They brought to Rabbi Tamor, many hours afterward, the shawl which she had left behind her on the wharf. They took him to the spot, and stood near him, lest in his grief he might attempt to throw himself into the water. But he only stood gazing with undimmed eyes at the dark river, babbling incoherently. Once he raised his hand to his ear.
“Hark!” he whispered. “Do you hear?”
They listened, but could hear nothing.
“It is her voice. She is crying, ‘I will exalt Him!’ Do you hear it?”
But they turned their heads from him to hide the tears.
THE MESSAGE OF ARCTURUS
David Adler sat at the open window gazing contemplatively at the sea of stars whose soft radiance filled the heavens. He was lonely. The stars were his friends. Particularly one bright star whose steadfastness, throughout his many night vigils, had arrested his attention. It seemed to twinkle less than the others, seemed more remote and purer. It was Arcturus.
To a lonely person, fretting under the peevish worries of life, the contemplation of the stars brings a feeling of contentment that is often akin to happiness. Beside this glorious panorama, with its background of infinity and eternity, its colossal force, its sublime grandeur, the ills of life seem trivial. And David, who had been lonely all his life, would sit for hours upon each bright night, building castles along the Milky Way and pouring out his soul to the stellar universe—particularly to Arcturus, who had never failed him. Upon this night there was a faint smile of amusement upon his face. He was thinking of the queer mission that Mandelkern, his employer, had asked him to undertake that day.
Mandelkern was old and crabbed and ugly, but very rich, and when that morning he had said to David, “I am thinking of marrying,” David felt an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Then, in his wheezy voice, Mandelkern had outlined his plan.
“The Shadchen has arranged it all. She is younger than I—oh, a great many years younger, David—and she does not know me. We have only seen each other once. Of course she is marrying me for my money, but I know that when once we are married she will love me. But the trouble is, David, that I cannot find out for myself, positively, whether she is the kind of girl I want to marry. You see, if I were to go and see her myself, she would be on her good behaviour all the time. They always are. And I would not know, until after we were married, whether she is amiable, dutiful, studious, modest—in short, whether she is just what a girl should be. And then it would be too late. So I want you, like the good David that you are, to see her—don’t you know?—and get acquainted with her—don’t you know?—and er—question her—er—study her—don’t you know?” David had promised to do what he could and they had shaken hands, and the firm, hearty pressure of his employer’s grasp had told him, more than words could convey, how terribly earnest he was in his curiosity.