III[ToC]
NOAH'S ARK
I
On a summer's day toward the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century after Christ, Peloni walked in "the good place" of the Frankfort Judengasse and pondered. At times he came to a standstill and appeared to study the inscriptions on the tumbled tombstones, or the carven dragons, shields, and stars, but his black eyes burnt inward and he saw less the tragedy of Jewish death than the tragedy of Jewish life.
For "the good place" was the place of death.
Here alone in Frankfort—in this shut-in bit of the shut-in Jew-street—was true peace for Israel. The rest of the Jew-street offered comparative tranquillity even for the living; yet when, ninety years before Peloni was born, the great fire had raged therein, the inhabitants had locked the Ghetto-gate against the Christians, less fearful of the ravaging flames than of their fellow-citizens. Even to-day, if he ventured outside the Judengasse, Peloni must tread delicately. The foot-path was not for him: he must plod on the dusty road, with all the other beasts. In some places the very road was too holy for him, and any passer-by might snatch off his hat in punishment for his breaking bounds. The ragged street urchin or the staggering drunkard might cry to him "'Jud,' mach mores: Jew, mind your manners."
Some ten years ago the Frankfort Ghetto had been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke, caught up in the wave of Napoleonic toleration. Peloni had shared in the exultation of the Jews at the final dissipation of the long night of mediævalism. He had written a Hebrew poem on it, brilliantly rhymed, congested with apt quotations from Bible and Talmud, the whole making an acrostic upon the name of the enlightened Karl Theodor von Dalberg. Henceforth Israel would take his place among the peoples, honour on his brow, love in his heart, manhood in his limbs. A gracious letter of acknowledgment from the archduke was displayed in the window of Peloni's little bookselling establishment, amid the door-amulets, phylacteries, praying-shawls, Purim-scrolls, and Hebrew volumes.
But now the prince had been ousted, Napoleon was dead, everywhere the Ghetto-gates were locked again, and the Poem lay stacked on the remainder shelves. In vain had the grateful Jews hastened to fight for the Fatherland, tendered it body and soul. Poor little curly-haired Peloni had been attacked in the streets as an alien that very morning. Roysterers had raised the old cry of "Hep! Hep!"—fatal, immemorial cry, ghastly heritage of the Crusades. Century after century that cry had gone echoing through Europe. Century after century the Jews thought they had lived it down, bought it down, died it down. But no! it rose again, buoyant, menacing, irresponsible. Ah, what a fool he had been to hope! There was no hope.
Rarely, indeed, since the Dark Ages had persecution flaunted itself so openly. Riots and massacres were breaking out all over Germany, and in his own Ghetto Peloni had seen sights that had turned his patriotism to gall, and crushed his trust in the Christian, his beautiful bubble-dreams of the Millennium. Rothschild himself, whose house in the Judengasse with the sign of the red shield had been the centre of the attack, was well-nigh unable to maintain his position in the town. And these local successes inflamed the Jew-haters everywhere. "Let the children of Israel be sold to the English," recommended a popular pamphlet of the period, "who could employ them in their Indian plantations instead of the blacks. The best plan would be to purge the land entirely of this vermin, either by exterminating them, or, as Pharaoh, and the people of Meiningen, Würzburg, and Frankfort did, by driving them from the country."