At twilight on the same day two women, like kind angels, prayed kneeling at Gabriel's grave. Both of them were equally nearly related to the departed. The one was Blume Rottenberg, the woman that he had once madly loved, his mother's sister's daughter, the other Schöndel Sachs, his uncle's daughter.
Blume Rottenberg had suffered fearfully for eight days. She was firmly resolved to sacrifice her life rather than her duty.... She had been saved by a miracle. Her trust in God had been thereby still more exalted. She had remained four months without tidings of her husband, and yet looked forward full of trust and hope to the future.... she had not deceived herself. On the 26th of March 1621 the Mannsfieldian commanders surrendered the city of Pilsen to General Tilly and eight days afterwards Aaron Rottenberg returned to the arms of his wife happy, and uninjured.... on his arrival he was surprised by joyful news. Important intelligence for him had come in from Worms. The patrician, who had had that law-suit so full of evil consequences with the Rottenberg family, was dead. Sorely tormented by the stings of conscience he had declared upon his death bed in the presence of his confessor and an officer of justice, that the claim of the Rottenbergs against him was perfectly well grounded, and that the acknowledgment, that he had declared to be forged, was genuine. He further confessed that the heads of the trades had intended to force the Rottenbergs at all hazards to admit that the acknowledgment was forged. This admission was to have been the signal for a general bloody persecution and plundering of the Jews. The reckless project had miscarried owing to the noble firmness of the Rottenbergs. The occasion was seized for an act of private revenge, if illegal at any rate apparently of common advantage, and if the insurgents had succeeded in stirring up the wild fury of a populace eager for plunder, the innocent Jews could at least reckon upon the assistance of the Prince and the sympathy of every right thinking person.... after the dying man had once more solemnly declared, that all his possessions were in justice the property of Aaron Rottenberg, he implored those who were present, with hot tears and in the most moving terms to hunt out the traces of Aaron Rottenberg, not only to put him in possession of his property, but also to tell him that they had been witnesses of the deep contrition and earnest repentance which had embittered his last hours: thus he hoped to obtain pardon from the Rottenbergs, whom his covetousness had plunged in unutterable misery....
Those who had been present at the patrician's death-bed immediately imparted his confession to the authorities of the Jewish community in Worms. This event caused immense excitement there, now for the first time they saw how falsely, how unjustly they had interpreted the noble behaviour of the Rottenbergs, for what heavy injustice they had to ask forgiveness of them. In a meeting of the elders it was unanimously decided to search out Aaron Rottenberg, to ask in the name of the community his forgiveness of the injuries it had inflicted upon him, and urgently to beg him to return to his paternal city, and again to accept the office of an overseer, which his father formerly, and afterwards he himself had filled.
The letter of the Worms community that put him in possession of all these facts, made a most pleasing impression upon Rottenberg. The profound regret, the sorrowful repentance which the community expressed in earnest words, made it impossible for him to oppose their request. He set out on the journey to Worms with a heart full of thankfulness. He was received in his native city with loud rejoicing and trod its streets with tears of emotion....
A long series of happy years effaced from the memory of the Rottenberg family the sorrows of their past life, but not the miracle which the Lord had vouchsafed to them.
Cobbler Abraham looked upon himself with no small pride as an instrument of divine Providence. It was he who had first accosted Gabriel Süss on his arrival in the Jews-town. It was he who had shown him the way to Reb Schlome Sachs, where Gabriel had at last found the solution of the mystery of his life; a solution that had affected him so profoundly, had agitated the inmost depths of his being.--Even fifty years later, when old as Methusalem but still vigorous, Cobbler Abraham was always ready to recount the history of Gabriel Süss to whoever wished it, and only regretted that he could no longer introduce his two former neighbours, Hirsch, the fish-monger, and Mindel, the liver-vender, who had predeceased him, as witnesses to the accuracy and truthfulness with which he described his first meeting with Süss.
Reb Schlome Sachs and his wife lived as before peaceful and contented, and when Schöndel after ten years of childless wedlock was brought to bed of a boy, and so the profoundest, if silent, wish of her heart was fulfilled; nothing was wanting to her perfect happiness....
Michoel Glogau went to Breslau, and taught the word of God there.