Beruriah stood in her room, pressing her hands to her face, to her eyes, as if seeking to drive something away,—a nightmare,an evil vision. She closed her eyes, suddenly, and as suddenly opened them wide—once, twice, three times; her heart beat wildly and shrieked strange things within her.
“Hehad doubts about me!Hesent a man to test me! Is it possible? Is it possible?”
She ran in pursuit of Simeon. She must question him further. Perhaps he had told her a lie? Perhaps this tale of testing was his own invention? Perhaps the story about the agents was the truth? Perhaps she had heard wrong? May it not all have been a fiction of her imagination? Maybe it was all an evil dream?
Simeon was far along the road, walking with heavy step, as if grown old. She wished to call to him, to run after him, but suddenly it came to her that this was neither an evil dream nor her fantasy,—that this time the son of Rabbi Ismael had not deceived her. The curse that he had called down upon the second day had surely not been feigned. The words he had put into Rabbi Mayer’s mouth came surely from Rabbi Mayer.
Tears began to oppress her and she hastened back to her room, threw herself upon the bed and burst into long and bitter weeping. She tore her hair, sank her nails into her cheeks, bit the bedclothes beneath her, wailing and lamenting. But when she heard the steps of her aged servant, she mastered herself, grew quiet and lay there calmly. She placed herself so that it might appear she lay there thus, asleep.
The servant brought in lights and reminded her that it was time to eat the evening meal. Beruriah stammered she was feeling ill that evening and that food would do her harm. But the kind old servant tempted her with some dainties and asked whether the mistress would want her company that night, too, in the bedroom. Receiving the answer “No,” she wished Beruriah good-night and walked away to her usual place.
Beruriah lay with open eyes and gazed into the shadows of the half-lighted room. Her head was in a maze; she could not think a singledefinite thought. She only knew that a terrible misfortune had befallen her,—a misfortune greater far than the loss of her two sons,—a catastrophe great beyond all explanation. She could not yet conceive it; it was such as must undo her evermore,—must work the profoundest transformation in her life.
And all at once she wearily arose, her eyes dilated, gazing straight ahead.
Yes. Even so. Rabbi Mayer could be her husband no longer.
She clenched her teeth and fortified her heart; her distended eyes still fixed their glance before her. Now she could think quite clearly.
Had Rabbi Mayer himself betrayed no doubt, but simply yielded to the doubts of others, she would have felt no insult and her heart would have remained quite calm. She would have rejoiced at the strength of his faith in her. And her own strength, too, would have been a double boon. She would have twitted him upon the daring step he had taken, and told him that such a course wasfoolish, and would have aided him to triumph over the evil cavillers, who had dared to drag her down into the mire of their suspicions.
But he alone had doubted! He alone had desired the test, to support his faith in her. He alone had dared be unassured of his Beruriah’s strength! Her own husband had not known her heart and had sullied its purity with the filth of doubt!
Suppose she had not triumphed over the test? The peril had been great; the handsome Simeon, too, was very dangerous. Yet Rabbi Mayer had not feared to lose her. He had risked her in a game,—had led her to sacrifice!
He could be her husband no longer!
She repeated this over and over again, insistently, with raging harshness cutting it into her soul.
He should have to grant her a divorce; she should remain alone. All alone,—all, all alone.
A bitter grief assailed her, making her close her eyes, and a great wretchedness enfoldedher. She was seized with a deep yearning for her departed children; her heart went out to them; she stretched forth her hands to them, and pressed her hands to her bosom, shaking her head; the tears came fast as she whispered fond endearments and mother-words.
She saw them before her, just as they looked in the final days before their sudden death. Playful, laughing, bright. She felt their presence so plainly that she looked around for them. No. They were not there. They were dead. They lay in the distant graveyard, deep in the cold earth, encased in boards. Strewn with earth. Alone they lay there, so forsaken,—her little darlings,—and were longing perhaps for their mother, even as their mother longed for them.
This thought sank deep and took root in her heart. At last she began to weep softly, convulsively:
“My children need me, and I have need of them.”
And when she had wept out all her tears shemade a resolution. Once this was determined upon she turned to God.
“What I am about to do is a great transgression. I will disobey Thy sacred commandment and violate Thy counsel. But I cannot do otherwise. God in heaven, I can live no longer. May the good merits of my father intercede for me. The worth of my father, the holy martyr, who refused the offer of the executioner to hasten his horrible death, lest the forced hastening resemble, in Thine eyes, self-murder. May he protect me. Thou wilt have to grant his daughter forgiveness for taking her own life in order all the sooner to meet her children. Eternal God, take me to them; part us nevermore. Punish me not after death as severely as Thou hast punished me in my life. I surrender my soul into Thy merciful hands. I go to Thee and to my children.”
Now she arose from her bed and garbed herself in purest white, writing with firm hand something upon a tablet. Then from a casket she drew a small, sharp knife, testing its bladeupon her finger-nail. Calmly and piously she prayed “Hear, Oh Israel,” and severed the veins of both her arms. With blood streaming from her, and without a cry of pain, she extinguished the light, stretched herself out upon the bed, and began the journey to her little ones.
She kept her eyes wide open as she lay there bleeding to death, and beheld her children before her. Far off there in the graveyard, in their graves, they had sat up, white and steeped in sadness, awaiting her arrival. And she said to them, “Wait, I come to you, my darling sons! Soon I shall be with you, precious hearts!” Endlessly she whispered fond endearments, mother-words.
Not for a moment did she give a thought to the olden days. She could behold only her children and the road to them. Only at the end, when the long, long sleep was coming over her and the vision of her children and the way to them grew blurred and dim, did she utter inpeaceful yearning, with silent tears, “Mayer! Mayer!”
And it happened that when the handsome Simeon returned to the Yeshiva the students there cried out in horror at his altered looks.
“See,” he exclaimed, “what has overtaken me because for thirty days I dashed myself against the stony strength of Beruriah. Her strength and purity are above all uncertainty, but I am utterly undone.”
And Rabbi Mayer glowered triumphantly at his disciples, took his staff and wallet and left to seek Beruriah. But he found her dead,—gone to join her children. And on the tablet were written these few words: “He who cuts open the apple also destroys it.”
He seized his temples, his eyes expanded wildly, and he burst forth into a heart-breaking, soul-rending wail: “Beruriah!”