... How distinctly I can see the little town even now, with its narrow, tortuous, and gloomy streets, its ruined castle on the top of the hill, and its stately monastery near the river! It is to this last that I wish to draw the reader's attention. The Dominican monastery is a huge pile of buildings surrounded by a wall in which one can still see the traces of the old Tartar attacks of long ago. Within the wall is a confused mass of chapels and dwelling-houses, separated from each other by damp, moss-grown courtyards, or by sparsely covered grass-plots. I often went there in my boyhood, and used to like playing among the graves in the little churchyard. I also delighted in listening to the echo of my footsteps in the great empty refectory; but I liked best of all to go to the "Abbot's Chapel," a small Byzantine building which was known by that name, and look up at a picture that had been hung there a short time before. It had been painted by the proud and beautiful GrÄfin Jadwiga Bortynska, lady of the manor of Barnow. It was a wonderful picture—breathing love and peace. Christ was represented standing on vaporous clouds, His hands stretched out in blessing over the earth. The pale face, which was, as it were, framed in black curls, had an expression of divine love and sublime goodness—perfect man and perfect God.

But I did not think of that when I first saw the picture, for I was then only a thoughtless boy of twelve years old. It was on a bright, warm autumn day that I saw it first. An hour after it was hung up in its place, little Wladik, the sexton's son, showed it to me. The sunshine was falling full upon it at the time, and I almost started as I saw the life-like figure in its dark frame.

"Do you know who it is?" I asked my school-fellow.

"How can you ask?" he exclaimed with boyish indignation. "It is our Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Jews crucified."

"No, Wladik," I answered with the utmost decision, "it isn't; it's Bocher David, who used to teach me until last spring."

Wladik was very angry, and scolded me well for saying such a dreadful thing, but he could not convince me that I was wrong: I knew what I knew. When I went home in the evening I told my father about the picture.

"Silly child," he said with a smile; "who could have painted it?"

"Our Frau GrÄfin," I replied.

My father looked grave. "Well, well," he said thoughtfully, "it is almost incredible...."

"What?" I asked quickly. But he told me to be quiet.

I should not then have understood what he meant; but I heard the story afterward when I was older—the sad story of that picture of Christ in the chapel at Barnow—and learned that it was also, as I had supposed, a portrait of my old teacher, Bocher David.

It is a strange story, reader, and will seem all the more extraordinary to you, if you have been brought up in a Western home, and have been accustomed from your infancy to civilization and tolerance of others. It is also sad, very sad. But do not blame me for that, for my heart bleeds when I remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal, inscrutable Power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery, to the weak human heart....

I will now tell you the story.

The small town of Barnow lies in the middle of an immense plain. Close to it is the only hill for several miles around, and on the top of this little hill are the ruins of a castle where the lords of Barnow, or Barecki Starosts, used to live. The last of this race, an old man, weak in mind as in body, now lives in his cheerless house by the river-side; while the new lord of the manor, Graf Bortynski, lives in a new and splendid castle in the plain, far away from the one-storied cottages, the rickety little houses, the narrow, airless streets of Barnow, and all the want and misery of the people who inhabit them.

But these inhabitants of Barnow are happy, their streets are light and airy, and their houses comfortable, in comparison with those who have to live in that part of the town which is built in the unhealthy marshes near the river. It is always dark and gloomy there, however brightly the sun may shine, and dark pestiferous vapors fill the air, although the meadows beyond may be full of flowers. And this wretched part of the town is the most thickly inhabited of all, for it is the Ghetto, the Jews' quarter, or, as they call it in Barnow, the "Gasse."

David was the strangest and most mysterious-looking figure in the "Gasse," which was anyhow only too full of such people—for when plants are kept in the dark they are apt to take eccentric forms. He was the son of the former rabbi of the town. Even in his boyhood he had been the pride and delight of his father, and indeed of the whole community. His bright young intelligence was early able to comprehend the secrets of the Talmud, its subtleties and riddles, and the boy was looked upon with wondering admiration by all. For, pale and delicate as he was, the Jews of Barnow believed that he would live to become a great scribe, learned in the Scriptures. So they forgave his hastiness and fits of passion.

In course of time the old rabbi died, and left his widow and only child nothing but his great library and the love of the whole congregation. The community did what they could for the widow and orphan, or rather did what they thought proper and necessary. David and his mother were allowed to remain in the small back rooms of their old house, and the front rooms were given to the new rabbi. It was right and fitting that it should be so, but it wounded the child's feelings. David no longer heard the words of praise that he had been accustomed to, although he deserved them more and more every day; so he became ever more defiant, and was consequently very much disliked. It happened one day that he excelled the rabbi in his interpretation of a passage of the Talmud, and afterward told different people that he had done so, and thus made an enemy in the community. He was now as much disliked as he had once been praised. His position grew unbearable. But as long as his mother lived, he remained at Barnow. She was the only person he obeyed, and she alone could sometimes bring a smile to the grave, sad face of her son. One morning soon after her death, which happened when he was fifteen, David disappeared. No one knew what had become of him. He was soon forgotten, and was only spoken of now and then as the late rabbi's son, a wise and learned youth, but wicked and wrong-headed to an extraordinary degree.

He remained away for twelve long years.

At length he returned unexpectedly, and rented one of the small rickety houses in the little Podolian town. On the following day he went to the elders of the synagogue, and to those men who were appointed to nurse the sick, and told them that he had determined to devote his life to the care of the sick and dying. He said that he knew many simples, and a good deal about the art of healing, and entreated them to grant his request, and not to spare him when he could be of any use. They were astonished at his resolution, and praised him for his goodness. But as time went on they learned really to appreciate his help, and blessed him; then once more his praises were repeated from mouth to mouth as of yore. But there was a certain air of mystery about him, for he made no intimacies in the "Gasse." No one knew what studies he was engaged in when his night-lamp burned till early morning; no one knew what were his resources, or where he had been during his absence from Barnow. The rabbi, who had long forgotten David's boyish faults, and my father—because he was the town doctor—used to see a good deal of him, and they were the only people with whom he was on familiar terms. It was discovered through them that he had been in the Holy Land, that he had seen the countries of the West, and that he had even crossed the great ocean, and had spent some time in "Amerikum," as it was called in the language of the "Gasse." It was said that he could speak many foreign tongues, that he knew everything, and could do whatever he chose, whether good or evil, for he was a master of the "Cabala," and well acquainted with the great and terrible secrets of the "Sohar," the Cabalist primer; and, finally, that he had sworn to himself that he would never marry, and so he was still a "bocher," or bachelor.

But he either knew nothing of these rumors, or did not care what people said of him. He helped all who were in need of his assistance, without desiring either thanks or payment. And as time passed on, all began to feel a deep respect, and even love, for the pale silent man who did so much for them. His face had quite lost the gloomy passionate expression of his boyhood, and had become at once grave and gentle. While every one felt a fearless confidence in his kindness and sympathy, no one would have ventured to treat him with familiarity. The "Bocher" was the only inhabitant of the Ghetto whom the Christian boys neither pelted nor scorned, although outwardly he was only distinguished from his brethren in the faith by the careful cleanliness of his clothing. He wore the same curious old-fashioned Polish garments as all the other Jews in Poland and Russia; and no dress could have shown off to better advantage his tall stately figure, and pale intellectual face surrounded by clustering curls of black hair.

This man was my teacher from my sixth till my twelfth year. I was a very mischievous boy, always ready for fun, and hating to sit still, and he treated me with continual grave kindness. We seldom exchanged a word that had not to do with the lessons he was teaching me. But once it was different: it was on the day on which I had gone to the monastery school for the first time. I came home weeping bitterly because of the contemptuous way in which my school-fellows had treated me for my religion's sake. The "Bocher" came in, and I told him of my distress. He listened to me in silence, and then opened the Bible at the place where he had given me my last lesson on the previous evening. My tears would not stop. "Don't cry," he said; "don't cry, my child, 'they know not what they do.'" And then he added, in a harsh stern tone, such as I had never heard from him before: "Don't cry. They are not worth your tears. And a day of retribution will come sooner or later." I looked up at him in surprise, and saw that his face wore a strange threatening expression. He was silent for a time, and gradually the fierce look faded away. Then he explained the passage to me in a quiet voice....

I was his only pupil during all these years, but all at once he gave up teaching me. A strange and important event had taken place in his own life, which made him wish me to leave him. I only spoke to him once afterward.

Old Graf Adam Bortynski was a hard man, loved by none and feared by all. He belonged to a younger branch of the Bortynskis, and so had had very little chance of ever becoming head of the family. He seldom lived in the country, and had his rents sent to him in Paris, London, Monaco, or Homburg. Very little was known about him in Barnow, when he suddenly came there as master at the death of young Graf Arthur, who died in Paris of apoplexy brought on by intemperance. People used to whisper mysteriously in Barnow about that time that no one had had such an evil influence on the late lord of the manor as his present successor, Graf Adam.

But, however that might be, Graf Adam was master now. He had never married, although he was by no means a woman-hater; but on becoming head of the family, he made up his mind that it was his duty to do so. He chose lovely Jadwiga Polanska to be his wife. She was the daughter of an impoverished noble in the vicinity. Every one knew that she feared and hated Graf Bortynski, but it was also known that her father had sold her to him; and several people who were better informed than the rest could have told the price that had been paid for her to a farthing. For years afterward the inhabitants of the little town used to talk about the wedding procession, and tell how proud and triumphant Graf Adam had looked that day, and how his bride had walked beside him pale as death, and with an expression of deep wretchedness. The breakfast was very grand, and went off well; but at an early hour on the following morning, the servants heard a shot fired in the wing in which the rooms of the newly-married couple were, and on hastening there they found Graf Adam in his room, shot through the head, the pistol still convulsively clutched in his right hand. No one knew what had induced him to commit suicide in this unexpected way, and the pale young widow never said a word to clear up the mystery.

The story formed the subject of endless discussion and conjecture, until something else happened to take its place. Such things are not of uncommon occurrence in Poland and Russia! The estates went to the heir of entail, the head of a distant branch of the family, and GrÄfin Jadwiga inherited the castle and town of Barnow.

It seemed fated that the castle should remain uninhabited, for even the young widow went away. She was eighteen when she left Barnow, and it was years before she returned. Rumors were current of her triumphs as a beauty and a wit in Paris, Heligoland, or Baden-Baden. She did not marry again, as every one expected. One spring day she returned to Barnow, after an absence of nearly ten years. The castle was once more inhabited, and its courtyards were full of life and bustle. GrÄfin Jadwiga had grown rather stouter than of old, but she was still beautiful, marvelously beautiful, in spite of what some people would have thought the too great pallor of her face.

One fine morning in May two young people were out riding together, and enjoying the freshness and brightness of the weather.

Were they happy? The rapid movement and the fresh morning air had brought a tinge of color to the lady's pale face which was very becoming to her. The GrÄfin Jadwiga looked bright and sweet that day, and really happy. Her companion did not look either so cheerful or so happy as she did. He was a young man with fair hair, the stature of a giant, and the heart of a child. Scandal-mongers even went so far as to say that he was like a child in intellect also. But however that may be, it is true that Baron Starsky loved GrÄfin Jadwiga with all the intensity of first love, as he used to call it, when he forgot that he had once talked "love" to his mother's pretty little French maid. But that was long ago—fully six months ago. He was very rich, his estates adjoined those of the GrÄfin, but he would have loved her even had this not been the case. He wanted to have told her all this during that morning's ride, and to have asked her to be his wife; but he had had no opportunity. Who could make an offer to a woman when riding at a hand-gallop?

At length GrÄfin Jadwiga grew tired of what Baron Starsky inwardly called the "mad pace" at which she had been going. The horses panted as they returned toward the town at a walk; but, strangely enough, the palpitation which Starsky had before ascribed to the quickness of the pace at which he had been riding, did not in the least diminish. It grew worse. The moment for speaking had come, and he hesitated whether or not to seize it.

He began to talk about the weather, like the good, stupid, loving giant that he was. He expatiated on the beauty of the spring, and although as a general rule he cared little or nothing for flowers, he now told GrÄfin Jadwiga a great many wonderful things about them. The pauses in their conversation grew longer and longer. At last he saw with terror that he could not keep up this kind of small-talk much longer.

It was as though he had been suddenly relieved of a burden too heavy to be borne, when the GrÄfin suddenly reined in her horse, and asked, "What can that curious dark figure down there in the meadow be?"

Baron Starsky put up his eye-glass in order to see better.

"It's a Jew, GrÄfin," he said. "But look! he has got something shining in his hand—a zinc box of some kind. What the deuce is he doing with it?"

"Let us ask him."

So saying, the GrÄfin leaped the ditch into the meadow, and Starsky of course followed her. The Jew started as though he would have run away, but changing his mind, he waited quietly until the riders approached him. His whole manner showed how timid he was and how little at his ease.

"What are you doing there?" asked GrÄfin Jadwiga.

"I am collecting medicinal herbs for my sick people," he replied in pure German.

"You're a doctor!" she inquired in surprise. "That's a strange calling for a tradesman or a Talmudist—and you Jews are all either the one or the other—to pursue in addition to your other work...."

Here Starsky interrupted her by asking somewhat roughly—

"If you're only gathering herbs, why can't you look people full in the face? Why do you breathe so hard—eh, Jew?"

And stooping from the saddle, he seized him firmly by the shoulder. The man wrenched himself free, and in so doing his hat fell off, letting them see his noble, thoughtful face.

"Leave me alone!" he cried, threateningly.

GrÄfin Jadwiga hastily thrust her horse between the angry men. She was deadly pale, her breath came quick and fast, and her colorless lips trembled as if she were trying in vain to speak. Her eyes never left the Jew's face.

He meanwhile had recovered his self-possession, and although pale, looked calm and collected.

"Who are you?... Is it really you?... Who are you?" she exclaimed, now in a voice sharpened by anxiety, and again as though in joy....

"My name is David Blum," he answered, in a low toneless voice. "People call me Bocher David. I am a Jewish teacher and sick-nurse in your town...."

She reeled in her saddle and hid her face in her hands.

"My God!" she moaned, "is it a bad dream?... It is you, Friedrich!... Your voice!... Your face!... Why are you here, and in that dress?... Can I be going mad?... Friedrich, it must be you ... Friedrich Reimann!..."

She dismounted, and going to him, took his hands in hers. Starsky felt his head going round as he watched the scene.

Bocher David had a hard struggle. He turned to go away; then he tried to speak, but could not. At length he managed to force out the words in a low, strained voice: "Friedrich Reimann is dead—has been dead for years. I am David Blum, the sick-nurse."

She drew a long breath.

"I understand you," she said; "Friedrich is dead, but David Blum is alive. And I must say to him what I can no longer say to Friedrich.... I have sought you long, long and earnestly. I have found you at last. You must not go until you have listened to me...."

"It would be useless, Frau GrÄfin," he answered, gently but firmly. "Friedrich forgave you long ago—forgave you with all his heart...." There was a look of pain on his face as he spoke.

"But it isn't useless," she exclaimed, "or at least not to me. I entreat you to listen to me only once—for one hour. Come and see me this afternoon at the castle...."

He shook his head with a sad smile.

"Don't say no," she continued. "You are a Jew, and it was a Jew who said, 'Be merciful to the weak!' It is for mercy that I beg.... Oh, come!... For God's sake come, and for the sake of old times!..."

"I promise," he said, after a short pause. Then silently raising his hat he went away.

GrÄfin Jadwiga drew a long breath of relief, passed her hand across her eyes as if she were waking from a dream, and then turned to Starsky, who was approaching her with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. They remounted their horses, and returned to Barnow Castle in silence. On getting there they parted without a word.

Starsky rode home to his father's house in deep thought, a very unusual circumstance with him. GrÄfin Jadwiga Bortynska and Bocher David.... His brain reeled.... And this was the woman he would have asked to be his wife! If he had done so, she would perhaps have accepted him—perhaps?—undoubtedly—certainly! It was horrible!...

The domestic annals of the house of Starsky contained an unwonted occurrence on that day: a youthful member of that noble family ate very little dinner, and remained lost in thought during the whole of the rest of the afternoon!...

The park at Barnow Castle was very prettily laid out in flower-beds, and beyond these it was dotted with clumps of fine old trees. The air was full of the song of birds and the perfume of spring flowers. The sun was shining brightly.

A small summer-house was situated in a quiet corner, and from its windows one could look down over blossoming elder-bushes upon the blue waters of the lake, in which the willows at the edge were mirrored. It was a place to sit and dream in.

But the woman who was seated in the large easy-chair near the window was not thinking pleasant thoughts. Her eyes, which were gazing fixedly at some point in the horizon, saw nothing of the quiet beauty of the spring landscape. Her expression was as sad and despairing as her heart. The mask she wore in public had fallen from her face, and she looked what she was—an unhappy, sorely tried woman, and haunted by the bitter memories of the past....

Memories of the past!

The days of childhood and early youth, which other people look back upon as an Eden of light and joy, were a time of which she never thought without a shuddering horror:—the dissipation and penury of the life in her father's house—a life of misery and constant dread.... Her mother, a pale, broken-hearted woman, who, foreseeing her husband's ruin, had yet been powerless to prevent it, and who had at last faded and died under the weight of a burden too heavy for her to bear.... She had been the good angel of the house. After her death matters had come to a climax, and everything had to be sold except a small estate to which Jadwiga and her father had been removed.... How distinctly she remembered the following years, with their ever-increasing poverty and shame! This last was the worst—it had been harder to bear than even cold and hunger. And the hopelessness of it all!... Her father, indeed, had been able to find continual comfort in all the ills of life in the brandy-bottle, and when he had drunk himself into a good humor and hopefulness, it had irritated him to see his daughter's sad tearful face. On such occasions he used to beat her cruelly in order to make her look cheerful!...

As Jadwiga thought of these things her face wore an expression of utter contempt. Alas for those who can only remember their parents with scorn!

She grew up to be a beautiful woman, in spite of her tears and the blows she had to bear. But she cursed her beauty, and she cursed the day on which Graf Adam had first seen her and fallen in love with her. She shuddered as she thought of the day when he had bought her from her father for ten thousand Polish gulden; when her father had come to her and had told her that she must be GrÄfin Bortynska, if she did not wish to see him, a gray-haired old man, begging his bread from door to door. She remembered how she had thrown herself at his feet, and entreated him with tears not to give her into the power of that harsh, cruel old man, whom she hated and feared, and who, people said, was a murderer. How she had promised to work for her father and herself, were it even as a domestic servant, swearing that he should never, never starve. But all in vain!... A Polanska should never become a household drudge.... And after that she had become Graf Adam's bride....

Her memory of that time was so vivid that it was almost more than she could bear. She started up from her seat, and paced up and down the summer-house with folded arms and tightly compressed lips. But it was of no use; one picture of the past after another rose up before her.

Once more she lived through that time of misery. She thought of the day when they had dragged her to church, an unwilling victim, and had forced her to perjure her soul in the sight of her God; her God, who had hitherto been the only light and comfort in her dark life, and whom they had thus, as it were, made a lie to her. She thought of the marriage-feast, during which she had first made up her mind that either she or her husband should die before morning.

She remembered how slowly the minutes had passed, till she could at length get up and leave the table. She had gone at once to her room, and finding her maid waiting for her, had sent her to bed. She had then turned with loathing from the sight of the luxury surrounding her, and had busied herself with thoughts of vengeance on the man who had forced her to marry him, knowing all the time how she hated him.

Even now, so many years afterward, she could not help shuddering, when she remembered that she had suddenly gained sufficient calmness to carry out the diabolical plan she had thought of. She recollected how she had taken one of the heavy silver candlesticks on her table, and had gone through all the echoing passages and rooms in the wing in which her rooms were situated. She had avoided looking in any of the mirrors that she passed, fearing to see her own face, for she had a horror of herself.

She had at last come to the large folding-doors opening into the picture-gallery. She had gone in. At the end of the long row of portraits, she had seen two leaning against the wall, and on examining them had seen that they were those of the late Graf Arthur and of her husband. They had come from Paris on the previous day, but had not been hung up, because they had been forgotten in the hurry and confusion caused by the preparations for the marriage.

She had then lifted the portrait of Graf Arthur in her arms. It was very heavy, but she had not felt it. She had carried it to her room, and laid it on a table in the middle of the room, and had arranged the wax-candles round it in such a way as thoroughly to illuminate it.

Then with difficulty controlling her nervous horror, she had sat down in the window and waited. The thoughts that had assailed her during those hours of passive endurance were maddening. It was not until the gray of the early morning that she had heard Graf Adam's step....

She had risen to meet him, pale and determined, and as he entered she had seen from his face that he had been drinking deeply.

His eyes had at once fallen on the portrait of his victim.

In the pale gray of the morning, and with the flickering light of the candles falling upon it, the pictured face had seemed alive and about to start out of its frame.

She remembered how Graf Adam had started back on seeing it, and how his drunken senses had reeled with ghostly terror.... That was what she had counted upon.... She had then said in a clear hard voice: "Begone!... You are a murderer!... Your victim stands between you and me...."

And Graf Adam had turned and staggered from the room.

When he had gone, she had sunk back in her chair, with a beating heart and trembling limbs.

A minute later she had heard a shot.

GrÄfin Jadwiga closed her eyes, hoping thus to change the current of her thoughts. She clasped her hands over her face. In vain! The memories of the past persistently haunted her!...

She thought of the wretched time she had passed through immediately after her husband's death—when she had been expected to weep and show grief for his death, although her only feeling had been a dumb horror. She had gone abroad as soon as she could. Life at the castle would have been unendurable in those days.

She remembered how she had shone as a queen of fashion in luxurious Paris salons. She had seemed happy then, for her smile had been frequent, and her conversation both brilliant and witty. But in reality she had not been happy, because she had not been able to forget, and because the gay world and its amusements had not filled the void in her heart.

Then temptation had come to her....

A fair-haired, pale, foolish ruler: the curse of his country; the worthy son of a half-imbecile father and a vicious mother.

Pah! She had thrust him from her presence in disgust.

But hundreds of others had been at her feet, not only rich and handsome, but also good and true-hearted men. And she had loved none of them.

Her hour had at last struck. She had gone to Baden-Baden....

There she had met Doctor Friedrich Reimann, private physician of Prince Sugatscheff, and she had learned to love him as he loved her.

And then she had lost him—by her own fault, as her heart had told her many a time....

She had never been able to make reparation, for he had disappeared immediately after that fatal hour, and though she had tried to find him, she had never been able to do so.

And she had smiled, jested, and ruled over her intimates as before. But her heart was no longer empty, it was filled with a bitter repentance.

She had borne it for a long time, but at last the life she was leading had become utterly distasteful to her.

She had then returned home, in the hope of forgetting what had happened, or, at any rate, of finding relief in no longer being obliged to wear a mask of happiness.

There she had found the man for whom she had sought. She had found him under circumstances she could not understand. But what did that matter? No one could prevent her marrying whom she would....

She longed to repair the wrong she had once done. She longed to be happy, and to make her lover happy....

For the first time in the long hours in which she had been sitting alone in the summer-house she smiled, and it was a smile of hope and love....

A breath of spring penetrated even the dark labyrinth of the Jewish town on that day, making the anxious forget their anxieties, and the sick their sufferings. The bright warm sunshine spread hope and joy around. Bocher David found nearly all of his patients better and more cheerful. He talked longer than usual with each of them, and promised almost solemnly to see them next day.

After that he went to the castle. The fat porter told him that the Frau GrÄfin was waiting for him in the summer-house in the park. He went there, and entered with his usual expression of gentle gravity.

She hastened to meet him, and putting her hand in his, said:

"Thank you, Friedrich! Thank you for coming. I have looked forward to this day, and have hoped so much from it. All will be well now."

She paused, as though expecting him to speak.

"I have come, Frau GrÄfin," he answered, gravely and quietly, "because you entreated me to do so. And, as circumstances have brought us together again so strangely, I owe you an explanation regarding my dress and my former life. You have a right to it...."

Her eyes filled with tears when she heard him speak so coldly and gravely.

"No, no, Friedrich," she exclaimed; "you are cruel. You are angry with me, and you have just cause for anger. But I have suffered so terribly ever since the day when I wrote that dreadful letter.... Forgive me for the sake of my sorrow and repentance! Oh, forgive me, and don't look at me so sternly!"

"I forgave you long ago," he said, more gently.

"I told you so before. But you want to do what is impossible. You want to waken the dead, and to strike moments out of our life that are imperishable, because they are too deeply engraved on our memories ever to be forgotten. I know and can understand how you have suffered," he continued, his voice trembling, "because I can compare your feelings with my own. And now, that you may be spared more pain, and may not form hopes that can never be fulfilled, I entreat you to listen to me, although you asked me to come here to listen to you...."

When he began to speak she had raised her clasped hands in mute appeal to his compassion, but now she let them fall listlessly to her side, and sighed deeply. She then resumed her seat, and motioned to him to take a chair opposite. He sat down, and went on firmly and decidedly:

"I was born at Barnow, and am the son of the late rabbi. The people there were very kind to me in their own way after my father's death, but I was ungrateful, and mistook their meaning. I left the place after my mother died. I can still remember the dismal, misty autumn morning when I ran away as distinctly as if it were yesterday. I had no money, but Jews are always kind and charitable to the poor. I traveled through Galicia and Poland, remaining sometimes for a few weeks with a rabbi, who was good enough to take me as a pupil; but none of the teaching I received entirely satisfied me. I went on farther. In course of time I reached Wilna, where Rabbi Naphtali, the celebrated Cabalist, has a school. Under his guidance I learned to know the 'Cabala'—that strange, deep, mysterious book, containing the profoundest wisdom and religious teaching of our people. I threw myself into its study with the utmost enthusiasm. That was my misfortune, if you like to call it so. I went through that time of doubt when all dogmatic religion appears to be glaringly false—a time which no young man who thinks at all about these subjects can fail to pass through, and during which he boldly and determinately endeavors to grasp the inconceivable.

"My knowledge appeared small and narrow. I strove to make it both wider and higher. The German people, with their great poets and thinkers, were irresistibly attractive to me. I studied their language carefully; and by dint of teaching, and exercising an economy that was almost miserly, I at last succeeded in making enough money to go to Germany. I set out at a most fortunate moment for myself, for it chanced that I made the acquaintance of old Prince Sugatscheff at a small town on the borders of Lithuania. He was of the truest nobility: he was a noble-minded man. Prince Alexius, whom you met at Baden-Baden, was his son, Frau GrÄfin."

"I remember," she answered, in a low voice.

"Well," he continued, "the young Polish Jew, who knew Lessing, and delighted in Schiller's poetry, awakened his sympathy. He gave me the means of studying. The ancient world was now revealed to me in the books to which I had access at college. I saw it in all its cheerful light-heartedness, and also in its thoughtfulness and depth. But that was not the kind of knowledge for which I thirsted. I then made natural science my principal study. My researches were all confined to the realm of matter. At length the need of leading a practically active life grew more and more apparent to me. The fire of youth had begun to smolder; I gave up trying to raise the veil of Isis, and endeavoring to discover the reason of every natural phenomenon. I became a doctor, and I can now say that I made a reputation for skill in my profession. I had changed my name. David Blum would have had many stumbling-blocks and disagreeables in his path that Friedrich Reimann was spared. I did not change my religion with my name—from habit, if you like—for I was indifferent to every form of dogmatic religion.

"My practice increased, and I became one of the first physicians in the northern seaport town where I had settled. Then old Prince Sugatscheff was taken ill in Paris, and sent for me. It was his last illness. Before his death, he entreated me to be a faithful friend to his young son, and to accompany him everywhere as his private physician until I thought him capable of taking care of himself, and of withstanding the temptations of the great world. I gave him the promise that destroyed my own career; but he was the only man who had felt a real friendship for me, and he was the only one whom I loved next to my mother.

"I discovered the whole responsibility and painfulness of my position very soon after his death. Prince Alexius was a light-minded and depraved, if not absolutely bad man. I did my duty without caring whether it made him dislike me or not; he respected me at least. It was a time of great anxiety and trouble; one thing alone sustained me, and that was the consciousness of having done my duty. Then we went to Baden-Baden, where I made your acquaintance, Frau GrÄfin...."

She had until now listened to him with bent head, but at these words she fixed her eyes upon his face, as though awaiting a sentence of life or death. And he continued, with a slight quiver in his voice:

"I will not attempt to recall the events of that happy time to your memory. I loved you with all my heart and soul, and I know that you loved me. If it is any comfort to you to know it, let me tell you that I never doubted your love for me, even at the moment when you wounded me most deeply. But there is one thing I ought to tell you, and that is why I did not then inform you of all that you now know. I did not conceal it from any false shame about my past or my religion, but simply because I never thought of it. You were my first love, and my sad restless heart found rest and happiness in you. I shall always be grateful to you for that short time of unalloyed happiness. First love knows nothing of the past, and does not look forward to the future. The German poet was right when he wrote, 'First love does not know that it must die, as a child does not know what death is, although it may often hear of it.' My love was so great that I did not guess that your love might change when you learned that a Jewish mother had borne me, and that I had been a poor Talmudist. It was not because you were the GrÄfin Jadwiga Bortynska that I loved you, but because you were you—a noble high-minded woman, whose heart beat in response to mine. I could never have felt a different kind of love than this, for the experience of life had made me grave and proud. What separates us now, and must separate us for ever, is that you were not what I thought you, that you could not rise above the prejudices of your station—it is that, and that alone....

"I did not just come to this conviction," he went on, his voice once more sounding clear and full, "during the long years that have passed since we parted; I felt it even in that dark hour when I read the letter in which you wrote, 'If you are really a Jew, if rumor tells the truth about your past life, all is over between us now and for ever.' Even then I knew that the breach was irreparable, and that our love was a blunder; so I did not do as another in my position might have done, I did not try to appeal to what little love for me might still remain in your heart—I went away.

"I went away to France, to England, and from there to America. But I carried my sorrow with me wherever I went. I suffered much, and had a hard struggle before I could think of all that had happened with less pain; for you had been the sunshine and spring of my life; and when my faith in you was destroyed, it seemed as if faith in everything else must go with it. But in time I conquered that feeling. When my suffering was worst to bear, I devoted my life to the care of the sick and wretched; for it had changed me. In the old days I had worked for name and fame, and from an intense love of knowledge. Pride and self-seeking had induced me to put out all my powers to get on in the world, but my own sorrow taught me to feel for others, and to determine that henceforth my life should be spent in strengthening and upholding my brother men, as far as in me lay. I was tired, dreadfully tired, when the battle was over. I can not bend under the blast of misfortune, but am broken by it. It is my nature; I can not help it. Where could I work better than at home? So I came back to Barnow, to the people who had been kind to me in my childhood, and to the graves of my parents.... I returned to a faith in a God of love and mercy, and worship Him in the religious forms I have been accustomed to since my infancy. It was not repentance that brought this about, for I had not been a sinner. It was not any desire to propitiate the Deity, for I feel neither hope nor desire of any kind. It was an unspeakably deep, an unspeakably anxious longing for a firm support to which I could cling in the darkness, sorrow, and confusion in which I was plunged.... I learned to love my people again—my poor, despised, persecuted people—and, in order to be one with them, I resumed their dress. I have not made a name for myself, as was once my ambition, but have become a poor and simple tender of the sick; but many people down there in Barnow, both Jew and Christian, have turned their hearts to God for my sake. Perhaps I might have gained the fame for which I used to thirst, if I had remained in the rush of life; but here it is better—I do my work and feel no pain. I have ceased to ask, as I often did in the bitterness of anger and misery, why all this should have come upon me, and what I had done to deserve it. I am now at peace, and am therefore happy: I have learned renunciation!..."

He was silent. The setting sun cast its light over the lake and the blossoming trees outside, and it also rested like a glory on the calm pale face of the speaker.

After a short pause he continued:

"I did not know that you were the possessor of my native town until you arrived at the castle a few weeks ago. I hoped that we should never meet again: for your sake. I knew that if we did, your pain and repentance would be reawakened; for you loved me too, though it was with a different love."

He ceased speaking. She did not answer. She only sobbed—a low, shuddering sob, as from a broken heart. He rose to go. Then she once more approached him, her face deadly pale, and heavy tears falling from her widely opened eyes.

"So this is the end," she murmured almost inaudibly. "The end.... I have found you only to lose you for ever. Friedrich! Friedrich!... it will kill me...."

He looked at her compassionately, and then said very gently:

"You will also gain calmness and peace, and then you will be happier. You will then understand that I could not have acted otherwise."

She sighed deeply.

"I am severely punished," she said, with trembling lips. "I must pay for the weakness of a moment with the misery of a long, long life. But there is one thing I can not have you do. You must not despise me. I was induced to write you that letter by the devilish machination of a wretch, who knew how to make use of the prejudice that my people feel against yours—a prejudice I learned in my earliest childhood."

"I thought so," he interrupted her, mildly. "I have felt the effects of that prejudice sorely. I forgive you all the more easily. But who was it?"

"Prince Alexius Sugatscheff," she answered.

"What! That man!" he exclaimed contemptuously; but immediately forced back the words he would have uttered, and continued quietly:

"Thank you for telling me this. It makes it easier for me to forgive myself for having partly broken my promise to the old prince...."

It had grown darker in the summer-house now, and the sun had set.

"Good-by, Jadwiga," he said, in a low voice. "Be happy!"—he took her hand in his—"and never forget that we shall meet again one day."

She could not speak. She stood in the middle of the room listening, until the last echo of his footsteps died away, and then fell fainting on the floor....

The next day found Baron Starsky as troubled in mind and as thoughtful as on the previous day. GrÄfin Jadwiga had gone away very early in the morning. Nobody knew where. He was much put out, for in spite of the curious scene he had witnessed between her and "that beast of a Jew," he would perhaps—have married her.

The man against whom his wrath was roused was however at that very moment lovingly stroking the boyish head of the writer of these pages, and comforting him in his sorrow. He had just told the boy that he could be his teacher no longer, for he must now give every moment of his time to the sick and miserable.

The Jewish burial-ground at Barnow is a pretty and quiet place—a place that brings thoughts of peace and not of terror—especially in summer, when the blue sky smiles down upon the little field with its fresh green grass and sweet-scented flowers. A blossoming elder-bush is to be found close to the crumbling headstone of every grave.

There is one on the Bocher's grave, as on all of the others. I have often sat under it and thought of the man who sleeps beneath its shadow. And whenever I went there I used to read the beautiful and touchingly simple words upon the headstone, which tell how he had devoted himself to the help of the helpless and the care of the sick, and how he had, like a true hero, died at his post....

He went "home" a year after the interview I have described between him and GrÄfin Jadwiga. Low fever was very prevalent in the "Gasse" that winter. David saved all he could, and never spared himself in any way. At last he also took it. He recovered from the fever, but his strength was so much weakened by it, that he fell into a decline, and faded slowly but visibly. He never ceased his labors until he was actually confined to bed. There he lay quietly, and hardly liked people to put themselves out of the way by nursing him.

He sent for me a few days before his death, so I went to see him. He looked pale and ill, and was lying beside the open window, through which the first breath of spring was penetrating his close room.

"I am glad that you have come," he said, with a kind smile. "I have something to say to you before I die...."

He paused a moment, and then went on:

"I was very wrong when I spoke to you about vengeance and retribution for the humiliation we have suffered. I entreat you to forget that, and always wait and think, in the spirit of the words I then quoted to you—'Forgive them, for they know not what they do.' I know that a hasty word is often deeply engraved on a child's mind, so I want you to put your hand in mine, and promise that you will do this, and will try not to allow yourself to think such thoughts as those I uttered in my anger."

I promised him with passionate tears. Boy as I was, I could not help feeling the greatness of soul shown by this man, who, even when he was dying, had time to think of doing good to others.

"You are crying, foolish child," he said, gently. "You should not do so. Have I not often been face to face with death before? And, believe me, death is not terrible—he comes as a friend and comforter to man. It is true that I should have liked to have lived a little longer, and to have gone on with the work I had undertaken; but God, who rules our lives, has willed that it should not be so. His will be done!..."

He pushed my hair back from my forehead, and placing his hand on my head in blessing, added:

"Good-by, my child! good-by! and ... may you be happier than your teacher!"

The last words were said so low that I could scarcely hear them.

One beautiful bright spring morning his attendant found him dead, with a smile upon his lips.

GrÄfin Jadwiga is still alive, and is still a beautiful woman. Who can tell whether she is happy, or whether, at the bottom of her heart, there is not a sad remembrance of the man whom she had really loved after her own fashion?

She painted the picture of Christ—that strange product of religious enthusiasm and human love—in Switzerland during the summer that succeeded David Blum's death. The art she had once followed as an amusement now, perhaps, brought her comfort; and the picture also showed that she had understood the nobility and greatness of the self-sacrifice made by the Jew for her sake and his own.

This is the story of the picture of Christ at Barnow. It is strange and sad, as I said before; but do not blame me for that, for my heart bleeds when I remember this over-true tale, which must be regarded as one of the dark riddles of life, and as the doing of that eternal, inscrutable Power that deals out darkness or light, happiness or misery, to the weak human heart....