Spinoza. Auerbach Berthold
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as Ristotles; he studied so much, that at last he quite stupefied himself. But hark! I think the service in the synagogue is over. I must go; I wouldn't be seen by any decent Jew as I am now. They are coming up the steps." Therewith Chaje slipped through the door.
Miriam was glad to be free from the tiresome talker. Her father, the stranger, whom we saw in the graveyard in conversation with Baruch, and Baruch himself entered. Miriam approached her father, and bowed before him; he laid both hands on her head, and blessed her in a low voice, saying these words; "The Lord make thee like the mothers, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah;" and he also blessed Baruch, saying this verse in low tones: "The Lord make thee like Ephraim and Manasseh." He and Baruch then chanted a short canticle in honor of the troop of angels who enter the house of a Jew on each Sabbath. The father's voice took a melancholy tone, as he sang, with his son, in the usual manner, the praise of woman in Prov. xxxi. 10: "Who can find a virtuous woman?" The beauty, and even the management of the house, were the same as ever; the careful housewife had ensured its continuance; but she herself had been torn from him by death. Doubly painful was the thought of her loss amid Sabbath joys. The stranger noticed the picture on the wall.
"Do you recognize it yet, Rodrigo?" said the father when he had finished the whispered prayer. "It is an old heirloom, and hung once in our cellar synagogue at Guadalajara; I saved it with much danger."
While the two friends spoke of their old associations, Baruch and Miriam stood at the opposite end of the apartment.
"You have a dreadfully dismal face again today," said Miriam, smoothing her brother's hair from his brow as she spoke; "come to the mirror and see."
Baruch caught his sister's hand and held it fast; he said nothing, but listened to the conversation of the men.
"It was an instance of divine providence, for which I shall ever be thankful, that I recognized you directly you passed," said his father to the stranger.
"So you know my son, Baruch, already; this is my youngest daughter. How old are you now, Miriam?"
"Only a year younger than Baruch," answered the maiden, blushing.
"A foolish answer," said her father: "she is fourteen, I believe. I have an elder daughter, already married."
"Ah, my dears! I have two children also," said the stranger. "My Isabella is about your age, Miriam; my son will soon be twenty now. I hope when my children come here you will take care of them, especially in things pertaining to religion, for in all such they are wholly inexperienced. But stay," continued the stranger as he stood with folded arms before Baruch. "When I look at Baruch again, I cannot understand how it was I did not recognize him in the graveyard: his singularly dark complexion, his long, dark, almost black eyebrows, are just like yours in your younger days, when you meditated some daring adventure or other; and this frown on his uneven brow—that is just you; but the black wavy hair, and fine-cut mouth, with the soft dimple at the corner—ah, with what celestial sweetness Manuela smiled with those lips! A certain bold oppositiveness, that speaks in the lines of his face, all give him a partially Moorish look that he has from his mother. Ah, if she still lived, what joy it would give her to see me here to-day!"
Baruch listened to this description of himself unwillingly, and half in fear. When he heard thus of his partially Moorish origin, he recollected that Chisdai had taunted him with it in school; he was indignant that his father had not imparted it to him before. The latter noticed the annoyance of his son, and said to the stranger,
"You cannot conceal, Rodrigo, that you are a pupil of Silva Velasquez, and helped him to point out the beauty and ugliness of others to the dames of Philip's court. Baruch, you must show this gentleman your drawings to-morrow. Do not look so timid; nothing has been done to you."
"No, no," said the stranger, as he patted the boy's cheek, "I hope we shall be good friends. Did you not know my cousin, the learned Jacob Casseres?"
"Not himself," said Baruch, "but I knew his book, 'The seven days of the week at the Creation.'"
They then sat down to table, blessed the bread and the wine, and inaugurated the Sabbath.
"It is strange," remarked the host, after grace was said: "on other days I can hardly finish the last mouthful before I put my lighted cigar in my mouth, but on the Sabbath it is as if all our habits were changed; I do not desire to smoke, and it gives me no annoyance to practise the self-denial." The guest gave no response.
"Bless me," continued the host, "I notice now you still keep to our native custom of mixing wine with water. If you remain with us in the foggy north, where we force land from the sea, and guard it each hour; where half the year the earth is stiff, and the blue canopy of heaven hidden with clouds; where you breathe in mist and vapor, instead of clear air; here in our town, where no springs flow, and water for drinking must be brought from a distance; where men live as if imprisoned by the sea; where the climate itself compels men to be tranquil and composed, and the foresight and patience which have made the land, and still hold it, are the prime virtues of mankind: remain here, I say, and believe me, you will soon conform to our custom, and pour pure grape blood into your old veins to make yours circulate the faster. Ah, it is a glorious and precious country, our Spain! Our Eden inhabited by devils. Now when I must so soon lay my weary head in the bosom of the earth, I feel for the first time that it is not my native land that will receive me."
"You are unjust," replied the stranger. "You here sit at your table without fear: there your friend and your own child might be forced to confess with a heavy heart that you secretly worshipped the God of Israel; and the glow of a funeral pile might warm your old veins instead of this costly wine. You may dream now of the pleasures of your native land, and forget the terrible death that stared us in the face! The glorious chestnut woods with their cool dark shade could not invite us to rest, or the rich forests to the chase; on the morrow those trees might be our fagots; on the morrow we might be the hunter's prey. In truth, when I hear you speak so, I could join with those zealots who ascribe our afflictions to excessive love of our native land, too great pride and gratification in the respect we had won there."
"Yes, yes, you are right," answered his host; "but let us not disturb the joy of our reunion with dismal reflections. Come, drink! But stay! Miriam, bring the Venetian goblets here; and let Elsje light you to the cellar, and bring the two flasks that De Castro sent me."
"Brilliant!" exclaimed the stranger as he raised the glass of newly poured out wine to his lips; " that is real Val de Pefias; where did it come from?"
"As I said, Ramiro de Castro sent it to me from Hamburg. The wine has improved with us, but now it grows more fiery; and we—!"
"Well, well, we have lived; be content. The wine awakes the long-extinguished fire in me. Dost thou remember yet? Such wine we drank that evening in the Posada near the House of Donna Ines, who had already made thee wait two evenings in vain. You struck the table, and swore never to see her again; yet the next evening in the silent Arbor it was 'dear Alfonso' and 'dear Ines' again. Ha! ha! ha!"
The father warned his friend of the presence of the children; the stranger took little notice, however, and revelled in the wine of his native land.
"Do you remember that heavenly summer evening?" he continued, "when we sauntered on the Alameda in Guadalaxara? I see you now, when the bells tolled nine, and every one stood still as if by magic to pray a Pater Noster. I see you standing before me: how you crushed your hat in your hands! Your eyes flashed fire as though they would set the whole world in flames. Donna Ines not excepted. You were a dangerous cavalier."
"By G—," continued the stranger, after he had taken another pull at the wine. "The sweat still stands on my brow when I think how we stood once in Toledo before the church of 'Our Lady del Transito.' 'Do you see,' you said, gnashing your teeth, 'that splendid building was once the synagogue of our fathers. Samuel Levi, who built it, hangs rotting on the gallows, and now—' It was a real wonder that, in spite of thy audacity, we got away with whole heads."
Thus the two old friends renewed the memories of their youth. For an hour they lived a life of pleasure and youthful fire.
"I cannot understand," said Baruch once, "how