Then followed more gabbling and snuffling from the rostrum; and, as I listened and looked round from face to face, noting the expression, something like sadness came over me; for were not those slovenly utterances a hopeless lamentation over the glory that had departed? Was it clean gone for ever? Did no trace remain of that solemn and gorgeous ceremonial, instituted when the glory came down and filled the house in the presence of the king, and of the Levites and singers "arrayed in white linen, having cymbals, and psalteries, and harps;" and of the people? When the king prayed, "Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into Thy resting-place, Thou, and the ark of Thy strength: let Thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let Thy saints rejoice in goodness."
An hour passed, and still the recitations and murmur went on. I had seen enough, and thought, as I stepped forth into the daylight, that the cry, "His blood be on us, and on our children!" had been fearfully avenged.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Alte Friedhof—A Stride into the Past—The Old Tombs—Vegetation and Death—Haunted Graves—Ancient Epitaph—Rabbi Löw—His Scholars—Symbols of the Tribes—The Infant's Coffin—The Playground—From Death to Life.
The old synagogue and old Jewish burial-ground (Alte Friedhof) are but a few yards apart. On my way from one to the other I passed sundry groups, chiefly women, talking with animation about the interesting event signalized from the Hradschin. And more than one expressed a wish that a prince and not a princess had been born to the House of Hapsburg.
The angle of a wall, overtopped within by foliage, marks the site of the burial-ground. The doorkeeper unlocked the gate, and, passing in, I felt as if, instead of merely stepping across a threshold, a long stride had been taken back into the Past. The living world is all shut out, and you are alone with the dead—the dead of long ago.
Beth Chaim, or the House of Life, is the name in Hebrew; but there is no life save that of gnarly elder-trees, gooseberry-bushes, and creeping weeds that struggle up into a wild maze from among the overcrowded tombs and gravestones. The stones, thick and massive, are so incredibly numerous, that they are wedged and jammed together in most extraordinary confusion. Some lean on one side; some forwards, some backwards, and many would fall outright were they not propped up by others standing near. Hence all sorts of curious holes and corners, in which grow choking weeds and coarse grass, hiding the inscriptions, and producing a strange impression of neglect and decay.
With this impression comes a sense of the mysterious, heightened by the nature of the ground, which, irregular in outline and very uneven, confines your view to but a small portion at once. Though the enclosure takes up about one-twelfth of the Judenstadt, your idea becomes one of a succession of patches of tangled foliage drooping over mouldering tombs. Now the path mounts a broken slope; now dips into a narrow way between the walls of encroaching streets and houses; now enters a widening area, where the fragrant blossoms and branches of the elders droop gracefully over the ancient memorials—or comes to an end in some out-of-the-way nook. Thus you are led on pace by pace, always wondering what will appear at the next turn.
And there is something mysterious in the associations of the place. Tales are told of ghosts that haunt the tombs; unhappy spirits bringing terror and doom to the living, or goblins playing gruesome tricks. And again in its antiquity: anticipating by a hundred years the building of Prague, as proved by a date on a tombstone. No wonder that the ground is heaped high, and full of ups and downs! Thousands of Jews have turned to dust beneath the surface.
Something, however, must be deducted from its antiquity. If, as careful investigation gives reason to believe, the old synagogue was built in the thirteenth century, we may suppose the opening of the burial-ground to have taken place within the same period. The notion arose from misreading the stone, whereby one thousand was subtracted from the date. The inscriptions are in the Hebrew character, and, for the most part, deeply cut. The stone in question is inscribed: