The Witch of Prague Part 4

No answer came to her from among the thick foliage nor in the scented breath of the violets and the lilies. The murmuring song of the little fountain alone disturbed the stillness, and the rustle of her own garments as she moved.

"Is it he? Is it he? Is it he?" she repeated again and again, in varying tones, chiming the changes of hope and fear, of certainty and vacillation, of sadness and of gladness, of eager pa.s.sion and of chilling doubt.

She stood still, staring at the pavement, her fingers clasped together, the palms of her hands turned downward, her arms relaxed. She did not see the dark red squares of marble, alternating with the white and the gray, but as she looked a face and a form rose before her, in the contemplation of which all her senses and faculties concentrated themselves. The pale and n.o.ble head grew very distinct in her inner sight, the dark gray eyes gazed sadly upon her, the pa.s.sionate features were fixed in the expression of a great sorrow.

"Are you indeed he?" she asked, speaking softly and doubtfully, and yet unconsciously projecting her strong will upon the vision, as though to force it to give the answer for which she longed.

And the answer came, imposed by the effort of her imagination upon the thing imagined. The face suddenly became luminous, as with a radiance within itself; the shadows of grief melted away, and in their place trembled the rising light of a dawning love. The lips moved and the voice spoke, not as it had spoken to her lately, but in tones long familiar to her in dreams by day and night.

"I am he, I am that love for whom you have waited; you are that dear one whom I have long sought throughout the world. The hour of our joy has struck, the new life begins to-day, and there shall be no end."

Unorna's arms went out to grasp the shadow, and she drew it to her in her fancy and kissed its radiant face.

"To ages of ages!" she cried.

Then she covered her eyes as though to impress the sight they had seen upon the mind within, and groping blindly for her chair sank back into her seat. But the mechanical effort of will and memory could not preserve the image. In spite of all inward concentration of thought, its colours faded, its outlines trembled, grew faint and vanished, and darkness was in its place. Unorna's hand dropped to her side, and a quick throb of pain stabbed her through and through, agonising as the wound of a blunt and jagged knife, though it was gone almost before she knew where she had felt it. Then her eyes flashed with unlike fires, the one dark and pa.s.sionate as the light of a black diamond, the other keen and daring as the gleam of blue steel in the sun.

"Ah, but I will!" she exclaimed. "And what I will--shall be."

As though she were satisfied with the promise thus made to herself, she smiled, her eyelids drooped, the tension of her frame was relaxed, and she sank again into the indolent att.i.tude in which the Wanderer had found her. A moment later the distant door turned softly upon its hinges and a light footfall broke the stillness. There was no need for Unorna to speak in order that the sound of her voice might guide the new comer to her retreat. The footsteps approached swiftly and surely. A young man of singular beauty came out of the green shadows and stood beside the chair in the open s.p.a.ce.

Unorna betrayed no surprise as she looked up into her visitor's face.

She knew it well. In form and feature the youth represented the n.o.blest type of the Jewish race. It was impossible to see him without thinking of a young eagle of the mountains, eager, swift, sure, instinct with elasticity, far-sighted and untiring, strong to grasp and to hold, beautiful with the glossy and unruffled beauty of a plumage continually smoothed in the sweep and the rush of high, bright air.

Israel Kafka stood still, gazing down upon the woman he loved, and drawing his breath hard between his parted lips. His piercing eyes devoured every detail of the sight before him, while the dark blood rose in his lean olive cheek, and the veins of his temples swelled with the beating of his quickened pulse.

"Well?"

The single indifferent word received the value of a longer speech from the tone in which it was uttered, and from the look and gesture which accompanied it. Unorna's voice was gentle, soft, half-indolent, half-caressing, half-expectant, and half-careless. There was something almost insolent in its a.s.sumption of superiority, which was borne out by the little defiant tapping of two long white fingers upon the arm of the carved chair. And yet, with the rising inflection of the monosyllable there went a raising of the brows, a sidelong glance of the eyes, a slowly wreathing smile that curved the fresh lips just enough to unmask two perfect teeth, all of which lent to the voice a meaning, a familiarity, a pliant possibility of favourable interpretation, fit rather to flatter a hope than to chill a pa.s.sion.

The blood beat more fiercely in the young man's veins, his black eyes gleamed yet more brightly, his pale, high-curved nostrils quivered at every breath he drew. The throbbings of his heart unseated his thoughts and strongly took possession of the government of his body. Under an irresistible impulse he fell upon his knees beside Unorna, covering her marble hand with all his lean, dark fingers and pressing his forehead upon them, as though he had found and grasped all that could be dear to him in life.

"Unorna! My golden Unorna!" he cried, as he knelt.

Unorna looked down upon his bent head. The smile faded from her face, and for a moment a look of hardness lingered there, which gave way to an expression of pain and regret. As though collecting her thoughts she closed her eyes, as she tried to draw back her hand; then as he held it still, she leaned back and spoke to him.

"You have not understood me," she said, as quietly as she could.

The strong fingers were not lifted from hers, but the white face, now bloodless and transparent, was raised to hers, and a look of such fear as she had never dreamed of was in the wide black eyes.

"Not--understood?" he repeated in startled, broken tones.

Unorna sighed, and turned away, for the sight hurt her and accused her.

"No, you have not understood. Is it my fault? Israel Kafka, that hand is not yours to hold."

"Not mine? Unorna!" Yet he could not quite believe what she said.

"I am in earnest," she answered, not without a lingering tenderness in the intonation. "Do you think I am jesting with you, or with myself?"

Neither of the two stirred during the silence which followed. Unorna sat quite still, staring fixedly into the green shadows of the foliage, as though not daring to meet the gaze she felt upon her. Israel Kafka still knelt beside her, motionless and hardly breathing, like a dangerous wild animal startled by an unexpected enemy, and momentarily paralysed in the very act of springing, whether backward in flight, or forward in the teeth of the foe, it is not possible to guess.

"I have been mistaken," Unorna continued at last. "Forgive--forget--"

Israel Kafka rose to his feet and drew back a step from her side.

All his movements were smooth and graceful. The perfect man is most beautiful in motion, the perfect woman in repose.

"How easy it is for you!" exclaimed the Moravian. "How easy! How simple!

You call me, and I come. You let your eyes rest on me, and I kneel before you. You sigh, and I speak words of love. You lift your hand and I crouch at your feet. You frown--and I humbly leave you. How easy!"

"You are wrong, and you speak foolishly. You are angry, and you do not weigh your words."

"Angry! What have I to do with so common a madness as anger? I am more than angry. Do you think that because I have submitted to the veering gusts of your good and evil humours these many months, I have lost all consciousness of myself? Do you think that you can blow upon me as upon a feather, from east and west, from north and south, hotly or coldly, as your unstable nature moves you? Have you promised me nothing? Have you given me no hope? Have you said and done nothing whereby you are bound?

Or can no pledge bind you, no promise find a foothold in your slippery memory, no word of yours have meaning for those who hear it?"

"I never gave you either pledge or promise," answered Unorna in a harder tone. "The only hope I have ever extended to you was this, that I would one day answer you plainly. I have done so. You are not satisfied. Is there anything more to be said? I do not bid you leave my house for ever, any more than I mean to drive you from my friends.h.i.+p."

"From your friends.h.i.+p! Ah, I thank you, Unorna; I most humbly thank you! For the mercy you extend in allowing me to linger near you, I am grateful! Your friend, you say? Ay, truly, your friend and servant, your servant and your slave, your slave and your dog. Is the friend impatient and dissatisfied with his lot? A soft word shall turn away his anger. Is the servant over-presumptuous? Your scorn will soon teach him his duty.

Is the slave disobedient? Blows will cure him of his faults. Does your dog fawn upon you too familiarly? Thrust him from you with your foot and he will cringe and cower till you smile again. Your friends.h.i.+p--I have no words for thanks!"

"Take it, or take it not--as you will." Unorna glanced at his angry face and quickly looked away.

"Take it? Yes, and more too, whether you will give it or not," answered Israel Kafka, moving nearer to her. "Yes. Whether you will, or whether you will not, I have all, your friends.h.i.+p, your love, your life, your breath, your soul--all, or nothing!"

"You are wise to suggest the latter alternative as a possibility," said Unorna coldly and not heeding his approach.

The young man stood still, and folded his arms. The colour had returned to his face and a deep flush was rising under his olive skin.

"Do you mean what you say?" he asked slowly. "Do you mean that I shall not have all, but nothing? Do you still dare to mean that, after all that has pa.s.sed between you and me?"

Unorna raised her eyes and looked steadily into his.

"Israel Kafka, do not speak to me of daring."

But the young man's glance did not waver. The angry expression of his features did not relax; he neither drew back nor bent his head. Unorna seemed to be exerting all the strength of her will in the attempt to dominate him, but without result. In the effort she made to concentrate her determination her face grew pale and her lips trembled. Kafka faced her resolutely, his eyes on fire, the rich colour mantling in his cheeks.

"Where is your power now?" he asked suddenly. "Where is your witchery?

You are only a woman, after all. You are only a weak woman!"

Very slowly he drew nearer to her side, his lithe figure bending a little as he looked down upon her. Unorna leaned far back, withdrawing her face from his as far as she could, but still trying to impose her will upon him.

"You cannot," he said between his teeth, answering her thought.

Men who have tamed wild beasts alone know what such a moment is like. A hundred times the brave man has held the tiger spell-bound and crouching under his cold, fearless gaze. The beast, ever docile and submissive, has cringed at his feet, fawned to his touch, and licked the hand that s.n.a.t.c.hed away the half-devoured morsel. Obedient to voice and eye, the giant strength and sinewy grace have been debased to make the sport of mult.i.tudes; the n.o.ble, pliant frame has contorted itself to execute the mean antics of the low-comedy ape--to counterfeit death like a poodle dog; to leap through gaudily-painted rings at the word of command; to fetch and carry like a spaniel. A hundred times the changing crowd has paid its paltry fee to watch the little play that is daily acted behind the stout iron bars by the man and the beast. The man, the n.o.bler, braver creature, is arrayed in a wretched flimsy finery of tights and spangles, parading his physical weakness and inferiority in the toggery of a mountebank. The tiger, vast, sleepy-eyed, mysterious, lies motionless in the front of his cage, the gorgeous stripes of his velvet coat following each curve of his body, from the cus.h.i.+ons of his great fore paws to the arch of his gathered haunches. The watchfulness and flexible activity of the serpent and the strength that knows no master are clothed in the magnificent robes of the native-born sovereign. Time and times again the beautiful giant has gone through the slavish round of his mechanical tricks, obedient to the fragile creature of intelligence, to the little dwarf, man, whose power is in his eyes and heart only. He is accustomed to the lights, to the spectators, to the laughter, to the applause, to the frightened scream of the hysterical women in the audience, to the close air and to the narrow stage behind the bars. The tamer in his tights and tinsel has grown used to his tiger, to his emotions, to his hourly danger. He even finds at last that his mind wanders during the performance, and that at the very instant when he is holding the ring for the leap, or thrusting his head into the beast's fearful jaws, he is thinking of his wife, of his little child, of his domestic happiness or household troubles, rather than of what he is doing. Many times, perhaps many hundreds of times, all pa.s.ses off quietly and successfully. Then, inevitably, comes the struggle. Who can tell the causes? The tiger is growing old, or is ill fed, or is not well, or is merely in one of those evil humours to which animals are subject as well as their masters. One day he refuses to go through with the performance. First one trick fails, and then another. The public grows impatient, the man in spangles grows nervous, raises his voice, stamps loudly with his foot, and strikes his terrible slave with his light switch. A low, deep sound breaks from the enormous throat, the spectators hold their breath, the huge, flexible limbs are gathered for the leap, and in the gaslight and the dead silence man and beast are face to face. Life hangs in the balance, and death is at the door.

Then the tamer's heart beats loud, his chest heaves, his brows are furrowed. Even then, in the instant that still separates him from triumph or destruction, the thought of his sleeping child or of his watching wife darts through his brain. But the struggle has begun and there is no escape. One of two things must happen: he must overcome or he must die. To draw back, to let his glance waver, to show so much as the least sign of fear, is death. The moment is supreme, and he knows it.

Unorna grasped the arms of her chair as though seeking for physical support in her extremity. She could not yield. Before her eyes arose a vision unlike the reality in all its respects. She saw an older face, a taller figure, a look of deeper thought between her and the angry man who was trying to conquer her resistance with a glance. Between her and her mistake the image of what should be stood out, bright, vivid, and strong. A new conviction had taken the place of the old, a real pa.s.sion was flaming upon the altar whereon she had fed with dreams the semblance of a sacred fire.