"'How wretched we Jews are! there is that splendid man, so loyal, so good-hearted, Conrad Grassler, returned. He has worked his way up to a captaincy, and retired on a major's pension, and now here he comes and asks for our Rosalie. If the good man were only of our faith, if he were a Jew, how gladly would I give him my child! I could not desire a better husband for her; but, as it is, it cannot be, and God forgive my sin in thinking of it!'
"I heard this from my chamber, and that night, though I was still under my parents' roof, my spirit was already far away, out into the wide world, where the officers lived, and the soldiers, and those who owned it.
"Father had nothing against Conrad if it had not been for that one thing. A voice within me repeated this all night long. And in the morning, while my father and mother were in the synagogue, I sat alone with my prayer-book. See this little prayer-book. It is a devotional manual for women, composed by my father—but my thoughts were not upon it. How still it was! I was alone in the house. No one was to be seen in the streets, for the whole community was at the synagogue. I seated myself in the middle of the room; I did not wish to look out of the window; Conrad would surely be passing by.
"But how did he look? How wonderful that he had kept that promise made to me in my childhood! What had he become? How would I seem to him?
"Then, I cannot tell how it was, but as I was standing at the window, looking out, I saw Conrad, grown into a noble-looking man. I withdrew from the window, but then, came footsteps on the stairway, and my heart throbbed as though it would burst. Conrad stood alone in the world; he is a military orphan."
A smile passed round the circle of listeners, and Fräulein Milch went on:—
"I told Conrad what my father had said to my mother, the night before. I could give him up for my parents' sake; but he was not in duty bound to renounce me, and I had not the right to relinquish for him, and it was settled that I should elope with him.
"My father returned from the synagogue, and I have never felt a heavier sorrow than when he laid his hand in blessing on my head, as is the custom with us. I would not disturb the joy of the feast, and not until it was ended—oh! I ruined the joy of his whole life! There were no more feasts for him—did I flee with Conrad. I persuaded myself that my father would give us his blessing, when he should see that it could not be otherwise. We wrote to him, but he did not answer. He sent us word, through a friend, that he had had two children, who were dead, and for whom he earnestly prayed that it might be well with them in the other world. And one word more he sent me,—'Thou seekest honor before the world, and for honor hast thou forsaken thy father.' I wrote back protesting with a solemn oath that I had wished to obtain no earthly honor through Conrad, promising to clothe myself with humiliation and shame in the eyes of the world, and that oath I have kept until the present day.
"Conrad soon received tidings of my mother's death, and my father followed her in a few months. I inherited a small fortune, and we went to the Rhine. Down below, yonder, we lived twelve years in a little lower Rhenish village, hidden from all the world, happy in each other. We needed nothing from the world but ourselves. Conrad wished constantly to marry me; but I had vowed to robe myself in ignominy during the whole period of my existence. We might have been united here by civil contract. That, too, I refused. I used to attend church, impelled by the desire to pray in common with my fellow human beings. I had my quiet corner, and while the organ was pealing, and a divine service different from my own was being solemnized, I would sit alone and pray out of the prayer-book which my father had composed, and from the other, which my brother had had on the field of battle, and which had rested on his heart till it beat no more. I was in the church and was no stranger, for there were people beside me, praying after another fashion, but to the same Spirit which I also invoke, and this Spirit will know and explain why men turn themselves to him in such different ways. Now I believe I may revoke my sentence of self-excommunication."
"You may, you must," said the Banker, speaking first, and rising as he spoke. The Professorin rose and embraced the narrator.