The Witch of Prague Part 27

"There was a martyr of your race once," she said in cruel tones. "His name was Simon Abeles. You talk of martyrdom! You shall know what it means--though it be too good for you, who spy upon the woman whom you say you love."

The hectic flush of pa.s.sion sank from Israel Kafka's cheek. Rigid, with outstretched arms and bent head, he stood against the ancient gravestone. Above him, as though raised to heaven in silent supplication, were the sculptured hands that marked the last resting-place of a Kohn.

"You shall know now," said Unorna. "You shall suffer indeed."

CHAPTER XV[*]

[*] The deeds here described were done in Prague on the twenty-first day of February in the year 1694. Lazarus and his accomplice Levi Kurtzhandel, or Brevima.n.u.s, or "the short-handed," were betrayed by their own people. Lazarus hanged himself in prison, and Levi suffered death by the wheel--repentant, it is said, and himself baptized. A full account of the trial, written in Latin, was printed, and a copy of it may be seen in the State Museum in Prague. The body of Simon Abeles was exhumed and rests in the Teyn Kirche, in the chapel on the left of the high altar. The slight extension of certain scenes not fully described in the Latin volume will be pardoned in a work of fiction.

Unorna's voice sank from the tone of anger to a lower pitch. She spoke quietly and very distinctly as though to impress every word upon the ear of the man who was in her power. The Wanderer listened, too, scarcely comprehending at first, but slowly yielding to the influence she exerted until the vision rose before him also with all its moving scenes, in all its truth and in all its horror. As in a dream the deeds that had been pa.s.sed before him, the desolate burial-ground was peopled with forms and faces of other days, the gravestones rose from the earth and piled themselves into gloomy houses and remote courts and dim streets and venerable churches, the dry and twisted trees shrank down, and broadened and swung their branches as arms, and drew up their roots out of the ground as feet under them and moved hither and thither. And the knots and bosses and gnarls upon them became faces, dark, eagle-like and keen, and the creaking and crackling of the boughs and twigs under the piercing blast that swept by, became articulate and like the voices of old men talking angrily together. There were sudden changes from day to night and from night to day. In dark chambers crouching men took counsel of blood together under the feeble rays of a flickering lamp. In the uncertain twilight of winter, m.u.f.fled figures lurked at the corner of streets, waiting for some one to pa.s.s, who must not escape them. As the Wanderer gazed and listened, Israel Kafka was transformed. He no longer stood with outstretched arms, his back against a crumbling slab, his filmy eyes fixed on Unorna's face. He grew younger; his features were those of a boy of scarcely thirteen years, pale, earnest and brightened by a soft light which followed him hither and thither, and he was not alone. He moved with others through the old familiar streets of the city, clothed in a fashion of other times, speaking in accents comprehensible but unlike the speech of to-day, acting in a dim and far-off life that had once been.

The Wanderer looked, and, as in dreams, he knew that what he saw was unreal, he knew that the changing walls and streets and houses and public places were built up of gravestones which in truth were deeply planted in the ground, immovable and incapable of spontaneous motion; he knew that the crowds of men and women were not human beings but gnarled and twisted trees rooted in the earth, and that the hum of voices which reached his ears was but the sound of dried branches bending in the wind; he knew that Israel Kafka was not the pale-faced boy who glided from place to place followed everywhere by a soft radiance; he knew that Unorna was the source and origin of the vision, and that the mingling speeches of the actors, now shrill in angry altercation, now hissing in low, fierce whisper, were really formed upon Unorna's lips and made audible through her tones, as the chorus of indistinct speech proceeded from the swaying trees. It was to him an illusion of which he understood the key and penetrated the secret, but it was marvellous in its way, and he was held enthralled from the first moment when it began to unfold itself. He understood further that Israel Kafka was in a state different from this, that he was suffering all the reality of another life, which to the Wanderer was but a dream. For the moment all his faculties had a double perception of things and sounds, distinguishing clearly between the fact and the mirage that distorted and obscured it. For the moment he was aware that his reason was awake though his eyes and his ears might be sleeping. Then the unequal contest between the senses and the intellect ceased, and while still retaining the dim consciousness that the source of all he saw and heard lay in Unorna's brain, he allowed himself to be led quickly from one scene to another, absorbed and taken out of himself by the horror of the deeds done before him.

At first, indeed, the vision, though vivid, seemed objectless and of uncertain meaning. The dark depths of the Jews' quarter of the city were opened, and it was towards evening. Throngs of gowned men, crooked, bearded, filthy, vulture-eyed, crowded upon each other in a narrow public place, talking in quick, shrill accents, gesticulating, with hands and arms and heads and bodies, laughing, chuckling, chattering, hook-nosed and loose-lipped, grasping fat purses in lean fingers, shaking greasy curls that straggled out under caps of greasy fur, glancing to right and left with quick, gleaming looks that pierced the gloom like fitful flashes of lightning, plucking at each other by the sleeve and pointing long fingers and crooked nails, two, three and four at a time, as markers, in their ready reckoning, a writhing ma.s.s of humanity, intoxicated by the smell of gold, mad for its possession, half hysteric with the fear of losing it, timid, yet dangerous, poisoned to the core by the sweet sting of money, terrible in intelligence, vile in heart, contemptible in body, irresistible in the unity of their greed--the Jews of Prague, two hundred years ago.

In one corner of the dusky place there was a little light. A boy stood there, beside a veiled woman, and the light that seemed to cling about him was not the reflection of gold. He was very young. His pale face had in it all the lost beauty of the Jewish race, the lips were clearly cut, even, pure in outline and firm, the forehead broad with thought, the features n.o.ble, aquiline--not vulture-like. Such a face might holy Stephen, Deacon and Protomartyr, have turned upon the young men who laid their garments at the fee of the unconverted Saul.

He stood there, looking on at the scene in the market-place, not wondering, for nothing of it was new to him, not scorning, for he felt no hate, not wrathful, for he dreamed of peace. He would have had it otherwise--that was all. He would have had the stream flow back upon its source and take a new channel for itself, he would have seen the strength of his people wielded in cleaner deeds for n.o.bler aims. The gold he hated, the race for it he despised, the poison of it he loathed, but he had neither loathing nor contempt nor hatred for the men themselves. He looked upon them and he loved to think that the carrion vulture might once again be purified and lifted on strong wings and become, as in old days, the eagle of the mountains.

For many minutes he gazed in silence. Then he sighed and turned away. He held certain books in his hand, for he had come from the school of the synagogue where, throughout the short winter days, the rabbis taught him and his companions the mysteries of the sacred tongue. The woman by his side was a servant in his father's house, and it was her duty to attend him through the streets, until the day when, being judged a man, he should be suddenly freed from the bondage of childish things.

"Let us go," he said in a low voice. "The air is full of gold and heavy.

I cannot breathe it."

"Whither?" asked the woman.

"Thou knowest," he answered. And suddenly the faint radiance that was always about him grew brighter, and spread out arms behind him, to the right and left, in the figure of a cross.

They walked together, side by side, quickly and often glancing behind them as though to see whether they were followed. And yet it seemed as though it was not they who moved, but the city about them which changed.

The throng of busy Jews grew shadowy and disappeared, their shrill voices were lost in the distance. There were other people in the street, of other features and in different garbs, of prouder bearing and hot, restless manner, broad-shouldered, erect, manly, with spur on heel and sword at side. The outline of the old synagogue melted into the murky air and changed its shape, and stood out again in other and ever-changing forms. Now they were pa.s.sing before the walls of a n.o.ble palace, now beneath long, low galleries of arches, now again across the open s.p.a.ce of the Great Ring in the midst of the city--then all at once they were standing before the richly carved doorway of the Teyn Kirche, the very doorway out of which the Wanderer had followed the fleeting shadow of Beatrice's figure but a month ago. And then they paused, and looked again to the right and left, and searched the dark corners with piercing glances.

"Thy life is in thine hand," said the woman, speaking close to the boy's ear. "It is yet time. Turn with me and let us go back."

The mysterious radiance lit up the youth's beautiful face in the dark street and showed the fearless yet gentle smile that was on his lips.

"What is there to fear?" he asked.

"Death," answered the woman in a trembling tone. "They will kill thee, and it shall be upon my head."

"And what is Death?" he asked again, and the smile was still upon his face as he led the way up the steps.

The woman bowed her head and drew her veil more closely about her and followed him. Then they were within the church, darker, more ghostly, less rich in those days than now. The boy stood beside the hewn stone basin wherein was the blessed water, and he touched the frozen surface with his fingers, and held them out to his companion.

"Is it thus?" he asked. And the heavenly smile grew more radiant as he made the sign of the Cross.

Again the woman inclined her head.

"Be it not upon me!" she exclaimed earnestly. "Though I would it might be for ever so with thee."

"It is for ever," the boy answered.

He went forward and prostrated himself before the high altar, and the soft light hovered above him. The woman knelt at a little distance from him, with clasped hands and upturned eyes. The church was very dark and silent.

An old man in a monk's robe came forward out of the shadow of the choir and stood behind the marble rails and looked down at the boy's prostrate figure, wonderingly. Then the low gateway was opened and he descended the three steps and bent down to the young head.

"What wouldest thou?" he asked.

Simon Abeles rose until he knelt, and looked up into the old man's face.

"I am a Jew. I would be a Christian. I would be baptized."

"Fearest thou not thy people?" the monk asked.

"I fear not death," answered the boy simply.

"Come with me."

Trembling, the woman followed them both, and all were lost in the gloom of the church. They were not to be seen, and all was still for a s.p.a.ce.

Suddenly a clear voice broke the silence.

"_Ego baptizo te in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti._"

Then the woman and the boy were standing again without the entrance in the chilly air, and the ancient monk was upon the threshold under the carved arch; his thin hands, white in the darkness, were lifted high, and he blessed them, and they went their way.

In the moving vision the radiance was brighter still and illuminated the streets as they moved on. Then a cloud descended over all, and certain days and weeks pa.s.sed, and again the boy was walking swiftly toward the church. But the woman was not with him, and he believed that he was alone, though the messengers of evil were upon him. Two dark figures moved in the shadow, silent, noiseless in their walk, m.u.f.fled in long garments. He went on, no longer deigning to look back, beyond fear as he had ever been, and beyond even the expectation of a danger. He went into the church, and the two men made gestures, and spoke in low tones, and hid themselves in the shade of the b.u.t.tresses outside.

The vision grew darker and a terrible stillness was over everything, for the church was not opened to the sight this time. There was a horror of long waiting with the certainty of what was to come. The narrow street was empty to the eye, and yet there was the knowledge of evil presence, of two strong men waiting in the dark to take their victim to the place of expiation. And the horror grew in the silence and the emptiness, until it was unbearable.

The door opened and the boy was with the monk under the black arch.

The old man embraced him and blessed him and stood still for a moment watching him as he went down. Then he, also, turned and went back, and the door was closed.

Swiftly the two men glided from their hiding-place and sped along the uneven pavement. The boy paused and faced them, for he felt that he was taken. They grasped him by the arms on each side, Lazarus his father, and Levi, surnamed the Short-handed, the strongest and the cruellest and the most relentless of the younger rabbis. Their grip was rough, and the older man held a coa.r.s.e woollen cloth in his hand with which to smother the boy's cries if he should call out for help. But he was very calm and did not resist them.

"What would you?" he asked.

"And what doest thou in a Christian church?" asked Lazarus in low fierce tones.

"What Christians do, since I am one of them," answered the youth, unmoved.

Lazarus said nothing, but he struck the boy on the mouth with his hard hand so that the blood ran down.

"Not here!" exclaimed Levi, anxiously looking about.

And they hurried him away through dark and narrow lanes. He opposed no resistance to Levi's rough strength, not only suffering himself to be dragged along but doing his best to keep pace with the man's long strides, nor did he murmur at the blows and thrusts dealt him from time to time by his father from the other side. During some minutes they were still traversing the Christian part of the city. A single loud cry for help would have brought a rescue, a few words to the rescuers would have roused a mob of fierce men and the two Jews would have paid with their lives for the deeds they had not yet committed. But Simon Abeles uttered no cry and offered no resistance. He had said that he feared not death, and he had spoken the truth, not knowing what manner of death was to be his. Onward they sped, and in the vision the way they traversed seemed to sweep past them, so that they remained always in sight though always hurrying on. The Christian quarter was pa.s.sed; before them hung the chain of one of those gates which gave access to the city of the Jews.

With a jeer and an oath the bearded sentry watched them pa.s.s--the martyr and his torturers. One word to him, even then, and the b.u.t.t of his heavy halberd would have broken Levi's arm and laid the boy's father in the dust. The word was not spoken. On through the filthy ways, on and on, through narrow courts and tortuous pa.s.sages to a dark low doorway. Then, again, the vision showed but an empty street and there was silence for a s.p.a.ce, and a horror of long waiting in the falling night.

Lights moved within the house, and then one window after another was bolted and barred from within. Still the silence endured until the ear was grown used to it and could hear sounds very far off, from deep down below the house itself, but the walls did not open and the scene did not change. A dull noise, bad to hear, resounded as from beneath a vault, and then another and another--the sound of cruel blows upon a human body. Then a pause.