Gabriel Part 13

The attention of the whole a.s.sembly was now directed to Michoel Glogau.

"Yesterday," he began, as concisely as possible, "I saw and conversed for the first time with Gabriel Mar, whose body was found this morning in the graveyard. By a chance concurrence of circ.u.mstances I was led to suspect that Gabriel Mar might be one and the same person as Gabriel Suss, who disappeared some years ago. This suspicion became certainty, when I shortly afterwards, hidden behind an angle of the wall, called out his name, and he as if from force of an old habit turned his head and looked about as if he sought the caller; and then as though fearing to betray himself, hurried off. His disguise, his presence in the Jews'

quarter might have one of two objects, either to inflict some injury on his former brethren, or to rejoin them and repentantly be reconverted to the faith of his childhood. I resolved to speak with Gabriel Mar before my speedy departure. My words, I know not why, had made a deep impression upon him, I determined to attempt to learn his designs; if they were evil, to thwart them, if good as far as my weak strength permitted, to support them....

"I enquired where he lodged, and some hours afterwards found myself at Reb Schlome Sachs'. He received my communications at first very incredulously; but gradually remembered many peculiarities which had at first struck him in the behaviour of his guest.... His wife some days after his arrival had found him, sunk in deep reflection over a map; she had on the same day seen an officer who strikingly resembled Gabriel, riding out with the young Count Thurn! He himself had heard him talking so strangely in his sleep, that he did not at the time know what to make of it; his whole behaviour had been puzzling.... Reb Schlome Sachs was extraordinarily put out, and asked me what I proposed to do.... I requested him to accompany me to Gabriel's room; I would speak with him at once. Without knowing why, it seemed to me as if every minute that was lost was irrecoverably lost.... We went to his room, it was open, but Gabriel was not in the house. By the light of a lamp that was slowly going out, which he had left standing on the table, we saw a bureau that had been violently broken open, and in it arms; on the ground some old papers were scattered about. Reb Schlome shook violently as he took them up; ... they contained the memorial of his father-in-law, the history of his life.... We noticed the marks of recent tears on some pa.s.sages.... the ma.n.u.scripts had lain for years locked up in the bureau, there could not be the slightest doubt, that by some curious coincidence Gabriel had got possession of them.

Gabriel, none other, could have read these ma.n.u.scripts, their contents must have moved him to tears, have made a violent impression on him, at one point indeed he must have flung the papers far away from him: so it seemed to both of us, and the contents of the ma.n.u.script proved that we were not mistaken. The ma.n.u.script, which we both, Reb Schlome Sachs and I, read throught with the most high wrought attention, revealed astonis.h.i.+ng events to us.... Mad Jacob was the father of Gabriel Suss, was a brother of Rabbi Mosche's, a son of the great Rabbi Jizchok Meduro, an uncle of Rabbi Schlome's wife.... A wonderful Providence had conducted Gabriel Suss to the house, where he was to learn his father's history.... a wonderful impenetrable providence brought about his death in the same night in his father's arms, at his grandfather's grave!..."

Michoel was compelled to stop from deep emotion, and handed over Rabbi Mosche's Biography to the a.s.sembly.

"This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes," said Rabbi Lippmann h.e.l.ler, who had taken part in the meeting as a.s.sessor to the college of Rabbis, at last after a long pause....

"But are you also aware that Gabriel Suss and Major-General Otto Bitter are one and the same person?" he went on to ask....

"Yes," answered Michoel: "while Reb Schlome was unable from deep feeling to tear himself away from the handwriting of his father-in-law; I carefully examined the room. I found several letters from Count Mannsfield to Major-General Otto Bitter, in one of them he wrote that he sent him, Hebrew letters to look over.... among these I found several letters in German, but written in Hebrew characters. These letters were written from Prague by Blume Rottenberg and directed to her husband.... If I rightly remember, and Gabriel Suss' history was correctly related to me, his intended bride was called Blume Rottenberg, and she married her cousin, her father's brother's son....

Blume Rottenberg must be residing in Prague: so please you, my wise men and reverend teachers, she might be summoned, perhaps she will be able to solve the mysterious obscurity that hovers over the life, and still more remarkably over the death of Gabriel Suss, perhaps she will be able to supply information as to the object of his presence in Prague, and of his disguise."

Michoel's proposition was received with general applause--Blume Rottenberg had lived a retired life in Prague and under an a.s.sumed name. Only one person, the owner of the dilapidated house which she inhabited, knew her real name and was able to give information as to where she resided. He happened to be present. Blume Rottenberg was requested to betake herself to the house of the a.s.sessor Reb Lippmann h.e.l.ler, who was to receive her depositions in the presence of the chief overseer.

Both of them returned two hours afterwards much agitated to the meeting. The whole life of Gabriel Suss, all his past was now laid clear before their eyes.... and Gabriel Suss had died repentant in his father's arms!

It was unanimously decided, to bury them both, father and son, close together by the graves of their family.

It was formerly a custom in Israel, to bury the dead as soon as possible. Jacob and his son were to be immediately laid in the grave.

All present, deeply moved by the manifest Providence which had brought about everything so wonderfully, determined to attend the funeral obsequies, and were about to repair to the burial ground. They were just issuing from the Rathhaus, when two hors.e.m.e.n on foam-covered steeds galloped up and halted before it. It was a Captain in the Imperial army accompanied by a younger officer.

"Can I speak with the overseer of your community?" asked the Captain.

"Do not be alarmed," he went on to say in a friendly voice, seeing that they had become pale with terror, "no harm will happen to the Jewish community; we know that you are well affected to the Emperor and cleave to your Imperial master with firm unchangeable fidelity, ... but unknown to yourselves, an apostate from your faith, an outlaw, an enemy of the Emperor and Empire, the Mannsfieldian General Otto Bitter has been living for the last few days among you in the Jews-town. He did not escape with the Palatine.--We have every reason for believing that he is here in your town. He is Mannsfield's right hand-man and acquainted with all his plans.... I beseech you, make every effort to deliver him alive into our hands."

"That is impossible," answered the chief overseer after a short pause.

"He whom ye seek, by G.o.d's wonderful dispensation died this day about midnight full of repentance in the arms of his recovered father. We were just about to lay him in the grave: if it pleases you, Sir Captain! will you not go with us to the burial ground.... to convince yourself that Otto Bitter will never again fight against his Imperial master.... you know him by sight?"

"Of course I do? was I not standing by yesterday, when the most accomplished knight of our army. Count Pappenheim, fell badly wounded by his sword...."

On the short way to the burial ground the chief overseer recounted the history of Gabriel's storm tossed life to the Captain, and the strange events that had suddenly rent the mysterious veil that enveloped it....

The two corpses still locked in a fast embrace lay upon the same bier.

It was a most striking sight. The two officers uncovered their heads.--The Captain cast a scrutinizing look over Gabriel's body.

"There is no doubt, it is he," he said; then drew a paper out of his breast pocket, which he carefully read over and once more from time to time examined the body with the greatest attention....

"I have said so," he repeated, "there is no doubt, the dead man is Otto Bitter...."

"What are your orders with respect to the corpse?" asked the younger officer, "shall it be transported to the castle that the duke...."

"We fight with the living alone, the dead no more belongs to this world," answered the Captain earnestly. "Otto Bitter was a rebel, an enemy of the Emperor and Empire.... but he was a gallant hero.... May G.o.d pardon his sins.... overseer! Give me the letters found upon him, and lay your dead in the grave!"

At twilight on the same day two women, like kind angels, prayed kneeling at Gabriel's grave. Both of them were equally nearly related to the departed. The one was Blume Rottenberg, the woman that he had once madly loved, his mother's sister's daughter, the other Schondel Sachs, his uncle's daughter.

Blume Rottenberg had suffered fearfully for eight days. She was firmly resolved to sacrifice her life rather than her duty.... She had been saved by a miracle. Her trust in G.o.d had been thereby still more exalted. She had remained four months without tidings of her husband, and yet looked forward full of trust and hope to the future.... she had not deceived herself. On the 26th of March 1621 the Mannsfieldian commanders surrendered the city of Pilsen to General Tilly and eight days afterwards Aaron Rottenberg returned to the arms of his wife happy, and uninjured.... on his arrival he was surprised by joyful news. Important intelligence for him had come in from Worms. The patrician, who had had that law-suit so full of evil consequences with the Rottenberg family, was dead. Sorely tormented by the stings of conscience he had declared upon his death bed in the presence of his confessor and an officer of justice, that the claim of the Rottenbergs against him was perfectly well grounded, and that the acknowledgment, that he had declared to be forged, was genuine. He further confessed that the heads of the trades had intended to force the Rottenbergs at all hazards to admit that the acknowledgment was forged. This admission was to have been the signal for a general b.l.o.o.d.y persecution and plundering of the Jews. The reckless project had miscarried owing to the n.o.ble firmness of the Rottenbergs. The occasion was seized for an act of private revenge, if illegal at any rate apparently of common advantage, and if the insurgents had succeeded in stirring up the wild fury of a populace eager for plunder, the innocent Jews could at least reckon upon the a.s.sistance of the Prince and the sympathy of every right thinking person.... after the dying man had once more solemnly declared, that all his possessions were in justice the property of Aaron Rottenberg, he implored those who were present, with hot tears and in the most moving terms to hunt out the traces of Aaron Rottenberg, not only to put him in possession of his property, but also to tell him that they had been witnesses of the deep contrition and earnest repentance which had embittered his last hours: thus he hoped to obtain pardon from the Rottenbergs, whom his covetousness had plunged in unutterable misery....

Those who had been present at the patrician's death-bed immediately imparted his confession to the authorities of the Jewish community in Worms. This event caused immense excitement there, now for the first time they saw how falsely, how unjustly they had interpreted the n.o.ble behaviour of the Rottenbergs, for what heavy injustice they had to ask forgiveness of them. In a meeting of the elders it was unanimously decided to search out Aaron Rottenberg, to ask in the name of the community his forgiveness of the injuries it had inflicted upon him, and urgently to beg him to return to his paternal city, and again to accept the office of an overseer, which his father formerly, and afterwards he himself had filled.

The letter of the Worms community that put him in possession of all these facts, made a most pleasing impression upon Rottenberg. The profound regret, the sorrowful repentance which the community expressed in earnest words, made it impossible for him to oppose their request.

He set out on the journey to Worms with a heart full of thankfulness.

He was received in his native city with loud rejoicing and trod its streets with tears of emotion....

A long series of happy years effaced from the memory of the Rottenberg family the sorrows of their past life, but not the miracle which the Lord had vouchsafed to them.

Cobbler Abraham looked upon himself with no small pride as an instrument of divine Providence. It was he who had first accosted Gabriel Suss on his arrival in the Jews-town. It was he who had shown him the way to Reb Schlome Sachs, where Gabriel had at last found the solution of the mystery of his life; a solution that had affected him so profoundly, had agitated the inmost depths of his being.--Even fifty years later, when old as Methusalem but still vigorous, Cobbler Abraham was always ready to recount the history of Gabriel Suss to whoever wished it, and only regretted that he could no longer introduce his two former neighbours, Hirsch, the fish-monger, and Mindel, the liver-vender, who had predeceased him, as witnesses to the accuracy and truthfulness with which he described his first meeting with Suss.

Reb Schlome Sachs and his wife lived as before peaceful and contented, and when Schondel after ten years of childless wedlock was brought to bed of a boy, and so the profoundest, if silent, wish of her heart was fulfilled; nothing was wanting to her perfect happiness....

Michoel Glogau went to Breslau, and taught the word of G.o.d there.

THE END.