till you are old, and I—until I am older than I am by many years. He may not grow weaker, but he cannot grow stronger. Theories will not renew tissues.”
Unorna looked up.
“That has always been the question,” she answered. “At least, you have told me so. Will lengthened rest and perfect nourishment alone give a new impulse to growth or will they not?”
“They will not. I am sure of it now. We have arrested decay, or made it so slow as to be imperceptible. But we have made many attempts to renew the old frame, and we are no farther advanced than we were nearly four years ago. Theories will not make tissues.”
“What will?”
“Blood,” answered Keyork Arabian very softly.
“I have heard of that being done for young people in illness,” said Unorna.
“It has never been done as I would do it,” replied the gnome, shaking his head and gathering his great beard in his hand, as he gazed at the sleeper.
“What would you do?”
“I would make it constant for a day, or for a week if I could—a constant circulation; the young heart and the old should beat together; it could be done in the lethargic sleep—an artery and a vein—a vein and an artery—I have often thought of it; it could not fail. The new young blood would create new tissue, because it would itself constantly be renewed in the young body which is able to renew it, only expending itself in the old. The old blood would itself become young again as it passed to the younger man.”
“A man!” exclaimed Unorna.
“Of course. An animal would not do, because you could not produce the lethargy nor make use of suggestion for healing purposes—”
“But it would kill him!”
“Not at all, as I would do it, especially if the young man were very strong and full of life. When the result is obtained, an antiseptic ligature, suggestion of complete healing during sleep, proper nourishment, such as we are giving at present, by recalling the patient to the hypnotic state, sleep again, and so on; in eight and forty hours your young man would be waked and would never know what had happened to him—unless he felt a little older, by nervous sympathy,” added the sage with a low laugh.
“Are you perfectly sure of what you say?” asked Unorna eagerly.
“Absolutely. I have examined the question for years. There can be no doubt of it. Food can maintain life, blood alone can renew it.”
“Have you everything you need here?” inquired Unorna.
“Everything. There is no hospital in Europe that has the appliances we have prepared for every emergency.”
He looked at her face curiously. It was ghastly pale with excitement. The pupil of her brown eye was so widely expanded that the iris looked black, while the aperture of the gray one was contracted to the size of a pin’s head, so that the effect was almost that of a white and sightless ball.
“You seem interested,” said the gnome.
“Would such a man—such a man as Israel Kafka answer the purpose?” she asked.
“Admirably,” replied the other, beginning to understand.
“Keyork Arabian,” whispered Unorna, coming close to him and bending down to his ear, “Israel Kafka is alone under the palm tree where I always sit. He is asleep, and he will not wake.”
The gnome looked up and nodded gravely. But she was gone almost before she had finished speaking the words.
“As upon an instrument,” said the little man, quoting Unorna’s angry speech. “Truly I can play upon you, but it is a strange music.”
Half an hour later Unorna returned to her place among the flowers, but Israel Kafka was gone.
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