Spinoza. Auerbach Berthold
Читать онлайн книгу.
then warmly clasped his father's hand.
"O my son!" began his father again, "your honor is sevenfold my own; you cannot realize it. May you one day experience the like! Naught is like unto the blessedness of the father who himself strives after an honor, and then sees his son attain to it; my happiness and joy rest on your head, are yours, and yet more than mine, better than mine. I see the time of the Messiah before me; I know now how it must be to the Father's heart to call his Son the Saviour. God pardon me, my heart is so overfull! I should not say so to you, but you may thus know how blessed you make me. My last brother is dead; that wound is healed with heavenly balm: you are my son, and brother also."
Baruch had never seen his father so agitated; with humble looks he gazed at his flashing eyes. The souls of father and son found peace in communion. The father covered his brow with one hand, and after a pause said in a quiet tone:
"Have you no wish, Baruch? Speak out; I would willingly reward you for the joy with which you have animated my heart."
It was a singular return to the common world, and only because the desire was habitual to him Baruch said:
"Let me at last learn the language of all secular learning—Latin. Why should I know less than my schoolfellows Isaak Pinhero, Ahron de Silva, and many others?"
"Yes, I will grant your request. God, the All-good, who has led you hitherto, will guard you further, that you may drink in no poison from such writings. And now, have you no other wish?"
"Is it true," said Baruch, looking at the ground and blushing, "is it true what Rodrigo Casseres said yesterday evening about the Moorish origin of my mother?—blessed be her memory! Did I wrong Chisdai Astruk when I struck him in the face a year ago because he mocked me with it?"
The father's face changed suddenly at these words, he gazed before him, and pressed his lips together: at last he took a key from his pocket, opened a chest, and took out the death-gear that every pious Jew keeps ready, unrolled them, until he found a paper; this he handed to Baruch with these words: "Take and read it; you have heard of the death of my brother; you are the heir of all our traditions. Remember that. These words should have been yours when my mouth was mute, but it is better so. You are strong enough."
The father pushed the writing towards him with a trembling hand, and left the room to go with his guest to the harbor, the so-called
Buitenkant
, where the monotonous cry of the sailors echoed across the water, and his co-religionists passing in the enjoyment of the Sabbath repeatedly congratulated the happy father. He showed his guest the verdure of the reclaimed marshes; and to-day a certain pride in his new home, and in its position gained by unremitting energy, arose in him.
As he showed his friend the water-working windmills, and explained the plan of the dykes and dams, and how each piece of fruitful land had its history, his hearer looked on in astonished sympathy.
This man, who now first saw himself openly joining in the faith of his fathers, must have followed a devotional train of thought, for he said:
"In these Netherlands our God seems a second time to have miraculously dried up the sea, for the salvation of his people Israel. He has not done it by supernatural means, but taught his power to men."
Meanwhile Baruch sat in his chamber and read:
MANUELA.
FOR MY ONLY SON, BARUCH, ALONE.
WHEN these words come into your hands, my mouth will be mute, my soul again with her to whom it ever belonged, and of whom I am now about to tell you. . . . .
My whole youth rises before me, my cheeks burn; from scorn and lies I have won a blessed life.
Give heed.
I was twenty years old the spring when I travelled to Seville to visit my brother Moses, called Geronimo, in his monastery. I say I was twenty years of age; but I knew men, and their dishonest ways. Misfortune and deceit age men before their time and teach them experience. I arrived in Seville. My brother received me with cruel coldness, hardly giving me his hand through the bars of the grating in the monastery parlor. "Son of earth, I have naught in common with thee; what wouldst thou with me?" he exclaimed.
Such a reception did not attract me to him. I had business for some weeks in the town and neighborhood. I remained, therefore, a week in Seville, without seeing my brother again.
In the gay companionship of Lindos and Majos I passed many careless hours of pleasure, but the thought of the fate of the flower of our faith in Seville was too grimly earnest to be forgotten. I visited the graveyard before the Minjoar gate, destroyed five-and-twenty years ago: there the bones of the great men of Israel once rested; there once stood the noble monument of our ancestor, of the great Rabbi Baruch de Espinosa, whose name you bear; but nothing was to be seen, not a single inscription marked the spot wherein the bones of the noble man had been laid; even in the grave Spain had denied them rest, and searched it for gold, silver, and unholy books.
One day an irrepressible inclination (after what resulted, I must needs call it an inspiration) made me revisit my unnatural priestly brother.
As if I were mounting the holy hill of Zion, where once was enthroned the glory of God, I made my way with equal joy towards the Castle of Triana, where priests reigned in the name of the Creator. I could neither account for my joy nor control it.
As T entered the parlor I was met by a sobbing maiden, who left the room with veiled face.
"Señora," said I, "do you need a protector, and dare I—" I could not finish the sentence; the maiden raised her brilliant black eyes, a tear dropped from the long lashes, she shook her head slightly in denial, and went out.
I was led to my brother's cell by a familiar. He convulsively clasped my hand, and when the familiar left the cell, fell on my neck weeping.
"Benjamin, my brother, it is thou, indeed; but I am no Joseph: I have sold myself. But no! no! I will be quiet. See! it is just as if we were at home—thou art the younger, and yet thou hast power over me. 'Oh how lovely is it when brethren are together!'" he said.
He saw how the marked contrast between this reception and the last surprised me, and prayed me to pardon him; he could not act otherwise, because the parlor was so built, that the slightest whisper could be heard by the prior, whose cell was above.
They always half mistrusted him, and he wished to show that he, if need be, could forcibly tear asunder all the bonds of nature, and look upon the priests alone as his brethren, the Church as his true mother. He described his daily life to me, and how he secretly prayed to the God of his fathers; the most cunning intrigues, the most ghastly tales of murder, he related with unmoved and pious mien; only sometimes a faint smile hovered round the corners of his mouth. I expressed my wonder at this blank want of expression.
"An expressive countenance," he said, "is our greatest enemy. Therefore with God's help I have made mine blank and dull. Within all may be rage and rebellion if you will, but on the surface must be peace—the blessed eternal peace of the Holy One."
We talked long together. I reminded him of Eleazar, called Constantine Montefiore, who with the same view as Moses had become a Dominican.
"That is a case in point," said Geronimo; "he was caught in the invisible snares that surround the parlor. His father visited him, they were careless enough to trust their secrets to the gossiping walls: an hour later they were thrown in prison. Constantine (I will not blame him: he is dead) could not bear the thought that he was guilty of his father's tortures and death; with a piece of broken glass he opened a vein, and bled his young life away. Old Montefiore, already half a corpse, two days afterwards was burnt at an auto da fé, with the body of his son." Thus talked Geronimo. I conjured him, by everything sacred, according to our father's wishes, to take to flight; he swore hotly by all that is holy never to leave his cloister alive.
I returned to the town; the inexplicable obstinacy of my brother, with his life lost to the outer world, made my whole being shudder; but