Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/gabrielstoryofje00kohnuoft
2. Author's full name is Salomon Kohn.

COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 14.

GABRIEL,

A STORY OF THE JEWS IN PRAGUE

IN ONE VOLUME.

GABRIEL,

A STORY OF THE JEWS IN PRAGUE

BY

S. KOHN.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

ARTHUR MILMAN, M.A.

LEIPZIG 1869

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD & C^IE, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.

GABRIEL.

I.

It was the morning of a wintry autumnal day in the year 1620, when a young man stepped slowly and thoughtfully through the so-called Pinchas-Synagogue Gate into the Jews' quarter in the city of Prague. A strange scene presented itself. The morning service was just over in the synagogues, and whilst numerous crowds were still streaming out of the houses of prayer, others, mostly women with heavy bunches of keys in their hands, were already hurrying to the rag-market situated outside of the Ghetto. The shops too and stalls within the Ghetto were now opened, and even in the open street an activity never seen in the other quarters of the city displayed itself. Here, for instance, dealers--in truth of the lowest class--were offering their wares consisting of pastry, wheat-bread, fruits, cheese, cabbage, boiled peas and more of such kind of stuff to the passers-by. Here and there too in spite of the early hour emerged some peripatetic cooks, in peaceful competition extolling loudly the products of their kitchen, bits of liver, eggs, meat and puddings, and whilst in one hand they held a tin plate, in the other a two-pronged fork,--a very unnecessary article for most of their guests,--devoted their attention chiefly to the foreign students of the Talmud. To them also the greatest attention was paid by those cobblers who less wealthy than their colleagues in the so-called Golden St. offered their services to the students in open street, and most assiduously, while the owners were obliged to wait in the street or a neighbouring house, mended their shoes at a very moderate price, but, it must also be allowed, in a very inefficient manner.

The young man who had just stepped into the Jew's quarter, gazed earnestly and observantly at this busy stir, and did not seem to notice, that he himself had become an object of common attention. His appearance was however fully calculated to excite observation. His form was powerful and commanding; his dress that of a Talmud-student, cloak and cap. Out of his pale face shadowed by a dark beard, under heavy arching eyebrows there shone two black eyes of uncommon brilliance; raven locks fell in waves from his head; the fingers of a white sinewy hand, that held close the silken cloak, were covered with golden rings; his thick ruff was of spotless purity and smoothness. Had not the stranger by the elegance of his appearance, perhaps also by his gigantic make, struck a little awe into the curious dealers in the street, of a surety at his first appearance, a whole heap of questions would have been addressed to him. "Who or what he wanted? What could they do for him?" and such like.... Under the circumstances, however, it was Abraham, a cobbler, who sat on a bench by the Pinchas-Synagogue that after some consideration mustered up courage and as he laid down a shoe that had been committed to his artistic skill, began to ask: "dear student! whom are you seeking? Certainly not me, that I can see from your beautifully made shoes with their glittering silver buckles; they were not made at Prague."--This was put in more for the benefit of those about him and himself than the stranger.--"You are surely a stranger here? pardon me, you are perhaps a German, a Moravian or a Viennese? do you wish to go to a lecture upon the Talmud, or perchance to the Rabbi, or to Reb Lippman Heller? Who do you want to go to? I will gladly shew you the way to the Talmud-lecturers--or, perhaps, you are looking out for a lodging? I can very likely procure you a convenient one." "I am a stranger here," replied the student, "and must, indeed, first of all look about me for a lodging. If you happen to know of an apartment where I could pursue my studies undisturbed I shall thankfully avail myself of your offer: but the apartment must be large, light and cheerful."

"Then I only know of one in the whole town, at my superior attendant Reb Schlome's, I mean the superior attendant of my synagogue, the Old-Synagogue, he lives close to the synagogue; there is a beautiful room there--and besides, Reb Schlome is very learned in the Talmud, and has got a beautiful library,--in a word that or none is the lodging for you."

While this short conversation was going on, the cobbler's neighbours had as it were accidentally got nearer, so as to overhear a few words; and the group that for some minutes had been hazarding the most ingenious opinions and conjectures about the stranger, formed, perhaps without noticing it, a complete circle round the two talkers. This was now suddenly broken through, and a shabbily dressed old man thrust himself up impetuously against the stranger.

"Peace be with you," he cried, "you are then just arrived, be so good as to come with me, I have a question to put to you, it will do you no harm, and me good, come with me."

The stranger gazed in astonishment at the singular figure. "What do you want of me? How can I, a stranger, whom you have surely never seen, give you any tidings? perhaps, however, you do know me?"

"Sir," whispered Cobbler Abraham, standing on tiptoe so as to reach up to the stranger's ear, "Jacob is out of his mind; ten years ago, when he came to live at Prague, he used to put the strangest questions to everybody that came in his way; when the small boys came out of the school, he used to examine them in the Bible, and however correctly they answered, would ever become furious and cry: False! False!--grown-up people too he used to catechise, fathers, students, in short every one; but as he has now put his questions to almost everybody in the whole community, he has kept quite quiet for a long while. He is only unsociable, refuses to give any information about himself, and never answers a question; but he is a good harmless fellow, and as the students say, must be a very great Talmudist--I wonder that he begins again."--

"Don't be led astray by what that man there is whispering to you," cried the old man in anguish; "only come with me, I pray you most instantly to do so--you, only you can give me peace; I will believe your answers, all the rest lie to me, a poor old man! Come home with me, believe me, you will do a real good deed."

The stranger cast a penetrating searching glance at the old man, as though he would sound the whole depths of this troubled human soul. Contrary to all expectation he replied after short reflection: "only unloose my cloak; hold me not so nervously, I will verily go with you. But to you," he turned to the cobbler, "I will soon come back, and will then beg you to conduct me to the man who has the room to let. Accept this in the meanwhile for your friendly sympathy"--as he spoke he drew out of his doublet an embroidered purse full of gold and silver pieces, and laid a large silver coin on the cobbler's bench. "That is too much," said Abraham highly surprised and pleased, "God strengthen you, your Honour, Reb--I don't know what's your name!"--

Without answering these further questions, the stranger stepped by the side of the old man out of the circle, which now once more began loudly and without circumlocution to utter its conjectures.

"I know what he is:--he is a fool," suggested a dealer in liver as she arranged her stores on a board--"and what's more a big fool! gives Abraham a piece of silver, what for? goes home with the madman, why?"

"My dear Mindel," urged another huckster, "it seems to me you are very envious of Abraham; that's why the handsome stranger student is a fool. If you'd got the money, he would have been wise!"--

Most of the hucksters, and hucksteresses, seemed fully to concur in the opinion of the fish-monger--such was the speaker--for Mother Mindel was in truth what one would in these days in popular parlance call a dog in the manger. But Mother Mindel was not the sort of person in a war of words to leave the lists in a hurry, and own herself vanquished. She answered therefore sharply: "Say you so, Hirsch, what did you get from him. Come now, tell the truth." These last words spoken in a somewhat high key, can only be understood when it is explained, that Hirsch, the fish-monger, was too often addicted to the bad habit, when he told a story, of passing off in fullest measure the exaggerations and embellishments of his copious imagination; of treating, on the other hand, an actual fact in a very step-motherish fashion, a circumstance that compelled even his best friends to admit that he was a little given to exaggeration; while impartial persons were fond of applying to him the well-deserved predicate of 'liar.'

"If I'm to tell the truth," continued Hirsch, apparently not observing that which was injurious in his neighbour's manner of expressing herself, "If I'm to tell the truth I'm not so envious as some people, who seem to have been created so by the dear God, probably as a punishment; I should, however, have been more pleased if Pradel, the pastry-cook, had got the money, she has five children, her husband, the bass-singer in the Old-Synagogue, is away, lying ill at home for the last four months--she would have made a better use of the money--but if it had rained gold the good woman would not have been at the place, and if she had, what would have been the use? would she have had the impudence at once coolly to accost a stranger with gold rings on his fingers like a prince as if he was a nobody? Why did we all hold our tongues? I was only curious to see how far Cobbler Abrabam would go. A very little more and he'd have asked him the name of his great-grandfathers, how long it was since his thirteenth birthday, and what chapter out of the prophets had at that time been read on the Sabbath."--

These words seemed to show that the brave Hirsch in addition to his unpleasant habit of exaggeration could not be altogether absolved from the failing of his neighbour Mindel.--In the bosom of Cobbler Abraham who had listened to all these gibes in silence some significant idea seemed striving for utterance. He moved uneasily on his stool and rubbed his hands with a singular smile.

"Good people!" he cried at length, "I'll show you that none of you yet know Cobbler Abraham, although for now more than twenty years he has enjoyed the great honour in your society of mending shoes for the scholars at the high school of Prague, and for more than twenty years has had the privilege of listening to your lies, Hirsch, and to your tattle, Mindel. None of you yet know Cobbler Abraham. The money I shall consider as if it was not mine. It belongs to Pradel the pastry-cook, or rather to her sick husband Simche, he's my bass, that is, bass of my synagogue, has never in his life got a new year's or other present from me. I'm a bachelor, he's a married man with five children: I'm, thank God, in good health, he's ill. I for once will be a prince, he shall have the money from me, at once, to-day, as a dedicatory gift, and as to your insinuation Hirsch, that none of you had the impudence to accost the stranger, perhaps, you would be more justified in saying that none of you had had the sense to do it; and now, seeing that I'll have none of the money, leave me alone, let me get on with my work, and sell your sweet fish and roast liver." So saying he caught briskly up the shoes that were before him, and began industriously to cobble.

"Ah, there's some sense in that, I knew you had a good heart;" even Mother Mindel was obliged to join in the loud applause of the neighbours, whereupon she tried to secure an honourable retreat out of the wordy skirmish by kindling with the whole strength of her lungs into a bright glow the fading flame of her charcoal pan; whilst, Hirsch, after he too had in an embarrassed way recognised Abraham's noble feeling, availed himself of that very moment as the most favourable to recommend his fish to the passers-by, as especially excellent.--But the three neighbours were of a very placable disposition, and in spite of the fact that they had for the last ten years followed the laudable custom, of jeering as opportunity offered, yet in time of need and wretchedness they had mutually stood by one another, and so it came to pass, that half an hour after, they had forgotten the little dispute, but not its cause; and the three neighbours were laying their heads together to ventilate anew their, doubtless very interesting surmises about the stranger.

He meanwhile was walking in silence by the side of his strange companion, and though he looked about inquisitively, still found time to observe Jacob more closely. It was difficult to fix the old man's age. His pale countenance was sorrow-stricken, and furrowed by care. It might once have been beautiful but was transformed into something different, strange, scarce akin to a human face by a grizzly white untended beard, that entangled with the disordered hair, which fell in waves from his head, formed with it a shapeless mass; but especially by the weird glittering of his eyes that protruded far out of their sockets. His thin form crushed by the weight of misery, seemed once to have been gigantic, and the scantiness of his clothing completed the singular impression caused by his appearance. At the Hahn-alley the old man stopped before a small house, and begged the stranger to follow him across the court to his little room. It was poorly furnished, and situated on the ground floor, abutting the burial-ground, so that one could without difficulty pass through the low window into the burial-ground. Besides an arm-chair there was only one stool in the room. The old man pushed both up silently to the table, and signed to the stranger to take a seat.

"What do you wish?" the stranger now asked. The old man looked cautiously about to see if anyone was listening, closed the door, then the window-shutters and lit a lamp. "See," he now began, "see, as I looked at you, it affected me so differently, impressed me so far otherwise than when I look at any other strange student. I know you are not so wicked as the others are, all, all of them, that despise, ill use, unsparingly laugh to scorn a poor old man; they know no pity, have no mercy, are not aware what it is to suffer as I suffer. They bring me to naught, they have all sworn together against me, and whom ever I question, he answers falsely, falsely, falsely!"--

The old man spoke with frightful excitement, all the blood that flowed through his withered body seemed to have gathered itself into his cheeks flushed with a hectic red, the veins of his forehead swelled to an unnatural size. "Tell me, tell me, tell me truly," he whispered, suddenly becoming again quite humble. "Do you know the ten commandments? but I conjure you by the God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, by the head of your father, by your mother's salvation, by your portion in the world to come, answer truly, without deceit."

"My good old man," said the stranger quietly, "I will do all that you desire, I will repeat to you the ten commandments, all the six hundred and thirteen laws, provided always, I can still recollect them, I will be entirely at your service, for I see, that you are a poor worn-out man--you live pretty well alone here in this narrow room, you receive no visits?" asked the student after a short pause.

"Since I have found out that no one will come home with me, to read me the ten commandments out of my small Bible, I let no one in. Many too are afraid--no one comes to me, no one, you are the first that for many years has set foot in my hovel.--But now be so good, let me hear the ten commandments, quickly, I implore you!"

The young man passed his hand over his forehead, as though he would call back to memory something long forgotten, and then began in a loud powerful voice to utter by heart those ten sayings of the Lord, that were revealed on Sinai. The old man sat resting his head which he bent forward upon both hands--as though greedily to suck up every word that fell from his lips--and gazed into the face of the stranger. All the blood seemed to flow back slowly to his heart, his face became deadly pale, his eyes seemed bursting from their wide opened lids, and the longer the stranger spoke, the deeper blue became his thin spasmodically quivering lips. Had not the beating of the tortured old man's heart been audible, one must have believed that life was extinct in that frail body. The stranger went quietly on, but as he uttered the seventh commandment 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' a fearfully horrible cry, a cry that made the very bones creep, escaped from the breast of the poor tormented creature, a cry shrill as that which, a bird of prey sore wounded by an arrow, launches through the air in its death struggles, a cry, such as naught but the deepest most unspeakable grief of the soul can tear from a man's breast. The stranger stopped, the old man sank in a heap, covering his face with both hands. There was a moment of deepest silence, at length the old man broke forth into loud sobbing.--

"You too! I had hope of you. Oh, how I would have loved you, how I would have honoured you, how I would have worshipped you, if you had read differently to the others, but no, no, no! he read. Thou shalt not commit adultery. "Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Lord of the World, have I suffered too little, repented too little, done insufficient penitence? And yet Thou still lettest it stand in Thy holy scripture? Must I for ever be tormented in this world and the next? But Thou art righteous, and I a sinner--I have sinned, I have gone astray, I have"--then beating his breast he muttered the whole confession of sins.

"I grieve to have been the cause of pain to you, but see"--the student at these words opened a Bible that was lying on the table at the passage in point--"see, it is as I have read it." The characters were quite effaced by the marks of tears, and it was clear that this especial page had been read and reread countless times.

"Yes, yes, so is it written," cried the old man in a tone of the profoundest dejection and despair. "You were right, my brother was right, all were right, the students, the little boys from school, all, all read it so--all are right, except me, except me,--I am guilty!"--and again he began, striking both his clenched hands upon his breast, to utter the confession.

The student had risen from his seat, and paced the chamber up and down. The old man's illimitable grief seemed to awaken a slight feeling of sympathy in him. "Every one is not like thee, a giant in spirit and thought," said he softly to himself, "every one cannot like thee strip off his faith like a raiment that has become useless, and rouse a new life from the inner fire of the soul." The man was not always mad, a milder light must once have shone out of those weird dark eyes--but he sank through his own guilt! One bold flight of his free spirit had saved him from everlasting night, but he would not! Was he constrained to give credence to a dead word out of the Bible? Did he stand upon flaming Sinai, when the words were thundered down upon humanity? Could not he free himself from the blind faith of his fathers? Must that appear to him true and holy, that appeared true and holy to his father and forefathers? His fathers ecstatically smiling could mount the smoking pyres, and while flames consumed their body, sing psalms and hymns of praise, they could do all this for they looked for the bliss of Paradise in a world they hoped to come: and what is the bitterest, saddest moment of torment compared with an eternity that never ends! His fathers could breath out their lives with a smile under the axe of the persecutor; with faith they had life's highest gift, Hope. But this fool? He has sinned, good!--tear then from thy lacerated and bleeding heart the foolish faith, that torments thee, what good does it do thee, thou poor lost one, in this world or the next?--Yet there is a mighty too constraining power in Faith!----"How if I tried yet to believe?--the sweet fable can heal wounds too!--but I, I cannot, I cannot--they have cast me forth, they have compelled me to it, the Bible, men--all, all--I, indeed, I could not otherwise."

Then he stopped again suddenly before the old man, who without paying further attention to his guest, had lapsed into a gloomy brooding.

"Of course, you are a Talmudist?" asked the student aloud, "you are! Now then, know you not the sentence of the pious king Chiskia? Though a sharp sword lyeth at the neck of man, yet may he not despair of God's infinite mercy! Do not forget: in the same chapter in which it is written 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' it is also written: 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin!'"--

"But he visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation!" said Jacob in continuation. "Do not despair! If the gates of prayer have been closed since the destruction of the sanctuary in Jerusalem, the gates of repentance have not been closed. Do not despair, poor Jacob, consider what the Bible says: 'For man's heart is wicked even from his youth up.' Consider the saying: 'As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live'; consider that well and do not despair!"--

The student broke off suddenly, as if astonished at the compassion that had been stirred up in him, it seemed to have surprised himself. But Jacob in the excess of his emotion clapsed the strangers' hand convulsively and pressed it to his lips.

"Ah, what good you do me," he cried; "how you drop balm into my irremediable wounds! For years no one has spoken to me thus; God bless you for it!" "You see, Jacob," said the student preparing to depart, "I have obeyed your request and have done you such service as I could.--It is now my turn to ask a favour of you.--No one comes to see you, you are often alone, suffer me occasionally to visit you and study the Talmud here. Perhaps I may be able to banish the evil spirit that at times seizes you."

"Oh, a wicked, wicked spirit, you are right.--Yes, you with your beautiful eyes you do me good.--Ah, once I too was as you are, tall, handsome, strong. When I gaze on you, I call to remembrance my own happy youth, my brother's! Yes, come to me often, often."

"That I will, and now farewell."

"God bless you."

The student stepped out of the house; then stood lost in thought. "I shall consider the chance a fortunate one," he softly said, "that led to my encounter with this madman; he may be useful to me, may put me upon the right track in my sublime chace. But it is inexplicable to me! I thought that I had quenched all compassion, all pity in my soul, and lo! this old man wakens feelings in me, that I would have banished for ever from my soul. Every one rejects him, and I, I who bear so bitter, so deadly a hatred against all those that hang on Bible texts, I let him immediately, before I saw my advantage therefrom, gain his end and placed myself at his disposal. Alas, in spite of the maddest hatred, the most raging fury, there is still too much of the good old Jew left in me. I must become very different."

II.

Reb Schlome Sachs, superior attendant in the old synagogue, had on Friday evening just returned home from this synagogue. In his house and in his heart there ruled a Sabbath-peace. There is something very pleasurable in a small room on such a winter Friday evening! A large black stove radiated a pleasant warmth, whilst in the middle of the room a pendant lamp of eight branches, spread abroad a subdued, ruddy, but yet friendly light. On the oblong table lay a clean white cloth, under it again might be seen yet another particoloured covering, from the corners of which tassels were hanging and served as a cheerful pastime for a lively cat. But the loveliest ornament of the room was without a doubt the housewife Schöndel, a blooming graceful woman of about thirty. As she, in her elegant Sabbath-attire, the rich clusters of her dark hair becomingly covered by a richly worked cap, in her pretty, close fitting neatly made gown, fastened high up on the neck, stepped to meet her husband, and took off his cloak and cap, as they both of them joyously wished one another a happy Sabbath, as in their features a pure and childlike joyfulness of soul, a deep and blessed peace of mind mirrored itself--then surely would neither of them have exchanged their lot for that of kings or princes.

The master sang the Psalm of the day, and as he ended, enquired, "was Reb Gabriel not yet come home."

"No, he wished to go to-day to the old New-synagogue which he has not yet seen."

"Oh, then he will return later; we in the old synagogue only repeat the Friday-Psalm once and have no 'benediction.'--How do you like our new tenant that Cobbler Abraham brought us?"

"Oh, I like him very well, a handsome man of refined habits and demeanour; not at all like a Talmud-student; they think of nothing but their themes and disputations; but Reb Gabriel converses well and gracefully. He must be of a good and wealthy family; his deportment too is very different to that of the others, so bolt upright and so stiff, you know, just as if he was a soldier; but he is not so devout as the others."

"He has a profound knowledge of the Talmud, as in the course of this very day I became aware, and I'm glad of that--you know I take no rent from our lodger, only make a point of having a god-fearing sound Talmudist in the house; but tell me, dear wife, what makes you think that he holds himself like a soldier?"

"Nay, because they hold themselves straight and upright. What is there remarkable in that."

"Nothing, nothing,--but I have not yet told you; yesterday evening, when I came home from the midnight-prayer-meeting, just as I was going to unlock the door of our cottage--I always take the key with me that I may not be obliged to wake you--I heard a loud voice in our lodger's room; I listened a moment.--It was not the way, in which one studies the Talmud--he seemed to be addressing one or more persons, but what he said had such a strange ring about it, I could not at first clearly make it out, especially as according to the tenor of his words he at one moment muttered softly, at another cried loud out--the wind moreover whistled loud through the passage; but my ear soon grew accustomed to the sound, and I heard him plainly say: 'Man, we are both lost--both of us, you and I--they will betray us to the Imperialists--they will deliver us to our deadliest enemy,' afterwards he cried out again suddenly--'they shall not surprise us! we are armed, march, halt! fire! storm! no quarter--they give none, level everything. Ah, ah, blood, blood! that refreshes the soul. The victory is mine! mine the blood stained laurel wreath, I am victor,--I victor. Ah me, it avails nothing, I am still a ----' the last words died lightly away. After some minutes all was again still in the room, and I heard the measured breathing of his mighty breast. This is the first opportunity that I have had of telling you about it, for Friday, as you know, I am entirely occupied by my duty in the synagogue,--I might, perhaps, have forgotten it, had not you remarked upon his military aspect."--

"I am not at all surprised that he has such dreams," replied Schöndel, "his mind is always full of such wonderful things.--This morning, when I wanted to fetch for you your Sabbath clothes out of the chest, that he lets us leave in his room, getting no answer to my knock, I lifted up the latch, to assure myself that he was out; but the door came open and Gabriel, his head resting on both hands, was gazing with fixed attention--not on a folio, but a roll of coloured paper on which he was drawing different lines with a pen. When I got nearer, I made out that it was a map. I asked him in astonishment what that meant, and he told me that as he travelled from Germany to Prague, he had in the course of his journey encountered the Bohemian and Imperial armies, and that to amuse himself he was now looking where they were--then he pointed out to me the exact spot, where the brave Field-Marshal Mannsfield was, where the Elector Maximilian, and Generals Tilly and Boucquoi lay with their troops, then he showed me how badly Christian of Anhalt, Frederick's General-in-chief, was supporting the operations of the brave Ernest of Mannsfield, and how that the troops of the union in spite of their bravery and gallant leader must succumb, so long as Anhalt, incapable, or as he expressed himself, perhaps won over by the Imperialists remained at the head of the army: all this he explained to me so clearly, and distinctly, that even I, a foolish woman, could quite easily see the force of it.--'How do you come to have such a clear perception of all that,' I enquired, 'of all the students of the present School not one would understand so much about these things as you--you'd make a good officer.' 'Nay, who knows,' he laughingly answered, 'if some day I do not get a good Rabbinate, I may still become a soldier.' The whole occurrence struck me as so strange, that it haunted me the whole day; I cannot help smiling when I think of it. In the middle of the day, about three hours afterwards, as I crossed over to the 'Kleinseite' to buy some wax tapers, I saw two superior officers riding over the bridge, one I happened to know, the young Thurn--every child here knows him; but as to the other, a captain, who rode a perfectly black horse, he seemed to me as like our lodger Gabriel, as one twin-brother is to the other, and as they both turned the corner into the 'Kleinseite,' this captain caught sight of me and gave me such a friendly unconstrained look, as if he would greet me. But all this was a pure deception, the whole resemblance may have been a slight and casual one, and Gabriel's strange conversation of which my thoughts were still full, may have probably been the cause of my exaggerating the likeness--and that officers turn round to stare at young women, is certainly no new occurrence."

"Trust me," answered Schlome, "Gabriel is no captain. The students of the School at Prague are not the stuff out of which kings, or states would fashion heroes. I do not say that they would not make as good as others.--The Maccabees fought as bravely as a Thurn, a Boucquoi, a Mannsfield, and even more bravely,--but so long as the Lord of Hosts in his lofty wisdom does not entirely turn the hearts of the princes and peoples among whom we live, we must accept oppression, contumely, scorn, and all else that Providence has ordained for us. Do you not know, that for some years the fencing-masters here in Prague have been forbidden to teach the Jews the noble art of fencing? But, dear wife, this is no pleasant subject of conversation for a joyful Friday-evening."

"You are ungrateful! Do we not now live quietly under the protection of the laws? Look back to the dark and horrible times of yore."--

"To-day let us conjure up no sad memories, let us not disturb a joyous Sabbath peace," implored Schlome, "let us speak of something else, of what you will. You say our lodger is not as devout as other students?"

"No, he is not so industrious, does not often attend a lecture on the Talmud, even in the few days that he has been here has often neglected to attend at synagogue; besides he never kisses the scroll on the door as he goes in and out."

Schlome was about to answer, but was prevented by the hurried entrance of Gabriel, who by an actual omission confirmed the assertion that had just been made.

"A happy Sabbath to you; excuse my late return. I was in the old New-synagogue, an awe striking synagogue! We hear much of this synagogue in my country. It is certainly one of the most ancient Judaic buildings in Europe, if we except the house of God at Worms, perhaps, the most ancient;--but tell me, good man, are all the stories, that they tell us in the schools of Germany, especially towards midnight, about this edifice and which have often caused me a thrill of pleasant ghostly horror, true?"

"The child-like temper of the people," replied the goodman, "delight in the unwonted and strange, and then many stories are told, that in reality may have happened very differently."

"Yes, but there is much truth in it," interposed the good wife; "ah, this community of Prague has in the course of time met with so much sorrow, has suffered such endless anguish, and yet God--blessed be his name--has so wonderfully supported it, that even now it shines forth a brilliant example to its sisters in Germany. Whenever I pass that ancient and reverend house of God, pictures of the days that are gone come back upon me. Do you know the history of how our brethren in the faith were once ruthlessly slaughtered in the old New-synagogue?"

Schöndel was obliged to repeat this question; Gabriel seemed suddenly lost in deep reflection. "No," said he, at length arousing himself from his reveries, as though his spirit was for away;--"tell it, noble lady! Everything sounds doubly beautiful from your rosy lips."--

Schlome shook his head in thoughtful astonishment over this manner of speaking, so different from that usual with Talmud-students.

"Reb Gabriel! you talk like a knight to a lady of rank. Do not forget that you are a student of the Talmud, and my wife the wife of a servant."

"You must not talk as if you wished to mock us," said Schöndel, and a deep flush suffused her face; "or I cannot"--

"Oh, the story, good wife! mind not my talk. I am at times absent, and often far off in imagination."

"High on horseback in the battle, is it not so?" asked Schöndel slily.

The face of the student became a deep dark red. He required a moment to recover command of himself. "What do you mean by that?" he impetuously demanded.

"Women are gossiping, as you know from the Talmud and surely from your own experience also," said Schlome. "I was just telling my wife, as we waited for you, that yesterday when I returned from midnight prayer, as I passed by the door of your room, I could hear you call out loud in your sleep, and that you appeared to be dreaming of a battle or something of that kind.--We thought the dream a strange one for a student."

"Ah," said Gabriel, drawing a deep breath, and visibly relieved--"ah, you thought so? Well, I do sometimes dream heavily of battles.--But do you know, how that happens? I was too industrious as a student--studied the Talmud day and night; but a man cannot endure too much work, and as my ambition compelled me to unbroken exertion, it fell out, that my mind became confused, I became subject to delusions and fancied myself, a knight, a warrior--but I am now thanks to a clever physician and rest of body and mind, perfectly well again, perfectly! Do not be anxious!--But as on my journey here I encountered many troops of soldiers, my mind may again in sleep have been terrified by gloomy visions: for although I am now quite well, yet still, if I have shortly before been excited about anything, unpleasant dreams are wont to pain me; but they are only dreams; and it seldom happens, so I beg you to pay no attention if I do again talk such strange stuff in my sleep."

It was an age, when the study of the Talmud afforded almost the only outlet for spiritual activity. It was no uncommon event for a student, especially if he combined an ascetic life with hard study, to unhinge his mind by what is called over-study. It was known too, that mental derangements which had been caused in that way, could be healed by sensible treatment, rest of body and mind, just as Gabriel had stated, and the husband and wife themselves knew more than one student, who had been affected just in the same way as their lodger, and like him too had recovered. They had no reason, therefore, for doubting Gabriel's open confession, and even the obvious embarrassment, that he had evinced at the quick retort of the good-wife seemed entirely justified by the really unpleasant and affecting confession that had been wrung from him.

"Poor young man," thus Schöndel broke the long pause that intervened and began to be uncomfortable. "Thank God,--praised be he therefore!--that he hath helped you, and be right glad. Now I too understand, wherefore you took such warm sympathy in the old Jacob, and immediately granted his request."

"No, that was not the reason," said Gabriel earnestly, and reflectively, as if in fact he too participated in Schöndel's wonder, and could find within himself no sufficient explanation of his behaviour at that time--"but please, let us leave this subject, and talk of something else.--You were going to tell me, how once on a time."

"Yes, yes," cried Schöndel, glad to be able to give another direction to the conversation; "listen: It must be now more than two hundred years ago,--Wenceslaus the Slothful was ruler of the country--when it fell out that a knight was inflamed with a hot lust for a Jewish maiden. She rejected his shameful proposals with virtuous indignation. Cunning and seductive arts were shattered against the maiden's steadfast determination. The knight, therefore, resolved to attain his warmly coveted aim by violence. The day of the feast of the atonement seemed to him the best suited for the accomplishment of his ruthless plan. He knew, that Judith--so the maiden was named--would on that day stay at home alone with her blind mother, while all the rest were detained by prayer and devout exercises in the house of God. On the evening of that day--Judith was softly praying by the bed-side of her slumbering mother--the door of her chamber opened, and her detested persecutor entered with sparkling eager look. Unmoved by the prayers, the tears of Judith, he already held her fast embraced in his powerful arms when a lucky chance brought home her brother to enquire after the health of his mother and sister. The terrible unutterable wrath that took possession of him, gave the man, naturally powerful, the strength of a giant. He wrenched his arms from the villain, who had only the women to thank, that he did not by the forfeit of his life pay for the attempted infamy. With kicks and grim mockery the outraged brother expelled the dissolute fellow from the house. The knight given over to the scorn of the people who had assembled in considerable numbers, swore a bloody deadly revenge against the Jews. He kept his word--Reb Gabriel! for God's sake! what is the matter with you?" suddenly the narrator interrupted herself; "are you unwell?"

Gabriel, who had listened to the housewife, with ever growing attention, was in fact at this moment a sight to look upon, his features had become as pale as ashes and twitched convulsively, his large and glassy eyes were fixed immoveably on one spot, as though he saw a ghost.

"What ails you?" cried Schlome, shaking his lodger with all his force, "recover yourself."

Gabriel's lips closed more than once with a quiver, without being able to give forth an intelligible sound; at length he passed his hand across his forehead that was covered with a cold sweat, and said with a powerful effort at self-command, and as if awaking from a dream: "That was in the days of King Wenceslaus, was it not? two hundred years ago,--a blind mother--a beautiful daughter--and the day of reconciliation was it?"

"Thank God, that you are well again, you must have had a sudden giddiness."

"Yes, yes," said Gabriel, faint and enfeebled, "I felt very unwell for a moment, very unwell--but I am better again. Go on with your story, dear lady, I pray you, go on with it."

Complying with his urgent request, Schöndel continued: "Long ago expelled from the ranks of the nobility on account of his worthless behaviour, the knight had cultivated a connection with some discontented idle burghers of the city, and these he hoped to make the ministers of his cruel vengeance. Some short time afterward he put himself at the head of a mob rendered fanatical under frivolous pretexts to murder and plunder in the Jews-town. The first, who, frightened out of their peaceful dwellings, went to meet the robbers, were cut down. Determined men endeavoured to oppose a monstrously superior force. Vain effort. Without arms, they saw themselves after an heroic opposition compelled to take refuge in the old New-synagogue already filled with old men, women, and children. Mighty blows sounded heavily on the closed doors of the synagogue. 'Open and give yourselves up,' yelled the knight from outside. After a short pause of consultation answer was made, that the Jews would deliver their property over to the mutineers, would draw up a deed of gift of it, and only keep back for themselves absolute necessaries; they also promised to make no complaint to king or states, in exchange for which, the honour of their wives and daughters was to be preserved, and no one compelled to change his religion.

"'It is not your business,' a voice from outside again resounded, 'it is ours to dictate conditions.--Do you desire life and not a wretched death, then open and at once abjure your faith. I grant but short delay for reflection; if that fruitlessly elapses, you are one and all given over to death!'

"No answer followed. Farther resistance could not be thought of, and hope that the king would at length put a stop to this unheard of, unparalleled iniquity, grew every moment less. The battle in the street--if the desperate resistance of a few unarmed men against an armed superior force could be called by that name--had lasted so long; that King Wenceslaus might have easily sent assistance; but none came. They were at length constrained to admit, that he did not trouble himself about the fate of the Jews. A silence as of death reigned in the synagogue; only here and there a suppressed sobbing, only here and there an infant at the breast, that reminded its mother of her sweetest duty, was heard. Once more the voice of the knight thundered rough and wild: 'I demand of you for the last time, whether do you choose: the new faith or death?' There was a momentary silence, then broke a cry of thousands 'Death' with a dull sound against the roof of the house that was consecrated to God.--The insurgents now began to demolish the doors with axes and hatchets. But the besieged in their deadly agony lifted up their voice in wonderful accord, and sang in solemn chorus the glorious verse of the Psalmist:

'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will not fear the crafty wiliness of the evil-doer
For thou art with me! Thou art in all my ways:
The firm staff of faith is my confidence!'

"The aged Rabbi had sunk upon his knees in prayer upon the steps that led up to the tabernacle. 'Lord,' he implored, 'I suffer infinite sorrow, yet, oh that we might fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is boundless.--Only not into the hand of man! Ah, we know not what to do; to Thee alone we look for succour! Call to remembrance Thy mercy and gracious favour, that has been ever of old. In anger be mindful of compassion! Let Thy goodness be showed unto us, as we do put our trust in Thee!'

"But God at this season did not succour his children, in his unsearchable counsels it was otherwise ordered. The first door was burst open, the mob pressed into the vestibule of God's house, a single frail door separated oppressed and oppressors.

"'Lord,' cried the Rabbi in accents of deepest despair, 'Lord, grant that the walls of this house in which we and our fathers with songs of praise have glorified and blessed Thy name--that the walls of this temple of God may fall together, and that we may find a grave under its ruins! But let us not fall alive into the hands of the barbarians, let not our wives and maidens become a living prey to the wicked.' 'No,' now exclaimed a powerful voice, 'that shall they not, Rabbi!--Wives and maidens; do you prefer death at the hand of your fathers, husbands, brothers, death at your own hands to shame and dishonour? Would you appear pure and innocent before the throne of the Almighty instead of falling living victims into the hands of those blood-thirsty inhuman men outside.--Would you? Speak, time presses,' and again resounded from a hundred women's lips 'Rather death than dishonour!'--

"His lovely blooming wife pressed up close to the side of the man who had thus spoken, her baby at her breast: 'Let me be the first, let me receive my death from thy loved hands,' she murmured softly. With the deepest emotion of which a human soul is capable he clapsed her to his breast. 'It must be done quickly,' he said with hollow trembling voice. 'The separation must be speedy, I never thought to part from you thus! Lord, Most Merciful, forgive us, we do it for Thy holy name's sake alone! Art thou ready?'

"'I am,' she said, 'let me only once more, but once more, for the last time kiss my sweet, my innocent child--God bless thee, poor orphan, God suffer thee to find compassion in the eyes of our murderers.... God help thee! We, dear friend, we part but for a short time, thou wilt follow me soon, thou true-hearted!'--

"With the most infinite sorrow that can thrill a human breast, the husband pressed a fervent parting kiss, and a last touch of the hand upon the loved infant that absolutely refused to leave its mother, and the bared and heaving breast.--One stroke of the knife, and a jet of blood sprinkled the child's face and spouted up against the walls of the house of God.--The woman sank, with a cry of 'Hear, o Israel, the Everlasting our God is God alone' and fell lifeless on her knees.--

"All the other women, including Judith, followed the heroically courageous example. Many died by their own hands, many received the death-stroke from their husbands, fathers, brothers, but all of them without a murmur, silent and resigned to God's will. They had to tear away tender children, who weeping and wringing their hands climbed on to their father's knees, and piteously implored them, not to hurt their mother--it was a scene, horrible and heart-rending, a scene than which the history of the Jews, the history of mankind knows none more agonising. It was accomplished! No woman might fall alive into the hands of the persecutors, the last death-sigh was breathed, and the few stout men, who had desired only so long to defend the inner door, stepped backward. A fearful blow, and the door, the last bulwark, fell in, sending clouds of dust whirling over it. The knight, brandished battle-axe in hand, stood on the steps that led up into the house of prayer, his countenance disfigured by wrath, behind him crowded an immeasurable mass of people armed with spits and clubs and iron flails. 'Yield your women and children,' he shouted in a voice of thunder, at length betraying his real intention--'and abjure your faith!'

"'Look at these blood-dripping steaming corpses,' said a man who stood nearest the door, 'they are women and maidens, they have all preferred death to dishonour.--Do you think that we men fear death at thy hands and the hands of thy murderous associates? Murder me, monster, and be accursed, here and hereafter, in this world and the next, for ever and ever!'--a moment afterwards the bold speaker lay on the ground weltering in his blood. At sight of the countless corpses of the women the beastly rage of the populace, that saw itself cheated of the fairest portion of its booty, mounted to absolute madness. Hyenas drunk with blood would have behaved with greater humanity. Not a life was spared, and even infants were slaughtered over the bodies of their mothers. Blood flowed in streams. One boy alone was later on dragged still living from under the heaps of dead. As they approached the tabernacle, in order to inflict the death-stroke on the Rabbi, who knelt on the steps before it, they found him lifeless, his head turned upwards towards the East, a soft smile upon his death-like features. Death had anticipated them; his pure soul had exhaled in fervent prayer.

"The mob surveyed the work that had been accomplished, and now that the thirst for blood was stilled, shrunk in terror before the bloody horror that had been perpetrated.--The tabernacle remained untouched, the house of God unplundered. Discharging oaths and curses at the knight, their ringleader, the wild troop dispersed in apprehensive fright of the divine and human judge. But King Wenceslaus left the iniquity, in spite of the most urgent representations of the Bohemian nobility, unvisited and unpunished. But from that day his good angel left him. The spirit of those helpless murdered ones seemed continually to hover about his head. His reign became unfortunate. The nobility felt itself deeply injured by this outrage upon justice. A series of interminable disputes sprung up between the nobles and populace, and Wenceslaus who went on from one cruelty to another was twice imprisoned by the states, and died at length, probably of the trouble and anxiety cause by a bloody revolt of the Hussites that had broken out shortly before his death. To his life's end he never recovered either happiness on confidence.--The knight too, the author of that foul deed, who afterwards marched through the country, burning, robbing and murdering was overtaken by a righteous punishment. The Archbishop of Prague ten years later, at the time of the second captivity of Wenceslaus, hanged him up with fifty other robbers in sight of the city of Prague.--His name was forgotten."

"You are a wonderful narrator," thus Gabriel broke the silence that had lasted for some time, after Schöndel had ended her story: "I could listen to you by the hour."

Indeed he had been especially struck by the impassioned elevation of her language, and the choiceness of her expressions so little in accordance with her position in life.

"Excuse a question," he began again after a short pause. "I feel myself for the first time really at home, when I am intimately acquainted with those about me. A happy chance led me to your house, a house than which I could not wish or find a better--but you will not be offended with my frankness. I am surprised to find such remarkably easy circumstances in the house of a servant, and still more in you, dear goodwife, such an unusually high degree of cultivation.--Perhaps, you will explain this to me."

"Oh yes," replied the goodman, "but at table, it is late and we will sup."

The three took their seats and an old maidservant came in. The goodman said a blessing over a flagon of wine, they washed their hands, and after grace had been said over two cakes of white bread that had up to that moment been covered by a velvet cloth, the maid-servant placed the smoking dishes on the table. The two men set too with a will.

"You know, Reb Gabriel," began Schlome, "where two are sitting and the word of God is not between them so may I ask you to impart to me some of the results of your religious researches."

"Researches," said Gabriel slowly, "I will try"--and passing his hands slowly over his forehead, and rubbing his eyes as though he would force back all other thoughts, and conjure up recollections long left in the background, he began a very ingenious dissertation upon the Talmud. At first measured and thoughtful as though moving on strange and slippery ground, he became gradually more confident and at home, and expressed himself as he warmed with that oriental vivacity, that gives to these studies a singular attraction. He displayed unusual knowledge. All that he said, was so acutely considered and well-balanced, that he easily repelled the objections that Reb Schlome here and there attempted to interpose. He, in spite of his ripe knowledge of the Talmud and his practised dexterity soon saw the futility of every disputation and listened to the student in almost reverential silence to the end. "That is a glorious dissertation," he said, when Gabriel left off speaking, "and our assessor of the college of Rabbis, Reb. Lippman Heller will be delighted to have got such a scholar. But you do not often attend his lectures?"

"I have as yet had a good deal to arrange after my journey and cannot attend the lecture as often as I could wish; but now, dear sir, as we have already had our discourse on the Talmud, tell me, how it happens that you are so prosperous and yet a servant, how it comes to pass that your wife has attained to such a high degree of culture, as one so seldom finds in a Jew, especially a woman, on account of the oppression that the Jews, in spite of much even if slow progress, have still to endure. Explain this to me, unless special reasons impose silence upon you."

Schlome, who had already enjoyed the thought of proving to his guest that he too had profitably devoted himself to Talmudic studies, was obliged to put it off to another opportunity and yield to the earnestly expressed wish of his guest. "I am now much pleased with you, Reb Gabriel, and as I feel more and more convinced that you are a genuine scholar, a certain feeling of distrust--I may now confess it openly--that sometimes came over me with respect to you, is disappearing, and I am heartily rejoiced at these your frank expressions.--So listen: I am the son of Reb Carpel Sachs--may the memory of the just be blessed.--My father was a very rich and pious man and made the best use of his fortune. The Community, whose chief overseer, and the Old-synagogue, whose ruler he was, have much to be thankful to him for. I was his only child and was the more precious to my father, as in me the memory of my early lost mother survived to him. His affectionate care for me knew no bounds. I never dared to go out alone, I never dared to leave him even for a moment, and all my tutors were obliged to give me their lessons in his presence. As overseer of the community frequently brought into relation with the leading men of other religions, he saw the necessity of a Jew, devoting himself to the assiduous study of universal sciences as well as to more strictly religious studies, that the Jewish nation might stand worthily by the side of the whole race of mankind as opposed to the Judaic alone. In spite of his many occupations he was often with the worthy Löwe, and the partner of his varied studies. I myself very early received instruction in the learned languages and natural science, without on that account at all neglecting the study of our holy scripture. It was on a lovely winter morning, I, a little boy, was sitting by my father in his study reading the Bible. The servant announced a man, who urgently desired to see my father, and almost immediately he entered the room carrying a little girl in his arms. I shall never forget the scene, even this day it rises up before me clear and lifelike.--The man was large and strongly built, but deep lines of sorrow and trouble were stamped upon his earnest noble features. The child, that with anxious tenderness he still held in his arms, was a lovely blooming little girl; I need not farther describe her, picture to yourself my goodwife, a girl of three year's old. Both were poorly clothed, the stranger wore the dress of a needy wandering Pole, the little girl seemed insufficiently protected from the cold by her tattered garments, and her father--for that the stranger apparently was--warmed her tiny frozen hands that were fast entwined round his neck with the breath of his mouth.

"'I and my child,' said the stranger, 'arrive from a long and difficult journey. I have come straight to your house, Reb Carpel, I ask that help from you, that you both can and will afford me. Grant me an hour of your time, I must speak with you alone.' These few words of the stranger, and even before they had been spoken, his reverend aspect had obviously, in spite of the meanness of his dress, made a favourable impression upon my father. He rose from his seat, held out his hand to his visitor in sign of welcome, and placed a chair by the stove in which an hospitable fire was burning. My father bid me take the little girl with me to my room, and let the servant give her some supper. Schöndel looked at her father, and when he put her down, and told her she might, took hold of my hand with a confiding smile and went with me, I do not know what passed in secret between the two men, but when two hours later my father opened the door of his apartment, I heard him say aloud: 'Since you will neither be our counsellor nor assessor, nor Klaus Rabbi, I consider it a special Providence, that just at this very moment the post of upper-attendant in the Old-synagogue is vacant, that that exactly meets your wishes, that I can have a decisive word in arranging your appointment. I believe that I am sure of the consent of my associates. I will see besides that that respect, Rabbi, which is your due, is paid to you by all the servants and the congregation, with whom in truth you will not be brought into contact. You will be able to live in the manner you wish, unknown, cut off from all society, devoted to your studies. I look upon it as a piece of good fortune, Rabbi, that you have granted my request, and consent to initiate my boy in the depths of our holy Scripture.' 'I thank thee, Reb Carpel, but call me not Rabbi, call me Mosche as....' He saw me and stopped.

"I was astounded at the almost reverential behaviour of my father. The first person in the community, he well knew how to keep up his dignity on all occasions, and it could only be a very distinguished individual indeed, who could be gladdened by such treatment.

"'Schlome, kiss the Rabbi's hand, from to-day he will undertake the care of your education,' said my father. I lifted his hand respectfully to my lips and from that time Reb Mosche seemed to me a being of a superior nature. My father let him immediately into occupation of a house close to the synagogue, the residence of the upper-attendant for the time being, the very rooms in which we are now living, and the next Saturday, after a long parley with the other overseers of the synagogue, it was announced to the frequenters of the Old-synagogue, that a stranger, for whom Reb Carpel Sachs answered in every respect, had been appointed upper-attendant. Here then my step-father lived, here it was that I as little boy came to make my first essay in the study of the Talmud, here we closed his wearied eyes. Rabbi Mosche was a wonderful man, all that, he said and did evinced the profoundest religious feeling. He lived retired from all society and the only visits that he received were from the high Rabbi Löwe and my father. His expositions were clear and easy to be understood, and my rapt attention, and firm determination to win his approbation came excellently to the aid of my lessons. The man usually so reserved, soon shared his love between his only child, whom he almost idolised, and me. My father too loved with an infinite love the stranger's motherless child. We children clung to one another with extraordinary tenderness, a feeling, that, God be praised and thanked, has never been extinguished in our hearts. When I received nay lessons from her revered father, Schöndel would sit by me by the hour and listen, and even when I was occupied by other studies, the dear little maid was my constant companion. To this circumstance and to the remarkable industry and talents of my wife you must ascribe the fact, that in a menial position she surpasses in knowledge and culture many ladies of rank.--In a word, this confined room was even in my free hours the place where I loved best to be, I knew no higher enjoyment than to converse with Rabbi Mosche. I was often allowed to help him in certain business about the synagogue, and I was the more glad to do so, as it enabled him to decline the assistance of all the inferior servants that were under his orders. What a childish pleasure I took on every Thursday evening at the thought of the coming morning! Friday, I was always up betimes, no need to wake me--dressed myself and ran down to Reb Mosche. He was already expecting me, I took his hand and we went together to the adjoining house of God. To this day a perfectly empty temple makes a singular, not easily to be described impression upon me, and when the grating doors opened and our steps echoed loud in the cool and empty space, it seemed to me as though the blissful breath of God's peace was upon me. My teacher first opened his desk in the tribune, then placed candles in the chandeliers, and trimmed the lamp, that ever burneth, with fresh oil, and I was allowed to follow him carrying the flask of oil, candles and everything that he usually wanted. All this was done in the profoundest silence, as if we feared by a word to dispel the stillness that reigned through the building dedicated to God's service. When all was duly arranged I sat me down on the steps that led up to the tabernacle and began to read out of the Bible to my teacher the portions of Scripture appointed for the week. The earliest frequenters of the synagogue found us ever busy with our studies in the Bible. I passed a peaceful and contented youth. The mysterious obscurity that enveloped my second father,--for so had Reb Mosche become to me--was only calculated to heighten, if possible, the feeling of reverence with which he had inspired me and I dared not even wish to raise this veil that enshrouded him. Neither Schöndel nor I would for worlds have asked him about his past life, which had of a surety been fruitful of sorrow to him, and even my father, to whom his secret was probably known, preserved the most unbroken silence with respect to it. The mutual relation of the two men was also a singular one. Sometimes they addressed one another, as though years and years ago they had known one another as children, and yet my father had never left his native town, while Reb Mosche on the contrary--Schöndel could just remember it as in a dream--had come from a very great way off. I myself with respect to Reb Mosche adopted that demeanour which the Talmud enjoins in the intercourse of scholar and tutor. I fulfilled his smallest wishes, and learned to interpret them from his look; and if I chanced without intending it to vex him by my talk, I was inconsolable and could have wept by the hour. This, however, seldom happened, and I can only recollect one instance of it. As we were reading the Psalms we had come to that passage, 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!' and I expressed the childish wish, that as well as Schöndel whom I regarded as my dear little sister, I had a brother too. 'My son,' replied Reb Mosche earnestly, 'what God doeth, that is well done! Wherefore dost thou desire a brother? Brothers do not always love one another, there where love and friendship should prevail, enmity and strife have often mastery. Cain slew his brother Abel, Jacob and Esau were brothers, but Esau hated Jacob. Joseph was sold by his brethren, and the brethren of the greatest prophet, even the brethren of Moses spoke evil of him.' I gazed in astonishment at the face of my respected teacher, a bitter smile played upon his lips, a tear shone in his mild eye.--

"I will not further weary you with the descriptions of my youth,--which while they fill me with sad remembrances, are probably to you a matter of indifference. My youth slipped away as happily and as untroubled as my childhood. I ripened to manhood, Schöndel developed into a most beautiful young woman. Our infelt mutual attachment was known to both fathers, and Schöndel's two and twentieth birthday was fixed for our betrothal.--Eight days before, one Saturday afternoon I was sent for to the room of my father, where I found my father-in-law also. 'My son,' he began, with deep emotion, 'I have joyfully consented to your marriage, I have known you from a child, you are infinitely beloved and dear to me, and I can now depart in peace from my own loved child whenever the Lord calls me. But I have a request to make to you, and your own worthy father adds his prayers to mine. See, Schlome, see, I have early grown grey with trouble and sorrow, I have been unhappy, and to-day I must confess it to you with deepest affliction, have learned to know the iniquity of mankind. We both, thy father and I, are ignorant when God will send his messenger to us.--Schlome, do not refuse our request! Remain always attendant in the synagogue." I was for a moment petrified with astonishment, I had expected anything but this wish; but it was not for me to pry into the reasons of the strange petition. My father fully agreed with him, I had nothing to do but consent.--Eight days afterwards was the wedding. The poor of the community had liberal alms, every synagogue, every charitable institution was bountifully remembered, but the marriage-feast was celebrated quietly and without display. When the two fathers came home from the wedding, they fell into one another's arms with expressions of the highest excitement, 'Reb. Carpel! could you have hoped for this when we separated forty years ago,' asked my father-in-law, 'could we have expected ever to meet again? and yet the gracious Lord of all grants us the felicity of uniting our only loved children in the holy bonds of wedlock.' 'Now, we may die in peace,' replied my father, with the deepest emotion.

"My father seemed to have spoken prophetically. In the first year of our marriage died my never-to-be-forgotten father, shortly afterwards my father-in-law. Their souls seemed linked to one another by the bonds of friendship even for the next world, and they rest in adjoining graves.

"'My children,' said Rabbi Mosche, on his deathbed, 'your father, Reb. Carpel Sachs, has left you a store of this world's goods, I am poor, I leave you naught but my blessing, my infinite love. In this sealed packet is the record of my life's history written in the long winter nights for your benefit. Only after twenty years may you break the seal, when he that wished to do me evil, is dead, and God will have already forgiven him. That which was dark to you will then become clear. My life was dedicated first to God, next to you, and my boundless love will not expire with my last breath. Have God ever before your eyes, what he doeth that he doeth well. This world is but the vestibule of a more beauteous world beyond. Murmur not. Trust in God! Farewell! God bless you. May the Eternal One let the light of his countenance shine upon you. May the Everlasting turn his face upon you and give you peace for evermore! Hear, o Israel, the Everlasting our God is one God!' that was his last breath, his beautiful soul expired."

Reb Schlome was obliged to stop, the recollection had seized him with overpowering might, his wife too sobbed aloud.

"We had suffered two violent blows following quickly one upon the other," he continued after a long pause with more composure. "The unutterable grief that filled us can only be measured by one whose bosom has felt a like affliction, who has stood at the death-bed of a man, as highly prized and dear to him. We felt as if the whole world had escaped our grasp, we both were now so solitary and forsaken."

"Solitary and forsaken," echoed Gabriel in a heart-rending voice that quivered with agony, "solitary and forsaken, and yet ye were two, who hung upon one another with infinite affection."

"You too have stood sorrowing, solitary and forsaken, by the bed of a dying father, a dying mother?" asked Schöndel with infelt sympathy.

"Yes, yes," replied Gabriel vehemently, almost screaming. "Yes, yes, I did once stand by a mother's death-bed, wringing my hands and despairing! Oh, a very tender mother, virtuous and tender, she loved me, her only child, with a love that conquered death.--Oh, a good, good mother, and I was, indeed, solitary and forsaken when she died!"

The student spoke these words with wild and passionate bitterness, his large and brilliant eyes rolled restlessly, a pallor as of death, and a purple flush covered in rapid succession his face marred, but once so beautiful.

"Do not let the recollection obtain such mastery over you," implored Schöndel soothingly, "consider: Perchance you have still a tender father."--

"A tender father? No--yes.--Is it not true, fathers are all tender, more tender than mothers?--

"Neither husband or wife had ever known a mother and kept silence."

"A father!" repeated Gabriel, with an expression of the most poignant despair, and as though he would force back the overflowing tide of his feelings, he pressed his hands violently against his breast; and then after a short pause recovered himself, wiped the sweat, that had collected in heavy drops, from his forehead and said with a visible effort, "Excuse me, my friends, but you know, profound sorrow cannot be restrained."

"Your sorrow must still be fresh," remarked Schlome.

"Oh, a deep heart-wound is never healed. But enough of this, proceed," exclaimed Gabriel; "the twenty years have not yet elapsed, and you are still unacquainted with the affecting fortunes of your father-in-law?"

"No, it is but nine years since he passed into a more beautiful existence, his life-history still rests unopened in the chest that stands in your room.--We do not even know the name of his family."

"Strange!" said Gabriel; "you too never knew your mother? dear housewife."--

"My father never alluded to his past history," she replied, "my mother must have died in my earliest childhood."--

"Well for you!" cried Gabriel, and as both gazed at him in astonishment, he continued hurriedly, "Well for you, that you cleave to your father with the indissoluble link of love, that he still survives in your memory; may you some day thus survive in the heart of your--but you have no children?"

"God has not blessed our union with children," answered Schöndel, sadly.

"What God doeth, is well done! cling fast to that belief," now interposed Schlome, in quiet and earnest accents. "See, I was once sore troubled about it; we, my wife and I, have neither brethren, nor friends--we always lived so retired from all company--and even if we had friends, the love of a child for its parents can be supplied by nothing else, nothing can be weighed in the balance with it.... It made me sad when I thought that if the Lord should call me or my wife to himself, one of us must be left behind, desolate and forsaken in bitterest woe.--It made me sad when I thought, that with us would be entombed the memory of my father and father-in-law, that with me the long web would be broken, that humanity was ever destined to weave since the world's creation.--But consoling encouraging thoughts in time germinated in my heart. 'Murmur not! this world is but a vestibule of the next,' had my father said, and says not also the prophet? 'Oh, let not the childless lament, I am as grass that withereth!--Thus saith the Lord to them that are childless, they that observe my feast-days, and choose that which pleaseth me and hold fast to my covenant. Even unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a place, and a name better than of sons and of daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.' I bow to the decree of the Allwise, what he doeth is well done--I live happy in the performance of my duties, for the future, One that is above will provide--if, hereafter, my soulless body be lowered by strangers into the vault, my spirit will mount upwards to God!"--

Schlome spoke with honest warmth, this was no pleasant self-deception, it was his clear, mature, and veritable intuition. When he had ended, a pause ensued. The oil-lamps began to go out one by one, and Schöndel remarked, that grace had not yet been said. A quarter of an hour afterwards Gabriel took his leave and retired to his room. Here the careful housewife even before the break of the Sabbath had lit a well-filled lamp, that still burned clear. Gabriel shut the door rapidly and tossing off cloak and cap, cried with gnashing teeth and fists spasmodically clenched, "Tear pitilessly at the ever bleeding wounds of my heart, keen was your aim and sure the blow, you could not have rent my raging soul with a pang of greater anguish! Did you gaze into the secrets of my breast? Is a Cain's sign imprinted on my forehead, that every one at his will may read upon it my ignominious past? As this woman with flashing eyes spoke to me of that day of atonement, of that knight, of that Jewish maiden and her blind mother--and how they cast him forth with mockery and scorn--did it not seem as if she would have unfolded before me a detested period of my own life? And when she looked at me and asked if I had ever stood solitary and forsaken by the death-bed of a mother? If I had yet a tender father? that was no chance, that cannot have been a chance.--Chance can decide battles. Chance can let me fall alive into the hands of the Imperialists--but that is no chance, that is a presentiment, a dark impulse, an instinct, to hate me, to mortify me. But you are right, I hate you too, with the most unbridled strength of a sore, provoked tiger--revenge, to revenge myself, that is now the only thought that keeps me alive.--I must find the woman, the woman, that might have saved me as I hovered on the brink of a bottomless abyss--and that let me be dashed to pieces--I must find her, she cannot escape me--she is here in Prague, shut up within the gates of the Ghetto! Oh, how I gloat upon a sweet revenge--to take sweet and fearful vengeance, and then to perish for ever.--But what if I should die first, if the trumpet summoned me to battle, if I perished on the field,--if the outlaw fell alive into the hands of the Imperialists! No, no, that cannot be or--there is in sooth a God."

Gabriel paced his chamber impetuously--visions of the past filling him with the most torturing recollections, passed over his soul.--To die? He said at length suddenly stopping, "I fear not death, I have looked it in the face motionless and unconcerned in the whirl of battle, but before I die, oh, that I might find him, whom I have sought for ten long years, whom I might, perhaps, even yet embrace in these arms.--Thou, whom men call all-mighty and all-merciful," he suddenly cried, opening the window and lifting his gaze to the starry heaven, "Thou! give me my father, give me him though it be at my life's last breath--let him rest one moment, and may it be my last, on my breast--and I will acknowledge Thee, and I will bend my proud spirit even in death before Thee! But where to seek him, where to find him! I am sure of nothing, am sure of nothing but that I hate them all with a nameless hatred, and have good reason to hate them!"--

III.

On Saturday Gabriel had gone to early prayers with his landlord in the Old-synagogue. The service had lasted till near mid-day. Reb Schlome had then paid a visit to the chief Rabbi. At the midday meal, which was shared by two guests, they met again.

"How were you pleased with us in the old synagogue?" asked Reb Schlome.

"It is a beautiful building, quiet and order prevails among you. I must express my thanks to you, I know I am only endebted to you for it, that I, a stranger student, was called upon to expound, an honour that this Saturday was only conceded to distinguished persons.... I obtained the names of all who were called upon to expound, they were universally men of weight and character, but with regard to the last, who was called upon just before me, no one would or could give me precise information, though all seemed to know him."

"I will explain that to you," said Schlome; "that man is a member of the well-known family of Nadler, a family that, even now I scarcely dare to say so, fifty years ago in spite of their wealth and prosperity was shunned by everyone. People would not associate with them. No one would marry their daughters, no one would converse with them, every one kept away from them in the houses of prayer; they could obtain no tenants; the very poor despised the alms which they would have lavished in abundant measure. You can easily divine the cause,--there rested on the grandfather of this unhappy family the weight of a suspicion which afterwards proved to be groundless, that he was one of those who cannot be received in the congregation of the Lord. The family suffered fearfully under this foregone conclusion. It was that great thinker, the high Rabbi Löw, who first devised a means of once for all dispelling the clouds of obloquy, in that he--it is this very Saturday exactly six-and-thirty years ago--in a lecture, with the approval of the ten chief personages of the then community, uttered a solemn curse against all those who should dare any longer to injure the reputation of the family, to speak evil of the dead, or to apply the name of Nadler as a contumelious epithet to any one in the Jewish community. From that day no one ventured to withdraw himself from intercourse with them, and all the more honour was shown to them that they consumed their wealth for the benefit of the poor and afflicted, lived strictly in accordance with the Law, and moreover people wished to make them forget the humiliation and injustice of many a long year. On this account people do not like to talk about them, and avoid everything that might lead to further explanations about this family."

Gabriel had listened in silence with the deepest sympathy. "See, Schöndel," Reb Schlome suddenly exclaimed, "I notice a very remarkable resemblance between Reb Gabriel and you, a resemblance, about which I yesterday by lamplight thought that I had been deceiving myself. In the middle of his forehead too a fiery spot is wont at times to gather."

"That is strange," said Gabriel earnestly and thoughtfully.

"Not so strange as you believe," struck in one of the guests, "it is a not uncommon appearance I have heard of one of the Imperialist officers who has a mark on his forehead, I think two crossed swords--probably your mother, when she carried you under her heart, saw a sudden conflagration, or is it an inherited family-mark; had your father also such a mark on his forehead?"

Gabriel had listened to the guest attentively, he gave no answer, but the red stripe of flame on his forehead became more conspicuous and clearly marked than before. "I myself," said the other guest by way of confirmation, "some years ago when I studied at the school in Mainz, knew a madman, named Jacob, and in his case too as soon as he became excited just such another mark made its appearance in the centre of his forehead; probably the concurring circumstances were the same with each of you."

"Moreover," added the guest, after a short consideration, "I fancy that I have seen that same madman in this very place."

"You are not mistaken," said Schöndel, "the mad Jacob is here in Prague, and our lodger Reb Gabriel can if he likes give us some news about him, for he has taken a great fancy to him, and often passes whole days with him without coming home or visiting the lecture-rooms."

It seemed for an instant as if Gabriel would have contradicted the goodwife, but he quickly recovered his self-possession and remained silent--at that moment the old maid-servant entered and announced a boy who was enquiring after Herr Gabriel Mar, and was urgently desirous of speaking to him.

"Excuse me," he said, rising quickly, "I must let the boy come to my room and hear what he has to say."

The boy must in fact have brought some important news, for Reb Gabriel did not return to table and sent his excuses by the old maid-servant--a soldier has arrived here from his country, such was the old Hannah's story, and he is breathlessly hurrying to hear, how it fares with all at home--the good student.

The two guests did not seem to share the old maid's favourable opinion. "A strange student that," opined one of them, "sits at table and speaks no word of his Talmudic investigations, gets up and does not pray, goes away and kisses no scroll."

Reb Schlome felt that his wife was right the other evening when she said, that Gabriel was less devout than other students, but he allowed this with reluctance, for Gabriel's rich stores of Talmudic science had won his estimation and good will. He requested, therefore, one of the two students to let them have a Talmudic discourse, and after this had been complied with recited the prayer after meat.

Gabriel had scarcely waited till the door of his room was shut to speak with the boy alone.

"What do you bring me, John," he asked hastily.

"Gracious Sir," answered the boy, "my relative begs respectfully to announce, that Ensign Herr Smil von Michalowitz is just arrived from Pilsen with a message to your Honour, and waits in your house."

"Good boy, run on, I will follow immediately."--Gabriel hastily donned cloak and cap and went out--Although the house which he was leaving was situated by the Old-synagogue and, therefore, outside of the Ghetto-gate, he was obliged to pass through the Ghetto in order to reach the Plattnergasse by the nearest route. He stopped at the back of a house. He knocked twice at a closed door; this was quickly opened, and he hurried up a back-staircase to a room, on the walls of which, sabres, travelling-pistols and other arms were hanging, crossed in varied confusion one upon the other. He threw off cloak and cap, girded a dagger about his loins, without lingering over the choice enveloped himself in a knight's mantle and stepped through a door in the tapestry into a large adjoining room. Here he was already expected. A slightly made young man in the embroidered uniform of one of Mannsfield's cavalry-officers was pacing impatiently up and down.--

"Welcome to Prague, Herr von Michalowitz," said Gabriel in a friendly way, "do you bring me good news from Mannsfield?"

"I wish I brought better, your Grace," answered the officer with a bow. "First of all, however, I have the honour to deliver the autograph despatch of the General-Fieldmarshal, I partly know its contents and am commissioned to give your Grace all further necessary explanations."

Gabriel hastily unsealed the despatch and cast a glance over its contents. "Our troops have still no pay," he cried, stamping his foot angrily, while the fiery mark on his forehead kindled to a deep red--"still nothing? and they promised me everything, money, munitions, forage, reinforcements. It's enough to drive a man mad! You would scarcely believe, Herr von Michalowitz, what a difficult position I am in here! Nothing can be done with this Frederick.--The Bohemians could not have elected a worse king.--He listens to his preachers, goes out hunting, gives banquets and tournaments--of Emperor and League he takes no heed.--His Generals are in constant feud with one another and only agree when it is a question of putting a slight upon or deposing Thurn and Mannsfield.--These gentlemen let me sue for reinforcements and plans of operation, as if they were things that concerned my own private advantage, as if I was asking an alms for myself. Believe me, Frederick must succumb. Who does he oppose to these experienced skilful Generals? an Anhalt against a Tilly, an Hohenlohe against a Boucquoi. The Bohemians are brave soldiers, but they are badly led. I can speak openly to you, Sir Ensign, who have been the constant confidant of our plans.--There is only one conceivable way for Frederick to get the upper-hand--Anhalt and Hohenlohe must be dismissed, and Matthias Thurn take the command."

"It is indeed melancholy," answered the Ensign bitterly, "that all our most energetic and best-laid efforts are so badly supported at Prague. This Anhalt gives up one strong position after another, and if things go on so, it is to be feared that Archduke Maximilian will drive the Prince in under the walls of Prague, and force him to accept a battle,--unless he has been entirely won over by the Imperialists--and a battle lost before the gates of Prague...."

"Would still not be decisive," interposed Gabriel. "I am well acquainted with Prague, it is strongly situated, and could hold out a long time.--I suppose you know the capital city of your native country? The citizens are brave, well-trained in arms, and in the old and new quarter at least devoted to the king's party.--Frederick's power is still great, Mannsfield manœuvres in the enemy's rear; fresh troops are on the march from Hungary.... Sir Ensign, say to my friend Mannsfield, that a battle lost before the gates of Prague would not put an end to the war;--but that Anhalt must not remain at the head of the army. So long as he commands in-chief, everything is at stake ... and to think that two such losers-of-armies as Anhalt and Hohenlohe should command thirty thousand men, while the hero Mannsfield, alone, forsaken by the Union and the weak Frederick for whom he is fighting, without support, without money, in an unknown country, surrounded by secret and open enemies, makes head with a small force against one three times his superior.--How does he bear the hard blows of fickle fortune?"

"With his usual calm, with unshakeable equanimity. Oh, there is but one Mannsfield, Sir Major-General, in such a hero alone do martial fame, and martial deeds attain so high a point. It is an event unparalleled in the annals of history, that a Count, first legitimized by the Emperor Rudolph, should defy the Emperor and whole Empire--should defy, without money, land, or support, under a ban, solitary, by the force of his sword and name alone.--What are all of us in Mannsfield's camp? are we the troops of the Union, which concluded on the 3d of July an ignominious peace with the league? are we the mercenaries of this Count Palatine, who placed the crown of our Fatherland upon his head for a merry pastime? By God and my knightly honour, no! What are we? we are nothing but Mannsfield's children, all of us, from the meanest artillery-driver up to you. Sir Major-General! We all cleave to him with faith as firm as a rock, we follow his standard alone, his call alone. We offer our lives for Mannsfield, his is our sword, our blood, our honour, our name, our oath; for well we know that he leads us on to naught but victory or an honourable soldier's death."

"You are very right. Sir Ensign," replied the General much moved, "he is to all of us a father, brother, friend! What should I have been if I had not fallen in with Mannsfield? Sir Ensign, you have a country, you have a coat of arms, you have a name--I had none of all this, I had nothing but my arm, and a revengeful, torn and bleeding heart!"--

"Yes, Sir Major-General, Mannsfield loves the bold, and brave, and among them are you numbered, by God, you have given good proof of that a thousand times! Name, rank and belief are indifferent to him; Mannsfield asks no questions whether a man is a Reformer, Utraquist or Lutheran, whether gentleman or knight, burgher or peasant, German or Bohemian? Consider, your Grace, that too forces me to admire Mannsfield.... has not this Frederick estranged the hearts of all Bohemians from him, in that he has by the advice of his sternly calvinistical intolerant Chaplain Abraham Schulz bitterly offended Catholics, Utraquists and Lutherans? I am a man of war and no scholar, I am a mere soldier, and have paid little attention to theology, but yet I hold that in this world, everyone should be allowed to believe what he likes, that is an affair to be settled by his own conscience; but no one should be permitted to be a hindrance and stumbling block to another, and throw ridicule upon that which is an object of respect and dear to his neighbour.... Why did we violently revolt from the illustrious House of Austria, under which we were great and powerful? Because we wished to be free to choose our faith, and now steps in this Frederick, whom we ourselves elected, whom we aggrandized, and we are no better off! Your Grace! You are no Bohemian and cannot comprehend, what a painful day the 3d of September in last year is to me, on which thirty-six lords, ninety-one knights and almost all the municipalities permitted themselves to be befooled by the brilliant eloquence of Wilhelm Raupowa and elected this incapable Frederick.--I too, as well as my uncle, the royal Burgrave, were among the voters."

The General was silent. Memories slumbered in his soul like sparks in a tinder; the lightest breath might kindle them to a clear blaze. The Ensign misinterpreted the silence. He had said much, that might have made an unpleasant impression upon the General. He was of low origin, no Bohemian, perhaps a co-religionist of the Palatine. "Your Grace," he therefore again began in an embarrassed way, after a short pause, "have I, perhaps, offended you? Are you, perchance, one of those, who busy themselves with religious studies, and learned ecclesiastical disputations? Are you, Sir Major-General, may I venture to ask, yourself a Calvinist? It's all the same to me, General, I should respect your high rank, your gallantry even if, you will excuse the joke, even if you were a Jew or a Heathen...."

Pictures out of a time that had long vanished again passed over Gabriel's soul, his spirit was again fast fixed on some moment of the distant past. "I busy myself no longer with religious studies," he answered, absently--"but at one time, at one time it was my highest enjoyment; but then I was still a J...." he did not finish, he seemed to awake suddenly from a heavy dream, a deep flush suffused his face, he stroked the hair off his high forehead, in the centre of which glowed the purple mark and added hastily in a changed voice: "then I was still young, very young--but now I think no more of it--and Mannsfield's faith is mine too."

The way in which the General spoke, the singular expression of his face, was not calculated to set at rest the Ensign's fears. "Your Grace!" he went on, "you yourself said in my presence that you had no name, when you took service in Mannsfield's corps, and yet now you are the Mannsfieldian General Otto Bitter, known and feared far and wide. It may be that, you have no genealogy, no past; but you have a future; with the point of your sword you inscribe your name on the brazen tablets of history."

"No, no," the General now impetuously continued, "no, not so. Herr von Michalowitz, believe me, I am not superstitious, not even a believer--I believe in actually nothing--do you hear! in actually nothing, but Mannsfield and mine own good sword.--I am not weak, I would not yield to any presentiment, but one presentiment does haunt me with all the strength of truth, as clear, as life-like as if I saw it with my own bodily eyes, my name will not live in history.... Mannsfield, Thurn, Boucquoi, Tilly, Waldstein, all the heroes that fight with us or against us, have lived for eternity, but my name will perish, will leave no trace behind it...."

The General paced the room many times and with his hand put back the dark locks from his high forehead, then stopped before the Ensign--"I sometimes become very excited, Herr von Michalowitz," he said, "and say much that would be better unsaid--therefore I pray you forget what I have spoken...."

The Ensign bowed in silence. The General threw himself into an arm-chair, motioned the Ensign also to a seat, and after a short pause took up Mannsfield's letter again. "You have captured another wandering Jew? You thought he was a spy, or messenger of the Imperialists, he carried letters in cipher with him?" asked the General, interrupting his reading.

"Yes, your Grace, the prisoner declares, improbably enough, the writings were Hebrew extracts from the Bible and letters to his wife.--The Field-Marshal sends the writings to you probably in the intention that you may prove their contents here in Prague with the assistance of some Rabbi, or clergyman learned in the Scripture." The Ensign with these words laid a sealed packet on the table. "We should almost prefer that he was guilty, in Pilsen, which is imperialist in feeling, we are quite surrounded by spies, we cannot any longer tell who to trust: an example of severity must be made."

The General involuntarily seized the packet, to unseal it, but quickly laid it aside, as if remembering himself, and read on.

"Sir Ensign, I must up to the castle," he said, when he had finished and maturely considered the despatch. "Nothing can be done with Anhalt and Hohenlohe--I must up, and once more speak with the king himself--To-morrow early you shall have the answer for Mannsfield."

"If your Grace will permit me I will accompany you to the castle."

The General rang the bell, a servant, who entered, was ordered to make the necessary preparation, and shortly afterwards the large principal entrance of the house, that led into the Marienplatz, was thrown open, and the General and Ensign rode out of it in the direction of the 'Kleinseite.' At a proper distance followed two mounted attendants armed with pistols and sabres.--

In King Frederick's anteroom three persons were waiting for an audience. They stood in the recess of a lofty bow-window, and were talking in a low voice but with much animation to one another.

"Yes, gentlemen," began John de Bubna, a man of some fifty years old, "yes, it is all Raupowa's fault. Your father--" he turned to the young Count Schlick--"the noble Count Joachim who voted for the Elector of Saxony was quite right--but the past is irreparable, and now we must defend ourselves to the last extremity. Our faith, our freedom, are at stake, is it not so, Thurn?"

The person thus addressed, Count Henry Mathias of Thurn was also of about the age of fifty. Dark eyes with all the fire of youth flashed from his bronzed countenance, as if to give the lie to the thick grey hair; the noble lineaments of his spiritual and thoughtful face showed at the first glance, that a hero's soul dwelt in this powerful and compact frame. He was indisputately the chief leader of his party, an able commander, and the originator of the revolt against the Emperor. It was he who brought about the well-known catastrophe of the 3d of May 1618, when the two Imperial stadtholders, Slawata and Martinitz, were thrown out of window into the court-yard, and supposing it is in the power of a single person, if not to evoke, at any rate to further a crisis on which the future history of the world may depend, Count Matthias Thurn was certainly one of those, who fanned the flames of this outbreak into that wild conflagration which devastated Germany and Central-Europe for thirty years.

He was by birth an Italian, but held rich possessions in Bohemia. A brave soldier, a practised courtier, a subtle diplomatist and excellent speaker, he had won the affections of the nobles, the army, and whole people, and the nation committed to him the weighty and influential place of a defender, or guardian of the faith. Deprived by the Emperor of his office, as Burgrave of Carlstein, he had later on assumed with Mannsfield the joint command of the Bohemian troops. Frederick, however, soon after his coronation, to the deep vexation of the Bohemian army, transferred the command to Prince Christian of Anhalt and Count George of Hohenlohe.

Count Thurn seemed to express his views unwillingly. "Yes, gentlemen, you know I was never the last in the field, I gladly combat for Bohemia. Perhaps a time will again come when I may fight for the cause--but in the meanwhile...."

"Your Grace then is absolutely determined not to accept a command so long as the Prince commands in-chief?" asked Henry Schlick hastily.

"He is right," opined John Bubna; "it was a stupid course of the king, to take the command from our Thurn."

"It is not that," continued Thurn, "at least not that alone; but the war is badly conducted. What did I and young Anhalt, who is far superior to his father in gallantry, and in spite of his youth in military science too, what did we insist upon in the council of war at Rokizan; that we should fall with our whole force upon an enemy wearied out with painful marching. Even Hohenlohe, who is usually very reluctant to embrace a bold project, shared our opinion--there could not be a doubt, we must have gained a victory--then up gets Prince Anhalt and proved to the king in a long speech--but, I cannot bear to think of it, how my splendid plan of operations was frustrated, how instead of fighting they allowed themselves to become involved in a disgraceful treaty, how we, I may say, fled to Unhoscht without striking a blow, or if it sounds better, drew back in good order; for the slight affair at Rakoniz, where, moreover, we lost von Dohna and Graz, cannot be counted anything."

"But the rencounter at Rakoniz," observed Henry Schlick, "remained, as I have heard, undecided. The Imperialists too lost both their Field-Marshals Fugger and Aguaviva; and their General-in-chief Boucquoi was so severely wounded as to have been since incapable of bearing a campaign."

"Sir Count," replied Thurn moodily, "you do not know Boucquoi, he is a worthy antagonist of the very bravest. If it comes to a battle, he will be carried though in a dying state to the field. God grant, that we may not shortly see him before the gates of Prague. At Unhoscht," resumed Thurn, "my patience was exhausted, and when the king, at Anhalt's urgent request went to Prague, I offered to accompany him. I am glad to be here and--"

Thurn was interrupted, for the door of the antechamber opened, and Gabriel, or Mannsfield's Major-General Otto Bitter entered.

"Ah, welcome friend," cried John Bubna, held out his hand to him and led him up to the two others. "Do not be put out, Count Thurn, I answer for my friend Bitter, go on with what you were saying."

"I am acquainted with the Major-General," said Thurn, while Bitter made a low obeisance.--"My friend's friend is my friend too."--Then Thurn himself with obliging civility presented the young men to one another, "Count Henry Schlick, son of our supreme Judge and Director, the Lord Joachim Andrew Schlick, Count of Passau and Ellbogen, a brave captain--Sir Otto Bitter, Major-General in Mannsfield's army and his right hand man."--

"The name of Schlick," said Otto Bitter politely, "has a genuine ring about it, and you, Sir Captain, as I have been assured on all sides, are worthy of bearing so celebrated a name."

Henry Schlick wished to respond to the General's courteous address, but Matthias Thurn turned to him and asked what brought him to Prague.

"I make no secret of my mission," he answered, "I am come to Prague under instructions from the Field-Marshal to demand the pay of our troops, which is now nearly six months in arrear, and to remind them of the promised reinforcements; I propose to stay here just long enough to urge upon the king and his generals some decisive step which our Mannsfield will support with all his might; but the king is too busy with his festivities, and Field-Marshal Prince Anhalt, has, at least for me, no time unoccupied."

"Hush!" said Bubna, "lupus in fabula, he comes just in...."

The conversation, though it had been carried on in an undertone, was instantly dropped. The double doors of the antechamber were thrown hastily and noisily open, and Prince Christian of Anhalt, Commander-in-chief of the royal army and Stadtholder of Prague, stepped haughtily with a proud look into the anteroom. All present, with the exception of Thurn made a low bow. Anhalt recognised it with a careless nod of the head, and prepared as usual to enter unannounced into the royal apartment. Otto Bitter, however, advanced hastily and said:

"I am fortunate in meeting your Highness here. I am just arrived from General-Field-Marshal the Count of Mannsfield...."

"You have come from Count Mannsfield?" repeated the Prince with a sharp emphasis. "Why does not he make his applications immediately to the commander-in-chief, as every commander of a corps d'armée should do. What is the use of a mediator and go-between? Besides, time and place are very badly chosen for your representations, this is the king's anteroom, and I am on my way to an audience"--so saying, Anhalt, without allowing the General time to reply, passed into the king's audience-chamber. Bitter returned to the other lords; his features were disfigured by rage, and the fiery sign burnt red upon his forehead. All were unpleasantly affected by this behaviour.

"Such is the manner of princes," Henry Schlick tried to make a conciliatory excuse; "he is imperious and hates opposition, do not be so put out by it, Sir Major-General."

"No! to receive an officer of such high desert in such a way," exclaimed Bubna clashing his scabbard upon the floor; "and when he was speaking of Mannsfield!..."

"These men of the Palatinate have always free access to the king," observed Thurn, and out of his eyes flashed, as it were, a consuming lightning--"and as for us, they let us wait."

Andrew of Habernfeld, Frederick's favorite, in full gala-costume, opened at the very moment the door of the king's apartment; he might probably have heard this last observation of Thurn's, spoken in a loud voice.

"Can audience be obtained of his Majesty," asked Thurn drawing himself up proudly, "I mean, by us...."

"The king cannot be aware, that so many gentlemen of the highest dignity wish to speak with him, or else he had surely before this summoned you before him. I will immediately inform him of your presence."

"Bubna, Schlick, and I, have been announced long since and been kept waiting in vain up to this time," replied Thurn stiffly, "Major-General Bitter is also apparently as desirous as we are of an interview with the king.--Meantime it can do no harm if you once more remind him of our presence."

Habernfeld looked very much disconcerted and instantly disappeared. Shortly afterwards he returned breathless. "His Majesty," he announced, "implores the noble lords to spare him all government-business at present. The king celebrates today the anniversary of his arrival in Prague, and invites the lords to betake themselves to the banquet in the hall of Spain."

"A banquet?" replied Thurn almost sadly, and the veins on his noble forehead swelled high; "I am sorry not to be able to accept the gracious invitation, I am not in a humour for banqueting, my thoughts would be ever occupied with the victorious irresistible advance of the Imperialists, and my gloomy face would but mar the festal joy, give this answer to the king, I pray you, do so, Herr von Habernfeld.... that he may graciously excuse my absence...." with these words Thurn threw his cloak over his shoulder, and would have departed.

"Your Grace," cried Schlick, seizing Thurn by the arm, "on every account, pause. He is our lord and king--our self-elected lord and king, he will take it in very bad part."

"My young friend," whispered Thurn in Schlick's ear--"spare me the hated sight of Anhalt carousing by the side of king, while our brave army is offering itself a vain sacrifice. Meat and drink would become poison and gall to me.--You know, I am not easily induced to change a determination that I have once made, therefore, I pray you, Sir Count, leave me."

"I will at least present your humble excuses to the king's Majesty," answered Schlick aloud; "I pray you, Herr von Habernfeld, forget, what the Count may have said in a moment of excitement, he is a warm patriot, a staunch Bohemian, but still the southern blood of Italy flows in his veins."

Thurn went away, the three gentlemen followed Habernfeld to the banqueting-hall. Twilight had in the meanwhile come on. The broad and spacious room was illuminated, fairy-like, with a thousand waxen torches. The rich sea of light broke into countless points of brilliancy upon the lofty mirrors. A sumptuous circle of ladies and gentlemen, mostly from the Palatinate and Germany, passed with merry laughter through the gorgeously ornamented apartment. No one seemed to think of the war--to judge from the attitude of those who were present no one could have had a presentiment that in eight days all this splendor would have disappeared.

At the upper end of the hall was a throne-like elevation, where King Frederick and his spouse sat on two crimson and gold-embroidered chairs of state. They were a wonderful pair. Frederick was then in his twenty-fifth year. Fair waving locks, mild blue eyes, and soft rosy cheeks, gave to his features, an air of weakness, almost effeminacy--and yet the carefully arranged blond mustachio and whiskers became him wonderfully. The costume of the period was especially adapted to set off the advantages of his person in the best light. He was entirely dressed in a suit of dark violet coloured velvet. The close fitting doublet was richly embroidered with gold, the slashed armlets lined with white were ornamented with point-lace. Over a white lace collar hung a gold medallion attached by a red ribbon. The trowsers, cut short at the knee, were there adorned with gold brocade and point-lace. In his left hand he held a black cap with red and white feathers.

Queen Elisabeth was somewhat smaller than Frederick. She was a perfect beauty. Her face bore the stamp of her English origin. Abundant fair golden hair, into which a diadem had been woven by a blue ribbon, cheeks suffused with the most delicate pink, lovely soft blue eyes, gave to the queen at first sight a remarkable resemblance to her husband. She wore a dress of pale green satin. This, low bodied and close fitting, brought out the wonderful fulness of her contour. The string of pearls, that hung round her neck, seemed to flow without any perceptible division into the snowy whiteness of her bosom.--Both, Frederick and his consort, wore satin shoes with large silk bows, and their feet rested upon a crimson cushion.--They gazed cheerfully and good-naturedly at the varied throng. Musicians occupied the gallery and at a sign from Habernfeld, on the entrance of the three officers, struck up a clamorous flourish of trumpets, and then played lively tunes.

The three officers in their simple uniform made a striking contrast to the rest of the company. Henry Schlick as fine a courtier, as a brave soldier, soon made himself at home among a group of ladies, but Bubna and Bitter felt strange amid the loud hubbub of the assembled guests, and stared silently and gloomily straight before them. Immediately on their arrival Habernfeld had led all three of them up to the place where the king was sitting and Schlick had excused the absence of Count Thurn on the score of urgent business that could not be postponed. General Bitter dared not venture on this occasion to announce the aim of his mission to Prague, but was fully determined in the course of the evening to submit his business to the king. An opportunity soon offered. The king and queen rose from their seats in order to make a tour of the room, and those who were present--for Frederick popular and condescending was fond of saying a word to each--ranged themselves in two long rows. The king, whom the Prince of Anhalt followed at a short distance, began to move down the line of gentlemen, while the queen turned to that of the ladies. Everyone to whom the king addressed an observation made a low obeisance. He spoke to everybody, and had a friendly or flattering word for each. Bitter and Bubna had remained standing together and waited in respectful silence for Frederick's address. As he approached General Bitter, Anhalt whispered something in the king's ear.

"General Bitter, from Mannsfield's camp, is it not so?" asked Frederick, while a shade of vexation flitted over his face--"I am pleased to see you in Prague; but you have been some weeks here. I am surprised that they can do so long without you in Mannsfield's camp...."

Bubna bit his lips till the blood started; and Bitter answered undismayed but calmly:

"Since your royal Majesty is so gracious as to enquire the grounds of my long residence in Prague, I must most humbly take leave to mention the affairs, that I have already once before had the honour of most obediently laying before your royal Majesty...."

"No business, no business," said Frederick, so loud that the bystanders could hear it, "I will for once in my life be joyous and not always thinking of governing and commanding. For the rest," he continued with excitement, "complaints are abroad; that Mannsfield places the district round about Pilsen under contribution as if he were in an enemy's country, and oppresses my own people: a stop must be put to this."

"If your Majesty will only listen to me for a moment," said Bitter hastily. "Mannsfield's corps d'armée is made up mainly of foreigners; bound by no oath to the crown of Bohemia they fight only so long as they receive pay. The pay is six months in arrear, the famished soldier, who has not a whole coat to his body, resembles rather a ragged robber than a man-at-arms, and if Mannsfield were not the adored hero of our camp, the whole corps would long ago have freed itself from the bands of discipline.--We are also surrounded by enemies, for Pilsen and the circumjacent districts are Imperialist in their sympathies, and the storming of Pilsen cost us many a bloody battle and many a skirmish.--The peasants, who should deliver corn and forage, and have up to this time been vainly paid by assignments upon the money that was to come from Prague, are difficult to deal with, and stand up in arms against us in large masses. All the necessaries of life have to be violently procured, sword in hand, out of a hostile and almost exhausted circle.--Your Majesty in your high wisdom cannot really expect that Mannsfield could obtain food for four thousand men and one thousand five hundred horses empty handed. As soon as your Majesty shall have graciously condescended to give orders to your commander-in-chief and paymaster, to pay over to us the sum that is due, there will be an end of all violence, and compensation will be made to those who have been aggrieved. To lay this and one other petition before your royal Majesty am I come to Prague, and as I have not yet been so fortunate as to see the object of my visit crowned with success, I was to my sorrow obliged to determine to remain absent for a time from the army, though every officer, every commander, should stay with his troops."

Anhalt grew pale with anger. Frederick was silent for a moment; the frank unconstrained speech of Mannsfield's officer had surprised and for a moment disturbed his composure.

"You speak very openly and unconstrainedly, Sir General,--I love frankness in a soldier, but you should never transgress the bounds of due respect. I will talk over and consider what you have said to me with my commander-in-chief.--When you return to Mannsfield's camp, do not report to the troops the manner in which you have addressed me--it might injure respect."

Frederick pronounced these words with a sad smile in an undertone, almost in a whisper inaudible to the rest.--He went no farther down the line, the joy of the evening was troubled, the king and queen soon went away, and Bubna and Bitter were the first to follow their example.

"Pest upon the Palatine," cried Bubna furiously, as both together rode down the Spornergasse. "But you stood up stoutly, Bitter: answered word for word and bravely urged your suit. That Frederick stood before thee trembling like a school-boy! He talk of oppression and forced contributions, and leaves his own brave troops to perish of hunger!--I cannot find fault with Thurn for having broken quite loose from this luxurious court, and shall wait till he returns again to the helm.--God be merciful to our poor country!"

Before Bubna's house the two Generals took leave of one another, and Bitter alone, followed by his two mounted servants, galloped over the bridge to the Altstadt. As he arrived at the Marienplatz, the clapper of the clock in the tower struck twenty one, equivalent to nine o'clock in the evening.--The owner of the house was waiting for him at the great gate, an armourer, who in times past had served under him as sergeant-major.

"It is already late," whispered Bitter to him, as he rode in, "open the back-door directly, I must be quick."--Shortly thereupon Otto Bitter stepped out of the back-door that led into the Plattnergasse; he wore again the dress of a student and hurried quickly to the Jews-quarter. The proprietor of the house, a man with a wooden leg, closed the door carefully and grumbled as he went across the court: "My general is brave, second to none as a warrior, but this passion is rather despicable for a great lord, now if it were a count's daughter or a lady of rank: but a Jewish wench! I cannot understand it."

Gabriel struck into the shortest way to his dwelling by the Old-Synagogue, he found the gate of the Ghetto still open and passed through the gate in the street called "golden" into it.--He had walked a short distance sunk in deep thought, when suddenly some words struck his ear: "I thank you, dear lady, I cannot accept your company, it is here, I think, quite safe in the streets and I shall soon be at home."

The melodious ringing tone of this voice made an extraordinary impression upon Gabriel. A violent terror for a moment thrilled through him. The strong colossal man was obliged to lean against a wall in order to save himself from falling, his breast heaved with mighty respirations, it seemed as if he did not dare to look about him, as if he was afraid that the form to which that voice belonged would melt before his eyes into nothing. But at the next moment a woman passed quickly by him, and the moon, gliding at that moment from behind a cloud, threw its pale trembling light upon a face that was, as it chanced, but half concealed by a floating veil. He could recognise the features, his ear had not deceived him.--"Found," he cried almost aloud after a pause of speechless rapture; "Gabriel! thou hast drained the cup of sorrow to the dregs! But thy revenge will be sweet, will be fearful!" ... then he followed, unobserved, with hasty step, the woman's form. She stopped for the first time breathless at the Hahnpass before an apparently quite uninhabited dilapidated three-storied house. She opened the house-door with a key that she drew out of a pocket in her dress, and shortly afterwards Gabriel saw a ray of light shooting from a garret-window. Gabriel wiped the perspiration from his forehead, rubbed his eyes, looked about him, laid his hands upon the cold walls of the house in order to convince himself that it was no dream, that filled him with lying phantoms, that this moment had really and truly an actual existence. He might have stood there for some few minutes when again the clear accents of a woman's voice pierced his ear.--"Why do you stand dreaming there, Reb Gabriel?"

Gabriel awoke as from a heavy sleep; a group of women stood before him, among them, his hostess Schöndel. "Why do you stand in the street like this, what are you waiting for? Why have you been neither home nor to service in the Old-Synagogue since mid-day?"

Gabriel recovered himself quickly; he found himself in the neighbourhood of Jacob's house; he had frequently excused his staying away so long from Schlome's house on the plea of his visits to the lunatic; he, unsociable as he was, never conversed with anyone, and Gabriel could feel sure that he would not be betrayed by him at any rate.

"Cannot you see," he said, "I have just come from the poor lunatic, who enlists my sympathies in the highest degree. One should visit those who are afflicted with spiritual infirmities, as well as those who suffer bodily ailment, and, perhaps, to do so is a more excellent work of charity."

"We too return from doing a good action," replied Schöndel; "I belong to the society of 'devout women.' We have been praying at the death-bed of a departing sister, have closed the eyes of a poor forsaken old woman.--It is sad to die solitary and forsaken."--Schöndel dried her beautiful eyes, which were wet with emotion.

"We must make haste," said a woman, a neighbour of Schöndels', "or the gate will be shut, we are the only people who live outside...."

"Reb Gabriel, if you are going home too, give us your company," said Schöndel.

Gabriel walked silently and rapt in meditation by the side of the two women, while they, full of the recollection of the sad duty which they had just performed, did not attempt to resume the conversation.

Arrived at home Schöndel told her husband, how she had found Gabriel at the door of the lunatic's house, with whom he had spent the afternoon and evening.--Gabriel threw himself, as soon as he reached his room, in a more than feverish state of excitement into a chair. The manifold events of the day all disappeared before the extraordinary impression that the discovery of that woman had made upon him.--He staid awake the whole night, pacing the room backwards and forwards and only towards morning could make up his mind to write the report which Ensign Michalowitz was to carry back to Count Mannsfield.

IV.

In the garret of a usually uninhabited dilapidated three-storied house in the Hahnpass a woman was sitting at a rickety table and embroidering by the light of an oil-lamp a curtain for the holy tabernacle. It was already late; a rude wind howled through the walls of the poor dwelling, a corner house, far over-topping all the others. All was dark in the vicinity, only the windows of the distant lecture-room which was visited by a succession of students emitted a dull light. The woman, though no longer in the first bloom of youth, presented a perfect picture of the most faultless oriental beauty. She might have numbered six or eight and twenty years. Her wonderfully well-formed face, pale as a lily, but suffused from time to time with the softest roseate flush, contrasted superbly with the shining black hair, the rich waving curls of which issued from under a turban-like head-dress and fell in waves on her snowy neck. Her eyes were brighter and blacker than coal, her eyelids fringed with long silky lashes, and her half-opened fresh lips disclosed two rows of pearly teeth.--She worked assiduously, only interrupting herself now and then to go to the open door of a second chamber and listen to the breathing of her sleeping mother--or when she lent with an expression of the deepest motherly love over a cradle, in which a baby, the perfect image of its mother was sleeping quietly.

"Blume, my child," now cried the mother from the adjacent room, "are you still up? Go to bed, spare your eyes, I pray you do so.--When a person has lived as I have done for more than fifteen years in darkness, she learns for the first time to set a right value on eyesight, take my advice, child, go to bed!"

"Only go thou to sleep, dear mother," answered Blume in a loud voice, almost screaming, and leaving off her work for a few moments. "It is not so late as you think, it wants two hours yet to midnight."

"If only your husband would return from his journey," sighed the mother, "he would surely bring money with him, and you would no longer consider it necessary to make a sacrifice of your sweet precious sight.--Lord of the world! that a Rottenberg should be reduced to travel over the country as a scribe in order to earn a livelihood, that my daughter, my graceful Blume, must work at embroidery to save herself from beggary, that grieves me--but Lord, Thou art just, and what Thou doest, is well done, I do not murmur! I only make my supplication before Thee out of the profoundest depths of my heart, not for myself, not for myself, who am tottering on the verge of the grave, but for my children--have mercy upon them!"

"Sleep, dear mother, sleep," cried Blume, and large tears fell like pearls over her cheeks, "all will come right, believe me, God never forsakes his own."

Blume shut the door. "Yes, if only my husband were at home again," said she then, with a shiver; "sometimes I become so sad when I am alone with my mother and child, alone, forsaken, in a strange and unknown city! and my husband wanders over the country to earn bread; God preserve him."

She folded her hands almost involuntarily and began the evening prayer with fervent devotion. The little slumberer in the cradle awoke and cried after its mother. Without interrupting her prayer she suckled it.--She was just saying the words, "May the Everlasting bless and guard thee! May he let the light of His countenance shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee, may the Everlasting turn His face to thee and give thee peace for evermore," as she pressed the child to her bosom, and falling tears bedewed the babe's lovely face.--Suddenly it seemed to her as if the house-door was opened--could it be her husband returned from his journey? that was inconceivable--a man's step sounded upon the contiguous staircase, she heard a noise, as if some one was groping for the latch and could not find it.... Who could be seeking the stranger and friendless woman? a nameless pang for a moment seized her heart,--she was at the conclusion of the evening prayer, and the last words of the same filled her again with the confidence of faith, she said them, perhaps unconsciously, aloud, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit, sleeping or waking, my soul and body.... God is with me, therefore, I cannot fear!" She kept her eyes fixed fast upon the entrance. As a weak wooden bolt fastened the door on the inside, she expected, that the comer would first knock; but it happened otherwise, and a single push from a strong hand made the door come open.

"Gabriel," cried Blume, the colour forsaking her lips, with a suppressed cry of the most hopeless despair; she tore the child from her breast, which she hurriedly covered, pressed it tight in her arms, and got up as though she feared that Gabriel would tear it away from her.

He stood speechless and as one rooted to the ground before her--his whole body trembled, a strange and wonderful quivering passed over his pale corpse-like face, his eyes flashed lightning, the fiery mark on his forehead glowed, his broad breast rose and sank stormily, an unchained passion seemed to rage within him--for some moments he vainly strove to speak.

"I am he," he said at length in a hollow voice, and each word sounded in the ear of the terrified woman like the roar of thunder; "I am Gabriel Süss--whom ye all expelled and trampled upon.--Thou too.--Thou! whom I had once so deeply and ardently loved."

A long pause again ensued, Blume's bosom heaved impetuously, she stared at Gabriel, as if he were some horrible spectre; she held her child still tightly pressed to her; at length she broke the painful silence and spoke in a soft imploring voice: "That is past and gone, Gabriel.... What do you want of me now?"

"Thee!"

The poor tortured woman sank upon her chair. Gabriel paced the chamber several times.

"Do not waken my blind mother, Gabriel," prayed Blume, at length timidly and in a voice scarce audible; "age and sickness have weakened her sense of hearing, but you speak so loudly, so impetuously...."

"Shut the door closer, I must speak with thee alone, no third person shall hear us...."

Blume shut the door. "Gabriel," she said with trembling voice, "I am alone with you, I am a weak woman, you are a giant in strength--but never forget--a third person does hear us, does see us--the spirit of the Lord is over all--he is near to them which are afflicted, he helps the oppressed."

Gabriel did not interrupt her; but an incredulous smile so horribly disfigured his once beautiful features, the fiery mark on his forehead blazed out so strangely from under his dark hair that the word died away on her lips..... she felt that an hatred nourished for years in all its force held irresistible dominion in Gabriel's breast, and that he was now vainly striving to find an expression for that wild consuming ardour of vengeance that drove his hot blood to the height of madness! The baby had again dropped fast asleep, Blume did not know what to do, she dared not lay the child in its cradle.

"Is that.... thy only child?" Gabriel recommenced after a profound silence with that singular inexplicable aberration of thoughts which sometimes seems to come over a man at the very moment when the overpowering sensations of the moment should in fullest measure occupy his mental activity.

"It is my only dear innocent child," cried Blume in mortal terror and bursting into tears--"let me take it to my mother that we may not awake it."--

"Blume!" shouted Gabriel, seizing her arm and detaining her, "there are two words that I will never hear from your mouth 'mother' and 'innocent child', do not utter them in my presence, or you may make me forget resolves that have been ripening for years, and take once for all a fearful vengeance on thee and thy child.... 'Mother'" repeated Gabriel in a voice so sad and piercing that even Blume pitied him, "'mother' that beautiful sweet heavenly word, which everyone utters and hears so gladly--that word, which finds its way into the depths of the heart, and evokes in everyone an inexpressible feeling of bliss. 'Mother' that word, which ringing through the spheres awakes a magic harmony in the soul--that word is to me an empty hollow meaningless sound! Every man, as far as the blue vault of heaven overarches the earth, even though he were the wretchedest slave, that shakes his chain in maniacal fury, every living being, all, all, all have or have had a mother----only I not! only I not, I alone since men have walked the earth! The woman, the abandoned creature, the demon.... that thrust me into this existence.... she was no mother! Fye, fye, call her not mother! apply not the beautiful glorious name to her!--a mother--though it were the spotted hyena that destroys in mere wantonness, a mother defends her offspring.... a mother does not pile the whole weight of the sins which she has committed upon her child's innocent head, while it stands wringing its hands, in despair at her deathbed--a mother...."

"Gabriel, hush! for God's sake, say no more.... speak no more so of thy mother, my mother's sister. In spite of all she is thy mother, thou art her son! she is dead, be not hard upon her--a day will come, when thou too wilt stand before the judgment seat of the most High, when thou too wilt implore the mercy, the grace of God. Oh, think of that! The moments of each mortal existence are numbered.... think on the last hours of thy life!... hadst thou in thy storm-tossed life never sinned, hadst thou never committed a fault, never--save to speak thus of thy mother, of thy mother that carried thee in her womb, bore thee in pain, nourished, nursed, loved.... hadst thou committed no fault but in speaking thus of thy mother.... Gabriel, thou must tremble at the thought of the world to come."

Blume spoke these words with noble indignation, with the impulsive enthusiasm of a prophetess, her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled, she resembled a supernatural being.

"Woman!" replied Gabriel, with flashing glance, "I do not tremble!... I have looked death in the face thousands of times in the whirl of battle and did not tremble, thousands have fallen beside me mutilated by the enemies' cannon, their scattered brains have sprinkled my face, and I did not tremble--I was surrounded by bands of foes, all pointed their swords at my breast, I was wounded, seemed lost--I slew them all but did not tremble."

"But you are alive, it was not your last moment," interposed Blume hastily,--"but by the Almighty God of Israel, who made the worlds above, and will hereafter awaken those who slumber below," she pointed up to the blue dome of heaven, down to the graves of the snow-covered burial-ground seen from her window--"by his holy name--when thy last hour strikes, in the last moment of thy life thou wilt tremble, repentance will break thy proud unbending heart."

Gabriel was silent, "let us quit the vain contention of priests, of Rabbis," he said at length, involuntarily in a milder tone: "Thou hast never troubled thyself about my life--leave to me the care of my hour of death--what signifies it to thee? Wilt thou be near me in my last hour? wilt thou close my wearied eyes? wilt thou scare the ravens from my bloody corpse, when I lie on the field of battle trampled under the hoofs of horses? What carest thou for me and my soul's salvation? What carest thou for the stranger, the outcast? Long, long is it vanished, the beautiful golden time when it would have been otherwise...."

Gabriel spoke again with measureless impetuosity, but yet in his last words a deeply agitated expression of sorrow had wonderfully mingled itself with the wild rage, and even Blume, the noble loyal wife, was much touched, she perceived how this stony man had once loved her, how fruitful in misery his past life must have been!

"You are alone? Your husband is absent? Do you know where he is?" asked Gabriel after a pause, apparently calm.

Blume was convulsed again with a fearful terror and answered humbly: "He travels about as a scribe to earn us bread. I do not know where he is, I have no news of him--have compassion upon us, Gabriel, the Rottenbergs are no longer rich, we are poor and wretched."

Gabriel gazed awhile darkly before him, then suddenly, as if embracing a violent resolution, stood before Blume and pressed her down on a chair.

"Woman," he said, "for ten years have I sought thee, ten years have I panted to see thee, to speak with thee, to be avenged on thee, as the wounded, exhausted hart for fresh water.--When I saw at a distance the towers of Prague, where I knew that I should find thee, when I entered the Ghetto whose gates enclosed thee--then my heart bounded with a wild joy, I assumed the dress of a student, I visited all the houses of prayer, the lecture-rooms, the libraries, in order to meet your husband. I dwelt with those to whom I bear a deadly hate, all this only--to find thee.... I despised not to associate with a mad beggar, because I believed he would put me upon your track--when I recognised you yesterday evening, I was so happy in my hate, so superabundantly happy, to have found thee, to have revenge in my power--happy! as I have never been since that fateful hour when all the hope of my life was quenched and now, now that I stand before thee, that my hands clasp thy beautiful rounded arm, now, at this moment words fail me to tell thee, how fervently I hate thee, how fervently I hate ye all...."

Gabriel again paced up and down in the highest excitement. "I will tell you a story, Blume," he said at length, pushing a chair by her side, "a very notable story, most of it you already know, but it matters not, it is long since the history has crossed my lips, and I will once more bring my comfortless past before my soul, perchance in so doing I shall find the true expression for that emotion which agitates my breast.--Once upon a time there lived in Cologne a man named Baruch Süss. He was physician to the Archbishop, rich, powerful, and respected at court. But he was prouder of the possession of two daughters, Miriam and Perl, than of his wealth and influence. On the death of two hopeful boys he had transferred to them his whole love. They were the most beauteous maidens in Germany, and suitors soon approached them from all corners of the world. Miriam could with difficulty make up her mind, and only after the younger, Perl, your mother, had intermarried with a branch of the celebrated Rottenberg family, did her father succeed in fixing her choice upon his brother's son, his nephew, Joseph Süss, who lived at Spires.--Their marriage was for three years a childless one, in the fourth she announced to her enraptured husband that she was a mother.--Miriam Süss was brought to bed of a wonderfully beautiful boy, they named him Gabriel. The happy husband rejoiced, the poor were bountifully endowed, a rich foundation established. Baruch of Cologne, the grandfather, who before had feared that he would remain without posterity, undertook the fatiguing journey to Spires for the express purpose of seeing his first grandchild, and in the first intoxication settled his property upon him after his death. Shortly after me, you, Blume, were born, and the grandfather and his two sons-in-law agreed, that the children should some day be united in the bond of wedlock. The years of my childhood and of my youth flew happily by. Idolised by a father whose rich love I could not, though with the best intentions, adequately return, I clave with an infelt warm and holy love to my mother, who guarded me as the apple of her eye. Both because I remained an only child, and on account of my intended union with you, Blume, who wast also the only child of thy parents, my grandfather heaped all his tenderness upon my head. I remember but dimly my earliest childhood, and only one circumstance presents itself to my soul, but so mistily, so confusedly, that even to this day I am in doubt, whether it was not a dream, a deceitful phantom, that my glowing fancy at a later period created and then referred back to an earlier time. I was once walking outside the gate, accompanied as usual by a maidservant, when suddenly a tall, pale, thin man threw himself upon me, pressed me to his heart, and dropped two large tears upon my face. My nursemaid, as surprised as I, would have screamed, but he pressed a piece of gold into her hand and speedily made off with a heavy sigh.--If it was not a dream, that man was my father!"

Gabriel stopped exhausted. Blume was acquainted with her kinsman's early history, she followed his narrative with the most strained attention, anxiously awaiting the moment when he should come to the most fearful catastrophe of his life.

"You know," continued Gabriel, "that from my ninth year I passed one half of the year with my grandfather, the other in my parents' house. My education was a perfect one. In Spires I was thoroughly instructed in religious and Talmudic knowledge; my grandfather, loved and respected at the Court of the Archbishop of Cologne, and owing to his situation, for a Jew a peculiar one, in constant intercourse with the Rhenish nobility, caused me to be indoctrinated with all those sciences, that are ordinarily less accessible to German Jews. I even dared devote myself to knightly arts and exercises, forbidden them in the largest portion of Germany either by law or arbitrarily. I was well made, strong, gifted with a keen and penetrating spirit. I was nineteen years old, and once, it was on the feast of the dedication, on my return home from the high-school at Frankfurt, I found my grandfather there. It had with wise foresight--not to arouse my opposition before hand--been kept secret from me that they intended to marry me to you whom I had never seen before, and even then when it was announced that we were all to go and visit uncle Joel in Worms, it never in the least occurred to me, that the journey was to be a bridal one for me. We arrived at Worms. I saw you, Blume! resplendent with all the lustre of your youthful beauty, and the deepest love that ever seized man's heart blazed suddenly high in my bosom. To my mother's husband who called himself my father I had only devoted a feeling of gratitude, not of inclination, and it was my, your grandfather, to whom I openly declared my ardent affection, and that I believed it to be returned. 'My glorious, my dear child,' exclaimed the old man and tears streamed from his eyes, 'by thee all the wishes of my heart are fulfilled; yes, Gabriel! Blume, thy mother's sister's daughter, is the bride that was destined for thee. God bless the union, that your fathers concluded upon in your earliest years, and that you have sealed by the feelings of your heart.' Holding my grandfather's hand I stood before you, and dared to kiss your forehead white as alabaster. We were bride and bridegroom...."

Gabriel made another pause. Blume's face revealed the fearful anguish of her soul, she knew, what would follow, and cold clear drops of perspiration trickled down her face, which even the bitterest mental torture could not rob of its miraculous attractiveness. Her heart beat audibly.

"I was the happiest man on earth," continued Gabriel in a voice, the unsteadiness of which was a sign of the infinite sorrow that consumed his soul, "I was filled with my faith to which I clave with all the strength of my mind and spirit. It made me happy, it exalted me. I had a mother, and I loved my mother with that unutterable superhuman intenseness, for which we vainly seek an expression, which can only exist to such a pitch in the heart of a grateful child. I had thee, and how I loved thee, how I loved thee, Blume! That thou hast never had an idea of, that thou couldst never have had an idea of!..."

Gabriel stopped short, his voice, that in the whirl of battle could be heard above the thunder of the cannon, sounded feeble and tremulous; his gleaming eyes were wet. He passed his hand over his forehead, and went on: "It was doomed to be otherwise. Ten months had elapsed since our betrothal, I was at Worms, on a visit to you, and full of hope was looking towards a future close at hand, in which you were to be wedded to me; when an unexpected message arrived, that my mother had been suddenly attacked by a mortal sickness, that I was to make haste, if I would see her again alive. A maddening grief thrilled through my breast. I flew along the road to Spires, like one hunted by evil shadows; I arrived late on the evening of the new year. The servants were waiting for me in the entrance-hall, they wished to delay me, to prepare me; I paid no heed to their officiousness, and flew breathless and swift as an arrow up the stairs and into my mother's sick-room. She was still living, but lay at her last gasp. The darkness was broken: many men had already assembled to say the prayers for a departing soul,--the chamber was lit by a pendant lamp of eight branches in the centre of it. Joseph Süss stood by her bed and held her hands in his. The sorrowful consolation of finding her still alive struggled in me with the bitterest grief 'Here am I, dear Mother,' I cried in a voice choked by tears, throwing myself on my knees before her, and covering her beautiful cold hand with hot kisses, 'here am I, good sweet mother! I was sure that thou wouldst tarry for thine own true son.... I could not believe, dear true-hearted mother, that thou wouldest soar away from me before I arrived.... here I am, here I kneel before thee in deep inexpressible sorrow. Why do you not speak to me?... Look at me once again, only once again, with thy mild loved eye, speak to me I implore you! only one word, but one, a last farewell ... lay thine hand in blessing on the head of thy only child, whom thou forsakest, who is dying of deep and infinite grief!..."

"The bye-standers, though accustomed to scenes of death, were constrained to sob aloud at the unbounded outbreak of my childish emotion and my vain entreaty seemed not to be ineffectual. Miriam Süss suddenly raised herself in the bed, as if lifted by a spring, her beautiful face, already touched by the breath of death, was a blue-white, her eyes protruded far out of their sockets ... but she did not bless me!... she folded her hands and began in a tremulous but perfectly intelligible voice: 'Lord of the World!... Thou hast sent thy messenger to me, and I must pass into the shadowy realms of death.... I tremble before Thee, O Lord and Judge! for I have sore sinned, gone sore astray!... Forgive me, O God, Thou that art gracious to all, and pardoneth iniquity and sins; I have bitterly repented, made large atonement.... and that all men may know, that my repentance is perfect and sincere, I will now in the last moment of my life, openly and loudly confess before thee my husband and these worthy men the whole enormity of my inexpiable guilt.... I broke my marriage vows to thee.... and my son Gabriel is not thy son....' Blume! what I felt at that moment, poor human speech is incapable of expressing.... Grief, passion, woe, torment--put together in one conception all the notions that these words embrace; multiply them by thousands,--and you will still have no idea of that which coursed quivering through my broken heart,--With one blow, with one single, mighty, well-aimed blow, an infinite filial love was driven out of my breast, and the blackest hate filled me, a hate, well founded and inextinguishable. Had I lived a thousand lives and every moment of my life committed a deadly sin, yet if there is a divine justice.... all the iniquity of my life would have been atoned for by this too woeful moment. At the very time when I was supplicating with hot tears a blessing from my dying mother--she betrayed me, cast me out of the Paradise of my life into never ending torment.... at a time when for her I would have breathed out my life with a smile and in silence under the cruellest tortures, when I would have with joy delivered my soul for her salvation to the everlasting torments of the damned, at that time my mother betrayed me!!! 'Mad liar! recall the words! say that an evil spirit has spoken by thy mouth!' I cried in a furious voice, shaking violently her almost inanimate body. 'I cannot, Gabriel, I cannot,' she shrieked, 'pray for me!... Lord of the world! forgive me! be gracious unto me! have pity on me! I have sore sinned.... Oh God! accept my confession and death as atonement! Hear Israel ...' she could say no more, her eyes grew dim--she fell back--a light death sigh heaved her breast--she had ceased to exist.... 'No, dead mother, No,' I cried, 'God will not have compassion upon thee, since thou knewest no compassion for me--I curse thee and thy memory: ...' I uttered the most fearful maledictions, the most horrible curses--they tore me from my mother's lifeless corpse....

"Joseph Süss Lad sunk speechless at the confession of his guilty wife. When he came to himself he foamed with rage. His guilty wife was dead and the poor deceived man turned the whole weight of his irreconcilable wrath upon my innocent head.--The bond that should have united us to one another was loosed, I was not his son, I was a stranger--oh! far less than a stranger.... He took no time for reflection, and an hour later I stood alone, forsaken, an outcast from the house, that I had hitherto called my home! Thus had one moment, one word, robbed me of father, mother, love, memory, past and future.

"I wandered all the night about the town, I could not wait till morning dawned, and when it came I wished that the darkness of night had endured for ever. Early on new year's day every one went to the synagogue, I, I alone shunned the face of men.... I would not remain in the street, and in the despair of my heart turned my steps towards the dwelling of my early teacher, a sick, bed-ridden old man, obliged even on highest feast-days to perform his devout exercises at home. I found him already sitting up in bed and reading by the light of a lamp. The report of my humiliation had already reached even him, at sight of his once loved scholar he uttered a cry and the bible fell from his trembling hands. Was it chance, was it perhaps that my old teacher, revolving my unhappy situation, had opened at the passage in scripture that applied to it, I know not; but as I bent to pick up the book, my glance fell upon it, the words danced in varied iridescence before my burning eyes, I read the words: 'A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.' I felt anew a wild spasm at my heart. Together with the fearful unutterable excitement that had seized me at the shameless confession of that woman, who had carried me in her womb, with the crushing pain of seeing myself so humiliated before the eyes of men; there had also sprung up the melancholy self-tormenting feeling that I owed my existence to a sin, that I had been launched into the world against the will of the Most High, whom I at that time worshipped with boundless reverence: ... But as I once more read those clear and significant words, the words of that scripture which I had hitherto looked upon as binding and sacred--as I read the sentence of the Lord, whom I, bowed to the dust in fulness of faith, had called all-merciful, all-good, all-just--as I read the judgment, that made me, me guiltless of the transgression, miserable--that brought me to naught; T tore out of my lacerated and bleeding heart that blind faith, that could never restore me to bliss, never make me happy, that faith which might never more seem true and sacred to me.... I tore myself free from religion, sweet comfortress, that offered consolation to all but me...."

"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.

"From the faith of my fathers!" re-echoed Gabriel; "you choose your words well, each is a poisoned arrow and barbed--have I then forsaken the faith of my fathers? Do I forsooth know my father? For ten years have I sought him, and thee," he continued thoughtfully, "thee have I found,--shall I ever discover him, whom perhaps--and supposing I did find him," said Gabriel after a long silence, inwardly communing, and rather as addressing himself, "would the voice of nature, as silly men declare, conquer? Full of infinite love should I fling myself into my father's arms, or should I be possessed with an unspeakable hatred against the faithless traitor, who was perhaps wantoning in luxury, when his child, loaded with insult and scorn, was cast out from the threshold of that house that he had for twenty years called home! If he proves such a man, if he has forgotten me, if he has never been mindful of the unhappy one whom to his everlasting misery he tossed out into the wide desolate world; if he proves like the mother, who even on her death-bed betrayed her child, if he should prove such, and I do find him, Blume: I shall gloriously conclude my wretched existence with a parricide."

Blume shuddered. Gabriel threw himself into a chair and hid his face with both hands.

"But if it is not so, supposing it otherwise," he began again after a long pause, in the course of which the foaming billows of his wrath had sunk, "if the apparition in my youth was a truth and no deception, if his tears did indeed once bedew the face of his child, if my father has been pining in infinite sorrow for his long lost son, if his heart has been sighing after me with the same strange emotion as sometimes in hours of quiet rises convulsively in the depths of my soul, if racked by repentance and the stings of conscience he has been seeking me mad with grief.... if I should find him thus, though he were the meanest on earth, the wretchedest beggar to whom one flings a morsel of bread--and stood before me in that condition--Blume! I have often declared, and now repeat, by my troth, and knightly honour! I should fold him lovingly in my arms.... and though it were the last moment of my life, my last breath--my last, yea dying breath should be a loud Hallelujah."

Gabriel stopped suddenly, Blume too had for some time been listening. Out of the bushes in a distant corner of the graveyard, on the gusts of a favouring wind, sounds of lamentation came born to the ears of both of them. Each for a time had accepted what was heard as a deception to be accounted for by the fearful excitement of the moment; but the sounds, at first dying away with a hollow echo, came nearer:

"My Son, my Son;" it rung now clearer and clearer in their ears, "my much loved only child--where art thou? Come to me, thou dear one.... thou wert born in sin, but I love thee in spite of all! for in truth you are my only son! Where can I find thee? could I find thee in heaven, I would seek thee there; could I find thee far over the sea, I would seek thee there.--Where art thou, thou that wert conceived in sin, thou that art so near to my heart? approach me and let us crave mercy at my father's grave, perhaps God will have compassion on me, will pardon me!... Oh! if my son but lives and I may see him again: then, then would I die!..."

The clock on a neighbouring tower tolled midnight, a wind sprung up, and sighed over the wide desolate space of the graveyard.... the clang of the clock, the rustling of the wind drowned the words which again died away in the distance. Gabriel had become deadly pale. He stepped to the window, and gazed for a long while down: but saw nothing. "It was an illusion," he said softly, quickly recovering himself by a wonderful mental effort--"my sharp glance detects nothing in the wide, and snow-covered space--and the dead have no voice."

Blume shivered, she did not dare announce that she too had heard the ghostly cry from the graveyard. Gabriel stared fixedly before him, sunk in gloomy brooding. Blume tried to read his soul. She had never seen him since that fateful day of the feast of atonement. He, who had once loved her, who had once clung with the perfect fresh strength of youth to his faith, to humanity, to his people, to justice, had become a changed man. Branded by holy scripture, which human wisdom can never quite interpret, betrayed by his mother whom he idolized, driven from her presence, cast forth from the society of his brethren--his soul was filled with hate. But even his hate she was unable to fathom. When he had entered, she feared that he would rob her of her child, that he would slay herself--that he would not do so, was now clear--but she dared not yet be tranquil, for he had declared that he hated her, that he would be revenged upon her. In pitiful sorrow she gazed motionless at his lips, at every movement of which her blood again ran cold: though his silence seemed to her yet more horrible. Once more one of those long and oft-recurring pauses had intervened, that seemed to Blume to last an eternity. Her unspeakable oppression was intensified by the profound impression caused by the singular incident that had just occurred, by astonishment at Gabriel who seemed by force of will to have soon banished it from his soul.

"Gabriel," implored Blume, "I pray thee, speak, break this weird silence, it is awful! say what thou wilt, go on with your story."

"Dost thou consider Blume! thy silence was once awful to me too.... once thou hadest no word of pity, no look of compassion for a poor innocent martyr, and I languished for a word of love.--Had my grandfather then still continued to live at Cologne perhaps.... I do not know, but perhaps he, he alone, would have taken me to his arms. But the fearful tidings, that branded his daughter, his grandson, gave his name a prey to the scornful, and blighted his dearest hopes, threw the old man on a bed of death. I arrived two days after his funeral at Cologne. Every one shunned me, my misfortune was known to all my brethren in the faith.

"I took possession, as heir, of my grandfather's immense property. I was no longer attached by any tie to this life, all that I had loved, I was constrained to hate, that which had once been true and holy to me, now seemed to me lying and false, I was the unhappiest man on earth! I broke with my whole past life, I would have none of it live on within me, except the remembrance of my unmerited humiliation, that fanned the hot flame of my revenge with undiminished fury.... I sought by some overt act to prove that I had become a changed man. In the cathedral at Aix-la-chapelle I abjured the old faith, and swore enmity in my heart against all those that clave to it.... As I came out of the church a crowd of people had assembled to gape at the new convert. I did not lift my eyes; but felt that the odious looks of all were fixed upon me. I hurried through the press, and sought to gain a side street that led to my dwelling. The crowd that accompanied me fell off one by one, and at last I heard the step of but one solitary person behind me, who followed me obstinately to the door of my house. I did not look round, but as I was about to step into the house, I felt myself seized by the cloak. 'What do you want?' I asked of the importunate fellow, a beggar in the dress of a poor Jew. 'Nothing,' replied he, with the wandering gaze of madness, 'nothing, except to tell you, that you have done wrong.... Thou hast forsaken thy Father in heaven.... and a good child seeks his father, even though he has prepared sorrow for him.... There is no greater grief than when father and son seek and cannot find one another!...' The maniac ran quickly away: but his words, burnt into my soul like kindled sparks.--I did not know my father! my mother had died without naming his name.--The high reputation for virtue which she had enjoyed during her lifetime, had not permitted the faintest doubt to rest upon her, and even if I had ventured to induce my brethren to make any revelations, my inquiries would have been vain. I had as yet been too stunned to think of my unknown father; but now, with the wild thirst for vengeance on you all, was associated a feeling, so singular, so wonderful, that I can never describe it. At one moment I was inflamed with unutterable hate against the unknown author of my days, at another I felt myself more mildly disposed, and a profound longing took possession of my torn heart. At one moment I believed myself convinced that he had forgotten me, and revelled with undisturbed and cheerful mind in earthly happiness, while his son succumbed before a woeful affliction; at another I hoped that he, who had never betrayed me, who had never for years enforced his paternal authority, had omitted to do so by reason of his inextinguishable love for me. A tormenting, frequently rapid succession of emotions took powerful hold on my heart; but from that moment a desire was born within me to find my father, were it to demand fearful reckoning of him, or were it to fall reconciled into his fatherly arms!