At the end of that semester he was seized with a passion for work and
decided to stay in Berlin the following summer vacation and devote all
his time to the execution of his literary plans. His head was full of
literary schemes. He again applied himself to another revision of his
poetic drama; dashed off a tragedy; penned more _Lieder_; and also
sketched a weird romance with Venice as a background. He had just read
Hoffmann’s “Die Elixiere des Teufels”, and was so influenced by its
mystic charm that he was revolving in his brain the plot of a tale with
witches and spirits. He meant to take the world by storm and attack it
from many angles.
But the fates always interfered with him, not only in his plans, the
affairs of the heart but also in his literary pursuits. One day an
admirer sought his acquaintance and became a worshipping friend. And he
was a friend worth having. He was the sort of person Albert needed. He
was a nobleman from Posen, a count with a genuine love for poetry;
sympathetic, generous, young, handsome and entertained liberal religious
views, though a Catholic by birth. Besides, he was an accomplished
musician and had composed music for a few of Albert’s songs. Eager for
recognition, chafing from the public’s neglect, the count’s praise was
an infusion of new courage. And the more the count praised his verses,
the higher he rose in the author’s estimation. The count had become the
“worthiest of mortals”, “a flower of purity”, the “embodiment of all
that was good and noble”.
Albert talked of the count to his friends, to his acquaintances, to
strangers, and could not even resist the temptation of utilizing the
count’s given name in his verses. Impetuous, influenced to love and hate
at first sight, the count had won him completely. And what was even more
precious in this nobleman, he possessed originality and wit—rare
faculties among Albert’s ponderous Berlin friends. So when the count
invited him to his estate near Gnesen, Albert forgot his resolutions for
an industrious summer and accompanied him to Posen.
He found his surroundings there a veritable poet’s dream. A palatial
villa surrounded by extensive woods, luxuriant gardens, hundreds of
acres of fertile fields, with a great forest back of the estate, a water
mill, and all that the heart could crave. Nor were coquettish maidens
wanting.
One day he met with a real adventure. He was alone, wandering through
the narrow filthy streets of Gnesen, the town close by. The little town
presented a strange sight to him. It looked medieval. Unpaved, without
sidewalks, pulverized mud in the streets, the houses of heavy logs,
unpainted, and straw-thatched and black with age, with grotesque looking
people in the doorways or seated on earthen stoops extending across the
whole front of the house. The peasants wore the national costume of
unbleached linen coats without sleeves, with a colored girdle fastened
around the waist, and trousers tucked in top-boots.
It was near sunset, the sun was sinking in a mist of gold and indigo and
lustrous copper, the cows were returning from pasture through the main
street to the resounding pistol-like echoes of the shepherd’s long whip
and to his exasperating shouts of “Whoa!”
Albert strolled along aimlessly, listening to the unintelligible jabber
of the people around him, only now and then catching a word of their
jargon.
He soon reached the market-place. It was deserted. Now and then a door
opened, and a bar of a raucous song was heard. Then silence. A drunken
peasant, lying on his back in the dust near a dram shop, was hiccoughing
a love song, but soon his voice was hushed, too. Silence again. The last
rays of the dying sun rested like a halo around the head of the Christ
upon the tall black crucifix in the centre of the market place. Albert
was about to turn in the direction of his host’s villa when his
attention was arrested by a girl, who emerged from a narrow passageway
that branched off the market place. In her hand was a large jug and she
was on her way to the Marktbrunnen. He recalled a scene in Mesopotamia,
in the city of Nahor. The scene appeared to him as if he had actually
seen it in his childhood. It was distant but vivid. He visualized all
Biblical scenes. This damsel too, was “very fair to look upon, and she
went down to the well.” But it was harder to draw the water here than in
Mesopotamia of old. The well was very deep and the frame above the
ground was of round logs, which were mossy and wet and dripping, and
there were puddles of water between the stones around the well. At a
straight line from the centre of the well a perpendicular heavy pole was
suspended from a long beam high above, and to the bottom of the
suspended pole was attached an iron-hooped pail, which one was obliged
to lower into the deep well, plunge it into the black looking water, and
then with the aid of the balancing beam, bring up the pail.
Albert approached the well as the girl had gripped the pole and began to
lower it while the beam above was creaking resistance. He remained
standing across the well, looking straight at this Rebekah, but she
seemed unconscious of his presence.
“May I help you?”
A scarcely perceptible frown on her dark face was the only response and
the grip on the pole tightened. In Gnesen young men offered no
assistance to girls at the well. A deep gurgle from the depths, a
frog-like grunt, and soon the pail was balanced on the top log of the
well. As she filled her jug and turned to leave her eyes never betrayed
the least knowledge that a young man was eagerly watching every move and
gesture of hers; only the brown of her cheeks seemed of a deeper warmth
and her gait lacked the ease which had marked her steps on her way to
the well.
Following at a respectable distance he soon found himself in an uneven,
unpaved, open space, to the right of which was an edifice of
unmistakable character—the simplicity of structure, the indefinable
gloom hovering over it, the long arched windows, told him that this was
a house of prayer—and to the left was a row of dingy houses, with high
stoops.
The girl cut diagonally across the large courtyard, mounted a high
wooden porch, and when she entered the house closed the door with a slam
that resounded throughout the square. Albert stood and looked at the two
windows for a while. No face appeared at either of them.
He took a step nearer the house which the girl had entered. It was a
humble hut, a one-story affair painted by Mother Nature in drab colors
with streaks of black rot and dabs of yellow, where the decay was dry
and worm-eaten and crumbling powder.
That evening the gay assemblage at the count’s lost interest for Albert.
His friend teased him about his sudden fit of melancholy and made
guesses as to whose darted arrows had pierced the poet’s heart. The
count was certain it was the flaxen haired Katinka to whom Albert had
read his verses earlier in the day; and he rather liked his guest’s
sudden fit of melancholy. Since he had a lion under his roof he wanted
him to roar.
The next day Albert was again at the _Marktbrunnen_ but he saw only
shambling men and slovenly women come to draw water. He could think of
no means of reaching the object of his search. His brain was very active
but he had no mind for scheming; neither in real life nor in literary
plots. He could only add color to reality, invent he could not.
In his present restlessness he turned to literature. He was planning a
descriptive essay on Poland and discussed with his host the status of
the peasantry. When he touched upon the condition of the Polish Jews,
the count said, “The Jews of Gnesen count me as their best friend.”
He spoke rather tenderly, almost affectionately, of “his Jews”.
“You might follow in the footsteps of Casimir the Great and take a
Jewish Esther for your wife,” jested Albert.
“The Jewish Esther of Gnesen would spurn a Casimir the Great,” laughed
the Count. “I have carried on flirtations with many a Jewish innkeeper’s
daughter but Miriam is adamant.”
“Who is Miriam?”
“The rabbi’s daughter. She is the prettiest and sweetest girl I have
ever laid my eyes on.”
After a space he added, “By the way, I always pay my respects to the
rabbi when I come here in the summer and I should like you to meet him.
We have quite a time in understanding each other. He speaks almost no
Polish and my German is beyond him, so Miriam often acts as our
interpreter.”
A few days later the count’s carriage stopped before a dilapidated
little house near the synagogue. Albert was with the count and his heart
beat tumultuously as he recognized the high wooden porch. They were soon
knocking at the door.
People in Gnesen did not usually knock on people’s doors. They just
opened them and walked in.
They knocked again and again without response until the beadle, who
happened to pass by, saw the dignitary at the rabbi’s door and hurried
to the rear of the house, pushed the door open unceremoniously, and
burst out, “Miriam, _der Graf_!”
Miriam was bent over a copper pot which she was polishing.
Miriam dropped the pot and, rushing up to her father, exclaimed, “_Der
Graf!_”
The rabbi, with a velvet skull-cap on his head, deep creases in his
high, broad forehead, was swaying his body and pondering over some
knotty problem in the Talmud.
“_Der Graf?_” he asked as if suddenly awakened from a profound sleep.
“Quick, fetch me my Sabbath coat.”
The next moment the rabbi, arrayed in his long silk Sabbath caftan, with
a large round fur cap on his head, stood at the open door, courtesying
and welcoming the _Graf_. And while the rigid laws of the Polish Jewry
forbade such familiarity between the opposite sexes Miriam clasped the
count’s extended hand and also shook hands with his companion. Albert
looked fixedly at Miriam but beyond a pretty blush could detect no
recognition of their former meeting.
In introducing his friend, the count mentioned the fact that Albert was
a poet, but that made no impression upon the rabbi. The rabbi considered
it a sin to waste ink and paper on anything save a Biblical or Talmudic
treatise or upon songs glorifying the Almighty.
Miriam soon withdrew to the adjoining room, but the door between the
rooms was open and Albert stole glances into the next chamber. She was
paying no attention to his glances. Her eyes were downcast, though her
face was turned toward him. Only once, when Albert used a Hebrew word in
addressing her father, did she raise her eyes inquiringly and then
dropped them quickly as if she were displeased at something.
Albert expected a sign of cordiality when he informed the rabbi that
they were of the same race but instead he felt increased coldness—the
hospitality was now only extended to the _Graf_.
When they rose to leave Miriam stepped into the room and bade them
goodbye. Albert wondered if she understood that the second meeting was
not wholly accidental. He was determined that she should understand
this.