SATAN MEKATRIG

"_Suffer not the evil imagination to have dominion over us ...

deliver me from the destructive Satan._"--Morning Prayer.

Without, the air was hot, heavy and oppressive; squadrons of dark

clouds had rolled up rapidly from the rim of the horizon, and

threatened each instant to shake heaven and earth with their

artillery. But within the little synagogue of the "Congregation of

Love and Mercy," though it was crowded to suffocation, not a window

was open. The worshippers, arrayed in their Sabbath finery, were too

intent on following the quaint monotonous sing-song of the Cantor

reading the Law to have much attention left for physical discomfort.

They thought of their perspiring brows and their moist undergarments

just about as little as they thought of the meaning of the Hebrew

words the reader was droning. Though the language was perfectly

intelligible to them, yet their consciousness was chiefly and

agreeably occupied with its musical accentuation, their piety being so

interwoven with these beloved and familiar material elements as hardly

to be separable therefrom. Perspiration, too, had come to seem almost

an ingredient of piety on great synagogal occasions. Frequent

experience had linked the two, as the poor opera-goer associates Patti

with crushes. And the present was a great occasion. It was only an

ordinary Sabbath afternoon service, but there was a feast of

intellectual good things to follow. The great Rav Rotchinsky from

Brody was to deliver a sermon; and so the swarthy, eager-eyed,

curly-haired, shrewd-visaged cobblers, tailors, cigar-makers,

peddlers, and beggars, who made up the congregation, had assembled in

their fifties to enjoy the dialectical subtleties, the theological

witticisms and the Talmudical anecdotes which the reputation of the

Galician Maggid foreshadowed. And not only did they come themselves;

many brought their wives, who sat in their wigs and earrings behind a

curtain which cut them off from the view of the men. The general

ungainliness of their figures and the unattractiveness of their

low-browed, high-cheekboned, and heavy-jawed faces would have made

this pious precaution appear somewhat superfluous to an outsider. The

women, whose section of the large room thus converted into a place of

worship was much smaller than the men's, were even more closely packed

on their narrow benches. Little wonder, therefore, that just as a

member of the congregation was intoning from the central platform the

blessing which closes the reading of the Law, a woman disturbed her

neighbours by fainting. She was carried out into the open air, though

not without a good deal of bustle, which invoked indignant

remonstrances in the Juedisch-Deutsch jargon, of "Hush, little women!"

from the male worshippers, unconscious of the cause. The beadle went

behind the curtain, and, fearing new disturbances, tried to open the

window at the back of the little room, to let in some air from the

back-yard on which it abutted. The sash was, however, too inert from a

long season of sloth to move even in its own groove, and so the beadle

elbowed his way back into the masculine department, and by much

tugging at a cord effected a small slit between a dusty skylight and

the ceiling, neglecting the grumblings of the men immediately beneath.

Hardly had he done so, when all the heavy shadows that lay in the

corners of the synagogue, all the glooms that the storm-clouds cast

upon the day, and that the grimy, cobwebbed windows multiplied, were

sent flying off by a fierce flash of lightning that bathed in a sea of

fire the dingy benches, the smeared walls, the dingily curtained Ark,

the serried rows of swarthy faces. Almost on the heels of the

lightning came the thunder--that vast, instantaneous crash which

denotes that the electric cloud is low.

The service was momentarily interrupted; the congregation was on its

feet; and from all parts rose the Hebrew blessing, "Blessed art thou,

O Lord, performing the work of the Creation;" followed, as the

thunder followed the lightning, by the sonorous "Blessed art thou, O

Lord, whose power and might fill the Universe." Then the congregation,

led by the great Rav Rotchinsky, to whose venerable thought-lined

face, surmounted by its black cap, all eyes had instinctively turned,

sat down again, feeling safe. The blessing was intended to mean, and

meant no more than, a reverential acknowledgment of the majesty of the

Creator revealed in elemental phenomena; but human nature, struggling

amid the terrors and awfulness of the Universe, is always below its

creed, and scarce one but felt the prayer a talisman. A moment

afterward all rose again, as Moshe Grinwitz, wrapped in his Talith, or

praying-shawl, prepared to descend from the _Al Memor_, or central

platform, bearing in his arms the Scroll of the Law, which had just

been reverentially wrapped in its bandages, and devoutly covered with

its embroidered mantle and lovingly decorated with its ornamental

bells and pointer.

Now, as Moshe Grinwitz stood on the _Al Memor_ with his sacred burden,

another terrible flash of lightning and appalling crash of thunder

startled the worshippers. And Moshe's arms were nervously agitated,

and a frightful thought came into his head. _Suppose he should drop

the Holy Scroll!_ As this dreadful possibility occurred to him he

trembled still more. The _Sepher Torah_ is to the Jew at once the most

precious and the most sacred of possessions, and in the eyes of the

"Congregation of Love and Mercy" their _Sepher Torah_ was, if

possible, invested with a still higher preciousness and sanctity,

because they had only one. They were too poor to afford luxuries; and

so this single Scroll was the very symbol and seal of their

brotherhood; in it lay the very possibility of their existence as a

congregation. Not that it would be rendered "_Pasul_," imperfect and

invalid, by being dropped; the fall could not erase any of the letters

so carefully written on the parchment; but the calamity would be none

the less awful and ominous. Every person present would have to abstain

for a day from all food and drink, in sign of solemn grief. Moshe felt

that if the idea that had flitted across his brain were to be

realized, he would never have the courage to look his pious wife in

the face after such passive profanity. The congregation, too, which

honoured him, and which now waited to press devout kisses on the

mantle of the Scroll, on its passage to the Ark--he could not but be

degraded in its eyes by so negligent a performance of a duty which was

a coveted privilege. All these thoughts, which were instinctively

felt, rather than clearly conceived, caused Moshe Grinwitz to clasp

the Sacred Scroll, which reached a little above his head, tightly to

his breast. Feeling secure from the peril of dropping it, he made a

step forward, but the bells jangled weirdly to his ears, and when he

came to the two steps which led down from the platform, a horrible

foreboding overcame him that he would stumble and fall in the descent.

He stepped down one of the steps with morbid care, but lo! the feeling

that no power on earth could prevent his falling gained tenfold in

intensity. An indefinable presentiment of evil was upon him; the air

was charged with some awful and maleficent influence, of which the

convulsion of nature seemed a fit harbinger. And now his sensations

became more horrible. The conviction of the impending catastrophe

changed into a desire to take an active part in it, to have it done

with and over. His arms itched to loose their hold of the _Sepher

Torah_. Oh! if he could only dash the thing to the ground, nay, stamp

upon it, uttering fearful blasphemies, and shake off this dark cloud

that seemed to close round and suffocate him. A last shred of will, of

sanity, wrestled with his wild wishes. The perspiration poured in

streams down his forehead. It was but a moment since he had taken the

Holy Scroll into his arms; but it seemed ages ago.

His foot hovered between the first and second step, when a strange

thing happened. Straight through the narrow slit opened in the

skylight came a swift white arrow of flame, so dazzling that the awed

worshippers closed their eyes; then a long succession of terrific

peals shook the room as with demoniac laughter, and when the

congregants came to their senses and opened their eyes they saw Moshe

Grinwitz sitting dazed upon the steps of the _Al Memor_, his hands

tightly grasping the ends of his praying-shawl, while the _Sepher

Torah_ lay in the dust of the floor.

For a moment the shock was such that no one could speak or move. There

was an awful, breathless silence, broken only by the mad patter of the

rain on the roof and the windows. The floodgates of heaven were opened

at last, and through the fatal slit a very cascade of water seemed to

descend. Automatically the beadle rushed to the cord and pulled the

window to. His action broke the spell, and a dozen men, their swarthy

faces darker with concern, rushed to raise up the prostrate Scroll,

while a hubbub of broken ejaculations rose from every side.

But ere a hand could reach it, Moshe Grinwitz had darted forward and

seized the precious object. "No, no," he cried, in the jargon which

was the common language of all present. "What do you want? The

_mitzvah_ (good deed) is mine. I alone must carry it." He shouldered

it anew.

"Kiss it, at least," cried the great Rav Rotchinsky in a hoarse,

shocked whisper.

"Kiss it?" cried Moshe Grinwitz, with a sneering laugh. "What! with my

wife in synagogue! Isn't it enough that I embrace it?" Then, without

giving his hearers time to grasp the profanity of his words, he went

on: "Ah, now I can carry thee easily. I can hold thee, and yet breathe

freely. See!" And he held out the Scroll lengthwise, showing the

gilded metal chain and the pointer and the bells contorted by the

lightning. "I didn't hurt thee; God hurt thee," he said, addressing

the Scroll. With a quick jerk of the hand he drew off the mantle and

showed the parchment blackened and disfigured.

A groan burst from some; others looked on in dazed silence. The

pecuniary loss, added to the manifestation of Divine wrath,

overwhelmed them. "Thou hast no soul now to struggle out of my hands,"

went on Moshe Grinwitz contemptuously. "Look!" he added suddenly: "The

lightning has gone back to hell again!" The men nearest him shuddered,

and gazed down at the point on the floor toward which he was inclining

the extremity of the Scroll. The wood was charred, and a small hole

revealed the path the electric current had taken. As they looked in

awestruck silence, a loud wailing burst forth from behind the curtain.

The ill-omened news of the destruction of the _Sepher Torah_ had

reached the women, and their Oriental natures found relief in profuse

lamentation. "Smell! smell!" cried Moshe Grinwitz, sniffing the

sulphurous air with open delight.

"Woe! woe!" wailed the women. "Woe has befallen us!"

"Be silent, all!" thundered the Maggid, suddenly recovering himself.

"Be silent, women! Listen to my words. This is the vengeance of Heaven

for the wickedness ye have committed in England. Since ye left your

native country ye have forgotten your Judaism. There are men in this

synagogue that have shaved the corners of their beard; there are women

who have not separated the Sabbath dough. Hear ye! To-morrow shall be

a fast day for you all. And you, Moshe Grinwitz, _bench gomel_--thank

the Holy One, blessed be He, for saving your life."

"Not I," said Moshe Grinwitz. "You talk nonsense. If the Holy One,

blessed be He, saved my life, it was He that threatened it. My life

was in no danger if He hadn't interfered."

To hear blasphemies like this from the hitherto respectable and devout

Moshe Grinwitz overwhelmed his hearers. But only for a moment. From a

hundred throats there rose the angry cry, "Epikouros! Epikouros!" And

mingled with this accusation of graceless scepticism there swelled a

gathering tumult of "His is the sin! Cast him out! He is the Jonah! He

is the sinner!" The congregants had all risen long ago and menacing

faces glared behind menacing faces. Some of more heady temperament

were starting from their places. "Moshe Grinwitz," cried the great

Rav, his voice dominating the din, "are you mad?"

"Now for the first time am I sane," replied the man, his brow dark

with defiance, his tall but usually stooping frame rigid, his narrow

chest dilated, his head thrown back so that the somewhat rusty high

hat he wore sloped backward half off his skull. It was always a

strange, arrestive face, was Moshe Grinwitz's, with its sallow skin,

its melancholy dark eyes, its aquiline nose, its hanging side-curls,

and its full, fleshy mouth embowered in a forest of black beard and

mustache; and now there was an uncanny light about it which made it

almost weird. "Now I see that the Socialists and Atheists are right,

and that we trouble ourselves and tear out our very gall to read a

_Torah_ which the Overseer himself, if there is one, scornfully

shrivels up and casts beneath our feet. Know ye what, brethren? Let us

all go to the Socialist Club and smoke our cigarettes. Otherwise are

_you_ mad!" As he uttered these impious words, another flash of flame

lit up the crowded dusk with unearthly light; the building seemed to

rock and crash; the fingers of the storm beat heavily upon the

windows. From the women's compartment came low wails of fear: "Lord,

have mercy! Forgive us for our sins! It is the end of the world!" But

from the men's benches there arose an incoherent cry like the growl of

a tiger, and from all sides excited figures precipitated themselves

upon the blasphemer. But Moshe Grinwitz laughed a wild, maniacal

laugh, and whirled the sacred Scroll round and dashed the first comers

against one another. But a muscular Lithuanian seized the extremity of

the Scroll, and others hung on, and between them they wrested it from

his grasp. Still he fought furiously, as if endowed with sinews of

steel, and his irritated opponents, their faces bleeding and swollen,

closed round him, forgetting that their object was but to expel him,

and bent on doing him a mischief. Another moment and it would have

fared ill with the man, when a voice, whose tones startled all but

Moshe Grinwitz, though they were spoken close to his ear, hissed in

Yiddish: "Well, if this is the way the members of the Congregation of

Love and Mercy spend their Sabbath, methinks they had done as well to

smoke cigarettes at the Socialist Club. What say ye, brethren?" These

words, pregnant and deserved enough in themselves, were underlined by

an accent of indescribable mockery, not bitter, but as gloating over

the enjoyment of their folly. Involuntarily all turned their eyes to

the speaker.

Who was he? Where did he spring from, this black-coated, fur-capped,

red-haired hunchback with the gigantic marble brow, the cold, keen,

steely eyes that drew and enthralled the gazer, the handsome

clean-shaven lips contorted with a sneer? None remembered seeing him

enter--none had seen him sitting at their side, or near them. He was

not of their congregation, nor of their brotherhood, nor of any of

their crafts. Yet as they looked at him the exclamations died away on

their lips, their menacing hands fell to their sides, and a wave of

vague, uneasy remembrance passed over all the men in the synagogue.

There was not one that did not seem to know him; there was not one who

could have told who he was, or when or where he had seen him before.

Even the great Rav Rotchinsky, who had set foot on English soil but a

fortnight ago, felt a stir of shadowy recollection within him; and his

corrugated brow wrinkled itself still more in the search after

definiteness. A deep and sudden silence possessed the synagogue; the

very sobs of the unseeing women were checked. Only the sough of the

storm, the ceaseless plash of the torrent, went on as before. Without,

the busy life of London pulsed, unchecked by the tempest; within, the

little synagogue was given over to mystery and nameless awe.

The sneering hunchback took the Holy Scroll from the nerveless hands

of the Lithuanian, and waved it as in derision. "Blasted! harmless!"

he cried. "The great Name itself mocked by the elements! So this is

what ye toil and sweat for--to store up gold that His words may be

inscribed finely on choice parchment; and then this is how He laughs

at your toil and your self-sacrifice. Listen to Him no more; give not

up the seventh day to idleness when your Lord worketh His lightnings

thereon. Blind yourselves no longer over old-fashioned pages, dusty

and dreary. Rise up against Him and His law, for He is moved with

mirth at your mummeries. He and His angels laugh at you--Heaven is

merry with your folly. What hath He done for His chosen people for

their centuries of anguish and martyrdom? It is for His plaything that

He hath _chosen_ you. He hath given you over into the hand of the

spoiler; ye are a byword among nations; the followers of the

victorious Christ spit in your faces. Here in England your lot is

least hard; but even here ye eat your scanty bread with sorrow and

travail. Sleep may rarely visit your eyes; your homes are noisome

styes; your children perish around you; ye go down in sorrow to the

grave. Rouse yourselves, and be free men. Waste your lives neither for

God nor man. Or, if you will worship, worship the Christ, whose

ministers will pour gold upon you. Eat, drink, and be merry, for

to-morrow ye die."

A charmed silence still hung over his auditors. Their resentment,

their horror, was dead; a waft of fiery air seemed to blow over their

souls, an intoxicating flush of evil thoughts held riot in their

hearts. They felt their whole spirit move under the sway of the daring

speaker, who now seemed to them merely to put into words thoughts long

suppressed in their own hearts, but now rising into active

consciousness. Yes, they had been fools: they would free themselves,

and quaff the wine of life before the Angel of Death, Azrael, spilled

the goblet. Moshe Grinwitz's melancholy eyes blazed with sympathetic

ardour.

"Hush, miserable blasphemer!" faltered the great Rav Rotchinsky, who

alone could find his tongue. "The guardian of Israel neither

slumbereth nor sleepeth." The hunchback wheeled round and cast a

chilling glance at the venerable man. Then, smiling, "The maidens of

England are beautiful," he said. "They are even fairer than the women

of Brody."

The great Rav turned pale, but his eyes shone. He struck out feebly

with his arms, as though beating back some tempting vision.

"You and I have spoken together before, Rabbi," said the hunchback.

"We shall speak again--about women, wine, and other things. Your beard

is long and white, but many days of sunshine are still before you, and

the darkness of the grave is afar."

The rabbi tried to mutter a prayer, but his lips only beat tremulously

together.

"Profane mocker," he muttered at length, "go to thy work and thy wine

and thy pleasure, if thou wouldst desecrate the sacred Sabbath-day;

but tempt not others to sin with thee. Begone; and may the Holy One,

blessed be He, blast thee with His lightnings."

"The Holy One blasteth only that which is holy," grimly rejoined the

dwarfish stranger, exhibiting the Scroll, while a low sound of

applause went up from the audience. "Said I not, ye were a sport and a

mockery unto Him? Ye assemble in your multitude for prayer, and the

vapour of your piety but prepares the air for the passage of His

arrows. Ye adorn His Scroll with bells and chains, and the gilded

metal but draws His lightnings."

He looked around the room and a cat-like gleam of triumph stole into

his wonderful eyes as he noted the effect of his words. He paused, and

again for a moment the tense, awful silence reigned, emphasized by the

loud but decreasing patter of the rain. This time it was broken in a

strange, unexpected fashion.

"_Yisgadal, veyiskadash sheme rabbo_," rang out a clear, childish

voice from the rear of the synagogue. A little orphan child, who had

come to repeat the _Kaddish_, the Hebrew mourners' unquestioning

acknowledgment of the Supreme Goodness, had fallen into a sleep,

overcome by the heat, and had slept all through the storm. Awakening

now amid a universal silence, the poor little fellow instinctively

felt that the congregation was waiting for him to pronounce the

prayer. Alone of the male worshippers he had neither seen the

blaspheming hunchback nor listened to his words.

The hunchback's handsome face was distorted with a scowl; he stamped

his broad splay-foot, but hearing no verbal interruption, the child,

its eyes piously closed, continued its prayer--

"_In the world which He hath created...._"

"The rain has ceased, brethren," huskily whispered the hunchback, for

his words seemed to stick in his throat. "Come outside and I will tell

you how to enjoy this world, for world-to-come there is none." Not a

figure stirred. The child's treble went unfalteringly on. The stranger

hurried toward the door. Arrived there, he looked back. Moshe

Grinwitz alone followed him. He hurled the Scroll at the child's head,

but the lad just then took the three backward steps which accompany

the conclusion of the prayer. The Scroll dashed itself against the

wall; the stranger was gone and with him Moshe Grinwitz. A great wave

of trembling passed through the length and breadth of the synagogue;

the men drew long breaths, as if some heavy and sulphurous vapour had

been dissipated from the atmosphere; the child lifted up with

difficulty the battered Scroll, kissed it and handed it to his

neighbour, who deposited it reverently in the Ark; a dazzling burst of

sunshine flooded the room from above, and transmuted the floating dust

into the golden shafts of some celestial structure; the Cantor and the

congregation continued the words of the service at the point

interrupted, as though all the strange episode had been a dream. They

did not speak or wonder among themselves at it; nor did the rabbi

allude to it in the marvellous exhortation that succeeded the service,

save at its close, when he reminded them that on the morrow they must

observe a solemn fast. But ever afterward they shunned Moshe Grinwitz

as a leper; for the sight of him recalled his companion in blasphemy,

the atheist and socialist propagandist, who had insidiously crept into

their midst, after perverting and crazing their fellow as a

preliminary; and the thought of the strange hunchback set their blood

tingling and their brain surging with wild fancies and audacious

thoughts. The tidings of their misfortune induced a few benevolent men

to join in purchasing a new Scroll of the Law for them, and before the

Feast of Consecration of this precious possession was well over, the

once vivid images of that stormy and disgraceful scene were as shadows

in the minds of men not unaccustomed to heated synagogal discussions,

and not altogether strangers to synagogal affrays.

"_She will do him good and not evil all the days of her

life._"--Prov. xxxi. 12.

As Moshe Grinwitz followed his new-found friend down the narrow

windings that led to his own home, his whole being surrendered itself

to the new delicious freedom. The burst of sunshine that greeted him

almost as soon as he crossed the threshold of the synagogue seemed to

him to typify the new life that was to be his. He drew up his gaunt

form to his full height, stiffened his curved shoulders, bent by much

stooping over his machine, and adjusted his high hat firmly on his

head. It was not a restful, placid feeling that now possessed him;

rather a busy ferment of ideas, a stirring of nerve currents, an

accumulation of energy striving to discharge itself, a mercurial

flowing of the blood. The weight of old life-long conceptions, nay,

the burden of old learning, of which his store had been vast, was cast

off. He did not know what he should do with the new life that tingled

in his veins; he only felt alive in every pore.

"Ha! brother!" he shouted to the hunchback, who was hurrying on

before. "These fools in the synagogue would do better to come out and

enjoy the fine weather."

"They breathe the musty air to offer it up as a sweet incense,"

responded the dwarf, slackening his steps to allow his companion to

come up with him.

Their short walk was diversified by quite a number of incidents. A

driver lashed his horse so savagely that the animal bolted; two

children walking hand in hand suddenly began to fight; a

foreign-looking, richly dressed gentleman, half-drunk, staggered

along. Moshe felt it a shame that one wealthy man should wear a heavy

gold chain, which would support a poor family for a month; but ere his

own temptation had gathered to a head, the poor gentleman was felled

by a sudden blow, and a respectably clad figure vanished down an alley

with the coveted spoil. Moshe felt glad, and made no attempt to assist

the victim, and his attention was immediately attracted by some boys,

who commenced to tie a cracker to a cat's tail. Occupied by all these

observations, Moshe suddenly noted with a start that they had reached

the house in which he lived. His companion had already entered the

passage, for the door was always ajar, and Moshe had the impression

that it was very kind of his new friend to accept his invitation to

visit him. He felt very pleased, and followed him into the passage,

but no sooner had he done so than an impalpable cloud of distrust

seemed to settle upon him. The house was a tall, old-fashioned and

grimy structure, which had been fine, and even stately, a century

before, but which now sheltered a dozen families, mainly Jewish. Moshe

Grinwitz's one room was situated at the very top, its walls forming

part of the roof. Every flight of stairs Moshe went up, his spirit

grew darker and darker, as if absorbing the darkness that hung around

the cobwebbed, massive balustrades, upon which no direct ray of

sunlight ever fell; and by the time he had reached the dusky landing

outside his own door the vague uneasiness had changed into a horrible

definite conception; a memory had come back upon him which set his

heart thumping guiltily and anxiously in his bosom. His wife! His

pure, virtuous, God-fearing wife! How was he to make her understand?

But immediately a thought came, by which the burden of shame and

anxiety was half lifted. His wife was not at home; she would still be

in the Synagogue of Love and Mercy, where, mercifully blinded by the

curtain, she, perhaps, was still ignorant of the part he had played.

He turned suddenly to his companion, and caught the vanishing traces

of an ugly scowl wrinkling the high white forehead under the fur cap.

The hunchback's hair burnt like fire on the background of the gloom;

his eyes flashed lightning.

"Probably my wife is in the synagogue," said Moshe. "If so, she has

the key, and we can't get in."

"The key matters little," hissed the hunchback. "But you must first

tear down this thing."

Moshe's eyes followed in wonder the direction of his companion's long,

white forefinger, and rested on the _Mezuzah_, where, in a tin case,

the holy verses and the Name hung upon the door-post.

"Tear it down?" repeated Moshe.

"Tear it down!" replied the hunchback. "Never will I enter a home

where this superstitious gew-gaw is allowed to decorate the door."

Moshe hesitated; the thought of what his wife would say, again welled

up strongly within him; all his new impious daring seemed to be

melting away. But a mocking glance from the cruel eyes thrilled

through him. He put his hand on the _Mezuzah_, then the unbroken habit

of years asserted its sway, and he removed the finger which had lain

on the Name and kissed it. Instantly another semi-transformation of

his thoughts took place; he longed to take the hunchback by the

throat. But it was an impotent longing, for when a low hiss of intense

scorn and wrath was breathed from the clenched lips of his companion,

he made a violent tug at the firmly fastened _Mezuzah_. It was

half-loosed from the woodwork when, from behind the door, there issued

in clear, womanly tones the solemn Hebrew words:--

"_Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the ungodly,

nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the

scornful._"

It was Rebecca Grinwitz commencing the Book of Psalms, which she read

through every Sabbath afternoon.

A violent shudder agitated Moshe Grinwitz's frame; he paused with his

hand on the _Mezuzah_, struggled with himself awhile, then kissed his

finger again, and, turning to defy the scorn of his companion, saw

that he had slipped noiselessly downstairs. A sob of intense relief

burst from Moshe's lips.

"Rivkoly, Rivkoly!" he cried hysterically, beating at the door; and in

another moment he was folded in the quiet haven of his wife's arms.

"Who told thee it was I?" said Rebecca, after a moment of delicious

happiness for both. "I told them not to alarm thee, nor to spoil thy

enjoyment of the sermon, because I knew thou wouldst be uneasy and be

wanting to leave the synagogue if thou knewest I had fainted."

"No one told me thou hadst fainted!" Moshe exclaimed, instantly

forgetting his own perturbation.

"And yet thou didst guess it!" said Rebecca, a happy little smile

dimpling her pale cheek, "and came away after me." Then, her face

clouding, "The _Satan Mekatrig_ has tempted us both away from

synagogue," she said, "and even when I commence to say _Tehillim_

(Psalms) at home, he interrupts me by sending me my darling husband."

Moshe kissed her in acknowledgment of the complimentary termination of

a sentence begun with unquestionable gloom. "But what made my Rivkoly

faint?" he asked, glad, on reflection, that his wife's misconception

obviated the necessity of explanations. "They ought to have opened the

window at the back of the women's room."

Rebecca shuddered. "God forbid!" she cried. "It wasn't the heat--it

was _that_." Her eyes stared a moment at some unseen vision.

"What?" cried Moshe, catching the contagion of horror.

"He would have come in," she said.

"Who would have come in?" he gasped.

"The _Satan Mekatrig_," replied his wife. "He was outside, and he

glared at me as if I prevented his coming in."

A nervous silence followed. Moshe's heart beat painfully. Then he

laughed with ghastly merriment. "Thou didst fall asleep from the

heat," he said, "and hadst an evil dream."

"No, no," protested his wife earnestly. "As sure as I stand here, no!

I was looking into my _Chumosh_ (Pentateuch), following the reading of

the _Torah_, and all at once I felt something plucking my eyes off my

book and turning my head to look through the window immediately behind

me. I wondered what _Satan Mekatrig_ was distracting my thoughts from

the service. For a long time I resisted, but when the reading ceased

for a moment the temptation overcame me and I turned and saw him."

"How looked he?" Moshe asked in a whisper that strove in vain not to

be one.

"Do not ask me," Rebecca replied, with another shudder. "A little

crooked demon with red hair, and a fur cap, and a white forehead, and

baleful eyes, and a cock's talons for toes."

Again Moshe laughed, a strange, hollow laugh. "Little fool!" he said,

"I know the man. He is only a brother-Jew--a poor cutter or

cigar-maker who laughs at _Yiddishkeit_ (Judaism), because he has no

wife like mine to show him the heavenly light. Why, didst thou not see

him afterward? But no, thou must have been gone by the time he came

inside."

"What I saw was no man," returned Rebecca, looking at him sternly. "No

earthly being could have stopped my heart with his glances. It was the

_Satan Mekatrig_ himself, who goeth to and fro on the earth, and

walketh up and down in it. I must have been having wicked thoughts

indeed this Sabbath, thinking of my new dress, for my Sabbath Angel

to have deserted me, and to let the Disturber and the Tempter assail

me unchecked." The poor, conscience-stricken woman burst into tears.

"My Rivkoly have wicked thoughts!" said Moshe incredulously, as he

smoothed her cheek. "If my Rivkoly puts on a new dress in honour of

the Sabbath, is not the dear God pleased? Why, where _is_ thy new

dress?"

"I have changed it for an old one," she sobbed. "I do not want to see

the demon again."

"The _Satan Mekatrig_ has no real existence, I tell thee," said Moshe,

irritated. "He only means our own inward thoughts, that distract us in

the performance of the precepts; our own inward temptations to go

astray after our eyes and after our hearts."

"Moshe!" Rebecca exclaimed in a shocked tone, "have I married an

Epikouros after all? My father, the Rav, peace be unto him, always

said thou hadst the makings of one--that thou didst ask too many

questions."

"Well, whether there is a _Satan_ or not," retorted her husband, "thou

couldst not have seen him; for the person thou describest is the man I

tell thee of."

"And thou keepest company with such a man," she answered; "a man who

scoffs at _Yiddishkeit_! May the Holy One, blessed be He, forgive

thee! Now I know why we have no children, no son to say _Kaddish_

after us." And Rebecca wept bitterly--for the children she did not

possess.

Their common cause of grief coming thus unexpectedly into their

consciousness softened them toward one another and dispelled the

gathering irritation. Both had a melancholy vision of themselves

stretched out stiff and stark in their shrouds, with no filial

_Kaddish_ breaking in upon and gladdening their ears. O if their souls

should be doomed to Purgatory, with no son's prayers to release them!

Very soon they were sitting hand in hand, reading together the

interrupted Psalms.

And a deep peace fell upon Moshe Grinwitz. So the immortal allegorist,

John Bunyan, must have felt when the mad longing to utter blasphemies

and obscenities from the pulpit was stifled; and when he felt his soul

once more in harmony with the Spirit of Good. So feel all men who have

wrestled with a Being in the darkness and prevailed.

They were a curious contrast--the tall, sallow, stooping,

black-bearded man, and the small, keen-eyed, plump, pleasant-looking,

if not pretty woman, in her dark wig and striped cotton dress, and as

they sat, steadily going through the whole collection of Psalms to a

strange, melancholy tune, fraught with a haunting and indescribable

pathos, the shadows of twilight gathered unnoticed about the attic,

which was their all in all of home. The iron bed, the wooden chairs,

the gilt-framed _Mizrach_ began to lose their outlines in the

dimness. The Psalms were finished at last, and then the husband and

wife sat, still hand in hand, talking of their plans for the coming

week. For once neither spoke of going to evening service at the

Synagogue of Love and Mercy, and when a silver ray of moonlight lay

broad across the counterpane, and Rebecca Grinwitz, peering into the

quiet sky that overhung the turbid alley, announced that three stars

were visible, the devout couple turned their faces to the east and

sang the hymns that usher out the Sabbath.

And when the evening prayer was over Rebecca produced from the

cupboard the plainly cut goblet of raisin wine, and the metal

wine-cup, the green twisted waxlight, and the spice-box, wherewith to

perform the beautiful symbolical ceremony of the _Havdalah_, welcoming

in the days of work, the six long days of dreary drudgery, with

cheerful resignation to the will of the Maker of all things--of the

Sabbath and the Day of Work, the Light and the Shadow, the Good and

the Evil, blent into one divine harmony by His inscrutable Wisdom and

Love.

Moshe filled the cup with raisin wine, and, holding it with his right

hand, chanted a short majestic Hebrew poem, whereof the burden was:--

"Lo! God is my salvation; I will trust, and I will not be afraid. Be

with us light and joy, gladness and honour." Then blessing the King of

the Universe, who had created the fruit of the Vine, he placed the

cup on the table and took up the spices, uttering a blessing over them

as he did so. Then having smelled the spice-box, he passed it on to

his wife and spread out his hands toward the light of the spiral wax

taper, reciting solemnly: "Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, King of

the Universe, who createst the Light of the Fire." And then looking

down at the Shade made by his bent fingers, he took up the wine-cup

again, and chanted, with especial fervour, and with a renewed sense of

the sanctities and sweet tranquillities of religion: "Blessed be Thou,

O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who makest a distinction between

the Holy and the non-Holy, between Light and Darkness."

"_As for that night, let darkness seize upon it._"--Job iii. 6.

It was _Kol Nidre_ night, the commencement of the great White Fast,

the Day of Atonement. Throughout the Jewish quarter there was an air

of subdued excitement. The synagogues had just emptied themselves and

everywhere men and women, yet under the solemn shadow of passionate

prayer, were meeting and exchanging the wish that they might weather

the fast safely. The night was dark and starless, as if Nature partook

of the universal mournfulness.

Solitary, though amidst a crowd, a slight, painfully thin woman

shuffled wearily along, her feet clad in the slippers which befitted

the occasion, her head bent, her worn cheek furrowed with

still-falling tears. They were not the last dribblets of an exhausted

emotion, not the meaningless, watery expression of over-excited

sensibility. They were real, salt, bitter tears born of an intense

sorrow. The long, harassing service, with its untiring demands upon

the most exalted and the most poignant emotions, would have been a

blessing if it had dulled her capacity for anguish. But it had not.

Poor Rebecca Grinwitz was still thinking of her husband.

It was of him she thought, even when the ministers, in their long

white cerements, were pouring forth their souls in passionate

vocalization, now rising to a wail, now breaking to a sob, now sinking

to a dread whisper; it was of him she thought when the weeping

worshippers, covered from head to foot in their praying-shawls, rocked

to and fro in a frenzy of grief, and battered the gates of Heaven with

fiery lyrics; it was of him she thought when she beat her breast with

her clenched fist as she made the confession of sin and clamoured for

forgiveness. Sins enough she knew she had--but _his_ sin! Ah! God,

_his_ sin!

For Moshe had gone from bad to worse. He refused to reenter the

synagogue where he had been so roughly handled. His speech became more

and more profane. He said no more prayers; wore no more phylacteries.

Her peaceful home-life wrecked, her reliance on her husband gone, the

poor wife clung to him, still hoping on. At times she did not believe

him sane. Gradually rumours of his mad behaviour on the Sabbath on

which she had fainted reached her ears, and remembering that his

strangeness had begun from the Sunday morning following that delicious

afternoon of common Psalm-saying, she was often inclined to put it all

down to mental aberration. But then his talk--so clever, if so

blasphemous; bristling with little pointed epigrams and maxims such as

she had never before heard from him or any one else. He was full of

new ideas, too, on politics and the social system and other

unpractical topics, picturing endless potentialities of wealth and

happiness for the labourer. Meantime his wages had fallen by a third,

owing to the loss of his former place, his master having been the

president of the Congregation of Love and Mercy. What wonder,

therefore, if Moshe Grinwitz intruded upon all his wife's

thoughts--devotional or worldly? In a very real sense he had become

her _Satan Mekatrig_.

Up till to-night she had gone on hoping. For when the great White Fast

comes round, a mighty wave as of some subtle magnetism passes through

the world of Jews. Men and women who have not obeyed one precept of

Judaism for a whole year suddenly awake to a remembrance of the faith

in which they were born, and hasten to fast and pray, and abase

themselves before the Throne of Mercy. The long-drawn, tremulous,

stirring notes of the trumpet that ushers in the New Year, seem to

rally and gather together the dispersed of Israel from every region

of the underworld of unfaith and to mass them beneath the cope of

heaven. And to-night surely the newly rooted nightshade of doubt would

wither away in her husband's bosom. Surely this one link still held

him to the religion of his fathers; and this one link would redeem him

and yet save his soul from the everlasting tortures of the damned. But

this last hope had been doomed to disappointment. Utterly unmoved by

all the olden sanctities of the Days of Judgment that initiate the New

Year, the miserable man showed no signs of remorse when the more awful

terrors of the Day of Atonement drew near--the last day of grace for

the sinner, the day on which the Divine Sentence is sealed

irrevocably. And so the wretched woman had gone to the synagogue

alone.

Reaching home, she toiled up the black staircase and turned the handle

of the door. As she threw open the door she uttered a cry. She saw

nothing before her but a gigantic shadow, flickering grotesquely on

the sloping walls and the slip of ceiling. It must be her own shadow,

for other living occupant of the room she could see none. Where was

her husband? Whither had he gone? Why had he recklessly left the door

unlocked?

She looked toward the table gleaming weirdly with its white

tablecloth; the tall wax _Yom Kippur_ Candle, specially lit on the eve

of the solemn fast and intended to burn far on into the next day, had

all but guttered away, and the flame was quivering unsteadily under

the influence of a draught coming from the carelessly opened window.

Rebecca shivered from head to foot; a dread presentiment of evil shook

her soul. For years the Candle had burnt steadily, and her life also

had been steady and undisturbed. Alas! it needed not the omen of the

_Yom Kippur_ Candle to presage woe.

"May the dear God have mercy on me!" she exclaimed, bursting into

fresh tears. Hardly had she uttered the words when a monstrous black

cat, with baleful green eyes, dashed from under the table, sprang upon

the window-sill, and disappeared into the darkness, uttering a

melancholy howl. Almost frantic with terror, the poor woman dragged

herself to the window and closed it with a bang, but ere the sash had

touched the sill, something narrow and white had flashed from the room

through the gap, and the reverberations made in the silent garret by

the shock of the violently closed window were prolonged in mocking

laughter.

"Well thrown, Rav Moshe!" said a grating voice. "Now that you have at

last conquered your reverence for a bit of tin and a morsel of

parchment, I will honour your mansion with my presence."

Instantly Rebecca felt a wild longing to join in the merriment and to

laugh away her fears; but, muttering a potent talismanic verse, she

turned and faced her husband and his guest. Instinct had not deceived

her--the new-comer was the hunchback of that fatal Sabbath. This time

she did not faint.

"A strange hour and occasion to bring a visitor, Moshe," she said

sternly, her face growing even more rigid and white as she caught the

nicotian and alcoholic reek of the two men's breaths.

"Your good _Frau_ is not over-polite," said the visitor. "But it's

_Yom Kippur_, and so I suppose she feels she must tell the truth."

"I brought him, Rivkoly, to convince thee what a fool thou wast to

assert that thou hadst seen--but _I_ mustn't be impolite," he broke

off, with a coarse laugh. "There's no call for _me_ to tell the truth

because it's _Yom Kippur_. Down at the Club we celebrated the occasion

by something better than truth--a jolly spread! And our good friend

here actually stood a bottle of champagne! Champagne, Rivkoly! Think

of it! Real, live champagne, like that which fizzes and sparkles on

the table of the Lord Mayor. Oh, he's a jolly good fellow! and so said

all of us, too. And yet thou sayest he isn't a fellow at all."

A drunken leer overspread his sallow face, and was rendered more

ghastly by the flame leaping up from the expiring candle.

"_Roshah_, sinner!" thundered the woman. Then looking straight into

the cruel eyes of the hunchback, her wan face shining with the stress

of a great emotion, her meagre form convulsed with fury, "Avaunt,

_Satan Mekatrig_!" she screamed. "Get thee down from my house--get

thee down. In God's name, get thee down--to hell."

Even the brazen-faced hunchback trembled before her passion; but he

grasped his friend's hot hand in his long, nervous fingers, and seemed

to draw courage from the contact.

"If I go, I take your husband!" he hissed, his great eyes blazing in

turn. "He will leave me no more. Send me away, if you will."

"Yes, thou must not send my friend away like this," hiccoughed Moshe

Grinwitz. "Come, make him welcome, like the good wife thou wast wont

to be."

Rebecca uttered a terrible cry, and, cowering down on the ground,

rocked herself to and fro.

The drunkard appeared moved. "Get up, Rivkoly," he said, with a

tremour in his tones. "To see thee one would think thou wast sitting

_Shivah_ over my corpse." He put out his hand as if to raise her up.

"Back!" she screamed, writhing from his grasp. "Touch me not; no

longer am I wife of thine."

"Hear you that, man?" said the hunchback eagerly. "You are free. I am

here as a witness. Think of it; you are free."

"Yes, I am free," repeated Moshe, with a horrible, joyous exultation

on his sickly visage. The gigantic shadow of himself that bent over

him, cast by the dying flame of the _Yom Kippur_ Candle, seemed to

dance in grim triumph, his long side-curls dangling in the spectral

image like barbaric ornaments in the ears of a savage, while the

unshapely, fantastic shadow of the hunchback seemed to nod its head in

applause. Then, as the flame leaped up in an irregular jet, the

distorted shadow of the Tempter intertwined itself in a ghastly

embrace with her own. With frozen blood and stifled breath the

tortured woman turned away, and, as her eyes fell upon the

many-cracked looking-glass which adorned the mantelpiece, she saw, or

her overwrought fancy seemed to see--her husband's dead face, wreathed

with a slavering serpent in the place of the phylacteries he had

ceased to wear, and surrounded by endless perspectives of mocking

marble-browed visages, with fiery snakes for hair and live coals for

eyes.

She felt her senses slipping away from her grasp, but she struggled

wildly against the heavy vapour that seemed to choke her. "Moshe!" she

shrieked, in mad, involuntary appeal for help, as she clutched the

mantel and closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision.

"I am no longer thy husband," tauntingly replied the man. "I may not

touch thee."

"Hear you that, woman?" came the sardonic voice of the hunchback. "You

are free. I am here as a witness."

"I am here as a witness," a thousand mocking voices seemed to hiss in

echoed sibilance.

A terrible silence followed. At last she turned her white shrunken

face, which the contrast of the jet-black wig rendered weird and

death-like, toward the man who had been her husband, and looked long

and slowly, yearningly yet reproachfully, into his bloodshot eyes.

Again a great wave of agitation shook the man from head to foot.

"Don't look at me like that, Rivkoly," he almost screamed. "I won't

have it. I won't see thee. Curse that candle! Why does it flicker on

eternally and not blot thee from my sight?" He puffed violently at the

tenacious flame and a pall fell over the room. But the next instant

the light leaped up higher than ever.

"Moshe!" Rebecca shrieked in wild dismay. "Dost thou forget it is _Kol

Nidre_ night? How canst thou dare to blow out a light? Besides, it is

the _Yom Kippur_ Candle--it is our life and happiness for the New

Year. If you blow it out, I swear, by my soul and the great Name, that

you shall never look upon my face again."

"It is because I do not wish to see thy face that I will blow it out,"

he replied, laughing hysterically.

"No, no!" she pleaded. "I will go away rather. It is nearly dead of

itself; let it die."

"No! It takes too long dying; 'tis like thy father, the Rav, who had

the corpse-watchers so long in attendance that one died himself," said

Moshe Grinwitz with horrible laughter. "I will kill it!" And bending

down low over the broad socket of the candlestick, so that his head

loomed gigantic on the ceiling, he silenced forever the restless

tongue of fire.

Immediately a thick blackness, as of the grave, settled upon the

chamber. Hollow echoes of the blasphemer's laughter rang and resounded

on every side. Myriads of dreadful faces shaped themselves out of the

gloom, and mowed and gibbered at the woman. At the window, the green,

baleful eyes of the black cat glared with phosphorescent light. A

wreath of fiery serpents twisted themselves in fiendish contortions,

shedding lurid radiance upon the cruel marble brow they garlanded. An

unspeakable Eeriness, an unnameable Unholiness, floated with

far-sweeping, rustling pinions through the Darkness.

With stifling throat that strove in vain to shriek, the woman dashed

out through the well-known door, fled wildly down the stairs, pursued

at every step by the sardonic merriment, met at every corner by the

gibbering shapes--fled on, dashing through the heavy, ever-open street

door into the fresher air of the night--on, instinctively on, through

the almost deserted streets and alleys, where only the vile gin-houses

gleamed with life--on, without pause or rest, till she fell exhausted

upon the dusty door-step of the Synagogue of Love and Mercy.

"_All Israel have a portion in the world to come._"--Ethics of

the Fathers.

The aged keeper of the synagogue rushed out at the noise.

"Save me! For God's sake, save me, Reb Yitzchok!" cried the fallen

figure. "Save me from the _Satan Mekatrig_! I have no home--no

husband--any more! Take me in!"

"Take you in?" said Reb Yitzchok pityingly, for he dimly guessed

something of her story. "Where can I take you in? You know my wife and

I are allowed but one tiny room here."

"Take me in!" repeated the woman. "I will pass the night in the

synagogue. I must pray for my husband's soul, for he has no son to

pray for him. Let me come in! Save me from the _Satan Mekatrig_!"

"You would certainly meet many a _Satan Mekatrig_ in the streets

during the night," said the old man musingly. "But have you no friends

to go to?"

"None--none--but God! Let me in that I may go to Him. Give me shelter,

and He will have mercy on you when the great _Tekiah_ sounds to-morrow

night!"

Without another word Reb Yitzchok went into his room, returned with

the key, and threw open the door of the women's synagogue, revealing a

dazzling flood of light from the numerous candles, big and little,

which had been left burning in their sconces. The low curtain that

served as a partition had been half rolled back by devoted husbands

who had come to inquire after their wives at the end of the service,

and the synagogue looked unusually large and bright, though it was hot

and close, with lingering odours of breaths, and snuff, and tallow,

and smelling-salts.

With a sob of infinite thankfulness Rebecca dropped upon a wooden

bench.

"Would you like a blanket?" said the old man.

"No, no, God bless you!" she replied. "I must watch and weep, not

sleep. For the Scroll of Judgment is written and the Book of Life is

all but closed."

With a pitying sigh the old man turned and left her alone for the

night in the Synagogue of Love and Mercy.

For a few moments Rebecca sat, prayerless, her soul full of a strange

peace. Then she found herself counting the chimes as they rolled out

sonorously from a neighbouring steeple: One, Two, Three, Four, Five,

Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, TWELVE!

* * * * *

Starting up suddenly when the last stroke ceased to vibrate on the

air, Rebecca Grinwitz found, to her surprise, that a merciful sleep

must have overtaken her eyelids, that hours must have passed since

midnight had struck, and that the great Day of Atonement must have

dawned. Both compartments of the synagogue were full of the restless

stir of a praying multitude. With a sense of something vaguely

strange, she bent her eyes downward on her neighbour's _Machzor_. The

woman immediately pushed the prayer-book more toward Rebecca, with a

wonderful smile of love and tenderness, which seemed to go right

through Rebecca's heart, though she could not clearly remember ever

having seen her neighbour before. Nor, wonderingly stealing a first

glance around, could she help feeling that the entire congregation was

somewhat strange and unfamiliar, though she could not quite think why

or how. The male worshippers, too, why did they all wear the

shroud-like garments, usually confined on this solemn occasion to the

ministers and a few extra-devout personages? And had not some

transformation come over the synagogue? Was it only the haze before

her tear-worn eyes or did dim perspectives of worshippers stretch away

boundlessly on all sides of the clearly seen area, which still

retained the form of the room she knew so well?

But the curious undercurrent of undefined wonder lasted but a moment.

In another instant she was reconciled to the scene. All was familiar

and expected; once more she was taking part in divine service with no

sorrowful thoughts of her husband coming to distract her, her whole

soul bathing in and absorbing the Peace of God which passeth all

understanding. Then suddenly she felt a stir of recollection coming

over her, and a stream of love warming her heart, and looking up at

her neighbour's face she saw with joyous content that it was that of

her mother.

The service went on, mother and daughter following it in the book they

had in common. After several hours, during which the huge,

far-spreading congregation alternated with the Cantor in intoning the

beautiful poems of the liturgy of the day, the white curtain with its

mystic cabalistic insignia was rolled back from the Ark of the

Covenant and two Scrolls were withdrawn therefrom. Rebecca noted with

joy that the Ark was filled with Scrolls big and little, in rich

mantles, and that those taken out were swathed in satin beautifully

embroidered, and that the ornaments and the musically tinkling bells

were of pure gold.

Then some of the worshippers were called up in turn to the _Al Memor_

to be present at the reading of a section of the Law. They were all

well known to Rebecca. First came Moses ben Amram. He walked humbly up

to the _Al Memor_ with bowed head, his long _Talith_ enveloping him

from crown to foot. Rebecca saw his face well, for though it was

covered with a thick veil, it shone luminously through its draping.

"Bless ye the Lord, who is blessed," said Moses ben Amram, the words

seeming all the sweeter from his lips for the slight stammering with

which they were uttered.

"Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity and beyond,"

responded the endless congregation, in a low murmur that seemed to be

taken up and vibrated away and away into the infinite distances for

ever and ever.

"Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity and beyond,"

echoed the melodious voice. Then, in words that seemed to roll and

fill the great gulfs of space with a choral music of sacred joy, Moses

continued, "Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, the King of the

Universe, who hath chosen us from all peoples, and given unto us His

Law. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who givest the Law."

After him came Aaron ben Amram, whose white beard reached to his

knees. Abraham ben Terah, Isaac ben Abraham, and Jacob ben Isaac--all

venerable figures, with faces which Rebecca felt were radiant with

infinite tenderness and compassion for such poor helpless children as

herself--were also called up, and after the Patriarchs, Elijah the

Prophet. Lastly came a white-haired, stooping figure, whose gait and

whose every gesture told Rebecca that it was her father. How glad she

felt to see him thus honoured! As she listened to his quavering tones

the dusty tombstones of dead years seemed rolled away, and all their

simple joys and griefs to live again, not quite as of yore, but

transfigured by some solemn pathos.

When the reading of the Law was at an end, David ben Jesse, a

royal-looking graybeard, held up the Scroll to the four corners of

space, and it was rolled up by his son Solomon, the Preacher; the

carrying of it to the Ark being given to Rabbi Akiba, whose features

wore a strange, ecstatic look, as though ennobled by suffering. The

vast multitude rose with a great rustling, the sound whereof reached

afar, and sang a hymn of rejoicing, so that the whole universe was

filled with melody. Rebecca alone could not sing. For the first time

she missed her husband, Moshe. Why was he not here, like all the other

friends of her life, whose beloved faces surrounded her on every side

and made a sweet atmosphere of security for her soul? What was he

doing outside of this mighty assembly? Why was he not there to have

the sacred duty of carrying the Scroll entrusted to him? She felt the

tears pouring down her cheeks. She was ready to sink to the earth with

sudden lassitude. "Mother! dear mother!" she cried, "I feel so faint."

"You must have some air, my child, my Rivkoly," said the mother, the

dearly remembered voice falling for the first time with ineffable

sweetness on Rebecca's ears. And she put out her hand, and lo! it grew

longer and longer, till it reached up to the skylight, and then

suddenly the whole roof vanished and the free air of heaven blew in

like celestial balm upon Rebecca's hot forehead. Yet she noted with

wonder that the holy candles burnt on steadily, unfluttered by the

refreshing breeze. And then, lo! the starless heavens above her opened

out in indescribable Glory. The Dark budded into ineffable Beauty; a

supernally pure, luminous Splendour, transcendently dazzling, filled

the infinite depths of the Firmament with melodious coruscations of

Infinite Love made visible, and white-winged hosts of radiant Cherubim

sang "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full

of His Glory." And all the vast congregation fell upon their faces and

cried "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full

of His Glory." And Moses ben Amram arose, and he lifted his hands

toward the Splendour and he cried, "Lord, Lord God, merciful and

gracious, long-suffering and full of kindness and truth. Lo, Thou

sealest the seals before the twilight. Seal Thy People, I pray Thee,

in the Book of Life, though Thou blot me out. Forgive them, and pardon

their transgressions for the sake of the merits of the Patriarchs and

for the sake of the merits of the Martyrs, who have shed their blood

like water and offered their flesh to the flames for the

Sanctification of the Name. Forgive them, and blot out their

transgressions."