"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—"