By F. Marion Crawford
He had been deceived in supposing that he must inevitably find the
names of those he sought upon the ordinary registers which chronicle
the arrival and departure of travellers. He lost no time, he spared
no effort, driving from place to place as fast as two sturdy Hungarian
horses could take him, hurrying from one office to another, and again
and again searching endless pages and columns which seemed full of all
the names of earth, but in which he never found the one of all others
which he longed to read. The gloom in the narrow streets was already
deepening, though it was scarcely two hours after mid-day, and the
heavy air had begun to thicken with a cold gray haze, even in the broad,
straight Przikopy, the wide thoroughfare which has taken the place and
name of the moat before the ancient fortifications, so that distant
objects and figures lost the distinctness of their outlines. Winter in
Prague is but one long, melancholy dream, broken sometimes at noon by an
hour of sunshine, by an intermittent visitation of reality, by the shock
and glare of a little broad daylight. The morning is not morning,
the evening is not evening; as in the land of the Lotus, it is ever
afternoon, gray, soft, misty, sad, save when the sun, being at his
meridian height, pierces the dim streets and sweeps the open places with
low, slanting waves of pale brightness. And yet these same dusky streets
are thronged with a moving multitude, are traversed ever by ceaseless
streams of men and women, flowing onward, silently, swiftly, eagerly.
The very beggars do not speak above a whisper, the very dogs are dumb.
The stillness of all voices leaves nothing for the perception of the
hearing save the dull thread of many thousand feet and the rough rattle
of an occasional carriage. Rarely, the harsh tones of a peasant, or the
clear voices of a knot of strangers, unused to such oppressive
silence, startle the ear, causing hundreds of eager, half-suspicious,
half-wondering eyes to turn in the direction of the sound.
And yet Prague is a great city, the capital of the Bohemian Crownland,
the centre of a not unimportant nation, the focus in which are
concentrated the hottest, if not the brightest, rays from the fire of
regeneration kindled within the last half century by the Slavonic race.
There is an ardent furnace of life hidden beneath the crust of ashes:
there is a wonderful language behind that national silence.
The Wanderer stood in deep thought under the shadow of the ancient
Powder Tower. Haste had no further object now, since he had made every
inquiry within his power, and it was a relief to feel the pavement
beneath his feet and to breathe the misty frozen air after having been
so long in the closeness of his carriage. He hesitated as to what
he should do, unwilling to return to Unorna and acknowledge himself
vanquished, yet finding it hard to resist his desire to try every means,
no matter how little reasonable, how evidently useless, how puerile
and revolting to his sounder sense. The street behind him led directly
towards Unorna’s house. Had he found himself in a more remote quarter,
he might have come to another and a wiser conclusion. Being so near to
the house of which he was thinking, he yielded to the temptation. Having
reached this stage of resolution, his mind began to recapitulate the
events of the day, and he suddenly felt a strong wish to revisit the
church, to stand in the place where Beatrice had stood, to touch in the
marble basin beside the door the thick ice which her fingers had touched
so lately, to traverse again the dark passages through which he had
pursued her. To accomplish his purpose he need only turn aside a few
steps from the path he was now following. He left the street almost
immediately, passing under a low arched way that opened on the
right-hand side, and a moment later he was within the walls of the Teyn
Kirche.
The vast building was less gloomy than it had been in the morning.
It was not yet the hour of vespers, the funeral torches had been
extinguished, as well as most of the lights upon the high altar, there
were not a dozen persons in the church, and high up beneath the roof
broad shafts of softened sunshine, floating above the mists of the city
without, streamed through the narrow lancet windows and were diffused
in the great gloom below. The Wanderer went to the monument of Brahe and
sat down in the corner of the blackened pew. His hands trembled a little
as he clasped them upon his knee, and his head sank slowly towards his
breast.
He thought of all that might have been if he had risked everything that
morning. He could have used his strength to force a way for himself
through the press, he could have thrust the multitude to the right and
left, and he could have reached her side. Perhaps he had been weak,
indolent, timid, and he accused himself of his own failure. But then,
again, he seemed to see about him the closely packed crowd, the sea of
faces, the thick, black mass of humanity, and he knew the tremendous
power that lay in the inert, passive resistance of a vast gathering
such as had been present. Had it been anywhere else, in a street, in a
theatre, anywhere except in a church, all would have been well. It had
not been his fault, for he knew, when he thought of it calmly, that the
strength of his body would have been but as a breath of air against the
silent, motionless, and immovable barrier presented by a thousand men,
standing shoulder to shoulder against him. He could have done nothing.
Once again his fate had defeated him at the moment of success.
He was aware that some one was standing very near to him. He looked up
and saw a very short, gray-bearded man engaged in a minute examination
of the dark red marble face on the astronomer’s tomb. The man’s head,
covered with closely-cropped gray hair, was half buried between his
high, broad shoulders, in an immense collar of fur, but the shape of
the skull was so singular as to distinguish its possessor, when hatless,
from all other men. The cranium was abnormally shaped, reaching a great
elevation at the summit, then sinking suddenly, then spreading forward
to an enormous development at the temple just visible as he was then
standing, and at the same time forming unusual protuberances behind the
large and pointed ears. No one who knew the man could mistake his head,
when even the least portion of it could be seen. The Wanderer recognised
him at once.
As though he were conscious of being watched, the little man turned
sharply, exhibiting his wrinkled forehead, broad at the brows, narrow
and high in the middle, showing, too, a Socratic nose half buried in the
midst of the gray hair which grew as high as the prominent cheek bones,
and suggesting the idea of a polished ivory ball lying in a nest of
grayish wool. Indeed all that was visible of the face above the beard
might have been carved out of old ivory, so far as the hue and quality
of the surface were concerned; and if it had been necessary to sculpture
a portrait of the man, no material could have been chosen more fitted
to reproduce faithfully the deep cutting of the features, to render the
close network of the wrinkles which covered them like the shadings of a
line engraving, and at the same time to give the whole that appearance
of hardness and smoothness which was peculiar to the clear, tough skin.
The only positive colour which relieved the half tints of the face lay
in the sharp bright eyes which gleamed beneath the busy eyebrows like
tiny patches of vivid blue sky seen through little rifts in a curtain of
cloud. All expression, all mobility, all life were concentrated in those
two points.
The Wanderer rose to his feet.
“Keyork Arabian!” he exclaimed, extending his hand. The little man
immediately gripped it in his small fingers, which, soft and delicately
made as they were, possessed a strength hardly to have been expected
either from their shape, or from the small proportions of him to whom
they belonged.
“Still wandering?” asked the little man, with a slightly sarcastic
intonation. He spoke in a deep, caressing bass, not loud, but rich in
quality and free from that jarring harshness which often belongs to very
manly voices. A musician would have discovered that the pitch was that
of those Russian choristers whose deep throats yield organ tones, a full
octave below the compass of ordinary singers in other lands.
“You must have wandered, too, since we last met,” replied the taller
man.
“I never wander,” said Keyork. “When a man knows what he wants,
knows where it is to be found, and goes thither to take it, he is not
wandering. Moreover, I have no thought of removing myself or my goods
from Prague. I live here. It is a city for old men. It is saturnine. The
foundations of its houses rest on the silurian formation, which is more
than can be said for any other capital, as far as I know.”
“Is that an advantage?” inquired the Wanderer.
“To my mind. I would say to my son, if I had one--my thanks to a blind
but intelligent destiny for preserving me from such a calamity!--I would
say to him, ‘Spend thy youth among flowers in the land where they are
brightest and sweetest; pass thy manhood in all lands where man strives
with man, thought for thought, blow for blow; choose for thine old age
that spot in which, all things being old, thou mayest for the longest
time consider thyself young in comparison with thy surroundings.’ A man
can never feel old if he contemplates and meditates upon those
things only which are immeasurably older than himself. Moreover the
imperishable can preserve the perishable.”
“It was not your habit to talk of death when we were together.”
“I have found it interesting of late years. The subject is connected
with one of my inventions. Did you ever embalm a body? No? I could tell
you something singular about the newest process.”
“What is the connection?”
“I am embalming myself, body and mind. It is but an experiment,
and unless it succeeds it must be the last. Embalming, as it is now
understood, means substituting one thing for another. Very good. I
am trying to purge from my mind its old circulating medium; the new
thoughts must all be selected from a class which admits of no decay.
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 bisextile.
Unor means February, Unorna, derivative adjective, ‘belonging to
February.’ Some one gave her the name to commemorate the circumstance.”
“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 amusement. “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, sturdy 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 noble 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 classes,
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 assert
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 passage?”
“I passed 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 passing 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 circumstance may serve as an excuse, but it does not constitute 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 sturdy 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 homo_ 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
circumstances 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?”
“I have.”
“Then, if you will accept a humble suggestion from me, you will go back
to her at once.”
“I know very little of her. I do not altogether trust her--”
“Trust! Powers of Eblis--or any other powers! Who talks of trust? Does
the wise man trust himself? Never. Then how can he dare trust any one
else?”
“Your cynical philosophy again!” exclaimed the Wanderer.
“Philosophy? I am a mysosophist! All wisdom is vanity, and I hate it!
Autology is my study, autosophy my ambition, autonomy my pride. I am the
great Panegoist, the would-be Conservator of Self, the inspired prophet
of the Universal I. I--I--I! My creed has but one word, and that word
but one letter, that letter represents Unity, and Unity is Strength. I
am I, one, indivisible, central! O I! Hail and live for ever!”
Again the little man’s rich bass voice rang out in mellow laughter. A
very faint smile appeared upon his companion’s sad face.
“You are happy, Keyork,” he said. “You must be, since you can laugh at
yourself so honestly.”
“At myself? Vain man! I am laughing at you, and at every one else, at
everything except myself. Will you go to Unorna? You need not trust her
any more than the natural infirmity of your judgment suggests.”
“Can you tell me nothing more of her? Do you know her well?”
“She does not offer her help to every one. You would have done well to
accept it in the first instance. You may not find her in the same humour
again.”
“I had supposed from what you said of her that she made a profession of
clairvoyance, or hypnotism, or mesmerism--whatever may be the right term
nowadays.”
“It matters very little,” answered Keyork, gravely. “I used to wonder at
Adam’s ingenuity in naming all living things, but I think he would have
made but a poor figure in a tournament of modern terminologists. No.
Unorna does not accept remuneration for her help when she vouchsafes to
give it.”
“And yet I was introduced to her presence without even giving my name.”
“That is her fancy. She will see any one who wishes to see her, beggar,
gentleman, or prince. But she only answers such questions as she pleases
to answer.”
“That is to say, inquiries for which she is already prepared with a
reply,” suggested the Wanderer.
“See for yourself. At all events, she is a very interesting specimen. I
have never known any one like her.”
Keyork Arabian was silent, as though he were reflecting upon Unorna’s
character and peculiar gifts, before describing them to his friend. His
ivory features softened almost imperceptibly, and his sharp blue eyes
suddenly lost their light, as though they no longer saw the outer
world. But the Wanderer cared for none of these things, and bestowed
no attention upon his companion’s face. He preferred the little man’s
silence to his wild talk, but he was determined, if possible, to extract
some further information concerning Unorna, and before many seconds had
elapsed he interrupted Keyork’s meditations with a question.
“You tell me to see for myself,” he said. “I would like to know what I
am to expect. Will you not enlighten me?”
“What?” asked the other vaguely, as though roused from sleep.
“If I go to Unorna and ask a consultation of her, as though she were
a common somnambulist, and if she deigns to place her powers at my
disposal what sort of assistance shall I most probably get?”
They had been walking slowly forward, and Keyork again stopped, rapping
the pavement with his iron-shod stick, and looking up from under his
bushy, overhanging eyebrows.
“Of two things, one will happen,” he answered. “Either she will herself
fall into the abnormal state and will answer correctly any questions you
put to her, or she will hypnotise you, and you will yourself see--what
you wish to see.”
“I myself?”
“You yourself. The peculiarity of the woman is her duality, her
double power. She can, by an act of volition, become hypnotic,
clairvoyant--whatever you choose to call it. Or, if her visitor is at
all sensitive, she can reverse the situation and play the part of the
hypnotiser. I never heard of a like case.”
“After all, I do not see why it should not be so,” said the Wanderer
thoughtfully. “At all events, whatever she can do, is evidently done by
hypnotism, and such extraordinary experiments have succeeded of late--”
“I did not say that there was nothing but hypnotism in her processes.”
“What then? Magic?” The Wanderer’s lip curled scornfully.
“I do not know,” replied the little man, speaking slowly. “Whatever her
secret may be, she keeps it, even when speaking in sleep. This I can
tell you. I suspect that there is some other being, or person, in that
queer old house of hers whom she consults on grave occasions. At a loss
for an answer to a difficult scientific question, I have known her to
leave the room and to come back in the course of a few minutes with a
reply which I am positive she could never have framed herself.”
“She may have consulted books,” suggested the Wanderer.
“I am an old man,” said Keyork Arabian suddenly. “I am a very old man;
there are not many books which I have not seen and partially read at one
time or at another, and my memory is surprisingly good. I have excellent
reasons for believing that her information is not got from anything that
was ever written or printed.”
“May I ask of what general nature your questions were?” inquired the
other, more interested than he had hitherto been in the conversation.
“They referred to the principles of embalmment.”
“Much has been written about that since the days of the Egyptians.”
“The Egyptians!” exclaimed Keyork with great scorn. “They embalmed their
dead after a fashion. Did you ever hear that they embalmed the living?”
The little man’s eyes shot fire.
“No, nor will I believe in any such outrageous impossibilities! If that
is all, I have little faith in Unorna’s mysterious counsellor.”
“The faith which removes mountains is generally gained by experience
when it is gained at all, and the craving for explanation takes the
place, in some minds, of a willingness to learn. It is not my business
to find explanations, nor to raise my little self to your higher level,
by standing upon this curbstone, in order to deliver a lecture in the
popular form, upon matters that interest me. It is enough that I have
found what I wanted. Go and do likewise. See for yourself. You have
nothing to lose and everything to gain. You are unhappy, and unhappiness
is dangerous, in rare cases fatal. If you tell me to-morrow that Unorna
is a charlatan, you will be in no worse plight than to-day, nor will
your opinion of her influence mine. If she helps you to find what you
want--so much the better for you--how much the better, and how great the
risk you run, are questions for your judgment.”
“I will go,” answered the Wanderer, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Very good,” said Keyork Arabian. “If you want to find me again, come to
my lodging. Do you know the house of the Black Mother of God?”
“Yes--there is a legend about a Spanish picture of our Lady once
preserved there--”
“Exactly, it takes its name from that black picture. It is on the corner
of the Fruit Market, over against the window at which the Princess
Windischgratz was shot. I live in the upper story. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”