Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-03-01
CHAPTER XII.

quite naturally, and after looking out of the
window stretched himself as far as the
limits Of the space would allow. He felt
very weak and very tired. The bright color
had left his olive cheeks, his lips we're pale
and his eyes heavy.
Travelling is very tiring," he said glanc-
ing at heyork's face.
The old man rubbed his hands briskly and
laughed
81 am as fresh as ever" he answered. "1t
is true that have the happy faculty Of
sleeping when get chance and that no
preoccupation disturbs my appetite"
Keyork Arabian was in very cheerful
frame of mind. He was conscious of having
made great stride toward the successful
realization of his dream. Israel Kafka's
ignorance, too, amused him, and gave him
n fresh and encouraging proof of Unorna's
amazing powers.
By mere exercise of superior will this
man, in the very prime of youth and
strength, had been deprived of a month of
life. Thirty davs 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. In
hafka's mind the passage of time
was accounted for in a way which would
have seemed supernatural 20 years ago, but
which at the present day is understood in
practice if not In theory. For 30 DAYS be
had been stationary In one place. almost
motionless, an instrument in keyork's skill
fui hands, a mere reservoir of vitality upon
which the sage had ruthlessly drawn to the
fullest extent of its capacities. He had been
fed and tended in his Inconsistencies, he
had, unknown to himself, opened his eyes
at regular intervals and had absorbed
through his ears a series of vivid impress
sions destined TO dIsarm his suspicious.
when he was at last allowed to wake and
move about the world again. With unfail-
ing iorethought Keyork had planned the
details of a whole series OF artificial remin-
iscences, and at the moment when hafka
came to himself in the carriage the maehin-
cry of memory began to work as keyork
had intended tnat it should.
Israel hafka leaned back against the
cushions and reviewed his life during the
past month. He remembered very we'll the
afternoon when, alter a stormy interview
with Unorna, he had been persuaded by
keyork to accompany the latter upon rapid
southwark journey. He remembered how
be had hastily packed together few neces-
saries for the expedition, while Keyork
stood at his elbow advising him what to
take and what 10 leave, with the sound good
sense of an experienced traveller, and be
could almost repeat the words Of the message
he had scrawled on a sheet of paper at the
last minute to explain his sudden absence
from his lodging-for the people of the house
had all been away when he was packing
his belongings. Then the hurry of the
departure recalled itself to him, the crowds
Of people at the Franz Josef station,
the sense of rest in finding himself
alone with Keyork in q compartment cf
the express train; after that he mad slept
during most of the journey, waking to find
himself in a city of the snow-driven Tyrol.
With tolerable distinctness he remembered
the sights he had seen, and fragments of
conversation-then another departure, still
southwark, the crossing OF the Alps, Italy,
Nenlee-a dream of water and sun and
beautiful buildings, in which the varied
Conversational powers of his companion
found constant material.
AS matter OF fact, the conversation was
what WAS most clearly impressed upon
hafka's mind, as he recalled the rapid pas
sage from one city 20 another, and realized
how many places he had visited in one short
month. From Venice southwark again,
Florence, Rome, Naples, Sicily, by sea to
Athens, and on TO Constantinople, familiar
TO him already from former visits-up to the
Bosphorus, by the Black Sea to Varna, and
then, again, long period of restful sleep
during the endless railway iourney-Pesth,
Vienna, rapidly revisiting and back at
last TO Prague, to the cold and the
gray snow and the black sky. 1t was not
strange, he thought, that his recollection of
DO many cities should be little confused.
A mSn would need fine memory to cata-
Iogue the myriad sights which such a trip
offers to the eye, the innumerable sounds;
familiar and unfamiliar, which strike the
ear, the countless sensations OF comfort, dis
comfort, pleasure. annoyance and admira-
tion, which occupy the nerves without inter
mission. There was something not wholly
disagreeable in the hazy character of the
retrospect especially to a nature such as
Kalka'S, lull of undeveloped artistic in
stincts ard of passionate love of all sensu-
Gus beauty, animate and inanimate. The
gorgeous pictures rose one after the other in
his Imagination, and satisfied longing of
which he felt that he had been vaguely
aware before beginning the journey. None
of these lacked reality, any more than
Keyork himself, though It seemed strange to
the young man that he should actually have
seen so much in so short time,
But Keyork and Unorna understood their
art and knew how much more easy it is to
produce a fiction of continuity where an
element OF confusion is introduced by the
multitude and variety of the quickly sue
ceediEg impressions. And Kafka's imagi-
nary Journey was full OF such impressions
and almost destitute of incident One
occurrence, indeed, he remembered with
extraordinary distinctness, and could have
affirmed under oath in all its details. 1t
had taken place in Palermo. The heat had
seemed intense by contrast with the bitter
North he had left behind. Keyork had
gone out and ne had been alone in a strange
hotel. His head swan In the sitting sirocco
He had sent tora local physician, and the old
fashioned doctor had then and there taken
blood from his arm. He had lost SO
much that ne had tainted. The doctor
had been gone when Keyork returned, and
the sage had been very angry, abusing in
violent terms the Ignorance which could
still apply such methods. Israel Kafka
knew that the lancet had left wound on
his arm, and that the scar was still visible
He remen bered, too, that he had often felt
tired since, and that keyork had invariably
reminded him of the circumstance, attrib-
uting to it the weariness from which ne
suffered, and indulging each time in fresh
abuse OF the benighted doctor.
Very skiIliully had the whole story been
put together in all its miDutest details, care
tIIy brought out and written down in the |