love is soft and tender, and I--am a hard man." He laughed again, and
then added gravely and almost tenderly: "Look here--I will avoid seeing
Rachel. The memory of her is the only pleasurable one of my boyhood, and
shall I do well to destroy it by going to see her? for doubtless she is
now a shy and dirty girl who would address me in Jewish-German."
He opened the carriage-window and stared out into the dark night for
many minutes.
* * * * *
We arrived at Barnow at the end of July. "Black Aaron's" coming awakened
great excitement, and it was both ludicrous and sad to see the way in
which the orthodox Jews received him. He, "black Aaron," Aaron
Leiblinger, son of Chane Leiblinger, who used to live in the cottage by
the river, actually dared to wear "Christian" clothes, to eat
"Christian" food, to smoke on the Sabbath; and had even gone so far as
to study! Deadly sins all of these in the eyes of the orthodox,--sins
that should meet with condign punishment! No one spoke to him, and any
one he addressed turned away from him in scorn. The little boys ran
after him in the street, shouting, _Meschumed!_ (apostate). The young
man laughed at the children, and repaid the scorn of their elders in the
same coin. We did not often put ourselves in the way of these people,
however, but used to make long expeditions into the country, and visited
the Christian officials of the town. We were heartily welcomed by the
latter. Herr Thaddaeus Wiliszewski was kind enough to read his poems to
us, and the sallow daughters of the Steueramts-Vorsteher[4] allowed us
to flirt with them a little. Adolf was outwardly full of laughter and
fun, and I alone guessed how bitterly he felt the reception he had met
with from his own people. He kept true to his determination not to see
Rachel.
[Footnote 4: Head of the office for the assessment of taxes.]
One day--it was on a fearfully hot Sunday afternoon in August, the
second we had spent in the little town--the tempter came to him at last,
or rather, came to me in the first instance. I was alone at home that
afternoon, when the door opened, and a little manikin, with a very red
nose and very thin legs, trotted into the room. It was Herr Isaak
Tuerkischgelb, the "Marschallik" of Barnow, which, being interpreted,
means the merrymaker, or marshal of weddings at Barnow. A dignitary of
this kind, besides a thousand other duties, is intrusted with that of
inviting the guests to a marriage. It was in this capacity that he
honored me with a visit. He had been sent by Frau Sprinze Klein to
invite Adolf and me to the wedding-party, to be given on the following
Tuesday in honor of the marriage of her daughter, Jutta Klein, to Herr
Isidor Spitz (_vulgo_, "Red Itzigel").
"Thank you," I said. "But shall we see any pretty girls there? Is
Esterka Regina to be one of the guests?"
"Who?" asked the little man in amazement, putting his hand up to his ear
and bending forward the better to hear my answer.
"Well, I mean Rachel Welt, the fat butcher's daughter."
"Do you ask if she is to be there?" cried the Marschallik, pathetically.
"Is it reasonable to suppose that any one would invite all the ugly
girls in Barnow and leave out the most beautiful? Take my word for it,
young sir, Sprinze Klein and I know how to act on such occasions; and it
is an acknowledged thing that when you invite young men to a party, you
ought to have some pretty girls to meet them. Besides that, we know that
we needn't deck out a room with flowers when Rachel is there, for she is
the loveliest flower I ever saw; and that's as true as that God blesses
my undertakings!
"The loveliest flower," he repeated; "and so you will come, won't
you?--you and your friend Aaronleben--pardon me for calling him that;
for how can I call him Adolf, when I often had him in my arms when he
was a little child, and his mother, Chane, was my own sister's daughter?
You'll come now, and prevent the people in Barnow saying of the old
Marschallik--'He's only fit to invite common Jews, the uneducated folk
of the town; he's no good at all where young gentlemen are concerned!'"
I could not help laughing. "All right," I said, "make your mind easy as
regards me. But whether Adolf will go or not is a different question; I
don't think he will. However, you'd better come back to-morrow and hear
what he says."
The little man once more raised his hands in the air, bowing low at the
same time; after which, he trotted out of the room with a broad smile
upon his face.
I was convinced that I should have to go alone. And, indeed, when I told
Adolf of the invitation, he answered testily: "Say no more. I'll follow
you to hell if you like, but not to these people!"
"What a pity!" I said. "It would have been such a good opportunity for
you to have made an interesting study of the character of--our hostess,
Frau Sprinze Klein. You don't know her. She was born at Brzezan, and is
now a very rich widow. She keeps a haberdasher's shop."
"Very interesting," he replied, scornfully.
"More so than you imagine. A very grave psychological process is going
on in that woman. She is struggling with all her might to free herself
from the oppressive bonds of orthodoxy, and to gain a more enlarged view
of life; but it must be confessed that her efforts to attain this end
are very comical, to say the least of it. Frau Klein lives like every
other Jewess. She does not venture to wear her own hair, and can not
bring herself to disobey the Levitical laws regarding food in the
smallest particular. But as she once spent six months in Lemberg when
she was a girl, she has a sort of Platonic love for 'culture' and
'enlightenment.' She begins nearly every sentence with, 'When I was in
Lemberg.' She shows her Platonic love of enlightenment in strange ways.
For instance, she delights in speaking High-German, and whenever she
manages to pick up a foreign word, she continually drags it into her
conversation by hook or by crook for the next week. You may easily
imagine how the unfortunate foreign word suffers at her hands; or
rather, I should say, you can't imagine it, for it far exceeds the
bounds of the wildest imagination. Here is another example: Frau Sprinze
can't read a word of German, and yet she bought three second-hand books
at a sale--these are, Schiller's 'Robbers,' a story by Caroline Pichler,
and a volume of 'Casanova.' She is in the habit of keeping one of these
books lying open before her on the counter, and whenever she thinks that
any one is looking at her, she stares at the mysterious characters
printed on the page as attentively as though she understood what they
meant. If any pious Jew tells her that reading a German book is a deadly
sin, she invariably answers: 'When I was in Lemberg, I noticed that the
daughters of the chief rabbi were in the habit of reading German books.'
At the same she secretly comforts herself by the thought: 'If reading
these books is really a sin, I am innocent of committing it....' As a
last example of her large-mindedness, we have the invitation to her
daughter's marriage-feast. You must know that she has arranged that the
dancing at her party shall not be conducted after the 'Jewish
fashion'--the men with men and the women with women--but after that of
the Christians, which allows men and women to dance with each other. We
probably owe the heartiness of our invitation to the fact that very few
of the young men who are to be there know how to dance properly."
"How flattering!"
"Pooh! What does that matter? It'll be capital fun, I expect! Even if
they only have slow country-dances, I think that the chance of having
such a pretty girl as Esterka Regina as a partner would make up for
anything. Don't you?"
"No, I don't," answered Adolf, shortly.
But he looked thoughtful when he heard her name, and next day when the
Marschallik came to invite him to Frau Klein's party, he at once
consented to go, very much to my surprise and to that of the old man.
... On the following Tuesday evening he went to the rich widow's house,
which we found grandly decorated for the evening's entertainment. The
marriage ceremony had been performed, so that every one was waiting for
the dancing to begin. Our hostess met us at the ball-room door and
received us more than graciously. She wore a dress of heavy yellow silk,
and above that a pale-green velvet mantle; and the well-assorted
jeweler's shop (for that is the only way to describe it) that she had
hung about her, rattled with every movement she made.
"You will find everything arranged as it is done at Lemberg," she said
to us, with a beaming smile; "for when I was at Lemberg, I learned the
proper way to do _les horreurs_ as hostess!"
We went into the dancing-room. The men did not look enchanted to see us,
but the girls seemed to witness our arrival with more satisfaction. We
at once set to work to fulfill the duty for which we had come, and
danced diligently.
Soon afterward, an old man came into the room accompanied by a young
girl. It was Hirsch Welt and his daughter. It was the first time that we
had seen her since our return, and, as though with one breath, we
ejaculated, "How very beautiful she is!" But I will not even now attempt
to describe her.
"Does seeing the girl really destroy the pleasurable memories of your
boyhood?" I asked Adolf, with a smile.
But he did not answer. For one moment he turned very pale. Immediately
recovering himself, he went up to her and asked her to dance with him.
She also turned pale, looked at him with a startled expression, and
answered in a low voice--"No!"
His cheek flushed. "You--you don't dance?"
"I do dance," she replied slowly, and still with the same look in her
face, "but not with you."
He forced himself to smile, but with a great effort. "And what have I
done to deserve such a punishment?"
"You hate us all, and make game of us--of us, our ways, and our
language. And what good does it do you, after all, to act thus? It does
not make you the less a Jew."
His face darkened. "Oh, if you only knew," he began hastily, but stopped
himself there. After a short pause, he continued, with a smile: "You are
mistaken. The people of Barnow have done me no wrong, nor I them. How
could it be otherwise? I was born and brought up here among them."
"Oh, I know," she said, quickly; "you used to live in the garret-room in
our house, you and your old mother; peace be with her!..."
His face lighted up with pleasure. "You remember those old days? I
should hardly have expected it--it's eleven years ago!"
"Yes, I remember it all distinctly. We used to be great friends, you and
I. And had you forgotten me?"
"Certainly not!" he said, emphatically.
Then they began to talk in a low voice, and I could hear no more of
their conversation. He was probably reminding Rachel of a number of
little incidents of their childhood, for a happy smile played upon her
lips every now and then.
Neither of them remembered what a strange thing it must have seemed to
every one present that they should have so much to say to each other in
private. People began to whisper, and I heard the Platonic lover of
progress say to one of her gossips, 'I saw many curious things when I
was in Lemberg; but I never knew before that any girl who was engaged to
be married would venture to talk so long to a stranger--I really never
did!'
But at this moment they separated.
"I am so glad that you haven't forgotten old times," said the girl
aloud; "it's a sign that you aren't wicked, though many people say that
you are.... But now--I must say good-by."
And in another moment she was gone. He gazed after her retreating figure
as though in a dream.
I went up to him.
"You've given the unfortunate bridegroom rather a bad half hour," I
said, laughingly.
"What!" he asked, quickly, "is she engaged?"
"I heard some one say so just now."
"To whom?"
"I don't know. Didn't she tell you about it?"
"No," he answered, and then begged me to go home--he had had enough of
the party.
That was their first meeting.
* * * * *
Two months later. The mild autumn sunshine was gilding the landscape,
and the heath was brightly tinted with deep russet hues. Adolf and I
were once more sitting opposite each other in the railway-carriage, but
this time we were going northward, and were leaving Barnow behind us.
Adolf's manner had been rather strange of late. He had sometimes been
unreasonably full of high spirits, and again absolutely silent, not a
word to be got out of him on any subject; sometimes confident, and again
sentimental. Any one could see that the poor fellow was over head and
ears in love, and therefore in a very unsettled frame of mind. I did not
know how matters stood between him and the girl he loved, and did not
care to ask; but I rejoiced in silence that the spring-time of joy had
at last come to the sad solitary heart of my old friend.
He was very gentle during the whole of that day, and did not give
utterance to a single sarcastic speech. His face looked softer and
brighter than I could have imagined it possible for those sharply-cut
features to look.
At last he addressed me suddenly.
"I've got something to tell you that you'll be glad to hear."
"Go on."
But he grew silent again. After a long pause he burst out all at once:
"I love her; she loves me. I can not bear to keep it to myself any
longer, so I will tell you how it all happened...."
I shook him warmly by the hand, and then he went on:
"You remember that marriage. I am not a poet, nor do I find it easy to
put my impressions into words, therefore I simply can not tell you what
effect seeing that girl had upon me, for it was unspeakable,
indescribable. Still, although her dear face was continually before me
in imagination, I could not make up my mind to visit her in her father's
house, for that house was haunted by the ghosts of my miserable
childhood--ghosts I dared not waken without pressing necessity. Besides
that, Hirsch Welt is one of the most narrow-minded of the pious sect in
the community, and I felt no desire to receive any more proofs of the
affection of that lot than I have already had.
"So I left our next meeting to be brought about by chance; and, as
chance would have it, I met Rachel again before another week had passed.
It was in a curious place--the very last that I should have thought of.
"You know the old ruined castle on the left bank of the Lered; you know
it better than I do. I never had any liking for the place, for a love of
romantic scenery has no part in my composition; but somehow or other I
was that day impelled to climb the hillock on which the ruins lie, after
having wandered aimlessly about the heath for hours. I felt--laugh at me
if you like--that I must go to the top of some eminence and get a good
view of the country round.
"Well, as I said before, I climbed the little hill, and there I found
Rachel sitting on a stone in the ruined court, right under the great red
wooden cross, the presence of which makes the Jews so averse to visiting
the place. She was sewing diligently, and a book was lying on the grass
at her side.
"On hearing the sound of my footsteps, she looked up, and returned my
greeting quietly.
"'Here you are at last,' she said.
"I stared at her in astonishment. 'Did you know that I was coming? I
only came up here by chance.'
"'No one told me that you were coming,' she answered, blushing deeply as
she spoke, 'but I was quite sure that you would come. Yes; I brought
that book to show you.' She put it in my hand. 'Do you remember it?'
"I remembered it well. A strange feeling came over me as I gazed at the
dog's-eared discolored pages. It was a prayer-book, written in
Jewish-German for the use of women, and was one of the few things that I
had inherited from my mother. In spite of all my hardness, I was
profoundly moved--I scarcely knew why.
"My eyes were dim, and I returned the book in silence.
"'You gave it to me,' she said, 'when you went away out into the wide
world to seek your fortune on that beautiful summer morning long ago. We
cried a great deal when you left us, fair-haired Chaim and I. It is to
him that I am engaged, you know....'
"'To him!' I repeated, as calmly as I could. 'You said nothing about
your engagement the other evening.'
"'Because we were talking of other things,' she answered; and then
added, 'Nor did you tell me about the girl that you're engaged to, and
yet they say that she is very beautiful and grand.'
"I could not help laughing. 'No, Fraeulein[5] Rachel,' I said, 'I'm not
engaged.'
[Footnote 5: I have made use of the word "Fraeulein" in order to avoid
the discussion as to "thou" and "you."--_Translator's note._]
"She looked at me questioningly. 'Aren't you? It's another lie, then.
Our people say that you're engaged to a very rich and beautiful
Christian girl; but,' she continued, speaking quickly and eagerly, 'it's
your own fault that they tell so many false and wicked tales about you.
You are proud and reserved to all our people, and turn us into ridicule
whenever you can. That was the reason why I was so angry with you when I
first saw you at the marriage. I soon saw that you weren't wicked, and
told you so; but you're proud--even to me.'
"I would have spoken, but she interrupted me.
"'You are; you needn't say no, for it's quite true. Why do you address
me so stiffly, and not as you used to do?'
"'Because little Rachel is now a grown-up young lady--'
"'There you are--sarcastic again,' she interrupted, passionately. 'I'm
not a young lady--I am only a Jewish girl; so let me beg of you to call
me simply by my name, as an old friend should do.'
"'Willingly,' I replied; 'but you must do the same by me.'
"'No,' she said, blushing, but with great decision; 'that wouldn't do at
all. You are a learned man, and will soon be a doctor, while I--I am
only Rachel Welt. You must not ask that of me.'
"We talked," continued Adolf, "for a long time and about many
things--not only on that morning, but on many mornings for a number of
weeks. Rachel took her work to the ruined castle every day. 'It's so
airless down below,' she said; 'and here one can see the sunshine, and
the birds that are singing all around. I like plenty of light.' You know
how poverty, oppression, and sorrow have stifled almost all sense of the
picturesque in the Podolian Jews, but that simple girlish spirit is full
of it.
"I was quite as punctual as Rachel in arriving at our meeting-place.
Even if I wished, I couldn't tell you all the things we talked
about--the smallest matters were weighty enough to us to become the
theme of endless conversation. Neither of us knew what it was that drew
us to meet so often. It was a happy time we spent together, ignorant of
the cause of our joy; perhaps, when I look back at it, it seems almost
the brightest part of those bright days...."
Adolf paused abruptly, and again that look of softened happiness that I
had before remarked passed over his face.
"You are right," I said; "the happiest time of first love is when
neither of the lovers has as yet awakened to the cause that makes the
most wonderful event seem simple, and the simplest a wonder. It is
generally to some external influence that the lovers owe the discovery
of how deep this feeling has grown."
Adolf laughed. "You speak like a book," he answered. "But--you're right
all the same. The 'external influence,' as you call it, was not wanting
in our case."
Then he continued:
"One morning I went to the ruins as usual, but she did not come. Hour
after hour I paced the courtyard impatiently, every now and then going
to look down the pathway leading to the town. All in vain. Rachel did
not come. My disappointment opened my eyes to the fact that she had
grown very dear to me.
"She did not appear on the next day or the next. A week passed, and she
did not come. I was in despair.
"At last I found her seated in the old place one morning when I went to
the castle. I hastened to her and took her hand in mine. 'Thank God!
you've come back,' I cried, joyfully. 'Rachel, Rachel, you don't know
how anxious I have been about you.'
"She smiled sadly; her face was pale, and her eyelids reddened with
weeping. 'I could not come,' she said softly, 'I was ill.'
"'Ill!' I exclaimed. 'And I not with you! I had then good reason to be
anxious about you.'
"'It wasn't much,' she returned. 'And you came here often?'
"'Every day--and waited and waited!'
"'Thank you,' she said in a low voice, and held out her hand once more
to me.
"As we stood there silent, looking at each other and finding no word to
say, we all at once became clearly conscious of our love for each other.
We both trembled.
"'I must go,' she said at length, withdrawing her hand from mine. 'My
mother will be anxious--good-by.'
"'Till to-morrow,' I answered. 'You will come?'
"'I will come,' she said in a low voice....
"I had not long to wait for her on the following day: she was very
punctual.
"I went to meet her shyly, and rather ill at ease,--not joyously, as on
the previous day.
"She was still very pale, and showed her weakness by the tremulousness
of her walk.
"'You are worse than you'd have me believe,' I said.
"'No,' she replied, 'I am not ill, and'--she hesitated, and then resumed
in a firmer voice--'I haven't been ill. I lied to you yesterday.'
"I stared at her in amazement.
"'Yes,' she repeated, 'I lied, because I had not courage to tell the
truth. I am pale, and my eyes are red, because I wept so much, and was
so miserable during the last week. I've a great deal to say to you, and
entreat of you to listen to me quietly.'
"We seated ourselves on the great stone at the foot of the red cross.
"'I don't know,' she began in a clear firm voice, 'who told my parents
that I was in the habit of meeting you here every day, and it doesn't
much matter who it was. I should have been certain to have told them
myself some time, for I saw no harm in what I had done. But one day
lately, when I went home, my father received me with vehement
reproaches, and with words ... with words.... I will not repeat them,
for they were very cruel and unjust. He said that I had forgotten my
honor and my duty; he reminded me of the man to whom I am betrothed, and
besought me to beware of you, for you were an unbeliever, and would
tempt me to evil. His anger did not frighten me, but that did; for
something all at once seemed to tell me why I had gone so regularly to
the ruins, and why your words and looks made me so happy. Now--I know
the truth. And when my father entreated me not to shame him, and to
swear a holy oath that I would neither see nor speak to you again, I
could not do it. If God and all the angels in heaven had commanded me to
take that oath, I couldn't have done it--it would have seemed
desecration. I bore my father's anger and my mother's tears, because I
knew that I ... that I loved you....'
"I would have spoken, but she raised her hand to stay me, and continued:
"'When I first knew the truth I was filled with horror--I could not
understand myself; and yet in spite of all that I felt happy. I saw the
grief and despair that my conduct brought upon my parents, but, even to
please them, I could not remain engaged to Chaim. The world still
believes that I am, but I really belong to you. That is the reason why I
could not help coming to see you yesterday in secret. Then I saw both in
your words and looks that you loved me as really as I loved you. And now
I ask you what is to be done? what is to be the end of all this?'
"I did not hear the sadness of every tone of her voice, because I would
not hear it--my heart was so full of joy unspeakable.
"'Child,' I cried, 'you love me; then all is well!'
"But she only looked at me gravely and sadly, and after a short pause
went on:
"'No--all is lost!... You feel happy, and so do I; but while you're
contented with that, I look to the future. And there is no comfort, no
light to be found there for me. I can not be your wife--the life I have
hitherto led has unfitted me for that. I have had no education, no
teaching. God knows that I am nothing, know nothing, and can do nothing.
Woe is me, I can not even speak 'German.' What should you, who are going
to be a doctor, do with a wife who is utterly ignorant of the life you
lead and its ways? Oh, I fear your world with a deadly fear. Were I to
marry you and then bring you to shame before others, because of my
ignorance and mistakes, you would say in your heart that your love for
me had been your bane....'
"'Rachel,' I cried, 'don't say that; you only make both yourself and me
miserable by giving way to such idle fears.'
"'I am only saying what is true,' she answered, with trembling lips.
'And then--can I buy my own happiness at the expense of my parents'
sorrow?--as our people would regard it--shame? Were I to do so they
would die of grief. Often in my misery I felt that I must entreat you to
go away--at once. To forget me--would not bring happiness, but safety.'
"'And do you really think that I could forget you?' I asked, gravely.
'Could you forget me?'