The Witch of Prague Part 2

Nothing could be simpler."

"It seems to me that nothing could be more vague."

"You were not formerly so slow to understand me," said the strange little man with some impatience.

"Do you know a lady of Prague who calls herself Unorna?" the Wanderer asked, paying no attention to his friend's last remark.

"I do. What of her?" Keyork Arabian glanced keenly at his companion.

"What is she? She has an odd name."

"As for her name, it is easily accounted for. She was born on the twenty-ninth day of February, the year of her birth being bis.e.xtile.

Unor means February, Unorna, derivative adjective, 'belonging to February.' Some one gave her the name to commemorate the circ.u.mstance."

"Her parents, I suppose."

"Most probably--whoever they may have been."

"And what is she?" the Wanderer asked.

"She calls herself a witch," answered Keyork with considerable scorn. "I do not know what she is, or what to call her--a sensitive, an hysterical subject, a medium, a witch--a fool, if you like, or a charlatan if you prefer the term. Beautiful she is, at least, whatever else she may not be."

"Yes, she is beautiful."

"So you have seen her, have you?" The little man again looked sharply up at his tall companion. "You have had a consultation----"

"Does she give consultations? Is she a professional seer?" The Wanderer asked the question in a tone of surprise. "Do you mean that she maintains an establishment upon such a scale out of the proceeds of fortune-telling?"

"I do not mean anything of the sort. Fortune-telling is excellent! Very good!" Keyork's bright eyes flashed with amus.e.m.e.nt. "What are you doing here--I mean in this church?" He put the question suddenly.

"Pursuing--an idea, if you please to call it so."

"Not knowing what you mean I must please to call your meaning by your own name for it. It is your nature to be enigmatic. Shall we go out?

If I stay here much longer I shall be petrified instead of embalmed. I shall turn into dirty old red marble like Tycho's effigy there, an awful warning to future philosophers, and an example for the edification of the faithful who worship here."

They walked towards the door, and the contrast between the appearance of the two brought the ghost of a smile to the thin lips of the pale sacristan, who was occupied in renewing the tapers upon one of the side altars. Keyork Arabian might have stood for the portrait of the gnome-king. His high and pointed head, his immense beard, his stunted but powerful and thickset limbs, his short, st.u.r.dy strides, the fiery, half-humorous, half-threatening twinkle of his bright eyes gave him all the appearance of a fantastic figure from a fairy tale, and the diminutive height of his compact frame set off the n.o.ble stature and graceful motion of his companion.

"So you were pursuing an idea," said the little man as they emerged into the narrow street. "Now ideas may be divided variously into cla.s.ses, as, for instance, ideas which are good, bad, or indifferent. Or you may contrast the idea of Plato with ideas anything but platonic--take it as you please. Then there is my idea, which is in itself, good, interesting, and worthy of the embalming process; and there is your idea, which I am human enough to consider altogether bad, worthless, and frivolous, for the plain and substantial reason that it is not mine.

Perhaps that is the best division of all. Thine eye is necessarily, fatally, irrevocably evil, because mine is essentially, predestinately, and unchangeably good. If I secretly adopt your idea, I openly a.s.sert that it was never yours at all, but mine from the beginning, by the prerogatives of greater age, wider experience, and immeasurably superior wisdom. If you have an idea upon any subject, I will utterly annihilate it to my own most profound satisfaction; if you have none concerning any special point, I will force you to accept mine, as mine, or to die the intellectual death. That is the general theory of the idea."

"And what does it prove?" inquired the Wanderer.

"If you knew anything," answered Keyork, with twinkling eyes, "you would know that a theory is not a demonstration, but an explanation. But, by the hypothesis, since you are not I, you can know nothing certainly.

Now my theory explains many things, and, among others, the adamantine, imperishable, impenetrable nature of the substance vanity upon which the showman, Nature, projects in fast fading colours the unsubstantial images of men. Why do you drag me through this dismal pa.s.sage?"

"I pa.s.sed through it this morning and missed my way."

"In pursuit of the idea, of course. That was to be expected. Prague is constructed on the same principle as the human brain, full of winding ways, dark lanes, and gloomy arches, all of which may lead somewhere, or may not. Its topography continually misleads its inhabitants as the convolutions of the brain mislead the thoughts that dwell there, sometimes bringing them out at last, after a patient search for daylight, upon a fine broad street where the newest fashions in thought are exposed for sale in brightly illuminated shop windows and showcases; conducting them sometimes to the dark, unsavoury court where the miserable self drags out its unhealthy existence in the single room of its hired earthly lodging."

"The self which you propose to preserve from corruption," observed the tall man, who was carefully examining every foot of the walls between which he was pa.s.sing with his companion, "since you think so poorly of the lodger and the lodging, I wonder that you should be anxious to prolong the sufferings of the one and his lease of the other."

"It is all I have," answered Keyork Arabian. "Did you think of that?"

"That circ.u.mstance may serve as an excuse, but it does not const.i.tute a reason."

"Not a reason! Is the most abject poverty a reason for throwing away the daily crust? My self is all I have. Shall I let it perish when an effort may preserve it from destruction? On the one side of the line stands Keyork Arabian, on the other floats the shadow of an annihilation, which threatens to swallow up Keyork's self, while leaving all that he has borrowed of life to be enjoyed, or wasted by others. Could Keyork be expected to hesitate, so long as he may hope to remain in possession of that inestimable treasure, his own individuality, which is his only means for enjoying all that is not his, but borrowed?"

"So soon as you speak of enjoyment, argument ceases," answered the Wanderer.

"You are wrong, as usual," returned the other. "It is the other way.

Enjoyment is the universal solvent of all arguments. No reason can resist its mordant action. It will dissolve any philosophy not founded upon it and modelled out of its substance, as Aqua Regia will dissolve all metals, even to gold itself. Enjoyment? Enjoyment is the protest of reality against the tyranny of fiction."

The little man stopped short in his walk, striking his heavy stick sharply upon the pavement and looking up at his companion, very much as a man of ordinary size looks up at the face of a colossal statue.

"Have wisdom and study led you no farther than that conclusion?"

Keyork's eyes brightened suddenly, and a peal of laughter, deep and rich, broke from his st.u.r.dy breast and rolled long echoes through the dismal lane, musical as a hunting-song heard among great trees in winter. But his ivory features were not discomposed, though his white beard trembled and waved softly like a snowy veil blown about by the wind.

"If wisdom can teach how to prolong the lease, what study can be compared with that of which the results may beautify the dwelling?

What more can any man do for himself than make himself happy? The very question is absurd. What are you trying to do for yourself at the present moment? Is it for the sake of improving the physical condition or of promoting the moral case of mankind at large that you are dragging me through the slums and byways and alleys of the gloomiest city on this side of eternal perdition? It is certainly not for my welfare that you are sacrificing yourself. You admit that you are pursuing an idea.

Perhaps you are in search of some new and curious form of mildew, and when you have found it--or something else--you will name your discovery _Fungus Pragensis_, or _Cryptogamus minor Errantis_--'the Wanderer's toadstool.' But I know you of old, my good friend. The idea you pursue is not an idea at all, but that specimen of the _genus h.o.m.o_ known as 'woman,' species 'lady,' variety 'true love,' vulgar designation 'sweetheart.'"

The Wanderer stared coldly at his companion.

"The vulgarity of the designation is indeed only equalled by that of your taste in selecting it," he said slowly. Then he turned away, intending to leave Keyork standing where he was.

But the little man had already repented of his speech. He ran quickly to his friend's side and laid one hand upon his arm. The Wanderer paused and again looked down.

"Is it of any use to be offended with my speeches? Am I an acquaintance of yesterday? Do you imagine that it could ever be my intention to annoy you?" the questions were asked rapidly in tones of genuine anxiety.

"Indeed, I hardly know how I could suppose that. You have always been friendly--but I confess--your names for things are not--always----"

The Wanderer did not complete the sentence, but looked gravely at Keyork as though wishing to convey very clearly again what he had before expressed in words.

"If we were fellow-countrymen and had our native language in common, we should not so easily misunderstand one another," replied the other.

"Come, forgive my lack of skill, and do not let us quarrel. Perhaps I can help you. You may know Prague well, but I know it better. Will you allow me to say that I know also whom it is you are seeking here?"

"Yes. You know. I have not changed since we last met, nor have circ.u.mstances favoured me."

"Tell me--have you really seen this Unorna, and talked with her?"

"This morning."

"And she could not help you?"

"I refused to accept her help, until I had done all that was in my own power to do."

"You were rash. And have you now done all, and failed?"