He considered his future attitude and planned his campaign. He would
not appear before her until the following Sabbath; but he would let
her hear his voice. From early morn till late at night let her hear
his voice—his voice that was so charming and melodious, so masculine.
Let it follow her about through all the rooms, into the garden before
the house, into the seclusion of her bed. Let it accompany her in
her thoughts and sing with her in all her prayers. And always, in
case of accidental meeting, his beard would be well combed and his
head-covering would sit so well over his high forehead that his
beauty would compel her eyes, and the bearing of his body would
summon to her the same thoughts that had occurred to the Roman matron.
The first day of that week his voice and his reciting sounded very
mournful, and on the second and third days it was likewise very sad.
And on those days his distant gaze, at their accidental meetings,
was full of pity and sorrow. But on the fourth day a change came
over his voice. It rang with joy and a zest for life, and when by
accident they met he looked at her most ardently, with glad rapture;
she stopped and followed him with her eyes, unable to understand the
great change. The sadness of his voice and the longing in his glance
she had understood, and had explained in divers ways. His own life
was surely no happy one; all Israel suffered eternal persecution;
her home was a house of mourning. Then how could a person be happy
beneath its roof? Her very proximity must inspire sadness. But the
rejoicing in his voice and the rapture of his glance she could
neither understand nor justify. And all that day his voice disquieted
her; at night it weighed still heavier upon her in the lonesomeness
of her bed. Why was he so happy? What was chanting so joyously in
his heart? “How do his eyes look now?” she asked herself, and grew
ashamed at her thoughts, directing them to Rabbi Mayer. She longed
for him, hoping that the thirty days would fly by as soon as possible.
On the next day and the day following the great joy was with him
still. Beruriah’s astonishment likewise continued. Once and again she
wished to stop him at one of their accidental meetings and ask the
significance of the great change that had come over him. But Beruriah
would not ask. Not the wife of Rabbi Mayer. What was this student,
after all, to her? Why should she be at all concerned with what was
passing in the heart of this strange man? She was neither his mother
nor his sister; not even a friend of former years. Did it become
Beruriah to be inquisitive? Was Rabbi Mayer’s wife, then, like other
women? But she noticed that the stranger had become even handsomer,
more powerful, more masculine.
Sabbath eve came once again and he said grace and sang the holy
songs, blessing the Lord with a voice more exalted than ever, more
filled than ever with the Sabbath spirit, more than ever inspired
and inspiring. Again he looked not often at his hostess, but when he
raised his eyes to seek her glance, they had a faraway look filled
with admiration and ecstasy, and their colour was the colour of a
flaming ruby set in black, as if the Sabbath candles glowed within
them.
And again that night on his couch he sang into the darkness of his
room various passages from the Bible, which he knew by heart, and in
particular many verses from the Song of Songs, the song of love and
passion and infinite yearning. His voice throbbed with joy and yet it
quivered with a deep unrest; and a great yearning spoke in it, as if
calling for something that could render its happiness complete.
And Beruriah lay quite restless in her place. The singer’s voice
inundated her being, nor could she banish its magnetic sound. She
tried to think of Rabbi Mayer, but instead found herself repeating
the passages that came to her from Simeon’s room. And suddenly there
flashed upon her the idea that Rabbi Ismael’s son must cherish a love
in his heart. It must be a wife or a sweetheart; either he loved her
with intense passion or was longing for her endlessly. And if his
voice was now so joyful it must be that of the thirty days a third
had already passed, and he would soon return to his beloved.
Now, however, she could no longer repeat after him the verses from
the Song of Songs, from him to _her_,—his beloved; his wife or his
sweetheart. Beruriah buried her head in her pillows, pulled the
coverlet over it, and stopped her ears with her hands so as to keep
out Simeon’s voice and his love verses; she turned all her thoughts
to Rabbi Mayer and began to recite the other passages from the Song
of Songs,—the passages from her to him, and her heart languished
for him, for her husband, for her beloved, for her great love and
yearning.
And once more, after the Sabbath closing prayers, before he went into
his room he turned to her with great tenderness.
“Forgive me the glances, my hostess, that I cast upon you yester eve
and to-day.”
She shuddered at the unexpectedness of his words, and could not
understand his begging pardon.
“What manner of glances were they?” she asked.
He whispered softly, “Then you did not notice them?”
“They were glances of intensest exaltation, filled with wonderment
and deep-felt ardour. However, they did not belong to me.”
“You are wrong. To you!”
“To me?”
She rose to her full height and her face grew pale and austere.
He, in ecstasy, proclaimed, “Yes, to you!—Have you beheld how joyous
I have been these last few days?”
“I heard it in your voice.”
“And do you know the cause?”
“Have you, then, told me?”
“I’ll tell you now. The cause was you alone.”
Her face assumed an even colder expression, and her eyes became even
sterner. The shadow of anger crossed her forehead and her brows, and
he cried out, with delight, as if to drive away the evil shadow:
“Oh, Beruriah, hear me out! For three days and three nights I was
filled with the grief of your grief; for three days and three
nights I have not ceased to ask why you were so heavily punished
with the death of your two little ones—You, the chosen of God,—you,
the blessed one! If I asked that even before I knew you, how then
must it have cried aloud within me when the greatness of your soul
was discovered to me in all its splendour? To think that _you_ of
all should be martyred so! That _you_ should be the victim of a
never-ending sorrow! And my heart rebelled within me, and like Job
I could see no justice in the ways of God. And when one ceases to
behold justice in the ways of God, how dark and dreary must the
world become! But suddenly, on the fourth day, it seemed to me as
if God must have raised a trifle the veil that screens the purpose
of His deeds and allowed me to gaze upon their goal. How would the
world have realised the grandeur of your soul, if not through the
great grief that befell you? How should we have known what Beruriah
was, if her heart had not been delivered into the hands of the
torturer? Your two sons, had they lived, would have made mankind
richer by two living beings,—perhaps worthless ones, unnecessary,
unhappy; but through their death they made humanity the richer by
a living Beruriah. Now for the first time do we conceive what we
possess in you; now for the first time do we know your worth. That
which lay veiled in darkness has been illuminated by a glorious
light. Boundless treasures that have lain buried have been brought
forth for the use of all. We have all grown richer through you, and
future generations will enjoy that wealth. As from a spring of life
humanity will imbibe its power from you, its consolation. ‘See,’
they will say, ‘how Beruriah mastered her enormous grief, her double
bereavement. Emulate her and be consoled!’ Oh, Beruriah, when this
flashed upon me, how could I help feel joyous, and how could I keep
my glances from betraying exaltation and admiration for you?”
And before Beruriah could open her lips to make reply, he fell to his
knees and kissed the hem of her garment, pressing it to his lips far
longer than the first time; then he arose and left the room, holding
his head erect, half-dancing, in token of his jubilation. And soon
his voice was resounding through the house,—a ringing, singing,
joyous, jubilant voice, filled with power and fervour. Was not
Beruriah now full of him? Had he not won her now?
Beruriah sat in confusion, indeed full of his voice and his presence,
and at times it seemed as if an angel from heaven were addressing
her. Only when she was able to give thought to what he had said could
she liberate herself from his spell. Her mind grew clearer and with a
sigh she rose. And this is what she told her unhappy mother-heart:
“It is possible that the world has been made richer, and that such
was the purpose of God when he took from me my two children. He has
His goal and His aims, and His ways are hidden from our sight. But I
have become so poor, so poor....”