VII
He considered his future attitude and planned his campaign. He would not appear before her until the following Sabbath; but he would let her hear his voice. From early morn till late at night let her hear his voice—his voice that was so charming and melodious, so masculine. Let it follow her about through all the rooms, into the garden before the house, into the seclusion of her bed. Let it accompany her in her thoughts and sing with her in all her prayers. And always, in case of accidental meeting, his beard would be well combed and his head-covering would sit so well over his high forehead that his beauty would compel her eyes, and the bearing of his body would summon to her the same thoughts that had occurred to the Roman matron.
The first day of that week his voice and his reciting sounded very mournful, and on the second and third days it was likewise very sad. And on those days his distant gaze, at their accidental meetings, was full of pity and sorrow. But on the fourth day a change came over his voice. It rang with joy and a zest for life, and when by accident they met he looked at her most ardently, with glad rapture; she stopped and followed him with her eyes, unable to understand the great change. The sadness of his voice and the longing in his glance she had understood, and had explained in divers ways. His own life was surely no happy one; all Israel suffered eternal persecution; her home was a house of mourning. Then how could a person be happy beneath its roof? Her very proximity must inspire sadness. But the rejoicing in his voice and the rapture of his glance she could neither understand nor justify. And all that day his voice disquieted her; at night it weighed still heavier upon her in the lonesomeness of her bed. Why was he so happy? What was chanting so joyously in his heart? “How do his eyes look now?” she asked herself, and grew ashamed at her thoughts, directing them to Rabbi Mayer. She longed for him, hoping that the thirty days would fly by as soon as possible.
On the next day and the day following the great joy was with him still. Beruriah’s astonishment likewise continued. Once and again she wished to stop him at one of their accidental meetings and ask the significance of the great change that had come over him. But Beruriah would not ask. Not the wife of Rabbi Mayer. What was this student, after all, to her? Why should she be at all concerned with what was passing in the heart of this strange man? She was neither his mother nor his sister; not even a friend of former years. Did it become Beruriah to be inquisitive? Was Rabbi Mayer’s wife, then, like other women? But she noticed that the stranger had become even handsomer, more powerful, more masculine.
Sabbath eve came once again and he said grace and sang the holy songs, blessing the Lord with a voice more exalted than ever, more filled than ever with the Sabbath spirit, more than ever inspired and inspiring. Again he looked not often at his hostess, but when he raised his eyes to seek her glance, they had a faraway look filled with admiration and ecstasy, and their colour was the colour of a flaming ruby set in black, as if the Sabbath candles glowed within them.
And again that night on his couch he sang into the darkness of his room various passages from the Bible, which he knew by heart, and in particular many verses from the Song of Songs, the song of love and passion and infinite yearning. His voice throbbed with joy and yet it quivered with a deep unrest; and a great yearning spoke in it, as if calling for something that could render its happiness complete.
And Beruriah lay quite restless in her place. The singer’s voice inundated her being, nor could she banish its magnetic sound. She tried to think of Rabbi Mayer, but instead found herself repeating the passages that came to her from Simeon’s room. And suddenly there flashed upon her the idea that Rabbi Ismael’s son must cherish a love in his heart. It must be a wife or a sweetheart; either he loved her with intense passion or was longing for her endlessly. And if his voice was now so joyful it must be that of the thirty days a third had already passed, and he would soon return to his beloved.
Now, however, she could no longer repeat after him the verses from the Song of Songs, from him to her,—his beloved; his wife or his sweetheart. Beruriah buried her head in her pillows, pulled the coverlet over it, and stopped her ears with her hands so as to keep out Simeon’s voice and his love verses; she turned all her thoughts to Rabbi Mayer and began to recite the other passages from the Song of Songs,—the passages from her to him, and her heart languished for him, for her husband, for her beloved, for her great love and yearning.
And once more, after the Sabbath closing prayers, before he went into his room he turned to her with great tenderness.
“Forgive me the glances, my hostess, that I cast upon you yester eve and to-day.”
She shuddered at the unexpectedness of his words, and could not understand his begging pardon.
“What manner of glances were they?” she asked.
He whispered softly, “Then you did not notice them?”
“They were glances of intensest exaltation, filled with wonderment and deep-felt ardour. However, they did not belong to me.”
“You are wrong. To you!”
“To me?”
She rose to her full height and her face grew pale and austere.
He, in ecstasy, proclaimed, “Yes, to you!—Have you beheld how joyous I have been these last few days?”
“I heard it in your voice.”
“And do you know the cause?”
“Have you, then, told me?”
“I’ll tell you now. The cause was you alone.”
Her face assumed an even colder expression, and her eyes became even sterner. The shadow of anger crossed her forehead and her brows, and he cried out, with delight, as if to drive away the evil shadow:
“Oh, Beruriah, hear me out! For three days and three nights I was filled with the grief of your grief; for three days and three nights I have not ceased to ask why you were so heavily punished with the death of your two little ones—You, the chosen of God,—you, the blessed one! If I asked that even before I knew you, how then must it have cried aloud within me when the greatness of your soul was discovered to me in all its splendour? To think that you of all should be martyred so! That you should be the victim of a never-ending sorrow! And my heart rebelled within me, and like Job I could see no justice in the ways of God. And when one ceases to behold justice in the ways of God, how dark and dreary must the world become! But suddenly, on the fourth day, it seemed to me as if God must have raised a trifle the veil that screens the purpose of His deeds and allowed me to gaze upon their goal. How would the world have realised the grandeur of your soul, if not through the great grief that befell you? How should we have known what Beruriah was, if her heart had not been delivered into the hands of the torturer? Your two sons, had they lived, would have made mankind richer by two living beings,—perhaps worthless ones, unnecessary, unhappy; but through their death they made humanity the richer by a living Beruriah. Now for the first time do we conceive what we possess in you; now for the first time do we know your worth. That which lay veiled in darkness has been illuminated by a glorious light. Boundless treasures that have lain buried have been brought forth for the use of all. We have all grown richer through you, and future generations will enjoy that wealth. As from a spring of life humanity will imbibe its power from you, its consolation. ‘See,’ they will say, ‘how Beruriah mastered her enormous grief, her double bereavement. Emulate her and be consoled!’ Oh, Beruriah, when this flashed upon me, how could I help feel joyous, and how could I keep my glances from betraying exaltation and admiration for you?”
And before Beruriah could open her lips to make reply, he fell to his knees and kissed the hem of her garment, pressing it to his lips far longer than the first time; then he arose and left the room, holding his head erect, half-dancing, in token of his jubilation. And soon his voice was resounding through the house,—a ringing, singing, joyous, jubilant voice, filled with power and fervour. Was not Beruriah now full of him? Had he not won her now?
Beruriah sat in confusion, indeed full of his voice and his presence, and at times it seemed as if an angel from heaven were addressing her. Only when she was able to give thought to what he had said could she liberate herself from his spell. Her mind grew clearer and with a sigh she rose. And this is what she told her unhappy mother-heart:
“It is possible that the world has been made richer, and that such was the purpose of God when he took from me my two children. He has His goal and His aims, and His ways are hidden from our sight. But I have become so poor, so poor....”