Stories by Foreign Authors: German Volume II Part 5

"Why do you look at me so, Gudule?" he would testily ask her, at the slightest provocation.

Often when, as he explained, he had had "a specially good week," he would bring home the costliest gifts for his children. Gudule, however, made no use whatever of these trinkets, neither for herself nor for the children. She put the things away in drawers and cupboards, and never looked at them, more especially as she observed that, under some pretext or another, Ascher generally took those glittering things away again, "in order to exchange them for others," he said: as often as not never replacing them at all.

"Gudule!" he said one day, when he happened to be in a particularly good humor, "why do you let the key remain in the door of that bureau where you keep so many valuables?"

And again Gudule regarded him with those unfathomable eyes.

"There, you're ... looking at me again!" he exclaimed with sudden vehemence.

"They're safe enough in the cupboard," Gudule said, smiling, "why should I lock it?"

"Gudule, do you mean to say ..." he cried, raising his hand as for a blow. Then he fell back in his chair, and his frame was shaken with sobs.

"Gudule, my heart's love," he cried, "I am not worthy that your eyes should rest on me. Everywhere, wherever I go, they look at me, those eyes ... and that is my ruin. If business is bad, your eyes ask me, 'Why did you mix yourself up with these things, without a thought of wife or children?'... Then I feel as if some evil spirit possessed me and tortured my soul. Oh, why can't you look at me again as you did when you were my bride?--then you looked so happy, so lovely! At other times I think: 'I shall yet grasp fortune with both hands ... and then I can face my Gudule's eyes again.' But now, now ... oh, don't look at me, Gudule!"

There spoke the self-reproaching voice, which sometimes burst forth unbidden from a suffering soul.

As for Gudule, she already knew how to appreciate this cry of her husband's conscience at its true value. It was not that she felt one moment's doubt as to its sincerity, but she knew dot so far as it affected the future, it was a mere cry and nothing more.

The years rolled on. The children were growing up. Ephraim had entered his fifteenth year. Viola was a little pale girl of twelve. In opinion of the Ghetto they were the most extraordinary children in the world.

In the midst of the hara.s.sing life to which her marriage with the gambler had brought her, Gudule so reared them that they grew to be living reflections of her own inmost being. People wondered when they beheld the strange development of "Wild" Ascher's children.

Their natures were as proud and reserved as that of their mother. They did not a.s.sociate with the youth of the Ghetto; it seemed as though they were not of their kind, as though an insurmountable barrier divided them. And many a bitter sneer was hurled at Gudule's head.

"Does she imagine," she often heard people whisper, "that because her father was a farmer her children are princes? Let her remember that her husband is but a common gambler."

How different would have been their thoughts had they known that the children were Gudule's sole comfort. What their father had never heard from her, she poured into their youthful souls. No tear their mother shed was un.o.bserved by them; they knew when their father had lost and when he had won; they knew, too, all the varying moods of his unhinged mind; and in this terrible school of misery they acquired an instinctive intelligence, which in the eyes of strangers seemed mere precocity.

The two children, however, had early given evidence of a marked difference in disposition. Ephraim's nature was one of an almost feminine gentleness, whilst Viola was strong-willed and proudly reserved.

"Mother," she said one day, "do you think he will continue to play much longer?"

"Viola, how can you talk like that?" Ephraim cried, greatly disturbed.

Thereupon Viola impetuously flung her arms round her mother's neck, and for some moments she clung to her with all the strength of her pa.s.sionate nature. It was as though in that wild embrace she would fain pour forth the long pent-up sorrows of her blighted childhood.

"Mother!" she cried, "you are so good to him. Never, never shall he have such kindness from me!"

"Ephraim," said Gudule, "speak to your sister. In her sinful anger, Viola would revenge herself upon her own father. Does it so beseem a Jewish child?"

"Why does he treat you so cruelly, then?" Viola almost hissed the words.

Soon after fell the final crushing blow. Ascher had been away from home for some weeks, when one day Gudule received a letter, dated a prison in the neighborhood of Vienna. In words of genuine sympathy the writer explained that Ascher had been unfortunate enough to forge the signature to a bill. She would not see him again for the next five years. G.o.d comfort her! The letter was signed: "A fellow-sufferer with your husband."

As it had been with her old father, after he had bidden her a last farewell, so it was now with Gudule. From that moment her days were numbered, and although not a murmur escaped her lips, hour by hour she wasted away.

One Friday evening, shortly after the seven-branched Sabbath lamp had been lit, Gudule, seated in her arm-chair, out of which she had not moved all day, called the two children to her. A bright smile hovered around her lips, an unwonted fire burned in her still beautiful eyes, her bosom heaved ... in the eyes of her children she seemed strangely changed. "Children," said she, "come and stand by me. Ephraim, you stand here on my right, and you, dear Viola, on my left. I would like to tell you a little story, such as they tell little children to soothe them to sleep. Shall I?"

"Mother!" they both cried, as they bent towards her.

"You must not interrupt me, children," she observed, still with that strange smile on her lips, "but leave me to tell my little story in my own way.

"Listen, children," she resumed, after a brief pause. "Every human being--be he ever so wicked--if he have done but a single good deed on earth, will, when he arrives above, in the seventh heaven, get his Sechus, that is to say, the memory of the good he has done here below will be remembered and rewarded bountifully by the Almighty." Gudule ceased speaking. Suddenly a change came over her features: her breath came and went in labored gasps; but her brown eyes still gleamed brightly.

In tones well-nigh inaudible she continued: "When Jerusalem, the Holy City, was destroyed, the dead rose up out of their graves ... the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ... and also Moses, and Aaron his brother ... and David the King ... and prostrating themselves before G.o.d's throne they sobbed: 'Dost Thou not remember the deeds we have done?... Wouldst Thou now utterly destroy all these our children, even to the innocent babe at the breast?' But the Almighty was inexorable.

"Then Sarah, our mother, approached the Throne... When G.o.d beheld her, He covered His face, and wept. 'Go,' said He, 'I cannot listen to thee.'

... But she exclaimed ... 'Dost Thou no longer remember the tears I shed before I gave birth to my Joseph and Benjamin ... and dost Thou not remember the day when they buried me yonder, on the borders of the Promised Land ... and now, must mine eyes behold the slaughter of my children, their disgrace, and their captivity?'... Then G.o.d cried: 'For THY sake will I remember thy children and spare them.' ..."

"Would you like to know," Gudule suddenly cried, with uplifted voice, "what this Sechus is like? It has the form of an angel, and it stands near the Throne of the Almighty. ... But, since the days of Rachel, our mother, it is the Sechus of a mother that finds most favor in G.o.d's eyes. When a mother dies, her soul straightway soars heavenward, and there it takes its place amid the others.

"'Who art thou?' asks G.o.d. 'I am the Sechus of a mother,' is the answer, 'of a mother who has left children behind her on earth.' 'Then do thou stand here and keep guard over them!' says G.o.d. And when it is well with the children, it is the Sechus of a mother which has caused them to prosper, and when evil days befall them ... it is again the Angel who stands before G.o.d and pleads: 'Dost Thou forget that these children no longer have a mother?'... and the evil is averted. ..."

Gudule's voice had sunk to a mere whisper. Her eyes closed, her head fell back, her breathing became slower and more labored. "Are you still there, children?" she softly whispered.

Anxiously they bent over her. Then once again she opened her eyes.

"I see you still"--the words came with difficulty from her blanched lips--"you, Ephraim, and you, my little Viola ... I am sure my Sechus will plead for you ... for you and your father." They were Gudule's last words. When her children, whose eyes had never as yet been confronted with Death, called her by her name, covering her icy hands with burning kisses, their mother was no more ...

Who can tell what influence causes the downtrodden blade to raise itself once more! Is it the vivifying breath of the west wind, or a mysterious power sent forth from the bosom of Mother Earth? It was a touching sight to see how those two children, crushed as they were beneath the weight of a twofold blow, raised their heads again, and in their very desolation found new-born strength. And it filled the Ghetto with wonder. For what were they but the offspring of a gambler? Or was it the spirit of Gudule, their mother, that lived in them?

After Gudule's death, her eldest brother, the then owner of the grange, came over to discuss the future of his sister's children. He wished Ephraim and Viola to go with him to his home in Lower Bohemia, where he could find them occupation. The children, however, were opposed to the idea. They had taken no previous counsel together, yet, upon this point, both were in perfect accord,--they would prefer to be left in their old home.

"When father comes back again," said Ephraim, "he must know where to find us. But to you, Uncle Gabriel, he would never come."

The uncle then insisted that Viola at least should accompany him, for he had daughters at home whom she could a.s.sist in their duties in the house and on the farm. But the child clung to Ephraim, and with flaming eyes, and in a voice of proud disdain, which filled the simple farmer with something like terror, she cried:

"Uncle, you have enough to do to provide for your own daughters; don't let ME be an additional burden upon you; besides, sooner would I wander dest.i.tute through the world than be separated from my brother."

"And what do you propose to do then?" exclaimed the uncle, after he had somewhat recovered from his astonishment at Viola's vehemence.

"You see, Uncle Gabriel," said Ephraim, a sudden flush overspreading his grief-stricken features, "you see I have thought about it, and I have come to the conclusion that this is the best plan. Viola shall keep house, and I ... I'll start a business."

"YOU start a business?" cried the uncle with a loud laugh. "Perhaps you can tell me what price I'll get for my oats next market day? A business!... and what business, my lad?"

"Uncle," said Ephraim, "if I dispose of all that is left us, I shall have enough money to buy a small business. Others in our position have done the same... and then..."

"Well, and then?" the uncle cried, eagerly antic.i.p.ating his answer.

"Then the Sechus of our mother will come to our aid." Ephraim said softly.

The farmer's eyes grew dim with moisture; his sister had been very dear to him.

"As I live!" he cried, brushing his hand across his eyes, "you are true children of my sister Gudule. That's all _I_ can say."

Then, as though moved by a sudden impulse, he quickly produced, from the depths of his overcoat, a heavy pocketbook. "There!"... he cried, well-nigh out of breath, "there are a hundred gulden for you, Ephraim.

With that you can, at all events, make a start; and then you needn't sell the few things you still have. There ... put the money away... oats haven't fetched any price at all to-day, 'tis true; but for the sake of Gudule's children, I don't mind what I do... Come, put it away, Ephraim... and may G.o.d bless you, and make you prosper."