Such disappointment as often befalls the visionary when he sees the
land of his dreams was spared to the Maggid, who remained a visionary
even in the presence of the real; beholding with spiritual eye the
refuse-laden alleys and the rapacious _Schnorrers_ (beggars). He lived
enswathed as with heavenly love, waiting for the moment of transition
to the shining World-To-Come, and his supplications at the Wailing Wall
for the restoration of Zion's glory had, despite their sympathetic
fervour, the peaceful impersonality of one who looks forward to no
worldly kingdom. To outward view he lived--in the rare intervals when
he was not at a synagogue or a house-of-learning--somewhere up a dusky
staircase in a bleak, narrow court, in one tiny room supplemented by a
kitchen in the shape of a stove on the landing, itself a centre of
pilgrimage to _Schnorrers_ innumerable, for whom the rich English
Maggid was an unexpected windfall. Rich and English were synonymous in
hungry Jerusalem, but these beggars' notion of charity was so modest,
and the coin of the realm so divisible, that the Maggid managed to
gratify them at a penny a dozen. At uncertain intervals he received a
letter from Miriam, written in English. The daughter had not carried on
the learned tradition of the mother, and so the Maggid was wont to have
recourse to the head of the philanthropic technical school for the
translation of her news into Hebrew. There was, however, not much of
interest; Miriam's world had grown too alien: she could scrape together
little to appeal to the dying man. And so his last ties with the past
grew frailer and frailer, even as his body grew feebler and feebler,
until at last, bent with great age and infirmity, so that his white
beard swept the stones, he tottered about the sacred city like an
incarnation of its holy ruin. He seemed like one bent over the verge of
eternity, peering wistfully into its soundless depths. Surely God would
send his Death-Angel now.
Then one day a letter from Miriam wrenched him back violently from his
beatific vision, jerked him back to that other eternity of the dead
past.
Isaac, Isaac had come home! Had come home to find desolation. Had then
sought his sister, and was now being nursed by her through his dying
hours. His life had come to utter bankruptcy: his possessions--by a
cruel coincidence--had been sold up at the very moment that the
doctors announced to him that he was a doomed man. And his death-bed
was a premature hell of torture and remorse. He raved incessantly for
his father. Would he not annul the curse, grant him his blessing,
promise to say _Kaddish_ for his soul, that he might be saved from
utter damnation? Would he not send his forgiveness by return, for
Isaac's days were numbered, and he could not linger on more than a
month or so?
The Maggid was terribly shaken. He recalled bitterly the years of
suffering, crowned by Isaac's brutal heedlessness to the cry of his
dying mother: but the more grievous the boy's sin, the more awful the
anger of God in store for him.
And the mother--would not her own Gan-Iden be spoilt by her boy's
agonizing in hell? For her sake he must forgive his froward offspring;
perhaps God would be more merciful, then. The merits of the father
counted: he himself was blessed beyond his deserts by the merits of
the Fathers--of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had made the pilgrimage
to Jerusalem; perhaps his prayers would be heard at the Mercy-Seat.
With shaking hand the old man wrote a letter to his son, granting him
a full pardon for the sin against himself, but begging him to entreat
God day and night. And therewith an anthology of consoling Talmudical
texts: "A man should pray for Mercy even till the last clod is thrown
upon his grave.... For Repentance and Prayer and Charity avert the
Evil Decree." The Charity he was himself distributing to the startled
_Schnorrers_.
The schoolmaster wrote out the envelope, as usual, but the Maggid did
not post the letter. The image of his son's death-bed was haunting
him. Isaac called to him in the old boyish tones. Could he let his boy
die there without giving him the comfort of his presence, the visible
assurance of his forgiveness, the touch of his hands upon his head in
farewell blessing? No, he must go to him.
But to leave Jerusalem at his age? Who knew if he would ever get back
to die there? If he should miss the hope of his life! But Isaac kept
calling to him--and Isaac's mother. Yes, he had strength for the
journey. It seemed to come to him miraculously, like a gift from
Heaven and a pledge of its mercy.
He journeyed to Beyrout, and after a few days took ship for
Marseilles.