Chapter 1

Produced by David Widger

A GHETTO VIOLET

By Leopold Kompert

From “Christian and Leah.” Translated by A. S. Arnold.

1869

Through the open window came the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the first to break the silence.

“Ephraim, my brother!” she said.

“What is it, dear Viola?”

“I wonder does the birdie know that it is the Sabbath to-day?”

“What a child you are!” answered Ephraim.

“Yes, that 's always the way; when you clever men can't explain a thing, you simply dismiss the question by calling it childish,” Viola exclaimed, as though quite angry. “And, pray, why should n't the bird know? The whole week it scarcely sang a note: to-day it warbles and warbles so that it makes my head ache. And what's the reason? Every Sabbath it's just the same, I notice it regularly. Shall I tell you what my idea is?

“The whole week long the little bird looks into our room and sees nothing but the humdrum of work-a-day life. To-day it sees the bright rays of the Sabbath lamp and the white Sabbath cloth upon the table. Don't you think I 'm right, Ephraim?”

“Wait, dear Viola,” said Ephraim, and he went to the cage.

The bird's song suddenly ceased.

“Now you 've spoilt its Sabbath!” cried the girl, and she was so excited that the book which had been lying upon her lap fell to the ground.

Ephraim turned towards her; he looked at her solemnly, and said quietly:

“Pick up your prayer-book first, and then I 'll answer. A holy book should not be on the ground like that. Had our mother dropped her prayer-book, she would have kissed it.... Kiss it, Viola, my child!”

Viola did so.

“And now I 'll tell you, dear Viola, what I think is the reason why the bird sings so blithely to-day.... Of course, I don't say I 'm right.”

Viola's brown eyes were fixed inquiringly upon her brother's face.

“How seriously you talk to-day,” she said, making a feeble attempt at a smile. “I was only joking. Must n't I ask if the bird knows anything about the Sabbath?”

“There are subjects it is sinful to joke about, and this may be one of them, Viola.”

“You really quite frighten me, Ephraim.”

“You little goose, I don't want to frighten you,” said Ephraim, while a faint flush suffused his features. “I 'll tell you my opinion about the singing of the bird. I think, dear Viola, that our little canary knows... that before long it will change its quarters.”

“You 're surely not going to sell it or give it away?” cried the girl, in great alarm; and springing to her feet, she quickly drew her brother away from the cage.

“No, I 'm not going to sell it nor give it away,” said Ephraim, whose quiet bearing contrasted strongly with his sister's excitement “Is it likely that I should do anything that would give you pain? And yet, I have but to say one word... and I 'll wager that you will be the first to open the cage and say to the bird, 'Fly, fly away, birdie, fly away home!'”

“Never, never!” cried the girl.

“Viola,” said Ephraim beseechingly, “I have taken a vow. Surely you would not have me break it?”

“A vow?” asked his sister.

“Viola,” Ephraim continued, as he bent his head down to the girl's face, “I have vowed to myself that whenever he... our father... should return, I would give our little bird its freedom. It shall be free, free as he will be.”

“Ephraim!”

“He is coming--he is already on his way home.”

Viola flung her arms round her brother's neck. For a long time brother and sister remained locked in a close embrace.

Meanwhile the bird resumed its jubilant song.

“Do you hear how it sings again?” said Ephraim; and he gently stroked his sister's hair. “It knows that it will soon be free.”

“A father out of jail!” sobbed Viola, as she released herself from her brother's arms.

“He has had his punishment, dear Viola!” said Ephraim softly.

Viola turned away. There was a painful silence, and then she looked up at her brother again. Her face was aglow, her eyes sparkled with a strange fire; she was trembling with agitation.

Never before had Ephraim seen her thus.

“Ephraim, my brother,” she commenced, in that measured monotone so peculiar to intense emotion, “with the bird you can do as you please. You can set it free, or, if you like, you can wring its neck. But as for him, I 'll never look in his face again, from me he shall not have a word of welcome. He broke our mother's heart... our good, good mother; he has dishonored himself and us. And I can never forget it.”

“Is it right for a child to talk like that of her own father?” said Ephraim in a tremulous voice.

“When a child has good cause to be ashamed of her own father!” cried Viola.

“Oh, my Viola, you must have forgotten dear mother's dying words. Don't you remember, as she opened her eyes for the last time, how she gathered up her failing strength, and raising herself in her bed, 'Children,' she said, 'my memory will protect you both, yea, and your father too.' Viola, have you forgotten?”

Had you entered that little room an hour later, a touching sight would have met your eyes. Viola was seated on her brother's knee, her arms round his neck, whilst Ephraim with the gentle love of a brother for a younger sister, was stroking her hair, and whispering in her ear sweet words of solace.

The bird-cage was empty.... That evening Ephraim sat up till midnight. Outside in the Ghetto reigned the stillness of night.

All at once Ephraim rose from his chair, walked to the old bureau which stood near the door, opened it, and took from it a bulky volume, which he laid upon the table in front of him. But he did not seem at all bent upon reading. He began fingering the pages, until he came upon a bundle of bank-notes, and these he proceeded to count, with a whispering movement of his lips. He had but three or four more notes still to count, when his sharp ear detected the sound of stealthy footsteps, in the little courtyard in front of the house. Closing the book, and hastily putting it back again in the old bureau, Ephraim sprang to the window and opened it.

“Is that you, father?” he cried.

There was no answer.

Ephraim repeated his question.

He strained his eyes, peering into the dense darkness, but no living thing could he see. Then quite close to him a voice cried: “Make no noise... and first put out the light.”

“Heavens! Father, it is you then...!” Ephraim exclaimed.

“Hush!” came in a whisper from without, “first put out the light.”

Ephraim closed the window, and extinguished the light Then, with almost inaudible step, he walked out of the room into the dark passage; noiselessly he proceeded to unbolt the street-door. Almost at the same moment a heavy hand clasped his own.

“Father, father!” Ephraim cried, trying to raise his parent's hand to his lips.

“Make no noise,” the man repeated, in a somewhat commanding tone.

With his father's hand in his, cautiously feeling his way, Ephraim led him into the room. In the room adjoining lay Viola, sleeping peacefully....

Time was when “Wild” Ascher's welcome home had been far otherwise. Eighteen years before, upon that very threshold which he now crossed with halting, stealthy steps, as of a thief in the night, stood a fair and loving wife, holding a sturdy lad aloft in her arms, so that the father might at once see, as he turned the street corner, that wife and child were well and happy. Not another Ghetto in all Bohemia could show a handsomer and happier couple than Ascher and his wife. “Wild” Ascher was one of those intrepid, venturesome spirits, to whom no obstacle is so great that it cannot be surmounted. And the success which crowned his long, persistent wooing was often cited as striking testimony to his indomitable will. Gudule was famous throughout the Ghetto as “the girl with the wonderful eyes,” eyes--so the saying ran--into which no man could look and think of evil. During the earlier years of their married life those unfathomable brown eyes exercised on Ascher the full power of their fascination. A time came, however, when he alleged that those very eyes had been the cause of all his ruin.

Gudule's birthplace was far removed from the Ghetto, where Ascher had first seen the light. Her father was a wealthy farmer in a secluded village in Lower Bohemia. But distant though it was from the nearest town of any importance, the solitary grange became the centre of attraction to all the young swains far and near. But there was none who found favor in Gudule's eyes save “Wild Ascher,” in spite of many a friendly warning to beware of him. One day, just before the betrothal of the young people, an anonymous letter was delivered at the grange. The writer, who called himself an old friend, entreated the farmer to prevent his dear child from becoming the wife of one who was suspected of being a gambler. The farmer was of an easy-going, indulgent nature, shunning care and anxiety as a very plague. Accordingly, no sooner had he read the anonymous missive than he handed it to his daughter, as though its contents were no concern of his.

When Gudule had read the letter to the end, she merely remarked: “Father, this concerns me, and nobody else.”

And so the matter dropped.

Not until the wedding-day, half an hour before the ceremony, when the marriage canopy had already been erected in the courtyard, did the farmer sum up courage to revert to the warning of the unknown letter-writer. Taking his future son-in-law aside, he said:

“Ascher, is it true that you gamble?”

“Father,” Ascher answered with equal firmness, “Gudule's eyes will save me!” Ascher had uttered no untruth when he gave his father-in-law this assurance. He spoke in all earnestness, for like every one else he knew the magnetic power of Gudule's eyes.

Nowhere, probably, does the grim, consuming pestilence of gaming claim more victims than in the Ghetto. The ravages of drink and debauchery are slight indeed; but the tortuous streets can show too many a humble home haunted by the spectres of ruin and misery which stalked across the threshold when the _first card game_ was played.

It was with almost feverish anxiety that the eyes of the Ghetto were fixed upon the development of a character like Ascher's; they followed his every step with the closest attention. Long experience had taught the Ghetto that no gambler could be trusted.

As though conscious that all eyes were upon him, Ascher showed himself most punctilious in the discharge of even the minutest of communal duties which devolved upon him as a denizen of the Ghetto, and his habits of life were almost ostentatiously regular and decorous. His business had prospered, and Gudule had borne him a son.

“Well, Gudule, my child,” the farmer asked his daughter on the day when his grandson was received into the covenant of Abraham,--“well, Gudule, was the letter right?”

“What letter?” asked Gudule.

“That in which your husband was called a gambler.”

“And can you still give a thought to such a letter?” was Gudule's significant reply.

Three years later, Gudule's father came to visit her. This time she showed him his second grandchild, her little Viola. He kissed the children, and round little Viola's neck clasped three rows of pearls, “that the child may know it had a grandfather once.”

“And where are your pearls, Gudule?” he asked, “those left you by your mother,--may she rest in peace! She always set such store by them.”

“Those, father?” Gudule replied, turning pale; “oh, my husband has taken them to a goldsmith in Prague. They require a new clasp.”

“I see,” remarked her father. Notwithstanding his limited powers of observation, it did not escape the old man's eyes that Gudule looked alarmingly wan and emaciated. He saw it, and it grieved his very soul. He said nothing however: only, when leaving, and after he had kissed the _Mezuza_* he said to Gudule (who, with little Viola in her arms, went with him to the door), in a voice quivering with suppressed emotion: “Gudule, my child, the pearl necklet which I have given your little Viola has a clasp strong enough to last a hundred years... you need never, therefore, give it to your husband to have a new clasp made for it.”

* Small cylinder inclosing a roll of parchment inscribed with the Hebrew word _Shadai_ (Almighty) and with other texts, which is affixed to the lintel of every Jewish house.

And without bestowing another glance upon his child the easy-going man left the house. It was his last visit. Within the year Gudule received a letter from her eldest brother telling her that their father was dead, and that she would have to keep the week of mourning for him. Ever since his last visit to her--her brother wrote--the old man had been somewhat ailing, but knowing his vigorous constitution, they had paid little heed to his complaints. It was only during the last few weeks that a marked loss of strength had been noticed. This was followed by fever and delirium. Whenever he was asked whether he would not like to see Gudule, his only answer was: “She must not give away the clasp of little Viola's necklet.” And but an hour before his death, he raised his voice, and loudly called for “the letter.” Nobody knew what letter. “Gudule knows where it is,” he said, with a gentle shake of his head. Those were the last words he spoke.

Had the old man's eyes deceived him on the occasion of his last visit to his son-in-law's house? No! For, setting aside the incident of the missing pearls, the whole Ghetto could long since have told him that the warning of the anonymous letter was not unfounded--for Gudule was the wife of a gambler.

With the resistless impetuosity of a torrent released from its prison of ice and snow, the old invincible disease had again overwhelmed its victim. Gudule noticed the first signs of it when one day her husband returned home from one of his business journeys earlier than he had arranged. Gudule had not expected him.

“Why did you not come to meet me with the children?” he cried peevishly; “do you begrudge me even that pleasure?”

“_I_ begrudge you a pleasure?” Gudule ventured to remark, as she raised her swimming eyes to his face.

“Why do you look at me so tearfully?” he almost shouted.

Ascher loved his wife, and when he saw the effect which his rough words had produced, he tenderly embraced her. “Am I not right, Gudule?” he said, “after a man has been working and slaving the livelong week, don't you think he looks forward with longing eyes for his dear children to welcome him at his door?”

At that moment Gudule felt the long latent suspicion revive in her that her husband was not speaking the truth. As if written in characters of fire, the words of that letter now came back to her memory; she knew now what was the fate that awaited her and her children.

Thenceforward, all the characteristic tokens of a gambler's life, all the vicissitudes which attend his unholy calling, followed close upon each other in grim succession. Most marked was the disturbance which his mental equilibrium was undergoing. Fits of gloomy despondency were succeeded, with alarming rapidity, by periods of tumultuous exaltation. One moment it would seem as though Gudule and the children were to him the living embodiment of all that was precious and lovable, whilst at other times he would regard them with sullen indifference. It soon became evident to Gudule that her husband's affairs were in a very bad way, for her housekeeping allowance no longer came to her with its wonted regularity. But what grieved and alarmed her most, was the fact that Ascher was openly neglecting every one of his religious duties. To return home late on Friday night, long after sunset had ushered in the Sabbath, was now a common practice. Once even it happened, that with his clothes covered with dust, he came home from one of his business tours on a Sabbath morning, when the people in holiday attire were wending their way to the synagogue.

Nevertheless, not a sound of complaint escaped Gudule's lips. Hers was one of those proud, sensitive natures, such as are to be met with among all classes and amid all circumstances of life, in Ghetto and in secluded village, no less than among the most favored ones of the earth. Had she not cast to the winds the well-intentioned counsel given her in that unsigned letter? Why then should she complain and lament, now that the seed had borne fruit? She shrank from alluding before her husband to the passion which day by day, nay, hour by hour, tightened its hold upon him. She would have died sooner than permit the word “gambler” to pass her lips. Besides, did not her eyes tell Ascher what she suffered? Those very eyes were, according to Ascher, the cause of his rapid journey along the road to ruin.

“Why do you look at me so, Gudule?” he would testily ask her, at the slightest provocation.

Often when, as he explained, he had had “a specially good week,” he would bring home the costliest gifts for his children. Gudule, however, made no use whatever of these trinkets, neither for herself nor for the children. She put the things away in drawers and cupboards, and never looked at them, more especially as she observed that, under some pretext or another, Ascher generally took those glittering things away again, “in order to exchange them for others,” he said: as often as not never replacing them at all.

“Gudule!” he said one day, when he happened to be in a particularly good humor, “why do you let the key remain in the door of that bureau where you keep so many valuables?”

And again Gudule regarded him with those unfathomable eyes.

“There, you 're... looking at me again!” he exclaimed with sudden vehemence.

“They 're safe enough in the cupboard,” Gudule said, smiling, “why should I lock it?”

“Gudule, do you mean to say...” he cried, raising his hand as for a blow. Then he fell back in his chair, and his frame was shaken with sobs.

“Gudule, my heart's love,” he cried, “I am not worthy that your eyes should rest on me. Everywhere, wherever I go, they look at me, those eyes... and that is my ruin. If business is bad, your eyes ask me, 'Why did you mix yourself up with these things, without a thought of wife or children?'... Then I feel as if some evil spirit possessed me and tortured my soul. Oh, why can't you look at me again as you did when you were my bride?--then you looked so happy, so lovely! At other times I think: 'I shall yet grasp fortune with both hands... and then I can face my Gudule's eyes again.' But now, now... oh, don't look at me, Gudule!”

There spoke the self-reproaching voice, which sometimes burst forth unbidden from a suffering soul.

As for Gudule, she already knew how to appreciate this cry of her husband's conscience at its true value. It was not that she felt one moment's doubt as to its sincerity, but she knew that so far as it affected the future, it was a mere cry and nothing more.

The years rolled on. The children were growing up. Ephraim had entered his fifteenth year. Viola was a little pale girl of twelve. In the opinion of the Ghetto they were the most extraordinary children in the world. In the midst of the harassing life to which her marriage with the gambler had brought her, Gudule so reared them that they grew to be living reflections of her own inmost being. People wondered when they beheld the strange development of “Wild” Ascher's children.

Their natures were as proud and reserved as that of their mother. They did not associate with the youth of the Ghetto; it seemed as though they were not of their kind, as though an insurmountable barrier divided them. And many a bitter sneer was hurled at Gudule's head.

“Does she imagine,” she often heard people whisper, “that because her father was a farmer her children are princes? Let her remember that her husband is but a common gambler.”

How different would have been their thoughts had they known that the children were Gudule's sole comfort. What their father had never heard from her, she poured into their youthful souls. No tear their mother shed was unobserved by them; they knew when their father had lost, and when he had won; they knew, too, all the varying moods of his unhinged mind; and in this terrible school of misery they acquired an instinctive intelligence, which in the eyes of strangers seemed mere precocity.

The two children, however, had early given evidence of a marked difference in disposition. Ephraim's nature was one of an almost feminine gentleness, whilst Viola was strong-willed and proudly reserved.

“Mother,” she said one day, “do you think he will continue to play much longer?”

“Viola, how can you talk like that?” Ephraim cried, greatly disturbed.

Thereupon Viola impetuously flung her arms round her mother's neck, and for some moments she clung to her with all the strength of her passionate nature. It was as though in that wild embrace she would fain pour forth the long pent-up sorrows of her blighted childhood.

“Mother!” she cried, “you are so good to him. Never, never shall he have such kindness from me!”

“Ephraim,” said Gudule, “speak to your sister. In her sinful anger, Viola would revenge herself upon her own father. Does it so beseem a Jewish child?”

“Why does he treat you so cruelly, then?” Viola almost hissed the words.

Soon after fell the final crushing blow. Ascher had been away from home for some weeks, when one day Gudule received a letter, dated from a prison in the neighborhood of Vienna.

In words of genuine sympathy the writer explained that Ascher had been unfortunate enough to forge the signature to a bill. She would not see him again for the next five years. God comfort her! The letter was signed: “A fellow-sufferer with your husband.”

As it had been with her old father, after he had bidden her a last farewell, so it was now with Gudule. From that moment her days were numbered, and although not a murmur escaped her lips, hour by hour she wasted away.

One Friday evening, shortly after the seven-branched Sabbath lamp had been lit, Gudule, seated in her arm-chair, out of which she had not moved all day, called the two children to her. A bright smile hovered around her lips, an unwonted fire burned in her still beautiful eyes, her bosom heaved... in the eyes of her children she seemed strangely changed. “Children,” said she, “come and stand by me. Ephraim, you stand here on my right, and you, dear Viola, on my left. I would like to tell you a little story, such as they tell little children to soothe them to sleep. Shall I?”

“Mother!” they both cried, as they bent towards her.

“You must not interrupt me, children,” she observed, still with that strange smile on her lips, “but leave me to tell my little story in my own way.

“Listen, children,” she resumed, after a brief pause. “Every human being--be he ever so wicked--if he have done but a single good deed on earth, will, when he arrives above, in the seventh heaven, get his _Sechûs_, that is to say, the memory of the good he has done here below will be remembered and rewarded bountifully by the Almighty.” Gudule ceased speaking. Suddenly a change came over her features: her breath came and went in labored gasps; but her brown eyes still gleamed brightly.

In tones well-nigh inaudible she continued: “When Jerusalem, the Holy City, was destroyed, the dead rose up out of their graves... the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... and also Moses, and Aaron his brother... and David the King... and prostrating themselves before God's throne they sobbed: 'Dost Thou not remember the deeds we have done?... Wouldst Thou now utterly destroy all these our children, even to the innocent babe at the breast?' But the Almighty was inexorable.