The White Sister - Chapter 1

By F. Marion Crawford

'I cannot help it,' said Filmore Durand quietly. 'I paint what I see. If you are not pleased with the likeness, I shall be only too happy to keep it.'

The Marchesa protested. It was only a very small matter, she said, a something in the eyes, or in the angle of the left eyebrow, or in the turn of the throat; she could not tell where it was, but it gave her niece a little air of religious ecstasy that was not natural to her. If the master would only condescend to modify the expression the least bit, all would be satisfactory.

Instead of condescending, Filmore Durand smiled rather indifferently and gave his pallet and brushes to his man, who was already waiting at his elbow to receive them. For the famous American portrait-painter detested all sorts of litter, such as a painting-table, brush-jars, and the like, as much as his great predecessor Lenbach ever did, and when he was at work his old servant brought him a brush, a tube of colour, a knife, or a pencil, as each was needed, from a curtained recess where everything was kept ready and in order.

'I like it as it is,' said Giovanni Severi, resting his hands on the hilt of his sabre, as he sat looking thoughtfully from the portrait to [Pg 2]the original.

The young girl smiled, pleased by his approbation of the likeness, which she herself thought good, though it by no means flattered. On the contrary, it made her look older than she was, and much more sad; for though the spring laughed in her eyes when she looked at the officer to whom people said she was engaged, their counterparts in the portrait were deep and grave. Certain irregularities of feature, too, were more apparent in the painting than in nature. For instance, there was a very marked difference between the dark eyebrows; for whereas the right one made a perfect curve, the other turned up quite sharply towards the forehead at the inner end, as if it did not wish to meet its fellow; and the Marchesa del Prato was quite sure that Angela's delicate nose had not really that aquiline and almost ascetic look which the great master had given it. In fact, the middle-aged woman almost wished that it had, for of all things that could happen she would have been best pleased that her niece should turn out to have a vocation and should disappear into some religious order as soon as possible. This was not likely, and the Marchesa was by no means ready to accept, as an alternative, a marriage with Giovanni Severi, whom she had long looked upon as her own private property.

Filmore Durand glanced from one to another of the three in quick succession, stroked his rather bristly moustache, and lit a cigarette, not because he wanted to smoke, but because he could not help it, which is a very different thing. Then he looked at his picture and[Pg 3] forgot that he was not alone with it; and it still pleased him, after a fashion, though he was not satisfied with what he had done.

Great artists and great writers are rarely troubled by theories; one of the chief characteristics of mature genius is that it springs directly from conception to expression without much thought as to the means; a man who has used the same tools for a dozen years is not likely to take his chisel by the wrong end, nor to hesitate in choosing the right one for the stroke to be made, much less to 'take a sledge-hammer to kill a fly,' as the saying is. His unquiet mind has discovered some new and striking relation between the true and the beautiful; the very next step is to express that relation in clay, or in colour, or in words. While he is doing so he rarely stops to think, or to criticise his own half-finished work; he is too sure of himself, just then, to pause, and, above all, he is too happy, for all the real happiness he finds in his art is there, between the painfully disquieting ferment of the mental chaos that went before and the more or less acute disappointment which is sure to come when the finished work turns out to be less than perfect, like all things human. It is in the race from one point to the other that he rejoices in his strength, believes in his talent, and dreams of undying glory; it is then that he feels himself a king of men and a prophet of mankind; but it is when he is in this stage that he is called vain, arrogant, and self-satisfied by those who do not understand the distress that has gone before, nor the disillusionment which[Pg 4] will follow soon enough, when the hand is at rest and cool judgment marks the distance between a perfect ideal and an attainable reality. Moreover, the less the lack of perfection seems to others, the more formidable it generally looks to the great artist himself.

It was often said of Durand that his portraits were prophetic; and often again that his brushes were knives and scalpels that dissected his sitters' characters upon the canvas like an anatomical preparation.

'I cannot help it,' he always said. 'I paint what I see.'

It was not his fault if pretty Donna Angela Chiaromonte had thrown a white veil over her dark hair, just to try the effect of it, the very first time she had been brought to his studio, or that she had been standing beside an early fifteenth century altar and altar-piece which he had just bought and put up at one end of the great hall in which he painted. He was not to blame if the veiling had fallen on each side of her face, like a nun's head-dress, nor if her eyes had grown shadowy at that moment by an accident of light or expression, nor yet if her tender lips had seemed to be saddened by a passing thought. She had not put on the veil again, and he had not meant that a suggestion of suffering ecstatically borne should dim her glad girlhood in his picture; but he had seen the vision once, and it had come out again under his brush, in spite of him, as if it were the necessary truth over which the outward expression was moulded like a lovely mask, but which must be plain in her face to every one who had once had a glimpse of it.[Pg 5]

The painter contemplated his work in silence from within an Olympian cloud of cigarette smoke that almost hid him from the others, who now exchanged a few words in Italian, which he only half understood. They spoke English with him, as they would have spoken French with a Frenchman, and probably even German with a German, for modern Roman society has a remarkable gift of tongues and is very accomplished in other ways.

'What I think most wonderful,' said the Marchesa del Prato, who detested her husband's pretty niece, 'is that he has not made a Carlo Dolce picture of you, my dear. With your face, it would have been so easy, you know!'

Giovanni Severi's hands moved a little and the scabbard of his sabre struck one of his spurs with a sharp clink; for he was naturally impatient and impulsive, as any one could see from his face. It was lean and boldly cut; his cheeks were dark from exposure rather than by nature, there were reddish lights in his short brown hair, and his small but vigorous moustache was that of a rather fair man who has lived much in sun and wind in a hot climate. His nose was Roman and energetic, his mouth rather straight and hard; yet few would have thought his face remarkable but for the eyes, which betrayed his nature at a glance; they were ardent rather than merely bold, and the warm, reddish-brown iris was shot with little golden points that coruscated in the rays of the sun, but emitted a fiery light of their own when his temper was roused.[Pg 6] If his look had been less frank and direct, or if his other features had suggested any bad quality, his eyes would probably have been intolerably disagreeable to meet; as it was, they warned all comers that their possessor was one of those uncommon and dangerous men who go to the utmost extremes when they believe themselves in the right and are constitutionally incapable of measuring danger or considering consequences when they are roused. Giovanni Severi was about eight-and-twenty, and wore the handsome uniform of an artillery officer on the Staff. He had not liked the Marchesa's remark, and the impatient little clink of his scabbard against his spur only preceded his answer by a second.

'Happily for Angela,' he said, 'we are not in the studio of a caricaturist.'

The Marchesa, who could be near-sighted on occasion, put up her tortoiseshell-mounted eyeglass and looked at him aggressively; but as he returned her gaze with steadiness, she soon turned away.

'You are extremely rude,' she said coldly.

For she herself made clever caricatures in water-colours, and she knew what Giovanni meant. Angela's mother had been a very devout woman and had died young, but had incurred the hatred of the Marchesa by marrying the very man whom the latter had picked out for herself, namely, the elder of two brothers, and the Marchesa had reluctantly consented to marry the other, who had a much less high-sounding title and a far smaller fortune. She had revenged herself in various[Pg 7] small ways, and had often turned her brother-in-law's wife to ridicule by representing her as an ascetic mediæval saint, in contorted attitudes of ecstasy, with sunken cheeks and eyes like saucers full of ink. Like many other people, Giovanni had seen some of these drawings, for the resentful Marchesa had not destroyed them when the Princess Chiaromonte died; but no one had yet been unkind enough to tell Angela of their existence. The girl did not like her aunt by marriage, it was true, but with a singularly simple and happy disposition, and a total absence of vanity, she apparently possessed her mother's almost saintly patience, and she bore the Marchesa's treatment with a cheerful submission which exasperated the elder woman much more than any show of temper could have done.

Just now, seeing that trouble of some sort was imminent, she made a diversion by coming down from the low movable platform, on which her chair had been placed for the sitting, and she spoke to the artist while she studied her own portrait. Durand was a very thin man, and so tall that Angela had to look very high to see his face as she stood beside him.

'I could never be as good as the picture looks,' she said in English, with a little laugh, 'nor so dreadfully in earnest! But it is very nice of you to think that I might!'

'You will never be anything but good,' answered Filmore Durand, 'and it's not necessarily dreadful to be in earnest about it.'

'You are a moralist. I see.' observed the Marchesa,[Pg 8] putting on a sweet smile as she rose and came forward, followed by Giovanni.

'I don't know,' replied the painter. 'What is a moralist?'

'A person who is in earnest about other people's morals,' suggested Angela gaily.

'Really!' cried the Marchesa, with a most emphatic English pronunciation of the word. 'One would think that you had been brought up in a Freemasons' lodge!'

In view of the fact that Angela's father was one of the very last survivors of the 'intransigent' clericals, this was quite the most cutting speech the Marchesa could think of. But Filmore Durand failed to see the point.

'What has Freemasonry to do with morality?' he inquired with bland surprise.

'Nothing at all,' answered the Marchesa smartly, 'for it is the religion of the devil.'

'Dear me!' The artist smiled. 'What strong prejudices you have in Rome!'

'Are you a Freemason?' the noble lady asked, with evident nervousness; and she glanced from his face to Angela, and then at the door.

'Well—no—I'm not,' the painter admitted with a slight drawl, and evidently amused. 'But then I'm not a moralist either, though I suppose I might be both and yet go on painting about the same.'

'I think not,' said the Marchesa so stiffly that Giovanni almost laughed aloud. 'We must be going,' she added, suddenly relaxing to graciousness again. 'It[Pg 9] has been such a privilege to see you day after day, my dear Mr. Durand, and to watch you working in your own surroundings. My brother-in-law will come to-morrow. I have no doubt that he will be much pleased with the portrait.'

Filmore Durand smiled indifferently but with politeness as he bowed over the Marchesa's hand. He did not care a straw whether Angela's father liked the picture or not, being in love with it himself, and much more anxious to keep it than to be paid for it.

'When shall I see you again?' Giovanni had asked of Angela, almost in a whisper, while the Marchesa was speaking.

Instead of answering she shook her head, for she could not decide at once, but as her glance met his a delicate radiance tinged her cheeks for a moment, as if the rosy light of a clear dawn were reflected in her face. The young soldier's eyes flashed as he watched her; he drew his breath audibly, and then bit his upper lip as if to check the sound and the sensation that had caused it. Angela heard and saw, for she understood what moved him, so far as almost childlike simplicity can have intuition of what most touches a strong man. She was less like the portrait now than a moment earlier; her lips, just parting in a little half-longing, half-troubled smile, were like dark rose leaves damp with dew, her eyelids drooped at the corners for an instant, and the translucent little nostrils quivered at the mysterious thrill that stirred her maiden being.

The two young people had not known each other[Pg 10] quite a year, for she had never seen Severi till she had left the convent to go out into society and to take her place at her widowed father's table as his only child; but at their first meeting Giovanni had felt that of all women he had known, none but she had ever called his nature to hers with the longing cry of the natural mate. At first she was quite unconscious of her power, and for a long time he looked in vain for the slightest outward sign that she was moved when she saw him making his way to her in a crowded drawing-room, or coming upon her suddenly out of doors when she was walking in the villa with her old governess, the excellent Madame Bernard, or riding in the Campagna with her father. Giovanni's duties were light, and he had plenty of time to spare, and his pertinacity in finding her would have been compromising if he had been less ingeniously tactful. It was by no means easy to meet her in society either, for, in spite of recent social developments, Prince Chiaromonte still clung to the antiquated political mythology of Blacks and Whites, and strictly avoided the families he persisted in calling 'Liberals,' on the ground that his father had called them so in 1870, when he was a small boy. It was not until he had bored himself to extinction in the conscientious effort to take the girl out, that he appealed to his sister-in-law to help him, though he knew that neither she nor his brother was truly clerical at heart. Even then, if it had been clear to him that Giovanni Severi had made up his mind to marry Angela if he married at all, the Prince would have forced himself[Pg 11] to bear agonies of boredom night after night, rather than entrust his daughter to the Marchesa; but such an idea had never entered his head, and he would have scouted the suggestion that Angela would ever dare to encourage a young man of whom he had not formally approved; and while she was meeting Giovanni almost daily, and dancing with him almost every evening, her father was slowly negotiating an appropriate marriage for her with the eldest son of certain friends who were almost as clerical and intransigent as himself. The young man was a limp degenerate, with a pale face, a weak mouth, and an inherited form of debility which made him fall asleep wherever he was, if nothing especial happened to keep his eyes open; he not only always slept from ten at night till nine the next morning with the regularity of an idiot, but he went to sleep wherever he sat down, in church, at dinner, and even when he was driving. Neither his own parents nor Prince Chiaromonte looked upon this as a serious drawback in the matter of marriage. A man who slept all day and all night was a man out of mischief, not likely to grumble nor to make love to his neighbour's wife; he would therefore be a model husband. When he fell asleep in the drawing-room in summer, his consort would sit beside him and brush away the flies; in winter she would be careful to cover him up lest he should catch cold; at mass she could prick him with a hat-pin to keep him awake; as for the rest, she would bear one of the oldest names in Europe, her husband would be a strictly religious and moral person, and she[Pg 12] would be very rich. What more could any woman ask? Evidently nothing, and Prince Chiaromonte therefore continued to negotiate the marriage in the old-fashioned manner, without the least intention of speaking about it to Angela till everything was altogether settled between the family lawyers, and the wedding could take place in six weeks. It was not the business of young people to fathom the intentions of their all-wise parents, and meanwhile Angela was free to go to parties with her aunt, and her intended husband was at liberty to sleep as much as he liked. The negotiations would probably occupy another two or three months, for the family lawyers had disagreed as to the number of times that Angela should be allowed to take the carriage out every day, and this had to be stipulated in the marriage contract, besides the number of dishes there were to be at luncheon and dinner and the question whether, if Angela took coffee after her meals, it should be charged to her husband, who took none, or against the income arising from her dowry. The family lawyers were both very old men and understood these difficult matters thoroughly, but neither would have felt that he was doing his duty to his client if he had not quarrelled with the other over each point. From week to week each reported progress to his employer, and on the whole the two fathers felt that matters were going on well, without any undue delay.

But the Fates frowned grimly on the marriage and on all things connected with it, for on the very morning[Pg 13] during which Filmore Durand finished Angela's portrait, and before she had left his studio in the Palazzo Borghese, something happened which not only put a stop to the leisurely labours of the two lawyers, but which profoundly changed Angela's existence, and was the cause of her having a story quite different from that of a good many young girls who are in love with one man but are urged by their parents to marry another. The interest of this tale, if it has any, lies in no such simple conflict of forces as that, and it is enough to know that while her father had been busy over her marriage, Angela Chiaromonte had fallen in love with Giovanni Severi, and had, indeed, as much as promised to marry him; and that a good many people, including the Marchesa del Prato, already suspected this, though they had not communicated their suspicions to the girl's father, partly because he was not liked, and partly because he hardly ever showed himself in the world. The situation is thus clearly explained, so far as it was known to the persons concerned at the moment when the Great Unforeseen flashed from its hiding-place and hurled itself into their midst.

As Filmore Durand went with the Marchesa towards the entrance hall, followed by the young people, he called his man to open the outer door, but almost at the same moment he heard his voice at the telephone; the servant was a Swiss who spoke German, English, and Italian, and had followed the artist for many years. He was evidently answering an inquiry about the Marchesa just as he heard her step.[Pg 14]

'The lady is here,' he said. 'She is coming to the telephone herself.'

He looked round as the four approached, for the instrument was placed on the right side of the large door that opened upon the landing.

'Some one for your ladyship,' he said in English, holding out the receiver to the Marchesa.

She took it and put it to her ear, repeating the usual Italian formula.

'Ready—with whom am I speaking? Yes. I am the Marchesa del Prato, she herself. What is it?'

There was a pause while she listened, and then Angela saw her face change suddenly.

'Dead?' she shrieked into the telephone. 'Half-an-hour ago?'

She still held the receiver to her ear, but she was stretching out her left hand as if she needed support. Durand took her by the arm and elbow, prepared to hold her up if she showed signs of fainting. Angela was already on her other side.

'Who is dead?' the girl asked quietly enough, but with evident anxiety.

'Your father,' answered the Marchesa, with such sudden and brutal directness that Giovanni started forward, and Durand stared in surprise, for he knew enough Italian to understand as much as that.

Angela made two steps backwards, slowly and mechanically, like a blind man who has unexpectedly run against a wall; like the blind, too, she held out her hands before her, as if to assure herself that she was[Pg 15] getting out of reach of the obstacle. Her face had turned white and her eyes were half closed.

The Marchesa no longer seemed to be in need of support and watched her.

'My poor child!' she cried, in a tone of conventional sympathy. 'I should have broken the news to you gradually——'

'You should indeed!' answered Giovanni with stern emphasis.

He was already leading Angela to one of the nearest of the high-backed chairs that stood ranged against the dark-green wall of the hall. She sat down, steadying herself by his arm.

'Run over by a motor car almost at his own door,' said the Marchesa, in a lower tone and in English, as she turned slightly towards Durand. 'Killed on the spot! It is too awful! My poor brother-in-law!'

'Get some brandy and some cold water,' said the artist to his man, watching the girl's pale face and twitching hands.

'Yes,' said Giovanni, who was bending over her anxiously. 'Bring something quickly! She is going to faint.'

But Angela was not fainting, nor even half-unconscious. She had felt as if something hard had struck her between the eyes, without quite stunning her. She attempted to get up, but realised her weakness and waited a moment before trying again. Then she rose to her feet with an effort and stood straight and rigid before her aunt, her eyes quite open now.[Pg 16]

'Come!' she said, almost imperiously, and in a voice unlike her own.

In a moment they were gone, and the artist was standing before the portrait he had finished, looking into its eyes as if it were alive. He had been deeply shocked by what had just happened, and was sincerely sorry for Angela, though he had not the least idea whether she had loved her father or not, but his face was calm and thoughtful again, now that she was gone, and expressed a quiet satisfaction which had not been there before. For it seemed to him that the picture was a precious reality, and that the young girl who had sat for it was only nature's copy, and not perfect at that; and perhaps the reality would not be taken from him, now, since Prince Chiaromonte had come to an untimely end; and the prospect of keeping the canvas was exceedingly pleasing to Filmore Durand. He had never painted anything that had disappointed him less, or that he was less willing to part with, and during the last day or two he had even thought of making a replica of it for the Prince in order to keep the original, for no copy, though it were made by himself most conscientiously, could ever be quite so good. But now that the Prince was dead, it was possible that the heirs, if there were any besides Angela, would be glad to be excused from paying a large sum for a picture they did not want. He was sure from the young girl's manner that she would no more care to possess a portrait of herself than a coloured postcard of the Colosseum or a plaster-cast of one of Canova's dancing-girls.[Pg 17] This was not flattering to the artist, it was true, but in the present case he would rather keep his own painting than have it appreciated ever so highly by any one else.

Late in the afternoon he stopped before the closed gateway of the Palazzo Chiaromonte and pushed the little postern that stood ajar. The big porter was within, standing dejectedly before the door of his lodge, and already dressed in the deep mourning which is kept in readiness in all the great Roman houses. The painter asked in broken Italian if the bad news was true, and the man nodded gravely, pointing to the gates. They would not be shut unless the master were dead. Durand asked after Donna Angela, but the porter was not communicative. She had come in with her aunt and both were upstairs; he suspected the painter of being a foreign newspaper correspondent and would say nothing more.

The American thanked him and went away; after all, he had come to make sure that the Prince was really dead, and he was conscious that his wish to keep the portrait was the only motive of his inquiry.

He strolled away through the crowded streets, blowing such clouds of cigarette smoke about him that people looked at him in surprise. It was almost sunset, in February, and it was just before Lent. Rome is at her gayest then, though the old Carnival is as dead and gone as Pio Nono, Garibaldi, the French military occupation, the hatred of the Jesuits, and all that made the revival of Italy in the nineteenth century[Pg 18] the most thrilling romance that ever roused Italian passion and stirred the world's sympathy. Durand was not old enough to remember those times, and he had never been in Rome at all till he was nearly thirty years of age and on the first wave of his high success; but he had read about the past, and to his unspoiled sight and vivid imagination Rome was still romantic and the greatest city in the world, ancient or modern; and somehow when he thought of his picture and of Angela's face, and remembered the scene at the telephone, he felt that he was himself just within the sphere of some mysterious and tragic action which he could not yet understand, but which might possibly affect his own life.

'This is a serio-comic world,' he said to himself as he slowly made his way down the Corso, watching the faces of the people he passed, because he never passed a face in the street without glancing at it, stopping now and then to look into a shop window where there was nothing to see that he had not seen a thousand times elsewhere, smoking cigarettes without number, thinking of Angela's portrait, and mechanically repeating his little epigram over and over again, to a sort of tune in his head, with variations and transpositions that meant nothing at all.

'This is a serio-comic world. This is a comico-serious world. This world is a serious comico-serial. This is a worldly-serious comedy.' And so forth, and so on; and a number of more or less good-looking women of the serio-comic world, whose portraits he had painted,[Pg 19] and several more or less distinguished men who had sat to him, passed the man of genius and greeted him as if they were rather pleased to show that they knew him; but they would have been shocked if they could have heard the silly words the great painter was mechanically repeating to himself as he idled along the pavement, musing on the picture he hoped to keep, and already regarded as his masterpiece and chief treasure.

The Witch of Prague - Chapter 3

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.”

The Witch of Prague - Chapter 2

By F. Marion Crawford

The Wanderer stood still before the door. In the freezing air, his
quick-drawn breath made fantastic wreaths of mist, white and full of
odd shapes as he watched the tiny clouds curling quickly into each other
before the blackened oak. Then he laid his hand boldly upon the chain of
the bell. He expected to hear the harsh jingling of cracked metal, but
he was surprised by the silvery clearness and musical quality of the
ringing tones which reached his ear. He was pleased, and unconsciously
took the pleasant infusion for a favourable omen. The heavy door swung
back almost immediately, and he was confronted by a tall porter in dark
green cloth and gold lacings, whose imposing appearance was made still
more striking by the magnificent fair beard which flowed down almost to
his waist. The man lifted his heavy cocked hat and held it low at
his side as he drew back to let the visitor enter. The latter had not
expected to be admitted thus without question, and paused under the
bright light which illuminated the arched entrance, intending to make
some inquiry of the porter. But the latter seemed to expect nothing of
the sort. He carefully closed the door, and then, bearing his hat in one
hand and his gold-headed staff in the other, he proceeded gravely to the
other end of the vaulted porch, opened a great glazed door and held it
back for the visitor to pass.

The Wanderer recognized that the farther he was allowed to penetrate
unhindered into the interior of the house, the nearer he should be to
the object of his search. He did not know where he was, nor what he
might find. For all that he knew, he might be in a club, in a great
banking-house, or in some semi-public institution of the nature of a
library, an academy or a conservatory of music. There are many such
establishments in Prague, though he was not acquainted with any in which
the internal arrangements so closely resembled those of a luxurious
private residence. But there was no time for hesitation, and he ascended
the broad staircase with a firm step, glancing at the rich tapestries
which covered the walls, at the polished surface of the marble steps
on either side of the heavy carpet, and at the elaborate and beautiful
iron-work of the hand-rail. As he mounted higher, he heard the quick
rapping of an electric signal above him, and he understood that the
porter had announced his coming. Reaching the landing, he was met by a
servant in black, as correct at all points as the porter himself, and
who bowed low as he held back the thick curtain which hung before the
entrance. Without a word the man followed the visitor into a high room
of irregular shape, which served as a vestibule, and stood waiting to
receive the guest’s furs, should it please him to lay them aside. To
pause now, and to enter into an explanation with a servant, would have
been to reject an opportunity which might never return. In such an
establishment, he was sure of finding himself before long in the
presence of some more or less intelligent person of his own class, of
whom he could make such inquiries as might enlighten him, and to whom he
could present such excuses for his intrusion as might seem most fitting
in so difficult a case. He let his sables fall into the hands of the
servant and followed the latter along a short passage.

The man introduced him into a spacious hall and closed the door, leaving
him to his own reflections. The place was very wide and high and without
windows, but the broad daylight descended abundantly from above through
the glazed roof and illuminated every corner. He would have taken the
room for a conservatory, for it contained a forest of tropical trees and
plants, and whole gardens of rare southern flowers. Tall letonias,
date palms, mimosas and rubber trees of many varieties stretched their
fantastic spikes and heavy leaves half-way up to the crystal ceiling;
giant ferns swept the polished marble floor with their soft embroideries
and dark green laces; Indian creepers, full of bright blossoms, made
screens and curtains of their intertwining foliage; orchids of every
hue and of every exotic species bloomed in thick banks along the walls.
Flowers less rare, violets and lilies of the valley, closely set and
luxuriant, grew in beds edged with moss around the roots of the larger
plants and in many open spaces. The air was very soft and warm, moist
and full of heavy odours as the still atmosphere of an island in
southern seas, and the silence was broken only by the light plash of
softly-falling water.

Having advanced a few steps from the door, the Wanderer stood still and
waited, supposing that the owner of the dwelling would be made aware
of a visitor’s presence and would soon appear. But no one came. Then
a gentle voice spoke from amidst the verdure, apparently from no great
distance.

“I am here,” it said.

He moved forward amidst the ferns and the tall plants, until he found
himself on the farther side of a thick network of creepers. Then he
paused, for he was in the presence of a woman, of her who dwelt among
the flowers. She was sitting before him, motionless and upright in a
high, carved chair, and so placed that the pointed leaves of the palm
which rose above her cast sharp, star-shaped shadows over the broad
folds of her white dress. One hand, as white, as cold, as heavily
perfect as the sculpture of a Praxiteles or a Phidias, rested with
drooping fingers on the arm of the chair. The other pressed the pages
of a great book which lay open on the lady’s knee. Her face was turned
toward the visitor, and her eyes examined his face; calmly and with no
surprise in them, but not without a look of interest. Their expression
was at once so unusual, so disquieting, and yet so inexplicably
attractive as to fascinate the Wanderer’s gaze. He did not remember that
he had ever seen a pair of eyes of distinctly different colours, the one
of a clear, cold gray, the other of a deep, warm brown, so dark as to
seem almost black, and he would not have believed that nature could so
far transgress the canons of her own art and yet preserve the appearance
of beauty. For the lady was beautiful, from the diadem of her red gold
hair to the proud curve of her fresh young lips; from her broad, pale
forehead, prominent and boldly modelled at the angles of the brows, to
the strong mouldings of the well-balanced chin, which gave evidence of
strength and resolution wherewith to carry out the promise of the high
aquiline features and of the wide and sensitive nostrils.

“Madame,” said the Wanderer, bending his head courteously and advancing
another step, “I can neither frame excuses for having entered your house
unbidden, nor hope to obtain indulgence for my intrusion, unless you are
willing in the first place to hear my short story. May I expect so much
kindness?”

He paused, and the lady looked at him fixedly and curiously. Without
taking her eyes from his face, and without speaking, she closed the book
she had held on her knee, and laid it beside her upon a low table. The
Wanderer did not avoid her gaze, for he had nothing to conceal, nor any
sense of timidity. He was an intruder upon the privacy of one whom he
did not know, but he was ready to explain his presence and to make such
amends as courtesy required, if he had given offence.

The heavy odours of the flowers filled his nostrils with an unknown,
luxurious delight, as he stood there, gazing into the lady’s eyes; he
fancied that a gentle breath of perfumed air was blowing softly over his
hair and face out of the motionless palms, and the faint plashing of the
hidden fountain was like an exquisite melody in his ears. It was good to
be in such a place, to look on such a woman, to breathe such odours, and
to hear such tuneful music. A dreamlike, half-mysterious satisfaction of
the senses dulled the keen self-knowledge of body and soul for one
short moment. In the stormy play of his troubled life there was a brief
interlude of peace. He tasted the fruit of the lotus, his lips were
moistened in the sweet waters of forgetfulness.

The lady spoke at last, and the spell left him, not broken, as by a
sudden shock, but losing its strong power by quick degrees until it was
wholly gone.

“I will answer your question by another,” said the lady. “Let your reply
be the plain truth. It will be better so.”

“Ask what you will. I have nothing to conceal.”

“Do you know who and what I am? Do you come here out of curiosity, in
the vain hope of knowing me, having heard of me from others?”

“Assuredly not.” A faint flush rose in the man’s pale and noble face.
“You have my word,” he said, in the tone of one who is sure of being
believed, “that I have never, to my knowledge, heard of your existence,
that I am ignorant even of your name--forgive my ignorance--and that I
entered this house, not knowing whose it might be, seeking and following
after one for whom I have searched the world, one dearly loved, long
lost, long sought.”

“It is enough. Be seated. I am Unorna.”

“Unorna?” repeated the Wanderer, with an unconscious question in his
voice, as though the name recalled some half-forgotten association.

“Unorna--yes. I have another name,” she added, with a shade of
bitterness, “but it is hardly mine. Tell me your story. You loved--you
lost--you seek--so much I know. What else?”

The Wanderer sighed.

“You have told in those few words the story of my life--the unfinished
story. A wanderer I was born, a wanderer I am, a wanderer I must ever
be, until at last I find her whom I seek. I knew her in a strange land,
far from my birthplace, in a city where I was known but to a few, and
I loved her. She loved me, too, and that against her father’s will. He
would not have his daughter wed with one not of her race; for he himself
had taken a wife among strangers, and while she was yet alive he had
repented of what he had done. But I would have overcome his reasons and
his arguments--she and I could have overcome them together, for he did
not hate me, he bore me no ill-will. We were almost friends when I last
took his hand. Then the hour of destiny came upon me. The air of that
city was treacherous and deadly. I had left her with her father, and my
heart was full of many things, and of words both spoken and unuttered. I
lingered upon an ancient bridge that spanned the river, and the sun went
down. Then the evil fever of the south laid hold upon me and
poisoned the blood in my veins, and stole the consciousness from my
understanding. Weeks passed away, and memory returned, with the strength
to speak. I learned that she I loved and her father were gone, and none
knew whither. I rose and left the accursed city, being at that time
scarce able to stand upright upon my feet. Finding no trace of those I
sought, I journeyed to their own country, for I knew where her father
held his lands. I had been ill many weeks and much time had passed, from
the day on which I had left her, until I was able to move from my bed.
When I reached the gates of her home, I was told that all had been
lately sold, and that others now dwelt within the walls. I inquired of
those new owners of the land, but neither they or any of all those whom
I questioned could tell me whither I should direct my search. The father
was a strange man, loving travel and change and movement, restless and
unsatisfied with the world, rich and free to make his own caprice his
guide through life; reticent he was, moreover, and thoughtful, not given
to speaking out his intentions. Those who administered his affairs in
his absence were honourable men, bound by his especial injunction not to
reveal his ever-varying plans. Many times, in my ceaseless search, I met
persons who had lately seen him and his daughter and spoken with them.
I was ever on their track, from hemisphere to hemisphere, from continent
to continent, from country to country, from city to city, often
believing myself close upon them, often learning suddenly that an ocean
lay between them and me. Was he eluding me, purposely, resolutely, or
was he unconscious of my desperate pursuit, being served by chance alone
and by his own restless temper? I do not know. At last, some one told me
that she was dead, speaking thoughtlessly, not knowing that I loved her.
He who told me had heard the news from another, who had received it on
hearsay from a third. None knew in what place her spirit had parted;
none knew by what manner of sickness she had died. Since then, I have
heard others say that she is not dead, that they have heard in their
turn from others that she yet lives. An hour ago, I knew not what to
think. To-day, I saw her in a crowded church. I heard her voice, though
I could not reach her in the throng, struggle how I would. I followed
her in haste, I lost her at one turning, I saw her before me at the
next. At last a figure, clothed as she had been clothed, entered your
house. Whether it was she I know not certainly, but I do know that in
the church I saw her. She cannot be within your dwelling without your
knowledge; if she be here--then I have found her, my journey is ended,
my wanderings have led me home at last. If she be not here, if I have
been mistaken, I entreat you to let me set eyes on that other whom I
mistook for her, to forgive then my mannerless intrusion and to let me
go.”

Unorna had listened with half-closed eyes, but with unfaltering
attention, watching the speaker’s face from beneath her drooping lids,
making no effort to read his thoughts, but weighing his words and
impressing every detail of his story upon her mind. When he had done
there was silence for a time, broken only by the plash and ripple of the
falling water.

“She is not here,” said Unorna at last. “You shall see for yourself.
There is indeed in this house a young girl to whom I am deeply attached,
who has grown up at my side and has always lived under my roof. She is
very pale and dark, and is dressed always in black.”

“Like her I saw.”

“You shall see her again. I will send for her.” Unorna pressed an ivory
key in the silver ball which lay beside her, attached to a thick cord of
white silk. “Ask Sletchna Axenia to come to me,” she said to the servant
who opened the door in the distance, out of sight behind the forest of
plants.

Amid less unusual surroundings the Wanderer would have rejected with
contempt the last remnants of his belief in the identity of Unorna’s
companion, with Beatrice. But, being where he was, he felt unable to
decide between the possible and the impossible, between what he might
reasonably expect and what lay beyond the bounds of reason itself.
The air he breathed was so loaded with rich exotic perfumes, the woman
before him was so little like other women, her strangely mismatched eyes
had for his own such a disquieting attraction, all that he saw and felt
and heard was so far removed from the commonplaces of daily life as to
make him feel that he himself was becoming a part of some other person’s
existence, that he was being gradually drawn away from his identity, and
was losing the power of thinking his own thoughts. He reasoned as
the shadows reason in dreamland, the boundaries of common probability
receded to an immeasurable distance, and he almost ceased to know where
reality ended and where imagination took up the sequence of events.

Who was this woman, who called herself Unorna? He tried to consider the
question, and to bring his intelligence to bear upon it. Was she a great
lady of Prague, rich, capricious, creating a mysterious existence for
herself, merely for her own good pleasure? Her language, her voice,
her evident refinement gave colour to the idea, which was in itself
attractive to a man who had long ceased to expect novelty in this
working-day world. He glanced at her face, musing and wondering,
inhaling the sweet, intoxicating odours of the flowers and listening to
the tinkling of the hidden fountain. Her eyes were gazing into his, and
again, as if by magic, the curtain of life’s stage was drawn together
in misty folds, shutting out the past, the present, and the future, the
fact, the doubt, and the hope, in an interval of perfect peace.

He was roused by the sound of a light footfall upon the marble pavement.
Unorna’s eyes were turned from his, and with something like a movement
of surprise he himself looked towards the new comer. A young girl was
standing under the shadow of a great letonia at a short distance from
him. She was very pale indeed, but not with that death-like, waxen
pallor which had chilled him when he had looked upon that other face.
There was a faint resemblance in the small, aquiline features, the dress
was black, and the figure of the girl before him was assuredly neither
much taller nor much shorter than that of the woman he loved and sought.
But the likeness went no further, and he knew that he had been utterly
mistaken.

Unorna exchanged a few indifferent words with Axenia and dismissed her.

“You have seen,” she said, when the young girl was gone. “Was it she who
entered the house just now?”

“Yes. I was misled by a mere resemblance. Forgive me for my
importunity--let me thank you most sincerely for your great kindness.”
 He rose as he spoke.

“Do not go,” said Unorna, looking at him earnestly.

He stood still, silent, as though his attitude should explain itself,
and yet expecting that she would say something further. He felt that her
eyes were upon him, and he raised his own to meet the look frankly, as
was his wont. For the first time since he had entered her presence
he felt that there was more than a mere disquieting attraction in her
steady gaze; there was a strong, resistless fascination, from which he
had no power to withdraw himself. Almost unconsciously he resumed his
seat, still looking at her, while telling himself with a severe effort
that he would look but one instant longer and then turn away. Ten
seconds passed, twenty, half a minute, in total silence. He was
confused, disturbed, and yet wholly unable to shut out her penetrating
glance. His fast ebbing consciousness barely allowed him to wonder
whether he was weakened by the strong emotions he had felt in the
church, or by the first beginning of some unknown and unexpected malady.
He was utterly weak and unstrung. He could neither rise from his seat,
nor lift his hand, nor close the lids of his eyes. It was as though
an irresistible force were drawing him into the depths of a fathomless
whirlpool, down, down, by its endless giddy spirals, robbing him of a
portion of his consciousness at every gyration, so that he left behind
him at every instant something of his individuality, something of the
central faculty of self-recognition. He felt no pain, but he did
not feel that inexpressible delight of peace which already twice had
descended upon him. He experienced a rapid diminution of all perception,
of all feeling, of all intelligence. Thought, and the memory of thought,
ebbed from his brain and left it vacant, as the waters of a lock subside
when the gates are opened, leaving emptiness in their place.

Unorna’s eyes turned from him, and she raised her hand a moment, letting
it fall again upon her knee. Instantly the strong man was restored to
himself; his weakness vanished, his sight was clear, his intelligence
was awake. Instantly the certainty flashed upon him that Unorna
possessed the power of imposing the hypnotic sleep and had exercised
that gift upon him, unexpectedly and against his will. He would have
more willingly supposed that he had been the victim of a momentary
physical faintness, for the idea of having been thus subjected to the
influence of a woman, and of a woman whom he hardly knew, was repugnant
to him, and had in it something humiliating to his pride, or at least
to his vanity. But he could not escape the conviction forced upon him by
the circumstances.

“Do not go far, for I may yet help you,” said Unorna, quietly. “Let us
talk of this matter and consult what is best to be done. Will you accept
a woman’s help?”

“Readily. But I cannot accept her will as mine, nor resign my
consciousness into her keeping.”

“Not for the sake of seeing her whom you say you love?”

The Wanderer was silent, being yet undetermined how to act, and still
unsteadied by what he had experienced. But he was able to reason, and he
asked of his judgment what he should do, wondering what manner of woman
Unorna might prove to be, and whether she was anything more than one of
those who live and even enrich themselves by the exercise of the unusual
faculties of powers nature has given them. He had seen many of that
class, and he considered most of them to be but half fanatics, half
charlatans, worshipping in themselves as something almost divine that
which was but a physical power, or weakness, beyond their own limited
comprehension. Though a whole school of wise and thoughtful men had
already produced remarkable results and elicited astounding facts by
sifting the truth through a fine web of closely logical experiment,
it did not follow that either Unorna, or any other self-convinced,
self-taught operator could do more than grope blindly towards the light,
guided by intuition alone amongst the varied and misleading phenomena
of hypnotism. The thought of accepting the help of one who was probably,
like most of her kind, a deceiver of herself and therefore, and thereby,
of others, was an affront to the dignity of his distress, a desecration
of his love’s sanctity, a frivolous invasion of love’s holiest ground.
But, on the other hand, he was stimulated to catch at the veriest
shadows of possibility by the certainty that he was at last within the
same city with her he loved, and he knew that hypnotic subjects are
sometimes able to determine the abode of persons whom no one else can
find. To-morrow it might be too late. Even before to-day’s sun had set
Beatrice might be once more taken from him, snatched away to the ends
of the earth by her father’s ever-changing caprice. To lose a moment now
might be to lose all.

He was tempted to yield, to resign his will into Unorna’s hands, and his
sight to her leading, to let her bid him sleep and see the truth. But
then, with a sudden reaction of his individuality, he realized that
he had another course, surer, simpler, more dignified. Beatrice was in
Prague. It was little probable that she was permanently established in
the city, and in all likelihood she and her father were lodged in one of
the two or three great hotels. To be driven from the one to the other of
these would be but an affair of minutes. Failing information from this
source, there remained the registers of the Austrian police, whose
vigilance takes note of every stranger’s name and dwelling-place.

“I thank you,” he said. “If all my inquiries fail, and if you will let
me visit you once more to-day, I will then ask your help.”

“You are right,” Unorna answered.

The Witch of Prague - Chapter 1

By F. Marion Crawford

A great multitude of people filled the church, crowded together in
the old black pews, standing closely thronged in the nave and aisles,
pressing shoulder to shoulder even in the two chapels on the right and
left of the apse, a vast gathering of pale men and women whose eyes
were sad and in whose faces was written the history of their nation. The
mighty shafts and pilasters of the Gothic edifice rose like the stems of
giant trees in a primeval forest from a dusky undergrowth, spreading out
and uniting their stony branches far above in the upper gloom. From the
clerestory windows of the nave an uncertain light descended halfway to
the depths and seemed to float upon the darkness below as oil upon the
water of a well. Over the western entrance the huge fantastic organ
bristled with blackened pipes and dusty gilded ornaments of colossal
size, like some enormous kingly crown long forgotten in the lumber
room of the universe, tarnished and overlaid with the dust of ages.
Eastwards, before the rail which separated the high altar from the
people, wax torches, so thick that a man might not span one of them with
both his hands, were set up at irregular intervals, some taller, some
shorter, burning with steady, golden flames, each one surrounded with
heavy funeral wreaths, and each having a tablet below it, whereon were
set forth in the Bohemian idiom, the names, titles, and qualities of
him or her in whose memory it was lighted. Innumerable lamps and tapers
before the side altars and under the strange canopied shrines at the
bases of the pillars, struggled ineffectually with the gloom, shedding
but a few sickly yellow rays upon the pallid faces of the persons
nearest to their light.

Suddenly the heavy vibration of a single pedal note burst from the
organ upon the breathing silence, long drawn out, rich, voluminous,
and imposing. Presently, upon the massive bass, great chords grew up,
succeeding each other in a simple modulation, rising then with the
blare of trumpets and the simultaneous crash of mixtures, fifteenths
and coupled pedals to a deafening peal, then subsiding quickly again
and terminating in one long sustained common chord. And now, as the
celebrant bowed at the lowest step before the high altar, the voices of
the innumerable congregation joined the harmony of the organ, ringing
up to the groined roof in an ancient Slavonic melody, melancholy
and beautiful, and rendered yet more unlike all other music by the
undefinable character of the Bohemian language, in which tones softer
than those of the softest southern tongue alternate so oddly with rough
gutturals and strident sibilants.

The Wanderer stood in the midst of the throng, erect, taller than the
men near him, holding his head high, so that a little of the light from
the memorial torches reached his thoughtful, manly face, making the
noble and passionate features to stand out clearly, while losing its
power of illumination in the dark beard and among the shadows of his
hair. His was a face such as Rembrandt would have painted, seen under
the light that Rembrandt loved best; for the expression seemed to
overcome the surrounding gloom by its own luminous quality, while the
deep gray eyes were made almost black by the wide expansion of the
pupils; the dusky brows clearly defined the boundary in the face between
passion and thought, and the pale forehead, by its slight recession into
the shade from its middle prominence, proclaimed the man of heart, the
man of faith, the man of devotion, as well as the intuitive nature of
the delicately sensitive mind and the quick, elastic qualities of the
man’s finely organized, but nervous bodily constitution. The long white
fingers of one hand stirred restlessly, twitching at the fur of his
broad lapel which was turned back across his chest, and from time to
time he drew a deep breath and sighed, not painfully, but wearily and
hopelessly, as a man sighs who knows that his happiness is long past
and that his liberation from the burden of life is yet far off in the
future.

The celebrant reached the reading of the Gospel and the men and women
in the pews rose to their feet. Still the singing of the long-drawn-out
stanzas of the hymn continued with unflagging devotion, and still the
deep accompaniment of the ancient organ sustained the mighty chorus of
voices. The Gospel over, the people sank into their seats again, not
standing, as is the custom in some countries, until the Creed had
been said. Here and there, indeed, a woman, perhaps a stranger in the
country, remained upon her feet, noticeable among the many figures
seated in the pews. The Wanderer, familiar with many lands and many
varying traditions of worship, unconsciously noted these exceptions,
looking with a vague curiosity from one to the other. Then, all at once,
his tall frame shivered from head to foot, and his fingers convulsively
grasped the yielding sable on which they lay.

She was there, the woman he had sought so long, whose face he had not
found in the cities and dwellings of the living, neither her grave in
the silent communities of the dead. There, before the uncouth monument
of dark red marble beneath which Tycho Brahe rests in peace, there she
stood; not as he had seen her last on that day when his senses had left
him in the delirium of his sickness, not in the freshness of her bloom
and of her dark loveliness, but changed as he had dreamed in evil dreams
that death would have power to change her. The warm olive of her cheek
was turned to the hue of wax, the soft shadows beneath her velvet eyes
were deepened and hardened, her expression, once yielding and changing
under the breath of thought and feeling as a field of flowers when
the west wind blows, was now set, as though for ever, in a death-like
fixity. The delicate features were drawn and pinched, the nostrils
contracted, the colourless lips straightened out of the lines of beauty
into the mould of a lifeless mask. It was the face of a dead woman, but
it was her face still, and the Wanderer knew it well; in the kingdom
of his soul the whole resistless commonwealth of the emotions revolted
together to dethrone death’s regent--sorrow, while the thrice-tempered
springs of passion, bent but not broken, stirred suddenly in the palace
of his body and shook the strong foundations of his being.

During the seconds that followed, his eyes were riveted upon the beloved
head. Then, as the Creed ended, the vision sank down and was lost to his
sight. She was seated now, and the broad sea of humanity hid her from
him, though he raised himself the full height of his stature in the
effort to distinguish even the least part of her head-dress. To move
from his place was all but impossible, though the fierce longing to be
near her bade him trample even upon the shoulders of the throng to reach
her, as men have done more than once to save themselves from death by
fire in crowded places. Still the singing of the hymn continued, and
would continue, as he knew, until the moment of the Elevation. He
strained his hearing to catch the sounds that came from the quarter
where she sat. In a chorus of a thousand singers he fancied that he
could have distinguished the tender, heart-stirring vibration of her
tones. Never woman sang, never could woman sing again, as she had once
sung, though her voice had been as soft as it had been sweet, and tuned
to vibrate in the heart rather than in the ear. As the strains rose
and fell, the Wanderer bowed his head and closed his eyes, listening,
through the maze of sounds, for the silvery ring of her magic note.
Something he heard at last, something that sent a thrill from his ear to
his heart, unless indeed his heart itself were making music for his
ears to hear. The impression reached him fitfully, often interrupted and
lost, but as often renewing itself and reawakening in the listener the
certainty of recognition which he had felt at the sight of the singer’s
face.

He who loves with his whole soul has a knowledge and a learning which
surpass the wisdom of those who spend their lives in the study of things
living or long dead, or never animate. They, indeed, can construct
the figure of a flower from the dried web of a single leaf, or by the
examination of a dusty seed, and they can set up the scheme of life of a
shadowy mammoth out of a fragment of its skeleton, or tell the story
of hill and valley from the contemplation of a handful of earth or of
a broken pebble. Often they are right, sometimes they are driven deeper
and deeper into error by the complicated imperfections of their own
science. But he who loves greatly possesses in his intuition the
capacities of all instruments of observation which man has invented and
applied to his use. The lenses of his eyes can magnify the infinitesimal
detail to the dimensions of common things, and bring objects to his
vision from immeasurable distances; the labyrinth of his ear can choose
and distinguish amidst the harmonies and the discords of the world,
muffling in its tortuous passages the reverberation of ordinary sounds
while multiplying a hundredfold the faint tones of the one beloved
voice. His whole body and his whole intelligence form together an
instrument of exquisite sensibility whereby the perceptions of his
inmost soul are hourly tortured, delighted, caught up into ecstasy, torn
and crushed by jealousy and fear, or plunged into the frigid waters of
despair.

The melancholy hymn resounded through the vast church, but though the
Wanderer stretched the faculty of hearing to the utmost, he could no
longer find the note he sought amongst the vibrations of the dank and
heavy air. Then an irresistible longing came upon him to turn and force
his way through the dense throng of men and women, to reach the aisle
and press past the huge pillar till he could slip between the tombstone
of the astronomer and the row of back wooden seats. Once there, he
should see her face to face.

He turned, indeed, as he stood, and he tried to move a few steps. On all
sides curious looks were directed upon him, but no one offered to make
way, and still the monotonous singing continued until he felt himself
deafened, as he faced the great congregation.

“I am ill,” he said in a low voice to those nearest to him. “Pray let me
pass!”

His face was white, indeed, and those who heard his words believed him.
A mild old man raised his sad blue eyes, gazed at him, and while trying
to draw back, gently shook his head. A pale woman, whose sickly features
were half veiled in the folds of a torn black shawl, moved as far as
she could, shrinking as the very poor and miserable shrink when they are
expected to make way before the rich and the strong. A lad of fifteen
stood upon tiptoe to make himself even slighter than he was and thus to
widen the way, and the Wanderer found himself, after repeated efforts,
as much as two steps distant from his former position. He was still
trying to divide the crowd when the music suddenly ceased, and the
tones of the organ died away far up under the western window. It was the
moment of the Elevation, and the first silvery tinkling of the bell,
the people swayed a little, all those who were able kneeling, and those
whose movements were impeded by the press of worshippers bending towards
the altar as a field of grain before the gale. The Wanderer turned again
and bowed himself with the rest, devoutly and humbly, with half-closed
eyes, as he strove to collect and control his thoughts in the presence
of the chief mystery of his Faith. Three times the tiny bell was rung, a
pause followed, and thrice again the clear jingle of the metal broke the
solemn stillness. Then once more the people stirred, and the soft sound
of their simultaneous motion was like a mighty sigh breathed up from the
secret vaults and the deep foundations of the ancient church; again the
pedal note of the organ boomed through the nave and aisles, and again
the thousands of human voices took up the strain of song.

The Wanderer glanced about him, measuring the distance he must traverse
to reach the monument of the Danish astronomer and confronting it with
the short time which now remained before the end of the Mass. He saw
that in such a throng he would have no chance of gaining the position he
wished to occupy in less than half an hour, and he had not but a
scant ten minutes at his disposal. He gave up the attempt therefore,
determining that when the celebration should be over he would move
forward with the crowd, trusting to his superior stature and energy
to keep him within sight of the woman he sought, until both he and she
could meet, either just within or just without the narrow entrance of
the church.

Very soon the moment of action came. The singing died away, the
benediction was given, the second Gospel was read, the priest and the
people repeated the Bohemian prayers, and all was over. The countless
heads began to move onward, the shuffling of innumerable feet sent
heavy, tuneless echoes through vaulted space, broken every moment by the
sharp, painful cough of a suffering child whom no one could see in the
multitude, or by the dull thud of some heavy foot striking against the
wooden seats in the press. The Wanderer moved forward with the rest.
Reaching the entrance of the pew where she had sat he was kept back
during a few seconds by the half dozen men and women who were forcing
their way out of it before him. But at the farthest end, a figure
clothed in black was still kneeling. A moment more and he might enter
the pew and be at her side. One of the other women dropped something
before she was out of the narrow space, and stooped, fumbling and
searching in the darkness. At the minute, the slight, girlish figure
rose swiftly and passed like a shadow before the heavy marble monument.
The Wanderer saw that the pew was open at the other end, and without
heeding the woman who stood in his way, he sprang upon the low seat,
passed her, stepped to the floor upon the other side and was out in
the aisle in a moment. Many persons had already left the church and the
space was comparatively free.

She was before him, gliding quickly toward the door. Ere he could reach
her, he saw her touch the thick ice which filled the marble basin, cross
herself hurriedly and pass out. But he had seen her face again, and he
knew that he was not mistaken. The thin, waxen features were as those of
the dead, but they were hers, nevertheless. In an instant he could be by
her side. But again his progress was momentarily impeded by a number of
persons who were entering the building hastily to attend the next Mass.
Scarcely ten seconds later he was out in the narrow and dismal passage
which winds between the north side of the Teyn Kirche and the buildings
behind the Kinsky Palace. The vast buttresses and towers cast deep
shadows below them, and the blackened houses opposite absorb what
remains of the uncertain winter’s daylight. To the left of the church a
low arch spans the lane, affording a covered communication between the
north aisle and the sacristy. To the right the open space is somewhat
broader, and three dark archways give access to as many passages,
leading in radiating directions and under the old houses to the streets
beyond.

The Wanderer stood upon the steps, beneath the rich stone carvings which
set forth the Crucifixion over the door of the church, and his quick
eyes scanned everything within sight. To the left, no figure resembling
the one he sought was to be seen, but on the right, he fancied that
among a score of persons now rapidly dispersing he could distinguish
just within one of the archways a moving shadow, black against the
blackness. In an instant he had crossed the way and was hurrying through
the gloom. Already far before him, but visible and, as he believed,
unmistakable, the shade was speeding onward, light as mist, noiseless as
thought, but yet clearly to be seen and followed. He cried aloud, as he
ran,

“Beatrice! Beatrice!”

His strong voice echoed along the dank walls and out into the court
beyond. It was intensely cold, and the still air carried the sound
clearly to the distance. She must have heard him, she must have known
his voice, but as she crossed the open place, and the gray light fell
upon her, he could see that she did not raise her bent head nor slacken
her speed.

He ran on, sure of overtaking her in the passage she had now entered,
for she seemed to be only walking, while he was pursuing her at a
headlong pace. But in the narrow tunnel, when he reached it, she was
not, though at the farther end he imagined that the fold of a black
garment was just disappearing. He emerged into the street, in which he
could now see in both directions to a distance of fifty yards or more.
He was alone. The rusty iron shutters of the little shops were all
barred and fastened, and every door within the range of his vision was
closed. He stood still in surprise and listened. There was no sound to
be heard, not the grating of a lock, nor the tinkling of a bell, nor the
fall of a footstep.

He did not pause long, for he made up his mind as to what he should do
in the flash of a moment’s intuition. It was physically impossible that
she should have disappeared into any one of the houses which had their
entrances within the dark tunnel he had just traversed. Apart from the
presumptive impossibility of her being lodged in such a quarter, there
was the self-evident fact that he must have heard the door opened and
closed. Secondly, she could not have turned to the right, for in that
direction the street was straight and without any lateral exit, so that
he must have seen her. Therefore she must have gone to the left, since
on that side there was a narrow alley leading out of the lane, at some
distance from the point where he was now standing--too far, indeed, for
her to have reached it unnoticed, unless, as was possible, he had been
greatly deceived in the distance which had lately separated her from
him.

Without further hesitation, he turned to the left. He found no one
in the way, for it was not yet noon, and at that hour the people were
either at their prayers or at their Sunday morning’s potations, and the
place was as deserted as a disused cemetery. Still he hastened onward,
never pausing for breath, till he found himself all at once in the
great Ring. He knew the city well, but in his race he had bestowed no
attention upon the familiar windings and turnings, thinking only of
overtaking the fleeting vision, no matter how, no matter where. Now, on
a sudden, the great, irregular square opened before him, flanked on the
one side by the fantastic spires of the Teyn Church, and the blackened
front of the huge Kinsky Palace, on the other by the half-modern Town
Hall with its ancient tower, its beautiful porch, and the graceful oriel
which forms the apse of the chapel in the second story.

One of the city watchmen, muffled in his military overcoat, and
conspicuous by the great bunch of dark feathers that drooped from his
black hat, was standing idly at the corner from which the Wanderer
emerged. The latter thought of inquiring whether the man had seen a lady
pass, but the fellow’s vacant stare convinced him that no questioning
would elicit a satisfactory answer. Moreover, as he looked across the
square he caught sight of a retreating figure dressed in black, already
at such a distance as to make positive recognition impossible. In his
haste he found no time to convince himself that no living woman could
have thus outrun him, and he instantly resumed his pursuit, gaining
rapidly upon her he was following. But it is not an easy matter to
overtake even a woman, when she has an advantage of a couple of
hundred yards, and when the race is a short one. He passed the ancient
astronomical clock, just as the little bell was striking the third
quarter after eleven, but he did not raise his head to watch the
sad-faced apostles as they presented their stiff figures in succession
at the two square windows. When the blackened cock under the small
Gothic arch above flapped his wooden wings and uttered his melancholy
crow, the Wanderer was already at the corner of the little Ring, and
he could see the object of his pursuit disappearing before him into the
Karlsgasse. He noticed uneasily that the resemblance between the woman
he was following and the object of his loving search seemed now to
diminish, as in a bad dream, as the distance between himself and her
decreased. But he held resolutely on, nearing her at every step, round
a sharp corner to the right, then to the left, to the right again, and
once more in the opposite direction, always, as he knew, approaching
the old stone bridge. He was not a dozen paces behind her as she turned
quickly a third time to the right, round the wall of the ancient house
which faces the little square over against the enormous buildings
comprising the Clementine Jesuit monastery and the astronomical
observatory. As he sprang past the corner he saw the heavy door just
closing and heard the sharp resounding clang of its iron fastening. The
lady had disappeared, and he felt sure that she had gone through that
entrance.

He knew the house well, for it is distinguished from all others in
Prague, both by its shape and its oddly ornamented, unnaturally narrow
front. It is built in the figure of an irregular triangle, the blunt
apex of one angle facing the little square, the sides being erected on
the one hand along the Karlsgasse and on the other upon a narrow alley
which leads away towards the Jews’ quarter. Overhanging passages are
built out over this dim lane, as though to facilitate the interior
communications of the dwelling, and in the shadow beneath them there is
a small door studded with iron nails which is invariably shut. The main
entrance takes in all the scant breadth of the truncated angle which
looks towards the monastery. Immediately over it is a great window,
above that another, and, highest of all, under the pointed gable, a
round and unglazed aperture, within which there is inky darkness. The
windows of the first and second stories are flanked by huge figures of
saints, standing forth in strangely contorted attitudes, black with the
dust of ages, black as all old Prague is black, with the smoke of the
brown Bohemian coal, with the dark and unctuous mists of many autumns,
with the cruel, petrifying frosts of ten score winters.

He who knew the cities of men as few have known them, knew also
this house. Many a time had he paused before it by day and by night,
wondering who lived within its massive, irregular walls, behind those
uncouth, barbarously sculptured saints who kept their interminable watch
high up by the lozenged windows. He would know now. Since she whom
he sought had entered, he would enter too; and in some corner of that
dwelling which had long possessed a mysterious attraction for his eyes,
he would find at last that being who held power over his heart, that
Beatrice whom he had learned to think of as dead, while still believing
that somewhere she must be yet alive, that dear lady whom, dead or
living, he loved beyond all others, with a great love, passing words.