would remember her half carelessly, half in wonder, as a
woman who had once been almost his friend. That would be all that
would be left in him of her, beyond a memory of the repulsion he had
felt for her deeds.

She fancied she could have met the worst in the future less
hopelessly if he could have remembered her a little more kindly when
all was over. Even now, it might be in her power to cast a veil upon
the pictures in his mind. But the mere thought was horrible to her,
though a few hours before she had hardly trembled at the doing of a
frightful sacrilege. In that short time the humiliation of failure,
the realisation of what she had almost done, above all the
ever-rising tide of a real and passionate love, had swept away many
familiar landmarks in her thoughts, and had turned much to lead which
had once seemed brighter than gold. She hated the very idea of using
again those arts which had so directly wrought her utter destruction.
But she longed to know that in the world whither he would doubtless
go to-morrow he would bear with him one kind memory of her, one
natural friendly thought not grafted upon his mind by her power, but
growing of its own self in his inmost heart. Only a friendly
memory--nothing more than that.

She rose noiselessly and came to his side and looked down into
his face. Very long she stood there, motionless as a statue,
beautiful as a mourning angel.

It was so little that she asked. It was so little compared with
all she had hoped, or in comparison with all she had demanded, so
little in respect of what she had given. For she had given her soul.
And in return she asked only for one small kindly thought when all
should be over.

She bent down as she stood and touched his cool forehead with
her lips.

"Sleep on, my beloved," she said in a voice that murmured softly
and sadly.

She started a little at what she had done, and drew back, half
afraid, like an innocent girl. But as though he had obeyed her words,
he seemed to sleep more deeply still. He must be very tired, she
thought, to sleep like that, but she was thankful that the soft kiss,
the first and last, had not waked him.

"Sleep on," she said again in a whisper scarcely audible to
herself. "Forget Unorna, if you cannot think of her mercifully and
kindly. Sleep on, you have the right to rest, and I can never rest
again. You have forgiven--forget, too, then, unless you can remember
better things of me than I have deserved in your memory. Let her take
her kingdom back. It was never mine--remember what you will, forget
at least the wrong I did, and forgive the wrong you never knew--for
you will know it surely some day. Ah, love--I love you so--dream but
one dream, and let me think I take her place. She never loved you
more than I, she never can. She would not have done what I have done.
Dream only that I am Beatrice for this once. Then when you wake you
will not think so cruelly of me. Oh, that I might be she--and you
your loving self--that I might be she for one day in thought and
word, in deed and voice, in face and soul! Dear love--you would never
know it, yet I should know that you had had one loving thought for
me. You would forget. It would not matter then to you, for you would
have only dreamed, and I should have the certainty--for ever, to take
with me always!"

As though the words carried a meaning with them to his sleeping
senses, a look of supreme and almost heavenly happiness stole over
his sleeping face. But Unorna could not see it. She had turned
suddenly away, burying her face in her hands upon the back of her own
chair.

"Are there no miracles left in Heaven?" she moaned, half
whispering lest she should wake him. "Is there no miracle of deeds
undone again and of forgiveness given--for me? God! God! That we
should be for ever what we make ourselves!"

There were no tears in her eyes now, as there had been twice
that night. In her despair, that fountain of relief, shallow always
and not apt to overflow, was dried up and scorched with pain. And,
for the time at least, worse things were gone from her, though she
suffered more. As though some portion of her passionate wish had been
fulfilled, she felt that she could never do again what she had done;
she felt that she was truthful now as he was, and that she knew evil
from good even as Beatrice knew it. The horror of her sins took new
growth in her changed vision.

"Was I lost from the first beginning?" she asked passionately.
"Was I born to be all I am, and fore-destined to do all I have done?
Was she born an angel and I a devil from hell? What is it all? What
is this life, and what is that other beyond it?"

Behind her, in his chair, the Wanderer still slept. Still his
face wore the radiant look of joy that had so suddenly come into it
as she turned away. He scarcely breathed, so calmly he slept. But
Unorna did not raise her head nor look at him, and on the carpet near
her feet Israel Kafka lay as still and as deeply unconscious as the
Wanderer himself. By a strange destiny she sat there, between the two
men in whom her whole life had been wrecked, and she alone was
waking.

When she at last raised her eyes the dawn was breaking. Through
the transparent roof of glass a cold gray light began to descend upon
the warm, still brightness of the lamps. The shadows changed, the
colours grew more cold, the dark nooks among the heavy foliage less
black. Israel Kafka's face was ghostly and livid--the Wanderer's had
the alabaster transparency that comes upon some strong men in sleep.
Still, neither stirred. Unorna turned from the one and looked upon
the other. For the first time she saw how he had changed, and
wondered.

"How peacefully he sleeps!" she thought. "He is dreaming of
her."

The dawn came stealing on, not soft and blushing as in southern
lands, but cold, resistless and grim as ancient fate; not the maiden
herald of the sun with rose-tipped fingers and grey, liquid eyes, but
hard, cruel, sullen, and less darkness following upon a greater and
going before a dull, sunless and heavy day.

The door opened somewhat noisily and a brisk step fell upon the
marble pavement. Unorna rose noiselessly to her feet and hastening
along the open space came face to face with Keyork Arabian. He
stopped and looked up at her from beneath his heavy brows, with
surprise and suspicion. She raised one finger to her lips.

"You here already?" he asked, obeying her gesture and speaking
in a low voice.

"Hush! Hush!" she whispered, not satisfied. "They are asleep.
You will wake them."

Keyork came forward. He could move quietly enough when he chose.
He glanced at the Wanderer.

"He looks comfortable enough," he whispered, half
contemptuously.

Then he bent down over Israel Kafka and carefully examined his
face. To him the ghastly pallor meant nothing. It was but the natural
result of excessive exhaustion.

"Put him into a lethargy," said he under his breath, but with
authority in his manner.

Unorna shook her head. Keyork's small eyes brightened
angrily.

"Do it," he said. "What is this caprice? Are you mad? I want to
take his temperature without waking him."

Unorna folded her arms.

"Do you want him to suffer more?" asked Keyork with a diabolical
smile. "If so I will wake him by all means; I am always at your
service, you know."

"Will he suffer, if he wakes naturally?"

"Horribly--in the head."

Unorna knelt down and let her hand rest a few seconds on Kafka's
brow. The features, drawn with pain, immediately relaxed.

"You have hypnotised the one," grumbled Keyork as he bent down
again. "I cannot imagine why you should object to doing the same for
the other."

"The other?" Unorna repeated in surprise.

"Our friend there, in the arm chair."

"It is not true. He fell asleep of himself."

Keyork smiled again, incredulously this time. He had already
applied his pocket-thermometer and looked at his watch. Unorna had
risen to her feet, disdaining to defend herself against the
imputation expressed in his face. Some minutes passed in silence.

"He has no fever," said Keyork looking at the little instrument.
"I will call the Individual and we will take him away."

"Where?"

"To his lodging, of course. Where else?" He turned and went
towards the door.

In a moment, Unorna was kneeling again by Kafka's side, her hand
upon his forehead, her lips close to his ear.

"This is the last time that I will use my power on you or upon
any one," she said quickly, for the time was short. "Obey me, as you
must. Do you understand me? Will you obey?"

"Yes," came the faint answer as from very far off.

"You will wake two hours from now. You will not forget all that
has happened, but you will never love me again. I forbid you ever to
love me again! Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"You will only forget that I have told you this, though you will
obey. You will see me again, and if you can forgive me of your own
free will, forgive me then. That must be of your own free will. Wake
in two hours of yourself, without pain or sickness."

Again she touched his forehead and then sprang to her feet.
Keyork was coming back with his dumb servant. At a sign, the
Individual lifted Kafka from the floor, taking from him the
Wanderer's furs and wrapping him in others which Keyork had brought.
The strong man walked away with his burden as though he were carrying
a child. Keyork Arabian lingered a moment.

"What made you come back so early?" he asked.

"I will not tell you," she answered, drawing back.

"No? Well, I am not curious. You have an excellent opportunity
now."

"An opportunity?" Unorna repeated with a cold interrogative.

"Excellent," said the little man, standing on tiptoe to reach
her ear, for she would not bend her head. "You have only to whisper
into his ear that you are Beatrice and he will believe you for the
rest of his life."

"Go!" said Unorna.

Though the word was not spoken above her breath it was fierce
and commanding. Keyork Arabian smiled in an evil way, shrugged his
shoulders and left her.