Gabriel Part 6

Blume sobbed violently, she folded her beautiful white hands, her lips moved silently in fervent prayer.

"Blume!" said Gabriel, after a moment's pause, in a dull unsteady voice. "If my deadly enemy, who bears an everlasting hatred to me, who strives with hot desire to drink my heart's blood--if my deadly enemy were to lay at my feet as I on that evening kneeled before thee, I who am steadfast in hate, I who know no pity, should weep hot tears of compa.s.sion--and I was not your enemy, I had loved you with a love as infelt and holy as is permitted to a human soul, I would have given the last drop of my heart's blood for one tear from your eyes,--and you, a weak, mild, pitiful woman, would not weep that tear.... You stood there dismayed, but did not keep off those furious one's.... What had I done to you? What was my transgression? Had not I been, to my mother's last breath, devout, n.o.ble, self-sacrificing?--Why did you solemnly inter the guilty mother as a contrite penitent, and cast out the innocent son? When I was cast forth from your house, Blume! when the last cable of my hope snapped there:--then I swore in my soul, a fearful undying vengeance: ... I love not men, I hate you Jews, but the most burning hate that man, or perhaps h.e.l.l is capable of, I bear against thy mother, thy husband, and far beyond all in my heart against thee."

"Then slay me," cried Blume hastily, "and leave my husband, my mother, leave all in peace! let the whole weight of your anger fall on my head, slay me, Gabriel, but spare the others...."

The tiny sleeper on her arms awoke again and stretched its hands smiling towards its mother. Blume shuddered and broke into loud sobbing: "No, Gabriel, slay me not, let me live, see me at thy feet,"--she cast herself upon her knees--"let me live, I supplicate not for myself, by the Almighty G.o.d, not for my own sake;--but look at this innocent babe, its father is far away, it has only its mother, could you be responsible for depriving it of its mother? You do not know what a mother feels for her child."

"Hush, Blume, and stand up!" cried Gabriel, pulling the kneeling woman up from the ground, and the veins in his forehead swelled high: "are you mad? Do you think I shall murder a defenceless woman? be composed, I shall not slay thee.... That is not the revenge I shall take."

Both were silent. Blume opened the window, she looked whether a light was still burning in the lecture-room, a faint glimmer shot from the windows of the distant edifice, she felt relieved by the knowledge that men were still awake there! A cold wind blew through the room, neither Gabriel or Blume observed it, only the child shivered in its mother's arms.

"You have suffered much," so Blume broke the long painful silence.

"You have fallen off from the faith of your fathers? You are ..., you were...."

Blume knew not what she said, but this silence of the grave was mortal to her, she was constrained to speak, and almost involuntarily emitted these words from her lips.

"From the faith of my fathers!" re-echoed Gabriel; "you choose your words well, each is a poisoned arrow and barbed--have I then forsaken the faith of my fathers? Do I forsooth know my father? For ten years have I sought him, and thee," he continued thoughtfully, "thee have I found,--shall I ever discover him, whom perhaps--and supposing I did find him," said Gabriel after a long silence, inwardly communing, and rather as addressing himself, "would the voice of nature, as silly men declare, conquer? Full of infinite love should I fling myself into my father's arms, or should I be possessed with an unspeakable hatred against the faithless traitor, who was perhaps wantoning in luxury, when his child, loaded with insult and scorn, was cast out from the threshold of that house that he had for twenty years called home! If he proves such a man, if he has forgotten me, if he has never been mindful of the unhappy one whom to his everlasting misery he tossed out into the wide desolate world; if he proves like the mother, who even on her death-bed betrayed her child, if he should prove such, and I do find him, Blume: I shall gloriously conclude my wretched existence with a parricide."

Blume shuddered. Gabriel threw himself into a chair and hid his face with both hands.

"But if it is not so, supposing it otherwise," he began again after a long pause, in the course of which the foaming billows of his wrath had sunk, "if the apparition in my youth was a truth and no deception, if his tears did indeed once bedew the face of his child, if my father has been pining in infinite sorrow for his long lost son, if his heart has been sighing after me with the same strange emotion as sometimes in hours of quiet rises convulsively in the depths of my soul, if racked by repentance and the stings of conscience he has been seeking me mad with grief.... if I should find him thus, though he were the meanest on earth, the wretchedest beggar to whom one flings a morsel of bread--and stood before me in that condition--Blume! I have often declared, and now repeat, by my troth, and knightly honour! I should fold him lovingly in my arms.... and though it were the last moment of my life, my last breath--my last, yea dying breath should be a loud Hallelujah."

Gabriel stopped suddenly, Blume too had for some time been listening.

Out of the bushes in a distant corner of the graveyard, on the gusts of a favouring wind, sounds of lamentation came born to the ears of both of them. Each for a time had accepted what was heard as a deception to be accounted for by the fearful excitement of the moment; but the sounds, at first dying away with a hollow echo, came nearer:

"My Son, my Son;" it rung now clearer and clearer in their ears, "my much loved only child--where art thou? Come to me, thou dear one....

thou wert born in sin, but I love thee in spite of all! for in truth you are my only son! Where can I find thee? could I find thee in heaven, I would seek thee there; could I find thee far over the sea, I would seek thee there.--Where art thou, thou that wert conceived in sin, thou that art so near to my heart? approach me and let us crave mercy at my father's grave, perhaps G.o.d will have compa.s.sion on me, will pardon me!... Oh! if my son but lives and I may see him again: then, then would I die!..."

The clock on a neighbouring tower tolled midnight, a wind sprung up, and sighed over the wide desolate s.p.a.ce of the graveyard.... the clang of the clock, the rustling of the wind drowned the words which again died away in the distance. Gabriel had become deadly pale. He stepped to the window, and gazed for a long while down: but saw nothing. "It was an illusion," he said softly, quickly recovering himself by a wonderful mental effort--"my sharp glance detects nothing in the wide, and snow-covered s.p.a.ce--and the dead have no voice."

Blume shivered, she did not dare announce that she too had heard the ghostly cry from the graveyard. Gabriel stared fixedly before him, sunk in gloomy brooding. Blume tried to read his soul. She had never seen him since that fateful day of the feast of atonement. He, who had once loved her, who had once clung with the perfect fresh strength of youth to his faith, to humanity, to his people, to justice, had become a changed man. Branded by holy scripture, which human wisdom can never quite interpret, betrayed by his mother whom he idolized, driven from her presence, cast forth from the society of his brethren--his soul was filled with hate. But even his hate she was unable to fathom. When he had entered, she feared that he would rob her of her child, that he would slay herself--that he would not do so, was now clear--but she dared not yet be tranquil, for he had declared that he hated her, that he would be revenged upon her. In pitiful sorrow she gazed motionless at his lips, at every movement of which her blood again ran cold: though his silence seemed to her yet more horrible. Once more one of those long and oft-recurring pauses had intervened, that seemed to Blume to last an eternity. Her unspeakable oppression was intensified by the profound impression caused by the singular incident that had just occurred, by astonishment at Gabriel who seemed by force of will to have soon banished it from his soul.

"Gabriel," implored Blume, "I pray thee, speak, break this weird silence, it is awful! say what thou wilt, go on with your story."

"Dost thou consider Blume! thy silence was once awful to me too....

once thou hadest no word of pity, no look of compa.s.sion for a poor innocent martyr, and I languished for a word of love.--Had my grandfather then still continued to live at Cologne perhaps.... I do not know, but perhaps he, he alone, would have taken me to his arms.

But the fearful tidings, that branded his daughter, his grandson, gave his name a prey to the scornful, and blighted his dearest hopes, threw the old man on a bed of death. I arrived two days after his funeral at Cologne. Every one shunned me, my misfortune was known to all my brethren in the faith.

"I took possession, as heir, of my grandfather's immense property. I was no longer attached by any tie to this life, all that I had loved, I was constrained to hate, that which had once been true and holy to me, now seemed to me lying and false, I was the unhappiest man on earth! I broke with my whole past life, I would have none of it live on within me, except the remembrance of my unmerited humiliation, that fanned the hot flame of my revenge with undiminished fury.... I sought by some overt act to prove that I had become a changed man. In the cathedral at Aix-la-chapelle I abjured the old faith, and swore enmity in my heart against all those that clave to it.... As I came out of the church a crowd of people had a.s.sembled to gape at the new convert. I did not lift my eyes; but felt that the odious looks of all were fixed upon me.

I hurried through the press, and sought to gain a side street that led to my dwelling. The crowd that accompanied me fell off one by one, and at last I heard the step of but one solitary person behind me, who followed me obstinately to the door of my house. I did not look round, but as I was about to step into the house, I felt myself seized by the cloak. 'What do you want?' I asked of the importunate fellow, a beggar in the dress of a poor Jew. 'Nothing,' replied he, with the wandering gaze of madness, 'nothing, except to tell you, that you have done wrong.... Thou hast forsaken thy Father in heaven.... and a good child seeks his father, even though he has prepared sorrow for him.... There is no greater grief than when father and son seek and cannot find one another!...' The maniac ran quickly away: but his words, burnt into my soul like kindled sparks.--I did not know my father! my mother had died without naming his name.--The high reputation for virtue which she had enjoyed during her lifetime, had not permitted the faintest doubt to rest upon her, and even if I had ventured to induce my brethren to make any revelations, my inquiries would have been vain. I had as yet been too stunned to think of my unknown father; but now, with the wild thirst for vengeance on you all, was a.s.sociated a feeling, so singular, so wonderful, that I can never describe it. At one moment I was inflamed with unutterable hate against the unknown author of my days, at another I felt myself more mildly disposed, and a profound longing took possession of my torn heart. At one moment I believed myself convinced that he had forgotten me, and revelled with undisturbed and cheerful mind in earthly happiness, while his son succ.u.mbed before a woeful affliction; at another I hoped that he, who had never betrayed me, who had never for years enforced his paternal authority, had omitted to do so by reason of his inextinguishable love for me. A tormenting, frequently rapid succession of emotions took powerful hold on my heart; but from that moment a desire was born within me to find my father, were it to demand fearful reckoning of him, or were it to fall reconciled into his fatherly arms!

"Three days later I received intelligence that they had wedded you to your betrothed. You were in a great hurry, and your grandfather's death could not deter you from your hasty resolution. Thou, my ardently beloved adored bride, gavest thy hand to him who had disgracefully mis-used me as I lay on my knees in supplication before thee!... The marriage was solemnized at Worms, while I in Aix was languishing in maddest grief!--My determination to be avenged remained firm and immovable, but I was as yet too weak, too powerless to carry it into effect!"

Gabriel ceased, pressed both hands to his burning forehead and went on, after a long pause, pa.s.sionlessly almost calmly.

"I was restless and changeable, I knew not whither to turn my steps, nor what to set about. War was kindled in a part of Germany, but I did not care about it, I was indifferent to it. I wandered in wild fury from city to city, from village to village; and found nowhere peace and rest. I was often forced to rise in the middle of the night and travel further: an irresistible power seemed to urge me on. One stormy winter's night I had arrived at a small town in the district of Juliers, and intended to pa.s.s the night there: but sleep fled my wearied eyes, about midnight I arose and had my horse saddled. My servant resolutely refused to go on in the fearful storm, people dissuaded me from continuing my journey, the roads were unsafe.--Nothing could restrain me, some impulse drove me abroad!... I may have ridden for two hours objectless, when I suddenly heard a report of firearms. I rode in the direction whence the noise came, and saw by the light of the full moon, that momentarily appeared through an opening in the wind-riven clouds, a group of hors.e.m.e.n engaged at a short distance in a fierce struggle. I almost involuntarily spurred my horse to a swifter pace, and first held rein when close to the angry fight. This was an unequal one. Five hors.e.m.e.n, manifestly the aggressors, formed a half circle round a tall and knightly form.

Enveloped in a white mantle, his head protected by an open dragoon's helmet, the man who was attacked was obliged at the moment of my arrival to make head alone against the superior number, for his attendant had fallen shortly before, wounded by a pistol-shot. I remained for a moment an inactive spectator. Two corpses and two masterless steeds on the side of the a.s.sailants proved beyond a doubt that the White-mantle and his companion had made good use of their fire-arms; but now that this last had been put hors-de-combat the other was fully occupied in parrying the thrusts of the attacking party. The moon threw its pale light on the White-mantle, who, with lips fast pressed, flashing eye and steady hand covered himself against every a.s.sault, and wielded his mighty sword with almost superhuman strength.

The weapons clashed, other wise there was a profound stillness. I approached in rear of the a.s.sailants. When he who was sore pressed saw me, a ray of hope seemed to flit over his pale n.o.ble features; but no sound escaped his lips. My arrival altered the position of affairs. Two of the hors.e.m.e.n wheeled round and presented their pistols at me.

'Brandenburgian or Imperialist?' they cried.--'It's all the same to me,' was my honest answer. One of my interrogators now turned about, and aimed steady and sure at the head of the White-mantle. At that moment my full sympathy was aroused for the man whose life was threatened.

"He was forsaken, alone against many:--without a.n.a.lysing my motive, driven by some inner impulse without even knowing to what party he belonged, I drew the pistols from my holster, and shot down the man who had taken aim. 'Receive my thanks, Saviour in the hour of need, I will never forget you,' cried White-mantle, raising himself, as if endued with fresh strength, high in his saddle, and directing against one of his surprised opponents a blow so mighty that he fell lifeless to the ground. We were now two against three--the White-mantle was saved--with a wonderful inimitable, caracole he placed his horse by my side. I had not time to discharge my second pistol, for our opponents, well skilled in arms, pressed us with redoubled impetuosity. I tore the sword from my side and fought with that boundless untamed fury that filled my heart. The hot fight did me good, I did not feel the blood, trickling from my arm, but on a sudden out of the neighbouring thicket a ball whistled by my ear, I fell wounded.... White-mantle supported me with one arm, with the other still kept brandishing his mighty weapon. At that instant I heard the tramp of horses, but closed my eyes and lost consciousness. Eight days later when I recovered my senses I found myself to my astonishment in a handsome apartment in Juliers.... I was lying in bed--I learnt that the warrior, whose life I had saved, was the Imperialist General, Count Ernest of Mannsfield, Margrave of Castelnuovo and Bortigliere. Brandenburgian hors.e.m.e.n had laid in wait for him, when he rashly enough, accompanied only by his lieutenant, had set out on his way back to the city. The ball which had struck me, was fired by some sharp-shooters from Neuberg, who had come to the aid of the Brandenburgers: but the report of fire-arms had at the same instant brought up some Imperial dragoons whose arrival had settled the small skirmish in our favour. They told me that Mannsfield was ardently desirous of offering his thanks to me for the unexpected help, and when I declared that I now felt myself well and strong enough to receive his visit, some moments afterwards he entered my room. Mannsfield was at that time twenty years old. He was a tall powerful man; his extraordinarily pale earnest face with pointed Spanish beard and mustachios was framed with dark waving locks, his large eyes gazed feelingly at me, he held out his hand. 'I thank thee, Brother,' he said with emotion, and each of his words made a deep impression upon my poor heart, void of love.--'Thou hast saved my life, I will never--may G.o.d help me--forget thee! You were ignorant whom you succoured, you offered--as a good soldier should--a saving hand, not to the Count Mannsfield, not to the Imperial Marshal, no, to the man, to the hard pressed worn-out unknown soldier! no oath bound you, what you did for me had its source only in the free will of your n.o.ble soul....'

"Blume! you had all rejected me, I stood alone in the wide world, my heart, that could love so warmly, so boundlessly, was desolate and bleeding. Each word of Mannsfield's dropped balsam upon the wounds of my soul: an emotion, so profound, as could only be excited in me at a time when still credulous and undeceived, I dared live for a sweet delusion, thrilled through me; my whole heart expanded to his words, I pressed the hand of the n.o.ble soldier, and hot tears rolled from my eyes. 'Now if you are strong enough, and talking does not try you,'

continued Mannsfield, 'let me learn the name of my saviour. What is thy escutcheon, where is thy home?'

"Drops of agony stood on my forehead. Once more the past moved in swift flight over my soul, all seemed to me a confused dream! I fought a hard fight with myself; chance had led me to a powerful grateful friend, could I venture to narrate to him frankly and unconstrainedly my life's history? Had I not reason to fear that the renowned hero, the General, the Emperor's favourite would turn scornfully from me? from me, a renegade Jew, an outcast of his brethren, a man branded from his birth?

Mannsfield remarked my hesitation. 'I will not urge you,' he continued after a pause of surprise: 'perhaps a mystery hangs over your name--I am sorry, but be you what or who you will you will ever remain dear to me--a thought suddenly flashed across him. Perhaps you are a Protestant? perhaps an adherent of the Union?' he exclaimed, 'ah how little you know Mannsfield! By G.o.d Almighty--be you who you will--you are prized by and dear to me.... Shall I speak to you in confidence? I am at the bottom of my heart not averse to the Protestantism, which I now do battle against under the standard of my glorious Imperial master:--But I am rivetted to the ill.u.s.trious House of Austria by a bond of grat.i.tude: I was brought up at the Court of my G.o.dfather the Archduke Ernest; I have to thank my Imperial lord and master for all that I am, and why should I conceal from you, my preserver, that for which I have so often been compelled to blush, and what half Germany knows.... I was not born in lawful wedlock, and I only owe it to the especial favour and grace of the monarch, that he permits me to enjoy the name and rank of my father, that he has legitimised me, that he has pledged his Imperial word as soon as the war which we are now waging is over, to invest me with all my father's possessions. Mannsfield's words made a tremendous impression upon me. Blind chance had wonderfully guided me. That the birth of this man, whom I had saved, who was soliciting my friendship and love should have been first legitimised by the absolute command of the Emperor, that I had saved him while my heart was overflowing with hate, that he, the brave lion-hearted hero who had staked his life thousands of times for his Emperor, his colours, his glory, laid such stress upon it, all this had such a decisive influence upon me, that I broke the deep silence, which I had firmly intended to preserve, and revealed to Mannsfield my whole past history. Mannsfield listened to me with the warmest infelt sympathy.

'You are alone in the world,' he said, after I had ended, in the harmonious accents of his powerful voice, 'you have saved my life....

Your secret shall for ever be preserved in my breast--will you be my brother?' Mannsfield gazed at me out of his deep dark eyes so cordially, so lovingly. My heart beat as if it would burst. Mannsfield despised me not, Mannsfield did not hold out to me only a poor common oblation of compa.s.sion: no, he offered me all his great heart--could I refuse the too-bountiful present? Tears, that rolled from my eyes, were my only answer. We sealed the compact with a long fraternal embrace.--Eight days afterwards I was entirely recovered, and was presented to the a.s.sembled officers as a new companion in arms at a banquet given in Mannsfield's honour. They had named me at my baptism Gottfried. But G.o.d was no longer in my heart, peace was never in my soul, I banished both from my name, and called myself Otto Bitter.

I took service in the Imperial army under that perfectly unknown name.--The vast wealth that I had inherited from my grandfather supplied the means of equipping at my own cost some troops of cavalry, in return for which I was appointed to their command. Fortune, which favoured my arms, in conjunction with Mannsfield's inexhaustible affection for me, quickly promoted me from step to step and allowed me to take conspicuous rank in the army under Arch-duke Leopold which was detailed to operate against the Unionists in the Cleves-Juliers district. The continuance of the war had fully occupied me, but spite of the fact that my past history was to remain a mystery to every one except Mannsfield, I had succeeded in obtaining tidings of thee and thine. I was indeed far from you, but in spirit I stood ever near you, I never lost sight of you for a moment--after a series of battles the Protestant Union at length concluded a peace with the Emperor, in order to oppose their whole force to the newly formed Catholic confederacy, the League. I was free, I wished to hurry to Worms, to appear before thee and thine, and settle accounts with you--but a new and unexpected turn in the fortunes of my friend Mannsfield hindered me. Mannsfield had confidently expected that the Emperor at the end of the campaign would have invested him with the possessions of his deceased father who had been Stadtholder in Luxembourg. The war of succession in Juliers and Cleves was over; the complication in Alsace arranged: Mannsfield had rendered the Emperor substantial services; he had shed his blood upon the field of battle; he had squandered his rich maternal heritage in warlike armaments, without demanding compensation for it: it was only through Mannsfield's zeal, through his high military talents and spirit of self-sacrifice that the Imperial General-in-chief the Arch-duke Leopold had been enabled to make head successfully against a superior force. Mannsfield now applied for the desired investment, but was shamefully refused. His proud spirit could not brook the slight which was inflicted on him, he retired from the Imperial service, and devoted his zeal and victorious sword to the evangelical Union. It was perfectly indifferent to me, for whom or what I fought.--A firm indissoluble bond of friendship united me to Mannsfield, I could not hesitate a moment, I ranged myself by Mannsfield's side. Victory was tied to Mannsfield's standard. I was his truest and best companion in arms, the fortune of war was favourable to me; loved by Mannsfield, idolised by the troops I now became the first officer in his army.--In the meanwhile a persecution of the Jews had broken out in Frankfurt stirred up by Vettmilch, Gerngross and Schopp. The Jewish quarter was plundered and wasted, the life of your brethren threatened. The rabble at Worms wished to follow the example of Frankfurt and a pretext was easily found. Your family, the Rottenbergs, had some, I do not doubt well grounded claim, against a Frankfurt patrician; he died, and his son who had been admitted to the rights and privileges of a citizen at Worms found it most convenient to get rid of the obligation into which his father had entered, first by disputing the demand as usurious, but afterwards the receipt for the debt as forged. The honour, property, safety of your family were all equally endangered. The workmen at Worms, friendly to a hasty course as it was a question of using violence against the Jews, looked upon the private suit as a public concern and demanded from the Imperial Chamber at Spires the immediate expulsion of all Jews from Worms. They were sent back and ordered to follow the usual course of justice in reference to your affair. But the Imperial judges were stern and just, and there was no doubt therefore, that you would win your cause. The trades, irritated to the highest degree by the failure of their plan, demanded that you should make a sacrifice of your claim, and moreover in order to save the honour of their fellow citizen should declare the proofs to be forged. You made up your minds to lose the sum, which was a considerable one, but no one could persuade you to make a false dishonourable confession. Vain was the pressure of the workmen, vain the prayers of your brethren in Worms, who were blind enough not to detect the clumsy artifice and believed in their simplicity that the artisans of Worms would be appeased by this declaration, and undertake no further hostilities against the Jews. You remained firm and in the week before Easter the wild storm broke loose. The magistrates, though with the best intentions, too feeble to protect you, were obliged to look on bewildered and inactive, while the Jews were expelled, their ancient synagogues demolished their burial ground desecrated.--It was only through the immense exertions of the Bishop, who only arrived in Worms late in the evening of that hapless day, that the wild fury of the populace was at length bridled. A general plunder was prevented, too late however for you, against whom the popular hatred had first vented itself. Your house was entirely demolished, you were plundered, your father was roughly handled. You had only escaped a certain death by speedy flight. Your father died from the effects of the fright and ill-usage that he had experienced.--The Frankfurt rebels were subdued by force of arms. An Imperial commissioner punished the guilty and the Jews returned in triumph to the city. In Worms also the insurgents soon surrendered to the Imperial troops, the Jews were recalled and honourably re-instated in their ancient residences. But you never returned. The community of Worms maintained that the calamity was attributable to your obstinacy, that much worse might have happened, that you should have sacrificed your honour and pride to the common-weal. The community excluded you from the midst of them. Poor and wretched, concealing your shame under an a.s.sumed name, you were forced to seize the beggar's staff and start on a wide uncertain wandering. The punishment was hard, but you had deserved it for your behaviour to me!"

Blume had again silently listened to Gabriel without interrupting him.

It seemed to her almost as if he took pleasure in the pleasing broad circ.u.mstantiality of the story as he told it. As if he took a pleasure in embodying in living sounding words his whole past, that he must for years have kept sealed in his heart. As he spoke of that time when he was far from her, he seemed to become more calm. A mild conciliatory spirit seemed to come over him, when he referred to Mannsfield and the firm bond of friendship that united their hearts to one another. When he spoke of the persecution of the innocent Jews in Frankfurt and Worms it seemed to her as if love for his former brethren was not yet altogether dead in him, as if a feeling of compa.s.sion still stirred in the depths of his almost inscrutable soul. She already yielded to the delusive hope that Gabriel was only come to forgive her and had only wished to give her a fright by calling up the memory of the past. The earnest warning was to serve only to annihilate her by the full weight of his magnanimity;--but when he once more probed with rough hand her bleeding wounds, when he once more spoke of punishment, thought of retaliation, she again sunk down, covering her beautiful face with both hands. Gabriel did not notice it. "From that moment I lost all trace of you. I had joined fortune with my friend Mannsfield, and was hurried from one end of Germany to the other. Everywhere I looked sharply out for thee. If I came into the neighbourhood of a Jewish community, I often exchanged armour and helm for cloak and cap, in order to obtain admittance into it as a travelling student that I might search thee out. When my disguise could not be kept secret from those about me, a silly foolish love-affair with a Jewish girl served as an excuse for it. My inquiries were in vain, but I doubted not, I was convinced that I must some day find you.... We were just on the point of hurrying off to the a.s.sistance of the Duke of Savoy, a member of the Union, when suddenly the flame of war was kindled in Bohemia. The duke no longer required reinforcement, it was a matter of indifference to Mannsfield in what quarter he waged war on behalf of Protestantism against the Emperor: we marched therefore at the request of the Bohemian states, who took us into their pay, to Bohemia. Our arrival was immediately ill.u.s.trated by a victory, we took the strong and disaffected city of Pilsen. The Emperor was exasperated to the highest pitch by the loss of this loyal city, and Mannsfield and I his chief officer, were put under the ban of the Empire. Meanwhile the Bohemians had elected the Palatine Frederick their king. The selection was an unfortunate one. Frederick appointed Anhalt and Hohenlohe commanders-in-chief of his army and Mannsfield remained at Pilsen at a distance from head-quarters in order to escape serving under both of them. We found ourselves badly off. Pay and support, as well from the Union as from the Palatine, failed.

Mannsfield was obliged to keep the army on foot without money. To fill up the measure of our misfortunes, that portion of the country in which we were encamped was attached to the Imperial party and we were surrounded by spies.--We were obliged to observe the greatest watchfulness and every one, who afforded the slightest ground for suspecting him of being a spy, was arrested and strictly examined. A travelling Jew was once detained; it was known that the Jews of Prague were zealous and faithful partisans of the imperial faction, it was not impossible, that he was a spy. He was brought before me, I recognised him immediately. He had formerly been with me for some time at the high school at Frankfurt, I had seen him too several times at Worms. My altered situation made me quite irrecognisable. To his astonishment I asked him if he knew anything of your whereabouts, and he reluctantly confessed to me that he had caught a glimpse of the long lost woman in Prague, but that you had timidly shunned any meeting. The poor student had not had the remotest intention of acting as a spy and only wished to travel to Furth. I dismissed him, unenlightened, but with a munificent present. It had been suggested long before that I should undertake a journey to Prague in order to pet.i.tion the king for the arrears of pay, and to talk over a common plan of campaign with Anhalt.

I had hitherto put off the troublesome business, but when I learnt that you were at Prague, I declared myself at once ready for the journey. I arrived here and after three days of ineffectual exertion with king and council, I resolved to stay here till I had discovered you.... I had taken up my quarters in the house of an armourer who had once served as sergeant-major in my regiment.--He had become incapable of further service, and had joined the great swarm of foreigners who had come to Prague with the Palatine. He had always been devoted to me and I could reckon upon his fidelity and secrecy..... I once more pretended a love-affair, when I exchanged the dress of a General for that of a student. I went into the Jews-town and a.s.sumed the family name of Mar.

By a fortunate coincidence I found a lodging in the house of the upper-attendant of the synagogue, Reb Schlome Sachs. Situated outside of the gate of the Ghetto it was peculiarly adapted for the double purpose of my residence here. Immediately on my entrance into the Ghetto too I had, in a really inexplicable way, found favour in the eyes of a usually reserved and maniacal old man, and I felt myself, without being able to give a reason for it, stirred by an unwonted feeling of sympathy for him--perhaps, as I was afterwards obliged to admit, on the ground that his strange madness reminded me of the misfortune of my own life. I was a stranger in the Jewish community of Prague: you lived here quiet and retired under an a.s.sumed foreign name.

Every enquiry among your co-religionists gave occasion for a well founded suspicion against me, rendered a discovery of my true relation to them possible. It was therefore only through the intermediation of the lunatic that I could hope to discover you: but when I sought him for the second time in his dwelling, I found it shut up, and since the day of my arrival I have never been able to obtain a sight of him. But as I knew that he communicated with n.o.body, I could at least allege my acquaintance with him, which was concluded in open street, as an excuse for my frequent absence from home, and my landlord Reb Schlome Sachs often believed me to be sympathetically seated by the madman while I was engaged in negotiating with the king and field-marshal about pay in arrear, or campaigns that had miscarried. I ranged through the streets of the Jews-town a.s.siduously, but never saw you. I was almost in despair of finding you here, when a lucky chance led you yesterday to meet me at the threshold of the bathhouse, exactly _yesterday_, when by a concurrence of events I became master of your destiny. Yesterday, after a martyrdom of ten years, I found thee; today I stand before thee...."

Blume had again been listening to Gabriel without uttering a word. He had again, either in self-forgetfulness or mastering his unbridled pa.s.sion by an astonishing exercise of mental strength been addressing her in the accents of former years. Blume gave way as before to a consoling hope, but Gabriel's last words dispelled all her illusions.

"What do you want of me?" she cried again, lifting herself up and bending involuntarily over the cradle of her child. "What do you want of me? Speak it out, Gabriel! and torture me not to death with protracted anguish...."

"Thou askest what I want?" shouted Gabriel with flashing glance, and his voice sounded like the growling of a thunderstorm: "what I want?

_thee!_ thou wert mine, Blume! from thy birth up thou wert destined for me, the covenant which our parents had concluded for us, we confirmed by the bond of love--_thou_ hast loosened the beautiful bond of love, and now Hate binds me to thee! If it is no longer the heaving of thy voluptuous bosom, if it is no longer the waving of thy dark luxurious tresses, if it is no more the flashing of those beautiful love-kindling eyes, or those rosy budding lips which rapturously attract me to thee.... Why then it is the sweet stupifying poison of revenge! you rejected me, you trampled upon me, ... for a sin that I never committed--if the curse of that sin bears heavily upon my wretched tainted existence--I will at least taste the sweetness of the sin.... I will...."

Blume was for a moment motionless from horror, then seized her child impetuously, opened the window and leaned far out of it, as though to call for help--Gabriel seized her by the arm.

"Be still, Blume," he said, "be not afraid, I shall do nothing by brute force. Thou wilt have time for consideration, and thou wilt throw thyself supplicatingly into my arms.... I give you a week for consideration.... but I believe your resolution will be taken sooner.... Eight days hence, Sunday the eighth of November--it is exactly the anniversary of our betrothal--I shall be with you by midnight.... Wilt thou be mine?"

G.o.d-forsaken! screamed Blume beside herself with fury, with flaming face and sparkling eyes: "dost thou desire _that_ of me, of me, the wife of another, the devout Jewess, the faithful wife, the tender mother? Yes my resolve is quickly made...."

"It is because you are the wife of another man," interrupted Gabriel, "that I do desire it.--_Wert thou free_, and lying at my feet in all the infinite beauty that neither sorrow nor wretchedness can rob you of, wert thou imploring one glance of love--I should spurn thee from me, as thou didst spurn me,--but the bond of wedlock enchains thee!

thou shalt sin, thy hard marble heart shall learn to know the bitter torments of remorse,--and it is because thou art a faithful wife, because thou lovest thy husband, because thou wouldest preserve a father for his child that I expect the fulfilment of my wish."--He drew a packet from his breast-pocket, it contained some small ma.n.u.script parchment rolls and a sheet of paper; he handed them in silence to the woman who trembled with rage and grief.

"That is my husband's writing!" shrieked Blume, "those are the texts that he has copied.... G.o.d! there is one of my letters. How did you come into possession of these writings? Where is my husband? speak!"

"Read," answered Gabriel, and held out to her Mannsfield's letter which he had received the day before from the ensign. Blume devoured the writing eagerly, but when she came to the last lines, she tottered and was obliged to steady herself by the arm of the chair. The characters danced before her eyes.... "I cannot read it," she said, "do thou read!"

Gabriel read:

"With regard to the above mentioned Jew, whom my outposts arrested, I think that he is innocent. I was obliged to exercise all my authority to prevent his being torn in pieces by the exasperated soldiery, or hanged on the nearest tree; even some of the officers voted for his death. Seeing that the suspicious writings found upon him are according to his own account Hebrew bible-texts and letters from his wife I have sent them to you to be tested, and your report as to the contents of the writings will give him death or freedom.--The whole affair however is so insignificant that you will have no need to detain Michalowitz respecting it. Only in the event of the Jew being a spy, and the contents of the writings therefore of importance to us, will it be necessary for you to send me advice by a trooper: otherwise on account of the insecurity of the roads to Pilsen do not send me any messenger...."

"Now," cried Blume, hastily, "you see, it is not a cipher, it is only texts and my letters. Have you despatched the messenger who will solve the inauspicious misunderstanding?"

"No! My answer will depend on thine.... Will you eight days hence submit yourself to my will?"

"And if I answer no, what will you do?" asked Blume with the utmost eagerness.