"'A sick child in the open street?' he enquired, 'who is the boy?'
"'It is my brother,' I answered shyly, 'we are orphans, we have come from far away out of Bohemia, to visit our mother's grave....'
"'Carry the boy into the room upstairs,' was the gentleman's order, 'lay him in bed, let him have some broth, I will attend to him directly....'
"'We are Jew-boys, gracious Sir,' I cried quickly.
"'I too am a Jew,' smiled the worthy man, 'I am Baruch Süss, favourite physician to our gracious Elector, the Archbishop of Cologne.'"
Gabriel shuddered but read on:--
"Bustling servants carried my sick brother up the broad stairs into a splendidly furnished room and laid him in bed. I stayed with my brother. The noble humane Baruch Süss examined him with the greatest attention and found that he was lying sick of an inflammatory fever, that he probably would require nothing but complete repose, and that it would not be possible to form a decided opinion as to the further progress of the disorder till after a lapse of one and twenty days.--Suddenly fresh childs' voices were heard at the door, which was pulled open and two lovely maidens peeped into the room. The roguish smile on their face rapidly yielded to the deepest emotion, as their father enjoined silence by a sign, and informed them in a low voice that they must give up their room for the present to a poor parentless boy, who had fallen suddenly ill in the street. The two maidens were the daughters of Baruch Süss, Miriam and Perl."
The manuscript escaped from Gabriel's nervously trembling hand. Must the memory of his grandfather, of his mother, just to-day, in the hour when, obstinately advancing, he wished to cut off the last possibility of retreat, must it just to-day be awakened in him in such a strange, unexpected, he was obliged reluctantly to admit, in such an almost miraculous manner? Was he perhaps to discover in this writing, that a curious accident had played into his hands at a critical moment, a solution of the mystery of his birth? And if he did find it, should he account all these remarkable coincidences as chance, or rather as a wonderful proof of that all powerful providence which he had often so defiantly challenged? These thoughts assailed Gabriel with all the compass of their fearful import, and worked upon him all the more effectually, as the tide of the swiftly succeeding events of the day was calculated to shake the strongest determination. He paced impetuously up and down the room. "I must not read further," he muttered to himself, "till I have embraced a resolution. If I should find a disclosure about my father in this manuscript, if I durst hope that he would fold me in his arms, that he would press me lovingly to his breast, Gabriel, what in the whole past, what in the future would matter unto you? If I could find my father, if I could find him such as I have always pictured him to myself in the short moments of blissful dreams, if such I could fold him in my arms--though it were but for the most infinitesimal instant of time that the human mind can conceive--God!"
Gabriel's passionate excitement had attained a height that may easily be imagined. In the most violent excess of a feeling that eagerly sought an escape he had uttered the word, that, at least in his self-communings, had not passed his lips for a long series of years, and he almost shuddered, as the strange sound fell, if involuntarily, almost believingly from his mouth....
"But if he be dead, and gone," cried Gabriel, looking up suddenly almost joyfully, "if I should learn precisely out of this manuscript, that he is irrecoverably lost to me.... if then no other tie than vengeance, continues to bind me to this life, then, then, ... my purpose remains immoveable."