flight over my soul, all seemed to me a confused dream! I fought a hard
fight with myself; chance had led me to a powerful grateful friend,
could I venture to narrate to him frankly and unconstrainedly my life's
history? Had I not reason to fear that the renowned hero, the General,
the Emperor's favourite would turn scornfully from me? from me, a
renegade Jew, an outcast of his brethren, a man branded from his birth?
Mannsfield remarked my hesitation. 'I will not urge you,' he continued
after a pause of surprise: 'perhaps a mystery hangs over your name--I
am sorry, but be you what or who you will you will ever remain dear to
me--a thought suddenly flashed across him. Perhaps you are a
Protestant? perhaps an adherent of the Union?' he exclaimed, 'ah how
little you know Mannsfield! By God Almighty--be you who you will--you
are prized by and dear to me.... Shall I speak to you in confidence? I
am at the bottom of my heart not averse to the Protestantism, which I
now do battle against under the standard of my glorious Imperial
master:--But I am rivetted to the illustrious House of Austria by a
bond of gratitude: I was brought up at the Court of my godfather the
Archduke Ernest; I have to thank my Imperial lord and master for all
that I am, and why should I conceal from you, my preserver, that for
which I have so often been compelled to blush, and what half Germany
knows.... I was not born in lawful wedlock, and I only owe it to the
especial favour and grace of the monarch, that he permits me to enjoy
the name and rank of my father, that he has legitimised me, that he has
pledged his Imperial word as soon as the war which we are now waging is
over, to invest me with all my father's possessions. Mannsfield's words
made a tremendous impression upon me. Blind chance had wonderfully
guided me. That the birth of this man, whom I had saved, who was
soliciting my friendship and love should have been first legitimised by
the absolute command of the Emperor, that I had saved him while my
heart was overflowing with hate, that he, the brave lion-hearted hero
who had staked his life thousands of times for his Emperor, his
colours, his glory, laid such stress upon it, all this had such a
decisive influence upon me, that I broke the deep silence, which I had
firmly intended to preserve, and revealed to Mannsfield my whole past
history. Mannsfield listened to me with the warmest infelt sympathy.
'You are alone in the world,' he said, after I had ended, in the
harmonious accents of his powerful voice, 'you have saved my life....
Your secret shall for ever be preserved in my breast--will you be my
brother?' Mannsfield gazed at me out of his deep dark eyes so
cordially, so lovingly. My heart beat as if it would burst. Mannsfield
despised me not, Mannsfield did not hold out to me only a poor common
oblation of compassion: no, he offered me all his great heart--could
I refuse the too-bountiful present? Tears, that rolled from my eyes,
were my only answer. We sealed the compact with a long fraternal
embrace.--Eight days afterwards I was entirely recovered, and was
presented to the assembled officers as a new companion in arms at a
banquet given in Mannsfield's honour. They had named me at my baptism
Gottfried. But God was no longer in my heart, peace was never in my
soul, I banished both from my name, and called myself Otto Bitter.
I took service in the Imperial army under that perfectly unknown
name.--The vast wealth that I had inherited from my grandfather
supplied the means of equipping at my own cost some troops of cavalry,
in return for which I was appointed to their command. Fortune, which
favoured my arms, in conjunction with Mannsfield's inexhaustible
affection for me, quickly promoted me from step to step and allowed me
to take conspicuous rank in the army under Arch-duke Leopold which was
detailed to operate against the Unionists in the Cleves-Juliers
district. The continuance of the war had fully occupied me, but spite
of the fact that my past history was to remain a mystery to every one
except Mannsfield, I had succeeded in obtaining tidings of thee and
thine. I was indeed far from you, but in spirit I stood ever near you,
I never lost sight of you for a moment--after a series of battles the
Protestant Union at length concluded a peace with the Emperor, in order
to oppose their whole force to the newly formed Catholic confederacy,
the League. I was free, I wished to hurry to Worms, to appear before
thee and thine, and settle accounts with you--but a new and unexpected
turn in the fortunes of my friend Mannsfield hindered me. Mannsfield
had confidently expected that the Emperor at the end of the campaign
would have invested him with the possessions of his deceased father who
had been Stadtholder in Luxembourg. The war of succession in Juliers
and Cleves was over; the complication in Alsace arranged: Mannsfield
had rendered the Emperor substantial services; he had shed his blood
upon the field of battle; he had squandered his rich maternal heritage
in warlike armaments, without demanding compensation for it: it was
only through Mannsfield's zeal, through his high military talents and
spirit of self-sacrifice that the Imperial General-in-chief the
Arch-duke Leopold had been enabled to make head successfully against a
superior force. Mannsfield now applied for the desired investment, but
was shamefully refused. His proud spirit could not brook the slight
which was inflicted on him, he retired from the Imperial service, and
devoted his zeal and victorious sword to the evangelical Union. It was
perfectly indifferent to me, for whom or what I fought.--A firm
indissoluble bond of friendship united me to Mannsfield, I could not
hesitate a moment, I ranged myself by Mannsfield's side. Victory was
tied to Mannsfield's standard. I was his truest and best companion in
arms, the fortune of war was favourable to me; loved by Mannsfield,
idolised by the troops I now became the first officer in his army.--In
the meanwhile a persecution of the Jews had broken out in Frankfurt
stirred up by Vettmilch, Gerngross and Schopp. The Jewish quarter was
plundered and wasted, the life of your brethren threatened. The rabble
at Worms wished to follow the example of Frankfurt and a pretext was
easily found. Your family, the Rottenbergs, had some, I do not doubt
well grounded claim, against a Frankfurt patrician; he died, and his
son who had been admitted to the rights and privileges of a citizen at
Worms found it most convenient to get rid of the obligation into which
his father had entered, first by disputing the demand as usurious, but
afterwards the receipt for the debt as forged. The honour, property,
safety of your family were all equally endangered. The workmen at
Worms, friendly to a hasty course as it was a question of using
violence against the Jews, looked upon the private suit as a public
concern and demanded from the Imperial Chamber at Spires the immediate
expulsion of all Jews from Worms. They were sent back and ordered to
follow the usual course of justice in reference to your affair. But the
Imperial judges were stern and just, and there was no doubt therefore,
that you would win your cause. The trades, irritated to the highest
degree by the failure of their plan, demanded that you should make a
sacrifice of your claim, and moreover in order to save the honour of
their fellow citizen should declare the proofs to be forged. You made
up your minds to lose the sum, which was a considerable one, but no one
could persuade you to make a false dishonourable confession. Vain was
the pressure of the workmen, vain the prayers of your brethren in
Worms, who were blind enough not to detect the clumsy artifice and
believed in their simplicity that the artisans of Worms would be
appeased by this declaration, and undertake no further hostilities
against the Jews. You remained firm and in the week before Easter the
wild storm broke loose. The magistrates, though with the best
intentions, too feeble to protect you, were obliged to look on
bewildered and inactive, while the Jews were expelled, their ancient
synagogues demolished their burial ground desecrated.--It was only
through the immense exertions of the Bishop, who only arrived in Worms
late in the evening of that hapless day, that the wild fury of the
populace was at length bridled. A general plunder was prevented, too
late however for you, against whom the popular hatred had first vented
itself. Your house was entirely demolished, you were plundered, your
father was roughly handled. You had only escaped a certain death by
speedy flight. Your father died from the effects of the fright and
ill-usage that he had experienced.--The Frankfurt rebels were subdued
by force of arms. An Imperial commissioner punished the guilty and the
Jews returned in triumph to the city. In Worms also the insurgents soon
surrendered to the Imperial troops, the Jews were recalled and
honourably re-instated in their ancient residences. But you never
returned. The community of Worms maintained that the calamity was
attributable to your obstinacy, that much worse might have happened,
that you should have sacrificed your honour and pride to the
common-weal. The community excluded you from the midst of them. Poor
and wretched, concealing your shame under an assumed name, you were
forced to seize the beggar's staff and start on a wide uncertain
wandering. The punishment was hard, but you had deserved it for your
behaviour to me!"
Blume had again silently listened to Gabriel without interrupting him.
It seemed to her almost as if he took pleasure in the pleasing broad
circumstantiality of the story as he told it. As if he took a pleasure
in embodying in living sounding words his whole past, that he must for
years have kept sealed in his heart. As he spoke of that time when he
was far from her, he seemed to become more calm. A mild conciliatory
spirit seemed to come over him, when he referred to Mannsfield and the
firm bond of friendship that united their hearts to one another. When
he spoke of the persecution of the innocent Jews in Frankfurt and Worms
it seemed to her as if love for his former brethren was not yet
altogether dead in him, as if a feeling of compassion still stirred in
the depths of his almost inscrutable soul. She already yielded to the
delusive hope that Gabriel was only come to forgive her and had only
wished to give her a fright by calling up the memory of the past. The
earnest warning was to serve only to annihilate her by the full weight
of his magnanimity;--but when he once more probed with rough hand her
bleeding wounds, when he once more spoke of punishment, thought of
retaliation, she again sunk down, covering her beautiful face with both
hands. Gabriel did not notice it. "From that moment I lost all trace of
you. I had joined fortune with my friend Mannsfield, and was hurried
from one end of Germany to the other. Everywhere I looked sharply out
for thee. If I came into the neighbourhood of a Jewish community, I
often exchanged armour and helm for cloak and cap, in order to obtain
admittance into it as a travelling student that I might search thee
out. When my disguise could not be kept secret from those about me, a
silly foolish love-affair with a Jewish girl served as an excuse for
it. My inquiries were in vain, but I doubted not, I was convinced that
I must some day find you.... We were just on the point of hurrying off
to the assistance of the Duke of Savoy, a member of the Union, when
suddenly the flame of war was kindled in Bohemia. The duke no longer
required reinforcement, it was a matter of indifference to Mannsfield
in what quarter he waged war on behalf of Protestantism against the
Emperor: we marched therefore at the request of the Bohemian states,
who took us into their pay, to Bohemia. Our arrival was immediately
illustrated by a victory, we took the strong and disaffected city of
Pilsen. The Emperor was exasperated to the highest pitch by the loss of
this loyal city, and Mannsfield and I his chief officer, were put under
the ban of the Empire. Meanwhile the Bohemians had elected the Palatine
Frederick their king. The selection was an unfortunate one. Frederick
appointed Anhalt and Hohenlohe commanders-in-chief of his army and
Mannsfield remained at Pilsen at a distance from head-quarters in order
to escape serving under both of them. We found ourselves badly off. Pay
and support, as well from the Union as from the Palatine, failed.
Mannsfield was obliged to keep the army on foot without money. To fill
up the measure of our misfortunes, that portion of the country in which
we were encamped was attached to the Imperial party and we were
surrounded by spies.--We were obliged to observe the greatest
watchfulness and every one, who afforded the slightest ground for
suspecting him of being a spy, was arrested and strictly examined. A
travelling Jew was once detained; it was known that the Jews of Prague
were zealous and faithful partisans of the imperial faction, it was not
impossible, that he was a spy. He was brought before me, I recognised
him immediately. He had formerly been with me for some time at the high
school at Frankfurt, I had seen him too several times at Worms. My
altered situation made me quite irrecognisable. To his astonishment I
asked him if he knew anything of your whereabouts, and he reluctantly
confessed to me that he had caught a glimpse of the long lost woman in
Prague, but that you had timidly shunned any meeting. The poor student
had not had the remotest intention of acting as a spy and only wished
to travel to Fuerth. I dismissed him, unenlightened, but with a
munificent present. It had been suggested long before that I should
undertake a journey to Prague in order to petition the king for the
arrears of pay, and to talk over a common plan of campaign with Anhalt.
I had hitherto put off the troublesome business, but when I learnt that
you were at Prague, I declared myself at once ready for the journey. I
arrived here and after three days of ineffectual exertion with king and
council, I resolved to stay here till I had discovered you.... I had
taken up my quarters in the house of an armourer who had once served as
sergeant-major in my regiment.--He had become incapable of further
service, and had joined the great swarm of foreigners who had come to
Prague with the Palatine. He had always been devoted to me and I could
reckon upon his fidelity and secrecy..... I once more pretended a
love-affair, when I exchanged the dress of a General for that of a
student. I went into the Jews-town and assumed the family name of Mar.
By a fortunate coincidence I found a lodging in the house of the
upper-attendant of the synagogue, Reb Schlome Sachs. Situated outside
of the gate of the Ghetto it was peculiarly adapted for the double
purpose of my residence here. Immediately on my entrance into the
Ghetto too I had, in a really inexplicable way, found favour in the
eyes of a usually reserved and maniacal old man, and I felt myself,
without being able to give a reason for it, stirred by an unwonted
feeling of sympathy for him--perhaps, as I was afterwards obliged to
admit, on the ground that his strange madness reminded me of the
misfortune of my own life. I was a stranger in the Jewish community of
Prague: you lived here quiet and retired under an assumed foreign name.
Every enquiry among your co-religionists gave occasion for a well
founded suspicion against me, rendered a discovery of my true relation
to them possible. It was therefore only through the intermediation of
the lunatic that I could hope to discover you: but when I sought him
for the second time in his dwelling, I found it shut up, and since the
day of my arrival I have never been able to obtain a sight of him. But
as I knew that he communicated with nobody, I could at least allege my
acquaintance with him, which was concluded in open street, as an excuse
for my frequent absence from home, and my landlord Reb Schlome Sachs
often believed me to be sympathetically seated by the madman while I
was engaged in negotiating with the king and field-marshal about pay in
arrear, or campaigns that had miscarried. I ranged through the streets
of the Jews-town assiduously, but never saw you. I was almost in
despair of finding you here, when a lucky chance led you yesterday to
meet me at the threshold of the bathhouse, exactly _yesterday_, when by
a concurrence of events I became master of your destiny. Yesterday,
after a martyrdom of ten years, I found thee; today I stand before
thee...."
Blume had again been listening to Gabriel without uttering a word. He
had again, either in self-forgetfulness or mastering his unbridled
passion by an astonishing exercise of mental strength been addressing
her in the accents of former years. Blume gave way as before to a
consoling hope, but Gabriel's last words dispelled all her illusions.
"What do you want of me?" she cried again, lifting herself up and
bending involuntarily over the cradle of her child. "What do you want
of me? Speak it out, Gabriel! and torture me not to death with
protracted anguish...."
"Thou askest what I want?" shouted Gabriel with flashing glance, and
his voice sounded like the growling of a thunderstorm: "what I want?
_thee!_ thou wert mine, Blume! from thy birth up thou wert destined for
me, the covenant which our parents had concluded for us, we confirmed
by the bond of love--_thou_ hast loosened the beautiful bond of love,
and now Hate binds me to thee! If it is no longer the heaving of thy
voluptuous bosom, if it is no longer the waving of thy dark luxurious
tresses, if it is no more the flashing of those beautiful love-kindling
eyes, or those rosy budding lips which rapturously attract me to
thee.... Why then it is the sweet stupifying poison of revenge! you
rejected me, you trampled upon me, ... for a sin that I never
committed--if the curse of that sin bears heavily upon my wretched
tainted existence--I will at least taste the sweetness of the sin.... I
will...."
Blume was for a moment motionless from horror, then seized her child
impetuously, opened the window and leaned far out of it, as though to
call for help--Gabriel seized her by the arm.
"Be still, Blume," he said, "be not afraid, I shall do nothing by brute
force. Thou wilt have time for consideration, and thou wilt throw
thyself supplicatingly into my arms.... I give you a week for
consideration.... but I believe your resolution will be taken
sooner.... Eight days hence, Sunday the eighth of November--it is
exactly the anniversary of our betrothal--I shall be with you by
midnight.... Wilt thou be mine?"
God-forsaken! screamed Blume beside herself with fury, with flaming
face and sparkling eyes: "dost thou desire _that_ of me, of me, the
wife of another, the devout Jewess, the faithful wife, the tender
mother? Yes my resolve is quickly made...."
"It is because you are the wife of another man," interrupted Gabriel,
"that I do desire it.--_Wert thou free_, and lying at my feet in all
the infinite beauty that neither sorrow nor wretchedness can rob you
of, wert thou imploring one glance of love--I should spurn thee from
me, as thou didst spurn me,--but the bond of wedlock enchains thee!
thou shalt sin, thy hard marble heart shall learn to know the bitter
torments of remorse,--and it is because thou art a faithful wife,
because thou lovest thy husband, because thou wouldest preserve a
father for his child that I expect the fulfilment of my wish."--He drew
a packet from his breast-pocket, it contained some small manuscript
parchment rolls and a sheet of paper; he handed them in silence to the
woman who trembled with rage and grief.
"That is my husband's writing!" shrieked Blume, "those are the texts
that he has copied.... God! there is one of my letters. How did you
come into possession of these writings? Where is my husband? speak!"
"Read," answered Gabriel, and held out to her Mannsfield's letter which
he had received the day before from the ensign. Blume devoured the
writing eagerly, but when she came to the last lines, she tottered and
was obliged to steady herself by the arm of the chair. The characters
danced before her eyes.... "I cannot read it," she said, "do thou
read!"
Gabriel read:
"With regard to the above mentioned Jew, whom my outposts arrested, I
think that he is innocent. I was obliged to exercise all my authority
to prevent his being torn in pieces by the exasperated soldiery, or
hanged on the nearest tree; even some of the officers voted for his
death. Seeing that the suspicious writings found upon him are according
to his own account Hebrew bible-texts and letters from his wife I have
sent them to you to be tested, and your report as to the contents of
the writings will give him death or freedom.--The whole affair however
is so insignificant that you will have no need to detain Michalowitz
respecting it. Only in the event of the Jew being a spy, and the
contents of the writings therefore of importance to us, will it be
necessary for you to send me advice by a trooper: otherwise on account
of the insecurity of the roads to Pilsen do not send me any
messenger...."
"Now," cried Blume, hastily, "you see, it is not a cipher, it is only
texts and my letters. Have you despatched the messenger who will solve
the inauspicious misunderstanding?"
"No! My answer will depend on thine.... Will you eight days hence
submit yourself to my will?"
"And if I answer no, what will you do?" asked Blume with the utmost
eagerness.
"That answer thou wilt never make," replied Gabriel violently, "thou
wilt not compel me to an extreme, to the greatest extremity of all....
So, and so only will I be revenged, Blume, force me to no other, to no
bloody vengeance.--I will only repay like by like.... you suffered my
heart to break.--Come then, I will be the ever living sting of
conscience in thy existence--you let me humiliated, deeply, oh
infinitely deeply humiliated.--Come now, I will humiliate thee too. But
as for me, I had loved thee, had idolized thee, you repaid my love with
hate. I am juster than you--I give you hate for hate!... My resolve is
unshakeable!"
Blume stood before Gabriel wringing her hands despairingly.--"No, I
cannot believe that you will perpetrate the horrible iniquity of
writing to Mannsfield a hellish lie that will cause my husband's death.
Consider, Gabriel," she continued almost inaudibly, clasping her
hands--"indeed I never injured you, never humiliated, never degraded
you. It could not be, I could not be your wife, a higher power placed
itself between us, could I, could any one help it? I was innocent, thou
wert innocent! Oh Gabriel, thou wouldst only terrify me, thou wilt not
write the lie to Mannsfield, is it not so."
"Blume, I am armed against thy entreaty.... for long years have I
sought thee, for ten years have I been hatching a thought of vengeance,
and now that a wonderful chance throws the reins of your destiny into
my hands, shall I let the moment pass by unavailed? Shall thy tears
befool me? No, Blume, no, every human life must have some attainable
aim.--I had no other than revenge!--My resolve remains unalterable."
"You leave me then but the choice between sin and unutterable woe? You
are silent? Gabriel," said Blume after a pause suddenly lifting her
lovely head.... "You once loved me, now every spark of that feeling,
all sympathy is extinguished in your heart, but I, I pity thee in
spite of it!... How low art thou fallen, poor Gabriel!--the proud,
high-souled Gabriel, who should have been a guiding light to his
people, a giant in intellect, contends with a weak woman, one
stricken-down with misery, that with her baby in her arms, makes her
trembling supplication before him.... and what kind of victory, what a
triumph would he win? He would destroy a poor, wornout woman, by means
of an abominable shameless lie, than which humanity can conceive
nothing more mean.--Gabriel, at this moment I am more wretched and
unhappy than any woman upon earth, but--by God Almighty!--I would not
for worlds stand before thee, as thou now standest before me!"--
Gabriel stood with folded arms before Blume. The desperate reckless
opposition of the helpless woman, especially the last sorrowful cry of
her tortured heart had caused him for a moment, but only for a moment
to waver; thoughts like lightning flashed through his soul, feelings
that he had long believed dead were stirred up in him, for a moment he
entertained a thought of foregoing his vengeance, of forgetting the
past, of being re-converted--but he had already gone too far, he had
broken with all tradition, the future as he had dreamed of it in his
youth, seemed to _him lost for ever_--he could never drawback.--His
better genius succumbed, the iniquitous passion conquered.
"My resolution is firm and unshakeable," he said, rapidly preparing to
go, as if he himself feared lest he should waver again. "Eight days
hence I shall be with you by midnight.--Your husband's fate is in your
own hands, ponder upon it till then. My resolve is inflexible!"
He folded himself in his mantle and departed--Blume gave way and sobbed
aloud.
V.