Judith Trachtenberg Part 20

"Because you are so warmly clad?" growled the man. "But just as you like. Here is the inn."

He aided her to alight, but when he saw how she tottered he attempted to take the child from her. She resisted, and so he took her into the tap-room. The large, dismal place was crowded with peasants and cattle-drivers. The air was foul and heavy with the smell of oil, bad tobacco, and steam generated by the stove-heat acting on the dripping garments.

"This won't do for you," said the hostess, compa.s.sionately, as the coachman ushered in the new guest, opening the door into an adjoining room, at once her bed and dwelling room. She brought the milk immediately, protesting better could not be found in the wide world, and then watched the stranger filling the feeding-bottle and giving it to the child.

"Don't you nurse the baby yourself?" she inquired. "Poor thing! I suppose you are too weak."

The stranger had pulled the cloth which covered her head well down in front, so that her face could not be seen distinctly, but the hostess felt convinced it was pale and emaciated. "What a bonny boy! It is a boy, is it not? How merrily he uses his little legs! I suppose you have not travelled far, he is so wide awake. Have you come from Tl.u.s.te?"

"No," answered the stranger, "we have been travelling for weeks. But I have done the best I could for him, and compa.s.sionate people are to be found everywhere."

"For weeks!" exclaimed the woman. "In winter! Then you have come from the neighborhood of Cracow, perhaps!"

"Still farther away."

"Still farther? Then from Aschkanas or Prague? There is a large congregation there. But, from your accent, I should have judged you belonged to this neighborhood. Will you spend the night with me?"

The stranger declined. "I must go on into the town."

"Because you fancy the inns there will be better," said the woman, somewhat hurt. However, she resumed, in a pitying tone, "How you are trembling! Have you a fever? Just wait; I'll bring you some soup, and if you are poor you need not trouble about the pay." And before an answer could be given she was away into the kitchen.

But the stranger was not to be left alone long. First came the coachman. "Rest yourself, madam. I have plenty of time."

Then a bearded man poked his head into the room. "G.o.d's welcome! I am the landlord. The soup will be here directly." Finally an old woman entered, at the sight of whom the stranger started, pulling her head-cloth still closer over her face. But the poor little woman with her shrivelled-up face, with its prominent hooked nose, did not bother her. She only said "Good-morning," and then sat down at the other end of the table and gazed into vacancy with her bleared eyes.

The landlady came, bearing a steaming bowl. "Welcome, Aunt Miriam," she said to the old woman. "It is nice of you to come here instead of sitting over there alone in your little room."

She placed the bowl before the stranger. "Help yourself. I have put some chicken in it; not much, but as much as I could." She then turned again to the old body. "It is not right, Aunt Miriam, for you to weep so much."

"Ah!" sobbed Miriam Gold, "I cannot help it. It is as if my soul were bleeding. She was my child, my flesh, my blood!"

"Well, I said little against it at first. But now she has been dead four months, and you are weeping yourself blind. Must we not all die?

Did I not have to bury my Radel--and my Rachel--but I will not hurt you."

"I know what you were going to say: that your Rachel was a good child and my Lea was not. But even if she did join the church and marry a Christian, have you it in written testimony, Aunt Malke, that G.o.d in heaven--praised be his name!--looks upon her as you do?"

"Yes, Aunt Miriam," said the landlady, solemnly, "we have that testimony. There it is," and she pointed to a copy of a Hebrew Bible which lay in the window. "G.o.d does not wish a Leah to become a Barbara."

"We won't discuss it," answered the old woman, wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n. "Leave me that one comfort--that G.o.d will prove a merciful judge to my poor child. When she was dying she remembered she had been called Leah, and sent and begged me to go to her. But I was cowardly, and let myself be persuaded to offer this last insult to my poor child. She is at rest now; but I am devoured by remorse, and therefore I weep, Aunt Malke, and shall continue to weep till--"

"You know I advised neither for nor against going. I told you to ask the rabbi and other pious men. It was not a woman's business."

"It was a woman's business. Who has a right to step between a mother and her child? They intimidated me. G.o.d did not wish it; and when I went to Raphael, he told me my allowance should not be withdrawn if I went, though he could not advise it. 'Your daughter is not dying,' he said. 'She has been long dead. I would not go in your place. You are happier than I, for your Lea did not become a harlot, like my sister.

But,' he said--"

A cry of pain, sharp and shrill, rang through the room, so that both women jumped. "What ails you?" they cried, running to the stranger. She had covered her face with her hands, her cloth had slipped from her head, so as to reveal her auburn hair streaked with gray.

The hostess gazed at the flowing hair with disgust, as if a nestful of adders had crawled to meet her.

"What's that?" she exclaimed. "Are you not an honest Jewess, who wears her own hair?"

Miriam stood as if paralyzed. "Merciful G.o.d!" she murmured; "this hair!

the unfortunate creature!"

"Answer!" cried the hostess to the stranger. "This is a Jewish house.

One wishes to know who one is receiving."

Miriam went to her. "Be quiet. Don't you know her? It is Judith!"

"Judith!" shrieked the landlady. "Away with her!"

Judith dropped her hands. "I am going; I am going."

The landlady gazed with wide-open eyes at the pale face which, so it seemed, she had seen but yesterday beautiful and comely, and at the bent form, shaken with fever. "G.o.d hath shown her his hand," she muttered.

Miriam had rushed up to Judith. Tears coursed down her cheeks in streams as she embraced the slender form with pa.s.sionate affection, and stroked the thin face with her withered hands. "My poor darling! G.o.d has sent you to me."

The hostess looked at her in surprise. Fierce as was her anger towards this renegade, yet her eyelids smarted at the sight. She turned to the door. "Make it short, Aunt Miriam, for I must tell my husband, and he won't stand it." But her thought was, "How sympathetic Miriam is! I would be, too, if I did not fear G.o.d."

Miriam's pity thawed even the unspeakable misery of Judith. "I know, Miriam--I know how you have always loved me."

"I do love you. You were so beautiful and good. Ay, so good! When I heard you had been seen in the count's garden a sudden pain pierced my heart, almost as great as the day my husband said to me, 'Wife, it would have been better had you never given birth to a child. Our Lea is courting with Wa.s.silj.' In my anxiety I ran and told you my child's story to warn you. It was hard, but I did it out of love. Alas, alas!

it was in vain. How I have lamented for you! I dared not pray, for they say it is a sin to pray for a renegade. You are a Christian, are you not?"

Judith shook her head.

"Oh," said the old woman, joyfully, "then much can be made good yet.

You refused baptism, and so were thrown off by the count?"

"No, I am a Jewess, and yet I am a renegade. I am a miserable creature, doomed in this world and the world to come."

"Not in the world to come, Judith," said Miriam, gravely. "One as old as I, who has experienced so much of evil in her dealings with human beings, must feel that G.o.d is more merciful than man. How you have suffered! I do not need to ask. It is written on your face."

A loud noise was heard outside. "She must go!" said a man's voice. "She found no mercy with her own father." It was the landlord. Between his scoldings could be heard his wife's voice in gentle expostulation.

"Come," urged Miriam, "my room is warm, and I live but a few doors from here. You can spend the night with me."

Judith carefully wrapped up the child. "Thank you," she said, "but you shall not get into trouble on my account. You have to depend on the charity of your neighbors, and they would be angry with you."

"Let them be," cried the old woman. And she stood erect, her withered features glowing with enthusiasm. "Though I die of hunger, I shall bless the day when your foot crosses my threshold. For G.o.d sent you to me. He has heard the daily and hourly prayer that I have made since my poor child died. Then I wrung my hands and cried, 'Oh, that I could atone for my cowardice and cruelty! Of what use are lamentations for those already dead? Of what avail is repentance, merciful G.o.d, who wills that men also should be merciful?' But he knew, and I can now repay to the living what I owe the dead. Come, come with me!"

"I cannot; I must go to Raphael."

"No, no; spare yourself that pain. You heard what was said."

"I must." She attempted to rise, but her strength failed. "I must," she repeated, and this time she succeeded. But she swayed to and fro, she was so shaken by fear; and when Miriam took the child from her arms she did not resist.

The door was thrown open, and the landlord entered. "Leave, or--" He stopped as he saw she was prepared to go. The sight of her misery seemed to render him speechless.