V
And Mordecai, the son of Jair, was garbed in sackcloth and ashes. His forehead was furrowed with deep wrinkles and his eyes were careworn. It was easily to be seen that many thoughts weighed upon his mind. He opened his lips and answered the questioners. “There is no news from Esther. And what would you hear from her? Do you not know that she asked for three days, and that this is only the first?”
All the assembled hearers bowed their heads in mourning and wiped their eyes. And when Mordecai, with a deep sigh, sank upon a bench, the entire house resounded with sighs and groans from all hearts.
Zerubbabel stood alone; none looked upon him. His heart was bitter to the point of crying out, and he would gladly have struck to right and to left with his fists; he relieved his mood with a wild outburst of laughter. All eyes were directed to him in astonishment, and Mordecai spoke. “Zerubbabel, arrayed in his finest clothes, laughs with such incisive laughter.—What ails him?”
Those about Mordecai stepped back, as if to open a path for Zerubbabel, that he might approach Mordecai. Zerubbabel, however, did not stir from his place. Brimming over with scorn and bitterness he cried, “Tell him what ails me!” In a few words they repeated the tenor of Zerubbabel’s speech, saying that he summoned his people to battle and counselled them not to place their faith in Esther.
Mordecai raised his glance to Zerubbabel; both men eyed each other like two enemies measuring each other’s strength. Then Mordecai spoke, emphasising every word. “In every age there are certain persons who imagine that the easiest way to break a wall is with one’s head.”
Zerubbabel answered with aversion and mockery. “But not every age has the misfortune to possess a leader with the timidity of a weak woman, who can only raise his hands to his head and cry bitterly!”
The gathering turned its glances from Mordecai to Zerubbabel and from Zerubbabel to Mordecai. It was as if two gladiators had stepped forth into the arena to wrestle and seek victory. And the onlookers became entirely absorbed in the scene about to take place, forgetting their great misfortune. Yet they crowded more closely about Mordecai, as though expecting protection from him against Zerubbabel.
Mordecai felt that all were with him and none was with Zerubbabel, so he uttered cutting words. “Better a weak old woman as a leader than a madman who inspires to impossibilities. The weakest of women may prevent a calamity, but the most insignificant madman can bring down upon his people the most grievous of disasters. I do not desire to insult you, Zerubbabel, but what you counsel is sheer madness.”
Zerubbabel replied bitterly: “Woe unto the people to whom it is preached that self-defence is madness, and greater woe still unto the people among whom such preachment finds ready ears. Such a people is a heap of dead bones, from which all signs of life have fled.”
Mordecai interrupted him with a calm, self-confident voice. “Who says that self-defence is madness? Am I not, then, for self-defence? Do I desire, then, that we exterminate ourselves before the enemy attacks us? Do I wish, indeed, that we cease to be? Do I not yearn to rescue our people? Let our people defend itself; but the means of self-defence are various, and your way, Zerubbabel, is folly.”
Zerubbabel stood there, looking at Mordecai as if he had not understood, and he asked, in great surprise, with a quivering voice, “How long has the self-defence of a people meant the pretty face of a young woman? Is Esther’s body our self-defence?”
Again Mordecai replied calmly and confidently. “You understand by self-defence only the power of our arms, while I term self-defence the power of beauty and the power of money likewise. You are young, Zerubbabel, and surely you know the power of beauty. Say, is it not the surest way? The king’s heart can be purchased for us with beauty, and Esther must do it. Is not Esther my uncle’s daughter? Was she not to me even as my own child? Is she not the flesh and blood of all of us? And yet we told her to risk her life and go unbidden to the king; and should her beauty not win the king and should she as a consequence be put to death, then we will choose still another Jewish daughter,—one even more beautiful. And even if we should have to sacrifice all our Jewish daughters and sisters and wives, we will do so, despite the great grief it will cause us and the heaviness of the blow. Is not that, too, self-defence? And when our beauty has proved unsuccessful, we will defend ourselves with our money, with our possessions. Haman purchased us with ten thousand silver talents; then we can buy ourselves free for twenty, thirty, forty. From time immemorial these have been the surest means of self-defence. Was not our father Jacob freed from his brother Esau by his possessions? Did not also your great-great-grandfather, King Asa, save himself from Baasha, King of Israel, through bribing Benhadad, King of Aram? And did not Judith with her beauty rescue the Jews from Holofernes? Your self-defence, on the contrary, is self-destruction. Small and few are we among the peoples of the hundred and seven and twenty provinces. Who will fear our weapons? Who will be impressed by our arms? And it may come to pass, moreover, that if the king learns that Jews are arming themselves, he will send against us his powerful army, trained in warfare; and there will not be a vestige left of our people. Would you have it thus, Zerubbabel?”
Zerubbabel made answer in loud and bitter tones: “Shame upon you and upon all who side with you! Shame upon the whole Jewish people which beholds its salvation in money and its self-defence in the beautiful bodies of its daughters! Now will I rend my garments and put on sackcloth and ashes! Now will I weep and wail my bitter lamentation! My people is dead! My people is a putrefying corpse. It is an abode only for worms, reptiles and insects. All living spirits have forsaken it. Where shall I find words to express my abhorrence? Where shall I find the thunder with which to boom forth my wrath? Judah, where are your warriors? Where are your heroes, Israel? Behold who your leaders are, and hear what they counsel! In their debasement they do not revolt against defiling their most sacred possessions, and the honour of their daughters is of less worth to them than the meanest life! Lion of yore, you have turned into a dog!”
Zerubbabel struggled for air and words failed him. He rent his garments and tore his hair, crying aloud and bitterly. He wrung his hands high above his head and kept repeating, “Shame upon them! Shame! Shame!” He left the meeting-house, his legs wavering like those of a drunkard.
The men, gathered in the meeting-house, followed him with frightened, astonished looks, and not a mouth opened to speak a word. Only Mordecai smiled and quoted the popular saying, “Is that not correct? It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion.”
The assembly, however, became as if something had defiled it and rendered it unclean. Yet none found in him the courage to follow Zerubbabel.