One Friday evening, shortly after the seven-branched Sabbath lamp had been lit, Gudule, seated in her arm-chair, out of which she had not moved all day, called the two children to her. A bright smile hovered around her lips, an unwonted fire burned in her still beautiful eyes, her bosom heaved... in the eyes of her children she seemed strangely changed. “Children,” said she, “come and stand by me. Ephraim, you stand here on my right, and you, dear Viola, on my left. I would like to tell you a little story, such as they tell little children to soothe them to sleep. Shall I?”
“Mother!” they both cried, as they bent towards her.
“You must not interrupt me, children,” she observed, still with that strange smile on her lips, “but leave me to tell my little story in my own way.
“Listen, children,” she resumed, after a brief pause. “Every human being—be he ever so wicked—if he have done but a single good deed on earth, will, when he arrives above, in the seventh heaven, get his Sechûs, that is to say, the memory of the good he has done here below will be remembered and rewarded bountifully by the Almighty.” Gudule ceased speaking. Suddenly a change came over her features: her breath came and went in labored gasps; but her brown eyes still gleamed brightly.
In tones well-nigh inaudible she continued: “When Jerusalem, the Holy City, was destroyed, the dead rose up out of their graves... the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... and also Moses, and Aaron his brother... and David the King... and prostrating themselves before God's throne they sobbed: 'Dost Thou not remember the deeds we have done?... Wouldst Thou now utterly destroy all these our children, even to the innocent babe at the breast?' But the Almighty was inexorable.
“Then Sarah, our mother, approached the Throne... When God beheld her, He covered His face, and wept. 'Go,' said He, 'I cannot listen to thee.'... But she exclaimed... 'Dost Thou no longer remember the tears I shed before I gave birth to my Joseph and Benjamin... and dost Thou not remember the day when they buried me yonder, on the borders of the Promised Land... and now, must mine eyes behold the slaughter of my children, their disgrace, and their captivity?'... Then God cried: 'For thy sake will I remember thy children and spare them.'...”
“Would you like to know,” Gudule suddenly cried, with uplifted voice, “what this Sechûs is like? It has the form of an angel, and it stands near the Throne of the Almighty.... But, since the days of Rachel, our mother, it is the Sechûs of a mother that finds most favor in God's eyes. When a mother dies, her soul straightway soars heavenward, and there it takes its place amid the others.
“'Who art thou?' asks God, 'I am the Sechûs of a mother,' is the answer, 'of a mother who has left children behind her on earth.' 'Then do thou stand here and keep guard over them!' says God. And when it is well with the children, it is the Sechûs of a mother which has caused them to prosper, and when evil days befall them... it is again the Angel who stands before God and pleads: 'Dost Thou forget that these children no longer have a mother?'... and the evil is averted....”
Gudule's voice had sunk to a mere whisper. Her eyes closed, her head fell back, her breathing became slower and more labored. “Are you still there, children?” she softly whispered.
Anxiously they bent over her. Then once again she opened her eyes, “I see you still”—the words came with difficulty from her blanched lips—“you, Ephraim, and you, my little Viola.... I am sure my Sechûs will plead for you... for you and your father.” They were Gudule's last words. When her children, whose eyes had never as yet been confronted with Death, called her by her name, covering her icy hands with burning kisses, their mother was no more....