Part 3

Now he was ashamed to feel uneasiness, and recited the closing prayers. When he had finished, she turned to him quietly:

“I have a question to propound to you, my husband. Some one has entrusted to my keeping two jewels, with permission to use them and take joy in them. And I have really used them and taken in them much joy. They were my adornment and my playthings, my infinite happiness for many a year. Now the owner has come and asks their return. Shall I give them back or keep them for my own?”

In wonder, her husband looked at her and replied, with astonishment, “You ask? And can there be a question here? Be thankful to him for the pleasure that he brought you with these two jewels for so many years, and give them back.”

Whereupon she took him by the hand and led him to the room where lay their sons, and uncovered them.

“See, God gave us in trust two wondrous jewels. To-day he came to us and asked them back. Let us be grateful to Him for the joy He has given....”

* * * * *

Simeon could bear to speak no longer. His emotions rose; his voice was choked with tears.

Beruriah, however, through all this time, had not interrupted the telling of the tale. His voice was so sweet, so touching, and had so strangely reopened her old wound and renewed her great grief. And she followed his every word and the great grief within her, farther and farther, more engrossed, more intent than ever. When, overcome by his own emotion, he had interrupted his tale, she was very pale, her eyes staring vaguely before her. In a voice that came from a parched throat and dry lips, she asked, “Why have you told me the tale of my own misfortune? Why have you opened my wound anew? Do you think, then, that I did not love my sons? Do you imagine I have forgotten them?”

Simeon made answer, “Forgive me if I have hurt you. But ever since I heard from your husband, Rabbi Mayer, the story of your wonderful composure, I have longed to know whence you received the courage; and the overwhelming strength,—how came it to you? And as I sat before the Sabbath table yester eve and to-day, my eyes sought the answer in your mother-heart.”

He looked at her, filled with pity, and after a brief silence she said to him, “You forget that I am the daughter of the martyr Hanino Tradinus. When the Roman executioner was torturing him in slow flames, he lay on his pyre reciting from the Torah as if he felt no pain. Do you really believe that he was free of pain? Do you think that he did not feel the tongues of fire? But God was great and powerful within him, and He is no less powerful in me.”

Simeon closed his eyes, for a deep pang had rent his heart; he kneeled and kissed the hem of her garment. Beruriah reddened and whispered, scarce audibly, “And I love my husband passionately. It was for his consolation that I found sufficient strength in me to restrain my grief and not drown in my tears.”

Simeon left the room without a word, like a blind man groping his way, his heart a prey to pain and his every limb atremble.

Beruriah, however, buried her head in her hands and remained seated as if rooted to the spot alone with her two departed ones that she had never ceased to love. Her glance was fixed upon the distance, brimming with sorrow and yearning for past joys and hopes forever lost, her heart wailing, almost breaking, but without a tear in her burning eyes.

God had given; God had taken away. Blessed be His Name.

No, she would not weep, although her wound and her grief had been renewed in so touching a manner.

And suddenly her thoughts turned to him who had awakened her wound and her grief in so appealing a fashion,—to his voice and his eyes and his countenance, with its expression of deep condolence.

But Simeon knew nothing of this. Deeply wounded, he strode into the dense, black darkness of his room, and stood there motionless, his head bowed, his eyes closed. His love would awaken no response. The hopes he had built were vain. This wonderful woman, who had been able to master the keenest grief because she was as strong as a giant in her God and in her love for her husband, would surely be able to withstand all the wiles of seduction and all thoughts of lust. She would not behold his beauty; she would not be impressed by his learning. Her eyes would be sealed against him, and even if she looked at him she would not see him. And if his heart bled she would say: “He deserves his punishment.” What was there now to do? Why should he remain any longer? He must go back,—return to the Yeshiva and bring the certainty that there was no stronger woman than Beruriah. Then he would bury his own grief within him forever.

He stretched forth his hands in the gloom as if to cry out, and clinched his fists as if thus to crush his woe, and at the same moment felt that he would _not_ return. His longing for Beruriah was great, and who could measure the worth of thirty days spent in her company? To see her and hear her for thirty days!—Who could appraise that boon? And if he should return so soon, his comrades would say, “We all knew how strong was Beruriah on the day her two sons died, and yet we sent you as a touchstone to test her strength and purity. And since we knew that three days were too few, we stipulated all of thirty.” And who could tell? Perhaps her heart had weakened under the grievous burden that Death had laid upon it, and now she would be unable any longer to resist love?

At this last thought it seemed that the darkness of his room was flooded with brightness. And see, the servant had really brought in a light. He was overjoyed and sat down to his books. And in his voice there rang a certain note that surely must convey to Beruriah the depth of desire which was in his heart.

VII

He considered his future attitude and planned his campaign. He would not appear before her until the following Sabbath; but he would let her hear his voice. From early morn till late at night let her hear his voice—his voice that was so charming and melodious, so masculine. Let it follow her about through all the rooms, into the garden before the house, into the seclusion of her bed. Let it accompany her in her thoughts and sing with her in all her prayers. And always, in case of accidental meeting, his beard would be well combed and his head-covering would sit so well over his high forehead that his beauty would compel her eyes, and the bearing of his body would summon to her the same thoughts that had occurred to the Roman matron.

The first day of that week his voice and his reciting sounded very mournful, and on the second and third days it was likewise very sad. And on those days his distant gaze, at their accidental meetings, was full of pity and sorrow. But on the fourth day a change came over his voice. It rang with joy and a zest for life, and when by accident they met he looked at her most ardently, with glad rapture; she stopped and followed him with her eyes, unable to understand the great change. The sadness of his voice and the longing in his glance she had understood, and had explained in divers ways. His own life was surely no happy one; all Israel suffered eternal persecution; her home was a house of mourning. Then how could a person be happy beneath its roof? Her very proximity must inspire sadness. But the rejoicing in his voice and the rapture of his glance she could neither understand nor justify. And all that day his voice disquieted her; at night it weighed still heavier upon her in the lonesomeness of her bed. Why was he so happy? What was chanting so joyously in his heart? “How do his eyes look now?” she asked herself, and grew ashamed at her thoughts, directing them to Rabbi Mayer. She longed for him, hoping that the thirty days would fly by as soon as possible.

On the next day and the day following the great joy was with him still. Beruriah’s astonishment likewise continued. Once and again she wished to stop him at one of their accidental meetings and ask the significance of the great change that had come over him. But Beruriah would not ask. Not the wife of Rabbi Mayer. What was this student, after all, to her? Why should she be at all concerned with what was passing in the heart of this strange man? She was neither his mother nor his sister; not even a friend of former years. Did it become Beruriah to be inquisitive? Was Rabbi Mayer’s wife, then, like other women? But she noticed that the stranger had become even handsomer, more powerful, more masculine.

Sabbath eve came once again and he said grace and sang the holy songs, blessing the Lord with a voice more exalted than ever, more filled than ever with the Sabbath spirit, more than ever inspired and inspiring. Again he looked not often at his hostess, but when he raised his eyes to seek her glance, they had a faraway look filled with admiration and ecstasy, and their colour was the colour of a flaming ruby set in black, as if the Sabbath candles glowed within them.

And again that night on his couch he sang into the darkness of his room various passages from the Bible, which he knew by heart, and in particular many verses from the Song of Songs, the song of love and passion and infinite yearning. His voice throbbed with joy and yet it quivered with a deep unrest; and a great yearning spoke in it, as if calling for something that could render its happiness complete.

And Beruriah lay quite restless in her place. The singer’s voice inundated her being, nor could she banish its magnetic sound. She tried to think of Rabbi Mayer, but instead found herself repeating the passages that came to her from Simeon’s room. And suddenly there flashed upon her the idea that Rabbi Ismael’s son must cherish a love in his heart. It must be a wife or a sweetheart; either he loved her with intense passion or was longing for her endlessly. And if his voice was now so joyful it must be that of the thirty days a third had already passed, and he would soon return to his beloved.

Now, however, she could no longer repeat after him the verses from the Song of Songs, from him to _her_,—his beloved; his wife or his sweetheart. Beruriah buried her head in her pillows, pulled the coverlet over it, and stopped her ears with her hands so as to keep out Simeon’s voice and his love verses; she turned all her thoughts to Rabbi Mayer and began to recite the other passages from the Song of Songs,—the passages from her to him, and her heart languished for him, for her husband, for her beloved, for her great love and yearning.

And once more, after the Sabbath closing prayers, before he went into his room he turned to her with great tenderness.

“Forgive me the glances, my hostess, that I cast upon you yester eve and to-day.”

She shuddered at the unexpectedness of his words, and could not understand his begging pardon.

“What manner of glances were they?” she asked.

He whispered softly, “Then you did not notice them?”

“They were glances of intensest exaltation, filled with wonderment and deep-felt ardour. However, they did not belong to me.”

“You are wrong. To you!”

“To me?”

She rose to her full height and her face grew pale and austere.

He, in ecstasy, proclaimed, “Yes, to you!—Have you beheld how joyous I have been these last few days?”

“I heard it in your voice.”

“And do you know the cause?”

“Have you, then, told me?”

“I’ll tell you now. The cause was you alone.”

Her face assumed an even colder expression, and her eyes became even sterner. The shadow of anger crossed her forehead and her brows, and he cried out, with delight, as if to drive away the evil shadow:

“Oh, Beruriah, hear me out! For three days and three nights I was filled with the grief of your grief; for three days and three nights I have not ceased to ask why you were so heavily punished with the death of your two little ones—You, the chosen of God,—you, the blessed one! If I asked that even before I knew you, how then must it have cried aloud within me when the greatness of your soul was discovered to me in all its splendour? To think that _you_ of all should be martyred so! That _you_ should be the victim of a never-ending sorrow! And my heart rebelled within me, and like Job I could see no justice in the ways of God. And when one ceases to behold justice in the ways of God, how dark and dreary must the world become! But suddenly, on the fourth day, it seemed to me as if God must have raised a trifle the veil that screens the purpose of His deeds and allowed me to gaze upon their goal. How would the world have realised the grandeur of your soul, if not through the great grief that befell you? How should we have known what Beruriah was, if her heart had not been delivered into the hands of the torturer? Your two sons, had they lived, would have made mankind richer by two living beings,—perhaps worthless ones, unnecessary, unhappy; but through their death they made humanity the richer by a living Beruriah. Now for the first time do we conceive what we possess in you; now for the first time do we know your worth. That which lay veiled in darkness has been illuminated by a glorious light. Boundless treasures that have lain buried have been brought forth for the use of all. We have all grown richer through you, and future generations will enjoy that wealth. As from a spring of life humanity will imbibe its power from you, its consolation. ‘See,’ they will say, ‘how Beruriah mastered her enormous grief, her double bereavement. Emulate her and be consoled!’ Oh, Beruriah, when this flashed upon me, how could I help feel joyous, and how could I keep my glances from betraying exaltation and admiration for you?”

And before Beruriah could open her lips to make reply, he fell to his knees and kissed the hem of her garment, pressing it to his lips far longer than the first time; then he arose and left the room, holding his head erect, half-dancing, in token of his jubilation. And soon his voice was resounding through the house,—a ringing, singing, joyous, jubilant voice, filled with power and fervour. Was not Beruriah now full of him? Had he not won her now?

Beruriah sat in confusion, indeed full of his voice and his presence, and at times it seemed as if an angel from heaven were addressing her. Only when she was able to give thought to what he had said could she liberate herself from his spell. Her mind grew clearer and with a sigh she rose. And this is what she told her unhappy mother-heart:

“It is possible that the world has been made richer, and that such was the purpose of God when he took from me my two children. He has His goal and His aims, and His ways are hidden from our sight. But I have become so poor, so poor....”

VIII

During the whole of the first day of the new week his voice was scarcely heard, and Beruriah wondered. Had anything happened to him? She fairly longed for his voice. The aged servant, however, brought her the news that the guest, for the most part, paced back and forth in his room. And when he seated himself at his table, he buried his head in his arms and remained thus motionless.

And Beruriah said that surely he had encountered a difficult passage in the Torah. Rabbi Mayer, too, was in the habit of acting so when confronted by a perplexing problem, and the student must take after the master.

Yet that same evening his voice was heard again, but altogether altered. There was in it nothing of its former joyousness, and nothing of its still earlier sorrow. There was, however, a certain something that made Beruriah listen, pouring unrest into her soul. It was a note of yearning, and a note of entreaty. A sort of petulance, as if from a pampered child, and a kind of supplication, like a beggar at the door. What did his voice wish now to say? What did it mean now? To whom was he now speaking? To God? To his own heart? In what measure was she, Beruriah, here involved? If at first it had been she who sounded in his voice, what did he wish of her now? Was he praying to God in her behalf? What did he ask of God for her?

She tossed from side to side upon her bed, and thought how really wondrous was this man. She saw him stand before her in all his beauty, with his sadness and his fervour, and with his eyes in which the colours dissolved; she heard his voice, which penetrated her heart and her very soul; she exiled her thoughts with the ardent prayer that the thirty days should pass as quickly as possible.

But the days that followed dragged on frightfully, for they were filled with a rising pathos and plaintiveness in Simeon’s voice,—with increasing supplication and entreaty. It rose to an ever louder appeal for pity, an ever more languishing cry for love. The air in Beruriah’s room became difficult for her to breathe and she began to seek calm in long walks and frequent visits, but she was haunted by the sensation that there in her room resounded Simeon’s yearning, imploring voice. And the voice followed her into the distant streets, walked with her into the strangers’ houses, took part in all her conversations. Returning to her home became for Beruriah a trial. She could not bear to listen to the voice; she feared it, and feared even more an accidental meeting with him, for the far-off gaze of his eyes, which had now become quite black, gleamed with such desire and love-entreaty that it was impossible for a human soul to bear it.

She awaited the Sabbath eve with a throbbing bosom. The approach of the holy day brought her no pleasure. Her first thought was to have notified him that she was ill and could not come to table. But her second thought was that Beruriah, the wife of Rabbi Mayer, should not resort to pretexts, or hide from any one. What, indeed, was Simeon to her? What mattered to her the unrest of his heart? She should never have noticed the quality of his voice or the colour of his eyes. And if he should ask again whether she had remarked his glances, she would reply that she did not wish to be questioned so, since his glances were of no concern to her. Let him better ask of Rabbi Mayer whether he might inquire of her about his glances.

And thus she remained to hear his Sabbath blessings and his Sabbath songs.

But his voice no longer rang with its Sabbath tones. It was like a melodious violin that had cracked. He thanked God and blessed Him, but as one who _must_ thank and _must_ bless, and whose heart is not in his deeds, because he is discontent and wronged. He ate, too, as one who compels himself, without appetite, against his will and sparingly. His cloud-grey eyes looked less at the food before him than at Beruriah, and his glances were Desire itself,—Yearning itself.

And when, in the darkness of the night, there began to resound through the house verses from the Song of Songs, in a voice as of doves cooing, like the cry of a heart dissolving in desire, Beruriah laid her pillow upon her head and placed her fingers in her ears, and her heart began to beat most rapidly. She knew that the verses were meant for her, were sent to her, spoke to her, longed for her, implored her.

And as she lay, she spoke to her heavy heart:

“Lord of the universe, is it not enough that Thou hast punished my heart? Must Thou punish another heart through me? If I am to be a consolation unto them who believe in Thee, how dost Thou now wish to make me the great grief and the despair of one of Thy worshippers? Lord of the universe, was Beruriah, Thy chosen one, Thy blessed one, born to experience misfortune and to spread it? Lord God, I wept not on Thy holy Sabbath, when both my little children passed away. Wouldst Thou have me now to weep before Thee? Oh, God of Abraham, turn his heart from me, and turn his thoughts to Thee. Reveal me that infinite grace, Lord of the universe!”

And because Simeon, at this juncture, ceased his singing, overcome by grief and weariness as sleep, like a heavy burden, pressed his lids, it seemed to Beruriah that God had heard her prayer. She now removed the pillow from her head and placed it underneath with a sigh of relief, filled with gratitude. Then she fell into a peaceful slumber.

On the following day, however, Beruriah saw that God had not heard her prayer nor answered it. For the voice of Rabbi Ismael’s son was charged with supplication and his eyes brimmed over with desire. And it was after the closing prayers, when Simeon had turned to Beruriah to ask about his glances. Beruriah was not to be seen. She had disappeared, because she knew that his mouth could be stopped and his lips sealed by neither sharp speech nor angry rebuke. His accumulated yearning would find a way, and his passion would burst from his heart; he would sin grievously against God with his words and his deeds. And how would she then be able to keep him under her roof? And the thirty days were not yet over.

But Simeon knew that Beruriah had noticed his glances and interpreted his voice aright. His heart was therefore flooded with joy and hope. She had disappeared because she felt her weakness; her strength had begun to waver. The struggle within her had already commenced, and he would be her conqueror.

IX

For three days longer the yearning and the entreaty continued. And of a sudden the voice was transformed into a wild, unbearable shrieking. Simeon had fallen into despair. The thirty days were fast drawing to a close and his love for Beruriah had flamed up like the fires of hell. He lost his peace of mind entirely, and his body began to be consumed by passion. His cheeks grew thin, his eyes looked sunken, reddish-yellow, ill. It seemed to him as if his body were incessantly smitten, and within, his being cried aloud its pain. His voice took up the cry. But it was the cry of the ox for the cow,—only more passionate, more pain-stricken, more excruciating.

When Beruriah heard such a voice she was seized with trembling; a feeling of disgust surged over her. For days at a time she shunned her very dwelling, but the suffering of repulsion she carried plainly with her. Whoever met her said, “Beruriah is stricken with an evil illness.” And her friends questioned her, “What has befallen you?” She avoided all encounter with Simeon, and at night in her room she had her aged servant stay with her. Friday evening she had Simeon notified that she could not come to table, but that she would hear his saying of grace from where she lay. His saying of grace, however, caused her to shudder. He groaned it rather than recited it. His breath came like that of an animal wounded unto death. His voice was hoarse and choked with angry tears. He barely approached his food and looked around with savage eyes. The old domestic heaved a sigh of thankfulness when Simeon dashed from the dining-room. Had he sung the Sabbath songs? Had he blessed the Lord? Or had he been uttering blasphemy altogether? His voice rang more with upbraiding than with benediction. Now he knew that God had forsaken him, and had showed him Beruriah only to crush him. Need he restrain himself? Need he pretend? Let the woman know how he was suffering through her,—how he loved her, how he desired her.

And amidst the gloom of his room, he repeated in a voice made hoarse with lust, passages from the Song of Songs,—those impregnated with most love and passion.

“How fair and how pleasant art thou, Oh love, for delights! This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes. I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the branches thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples.”

He sang them again and again, wildly, passionately, lustfully.

And Beruriah was engulfed in still deeper loathing. It was as though some one had made her body unclean. She huddled together, shuddering. She opened her eyes wide, peering into the dense darkness, speaking to God as if she beheld Him there before her, in the gloom.