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 Suess--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
Suess. 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 Suess, 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 Suess 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 Suess 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 Suess
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 Suess 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...."