Unorna was superstitious, as Keyork Arabian had once told her. She
did not thoroughly understand herself and she had very little real
comprehension of the method by which she produced such remarkable
results. She was gifted with a sensitive and active imagination, which
supplied her with semi-mystic formulae of thought and speech in place
of reasoned explanations, and she undoubtedly attributed much of her own
power to supernatural influences. In this respect, at least, she was
no farther advanced than the witches of older days, and if her inmost
convictions took a shape which would have seemed incomprehensible to
those predecessors of hers, this was to be attributed in part to the
innate superiority of her nature, and partly, also, to the high degree
of cultivation in which her mental faculties had reached development.
Keyork Arabian might spend hours in giving her learned explanations of
what she did, but he never convinced her. Possibly he was not convinced
himself, and he still hesitated, perhaps, between the two great theories
advanced to explain the phenomena of hypnotism. He had told her that he
considered her influence to be purely a moral one, exerted by means of
language and supported by her extraordinary concentrated will. But
it did not follow that he believed what he told her, and it was not
improbable that he might have his own doubts on the subject--doubts
which Unorna was not slow to suspect, and which destroyed for her the
whole force of his reasoning. She fell back upon a sort of grossly
unreasonable mysticism, combined with a blind belief in those hidden
natural forces and secret virtues of privileged objects, which formed
the nucleus of mediaeval scientific research. The field is a fertile
one for the imagination and possesses a strange attraction for certain
minds. There are men alive in our own time to whom the transmutation of
metals does not seem an impossibility, nor the brewing of the elixir of
life a matter to be scoffed at as a matter of course. The world is full
of people who, in their inmost selves, put faith in the latent qualities
of precious stones and amulets, who believe their fortunes, their
happiness, and their lives to be directly influenced by some trifling
object which they have always upon them. We do not know enough to state
with assurance that the constant handling of any particular metal, or
gem, may not produce a real and invariable corresponding effect upon
the nerves. But we do know most positively that, when the belief in such
talismans is once firmly established, the moral influence they exert
upon men through the imagination is enormous. From this condition of
mind to that in which auguries are drawn from outward and apparently
accidental circumstances, is but a step. If Keyork Arabian inclined to
the psychic rather than to the physical school in his view of Unorna’s
witchcraft and in his study of hypnotism in general, his opinion
resulted naturally from his great knowledge of mankind, and of the
unacknowledged, often unsuspected, convictions which in reality direct
mankind’s activity. It was this experience, too, and the certainty to
which it had led him, that put him beyond the reach of Unorna’s power so
long as he chose not to yield himself to her will. Her position was
in reality diametrically opposed to his, and although he repeated his
reasonings to her from time to time, he was quite indifferent to the
nature of her views, and never gave himself any real trouble to make her
change them. The important point was that she should not lose anything
of the gifts she possessed, and Keyork was wise enough to see that the
exercise of them depended in a great measure upon her own conviction
regarding their exceptional nature.
Unorna herself believed in everything which strengthened and developed
that conviction, and especially in the influences of time and place. It
appeared to her a fortunate circumstance, when she at last determined
to overcome her pride, that the resolution should have formed itself
exactly a month after she had so successfully banished the memory of
Beatrice from the mind of the man she loved. She felt sure of producing
a result as effectual if, this time, she could work the second change
in the same place and under the same circumstances as the first. And to
this end everything was in her favour. She needed not to close her eyes
to fancy that thirty days had not really passed between then and now, as
she left her house in the afternoon with the Wanderer by her side.
He had come back and had found her once more herself, calm, collected,
conscious of her own powers. No suspicion of the real cause of the
disturbance he had witnessed crossed his mind, still less could he guess
what thing she meditated as she directed their walk towards that lonely
place by the river which had been the scene of her first great effort.
She talked lightly as they went, and he, in that strange humour of
peaceful, well-satisfied indifference which possessed him, answered her
in the same strain. It was yet barely afternoon, but there was already a
foretaste of coming evening in the chilly air.
“I have been thinking of what you said this morning,” she said, suddenly
changing the current of the conversation. “Did I thank you for your
kindness?” She smiled as she laid her hand gently upon his arm, to cross
a crowded street, and she looked up into his quiet face.
“Thank me? For what? On the contrary--I fancied that I had annoyed you.”
“Perhaps I did not quite understand it all at first,” she answered
thoughtfully. “It is hard for a woman like me to realise what it would
be to have a brother--or a sister, or any one belonging to me. I needed
to think of the idea. Do you know that I am quite alone in the world?”
The Wanderer had accepted her as he found her, strangely alone,
indeed, and strangely independent of the world, a beautiful, singularly
interesting woman, doing good, so far as he knew, in her own way,
separated from ordinary existence by some unusual circumstances, and
elevated above ordinary dangers by the strength and the pride of her own
character. And yet, indolent and indifferent as he had grown of late, he
was conscious of a vague curiosity in regard to her story. Keyork either
really knew nothing, or pretended to know nothing of her origin.
“I see that you are alone,” said the Wanderer. “Have you always been
so?”
“Always. I have had an odd life. You could not understand it, if I told
you of it.”
“And yet I have been lonely too--and I believe I was once unhappy,
though I cannot think of any reason for it.”
“You have been lonely--yes. But yours was another loneliness more
limited, less fatal, more voluntary. It must seem strange to you--I do
not even positively know of what nation I was born.”
Her companion looked at her in surprise, and his curiosity increased.
“I know nothing of myself,” she continued. “I remember neither father
nor mother. I grew up in the forest, among people who did not love me,
but who taught me, and respected me as though I were their superior, and
who sometimes feared me. When I look back, I am amazed at their learning
and their wisdom--and ashamed of having learned so little.”
“You are unjust to yourself.”
Unorna laughed.
“No one ever accused me of that,” she said. “Will you believe it? I do
not even know where that place was. I cannot tell you even the name of
the kingdom in which it lay. I learned a name for it and for the forest,
but those names are in no map that has ever fallen into my hands. I
sometimes feel that I would go to the place if I could find it.”
“It is very strange. And how came you here?”
“I was told the time had come. We started at night. It was a long
journey, and I remember feeling tired as I was never tired before or
since. They brought me here, they left me in a religious house among
nuns. Then I was told that I was rich and free. My fortune was brought
with me. That, at least, I know. But those who received it and who take
care of it for me, know no more of its origin than I myself. Gold tells
no tales, and the secret has been well kept. I would give much to know
the truth--when I am in the humour.”
She sighed, and then laughed again.
“You see why it is that I find the idea of a brother so hard to
understand,” she added, and then was silent.
“You have all the more need of understanding it, my dear friend,” the
Wanderer answered, looking at her thoughtfully.
“Yes--perhaps so. I can see what friendship is. I can almost guess what
it would be to have a brother.”
“And have you never thought of more than that?” He asked the question
in his calmest and most friendly tone, somewhat deferentially as though
fearing lest it should seem tactless and be unwelcome.
“Yes, I have thought of love also,” she answered, in a low voice. But
she said nothing more, and they walked on for some time in silence.
They came out upon the open place by the river which she remembered
so well. Unorna glanced about her and her face fell. The place was the
same, but the solitude was disturbed. It was not Sunday as it had been
on that day a month ago. All about the huge blocks of stone, groups
of workmen were busy with great chisels and heavy hammers, hewing and
chipping and fashioning the material that it might be ready for use in
the early spring. Even the river was changed. Men were standing upon the
ice, cutting it into long symmetrical strips, to be hauled ashore. Some
of the great pieces were already separated from the main ice, and sturdy
fellows, clad in dark woollen, were poling them over the dark water to
the foot of the gently sloping road where heavy carts stood ready to
receive the load when cut up into blocks. The dark city was taking in a
great provision of its own coldness against the summer months.
Unorna looked about her. Everywhere there were people at work, and she
was more disappointed than she would own to herself at the invasion of
the solitude. The Wanderer looked from the stone-cutters to the ice-men
with a show of curiosity.
“I have not seen so much life in Prague for many a day,” he observed.
“Let us go,” answered Unorna, nervously. “I do not like it. I cannot
bear the sight of people to-day.”
They turned in a new direction, Unorna guiding her companion by a
gesture. They were near to the Jewish quarter, and presently were
threading their way through narrow and filthy streets thronged with
eager Hebrew faces, and filled with the hum of low-pitched voices
chattering together, not in the language of the country, but in a base
dialect of German. They were in the heart of Prague, in that dim quarter
which is one of the strongholds of the Israelite, whence he directs
great enterprises and sets in motion huge financial schemes, in which
Israel sits, as a great spider in the midst of a dark web, dominating
the whole capital with his eagle’s glance and weaving the destiny of the
Bohemian people to suit his intricate speculations. For throughout the
length and breadth of Slavonic and German Austria the Jew rules, and
rules alone.
Unorna gathered her furs more closely about her, in evident disgust at
her surroundings, but still she kept on her way. Her companion, scarcely
less familiar with the sights of Prague than she herself, walked by her
side, glancing carelessly at the passing people, at the Hebrew signs, at
the dark entrances that lead to courts within courts and into labyrinths
of dismal lanes and passages, looking at everything with the same serene
indifference, and idly wondering what made Unorna choose to walk that
way. Then he saw that she was going towards the cemetery. They
reached the door, were admitted and found themselves alone in the vast
wilderness.
In the midst of the city lies the ancient burial ground, now long
disused but still undisturbed, many acres of uneven land, covered so
thickly with graves, and planted so closely with granite and sandstone
slabs, that the paths will scarce allow two persons to walk side by
side. The stones stand and lie in all conceivable positions, erect,
slanting at every angle, prostrate upon the earth or upon others already
fallen before them--two, three, and even four upon a grave, where
generations of men have been buried one upon the other--stones large
and small, covered with deep-cut inscriptions in the Hebrew character,
bearing the sculpture of two uplifted hands, wherever the Kohns, the
children of the tribe of Aaron, are laid to rest, or the gracefully
chiselled ewer of the Levites. Here they lie, thousands upon thousands
of dead Jews, great and small, rich and poor, wise and ignorant,
neglected individually, but guarded as a whole with all the tenacious
determination of the race to hold its own, and to preserve the
sacredness of its dead. In the dim light of the winter’s afternoon it
is as though a great army of men had fallen fighting there, and had
been turned to stone as they fell. Rank upon rank they lie, with that
irregularity which comes of symmetry destroyed, like columns and files
of soldiers shot down in the act of advancing. And in winter, the gray
light falling upon the untrodden snow throws a pale reflection upwards
against each stone, as though from the myriad sepulchres a faintly
luminous vapour were rising to the outer air. Over all, the rugged
brushwood and the stunted trees intertwine their leafless branches and
twigs in a thin, ghostly network of gray, that clouds the view of the
farther distance without interrupting it, a forest of shadowy skeletons
clasping fleshless, bony hands one with another, from grave to grave, as
far as the eye can see.
The stillness in the place is intense. Not a murmur of distant life from
the surrounding city disturbs the silence. At rare intervals a strong
breath of icy wind stirs the dead branches and makes them crack and
rattle against the gravestones and against each other as in a dance of
death. It is a wild and dreary place. In the summer, indeed, the thick
leafage lends it a transitory colour and softness, but in the depth of
winter, when there is nothing to hide the nakedness of truth, when the
snow lies thick upon the ground and the twined twigs and twisted
trunks scarce cast a tracery of shadow under the sunless sky, the utter
desolation and loneliness of the spot have a horror of their own, not to
be described, but never to be forgotten.
Unorna walked forward in silence, choosing a path so narrow that
her companion found himself obliged to drop behind and follow in her
footsteps. In the wildest part of this wilderness of death there is a
little rising of the ground. Here both the gravestones and the stunted
trees are thickest, and the solitude is, if possible, even more complete
than elsewhere. As she reached the highest point Unorna stood still,
turned quickly towards the Wanderer and held out both her hands towards
him.
“I have chosen this place, because it is quiet,” she said, with a soft
smile.
Hardly knowing why he did so, he laid his hands in hers and looked
kindly down to her upturned face.
“What is it?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
She was silent, and her fingers did not unclasp themselves. He looked at
her, and saw for the hundredth time that she was very beautiful. There
was a faint colour in her cheeks, and her full lips were just parted
as though a loving word had escaped them which she would not willingly
recall. Against the background of broken neutral tints, her figure stood
out, an incarnation of youth and vitality. If she had often looked weary
and pale of late, her strength and freshness had returned to her now
in all their abundance. The Wanderer knew that he was watching her, and
knew that he was thinking of her beauty and realising the whole extent
of it more fully than ever before, but beyond this point his thoughts
could not go. He was aware that he was becoming fascinated by her eyes,
and he felt that with every moment it was growing harder for him to
close his own, or to look away from her, and then, an instant later, he
knew that it would be impossible. Yet he made no effort. He was passive,
indifferent, will-less, and her gaze charmed him more and more. He was
already in a dream, and he fancied that the beautiful figure shone with
a soft, rosy light of its own in the midst of the gloomy waste. Looking
into her sunlike eyes, he saw there twin images of himself, that drew
him softly and surely into themselves until he was absorbed by them
and felt that he was no longer a reality but a reflection. Then a deep
unconsciousness stole over all his senses and he slept, or passed into
that state which seems to lie between sleep and trance.
Unorna needed not to question him this time, for she saw that he was
completely under her influence. Yet she hesitated at the supreme moment,
and then, though to all real intents she was quite alone, a burning
flush of shame rose to her face, and her heart sank within her. She felt
that she could not do it.
She dropped his hands. They fell to his sides as though they had been of
lead. Then she turned from him and pressed her aching forehead against
a tall weather-worn stone that rose higher than her own height from the
midst of the hillock.
Her woman’s nature rebelled against the trick. It was the truest thing
in her and perhaps the best, which protested so violently against the
thing she meant to do; it was the simple longing to be loved for her own
sake, and of the man’s own free will, to be loved by him with the love
she had despised in Israel Kafka. But would this be love at all, this
artificial creation of her suggestion reacting upon his mind? Would it
last? Would it be true, faithful, tender? Above all, would it be real,
even for a moment? She asked herself a thousand questions in a second of
time.
Then the ready excuse flashed upon her--the pretext which the heart will
always find when it must have its way. Was it not possible, after all,
that he was beginning to love her even now? Might not that outburst of
friendship which had surprised her and wounded her so deeply, be the
herald of a stronger passion? She looked up quickly and met his vacant
stare.
“Do you love me?” she asked, almost before she knew what she was going
to say.
“No.” The answer came in the far-off voice that told of his
unconsciousness, a mere toneless monosyllable breathed upon the murky
air. But it stabbed her like the thrust of a jagged knife. A long
silence followed, and Unorna leaned against the great slab of carved
sandstone.
Even to her there was something awful in his powerless, motionless
presence. The noble face, pale and set as under a mask, the thoughtful
brow, the dominating features, were not those of a man born to be a
plaything to the will of a woman. The commanding figure towered in the
grim surroundings like a dark statue, erect, unmoving, and in no way
weak. And yet she knew that she had but to speak and the figure would
move, the lips would form words, the voice would reach her ear. He would
raise this hand or that, step forwards or backwards, at her command,
affirm what she bid him affirm, and deny whatever she chose to hear
denied. For a moment she wished that he had been as Keyork Arabian,
stronger than she; then, with the half-conscious comparison the passion
for the man himself surged up and drowned every other thought. She
almost forgot that for the time he was not to be counted among the
living. She went to him, and clasped her hands upon his shoulder, and
looked up into his scarce-seeing eyes.
“You must love me,” she said, “you must love me because I love you so.
Will you not love me, dear? I have waited so long for you!”
The soft words vibrated in his sleeping ear but drew forth neither
acknowledgment nor response. Like a marble statue he stood still, and
she leaned upon his shoulder.
“Do you not hear me?” she cried in a more passionate tone. “Do you not
understand me? Why is it that your love is so hard to win? Look at me!
Might not any man be proud to love me? Am I not beautiful enough for
you? And yet I know that I am fair. Or are you ashamed because people
call me a witch? Why then I will never be one again, for your sake! What
do I care for it all? Can it be anything to me--can anything have worth
that stands between me and you? Ah, love--be not so very hard!”
The Wanderer did not move. His face was as calm as a sculptured stone.
“Do you despise me for loving you?” she asked again, with a sudden
flush.
“No. I do not despise you.” Something in her tone had pierced through
his stupor and had found an answer. She started at the sound of his
voice. It was as though he had been awake and had known the weight of
what she had been saying, and her anger rose at the cold reply.
“No--you do not despise me, and you never shall!” she exclaimed
passionately. “You shall love me, as I love you--I will it, with all
my will! We are created to be all, one to the other, and you shall not
break through the destiny of love. Love me, as I love you--love me with
all your heart, love me with all your mind, love me with all your soul,
love me as man never loved woman since the world began! I will it, I
command it--it shall be as I say--you dare not disobey me--you cannot if
you would.”
She paused, but this time no answer came. There was not even a
contraction of the stony features.
“Do you hear all I say?” she asked.
“I hear.”
“Then understand and answer me,” she said.
“I do not understand. I cannot answer.”
“You must. You shall. I will have it so. You cannot resist my will, and
I will it with all my might. You have no will--you are mine, your body,
your soul, and your thoughts, and you must love me with them all from
now until you die--until you die,” she repeated fiercely.
Again he was silent. She felt that she had no hold upon his heart or
mind, seeing that he was not even disturbed by her repeated efforts.
“Are you a stone, that you do not know what love is?” she cried,
grasping his hand in hers and looking with desperate eyes into his face.
“I do not know what love is,” he answered, slowly.
“Then I will tell you what love is,” she said, and she took his hand and
pressed it upon her own brow.
The Wanderer started at the touch, as though he would have drawn back.
But she held him fast, and so far, at least, he was utterly subject to
her. His brow contracted darkly, and his face grew paler.
“Read it there,” she cried. “Enter into my soul and read what love is,
in his own great writing. Read how he steals suddenly into the sacred
place, and makes it his, and tears down the old gods and sets up his
dear image in their stead--read how he sighs, and speaks, and weeps,
and loves--and forgives not, but will be revenged at the last. Are you
indeed of stone, and have you a stone for a heart? Love can melt even
stones, being set in man as the great central fire in the earth to burn
the hardest things to streams of liquid flame! And see, again, how very
soft and gentle he can be! See how I love you--see how sweet it is--how
very lovely a thing it is to love as woman can. There--have you felt it
now? Have you seen into the depths of my soul and into the hiding-places
of my heart? Let it be so in your own, then, and let it be so for ever.
You understand now. You know what it all is--how wild, how passionate,
how gentle and how great! Take to yourself this love of mine--is it not
all yours? Take it, and plant it with strong roots and seeds of undying
life in your own sleeping breast, and let it grow, and grow, till it
is even greater than it was in me, till it takes us both into itself,
together, fast bound in its immortal bonds, to be two in one, in life
and beyond life, for ever and ever and ever to the end of ends!”
She ceased and she saw that his face was no longer expressionless and
cold. A strange light was upon his features, the passing radiance of
a supreme happiness seen in the vision of a dream. Again she laid her
hands upon his shoulder clasped together, as she had done at first. She
knew that her words had touched him and she was confident of the result,
confident as one who loves beyond reason. Already in imagination she
fancied him returning to consciousness, not knowing that he had slept,
but waking with a gentle word just trembling upon his lips, the words
she longed to hear.
One moment more, she thought. It was good to see that light upon
his face, to fancy how that first word would sound, to feel that the
struggle was past and that there was nothing but happiness in the
future, full, overflowing, overwhelming, reaching from earth to heaven
and through time to eternity. One moment, only, before she let him
wake--it was such glory to be loved at last! Still the light was there,
still that exquisite smile was on his lips. And they would be always
there now, she thought.
At last she spoke.
“Then love, since you are mine, and I am yours, wake from the dream to
life itself--wake, not knowing that you have slept, knowing only that
you love me now and always--wake, love wake!”
She waved her delicate hand before his eyes and still resting the other
upon his shoulder, watched the returning brightness in the dark pupils
that had been glazed and fixed a moment before. And as she looked, her
own beauty grew radiant in the splendour of a joy even greater than she
had dreamed of. As it had seemed to him when he had lost himself in her
gaze, so now she also fancied that the grim, gray wilderness was full of
a soft rosy light. The place of the dead was become the place of life;
the great solitude was peopled as the whole world could never be for
her; the crumbling gravestones were turned to polished pillars in the
temple of an immortal love, and the ghostly, leafless trees blossomed
with the undying flowers of the earthly paradise.
One moment only, and then all was gone. The change came, sure, swift and
cruel. As she looked, it came, gradual, in that it passed through every
degree, but sudden also, as the fall of a fair and mighty building,
which being undermined in its foundations passes in one short minute
through the change from perfect completeness to hopeless and utter ruin.
All the radiance, all the light, all the glory were gone in an instant.
Her own supremely loving look had not vanished, her lips still parted
sweetly, as forming the word that was to answer his, and the calm
indifferent face of the waking man was already before her.
“What is it?” he asked, in his kind and passionless voice. “What were
you going to ask me, Unorna?”
It was gone. The terribly earnest appeal had been in vain. Not a trace
of that short vision of love remained impressed upon his brain.
With a smothered cry of agony Unorna leaned against the great slab of
stone behind her and covered her eyes. The darkness of night descended
upon her, and with it the fire of a burning shame.
Then a loud and cruel laugh rang through the chilly air, such a laugh as
the devils in hell bestow upon the shame of a proud soul that knows
its own infinite bitterness. Unorna started and uncovered her eyes, her
suffering changed in a single instant to ungovernable and destroying
anger. She made a step forwards and then stopped short, breathing hard.
The Wanderer, too, had turned, more quickly than she. Between two tall
gravestones, not a dozen paces away, stood a man with haggard face and
eyes on fire, his keen, worn features contorted by a smile in which
unspeakable satisfaction struggled for expression with a profound
despair.
The man was Israel Kafka.