They were now seated in the screening shade of a clump of willows on one side and on the other were the bushy shrubs through which one caught only intermittent glimpses of the flowing stream below. Now and then were heard the quaint songs of the peasant women in the fields—Polish folk songs—the piping of a swineherd in the distance, the barking of a dog, the shrill drilling sound of the locust. He sat on the ground opposite Miriam, listening to her wistfully, catching the enchanting melodies around him, and looking, with narrowed eyes, at the beautiful maiden before him. There was an exhaling purity about her. Sheltered by her mother’s rigorous virtue she was like a soft-colored wild flower surrounded by high woods, never scorched by the burning rays of the sun, never harassed by gusts of cold winds. As he looked at her appealing dark-blue eyes with those exquisite long black eyelashes, her rich black hair combed straight back from her low, square forehead, and the faintest dimple in her chin, there was a strange sentiment in his heart. He was conscious of a desire to rest his hands upon her bowed head—barely touching it—as did the Jews of old, and murmur a prayer and a blessing that God may guard her sweet purity.
“You ought to be glad to be away from large cities,” he endeavored to cheer her. “Here you have treasures Berlin could never give you.”
He halted. A finch dropped a few sweet notes and sailed away, and then the chattering crickets accentuated the silence around them.
“Ah! you don’t understand—you don’t understand—” she was saying, sadness spreading over her face.
She was playing with the tassels of her cashmere shawl absent-mindedly. She could not explain what he did not understand, for she did not quite fully understand herself beyond the fact that she was weary of Gnesen. Life in Gnesen was a perpetual “You must not.” Being a rabbi’s daughter more things were forbidden her than other girls. And the sudden appearance of this elegantly dressed young man, with his intent eyes upon her, his charming voice and pure German speech, made her conscious of her circumscribed, narrow, drab existence with all its dinginess. Strange feelings had been stirring in her the past year or two but they only made her restless, without revealing to her, her inner desires. Recently she had overheard her mother complain that her father was not active enough to procure a husband for their daughter and the rabbi murmured that “the good Lord would provide.” Miriam trembled at the thought of marriage; a repulsive feeling came over her at the mere mention of it. Marriage in Gnesen meant shaving off her beautiful tresses and exchanging them for the detestable wig; it meant—she shuddered—the drudgery of married life in poverty.
On the day she caught a glimpse of Albert at the well she went home with her heart a-flutter. He was so unlike the young men in Gnesen. She had not thought he belonged to her people but his dreamy, intent look had not escaped her despite her seeming inattentiveness. No one had looked at her in the manner of this stranger.
The evening of their first meeting she remained seated on the steps of the porch, with her elbows on her knees, her pensive face between her hands, musing; at times her breasts heaved, though she knew not why. Her musing was interrupted by the approach of her father and Shloma, the marriage-broker. The two were conversing in a low confidential tone. She knew the topic of their conversation. The day before her father had been telling her mother that Shloma was proposing a suitable young man for Miriam. He mentioned his name. Miriam trembled. She had never spoken with the young man but she knew him by sight, an ungainly young man. When her father and the marriage-broker came near the porch Miriam went into the house and retired. She spent a troubled night, with a heart full of sorrow, and in the back of her brain was the picture of a young man, slender, handsomely dressed, with light-brown hair, and eyes that made her heart flutter.
When she beheld the stranger in the company of the count her heart stood still for a second and the blood rushed to her face. To Miriam the day of miracles had not yet passed. All her life she had heard of nothing but miracles. Her dreams were not of knights and princes but of the thousands of miracles God had performed for her people.
After Albert and the count had left Miriam threw her cashmere shawl over her head and took a long walk, to the very end of the town. She was not thinking of the stranger. She was not thinking of anything. Only her head was thumping and she was restless.
During Albert’s next visit Miriam sat in the adjoining room and drank in every word, every syllable. She loved to listen to his voice, to his pure German, and frequently blushed at the comical attempts of her father to make his patois sound Germanic. She hoped the young man would come again.