The Witch of Prague Part 44

Her manner was more natural and quiet than it had been since the moment of Kafka's appearance in the cemetery. The Wanderer noticed the tone.

There was an element of real sadness in it, with a leaven of bitter disappointment and a savour of heartfelt contrition. She was in earnest now, as she had been before, but in a different way. He could hardly refuse her a word in answer.

"Unorna," he said gravely, "remember that you are leaving me no choice.

I cannot leave you alone with that poor fellow, and so, whatever you wish to say, I must hear. But it would be much better to say nothing about what has happened this evening--better for you and for me. Neither men nor women always mean exactly what they say. We are not angels. Is it not best to let the matter drop?"

Unorna listened quietly, her eyes upon his face.

"You are not so hard with me as you were," she said thoughtfully, after a moment's hesitation, and there was a touch of grat.i.tude in her voice.

As she felt the dim possibility of a return to her former relations of friends.h.i.+p with him, Beatrice and the scene in the church seemed to be very far away. Again the Wanderer found it difficult to answer.

"It is not for me to be hard, as you call it," he said quietly. There was a scarcely perceptible smile on his face, brought there not by any feeling of satisfaction, but by his sense of his own almost laughable perplexity. He saw that he was very near being driven to the ridiculous necessity of giving her some advice of the paternal kind. "It is not for me, either, to talk to you of what you have done to Israel Kafka to-day," he confessed. "Do not oblige me to say anything about it. It will be much safer. You know it all better than I do, and you understand your own reasons, as I never can. If you are sorry for him now, so much the better--you will not hurt him any more if you can help it. If you will say that much about the future I shall be very glad, I confess."

"Do you think that there is anything which I will not do--if you ask it?" Unorna asked very earnestly.

"I do not know," the Wanderer answered, trying to seem to ignore the meaning conveyed by her tone. "Some things are harder to do than others----"

"Ask me the hardest!" she exclaimed. "Ask me to tell you the whole truth----"

"No," he said firmly, in the hope of checking an outburst of pa.s.sionate speech. "What you have thought and done is no concern of mine. If you have done anything that you are sorry for, without my knowledge, I do not wish to know of it. I have seen you do many good and kind acts during the last month, and I would rather leave those memories untouched as far as possible. You may have had an object in doing them which in itself was bad. I do not care. The deeds were good. Take credit for them and let me give you credit for them. That will do neither of us any harm."

"I could tell you--if you would let me--"

"Do not tell me," he interrupted. "I repeat that I do not wish to know.

The one thing that I have seen is bad enough. Let that be all. Do you not see that? Besides, I am myself the cause of it in a measure--unwilling enough, Heaven knows!"

"The only cause," said Unorna bitterly.

"Then I am in some way responsible. I am not quite without blame--we men never are in such cases. If I reproach you, I must reproach myself as well--"

"Reproach yourself!--ah no! What can you say against yourself?" she could not keep the love out of her voice, if she would; her bitterness had been for herself.

"I will not go into that," he answered. "I am to blame in one way or another. Let us say no more about it. Will you let the matter rest?"

"And let bygones be bygones, and be friends to each other, as we were this morning?" she asked, with a ray of hope.

The Wanderer was silent for a few seconds. His difficulties were increasing. A while ago he had told her, as an excuse for herself, that men and women did not always mean exactly what they said, and even now he did not set himself up in his own mind as an exception to the rule.

Very honourable and truthful men do not act upon any set of principles in regard to truth and honour. Their instinctively brave actions and naturally n.o.ble truthfulness make those principles which are held up to the unworthy for imitation, by those whose business is the teaching of what is good. The Wanderer's only hesitation lay between answering the question or not answering it.

"Shall we be friends again?" Unorna asked a second time, in a low tone.

"Shall we go back to the beginning?"

"I do not see how that is possible," he answered slowly.

Unorna was not like him, and did not understand such a nature as his as she understood Keyork Arabian. She had believed that he would at least hold out some hope.

"You might have spared me that!" she said, turning her face away. There were tears in her voice.

A few hours earlier his answer would have brought fire to her eyes and anger to her voice. But a real change had come over her, not lasting, perhaps, but strong in its immediate effects.

"Not even a little friends.h.i.+p left?" she said, breaking the silence that followed.

"I cannot change myself," he answered, almost wis.h.i.+ng that he could. "I ought, perhaps," he added, as though speaking to himself. "I have done enough harm as it is."

"Harm? To whom?" She looked round suddenly and he saw the moisture in her eyes.

"To him," he replied, glancing at Kafka, "and to you. You loved him once. I have ruined his life."

"Loved him? No--I never loved him." She shook her head, wondering whether she spoke the truth.

"You must have made him think so."

"I? No--he is mad." But she shrank before his honest look, and suddenly broke down. "No--I will not lie to you--you are too true--yes, I loved him, or I thought I did, until you came, and I saw that there was no one----"

But she checked herself, as she felt the blood rising to her cheeks. She could blush still, and still be ashamed. Even she was not all bad, now that she was calm and that the change had come over her.

"You see," the Wanderer said gently, "I am to blame for it all."

"For it all? No--not for the thousandth part of it all. What blame have you in being what you are? Blame G.o.d in Heaven--for making such a man.

Blame me for what you know; blame me for all that you will not let me tell you. Blame Kafka for his mad belief in me and Keyork Arabian for the rest--but do not blame yourself--oh, no! Not that!"

"Do not talk like that, Unorna," he said. "Be just first."

"What is justice?" she asked. Then she turned her head away again. "If you knew what justice means for me--you would not ask me to be just. You would be more merciful."

"You exaggerate----" He spoke kindly, but she interrupted him.

"No. You do not know, that is all. And you can never guess. There is only one man living who could imagine such things as I have done--and tried to do. He is Keyork Arabian. But he would have been wiser than I, perhaps."

She relapsed into silence. Before her rose the dim altar in the church, the shadowy figure of Beatrice standing up in the dark, the horrible sacrilege that was to have been done. Her face grew dark with fear of her own soul. The Wanderer went so far as to try and distract her from her gloomy thoughts, out of pure kindness of heart.

"I am no theologian," he said, "but I fancy that in the long reckoning the intention goes for more than the act."

"The intention!" she cried, looking back with a start. "If that be true----"

With a shudder she buried her face in her two hands, pressing them to her eyes as though to blind them to some awful sight. Then, with a short struggle, she turned to him again.

"There is no forgiveness for me in Heaven," she said. "Shall there be none on earth! Not even a little, from you to me?"

"There is no question of forgiveness between you and me. You have not injured me, but Israel Kafka. Judge for yourself which of us two, he or I, has anything to forgive. I am to-day what I was yesterday and may be to-morrow. He lies there, dying of his love for you, if ever a man died for love. And as though that were not enough, you have tortured him--well, I will not speak of it. But that is all. I know nothing of the deeds, or intentions, of which you accuse yourself. You are tired, overwrought, worn out with all this--what shall I say? It is natural enough, I suppose--"

"You say there is no question of forgiveness," she said, interrupting him, but speaking more calmly. "What is it then? What is the real question? If you have nothing to forgive why can we not be friends as we were before?"

"There is something besides that needed. It is not enough that of two people neither should have injured the other. You have broken something, destroyed something--I cannot mend it. I wish I could."

"You wish you could?" she repeated earnestly.

"I wish that the thing had not been done. I wish that I had not seen what I saw to-day. We should be where we were this morning--and he perhaps would not be here."