Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 10

Gabriel's bosom throbbed. "Then why not join them?"

The old physician shook his head. "Nay, I love my Portugal. 'Tis here that I was born, and here will I die. I love her--her mountains, her rivers, her valleys, her medicinal springs--always love Portugal, Ianthe--"

"Yes, father," said the little girl gravely.

"And, oh, her poets--her Rubeiro, her Falco, her Camoens--my own grandfather was thought worthy of a place in the 'Cancioneiro Geral'; and I too have made a Portuguese poem on the first aphorism of Hippocrates, though 'tis yet in ma.n.u.script."

"But if thou darest not profess thy faith," said Gabriel, "'tis more than all the rest. To live a daily lie--intolerable!"

"Hoity-toity! Thou art young and headstrong. The Catholic religion!

'Tis no more than fine manners; as we say in Hebrew, _derech eretz_, the way of the country. Why do I wear breeches and a c.o.c.ked hat--when I am abroad, _videlicet_? Why does little Ianthe trip it in a petticoat?"

"Because I am a girl," said Ianthe.

Dom Diego laughed. "There's the question rhetorical, my little one, and the question interrogative. However, we'll not puzzle thee with Quintilian. Run away to thy lute. And so it is, Senhor da Costa. I love my Judaism more than my Portugal; but while I can keep both my mistresses at the cost of a little finesse--"

"But the danger of being burnt alive!"

"'Tis like h.e.l.l to the Christian sinner--dim and distant."

"Thou hast been singed, methinks."

"Like a blasted tree. The lightning will not strike twice. Help thyself to more wine. Besides, my stomach likes not the Biscay Bay.

G.o.d made us for land animals."

But Gabriel was not to be won over to the worthy physician's view, and only half to the man himself. Yet was not this his last visit, for he clung to Dom Diego as to the only Jew he knew, and borrowed from him a Hebrew Bible and a grammar, and began secretly to acquire the sacred tongue, bringing toys and flowers to the little Ianthe, and once a costlier lute than her own, in return for her father's help with the idioms. Also he borrowed some of Dom Diego's own works, issued anonymously from the printing presses of Amsterdam; and from his new friend's "Paradise of Earthly Vanity," and other oddly ent.i.tled volumes of controversial theology, the young enthusiast sucked instruction and confirmation of his doubts. To Dom Diego's Portuguese fellow-citizens the old gentleman was the author of an erudite essay on the treatment of phthisis, emphatically denouncing the implicit reliance on milk.

But Gabriel could not imitate this comfortable self-adjustment to surroundings. 'Twas but a half fight for the Truth, he felt, and ceased to cultivate the semi-recreant physician. For as he grew more and more in love with the Old Testament, with its simple doctrine of a people, chosen and consecrate, so grew his sense of far-reaching destinies, of a linked race sprung from the mysterious East and the dawn of history, defying destruction and surviving persecution, agonizing for its faith and its unfaith--a conception that touched the springs of romance and the source of tears--and his vision turned longingly towards Amsterdam, that city of the saints, the home of the true faith, of the brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of G.o.d.

VI

"Mother," said Gabriel, "I have something to say to thee." They were in the half-orange room, and she had looked in to give her good-night kiss to the lonely student, but his words arrested her at the door.

She sat down and gazed lovingly at her handsome eldest-born, in whom her dead husband lived as in his prime. "'Twill be of Isabella," she thought, with a stir in her breast, rejoiced to think that the brooding eyes of the scholar had opened at last to the beauty and goodness of the highborn heiress who loved him.

"Mother, I have made a great resolution, and 'tis time to tell thee."

Her eyes grew more radiant.

"My blessed Gabriel!"

"Nay, I fear thou wilt hate me."

"Hate thee!"

"Because I must leave thee."

"'Tis the natural lot of mothers to be left, my Gabriel."

"Ah, but this is most unnatural. Oh, my G.o.d! why am I thus tried?"

"What meanest thou? What has happened?" The old woman had risen.

"I must leave Portugal."

"Wherefore? in Heaven's name! Leave Portugal?"

"Hush, or the servants will hear. I would become," he breathed low, "a Jew!"

Dona da Costa blenched, and stared at him breathless, a strange light in her eyes, but not that which he had expected.

"'Tis the finger of G.o.d!" she whispered, awestruck.

"Mother!" He was thrilled with a wild suspicion.

"Yes, my father was a Jew. I was brought up as a Jewess."

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" he cautioned her again, and going to the door peered into the gloom. "But my father?" he asked, shutting the door carefully.

She shook her head.

"His family, though likewise Marranos, were true believers. It was the grief of my life that I dared never tell him. Often since his death, memories from my girlhood have tugged at my heart. But I durst not influence my children's faith--it would have meant deadly peril to them. And now--O Heaven!--perchance torture--the stake--!"

"No, mother, I will fly to where faith is free."

"Then I shall lose thee all the same. O G.o.d of Israel, Thy vengeance hath found me at last!" And she fell upon the couch, sobbing, overwrought. He stood by, helpless, distracted, striving to hush her.

"How did this thing happen to you?" she sobbed.

Briefly he told her of his struggles, of the episode of Dom Diego, of his conviction that the Old Testament was the true and sufficient guide to life.

"But why flee?" she asked. "Let us all return to Judaism; thy brother Vidal is young and malleable, he will follow us. We will be secret; from my girlhood I know how suspicion may be evaded. We will gradually change all the servants save Pedro, and have none but blacks. Why shouldst thou leave this beautiful home of thine, thy friends, thy station in society, thy chances of a n.o.ble match?"

"Mother, thou painest me. What is all else beside our duty to truth, to reason, to G.o.d? I must wors.h.i.+p all these under the naked sky."

"My brave boy! forgive me!" And she sprang up to embrace him. "We will go with thee; we will found a new home at Amsterdam."

"Nay, not at thy years, mother." And he smoothed her silver hair.

"Yea; I, too, have studied the Old Testament." And her eyes smiled through their tears. "'Wherever thou goest, I will go. Thy country shall be my country, and thy G.o.d my G.o.d.'"

He kissed her wet cheek.

Ere they separated in the gray dawn they had threshed out ways and means; how to realize their property with as little loss and as little observation as possible, and how secretly to s.h.i.+p for the Netherlands.

The slightest imprudence might betray them to the Holy Office, and so Vidal was not told till 'twas absolutely essential.

The poor young man grew pale with fright.

"Wouldst drive me to Purgatory?" he asked.