"It was mid-day. The walls of the city were too confined for me. I went out, and while my former brethren in the faith were praying in God's house, I sat alone in the deep forest, weeping hot bitter tears, tears more agonizing than man had ever wept before! It was a lovely fresh autumnal day, the rays of the sun pierced with deadened heat through the tops of the trees tinted with the yellow hues of autumn, the birds chirped cheerful songs, a soft mild wind breathed through the withering arbour, the deepest peace had dominion around: in me seethed the bitterest deadliest hatred.--I may have sat there for hours plunged in the most melancholy brooding, when I suddenly started up: It flashed across me, like bright lightning in a clear night, that I was not yet lost. Thy loved image, Blume! appeared all at once in liveliest colours before my soul. I still had thee! only thee in the wide world: but still I had thee: what more could I want?" The sentence of Scripture had branded me, my mother had betrayed me, my brethren had rejected me,--but still I had thee, thee, Blume! thou who couldest make up to me for all that, all of it, all. To thee I now transferred the whole wealth of my undivided love! a nameless ardent longing after thee burnt like wild fire in my soul; my love to thee had reached the height of madness. Remembrance of thee had effaced the horrible warning of the immediate past, had averted my gaze from the dark future--to live with thee, Blume! in some remote corner of the world, so sweet a child, my child!... "Blume," said Gabriel, suddenly breaking off with an accent of the most passionate grief.---"Thou mightest have been my guardian angel.... By thee, Blume, I might have been converted again.... Thou hast dealt injuriously with me, thou hast not acted justly.--Blume, if there is a God--hearest thou! I will not believe it, I dare not believe it, but if there is, Blume! at thy hands will my soul be required!... I hurried to Worms--how thy father rejected me with contumely, how I learnt, that as soon as they had received the quickly circulated news, they had instantly betrothed thee to thy father's nephew, thy cousin Aaron,--all that you know.--What I suffered, that you did not know, no! for the honour of humanity I will believe that you did not know it--I insisted on speaking to you alone; I trusted that your father had lied, that you would behave differently to the others, would have compassion upon me, would love me! I waited wistfully for the feast of atonement: I knew, that while the rest were praying in God's temple, you would remain at home with your blind mother. On the afternoon of the festival I crept into your house. Breathless I hurried through the well-known passages and opened the door that led into your mother's room. She was asleep, you were sitting by her bed and praying. I stood on the threshold trembling like an aspen. I thought that with a cry of joy you would throw yourself into my arms, kiss the tears from my eyelids, dry the cold drops of anguish that fell from my forehead. 'Blume,' I cried, 'wilt fly with me? Wilt be my wife?' you were silent. 'You too Blume!' I cried in inexpressible sorrow, and fell at your feet.... your bosom panted, your lips moved, as though you would speak, but you did not speak, your look fixed itself ghostlike upon me, as if I, innocent and unfortunate, had escaped from hell! I wished to break the dull silence, I sought for words, to move you, to melt the hard marble of thy heart; but I suddenly felt myself seized from behind, your father, your betrothed had returned home to enquire after your mother's health. A wild fury disfigured their faces.... you heard how they insulted and laughed me to scorn, you saw how they cast me forth, mercilessly, pitylessly, as a mangy hound is expelled with kicks; yes you saw it, but said nothing, you did not fall into their arms, ... you did not stand trembling and wringing your hands.... 'Blume,' yelled Gabriel shaking her fiercely by the arm, and a mad fury flashed from his eyes, 'why did you allow that horror to be perpetrated, tell me, woman! why? Why did you give your hand to the man, who so fearfully and undeservedly insulted me, an innocent man,--tell me, why? speak!'"
Blume sobbed violently, she folded her beautiful white hands, her lips moved silently in fervent prayer.
"Blume!" said Gabriel, after a moment's pause, in a dull unsteady voice. "If my deadly enemy, who bears an everlasting hatred to me, who strives with hot desire to drink my heart's blood--if my deadly enemy were to lay at my feet as I on that evening kneeled before thee, I who am steadfast in hate, I who know no pity, should weep hot tears of compassion--and I was not your enemy, I had loved you with a love as infelt and holy as is permitted to a human soul, I would have given the last drop of my heart's blood for one tear from your eyes,--and you, a weak, mild, pitiful woman, would not weep that tear.... You stood there dismayed, but did not keep off those furious one's.... What had I done to you? What was my transgression? Had not I been, to my mother's last breath, devout, noble, self-sacrificing?--Why did you solemnly inter the guilty mother as a contrite penitent, and cast out the innocent son? When I was cast forth from your house, Blume! when the last cable of my hope snapped there:--then I swore in my soul, a fearful undying vengeance: ... I love not men, I hate you Jews, but the most burning hate that man, or perhaps hell is capable of, I bear against thy mother, thy husband, and far beyond all in my heart against thee."
"Then slay me," cried Blume hastily, "and leave my husband, my mother, leave all in peace! let the whole weight of your anger fall on my head, slay me, Gabriel, but spare the others...."
The tiny sleeper on her arms awoke again and stretched its hands smiling towards its mother. Blume shuddered and broke into loud sobbing: "No, Gabriel, slay me not, let me live, see me at thy feet,"--she cast herself upon her knees--"let me live, I supplicate not for myself, by the Almighty God, not for my own sake;--but look at this innocent babe, its father is far away, it has only its mother, could you be responsible for depriving it of its mother? You do not know what a mother feels for her child."
"Hush, Blume, and stand up!" cried Gabriel, pulling the kneeling woman up from the ground, and the veins in his forehead swelled high: "are you mad? Do you think I shall murder a defenceless woman? be composed, I shall not slay thee.... That is not the revenge I shall take."
Both were silent. Blume opened the window, she looked whether a light was still burning in the lecture-room, a faint glimmer shot from the windows of the distant edifice, she felt relieved by the knowledge that men were still awake there! A cold wind blew through the room, neither Gabriel or Blume observed it, only the child shivered in its mother's arms.
"You have suffered much," so Blume broke the long painful silence.
"You have fallen off from the faith of your fathers? You are ..., you were...."
Blume knew not what she said, but this silence of the grave was mortal to her, she was constrained to speak, and almost involuntarily emitted these words from her lips.