"We must not wait longer, Rachel," said Manasseh in low, grave, but unfaltering accents. "Midnight approaches."
Rachel checked her sobs and assumed an attitude of reverence as her husband began to intone the benedictions, but her heart felt no religious joy in the remembrance of how the God of her fathers had saved them and their Temple from Hellenic pollution. It was torn by anxiety as to the fate of her boy, her scholar son, unaccountably absent for the first time from the household ceremonies of the Feast of Dedication. What was he doing—outside the Ghetto gates—in that great, dark, narrow-meshed city of Rome, defying the Papal law, and of all nights in the year on that sinister night when, by a coincidence of chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of his Saviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern and rugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks and beard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the wax candles in the nine-branched candlestick of silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back in front a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. These sombre-colored robes were second-hand, as the austere simplicityof the Pragmatic required. The Jewish Council of Sixty did not permit its subjects to ruffle it like the Romans of those days of purple pageantry. The young bloods, forbidden by Christendom to style themselves signori, were forbidden by Judea to vie with signori in luxury.
"Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God," chanted the old man. "King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of Chanukah."
It was with a quavering voice that Rachel joined in the ancient hymn that wound up the rite. "O Fortress, Rock of my salvation," the old woman sang. "Unto Thee it is becoming to give praise; let my house of prayer be restored, and I will there offer Thee thanksgivings; when Thou shalt have prepared a slaughter of the blaspheming foe, I will complete with song and psalm the dedication of the altar."
But her imagination was roving in the dim oil-lit streets of the tenebrous city, striving for the clairvoyance of love. Arrest by thesbirriwas certain; other dangers threatened. Brawls and bravos abounded. True, this city of Rome was safer than many another for its Jews, who, by a miracle, more undeniable than that which they were now celebrating, had from the birth of Christ dwelt in the very heart of Christendom, the Eternal People in the Eternal City. The Ghetto had witnessed no such sights as Barcelona or Frankfort or Prague. The bloody orgies of the Crusaders had raged far away from the Capital of the Cross. In England, in France, in Germany, the Jew, that scapegoat of the nations, had poisoned the wells and brought on the Black Death, had pierced the host, killed children for their blood, blasphemed the saints, and done all that the imagination of defalcating debtors could suggest. But the Roman Jews were merely pestilent heretics. Perhaps itwas the comparative poverty of the Ghetto that made its tragedy one of steady degradation rather than of fitful massacre. Nevertheless bloodshed was not unknown, and the song died on Rachel's lips, though the 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; but from one of the last remaining flasks a miracle was wrought for Thy lily, Israel; and the men of understanding appointed these eight days for songs and praises."
They were well-to-do people, and Rachel's dress betokened the limit of the luxury allowed by the Pragmatic—a second-hand silk dress with a pin 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 round her neck, her hair done in a cheap net.
She looked at the nine-branched candlestick, and a mystical sadness filled her. Would she had nine scions of her house like Miriam's mother, a true mother in Israel; but, lo! she had only one candle—one little candle. A puff and it was gone, and life would be dark.
That Joseph was not in the Ghetto was certain. He would never have caused her such anxiety wilfully, and, indeed, she and her husband and Miriam had already run to all the likely places in the quarter, even to those marshy alleys where every overflow of the Tiber left deposits of malarious mud, where families harbored, ten in a house, where stunted men and wrinkled women slouched through the streets, and a sickly spawn of half-naked babies swarmed under the feet. They had had trouble enough, but never such a trouble as this. Manasseh and Rachel, with this queer offspring of theirs, this Joseph the Dreamer, as he had been nicknamed, this handsome, recklessblack-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 possible in the Ghetto, who was to be Rabbi of the community one day, albeit his brilliance was occasionally dazzling to the sober tutors upon whom he flashed his sudden thought, which stirred up that which had better been left asleep. Why was he not as other sons, why did he pace the street with unobservant eyes, why did he weep over the profane Hebrew of the Spanish love-singers as if their songs wereSelichothor Penitential Verses? Why did he not marry Miriam, as one could see the girl wished? Why did he set at naught the custom of the Ghetto, in silently refraining from so obvious a match between the children of two old friends, equally well-to-do, and both possessing theJus Gazzagaor leasehold of the houses in which they lived; tall, quaint houses, separated only by an ancient building with a carved porch, and standing at the end of the great Via Rua where it adjoined the narrow little street, Delle Azzimelle, in which the Passover cakes were made. Miriam's family, being large, had their house to themselves, but a good deal of Manasseh's was let out; for room was more and more precious in the Ghetto, which was a fixed space for an ever-expanding population.
They went to bed. Manasseh insisted upon that. They could not possibly expect Joseph till the morning. Accustomed as Rachel was to lean upon her husband's strength, at this moment his strength seemed harshness. The night was long. A hundred horrid visions passed before her sleepless eyes. The sun rose upon the Ghetto, striving toslip its rays between the high, close-pressed tops of opposite houses. The five Ghetto gates were thrown open, but Joseph did not come through any. The Jewish pedlars issued, adjusting their yellow hats, and pushing before them little barrows laden with special Christmas wares. "Heb, heb," they shouted as they passed through the streets of Rome. Some sold simples and philtres, and amulets in the shape of miniature mandores or four-stringed lutes to preserve children from maladies. Manasseh, his rugged countenance grown harder, went to his place of business. He had forbidden any inquiries to be made outside the pale till later in the day; it would be but to betray to the enemy Joseph's breach of the law. In the meantime, perhaps, the wanderer would return. Manasseh's establishment was in the Piazza Giudea. Numerous shops encumbered the approaches, mainly devoted to the sale of cast-off raiment, the traffic in new things being prohibited to Jews by Papal Bull, but anything second-hand might be had here from the rough costume of a shepherd of Abruzzo to the faded fripperies of a gentleman of the Court. In the centre a new fountain with two dragons supplied the Ghetto with water from the Aqueduct of Paul the Fifth in lieu of the loathly Tiber water, and bore a grateful Latin inscription. About the edges of the square a few buildings rose in dilapidated splendor to break the monotony of the Ghetto barracks; the ancient palace of the Boccapaduli, and a mansion with a high tower and three abandoned churches. A monumental but forbidding gate, closed at sundown, gave access to a second Piazza Giudea, where Christians congregated to bargain with Jews—it was almost a suburb of the Ghetto. Manasseh had not far to go, for his end of the Via Rua debouched on the Piazza Giudea; the other end, after running parallel to the Via Pescheria and the river, bent suddenly near theGate of Octavius, and finished on the bridge Quattro Capi. Such was the Ghetto in the sixteen hundreds.
Soon after Manasseh had left the house, Miriam came in with anxious face to inquire if Joseph had returned. It was a beautiful Oriental face, in whose eyes brooded the light of love and pity, a face of the type which painters have given to the Madonna when they have remembered that the Holy Mother was a Jewess. She was clad in a simple woollen gown, without lace or broidery, her only ornament a silver bracelet. Rachel wept to tell her the lack of news, but Miriam did not join in her tears. She besought her to be of good courage.
And very soon indeed Joseph appeared, with an expression at once haggard and ecstatic, his black hair and beard unkempt, his eyes glittering strangely in his flushed olive face, a curious poetic figure 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 Deoand peace on earth to all men of goodwill," persisted Joseph. "It is Christmas morning, mother." And he began to troll out the stave of a carol, "Simeon, that good saint of old—"
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 was born—He who was to die for the sins of the world."
Rachel burst into fresh tears. "Our boy is mad—our boy is mad. What have they done to him?" All her anticipations of horror were outpassed by this.
Pain shadowed the sweet silence of Miriam's face as she stood in the recess 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 the human 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. "What hast thou done? Where hast thou been?"
"Art thou here, Miriam?" His eyes became conscious of her for the first 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, the student of God's Law, hast defiled thyself thus?"
"Nay, it is no defilement," interposed Miriam soothingly. "Hast thou not told us how our fathers went to the Sistine Chapel on Sabbath afternoons?"
"Ay, but that was when Michel Angelo Buonarotti was painting his frescoes of the deliverances of Israel. And they went likewise to see the figure of our Lawgiver in the Pope's mausoleum. And I have even heard of Jews who have stolen into St. Peter's itself to gaze on that twisted pillar from Solomon's temple, which these infidels hold for our sins. But it is the midnight mass that this Epicurean has been to hear."
"Even so," said Joseph in dreamy undertones, "the midnight mass—incense and lights and the figures of saints, and wonderful painted windows, and a great multitude of weeping worshippers and music that wept with them, nowshrill like the passionate cry of martyrs, 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 the cardinals in their splendid robes, at the Pope, at the altar. Who had eyes 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—I desired to see with my own eyes, and hear with mine own ears, this adoration of the Christ, at which my teachers scoff. But I was caught up in a mighty wave of organ-music that surged from this low earth heavenwards to break against the footstool of God in the crystal firmament. And suddenly I knew what my soul was pining for. I knew the meaning of that restless craving that has always devoured me, though I spake not thereof, those strange hauntings, those dim perceptions—in a flash I understood the secret of peace."
"And that is—Joseph?" asked Miriam gently, for Rachel drew such laboring breath she could not speak.
"Sacrifice," said Joseph softly, with rapt gaze. "To suffer, to give one'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 soared to God in the Magnificat. Oh, Miriam, if I could lead our brethren out of the Ghetto, if I could die to bring them happiness, to make them free 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 of the 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 thy father." She began to wring her hands.
"Joseph, bethink thyself," pleaded Miriam, stricken to the heart. "I am no scholar, I am only a woman. But thou—thou with thy learning—surely thou hast not been befooled by these jugglers with the sacred text? Surely thou art able to answer their word-twistings of our prophets?"
"Ah, Miriam," replied Joseph tenderly. "Art thou, too, like our brethren? They do not understand. It is a question of the heart, not of 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, thou infidel, whom I have begotten for my sins. Why doth not Heaven's fire blast 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 here like cattle. We are marked with shameful badges. Our Talmud is burnt. Our possessions are taxed away from us. We are barred from every reputable calling. We may not even bury our dead with honor or carve an 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 a Jael.
"It is our own cowardice that invites the spittle, Miriam. Where is the spirit of the Maccabæans whom we hymn on this feast of Chanukah? The Pope issues Bulls, and we submit—outwardly. Our resistance is silent, sinuous. He ordains yellow hats; we wear yellow hats, but gradually the yellow darkens; it becomes orange, then ochre, till at last we go capped in red like so many cardinals, provoking the edict afresh. We are restricted to one synagogue. We have five for our different country-folk, but we build them under one roof and call four of 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 with wolves. We are so few—we must meet them by cunning."
"Ah, but we set up to be God's witnesses, Miriam. Our creed is naught but prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles went through the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this long ignominy." He burst into sudden tears and sank into a chair overwrought.
Instantly his mother was at his side, bending down, her wet face to his.
"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven!" she sobbed. "The madness is over."
He did not answer her. He had no strength to argue more. There was a long, 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?" she asked.
"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 his daughter at the last Carnival, when, adventuring herself masked among the crowd in the Corso, she was nigh trampled upon by the buffaloes stampeding from the race-course?"
"Nay, I remember naught thereof," said Rachel, shaking her head. "But thou 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 I only begged the run of his great library. Thou knowest how hard it is for me that the Christians deny us books. And there many a day have I sat reading till the vesper bell warned me that I must hasten back to the 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 renders Plato and Sophocles to me."
"And thou, our future Rabbi, didst listen?" cried Rachel.
"There is no word of Christianity in these, mother, nor do they satisfy the soul. Wisely sang Jehudah Halevi, 'Go not near the Grecian wisdom.'"
"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. God keep 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 the housetops."
"Hush! hush!" breathed his mother in a frenzy of alarm. "The neighbors will 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 to me thou wilt spare him thy blasphemies, or he may strike thee dead at his 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 in hiding."
"Truth alone is great, mother. I go to bring him the Truth." He tore his garment from her grasp and rushed without.
She sat on the floor and rocked to and fro in an agony of apprehension. The leaden hours crept along. No one came, neither son nor husband. Terrible images of what was passing between them tortured her. Towards mid-day she rose and began mechanically preparing her husband's meal. At the precise minute of year-long habit he came.To her anxious eye his stern face seemed more pallid than usual, but it revealed nothing. He washed his hands in ritual silence, made the blessing, and drew chair to table. A hundred times the question hovered about Rachel's lips, but it was not till near the end of the meal that she ventured to say, "Our son is back. Hast thou not seen him?"
"Son? What son? We have no son." He finished his meal.
The scholarly apostle, thus disowned by his kith and kin, was eagerly welcomed by Holy Church, the more warmly that he had come of his own inward grace and refused the tribute of annual crowns with which the Popes often rewarded true religion—at the expense of the Ghetto, which had to pay these incomes to its recreants. It was the fashion to baptize converted Jews in batches—for the greater glory—procuring them from without when home-made catechumens were scarce, sometimes serving them up with a proselyte Turk. But in view of the importance of the accession, and likewise of the closeness of Epiphany, it was resolved 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 he or they wished. A cardinal's edict forbade him to return to the Ghetto, to eat, drink, sleep, or speak with his race during the period of probation; the whip, the cord, awaited its violation. By day Rachel and Miriam walked in the precincts of the monastery, hoping to catch sight of him; nearer than ninety cubits they durst not approach under pain of bastinado and exile. A word to him, a messagethat might have softened him, a plea that might have turned him back—and the offender was condemned to the galleys for life.
Epiphany arrived. A great concourse filled the Basilica di Latran. The Pope 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 be Joseph's, stood sponsor. The presiding cardinal in his solemn sermon congratulated the congregants on the miracle which had taken place under their very eyes, and then, attired in white satin, the neophyte was slowly driven through the streets of Rome that all might witness how a soul had been saved for the true faith. And in the ecstasy of this union with the human brotherhood and the divine fatherhood, and with Christ, its symbol, Giuseppe de' Franchi saw not the dark, haggard faces of his brethren in the crowd, the hate that smouldered in their dusky eyes as the festal procession passed by. Nor while he knelt before crucifix and image that night, did he dream of that other ceremonial in the Synagogue of the Piazza of the Temple, half-way from the river; a scene more impressive in its sombreness than all the splendor of the church pageant.
The synagogue was a hidden building, indistinguishable externally from the neighboring houses; within, gold and silver glistened in the pomegranates and bells of the Scrolls of the Law or in the broidery of the curtain that covered the Ark; the glass of one of the windows, blazing with a dozen colors for the Twelve Tribes, represented the Urim and the Thummim. In the courtyard stood a model of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, furnished with marvellous detail, memorial of lost glories.
The Council of Sixty had spoken. Joseph ben Manasseh was to suffer the last extremity of the Jewish law. AllIsrael was called together to the Temple. An awful air of dread hung over the assemblage; in a silence as of the grave each man upheld a black torch that flared weirdly in the shadows of the synagogue. A ram's horn sounded shrill and 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 tottered home to sit with his wife on the floor and bewail the death of their Joseph, while a death-light glimmering faintly swam on a bowl of oil, and the prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased rose passionately on the tainted Ghetto air. And Miriam, her Madonna-like face wet with hot tears, burnt the praying-shawl she was weaving in secret love for the man who might one day have loved her, and went to condole 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.
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 from Shloumi the Droll, a graceless, humorous rogue, steering betwixt Jews and 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 comfort them."
"But thou mayst not approach them, nor they thee."
"By faith are mountains moved; my spirit embraces theirs. We shall yet rejoice together in the light of the Saviour, for weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." His pale face gleamed with celestial radiance.
Helena surveyed him in wondering compassion. "Thou art strangely possessed, Ser Giuseppe," she said.
"It is not strange, Signora, it is all simple—like a child's thought," he said, meeting her limpid eyes with his profound mystic gaze.
She was tall and fair, more like those Greek statues which the sculptors of her day imitated than like a Roman maiden. A simple dress of white silk revealed the beautiful curves of her figure. Through the great oriel window near which they stood the cold sunshine touched her hair and made spots of glory on the striped beast-skins that covered the floor, and on the hanging tapestries. The pictures and ivories, the manuscripts and the busts all contributed to make the apartment a harmonious setting for her noble figure. As he looked at her he trembled.
"And what is thy life to be henceforward?" she asked.
"Surrender, sacrifice," he said half in a whisper. "My parents are right. Joseph is dead. His will is God's, his heart is Christ's. There is 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 have failed to move them. The Bulls of all the Popes have left them stubborn."
"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 the year comes. See how the sun shines already in the blue sky. Thou shalt not die—it is thine to be glad in the sun and in the fairness of things."
"The sunshine is but a symbol of the Divine Love, the pushing buds but prefigure the Resurrection and the Life."
"Thou dreamest, Giuseppe mio. Thou dreamest with those wonderful eyes of thine open. I do not understand this Love of thine that turns from things earthly, that rends thy father's and mother's heart in twain."
His eyes filled with tears. "Pazienza! earthly things are but as shadows that pass. It is thou that dreamest, Signora. Dost thou not feel the transitoriness of it all—yea, even of this solid-seeming terrestrial plain and yon overhanging roof and the beautiful lights set therein for our passing pleasure! This sun which swims daily through the firmament is but a painted phantasm compared with the eternal 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 no Christian at heart. Nay, nor are any of our house, though they perceive it not. My father fasts at Lent, but it is the Pagan Aristotle that nourishes his thought. Rome counts her beads and mumbles her paternosters, but she has outgrown the primitive faith in Renunciation. Our pageants and processions, our splendid feasts, our gorgeous costumes, what have these to do with the pale Christ, whom thou wouldst foolishly emulate?"
"Then there is work for me to do, even among the Christians," he said mildly.
"Nay, it is but mischief thou wouldst do, with thy passionless ghost of 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 they have feigned to paint the Holy Family and the Crucifixion and the Dead Christ and the Last Supper, it is the loveliness of life that has inspired their art. Yea, even from the prayerful Giotto downwards, it is the pride of life, it is the glory of the human form, it is the joy of 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, have they not intruded their faces into sacred scenes, have they not understood for what this religious art was a pretext? Is not Rome full of Pagan art? Were not the Laocoon and the Cleopatra and the Venus placed in the very orange garden of the Vatican?"
"Natheless it is the Madonna and the Child that your painters have loved best to paint."
"'Tis but Venus and Cupid over again."
"Nay, these sneers belie the noble Signora de' Franchi. Thou canst not be blind to the divine aspiration that lay behind a Madonna of Sandro Botticelli."
"Thou hast not seen his frescoes in the Villa Lemmi, outside Firenze, the dainty grace of his forms, the charming color, else thou wouldst understand that it was not spiritual beauty alone that his soul coveted."
"But Raffaello da Urbino, but Leonardo—"
"Leonardo," she repeated. "Hast thou seen his Bacchus, or his battle-fresco? Knowest thou the later work of Raffaello? And what sayest thou to our Fra Lippo Lippi? A Christian monk he, forsooth! What sayest thou to Giorgione of Venice and his pupils, to this efflorescence of loveliness, to our statuaries and our builders, to our goldsmiths and musicians? Ah, we haverediscovered the secret of Greece. It is Homer that we love, it is Plato, it is the noble simplicity of Sophocles; our Dante lied when he said it was Virgil who was his guide. The poet of Mantua never led mortal to those dolorous regions. He sings of flocks and bees, of birds and running brooks, and the simple loves of shepherds; and we listen to him again and breathe the sweet country air, the sweeter for the memory of those hell-fumes which 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 these things dignify, not degrade our souls. Hast thou not thrilled with me at the fairness of a pictured face, at the glow of luminous color, at the white radiance of a statue?"
"I sinned if I loved beauty for itself alone, and—forgive me if I wound thee, lady—this worship of beauty is for the rich, the well-fed, the few. What of the poor and the down-trodden who weep in darkness? What comfort holds thy creed for such? All these wonders of the human hand and the human brain are as straws weighed against a pure heart, a righteous deed. The ages of Art have always been the ages of abomination, Signora. It is not in cunning but in simplicity that our Lord is revealed. Unless ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"Heaven is here." Her eyes gleamed. Her bosom heaved. The fire of her glance passed to his. Her loveliness troubled him, the matchless face and form that now blent the purity of a statue with the warmth of living woman.
"Verily, where Christ is Heaven is. Thou hast moved in such splendor of light, Signora de' Franchi, thou dostnot realize thy privilege. But I, who have always walked in darkness, am as a blind man restored to sight. I was ambitious, lustful, torn by doubts and questionings; now I am bathed in the divine peace, all my questions answered, my riotous blood assuaged. Love, love, that is all; the surrender of one's will to the love that moves the sun and all the stars, as your Dante says. And sun and stars do but move to this end, Signora—that human souls may be born and die to live, in oneness with Love. Oh, my brethren"—he stretched out his arms yearningly, and his eyes and his voice were full of tears—"why do ye haggle in the market-place? Why do ye lay up store of gold and silver? Why do ye chase the futile shadows of earthly joy? This, this is the true ecstasy, to give yourself up to God, all in all, to ask only to be the channel of His holy will."
Helena's face was full of a grave wonder; for a moment an answering light was reflected on it as though she yearned for the strange raptures she could not understand.
"All this is sheer folly. Thy brethren hear thee now as little as they will ever hear thee."
"I shall pray night and day that my lips may be touched with the sacred 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. He moved 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. What Samson-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 divine things 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 should still remain celibate."
"Still remain celibate! Wherefore?"
"Because mine own people are cut off from me. And were I to marry a Christian, like so many Jewish converts, the power of my example would be lost. They would say of me, as they say of them, that it was not the light of Christ but a Christian maiden's eyes that dazzled and drew. They are hard; they do not believe in the possibility of a true conversion. Others have enriched themselves by apostasy, or, being rich, have avoided impoverishing mulcts and taxes. But I have lost all my patrimony, and I will accept nothing. That is why I refused thy father's kind offices, the place in the Seal-office, or even the humbler position of mace-bearer to his Holiness. When my brethren see, moreover, that I force from them no pension nor moneys, not even a white farthing, that I even preach to them without wage, verily for the love of Heaven, as your idiom hath it, when they see that I live pure and lonely, then they will listen to me. Perchance their hearts will be touched and their eyes opened." His face shone with wan radiance. That was, indeed, the want, he felt sure. No Jew had ever stood before his brethren an unimpeachable Christian, above suspicion, without fear, and without reproach. Oh, happy privilege to fill this apostolic rôle!
"But suppose—" Helena hesitated; then lifting her lovely eyes to meet his in fearless candor, "she whom you loved were no Christian."
He trembled, clenching his hands to drive back the mad wave of earthly emotion that flooded him, as the tide swells to the moon, under the fervor of her eyes.
"I should kill my love all the same," he said hoarsely. "The Jews are hard. They will not make fine distinctions. They know none but Jews and Christians."
"Methinks I see my father galloping up the street," said Helena, turning to the oriel window. "That should be his feather and his brown Turkey horse. But the sun dazzles my eyes! I will leave thee."
She passed to the door without looking at him. Then turning suddenly so that his own eyes were dazzled, she said—
"My heart is with thee whatsoever thou choosest. Only bethink thee well, ere thou donnest cowl and gown, that unlovely costume which, to speak after thine own pattern, symbolizes all that is unlovely.Addio!"
He followed her and took her hand, and, bending down, kissed it reverently. She did not withdraw it.
"Hast thou the strength for the serge and the cord, Giuseppe mio?" she asked softly.
He drew himself up, holding her hand in his.
"Yes," he said. "Thou shalt inspire me, Helena. The thought of thy radiant 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 the Resurrection and the Life," he murmured.
When he opened his eyes she was gone. He fell on his knees in a passion of prayer, in the agony of the crucifixion of the flesh.
During his novitiate, before he had been admitted to monastic vows, he preached a trial "Sermon to the Jews" in a large oratory near the Ghetto. A church would have been contaminated by the presence of heretics, and even from the Oratory any religious objects that lay about had been removed. There was a goodly array of fashionable Christians, resplendent in gold-fringed mantles and silk-ribboned hats; for he was rumored eloquent, and Annibale de' Franchi was there in pompous presidency. One Jew came—Shloumi the Droll, relying on his ability to wriggle out of the infraction of the ban, and earn a meal or two by reporting the proceedings to thefattoriand the other dignitaries of the Ghetto, whose human curiosity might be safely counted upon. Shloumi was rich in devices. Had he not even for months flaunted a crimson cap in the eye of Christendom, and had he not when at last brought before the Caporioni, pleaded that this was merely an ostensive sample of the hats he was selling, his true yellow hat being unintentionally hidden beneath? But Giuseppe de' Franchi rejoiced at the 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 the Via Lepida, near the Monastery of St. Dominic. There was a touch on his 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 yonder who 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 hast found grace."
"Nay, Joseph, that will never be. I love our fathers' faith. Methinks I have understood it better than thou, though I have not dived like thee into holy lore. It is by the heart alone that I understand."
"Then why dost thou come? Let us turn down towards the Coliseum. 'Tis quieter, and less frequented of our brethren."
They left the busy street with its bustle of coaches, and water-carriers with their asses, and porters, and mounted nobles with trains of followers, and swash-buckling swordsmen, any of whom might have insulted Miriam, conspicuous by her beauty and by the square of yellow cloth, a palm and a half wide, set above her coiffure. They walked on in silence till they came to the Arch of Titus. Involuntarily both stopped, for by reason of the Temple candlestick that figured as spoil in the carving of the Triumph of Titus, no Jew would pass under it. Titus and his empire had vanished, but the Jew still hugged his memories and his dreams.
An angry sulphur sunset, streaked with green, hung over the ruined temples of the ancient gods and the grass-grown fora of the Romans. It touched with a glow as of blood the highest fragment of the Coliseum wall, behind which beasts and men had made sport for the Masters of the 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 thy father is at home. Then she makes herself as stony as he. He—an elder of the synagogue!—thou hast brought down his gray hairs in sorrow to the 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, "It is 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 for her. 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—without vowels. 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 pieces and we would not believe in thee or thy gospel. I alone have faith in thy sincerity, and to me thou art as one mad with over-study. Joseph, thy dream isvain. The Jews hate thee. They call thee Haman. Willingly would they see thee hanged on a high tree. Thy memory will be an execration to the third and fourth generation. Thou wilt no more move 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 be happy."
He looked at her.
"Be happy," she repeated. "Do not throw away thy life for a vain shadow. Be happy. It is my last word to thee. Henceforth, as a true daughter of Judah, I obey the ban, and were I a mother in Israel my children should be taught to hate thee even as I do. Peace be with thee!"
He caught at her gown. "Go not without my thanks, though I must reject thy counsel. To-morrow I am admitted into the Brotherhood of Righteousness." In the fading light his face shone weird and unearthly amid the raven hair. "But why didst thou risk thy good name to tell me thou 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! Come back, my sweet sister in Christ!"
A drunken Dominican lurched into his open arms.