Dreamers of the Ghetto. Israel Zangwill
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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, now shrill 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