Chapter 3

His face grew redder every moment; he had drunk a third and a fourth glass, and there was nothing but a mere drain left in the bottle. Already his utterance was thick and incoherent, and his eyes were fast assuming that glassy brightness that is usually the forerunner of helpless intoxication. It was a sight Ephraim could not bear to see. Impelled by that natural, almost holy shame which prompted the son of Noah to cover the nakedness of his father, he motioned to his sister to leave. Then _he_, too, softly walked out of the room.

Outside, in the corridor, the brother and sister fell into each other's arms. Both wept bitterly: for a long time neither of them could find words in which to express the grief which filled their souls. At length Viola, her head resting upon Ephraim's shoulder, whispered: “Ephraim, what do you think of him?”

“He is ill, I think...” said Ephraim, in a voice choked with sobs.

“What, you call _that_ illness, Ephraim?” Viola cried; “if that's illness, then a wild beast is ill too.”

“Viola, for Heaven's sake, be quiet: he 's our own father after all!”

“Ephraim!” said the girl, with a violent outburst of emotion, as she again threw herself into her brother's arms... “just think if mother had lived to see this!”

“Don't, don't, Viola, my sweet!” Ephraim exclaimed, sobbing convulsively.

“Ephraim!” the girl cried, shaking her head in wild despair, “I don't believe in the _Sechûs!_ When we live to see all this, and our hearts do not break, we lose faith in everything.... Ephraim, what is to become of us?”

“Hush, dear Viola, hush, you don't know what you are saying,” replied Ephraim, “I believe in it, because mother herself told us... you must believe in it too.”

But Viola again shook her head. “I don't believe in it any longer,” she moaned, “I can't.”

Noiselessly, Ephraim walked toward the door of the front room; he placed his ear against the keyhole, and listened. Within all was silent. A fresh terror seized him. Why was no sound to be heard?... He opened the door cautiously lest it should creak. There sat his father asleep in the arm-chair, his head bent on his bosom, his arms hanging limp by his side.

“Hush, Viola,” he whispered, closing the door as cautiously as he had opened it, “he is asleep....I think it will do him good. Be careful that you make no noise.”

Viola had seated herself upon a block of wood outside the kitchen door, and was sobbing silently. In the meantime, Ephraim, unable to find a word of solace for his sister, went and stood at the street door, so that no unbidden guest should come to disturb his father's slumbers. It was mid-day; from the church hard by streamed the peasants and their wives in their Sunday attire, and many bestowed a friendly smile upon the well-known youth. But he could only nod his head in return, his heart was sore oppressed, and a smile at such a moment seemed to him nothing short of sin. He went back into the house, and listened at the door of the room. Silence still reigned unbroken, and with noiseless steps he again walked away.

“He is still sleeping,” he whispered to his sister. “Just think what would have happened if we had still had that bird.... He would n't have been able to sleep a wink.”

“Ephraim, why do you remind me of it?” cried Viola with a fresh outburst of tears. “Where is the little bird now, I wonder?...”

Ephraim sat down beside his sister, and took her hand in his. Thus they remained seated for some time, unable to find a word of comfort for each other.

At length movements were heard. Ephraim sprang to his feet and once more approached the door to listen.

“He is awake!” he softly said to Viola, and slowly opening the door, he entered the room.

Ascher was walking up and down with heavy tread.

“Do you feel refreshed after your sleep, father?” Ephraim asked timidly.

Ascher stood still, and confronted his son. His face was still very flushed, but his eyes had lost their glassy stare; his glance was clear and steady.

“Ephraim, my son,” he began, in a kindly, almost cheerful tone, “you 've grown into a splendid business man, as good a business man as one can meet with between this and Vienna. I 'm sure of it. But I must give you one bit of advice; it 's worth a hundred pounds to one in your position. Never leave a key in the lock of a bureau!”

Ephraim looked at his father as though stupefied. Was the man mad or delirious to talk in such a strain? At that moment, from the extreme end of the _Ghetto_, there sounded the three knocks, summoning the people to evening prayer. As in the morning, so again now the sound seemed to stun the vigorous man. His face blanched and assumed an expression of terror; he trembled from head to foot. Then again he cast a frightened glance in the direction of the window.

“Nothing but knocking, knocking!” he muttered. “They would like to knock the most hidden thoughts out of one's brains, if they only could. What makes them do it, I should like to know?... To the clanging of a bell you can, at all events, shut your ears, you need only place your hands to them... but with that hammer they bang at every confounded door, and drive one crazy. Who gives them the right to do it, I should like to know?” He stood still listening.

“Do you think he will be long before he reaches here?” he asked Ephraim, in a frightened voice.

“Who, father?”

“The watch.”

“He has already knocked next door but one.”

Another minute, and the three strokes sounded on the door of the house. Ascher heaved a sigh of relief; he rubbed his hand across his forehead; it was wet with perspiration.

“Thank God!” he cried, as though addressing himself, “that 's over, and won't come again till to-morrow.”

“Ephraim, my son!” he cried, with a sudden outburst of cheerfulness, accompanying the words with a thundering bang upon the table, “Ephraim, my son, you shall soon see what sort of a father you have. Now, you 're continually worrying your brains, walking your feet off, trying to get a skin, or praying some fool of a peasant to be good enough to sell you a bit of wool. Ephraim, my son, all that shall soon be changed, take my word for it. I 'll make you rich, and as for Viola, I 'll get her a husband--such a husband that all the girls in Bohemia will turn green and yellow with envy.... Ascher's daughter shall have as rich a dowry as the daughter of a Rothschild.... But there 's one thing, and one thing only, that I need, and then all will happen as I promise, in one night.”

“And what is that, father!” asked Ephraim, with a slight shudder.

“Luck, luck, Ephraim, my son!” he shouted. “What is a man without luck? Put a man who has no luck in a chest full of gold; cover him with gold from head to foot; when he crawls out of it, and you search his pockets, you 'll find the gold has turned to copper.”

“And will you have luck, father?” asked Ephraim.

“Ephraim, my son!” said the old gambler, With a cunning smile, “I 'll tell you something. There are persons whose whole powers are devoted to one object--how to win a fortune; in the same way as there are some who study to become doctors, and the like, so these study what we call luck... and from them I 've learned it.”

He checked himself in sudden alarm lest he might have said too much, and looked searchingly at his son. A pure soul shone through Ephraim's open countenance, and showed his father that his real meaning had not been grasped.

“Never mind,” he shouted loudly, waving his arms in the air, “what is to come no man can stop. Give me something to drink, Ephraim.”

“Father,” the latter faltered, “don't you think it will harm you?”

“Don't be a fool, Ephraim!” cried Ascher, “you don't know my constitution. Besides, did n't you say that to-day was a fast, when it is forbidden to eat anything? And have I asked you for any food? But as for drink, that's quite another thing! The birds of the air can't do without it, much less man!”

Ephraim saw that for that evening, at all events, it would not do to oppose his father. He walked into the kitchen where Viola was preparing supper, or rather breakfast, for after the fast this was the first meal of the day.

“Viola,” he said, “make haste and fetch some fresh wine.”

“For him?” cried Viola, pointing her finger almost threateningly in the direction of the sitting-room door.

“Don't, don't, Viola!” Ephraim implored.

“And you are fasting!” she said.

“Am I not also fasting for him?” said Ephraim.

With a full bottle in his hand Ephraim once more entered the room. He placed the wine upon the table, where the glasses from which Ascher had drunk in the morning were still standing.

“Where is Viola?” asked Ascher, who was again pacing the room with firm steps.

“She is busy cooking.”

“Tell her she shall have a husband, and a dowry that will make half the girls in Bohemia turn green and yellow with envy.”

Then he approached the table, and drank three brimming glasses, one after the other. “Now then,” he said, as with his whole weight he dropped into the old arm-chair.... “Now I 'll have a good night's rest. I need strength and sharp eyes, and they are things which only sleep can give. Ephraim, my son,” he continued after a while in thick, halting accents... “tell the watch--Simon is his name, I think--he can give six knocks instead of three upon the door, in the morning, he won't disturb me... and to Viola you can say I 'll find her a husband, handsomer than her eyes have ever beheld, and tell her on her wedding-day she shall wear pearls round her neck like those of a queen--no, no, like those of Gudule, her mother.” A few moments later he was sound asleep.

It was the dead of night. All round reigned stillness and peace, the peace of night! What a gentle sound those words convey, a sound akin only to the word _home!_ Fraught, like it, with sweetest balm, a fragrant flower from long-lost paradise. Thou art at rest, Ascher, and in safe shelter; the breathing of thy children is so restful, so tranquil....

Desist! desist! 'T is too late. Side by side with the peace of night, there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the shriek of the vulture, swooping down upon the guileless dove.

Is there no eye to watch thee? Doth not thine own kin see thy foul deeds?

Desist!

'T is too late....

Open is the window, no grating noise has accompanied the unbolting of the shutter.... The evil spirits have taken care that the faintest sound shall die away... even the rough iron obeys their voices... it is they who have bidden: “Be silent; betray him not; he is one of us.”

Even the key in the door of the old bureau is turned lightly and without noise. Groping fingers are searching for a bulky volume. Have they found it? Is there none there to cry in a voice of thunder: “Cursed be the father who stretches forth his desecrating hand towards the things that are his children's”?...

They _have_ found it, the greedy fingers! and now, but a spring through the open window, and out into the night....

At that moment a sudden ray of light shines through a crack in the door of the room.... Swiftly the door opens, a girlish figure appears on the threshold, a lighted lamp in her hand. . . .

“Gudule!” he shrieks, horror-stricken, and falls senseless at her feet.

Ascher was saved. The terrible blow which had struck him down had not crushed the life from him. He was awakened. But when, after four weeks of gruesome fever and delirium, his mind had somewhat regained its equilibrium, his hair had turned white as snow, and his children beheld an old, decrepit man.

That which Viola had denied her father when he returned to them in all the vigor of his manhood, she now lavished upon him in his suffering and helplessness, with that concentrated power of love, the source of which is not human, but Divine. In the space of one night of terror, the merest bud of yesterday had suddenly blossomed forth into a flower of rarest beauty. Never did gentler hands cool a fever-heated brow, never did sweeter voice mingle its melody with the gruesome dreams of delirium.

On his sick-bed, lovingly tended by Ephraim and Viola, an ennobling influence gradually came over the heart of the old gambler, and so deeply touched it, that calm peace crowned his closing days. It was strange that the events of that memorable night, and the vicissitudes that had preceded it, had left no recollection behind, and his children took good care not to re-awaken, by the slightest hint, his sleeping memory.

A carriage drew up one day in front of Ascher's house. There has evidently been a splendid crop of oats this year. Uncle Gabriel has come. Uncle Gabriel has only lately assumed the additional character of father-in-law to Ephraim, for he declared that none but Eph-raim should be his pet daughter's husband. And now he has come for the purpose of having a confidential chat with Viola. There he sits, the kind-hearted, simple-minded man, every line of his honest face eloquent with good-humor and happiness, still guilty of an occasional violent onslaught upon his thighs. Viola still remains his “little spit-fire.”

“Now, Viola, my little spit-fire,” said he, “won't you yet allow me to talk to my Nathan about you? Upon my word, the boy can't bear the suspense any longer.”

“Uncle,” says Viola, and a crimson blush dyes her pale cheeks: “Uncle,” she repeats, in a tone of such deep earnestness, that the laughing expression upon Gabriel's face instantly vanishes, “please don't talk to him at all. My place is with my father!”

And to all appearances Viola will keep her word.

Had she taken upon herself a voluntary penance for having, in her heart's bitter despair, presumed to abjure her faith in the _Sechûs_ of her mother? Or was there yet another reason? The heart of woman is a strangely sensitive thing. It loves not to build its happiness upon the hidden ruins of another's life.