The Witch of Prague Part 13

He put out his hand as though to take hers and lead her away. She grasped it eagerly. He had not seen that she had drawn off her glove. He was lost. Her eyes held him and her fingers touched his bare wrist. His lids drooped and his will was hers. In the intolerable anxiety of the moment he had forgotten to resist, he had not even thought of resisting.

There were great blocks of stone in the desolate place, landed there before the river had frozen for a great building, whose gloomy, unfinished ma.s.s stood waiting for the warmth of spring to be completed.

She led him by the hand, pa.s.sive and obedient as a child, to a sheltered spot and made him sit down upon one of the stones. It was growing dark.

"Look at me," she said, standing before him, and touching his brow. He obeyed.

"You are the image in my eyes," she said, after a moment's pause.

"Yes. I am the image in your eyes," he answered in a dull voice.

"You will never resist me again, I command it. Hereafter it will be enough for me to touch your hand, or to look at you, and if I say, 'Sleep,' you will instantly become the image again. Do you understand that?"

"I understand it."

"Promise!"

"I promise," he replied, without perceptible effort.

"You have been dreaming for years. From this moment you must forget all your dreams."

His face expressed no understanding of what she said. She hesitated a moment and then began to walk slowly up and down before him. His half-glazed look followed her as she moved. She came back and laid her hand upon his head.

"My will is yours. You have no will of your own. You cannot think without me," She spoke in a tone of concentrated determination, and a slight s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed over him.

"It is of no use to resist, for you have promised never to resist me again," she continued. "All that I command must take place in your mind instantly, without opposition. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he answered, moving uneasily.

For some seconds she again held her open palm upon his head. She seemed to be evoking all her strength for a great effort.

"Listen to me, and let everything I say take possession of your mind for ever. My will is yours, you are the image in my eyes, my word is your law. You know what I please that you should know. You forget what I command you to forget. You have been mad these many years, and I am curing you. You must forget your madness. You have now forgotten it. I have erased the memory of it with my hand. There is nothing to remember any more."

The dull eyes, deep-set beneath the shadows of the overhanging brow, seemed to seek her face in the dark, and for the third time there was a nervous twitching of the shoulders and limbs. Unorna knew the symptom well, but had never seen it return so often, like a protest of the body against the enslaving of the intelligence. She was nervous in spite of her success. The immediate results of hypnotic suggestion are not exactly the same in all cases, even in the first moments; its consequences may be widely different with different individuals. Unorna, indeed, possessed an extraordinary power, but on the other hand she had to deal with an extraordinary organisation. She knew this instinctively, and endeavoured to lead the sleeping mind by degrees to the condition in which she wished it to remain.

The repeated tremor in the body was the outward sign of a mental resistance which it would not be easy to overcome. The wisest course was to go over the ground already gained. This she was determined to do by means of a sort of catechism.

"Who am I?" she asked.

"Unorna," answered the powerless man promptly, but with a strange air of relief.

"Are you asleep?"

"No."

"Awake?"

"No."

"In what state are you?"

"I am an image."

"And where is your body?"

"Seated upon that stone."

"Can you see your face?"

"I see it distinctly. The eyes in the body are gla.s.sy."

"The body is gone now. You do not see it any more. Is that true?"

"It is true. I do not see it. I see the stone on which it was sitting."

"You are still in my eyes. Now"--she touched his head again--"now, you are no longer an image. You are my mind."

"Yes. I am your mind."

"You, my Mind, know that I met to-day a man called the Wanderer, whose body you saw when you were in my eyes. Do you know that or not?"

"I know it. I am your mind."

"You know, Mind, that the man was mad. He had suffered for many years from a delusion. In pursuit of the fixed idea he had wandered far through the world. Do you know whither his travels had led him?"

"I do not know. That is not in your mind. You did not know it when I became your mind."

"Good. Tell me, Mind, what was this man's delusion?"

"He fancied that he loved a woman whom he could not find."

"The man must be cured. You must know that he was mad and is now sane.

You, my Mind, must see that it was really a delusion. You see it now."

"Yes. I see it."

Unorna watched the waking sleeper narrowly. It was now night, but the sky had cleared and the starlight falling upon the snow in the lonely, open place, made it possible to see very well. Unorna seemed as unconscious of the bitter cold as her subject, whose body was in a state past all outward impressions. So far she had gone through all the familiar process of question and answer with success, but this was not all. She knew that if, when he awoke, the name he loved still remained in his memory, the result would not be accomplished. She must produce entire forgetfulness, and to do this, she must wipe out every a.s.sociation, one by one. She gathered her strength during a short pause.

She was greatly encouraged by the fact that the acknowledgment of the delusion had been followed by no convulsive reaction in the body. She was on the very verge of a complete triumph, and the concentration of her will during a few moments longer might win the battle.

She could not have chosen a spot better suited for her purpose. Within five minutes' walk of streets in which throngs of people were moving about, the scene which surrounded her was desolate and almost wild. The unfinished building loomed like a ruin behind her; the rough hewn blocks lay like boulders in a stony desert; the broad gray ice lay like a floor of l.u.s.treless iron before her under the uncertain starlight. Only afar off, high up in the mighty Hradschin, lamps gleamed here and there from the windows, the distant evidences of human life. All was still. Even the steely ring of the skates had ceased.

"And so," she continued, presently, "this man's whole life has been a delusion, ever since he began to fancy in the fever of an illness that he loved a certain woman. Is this clear to you, my Mind?"

"It is quite clear," answered the m.u.f.fled voice.

"He was so utterly mad that he even gave that woman a name--a name, when she had never existed except in his imagination."

"Except in his imagination," repeated the sleeper, without resistance.