Time was when the Jew who would have exposed a single work printed in any characters but the ancient Hebrew letters would have been ostracized by his co-religionists. The Rabbi remembered with a smile how carefully he had concealed the precious volumes which Pesach Harretzki had given him, how furtively he had carried them into his bed that he might read them undetected.
How different now was the condition of things! True, the greater portion of the Jews of Kief still held tenaciously to their prejudices, absolutely refusing to learn anything not taught at the cheder. In the eyes of these people Mendel was a renegade and a heretic. The only thing which prevented them from hurling the ban of excommunication against him was their recollection of the good he had accomplished.
Mendel's greatest achievement was the introduction of secular education. Many years elapsed before his ideas took root, but with the spread of better instruction in the public schools, which were now open to Jewish youth, there came a desire for greater knowledge and the difficult problem worked out its own solution. At the time of which we speak many Jewish lads were pupils of the gymnasium and quite a number of them students at the University of Kief.
Seated by the side of the Rabbi, and sewing, sat his wife and his daughter, Kathinka, now a girl of eighteen. Many changes had occurred in the interval since we last saw our friends. Mendel was now a man of about forty-five and in the full vigor of contented manhood. A wealth of coal-black hair shaded his massive forehead and a long but neatly trimmed beard set off his handsome face. Recha had become stouter and more matronly, but one would scarcely take her for the mother of the blooming girl by her side.
Kathinka was a perfect specimen of Hebrew beauty. She had inherited the commanding form of her father and the regular features of her mother. To this perfection of body she united a sweetness of disposition which made her beloved by all who knew her.
Women among the Eastern Jews, as indeed among all oriental nations, being considered intellectually inferior to their lords and masters, rarely aspire to learning. Occasionally one might find an example of a well-directed and thoroughly developed mind among the daughters of Israel, even though surrounded by the retarding influences of the ghetto. We have seen how well Recha had been educated and her daughter Kathinka was being brought up in the same way. She was independent in thought as well as in action, but never at the cost of maidenly sentiment. Piety and purity shone in her lustrous eyes. Superior to her position, she possessed the faculty of adapting herself to her surroundings. There was no pride in her breast save that which might arise from the consciousness of doing right. The poor had a commiserating friend in her and the sick a tender nurse. The children that played in the squalid lanes of the old quarter ceased their romping when she passed and lovingly kissed her hand. She desired no better lot than to do good in her own sphere, and to deserve the approbation of her own conscience. Such was Kathinka, a girl of many graces and sterling worth—in heart and soul a Jewess.
Rabbi Mendel looked up from his books and gazed fondly at his daughter, who, seated with the full light of the window falling upon her face, appeared the embodiment of loveliness. Then turning to his wife, he asked:
"Recha, have you spoken to Kathinka about young Goldheim?"
"No," replied Recha; "I left it for you to tell."
"Briefly then, my dear," said the Rabbi, addressing his daughter, who looked up from her work in surprise; "Reb Wolf, the schadchen, has been here for the third time, to induce us to give him a favorable reply for Samuel Goldheim. I told him that I feared my intervention would be useless."