When these preliminaries were all settled, the first said, "Whose grave is that?" and the other answered, "Lea Rendar's." Which, being interpreted, means, "Lea, the daughter of the innkeeper, lies there." But I still looked inquiringly at the two men.
"Every one knew her!" they exclaimed, in astonishment. "Lea of the yellow Karezma (inn); the wife of Long Ruben, who lives near the town-hall; Lea with the long hair."
I knew now whom they meant, and my curiosity was turned into an anxious interest.
"What! she was a sinner?" I cried, in amazement.
"Was she a sinner?" exclaimed Reb Abraham, the red-nosed man. "Could there have been a greater than she? No: there never was a greater! She trod the law under her feet! And who will be damned for it? She and her husband—Ruben of the town-hall! For had he not permitted it, the transgression had never been perpetrated."
"Another person will also be damned for her sin," cried Reb Nathan—"Gawriel Rendar, her father; for if he had brought her up differently, she would never have committed such a trespass against the law."
"Ah, yes, of course," assented Abraham. Then, seized with a sudden revulsion of feeling, he pitied the man in whose house his nose had gained its rosy hue, and added more gently: "Perhaps the Almighty may forgive Gawriel after all. How could the poor father ever have guessed that she would do such a horrible thing? None of Jewish birth could ever have thought it! But as for Ruben—that's different; he is certainly condemned!"
"Was the crime really so terrible?"
"Terrible, did you say?—most abominable! Didn't you hear of it? An extraordinary story!—a most remarkable and unheard-of story!"
They then told me this "remarkable and unheard-of story." And truly it deserved the adjectives they applied to it, although in a different sense from that in which they used them.