Chapter XXVI

The Witch of Prague

by F. Marion Crawford

Unorna drew one deep breath when she first heard her name fall
with a loving accent from the Wanderer's lips. Surely the bitterness
of despair was past since she was loved and not called Beatrice. The
sigh that came then was of relief already felt, the forerunner, as
she fancied, too, of a happiness no longer dimmed by shadows of fear
and mists of rising remorse. Gazing into his eyes, she seemed to be
watching in their reflection a magic change. She had been Beatrice to
him, Unorna to herself, but now the transformation was at hand--now
it was to come. For him she loved, and who loved her, she was Unorna
even to the name, in her own thoughts she had taken the dark woman's
face. She had risked all upon the chances of one throw and she had
won. So long as he had called her by another's name the bitterness
had been as gall mingled in the wine of love. But now that too was
gone. She felt that it was complete at last. Her golden head sank
peacefully upon his shoulder in the morning light.

"You have been long in coming, love," she said, only half
consciously, "but you have come as I dreamed--it is perfect now.
There is nothing wanting any more."

"It is all full, all real, all perfect," he answered, softly.

"And there is to be no more parting, now----"

"Neither here, nor afterwards, beloved."

"Then this is afterwards. Heaven has nothing more to give. What
is Heaven? The meeting of those who love--as we have met. I have
forgotten what it was to live before you came----"

"For me, there is nothing to remember between that day and
this."

"That day when you fell ill," Unorna said, "the loneliness, the
fear for you----"

Unorna scarcely knew that it had not been she who had parted
from him so long ago. Yet she was playing a part, and in the
semi-consciousness of her deep self-illusion it all seemed as real as
a vision in a dream so often dreamed that it has become part of the
dreamer's life. Those who fall by slow degrees under the power of the
all-destroying opium remember yesterday as being very far, very long
past, and recall faint memories of last year as though a century had
lived and perished since then, seeing confusedly in their own lives
the lives of others, and other existences in their own, until
identity is almost gone in the endless transmigration of their souls
from the shadow in one dream- tale to the wraith of themselves that
dreams the next. So, in that hour, Unorna drifted through the
changing scenes that a word had power to call up, scarce able, and
wholly unwilling, to distinguish between her real and her imaginary
self. What matter how? What matter where? The very questions which at
first she had asked herself came now but faintly as out of an
immeasurable distance, and always more faintly still. They died away
in her ears, as when, after long waiting, and false starts, and
turnings back and anxious words exchanged, the great race is at last
begun, the swift long limbs are gathered and stretched and strained
and gathered again, the thunder of flying hoofs is in the air, and
the rider, with low hands, and head inclined and eyes bent forward,
hears the last anxious word of parting counsel tremble and die in the
rush of the wind behind.

She had really loved him throughout all those years; she had
really sought him and mourned for him and longed for a sight of his
face; they had really parted and had really found each other but a
short hour since; there was no Beatrice but Unorna and no Unorna but
Beatrice, for they were one and indivisible and interchangeable as
the glance of a man's two eyes that look on one fair sight; each sees
alone, the same--but seeing together, the sight grows doubly fair.

"And all the sadness, where is it now?" she asked. "And all the
emptiness of that long time? It never was, my love--it was yesterday
we met. We parted yesterday, to meet to-day. Say it was
yesterday--the little word can undo seven years."

"It seems like yesterday," he answered.

"Indeed, I can almost think so, now, for it was all night
between. But not quite dark, as night is sometimes. It was a night
full of stars-- each star was a thought of you, that burned softly
and showed me where heaven was. And darkest night, they say, means
coming morning--so when the stars went out I knew the sun must
rise."

The words fell from her lips naturally. To her it seemed true
that she had indeed waited long and hoped and thought of him. And it
was not all false. Ever since her childhood she had been told to
wait, for her love would come and would come only once. And so it was
true, and the dream grew sweeter and the illusion of the enchantment
more enchanting still. For it was an enchantment and a spell that
bound them together there, among the flowers, the drooping palms, the
graceful tropic plants and the shadowy leaves. And still the day rose
higher, but still the lamps burned on, fed by the silent, mysterious
current that never tires, blending a real light with an unreal one,
an emblem of Unorna's self, mixing and blending, too, with a self not
hers.

"And the sun is risen, indeed," she added presently.

"Am I the sun, dear?" he asked, foretasting the delight of
listening to her simple answer.

"You are the sun, beloved, and when you shine, my eyes can see
nothing else in heaven."

"And what are you yourself--Beatrice--no, Unorna--is that the
name you chose? It is so hard to remember anything when I look at
you."

"Beatrice--Unorna--anything," came the answer, softly murmuring.
"Anything, dear, any name, any face, any voice, if only I am I, and
you are you, and we two love! Both, neither, anything--do the blessed
souls in Paradise know their own names?"

"You are right--what does it matter? Why should you need a name
at all, since I have you with me always? It was well once--it served
me when I prayed for you--and it served to tell me that my heart was
gold while you were there, as the goldsmith's mark upon his jewel
stamps the pure metal, that all men may know it."

"You need no sign like that to show me what you are," said she,
with a long glance.

"Nor I to tell me you are in my heart," he answered. "It was a
foolish speech. Would you have me wise now?"

"If wisdom is love--yes. If not----" She laughed softly.

"Then folly?"

"Then folly, madness, anything--so that this last, as last it
must, or I shall die!"

"And why should it not last? Is there any reason, in earth or
Heaven, why we two should part? If there is--I will make that reason
itself folly, and madness, and unreason. Dear, do not speak of this
not lasting. Die, you say? Worse, far worse; as much as eternal death
is worse than bodily dying. Last? Does any one know what for ever
means, if we do not? Die, we must, in these dying bodies of ours, but
part-- no. Love has burned the cruel sense out of that word, and
bleached its blackness white. We wounded the devil, parting, with one
kiss, we killed him with the next--this buries him--ah, love, how
sweet----"

There was neither resistance nor the thought of resisting. Their
lips met and were withdrawn only that their eyes might drink again
the draught the lips had tasted, long draughts of sweetness and
liquid light and love unfathomable. And in the interval of speech
half false, the truth of what was all true welled up from the clear
depths and overflowed the falseness, till it grew falser and more
fleeting still --as a thing lying deep in a bright water casts up a
distorted image on refracted rays.

Glance and kiss, when two love, are as body and soul, supremely
human and transcendently divine. The look alone, when the lips cannot
meet, is but the disembodied spirit, beautiful even in its sorrow,
sad, despairing, saying "ever," and yet sighing "never," tasting and
knowing all the bitterness of both. The kiss without the glance? The
body without the soul? The mortal thing without the undying thought?
Draw down the thick veil and hide the sight, lest devils sicken at
it, and lest man should loathe himself for what man can be.

Truth or untruth, their love was real, hers as much as his. She
remembered only what her heart had been without it. What her goal
might be, now that it had come, she guessed even then, but she would
not ask. Was there never a martyr in old times, more human than the
rest, who turned back, for love perhaps, if not for fear, and said
that for love's sake life still was sweet, and brought a milk-white
dove to Aphrodite's altar, or dropped a rose before Demeter's feet?
There must have been, for man is man, and woman, woman. And if in the
next month, or even the next year, or after many years, that youth or
maid took heart to bear a Christian's death, was there then no
forgiveness, no sign of holy cross upon the sandstone in the deep
labyrinth of graves, no crown, no sainthood, and no reverent memory
of his name or hers among those of men and women worthier, perhaps,
but not more suffering?

No one can kill Self. No one can be altogether another, save in
the passing passion of a moment's acting. I--in that syllable lies
the whole history of each human life; in that history lives the
individuality; in the clear and true conception of that individuality
dwells such joint foreknowledge of the future as we can have, such
vague solution as to us is possible of that vast equation in which
all quantities are unknown save that alone, that I which we know as
we can know nothing else.

"Bury it!" she said. "Bury that parting--the thing, the word,
and the thought--bury it with all others of its kind, with change,
and old age, and stealing indifference, and growing coldness, and all
that cankers love--bury them all, together, in one wide deep
grave--then build on it the house of what we are--"

"Change? Indifference? I do not know those words," the Wanderer
said. "Have they been in your dreams, love? They have never been in
mine."

He spoke tenderly, but with the faintest echo of sadness in his
voice. The mere suggestion that such thoughts could have been near
her was enough to pain him. She was silent, and again her head lay
upon his shoulder. She found there still the rest and the peace.
Knowing her own life, the immensity of his faith and trust in that
other woman were made clear by the simple, heartfelt words. If she
had been indeed Beatrice, would he have loved her so? If it had all
been true, the parting, the seven years' separation, the utter
loneliness, the hopelessness, the despair, could she have been as
true as he? In the stillness that followed she asked herself the
question which was so near a greater and a deadlier one. But the
answer came quickly. That, at least, she could have done. She could
have been true to him, even to death. It must be so easy to be
faithful when life was but one faith. In that chord at least no note
rang false.

"Change in love--indifference to you!" she cried, all at once,
hiding her lovely face in his breast and twining her arms about his
neck. "No, no! I never meant that such things could be--they are but
empty words, words one hears spoken lightly by lips that never spoke
the truth, by men and women who never had such truth to speak as you
and I."

"And as for old age," he said, dwelling upon her speech, "what
is that to us? Let it come, since come it must. It is good to be
young and fair and strong, but would not you or I give up all that
for love's sake, each of us of our own free will, rather than lose
the other's love?"

"Indeed, indeed I would!" Unorna answered.

"Then what of age? What is it after all? A few gray hairs, a
wrinkle here and there, a slower step, perhaps a dimmer glance. That
is all it is--the quiet, sunny channel between the sea of earthly joy
and the ocean of heavenly happiness. The breeze of love still fills
the sails, wafting us softly onward through the narrows, never
failing, though it be softer and softer, till we glide out, scarce
knowing it, upon the broader water and are borne swiftly away from
the lost land by the first breath of heaven."

His words brought peace and the mirage of a far-off rest, that
soothed again the little half-born doubt.

"Yes," she said. "It is better to think so. Then we need think
of no other change."

"There is no other possible," he answered, gently pressing the
shoulder upon which his hand was resting. "We have not waited and
believed, and trusted and loved, for seven years, to wake at last--
face to face as we are to-day--and to find that we have trusted
vainly and loved two shadows, I yours, and you mine, to find at the
great moment of all that we are not ourselves, the selves we knew,
but others of like passions but of less endurance. Have we, beloved?
And if we could love, and trust, and believe without each other, each
alone, is it not all the more sure that we shall be unchanging
together? It must be so. The whole is greater than its parts, two
loves together are greater and stronger than each could be of itself.
The strength of two strands close twined together is more than twice
the strength of each."

She said nothing. By merest chance he had said words that had
waked the doubt again, so that it grew a little and took a firmer
hold in her unwilling heart. To love a shadow, he had said, to wake
and find self not self at all. That was what might come, would come,
must come, sooner or later, said the doubt. What matter where, or
when, or how? The question came again, vaguely, faintly as a mere
memory, but confidently as though knowing its own answer. Had she not
rested in his arms, and felt his kisses and heard his voice? What
matter how, indeed? It matters greatly, said the growing doubt,
rearing its head and finding speech at last. It matters greatly, it
said, for love lies not alone in voice, and kiss, and gentle touch,
but in things more enduring, which to endure must be sound and whole
and not cankered to the core by a living lie. Then came the old
reckless reasoning again: Am I not I? Is he not he? Do I not love him
with my whole strength? Does he not love this very self of mine, here
as it is, my head upon his shoulder, my hand within his hand? And if
he once loved another, have I not her place, to have and hold, that I
may be loved in her stead? Go, said the doubt, growing black and
strong; go, for you are nothing to him but a figure in his dream,
disguised in the lines of one he really loved and loves; go quickly,
before it is too late, before that real Beatrice comes and wakes him
and drives you out of the kingdom you usurp.

But she knew it was only a doubt, and had it been the truth, and
had Beatrice's foot been on the threshold, she would not have been
driven away by fear. But the fight had begun.

"Speak to me, dear," she said. "I must hear your voice--it makes
me know that it is all real."

"How the minutes fly!" he exclaimed, smoothing her hair with his
hand. "It seems to me that I was but just speaking when you
spoke."

"It seems so long--" She checked herself, wondering whether an
hour had passed or but a second.

Though love be swifter than the fleeting hours, doubt can outrun
a lifetime in one beating of the heart.

"Then how divinely long it all may seem," he answered. "But can
we not begin to think, and to make plans for to-morrow, and the next
day, and for the years before us? That will make more time for us,
for with the present we shall have the future, too. No--that is
foolish again. And yet it is so hard to say which I would have. Shall
the moment linger because it is so sweet? Or shall it be gone
quickly, because the next is to be sweeter still? Love, where is your
father?"

Unorna started. The question was suggested, perhaps, by his
inclination to speak of what was to be done, but it fell suddenly
upon her ears, as a peal of thunder when the sky has no clouds. Must
she lie now, or break the spell? One word, at least, she could yet
speak with truth.

"Dead."

"Dead!" the Wanderer repeated, thoughtfully and with a faint
surprise. "Is it long ago, beloved?" he asked presently, in a subdued
tone as though fearing to wake some painful memory.

"Yes," she answered. The great doubt was taking her heart in its
strong hands now and tearing it, and twisting it.

"And whose house is this in which I have found you, darling? Was
it his?"

"It is mine," Unorna said.

How long would he ask questions to which she could find true
answers? What question would come next? There were so many he might
ask and few to which she could reply so truthfully even in that
narrow sense of truth which found its only meaning in a whim of
chance. But for a moment he asked nothing more.

"Not mine," she said. "It is yours. You cannot take me and yet
call anything mine."

"Ours, then, beloved. What does it matter? So he died long
ago--poor man! And yet, it seems but a little while since some one
told me--but that was a mistake, of course. He did not know. How many
years may it be, dear one? I see you still wear mourning for him."

"No--that was but a fancy--to-day. He died--he died more than
two years ago."

She bent her head. It was but a poor attempt at truth, a
miserable lying truth to deceive herself with, but it seemed better
than to lie the whole truth outright, and say that her
father--Beatrice's father-- had been dead but just a week. The blood
burned in her face. Brave natures, good and bad alike, hate
falsehood, not for its wickedness, perhaps, but for its cowardice.
She could do things as bad, far worse. She could lay her hand upon
the forehead of a sleeping man and inspire in him a deep,
unchangeable belief in something utterly untrue; but now, as it was,
she was ashamed and hid her face.

"It is strange," he said, "how little men know of each other's
lives or deaths. They told me he was alive last year. But it has hurt
you to speak of it. Forgive me, dear, it was thoughtless of me."

He tried to lift her head, but she held it obstinately down.

"Have I pained you, Beatrice?" he asked, forgetting to call her
by the other name that was so new to him.

"No--oh, no!" she exclaimed without looking up.

"What is it then?"

"Nothing--it is nothing--no, I will not look at you--I am
ashamed." That at least was true.

"Ashamed, dear heart! Of what?"

He had seen her face in spite of herself. Lie, or lose all, said
a voice within.

"Ashamed of being glad that--that I am free," she stammered,
struggling on the very verge of the precipice.

"You may be glad of that, and yet be very sorry he is dead," the
Wanderer said, stroking her hair.

It was true, and seemed quite simple. She wondered that she had
not thought of that. Yet she felt that the man she loved, in all his
nobility and honesty, was playing the tempter to her, though he could
not know it. Deeper and deeper she sank, yet ever more conscious that
she was sinking. Before him she felt no longer as loving woman to
loving man--she was beginning to feel as a guilty prisoner before his
judge.

He thought to turn the subject to a lighter strain. By chance he
glanced at his own hand.

"Do you know this ring?" he asked, holding it before her, with a
smile.

"Indeed, I know it," she answered, trembling again.

"You gave it to me, love, do you remember? And I gave you a
likeness of myself, because you asked for it, though I would rather
have given you something better. Have you it still?"

She was silent. Something was rising in her throat. Then she
choked it down.

"I had it in my hand last night," she said in a breaking voice.
True, once more.

"What is it, darling? Are you crying? This is no day for
tears."

"I little thought that I should have yourself to-day," she tried
to say.

Then the tears came, tears of shame, big, hot, slow. They fell
upon his hand. She was weeping for joy, he thought. What else could
any man think in such a case? He drew her to him, and pressed her
cheek with his hand as her head nestled on his shoulder.

"When you put this ring on my finger, dear--so long ago----"

She sobbed aloud.

"No, darling--no, dear heart," he said, comforting her, "you
must not cry--that long ago is over now and gone for ever. Do you
remember that day, sweetheart, in the broad spring sun upon the
terrace among the lemon trees. No, dear--your tears hurt me always,
even when they are shed in happiness--no, dear, no. Rest there, let
me dry your dear eyes --so and so. Again? For ever, if you will.
While you have tears, I have kisses to dry them--it was so then, on
that very day. I can remember. I can see it all--and you. You have
not changed, love, in all those years, more than a blossom changes in
one hour of a summer's day! You took this ring and put it on my
finger. Do you remember what I said? I know the very words. I
promised you--it needed no promise either--that it should never leave
its place until you took it back-- and you--how well I remember your
face--you said that you would take it from my hand some day, when all
was well, when you should be free to give me another in its stead,
and to take one in return. I have kept my word, beloved. Keep
yours--I have brought you back the ring. Take it, sweetheart. It is
heavy with the burden of lonely years. Take it and give me that other
which I claim."

She did not speak, for she was fighting down the choking sobs,
struggling to keep back the burning drops that scalded her cheeks,
striving to gather strength for the weight of a greater shame. Lie,
or lose all, the voice said.

Very slowly she raised her head. She knew that his hand was
close to hers, held there that she might fulfil Beatrice's promise.
Was she not free? Could she not give him what he asked? No matter
how--she tried to say it to herself and could not. She felt his
breath upon her hair. He was waiting. If she did not act soon or
speak he would wonder what held her back--wonder--suspicion next and
then? She put out her hand to touch his fingers, half blinded,
groping as though she could not see. He made it easy for her. He
fancied she was trembling, as she was weeping, with the joy of it
all.

She felt the ring, though she dared not look at it. She drew it
a little and felt that it would come off easily. She felt the fingers
she loved so well, straight, strong and nervous, and she touched them
lovingly. The ring was not tight, it would pass easily over the joint
that alone kept it in its place.

"Take it, beloved," he said. "It has waited long enough."

He was beginning to wonder at her hesitation as she knew he
would. After wonder would come suspicion--and then? Very slowly--it
was just upon the joint of his finger now. Should she do it? What
would happen? He would have broken his vow--unwittingly. How quickly
and gladly Beatrice would have taken it. What would she say, if they
lived and met--why should they not meet? Would the spell endure that
shock--who would Beatrice be then? The woman who had given him this
ring? Or another, whom he would no longer know? But she must be
quick. He was waiting and Beatrice would not have made him wait.

Her hand was like stone, numb, motionless, immovable, as though
some unseen being had taken it in an iron grasp and held it there, in
mid- air, just touching his. Yes--no--yes--she could not move--a hand
was clasped upon her wrist, a hand smaller than his, but strong as
fate, fixed in its grip as an iron vice.

Unorna felt a cold breath, that was not his, upon her forehead,
and she felt as though her heavy hair were rising of itself upon her
head. She knew that horror, for she had been overtaken by it once
before. She was not afraid, but she knew what it was. There was a
shadow, too, and a dark woman, tall, queenly, with deep flashing eyes
was standing beside her. She knew, before she looked; she looked, and
it was there. Her own face was whiter than that other woman's.

"Have you come already?" she asked of the shadow, in a low
despairing tone.

"Beatrice--what has happened?" cried the Wanderer. To him, she
seemed to be speaking to the empty air and her white face startled
him.

"Yes," she said, staring still, in the same hopeless voice. "It
is Beatrice. She has come for you."

"Beatrice--beloved--do not speak like that! For God's sake--what
do you see? There is nothing there."

"Beatrice is there. I am Unorna."

"Unorna, Beatrice--have we not said it should be all the same!
Sweetheart--look at me! Rest here--shut those dear eyes of yours. It
is gone now whatever it was--you are tired, dear--you must rest."

Her eyes closed and her head sank. It was gone, as he said, and
she knew what it had been--a mere vision called up by her own over-
tortured brain. Keyork Arabian had a name for it.

Frightened by your own nerves, laughed the voice, when, if you
had not been a coward, you might have faced it down and lied again,
and all would have been well. But you shall have another chance, and
lying is very easy, even when the nerves are over-wrought. You will
do better the next time.

The voice was like Keyork Arabian's. Unstrung, almost forgetting
all, she wondered vaguely at the sound, for it was a real sound and a
real voice to her. Was her soul his, indeed, and was he drawing it on
slowly, surely to the end? Had he been behind her last night? Had he
left an hour's liberty only to come back again and take at last what
was his?

There is time yet, you have not lost him, for he thinks you mad.
The voice spoke once more.

And at the same moment the strong dear arms were again around
her, again her head was on that restful shoulder of his, again her
pale face was turned up to his, and kisses were raining on her tired
eyes, while broken words of love and tenderness made music through
the tempest.

Again the vast temptation rose. How could he ever know? Who was
to undeceive him, if he was not yet undeceived? Who should ever make
him understand the truth so long as the spell lasted? Why not then
take what was given her, and when the end came, if it came, then tell
all boldly? Even then, he would not understand. Had he understood
last night, when she had confessed all that she had done before? He
had not believed one word of it, except that she loved him. Could she
make him believe it now, when he was clasping her so fiercely to his
breast, half mad with love for her himself?

So easy, too. She had but to forget that passing vision, to put
her arms about his neck, to give kiss for kiss, and loving word for
loving word. Not even that. She had but to lie there, passive, silent
if she could not speak, and it would be still the same. No power on
earth could undo what she had done, unless she willed it. Neither man
nor woman could make his clasping hands let go of her and give her
up.

Be still and wait, whispered the voice, you have lost nothing
yet.

But Unorna would not. She had spoken and acted her last lie. It
was over.