Neither man nor woman nor child had any strength to oppose against her magic.  The wolf hounds licked her feet, the wolves themselves crouched fawning in her path.  For she is without fear—­as she is without mercy.  Is that strange?  What fear can there be for her who has the magic charm, who holds sleep in the one hand and death in the other, and between whose brows is set the knowledge of what shall be hereafter?  Can any one harm her?  Has any one the strength to harm her?  Is there anything on earth which she covets and which shall not be hers?”

Though his voice was almost as soft as before, the evil smile flickered again about his drawn lips as he looked into Unorna’s face.  He wondered why she did not face him and crush him and force him to sleep with her eyes as he knew she could do.  But he himself was past fear.  He had suffered too much and cared not what chanced to him now.  But she should know that he knew all, if he told her so with his latest breath.  Despair had given him a strange control of his anger and of his words, and jealousy had taught him the art of wounding swiftly, surely and with a light touch.  Sooner or later she would turn upon him and annihilate him in a dream of unconsciousness; he knew that, and he knew that such faint power of resisting her as he had ever possessed was gone.  But so long as she was willing to listen to him, so long would he torture her with the sting of her own shame, and when her patience ended, or her caprice changed, he would find some bitter word to cast at her in the moment before losing his consciousness of thought and his power to speak.  This one chance of wounding was given to him and he would use it to the utmost, with all subtlety, with all cruelty, with all determination to torture.

“Whatsoever she covets is hers to take.  No one escapes the spell in the end, no one resists the charm.  And yet it is written in the book of her fate that she shall one day taste the fruit of ashes, and drink of the bitter water.  It is written that whosoever slays with the sword shall die by the sword also.  She has killed with love, and by love she shall perish.  I loved her once.  I know what I am saying.”

Again he paused, lingering thoughtfully upon the words.  The Wanderer glanced at Unorna as though asking her whether he should not put a sudden end to the strange monologue.  She was pale and her eyes were bright; but she shook her head.

“Let him say what he will say,” she answered, taking the question as though it had been spoken.  “Let him say all he will.  Perhaps it is the last time.”

“And so you give me your gracious leave to speak,” said Israel Kafka.  “And you will let me say all that is in my heart to say to you—­before this other man.  And then you will make an end of me.  I see.  I accept the offer.  I can even thank you for your patience.  You are kind to-day—­I have known you harder.  Well, then, I will speak out.  I will tell my story, not that any one may judge between you and me.  There is neither judge nor justice for those who love in vain.  So I loved you.  That is the whole story.  Do you understand me, sir?  I loved this woman, but she would not love me.  That is all.  And what of it, and what then?  Look at her, and look at me—­the beginning and the end.”