“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.