The Wanderer looked at him in surprise. The question was asked as naturally as though it referred to an everyday occurrence of little or no weight.
“Yes,” he answered. “She made you sleep.”
“Why? Do you know? If she has made me dream something, I have forgotten it.”
The Wanderer hesitated a moment.
“I cannot answer your question,” he said, at length.
“Ah — she told me that you hated her,” said Kafka, turning his dark eyes to his companion. “But, yet,” he added, “that is hardly a reason why you should not tell me what happened.”
“I could not tell you the truth without saying something which I have no right to say to a stranger — which I could not easily say to a friend.”
“You need not spare me—”
“It might save you.”
“Then say it — though I do not know from what danger I am to be saved. But I can guess, perhaps. You would advise me to give up the attempt to win her.”
“Precisely. I need say no more.”
“On the contrary,” said Kafka with sudden energy, “when a man gives such advice as that to a stranger he is bound to give also his reasons.”
The Wanderer looked at him calmly as he answered.
“One man need hardly give a reason for saving another man’s life. Yours is in danger.”
“I see that you hate her, as she said you did.”
“You and she are both mistaken in that. I am not in love with her and I have ceased to be her friend. As for my interest in you, it does not even pretend to be friendly — it is that which any man may feel for a fellow-being, and what any man would feel who had seen what I have seen this afternoon.”
The calm bearing and speech of the experienced man of the world carried weight with it in the eyes of the young Moravian, whose hot blood knew little of restraint and less of caution; with the keen instinct of his race in the reading of character he suddenly understood that his companion was at once generous and disinterested. A burst of confidence followed close upon the conviction.
“If I am to lose her love, I would rather lose my life also, and by her hand,” he said hotly. “You are warning me against her. I feel that you are honest and I see that you are in earnest. I thank you. If I am in danger, do not try to save me. I saw her face a few moments ago, and she spoke to me. I cannot believe that she is plotting my destruction.”
The Wanderer was silent. He wondered whether it was his duty to do or say more. Unorna was a changeable woman. She might love the man to-morrow. But Israel Kafka was too young to let the conversation drop. Boy-like he expected confidence for confidence, and was surprised at his companion’s taciturnity.
“What did she say to me when I was asleep?” he asked, after a short pause.
“Did you ever hear the story of Simon Abeles?” the Wanderer inquired by way of answer.
Kafka frowned and looked round sharply.
“Simon Abeles? He was a renegade Hebrew boy. His father killed him. He is buried in the Teyn Kirche. What of him? What has he to do with Unorna, or with me? I am myself a Jew. The time has gone by when we Jews hid our heads. I am proud of what I am, and I will never be a Christian. What can Simon Abeles have to do with me?”
“Little enough, now that you are awake.”
“And when I was asleep, what then? She made me see him, perhaps?”
“She made you live his life. She made you suffer all that he suffered—”
“What?” cried Israel Kafka in a loud and angry tone.
“What I say,” returned the other quietly.
“And you did not interfere? You did not stop her? No, of course, I forgot that you are a Christian.”
The Wanderer looked at him in surprise. It had not struck him that Israel Kafka might be a man of the deepest religious convictions, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and that what he would resent most would be the fact that in his sleep Unorna had made him play the part and suffer the martyrdom of a convert to Christianity. This was exactly what took place. He would have suffered anything at Unorna’s hands, and without complaint, even to bodily death, but his wrath rose furiously at the thought that she had been playing with what he held most sacred, that she had forced from his lips the denial of the faith of his people and the confession of the Christian belief, perhaps the very words of the hated Creed. The modern Hebrew of Western Europe might be indifferent in such a case, as though he had spoken in the delirium of a fever, but the Jew of the less civilised East is a different being, and in some ways a stronger. Israel Kafka represented the best type of his race, and his blood boiled at the insult that had been put upon him. The Wanderer saw, and understood, and at once began to respect him, as men who believe firmly in opposite creeds have been known to respect each other even in a life and death struggle.
“I would have stopped her if I could,” he said.
“Were you sleeping, too?” asked Kafka hotly.
“I cannot tell. I was powerless though I was conscious. I saw only Simon Abeles in it all, though I seemed to be aware that you and he were one person. I did interfere — so soon as I was free to move. I think I saved your life. I was carrying you away in my arms when she waked you.”
“I thank you — I suppose it is as you tell me. You could not move — but you saw it all, you say. You saw me play the part of the apostate, you heard me confess the Christian’s faith?”
“Yes — I saw you die in agony, confessing it still.”
Israel Kafka ground his teeth and turned his face away. The Wanderer was silent. A few moments later the carriage stopped at the door of Kafka’s lodging. The latter turned to his companion, who was startled by the change in the young face. The mouth was now closely set, the features seemed bolder, the eyes harder and more manly, a look of greater dignity and strength was in the whole.
“You do not love her?” he asked. “Do you give me your word that you do not love her?”
“If you need so much to assure you of it, I give you my word. I do not love her.”
“Will you come with me for a few moments? I live here.”
The Wanderer made a gesture of assent. In a few moments they found themselves in a large room furnished almost in Eastern fashion, with few objects, but those of great value. Israel Kafka was alone in the world and was rich. There were two or three divans, a few low, octagonal, inlaid tables, a dozen or more splendid weapons hung upon the wall, and the polished wooden floor was partly covered with extremely rich carpets.
“Do you know what she said to me, when I helped her into the carriage?” asked Kafka.
“No, I did not attempt to hear.”
“She did not mean that you should hear her. She made me promise to send you to her with news of myself. She said that you hated her and would not go to her unless I begged you to do so. Is that true?”
“I have told you that I do not hate her. I hate her cruelty. I will certainly not go to her of my own choice.”
“She said that I had fainted. That was a lie. She invented it as an excuse to attract you, on the ground of her interest in my condition.”
“Evidently.”
“She hates me with an extreme hatred. Her real interest lay in showing you how terrible that hatred could be. It is not possible to conceive of anything more diabolically bad than what she did to me. She made me her sport — yours, too, perhaps, or she would at least have wished it. On that holy ground where my people lie in peace she made me deny my faith, she made me, in your eyes and her own, personate a renegade of my race, she made me confess in the Christian creed, she made me seem to die for a belief I abhor. Can you conceive of anything more devilish? A moment later she smiles upon me and presses my hand, and is anxious to know of my good health. And but for you, I should never have known what she had done to me. I owe you gratitude, though it be for the worst pain I have ever suffered. But do you think I will forgive her?”
“You would be very forgiving if you could,” said the Wanderer, his own anger rising again
at the remembrance of what he had seen.
“And do you think that I can love still?”
“No.”
Israel Kafka walked the length of the room and then came back and stood before the Wanderer and looked into his eyes. His face was very calm and resolute, the flush had vanished from his thin cheeks, and the features were set in an expression of irrevocable determination. Then he spoke, slowly and distinctly.
“You are mistaken. I love her with all my heart. I will therefore kill her.”
The Wanderer had seen many men in many lands and had witnessed the effects of many passions. He gazed earnestly into Israel Kafka’s face, searching in vain for some manifestation of madness. But he was disappointed. The Moravian had formed his resolution in cold blood and intended to carry it out. His only folly appeared to lie in the announcement of his intention. But his next words explained even that.
“She made me promise to send you to her if you would go,” he said. “Will you go to her now?”
“What shall I tell her? I warn you that since—”
“You need not warn me. I know what you would say. But I will be no common murderer. I will not kill her as she would have killed me. Warn her, not me. Go to her and say, ‘Israel Kafka has promised before God that he will take your blood in expiation, and there is no escape from the man who is himself ready to die.’ Tell her to fly for her life, and that quickly.”
“And what will you gain by doing this murder?” asked the Wanderer, calmly. He was revolving schemes for Unorna’s safety, and half amazed to find himself forced in common humanity to take her part.
“I shall free myself of my shame in loving her, at the price of her blood and mine. Will you go?”
“And what is to prevent me from delivering you over to safe keeping before you do this deed?”
“You have no witness,” answered Kafka with a smile. “You are a stranger in the city and in this country, and I am rich. I shall easily prove that you love Unorna, and that you wish to get rid of me out of jealousy.”
“That is true,” said the Wanderer, thoughtfully. “I will go.”
“Go quickly, then,” said Israel Kafka, “for I shall follow soon.”
As the Wanderer left the room he saw the Moravian turn toward the place where the keen, splendid Eastern weapons hung upon the wall.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WANDERER KNEW that the case was urgent and the danger great. There was no mistaking the tone of Israel Kafka’s voice nor the look in his face. Nor did the savage resolution seem altogether unnatural in a man of the Moravian’s breeding. The Wanderer had no time and but little inclination to blame himself for the part he had played in disclosing to the principal actor the nature of the scene which had taken place in the cemetery, and the immediate consequences of that disclosure, though wholly unexpected, did not seem utterly illogical. Israel Kafka’s nature was eastern, violently passionate and, at the same time, long-suffering in certain directions as only the fatalist can be. He could have loved for a lifetime faithfully, without requital; he would have suffered in patience Unorna’s anger, scorn, pity or caprice; he had long before now resigned his free will into the keeping of a passion which was degrading as it enslaved all his thoughts and actions, but which had something noble in it, inasmuch as it fitted him for the most heroic self-sacrifice.
Unorna’s act had brought the several seemingly contradictory elements of his character to bear upon one point. He had realised in the same moment that it was impossible for her to love him; that her changing treatment of him was not the result of caprice but of a fixed plan of her own, in the execution of which she would spare him neither falsehood nor insult; that to love such a woman was the lowest degradation; that he could nevertheless not destroy that love; and, finally, that the only escape from his shame lay in her destruction, and that this must in all probability involve his own death also. At the same time he felt that there was something solemn in the expiation he was about to exact, something that accorded well with the fierce traditions of ancient Israel, and the deed should not be done stealthily or in the dark. Unorna must know that she was to die by his hand, and why. He had no object in concealment, for his own life was already ended by the certainty that his love was hopeless, and on the other hand, fatalist as he was, he believed that Unorna could not escape him and that no warning could save her.
The Wanderer understood most of these things as he hastened towards her house through the darkening streets. Not a carriage was to be seen, and he was obliged to traverse the distance on foot, as often happens at supreme moments, when everything might be gained by the saving of a few minutes in conveying a warning.
He saw himself in a very strange position. Half an hour had not elapsed since he had watched Unorna driving away from the cemetery and had inwardly determined that he would never, if possible, set eyes on her again. Scarcely two hours earlier, he had been speaking to her of the sincere friendship which he felt was growing up for her in his heart. Since then he had learned, almost beyond the possibility of a doubt, that she loved him, and he had learned, too, to despise her, he had left her meaning that the parting should be final, and now he was hurrying to her house to give her the warning which alone could save her from destruction. And yet, he found it impossible to detect any inconsistency in his own conduct. As he had been conscious of doing his utmost to save Israel Kafka from her, so now he knew that he was doing all he could to save Unorna from the Moravian, and he recognised the fact that no man with the commonest feelings of humanity could have done less in either case. But he was conscious, also, of a change in himself which he did not attempt to analyse. His indolent, self-satisfied apathy was gone, the strong interests of human life and death stirred him, mind and body together acquired their activity and he was at all points once more a man. He was ignorant, indeed, of what had been taken from him. The memory of Beatrice was gone, and he fancied himself one who had never loved woman. He looked back with horror and amazement upon the emptiness of his past life, wondering how such an existence as he had led, or fancied he had led, could have been possible.
But there was scant time for reflection upon the problem of his own mission in the world as he hastened towards Unorna’s house. His present mission was clear enough and simple enough, though by no means easy of accomplishment. What Israel Kafka had told him was very true. Should he attempt a denunciation, he would have little chance of being believed. It would be easy enough for Kafka to bring witnesses to prove his own love for Unorna and the Wanderer’s intimacy with her during the past month, and the latter’s consequent interest in disposing summarily of his Moravian rival. A stranger in the land would have small hope of success against a man whose antecedents were known, whose fortune was reputed great, and who had at his back the whole gigantic strength of the Jewish interest in Prague, if he chose to invoke the assistance of his people. The matter would end in a few days in the Wanderer being driven from the country, while Israel Kafka would be left behind to work his will as might seem best in his own eyes.
There was Keyork Arabian. So far as it was possible to believe in the sincerity of any of the strange persons among whom the Wanderer found himself, it seemed certain that the sage was attached to Unorna by some bond of mutual interests which he would be loth to break. Keyork had many acquaintances and seemed to posses everywhere a certain amount of respect, whether because he was perhaps a member of some widespread, mysterious society of which the Wanderer knew nothing, or whether this importance of his was due to his personal superiority of mind and wide experience of travel, no one could say. But it seemed certain that if Unorna could be placed for the time being in a safe refuge, it would be best to apply to Keyork to insure her further protection. Meanwhile that refuge must be found and Unorna must be conveyed to it without delay.
The Wanderer was admitted without question. He found Unorna in her accustomed place. She had thrown aside her furs and was sitting in an attitude of deep thought. Her dress was black, and in the soft light of t
he shaded lamps she was like a dark, marble statue set in the midst of thick shrubbery in a garden. Her elbow rested on her knee, her chin upon her beautiful, heavy hand; only in her hair there was bright colour.
She knew the Wanderer’s footstep, but she neither moved her body nor turned her head. She felt that she grew paler than before, and she could hear her heart beating strongly.
“I come from Israel Kafka,” said the Wanderer, standing still before her.
She knew from his tone how hard his face must be, and she would not look up.
“What of him?” she asked in a voice without expression. “Is he well?”
“He bids me say to you that he has promised before Heaven to take your life, and that there is no escape from a man who is ready to lay down his own.”
Unorna turned her head slowly towards him, and a very soft look stole over her strange face.
“And you have brought me his message — this warning — to save me?” she said.
“As I tried to save him from you an hour ago. But there is little time. The man is desperate, whether mad or sane, I cannot tell. Make haste. Determine where to go for safety, and I will take you there.”
But Unorna did not move. She only looked at him, with an expression he could no longer misunderstand. He was cold and impassive.
“I fancy it will not be safe to hesitate long,” he said. “He is in earnest.”
“I do not fear Israel Kafka, and I fear death less,” answered Unorna deliberately. “Why does he mean to kill me?”
“I think that in his place most every human men would feel as he does, though religion, or prudence, or fear, or all three together, might prevent them from doing what they would wish to do.”
“You too? And which of the three would prevent you from murdering me?”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 473