Joseph The Dreamer

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_ I

"We must not wait longer, Rachel," said Manasseh in low, grave, but unfaltering accents. "Midnight approaches."

Rachel checked her sobs and assumed an attitude of reverence as her husband began to intone the benedictions, but her heart felt no religious joy in the remembrance of how the God of her fathers had saved them and their Temple from Hellenic pollution. It was torn by anxiety as to the fate of her boy, her scholar son, unaccountably absent for the first time from the household ceremonies of the Feast of Dedication. What was he doing--outside the Ghetto gates--in that great, dark, narrow-meshed city of Rome, defying the Papal law, and of all nights in the year on that sinister night when, by a coincidence of chronology, the Christian persecutor celebrated the birth of his Saviour? Through misty eyes she saw her husband's face, stern and rugged, yet made venerable by the flowing white of his locks and beard, as with the supernumerary taper he prepared to light the wax candles in the nine-branched candlestick of silver. He wore a long, hooded mantle reaching to the feet, and showing where it fell back in front a brown gaberdine clasped by a girdle. These sombre-colored robes were second-hand, as the austere simplicity of the Pragmatic required. The Jewish Council of Sixty did not permit its subjects to ruffle it like the Romans of those days of purple pageantry. The young bloods, forbidden by Christendom to style themselves signori, were forbidden by Judea to vie with signori in luxury.

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God," chanted the old man. "King of the Universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments, and commanded us to kindle the light of Chanukah."

It was with a quavering voice that Rachel joined in the ancient hymn that wound up the rite. "O Fortress, Rock of my salvation," the old woman sang. "Unto Thee it is becoming to give praise; let my house of prayer be restored, and I will there offer Thee thanksgivings; when Thou shalt have prepared a slaughter of the blaspheming foe, I will complete with song and psalm the dedication of the altar."

But her imagination was roving in the dim oil-lit streets of the tenebrous city, striving for the clairvoyance of love. Arrest by the _sbirri_ was certain; other dangers threatened. Brawls and bravos abounded. True, this city of Rome was safer than many another for its Jews, who, by a miracle, more undeniable than that which they were now celebrating, had from the birth of Christ dwelt in the very heart of Christendom, the Eternal People in the Eternal City. The Ghetto had witnessed no such sights as Barcelona or Frankfort or Prague. The bloody orgies of the Crusaders had raged far away from the Capital of the Cross. In England, in France, in Germany, the Jew, that scapegoat of the nations, had poisoned the wells and brought on the Black Death, had pierced the host, killed children for their blood, blasphemed the saints, and done all that the imagination of defalcating debtors could suggest. But the Roman Jews were merely pestilent heretics. Perhaps it was the comparative poverty of the Ghetto that made its tragedy one of steady degradation rather than of fitful massacre. Nevertheless bloodshed was not unknown, and the song died on Rachel's lips, though the sterner Manasseh still chanted on.

"The Grecians were gathered against me in the days of the Hasmoneans; they broke down the walls of my towers and defiled all the oils; but from one of the last remaining flasks a miracle was wrought for Thy lily, Israel; and the men of understanding appointed these eight days for songs and praises."

They were well-to-do people, and Rachel's dress betokened the limit of the luxury allowed by the Pragmatic--a second-hand silk dress with a pin at the throat set with only a single pearl, a bracelet on one arm, a ring without a bezel on one finger, a single-stringed necklace round her neck, her hair done in a cheap net.

She looked at the nine-branched candlestick, and a mystical sadness filled her. Would she had nine scions of her house like Miriam's mother, a true mother in Israel; but, lo! she had only one candle--one little candle. A puff and it was gone, and life would be dark.

That Joseph was not in the Ghetto was certain. He would never have caused her such anxiety wilfully, and, indeed, she and her husband and Miriam had already run to all the likely places in the quarter, even to those marshy alleys where every overflow of the Tiber left deposits of malarious mud, where families harbored, ten in a house, where stunted men and wrinkled women slouched through the streets, and a sickly spawn of half-naked babies swarmed under the feet. They had had trouble enough, but never such a trouble as this. Manasseh and Rachel, with this queer offspring of theirs, this Joseph the Dreamer, as he had been nicknamed, this handsome, reckless black-eyed son of theirs, with his fine oval face, his delicate olive features; this young man, who could not settle down to the restricted forms of commerce possible in the Ghetto, who was to be Rabbi of the community one day, albeit his brilliance was occasionally dazzling to the sober tutors upon whom he flashed his sudden thought, which stirred up that which had better been left asleep. Why was he not as other sons, why did he pace the street with unobservant eyes, why did he weep over the profane Hebrew of the Spanish love-singers as if their songs were _Selichoth_ or Penitential Verses? Why did he not marry Miriam, as one could see the girl wished? Why did he set at naught the custom of the Ghetto, in silently refraining from so obvious a match between the children of two old friends, equally well-to-do, and both possessing the _Jus Gazzaga_ or leasehold of the houses in which they lived; tall, quaint houses, separated only by an ancient building with a carved porch, and standing at the end of the great Via Rua where it adjoined the narrow little street, Delle Azzimelle, in which the Passover cakes were made. Miriam's family, being large, had their house to themselves, but a good deal of Manasseh's was let out; for room was more and more precious in the Ghetto, which was a fixed space for an ever-expanding population.

II

They went to bed. Manasseh insisted upon that. They could not possibly expect Joseph till the morning. Accustomed as Rachel was to lean upon her husband's strength, at this moment his strength seemed harshness. The night was long. A hundred horrid visions passed before her sleepless eyes. The sun rose upon the Ghetto, striving to slip its rays between the high, close-pressed tops of opposite houses. The five Ghetto gates were thrown open, but Joseph did not come through any. The Jewish pedlars issued, adjusting their yellow hats, and pushing before them little barrows laden with special Christmas wares. "_Heb, heb_," they shouted as they passed through the streets of Rome. Some sold simples and philtres, and amulets in the shape of miniature mandores or four-stringed lutes to preserve children from maladies. Manasseh, his rugged countenance grown harder, went to his place of business. He had forbidden any inquiries to be made outside the pale till later in the day; it would be but to betray to the enemy Joseph's breach of the law. In the meantime, perhaps, the wanderer would return. Manasseh's establishment was in the Piazza Giudea. Numerous shops encumbered the approaches, mainly devoted to the sale of cast-off raiment, the traffic in new things being prohibited to Jews by Papal Bull, but anything second-hand might be had here from the rough costume of a shepherd of Abruzzo to the faded fripperies of a gentleman of the Court. In the centre a new fountain with two dragons supplied the Ghetto with water from the Aqueduct of Paul the Fifth in lieu of the loathly Tiber water, and bore a grateful Latin inscription. About the edges of the square a few buildings rose in dilapidated splendor to break the monotony of the Ghetto barracks; the ancient palace of the Boccapaduli, and a mansion with a high tower and three abandoned churches. A monumental but forbidding gate, closed at sundown, gave access to a second Piazza Giudea, where Christians congregated to bargain with Jews--it was almost a suburb of the Ghetto. Manasseh had not far to go, for his end of the Via Rua debouched on the Piazza Giudea; the other end, after running parallel to the Via Pescheria and the river, bent suddenly near the Gate of Octavius, and finished on the bridge Quattro Capi. Such was the Ghetto in the sixteen hundreds.

Soon after Manasseh had left the house, Miriam came in with anxious face to inquire if Joseph had returned. It was a beautiful Oriental face, in whose eyes brooded the light of love and pity, a face of the type which painters have given to the Madonna when they have remembered that the Holy Mother was a Jewess. She was clad in a simple woollen gown, without lace or broidery, her only ornament a silver bracelet. Rachel wept to tell her the lack of news, but Miriam did not join in her tears. She besought her to be of good courage.

And very soon indeed Joseph appeared, with an expression at once haggard and ecstatic, his black hair and beard unkempt, his eyes glittering strangely in his flushed olive face, a curious poetic figure in his reddish-brown mantle and dark yellow cap.

"_Pax vobiscum_," he cried, in shrill, jubilant accents.

"Joseph, what drunken folly is this?" faltered Rachel.

"_Gloria in altissimis Deo_ and peace on earth to all men of goodwill," persisted Joseph. "It is Christmas morning, mother." And he began to troll out the stave of a carol, "Simeon, that good saint of old--"

Rachel's hand was clapped rudely over her son's mouth.

"Blasphemer!" she cried, an ashen gray overspreading her face.

Joseph gently removed her hand. "It is thou who blasphemest, mother," he cried. "Rejoice, rejoice, this day the dear Lord Christ was born--He who was to die for the sins of the world."

Rachel burst into fresh tears. "Our boy is mad--our boy is mad. What have they done to him?" All her anticipations of horror were outpassed by this.

Pain shadowed the sweet silence of Miriam's face as she stood in the recess of the window.

"Mad! Oh, my mother, I am as one awakened. Rejoice, rejoice with me. Let us sink ourselves in the universal joy, let us be at one with the human race."

Rachel smiled tentatively through her tears. "Enough of this foolery," she said pleadingly. "It is the feast of Dedication, not of Lots. There needs no masquerading to-day."

"Joseph, what ails thee?" interposed the sweet voice of Miriam. "What hast thou done? Where hast thou been?"

"Art thou here, Miriam?" His eyes became conscious of her for the first time. "Would thou hadst been there with me!"

"Where?"

"At St. Peter's. Oh, the heavenly music!"

"At St. Peter's!" repeated Rachel hoarsely. "Thou, my son Joseph, the student of God's Law, hast defiled thyself thus?"

"Nay, it is no defilement," interposed Miriam soothingly. "Hast thou not told us how our fathers went to the Sistine Chapel on Sabbath afternoons?"

"Ay, but that was when Michel Angelo Buonarotti was painting his frescoes of the deliverances of Israel. And they went likewise to see the figure of our Lawgiver in the Pope's mausoleum. And I have even heard of Jews who have stolen into St. Peter's itself to gaze on that twisted pillar from Solomon's temple, which these infidels hold for our sins. But it is the midnight mass that this Epicurean has been to hear."

"Even so," said Joseph in dreamy undertones, "the midnight mass--incense and lights and the figures of saints, and wonderful painted windows, and a great multitude of weeping worshippers and music that wept with them, now shrill like the passionate cry of martyrs, now breathing the peace of the Holy Ghost."

"How didst thou dare show thyself in the cathedral?" whimpered Rachel.

"Who should dream of a Jew in the immense throng? Outside it was dark, within it was dim. I hid my face and wept. They looked at the cardinals in their splendid robes, at the Pope, at the altar. Who had eyes for me?"

"But thy yellow cap, Joseph!"

"One wears not the cap in church, mother."

"Thou didst blasphemously bare thy head, and in worship?"

"I did not mean to worship, mother mine. A great curiosity drew me--I desired to see with my own eyes, and hear with mine own ears, this adoration of the Christ, at which my teachers scoff. But I was caught up in a mighty wave of organ-music that surged from this low earth heavenwards to break against the footstool of God in the crystal firmament. And suddenly I knew what my soul was pining for. I knew the meaning of that restless craving that has always devoured me, though I spake not thereof, those strange hauntings, those dim perceptions--in a flash I understood the secret of peace."

"And that is--Joseph?" asked Miriam gently, for Rachel drew such laboring breath she could not speak.

"Sacrifice," said Joseph softly, with rapt gaze. "To suffer, to give one's self freely to the world; to die to myself in delicious pain, like the last tremulous notes of the sweet boy-voice that had soared to God in the Magnificat. Oh, Miriam, if I could lead our brethren out of the Ghetto, if I could die to bring them happiness, to make them free sons of Rome."

"A goodly wish, my son, but to be fulfilled by God alone."

"Even so. Let us pray for faith. When we are Christians the gates of the Ghetto will fall."

"Christians!" echoed Rachel and Miriam in simultaneous horror.

"Ay, Christians," said Joseph unflinchingly.

Rachel ran to the door and closed it more tightly. Her limbs shook. "Hush!" she breathed. "Let thy madness go no further. God of Abraham, suppose some one should overhear thee and carry thy talk to thy father." She began to wring her hands.

"Joseph, bethink thyself," pleaded Miriam, stricken to the heart. "I am no scholar, I am only a woman. But thou--thou with thy learning--surely thou hast not been befooled by these jugglers with the sacred text? Surely thou art able to answer their word-twistings of our prophets?"

"Ah, Miriam," replied Joseph tenderly. "Art thou, too, like our brethren? They do not understand. It is a question of the heart, not of texts. What is it I feel is the highest, divinest in me? Sacrifice! Wherefore He who was all sacrifice, all martyrdom, must be divine."

"Bandy not words with him, Miriam," cried his mother. "Oh, thou infidel, whom I have begotten for my sins. Why doth not Heaven's fire blast thee as thou standest there?"

"Thou talkest of martyrdom, Joseph," cried Miriam, disregarding her. "It is we Jews who are martyrs, not the Christians. We are penned here like cattle. We are marked with shameful badges. Our Talmud is burnt. Our possessions are taxed away from us. We are barred from every reputable calling. We may not even bury our dead with honor or carve an epitaph over their graves." The passion in her face matched his. Her sweetness was exchanged for fire. She had the air of a Judith or a Jael.

"It is our own cowardice that invites the spittle, Miriam. Where is the spirit of the Maccabaeans whom we hymn on this feast of Chanukah? The Pope issues Bulls, and we submit--outwardly. Our resistance is silent, sinuous. He ordains yellow hats; we wear yellow hats, but gradually the yellow darkens; it becomes orange, then ochre, till at last we go capped in red like so many cardinals, provoking the edict afresh. We are restricted to one synagogue. We have five for our different country-folk, but we build them under one roof and call four of them schools."

"Hush, thou Jew-hater," cried his mother. "Say not such things aloud. My God! my God! how have I sinned before Thee?"

"What wouldst thou have, Joseph?" said Miriam. "One cannot argue with wolves. We are so few--we must meet them by cunning."

"Ah, but we set up to be God's witnesses, Miriam. Our creed is naught but prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles went through the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this long ignominy." He burst into sudden tears and sank into a chair overwrought.

Instantly his mother was at his side, bending down, her wet face to his.

"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven!" she sobbed. "The madness is over."

He did not answer her. He had no strength to argue more. There was a long, strained silence. Presently the mother asked--

"And where didst thou find shelter for the night?"

"At the palace of Annibale de' Franchi."

Miriam started. "The father of the beautiful Helena de' Franchi?" she asked.

"The same," said Joseph flushing.

"And how camest thou to find protection there, in so noble a house, under the roof of a familiar of the Pope?"

"Did I not tell thee, mother, how I did some slight service to his daughter at the last Carnival, when, adventuring herself masked among the crowd in the Corso, she was nigh trampled upon by the buffaloes stampeding from the race-course?"

"Nay, I remember naught thereof," said Rachel, shaking her head. "But thou mindest me how these Christians make us race like the beasts."

He ignored the implied reproach.

"Signor de' Franchi would have done much for me," he went on. "But I only begged the run of his great library. Thou knowest how hard it is for me that the Christians deny us books. And there many a day have I sat reading till the vesper bell warned me that I must hasten back to the Ghetto."

"Ah! 'twas but to pervert thee."

"Nay, mother, we talked not of religion."

"And last night thou wast too absorbed in thy reading?" put in Miriam.

"That is how it came to pass, Miriam."

"But why did not Helena warn thee?"

This time it was Joseph that started. But he replied simply--

"We were reading in Tasso. She hath rare parts. Sometimes she renders Plato and Sophocles to me."

"And thou, our future Rabbi, didst listen?" cried Rachel.

"There is no word of Christianity in these, mother, nor do they satisfy the soul. Wisely sang Jehudah Halevi, 'Go not near the Grecian wisdom.'"

"Didst thou sit near her at the mass?" inquired Miriam.

He turned his candid gaze towards her.

"She did not go," he said.

Miriam made a sudden movement to the door.

"Now that thou art safe, Joseph, I have naught further to do here. God keep thee."

Her bosom heaved. She hurried out.

"Poor Miriam!" sighed Rachel. "She is a loving, trustworthy maiden. She will not breathe a whisper of thy blasphemies."

Joseph sprang from his feet as if galvanized.

"Not breathe a whisper! But, mother, I shall shout them from the housetops."

"Hush! hush!" breathed his mother in a frenzy of alarm. "The neighbors will hear thee."

"It is what I desire."

"Thy father may come in at any moment to know if thou art safe."

"I will go allay his anxiety."

"Nay." She caught him by the mantle. "I will not let thee go. Swear to me thou wilt spare him thy blasphemies, or he may strike thee dead at his feet."

"Wouldst have me lie to him? He must know what I have told thee."

"No, no; tell him thou wast shut out, that thou didst remain in hiding."

"Truth alone is great, mother. I go to bring him the Truth." He tore his garment from her grasp and rushed without.

She sat on the floor and rocked to and fro in an agony of apprehension. The leaden hours crept along. No one came, neither son nor husband. Terrible images of what was passing between them tortured her. Towards mid-day she rose and began mechanically preparing her husband's meal. At the precise minute of year-long habit he came. To her anxious eye his stern face seemed more pallid than usual, but it revealed nothing. He washed his hands in ritual silence, made the blessing, and drew chair to table. A hundred times the question hovered about Rachel's lips, but it was not till near the end of the meal that she ventured to say, "Our son is back. Hast thou not seen him?"

"Son? What son? We have no son." He finished his meal.

III

The scholarly apostle, thus disowned by his kith and kin, was eagerly welcomed by Holy Church, the more warmly that he had come of his own inward grace and refused the tribute of annual crowns with which the Popes often rewarded true religion--at the expense of the Ghetto, which had to pay these incomes to its recreants. It was the fashion to baptize converted Jews in batches--for the greater glory--procuring them from without when home-made catechumens were scarce, sometimes serving them up with a proselyte Turk. But in view of the importance of the accession, and likewise of the closeness of Epiphany, it was resolved to give Joseph ben Manasseh the honor of a solitary baptism. The intervening days he passed in a monastery, studying his new faith, unable to communicate with his parents or his fellow Jews, even had he or they wished. A cardinal's edict forbade him to return to the Ghetto, to eat, drink, sleep, or speak with his race during the period of probation; the whip, the cord, awaited its violation. By day Rachel and Miriam walked in the precincts of the monastery, hoping to catch sight of him; nearer than ninety cubits they durst not approach under pain of bastinado and exile. A word to him, a message that might have softened him, a plea that might have turned him back--and the offender was condemned to the galleys for life.

Epiphany arrived. A great concourse filled the Basilica di Latran. The Pope himself was present, and amidst scarlet pomp and swelling music, Joseph, thrilled to the depths of his being, received the sacraments. Annibale de' Franchi, whose proud surname was henceforth to be Joseph's, stood sponsor. The presiding cardinal in his solemn sermon congratulated the congregants on the miracle which had taken place under their very eyes, and then, attired in white satin, the neophyte was slowly driven through the streets of Rome that all might witness how a soul had been saved for the true faith. And in the ecstasy of this union with the human brotherhood and the divine fatherhood, and with Christ, its symbol, Giuseppe de' Franchi saw not the dark, haggard faces of his brethren in the crowd, the hate that smouldered in their dusky eyes as the festal procession passed by. Nor while he knelt before crucifix and image that night, did he dream of that other ceremonial in the Synagogue of the Piazza of the Temple, half-way from the river; a scene more impressive in its sombreness than all the splendor of the church pageant.

The synagogue was a hidden building, indistinguishable externally from the neighboring houses; within, gold and silver glistened in the pomegranates and bells of the Scrolls of the Law or in the broidery of the curtain that covered the Ark; the glass of one of the windows, blazing with a dozen colors for the Twelve Tribes, represented the Urim and the Thummim. In the courtyard stood a model of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, furnished with marvellous detail, memorial of lost glories.

The Council of Sixty had spoken. Joseph ben Manasseh was to suffer the last extremity of the Jewish law. All Israel was called together to the Temple. An awful air of dread hung over the assemblage; in a silence as of the grave each man upheld a black torch that flared weirdly in the shadows of the synagogue. A ram's horn sounded shrill and terrible, and to its elemental music the anathema was launched, the appalling curse withdrawing every human right from the outlaw, living or dead, and the congregants, extinguishing their torches, cried, "Amen." And in a spiritual darkness as black, Manasseh tottered home to sit with his wife on the floor and bewail the death of their Joseph, while a death-light glimmering faintly swam on a bowl of oil, and the prayers for the repose of the soul of the deceased rose passionately on the tainted Ghetto air. And Miriam, her Madonna-like face wet with hot tears, burnt the praying-shawl she was weaving in secret love for the man who might one day have loved her, and went to condole with the mourners, holding Rachel's rugged hand in those soft, sweet fingers that no lover would ever clasp.

But Rachel wept for her child, and would not be comforted.

IV

Helena de' Franchi gave the news of the ban to Giuseppe de' Franchi. She had learned it from one of her damsels, who had had it from Shloumi the Droll, a graceless, humorous rogue, steering betwixt Jews and Christians his shifty way to profit.

Giuseppe smiled a sweet smile that hovered on the brink of tears. "They know not what they do," he said.

"Thy parents mourn thee as dead."

"They mourn the dead Jew; the living Christian's love shall comfort them."

"But thou mayst not approach them, nor they thee."

"By faith are mountains moved; my spirit embraces theirs. We shall yet rejoice together in the light of the Saviour, for weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." His pale face gleamed with celestial radiance.

Helena surveyed him in wondering compassion. "Thou art strangely possessed, Ser Giuseppe," she said.

"It is not strange, Signora, it is all simple--like a child's thought," he said, meeting her limpid eyes with his profound mystic gaze.

She was tall and fair, more like those Greek statues which the sculptors of her day imitated than like a Roman maiden. A simple dress of white silk revealed the beautiful curves of her figure. Through the great oriel window near which they stood the cold sunshine touched her hair and made spots of glory on the striped beast-skins that covered the floor, and on the hanging tapestries. The pictures and ivories, the manuscripts and the busts all contributed to make the apartment a harmonious setting for her noble figure. As he looked at her he trembled.

"And what is thy life to be henceforward?" she asked.

"Surrender, sacrifice," he said half in a whisper. "My parents are right. Joseph is dead. His will is God's, his heart is Christ's. There is no life for me but service."

"And whom wilt thou serve?"

"My brethren, Signora."

"They reject thee."

"I do not reject them."

She was silent for a moment. Then more passionately she cried: "But, Ser Giuseppe, thou wilt achieve nothing. A hundred generations have failed to move them. The Bulls of all the Popes have left them stubborn."

"No one has tried Love, Signora."

"Thou wilt throw away thy life."

He smiled wistfully. "Thou forgettest I am dead."

"Thou art not dead--the sap is in thy veins. The spring-time of the year comes. See how the sun shines already in the blue sky. Thou shalt not die--it is thine to be glad in the sun and in the fairness of things."

"The sunshine is but a symbol of the Divine Love, the pushing buds but prefigure the Resurrection and the Life."

"Thou dreamest, Giuseppe mio. Thou dreamest with those wonderful eyes of thine open. I do not understand this Love of thine that turns from things earthly, that rends thy father's and mother's heart in twain."

His eyes filled with tears. "Pazienza! earthly things are but as shadows that pass. It is thou that dreamest, Signora. Dost thou not feel the transitoriness of it all--yea, even of this solid-seeming terrestrial plain and yon overhanging roof and the beautiful lights set therein for our passing pleasure! This sun which swims daily through the firmament is but a painted phantasm compared with the eternal rock of Christ's Love."

"Thy words are tinkling cymbals to me, Ser Giuseppe."

"They are those of thy faith, Signora."

"Nay, not of my faith," she cried vehemently. "Thou knowest I am no Christian at heart. Nay, nor are any of our house, though they perceive it not. My father fasts at Lent, but it is the Pagan Aristotle that nourishes his thought. Rome counts her beads and mumbles her paternosters, but she has outgrown the primitive faith in Renunciation. Our pageants and processions, our splendid feasts, our gorgeous costumes, what have these to do with the pale Christ, whom thou wouldst foolishly emulate?"

"Then there is work for me to do, even among the Christians," he said mildly.

"Nay, it is but mischief thou wouldst do, with thy passionless ghost of a creed. It is the artists who have brought back joy to the world, who have perceived the soul of beauty in all things. And though they have feigned to paint the Holy Family and the Crucifixion and the Dead Christ and the Last Supper, it is the loveliness of life that has inspired their art. Yea, even from the prayerful Giotto downwards, it is the pride of life, it is the glory of the human form, it is the joy of color, it is the dignity of man, it is the adoration of the Muses. Ay, and have not our nobles had themselves painted as Apostles, have they not intruded their faces into sacred scenes, have they not understood for what this religious art was a pretext? Is not Rome full of Pagan art? Were not the Laocoon and the Cleopatra and the Venus placed in the very orange garden of the Vatican?"

"Natheless it is the Madonna and the Child that your painters have loved best to paint."

"'Tis but Venus and Cupid over again."

"Nay, these sneers belie the noble Signora de' Franchi. Thou canst not be blind to the divine aspiration that lay behind a Madonna of Sandro Botticelli."

"Thou hast not seen his frescoes in the Villa Lemmi, outside Firenze, the dainty grace of his forms, the charming color, else thou wouldst understand that it was not spiritual beauty alone that his soul coveted."

"But Raffaello da Urbino, but Leonardo--"

"Leonardo," she repeated. "Hast thou seen his Bacchus, or his battle-fresco? Knowest thou the later work of Raffaello? And what sayest thou to our Fra Lippo Lippi? A Christian monk he, forsooth! What sayest thou to Giorgione of Venice and his pupils, to this efflorescence of loveliness, to our statuaries and our builders, to our goldsmiths and musicians? Ah, we have rediscovered the secret of Greece. It is Homer that we love, it is Plato, it is the noble simplicity of Sophocles; our Dante lied when he said it was Virgil who was his guide. The poet of Mantua never led mortal to those dolorous regions. He sings of flocks and bees, of birds and running brooks, and the simple loves of shepherds; and we listen to him again and breathe the sweet country air, the sweeter for the memory of those hell-fumes which have poisoned life for centuries. Apollo is Lord, not Christ."

"It is Apollyon who tempts Rome thus with the world and the flesh."

"Thou hast dethroned thy reason, Messer Giuseppe. Thou knowest these things dignify, not degrade our souls. Hast thou not thrilled with me at the fairness of a pictured face, at the glow of luminous color, at the white radiance of a statue?"

"I sinned if I loved beauty for itself alone, and--forgive me if I wound thee, lady--this worship of beauty is for the rich, the well-fed, the few. What of the poor and the down-trodden who weep in darkness? What comfort holds thy creed for such? All these wonders of the human hand and the human brain are as straws weighed against a pure heart, a righteous deed. The ages of Art have always been the ages of abomination, Signora. It is not in cunning but in simplicity that our Lord is revealed. Unless ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Heaven is here." Her eyes gleamed. Her bosom heaved. The fire of her glance passed to his. Her loveliness troubled him, the matchless face and form that now blent the purity of a statue with the warmth of living woman.

"Verily, where Christ is Heaven is. Thou hast moved in such splendor of light, Signora de' Franchi, thou dost not realize thy privilege. But I, who have always walked in darkness, am as a blind man restored to sight. I was ambitious, lustful, torn by doubts and questionings; now I am bathed in the divine peace, all my questions answered, my riotous blood assuaged. Love, love, that is all; the surrender of one's will to the love that moves the sun and all the stars, as your Dante says. And sun and stars do but move to this end, Signora--that human souls may be born and die to live, in oneness with Love. Oh, my brethren"--he stretched out his arms yearningly, and his eyes and his voice were full of tears--"why do ye haggle in the market-place? Why do ye lay up store of gold and silver? Why do ye chase the futile shadows of earthly joy? This, this is the true ecstasy, to give yourself up to God, all in all, to ask only to be the channel of His holy will."

Helena's face was full of a grave wonder; for a moment an answering light was reflected on it as though she yearned for the strange raptures she could not understand.

"All this is sheer folly. Thy brethren hear thee now as little as they will ever hear thee."

"I shall pray night and day that my lips may be touched with the sacred fire."

"Love, too, is a sacred fire. Dost thou purpose to live without that?" She drew nearer. Her breath stirred the black lock on his forehead. He moved back a pace, thrilling.

"I shall have divine Love, Signora."

"Thou art bent on becoming a Dominican?"

"I am fixed."

"The cloister will content thee?"

"It will be Heaven."

"Ay, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. What Samson-creed is this that pulls down the pillars of human society?"

"Nay, marriage is in the scheme. 'Tis the symbol of a diviner union. But it is not for all men. It is not for those who symbolize divine things otherwise, who typify to their fellow-men the flesh crucified, the soul sublimed. It is not for priests."

"But thou art not a priest."

"'Tis a question of days. But were I even refused orders I should still remain celibate."

"Still remain celibate! Wherefore?"

"Because mine own people are cut off from me. And were I to marry a Christian, like so many Jewish converts, the power of my example would be lost. They would say of me, as they say of them, that it was not the light of Christ but a Christian maiden's eyes that dazzled and drew. They are hard; they do not believe in the possibility of a true conversion. Others have enriched themselves by apostasy, or, being rich, have avoided impoverishing mulcts and taxes. But I have lost all my patrimony, and I will accept nothing. That is why I refused thy father's kind offices, the place in the Seal-office, or even the humbler position of mace-bearer to his Holiness. When my brethren see, moreover, that I force from them no pension nor moneys, not even a white farthing, that I even preach to them without wage, verily for the love of Heaven, as your idiom hath it, when they see that I live pure and lonely, then they will listen to me. Perchance their hearts will be touched and their eyes opened." His face shone with wan radiance. That was, indeed, the want, he felt sure. No Jew had ever stood before his brethren an unimpeachable Christian, above suspicion, without fear, and without reproach. Oh, happy privilege to fill this apostolic role!

"But suppose--" Helena hesitated; then lifting her lovely eyes to meet his in fearless candor, "she whom you loved were no Christian."

He trembled, clenching his hands to drive back the mad wave of earthly emotion that flooded him, as the tide swells to the moon, under the fervor of her eyes.

"I should kill my love all the same," he said hoarsely. "The Jews are hard. They will not make fine distinctions. They know none but Jews and Christians."

"Methinks I see my father galloping up the street," said Helena, turning to the oriel window. "That should be his feather and his brown Turkey horse. But the sun dazzles my eyes! I will leave thee."

She passed to the door without looking at him. Then turning suddenly so that his own eyes were dazzled, she said--

"My heart is with thee whatsoever thou choosest. Only bethink thee well, ere thou donnest cowl and gown, that unlovely costume which, to speak after thine own pattern, symbolizes all that is unlovely. _Addio!_"

He followed her and took her hand, and, bending down, kissed it reverently. She did not withdraw it.

"Hast thou the strength for the serge and the cord, Giuseppe mio?" she asked softly.

He drew himself up, holding her hand in his.

"Yes," he said. "Thou shalt inspire me, Helena. The thought of thy radiant purity shall keep me pure and unfaltering."

A fathomless expression crossed Helena's face. She drew away her hand.

"I cannot inspire to death," she said. "I can only inspire to life."

He closed his eyes in ecstatic vision. "'Tis not death. He is the Resurrection and the Life," he murmured.

When he opened his eyes she was gone. He fell on his knees in a passion of prayer, in the agony of the crucifixion of the flesh.

V

During his novitiate, before he had been admitted to monastic vows, he preached a trial "Sermon to the Jews" in a large oratory near the Ghetto. A church would have been contaminated by the presence of heretics, and even from the Oratory any religious objects that lay about had been removed. There was a goodly array of fashionable Christians, resplendent in gold-fringed mantles and silk-ribboned hats; for he was rumored eloquent, and Annibale de' Franchi was there in pompous presidency. One Jew came--Shloumi the Droll, relying on his ability to wriggle out of the infraction of the ban, and earn a meal or two by reporting the proceedings to the _fattori_ and the other dignitaries of the Ghetto, whose human curiosity might be safely counted upon. Shloumi was rich in devices. Had he not even for months flaunted a crimson cap in the eye of Christendom, and had he not when at last brought before the Caporioni, pleaded that this was merely an ostensive sample of the hats he was selling, his true yellow hat being unintentionally hidden beneath? But Giuseppe de' Franchi rejoiced at the sight of him now.

"He is a gossip, he will scatter the seed," he thought.

Late in the afternoon of the next day the preacher was walking in the Via Lepida, near the Monastery of St. Dominic. There was a touch on his mantle. He turned. "Miriam!" he cried, shrinking back.

"Why shrinkest thou from me, Joseph?"

"Knowest thou not I am under the ban? Look, is not that a Jew yonder who regards us?"

"I care not. I have a word to say to thee."

"But thou wilt be accursed."

"I have a word to say to thee."

His eyes lit up. "Ah, thou believest!" he cried exultantly. "Thou hast found grace."

"Nay, Joseph, that will never be. I love our fathers' faith. Methinks I have understood it better than thou, though I have not dived like thee into holy lore. It is by the heart alone that I understand."

"Then why dost thou come? Let us turn down towards the Coliseum. 'Tis quieter, and less frequented of our brethren."

They left the busy street with its bustle of coaches, and water-carriers with their asses, and porters, and mounted nobles with trains of followers, and swash-buckling swordsmen, any of whom might have insulted Miriam, conspicuous by her beauty and by the square of yellow cloth, a palm and a half wide, set above her coiffure. They walked on in silence till they came to the Arch of Titus. Involuntarily both stopped, for by reason of the Temple candlestick that figured as spoil in the carving of the Triumph of Titus, no Jew would pass under it. Titus and his empire had vanished, but the Jew still hugged his memories and his dreams.

An angry sulphur sunset, streaked with green, hung over the ruined temples of the ancient gods and the grass-grown fora of the Romans. It touched with a glow as of blood the highest fragment of the Coliseum wall, behind which beasts and men had made sport for the Masters of the World. The rest of the Titanic ruin seemed in shadow.

"Is it well with my parents?" said Joseph at last.

"Hast thou the face to ask? Thy mother weeps all day, save when thy father is at home. Then she makes herself as stony as he. He--an elder of the synagogue!--thou hast brought down his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave."

He swallowed a sob. Then, with something of his father's stoniness, "Suffering chastens, Miriam," he said. "It is God's weapon."

"Accuse not God of thy cruelty. I hate thee." She went on rapidly, "It is rumored in the Ghetto thou art to be a friar of St. Dominic. Shloumi the Droll brought the news."

"It is so, Miriam. I am to take the vows at once."

"But how canst thou become a priest? Thou lovest a woman."

He stopped in his walk, startled.

"What sayest thou, Miriam?"

"Nay, this is no time for denials. I know her. I know thy love for her. It is Helena de' Franchi."

He was white and agitated. "Nay, I love no woman."

"Thou lovest Helena."

"How knowest thou that?"

"I am a woman."

They walked on silently.

"And this is what thou camest to say?"

"Nay, this. Thou must marry her and be happy."

"I--I cannot, Miriam. Thou dost not understand."

"Not understand! I can read thee as thou readest the Law--without vowels. Thou thinkest we Jews will point the finger of scorn at thee, that we will say it was Helena thou didst love, not the Crucified One, that we will not listen to thy gospel."

"But is it not so?"

"It is so."

"Then--"

"But it will be so, do what thou wilt. Cut thyself into little pieces and we would not believe in thee or thy gospel. I alone have faith in thy sincerity, and to me thou art as one mad with over-study. Joseph, thy dream is vain. The Jews hate thee. They call thee Haman. Willingly would they see thee hanged on a high tree. Thy memory will be an execration to the third and fourth generation. Thou wilt no more move them than the seven hills of Rome. They have stood too long."

"Ay, they have stood like stones. I will melt them. I will save them."

"Thou wilt destroy them. Save rather thyself--wed this woman and be happy."

He looked at her.

"Be happy," she repeated. "Do not throw away thy life for a vain shadow. Be happy. It is my last word to thee. Henceforth, as a true daughter of Judah, I obey the ban, and were I a mother in Israel my children should be taught to hate thee even as I do. Peace be with thee!"

He caught at her gown. "Go not without my thanks, though I must reject thy counsel. To-morrow I am admitted into the Brotherhood of Righteousness." In the fading light his face shone weird and unearthly amid the raven hair. "But why didst thou risk thy good name to tell me thou hatest me?"

"Because I love thee. Farewell."

She sped away.

He stretched out his arms after her. His eyes were blind with mist. "Miriam, Miriam!" he cried. "Come back, thou too art a Christian! Come back, my sweet sister in Christ!"

A drunken Dominican lurched into his open arms.

VI

The Jews would not come to hear Fra Giuseppe. All his impassioned spirituality was wasted on an audience of Christians and oft-converted converts. Baffled, he fell back on scholastic argumentation, but in vain did he turn the weapons of Talmudic dialectic against the Talmudists themselves. Not even his discovery by cabbalistic calculations that the Pope's name and office were predicted in the Old Testament availed to draw the Jews, and it was only in the streets that he came upon the scowling faces of his brethren. For months he preached in patient sweetness, then one day, desperate and unstrung, he sought an interview with the Pope, to petition that the Jews might be commanded to come to his sermons; he found the Pontiff in bed, unwell, but chatting blithely with the Bishop of Salamanca and the Procurator of the Exchequer, apparently of a droll mishap that had befallen the French Legate. It was a pale scholarly face that lay back on the white pillow under the purple skull-cap, but it was not devoid of the stronger lines of action. Giuseppe stood timidly at the door, till the Wardrobe-Keeper, a gentleman of noble family, told him to advance. He moved forward reverently, and kneeling down kissed the Pope's feet. Then he rose and proffered his request. But the ruler of Christendom frowned. He was a scholar and a gentleman, a great patron of letters and the arts. Wiser than that of temporal kings, his Jewish policy had always been comparatively mild. It was his foreign policy that absorbed his zeal, considerably to the prejudice of his popularity at home. While Giuseppe de' Franchi was pleading desperately to a bored Prelate, explaining how he could solve the Jewish question, how he could play upon his brethren as David upon the harp, if he could only get them under the spell of his voice, a gentleman of the bed-chamber brought in a refection on a silver tray, the Preguste tasted of the food to ensure its freedom from poison, though it came from the Papal kitchen, and at a sign from his Holiness, Giuseppe had to stand aside. And ere the Pope had finished there were other interruptions; the chief of his band of musicians came for instructions for the concert at his Ferragosto on the first of August; and--most vexatious of all--a couple of goldsmiths came with their work, and with rival models of a button for the Pontifical cope. Giuseppe fumed and fretted while the Holy Father put on his spectacles to examine the great silver vase which was to receive the droppings from his table, its richly chased handles and its festoons of acanthus leaves, and its ingenious masks; and its fellow which was to stand in his cupboard and hold water, and had a beautiful design representing St. Ambrogio on horseback routing the Arians. And when one of the jewellers had been dismissed, laden with ducats by the Pope's datary, the other remained an intolerable time, for it appeared his Holiness was mightily pleased with his wax model, marvelling how cunningly the artist had represented God the Father in bas-relief, sitting in an easy attitude, and how elegantly he had set the fine edge of the biggest diamond exactly in the centre. "Speed the work, my son," said His Holiness, dismissing him at last, "for I would wear the button myself before I die." Then, raising a beaming face, "Wouldst thou aught further with me, Fra Giuseppe? Ah, I recall! Thou yearnest to preach to thy stiff-necked kinsmen. _Ebbene_, 'tis a worthy ambition. Luigi, remember me to-morrow to issue a Bull."

With sudden-streaming eyes the Friar fell at the Pontiff's feet again, kissing them and murmuring incoherent thanks. Then he bowed his way out, and hastened back joyfully to the convent.

The Bull duly appeared. The Jews were to attend his next sermon. He awaited the Sabbath afternoon in a frenzy of spiritual ecstasy. He prepared a wonderful sermon. The Jews would not dare to disobey the Edict. It was too definite. It could not be evaded. And their apathetic resistance never came till later, after an obedient start. The days passed. The Bull had not been countermanded, although he was aware backstairs influence had been tried by the bankers of the community; it had not even been modified under the pretence of defining it, as was the manner of Popes with too rigorous Bulls. No, nothing could save the Jews from his sermon.

On the Thursday a plague broke out in the Ghetto; on the Friday a tenth of the population was dead. Another overflow of the Tiber had co-operated with the malarious effluvia of those congested alleys, those strictly limited houses swarming with multiplying broods. On the Saturday the gates of the Ghetto were officially closed. The plague was shut in. For three months the outcasts of humanity were pent in their pestiferous prison day and night to live or die as they chose. When at length the Ghetto was opened and disinfected, it was the dead, not the living, that were crowded.

VII

Joseph the Dreamer was half stunned by this second blow to his dreams. An earthly anxiety he would not avow to himself consumed him during the progress of the plague, which in spite of all efforts escaped from the Ghetto as if to punish those who had produced the conditions of its existence. But his anxiety was not for himself--it was for his mother and father, it was for the noble Miriam. When he was not in fearless attendance upon plague-stricken Christians he walked near the city of the dead, whence no news could come. When at last he learned that his dear ones were alive, another blow fell. The Bull was still to be enforced, but the Pope's ear was tenderer to the survivors. He respected their hatred of Fra Giuseppe, their protest that they would more willingly hear any other preacher. The duty was to be undertaken by his brother Dominicans in turn. Giuseppe alone was forbidden to preach. In vain he sought to approach his Holiness; he was denied access. Thus began that strange institution, the Predica Coattiva, the forced sermon.

Every Sabbath after their own synagogue sermon, a third of the population of the Ghetto, including all children above the age of twelve, had to repair in turn to receive the Antidote at the Church of San Benedetto Alla Regola, specially set apart for them, where a friar gave a true interpretation of the Old Testament portion read by their own cantor. His Holiness, ever more considerate than his inferiors, had enjoined the preachers to avoid the names of Jesus and the Holy Virgin, so offensive to Jewish ears, or to pronounce them in low tones; but the spirit of these recommendations was forgotten by the occupants of the pulpit with a congregation at their mercy to bully and denounce with all the savage resources of rhetoric. Many Jews lagged reluctant on the road churchwards. A posse of police with whips drove them into the holy fold. This novel church procession of men, women, and children grew to be one of the spectacles of Rome. A new pleasure had been invented for the mob. These compulsory services involved no small expense. By a refinement of humor the Jews had to pay for their own conversion. Evasion of the sermon was impossible; a register placed at the door of the church kept account of the absentees, whom fine and imprisonment chastised. To keep this register a neophyte was needed, one who knew each individual personally and could expose substitutes. What better man than the new brother? In vain Giuseppe protested. The Prior would not hearken. And so in lieu of offering the sublime spectacle of an unpaid apostleship, the powerless instigator of the mischief, bent over his desk, certified the identity of the listless arrivals by sidelong peeps, conscious that he was adding the pain of contact with an excommunicated Jew to the sufferings of his brethren, for whose Sabbath his writing-pen was shamelessly expressing his contempt. Many a Sabbath he saw his father, a tragic, white-haired wreck, touched up with a playful whip to urge him faster towards the church door. It was Joseph whom that whip stung most. When the official who was charged to see that the congregants paid attention, and especially that they did not evade the sermon by slumber, stirred up Rachel with an iron rod, her unhappy son broke into a cold sweat. When, every third Sabbath, Miriam passed before his desk with steadfast eyes of scorn, he was in an ague, a fever of hot and cold. His only consolation was to see rows of devout faces listening for the first time in their life to the gospel. At least he had achieved something. Even Shloumi the Droll had grown regenerate; he listened to the preachers with sober reverence.

Joseph the Dreamer did not know that, adopting the whimsical device hit on by Shloumi, all these devout Jews had wadding stuffed deep into their ears.

But, meanwhile, in other pulpits, Fra Giuseppe was gaining great fame. Christians came from far and near to hear him. He went about among the people and they grew to love him. He preached at executions, his black mantle and white scapulary were welcomed in loathsome dungeons, he absolved the dying, he exorcised demons. But there was one sinner he could not absolve, neither by hair-shirt nor flagellation, and that was himself. And there was one demon he could not exorcise--that in his own breast, the tribulation of his own soul, bruising itself perpetually against the realities of life and as torn now by the shortcomings of Christendom as formerly by those of the Ghetto.

VIII

It was the Carnival week again--the mad blaspheming week of revelry and devilry. The streets were rainbow with motley wear and thunderous with the roar and laughter of the crowd, recruited by a vast inflow of strangers; from the windows and roofs, black with heads, frolicsome hands threw honey, dirty water, rotten eggs, and even boiling oil upon the pedestrians and cavaliers below. Bloody tumults broke out, sacrilegious masqueraders invaded the churches. They lampooned all things human and divine; the whip and the gallows liberally applied availed naught to check the popular licence. Every prohibitory edict became a dead letter. In such a season the Jews might well tremble, made over to the facetious Christian; always excellent whetstones for wit, they afforded peculiar diversion in Carnival times. On the first day a deputation of the chief Jews, including the three gonfaloniers and the rabbis, headed the senatorial _cortege_, and, attired in a parti-colored costume of red and yellow, marched across the whole city, from the Piazza of the People to the Capitol, through a double fire of scurrilities. Arrived at the Capitol, the procession marched into the Hall of the Throne, where the three Conservators and the Prior of the Caporioni sat on crimson velvet seats with the fiscal advocate of the Capitol in his black toga and velvet cap. The Chief Rabbi knelt upon the first step of the throne, and, bending his venerable head to the ground, pronounced a traditional formula: "Full of respect and of devotion for the Roman people, we, chiefs and rabbis of the humble Jewish community, present ourselves before the exalted throne of Your Eminences to offer them respectfully fidelity and homage in the name of our co-religionists, and to implore their benevolent commiseration. For us, we shall not fail to supplicate the Most High to accord peace and a long tranquillity to the Sovereign Pontiff, who reigns for the happiness of all; to the Apostolic Holy Seat, as well as to Your Eminences, to the most illustrious Senate, and to the Roman people."

To which the Chief of the Conservators replied: "We accept with pleasure the homage of fidelity, of vassalage, and of respect, the expression of which you renew to-day in the name of the entire Jewish community, and, assured that you will respect the laws and orders of the Senate, and that you will pay, as in the past, the tribute and the dues which are incumbent upon you, we accord you our protection in the hope that you will know how to make yourself worthy of it." Then, placing his foot upon the Rabbi's neck, he cried: "Andate!" (Begone!)

Rising, the Rabbi presented the Conservators with a bouquet and a cup containing twenty crowns, and offered to decorate the platform of the Senator on the Piazza of the People. And then the deputation passed again in its motley gear through the swarming streets of buffoons, through the avenue of scurrilities, to renew its hypocritical protestations before the throne of the Senator.

Mock processions parodied this march of Jews. The fishmongers, who, from their proximity to the Ghetto, were aware of its customs, enriched the Carnival with divers other parodies; now it was a travesty of a rabbi's funeral, now a long cavalcade of Jews galloping upon asses, preceded by a mock rabbi on horseback, with his head to the steed's tail, which he grasped with one hand, while with the other he offered an imitation Scroll of the Law to the derision of the mob. Truly, the baiting of the Jews added rare spice to the fun of the Carnival; their hats were torn off, filth was thrown in their faces. This year the Governor of Rome had interfered, forbidding anything to be thrown at them except fruit. A noble marquis won facetious fame by pelting them with pineapples. But it was not till the third day, after the asses and buffaloes had raced, that the Jews touched the extreme of indignity, for this was the day of the Jew races.

The morning dawned blue and cold; but soon the clouds gathered, and the jostling revellers scented with joy the prospect of rain. At the Arch of San Lorenza, in Lucina, in the long narrow street of the Via Corso, where doorways and casements and roofs and footways were agrin with faces, half a dozen Jews or so were assembled pell-mell. They had just been given a hearty meal, but they did not look grateful. Almost naked, save for a white cloak of the meagrest dimensions, comically indecent, covered with tinsel and decorated with laurels, they stood shivering, awaiting the command to "Go!" to run the gauntlet of all this sinister crowd, overwelling with long-repressed venom, seething with taunts and lewdness. At last a mounted officer gave the word, and, amid a colossal shout of glee from the mob, the half-naked, grotesque figures, with their strange Oriental faces of sorrow, started at a wild run down the Corso. The goal was the Castle of St. Angelo. Originally the race-course ended with the Corso, but it had been considerably lengthened to gratify a recent Pope who wished to have the finish under his windows as he sat in his semi-secret Castle chamber amid the frescoed nudes of Giulio Romano. Fast, fast flew the racers, for the sooner the goal was reached the sooner would they find respite from this hail of sarcasm mixed with weightier stones, and these frequent proddings from the lively sticks of the bystanders, or of the fine folk obstructing the course in coaches in defiance of edict. And to accelerate their pace still further, the mounted officer, with a squad of soldiers armed _cap-a-pie_, galloped at their heels, ever threatening to ride them down. They ran, ran, puffing, panting, sweating, apoplectic; for to the end that they might nigh burst with stitches in the side had a brilliant organizer of the _fete_ stuffed them full with preliminary meat. Oh, droll! oh, delicious! oh, rare for Antony! And now a young man noticeable by his emaciated face and his premature baldness was drawing to the front amid ironic cheers. When the grotesque racers had passed by, noble cavaliers displayed their dexterity at the quintain, and beautiful ladies at the balconies--not masked, as in France, but radiantly revealed--changed their broad smiles to the subtler smiles of dalliance. And then suddenly the storm broke--happy ally of the _fete_--jocosely drenching the semi-nude runners. On, on they sped, breathless, blind, gasping, befouled by mud, and bruised by missiles, with the horses' hoofs grazing their heels; on, on along the thousand yards of the endless course; on, on, sodden and dripping and stumbling. They were nearing the goal. They had already passed San Marco, the old goal. The young Jew was still leading, but a fat old Jew pressed him close. The excitement of the crowd redoubled. A thousand mocking voices encouraged the rivals. They were on the bridge. The Castle of St. Angelo, whose bastions were named after the Apostles, was in sight. The fat old Jew drew closer, anxious, now that he was come so far, to secure the thirty-six crowns that the prize might be sold for. But the favorite made a mighty spurt. He passed the Pope's window, and the day was his. The firmament rang with laughter as the other candidates panted up. A great yell greeted the fall of the fat old man in the roadway, where he lay prostrate.

An official tendered the winner the _pallio_ which was the prize--a piece of red Venetian cloth. The young Jew took it, surveying it with a strange, unfathomable gaze, but the Judge interposed.

"The captain of the soldiers tells me they did not start fair at the Arch. They must run again to-morrow." This was a favorite device for prolonging the fun. But the winner's eyes blazed ominously.

"Nay, but we started as balls shot from a falconet."

"Peace, peace, return him the _pallio_," whispered a racer behind him, tugging apprehensively at his one garment.

"They always adjudge it again to the first winner." But the young man was reckless.

"Why did not the captain stop us, then?" he asked.

"Keep thy tongue between thy dog's teeth," retorted the Judge. "In any event the race must be run again, for the law ordains eight runners as a minimum."

"We are eight," replied the young Jew.

The Judge glared at the rebel; then, striking each rueful object with a stick, he counted out, "One--two--three--four--five--six--seven!"

"Eight," persisted the young man, perceiving for the first time the old Jew on the ground behind him, and stooping to raise him.

"That creature! Basta! He does not count. He is drunk."

"Thou hell-begotten hound!" and straightening himself suddenly, the young Jew drew a crucifix from within his cloak. "Thou art right!" he cried in a voice of thunder. "There are only seven Jews, for I--I am no Jew. I am Fra Giuseppe!" And the crucifix whirled round, clearing a space of awe about him.

The Judge cowered back in surprise and apprehension. The soldiers sat their horses in stony amazement, the seething crowd was stilled for a moment, struck to silent attention. The shower had ceased and a ray of watery sunlight glistened on the crucifix.

"In the name of Christ I denounce this devil's mockery of the Lord's chosen people," thundered the Dominican. "Stand back all. Will no one bring this poor old man a cup of cold water?"

"Hasn't Heaven given him enough cold water?" asked a jester in the crowd. But no one stirred.

"Then may you all burn eternally," said the Friar. He bent down again and raised the old man's head tenderly. Then his face grew sterner and whiter. "He is dead," he said. "The Christ he denied receive him into His mercy." And he let the corpse fall gently back and closed the glassy eyes. The bystanders had a momentary thrill. Death had lent dignity even to the old Jew. He lay there, felled by an apoplectic stroke, due to the forced heavy meal, the tinsel gleaming grotesquely on his white sodden cloak, his naked legs rigid and cold. From afar the rumors of revelry, the _brouhaha_ of a mad population, saluted his deaf ears, the distant music of lutes and viols. The captain of the soldiers went hot and cold. He had harried the heels of the rotund runner in special amusement, but he had not designed murder. A wave of compunction traversed the spectators. But the Judge recovered himself.

"Seize this recreant priest!" he cried. "He is a backslider. He has gone back to his people. He is become a Jew again--he shall be flayed alive."

"Back, in the name of Holy Church!" cried Fra Giuseppe, veering round to face the captain, who, however, had sat his horse without moving. "I am no Jew. I am as good a Christian as his Holiness, who but just now sat at yon jalousie, feasting his eyes on these heathen saturnalia."

"Then why didst thou race with the Jews? It is contamination. Thou hast defiled thy cloth."

"Nay, I wore not my cloth. Am I not half naked? Is this the cloth I should respect--this gaudy frippery, which your citizens have made a target for filth and abuse?"

"Thou hast brought it on thyself," put in the captain mildly. "Wherefore didst thou race with this pestilent people?"

The Dominican bowed his head. "It is my penance," he said in tremulous tones. "I have sinned against my brethren. I have aggravated their griefs. Therefore would I be of them at the moment of their extremest humiliation, and that I might share their martyrdom did I beg his place from one of the runners. But penance is not all my motive." And he lifted up his eyes and they blazed terribly, and his tones became again a thunder that rolled through the crowd and far down the bridge. "Ye who know me, faithful sons and daughters of Holy Church, ye who have so often listened to my voice, ye into whose houses I have brought the comfort of the Word, join with me now in ending the long martyrdom of the Jews, your brethren. It is by love, not hate, that Christ rules the world. I deemed that it would move your hearts to see me, whom I know ye love, covered with filth, which ye had never thrown had ye known me in this strange guise. But lo, this poor old man pleadeth more eloquently than I. His dead lips shake your souls. Go home, go home from this Pagan mirth, and sit on the ground in sackcloth and ashes, and pray God He make you better Christians."

There was an uneasy stir in the crowd: the fantastic mud-stained tinsel cloak, the bare legs of the speaker, did but add to his impressiveness; he seemed some strange antique prophet, come from the far ends of the world and time.

"Be silent, blasphemer," said the Judge. "The sports have the countenance of the Holy Father. Heaven itself hath cursed these stinking heretics. Pah!" he spurned the dead Jew with his foot. The Friar's bosom swelled. His head was hot with blood.

"Not Heaven but the Pope hath cursed them," he retorted vehemently. "Why doth he not banish them from his dominions? Nay, he knows how needful they are to the State. When he exiled them from all save the three cities of refuge, and when the Jewish merchants of the seaports of the East put our port of Ancona under a ban, so that we could not provision ourselves, did not his Holiness hastily recall the Jews, confessing their value? Which being so, it is love we should offer them, not hatred and a hundred degrading edicts."

"Thou shalt burn in the Forum for this," spluttered the Judge. "Who art thou to set thyself up against God's Vicar?"

"He God's Vicar? Nay, I am sooner God's Vicar. God speaks through me."

His wan, emaciated face had grown rapt and shining; to the awed mob he loomed gigantic.

"This is treason and blasphemy. Arrest him!" cried the Judge.

The Friar faced the soldiers unflinchingly, though only the body of the old Jew divided him from their prancing horses.

"Nay," he said softly, and a sweet smile mingled with the mystery of his look. "God is with me. He hath set this bulwark of death between you and my life. Ye will not fight under the banner of the Anti-Christ."

"Death to the renegade!" cried a voice in the crowd. "He calls the Pope Anti-Christ."

"Ay, he who is not for us is against us. Is it for Christ that he rules Rome? Is it only the Jews whom he vexes? Hath not his rage for power brought the enemy to the gates of Rome? Have not his companies of foreign auxiliaries flouted our citizens? Ye know how Rome hath suffered through the machinations of his bastard son, with his swaggering troop of cut-throats. Is it for Christ that he hath begotten this terror of our streets?"

"Down with Baccio Valori!" cried a stentorian voice, and a dozen enthusiastic throats echoed the shout.

"Ay, down with Baccio Valori!" cried the Dominican.

"Down with Baccio Valori!" repeated the ductile crowd, its holiday humor subtly passing into another form of recklessness. Some who loved the Friar were genuinely worked upon, others in mad, vicious mood were ready for any diversion. A few, and these the loudest, were swashbucklers and cutpurses.

"Ay, but not Baccio Valori alone!" thundered Fra Giuseppe. "Down with all those bastard growths that flourish in the capital of Christendom. Down with all that hell-spawn, which is the denial of Christ; down with the Pardoner! God is no tradesman that he should chaffer for the forgiveness of sins. Still less--oh blasphemy!--of sins undone. Our Lady wants none of your wax candles. It is a white heart, it is the flame of a pure soul that the Virgin Mother asks for. Away with your beads and mummeries, your paternosters and genuflections! Away with your Carnivals, your godless farewells to meat! Ye are all foul. This is no city of God, it is a city of hired bravos and adulterous abominations and gluttonous feasts, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of the flesh. Down with the foul-blooded Cardinal, who gossips at the altar, and borrows money of the despised Jews for his secret sins! Down with the monk whose missal is Boccaccio! Down with God's Vicegerent who traffics in Cardinals' hats, who dare not take the Eucharist without a Pretaster, who is all absorbed in profane Greek texts, in cunning jewel-work, in political manoeuvres and domestic intrigues, who comes caracoling in crimson and velvet upon his proud Neapolitan barb, with his bareheaded Cardinals and his hundred glittering horsemen. He the representative of the meek Christ who rode upon an ass, and said, 'Sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me'! Nay," and the passion of righteousness tore his frame and thralled his listeners, "though he inhabit the Vatican, though a hundred gorgeous bishops abase themselves to kiss his toe, yet I proclaim here that he is a lie, a snare, a whited sepulchre, no protector of the poor, no loving father to the fatherless, no spiritual Emperor, no Vicar of Christ, but Anti-Christ himself."

"Down with Anti-Christ!" yelled a pair of Corsican cut-throats.

"Down with Anti-Christ!" roared the crowd, the long-suppressed hatred of the ruling power finding vent in a great wave of hysteric emotion.

"Captain, do thy duty!" cried the Judge.

"Nay, but the Friar speaks truth. Bear the old man away, Alessandro!"

"Is Rome demented? Haste for the City Guards, Jacopo!"

Fra Giuseppe swiftly tied the _pallio_ to his crucifix, and, waving the red cloth on high, "This is the true flag of Christ!" he cried. "This, the symbol of our brethren's martyrdom! See, 'tis the color of the blood He shed for us. Who is for Jesus, follow me!"

"For Christ, for Jesus! _Viva Gesu!_" A far-rumbling thunder broke from the swaying mob. His own fire caught extra flame from theirs.

"Follow me! This day we will bear witness to Christ, we will establish His kingdom in Rome."

There was a wild rush, the soldiers spurred their horses, people fell under their hoofs, and were trampled on. It was a moment of frenzy. The Dominican ran on, waving the red _pallio_, his followers contagiously swollen at every by-street. Unchecked he reached the great Piazza, where a new statue of the Pope gleamed white and majestic.

"Down with Anti-Christ!" shouted a cutpurse.

"Down with Anti-Christ!" echoed the mob.

The Friar waved his hand, and there was silence. He saw the yellow gleam of a Jew's head in the crowd, and called upon him to fling him his cap. It was hurled from hand to hand. Fra Giuseppe held it up in the air. "Men of Rome, Sons of Holy Church, behold the contumelious mark we set upon our fellow-men, so that every ruffian may spit upon them. Behold the yellow--the color of shame, the stigma of women that traffic in their womanhood--with which we brand the venerable brows of rabbis and the heads of honorable merchants. Lo! I set it upon the head of this Anti-Christ, a symbol of our hate for all that is not Love." And raising himself on the captain's stirrup, he crowned the statue with the yellow badge.

A great shout of derision rent the air. There was a multifarious tumult of savage voices.

"Down with Anti-Christ! Down with the Pope! Down with Baccio Valori! Down with the Princess Teresa!"

But in another moment all was a wild _melee_. A company of City Guards--pikemen, musketeers, and horsemen 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 passions of the riffraff had assuaged 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 flashing 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 unobservedly 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 bloody ominous text patent to all eyes, passionately preached Christ and dissolved the mob in tears.

X

In the house of Manasseh, 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. Manasseh 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 noble 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. _

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