[*] The deeds here recounted are not imaginary. Not very
long ago the sacrilege which Unorna attempted was actually
committed at night in a Catholic church in London, under
circumstances that clearly proved the intention of some
person or persons to defile the consecrated wafers. A case
of hypnotic suggestion to the committal of a crime in a
convent occurred in Hungary not many years since, with a
different object, namely, a daring robbery, but precisely as
here described. A complete account of the case will be
found, with authority and evidence, in a pamphlet entitled
_Eine experimentale Studie auf dem Gebiete des Hypnotismus_,
by Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing, Professor of Psychiatry and for
nervous diseases, in the University of Gratz. Second
Edition, Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke, 1889. It is not
possible, in a work of fiction, to quote learned authorities
at every chapter, but it may be said here, and once for all,
that all the most important situations have been taken from
cases which have come under medical observation within the
last few years.
Unorna was hardly conscious of what she had done. She had not had the
intention of making Beatrice sleep, for she had no distinct intention
whatever at that moment. Her words and her look had been but the natural
results of overstrained passion, and she repeated what she had said
again and again, and gazed long and fiercely into Beatrice’s face before
she realised that she had unintentionally thrown her rival and enemy
into the intermediate state. It is rarely that the first stage of
hypnotism produces the same consequences in two different individuals.
In Beatrice it took the form of total unconsciousness, as though she had
merely fainted away.
Unorna gradually regained her self-possession. After all, Beatrice had
told her nothing which she did not either wholly know or partly guess,
and her anger was not the result of the revelation but of the way in
which the story had been told. Word after word, phrase after phrase had
cut her and stabbed her to the quick, and when Beatrice had thrust the
miniature into her hands her wrath had risen in spite of herself.
But now that she had returned to a state in which she could think
connectedly, and now that she saw Beatrice asleep before her, she did
not regret what she had unwittingly done. From the first moment when,
in the balcony over the church, she had realised that she was in the
presence of the woman she hated, she had determined to destroy her. To
accomplish this she would in any case have used her especial weapons,
and though she had intended to steal by degrees upon her enemy, lulling
her to sleep by a more gentle fascination, at an hour when the whole
convent should be quiet, yet since the first step had been made
unexpectedly and without her will, she did not regret it.
She leaned back and looked at Beatrice during several minutes, smiling
to herself from time to time, scornfully and cruelly. Then she rose and
locked the outer door and closed the inner one carefully. She knew from
long ago that no sound could then find its way to the corridor without.
She came back and sat down again, and again looked at the sleeping face,
and she admitted for the hundredth time that evening, that Beatrice was
very beautiful.
“If he could see us now!” she exclaimed aloud.
The thought suggested something to her. She would like to see herself
beside this other woman and compare the beauty he loved with the beauty
that could not touch him. It was very easy. She found a small mirror,
and set it up upon the back of the sofa, on a level with Beatrice’s
head. Then she changed the position of the lamp and looked at herself,
and touched her hair, and smoothed her brow, and loosened the black lace
about her white throat. And she looked from herself to Beatrice, and
back to herself again, many times.
“It is strange that black should suit us both so well--she so dark and I
so fair!” she said. “She will look well when she is dead.”
She gazed again for many seconds at the sleeping woman.
“But he will not see her, then,” she added, rising to her feet and
laying the mirror on the table.
She began to walk up and down the room as was her habit when in deep
thought, turning over in her mind the deed to be done and the surest and
best way of doing it. It never occurred to her that Beatrice could
be allowed to live beyond that night. If the woman had been but an
unconscious obstacle in her path Unorna would have spared her life, but
as matters stood, she had no inclination to be merciful.
There was nothing to prevent the possibility of a meeting between
Beatrice and the Wanderer, if Beatrice remained alive. They were in
the same city together, and their paths might cross at any moment.
The Wanderer had forgotten, but it was not sure that the artificial
forgetfulness would be proof against an actual sight of the woman once
so dearly loved. The same consideration was true of Beatrice. She, too,
might be made to forget, though it was always an experiment of uncertain
issue and of more than uncertain result, even when successful, so far as
duration was concerned. Unorna reasoned coldly with herself, recalling
all that Keyork Arabian had told her and all that she had read. She
tried to admit that Beatrice might be disposed of in some other way,
but the difficulties seemed to be insurmountable. To effect such a
disappearance Unorna must find some safe place in which the wretched
woman might drag out her existence undiscovered. But Beatrice was
not like the old beggar who in his hundredth year had leaned against
Unorna’s door, unnoticed and uncared for, and had been taken in and had
never been seen again. The case was different. The aged scholar, too,
had been cared for as he could not have been cared for elsewhere, and,
in the event of an inquiry being made, he could be produced at any
moment, and would even afford a brilliant example of Unorna’s charitable
doings. But Beatrice was a stranger and a person of some importance
in the world. The Cardinal Archbishop himself had directed the nuns to
receive her, and they were responsible for her safety. To spirit her
away in the night would be a dangerous thing. Wherever she was to be
taken, Unorna would have to lead her there alone. Unorna would herself
be missed. Sister Paul already suspected that the name of Witch was more
than a mere appellation. There would be a search made, and suspicion
might easily fall upon Unorna, who would have been obliged, of course,
to conceal her enemy in her own house for lack of any other convenient
place.
There was no escape from the deed. Beatrice must die. Unorna could
produce death in a form which could leave no trace, and it would be
attributed to a weakness of the heart. Does any one account otherwise
for those sudden deaths which are no longer unfrequent in the world?
A man, a woman, is to all appearances in perfect health. He or she was
last seen by a friend, who describes the conversation accurately, and
expresses astonishment at the catastrophe which followed so closely upon
the visit. He, or she, is found alone by a servant, or a third person,
in a profound lethargy from which neither restoratives nor violent
shocks upon the nerves can produce any awakening. In one hour, or a
few hours, it is over. There is an examination, and the authorities
pronounce an ambiguous verdict--death from a syncope of the heart. Such
things happen, they say, with a shake of the head. And, indeed, they
know that such things really do happen, and they suspect that they do
not happen naturally; but there is no evidence, not even so much as
may be detected in a clever case of vegetable poisoning. The heart has
stopped beating, and death has followed. There are wise men by the score
to-day who do not ask “What made it stop?” but “Who made it stop?” But
they have no evidence to bring, and the new jurisprudence, which in some
countries covers the cases of thefts and frauds committed under hypnotic
suggestion, cannot as yet lay down the law for cases where a man has
been told to die, and dies--from “weakness of the heart.” And yet it is
known, and well known, that by hypnotic suggestion the pulse can be made
to fall to the lowest number of beatings consistent with life, and that
the temperature of the body can be commanded beforehand to stand at a
certain degree and fraction of a degree at a certain hour, high or low,
as may be desired. Let those who do not believe read the accounts of
what is done from day to day in the great European seats of learning,
accounts of which every one bears the name of some man speaking with
authority and responsible to the world of science for every word he
speaks, and doubly so for every word he writes. A few believe in the
antiquated doctrine of electric animal currents, the vast majority are
firm in the belief that the influence is a moral one--all admit that
whatever force, or influence, lies at the root of hypnotism, the
effects it can produce are practically unlimited, terrible in their
comprehensiveness, and almost entirely unprovided for in the scheme of
modern criminal law.
Unorna was sure of herself, and of her strength to perform what she
contemplated. There lay the dark beauty in the corner of the sofa, where
she had sat and talked so long, and told her last story, the story of
her life which was now to end. A few determined words spoken in her ear,
a pressure of the hand upon the brow and the heart, and she would never
wake again. She would lie there still, until they found her, hour after
hour, the pulse growing weaker and weaker, the delicate hands colder,
the face more set. At the last, there would be a convulsive shiver of
the queenly form, and that would be the end. The physicians and the
authorities would come and would speak of a weakness of the heart, and
there would be masses sung for her soul, and she would rest in peace.
Her soul? In peace? Unorna stood still. Was that to be all her vengeance
upon the woman who stood between her and happiness? Was there to be
nothing but that, nothing but the painless passing of the pure young
spirit from earth to heaven? Was no one to suffer for all Unorna’s pain?
It was not enough. There must be more than that. And yet, what more?
That was the question. What imaginable wealth of agony would be a just
retribution for her existence? Unorna could lead her, as she had led
Israel Kafka, through the life and death of a martyr, through a life
of wretchedness and a death of shame, but then, the moment must come at
last, since this was to be death indeed, and her spotless soul would be
beyond Unorna’s reach forever. No, that was not enough. Since she could
not be allowed to live to be tormented, vengeance must follow her beyond
the end of life.
Unorna stood still and an awful light of evil came into her face. A
thought of which the enormity would have terrified a common being had
entered her mind and taken possession of it. Beatrice was in her power.
Beatrice should die in mortal sin, and her soul would be lost for ever.
For a long time she did not move, but stood looking down at the calm and
lovely face of her sleeping enemy, devising a crime to be imposed upon
her for her eternal destruction. Unorna was very superstitious, or the
hideous scheme could never have presented itself to her. To her mind
the deed was everything, whatever it was to be, and the intention or
the unconsciousness in doing it could have nothing to do with
the consequences to the soul of the doer. She made no theological
distinctions. Beatrice should commit some terrible crime and should die
in committing it. Then she would be lost, and devils would do in
hell the worst torment which Unorna could not do on earth. A crime--a
robbery, a murder--it must be done in the convent. Unorna hesitated,
bending her brows and poring in imagination over the dark catalogue of
all imaginable evil.
A momentary and vague terror cast its shadow on her thoughts. By some
accident of connection between two ideas, her mind went back a month,
and reviewed as in a flash of light all that she had thought and done
since that day. She had greatly changed since then. She could think
calmly now of deeds which even she would not have dared then. She
thought of the evening when she had cried aloud that she would give her
soul to know the Wanderer safe, of the quick answer that had followed,
and of Keyork Arabian’s face. Was he a devil, indeed, as she sometimes
fancied, and had there been a reality and a binding meaning in that
contract?
Keyork Arabian! He, indeed, possessed the key to all evil. What would
he have done with Beatrice? Would he make her rob the church--murder the
abbess in her sleep? Bad, but not bad enough.
Unorna started. A deed suggested itself so hellish, so horrible in its
enormity, so far beyond all conceivable human sin, that for one moment
her brain reeled. She shuddered again and again, and groped for support
and leaned against the wall in a bodily weakness of terror. For one
moment she, who feared nothing, was shaken by fear from head to foot,
her face turned white, her knees shook, her sight failed her, her teeth
chattered, her lips moved hysterically.
But she was strong still. The thing she had sought had come to her
suddenly. She set her teeth, and thought of it again and again, till she
could face the horror of it without quaking. Is there any limit to the
hardening of the human heart?
The distant bells rang out the call to midnight prayer. Unorna stopped
and listened. She had not known how quickly time was passing. But it was
better so. She was glad it was so late, and she said so to herself, but
the evil smile that was sometimes in her face was not there now. She
had thought a thought that left a mark on her forehead. Was there any
reality in that jesting contract with Keyork Arabian?
She must wait before she did the deed. The nuns would go down into the
lighted church, and kneel and pray before the altar. It would last some
time, the midnight lessons, the psalms, the prayers--and she must be
sure that all was quiet, for the deed could not be done in the room
where Beatrice was sleeping.
She was conscious of the time now, and every minute seemed an hour, and
every second was full of that one deed, done over and over again before
her eyes, until every awful detail of the awful whole was stamped
indelibly upon her brain. She had sat down now, and leaning forwards,
was watching the innocent woman and wondering how she would look when
she was doing it. But she was calm now, as she felt that she had never
been in her life. Her breath came evenly, her heart beat naturally, she
thought connectedly of what she was about to do. But the time seemed
endless.
The distant clocks chimed the half hour, three-quarters, past midnight.
Still she waited. At the stroke of one she rose from her seat, and
standing beside Beatrice laid her hand upon the dark brow.
A few questions, a few answers followed. She must assure herself that
her victim was in the right state to execute minutely all her commands.
Then she opened the door upon the corridor and listened. Not a sound
broke the intense stillness, and all was dark. The hanging lamp had been
extinguished and the nuns had all returned from the midnight service to
their cells. No one would be stirring now until four o’clock, and half
an hour was all that Unorna needed.
She took Beatrice’s hand. The dark woman rose with half-closed eyes and
set features. Unorna led her out into the dark passage.
“It is light here,” Unorna said. “You can see your way. But I am blind.
Take my hand--so--and now lead me to the church by the nun’s staircase.
Make no noise.”
“I do not know the staircase,” said the sleeper in drowsy tones.
Unorna knew the way well enough, but not wishing to take a light with
her, she was obliged to trust herself to her victim, for whose vision
there was no such thing as darkness unless Unorna willed it.
“Go as you went to-day, to the room where the balcony is, but do not
enter it. The staircase is on the right of the door, and leads into the
choir. Go!”
Without hesitation Beatrice led her out into the impenetrable gloom,
with swift, noiseless footsteps in the direction commanded, never
wavering nor hesitating whether to turn to the right or the left, but
walking as confidently as though in broad daylight. Unorna counted the
turnings and knew that there was no mistake. Beatrice was leading her
unerringly towards the staircase. They reached it, and began to descend
the winding steps. Unorna, holding her leader by one hand, steadied
herself with the other against the smooth, curved wall, fearing at
every moment lest she should stumble and fall in the total darkness.
But Beatrice never faltered. To her the way was as bright as though the
noonday sun had shone before her.
The stairs ended abruptly against a door. Beatrice stood still. She had
received no further commands and the impulse ceased.
“Draw back the bolt and take me into the church,” said Unorna, who could
see nothing, but who knew that the nuns fastened the door behind them
when they returned into the convent. Beatrice obeyed without hesitation
and led her forward.
They came out between the high carved seats of the choir, behind the
high altar. The church was not quite as dark as the staircase and
passages had been, and Unorna stood still for a moment. In some of the
chapels hanging lamps of silver were lighted, and their tiny flames
spread a faint radiance upwards and sideways, though not downwards,
sufficient to break the total obscurity to eyes accustomed for some
minutes to no light at all. The church stood, too, on a little eminence
in the city, where the air without was less murky and impenetrable with
the night mists, and though there was no moon the high upper windows
of the nave were distinctly visible in the gloomy height like great
lancet-shaped patches of gray upon a black ground.
In the dimness, all objects took vast and mysterious proportions. A huge
giant reared his height against one of the pillars, crowned with a high,
pointed crown, stretching out one great shadowy hand into the gloom--the
tall pulpit was there, as Unorna knew, and the hand was the wooden
crucifix standing out in its extended socket. The black confessionals,
too, took shape, like monster nuns, kneeling in their heavy hoods and
veils, with heads inclined, behind the fluted pilasters, just within the
circle of the feeble chapel lights. Within the choir, the deep shadows
seemed to fill the carved stalls with the black ghosts of long dead
sisters, returned to their familiar seats out of the damp crypt below.
The great lectern in the midst of the half circle behind the high altar
became a hideous skeleton, headless, its straight arms folded on its
bony breast. The back of the high altar itself was a great throne
whereon sat in judgment a misty being of awful form, judging the dead
women all through the lonely night. The stillness was appalling. Not a
rat stirred.
Unorna shuddered, not at what she saw, but at what she felt. She had
reached the place, and the doing of the deed was at hand. Beatrice stood
beside her erect, asleep, motionless, her dark face just outlined in the
surrounding dusk.
Unorna took her hand and led her forwards. She could see now, and the
moment had come. She brought Beatrice before the high altar and made
her stand in front of it. Then she herself went back and groped for
something in the dark. It was the pair of small wooden steps upon
which the priest mounts in order to open the golden door of the high
tabernacle above the altar, when it is necessary to take therefrom the
Sacred Host for the Benediction, or other consecrated wafers for the
administration of the Communion. To all Christians, of all denominations
whatsoever, the bread-wafer when once consecrated is a holy thing. To
Catholics and Lutherans there is there, substantially, the Presence of
God. No imaginable act of sacrilege can be more unpardonable than the
desecration of the tabernacle and the wilful defilement and destruction
of the Sacred Host.
This was Unorna’s determination. Beatrice should commit this crime
against Heaven, and then die with the whole weight of it upon her soul,
and thus should her soul itself be tormented for ever and ever to ages
of ages.
Considering what she believed, it is no wonder that she should have
shuddered at the tremendous thought. And yet, in the distortion of her
reasoning, the sin would be upon Beatrice who did the act, and not upon
herself who commanded it. There was no diminution of her own faith
in the sacredness of the place and the holiness of the consecrated
object--had she been one whit less sure of that, her vengeance would
have been vain and her whole scheme meaningless.
She came back out of the darkness and set the wooden steps in their
place before the altar at Beatrice’s feet. Then, as though to save
herself from all participation in the guilt of the sacrilege which was
to follow, she withdrew outside the Communion rail, and closed the gate
behind her.
Beatrice, obedient to her smallest command, and powerless to move or
act without her suggestion, stood still as she had been placed, with her
back to the church and her face to the altar. Above her head the richly
wrought door of the tabernacle caught what little light there was and
reflected it from its own uneven surface.
Unorna paused a moment, looked at the shadowy figure, and then glanced
behind her into the body of the church, not out of any ghostly fear, but
to assure herself that she was alone with her victim. She saw that all
was quite ready, and then she calmly knelt down just upon one side of
the gate and rested her folded hands upon the marble railing. A moment
of intense stillness followed. Again the thought of Keyork Arabian
flashed across her mind. Had there been any reality, she vaguely
wondered, in that compact made with him? What was she doing now? But the
crime was to be Beatrice’s, not hers. Her heart beat fast for a moment,
and then she grew very calm again.
The clock in the church tower chimed the first quarter past one. She
was able to count the strokes and was glad to find that she had lost no
time. As soon as the long, singing echo of the bells had died away, she
spoke, not loudly, but clearly and distinctly.
“Beatrice Varanger, go forward and mount the steps I have placed for
you.”
The dark figure moved obediently, and Unorna heard the slight sound of
Beatrice’s foot upon the wood. The shadowy form rose higher and higher
in the gloom, and stood upon the altar itself.
“Now do as I command you. Open wide the door of the tabernacle.”
Unorna watched the black form intently. It seemed to stretch out its
hand as though searching for something, and then the arm fell again to
the side.
“Do as I command you,” Unorna repeated with the angry and dominant
intonation that always came into her voice when she was not obeyed.
Again the hand was raised for a moment, groped in the darkness and sank
down into the shadow.
“Beatrice Varanger, you must do my will. I order you to open the door
of the tabernacle, to take out what is within and to throw it to the
ground!” Her voice rang clearly through the church. “And may the crime
be on your soul for ever and ever,” she added in a low voice.
A third time the figure moved. A strange flash of light played for a
moment upon the tabernacle, the effect, Unorna thought, of the golden
door being suddenly opened.
But she was wrong. The figure moved, indeed, and stretched out a hand
and moved again. A sudden crash of something very heavy, falling upon
stone, broke the great stillness--the dark form tottered, reeled and
fell to its length upon the great altar. Unorna saw that the golden door
was still closed, and that Beatrice had fallen. Unable to move or act by
her own free judgment, and compelled by Unorna’s determined command, she
had made a desperate effort to obey. Unorna had forgotten that there was
a raised step upon the altar itself, and that there were other obstacles
in the way, including heavy candlesticks and the framed Canon of the
Mass, all of which are usually set aside before the tabernacle is opened
by the priest. In attempting to do as she was told, the sleeping woman
had stumbled, had overbalanced herself, had clutched one of the great
silver candlesticks so that it fell heavily beside her, and then, having
no further support, she had fallen herself.
Unorna sprang to her feet and hastily opened the gate of the railing. In
a moment she was standing by the altar at Beatrice’s head. She could see
that the dark eyes were open now. The great shock had recalled her to
consciousness.
“Where am I?” she asked in great distress, seeing nothing in the
darkness now, and groping with her hands.
“Sleep--be silent and sleep!” said Unorna in low, firm tones, pressing
her palm upon the forehead.
“No--no!” cried the startled woman in a voice of horror. “No--I will not
sleep--no, do not touch me! Oh, where am I--help! Help!”
She was not hurt. With one strong, lithe movement, she sprang to the
ground and stood with her back to the altar, her hands stretched out to
defend herself from Unorna. But Unorna knew what extreme danger she was
in if Beatrice left the church awake and conscious of what had happened.
She seized the moving arms and tried to hold them down, pressing her
face forward so as to look into the dark eyes she could but faintly
distinguish. It was no easy matter, however, for Beatrice was young and
strong and active. Then all at once she began to see Unorna’s eyes, as
Unorna could see hers, and she felt the terrible influence stealing over
her again.
“No--no--no!” she cried, struggling desperately. “You shall not make me
sleep. I will not--I will not!”
There was a flash of light again in the church, this time from behind
the high altar, and the noise of quick footsteps. But neither Unorna nor
Beatrice noticed the light or the sound. Then the full glow of a strong
lamp fell upon the faces of both and dazzled them, and Unorna felt a
cool thin hand upon her own. Sister Paul was beside them, her face very
white and her faded eyes turning from the one to the other.
It was very simple. Soon after Compline was over the nun had gone to
Unorna’s room, had knocked and had entered. To her surprise Unorna
was not there, but Sister Paul imagined that she had lingered over her
prayers and would soon return. The good nun had sat down to wait for
her, and telling her beads had fallen asleep. The unaccustomed warmth
and comfort of the guest’s room had been too much for the weariness
that constantly oppressed a constitution broken with ascetic practices.
Accustomed by long habit to awake at midnight to attend the service, her
eyes opened of themselves, indeed, but a full hour later than usual.
She heard the clock strike one, and for a moment could not believe her
senses. Then she understood that she had been asleep, and was amazed
to find that Unorna had not come back. She went out hastily into the
corridor. The lay sister had long ago extinguished the hanging lamp, but
Sister Paul saw the light streaming from Beatrice’s open door. She went
in and called aloud. The bed had not been touched. Beatrice was not
there. Sister Paul began to think that both the ladies must have gone to
the midnight service. The corridors were dark and they might have lost
their way. She took the lamp from the table and went to the balcony at
which the guests performed their devotion. It had been her light that
had flashed across the door of the tabernacle. She had looked down into
the choir, and far below her had seen a figure, unrecognisable from
that height in the dusk of the church, but clearly the figure of a woman
standing upon the altar. Visions of horror rose before her eyes of the
sacrilegious practices of witchcraft, for she had thought of nothing
else during the whole evening. Lamp in hand she descended the stairs to
the choir and reached the altar, providentially, just in time to save
Beatrice from falling a victim again to the evil fascination of the
enemy who had planned the destruction of her soul as well as of her
body.
“What is this? What are you doing in this holy place and at this hour?”
asked Sister Paul, solemnly and sternly.
Unorna folded her arms and was silent. No possible explanation of the
struggle presented itself even to her quick intellect. She fixed her
eyes on the nun’s face, concentrating all her will, for she knew that
unless she could control her also, she herself was lost. Beatrice
answered the question, drawing herself up proudly against the great
altar and pointing at Unorna with her outstretched hand, her dark eyes
flashing indignantly.
“We were talking together, this woman and I. She looked at me--she was
angry--and then I fainted, or fell asleep, I cannot tell which. I awoke
in the dark to find myself lying upon the altar here. Then she took
hold of me and tried to make me sleep again. But I would not. Let her
explain, herself, what she has done, and why she brought me here!”
Sister Paul turned to Unorna and met the full glare of the unlike eyes,
with her own calm, half heavenly look of innocence.
“What have you done, Unorna? What have you done?” she asked very sadly.
But Unorna did not answer. She only looked at the nun more fixedly and
savagely. She felt that she might as well have looked upon some ancient
picture of a saint in heaven, and bid it close its eyes. But she would
not give up the attempt, for her only safety lay in its success. For a
long time Sister Paul returned her gaze steadily.
“Sleep!” said Unorna, putting up her hand. “Sleep, I command you!”
But Sister Paul’s eyes did not waver. A sad smile played for a moment
upon her waxen features.
“You have no power over me--for your power is not of good,” she said,
slowly and softly.
Then she quietly turned to Beatrice, and took her hand.
“Come with me, my daughter,” she said. “I have a light and will take
you to a place where you will be safe. She will not trouble you any more
to-night. Say a prayer, my child, and do not be afraid.”
“I am not afraid,” said Beatrice. “But where is she?” she asked
suddenly.
Unorna had glided away while they were speaking. Sister Paul held the
lamp high and looked in all directions. Then she heard the heavy door of
the sacristy swing upon its hinges and strike with a soft thud against
the small leathern cushion. Both women followed her, but as they opened
the door again a blast of cold air almost extinguished the lamp. The
night wind was blowing in from the street.
“She is gone out,” said Sister Paul. “Alone and at this hour--Heaven
help her!” It was as she said, Unorna had escaped.