The Jew Part 40

REUNION OF THE n.o.bLES.

Jacob, impressed by Gromof's words, sought an interview with Kruder or Ivas. The first was out, and the second he could not find. Returning from his search he learned that the people were a.s.sembled for the funerals of the previous night's victims. An irresistible impulse seized him, and he arrived, he hardly knew how, at the spot where the five victims had fallen. The place, after the murder, had been completely deserted. In the souls of the people surged an exaltation, a virility, a confidence which only demanded a signal of authority to become a revolution. They had lacked arms, but they had torn them from the Russian troops.

Soldiers and officers seemed ashamed of the attack. The government itself, after so cold-blooded an act, hesitated. Orders were received from Petersburg to display a pitiless firmness, but they dared not execute them. It almost seemed as if remorse had overtaken the representatives of the Czar at Warsaw. Was it really remorse? No, it was rather a ruse.

Clubs gathered in the open air and met everywhere without being disturbed by the police. For the first time in Poland they enjoyed under Muscovite rule a semblance of liberty. The capital was under the control of its inhabitants; in the circle of commerce delegates were chosen, whose duty was to present to Prince Gortchakof, Namiestnik of the kingdom, the will of the people. This removal of the yoke of the oppressor lasted for several days,--from March to April. Sad as its beginning had been, the nation breathed; she was free for the moment.

Those who took part in the deeds of these days guard them in their memory as the most memorable episode of their lives. I doubt if it has ever been given a man to see twice, anything as imposing.

Jacob walked about the city, his heart filled with sweet emotions; a single thought occupied him, that of the fusion of the Israelites with the rest of the nation. The hour was propitious, the moment was decisive. In spite of little sympathy for Mann, he realized that he could undertake nothing without his influence. Mann had not been chosen a delegate, for the Jews were represented to their satisfaction in the person of the wealthy and honourable Matthieu Rosen, a man of rare merit. He urged his people and their rabbis to join in the patriotic movement, for by that means they would share in a union of sentiments and aspirations with the Christian population and their clergy. A similar union had occurred in 1848, at Cracow. At that time the coffins of the ma.s.sacred Jews were stationed before the church of Sainte Marie.

At present they must guard against the pride and fanaticism of the Christians on one side, and the narrow-minded selfishness of the Jews on the other. Jacob hastened to consult Mann on this subject, but found him absent. But the young man's wishes, expressed at the late council of his brethren, were soon realized by an administrative decree.

Jacob went to see the delegates, who in the silence of the night were occupied arranging for the funerals. They had at this time all authority concentrated in their hands. The Jew foresaw how fleeting this authority would be. These men were honest, but without the energy required for such a crisis, and they would in a short time lose their wits and abdicate the popular sovereignty confided to their keeping.

The funeral details were arranged. Even the most intolerant of the Christians felt the necessity, in spite of their prejudices, of uniting for the time being with the Jews in perfect fraternity. Jacob pa.s.sed a sleepless night on one of the benches of the a.s.sembly room. At daybreak he again hastened to Mann's house. He found him a little irritated that the popular vote had preferred Rosen to himself, and he had retired like Achilles to his tent. The pompous old fellow was awake and already surrounded with visitors, although he had not finished his toilet.

Booted, but in his shirt, he presented a laughable spectacle on account of his extreme corpulence. He, no doubt, noticed this himself, for he interrupted himself in the middle of a heated harangue, to which his visitors listened respectfully, to throw over his shoulders a cotton dressing-gown.

"Ah!" said he, "our friends the n.o.bles have become, then, meek as lambs. It is they who first ask to embrace us. One sees that they know the proverb,--

'Dans l'embarras Va chez Judas.'

It is for us to remember the other part of the verse:--

'Plus d'embarras Va t'en, Judas.'"

"The harmony is well established," said Bartold. "It is sincere; we must take advantage of it."

"No; it is not peace, it is only a truce. The Agricultural Society, representative of the n.o.bles, continues to repulse us. Its secretary has sent Matthieu Rosen a letter, which leaves no doubt of their malevolence towards us. They wish, they say, that we should merit our right as citizens, as if we had not deserved that t.i.tle since we were established on Polish soil. Feudalists, ultramontanes, fanatics, they desire war; let them go to the war, then. Let us not mix with them.

Every one to his own interest."

Thus spake the fiery Achilles, Mann, whom Henri Segel tried to calm.

"You must admit, however," said he, "that Matthieu Rosen, though treated with little consideration by the secretary of the Agricultural Society, has been named a delegate. Let us strike while the iron is hot."

"From this iron there can only come new chains for us," said Mann.

"They are incorrigible, these n.o.bles, eaten up by pride of long descent. We shall have conciliations when Dumah has thrown them all into h.e.l.l; not before."

"The Russian government agrees with you there," remarked Bartold; "but the n.o.bility is capable of regeneration, of amending. They commence to understand their interests better, and if they hold out their hands to us, we should not refuse them."

"No! the n.o.bles are blind!" cried Mann, in a loud voice. "Give up all thoughts of alliance with them. What matters it to us what happens to them?"

"If we keep aloof now," said Jacob, "it is the same as taking sides with the Russians. Let us go, my friends; when we are called in the spirit of sacrifice, the cause of the weak and the oppressed ought to be ours."

"It is utterly useless to reason with you, dear Jacob. Men of your stamp go to their ruin and perish. I will not oppose you, though I deplore your fate. As for the ma.s.s of our people, they should look out for their own interests and for the country."

"Let the majority remain conservative, but not for that alone; they should escape death in order to console and succour those who survive the catastrophe."

"There will be time enough to speak of that," said Mann, with a disdainful gesture.

"It is probable," replied Bartold, "that the burial of the victims of yesterday will be a European manifestation of the regeneration of Poland. Ought we to be indifferent lookers on? to take no part ostensibly in the procession? in a word, to wash our hands of it all?"

"This burial does not concern us," cried Mann. "None of our people have been killed. Why should we thrust ourselves into the quarrel?"

"It is not merely a burial, it is a grand political manifestation,"

said Jacob. "Before those coffins there will be a national appeal for vengeance against the a.s.sa.s.sins; and we"--

"We? Let it suffice us to behold from afar that manifestation! And you, Jacob, who preach with so much warmth a good understanding with the Christians, as you are at the same time a fervent and orthodox Jew, you cannot ask us to march behind the coffins, side by side with the Christian clergy. That would be breaking one of our laws, which commands all kohen to keep at a distance from bodies of the dead. How much worse the impure corpses of men of another belief, another race."

"I know well that the kohenin ought to abandon even their dying wives, if they are not of Jewish origin. Their contact becomes impure. But I also know that the law, formerly so vigorous, and not without a wise motive, is indulgent under exceptional circ.u.mstances. A kohen who, in order to accomplish a good deed, touches a corpse is, according to the conclusion of all rabbis, exempt from sin."

"I do not think that can be the opinion of all the rabbis. However, we can easily ascertain."

By a strange coincidence, the door opened and admitted a dignified old man with a long white beard, clad in the ancient costume of a Polish Jew. All saluted him respectfully. He was a rabbi, generally esteemed for his learning and his honourable and upright character. His face denoted the serenity of a soul untroubled by terrestrial cares.

Mann hastened to repeat what he had said to Jacob, and, wishing above all to have the approbation of the rabbi for his doctrine of hatred and vengeance, he added:--

"Ought we to forgive the n.o.bles? Ought we to overlook the evils done us by them? The justice of G.o.d is implacable, and the hour approaches when we shall be avenged upon our secular oppressors."

The old man listened attentively, then replied slowly and solemnly:--

"The Rabbi Ichochua ben Levi had for a neighbour a Sadducee, who had insulted him in many ways. Weary of enduring these affronts, he resolved to pray to G.o.d for vengeance. As he was preparing to go to the temple to accomplish his design, he was overcome by a profound slumber.

On awakening, he said: 'The sweet sleep into which G.o.d plunged me so suddenly is a warning from on high; a just man never invokes divine vengeance against his enemies.'"

Then the venerable man arose, bowed, and went out. Mann shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. His guests, most of whom were not very devout, took their hats, considering the question decided by the text of the law. In the Talmud, as in books of a character still more sacred, each interprets as he wishes. The pa.s.sage proved Jacob in the right, but could have been perhaps contradicted by another pa.s.sage which would put him in the wrong. Mann, fortunately, was not sufficiently familiar with the literature of Judaism to recall a text adapted to his argument. Jacob, triumphant, rapidly followed the rabbi, and kissed his hand with grat.i.tude.

He returned to the city, where he found that there had been a change in favour of the Jews. Their adversaries were silent, and public opinion approved their admittance on a fraternal footing, although the n.o.bles still opposed it. Twenty-four hours had sufficed not to efface, but to mask, the prejudices of both parties,--prejudices of which they were ashamed, and which they concealed in an obscure corner of the soul and dared no longer show in daylight.

The n.o.bles were not in perfect harmony even with each other. Like the Jews, they held diverse opinions. Those among them who were the most obstinate were those who were not well informed as to the actual situation, who had learned nothing, forgotten nothing, and who had intrenched themselves in an exclusive adherence and devotion to the past. These were called on the streets ultramontanes, on account of their importation of foreign Catholicism,--a Catholicism which was monarchical and legitimist, an enemy of progress. Essentially different was it from Polish Catholicism, which was conciliatory toward republican ideas, but did not take sides with either party, and, with Copernicus, had left its luminous traces in the ascendant march of humanity.

This group was Polish in its own way, perhaps by its attachment to the privileges of the n.o.bility; but it was by no means patriotic in its alliance in heart or spirit with the political reaction in Europe, which weighed so heavily on Poland.

It was not easy to be conservative in Poland. It was to condemn one's self to incessant contradictions of conscience and of conduct. How can one be at the same time a patriot, and submit to a foreign yoke? to be a Catholic, and prostrate one's self before a foreign authority which persecuted Catholicism? Weary of conflict, the conservative finishes by thinking only of saving his fortune and his social position, and pays no attention to the rest.

Jacob, in wandering over the city from house to house, with the familiarity which always prevails in times of revolution, entered a circle of ultramontanes. The master of the house, who was seated in an easy-chair, which he never quitted on account of an incurable malady, had still more nerve and energy than most of the visitors a.s.sembled in his rooms. Here were genuine counts, specimens of the ancient aristocracy of orthodox Catholicism, and many young n.o.bles fresh from the Jesuit colleges of Belgium and Bavaria. Among all these the most remarkable was a man of gigantic height, of irreproachable character, of rare eloquence, who, on account of his habit of repeating the popular proverb, _Jak Boga Kocham_ (as true as that I love G.o.d), had received the not very euphonious sobriquet of Boakoam.

He was a descendant of a very aristocratic family, deprived of its former splendour by the prodigality of its ancestors. He lived ordinarily in the country on a small estate, all that remained of his fortune.

The conversation was on the events of the day, and the social equality accorded to the Israelites.

"In a hundred years," said Boakoam, "the Counts Z., P., and B. will have become coachmen, and their palaces will have pa.s.sed into the hands of the R.'s, the K.'s, and the E.'s."

"It is possible," replied the master of the house, who belonged to one of the families designated; "above all, if we make many more false steps like this one. It will be our own fault. We shall foolishly ruin ourselves. We have an aversion to work, while the Jews are economical, laborious, and persevering."

"Thus, that the Jews may not devour us, my dear count, you wish we may be transformed into Jews. Pretty advice! If we must perish, let us perish at least as we are. Experience has demonstrated to us our inapt.i.tude as financiers. To what end have come our navigation companies, or our industrial or commercial a.s.sociations? We have lost money on all our undertakings. Distasteful as it is to admit, I must confess that we have arrived at a point of irresistible decadence. We have organic vices, we have attained the height of moral weakness. I would, nevertheless, like to believe that we shall yet regain our old-time vigour."