Rabbi and Priest Part 39

The Governor listened impatiently. When Mendel had finished speaking, he said:

"I do not see how I can help you. The Czar himself has declared your property forfeited, and I am afraid the people will insist upon their rights."

"But the pretended _ukase_ confiscating our property is false!" cried Mendel, with great indignation. "Your excellency knows it is but an invention of a body of men who wish to enrich themselves at the cost of our people. Your excellency surely cannot allow such outrages to be perpetrated!"

"Moderate your language, man," cried the Governor, angrily, rising from his chair, "or you will find yourself outside the palace doors."

"I beg your excellency's pardon," answered Mendel, meekly, "if grief has made me disrespectful. In the name of my co-religionists, I desire to offer a proposition. If our property falls to the Czar's subjects, it is certainly better to preserve it intact than to expose it to the savage attacks of the rioters. If your excellency permits, we will bring you the keys of our houses and submit to any measures you may see fit to take. If the _ukase_ is true, the property will revert to the State uninjured; if it is not true, your excellency will have the humanity to restore us to our rights."

The Governor, surprised at this unexpected and unique proposition, found himself without a reply. He glanced significantly at the priest.

"What do you say, Mikail?" he asked.

Mikail, who had been apparently absorbed in writing, but who had not lost a word of the discussion, now arose, and in his deep, sonorous voice, answered:

"The _ukase_ is true, your excellency, and we have no right to render it nugatory. For twenty years the Jews have enjoyed equal rights with the Christians, and every endeavor has been made to a.s.similate them with the other inhabitants. In vain. The Jews constantly abused their new liberties, and by their acts brought upon themselves the ill-will of the entire nation. They form a state within the State, governing themselves by their own code of laws, which are often antagonistic to those of the land. I need not recapitulate the acts of cruelty they have perpetrated upon defenceless Christians, the wiles they have employed to defraud their creditors, or the usury for which they are notorious. I need not allude to the fact that they have driven the Catholic Russians from profitable fields of labor, and have appropriated to themselves every branch of trade. These acts and many others have now called forth the protests of the people, and the result is violence and robbery. It would be useless to control the mob, your excellency, for the wrongs under which they smart have driven them to desperation."

While Mikail was speaking, Mendel gazed at him as though fascinated. He could not take his eyes from the handsome features and commanding form of the monk. He must have seen him before, he thought--but where?

Suddenly the priest's resemblance to his own father struck him as remarkable.

Ordinarily, the priest's unjust accusations would have called forth a vigorous protest from the Rabbi, but now he suddenly found himself bereft of reasoning power; he could but look upon his adversary in awe and wonder. The priest turned, and by the movement exposed his mutilated ear. The lobe had been torn completely off. Where could he have seen that ear before? Mendel stared as though in a dream. He struggled with his memory, but it failed him; all appeared a perfect blank. Then the priest, in the course of his denunciations, became more vehement than before, and made a movement with his left hand. The arm was stiff at the elbow, and the gesture appeared unnatural and restrained. Still Mendel looked and tried to reflect. That arm awoke a strange train of thoughts.

His mind appeared sluggish to-day; he could remember nothing.

Suddenly the Rabbi uttered a piercing cry. Yes, it all came back to him now.

"Jacob!" he cried, advancing towards the priest. "My brother Jacob arrayed against his own people!"

The monk recoiled a step and looked at the Jew in surprise.

"Is the man mad?" he asked, addressing the Governor.

"No; I am not mad," cried Mendel, excitedly. "As true as there is a G.o.d above us, you are my brother Jacob!"

The priest, fully believing that the Rabbi had suddenly become insane, recoiled a step and drew his garments about him. The Governor glanced significantly at his wife, who had become as pale as death.

The Rabbi was unable to control his excitement.

"Jacob, my brother," he cried again; "do you not remember me, Mendel? Do you not remember our home in Togarog? Do you not recollect how we were both stolen away from home on the night of my _bar-mitzvah_; how we were taken to Kharkov by the soldiers, and how we escaped and fled into the country? Do you not remember how we travelled along, weary and foot-sore, until you could no longer walk, and I ran to a neighboring village for a.s.sistance? When I returned, you had disappeared. Jacob, do you remember nothing?"

Mikail stood with his head buried in his hands, drinking in every word of the gesticulating Rabbi.

Yes; he did remember something; indistinctly, of course, but as each event was recalled it evoked a corresponding picture in his brain. Many things suddenly became clear which had been hitherto shrouded in mystery. The secret of his birth, concerning which he had so often questioned Countess Drentell without receiving a satisfactory reply, the indistinct recollection of strange events, and, finally, the familiarity of the ritual in the synagogue. When Mendel had ceased speaking, he turned abruptly to the Countess, who, pale and agitated, was standing by the side of her husband. Surprise, anger, pa.s.sion were portrayed in the priest's flas.h.i.+ng eye and contracted features, and Louise shrank from him as he approached her.

"Madam," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "what can I say in reply to this charge? You have been my protectress from childhood. Tell this man that he lies, that I am not the brother of a Jew."

The Countess' lips parted, but neither she nor the Count found a reply.

"See, their silence speaks for me!" cried Mendel, almost joyfully.

"Jacob, it is true! I could not be mistaken. Your image has never left me since we parted on the highway, and I recognized you at once by your resemblance to our father, and by your torn ear and crippled arm."

"Marks which I received at the hands of the accursed Jews," cried the priest, fiercely.

"Not so, Jacob! Whoever told you that did not tell the truth. It was not the Jews, but a Christian, who tortured you because you were a Jew."

Again Mikail confronted the Countess.

"Madam, I demand to know whether this man speaks the truth or not?" he exclaimed, wildly.

"He does, Mikail," replied Louise, nervously. "For the sake of your own happiness, we endeavored to keep you in ignorance of the facts. You were a Jew when we found you insensible on the road near Poltava. I took you to my home, and to save you from the misery and degradation of being a Jew, and also to bring a new soul into our holy church, I had you brought up in a convent as a Catholic priest."

"And these injuries," asked Mikail, pale and trembling, "the marks of which I shall carry to the grave, were they not the work of the Jews?"

"Of that I know nothing," answered the Countess, carelessly. "This man,"

pointing to Mendel; "can tell you more about that than I."

The face of the priest became livid. "I am a Jew," he cried; "I, a Jew!

Oh G.o.d," he moaned, convulsively, "why did you send me this agony? My life has been one living falsehood, my whole existence a lie. My tongue has been taught to execrate my religion, my mind to plan the destruction of my father's people. Ha! ha! ha! you are right; the Jews are an accursed race, and I am accursed with them!" The priest broke into a wild laugh which sent a chill through the blood of his hearers.

Mendel endeavored to speak to him, to grasp his hand; but Mikail looked at him with a meaningless stare, and turning, without another word, he fled like a maniac from the apartment.

General Drentell turned furiously upon the Israelites.

"Go!" he cried; "leave the palace! You have done mischief enough!"

Mendel's strong form shook with emotion; he was weeping. He collected himself for a final appeal.

"If your excellency would send us a regiment of soldiers," he said, preparing to leave; "our lives and our property might still be saved."

"What care I for your property or your wretched lives?" shouted the Governor, in a frenzy. "I shall not trouble my soldiers for a pack of miserable Jews."[21]

The Rabbi and his fellows found themselves outside of the palace walls, sad and disheartened.

"Friends," he said, in a broken voice, "you have been witnesses of this terrible scene. Oh, G.o.d! to think that my brother, whom we mourned as dead, should have become a Catholic priest and be plotting the destruction of his people." Here Mendel's grief overcame him and he remained silent for some moments. Recovering his composure with an effort, he continued, in a subdued voice: "I have a favor to ask of you, my friends. Speak to no one of this unfortunate meeting. If the news came to my father's ears it would kill him."

The men promised and the little band walked silently back to their homes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: In the description of the outrages and acts of lawlessness in this and succeeding chapters, the author has not drawn upon his imagination, but has followed as closely as possible the narration of the Russian refugees on their arrival in America, and the graphic account sent by a special correspondent to the _London Times_, and republished in pamphlet form in this country in 1883.]

[Footnote 21: Historical.]

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN.