'Isaac--Isaac!' exclaimed the old man, 'why does your voice tremble, and why do your eyes avoid mine? But I will still call you my son, and will tarry awhile to see if you can free yourself. Your heart is not bad, Isaac; but, alas! it has been with you, as with the sons of Israel, who, captivated by the daughters of a strange people, forgot father and mother, and that Lord who brought them out of Egypt--they never beheld the promised land.'
'Let not my marriage offend you so much, my dear father,' said Isaac, gathering courage to speak out, 'and be not shocked at my way of living. Remember, I came into the world half a century later than you did. Opinions alter with time and with circumstances, and I have learned to see much in our religion, and our position as regards the rest of the world, in a very different light to what you do. I should indeed be blind, if I did not perceive that our people are the most remarkable on the face of the earth, and the least subject to change, even in their ruin, and their dispersion among all the nations in the world. But I do not think that we are, therefore, called upon eternally to separate ourselves from all other living beings. Inwardly we may, indeed, feel our distinction from them; and let this secret knowledge strengthen us to support our humiliations, and teach us to rise superior to our oppressors and persecutors, even when we are condemned to crawl in the dust before them; inwardly we may despise them, but outwardly we must amalgamate with the great masses of mankind, who will otherwise crush us in our stubbornness.'
'If I understand you aright, my son, you mean that we may continue to be Israelites, while we accept Christian customs and fashions; and that our race might be preserved, notwithstanding that we put an end to it ourselves by mingling our blood with that of the stranger.'
'As a people and as a nation we are already lost,' replied his son; 'and with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem has the outward structure of our religion fallen to the ground. Do you not believe that if our great lawgiver had lived in these times, and in this land, he would not have prescribed very different rules for our conduct?'
'Would he have changed the commandments to fear and serve the God of Sabaoth, and to honour father and mother?' asked the old man.
Some persons came in at that moment, and the conversation was broken off.
In the evening Isaac was not at home, but some of his wife's relations came to visit her, along with a couple of foppish young men, who looked in from a party in the neighbourhood. No one seemed to notice old Philip Moses; he sat quietly in a remote corner of the room, and listened to the jokes, with which some of the gentlemen entertained the company about the rising against the Jews, at which they laughed very heartily; also telling, with great glee, that they were to be attacked again. Amongst the visitors was a handsome young man, with long fair hair falling over his white collar. He was the young painter Veit, who had lately returned from Rome, and who still wore the peculiar costume adopted there by artists. The two fops seemed inclined to turn his dress into ridicule, for they were afraid that he intended introducing the fashion into Hamburg; but he took no notice of them. He was the son of the physician who attended Isaac's family, and who resided on the 'Hopfenmarkt.' His attraction to the house was Benjamina's beautiful face, which was very interesting to him as an artist. He had hitherto taken no share in the general conversation, but had been standing apart in a window with Benjamina, talking to her about her reverend-looking grandfather, whom he had saluted with the respect which his age and patriarchal appearance demanded.
He now remarked the tenour of the conversation that was going on, and turned quickly from Benjamina to try to stop it, by introducing some other subject. But the thoughtless and unfeeling young men soon resumed their ridicule of the Jews, and indulged in witticisms at the expense of their sufferings during the riot, without at all being checked by the remembrance of whose house they were in, or who was present. At length Veit thought it necessary to remind them where they were; and he did this in so pointed and stinging a manner, that, ashamed and enraged, they immediately took their departure, but not until they had whispered him that he would find them the next morning near the Obelisk. No one overheard the challenge, but Veit vowed to himself that he would chastise them severely, and that that meeting should be a blacker hour to them than any which had occurred during the tumult they had considered so amusing. But their exit did not put an end to strife. Some elderly wholesale dealers thought fit to take up the defence of their friends who had just gone, and seemed at least not to disapprove of the chastisement inflicted on the privileged Hebrew usurers for their long-practised extortions.
Veit again became the champion of the Jews, and descanted with warmth on the hateful, unchristian spirit which could impel Christians so shamefully to break the peace, and maltreat a fugitive, defenceless race, to whom the state had promised its protection.
4 We complain that they hate us and defraud us,' said he. 'Do we show love to them when we stone them? Do we not betray them, when we infringe our own laws in order to break faith with them, and withdraw the security on which we told them they might rely, when they settled among us? If we were to show more justice and Christian feeling, we might induce them to like us; but hatred, scorn, and persecution, never yet won either proselytes or friends.'