Miriam's infinite attractiveness, the enrapturing grace of her
demeanour, her noble heart, her wonderfully penetrating mind, had made
a powerful, ineffaceable impression upon me, an impression that soared
to the height of love. I did not make the slightest attempt to conquer
this noble passion. Miriam's most friendly kindest sympathy did not
permit me to regard my bold hopes as unattainable, the less that
Baruch Suess too, when we became young men, made no difference in his
domestic economy, allowed us to make use of the intimate 'Thou' to
his daughters, and recognised our deserts with almost fatherly
affection.--His immense wealth, his influence, his position at the
electoral court, made it moreover possible for him in the choice of his
sons-in-law to neglect the petty considerations which so frequently
stand in the way of the dearest wishes. I rocked myself in dreams of a
happy glad future, but I avoided giving expression to these sweet
dreams and my hopes remained for months a secret even to my dear and
infinitely loved brother, to my brother whom in fact I loved more than
myself! At length it seemed to me treachery against my fraternal
affection, if I should any longer preserve silence with respect to a
feeling that struck daily deeper root in my soul. We occupied a room in
common, and in the dusk of a fading summer's day I opened my heart to
him. I held my arms twined about his neck, and leant my head on his
cheeks. It seemed to me, as if he suddenly shivered and began to
tremble; but I convinced myself that it was a delusion, and as he gazed
for a long while fixedly before him, I thought, that liveliest sympathy
for me had plunged him into a deep reverie. I sought to read his
features, but the increasing darkness made this impossible. 'Art thou
then convinced that Miriam loves thee?' he enquired at length in a dull
voice. I had often put the same question to myself, and ever given it
an answer favourable to myself, and Miriam's behaviour justified me in
doing so; but I forgot that she behaved exactly in the same way to my
brother, and it was only the later unfavourable turn, which this
connection, that at first caused me so much happiness, took, which
directed my attention to that fact, without however my being ever able
to fully make out the real state of the case: and even to this day,
when manifold experiences have increased my knowledge of human nature,
I cannot say for certain whether Miriam then loved me or my brother, or
whether her virgin heart hovered in anxious timorousness between us. At
that time I believed that I could answer my brother's question with an
honest yes. The dejected silence into which my brother sunk anew, was
equally misunderstood by me, I thought that I saw therein only an
excessive fear lest Baruch Suess should refuse me his daughter's hand. I
remained but a short time involved in this error; I was suddenly
bitterly undeceived. Some days afterwards I awoke in the night and
heard a loud and violent talking and weeping in my room. I sprung
swiftly from my couch. It was a clear starlight night, and the pale
moonlight fell just upon my brother's bed--he, as was often the case
with him, was talking in his dreams. The sorrow, that was printed on
the sleeper's face, the large tears, that welled from under his closed
lashes and rolled over his pale cheeks, filled me for a moment with a
strange pensive grief; but I soon smiled at my childish pity. I would
wake him, scare away the evil dream, that enchained his mind--but as I
was about to call him, there fell on my soul, as it were a quivering
flash of lightning, followed by a roaring thunderclap, and the words
which escaped slowly from his lips became on a sudden clear and
transparent.--I listened with restrained breath.
"'I love my dear brother more than life,' he said, 'and he loves
Miriam!... Hush, Hush! No one shall hear of it, but Thou, my God and
Lord; Thou that beholdest my writhing, lacerated heart.... I will be
silent, silent as the grave for ever.... not Miriam, not my brother, no
man shall hear of it.... Oh! indeed I am glad, brother! dear brother,
take Miriam for thy bride.... and, I can surely die! I will not trouble
the joy of your wedding day, I will not weep.... No! I will be glad and
laugh at your happiness, will laugh so right heartily, as on my
brother's day of rejoicing, on the wedding day of him whom I most
ardently love.... Oh, mine is no forced laugh, I laugh so truly from my
whole heart; see--ha, ha, ha!...'
"But my brother did not laugh, but sobbed convulsively. My heart
contracted frightfully, an indescribable, almost physically painful
grief thrilled through me--I could not at first speak for maddening
sorrow, but then cried aloud, casting myself upon the bed of my
sleeping brother: 'no, dear one, no, thou shalt not give her up....
Miriam shall be thine.... thine, thine, for ever.'
"My brother awoke.--What I said, showed him clearly, that I was
acquainted with his heart's secret. I lay upon his breast sobbing
aloud.
"'A woman, dear brother!' he began at length with trembling voice
vainly striving for composure--'a woman, though it were the glorious
Miriam, shall not divide our hearts. Thee only I possessed in the wide
world, thou wert my all, brother! Dost yet remember, how thou, thyself
sick and weary, didst carry me in thy arms, when on our journey to the
mother's grave I had wounded my foot? Dost yet remember, how thou didst
watch at my sick-bed for three weeks together, and didst scarcely get
any sleep? Dost yet remember, how our dying father exhorted us to love
one another? Dost yet remember, how we renewed the covenant at our
mother's grave?--And do you think that I, that I have forgotten all
that, all that? No, brother: take thou Miriam to wife.... be happy!
"A noble strife arose between us. Each of us wished to give up with
bleeding heart, and neither would accept the sacrifice offered by
fraternal love.--The most curious, the strangest ideas, such as could
only be born of so desperate a situation, danced in rapid succession
before us.--Lot, Miriam herself should decide; but they were rejected
as fast as entertained. At last a manly resolution the fruit of a long
painful struggle ripened in us: _we would both give her up_. Neither of
us should possess Miriam, and our love should remain a secret for ever.
In our mutual passionate brotherly love we determined to forget the
infinite sorrow that filled us.--
"We wished, we were bound to leave the house at daybreak, to which the
mightiest ties enchained us. On the next day we stood pale, confused,
with tears in our eyes before our friend Suess who had loved us as a
father, and declared to him with hesitating voice our suddenly formed
resolution of leaving his house, of proceeding farther on our journey.
Suess was alarmed, he glared at us speechlessly, our fixed purpose
seemed to have overthrown one of his favourite schemes. He vainly
endeavoured to detain us, fruitlessly enquired the reason that had
caused us to take a step so unexpected. 'Stay with me, I have good
designs for you....' repeated Suess over and over again sadly, and when
he saw how immovably we remained true to our purpose, he said at length
painfully subduing his pride: 'Stay with me, be my sons.... I have only
daughters, two lovely glorious daughters.... but I wish also to have
two sons.... Will you not be my sons? My daughters, I have good ground
for thinking so, are affectionately disposed towards you....' Suess said
no more, his parental pride struggled with his parental love.--To
us it was clear that Suess had intended to make choice of us as his
sons-in-law, and that his daughters had fully shared the wish. I and my
brother, as twins usually are, were almost exactly like one another,
for which of us would Miriam have decided? A painful torturing pause
ensued. Suess could not divine the real reason, why we who had entered
his house as poor orphan boys, despised his exquisitely graceful
daughters, the loveliest, wealthiest, noblest maidens among the German
Jews. We, my brother and I, needed all the strength of our manhood, not
to succumb to the unutterable pain of despair. One of us must of
necessity be standing close to that hotly desired aim, that we both,
each with the fullest force of his will, were striving to attain--and
now to be obliged to draw back, to be obliged to draw back in silence,
and by so doing to inflict an injury perhaps mortal on him whom we
loved beyond measure--that thought annihilated us.
"Suess, wounded in the most sensitive place of his heart, in his pride
as a father, was profoundly mortified. 'I cannot and must not detain
you any longer,' he said with bitter grief.... 'Go!... may you never
repent having thus departed.' Then he stepped hastily to the door and
said with an accent that rent our hearts: 'Oh, would that you had never
crossed the threshold of my house!...'
"We would not thus separate from our benefactor. We hastened after him
to his room--it was closed against us: We sent by an old servant of the
house to ask that we might as a favour be allowed to take farewell of
his daughters, it was refused us. We almost succumbed to the
unutterable grief of despair..... On the evening of that same day we
proposed to leave Cologne, the inexhaustible goodness of Suess furnished
us with an abundant outfit for our further journey--but he would never
see us again. At night-fall we got into the travelling carriage, that
waited for us at the back door of the house. We cast a sorrowful look
at the window of that room which Miriam occupied.... two maiden faces
looked forth into the gathering twilight, and the violent trembling of
one of them, who pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, showed that she
was sobbing impetuously--it was Miriam!
"Our hearts beat audibly, my brother's beautiful features were
frightfully disfigured, he must have suffered as unutterable woe as I
did.--I gazed into his face, visibly convulsed with sorrow. 'Brother,'
I said, 'there is yet time.... I can renounce.... do thou return to
Miriam. If Miriam wavers between us both, or even if she loves but one
of us, thy return will be decisive in thy favour.... Thou, Miriam, our
benefactor Suess, you all will be happy....'
"'And thou?' asked my brother in a tone of the woefullest reproach.
"'I go far away and strive to forget....' I tried hard to answer, but
my voice shook, and tears rolled irrestrainably over my cheeks. My
brother fell sobbing into my arms.--'I will never forsake thee,
Brother!' he cried--'good brother! cast me not away from thy noble
heart.'
"We went from one school to another; our name was already known far and
wide, we met with a friendly reception everywhere: but we felt nowhere
at home. We never mentioned Miriam, but the memory of this hapless love
threw a gloom over our life. We plunged with unwearied industry into
the study of God's word, we increased our stores of knowledge, but the
thorn in our bleeding hearts did not therefore pain us the less.... We
had acquired in the Talmudic world an unheard of renown for students,
we were often honoured by letters from illustrious Rabbis, who desired
our advice, our opinion upon scientific religious questions. The most
important Rabbinates were offered to us, we might have obtained the
highest aim of a Talmud-student. But neither of us could do so. Memory
still drove us unquietly from place to place.
"A year had elapsed since our departure from Cologne, when in one of
our wanderings we happened to hear that the younger daughter of the
wealthy electoral physician Suess had given her hand to her cousin Joel
Rottenberg of Worms, while the elder had previously absolutely refused
to enter into the bond of matrimony. This news filled both of us with a
strange sensation of sadness. To each of us, though he dared not allow
it to himself--a ray of hope seemed to dawn:--and yet neither of us
would have been made happy without the other. Once more, for the last
time I asked my brother whether he would return to Miriam; but he saw
my soul's infinite sorrow, after a short violent struggle his fraternal
affection conquered, he stayed with me; we would never separate:
"Another year elapsed, we were then living in Germersheim, a community
not far from Spires. We had in the course of our short residence there
won the approval and respect of the Rabbi, and when he died soon after
our arrival, he enjoined the community upon his death-bed to elect one
of us as his successor, and it besieged us with petitions that one of
us would accept the vacant chair of the Rabbi; and marry the daughter
of the defunct who lived with her now widowed mother. I was still in no
mood to accept these offers, however attractive and honourable they
might be; my brother also decidedly refused them. We determined
therefore to withdraw ourselves from all further discussion by a
distant journey. I was busily occupied in my little room in the house
of the Rabbi's widow packing my effects for the journey, when my
brother suddenly entered. He was pale as a corpse, his looks were
troubled.
"'Do you know what a foreign student has just been relating _in the
lecture-room_?'
"'What?'
"'Miriam Suess has at length yielded to her father's entreaty and given
her hand to her cousin Joseph Suess of Spires.--The wedding was
solemnised magnificently at Cologne.'--
"I felt a warm sympathy for my brother; at that moment I perceived for
the first time that he was of a more passionate nature than I. The
heavy blow, which I had expected for years, came upon him like a
thunderbolt out of a blue sky. He fell upon a chair, in vain he pressed
his hands to his face, the tears welled out between his fingers.
"'But brother, brother,' I cried, myself struggling to keep down all
the recollections and thoughts that awoke within me, couldest thou have
expected anything else? Why troublest thou thyself? What can it now
signify to thee? be a man, brother, be strong!'
"'God!' sobbed my brother, 'could I have known that!... could I have
known that Miriam would be so weak as to forget me! oh! brother,
brother, believe me, Miriam loved only me, me and none else, she could
love no one, as she loved me! oh, I made a great, an infinitely great,
sacrifice to thee, when I gave her up, _fruitlessly gave her up_ to
thee!... oh! why wert thou not magnanimous, why didst thou accept this
sacrifice?'
"I looked into my brother's face with the deepest grief, I had never
seen him so passionate, so excited before, and yet I thought that I
knew him as well as myself, for was he not my twin-brother. It seemed
to me almost as if at that moment the dark night of madness was
shadowing his clear spirit. The fire in his eyes sparkled wildly and
weirdly.
"'Thou hast made a fruitless sacrifice of thyself to me?' I repeated
painfully agitated: 'did I desire it, did I wish for it?--and I, I?
dost think my heart is of stone? dost think that I have suffered less
than thou, because I have said nothing? I too have often screamed in
the bitter agony of my soul, as I watched in despair through the long
melancholy night.--Consider, brother! I, I do not reproach thee.'
"I suffered inexpressibly: the news, which again painfully tore open my
heart's wounds, joined to the passionate unjust reproaches of my
brother, whom I loved so tenderly, by whom I believed that I was so
tenderly loved, agitated my mind with such violence that I fell
dangerously ill. For eight weeks I strove with the angel of death. In
the confused wild fever dreams of my sickness it sometimes seemed to me
as if an angel approached my couch, as if a girl's white hand touched
my burning forehead--once I thought, that a lovely woman bent over my
bed and that a tear rolled down upon my face.--God--praised be his
name--granted my recovery. He refreshed me with the springs of his
infinite grace. The sickness had had the most beneficial, the most
inexplicable influence upon my life. A new fresh stream of blood seemed
to roll through my veins. I was restored not only to bodily, but also
to mental health. My love for Miriam, now the wife of another, which I
must have violently eradicated, had died out in a miraculous manner. Oh
yes, it was a miracle! and I thanked God for that instance of his
goodness!--The noble handsome girl who had nursed me with more than a
sister's care, who had watched night after night by my bed, full of
sympathy and compassion, was thy mother, dear Schoendel.--Leah the
daughter of the Rabbi's widow.... Thy mother was lovely and good. As
long as Miriam had reigned in my heart, I had not noticed the
wonderfully beautiful maiden, but now, that I was once more free, my
earnest gratitude was easily converted into an infelt, fervent,
faithfully returned love. Half a year after my convalescence Leah
became my wife, and I took my seat in the Rabbi's chair at Germersheim.
"During my sickness my brother had shown me the most self-sacrificing
love, and had attached himself again to me with the greatest
tenderness, as though to make me forget the inauspicious reproach that
had pained me so much. I had never borne ill will against him. True it
is that he had shaken with rude hand the firm bonds, that held our
hearts entwined, that the hasty word which he had uttered, had touched
me to the quick,--but, dear children! you do not know what brotherly
love is, you do not know, how one loves a brother, and above all a
twin-brother!... From our birth, from our mother's lap we had been
united to one another by the sweetest holiest bonds.--The same
pulsation had stirred our hearts, we had lain on the same mother's
breast, we had hitherto fairly and equally shared every sorrow and
every joy.--I could not help it, I was constrained to love my brother
with undiminished cordiality!
"In the first year of a happy peaceful marriage thy mother presented me
with an admirably beautiful girl, with thee, dear Schoendel.... I was
happy, but my happiness endured but for a short time; eight days after
your birth thy dear never to be forgotten mother died! You may conceive
my profound grief! I formed a firm immoveable resolution never to marry
again, and following my father's lofty example to dedicate my whole
life to the study of God's word, to the religious care of my community,
to the education of my only beloved child.--In the conscientious
performance of my duties I at length found tranquillity, and when thou,
Schoendel, didst gaze at me with thy sweet child-like smile, when thou
didst extend to me thy little delicate hands, I felt myself almost
happy!
"My brother was my faithful companion. He occupied a small room in my
house and studied almost the whole of the day. My heart was filled with
the sad remembrance of my deceased wife, so soon snatched from me. I
never thought of Miriam except with a sensation of friendly gratitude.
Every feeling of love for her.--I have already said so--had quite died
out in me. I could have calmly conversed with my brother about her
father and sister: but I did not dare to do so, because the profound
silence which he preserved, was an unmistakeable sign, that he had not
yet conquered his once deep felt love, that it still remained rankling
with full strength in his soul. Miriam's name therefore never again
crossed our lips. Many advantageous offers of marriage were proposed to
my brother, he was elected as Rabbi by many important German
communities: but he firmly refused everything, and paid no attention to
my well meaning advice.... We often sat all day together, plunged in
the study of the Talmud. Once we were engrossed in the solution of a
case that had been laid before me for my decision by two Rabbis, who
could not come to an agreement with respect to it. We had long remained
seated, then in the eagerness of discussion began walking round the
room, and at last, as was often the case, happened to stop before the
open window. My brother was just on the point of controverting a
proposition that I had laid down, when he cast a glance through the
window.... He instantly became dumb, his arms fell powerlessly by his
side, his lips moved convulsively, but emitted no sound.
"'What ails thee, brother?' I asked in terror.
"He made no answer, but stretched out his arms and pointed to the
street; I saw a lady, stepping out of a travelling carriage.
"'What ails thee, brother?' I repeated more earnestly 'I see nothing
that can have discomposed you to such a degree.'
"My brother gazed fixedly at me, as if he thought my question an
incomprehensible one, then pointed once more at the lady and collecting
all his strength, screamed involuntarily in a loud shrill voice:
'Miriam Suess!' and trembling convulsively fell down pale as a corpse.
My brother did not come to himself till late in the evening. He was
right, it was Miriam. Joseph Suess her husband, had a lawsuit with the
magistracy of the city of Spires, and wished to wait for the issue of
it at the adjacent town of Germersheim. His wife had followed him. I
felt sorry that Joseph Suess had selected just Germersheim for his
residence, not for my own but for my brother's sake.
"I did not venture to talk to my brother about Miriam's presence; the
sight of her had too much affected him. I made a slight attempt to
advise him to go a journey while her stay lasted in Germersheim; but
his eyes flashed, as he answered: 'Brother, I have no one in the wide
world save thee! I have sacrificed everything, the dearest thing on
earth, to thee, cast me not away from thy presence!'
"After a time he became gradually calmer, and I was already beginning
to indulge a hope, that he had reconciled himself to his immutable
destiny, when after the expiration of some months his behaviour again
altered in a strange and striking way. My brother avoided my society,
came to me seldomer and seldomer, till at last he shut himself up in
his room, and refused either to see me or speak to me. I did not know
how to explain this to myself, and only waited a convenient
opportunity, to have a private conversation with him. This I at length
found, I was usually the first in God's house, and as a rule unlocked
its doors. One morning, it was winter. I stepped into the dark and
quite empty interior, shortly afterwards the iron gates grated again
and a form appeared on the steps that led into the inner synagogue. The
pale trembling light of the lamp that ever burneth revealed to me my
brother. He stopped irresolutely, as if he would avoid an interview
with me alone. I did not give him time to take a resolution, stepped
quickly up to him and held out my hand to him. But his hand trembled in
mine, he could not bear my steadfast gaze, his eye, that once was wont
to look me truly and honestly in the face, remained fixed on the
ground, and even his features formerly so beautiful seemed to me marred
and disfigured. The red streak of flame on his forehead burned to a
deeper hue than had ever been seen on him before, broad violet coloured
circles were stamped under his glistening eyes, his blue lips quivered
incessantly, it was clear, that my poor brother could not encounter my
looks. I gazed into his face, a profound inexpressible pang, an
incommunicable sympathy seized my heart:--but then suddenly a ray of
conviction flashed across me, brotherly love sharpened my spiritual
eyes; Miriam was in Germersheim, her husband was absent, my brother
loved her with a furious passion.... his face bore the Cains-mark of
guilt, there was no doubt, _my poor brother had sore sinned!_ I let
fall his hand! I was too violently agitated, and vainly struggled a
long time for a word.... My brother broke the painful death-like
stillness that reigned in the broad space with no sound. It was a
silent confession to me of his guilt!
"Pious worshippers now began to enter into the temple, and I could say
no more to him at present; in the deep silence of night, alone, I
determined that he should hear his brother's warning voice.
"I passed the day in a state of most painful excitement. Had my
brother's bleeding corpse been laid torn and disfigured at my feet I
should not have so profoundly mourned him! Could I with the last drop
of my heart's blood have undone that, which I now felt myself
constrained to admit as certain,--I would have gladly shed it. It was
for me to raise again my brother, my poor fallen brother, out of the
bottomless depths to which he had sunk. It was for me to tear him from
the strong arm of sin; I knew, that it must have been a hard struggle
in which my brother was subdued....
"After midnight.... all around was sunk in deep sleep--I crept to the
door of his room. I knocked at first gently, then louder, no answer
followed.--The key of my room also opened this door. It was not till
after long hesitation that I crossed the threshold with loud-beating
heart. The small lamp, that I carried with me, threw its dull light
round about; I stepped to my brother's bed, it was empty.... my brother
was not in his room--I sank down in despair; I had in truth before been
convinced of my brother's guilt; but the certainty, this horrible
certainty that robbed me of every, even the faintest shadow of a hope,
seized my heart anew with a grief as terrible as if I had up to that
time had not the least presentiment of it! At the very moment, when my
fraternal heart was crying out in the depths of its agony, at the very
moment when I was prepared to make any sacrifice to save my brother, at
that very moment _my brother_, _my brother_, 'my second I--oh no,
more, more;' I had loved him more than myself, I would have sacrificed
myself thousands of times for him--was wantoning! at that very moment
my brother was wantoning in the arms of an adulterous woman, _of that
woman whom I had once idolized with pure chaste fervent love_....
"What was I to do? I must stay, I must wait for him, though my poor
heart should break. I seated myself by the table and tried to read a
bible by the lamplight: but I could not. Incapable of thought I gazed
out through the open window, and made frequent fruitless attempts to
collect myself, to ponder over the address with which I proposed to
receive my brother. Every second seemed a century, and yet, and yet I
would gladly have postponed the painful moment, and yet I trembled
sadly at the slightest sound, that the wind made in the passage. I
might have sat thus for three long hours that seemed as if they would
never end, when I heard a faint rustle, and shortly afterwards a
powerful form swung itself through the window. It was my brother.--He
remained standing stiff and motionless as a statue before me. At sight
of him all my blood flowed back so swiftly and violently to my heart,
that I thought that it must indeed burst; a cold shudder crept over my
bones, I had half got up, keeping one hand on the open bible, as if I
would draw strength and confidence from it. A long pause ensued, it
exhausted my nervous system, more than ten years of trouble would have
done!
"I had reckoned with certainty that my brother would fall
broken-hearted into my arms, that the sight of me at that hour would
remind him of all that he had forgotten. I believed that he would come
to meet me; but I had deceived myself, my brother remained stiff and
motionless and never once dropped his eyes....