"My father seemed to have spoken prophetically. In the first year of our marriage died my never-to-be-forgotten father, shortly afterwards my father-in-law. Their souls seemed linked to one another by the bonds of friendship even for the next world, and they rest in adjoining graves.
"'My children,' said Rabbi Mosche, on his deathbed, 'your father, Reb. Carpel Sachs, has left you a store of this world's goods, I am poor, I leave you naught but my blessing, my infinite love. In this sealed packet is the record of my life's history written in the long winter nights for your benefit. Only after twenty years may you break the seal, when he that wished to do me evil, is dead, and God will have already forgiven him. That which was dark to you will then become clear. My life was dedicated first to God, next to you, and my boundless love will not expire with my last breath. Have God ever before your eyes, what he doeth that he doeth well. This world is but the vestibule of a more beauteous world beyond. Murmur not. Trust in God! Farewell! God bless you. May the Eternal One let the light of his countenance shine upon you. May the Everlasting turn his face upon you and give you peace for evermore! Hear, o Israel, the Everlasting our God is one God!' that was his last breath, his beautiful soul expired."
Reb Schlome was obliged to stop, the recollection had seized him with overpowering might, his wife too sobbed aloud.
"We had suffered two violent blows following quickly one upon the other," he continued after a long pause with more composure. "The unutterable grief that filled us can only be measured by one whose bosom has felt a like affliction, who has stood at the death-bed of a man, as highly prized and dear to him. We felt as if the whole world had escaped our grasp, we both were now so solitary and forsaken."
"Solitary and forsaken," echoed Gabriel in a heart-rending voice that quivered with agony, "solitary and forsaken, and yet ye were two, who hung upon one another with infinite affection."
"You too have stood sorrowing, solitary and forsaken, by the bed of a dying father, a dying mother?" asked Schöndel with infelt sympathy.
"Yes, yes," replied Gabriel vehemently, almost screaming. "Yes, yes, I did once stand by a mother's death-bed, wringing my hands and despairing! Oh, a very tender mother, virtuous and tender, she loved me, her only child, with a love that conquered death.--Oh, a good, good mother, and I was, indeed, solitary and forsaken when she died!"
The student spoke these words with wild and passionate bitterness, his large and brilliant eyes rolled restlessly, a pallor as of death, and a purple flush covered in rapid succession his face marred, but once so beautiful.
"Do not let the recollection obtain such mastery over you," implored Schöndel soothingly, "consider: Perchance you have still a tender father."--
"A tender father? No--yes.--Is it not true, fathers are all tender, more tender than mothers?--