That morning more than on other mornings his brain was tortured by a thousand cross-currents. So many ideas crowded in upon his wearied brain that no single one was clear. They were all in confusion. The inheritance, his classmates’ insults, the flogging—they all seemed fast scudding clouds.
On his way out of school, Albert lagged behind under the high arches of the cloister, rancor in his breast. Tears of mortification were in his eyes.
He soon found himself before the tall image of the Christ which stood on a high pedestal under these arches. It was carved of wood, the face hideously distorted, the head hanging limply like a wilted sunflower, and a smear of blood between the projecting ribs was intended as a realistic touch. The morning sun, slanting under the vaults, fell upon the nails driven through the palms and feet and enhanced the ghastly figure. An unwelcome thought shot through the boy’s brain. No, no, he could not believe it; he could not believe what Father Scher had told the class about the Crucified. No, it could not be true. His people could not have stabbed the man who wore the crown of thorns and driven nails through his hand and feet. He knew his father and mother, who were most tender-hearted, and his grandfather, Doctor Hollmann, and his Uncle Joseph, both of whom had laid their lives down in their efforts to save the people in the last plague.
“They are lying—they are lying,” he muttered under his breath, almost sobbing—“all of them are lying—the priest and his books and Kunz and Fritz. Only the likes of them could mock and spit and torment and then put the blame upon others—”
He suddenly halted. He remembered the Hebrew school, which he attended after the hours at the cloister.
“Pokad—pokadto—pokadli—” he began to mumble the conjugation of the Hebrew verb he was then learning. Foreign as the language was to him he learned it much more easily than “the language of the dead Romans”, or even with greater facility than “the language of the Gods”, as he was wont to call Greek.
The Hebrew school was in a narrow alley back of Schmallgasse. It was a small square chamber which served as a school room by day and as a living room for the teacher and his family at night. It had been recently whitewashed—Passover was coming—and the Mizrach (a picture of Jerusalem with the Wailing Wall in the foreground) hung conspicuously upon the wall facing east—a tawny, fly-specked patch on a background of bluish white. Save for a long rectangular table flanked by unpainted wooden benches, and the teacher’s stool at the head of it, the room was bare.
Although he often mimicked the long bearded teacher, there was gladness in Albert’s heart, a gladness accompanied by a feeling of peace and security, as he wended his way to this school. No one mocked him here, no one imitated the ragman’s donkey-call. Here his very name gave him added distinction. Here he was a little prince, whom everybody loved and whose every flippant remark was carried from mouth to mouth, accompanied by convulsive laughter.
When he entered the Hebrew school the class was chanting the Shir H’Shirim, that exquisite lyric poem known as the Song of Songs. For it was Friday, when the class sang the Song of Solomon in the quaint, traditional melody of the Babylonians. The teacher, at the head of the table, was swaying his body from side to side, leading his class in his strangely tuneful sing-song.
Albert slid into his seat and joined in the chanting, though he perceived the furtive glances of his classmates, denoting even greater respects than ever. For they had all heard of the rumored inheritance.