“What did she do?” The Wanderer turned quickly as he stood, and looked at Unorna.
“Do not listen to his ravings,” she said. The words seemed weak and poorly chosen, and there was a strange look in her face as though she were either afraid or desperate, or both.
“She loves you,” said Israel Kafka calmly. “And you do not know it. She has power over you, as she has over me, but the power to make you love her she has not. She will destroy you, and your state will be no better than mine to-day. We shall have moved on a step, for I shall be dead and you will be the madman, and she will have found another to love and to torture. The world is full of them. Her altar will never lack sacrifices.”
“You may be mad or not,” he said. “I cannot tell. But you say monstrous things, and you shall not repeat them.”
“Did she not say that I might speak?” asked Kafka with a bitter laugh.
“I will keep my word,” said Unorna. “You seek your own destruction. Find it in your own way. It will not be the less sure. Speak--say what you will. You shall not be interrupted.”
The Wanderer drew back, not understanding what was passing, nor why Unorna was so long-suffering.
“Say all you have to say,” she repeated, coming forward so that she stood directly in front of Israel Kafka. “And you,” she added, speaking to the Wanderer, “leave him to me. He is quite right--I can protect myself if I need any protection.”
“You remember how we parted, Unorna?” said Kafka. “It is a month to-day. I did not expect a greeting of you when I came back, or, if I did expect it, I was foolish and unthinking. I should have known you better. I should have known that there is one half of your word which you never break--the cruel half, and one thing which you cannot forgive, and which is my love for you. And yet that is the very thing which I cannot forget. I have come back to tell you so. You may as well know it.”
Unorna’s expression grew cold, as she saw that he abandoned the strain of reproach and spoke once more of his love for her.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said, very quietly. “You mean to show me by your face that you give me no hope. I should have known that by other things I have seen here. God knows, I have seen enough! But I meant to find you alone. I went to your home, I saw you go out, I followed you, I entered here--I heard all--and I understood, for I know your power, as this man cannot know it. Do you wonder that I followed you? Do you despise me? Do you think I still care, because you do? Love is stronger than the woman loved and for her we do deeds of baseness, unblushingly, which she would forbid our doing, and for which she despises us when she hates us, and loves us the more dearly when she loves us at all. You hate me--then despise me, too, if you will. It is too late to care. I followed you like a spy, I saw what I expected to see, I have suffered what I knew I should suffer. You know that I have been away during this whole month, and that I have travelled thousands of leagues in the hope of forgetting you.”