Back and forth went questions and answers, like the flying shuttle through woof and warp. It seemed trivial, much of this; but after all, to them those things were vital—more vital certainly than the occupation of their impious neighbours, who spent the Sabbath in idle gossip. Certainly it was more elevating than the way most of their Gentile brethren spent their Sabbaths. They danced, drank, fought and staggered home to beat their wives, or do worse, if they were not married. After all, Israel’s Sabbath was Israel’s salvation. It ennobled him, kept alive the spiritual, and prevented him from utterly falling a victim to Mammon.
I have no quarrel with the synagogue except this:—that it never revealed to me the riches of Judaism. It showed me its beggarly edge, its vulnerable trivialities, its pathetic pharisaism and its absurd worship of the letter. That Israel had a mission to the world I never knew; that Moses and the prophets were names of which the world took cognizance I never heard; that the Catholic and the Protestant were feeding from the same spiritual sources which fed us was hidden from me, and that we all had “one Father” was never revealed to me.
I surmised all this in my boyish way and I searched for that very thing—through many painful years; but when I discovered it, I had left the synagogue behind me and there is no way back.
XXIV
THE CHURCH WITH THE CROSS
THE cross dominated the landscape; crowning the hilltop stood one, black, austere, forbidding ... a suffering, emaciated Christ hanging on the tree. Cut out of white limestone, another shone against the dark forest guarding its sylvan mysteries. The cross rose above the river, from the centre pier of the bridge where it vibrated to each shock of the swift rushing stream; at every turn of the road, on the dividing line of orchard and meadow, marking the boundaries of fields and villages, stood the sacred emblem of The Church, itself surmounted by this Roman gallows of beaten gold, proud symbol and sign of victory!
No one ever told me its meaning, yet I soon learned that it was something ominous ... terrible; and that because of Him who hung upon it we suffered and were persecuted.
This I learned by painful experience; for I felt many a lump on my head raised by the benevolent fists of Gentile youth because I would not look at the cross and kiss it. On the other hand, my ears were pulled much too often by my guardian because I did look at it. Once I was all but choked to death because I would not make the sign of the cross, and again was threatened by punishment temporal and eternal, because I carried in my pocket a little crucifix given me by the goose girl in my race-unconscious days. At that time I regarded it as a toy. It never repelled me, although as I now analyze my feelings it was to me a symbol of unforgiveness, something which was angry with me, that I should like to make up with, yet did not dare approach. It was unpleasant to me, not because I suffered bodily harm through it, but because it stood aloof and kept me from enjoying all for which my life hungered. It seemed to say: “This is a Catholic mountain; this is a Christian river, and these fields and meadows, these birds and wild flowers are not for you.”
Whenever I passed a cross I seemed to hear the Christ saying: “Get out of here, you little Jewish boy, you crucified Me!” I heard Him say that, because every Catholic I met seemed to be especially angry with me if we met before a crucifix or shrine. Even now when walking along those highways I have the same feeling.
During my childhood I named most of these holy places after some bodily punishment that I received there. Not long ago I sat in the shadow of an acacia grove and saw the crucifix of the “bloody nose,” as I called it. I know some beech trees overshadowing a shrine, which I called the shrine “Zur Ohrfeige” a peculiar form of punishment which my countrymen will readily recognize.
Once, when I shared in Christmas exercises, taking the part of Moorish King, as I have already told, and was hurled from my high estate, I received presents and a kiss from the sister of the Pany, a woman as saintly as he was wicked. She carried a rosary with an ivory crucifix to church with her and the cross lost much of its terror for me because she was associated with it. Twice, I think, after I took the part of Wise Man, she sent me at Christmas time a present of russet apples; and while she never spoke to me again she smiled at me always when in passing I doffed my cap to her.