The Witch of Prague: A Fantastic Tale

by F. Marion Crawford

The stillness in the place is intense. Not a murmur of distant life from the surrounding city disturbs the silence. At rare intervals a strong breath of icy wind stirs the dead branches and makes them crack and rattle against the gravestones and against each other as in a dance of death. It is a wild and dreary place. In the summer, indeed, the thick leafage lends it a transitory colour and softness, but in the depth of winter, when there is nothing to hide the nakedness of truth, when the snow lies thick upon the ground and the twined twigs and twisted trunks scarce cast a tracery of shadow under the sunless sky, the utter desolation and loneliness of the spot have a horror of their own, not to be described, but never to be forgotten.

Unorna walked forward in silence, choosing a path so narrow that her companion found himself obliged to drop behind and follow in her footsteps. In the wildest part of this wilderness of death there is a little rising of the ground. Here both the gravestones and the stunted trees are thickest, and the solitude is, if possible, even more complete than elsewhere. As she reached the highest point Unorna stood still, turned quickly towards the Wanderer and held out both her hands towards him.

“I have chosen this place, because it is quiet,” she said, with a soft smile.

Hardly knowing why he did so, he laid his hands in hers and looked kindly down to her upturned face.

“What is it?” he asked, meeting her eyes.

She was silent, and her fingers did not unclasp themselves. He looked at her, and saw for the hundredth time that she was very beautiful. There was a faint colour in her cheeks, and her full lips were just parted as though a loving word had escaped them which she would not willingly recall. Against the background of broken neutral tints, her figure stood out, an incarnation of youth and vitality. If she had often looked weary and pale of late, her strength and freshness had returned to her now in all their abundance. The Wanderer knew that he was watching her, and knew that he was thinking of her beauty and realising the whole extent of it more fully than ever before, but beyond this point his thoughts could not go. He was aware that he was becoming fascinated by her eyes, and he felt that with every moment it was growing harder for him to close his own, or to look away from her, and then, an instant later, he knew that it would be impossible. Yet he made no effort. He was passive, indifferent, will-less, and her gaze charmed him more and more. He was already in a dream, and he fancied that the beautiful figure shone with a soft, rosy light of its own in the midst of the gloomy waste. Looking into her sunlike eyes, he saw there twin images of himself, that drew him softly and surely into themselves until he was absorbed by them and felt that he was no longer a reality but a reflection. Then a deep unconsciousness stole over all his senses and he slept, or passed into that state which seems to lie between sleep and trance.

Unorna needed not to question him this time, for she saw that he was completely under her influence. Yet she hesitated at the supreme moment, and then, though to all real intents she was quite alone, a burning flush of shame rose to her face, and her heart sank within her. She felt that she could not do it.

She dropped his hands. They fell to his sides as though they had been of lead. Then she turned from him and pressed her aching forehead against a tall weather-worn stone that rose higher than her own height from the midst of the hillock.

Her woman’s nature rebelled against the trick. It was the truest thing in her and perhaps the best, which protested so violently against the thing she meant to do; it was the simple longing to be loved for her own sake, and of the man’s own free will, to be loved by him with the love she had despised in Israel Kafka. But would this be love at all, this artificial creation of her suggestion reacting upon his mind? Would it last? Would it be true, faithful, tender? Above all, would it be real, even for a moment? She asked herself a thousand questions in a second of time.

Then the ready excuse flashed upon her—the pretext which the heart will always find when it must have its way. Was it not possible, after all, that he was beginning to love her even now? Might not that outburst of friendship which had surprised her and wounded her so deeply, be the herald of a stronger passion? She looked up quickly and met his vacant stare.