nothing, heard nothing, not a leaf stirred....
Presently there was a movement among the trees close to him. A feverish
heat coursed through his veins: he tottered, but recovered himself with
superhuman force and with lips firm closed, and hands pressed nervously
against his overflowing bursting heart, approached the thicket....
Tremblingly he parted the branches, nor observed, that his hands were
torn and bleeding: he advanced ever forwards, and at last broke through
the wood.... Exactly at the same instant the moon passed from behind
the black clouds that had hitherto veiled it, and cast its full light
over the tree-enclosed spot....
Gabriel perceived three grave-stones, a large and two smaller ones.
_The larger had engraved upon it a hunch of grapes the symbol of a
Levi_.... a lofty form, an old man had sunk down before the
gravestones....
Gabriel wished to press forward, to address the form, to look it face
to face.... though it should cost him a thousand lives:--but at that
instant the old man's trembling voice again resounded....
Gabriel remained rooted to the ground.
"My God! my Lord! all-merciful, all-gracious God!... have I not yet
made atonement for the sin of my youth?.... have I not for years done
penitence; suffered, as no other man on earth?... Here at the grave of
my dead, early lost, father--here at my twin brother's grave, who loved
me so dearly, so infinitely deeply, my brother's, who in that fateful
night awoke the inexpressibly bitter grief of remorseful despair.... oh
would that I had then died, when with strong grasp you threw from off
you the disloyal, the wicked shameless brother, would that I had then
met my death from your dear fraternal hand!--but no, thou dear one;
thou wert not destined to be a Cain, pure and blessed thou wert one day
to close thy eyes in peaceful death.... but I, I woke from what seemed
the sleep of death, to never ending nameless torment!... At the grave
of the never-to-be-forgotten sweet companion of my youth Carpel, whom I
would so gladly have once more folded in my arms ... and who peacefully
slumbered under this turf, as I returned in despair to Prague, the city
of my blissful innocent youth.... at this grave I have for years made
my supplication unto thee all-merciful!... Thou, Omniscient, thou that
seest into the depths of my soul, thou knowest, what I have
suffered!... And still the cloud of thine indignation is not yet passed
away.... Thou shalt not commit adultery stands ever written in my
bible.... and never yet has my son hastened to my arms!..."
Gabriel scarcely breathed. Each word made its way to his heart like a
flaming sword. In his breast raged a storm of emotion, that can neither
be represented, nor described, nor conceived. In the inmost core of his
being an infinite, all-embracing destroying change was brought to
pass.... light suddenly flashed into his soul, and as the dim eyes of
the body accustomed to profound obscurity close themselves painfully,
if they suddenly gaze into the glowing fire-streams of a mighty
volcano; so closed his spiritual eye for one instant before the
impression of this trying moment. He was standing by his unhappy
father! this form bowed low by sorrow and misery was his poor
despairing father.... the mad Jacob!... the most ardent wish of his
soul, the deepest longing of his tormented life was stilled, stilled at
the moment in which he had given himself over with wild God-denying
insolence to the profoundest despair.... _that was no blind chance_....
Gabriel assayed to speak, but his thought found no expression, his lips
no sound.
"Father of all men! forgive me at last," Jacob began again in the most
heart-rending accents of deepest despair; and his body seemed to
collapse under the weight of his sorrow--"forgive me, Father of all!...
I have sinned, I have gone astray, but I have suffered endless anguish,
and thou, Father! art all-goodness.... Let me die at length, Father of
all men.... let me rest by my dear ones.... forgive her also, the
mother of my son.... and as a sign that thou hast forgiven me, restore
my son to me, _my son_, before I die.... let me die on his heart.... _I
can die only on his heart_, I ask for nothing more!... God! grant me my
son!... Oh come to me, my son!... my son, where art thou?"
A silence deep as the grave reigned for a moment; then Gabriel cried:
"Father, I am here!"
Both, father and son, stared speechlessly at one another for a
space.... that was the image, that Gabriel had been vainly endeavouring
for some hours to conjure up, his father, the wandering Jew of Aix,
that form which had once imprinted its hot lips on his young forehead,
they were all one and the same....
The highest pitch of madness was mirrored for a minute in Jacob's
face.... but gradually and gradually the immense overpowering force of
the joyful surprise seemed to drive away the evil spirit that hovered
over his soul. His burning eyes, out of which madness had flashed,
became wet.... a hot tear escaped from under his eyelashes and trickled
slowly down his pale cheeks....
On a sudden, as if a ray of recognition had then for the first time
struck him, he exclaimed, "he bears the fiery sign on his forehead! My
God! it is my son!..."
"My father!... Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God is one God."
Gabriel flung himself into his father's wide opened arms.... they held
one another in close embrace.... their lips quivered as if they would
have spoken.... but they never spoke again.... the too swift
alternation of feeling had loosened the slight bond that united spirit
to body; the most terrible emotion, that has ever possessed a human
heart, killed them!
They held one another still fast embraced in death--in life divided,
isolated, _in death they would not be parted_.
This heart-breaking scene had not remained unwitnessed. Blume had stood
at the window of her house in sad painful expectation.... What she had
seen and heard had filled her with unutterable horror.... but she was
saved.... Profoundly struck by this dispensation of Providence, she
fell with unspeakable emotion upon her knees and prayed.
VII.
The Palatine escaped next morning in the direction of Breslau. Anhalt,
Hohenlohe, the elder Thurn, the elder Bubna, Bohuslaw Berka, Raupowa,
and others accompanied him.--The Kleinseiters always devoted to the
Emperor, as soon as Frederick had left the city sent messengers to Duke
Maximilian and begged him to make his entry into the city. At mid-day
the Duke accompanied by Boucquoi and Tilly marched through the
Strahower Gate to the Hradschin, William of Lobkowiz, and five other
Bohemian nobles came to meet him, wished him joy of the victory that he
had won, and begged, as the chronicles declare, in a long speech
interspersed with much weeping, pardon for their revolt, the
maintenance of their liberties and mercy for the city. Maximilian
answered benignantly that he would do all that he was able, and that
the city should not be injured; with regard to the other points,
he had no full powers. For himself he advised them to surrender
unconditionally to the Emperor.--The Alt- and Neu-stadters had sent at
the same time a deputation to the Duke, with a request, that he would
grant them three days to draw up the conditions, under which they were
willing to surrender. Maximilian refused this delay, and they
immediately took an oath of obedience and fidelity to the Emperor and
delivered up their arms to the duke.--The news of the duke's successful
entry had evoked the most joyous excitement in the Jews-town, which
like the Kleinseiters had ever been well disposed towards the Emperor.
The overseer invited the elders and members of the college of Rabbis to
an extraordinary conference at the Rathhaus, and it was unanimously
decided, to present a congratulating address to the Duke Maximilian, as
victor, in the name of the Jewish community at Prague. The meeting was
just at an end, when the grave-diggers accompanied by Cobbler Abraham
urgently begged to be admitted. In the morning at a funeral two dead
bodies had been found in the burial ground, that held one another close
clasped even in death. The two corpses had assumed in death an
extraordinary likeness, a likeness such as one only meets with between
father and son, both namely bore upon their forehead a similar blue
streak. The mad Jacob had been known to everyone, but with regard to
the other body only one of the persons who happened to be present at
the funeral, could give accurate information. Cobbler Abraham to wit,
declared that he had been acquainted with the young man, who had only
lately arrived at Prague, and that immediately on his arrival he had
recommended him to a lodging at Reb Schlome Sachs', the upper attendant
of the Old-Synagogue. In answer to enquiries made of the last mentioned
person later on, he had learnt that the stranger was called Gabriel
Mar, and was a clever student from upper Germany. The gravediggers
thought it their duty to make a report of this strange occurrence to
the college of Rabbis and the overseers of the community, and Cobbler
Abraham once again repeated his depositions with respect to the corpse
of the young man.
The assembled authorities accounted this matter of sufficient
importance to justify their casting a look over the letters which had
been found in the clothes of the deceased. The superscription at once
excited universal surprise, the letters were addressed to Major-General
Otto Bitter and signed Ernest of Mannsfield, General and Field Marshal;
their contents referred to the operations of the war and secret
plans.... No one knew what to think about it. Some were inclined to
believe that Gabriel Mar was a messenger of Mannsfield's, others
doubted, for if so, Mannsfield would not have signed his name in full,
and held Gabriel to be a spy of the Imperialists, who had somehow or
other got possession of these letters; others again believed simply
that Gabriel Mar, and Major-General Otto Bitter were one and the same
person. They had just got into a lively discussion on this point, when
the door of the council-room was suddenly opened and Reb Schlome Sachs
and Reb Michoel Glogau entered unannounced.
"You come at the right time," cried the overseer to him--"perhaps you
can give us some information about your lodger, who...."
"We come for that very purpose, Reb Gadel!" interposed Reb Schlome....
"but I am too much overcome with what I have just heard. Do you tell
them, Reb Michoel, I pray you, you are more composed than I."
The attention of the whole assembly was now directed to Michoel Glogau.
"Yesterday," he began, as concisely as possible, "I saw and conversed
for the first time with Gabriel Mar, whose body was found this morning
in the graveyard. By a chance concurrence of circumstances I was led to
suspect that Gabriel Mar might be one and the same person as Gabriel
Suess, who disappeared some years ago. This suspicion became certainty,
when I shortly afterwards, hidden behind an angle of the wall, called
out his name, and he as if from force of an old habit turned his head
and looked about as if he sought the caller; and then as though fearing
to betray himself, hurried off. His disguise, his presence in the Jews'
quarter might have one of two objects, either to inflict some injury on
his former brethren, or to rejoin them and repentantly be reconverted
to the faith of his childhood. I resolved to speak with Gabriel Mar
before my speedy departure. My words, I know not why, had made a deep
impression upon him, I determined to attempt to learn his designs; if
they were evil, to thwart them, if good as far as my weak strength
permitted, to support them....
"I enquired where he lodged, and some hours afterwards found myself at
Reb Schlome Sachs'. He received my communications at first very
incredulously; but gradually remembered many peculiarities which had at
first struck him in the behaviour of his guest.... His wife some days
after his arrival had found him, sunk in deep reflection over a map;
she had on the same day seen an officer who strikingly resembled
Gabriel, riding out with the young Count Thurn! He himself had heard
him talking so strangely in his sleep, that he did not at the time know
what to make of it; his whole behaviour had been puzzling.... Reb
Schlome Sachs was extraordinarily put out, and asked me what I proposed
to do.... I requested him to accompany me to Gabriel's room; I would
speak with him at once. Without knowing why, it seemed to me as if
every minute that was lost was irrecoverably lost.... We went to his
room, it was open, but Gabriel was not in the house. By the light of a
lamp that was slowly going out, which he had left standing on the
table, we saw a bureau that had been violently broken open, and in it
arms; on the ground some old papers were scattered about. Reb Schlome
shook violently as he took them up; ... they contained the memorial of
his father-in-law, the history of his life.... We noticed the marks of
recent tears on some passages.... the manuscripts had lain for years
locked up in the bureau, there could not be the slightest doubt, that
by some curious coincidence Gabriel had got possession of them.
Gabriel, none other, could have read these manuscripts, their contents
must have moved him to tears, have made a violent impression on him, at
one point indeed he must have flung the papers far away from him: so it
seemed to both of us, and the contents of the manuscript proved that we
were not mistaken. The manuscript, which we both, Reb Schlome Sachs and
I, read throught with the most high wrought attention, revealed
astonishing events to us.... Mad Jacob was the father of Gabriel Suess,
was a brother of Rabbi Mosche's, a son of the great Rabbi Jizchok
Meduro, an uncle of Rabbi Schlome's wife.... A wonderful Providence had
conducted Gabriel Suess to the house, where he was to learn his father's
history.... a wonderful impenetrable providence brought about his death
in the same night in his father's arms, at his grandfather's grave!..."
Michoel was compelled to stop from deep emotion, and handed over Rabbi
Mosche's Biography to the assembly.
"This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes," said Rabbi
Lippmann Heller, who had taken part in the meeting as assessor to the
college of Rabbis, at last after a long pause....
"But are you also aware that Gabriel Suess and Major-General Otto Bitter
are one and the same person?" he went on to ask....
"Yes," answered Michoel: "while Reb Schlome was unable from deep
feeling to tear himself away from the handwriting of his father-in-law;
I carefully examined the room. I found several letters from Count
Mannsfield to Major-General Otto Bitter, in one of them he wrote that
he sent him, Hebrew letters to look over.... among these I found
several letters in German, but written in Hebrew characters. These
letters were written from Prague by Blume Rottenberg and directed to
her husband.... If I rightly remember, and Gabriel Suess' history was
correctly related to me, his intended bride was called Blume
Rottenberg, and she married her cousin, her father's brother's son....
Blume Rottenberg must be residing in Prague: so please you, my wise men
and reverend teachers, she might be summoned, perhaps she will be able
to solve the mysterious obscurity that hovers over the life, and still
more remarkably over the death of Gabriel Suess, perhaps she will be
able to supply information as to the object of his presence in Prague,
and of his disguise."
Michoel's proposition was received with general applause--Blume
Rottenberg had lived a retired life in Prague and under an assumed
name. Only one person, the owner of the dilapidated house which she
inhabited, knew her real name and was able to give information as to
where she resided. He happened to be present. Blume Rottenberg was
requested to betake herself to the house of the Assessor Reb Lippmann
Heller, who was to receive her depositions in the presence of the chief
overseer.
Both of them returned two hours afterwards much agitated to the
meeting. The whole life of Gabriel Suess, all his past was now laid
clear before their eyes.... and Gabriel Suess had died repentant in his
father's arms!
It was unanimously decided, to bury them both, father and son, close
together by the graves of their family.
It was formerly a custom in Israel, to bury the dead as soon as
possible. Jacob and his son were to be immediately laid in the grave.
All present, deeply moved by the manifest Providence which had brought
about everything so wonderfully, determined to attend the funeral
obsequies, and were about to repair to the burial ground. They were
just issuing from the Rathhaus, when two horsemen on foam-covered
steeds galloped up and halted before it. It was a Captain in the
Imperial army accompanied by a younger officer.
"Can I speak with the overseer of your community?" asked the Captain.
"Do not be alarmed," he went on to say in a friendly voice, seeing that
they had become pale with terror, "no harm will happen to the Jewish
community; we know that you are well affected to the Emperor and cleave
to your Imperial master with firm unchangeable fidelity, ... but
unknown to yourselves, an apostate from your faith, an outlaw, an enemy
of the Emperor and Empire, the Mannsfieldian General Otto Bitter has
been living for the last few days among you in the Jews-town. He did
not escape with the Palatine.--We have every reason for believing that
he is here in your town. He is Mannsfield's right hand-man and
acquainted with all his plans.... I beseech you, make every effort to
deliver him alive into our hands."
"That is impossible," answered the chief overseer after a short pause.
"He whom ye seek, by God's wonderful dispensation died this day about
midnight full of repentance in the arms of his recovered father. We
were just about to lay him in the grave: if it pleases you, Sir
Captain! will you not go with us to the burial ground.... to convince
yourself that Otto Bitter will never again fight against his Imperial
master.... you know him by sight?"
"Of course I do? was I not standing by yesterday, when the most
accomplished knight of our army. Count Pappenheim, fell badly wounded
by his sword...."
On the short way to the burial ground the chief overseer recounted the
history of Gabriel's storm tossed life to the Captain, and the strange
events that had suddenly rent the mysterious veil that enveloped it....
* * * * *
The two corpses still locked in a fast embrace lay upon the same bier.
It was a most striking sight. The two officers uncovered their
heads.--The Captain cast a scrutinizing look over Gabriel's body.
"There is no doubt, it is he," he said; then drew a paper out of his
breast pocket, which he carefully read over and once more from time to
time examined the body with the greatest attention....
"I have said so," he repeated, "there is no doubt, the dead man is Otto
Bitter...."
"What are your orders with respect to the corpse?" asked the younger
officer, "shall it be transported to the castle that the duke...."
"We fight with the living alone, the dead no more belongs to this
world," answered the Captain earnestly. "Otto Bitter was a rebel, an
enemy of the Emperor and Empire.... but he was a gallant hero.... May
God pardon his sins.... overseer! Give me the letters found upon him,
and lay your dead in the grave!"
* * * * *
At twilight on the same day two women, like kind angels, prayed
kneeling at Gabriel's grave. Both of them were equally nearly related
to the departed. The one was Blume Rottenberg, the woman that he had
once madly loved, his mother's sister's daughter, the other Schoendel
Sachs, his uncle's daughter.
* * *
Blume Rottenberg had suffered fearfully for eight days. She was firmly
resolved to sacrifice her life rather than her duty.... She had been
saved by a miracle. Her trust in God had been thereby still more
exalted. She had remained four months without tidings of her husband,
and yet looked forward full of trust and hope to the future.... she had
not deceived herself. On the 26th of March 1621 the Mannsfieldian
commanders surrendered the city of Pilsen to General Tilly and eight
days afterwards Aaron Rottenberg returned to the arms of his wife
happy, and uninjured.... on his arrival he was surprised by joyful
news. Important intelligence for him had come in from Worms. The
patrician, who had had that law-suit so full of evil consequences with
the Rottenberg family, was dead. Sorely tormented by the stings of
conscience he had declared upon his death bed in the presence of his
confessor and an officer of justice, that the claim of the Rottenbergs
against him was perfectly well grounded, and that the acknowledgment,
that he had declared to be forged, was genuine. He further confessed
that the heads of the trades had intended to force the Rottenbergs at
all hazards to admit that the acknowledgment was forged. This admission
was to have been the signal for a general bloody persecution and
plundering of the Jews. The reckless project had miscarried owing to
the noble firmness of the Rottenbergs. The occasion was seized for an
act of private revenge, if illegal at any rate apparently of common
advantage, and if the insurgents had succeeded in stirring up the wild
fury of a populace eager for plunder, the innocent Jews could at least
reckon upon the assistance of the Prince and the sympathy of every
right thinking person.... after the dying man had once more solemnly
declared, that all his possessions were in justice the property of
Aaron Rottenberg, he implored those who were present, with hot tears
and in the most moving terms to hunt out the traces of Aaron
Rottenberg, not only to put him in possession of his property, but also
to tell him that they had been witnesses of the deep contrition and
earnest repentance which had embittered his last hours: thus he hoped
to obtain pardon from the Rottenbergs, whom his covetousness had
plunged in unutterable misery....
Those who had been present at the patrician's death-bed immediately
imparted his confession to the authorities of the Jewish community in
Worms. This event caused immense excitement there, now for the first
time they saw how falsely, how unjustly they had interpreted the noble
behaviour of the Rottenbergs, for what heavy injustice they had to ask
forgiveness of them. In a meeting of the elders it was unanimously
decided to search out Aaron Rottenberg, to ask in the name of the
community his forgiveness of the injuries it had inflicted upon him,
and urgently to beg him to return to his paternal city, and again to
accept the office of an overseer, which his father formerly, and
afterwards he himself had filled.
The letter of the Worms community that put him in possession of all
these facts, made a most pleasing impression upon Rottenberg. The
profound regret, the sorrowful repentance which the community expressed
in earnest words, made it impossible for him to oppose their request.
He set out on the journey to Worms with a heart full of thankfulness.
He was received in his native city with loud rejoicing and trod its
streets with tears of emotion....
A long series of happy years effaced from the memory of the Rottenberg
family the sorrows of their past life, but not the miracle which the
Lord had vouchsafed to them.
Cobbler Abraham looked upon himself with no small pride as an
instrument of divine Providence. It was he who had first accosted
Gabriel Suess on his arrival in the Jews-town. It was he who had shown
him the way to Reb Schlome Sachs, where Gabriel had at last found the
solution of the mystery of his life; a solution that had affected him
so profoundly, had agitated the inmost depths of his being.--Even fifty
years later, when old as Methusalem but still vigorous, Cobbler Abraham
was always ready to recount the history of Gabriel Suess to whoever
wished it, and only regretted that he could no longer introduce
his two former neighbours, Hirsch, the fish-monger, and Mindel, the
liver-vender, who had predeceased him, as witnesses to the accuracy and
truthfulness with which he described his first meeting with Suess.