his soul. He pressed his hands spasmodically against his heart and was
forced to sit down upon the curb-stone. Mordechai, whose understanding
was not transcendent enough to appreciate the force of what had just
been said, observed this as little as Reb Nochum, whose attention
remained entirely fixed upon Michoel's words. It was only the sharp
glance of this latter that noticed Gabriel's emotion, which he was
incapable of controlling.--_The state of frightful excitement_, of
feverish expectation in which he found himself, _had still more
intensified and exaggerated the impression of those words_. He felt at
this moment with the whole power of his comprehension that in the most
decisive events of his life the torch of his wild hatred had been his
only light, that everything had come grinning to meet him distorted by
its gloomy dismal rays.... The words which might once have fallen like
assuaging balsam upon his bleeding heart now struck him with the whole
weight of their convincing truth. The thought, that might once have
saved him, now filled him with nameless unutterable woe. The audacious
confidence with which he had believed himself irresponsible for all
that he had done was broken--Michoel had shown him what he might have
been--how different had he become!
A pause had again ensued. Mordechai now observed with horror that he
was almost too late for evening-prayer, and hurried with Reb Nochum
into the nearest synagogue. Michoel remained standing before Gabriel
who seemed nearly to have lost consciousness. At last he asked,
recovering himself, in a dull voice: "Who are you and what is your
name?"
"I am Michoel Glogau, I was born in Silesia, and have finished here
my course of Talmudic study. I have been summoned to Breslau as
preacher--and what is your name?"
"I am called Gabriel Mar," he replied to the interrogation in a
trembling unsteady voice.
"Gabriel Mar, Mar, Mar," echoed Michoel quite softly and thoughtfully,
his eyes fast fixed on Gabriel: "strange!... are you unwell, that you
sit there thus languidly on the stones?"
"Yes.... no.... rather--I shall soon be better. Why do you gaze at me
so fixedly? only go away, Reb Michoel, do not be disturbed on my
account.... I am often wont.... to suffer so. Away, I pray you, away,
away...."
Michoel went off, stopping from time to time to look round after
Gabriel. He sat for some minutes as if changed to stone, but--whether
it was recovered self-possession, or whether the heavy snow which began
to fall had roused him--he got up suddenly, wiped the cold sweat from
his forehead and looked motionlessly at the spot where Michoel had
stood, as if to convince himself, that they were not fantastic dreams
which hovered over him, then hurriedly strode to his dwelling. As he
arrived at the end of the narrow lane that led out of the Jews-town to
the Old-synagogue, he suddenly heard his old name Gabriel Suess called.
Taken by surprise he involuntarily turned his head--he saw no one and
hastened with redoubled speed to his house by the Old-synagogue.
"It is he!" said Michoel stepping from behind the corner of a wall that
had concealed him from Gabriel's sight, "my suspicion was correct,
Gabriel Mar--is Gabriel Suess. I must speak with him."
* * *
Gabriel was once more in his room by the Old-synagogue. In a few
hours, since the forenoon when Schlemmersdorf had summoned him to the
battle-field, what numberless events had happened within and without
him. Frederick had lost his crown, the Emperor had won a highly
important victory. He had been present at this weighty catastrophe, had
been a witness, a participator in the hot combat, his life had been
threatened on all sides. He had stood opposed to Pappenheim, the most
accomplished knight in the Imperial army, and believed that he had
slain him--and all these occurrences of which any one would have been
sufficient to have put the most strong minded into a state of intensest
excitement disappeared and left no trace in Gabriel's soul. Michoel's
words had called forth a fresh flood of emotion in his overcharged
breast. A new sorrow never before anticipated strove with the old grief
in his breast. With the whole gigantic strength of his intellect he
endeavoured to swing himself up out of the wild chaos of thoughts which
would have indubitably thrown any one of weaker mould into the black
night of madness.--With both his mighty hands pressed against his
inflamed and glowing lofty brow, as if to force all thoughts to one
point, he sat for hours by the table in strong inward struggle.
"No, no, no!" he cried out at length impetuously, "now it is too late,
too late! Gabriel, thou hast gone, too far, too far, now thou canst
never recede.--Thou art like that Acher, he that heard said of himself:
'Turn again ye stiffnecked children.... all but Acher!'--Yes Michoel.
Thou man with a beautiful voice, with mild friendly gleaming eyes!
Hadst thou stood at my mother's death-bed, hadst thou then addressed me
thus.... but they had all rejected me.... Oh, Blume! Blume! Why did you
treat me so? Had you but extended to me, _I will not say your hand, but
your compassion_.... Alas! one single word of comfort on that day of
atonement, in my fierce wrestling with the unutterable grief! Why did
you not speak like this Michoel? Oh! I should have been quite another
man, surely, surely, I should have been a changed man!... Blume! you
might have been the preserving angel of my life.... You cast me from
you, you became my demon!... Gabriel held both hands before his face:
yes, _you_, _you_," he now suddenly cried, and wild fury repressed all
gentle feelings, "_you_ have forced me to take the path which I
tread.... you have poisoned my existence, annihilated my hopes!...
If I now stand between a comfortless past and a hopeless future,
I will at least turn the present to account, I will at least bring
my ruined wretched life to a consistent conclusion. I will avenge
myself, sweetly, fearfully.... This night I dedicate to revenge--and
then--myself to certain death: the next battle I will hurl myself where
the enemies' ranks are thickest, will bathe my naked breast in a warm
shower of bullets. One blade, one ball will surely find its way to my
heart broken with sorrow!--and when alone and forsaken, trampled by
horses' feet on the bloody plain, I expire: then will I raise my
failing eyes for one last defiant look, then with unbending spirit I
will once more exclaim: Where art thou whom men call, all just, all
mighty, all merciful? Dost thou behold? I die desolate forsaken
unwept,--cursed by the woman whom once I madly loved, rejected by the
father...."
This thought, that had been woven like a red thread through Gabriel's
spiritual life, this thought, that had continually buoyed him with hope
or racked him with despair, according as the waves of his troubled
spirit were rising or falling, now worked upon Gabriel, only if
possible more violently, if possible, with greater tenacity. He tore
open the window in almost mad haste, and looked up to the partially
clouded starry heaven: "Give me my father, if thou art Almighty, let me
find him, find him _to-day_, _to-day_.... and I will offer up to thee
the greatest sacrifice, the woefullest sacrifice, the sacrifice of my
revenge; let me die in my father's arms ..., and I will perform my vow,
yes, yes, I will bow my stiff neck as I die, _I will repent, will say
that I have sinned, that thou art all merciful, all just, Almighty!_ my
last breath shall be a 'Hear o Israel'.--I will die like a pious Jew:
but thou must give me my father, give him _to-day_! Canst thou do that.
Almighty one?"
The phrensied scornful laughter with which he accompanied these last
words, echoed over the empty court, and reverberated dull and hollow
from the spacious adjacent vaults of the opposite synagogue, the lofty
windows of which chanced to be open.
In the highest state of bodily and mental tension Gabriel sank back in
his chair, the warm stream of blood that had rushed to his head and
threatened to burst his forehead, flowed again slowly back to his
heart: a sudden collapse, as is often the case, followed after this
indescribable excitement; after this, but later, a calm reflective
mood. In this state his landlady Schoendel found him, when she opened
the door, and asked: "Reb Gabriel, you are sitting in the dark, do you
wish for candles?"
Accepting Gabriel's silence as consent, she disappeared directly to
fetch a light.
On his return home Gabriel had laid his weapons upon the table; he
wished to hide them quickly before Schoendel returned with a light. A
large old bureau, belonging to his landlord, stood near him: but the
key was not in the lock. Without stopping to reflect he opened its
bottom drawer with a strong kick and threw the arms into it. A moment
afterwards Schoendel entered with a light: Gabriel leaned heavily
against the broken bureau to conceal it from Schoendel.
"Where have you been all day, Reb Gabriel?" she asked, "we have not
seen you since early morning! What do you say to the news of to-day?...
We in the Jews-town are absolutely without information; perhaps by
to-morrow morning early the Imperialists will already occupy the circle
of the Altstadt."
"Indeed, then I must make haste," said Gabriel.
"Why make haste?" enquired Schoendel with an air of surprise.
"That is quite clear," answered Gabriel recovering himself, with a
forced laugh. "I have now been rather a long time in Prague and have to
speak the truth not studied much Talmud. I must recommence. If the city
is surrendered, everybody's attention will be diverted, I myself shall
be disturbed, and my good intentions will be again postponed for some
days. I will set to work this very day. At midnight I shall go to the
lecture room and study all night long. Then before daybreak I shall go
to prayers in the Old-synagogue. I suppose the gate will be open early
enough?"
"Yes, but you must be in the Jews-town two hours before midnight or the
gates will be shut ... Well, I am heartily rejoiced that you intend
beginning to behave like a real student.... but you will not come to
prayers to-morrow morning, I give you my word of that?"
"Why not?" asked Gabriel.
"Early to-morrow you will be sleeping a deep sleep, out of which a
person does not easily awaken."--Schoendel heard her husband's voice
calling her and hurried away. Gabriel had misunderstood the last words.
Students, who staid awake the whole night in a lecture-room, were in
the habit of falling asleep towards morning and so being late for early
service. This was what Schoendel had meant jokingly to signify: but
Gabriel was in no mood to understand a joke, and these words sounded
gloomily and bodingly.... they accorded so strangely with the terror of
the faithful armourer, with Bubna's affecting farewell, with the
mournful presentiment that had many times in the course of the day
taken possession of him!
The stroke of the clock on the Rathhaus indicated that hour which
corresponds to eight in the evening. He wished to be in the Jews-town
before the gates were shut, two hours before midnight, so that he had
still some time before him. The superhuman excitement of the day, the
delicious torment of the expectation of revenge, that kept all his
manly energy on the stretch, could not long continue in such strength.
He was afraid, that the excess of these sensations would drive him mad,
would kill him. He passed his strong hand over his lofty brow, and
firmly closed his eyes, as though to annihilate thought.... He
sought for some object adapted to occupy his mind otherwise for two
hours:--one suddenly offered itself to him. A manuscript had fallen out
of the bureau when it was violently broken open.--He now noticed this
for the first time. He picked up the sealed packet, it was written in
Hebrew, and the envelope informed him, that it was the history, the
testament of Reb Mosche, his landlady's father, which was to be first
opened twenty years after his death. He locked the door of his room,
pushed the chair to the table: unsealed the writings and read.--Its
contents were as follows:
"On the 23d day of the month Tischri, that is the day which succeeds
the feast of tents, in the year 371 according to the lesser Jewish
reckoning. It will be seven and thirty years to-day since I kept my
13th birthday, and now I have reached my 50th year. On the same day too
I left the ancient, worthy community of Prague--in which I had passed
my youth, and where God willing, I will end my days--on a wide and
weary wandering."
"I cannot employ this day more holily than by beginning to write the
leaves of my biography; the leaves which I intend for you my children.
When you break the seal of these writings I shall have been for years
no longer among the living; but as a father's infinite love reaches far
beyond the grave, so will your recollection of me survive, and you will
not then refuse me the fullest sympathy.--I have written down the
narrative of my life, that at least after my death there may be no
mystery between us.
"My father, may the memory of the just be blessed, was that most
learned Talmudist and Cabbalist Rabbi Jizchok Meduro. He was descended
from a very old family that flourished for centuries in Spain, and his
ancestors had always made themselves conspicuous from learning and
attachment to their faith.--Fearful and bloody persecutions of the Jews
had compelled his father, a little orphan boy, to a formal change of
faith. When arrived at man's estate it repented him that he had, though
but in outward profession, laid aside the faith of his father's, and
when the officers of the inquisition discovered him at a celebration of
the Passover, and led him before the tribunal, he openly confessed that
with all his soul he was a Jew. He mounted the scaffold at Seville. He
sang psalms and hymns with devout mind, while the flames with a
thousand greedy tongues licked up his bloody body, at length a jet of
flame shot up into his face and extinguished the light of his eyes. One
'Hear oh Israel' escaped in a suffocated voice from the breast of the
dying man--at the same moment a heart-rending cry, a cry that made the
bones creep, resounded from the Cathedral square, and a woman fell down
lifeless. It was the wife of the dying man; she was pregnant with my
father. Two hours afterwards he saw the light of this world in a dismal
cellar--soon after her delivery, his mother succumbed to the most
maddening grief. The day of my father's birth was the day of his
parents' death. A small red flame was observed on the forehead of the
new-born child, an effect of the frightful torture, which the horrible
sight of the scaffold had inflicted on the mother stricken with mortal
terror.--Devout Jews, themselves in want of every assistance, took care
of the helpless orphaned babe, noble mothers suckled him at their
breasts. But bigotry was not satisfied with the bloody sacrifice.
Another of those frequently recurring persecutions of the Jews had
broken out in the Spanish peninsula; there were to be no more Jews in
Spain. Whoever would not abjure the old faith was to leave the country
within four months without carrying with him silver or gold. A hundred
thousand souls forsook goods and possessions to save their relics in a
far country, to escape from a land, where their prayer to the one true
God was stamped as a crime. A number of noble men, who crossed the sea
to Barbary, carried the baby with them, in order to preserve the
offspring of so illustrious family for its faith. But the poor people,
without money and without protection, were rejected from the coast, a
portion of the fugitives succumbed to the plague, a portion fell into
the hands of pirates that carried them into captivity: some however
were so fortunate as to find a refuge in Portugal after terrible
sufferings.--Among these was my father. He had in the meanwhile grown
to be a glorious boy. He had as yet experienced nothing but sorrow. The
infinite crushing misfortunes that had marked the day of his birth had
made an indelible impression on his mind, and even on his features.--A
profound abiding melancholy rested on the boy's thoughtful face, and
the red fiery spot that sparkled on his forehead never allowed him for
a moment to forget that flaming scaffold that had consumed the body of
a loved idolised father, the sight of which had caused the death of his
mother.
"The youth Jizchock Meduro soon discovered a wisdom almost equal to
Solomon's, a fervent love for the faith. He was worthy of his renowned
ancestors. Leading a solitary life, he found consolation only in
religious studies, and in investigating the powers of nature, and he
devoted himself to these pursuits with the greatest zeal. His immense
industry, added to unusual intellectual gifts, enabled him to obtain
the most beautiful results and the youthful Jizchok Meduro was soon
accounted one of the lights of the Portuguese Jewish society.
"My father had attained the age in which he thought it right to choose
a wife. His choice fell upon a Spanish orphan, whose father, of firm
faith and devout, had also expired upon the scaffold.--In the first
year of a happy marriage she gave birth to twins, myself and brother.
The small cosy family circle seemed to banish the spirit of melancholy
from my father, and not indeed to extinguish but soften his sorrowful
recollections. Even this domestic happiness was however soon to be
destroyed. Persecutions of the Jews broke out in Portugal also and were
soon followed by a royal edict that forced the Jews to change their
religion or to leave the country. My father fled with his wife and two
children, then in tenderest years. Hunted like wild beasts of the
forest, we crossed the Pyrenean peninsula and a part of France. No
house, no cottage would hospitably entertain us. At night we were
obliged to sleep on the open heath. A drink of water was often refused
to the perishing. And we could only attribute it to God's visible
protection that after unutterable hardships we reached German ground.
In a city on the Rhine our dear mother sunk under the unwonted
sufferings of the long journey--she lies buried in Cologne.... My
father was alone in a foreign country with two little boys. Too proud
even in the misery of exile to be a burden upon his benevolent
brethren, he wandered over the whole of Germany, and when at length he
arrived in Prague he considered it an interposition of Providence, that
the post of upper-servant was vacant in the Old-Synagogue, where the
same ritual prevails as in Portugal. He offered himself as a candidate
for this office and when he mentioned to the overseer of the synagogue
his name the fame of which had reached far into Germany, the latter
expressed much regret that my father did not prefer to accept the chair
of Rabbi in a community, or whole district. But my father had been too
sore afflicted by the strokes of adversity, he desired to live unknown
in perfect retirement, for his faith, for his religious studies, for
his sons. Nothing could be refused to a man so famous; his wishes were
entirely fulfilled by the authorities. Reb Jizchok Meduro became
upper-attendant, but it remained a secret to every one else that the
servant Reb Jizchok was the great teacher from Portugal. Here then,
where I lived as a little boy, and afterwards as man, and where God
willing, I will close these wearied eyes, here in this house, which you
my dear children now inhabit, lived and studied my deceased father....
His immense knowledge, his wisdom, his ascetic habits, filled every one
with a profound reverence for him, which was if possible increased by
his kind though reserved manners.
"It was natural that a feeling of reverential respect should also
animate myself and brother to the highest degree. Except at prayer we
met nobody. Our father never received visits, and as we children did
not go to school we had no play-fellows. Our father was all in all to
us. In our tender years he had performed for us all the troublesome and
petty services of a nurse-maid; as we grew older, he was our
instructor; were we sick, he was our physician and nurse.... The
profound gravity that rested on his features only gave way to a soft
gentle smile when we, my brother and I, sitting below there in the
synagogue at his feet, listened to his wonderful expositions,
expositions than which since that time I have never heard any so
admirable, so inspiriting; when he perceived how the fire of his mighty
eloquence found its way to our youthful hearts and kindled them.--He
loved his children infinitely, but refrained from showing it. He never
kissed us, once only when he thought that I was asleep, he pressed his
lips to my forehead, and a scalding tear rolled down on my face--a
sweet rapturous shudder crept over my limbs but I did not venture to
open my eyes."
Gabriel stopped at this passage. The image of that pale tall man, who
had once pressed his hot lips upon his own young forehead, whose tears
had once wetted his face, now appeared vividly, more vividly than ever
before him. He now felt sure that this image of his youth had been no
dream, and believed himself convinced that if it were now to appear
before him he should recognise him, him whom he held to be his father.
Gabriel read on:--
"This proof of his affection encouraged me on that day to the timid
question, what was the meaning of the purple streak upon his forehead,
a mark, that also at time showed itself on us children when we were
violently excited. I had expected a monosyllabic answer from my
taciturn father, but contrary to his wont he recounted to us with the
whole power of his mournful recollection the terrible events of his
life. These we now learnt for the first time, we learnt for the first
time, the place of our mother's grave.... 'The spot, that sparkles on
my, on your foreheads,' concluded my father, '_is a remembrance of the
man from whom we are descended_, who suffered the most painful death in
sure trust upon God.... May it be ever remind you to be worthy of your
ancestors....'"
Gabriel laid down the manuscript. The fiery mark upon his own forehead
now seemed to burn him painfully.... Was he, just at the moment when he
desired to come to a violent and complete rupture with his earlier past
life, was he, just at the moment when he was giving up all hope of
finding his father, that nobler aim of his life, was he just at that
very moment to find a direction post? Might not the mark whereby to
remember, be also a mark whereby to recognise? After short reflection
he once more seized the manuscript with feverish haste and read
further:--
"These confidences made an immense impression upon us children, and
often, as we sat idly by twilight before the gate of the synagogue, we
discussed our father's narrative with mournful emotion, always coming
to the conclusion, that we would do all in our power to sweeten our
father's life, and some day, when we were grown up, to wander to
Cologne to pray at our mother's grave.... I have already mentioned,
that we, I and my brother, had no playmates; but in truth we did not
care to associate with other children; the infelt brotherly love, with
which we were mutually penetrated, quite filled our young minds.
Chance, or rather God's providence, guided me however to a young
friend, a friend who became the stay of my life.... I had once gone on
a commission from my father to an artisan who had some work to deliver
for the house of the Lord. My way home led me by the banks of the
Moldau. A pack of wild schoolboys were insulting and ill-using a
delicate Jewish boy, apparently of about my own age. His cry for help
aroused my warmest sympathy. Born under a hot Southern sun, I did not
reflect that I was but ten years old and alone, but threw myself into
the thick of the throng, and came to the assistance of the poor
maltreated child at that moment when two of the worst, irritated by his
feeble resistance, would have tossed him into the river. 'Do you want
to kill the lad?' I cried with the whole force of my young voice, 'the
river is deep, he will be drowned! The first that touches him is a dead
man!'