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In Kafka's mind the passage of time was accounted for in a way which would have seemed supernatural twenty years ago, but which at the present day is understood in practice if not in theory.
"You are a very desperate person!" exclaimed Keyork. "If you had the management of this unstable world you would make it a very convulsive and nervous place. We should all turn into flaming ephemerides, fluttering about the crater of a perpetually active volcano. I prefer the system of the brick liver. There is more durability in it." The carriage stopped before the door of Kafka's dwelling.
If she could not have what she longed for, she cared as little what became of her as she cared for Kafka's own fate. She had but one object, one passion, one desire, and to all else her indifference was supreme. Life and death, in this world or the next, were less weighty than feathers in a scale that measures hundreds of tons. The very idea of balance was for the moment beyond her imagination.
In going through the vestibule Keyork had used Kafka's sharp knife to cut one of the slender silk-covered copper wires which passed out of the conservatory on that side, communicating with the servants' quarters. He was perfectly acquainted with all such details of the household arrangement.
Keyork, so far as the Wanderer was aware, was himself treating Israel Kafka's case, and would therefore know what to do, if any one knew at all. Secondly, it was clear from the message which Unorna had left with the porter of her own house that she expected Keyork to come at any moment.
Israel Kafka's ignorance, too, amused him, and gave him a fresh and encouraging proof of Unorna's amazing powers. By a mere exercise of superior will this man, in the very prime of youth and strength, had been deprived of a month of his life. Thirty days were gone, as in the flash of a second, and with them was gone also something less easily replaced, or at least more certainly missed.
"I will silence you," answered the Wanderer coldly. "Your madness excuses you, perhaps, but it does not justify me in allowing you to insult a woman." Kafka's anger took a new direction. Even madmen are often calmed by the quiet opposition of a strong and self-possessed man. And Kafka was not mad. He was no coward either, but the subtlety of his race was in him.
So far as it was possible to judge, Israel Kafka's fault consisted in loving a woman who did not return his love, and his worst misdeed had been his sudden intrusion upon an interview in which the Wanderer could recall nothing which might not have been repeated to the whole world with impunity.
"But I hardly expected you to come back to-night," he added. At the sound of his voice a strange smile came into her wan face and lingered there. She had not thought to hear him speak again, kindly or unkindly, for she had come with the fixed determination to meet her death at Israel Kafka's hands and to let that be the end.
You saw me play the part of the apostate, you heard me confess the Christian's faith?" "Yes I saw you die in agony, confessing it still." Israel Kafka ground his teeth and turned his face away. The Wanderer was silent. A few moments later the carriage stopped at the door of Kafka's lodging. The latter turned to his companion, who was startled by the change in the young face.
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