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.
VI
Zerubbabel went in search of Sheshana, to pour out his heart to her and cry out his anger. He walked with rapid strides, looking neither to right nor to left, and groaned heavily: “What a grievous shame! What a deep disgrace!”
Impetuously he opened the door to Sheshana’s house, and he felt that he would throw himself upon her bosom and wail out his immense sorrow. He would bemoan his people, which he had lost,—his veneration of it, his belief in it, which had gone never to return. But when he beheld Sheshana he was rooted to the spot and his mouth could utter no sound. She was dressed in sackcloth; she was pale, her eyes red with much weeping, and her small form seemed even smaller and drawn. When she saw Zerubbabel she burst into loud crying as if she had long repressed it. Then, as she swallowed her tears, she spoke.
“You have come at last! At last you are here!—I thought that something had befallen you and I sent after you, but my messengers could not find you. They brought me the news, however, that you were safe and sound and that you were running about among the people, summoning them to armed resistance. I could not believe them and told them that they brought me lies. But one after another came to me with the same report and I was forced to believe it. The world became dark and dreary to me. Naughty Zerubbabel, how could you forget me at such a terrible time? How could you leave me alone in an hour of peril? Don’t you know that your Sheshana is a timorous maiden,—that her courage vanishes at the slightest danger? Oh, I am frightened to death! I am frightened to death!”