Dreamers of the Ghetto Part 7

But in another moment all was a wild _melee_. A company of City Guards--pikemen, musketeers, and hors.e.m.e.n with two-handed swords dashed into the Piazza from one street, the Pope's troops from another. They charged the crowd. The soldiers of the revolting captain, revolting in their turn, wheeled round and drove back their followers. There was a babel of groans and shrieks and shouts, muskets rang out, daggers flashed, sword and pike rang against armor, sparks flew, smoke curled, and the mob broke and scurried down the streets, leaving the wet, scarlet ground strewn with bodies.

And long ere the roused pa.s.sions of the riffraff had a.s.suaged themselves by loot and outrage in the remoter streets, in the darkest dungeon of the Nona Tower, on a piece of rotten mattress, huddled in his dripping tinselled cloak, and bleeding from a dozen cuts, Joseph the Dreamer lay prostrate, too exhausted from the fierce struggle with his captors to think on the stake that awaited him.

IX

He had not long to wait. To give the crowd an execution was to crown the Carnival. Condemned criminals were often kept till Shrove Tuesday, and keen was the disappointment when there was only the whipping of courtesans caught masked. The whipping of a Jew, found badgeless, was the next best thing to the execution of a Christian, for the flagellator was paid double (at the cost of the culprit), and did not fail to double his zeal. But the execution of a Jew was the best of all. And that Fra Giuseppe was a Jew there could be no doubt. The only question was whether he was a backslider or a spy. In either case death was his due. And he had lampooned the Pope to boot--in itself the unpardonable sin. The unpopular Pontiff sagely spared the others--the Jew alone was to die.

The population was early astir. In the Piazza of the People--the centre of the Carnival--where the stake had been set up, a great crowd fought for coigns of vantage--a joyous, good-humored tussle. The great fountain sent its flas.h.i.+ng silver spirts towards a blue heaven.

As the death-cart lumbered into the Piazza ribald songs from the rabble saluted the criminal's ears, and his wild, despairing eyes lighted on many a merry face that but a few hours before had followed him to testify to righteousness; and, mixed with theirs, the faces of his fellow-Jews, sinister with malicious glee. No brother friar droned consolation to him or held the cross to his eyes--was he not a pestilential infidel, an outcast from both worlds? The chief of the Caporioni was present. Troops surrounded the stake lest, perchance, the madman might have followers who would yet attempt a rescue. But the precautions were superfluous. Not a face that showed sympathy; those who, bewitched by the Friar, had followed his crucifix and _pallio_ now exaggerated their jocosity lest they should be recognized; the Jews were joyous at the heavenly vengeance which had overtaken the renegade.

The Dominican Jew was tied to the timber. They had dressed him in a gaberdine and set the yellow cap on his shaven poll. Beneath it his face was calm, but very sad. He began to speak.

"Gag him!" cried the Magistrate. "He is about to blaspheme."

"Prithee not," pleaded a bully in the crowd. "We shall lose the rascal's shrieks."

"Nay, fear not. I shall not blaspheme," said Joseph, smiling mournfully. "I do but confess my sin and my deserved punishment. I set out to walk in the footsteps of the Master--to win by love, to resist not evil. And lo, I have used force against my old brethren, the Jews, and force against my new brethren, the Christians. I have urged the Pope against the Jews, I have urged the Christians against the Pope.

I have provoked bloodshed and outrage. It were better I had never been born. Christ receive me into His infinite mercy. May He forgive me as I forgive you!" He set his teeth and spake no more, an image of infinite despair.

The flames curled up. They began to writhe about his limbs, but drew no sound to vie with their crackling. But there was weeping heard in the crowd. And suddenly from the un.o.bservedly overcast heavens came a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder followed by a violent shower of rain. The flames were extinguished. The spring shower was as brief as it was violent, but the wood would not relight.

But the crowd was not thus to be cheated. At the order of the Magistrate the executioner thrust a sword into the criminal's bowels, then, unbinding the body, let it fall upon the ground with a thud: it rolled over on its back, and lay still for a moment, the white, emaciated face staring at the sky. Then the executioner seized an axe and quartered the corpse. Some sickened and turned away, but the bulk remained gloating.

Then a Franciscan sprang on the cart, and from the b.l.o.o.d.y ominous text patent to all eyes, pa.s.sionately preached Christ and dissolved the mob in tears.

X

In the house of Mana.s.seh, the father of Joseph, there were great rejoicings. Musicians had been hired to celebrate the death of the renegade as tradition demanded, and all that the Pragmatic permitted of luxury was at hand. And they danced, man with man and woman with woman. Mana.s.seh gravely handed fruits and wine to his guests, but the old mother danced frenziedly, a set smile on her wrinkled face, her whole frame shaken from moment to moment by peals of horrible laughter.

Miriam fled from the house to escape that laughter. She wandered outside the Ghetto, and found the spot of unconsecrated ground where the mangled remains of Joseph the Dreamer had been hastily shovelled.

The heap of stones thrown by pious Jewish hands, to symbolize that by Old Testament Law the renegade should have been stoned, revealed his grave. Great sobs swelled Miriam's throat. Her eyes were blind with tears that hid the beauty of the world. Presently she became aware of another bowed figure near hers--a stately female figure--and almost without looking knew it for Helena de' Franchi.

"I, too, loved him, Signora de' Franchi," she said simply.

"Art thou Miriam? He hath spoken of thee." Helena's silvery voice was low and trembling.

"Ay, Signora."

Helena's tears flowed unrestrainedly. "Alas! Alas! the Dreamer! He should have been happy--happy with me, happy in the fulness of human love, in the light of the sun, in the beauty of this fair world, in the joy of art, in the sweetness of music."

"Nay, Signora, he was a Jew. He should have been happy with me, in the light of the Law, in the calm household life of prayer and study, of charity, and pity, and all good offices. I would have lit the Sabbath candles for him and set our children on his knee that he might bless them. Alas! Alas! the Dreamer!"

"Neither of these fates was to be his, Miriam. Kiss me, let us comfort each other."

Their lips met and their tears mingled.

"Henceforth, Miriam, we are sisters."

"Sisters," sobbed Miriam.

They clung to each other--the n.o.ble Pagan soul and the warm Jewish heart at one over the Christian's grave.

Suddenly bells began to ring in the city. Miriam started and disengaged herself.

"I must go," she said hurriedly.

"It is but _Ave Maria_," said Helena. "Thou hast no vespers to sing."

Miriam touched the yellow badge on her head. "Nay, but the gates will be closing, sister."

"Alas, I had forgotten. I had thought we might always be together henceforth. I will accompany thee so far as I may, sister."

They hastened from the lonely, unblessed grave, holding each other's hand.

The shadows fell. It was almost dark by the time they reached the Ghetto.

Miriam had barely slipped in when the gates shut with a harsh clang, severing them through the long night.

URIEL ACOSTA

PART I

GABRIEL DA COSTA

I

Gabriel Da Costa p.r.i.c.ked his horse gently with the spur, and das.h.i.+ng down the long avenue of cork-trees, strove to forget the torment of spiritual problems in the fury of physical movement, to leave theology behind with the monasteries and chapels of Porto. He rode with grace and fire, this beautiful youth with the flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and the dark hair flowing down the silken doublet, whom a poet might have feigned an image of the pa.s.sionate spring of the South, but for whose own soul the warm blue sky of Portugal, the white of the almond blossoms, the pink of the peach sprays, the delicate odors of buds, and the glad clamor of birds made only a vague background to a whirl of thoughts.

No; it was impossible to believe that by confessing his sins as the Church prescribed he could obtain a plenary absolution. If salvation was to be secured only by particular rules, why, then, one might despair of salvation altogether. And, perhaps, eternal d.a.m.nation was indeed his destiny, were it only for his doubts, and in despite of all his punctilious mechanical wors.h.i.+p. Oh, for a deliverer--a deliverer from the questionings that made the splendid gloom of cathedrals a darkness for the captive spirit! Those cursed Jesuits, zealous with the zealotry of a new order! His blood flamed as he thought of their manuvrings, and putting his hand to his holster, where hung a pair of silver-mounted pistols marked with his initial, he drew out one and took flying aim at a bird on a twig, pleasing himself with the foolish fancy that 'twas Ignatius Loyola. But though a sure marksman, he had not the heart to hurt any living thing, and changing with the swiftness of a flash he shot at the twig instead, snapping it off.

Why had his dead father set him to study ecclesiastical law? True, for a wealthy youth of the upper middle cla.s.ses 'twas the one road to distinction, to social equality with the n.o.bility--and whose fault but his own that even after the first stirrings of scepticism he had accepted semi-sacerdotal office as chief treasurer of a clerical college? But how should he foresee that these uneasinesses of youth would be aggravated rather than appeased by deeper study, more pa.s.sionate devotion? Strange! All around him, in college or cathedral, was faith and peace; in his spirit alone a secret disquiet and a suppressed ferment that not all the soaring music of fresh-voiced boys could soothe or allay.

He felt his horse slacken suddenly under him, and had used his spurs viciously without effect, ere he became conscious that he had come to the steep, clayey bank of a ravine through which a tiny stream trickled, and that the animal's flanks were stained with blood.

Instantly his eyes grew humid.

"_Pobre!_" he cried, leaping from the saddle and caressing the horse's nostrils. "To be shamed before men have I always dreaded, but 'tis worse to be shamed before myself."

And leading his steed by the bridle, the young cavalier turned back towards Porto by winding gra.s.sy paths purpled with anemones and bordered by gray olive-trees, with here and there the vivid gleam of oranges peeping amid deep green foliage that tore the sky into a thousand azure patches.

II