The Witch of Prague Part 19

"So far as the latter point is concerned, I have nothing to say. But you need not be so terribly impressive; and unless you are going to break your word, by which you seem to set such store, and quarrel with me, you need not look at me so fiercely."

Keyork suddenly let his voice drop to its deepest and most vibrating key.

"I only want you to remember this," he said. "You are not an ordinary woman, as I am not an ordinary man, and the experiment we are making together is an altogether extraordinary one. I have told you the truth.

I care for nothing but my individual self, and I seek nothing but the prolongation of life. If you endanger the success of the great trial again, as you did to-day, and if it fails, I will never forgive you.

You will make an enemy of me, and you will regret it while you live, and longer than that, perhaps. So long as you keep the compact there is nothing I will not do to help you--nothing within the bounds of your imagination. And I can do much. Do you understand?"

"I understand that you are afraid of losing my help."

"That is it--of losing your help. I am not afraid of losing you--in the end."

Unorna smiled rather scornfully at first, as she looked down upon the little man's strange face and gazed fearlessly into his eyes. But as she looked, the smile faded, and the colour slowly sank from her face, until she was very pale. And as she felt herself losing courage before something which she could not understand, Keyork's eyes grew brighter and brighter till they glowed like drops of molten metal. A sound as of many voices wailing in agony rose and trembled and quavered in the air.

With a wild cry, Unorna pressed her hands to her ears and fled towards the entrance.

"You are very nervous to-night," observed Keyork, as he opened the door.

Then he went silently down the stairs by her side and helped her into the carriage, which had been waiting since his return.

CHAPTER XI

A month had pa.s.sed since the day on which Unorna had first seen the Wanderer, and since the evening when she had sat so long in conversation with Keyork Arabian. The snow lay heavily on all the rolling moorland about Prague, covering everything up to the very gates of the black city; and within, all things were as hard and dark and frozen as ever.

The sun was still the sun, no doubt, high above the mist and the gloom which he had no power to pierce, but no man could say that he had seen him in that month. At long intervals indeed, a faint rose-coloured glow touched the high walls of the Hradschin and transfigured for an instant the short spires of the unfinished cathedral, hundreds of feet above the icebound river and the sepulchral capital; sometimes, in the dim afternoons, a little gold filtered through the heavy air and tinged the snow-steeples of the Teyn Kirche, and yellowed the stately tower of the town hall; but that was all, so far as the moving throngs of silent beings that filled the streets could see. The very air men breathed seemed to be stiffening with damp cold. For that is not the glorious winter of our own dear north, where the whole earth is a jewel of gleaming crystals hung between two heavens, between the heaven of the day, and the heaven of the night, beautiful alike in sunshine and in starlight, under the rays of the moon, at evening and again at dawn; where the pines and hemlocks are as forests of plumes powdered thick with dust of silver; where the black ice rings like a deep-toned bell beneath the heel of the sweeping skate--the ice that you may follow a hundred miles if you have breath and strength; where the harshest voice rings musically among the icicles and the snow-laden boughs; where the quick jingle of sleigh bells far off on the smooth, deep track brings to the listener the vision of our own merry Father Christmas, with snowy beard, and apple cheeks, and peaked fur cap, and mighty gauntlets, and hampers and sacks full of toys and good things and true northern jollity; where all is young and fresh and free; where eyes are bright and cheeks are red, and hands are strong and hearts are brave; where children laugh and tumble in the diamond dust of the dry, driven snow; where men and women know what happiness can mean; where the old are as the giant pines, green, silver-crowned landmarks in the human forest, rather than as dried, twisted, sapless trees fit only to be cut down and burned, in that dear north to which our hearts and memories still turn for refreshment, under the Indian suns, and out of the hot splendour of calm southern seas. The winter of the black city that spans the frozen Moldau is the winter of the grave, dim as a perpetual afternoon in a land where no lotus ever grew, cold with the unspeakable frigidness of a reeking air that thickens as oil but will not be frozen, melancholy as a stony island of death in a lifeless sea.

A month had gone by, and in that time the love that had so suddenly taken root in Unorna's heart had grown to great proportions as love will when, being strong and real, it is thwarted and repulsed at every turn.

For she was not loved. She had destroyed the idol and rooted out the memory of it, but she could not take its place. She had spoken the truth when she had told Keyork that she would be loved for herself, or not at all, and that she would use neither her secret arts nor her rare gifts to manufacture a semblance when she longed for a reality.

Almost daily she saw him. As in a dream he came to her and sat by her side, hour after hour, talking of many things, calm, apparently, and satisfied in her society, but strangely apathetic and indifferent.

Never once in those many days had she seen his pale face light up with pleasure, nor his deep eyes show a gleam of interest; never had the tone of his voice been disturbed in its even monotony; never had the touch of his hand, when they met and parted, felt the communication of the thrill that ran through hers.

It was very bitter, for Unorna was proud with the scarcely reasoning pride of a lawless, highly gifted nature, accustomed to be obeyed and little used to bending under any influence. She brought all the skill she could command to her a.s.sistance; she talked to him, she told him of herself, she sought his confidence, she consulted him on every matter, she attempted to fascinate his imagination with tales of a life which even he could never have seen; she even sang to him old songs and s.n.a.t.c.hes of wonderful melodies which, in her childhood, had still survived the advancing wave of silence that has overwhelmed the Bohemian people within the memory of living man, bringing a change into the daily life and temperament of a whole nation which is perhaps unparalleled in any history. He listened, he smiled, he showed a faint pleasure and a great understanding in all these things, and he came back day after day to talk and listen again. But that was all. She felt that she could amuse him without charming him.

And Unorna suffered terribly. Her cheek grew thinner and her eyes gleamed with sudden fires. She was restless, and her beautiful hands, from seeming to be carved in white marble, began to look as though they were chiselled out of delicate transparent alabaster. She slept little and thought much, and if she did not shed tears, it was because she was too strong to weep for pain and too proud to weep from anger and disappointment. And yet her resolution remained firm, for it was part and parcel of her inmost self, and was guarded by pride on the one hand and an unalterable belief in fate on the other.

To-day they sat together, as they had so often sat, among the flowers and the trees in the vast conservatory, she in her tall, carved chair and he upon a lower seat before her. They had been silent for some minutes. It was not yet noon, but it might have been early morning in a southern island, so soft was the light, so freshly scented the air, so peaceful the tinkle of the tiny fountain. Unorna's expression was sad, as she gazed in silence at the man she loved. There was something gone from his face, she thought, since she had first seen him, and it was to bring that something back that she would give her life and her soul if she could.

Suddenly her lips moved and a sad melody trembled in the air. Unorna sang, almost as though singing to herself. The Wanderer's deep eyes met hers and he listened.

"When in life's heaviest hour Grief crowds upon the heart One wondrous prayer My memory repeats.

"The harmony of the living words Is full of strength to heal, There breathes in them a holy charm Past understanding.

"Then, as a burden from my soul, Doubt rolls away, And I believe--believe in tears, And all is light--so light!"

She ceased, and his eyes were still upon her, calm, thoughtful, dispa.s.sionate. The colour began to rise in her cheek. She looked down and tapped upon the carved arm of the chair with an impatient gesture familiar to her.

"And what is that one prayer?" asked the Wanderer. "I knew the song long ago, but I have never guessed what that magic prayer can be like."

"It must be a woman's prayer; I cannot tell you what it is."

"And are you so sad to-day, Unorna? What makes you sing that song?"

"Sad? No, I am not sad," she answered with an effort. "But the words rose to my lips and so I sang."

"They are pretty words," said her companion, almost indifferently. "And you have a very beautiful voice," he added thoughtfully.

"Have I? I have been told so, sometimes."

"Yes. I like to hear you sing, and talk, too. My life is a blank. I do not know what it would be without you."

"I am little enough to--those who know me," said Unorna, growing pale, and drawing a quick breath.

"You cannot say that. You are not little to me."

There was a long silence. He gazed at the plants, and his glance wandered from one to the other, as though he did not see them, being lost in meditation. The voice had been calm and clear as ever, but it was the first time he had ever said so much, and Unorna's heart stood still, half fire and half ice. She could not speak.

"You are very much to me," he said again, at last. "Since I have been in this place a change has come over me. I seem to myself to be a man without an object, without so much as a real thought. Keyork tells me that there is something wanting, that the something is woman, and that I ought to love. I cannot tell. I do not know what love is, and I never knew. Perhaps it is the absence of it that makes me what I am--a body and an intelligence without a soul. Even the intelligence I begin to doubt. What sense has there ever been in all my wanderings? Why have I been in every place, in every city? What went I forth to see? Not even a reed shaken by the wind! I have spoken all languages, read thousands of books, known men in every land--and for what? It is as though I had once had an object in it all, though I know that there was none. But I have realised the worthlessness of my life since I have been here. Perhaps you have shown it to me, or helped me to see it. I cannot tell. I ask myself again and again what it was all for, and I ask in vain. I am lonely, indeed, in the world, but it has been my own choice. I remember that I had friends once, when I was younger, but I cannot tell what has become of one of them. They wearied me, perhaps, in those days, and the weariness drove me from my own home. For I have a home, Unorna, and I fancy that when old age gets me at last I shall go there to die, in one of those old towers by the northern sea. I was born there, and there my mother died and my father, before I knew them; it is a sad place!

Meanwhile, I may have thirty years, or forty, or even more to live.

Shall I go on living this wandering, aimless life? And if not what shall I do? Love, says Keyork Arabian--who never loved anything but himself, but to whom that suffices, for it pa.s.ses the love of woman!"

"That is true, indeed," said Unorna in a low voice.

"And what he says might be true also, if I were capable of loving. But I feel that I am not. I am as incapable of that as of anything else. I ought to despise myself, and yet I do not. I am perfectly contented, and if I am not happy I at least do not realise what unhappiness means. Am I not always of the same even temper?"

"Indeed you are." She tried not to speak bitterly, but something in her tone struck him.

"Ah, I see! You despise me a little for my apathy. Yes, you are quite right. Man is not made to turn idleness into a fine art, nor to manufacture contentment out of his own culpable indifference! It is despicable--and yet, here I am."

"I never meant that," cried Unorna with sudden heat. "Even if I had, what right have I to make myself the judge of your life?"

"The right of friendship," answered the Wanderer very quietly. "You are my best friend, Unorna."

Unorna's anger rose within her. She remembered how in that very place, and but a month earlier, she had offered Israel Kafka her friendship, and it was as though a heavy retribution were now meted out to her for her cruelty on that day. She remembered his wrath and his pa.s.sionate denunciations of friendship, his scornful refusal, his savage attempt to conquer her will, his failure and his defeat. She remembered how she had taken her revenge, delivering him over in his sleep to Keyork Arabian's will. She wished that, like him, she could escape from the wound of the word in a senseless lethargy of body and mind. She knew now what he had suffered, for she suffered it all herself. He, at least, had been free to speak his mind, to rage and storm and struggle. She must sit still and hide her agony, at the risk of losing all. She bit her white lips and turned her head away, and was silent.

"You are my best friend," the Wanderer repeated in his calm voice, and every syllable pierced her like a glowing needle. "And does not friendship give rights which ought to be used? If, as I think, Unorna, you look upon me as an idler, as a worthless being, as a man without as much as the shadow of a purpose in the world, it is but natural that you should despise me a little, even though you may be very fond of me. Do you not see that?"

Unorna stared at him with an odd expression for a moment.

"Yes--I am fond of you!" she exclaimed, almost harshly. Then she laughed. He seemed not to notice her tone.

"I never knew what friendship was before," he went on. "Of course, as I said, I had friends when I was little more than a boy, boys and young men like myself, and our friendship came to this, that we laughed, and feasted and hunted together, and sometimes even quarrelled, and caring little, thought even less. But in those days there seemed to be nothing between that and love, and love I never understood, that I can remember.

But friendship like ours, Unorna, was never dreamed of among us. Such friendship as this, when I often think that I receive all and give nothing in return."

Again Unorna laughed, so strangely that the sound of her own voice startled her.

"Why do you laugh like that?" he asked.