Burn, Witch, Burn!

Chapter XVIII The Dark Wisdom

"They have made effigies comparable with my image, similar to my form, who have taken away my breath, pulled out my hair, torn my garments, prevented my feet from moving by means of dust; with an ointment of harmful herbs they rubbed me; to my death they have led me—O God of Fire destroy them!"

Egyptian Prayer

Three weeks had passed since the death of the doll–maker. Ricori and I sat at dinner in my home. A silence had fallen between us. I had broken it with the curious invocation that begins this, the concluding chapter of my narrative, scarcely aware that I had spoken aloud. But Ricori looked up, sharply.

"You quote someone? Whom?"

I answered: "A tablet of clay, inscribed by some Chaldean in the days of Assur–nizir–pal, three thousand years ago."

He said: "And in those few words he has told all our story!"

"Even so, Ricori. It is all there—the dolls—the unguent—the torture—death—and the cleansing flame."

He mused: "It is strange, that. Three thousand years ago—and even then they knew the evil and its remedy…'effigies similar to my form…who have taken away my breath…an ointment of harmful herbs…to my death they have led me…O God of Fire–destroy them!' It is all our story, Dr. Lowell."

I said: "The death–dolls are far, far older than Ur of the Chaldees. Older than history. I have followed their trail down the ages since the night Braile was killed. And it is a long, long trail, Ricori. They have been found buried deep in the hearths of the Cro– Magnons, hearths whose fires died twenty thousand years ago. And they have been found under still colder hearths of still more ancient peoples. Dolls of flint, dolls of stone, dolls carved from the mammoth's tusks, from the bones of the cave bear, from the saber– toothed tiger's fangs. They had the dark wisdom even then, Ricori."

He nodded: "Once I had a man about me whom I liked well. A Transylvanian. One day I asked him why he had come to America. He told me a strange tale. He said that there had been a girl in his village whose mother, so it was whispered, knew things no Christian should know. He put it thus, cautiously, crossing himself. The girl was comely, desirable—yet he could not love her. She, it seemed, loved him—or perhaps it was his indifference that drew her. One afternoon, coming home from the hunt, he passed her hut. She called to him. He was thirsty, and drank the wine she offered him. It was good wine. It made him gay—but it did not make him love her.

"Nevertheless, he went with her into the hut, and drank more wine. Laughing, he let her cut hair from his head, pare his finger–nails, take drops of blood from his wrist, and spittle from his mouth. Laughing, he left her, and went home, and slept. When he awakened, it was early evening, and all that he remembered was that he had drunk wine with the girl, but that was all.

"Something told him to go to church. He went to church. And as he knelt, praying, suddenly he did remember more—remembered that the girl had taken his hair, his nail parings, his spittle and his blood. And he felt a great necessity to go to this girl and to see what she was doing with his hair, his nail parings, his spittle, his blood. It was as though he said, the Saint before whom he knelt was commanding him to do this.

"So he stole to the hut of the girl, slipping through the wood, creeping up to her window. He looked in. She sat at the hearth, kneading dough as though for bread. He was ashamed that he had crept so with such thoughts—but then he saw that into the dough she was dropping the hair she had cut from him, the nail parings, the blood, the spittle. She was kneading them within the dough. Then, as he watched, he saw her take the dough and model it into the shape of a little man. And she sprinkled water upon its head, baptizing it in his name with strange words he could not understand.

"He was frightened, this man. But also he was greatly enraged. Also he had courage. He watched until she had finished. He saw her wrap the doll in her apron, and come to the door. She went out of the door, and away. He followed her—he had been a woodsman and knew how to go softly, and she did not know he was following her. She came to a crossroads. There was a new moon shining, and some prayer she made to this new moon. Then she dug a hole, and placed the doll of dough in that hole. And then she defiled it. After this she said:

"'Zaru (it was this man's name)! Zaru! Zaru! I love you. When this image is rotted away you must run after me as the dog after the bitch. You are mine, Zaru, soul and body. As the image rots, you become mine. When the image is rotted, you are all mine. Forever and forever and forever!'

"She covered the image with earth. He leaped upon her, and strangled her. He would have dug up the image, but he heard voices and was more afraid and ran. He did not go back to the village. He made his way to America.

"He told me that when he was out a day on that journey, he felt hands clutching at his loins—dragging him to the rail, to the sea. Back to the village, to the girl. By that, he knew he had not killed her. He fought the hands. Night after night he fought them. He dared not sleep, for when he slept he dreamed he was there at the cross– roads, the girl beside him—and three times he awakened just in time to check himself from throwing himself into the sea.

"Then the strength of the hands began to weaken. And at last, but not for many months, he felt them no more. But still he went, always afraid, until word came to him from the village. He had been right—he had not killed her. But later someone else did. That girl had what you have named the dark wisdom. Si! Perhaps it turned against her at the end—as in the end it turned against the witch we knew."

I said: "It is curious that you should say that, Ricori… strange that you should speak of the dark wisdom turning against the one who commands it…but of that I will speak later. Love and hate and power—three lusts—always these seem to have been the three legs of the tripod on which burns the dark flame; the supports of the stage from which the death–dolls leap…

"Do you know who is the first recorded Maker of Dolls? No? Well, he was a God, Ricori. His name was Khnum. He was a God long and long before Yawvah of the Jews, who was also a maker of dolls, you will recall, shaping two of them in the Garden of Eden; animating them; but giving them only two inalienable rights—first, the right to suffer; second, the right to die. Khnum was a far more merciful God. He did not deny the right to die—but he did not think the dolls should suffer; he liked to see them enjoy themselves in their brief breathing space. Khnum was so old that he had ruled in Egypt ages before the Pyramids or the Sphinx were thought of. He had a brother God whose name was Kepher, and who had the head of a Beetle. It was Kepher who sent a thought rippling like a little wind over the surface of Chaos. That, thought fertilized Chaos, and from it the world was born…

"Only a ripple over the surface, Ricori! If it had pierced the skin of Chaos…or thrust even deeper…into its heart…what might not mankind now be? Nevertheless, rippling, the thought achieved the superficiality that is man. The work of Khnum thereafter was to reach into the wombs of women and shape the body of the child who lay within. They called him the Potter–God. He it was who, at the command of Amen, greatest of the younger Gods, shaped the body of the great Queen Hat–shep–sut whom Amen begot, lying beside her mother in the likeness of the Pharaoh, her husband. At least, so wrote the priests of her day.

"But a thousand years before this there was a Prince whom Osiris and Isis loved greatly—for his beauty, his courage and his strength. Nowhere on earth, they thought, was there a woman fit for him. So they called Khnum, the Potter–God, to make one. He came, with long hands like those of…Madame Mandilip…like hers, each finger alive. He shaped the clay into a woman so beautiful that even the Goddess Isis felt a touch of envy. They were severely practical Gods, those of old Egypt, so they threw the Prince into a sleep, placed the woman beside him, and compared—the word in the ancient papyrus is 'fitted'—them. Alas! She was not harmonious. She was too small. So Khnum made another doll. But this was too large. And not until six were shaped and destroyed was true harmony attained, the Gods satisfied, the fortunate Prince given his perfect wife—who had been a doll.

"Ages after, in the time of Rameses III, it happened that there was a man who sought for and who found this secret of Khnum, the Potter–God. He had spent his whole life in seeking it. He was old and bent and withered; but the desire for women was still strong within him. All that he knew to do with that secret of Khnum was to satisfy that desire. But he felt the necessity of a model. Who were the fairest of women whom he could use as models? The wives of the Pharaoh, of course. So this man made certain dolls in the shape and semblance of those who accompanied the Pharaoh when he visited his wives. Also, he made a doll in the likeness of the Pharaoh himself; and into this he entered, animating it. His dolls then carried him into the royal harem, past the guards, who believed even as did the wives of Pharaoh, that he was the true Pharaoh. And entertained him accordingly.

"But, as he was leaving, the true Pharaoh entered. That must have been quite a situation, Ricori—suddenly, miraculously, in his harem, the Pharaoh doubled! But Khnum, seeing what had happened, reached down from Heaven and touched the dolls, withdrawing their life. And they dropped to the floor, and were seen to be only dolls.

"While where one Pharaoh had stood lay another doll and crouched beside it a shivering and wrinkled old man!

"You can find the story, and a fairly detailed account of the trial that followed, in a papyrus of the time; now, I think, in the Turin Museum. Also a catalogue of the tortures the magician underwent before he was burned. Now, there is no manner of doubt that there were such accusations, nor that there was such a trial; the papyrus is authentic. But what, actually, was at the back of it? Something happened—but what was it? Is the story only another record of superstition—or does it deal with the fruit of the dark wisdom?"

Ricori said: "You, yourself, watched that dark wisdom fruit. Are you still unconvinced of its reality?"

I did not answer; I continued: "The knotted cord—the Witch's Ladder. That, too, is most ancient. The oldest document of Frankish legislation, the Salic Law, reduced to written form about fifteen hundred years ago, provided the severest penalties for those who tied what it named the Witch's Knot—"

"La Ghana della strega," he said. "Well, do we know that cursed thing in my land—and to our black sorrow!"

I took startled note of his pallid face, his twitching fingers; I said, hastily: "But of course, Ricori, you realize that all I have been quoting is legend? Folklore. With no proven basis of scientific fact."

He thrust his chair back, violently, arose, stared at me, incredulously. He spoke, with effort: "You still hold that the devil– work we witnessed can be explained in terms of the science you know?"

I stirred, uncomfortably: "I did not say that, Ricori. I do say that Madame Mandilip was as extraordinary a hypnotist as she was a murderess—a mistress of illusion—"

He interrupted me, hands clenching the table's edge: "You think her dolls were illusions?"

I answered, obliquely: "You know how real was that illusion of a beautiful body. Yet we saw it dissolve in the true reality of the flames. It had seemed as veritable as the dolls, Ricori—"

Again he interrupted me: "The stab in my heart…the doll that killed Gilmore…the doll that murdered Braile…the blessed doll that slew the witch! You call them illusions?"

I answered, a little sullenly, the old incredulity suddenly strong within me: "It is entirely possible that, obeying a post–hypnotic command of the doll–maker, you, yourself, thrust the dagger–pin into your own heart! It is possible that obeying a similar command, given when and where and how I do not know, Peters' sister, herself, killed her husband. The chandelier fell on Braile when I was, admittedly, under the influence of those same post–hypnotic influences—and it is possible that it was a sliver of glass that cut his carotid. As for the doll–maker's own death, apparently at the hands of the Walters doll, well, it is also possible that the abnormal mind of Madame Mandilip was, at times, the victim of the same illusions she induced in the minds of others. The doll–maker was a mad genius, governed by a morbid compulsion to surround herself with the effigies of those she had killed by the unguent. Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, carried constantly with her the embalmed hearts of a dozen or more lovers who had died for her. She had not slain those men—but she knew she had been the cause of their deaths as surely as though she had strangled them with her own hands. The psychological principle involved in Queen Marguerite's collection of hearts and Madame Mandilip's collection of dolls is one and the same."

He had not sat down; still in that strained voice he repeated: "I asked you if you called the killing of the witch an illusion."

I said: "You make it very uncomfortable for me, Ricori—staring at me like that…and I am answering your question. I repeat it is possible that in her own mind she was at times the victim of the same illusions she induced in the minds of others. That at times she, herself, thought the dolls were alive. That in this strange mind was conceived a hatred for the doll of Walters. And, at the last, under the irritation of our attack, this belief reacted upon her. That thought was in my mind when, a while ago, I said it was curious that you should speak of the dark wisdom turning against those who possessed it. She tormented the doll; she expected the doll to avenge itself if it had the opportunity. So strong was this belief, or expectation, that when the favorable moment arrived, she dramatized it. Her thought became action! The doll–maker, like you, may well have plunged the dagger–pin into her own throat—"

"You fool!"

The words came from Ricori's mouth—and yet it was so like Madame Mandilip speaking in her haunted room and speaking through the dead lips of Laschna that I dropped back into my chair, shuddering.

Ricori was leaning over the table. His black eyes were blank, expressionless. I cried out, sharply, a panic shaking me: "Ricori— wake—"

The dreadful blankness in his eyes flicked away; their gaze sharpened, was intent upon me. He said, again in his own voice:

"I am awake, I am so awake—that I will listen to you no more! Instead—listen, you to me, Dr. Lowell. I say to you—to hell with your science! I tell you this—that beyond the curtain of the material at which your vision halts, there are forces and energies that hate us, yet which God in his inscrutable wisdom permits to be. I tell you that these powers can reach through the veil of matter and become manifest in creatures like the doll–maker. It is so! Witches and sorcerers hand in hand with evil! It is so! And there are powers friendly to us which make themselves manifest in their chosen ones.

"I say to you—Madame Mandilip was an accursed witch! An instrument of the evil powers! Whore of Satan! She burned as a witch should burn in hell—forever! I say to you that the little nurse was an instrument of the good powers. And she is happy today in Paradise— as she shall be forever!"

He was silent, trembling with his own fervor. He touched my shoulder:

"Tell me, Dr. Lowell—tell me as truthfully as though you stood before the seat of God, believing in Him as I believe—do those scientific explanations of yours truly satisfy you?"

I answered, very quietly:

"No, Ricori."

Nor do they.

THE END