Witch of Prague

Marion Crawford Francis

Description

For fantasy fans bored with the same old cookie-cutter plots and themes, Francis Marion Crawford's The Witch of Prague is a welcome reprieve. This truly original and imaginative novel revolves a beautiful young witch, Unorna, and her attempts to win the love of an enigmatic figure known only as The Wanderer -- and to overcome the evil influence of dark wizard Keyork Arabian.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775454403
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE WITCH OF PRAGUE
A FANTASTIC TALE
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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD
 
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The Witch of Prague A Fantastic Tale First published in 1891 ISBN 978-1-775454-40-3 © 2011 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Endnotes
Chapter I
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A great multitude of people filled the church, crowded together inthe old black pews, standing closely thronged in the nave and aisles,pressing shoulder to shoulder even in the two chapels on the right andleft of the apse, a vast gathering of pale men and women whose eyeswere sad and in whose faces was written the history of their nation. Themighty shafts and pilasters of the Gothic edifice rose like the stems ofgiant trees in a primeval forest from a dusky undergrowth, spreading outand uniting their stony branches far above in the upper gloom. From theclerestory windows of the nave an uncertain light descended halfway tothe depths and seemed to float upon the darkness below as oil upon thewater of a well. Over the western entrance the huge fantastic organbristled with blackened pipes and dusty gilded ornaments of colossalsize, like some enormous kingly crown long forgotten in the lumberroom of the universe, tarnished and overlaid with the dust of ages.Eastwards, before the rail which separated the high altar from thepeople, wax torches, so thick that a man might not span one of them withboth his hands, were set up at irregular intervals, some taller, someshorter, burning with steady, golden flames, each one surrounded withheavy funeral wreaths, and each having a tablet below it, whereon wereset forth in the Bohemian idiom, the names, titles, and qualities ofhim or her in whose memory it was lighted. Innumerable lamps and tapersbefore the side altars and under the strange canopied shrines at thebases of the pillars, struggled ineffectually with the gloom, sheddingbut a few sickly yellow rays upon the pallid faces of the personsnearest to their light.
Suddenly the heavy vibration of a single pedal note burst from theorgan upon the breathing silence, long drawn out, rich, voluminous,and imposing. Presently, upon the massive bass, great chords grew up,succeeding each other in a simple modulation, rising then with theblare of trumpets and the simultaneous crash of mixtures, fifteenthsand coupled pedals to a deafening peal, then subsiding quickly againand terminating in one long sustained common chord. And now, as thecelebrant bowed at the lowest step before the high altar, the voices ofthe innumerable congregation joined the harmony of the organ, ringingup to the groined roof in an ancient Slavonic melody, melancholyand beautiful, and rendered yet more unlike all other music by theundefinable character of the Bohemian language, in which tones softerthan those of the softest southern tongue alternate so oddly with roughgutturals and strident sibilants.
The Wanderer stood in the midst of the throng, erect, taller than themen near him, holding his head high, so that a little of the light fromthe memorial torches reached his thoughtful, manly face, making thenoble and passionate features to stand out clearly, while losing itspower of illumination in the dark beard and among the shadows of hishair. His was a face such as Rembrandt would have painted, seen underthe light that Rembrandt loved best; for the expression seemed toovercome the surrounding gloom by its own luminous quality, while thedeep gray eyes were made almost black by the wide expansion of thepupils; the dusky brows clearly defined the boundary in the face betweenpassion and thought, and the pale forehead, by its slight recession intothe shade from its middle prominence, proclaimed the man of heart, theman of faith, the man of devotion, as well as the intuitive nature ofthe delicately sensitive mind and the quick, elastic qualities of theman's finely organized, but nervous bodily constitution. The long whitefingers of one hand stirred restlessly, twitching at the fur of hisbroad lapel which was turned back across his chest, and from time totime he drew a deep breath and sighed, not painfully, but wearily andhopelessly, as a man sighs who knows that his happiness is long pastand that his liberation from the burden of life is yet far off in thefuture.
The celebrant reached the reading of the Gospel and the men and womenin the pews rose to their feet. Still the singing of the long-drawn-outstanzas of the hymn continued with unflagging devotion, and still thedeep accompaniment of the ancient organ sustained the mighty chorus ofvoices. The Gospel over, the people sank into their seats again, notstanding, as is the custom in some countries, until the Creed hadbeen said. Here and there, indeed, a woman, perhaps a stranger in thecountry, remained upon her feet, noticeable among the many figuresseated in the pews. The Wanderer, familiar with many lands and manyvarying traditions of worship, unconsciously noted these exceptions,looking with a vague curiosity from one to the other. Then, all at once,his tall frame shivered from head to foot, and his fingers convulsivelygrasped the yielding sable on which they lay.
She was there, the woman he had sought so long, whose face he had notfound in the cities and dwellings of the living, neither her grave inthe silent communities of the dead. There, before the uncouth monumentof dark red marble beneath which Tycho Brahe rests in peace, there shestood; not as he had seen her last on that day when his senses had lefthim in the delirium of his sickness, not in the freshness of her bloomand of her dark loveliness, but changed as he had dreamed in evil dreamsthat death would have power to change her. The warm olive of her cheekwas turned to the hue of wax, the soft shadows beneath her velvet eyeswere deepened and hardened, her expression, once yielding and changingunder the breath of thought and feeling as a field of flowers whenthe west wind blows, was now set, as though for ever, in a death-likefixity. The delicate features were drawn and pinched, the nostrilscontracted, the colourless lips straightened out of the lines of beautyinto the mould of a lifeless mask. It was the face of a dead woman, butit was her face still, and the Wanderer knew it well; in the kingdomof his soul the whole resistless commonwealth of the emotions revoltedtogether to dethrone death's regent—sorrow, while the thrice-temperedsprings of passion, bent but not broken, stirred suddenly in the palaceof his body and shook the strong foundations of his being.
During the seconds that followed, his eyes were riveted upon the belovedhead. Then, as the Creed ended, the vision sank down and was lost to hissight. She was seated now, and the broad sea of humanity hid her fromhim, though he raised himself the full height of his stature in theeffort to distinguish even the least part of her head-dress. To movefrom his place was all but impossible, though the fierce longing to benear her bade him trample even upon the shoulders of the throng to reachher, as men have done more than once to save themselves from death byfire in crowded places. Still the singing of the hymn continued, andwould continue, as he knew, until the moment of the Elevation. Hestrained his hearing to catch the sounds that came from the quarterwhere she sat. In a chorus of a thousand singers he fancied that hecould have distinguished the tender, heart-stirring vibration of hertones. Never woman sang, never could woman sing again, as she had oncesung, though her voice had been as soft as it had been sweet, and tunedto vibrate in the heart rather than in the ear. As the strains roseand fell, the Wanderer bowed his head and closed his eyes, listening,through the maze of sounds, for the silvery ring of her magic note.Something he heard at last, something that sent a thrill from his ear tohis heart, unless indeed his heart itself were making music for hisears to hear. The impression reached him fitfully, often interrupted andlost, but as often renewing itself and reawakening in the listener thecertainty of recognition which he had felt at the sight of the singer'sface.
He who loves with his whole soul has a knowledge and a learning whichsurpass the wisdom of those who spend their lives in the study of thingsliving or long dead, or never animate. They, indeed, can constructthe figure of a flower from the dried web of a single leaf, or by theexamination of a dusty seed, and they can set up the scheme of life of ashadowy mammoth out of a fragment of its skeleton, or tell the storyof hill and valley from the contemplation of a handful of earth or ofa broken pebble. Often they are right, sometimes they are driven deeperand deeper into error by the complicated imperfections of their ownscience. But he who loves greatly possesses in his intuition thecapacities of all instruments of observation which man has invented andapplied to his use. The lenses of his eyes can magnify the infinitesimaldetail to the dimensions of common things, and bring objects to hisvision from immeasurable distances; the labyrinth of his ear can chooseand distinguish amidst the harmonies and the discords of the world,muffling in it