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 DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO

 _By_ I. ZANGWILL, _Author of "Children of the Ghetto" "The Master" "The King of Schnorrers"_

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON 1898

 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

 THE MASTER. A Novel. Illustrated by T. DE THULSTRUP. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 75. 

 He who begins "The Master" will find a charm which will lure him through adventures which are lifelike and full of human interest. . . . A strong and an enduring book. --_Chicago Tribune. _

 To those who do not know his splendid imagery, keen dissection of character, subtle views of humor, and enthralling power of narration, this work of Mr. Zangwill's should prove momentous and important. --_Boston Traveller. _

 "The Master" is the best novel of the year. --_Daily Chronicle_, London. 

 NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 

Copyright, 1898, by I. ZANGWILL. 

Copyright, 1898, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 

_All rights reserved. _

PREFACE

This is a Chronicle of Dreamers, who have arisen in the Ghetto fromits establishment in the sixteenth century to its slow breaking-up inour own day. Some have become historic in Jewry, others havepenetrated to the ken of the greater world and afforded models toillustrious artists in letters, and but for the exigencies of my themeand the faint hope of throwing some new light upon them, I should nothave ventured to treat them afresh; the rest are personally known tome or are, like "Joseph the Dreamer, " the artistic typification ofmany souls through which the great Ghetto dream has passed. Artistictruth is for me literally the highest truth: art may seize the essenceof persons and movements no less truly, and certainly far morevitally, than a scientific generalization unifies a chaos ofphenomena. Time and Space are only the conditions through whichspiritual facts straggle. Hence I have here and there permitted myselfliberties with these categories. Have I, for instance, misplaced themoment of Spinoza's obscure love-episode--I have only followed his ownprinciple, to see things _sub specie æternitatis_, and even were hislatest Dutch editor correct in denying the episode altogether, Ishould still hold it true as summarizing the emotions with which eventhe philosopher must reckon. Of Heine I have attempted a sort ofcomposite conversation-photograph, blending, too, the real heroine ofthe little episode with "La Mouche. " His own words will be recognizedby all students of him--I can only hope the joins with mine are nottoo obvious. My other sources, too, lie sometimes as plainly on thesurface, but I have often delved at less accessible quarries. Forinstance, I owe the celestial vision of "The Master of the Name" to aHebrew original kindly shown me by my friend Dr. S. Schechter, Readerin Talmudic at Cambridge, to whose luminous essay on the Chassidim, inhis _Studies in Judaism_, I have a further indebtedness. My account of"Maimon the Fool" is based on his own (not always reliable)autobiography, of which I have extracted the dramatic essence, thoughin the supplementary part of the story I have had to antedate slightlythe publication of Mendelssohn's "Jerusalem" and the fame of Kant. Infine, I have never hesitated to take as an historian or to focus andinterpret as an imaginative artist. 

I have placed "A Child of the Ghetto" first, not only because theVenetian Jewry first bore the name of Ghetto, but because this chaptermay be regarded as a prelude to all the others. Though the Dream passthrough Smyrna or Amsterdam, through Rome or Cairo, through Jerusalemor the Carpathians, through London or Berlin or New York, almost allthe Dreamers had some such childhood, and it may serve to explainthem. It is the early environment from which they all more or lessemerged. 

And there is a sense in which the stories all lead on to that which Ihave placed last. The "Child of the Ghetto" may be considered "fatherto the man" of "Chad Gadya" in that same city of the sea. 

For this book is the story of a Dream that has not come true. 

 I. Z. 

CONTENTS

 PAGE

PRELUDE: MOSES AND JESUS viii

A CHILD OF THE GHETTO 1

JOSEPH THE DREAMER 21

URIEL ACOSTA 68

THE TURKISH MESSIAH 115

THE MAKER OF LENSES 186

THE MASTER OF THE NAME 221

MAIMON THE FOOL AND NATHAN THE WISE 289

FROM A MATTRESS GRAVE 335

THE PEOPLE'S SAVIOUR 369

THE PRIMROSE SPHINX 424

DREAMERS IN CONGRESS 430

THE PALESTINE PILGRIM 441

THE CONCILIATOR OF CHRISTENDOM 453

THE JOYOUS COMRADE 480

CHAD GADYA 493

EPILOGUE: A MODERN SCRIBE IN JERUSALEM 514

DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO

MOSES AND JESUS

 In dream I saw two Jews that met by chance, One old, stern-eyed, deep-browed, yet garlanded With living light of love around his head, The other young, with sweet seraphic glance. Around went on the Town's satanic dance, Hunger a-piping while at heart he bled. _Shalom Aleichem_ mournfully each said, Nor eyed the other straight but looked askance. 

 Sudden from Church out rolled an organ hymn, From Synagogue a loudly chaunted air, Each with its Prophet's high acclaim instinct. Then for the first time met their eyes, swift-linked In one strange, silent, piteous gaze, and dim With bitter tears of agonized despair. 

A CHILD OF THE GHETTO

I

The first thing the child remembered was looking down from a windowand seeing, ever so far below, green water flowing, and on it gondolasplying, and fishing-boats with colored sails, the men in them lookingas small as children. For he was born in the Ghetto of Venice, on theseventh story of an ancient house. There were two more stories, upwhich he never went, and which remained strange regions, leadingtowards the blue sky. A dusky staircase, with gaunt whitewashed walls, led down and down--past doors whose lintels all bore little tin casescontaining holy Hebrew words--into the narrow court of the oldestGhetto in the world. A few yards to the right was a portico leading tothe bank of a canal, but a grim iron gate barred the way. The water ofanother canal came right up to the back of the Ghetto, and cut off allegress that way; and the other porticoes leading to the outer worldwere likewise provided with gates, guarded by Venetian watchmen. Thesegates were closed at midnight and opened in the morning, unless it wasthe Sabbath or a Christian holiday, when they remained shut all day, so that no Jew could go in or out of the court, the street, the bigand little square, and the one or two tiny alleys that made up theGhetto. There were no roads in the Ghetto, any more than in the restof Venice; nothing but pavements ever echoing the tramp of feet. Atnight the watchmen rowed round and round its canals in large barcas, which the Jews had to pay for. But the child did not feel a prisoner. As he had no wish to go outside the gates, he did not feel the chainthat would have drawn him back again, like a dog to a kennel; andalthough all the men and women he knew wore yellow hats and large O'son their breasts when they went into the world beyond, yet for a longtime the child scarcely realized that there were people in the worldwho were not Jews, still less that these hats and these rounds ofyellow cloth were badges of shame to mark off the Jews from the otherpeople. He did not even know that all little boys did not wear undertheir waistcoats "Four-corners, " colored shoulder-straps with squaresof stuff at each end, and white fringes at each corner, and that theydid not say, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One, "as they kissed the fringes. No, the Ghetto was all his world, and amighty universe it was, full of everything that the heart of a childcould desire. What an eager swarm of life in the great sunny squarewhere the Venetian mast towered skywards, and pigeons sometimesstrutted among the crowd that hovered about the countless shops underthe encircling colonnade--pawnshops, old-clo' shops, butcher-shops, wherein black-bearded men with yellow turbans bargained in Hebrew!What a fascination in the tall, many-windowed houses, with theirpeeling plastered fronts and patches of bald red brick, their greenand brown shutters, their rusty balconies, their splashes ofmany-colored washing! In the morning and evening, when the padlockedwell was opened, what delight to watch the women drawing water, oreven to help tug at the chain that turned the axle. And on the bridgethat led from the Old Ghetto to the New, where the canal, though theview was brief, disappeared round two corners, how absorbing to standand speculate on what might be coming round either corner, and whichwould yield a vision first! Perhaps there would come along a sandolorowed by a man standing at the back, his two oars crossed gracefully;perhaps a floating raft with barefooted boys bestriding it; perhaps abarca punted by men in blue blouses, one at front and two at the back, with a load of golden hay, or with provisions for the Ghetto--glowingfruit and picturesque vegetables, or bleating sheep and bellowingbulls, coming to be killed by the Jewish method. The canal thatbounded the Ghetto at the back offered a much more extended view, butone hardly dared to stand there, because the other shore was foreign, and the strange folk called Venetians lived there, and some of theseheathen roughs might throw stones across if they saw you. Still, atnight one could creep there and look along the moonlit water and up atthe stars. Of the world that lay on the other side of the water, heonly knew that it was large and hostile and cruel, though from hishigh window he loved to look out towards its great unknown spaces, mysterious with the domes and spires of mighty buildings, or towardsthose strange mountains that rose seawards, white and misty, like thehills of dream, and which he thought must be like Mount Sinai, whereGod spake to Moses. He never thought that fairies might live in them, or gnomes or pixies, for he had never heard of such creatures. Therewere good spirits and bad spirits in the world, but they floatedinvisibly in the air, trying to make little boys good or sinful. Theywere always fighting with one another for little boys' souls. But onthe Sabbath your bad angel had no power, and your guardian Sabbathangel hovered triumphantly around, assisting your every-day goodangel, as you might tell by noticing how you cast two shadows insteadof one when the two Sabbath candles were lighted. How beautiful werethose Friday evenings, how snowy the table-cloth, how sweeteverything tasted, and how restful the atmosphere! Such deliciouspeace for father and mother after the labors of the week!

It was the Sabbath Fire-woman who forced clearly upon the child'sunderstanding--what was long but a dim idea in the background of hismind--that the world was not all Jews. For while the people who livedinside the gates had been chosen and consecrated to the service of theGod of Israel, who had brought them out of Egyptian bondage and madethem slaves to Himself, outside the gates were people who were notexpected to obey the law of Moses; so that while he might not touchthe fire--nor even the candlesticks which had held fire--from Fridayevening to Saturday night, the Fire-woman could poke and poke at thelogs to her heart's content. She poked her way up from theground-floor through all the seven stories, and went on higher, a sortof fire-spirit poking her way skywards. She had other strangeprivileges, this little old woman with the shawl over her head, as thechild discovered gradually. For she could eat pig-flesh or shell-fishor fowls or cattle killed anyhow; she could even eat butter directlyafter meat, instead of having to wait six hours--nay, she could havebutter and meat on the same plate, whereas the child's mother hadquite a different set of pots and dishes for meat things or butterthings. Yes, the Fire-woman was indeed an inferior creature, existingmainly to boil the Ghetto's tea-kettles and snuff its candles, and waswell rewarded by the copper coin which she gathered from every hearthas soon as one might touch money. For when three stars appeared in thesky the Fire-woman sank back into her primitive insignificance, andthe child's father made the _Habdalah_, or ceremony of divisionbetween week-day and Sabbath, thanking God who divideth holiday fromworking-day, and light from darkness. Over a brimming wine-cup hemade the blessing, holding his bent fingers to a wax taper to make asymbolical appearance of shine and shadow, and passing round a box ofsweet-smelling spices. And, when the chanting was over, the child wasgiven to sip of the wine. Many delicious mouthfuls of wine wereassociated in his mind with religion. He had them in the synagogueitself on Friday nights and on Festival nights, and at home as well, particularly at Passover, on the first two evenings of which hislittle wine-glass was replenished no less than four times with mild, sweet liquid. A large glass also stood ready for Elijah the Prophet, which the invisible visitor drank, though the wine never got anylower. It was a delightful period altogether, this feast of Passover, from the day before it, when the last crumbs of bread and leavenedmatter were solemnly burnt (for no one might eat bread for eight days)till the very last moment of the eighth day, when the long-forbiddenbread tasted as sweet and strange as cake. The mere change of kitchenvessels had a charm: new saucepans, new plates, new dishes, newspoons, new everything, in harmony with the Passover cakes that tookthe place of bread--large thick biscuits, baked without yeast, full ofholes, or speckled and spotted. And when the evening table was laidfor the _Seder_ service, looking oh! so quaint and picturesque, withwine-cups and strange dishes, the roasted shank-bone of a lamb, bitterherbs, sweet spices, and what not, and with everybody lolling aroundit on white pillows, the child's soul was full of a tender poetry, andit was a joy to him to ask in Hebrew:--"Wherein doth this night differfrom all other nights? For on all other nights we may eat leavened andunleavened, but to-night only unleavened?" He asked the question outof a large thin book, gay with pictures of the Ten Plagues of Egyptand the wicked Pharaoh sitting with a hard heart on a hard throne. His father's reply, which was also in Hebrew, lasted some two or threehours, being mixed up with eating and drinking the nice things and thestrange dishes; which was the only part of the reply the child reallyunderstood, for the Hebrew itself was very difficult. But he knewgenerally what the Feast was about, and his question was only a matterof form, for he grew up asking it year after year, with a feignedsurprise. Nor, though he learned to understand Hebrew well, and couldeven translate his daily prayers into bad Italian, a corruption of theVenetian dialect finding its way into the Ghetto through the mouths ofthe people who did business with the outside world, did he ever reallythink of the sense of his prayers as he gabbled them off, morning, noon, and night. There was so much to say--whole books full. It was agreat temptation to skip the driest pages, but he never yielded to it, conscientiously scampering even through the passages in the tiniesttype that had a diffident air of expecting attention from onlyable-bodied adults. Part of the joy of Sabbaths and Festivals was thechange of prayer-diet. Even the Grace--that long prayer chanted afterbodily diet--had refreshing little variations. For, just as the childput on his best clothes for Festivals, so did his prayers seem toclothe themselves in more beautiful words, and to be said out of morebeautiful books, and with more beautiful tunes to them. Melody playeda large part in the synagogue services, so that, although he did notthink of the meaning of the prayers, they lived in his mind as music, and, sorrowful or joyous, they often sang themselves in his brain inafter years. There were three consecutive "Amens" in the afternoonservice of the three Festivals--Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles--thathad a quaint charm for him. The first two were sounded staccato, thelast rounded off the theme, and died away, slow and lingering. Nor, though there were double prayers to say on these occasions, did theyweigh upon him as a burden, for the extra bits were insinuated betweenthe familiar bits, like hills or flowers suddenly sprung up inunexpected places to relieve the monotony of a much-travelled road. And then these extra prayers were printed so prettily, they rhymed soprofusely. Many were clever acrostics, going right through thealphabet from Aleph, which is A, to Tau, which is T, for Z comes nearthe beginning of the Hebrew alphabet. These acrostics, written in theMiddle Ages by pious rabbis, permeated the Festival prayer-books, andeven when the child had to confess his sins--or rather those of thewhole community, for each member of the brotherhood of Israel wasresponsible for the rest--he sinned his sin with an "A, " he sinned hissin with a "B, " and so on till he could sin no longer. And, when theprayers rhymed, how exhilarating it was to lay stress on each rhymeand double rhyme, shouting them fervidly. And sometimes, instead ofrhyming, they ended with the same phrase, like the refrain of aballad, or the chorus of a song, and then what a joyful relief, aftera long breathless helter-skelter through a strange stanza, to come outon the old familiar ground, and to shout exultantly, "For His mercyendureth for ever, " or "The appearance of the priest!" Sometimes therun was briefer--through one line only--and ended on a single wordlike "water" or "fire. " And what pious fun it was to come down sharpupon _fire_ or _water!_ They stood out friendly and simple, the restwas such curious and involved Hebrew that sometimes, in an audaciousmoment, the child wondered whether even his father understood it all, despite that he wept freely and bitterly over certain acrostics, especially on the Judgment Days. It was awe-inspiring to think thatthe angels, who were listening up in heaven, understood every word ofit. And he inclined to think that the Cantor, or minister who led thepraying, also understood; he sang with such feeling and such fervidroulades. Many solos did the Cantor troll forth, to which thecongregation listened in silent rapture. The only time the publicprayers bored the child was on the Sabbath, when the minister read thePortion of the Week; the Five Books of Moses being read through once ayear, week by week, in a strange sing-song with only occasionalflights of melody. The chant was determined by curious signs printedunder the words, and the signs that made nice music were rather rare, and the nicest sign of all, which spun out the word with endless turnsand trills, like the carol of a bird, occurred only a few times in thewhole Pentateuch. The child, as he listened to the interminableincantation, thought he would have sprinkled the Code with bird-songs, and made the Scroll of the Law warble. But he knew this could not be. For the Scroll was stern and severe and dignified, like the highmembers of the congregation who bore it aloft, or furled it, andadjusted its wrapper and its tinkling silver bells. Even the soberestmusical signs were not marked on it, nay, it was bare of punctuation, and even of vowels. Only the Hebrew consonants were to be seen on thesacred parchment, and they were written, not printed, for theprinting-press is not like the reverent hand of the scribe. The childthought it was a marvellous feat to read it, much less know preciselyhow to chant it. Seven men--first a man of the tribe of Aaron the HighPriest, then a Levite, and then five ordinary Israelites--were calledup to the platform to stand by while the Scroll was being intoned, andtheir arrivals and departures broke the monotony of the recitative. After the Law came the Prophets, which revived the child's interest, for they had another and a quainter melody, in the minor mode, full ofhalf tones and delicious sadness that ended in a peal of exultation. For the Prophets, though they thundered against the iniquities ofIsrael, and preached "Woe, woe, " also foretold comfort when the periodof captivity and contempt should be over, and the Messiah would comeand gather His people from the four corners of the earth, and theTemple should be rebuilt in Jerusalem, and all the nations wouldworship the God who had given His law to the Jews on Mount Sinai. Inthe meantime, only Israel was bound to obey it in every letter, because only the Jews--born or unborn--had agreed to do so amid thethunders and lightnings of Sinai. Even the child's unborn soul hadbeen present and accepted the yoke of the Torah. He often tried torecall the episode, but although he could picture the scene quitewell, and see the souls curling over the mountains like white clouds, he could not remember being among them. No doubt he had forgotten it, with his other pre-natal experiences--like the two Angels who hadtaught him Torah and shown him Paradise of a morning and Hell everyevening--when at the moment of his birth the Angel's finger had struckhim on the upper lip and sent him into the world crying at the pain, and with that dent under the nostrils which, in every human face, isthe seal of oblivion of the celestial spheres. But on the anniversaryof the great Day of the Decalogue--on the Feast of Pentecost--thesynagogue was dressed with flowers. Flowers were not easy to get inVenice--that city of stones and the sea--yet every synagogue (andthere were seven of them in that narrow Ghetto, some old andbeautiful, some poor and humble) had its pillars or its balconiestwined with roses, narcissi, lilies, and pansies. Prettier still werethe customs of "Tabernacles, " when the wooden booths were erected inthe square or the courtyards of the synagogues in commemoration of thedays when the Children of Israel lived in tents in the wilderness. The child's father, being particularly pious, had a booth all tohimself, thatched with green boughs, and hung with fruit, andfurnished with chairs and a table at which the child sat, with theblue sky playing peep-bo through the leaves, and the white table-clothastir with quivering shadows and glinting sunbeams. And towards thelast days of the Festival he began to eat away the roof, consuming thedangling apples and oranges, and the tempting grapes. And throughoutthis beautiful Festival the synagogue rustled with palm branches, tiedwith boughs of willows of the brook and branches of other pleasanttrees--as commanded in Leviticus--which the men waved and shook, pointing them east and west and north and south, and then heavenwards, and smelling also of citron kept in boxes lined with white wool. Asone could not breakfast before blessing the branches and the citron, aman carried them round to such of the women-folk as household dutieskept at home--and indeed, home was a woman's first place, and to lightthe Sabbath lamp a woman's holiest duty, and even at synagogue she satin a grated gallery away from the men downstairs. On the seventh dayof Tabernacles the child had a little bundle of leafy boughs styled"Hosannas, " which he whipped on the synagogue bench, his sins fallingaway with the leaves that flew to the ground as he cried, "Hosanna, save us now!" All through the night his father prayed in thesynagogue, but the child went home to bed, after a gallant strugglewith his closing eyelids, hoping not to see his headless shadow on thestones, for that was a sign of death. But the ninth day of Tabernacleswas the best, "The Rejoicing of the Law, " when the fifty-secondportion of the Pentateuch was finished and the first portion begunimmediately all over again, to show that the "rejoicing" was notbecause the congregation was glad to be done with it. The man calledup to the last portion was termed "The Bridegroom of the Law, " and tothe first portion "The Bridegroom of the Beginning, " and they made awedding-feast to which everybody was invited. The boys scrambled forsweets on the synagogue floor. The Scrolls of the Law were carriedround and round seven times, and the boys were in the procession withflags and wax tapers in candlesticks of hollow carrots, joininglustily in the poem with its alternative refrain of "Save us, we prayThee, " "Prosper us, we pray Thee. " So gay was the minister that hecould scarcely refrain from dancing, and certainly his voice danced asit sang. There was no other time so gay, except it was Purim--thefeast to celebrate Queen Esther's redemption of her people from thewicked Haman--when everybody sent presents to everybody else, and themen wore comic masks or dressed up as women and performed little plays. The child went about with a great false nose, and when the name of"Haman" came up in the reading of the Book of Esther, which was intonedin a refreshingly new way, he tapped vengefully with a little hammer orturned the handle of a little toy that made a grinding noise. The otherfeast in celebration of a Jewish redemption--Chanukah, or Dedication--wasalmost as impressive, for in memory of the miracle of the oil that keptthe perpetual light burning in the Temple when Judas Maccabæusreconquered it from the Greek gods, the Ghetto lighted candles, one onthe first night and two on the second, and so on till there were eightburning in a row, to say nothing of the candle that kindled the othersand was called "The Beadle, " and the child sang hymns of praise to theRock of Salvation as he watched the serried flames. And so, in thisinner world of dreams the child lived and grew, his vision turned backtowards ancient Palestine and forwards towards some vague Restoration, his days engirdled with prayer and ceremony, his very games of ball ornuts sanctified by Sandalphon, the boy-angel, to whom he prayed: "OSandalphon, Lord of the Forest, protect us from pain. "

II

There were two things in the Ghetto that had a strange attraction forthe child: one was a large marble slab on the wall near his house, which he gradually made out to be a decree that Jews converted toChristianity should never return to the Ghetto nor consort with itsinhabitants, under penalty of the cord, the gallows, the prison, thescourge, or the pillory; the other was a marble figure of a beautifulgirl with falling draperies that lay on the extreme wall of theGhetto, surveying it with serene eyes. 

Relic and emblem of an earlier era, she co-operated with the slab toremind the child of the strange vague world outside, where people offorbidden faith carved forbidden images. But he never went outside; atleast never more than a few streets, for what should he do in Venice?As he grew old enough to be useful, his father employed him in hispawn-shop, and for recreation there was always the synagogue and thestudy of the Bible with its commentaries, and the endless volumes ofthe Talmud, that chaos of Rabbinical lore and legislation. And when heapproached his thirteenth year, he began to prepare to become a "Sonof the Commandment. " For at thirteen the child was considered a man. His sins, the responsibility of which had hitherto been upon hisfather's shoulders, would now fall upon his own, and from counting foras little as a woman in the congregation, he would become a full unitin making up the minimum of ten men, without which public worshipcould not be held. And so, not only did he come to own a man'sblue-striped praying-shawl to wrap himself in, but he began to "layphylacteries, " winding the first leather strap round his left arm andits fingers, so that the little cubical case containing the holy wordssat upon the fleshy part of the upper arm, and binding the secondstrap round his forehead with the black cube in the centre like thestump of a unicorn's horn, and thinking the while of God's Unity andthe Exodus from Egypt, according to the words of Deuteronomy xi. 18, "And these my words . . . Ye shall bind for a sign upon your hand, andthey shall be as frontlets between your eyes. " Also he began to studyhis "Portion, " for on the first Sabbath of his thirteenth year hewould be summoned, as a man, to the recitation of the Sacred Scroll, only instead of listening, he would have to intone a section from theparchment manuscript, bare of vowels and musical signs. The boy wasshy, and the thought of appearing brazenly on the platform before thewhole congregation was terrifying. Besides, he might make mistakes inthe words or the tunes. It was an anxious time, scarcely redeemed bythe thought of new clothes, "Son-of-the-Commandment" presents, andmerry-makings. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night in acold sweat, having dreamed that he stood on the platform in forgetfuldumbness, every eye fixed upon him. Then he would sing his "Portion"softly to himself to reassure himself. And, curiously enough, itbegan, "And it was in the middle of the night. " In verity he knew itas glibly as the alphabet, for he was infinitely painstaking. Never alesson unlearnt, nor a duty undone, and his eager eyes looked forwardto a life of truth and obedience. And as for Hebrew without vowels, that had long since lost its terrors; vowels were only for childrenand fools, and he was an adept in Talmud, cunning in dispute and thedovetailing of texts--quite a little Rabbi, they said in the Ghetto!And when the great moment actually came, after a few timid twists andturns of melody he found his voice soaring aloft triumphantly, andthen it became to him a subtle pleasure to hold and dominate all thelistening crowd. Afterwards his father and mother received manycongratulations on the way he had "said his Portion. "

And now that he was a man other parts of Judaism came into prominencein his life. He became a member of the "Holy Society, " which washedand watched the bodies of the dead ere they were put to rest in thelittle island cemetery, which was called "The House of Life" becausethere is no death in the universe, for, as he sang triumphantly onFriday evenings, "God will make the dead alive in the abundance of Hiskindness. " And now, too, he could take a man's part in the deathservices of the mourners, who sat for seven days upon the ground andsaid prayers for the souls of the deceased. The boy wondered whatbecame of these souls; some, he feared, went to perdition, for he knewtheir owners had done and eaten forbidden things. It was a comfort tothink that even in hell there is no fire on the Sabbath, and noFire-woman. When the Messiah came, perhaps they would all be forgiven. Did not the Talmud say that all Israel--with the good men of allnations--would have a part in the world to come?

III

There were many fasts in the Ghetto calendar, most of them twelvehours long, but some twenty-four. Not a morsel of food nor a drop ofwater must pass the lips from the sunset of one day to nightfall onthe next. The child had only been allowed to keep a few fasts, andthese only partially, but now it was for his own soul to settle howlong and how often it would afflict itself, and it determined to do soat every opportunity. And the great opportunity came soon. Not theBlack Fast when the congregation sat shoeless on the floor of thesynagogue, weeping and wailing for the destruction of Jerusalem, butthe great White Fast, the terrible Day of Atonement commanded in theBible. It was preceded by a long month of solemn prayer, ushering inthe New Year. The New Year itself was the most sacred of theFestivals, provided with prayers half a day long, and made terrible bypeals on the ram's horn. There were three kinds of calls on thisprimitive trumpet--plain, trembling, wailing; and they were allsounded in curious mystic combinations, interpolated with passionatebursts of prayer. The sinner was warned to repent, for the New Yearmarked the Day of Judgment. For nine days God judged the souls of theliving, and decided on their fate for the coming year--who should liveand who should die, who should grow rich and who poor, who should bein sickness and who in health. But at the end of the tenth day, theday of the great White Fast, the judgment books were closed, to openno more for the rest of the year. Up till twilight there was yet time, but then what was written was finally sealed, and he who had not trulyrepented had missed his last chance of forgiveness. What wonder ifearly in the ten penitential days, the population of the Ghettoflocked towards the canal bridge to pray that its sins might be castinto the waters and swept away seawards!

'Twas the tenth day, and an awful sense of sacred doom hung over theGhetto. In every house a gigantic wax taper had burnt, white andsolemn, all through the night, and fowls or coins had been waved roundthe heads of the people in atonement for their iniquities. The morningdawned gray and cold, but with the dawn the population was astir, forthe services began at six in the morning and lasted withoutintermission till seven at night. Many of the male worshippers wereclad in their grave-clothes, and the extreme zealots remained standingall day long, swaying to and fro and beating their breasts at theconfessions of sin. For a long time the boy wished to stand too, butthe crowded synagogue reeked with heavy odors, and at last, towardsmid-day, faint and feeble, he had to sit. But to fast till nightfallhe was resolved. Hitherto he had always broken his fast at some pointin the services, going home round the corner to delicious bread andfish. When he was seven or eight this breakfast came at mid-day, butthe older he grew the longer he fasted, and it became a point of honorto beat his record every successive year. Last time he had brought hisbreakfast down till late in the afternoon, and now it would beunforgivable if he could not see the fast out and go home, proud andsinless, to drink wine with the men. He turned so pale, as theafternoon service dragged itself along, that his father begged himagain and again to go home and eat. But the boy was set on a fullpenance. And every now and again he forgot his headache and thegnawing at his stomach in the fervor of passionate prayer and in thefascination of the ghostly figures weeping and wailing in the gloomysynagogue, and once in imagination he saw the heavens open overheadand God sitting on the judgment throne, invisible by excess ofdazzling light, and round him the four-winged cherubim and the fierywheels and the sacred creatures singing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lordof Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory. " Then a great awebrooded over the synagogue, and the vast forces of the universe seemedconcentred about it, as if all creation was awaiting in tense silencefor the terrible words of judgment. And then he felt some cool, sweetscent sprinkled on his forehead, and, as from the far ends of theworld, he heard a voice that sounded like his father's asking him ifhe felt better. He opened his eyes and smiled faintly, and saidnothing was the matter, but now his father insisted that he must gohome to eat. So, still dazed by the glories he had seen, he draggedhimself dreamily through the press of swaying, weeping worshippers, over whom there still seemed to brood some vast, solemn awe, and cameoutside into the little square and drew in a delicious breath of freshair, his eyes blinking at the sudden glare of sunlight and blue sky. But the sense of awe was still with him, for the Ghetto was deserted, the shops were shut, and a sacred hush of silence was over the stonesand the houses, only accentuated by the thunder of ceaseless prayerfrom the synagogues. He walked towards the tall house with the ninestories, then a great shame came over him. Surely he had given in tooearly. He was already better, the air had revived him. No, he would_not_ break his fast; he would while away a little time by walking, and then he would go back to the synagogue. Yes, a brisk walk wouldcomplete his recovery. There was no warder at the open gate; thekeepers of the Ghetto had taken a surreptitious holiday, aware that onthis day of days no watching was needed. The guardian barca lay mooredto a post unmanned. All was in keeping with the boy's sense of solemnstrangeness. But as he walked along the Cannaregio bank, and furtherand further into the unknown city, a curious uneasiness and surprisebegan to invade his soul. Everywhere, despite the vast aweoverbrooding the world, shops were open and people were going aboutunconcernedly in the quaint alleys; babies laughed in their nurses'arms, the gondoliers were poised as usual on the stern of theirbeautiful black boats, rowing imperturbably. The water sparkled anddanced in the afternoon sun. In the market-place the tanned old womenchattered briskly with their customers. He wandered on and on ingrowing wonder and perturbation. Suddenly his trouble ceased, a burstof wonderful melody came to him; there was not only a joyful tune, butother tunes seemed to blend with it, melting his heart withunimaginable rapture; he gave chase to the strange sounds, drawingnearer and nearer, and at last he emerged unexpectedly upon an immensesquare bordered by colonnades, under which beautifully dressed signoriand signore sat drinking at little tables, and listening to men in redwith great black cockades in their hats who were ranged on a centralplatform, blowing large shining horns; a square so vast and so crowdedwith happy chattering people and fluttering pigeons that he gazedabout in blinking bewilderment. And then, uplifting his eyes, he saw asight that took his breath away--a glorious building like his dream ofthe Temple of Zion, glowing with gold and rising in marvellous domesand spires, and crowned by four bronze animals, which he felt suremust be the creatures called horses with which Pharaoh had pursued theIsraelites to the Red Sea. And hard by rose a gigantic tower, like theTower of Babel, leading the eye up and up. His breast filled with astrange pleasure that was almost pain. The enchanted temple drew himacross the square; he saw a poor bare-headed woman going in, and hefollowed her. Then a wonderful golden gloom fell upon him, and a senseof arches and pillars and soaring roofs and curved walls beautifulwith many-colored pictures; and the pleasure, that was almost pain, swelled at his heart till it seemed as if it must burst his breast. Then he saw the poor bare-headed woman kneel down, and in a flash heunderstood that she was praying--ay, and in the men's quarter--andthat this was no Temple, but one of those forbidden places calledchurches, into which the abhorred deserters went who were spoken of onthat marble slab in the Ghetto. And, while he was wrestling with theconfusion of his thoughts, a splendid glittering being, with a cockedhat and a sword, marched terrifyingly towards him, and sternly badehim take off his hat. He ran out of the wonderful building in a greatfright, jostling against the innumerable promenaders in the square, and not pausing till the merry music of the big shining horns had diedaway behind him. And even then he walked quickly, as if pursued by thestrange vast world into which he had penetrated for the first time. And suddenly he found himself in a blind alley, and knew that he couldnot find his way back to the Ghetto. He was about to ask of a womanwho looked kind, when he remembered, with a chill down his spine, thathe was not wearing a yellow O, as a man should, and that, as he wasnow a "Son of the Commandment, " the Venetians would consider him aman. For one forlorn moment it seemed to him that he would never findhimself back in the Ghetto again; but at last he bethought himself ofasking for the Cannaregio, and so gradually, cold at heart andtrembling, he reached the familiar iron gate and slipped in. All wasas before in the Ghetto. The same sacred hush in court and square, accentuated by the rumble of prayer from the synagogues, the gatheringdusk lending a touch of added solemnity. 

"Well, have you eaten?" asked the father. The boy nodded "Yes. " Afaint flush of exultation leapt into his pale cheek. He would see thefast out after all. The men were beating their breasts at theconfession of sin. "For the sin we have committed by lying, " chimed inthe boy. But although in his attention to the wailful melody of thewords he scarcely noticed the meaning, something of the old passionand fervor had gone out of his voice. Twilight fell; the shadowsdeepened, the white figures, wailing and weeping in theirgrave-clothes, grew mystic; the time for sealing the Books ofJudgment drew nigh. The figures threw themselves forward full length, their foreheads to the floor, proclaiming passionately again andagain, "The Lord He is God; the Lord He is God!" It was the hour inwhich the boy's sense of overbrooding awe had always been tensest. Buthe could not shake off the thought of the gay piazza and the wonderfulchurch where other people prayed other prayers. For something largerhad come into his life, a sense of a vaster universe without, and itsspaciousness and strangeness filled his soul with a nameless troubleand a vague unrest. He was no longer a child of the Ghetto. 

JOSEPH THE DREAMER

I

"We must not wait longer, Rachel, " said Manasseh in low, grave, butunfaltering accents. "Midnight approaches. "

Rachel checked her sobs and assumed an attitude of reverence as herhusband began to intone the benedictions, but her heart felt noreligious joy in the remembrance of how the God of her fathers hadsaved them and their Temple from Hellenic pollution. It was torn byanxiety as to the fate of her boy, her scholar son, unaccountablyabsent for the first time from the household ceremonies of the Feastof Dedication. What was he doing--outside the Ghetto gates--in thatgreat, dark, narrow-meshed city of Rome, defying the Papal law, and ofall nights in the year on that sinister night when, by a coincidenceof chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of hisSaviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern andrugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks andbeard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the waxcandles in the nine-branched candlestick of silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back infront a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. These sombre-coloredrobes were second-hand, as the austere simplicity of the Pragmaticrequired. The Jewish Council of Sixty did not permit its subjects toruffle it like the Romans of those days of purple pageantry. The youngbloods, forbidden by Christendom to style themselves signori, wereforbidden by Judea to vie with signori in luxury. 

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, " chanted the old man. "King of theUniverse, who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments, and commandedus to kindle the light of Chanukah. "

It was with a quavering voice that Rachel joined in the ancient hymnthat wound up the rite. "O Fortress, Rock of my salvation, " the oldwoman sang. "Unto Thee it is becoming to give praise; let my house ofprayer be restored, and I will there offer Thee thanksgivings; whenThou shalt have prepared a slaughter of the blaspheming foe, I willcomplete with song and psalm the dedication of the altar. "

But her imagination was roving in the dim oil-lit streets of thetenebrous city, striving for the clairvoyance of love. Arrest by the_sbirri_ was certain; other dangers threatened. Brawls and bravosabounded. True, this city of Rome was safer than many another for itsJews, who, by a miracle, more undeniable than that which they were nowcelebrating, had from the birth of Christ dwelt in the very heart ofChristendom, the Eternal People in the Eternal City. The Ghetto hadwitnessed no such sights as Barcelona or Frankfort or Prague. Thebloody orgies of the Crusaders had raged far away from the Capital ofthe Cross. In England, in France, in Germany, the Jew, that scapegoatof the nations, had poisoned the wells and brought on the Black Death, had pierced the host, killed children for their blood, blasphemed thesaints, and done all that the imagination of defalcating debtors couldsuggest. But the Roman Jews were merely pestilent heretics. Perhapsit was the comparative poverty of the Ghetto that made its tragedyone of steady degradation rather than of fitful massacre. Neverthelessbloodshed was not unknown, and the song died on Rachel's lips, thoughthe sterner Manasseh still chanted on. 

"The Grecians were gathered against me in the days of the Hasmoneans;they broke down the walls of my towers and defiled all the oils; butfrom one of the last remaining flasks a miracle was wrought for Thylily, Israel; and the men of understanding appointed these eight daysfor songs and praises. "

They were well-to-do people, and Rachel's dress betokened the limit ofthe luxury allowed by the Pragmatic--a second-hand silk dress with apin at the throat set with only a single pearl, a bracelet on one arm, a ring without a bezel on one finger, a single-stringed necklace roundher neck, her hair done in a cheap net. 

She looked at the nine-branched candlestick, and a mystical sadnessfilled her. Would she had nine scions of her house like Miriam'smother, a true mother in Israel; but, lo! she had only one candle--onelittle candle. A puff and it was gone, and life would be dark. 

That Joseph was not in the Ghetto was certain. He would never havecaused her such anxiety wilfully, and, indeed, she and her husband andMiriam had already run to all the likely places in the quarter, evento those marshy alleys where every overflow of the Tiber left depositsof malarious mud, where families harbored, ten in a house, wherestunted men and wrinkled women slouched through the streets, and asickly spawn of half-naked babies swarmed under the feet. They had hadtrouble enough, but never such a trouble as this. Manasseh and Rachel, with this queer offspring of theirs, this Joseph the Dreamer, as hehad been nicknamed, this handsome, reckless black-eyed son of theirs, with his fine oval face, his delicate olive features; this young man, who could not settle down to the restricted forms of commerce possiblein the Ghetto, who was to be Rabbi of the community one day, albeithis brilliance was occasionally dazzling to the sober tutors upon whomhe flashed his sudden thought, which stirred up that which had betterbeen left asleep. Why was he not as other sons, why did he pace thestreet with unobservant eyes, why did he weep over the profane Hebrewof the Spanish love-singers as if their songs were _Selichoth_ orPenitential Verses? Why did he not marry Miriam, as one could see thegirl wished? Why did he set at naught the custom of the Ghetto, insilently refraining from so obvious a match between the children oftwo old friends, equally well-to-do, and both possessing the _JusGazzaga_ or leasehold of the houses in which they lived; tall, quainthouses, separated only by an ancient building with a carved porch, andstanding at the end of the great Via Rua where it adjoined the narrowlittle street, Delle Azzimelle, in which the Passover cakes were made. Miriam's family, being large, had their house to themselves, but agood deal of Manasseh's was let out; for room was more and moreprecious in the Ghetto, which was a fixed space for an ever-expandingpopulation. 

II

They went to bed. Manasseh insisted upon that. They could not possiblyexpect Joseph till the morning. Accustomed as Rachel was to lean uponher husband's strength, at this moment his strength seemed harshness. The night was long. A hundred horrid visions passed before hersleepless eyes. The sun rose upon the Ghetto, striving to slip itsrays between the high, close-pressed tops of opposite houses. The fiveGhetto gates were thrown open, but Joseph did not come through any. The Jewish pedlars issued, adjusting their yellow hats, and pushingbefore them little barrows laden with special Christmas wares. "_Heb, heb_, " they shouted as they passed through the streets of Rome. Somesold simples and philtres, and amulets in the shape of miniaturemandores or four-stringed lutes to preserve children from maladies. Manasseh, his rugged countenance grown harder, went to his place ofbusiness. He had forbidden any inquiries to be made outside the paletill later in the day; it would be but to betray to the enemy Joseph'sbreach of the law. In the meantime, perhaps, the wanderer wouldreturn. Manasseh's establishment was in the Piazza Giudea. Numerousshops encumbered the approaches, mainly devoted to the sale ofcast-off raiment, the traffic in new things being prohibited to Jewsby Papal Bull, but anything second-hand might be had here from therough costume of a shepherd of Abruzzo to the faded fripperies of agentleman of the Court. In the centre a new fountain with two dragonssupplied the Ghetto with water from the Aqueduct of Paul the Fifth inlieu of the loathly Tiber water, and bore a grateful Latininscription. About the edges of the square a few buildings rose indilapidated splendor to break the monotony of the Ghetto barracks; theancient palace of the Boccapaduli, and a mansion with a high tower andthree abandoned churches. A monumental but forbidding gate, closed atsundown, gave access to a second Piazza Giudea, where Christianscongregated to bargain with Jews--it was almost a suburb of theGhetto. Manasseh had not far to go, for his end of the Via Ruadebouched on the Piazza Giudea; the other end, after running parallelto the Via Pescheria and the river, bent suddenly near the Gate ofOctavius, and finished on the bridge Quattro Capi. Such was the Ghettoin the sixteen hundreds. 

Soon after Manasseh had left the house, Miriam came in with anxiousface to inquire if Joseph had returned. It was a beautiful Orientalface, in whose eyes brooded the light of love and pity, a face of thetype which painters have given to the Madonna when they haveremembered that the Holy Mother was a Jewess. She was clad in a simplewoollen gown, without lace or broidery, her only ornament a silverbracelet. Rachel wept to tell her the lack of news, but Miriam did notjoin in her tears. She besought her to be of good courage. 

And very soon indeed Joseph appeared, with an expression at oncehaggard and ecstatic, his black hair and beard unkempt, his eyesglittering strangely in his flushed olive face, a curious poeticfigure in his reddish-brown mantle and dark yellow cap. 

"_Pax vobiscum_, " he cried, in shrill, jubilant accents. 

"Joseph, what drunken folly is this?" faltered Rachel. 

"_Gloria in altissimis Deo_ and peace on earth to all men ofgoodwill, " persisted Joseph. "It is Christmas morning, mother. " And hebegan to troll out the stave of a carol, "Simeon, that good saint ofold--"

Rachel's hand was clapped rudely over her son's mouth. 

"Blasphemer!" she cried, an ashen gray overspreading her face. 

Joseph gently removed her hand. "It is thou who blasphemest, mother, "he cried. "Rejoice, rejoice, this day the dear Lord Christ wasborn--He who was to die for the sins of the world. "

Rachel burst into fresh tears. "Our boy is mad--our boy is mad. Whathave they done to him?" All her anticipations of horror were outpassedby this. 

Pain shadowed the sweet silence of Miriam's face as she stood in therecess of the window. 

"Mad! Oh, my mother, I am as one awakened. Rejoice, rejoice with me. Let us sink ourselves in the universal joy, let us be at one with thehuman race. "

Rachel smiled tentatively through her tears. "Enough of this foolery, "she said pleadingly. "It is the feast of Dedication, not of Lots. There needs no masquerading to-day. "

"Joseph, what ails thee?" interposed the sweet voice of Miriam. "Whathast thou done? Where hast thou been?"

"Art thou here, Miriam?" His eyes became conscious of her for thefirst time. "Would thou hadst been there with me!"

"Where?"

"At St. Peter's. Oh, the heavenly music!"

"At St. Peter's!" repeated Rachel hoarsely. "Thou, my son Joseph, thestudent of God's Law, hast defiled thyself thus?"

"Nay, it is no defilement, " interposed Miriam soothingly. "Hast thounot told us how our fathers went to the Sistine Chapel on Sabbathafternoons?"

"Ay, but that was when Michel Angelo Buonarotti was painting hisfrescoes of the deliverances of Israel. And they went likewise to seethe figure of our Lawgiver in the Pope's mausoleum. And I have evenheard of Jews who have stolen into St. Peter's itself to gaze on thattwisted pillar from Solomon's temple, which these infidels hold forour sins. But it is the midnight mass that this Epicurean has been tohear. "

"Even so, " said Joseph in dreamy undertones, "the midnightmass--incense and lights and the figures of saints, and wonderfulpainted windows, and a great multitude of weeping worshippers andmusic that wept with them, now shrill like the passionate cry ofmartyrs, now breathing the peace of the Holy Ghost. "

"How didst thou dare show thyself in the cathedral?" whimpered Rachel. 

"Who should dream of a Jew in the immense throng? Outside it was dark, within it was dim. I hid my face and wept. They looked at thecardinals in their splendid robes, at the Pope, at the altar. Who hadeyes for me?"

"But thy yellow cap, Joseph!"

"One wears not the cap in church, mother. "

"Thou didst blasphemously bare thy head, and in worship?"

"I did not mean to worship, mother mine. A great curiosity drew me--Idesired to see with my own eyes, and hear with mine own ears, thisadoration of the Christ, at which my teachers scoff. But I was caughtup in a mighty wave of organ-music that surged from this low earthheavenwards to break against the footstool of God in the crystalfirmament. And suddenly I knew what my soul was pining for. I knew themeaning of that restless craving that has always devoured me, though Ispake not thereof, those strange hauntings, those dim perceptions--ina flash I understood the secret of peace. "

"And that is--Joseph?" asked Miriam gently, for Rachel drew suchlaboring breath she could not speak. 

"Sacrifice, " said Joseph softly, with rapt gaze. "To suffer, to giveone's self freely to the world; to die to myself in delicious pain, like the last tremulous notes of the sweet boy-voice that had soaredto God in the Magnificat. Oh, Miriam, if I could lead our brethren outof the Ghetto, if I could die to bring them happiness, to make themfree sons of Rome. "

"A goodly wish, my son, but to be fulfilled by God alone. "

"Even so. Let us pray for faith. When we are Christians the gates ofthe Ghetto will fall. "

"Christians!" echoed Rachel and Miriam in simultaneous horror. 

"Ay, Christians, " said Joseph unflinchingly. 

Rachel ran to the door and closed it more tightly. Her limbs shook. "Hush!" she breathed. "Let thy madness go no further. God of Abraham, suppose some one should overhear thee and carry thy talk to thyfather. " She began to wring her hands. 

"Joseph, bethink thyself, " pleaded Miriam, stricken to the heart. "Iam no scholar, I am only a woman. But thou--thou with thylearning--surely thou hast not been befooled by these jugglers withthe sacred text? Surely thou art able to answer their word-twistingsof our prophets?"

"Ah, Miriam, " replied Joseph tenderly. "Art thou, too, like ourbrethren? They do not understand. It is a question of the heart, notof texts. What is it I feel is the highest, divinest in me? Sacrifice!Wherefore He who was all sacrifice, all martyrdom, must be divine. "

"Bandy not words with him, Miriam, " cried his mother. "Oh, thouinfidel, whom I have begotten for my sins. Why doth not Heaven's fireblast thee as thou standest there?"

"Thou talkest of martyrdom, Joseph, " cried Miriam, disregarding her. "It is we Jews who are martyrs, not the Christians. We are penned herelike cattle. We are marked with shameful badges. Our Talmud is burnt. Our possessions are taxed away from us. We are barred from everyreputable calling. We may not even bury our dead with honor or carvean epitaph over their graves. " The passion in her face matched his. Her sweetness was exchanged for fire. She had the air of a Judith or aJael. 

"It is our own cowardice that invites the spittle, Miriam. Where isthe spirit of the Maccabæans whom we hymn on this feast of Chanukah?The Pope issues Bulls, and we submit--outwardly. Our resistance issilent, sinuous. He ordains yellow hats; we wear yellow hats, butgradually the yellow darkens; it becomes orange, then ochre, till atlast we go capped in red like so many cardinals, provoking the edictafresh. We are restricted to one synagogue. We have five for ourdifferent country-folk, but we build them under one roof and call fourof them schools. "

"Hush, thou Jew-hater, " cried his mother. "Say not such things aloud. My God! my God! how have I sinned before Thee?"

"What wouldst thou have, Joseph?" said Miriam. "One cannot argue withwolves. We are so few--we must meet them by cunning. "

"Ah, but we set up to be God's witnesses, Miriam. Our creed is naughtbut prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles wentthrough the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this longignominy. " He burst into sudden tears and sank into a chairoverwrought. 

Instantly his mother was at his side, bending down, her wet face tohis. 

"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven!" she sobbed. "The madness is over. "

He did not answer her. He had no strength to argue more. There was along, strained silence. Presently the mother asked--

"And where didst thou find shelter for the night?"

"At the palace of Annibale de' Franchi. "

Miriam started. "The father of the beautiful Helena de' Franchi?" sheasked. 

"The same, " said Joseph flushing. 

"And how camest thou to find protection there, in so noble a house, under the roof of a familiar of the Pope?"

"Did I not tell thee, mother, how I did some slight service to hisdaughter at the last Carnival, when, adventuring herself masked amongthe crowd in the Corso, she was nigh trampled upon by the buffaloesstampeding from the race-course?"

"Nay, I remember naught thereof, " said Rachel, shaking her head. "Butthou mindest me how these Christians make us race like the beasts. "

He ignored the implied reproach. 

"Signor de' Franchi would have done much for me, " he went on. "But Ionly begged the run of his great library. Thou knowest how hard it isfor me that the Christians deny us books. And there many a day have Isat reading till the vesper bell warned me that I must hasten back tothe Ghetto. "

"Ah! 'twas but to pervert thee. "

"Nay, mother, we talked not of religion. "

"And last night thou wast too absorbed in thy reading?" put in Miriam. 

"That is how it came to pass, Miriam. "

"But why did not Helena warn thee?"

This time it was Joseph that started. But he replied simply--

"We were reading in Tasso. She hath rare parts. Sometimes she rendersPlato and Sophocles to me. "

"And thou, our future Rabbi, didst listen?" cried Rachel. 

"There is no word of Christianity in these, mother, nor do theysatisfy the soul. Wisely sang Jehudah Halevi, 'Go not near the Grecianwisdom. '"

"Didst thou sit near her at the mass?" inquired Miriam. 

He turned his candid gaze towards her. 

"She did not go, " he said. 

Miriam made a sudden movement to the door. 

"Now that thou art safe, Joseph, I have naught further to do here. Godkeep thee. "

Her bosom heaved. She hurried out. 

"Poor Miriam!" sighed Rachel. "She is a loving, trustworthy maiden. She will not breathe a whisper of thy blasphemies. "

Joseph sprang from his feet as if galvanized. 

"Not breathe a whisper! But, mother, I shall shout them from thehousetops. "

"Hush! hush!" breathed his mother in a frenzy of alarm. "The neighborswill hear thee. "

"It is what I desire. "

"Thy father may come in at any moment to know if thou art safe. "

"I will go allay his anxiety. "

"Nay. " She caught him by the mantle. "I will not let thee go. Swear tome thou wilt spare him thy blasphemies, or he may strike thee dead athis feet. "

"Wouldst have me lie to him? He must know what I have told thee. "

"No, no; tell him thou wast shut out, that thou didst remain inhiding. "

"Truth alone is great, mother. I go to bring him the Truth. " He torehis garment from her grasp and rushed without. 

She sat on the floor and rocked to and fro in an agony ofapprehension. The leaden hours crept along. No one came, neither sonnor husband. Terrible images of what was passing between them torturedher. Towards mid-day she rose and began mechanically preparing herhusband's meal. At the precise minute of year-long habit he came. Toher anxious eye his stern face seemed more pallid than usual, but itrevealed nothing. He washed his hands in ritual silence, made theblessing, and drew chair to table. A hundred times the questionhovered about Rachel's lips, but it was not till near the end of themeal that she ventured to say, "Our son is back. Hast thou not seenhim?"

"Son? What son? We have no son. " He finished his meal. 

III

The scholarly apostle, thus disowned by his kith and kin, was eagerlywelcomed by Holy Church, the more warmly that he had come of his owninward grace and refused the tribute of annual crowns with which thePopes often rewarded true religion--at the expense of the Ghetto, which had to pay these incomes to its recreants. It was the fashion tobaptize converted Jews in batches--for the greater glory--procuringthem from without when home-made catechumens were scarce, sometimesserving them up with a proselyte Turk. But in view of the importanceof the accession, and likewise of the closeness of Epiphany, it wasresolved to give Joseph ben Manasseh the honor of a solitary baptism. The intervening days he passed in a monastery, studying his new faith, unable to communicate with his parents or his fellow Jews, even had heor they wished. A cardinal's edict forbade him to return to theGhetto, to eat, drink, sleep, or speak with his race during the periodof probation; the whip, the cord, awaited its violation. By day Racheland Miriam walked in the precincts of the monastery, hoping to catchsight of him; nearer than ninety cubits they durst not approach underpain of bastinado and exile. A word to him, a message that might havesoftened him, a plea that might have turned him back--and the offenderwas condemned to the galleys for life. 

Epiphany arrived. A great concourse filled the Basilica di Latran. ThePope himself was present, and amidst scarlet pomp and swelling music, Joseph, thrilled to the depths of his being, received the sacraments. Annibale de' Franchi, whose proud surname was henceforth to beJoseph's, stood sponsor. The presiding cardinal in his solemn sermoncongratulated the congregants on the miracle which had taken placeunder their very eyes, and then, attired in white satin, the neophytewas slowly driven through the streets of Rome that all might witnesshow a soul had been saved for the true faith. And in the ecstasy ofthis union with the human brotherhood and the divine fatherhood, andwith Christ, its symbol, Giuseppe de' Franchi saw not the dark, haggard faces of his brethren in the crowd, the hate that smoulderedin their dusky eyes as the festal procession passed by. Nor while heknelt before crucifix and image that night, did he dream of that otherceremonial in the Synagogue of the Piazza of the Temple, half-way fromthe river; a scene more impressive in its sombreness than all thesplendor of the church pageant. 

The synagogue was a hidden building, indistinguishable externally fromthe neighboring houses; within, gold and silver glistened in thepomegranates and bells of the Scrolls of the Law or in the broidery ofthe curtain that covered the Ark; the glass of one of the windows, blazing with a dozen colors for the Twelve Tribes, represented theUrim and the Thummim. In the courtyard stood a model of the ancientTemple of Jerusalem, furnished with marvellous detail, memorial oflost glories. 

The Council of Sixty had spoken. Joseph ben Manasseh was to suffer thelast extremity of the Jewish law. All Israel was called together tothe Temple. An awful air of dread hung over the assemblage; in asilence as of the grave each man upheld a black torch that flaredweirdly in the shadows of the synagogue. A ram's horn sounded shrilland terrible, and to its elemental music the anathema was launched, the appalling curse withdrawing every human right from the outlaw, living or dead, and the congregants, extinguishing their torches, cried, "Amen. " And in a spiritual darkness as black, Manasseh totteredhome to sit with his wife on the floor and bewail the death of theirJoseph, while a death-light glimmering faintly swam on a bowl of oil, and the prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased rosepassionately on the tainted Ghetto air. And Miriam, her Madonna-likeface wet with hot tears, burnt the praying-shawl she was weaving insecret love for the man who might one day have loved her, and went tocondole with the mourners, holding Rachel's rugged hand in those soft, sweet fingers that no lover would ever clasp. 

But Rachel wept for her child, and would not be comforted. 

IV

Helena de' Franchi gave the news of the ban to Giuseppe de' Franchi. She had learned it from one of her damsels, who had had it fromShloumi the Droll, a graceless, humorous rogue, steering betwixt Jewsand Christians his shifty way to profit. 

Giuseppe smiled a sweet smile that hovered on the brink of tears. "They know not what they do, " he said. 

"Thy parents mourn thee as dead. "

"They mourn the dead Jew; the living Christian's love shall comfortthem. "

"But thou mayst not approach them, nor they thee. "

"By faith are mountains moved; my spirit embraces theirs. We shall yetrejoice together in the light of the Saviour, for weeping may endurefor a night, but joy cometh in the morning. " His pale face gleamedwith celestial radiance. 

Helena surveyed him in wondering compassion. "Thou art strangelypossessed, Ser Giuseppe, " she said. 

"It is not strange, Signora, it is all simple--like a child'sthought, " he said, meeting her limpid eyes with his profound mysticgaze. 

She was tall and fair, more like those Greek statues which thesculptors of her day imitated than like a Roman maiden. A simple dressof white silk revealed the beautiful curves of her figure. Through thegreat oriel window near which they stood the cold sunshine touched herhair and made spots of glory on the striped beast-skins that coveredthe floor, and on the hanging tapestries. The pictures and ivories, the manuscripts and the busts all contributed to make the apartment aharmonious setting for her noble figure. As he looked at her hetrembled. 

"And what is thy life to be henceforward?" she asked. 

"Surrender, sacrifice, " he said half in a whisper. "My parents areright. Joseph is dead. His will is God's, his heart is Christ's. Thereis no life for me but service. "

"And whom wilt thou serve?"

"My brethren, Signora. "

"They reject thee. "

"I do not reject them. "

She was silent for a moment. Then more passionately she cried: "But, Ser Giuseppe, thou wilt achieve nothing. A hundred generations havefailed to move them. The Bulls of all the Popes have left themstubborn. "

"No one has tried Love, Signora. "

"Thou wilt throw away thy life. "

He smiled wistfully. "Thou forgettest I am dead. "

"Thou art not dead--the sap is in thy veins. The spring-time of theyear comes. See how the sun shines already in the blue sky. Thou shaltnot die--it is thine to be glad in the sun and in the fairness ofthings. "

"The sunshine is but a symbol of the Divine Love, the pushing buds butprefigure the Resurrection and the Life. "

"Thou dreamest, Giuseppe mio. Thou dreamest with those wonderful eyesof thine open. I do not understand this Love of thine that turns fromthings earthly, that rends thy father's and mother's heart in twain. "

His eyes filled with tears. "Pazienza! earthly things are but asshadows that pass. It is thou that dreamest, Signora. Dost thou notfeel the transitoriness of it all--yea, even of this solid-seemingterrestrial plain and yon overhanging roof and the beautiful lightsset therein for our passing pleasure! This sun which swims dailythrough the firmament is but a painted phantasm compared with theeternal rock of Christ's Love. "

"Thy words are tinkling cymbals to me, Ser Giuseppe. "

"They are those of thy faith, Signora. "

"Nay, not of my faith, " she cried vehemently. "Thou knowest I am noChristian at heart. Nay, nor are any of our house, though theyperceive it not. My father fasts at Lent, but it is the PaganAristotle that nourishes his thought. Rome counts her beads andmumbles her paternosters, but she has outgrown the primitive faith inRenunciation. Our pageants and processions, our splendid feasts, ourgorgeous costumes, what have these to do with the pale Christ, whomthou wouldst foolishly emulate?"

"Then there is work for me to do, even among the Christians, " he saidmildly. 

"Nay, it is but mischief thou wouldst do, with thy passionless ghostof a creed. It is the artists who have brought back joy to the world, who have perceived the soul of beauty in all things. And though theyhave feigned to paint the Holy Family and the Crucifixion and the DeadChrist and the Last Supper, it is the loveliness of life that hasinspired their art. Yea, even from the prayerful Giotto downwards, itis the pride of life, it is the glory of the human form, it is the joyof color, it is the dignity of man, it is the adoration of the Muses. Ay, and have not our nobles had themselves painted as Apostles, havethey not intruded their faces into sacred scenes, have they notunderstood for what this religious art was a pretext? Is not Rome fullof Pagan art? Were not the Laocoon and the Cleopatra and the Venusplaced in the very orange garden of the Vatican?"

"Natheless it is the Madonna and the Child that your painters haveloved best to paint. "

"'Tis but Venus and Cupid over again. "

"Nay, these sneers belie the noble Signora de' Franchi. Thou canst notbe blind to the divine aspiration that lay behind a Madonna of SandroBotticelli. "

"Thou hast not seen his frescoes in the Villa Lemmi, outside Firenze, the dainty grace of his forms, the charming color, else thou wouldstunderstand that it was not spiritual beauty alone that his soulcoveted. "

"But Raffaello da Urbino, but Leonardo--"

"Leonardo, " she repeated. "Hast thou seen his Bacchus, or hisbattle-fresco? Knowest thou the later work of Raffaello? And whatsayest thou to our Fra Lippo Lippi? A Christian monk he, forsooth!What sayest thou to Giorgione of Venice and his pupils, to thisefflorescence of loveliness, to our statuaries and our builders, toour goldsmiths and musicians? Ah, we have rediscovered the secret ofGreece. It is Homer that we love, it is Plato, it is the noblesimplicity of Sophocles; our Dante lied when he said it was Virgil whowas his guide. The poet of Mantua never led mortal to those dolorousregions. He sings of flocks and bees, of birds and running brooks, andthe simple loves of shepherds; and we listen to him again and breathethe sweet country air, the sweeter for the memory of those hell-fumeswhich have poisoned life for centuries. Apollo is Lord, not Christ. "

"It is Apollyon who tempts Rome thus with the world and the flesh. "

"Thou hast dethroned thy reason, Messer Giuseppe. Thou knowest thesethings dignify, not degrade our souls. Hast thou not thrilled with meat the fairness of a pictured face, at the glow of luminous color, atthe white radiance of a statue?"

"I sinned if I loved beauty for itself alone, and--forgive me if Iwound thee, lady--this worship of beauty is for the rich, thewell-fed, the few. What of the poor and the down-trodden who weep indarkness? What comfort holds thy creed for such? All these wonders ofthe human hand and the human brain are as straws weighed against apure heart, a righteous deed. The ages of Art have always been theages of abomination, Signora. It is not in cunning but in simplicitythat our Lord is revealed. Unless ye become as little children, yeshall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. "

"Heaven is here. " Her eyes gleamed. Her bosom heaved. The fire of herglance passed to his. Her loveliness troubled him, the matchless faceand form that now blent the purity of a statue with the warmth ofliving woman. 

"Verily, where Christ is Heaven is. Thou hast moved in such splendorof light, Signora de' Franchi, thou dost not realize thy privilege. But I, who have always walked in darkness, am as a blind man restoredto sight. I was ambitious, lustful, torn by doubts and questionings;now I am bathed in the divine peace, all my questions answered, myriotous blood assuaged. Love, love, that is all; the surrender ofone's will to the love that moves the sun and all the stars, as yourDante says. And sun and stars do but move to this end, Signora--thathuman souls may be born and die to live, in oneness with Love. Oh, mybrethren"--he stretched out his arms yearningly, and his eyes and hisvoice were full of tears--"why do ye haggle in the market-place? Whydo ye lay up store of gold and silver? Why do ye chase the futileshadows of earthly joy? This, this is the true ecstasy, to giveyourself up to God, all in all, to ask only to be the channel of Hisholy will. "

Helena's face was full of a grave wonder; for a moment an answeringlight was reflected on it as though she yearned for the strangeraptures she could not understand. 

"All this is sheer folly. Thy brethren hear thee now as little as theywill ever hear thee. "

"I shall pray night and day that my lips may be touched with thesacred fire. "

"Love, too, is a sacred fire. Dost thou purpose to live without that?"She drew nearer. Her breath stirred the black lock on his forehead. Hemoved back a pace, thrilling. 

"I shall have divine Love, Signora. "

"Thou art bent on becoming a Dominican?"

"I am fixed. "

"The cloister will content thee?"

"It will be Heaven. "

"Ay, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. WhatSamson-creed is this that pulls down the pillars of human society?"

"Nay, marriage is in the scheme. 'Tis the symbol of a diviner union. But it is not for all men. It is not for those who symbolize divinethings otherwise, who typify to their fellow-men the flesh crucified, the soul sublimed. It is not for priests. "

"But thou art not a priest. "

"'Tis a question of days. But were I even refused orders I shouldstill remain celibate. "

"Still remain celibate! Wherefore?"

"Because mine own people are cut off from me. And were I to marry aChristian, like so many Jewish converts, the power of my example wouldbe lost. They would say of me, as they say of them, that it was notthe light of Christ but a Christian maiden's eyes that dazzled anddrew. They are hard; they do not believe in the possibility of a trueconversion. Others have enriched themselves by apostasy, or, beingrich, have avoided impoverishing mulcts and taxes. But I have lost allmy patrimony, and I will accept nothing. That is why I refused thyfather's kind offices, the place in the Seal-office, or even thehumbler position of mace-bearer to his Holiness. When my brethren see, moreover, that I force from them no pension nor moneys, not even awhite farthing, that I even preach to them without wage, verily forthe love of Heaven, as your idiom hath it, when they see that I livepure and lonely, then they will listen to me. Perchance their heartswill be touched and their eyes opened. " His face shone with wanradiance. That was, indeed, the want, he felt sure. No Jew had everstood before his brethren an unimpeachable Christian, above suspicion, without fear, and without reproach. Oh, happy privilege to fill thisapostolic rôle!

"But suppose--" Helena hesitated; then lifting her lovely eyes to meethis in fearless candor, "she whom you loved were no Christian. "

He trembled, clenching his hands to drive back the mad wave of earthlyemotion that flooded him, as the tide swells to the moon, under thefervor of her eyes. 

"I should kill my love all the same, " he said hoarsely. "The Jews arehard. They will not make fine distinctions. They know none but Jewsand Christians. "

"Methinks I see my father galloping up the street, " said Helena, turning to the oriel window. "That should be his feather and his brownTurkey horse. But the sun dazzles my eyes! I will leave thee. "

She passed to the door without looking at him. Then turning suddenlyso that his own eyes were dazzled, she said--

"My heart is with thee whatsoever thou choosest. Only bethink theewell, ere thou donnest cowl and gown, that unlovely costume which, tospeak after thine own pattern, symbolizes all that is unlovely. _Addio!_"

He followed her and took her hand, and, bending down, kissed itreverently. She did not withdraw it. 

"Hast thou the strength for the serge and the cord, Giuseppe mio?" sheasked softly. 

He drew himself up, holding her hand in his. 

"Yes, " he said. "Thou shalt inspire me, Helena. The thought of thyradiant purity shall keep me pure and unfaltering. "

A fathomless expression crossed Helena's face. She drew away her hand. 

"I cannot inspire to death, " she said. "I can only inspire to life. "

He closed his eyes in ecstatic vision. "'Tis not death. He is theResurrection and the Life, " he murmured. 

When he opened his eyes she was gone. He fell on his knees in apassion of prayer, in the agony of the crucifixion of the flesh. 

V

During his novitiate, before he had been admitted to monastic vows, hepreached a trial "Sermon to the Jews" in a large oratory near theGhetto. A church would have been contaminated by the presence ofheretics, and even from the Oratory any religious objects that layabout had been removed. There was a goodly array of fashionableChristians, resplendent in gold-fringed mantles and silk-ribbonedhats; for he was rumored eloquent, and Annibale de' Franchi was therein pompous presidency. One Jew came--Shloumi the Droll, relying on hisability to wriggle out of the infraction of the ban, and earn a mealor two by reporting the proceedings to the _fattori_ and the otherdignitaries of the Ghetto, whose human curiosity might be safelycounted upon. Shloumi was rich in devices. Had he not even for monthsflaunted a crimson cap in the eye of Christendom, and had he not whenat last brought before the Caporioni, pleaded that this was merely anostensive sample of the hats he was selling, his true yellow hat beingunintentionally hidden beneath? But Giuseppe de' Franchi rejoiced atthe sight of him now. 

"He is a gossip, he will scatter the seed, " he thought. 

Late in the afternoon of the next day the preacher was walking in theVia Lepida, near the Monastery of St. Dominic. There was a touch onhis mantle. He turned. "Miriam!" he cried, shrinking back. 

"Why shrinkest thou from me, Joseph?"

"Knowest thou not I am under the ban? Look, is not that a Jew yonderwho regards us?"

"I care not. I have a word to say to thee. "

"But thou wilt be accursed. "

"I have a word to say to thee. "

His eyes lit up. "Ah, thou believest!" he cried exultantly. "Thou hastfound grace. "

"Nay, Joseph, that will never be. I love our fathers' faith. MethinksI have understood it better than thou, though I have not dived likethee into holy lore. It is by the heart alone that I understand. "

"Then why dost thou come? Let us turn down towards the Coliseum. 'Tisquieter, and less frequented of our brethren. "

They left the busy street with its bustle of coaches, andwater-carriers with their asses, and porters, and mounted nobles withtrains of followers, and swash-buckling swordsmen, any of whom mighthave insulted Miriam, conspicuous by her beauty and by the square ofyellow cloth, a palm and a half wide, set above her coiffure. Theywalked on in silence till they came to the Arch of Titus. Involuntarily both stopped, for by reason of the Temple candlestickthat figured as spoil in the carving of the Triumph of Titus, no Jewwould pass under it. Titus and his empire had vanished, but the Jewstill hugged his memories and his dreams. 

An angry sulphur sunset, streaked with green, hung over the ruinedtemples of the ancient gods and the grass-grown fora of the Romans. Ittouched with a glow as of blood the highest fragment of the Coliseumwall, behind which beasts and men had made sport for the Masters ofthe World. The rest of the Titanic ruin seemed in shadow. 

"Is it well with my parents?" said Joseph at last. 

"Hast thou the face to ask? Thy mother weeps all day, save when thyfather is at home. Then she makes herself as stony as he. He--an elderof the synagogue!--thou hast brought down his gray hairs in sorrow tothe grave. "

He swallowed a sob. Then, with something of his father's stoniness, "Suffering chastens, Miriam, " he said. "It is God's weapon. "

"Accuse not God of thy cruelty. I hate thee. " She went on rapidly, "Itis rumored in the Ghetto thou art to be a friar of St. Dominic. Shloumi the Droll brought the news. "

"It is so, Miriam. I am to take the vows at once. "

"But how canst thou become a priest? Thou lovest a woman. "

He stopped in his walk, startled. 

"What sayest thou, Miriam?"

"Nay, this is no time for denials. I know her. I know thy love forher. It is Helena de' Franchi. "

He was white and agitated. "Nay, I love no woman. "

"Thou lovest Helena. "

"How knowest thou that?"

"I am a woman. "

They walked on silently. 

"And this is what thou camest to say?"

"Nay, this. Thou must marry her and be happy. "

"I--I cannot, Miriam. Thou dost not understand. "

"Not understand! I can read thee as thou readest the Law--withoutvowels. Thou thinkest we Jews will point the finger of scorn at thee, that we will say it was Helena thou didst love, not the Crucified One, that we will not listen to thy gospel. "

"But is it not so?"

"It is so. "

"Then--"

"But it will be so, do what thou wilt. Cut thyself into little piecesand we would not believe in thee or thy gospel. I alone have faith inthy sincerity, and to me thou art as one mad with over-study. Joseph, thy dream is vain. The Jews hate thee. They call thee Haman. Willingly would they see thee hanged on a high tree. Thy memory willbe an execration to the third and fourth generation. Thou wilt no moremove them than the seven hills of Rome. They have stood too long. "

"Ay, they have stood like stones. I will melt them. I will save them. "

"Thou wilt destroy them. Save rather thyself--wed this woman and behappy. "

He looked at her. 

"Be happy, " she repeated. "Do not throw away thy life for a vainshadow. Be happy. It is my last word to thee. Henceforth, as a truedaughter of Judah, I obey the ban, and were I a mother in Israel mychildren should be taught to hate thee even as I do. Peace be withthee!"

He caught at her gown. "Go not without my thanks, though I must rejectthy counsel. To-morrow I am admitted into the Brotherhood ofRighteousness. " In the fading light his face shone weird and unearthlyamid the raven hair. "But why didst thou risk thy good name to tell methou hatest me?"

"Because I love thee. Farewell. "

She sped away. 

He stretched out his arms after her. His eyes were blind with mist. "Miriam, Miriam!" he cried. "Come back, thou too art a Christian! Comeback, my sweet sister in Christ!"

A drunken Dominican lurched into his open arms. 

VI

The Jews would not come to hear Fra Giuseppe. All his impassionedspirituality was wasted on an audience of Christians and oft-convertedconverts. Baffled, he fell back on scholastic argumentation, but invain did he turn the weapons of Talmudic dialectic against theTalmudists themselves. Not even his discovery by cabbalisticcalculations that the Pope's name and office were predicted in the OldTestament availed to draw the Jews, and it was only in the streetsthat he came upon the scowling faces of his brethren. For months hepreached in patient sweetness, then one day, desperate and unstrung, he sought an interview with the Pope, to petition that the Jews mightbe commanded to come to his sermons; he found the Pontiff in bed, unwell, but chatting blithely with the Bishop of Salamanca and theProcurator of the Exchequer, apparently of a droll mishap that hadbefallen the French Legate. It was a pale scholarly face that lay backon the white pillow under the purple skull-cap, but it was not devoidof the stronger lines of action. Giuseppe stood timidly at the door, till the Wardrobe-Keeper, a gentleman of noble family, told him toadvance. He moved forward reverently, and kneeling down kissed thePope's feet. Then he rose and proffered his request. But the ruler ofChristendom frowned. He was a scholar and a gentleman, a great patronof letters and the arts. Wiser than that of temporal kings, his Jewishpolicy had always been comparatively mild. It was his foreign policythat absorbed his zeal, considerably to the prejudice of hispopularity at home. While Giuseppe de' Franchi was pleadingdesperately to a bored Prelate, explaining how he could solve theJewish question, how he could play upon his brethren as David uponthe harp, if he could only get them under the spell of his voice, agentleman of the bed-chamber brought in a refection on a silver tray, the Preguste tasted of the food to ensure its freedom from poison, though it came from the Papal kitchen, and at a sign from hisHoliness, Giuseppe had to stand aside. And ere the Pope had finishedthere were other interruptions; the chief of his band of musicianscame for instructions for the concert at his Ferragosto on the firstof August; and--most vexatious of all--a couple of goldsmiths camewith their work, and with rival models of a button for the Pontificalcope. Giuseppe fumed and fretted while the Holy Father put on hisspectacles to examine the great silver vase which was to receive thedroppings from his table, its richly chased handles and its festoonsof acanthus leaves, and its ingenious masks; and its fellow which wasto stand in his cupboard and hold water, and had a beautiful designrepresenting St. Ambrogio on horseback routing the Arians. And whenone of the jewellers had been dismissed, laden with ducats by thePope's datary, the other remained an intolerable time, for it appearedhis Holiness was mightily pleased with his wax model, marvelling howcunningly the artist had represented God the Father in bas-relief, sitting in an easy attitude, and how elegantly he had set the fineedge of the biggest diamond exactly in the centre. "Speed the work, myson, " said His Holiness, dismissing him at last, "for I would wear thebutton myself before I die. " Then, raising a beaming face, "Wouldstthou aught further with me, Fra Giuseppe? Ah, I recall! Thou yearnestto preach to thy stiff-necked kinsmen. _Ebbene_, 'tis a worthyambition. Luigi, remember me to-morrow to issue a Bull. "

With sudden-streaming eyes the Friar fell at the Pontiff's feet again, kissing them and murmuring incoherent thanks. Then he bowed his wayout, and hastened back joyfully to the convent. 

The Bull duly appeared. The Jews were to attend his next sermon. Heawaited the Sabbath afternoon in a frenzy of spiritual ecstasy. Heprepared a wonderful sermon. The Jews would not dare to disobey theEdict. It was too definite. It could not be evaded. And theirapathetic resistance never came till later, after an obedient start. The days passed. The Bull had not been countermanded, although he wasaware backstairs influence had been tried by the bankers of thecommunity; it had not even been modified under the pretence ofdefining it, as was the manner of Popes with too rigorous Bulls. No, nothing could save the Jews from his sermon. 

On the Thursday a plague broke out in the Ghetto; on the Friday atenth of the population was dead. Another overflow of the Tiber hadco-operated with the malarious effluvia of those congested alleys, those strictly limited houses swarming with multiplying broods. On theSaturday the gates of the Ghetto were officially closed. The plaguewas shut in. For three months the outcasts of humanity were pent intheir pestiferous prison day and night to live or die as they chose. When at length the Ghetto was opened and disinfected, it was the dead, not the living, that were crowded. 

VII

Joseph the Dreamer was half stunned by this second blow to his dreams. An earthly anxiety he would not avow to himself consumed him duringthe progress of the plague, which in spite of all efforts escaped fromthe Ghetto as if to punish those who had produced the conditions ofits existence. But his anxiety was not for himself--it was for hismother and father, it was for the noble Miriam. When he was not infearless attendance upon plague-stricken Christians he walked near thecity of the dead, whence no news could come. When at last he learnedthat his dear ones were alive, another blow fell. The Bull was stillto be enforced, but the Pope's ear was tenderer to the survivors. Herespected their hatred of Fra Giuseppe, their protest that they wouldmore willingly hear any other preacher. The duty was to be undertakenby his brother Dominicans in turn. Giuseppe alone was forbidden topreach. In vain he sought to approach his Holiness; he was deniedaccess. Thus began that strange institution, the Predica Coattiva, theforced sermon. 

Every Sabbath after their own synagogue sermon, a third of thepopulation of the Ghetto, including all children above the age oftwelve, had to repair in turn to receive the Antidote at the Church ofSan Benedetto Alla Regola, specially set apart for them, where a friargave a true interpretation of the Old Testament portion read by theirown cantor. His Holiness, ever more considerate than his inferiors, had enjoined the preachers to avoid the names of Jesus and the HolyVirgin, so offensive to Jewish ears, or to pronounce them in lowtones; but the spirit of these recommendations was forgotten by theoccupants of the pulpit with a congregation at their mercy to bullyand denounce with all the savage resources of rhetoric. Many Jewslagged reluctant on the road churchwards. A posse of police with whipsdrove them into the holy fold. This novel church procession of men, women, and children grew to be one of the spectacles of Rome. A newpleasure had been invented for the mob. These compulsory servicesinvolved no small expense. By a refinement of humor the Jews had topay for their own conversion. Evasion of the sermon was impossible; aregister placed at the door of the church kept account of theabsentees, whom fine and imprisonment chastised. To keep this registera neophyte was needed, one who knew each individual personally andcould expose substitutes. What better man than the new brother? Invain Giuseppe protested. The Prior would not hearken. And so in lieuof offering the sublime spectacle of an unpaid apostleship, thepowerless instigator of the mischief, bent over his desk, certifiedthe identity of the listless arrivals by sidelong peeps, consciousthat he was adding the pain of contact with an excommunicated Jew tothe sufferings of his brethren, for whose Sabbath his writing-pen wasshamelessly expressing his contempt. Many a Sabbath he saw his father, a tragic, white-haired wreck, touched up with a playful whip to urgehim faster towards the church door. It was Joseph whom that whip stungmost. When the official who was charged to see that the congregantspaid attention, and especially that they did not evade the sermon byslumber, stirred up Rachel with an iron rod, her unhappy son brokeinto a cold sweat. When, every third Sabbath, Miriam passed before hisdesk with steadfast eyes of scorn, he was in an ague, a fever of hotand cold. His only consolation was to see rows of devout faceslistening for the first time in their life to the gospel. At least hehad achieved something. Even Shloumi the Droll had grown regenerate;he listened to the preachers with sober reverence. 

Joseph the Dreamer did not know that, adopting the whimsical devicehit on by Shloumi, all these devout Jews had wadding stuffed deep intotheir ears. 

But, meanwhile, in other pulpits, Fra Giuseppe was gaining great fame. Christians came from far and near to hear him. He went about among thepeople and they grew to love him. He preached at executions, his blackmantle and white scapulary were welcomed in loathsome dungeons, heabsolved the dying, he exorcised demons. But there was one sinner hecould not absolve, neither by hair-shirt nor flagellation, and thatwas himself. And there was one demon he could not exorcise--that inhis own breast, the tribulation of his own soul, bruising itselfperpetually against the realities of life and as torn now by theshortcomings of Christendom as formerly by those of the Ghetto. 

VIII

It was the Carnival week again--the mad blaspheming week of revelryand devilry. The streets were rainbow with motley wear and thunderouswith the roar and laughter of the crowd, recruited by a vast inflow ofstrangers; from the windows and roofs, black with heads, frolicsomehands threw honey, dirty water, rotten eggs, and even boiling oil uponthe pedestrians and cavaliers below. Bloody tumults broke out, sacrilegious masqueraders invaded the churches. They lampooned allthings human and divine; the whip and the gallows liberally appliedavailed naught to check the popular licence. Every prohibitory edictbecame a dead letter. In such a season the Jews might well tremble, made over to the facetious Christian; always excellent whetstones forwit, they afforded peculiar diversion in Carnival times. On the firstday a deputation of the chief Jews, including the three gonfaloniersand the rabbis, headed the senatorial _cortége_, and, attired in aparti-colored costume of red and yellow, marched across the wholecity, from the Piazza of the People to the Capitol, through a doublefire of scurrilities. Arrived at the Capitol, the procession marchedinto the Hall of the Throne, where the three Conservators and thePrior of the Caporioni sat on crimson velvet seats with the fiscaladvocate of the Capitol in his black toga and velvet cap. The ChiefRabbi knelt upon the first step of the throne, and, bending hisvenerable head to the ground, pronounced a traditional formula: "Fullof respect and of devotion for the Roman people, we, chiefs and rabbisof the humble Jewish community, present ourselves before the exaltedthrone of Your Eminences to offer them respectfully fidelity andhomage in the name of our co-religionists, and to implore theirbenevolent commiseration. For us, we shall not fail to supplicate theMost High to accord peace and a long tranquillity to the SovereignPontiff, who reigns for the happiness of all; to the Apostolic HolySeat, as well as to Your Eminences, to the most illustrious Senate, and to the Roman people. "

To which the Chief of the Conservators replied: "We accept withpleasure the homage of fidelity, of vassalage, and of respect, theexpression of which you renew to-day in the name of the entire Jewishcommunity, and, assured that you will respect the laws and orders ofthe Senate, and that you will pay, as in the past, the tribute and thedues which are incumbent upon you, we accord you our protection in thehope that you will know how to make yourself worthy of it. " Then, placing his foot upon the Rabbi's neck, he cried: "Andate!" (Begone!)

Rising, the Rabbi presented the Conservators with a bouquet and a cupcontaining twenty crowns, and offered to decorate the platform of theSenator on the Piazza of the People. And then the deputation passedagain in its motley gear through the swarming streets of buffoons, through the avenue of scurrilities, to renew its hypocriticalprotestations before the throne of the Senator. 

Mock processions parodied this march of Jews. The fishmongers, who, from their proximity to the Ghetto, were aware of its customs, enriched the Carnival with divers other parodies; now it was atravesty of a rabbi's funeral, now a long cavalcade of Jews gallopingupon asses, preceded by a mock rabbi on horseback, with his head tothe steed's tail, which he grasped with one hand, while with the otherhe offered an imitation Scroll of the Law to the derision of the mob. Truly, the baiting of the Jews added rare spice to the fun of theCarnival; their hats were torn off, filth was thrown in their faces. This year the Governor of Rome had interfered, forbidding anything tobe thrown at them except fruit. A noble marquis won facetious fame bypelting them with pineapples. But it was not till the third day, afterthe asses and buffaloes had raced, that the Jews touched the extremeof indignity, for this was the day of the Jew races. 

The morning dawned blue and cold; but soon the clouds gathered, andthe jostling revellers scented with joy the prospect of rain. At theArch of San Lorenza, in Lucina, in the long narrow street of the ViaCorso, where doorways and casements and roofs and footways were agrinwith faces, half a dozen Jews or so were assembled pell-mell. They hadjust been given a hearty meal, but they did not look grateful. Almostnaked, save for a white cloak of the meagrest dimensions, comicallyindecent, covered with tinsel and decorated with laurels, they stoodshivering, awaiting the command to "Go!" to run the gauntlet of allthis sinister crowd, overwelling with long-repressed venom, seethingwith taunts and lewdness. At last a mounted officer gave the word, and, amid a colossal shout of glee from the mob, the half-naked, grotesque figures, with their strange Oriental faces of sorrow, started at a wild run down the Corso. The goal was the Castle of St. Angelo. Originally the race-course ended with the Corso, but it hadbeen considerably lengthened to gratify a recent Pope who wished tohave the finish under his windows as he sat in his semi-secret Castlechamber amid the frescoed nudes of Giulio Romano. Fast, fast flew theracers, for the sooner the goal was reached the sooner would they findrespite from this hail of sarcasm mixed with weightier stones, andthese frequent proddings from the lively sticks of the bystanders, orof the fine folk obstructing the course in coaches in defiance ofedict. And to accelerate their pace still further, the mountedofficer, with a squad of soldiers armed _cap-à-pie_, galloped at theirheels, ever threatening to ride them down. They ran, ran, puffing, panting, sweating, apoplectic; for to the end that they might nighburst with stitches in the side had a brilliant organizer of the_fête_ stuffed them full with preliminary meat. Oh, droll! oh, delicious! oh, rare for Antony! And now a young man noticeable by hisemaciated face and his premature baldness was drawing to the frontamid ironic cheers. When the grotesque racers had passed by, noblecavaliers displayed their dexterity at the quintain, and beautifulladies at the balconies--not masked, as in France, but radiantlyrevealed--changed their broad smiles to the subtler smiles ofdalliance. And then suddenly the storm broke--happy ally of the_fête_--jocosely drenching the semi-nude runners. On, on they sped, breathless, blind, gasping, befouled by mud, and bruised by missiles, with the horses' hoofs grazing their heels; on, on along the thousandyards of the endless course; on, on, sodden and dripping andstumbling. They were nearing the goal. They had already passed SanMarco, the old goal. The young Jew was still leading, but a fat oldJew pressed him close. The excitement of the crowd redoubled. Athousand mocking voices encouraged the rivals. They were on thebridge. The Castle of St. Angelo, whose bastions were named after theApostles, was in sight. The fat old Jew drew closer, anxious, nowthat he was come so far, to secure the thirty-six crowns that theprize might be sold for. But the favorite made a mighty spurt. Hepassed the Pope's window, and the day was his. The firmament rang withlaughter as the other candidates panted up. A great yell greeted thefall of the fat old man in the roadway, where he lay prostrate. 

An official tendered the winner the _pallio_ which was the prize--apiece of red Venetian cloth. The young Jew took it, surveying it witha strange, unfathomable gaze, but the Judge interposed. 

"The captain of the soldiers tells me they did not start fair at theArch. They must run again to-morrow. " This was a favorite device forprolonging the fun. But the winner's eyes blazed ominously. 

"Nay, but we started as balls shot from a falconet. "

"Peace, peace, return him the _pallio_, " whispered a racer behind him, tugging apprehensively at his one garment. 

"They always adjudge it again to the first winner. " But the young manwas reckless. 

"Why did not the captain stop us, then?" he asked. 

"Keep thy tongue between thy dog's teeth, " retorted the Judge. "In anyevent the race must be run again, for the law ordains eight runners asa minimum. "

"We are eight, " replied the young Jew. 

The Judge glared at the rebel; then, striking each rueful object witha stick, he counted out, "One--two--three--four--five--six--seven!"

"Eight, " persisted the young man, perceiving for the first time theold Jew on the ground behind him, and stooping to raise him. 

"That creature! Basta! He does not count. He is drunk. "

"Thou hell-begotten hound!" and straightening himself suddenly, theyoung Jew drew a crucifix from within his cloak. "Thou art right!" hecried in a voice of thunder. "There are only seven Jews, for I--I amno Jew. I am Fra Giuseppe!" And the crucifix whirled round, clearing aspace of awe about him. 

The Judge cowered back in surprise and apprehension. The soldiers sattheir horses in stony amazement, the seething crowd was stilled for amoment, struck to silent attention. The shower had ceased and a ray ofwatery sunlight glistened on the crucifix. 

"In the name of Christ I denounce this devil's mockery of the Lord'schosen people, " thundered the Dominican. "Stand back all. Will no onebring this poor old man a cup of cold water?"

"Hasn't Heaven given him enough cold water?" asked a jester in thecrowd. But no one stirred. 

"Then may you all burn eternally, " said the Friar. He bent down againand raised the old man's head tenderly. Then his face grew sterner andwhiter. "He is dead, " he said. "The Christ he denied receive him intoHis mercy. " And he let the corpse fall gently back and closed theglassy eyes. The bystanders had a momentary thrill. Death had lentdignity even to the old Jew. He lay there, felled by an apoplecticstroke, due to the forced heavy meal, the tinsel gleaming grotesquelyon his white sodden cloak, his naked legs rigid and cold. From afarthe rumors of revelry, the _brouhaha_ of a mad population, saluted hisdeaf ears, the distant music of lutes and viols. The captain of thesoldiers went hot and cold. He had harried the heels of the rotundrunner in special amusement, but he had not designed murder. A wave ofcompunction traversed the spectators. But the Judge recovered himself. 

"Seize this recreant priest!" he cried. "He is a backslider. He hasgone back to his people. He is become a Jew again--he shall be flayedalive. "

"Back, in the name of Holy Church!" cried Fra Giuseppe, veering roundto face the captain, who, however, had sat his horse without moving. "I am no Jew. I am as good a Christian as his Holiness, who but justnow sat at yon jalousie, feasting his eyes on these heathensaturnalia. "

"Then why didst thou race with the Jews? It is contamination. Thouhast defiled thy cloth. "

"Nay, I wore not my cloth. Am I not half naked? Is this the cloth Ishould respect--this gaudy frippery, which your citizens have made atarget for filth and abuse?"

"Thou hast brought it on thyself, " put in the captain mildly. "Wherefore didst thou race with this pestilent people?"

The Dominican bowed his head. "It is my penance, " he said in tremuloustones. "I have sinned against my brethren. I have aggravated theirgriefs. Therefore would I be of them at the moment of their extremesthumiliation, and that I might share their martyrdom did I beg hisplace from one of the runners. But penance is not all my motive. " Andhe lifted up his eyes and they blazed terribly, and his tones becameagain a thunder that rolled through the crowd and far down the bridge. "Ye who know me, faithful sons and daughters of Holy Church, ye whohave so often listened to my voice, ye into whose houses I havebrought the comfort of the Word, join with me now in ending the longmartyrdom of the Jews, your brethren. It is by love, not hate, thatChrist rules the world. I deemed that it would move your hearts to seeme, whom I know ye love, covered with filth, which ye had never thrownhad ye known me in this strange guise. But lo, this poor old manpleadeth more eloquently than I. His dead lips shake your souls. Gohome, go home from this Pagan mirth, and sit on the ground insackcloth and ashes, and pray God He make you better Christians. "

There was an uneasy stir in the crowd: the fantastic mud-stainedtinsel cloak, the bare legs of the speaker, did but add to hisimpressiveness; he seemed some strange antique prophet, come from thefar ends of the world and time. 

"Be silent, blasphemer, " said the Judge. "The sports have thecountenance of the Holy Father. Heaven itself hath cursed thesestinking heretics. Pah!" he spurned the dead Jew with his foot. TheFriar's bosom swelled. His head was hot with blood. 

"Not Heaven but the Pope hath cursed them, " he retorted vehemently. "Why doth he not banish them from his dominions? Nay, he knows howneedful they are to the State. When he exiled them from all save thethree cities of refuge, and when the Jewish merchants of the seaportsof the East put our port of Ancona under a ban, so that we could notprovision ourselves, did not his Holiness hastily recall the Jews, confessing their value? Which being so, it is love we should offerthem, not hatred and a hundred degrading edicts. "

"Thou shalt burn in the Forum for this, " spluttered the Judge. "Whoart thou to set thyself up against God's Vicar?"

"He God's Vicar? Nay, I am sooner God's Vicar. God speaks through me. "

His wan, emaciated face had grown rapt and shining; to the awed mob heloomed gigantic. 

"This is treason and blasphemy. Arrest him!" cried the Judge. 

The Friar faced the soldiers unflinchingly, though only the body ofthe old Jew divided him from their prancing horses. 

"Nay, " he said softly, and a sweet smile mingled with the mystery ofhis look. "God is with me. He hath set this bulwark of death betweenyou and my life. Ye will not fight under the banner of theAnti-Christ. "

"Death to the renegade!" cried a voice in the crowd. "He calls thePope Anti-Christ. "

"Ay, he who is not for us is against us. Is it for Christ that herules Rome? Is it only the Jews whom he vexes? Hath not his rage forpower brought the enemy to the gates of Rome? Have not his companiesof foreign auxiliaries flouted our citizens? Ye know how Rome hathsuffered through the machinations of his bastard son, with hisswaggering troop of cut-throats. Is it for Christ that he hathbegotten this terror of our streets?"

"Down with Baccio Valori!" cried a stentorian voice, and a dozenenthusiastic throats echoed the shout. 

"Ay, down with Baccio Valori!" cried the Dominican. 

"Down with Baccio Valori!" repeated the ductile crowd, its holidayhumor subtly passing into another form of recklessness. Some who lovedthe Friar were genuinely worked upon, others in mad, vicious mood wereready for any diversion. A few, and these the loudest, wereswashbucklers and cutpurses. 

"Ay, but not Baccio Valori alone!" thundered Fra Giuseppe. "Down withall those bastard growths that flourish in the capital of Christendom. Down with all that hell-spawn, which is the denial of Christ; downwith the Pardoner! God is no tradesman that he should chaffer for theforgiveness of sins. Still less--oh blasphemy!--of sins undone. OurLady wants none of your wax candles. It is a white heart, it is theflame of a pure soul that the Virgin Mother asks for. Away with yourbeads and mummeries, your paternosters and genuflections! Away withyour Carnivals, your godless farewells to meat! Ye are all foul. Thisis no city of God, it is a city of hired bravos and adulterousabominations and gluttonous feasts, and the lust of the eye, and thepride of the flesh. Down with the foul-blooded Cardinal, who gossipsat the altar, and borrows money of the despised Jews for his secretsins! Down with the monk whose missal is Boccaccio! Down with God'sVicegerent who traffics in Cardinals' hats, who dare not take theEucharist without a Pretaster, who is all absorbed in profane Greektexts, in cunning jewel-work, in political manœuvres and domesticintrigues, who comes caracoling in crimson and velvet upon his proudNeapolitan barb, with his bareheaded Cardinals and his hundredglittering horsemen. He the representative of the meek Christ who rodeupon an ass, and said, 'Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, andcome follow me'! Nay, " and the passion of righteousness tore his frameand thralled his listeners, "though he inhabit the Vatican, though ahundred gorgeous bishops abase themselves to kiss his toe, yet Iproclaim here that he is a lie, a snare, a whited sepulchre, noprotector of the poor, no loving father to the fatherless, nospiritual Emperor, no Vicar of Christ, but Anti-Christ himself. "

"Down with Anti-Christ!" yelled a pair of Corsican cut-throats. 

"Down with Anti-Christ!" roared the crowd, the long-suppressed hatredof the ruling power finding vent in a great wave of hysteric emotion. 

"Captain, do thy duty!" cried the Judge. 

"Nay, but the Friar speaks truth. Bear the old man away, Alessandro!"

"Is Rome demented? Haste for the City Guards, Jacopo!"

Fra Giuseppe swiftly tied the _pallio_ to his crucifix, and, wavingthe red cloth on high, "This is the true flag of Christ!" he cried. "This, the symbol of our brethren's martyrdom! See, 'tis the color ofthe blood He shed for us. Who is for Jesus, follow me!"

"For Christ, for Jesus! _Viva Gesú!_" A far-rumbling thunder brokefrom the swaying mob. His own fire caught extra flame from theirs. 

"Follow me! This day we will bear witness to Christ, we will establishHis kingdom in Rome. "

There was a wild rush, the soldiers spurred their horses, people fellunder their hoofs, and were trampled on. It was a moment of frenzy. The Dominican ran on, waving the red _pallio_, his followerscontagiously swollen at every by-street. Unchecked he reached thegreat Piazza, where a new statue of the Pope gleamed white andmajestic. 

"Down with Anti-Christ!" shouted a cutpurse. 

"Down with Anti-Christ!" echoed the mob. 

The Friar waved his hand, and there was silence. He saw the yellowgleam of a Jew's head in the crowd, and called upon him to fling himhis cap. It was hurled from hand to hand. Fra Giuseppe held it up inthe air. "Men of Rome, Sons of Holy Church, behold the contumeliousmark we set upon our fellow-men, so that every ruffian may spit uponthem. Behold the yellow--the color of shame, the stigma of women thattraffic in their womanhood--with which we brand the venerable brows ofrabbis and the heads of honorable merchants. Lo! I set it upon thehead of this Anti-Christ, a symbol of our hate for all that is notLove. " And raising himself on the captain's stirrup, he crowned thestatue with the yellow badge. 

A great shout of derision rent the air. There was a multifarioustumult of savage voices. 

"Down with Anti-Christ! Down with the Pope! Down with Baccio Valori!Down with the Princess Teresa!"

But in another moment all was a wild _mêlée_. A company of CityGuards--pikemen, musketeers, and horsemen with two-handed swordsdashed into the Piazza from one street, the Pope's troops fromanother. They charged the crowd. The soldiers of the revoltingcaptain, revolting in their turn, wheeled round and drove back theirfollowers. There was a babel of groans and shrieks and shouts, musketsrang out, daggers flashed, sword and pike rang against armor, sparksflew, smoke curled, and the mob broke and scurried down the streets, leaving the wet, scarlet ground strewn with bodies. 

And long ere the roused passions of the riffraff had assuagedthemselves by loot and outrage in the remoter streets, in the darkestdungeon of the Nona Tower, on a piece of rotten mattress, huddled inhis dripping tinselled cloak, and bleeding from a dozen cuts, Josephthe Dreamer lay prostrate, too exhausted from the fierce struggle withhis captors to think on the stake that awaited him. 

IX

He had not long to wait. To give the crowd an execution was to crownthe Carnival. Condemned criminals were often kept till Shrove Tuesday, and keen was the disappointment when there was only the whipping ofcourtesans caught masked. The whipping of a Jew, found badgeless, wasthe next best thing to the execution of a Christian, for theflagellator was paid double (at the cost of the culprit), and did notfail to double his zeal. But the execution of a Jew was the best ofall. And that Fra Giuseppe was a Jew there could be no doubt. The onlyquestion was whether he was a backslider or a spy. In either casedeath was his due. And he had lampooned the Pope to boot--in itselfthe unpardonable sin. The unpopular Pontiff sagely spared theothers--the Jew alone was to die. 

The population was early astir. In the Piazza of the People--thecentre of the Carnival--where the stake had been set up, a greatcrowd fought for coigns of vantage--a joyous, good-humored tussle. Thegreat fountain sent its flashing silver spirts towards a blue heaven. As the death-cart lumbered into the Piazza ribald songs from therabble saluted the criminal's ears, and his wild, despairing eyeslighted on many a merry face that but a few hours before had followedhim to testify to righteousness; and, mixed with theirs, the faces ofhis fellow-Jews, sinister with malicious glee. No brother friar dronedconsolation to him or held the cross to his eyes--was he not apestilential infidel, an outcast from both worlds? The chief of theCaporioni was present. Troops surrounded the stake lest, perchance, the madman might have followers who would yet attempt a rescue. Butthe precautions were superfluous. Not a face that showed sympathy;those who, bewitched by the Friar, had followed his crucifix and_pallio_ now exaggerated their jocosity lest they should berecognized; the Jews were joyous at the heavenly vengeance which hadovertaken the renegade. 

The Dominican Jew was tied to the timber. They had dressed him in agaberdine and set the yellow cap on his shaven poll. Beneath it hisface was calm, but very sad. He began to speak. 

"Gag him!" cried the Magistrate. "He is about to blaspheme. "

"Prithee not, " pleaded a bully in the crowd. "We shall lose therascal's shrieks. "

"Nay, fear not. I shall not blaspheme, " said Joseph, smilingmournfully. "I do but confess my sin and my deserved punishment. I setout to walk in the footsteps of the Master--to win by love, to resistnot evil. And lo, I have used force against my old brethren, the Jews, and force against my new brethren, the Christians. I have urged thePope against the Jews, I have urged the Christians against the Pope. I have provoked bloodshed and outrage. It were better I had never beenborn. Christ receive me into His infinite mercy. May He forgive me asI forgive you!" He set his teeth and spake no more, an image ofinfinite despair. 

The flames curled up. They began to writhe about his limbs, but drewno sound to vie with their crackling. But there was weeping heard inthe crowd. And suddenly from the unobservedly overcast heavens came aflash of lightning and a peal of thunder followed by a violent showerof rain. The flames were extinguished. The spring shower was as briefas it was violent, but the wood would not relight. 

But the crowd was not thus to be cheated. At the order of theMagistrate the executioner thrust a sword into the criminal's bowels, then, unbinding the body, let it fall upon the ground with a thud: itrolled over on its back, and lay still for a moment, the white, emaciated face staring at the sky. Then the executioner seized an axeand quartered the corpse. Some sickened and turned away, but the bulkremained gloating. 

Then a Franciscan sprang on the cart, and from the bloody ominous textpatent to all eyes, passionately preached Christ and dissolved the mobin tears. 

X

In the house of Manasseh, the father of Joseph, there were greatrejoicings. Musicians had been hired to celebrate the death of therenegade as tradition demanded, and all that the Pragmatic permittedof luxury was at hand. And they danced, man with man and woman withwoman. Manasseh gravely handed fruits and wine to his guests, but theold mother danced frenziedly, a set smile on her wrinkled face, herwhole frame shaken from moment to moment by peals of horriblelaughter. 

Miriam fled from the house to escape that laughter. She wanderedoutside the Ghetto, and found the spot of unconsecrated ground wherethe mangled remains of Joseph the Dreamer had been hastily shovelled. The heap of stones thrown by pious Jewish hands, to symbolize that byOld Testament Law the renegade should have been stoned, revealed hisgrave. Great sobs swelled Miriam's throat. Her eyes were blind withtears that hid the beauty of the world. Presently she became aware ofanother bowed figure near hers--a stately female figure--and almostwithout looking knew it for Helena de' Franchi. 

"I, too, loved him, Signora de' Franchi, " she said simply. 

"Art thou Miriam? He hath spoken of thee. " Helena's silvery voice waslow and trembling. 

"Ay, Signora. "

Helena's tears flowed unrestrainedly. "Alas! Alas! the Dreamer! Heshould have been happy--happy with me, happy in the fulness of humanlove, in the light of the sun, in the beauty of this fair world, inthe joy of art, in the sweetness of music. "

"Nay, Signora, he was a Jew. He should have been happy with me, in thelight of the Law, in the calm household life of prayer and study, ofcharity, and pity, and all good offices. I would have lit the Sabbathcandles for him and set our children on his knee that he might blessthem. Alas! Alas! the Dreamer!"

"Neither of these fates was to be his, Miriam. Kiss me, let us comforteach other. "

Their lips met and their tears mingled. 

"Henceforth, Miriam, we are sisters. "

"Sisters, " sobbed Miriam. 

They clung to each other--the noble Pagan soul and the warm Jewishheart at one over the Christian's grave. 

Suddenly bells began to ring in the city. Miriam started anddisengaged herself. 

"I must go, " she said hurriedly. 

"It is but _Ave Maria_, " said Helena. "Thou hast no vespers to sing. "

Miriam touched the yellow badge on her head. "Nay, but the gates willbe closing, sister. "

"Alas, I had forgotten. I had thought we might always be togetherhenceforth. I will accompany thee so far as I may, sister. "

They hastened from the lonely, unblessed grave, holding each other'shand. 

The shadows fell. It was almost dark by the time they reached theGhetto. 

Miriam had barely slipped in when the gates shut with a harsh clang, severing them through the long night. 

URIEL ACOSTA

PART I

GABRIEL DA COSTA

I

Gabriel Da Costa pricked his horse gently with the spur, and dashingdown the long avenue of cork-trees, strove to forget the torment ofspiritual problems in the fury of physical movement, to leave theologybehind with the monasteries and chapels of Porto. He rode with graceand fire, this beautiful youth with the flashing eyes, and the darkhair flowing down the silken doublet, whom a poet might have feignedan image of the passionate spring of the South, but for whose own soulthe warm blue sky of Portugal, the white of the almond blossoms, thepink of the peach sprays, the delicate odors of buds, and the gladclamor of birds made only a vague background to a whirl of thoughts. 

No; it was impossible to believe that by confessing his sins as theChurch prescribed he could obtain a plenary absolution. If salvationwas to be secured only by particular rules, why, then, one mightdespair of salvation altogether. And, perhaps, eternal damnation wasindeed his destiny, were it only for his doubts, and in despite ofall his punctilious mechanical worship. Oh, for a deliverer--adeliverer from the questionings that made the splendid gloom ofcathedrals a darkness for the captive spirit! Those cursed Jesuits, zealous with the zealotry of a new order! His blood flamed as hethought of their manœuvrings, and putting his hand to his holster, where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasinghimself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But thougha sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, andchanging with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead, snapping it off. 

Why had his dead father set him to study ecclesiastical law? True, fora wealthy youth of the upper middle classes 'twas the one road todistinction, to social equality with the nobility--and whose fault buthis own that even after the first stirrings of scepticism he hadaccepted semi-sacerdotal office as chief treasurer of a clericalcollege? But how should he foresee that these uneasinesses of youthwould be aggravated rather than appeased by deeper study, morepassionate devotion? Strange! All around him, in college or cathedral, was faith and peace; in his spirit alone a secret disquiet and asuppressed ferment that not all the soaring music of fresh-voiced boyscould soothe or allay. 

He felt his horse slacken suddenly under him, and had used his spursviciously without effect, ere he became conscious that he had come tothe steep, clayey bank of a ravine through which a tiny streamtrickled, and that the animal's flanks were stained with blood. Instantly his eyes grew humid. 

"_Pobre!_" he cried, leaping from the saddle and caressing thehorse's nostrils. "To be shamed before men have I always dreaded, but'tis worse to be shamed before myself. "

And leading his steed by the bridle, the young cavalier turned backtowards Porto by winding grassy paths purpled with anemones andbordered by gray olive-trees, with here and there the vivid gleam oforanges peeping amid deep green foliage that tore the sky into athousand azure patches. 

II

He remounted his horse as he approached the market-place, from whichthe town climbed up; but he found his way blocked, for 'twasmarket-day, and the great square, bordered with a colonnade that madean Eastern bazaar, was thickly planted with stalls, whose white canvasawnings struck a delicious note of coolness against the throbbing bluesky and the flaming costumes of the peasants come up from theenvirons. Through a corner of the _praça_ one saw poplars and elms andthe fresh gleam of the river. The nasal hum of many voices soundedblithe and busy. At the bazaar entrance, where old women vendedflowers and fruit, Gabriel reined in his horse. 

"How happy these simple souls!" he mused. "How sure of theirsalvation! To count their beads and mutter their _Ave Marias_; 'tisall they need. Yon fisher, with his great gold ear-rings, who throwshis nets and cuddles his Juanita and carouses with his mates, hathmore to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed withwealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet knowthey are but sheep. God's sheep, natheless, silly and deaf to the cryof their true shepherd, and misled by priestly wolves. "

A cripple interrupted his reflections by a whining appeal. Gabrielshuddered with pity at the sight of his sores, and, giving him a pieceof silver, lost himself in a new reverie on the mystery of suffering. 

"Thine herbs sold out too!" cheerily grumbled a well-known voice, and, turning his head, Gabriel saw that the burly old gentleman addressingthe wrinkled market-woman from the vantage-point of a mule's back was, indeed, Dom Diego de Balthasar, late professor of the logics at theUniversity of Coimbra, and newly settled in Porto as a physician. 

"Ay, indeed, ere noon!" the dried-up old dame mumbled. "All Portoseems hungry for bitter herbs to-day. But thus it happens sometimesabout Eastertide, though I love not such salads myself. "

"Naturally. They are good for the blood, " laughed Dom Diego, as hiseye caught Gabriel's. "And thou hast none, good dame. "

There seemed almost a wink in the professorial eye, and the younghorseman smiled in good-natured response to the physician's estimateof the jest. 

"Then are the eaters sensible, " he said. 

"Ay, the only sensible people in Portugal, " rejoined Dom Diego, changing his speech to Latin, but retaining his smile. "And the onlygood blood, Da Costa, " he added, with what was now an unmistakablewink. But this time Gabriel failed to see the point. 

"The only good blood?" he repeated. "Dost thou then hold with theTrappists that meat is an evil?"

A strange, startled look flashed across the physician's face, sweepingoff its ruddy hue, and though his smile returned on the instant, itwas as though forced back. 

"In a measure, " he replied. "Too much flesh generateth humors anddistempers in the blood. Hence Holy Church hath ordained Lent. She isno friend to us physicians. _Adeos!_" and he ambled off on his mule, waving the young horseman a laughing farewell. 

But Gabriel, skirting the market, rode up the steep streets troubledby a vague sense of a mystery, and later repeated the conversation toa friar at the college. 

III. 

A week later he heard in the town that Dom Diego de Balthasar had beenarrested by the Inquisition for Judaism. The news brought him a morecomplex thrill than that shock of horror at the treacherouspersistence of a pestilent heresy which it excited in the breast ofhis fellow-citizens. He recalled to mind now that there werethirty-four traces by which the bloodhounds of the Holy Office scentedout the secret Jew, and that one of the tests ran: "If he celebratesthe Passover by eating bitter herbs and lettuces. " But the shudderwhich the thought of the Jew had once caused him was, to his ownsurprise, replaced by a secret sympathy. In his slowly-matured, self-evolved scepticism, he had forgotten that a whole race hadremained Protestant from the first, rejecting at any and every costthe corner-stone of the Christian scheme. And this race--he rememberedsuddenly with a leap of the heart and a strange tingling of theblood--had once been his own! The knowledge that had lurked in thebackground of consciousness, like the exiled memory of an ancientshame, sprang up, strong and assertive. The far-off shadowy figures ofthose base-born ancestors of his who had prayed in the ancientsynagogues in the days before the Great Expulsion, shook off the mistsof a hundred years and stood forth solid, heroic, appealing. 

And then recalling the dearth of bitter herbs in the market-place onwhat he now understood was the eve of Passover, he had a suddenintuition of a great secret brotherhood of the synagogue ramifyingbeneath all the outward life of Church and State; of a societyhoneycombed with Judaism that persisted tenaciously and eternallythough persecution and expulsion, not in stray units, such as theInquisition ferreted out, but in ineradicable communities. It wasbecause the incautious physician had mistaken him for a member of thebrotherhood of Israel that he had ventured upon his now transparentjests. "Good God!" thought Da Costa, sickening as he remembered the_auto-da-fé_ he had seen at Lisbon in his boyhood, when De la Asunçao, the Franciscan Jew monk, clothed in the Sanbenito, was solemnly burntin the presence of the king, the queen, the court, and the mob. "Whatif 'twas my tale to Frei José that led to Dom Diego's arrest! But no, that were surely evidence too trivial, and ambiguous at the best. " Andhe put the painful suspicion aside and hastened to shut himself up inhis study, sending down an excuse to his mother and brother by Pedro, the black slave-boy. 

In the beautiful house on the hilltop, built by Gabriel's grandfather, and adorned with fine panelings and mosaics of many-colored woods fromthe Brazils, this study, secluded by its position at the head of thenoble staircase, was not the least beautiful room. The floor and thewalls were of rich-hued tiles, the arched ceiling was ribbed withpolished woods to look like the scooped-out interior of a half-orange. Costly hangings muffled the noise of the outer world, and largeshutters excluded, when necessary, the glare of the sun. The rays ofReason alone could not be shut out, and in this haunt of peace theyoung Catholic had known his bitterest hours of unrest. Here he nowcast himself feverishly upon the perusal of the Old Testament, neglected by him, as by the Church. 

"This book, at least, must be true, " ran his tumultuous thoughts. "Forthis Testament do both creeds revere that wrangle over the later. " Hehad a Latin text, and first he turned to the fifty-third chapter ofIsaiah, and, reading it critically, he seemed to see that all thesepassages of prediction he had taken on trust as prognostications of aRedeemer might prophesy quite other and more intelligible things. Andlong past midnight he read among the Prophets, with flushed cheek andsparkling eye, as one drunk with new wine. What sublime truths, whataspirations after peace and justice, what trumpet-calls torighteousness!

He thrilled to the cry of Amos: "Take thou away from me the noise ofthy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But letjudgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. "And to the question of Micah: "What doth the Lord require of thee butto do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?" Ay, justice and mercy and humbleness--not paternosters and penances. Hewas melted to tears, he was exalted to the stars. 

He turned to the Pentateuch and to the Laws of Moses, to the tenderordinances for the poor, the stranger, the beast. "Thou shalt love thyneighbor as thyself. " "Thou shalt be unto me a holy people. "

Why had his ancestors cut themselves off from this great people, whosecreed was once so sublime and so simple? There had reached down to himsome vague sense of the nameless tragedies of the Great Expulsion whenthese stiff-necked heretics were confronted with the choice ofexpatriation or conversion; but now he searched his book-shelveseagerly for some chronicle of those days of Torquemada. The nativehistorians had little, but that little filled his imagination withhorrid images of that second Exodus--famine, the plague, robbery, slaughter, the violation of virgins. 

And all on account of the pertinacious ambition of a Portuguese kingto rule Spain through an alliance with a Spanish princess--an ambitionas pertinaciously foiled by the irony of history. No, they were notwithout excuse, those ancestors of his who had been left behindclinging to the Church. Could they have been genuine converts, theseMarranos, or New Christians? he asked himself. Well, whatever hisgreat-grandfathers had felt, his father's faith had been ardentenough, of that he could not doubt. He recalled the long years ofritual; childish memories of paternal pieties. No, the secretconspiracy had not embraced the Da Costa household. And he would fainbelieve that his more distant progenitors, too, had not beenhypocrites; for aught he knew they had gone over to the Church evenbefore the Expulsion; at any rate he was glad to have no evidence foran ancestry of deceit. None of the Da Costas had been cowards, thankHeaven! And he--he was no coward, he told himself. 

IV

In the morning, though only a few hours of sleep had intervened, theenthusiasm of the night had somewhat subsided. "Whence came theinspiration of Moses?" flew up to his mind almost as soon as he openedhis eyes on the sunlit world. He threw open the protrusive casement ofhis bedroom to the balmy air, tinged with a whiff of salt, and gazedpensively at the white town rambling down towards the shining river. Had God indeed revealed Himself on Mount Sinai? But this fresh doubtwas banished by the renewed suspicion which, after having disturbedhis dreams in nebulous distortions, sprang up in daylight clearness. It was his babbling about Dom Diego that had ruined the genial oldphysician. After days of gathering uneasiness, being unable to gainany satisfaction from the friar, he sought the secretary of theInquisition in his bureau at a monastery of the Dominicans. Thesecretary rubbed his hands at the sight of the speechful face. "Aha!What new foxes hast thou scented?" The greeting stung like a stab. 

"None, " he replied, with a tremor in his speech and in his limbs. "Idid but desire to learn if I am to blame for Dom Diego's arrest. "

"To blame?" and the secretary looked askance at him. "Say, rather, topraise. "

"Nay, to blame, " repeated Gabriel staunchly. "Mayhap I mistook ormisrendered his conversation. 'Tis scant evidence to imprison a manon. I trust ye have found more. "

"Ay, thou didst but set Frei José on the track. We did not eventrouble thee to appear before the Qualifiers. "

"And he is, indeed, a Jew!"

"A Hebrew of Hebrews, by his stiff-neckedness. But 'twas not quiteproven; the fox is a cunning beast. Already he hath had the three'first audiences, ' but he will not confess and be made a Penitent. This morning we try other means. "

"Torture?" said Gabriel, paling. The secretary nodded. 

"But if he is innocent. "

"No fear of that; he will confess at the first twinge. Come, unknitthy brow. Wouldst make sure thou hast served Heaven? Thou shalt hearhis confession--as a reward for thy zeal. "

"He will deem I have come to gloat. "

"Here is a mask for thee. "

Gabriel took it hesitatingly, repelled, but more strongly fascinated, and after a feverish half-hour of waiting he found himself with thesecretary, the judge of the Inquisition, the surgeon, and anothermasked man in an underground vault faintly lit by hanging lamps. Onone side were the massive doors studded with rusty knobs, of airlesscells; on the rough, spider-webbed wall opposite, against which leanedan iron ladder, were fixed iron rings at varying heights. A thumbscrewstood in the corner, and in the centre was a small writing-table, atwhich the judge seated himself. 

The secretary unlocked a dungeon door, and through the holes of hismask Gabriel had a glimpse of the despondent figure of the burlyphysician crouching in a cell nigh too narrow for turning room. 

"Stand forth, Dom Abraham de Balthasar!" said the judge, ostentatiously referring to a paper. 

The physician blinked his eyes at the increased light, but did notbudge. 

"My name is Dom Diego, " he said. 

"Thy baptismal name imports no more to us than to thee. Perchance Ishould have said Dom Isaac. Stand forth!"

The physician straightened himself sullenly. "A pretty treatment for aloyal son of Holy Church who hath served his Most Faithful andCatholic Sovereign at the University, " he grumbled. "Who accuses me ofJudaism? Confront me with the rogue!"

"'Tis against our law, " said the secretary. 

"Let me hear the specific charges. Read me the counts. "

"In the audience-chamber. Anon. "

"Confess! confess!" snapped the judge testily. 

"To confess needs a sin. I have none but those I have told the priest. But I know my accuser--'tis Gabriel da Costa, a sober and studiousyoung senhor with no ear for a jest, who did not understand that I wasrallying the market-woman upon the clearance of her stock by thesestinking heretics. I am no more a Jew than Da Costa himself. " But evenas he spoke, Gabriel knew that they were brother-Jews--he and theprisoner. 

"Thou hypocrite!" he cried involuntarily. 

"Ha!" said the secretary, his eye beaming triumph. 

"This persistent denial will avail thee naught, " said the judge, "'twill only bring thee torture. "

"Torture an innocent man! 'Tis monstrous!" the physician protested. "Any tyro in the logics will tell thee that the onus of proving lieswith the accuser. "

"Tush! tush! This is no University. Executioner, do thy work. "

The other masked man seized the old physician and stripped him to theskin. 

"Confess!" said the judge warningly. 

"If I confessed I was a Jew, I should be doubly a bad Christian, inasmuch as I should be lying. "

"None of thy metaphysical quibbles. If thou expirest under the torture(let the secretary take note), thy death shall not be laid at the doorof the Holy Office, but of thine own obstinacy. "

"Christ will avenge His martyrs, " said Dom Diego, with so sublime amien that Gabriel doubted whether, after all, instinct had not misledhim. 

The judge made an impatient sign, and the masked man tied the victim'shands and feet together with a thick cord, and winding it around thebreast, placed the hunched, nude figure upon a stool, while he passedthe ends of the cord through two of the iron rings in the wall. Then, kicking away the stool, he left the victim suspended in air by cordsthat cut into his flesh. 

"Confess!" said the judge. 

But Dom Diego set his teeth. The executioner drew the cords tighterand tighter, till the blood burst from under his victim's nails, andever and anon he let the sharp-staved iron ladder fall against hisnaked shins. 

"O Sancta Maria!" groaned the physician at length. 

"These be but the beginning of thy tortures, an thou confessest not, "said the judge, "Draw tighter. "

"Nay, " here interrupted the surgeon. "Another draw and he may expire. "

Another tightening, and Gabriel da Costa would have fainted. Deadlypale beneath his mask, he felt sick and trembling--the cords seemed tobe cutting into his own flesh. His heart was equally hot against thetorturers and the tortured, and he admired the physician's courageeven while he abhorred his cowardice. And while the surgeon wasbusying himself to mend the victim for new tortures, Gabriel da Costahad a shuddering perception of the tragedy of Israel--sublime andsordid. 

V

It was with equally mingled feelings, complicated by astonishment, that he learned a week or so later that Dom Diego had been acquittedof Judaism and set free. Impulse drove him to seek speech with thesufferer. He crossed the river to the physician's house, but only byextreme insistence did he procure access to the high vaulted room inwhich the old man lay abed, surrounded by huge tomes on pillow andcounterpane, and overbrooded by an image of the Christ. 

"Pardon that I have been reluctant to go back without a sight ofthee, " said Gabriel. "My anxiety to see how thou farest after thymauling by the hell-hounds must be my excuse. "

Dom Diego cast upon him a look of surprise and suspicion. 

"The hounds may follow a wrong scent; but they are of heaven, nothell, " he said rebukingly. "If I suffered wrongly, 'tis Christian tosuffer, and Christian to forgive. "

"Then forgive me, " said Gabriel, mazed by this persistentmasquerading, "for 'twas I who innocently made thee suffer. Ratherwould I have torn out my tongue than injured a fellow Jew. "

"I am no Jew, " cried the physician fiercely. 

"But why deny it to me when I tell thee I am one?"

"'In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird, '" quoted DomDiego angrily. "Thou art as good a Christian as I, --and a worsefowler. A Jew, indeed, who knows not of the herbs! Nay, the bird-limeis smeared too thick, and there is no cord between the holes of thenet. "

"True, I am neither Jew nor Christian, " said the young man sadly. "Iwas bred a Christian, but my soul is torn with questionings. See, Itrust my life in thy hand. "

But Dom Diego remained long obdurate, even when Gabriel made thecandid admission that he was the masked man who had cried "Hypocrite!"in the torture-vault; 'twas not till, limping from the bed, he hadsatisfied himself that the young man had posted no auditors without, that he said at last: "Well, 'tis my word against thine. Mayhap I ambut feigning so as to draw thee out. " Then, winking, he took down theeffigy of the Christ and thrust it into a drawer, and filling twowine-glasses from a decanter that stood at the bedside, he criedjovially, "Come! Confusion to the Holy Office!"

A great weight seemed lifted off the young man's breast. He smiled ashe quaffed the rich wine. 

"Meseems thou hast already wrought confusion to the Holy Office. "

"Ha! ha!" laughed the physician, expanding in the glow of the wine. "Yea, the fox hath escaped from the trap, but not with a whole skin. "

"No, alas! How feel thy wounds?"

"I meant not my corporeal skin, " said the physician, though he rubbedit with rueful recollection. "I meant the skin whereof my purse wasmade. To prove my loyalty to Holy Church I offered her half my estate, and the proof was accepted. 'Twas the surgeon of the Inquisition whogave me the hint. He is one of us!"

"What! a Jew!" cried Gabriel, thunderstruck. 

"Hush! hush! or we shall have him replaced by an enemy. 'Twas hisfellow-feeling to me, both as a brother and a medicus, that made himdeclare me on the point of death when I was still as lusty as a falsecredo. For the rest, I had sufficient science to hold in my breathwhile the clown tied me with cords, else had I been too straitened tobreathe. But thou needest a biscuit with thy wine. Ianthe!"

A pretty little girl stepped in from an adjoining room, her dark eyesdrooping shyly at the sight of the stranger. 

"Thou seest I have a witness against thee, " laughed the physician;"while the evidence against me which the fools could not find we willeat up. The remainder of the _Motsas_, daughterling!" And drawing akey from under his pillow, he handed it to her. "Soft, now, my littleone, and hide them well. "

When the child had gone, the father grumbled, over another glass ofwine, at having to train her to a double life. "But it sharpens thewits, " said he. "Ianthe should grow up subtle as the secret cupboardwithin a cupboard which she is now opening. But a woman scarcely needsthe training. " He was yet laughing over his jape when Ianthe returned, and produced from under a napkin some large, thick biscuits, peculiarly reticulated. Gabriel looked at them curiously. 

"Knowest thou not Passover cakes?" asked Dom Diego. 

Gabriel shook his head. 

"Thou hast never eaten unleavened bread?"

"Unleavened bread! Ah, I was reading thereof in the Pentateuch butyesterday. Stay, is it not one of the Inquisition's tests? But Ifigured it not thus. "

"'Tis the immemorial pattern, smuggled in from Amsterdam, " said thewine-flushed physician, throwing caution to the winds. "Taste! 'Tismore palatable than the Host. "

"Is Amsterdam, then, a Jewish town?"

"Nay, but 'tis the Jerusalem of the West. Little Holland, since sheshook off Papistry, hath no persecuting polity like the other nations. And natural enough, for 'tis more a ship than a country. Half my oldfriends have drifted thither--'tis a sad drain for our old Portuguesecommunity. "

Gabriel's bosom throbbed. "Then why not join them?"

The old physician shook his head. "Nay, I love my Portugal. 'Tis herethat I was born, and here will I die. I love her--her mountains, herrivers, her valleys, her medicinal springs--always love Portugal, Ianthe--"

"Yes, father, " said the little girl gravely. 

"And, oh, her poets--her Rubeiro, her Falcão, her Camoëns--my owngrandfather was thought worthy of a place in the 'Cancioneiro Geral';and I too have made a Portuguese poem on the first aphorism ofHippocrates, though 'tis yet in manuscript. "

"But if thou darest not profess thy faith, " said Gabriel, "'tis morethan all the rest. To live a daily lie--intolerable!"

"Hoity-toity! Thou art young and headstrong. The Catholic religion!'Tis no more than fine manners; as we say in Hebrew, _derech eretz_, the way of the country. Why do I wear breeches and a cocked hat--whenI am abroad, _videlicet_? Why does little Ianthe trip it in apetticoat?"

"Because I am a girl, " said Ianthe. 

Dom Diego laughed. "There's the question rhetorical, my little one, and the question interrogative. However, we'll not puzzle thee withQuintilian. Run away to thy lute. And so it is, Senhor da Costa. Ilove my Judaism more than my Portugal; but while I can keep both mymistresses at the cost of a little finesse--"

"But the danger of being burnt alive!"

"'Tis like hell to the Christian sinner--dim and distant. "

"Thou hast been singed, methinks. "

"Like a blasted tree. The lightning will not strike twice. Helpthyself to more wine. Besides, my stomach likes not the Biscay Bay. God made us for land animals. "

But Gabriel was not to be won over to the worthy physician's view, andonly half to the man himself. Yet was not this his last visit, for heclung to Dom Diego as to the only Jew he knew, and borrowed from him aHebrew Bible and a grammar, and began secretly to acquire the sacredtongue, bringing toys and flowers to the little Ianthe, and once acostlier lute than her own, in return for her father's help with theidioms. Also he borrowed some of Dom Diego's own works, issuedanonymously from the printing presses of Amsterdam; and from his newfriend's "Paradise of Earthly Vanity, " and other oddly entitledvolumes of controversial theology, the young enthusiast suckedinstruction and confirmation of his doubts. To Dom Diego's Portuguesefellow-citizens the old gentleman was the author of an erudite essayon the treatment of phthisis, emphatically denouncing the implicitreliance on milk. 

But Gabriel could not imitate this comfortable self-adjustment tosurroundings. 'Twas but a half fight for the Truth, he felt, andceased to cultivate the semi-recreant physician. For as he grew moreand more in love with the Old Testament, with its simple doctrine of apeople, chosen and consecrate, so grew his sense of far-reachingdestinies, of a linked race sprung from the mysterious East and thedawn of history, defying destruction and surviving persecution, agonizing for its faith and its unfaith--a conception that touched thesprings of romance and the source of tears--and his vision turnedlongingly towards Amsterdam, that city of the saints, the home of thetrue faith, of the brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of God. 

VI

"Mother, " said Gabriel, "I have something to say to thee. " They werein the half-orange room, and she had looked in to give her good-nightkiss to the lonely student, but his words arrested her at the door. She sat down and gazed lovingly at her handsome eldest-born, in whomher dead husband lived as in his prime. "'Twill be of Isabella, " shethought, with a stir in her breast, rejoiced to think that thebrooding eyes of the scholar had opened at last to the beauty andgoodness of the highborn heiress who loved him. 

"Mother, I have made a great resolution, and 'tis time to tell thee. "

Her eyes grew more radiant. 

"My blessed Gabriel!"

"Nay, I fear thou wilt hate me. "

"Hate thee!"

"Because I must leave thee. "

"'Tis the natural lot of mothers to be left, my Gabriel. "

"Ah, but this is most unnatural. Oh, my God! why am I thus tried?"

"What meanest thou? What has happened?" The old woman had risen. 

"I must leave Portugal. "

"Wherefore? in Heaven's name! Leave Portugal?"

"Hush, or the servants will hear. I would become, " he breathed low, "aJew!"

Dona da Costa blenched, and stared at him breathless, a strange lightin her eyes, but not that which he had expected. 

"'Tis the finger of God!" she whispered, awestruck. 

"Mother!" He was thrilled with a wild suspicion. 

"Yes, my father was a Jew. I was brought up as a Jewess. "

"Hush! hush!" he cautioned her again, and going to the door peeredinto the gloom. "But my father?" he asked, shutting the doorcarefully. 

She shook her head. 

"His family, though likewise Marranos, were true believers. It was thegrief of my life that I dared never tell him. Often since his death, memories from my girlhood have tugged at my heart. But I durst notinfluence my children's faith--it would have meant deadly peril tothem. And now--O Heaven!--perchance torture--the stake--!"

"No, mother, I will fly to where faith is free. "

"Then I shall lose thee all the same. O God of Israel, Thy vengeancehath found me at last!" And she fell upon the couch, sobbing, overwrought. He stood by, helpless, distracted, striving to hush her. 

"How did this thing happen to you?" she sobbed. 

Briefly he told her of his struggles, of the episode of Dom Diego, ofhis conviction that the Old Testament was the true and sufficientguide to life. 

"But why flee?" she asked. "Let us all return to Judaism; thy brotherVidal is young and malleable, he will follow us. We will be secret;from my girlhood I know how suspicion may be evaded. We will graduallychange all the servants save Pedro, and have none but blacks. Whyshouldst thou leave this beautiful home of thine, thy friends, thystation in society, thy chances of a noble match?"

"Mother, thou painest me. What is all else beside our duty to truth, to reason, to God? I must worship all these under the naked sky. "

"My brave boy! forgive me!" And she sprang up to embrace him. "We willgo with thee; we will found a new home at Amsterdam. "

"Nay, not at thy years, mother. " And he smoothed her silver hair. 

"Yea; I, too, have studied the Old Testament. " And her eyes smiledthrough their tears. "'Wherever thou goest, I will go. Thy countryshall be my country, and thy God my God. '"

He kissed her wet cheek. 

Ere they separated in the gray dawn they had threshed out ways andmeans; how to realize their property with as little loss and as littleobservation as possible, and how secretly to ship for the Netherlands. The slightest imprudence might betray them to the Holy Office, and soVidal was not told till 'twas absolutely essential. 

The poor young man grew pale with fright. 

"Wouldst drive me to Purgatory?" he asked. 

"Nay, Judaism hath no Purgatory. " Then seeing the consolation wassomewhat confused, Gabriel added emphatically, to ease the distress ofone he loved dearly, "There is no Purgatory. "

Vidal looked more frightened than ever. "But the Church says--" hebegan. 

"The Church says Purgatory is beneath the earth; but the world beinground, there is no beneath, and, mayhap, men like ourselves do inhabitour Antipodes. And the Church holds with Aristotle that the heavens beincorruptible, and contemns Copernicus his theory; yet have I heardfrom Dom Diego de Balthasar, who hath the science of the University, that a young Italian, hight Galileo Galilei, hath just made a wondrousinstrument which magnifies objects thirty-two times, and thattherewith he hath discovered a new star. Also doth he declare theMilky Way to be but little stars; for the which the Holy Office iswroth with him, men say. "

"But what have I to make with the Milky Way?" whimpered Vidal, his ownface as milk. 

Gabriel was somewhat taken aback. "'Tis the infallibility of the Popethat is shaken, " he explained. "But in itself the Christian faith ismore abhorrent to Reason than the Jewish. The things it teaches aboutGod have more difficulties. "

"What difficulties?" quoth Vidal. "I see no difficulties. "

But in the end the younger brother, having all Gabriel'simpressionability, and none of his strength to stand alone, consentedto accompany the refugees. 

During those surreptitious preparations for flight, Gabriel had to goabout his semi-ecclesiastical duties and take part in Churchceremonies as heretofore. This so chafed him that he sometimesthought of proclaiming himself; but though he did not shrink from thethought of the stake, he shrank from the degradation of imprisonment, from the public humiliation, foreseeing the horror of him in the facesof all his old associates. And sometimes, indeed, it flashed upon himhow dear were these friends of his youth, despite reason and religion;how like a cordial was the laughter in their eyes, the clasp of theirhands, the well-worn jests of college and monastery, market-place andriding-school! How good it was, this common life, how sweet to sinkinto the general stream and be borne along effortless! Even as heknelt, in conscious hypocrisy, the emotion of all these worshipperssometimes swayed him in magnetic sympathy, and the crowds ofholiday-makers in the streets, festively garbed, stirred him toyearning reconciliation. And now that he was to tear himself away, howdear was each familiar haunt--the woods and waters, the pleasant hillsstrewn with grazing cattle! How caressingly the blue sky bent over him, beseeching him to stay! And the town itself, how he loved its steepstreets, the massive Moorish gates, the palaces, the monasteries, thewhitewashed houses, the old-fashioned ones, quaint and windowless, andthe newer with their protrusive balcony-windows--ay, and the veryflavor of garlic and onion that pervaded everything; how oft he hadsauntered in the Rua das Flores, watching the gold-workers! And as hemoved about the old family home he had a new sense of its intimateappeal. Every beautiful panel and tile, every gracious curve of thegreat staircase, every statue in its niche, had a place, hithertounacknowledged, in his heart, and called to him. 

But greater than the call of all these was the call of Reason. 

PART II

URIEL ACOSTA

VII

With what emotion, as of a pilgrim reaching Palestine, Gabriel foundhimself at last in the city where a synagogue stood in the eye of day!The warmth at his heart annulled whatever of chill stole in at thegrayness of the canaled streets of the northern city after the colorand glow of Porto. His first care as soon as he was settled in thegreat, marble-halled house which his mother's old friends andrelatives in the city had purchased on his behalf, was to betakehimself on the Sabbath with his mother and brother to the Portuguesesynagogue. Though his ignorance of his new creed was so great that hedoffed his hat on entering, nor knew how to don the praying-shawl lenthim by the beadle, and was rather disconcerted to find his mothermight not sit at his side, but must be relegated to a gallery behind agrille, yet his attitude was too emotional to be critical. Theprayer-book interested him keenly, and though he strove to follow theservice, his conscious Hebrew could not at all keep pace with thecongregational speed, and he felt unreasonably shamed at his failuresto rise or bow. Vidal, who had as yet no Hebrew, interested himself inpicking out ancient denizens of Porto and communicating hisdiscoveries to his brother in a loud whisper, which excited Gabriel'sother neighbor to point out scions of the first Spanish families, other members of which, at home, were props of Holy Church, bishops, and even archbishops. A curious figure, this red-bearded, gross-paunched neighbor, rocking automatically to and fro in his_taleth_, but evidently far fainer to gossip than to pray. 

Friars and nuns of almost every monastic order were, said he, hereregathered to Judaism. He himself, Isaac Pereira, who sat there safeand snug, had been a Jesuit in Spain. 

"I was sick of the pious make-believe, and itched to escape over here. But the fools had let me sell indulgences, and I had a goodly stock onhand, and trade was slack"--here he interrupted himself with afervent "Amen!" conceded to the service--"in Spain just then. It's nouse carrying 'em over to the Netherlands, thinks I; they're too cleverover there. I must get rid of 'em in some country free for Jews, andyet containing Catholics. So what should I do but slip over fromMalaga to Barbary, where I sold off the remainder of my stock to someCatholics living among the Moors. No sooner had I pocketedthe--Amen!--money than I declared myself a Jew. God of Abraham! Thefaces those Gentiles pulled when they found what a bad bargain theyhad made with Heaven! They appealed to the Cadi against what theycalled the imposition. But"--and here an irrepressible chuckle mingledwith the roar of the praying multitude--"I claimed the privilege of afree port to sell any description of goods, and the Cadi had to givehis ruling in accordance with the law. "

In the exhilaration of his mood this sounded amusing to Gabriel, ananswering of fools according to their folly. But 'twas not long beforeit recurred to him to add to his disgust and his disappointment withhis new brethren and his new faith. For after he had submittedhimself, with his brother, to circumcision, replaced his baptismalname by the Hebrew Uriel, and Vidal's by Joseph, Latinizing at thesame time the family name to Acosta, he found himself confronted by ahost of minute ordinances far more galling than those of the Church. Eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, washing, working; not thesimplest action but was dogged and clogged by incredible imperatives. 

Astonishment gave place to dismay, and dismay to indignation andabhorrence, as he realized into what a network of ceremonial he hadentangled himself. The Pentateuch itself, with its complex codex ofsix hundred and thirteen precepts, formed, he discovered, but thebarest framework for a parasitic growth insinuating itself withinfinite ramifications into the most intimate recesses of life. 

What! Was it for this Rabbinic manufacture that he had exchanged thestately ceremonial of Catholicism? Had he thrown off mental fettersbut to replace them by bodily?

Was this the Golden Age that he had looked to find--the simple Mosaictheocracy of reason and righteousness?

And the Jews themselves, were these the Chosen People he had clothedwith such romantic glamour?--fat burghers, clucking comfortably underthe wing of the Protestant States-General; merchants sumptuouslyhoused, vivifying Dutch trade in the Indies; their forms and dogmasalone distinguishing them from the heathen Hollanders, whom they apedeven to the very patronage of painters; or, at the other end of thisbastard brotherhood of righteousness, sore-eyed wretches trundlingtheir flat carts of second-hand goods, or initiating a squalid ghettoof diamond-cutting and cigar-making in oozy alleys and on therefuse-laden borders of treeless canals. Oh! he was tricked, trapped, betrayed!

His wrath gathered daily, finding vent in bitter speeches. If this waswhat had become of the Mosaic Law and the Holy People, the sooner ason of Israel spoke out the better for his race. Was it not aninspiration from on high that had given him the name of Uriel--"fireof God"? So, when his private thunders had procured him a summonsbefore the outraged Rabbinic court, he was in no wise to be awed bythe _Chacham_ and his Rabbis in their solemn robes. 

"Pharisees!" he cried, and, despite his lost Christianity, all thescorn of his early training clung to the word. 

"Epicurean!" they retorted, with contempt more withering still. 

"Nay, Epicurus have I never read, and what I know of his doctrine byhearsay revolteth me. I am for God and Reason, and a pure Judaism. "

"Even so talked Elisha Ben Abuya in Palestine of old, " put in thesecond Rabbi more mildly. "He with his Greek culture, who stalked fromSinai to Olympus, and ended in Atheism. "

"I know not of Elisha, but I marvel not that your teaching drove himto Atheism. "

"Said I not 'twas Atheism, not Judaism, thou talkedst? And an Atheistin our ranks we may not harbor: our community is young in Amsterdam. 'Tis yet on sufferance, and these Dutchmen are easily moved to riot. We have won our ground with labor. Traitor! wouldst thou cut thedykes?"

"Traitor thou!" retorted Uriel. "Traitor to God and His holy Law. "

"Hold thy peace!" thundered the _Chacham_, "or the ban shall be laidupon thee. "

"Hold my peace!" answered Uriel scornfully. "Nay, I expatriated myselffor freedom; I shall not hold my peace for the sake of the ban. "

Nor did he. At home and abroad he exhausted himself in invective, inexhortation. 

"Be silent, Uriel, " begged his aged mother, dreading a breach of thehappiness her soul had found at last in its old spiritual swathings. "This Judaism thou deridest is the true, the pure Judaism, as I wastaught it in my girlhood. Let me go to my grave in peace. "

"Be silent, Uriel, " besought his brother Joseph. "If thou dost notgive over, old Manasseh and his cronies will bar me out from thoselucrative speculations in the Indies, wherein also I am investing thymoney for thee. They have already half a hundred privateers, and theStates-General wink at anything that will cripple Spain, so if we canseize its silver fleet, or capture Portuguese possessions in SouthAmerica, we shall reap revenge on our enemies and big dividends. Andhe hath a comely daughter, hath Manasseh, and methinks her eye is notunkindly towards me. Give over, I beg of thee! This religion liketh memuch--no confession, no damnation, and 'tis the faith of our fathers. "

"No damnation--ay, but no salvation either. They teach naught ofimmortality; their creed is of the earth, earthy. "

"Then why didst thou drag me from Portugal?" inquired Joseph angrily. 

But Uriel--the fire of God--was not to be quenched; and so, notwithout frequent warning, fell the fire of man. In a solemn conclavein the black-robed synagogue, with awful symbolisms of extinguishedtorches, the ban was laid upon Uriel Acosta, and henceforth no man, woman, or child dared walk or talk with him. The very beggars refusedhis alms, the street hawkers spat out as he passed by. His own motherand brother, now completely under the sway of their new Jewish circle, removed from the pollution of his presence, leaving him alone in thegreat house with the black page. And this house was shunned as thoughmarked with the cross of the pestilence. The more high-spiritedJew-boys would throw stones at its windows or rattle its doors, but itwas even keener sport to run after its tenant himself, on the rareoccasions when he appeared in the streets, to spit out like theirelders at the sight of him, to pelt him with mud, and to shout afterhim, "Epicurean!" "Bastard!" "Sinner in Israel!"

VIII

But although by this isolation the Rabbis had practically cut out theheretic's tongue--for he knew no Dutch, nor, indeed, ever learned tohold converse with his Christian neighbors--yet there remained hispen, and in dread of the attack upon them which rumor declared him tobe inditing behind the shuttered windows of his great lonely house, they instigated Samuel Da Silva, a physician equally skilled with thelancet and the quill, to anticipate him by a counterblast calculatedto discredit the thunderer. He denied immortality, insinuated thehorrified Da Silva, in his elegant Portuguese treatise, _Tradado daImmortalide_, probably basing his knowledge of Uriel's "bestial andinjurious opinions" on the confused reports of the heretic's brother, but refraining from mentioning his forbidden name. 

"False slanders!" cried Uriel in his reply--completed--since he hadbeen anticipated--at his leisure; but he only confirmed the popularconception of his materialistic errors, seeming, indeed, of waveringmind on the subject of the future life. His thought had marched on:and whereas it had been his complaint to Joseph that Rabbinism laid nostress on immortality, further investigation of the Pentateuch hadshown him that Moses himself had taken no account whatsoever of theconception, nor striven to bolster up the morality of to-day by theterrors of a posthumous to-morrow. 

So Uriel stood self-condemned, and the Rabbis triumphed, superfluouslyjustified in the eyes of their flock against this blasphemingmaterialist. Nay, Uriel should fall into the pit himself had digged. The elders of the congregation appealed to the magistrates; theytranslated with bated breath passages from the baleful book, _Tradiçoens Phariseas conferidos con a Ley escrida_. Uriel wassummoned before the tribunal, condemned to pay three hundred guldens, imprisoned for eight days. The book was burnt. 

No less destructive a flame burnt at the prisoner's heart, as, writhing on his dungeon pallet, biting his lips, digging his nailsinto his palms, he cursed these malignant perverters of pure Judaism, who had shamed him even before the Hollanders. He, the proud andfearless gentleman of Portugal, had been branded as a criminal bythese fish-blooded Dutchmen. Never would he hold intercourse with hisfellow-creatures again--never, never! Alone with God and his thoughtshe would live and die. 

And so for year after year, though he lingered in the city that heldhis dear ones, he abode in his cold marble-pillared house, save forhis Moorish servant, having speech with man nor woman. Nor did he everemerge, unless at hours when his childish persecutors were abed, sothat in time they turned to fresher sport. But at night he wouldsometimes be met wandering by the dark canals, with eyes that kept theinward look of the sequestered student, seeming to see nothing of thesombre many-twinkling beauty of starlit waters, or the tender coloringof mist and haze, but full only of the melancholy of the gray marshes, and sometimes growing wet with bitter yearning for the sun and theorange-trees and the warmth of friendly faces. And sometimes in thecold dawn the early market-people met him riding madly in theenvirons, in the silk doublet of a Portuguese grandee, his swordclanking, and in his hand a silver-mounted pistol, with which hesnapped off the twigs as he flew past. And when his beloved brotherwas married to the daughter of Manasseh, the millionaire and thepresident of the India Company--which in that wonderful year paid itsshareholders a dividend of seventy-five in the hundred--some of thewedding-guests averred that they had caught a glimpse of Uriel's dark, yearning face amid the motley crowd assembled outside the synagogue towatch the arrival of Joseph Acosta and his beautiful bride; and therewere those who said that Uriel's hands were raised as in blessing. Andonce on a moonless midnight, when the venerable Dona Acosta had passedaway, the watchman in the Jews' cemetery, stealing from his turret ata suspicious noise, turned his lantern upon--no body-snatcher, but--Omore nefarious spectacle!--the sobbing figure of Uriel Acosta across anew-dug grave, polluting the holy soil of the _Beth-Chayim_!

IX

And so the seasons and the years wore on, each walling in the lonelythinker with more solid ice, and making it only the more difficultever to break through or to melt his prison walls. Nigh fifteen longwinter years had passed in a solitude tempered by theological thought, and Uriel, nigh forgotten by his people, had now worked his way evenfrom the religion of Moses. It was the heart alone that was the seatof religion; wherefore, no self-styled Revelation that contradictedNature could be true. Right Religion was according to Right Reason;but no religion was reasonable that could set brother against brother. All ceremonies were opposed to Reason. Goodness was the only truereligion. Such bold conclusions sometimes affrighted himself, beingalone in the world to hold them. "All evils, " his note-book summed itup in his terse Latin, "come from not following Right Reason and theLaw of Nature. "

And thinking such thoughts in the dead language that befitted one cutoff from life, to whom Dutch was never aught but the unintelligiblejargon of an unspiritual race, he was leaving his house on a bleakevening when one clapped him on the shoulder, and turning in amaze, hewas still more mazed to find, for the first time in fifteen years, afellow-creature tendering a friendly smile and a friendly hand. Hedrew back instinctively, without even recognizing the aged, white-bearded, yet burly figure. 

"What, Senhor Da Costa! thou hast forgotten thy victim?"

With a strange thrill he felt the endless years in Amsterdam slip offhim like the coils of some icy serpent, as he recognized the genialvoice of the Porto physician, and though he was back again in thedungeon of the Holy Office, it was not the gloom of the vault that hefelt, but sunshine and blue skies and spring and youth. Through thesoft mist of delicious tears he gazed at the kindly furrowed face ofthe now hoary-headed physician, and clasped his great warm hand, holding it tight, forgetting to drop it, as though it were drawing himback to life and love and fellowship. 

The first few words made it clear that Dom Diego had not heard ofUriel's excommunication. He was new in the city, having been driventhere, pathetically enough, at the extreme end of his life by therenewed activity of the Holy Office. "I longed to die in Portugal, " hesaid, with his burly laugh; "but not at the hands of the Inquisition. "

Uriel choked back the wild impulse to denounce the cruellerInquisition of Jewry, from the sudden recollection that Dom Diegomight at once withdraw from him the blessed privilege of human speech. 

"Didst make a good voyage?" he asked instead. 

"Nay, the billows were in the Catholic League, " replied the old man, making a wry face. "However, the God of Israel neither slumbers norsleeps, and I rejoice to have chanced upon thee, were it only to beguided back to my lodgings amid this water labyrinth. "

On the way, Uriel gave what answers he could to the old man'squestionings. His mother was dead; his brother Vidal had married, though his wife had died some years later in giving birth to a boy, who was growing up beautiful as a cherub. Yes, he was prospering inworldly affairs, having long since intrusted them to Joseph--that wasto say, Vidal--who had embarked all the family wealth in a Dutchenterprise called the West India Company, which ran a fleet ofprivateers, to prey upon the treasure-ships in the war with Spain. Hedid not say that his own interests were paid to him by formal letterthrough a law firm, and that he went in daily fear that his estrangedand pious brother, now a pillar of the synagogue, would one dayreligiously appropriate the heretic's property, backed by who knewwhat devilish provision of Church or State, leaving him to starve. Buthe wondered throughout their walk why Dom Diego, who had such constantcorrespondence with Amsterdam, had never heard of his excommunication, and his bitterness came back as he realized that the ban had extendedto the mention of his name, that he was as one dead, buried, cast downto oblivion. Even before he had accepted the physician's invitation tocross his threshold, he had resolved to turn this silence to his ownprofit: he, whose inward boast was his stainless honor, had resolvedto act a silent lie. Was it not fair to outwit the rogues with theirown weapon? He had faded from human memory--let it be so. Was he tobe cut off from this sudden joy of friendship with one of his bloodand race, he whose soul was perishing with drought, though, until thismoment, he had been too proud to own it to himself?

But when he entered Dom Diego's lodging and saw the unexpected, forgotten Ianthe--Ianthe grown from that sweet child to matchlessgrace of early womanhood; Ianthe with her dark smiling eyes and hercaressing voice and her gentle movements--then this resolution ofpassive silence was exchanged for a determination to fight desperatelyagainst discovery. In the glow of his soul, in the stir of youth andspring in his veins, in the melting rapture of his mood, that firstsight of a beautiful girl's face bent smilingly to greet her father'sguest had sufficed to set his heart aflame with a new emotion, sweet, riotous, sacred. What a merry supper-party was that; each dish eatenwith the sauce of joyous memories! How gaily he rallied Ianthe on herchildish ways and sayings! Of course, she remembered him, she said, and the toys and flowers, and told how comically he had puckered hisbrow in argumentation with her father. Yes, he had the same funnylines still, and once she touched his forehead lightly for an instantwith her slender fingers in facetious demonstration, and he trembledin painful rapture. And she played on her lute, too, on the lute hehad given her of old, those slender fingers making ravishing music onthe many-stringed instrument, though her pose as she played was morewitching still. What a beautiful glimpse of white shoulders and daintylace her straight-cut black bodice permitted!

He left the house drunk, exalted, and as the cold night air smote theforehead she had touched he was thrilled with fiery energy. He wasyoung still, thank God, though fifteen years had been eaten out ofhis life, and he had thought himself as old and gray as the marshes. He was young still, he told himself fiercely, defiantly. At home hisnote-book lay open, as usual, on his desk, like a friend waiting tohear what thoughts had come to him in his lonely walk. How far off andalien seemed this cold confidant now, how irrelevant, and yet, whenhis eye glanced curiously at his last recorded sentence, how relevant!"All evils come from not following Right Reason and the Law ofNature. " How true! How true! He had followed neither Right Reason northe Law of Nature. 

X

In the morning, when the cold, pitiless eye of the thinker penetratedthrough the sophisms of desire as clearly as his bodily eye saw thegray in his hair and the premature age in his face, he saw howimpossible it was to keep the secret of his situation from Dom Diego. Honor forbade it, though this, he did not shrink from admitting tohimself, might have counted little but for the certainty of discovery. If he went to the physician's abode he could not fail to meetfellow-Jews there. To some, perhaps, of the younger generation, hisforgotten name would convey no horrid significance; but then, DomDiego's cronies would be among the older men. No; he must himself warnDom Diego that he was a leper--a pariah. But not--since that mightmean final parting--not without a farewell meeting. He sent Pedro witha note to the physician's lodgings, begging to be allowed theprivilege of returning his hospitality that same evening; and thephysician accepting for himself and daughter, a charwoman was sentfor, the great cobwebbed house was scrubbed and furbished in theliving chambers, the ancient silver was exhumed from mildewedcupboards, the heavy oil-paintings were dusted, a lively canary in abright cage was hung on a marble pillar of the dining-room, over thecarven angels; flowers were brought in, and at night, in the softlight of the candles, the traces of year-long neglect being subduedand hidden, a spirit of festivity and gaiety pervaded the house as ofnatural wont, while the Moorish attendant's red knee-breeches, gold-braided coat, and blue-feathered turban, hitherto so incongruousin the general grayness, now seemed part of the normal color. AndUriel, too, grown younger with the house, made a handsome be-ruffedfigure as he sat at the board, exchanging merry sallies with thephysician and Ianthe. 

After the meal and the good wine that alone had not had its cobwebsbrushed shamefacedly away, Dom Diego fell conveniently asleep, lookingso worn and old when the light of his lively fancy had died out of hisface, that the speech of Uriel and Ianthe took a tenderer tone forfear of disturbing him. Presently, too, their hands came together, and--such was the swift sympathy between these shapely creatures--didnot dispart. And suddenly, kindled to passion by her warm touch andbreathing presence, stabbed with the fear that this was the last timehe would see her, he told her that for the first time in his life heknew the meaning of love. 

"Oh, if thou wouldst but return my love!" he faltered with dry throat. "But no! that were too much for a man of my years to hope. But whisperat least, that I am not repugnant to thee. "

She was about to reply, when he dropped her hand and stayed her with agesture as abrupt as his avowal. 

"Nay, answer me not. Not till I have told thee what honor forbids Ishould withhold. "

And he told the story of his ban and his long loneliness, her faceflashing 'twixt terror and pity. 

"Answer me, now, " he said, almost sternly. "Couldst thou love such aman, proscribed by his race, a byword and a mockery, to whom it is asin against Heaven even to speak?"

"They would not marry us, " she breathed helplessly. 

"But couldst thou love me?"

Her eyes drooped as she breathed, "The more for thy sufferings. "

But even in the ecstasy of this her acknowledgment, he had a chillundercurrent of consciousness that she did not understand; that, neverhaving lived in an unpersecuted Jewish community, she had no realsense of its own persecuting power. Still, there was no need to remainin Amsterdam now: they would live together in some lonely spot, in thereligion of Right Reason that he would teach her. So their hands cametogether again, and once their lips met. But the father was yet to betold of their sudden-born, sudden-grown love, and this withcharacteristic impulse Uriel did as soon as the old physician awoke. 

"God bless my soul!" said Dom Diego, "am I dreaming still?"

His sense of dream increased when Uriel went on to repeat the story ofhis excommunication. 

"And the ban--is it still in force?" he interrupted. 

"It has not been removed, " said Uriel sadly. 

The burly graybeard sprang to his feet. "And with such a brand uponthy brow thou didst dare speak to my daughter!"

"Father!" cried Ianthe. 

"Father me not! He hath beguiled us here under false pretences. Hehath made us violate the solemn decree of the synagogue. He isoutlawed--he and his house and his food. --Sinner! The viands thouhast given us, what of them? Is thy meat ritually prepared?"

"Thou, a man of culture, carest for these childish things?"

"Childish things? Wherefore, then, have I left my Portugal?"

"All ceremonies are against Right Reason, " said Uriel in low tones, his face grown deadly white. 

"Now I see that thou hast never understood our holy and beautifulreligion. Men of culture, forsooth! Is not our Amsterdam congregationfull of men of culture--grammarians, poets, exegetes, philosophers, jurists, but flesh and blood, mark you, not diagrams, cut out ofEuclid? Whence the cohesion of our race? Ceremony! What preserves andunifies its scattered atoms throughout the world? Ceremony! And whatis ceremony? Poetry. 'Tis the tradition handed down from hoaryantiquity; 'tis the color of life. "

"'Tis a miserable thraldom, " interposed Uriel more feebly. 

"Miserable! A happy service. Hast never danced at the Rejoicing of theLaw? Who so joyous as our brethren? Where so cheerful a creed? Thetrouble with thee is that thou hast no childish associations with ourglorious religion, thou camest to it in manhood with naught but thecold eye of Reason. "

"But thou dost not accept every invention of Rabbinism. Surely inPorto thou didst not practise everything. "

"I kept what I could. I believe what I can. If I have my privatedoubts, why should I set them up to perplex the community withal?There's a friend of mine in this very city--not to mention names--buta greater heretic, I ween, than even thou. But doth he shatter thepeace of the vulgar? Nay, not he: he hath a high place in thesynagogue, is a blessing to the Jewry, and confideth his doubts to mein epistles writ in elegant Latin. Nay, nay, Senhor Da Costa, theworld loves not battering-rams. "

And as the old physician spoke, Uriel began dimly to suspect that hehad misconceived human life, taken it too earnestly, and at his heartwas a hollow aching sense of futile sacrifice. And with it a suspicionthat he had mistaken Judaism, too--missed the poetry and humanitybehind the forms, and, as he gazed wistfully at Ianthe's tenderclouded face, he felt the old romantic sense of brotherhood stirringagain. How wonderful to be reabsorbed into his race, fused withIanthe!

But Right Reason resurged in relentless ascendency, and he knew thathis thought could never more go back on itself, that he could neveragain place faith in any Revelation. 

"I will be an ape among apes, " he thought bitterly. 

XI

And the more he pondered upon this resolution, after Dom Diego hadindignantly shaken off the dust of his threshold, the more he wasconfirmed in it. To outwit the Jewry would be the bitterest revenge, to pay lip-service to its ideals and laugh at it in his sleeve. Andthus, too, he would circumvent its dreaded design to seize upon hisproperty. Deception? Ay, but the fault was theirs who drove him to it, leaving him only a leper's life. In the Peninsula they had dissembledamong Christians; he would dissemble among Jews, aping the ancientapes. He foresaw no difficulty in the recantation. And--famousidea!--his brother Joseph, poor, dear fool, should bring it aboutunder the illusion that he was the instrument of Providence: for toemploy Dom Diego as go-between were to risk the scenting of his realmotive. Then, when the Synagogue had taken him to its sanctimoniousarms, Ianthe--overwhelming thought!--would become his wife. He hadlittle doubt of that; her farewell glance, after her father's back wasturned, was sweet with promises and beseechments, and a brief notefrom her early the next morning dissipated his last doubts. 

"My poor Senhor Da Costa, " she wrote, "I have lain awake all nightthinking of thee. Why ruin thy life for a mere abstraction? Canst thounot make peace!--Thy friend, Ianthe. "

He kissed the note; then, his wits abnormally sharpened, he set towork to devise how to meet his brother, and even as he was meditatinghow to trick him, his heart was full of affection for his littleVidal. Poor Vidal! How he must have suffered to lose his beautifulwife!

There were days on which Joseph's business or pleasure took him pasthis brother's house, though he always walked on the further side, andUriel now set himself to keep watch at his study window from morningto night, the pair of Dutch mirrors fixed slantingly outside thewindow enabling him to see all the street life without being seen. After three days, his patience was rewarded by the reflected image ofthe portly pillar of the synagogue, and with him his little boy ofsix. He ran downstairs and into the street and caught up the boy inhis arms--

"Oh, Vidal!" he said, real affection struggling in his voice. 

"Thou!" said Joseph, staggering with the shock, and trembling at thesound of his submerged name. Then, recovering himself, he saidangrily, "Pollute not my Daniel with thy touch. "

"He is my nephew. I love him, too! How beautiful he is!" And hekissed the wondering little fellow. He refused to put him down. He rantowards his own door. He begged Vidal to give him a word in pity ofhis loneliness. Joseph looked fearfully up and down the street. No Jewwas in sight. He slipped hastily through the door. From that momentUriel played his portly brother like a chess-piece, which should makecomplicated moves and think it made them of its own free will. Gradually, by secret conversations, daily renewed, Joseph, fired withenthusiasm and visions of the glory that would redound upon him in thecommunity--for he was now a candidate for the dignity oftreasurer--won Uriel back to Judaism. And when the faith of the revertwas quite fixed, Joseph made great talk thereof, and interceded withthe Rabbis. 

Uriel Acosta was given a document of confession of his errors to sign;he promised to live henceforward as a true Jew, and the ban wasremoved. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue, and was called up toread in the Law. The elders came to shake him by the hand; a wave ofemotion traversed the congregation. Uriel, mentally blinking at allthis novel sunshine, had moments of forgetfulness of his sardonichypocrisy, thrilled to be in touch with humanity again, and moved byits forgiving good-will. The half-circle of almond and lemon treesfrom Portugal, planted in gaily-painted tubs before the Holy Ark, swelled his breast with tender, tearful memories of youth and thesun-lands. And as Ianthe's happy eyes smiled upon him from thegallery, the words of the Prophet Joel sang in his ears: "And I willrestore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. "

It was a glad night when Dom Diego and Ianthe sat again at his table, religiously victualled this time, and with them his beloved brotherJoseph, not the least happy of the guests in the reconciliation withUriel and the near prospect of the treasuryship. What a handsomecreature he was! thought Uriel fondly. How dignified in manners, yethow sprightly in converse!--no graven lines of suffering on his brow, no gray in his hair. The old wine gurgled, the old memories glowed. Joseph was let into the secret of the engagement--which was not to bepublished for some months--but was too sure of the part he had playedto suspect he had been played with. He sang the Hebrew gracejubilantly after the meal, and Ianthe's sweet voice chimed in happily. Ere the brothers parted, Uriel had extracted a promise that littleDaniel should be lent him for a few days to crown his happiness andbrighten the great lonely house for the coming of the bride. 

XII

Uriel Acosta sat at dinner with little Daniel, feasting his eyes on thefresh beauty of the boy, whose prattle had made the last two daysdelightful. Daniel had been greatly exercised to find that his greatbig uncle could not talk Dutch, and that he must talk Portuguese--whichwas still kept up in families--to be understood. He had hithertoimagined that grown-up people knew everything. Pedro, his black faceagrin with delight, waited solicitously upon the little fellow. 

He changed his meat plate now, and helped him lavishly to tart. "Cream?" said Uriel, tendering the jug. 

"No, no!" cried Daniel, with a look of horror and a violent movementof repulsion. 

Uriel chuckled. "What! Little boys not like cream! We shall find catsshuddering at milk next. " And pouring the contents of the jug lavishlyover his own triangle of tart, he went on with his meal. 

But little Daniel was staring at him with awe struck vision, forgetting to eat. 

"Uncle, " he cried at last, "thou art not a Jew. "

Uriel laughed uneasily. "Little boys should eat and not talk. "

"But, Uncle! We may not eat milk after meat. "

"Well, well, then, little Rabbi!" And Uriel pushed his plate away andpinched the child's ear fondly. 

But when the child went home he prattled of his uncle'stransgressions, and Joseph hurried down, storming at this misleadingof his boy, and this breach of promise to the synagogue. Urielretorted angrily with that native candor of his which made itimpossible for him long to play a part. 

"I am but an ape among apes, " he said, using his pet private sophism. 

"Say rather an ape among lynxes, who will spy thee out, " said Joseph, more hotly. "Thy double-dealing will be discovered, and I shall becomethe laughing-stock of the congregation. "

It was the beginning of a second quarrel--fiercer, bitterer than thefirst. Joseph denounced Uriel privily to Dom Diego, who thundered atthe heretic in his turn. 

"I give not my daughter to an ape, " he retorted, when Uriel hadexpounded himself as usual. 

"Ianthe loves the ape; 'tis her concern, " Uriel was stung intorejoining. 

"Nay, 'tis my concern. By Heaven, I'll grandsire no gorillas!"

"Methinks in Porto thou wast an ape thyself, " cried Uriel, raging. 

"Dog!" shrieked the old physician, his venerable countenancecontorted; "dost count it equal to deceive the Christians and thineown brethren?" And he flung from the house. 

Uriel wrote to Ianthe. She replied--

"I asked thee to make thy peace. Thou hast made bitterer war. I cannotfight against my father and all Israel. Farewell!"

Uriel's face grew grim: the puckers in his brow that her fingers hadtouched showed once more as terrible lines of suffering; his teethwere clenched. The old look of the hunted man came back. He took outher first note, which he kept nearest his heart, and re-read itslowly--

"Why ruin thy life for a mere abstraction? Canst thou not make peace?"

A mere abstraction! Ah! Why had that not warned him of the woman'scalibre? Nay, why had he forgotten--and here he had a vivid vision ofa little girl bringing in Passover cakes--her training in a doublelife? Not that woman needed that--Dom Diego was right. False, frailcreatures! No sympathy with principles, no recognition of the greatfight he had made. Tears of self-pity started to his eyes. Well, shehad, at least, saved him from cowardly surrender. The old fire flamedin his veins. He would fight to the death. 

And as he tore up her notes, a strange sense of relief mingled withthe bitterness and fierceness of his mood; relief to think that neveragain would he be called upon to jabber with the apes, to grasp theirloathly paws, to join in their solemnly absurd posturings, never wouldhe be tempted from the peace and seclusion of his book-lined study. The habits of fifteen years tugged him back like ropes of which he hadexhausted the tether. 

He seated himself at his desk, and took up his pen to resume hismanuscript. "All evils come from not following Right Reason and theLaw of Nature. " He wrote on for hours, pausing from time to time toselect his Latin phrases. Suddenly a hollow sense of the futility ofhis words, of Reason, of Nature, of everything, overcame him. Whatwas this dreadful void at his breast? He leaned his tired, aching headon his desk and sobbed, as little Daniel had never sobbed yet. 

XIII

To the congregation at large, ignorant of these inner quarrels, thebacksliding of Uriel was made clear by the swine-flesh which theChristian butcher now openly delivered at the house. Horrified zealotsremonstrated with him in the streets, and once or twice it came to apublic affray. The outraged elders pressed for a renewal of the ban;but the Rabbis hesitated, thinking best, perhaps, henceforward toignore the thorn in their sides. 

It happened that a Spaniard and an Italian came from London to seekadmission into the Jewish fold, Christian sceptics not infrequentlyfinding peace in the bosom of the older faith. These would-beconverts, hearing the rumors anent Uriel Acosta, bethought themselvesof asking his advice. When the House of Judgment heard that he hadbidden them beware of the intolerable yoke of the Rabbis, its membersfelt that this was too much. Uriel Acosta was again excommunicated. 

And now began new years of persecution, more grievous, more determinedthan ever. Again his house was stoned, his name a byword, his walksabroad a sport to the little ones of a new generation. And now eventhe worst he had feared came to pass. Gradually his brother, who hadrefused on various pretexts to liberate his capital, encroached on hisproperty. Uriel dared not complain to the civil magistrates, by whomhe was already suspect as an Atheist; besides, he still knew no Dutch, and in worldly matters was as a child. Only his love for his brotherturned to deadly hate, which was scarcely intensified when Joseph ledIanthe under the marriage canopy. 

So seven terrible years passed, and Uriel, the lonely, prematurelyaged, found himself sinking into melancholia. He craved for humancompanionship, and the thought that he could find it save among Jewsnever occurred to him. And at last he humbled himself, and againsought forgiveness of the synagogue. 

But this time he was not to be readmitted into the fold so lightly. Imitating the gloomy forms of the Inquisition, from which they hadsuffered so much, the elders joined with the Rabbis in devising apenance, which would brand the memory of the heretic's repentance uponthe minds of his generation. 

Uriel consented to the penance, scarcely knowing what they asked ofhim. Anything rather than another day of loneliness; so into the greatsynagogue, densely filled with men and women, the penitent was led, clothed in a black mourning garb and holding a black candle. He whoseearliest dread had been to be shamed before men, was made to mount araised stage, wherefrom he read a long scroll of recantation, confessing all his ritual sins and all his intellectual errors, andpromising to live till death as a true Jew. The _Chacham_, who stoodnear the sexton, solemnly intoned from the seventy-eighth Psalm: "ButHe, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyedthem not: yea, many a time turned He his anger away and did not stirup all his wrath. For He remembered that they were but flesh: a windthat passeth away and cometh not again. "

He whispered to Uriel, who went to a corner of the synagogue, strippedas far as the girdle, and received with dumb lips thirty-nine lashesfrom a scourge. Then, bleeding, he sat on the ground, and heard theban solemnly removed. Finally, donning his garments, he stretchedhimself across the threshold, and the congregation passed out over hisbody, some kicking it in pious loathing, some trampling on itviciously. The penitent remained rigid, his face pressed to theground. Only, when his brother Joseph trampled upon him, he knew bysubtle memories of his tread and breathing who the coward was. 

When the last of the congregants had passed over his body, Uriel aroseand went through the pillared portico, speaking no word. Thecongregants, standing in groups about the canal-bridge, stilldiscussing the terrible scene, moved aside, shuddering, silenced, aslike a somnambulist that strange figure went by, the shoulders thrownback, the head high, in superb pride, the nostrils quivering, but theface as that of the dead. Never more was he seen of men. Shut up inhis study, he worked feverishly day and night, writing hisautobiography. _Exemplar Humanae Vitae_--an Ensample of Human Life, hecalled it, with tragic pregnancy. Scarcely a word of what the worldcalls a man's life--only the dry account of his abstract thought, ofhis progress to broader standpoints, to that great discovery--"Allevils come from not following Right Reason and the Law of Nature. " Andtherewith a virulent denunciation of Judaism and its Rabbis: "Theywould crucify Jesus even now if He appeared again. " And, garnering thewisdom of his life-experience, he bade every man love his neighbor, not because God bids him, but by virtue of being a man. What Judaism, what Christianity contains of truth belongs not to revealed, but tonatural religion. Love is older than Moses; it binds men together. TheLaw of Moses separates them: one brings harmony, the other discordinto human society. 

His task was drawing to an end. His long fight with the Rabbis wasending, too. "My cause is as far superior to theirs as truth is moreexcellent than falsehood: for whereas they are advocates for a fraudthat they may make a prey and slaves of men, I contend nobly in thecause of Truth, and assert the natural rights of mankind, whom itbecomes to live suitably to the dignity of their nature, free from theburden of superstitions and vain ceremonies. "

It was done. He laid down his quill and loaded his pair ofsilver-mounted pistols. Then he placed himself at the window as ofyore, to watch in his two mirrors for the passing of his brotherJoseph. He knew his hand would not fail him. The days wore on, buteach sunrise found him at his post, as it was reflected sanguinarilyin those fatal mirrors. 

One afternoon Joseph came, but Daniel was with him. And Uriel laiddown his pistol and waited, for he yet loved the boy. And another timeJoseph passed by with Ianthe. And Uriel waited. 

But the third time Joseph came alone. Gabriel's heart gave a greatleap of exultation. He turned, took careful aim, and fired. The shotrang through the startled neighborhood, but Joseph fled in panic, uninjured, shouting. 

Uriel dropped his pistol, half in surprise at his failure, half indespairing resignation. 

"There is no justice, " he murmured. How gray the sky was! What a cold, bleak world!

He went to the door and bolted it. Then he took up the second pistol. Irrelevantly he noted the "G. " graven on it. Gabriel! Gabriel! Whatmemories his old name brought back! There were tears in his eyes. Whyhad he changed to Uriel? Gabriel! Gabriel! Was that his mother's voicecalling him, as she had called him in sunny Portugal, amid the vinesand the olive-trees?

Worn out, world-weary, aged far beyond his years, beaten in the longfight, despairing of justice on earth and hopeless of any heaven, Uriel Acosta leaned droopingly against his beloved desk, put thepistol's cold muzzle to his forehead, pressed the trigger, and felldead across the open pages of his _Exemplar Humanae Vitae_, the thin, curling smoke lingering a little ere it dissipated, like the futilespirit of a passing creature--"a wind that passeth away and cometh notagain. "

THE TURKISH MESSIAH

SCROLL THE FIRST

I

In the year of the world five thousand four hundred and eight, sixteenhundred and forty-eight years after the coming of Christ, and in thetwenty-third year of his own life on earth, Sabbataï Zevi, men said, declared himself at Smyrna to his disciples--the long-expected Messiahof the Jews. They were gathered together in the winter midnight, alittle group of turbaned, long-robed figures, the keen starsinnumerable overhead, the sea stretching sombrely at their feet, andthe swarming Oriental city, a black mystery of roofs, minarets, andcypresses, dominated by the Acropolis, asleep on the slopes of itssnow-clad hill. 

Anxiously they had awaited their Prophet's emergence from hispenitential lustration in the icy harbor, and as he now stood beforethem in naked majesty, the water dripping from his black beard andhair, a perfect manly figure, scarred only by self-inflictedscourgings, awe and wonder held them breathless with expectation. Inhaling that strange fragrance of divinity that breathed from hisbody, and penetrated by the kingliness of his mien, the passionate yetspiritual beauty of his dark, dreamy face, they awaited the greatdeclaration. Some common instinct told them that he would speakto-night, he, the master of mystic silences. 

The _Zohar_--that inspired book of occult wisdom--had long sinceforetold this year as the first of the epoch of regeneration, and eversince the shrill ram's horn had heralded its birth, the souls ofSabbataï Zevi's disciples had been tense for the great moment. Surelyit was to announce himself at last that he had summoned them, blessedpartakers in the greatest moment of human and divine history. 

What would he say?

Austere, silent, hedged by an inviolable sanctity, he stood longmotionless, realizing, his followers felt, the Cabalistic teaching asto the Messiah, incarnating the Godhead through the primal Adam, pure, sinless, at one with himself and elemental Nature. At last he raisedhis luminous eyes heavenwards, and said in clear, calm tones oneword--

YAHWEH!

He had uttered the dread, forbidden Name of God. For an instant theturbaned figures stood rigid with awe, their blood cold with anineffable terror, then as they became conscious again of the starsglittering on, the sea plashing unruffled, the earth still solid undertheir feet, a great hoarse shout of holy joy flew up to the shiningstars. "_Messhiach! Messhiach!_ The Messiah!"

The Kingdom was come. 

The Messianic Era had begun. 

II

How long, O Lord, how long?

That desolate cry of the centuries would be heard no more. 

While Israel was dispersed and the world full of sin, the higher andlower worlds had been parted, and the four letters of God's name hadbeen dissevered, not to be pronounced in unison. For God Himself hadbeen made imperfect by the impeding of His moral purpose. 

But the Messiah had pronounced the Tetragrammaton, and God and theCreation were One again. O mystic transport! O ecstatic reunion! Thejoyous shouts died into a more beatific silence. 

From some near mosque there broke upon the midnight air the solemnvoice of the _muëddin_ chanting the _adán_--

"God is most great. I testify that there is no God but God. I testifythat Mohammed is God's Prophet. "

Sabbataï shivered. Was it the cold air or some indefinable foreboding?

III

It was the day of Messianic dreams. In the century that was over, strange figures had appeared of prophets and martyrs and Hebrewvisionaries. From obscurity and the far East came David Reubeni, journeying to Italy by way of Nubia to obtain firearms to ridPalestine of the Moslem--a dark-faced dwarf, made a skeleton by fasts, riding on his white horse up to the Vatican to demand an interview, and graciously received by Pope Clement. In Portugal--where DavidReubeni, heralded by a silken standard worked with the TenCommandments, had been received by the King with an answeringpageantry of banners and processions--a Marrano maiden had visions ofMoses and the angels, undertook to lead her suffering kinsfolk to theHoly Land, and was burnt by the Inquisition. Diogo Pires--handsome andbrilliant and young, and a Christian by birth--returned to the faithof his fathers, and, under the name of Solomon Molcho, passed hisbrief life in quest of prophetic ecstasies and the pangs ofmartyrdom. He sought to convert the Pope to Judaism, and predicting agreat flood at Rome, which came to pass, with destructive earthquakesat Lisbon, was honored by the Vatican, only to meet a joyful death atMantua, where, by order of the Emperor, he was thrown upon the blazingfuneral pyre. And in these restless and terrible times for the Jews, inward dreams mingled with these outward portents. The _Zohar_--theBook of Illumination, composed in the thirteenth century--printed nowfor the first time, shed its dazzling rays further and further overevery Ghetto. 

The secrets reserved for the days of the Messiah had been revealed init: Elijah, all the celestial conclave, angels, spirits, higher souls, and the Ten Spiritual Substances had united to inspire its composers, teach them the bi-sexual nature of the World-Principle, and discoverto them the true significance of the _Torah_ (Law), hitherto hidden inthe points and strokes of the Pentateuch, in its vowels and accents, and even in the potential transmutations of the letters of its words. Lurya, the great German Egyptian Cabalist, with Vital, the Italianalchemist, sojourned to the grave of Simon bar Yochai, its fabledauthor. Lurya himself, who preferred the silence and loneliness of theNile country to the noise of the Talmud-School, who dressed in whiteon Sabbath, and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters ofthe Ineffable Name, and who by permutating these, could draw downspirits from Heaven, passed as the Messiah of the Race of Joseph, precursor of the true Messiah of the Race of David. The times wereripe. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand, " cried the Cabalists with onevoice. The Jews had suffered so much and so long. Decimated for notdying of the Black Death, pillaged and murdered by the Crusaders, hounded remorselessly from Spain and Portugal, roasted by thousandsat the _autos-da-fé_ of the Inquisition, everywhere branded anddegraded, what wonder if they felt that their cup was full, thatredemption was at hand, that the Lord would save Israel and set Hispeople in triumph over the heathen! "I believe with a perfect faiththat the Messiah will come, and though His coming be delayed, nevertheless will I daily expect Him. "

So ran their daily creed. 

In Turkey what time the Jews bore themselves proudly, rivalling theVenetians in the shipping trade, and the Grand Viziers in the beautyof their houses, gardens, and kiosks; when Joseph was Duke of Naxos, and Solomon Ashkenazi Envoy Extraordinary to Venice; when Tiberias wasturned into a new Jerusalem and planted with mulberry-trees; whenprosperous physicians wrote elegant Latin verses; in those days thehope of the Messiah was faint and dim. But it flamed up fiercelyenough when their strength and prestige died down with that of theEmpire, and the harem and the Janissaries divided power with thePrætorians of the Spahis, and the Jews were the first objects ofoppression ready to the hand of the unloosed pashas, and the blackturban marked them off from the Moslem. It was a Rabbi of the OttomanEmpire who wrote the religious code of "The Ordered Table" to unifyIsrael and hasten the coming of the Messiah, and his dicta wereaccepted far and wide. 

And not only did Israel dream of the near Messiah, the rumor of Himwas abroad among the nations. Men looked again to the mysteriousOrient, the cradle of the Divine. In the far isle of England soberPuritans were awaiting the Millennium and the Fifth Monarchy of theApocalypse--the four "beasts" of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, andRoman monarchies having already passed away--and when Manasseh benIsrael of Amsterdam petitioned Cromwell to readmit the Jews, his pleawas that thereby they might be dispersed through all nations, and theBiblical prophecies as to the eve of the Messianic age be thusfulfilled. Verily, the times were ripe for the birth of a Messiah. 

IV

He had been strange and solitary from childhood, this saintly son ofthe Smyrniote commission agent. He had no playmates, none of thehabits of the child. He would wander about the city's steep bustlingalleys that seemed hewn in a great rock, or through the long, wooden-roofed bazaars, seeming to heed the fantastically coloredspectacle as little as the garbage under foot, or the trains ofgigantic camels, at the sound of whose approaching bells he wouldmechanically flatten himself against the wall. And yet he must havebeen seeing, for if he chanced upon anything that suffered--a child, alean dog, a cripple, a leper--his eyes filled with tears. At times hewould stand on the brink of the green gulf and gaze seawards long andyearningly, and sometimes he would lie for hours upon the sudden plainthat stretched lonely behind the dense port. 

In the little congested school-room where hundreds of childrenclamored Hebrew at once he was equally alone; and when, a brilliantyouth, he headed the lecture-class of the illustrious Talmudist, Joseph Eskapha, his mental attitude preserved the same aloofness. Quicker than his fellows he grasped the casuistical hair-splittings inwhich the Rabbis too often indulged, but his contempt was as quick ashis comprehension. A note of revolt pierced early through hisclass-room replies, and very soon he threw over these barrensubtleties to sink himself--at a tenderer age than tradition knewof--in the spiritual mysticisms, the poetic fervors, and theself-martyrdoms of the Cabalistic literature. The transmigrations ofsouls, mystic marriages, the summoning of spirits, the creation of theworld by means of attributes, or how the Godhead had concentrateditself within itself in order to unfold the finite Many from theinfinite One; such were the favorite studies of the brooding youth offifteen. 

"Learning shall be my life, " he said to his father. 

"Thy life! But what shall be thy livelihood?" replied Mordecai Zevi. "Thy elder brothers are both at work. "

"So much more need that one of thy family should consecrate himself toGod, to call down a blessing on the work of the others. "

Mordecai Zevi shook his head. In his olden days, in the Morea, he hadknown the bitterness of poverty. But he was beginning to prosper now, like so many of his kinsmen, since Sultan Ibrahim had waged waragainst the Venetians, and, by imperilling the trade of the Levant, had driven the Dutch and English merchants to transfer their ledgersfrom Constantinople to Smyrna. The English house of which Mordecai hadobtained the agency was waxing rich, and he in its wake, and so hecould afford to have a scholar-son. He made no farther demur, and evenallowed his house to become the seat of learning in which Sabbataï andnine chosen companions studied the Zohar and the Cabalah from dawn todarkness. Often they would desert the divan for the woodengarden-balcony overlooking the oranges and the prune-trees. And thericher Mordecai grew, the greater grew his veneration for his son, towhose merits, and not to his own diligence and honesty, he ascribedhis good fortune. 

"If the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, " he was wontto say, "then surely the good deeds of the children are repaid to thefathers. " His marked reverence for his wonderful son spread outwards, and Sabbataï became the object of a wistful worship, of a wildsurmise. 

Something of that wild surmise seemed to the father to flash into hisson's own eyes one day when, returned from a great journey to hisEnglish principals, Mordecai Zevi spoke of the Fifth Monarchy men whoforetold the coming of the Messiah and the Restoration of the Jews inthe year 1666. 

"Father!" said the boy. "Will not the Messiah be born on the ninth ofAb?"

"Of a surety, " replied Mordecai, with beating heart. "He will be bornon the fatal date of the destruction of both our Temples, in token ofconsolation, as it is written; 'and I will cause the captivity ofJudah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, asat the first. '"

The boy relapsed into his wonted silence. But one thought possessedfather and son. Sabbataï had been born on the ninth of Ab--on thegreat Black Fast. 

The wonder grew when the boy was divorced from his wife--the beautifulChannah. Obediently marrying--after the custom of the day--the maidenprovided by his father, the young ascetic passionately denied himselfto the passion ripened precociously by the Eastern sun, and themarvelling _Beth-Din_ (House of Judgment) released the virgin from hernominal husband. Prayer and self-mortification were the pleasures ofhis youth. The enchanting Jewesses of Smyrna, picturesque in baggytrousers and open-necked vests, had no seduction for him, though nomuslin veil hid their piquant countenances as with the Turkish women, though no prescription silenced their sweet voices in the psalmody ofthe table, as among the sin-fearing congregations of the West. In vainthe maidens stuck roses under their ear or wore honeysuckle in theirhair to denote their willingness to be led under the canopy. ButMordecai, anxious that he should fulfil the law, according to whichto be celibate is to live in sin, found him a second mate, even morebeautiful; but the youth remained silently callous, and was soonrestored afresh to his solitary state. 

"Now shall the _Torah_ (Law) be my only bride, " he said. 

Blind to the beauty of womanhood, the young, handsome, and now richSabbataï, went his lonely, parsimonious way, and a wondering bandfollowed him, scarcely disturbing his loneliness by their reverentialcompanionship. When he entered the sea, morning and night, summer andwinter, all stood far off; by day he would pray at the fountain whichthe Christians called _Sancta Veneranda_, near to the cemetery of theJews, and he would stretch himself at night across the graves of therighteous in a silent agony of appeal, while the jackals barked in thelonely darkness and the wind soughed in the mountain gorges. 

But at times he would speak to his followers of the Divine mysteriesand of the rigorous asceticism by which alone these were to be reachedand men to be regenerated and the Kingdom to be won; and sometimes hewould sing to them Spanish songs in his sweet, troublingvoice--strange Cabalistic verses, composed by himself or Lurya, andset to sad, haunting melodies yearning with mystic passion. And inthese songs the womanhood he had rejected came back in amorous strainsthat recalled the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, and seemed to hisdisciples to veil as deep an allegory:--

 "There the Emperor's daughter Lay agleam in the water, Melisselda. And its breast to her breast Lay in tremulous rest, Melisselda. From her bath she arose Pure and white as the snows, Melisselda. Coral only at lips And at sweet finger-tips, Melisselda. In the pride of her race As a sword shone her face, Melisselda. And her lips were steel bows, But her mouth was a rose, Melisselda. "

And in the eyes of the tranced listeners were tears of worship forMelisselda as for the Messiah's mystic Bride. 

V

And while the silent Sabbataï said no word of Messiah or mission, noword save the one word on the seashore, his disciples, first secret, then bold, spread throughout Smyrna the news of the Messiah's advent. 

They were not all young, these first followers of Sabbataï. No oneproclaimed him more ardently than the grave, elderly man of science, Moses Pinhero. But the sceptics far outnumbered the believers. Sabbataï was scouted as a madman. The Jewry was torn by dissensionsand disturbances. But Sabbataï took no part in them. He had nocommunion with the bulk of his brethren, save in religious ceremonies, and for these he would go to the poorest houses in the most noisomecourts. It was in a house of one room, the raised part of which, covered with a strip of carpet, made the bed-and living-room, and theunraised part the kitchen, that his next manifestation of occult powerwas made. The ceremony was the circumcision of the first-born son, but as the _Mohel_ (surgeon) was about to operate he asked him to stayhis hand awhile. Half an hour passed. 

"Why are we waiting?" the guests ventured to ask of him at last. 

"Elijah the Prophet has not yet taken his seat, " he said. 

Presently he made a sign that the proceedings might be resumed. Theystared in reverential awe at the untenanted chair, where only theinspired vision of Sabbataï could perceive the celestial form of theancient Prophet. 

But the ancient Talmudical college frowned upon the new Prophet, particularly when his disciples bruited abroad his declaration on thesea-shore. He was cited before the _Chachamim_ (Rabbis). 

"Thou didst dare pronounce the ineffable Name" cried Joseph Eskapha, his old Master. "What! Shall thy unconsecrated lips pollute the sacredletters that even in the time of Israel's glory only the High Priestmight breathe in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement!"

"'Tis a divine mystery known to me alone, " said Sabbataï. 

But the Rabbis shook their heads and laid the ban upon him and hisdisciples. A strange radiance came in Sabbataï's face. He betookhimself to the fountain and prayed. 

"I thank Thee, O my Father, " he said, "inasmuch as Thou hast revealedmyself to myself. Now I know that my own penances have not been invain. "

But the excommunication of the Sabbatians did not quiet the commotionin the Jewish quarter of Smyrna, fed by Millennial dreams from theWest. In England, indeed, a sect of Old Testament Christians hadarisen, working for the adoption of the Mosaic Code as the law of theState. 

From land to land of Christendom, on the feverish lips of eagerbelievers, passed the rumor of the imminence of the Messiah of theJews. According to some he would appear before the Grand Seignior inJune, 1666, take from him his crown by force of music only, and leadhim in chains like a captive. Then for nine months he would disappear, the Jews meanwhile enduring martyrdom, but he would return, mounted ona Celestial Lion, with his bridle made of seven-headed serpents, leading back the lost ten tribes from beyond the river Sambatyon, andhe should be acknowledged for Solomon, King of the Universe, and theHoly Temple should descend from Heaven already built, that the Jewsmight offer sacrifice therein for ever. But these hopes found nolodgment in the breasts of the Jewish governors of the Smyrniotequarter, where hard-headed Sephardim were busy in toil and traffic, working with their hands, or shipping freights of figs or valonea; asfor the _Schnorrers_, the beggars who lived by other people's wits, they were even more hard-headed than the workers. Hence constantexcitements and wordy wars, till at last the authorities banished thealready outlawed Sabbataï from Smyrna. When he heard the decree hesaid, "Is Israel not in exile?" He took farewell of his brothers andof his father, now grown decrepit in his body and full of the gout andother infirmities. 

"Thou hast brought me wealth, " said old Mordecai, sobbing; "but now Ihad rather lose my wealth than thee. Lo, I am on the brink of thegrave, and my saintly son will not close mine eyes, nor know when tosay _Kaddish_ (mourning prayer) over my departed soul. "

"Nay, weep not, my father, " said Sabbataï. "The souls depart--but theywill return. "

VI

He wandered through the Orient, everywhere gaining followers, everywhere discredited. Constantinople saw him, and Athens, Thessalonica and Cairo. 

For the Jew alone travel was easy in those days. The scatterings ofhis race were everywhere. The bond of blood secured welcome: Hebrewprovided a common tongue. The scholar-guest, in especial, was hailedin flowery Hebrew as a crown sent to decorate the head of his host. Sumptuously entertained, he was laden with gifts on his departure, thecaravan he was to join found for him, the cost defrayed, and even hisransom, should he unhappily be taken captive by robbers. 

At the Ottoman capital the exile had a mingled reception. In the greatJewish quarter of Haskeui, with its swarming population of smalltraders, he found many adherents and many adversaries. Constantinoplewas a nest of free-lances and adventurers. Abraham Yachiny, theillustrious preacher, an early believer, was inspired to have a tombopened in the ancient "house of life. " He asked the sceptical Rabbisto dig up the earth. They found it exceedingly hard to the spade, but, persevering, presently came upon an earthen pot and therein aparchment which ran thus: "I, Abraham, was shut up for forty years ina cave. I wondered that the time of miracles did not arrive. Then avoice replied to me: 'A son shall be born in the year of the world5386 and be called Sabbataï. He shall quell the great dragon; he isthe true Messiah, and shall wage war without weapons. '"

Verily without weapons did Sabbataï wage war, almost without words. Not even the ancient Parchment convinced the scoffers, but Sabbataïtook note of it as little as they. To none did he proclaim himself. His tall, majestic figure, with its sweeping black beard, wasdiscerned in the dusk, passionately pleading at the graves of thepious. He was seen at dawn standing motionless upon his bulging woodenbalcony that gave upon the Golden Horn. When he was not fasting, nonebut the plainest food passed his lips. He flagellated himself daily. Little children took to him, and he showered sweetmeats upon them andwinning smiles of love. When he walked the refuse-laden, deep-ruttedstreets, slow and brooding, jostled by porters, asses, dervishes, sheiks, scribes, fruit-pedlars, shrouded females, and beggars, something more than the sombreness of his robes marked him out fromthe medley of rainbow-colored pedestrians. Turkish beauties peeredthrough their yashmaks, cross-legged craftsmen smoking their narghilesraised their heads as he passed through the arched aisles of the GreatBazaar. Once he wandered into the slave-market, where fair Circassiansand Georgians were being stripped to furnish the Kiosks of theBosphorus, and he grew hot-eyed for the corrupt chaos of life in thecapital, with its gorgeous pachas and loathly cripples, its countlessmosques and brothels, its cruel cadis and foolish dancing dervishes. And when an angry Mussulman, belaboring his ass, called it "Jew!" hisheart burnt with righteous anger. Verily, only Israel had chosenRighteousness--one little nation, the remnant that would save theworld, and bring about the Kingdom of God. But alas! Israel herselfwas yet full of sin, hard and unbelieving. 

"Woe! woe!" he cried aloud to his brethren as he entered the Jewishquarter. "Your sins shall be visited upon you. For know that when Godcreated the world, it was not from necessity but from pure love, andto be recognized by men as their Creator and Master. But ye return Himnot love for love. Woe! woe! There shall come a fire uponConstantinople and a great burning upon your habitations andsubstance. "

Then his breast swelled with sobs; in a strange ecstasy his spiritseemed to soar from his body, and hover lovingly over all the motleymultitude. All that night his followers heard him praying aloud withpassionate tears, and singing the Psalms of David in his sweetmelancholy voice as he strode irregularly up and down the room. 

VII

At Constantinople a messenger brought him a letter of homage fromDamascus from his foremost disciple, Nathan of Gaza. 

Nathan was a youthful enthusiast, son of a Jerusalem begging-agent, and newly married to the beautiful, but one-eyed daughter of a richPortuguese, who had migrated from Damascus to Gaza. Opulent andzealous, he devoted himself henceforth to preaching the Messiah, living and dying his apostle and prophet--no other in short than theElijah who was to be the Messiah's harbinger. Nor did he fail to workmiracles in proof of his mission. Merely on reading a man's name, hewould recount his life, defaults and sins, and impose just correctionand penance. Evil-doers shunned his eye. More readily than on Sabbataïmen believed on him, inasmuch as he claimed but the second place, andan impostor, said they, would have claimed the first. Couched in thetropes and metaphors of Rabbinical Hebrew, Nathan's letter ran thus:--

 "22ND CHESVAN OF THIS YEAR. 

"To the King, our King, Lord of our Lords, who gathers the Dispersedof Israel, who redeems our Captivity, the Man elevated to the Heightof all sublimity, the Messiah of the God of Jacob, the true Messiah, the Celestial Lion, Sabbataï Zevi, whose honor be exalted and hisdominion raised in a short time, and for ever, Amen. After havingkissed thy hands and swept the dust from thy feet, as my duty is tothe King of Kings, whose Majesty be exalted and His Empire enlarged. These are to make known to the Supreme Excellency of that Place, whichis adorned with the beauty of thy Sanctity, that the Word of the Kingand of His Law hath enlightened our Faces; that day hath been a solemnday unto Israel and a day of light unto our Rulers, for immediately weapplied ourselves to perform thy Commands as our duty is. And thoughwe have heard of many strange things, yet we are courageous, and ourheart is as the heart of a Lion; nor ought we to inquire or reason ofthy doings; for thy works are marvellous and past finding out. And weare confirmed in our Fidelity without all exception, resigning up ourvery souls for the Holiness of thy Name. And now we are come as far asDamascus, intending shortly to proceed in our journey to Scanderone, according as thou hast commanded us: that so we may ascend and see theface of God in light, as the light of the face of the King of life. And we, servants of thy servants, shall cleanse the dust from thyfeet, beseeching the majesty of thine excellency and glory tovouchsafe from thy habitation to have a care of us, and help us withthe Force of thy Right Hand of Strength, and shorten our way which isbefore us. And we have our eyes towards Jah, Jah, who will make hasteto help us and to save us, that the Children of Iniquity shall nothurt us; and towards whom our hearts pant and are consumed within us:who shall give us Talons of Iron to be worthy to stand under theshadow of thine ass. These are the words of thy Servant of Servants, who prostrates himself to be trod on by the soles of thyfeet. --NATHAN BENJAMIN. "

VIII

But it was at Thessalonica--now known as Salonica--that Sabbataïgained the greatest following. For Thessalonica was the chiefstronghold of the Cabalah; and though the triangular battlementedtown, sloping down the mountain to the gulf, was in the hands of theTurks, who had built four fortresses and set up twelve little cannonsagainst the Corsairs, yet Jews were largely in the ascendant, andtheir thirty synagogues dominated the mosques of their masters and thechurches of the Greeks, even as the crowns they received for supplyingthe cloths of the Janissaries far exceeded their annual tribute. Castilians, Portuguese, Italians, they were further recruited by aninflux of students from all parts of the Empire, for here were twogreat colleges teaching more than ten thousand scholars. In thisatmosphere of pious warmth Sabbataï found consolation for the apathyof Constantinople. Not only men were of his devotees now, but women, and maidens, in all their Eastern fervor, raising their face-veils andputting off their shrouding _izars_ as they sat at his feet. Virgins, untaught to love or to dissemble, lifted adoring eyes. But Sabbataï'svision was still inwards and heavenwards; and one day he made a greatfeast, and invited all his friends to his wedding in the chiefsynagogue. They came with dancing and music and lighted torches, butracked by curiosity, full of guesses as to the bride. Through theclose lattice-work of the ladies' balcony peered a thousand eagereyes. When the moment came, Sabbataï, in festal garments, took hisstand under the canopy. But no visible bride stood beside him. MosesPinhero reverently drew a Scroll of the Law from the ark, vested inpurple and gold broideries, and hung with golden chains and abreastplate and bells that made sweet music, and he bore it beneaththe canopy, and Sabbataï, placing a golden ring on a silver peak ofthe Scroll, said solemnly:

"I betroth thee unto me according to the Law of Moses and Israel. "

A buzz of astonishment swelled through the synagogue, blent withheavier murmurs of protest from shocked pietists. But the more poeticCabalists understood. They explained that it was the union of theTorah, the Daughter of Heaven, with the Messiah, the Son of Heaven, who was never to mate with a mortal. 

But a _Chacham_ (Rabbi), unappeased, raised a loud plaint ofblasphemy. 

"Nay, the blasphemy is thine, " replied the Bridegroom of the lawquietly. "Say not your prophets that the Truth should be the spouse ofthose who love the Truth?"

But the orthodox faction prevailed, and he was driven from the city. 

He went to the Morea, to his father's relatives; he wandered to andfro, and the years slipped by. Worn by fasts and penances, living ininward dreams of righteousness and regeneration, he grew towardsmiddle age, and always on his sweet scholarly face an air of patientwaiting through the slow years. And his train of disciples grew andchanged; some died, some wearied of the long expectation. But SamuelPrimo, of Jerusalem, became his devoted secretary, and Abraham Rubiowas also ever at his side, a droll, impudent beggar, professingunlimited faith in the Messiah, and feasting with unbounded appetiteon the good things sent by the worshippers, and put aside by thepersistent ascetic. 

"Tis fortunate I shall be with thee when thou carvest the Leviathan, "he said once. "Else would the heathen princesses who shall wait uponus come in for thy pickings. "

"In those days of the Kingdom there shall be no more need forabnegation, " said Sabbataï. "As it is written, 'And thy fast-daysshall become feast-days. '"

"Nay, then, thy feast-days shall become my fast-days, " retorted Rubio. 

Sabbataï smiled. The beggar was the only man who could make him smile. But he smiled--a grim, bitter smile--when he heard that the great firehe had predicted had devastated Constantinople, and wrought fiercemischief in the Jewish quarter. 

"The fire will purify their hearts, " he said. 

IX

Nathan the Prophet did not fail to enlarge upon the miraculousprediction of his Master, and through all the lands of the Exile atremor ran. 

It reached that hospitable table in Cairo where each noon half ahundred learned Cabalists dined at the palace of the Saraph-Bashi, theJewish Master of the Mint, himself given to penances and visions, andswathed in sackcloth below the purple robes with which he drove abroadin his chariot of state. 

"He who is sent thee, " wrote Nathan to Raphael Joseph Chelebi, thispious and open-handed Prince in Israel, "is the first man in theworld--I may say no more. Honor him, then, and thou shalt have thyreward in his lifetime, wherein thou wilt witness miracles beyondbelief. Whatever thou shouldst see, be not astonied. It is a divinemystery. When the time shall come I will give up all to serve him. Would it were granted me to follow him now!"

Chelebi was prepared to follow Sabbataï forthwith; he went to meetSabbataï's vessel, and escorted him to his palace with great honor. But Sabbataï would not lodge therein. 

"The time is not yet, " he said, and sought shelter with a humblevendor of holy books, whose stall stood among the money-changers'booths, that led to the chief synagogue, and his followers distributedthemselves among the quaint high houses of the Jewry, and walkedprophetic in its winding alleys, amid the fantastic chaos of buyersand sellers and donkeys, under the radiant blue strip of Egyptian sky. Only at mid-day did they repair to the table of the Saraph-Bashi. 

"Hadst any perils at sea?" asked the host on the first day. "Men saythe Barbary Corsairs are astir again. "

Sabbataï remained silent, but Samuel Primo, his secretary, took up thereply. 

"Perils!" quoth he. "My Master will not speak of them, but the Captainwill tell thee a tale. We never thought to pass Rhodes!"

"Ay, " chimed in Abraham Rubio, "we were pursued all night by twopirates, one on either side of us like beggars. "

"And the Captain, " said Isaac Silvera, "despairing of escape, plannedto take to the boats with his crew, leaving the passengers to theirfate. "

"But he did not?" quoth a breathless Cabalist. 

"Alas, no, " said Abraham Rubio, with a comical grimace. "Would he haddone so! For then we should have owned a goodly vessel, and the Masterwould have saved us all the same. "

"But righteousness must needs be rewarded, " protested Samuel Primo. "And inasmuch as the Captain wished to save the Master in the boats--"

"The Master was reading, " put in Solomon Lagnado. "The Captain criesout, 'The Corsairs are upon us!' 'Where?' says the Master. 'There!'says the Captain. The Master stretches out his hands, one towardseach vessel, and raises his eyes to heaven, and in a moment the shipstack and sail away on the high sea. "

Sabbataï sat eating his meagre meal in silence. 

But when the rumor of his miracle spread, the sick and the crippledhastened to him, and, protesting he could do naught, he laid his handson them, and many declared themselves healed. Also he touched the lidsof the sore-eyed and they said his fingers were as ointment. ButSabbataï said nothing, made no pretensions, walking ever the path ofpiety with meek and humble tread. Howbeit he could not linger inEgypt. The Millennial Year was drawing nigh--the mystic 1666. 

Sabbataï Zevi girded up his loins, and, regardless of the rumors ofArab robbers, nay, wearing his phylacteries on his forehead as thoughto mark himself out as a Jew, and therefore rich, joined a caravan forJerusalem, by way of Damascus. 

X

O the ecstasy with which he prostrated himself to kiss for the firsttime the soil of the sacred city! Tears rolled from his eyes, half ofrapture, half of passionate sorrow for the lost glories of Zion, givenover to the Moslem, its gates guarded by Turkish sentries, and eventhe beauty of his first view of it--domes, towers, and bastions bathedin morning sunlight--fading away in the squalor of its steep alleys. 

Nathan the Prophet had apprised the Jews of the coming of their King, and the believers welcomed him with every mark of homage, evensubstituting Sabbataï Zevi for Sultan Mehemet in the Sabbath prayerfor the Sovereign, and at the Wailing Place the despairing sobs of theSons of the Law were tempered by a great hope. 

Poor, squeezed to famishing point by the Turkish officials, deprivedof their wonted subsidies from the pious Jews of Poland, who weredecimated by Cossack massacres, they had had their long expectation ofthe Messiah intensified by the report which Baruch Gad had broughtback to them from Persia--how the Sons of Moses, living beyond theriver Sambatyon (that ceased to run on the Sabbath), were butawaiting, amid daily miracles, the word of the Messiah to march backto Jerusalem. The lost Ten Tribes would reassemble: at the blast ofthe celestial horn the dispersed of Israel would be gathered togetherfrom the four corners of the Earth. But Sabbataï deprecated thehomage; of Redemption he spake no word. 

And verily his coming seemed to bode destruction rather thansalvation. For a greedy Pacha, getting wind of the disloyalty of thesynagogue to the Sultan, made it a pretext for an impossible fine. 

The wretched community was dashed back to despair. Already reduced tostarvation, whence were they to raise this mighty sum? But, recovering, all hearts turned at once to the strange sorrowful figurethat went humbly to and fro among them. 

"Money?" said he. "Whence should I take so much money?"

"But thou art Messiah?"

"I Messiah?" He looked at them wistfully. 

"Forgive us--we know the hour of thy revelation hath not yet struck. But wilt thou not save us by thy human might?"

"How so?"

"Go for us, we pray thee, on a mission to the friendly Saraph-Bashi ofCairo. His wealth alone can ransom us. "

"All that man can do I will do, " said Sabbataï. 

"May thy strength increase!" came the grateful ejaculation, andwhite-bearded sages stooped to kiss the hem of his garment. 

So Sabbataï journeyed back to Cairo by caravan through the desert, preceded, men said, by a pillar of fire, and accompanied when hetravelled at night by myriads of armed men that disappeared in themorning, and wheresoever he passed all the Jewish inhabitants flockedto gaze upon him. In Hebron they kept watch all night around hishouse. 

From his casement Sabbataï looked up at the silent stars and down atthe swaying sea of faces. 

"What if the miracle be not wrought!" he murmured. "If Chelebi refusesto sacrifice so much of his substance! But they believe on me. It mustbe that Jerusalem will be saved, and that I am the Messiah indeed. "

At Cairo the pious Master of the Mint received him with ecstasy, andgranted his request ere he had made an end of speaking. 

That night Sabbataï wandered away from all his followers, beyond themoonlit Nile, towards the Great Pyramid, on, on, unto the whitedesert, his eyes seeing only inward visions. 

"Yea, I am Messiah, " he cried at length to the vast night, "I am G--!"

The sudden shelving of the sand made him stumble, and in that instanthe became aware of the Sphinx towering over him, its great graniteFace solemn in the moonlight. His voice died away in an awed whisper. Long, long he gazed into the great stone eyes. 

"Speak!" he whispered. "Thou, _Abou-el-Hol_, Father of Terror, thouwho broodedst over the silences ere Moses ben Amram led my people fromthis land of bondage, shall I not lead them from their dispersal totheir ancient unity in the day when God shall be One, and His NameOne?"

The Sphinx was silent. The white sea of sand stretched away endlesslywith noiseless billows. The Pyramids threw funereal shadows over thearid waste. 

"Yea, " he cried, passionately. "My Father hath not deceived me. Through me, through me flow the streams of grace to recreate andrekindle. Hath He not revealed it to me, even ere this day ofSalvation for Jerusalem, by the date of my birth, by the ancientparchment, by the homage of Nathan, by the faith of my brethren andthe rumor of the nations, by my sufferings, by my self-appointedmartyrdoms, by my long, weary years of forced wanderings to and froupon the earth, by my loneliness--ah, God--my loneliness!"

The Sphinx brooded solemnly under the brooding stars. Sabbataï's voicewas as the wail of a wind. 

"Yea, I will save Israel, I will save the world. Through my holinessthe world shall be a Temple. Sin and evil and pain shall pass. Peaceshall sit under her fig-tree, and swords shall be turned intopruning-hooks, and gladness and brotherhood shall run through all theearth, even as my Father declared unto Israel by the mouth of hisprophet Hosea. Yea, I, even I, will allure her and bring her into thedesert, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her vineyardsfrom thence, and the Valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shallsing there as in the days of her youth and as in the days when shecame up out of the land of Egypt. And I will say to them which werenot my people, 'Thou art my people'; and they shall say, 'Thou art myGod. '"

The Sphinx was silent. And in that silence there was the voice of deadgenerations that had bustled and dreamed and passed away, countless asthe grains of desert sand. 

Sabbataï ceased and surveyed the Face in answering silence, his ownface growing as inscrutable. 

"We are strong and lonely--thou and I, " he whispered at last. But theSphinx was silent. 

(_Here endeth the First Scroll. _)

SCROLL THE SECOND

XI

In a little Polish town, early one summer morning, two Jewish women, passing by the cemetery, saw a spirit fluttering whitely among thetombs. 

They shrieked, whereupon the figure turned, revealing a beautiful girlin her night-dress, her face, albeit distraught, touched unmistakablywith the hues of life. 

"Ah, ye be daughters of Israel!" cried the strange apparition. "Helpme! I have escaped from the nunnery. "

"Who art thou?" said they, moving towards her. 

"The Messiah's Bride!" And her face shone. They stood rooted to thesoil. A fresh thrill of the supernatural ran through them. 

"Nay, come hither, " she cried. "See. " And she showed them nail-markson her naked flesh. "Last night my father's ghostly hands dragged mefrom the convent. "

At this the women would have run away, but each encouraged the other. 

"Poor creature! She is mad, " they signed and whispered to each other. Then they threw a mantle over her. 

"Ye will hide me, will ye not?" she said, pleadingly, and her wildsweetness melted their hearts. 

They soothed her and led her homewards by unfrequented byways. 

"Where are thy friends, thy parents?"

"Dead, scattered--what know I? O those days of blood!" She shudderedviolently. "Baptism or death! But they were strong. I see a Cossackdragging my mother along with a thong round her neck. 'Here's a redribbon for you, dear, ' he cries with laughter; they betrayed us to theCossacks, those Greek Christians within our gates--the Zaporogiansdressed themselves like Poles--we open the gates--the gutters runblood--oh, the agonies of the tortured!--oh! father!"

They hushed her cries. Too well they remembered those terrible days ofthe Chmielnicki massacres, when all the highways of Europe werethronged with haggard Polish Jews, flying from the vengeance of theCossack chieftain with his troops of Haidamaks, and a quarter of amillion of Jewish corpses on the battle-fields of Poland were theblunt Cossack's reply to the casuistical cunning engendered by theTalmud. 

"They hated my father, " the strange beautiful creature told them, whenshe was calmer. "He was the lessee of the Polish imposts; and in orderthat he might collect the fines on Cossack births and marriages, hekept the keys of the Greek church, and the Pope had to apply to him, ere he could celebrate weddings or baptisms--they offered to baptizehim free of tax, but he held firm to his faith; they impaled him on astake and lashed him--oh, my God! And the good sisters found meweeping, a little girl, and they took me to the convent and were kindto me, and spoke to me of Christ. But I would not believe, no, I couldnot believe. The psalms and lessons of the synagogue came back to mylips; in visions of the night I saw my father, blood-stained, buthaloed with light. 

"'Be faithful, ' he would say, 'be faithful to Judaism. A great destinyawaits thee. For lo! our long persecution draws to an end, the daysof the Messiah are at hand, and thou shalt be the Messiah's bride, 'And the glory of a great hope came into my life, and I longed toescape from my prison into the sunlit world. I, the bride of thecloister!" she cried, and revolt flung roses into her white face. "Nay, the bride of the Messiah am I, who shall restore joy to theearth, who shall wipe the tears from off all faces. Last night myfather came to me again, and said, 'Be faithful to Judaism. ' Then Ireplied, 'If thou wert of a truth my father, thou wouldst cease thyexhortations, thou wouldst know I would rather die than renounce myfaith, thou wouldst rescue me from these hated walls, and give me untomy Bridegroom. ' Thereupon he said, 'Stretch out thine hand, ' and Istretched out my hand, and I felt an invisible hand clasp it, and whenI awoke I found myself by his grave-side, where ye came upon me. Oh, take me to the Woman's Bath forthwith, I pray ye, that I may wash offthe years of pollution. "

They took her to the Woman's Bath, admiring her marvellous beauty. 

"Where is the Messiah?" she asked. 

"He is not come yet, " they made answer, for the rising up of Sabbataïwas as yet known to but a few disciples. 

"Then I will go find Him, " she answered. 

She wandered to Amsterdam--the capital of Jewry--and thence toFrankfort-on-the-Main, and thence, southwards, in vain search toLivorne. 

And there in the glory of the Italian sunshine, her ardent, unbalancednature, starved in the chilly convent, yielded to passion, for therewere many to love her. But to none would she give herself in marriage. "I am the Messiah's destined bride, " she said, and her wild eyes hadalways an air of waiting. 

XII

And in the course of years the news of her and of her prophecytravelled to Sabbataï Zevi, and found him at Cairo the morning afterhe had spoken to the Sphinx in the great silences. And to him underthe blue Egyptian sky came an answering throb of romance. Thewomanhood that had not moved him in the flesh thrilled him, vaguelyimaged from afar, mystically, spiritually. 

"Let her be sent for, " he said, and his disciples noted an unwontedrestlessness in the weary weeks while his ambassadors were away. 

"Dost think she will come?" he said once to Abraham Rubio. 

"What woman would not come to thee?" replied the beggar. "What daintyis not offered thee? I trow natheless that thou wilt refuse, and thatI shall come in for thy leavings. "

Sabbataï smiled faintly. 

"What have I to do with women?" he murmured. "But I would fain knowwhat hath been prophetically revealed to her!"

One afternoon his ambassadors returned, and announced that they hadbrought her. She was resting after the journey, and would visit him onthe morrow. He appointed their meeting in the Palace of theSaraph-Bashi. Then, unable to rest, he mounted the hill of the citadeland saw an auspicious golden glow over the mosques and houses ofCairo, illumining even the desert and the Pyramids. He stood watchingthe sun sink lower and lower, till suddenly it went out like a snuffedcandle. 

XIII

On the morrow he left his mean brick dwelling in the Jewry, andreceived her alone in a marble-paved chamber in the Palace, the wallsadorned with carvings of flowers and birds, minutely worked, theceiling with arabesques formed of thin strips of painted wood, the aircooled by a fantastic fountain playing into a pool lined with blackand white marbles and red tiling. Lattice-work windows gave on thecentral courtyard, and were supplemented by decorative windows ofstained glass, wrought into capricious patterns. 

"Peace, O Messiah!" Her smile was dazzling, and there was more ofgaiety than of reverence in her voice. Her white teeth flashed 'twixtlaughing lips. Sabbataï's heart was beating furiously at the sight ofthe lady of his dreams. She was clad in shimmering white Italian silk, which, draped tightly about her bosom, showed her as some gleamingstatue. Bracelets glittered on her white wrists, gems of fire sparkledamong her long, white fingers, a network of pearls was all herhead-dress. Her eyes had strange depths of passion, perfumes breathedfrom her skin, lustreless like dead ivory. Not thus came the maidensof Israel to wedlock, demure, spotless, spiritless, with shorn hair, priestesses of the ritual of the home. 

"Peace, O Melisselda, " he replied involuntarily. 

"Nay, wherefore Melisselda?" she cried, ascending to the _leewán_ onwhich he stood. 

"And wherefore Messiah?" he answered. 

"I have seen thee in visions--'tis the face, the figure, the propheticbeauty--But wherefore Melisselda?"

He laughed into her eyes and hummed softly:--

 "'From her bath she arose, Pure and white as the snows, Melisselda. '"

"Ay, that did I, when I washed off the convent. But my name is Sarah. "

"Nay, not Sarah, but Saraï--my Princess!" His voice was hoarse andfaltering. This strange new sense of romance that, like a callow-bird, had been stirring in his breast ever since he had heard of her questof him, spread its wings and soared heavenwards. She had beenimpure--but her impurity swathed her in mystic seductiveness. Theworld's law bound her no more than him--she was free and elemental, aspirit to match his own; purified perpetually by its own white fire. She came nearer, and her eyes wrapped him in flame. 

"My Prince!" she cried. 

He drew backward towards the divan. "Nay, but I must know no woman. "

"None but thy true mate, " she answered. "Thou hast kept thyself purefor me even as I have kept myself passionate for thee. Come, thoushalt make me pure, and I will make thee passionate. "

He looked at her wistfully. The cool plash of the fountain waspleasant in the silence. 

"I make thee pure!" he breathed. 

"Ay, " and she repeated softly:--

 "'Pure and white as the snows, Melisselda. '"

"Melisselda!" he whispered. 

"Messiah!" she cried, with heaving bosom. "Come, I will teach thee thejoy of life. Together we will rule the world. What! when thou hastredeemed the world, shall it not rejoice, shall not the morning starssing together? My King, my Sabbataï. "

Her figure was a queen's, her eyes were stars, her lips a woman's. 

"Kiss me!" they pleaded. "Thy long martyrdom is over. Now begins _my_mission--to bring thee joy. So hath it been revealed to me. "

"Hath it been indeed revealed to thee?" he demanded hoarsely. 

"Yea, again and again, in dreams of the night. The bride of theMessiah--so runs my destiny. Embrace thy bride. "

His eyes kindled to hers. He seemed in a circle of dazzling whiteflame that exalted and not destroyed. 

"Then I am Messiah, indeed, " he thought, glowing, and, stooping, heknew for the first time the touch of a woman's lips. 

XIV

The Master of the Mint was overjoyed to celebrate the Messiah'smarriage under his own gilded roof. To the few who shook their headsat the bride's past, Sabbataï made answer that the prophecies must befulfilled, and that he; too, had had visions in which he wascommanded, like the prophet Hosea, to marry an unchaste wife. And hisdisciples saw that it was a great mystery, symbolizing what the Lordhad spoken through the mouth of Jeremiah: "Again I will build thee andthou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adornedwith thy tabrets and shall go forth in the dances of them that makemerry. " So the festivities set in, and the Palace was filled withlaughter and dancing and merrymaking. 

And Melisselda inaugurated the reign of joy. Her advent brought manyfollowers to Sabbataï. Thousands fell under the spell of her beauty, her queenly carriage, gracious yet gay. A new spirit of romance wasborn in ritual-ridden Israel. Men looked upon their wivesdistastefully, and the wives caught something of her fire and bearingand learnt the movement of abandon and the glance of passion. And so, with a great following, enriched by the beauty of Melisselda and thegold of the Master of the Mint, Sabbataï returned to redeem Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem was intoxicated with joy: the prophecies of Elijah theTishbite, known on earth as Nathan of Gaza, were borne on wings of airto the four corners of the world. 

 "To the Remnant of the Israelites, " he wrote, "Peace without end. Behold I go to meet the face of our Lord, whose majesty be exalted, for he is the Sovereign of the King of Kings, whose empire be enlarged. And now I come to make known unto you that though ye have heard strange things of our Lord, yet let not your hearts faint or fear, but rather fortify yourselves in your Faith because all his actions are miraculous and secret, which human understanding cannot comprehend, and who can penetrate into the depth of them? In a brief time all things shall be manifested to you clearly in their purity, and ye shall know and consider and be instructed by the Inventor himself. Blessed is he who can expect and arrive to the Salvation of the true Messiah, who will speedily publish his Authority and Empire over us now and for ever. 

 "NATHAN. "

In the Holy City the aged Rabbis of the Sacred Colleges alone betrayedmisgivings, fearing that the fine would be annually renewed, and eventhe wealth of Chelebi exhausted. Elsewhere, the Jewries were dividedinto factions, that fought each other with texts, and set the Wordagainst the Word. This verse clearly proved the Messiah had come, andthat verse that the signs were not yet fulfilled; and had not Solomon, the wise king, said that the fool gave belief at once to allindifferently, while the wise man weighed and considered beforebelieving? Fiercely waged the battle of texts, and a comet appeared onbehalf of the believers. Demoniacles saw Sabbataï Zevi in heaven withthree crowns, one for Messiah, one for King, and one for Conqueror ofthe Peoples. But the Jerusalem Rabbis remaining sceptical, Nathanproclaimed in an ecstasy that she was no longer the sacred city, theprimacy had passed to Gaza. But Sabbataï was fain to show himself atSmyrna, his native city, and hither he marched, preceded by apostleswho kindled the communities he was to pass through. Raphael, anotherGreek beggar, rhapsodized interminably, and Bloch, a Cabalist fromGermany, a meek, simple soul, had frenzies of fiery inspiration. Samuel Primo, the untiring secretary, scattered ceaseless letters andmysterious manifestoes. But to none did Sabbataï himself claim to bethe Messiah--he commanded men not to speak of it till the hour shouldcome. Yet was his progress one long triumphal procession. At Aleppothe Jews hastened to meet him with songs and dances; "the gates of joyare opened, " they wrote to Constantinople. At Smyrna itself the exilewas received with delirium, with cries of "_Messhiach!_ Messiah!"which he would not acknowledge, but to which Melisselda responded withseductive smiles. His aged father fell upon his neck. 

"The souls depart, " said Sabbataï, kissing him. "But they return. "

He was brought before the Cadi, who demanded a miracle. 

"Thou askest a miracle?" said Sabbataï scornfully. "Wouldst see apillar of fire?"

The Sabbatians who thronged the audience chamber uttered a cry andcovered their faces with their hands. 

"Yea, we see, we see, " they shouted; the word was passed to the densecrowd surging without, and it swayed madly. Husbands ran home to telltheir wives and children, and when Sabbataï left the presence chamberhe was greeted with delirious acclamations. 

And while Smyrna was thus seething, and its Jews were preparingthemselves by purification and prayer for the great day, a courier, dark as a Moor with the sunburn of unresting travel, arrived in thetown with a letter from the Holy City. It was long before he couldobtain audience with Sabbataï, who, with his inmost disciples, wascelebrating a final fast, and meantime the populace was in a fermentof curiosity, the messenger recounting how he had tramped for weeksand weeks through the terrible heat to see the face of the Messiah andkiss his feet and deliver the letter from the holy men of Jerusalem, who were too poor to pay for his speedier journeying. But when at lastSabbataï read the letter, his face lit up, though he gave no sign ofthe contents. His disciples pressed for its publication, and, aftermuch excitement, Sabbataï consented that it should be read from the_Al Memor_ of the synagogue. When they learned that it bore the homageof repentant Jerusalem, their joy was tumultuous to the point oftears. Sabbataï threw twenty silver crowns on a salver for themessenger, and invited others to do the same, so that the happy envoycould scarce stagger away with his reward. 

Nevertheless Sabbataï still delayed to declare himself. 

But at last the long silence drew to an end. The great year of 1666was nigh, before many moons the New Year of the Christians woulddawn. Under the direction of Melisselda men were making sleeved robesof white satin for the Messiah. And one day, thus arrayed in gleamingwhite, at the head of a great procession walking two by two, SabbataïZevi marched to the House of God. 

XV

In the gloom of the great synagogue, while the worshippers swayedghostly, and the ram's horn sounded shrill and jubilant, Sabbataï, standing before the Ark, where the Scrolls of the Law stood solemn, proclaimed himself, amid a tense awe as of heavens opening inineffable vistas, the Righteous Redeemer, the Anointed of Israel. 

A frenzied shout of joy, broken by sobs, answered him from the vastassembly. 

"Long live our King! Our Messiah!" Many fell prostrate on the ground, their faces to the floor, kissing it, weeping, screaming, shouting inecstatic thankfulness; others rocked to and fro, blinded by theirtears, hoarse with exultation. 

"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"

"The Kingdom has come!"

"Blessed be the Messiah!"

In the women's gallery there were shrieks and moans: some swooned, others fell a-prophesying, contorting themselves spasmodically, uttering wild exclamations; the spirit seized upon little children, and they waved their arms and shouted frantically. 

"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"

The long exile of Israel was over--the bitter centuries of the badgeand the byword, slaughter and spoliation; no longer, O God! to cringein false humility, the scoff of the street-boy, the mockery ofmankind, penned in Ghettos, branded with the wheel or the cap--butrestored to divine favor as every Prophet had predicted, and upliftedto the sovereignty of the peoples. 

"_Messhiach! Messhiach!_"

They poured into the narrow streets, laughing, chattering, leaping, dancing, weeping hysterically, begging for forgiveness of theiriniquities. They fell at Sabbataï feet, women spread rich carpets forhim to tread (though he humbly skirted them), and decked their windowsand balconies with costly hangings and cushions. Some, conscious ofsin that might shut them out from the Kingdom, made for the harbor andplunged into the icy waters; some dug themselves graves in the dampsoil and buried themselves up to their necks till they were numb andfainting; others dropped melted wax upon their naked bodies. But themost common way of mortification was to prick their backs and sideswith thorns and then give themselves thirty-nine lashes. Many fastedfor days upon days and kept Cabalistic watches by night, intoning_Tikkunim_ (prayers). 

And, blent with these penances, festival after festival, riotous, delirious, whenever Sabbataï Zevi, with his vast train of followers, and waving a fan, showed himself in the street on his way to aceremony or to give Cabalistic interpretations of Scripture in thesynagogue. The shop-keepers of the Jewish bazaar closed their doors, and followed in the frenzied procession, singing "The right hand ofthe Lord is exalted, the right hand bringeth victory, " jostling, fighting, in their anxiety to be touched with the fan and inherit theKingdom of Heaven. And over these vast romping crowds, drunk withfaith, Melisselda queened it with her voluptuous smiles and the joyousabandon of her dancing, and men and women, boys and girls, embracedand kissed in hysterical frenzy. The yoke of the Law was over, theancient chastity forgotten. In the Cabalistic communities ofThessalonica, where the pious began at once to do penance, some dyingof a seven-days' fast, and others from rolling themselves naked in thesnow, parents hastened to marry young children so that all the unbornsouls which through the constant re-incarnations, necessary to enablethe old sinful souls to work out their Perfection, had not yet beenable to find bodies, might enter the world, and so complete the schemeof creation. Seven hundred children were thus joined in wedlock. Business, work was suspended; the wheel of the cloth-workers ceased;the camels no longer knelt in the Jewish quarter of Smyrna, the Bridgeof Caravans ceased to vibrate with their passing, the shops remainedopen only so long as was necessary to clear off the merchandise at anyprice; whoso of private persons had any superfluity of household stuffsold it off similarly, but yet not to Jews, for these were interdictedfrom traffic, business being the mark of the unbeliever, andpunishable by excommunication, pecuniary mulcts, or corporealchastisements. Everybody prepared for the imminent return toPalestine, when the heathen should wait at the table of the Saints andthe great Leviathan deck the Messianic board. In the interim the poorwere supported by the rich. In Thessalonica alone four thousandpersons lived on gifts; truly Messianic times for the Abraham Rubios. In Smyrna the authority of the Cadi was ignored or silenced by purses;when the Turks complained, the Seraglio swallowed gold on both sides. The _Chacham_ Aaron de la Papa, being an unbeliever and one of thosewho had originally driven him from his birthplace, was removed bySabbataï, and Chayim Benvenisti appointed _Chacham_ instead. The nobleChayim Penya, the one sceptic of importance left in Smyrna, waswellnigh torn to pieces in the synagogue by the angry multitude, butwhen his own daughters went into prophetic trances and saw the gloryof the Kingdom he went over to Sabbataï's side, and reports fleweverywhere that the Messiah's enemies were struck with frenzies andmadness, till, restored by him to their former temper and wits, theybecame his friends, worshippers, and disciples. Four hundred other menand women fell into strange ecstasies, foamed at the mouth, andrecounted their visions of the Lion of Judah, while infants, who couldscarcely stammer out a syllable plainly, repeated the name ofSabbataï, the Messiah; being possessed, and voices sounding from theirstomachs and entrails. Such reports, bruited through the world by theforeign ambassadors at Smyrna, the clerks of the English and Dutchhouses, the resident foreigners, and the Christian ministers, exciteda prodigious sensation, thrilling civilized mankind. On the Exchangesof Europe men took the odds for and against a Jewish kingdom. 

Upon the Jews of the world the news that the Messiah had passed from afar-off aspiration into a reality fell like a thunderbolt; they weredazed with joy; then they began to prepare for the great journey. Everywhere self-flagellation, almsgiving, prophetic ecstasies andtrances, the scholars and the mob at one in joyous belief. Andeverywhere also profligacy, adultery, incest, through the spread of amystical doctrine that the sinfulness of the world could only beovercome by the superabundance of sin. 

XVI

Amsterdam and Hamburg--the two wealthiest communities--receivingconstant prophetic messages from Nathan of Gaza, became eagerparticipators in the coming Kingdom. In the Dutch capital, the housesof prayer grew riotous with music and dancing, the dwelling-housesgloomy with penitential rigors. The streets were full of men and womenprophesying spasmodically, the printing presses panted, turning outnew prayer-books with penances and formulæ for the faithful. And inthese _Tikkunim_, starred with mystic emblems of the Messiah'sdominance, the portrait of Sabbataï appeared side by side with that ofKing David. At Hamburg the Jews were borne heavenwards on a wave ofexultation; they snapped their fingers at the Christian tormentor, refused any longer to come to the compulsory Christian services. Theirown services became pious orgies. Stately Spanish Jews, graveblue-blooded Portuguese, hitherto smacking of the Castilian hidalgo, noble seigniors like Manuel Texeira, the friend of a Queen of Sweden, erudite physicians like Bendito de Castro, president of thecongregation, shed their occidental veneer and might have been seen inthe synagogue skipping like harts upon the mountains, dancing wilddances with the Holy Scroll clasped to their bosoms. 

"_Hi diddi hulda hi ti ti!_" they carolled in merry meaninglessness. 

"Nay, but this is second childhood, " quoth the venerable JacobSasportas, chief Rabbi of the English Jews, as he sat in thepresidential pew, an honored visitor at Hamburg. "Surely thy flock isdemented. "

De Castro's brow grew black. 

"Have a care, or my sheep may turn dog. An they overhear thee, it weresafer for thee even to go back to thy London. "

Sasportas shook his head with a humorous twinkle. 

"Yea, if Sabbataï will accompany me. An he be Messiah let him face thePlague, let him come and prophesy in London and outdo Solomon Eagle;let him heal the sick and disburden the death-carts. "

"He should but lay his hands on the sick and they were cured!"retorted De Castro. "But his mission is not in the isles of the West;he establisheth the throne in Zion. "

"Well for thee not in Hamburg, else would thy revenues dwindle, O wisephysician. But the Plague is wellnigh spent now; if he come now he maytake the credit of the cure. "

"Rabbi as thou art, thou art an Epicurean; thou sittest in the seat ofthe scorner. "

"'Twas thou didst invite me thereto, " murmured Sasportas, smiling. 

"The Plague is but a sign of the Messianic times, and the Fire thathath burnt thy dwelling-place is but the castigation for thineincredulity. "

"Yea, there be those who think our royal Charles the Messiah, andpetition him to declare himself, " said Sasportas, with his genialtwinkle. "Hath he not also his Melisseldas?"

"Hush, thou blasphemer!" cried De Castro, looking anxiously at thehowling multitude. "But thou wilt live to eat thy words. "

"Be it so, " said Sasportas, with a shrug of resignation. "I eatnothing unclean. "

But it was vain for the Rabbi of the little western isle to contend byquip or reason against the popular frenzy. England, indeed, was ahotbed of Christian enthusiasts awaiting the Jewish Millennium, thedownfall of the Pope and Anti-Christ, and Jews and Christians caughtmutual fire. 

From the far North of Scotland came a wonderful report of a ship withsilken sails and ropes, worked by sailors who spoke with one anotherin the solemn syllables of the sacred tongue, and flying a flag withthe inscription, "The Twelve Tribes of Israel!" And a strange rumortold of the march of multitudes from unknown parts into the remotedeserts of Arabia. Fronted with sceptics, believers offered wagers atten to one that within two years Sabbataï would be anointed King ofJerusalem; bills of exchange were drawn in Threadneedle Street uponthe issue. 

And, indeed, Sabbataï was already King of the Jews. From all the landsof the Exile crowds of the devout came to do him homage and tenderallegiance--Turkish Jews with red fez or saffron-yellow turban;Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft felt hats; Polish Jewswith foxskin caps and long caftans; sallow German Jews, giganticRussian Jews, high-bred Spanish Jews; and with them often their wivesand daughters--Jerusalem Jewesses with blue shirts and head-veils, Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes and black head-shawls, Jewessesfrom Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed with gold coins, Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs, Syrian Jewesses with eyelashes blackas though lined with kohl, fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clingingbreeches interwoven with gold and silver. 

Daily he held his court, receiving deputations, advices, messengers. Young men and maidens offered him their lives to do with as he would;the rich laid their fortunes at his feet, and fought for the honor ofbelonging to his body-guard. That abstract deity of the OldTestament--awful in His love and His hate, without form, withouthumanity--had been replaced by a Man, visible, tangible, lovable; andall the yearning of their souls, all that suppressed longing for avisual object of worship which had found vent and satisfaction in theworship of the Bible or the Talmud in its every letter and syllable, now went out towards their bodily Redeemer. From the Ancient of Daysa new divine being had been given off--the Holy King, the Messiah, thePrimal Man, Androgynous, Perfect, who would harmonize the jarringchords, restore the spiritual unity of the Universe. Before the lovein his eyes sin and sorrow would vanish as evil vapors; the frozenstreams of grace would flow again. 

"I, the Lord your God, Sabbataï Zevi!"

Thus did Secretary Samuel Primo sign the Messianic decrees andordinances. 

XVII

The month of Ab approached--the Messiah's birthday, the day of theBlack Fast, commemorating the fall of the Temples. But Melisseldaprotested against its celebration by gloom and penance, and the wordwent out to all the hosts of captivity--

"The only and just-begotten Son of God, Sabbataï Zevi, Messiah andRedeemer of the people of Israel, to all the sons of Israel, Peace!Since ye have been worthy to behold the great day, and the fulfilmentof God's word to the prophets, let your lament and sorrow be changedinto joy, and your fasts into festivals; for ye shall weep no more. Rejoice with drums, organs, and music, making of every day a New Moon, and change the day which was formerly dedicated to sadness and sorrowinto a day of jubilee, because I have appeared; and fear ye naught, for ye shall have dominion not only over the nations, but over thecreatures also in the depths of the sea. "

Thereat arose a new and stranger commotion throughout all the Ghettos, Jewries, and Mellahs. The more part received the divine message inuproarious jubilation. The Messiah was come, indeed! Those terribletwenty-four hours of absolute fasting and passionate prayer--henceforwardto be hours of feasting and merriment! O just and joyous edict! TheJewish Kingdom was on the eve of restoration--how then longer bewailits decay!

But the staunchest pietists were staggered, and these the most ferventof the followers of Sabbataï. What! The penances and prayers ofsixteen hundred years to be swept away! The Yoke of the Torah to beabolished! Surely true religion rather demanded fresh burdens. Whatcould more fitly mark the Redemption of the World than new and moreexacting laws, if, indeed, such remained to be invented? True, Godhimself was now incarnate on earth--of that they had no doubt. But howcould He wish to do away with the laws deduced from the Holy Book andaccumulated by the zealous labors of so many generations of faithfulRabbis; how could He set aside the venerated prescriptions of the_Shulchan Aruch_ of the pious Benjamin Caro (his memory for ablessing), and all that network of ceremonial and custom for thezealous maintenance of which their ancestors had so often laid downtheir lives? How could He so blaspheme?

And so--in blind passion, unreasoning, obstinate--they clung to theirthreatened institutions; in every Jewry they formed little parties forthe defence of Judaism. 

What they had prayed for so passionately for centuries had come topass. The hopes that they had caught from the _Zohar_, that they hadnourished and repeated day and night, the promise that sorrow shouldbe changed into joy and the Law become null and void--here was thefulfilment. The Messiah was actually incarnate--the Kingdom of theJews was at hand. But in their hearts was a vague fear of the dazzlingpresent, and a blind clinging to the unhappy past. 

In the Jewry of Smyrna the Messiah walked on the afternoon of theabolished fast, and a vast concourse seethed around him, dancing andsinging, with flute and timbrel, harp and drum. Melisselda's voice ledthe psalm of praise. Suddenly a whisper ran through the mob that therewere unbelievers in the city, that some were actually fasting andpraying in the synagogue. And at once there was a wild rush. Theyfound the doors shut, but the voice of wailing was heard from inside. 

"Beat in the doors!" cried Isaac Silvera. "What do they within, profaning the festal day?"

The crowd battered in the doors, they tore up the stones of the streetand darted inside. 

The floor was strewn with worshippers, rocking to and fro. 

The venerable Aaron de la Papa, shorn of his ancient Rabbinicalprestige, but still a commanding figure, rose from the floor, hiswhite shroud falling weirdly about him, his face deadly pale from thelong fast. 

"Halt!" he cried. "How dare you profane the House of God?"

"Blasphemers!" retorted Silvera. "Ye who pray for what God in Hisinfinite mercy has granted, do ye mock and deride Him?"

But Solomon Algazi, a hoary-headed zealot, cried out, "My fathers havefasted before me, and shall I not fast?"

For answer a great stone hurtled through the air, just grazing hishead. 

"Give over!" shouted Elias Zevi, one of Sabbataï's brothers. "Be donewith sadness, or thou shalt be stoned to death. Hath not the Lordended our long persecution, our weary martyrdom? Cease thy prayer, orthy blood be on thine own head. " Algazi and De la Papa were drivenfrom the city; the _Kofrim_, as the heretics were dubbed, wereobnoxious to excommunication. The thunder of the believers silencedthe still small voice of doubt. 

And from the Jewries of the world, from Morocco to Sardinia, fromLondon to Lithuania, from the Brazils to the Indies, one great cry inone tongue rose up:--"_Leshanah Haba Berushalayim--Leshanah Haba BeniChorin. _ Next year in Jerusalem--next year, sons of freedom!"

XVIII

It was the eve of 1666. In a few days the first sun of the great yearwould rise upon the world. The Jews were winding up their affairs, Israel was strung to fever pitch. The course of the exchanges, advices, markets, all was ignored, and letters recounting miraclesreplaced commercial correspondence. 

Elijah the Prophet, in his ancient mantle, had been seen everywheresimultaneously, drinking the wine-cups left out for him, and sometimesfilling them with oil. He was seen at Smyrna on the wall of a festalchamber, and welcomed with compliments, orations, and thanksgivings. At Constantinople a Jew met him in the street, and was reproached forneglecting to wear the fringed garment and for shaving. At oncefringed garments were reintroduced throughout the Empire, and heads, though always shaven after the manner of Turks and the East, nowbecame overgrown incommodiously with hair--even the _Piyos_, orearlock, hung again down the side of the face, and its absence servedto mark off the _Kofrim_. 

Sabbataï Zevi, happy in the love of Melisselda, rapt in heavenly joy, now confidently expecting the miracle that would crown the miracle ofhis career, prepared to set out for Constantinople to take the Crownfrom the Sultan's head to the sound of music. He held a last solemnlevée at Smyrna, and there, surrounded by his faithful followers, withMelisselda radiantly enthroned at his side, he proceeded to parcel outthe world among his twenty-six lieutenants. 

Of these all he made kings and princes. His brothers came first. EliasZevi he named King of Kings, and Joseph Zevi King of the Kings ofJudah. 

"Into thee, O Isaac Silvera, " said he, "has the soul of David, King ofIsrael, migrated. Therefore shalt thou be called King David and shalthave dominion over Persia. Thou, O Chayim Inegna, art Jeroboam, andshalt rule over Araby. Thou, O Daniel Pinto, art Hilkiah, and thykingdom shall be Italia. To thee, O Matassia Aschenesi, whoreincarnatest Asa, shall be given Barbary, and thou, Mokiah Gaspar, inwhom lives the soul of Zedekiah, shalt reign over England. " And so thepartition went on, Elias Azar being appointed Vice-King or Vizier ofElias Zevi, and Joseph Inernuch Vizier of Joseph Zevi. 

"And for me?" eagerly interrupted Abraham Rubio, the beggar from theMorea. 

"I had not forgotten thee, " answered Sabbataï. "Art thou not Josiah?"

"True--I had forgotten, " murmured the beggar. 

"To thee I give Turkey, and the seat of thine empire shall be Smyrna. "

"May thy Majesty be exalted for ever and ever, " replied King Josiahfervently. "Verily shall I sit under my own fig-tree. "

Portugal fell to a Marrano physician who had escaped from theInquisition. Even Sabbataï's old enemy, Chayim Penya, wasmagnanimously presented with a kingdom. 

"To thee, my well-beloved Raphael Joseph Chelebi of Cairo, " wound upSabbataï, "in whose palace Melisselda became my Queen, to thee, underthe style of King Joash, I give the realm of Egypt. "

The Emperor of the World rose, and his Kings prostrated themselves athis feet. 

"Prepare yourselves, " said he. "On the morning of the New Year we setout. "

When he had left the chamber a great hubbub broke out. Wealthy men whohad been disappointed of kingdoms essayed to purchase them from theirnew monarchs. The bidding for the Ottoman Empire was particularlyhigh. 

"Away! Flaunt not your money-bags!" cried Abraham Rubio, flown withnew-born majesty. "Know ye not that this Smyrna is our capital city, and we could confiscate your gold to our royal exchequer? Josiah isKing here. " And he took his seat upon the throne vacated by Sabbataï. "Get ye gone, or the bastinado and the bowstring shall be yourportion. "

XIX

Punctually with the dawn of the Millennial Year the Turkish Messiah, with his Queen and his train of Kings, took ship for Constantinople todethrone the Grand Turk, the Lord of Palestine. He voyaged in atwo-masted Levantine Saic, the bulk of his followers travellingoverland. Though his object had been diplomatically unpublished, pompous messages from Samuel Primo had heralded his advent. The day ofhis arrival was fixed. Constantinople was in a ferment. The GrandVizier gave secret orders for his arrest as a rebel; a band ofChiauses was sent to meet the Saic in the harbor. But the day came andwent and no Messiah. Instead, thunders and lightnings and rain andgales and news of wrecks. The wind was northerly, as commonly in theHellespont and Propontis, and it seemed as if the Saic must have beenblown out of her course. 

The Jews of Constantinople asked news of every vessel. The captain ofa ketch from the Isles of Marmora told them that a chember had castanchor in the isles, and a tall man, clothed in white, who bestrodethe deck, being apprised that the islanders were Christians, hadraised his finger, whereupon the church burnt down. When at last theJews heard of the safety of Sabbataï's weather--beaten vessel, whichhad made for a point on the coast of the Dardanelles, they told howtheir Master had ruled the waves and the winds by the mere reading ofthe hundred and sixteenth Psalm. But the news of his safety wasspeedily followed by the news of his captivity; the Vizier's officerswere bringing him to Constantinople. 

It was true; yet his Mussulman captors were not without a sense of themajesty of their prisoner, for they stopped their journey at ChekneséKutschuk, near the capital, so that he might rest for the Sabbath, andhither, apprised in advance by messenger, the Sabbatians ofConstantinople hastened with food and money. They still expected tosee their Sovereign arrive with pomp and pageantry, but he came upmiserably on a sorry horse, chains clanking dismally at his feet. Yetwas he in no wise dismayed. "I am like a woman in labor, " he said tohis body-guard of Kings, "the redoubling of whose anguish marks thenear deliverance. Ye should laugh merrily, like the Rabbi in theTalmud when he saw the jackal running about the ruined walls of theTemple; for till the prophecies are utterly fulfilled the glory cannotreturn. " And his face shone with conscious deity. 

He was placed in a khan with a strong guard. But his worshippersbought off his chains, and even made for him a kind of throne. On theSunday his captors brought him, and him alone, to Constantinople. Avast gathering of Jews and Turks--a motley-colored medley--awaited himon the quay; mounted police rode about to keep a path for thedisembarking officers and to prevent a riot. At length, amid clamorand tumult, Sabbataï set fettered foot on shore. 

His sad, noble air, the beauty of his countenance, his invinciblesilence, set a circle of mystery around him. Even the Turks had amoment of awe. A man-god, surely!

The Pacha had sent his subordinate with a guard to transfer him to theSeraglio. By them he was first hastily conducted into thecustom-house, the guard riding among and dispersing the crowd. 

Sabbataï sat upon a chest as majestically as though it were the throneof Solomon. 

But the Sub-Pacha shook off the oppressive emotion with which thesight of Sabbataï inspired him. 

"Rise, traitor, " said he, "it is time that thou shouldst receive thereward of thy treasons and gather the fruit of thy follies. " Andtherewith he dealt Sabbataï a sounding box of the ear. 

His myrmidons, relieved from the tension, exploded in a maliciousguffaw. 

Sabbataï looked at the brutal dignitary with sad, steady gaze, thensilently turned the other cheek. 

The Sub-Pacha recoiled with an uncanny feeling of the supernatural;the mockery of the bystanders was hushed. 

Sabbataï was conducted by side ways, to avoid the mob, to the Palaceof the Kaimacon, the Deputy-Vizier. 

"Art thou the man, " cried the Kaimacon, "whom the Jews aver to havewrought miracles at Smyrna? Now is thy time to work one, for lo! thytreason shall cost thee dear. "

"Miracles!" replied Sabbataï meekly. "I--what am I but a poor Jew, come to collect alms for my poor brethren in Jerusalem? The Jews ofthis great city persuade themselves that my blessing will bring themGod's grace; they flock to welcome me. Can I stay them?"

"Thou art a seditious knave. "

"An arrant impostor, " put in the Sub-Pacha, "with the airs of a god. Ithought to risk losing my arm when I cuffed him on the ear, but lo!'tis stronger than ever. " And he felt his muscle complacently. 

"To gaol with the rogue!" cried the Kaimacon. 

Sabbataï, his face and mien full of celestial conviction, was placedin the loathsome dungeon which served as a prison for Jewish debtors. 

XX

For a day or so the Moslems made merry over the disconcerted Jews andtheir Messiah. The street-boys ran after the Sabbatians, shouting, "_Gheldi mi? Gheldi mi?_" (Is he coming? Is he coming?); the very barkof the street-dogs sounded sardonic. But soon the tide turned. Sabbataï's prophetic retinue testified unshaken to theirMaster--Messiah because Sufferer. Women and children were rapt inmystic visions, and miracles took place in the highways. Moses Suriel, who in fun had feigned to call up spirits, suddenly hearing strangesinging and playing, fell into a foaming fury, and hollow propheciesissued from him, sublimely eloquent and inordinately rapid, so that onhis recovery he went about crying, "Repent! Repent! I was a mocker anda sinner. Repent! Repent!" The Moslems themselves began to waver. ATurkish Dervish, clad in white flowing robes, with a stick in hishand, preached in the street corners to his countrymen, proclaimingthe Jewish Messiah. "Think ye, " he cried, "that to wash your handsstained with the blood of the poor and full of booty, or to bathe yourfeet which have walked in the way of unrighteousness, suffices torender you clean? Vain imagination! God has heard the prayers of thepoor whom ye despise! He will raise the humble and abash the proud. "Bastinadoed in vain several times, he was at last brought before theCadi, who sent him to the _Timar-Hané_, the mad-house. But the doctorstestified that he was sound, and he was again haled before the Cadi, who threatened him with death if he did not desist. "Kill me, " saidthe Dervish pleadingly, "and ye will deliver me from the spirits whichpossess me and drive me to prophesy. " Impressed, the Cadi dismissedhim, and would have laden him with silver, but the Dervish refused andwent his rhapsodical way. And in the heavens a comet flamed. 

Soon Sabbataï had a large Turkish following. The Jews already in thedebtors' dungeon hastened to give him the best place, and made a rudethrone for him. He became King of the Prison. Thousands surged roundthe gates daily to get a glimpse of him. The keeper of the prison didnot fail to make his profit of their veneration, and instead of thefive _aspres_ which friends of prisoners had to pay for the privilegeof a visit, he charged a crown, and grew rapidly rich. Some of themost esteemed Jews attended a whole day before Sabbataï in theOriental postures of civility and service--eyes cast down, bodiesbending forward, and hands crossed on their breasts. Before thesevisitors, who came laden with gifts, Sabbataï maintained an equallysublime silence; sometimes he would point to the chapter of Genesisrecounting how Joseph issued from his dungeon to become ruler ofEgypt. 

"How fares thy miserable prisoner?" casually inquired the Kaimacon ofhis Sub-Pacha one day. 

"Miserable prisoner, Sire!" ejaculated the Sub-Pacha. "Nay, happy andglorious Monarch! The prison is become a palace. Where formerlyreigned perpetual darkness, incessant wax tapers burn; in what was asewer of filth and dung, one breathes now only amber, musk, aloe-wood, otto of roses, and every perfume; where men perished of hunger nowobtains every luxury; the crumbs of Sabbataï's table suffice for allhis fellow-prisoners. "

The Deputy-Vizier was troubled, and cast about for what to do. 

Meantime the fame of Sabbataï grew. It was said that every night alight appeared over his head, sometimes in stars, sometimes as anolive bough. Some English merchants in Galata visited him to complainof their Jewish debtors at Constantinople, who had ceased to trafficand would not discharge their liabilities. Sabbataï took up his quilland wrote:

"To you the Nation of Jews who expect the appearance of the Messiahand the Salvation of Israel, Peace without end. Whereas we areinformed that ye are indebted to several of the English nation: Itseemeth right unto us to order you to make satisfaction to these yourjust debts: which if you refuse to do, and not obey us herein, know yethat then ye are not to enter with us into our Joys and Dominions. "

The debts were instantly paid, and the glory of the occupant of thedebtors' prison waxed greater still. The story of his incarcerationand of the homage paid him, even by Mussulmans, spread through theworld. What! The Porte--so prompt to slay, the maxim of whose politywas to have the Prince served by men he could raise without envy anddestroy without danger--the Turk, ever ready with the cord and thesack, the sword and the bastinado, dared not put to death a rebel, thevaunted dethroner of the Sultan. A miracle and a Messiah indeed!

XXI

But the Kaimacon was embarking for the war with Crete; in his absencehe feared to leave Sabbataï in the capital. The prisoner was thereforetransferred to the abode of State prisoners, the Castle of theDardanelles at Abydos, with orders that he was to be closely confined, and never to go outside the gates. But, under the spell of somestrange respect, or in the desire to have a hold upon them, too, theKaimacon allowed his retinue of Kings to accompany him, likewise hisamanuensis, Samuel Primo, and his consort, Melisselda. 

The news of his removal to better quarters did not fail to confirm thefaith of the Sabbatians. It was reported, moreover, that theJanissaries sent to take him fell dead at a word from his mouth, andbeing desired to revive them he consented, except in the case of somewho, he said, were not true Turks. Then he went of his own accord tothe Castle, but the shackles they laid on his feet fell from him, converted into gold with which he gratified his true and faithfulbelievers, and, spite of steel bars and iron locks, he was seen towalk through the streets with a numerous attendance. Nor did theSabbatians fail to find mystic significance in the fact that theirMessiah arrived at his new prison on the Eve of Passover--of theanniversary of Freedom. 

Sabbataï at once proceeded to kill the Paschal lamb for himself andhis followers, and eating thereof with the fat, in defiance ofTalmudic Law, he exclaimed:--"Blessed be God who hath restored thatwhich was forbidden. "

To the Tower of Strength, as the Sabbatians called the castle atAbydos, wherein the Messiah held his Court, streamed treasure-ladenpilgrims from Poland, Germany, Italy, Vienna, Amsterdam, Cairo, Morocco, thinking by the pious journey to become worthy of seeing hisface; and Sabbataï gave them his benediction, and promised themincrease of their stores and enlargement of their possessions in theHoly Land. The ships were overburdened with passengers; freights rose. The natives grew rich by accommodating the pilgrims, the castellan(interpreting liberally the Kaimacon's instructions to mean thatthough the prisoner might not go out visitors might come in) bycharging them fifteen to thirty marks for admission to the royalprecincts. A shower of gold poured into Abydos. Jew, Moslem, Christian--the whole world wondered, and half of it believed. Thebeauty and gaiety of Melisselda witched the stubbornest sceptics. Men's thoughts turned to "The Tower of Strength, " from the far ends ofthe world. Never before in human history had the news of a Messiahtravelled so widely in his own lifetime. To console those who couldnot make the pilgrimage to him or to Jerusalem, Sabbataï promisedequal indulgence and privilege to all who should pray at the tombs oftheir mothers. His initials, S. Z. , were ornamentally inscribed inletters of gold over almost every synagogue, with a crown on the wall, in the circle of which was the ninety-first Psalm, and a prayer forhim was inserted in the liturgy: "Bless our Lord and King, the holyand righteous Sabbataï Zevi, the Messiah of the God of Jacob. "

The Ghettos began to break up. Work and business dwindled in the mostsceptical. In Hungary the Jews commenced to demolish their houses. Thegreat commercial centres, which owed their vitality to the Jews, wereparalyzed. The very Protestants wavered in their Christianity. Amsterdam, under the infection of Jewish enthusiasm, effervesced withjoy. At Hamburg, despite the epistolary ironies of Jacob Sasportas, the rare _Kofrim_, or Anti-Sabbatians, were forced, by order ofBendito de Castro, to say Amen to the Messianic prayer. At Livornecommerce dried up. At Venice there were riots, and the _Kofrim_ werethreatened with death. In Moravia the Governor had to interfere tocalm the tumult. At Salee, in Algeria, the Jews so openly displayedtheir conviction of their coming dominance that the Emir decreed apersecution of them. At Smyrna, on the other hand, a _Chacham_ whoprotested to the Cadi against the vagaries of his brethren, was, bythe power of their longer purse, shaved of his beard and condemned tothe galleys. 

Three months of princely wealth and homage for Sabbataï had passed. Inresponse to the joyous inspiration of Melisselda, he had abandoned allhis ascetic habits, and lived the life of a king, ruling a world neveragain to be darkened with sin and misery. The wine sparkled andflowed, the choicest dishes adorned the banqueting-table, flowers anddelicate odors made grateful the air, and the beautiful maidens ofIsrael danced voluptuously before him, shooting out passionate glancesfrom under their long eyelashes. The fast of the seventeenth of Tammuzcame round. Sabbataï abolished it, proclaiming that on that day theconviction that he was the Messiah had been borne in upon him. Theninth of Ab--the day of his Nativity--was again turned from a fast toa festival, the royal edict, promulgated throughout the world, quotingthe exhortation of Zephaniah: "Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion;for lo I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. "Detailed prescriptions as to the order of the services and thepsalmody accompanied the edict. 

And in this supreme day of jubilation and merrymaking, of majesty andsplendor, crowned with the homage and benison of his race, deputations of which came from all climes and soils to do honor to hisnativity, the glory of Sabbataï culminated. 

(_Here endeth the Second Scroll. _)

SCROLL THE THIRD

XXII

In the hour of his triumph, two Poles, who had made the piouspilgrimage, told him of a new Prophet who had appeared in far-offLemberg, one Nehemiah Cohen, who announced the advent of the Kingdom, but not through Sabbataï Zevi. 

That night, when his queen and his courtiers were sleeping, Sabbataïwrestled sore with himself in his lonely audience-chamber. The spectreof self-doubt--long laid to rest by music and pageantry--was raisedafresh by this new and unexpected development. It was a rude reminderthat this pompous and voluptuous existence was, after all, premature, that the Kingdom had yet to be won. 

"O my Father in Heaven!" he prayed, falling upon his face. "Thou hastnot deceived me. Tell me that this Prophet is false, I beseech Thee, that it is through me that Thy Kingdom is to be established on earth. I await the miracle. The days of the great year are nigh gone, and lo!I languish here in mock majesty. A sign! A sign!"

"Sabbataï!" A ravishing voice called his name. He looked up. Melisselda stood in the doorway, come from her chamber as lightly cladas on that far-off morning in the cemetery. 

There was a strange rapt expression in her face, and, looking closer, he saw that her laughing eyes were veiled in sleep. 

"It is the sign, " he muttered in awe. 

He sprang to his feet and took her white hand, that burnt his own, andshe led him back to her chamber, walking unerringly. 

"It is the sign, " he murmured, "the sign that Melisselda hath trulyled me to the Kingdom of Joy. "

But in the morning he awoke still troubled. The meaning of the signseemed less clear than in the silence of the night; the figure of thenew Prophet loomed ominous. 

When the Poles went back they bore a royal letter, promising thePolish Jews vengeance on the Cossacks, and commanding Nehemiah to cometo the Messiah with all speed. 

The way was long, but by the beginning of September Nehemiah arrivedin Abydos. He was immediately received in private audience. He borehimself independently. 

"Peace to thee, Sabbataï. "

"Peace to thee, Nehemiah. I desired to have speech with thee; men saythou deniest me. "

"That do I. How should Messiah--Messiah of the House of David, appearand not his forerunner, Messiah of the House of Ephraim, as our holybooks foretell?" Sabbataï answered that the Ben Ephraim had alreadyappeared, but he could not convince Nehemiah, who proved highlylearned in the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldean, and argued pointby point and text by text. The first Messiah was to be a preacher ofthe Law, poor, despised, a servant of the second. Where was he to befound?

Three days they argued, but Nehemiah still went about repeating hisrival prophecies. The more zealous of the Sabbatians, angry at thepertinacious and pugnacious casuist, would have done him a mischief, but the Prophet of Lemberg thought it prudent to escape to Adrianople. Here in revenge he sought audience with the Kaimacon. 

"Treason, O Mustapha, treason!" he announced. He betrayed thefantastic designs upon the Sultan's crown, still cherished by Sabbataïand known to all but the Divan; the Castellan of Abydos, for the sakeof his pocket, having made no report of the extraordinary doings atthe Castle. 

Nehemiah denounced Sabbataï as a lewd person, who endeavored todebauch the minds of the Jews and divert them from their honest courseof livelihood and obedience to the Grand Seignior. And, having thusavenged himself, the Prophet of Lemberg became a Mohammedan. 

A Chiaus was at once dispatched to the Sultan, and there was held aCouncil. The problem was grave. To execute Sabbataï--beloved as he wasby Jew and Turk alike--would be but to perpetuate the new sect. TheMufti Vanni--a priestly enthusiast--proposed that they should inducehim to follow in the footsteps of Nehemiah, and come over to Islam. The suggestion seemed not only shrewd, but tending to the greaterglory of Mohammed, the one true Prophet. An aga set out forthwith forAbydos. And so one fine day when the Castle of the Dardanelles wasbesieged by worshippers, when the Tower of Strength was gay withbrightly clad kings, and filled with pleasant plants and odors and theblended melodies of instruments and voices, a body of moustachioedJanissaries flashed upon the scene, dispersing the crowd with theirlong wands; they seized the Messiah and his queen, and brought them toAdrianople. 

XXIII

The Hakim Bashi, the Sultan's physician, who as a Jew-Turk himself, was thought to be the fittest to approach Sabbataï, laid the decisionof the Grand Seignior before him on the evening of his arrival atAdrianople. The released prisoner was lodged with mocking splendor ina commodious apartment in the palace, overlooking the river, and layupon a luxurious divan, puffing at a chibouque with pretended calm. 

"What reverences is it customary to make to the Grand Seignior?" heasked, with affected nonchalance, when the first salutations with thephysician had been exchanged. "I would not be wanting in the formswhen I appear before his exalted majesty. "

"An end to the farce, Sabbataï Zevi!" said the Hakim Bashi, sternly. "The Sultan demands of thee not posturings, but a miracle. "

"Have not miracles enough been witnessed?" asked Sabbataï, in a lowtone. 

"Too many, " returned the ex-Jew drily. "Yet if thou wouldst save thylife there needs another. "

"What miracle?"

"That thou turn Turk!" And a faint smile played about the physician'slips. 

There was a long silence. Sabbataï's own lips twitched, but not withhumor. The regal radiance of Abydos had died out of his face, but itssadness was rather of misery than the fine melancholy of yore. 

"And if I refuse this miracle?"

"Thou must give us a substitute. The Mufti Vanni suggests that thou bestript naked and set as a mark for the archers; if thy flesh and skinare proof like armor, we shall recognize thee as the Messiah indeed, and the person designed by Allah for the dominions and greatnesses towhich thou dost pretend. "

"And if I refuse this miracle, too?"

"Then the stake waits at the gate of the seraglio to compel thee, "thundered the Hakim Bashi; "thou shalt die with tortures. The mercy ofdecapitation shall be denied thee, for thou knowest well Mohammedanswill not pollute their swords with the blood of a Jew. Be advised byme, Sabbataï, " he continued, lowering his tone. "Become one of us. After all, the Moslem are but the posterity of Hagar. Mohammed is butthe successor of Moses. We recognize the One God who rules the heavensand the earth, we eat not swine-flesh. Thou canst Messiah it in awhite turban as well as in a black, " he ended jocosely. 

Sabbataï winced. "Renegade!" he muttered. 

"Ay, and an excellent exchange, " quoth the physician. "The Sultan is agenerous paymaster, may his shadow never grow less. He giveth theetill the morn to decide--Turk or martyr? With burning torches attachedto thy limbs thou art to be whipped through the streets with fieryscourges in the sight of the people--such is the Sultan's decree. Heis a generous paymaster. After all, what need we pretend--betweenourselves, two Jews, eh?" And he winked drolly. "The sun greetsMohammed every morn, say these Turks. Let to-morrow's greet anotherMohammedan. "

Sabbataï sprang up with an access of majesty. 

"Dog of an unbeliever! Get thee gone!"

"Till to-morrow! The Sultan will give thee audience to-morrow, " saidthe Hakim Bashi imperturbably, and, making a mock respectfulsalutation, he withdrew from the apartment. 

Melisselda had been dosing in an inner chamber after the fatigue ofthe journey, but the concluding thunders of the duologue had arousedher, and she heard the physician's farewell words. She now parted thehangings and looked through at Sabbataï, her loveliness half-framed, half-hidden by the tapestry. Her face was wreathed in a heavenlysmile. 

"Sabbataï!" she breathed. 

He turned a frowning gaze upon her. "Thou art merry!" he saidbitterly. 

"Is not the hour come?" she cried joyously. 

"Yea, the hour is come, " he murmured. 

"The hour of thy final trial and triumph! The longed-for hour of thyappearance before the Sultan, when thou wilt take the crown from hishead and place it on--"

Instead of completing the sentence, she ran to take his head to herbosom. But he repulsed her embracing arms. She drew back inconsternation. It was the first time she had known him rough, not onlywith her, but with any creature. 

"Leave me! Leave me!" he cried huskily. 

"Nay, thou needest me. " And her forgiving arms spread towards him infresh tenderness. 

He looked at her without moving to meet them. 

"Ay, I need thee, " he said pathetically. "Therefore, " and his voicerose firm again, "leave me to myself. "

"Thou hast become a stranger, " she said tremulously. "I do notunderstand thee. "

"Would thou hadst ever been a stranger, that I had never understoodthee. "

"Sabbataï, thou ravest. "

"I have come to my senses. O my God! my God!" and he fell a-weeping onthe divan. 

Melisselda's alarm grew greater. 

"Rouse thyself, they will hear thee. "

"Let them hear. God hears me not. "

"Hears thee not? Thou art He!"

"I God!" He laughed bitterly. "Thou believest that! Thou who knowestme man!"

"I know thee all divine. I have worshipped thee in joy. Art thou notMessiah?"

"Messiah! Who cannot save myself!"

"Who can hurt thee? Who hath ever hurt thee from thy youth up? TheAngels watch over thy footsteps. Is not thy life one long miracle?"

He shook his head hopelessly. "All this year I have waited themiracle--all those weary months in the dungeon of Constantinople, inthe Castle of Abydos--but what sure voice hath spoken? To-morrow Ishall be disembowelled, lashed with fiery scourges--who knows whatthese dogs may do?"

"Hush! hush!"

"Ah, thou fearest for me!" he cried, in perverse triumph. "Thouknowest I am but mortal man!"

The roses of her beautiful cheek had faded, but she spoke, unflinching. 

"Nay, I believe on thee still. I followed thee to thy prison, unwitting it would turn into a palace. I follow thee to thy tortureto-morrow, trusting it will be the crowning miracle and the fieryscourges will turn into angels' feathers. It is the word of Zechariahfulfilled. 'In that day will I make the governors of Judah like anhearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf. '"

His eyes grew humid as he looked up at her. "Yea, Melisselda, thouhast been true and of good courage. And now, when I am alone, when theshouts of the faithful have died away, when the King of the World lieshere alone in darkness and ashes, thou hast faith still?"

"Ay, I believe--'tis but a trial, the final trial of my faith. "

She smiled at him confidently; hope quickened within him. "If thiswere but a trial, the final trial of _my_ faith!" he murmured. "Butno--ere that white strip of moon rises again in the heavens I shall bea mangled corpse, the feast of wolves, unless--I have prayed for asign--oh, how I have prayed, and now--ah, see! A star is falling. O myGod, that this should be the end of my long martyrdom! But thepunishment of my arrogance is greater than I can bear. God, God, whydidst Thou send me those divine-seeming whispers, those long, longthoughts that thrilled my soul? Why didst Thou show me the sin ofIsrael and his suffering, the sorrow and evil of the world, inspiringme to redeem and regenerate?" His breast swelled with hysteric sobs. 

"My Sabbataï!" Melisselda's warm arms were round him. He threw her offwith violence. "Back, back!" he cried. "I understand the sign; Iunderstand at last. 'Tis through thee that I have forfeited the divinegrace. "

"Through me?" she faltered. 

"Yea; thy lips have wooed mine away from prayer, thine arms have drawnme down from the steeps of righteousness. Thou hast made me unfaithfulto my bride, the Law. For nigh forty years I lived hard and lonely, steeped my body in ice and snow, lashed myself--ay, lashed myself, Iwho now fear the lash--till the blood ran from a dozen wounds, andnow, O God! O God! Woman, thou hast polluted me! I have lost thedivine spirit. It hath gone out from me; it will incarnate itself inanother, in a nobler. Once I was Messiah, now I am man. "

"I?--I took from thee the divine spirit!"

She looked at him in all the flush of her beauty, grown insolentagain. 

He sprang up, he fell upon her breast, he kissed her lips madly. 

"Nay, nay, thou hast shown it me! Love! Love! 'tis Love that breathesthrough all things, that lifts the burden of life. But for thee Ishould have passed away, unknowing the glory of manhood. I am a man--aman rejoicing in his strength! O my starved youth! why did I notbehold thee earlier?" Tears of self-pity rolled down his ashen cheek. "O my love! my love! my lost youth! Give me back my youth, O God! Whoam I, to save? A man; yea, a man, glorying in manhood. Ah! happy arethey who lead the common fate of men, happy in love, in home, inchildren; woe for those who would climb, who would torture and denythemselves, who would save humanity? From what? If they have Love, have they not all? It is God, it is the Kingdom. It is the Kingdom. Come, let us live--I a man, thou a woman!"

"But a Mussulman!"

"What imports? God is everywhere. Was not our Maimonides--he at whosetomb we worship in Tiberias--himself once a Mussulman? Did he not saythat if it be to save our lives naught is forbidden?"

He moved to take her in his arms, but this time it was she that drewback. Her eyes flashed. 

"Nay, as a man, I love thee not. Thou art divine or naught; God orImpostor!"

"Melisselda!" She ignored his stricken cry. 

"Nay, this ordeal hath endured long enough, " she replied sternly. "Confess, I have been proof. "

"I am neither God nor Impostor, " he said brokenly. "Ah! say not thatthou canst not love me as a man. When thou didst first come to blessmy life I had not yet declared myself Messiah. "

"Who knows what I thought then? A wild girl, crazed by the convent, by the blood shed before my childish eyes, I came to thee full oflawless passions and fantastic dreams. But as I lived with thee, as Isaw the beauty of thy thought, thy large compassion, the purity of thylife amid temptations that made me jealous as a woman of Damascus, then I knew thee a God indeed. "

"Nay, when I knew thee I knew myself man. But as our followers grew, as faith and fortune trod in my footsteps, my blasphemous dreamrevived; I believed in thy vision of the Kingdom. When I divided theworld I thought myself Messiah indeed. But as I sat on my throne atAbydos, with worshippers from the world's end kissing my feet, ahollow doubt came over me, a sense of dream, and hollow voices echoedever in my ear, asking, 'Art thou Messiah? Art thou Messiah? Art thouMessiah?' I strove to drown them in the festive song; but in thestillness of the night, when thou wast sleeping at my side, the voicescame back, and they cried mockingly, 'Man! Man! Man!' And whenNehemiah came--"

"Man!" interrupted Melisselda impatiently. "Cease to cozen me. Have Inot known men? Ay, who more? Their weaknesses, their vanities, theirlewdnesses--enough! To-morrow thou shalt assert the God. "

He threw himself back on the divan and sighed wearily. "Leave me, Melisselda. Go to thy rest; to-night I must keep vigil alone. Perchance it is my last night on earth. "

Her countenance lit up. "Yea, to-morrow comes the Kingdom of Heaven. "And smiling ineffable trust, she stooped down and lightly kissed hishair, then glided from the room. 

And in his sleepless brain and racked soul went on, through thatunending night, the terrible tragedy of doubt, tempered by spells ofspasmodic prayer. A God, or a Man? A Messiah undergoing his Father'slast temptation; or a martyr on the eve of horrible death? And if thevictim of a monstrous self-delusion, what mattered whether one livedout one's years of shame as Jew or Mussulman? Nobler, perhaps, to die, and live as an heroic memory--but then to leave Melisselda! To leaveher warm breast and the sunlight and the green earth, and all thatbeauty of the world and of human life to which his eyes had only beenunsealed after a lifetime of self-torturing blindness?

"O God! O God!" he cried, "wherefore hast Thou mocked and abandonedme?"

XXIV

Early in the forenoon the light touch of a loved hand upon hisshoulder roused him from deeps of reverie. 

He uplifted a white, haggard face. Melisselda stood before him in allher dazzling freshness, like a radiant spirit come to chase the demonsof the night. The ancient Spanish song came into his mind, and thesweet, sad melody vibrated in his soul. 

 From her bath she arose, Pure and white as the snows, Melisselda. Coral only at lips And at sweet finger-tips, Melisselda. 

His eyes filled with tears--the divine dreams of youth stirred faintlywithin him. 

"Is it Peace with thee?" she asked. 

His head drooped again on his breast. 

"From the casement I saw the sun rise over the Maritza, " he said, "kindling the sullen waters, but my faith is still gray and dead. Nay, rather there came into my mind the sublime poem of Moses Ibn Ezra ofGranada: 'Thy days are delusive dreams and thy life as yon cloud ofmorning: whilst it tarries over thy tabernacle thou may'st remaintherein, but at its ascent thou art dissolved and removed unto a placeunknown to thee, ' This is the end, Melisselda, the end of my greatdelusion. What am I but a man, with a man's pains and errors andself-deceptions, a man's life that blooms but once as a rose and fadeswhile the thorn endures?" The ineffable melancholy of his accentssubdued her to silence: for the moment the music of his voice, his sadbrooding eyes, the infinite despair of his attitude swayed her to amood akin to his own. "Verily it was for me, " he went on, "that theSephardic poet sang--

"'Reflect on the labor thou didst undergo under the sun, night andday, without intermission; labor which thou knowest well to be withoutprofit; for, verily in these many years thou hast walked after vanityand become vain. Thou wast a keeper of vineyards, but thine ownvineyard thou hast not kept; whilst the Eyes of the Eternal run to andfro to see if the vine hath flourished, whether the tender grapesappear, and, lo! all was grown over with thorns; nettles had coveredthe face thereof. Thou hast grown old and gray, thou hast strayed butnot returned. ' Yea, I have strayed, but is the gate closed for return?To be a man--only a man--how great that is!" His voice died away, andwith it the sweet, soothing spell. Fire glowed in Melisselda's breast, heaving her bosom, shooting sparks from her eyes. 

"Nay, if thou art only a man, thou art not even a man. My love isdead. "

As he shrank beneath her contempt, another stanza of his ancient songsang itself involuntarily in his brain. Never had he seen her thus. 

 In the pride of her race, As a sword shone her face, Melisselda. And her lids were steel bows, But her mouth was a rose, Melisselda. 

_But her mouth was a rose. _ Ah, God, the pity of it, to leave the rosefor the crown of thorns!

"Melisselda!" he cried, with a sob. "Have pity on me. "

The door opened; two of the Imperial Guards appeared. 

"Thou slayest me, " he said in Hebrew. 

"I worship thee, " she answered him, in the same sacred tongue. Herface took on its old confident smile. 

"But I am a man. "

Once again her lids were steel bows. 

"Then die like a man! Thinkst thou I would share thy humiliation? If Iam to be a Moslem's bride, let me be the Sultan's. If I am not toshare the Messiah's throne, let me share an Emperor's. Thy Spanishsong made me an Emperor's daughter--I will be an Emperor's consort. "

And she laughed wantonly. 

The guards advanced timidly with visible awe. Melisselda's swiftlyflashing face changed suddenly. She drew him to her breast. 

"My King!" she murmured. "'Twas cruel to tempt my faith thus. " Thenreleasing him, she cried, "Go to thy Kingdom. "

He drew himself up; the fire in her eyes flashed into his own. 

"The Sultan summons thee, " said one of the guards reverently. 

"I am ready, " he said, calmly adjusting the folds of his black mantle. 

Melisselda was left alone. The slow moments wore on, tense andterrible. Little by little the radiant faith died out of her face. Half an hour went by, and cold serpents of doubt began to coil abouther own heart. 

What if Sabbataï were only a man after all? With frenzied rapidity shereviewed the past; now she glowed with effulgent assurances of hisdivinity, the homage of his people, the awe of Turk and Christian, Rabbis and sages at his feet, the rich and the great struggling tokiss his fan, the treasures poured into his unwilling palms; now sheshivered with hideous suggestions and remembrances of frailty andmortal ineptitude. And as her faith faltered, as the exaltation, withwhich she had inspired him, ebbed away, alarm for his safety began tocreep into her soul, till at last it was as a flood sweeping her inhis traces. And the more her fears swelled the more she realized howmuch she had grown to love him, with his sad, dark, smooth-skinnedbeauty, the soft, almost magnetic touch of his hand. Messiah or man, she loved him: he was right. What if she had sent him to his death! Acold, sick horror crept about her limbs. Perhaps he had dared to puthis divinity to the test, and the ribald Turk was even now gloatingover the screams of the wretched self-deluded man. Oh, fool that shehad been to drive him to the stake and the fiery scourge. If divine, then to turn Turk were part of the plan of Salvation; if human, hewould at least be spared an agonized death. The bloody visions of herchildhood came back to her, fire coursed in her fevered veins. Shesnatched up a mantilla and threw it over her shoulders, then dashedfrom the chamber. Her houri-like beauty in that palace of hiddenmoon-faces, her breathless explanation that the Sultan had summonedher to join her husband, carried her past breathless guards, throughdoor after door, past the black eunuchs of the seraglio and the whiteeunuchs of the royal apartment, till through the interstices of purplehangings she had a far-off glimpse of the despot in his great imperialturban, sitting on his high, narrow throne, his officers around him. Apage stopped her rudely. Faintness overcame her. 

"Mehmed Effendi, " called the page. 

Dizzy, her tongue scarcely under control, she tried to proffer to thetall door-keeper who parted the hangings her request for admission. But he held out his arms to catch her swaying form, and then, as insome monstrous dream, something familiar seemed to her to waft fromthe figure, despite the white turban and the green mantle, and thenext instant, as with the pain of a stab, she recognized Sabbataï. 

"What masquerade is this?" her white lips whispered in indignantrevulsion as she struggled from his hold. 

"My lord, the Sultan, hath made me his door-keeper--_Capigi BashiOtorak_, " he replied deprecatingly. "He is merciful and forgiving. MayAllah exalt his dominion. The salary is large; he is a generouspaymaster. I testify that there is no God but God. I testify thatMohammed is God's prophet. " He caught the swooning Melisselda in hisarms and covered her face with kisses. 

XXV

News travelled slowly in those days. A week later, while Agi MehmedEffendi and his wife Fauma Kadin (born Sarah and still calledMelisselda by her adoring husband, the Sultan's door-keeper) werereceiving instruction in the Moslem religion from the exultant MuftiVanni, a great Synod of Jews, swept to Amsterdam by the mighty waveof faith and joy, Rabbis and scholars and presidents of colleges, weredrawing up a letter of homage to the Messiah. And while the GrandSeignior was meditating the annihilation of all the Jews of theOttoman Empire for their rebellious projects, with the forcedconversion of the orphaned children to Islam, the Jews of the worldwere celebrating--for what they thought the last time--the Day ofAtonement, and five times during that long fast-day did the weepingworshippers, rocking to and fro in their grave-clothes, passionatelypronounce the blessing over Sabbataï Zevi, the Messiah of Israel. 

Nor did the fame and memory of him perish for generations; nor thedreamers of the Jewry cease to cherish the faith in him, manyfollowing him in adopting the white turban of Islam. 

But by what ingenious cabalistic sophistries, by what yearningfantasies--fit to make the angels weep--his unhappy followers, obstinate not to lose the great white hope that had come to illuminethe gloom of the Jewries, explained away his defection; what sects andcounter-sects his appostasy gave birth to, and what new prophetsarose--a guitar-playing gallant of Madrid, a tobacco dealer ofPignerol, a blue-blooded Christian millionaire of Copenhagen--tonourish that great pathetic hope (which still lives on) long afterSabbataï himself, after who knows what new spasms of self-mystificationand hypocrisy, what renewed aspirations after his old greatness and hisearly righteousness, what fresh torment of soul and body, died on theDay of Atonement, a lonely white-haired exile in a little Albaniantown, where no brother Jew dwelt to close his eyelids or breatheundying homage into his dying ears--is it not written in the chroniclesof the Ghetto?

(_Here endeth the Third and Last Scroll. _)

THE MAKER OF LENSES

As the lean, dark, somewhat stooping passenger, noticeable among theblonde Hollanders by his noble Spanish face with its black eyebrowsand long curly locks, stepped off the _trekschuyt_ on to thecanal-bank at s' Gravenhage, his abstracted gaze did not at first takein the scowling visages of the idlers, sunning themselves as thetow-boat came in. He was not a close observer of externals, and thoughhe had greatly enjoyed the journey home from Utrecht along the quaintwater-way between green walls of trees and hedges, with occasionalglimpses of flat landscapes and windmills through rifts, his sense ofthe peace of Nature was wafted from the mass, from a pervasivebackground of greenness and flowing water; he was not keenly aware ofspecific trees, of linden, or elm, or willow, still less of theaquatic plants and flowers that carpeted richly the surface of thecanal. 

Even when, pursuing broodingly his homeward path through the handsomestreets of the Hague, he became at last conscious of a certainill-will in the faces he met, he did not at first connect it withhimself, but with the general bellicose excitement of the populace. Although the young Prince of Orange had rewarded their insurrectionaryelection of him to the Stadtholdership by redeeming them from thedespair to which the French invasion and the English fleet hadreduced them, although since his famous "I will die in the lastditch, " Holland no longer strove to commit suicide by opening its ownsluices, yet the unloosed floods of popular passion were onlypartially abated. A stone that grazed his cheek and plumped againstthe little hand-bag that held his all of luggage, startled him tosemi-comprehension. 

They were for him, then, these sullen glances. Cries of "Traitor!""Godless gallows-bird!" "Down with the damned renegade!" dispelledwhat doubt remained. A shade of melancholy deepened the expression ofthe sweet, thoughtful mouth; then, as by volition, the habitual lookof pensive cheerfulness came back, and he walked on, unruffled. 

So it had leaked out, even in his own town--where an anonymous prophetshould be without dishonor--that _he_ was the author of the infamous_Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, the "traitor to State and Church" ofrefuting pamphleteers, the bogey of popular theology. In vain, then, had his treatise been issued with "Hamburg" on the title-page. In vainhad he tried to combine personal peace with impersonal thought, toconfine his body to a garret and to diffuse his soul through theworld. The forger of such a thunderbolt could not remain hid from theeyes of Europe. Perhaps the illustrious foreigners and the beautifulbluestockings who climbed his stairs--to the detriment of his day'swork in grinding lenses--had set the Hague scenting sulphur. Moreprobably the hot-headed young disciples to whom he had given oral orepistolary teaching had enthusiastically betrayed him into fame--orinfamy. It had always been thus, he mused, even in those earlyhalf-forgotten days when he was emancipating himself from the Ghetto, and half-shocked admirers no less than heresy-hunters bore to the earsof the Beth-din his dreadful rejection of miracle and ceremony. PoorSaul Morteira! How his ancient master must have been pained topronounce the Great Ban, though nothing should have surprised him in apupil so daring of question, even at fifteen. And now that he hadshaken off the Ghetto, or rather been shaken off by it, he hadscandalized no less shockingly that Christendom to which the Ghettohad imagined him apostatizing: he had fearlessly contradicted everysystem of the century, the ruling Cartesian philosophy no less thanthe creed of the Church, and his plea for freedom of thought hadillustrated it to the full. True, the Low Countries, when freed fromthe Spanish rack, had nobly declared for religious freedom, but at ascientific treatment of the Bible as sacred literature even Dutchtoleration must draw the line, unbeguiled by the appeal to the Stateto found itself on true religion and ignore the glossing theologians. "What evil can be imagined greater for a State than that honorablemen, because they have thoughts of their own and cannot act a lie, aresent as culprits into exile or led to the scaffold?" Already theStates-General had attached the work containing this question andforbidden its circulation: now apparently persecution was to reach himin person, Christendom supplementing what he had long since sufferedfrom the Jewry. He thought of the fanatical Jew whose attempt to stabhim had driven him to live on the outskirts of Amsterdam even beforethe Jews had persuaded the civil magistrates to banish him from their"new Jerusalem, " and in a flash of bitterness the picturesquePortuguese imprecations of the Rabbinic tribunal seemed to him to bebearing fruit. "According to the decision of the angels and thejudgment of the saints, with the sanction of the Holy God and thewhole congregation, we excommunicate, expel, curse, and execrateBaruch de Espinoza before the holy books. . . . Cursed be he by day, andcursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lieth down, and cursed behe when he riseth up; cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be hewhen he cometh in. May God never forgive him! His anger and Hispassion shall be kindled against this man, on whom rest all the cursesand execrations which are written in the Holy Scriptures. . . . " Had thewords been lurking at the back of his mind, when he was writing the_Tractatus_? he asked himself, troubled to find them still in hismemory. Had resentment colored the Jewish sections? Had his hotSpanish blood kept the memory of the dagger that had tried to spillit? Had suffering biassed the impersonality of his intellect? "Thiscompels me to nothing which I should not otherwise have done, " he hadsaid to his Mennonite friend when the sentence reached him in theOudekirk Road. But was it so? If he had not been cut off from hisfather and his brothers and sisters, and the friends of childhood, would he have treated the beauties of his ancestral faith with sogrudging a sympathy? The doubt disturbed him, revealing once more howdifficult was self-mastery, absolute surrender to absolute Truth. Never had he wavered under persecution like Uriel Acosta--at whosegrave in unholy ground he had stood when a boy of eight, --but had itnot wrought insidiously upon his spirit?

"Alas!" thought he, "the heaviest burden that men can lay upon us, isnot that they persecute us with their hatred and scorn, but that theythus plant hatred and scorn in our souls. That is what does not let usbreathe freely or see clearly. " Retrospect softened the odiousness ofhis Jewish persecutors; they were but children of a persecuting age, and it was indeed hard for a community of refugees from Spain andPortugal to have that faith doubted for which they or their fathershad given up wealth and country. Even at the hour of his Ban thepyres of the Inquisition were flaming with Jewish martyrs, and hisfellow-scholars were writing Latin verses to their sacred memories. And should the religion which exacted and stimulated such sacrificesbe set aside by one providentially free to profess it? How should theyunderstand that a martyr's death proved faith, not truth? Well, well, if he had not sufficiently repaid his brethren's hatred with love, itwas no good being sorry, for sorrow was an evil, a passing to lesserperfection, diminished vitality. Let him rather rejoice that the realwork of his life--his _Ethica_, which he was working out on puregeometrical principles--would have no taint of personality, would bewithout his name, and would not even be published till death hadremoved the last possibility of personal interest in its fortunes. "For, " as he was teaching in the book itself, "those who desire to aidothers by counsel or deed to the common enjoyment of the chief goodshall in no wise endeavor themselves that a doctrine be called afterthem. "

Another stone and a hoot of derision from a gang of roughs remindedhim that death might not wait for the finishing of his work. "Strange, " he reflected, "that they who cannot even read should so runto damn. " And then his thoughts recurred to that horrible day not ayear ago when the brutal mob had torn to pieces the noblest men in therealm--his friends, the brothers De Witt. He could scarcely retain histears even now at the memory of the martyred patriots, whoseignominiously gibbeted bodies the police had only dared remove in thesecrecy of the small hours. It was hard even for the philosopher toremember that the brutes did but express the essence of their being, even as he expressed his. Nevertheless Reason did not demand thattheirs should destroy his: the reverse sooner, had he the power. So, turning the corner of the street, he slipped into his favoritebook-shop in the Spuistraat and sought at once safety and delectationamong the old folios and the new Latin publications and the beautifulproductions of the Elzevirs of Amsterdam. 

"Hast thou Stoupe's _Religion des Hollandois_?" he asked, with asudden thought. 

"Inquire elsewhere, " snapped the bookseller surlily. 

"_Et tu, Brute!_" said Spinoza, smiling. "Dost thou also join the hueand cry? Methinks heresy should nourish thy trade. A wilderness ofcounterblasts, treatises, tractlets, pasquinades--the more themerrier, eh?"

The bookseller stared. "Thou to come in and ask for Stoupe's book?'Tis--'tis--brazen!"

Spinoza was perplexed. "Brazen? Is it because he talks of me in it?"

"Heer Spinoza, " said the bookseller solemnly, "thy Cartesiancommentary has brought me a many pence, and if thou thyself hastbrowsed more than bought, thou wast welcome to take whatever thoucouldst carry away in that long head of thine. But to serve thee nowis more than I dare, with the populace so wrought up against thee. What! Didst thou think thy doings in Utrecht would not penetratehither?"

"My doings in Utrecht!"

"Ay, in the enemy's headquarters--betraying us to the periwigs!"

Spinoza was taken aback. This was even more serious than he hadthought. It was for supposed leaning to the French that the De Wittshad been massacred. Political odium was even more sinister thantheological. Perhaps he had been unwise to accept in war-time thePrince of Condé's flattering invitation to talk philosophy. To get tothe French camp with the Marshal's safe-conduct had been easy enough:to get back to his own headquarters bade fair to be another matter. But then why had the Dutch authorities permitted him to go? Surelysuch unique confidence was testimonial enough. 

"Oh, but this is absurd!" he said. "Every burgher in Den Haag knowsthat I am a good republican, and have never had any aim but the honorand welfare of the State. Besides, I did not even see Condé. He hadbeen called away, and I would not wait his return. "

"Ay, but thou didst see Luxemburg; thou wast entertained by ColonelStoupe, of the Swiss regiment. "

"True, but he is theologian as well as soldier. "

"He did not offer to bribe thee?"

"Ay, he did, " said Spinoza, smiling. "He offered me a pension--"

The bookseller plugged his ears. "'Sh! I will not know. I'll have nohand in thy murder. "

"Nay, but it will interest thee as a bookseller. The pension was to begiven me by his royal master if I would dedicate a book to his augustmajesty. "

"And thou refusedst?"

"Naturally. Louis Quatorze has flatterers enough. "

The bookseller seized his hands and wrung them with tears. "I toldthem so, I told them so. What if they did see these French gentryvisiting thee? Political emissaries forsooth! As well fear for thevirtue of the ladies of quality who toil up his stairs, quoth I. Theydo but seek further explications of their Descartes. Ah, France mayhave begotten a philosopher, but it requires Holland to shelter him, aDutchman to understand him. That musked gallant a spy! Why, that wasD'Hénault, the poet. How do I know? Well, when a man inquires forD'Hénault's poems and is half-pleased because I have the book, andhalf-annoyed because he must needs buy it--! An epicurean rogue by hislip, a true son of the Muses. And suppose there _is_ a letter fromEngland, quoth I, with the seal of the Royal Society!"

"_Is_ there a letter from England?"

"Thou hast not been to thy lodging? That Royal Society, quoth I, is alearned body--despite its name--and hath naught to do with KingCharles and the company he keeps. 'Tis they who egg him on to fightus, the hussies!"

Spinoza smiled. "It must be from my good friend Oldenburg, thesecretary. "

"'Tis what I told them. He was in my shop when he was here--"

"Asking for his book?"

"Nay, for thine. " And the bookseller's smile answered Spinoza's. "Hebade me despatch copies of the _Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae_ tosundry persons of distinction. I would to Heaven thou wouldst write anew book!"

"Heaven may not share thy view, " murmured Spinoza, who was justturning over the pages of an attack on his "new book, " and reading ofhimself as "a man of bold countenance, fanatical, and estranged fromall religion. "

"A good book thou hast there, " said the bookseller. "By Musæus, theJena Professor. The _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ad VeritatisLancem Examinatus_--weighed in Truth's balance, indeed. A title thatdraws. They say 'tis the best of all the refutations of the perniciousand poisonous Tractate. "

"Of which I see sundry copies here masked in false titles. "

"'Sh! Forbidden fruit is always in demand. But so long as I supply theantidote too--"

"Needs fruit an antidote?"

"Poisoned apples of Knowledge offered by the serpent. "

"A serpent indeed, " said Spinoza, reading the Antidote aloud. "'He hasleft no mental faculty, no cunning, no art untried in order toconceal his fabrication beneath a brilliant veil, so that we may withgood reason doubt whether among the great number of those whom thedevil himself has hired for the destruction of all human and divineright, there is one to be found who has been more zealous in the workof corruption than this traitor who was born to the great injury ofthe church and to the harm of the state. ' How he bruises the serpent'shead, this theology professor!" he cried; "how he lays him dead on hisbalance of Truth!" To himself he thought: "How the most ignorant areusually the most impudent and the most ready to rush into print!" Hehad a faint prevision of how his name--should it really leak out, despite all his precautions--would come to stand for atheism andimmorality, a catchword of ill-omen for a century or two; but hesmiled on, relying upon the inherent reasonableness and rightness ofthe universe. 

"Wilt take the book?" said the bookseller. 

"Nay, 'tis not by such tirades that Truth is advanced. But hast thouthe Refutation by Lambert Velthuysen?"

The bookseller shook his head. 

"That is worth a hundred of this. Prithee get that and commend it tothy clients, for Velthuysen wields a formidable dialectic by whichmen's minds may be veritably stimulated. "

On his homeward way dark looks still met him, but he faced them withcheerful, candid gaze. At the end of the narrow Spuistraat the affairsof the broad market-place engrossed popular attention, and thephilosopher threaded his way unregarded among the stalls and thecanvas-covered Zeeland waggons, and it was not till he reached thePaviljoensgracht--where he now sits securely in stone, pencilling athought as enduring--that he encountered fresh difficulty. There, athis own street door, under the trees lining the canal-bank, hislandlord, Van der Spijck, the painter--usually a phlegmatic figurehaloed in pipe-clouds--congratulated him excitedly on his safe return, but refused him entry to the house. "Here thou canst lodge no more. "

"Here I lodge to-night, " said Spinoza quietly, "if there be any law inHolland. "

"Law! The folk will take the law into their own hands. My windows willbe broken, my doors battered in. And thou wilt be murdered and throwninto the canal. "

His lodger laughed. "And wherefore? An honest optician murdered! Goto, good friend!"

"If thou hadst but sat at home, polishing thy spy-glasses instead offaring to Utrecht! Customarily thou art so cloistered in that thegoodwife declares thou forgettest to eat for three days together--andcertes there is little thou canst eat when thou goest not abroad tobuy provision! What devil must drive thee on a long journey in thishour of heat and ferment? Not that I believe a word of thy turningtraitor--I'd sooner believe my mahl-stick could turn serpent likeAaron's rod--but in my house thou shalt not be murdered. "

"Reassure thyself. The whole town knows my business with Stoupe; atleast I told my bookseller, and 'tis only a matter of hours. "

"Truly he is a lively gossip. "

"Ay, " said Spinoza drily. "He was even aware that a letter from theRoyal Society of England awaits me. "

Van der Spijck reddened. "I have not opened it, " he cried hastily. 

"Naturally. But the door thou mayst open. "

The painter hesitated. "They will drag thee forth, as they dragged theDe Witts from the prison. "

Spinoza smiled sadly. "And on that occasion thou wouldst not let meout; now thou wilt not let me in. "

"Both proofs that I have more regard for thee than thou for thyself. If I had let thee dash out to fix up on the public wall thatdenunciation thou hadst written of the barbarian mob, there had beenno life of thine to risk to-day. Fly the town, I beseech thee, or findthicker walls than mine. Thou knowest I would shelter thee had I thepower; do not our other lodgers turn to thee in sickness and sorrow tobe soothed by thy talk? Do not our own little ones love and obey theemore than their mother and me? But if thou wert murdered in our house, how dreadful a shock and a memory to us all!"

"I know well your love for me, " said Spinoza, touched. "But fearnothing on my account: I can easily justify myself. There are peopleenough, and of chief men in the country too, who well know the motivesof my journey. But whatever comes of it, so soon as the crowd make theleast noise at your door, I will go out and make straight for them, though they should serve me as they have done the unhappy De Witts. "

Van der Spijck threw open the door. "Thy word is an oath!"

On the stairs shone the speckless landlady, a cheerful creature inblack cap and white apron, her bodice laced with ornamental green andred ribbons. She gave a cry of joy, and flew to meet him, broom inhand. "Welcome home, Heer Spinoza! How glad the little ones will bewhen they get back from school! There's a pack of knaves beenslandering thee right and left; some of them tried to pump Henri, butwe sent them away with fleas in their ears--eh, Henri?"

Henri smiled sheepishly. 

"Most pertinacious of all was a party of three--an old man and hisdaughter and a young man. They came twice, very vexed to find theeaway, and feigning to be old friends of thine from Amsterdam; at leastnot the young man--his lament was to miss the celebrated scholar hehad been taken to see. A bushel of questions they asked, but not manypecks did they get out of _me_. "

A flush had mantled upon Spinoza's olive cheek. "Did they give anyname?" he asked with unusual eagerness. 

"It ends in Ende--that stuck in my memory. "

"Van den Ende?"

"Or suchlike. "

"The daughter was--beautiful?"

"A goddess!" put in the painter. 

"Humph!" said the vrouw. "Give _me_ the young man. A cold marblecreature is not my idea of a goddess. "

"'Tis a Greek goddess, " said Spinoza with labored lightness. "They areindeed old friends of mine--saving the young man, who is doubtless apupil of the old. He is a very learned philologist, this Dr. Van denEnde: he taught me Latin--"

"And Greek goddesses, " flashed the vrouw affectionately. 

Spinoza tried to say something, but fell a-coughing instead, and beganto ascend to his room. He was agitated: and it was his principle toquit society whenever his emotions threatened to exceed philosophicalmoderation. 

"Wait! I have thy key, " cried the goodwife, pursuing him. "And oh!what dust in thy room! No wonder thou art troubled with a phthisis!"

"Thou didst not arrange anything?" he cried in alarm. 

"A flick with a feather-brush, as I took in thy letters--no more; myhand itched to be at thy papers, but see! not one is in order!"

She unlocked his door, revealing a little room in which books andpapers mingled oddly with the bedroom furniture and the tools andbench of his craft. There were two windows with shabby red curtains. On nails hung a few odd garments, one of which, the doublet ancientlypierced by the fanatic's dagger, merely served as a memento, thoughnot visibly older than the rest of his wardrobe. "Who puts a mediocrearticle into a costly envelope?" was the philosopher's sartorialstandpoint. Over the mantel (on which among some old pipes lay twosilver buckles, his only jewellery) was pinned a charcoal sketch ofMasaniello in shirt-sleeves, with a net on his shoulder, done bySpinoza himself, and obviously with his own features as model: perhapsin some whimsical moment when he figured himself as an intellectualrevolutionary. A portfolio that leaned against a microscope containedblack and white studies of some of his illustrious visitors, whichcaught happily their essential features without detail. The few otherwall-pictures were engravings by other hands. Spinoza sat down on histruckle-bed with a great sigh of content. 

"_Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto_, " he murmured. Then his eye rovingaround: "My spiders' webs are gone!" he groaned. 

"I could not disarrange aught in sweeping _them_ away!" deprecated thegoodwife. 

"Thou hast disarranged _me_! I have learnt all my wisdom from watchingspiders!" he said, smiling. 

"Nay, thou jestest. "

"In no wise. The spider and the fly--the whole of life is there. 'Tisthrough leaving them out that the theologies are so empty. Besides, who will now catch the flies for my microscope?"

"I will not believe thou wouldst have the poor little flies caught bythe great big spiders. Never did I understand what Pastor Cordesprated of turning the other cheek till I met thee. "

"Nay, 'tis not my doctrine. Mine is the worship of joy. I hold thatthe effort to preserve our being is virtue. "

"But thou goest to church sometimes?"

"To hear a preacher. "

"A strange motive. " She added musingly: "Christianity is not thentrue?"

"Not true for me. "

"Then if thou canst not believe in it, I will not. "

Spinoza smiled tenderly. "Be guided by Dr. Cordes, not by me. "

The goodwife was puzzled. "Dost thou then think I can be saved in Dr. Cordes' doctrine?" she asked anxiously. 

"Yes, 'tis a very good doctrine, the Lutheran; doubt not thou wilt besaved in it, provided thou livest at peace with thy neighbors. "

Her face brightened. "Then I will be guided by thee. "

Spinoza smiled. Theology demanded perfect obedience, he thought, evenas philosophy demanded perfect knowledge, and both alike were saving;for the believing mob, therefore, to which Religion meant subversionof Reason, speculative opinions were to be accounted pious or impious, not as they were true or false, but as they confirmed or shook thebeliever's obedience. 

Refusing her solicitous offers of a warm meal, and merely begging herto buy him a loaf, he began to read his arrears of letters, pickingthem up one after another with no eagerness but with calm interest. His correspondence was varied. Some of it was taken up with criticismsof his thought--products of a leisurely age when the thinkers ofEurope were a brotherhood, calling to each other across the dimpopulations; some represented the more deferential doubts of disciplesor the elegant misunderstandings of philosophic dilettanti, some hisfriendly intercourse with empirical physicists like Boyle or likeHuyghens, whose telescope had enlarged the philosopher's universe andthe thinker's God; there was an acknowledgment of the last scholiumfrom the young men's society of Amsterdam--"_Nil volentibusarduum_, "--to which he sent his _Ethica_ in sections for discussion;the metropolis which had banished him not being able to keep out histhought. There was the usual demand for explanations of difficultiesfrom Blyenbergh, the Dort merchant and dignitary, accompanied thistime by a frightened yearning to fly back from Reason to Revelation. And the letter with the seal of the Royal Society proved equallyfaint-hearted, Oldenburg exhorting him not to say anything in his nextbook to loosen the practice of virtue. "Dear Heinrich!" thoughtSpinoza. "How curious are men! All these years since first we met atRijnburg he has been goading and spurring me on to give my deepestthought to the world. 'Twas always, 'Cast out all fear of stirring upagainst thee the pigmies of the time--Truth before all--let us spreadour sails to the wind of true Knowledge. ' And now the tune is, 'O praybe careful not to give sinners a handle!' Well, well, so I am not totell men that the highest law is self-imposed; that there is no virtueeven in virtues that do not express the essence of one's being. Oh, and I am to beware particularly of telling them their wills are notfree, and that they only think so because they are conscious of theirdesires, but not of the causes of them. I fear me even Oldenburg doesnot understand that virtue follows as necessarily from adequateknowledge as from the definition of a triangle follows that its anglesare equal to two right angles. I am, I suppose, also to let mencontinue to think that the planetary system revolves round them, andthat thunders and lightnings wait upon their wrong-doing. Oldenburghas doubtless been frighted by the extravagances of the restoredCourt. But 'tis not my teachings will corrupt the gallants ofWhitehall. Those who live best by Revelation through Tradition mustcling to it, but Revelation through Reason is the living testament ofGod's word, nor so liable as the dead letter to be corrupted by humanwickedness. Strange that it is thought no crime to speak unworthily ofthe mind, the true divine light, no impiety to believe that God wouldcommit the treasure of the true record of Himself to any substanceless enduring than the human heart. "

A business letter made a diversion. It concerned the estate of thedeceased medical student, Simon De Vries, a devoted disciple, whoknowing himself doomed to die young, would have made the Master hisheir, had not Spinoza, by consenting to a small annual subsidy, persuaded him to leave his property to his brother. The grateful heirnow proposed to increase Spinoza's allowance to five hundred florins. 

"How unreasonable people are!" mused the philosopher again. "I agreedonce for all to accept three hundred, and I will certainly not beburdened with a _stuiver_ more. "

His landlady here entered with the loaf, and Spinoza, having paid andentered the sum in his household account-book, cut himself a slice, adding thereto some fragments of Dutch cheese from a package in hishand-bag. 

"Thou didst leave some wine in the bottle, " she reminded him. 

"Let it grow older, " he answered. "My book shows more than two pintslast month, and my journey was costly. To make both ends meet I shallhave to wriggle, " he added jestingly, "like the snake that tries toget its tail in its mouth. " He cut open a packet, discovering that afriend had sent him some conserve of red roses from Amsterdam. "Nowam I armed against fever, " he said blithely. Then, with a remembrance, "Pray take some up to our poor Signore. I had forgotten to inquire!"

"Oh, he is out teaching again, thanks to thee. He hath set up a candlefor thee in his church. "

A tender smile twitched the philosopher's lip, as the door closed. 

A letter from Herr Leibnitz set him wondering uneasily what had takenthe young German Crichton from Frankfort, and what he was about inParis. They had had many a discussion in this little lodging, but hewas not yet sure of the young man's single-mindedness. The contents ofthe letter were, however, unexpectedly pleasing. For it concerned notthe philosopher but the working-man. Even his intimates could notquite sympathize with his obstinate insistence on earning his livingby handicraft--a manual activity by which the excommunicated Jew wasbrother to the great Rabbis of the Talmud; they could not understandthe satisfaction of the craftsman, nor realize that to turn out hislittle lenses as perfectly as possible was as essential a part of hislife as that philosophical activity which alone interested them. Thathis prowess as an optician should be invoked by Herr Leibnitz gave hima gratification which his fame as a philosopher could never evoke. Theonly alloy was that he could not understand what Leibnitz wanted. "That rays from points outside the optic axis may be united exactly inthe same way as those in the optic axis, so that the apertures ofglasses may be made of any size desired without impairing distinctnessof vision!" He wrinkled his brow and fell to making geometricaldiagrams on the envelope, but neither his theoretical mathematics norhis practical craftsmanship could grapple with so obscure a request, and he forgot to eat while he pondered. He consulted his own treatiseon the Rainbow, but to no avail. At length in despair he took up thelast letter, to find a greater surprise awaiting him. A communicationfrom Professor Fabritius, it bore an offer from the Elector Palatineof a chair at the University of Heidelberg. The fullest freedom inphilosophy was to be conceded him: the only condition that he shouldnot disturb the established religion. 

His surprise passed rapidly into mistrust. Was this an attempt on thepart of Christianity to bribe him? Was the Church repeating thetactics of the Synagogue? It was not so many years since themessengers of the congregation had offered him a pension of a thousandflorins not to disturb _its_ "established religion. " Fullest freedomin philosophy, forsooth! How was that to be reconciled with impeccabledeference to the ruling religion? A courtier like Descartes mightstart from the standpoint of absolute doubt and end in a pilgrimage toOur Lady of Loretto; but for himself, who held miracles impossible, and if possible irrelevant, there could be no such compromise with acreed whose very basis was miracle. True, there was a sense in whichChrist might be considered _os Dei_--the mouth of God, --but it was notthe sense in which the world understood it, the world whichcaricatured all great things, which regarded piety and religion, andabsolutely all things related to greatness of soul, as burdens to belaid aside after death, toils to be repaid by a soporific beatitude;which made blessedness the prize of virtue instead of the synonym ofvirtue. Nay, nay, not even the unexpected patronage of the Most SereneCarl Ludwig could reconcile his thoughts with popular theology. 

How curious these persistent attempts of friend and foe alike toprovide for his livelihood, and what mistaken reverence his persistentrejections had brought him! People could not lift their hands highenough in admiration because he followed the law of his nature, because he preferred a simple living, simply earned, while forcriminals who followed equally the laws of their nature they had angerrather than pity. As well praise the bee for yielding honey or therose for making fragrant the air. Certainly his character had more ofhoney than of sting, of rose than of thorn; humility was anunnecessary addition to the world's suffering; but that he did notlack sting or thorn, his own sisters had discovered when they hadtried to keep their excommunicated brother out of his patrimony. Howpuzzled Miriam and Rebekah had been by his forcing them at law to giveup the money and then presenting it to them. They could not see thatto prove the outcast Jew had yet his legal rights was a duty; themoney itself a burden. Yes, popular ethics was sadly to seek, andinvoluntarily his hand stretched itself out and lovingly possesseditself of the ever-growing manuscript of his _magnum opus_. His eyecaressed those serried concatenated propositions, resolving anddemonstrating the secret of the universe; the indirect outcome of hisyearning search for happiness, for some object of love that enduredamid the eternal flux, and in loving which he should find a perfectand eternal joy. Riches, honor, the pleasures of sense--these held notrue and abiding bliss. The passion with which van den Ende's daughterhad agitated him had been wisely mastered, unavowed. But in theInfinite Substance he had found the object of his search: thenecessary Eternal Being in and through whom all else existed, amongwhose infinite attributes were thought and extension, that made up theone poor universe known to man; whom man could love without desiringto be loved in return, secure in the consciousness he was not outsidethe Divine order. His book, he felt, would change theology totheonomy, even as Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo had changedastrology to astronomy. This chain of thoughts, forged link by link, without rest, without hurry, as he sat grinding his glasses, day byday, and year by year: these propositions, laboriously polished likehis telescope and microscope lenses, were no less designed for thefurtherance and clarification of human vision. 

And yet not primarily vision. The first Jew to create an originalphilosophy, he yet remained a Jew in aiming not at abstract knowledge, but at concrete conduct: and was most of all a Jew in his proclamationof the Unity. He would teach a world distraught and divided byreligious strife the higher path of spiritual blessedness; bring itthe Jewish greeting--Peace. But that he was typical--even by his veryisolation--of the race that had cast him out, he did not himselfperceive, missing by his static philosophy the sense of historicalenchainment, and continuous racial inspiration. 

As, however, he glanced to-day over the pages of Part Three, "TheOrigin and Nature of the Affects, " he felt somehow out of tune withthis bloodless vivisection of human emotions, this chain ofquasi-mathematical propositions with their Euclidean array of data andscholia, marshalling passions before the cold throne of intellect. Theexorcised image of Klaartje van den Ende--raised again by thelandlady's words--hovered amid the demonstrations. He caught gleams ofher between the steps. Her perfect Greek face flashed up and vanishedas in coquetry, her smile flickered. How learned she was, how wise, how witty, how beautiful! And the instant he allowed himself to musethus, she appeared in full fascination, skating superbly on the frozencanals, or smiling down at him from the ancient balustrade of thewindow (surely young Gerard Dou must have caught an inspiration fromher as he passed by). What happy symposia at her father's house, whenthe classic world was opening for the first time to the gaze of theclogged Talmud-student, and the brilliant cynicism of the old doctorcombined with the larger outlook of his Christian fellow-pupils tocomplete his emancipation from his native environment. After the deadcontroversies of Hillel and Shammai in old Jerusalem, how fresheningthese live discussions as to whether Holland should have shelteredCharles Stuart from the regicide Cromwell, or whether the_doelen-stuk_ of Rembrandt van Rijn were as well painted as VanRavosteyn's. In the Jewish quarter, though Rembrandt lived in it, interest had been limited to the guldens earned by dirty old men insitting to him. What ardor, too, for the newest science, what worshipof Descartes and deprecation of the philosophers before him! And thenthe flavor of romance--as of their own spices--wafted from the talkabout the new Colonies in the Indies! Good God! had it been so wise toquench the glow of youth, to slip so silently to forty year? He hadallowed her to drop out of his life--this child so early grown towinning womanhood--she was apparently dead for him, yet this suddenidea of her proximity had revitalized her so triumphantly that thephilosopher wondered at the miracle, or at his own powers ofself-deception. 

And who was this young man?

Had he analyzed love correctly? He turned to Proposition xxxiii. "Ifwe love a thing which is like ourselves we endeavor as much aspossible to make it love us in return. " His eye ran over the proofwith its impressive summing-up. "Or in other words (Schol. Prop, xiii. , pt. 3), we try to make it love us in return. " Unimpeachablelogic, but was it true? Had he tried to make Klaartje love him inreturn? Not unless one counted the semi-conscious advances ofwit-combats and intellectual confidences as she grew up! But had hesucceeded? No, impossible, and his spirits fell, and mounted again tonote how truly their falling corroborated--by converse reasoning--hisnext Proposition. "The greater the affect with which we imagine that abeloved object is affected towards us, the greater will be ourself-exaltation, " No, she had never given him cause forself-exaltation, though occasionally it seemed as if she preferred histalk to that of even the high-born, foppish youths sent by their siresto sit at her father's feet. 

In any case perhaps it was well he had given her maidenly modesty nochance of confession. Marriage had never loomed as a possibility forhim--the life of the thinker must needs shrink from the complicationsand prejudices engendered by domestic happiness: the intellectual loveof God more than replaced these terrestrial affections. 

But now a sudden conviction that nothing could replace them, that theywere of the essence of personality, wrapped him round as with flame. Some subtle aroma of emotion like the waft of the orange-groves ofBurgos in which his ancestors had wandered thrilled the son of themists and marshes. Perhaps it was only the conserve of red roses. Atany rate that was useless in this fever. 

He took up his tools resolutely, but he could not work. He fell backon his rough sketch for a lucid Algebra, but his lucid formulæ were ablur. He went downstairs and played with the delighted children andlistened to the landlady's gossip, throwing her a word or two ofshrewd counsel on the everyday matters that came up. Presently heasked her if the van den Endes had told her anything of their plans. 

"Oh, they were going to stay at Scheveningen for the bathing. Thesecond time they came up from there. "

His heart leapt. "Scheveningen! Then they are practically here. "

"If they have not gone back to Amsterdam. "

"True, " he said, chilled. 

"But why not go see? Henri tramped ten miles for me every Sunday. "

Spinoza turned away. "No, they are probably gone back. Besides, I knownot their address. "

"Address? At Scheveningen! A village where everybody's business can becaught in one net. "

Spinoza was ascending the stairs. "Nay, it is too late. "

Too late in sad verity! What had a philosopher of forty year to dowith love?

Back in his room he took up a lens, but soon found himself re-readinghis aphorism on Marriage. "It is plain that Marriage is in accordancewith Reason, if the desire is engendered not merely by external form, but by a love of begetting children and wisely educating them; and if, in addition, the love both of the husband and wife has for its causenot external form merely, but chiefly liberty of mind. " Assuredly, sofar as he was concerned, the desire of children, who might be morerationally and happily nurtured than himself, had some part in hisrare day-dreams, and it was not merely the noble form but also thenoble soul he divined in Klaartje van den Ende that had stirred hispulses and was now soliciting him to a joy which like all joys wouldmark the passage to a greater perfection, a fuller reality. And insooth how holy was this love of woman he allowed himself to feel for amoment, how easily passing over into the greater joy--the higherperfection--the love of God!

Why should he not marry? Means were easily to hand! He had only toaccept from his rich disciples what was really the wage of tuition, though hitherto like the old Rabbis he had preferred to teach forTruth's sole sake. After all Carl Ludwig offered him ample freedom inphilosophizing. 

But he beat down the tempting images and sought relief in the problemposited by Leibnitz. In vain: his manuscript still lay open, Proposition xxxv. Was under his eye. 

"If I imagine that an object beloved by me is united to another personby the same, or by a closer bond of friendship than that by which Imyself alone held the object, I shall be affected with hatred towardsthe beloved object itself and shall envy that other person. "

Who was the young man?

He clenched his teeth: he had, then, not yet developed into the freeman, redeemed by Reason from the bondage of the affects whose mechanicworkings he had analyzed so exhaustively. He was, then, still as farfrom liberty of mind as the peasant who has never taken to pieces thepassions that automatically possess him. If this fever did not leavehim, he must try blood-letting on himself, as though in a tertian. Hereturned resolutely to his work. But when he had ground and polishedfor half an hour, and felt soothed, "Why should I not go toScheveningen all the same?" he asked himself. Why should he miss thesmallest chance of seeing his old friends who had taken the trouble tocall on him twice?

Yes, he would walk to the hamlet and ponder the optical problem, andthe terms in which to refuse the Elector Palatine's offer. He set outat once, forgetting the dangers of the streets and in reality lullingsuspicion by his fearless demeanor. The afternoon was closing somewhatmistily, and an occasional fit of coughing reminded him he should havehad more than a falling collar round his throat and a thicker doubletthan his velvet. He thought of going back for his camelot cloak, buthe was now outside the north-west gate, so, lighting his pipe, hetrudged along the pleasant new-paved road that led betwixt theavenues of oak and lime to Scheveningen. He had little eye for thebeautiful play of color-shades among the glooming green perspectiveson either hand, scarcely noted the comely peasant-women with theirscarlet-lined cloaks and glittering "head-irons, " who rattled by, packed picturesquely in carts. Half-way to the hamlet the broodingpedestrian was startled to find his hand in the cordial grip of thevery man he had gone out to see. 

"Salve, O Benedicte, " joyously cried the fiery-eyed veteran. "I haddespaired of ever setting eyes again on thy black curls!" Van denEnde's own hair tossed under his wide-brimmed tapering hat as wildlyas ever, though it was now as white as his ruff, his blood seemed tobeat as boisterously, and a few minutes' conversation sufficed to showSpinoza that the old pedagogue's soul was even more unchanged than hisbody. The same hilarious atheism, the same dogmatic disbelief, thesame conviction of human folly combined as illogically, as of yore, with schemes of perfect states: time seemed to have mellowed noopinion, toned down no crudity. He was coming, he said, to make a lasthopeless call on his famous pupil, the others were working. Theothers--he explained--were his little Klaartje and his newest pupil, Kerkkrinck, a rich and stupid youth, but honest and good-heartedwithal. He had practically turned him over to Klaartje, who was asgood a guide to the Humanities as himself--more especially for thestupid. "She was too young in thy time, Benedict, " concluded the oldman jocosely. 

Benedict thought that she was too young now to be left instructinggood-hearted young men, but he only said, "Yes, I daresay I wasstupid. One should cut one's teeth on Latin conjugations, and I wasalready fourteen with a full Rabbinical diploma before I was evenaware there was such a person as Cicero in history. "

"And now thou writest Ciceronian Latin. Shake not thy head--'tis acompliment to myself, not to thee. What if thou art sometimes moreexact than elegant--fancy what a coil of Hebrew cobwebs I had to sweepout of that brain-pan of thine ere I transformed thee from Baruch toBenedict. "

"Nay, some of the webs were of silk. I see now how much Benedict owesto Baruch. The Rabbinical gymnastic is no ill-training, thoughunmethodic. Maimonides de-anthropomorphises God, the Cabalah grapples, if confusedly, with the problem of philosophy. "

"Thou didst not always speak so leniently of thy ancient learning. Methinks thou hast forgotten thy sufferings and the catalogue ofcurses. I would shut thee up a week with Moses Zacut, and punish youboth with each other's society. The room should be four cubits square, so that he should be forced to disobey the Ban and be within fourcubits of thee. "

"Thou forgettest to reckon with the mathematics, " laughed Spinoza. "Weshould fly to opposite ends of the diagonal and achieve five and twothird cubits of separation. "

"Ah, fuzzle me not with thy square roots. I was never a calculator. "

"But Moses Zacut was not so unbearable. I mind me he also learnt Latinunder thee. "

"Ay, and now spits out to see me. Fasted forty days for his sin inlearning the devil's language. "

"What converted him?"

"That Turkish mountebank, I imagine. "

"Sabbata Zevi?"

"Yes; he still clings to him though the Messiah has turned Mohammedan. He has published _Five Evidences of the Faith_, expounding that hisRedeemer's design is to bring over the Mohammedans to Judaism. Ha!ha! What a lesson in the genesis of religions! The elders whoexcommunicated thee have all been bitten--a delicious revenge forthee. Ho! ho! What fools these mortals be, as the English poet says. Ilong to shake our Christians and cry, 'Nincompoops, Jack-puddings, feather-heads, look in the eyes of these Jews and see your own sillyselves. '"

"'Tis not the way to help or uplift mankind, " said Spinoza mildly. "Men should be imbued with a sense of their strength, not of theirweakness. "

"In other words, " laughed the doctor, "the way to uplift men is toappeal to the virtues they do not possess. "

"Even so, " assented Spinoza, unmoved. "The virtues they may come topossess. Men should be taught to look on noble patterns, not on mean. "

"And what good will that do? Moses Zacut had me and thee to look on, "chuckled the old man. "No, Benedict, I believe with Solomon, 'Answer afool according to his folly, ' Thou art too half-hearted--thou deniestGod like a serving-man who says his master is out--thou leavest a hopehe may be there all the while. One should play bowls with the holyidols. "

Spinoza perceived it was useless to make the old man understand howlittle their ideas coincided. "I would rather uplift than overturn, "he said mildly. 

The old sceptic laughed: "A wonder thou art not subscribing to upliftthe Third Temple, " he cried. "So they call this new synagogue they arebuilding in Amsterdam with such to-do. "

"Indeed? I had not heard of it. If I could hope it were indeed theThird Temple, " and a mystic light shone in his eyes, "I wouldsubscribe all I had. "

"Thou art the only Christian I have ever known!" said van den Ende, half mockingly, half tenderly. "And thou art a Jew. "

"So was Christ. "

"True, one forgets that. But the rôles are becoming nicely reversed. Thou forgivest thine enemies, and in Amsterdam 'tis the Jews who aregoing to the Christians to borrow money for this synagogue of theirs!"

"How is the young _juffrouw_?" asked Spinoza at last. 

"Klaartje! She blooms like a Jan de Heem flowerpiece. This rude airhas made a rose of my lily. Her cheeks might have convinced theimbeciles who took away their practice from poor old Dr. Harvey. Onecan _see_ her blood circulating. By the way, thy old crony, Dr. LudwigMeyer, bade me give thee his love. "

"Dost think she will remember me?"

"Remember thee, Benedict? Did she not send me to thee to-day? Thy nameis ever on those rosy lips of hers--to lash dull pupils withal. Howthou didst acquire half the tongues of Europe in less time that theymaster τυπτω. " Spinoza allowed his standing desire to cough to findsatisfaction. He turned his head aside and held his hand before hismouth. "We quarrel about thy _Tractatus_--she and I--for of course sherecognized thine olden argumentations just as I recognized my tricksof style. "

"She reads me then?"

"As a Lutheran his Bible. 'Twas partially her hope of threshing outcertain difficulties with thee that decided us on Scheveningen. I donot say that the forest which poor Paul Potter painted was not a rivalattraction. "

A joy beyond the bounds of Reason was swelling the philosopher'sbreast. Unconsciously his step quickened. He encouraged his companionto chatter more about his daughter, how van Ter Borch had made of herone of his masterpieces in white satin, how she herself dabbleddaintily in all the fine arts, but the old man diverged irrevocablyinto politics, breathed fire and fury against the French, spoke of hisnear visit to Paris on a diplomatic errand, and, growing moreconfidential, hinted of a great scheme, an insurrection in Normandy, Admiral Tromp to swoop down on Quillebœuf, a Platonic republic to bereared on the ruins of the French monarchy. Had Spinoza seen theshadow of a shameful death hovering over the spirited veteran, had heforeknown that the poor old gentleman--tool of two desperate _roués_and a _femme galante_, --was to be executed in Paris for this veryconspiracy, the words that sounded so tediously in his ear would havetaken on a tragic dignity. 

They approached the village, whose huts loomed solemnly between thewoods and the dunes in the softening twilight. The van den Endes werelodged with the captain of a fishing-smack in a long, narrow woodenhouse with sloping mossy tiles and small-paned windows. The old manthrew open the door of the little shell-decorated parlor and peeredin. "Klaartje!" his voice rang out. A parrot from the Brazilsscreamed, but Spinoza only heard the soft "Yes, father, " that camesweetly from some upper region. 

"Guess whom I've brought thee?"

"Benedict!" She flew down, a vision of loveliness and shimmering silkand white pearls. Spinoza's hand trembled in hers that gleamed snowilyfrom the ruffled half-sleeve; the soft warmth burnt away philosophy. They exchanged the commonplaces of the situation. 

"But where is Kerkkrinck?" said the doctor. 

"At his toilette. " She exchanged a half-smile with Spinoza, whothrilled deliciously. 

"Then I'll go make mine, " cried her father. "We sup in half an hour, Benedict. Thou'lt stay, we go to-morrow. 'Tis the last supper. " And, laughing as if he had achieved a blasphemy, and unconscious of theshadow of doom, the gay old freethinker disappeared. 

As Klaartje spoke of his book with sparkling eyes, and discussedpoints in a low, musical voice, something crude and elemental flamedin the philosopher, something called to him to fuse himself with theuniversal life more tangibly than through the intellect. His doubtsand vacillations fled: he must speak now, or the hour and the moodwould never recur. If he could only drag the conversation from thephilosophical. By a side door it escaped of itself into the personal;her father did not care to take her with him to Paris, spoke ofpossible dangers, and hinted it was time she was off his hands. Thereseemed a confession trembling in her laughing eye. It gave him courageto seize her fingers, to falter a request that she would come to_him_--to Heidelberg! The brightness died suddenly out of her face: itlooked drawn and white. 

After a palpitating silence she said, "But thou art a Jew!"

He was taken aback, he let her fingers drop. From his parched throatcame the words, "But thou art--no Christian. "

"I know--but nevertheless--oh, I never dreamed of anything of thiswith thee--'twas all of the brain, the soul. "

"Soul and body are but one fact. "

"Women are not philosophers. I--" She stopped. Her fingers playednervously with the pearl necklace that rose and fell on her bosom. Hefound himself noting its details, wondering that she had developedsuch extravagant tastes. Then, awaking to her distress, he saidquietly, "Then there is no hope for me?"

Her face retained its look of pain. 

"Not ever? You could never--?" His cough shook him. 

"If there had been no other, " she murmured, and her eyes droopedhalf-apologetically towards the necklace. 

The bitterness of death was in his soul. He had a sudden ironic senseof a gap in his mathematical philosophy. He had fathomed the secret ofBeing, had analyzed and unified all things from everlasting toeverlasting, yet here was an isolated force--a woman's will--thatstood obstinately between him and happiness. He seemed to visualizeit, behind her serious face, perversely mocking. 

The handle of the door turned, and a young man came in. He was in thepink of fashion--a mantle of Venetian silk disposed in graceful foldsabout his handsome person, his neckcloth of Flanders lace, hisknee-breeches of satin, his shoes gold-buckled, his dagger jewelled. Energy flashed from his eye, vigor radiated from his every movement. 

"Ah, Diedrich!" she cried, as her face lit up with more than relief. "Here is Heer Spinoza at last. This is Heer Kerkkrinck!"

"Spinoza!" A thrill of awe was in the young man's voice, the reverenceof the consciously stupid for the great brains of the earth. He didnot take Spinoza's outstretched hand in his but put it to his lips. 

The lonely thinker and the happy lover stood thus for an instant, envying and admiring each other. Then Spinoza said cordially, "And nowthat I have had the pleasure of meeting Heer Kerkkrinck I must hurryback to town ere the road grows too dark. "

"But father expects thee to sup with us, " murmured Klaartje. 

"'Tis a moonless night, and footpads may mistake me for a Jew. " Hesmiled. "Make my apologies to the doctor. "

It was indeed a moonless night, but he did not make for the highroad. Instinctively he turned seawards. 

A slight mist brooded over the face of all things, adding to thenight, blurring the village to a few gleams of fire. On the broadsandy beach he could just see the outlines of the boats and thefishing-nets. He leaned against the gunwale of a _pink_, inhaling thescents of tar and brine, and watching the apparent movement seawardsof some dark sailing-vessel which, despite the great red anchor at hisfeet, seemed to sail outwards as each wave came in. 

The sea stretched away, soundless, moveless, and dark, save where itbroke in white foam at his feet; near the horizon a pitch-black wallof cloud seemed to rise sheer from the water and join the gray skythat arched over the great flat spaces. And in the absence of stars, the earth itself seemed to gain in vastness and mystery, its ownawfulness, as it sped round, unlessened by those endless perspectivesof vaster planets. And from the soundless night and sea and sky, andfrom those austere and solemn stretches of sand and forest, whereinforms and colors were lost in a brooding unity, there came to Spinozaa fresh uplifting sense of the infinite, timeless Substance, to loveand worship which was exaltation and ecstasy. The lonely thinkercommuned with the lonely Being. 

"Though He slay me, " his heart whispered, "yet will I trust in Him. "

Yea, though the wheels of things had passed over his body, it wasstill his to rejoice in the eternal movement that brought happiness toothers. 

Others! How full the world was of existences, each perfect after itskind, the laws of God's nature freely producing every conception ofHis infinite intellect. In man alone how many genera, species, individuals--from saints to criminals, from old philosophers togallant young livers, all to be understood, none to be hated. And manbut a fraction of the life of one little globe, that turned not onman's axis, nor moved wholly to man's ends. This sea that stretchedaway unheaving was not sublimely dead--even to the vulgarapprehension--but penetrated with quivering sensibility, the exquisitefresh feeling of fishes darting and gliding, tingling with life in finand tail, chasing and chased, zestfully eating or swiftly eaten: inthe air the ecstasy of flight, on the earth the happy movements ofanimals, the very dust palpitating pleasurably with crawling andcreeping populations, the soil riddled with the sluggishvoluptuousness of worms; each tiniest creature a perfect expression ofthe idea of its essence, individualized by its conatus, its effort topersist in existence on its own lines, though in man alone thepotentiality of entering through selfless Reason into the intellectualecstasy of the love with which God loves Himself--to be glad of thestrength of the lion and the grace of the gazelle and the beauty ofthe woman who belongs to another. Blessings on the happy lovers, blessings on all the wonderful creation, praise, praise to the EternalBeing whose modes body forth the everlasting pageant. 

Beginningless æons before his birth It had been--the great pageant towhose essence Being belonged--endless æons after his ephemeral passingIt would still throb and glow, still offer to the surrendered humansoul the supreme uplift. He had but a moment to contemplate It, yet tounderstand Its essence, to know the great laws of Its workings, to seeIt _sub specie aeternitatis_, was to partake of Its eternity. Therewas no need to journey either in space or time to discover Itsmovement, everywhere the same, as perfect in the remotest past as inthe farthest future, by no means working--as the vulgar imagined--to aprospective perfection; everywhere educed from the same enduringnecessities of the divine freedom. Progress! As illusory as themovement of yon little vessel that, anchored stably, seemed alwayssailing out towards the horizon. 

And so in that trance of adoration, in that sacred Glory, in thatrapturous consciousness that he had fought his last fight with theenslaving affects, there formed themselves in his soul--white heat atone with white light--the last sentences of his great work:--

"We see, then, what is the strength of the wise man, and by how muchhe surpasses the ignorant who is driven forward by lust alone. For theignorant man is not only agitated by eternal causes in many ways, andnever enjoys true peace of soul, but lives also ignorant, as it were, both of God and of things, and as soon as he ceases to suffer, ceasesalso to be. On the other hand, the wise man is scarcely ever moved inhis mind, but being conscious by a certain eternal necessity ofhimself, of God, and of things, never ceases to be, and always enjoystrue peace of soul. If the way which leads hither seem very difficult, it can nevertheless be found. It must indeed be difficult since it isso seldom discovered: for if salvation lay ready to hand and could bediscovered without great labor, how could it be possible that itshould be neglected almost by everybody? But all noble things are asdifficult as they are rare. "

So ran the words that were not to die. 

Suddenly a halo on the upper edge of the black cloud heralded thestruggling through of the moon: she shot out a crescent, reddish inthe mist, then labored into her full orb, wellnigh golden as the sun. 

Spinoza started from his reverie: his doublet was wet with dew, hefelt the mist in his throat. He coughed: then it was as if the salt ofthe air had got into his mouth, and as he spat out the blood, he knewhe would not remain long sundered from the Eternal Unity. 

But there is nothing on which a free man will meditate less than ondeath. Desirous to write down what was in his mind, Spinoza turnedfrom the sea and pursued his peaceful path homewards. 

THE MASTER OF THE NAME

I

Now that I have come to the close of my earthly days, and that thehigher circles will soon open to me, whereof I have learned thesecrets from my revered Master--where there is neither eating nordrinking, but the pious sit crowned and delight themselves with thevision of the Godhead--I would fain leave some chronicle, in theseconfused and evil days, of him whom I have loved best on earth, for hecame to teach man the true life and the true worship. To him, the everglorious and luminous Israel Baal Shem, the one true Master of theName, I owe my redemption from a living death. For he found me buriedalive under a mountain of ashes, and he drew me out and kindled theashes to fire, so that I cheered myself thereat. And since now theflame is like to go out again, and the Master's teaching to be chokedand concealed beneath that same ash-mountain, I pray God that Heinspire my unready quill to set down a true picture of the Man and hisdoctrine. 

Of my own history I do not know that it is needful to tell very much. My grandfather came to Poland from Vienna, whence he had been expelledwith all the Jews of the Arch-Duchy, to please the Jesuit-riddenEmpress Margaret, who thus testified her gratitude to Heaven for herrecovery from an accident that had befallen her at a court ball. Ihave heard the old man tell how trumpeters proclaimed in the streetsthe Emperor's edict, and how every petition proved as futile as thegreat gold cup and the silver jug and basin presented by the Jews tothe Imperial couple as they came out of church, after the thanksgivingceremony. 

It was an ill star that guided my grandfather's feet towards Poland. The Jews of Poland had indeed once been paramount in Europe, but theCossack massacres and the disruption of the kingdom had laid them low, and they spawned beggars who wandered through Europe, preaching andwheedling with equal hyper-subtlety. My father at any rate escapedmendicancy, for he managed to obtain a tiny farm in the north-east ofLithuania, though what with the exactions of the Prince of the estate, and the brutalities of the Russian regiments quartered in theneighborhood, his life was bitter as the waters of Marah. The room inwhich I was born constituted our whole hut, which was black as acharred log within and without, and never saw the sunlight savethrough rents in the paper which covered the crossed stripes of pinethat formed the windows. In winter, when the stove heated the hovel tosuffocation, and the wind and rain drove back the smoke through thehole in the roof that served for chimney, the air was almost asnoxious to its human inhabitants as the smoke to the vermin in thehalf-washed garments that hung across poles. We sat at such times onthe floor, not daring to sit higher, for fear of suffocation in thedenser atmosphere hovering over us; and I can still feel the drip, drip, on my head, of the fat from the sausages that hung a-drying. Ina corner of this living and sleeping room stood the bucket of cleanwater, and alongside it the slop-pail and the pail into which myfather milked the cow. Poor old cow! She was quite like one of thefamily, and often lingered on in the room after being milked. 

My mother kneaded bread with the best, and was as pious as she wasdeft, never omitting to throw the Sabbath dough in the fire. Not thather prowess as a cook had much opportunity, for our principal fare wascorn-bread, mixed with bran and sour cabbage and red beets, which laystored on the floor in tubs. Here we all lived together--mygrandfather, my parents, my brother and sister; not so unhappy, especially on Sabbaths and festivals, when we ate fish cooked withbutter in the evening, and meat at dinnertime, washed down with meador spirits. We children--and indeed our elders--were not seldom kickedand cudgelled by the Russian soldiers, when they were in liquor, butwe could be merry enough romping about ragged and unwashed, and ourreal life was lived in the Holy Land, with patriarchs, kings, andprophets, and we knew that we should return thither some day, andinherit Paradise. 

Once, I remember, the Princess, the daughter of our Prince, beingfatigued while out hunting, came to rest herself in our mean hut, withher ladies and her lackeys, all so beautiful and splendid, andglittering with gold and silver lace. I stared at the Princess withher lovely face and rich dress, as if my eyes would burst from theirsockets. "O how beautiful!" I ejaculated at last, with a sob. 

"Little fool!" whispered my father soothingly. "In the world to comethe Princess will kindle the stove for us. "

I was struck dumb with a medley of feelings. What! such happiness instore for us--for us, who were now buffeted about by drunken Cossacks!But then--the poor Princess! How she would soil her splendid dress, lighting our fire! My eyes filled with tears at the sight of herbeautiful face, that seemed so unconscious of the shame waiting forit. I felt I would get up early, and do her task for her secretly. Now I have learnt from my Master the mysteries of the World-To-Come, and I thank the Name that there is a sphere in heaven for princesseswho do no wrong. 

My brother and I did not get nearer heaven by our transference toschool, for the Cheder was a hut little larger than and certainly assmoky as our own, where a crowd of youngsters of all ages sat on hardbenches or on the bare earth, according to the state of the upperatmosphere. The master, attired in a dirty blouse, sat unflinchinglyon the table, so as to dominate the whole school-room, and between hisknees he held a bowl, in which, with a gigantic pestle, he brayedtobacco into snuff. The only work he did many a day was to beat somechild black and blue, and sometimes in a savage fit of rage he wouldhalf wring off a boy's ear, or almost gouge out an eye. The rest ofthe teaching was done by the ushers--each in his corner--who were noless vindictive, and would often confiscate to their own consumptionthe breakfasts and lunches we brought with us. What wonder if our onlyheaven was when the long day finished, or when Sabbath brought us awhole holiday, and new moon a half. 

Of the teaching I acquired here, and later in the Beth-Hamidrash--forI was destined by my grandfather for a Rabbi--my heart is too heavy tospeak. Who does not know the arid wilderness of ceremonial law, thebarren hyper-subtleties of Talmudic debate, which in my country hadthen reached the extreme of human sharpness in dividing hairs; thedead sea fruit of learning, unquickened by living waters? And who willwonder if my soul turned in silent longing in search of greenpastures, and panted for the water-brooks, and if my childish spiritfound solace in the tales my grandfather told me in secret of SabbataïZevi, the Son of God? For my grandfather was at heart a _Shab_(Sabbatian). Though Sabbataï Zevi had turned Turk, the honest veteranwas one of those invincibles who refused to abandon their belief inthis once celebrated Messiah, and who afterwards transferred theirallegiance to the successive Messiahs who reincarnated him, even as hehad reincarnated King David. For the new Sabbatian doctrine of theGodhead, according to which the central figure of its Trinity foundsuccessive reincarnation in a divine man, had left the door open for aseries of prophets who sprang up, now in Tripoli, now in Turkey, nowin Hungary. I must do my grandfather the justice to say that hismotives were purer than those of many of the sect, whose chiefallurement was probably the mystical doctrine of free love, and theAdamite life: for the poor old man became more a debauchee of painthan of pleasure, inflicting upon himself all sorts of penances, tohasten the advent of the kingdom of God on earth. He denied himselffood and sleep, rolled himself in snow, practised fumigations andconjurations and self-flagellations, so as to overthrow the legion ofdemons who, he said, barred the Messiah's advent. Sometimes heterrified me by addressing these evil spirits by their names, andattacking them in a frenzy of courage, smashing windows and stoves inhis onslaught till he fell down in a torpor of exhaustion. And, thoughhe was so advanced in years, my father could not deter him fromjoining in the great pilgrimage that, under Judah the Saint, set outfor Palestine, to await the speedy redemption of Israel. Of this Judahthe Saint, who boldly fanned the embers of the Sabbatian heresy intofierce flame, I have a vivid recollection, because, against allprecedent, he mounted the gallery of the village synagogue to preachto the women. I remember that he was clad in white satin, and heldunder his arm a scroll of the law, whose bells jingled as he walked;but what will never fade from my recollection is the passion of hiswords, his wailing over our sins, his profuse tears. Lad as I was, Iwas wrought up to wish to join this pilgrimage, and it was with bittertears of twofold regret that I saw my grandfather set out on thatdisastrous expedition, the leader of which died on the very day of itsarrival in Jerusalem. 

My own Sabbatian fervor did not grow cold for a long time, and it wasnourished by my study of the Cabalah. But, although ere I lay down mypen I shall have to say something of the extraordinary resurgence ofthis heresy in my old age, and of the great suffering which it causedmy beloved Master, the Baal Shem, yet Sabbatianism did not really playmuch part in my early life, because such severe measures were takenagainst it by the orthodox Rabbis that it seemed to be stamped out, and I myself, as I began to reflect upon it, found it inconceivablethat a Jewish God should turn Turk: as well expect him to turnChristian. But indirectly this redoubtable movement entered largelyinto my life by way of the great Eibeschütz-Emden controversy. For itwill not be stale in the memory of my readers that this lamentablecontroversy, which divided and embittered the Jews of all Europe, which stirred up Kings and Courts, originated in the accusationagainst the Chief Rabbi of the Three Communities that the amuletswhich he--the head of the orthodox tradition--wrote for women inchildbirth, were tainted with the Sabbatian heresy. So bitter andwidespread were the charges and counter-charges, that at one momentevery Jewish community in Europe stood excommunicated by the ChiefRabbis of one side or the other--a ludicrous position, whereof thesole advantage was that it brought the Ban into contempt and disuse. It was not likely that a controversy so long-standing and soimpassioned would fail to permeate Poland; and, indeed, among us thequarrel, introduced as it was by Baruch Yavan, who was agent toBruhl, the Saxon Minister, raged in its most violent form. Every fairand place of gathering became a battle-field for the rival partisans. Bribery, paid spies, treachery, and violence--all the poisonous fruitsof warfare--flourished, and the cloud of controversy seems to overhangall my early life. 

Although I penetrated deeply into the Cabalah, I could never become apractical adept in the Mysteries. I thought at the time it was becauseI had not the stamina to carry out the severer penances, and was notrue scion of my grandsire. I have still before me the gaunt, emaciated figure of the Saint, whom I found prostrate in our outhouse. I brought him to by unbuttoning his garment at the throat (thusdiscovering his hair shirt), but in vain did I hasten to bring him allsorts of refreshments. He let nothing pass his lips. I knew this manby repute. He had already performed the penance of _Kana_, whichconsisted in fasting daily for six years, and avoiding in his nightlybreakfast whatever comes from a living being, be it flesh, fish, milk, or honey. He had likewise practised the penance of Wandering, neverstaying two days in the same place. I ran to fetch my father to forcethe poor man to eat, but when I returned the obstinate ascetic wasgone. We followed his track, and found him lying dead on the road. Weafterwards learnt that even his past penances had not pacified hisconscience, and he wished to observe the penance of Weighing, whichproportions specific punishments to particular sins. But, finding bycareful calculation that his sins were too numerous to be thus atonedfor, he had decided to starve himself to death. Although, as I say, Ihad not the strength for such asceticism, I admired it from afar. Ipored over the _Zohar_ and the _Gates of Light_ and the _Tree of Life_(a work considered too holy to be printed), and I puzzled myself withthe mysteries of the Ten Attributes, and the mystic symbolism ofGod's Beard, whereof every hair is a separate channel of Divine grace;and once I came to comical humiliation from my conceit that I hadsucceeded by force of incantations in becoming invisible. As this wasin connection with my wife, who calmly continued looking at me andtalking to me long after I thought I had disappeared, I am reminded tosay something of this companion of my boyish years. For, alas! it wasshe that presently disappeared from my vision, being removed by God inher fifteenth year; so that I, who--being a first-born son, andallowed by the State to found a family--had been married to her by ourfathers when I was nine and she was eight, had not much chance ofoffspring by her; and, indeed, it was in the bearing of our firstchild--a still-born boy--that she died, despite the old family amuletoriginally imported from Metz and made by Rabbi Eibeschütz. When, after her death, it was opened by a suspicious partisan of Emden, sureenough it contained a heretical inscription: "In the name of the Godof Israel, who dwelleth in the adornment of His might, and in the nameof His anointed Sabbataï Zevi, through whose wounds healing is come tous, I adjure all spirits and demons not to injure this woman. " I neednot say how this contributed to the heat of the controversy in our ownlittle village; and I think, indeed, it destroyed my last tincture ofSabbatianism. Looking back now from the brink of the grave, I see howall is written in the book of fate: for had not my Peninah been takenfrom me, or had I accepted one of the many daughters that were offeredme in her stead, I should not have been so free to set out on thepilgrimage to my dear Master, by whom my life has been enriched andsanctified beyond its utmost deserving. 

At first, indeed, the loss of Peninah, to whom I had become quiteattached--for she honored my studies and earned our bread, and waspious even to my mother's liking--threw me into a fit of gloomybrooding. My longing for the living waters and the greenpastures--partially appeased by Peninah's love as she grew up--revivedand became more passionate. I sought relief in my old Cabalisticstudies, and essayed again to perform incantations, thinking in somevague way that now that I had a dear friend among the dead, she wouldhelp me to master the divine mysteries. Often I summoned up her form, but when I strove to clasp it, it faded away, so that I was leftdubious whether I had succeeded. I had wild fits of weeping both byday and night, not of grief for Peninah, but because I seemed somehowto live in a great desert of sand. But even had I known what Idesired, I could not have opened my heart to my father-in-law (inwhose house, many versts from my native village, I continued toreside), for he was a good, plain man, who expected me to doposthumous honor to his daughter by my Rabbinical renown. I was indeedlong since qualified as a Rabbi, and only waited for some reputablepost. 

But a Rabbi I was never to be. For it was then that the luminousshadow of the Baal Shem fell upon my life. 

II

There came to our village one winter day a stranger who had neitherthe air of a _Schnorrer_ (beggar) nor of an itinerant preacher; nor, from the brief time he spent at the Beth-Hamidrash, where I satpursuing droningly my sterile studies, did he appear to be a scholar. He was a lean, emaciated, sickly young man, but his eyes had the fireof a lion's, and his glance was as a god's. When he spoke his voicepierced you, and when he was silent his presence filled the room. From Eliphaz the Pedlar (who knew everything but the Law) I learnt atlast that he was an emissary of Rabbi Baer, the celebrated chief ofthe Chassidim (the pious ones). 

"The Chassidim!" I cried. "They died out with Judah the Saint. "

"Nay, this is a new order. Have you not heard of the Baal Shem?"

Now, from time to time I had heard vague rumors of a newwonder-working saint who had apparently succeeded far better withCabalah than I, and had even gathered a following, but the new andobscure movement had not touched our out-of-the-way village, which waswholly given over to the old Sabbatian controversy, and so myknowledge of it was but shadowy. I thought it better to feign absoluteignorance, and thus draw out the Pedlar. 

"Why, the Baal Shem by much penance has found out the Name of God, "said he; "and by it he works his will on earth and in heaven, so thatthere is at times confusion in the other world. "

"And is his name Rabbi Baer?"

"No; Rabbi Baer is a very learned man who has joined him, and whom, with the other superiors of the Order, he has initiated, so that they, too, work wonders. I chanced with this young man on the road, and hetold me that his sect therefore explains the verse in the Psalms, 'Singunto God a new song; His praise is in the congregation of Saints, ' inthe following wise: Since God surpasses every finite being, His praisemust surpass the praise of every such being. Hitherto the praise of Himconsisted in ascribing miracles to Him, and the knowledge of the hiddenand the future. But since all this is now within the capacity of thesaints of the Order, the Almighty has no longer any pre-eminence overthem in respect of the supernatural--'His praise is in thecongregation of the saints, '--and therefore it is necessary to find forHim some new praise--'Sing unto God a new song'--suitable to Himalone. "

The almost blasphemous boldness of this conception, which went in amanner further even than the Cabalah or the Sabbatians, startled me, as much as the novelty of the exegesis fascinated me. 

"And this young man here--can he rule the upper and lower worlds?" Iasked eagerly, mindful of my own miserable failures. 

"Assuredly he can rule the lower worlds, " replied Eliphaz, with asmile. "For to that I can bear witness, seeing that I have stayed withhim in a town where there is a congregation of Chassidim, which was inhis hands as putty in the glazier's. For, you see, he travels fromplace to place to instruct his inferiors in the society. The elders ofthe congregations, venerable and learned men, trembled like spanielsbefore him. A great scholar who would not accept his infallibility, was thrown into such terror by his menacing look that he fell into aviolent fever and died. And this I witnessed myself. "

"But there are no Chassidim in our place, " said I, trembling myself, half with excitement, half with sympathetic terror. "What comes he todo here?"

"Why, but there _are_ Chassidim, and there will be more--" He stoppedsuddenly. "Nay, I spoke at random. "

"You spoke truly, " said I sternly. "But speak on--do not fear me. "

"You are a Rabbi designate, " he said, shaking his head. 

"What of it?"

"Know you not that everywhere the Rabbis fight desperately against thenew Order, that they curse and excommunicate its members. "

"Wherefore?"

"I do not know. These things are too high for me. Unless it be thatthis Rabbi Baer has cut out of the liturgy the _Piutim_ (PenitentialPoems), and likewise prays after the fashion of the Portuguese Jews. "

"Nay, " I said, laughing. "If you were not such a man-of-the-earth, youwould know that to cut out one line of one prayer is enough to set allthe Rabbis excommunicating. "

"Ay, " said he; "but I know also that in some towns where the Chassidimare in the ascendant, they depose their Rabbis and appoint a minion ofBaer instead. "

"Ha! so that is what the young man is after, " said I. 

"I didn't say so, " said the Pedlar nervously. "I merely tellyou--though I should not have said anything--what the young man toldme to beguile the way. "

"And to gain you over, " I put in. 

"Nay, " laughed Eliphaz; "I feel no desire for Perfection, which is thecatchword of these gentry. "

Thus put upon the alert, I was easily able to detect a secret meetingof Chassidim (consisting of that minimum of ten which the sect, inthis following the orthodox practice, considers sufficient nucleus fora new community), and to note the members of the conventicle as theywent in and out again. 

With some of these I spake privily, but though I allayed their qualmsand assured them I was no spy but an anxious inquirer after Truth, desiring nothing more vehemently than Perfection, yet either theywould not impart to me the true secrets of the Order, or they lackedintelligence to make clear to me its special doctrine. Nevertheless, of the personality of the Founder they were willing to speak, and Ishall here set down the story of his life as I learnt it at the firstfrom these simple enthusiasts. It may be that, as I write, my penunwittingly adds episodes or colors that sank into my mind afterwards, but to the best of my power I will set down here the story as it wastold me, and as it passed current then--nay, what say I?--as it passescurrent now in the Chassidic communities. 

III

Rabbi Eliezer, the Baal Shem's father, lived in Moldavia, and in hisyouth he was captured by the Tartars, but his wife escaped. He wastaken to a far country where no Jew lived, and was sold to a Prince. He soon found favor with his master by dint of faithful service, andwas made steward of his estates. But mindful of the God of Israel, hebegged the Prince to excuse him from work on Saturdays, which thePrince, without understanding, granted. Still the Rabbi was not happy. He prepared to take flight, but a vision appeared to him, bidding himtarry a while longer with the Tartars. Now it happened that the Princedesired some favor from the Viceroy's counsellor, so he gave the Rabbito the counsellor as a bribe. 

Rabbi Eliezer soon found favor with his new master. He was given aseparate chamber to live in, and was exempt from manual labor, savethat when the counsellor came home he had to go to meet him with avessel of water to wash his feet, according to the custom of thenobility. Hence Rabbi Eliezer had time to serve his God. 

It came to pass that the King had to go to war, so he sent for thecounsellor, but the counsellor was unable to give any advice to thepoint, and the King dismissed him in a rage. When the Rabbi went outto meet him with the vessel of water, he kicked it over wrathfully. Whereupon the Rabbi asked him why he was in such poor spirits. Thecounsellor remained dumb, but the Rabbi pressed him, and then heunbosomed himself. 

"I will pray to God, " said Rabbi Eliezer, "that the right plan ofcampaign may be revealed to me. "

When his prayer was answered he communicated the heavenly counsel tohis master, who hastened joyfully to the King. The King was equallyrejoiced at the plan. 

"Such counsel cannot come from a human being, " he said. "It must befrom the lips of a magician. "

"Nay, " said the counsellor; "it is my slave who has conceived theplan. "

The King forthwith made the slave an officer in his personal retinue. One day the monarch wished to capture a fort with his ships, but nightwas drawing in, and he said--

"It is too late. We shall remain here over night, and to-morrow weshall make our attack. "

But the Rabbi was told from Heaven that the fort was almostimpregnable in the daytime. "Send against it at once, " he advised theKing, "a ship full of prisoners condemned to death, and promise themtheir lives if they capture the fort, for they, having nothing tolose, are the only men for a forlorn hope. "

His advice was taken, and the desperadoes destroyed the fort. Then theKing saw that the Rabbi was a godly man, and on the death of hisViceroy he appointed him in his stead, and married him to the lateViceroy's daughter. 

But the Rabbi, remembering his marriage vows and his duty to the houseof Israel, made her his wife only in name. One day when they weresitting at table together, she asked him, "Why art thou so distanttowards me?"

"Swear, " he answered, "that thou wilt never tell a soul, and thoushalt hear the truth. "

On her promising, he told her that he was a Jew. Thereupon she senthim away secretly, and gave him gold and jewels, of which, however, he was robbed on his journey home. 

After he had returned to his joyful wife, who, though she had givenhim up for dead, had never ceased to mourn for him, an angel appearedunto him and said, "By reason of thy good deeds, and thy unshakenfidelity to the God of Israel throughout all thy sufferings andtemptations, thou shalt have a son who will be a light to enlightenthe eyes of all Israel. Therefore shall his name be Israel, for in himshall the words of scripture be fulfilled! 'Thou art my servantIsrael, in whom I will be glorified. '"

But the Rabbi and his wife grew older and older, and there was no sonborn unto them. But when they were a hundred years old, the womanconceived and bore a son, who was called Israel, and afterwards knownof men as the Master of the Name--the Baal Shem. And this was in themystic year 5459, whereof the properties of the figures are mostwonderful, inasmuch as the five which is the symbol of the Pentagon isthe Key of the whole, and comes also from subtracting the first twofrom the last two, and whereas the first multiplied by the third isthe square of five, so is the second multiplied by the fourth thesquare of six, and likewise the first added to the third is ten, whichis the number of the Commandments, and the second added to the fourthis thirteen, which is the number of the Creeds. And even according tothe Christians who count this year as 1700, it is the beginning of anew era. 

The child's mother died soon after he was weaned, and Rabbi Eliezerwas not long in following her to the grave. On his death-bed he tookthe child in his arms, and blessed him, saying, "Though I am deniedthe blessing of bringing thee up, always think of God and fear not, for he will ever be with thee. " So saying, he gave up the ghost. 

Now the people of Ukop in Bukowina, where the Master was born, thoughthey knew nothing of his glorious destiny, yet carefully tended himfor the sake of his honored father. They engaged for him a teacher ofthe Holy Law, but though in the beginnings he seemed to learn withrare ease, he often slipped away into the forest that bordered thevillage, and there his teacher would find him after a long search, sitting fearlessly in some leafy glade. His dislike for the customaryindoor studies became so marked that at last he was set down asstupid, and allowed to follow his own vagrant courses. No oneunderstood that the spirits of Heaven were his teachers. 

As he grew older, he was given a post as assistant to theschool-master, but his office was not to teach--how could such anignorant lad teach?--but to escort the children from their homes tothe synagogue and thence to the school. On the way he taught themsolemn hymns, which he had composed and which he sang with them, andthe sweet voices of the children reached Heaven. And God was aspleased with them as with the singing of the Levites in the Temple, and it was a pleasing time in Heaven. But Satan, fearing lest hispower on earth would thereby be lessened, disguised himself as awerwolf, which used to appear before the childish procession and putit to flight. The parents thereupon kept their children at home, andthe services of song were silenced. But Israel, recalling his father'sdying counsel, persuaded the parents to entrust the children to himonce more. Again the werwolf bounded upon the singing children, butIsrael routed him with his club. 

In his fourteenth year the supposed unlettered Israel was appointedcaretaker in the Beth-Hamidrash, where the scholars considered him theproverbial ignoramus who "spells Noah with seven mistakes. " He dozedabout the building all day and got a new reputation for laziness, butat night when the school-room was empty and the students asleep, Israel took down the Holy Books; and all the long night he pored overthe sacred words. Now it came to pass that, in a far-off city, acertain holy man, Rabbi Adam, who had in his possession celestialmanuscripts (which had only before him been revealed to Abraham ourFather, and to Joshua, the son of Nun) told his son on his death-bedthat he was unworthy to inherit them. But he was to go to the town ofUkop and deliver them to a certain man named Israel whom he would findthere, and who would instruct him, if he proved himself fit. After hisfather's death the son duly journeyed to Ukop and lodged with thetreasurer of the synagogue, who one day asked him the purpose of hisvisit. 

"I am in search of a wife, " said he. 

At once many were the suitors for his hand, and finally he agreed witha rich man to bestow it on his daughter. After the wedding he pursuedhis search for the heir to the manuscripts, and, on seeing thecaretaker of the Beth-Hamidrash, concluded he must be the man. Heinduced his father-in-law to have a compartment partitioned off in theschool, wherein he could study by himself, and to monopolize theservices of the caretaker to attend upon him. 

But when the student fell asleep, Israel began to study according tohis wont; and when _he_ fell asleep, his employer took one page of themystic manuscript and placed it near him. When Israel woke up and sawthe page he was greatly moved, and hid it. Next day the man againplaced a page near the sleeping Israel, who again hid it on awaking. Then was the man convinced that he had found the inheritor of thespiritual secrets, and he told him the whole story and offered all themanuscripts on condition Israel should become his teacher. Israelassented, on condition that he should outwardly remain his attendantas before, and that his celestial knowledge should not be bruitedabroad. The man now asked his father-in-law to give him a room outsidethe town, as his studies demanded still more solitude. He needed nonebut Israel to attend him. His father-in-law gave him all he asked for, rejoicing to have found so studious a son-in-law. As their secretstudies grew deeper, the pupil begged his master to call down theArchangel of the Law for him to study withal. But Rabbi Israeldissuaded him, saying the incantation was a very dangerous one, theslightest mistake might be fatal. After a time the man returned to therequest, and his master yielded. Both fasted from one week's end tothe other and purified themselves, and then went through all theceremony of summoning the Archangel of the Law, but at the crucialmoment of the invocation Rabbi Israel cried out, "We have made a slip. The Angel of Fire is coming instead. He will burn up the town. Run andtell the people to quit their dwellings and snatch up their mostprecious things. "

Thus did Rabbi Israel's pupil leap to consideration in the town, beingby many considered a man of miracles, and the saviour of their livesand treasures. But he still hankered after the Archangel of the Law, and again induced Rabbi Israel to invoke him. Again they purified andprepared themselves, but Rabbi Israel cried out--

"Alas! death has been decreed us, unless we remain awake all thisnight. "

They sat, mutually vigilant against sleep, but at last towards dawnthe fated man's eyelids closed, and he fell into that sleep from whichthere could be no waking. 

So the Baal Shem departed thence, and settled in a little town nearBrody, and became a teacher of children, in his love for the littleones. Small was his wage and scanty his fare, and the room in which helodged he could only afford because it was haunted. When the Baal Shementered to take possession, the landlord peeping timidly from thethreshold saw a giant Cossack leaning against the mantelpiece. But asthe new tenant advanced, the figure of the Cossack dwindled anddwindled, till at last the dwarf disappeared. 

Though Israel did not yet reveal himself, being engaged in wrestlingwith the divine mysteries, and having made oath in the upper spheresnot to use the power of the Name till he was forty years old savefour, and though outwardly he was clad in coarse garments and brokenboots, yet all his fellow-townsmen felt the purity and probity thatseemed to emanate from him. He was seen to perform ablutions faroftener than of custom; and in disputes men came to him as umpire, norwas even the losing party ever dissatisfied with his decision. Whenthere was no rain and the heathen population had gone in a sacredprocession, with the priests carrying their gods, all in vain, Israeltold the Rabbi to assemble the Jewish congregation in the synagoguefor a day of fasting and prayer. The heathen asked them why theservice lasted so long that day, and, being told, they laughedmockingly. "What! shall your God avail when we have carried ours invain?" But the rain fell that day. 

And so the fame of Israel grew and reached some people even in Brody. 

One day in that great centre of learning the learned Rabbi Abraham, having a difference with a man, was persuaded by the latter to make ajourney to Rabbi Israel for arbitration. When they appeared beforehim, the Baal Shem knew by divine light that Rabbi Abraham's daughterwould be his wife. However, he said nothing but delivered adequatejudgment, according to Maimonides. So delighted was the old Rabbi withthis stranger's learning that he said:

"I have a daughter who has been divorced. I should love to marry theeto her. "

"I desire naught better, " said the Baal Shem, "for I know her soul isnoble. But I must make it a condition that in the betrothal contractno learned titles are appended to my name. Let it be simply Israel theson of Eliezer. "

While returning to Brody, Rabbi Abraham died. Now his son, RabbiGershon, was the chief of the Judgment Counsel, and a scholar of greatrenown; and when he found among the papers of his dead father a deedof his sister's betrothal to a man devoid of all titles of learning hewas astonished and shocked. 

He called his sister to him: "Art thou aware thou art betrothedagain?" said he. 

"Nay, " she replied; "how so?"

"Our father--peace be upon him--hath betrothed thee to one Israel theson of Eliezer. "

"Is it so? Then I must needs marry him. "

"Marry him! But who is this Israel?"

"How should I know?"

"But he is a man of the earth. He hath not one single title of honor. "

"What our father did was right. "

"What?" persisted the outraged brother; "thou, my sister, of sorenowned a family, who couldst choose from the most learned young men, thou wouldst marry so far beneath thee. "

"So my father hath arranged. "

"Well, thank Heaven, thou wilt never discover who and where thisignoramus of an Israel is. "

"There is a date on the contract, " said his sister calmly; "at thestipulated time my husband will come and claim me. "

When the appointed wedding-day drew nigh, the Baal Shem intimated tothe people of his town that he was going to leave them. They beggedhim to remain with their children, and offered him a higher wage. Buthe refused and left the place. And when he came near to Brody, hedisguised himself as a peasant in a short jacket and white girdle. Andhe appeared at the door of the House of Judgment while Rabbi Gershonwas deciding a high matter. When the Judge caught sight of him, heimagined it was a poor man asking alms. But the peasant said he had asecret to reveal to him. The Judge took him into another room, whereIsrael showed him his copy of the betrothal contract. Rabbi Gershonwent home in alarm and told his sister that the claimant was come. "Whatever our father--peace be upon him--did was right, " she replied;"perchance pious children will be the offspring of this union. " RabbiGershon, still smarting under this dishonor to the family, reluctantlyfixed the wedding-day. Before the ceremony Israel sought a secretinterview with his bride, and revealed himself and his mission to her. 

"Many hardships shall we endure together, humble shall be ourdwelling, and by the sweat of our brow shall we earn our bread. Thouwho art the daughter of a great Rabbi, and reared in every luxury, hast thou courage to face this future with me?"

"I ask no better, " she replied. "I had faith in my father's judgment, and now am I rewarded. "

The Baal Shem's voice trembled with tenderness. "God bless thee, " hesaid. "Our sufferings shall be but for a time. "

After the wedding Rabbi Gershon wished to instruct his newbrother-in-law, who had, of course, taken up his abode in his house. But the Baal Shem feigned to be difficult of understanding, and atlength, in despair, the Judge went stormily to his sister and criedout: "See how we are shamed and disgraced through thy husband, whoargues ignorantly against our most renowned teachers. I cannot endurethe dishonor any longer. Look thou, sister mine, I give thee thealternative--either divorce this ignoramus or let me buy thee a horseand cart and send you both packing from the place. "

"We will go, " she said simply. 

They jogged along in their cart till they came far from Jews andremote even from men. And there in a lonely spot, on one of the spursof the Carpathian Mountains, honeycombed by caves and thick withtrees, the couple made their home. Here Israel gave himself up toprayer and contemplation. For his livelihood he dug lime in theravines, and his wife took it in the horse and cart, and sold it inthe nearest town, bringing back flour. When the Baal Shem was notfasting, which was rarely, he mixed this flour with water and earth, and baked it in the sun. That was his only fare. What else neededhe--he, whose greatest joy was to make holy ablutions in the mountainwaters, or to climb the summits of the mountains and to wander aboutwrapt in the thought of God? Once the robbers who lurked in the cavessaw him approaching a precipice, his ecstatic gaze heavenwards. Theyhalloed to him, but his ears were lent to the celestial harmonies. Then they held their breath, waiting for him to be dashed to pieces. But the opposite mountain came to him. And then the two mountainsseparated, re-uniting again for his return. After this the robbersrevered him as a holy man, and they, too, brought him their disputes. And the Baal Shem did not refuse the office, --"For, " said he, "evenamid the unjust, justice must rule. " But one of the gang whom he haddecided against sought to slay him as he slept. An invisible hand heldback the axe as it was raised to strike the fatal blow, and belaboredthe rogue soundly, till he fell prone, covered with blood. 

Thus passed seven years of labor and spiritual vision. And the BaalShem learned the language of birds and beasts and trees, and thehealing properties of herbs and simples; and he redeemed souls thathad been placed for their sins in frogs and toads and loathsomecreatures of the mountains. 

But at length Rabbi Gershon was sorry for his sister, and repented himof his harshness. He sought out the indomitable twain, and broughtthem back to Brody, and installed them in an apartment near him, andmade the Baal Shem his coachman. But his brother-in-law soon disgustedhim again, for, one day, when they were driving together, and RabbiGershon had fallen asleep, the Baal Shem, whose pure thoughts hadascended on high, let the vehicle tumble into a ditch. "This fellow isgood neither for heaven nor earth, " cried Rabbi Gershon. 

He again begged his sister to get a divorce, but she remainedsteadfast and silent. In desperation Rabbi Gershon asked a friend ofhis, Rabbi Mekatier, to take Israel to a mad woman, who told peopletheir good and bad qualities, and whose stigmatization, he thought, might have an effect upon his graceless brother-in-law. Theaudience-chamber of the possessed creature was crowded, and, as eachvisitor entered, a voice issued from her lips greeting them accordingto their qualities. As Rabbi Mekatier came in: "Welcome, holy and pureone, " she cried, and so to many others. The Baal Shem entered last. "Welcome, Rabbi Israel, " cried the voice; "thou deemest I fear thee, but I fear thee not. For I know of a surety that thou hast been swornin Heaven not to make use of the Name, not till thy thirty-sixthyear. "

"Of what speakest thou?" asked the people in bewilderment. 

Then the woman repeated what she had said, but the people understoodher not. And she went on repeating the words. At length Rabbi Israelrebuked her sharply. 

"Silence, or I will appoint a Council of Judgment who will empower meto drive thee out of this woman. I ask thee, therefore, to depart fromthis woman of thine own accord, and we will pray for thee. "

So the spirit promised to depart. 

Then the Baal Shem said: "Who art thou?"

"I cannot tell thee now, " replied the spirit. "It will disgrace mychildren who are in the room. If they depart, I will tell thee. "

Thereupon all the people departed in haste and spread the news thatIsrael could cast out devils. The respect for him grew, but RabbiGershon was incredulous, saying such things could only be done by ascholar; and, becoming again out of patience with this ignorantincubus upon his honorable house, he bought his sister a small inn ina village far away on the border of a forest. While his wife managedthe inn, the Baal Shem built himself a hut in the forest and retiredthere to study the Law day and night; only on the Sabbath did he goout, dressed in white, and many ablutions did he make, as becomes thepure and the holy. 

It was here that he reached his thirty-sixth year, but still he didnot reveal himself, for he had not meditated sufficiently nor foundout his first apostles. But in his forty-second year he began freelyto speak and to gather disciples, wandering about Podolia andWallachia, and teaching by discourse and parable, crossing streams byspreading his mantle upon the waters, and saving his disciples fromfreezing in the wintry frosts by touching the trees with hisfinger-tips, so that they burnt without being consumed. 

And now he was become the chief of a mighty sect, that ramifiedeverywhere, and the head of a school of prophets and wonder-workers towhom he had unveiled the secret of the Name. 

IV

So strange and marvellous a story, so full of minute detail, and forthe possible truth of which my Cabalistic studies had prepared me, roused in me again the ever-smouldering hope of becoming expert inthese traditional practices of our nation. Why should not I, likeother Rabbis, have the key of the worlds? Why should not I, too, fashion a fine fat calf on the Friday and eat it for my Sabbath meal?or create a soulless monster to wait upon me hand and foot? TheTalmudical subtleties had kept me long enough wandering in a blindmaze. I would go forth in search of light. I would gird up my loinsand take my staff in my hand and seek the fountain-head of wisdom, thegreat Master of the Name himself; I would fall at his feet and beseechhim to receive me among his pupils. 

Travelling was easy enough:--in every town a Beth-Hamidrash into whichthe wanderer would first make his way; in every town hospitableentertainers who would board and lodge a man of learning like myself, rejoicing at the honor. Even in the poorest villages I might countupon black bread and sheep's cheese and a bed of fir branches. Butwhen I came to make inquiries I found that the village in Volhynia, which Rabbi Baer had made his centre, was far nearer than the forestwhere the Master, remote and inaccessible, retired to meditate afterhis missionary wanderings; nay, that my footsteps must needs passthrough this Mizricz, the political stronghold of Chassidism. Thisdiscovery did not displease me, for I felt that thus I should reachthe Master better prepared. In my impatience I could scarcely wait forthe roads to become passable, and it was still the skirt of winterwhen, with a light heart and a wild hope, I set my face for the wildravines of Severia and the dreary steppes of the Ukraine. Very soon Icame into parts where the question of the Chassidim was alive andburning, and indeed into towns where it had a greater living interestthan the quarrel of the amulets. And in these regions the rumor of theBaal Shem began to thicken. There was not a village of log-houses butbuzzed with its own miracle. Everywhere did I hear of healings of thesick and driving out of demons and summoning of spirits, and the faceof the Master shining. 

Of these strange stories I will set down but two. The Master and hisretinue were riding on a journey, and came to a strange road. Hisdisciples did not know the way, and the party went astray and wanderedabout till Wednesday night, when they put up at an inn. In the morningthe host asked who they were. 

"I am a wandering preacher, " replied the Baal Shem. "And I wish to getto the capital before the Sabbath, for I have heard that the richestman in the town is marrying there on the Friday, and perchance I maypreach at the wedding. "

"That thou wilt never do, " said the innkeeper, "for the capital is aweek's journey. "

The Master smiled. "Our horses are good, " he said. 

The innkeeper shook his head: "Impossible, unless you fly through theair, " he said. But, presently remembering that he himself had to gosome leagues on the road to the capital, he begged permission to jointhe party, which was cheerfully given. 

The Master then retired to say his morning prayers, and gave ordersfor breakfast and dinner. 

"But why art thou delaying?" inquired the innkeeper. "How can youarrive for Sabbath?"

The Baal Shem did not, however, abate one jot of his prayers, and itwas not till eve that they set out. All through the night theytravelled, and in the morning the innkeeper found himself, to hisconfusion, not where he had reckoned to part with the others, but inthe environs of the capital. The Baal Shem took up his quarters in ahumble district, while the dazed innkeeper wandered about the streetsof the great city, undecided what to do. All at once he heard screamsand saw a commotion, and people began to run to and fro; and then hesaw men carrying a beautiful dead girl in bridal costume, and in themidst of them one, who by his Sabbath garments and his white shoes wasevidently the bridegroom, mazed and ghastly pale. He heard peopletelling one another that death had seized her as she stood under thecanopy, before the word could be said or the glass broken that shouldhave made her the wife of the richest man in the capital. Theinnkeeper ran towards them and he said--

"Do not despair. Last night I was hundreds of miles from here. I camehere with a great wonder-worker. Mayhap he will be able to help you. "The bridegroom went with him to seek out the Baal Shem at the far endof the town, and offered a vast sum for the restoration of hisbeloved. 

"Nay, keep thy money, " said the Master. And he fared back with thetwain to see the corpse, which had been laid in an apartment. 

As soon as he had looked upon the face of the bride he said: "Let agrave be dug; and let the washers prepare her for the tomb. And thenlet her be reclad in her marriage vestments. I will go to thegraveyard and await her coming. "

When her body was brought, he told the bearers to lay her in thegrave, earth to earth. The onlookers wept to see how, for once, thatshroud which every bride wore over her fur robe was become a fittingornament, and how the marvellous fairness of the dead face, crownedwith its myrtle garlands, gleamed through the bridal veil. The Masterplaced two stalwart men with their faces towards the grave, and badethem, the instant they noted any change in her face, take her out. Then he leaned upon his staff and gazed at the dead face. And thosewho were near said his face shone with a heavenly light of pity; buthis brow was wrinkled as though in grave deliberation. The momentspassed, but the Master remained as motionless as she in the grave. Andall the people stood around in awed suspense, scarce daring towhisper. Suddenly a slight flush appeared in the dead face. The BaalShem gave a signal, the two men lifted out the bride from the rawearth, and he cried: "Get on with the wedding, " and walked away. 

"Nay, come with us, " besought the weeping bridegroom, falling at hisfeet and kissing the hem of his garment. "Who but thou should performthe ceremony?"

So the throng swept back towards the synagogue with many rejoicingsand songs, and the extinguished torches were relighted, and the musicstruck up again, and the bride walked, escorted by her friends, seemingly unconscious that this was not the same joyous processionwhich had set out in the morning, or that she had already stood underthe canopy. But, when they were arrived in the synagogue courtyard, and the Baal Shem began the ceremony, then as she heard his voice, astrange light of recollection leapt into her face. She tore off herveil and cried, "This is the man that drew me out of the cold grave. "

"Be silent, " reprimanded the Master sternly, and proceeded with thewedding formulæ. At the wedding feast, the bride's friends asked herwhat she had seen and heard in the tomb. Whereupon she gave them theexplanation of the whole matter. The former wife of her richbridegroom was the bride's aunt, and when she fell ill and knew shewould die, she felt that he would assuredly marry this young girl--hisward, --who was brought up in his house. She became madly jealous, and, calling her husband to her death-bed, she made him take an oath not tomarry the girl. Nor would she trust him till he had sworn with hisright hand in hers and his left hand in the girl's. After the wife'sdeath neither of the parties to this oath kept faith, but wished tomarry the other. Wherefore as they stood under the canopy at themarriage celebration the dead wife, seen only of the bride, killedher. While she was lying in the grave, the Baal Shem was occupied inweighing the matter, both she and the jealous woman having to statetheir case; and he decided that the living were in the right, and hadonly given their promise to the dead wife by force and out ofcompassion. And so he exclaimed, "Get on with the wedding!" The memoryof this trial in the world of spirits had clean passed from her tillshe heard the Master's voice beginning to read the marriage service, when she cried out, and tore off her veil to see him plainly. 

The Baal Shem spent the Sabbath in the capital; and on Sunday he wasescorted out of the town with a great multitude doing him honor. Andafterwards it was found that all the sick people, whose names happenedto be scribbled by their relatives on the grave-stone which his robehad brushed, recovered. Nor could this be entirely owing to the meritsof him who lay below, pious man though he was. 

On the Tuesday night the Baal Shem and his disciples came to an inn, where he found the host sitting sadly in a room ablaze festally withcountless candles and crowded with little boys, rocking themselves toand fro with prayer. 

"Can we lodge here for the night?" asked the Baal Shem. 

"Nay, " answered the host dejectedly. 

"Why art thou sad? Perchance I can help thee, " said the Baal Shem. 

"To-night, as thou seest, is watch-night, " said the man; "forto-morrow my latest-born is to be circumcised. This is my fifth child, and all the others have died suddenly at midnight, although up to thenthere has been no sign of sickness. I know not why Lilith should havesuch a grudge against my progeny. But so it is, the devil's mother, she kills them every one, despite the many charms and talismans hunground my wife's bed. Every day since the birth, these children havecome to say the _Shemang_ and the ninety-first psalm. And to-night theelders are coming to watch and study all night. But I fear they willnot cheat Lilith of her prey. Therefore am I not in the humor to lodgestrangers. "

"Let the little ones go home; they are falling asleep, " said theMaster. "And let them tell their fathers to stay at home in theirbeds. My pupils and I will watch and pray. "

So said, so done. The Baal Shem told off two of his men to hold a sackopen at the cradle of the child, and he instructed the rest of hispupils to study holy law ceaselessly, and on no account to let theireyelids close, though he himself designed to sleep. Should anythingfall into the sack the two men were to close it forthwith and thenawaken him. With a final caution to his disciples not to fall asleep, the Master withdrew to his chamber. The hours drew on. Naught washeard save the droning of the students and the sough of the wind inthe forest. At midnight the flames of the candles wavered violently, though no breath of wind was felt within the hot room. But thewatchers shielding the flames with their hands strove to prevent thembeing extinguished. Nevertheless they all went out, and a weird gloomfell upon the room, the firelight throwing the students' shadowshorribly on the walls and ceiling. Their blood ran cold. But one, bolder than the rest, snatching a brand from the hearth, relit thecandles. As the last wick flamed again, a great black cat fell intothe sack. The two men immediately tied up the mouth of it and went torouse the Baal Shem. 

"Take two cudgels, " said he, "and thrash the sack as hard as you can. "

After they had given it a sound drubbing, he bade them unbind the sackand throw it into the street. And so the day dawned, and all was wellwith the child. That day they performed the ceremony of Initiationwith great rejoicing, and the Baal Shem was made godfather or_Sandek_. But before the feasting began, the father of the childbegged the Baal Shem to tarry, "for, " said he, "I must needs go firstto the lord of the soil and take him a gift of wine. For he is a crueltyrant, and will visit it upon me if I fail to pay him honor on thisjoyous occasion. "

"Go in peace, " said the Baal Shem. 

When the man arrived at the seigneur's house, the lackeys informed himthat their master was ill, but had left instructions that he was to betold when the gift was brought. The man waited, and the seigneurordered him to be admitted, and received him very affably, asking himhow business was, and if he had guests at his inn. 

"Ay, indeed, " answered the innkeeper; "there is staying with me a veryholy man who is from Poland, and he delivered my child from death. "

"Indeed!" said the seigneur, with interest, and the man thereupon toldhim the whole story. 

"Bring me this stranger, " commanded the seigneur; "I would speak withhim. "

The innkeeper went home very much perturbed. 

"Why so frightened an air?" the Baal Shem asked him. 

"The seigneur desires thee to go to him. I fear he will do thee amischief. I beseech thee, depart at once, and I will tell him thouhadst already gone. "

"I will go to him, " said the Baal Shem. 

He was ushered into the sick-room. As soon as the seigneur haddismissed his lackeys he sat up in bed, thus revealing black-and-bluemarks in his flesh, and sneered vengefully--

"Doubtless thou thinkest thyself very cunning to have caught meunawares. "

"Would I had come before thou hadst killed the other four, " repliedthe Baal Shem. 

"Ho! ho!" hissed the magician; "so thou feelest sure thou art agreater wizard than I. Well, I challenge thee to the test. "

"I have no desire to contend with thee, " replied the Baal Shem calmly;"I am no wizard. I have only the power of the Holy Name. "

"Bah! My witchcraft against thy Holy Name, " sneered the wizard. 

"The Name must be vindicated, " said the Baal Shem. "I accept thychallenge. This day a month I will assemble my pupils. Do thou and thybrethren gather together your attendant spirits. And thou shalt learnthat there is a God. "

In a month's time the Baal Shem with all his pupils met the wizardwith his fellows in an open field; and there, under the blue circle ofHeaven, the Baal Shem made two circles around himself and one inanother place around his pupils, enjoining them to keep their eyesfixed on his face, and, if they noticed any change in it, immediatelyto begin crying the Penitential Prayer. The arch-wizard also made acircle for himself and his fellow-wizards at the other end of thefield, and commenced his attack forthwith. He sent against the BaalShem swarms of animals, which swept towards the circle with clamorousfury. But when they came to the first circle, they vanished. Thenanother swarm took their place--and another--and then another--lions, tigers, leopards, wolves, griffins, unicorns, and unnameablecreatures, all dashing themselves into nothingness against the holycircle. Thus it went on all the long day, every instant seeing somenew bristling horde vomited and swallowed up again. 

Towards twilight the arch-magician launched upon the Baal Shem a herdof wild boars, spitting flames; and these at last passed beyond thefirst circle. Then the pupils saw a change come over the Baal Shem'sface, and they began to wail the Penitential Prayer. 

Still the boars sped on till they reached the second circle. Then theyvanished. Three times the wizard launched his boars, the flames oftheir jaws lighting up the gathering dusk, but going out like blowncandles at the second circle. Then said the wizard, "I have done myall. " He bowed his head. "Well, I know one glance of thine eyes willkill me. I bid life farewell. "

"Nay, look up, " said the Baal Shem; "had I wished to kill thee, thouwouldst long ago have been but a handful of ashes spread over thisfield. But I wish to show thee that there is a God above us. Come, lift up thine eyes to Heaven. "

The wizard raised his eyes towards the celestial circle, in which thefirst stars were beginning to twinkle. Then two thorns came and tookout his eyes. Till his death was he blind; but he saw that there was aGod in Heaven. 

V

Of Rabbi Baer I heard on my way nothing but eulogies, and his miracleswere second only to those of his Master. He was a great man in Israel, a scholar profound as few. Even the enemies of the Chassidim--and theywere many and envenomed--admitted his learning, and complained thathis defection to the sect had greatly strengthened and drawn gravedisciples to this ignorant movement. For, according to them, the BaalShem was as unlettered as he gave himself out to be, nor did theycredit the story of his followers that all his apparent ignorance wasdue to his celestial oath not to reveal himself till his thirty-sixthyear. As for the followers, they were esteemed simply a set of lewd, dancing fanatics; and, of a truth, a prayer-service I succeeded inwitnessing in one town considerably chilled my hopes. For theworshippers shouted, beat their breasts, struck their heads againstthe wall, tugged at their ear-curls, leaped aloft with wild yells andeven foamed at the mouth, nor could I see any sublime idea behindthese maniacal manifestations. They had their own special Zaddik(Saint) here, whom they vaunted as even greater than Baer. 

"He talks with angels, " one told me. 

"How know you that?" I said sceptically. 

"He himself admits it. "

"But suppose he lies!"

"What! A man who talks with angels be capable of a lie!"

I did not pause to point out to him that this reasoning violated evenTalmudical logic, for I feared if I received the doctrine from suchmouths I should lose all my enthusiasm ere reaching the fountain-head, and hereafter in my journeyings I avoided hunting out the members ofthe sect, even as I strove to dismiss from my mind the maliciousinuendoes and denunciations of their opponents, who said it was notwithout reason this sect had arisen in a country where only the eldestson in a Jewish family was allowed by the State to marry. I would keepmy mind clear and free from prepossessions on either side. And thus atlast, after many weary days and adventures which it boots not torecall here, such as the proposals of marriage made to me by some ofmy hosts--and they householders in Israel, albeit unillumined--Iarrived at the goal of the first stage of my journey, the village ofMizricz. 

I scarcely stayed to refresh myself after my journey, but hastenedimmediately to Rabbi Baer's house, which rose regal and lofty on awooded eminence overlooking the river as it foamed through themountain gullies on its way to the Dnieper. I crossed the broadpine-bridge without a second glance at the rushing water, but to myacute disappointment when I reached the great house I was notadmitted. I was told that the Saint could not be seen of mortal eyetill the Sabbath, being, I gathered, in a mystic transport. It wasthen Wednesday. Mine was not the only disappointment, for the door wasbesieged by a curious rabble of pilgrims of both sexes, some come fromvery far, some on foot and in rags, some in well-appointed equipages. One of the latter--a beautiful, richly dressed woman--by no means tookher exclusion with good grace, bidding her coachman knock again andagain at the door, and endeavoring to bribe the door-keeper withgrocery, wine, and finally gold; but all in vain. I entered intoconversation with members of the crowd, and discovered that some camefor cures, and some for charms, and some for divine interpositions intheir worldly affairs. One man, I found, desired that the price ofwheat might go up, and another that it might fall. Another desired ahusband for his elderly daughter, already nineteen. And an old couplewere in great distress at the robbery of their jewels, and were surethe Saint would discover the thief and recover the booty. I found butone, who, like me, came from a consuming desire to hear new doctrinefor the soul. And so I was to have the advantage of them, I learnt, not without chuckling; for whereas I should receive my wish on theSabbath, being invited to attend "the Supper of the Holy Queen, " theseworldly matters could not be attended to till the Sunday. I whiledaway the intervening days as patiently as I could, exploring thebeautiful environs beyond the Saint's house, further than which nobodyever seemed to penetrate; and, indeed, it was but seldom that I hadheard of a Jew's making the blessing over lofty mountains or beautifultrees. Perhaps because our country was for the most part only a greatswamp. But often had I occasion in these walks to say, "Blessed artthou, O Lord our God, who hast such things in Thy world. " I scarcelyever saw a human creature, which somehow comforted and uplifted me. Only once were my meditations interrupted, and that by a shout whichstartled me, and just enabled me to get out of the way of an elegant, glittering carriage drawn by two white horses, in which astout-looking man lolled luxuriously, smoking a hookah. My prayerfulmood was broken, and I fell upon worldly thoughts of riches and ease. 

On Friday night I ate with an elder of the Chassidim, who heard of myinterest in his order, but whom I could not get to understand that Iwas come to examine, not to accept unquestioningly. I plied him withquestions as to the ideas of his sect, but he for his part could makenothing clear to me except the doctrine of self-annihilation inprayer, by which the devout worshipper was absorbed into the Godhead;a doctrine from which flowed naturally the abrogation of stated hoursof prayer, since the mood of absorption could not be had at command. Sometimes, indeed, silence was the better prayer, and this was thetrue explanation of the Talmudical saying: "If speech is worth onepiece of silver, silence is worth two. " And this, likewise, was themeaning of the verse in 2 Kings ch. Iii. V. 15: "When the minstrelplayed, the spirit of God came upon him. " That is to say, when theminstrel became an instrument and uttered music, it was because thespirit of God played upon him. So long as a man is self-active, hecannot receive the Holy Ghost. 

The text in Kings seemed to me rather wrenched from its context in thefashion already nauseous to me in the orthodox schools, but as I hadnever in my life had such moments of grace as in my mountain-walks, Iexpressed so hearty an acquiescence in the doctrine itself--shockingto the orthodox mind trained in elaborate codification of thetime-limits of the dawn-prayer or the westering-service--that minehost was more persuaded than ever I meant to become a Chassid. 

"There is no rite, " said he reassuringly. "That you desire Perfectionsuffices to ensure your reception into our order. At the Supper of theHoly Queen you will not be asked as to your past life, or your sins, because your heart is to the Saint as an open scroll, as you willdiscover when you have the bliss to see him face to face, for thoughhe will address all the pilgrims in a body, yet you will findparticular references designed only for you. "

"But he has never heard of me before!"

"These things would be hard for one who preaches to his own glory. Buthe who lets the spirit play upon him is wiser than all the preachers. "

With beating heart I entered the Saint's house on the long-expectedSabbath. I was ushered, with many other men, into a dining-room, richly carpeted and tapestried, with a large oak table, laid for abouta score. A liveried attendant, treading with hushed footsteps, imparted to us his own awe, and, scarcely daring to whisper, weawaited the great man. At last he appeared, tall and majestic, in aflowing caftan of white satin, cut so as to reveal his bare breast. His shoes were white, and even the snuff-box he toyed with was equallyof the color of grace. As I caught my first glimpse of his face, Ifelt it was strangely familiar, but where or when I had seen it Icould not recall, and the thought of this haunted the back of my mindthroughout. 

"Peace be to you, " he said to each in turn. We breathed backrespectful response, and took our seats at the table. The same solemnsilence reigned during the meal, which was wound up by _Kuggol_(Sabbath-pudding). By this time the room was full of new-comers, whohad gradually dropped in for the levée, and who swarmed about thetable, anxious for the merest crumb of the pudding. And great was thebliss on the faces of those who succeeded in snatching a morsel, asthough it secured them Paradise. 

When this unseemly scramble was over, the Saint--who, leaning his browon his hands, had appeared not to notice these proceedings--struck upa solemn hymn-tune. Then he put his hands over his eyes, as if lost inan ecstasy; after which he suddenly began to call out our names, coupled with the places we came from, astonishing us all in turn. Eachguest, when thus cried, responded with a verse from the Scriptures. When it came to my turn, I was so taken aback by the Saint's knowledgeof me that I could not think of a verse. But at last, blushing andconfused, I fell back upon my name-verse, which began with my initialto help me to remember my name (for so I had been taught) when theangel should demand it of me in my tomb. To my astonishment the Saintthen began to deliver a discourse upon all these texts, so ingeniouslydovetailed that one would have sworn no better texts could have beenselected. "Verily have they spoken the truth of this man's learning, "I thought, with a glow. Nor did this marvellous oration fail to evincethat surprising knowledge of my past--even down to my dead wife--whichmine host had predicted. I left this wonder-worker's house exalted andedified, though all I remember now of the discourse was the novelinterpretation of the passage in the Mishna: "Let the honor of thyneighbor be as dear to thee as thine own. "

"Thine own, " said Baer, "means the honor thou doest to thyself; totake pleasure in the which were ridiculous. As little pleasure shouldthe wise man take in his neighbor's honor--that is, in the honor whichhis neighbor doeth him. " This seemed rather inconsistent with his ownpomp, and I only appreciated the sentiment months later. 

After this discourse was quite over, a member of the sect arrived. "Why so late?" he was asked. 

"My wife was confined, " he said shamefacedly. Facetiously uproariouscongratulations greeted him. 

"Boy or girl?" cried many voices. 

"Girl, " he said more shamefacedly. 

"A girl!" cried the Saint, in indignant accents. "You ought to bewhipped. "

Immediately the company with great glee set upon the unfortunate man, tumbled him over, and gave him an hilarious but hearty drubbing. Ilooked at the Saint in astonishment. His muscles were relaxed in agrin, and I had another flash of elusive recollection of his face. Butere I could fix it, he stopped the horse-play. 

"Come, brethren, " he said, "let us serve the Lord with gladness, " andhe trolled forth a jocund hymn. 

On the next day, with mingled feelings, I again sought the Zaddik'sdoorway, through which was pouring the stream of those who had waitedso long; but access to the holy man was still not easy. In the spaciousantechamber sat the Saint's scribe, at a table round which the crowdclustered, each explaining his or her want, which the scribe scribbledupon a scrap of paper for them to take in to the Saint. I listened tothe instructions of the clamorous applicants. "I, Rachel, daughter ofHannah, wish to have children, " ran the request of the beautiful richwoman whose coachman had knocked so persistently; and her gratuity tothe scribe seemed to be of gold. I myself paid only a few kreutzer, andsimply desired--and was alone in desiring--"Perfection. " There wasanother money-receiving man at the Rabbi's door; but I followed in thegolden wake of the rich lady, and was just in time to witness theparting gratitude of the vociferous old couple to whom the Rabbi hadrestored their jewels. The Saint, with no signs of satisfaction at hismiraculous success, gravely dismissed the garrulous couple, and tookthe folded paper which the beautiful woman handed him, and which he didnot even open, placing it to his forehead and turning his eyesheavenwards. 

"You wish to have a child, " he said. 

The woman started. "O thou man of God!" she cried, falling at hisfeet. 

The Saint placed his hand reassuringly upon her hair. And at thismoment something in his expression at length unsealed my eyes, and Irecognized, with a pang of pain, the man who had driven past me in thatelegant equipage, lolling luxuriously and smoking his hookah. I was soperturbed that I fled unceremoniously from the audience-chamber. Perfection, indeed! Here was a teacher of humility who sat throned amidtapestries, a preacher of righteousness who, when he feigned to beabsorbed in God, was wallowing in his carriage! Yea, these Rabbis ofthe Chassidim were whitewashed sepulchres; and, as the orthodoxcommunities did not fail of such, it seemed a waste of energy to go outof the fold in search of more. All that I had heard against the sect onmy route swept back into my mind, and I divided its members into roguesand dupes. And in this bitter mood a dozen little threads flew togetherand knitted themselves into a web of wickedness. I told myself that thehamlet must be full of Baer's spies, and that my host himself hadcunningly extracted from me the facts of my history; and as for therestored jewels, I felt sure his own men had stolen them. I slung myknapsack across my shoulder and started for home. 

But I had not made many hundred yards when my mood softened. Iremembered the wonderful sermon, with its manipulation of texts RabbiBaer could not have foreseen, and bethought myself that he was indeeda Prince in Israel, and that King David and Solomon the Wise had notfailed to live in due magnificence. "And after all, " mused I, "'tisinnocent enough to drive by the river-side. Who knows but even thus ishis absorption in God accomplished? Do not they who smoke thistobacco aver that it soothes and purifies the soul?"

Besides, who but a fool, I reflected further, would slink back to hisstarting-point, his goal unvisited? I had seen the glory of thedisciple, let me gaze upon the glory of the Master, and upon thepurple splendors of his court. 

And so I struck out again for Miedziboz, though by a side-path, so asto avoid the village of Baer. 

VI

It was April ere I began to draw near my destination. The roads werestill muddy and marshy; but in that happy interval between the wintergray and the summer haze the breath of spring made the worldbeautiful. The Stri river sparkled, even the ruined castles lookedgay, while the pleasure-grounds of the lords of the soil filled theair with sweet scents. One day, as I was approaching a village up asomewhat steep road, a little gray-haired man driving a wagon holdingsome sacks of flour passed me, whistling cheerfully. We gave eachother the "Peace" salutation, knowing ourselves brother Jews, if onlyby our furred caps and ear-curls. Presently, in pity of his beast, Isaw him jump down and put his shoulder to the wheel; but he had notmade fifty paces when his horse slipped and fell. I hastened up tohelp him extricate the animal; and before we had succeeded in settingthe horse on his four feet again, the driver's cheeriness underdifficulties had made me feel quite friendly towards him. 

"Satan is evidently bent upon disturbing my Passover, " Said he, "forthis is the second time that I have tried to get my Passover flourhome. My good wife told me that we had nothing to eat for thefestival, so I felt I must give myself a counsel. Out I went with myslaughtering-knife into the villages on the north--no, don't bealarmed, not to kill the inhabitants, but to slaughter their Passoverpoultry. "

"You are a _Shochet_ (licensed killer), " said I. 

"Yes, " said he; "among other things. It would be an intolerableprofession, " he added reflectively, "were it not for the thought thatsince the poor birds have to be killed, they are better off in myhands. However, as I was saying, I killed enough poultry to buyPassover flour; but before I got it home the devil sent such a delugethat it was all spoilt. I took my knife again and went out into thesouthern villages, and now, here am I in another quandary. I only hopeI sha'nt have to kill my horse too. "

"No, I don't think he is damaged, " said I, as the event proved. 

When I had helped this good-natured little man and his horse to thetop of the hill, he invited me to jump into the cart if my way lay inhis direction. 

"I am in search of the Baal Shem, " I explained. 

"Indeed, " said he; "he is easily to be found. "

"What, do you know the Baal Shem?" I cried excitedly. 

He seemed amused at my agitation. His black eyes twinkled. "Why, everybody in these parts knows the Baal Shem, " said he. 

"How shall I find him, then?" I asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders. "You have but to step up into my cart. "

"May your strength increase!" I cried gratefully; "you are going inhis direction?"

He nodded his head. 

I climbed up the wheel and plumped myself down between twoflour-sacks. "Is it far?" I asked. 

He smiled. "Nay, if it was far I should scarcely have asked you up. "

Then we both fell silent. For my part, despite the jolting of thevehicle, the lift was grateful to my spent limbs, and the blue sky andthe rustling leaves and the near prospect of at last seeing the BaalShem contributed to lull me into a pleasant languor. But my torpor wasnot so deep as that into which my new friend appeared to fall, forthough as we approached a village another vehicle dashed towards us, my shouts and the other driver's cries only roused him in time toescape losing a wheel. 

"You must have been thinking of a knotty point of Torah (Holy Law), "said I. 

"Knotty point, " said he, shuddering; "it is Satan who ties thoseknots. "

"Oho, " said I, "though a _Shochet_, you do not seem fond of rabbinicallearning. "

"Where there is much study, " he replied tersely, "there is littlepiety. "

At this moment, appositely enough, we passed by the villageBeth-Hamidrash, whence loud sounds of "pilpulistic" (wire-drawn)argument issued. The driver clapped his palms over his ears. 

"It is such disputants, " he cried with a grimace, "who delay theredemption of Israel from exile. "

"How so?" said I. 

"Satan induces these Rabbis, " said he, "to study only those portionsof our holy literature on which they can whet their ingenuity. Butfrom all writings which would promote piety and fear of God he keepsthem away. "

I was delighted and astonished to hear the _Shochet_ thus deliverhimself, but before I could express my acquiescence, his attention wasdiverted by a pretty maiden who came along driving a cow. 

"What a glorious creature!" said he, while his eyes shone. 

"Which?" said I laughingly. "The cow?"

"Both, " he retorted, looking back lingeringly. 

"I understand now what you mean by pious literature, " I saidmischievously: "the Song of Solomon. "

He turned on me with strange earnestness, as if not perceiving myirony. "Ay, indeed, " he cried; "but when the Rabbis do read it, theyturn it into a bloodless allegory, Jewish demons as they are! What isthe beauty of yonder maiden but an emanation from the divine? The morebeautiful the body, the more shiningly it leads us to the thought ofGod. "

I was much impressed with this odd fellow, whom I perceived to be anoriginal. 

"But that's very dangerous doctrine, " said I; "by parity of reasoningyou would make the lust of the flesh divine. "

"Everything is divine, " said he. 

"Then feasting would be as good for the soul as fasting. "

"Better, " said the driver curtly. 

I was disconcerted to find such Epicurean doctrines in a districtwhere, but for my experience of Baer, I should have expected to seethe ascetic influence of the Baal Shem predominant. "Then you're not afollower of the Baal Shem?" said I tentatively. 

"No, indeed, " said he, laughing. 

He had got me into such sympathy with him--for there was a curiousattraction about the man--that I felt somehow that, even if the BaalShem _were_ an ascetic, I should still gain nothing from him, and thatmy long journey would have been made in vain, the green pastures andthe living waters being still as far off as ever from my droughtysoul. 

We had now passed out of the village and into a thick pine-wood witha path scarcely broad enough for the cart. Of a sudden the silenceinto which we again fell was broken by piercing screams for "Help"coming from a copse on the right. Instantly the driver checked thehorse, jumped to the ground, and drew a long knife from his girdle. 

"'Tis useful to be a _Shochet_. " he said grimly, as he darted amongthe bushes. 

I followed in his footsteps and a strange sight burst upon us. Abeautiful woman was struggling with two saturnine-visaged men dressedas Rabbis in silken hose and mantles. One held her arms pinned to hersides, while the other was about to plunge a dagger into her heart. 

"Hold!" cried the _Shochet_. 

The would-be assassin fell back, a startled look on his narrowfanatical face. 

"Let the woman go!" said the driver sternly. 

In evident consternation the other obeyed. The woman fell forward, half-fainting, and the driver caught her. 

"Be not afraid, " he said. "And you, murderers, down at my feet andthank me that I have saved you your portion in the World-To-Come. "

"Nay, you have lost it to us, " said the one with the dagger. "For itwas the vengeance of Heaven we were about to execute. Know that thisis our sister, whom we have discovered to be a wanton creature, thatmust bring shame upon our learned house and into our God-fearing town. Whereupon we and her husband held a secret Beth-Din, and resolved, according to the spirit of our ancient Law, that this plague-spot mustbe cleansed out from Israel for the glory of the Name. "

"The glory of the Name!" repeated the driver, and his eyes flamed. "What know you of the glory of the Name?"

Both brothers winced before the passion of his words. They looked ateach other strangely and uneasily, but answered nothing. 

"How dare you call any Jewess a plague-spot?" went on the driver. "Isany sin great enough to separate us irredeemably from God, who is inall things? Pray for your sister if you will, but do not dare to sitin judgment upon a fellow-creature!"

The woman burst into loud sobs and fell at his feet. 

"They are right! they are right!" she cried. "I am a wicked creature. It were better to let me perish. "

The driver raised her tenderly. "Nay, in that instant you repented, "he said, "and one instant's repentance wins back God. Henceforward youshall live without sin. "

"What! you would restore her to Brody?" cried the elder brother--"tobring the wrath of Heaven upon so godly a town. Be you who you may, saint or devil, that is beyond your power. Her husband assuredly willnot take her back. With her family she cannot live. "

"Then she shall live with mine, " said the _Shochet_. "My daughterdwells in Brody. I will take her to her. Go your ways. "

They stood disconcerted. Presently the younger said: "How know weare not leaving her to greater shame?"

The old man's face grew terrible. 

"Go your ways, " he repeated. 

They slunk off, and I watched them get into a two-horsed carriage, which I now perceived on the other side of the copse. I ran forward togive an arm to the woman, who was again half-fainting. 

"Said I not, " said the old man musingly, "that even the worst sinnersare better than these Rabbis? So blind are they in the arrogance oftheir self-conceit, so darkened by their pride, that their verydevotion to the Law becomes a vehicle for their sin. "

We helped the woman gently into the cart. I climbed in, but the oldman began to walk with the horse, holding its bridle, and reversingits direction. 

"Aren't you jumping up?" I asked. 

"We are going up now, instead of down, " he said, smiling. "Brody sitshigh, in the seat of the scornful. "

A pang of shame traversed my breast. What! I was riding and this fineold fellow was walking! But ere I could offer to get down, a newthought increased my confusion. I, who was bent on finding the BaalShem, was now off on a side-adventure to Brody. And yet I was loath topart so soon with my new friend. And besides, I told myself, Brody waswell worth a visit. The reputation of its Talmudical schools wasspread over the kingdom, and although I shared the old man'srepugnance to them my curiosity was alert. And even on the Baal Shem'saccount I ought to go there. For I remembered now that his early lifehad had many associations with the town, and that it was his wife'sbirthplace. So I said, "How far is Brody?"

"Ten miles, " he said. 

"Ten miles!" I repeated in horror. 

"Ten miles, " he said musingly, "and ten years since I set foot inBrody. "

I jumped down. "'Tis I must walk, not you, " I said. 

"Nay, " said he good-humoredly. "I perceive neither of us can walk. Those sacks must play Jonah. Out with them. "

"No, " I said. 

"Yes, " he insisted, laughing. "Did I not say Satan was determined tospoil my Passover? The third time I shall have better luck perhaps. "

I protested against thus causing him so much loss, and offered to goand find the Baal Shem alone, but he rolled out the flour-bags, laughing, leaving one for the woman to lie against. 

"But your wife will be expecting them, " I remarked, as the cartproceeded with both of us in our seats. 

"She will be expecting me, too, " he said, smiling ruefully. "However, she has faith in God. Never yet have we lacked food. Surely He whofeedeth the ravens--" He broke off with a sudden thought, leapt down, and ran back. 

"What is it?" I said. 

I saw him draw out his knife again and slit open the sacks. "The birdsshall keep Passover, " he called out merrily. 

The woman was still sobbing as he climbed to his place, but hecomforted her with his genial and heterodox philosophy. 

"'Tis a device of Satan, " he said, "to drive us to despondency, so asto choke out the God-spark in us. Your sin is great, but your Fatherin Heaven awaits you, and will rejoice as a King rejoices over aprincess redeemed from captivity. Every soul is a whole Bible initself. Yours contains Sarah and Ruth as well as Jezebel and Michal. Hitherto you have developed the Jezebel in you; strive now to developthe Sarah. " With such bold consolations he soothed her, till themonotonous movement of the cart sent her into a blessed sleep. Then hetook out a pipe and, begging permission of me, lighted it. As thesmoke curled up his face became ecstatic. 

"I think, " he observed musingly, "that God is more pleased with thisincense of mine than with all the prayers of all the Rabbis. "

This shocked even me, fascinated though I was. Never had I met such aman in all Israel. I shook my head in half-serious reproof. "You are asinner, " I said. 

"Nay, is not smoking pleasurable? To enjoy aright aught in God'screation is to praise God. Even so, is not to pray the greatest of allpleasures?"

"To pray?" I repeated wonderingly. "Nay, methinks it is a heavy burdento get through our volumes of prayer. "

"A burden!" cried the old man. "A burden to enter into relation withGod, to be reabsorbed into the divine unity. Nay, 'tis a bliss as ofbridegroom with bride. Whoso does not feel this joy of union--thisdivine kiss--has not prayed. "

"Then have I never prayed, " I said. 

"Then 'tis you that are the sinner, " he retorted, laughing. 

His words struck me into a meditative silence. It was towards twilightwhen our oddly-encountered trio approached the great Talmudicalcentre. To my surprise a vast crowd seemed to be waiting at the gates. 

"It is for me, " said the woman hysterically, for she had now awakened. "My brothers have told the elders. They will kill you. O saveyourself. "

"Peace, peace, " said the old man, puffing his pipe. 

As we came near we heard the people shouting, and nearer still madeout the sounds. Was it? Yes, I could not be mistaken. "The Baal Shem!The Baal Shem!"

My heart beat violently. What a stroke of luck was this! "The BaalShem is there!" I cried exultantly. 

The woman grew worse. "The Baal Shem!" she shrieked. "He is a holyman. He will slay us with a glance. "

"Peace, my beautiful creature, " said the driver. "You are more likelyto slay him with a glance. "

This time his levity grated on me. I peered eagerly towards the gates, striving to make out the figure of the mighty Saint!

The dense mob swayed tumultuously. Some of the people ran towards ourcart. Our horse had to come to a stand-still. In a trice a dozen handshad unharnessed him, there was an instant of terrible confusion inwhich I felt that violence was indeed meditated, then I found our cartbeing drawn forward as in triumph by contesting hands, while in myears thundered from a thousand throats, "The Baal Shem! The BaalShem!" Suddenly I looked with an incredible suspicion at the old man, smoking imperturbably at my side. 

"'Tis indeed a change for Brody, " he said, with a laugh that was halfa sob. 

A faintness blotted out the whole strange scene--the town-gates, theeager faces, the gesticulating figures, the houses, the frightenedwoman at my side. 

It was the greatest surprise of my life. 

VII

A chaos of images clashed in my mind. I saw the mystic figure of themighty Master of the Name standing in the cemetery judging betwixt thesouls of the dead; I saw him in the upper world amid the angels; I sawhim serene in the centre of his magic circle, annihilating with hisglance the flaming hordes of demon boars; and even as the creaturesshattered themselves into nothingness against the circle, so mustthese sublime visions vanish before this genial old man. And yet mydisillusion was not all empty. There were still the cheers to exaltme, there was still my strange companion, to whose ideas I had alreadyvibrated, and whose face was now transfigured to my imagination, gaining much of what the visionary figure had lost. And, amid all thetumult of the moment, there sang in my breast the divine assurancethat here at last were the living waters, here the green pastures. "Master, " I cried frantically, as I seized his hand and kissed it. 

"My son, " he said tenderly. "Those murderers have evidently informedthe townspeople of my coming. "

"It is well, " said I, "I rejoice to witness your triumph over a townso rabbi-ridden. "

"Nay, speak not of _my_ triumph, " reproved the Master. "Thank God forthe change in _them_, if change there be. It should be indifferent toman whether he be praised or blamed, loved or hated, reputed to be thewisest of mankind or the greatest of fools. "

"They wish you to address them, Master, " I cried, as the cheerscontinued. He smiled. 

"Doubtless--a sermon full of hair-splitting exegesis and devil's webs. I pray you descend and see that my horse be not stolen. "

I sprang down with alacrity to obey this his first wish, and, scrambling on the animal, had again a view of the sea of faces, allturned towards the Baal Shem. From the excited talk of the crowd, Igathered that the Baal Shem had just performed one of his greatestmiracles. Two brothers had been journeying with their sister in thewoods, and had been attacked by robbers. They had been on the point ofdeath when the Baal Shem miraculously appeared, and by merelymentioning the Name, had caused the robbers to sink into the earthlike Korah. The sister being too terrified to return with herbrothers, the Baal Shem undertook to bring her to Brody himself in hisown celestial chariot, which, to those not initiated into the highermysteries, appeared like an ordinary cart. 

Meantime the Master had refilled his pipe. "Is that my old friendDavid, " he cried, addressing one with a cobbler's apron; "and how isbusiness?"

The cobbler, abashed by this unexpected honor, flushed and stammered:"God is good. "

"A sorry answer, David; God would be as good if he sent you a-begging. Ha, ha!" he went on cheerily, "I see Joseph the innkeeper has waxedmore like a barrel than ever. Peace be to you, Joseph! Have you learntto read yet? No! Then you are still the wisest man in the town. "

By this time some of the Rabbis and magnates in the forefront of thecrowd had begun to look sullen at being ignored, but even morepointedly than he ignored these pillars of the commonweal, did theBaal Shem ignore his public reception, continuing to exchangegreetings with humble old acquaintances, and finally begging the menbetween the shafts either to give place again to his horse or to drawhim to his daughter's house, whither he had undertaken to convey thewoman they saw (who all this time had sat as one in a dream). But onthe cries for a sermon persisting, he said:

"Friends, I cannot preach to you, more than my horse yonder. Everything preaches. Call nothing common or profane; by God's presenceall things are holy. See there are the first stars. Is it not aglorious world? Enjoy it; only fools and Rabbis speak of the world asvanity or emptiness. But just as a lover sees even in the jewels ofhis beloved only her own beauty, so in stars and waters must we seeonly God. " He fell a-puffing again at his pipe, but the expectantcrowd would not yet divide for his passage. "Ye fools, " he saidroughly, "you would make me as you have made the Law and the world, aplace for stopping at, when all things are but on the way to God. There was once a King, " he went on, "who built himself a gloriouspalace. The King was throned in the centre of what seemed a maze ofwinding corridors. In the entrance--halls was heaped much gold andsilver, and here the folk were content to stay, taking their fill ofpleasure. At last the vizier had compassion upon them and called outto them: 'All these treasures and all these walls and corridors do notin truth exist at all. They are magical illusions. Push forwardbravely and you shall find the King. '"

But as the crowd still raged about disappointed, pleading for amiracle, the Baal Shem whistled, and his horse flew towards him sosuddenly that I nearly fell off, and the crowd had to separate inhaste. A paralytic cripple dropped his crutch in a flurry and fella-running, quite cured. 

"A miracle! a miracle!" cried a hundred voices. "God be praised!"

The shout was taken up all down the street, and eager spectatorssurrounded the joyous cripple, interrogating him and feeling hislimbs. 

"You see, you see!" I heard them say to each other. "There iswitchcraft even in his horse!"

As the animal came towards the shafts the human drawers scatteredhastily. I hitched the wagon to and we drove through the throng thatbegged the Baal Shem's blessing. But he only waved them off smilingly. 

"Bless one another by your deeds, " he cried from time to time. "ThenAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob will bless you. " And so we came to theRing-Place, and through it, into the structure we sought--a talltwo-storied stone building. 

When we arrived at his daughter's house we found that she rented onlyan apartment, so that none of us but the woman could be lodged, thoughwe were entertained with food and wine. After supper, when the ironshutters were closed, the Baal Shem's daughter--a beautiful black-eyedgirl--danced with such fire and fervor that her crimson head-clothnearly dropped off, and I, being now in a cheerful mood, fell toenvying her husband, who for his part conversed blithely with therescued woman. In the middle of the gaiety the Baal Sham retired to acorner, observing he wished to say his _Mincha_ prayer, and bidding uscontinue our merriment and not regard him. 

"_Mincha!_" I ejaculated unthinkingly, "why, it is too late. "

"Would you give a child regulations when he may speak to his Father?"rebuked the Baal Shem. 

So I went on talking with his daughter, but of a sudden a smile curvedmy lips at the thought of how the foolish makers of legends hadfeigned his praying to be so fraught with occult operations that hewho looked at him might die. I turned and stole a glance at him. 

Then to my amaze, as I caught sight of his face, I realized for thefirst time that he was, indeed, as men called him, the Master ofDivine Secrets. There were on his brow great spots of perspiration, and, as if from agony, tears trickled down his cheeks, but his eyeswere upturned and glazed, and his face was as that of a dead manwithout soul, only it seemed to me that the nimbus of which men spokewas verily round his head. His form, too, which was grown rigid, appeared strangely taller. One hand grasped the corner of the dresser. I turned away my eyes quickly, fearing lest they should be smittenwith blindness. I know not how many minutes passed before I heard agreat sigh, and, turning, saw the Baal Shem's figure stirring andquivering, and in another moment he was facing me with a beamingsmile. "Well, my son, do you feel inclined for bed?"

His question recalled to me how much I had gone through that day, andthough I was in no hurry to leave this pleasant circle, yet I repliedhis wish was law to me. Whereupon he said, to my content, that hewould tarry yet another quarter of an hour. When we set out for theinn of Joseph where our horse and cart had preceded us, it was teno'clock, but there was still a crowd outside the house, many of thegreat iron doors adown the street were still open, and men and womenpressed forward to kiss the hem of the Master's garment. 

On our walk I begged him to tell me what he had seen during hisprayers. 

"I made a soul-ascension, " said he simply, "and saw more wonderfulthings than I have seen since I came to divine knowledge. Praise tothe Unity!"

"Can _I_ see such things?" said I breathlessly, as all I had learnt ofCabalah and all my futile attempts to work miracles came rushing backto me. 

"No--not you. "

I felt chilled, but he went on: "Not you--the _you_ must beobliterated. You must be reabsorbed in the Unity. "

"But how?"

"Concentrate your thought on God. Forget yourself. "

"I will try, dear Master, " said I. "But tell me what you saw. "

"What I saw and learnt up there it is impossible to communicate byword of mouth. "

But I entreated him sore, and ere we had parted for the night hedelivered himself as follows, speaking of these divine things inHebrew:--

"I may only relate what I witnessed when I descended to the lowerParadise. I saw there ever so many souls both of living and of deadpeople, known and unknown to me, without measure and number, comingand going from one world to the other, by means of the Pillar which isknown to those who know Grace. Great was the joy which the bodilybreath can neither narrate nor the bodily ear hear. Many very wickedpeople came back in repentance, and all their sins were forgiventhem, because this was a season of great Grace in Heaven. I wonderedindeed that so many were received. They all begged and entreated me tocome up with them to the higher regions, and on account of the greatrejoicing I saw amongst them I consented. Then I asked for my heavenlyteacher to go with me because the danger of ascending such upperworlds is great, where I have never been since I exist. I thusascended from grade to grade till I came into the Temple of theMessiah, in which the Messiah teaches Torah with all the Tanaim andthe Zaddikim and the Seven Shepherds; and there I saw a greatrejoicing. I did not know what this rejoicing meant. I thought atfirst that this rejoicing might perhaps be on account of my speedydeath. But they made known to me that I shall not die yet, becausethere is great rejoicing in Heaven when I make celestial unions belowby their holy teaching. But what the rejoicing meant, I still did notknow. I asked, 'When will the Master come?' I was answered: 'When thyteaching shall be known and revealed to the world, and thy springsshall spread abroad that which I have taught thee, and that which thouhast received here, and when all men will be able to make unions andascensions like thee. Then all the husks of worldly evil willdisappear, and it will be a time of Grace and Salvation. ' I wonderedvery much, and I felt great sorrow because the time was to be so longdelayed. Because when can this be? But in this my last ascent threewords that be mighty charms and three heavenly names I learnt. Theyare easy to learn and to explain. This cooled my mind. I believe thatthrough them people of my genius will reach soon my degree, but I haveno permission to reveal them. I have been praying at least forpermission to teach them to you, but I must keep to my oath. But thisI make known to you, and God will help you. Let your ways be directedtowards God, let them not turn away from Him. When you pray and study, in every word and utterance of your lips direct your mind tounification, because in every letter there are worlds and souls andDeity. The letters unify and become a word, and afterwards unify inthe Deity, wherefore try to have your soul absorbed in them, so thatall universes become unified, which causes an infinite joy andexaltation. If you understand the joy of bride and bridegroom a littleand in a material way, how much more ecstatic is the unification ofthis celestial sort! O the wondrous day when Evil shall at last beworked out of the universe, and God be at one with His creation. MayHe be your help!"

I sat a while in dazed wonder. 

"Dear Master, " said I at last, "you to whom are unveiled the secretsof all the universes, cannot you read _my_ future?"

"Yes, " he said. I looked at him breathlessly. "You will always befaithful to me, " he said slowly. 

My eyes filled with tears. I kissed his hand. 

"And you will marry my daughter. "

My heart beat: "Which?"

"She whom you have just seen. "

"But she is married, " I said, as the blood swirled deliciously in myveins. 

"Her husband will give her a bill of divorcement. "

"And what will become of him?"

"He will marry the woman we have saved. And she, too, will win manysouls. "

"But how know you?" I whispered, half incredulous. 

"So it is borne in upon me, " said the Baal Shem, smiling. 

And so indeed after many days it came to pass. And so ended this firststrange day with the beloved Master, whose light shines through theworlds. 

VIII

It is now many years since I first saw the Baal Shem, and as manysince I laid him in his grave, yet every word he spake to me istreasured up in my heart as gold, yea, as fine gold. But the hand ofage is heavy upon me, and lest I may not live to complete even thisbriefer story, I shall set down here but the rough impression of hisdoctrine left in my mind, hoping to devote a separate volume to theseconversations with my divine Master. And this is the more necessary, as I said, since every day the delusions and impostures of those whouse his name multiply and grow ranker. Even in his own day, theMaster's doctrine was already, as you will have seen, sufficientlydistorted by souls smaller than his own, and by the refraction ofdistance--for how should a true image of him pass from town to town, by forest and mountain, throughout all that vast empire? The Master'slife alone made clear to me what I had failed to gather from hisfollowers. Just as their delirious dancings and shrieks and spasmswere abortive attempts to produce his prayer-ecstasy, so in all thingsdid they but caricature him. But now that he is dead, and theseextravagances are no longer to be checked by his living example, somonstrous are the deeds wrought and the things taught in his name, that though the Chassidim he founded are become--despite everypersecution by the orthodox Jews, despite the scourging of theirbodies and the setting of them in the stocks, despite theexcommunication of our order and the closing of our synagogues, andthe burning of our books--a mighty sect throughout the length and thebreadth of Central Europe, yet have I little pleasure in them, littlejoy in the spread of the teaching to which I devoted my life. Andsometimes--now that my Master's face no longer shines consolinglyupon me, save in dream and memory--I dare to wonder if the world isbetter for his having lived. And indeed at times I find myselfsympathizing with our chief persecutor, the saintly and learned WilnaGaon. 

And first, since there are now, alas! followers of his who in theirperverted straining after simplicity of existence wander about nakedin the streets, and even attend to the wants of nature in public, letme testify that though the Master considered the body and all itsfunctions holy, yet did he give no countenance to such exaggerations;and though in his love for the sun and the water and bodily purity--tohim a celestial symbol--he often bathed in retired streams, yet was heever clad becomingly in public; and though he regarded not money, yetdid he, when necessary, strive to earn it by work, not lolling aboutsmoking and vaunting his Perfection, pretending to be meditating uponGod, while others span and toiled for him. 

For in his work too, my Master lived in the hourly presence of God;and of the patriarchs and the prophets, the great men of Israel, theTanaim and the Amoraim, and all who had sought to bring God's Kingdomupon earth, that God and Creation, Heaven and Earth, might be at one, and the Messiah might come and the divine peace fall upon all theworld. And when he prayed and wept for the sins of his people, hisspirit ascended to the celestial spheres and held converse with theholy ones, but this did not puff him up with vanity as it doth thosewho profess to-day to make soul-ascensions, an experience of which Ifor my own part, alas! have never yet been deemed worthy. For when hereturned to earth the Baal Shem conducted himself always like a simpleman who had never left his native hamlet, whereas these heavenlytravellers feign to despise this lower world, nay, some in theirconceit and arrogance lose their wits and give out that they havealready been translated and are no longer mortal. My Master did, indeed, hope to be translated in his lifetime like Elijah, for he oncesaid to me, weeping--'twas after we returned from his wife'sfuneral--"Now that my wife is dead I shall die too. Such a saint mighthave carried me with her to Heaven. She followed me unquestioninglyinto the woods, lived without society, summer and winter, endured painand labor for me, and but for her faith in me I should have achievednaught. " No man reverenced womankind more than the Master; in this, asin so much, his life became a model to mine, and his dear daughterprofited by the lesson her father had taught me. We err grievously indisesteeming our women: they should be our comrades not our slaves, and our soul-ascensions--to speak figuratively--should be made intheir loving companionship. 

My Master believed that the breath of God vivified the universe, renewing daily the work of creation, and that hence the world ofeveryday was as inspired as the Torah, the one throwing light on theother. The written Law must be interpreted in every age in accordancewith the ruling attribute of God--for God governs in every age by adifferent attribute, sometimes by His Love, sometimes by His Power, sometimes by His Beauty. "It is not the number of ordinances that weobey that brings us into union with God, " said the Master; "onecommandment fulfilled in and through love of Him is as effective asall. " But this did not mean that the other commandments were to bedisregarded, as some have deduced; nor that one commandment should bemade the centre of life, as has been done by others. For, though theZaddik, who gave his life to helping his neighbor's or his enemy's asslying under its burden, as enjoined in Exodus xxiii. 5, was notunworthy of admiration--indeed he was my own disciple, and desiredthus to commemorate the circumstances of my first meeting with theBaal Shem, --yet he who made it his speciality never to tell thesmallest falsehood was led into greater sin. For when his fame was sobruited that it reached even the Government officers, they, suspectingthe Jews of the town of smuggling, said they would withdraw the chargeif the Saint would declare his brethren innocent. Whereupon he prayedto God to save him from his dilemma by sending him death, and lo! whenthe men came to fetch him to the law-court, they found him dead. But atrue follower of the Master should have been willing to testify fortruth's sake even against his brethren, and in my humble judgment hisdeath was not a deliverance, but a punishment from on high. 

Had, moreover, the Saint practised the Humility--which my Master put asthe first of the three cardinal virtues--he would not have deemed it sofatal to tell a lie once; for who can doubt there was in him morespiritual pride in his own record than pure love of truth? And had hepractised the second of the three cardinal virtues--Cheerfulness--hewould have known that God can redeem a man even from the sin of lying. And had he practised the third--Enkindlement--he would never havenarrowed himself to one commandment, and that a negative one--not tolie. For where there is a living flame in the heart, it spreads to allthe members. 

"Service is its own reward, its own joy, " said the Baal Shem. "No manshould bend his mind on _not_ doing sin: his day should be too full ofjoyous service. " The Messianic Age would be, my Master taught, whenevery man did what was right and just of mere natural impulse, noteven remembering that he was doing right, still less being uplifted onthat account, for no man is proud because he walks or sleeps. Thenwould Righteousness be incarnate in the world, and the devil finallydefeated, and every man would be able to make celestial unions andsoul-ascensions. 

Many sufferings did the Baal Shem endure in the years that I was withhim. Penury and persecution were often his portion, and how his wife'sdeath wounded him I have already intimated. But it was the revival ofthe Sabbatian heresy by Jacob Frank that caused him the severestperturbation. This Frank, who was by turns a Turk, a Jew, and aCatholic, played the rôle of successor of Zevi, as Messiah, orderedhis followers to address him as the Holy Lord, and, later, paraded hisbeautiful daughter, Eve, as the female Godhead. Much of what mygrandfather had told me of the first Pretender was repeated, save thatas the first had made alliance with the Mohammedans, so the secondcoquetted with the Christians. Hence those public disputations, fostered by the Christians, in which the Frankists did battle with theTalmudists, and being accredited the victors, exulted in seeing thesacred books of the Rabbis confiscated. When a thousand copies of theTalmud were thrown into a great pit at Kammieniec, and burned by thehangman, the Baal Shem shed tears, and joined in the fast-day for theburning of the Torah. For despite his detestation of the devil'sknots, he held that the Talmud represented the oral law whichexpressed the continuous inspiration of the leaders of Israel, andthat to rely on the Bible alone was to worship the mummy of religion. Nor did he grieve less over the verbal tournament of the Talmudistsand Frankists in the Cathedral of Lemberg, when the Polish nobilityand burghers bought entrance tickets at high prices. "The devil, notGod, is served by religious disputations, " said the Master. And whenat last the Frankists were baptized in their thousands, and theirMessiah in pompous Turkish robes paraded the town in a chariot drawnby six horses, and surrounded by Turkish guards, the Baal Shem wasmore pleased than grieved at this ending. When these Jewish Catholics, however, came to grief, and, on the incarceration of Frank by thePolish Inquisition, were reduced to asking alms at church-doors, theBaal Shem was alone in refusing to taunt them for still gazinglongingly towards "the gate of Rome, " as they mystically called theconvent of Czenstochow, in which Frank lay imprisoned. And when theirenemies said they had met with their desert, the Baal Shem said:"There is no sphere in Heaven where the soul remains a shorter timethan in the sphere of merit, there is none where it abides longer thanin the sphere of love. " Much also in these troublous times did theBaal Shem suffer from his sympathy with the sufferings of Poland, inits fratricidal war, when the Cossacks hung up together a nobleman, aJew, a monk, and a dog, with the inscription: "All are equal. "Although these Cossacks, and later on the Turks, who, in the guise offriends of Poland, turned the Southern provinces into deserts, ratherhelped than hindered the cause of his followers by diverting theirpersecutors, the Baal Shem palpitated with pity for all--dogs, monks, noblemen, and Jews. But, howsoever he suffered, the serene cheerfulfaith on which these were but dark shadows, never ceased altogether toshine in his face. Even on his death-bed his three cardinal virtueswere not absent. For no man could face the Angel of Death morecheerfully, or anticipate more glowingly the absorption into theDivine, and as for Humility, "O Vanity! vanity!" were his dying words;"even in this hour of death thou darest approach me with thytemptations. 'Bethink thee, Israel, what a grand funeral processionwill be thine because thou hast been so wise and good, ' O Vanity, vanity, beshrew thee. "

Now although I was his son-in-law, and was with him in this lasthour, it is known of all men that not I, but Rabbi Baer, was appointedby him to be his successor. For although my acquaintance with the BaalShem did not tend to increase my admiration for his chief disciple, Inever expressed my full mind on the subject to the Master, for he hadearly enjoined on me that the obverse side of the virtue of Humilityis to think highly of one's fellow-man. "He who loves the Father, God, will also love the children. "

But, inasmuch as he abhorred profitless learning, and all study forstudy's sake that does not lead to the infinite light, I did ventureto ask him why he had allowed Baer, the Scholar, to go about as hislieutenant and found communities in his name. 

"Because, " he said with beautiful simplicity, "I saw that I had sinnedin making ignorance synonymous with virtue. There are good men evenamong the learned--men whose hearts are uncorrupted by their brains. Baer was such a one, and since he had great repute among the learned Isaw that the learned who would not listen to a simple man would listento him. "

Now, before I say aught else on this point, let this saying of theMaster serve to rebuke his graceless followers who despise the learnedwhile they themselves have not even holiness, and who boast of theirignorance as though it guaranteed illumination; but as to Rabbi Baer Iwill boldly say that it would have been better for the world and theBaal Shem's teachings had I been appointed to hand them down. For Baermade of the Master's living impulse a code and a creed which grewrigid and dead. And he organized his followers by externalsigns--noisy praying, ablutions, white Sabbath robes, and so forth--sothat the spirit died and the symbols remained, and now of the tens ofthousands who call themselves Chassidim and pray the prayers andperform the ceremonies and wear the robes, there are not ten thathave the faintest notion of the Master's teaching. For spirit isvolatile and flies away, but symbol is solid and is handed downreligiously from generation to generation. But the greatest abuse hascome from the doctrine of the Zaddik. Perhaps the logic of Baer issound, that if God, as the Master taught, is in all things, then isthere so much of Him in certain chosen men that they are themselvesdivine. I do not doubt that the Master himself was akin to divinity, for though he did not profess to perform miracles, pretending thatsuch healing as he wrought was by virtue of his knowledge of herbs andsimples, and saying jestingly that the Angel of Healing goes with thegood physician, nor ever admitting to me that he had done battle withdemons and magicians save figuratively; yet was there in him a strangepower, which is not given to men, of soothing and redeeming by hismere touch, so that, laid upon the brow--as I can personallytestify--his hands would cure headache and drive out ill-humors. And Iwill even believe that there was of this divinity in Rabbi Baer. Butwhereas the Baal Shem veiled his divinity in his manhood, Baer stroveto veil his manhood in his divinity, and to eke out his power by artsand policies, the better to influence men and govern them, and gain oftheir gold for his further operations. Yet the lesson of his historyto me is, that if Truth is not great enough to prevail alone, sheshall not prevail by aid of cunning. For finally there will come menwho will manifest the cunning without the Truth. So at least it hasbeen here. First the Baal Shem, the pure Zaddik, then Rabbi Baer, theworldly Zaddik, and then a host of Zaddikim, many of them having onlythe outward show of Sainthood. For since our otherwise great sect issplit up into a thousand little sects, each boasting its ownZaddik--superior to all the others, the only true Intermediarybetween God and Man, the sole source of blessing and fount ofGrace--and each lodging him in a palace (to which they makepilgrimages at the Festivals as of yore to the Temple) and paying himtribute of gold and treasure; it is palpable that these sorry Saintshave themselves brought about these divisions for their greater gloryand profit. And I weep the more over this spoliation of my Chassidim, because there is so much perverted goodness among them, so muchself-sacrifice for one another in distress, and such faithfulobedience to the Zaddik, who everywhere monopolizes the service andthe worship which should be given to God. Alas! that a movement whichbegan with such pure aspiration, which was to the souls of me and somany other young students as the shadow of a great rock in a wearyland, that a doctrine which opened out to young Israel such spiritualvistas and transcendent splendors of the Godhead, should end in suchdelusions and distortions. 

Woe is me! Is it always to be thus with Israel? Are we to struggle outof one slough only to sink into another? But these doubts dishonor theMaster. Let me be humbler in judging others, cheerfuller in lookingout upon the future, more enkindling towards the young men who aregrowing up around me, and who may yet pass on the torch of the Master. For them let me recall the many souls he touched to purer flame; letme tell them of those who gave up posts and dignities to spread hisgospel and endured hunger and scorn. And let me not forget to mentionRabbi Lemuel, the lover of justice, who once when his wife set out forthe Judgment House in a cause against her maidservant set out with hertoo. 

"I need you not to speak for me, " she said, in ill-humor; "I can pleadmy own cause. "

"Nay, it is not for thee I go to speak, " he answered mildly; "it isthe cause of thy servant I go to plead--she who hath none to defendher. " And, bursting into tears, he repeated the verse of Job: "If Idid despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when theycontended with me, what shall I do when God riseth up?"

These and many such things, both of learned men and of simple, I hopeyet to chronicle for the youths of Israel. But above all let thememory of the Master himself be to them a melody and a blessing: hewhose life taught me to understand that the greatest man is not he whodwells in the purple, amid palaces and courtiers, hedged and guarded, and magnified by illusive pomp, but he who, talking cheerfully withhis fellows in the market-place, humble as though he wereunworshipped, and poor as though he were unregarded, is divinelyenkindled, so that a light shines from him whereby men recognize thevisible presence of God. 

MAIMON THE FOOL AND NATHAN THE WISE

I

Happy burghers of Berlin in their Sunday best trooped through theRosenthaler gate in the cool of the August evening for their customarystroll in the environs: few escaped noticing the recumbent raggedfigure of a young man, with a long dirty beard, wailing and writhinguncouthly just outside the gate: fewer inquired what ailed him. 

He answered in a strange mixture of jargons, blurring his meaninghopelessly with scraps of Hebrew, of Jewish-German, of Polish, ofRussian and mis-punctuating it with choking sobs and gasps. One goodsoul after another turned away helpless. The stout roll of Hebrewmanuscript the swarthy, unkempt creature clutched in his hand grewgrimier with tears. The soldiers on guard surveyed him withprofessional callousness. 

Only the heart of the writhing wretch knew its own bitterness, onlythose tear-blinded eyes saw the pitiful panorama of a penurious Jew'sstruggle for Culture. For, nursed in a narrow creed, he had dreamt thedream of Knowledge. To know--to know--was the passion that consumedhim: to understand the meaning of life and the causes of things. 

He saw himself a child again in Poland, in days of comparativeaffluence, clad in his little damask suit, shocking his father with aquestion at the very first verse of the Bible, which they began toread together when he was six years old, and which held many a box onthe ear in store for his ingenuous intellect. He remembered his earlyefforts to imitate with chalk or charcoal the woodcuts of birds orfoliage happily discovered on the title-pages of dry-as-dust Hebrewbooks; how he used to steal into the unoccupied, unfurnishedmanor-house and copy the figures on the tapestries, standing inmidwinter, half-frozen, the paper in one hand, the pencil in theother; and how, when these artistic enthusiasms were sternly ifadmiringly checked by a father intent on siring a Rabbi, he relievedthe dreary dialectics of the Talmud--so tedious to a childuninterested in divorce laws or the number of white hairs permissiblein a red cow--by surreptitious nocturnal perusal of a precious storeof Hebrew scientific and historical works discovered in an oldcupboard in his father's study. To this chamber, which had also servedas the bedroom in which the child slept with his grandmother, theyoung man's thoughts returned with wistful bitterness, and at theimage of the innocent little figure poring over the musty volumes bythe flickering firelight in the silence of the night, the mass of ragsheaved yet more convulsively. How he had enjoyed putting on fresh woodafter his grandmother had gone to bed, and grappling with theastronomical treatise, ignoring the grumblings of the poor old ladywho lay a-cold for want of him. Ah, the lonely little boy was, indeed, in Heaven, treading the celestial circles--and by stealth, which madeit all the sweeter. But that armillary sphere he had so ably made forhimself out of twisted rods had undone him: his grandmother, terrifiedby the child's interest in these mystic convolutions, had betrayedthe magical instrument to his father. Other episodes of the longpursuit of Knowledge--not to be impeded even by flogging pedagogues, diverted but slightly by marriage at the age of eleven, --crossed hismind. What ineffable rapture the first reading of Maimonides hadexcited, _The Guide of the Perplexed_ supplying the truly perplexedyouth with reasons for the Jewish fervor which informed him. How hehad reverenced the great mediæval thinker, regarding him as the idealof men, the most inspired of teachers. Had he not changed his own nameto Maimon to pattern himself after his Master, was not even now hisoath under temptation: "I swear by the reverence which I owe my greatteacher, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, not to do this act?"

But even Maimonides had not been able to allay his thirst. Maimonideswas an Aristotelian, and the youth would fain drink at thefountain-head. He tramped a hundred and fifty miles to see an oldHebrew book on the Peripatetic philosophy. But Hebrew was not enough;the vast realm of Knowledge, which he divined dimly, must lie in otherlanguages. But to learn any other language was pollution to a Jew, toteach a Jew any other was pollution to a Christian. 

In his facile comprehension of German and Latin books, he had longsince forgotten his first painful steps: now in his agony theyrecurred to mock him. He had learnt these alien alphabets by observingin some bulky Hebrew books that when the printers had used up theletters of the Hebrew alphabet to mark their sheets, they startedother and foreign alphabets. How he had rejoiced to find that by helpof his Jewish jargon he could worry out the meaning of some tornleaves of an old German book picked up by chance. 

The picture of the innkeeper's hut, in which he had once beenfamily-tutor, flew up irrelevantly into his mind--he saw himselfexpounding a tattered Pentateuch to a half-naked brood behind thestove, in a smoky room full of peasants sitting on the floor guzzlingwhisky, or pervaded by drunken Russian soldiery hacking the bedsteadsor throwing the glasses in the faces of the innkeeper and his wife. Poor Polish Jews, cursed by poverty and tyranny! Who could be blamedfor consoling himself with liquor in such a home? Besides, when onewas paid only five thalers, one owed it to oneself not to refuse adram or so. And then there came up another one-room home in which ayouth with his eyes and hair had sat all night poring over Cabalisticbooks, much to the inconvenience of the newly married Rabbi, who hadconsented to teach him this secret doctrine. For this had been hisCabalistic phase, when he dreamed of conjurations and spells and theMastership of the Name. A sardonic smile twitched the corners of hislips, as he remembered how the poor Rabbi and his pretty wife, afterfruitless hints, had lent him the precious tomes to be rid of hispersistent all-night sittings, and the smile lingered an instantlonger as he recalled his own futile attempts to coerce thesupernatural, either by the incantations of the Cabalists or theprayer-ecstasy he had learnt later from the Chassidim. 

Yes, he had early discovered that all this Cabalistic mysticism wasonly an attempt at a scientific explanation of existence, veiled infable and allegory. But the more reasonable he pronounced the Cabalahto be, the more he had irritated the local Cabalists who refused tohave their "divine science" reduced to "reason. " And so, disillusioned, he had rebounded to "human study, " setting off on apilgrimage in the depth of winter to borrow out-of-date books onoptics and physics, and making more enemies by his obtrusive knowledgeof how dew came and how lightning. It was not till--on the strengthof a volume of Anatomical tables and a Medical dictionary--heundertook cures, that he had discovered the depths of his ownignorance, achieving only the cure of his own conceit. And it was thenthat Germany had begun to loom before his vision--a great, wonderfulcountry where Truth dwelt, and Judaism was freer, grander. Yes, hewould go to Germany and study medicine and escape this asphyxiatingatmosphere. 

His sobs, which had gradually subsided, revived at the thought of thatterrible journey. First, the passage to Königsberg, accorded him by apious merchant: then the voyage to Stettin, paid for by those youngJewish students who, beginning by laughing at his ludicrous accent inreading Herr Mendelssohn's _Phœdon_--the literary sensation of thehour that had dumfoundered the Voltaireans--had been thunderstruck byhis instantaneous translation of it into elegant Hebrew, and hadunanimously advised him to make his way to Berlin. Ah, but what avoyage! Contrary winds that protracted the journey to five weeksinstead of two, the only other passenger an old woman who comfortedherself by singing hymns, his own dialect and the Pomeranian German ofthe crew mutually unintelligible, his bed some hard stuffed bags, never anything warm to eat, and sea-sickness most of the time. Andthen, when set down safely on shore, without a pfennig or even a soundpocket to hold one, he had started to walk to Frankfort, oh, thewretched feeling of hopelessness that had made him cast himself downunder a lime-tree in a passion of tears! Why had he resumed hope, whyhad he struggled on his way to Berlin, since this fate awaited him, this reception was to be meted him? To be refused admission as a rogueand a vagabond, to be rejected of his fellow-Jews, to be hustled outof his dream-city by the overseer of the Jewish gate-house!

Woe! Woe! Was this to be the end of his long aspiration? A week ago hehad been so happy. After parting with his last possession, an ironspoon, for a glass of sour beer, he had come to a town where hisRabbinical diploma--to achieve that had been child's play tohim--procured him the full honors of the position, despite his rags. The first seat in the synagogue had been given the tramp, and thewealthy president had invited him to his Sabbath dinner and placed himbetween himself and his daughter, a pretty virgin of twelve, beautifully dressed. Through his wine-glass the future had lookedrosy, and his learned eloquence glowed responsively, but he had notbeen too drunk to miss the wry faces the girl began to make, nor to besuddenly struck dumb with shame as he realised the cause. Lying on thestraw of inn-stables in garments one has not changed for seven weeksdoes not commend even a Rabbi to a dainty maiden. The spell of goodluck was broken, and since then the learned tramp had known nothingbut humiliation and hunger. 

The throb of elation at the sight of the gate of Berlin had beenspeedily subdued by the discovery that he must bide in the poorhousethe Jews had built there till the elders had examined him. And therehe had herded all day long with the sick and cripples and a lewdrabble, till evening brought the elders and his doom--a point-blankrefusal to allow him to enter the city and study medicine. 

Why? Why? What had they against him? He asked himself the questionbetween his paroxysms. And suddenly, in the very midst of explaininghis hard case to a new passer-by, the answer came to him and stillfurther confused his explanations. Yes, it must have been that wolf inRabbi's clothing he had talked to that morning in the poorhouse! thered-bearded reverend who had lent so sympathetic an ear to the tale ofhis life in Poland, his journey hither; so sympathetic an eye to hiscommentary on the great Maimonides' _Guide of the Perplexed_. The vilespy, the base informer! He had told the zealots of the town of thenew-comer's heretical mode of thinking. They had shut him out, as oneshuts out the plague. 

So this was the free atmosphere, the grander Judaism he had yearnedfor. The town which boasted of the far-famed Moses Mendelssohn, of theparagon of wisdom and tolerance, was as petty as the Rabbi-riddenvillages whose dust he had shaken off. A fierce anger against the Jewsand this Mendelssohn shook him. This then was all he had gained byleaving his wife and children that he might follow only after Truth!

Perhaps herein lay his punishment. But no! He was not to blame forbeing saddled with a family. Marriage at eleven could by no stretch ofsophism be called a voluntary act. He recalled the long, sordid, sensational matrimonial comedy of which he had been the victim; thekeen competition of the parents of daughters for the hand of sorenowned an infant prodigy, who could talk theology as crookedly as agraybeard. His own boyish liking for Pessel, the rich rent-farmer'sdaughter, had been rudely set aside when her sister fell down a cellarand broke her leg. Solomon must marry the damaged daughter, therent-farmer had insisted to the learned boy's father, who had repliedas pertinaciously, "No, I want the straight-legged sister. "

The poor young man writhed afresh at the thought of his father'sobstinacy. True, Rachael had a hobble in her leg, but as he haddiscovered years later when a humble tutor in her family, she was anamiable creature, and as her father had offered to make him joint heirto his vast fortune, he would have been settled for life, wallowing inluxury and learning. But no! his father was bent upon having Pessel, and so he, Solomon, had been beggared by his father's fastidiousobjection to a dislocated bone. 

Alas, how misfortune had dogged him! There was that wealthy scholar ofSchmilowitz who fell in love with his fame, and proposed for him byletter without ever having seen him. What a lofty epistle his fatherhad written in reply, a pastiche of Biblical verses and Talmudicalpassages, the condition of consent neatly quoted from "The Song ofSolomon, " "Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand pieces of silver, andthose that keep the fruit thereof two hundred!" A dowry of a thousandguldens for the boy, and two hundred for the father! The terms of theCanticles had been accepted, his father had journeyed to Schmilowitz, seen his daughter-in-law, and drawn up the marriage-contract. The twohundred guldens for himself had been paid him on the nail, and he hadeven insisted on having four hundred. 

In vain, "Here is your letter, " the scholar had protested, "you onlyasked for two hundred. "

"True, " he had replied; "but that was only not to spoil the beautifulquotation. "

How joyously he had returned home with the four hundred guldens forhimself, the wedding-presents for his little Solomon--a cap of blackvelvet trimmed with gold lace, a Bible bound in green velvet withsilver clasps, and the like. 

The heart-broken tramp saw the innocent boy that had once been he, furtively strutting about in his velvet cap, rehearsing thetheological disputation he was to hold at the wedding-table, andsniffing the cakes and preserves his mother was preparing for thefeast, what time the mail was bringing the news of the sudden death ofthe bride from small-pox. 

At the moment he had sorrowed as little for his unseen bride as hisfather, who, having made four hundred guldens by his son in anhonorable way, might now hope to make another four hundred. "The capand the silver-clasped Bible are already mine, " the child had toldhimself, "and a bride will also not be long wanting, while mywedding-disputation can serve me again. " The mother alone had beeninconsolable, cakes and preserves being of a perishable nature, especially when there is no place to hide them from the secret attacksof a disappointed bridegroom. Only now did poor Maimon realize how hislife had again missed ease! For he had fallen at last into the handsof the widow of Nesvig, with a public-house in the outskirts and anonly daughter. Merely moderately prosperous but inordinatelyambitious, she had dared to dream of this famous wonder-child for herSarah. Refusal daunted her not, nor did she cease her campaign till, after trying every species of trick and manœuvre and misrepresentation, every weapon of law and illegality, she had carried home the reluctantbridegroom. By what unscrupulous warfare she had wrested him from hislast chance of wealth, flourishing a prior marriage-contract in theface of the rich merchant who unluckily staying the night in her inn, had proudly shown her the document which betrothed his daughter to therenowned Solomon! The boy's mother dying at this juncture, the widowhad not shrunk from obtaining from the law-courts an attachment on thedead body, by which its interment was interdicted till the terminationof the suit. In vain the rich merchant had kidnapped the bridegroom inhis carriage at dead of night, the boy was pursued and recaptured, tolead a life of constant quarrel with his mother-in-law, and exchangeflying crockery at meal-times; to take refuge in distant tutorships, and in the course of years, after begetting several children, to driftfurther and further, and finally disappear beyond the frontier. 

Poor Sarah! He thought of her now with softness. A likeable wenchenough, active and sensible, if with something of her mother'spertinacity. No doubt she was still the widow's right hand in thepublic-house. Ah, how handsome she had looked that day when thedrunken Prince Radziwil, in his mad freak at the inn, had setapproving eyes upon her: "Really a pretty young woman! Only she oughtto get a white chemise. " A formula at which the soberer gentlemen ofhis train had given her the hint to clear out of the way. 

Now in his despair, the baffled Pilgrim of Knowledge turned yearninglyto her image, wept weakly at the leagues that separated him from allwho cared for him. How was David growing up--his curly-hairedfirst-born; child of his fourteenth year? He must be nearly ten bynow, and in a few years he would be confirmed and become "A Son of theCommandment. " A wave of his own early religious fervor came over him, bringing with it a faint flavor of festival dishes and far-away echoesof synagogue tunes. Fool, fool, not to be content with the Truth thatcontented his fathers, not to rest in the bosom of the wife God hadgiven him. Even his mother-in-law was suffused with softer tintsthrough the mist of tears. She at least appreciated him, had foughttooth and nail for him, while these gross Berliners--! He clenched hisfists in fury: the full force of the injustice came home to himafresh; his palms burnt, his brow was racked with shooting pains. Hismind wandered off again to Prince Radziwil and to that day in thepublic-house. He saw this capricious ruler marching to visit, with allthe pomp of war, a village not four miles from his residence; firsthis battalions of infantry, artillery and cavalry, then his body-guardof volunteers from the poor nobility, then his kitchen-wagons, thenhis bands of music, then his royal coach in which he snored, overcomeby Hungarian wine, lastly his train of lackeys. Then he saw his SereneHighness thrown on his mother-in-law's dirty bed, booted and spurred;for his gentlemen, as they passed the inn, had thought it best to givehis slumbers a more comfortable posture. Here, surrounded by valets, pages, and negroes, he had snored on all night, while the indomitablewidow cooked her meals and chopped her wood in the very room as usual. And here, in a sooty public-house, with broken windows, and rafterssupported by undressed tree-stems, on a bed swarming with insects--theprince had awoke, and, naught perturbed, when the thing was explained, had bidden his menials prepare a banquet on the spot. 

Poor Maimon's parched mouth watered now as he thought of that madbacchanal banquet of choice wines and dishes, to which princes andlords had sat down on the dirty benches of the public-house. Gobletswere drained in competition to the sound of cannon, and the judges whoawarded the prize to the Prince, were presented by him with estatescomprising hundreds of peasants. Maimon began to shout in imitation ofthe cannon, in imagination he ran amuck in a synagogue, as he had seenthe prince do, smashing and wrecking everything, tearing the HolyScrolls from the Ark and trampling upon them. Yes, they deserved it, the cowardly bigots. Down with the law, to hell with the Rabbis. A-a-a-h! He would grind the phylacteries under his heel--thus. Andthus! And--

The soldiers perceiving he was in a violent fever, summoned the Jewishoverseer, who carried him back into the poorhouse. 

II

Maimon awoke the next morning with a clear and lively mind, and soonunderstood that he was sick. "God be thanked, " he thought joyfully, "now I shall remain here some days, during which not only shall I eatbut I may hope to prevail upon some kindly visitor to protect me. Perhaps if I can manage to send a message to Herr Mendelssohn, he willintercede for me. For a scholar must always have bowels of compassionfor a scholar. "

These roseate expectations were rudely dusked: the overseer feltMaimon's pulse and his forehead, and handing him his commentary on the_Guide of the Perplexed_, convoyed him politely without the gate. Maimon made no word of protest, he was paralyzed. 

"What now, O Guide of the Perplexed?" he cried, stonily surveying hishapless manuscript. "O Moses, son of Maimon, thou by whom I have swornso oft, canst thou help me now? See, my pockets are as empty as theheads of thy adversaries. "

He turned out his pockets, and lo! several silver pieces fell out androlled merrily in the roadway. "A miracle!" he shouted. Then heremembered that the elders had dismissed him with them, and thatovercome by his sentence he had put them mechanically away. Yes, hehad been treated as a mere beggar. A faint flush of shame tinged hisbristly cheek at the thought. True, he had partaken of the hospitalityof strangers, but that was the due meed of his position as Rabbi, asthe free passages to Königsberg and Stettin were tributes to hislearning. Never had he absolutely fallen to _schnorring_ (begging). Heshook his fist at the city. He would fling their money in theirfaces--some day. Thus swearing, he repocketed the coins, took thefirst turning that he met, and abandoned himself to chance. In themean inn in which he halted for refreshment he was glad to encounter afellow-Jew and one in companionable rags. 

Maimon made inquiries from him about the roads and whither they led, and gathered with some surprise that his companion was a professional_Schnorrer_. 

"Are not you?" asked the beggar, equally surprised. 

"Certainly not!" cried Maimon angrily. 

"What a waste of good rags!" said the _Schnorrer_. 

"What a waste of good muscle!" retorted Maimon; for the beggar was astrapping fellow in rude health. "If I had your shoulders I shouldhold my head higher on them. "

The _Schnorrer_ shrugged them. "Only fools work. What has work broughtyou? Rags. You begin with work and end with rags. I begin with ragsand end with meals. "

"But have you no self-respect?" cried Maimon, in amaze. "No morality?No religion?"

"I have as much religion as any _Schnorrer_ on the road, " replied thebeggar, bridling up. "I keep my Sabbath. "

"Yes, indeed, " said Maimon, smiling, "our sages say, Rather keep thySabbath as a week-day than beg; you say, Rather keep thy week-day as aSabbath than be dependent on thyself. " To himself he thought, "That isvery witty: I must remember to tell Lapidoth that. " And he called foranother glass of whisky. 

"Yes; but many of our sages, meseems, are dependent on theirwomankind. I have dispensed with woman; must I therefore dispense withsupport likewise?"

Maimon was amused and shocked in one. He set down his whisky, unsipped. "But he who dispenses with woman lives in sin. It is theduty of man to beget posterity, to found a home; for what iscivilization but home, and what is home but religion?" The wanderer'stones were earnest; he forgot his own sins of omission in the luciditywith which his intellect saw the right thing. 

"Ah, you are one of the canting ones, " said the _Schnorrer_. "Itstrikes me you and I could do something better together than quarrel. What say you to a partnership?"

"In begging?"

"What else have I to offer? You are new to the country--you don't knowthe roads--you haven't got any money. "

"Pardon me! I have a thaler left. "

"No, you haven't--you pay that to me for the partnership. "

The metaphysical Maimon was tickled. "But what do I gain for mythaler?"

"My experience. "

"But if so, you gain nothing from _my_ partnership. "

"A thaler to begin with. Then, you see, your learning and moralitywill draw when I am at a loss for quotations. In small villages we gotogether and produce an impression of widespread misery: we speak ofthe destruction of our town by fire, of persecution, what you will. One beggar might be a liar: two together are martyrs. "

"Then you beg only in villages?"

"Oh no. But in towns we divide. You do one half, I do another. Then weexchange halves, armed with the knowledge of who are the beneficent ineither half. It is less fatiguing. "

"Then the beneficent have to give twice over. "

"They have double merit. Charity breeds charity. "

"This is a rare fellow, " thought Maimon. "How Lapidoth would delightin him! And he speaks truth. I know nothing of the country. If Itravel a little with him I may learn much. And he, too, may learn fromme. He has a good headpiece, and I may be able to instil into him moreseemly notions of duty and virtue. Besides, what else can I do?" So, spinning his thaler in air, "Done!" he cried. 

The beggar caught it neatly. "Herr Landlord, " said he, "another glassof your excellent whisky!" And, raising it to his lips when it came, "Brother, here's to our partnership. "

"What, none for me?" cried Maimon, crestfallen. 

"Not till you had begged for it, " chuckled the _Schnorrer_. "You havehad your first lesson. Herr Landlord, yet another glass of yourexcellent whisky!"

And so the philosopher, whose brain was always twisting and turningthe universe and taking it to pieces, started wandering about Germanywith the beggar whose thoughts were bounded by his paunch. Theyexploited but a small area, and with smaller success than either hadanticipated. Though now and then they were flush, there was never aregular meal; and too often they had to make shift with mouldly breadand water, and to lie on stale straw, and even on the bare earth. 

"You don't curse enough, " the beggar often protested. 

"But why should one curse a man who refuses one's request?" thephilosopher would persist. "Besides, he is embittered thereby, andonly the more likely to refuse. "

"Cork your philosophy, curse you!" the beggar would cry. "How often amI to explain to you that cursing terrifies people. "

"Not at all, " Maimon would mutter, terrified. 

"No? What is Religion, but Fear?"

"False religion, if you will. But true religion, as Maimonides says, is the attainment of perfection through the knowledge of God and theimitation of His actions. "

Nevertheless, when they begged together, Maimon produced aninarticulate whine that would do either for a plea or a curse. When hebegged alone, all the glib formulæ he had learnt from the _Schnorrer_dried up on his tongue. But his silence pleaded more pitifully thanhis speech. For he was barefooted and almost naked. Yet amid all theseuntoward conditions his mind kept up its interminable twisting andturning of the universe; that acute analysis for which centuries ofover-subtlety had prepared the Polish Jew's brain, and which was nowfor the first time applied scientifically to the actual world insteadof fantastically to the Bible. And it was perhaps when he was lying onthe bare earth that the riddle of existence--twinkling so defiantly inthe stars--tortured him most keenly. 

Thus passed half a year. Maimon had not learnt to beg, nor had thebeggar acquired the rudiments of morality. How often the philosopherlonged for his old friend Lapidoth--the grave-digger's son-in-law--totalk things over with, instead of this carnal vagabond. They had beenpoverty-stricken enough, those two, but oh! how differently they hadtaken the position. He remembered how merrily Lapidoth had pinned hisdropped-off sleeve to the back of his coat, crying, "Don't I look likea _Schlachziz_ (nobleman)?" and how he in return had vaunted thesuperiority of his gaping shoes: "They don't squeeze at the toes. " Howthey had played the cynic, he and the grave-digger's son-in-law, turning up with remorseless spade the hollow bones of human virtue! Asconvincedly as synagogue-elders sought during fatal epidemics for thesecret sins of the congregation, so had they two striven to uncoverthe secret sinfulness of self-deceived righteousness. 

"Bad self-analysis is the foundation of contentment, " Lapidoth hadsummed it up one day, as they lounged on the town-wall. 

To which Maimon: "Then, friend, why are we so content to censureothers? Let us be fair and pass judgment on ourselves. But thecontemplative life we lead is merely the result of indolence, which wegloss over by reflections on the vanity of all things. We are contentwith our rags. Why? Because we are too lazy to earn better. Wereproach the unscholarly as futile people addicted to the pleasures ofsense. Why? Because, not being constituted like you and me, they livedifferently. Where is our superiority, when we merely follow ourinclination as they follow theirs? Only in the fact that we confessthis truth to ourselves, while they profess to act, not to satisfytheir particular desires, but for the general utility. "

"Friend, " Lapidoth had replied, deeply moved, "you are perfectlyright. If we cannot now mend our faults, we will not deceive ourselvesabout them, but at least keep the way open for amendment. "

So they had encouraged each other to clearer vision and nobler living. And from such companionship to have fallen to a _Schnorrer's_! Oh, itwas unendurable. 

But he endured it till harvest-time came round, bringing with it thesacred season of New Year and Atonement, and the long chilly nights. And then he began to feel tremors of religion and cold. 

As they crouched together in outhouses, the beggar snoozing placidlyin a stout blouse, the philosopher shivering in tatters, Maimon sawhis degradation more lucidly than ever. They had now turned theirsteps towards Poland, every day bringing Maimon nearer to theredeeming influence of early memories, and it was when sleeping in theJewish poorhouse at Posen--the master of which eked out hislivelihood honorably as a jobbing tailor--that Maimon at length foundstrength to resolve on a breach. He would throw himself before thesynagogue door, and either die there or be relieved. When hiscompanion awoke and began to plan out the day's campaign, "No, Idissolve the partnership, " said he firmly. 

"But how are you going to live, you good-for-nothing?" asked hisastonished comrade, "you who cannot even beg. "

"God will help, " Maimon said stolidly. 

"God help you!" said the beggar. 

Maimon went off to the school-room. The master was away, and a noisyrabble of boys ceased their games or their studies to question thetatterdemalion, and to make fun of his Lithuanian accent--his _s_'sfor _sh_'s. Nothing abashed, the philosopher made inquiries after anold friend of his who, he fortunately recollected, had gone to Posenas the Chief Rabbi's secretary. The news that the Chief Rabbi hadproceeded to another appointment, taking with him his secretary, reduced him to despair. A gleam of hope broke when he learnt that thesecretary's boy had been left behind in Posen with Dr. Hirsch Janow, the new Chief Rabbi. 

And in the event this boy brought salvation. He informed Dr. HirschJanow that a great scholar and a pious man was accidentally falleninto miserable straits; and lo! in a trice the good-hearted man hadsent for Maimon, sounded his scholarship and found it plumbless, approved of his desire to celebrate the sacred festivals in Posen, given him all the money in his pockets--the indurated beggar acceptedit without a blush--invited him to dine with him every Sabbath, andsent the boy with him to procure him "a respectable lodging. "

As he left the house that afternoon, Maimon could not help overhearingthe high-pitched reproaches of the Rabbitzin (Rabbi's wife). 

"There! You've again wasted my housekeeping money on scum andriff-raff. We shall never get clear of debt. "

"Hush! hush!" said the Rabbi gently. "If he hears you, you will woundthe feelings of a great scholar. The money was given to me todistribute. "

"That story has a beard, " snapped the Rabbitzin. 

"He is a great saint, " the boy told Maimon on the way. "He fasts everyday of the week till nightfall, and eats no meat save on Sabbath. Hissalary is small, but everybody loves him far and wide; he is named'the keen scholar. '" Maimon agreed with the general verdict. Thegentle emaciated saint had touched old springs of religious feeling, and brought tears of more than gratitude to his eyes. 

His soul for a moment felt the appeal of that inner world created byIsrael's heart, that beautiful world of tenderest love and sternestlaw, wherein The-Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He (who has chosen Israel topreach holiness among the peoples), mystically enswathed withpraying-shawl and phylacteries, prays to Himself, "May it be My willthat My pity overcome My wrath. "

And what was his surprise at finding himself installed, not in somemean garret, but in the study of one of the leading Jews of the town. The climax was reached when he handed some coppers to the housewife, and asked her to get him some gruel for supper. 

"Nay, nay, " said the housewife, smiling. "The Chief Rabbi has notrecommended us to sell you gruel. My husband and my son are bothscholars, and so long as you choose to tarry at Posen they will bedelighted if you will honor our table. "

Maimon could scarcely believe his ears; but the evidence of asumptuous supper was irrefusable. And after that he was conducted to aclean bed! O the luxurious ache of stretching one's broken limbs onmelting feathers! the nestling ecstasy of dainty-smelling sheetsafter half a year of outhouses!

It was the supreme felicity of his life. To wallow in such a wave ofhappiness had never been his before, was never to be his again. Shallow pates might prate, he told himself, but what pleasure of theintellect could ever equal that of the senses? Could it possiblypleasure him as much even to fulfil his early Maimonidean ideal--theattainment of Perfection? Perpending which problem, the philosopherfell deliciously asleep. 

Late, very late, the next morning he dragged himself from his snugcocoon, and called, in response to a summons, upon his benefactor. 

"Well, and how do you like your lodging?" said the gentle Rabbi. 

Maimon burst into tears. "I have slept in a bed!" he sobbed, "I haveslept in a bed!"

Two days later, clad--out of the Rabbitzin's housekeeping money--infull rabbinical vestments, with clean linen beneath, the metamorphosedMaimon, cheerful of countenance, and godly of mien, presented himselfat the poorhouse, where the tailor and his wife, as well as his whilommate--all of them acquainted with his good fortune--expected him withimpatience. The sight of him transported them. The poor mother tookher babe in her arms, and with tears in her eyes begged the Rabbi'sblessings; the beggar besought his forgiveness for his roughtreatment, and asked for an alms. 

Maimon gave the little one his blessing, and the _Schnorrer_ all hehad in his pocket, and went back deeply affected. 

Meantime his fame had spread: all the scholars of the town came to seeand chop theology with this illustrious travelling Rabbi. He became atutor in a wealthy family: his learning was accounted superhuman, andhe himself almost divine. A doubt he expressed as to the healthinessof a consumptive-looking child brought him at her death the honors ofa prophet. Disavowal was useless: a new prophet had arisen in Israel. 

And so two happy years passed--honorably enough, unless thephilosopher's forgetfulness of his family be counted against him. Butlittle by little his restless brain and body began to weary of thesesuperstitious surroundings. 

It began to leak out that he was a heretic: his rare appearances inthe synagogue were noted; daring sayings of his were darkly whispered;Persecution looked to its weapons. 

Maimon's recklessness was whetted in its turn. At the entrance to theCommon Hall in Posen there had been, from time immemorial, a stag-hornfixed into the wall, and an equally immemorial belief among the Jewsthat whoso touched it died on the spot. A score of stories in proofwere hurled at the scoffing Maimon. And so, passing the stag-horn oneday, he cried to his companions: "You Posen fools, do you think thatany one who touches this horn dies on the spot? See, I dare to touchit. "

Their eyes, dilating with horror, followed his sacrilegious hand. Theyawaited the thud of his body. Maimon walked on, smiling. 

What had he proved to them? Only that he was a hateful heretic, aprofaner of sanctuaries. 

The wounded fanaticism that now shadowed him with its hatred provokedhim to answering excesses. The remnant of religion that clung, despitehimself, to his soul, irritated him. Would not further culture rid himof the incubus? His dream of Berlin revived. True, bigotry barkedthere too, but culture went on its serene course. The fame andinfluence of Mendelssohn had grown steadily, and it was now at itsapogee, for Lessing had written _Nathan Der Weise_, and in thetempest that followed its production, and despite the ban placed onthe play and its author in both Catholic and Protestant countries, themost fanatical Christian foes of the bold freelance could not cry thatthe character was impossible. 

For there--in the very metropolis--lived the Sage himself, the Davidto the dramatist's Jonathan, the member of the Coffee-House of theLearned, the friend of Prince Lippe-Schaumberg, the King's ownProtected Jew, in every line of whose countenance Lavater keptinsisting the unprejudiced phrenologist might read the soul ofSocrates. 

And he, Maimon, no less blessed with genius, what had he been doing, to slumber so long on these soft beds of superstition and barbarism, deaf to that early call of Truth, that youthful dream of Knowledge?Yes, he would go back to Berlin, he would shake off the clinging mistsof the Ghetto, he would be the pioneer of his people's emancipation. His employers had remained throughout staunch admirers of hisintellect. But despite every protest he bade them farewell, andpurchasing a seat on the Frankfort post with his scanty savings setout for Berlin. No mendicity committees lay in wait for the prosperouspassenger, and as the coach passed through the Rosenthaler gate, thebrave sound of the horn seemed to Maimon at once a flourish of triumphover Berlin and of defiance to superstition and ignorance. 

III

But superstition and ignorance were not yet unhorsed. The Jewishpolice-officers, though they allowed coach-gentry to enter and take uptheir quarters where they pleased, did not fail to pry into theiraffairs the next day, as well for the protection of the Jewishcommunity against equivocal intruders as in accordance with itsresponsibility to the State. 

In his modest lodging on the New-Market, Maimon had to face thesuspicious scrutiny of the most dreaded of these detectives, who waspuzzled and provoked by a belief he had seen him before, "evidentlylooking on me, " as Maimon put it afterwards, "as a comet, which comesnearer to the earth the second time than the first, and so makes thedanger more threatening. "

Of a sudden this lynx-eyed bully espied a Hebrew Logic by Maimonides, annotated by Mendelssohn. "Yes! yes!" he shrieked; "that's the sort ofbooks for me!" and, glaring threateningly at the philosopher, "Pack, "he said. "Pack out of Berlin as quick as you can, if you don't wish tobe led out with all the honors. "

Maimon was once more in desperate case. His money was all butexhausted by the journey, and the outside of the Rosenthaler gateagain menaced him. All his sufferings had availed him nothing: he wasback almost at his starting-point. 

But fortune favors fools. In a countryman settled at Berlin he found aprotector. Then other admirers of talent and learning boarded andlodged him. The way was now clear for Culture. 

Accident determined the line of march. Maimon rescued Wolff's_Metaphysics_ from a butterman for two groschen. Wolff, he knew, wasthe pet philosopher of the day. Mendelssohn himself had been inspiredby him--the great brother-Jew with whom he might now hope some day totalk face to face. 

Maimon was delighted with his new treasure--such mathematicalexposition, such serried syllogisms--till it came to theology. "ThePrinciple of Sufficient Reason"--yes, it was a wonderful discovery. But as proving God? No--for that there was _not_ Sufficient Reason. Nor could Maimon harmonize these new doctrines with his Maimonides orhis Aristotle. Happy thought! He would set forth his doubts in Hebrew, he would send the manuscript to Herr Mendelssohn. Flushed by the hopeof the great man's acquaintance, he scribbled fervidly and posted themanuscript. 

He spent a sleepless night. 

Would the lion of Berlin take any notice of an obscure Polish Jew?Maimon was not left in suspense. Mendelssohn replied by return. Headmitted the justice of his correspondent's doubts, but begged him notto be discouraged by them, but to continue his studies with unabatedzeal. O, judge in Israel! _Nathan Der Weise_, indeed. 

Fired with such encouragement, Maimon flung himself into a Hebrewdissertation that should shatter all these theological cobwebs, thatby an uncompromising Ontology should bring into doubt the foundationsof Revealed as well as of Natural Theology. It was a bold thing to do, for since he was come to Berlin, and had read more of his books, hehad gathered that Mendelssohn still professed Orthodox Judaism. Aparadox this to Maimon, and roundly denied as impossible when he firstheard of it. A man who could enter the lists with the doughtiestchampions of Christendom, whose German prose was classical, who couldphilosophize in Socratic dialogue after the fashion of Plato--such aman a creature of the Ghetto! Doubtless he took his Judaism in somevague Platonic way; it was impossible to imagine him the literalbond-slave of that minute ritual, winding phylacteries round his leftarm or shaking himself in a praying-shawl. Anyhow here--in logicallucid Hebrew--were Maimon's doubts and difficulties. If Mendelssohnwas sincere, let him resolve them, and earn the blessings of a trulyJewish soul. If he was unable to answer them, let him give up hisorthodoxy, or be proved a fraud and a time-server. _Amicus Mendelssohnsed magis amica veritas. _

In truth there was something irritating to the Polish Jew in the greatGerman's attitude, as if it held some latent reproach of his own. Onlya shallow thinker, he felt, could combine culture and spiritualcomfort, to say nothing of worldly success. He had read themuch-vaunted _Phœdon_ which Lutheran Germany hailed as a counterblastto the notorious "Berlin religion, " restoring faith to a despondentworld mocked out of its Christian hopes by the fashionable French witsand materialists under the baneful inspiration of Voltaire, whomGermany's own Frederick had set on high in his Court. But what acurious assumption for a Jewish thinker to accept, that unless we areimmortal, our acts in this world are of no consequence! Was not he, Maimon, leading a high-minded life in pursuit of Truth, with no suchhope? "If our soul were mortal, then Reason would be a dream, whichJupiter has sent us in order that we might forget our misery; and weshould be like the beasts, only to seek food and die. " Nonsense!Rhetoric! True, his epistles to Lavater were effective enough, therewas courage in his public refusal of Christianity, nobility in hissentiment that he preferred to shame anti-Jewish prejudice by characterrather than by controversy. He, Maimon, would prefer to shame it byboth. But this _Jerusalem_ of Mendelssohn's! Could its thesis really besustained? Judaism laid no yoke upon belief, only on conduct? was noreason-confounding dogma? only a revealed legislation? A Jew gave hislife to the law and his heart to Germany! Or France, or Holland, or theBrazils as the case might be? Palestine must be forgotten. Well, it wasall bold and clever enough, but was it more than a half-way house toassimilation with the peoples? At any rate here was a Polish brother'sartillery to meet--more deadly than that of Lavater, or the stupidChristians. 

Again, but with acuter anxiety, he awaited Mendelssohn's reply. 

It came--an invitation for next Saturday afternoon. Aha! The outworkswere stormed. The great man recognized in him a worthy foe, a brotherin soul. Gratitude and vanity made the visit a delightfulanticipation. What a wit-combat it would be! How he would marshal hisdialectic epigrams! If only Lapidoth could be there to hear!

As the servant threw open the door for him, revealing a suite ofbeautiful rooms and a fine company of gentlefolks, men with powderedwigs and ladies with elegant toilettes, Maimon started back with apainful shock. An under-consciousness of mud-stained boots and aclumsily cut overcoat, mixed itself painfully with this impression ofpretty, scented women, and the clatter of tongues and coffee-cups. Hestood rooted to the threshold in a sudden bitter realization that thegreat world cared nothing about metaphysics. Ease, fine furniture, aposition in the world--these were the things that counted. Why had allhis genius brought him none of these things? Wifeless, childless, moneyless, he stood, a solitary soul wrestling with problems. How hadMendelssohn managed to obtain everything? Doubtless he had had abetter start, a rich father, a University training. His resentmentagainst the prosperous philosopher rekindled. He shrank back andclosed the door. But it was opened instantly again from within. Alittle hunchback with shining eyes hurried towards him. 

"Herr Maimon?" he said inquiringly, holding out his hand with a smileof welcome. 

Startled, Maimon laid his hand without speaking in that cordial palm. So this was the man he had envied. No one had ever told him that"Nathan der Weise" was thus afflicted. It was as soul that he hadappealed to the imagination of the world; even vulgar gossip had beensilent about his body. But how this deformity must embitter hissuccess. 

Mendelssohn coaxed him within, complimenting him profusely on hiswritings: he was only too familiar with these half-shy, half-aggressive young Poles, whose brains were bursting with hereticalideas and sick fantasies. They brought him into evil odor with hisorthodox brethren, did these "Jerusalem Werthers, " but who should dealwith them, if not he that understood them, that could handle themdelicately? What was to Maimon a unique episode was to his host aneveryday experience. 

Mendelssohn led Maimon to the embrasure of a window: he brought himrefreshments--which the young man devoured uncouthly--he neglected hisfashionable guests, whose unceasing French babble proclaimed theirability to get on by themselves, to gain an insight into this giftedyoung man's soul. He regarded each new person as a complicated pieceof wheelwork, which it was the wise man's business to understand andnot be angry with. But having captured the secret of the mechanism, itwas one's duty to improve it on its own lines. 

"Your dissertation displays extraordinary acumen, Herr Maimon, " hesaid. "Of course you still suffer from the Talmudic method or ratherwant of method. But you have a real insight into metaphysicalproblems. And yet you have only read Wolff! You are evidently not a_Chamor nosé Sefarim_ (a donkey bearing books). " He used the Hebrewproverb to make the young Pole feel at home, and a half smile hoveredaround his sensitive lips. Even his German took on a winning touch ofjargon in vocabulary and accentuation, though to kill the jargon wasone of the ideals of his life. 

"Nay, Herr Mendelssohn, " replied Maimon modestly; "you must not forget_The Guide of the Perplexed_. It was the inspiration of my youth!"

"Was it?" cried Mendelssohn delightedly. "So it was of mine. In fact Itell the Berliners Maimonides was responsible for my hump, and some ofthem actually believe I got it bending over him. "

This charming acceptance of his affliction touched the sensitiveMaimon and put him more at ease than even the praise of his writingsand the fraternal vocabulary. "In my country, " he said, "a perfectbody is thought to mark the fool of the family! They believe thefinest souls prefer to inhabit imperfect tenements. "

Mendelssohn bowed laughingly. "An excellently turned compliment! Atthis rate you will soon shine in our Berlin society. And how long isit since you left Poland?"

"Alas! I have left Poland more than once. I should have had the honorand the happiness of making your acquaintance earlier, had I not beenstopped at the Rosenthaler gate three years ago. "

"At the Rosenthaler gate! If I had only known!"

The tears came into Maimon's eyes--tears of gratitude, of self-pity, of regret for the lost years. He was on his feet now, he felt, and hisfeet were on the right road. He had found a powerful protector atlast. "Think of my disappointment, " he said tremulously, "aftertravelling all the way from Poland. "

"Yes, I know. I was all but stopped at the gate myself, " saidMendelssohn musingly. 

"You?"

"Yes--when I was a lad. "

"Aren't you a native of Berlin, then?"

"No, I was born in Dessau. Not so far to tramp from as Poland. Butstill a goodish stretch. It took me five days--I am not a Herculeslike you--and had I not managed to stammer out that I wished to enrolmyself among the pupils of Dr. Frankel, the new Chief Rabbi of thecity, the surly Cerberus would have slammed the gate in my face. Myluck was that Frankel had come from Dessau, and had been my teacher. Iremember standing on a hillock crying as he was leaving for Berlin, and he took me in his arms and said I should also go to Berlin someday. So when I appeared he had to make the best of it. "

"Then you had nothing from your parents?"

"Only a beautiful handwriting from my father which got me copying jobsfor a few groschens and is now the joy of the printers. He was ascribe, you know, and wrote the Scrolls of the Law. But he wanted meto be a pedlar. "

"A pedlar!" cried Maimon, open-eyed. 

"Yes, the money would come in at once, you see. I had quite a fight topersuade him I would do better as a Rabbi. I fear I was a very violentand impatient youngster. He didn't at all believe in my Rabbinicalfuture. And he was right after all--for a member of a learned guild, Jewish or Christian, have I never been. "

"You had a hard time, then, when you came to Berlin?" said Maimonsympathetically. 

Mendelssohn's eyes had for an instant an inward look, then he quotedgently, "Bread with salt shalt thou eat, water by measure shalt thoudrink, upon the hard earth shalt thou sleep, and a life of anxiousnessshalt thou live, and labor in the study of the law!"

Maimon thrilled at the quotation: the fine furniture and the finecompany faded, and he saw only the soul of a fellow-idealist to whichthese things were but unregarded background. 

"Ah yes, " went on Mendelssohn. "You are thinking I don't look like aperson who once notched his loaf into sections so as not to eat toomuch a day. Well, let it console you with the thought that there's acomfortable home in Berlin waiting for you, too. "

Poor Maimon stole a glance at the buxom, blue-eyed matron doing thehonors of her salon so gracefully, assisted by two dazzling youngladies in Parisian toilettes--evidently her daughters--and he groanedat the thought of his peasant-wife and his uncouth, superstition-swaddledchildren: decidedly he must give Sarah a divorce. 

"I can't delude myself with such day-dreams, " he said hopelessly. 

"Wait! Wait! So long as you don't day-dream your time away. That isthe danger with you clever young Poles--you are such dreamers. Everything in this life depends on steadiness and patience. When wefirst set up hospitality, Fromet--my wife--and I, we had to count thealmonds and raisins for dessert. You see, we only began with a littlehouse and garden in the outskirts, the main furniture of which, " hesaid, laughing at the recollection, "was twenty china apes, life-size. "

"Twenty china apes!"

"Yes, like every Jewish bridegroom, I had to buy a quantity of chinafor the support of the local manufactory, and that was what fell tome. Ah, my friend, what have not the Jews of Germany to support! Thetaxes are still with us, but the _Rishus_ (malice)"--again he smiledconfidentially at the Hebrew-jargon word--"is less every day. Why, aJew couldn't walk the streets of Berlin without being hooted andinsulted, and my little ones used to ask, 'Father, is it wicked to bea Jew?' I thank the Almighty that at the end of my days I have livedto see the Jewish question raised to a higher plane. "

"I should rather thank _you_, " cried Maimon, with scepticalenthusiasm. 

"Me?" said Mendelssohn, with the unfeigned modesty of the man who, hisevery public utterance having been dragged out of him by externalcompulsion, retains his native shyness and is alone in ignorance ofhis own influence. "No, no, it is Montesquieu, it is Dohm, it is mydear Lessing. Poor fellow, the Christian bigots are at him now like aplague of stinging insects. I almost wish he hadn't written _Nathander Weise_. I am glad to reflect I didn't instigate him, nay, that hehad written a play in favor of the Jews ere we met. "

"How did you come to know him?"

"I hardly remember. He was always fond of outcasts--a true artistictemperament, that preferred to consort with actors and soldiers ratherthan with the beer-swilling middle-class of Berlin. Oh yes, I think wemet over a game of chess. Then we wrote an essay on Pope together. Dear Gotthold! What do I not owe him? My position in Berlin, myfeeling for literature--for we Jews have all stifled our love for thebeautiful and grown dead to poetry. "

"Well, but what is a poet but a liar?"

"Ah, my dear Herr Maimon, you will grow out of that. I must lend youHomer. Intellectual speculation is not everything. For my part, I havenever regretted withdrawing a portion of my love from the worthymatron, philosophy, in order to bestow it on her handmaid, _belles-lettres_. I am sorry to use a French word, but for oncethere's no better. You smile to see a Jew more German than theGermans. "

"No, I smile to hear what sounds like French all round! I rememberreading in your _Philosophical Conversations_ your appeal to theGermans not to exchange their own gold for the tinsel of theirneighbors. "

"Yes, but what can one do? It is a Berlin mania; and, you know, theKing himself. . . . Our Jewish girls first caught it to converse with theyoung gallants who came a-borrowing of their fathers, but theinfluence of my dear daughters--there, the beautiful one is Dorothea, the eldest, and that other, who takes more after me, isHenrietta--their influence is doing much to counteract the wave offlippancy and materialism. But fancy any one still reading my_Philosophical Conversations_--my 'prentice work. I had no idea ofprinting it. I lent the manuscript to Lessing, observing jestinglythat I, too, could write like Shaftesbury, the Englishman. And lo! thenext time I met him he handed me the proofs. Dear Gotthold. "

"Is it true that the King--?"

"Sent for me to Potsdam to scold me? You are thinking of anothermatter. That was in my young days. " He smiled and lowered his voice. "I ventured to hint in a review that His Majesty's French verses--I amglad by the way he has lived to write some against Voltaire--were notperfection. I thought I had wrapped up my meaning beyond royalcomprehension. But a malicious courtier, the preacher Justi, denouncedme as a Jew who had thrown aside all reverence for the most sacredperson of His Majesty. I was summoned to Sans-Souci and--with a touchof _Rishus_ (malice)--on a Saturday. I managed to be there withoutbreaking my _Shabbos_ (Sabbath). "

"Then he does keep Sabbath!" thought Maimon, in amaze. 

"But, as you may imagine, I was not as happy as a bear with honey. However, I pleaded that he who makes verses plays at nine-pins, and hewho plays at nine-pins, be he monarch or peasant, must be satisfiedwith the judgment of the boy who has charge of the bowls. "

"And you are still alive!"

"To the annoyance of many people. I fancy His Majesty was ashamed topunish me before the French cynics of his court, and I know on goodauthority that it was because the Marquis D'Argens was astonished tolearn that I could be driven out of Berlin at any moment by the policethat the King made me a Schutz-Jude (protected Jew). So I owesomething to the French after all. My friends had long been urging meto sue for protection, but I thought, as I still think, that one oughtnot to ask for any rights which the humblest Jew could not enjoy. However, a king's gift horse one cannot look in the mouth. And now youare to become _my_ Schutz-Jude"--Maimon's heart beat gratefully--"andthe question is, what do you propose to do in Berlin? What is thecareer that is to bring you a castle and a princess?"

"I wish to study medicine. "

"Good. It is the one profession a Jew may enter here; though, you mustknow, however great a practice you may attain--even among theChristians--they will never publish your name in the medical list. Still, we must be thankful for small mercies. In Frankfort the Jewishdoctors are limited to four, in other towns to none. We must hand youover to Dr. Herz--there, that man who is laughing so, over one of hisown good things, no doubt--that is Dr. Herz, and the beautifulcreature is his wife, Henrietta, who is founding a Goethe salon. Sheand my daughters are inseparable--a Jewish trinity. And so, HerrPhysician, I extend to you the envious congratulations of abook-keeper. "

"But you are not a book-keeper!"

"Not now, but that was what I began as--or rather, what I driftedinto, for I was Talmudical tutor in his family, when my dear HerrBernhardt proposed it to me. And I am not sorry. For it left me plentyof time to learn Latin and Greek and mathematics, and finally landedme in a partnership. Still I have always been a race-horse burdenedwith a pack, alas! I don't mean my hump, but the factory still stealsa good deal of my time and brains, and if I didn't rise at five--Butyou have made me quite egoistic--it is the resemblance of our youngdays that has touched the spring of memories. But come! let meintroduce you to my wife and my son Abraham. Ah, see, poor Fromet issignalling to me. She is tired of being left to battle single-handed. Would you not like to know M. De Mirabeau? Or let me introduce you toWessely--he will talk to you in Hebrew. It is Wessely who does all thework for which I am praised--it is he who is elevating our Jewishbrethren, with whom I have not the heart nor the courage to strive. Orthere is Nicolai, the founder of 'The Library of the Fine Arts, ' towhich, " he added with a sly smile, "I hope yet to see youcontributing. Perhaps Fräulein Reimarus will convert you--thatcharming young lady there talking with her brother-in-law, who is aDanish state-councillor. She is the great friend of Lessing--as Ilive, there comes Lessing himself. I am sure he would like thepleasure of your acquaintance. "

"Because he likes outcasts? No, no, not yet, " and Maimon, whose moodhad been growing dark again, shrank back, appalled by these greatnames. Yes, he was a dreamer and a fool, and Mendelssohn was a sage, indeed. In his bitterness he distrusted even his own Dissertation, hisuncompromising logic, destructive of all theology. Perhaps Mendelssohnwas right: perhaps he had really solved the Jewish problem. To be aJew among Germans, and a German among Jews: to reconcile the old creedwith Culture: to hold up one's head, and assert oneself as anhonorable element in the nation--was not this catholic gathering aproof of the feasibility of such an ideal? Good sense! What trueself-estimate as well as wit in the sage's famous retort to theswaggering German officer who asked him what commodity he dealt in. "In that which you appear to need--good sense. " Maimon roused himselfto listen to the conversation. It changed to German under the impulseof the host, who from his umpire's chair controlled it with play ofeye, head, or hand; and when appealed to, would usually show that bothparties were fighting about words, not things. Maimon noted from hissemi-obscure retreat that the talk grew more serious and connected, touched problems. He saw that for Mendelssohn as for himself nothingreally existed but the great questions. Flippant interruptions thesage seemed to disregard, and if the topic dribbled out intoirrelevancies he fell silent. Maimon studied the noble curve of hisforehead, the decided nose, the prominent lips, in the light of HerrLavater's theories. Lessing said little: he had the air of a brokenman. The brilliant life of the culture-warrior was closing ingloom--wife, child, health, money, almost reputation, gone: thenemesis of genius. 

At one point a lady strove to concentrate attention upon herself byaccusing herself of faults of character. Even Maimon understood shewas angling for compliments. But Mendelssohn gravely bade her mend herfaults, and Maimon saw Lessing's harassed eyes light up for the firsttime with a gleam of humor. Then the poet, as if roused torecollection, pulled out a paper, "I almost forgot to give you backKant's letter, " he said. "You are indeed to be congratulated. "

Mendelssohn blushed like a boy, and made a snatch at the letter, butLessing jestingly insisted on reading it to the company. 

"I consider that in your _Jerusalem_ you have succeeded in combiningour religion with such a degree of freedom of conscience, as was neverimagined possible, and of which no other faith can boast. You have atthe same time so thoroughly and so clearly demonstrated the necessityof unlimited liberty of conscience, that ultimately our Church willalso be led to reflect how it should remove from its midst everythingthat disturbs and oppresses conscience, which will finally unite allmen in their view of the essential points of religion. "

There was an approving murmur throughout the company. "Such a letterwould compensate me for many more annoyances than my works havebrought me, " said Mendelssohn. "And to think, " he added laughingly, "that I once beat Kant in a prize competition. A proof of the power oflucid expression over profound thought. And that I owe to yourstimulus, Lessing. "

The poet made a grimace. "You accuse me of stimulatingsuperficiality!"

There was a laugh. 

"Nay, I meant you have torn away the thorns from the roses ofphilosophy! If Kant would only write like you--"

"He might understand himself, " flashed the beautiful Henrietta Herz. 

"And lose his disciples, " added her husband. "That is really, HerrMendelssohn, why we pious Jews are so angry with your Germantranslation of the Bible--you make the Bible intelligible. "

"Yes, they have done their best to distort it, " sighed Mendelssohn. "But the fury my translation arouses among the so-called wise men ofthe day, is the best proof of its necessity. When I first meditatedproducing a plain Bible in good German, I had only the needs of my ownchildren at heart, then I allowed myself to be persuaded it might servethe multitude, now I see it is the Rabbis who need it most. Butcenturies of crooked thinking have deadened them to the beauties of theBible: they have left it behind them as elementary, when they have notthemselves coated it with complexity. Subtle misinterpretation iseverything, a beautiful text, nothing. And then this corrupt idiom oftheirs--than which nothing more corrupts a nation--they have actuallyinvested this German jargon with sanctity, and I am a wolf in sheep'sclothing for putting good German in Hebrew letters. Even the FrenchJews, Cerf Berr tells me, think bad German holy. To say nothing ofAustria. "

"Wait, wait!" said an eager-eyed man; "the laws of the Emperor Josephwill change all that--once the Jews of Vienna are forced to go toschool with the sciences, they will become an honored element of thenation. "

Mendelssohn shook a worldly-wise head. "Not so fast, my dear Wessely, not so fast. Your Hebrew Ode to the Austrian Emperor was unimpeachableas poetry, but, I fear, visionary as history. Who knows that this ismore than a temporary political move?"

"And we pious Jews, " put in Dr. Herz, smiling, "you forget, HerrWessely, we are not so easily schooled. We have never forgiven ourMendelssohn for saying our glorious religion had accumulated cobwebs. It is the cobwebs we love, not the port. "

"Yes, indeed, " broke in Maimon, so interested that he forgot his ownjargon, to say nothing of his attire. "When I was in Poland, I crawlednicely into mud, through pointing out that they ought not to turn tothe east in praying, because Jerusalem, which, in accordance withTalmudic law, they turned to, couldn't lie due east of everywhere. Inpoint of fact we were north-west, so that they should haveturned"--his thumbs began to turn and his voice to take on theTalmudic sing-song--"south-east. I told them it was easy in each cityto compute the exact turning, by corners and circles--"

"By spherical trigonometry, certainly, " said Mendelssohn pleasantly. Maimon, conscious of a correction, blushed and awoke to find himselfthe centre of observation. His host made haste to add, "You remind meof the odium I incurred by agreeing with the Duke ofMecklenburg-Schwerin's edict, that we should not bury our dead beforethe third day. And this in spite of my proofs from the Talmud! Dear, dear, if the Rabbis were only as anxious to bury dead ideas as deadbodies!" There was a general smile, but Maimon said boldly--

"I think you treat them far too tolerantly. "

"What, Herr Maimon, " and Mendelssohn smiled the half-sad smile of thesage, who has seen the humors of the human spectacle and himself aspart of it--"would you have me rebuke intolerance by intolerance? Iwill admit that when I was your age--and of an even hotter temper--Icould have made a pretty persecutor. In those days I contributed tothe mildest of sheets, 'The Moral Preacher, ' we young blades calledit. But because it didn't reek of religion, on every page the piousscented atheism. I could have whipped the dullards or cried withvexation. Now I see intolerance is a proof of earnestness as well asof stupidity. It is well that men should be alert against the leastrough breath on the blossoms of faith they cherish. The only criticismthat still has power to annoy me is that of the timid, who fear it isprovoking persecution for a Jew to speak out. But for the rest, opposition is the test-furnace of new ideas. I do my part in theworld, it is for others to do theirs. As soon as I had yielded mytranslation to friend Dubno, to be printed, I took my soul in myhands, raised my eyes to the mountains, and gave my back to thesmiters. All the same I am sorry it is the Rabbi of Posen who islaunching these old-fashioned thunders against the German Pentateuchof "Moses of Dessau, " for both as a Talmudist and mathematicianHirsch Janow has my sincere respect. Not in vain is he styled 'thekeen scholar, ' and from all I hear he is a truly good man. "

"A saint!" cried Maimon enthusiastically, again forgetting hisshyness. His voice faltered as he drew a glowing panegyric of hiswhilom benefactor, and pictured him as about to die in the prime oflife, worn out by vigils and penances. In a revulsion of feeling, fresh stirrings of doubt of the Mendelssohnian solution agitated hissoul. Though he had but just now denounced the fanatics, he wasconscious of a strange sympathy with this lovable ascetic who fastedevery day, torturing equally his texts and himself, this hopelessmystic for whom there could be no bridge to modern thought; all thePolish Jew in him revolted irrationally against the new Germanrationalism. No, no; it must be all or nothing. Jewish Catholicism wasnot to be replaced by Jewish Protestantism. These pathetic zealots, clinging desperately to the past, had a deeper instinct, a truerprevision of the future, than this cultured philosopher. 

"Yes, what you tell me of Hirsch Janow goes with all I have heard, "said Mendelssohn calmly. "But I put my trust in time and the newgeneration. I will wager that the translation I drew up for mychildren will be read by his. "

Maimon happened to be looking over Mendelssohn's shoulder at hischarming daughters in their Parisian toilettes. He saw them exchange acurious glance that raised their eyebrows sceptically. With a flash ofinsight he caught their meaning. Mendelssohn seeking an epigram hadstumbled into a dubious oracle. 

"The translation I drew up for my children will be read by his. "

By his, perhaps. 

But by my own?

Maimon shivered with an apprehension of tragedy. Perhaps it was hisDissertation that Mendelssohn's children would read. He rememberedsuddenly that Mendelssohn had said no word to its crushing logic. 

As he was taking his leave, he put the question point-blank. "Whathave you to say to my arguments?"

"You are not in the right road at present, " said Mendelssohn, holdinghis hand amicably, "but the course of your inquiries must not bechecked. Doubt, as Descartes rightly says, is the beginning ofphilosophical speculation. "

He left the Polish philosopher on the threshold, agitated by a medleyof feelings. 

IV

This mingled attitude of Maimon the Fool towards Nathan the Wisecontinued till the death of the Sage plunged Berlin into mourning, andthe Fool into vain regrets for his fits of disrespect towards one, thegreat outlines of whose character stood for ever fixed by the chiselof death. "_Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?_" hewrote in his autobiography. 

Too often had he lost his temper--particularly when Spinoza was thetheme--and had all but accused Mendelssohn of dishonesty. Was notTruth the highest ideal? And was not Spinoza as irrefutable as Euclid. What! Could the emancipated intellect really deny that marvellousthinker, who, after a century of unexampled obloquy, was theacknowledged prophet of the God of the future, the inspirer of Goethe, and all that was best in modern thought! But no, Mendelssohn heldstubbornly to his own life-system, never would admit that his longspiritual happiness had been based on a lie. It was highlyunreasonable and annoying of him, and his formula for closingdiscussions, "We must hold fast not to words but to the things theysignify, " was exasperatingly answerable. How strange that after therestless Maimon had of himself given up Spinoza, the Sage's last yearsshould have been clouded by the alleged Spinozism of his dear deadLessing. 

But now that the Sage himself was dead, the Fool remembered hisinfinite patience--the patience not of bloodlessness, but of apassionate soul that has conquered itself--not to be soured by afool's disappointing career, nor even by his bursts of profligacy. 

For Maimon's life held many more vicissitudes, but the profession ofmedicine was never of them. "I require of every man of sound mind thathe should lay out for himself a plan of action, " said the philosopher;and wandered to Breslau, to Amsterdam, to Potsdam, the parasite ofprotectors, the impecunious hack of publishers, the rebel of manners, the ingenious and honored metaphysician. When Kant declared he was theonly one of his critics that understood _The Critique of Pure Reason_, Maimon returned to Berlin to devote himself to the philosophical workthat was to give him a pinnacle apart among the Kantians. Goethe andSchiller made flattering advances to him. Berlin society was at hisfeet. But he remained to the end, shiftless and feckless, uncouth andunmanageable, and not seldom when the taverns he frequented wereclosed, he would wander tipsily through the sleeping streetsmeditating suicide, or arguing metaphysics with expostulant watchmen. 

"For all his mathematics, " a friend said of him, "he never seems tothink of the difference between _plus_ and _minus_ in money matters. ""People like you, there's no use trying to help, " said another, worn-out, when Maimon pleaded for only a few coppers. Yet he neveracquired the beggar's servility, nay, was often himself the patron ofsome poorer hanger-on, for whom he would sacrifice his last glass ofbeer. Curt in his manners, he refused to lift his hat or embrace hisacquaintances in cold blood. Nor would he wear a wig. Pure Reasonalone must rule. 

So, clad in an all-concealing overcoat, the unshaven philosopher mightbe seen in a coffee-house or on an ale-house bench, scribbling at oddmoments his profound essays on Transcendental Philosophy, the leavesflying about and losing themselves, and the thoughts as ill-arranged, for the Hebrew Talmudical manner still clung to his German writing asto his talking, so that the body swayed rhythmically, his thumb workedand his voice chanted the sing-song of piety to ideas that would haveparalyzed the Talmud school. It was in like manner that when he lost agame of chess or waxed hot in argument, his old Judean-Polish motherjargon came back to him. His old religion he had shed completely, yeta synagogue-tune could always move him to tears. Sometimes he might beseen at the theatre, sobbing hysterically at tragedies or laughingboisterously over comedies, for he had long since learned to loveHomer and the humane arts, though at first he was wont to contend thatno vigor of literary expression could possibly excel hismother-in-law's curses. Not that he ever saw her again: his wife andeldest son tracked him to Breslau, but only in quest of ducats anddivorce: the latter of which Maimon conceded after a legal rigmarole. But he took no advantage of his freedom. A home of his own he neverpossessed, save an occasional garret where he worked at an unsteadytable--one leg usually supported by a folio volume--surrounded by thecats and dogs whom he had taken to solacing himself with. And even iflodged in a nobleman's palace, his surroundings were no cleaner. InAmsterdam he drove the Dutch to despair: even German housekeepers werestung to remonstrance. Yet the charm of his conversation, thebrilliancy of his intellect kept him always well-friended. And thefortune which favors fools watched over his closing years, and sentthe admiring Graf Kalkreuth, an intellectual Silesian nobleman, to dighim out of miserable lodgings, and instal him in his own castle nearFreistadt. 

As he lay upon his luxurious death-bed in the dreary November dusk, dying at forty-six of a neglected lung-trouble, a worthy Catholicpastor strove to bring him to a more Christian frame of mind. 

"What matters it?" protested the sufferer; "when I am dead, I amgone. "

"Can you say that, dear friend, " rejoined the Pastor, with deepemotion. "How? Your mind, which amid the most unfavorablecircumstances ever soared to higher attainments, which bore such fairflowers and fruits--shall it be trodden in the dust along with thepoor covering in which it has been clothed? Do you not feel at thismoment that there is something in you which is not body, not matter, not subject to the conditions of space and time?"

"Ah!" replied Maimon, "there are beautiful dreams and hopes--"

"Which will surely be fulfilled. Should you not wish to come againinto the society of Mendelssohn?"

Maimon was silent. 

Suddenly the dying man cried out, "Ay me! I have been a fool, the mostfoolish among the most foolish. " The thought of Nathan the Wise wasindeed as a fiery scourge. Too late he realized that the passion forTruth had destroyed him. Knowledge alone was not sufficient for life. The will and the emotions demanded their nutriment and exercise aswell as the intellect. Man was not made merely to hunt an abstractformula, pale ghost of living realities. 

"To seek for Truth"--yes, it was one ideal. But there remainedalso--as the quotation went on which Mendelssohn's disciples hadchosen as their motto--"To love the beautiful, to desire the good, todo the best. " Mendelssohn with his ordered scheme of harmoniousliving, with his equal grasp of thought and life, sanely balancedbetwixt philosophy and letters, learning and business, according somuch to Hellenism, yet not losing hold of Hebraism, and adjusting withequal mind the claims of the Ghetto and the claims of Culture, Mendelssohn shone before Maimon's dying eyes, as indeed the Wise. 

The thinker had a last gleam of satisfaction in seeing so lucidly thesprings of his failure as a human being. Happiness was the child offixedness--in opinions, in space. Soul and body had need of a centre, a pivot, a home. 

He had followed the hem of Truth to the mocking horizon: he had inturn fanatically adopted every philosophical system Peripatetic, Spinozist, Leibnozist, Leibnitzian, Kantian--and what did he know nowhe was going beyond the horizon? Nothing. He had won a place among thethinkers of Germany. But if he could only have had his cast-off son toclose his dying eyes, and could only have believed in the prayers hisDavid would have sobbed out, how willingly would he have consented tobe blotted out from the book of fame. A Passover tune hummed in hisbrain, sad, sweet tears sprang to his eyes--yea, his soul found moresatisfaction in a meaningless melody charged with tremulous memoriesof childhood, than in all the philosophies. 

A melancholy synagogue refrain quavered on his lips, his soul turnedyearningly towards these ascetics and mystics, whose life was avoluntary martyrdom to a misunderstood righteousness, a passionatesacrifice to a naïve conception of the cosmos. The infinite pathos oftheir lives touched him to forgetfulness of his own futility. Hissoul went out to them, but his brain denied him the comfort of theirillusions. 

He set his teeth and waited for death. 

The Pastor spoke again: "Yes, you have been foolish. But that you sayso now shows your soul is not beyond redemption. Christ is ever on thethreshold. "

Maimon made an impatient gesture. "You asked me if I should not liketo see Mendelssohn again. How do you suppose I could face him, if Ibecame a Christian?"

"You forget, my dear Maimon, he knows the Truth now. Must he notrejoice that his daughters have fallen upon the bosom of the Church?"

Maimon sat up in bed with a sudden shock of remembrance that set himcoughing. 

"Dorothea, but not Henrietta?" he gasped painfully. 

"Henrietta too. Did you not know? And Abraham Mendelssohn also hasjust had his boy Felix baptized--a wonder-child in music, I hear. "

Maimon fell back on his pillow, overcome with emotions and thoughts. The tragedy latent in that smile of the sisters had developed itself. 

He had long since lost touch with Berlin, ceased to interest himselfin Judaism, its petty politics, but now his mind pieced togethervividly all that had reached him of the developments of the Jewishquestion since Mendelssohn's death: the battle of old and new, grownso fierce that the pietists denied the reformers Jewish burial; youngmen scorning their fathers and crying, "Culture, Culture; down withthe Ghetto"; many in the reaction from the yoke of three thousandyears falling into braggart profligacy, many more into fashionableChristianity. And the woman of the new generation no less apostate, Henrietta Herz bringing beautiful Jewesses under the fascination ofbrilliant Germans and the romantic movement, so that Mendelssohn's owndaughter, Dorothea, had left her husband and children to live withSchlegel, and the immemorial chastity of the Jewess was undermined. And instead of the honorable estimation of his people Mendelssohn hadworked for, a violent reaction against the Jews, fomented spirituallyby Schleiermacher with his "transcendental Christianity, " andpolitically by Gentz with his cry of "Christian Germany": both menlions of the Jewish-Christian Salon which Mendelssohn had madepossible. And the only Judaism that stood stable amid this flux, theancient rock of Rabbinism he had sought to dislodge, the AmsterdamJewry refusing even the civil rights for which he had fought. 

"Poor Mendelssohn!" thought the dying Maimon. "Which was the Dreamerafter all, he or I? Well for him, perhaps, that his _Phœdon_ is wrong, that he will never know. "

The gulf between them vanished, and in a last flash of remorselessinsight he saw himself and Mendelssohn at one in the common irony ofhuman destiny. 

He murmured: "And how dieth the wise? As the fool. "

"What do you say?" said the Pastor. 

"It is a verse from the Bible. "

"Then are you at peace?"

"I am at peace. "

FROM A MATTRESS GRAVE

 ["I am a Jew, I am a Christian. I am tragedy, I am comedy--Heraclitus and Democritus in one: a Greek, a Hebrew: an adorer of despotism as incarnate in Napoleon, an admirer of communism as embodied in Proudhon; a Latin, a Teuton; a beast, a devil, a god. "

 "God's satire weighs heavily upon me. The Great Author of the Universe, the Aristophanes of Heaven, was bent on demonstrating with crushing force to me, the little earthly so-called German Aristophanes, how my weightiest sarcasms are only pitiful attempts at jesting in comparison with His, and how miserably I am beneath Him in humor, in colossal mockery. "]

The carriage stopped, and the speckless footman, jumping down, inquired: "Monsieur Heine?"

The _concierge_, knitting beside the _porte cochère_, looked at him, looked at the glittering victoria he represented, and at the _grandedame_ who sat in it, shielding herself with a parasol from the gloryof the Parisian sunlight. Then she shook her head. 

"But this is number three, Avenue Matignon?"

"Yes, but Monsieur receives only his old friends. He is dying. "

"Madame knows. Take up her name. '"

The _concierge_ glanced at the elegant card. She saw "Lady"--which sheimagined meant an English _Duchesse_--and words scribbled on it inpencil. 

"It is _au cinquième_, " she said, with a sigh. 

"I will take it up. "

Ere he returned, Madame descended and passed from the sparklingsunshine into the gloom of the portico, with a melancholyconsciousness of the symbolic. For her spirit, too, had its poeticintuitions and insights, and had been trained by friendship with oneof the wittiest and tenderest women of her time to some more thancommon apprehension of the greater spirit at whose living tomb she wascome to worship. Hers was a fine face, wearing the triple aristocracyof beauty, birth, and letters. The complexion was of lustreless ivory, the black hair wound round and round. The stateliness of her figurecompleted the impression of a Roman matron. 

"Monsieur Heine begs that your ladyship will do him the honor ofmounting, and will forgive him the five stories for the sake of theview. "

Her ladyship's sadness was tinctured by a faint smile at the message, which the footman delivered without any suspicion that the view inquestion meant the view of Heine himself. But then that admirablemenial had not the advantage of her comprehensive familiarity withHeine's writings. She crossed the blank stony courtyard and curled upthe curving five flights, her mind astir with pictures and emotions. 

She had scribbled on her card a reminder of her identity; but could heremember, after all those years, and in his grievous sickness, thelittle girl of eleven who had sat next to him at the Boulogne _tabled'hôte_? And she herself could now scarcely realize at times that thestout, good-natured, short-sighted little man with the big white brow, who had lounged with her daily at the end of the pier, telling herstories, was the most mordant wit in Europe, "the GermanAristophanes"; and that those nursery tales, grotesquely compact ofmermaids, water-sprites, and a funny old French fiddler with a poodlethat diligently took three baths a day, were the frolicsomeimprovisations of perhaps the greatest lyric poet of his age. Sherecalled their parting: "When you go back to England, you can tellyour friends that you have seen Heinrich Heine!"

To which the little girl: "And who is Heinrich Heine?"

A query which had set the blue-eyed little man roaring with laughter. 

These things might be vivid still to her vision: they colored all shehad read since from his magic pen--the wonderful poems interpretingwith equal magic the romance of strange lands and times, or the modernsoul, naked and unashamed, as if clothed in its own complexity; thehumorous-tragic questionings of the universe; the delicioustravel-pictures and fantasies; the lucid criticisms of art, andpolitics, and philosophy, informed with malicious wisdom, shimmeringwith poetry and wit. But, as for him, doubtless she and her ingenuousinterrogation had long since faded from his tumultuous life. 

The odors of the sick-room recalled her to the disagreeable present. In the sombre light she stumbled against a screen covered with paperpainted to look like lacquer-work, and, as the slip-shod old nurse inher _serre-tête_ motioned her forward, she had a dismal sense of alodging-house interior, a bourgeois barrenness enhanced by twoengravings after Léopold Robert, depressingly alien from that daintyboudoir atmosphere of the artist-life she knew. 

But this sordid impression was swallowed up in the vast tragedy behindthe screen. Upon a pile of mattresses heaped on the floor lay thepoet. He had raised himself a little on his pillows, amid which showeda longish, pointed, white face with high cheek-bones, a Grecian nose, and a large pale mouth, wasted from the sensualism she recollected init to a strange Christ-like beauty. The outlines of the shrivelledbody beneath the sheet seemed those of a child of ten, and the legslooked curiously twisted. One thin little hand, as of transparent wax, delicately artistic, upheld a paralyzed eyelid, through which hepeered at her. 

"Lucy _Liebchen_!" he piped joyously. "So you have found out whoHeinrich Heine is!"

He used the familiar German "_du_"; for him she was still his littlefriend. But to her the moment was too poignant for speech. Theterrible passages in the last writings of this greatest ofautobiographers, which she had hoped poetically colored, were thenpainfully, prosaically true. 

"Can it be that I still actually exist? My body is so shrunk thatthere is hardly anything left of me but my voice, and my bed makes methink of the melodious grave of the enchanter Merlin, which is in theforest of Broceliand in Brittany, under high oaks whose tops shinelike green flames to heaven. Oh, I envy thee those trees, brotherMerlin, and their fresh waving. For over my mattress grave here inParis no green leaves rustle, and early and late I hear nothing butthe rattle of carriages, hammering, scolding, and the jingle ofpianos. A grave without rest, death without the privileges of thedeparted, who have no longer any need to spend money, or to writeletters, or to compose books. . . . "

And then she thought of that ghastly comparison of himself to theancient German singer--the poor clerk of the Chronicle ofLimburg--whose sweet songs were sung and whistled from morning tonight all through Germany; while the _Minnesinger_ himself, smittenwith leprosy, hooded and cloaked, and carrying the lazarus-clapper, moved through the shuddering city. God's satire weighed heavily uponhim, indeed. Silently she held out her hand, and he gave her hisbloodless fingers; she touched the strangely satin skin, and felt thefever beneath. 

"It cannot be my little Lucy, " he said reproachfully. "She used tokiss me. But even Lucy's kiss cannot thrill my paralyzed lips. "

She stooped and kissed his lips. His little beard felt soft and weakas the hair of a baby. 

"Ah, I have made my peace with the world and with God. Now He sends meHis death-angel. "

She struggled with the lump in her throat. "You must be indeed a preyto illusions, if you mistake an Englishwoman for Azrael. "

"_Ach_, why was I so bitter against England? I was only once inEngland, years ago. I knew nobody, and London seemed so full of fogand Englishmen. Now England has avenged herself beautifully. She sendsme you. Others too mount the hundred and five steps. I am an annexe tothe Paris Exhibition. Remains of Heinrich Heine. A very pilgrimage ofthe royal _demi-monde_! A Russian princess brings the hateful odor ofher pipe, " he said with scornful satisfaction, "an Italian princessbabbles of _her_ aches and pains, as if in competition with mine. Butthe gold medal would fall to _my_ nerves, I am convinced, if they wereon view at the Exhibition. No, no, don't cry; I meant you to laugh. Don't think of me as you see me now; pretend to me I am as you firstknew me. But how fine and beautiful _you_ have grown; even to myfraction of an eye, which sees the sunlight as through black gauze. Fancy little Lucy has a husband; a husband--and the poodle still takesthree baths a day. Are you happy, darling? are you happy?"

She nodded. It seemed a sacrilege to claim happiness. 

"_Das ist schön!_ Yes, you were always so merry. God be thanked! Howrefreshing to find one woman with a heart, and that her husband's. Here the women have a metronome under their corsets, which beats time, but not music. _Himmel!_ What a whiff of my youth you bring me! Doesthe sea still roll green at the end of Boulogue pier, and do thesea-gulls fly? while I lie here, a Parisian Prometheus, chained to mybed-post. Ah, had I only the bliss of a rock with the sky above me!But I must not complain; for six years before I moved here I hadnothing but a ceiling to defy. Now my balcony gives sideways on theChamps-Elysées, and sometimes I dare to lie outside on a sofa and peerat beautiful, beautiful Paris, as she sends up her soul in sparklingfountains, and incarnates herself in pretty women, who trip along likedance music. Look!"

To please him she went to a window and saw, upon the narrowiron-grilled balcony, a tent of striped chintz, like the awning of acafé, supported by a light iron framework. Her eyes were blurred byunshed tears, and she divined rather than saw the far-stretchingAvenue, palpitating with the fevered life of the Great Exhibitionyear; the intoxicating sunlight, the horse-chestnut trees dapplingwith shade the leafy footways, the white fountain-spray and flamingflower-beds of the Rond Point, the flashing flickering stream ofcarriages flowing to the Bois with their freight of beauty and wealthand insolent vice. 

"The first time I looked out of that window, " he said, "I seemed tomyself like Dante at the end of the Divine Comedy, when once again hebeheld the stars. You cannot know what I felt when after so many yearsI saw the world again for the first time, with half an eye, for everso little a space. I had my wife's opera-glass in my hand, and I sawwith inexpressible pleasure a young vagrant vendor of pastry offeringhis goods to two ladies in crinolines, with a small dog. I closed theglass; I could see no more, for I envied the dog. The nurse carriedme back to bed and gave me morphia. That day I looked no more. For methe Divine Comedy was far from ended. The divine humorist has evendescended to a pun. Talk of Mahomet's coffin. I lie between the twoChamps-Elysées, the one where warm life palpitates, and that other, where the pale ghosts flit. "

Then it was not a momentary fantasy of the pen, but an abiding moodthat had paid blasphemous homage to the "Aristophanes of Heaven. "Indeed, had it not always run through his work, this conception ofhumor in the grotesqueries of history, "the dream of an intoxicateddivinity"? But his amusement thereat had been genial. "Like a madharlequin, " he had written of Byron, the man to whom he felt himselfmost related, "he strikes a dagger into his own heart, to sprinklemockingly with the jetting black blood the ladies and gentlemenaround. . . . My blood is not so splenetically black; my bitterness comesonly from the gall-apples of my ink. " But now, she thought, thatbitter draught always at his lips had worked into his blood at last. 

"Are you quite incurable?" she said gently, as she returned from thewindow to seat herself at his mattress graveside. 

"No, I shall die some day. Gruby says very soon. But doctors are soinconsistent. Last week, after I had had a frightful attack of crampin the throat and chest, '_Pouvez-vous siffler?_' he said. '_Non, pasméme une comédie de M. Scribe_, ' I replied. So you may see how bad Iwas. Well, even that, he said, wouldn't hasten the end, and I shouldgo on living indefinitely! I had to caution him not to tell my wife. Poor Mathilde! I have been unconscionably long a-dying. And now heturns round again and bids me order my coffin. But I fear, despite hislatest bulletin, I shall go on some time yet increasing my knowledgeof spinal disease. I read all the books about it, as well asexperiment practically. What clinical lectures I will give in heaven, demonstrating the ignorance of doctors!"

She was glad to note the more genial _nuance_ of mockery. Railleryvibrated almost in the very tones of his voice, which had become clearand penetrating under the stimulus of her presence, but it passed awayin tenderness, and the sarcastic wrinkles vanished from the corners ofhis mouth as he made the pathetic jest anent his wife. 

"So you read as well as write, " she said. 

"Oh, well, De Zichlinsky, a nice young refugee, does both for me mosttimes. My mother, poor old soul, wrote the other day to know why Ionly signed my letters, so I had to say my eyes pained me, which wasnot so untrue as the rest of the letter. "

"Doesn't she know?"

"Know? God bless her, of course not. Dear old lady, dreaming sohappily at the Dammthor, too old and wise to read newspapers. No, shedoes not know that she has a dying son, only that she has an undying!_Nicht Wahr?_"

He looked at her with a shade of anxiety; that tragic anxiety of theveteran artist scenting from afar the sneers of the new critics at hislife-work, and morbidly conscious of his hosts of enemies. 

"As long as the German tongue lives. "

"Dear old Germany, " he said, pleased. "Yes, as I wrote to you, for_you_ are the _liebe Kleine_ of the poem, 'Nennt man die besten Namen, So wird auch der meine genannt. '"

She was flattered, but thought sadly of the sequel:

 "'Nennt man die schlimmsten Schmerzen, So wird auch der meine genannt'"

as he went on:--

"That was why, though the German censorship forbade or mutilated myevery book, which was like sticking pins into my soul, I would notbecome naturalized here. Paris has been my new Jerusalem, and Icrossed my Jordan at the Rhine; but as a French subject I should belike those two-headed monstrosities they show at the fairs. Besides, Ihate French poetry. What measured glitter! Not that German poetry hasever been to me more than a divine plaything. A laurel-wreath on mygrave, place or withhold, I care not; but lay on my coffin a sword, for I was as brave a soldier as your Canning in the Liberation War ofHumanity. But my Thirty Years' War is over, and I die 'with swordunbroken, and a broken heart. '" His head fell back in ineffablehopelessness. "Ah, " he murmured, "it was ever my prayer, 'Lord, let megrow old in body, but let my soul stay young; let my voice quaver andfalter, but never my hope. ' And this is how I end. "

"But your work does not end. Your fight was not vain. You are theinspirer of young Germany. And you are praised and worshipped by allthe world. Is that no pleasure?"

"No, I am not _le bon Dieu_!" He chuckled, his spirits revived by theblasphemous _mot_. " Ah, what a fate! To have the homage only of thefools, a sort of celestial Victor Cousin. One compliment from Hegelnow must be sweeter than a churchful of psalms. " A fearful fit ofcoughing interrupted further elaboration of the blasphemous fantasia. For five minutes it rent and shook him, the nurse bending fruitlesslyover him; but at its wildest he signed to his visitor not to go, andwhen at last it lulled he went on calmly: "Donizetti ended mad in agala dress, but I end at least sane enough to appreciate the joke--alittle long-drawn out, and not entirely original, yet replete withingenious irony. Little Lucy looks shocked, but I sometimes think, little Lucy, the disrespect is with the goody-goody folks, who, whilelauding their Deity's strength and hymning His goodness, show norecognition at all of His humor. Yet I am praised as a wit as well asa poet. If I could take up my bed and walk, I would preach a newworship--the worship of the Arch-Humorist. I should draw up the Ritualof the Ridiculous. Three times a day, when the _muezzin_ called fromthe Bourse-top, all the faithful would laugh devoutly at the giganticjoke of the cosmos. How sublime, the universal laugh! at sunrise, noon, and sunset; those who did not laugh would be persecuted; theywould laugh, if only on the wrong side of the mouth. Delightful! Asmost people have no sense of humor, they will swallow the schoolcatechism of the comic as stolidly as they now swallow the spiritual. Yes, I see you will _not_ laugh. But why may I not endow my Deity--aseverybody else does--with the quality which I possess or admire most?"

She felt some truth in his apology. He was mocking, not God, but themagnified man of the popular creeds; to him it was a mere intellectualcounter with which his wit played, oblivious of the sacred _aura_ thatclung round the concept for the bulk of the world. Even his famouspicture of Jehovah dying, or his suggestion that perhaps _dieserParvenu des Himmels_ was angry with Israel for reminding Him of hisformer obscure national relations--what was it but a lively renderingof what German savants said so unreadably about the evolution of theGod-Idea? But she felt also it would have been finer to bear unsmilingthe smileless destinies; not to affront with the tinkle of vainlaughter the vast imperturbable. She answered gently, "You are talkingnonsense. "

"I always talked nonsense to you, little Lucy, for

 'My heart is wise and witty And it bleeds within my breast. '

Will you hear its melodious drip-drip, my last poem?--My manuscript, Catherine; and then you can go take a nap. I am sure I gave you littlerest last night. "

The old woman brought him some folio sheets covered with greatpathetically sprawling letters, and when she had retired, he began--

 "Wie langsam kriechet sie dahin, Die Zeit, die schauderhafte Schnecke. . . ?"

His voice went on, but after the first lines the listener's brain wastoo troubled to attend. It was agitated with whirling memories ofthose earlier outcries throbbing with the passion of life, flamingrecords of the days when every instant held not an eternity of_ennui_, but of sensibility. "Red life boils in my veins. . . . Everywoman is to me the gift of a world. . . . I hear a thousandnightingales. . . . I could eat all the elephants of Hindostan and pickmy teeth with the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. . . . Life is thegreatest of blessings, and death the worst of evils. . . . " But the poetwas still reading--she forced herself to listen. 

 "'Perhaps with ancient heathen shapes, Old faded gods, this brain is full; Who, for their most unholy rites, Have chosen a dead poet's skull. '"

He broke off suddenly. "No, it is too sad. A cry in the night from aman buried alive; a new note in German poetry--_was sage ich?_--inthe poetry of the world. No poet ever had such a lucky chancebefore--_voyez-vous_--to survive his own death, though many a one hassurvived his own immortality. Dici _miser_ ante obitum nemodebet--call no man wretched till he's dead. 'Tis not till the journeyis over that one can see the perspective truthfully and the tombstonesof one's hopes and illusions marking the weary miles. 'Tis not tillone is dead that the day of judgment can dawn; and when one is deadone cannot see or judge at all. An exquisite irony. _Nicht Wahr?_ Thewrecks in the Morgue, what tales they could tell! But dead men tell notales. While there's life there's hope; and so the worst cynicismshave never been spoken. But I--I alone--have dodged the Fates. I amthe dead-alive, the living dead. I hover over my racked body like aghost, and exist in an interregnum. And so I am the first mortal in aposition to demand an explanation. Don't tell me I have sinned, and amin hell. Most sins are sins of classification by bigots and poorthinkers. Who can live without sinning, or sin without living? Allvery well for Kant to say: 'Act so that your conduct may be a law forall men under similar conditions. ' But Kant overlooked that _you_ arepart of the conditions. And when you are a Heine, you may very wellconcede that future Heines should act just so. It is easy enough to bevirtuous when you are a professor of pure reason, a regular, punctualmechanism, a thing for the citizens of Königsberg to set their watchesby. But if you happen to be one of those fellows to whom all the rosesnod and all the stars wink . . . I am for Schelling's principle: thehighest spirits are above the law. No, no, the parson's explanationwon't do. Perhaps heaven holds different explanations, graduated torising intellects, from parsons upwards. Moses Lump will be satisfiedwith a gold chair, and the cherubim singing, 'holy! holy! holy!' inHebrew, and ask no further questions. Abdullah Ben Osman's mouth willbe closed by the kisses of houris. Surely Christ will not disappointthe poor old grandmother's vision of Jerusalem the Golden seen throughtear-dimmed spectacles as she pores over the family Bible. He willmeet her at the gates of death with a wonderful smile of love; and, asshe walks upon the heavenly Jordan's shining waters, hand in hand withHim, she will see her erst-wrinkled face reflected from them inangelic beauty. Ah, but to tackle a Johann Wolfgang Goethe or aGotthold Ephraim Lessing--what an ordeal for the celestial Professorof Apologetics! Perhaps that's what the Gospel means--only by becominglittle children can we enter the kingdom of heaven. I told my littlegod-daughter yesterday that heaven is so pure and magnificent thatthey eat cakes there all day--it is only what the parson says, translated into child-language--and that the little cherubs wipe theirmouths with their white wings. 'That's very dirty, ' said the child. Ifear that unless I become a child myself I shall have severercriticisms to bring against the cherubs. O God, " he broke offsuddenly, letting fall the sheets of manuscript and stretching out hishands in prayer, "make me a child again, even before I die; give meback the simple faith, the clear vision of the child that holds itsfather's hand. Oh, little Lucy, it takes me like that sometimes, and Ihave to cry for mercy. I dreamt I _was_ a child the other night, andsaw my dear father again. He was putting on his wig, and I saw him asthrough a cloud of powder. I rushed joyfully to embrace him; but, as Iapproached him, everything seemed changing in the mist. I wished tokiss his hands, but I recoiled with mortal cold. The fingers werewithered branches, my father himself a leafless tree, which the winterhad covered with hoar-frost. Ah, Lucy, Lucy, my brain is full ofmadness and my heart of sorrow. Sing me the ballad of the lady whotook only one spoonful of gruel, 'with sugar and spices so rich. '"

Astonished at his memory, she repeated the song of Ladye Alice andGiles Collins, the poet laughing immoderately till at the end, "The parson licked up the rest, "

in his effort to repeat the line that so tickled him, he fell into afearful spasm, which tore and twisted him till his child's body laycurved like a bow. Her tears fell at the sight. 

"Don't pity me too much, " he gasped, trying to smile with his eyes; "Ibend, but I do not break. "

But she, terrified, rang the bell for aid. A jovial-lookingwoman--tall and well-shaped--came in, holding a shirt she was sewing. Her eyes and hair were black, and her oval face had the rude coloringof health. She brought into the death-chamber at once a whiff ofozone, and a suggestion of tragic incongruity. Nodding pleasantly atthe visitor, she advanced quickly to the bedside, and laid her handupon the forehead, sweating with agony. 

"Mathilde, " he said, when the spasm abated, "this is little Lucy ofwhom I have never spoken to you, and to whom I wrote a poem about herdark-brown eyes which you have never read. "

Mathilde smiled amiably at the Roman matron. 

"No, I have never read it, " she said archly. "They tell me that Heineis a very clever man, and writes very fine books; but I know nothingabout it, and must content myself with trusting to their word. "

"Isn't she adorable?" cried Heine delightedly. "I have only twoconsolations that sit at my bedside, my French wife and my Germanmuse, and they are not on speaking terms. But it has itscompensations, for she is unable also to read what my enemies inGermany say about me, and so she continues to love me. "

"How can he have enemies?" said Mathilde, smoothing his hair. "He isso good to everybody. He has only two thoughts--to hide his illnessfrom his mother, and to earn enough for my future. And as for havingenemies in Germany, how can that be, when he is so kind to every poorGerman that passes through Paris?"

It moved the hearer to tears--this wifely faith. Surely the saint thatlay behind the Mephistopheles in his face must have as real anexistence, if the woman who knew him only as man, undazzled by theglitter of his fame, unwearied by his long sickness, found him thuswithout flaw or stain. 

"Delicious creature, " said Heine fondly. "Not only thinks me good, butthinks that goodness keeps off enemies. What ignorance of life shecrams into a dozen words. As for those poor countrymen of mine, theyare just the people that carry back to Germany all the awful tales ofmy goings-on. Do you know, there was once a poor devil of a musicianwho had set my _Zwei Grenadiere_, and to whom I gave no end of helpand advice, when he wanted to make an opera on the legend of theFlying Dutchman, which I had treated in one of my books. Now he cursesme and all the Jews together, and his name is Richard Wagner. "

Mathilde smiled on vaguely. "You would eat those cutlets, " she saidreprovingly. 

"Well, I was weary of the chopped grass cook calls spinach. I don'twant seven years of Nebuchadnezzardom. "

"Cook is angry when you don't eat her things, _chéri_. I find itdifficult to get on with her, since you praised her dainty style. Onewould think she was the mistress and I the servant. "

"Ah, Nonotte, you don't understand the artistic temperament. " Then atwitch passed over his face. "You must give me a double dose ofmorphia to-night, darling. "

"No, no; the doctor forbids. "

"One would think he were the employer and I the employee, " he grumbledsmilingly. "But I daresay he is right. Already I spend 500 francs ayear on morphia, I must really retrench. So run away, dearest, I havea good friend here to cheer me up. "

She stooped down and kissed him. 

"Ah, madame, " she said, "it is very good of you to come and cheer himup. It is as good as a new dress to me, to see a new face coming in, for the old ones begin to drop off. Not the dresses, the friends, " sheadded gaily, as she disappeared. 

"Isn't she divine?" cried Heine enthusiastically. 

"I am glad you love her, " his visitor replied simply. 

"You mean you are astonished. Love? What is love? I have never loved. "

"You!" And all those stories those countrymen of his had spreadabroad, all his own love-poems were in that exclamation. 

"No--never mortal woman. Only statues and the beautiful deaddream-women, vanished with the _neiges d'antan_. What did it matterwhom I married? Perhaps you would have had me aspire higher than a_grisette_? To a tradesman's daughter? Or a demoiselle in society?'Explain my position?'--a poor exile's position--to somedouble-chinned _bourgeois_ papa who can only see that my immortalbooks are worth exactly two thousand marks _banco_; yes, that's themost I can wring out of those scoundrels in wicked Hamburg. And tothink that if I had only done my writing in ledgers, the 'prenticemillionaire might have become the master millionaire, ungalled byavuncular advice and chary cheques. Ah, dearest Lucy, you can neverunderstand what we others suffer--you into whose mouths the larks droproasted. Should I marry fashion and be stifled? Or money and bepatronized? And lose the exquisite pleasure of toiling to buy my wifenew dresses and knick-knacks? _Après tout_, Mathilde is quite asintelligent as any other daughter of Eve, whose first thought when shecame to reflective consciousness was a new dress. All great men aremateless, 'tis only their own ribs they fall in love with. A morecultured woman would only have misunderstood me more pretentiously. Not that I didn't, in a weak moment, try to give her a little polish. I sent her to a boarding-school to learn to read and write; my childof nature among all the little school-girls--ha! ha! ha!--and I onlyvisited her on Sundays, and she could rattle off the Egyptian Kingsbetter than I, and once she told me with great excitement the story ofLucretia, which she had heard for the first time. Dear Nonotte! Youshould have seen her dancing at the school ball, as graceful andmaidenly as the smallest shrimp of them all. What _gaieté de cœur_!What good humor! What mother-wit! And such a faithful chum. Ah, theFrench women are wonderful. We have been married fifteen years, andstill, when I hear her laugh come through that door, my soul turnsfrom the gates of death and remembers the sun. Oh, how I love to seeher go off to Mass every morning with her toilette nicely adjusted andher dainty prayer-book in her neatly gloved hand, for she's adorablyreligious, is my little Nonotte. You look surprised; did you thenthink religious people shock me!"

She smiled a little. "But don't you shock her?"

"I wouldn't for worlds utter a blasphemy she could understand. Do youthink Shakespeare explained himself to Ann Hathaway? But she doubtlessserved well enough as artist's model; raw material to be worked upinto Imogens and Rosalinds. Enchanting creatures! How you foggyislanders could have begotten Shakespeare! The miracle of miracles. And Sterne! _Mais non_, an Irishman like Swift, _Ça s'explique. _ IsSterne read?"

"No; he is only a classic. "

"Barbarians! Have you read my book on Shakespeare's heroines? It isgood; _nicht wahr?_"

"Admirable. "

"Then, why shouldn't you translate it into English?"

"It is an idea. "

"It is an inspiration. Nay, why shouldn't you translate all my books?You shall; you must. You know how the French edition _fait fureur_. French, that is the European hall-mark, for Paris is Athens. ButEnglish will mean fame _in ultima Thule_; the isles of the sea, as theBible says. It isn't for the gold pieces, though, God knows, Mathildeneeds more friends, as we call them--perhaps because they leave us sosoon. I fear she doesn't treat them too considerately, the poor littlefeatherhead. Heaven preserve you from the irony of having to earn yourliving on your death-bed! _Ach_, my publisher, Campe, has builthimself a new establishment; what a monument to me! Why should notsome English publisher build me a monument in London? The Jew's books, like the Jew, should be spread abroad, so that in them all the nationsof the earth shall be blessed. For the Jew peddles, not only old clo', but new ideas. I began life--tell it not in Gath--as a commissionagent for English goods; and I end it as an intermediary betweenFrance and Germany, trying to make two great nations understand eachother. To that not unworthy aim has all my later work been devoted. "

"So you really consider yourself a Jew still?"

"_Mein Gott!_ have I ever been anything else but an enemy of thePhilistines?"

She smiled: "Yes; but religiously?"

"Religiously! What was my whole fight to rouse Hodge out of histhousand years' sleep in his hole? Why did I edit a newspaper, andplague myself with our time and its interests? Goethe has createdglorious Greek statues, but statues cannot have children. My wordsshould find issue in deeds. Put me rather with poor Lessing. I am notrue Hellenist. I may have snatched at pleasure, but self-sacrificehas always called to the depths of me. Like my ancestor, David, I havebeen not only a singer, I have slung my smooth little pebbles at theforehead of Goliath. "

"Yes; but haven't you turned Catholic?"

"Catholic!" he roared like a roused lion, "they say that again! Hasthe myth of death-bed conversion already arisen about me? How theyjump, the fools, at the idea of a man's coming round to their viewswhen his brain grows weak!"

"No, not death-bed conversion. Quite an old history. I was assured youhad married in a Catholic Church. "

"To please Mathilde. Without that the poor creature wouldn't havethought herself married in a manner sufficiently pleasing to God. Itis true we had been living together without any Church blessing atall, but _que voulez-vous_? Women are like that. But for a duel I hadto fight, I should have been satisfied to go on as we were. Iunderstand by a wife something nobler than a married woman chained tome by money-brokers and parsons, and I deemed my _faux ménage_ farfirmer than many a "true" one. But since I _was_ to be married, Icould not leave my beloved Nonotte a dubious widowhood. We eveninvited a number of Bohemian couples to the wedding-feast, and badethem follow our example in daring the last step of all. Ha! ha! thereis nothing like a convert's zeal, you see. But convert to Catholicism, that's another pair of sleeves. If your right eye offends you, pluckit out; if your right arm offends you, cut it off. And if your reasonoffends you, become a Catholic. No, no, Lucy, I may have worshippedthe Madonna in song, for how can a poet be insensible to the beauty ofCatholic symbol and ritual? But a Jew I have always been. "

"Despite your baptism?"

The sufferer groaned, but not from physical pain. 

"Ah, cruel little Lucy, don't remind me of my youthful folly. Thankyour stars you were born an Englishwoman. I was born under the fearfulconjunction of Christian bigotry and Jewish, in the Judenstrasse. Inmy cradle lay my line of life marked out from beginning to end. MyGod, what a life! You know how Germany treated her Jews--like pariahsand wild beasts. At Frankfort for centuries the most venerable Rabbihad to take off his hat if the smallest gamin cried: 'Jud', machmores!' I have myself been shut up in that Ghetto, I have witnessed aJew-riot more than once in Hamburg. Ah, Judaism is not a religion, buta misfortune. And to be born a Jew _and_ a genius! What a doublecurse! Believe me, Lucy, a certificate of baptism was a necessary cardof admission to European culture. Neither my mother nor my money-bagof an uncle sympathized with my shuddering reluctance to wade throughholy water to my doctor's degree. And yet no sooner had I taken thedip than a great horror came over me. Many a time I got up at nightand looked in the glass, and cursed myself for my want of backbone!Alas! my curses were more potent than those of the Rabbis againstSpinoza, and this disease was sent me to destroy such backbone as Ihad. No wonder the doctors do not understand it. I learnt in theGhetto that if I didn't twine the holy phylacteries round my arm, serpents would be found coiled round the arm of my corpse. Alas!serpents have never failed to coil themselves round my sins. TheInquisition could not have tortured me more, had I been a Jew ofSpain. If I had known how much easier moral pain was to bear thanphysical, I would have saved my curses for my enemies, and put up withmy conscience--twinges. Ah, truly said your divine Shakespeare thatthe wisest philosopher is not proof against a toothache. When was anyspasm of pleasure so sustained as pain? Certain of our bones, I learnfrom my anatomy books, only manifest their existence when they areinjured. Happy are the bones that have no history. Ugh! how mine arecoming through the skin, like ugly truth through fair romance. I shallhave to apologize to the worms for offering them nothing but bones. Alas, how ugly bitter it is to die; how sweet and snugly we can livein this snug, sweet nest of earth. What nice words; I must start apoem with them. Yes, sooner than die I would live over again mymiserable boyhood in my uncle Salomon's office, miscalculating in hisledgers like a Trinitarian, while I scribbled poems for the _HamburgWächter_. Yes, I would even rather learn Latin again at the Franciscancloister, and grind law at Göttingen. For, after all, I shouldn't haveto work very hard; a pretty girl passes, and to the deuce with thePandects! Ah, those wild University days, when we used to go and supat the 'Landwehr, ' and the rosy young _Kellnerin_, who brought us ourduck _mit Apfelkompot_, kissed me alone of all the _Herren Studenten_, because I was a poet, and already as famous as the professors. Andthen, after I should be re-rusticated from Göttingen, there would beBerlin over again, and dear Rahel Levin and her salon, and theTuesdays at Elise von Hohenhausen's (at which I would read my _LyricalIntermezzo_), and the mad literary nights with the poets in theBehrenstrasse. And balls, theatres, operas, masquerades--shall I everforget the ball when Sir Walter Scott's son appeared as a ScotchHighlander, just when all Berlin was mad about the Waverley Novels! I, too, should read them over again for the first time, those wonderfulromances; yes, and I should write my own early books over again--oh, the divine joy of early creation!--and I should set out again withbounding pulses on my _Harzreise_: and the first night of _Freischütz_would come once more, and I should be whistling the _Jungfern_ andsipping punch in the Casino, with Lottchen filling up my glass. " Hiseyes oozed tears, and suddenly he stretched out his arms and seizedher hand and pressed it frantically, his face and body convulsed, hisparalyzed eyelids dropping. "No, no!" he pleaded, in a hoarse, hollowvoice, as she strove to withdraw it, "I hear the footsteps of death, Imust cling on to life; I must, I must. O the warmth and the scent ofit!"

She shuddered. For an instant he seemed a vampire with shut eyessucking at her life-blood to sustain his; and when that horriblefantasy passed, there remained the overwhelming tragedy of a dead manlusting for life. Not this the ghost, who, as Berlioz put it, stood atthe window of his grave, regarding and mocking the world in which hehad no further part. But his fury waned, he fell back as in a stupor, and lay silent, little twitches passing over his sightless face. 

She bent over him, terribly distressed. Should she go? Should she ringagain? Presently words came from his lips at intervals, abrupt, disconnected, and now a ribald laugh, and now a tearful sigh. And thenhe was a student humming:

 "Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus, "

and his death-mask lit up with the wild joys of living. And thenearlier memories still--of his childhood in Düsseldorf--seemed to flowthrough his comatose brain; his mother and brothers and sisters; thedancing-master he threw out of the window; the emancipation of theJewry by the French conquerors; the joyous drummer who taught himFrench; the passing of Napoleon on his white horse; the atheistschool-boy friend with whom he studied Spinoza on the sly, and thecountry louts from whom he bought birds merely to set them free, andthe blood-red hair of the hangman's niece who sang him folk-songs. Andsuddenly he came to himself, raised his eyelid with his forefinger andlooked at her. 

"Catholic!" he cried angrily. "I never returned to Judaism, because Inever left it. My baptism was a mere wetting. I have never putHeinrich--only H--on my books, and never have I ceased to write'Harry' to my mother. Though the Jews hate me even more than theChristians, yet I was always on the side of my brethren. "

"I know, I know, " she said soothingly. "I am sorry I hurt you. Iremember well the passage in which you say that your becoming aChristian was the fault of the Saxons who changed sides suddenly atLeipzig; or else of Napoleon who had no need to go to Russia; or elseof his school-master who gave him instruction at Brienne in geography, and did not tell him that it was very cold at Moscow in winter. "

"Very well, then, " he said, pacified. "Let them not say either that Ihave been converted to Judaism on my death-bed. Was not my first poembased on one in the Passover night _Hagadah_? Was not my firsttragedy, _Almansor_, really the tragedy of down-trodden Israel, thatgreat race which from the ruins of its second Temple knew to save, notthe gold and the precious stones, but its real treasure, the Bible--agift to the world that would make the tourist traverse oceans to see aJew, if there were only one left alive. The only people that preservedfreedom of thought through the middle ages, they have now to preserveGod against the free-thought of the modern world. We are the Swissguards of Deism. God was always the beginning and end of my thought. When I hear His existence questioned, I feel as I felt once in yourBedlam when I lost my guide, a ghastly forlornness in a mad world. Isnot my best work, _The Rabbi of Bacharach_, devoted to expressing the'vast Jewish sorrow, ' as Börne calls it?"

"But you never finished it?"

"I was a fool to be persuaded by Moser. Or was it Gans? Ah, will notJehovah count it to me for righteousness, that New JerusalemBrotherhood with them in the days when I dreamt of reconciling Jew andGreek--the goodness of beauty with the beauty of goodness! Oh, thosedays of youthful dreams, whose winters are warmer than the summers ofthe after years. How they tried to crush us, the Rabbis and the Statealike! O the brave Moser, the lofty-souled, the pure-hearted, whopassed from counting-house to laboratory, and studied Sanscrit forrecreation, _moriturus te saluto_. And thou, too, Markus, with thyboy's body, and thy old man's look, and thy encyclopædic, inorganicmind; and thou, O Gans, with thy too organic Hegelian hocus-pocus. Yes, the Rabbis were right, and the baptismal font had us at last; butsurely God counts the will to do, and is more pleased withgreat-hearted dreams than with the deeds of the white-hearted burghersof virtue, whose goodness is essence of gendarmerie. And where, indeed--if not in Judaism, broadened by Hellenism--shall one find thereligion of the future? Be sure of this, anyhow, that only a Jew willfind it. We have the gift of religion, the wisdom of the ages. Youothers--young races fresh from staining your bodies with woad--havenever yet got as far as Moses. Moses--that giant figure--who dwarfsSinai when he stands upon it, the great artist in life, who, as Ipoint out in my _Confessions_ built human pyramids; who createdIsrael; who took a poor shepherd family, and created a nation fromit--a great, eternal, holy people, a people of God, destined tooutlive the centuries, and to serve as a pattern to all othernations--a statesman, not a dreamer, who did not deny the world andthe flesh, but sanctified it. Happiness, is it not implied in the veryaspiration of the Christian for postmundane bliss? And yet, 'the manMoses was very meek'; the most humble and lovable of men. Hetoo--though it is always ignored--was ready to die for the sins ofothers, praying, when his people had sinned, that _his_ name might beblotted out instead; and though God offered to make of him a greatnation, yet did he prefer the greatness of his people. He led them toPalestine, but his own foot never touched the promised land. What aglorious, Godlike figure, and yet so prone to wrath and error, solovably human. How he is modelled all round like a Rembrandt--whileyour starveling monks have made of your Christ a mere decorativefigure with a gold halo. O Moshé Rabbenu, Moses our teacher indeed!No, Christ was not the first nor the last of our race to wear a crownof thorns. What was Spinoza but Christ in the key of meditation?"

"Wherever a great soul speaks out his thoughts, there is Golgotha, "quoted the listener. 

"Ah, you know every word I have written, " he said, childishly pleased. "Decidedly, you must translate me. You shall be my apostle to theheathen. You are good apostles, you English. You turned Jews underCromwell, and now your missionaries are planting our Palestiniandoctrines in the South Seas, or amid the josses and pagodas of theEast, and your young men are colonizing unknown continents on thebasis of the Decalogue of Moses. You are founding a world-widePalestine. The law goes forth from Zion, but by way of Liverpool andSouthampton. Perhaps you are indeed the lost Ten Tribes. "

"Then you would make me a Jew, too, " she laughed. 

"Jew or Greek, there are only two religiouspossibilities--fetish-dances and spinning dervishes don't count--theRenaissance meant the revival of these two influences, and since thesixteenth century they have both been increasing steadily. Luther wasa child of the Old Testament. Since the Exodus, Freedom has alwaysspoken with a Hebrew accent. Christianity is Judaism run divinely mad, a religion without a drainage system, a beautiful dream disseveredfrom life, soul cut adrift from body, and sent floating through theempyrean, when it can only at best be a captive balloon. At the sametime, don't take your idea of Judaism from the Jews. It is only anapostolic succession of great souls that understands anything in thisworld. The Jewish mission will never be over till the Christians areconverted to the religion of Christ. Lassalle is a better pupil of theMaster than the priests who denounce socialism. You have met Lassalle!No? You shall meet him here one day. A marvel. Me _plus_ Will. Heknows everything, feels everything, yet is a sledge-hammer to act. Hemay yet be the Messiah of the nineteenth century. Ah! when every manis a Spinoza, and does good for the love of good, when the world isruled by justice and brotherhood, reason and humor, then the Jews mayshut up shop, for it will be the Holy Sabbath. Did you mark, Lucy, Isaid, reason and humor? Nothing will survive in the long run but whatsatisfies the sense of logic, and the sense of humor. Logic andlaughter--the two trumps of doom! Put not your trust in princes--thereally great of the earth are always simple. Pomp and ceremonial, popes and kings, are toys for children. Christ rode on an ass, now theass rides on Christ. "

"And how long do you give your trumps to sound before your Millenniumdawns?" said "little Lucy, " feeling strangely old and cynical besidethis incorrigible idealist. 

"Alas, perhaps I am only another dreamer of the Ghetto, perhaps I havefought in vain. A Jewish woman once came weeping to her Rabbi with herson, and complained that the boy, instead of going respectably intobusiness like his sires, had developed religion, and insisted ontraining for a Rabbi. Would not the Rabbi dissuade him? 'But, ' saidthe Rabbi, chagrined, 'why are you so distressed about it? Am _I_ nota Rabbi?' 'Yes, ' replied the woman, 'but this little fool takes itseriously, ' _Ach_, every now and again arises a dreamer who takes theworld's lip-faith seriously, and the world tramples on another fool. Perhaps there is no resurrection for humanity. If so, if there's noworld's Saviour coming by the railway, let us keep the figure of thatsublime Dreamer whose blood is balsam to the poor and the suffering. "

Marvelling at the mental lucidity, the spiritual loftiness of hischanged mood, his visitor wished to take leave of him with this imagein her memory; but just then a half-paralyzed Jewish graybeard madehis appearance, and Heine's instant dismissal of him on her accountmade it difficult not to linger a little longer. 

"My _chef de police_!" he said, smiling. "He lives on me and I live onhis reports of the great world. He tells me what my enemies are up to. But I have them in there, " and he pointed to an ebony box on a chestof drawers, and asked her to hand it to him. 

"Pardon me before I forget, " he said; and, seizing a pencil like adagger, he made a sprawling note, laughing venomously. "I have themhere!" he repeated, "they will try to stop the publication of my_Memoirs_, but I will outwit them yet. I hold them! Dead or alive, they shall not escape me. Woe to him who shall read these lines, if hehas dared attack me. Heine does not die like the first comer. Thetiger's claws will survive the tiger. When I die, it will be for_them_ the Day of Judgment. "

It was a reminder of the long fighting life of the freelance, of allthe stories she had heard of his sordid quarrels, of his blackmailinghis relatives, and besting his uncle. She asked herself his ownquestion, "Is genius, like the pearl in the oyster, only a splendiddisease?"

Aloud she said, "I hope you are done with Börne!"

"Börne?" he said, softening. "_Ach_, what have I against Börne? Twobaptized German Jews exiled in Paris should forgive each other indeath. My book was misunderstood. I wish to heaven I hadn't writtenit. I always admired Börne, even if I could not keep up the ardor ofmy St. Simonian days when my spiritual Egeria was Rahel von Varnhagen. I had three beautiful days with him in Frankfort when he was full ofJewish wit, and hadn't yet shrunk to a mere politician. He was a bravesoldier of humanity, but he had no sense of art, and I could not standthe dirty mob around him with its atmosphere of filthy German tobaccoand vulgar tirades against tyrants. The last time I saw him he wasalmost deaf, and worn to a skeleton by consumption. He dwelt in avast, bright silk dressing-gown, and said that if an Emperor shook hishand he would cut it off. I said if a workman shook mine I should washit. And so we parted, and he fell to denouncing me as a traitor and a_persifleur_, who would preach monarchy or republicanism, according towhich sounded better in the sentence. Poor Lob Baruch! Perhaps he waswiser than I in his idea that his brother Jews should sink themselvesin the nations. He was born, by the way, in the very year of oldMendelssohn's death. What an irony! But I am sorry for thoseinsinuations against Mme. Strauss. I have withdrawn them from the newedition, although, as you perhaps know, I had already satisfied herhusband's sense of justice by allowing him to shoot at me, whilst Ifired in the air. What can I more?"

"I am glad you have withdrawn them, " she said, moved. 

"Yes; I have no Napoleonic grip, you see. A morsel of conventionalconscience clings to me. "

"Therefore I could never understand your worship of Napoleon. "

"There speaks the Englishwoman. You Pharisees--forgive me--do notunderstand great men, you and your Wellington! Napoleon was not of thewood of which kings are made, but of the marble of the gods. Let metell you the "code Napoleon" carried light not only into the Ghettos, but into many another noisome spider-clot of feudalism. The worldwants earthquakes and thunderstorms, or it grows corrupt and stagnant. This Paris needs a scourge of God, and the moment France gives Germanya pretext, there will be sackcloth and ashes, or prophecy has died outof Israel. "

"_Qui vivra verra_, " ran heedlessly off her tongue. Then, blushingpainfully, she said quickly, "But how do you worship Napoleon andMoses in the same breath?"

"Ah, my dear Lucy, if your soul was like an Aladdin's palace with athousand windows opening on the human spectacle! Self-contradictionthe fools call it, if you will not shut your eyes to half the show. Ilove the people, yet I hate their stupidity and mistrust theirleaders. I hate the aristocrats, yet I love the lilies that toil not, neither do they spin, and sometimes bring their perfume and theirwhite robes into a sick man's chamber. Who would harden with work thewhite fingers of Corysande, or sacrifice one rustle of Lalage's silkenskirts? Let the poor starve; I'll have no potatoes on Parnassus. Mysocialism is not barracks and brown bread, but purple robes, music, and comedies. 

"Yes, I was born for Paradox. A German Parisian, a Jewish German, ahated political exile who yearns for dear homely old Germany, asceptical sufferer with a Christian patience, a romantic poetexpressing in classic form the modern spirit, a Jew and poor--thinkyou I do not see myself as lucidly as I see the world? 'My mind to mea kingdom is' sang your old poet. Mine is a republic, and all moodsare free, equal and fraternal, as befits a child of light. Or if there_is_ a despot, 'tis the king's jester, who laughs at the king as wellas all his subjects. But am I not nearer Truth for not being caged ina creed or a clan? Who dares to think Truth frozen--on thisphantasmagorical planet, that whirls in beginningless time throughendless space! Let us trust, for the honor of God, that thecontradictory creeds for which men have died are all true. Perhapshumor--your right Hegelian touchstone to which everything yields upits latent negation, passing on to its own contradiction--gives truerlights and shades than your pedantic Philistinism. Is Truth really inthe cold white light, or in the shimmering interplay of the rainbowtints that fuse in it? Bah! Your Philistine critic will sum me upafter I am dead in a phrase; or he will take my character to piecesand show how they contradict each other, and adjudge me, like aschoolmaster, so many good marks for this quality, and so many badmarks for that. Biographers will weigh me grocerwise, as Kant weighedthe Deity. Ugh! You can only be judged by your peers or by yoursuperiors, by the minds that circumscribe yours, not by those that aresmaller than yours. I tell you that when they have written three tonsabout me, they shall as little understand me as the Cosmos I reflect. Does the pine contradict the rose or the lotusland the iceberg? I amSpain, I am Persia, I am the North Sea, I am the beautiful gods of oldGreece, I am Brahma brooding over the sun-lands, I am Egypt, I am theSphinx. But oh, dear Lucy, the tragedy of the modern, all-mirroringconsciousness that dares to look on God face to face, not content, with Moses, to see the back parts; nor, with the Israelites, to gazeon Moses. _Ach_, why was I not made four-square like MosesMendelssohn, or sublimely one-sided like Savonarola; I, too, couldhave died to save humanity, if I did not at the same time suspecthumanity was not worth saving. To be Don Quixote and Sancho Panza inone, what a tragedy! No, your limited intellects are happier: thosethat see life in some one noble way, and in unity find strength. Ishould have loved to be a Milton--like one of your English cathedrals, austere, breathing sacred memories, resonant with the roll of a greatorgan, with painted windows, on which the shadows of the green boughsoutside wave and flicker, and just hint of Nature. Or one of youraristocrats with a stately home in the country, and dogs and horses, and a beautiful wife. In short, I should like to be your husband. Or, failing that, my own wife, a simple, loving creature, whose idea ofculture is cabbages. _Ach_, why was my soul wider than the Ghetto Iwas born in? why did I not mate with my kind?" He broke into a fit ofcoughing, and "little Lucy" thought suddenly of the story that all hislife-sadness and song-sadness was due to his rejection by some Jewishgirl in his own family circle. 

"I tire you, " she said. "Do not talk to me. I will sit here a littlelonger. "

"Nay, I have tired _you_. But I could not but tell you my thoughts;for you are at once a child who loves and a woman who understands me. And to be understood is rarer than to be loved. My very parents neverunderstood me. Nay, were they my parents--the mild man of business, the clever, clear-headed, romance-disdaining Dutchwoman, God blessher? No, my father was Germany, my mother was the Ghetto. The broodingspirit of Israel breathes through me that engendered the tender humorof her sages, the celestial fantasies of her saints. Perhaps I shouldhave been happier had I married the first black-eyed Jewess whosefather would put up with a penniless poet. I might have kept a kitchenwith double crockery and munched Passover cakes at Easter. EveryFriday night I should have come home from the labors of the week andfound the table-cloth shining like my wife's face, and the Sabbathcandles burning, and the Angels of Peace sitting hidden beneath theirgreat invisible wings, and my wife, piously conscious of having thrownthe dough on the fire, would have kissed me tenderly, and I shouldhave recited in an ancient melody: 'A virtuous woman, who can findher? Her price is far above rubies. ' There would have been littlechildren with great candid eyes, on whose innocent heads I should havelaid my hands in blessing, praying that God might make them likeEphraim and Manasseh, Rachel and Leah--persons of dubiousexemplariness--and we should have sat down and eaten _Schalet_, whichis the divinest dish in the world, pending the Leviathan that awaitsthe blessed at Messiah's table. And, instead of singing of cocottesand mermaids, I should have sung, like Jehuda Halévi, of my_Herzensdame_, Jerusalem. Perhaps--who knows?--my Hebrew verses wouldhave been incorporated in the festival liturgy, and pious old menwould have snuffled them helter-skelter through their noses. Theletters of my name would have run acrosticwise down the verses, andthe last verse would have inspired the cantor to jubilant roulades ortremolo wails while the choir boomed in 'Pom'; and perhaps many aJewish banker, to whom my present poems make so little appeal, wouldhave wept and beat his breast and taken snuff to the words of them. And I should have been buried honorably in the 'House of Life, ' and myson would have said _Kaddish_. Ah me, it is, after all, so much betterto be stupid and walk in the old laid-out, well-trimmed paths, than towander after the desires of your own heart and your own eyes over theblue hills. True, there are glorious vistas to explore, and streams ofliving silver to bathe in, and wild horses to catch by the mane, butyou are in a chartless land without stars and compass. One false stepand you are over a precipice, or up to your neck in a slough. Ah, itis perilous to throw over the old surveyors. I see Moses ben Amram, with his measuring-chain and his graving-tools, marking on those stonetables of his the deepest abysses and the muddiest morasses. When Ikept swine with the Hegelians, I used to say, or rather, I still say, for, alas! I cannot suppress what I have published: 'teach man _he's_divine; the knowledge of his divinity will inspire him to manifestit. ' Ah me, I see now that our divinity is like old Jupiter's, whomade a beast of himself as soon as he saw pretty Europa. Would to GodI could blot out all my book on German Philosophy! No, no, humanity istoo weak and too miserable. We must have faith, we cannot live withoutfaith, in the old simple things, the personal God, the dear old Bible, a life beyond the grave. "

Fascinated by his talk, which seemed to play like lightning round acliff at midnight, revealing not only measureless heights andsoundless depths, but the greasy wrappings and refuse bottles of apicnic, the listener had an intuition that Heine's mind did indeed, as he claimed, reflect or rather refract the All. Only not sublimelyblurred as in Spinoza's, but specifically colored and infinitelyinterrelated, so that he might pass from the sublime to the ridiculouswith an equal sense of its value in the cosmic scheme. It was theJewish artist's proclamation of the Unity, the humorist's "Hear, OIsrael. "

"Will it never end, this battle of Jew and Greek?" he said, half tohimself, so that she did not know whether he meant it personally orgenerally. Then, as she tore herself away, "I fear I have shockedyou, " he said tenderly. "But one thing I have never blasphemed--Life. Is not enjoyment an implicit prayer, a latent grace? After all, God isour Father, not our drill-master. He is not so dull and solemn as theparsons make out. He made the kitten to chase its tail and my Nonotteto laugh and dance. Come again, dear child, for my friends have grownused to my dying, and expect me to die for ever--an invertedimmortality. But one day they will find the puppet-show shut up andthe jester packed in his box. Good-bye. God bless you, little Lucy, God bless you. "

The puppet-show was shut up sooner than he expected; but the jesterhad kept his most wonderful _mot_ for the last. 

"_Dieu me pardonnera_, " he said. "_C'est son métier. _"

THE PEOPLE'S SAVIOUR

I

 "Der Bahn, der kühnen, folgen wir, Die uns geführt Lassalle. "

Such is the Marseillaise the Social Democrats of Germany sing, as theytroop out when the police break up their meetings. 

This Lassalle, whose bold lead they profess to follow, lies at rest inthe Jewish cemetery of his native Breslau under the simple epitaph"Thinker and Fighter, " and at his death the extraordinary popularmanifestations seemed to inaugurate the cult of a modern Messiah--theSaviour of the People. 

II

But no man is a hero to his valet or his relatives, and on the springmorning when Lassalle stood at the parting of the ways--where theThinker's path debouched on the Fighter's--his brother-in-law fromPrague, being in Berlin on business, took the opportunity ofremonstrating. 

"I can't understand what you mean by such productions, " he cried, excitedly waving a couple of pamphlets. 

"That is not my fault, my dear Friedland, " said Lassalle suavely. "Ittakes _some_ brain to follow even what I have put so clearly. Whathave you there?"

"The lecture to the artisans, for which you have to go to gaol forfour months, " said the outraged ornament of Prague society, which heillumined as well as adorned, having, in fact, the town'sgas-contract. 

"Not so fast. There is my appeal yet before the _Kammergericht_. Andtake care that you are not in gaol first; that pamphlet is either oneof the suppressed editions, or has been smuggled in from Zürich, aproof in itself of that negative concept of the State which thepamphlet aims at destroying. Your State is a mere night-watchman--itprotects the citizen but it does nothing to form him. It keeps offideas, but it has none of its own. But the State, as friend Bœckh putsit, should be the institution in which the whole virtue of mankindrealizes itself. It should sum up human experience and wisdom, andfashion its members in accordance therewith. What is history but thestory of man's struggle with nature? And what is a State but thesocialization of this struggle, the stronger helping the weaker?"

"Nonsense! Why should we help the lower classes?"

"Pardon me, " said Lassalle, "it is they who help us. We are theweaker, they are the stronger. That is the point of the other pamphletyou have there, explaining what is a Constitution. "

"Don't try your legal quibbles on me. "

"Legal quibbles! Why the very point of my pamphlet is to ignore verbaldefinitions. A Constitution is what constitutes it, and theworking-class being nine-tenths of the population must be nine-tenthsof the German Constitution. "

"Then it's true what they say, that you wish to lead a Revolution!"exclaimed Friedland, raising his coarse glittering hands in horror. 

"Follow a Revolution, you mean, " said Lassalle. "Here again I do awaywith mere words. Real Revolutions make themselves, and we only becomeconscious of them. The introduction of machinery was a greaterRevolution than the French, which, since it did not express idealsthat were really present among the masses, was bound to be followed bythe old thing over again. Indeed, sometimes, as I showed in _Franz vonSickingen_ (my drama of the sixteenth-century war of the Peasants), aRevolution may even be reactionary, an attempt to re-establish anorder of things that has hopelessly passed away. Hence it is _your_sentiments that are revolutionary. "

Friedland's face had the angry helplessness of a witness in the handsof a clever lawyer. "A pretty socialist _you_ are!" he broke out, ashis arm swept with an auctioneer's gesture over the luxurious villa inthe Bellevuestrasse. "Why don't you call in the first sweep from thestreet and pour him out your champagne?"

"My dear Friedland! Delighted. Help yourself, " said Lassalleimperturbably. 

The Prague dignitary purpled. 

"You call your sister's husband a sweep!"

"Forgive me. I should have said 'gas-fitter. '"

"And who are you?" shrieked Friedland; "you gaol-bird!"

"The honor of going to gaol for truth and justice will never be yours, my dear brother-in-law. "

Although he was scarcely taller than the gross-paunched parvenu whohad married his only sister, his slim form seemed to tower over him ineasy elegance. An aristocratic insolence and intelligence radiatedfrom the handsome face that so many women had found irresistible, uniting, as it did, three universal types of beauty--the Jewish, theancient Greek, and the Germanic. The Orient gave complexion and fire, the nose was Greek, the shape of the head not unlike Goethe's. Thespirit of the fighter who knows not fear flashed from his sombre blueeyes. The room itself--Lassalle's cabinet--seemed in its simpleluxuriousness to give point at once to the difference between the twomen and to the parvenu's taunt. It was of moderate size, with a largework-table thickly littered with papers, and a comfortablewriting-chair, on the back of which Lassalle's white nervous handrested carelessly. The walls were a mass of book-cases, gleaming withcalf and morocco, and crammed with the literature of many ages andraces. Precious folios denoted the book-lover, ancient papyri theantiquarian. It was the library of a seeker after the encyclopædicculture of the Germany of his day. The one lighter touch in the roomwas a small portrait of a young woman of rare beauty and nobility. Butthis sober cabinet gave on a Turkish room--a divan covered with richOriental satins, inlaid whatnots, stools, dainty tables, all ladenwith costly narghiles, chibouques, and opium-pipes with enormous ambertips, Damascus daggers, tiles, and other curios brought back by himfrom the East--and behind this room one caught sight of a littlewinter-garden full of beautiful plants. 

"Truth and justice!" repeated Friedland angrily. "Fiddlesticks! Acrazy desire for notoriety. That's the truth. And as forjustice--well, that was what was meted out to you. "

"Prussian justice!" Lassalle's hand rose dramatically heavenwards. Hisbrow grew black and his voice had the vibration of the great orator orthe great actor. "When I think of this daily judicial murder of tenlong years that I passed through, then waves of blood seem to tremblebefore my eyes, and it seems as if a sea of blood would choke me. Galley-slaves appear to me very honorable persons compared with ourjudges. As for our so-called Liberal press, it is a harlotmasquerading as the goddess of liberty. "

"And what are you masquerading as?" retorted Friedland. "If you werereally in earnest, you would share all your fine things with dirtyworking-men, and become one of them, instead of going down to theirmeetings in patent-leather boots. "

"No, my dear man, it is precisely to show the dirty working-man whathe has missed that I exhibit to him my patent-leather boots. Humility, contentment, may be a Christian virtue, but in economics 'tis a deadlysin. What is the greatest misfortune for a people? To have no wants, to be lazzaroni sprawling in the sun. But to have the greatest numberof needs, and to satisfy them honestly, is the virtue of to-day, ofthe era of political economy. I have always been careful about myclothes, because it is our duty to give pleasure to other people. If Iwent down to my working-men in a dirty shirt, they would be the firstto cry out against my contempt for them. And as for becoming aworking-man, I choose to be a working-man in that sphere in which Ican do most good, and I keep my income in order to do it. At least itwas honorably earned. "

"Honorably earned!" sneered Friedland. "That is the first time I haveheard it described thus. " And he looked meaningly at the beautifulportrait. 

"I am quite aware you have not the privilege of conversing with myfriends, " retorted Lassalle, losing his temper for the first time. "Iknow I am kept by my mistress, the Countess Hatzfeldt; that all thelong years, all the best years of my life, I chivalrously devoted tochampioning an oppressed woman count for nothing, and that it isdishonorable for me to accept a small commission on the enormousestates I won back for her from her brutal husband! Why, my mere feesas lawyer would have come to double. But pah! why do I talk with you?"He began to pace the room. "The fact that I have such a delightful hometo exchange for gaol is just the thing that should make you believe inmy sincerity. No, my respected brother-in-law"--and he made a suddentheatrical gesture, and his voice leapt to a roar, --"understand I willcarry on my life-mission as I choose, and never--never to satisfy everyfool will I carry the ass. " His voice sank. "You know the fable. "

"Your mission! The Public Prosecutor was right in saying it was toexcite the non-possessing classes to hatred and contempt of thepossessing class. "

"He was. I live but to point out to the working-man how he isexploited by capitalists like you. "

"And ruin your own sister!"

"Ha, ha! So you're afraid I shall succeed. Good!" His blue eyesblazed. He stood still, an image of triumphant Will. 

"You will succeed only in disgracing your relatives, " said Friedlandsullenly. 

His brother-in-law broke into Homeric laughter. "Ho, ho, " he cried. "Now I see. You are afraid that I'll come to Prague, that I'll visityou and cry out to your fashionable circle: 'I, Ferdinand Lassalle, the pernicious demagogue of all your journals, Governmental andProgressive alike, the thief of the casket-trial, the Jew-traitor, thegaol-bird, I am the brother-in-law of your host, ' And so you've rushedto Berlin to break off with me. Ho, ho, ho!"

Friedland gave him a black look and rushed from the room. Lassallelaughed on, scarcely noticing his departure. His brain was busy withthat comical scene, the recall of which had put the enemy to flight. On his migration from Berlin to Prague, when he got the gas-contract, Friedland, by a profuse display of his hospitality, and a carefulconcealment of his Jewish birth, wormed his way among families ofbirth and position, and finally into the higher governmental circles. One day, when he was on the eve of dining the _élite_ of Prague, Lassalle's old father turned up accidentally on a visit to hisdaughter and son-in-law. Each in turn besought him hurriedly not tolet slip that they were Jews. The old man was annoyed, but made noreply. When all the guests were seated, old Lassalle rose to speak, and when silence fell, he asked if they knew they were at a Jew'stable. "I hold it my duty to inform you, " he said, "that I am a Jew, that my daughter is a Jewess, and my son-in-law a Jew. I will notpurchase by deceit the honor of dining with you. " The well-bred guestscheered the old fellow, but the host was ghastly with confusion, andnever forgave him. 

III

But Lassalle's laughter soon ceased. Another recollection stabbed himto silence. The old man was dead--that beautiful, cheerful old man. Never more would his blue eyes gaze in proud tenderness on his darlingbrilliant boy. But a few months ago and he had seemed the very type ofruddy old age. How tenderly he had watched over his poor broken-downold wife, supporting her as she walked, cutting up her food as sheate, and filling her eyes with the love-light, despite all her painand weakness. And now this poor, deaf, shrivelled little mother, hadto totter on alone. "Father, what have you to do to-day?" heremembered asking him once. "Only to love you, my child, " the old manhad answered cheerily, laying his hand on his son's shoulder. 

Yes, he had indeed loved him. What long patience from his childhoodupwards; patience with the froward arrogant boy, a law to himself evenin forging his parents' names to his school-notes, and meditatingsuicide because his father had beaten him for demanding more elegantclothes; patience with the emotional volcanic youth to whose grandiosesoul a synod of professors reprimanding him seemed unclean crows andravens pecking at a fallen eagle that had only to raise quiveringwings to fly towards the sun; patience with his refusal to enter acommercial career, and carry on the prosperous silk business; patienceeven with his refusal to study law and medicine. "But what then do youwish to study, my boy? At sixteen one must choose decisively. "

"The vastest study in the world, that which is most closely bound upwith the most sacred interests of humanity--History. "

"But what will you live on, since, as a Jew, you can't get any post orprofessorship in Prussia?"

"Oh, I shall live somehow. "

"But why won't you study medicine or law?"

"Doctors, lawyers, and even savants, make a merchandise of theirknowledge. I will have nothing of the Jew. I will study for the sakeof knowledge and action. "

"Do you think you are a poet?"

"No, I wish to devote myself to public affairs. The time approacheswhen the most sacred ends of humanity must be fought for. Till the endof the last century the world was held in the bondage of the stupidestsuperstition. Then rose, at the mighty appeal of intellect, a materialforce which blew the old order into bloody fragments. Intellectuallythis revolt has gone on ever since. In every nation men have arisenwho have fought by the Word, and fallen or conquered. Börne says thatno European sovereign is blind enough to believe his grandson willhave a throne to sit on. I wish I could believe so. For my part, father, I feel that the era of force must come again, for these folkon the thrones will not have it otherwise. But for the moment it isours not to make the peoples revolt, but to enlighten and raise themup. "

"What you say may not be altogether untrue, but why should _you_ be amartyr, --you, our hope, our stay? Spare us. One human being can changenothing in the order of the world. Let those fight who have noparents' hearts to break. "

"Yes, but if every one talked like that--! Why offer myself as amartyr? Because God has put in my breast a voice which calls me to thestruggle, has given me the strength that makes fighters. Because I canfight and suffer for a noble cause. Because I will not disappoint theconfidence of God, who has given me this strength for His definitepurpose. In short, because I cannot do otherwise. "

Yes, looking back, he saw he could not have done otherwise, though forthat old voice of God in his heart he now substituted mentally theHegelian concept of the Idea trying to realize itself through him, Shakespeare's "prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things tocome. " The Will of God was the Will of the Time-spirit, and what wasTrue for the age was whatever its greatest spirits could demonstrateto it by reason and history. The world had had enough of merelydithyrambic prophets, it was for the Modern Prophet to heat with hisfire the cannon-balls of logic and science; he must be a thinker amongprophets and a prophet among thinkers. Those he could not inspirethrough emotion must be led through reason. There must be not one weaklink in his close-meshed chain of propositions. And who could doubtthat what the Time-spirit was working towards among the Germans--theChosen People in the eternal plan of the universe for this new step inhuman evolution--was the foundation of a true Kingdom of right, aKingdom of freedom and equality, a State which should stand forjustice on earth, and material and spiritual blessedness for all? Buthis father had complained not unjustly. Why should _he_ have beenchosen for the Man--the Martyr--through whom the Idea soughtself-realization? It was a terrible fate to be Moses, to bePrometheus. No doubt that image of himself he read in the faces of hisfriends, and in the loving eyes of the Countess Hatzfeldt--thatglorious wonder-youth gifted equally with genius and beauty--must seemenviable enough, yet to his own heart how chill was this lonelygreatness. And youth itself was passing--was almost gone. 

IV

But he shook off this rare sombre mood, and awoke to the fullconsciousness that Friedland was fled. Well, better so. The stupidfool would come back soon enough, and to-day, with PrincePuckler-Muskau, Baron Korff, General de Pfuel, and von Bülow thepianist, coming to lunch, and perhaps Wagner, if he could finish hisrehearsal of "Lohengrin" in time, he was not sorry to see his tablerelieved of the dull pomposity and brilliant watch-chain of the pillarof Prague society. How mean to hide one's Judaism! What a burden tobelong to such a race, degenerate sons of a great but long-vanishedpast, unable to slough the slave traits engendered by centuries ofslavery! How he had yearned as a boy to shake off the yoke of thenations, even as he himself had shaken off the yoke of the Law ofMoses. Yes, the scaffold itself would have been welcome, could he buthave made the Jews a respected people. How the persecution of the Jewsof Damascus had kindled the lad of fifteen! A people that bore suchthings was hideous. Let them suffer or take vengeance. Even theChristians marvelled at their sluggish blood, that they did not preferswift death on the battle-field to the long torture. Was theoppression against which the Swiss had rebelled one whit greater?Cowardly people! It merited no better lot. And he recalled how, whenthe ridiculous story that the Jews make use of Christian blood croppedup again at Rhodes and Lemnos, he had written in his diary that theuniversal accusation was a proof that the time was nigh when the Jewsin very sooth _would_ help themselves with Christian blood. _Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera. _ And ever in his boyish imagination he had seenhimself at the head of an armed nation, delivering it from bondage, and reigning over a free people. But these dreams had passed withchildhood. He had found a greater, grander cause, that of theoppressed German people, ground down by capitalists and the Iron Lawof Wages, and all that his Judaism had brought him was a prejudice themore against him, a cheap cry of Jew-demagogue, to hamper his largerfight for humanity. And yet was it not strange?--they were all Jews, his friends and inspirers; Heine and Börne in his youth, and now inhis manhood, Karl Marx. Was it perhaps their sense of the great Ghettotragedy that had quickened their indignation against all wrong?

Well, human injustice was approaching its term at last. The Kingdom ofHeaven on earth was beginning to announce itself by signs andportents. The religion of the future was dawning--the Church of thePeople. "O father, father!" he cried, "if you could have lived to seemy triumph!"

V

There was a knock at the door. 

His man appeared, but, instead of announcing the Countess Hatzfeldt, as Lassalle's face expected, he tendered a letter. 

Lassalle's face changed yet again, and the thought of the Countessdied out of it as he caught sight of the graceful writing of Sophie deSolutzew. What memories it brought back of the first real passion ofhis life, when, whirled off his feet by an unsuspected current, enchanted yet astonished to be no longer the easy conqueror throwingcrumbs of love to poor fluttering woman, he had asked the Russian girlto share his strife and triumphs. That he should want to marry her hadbeen as amazing to him as her refusal. What talks they had had in thisvery room, when she passed through Berlin with her ailing father! Howhe had suffered from the delay of her decision, foreseen, yet none theless paralyzing when it came. And yet no, not paralyzing; he could notbut recognize that the shock had in reality been a stimulation. It wasin the reaction against his misery, in the subtle pleasure of atemptation escaped despite himself, and of regained freedom to workfor his great ideals, that he had leapt for the first time intopolitical agitation. The episode had made him reconsider, like a greatsickness or a bereavement. It had shown him that life was slipping, that afternoon was coming, that in a few more years he would be forty, that the "Wonder-Child, " as Humboldt had styled him, was grown tomature man, and that all the vent he had as yet found for his greatgifts was a series of scandalous law-suits and an esoteric volume ofthe philosophy of Heraclitus the Dark. And now, coming to him in themidst of his great spurt, this letter from the quieter world of threeyears ago--though he himself had provoked it--seemed almost ofdreamland. Its unexpected warmth kindled in him something of the oldglow. Brussels! She was in western Europe again, then. Yes, she stillpossessed the Heine letter he required; only it was in her father'spossession, and she had written to him to Russia to send it on. Hersilence had been due to pique at the condition Lassalle had attachedto acceptance of the mere friendship she offered him, to wit, that, like all his friends, she must write him two letters to his one. "Inconsiderate little creature!" he thought, smiling but halfresentful. But, though she had now only that interest for him whichthe woman who has refused one never quite loses, she stirred again hissense of the foolish emptiness of loveless life. His brilliantreputation as scholar and orator and potential leader of men; hispersonal fascination, woven of beauty, wit, elegance, and a halo ofconquest, that made him the lion of every social gathering, and hislittle suppers to celebrities the talk of Berlin--what a hollow farceit all was! And his thoughts flew not to Sophie but to the newradiance that had flitted across his life. He called up the fadingimage of the brilliant Helene von Dönniges whom he had met a yearbefore at the Hirsemenzels. He lived again through that wonderfulevening, that almost Southern episode of mutual love at first sight. 

He saw himself holding the salon rapt with his wonderful conversation. A silvery voice says suddenly, "No, I don't agree with you. " He turnshis head in astonishment. O the _piquante_, golden-haired beauty, adorably white and subtle, the dazzling shoulders, the coquettish playof the _lorgnette_, the wit, the daring, the _diablerie_. "So it's ano, a contradiction, the first word I hear of yours. So this is you. Yes, yes, it is even thus I pictured you. " She is rising to beg thehostess to introduce them, but he places his hand gently on her arm. "Why? We know each other. You know who I am, and you are Brunehild, Adrienne Cardoville of the _Wandering Jew_, the gold chestnut hairthat Captain Korff has told me of, in a word--Helene!" The whole salonregards them, but what are the others but the due audience to thissplendid couple taking the centre of the stage by the right divine ofa love too great for drawing-room conventions, calling almost fororchestral accompaniment by friend Wagner! He talks no more save toher, he sups at her side, he is in boyish ecstasies over her taste inwines. And when, at four in the morning, he throws her mantle over hershoulders and carries her down the three flights of stairs to hercarriage, even her prudish cousinly chaperon seems to accept this asbut the natural manner in which the hero takes possession of hisheaven-born bride. 

So rousing to his sleeping passion was his sudden abandonment to thisold memory, that he now went to a drawer and rummaged for herphotograph. After the Baron, her father, that ultra-respectableBavarian diplomatist, had refused to hear her speak of theJew-demagogue, Lassalle had asked her to send him her portrait, as hewished to build a house adorned with frescoes, and the artist was toseek in her the inspiration of his Brunehild. In the rush of his life, project and photograph had been alike neglected. He had let her gowithout much effort--in a way he still considered her his, since theopposition had not come from her. But had he been wise to allow thisdrifting apart? Great political events might be indeed maturing, butoh, how slowly, and there was always that standing danger of her"Moorish Prince"--the young Wallachian student, Janko von Racowitza, the "dragon who guards my treasure, " as he had once called him, andwho, though betrothed to her, was the slave of her caprices, ready tosacrifice himself if she loved another better, a gentle, pliantcreature Lassalle could scarcely understand, especially consideringhis princely blood. 

When he at last came upon the photograph, he remembered with a thrillthat her birthday was at hand. She would be of age in a day or two, nolonger the puppet of her father's will. 

VI

When a little later the Countess Hatzfeldt was announced, he hadforgotten he was expecting her. He slipped the photograph back amongthe papers, and moved forward hurriedly to greet her. 

Her face was the face of the beautiful portrait on the wall, growntwice as old, but with the lines of beauty still clear under theunnecessary touches of rouge, so that sometimes, despite her frostedhair, one could imagine her life at its spring-tide. This wasespecially so when the sunshine leapt into her eyes. But, at heroldest, there remained to her the dignity of the Princess born, thecharm of the woman of virile intellect and vast social experience. 

"Something is troubling you, " she said. 

He smiled reassuringly. "My brother-in-law popped in from Prague. Heread me a sermon. "

"That would not trouble you, Ferdinand. "

Lassalle was silent. 

"You have heard again from that Sophie de Solutzew!"

"Divinatrix! After three years! You are wonderful as ever, Countess. "

The compliment did not lighten her features. They looked haggard, almost their real age. 

"It is not the moment for petticoats--with the chance of your lifebefore you and months of imprisonment hanging over your head. "

"Oh, I am certain my appeal will get me off with a fine at most. Youmust remember, Countess, that only once in my life, despite incessantsnares, have the fowlers really caged me. And even then I was let outevery time I had to plead in one of your cases. It was quite illegal, "and he laughed at the recollection of the many miracles his eloquence, now insinuating, now menacing, had achieved. 

"Yes, you are marvellous. "

"I marvel at myself. "

"Let me see your new 'Open Sesame. ' Is it ready?"

"No, no, Sophie, " he said banteringly. "You know you mean you want tosee your namesake's letter. "

"That is not my concern. "

"O Countess!" He tendered the letter. 

"Hum, " she said, casting a rapid eye over it. "Then you wrote herfirst. "

"Only because the letter was wanted for the new edition of Heine, andI had no copy of it. ". 

"But I have a copy. "

"You? Where?"

"In my heart, _mon cher enfant_. Why should I not remember the greatpoet's words? 'Dearest brother-in-arms--Never have I found in anyother but you so much passion united with so much clairvoyance inaction. You have truly the divine right of autocracy. I only feel ahumble fly. . . . '" She paused and smiled at him. "You see. "

"Perfect, " cried Lassalle, who had been listening complacently. "Butit's not that letter. The letter of introduction he gave me toVarnhagen von Ense when I was a boy of twenty--in the year we met. "

"How should I not remember that? Was it not the first you showed me?"

A sigh escaped her. In that year when he had won her love, she hadbeen just twice as old as he. Now, despite arithmetic, she felt threetimes his age. 

"I will dictate it to you, " she went on; "and you can send it to thepublisher and be done with it. "

"My rare Countess, my more than mother, " he said, touched, "that youshould have carried all that in your dear, wise head. "

"'My friend, Herr Lassalle, the bearer of this letter, is a young manof extraordinary talent. To the most profound erudition and thegreatest insight and the richest gifts of expression, he unites--'"

"Doesn't it also say, 'that I have ever met?'"

"Yes, yes; my head is leaving me. Put it in after 'insight. ' 'Heunites an energy of will and an attitude for action which plunge meinto astonishment. '"

"You see, " interrupted Lassalle, looking up; "Heine saw at once thedifference between me and Karl Marx. Marx is, when all is said anddone, a student, and his present address is practically the BritishMuseum. In mere knowledge I do not pretend to superiority. Whatlanguage, what art, what science, is unknown to him? But he has runalmost entirely to brain. He works out his thoughts best inmathematics--the Spinoza of socialism. But fancy Spinoza leading apeople; and even Spinoza had more glow. When I went to see him inLondon in the winter to ask him to head the movement with me, heobjected to my phraseology, dissected my battle-cries in cold blood. Ipreach socialism as a religion, the Church of the People--he won'teven shout 'Truth and Justice!' He will only prove you scientificallythat the illusion of the masses that Right is not done them will goadthem to express their Might. And his speeches! Treatises, nottrumpets! Once after one of his speeches in the prisoner's box, ajuror shook hands with him, and thanked him for his instructivelecture. Ha! ha! ha! Take my _System of Acquired Rights_, now. "--Lassalle was now launched on one of his favorite monologues, and the Countess at least never desired to interrupt him. --"There youhave learning and logic that has forced the most dry-as-dust to hailit as a masterpiece of Jurisprudence. But it is enrooted in life, anddrew its sustenance from my actual practice in fighting my dearCountess's battles. As Heine goes on to say, _savoir_ and _pouvoir_are rarely united. Luther was a man of action, but his thought was notthe widest. Lessing was a man of thought, but he died broken on thewheel of fortune. It was a combination of the two I tried to paint inmy Ulrich von Hutten--the Humanist who transcended Luther and who wasthe morning star of the true Reformation. You remember his Frankfortstudent who, having mistakenly capped a Jew, could not decide whetherthe sin was mortal or venial. But though I put my own self into him, Ishall not be beaten like him. " He jumped to his feet and threw downhis pen so that it stood quivering in the table. "For surely it was ofme that Heine was thinking when he wrote: 'Yes, a third man willcome'"--and Lassalle's accent became dramatically sonorous--"'and hewill conclude what Luther began, what Lessing continued, a man of whomthe Fatherland stands in such need, The Third Liberator. '"

"The Third Liberator, " passionately echoed the Countess. 

"Do you know, " he went on, "I've often fancied it was I who gave Heinethe line of thought he developed in his sketch of German philosophy, that our revolution will be the outcome of our Philosophy, that in theearthquake will be heard the small still voice of Kant and Hegel. Itis what I tried to say the other day in my address on Fichte. It ispure thought that will build up the German Empire. Reality--with itsfragments, Prussia, Saxony, etc. --will have to remould itself afterthe Idea of a unified German--Republic. Why do you smile?" he brokeoff uneasily, with a morbid memory of his audience drifting away intothe refreshment room. 

"I was thinking of Heine's saying that we Germans are a methodicalnation, to take our thinking first and our revolution second, becausethe heads that have been used for thinking may be afterwards used forchopping off. But if you chopped off heads first, like the French, they could not be of much use to philosophy. "

Lassalle laughed. "I love Heine. He seemed my soul's brother. I lovedhim from boyhood, only regretting he wasn't a republican like Börne. Would he could have lived to see the triumph of his prediction, theold wild Berserker rage that will arise among us Teutons when theTalisman of the Cross breaks at last, as break it must, and the oldgods come to their own again. A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. The canting tyrants shall bite the dust, the false judges shall bejudged. "

"That is how I like you to talk. "

He smote the table with his fist. His own praises had fired him, though his marvellous memory that could hold even the completelibretti of operas had been little in doubt as to Heine's phrasing. 

"Yes, the holy alliance of Science and the People--those oppositepoles! They will crush between their arms of steel all that opposesthe higher civilization. The State, the immemorial vestal fire of allcivilization--what a good phrase! I must write that down for my_Kammergericht_ speech. "

"And at the same time finish this Heine business, please, and be donewith that impertinent demoiselle. What! she must have letter forletter! Of course it's a blessing she ceased to correspond with you. But all the same, just see what these creatures are. No sympathy withthe wear and tear of your life. All petty egotisms and vanities! Whatdo they care about your world-reaching purposes? Yes, they'll sit atyour feet, but their own enjoyment or mental development is allthey're thinking of. These Russian girls are the most dreadful. I knowhundreds like your Sophie. They're a typical development of ournew-fangled age. They even take nominal husbands, merely to emancipatethemselves from the parental roof. I wonder she didn't play you thattrick. And now she's older and has got over her pique, she sees whatshe has lost. But you will not be drawn in again?"

"No; you may rely on that, " said Lassalle. 

Her face became almost young. 

"You are so ignorant of woman, _mon cher enfant_, " she said, smoothinghis brown curly hair; "you are really an infant, without judgment orreason where they are concerned. "

"And you are so ignorant of man, " thought Lassalle, for hisrepudiation of the Russian girl had brought up vividly the vision ofhis enchanting Brunehild. Did the Countess then think that a man couldfeed for ever on memories? True, she had gracefully declined into aquasi-maternal position, but a true mother would have felt morestrongly that the relation was not so sufficing to him as to her. 

The Countess seemed to divine what was passing through his mind. "Ifyou could get a wife worthy of you, " she cried. "A brain to matchyours, a soul to feel yours, a heart to echo the drum-beat of yours, amate for your dungeon or your throne, ready for either--but where isthis paragon?"

"You are right, " cried Lassalle, subtly gratified. After all Helenewas a child with a child's will, broken by the first obstacle. "Neverhave I met a woman I could really feel my mate. If ever I have kindleda soul in one, it has been for a moment. No, I have always known Imust live and die alone. I have told you of my early love for thebeautiful Rosalie Zander, my old comrade's sister, who still livesunmarried for love of me. But I knew that to marry her would meancrippling myself through my tenderness. Alone I can suffer all, buthow drag a weaker than myself into the tragic circle of my destinies?No, Curtius must leap into his gulf alone. "

His words soothed her, but had a sting in them. 

"But your happiness must be before all, " she said, not without meaningit. "Only convince me that you have found your equal, and she shall beyours in the twinkling of an eye. I shouldn't even allow love-lettersto intervene--you are so colossal. Your Titanic emotions overflowinto hundreds of pages. You are the most uneconomical man I ever met. "

He smiled. 

"A volcano is not an ant-heap. But I know you are right. For Lassallethe Fighter the world holds no wife. If I could only be sure that thevictory will come in my day. "

"Remember what your own Heraclitus said: 'The best follow afterfame. '"

"Yes, Fame is the Being of Man in Non-Being. It is the immortality ofman made real, " he quoted himself. "But--"

She hastened to continue his quotation. "'Hence it has always somightily stirred the greatest souls and lifted them beyond all pettyand narrow ends. '"

"The ends are great--but the means, how petty! The Presidency of aWorking-Men's Union, one not even to be founded in Berlin. "

"But yet a General German Working-Men's Union. Who knows what it maygrow to! The capture of Berlin will be a matter of days. "

"I had rather capture it with the sword. Bismarck is right. The Germanquestion can only be solved by blood and iron. "

"Is it worth while going over that ground again? Did we not agree lastyear in Caprera when Garibaldi would not see his way to invadingAustria for us, that we must put our trust in peaceful methods. Youhave as yet no real following at all. The Progressists will never makea Revolution, for all their festivals and fanfaronades. This NationalLeague of theirs is only a stage-threat. "

"Yes, Bismarck knows our weak-kneed, white-livered _bourgeois_ toowell to be taken in by it. The League talks and Bismarck is silent. Oh, if I had a majority in the Chamber, as they have, I'd leave _him_to do the talking. "

"But even if their rant was serious, they would allow _you_ noleadership in their revolution. Have they not already rejected yourovertures? Therefore this deputation to you of the Leipzig working-men(whom they practically rejected by offering them honorary membership)is simply providential. The conception of a new and real ProgressiveParty that is seething in their minds under the stimulus of theircontact with socialism in London--you did write that they had been inLondon?"

"Yes; they went over to see the Exhibition. But they also represent, Itake it, the old communistic and revolutionary traditions, that havenever been wholly lulled to sleep by our pseudo-Liberalism. But thatis how history repeats itself. When the middle classes oppose theupper classes, they always have the air of fighting for the wholemajority. But the day soon comes, especially if the middle classes getinto power, when the lower classes discover there never was any realunion of interests!"

"Well, that's just your chance!" cried the Countess. "Here is a newparty waiting to be called out of chaos, nay, calling to you. Anunformed party is just what you want. You give it the impress of yourown personality. Remember your own motto: _Si superos nequeo movereAcheronta movebo. _"

Lassalle shook his head doubtfully. He had from the first practicallyresolved on developing the vague ideas of the Deputation, but he likedto hear his own reasons in the mouth of the Countess. 

"The headship of a party not even in existence, " he murmured. "Thatdoesn't seem a very short cut to the German Republic. "

"Do you doubt yourself? Think of what you were when you took up mycause--a mere unknown boy. Think how you fought it from court tocourt, picking up your Law on the way, a Demosthenes, a Cicero, tillall the world wondered and deemed you a demigod. You did that becauseI stood for Injustice. You were the Quixote to right all wrong. Yousaw the universal in the individual. My case was but a prefigurationof your real mission. Now it is the universal that calls to you. Seein your triumph for me your triumph for that suffering humanity, withwhich you have taught me to sympathize. "

"My noble Countess!"

"What does your own Franz von Sickingen say of history?

 "'And still its Form remains for ever Force. '

The Force of the modern world is the working-man. And as you yourselfhave taught me that there are no real revolutions except those thatformally express what is already a fact, there wants then only theformal expression of the working-man's Force. To this Force you willnow give Form. "

"What an apt pupil!" He stooped and kissed her lips. Then, walkingabout agitatedly: "Yes, " he cried; "I will weld the workers ofGermany--to gain their ends they must fuse all their wills intoone--none of these acrid, petty, mutually-destructive individualitiesof the _bourgeois_--one gigantic hammer, and I will be the Thor whowields it. " His veins swelled, he seemed indeed a Teutonic god. "Andtherefore I must have Dictator's rights, " he went on. "I will notaccept the Presidency to be the mere puppet of possible factions. "

"There speaks Ferdinand Lassalle! And now, _mon cher enfant_, youdeserve to hear my secret. "

She smiled brilliantly. 

His heart beat a little quicker as he bent his ear to her customarywhisper. Her secrets were always interesting, sometimes sensational, and there was always a pleasure in the sense of superiority thatknowledge conferred, and in the feeling of touching, through hisPrincess-Countess, the inmost circles of European diplomacy. He was ofthe gods, and should know whatever was on the knees of hisfellow-gods. 

"Bismarck is thinking of granting Universal Suffrage!"

"Universal Suffrage!" he shouted. 

"Hush, hush! Walls have ears. "

"Then I must have inspired him. "

"No; but you will have. "

"How do you mean? Is it not my idea?"

"Implicitly, perhaps, but you have never really pressed for itspecifically. Your only contribution to practical politics is a futilesuggestion that the Diet should refuse to sit, and so cut offsupplies. Now of course Universal Suffrage is the first item of theprogramme of your Working-Men's Union. "

"Sophie!"

She smiled and nodded. "Why should Bismarck have the credit, " shewhispered, "for what is practically your idea? You will seem to exactit from him by the force of your new party, which will peg away atthat one point like the Anti-Corn-Law people in England. "

"Yes; but I'll have no Manchester state-concepts. "

"I know, I know. Now even if Bismarck hesitates, "--she made herwhisper still lower--"there are foreign complications looming thatwill make it impossible for him to ignore the masses. Now I understandthat what the Leipzig working-men suggest is that you shall write theman Open Letter. "

"Yes. In it I shall counsel the creation of the Fourth Party, I shalldeclare that the Progressists do not represent the People at all, thattheir pretensions are as impertinent as their threats are hollow, thatthere is no People behind them. It will be a thunderbolt! LikeLuther's nailing his theses to the church-door at Wittenberg. And tothe real masses themselves I shall declare: 'You are the rock on whichthe Church of the Present is to be built. Steep yourselves in thethought of this, your mission. The vices of the oppressed, the idleindifference of the thoughtless, and even the harmless frivolity ofthe unimportant no longer become you. ' And I shall teach them how toexact from the State the capital for co-operative associations thatwill oust the capitalist. "

"And make them capitalists themselves?"

"That is what Rodbertus and Marx object. But you must give theworking-man something definite, you must educate him gradually. "

"Put that second if you will, but Universal Suffrage must be first. "

"Naturally. It will be the instrument to force the second. "

"It will be the instrument to force you to the front. Bismarck willappear the mere tool of your will. Who knows but that the King himselfmay be a pawn on your board!"

Lassalle seized her hands. "There I recognize my soul's mate. "

"And I recognize the voice of the von Bulows, " she said, with ahalf-sob in her laughter, as she drew back. 

The lunch was brilliant, blending the delicate perfume of aristocracywith free-and-easy Bohemianism, and enhanced by the artisticbackground of pictures, bric-à-brac, and marble facsimiles of themasterpieces of statuary, including the Venus of Milo and the ApolloBelvedere. 

The Countess stayed only long enough to smoke a couple of cigarettes, but the other guests were much longer in shaking off the fascinationof Lassalle's boyish spirits and delightful encyclopædic monologues. When the last guest was gone, Lassalle betook himself to the bestflorist in Berlin, composing a birthday poem on the way. At the shophe wrote it down, and, signing it "F. L. , " placed it in the mostbeautiful basket of flowers he could find. The direction was FräuleinHelene von Dönniges. 

VII

The "Open Reply Letter" did not thrill the world like a Lutheranthesis, but it made the Progressists very angry. What! they had notthe People behind them! They were only exploiting, not representingthe People! And while the Court organs chuckled over this flankattack on their bragging foes, the Liberal organs denounced Lassalleas the catspaw of reaction. The whilom "friends of the working-man, "in their haste to overturn Lassalle's position, tumbled into their ownpits. Schulze-Delitzsch himself, founder of co-operative working-men'ssocieties, denouncer of the middleman, now found himself--in the faceof Lassalle's uncompromising analysis--praising the Law ofCompetition, while that Iron Law of Wages, their tendency to fall tothe minimum of subsistence (which was in the canon of all orthodoxeconomists), was denied the moment it was looked at resentfully fromthe wage-earner's standpoint. Herculean labors now fell uponLassalle--a great speech of four hours at Frankfort-on-the-Main, thefounding of the General German Working-Men's Union, with himself asdictator for five years, the delivery of inflammatory speeches in townafter town, the publishing of pamphlets against the Progressists, attempts to capture Berlin for the cause, the successful fighting ofhis own law-case. And amid all this, the writing of one of his mostwonderful and virulent books, at once deeply instructing andpassionately inflaming the German working-man. 

And always the same sledge-hammer hitting at the same nail--UniversalSuffrage. Get that and you may get everything. Nourish no resentmentagainst the capitalists. They are the product of history as much asyour happier children will be. But on the other hand, no inertia, nosubmission! Wake up! English or French working-men would follow me ina trice. You are a pack of valets. 

In such a whirl Helene von Dönniges was shot off from his mind as aspinning-top throws off a straw. 

But when, after a couple of months of colossal activity, incessantcorrespondence, futile attempts to convert friends, quarrels with theauthorities, grapplings with the internal cabals of the Union itself, he fled on his summer tour--where was the great new Party? He hadhoped to have five hundred thousand men at his back, but they had comein by beggarly hundreds. There was even talk of an insurance bonus toattract them. Lassalle had exaggerated both the magnetism of hispersonality and the intelligence and discontent of the masses. Hismasterful imagination had made the outer world a mere reflection ofhis inner world. Even in those early days, when he was scarcely known, and that favorably rather than otherwise, he had imagined himself thepet aversion of the comfortable classes. Knowing the rôle he purposedto play, his dramatic self-consciousness had reaped in anticipationthe rebel's reward. And now, though he was nearer detestation thanbefore, there was still no Party of revolt for him to lead. But heworked on undaunted, Titanic, spending his money to subsidizetottering democratic papers, using his summer journeyings to try toattach not abilities in the countries he passed through, and his stayat the waters to draw up a great speech, with which he toured on hisreturn. And now a new cry! The cowardly venal Press must be sweptaway. "As true as you are here, hanging on my lips, eager andtransported, as true as my soul trembles with the purest enthusiasm inpouring itself wholly into yours, so truly does the certaintypenetrate me that a day will come when we shall launch the thunderboltwhich will bury that Press in eternal night. " He proposed that thenewspapers should therefore be deprived of their advertisementcolumns. What wonder if they accused him of playing Bismarck's game!And, indeed, there was not wanting direct mention of Bismarck in thespeech. He at least was a man, while the Progressists were old women. The orator mocked their festive demonstrations. They were like theRoman slaves who, during the Saturnalia, played at being free. Tospare themselves a real battle, the defeated were intoning among thewines and the victuals a hymn of victory. "Let us lift up our arms andpledge ourselves, if this Revolution should come about, whether inthis way or in that, to remember that the Progressists and members ofthe National League to the last declared they wanted _no_ revolution!Pledge yourselves to do this, raise your hands on high!" At theSonningen meeting in the great shooting-gallery, they not only raisedtheir hands, but their knives, against interrupting Progressists. TheBurgomaster, a Progressist, at the head of ten gendarmes armed withbayonets, and policemen with drawn swords, dissolved the meeting. Lassalle, half followed, half borne onward by six thousand cheeringmen, strode to the telegraph office, and sent off a telegram toBismarck. His working-men's meeting had been dissolved by aProgressist Burgomaster without any legal justification. "I ask forthe severest, promptest legal satisfaction. "

VIII

Bismarck took no official notice. But it was not long before theCountess succeeded in bringing the two men together. The way hadindeed been paved. If Lassalle's idealism had survived the experienceof the Hatzfeldt law-suits, if he had yet to learn that the Fightercannot pick his steps as cleanly and logically as the Thinker, thosemiry law-suits, waged unscrupulously on both sides, had prepared himto learn the lesson readily and to apply it unflinchingly. WithoutForce behind one, victory must be sought more circuitously. But to aman who represents no Force, how shall Bismarck listen? What have youto offer? "_Do ut des_" is his overt motto. To poor devils I havenothing to say. Lassalle must therefore needs magnify his office ofPresident, wave his arm with an air of vague malcontent millions. WasBismarck taken in? Who shall say? In after-years, though he had in themeantime granted Universal Suffrage in Prussia, he told the Reichstaghe was merely fascinated by this marvellous conversationalist, whodelighted him for hours, without his being able to get a word in; bythis grandiloquent Demagogue without a Demos, who plainly lovedGermany, yet was uncertain whether the German Empire would be formedby a Hohenzollern dynasty or a Lassalle dynasty. And, in truth, sinceextremes meet, there was much in Lassalle's conception of the State, and in his German patriotism, which made him subtly akin to theConservative Chancellor. They walked arm-in-arm in the streets ofBerlin, Bismarck parading heart on sleeve; they discussed theannexation of Schleswig-Holstein. Bismarck promised both UniversalSuffrage and State-Capitalized Associations--"only let us wait tillthe war is done with!" _En attendant_, the profit of his strangealliance with this thorn in his enemies' flesh, was wholly to theMinister. But Lassalle, exalted to forgetfulness of the pettiness ofthe army at his back, almost persuaded himself to believe as hebelieved Bismarck believed. "Bismarck is my tool, my plenipotentiary, "he declared to his friends. And to his judges: "I play cards on table, gentlemen, for the hand is strong enough. Perhaps before a year isover Universal Suffrage will be the law of the land, and Bismarck willhave enacted the rôle of Sir Robert Peel. " He even gave his followersto understand that the King of Prussia's promise to consider thecondition of the Silesian weavers was the result of his pressure. Andwas not the Bishop of Mayence an open partisan? Church, King, andMinister, do you not see them all dragged at my chariot wheels?Nevertheless, he failed completely to organize a branch at Berlin. Andnew impeachments for inciting to hatred and contempt, and forhigh-treason, came to cripple his activity. "If I have glorifiedpolitical passion, " he cried in his defence, "I have only followedHegel's maxim: 'Nothing great has ever been done in the world withoutpassion. '"

He was in elegant evening dress, with patent-leather boots, the onecool person in the stifling court. For hours and hours he spoke, withthe perpetually changing accents of the great orator who has sostudied his art that it has become nature. Now he was winning, persuasive, now menacing, terrible, now with disdainful smile andhalf-closed eyes of contempt. And ever and anon he threw back his headwith the insolent majesty of a Roman Emperor. Even when there was atouch of personal pathos, defiance followed on its heels. "I used togo to gaol as others go to the ball, but I am no longer young. Prisonis hard for a mature man, and there is no article of the code thatentitles you to send me there. " Yet six months' imprisonment wasadjudged him, and the most he could obtain by his ingeniouslyinexhaustible technical pleas was deferment of his punishment. 

But there was consolation in the memories of his triumphal tourthrough the Rhenish provinces, where the Union had struck widest root. Town after town sent its whole population to greet him. Roaringthousands met him at the railway stations, and he passed undertriumphal arches and through streets a-flutter with flags, whereworking-girls welcomed him with showers of roses. "Such scenes asthese, " he wrote to the Countess, "must have attended the foundationof new religions. " And, indeed, as weeping working-men fought to drawhis carriage, and as he looked upon the vast multitudes surging aroundhim, he could not but remember Heine's prophecy: "You will be theMessiah of the nineteenth century. "

"I have not grasped this banner, " he cried at Ronsdorf, "withoutknowing quite clearly that I myself may fall. But in the words of theRoman poet:

 "'Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor. '

May some avenger and successor arise out of my bones! May this greatand national movement of civilization not fall with my person. But maythe conflagration which I have kindled spread farther and farther aslong as one of you still breathes!"

Those were his last words to the working-men of Germany. 

For beneath all the flowers and the huzzahing what a tragedy of brokenhealth and broken hopes! Each glowing speech represented a victoryover throat-disease and over his own fits of scepticism. His nerves, shattered by the tremendous strain of the year, the fevers, thedisillusions, the unprofitable shiftings of standpoint, painted theprospect as black as they had formerly ensanguined it. And the sixmonths' imprisonment hanging over him gained added terrors from hisphysical breakdown. Even on his eider-down bed he could not woosleep--how then on a prison pallet?

When he started the Union he had imagined he could bring theSocialistic movement to a head in a year. When, after a year ascrammed as many a lifetime, he went down at the Countess's persuasionto take the milk-cure at Kaltbad on the Righi, he confessed to hisfriend Becker that he saw no near hope save from a European war. 

IX

One stormy day at the end of July, a bovine-eyed Swiss boy, drippingwith rain, appeared at the hygienic hotel, where Lassalle sat broodingwith his feet on the mantelpiece, to tell him that a magnificent ladywanted to see him. She was with a party that had taken refuge in amountain-side shed. A great coup his resurging energy was meditatingat Hamburg, was swept clean from his mind. 

He dashed down, his heart beating with a hopeless surmise, and saw, amid a strange group, the golden hair of Helene von Dönniges shininglike a star. He accepted it at once as the star of his destiny. Hisstrength seemed flowing back in swift currents of glowing blood. 

"By all the gods of Greece, " he cried, "'tis she!"

In an instant they were lovers again, and her American friend andconfidante, Mrs. Arson, was enchanted by this handsome apparition, which, Helene protested, she had only summoned up half laughingly. Dear old Holthoff had written her that Lassalle was somewhere on theRighi, but she had not really believed she would stumble on him. Shewas suffering from nervous prostration, and it was only the accidentof Mrs. Arson's holiday plan for her children that had enabled her toobey the doctor's advice to breathe mountain air. 

"I breathe it for the first time, " said Lassalle. "Do you know what Iwas doing when your boy-angel came? Writing to Holthoff and oldBœckh the philologist for introductions to your father. The game hasdallied on long enough. We must finish. "

Helene blushed charmingly, and looked at Mrs. Arson with a glance thatsought protection against and admiration for his audacity. 

"I guess you're made for each other, " said Mrs. Arson, carried off herfeet. "Why, you're like twins. Are you relatives?"

"That's what everybody asks, " said Helene. "Why, even before I methim, people piqued my curiosity about him by saying I talked likehim. "

"It was the best compliment I had ever received--said behind my backtoo. But people are right for once. Do you know that the painter towhom I gave your portrait to inspire him for the Brunehild fresco saidthat in drawing our two faces he discovered that they have exactly thesame anatomical structure. "

Her face took on that fascinating _diablerie_ which men foundirresistible. 

"Then your compliments to me are only boomerangs. "

"Boomerangs only return when they miss. "

The storm abating, they moved up the mountain, talking gaily. Mrs. Arson and her children kept considerately in the rear with theirguide. Helene admired Lassalle's stick. He handed it to her. 

"It was Robespierre's. Förster the historian gave it me. That_repoussé_ gold-work on the handle is of course the Bastille. "

"How appropriate!" she laughed. 

"Which? The Bastille to the stick, or the stick to me?"

"Both. "

He grew serious. 

"What would you do if I lost my head?"

"I should stand by till your head was severed in order that you mightlook on your beloved to the last. Then I should take poison. "

"My Cleopatra!"

Her fitful face changed. 

"Or marry Janko!"

"That weakling--is he still hovering?"

"He passed the winter with us. He looks upon me as his, " she saiddolefully. 

"I flick him away. Do not try to belong to another. I tell yousolemnly I claim you as mine. We cannot resist destiny. Our meetingto-day proves it. To-morrow we climb to see the sunrise together, --thesunrise over the mountains. Symbol of our future that begins. Theheavens opening in purple and gold over the white summits--lovebreaking upon your virginal purity. "

Already she felt, as of yore, swept off on roaring seas. But the rushand the ecstasy had their alloy of terror. To be with him was to be nolonger herself, but a hypnotized stranger. Perhaps she was unwise tohave provoked this meeting. She should have remembered he was not tobe coquetted with. As well put a match to a gunpowder barrel to warmyour fingers. Every other man could be played with. This one swallowedyou up. 

"But Prince Janko has no one but me, " she tried to protest. "My littleMoorish page, my young Othello!"

"Keep him a page. Othellos are best left bachelors. Remember the fateof Desdemona. "

"I'll give you both up, " she half whimpered. "I'll go on the stage. "

"You!"

"Yes. Everybody says I'm splendid at burlesque. You should see me as aboy. "

"You baby! You need no triumphs in the mimic world. Your rôle isgrander. "

"Oh, please let us wait for Mrs. Arson. You go too fast. "

"I don't. I have waited a year for you. When shall we marry?"

"Not before our wedding-day. "

"Evasive Helene!"

"Cruel Ferdinand! Ask anything of me, but not will-power. "

A little cough came to accentuate her weakness. 

"My darling!" he cried in deep emotion. "We'll fly to Egypt or theIndies. I'll hang up politics and all that frippery. My books andscience shall claim me again, and I will watch over my ailing littlegirl till she becomes the old splendid Brunehild again!"

"No, no, I am no Brunehild; only a modern woman with nerves--the mostfeminine woman in the world, irresponsible, capricious--please, pleaseremember. "

"If you were not yourself I should not love you. "

"But it cannot come to anything. "

"Cannot? The word is for pigmies. "

"But my mother?"

"She is a woman--I will talk to her. "

"My father!"

"He is a man, with men one can always get on. They are reasonable. Besides, you tell me he is an author, and I will read his famousbooks. "

She smiled faintly. "But there is myself. "

"You are myself--and I never doubt myself. "

"Oh, but there are heaps of other difficulties. "

"There are none other. "

She pouted deliciously. "You don't know everything under the sun. "

"Under your aureole of hair, do you mean?"

"What if I do?" she smiled back. "You must not trust me too far. I ama spoilt child--wild, unbridled, unaccustomed to please others exceptby pleasing myself. "

Her actress-nature enjoyed the picture of herself. She felt thatBaudelaire himself would have admired it. Lassalle's answer was subtlyattuned:

"My Satanic enchantress! my bewitching child of the devil. "

"_Bien fou qui s'y fie. _ When I lived at Nice in that royal Bohemia, where musicians rubbed shoulders with grand-duchesses, and the King ofBavaria exchanged epigrams with Bulwer Lytton, do you know what theycalled me?"

"The Queen of all the Follies!"

"You know?"

"Did I not love my Brunehild ere we met?"

"Yes, and I--knew of you. Only I didn't recognize you at first, because they told me you were a frightful demagogue and--a--a--Jew!"

He laughed. "And so you expected a gaberdine. And yet surely BulwerLytton gave you a presentation copy of _Leila_. Don't you remember theJew in it? As a boy I had his ideal--to redeem my people. But if myJudaism offends you, I can become a Christian--not in belief ofcourse, but--"

"Oh, not for worlds. I believe too little myself to bother aboutreligion. My friends call me the Greek, because I can readily believein many gods, but only with difficulty in one. "

He laughed. "Is it the same in love?"

Her eyes gleamed archly. 

"Yes. Hitherto, at least, a single man has never sufficed. With onlyone I had time to see all his faults, and since my first love, aRussian officer, I would always have preferred to keep three knivesdancing in the air. But as that was impossible, I generally halved myloaf. "

The mountains rang with his laughter. 

"Well. I haven't lived a saint, and I can't expect my wife to bringmore than I. "

"You bring too much. You bring that Countess. "

"My dear Helene, " he said, struck serious. "I am entirely free inregard to the Countess, as she is long since as regards me. Of courseshe will, at the first shock, feel opposed to my marriage with adistinguished young girl on the same intellectual level as herself. That is human, feminine, natural. But when she knows you she willadore you, and you will repay her in kind, since she is my secondmother. You do not understand her. The dear Countess desires no otherhappiness than to see me happy. "

"And therefore, " said Helene cynically, "she will warn you to beware. She will hunt up all my offences against holy German morals--"

"I don't care what she hunts up. All I ask is, be a monotheisthenceforwards. "

"Now you are asking _me_ to become a Jewess. "

"I ask you only to become my wife. "

He caught her hands passionately. His eyes seemed to drink her in. Shefluttered, enjoying her bird-like helplessness. 

"Turn your eyes away, my royal eagle!"

"You are mine! you are mine!" he cried. 

"I am my father's--I am Janko's, " she panted. 

"They are shadows. Listen to yourself. Be true to yourself. "

"I have no self. It seems so selfish to have one. I am anything--afay, a sprite, an elf. " She freed her hands with a sudden twist andran laughing up the mountain. 

"To the sunrise!" she cried. "To the sunrise!"

He gave chase: "To the sunrise! To the symbol!"

X

But the next morning the symbolic sunrise they rose to see was hiddenby fog and rain. 

And--what was still more disappointing to Lassalle--Mrs. Arsoninsisted on escaping with her charges from this depressing climate andre-descending to Wabern, the village near Berne, where they had beenstaying. 

Not even Lassalle's fascinations and persuasions could counteract thepertinacious plash-plash of-the rain, and the chilling mist, andperhaps the uneasy pricks of her awakening chaperon-conscience. Norcould he extract a decisive "Yes" from his fluttering volatileenchantress. At Kaltbad, where they said farewell, he pressed herhands with passion. "For a little while! Be prudent and strong! Youhave the goodness of a child--and a child's will. Oh, if I could pourinto these blue veins"--he kissed them fiercely--"only one drop of mygiant's will, of my Titanic energy. Grip my hands; perhaps I can do itby magnetism. I will to join our lives. You must will too. Then thereare no difficulties. Only say 'Yes'--but definitely, unambiguously, ofyour own free will--and I answer for the rest. "

The thought of Janko resurged painfully when his giant's will was leftbehind on the heights. How ill she would be using him--her prettydelicate boy!

The giant's will left behind her? Never had Helene been more mistaken. The very reverse! It went before her all day like a pillar of fire. Atthe first stopping-place a letter already awaited her, brought by aswift courier; lower down a telegram; as she got off her horse anotherletter; at her hotel two copious telegrams; as she stepped on boardthe lake steamer a final letter--all breathing passion, encouragement, solicitous instructions to wrap up well. 

Wrap up well! He wrapped one up in himself!

Half fascinated, half panting for free air, but wholly flattered andenamoured, she wrote at once to break off with Janko and surrender toher Satanic Ferdinand. 

"Yes, friend Satan, the child _wills_! A drop of your diabolical bloodhas passed into her veins. I am yours for life. But first tryreasonable means. Make my parents' acquaintance, cover up your hornsand tail, try and win me like a bourgeois. If that fails, there isalways Egypt. But quick, quick: I cannot bear scenes and delays andcomments. Once we are married, let society stare. With you to lean onI snap my fingers at the world. The obstacles are gigantic, but youare also a giant, who with God's help smashes rocks to sand, that evenmy breath can blow away. I must stab the beautiful dream of a nobleyouth, but even this--frightfully painful for me as it is--I do foryou. I say nothing of the disappointment to my parents, of the pain ofall I love and respect. I am writing to Holthoff, my father-confessor. We must have him for us, with us, near us. God has destined us foreach other. "

A telegram replied: "Bravissimo! I am on my way to join you. "

And to the Countess, fighting rheumatism at the waters of Wildbad inthe Black Forest, he wrote: "The rain has passed, the long fog hasgone. The mountains stand out mighty and dazzling, peak beyond peak, like the heights of a life. What a sunset! The Eiger seemed wrapped ina vapor of burning gold. My sufferings are nearly all wiped out. I amjoyous, full of life and love. And I have also finished at last withthat terrible correspondence for the Union. Seventy-six pages ofminute writing have I sent to Berlin yesterday and to-day, and Ibreathe again. In my yesterday's letter I broke Helene to you. It isextraordinarily fortunate that on the verge of forty I should be ableto find a wife so beautiful, so sympathetic, who loves me so much, andwho, as you and I agreed was indispensable, is entirely absorbed in mypersonality. In your last letter you throw cold water on my proposedjourney to Hamburg; and perhaps you are right in thinking the coup Iplanned not so great and critical as I have been imagining. But howyou misunderstand my motives when you write: 'Cannot you, till yourhealth is re-established, find contentment for a while in science, infriendship, in Nature?' You think politics the breath of my nostrils. Ah, how little you are _au fait_ with me! I desire nothing moreardently than to be quite rid of all politics, and to devote myself toscience, friendship, and Nature. I am sick and tired of politics. Truly I would burn as passionately for them as any one, if there wereanything serious to be done, or if I had the power or saw the means, ameans worthy of me; for without supreme power nothing can be done. Forchild's play, however, I am too old and too great. That is why I veryreluctantly undertook the Presidentship. I only yielded to you, andthat is why it now weighs upon me terribly. If I were but rid of it, this were the moment I should choose to go to Naples with you. But howto get rid of it? For events, I fear, will develop slowly, so slowly, and my burning soul finds no interest in these children's maladies andpetty progressions. Politics means actual, immediate activity. Otherwise one can work just as well for humanity by writing. I shallstill try to exercise at Hamburg a pressure upon events. But up towhat point it will be effective I cannot say. Nor do I promise myselfmuch from it. Ah, could I but get out of it!

"Helene is a wonderful creature, the only personality I could wed. Shelooks forward to your friendship. I know it. For I am a good observerof women without seeming to be. That dear _enfant du diable_, aseverybody calls her at Geneva, has a deep sympathy for you, becauseshe is, as Goethe puts it, an original nature. Only one fault--butgigantic. She has no Will. But if we became husband and wife, thatwould cease to be a fault. I have enough Will for two, and she wouldbe the flute in the hands of the artist. But till then--"

The Countess showed herself a kind Cassandra. His haste, she replied, would ruin his cause. He had to deal with Philistines. The father wasa man of no small self-esteem--he had been the honored tutor ofMaximilian II. , and was now in high favor at the Bavarian court, evencontrolling university and artistic appointments. A Socialist would beespecially distasteful to him. Twenty years ago Varnhagen von Ense hadheard him lecture on Communism--good-humoredly, wittily, shruggingshoulders at these poor, fantastic fools who didn't understand thatthe world was excellently arranged centuries before they were born. Helene herself, with her weak will, would be unable to outface herfamily. Before approaching the parents, had he not better wait thefinal developments of his law-case? If he had to leave Germanytemporarily to escape the imprisonment, would not that be a favorableopportunity for prosecuting his love-affairs in Switzerland? And whata pity to throw up his milk-cure! "_Enfin_, I wish you success, _moncher enfant_, though I will only put complete trust in my own eyes. Infeminine questions you have neither reason nor judgment. "

Lassalle's response was to enclose a pretty letter from Helene, pleading humbly for the Countess's affection. Together let them nursethe sick eagle. She herself was but a child, and would lend herself toany childish follies to drive the clouds from his brow. She would tryto comprehend his magnificent soul, his giant mind, and in happinessor in sorrow would remain faithful and firm at his side. 

The Countess knit her brow. Then Lassalle was already with this Helenain Berne. 

XI

It was a week of delicious happiness, niched amid the eternalmountains, fused with skies and waters. 

With an accommodating chaperon who knew no German, the couple could doand say what they pleased. Lassalle, throwing off the heavy burdens ofprophet and politician, alternated between brilliant lover andhappy-hearted boy. It was almost a honeymoon. Now they were childrenwith all the overflowing endearments of plighted lovers. Now they wereon the heights of intellect, talking poetry and philosophy, andreading Lassalle's works; now they were discussing Balzac's_Physiologie du Mariage_. Anon Lassalle was a large dog, gambollingbefore his capricious mistress. "Lie down, sir, " she cried once, as hewas reading a poem to her. And with peals of Homeric laughterFerdinand declared she had found the only inoffensive way of silencinghim. "If ever I displease you in future, you have only to say, 'Liedown, sir!'" And he began barking joyously. 

And in the glow of this happiness his sense of political defeatevaporated. He burgeoned, expanded, flung back his head in the old, imperial way. "By God!" he said, marching up and down the roomfeverishly, "you have chosen no mean destiny. Have you any idea ofwhat Ferdinand Lassalle's wife will be? Look at me!" He stood still. "Do I look a man to be content with the second rôle in the State? Doyou think I give the sleep of my nights, the marrow of my bones, thestrength of my lungs, to draw somebody else's chestnuts out of thefire? Do I look like a political martyr? No! I wish to act, to fight, and also to enjoy the crown of victory, to place it on your brow. "

A vision of the roaring streets and floral arches of the Rhenishcities flashed past him. "Chief of the People, President of the GermanRepublic, --there's the only true sovereignty. That was what kings wereonce--giants of brain and brawn. King--one who knows, one who can!Headship is for the head. What is this mock dignity that stands on thelying breaths of winking courtiers? What is this farcical, factitiousglamour that will not bear the light of day? The Grace of God? Ay, give me god-like manhood, and I will bend the knee. But to ask me toworship a stuffed purple robe on a worm-eaten throne! 'Tis an insultto manhood and reason. Hereditary kingship! When you can breed soulsas you breed racehorses it will be time to consider that. Stand hereby my side before this mirror. Is not that a proud, a royal couple?Did not Nature fashion these two creatures in a holiday mood of joyand intoxication? _Vive la République_ and its Queen with the goldenlocks!"

"_Vive la République_ and its eagle King!" she cried, intoxicated, yetwith more of dramatic enjoyment than of serious conviction. 

"Bravo! You believe in our star! Since I met you I see it shiningclearer over the heights. We mount, we mount, peak beyond peak. Wehave enemies enough now, thick as the serpents in tropic forests. Well, let them soil with their impure slaver the hem of our garments. But how they will crawl fangless when Ferdinand--the Elect of thePeople--makes his solemn entry into Berlin. And at his side, drawn bysix white horses, his blonde darling, changed into the first woman ofGermany. " He, too, though to him the fancy was real enough for themoment, enjoyed it with a certain artistic aloofness. 

XII

In honor of the _fiancés_--for such they openly avowed themselves, Geneva and Helene's family being sufficiently distant to betemporarily forgotten--the American Consul at Berne gave a charmingdinner. There was a gallant old Frenchman, a honey-tongued Italian, apervasive air of complimentary congratulation. Helene returned to herhotel, thrilling with pleasure and happy auguries. The night was softand warm. Before undressing she leaned out of the window of her roomon the ground floor, and gazed upon the eternal glaciers, sparklinglike silver under the full moon. Through every sense she drank in themystery and perfume of the night, till her spirit seemed at one withthe stars and the mountains. Suddenly she felt two mighty arms claspedabout her. Lassalle stood outside. Her heart throbbed violently. 

"Hush!" he said, "don't be frightened. I will stay outside here, goodand quiet, till you are tired and say, 'Lie down, sir!' Then I willgo!"

"My gentle Romeo!" she whispered, and bent her fragrant lips to meethis--the divine kiss of god and goddess in the divine night. "MyFerdinand!" she breathed. "If we should be parted after all. I trembleto think of it. My father will never consent. "

"He shall consent. And you don't even need his consent. You are ofage. "

"Then take me now, dear heart. I am yours--your creature, your thing. Fly away with me, my beautiful eagle, to Paris, to Egypt, where youwill. Let us be happy Bohemians. We do not need the world. We haveourselves, and the moonlight, and the mountains. "

She was maddening to-night, his _enfant du diable_. But he kept a lastdesperate grip upon his common sense. What would his friends say if heinvolved Helene in the scandal of an elopement? What would Holthoffsay, what Baron Korff? Surely this was not the conduct that wouldcommend itself to the chivalry and nobility of Berlin! And besides, how could his political career survive a new scandal? He was alreadysufficiently hampered by his old connection with the Countess, and noteven a public acquittal and twenty years had sufficed to lay thataccusation of instigating the stealing of a casket of papers from herhusband's mistress, which was perhaps the worst legacy of the greatHatzfeldt case. No, he must win his bride honorably: the sanctitiesand dignities of wedlock were seductive to the Bohemian in love. 

"We shall have ourselves and the world, too, " he urged gently. "Let usenter our realm with the six white horses, not in a coach with drawnblinds. Your father shall give you to me, I tell you, in the eye ofday. What, am I an advertisement canvasser to be shown the door? Shallmy darling not have as honorable nuptials as her father's wife. Shallthe Elect of the People confess that a petty diplomatist didn'tconsider him good enough for a son-in-law? Think how Bismarck wouldchuckle. After all I have said to him!"

Her confidence came back. Yes, one might build one's house on the rockof such a Will! "What have you said to him?"

He laughed softly. "I've let slip a secret, little girl. "

"Tell me. "

"Incredible! That baby with her little fingers, "--he seizedthem--"with her fairy paws, she plunges boldly into my most precioussecrets, into my heart's casket, picks out the costliest jewel, andasks for it. "

"Well, do you like him? Is he an intellectual spirit?"

"Hum! If he is, we are not. He is iron, and of iron we make steel, andof steel pretty weapons; but one can make nothing but weapons. Iprefer gold. Gold like my darling's hair"--he caressed it--"like myown magic power over men. You shall see, darling, how your gold andmine will triumph. "

"But you also are always speaking of arms, of blood, of battles; andRevolutions are scarcely forged without arms and iron. "

"Child, child, " he answered, drawing her golden locks to his lips, "why do you wish to learn all in this beautiful starry night? Theconquests of thousands of years, the results of profound studies, youask for as for toys. To speak of battles, to call to arms, is by nomeans the same thing as to sabre one's fellow, one's brother, with icyheart and bloodstained hand. Don't you understand, sly little thing, of what arms I speak, of the golden weapons of the spirit, eloquence, the love of humanity, the effort to raise to manly dignity the poor, the unfortunate, the workers. Above all, I mean--Will. These nobleweapons, these truly golden weapons, I count higher and more usefulthan the rusted swords of Mediævalism. "

Her eyes filled with tears. She felt herself upborne on waves ofreligious emotion towards those shining stars. The temptation wasover. 

"Good-night, my love, " she said humbly. 

He drew her face to his in passionate farewell, and seemed as if hewould never let her go. When her window closed he strode towards theglaciers. 

An adventure next day came to show the conquered Helena that herspiritual giant was no less king of men physically. At the AmericanConsul's dinner an expedition on the Niessen had been arranged. But asthe party was returning at nightfall across the fields, and laughingover Lassalle's sprightly anecdotes, suddenly a dozen diabolicalgnomes burst upon them with savage roars and incomprehensibleinarticulate jabberings, and began striking at hazard with theirshort, solid cudgels, almost ere the startled picnickers couldrecognize in these bestial creatures, with their enormously swollenheads and horrible hanging goitres, the afflicted idiot peasants ofthe valley. The gallant Frenchman and the honey-tongued Italianscreamed with the women, and made even less play with umbrellas andstraps; but Lassalle fell like a thunderbolt with his Robespierrestick upon the whole band of cretins, and reduced them to howls andbloodstained tears. It was only then that Lassalle was able to extractfrom them that the party had trampled over the hay in their fields, and that they demanded compensation. Being given money, they departed, growling and waving their cudgels. When the excursionists looked atone another they found themselves all in rags, and Lassalle's facedisfigured by two heavy blows. Helene ran to him with a cry. 

"You are wounded, bruised!"

"No, only one of the towers of the Bastille, " he said, ruefullysurveying the stick; "the brutes have dinted it. "

"And there are people who call him coward because he won't fightduels, " thought Helene adoringly. 

XIII

The drama shifted to Geneva, where heroine preceded hero by a fewhours, charged to be silent till her parents had personallyexperienced Lassalle's fascinations. He had scarcely taken possessionof his room in the Pension Bovet when a maidservant brought in aletter from Helene, and ere he had time to do more than break theenvelope, Helene herself burst in. 

"Take me away, take me away, " she cried hysterically. 

He flew to support her. 

"What has happened?"

"I cannot bear it. I cannot fight them. Save me, my king, my master. Let us fly across the frontier--to Paris. " She clung to him wildly. 

Sternness gathered on his brow. 

"Then you have disobeyed me!" he said. "Why?"

"I have written you, " she sobbed. 

He laid her gently on the bed, and ran his eye through the long, hysteric letter. 

Unhappy coincidence! At Helene's arrival, her whole family had met herjoyously at the railway station, overbrimming with the happy news thather little sister, Marguerite, had just been proposed to by CountKayserling. 

Helene had thought this a heaven-sent opportunity of breaking her ownhappiness to her radiant mother, foolishly forgetting that the CountKayserling would be the last man in the world to endure a Jew and ademagogue as a brother-in-law. Terrible scenes had followed--themother's tears, the father's thunders, the general family wail andsupplication, sisters trembling for their prospects, brothersanticipating the sneers of club-land. What! exchange Prince Janko fora thief!

Cross-examined by Lassalle, Helene admitted her mother was not sofurious as her father, and had even, weeping on her bosom, promised totry and smooth the Baron down. But she knew that was impossible--herfather considered nothing but his egoistic plans. And so, when thedinner-bell was sounding, informed with a mad courage by the thoughtof her hero's proximity, she had flown to him. 

Lassalle felt that the test-moment of his life had come, and the manof action must rise to it. He scribbled three telegrams--one to hismother, one to his sister, Frau Friedland, and one to the Countess, asking all to come at once. 

"You must have a chaperon, " he interjected. "And till one of the threearrives, who is there here?"

She sobbed out the address of Madame Rognon. Lassalle opened the doorto hand over the telegrams, and saw the woman who had brought Helene'sletter lingering uneasily, and he had the unhappiest yet not leastcharacteristic inspiration of his life. "These to the telegraphoffice, " he said aloud, and in a whisper: "Tell the Baroness vonDönniges that we shall be at Madame Rognon's. "

For, with lightning rapidity, his brain had worked out a subtle pieceof heroic comedy. He would restore Helene to her mother, he would playthe grand seigneur, the spotless Bayard, he, the Jew, the thief, thedemagogue, the Don Juan; his chivalry would shame this littlediplomatist. In no case could they refuse him the girl, she was toohopelessly compromised. All the Pension had seen her--the mother wouldbe shrewd enough to understand that. She must allow the renunciationto remain merely verbal, but the words would sound how magnificent!

The scene was duly played. The bewildered Helene, whom he left in thedark, confused by the unexpected appearance of her mother, was throwninto the last stage of dazed distress by being recklessly restored tothe maternal bosom. He kissed her good-bye, and she vanished from hissight for ever. 

XIV

For he had reckoned without his Janko, always at hand to cover up ascandal. The Will he had breathed into Helene had been exhausted inthe one supreme effort of her life. Sucked up again into the familyegotism, kept for weeks under a _régime_ of terror and interceptedletters, hurried away from Geneva; chagrined and outraged, too, by herlover's incomprehensible repudiation of her, which only success couldhave excused, and which therefore became more unpardonable as dayfollowed day without rescue from a giant, proved merely windbag; shefell back with compunction into the tender keeping of the ever-waitingJanko. The one letter her father permitted her to send formallyannounced her eternal love and devotion for her former _fiancé_. Profitless to tell the story of how the stricken giant, raving inouter darkness, this Polyphemus who had gouged out his own eye, thisHercules self-invested in the poisoned robe of Nessus, moved heavenand earth to see her again. It was an earthquake, a tornado, anightmare. He had frenzies of tears, his nights were sleepless reviewsof his folly in throwing her away, and vain phantasms of her eyes andlips. He poured out torrents of telegrams and letters, in which criesof torture mingled with minute legal instructions. The correspondenceof the Working-Men's Union alone was neglected. He pressed everybodyand anybody into his feverish service--musicians, artists, soldiers, antiquarians, aristocrats. Would not Wagner induce the King of Bavariato speak to von Dönniges? Would not the Catholic Bishop Ketteler helphim?--he would become a Catholic. And ever present an insane belief inthe reality of her faithlessness, mockingly accompanied by a terriblylucid recognition of the instability of character that made itcertain. The "No"--her first word to him at their firstmeeting--resounded in his ears, prophetically ominous. The sunrise, hidden by rain and mist, added its symbolic gloom. But he felt herlips on his in the marvellous moonlight; a thousand times she clung tohim crying, "Take me away!" And now she was to be another's. Sherefused even to see him. Incredible! Monstrous! If he could only getan interview with her face to face. Then they would see if she wasresisting him of her own free will or under pressure illegal for anadult. It was impossible his will-power over her should fail. 

Helene evidently thought so too. By fair means and foul, by spies andlawyers and friendly agents, Lassalle's frenzied energy had penetratedthrough every defence to the inmost entrenchment where she satcowering. He had exacted the father's consent to an interview. OnlyHelene's own consent was wanting. His friend Colonel Rustow broughtthe sick Hercules the account of her refusal--a refusal which maderidiculous his moving of mountains. 

"But surely you owe Lassalle some satisfaction, " he had protested. 

"To what? To his wounded vanity?"

It was the last straw. 

"Harlot!" cried Lassalle, and as in a volcanic jet, hurled her fromhis burning heart. 

A terrible calm settled upon him. It was as if fire should become ice. Yes, he understood at last what Destiny had always been trying to tellhim--that love and happiness were not for him. He was consecrate togreat causes: His Will, entangled with that of others, grew feeble, fruitless. Women were truly _enfants du diable_. He had been within anace of abandoning his historical mission. Now he would arise, strong, sublime: a mighty weapon forged by the gods, and tempered by fire andtears. 

Only, one thing must first be done. The past must be wiped off. Hemust recommence with a clean sheet. True, he had always refused duels. But now he saw the fineness, the necessity of them. In a world ofchicanery and treachery the sword alone cut clean. 

He sent a challenge to the father, a message of goodwill to the lover. But it was Janko who took up the challenge. 

The weapon chosen was the pistol. 

Lassalle's friends begged him to practise. 

"Useless! I know what is destined. "

Never had he been so colossal, so assured. His nerves seemed to haveregained their tone. The night before the duel he slept like atranquil child. 

In the early morn, on the way to the field outside Geneva, he beggedhis second to arrange the duel on the French side of the frontier, sothat he might remain in Geneva and settle his account with the father. At the word of command, "One!" Janko's shot rang out. Lassalle's wasnot a second later, but he had already received his death-wound. 

He lay three days, dying in terrible agony, relieved only by copiousopium. Between the spasms, surprise possessed his mind that his Willshould have counted for nothing before the imperturbable march of theuniverse. "There will never be Justice for the People, " he thoughtbitterly. "I was a dreamer. Heine was right. A mad world, my masters. "But sometimes he had a gleam of suspicion that it was he that hadlacked sanity. His Will had become mere wilfulness. In his love as inhis crusade he had shut his eyes to the brute facts; had precipitatedwhat could only be coaxed. "I die by my own hand, " he said. If he hadonly married Rosalie Zander, who still lived on, loving him! TheseRussian and Bavarian minxes were neurotic, fickle, shifting as sand;the daughters of Judæa were sane, cheerful, solid. Then he thought ofhis own sister married to that vulgarian, Friedland. He saw her, arosy-cheeked girl, sitting at the Passover table, with its picturesqueritual. How happy were those far-off pious days! And then he felt acold wind, remembering how Riekchen had hidden her face to laugh atthese mediæval mummeries, and to spit out the bitter herbs, someaningless to her. 

O terrible tragi-comedy of life, O strange, tangled world, in whichpoor, petty man must walk, tripped by endless coils--religion, race, sex, custom, wealth, poverty! World that from boyhood he had seemed tosee stretching so clearly before him, to be mapped out with lucidlogic, to be bestridden with triumphant foot by men become as gods, knowing good and evil. 

Only one thing was left--to die unbroken. 

He had his lawyer brought to his bedside, went through his lasttestament again, left money for the Union, recommended it to theworkers as their one sure path of salvation. Moses had only beenpermitted to gaze upon the Promised Land, but the Chosen People--theGermans--should yet luxuriate in its milk and honey. 

A month after his meeting with Helene on the Righi--a month after hisglad shout, "By all the gods of Greece, 'tis she!"--he was a corpse, the magic voice silent for ever; while the woman he had sought was togive herself to his slayer, and the movement he had all but abandonedfor her was to become a great power in the State, under theever-growing glamour of his memory. 

The Countess bent over the body. A strange, grim joy mingled with herrage and despair. None of all these women had the right to share inher grief. He belonged to her--to her and the People. Yes, she wouldbear the body of her _cher enfant_ through the provinces of theRhine--he had been murdered by a cunning political plot, the Peoplewho loved him should rise and avenge their martyred Messiah. 

And suddenly she remembered with a fresh pang the one woman who had aright to share her grief, nay, to call him--in no figurativesense--"_enfant_"; the wrinkled old Jewess, palsied and deaf andpeevish, who lived on in a world despoiled of his splendid fightingstrength, of his superb fore-visionings. 

THE PRIMROSE SPHINX

I

In the choir of the old-fashioned church of Hughenden, that broodsamid the beautiful peace of English meadows, there stands, on the lefthand of the aisle, a black high-backed stall of polished oak, overhungby the picturesque insignia of the Order of the Garter. 

In the pavement behind it gleams a square slab, dedicated by "hisgrateful sovereign and friend" to her great Prime Minister, and heapedin the spring with primroses. 

And on this white memorial is sculptured in bas-relief the profile ofthe head of a Semitic Sphinx, round whose mute lips flickers in afaint sardonic smile the wisdom of the ages. 

II

I see him, methinks, in life, Premier of England, Lord Privy Seal, Earl Beaconsfield of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden of Hughenden, sitting in his knightly stall, listening impassibly to the countryparson's sermon. His head droops on his breast, but his coal-blackinscrutable eyes are open. 

It is the hour of his star. 

He is just back from the Berlin Congress, bringing "Peace withHonor. " The Continent has stood a-tiptoe to see the wonderful EnglishEarl pass and repass. He has been the lion of a congress that includedBismarck. The laurels and the Oriental palm placed by his landlord onthe hotel-balcony have but faintly typified the feeling of Europe. Hisfeverous reception in England, from Dover pier onwards, has recalledan earlier, a more romantic world. Fathers have brought their littleones to imprint upon their memories the mortal features of thisimmortal figure, who passes through a rain of flowers to his throne inDowning Street. The London press, with scarce an exception, is in thedust at his feet--with the proud English nobles and all that has everflouted or assailed him. 

The sunshine comes floridly through the stained-glass windows, andlies upon the austere crucifix. 

III

By what devious ways has he wandered hither--from that warm oldPortuguese synagogue in Bevis Marks, whence his father withdrew underthe smart of a fine from "the gentlemen of the Mahamad?"

But hark! The parson--as paradoxically--is reading a Jewish psalm. 

 "'_The Lord said unto my lord: Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Zion: be thou ruler in the midst of thine enemies. In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee freewill offerings with a holy worship: the dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning. _'"

The Earl remains impassive. 

"Half Christendom worships a Jewess, and the other half a Jew. "

Whom does he worship?

"Sensible men never tell. "

IV

Yet in that facial mask I seem to read all the tale of the long yearsof desperate waiting, only half sweetened by premature triumphs of penand person; all the rancorous energies of political strife. 

And as I gaze, a sense of something shoddy oppresses me, of tinsel andglitter and flamboyance: a feeling that here is no true greatness, nosphinx-like sublimity. A shadow of the world and the flesh fallsacross the brooding figure, a Napoleonic vulgarity coarsens thefeatures, there is a Mephistophelian wrinkle in the corner of thelips. 

I think of his books, of his grandiose style, gorgeous as his earlywaistcoats and gold chains, the prose often made up of bad blankverse, leavings from his long coxcombical strain to be a poet; of hisfalse-sublime and his false-romantic, of his rococo personages, monotonously magnificent; of his pseudo-Jewish stories, and hisbraggart assertions of blood, played off against the insulting prideof the proudest aristocracy in the world, and combined with a politicperseverance to be more English than the English; of his naïve delightin fine clothes and fine dishes and fine company; of his nice conductof a morning and evening cane; of his morbid self-consciousness of hisgifts and his genius; of his unscrupulous chase of personal successand of Fame--that shadow which great souls cast, and little soulspursue as substance; of his scrupulous personal rejection ofLove--Love, the one touch of true romance in his novels--and hispecuniary marriage for his career's sake, after the manner of histribe; of his romanesque conception of the British aristocracy, whichhe yet dominates, because he is not really rooted in the socialconceptions which give it its prestige, and so is able to manœuvre itartistically from without, intellect detached from emotion: to playEnglish politics like a game of chess, moving proud peers like pawns, with especial skill in handling his Queen; his very imperturbabilityunder attack, only the mediæval Jew's self-mastery before thegrosser-brained persecutor. 

I think these things and the Sphinx yields up his secret--the opensecret of the Ghetto parvenu. 

V

But as I look again upon his strange Eastern face, so deep-lined, sohaggard, something subtler and finer calls to me from the ruins of itsmelancholy beauty. 

Into this heavy English atmosphere he brings not only the shimmer ofideas and wit, but--a Heine of action--the fantasy of personaladventure, and--when audacity has been crowned by empery--of dramaticsurprises of policy. A successful Lassalle, he flutters the stagnantcastes of aristocracy by the supremacy of the individual Will. 

To a country that lumbers on from precedent to precedent, and owes itsvery constitution to the pinch of practical exigencies, he brings theJew's unifying sweep of idea. First, he is the encourager of the YoungEngland party, for, conceiving himself child of a race of aristocratswhose mission is to civilize the world, he feels the duty of guidanceto which these young English squires and nobles are born. Thebourgeois he hates--only the pomp of sovereignty and the pathos ofpoverty move his soul; his lifelong dream is of a Tory democracy, wherein the nobles shall make happy the People that is exploited bythe middle classes. Product of a theocratic state, where the rich andthe poor are united in God, he is shocked by "the Two Nations" intowhich, by the gradual break-up of the feudal world, this England issplit. The cry of the Chartists does not leave him cold. He is one inrevolt with Byron and Shelley against a Philistine world. And later, to a mighty empire that has grown fortuitously, piecemeal, by theindividual struggles of independent pioneers or isolated filibusters, he gives a unifying soul, a spirit, a mission. He perceives with Heinethat as Puritan Britain is already the heir of ancient Palestine, andits State Church only the guardian of the Semitic principle, popularized, so is it by its moral and physical energy, the destinedexecutant of the ideals of Zion; that it is planting the Law like agreat shady tree in the tropic deserts and arid wastes of barbarism. That grandeur and romance of their empire, of which the English of hisday are only dimly aware, because like their constitution it hasevolved without a conscious principle, he, the outsider, sees. He iscaught by the fascination of its vastness, of its magnificentpossibilities. And in very deed he binds England closer to hercolonies, and restores her dwindled prestige in the Parliament ofNations. He even proclaims her an Asiatic power. 

For his heart is always with his own people--its past glories, itspersistent ubiquitous potency, despite ubiquitous persecution. He seeshimself the appointed scion of a Chosen Race, the only race to whichGod has ever spoken, and perhaps the charm of acquired Cyprus is itspropinquity to Palestine, the only soil on which God has ever deignedto reveal Himself. 

And, like his race, he has links with all the human panorama. 

He is in touch with the humors and graces of European courts andcities, has rapport with the rich-dyed, unchanging, double-dealingEast, enjoys the picaresque life of the Spanish mountains: he feelsthe tragedy of vanished Rome, the marble appeal of ancient Athens, themystery of the Pyramids, the futility of life; his books palpitatewith world-problems. 

And, as I think these things, his face is transfigured and hebecomes--beneath all his dazzle of deed--a Dreamer of the Ghetto. 

VI

So think I. But what--as the country parson's sermon drones on--thinksthe Sphinx?

Who shall tell?

DREAMERS IN CONGRESS

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept, when weremembered Zion. " By the river of Bâle we sit down, resolved to weepno more. Not the German Rhine, but the Rhine ere it leaves the land ofliberty; where, sunning itself in a glory of blue sky and white cloud, and overbrooded by the eternal mountains; it swirls its fresh greenwaves and hurries its laden rafts betwixt the quaint old houses anddreaming spires, and under the busy bridges of the Golden Gate ofSwitzerland. 

In the shady courtyard of the Town Hall are sundry frescoes testifyingto the predominant impress on the minds of its citizens of the lifeand thoughts of a little people that flourished between two and threethousand years ago in the highlands of Asia Minor. But, amid thesesuggestive illustrations of ancient Jewish history, the strangestsurely is that of Moses with a Table of the Law, on which are writtenthe words: "Who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of thehouse of bondage. "

For here, after all this travail of the centuries, a very modernMoses--in the abstract-concrete form of a Congress--is againmeditating the deliverance of Israel from the house of bondage. 

Not in the Town Hall, however, but in the Casino the Congress meets, and, where Swiss sweethearts use to dance, are debated the tragicissues of an outcast nation. An oblong hall, of drab yellow, with canechairs neatly parted in the middle, and green-baized tables forreporters, and a green-baized rostrum, and a green-baized platform, over which rise the heads and festal shirt-fronts of the leaders. 

A strangely assorted set of leaders, but all with that ink-mark on thebrow which is as much on the Continent the badge of action, as it isin England the symbol of sterility; all believing more or less naïvelythat the pen is mightier than the millionaire's gold. 

Only one of them hitherto has really stirred the world with hispen-point--a prophet of the modern, preaching "Woe, woe" bypsycho-physiology; in himself a breezy, burly undegenerate, with agreat gray head marvellously crammed with facts and languages; now toprove himself golden-hearted and golden-mouthed, an orator touchingequally to tears or laughter. In striking contrast with thisquasi-Teutonic figure shows the leonine head, with its tossing blackmane and shoulders, of the Russian leader, Apollo turned Berserker, beautiful, overpowering, from whose resplendent mouth roll in mountainthunder the barbarous Russian syllables. 

And even as no two of the leaders are alike, so do the rank and filefail to resemble one another. Writers and journalists, poets andnovelists and merchants, professors and men of professions--types thatonce sought to slough their Jewish skins, and mimic, on Darwinianprinciples, the colors of the environment, but that now, with sometardy sense of futility or stir of pride, proclaim their brotherhoodin Zion--they are come from many places; from far lands and from near, from uncouth, unknown villages of Bukowina and the Caucasus, and fromthe great European capitals; thickliest from the pales of persecution, in rare units from the free realms of England and America--a strangephantasmagoria of faces. A small, sallow Pole, with high cheek-bones;a blond Hungarian, with a flaxen moustache; a brown, hatchet-facedRoumanian; a fresh-colored Frenchman, with eye-glasses; a dark, Marrano-descended Dutchman; a chubby German; a fiery-eyed Russian, tugging at his own hair with excitement, perhaps in prescience of theprison awaiting his return; a dusky Egyptian, with the close-cropped, curly black hair, and all but the nose of a negro; a yellow-beardedSwede; a courtly Viennese lawyer; a German student, with proudduel-slashes across his cheek; a Viennese student, first fighter inthe University, with a colored band across his shirt-front; a dandy, smelling of the best St. Petersburg circles; and one solitarycaftan-Jew, with ear-locks and skull-cap, wafting into the nineteenthcentury the cabalistic mysticism of the Carpathian Messiah. 

Who speaks of the Jewish type? One can only say negatively that thesefaces are not Christian. Is it the stamp of a longer, more complexheredity? Is it the brand of suffering? Certainly a stern Congress, the speeches little lightened by humor, the atmosphere of historictragedy too overbrooding for intellectual dalliance. Even the presenceof the gayer sex--for there are a few ladies among the delegates, andmore peep down from the crowded spectators' gallery that runs sidewaysalong the hall--only makes a few shots of visual brightness in thesober scene. Seriousness is stamped everywhere; on the broad-bulgingtemples of the Russian oculist, on the egg-shaped skull and lank whitehair of the Heidelberg professor, on the open countenance of theHungarian architect, on the weak, narrow lineaments of the neuroticHebrew poet; it gives dignity to red hair and freckles, tones down thegrossness of too-fleshy cheeks, and lends an added beauty tofinely-cut features. 

Superficially, then, they have little in common, and if almost allspeak German--the language of the Congress--it is only because theyare all masters of three or four tongues. Yet some subtle instinctlinks them each to each; presage, perhaps, of some brotherhood ofmankind, of which ingathered Israel--or even ubiquitous Israel--maypresent the type. 

Through the closed red-curtained windows comes ever and anon the sharpting of the bell of an electric car, and the President, anxiouslysteering the course of debate through difficult internationalcross-roads, rings his bell almost as frequently. 

A majestic Oriental figure, the President's--not so tall as it appearswhen he draws himself up and stands dominating the assembly with eyesthat brood and glow--you would say one of the Assyrian Kings, whosesculptured heads adorn our Museums, the very profile ofTiglath-Pileser. In sooth, the beautiful sombre face of a kinglydreamer, but of a Jewish dreamer who faces the fact that flowers aregrown in dung. A Shelley "beats in the air his luminous wings invain"; our Jewish dreamer dreams along the lines of life; his dreambut discounts the future, his prophecy is merely fore-speaking, hisvision prevision. He talks agriculture, viticulture, subvention of theOttoman Empire, both by direct tribute and indirect enrichment; stocksand shares, railroads, internal and to India; natural developmentunder expansion--all the jargon of our iron age. Let not his movementbe confounded with those petty projects for helping Jewishagriculturists into Palestine. What! Improve the Sultan's land withoutany political equivalent guaranteed in advance! Difficulty about theholy places of Christianity and Islam? Pooh! extra-territorial. 

A practised publicist, a trained lawyer, a not unsuccessful comedywriter, converted to racial self-consciousness by the "Hep, Hep" ofVienna, and hurried into unforeseen action by his own paper-scheme ofa Jewish State, he has, perhaps, at last--and not unreluctantly--foundhimself as a leader of men. 

In a Congress of impassioned rhetoricians he remains serene, moderate;his voice is for the more part subdued; in its most emotionalabandonments there is a dry undertone, almost harsh. He quellsdisorder with a look, with a word, with a sharp touch of the bell. Thecloven hoof of the Socialist peeps out from a little group. At once"The Congress shall be captured by no party!" And the Congress is inroars of satisfaction. 

'Tis the happy faculty of all idealists to overlook the visible--theprice they pay for seeing the unseen. Even our open-eyed Jewishidealist has been blest with ignorance of the actual. But, in his veryignorance of the people he would lead and the country he would leadthem to, lies his strength, just as in his admission that his Zionistfervor is only that second-rate species produced by localanti-Semitism, lies a powerful answer to the dangerous libel of localunpatriotism. Of the real political and agricultural conditions ofPalestine he knows only by hearsay. Of Jews he knows still less. Notfor him the paralyzing sense of the humors of his race, the petty feudof Dutchman and Pole, the mutual superiorities of Sephardi andAshkenazi, the grotesque incompatibility of Western and Eastern Jew, the cynicism and snobbery of the prosperous, the materialism of theuneducated adventurers in unexploited regions. He stands so high andaloof that all specific colorings and markings are blurred for himinto the common brotherhood, and, if he is cynic enough to suspectthem, he is philosopher enough to recognize that all nations arecompact of incongruites, vitalized by warring elements. Nor has he anysympathetic perception of the mystic religious hopes of generationsof zealots, of the great swirling spiritual currents of Ghetto life. But in a national movement--which appears at first sight hopeless, because it lacks the great magnetizer, religion--lies a chance deniedto one who should boldly proclaim himself the evangel of a modernJudaism, the last of the Prophets. Political Zionism alone cantranscend and unite: any religious formula would disturb and dissever. Along this line may all travel to Jerusalem. And, as the locomotivefrom Jaffa draws all alike to the sacred city, and leaves them thereto their several matters, so may the pious concern themselves not atall with the religion of the engineer. 

Not this the visionary figure created by the tear-dimmed yearning ofthe Ghetto; no second Sabbataï Zevi, master of celestial secrets, divine reincarnation, come with signs and wonders to lead back Israelto the Promised Land. Still less the prophet prefigured by Christianvisionaries, some of whom, fevered nevertheless, press upon theCongress itself complex collations of texts, or little cards with thesign of the cross. Palestine, indeed, but an afterthought: anaspiration of unsuspected strength, to be utilized--like all humanforces--by the maker of history. States are the expression of souls;in any land the Jewish soul could express itself in characteristicinstitutions, could shake off the long oppression of the ages, andrenew its youth in touch with the soil. Yet since there is thislonging for Palestine, let us make capital of it--capital that willreturn its safe percentage. A rush to Palestine will mean all thatseething medley of human wants and activities out of which profits aresnatched by the shrewd--gold-rush and God-rush, they are both one intheir economic working. May not the Jews themselves take shares in sopromising a project? May not even their great bankers put their namesto such a prospectus? The shareholders incur no liability beyond theextent of their shares; there shall be no call upon them to come toPalestine--let them remain in their snug nests; the Jewish Company, Limited, seeks a home only for the desolate dove that finds no restfor the sole of her feet. 

And yet beneath all this statesmanlike prose, touched with the specialdryness of the jurist, lurk the romance of the poet and the purposefulvagueness of the modern evolutionist; the fantasy of the Hungarian, the dramatic self-consciousness of the literary artist, the heart ofthe Jew. 

Is one less a poet because he regards the laws of reality, lessreligious because he accepts them, less a Jew because he will live inhis own century? Our dreamer will have none of the Mediæval, isenamoured of the Modern; has lurking admiration of the "over-man" ofNietzsche, even to be overpassed by the coming Jerusalem Jew; thepsychical Eurasian, the link and interpreter between East andWest--nay, between antiquity and the modern spirit; the synthesis ofmankind, saturated with the culture of the nations, and now at lastturning home again, laden with the spiritual spoils of the world--forthe world's benefit. He shall found an ideal modern state, catholic increed, righteous in law, a centre of conscience--even geographically--ina world relapsing to Pagan chaos. And its flag shall be a "shield ofDavid, " with the Lion of Judah rampant, and twelve stars for theTribes. No more of the cringing and the whispering in dark corners; nosurreptitious invasion of Palestine. The Jew shall demand right, nottolerance. Israel shall walk erect. And he, Israel's spokesman, willnot juggle with diplomatic combinations--he will play cards on table. He has nothing to say to the mob, Christian or Jewish, he will notintrigue with political underlings. He is no demagogue; he will speakwith kings in their palaces, with prime ministers in their cabinets. There is a touch of the ὑβρισ of Lassalle, of the magnificence ofManasseh Bueno Barzillai Azevedo Da Costa, King of thequestion-beggars. 

Do you object that the poor will be the only ones to immigrate toPalestine? Why, it is just those that we want. Prithee, how else shallwe make our roads and plant our trees? No mention now of the Eurasianexemplar, the synthetic "over-man. " Perhaps he is only to evolve. Doyou suggest that an inner ennobling of scattered Israel might be thefiner goal, the truer antidote to anti-Semitism? Simple heart, do younot see it is just for our good--not our bad--qualities that we arepersecuted? A jugglery--specious enough for the moment--with the word"good"; forceful "struggle-for-life" qualities substituted forspiritual, for ethical. And yet to doubt that the world would--anddoes--respond sympathetically to the finer elements so abundantly inIsrael, is it not to despair of the world, of humanity? In such aworld, what guarantee against the pillage of the Third Temple? And insuch a world were life worth living at all? And, even with Palestinefor ultimate goal, do you counsel delay, a nursing of the Zionistflame, a gradual education and preparation of the race for a greatconscious historic rôle in the world's future, a forty years'wandering in the wilderness to organize or kill off the miscellaneousrabble--then will you, dreamer, turn a deaf ear to the cry of millionsoppressed to-day? Would you ignore the appeals of these hundreds oftelegrams, of these thousands of petitions with myriads of signatures, for the sake of some visionary perfection of to-morrow? Nay, nay, thecartoon of the Congress shall bring itself to pass. Against thepicturesque wailers at the ruins of the Temple wall shall be set theno less picturesque peasants sowing the seed, whose harvest is at oncewaving grain and a regenerated Israel. The stains of sordid trafficshall be cleansed by the dews and the rains. In the Jewish peasantbehold the ideal plebeian of the future; a son of the soil, yet also ason of the spirit. And what fair floriage of art and literature maynot the world gain from this great purified nation, carrying in itsbosom the experience of the ages?

Not all his own ideas, these; some perhaps only half-consciouslypresent to him, so that even in this very Congress the note ofjealousy is heard, the claim of an earlier prophet insisted onfiercely. For a moment the dignified assembly, becomes a prey toatavism, reproduces the sordid squabbles of the _Kahal_. As if everymovement was not fed by subterranean fires, heralded by obscurerumblings, though 'tis only the earthquake or the volcanic jet whichleaps into history!

But the President is finely impersonal. Not he, but the Congress. TheBulgarians have a tradition that the Messiah will be born on August29. He shares this belief. To-day the Messiah has been born--theCongress. "In this Congress we procure for the Jewish people an organwhich till now it did not possess, and of which it was so sadly inwant. Our cause is too great for the ambition and wilfulness of asingle person. It must be lifted up to something impersonal if it isto succeed. And our Congress shall be lasting, not only until we areredeemed from the old state, but still more so afterwards . . . Seriousand lofty, a blessing for the unfortunate, noxious to none, to thehonor of all Jews, and worthy of a past, the glory of which is faroff, but everlasting. "

And, as he steps from the tribune, amid the roar of "Hochs, " and thethunder of hands and feet and sticks, and the flutter ofhandkerchiefs, with men precipitating themselves to kiss his hand, andothers weeping and embracing, be sure that no private ambitionpossesses him, be sure that his heart swells only with thepresentiment of great events and with uplifting thoughts of themillions who will thrill to the distant echo of this sublime moment. 

What European parliament could glow with such a galaxy of intellect?Is not each man a born orator, master of arts or sciences? Has not thevery caftan-Jew from the Carpathians published his poetry and hisphilosophy, gallantly championing "The Master of the Name" against aDarwinian world? Heine had figured the Jew as a dog, that at theadvent of the Princess Sabbath is changed back to a man. More potentthan the Princess, the Congress has shown the Jew's manhood to theworld. That old painter, whose famous Dance of Death drew forcenturies the curious to Bâle, could not picture the Jew save as thegaberdined miser, only dropping his money-bag at Death's touch. Well, here is another sight for him--could Death, that took him too, bringhim back for a moment--these scholars, thinkers, poets, from all thelands of the Exile, who stand up in honor of the dead pioneers ofZionism, and, raising their right hands to heaven, cry, "If I forgetthee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning!" Yes, thedream still stirs at the heart of the mummied race, the fire quenchedtwo thousand years ago sleeps yet in the ashes. And if our Presidentforgets that the vast bulk of his brethren are unrepresented in hisCongress, that they are content with the civic rights so painfullywon, and have quite other conceptions of their creed's future, whowill grudge him this moment of fine rapture?

Or, when at night, in the students' _Kommers_, with joyful weeping andwith brotherly kisses, sages and gray-beards join in the _gaudeamusigitur_, who shall deny him grounds for his faith that _juvenes sumus_yet, that the carking centuries have had no power over our immortalnation. "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinitevariety. "

The world in which prophecies are uttered cannot be the world in whichprophecies are fulfilled. And yet when--at the wind-up of thismemorable meeting--the Rabbi of Bâle, in the black skull-cap ofsanctity, ascending the tribune amid the deafening applause of acatholic Congress, expresses the fears of the faithful, lest in thenew Jewish State the religious Jew be under a ban; and when thePresident gravely gives the assurance, amid enthusiasm as frantic, that Judaism has nothing to fear--Judaism, the one cause andconsolation of the ages of isolation and martyrdom--does no sense ofthe irony of history intrude upon his exalted mood?

THE PALESTINE PILGRIM

A vast, motley crowd of poor Jews and Jewesses swayed outside thedoors of the great Manchester synagogue, warmed against the winterafternoon by their desperate squeezing and pushing. They stretchedfrom the broad-pillared portico down the steps and beyond the ironrailings, far into the street. The wooden benches of the sacredbuilding were already packed with a perspiring multitude, seatedindiscriminately, women with men, and even men in the women's gallery, resentfully conscious--for the first time--of the grating. The hour ofthe address had already struck, but the body of police strove in vainto close the doors against the mighty human stream that pressed on andon, frenzied with the fear of disappointment and the long wait. 

A policeman, worming his way in by the caretaker's entrance, bore tothe hero of the afternoon the superintendent's message that unless hedelayed his speech till the bulk of the disappointed could be gotinside, a riot could not be staved off. And so the stream continued toforce itself slowly forward, flowing into every nook and gangway, tillit stood solid and immovable, heaped like the waters of the Red Sea. And when at last the doors were bolted, and thousands of swarthyfaces, illumined faintly by clusters of pendent gas-globes, wereturned towards the tall pulpit where the speaker stood, dominant, against the mystic background of the Ark-curtain, it seemed as if thewhole Ghetto of Manchester--the entire population of Strange-ways andRedbank--had poured itself into this one synagogue in a great tidalwave, moved by one of those strange celestial influences which havethroughout all history disturbed the torpor of the Jewries. 

Of these poverty-stricken thousands, sucked hither by the fame of asoldier rumored to represent a Messianic millionaire bent on therestoration and redemption of Israel, Aaron the Pedlar was anatom--ugly, wan, and stooping, with pious ear-locks, and a long, fustycoat, little regarded even by those amid whom he surged and squeezedfor hours in patience. Aaron counted for less than nothing in a worldhe helped to overcrowd, and of which he perceived very little. For, although he did not fail to make a profit on his gilded goods, andknew how to wheedle servants at side-doors, he was far behind hisfellows in that misapprehension of the human hurly-burly which makesyour ordinary Russian Jew a political oracle. Aaron's interest inpolitics was limited to the wars of the Kings of Israel and themisdeeds of Titus and Antiochus Epiphanes. To him the modern world wascomposed of Jews and heathen; and society had two simple sections--therich and the poor. 

"Don't you enjoy travelling?" one of the former section once asked himaffably. "Even if it's disagreeable in winter you must pass through agood deal of beautiful scenery in summer. "

"If I am on business, " replied the pedlar, "how can I bother about thebeautiful?"

And, flustered though he was by the condescension of the great person, his naïve counter-query expressed a truth. He lived, indeed, in astrange dream-world, and had no eyes for the real except in the shapeof cheap trinkets. He was happier in the squalid streets ofStrange-ways, where strips of Hebrew patched the windows ofcook-shops, and where a synagogue was ever at hand, than when stridingacross the purple moors under an open blue sky, or resting with hispack by the side of purling brooks. Stupid his enemies would havecalled him, only he was too unimportant to have enemies, the roughsand the children who mocked his passage being actuated merely byimpersonal malice. To his friends--if the few who were aware of hisexistence could be called friends--he was a _Schlemihl_ (a lucklessfool). 

"A man who earns a pound a week live without a wife!" complained the_Shadchan_ (marriage-broker) to a group of sympathetic cap-makers. 

"I suppose he's such a _Schlemihl_ no father would ever look at him!"said a father, with a bunch of black-eyed daughters. 

"Oh, but he _was_ married in Russia, " said another; "but just as hesent his wife the money to come over, she died. "

"And yet you call him a _Schlemihl_!" cried Moshelé, the cynic. 

"Ah, but her family stuck to the money!" retorted the narrator, andcaptured the laugh. 

It was true. After three years of terrible struggle and privation, Aaron had prepared an English home for his Yenta, but she sleptinstead in a Russian grave. Perhaps if his friends had known how hehad thrown away the chance of sending for her earlier, they would havebeen still more convinced that he was a born _Schlemihl_. For withineighteen months of his landing in London docks, Aaron, through hisrapid mastery of English and ciphering at the evening classes forHebrew adults, had found a post as book-keeper to a clothes-store inRatcliff Highway. But he soon discovered that he was expected to fakethe invoices, especially when drunken sailors came to rig themselvesup in mufti. 

"Well, we'll throw the scarf in, " the genial salesman would concedecheerily. "And the waistcoat? One-and-three--a good waistcoat, asclean as new, and dirt cheap, so 'elp me. "

But when Aaron made out the bill he was nudged to put theone-and-three in the column for pounds and shillings respectively, andeven, if the buyer were sufficiently in funds and liquor, to set downthe date of the month in the same pecuniary partitions, and to add itup glibly with the rest, calendar and coin together. But Aaron, although he was not averse from honestly misrepresenting the value ofgoods, drew the line at trickery, and so he was kicked out. It tookhim a year of nondescript occupations to amass a little stock of mockjewellery wherewith to peddle, and Manchester he found a moreprofitable centre than the metropolis. Yenta dead, profit and holylearning divided his thoughts, and few of his fellows achieved less ofthe former or more of the latter than our itinerant idealist. 

Such was one of the thousands of souls swarming that afternoon in thesynagogue, such was one despised unit of a congregation itselfaccounted by the world a pitiable mass of superstitious poverty, andnow tossing with emotion in the dim spaces of the sacred building. 

The Oriental imagination of the hearers magnified the simple soldierlysentences of the orator, touched them with color and haloed them withmystery, till, as the deep gasps and sobs of the audience struck backlike blows on the speaker's chest, the contagion of their passionthrilled him to responsive emotion. And, seen through tears, arose forhim and them a picture of Israel again enthroned in Palestine, theland flowing once more with milk and honey, rustling with corn andvines planted by their own hands, and Zion--at peace with all theworld--the recognized arbitrator of the nations, making true the wordof the Prophet: "For from Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word ofGod from Jerusalem. "

To Aaron the vision came like a divine intoxication. He stamped hisfeet, clapped, cried, shouted. He felt tears streaming down his cheekslike the rivers that watered Paradise. What! This hope that hadhaunted him from boyhood, wafting from the pages of the holy books, was not then a shadowy splendor on the horizon's rim. It was asolidity, within sight, almost within touch. He himself might hope tosit in peace under his own fig-tree, no more the butt of the streetboys. And the vague vision, though in becoming definite it had beentransformed to earthliness, was none the less grand for that. He hadalways dimly expected Messianic miracles, but in that magic afternoonthe plain words of the soldier unsealed his eyes, and suddenly he sawclearly that just as, in Israel, every man was his own priest, needingno mediator, so every man was his own Messiah. 

And as he squeezed out of the synagogue, unconscious of thechattering, jostling crowd, he saw himself in Zion, worshipping at theHoly Temple, that rose spacious and splendid as the ManchesterExchange. Yes; the Jews must return to Palestine, there must be agreat voluntary stream--great, if gradual. Slowly but surely the Jewsmust win back their country; they must cease trafficking with theheathen and return to the soil, sowing and reaping, so that the Feastof the Ingathering might become a reality instead of a prayer-service. Then should the atonement of Israel be accomplished, and the morningstars sing together as at the first day. 

As he walked home along the squalid steeps of Fernie Street andVerdon Street, and gazed in at the uncurtained windows of theone-story houses, a new sense of their sordidness, as contrasted withthat bright vision, was borne in upon him. Instead of large familiesin one ragged room, encumbered with steamy washing, he saw great farmsand broad acres; and all that beauty of the face of earth, to which hehad been half blind, began to appeal to him now that it was mixed upwith religion. In this wise did Aaron become a politician and amodern. 

Passing through the poulterer's on his way to his room--the poultererand he divided the house between them, renting a room each--he pausedto talk with the group of women who were plucking the fowls, and toldthem glad tidings of great fowl-rearing farms in Palestine. He satdown on the bed, which occupied half the tiny shop, and became almosteloquent upon the great colonization movement and the "Society ofLovers of Zion, " which had begun to ramify throughout the world. 

"Yes; but if all Israel has farms, who will buy my fowls?" said thepoulterer's wife. 

"You will not need to sell fowls, " Aaron tried to explain. 

The poulterer shook his head. "The whole congregation is gone mad, " hesaid. "For my part I believe that when the Holy One, blessed be He, brings us back to Palestine, it will be without any trouble of ourown. As it is written, I will bear thee upon eagles' wings. "

Aaron disputed this notion--which he had hitherto accepted asaxiomatic--with all the ardor of the convert. It was galling to find, as he discussed the thing during the next few weeks, that many even ofthose present at the speech read miracle into the designs ofProvidence and the millionaire. But Aaron was able to get together alittle band of brother souls bent on emigrating together toPalestine, there to sow the seeds of the Kingdom, literally as well asmetaphorically. This enthusiasm, however, did not wear well. Gradually, as the memory of the magnetic meeting faded, the pilgrimbrotherhood disintegrated, till at last only its nucleus--Aaron--wasleft in solitary determination. 

"You have only yourself, " pleaded the backsliders. "We have wife andchildren. "

"I have more than myself, " retorted Aaron bitterly. "I have faith. "

And, indeed, his faith in the vision was unshakable. Every man beinghis own Messiah, he, at least, would not draw back from theprospective plough to which he had put his hand. He had been saving upfor the great voyage and a little surplus wherewith to support him inPalestine while looking about him. Once established in the Holy Land, how forcibly he would preach by epistle to the men of little faith!They would come out and join him. He--the despised Aaron--the least ofthe House of Israel--would have played a part in the restoration ofhis people. 

"You will come back, " said the poulterer sceptically, when hisfellow-tenant bade him good-bye; and parodying the sacredaspiration--"Next year in Manchester, " he cried, in genial mockery. The fowl-plucking females laughed heartily, agitating the featheryfluff in the air. 

"Not so, " said Aaron. "I cannot come back. I have sold the goodwill ofmy round to Joseph Petowski, and have transferred to him all mycustomers. "

Some of the recreant brotherhood, remorsefully admiring, cheered himup by appearing on the platform of the station to wish him God-speed. 

"Next year in Jerusalem!" he prophesied for them, too, recoupinghimself for the poulterer's profane scepticism. 

He went overland to Marseilles, thence by ship to Asia Minor. It wasa terrible journey. Piety forebade him to eat or drink with theheathen, or from their vessels. His portmanteau held a little store ofprovisions and crockery, and dry bread was all he bought on the route. 

Fleeced and bullied by touts and cabmen, he found himself at last onboard a cheap Mediterranean steamer which pitched and rolled through apersistent spell of stormy weather. His berth was a snatched corner ofthe bare deck, where heaps of earth's failures, of all races andcreeds and colors, grimily picturesque, slept in their clothes uponsuch bedding as they had brought with them. There was a spawn ofbabies, a litter of animals and fowls in coops, a swarm of humanbundles, scarcely distinguishable from bales except for a protrudinghand or foot. There were Bedouins, Armenians, Spaniards, a Turk withseveral wives in an improvised tent, some Greek women, a party ofSyrians from Mount Lebanon. There were also several Jews of bothsexes. But Aaron did not scrape acquaintance with these at first--theylay yards away, and he was half dead with sea-sickness and want offood. He had counted on making tea in his own cup with his own littlekettle, but the cook would not trouble to supply him with hot water. Only the great vision drawing hourly nearer and nearer sustained him. 

It was the attempt of a half-crazy Egyptian Jewess to leap overboardwith her new-born child that brought him into relation with the otherJewish passengers. He learnt her story: the everyday story of a womandivorced in New York, after the fashion of its Ghetto, and sent backwith scarcely a penny to her native Cairo, while still lightheadedafter childbirth. He heard also the story of the buxom, kind-heartedJewess who now shadowed her protectingly; the no less everyday storyof the good-looking girl inveigled by a rascally Jew to a situation inMarseilles. They contributed with the men, a Russian Jew fromChicago, and a German from Brindisi, to give Aaron of Manchester a newobjective sense of the tragedy of wandering Israel, interminablytossed betwixt persecution and poverty, perpetually tempted by both tobe false to themselves: the tragedy that was now--thank God!--to haveits end. Egyptians, Americans, Galicians, Englishmen, Russians, Dutchmen, they had only one last migration before them--that which he, Aaron, was now accomplishing. To his joy one of his newacquaintances--the Russian--shared the dream of a Palestine flowingonce more with milk and honey and holy doctrine, was a member of a"Lovers of Zion" society. He was a pasty-faced young man with grayeyes and eyebrows and a reddish beard. He wore frowsy clothes, with anold billy-cock and a dingy cotton shirt, but he combined all the loreof the old-fashioned, hard-shell Jew with a living realization of whathis formulæ meant, and so the close of Aaron's voyage--till theRussian landed at Alexandria--was softened and shortened by sittingworshipfully at this idealist's feet, drinking in quotations fromBachja's _Duties of the Heart_ or Saadja Gaon's _Book of the Faith_. There was not wanting some one to play Sancho Panza, for the GermanJew, while binding his arm piously with phylacteries in the publicityof the swarming deck, loved to pose as a man of common sense, freefrom superstition. 

"The only reason men go to Palestine, " he maintained, "is because theythink, as the psalm says, the land forgives sin. And they believe, too, that those bodies which are not burned in Palestine, when theMessiah's last trump sounds, will have to roll under lands and seas toget to Jerusalem. So they go to die there, so as to escape theunderground route. Besides, Maimonides says the Messianic period willonly last forty years. So perhaps they are afraid all the fun will beover and the Leviathan eaten up before they arrive. "

"Fools there are always in the world, " replied the Russian, "and theirpiety cannot give them brains. These literal folk are the sort whoimagine that the Temple expanded miraculously, because the Talmud sayshowsoever great a multitude flocked to worship therein, there wasalways room for them. Do you not see what a fine metaphor that is!Even so the Third Temple will be of the Spirit, not of Fire, as theseliteral materialists translate the prophecy. As the prophet Joel says, 'I will pour out my Spirit. Your old men shall dream dreams, youryoung men shall see visions, ' And this Spirit is working to-day. Butthrough our own souls. No Messiah will ever come from a split heaven. If a Christian does anything wrong, it is the individual; if a Jew, itis the nation. Why? Because we have no country, and hence are setapart in all countries. But a country we must and shall have. The factthat we still dream of our land shows that it is to be ours again. Without a country we are dead. Without us the land is dead. It hasbeen waiting for us. Why has no other nation possessed it andcultivated it?"

"Why? Why do the ducks go barefoot?" The German quoted the Yiddishproverb with a sneer. 

"The land waits for us, " replied the young Russian fervidly, "so thatwe may complete our mission. Jerusalem--whose very name means theheritage of double Peace--must be the watch-tower of Peace on earth. The nations shall be taught to compete neither with steel weapons norwith gold, but with truth and purity. Every man shall be taught thathe exists for another man, else were men as the beasts. And thus atlast 'the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters coverthe sea. '"

"If they would only remain covering the sea!" said the Germanirreverently, as the spray of a wave swept over his mattress. 

"Those who have lost this faith are no longer Jews, " curtly repliedthe Russian. "Without this hope the preservation of the Jewish race isa superstition. Let the Jews be swallowed up in the nations--and me inthe sea. If I thought that Israel's hope was a lie I should jumpoverboard. "

The German shrugged his shoulders good-humoredly. "You and theEgyptian woman are a pair. "

At Alexandria, where some of the cargo and his Jewishfellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days bythe quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors longafter he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But atlast he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magicday, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed in pious joy upon thegray line of rocks that changed gradually into terraces of red slopingroofs overbrooded by a palm-tree. Jaffa! But a cruel, white sea stillrolled and roared betwixt him and these holy shores, guarded by therock of Andromeda and tumbling and leaping billows; and the ship layto outside the ancient harbor, while heavy boats rowed by stalwartArabs and Syrians, in red fez and girdle, clamored for the passengers. Aaron was thrown unceremoniously over the ship's side at the favorablemoment when the boat leapt up to meet him; he fell into it, sousedwith spray, but glowing at heart. As his boat pitched and tossedalong, a delicious smell of orange-blossom wafted from theorange-groves, and seemed to the worn pilgrim a symbol of the marriagebetwixt him and Zion. The land of his fathers--there it lay at last, and in a transport of happiness the wanderer had, for the first timein his life, a sense of the restful dignity of an ancestral home. Butas the boat labored without apparent progress towards the channelbetwixt the black rocks, over which the spray flew skywards, aforeboding tortured him that some ironic destiny would drown him insight of his goal. He prayed silently with shut eyes and his petitionchanged to praise as the boat bumped the landing-stage and he openedthem on a motley Eastern crowd and the heaped barrels of a wharf. Shouldering his portmenteau, which, despite his debilitated condition, felt as light as the feathers at the poulterer's, he scrambledecstatically up some slippery steps on to the stone platform, and hadone foot on the soil of the Holy Land, when a Turkish official in ashabby black uniform stopped him. 

"Your passport, " he said, in Arabic. Aaron could not understand. Somebody interpreted. 

"I have no passport, " he answered, with a premonitory pang. 

"Where are you going?"

"To live in Palestine. "

"Where do you come from?"

"England, " he replied triumphantly, feeling this was a mighty passwordthroughout the world. 

"You are not an Englishman?"

"No-o, " he faltered. "I have lived in England some--many years. "

"Naturalized?"

"No, " said Aaron, when he understood. 

"What countryman are you?"

"Russian. "

"And a Jew, of course?"

"Yes. "

"No Russian Jews may enter Palestine. "

Aaron was hustled back into the boat and restored safely to thesteamer. 

THE CONCILIATOR OF CHRISTENDOM

I

The Red Beadle shook his head. "There is nothing but Nature, " he saidobstinately, as his hot iron polished the boot between his knees. Hewas called the Red Beadle because, though his irreligious opinions hadlong since lost him his synagogue appointment and driven him back tohis old work of bootmaking, his beard was still ruddy. 

"Yes, but who made Nature?" retorted his new employer, his strange, scholarly face aglow with argument, and the flame of the lampsuspended over his bench by strings from the ceiling. The otherclickers and riveters of the Spitalfields workshop, in their shockedinterest in the problem of the origin of Nature, ceased for an instantbreathing in the odors of burnt grease, cobbler's wax, and a coke firereplenished with scraps of leather. 

"Nature makes herself, " answered the Red Beadle. It was hisdeclaration of faith--or of war. Possibly it was the familiarity withdivine things which synagogue beadledom involves that had bred hiscontempt for them. At any rate, he was not now to be coerced byZussmann Herz, even though he was fully alive to the fact thatZussmann's unique book-lined workshop was the only one that had openedto him, when the more pious shoemakers of the Ghetto had professed tobe "full up. " He was, indeed, surprised to find Zussmann a believer inthe Supernatural, having heard whispers that the man was as great an"Epicurean" as himself. Had not Zussmann--ay, and his wigless wife, Hulda, too--been seen emerging from the mighty Church that stood infrowsy majesty amid its tall, neglected box-like tombs, and was to theGhetto merely a topographical point and the chronometric standard? Andyet, here was Zussmann an assiduous attendant at the synagogue of thefirst floor--nay, a scholar so conversant with Hebrew, not to mentionEuropean, lore, that the Red Beadle felt himself a Man-of-the-Earth, only retaining his superiority by remembering that learning did notalways mean logic. 

"Nature make herself!" Zussmann now retorted, with a tolerant smile. "As well say this boot made itself! The theory of Evolution only putsthe mystery further back, and already in the Talmud we find--"

"_Nature_ made the boot, " interrupted the Red Beadle. "Nature madeyou, and you made the boot. But nobody made Nature. "

"But what is Nature?" cried Zussmann. "The garment of God, as Goethesays. Call Him Noumenon with Kant or Thought and Extension withSpinoza--I care not. "

The Red Beadle was awed into temporary silence by these unknown namesand ideas, expressed, moreover, in German words foreign to his limitedvocabulary of Yiddish. 

The room in which Zussmann thought and worked was one of two that herented from the Christian corn-factor who owned the tall house--astout Cockney who spent his life book-keeping in a little office onwheels, but whom the specimens of oats and dog-biscuits in his windowinvested with an air of roseate rurality. This personage drew alittle income from the population of his house, whose staircasesexhibited strata of children of different social developments, and towhich the synagogue on the first floor added a large floatingpopulation. Zussmann's attendance thereat was not the only thing inhim that astonished the Red Beadle. There was also a gentle deferenceof manner not usual with masters, or with pious persons. Hisconsideration for his employés amounted, in the Beadle's eyes, tomaladministration, and the grave loss he sustained through one of hishands selling off a crate of finished goods and flying to America wasdeservedly due to confidence in another pious person. 

II

Despite the Red Beadle's Rationalism, which, basing itself on thefacts of life, was not to be crushed by high-flown German words, themaster-shoemaker showed him marked favor and often invited him to stayon to supper. Although the Beadle felt this was but the duerecognition of one intellect by another, if an inferior intellect, hewas at times irrationally grateful for the privilege of a place tospend his evenings in. For the Ghetto had cut him--there could be nodoubt of that. The worshippers in his old synagogue whom he had oncedominated as Beadle now passed him by with sour looks--"a dog one doesnot treat thus, " the Beadle told himself, tugging miserably at his redbeard. 

"It is not as if I were a Meshummad--a convert to Christianity. " Somehereditary instinct admitted _that_ as a just excuse for execration. "I can't make friends with the Christians, and so I am cut off fromboth. "

When after a thunderstorm two of the hands resigned their places atZussmann's benches on the avowed ground that atheism attractslightning, Zussmann's loyalty to the freethinker converted theBeadle's gratitude from fitfulness into a steady glow. 

And, other considerations apart, those were enjoyable suppers afterthe toil and grime of the day. The Beadle especially admiredZussmann's hands when the black grease had been washed off them, thefingers were so long and tapering. Why had his own fingers been madeso stumpy and square-tipped? Since Nature made herself, why was she souneven a worker? Nay, why could she not have given him white teethlike Zussmann's wife? Not that these were ostentatious--you thoughtmore of the sweetness of the smile of which they were part. Still, asNature's irregularity was particularly manifest in his own teeth, hecould not help the reflection. 

If the Red Beadle had not been a widower, the unfeigned success of theHerz union might have turned his own thoughts to that happy state. Asit was, the sight of their happiness occasionally shot through hisbreast renewed pangs of vain longing for his Leah, whose death fromcancer had completed his conception of Nature. Lucky Zussmann, to havefound so sympathetic a partner in a pretty female! For Hulda sharedZussmann's dreams, and was even copying out his great work for thepress, for business was brisk and he would soon have saved up enoughmoney to print it. The great work, in the secret of which the RedBeadle came to participate, was written in Hebrew, and the elegantcurves and strokes would have done honor to a Scribe. The Beadlehimself could not understand it, knowing only the formal alphabet suchas appears in books and scrolls, but the first peep at it which theproud Zussmann permitted him removed his last disrespect for theintellect of his master, without, however, removing the mystery ofthat intellect's aberrations. 

"But you dream with the eyes open, " he said, when the theme of thework was explained to him. 

"How so?" asked Hulda gently, with that wonderful smile of hers. 

"Reconcile the Jews and the Christians! _Meshuggas_--madness. " Helaughed bitterly. "Do you forget what we went through in Poland? Andeven here in free England, can you walk in the street without everylittle _shegetz_ calling after you and asking, 'Who killed Christ?'"

"Yes, but herein my husband explains that it was not the Jews whokilled Christ, but Herod and Pilate. "

"As it says in Corinthians, " broke in Zussmann eagerly: "'We speak thewisdom of God in a mystery, which none of the princes of this worldknew; for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord ofGlory. '"

"So, " said the Red Beadle, visibly impressed. 

"Assuredly, " affirmed Hulda. "But, as Zussmann explains here, theythrew the guilt upon the Jews, who were too afraid of the Romans todeny it. "

The Beadle pondered. 

"Once the Christians understand that, " said Zussmann, pursuing hisadvantage, "they will stretch out the hand to us. "

The Beadle had a flash. "But how will the Christians read you? NoChristian understands Hebrew. "

Zussmann was taken momentarily aback. "But it is not so much for theChristians, " he explained. "It is for the Jews--that they shouldstretch out the hand to the Christians. "

The Red Beadle stared at him in shocked silent amaze. "Still greatermadness!" he gasped at length. "They will treat you worse than theytreat me. "

"Not when they read my book. "

"Just when they read your book. "

Hulda was smiling serenely. "They can do nothing to my husband; he ishis own master, God be thanked; no one can turn him away. "

"They can insult him. "

Zussmann shook his head gently. "No one can insult me!" he saidsimply. "When a dog barks at me I pity it that it does not know I loveit. Now draw to the table. The pickled herring smells well. "

But the Red Beadle was unconvinced. "Besides, what should we make itup with the Christians for--the stupid people?" he asked, as hereceived his steaming coffee cup from Frau Herz. 

"It is a question of the Future of the World, " said Zussmann gravely, as he shared out the herring, which had already been cut into manythin slices by the vendor and pickler. "This antagonism is aperversion of the principles of both religions. Shall we allow it tocontinue for ever?"

"It will continue till they both understand that Nature makesherself, " said the Red Beadle. 

"It will continue till they both understand my husband's book, "corrected Hulda. 

"Not while Jews live among Christians. Even here they say we take thebread out of the mouths of the Christian shoemakers. If we had our owncountry now--"

"Hush!" said Zussmann. "Do you share that materialistic dream? Ourrealm is spiritual. Nationality--the world stinks with it! Germany forthe Germans, Russia for the Russians. Foreigners to the devil--pah!Egomania posing as patriotism. Human brotherhood is what we stand for. Have you forgotten how the Midrash explains the verse in the Song ofSolomon: 'I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, andby the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love tillhe please'?"

The Red Beadle, who had never read a line of the Midrash, did not denythat he had forgotten the explanation, but persisted: "And even if wedidn't kill Christ, what good will it do to tell the Jews so? It willonly make them angry. "

"Why so?" said Zussmann, puzzled. 

"They will be annoyed to have been punished for nothing. "

"But they have not been punished for nothing!" cried Zussmann, settingdown his fork in excitement. "They have denied their greatest son. For, as He said in Matthew, 'I come to fulfil the Law of Moses, ' Didnot all the Prophets, His predecessors, cry out likewise against mereform and sacrifice? Did not the teachers in Israel who followed Himlikewise insist on a pure heart and a sinless soul? Jesus must berestored to His true place in the glorious chain of Hebrew Prophets. As I explain in my chapter on the Philosophy of Religion, which I havefounded on Immanuel Kant, the ground-work of Reason is--"

But here the Red Beadle, whose coffee had with difficulty got itselfsucked into the right channel, gasped--"You have put that into yourbook?"

The wife touched the manuscript with reverent pride. "It all standshere, " she said. 

"What! Quotations from the New Testament?"

"From our Jewish Apostles!" said Zussmann. "Naturally! On every page!"

"Then God help you!" said the Red Beadle. 

III

_The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ was published. Though the bill wasfar heavier than the Hebrew printer's estimate--there being all sortsof mysterious charges for corrections, which took away the last_Groschen_ of their savings, Hulda and her husband were happy. Theyhad sown the seed, and waited in serene faith the ingathering, thereconciliation of Israel with the Gentiles. 

The book, which was in paper covers, was published at a shilling; fivehundred copies had been struck off for the edition. After six monthsthe account stood thus: Sales, eighty-four copies; press notices, twoin the jargon papers (printed in the same office as his book and thusamenable to backstairs influence). The Jewish papers written inEnglish, which loomed before Zussmann's vision as world-shaking, didnot even mention its appearance; perhaps it had been better if thejargon papers had been equally silent, for, though less than onehundred copies of _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ were incirculation, the book was in everybody's mouth--like a piece of porkto be spat out again shudderingly. The Red Beadle's instinct had beenonly too sound. The Ghetto, accustomed by this time to insidiousattacks on its spiritual citadel, feared writers even bringing Hebrew. Despite the Oriental sandal which the cunning shoemaker had fashioned, his fellow-Jews saw the cloven hoof. They were not to be deceived bythe specious sanctity which Darwin and Schopenhauer--probably Bishopsof the Established Church--borrowed from their Hebrew lettering. Why, that was the very trick of the Satans who sprinkled the sacred tonguefreely about handbills inviting souls that sought for light to comeand find it in the Whitechapel Road between three and seven. It hadbeen abandoned as hopeless even by the thin-nosed gentlewomen who hadbegun by painting a Hebrew designation over their bureau ofbeneficence. But the fact that the Ghetto was perspicacious did notmitigate the author's treachery to his race and faith. Zussmann wasgiven violently to understand that his presence in the littlesynagogue would lead to disturbances in the service. "The Jew needs nohouse of prayer, " he said; "his life is a prayer, his workshop atemple. "

His workmen deserted him one by one as vacancies occurred elsewhere. 

"We will get Christians, " he said. 

But the work itself began to fail. He was dependent upon a large firmwhose head was Parnass of a North London congregation, and when one ofZussmann's workers, anxious to set up for himself, went to him withthe tale, the contract was transferred to him, and Zussmann'ssecurity-deposit returned. But far heavier than all these blows wasHulda's sudden illness, and though the returned trust-money came inhandy to defray the expense of doctors, the outlook was not cheerful. But "I will become a hand myself, " said Zussmann cheerfully. "Theannoyance of my brethren will pass away when they really understand myIdea; meantime it is working in them, for even to hate an Idea is tomeditate upon it. "

The Red Beadle grunted angrily. He could hear Hulda coughing in thenext room, and that hurt his chest. 

But it was summer now, and quite a considerable strip of blue skycould be seen from the window, and the mote-laden sun-rays thatstreamed in encouraged Hulda to grow better. She was soon up and aboutagain, but the doctor said her system was thoroughly upset and sheaught to have sea air. But that, of course, was impossible now. Huldaherself declared there was much better air to be got higher up, inthe garret, which was fortunately "to let. " It is true there was onlyone room there. Still, it was much cheaper. The Red Beadle's heart washeavier than the furniture he helped to carry upstairs. But theunsympathetic couple did not share his gloom. They jested and laughed, as light of heart as the excited children on the staircases whoassisted at the function. "My Idea has raised me nearer heaven, " saidZussmann. That night, after the Red Beadle had screwed up thefour-poster, he allowed himself to be persuaded to stay to supper. Hehad given up the habit as soon as Zussmann's finances began to fail. 

By way of house-warming, Hulda had ordered in baked potatoes and liverfrom the cook-shop, and there were also three tepid slices ofplum-pudding. 

"Plum-pudding!" cried Zussmann in delight, as his nostrils scented thedainty. "What a good omen for the Idea!"

"How an omen?" inquired the Red Beadle. 

"Is not plum-pudding associated with Christmas, with peace on earth?"

Hulda's eyes flashed. "Yes, it is a sign--the Brotherhood of thePeoples! The Jew will be the peace-messenger of the world. " The RedBeadle ate on sceptically. He had studied _The Brotherhood of thePeoples_ to the great improvement of his Hebrew but with littleedification. He had even studied it in Hulda's original manuscript, which he had borrowed and never intended to return. But still he couldnot share his friends' belief in the perfectibility of mankind. Perhaps if they had known how he had tippled away his savings afterhis wife's death, they might have thought less well of humanity andits potentialities of perfection. After all, Huldas were too rare tomake the world sober, much less fraternal. And, charming as they were, honesty demanded one should not curry favor with them by fosteringtheir delusions. 

"What put such an idea into your head, Zussmann!" he criedunsympathetically. Zussmann answered naïvely, as if to a question--

"I have had the idea from a boy. I remember sitting stocking-footed onthe floor of the synagogue in Poland on the Fast of Ab, wondering whywe should weep so over the destruction of Jerusalem, which scatteredus among the nations as fertilizing seeds. How else should the missionof Israel be fulfilled? I remember"--and here he smiled pensively--"Iwas awakened from my day-dream by a _Patsch_ (smack) in the face frommy poor old father, who was angry because I wasn't saying theprayers. "

"There will be always somebody to give you that _Patsch_, " said theRed Beadle gloomily. "But in what way is Israel dispersed? It seems tome our life is everywhere as hidden from the nations as if we were alltogether in Palestine. "

"You touch a great truth! Oh, if I could only write in English! Butthough I read it almost as easily as the German, I can write it aslittle. You know how one has to learn German in Poland--bystealth--the Christians jealous on one hand, the Jews suspicious onthe other. I could not risk the Christians laughing at my badGerman--that would hurt my Idea. And English is a language like theVale of Siddim--full of pits. "

"We ought to have it translated, " said Hulda. "Not only for theChristians, but for the rich Jews, who are more liberal-minded thanthose who live in our quarter. "

"But we cannot afford to pay for the translating now, " said Zussmann. 

"Nonsense; one has always a jewel left, " said Hulda. 

Zussmann's eyes grew wet. "Yes, " he said, drawing her to his breast, "one has always a jewel left. "

"More _meshuggas!_" cried the Red Beadle huskily. "Much the EnglishJews care about ideas! Did they even acknowledge your book in theirjournals? But probably they couldn't read it, " he added with a laugh. "A fat lot of Hebrew little Sampson knows! You know little Sampson--hecame to report the boot-strike for _The Flag of Judah_. I got intoconversation with him--a rank pork-gorger. He believes with me thatNature makes herself. "

But Zussmann was scarcely eating, much less listening. 

"You have given me a new scheme, Hulda, " he said, with exaltation. "Iwill send my book to the leading English Jews--yes, especially to theministers. They will see my Idea, they will spread it abroad, theywill convert first the Jews and then the Christians. "

"Yes, but they will give it as their own Idea, " said Hulda. 

"And what then? He who has faith in an Idea, his Idea it is. How greatfor me to have had the Idea first! Is not that enough to thank Godfor? If only my Idea gets spread in English! English! Have you everthought what that means, Hulda? The language of the future! Alreadythe language of the greatest nations, and the most on the lips of meneverywhere--in a century it will cover the world. " He murmured inHebrew, uplifting his eyes to the rain-streaked sloping ceiling. "Andin that day God shall be One and His name One. "

"Your supper is getting cold, " said Hulda gently. 

He began to wield his knife and fork as hypnotized by her suggestion, but his vision was inwards. 

IV

Fifty copies of _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ went off by post thenext day to the clergy and gentry of the larger Jewry. In the courseof the next fortnight seventeen of the recipients acknowledged thereceipt with formal thanks, four sent the shilling mentioned on thecover, and one sent five shillings. This last depressed Zussmann morethan all the others. "Does he take me for a _Schnorrer_?" he said, almost angrily, as he returned the postal order. 

He did not forsee the day when, a _Schnorrer_ indeed, he would havetaken five shillings from anybody who could afford it: had noprophetic intuition of that long, slow progression of penurious dayswhich was to break down his spirit. For though he managed for a timeto secure enough work to keep himself and the Red Beadle going, hisruin was only delayed. Little by little his apparatus was sold off, his benches and polishing-irons vanished from the garret, only oneindispensable set remaining, and master and man must needs quest eachfor himself for work elsewhere. The Red Beadle dropped out of theménage, and was reduced to semi-starvation. Zussmann and Hulda, by thegradual disposition of their bits of jewellery and their Sabbathgarments, held out a little longer, and Hulda also got some sewing ofchildren's under-garments. But with the return of winter, Hulda'sillness returned, and then the beloved books began to leave bare thenakedness of the plastered walls. At first, Hulda, refusing to bevisited by doctors who charged, struggled out bravely through rain andfog to a free dispensary, where she was jostled by a crowd ofhead-shawled Polish crones, and where a harassed Christian physician, tired of jargon-speaking Jewesses, bawled and bullied. But at lastHulda grew too ill to stir out, and Zussmann, still out ofemployment, was driven to look about him for help. Charities enoughthere were in the Ghetto, but to charity, as to work, one requires anapprenticeship. He knew vaguely that there were persons who had theluck to be ill and to get broths and jellies. To others, also, a boardof guardian angels doled out payments, though some one had once toldhim you had scant chance unless you were a Dutchman. But theinexperienced in begging are naturally not so successful as thosealways at it. 'Twas vain for Zussmann to kick his heels among thedismal crowd in the corridor, the whisper of his misdeeds had beenbefore him, borne by some competitor in the fierce struggle forassistance. What! help a hypocrite to sit on the twin stools ofChristendom and Judaism, fed by the bounty of both! In this dark hourhe was approached by the thin-nosed gentlewomen, who had got wind ofhis book and who scented souls. Zussmann wavered. Why, indeed, shouldhe refuse their assistance? He knew their self-sacrificing days, theirgenuine joy in salvation. On their generosities he was far betterposted than on Jewish--the lurid legend of these Mephistophelianmatrons included blankets, clothes, port wine, and all the delicaciesof the season. He admitted that Hulda had indeed been brought low, andpermitted them to call. Then he went home to cut dry bread for thebedridden, emaciated creature who had once been beautiful, and tocomfort her--for it was Friday evening--by reading the Sabbathprayers; winding up, "A virtuous woman who can find? For her price isfar above rubies. "

On the forenoon of the next day arrived a basket, scenting the airwith delicious odors of exquisite edibles. 

Zussmann received it with delight from the boy who bore it. "God blessthem!" he said. "A chicken--grapes--wine. Look, Hulda!"

Hulda raised herself in bed; her eyes sparkled, a flush of colorreturned to the wan cheeks. 

"Where do these come from?" she asked. 

Zussmann hesitated. Then he told her they were the harbingers of avisit from the good sisters. 

The flush in her cheek deepened to scarlet. 

"My poor Zussmann!" she cried reproachfully. "Give them back--givethem back at once! Call after the boy. "

"Why?" stammered Zussmann. 

"Call after the boy!" she repeated imperatively. "Good God! If theladies were to be seen coming up here, it would be all over with yourIdea. And on the Sabbath, too! People already look upon you as a toolof the missionaries. Quick! quick!"

His heart aching with mingled love and pain, he took up the basket andhurried after the boy. Hulda sank back on her pillow with a sigh ofrelief. 

"Dear heart!" she thought, as she took advantage of his absence tocough freely. "For me he does what he would starve rather than do forhimself. A nice thing to imperil his Idea--the dream of his life! Whenthe Jews see he makes no profit by it, they will begin to consider it. If he did not have the burden of me he would not be tempted. He couldgo out more and find work farther afield. This must end--I must die orbe on my feet again soon. "

Zussmann came back, empty-handed and heavy-hearted. 

"Kiss me, my own life!" she cried. "I shall be better soon. "

He bent down and touched her hot, dry lips. "Now I see, " shewhispered, "why God did not send us children. We thought it was anaffliction, but lo! it is that your Idea shall not be hindered. "

"The English Rabbis have not yet drawn attention to it, " said Zussmannhuskily. 

"All the better, " replied Hulda. "One day it will be translated intoEnglish--I know it, I feel it here. " She touched her chest, and theaction made her cough. 

Going out later for a little fresh air, at Hulda's insistence, he wasstopped in the broad hall on which the stairs debouched by Cohen, theground-floor tenant, a black-bearded Russian Jew, pompous in Sabbathbroadcloth. 

"What's the matter with my milk?" abruptly asked Cohen, who suppliedthe local trade besides selling retail. "You might have complained, instead of taking your custom out of the house. Believe me, I don'tmake a treasure heap out of it. One has to be up at Euston to meet thetrains in the middle of the night, and the competition is socut-throat that one has to sell at eighteen pence a barn gallon. Andon Sabbath one earns nothing at all. And then the analyst comes pokinghis nose into the milk. "

"You see--my wife--my wife--is ill, " stammered Zussmann. "So shedoesn't drink it. "

"Hum!" said Cohen. "Well, _you_ might oblige me then. I have so muchleft over every day, it makes my reputation turn quite sour. Do, do mea favor and let me send you up a can of the leavings every night. Fornothing, of course; would I talk business on the Sabbath? I don't liketo be seen pouring it away. It would pay me to pay _you_ a penny apint, " he wound up emphatically. 

Zussmann accepted unsuspiciously, grateful to Providence for enablinghim to benefit at once himself and his neighbor. He bore a canupstairs now and explained the situation to the shrewder Hulda, who, however, said nothing but, "You see the Idea commences to work. Whenthe book first came out, didn't he--though he sells secretly to thetrade on Sabbath mornings--call you an Epicurean?"

"Worse, " said Zussmann joyously, with a flash of recollection. 

He went out again, lightened and exalted. "Yes, the Idea works, " hesaid, as he came out into the gray street. "The Brotherhood of thePeoples will come, not in my time, but it will come. " And he murmuredagain the Hebrew aspiration: "In that day shall God be One and Hisname One. "

"Whoa, where's your ---- eyes?"

Awakened by the oath, he just got out of the way of a huge Flemishdray-horse dragging a brewer's cart. Three ragged Irish urchins, whohad been buffeting each other with whirling hats knotted into the endsof dingy handkerchiefs, relaxed their enmities in a common rush forthe projecting ladder behind the dray and collided with Zussmann onthe way. A one-legged, misery-eyed hunchback offered him pennydiaries. He shook his head in impotent pity, and passed on, pondering. 

"In time God will make the crooked straight, " he thought. 

Jews with tall black hats and badly made frock-coats slouched along, their shoulders bent. Wives stood at the open doors of the old houses, some in Sabbath finery, some flaunting irreligiously their every-dayshabbiness, without troubling even to arrange their one dressdifferently, as a pious Rabbi recommended. They looked used-up andhaggard, all these mothers in Israel. But there were dark-eyed damselsstill gay and fresh, with artistic bodices of violet and green pickedout with gold arabesque. 

He turned a corner and came into a narrow street that throbbed withthe joyous melody of a piano-organ. His heart leapt up. The roadwaybubbled with Jewish children, mainly girls, footing it gleefully inthe graying light, inventing complex steps with a grace and an abandonthat lit their eyes with sparkles and painted deeper flushes on theirolive cheeks. A bounding little bow-legged girl seemed unconscious ofher deformity; her toes met each other as though in merry dexterity. 

Zussmann's eyes were full of tears. "Dance on, dance on, " he murmured. "God shall indeed make the crooked straight. "

Fixed to one side of the piano-organ on the level of the handle he sawa little box, in which lay, as in a cradle, what looked like a monkey, then like a doll, but on closer inspection turned into a tiny livechild, flaxen-haired, staring with wide gray eyes from under a bluecap, and sucking at a milk-bottle with preternatural placidity, regardless of the music throbbing through its resting-place. 

"Even so shall humanity live, " thought Zussmann, "peaceful as a babe, cradled in music. God hath sent me a sign. "

He returned home, comforted, and told Hulda of the sign. 

"Was it an Italian child?" she asked. 

"An English child, " he answered. "Fair-eyed and fair-haired. "

"Then it is a sign that through the English tongue shall the Idea movethe world. Your book will be translated into English--I shall live tosee it. "

V

A few afternoons later the Red Beadle, his patched garmentspathetically spruced up, came to see his friends, goaded by the newsof Hulda's illness. There was no ruddiness in his face, the lips ofwhich were pressed together in defiance of a cruel and credulousworld. That Nature in making herself should have produced creatureswho attributed their creation elsewhere, and who refused to allow herone acknowledger to make boots, was indeed a proof, albeit vexatious, of her blind workings. 

When he saw what she had done to Hulda and to Zussmann, his lips werepressed tighter, but as much to keep back a sob as to express extraresentment. 

But on parting he could not help saying to Zussmann, who accompaniedhim to the dark spider-webbed landing, "Your God has forgotten you. "

"Do you mean that men have forgotten Him?" replied Zussmann. "If I amcome to poverty, my suffering is in the scheme of things. Do you notremember what the Almighty says to Eleazar ben Pedos, in the Talmud, when the Rabbi complains of poverty? 'Wilt thou be satisfied if Ioverthrow the universe, so that perhaps thou mayest be created againin a time of plenty?' No, no, my friend, we must trust the scheme. "

"But the fools enjoy prosperity, " said the Red Beadle. 

"It is only a fool who _would_ enjoy prosperity, " replied Zussmann. "If the righteous sometimes suffer and the wicked sometimes flourish, that is just the very condition of virtue. What! would you haverighteousness always pay and wickedness always fail! Where then wouldbe the virtue in virtue? It would be a mere branch of commerce. Do youforget what the Chassid said of the man who foreknew in his lifetimethat for him there was to be no heaven? 'What a unique and enviablechance that man had of doing right without fear of reward!'"

The Red Beadle, as usual, acquiesced in the idea that he had forgottenthese quotations from the Hebrew, but to acquiesce in their teachingswas another matter. "A man who had no hope of heaven would be a foolnot to enjoy himself, " he said doggedly, and went downstairs, hisheart almost bursting. He went straight to his old synagogue, where heknew a _Hesped_ or funeral service on a famous _Maggid_ (preacher) wasto be held. He could scarcely get in, so dense was the throng. Not afew eyes, wet with tears, were turned angrily on him as on a mockercome to gloat, but he hastened to weep too, which was easy when hethought of Hulda coughing in her bed in the garret. So violently didhe weep that the _Gabbai_ or treasurer--one of the most piousmaster-bootmakers--gave him the "Peace" salutation after the service. 

"I did not expect to see you weeping, " said he. 

"Alas!" answered the Red Beadle. "It is not only the fallen Prince inIsrael that I weep; it is my own transgressions that are brought hometo me by his sudden end. How often have I heard him thunder andlighten from this very pulpit!" He heaved a deep sigh at his ownhypocrisy, and the _Gabbai_ sighed in response. "Even from the gravethe _Tsaddik_ (saint) works good, " said the pious master-bootmaker. "May my latter end be like his!"

"Mine, too!" suspired the Red Beadle. "How blessed am I not to havebeen cut off in my sin, denying the Maker of Nature!" They walkedalong the street together. 

The next morning, at the luncheon-hour, a breathless Beadle, with ared beard and a very red face, knocked joyously at the door of theHerz garret. 

"I am in work again, " he explained. 

"_Mazzeltov!_" Zussmann gave him the Hebrew congratulation, butsoftly, with finger on lip, to indicate Hulda was asleep. "With whom?"

"Harris the _Gabbai_. "

"Harris! What, despite your opinions?"

The Red Beadle looked away. 

"So it seems!"

"Thank God!" said Hulda. "The Idea works. "

Both men turned to the bed, startled to see her sitting up with a raptsmile. 

"How so?" said the Red Beadle uneasily. "I am not a _Goy_ (Christian)befriended by a _Gabbai_. "

"No, but it is the brotherhood of humanity. "

"Bother the brotherhood of humanity, Frau Herz!" said the Red Beadlegruffly. He glanced round the denuded room. "The important thing isthat you will now be able to have a few delicacies. "

"_I?_" Hulda opened her eyes wide. 

"Who else? What I earn is for all of us. "

"God bless you!" said Zussmann; "but you have enough to do to keepyourself. "

"Indeed he has!" said Hulda. "We couldn't dream of taking a farthing!"But her eyes were wet. 

"I insist!" said the Red Beadle. 

She thanked him sweetly, but held firm. 

"I will advance the money on loan till Zussmann gets work. "

Zussmann wavered, his eyes beseeching her, but she was inflexible. 

The Red Beadle lost his temper. "And this is what you call thebrotherhood of humanity!"

"He is right, Hulda. Why should we not take from one another? Prideperverts brotherhood. "

"Dear husband, " said Hulda, "it is not pride to refuse to rob thepoor. Besides, what delicacies do I need? Is not this a land flowingwith milk?"

"You take Cohen's milk and refuse my honey!" shouted the Red Beadleunappeased. 

"Give me of the honey of your tongue and I shall not refuse it, " saidHulda, with that wonderful smile of hers which showed the white teethNature had made; the smile which, as always, melted the Beadle's mood. That smile could repair all the ravages of disease and give back hermemoried face. 

After the Beadle had been at work a day or two in the _Gabbai's_workshop, he broached the matter of a fellow-penitent, one ZussmannHerz, with no work and a bedridden wife. 

"That _Meshummad!_" (apostate) cried the _Gabbai_. " He deserves allthat God has sent him. "

Undaunted, the Red Beadle demonstrated that the man could not be ofthe missionary camp, else had he not been left to starve, oneconverted Jew being worth a thousand pounds of fresh subscriptions. Moreover he, the Red Beadle, had now convinced the man of hisspiritual errors, and _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ was no longeron sale. Also, being unable to leave his wife's bedside, Zussmannwould do the work at home below the Union rates prevalent in public. So, trade being brisk, the _Gabbai_ relented and bargained, and theRed Beadle sped to his friend's abode and flew up the four flights ofstairs. 

"Good news!" he cried. "The _Gabbai_ wants another hand, and he isready to take you. "

"Me?" Zussmann was paralyzed with joy and surprise. 

"Now will you deny that the Idea works?" cried Hulda, her face flushedand her eyes glittering. And she fell a-coughing. 

"You are right, Hulda; you are always right, " cried Zussmann, inresponsive radiance. "Thank God! Thank God!"

"God forgive me, " muttered the Red Beadle. 

"Go at once, Zussmann, " said Hulda. "I shall do very well here--thishas given me strength. I shall be up in a day or two. "

"No, no, Zussmann, " said the Beadle hurriedly. "There is no need toleave your wife. I have arranged it all. The _Gabbai_ does not wantyou to come there or to speak to him, because, though the Idea worksin him, the other 'hands' are not yet so large-minded: I am to bringyou the orders, and I shall come here to fetch them. "

The set of tools to which Zussmann clung in desperate hope made theplan both feasible and pleasant. 

And so the Red Beadle's visits resumed their ancient frequency even ashis Sabbath clothes resumed their ancient gloss, and every week's-endhe paid over Zussmann's wages to him--full Union rate. 

But Hulda, although she now accepted illogically the Red Beadle'shoney in various shapes, did not appear to progress as much as theIdea, or as the new book which she stimulated Zussmann to start forits further propagation. 

VI

One Friday evening of December, when miry snow underfoot and grayishfog all around combined to make Spitalfields a malarious marsh, theRed Beadle, coming in with the week's wages, found to his horror adoctor hovering over Hulda's bed like the shadow of death. 

From the look that Zussmann gave him he saw a sudden change for theworse had set in. The cold of the weather seemed to strike right tohis heart. He took the sufferer's limp chill hand. 

"How goes it?" he said cheerily. 

"A trifle weak. But I shall be better soon. "

He turned away. Zussmann whispered to him that the doctor who had beencalled in that morning had found the crisis so threatening that he wascome again in the evening. 

The Red Beadle, grown very white, accompanied the doctor downstairs, and learned that with care the patient might pull through. 

The Beadle felt like tearing out his red beard. "And to think that Ihave not yet arranged the matter!" he thought distractedly. 

He ran through the gray bleak night to the office of _The Flag ofJudah_; but as he was crossing the threshold he remembered that it wasthe eve of the Sabbath, and that neither little Sampson nor anybodyelse would be there. But little Sampson _was_ there, working busily. 

"Hullo! Come in, " he said, astonished. 

The Red Beadle had already struck up a drinking acquaintanceship withthe little journalist, in view of the great negotiation he wasplotting. Not in vain did the proverbial wisdom of the Ghetto bid onebeware of the red-haired. 

"I won't keep you five minutes, " apologized little Sampson. "But, yousee, Christmas comes next week, and the compositors won't work. So Ihave to invent the news in advance. "

Presently little Sampson, lighting an unhallowed cigarette by way ofSabbath lamp, and slinging on his shabby cloak, repaired with the RedBeadle to a restaurant, where he ordered "forbidden" food for himselfand drinks for both. 

The Red Beadle felt his way so cautiously and cunningly that thenegotiation was unduly prolonged. After an hour or two, however, allwas settled. For five pounds, paid in five monthly instalments, littleSampson would translate _The Brotherhood of the Peoples_ into English, provided the Beadle would tell him what the Hebrew meant. This theBeadle, from his loving study of Hulda's manuscript, was now preparedfor. Little Sampson also promised to run the translation through _TheFlag of Judah_, and thus the Beadle could buy the plates cheap forbook purposes, with only the extra cost of printing such passages, ifany, as were too dangerous for _The Flag of Judah_. This unexpectedgenerosity, coupled with the new audience it offered the Idea, enchanted the Red Beadle. He did not see that the journalist wasgetting gratuitous "copy, " he saw only the bliss of Hulda andZussmann, and in some strange exaltation, compact of whisky andaffection, he shared in their vision of the miraculous spread of theIdea, once it had got into the dominant language of the world. 

In his gratitude to little Sampson he plied him with fresh whisky; inhis excitement he drew the paper-covered book from his pocket, andinsisted that the journalist must translate the first page then andthere, as a hansel. By the time it was done it was near eleveno'clock. Vaguely the Red Beadle felt that it was too late to return toZussmann's to-night. Besides, he was liking little Sampson very much. They did not separate till the restaurant closed at midnight. 

Quite drunk, the Red Beadle staggered towards Zussmann's house. Heheld the page of the translation tightly in his hand. The Hebreworiginal he had forgotten on the restaurant table, but he knew in sometroubled nightmare way that Zussmann and Hulda must see that paper atonce, that he had been charged to deliver it safely, and must diesooner than disobey. 

The fog had lifted, but the heaps of snow were a terrible hindrance tohis erratic progression. The cold air and the shock of a fall lessenedhis inebriety, but the imperative impulse of his imaginary missionstill hypnotized him. It was past one before he reached the tallhouse. He did not think it at all curious that the great outer portalsshould be open; nor, though he saw the milk-cart at the door, andnoted Cohen's uncomfortable look, did he remember that he haddiscovered the milk-purveyor nocturnally infringing the Sabbath. Hestumbled up the stairs and knocked at the garret door, through thechinks of which light streamed. The thought of Hulda smote him almostsober. Zussmann's face, when the door opened, restored him completelyto his senses. It was years older. 

"She is not dead?" the visitor whispered hoarsely. 

"She is dying, I fear--she cannot rouse herself. " Zussmann's voicebroke in a sob. 

"But she must not die--I bring great news--_The Flag of Judah_ hasread your book--it will translate it into English--it will print it inits own paper--and then it will make a book of it for you. See, hereis the beginning!"

"Into English!" breathed Zussmann, taking the little journalist'sscrawl. His whole face grew crimson, his eye shone as with madness. "Hulda! Hulda!" he cried, "the Idea works! God be thanked! English!Through the world! Hulda! Hulda!" He was bending over her, raising herhead. 

She opened her eyes. 

"Hulda! the Idea wins. The book is coming out in English. The greatEnglish paper will print it. In that day God shall be One and His nameOne. Do you understand?" Her lips twitched faintly, but only her eyesspoke with the light of love and joy. His own look met hers, and for amoment husband and wife were one in a spiritual ecstasy. 

Then the light in Hulda's eyes went out, and the two men were left indarkness. 

The Red Beadle turned away and left Zussmann to his dead, and, withscalding tears running down his cheek, pulled up the cotton windowblind and gazed out unseeing into the night. 

Presently his vision cleared: he found himself watching the milk-cartdrive off, and, following it towards the frowsy avenue of Brick Lane, he beheld what seemed to be a drunken fight in progress. He saw apoliceman, gesticulating females, the nondescript nocturnal crowd ofthe sleepless city. The old dull hopelessness came over him. "Naturemakes herself, " he murmured in despairing resignation. 

Suddenly he became aware that Zussmann was beside him, looking up atthe stars. 

THE JOYOUS COMRADE

"Well, what are you gaping at? Why the devil don't you say something?"And all the impatience of the rapt artist at being interrupted byanything but praise was in the outburst. 

"Holy Moses!" I gasped. "Give a man a chance to get his breath. I fallthrough a dark antechamber over a bicycle, stumble round a screen, and--smack! a glare of Oriental sunlight from a gigantic canvas, thevibration and glow of a group of joyous figures, reeking with life andsweat! You the Idealist, the seeker after Nature's beautiful moods andArt's beautiful patterns!"

"Beautiful moods!" he echoed angrily. "And why isn't this a beautifulmood? And what more beautiful pattern than this--look! this line, thissweep, this group here, this clinging of the children round thismass--all in a glow--balanced by this mass of cool shadow. The meaningdoesn't interfere with the pattern, you chump!"

"Oh, so there _is_ a meaning! You've become an anecdotal painter. "

"Adjectives be hanged! I can't talk theory in the precious daylight. If you can't see--!"

"I can see that you are painting something _you_ haven't seen. Youhaven't been in the East, have you?"

"If I had, I haven't got time to jaw about it now. Come and have anabsinthe at the Café Victor--in memory of old Paris days--SixthAvenue--any of the boys will tell you. Let me see, daylight tillsix--half-past six. _Au 'voir, au 'voir. _"

As I went down the steep, dark stairs, "Same old Dan, " I thought. "Whowould imagine I was a stranger in New York looking up an oldfellow-struggler on his native heath? If I didn't know better, I mightfancy his tremendous success had given him the same opinion of himselfthat America has of him. But no, nothing will change him; the samefurious devotion to his canvas once he has quietly planned hispicture, the same obstinate conviction that he is seeing something inthe only right way. And yet something _has_ changed him. Why has hisbrush suddenly gone East? Why this new kind of composition crowdedwith figures--ancient Jews, too? Has he been taken with piety, and ishe going henceforward ostentatiously to proclaim his race? And who isthe cheerful central figure with the fine, open face? I don'trecollect any such scene in Jewish history, or anything so joyous. Perhaps it's a study of modern Jerusalem Jews, to show their life isnot all Wailing Wall and Jeremiah. Or perhaps it's only decorative. America is great on decoration just now. No; he said the picture had ameaning. Well, I shall know all about it to-night. Anyhow, it's abeautiful thing. "

"Same old Dan!" I thought even more decisively as, when I opened thedoor of the little café, a burly, black-bearded figure with audaciouseyes came at me with a grip and a slap and a roar of welcome, anddragged me to the quiet corner behind the billiard tables. 

"I've just been opalizing your absinthe for you, " he laughed, as wesat down. "But what's the matter? You look kind o' scared. "

"It's your Inferno of a city. As I turned the corner of Sixth Avenue, an elevated train came shrieking and rumbling, and a swirl of windswept screeching round and round, enveloping me in a whirlpool ofsmoke and steam, until, dazed and choked in what seemed the scaldingeffervescence of a collision, I had given up all hope of ever learningwhat your confounded picture meant. "

"Aha!" He took a complacent sip. "It stayed with you, did it?" And thelight of triumph, flushing for an instant his rugged features, showedwhen it waned how pale and drawn they were by the feverish tension ofhis long day's work. 

"Yes it did, old fellow, " I said affectionately. "The joy and the glowof it, and yet also some strange antique simplicity and restfulnessyou have got into it, I know not how, have been with me all day, comforting me in the midst of the tearing, grinding life of thisclosing nineteenth century after Christ. "

A curious smile flitted across Dan's face. He tilted his chair back, and rested his head against the wall. 

"There's nothing that takes me so much out of the nineteenth centuryafter Christ, " he said dreamily, "as this little French café. It waftsme back to my early student days, that lie somewhere amid theenchanted mists of the youth of the world; to the zestful toil of thestudios, to the careless trips in quaint, gray Holland or flaming, devil-may-care Spain. Ah! what scenes shift and shuffle in the twinkleof the gas-jet in this opalescent liquid; the hot shimmer of the arenaat the Seville bull-fight, with its swirl of color and movement; thetorchlight procession of pilgrims round the church at Lourdes, withthe one black nun praying by herself in a shadowy corner; the lovelyvalley of the Tauba, where the tinkle of the sheep-bells mingles withthe Lutheran hymn blown to the four winds from the old church tower;wines that were red--sunshine that was warm--mandolines--!" His voicedied away as in exquisite reverie. 

"And the East?" I said slily. 

A good-natured smile dissipated his delicious dream. 

"Ah, yes, " he said. "My East was the Tyrol. "

"The Tyrol? How do you mean?"

"I see you won't let me out of that story. "

"Oh, there's a story, is there?"

"Oh, well, perhaps not what you literary chaps would call a story! Nolove-making in it, you know. "

"Then it can wait. Tell me about your picture. "

"But that's mixed up with the story. "

"Didn't I say you had become an anecdotal artist?"

"It's no laughing matter, " he said gravely. "You remember when weparted at Munich, a year ago last spring, you to go on to Vienna and Ito go back to America. Well, I had a sudden fancy to take one lastEuropean trip all by myself, and started south through the Tyrol, witha pack on my back. The third day out I fell and bruised my thighseverely, and could not make my little mountain town till moonlight. And I tell you I was mighty glad when I limped across the bridge overthe rushing river and dropped on the hotel sofa. Next morning I wasstiff as a poker, but I struggled up the four rickety flights to thelocal physician, and being assured I only wanted rest, I resolved totake it with book and pipe and mug in a shady beer-garden on theriver. I had been reading for about an hour when five or six Tyrolese, old men and young, in their gray and green costumes and their littlehats, trooped in and occupied the large table near the inn-door. Presently I was startled by the sound of the zither; they began tosing songs; the pretty daughter of the house came and joined in thesinging. I put down my book. 

"The old lady who served me with my _Maass_ of beer, seeing myinterest, came over and chatted about her guests. Oh no, they were notvillagers; they came from four hours away. The slim one was aschool-teacher, and the _dicker_ was a tenor, and sang in the chorusof the _Passion-Spiel_; the good-looking young man was to be the St. John. Passion play! I pricked up my ears. When? Where? In their ownvillage, three days hence; only given once every ten years--forhundreds and hundreds of years. Could strangers see it? What shouldstrangers want to see it for? But _could_ they see it? _Gewiss_. Thiswas indeed a stroke of luck. I had always rather wanted to see thePassion play, but the thought of the fashionable Ober-Ammergau made mesick. Would I like to be _vorgestellt_? Rather! It was not ten minutesafter this introduction before I had settled to stay with St. John, and clouds of good American tobacco were rising from six Tyrolesepipes, and many an "Auf Ihr Wohl" was busying the pretty _Kellnerin_. They trotted out all their repertory of quaint local songs for mybenefit. It sounded bully, I tell you, out there with the sunlight, and the green leaves, and the rush of the river; and in this aroma ofbeer and brotherhood I blessed my damaged thigh. Three days hence!Just time for it to heal. A providential world, after all. 

"And it was indeed with a buoyant step and a gay heart that I set outover the hills at sunrise on that memorable morning. The play was tobegin at ten, and I should just be on time. What a walk! Imagine it!Clear coolness of dawn, fresh green, sparkling dew, the road windingup and down, round hills, up cliffs, along valleys, through woods, where the green branches swayed in the morning wind and dappled thegrass fantastically with dancing sunlight. And as fresh as themorning, was, I felt, the artistic sensation awaiting me. I swunground the last hill-shoulder; saw the quaint gables of the first housepeeping through the trees, and the church spire rising beyond, thengroups of Tyrolese converging from all the roads; dipped down thevalley, past the quiet lake, up the hills beyond; found myself caughtin a stream of peasants, and, presto! was sucked from the radiant dayinto the deep gloom of the barn-like theatre. 

"I don't know how it is done in Ober-Ammergau, but this Tyrolese thingwas a strange jumble of art and _naïveté_, of talent and stupidity. There was a full-fledged stage and footlights, and the scenery, someone said, was painted by a man from Munich. But the players were badlymade up; the costumes, if correct, were ill-fitting; the stage wasbadly lighted, and the flats didn't 'jine. ' Some of the actors hadgleams of artistic perception. St. Mark was beautiful to look on, Caiaphas had a sense of elocution, the Virgin was tender and sweet, and Judas rose powerfully to his great twenty minutes' soliloquy. Butthe bulk of the players, though all were earnest and fervent, wereclumsy or self-conscious. The crowds were stiff and awkward, painfullysymmetrical, like school children at drill. A chorus of ten or twelveushered in each episode with song, and a man further explained it inbald narrative. The acts of the play proper were interrupted by_tableaux vivants_ of Old Testament scenes, from Adam and Eve onwards. There was much, you see, that was puerile, even ridiculous; and everynow and then some one would open the door of the dusky auditorium, anda shaft of sunshine would fly in from the outside world to remind mefurther how unreal was all this gloomy make-believe. Nay, during the_entr'acte_ I went out, like everybody else, and lunched off sausagesand beer. 

"And yet, beneath all this critical consciousness, beneath even theartistic consciousness that could not resist jotting down a face or ascene in my sketch-book, something curious was happening in thedepths of my being. The play exercised from the very first a strangemagnetic effect on me; despite all the primitive humors of theplayers, the simple, sublime tragedy that disengaged itself from theiruncouth but earnest goings-on, began to move and even oppress my soul. Christ had been to me merely a theme for artists; my studies andtravels had familiarized me with every possible conception of the Manof Sorrows. I had seen myriads of Madonnas nursing Him, miles ofMagdalens bewailing Him. Yet the sorrows I had never felt. Perhaps itwas my Jewish training, perhaps it was that none of the Christians Ilived with had ever believed in Him. At any rate, here for the firsttime the Christ story came home to me as a real, livingfact--something that had actually happened. I saw this simple son ofthe people--made more simple by my knowledge that His representativewas a baker--moving amid the ancient peasant and fisher life ofGalilee; I saw Him draw men and women, saints and sinners, by themagic of His love, the simple sweetness of His inner sunshine; I sawthe sunshine change to lightning as He drove the money-changers fromthe Temple; I watched the clouds deepen as the tragedy drew on; I sawHim bid farewell to His mother; I heard suppressed sobs all around me. Then the heavens were overcast, and it seemed as if earth held itsbreath waiting for the supreme moment. They dragged Him before Pilate;they clothed Him in scarlet robe, and plaited His crown of thorns, andspat on Him; they gave Him vinegar to drink mixed with gall; and He sodivinely sweet and forgiving through all. A horrible oppression hungover the world. I felt choking; my ribs pressed inwards, my heartseemed contracted. He was dying for the sins of the world, He summedup the whole world's woe and pitifulness--the two ideas throbbed andfused in my troubled soul. And I, a Jew, had hitherto ignored Him. What would they say, these simple peasants sobbing all around, if theyknew that I was of that hated race? Then something broke in me, and Isobbed too--sobbed with bitter tears that soon turned sweet in strangerelief and glad sympathy with my rough brothers and sisters. " Hepaused a moment, and sipped silently at his absinthe. I did not breakthe silence. I was moved and interested, though what all this had todo with his glowing, joyous picture I could only dimly surmise. Hewent on--

"When it was all over, and I went out into the open air, I did not seethe sunlight. I carried the dusk of the theatre with me, and the gloomof Golgotha brooded over the sunny afternoon. I heard the nails drivenin; I saw the blood spurting from the wounds--there was realism in thething, I tell you. The peasants, accustomed to the painful story, hadquickly recovered their gaiety, and were pouring boisterously down thehill-side, like a glad, turbulent mountain stream, unloosed from thedead hand of frost. But I was still ice-bound and fog-wrapped. Outsidethe _Gasthaus_ where I went to dine, gay groups assembled, an organplayed, some strolling Italian girls danced gracefully, and myartistic self was aware of a warmth and a rush. But the inmost Me wasneck-deep in gloom, with which the terribly pounded steak they gaveme, fraudulently overlaid with two showy fried eggs, seemed only inkeeping. St. John came in, and Christ and the schoolmaster--who hadconducted the choir--and the thick tenor and some supers, and Icongratulated them one and all with a gloomy sense of dishonesty. When, as evening fell, I walked home with St. John, I was gloomilyglad to find the valley shrouded in mist and a starless heaven saggingover a blank earth. It seemed an endless uphill drag to my lodging, and though my bedroom was unexpectedly dainty, and a dear oldwoman--St. John's mother--metaphorically tucked me in, I slept illthat night. Formless dreams tortured me with impalpable tragedies andapprehensions of horror. In the morning--after a cold sponging--theoppression lifted a little from my spirit, though the weather stillseemed rather gray. St. John had already gone off to his field-work, his mother told me. She was so lovely, and the room in which I atebreakfast so neat and demure with its whitewashed walls--pure andstainless like country snow--that I managed to swallow everything butthe coffee. O that coffee! I had to nibble at a bit of chocolate Icarried to get the taste of it out of my mouth. I tried hard not tolet the blues get the upper hand again. I filled my pipe and pulledout my sketch-book. My notes of yesterday seemed so faint, and themorning to be growing so dark, that I could scarcely see them. Ithought I would go and sit on the little bench outside. As I wassauntering through the doorway, my head bending broodingly over thesketch-book, I caught sight out of the corner of my eye of a littlewhite match-stand fixed up on the wall. Mechanically I put out my lefthand to take a light for my pipe. A queer, cold wetness in my fingersand a little splash woke me to the sense of some odd mistake, and inanother instant I realized with horror that I had dipped my fingersinto holy water and splashed it over that neat, demure, spotless, whitewashed wall. "

I could not help smiling. "Ah, I know; one of those porcelain thingswith a crucified Saviour over a little font. Fancy taking heaven forbrimstone!"

"It didn't seem the least bit funny at the time. I just felt awful. What would the dear old woman say to this profanation? Why the dickensdid people have whitewashed walls on which sacrilegious stains wereluridly visible? I looked up and down the hall like Moses when he slewthat Egyptian, trembling lest the old woman should come in. How couldI make her understand I was so ignorant of Christian custom as tomistake a font for a matchbox? And if I said I was a Jew, goodheavens! she might think I had done it of fell design. What a wound tothe gentle old creature who had been so sweet to me! I could not stayin sight of that accusing streak, I must walk off my uneasiness. Ithrew open the outer door; then I stood still, paralyzed. Monstrousevil-looking gray mists were clumped at the very threshold. Sinisterformless vapors blotted out the mountain; everywhere vague, driftinghulks of malarious mist. I sought to pierce them, to find thelandscape, the cheerful village, the warm human life nesting underGod's heaven, but saw only--way below--as through a tunnel cut betwixtmist and mountain, a dead, inverted world of houses and trees in achill, gray lake. I shuddered. An indefinable apprehension possessedme, something like the vague discomfort of my dreams; then, almostinstantly, it crystallized into the blood-curdling suggestion: What ifthis were divine chastisement? what if all the outer and innerdreariness that had so steadily enveloped me since I had witnessed thetragedy were punishment for my disbelief? what if this water werereally holy, and my sacrilege had brought some grisly Nemesis?"

"You believed that?"

"Not really, of course. But you, as an artist, must understand how onedallies with an idea, plays with a mood, works oneself upimaginatively into a dramatic situation. I let it grow upon me till, like a man alone in the dark, afraid of the ghosts he doesn't believein, I grew horribly nervous. "

"I daresay you hadn't wholly recovered from your fall, and your nerveswere unstrung by the blood and the nails, and that steak had disagreedwith you, and you had had a bad night, and you were morbidly uneasyabout annoying the old woman, and all those chunks of mist got intoyour spirits. You are a child of the sun!"

"Of course I knew all that, down in the cellars of my being, butupstairs, all the same, I had this sense of guilt and expiation, thisanxious doubt that perhaps all that great, gloomy, mediæval businessof saints and nuns, and bones, and relics, and miracles, and icons, and calvaries, and cells, and celibacy, and horsehair shirts, andblood, and dirt, and tears, was true after all! What if the world ofbeauty I had been content to live in was a Satanic show, and the realthing was that dead, topsy-turvy world down there in the cold, graylake under the reeking mists? I sneaked back into the house to see ifthe streak hadn't dried yet; but no! it loomed in tell-taleghastliness, a sort of writing on the wall announcing the wrath andvisitation of heaven. I went outside again and smoked miserably on thelittle bench. Gradually I began to feel warmer, the mists seemedclearing. I rose and stretched myself with an ache of luxuriouslanguor. Encouraged, I stole within again to peep at the streak. Itwas dry--a virgin wall, innocently white, met my delighted gaze. Iopened the window; the draggling vapors were still rising, rising, thebleakness was merging in a mild warmth. I refilled my pipe, andplunged down the yet gray hill. I strode past the old saw-mill, skirted the swampy border of the lake, came out on the firm green, when bing! zim! br-r-r! a heavenly bolt of sunshine smashed throughthe raw mists, scattering them like a bomb to the horizon's rim; thenwith sovereign calm the sun came out full, flooding hill and dale withluminous joy; the lake shimmered and flashed into radiant life, andgave back a great white cloud-island on a stretch of glorious blue, and all that golden warmth stole into my veins like wine. A littlegoat came skipping along with tinkling bell, a horse at grass threw upits heels in ecstasy, an ox lowed, a dog barked. Tears of exquisiteemotion came into my eyes; the beautiful soft warm light that lay overall the happy valley seemed to get into them and melt something. Howunlike those tears of yesterday, wrung out of me as by some serpentcoiled round my ribs! Now my ribs seemed expanding--to hold myheart--and all the divine joy of existence thrilled me to a religiousrapture. And with the lifting of the mists all that ghastly mediævalnightmare was lifted from my soul; in that sacred moment all the luridtragedy of the crucified Christ vanished, and only Christ was left, the simple fellowship with man and beast and nature, the love of life, the love of love, the love of God. And in that yearning ecstasy mypicture came to me--The Joyous Comrade. Christ--not the tortured God, but the joyous comrade, the friend of all simple souls; the joyouscomrade, with the children clinging to him, and peasants and fisherslistening to his chat; not the theologian spinning barren subtleties, but the man of genius protesting against all forms and dogmas thatwould replace the direct vision and the living ecstasy; not the man ofsorrows loving the blankness of underground cells and scourged backsand sexless skeletons, but the lover of warm life, and warm sunlight, and all that is fresh and simple and pure and beautiful. "

"Every man makes his God in his own image, " I thought, too touched tojar him by saying it aloud. 

"And so--ever since--off and on--I have worked at this human pictureof him--The Joyous Comrade--to restore the true Christ to the world. "

"Which you hope to convert?"

"My business is with work, not with results. 'Whatsoever thy handfindeth to do, do with all thy might. ' What can any single hand, eventhe mightiest, do in this great weltering world? Yet, without the hopeand the dream, who would work at all? And so, not without hope, yetwith no expectation of a miracle, I give the Jews a Christ they cannow accept, the Christians a Christ they have forgotten. I rebuild formy beloved America a type of simple manhood, unfretted by the feverishlust for wealth or power, a simple lover of the quiet moment, a sweethuman soul never dispossessed of itself, always at one with theessence of existence. Who knows but I may suggest the great question:What shall it profit a nation to gain the whole world and lose its ownsoul?"

His voice died away solemnly, and I heard only the click of thebilliard-balls and the rumble and roar of New York. 

CHAD GADYA

 "And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying: What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. And . . . The Lord slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt, . . . But all the first-born of my children I redeem. "--EXODUS xiii. 14, 15. 

_Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya! One only kid of the goat. _

At last the Passover family service was drawing to an end. His fatherhad started on the curious Chaldaic recitative that wound it up:

_One only kid, one only kid, which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

The young man smiled faintly at the quaintness of an old gentleman ina frock-coat, a director of the steamboat company in modern Venice, talking Chaldaic, wholly unconscious of the incongruity, rolling outthe sonorous syllables with unction, propped up on the prescribedpillows. 

_And a cat came and devoured the kid which my father bought for twozuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

He wondered vaguely what his father would say to him when the servicewas over. He had only come in during the second part, arriving fromVienna with his usual unquestioned unexpectedness, and was quitestartled to find it was Passover night, and that the immemorialservice was going on just as when he was a boy. The rarity of hisvisits to the old folks made it a strange coincidence to have stumbledupon them at this juncture, and, as he took his seat silently in thefamily circle without interrupting the prayers by greetings, he had avivid artistic perception of the possibilities of existence--the wittyFrench novel that had so amused him in the train, making him feelthat, in providing raw matter for _esprit_, human life had its joyousjustification; the red-gold sunset over the mountains; the floatinghomewards down the Grand Canal in the moonlight, the well-knownpalaces as dreamful and mysterious to him as if he had not been bornin the city of the sea; the gay reminiscences of Goldmark's new operalast night at the Operntheater that had haunted his ear as he ascendedthe great staircase; and then this abrupt transition to the East, andthe dead centuries, and Jehovah bringing out His chosen people fromEgypt, and bidding them celebrate with unleavened bread throughout thegenerations their hurried journey to the desert. 

Probably his father was distressed at this glaring instance of hisson's indifference to the traditions he himself held so dear; thoughindeed the old man had realized long ago the bitter truth that hisways were not his son's ways, nor his son's thoughts his thoughts. Hehad long since known that his first-born was a sinner in Israel, an"Epikouros, " a scoffer, a selfish sensualist, a lover of bachelorquarters and the feverish life of the European capitals, a scorner ofthe dietary laws and tabus, an adept in the forbidden. The son thoughtof himself through his father's spectacles, and the faint smileplaying about the sensitive lips became bitterer. His long whitefingers worked nervously. 

And yet he thought kindly enough of his father; admired theperseverance that had brought him wealth, the generosity with which heexpended it, the fidelity that resisted its temptations and made this_Seder_ service, this family reunion, as homely and as piously simpleas in the past when the Ghetto Vecchio, and not this palace on theGrand Canal, had meant home. The beaker of wine for the prophet Elijahstood as naïvely expectant as ever. His mother's face, too, shone withlove and goodwill. Brothers and sisters--shafts from a fullquiver--sat around the table variously happy and content withexistence. An atmosphere of peace and restfulness and faith and pietypervaded the table. 

_And a dog came and bit the cat which had devoured the kid which myfather bought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

And suddenly the contrast of all these quietudes with his own restlesslife overwhelmed him in a great flood of hopelessness. His eyes filledwith salt tears. _He_ would never sit at the head of his own table, carrying on the chain of piety that linked the generations each toeach; never would his soul be lapped in this atmosphere of faith andtrust; no woman's love would ever be his; no children would rest theirlittle hands in his; he would pass through existence like a wraith, gazing in at the warm firesides with hopeless eyes, and sweepingon--the wandering Jew of the world of soul. How he had suffered--he, modern of moderns, dreamer of dreams, and ponderer of problems!_Vanitas Vanitatum! Omnia Vanitas!_ Modern of the moderns? But it wasan ancient Jew who had said that, and another who had said "Better isthe day of a man's death than the day of a man's birth. " Verily anironical proof of the Preacher's own maxim that there is nothing newunder the sun. And he recalled the great sentences:

 "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. 

 "One generation passeth away and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. 

 "All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. 

 "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. 

 "That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. 

 "For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. "

Yes, it was all true, all true. How the Jewish genius had gone to theheart of things, so that the races that hated it found comfort in itsPsalms. No sense of form, the end of Ecclesiastes a confusion and aweak repetition like the last disordered spasms of a propheticseizure. No care for art, only for reality. And yet he had oncethought he loved the Greeks better, had from childhood yearned afterforbidden gods, thrilled by that solitary marble figure of a girl thatlooked in on the Ghetto alley from a boundary wall. Yes; he hadworshipped at the shrine of the Beautiful; he had prated of theRenaissance. He had written--with the multiform adaptiveness of hisrace--French poems with Hellenic inspiration, and erotic lyrics--halffelt, half feigned, delicately chiselled. He saw now with a suddenintuition that he had never really expressed himself in art, saveperhaps in that one brutal Italian novel written under the influenceof Zola, which had been so denounced by a world with no perception ofthe love and the tears that prompted the relentless unmasking of life. 

_And a staff came and smote the dog which had bitten the cat, whichhad devoured the kid, which my father bought for two zuzim. ChadGadya! Chad Gadya!_

Yes, he was a Jew at heart. The childhood in the Ghetto, the longheredity, had bound him in emotions and impulses as withphylacteries. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya! The very melody awakenedassociations innumerable. He saw in a swift panorama the intense innerlife of a curly-headed child roaming in the narrow cincture of theGhetto, amid the picturesque high houses. A reflex of the child's oldjoy in the Festivals glowed in his soul. How charming this quaintsequence of Passover and Pentecost, New Year and Tabernacles; thissurvival of the ancient Orient in modern Europe, this living in thesouls of one's ancestors, even as on Tabernacles one lived in theirbooths. A sudden craving seized him to sing with his father, to wraphimself in a fringed shawl, to sway with the rhythmic passion ofprayer, to prostrate himself in the synagogue. Why had his brethrenever sought to emerge from the joyous slavery of the Ghetto? Hisimagination conjured it up as it was ere he was born: the one campo, bordered with a colonnade of shops, the black-bearded Hebrew merchantsin their long robes, the iron gates barred at midnight, the keepersrowing round and round the open canal-sides in their barca. The yellowcap? The yellow O on their breasts? Badges of honor; since to bepersecuted is nobler than to persecute. Why had they wished foremancipation? Their life was self-centred, self-complete. But no; theywere restless, doomed to wander. He saw the earliest streams pouringinto Venice at the commencement of the thirteenth century, Germanmerchants, then Levantines, helping to build up the commercial capitalof the fifteenth century. He saw the later accession of Peninsularrefugees from the Inquisition, their shelter beneath the lion's wingnegotiated through their fellow-Jew, Daniel Rodrigues, Consul of theRepublic in Dalmatia. His mind halted a moment on this DanielRodrigues, an important skeleton. He thought of the endless shifts ofthe Jews to evade the harsher prescriptions, their subtle, passiverefusal to live at Mestre, their final relegation to the Ghetto. Whatwell-springs of energy, seething in those paradoxical progenitors ofhis, who united the calm of the East with the fever of the West; thoseidealists dealing always with the practical, those lovers of ideas, those princes of combination, mastering their environment because theynever dealt in ideas except as embodied in real concrete things. Reality! Reality!

That was the note of Jewish genius, which had this affinity at leastwith the Greek. And he, though to him his father's real world was ashadow, had yet this instinctive hatred of the cloud-spinners, theword-jugglers, his idealisms needed solid substance to play around. Perhaps if he had been persecuted, or even poor, if his father had notsmoothed his passage to a not unprosperous career in letters, he mighthave escaped this haunting sense of the emptiness and futility ofexistence. He, too, would have found a joy in outwitting the Christianpersecutor, in piling ducat on ducat. Ay, even now he chuckled tothink how these _strazzaroli_--these forced vendors of second-handwares--had lived to purchase the faded purple wrappings of Venetianglory. 

He remembered reading in the results of an ancient census: Men, women, children, monks, nuns--and Jews! Well, the Doges were done with, Venice was a melancholy ruin, and the Jew--the Jew lived sumptuouslyin the palaces of her proud nobles. He looked round the magnificentlong-stretching dining-room, with its rugs, oil-paintings, frescoedceiling, palms; remembered the ancient scutcheon over the stoneportal--a lion rampant with an angel volant--and thought of the oldLatin statute forbidding the Jews to keep schools of any kind inVenice, or to teach anything in the city, under penalty of fiftyducats' fine and six months' imprisonment. Well, the Jews had taughtthe Venetians something after all--that the only abiding wealth ishuman energy. All other nations had had their flowering time and hadfaded out. But Israel went on with unabated strength and courage. Itwas very wonderful. Nay, was it not miraculous? Perhaps there was, indeed, "a mission of Israel, " perhaps they were indeed God's "chosenpeople. " The Venetians had built and painted marvellous things anddied out and left them for tourists to gaze at. The Jews had creatednothing for ages, save a few poems and a few yearning synagoguemelodies; yet here they were, strong and solid, a creation in fleshand blood more miraculous and enduring than anything in stone andbronze. And what was the secret of this persistence and strength? Whatbut a spiritual? What but their inner certainty of God, theirunquestioning trust in Him, that He would send His Messiah to rebuildthe Temple, to raise them to the sovereignty of the peoples? Howtypical his own father--thus serenely singing Chaldaic--a modern ofmoderns without, a student and saint at home! Ah, would that he, too, could lay hold on this solid faith! Yes, his soul was in sympathy withthe brooding immovable East; even with the mysticisms of theCabalists, with the trance of the ascetic, nay, with the fantasticfrenzy-begotten ecstasy of the Dervishes he had seen dancing inTurkish mosques, --that intoxicating sense of a satisfying meaning inthings, of a unity with the essence of existence, which men haddoubtless sought in the ancient Eleusinian mysteries, which theMahatmas of India had perhaps found, the tradition of which ran downthrough the ages, misconceived by the Western races, and for lack ofwhich he could often have battered his head against a wall, as inliteral beating against the baffling mystery of existence. Ah! therewas the hell of it! His soul was of the Orient, but his brain was ofthe Occident. His intellect had been nourished at the breast ofScience, that classified everything and explained nothing. Butexplanation! The very word was futile! Things were. To explain thingswas to state A in terms of B, and B in terms of A. Who should explainthe explanation? Perhaps only by ecstasy could one understand what laybehind the phenomena. But even so the essence had to be judged by itsmanifestations, and the manifestations were often absurd, unrighteous, and meaningless. No, he could not believe. His intellect wasremorseless. What if Israel was preserved? Why should the empire ofVenice be destroyed?

_And a fire came and burnt the staff, which had smitten the dog, whichhad bitten the cat, which had devoured the kid, which my father boughtfor two zuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

He thought of the energy that had gone to build this wonderful city;the deep sea-soaked wooden piles hidden beneath; the exhaustless arttreasures--churches, pictures, sculptures--no less built on obscurehuman labor, though a few of the innumerable dead hands had signednames. What measureless energy petrified in these palaces! Carpaccio'spictures floated before him, and Tintoretto's--record of deadgenerations; and then, by the link of size, those even vasterpaintings--in gouache--of Vermayen in Vienna: old land-fights withcrossbow, spear, and arquebus, old sea-fights with inter-grapplinggalleys. He thought of galley-slaves chained to their oar--the sweat, the blood that had stained history. "So I returned and considered allthe oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears ofsuch as were oppressed, and they had no comforter. " And then hethought of a modern picture with a beautiful nude female figure thathad cost the happiness of a family; the artist now dead and immortal, the woman, once rich and fashionable, on the streets. The futility ofthings--love, fame, immortality! All roads lead nowhere! What profitshall a man have from all his labor which he hath done under the sun?

No; it was all a flux--there was nothing but flux. Παντα ῥει. Thewisest had always seen that. The cat which devoured the kid, and thedog which bit the cat, and the staff which smote the dog, and the firewhich burnt the staff, and so on endlessly. Did not the commentatorssay that that was the meaning of this very parable--the passing of theancient empires, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome? Commentators!what curious people! What a making of books to which there was no end!What a wilderness of waste logic the Jewish intellect had wandered infor ages! The endless volumes of the Talmud and its parasites! Thecountless codes, now obsolescent, over which dead eyes had grown dim!As great a patience and industry as had gone to build Venetian art, and with less result. The chosen people, indeed! And were they sostrong and sane? A fine thought in his brain, forsooth!

He, worn out by the great stress of the centuries, such longin-breeding, so many ages of persecution, so many manners andlanguages adopted, so many nationalities taken on! His soul must belike a palimpsest with the record of nation on nation. It was uncanny, this clinging to life; a race should be content to die out. And in himit had perhaps grown thus content. He foreshadowed its despair. Hestood for latter-day Israel, the race that always ran to extremes, which, having been first in faith, was also first in scepticism, keenest to pierce to the empty heart of things; like an orphan wind, homeless, wailing about the lost places of the universe. To know allto be illusion, cheat--itself the most cheated of races; lured on to acareer of sacrifice and contempt. If he could only keep the hope thathad hallowed its sufferings. But now it was a viper--not a divinehope--it had nourished in its bosom. He felt so lonely; a greatstretch of blackness, a barren mere, a gaunt cliff on a frozen sea, apine on a mountain. To be done with it all--the sighs and the sobs andthe tears, the heart-sinking, the dull dragging days of wretchednessand the nights of pain. How often he had turned his face to the wall, willing to die. 

Perhaps it was this dead city of stones and the sea that wrought so onhis spirit. Tourgénieff was right; only the young should come here, not those who had seen with Virgil the tears of things. And then herecalled the lines of Catullus--the sad, stately plaint of the classicworld, like the suppressed sob of a strong man:

 "Soles occidere et redire possunt, Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux, Nox est perpetuo una dormienda. "

And then he thought again of Virgil, and called up a Tuscan landscapethat expressed him, and lines of cypresses that moved on majestic likehexameters. He saw the terrace of an ancient palace, and the grotesqueanimals carven on the balustrade; the green flicker of lizards on thedrowsy garden-wall; the old-world sun-dial and the grotto and themarble fountain, and the cool green gloom of the cypress-grove withits delicious dapple of shadows. An invisible blackbird flutedoverhead. He walked along the great walk under the stone eyes ofsculptured gods, and looked out upon the hot landscape taking itssiesta under the ardent blue sky--the green sunlit hills, the whitenestling villas, the gray olive-trees. Who had paced these cloistralterraces? Mediæval princesses, passionate and scornful, treadingdelicately, with trailing silks and faint perfumes. He would make apoem of it. Oh, the loveliness of life! What was it a local singerhad carolled in that dear soft Venetian dialect?

 "Belissimo xe el mondo perchè l' è molto vario. Nè omo ghe xe profondo che dir possa el contrario. "

Yes, the world was indeed most beautiful and most varied. Terence wasright: the comedy and pathos of things was enough. We are a sufficientspectacle to one another. A glow came over him; for a moment hegrasped hold on life, and the infinite tentacles of things threwthemselves out to entwine him. 

_And a water came and extinguished the fire, which had burnt thestaff, which had smitten the dog, which had bitten the cat, which haddevoured the kid, which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya!Chad Gadya!_

But the glow faded, and he drew back sad and hopeless. For he knew nowwhat he wanted. Paganism would not suffice. He wanted--he hungeredafter--God. The God of his fathers. The three thousand years of beliefcould not be shaken off. It was atavism that gave him those suddenstrange intuitions of God at the scent of a rose, the sound of achild's laughter, the sight of a sleeping city; that sent a warmth tohis heart and tears to his eyes, and a sense of the infinite beautyand sacredness of life. But he could not have the God of his fathers. And his own God was distant and dubious, and nothing that modernscience had taught him was yet registered in his organism. Could heeven transmit it to descendants? What was it Weismann said aboutacquired characteristics? No, certain races put forth certain beliefs, and till you killed off the races, you could never kill off thebeliefs. Oh, it was a cruel tragedy, this Western culture grafted onan Eastern stock, untuning the chords of life, setting heart andbrain asunder. But then Nature _was_ cruel. He thought of last year'sgrape-harvest ruined by a thunderstorm, the frightful poverty of thepeasants under the thumb of the padrones. And then the vision came upof a captured cuttle-fish he had seen gasping, almost with a humancough, on the sands of the Lido. It had spoilt the sublimity of thatbarren stretch of sand and sea, and the curious charm of the whitesails that seemed to glide along the very stones of the greatbreakwater. His soul demanded justice for the uncouth cuttle-fish. Hedid not understand how people could live in a self-centred spiritualworld that shut out the larger part of creation. If sufferingpurified, what purification did overdriven horses undergo, or starvedcats? The miracle of creation--why was it wrought for puppies doomedto drown? No; man had imposed morality on a non-moral universe, anthropomorphizing everything, transferring into the great remorselessmechanism the ethical ideals that governed the conduct of man to man. Religion, like art, focussed the universe round man, an unimportantby-product: it was bad science turned into good art. And it was hisown race that had started the delusion! "And Abraham said unto God:'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'" Formerly the godshad meant might, but man's soul had come to crave for right. From thewelter of human existence man had abstracted the idea of goodness andmade a god of it, and then foolishly turned round and asked why itpermitted the bad without which the idea of it could never have beenformed. And because God was goodness, therefore He was oneness--heremembered the acute analysis of Kuenen. No, the moral law was no morethe central secret of the universe than color or music. Religion wasmade for man, not man for religion. Even justice was a meaninglessconcept in the last analysis: What was, was. The artist's view oflife was the only true one: the artist who believes in everything andin nothing. 

The religions unconsciously distorted everything. Life itself wassimple enough: a biological phenomenon that had its growth, itsmaturity, its decay. Death was no mystery, pain no punishment, nor sinanything but the survival of lower attributes from a prior phase ofevolution, or not infrequently the legitimate protest of the naturalself against artificial social ethics. It was the creeds that torturedthings out of their elemental simplicity. But for him the old cravingpersisted. That alone would do. God, God--he was God-intoxicated, without Spinoza's calm or Spinoza's certainty. Justice, Pity, Love--something that understood. He knew it was sheer blind hereditythat spoilt his life for him--oh, the irony of it--and that, if hecould forget his sense of futility, he could live beautifully untohimself. The wheels of chance had ground well for him. But his soulrejected all the solutions and self-equations of his friends--theall-sufficiency of science, of art, of pleasure, of the humanspectacle; saw with inexorable insight through the phantasmaloptimisms, refused to blind itself with Platonisms and Hegelisms, refused the positions of æsthetes and artists and self-satisfiedGerman savants, equally with the positions of conventional preachers, demanded justice for the individual down to the sparrow, two of whichwere sold in the market-place for a farthing, and a significance and apurpose in the secular sweep of destiny; yet knew all the while thatPurpose was as anthropomorphic a conception of the essence of thingsas justice or goodness. But the world without God was a beautiful, heartless woman--cold, irresponsive. He needed the flash of soul. Hehad experimented in Nature--as color, form, mystery--what had he notexperimented in? But there was a want, a void. He had loved Nature, had come very near finding peace in the earth-passion, in theintoxicating smell of grass and flowers, in the scent and sound of thesea, in the rapture of striking through the cold, salt waves, tossinggreen and white-flecked; ill exchanged for any heaven. But the passionalways faded and the old hunger for God came back. 

He had found temporary peace with Spinoza's God: the eternalinfinite-sided Being, of whom all the starry infinities were but onepoor expression, and to love whom did not imply being loved in return. 'Twas magnificent to be lifted up in worship of that supernalsplendor. But the splendor froze, not scorched. He wanted the eternalBeing to be conscious of his existence; nay, to send him a whisperthat He was not a metaphysical figment. Otherwise he found himselfsaying what Voltaire has made Spinoza say: "Je crois, entre nous, quevous n'existez pas. " Obedience? Worship? He could have prostratedhimself for hours on the flags, worn out his knees in prayer. OLuther, O Galileo, enemies of the human race! How wise of the Churchto burn infidels, who would burn down the spirit's home--the home warmwith the love and treasures of the generations--and leave the poorhuman soul naked and shivering amid the cold countless worlds. ONapoleon, arch-fiend, who, opening the Ghettos, where the Jewscrouched in narrow joy over the Sabbath fire, let in upon them theweight of the universe. 

_And an ox came and drank the water, which had extinguished the fire, which had burnt the staff, which had smitten the dog, which had bittenthe cat, which had devoured the kid, which my father bought for twozuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

In Vienna, whence he had come, an Israelite, on whom the modernuniverse pressed, yet dreamed the old dream of a Jewish State--amodern State, incarnation of all the great principles won by thetravail of the ages. The chameleon of races should show a specificcolor: a Jewish art, a Jewish architecture would be born, who knew?But he, who had worked for Mazzini, who had seen his hero achieve thatgreatest of all defeats, victory, _he_ knew. He knew what would comeof it, even if it came. He understood the fate of Christ and of allidealists, doomed to see themselves worshipped and their ideasrejected in a religion or a State founded like a national monument toperpetuate their defeat. But the Jewish State would not even come. Hehad met his Viennese brethren but yesterday; in the Leopoldstadt, frowsy with the gaberdines and side-curls of Galicia; in the Prater, arrogantly radiant in gleaming carriages with spick-and-spanfootmen--that strange race that could build up cities for others butnever for itself; that professed to be both a religion and anationality, and was often neither. The grotesquerie of history!Moses, Sinai, Palestine, Isaiah, Ezra, the Temple, Christ, the Exile, the Ghettos, the Martyrdoms--all this to give the Austrian comicpapers jokes about stockbrokers with noses big enough to supportunheld opera--glasses. And even supposing another miraculous link cameto add itself to that wonderful chain, the happier Jews of the newState would be born into it as children to an enriched man, unconscious of the struggles, accepting the luxuries, growingbig-bellied and narrow-souled. The Temple would be rebuilt. _Etaprès?_ The architect would send in the bill. People would dine anddig one another in the ribs and tell the old smoking-room stories. There would be fashionable dressmakers. The synagogue would persecutethose who were larger than it, the professional priests would prate ofspiritualities to an applausive animal world, the press would be runin the interests of capitalists and politicians, the little writerswould grow spiteful against those who did not call them great, themanagers of the national theatre would advance their mistresses toleading parts. Yes, the ox would come and drink the water, andJeshurun would wax fat and kick. "For that which is crooked cannot bemade straight. " Menander's comedies were fresh from the mint, the Bookof Proverbs as new as the morning paper. No, he could not dream. Letthe younger races dream; the oldest of races knew better. The racethat was first to dream the beautiful dream of a Millennium was thefirst to discard it. Nay, was it even a beautiful dream? Every manunder his own fig-tree, forsooth, obese and somnolent, the spiritdisintegrated! _Omnia Vanitas_, this too was vanity. 

_And the slaughterer came and slaughtered the ox, which had drunk thewater, which had extinguished the fire, which had burnt the staff, which had smitten the dog, which had bitten the cat, which haddevoured the kid, which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya!Chad Gadya!_

Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya! He had never thought of the meaning of thewords, always connected them with the finish of the ceremony. "Allover! All over!" they seemed to wail, and in the quaint music thereseemed a sense of infinite disillusion, of infinite rest; awinding-up, a conclusion, things over and done with, a fever subsided, a toil completed, a clamor abated, a farewell knell, a little foldingof the hands to sleep. 

Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya! It was a wail over the struggle for existence, the purposeless procession of the ages, the passing of the ancientempires--as the commentators had pointed out--and of the modernempires that would pass on to join them, till the earth itself--as thescientists had pointed out--passed away in cold and darkness. Flux andreflux, the fire and the water, the water and the fire! He thought ofthe imperturbable skeletons that still awaited exhumation in Pompeii, the swaddled mummies of the Pharaohs, the undiminished ashes offorgotten lovers in old Etruscan tombs. He had a flashing sense of thegreat pageant of the Mediæval--popes, kings, crusaders, friars, beggars, peasants, flagellants, schoolmen; of the vast modern life inParis, Vienna, Rome, London, Berlin, New York, Chicago; the brilliantlife of the fashionable quarters, the babble of the Bohemias, the poorin their slums, the sick on their beds of pain, the soldiers, theprostitutes, the slaveys in lodging-houses, the criminals, thelunatics; the vast hordes of Russia, the life pullulating in theswarming boats on Chinese rivers, the merry butterfly life of Japan, the unknown savages of mid-Africa with their fetishes and war-dances, the tribes of the East sleeping in tents or turning uneasily on thehot terraces of their houses, the negro races growing into such aterrible problem in the United States, and each of all these peoples, nay, each unit of any people, thinking itself the centre of theuniverse, and of its love and care; the destiny of the races noclearer than the destiny of the individuals and no diviner than thelife of insects, and all the vast sweep of history nothing but a spasmin the life of one of the meanest of an obscure group of worlds, in aninfinity of vaster constellations. Oh, it was too great! He could notlook on the face of his own God and live. Without the stereoscopicillusions which made his father's life solid, he could not continue toexist. His point of view was hopelessly cosmic. All was equally greatand mysterious? Yes; but all was equally small and commonplace. Kant's_Starry Infinite Without?_ Bah! Mere lumps of mud going round in atee-totum dance, and getting hot over it; no more than the spinning ofspecks in a drop of dirty water. Size was nothing in itself. Therewere mountains and seas in a morsel of wet mud, picturesque enoughfor microscopic tourists. A billion billion morsels of wet mud were nomore imposing than one. Geology, chemistry, astronomy--they were allin the splashes of mud from a passing carriage. Everywhere one law andone futility. The human race? Strange marine monsters crawling aboutin the bed of an air-ocean, unable to swim upwards, oddly tricked outin the stolen skins of other creatures. As absurd, impartiallyconsidered, as the strange creatures quaintly adapted to curiousenvironments one saw in aquaria. Kant's _Moral Law Within!_ Dissolubleby a cholera germ, a curious blue network under the microscope, notunlike a map of Venice. Yes, the cosmic and the comic were one. Why bebullied into the Spinozistic awe? Perhaps Heine--that other Jew--sawmore truly, and man's last word on the universe into which he had beenprojected unasked, might be a mockery of that which had mocked him, alaugh with tears in it. 

And he, he foreshadowed the future of all races, as well as of hisown. They would all go on struggling, till they became self-conscious;then, like children grown to men, the scales falling from their eyes, they would suddenly ask themselves what it was all about, and, realizing that they were being driven along by blind forces to laborand struggle and strive, they too would pass away; the gross childishraces would sweep them up, Nature pouring out new energies from herinexhaustible fount. For strength was in the unconscious, and when anation paused to ask of itself its right to Empire, its Empire wasalready over. The old Palestine Hebrew, sacrificing his sheep toYahweh, what a granite figure compared with himself, infinitely subtleand mobile! For a century or two the modern world would take pleasurein seeing itself reflected in literature and art by its most decadentspirits, in vibrating to the pathos and picturesqueness of all theperiods of man's mysterious existence on this queer little planet;while the old geocentric ethics, oddly clinging on to the changedcosmogony, would keep life clean. But all that would pall--and thenthe deluge!

There was a waft of merry music from without. He rose and wentnoiselessly to the window and looked out into the night. A full moonhung in the heavens, perpendicularly and low, so that it seemed aterrestrial object in comparison with the stars scattered above, glorybeyond glory, and in that lucent Italian atmosphere making him feelhimself of their shining company, whirling through the infinite voidon one of the innumerable spheres. A broad silver green patch ofmoonlight lay on the dark water, dwindling into a string of dancinggold pieces. Adown the canal the black gondolas clustered round abarca lighted by gaily colored lanterns, whence the music came. _Funiculi, Funicula_--it seemed to dance with the very spirit ofjoyousness. He saw a young couple holding hands. He knew they wereEnglish, that strange, happy, solid, conquering race. Somethingvibrated in him. He thought of bridegrooms, youth, strength; but itwas as the hollow echo of a far-off regret, some vague sunrise of goldover hills of dream. Then a beautiful tenor voice began to singSchubert's Serenade. It was as the very voice of hopeless passion; thedesire of the moth for the star, of man for God. Death, death, at anycost, death to end this long ghastly creeping about the purlieus oflife. Life even for a single instant longer, life without God, seemedintolerable. He would find peace in the bosom of that black water. Hewould glide downstairs now, speaking no word. 

_And the Angel of Death came and slew the slaughterer, which hadslaughtered the ox, which had drunk the water, which had extinguishedthe fire, which had burnt the staff, which had smitten the dog, whichhad bitten the cat, which had devoured the kid, which my fatherbought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya! Chad Gadya!_

When they should find him accidentally drowned, for how could theworld understand, the world which yet had never been backward to judgehim, that a man with youth, health, wealth, and a measure of fameshould take his own life; his people would think, perhaps, that it wasa ghost that had sat at the _Seder_ table so silent and noiseless. And, indeed, what but a ghost? One need not die to hover outside thewarm circle of life, stretching vain arms. A ghost? He had always beena ghost. From childhood those strange solid people had come and talkedand walked with him, and he had glided among them, an unreal spirit, to which they gave flesh-and-blood motives like their own. As a childdeath had seemed horrible to him; red worms crawling over white flesh. Now his thoughts always stopped at the glad moment of giving up theghost. More lives beyond the grave? Why, the world was not largeenough for one life. It had to repeat itself incessantly. Books, newspapers, what tedium! A few ideas deftly re-combined. For there wasnothing new under the sun. Life like a tale told by an idiot, full ofsound and fury, and signifying nothing. Shakespeare had found thesupreme expression for it as for everything in it. 

He stole out softly through the half-open door, went through the vastantechamber, full of tapestry and figures of old Venetians in armor, down the wide staircase, into the great courtyard that looked strangeand sepulchral when he struck a match to find the water-portal, andsaw his shadow curving monstrous along the ribbed roof, and leering atthe spacious gloom. He opened the great doors gently, and came outinto the soft spring night air. All was silent now. The narrowside-canal had a glimmer of moonlight, the opposite palace was black, with one spot of light where a window shone: overhead in the narrowrift of dark-blue sky a flock of stars flew like bright birds throughthe soft velvet gloom. The water lapped mournfully against the marblesteps, and a gondola lay moored to the posts, gently nodding to itsblack shadow in the water. 

He walked to where the water-alley met the deeper Grand Canal, and lethimself slide down with a soft, subdued splash. He found himselfstruggling, but he conquered the instinctive will to live. 

But as he sank for the last time, the mystery of the night and thestars and death mingled with a strange whirl of childish memoriesinstinct with the wonder of life, and the immemorial Hebrew words ofthe dying Jew beat outwards to his gurgling throat: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. "

Through the open doorway floated down the last words of the hymn andthe service:--

_And the Holy One came, blessed be He, and slew the Angel of Death, who had slain the slaughterer, who had slaughtered the ox, which haddrunk the water, which had extinguished the fire, which had burnt thestaff, which had smitten the dog, which had bitten the cat, which haddevoured the kid, which my father bought for two zuzim. Chad Gadya!Chad Gadya!_

EPILOGUE

A MODERN SCRIBE IN JERUSALEM

I

Outside the walls of Jerusalem, on the bleak roadless way to the Mountof Olives, within sight of the domes and minarets of the sacred city, and looking towards the mosque of Omar--arrogantly a-glitter on thesite of Solomon's Temple--there perches among black, barren rocks acolony of Arabian Jews from Yemen. 

These all but cave-dwellers, grimy caftaned figures, with swarthyfaces, coal-black ringlets, and hungry eyes, have for sole publictreasure a synagogue, consisting of a small room, furnished only withan Ark, and bare even of seats. 

In this room a Scribe of to-day, humblest in Israel, yet with the giftof vision, stood turning over the few old books that lay about, strange flotsam and jetsam of the great world-currents that havedrifted Israel to and fro. And to him bending over a copy of themystic _Zohar_, --that thirteenth century Cabalistic classic, forged inChaldaic by a Jew of Spain, which paved the way for the TurkishMessiah--was brought a little child. 

A little boy in his father's arms, his image in miniature, with aminiature grimy caftan and miniature coal-black ringlets beneath hislittle black skull-cap. A human curiosity brought to interest thestranger and increase his _bakhshísh_. 

For lo! the little boy had six fingers on his right hand! The childheld it shyly clenched, but the father forcibly parted the fingers toexhibit them. 

And the child lifted up his voice and wept bitterly. 

And so, often in after days when the Scribe thought of Jerusalem, itwas not of what he had been told he would think; not of Prophets andAngels and Crusaders--only of the crying of that little six-fingeredJewish child, washed by the great tides of human history on to theblack rocks near the foot of the Mount of Olives. 

II

Jerusalem--centre of pilgrimage to three great religions--unholiestcity under the sun!

"For from Zion the Law shall go forth and the Word of God fromJerusalem. " Gone forth of a sooth, thought the Scribe, leaving inJerusalem itself only the swarming of sects about the corpse ofReligion. 

No prophetic centre, this Zion, even for Israel; only the stagnant, stereotyped activity of excommunicating Rabbis, and the capriciousdistribution of the paralyzing _Chalukah_, leaving an appallingmultitudinous poverty agonizing in the steep refuse-laden alleys. Thefaint stirrings of new life, the dim desires of young Israel toregenerate at once itself and the soil of Palestine, the loftypatriotism of immigrant Dreamers as yet unable to overcome the longlethargy of holy study and of prayers for rain. A city where men go todie, but not to live. 

An accursèd city, priest-ridden and pauperized, with cripplesdragging about its shrines and lepers burrowing at the Zion gate; buta city infinitely pathetic, infinitely romantic withal, a centrethrough which pass all the great threads of history, ancient andmediæval, and now at last quivering with the telegraphic thread of themodern, yet only the more charged with the pathos of the past and thetears of things; symbol not only of the tragedy of the Christ, but ofthe tragedy of his people, nay of the great world-tragedy. 

III

On the Eve of the Passover and Easter, the Scribe arrived at the outerfringe of the rainbow-robed, fur-capped throng that shook inpassionate lamentation before that Titanic fragment of Temple Wall, which is the sole relic of Israel's national glories. Roaring billowsof hysterical prayer beat against the monstrous, symmetric blocks, quarried by King Solomon's servants and smoothed by the kisses of thegenerations. A Fatherland lost eighteen hundred years ago, and stillthis strange indomitable race hoped on!

"Hasten, hasten, O Redeemer of Zion. "

And from amid the mourners, one tall, stately figure, robed in purplevelvet, turned his face to the Scribe, saying, with out-stretched handand in a voice of ineffable love--

"_Shalom Aleichem. _"

And the Scribe was shaken, for lo! it was the face of the Christ. 

IV

Did he haunt the Wailing Wall, then, sharing the woe of his brethren?For in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the Scribe found him not. 

V

The Scribe had slipt in half disguised: no Jew being allowed even inthe courtyard or the precincts of the sacred place. His first openattempt had been frustrated by the Turkish soldiers who kept thenarrow approach to the courtyard. "_Rüh! Emshi!_" they had shoutedfiercely, and the Scribe recklessly refusing to turn back had beenexpelled by violence. A blessing in disguise, his friends had toldhim, for should the Greek-Church fanatics have become aware of him, hemight have perished in a miniature Holy War. And as he fought his waythrough the crowd to gain the shelter of a balcony, he felt indeedthat one ugly rush would suffice to crush him. 

VI

In the sepulchral incense-laden dusk of the uncouth Church, in thereligious gloom punctuated by the pervasive twinkle of a thousandhanging lamps of silver, was wedged and blent a suffocating mass ofpalm-bearing humanity of all nations and races, the sumptuouslyclothed and the ragged, the hale and the unsightly; the rainbowcolors of the East relieved by the white of the shrouded females, toned down by the sombre shabbiness of the Russian _moujiks_ andpeasant-women, and pierced by a vivid circular line of red fezzes onthe unbared, unreverential heads of the Turkish regiment keepingorder among the jostling jealousies of Christendom, whose rivalchurches swarm around the strange, glittering, candle-illuminedRotunda that covers the tomb of Christ. Not an inch of free spaceanywhere under this shadow of Golgotha: a perpetual sway to and froof the human tides, seething with sobs and quarrels; flowing into theplanless maze of chapels and churches of all ages and architectures, that, perched on rocks or hewn into their mouldy darkness, magnificent with untold church-treasure--Armenian, Syrian, Coptic, Latin, Greek, Abyssinian--add the resonance of their specialsanctities and the oppression of their individual glories of vestmentand ceremonial to the surcharged atmosphere palpitant with exaltationand prayer and mystic bell-tinklings; overspreading the thirty-sevensacred spots, and oozing into the holy of holies itself, towards thatimpassive marble stone, goal of the world's desire in the blaze ofthe ever burning lamps; and overflowing into the screaming courtyard, amid the flagstone stalls of chaplets and crosses and carven-shells, and the rapacious rabble of cripples and vendors. 

And amid the frenzied squeezing and squabbling, way was miraculouslymade for a dazzling procession of the Only Orthodox Church, movingstatelily round and round, to the melting strains of unseen singingboys and preceded by an upborne olive-tree; seventy priests inflowering damask, carrying palms or swinging censers, boys in green, uplifting silken banners richly broidered with sacred scenes, archimandrites attended by deacons, and bearing symbolic trinitariancandlesticks, bishops with mitres, and last and most gorgeous of all, the sceptred Patriarch bowing to the tiny Coptic Church in the corner, as his priests wheel and swing their censers towards it--all theelaborately jewelled ritual evolved by alien races from the simplelife and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. 

"O Jesus, brother in Israel, perhaps only those excluded from thissanctuary of thine can understand thee!"

VII

So thought the Scribe, as from the comparative safety of an uppermonastery where no Jewish foot had ever trod, he looked down upon theglowing, heaving mass. The right emotion did not come to him. He wasirritated; the thought of entering so historic and so Jewish a shrineonly at peril of his life, recalled the long intolerance of mediævalChristendom, the Dark Ages of the Ghettos. His imagination conjured upan ironic vision of himself as the sport of that seething mob, sawhimself seeking a last refuge in the Sepulchre, and falling deadacross the holy tomb. And then the close air charged with all thosebreaths and candles and censers, the jewelled pageantry flaunted inthat city of squalor and starvation, the military line of contemptuousMussulmen complicating the mutual contempt of the Christian sects, andreminding him of the obligation on a new Jewish State, if it evercame, to safeguard these divine curios; the grotesque incongruity ofall this around the tomb of the Prince of Peace, the tomb itself ofvery dubious authenticity, to say nothing of the thirty-sixparasitical sanctities!. . . 

He thought of the even more tumultuous scene about to be enacted hereon the day of the Greek fire: when in the awful darkness ofextinguished lamps, through a rift in the Holy Sepulchre within whichthe Patriarch prayed in solitude and darkness, a tongue of heavenlyflame would shoot, God's annual witness to the exclusive rightness ofthe Greek Church, and the poor foot-sore pilgrims, mad with ecstasy, would leap over one another to kindle their candles and torches at it, while a vessel now riding at anchor would haste with its freight ofsacred flame to kindle the church-lamps of Holy Russia. 

And then the long historic tragi-comedy of warring sects swept beforehim, the Greek Church regarding the Roman as astray in the sacramentsof Baptism and the Lord's Supper; at one with the Protestant only innot praying to the Virgin; every new misreading of human textssufficing to start a new heresy. 

VIII

He hated Palestine: the Jordan, the Mount of Olives, the holy bazaars, the geographical sanctity of shrines and soils, the long torture ofprophetic texts and apocalyptic interpretations, all the devotionalmaunderings of the fool and the Philistine. He would have had theBible prohibited for a century or two, till mankind should be able toread it with fresh vision and true profit. He wished that Christ hadcrucified the Jews and defeated the plan for the world's salvation. Ohappy Christ, to have died without foresight of the Crusades or theInquisition!

IX

Irritation passed into an immense pity for humanity, crucified uponthe cross whose limbs are Time and Space. Those poor Russian pilgrimsfaring foot-sore across the great frozen plains, lured on by thismirage of blessedness, sleeping by the wayside, and sometimes neverwaking again! Poor humanity, like a blind Oriental beggar on thedeserted roadway crying _Bakhshísh_ to vain skies, from whose hollowand futile spaces floats the lone word, _Mâfísh_--"there is nothing. "At least let it be ours to cover the poorest life with that human loveand pity which is God's vicegerent on earth, and to pass it gentlyinto the unknown. 

X

But since Christianity already covered these poor lives with love andpity, let them live in the beautiful illusion, so long as the uglyfacts did not break through! What mattered if these sites were true orfalse--the believing soul had made them true. All these stones wereholy, if only with the tears of the generations. The Greek fire mightbe a shameless fraud, but the true heavenly flame was the faith in it. The Christ story might be false, but it had idealized the basalthings--love, pity, self-sacrifice, purity, motherhood. And if anydivine force worked through history, then must the great commonillusions of mankind also be divine. And in a world--itself anillusion--what truths could there be save working truths, establishedby natural selection in the spiritual world, varying for differentraces, and maintaining themselves by correspondence with the changingneeds of the spirit?

XI

Absolute religious truth? How could there be such a thing? As well sayGerman was truer than French, or that Greek was more final thanArabic. Its religion like its speech was the way the deepest instinctsof a race found expression, and like a language a religion was deadwhen it ceased to change. Each religion gave the human soul somethinggreat to love, to live by, and to die for. And whosoever lived injoyous surrender to some greatness outside himself had religion, eventhough the world called him atheist. The finest souls too easilyabandoned the best words to the stupidest people. 

The time had come for a new religious expression, a new language forthe old everlasting emotions, in terms of the modern cosmos; areligion that should contradict no fact and check no inquiry; so thatchildren should grow up again with no distracting divorce from theirparents and their past, with no break in the sweet sanctities ofchildhood, which carry on to old age something of the freshness ofearly sensation, and are a fount of tears in the desert of life. 

The ever-living, darkly-laboring Hebraic spirit of love and righteousaspiration, the Holy Ghost that had inspired Judaism and Christianity, and moved equally in Mohammedanism and Protestantism, must now quickenand inform the new learning, which still lay dead and foreign, outsidehumanity. 

XII

If Evolution was a truth, what mystic force working in life! From thedevil-fish skulking towards his prey to the Christian laying down hislife for his fellow, refusing the reward of the stronger; from thepalpitating sac--all stomach--of embryonic life to the poet, themusician, the great thinker. The animality of average humanity madefor hope rather than for despair, when one remembered from what it haddeveloped. It was for man in this laboring cosmos to unite himselfwith the stream that made for goodness and beauty. 

XIII

A song came to him of the true God, whose name is one with Past, Present, and Future. 

YAHWEH

 I sing the uplift and the upwelling, I sing the yearning towards the sun, And the blind sea that lifts white hands of prayer. I sing the wild battle-cry of warriors and the sweet whispers of lovers, The dear word of the hearth and the altar, Aspiration, Inspiration, Compensation, God!

 The hint of beauty behind the turbid cities, The eternal laws that cleanse and cancel, The pity through the savagery of nature, The love atoning for the brothels, The Master-Artist behind his tragedies, Creator, Destroyer, Purifier, Avenger, God!

 Come into the circle of Love and Justice, Come into the brotherhood of Pity, Of Holiness and Health! Strike out glad limbs upon the sunny waters, Or be dragged down amid the rotting weeds, The festering bodies. Save thy soul from sandy barrenness, Let it blossom with roses and gleam with the living waters. 

 Blame not, nor reason of, your Past, Nor explain to Him your congenital weakness, But come, for He is remorseless, Call Him unjust, but come, Do not mock or defy Him, for he will prevail. He regardeth not you, He hath swallowed the worlds and the nations, He hath humor, too: disease and death for the smugly prosperous. 

 For such is the Law, stern, unchangeable, shining; Making dung from souls and souls from dung; Thrilling the dust to holy, beautiful spirit, And returning the spirit to dust. Come and ye shall know Peace and Joy. Let what ye desire of the Universe penetrate you, Let Loving-kindness and Mercy pass through you, And Truth be the Law of your mouth. For so ye are channels of the divine sea, Which may not flood the earth but only steal in Through rifts in your souls. 

THE END

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 +-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Typographical errors corrected in text: | | | | Page 72: Explusion replaced with Expulsion | | Page 265: doctines replaced with doctrines | | Page 267: 'How know we we are not' replaced with | | 'How know we are not' | | Page 301: suprised replaced with surprised | | Page 310: Christain replaced with Christian | | Page 203: 'to the the ruling religion' replaced with | | 'to the ruling religion' | | | | Unusual words: | | | | Page 183: astonied is an obsolete word for bewildered, | | dazed, astounded. | | Page 195: certes means certainly; truly. | | Page 197: vrouw means housewife; woman. | | Page 229: versts is an obsolete Russian unit of length. | | Page 400: the Richi is a mountain on the Lake of Lucerne. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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