Judith Trachtenberg. Karl Emil Franzos

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CHAPTER II.

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      The next day people were talking everywhere of the kiss and its consequences. In the drawing-room of the magistrate, in the café of Aaron Siebenschläfer, where the Christian dignitaries assembled, and in the court of the synagogue, where the public opinion of the Ghetto originated.

      "That is the result," complained the Jews, "of allowing a Jewish child to frequent Christian balls. Why need she have been so irritable when the young gentleman made a joke about her father? But the innocent must expiate the sins committed by the guilty. Wladko and the count will have a duel, and if one is killed, or (may God forbid!) both of them, on whom will this blood rest? On us all; for a Jewish child was the cause!"

      "The impudent thing!" said the Christians. "She certainly is beautiful, and her beauty has bewitched the count. That is his only excuse. What had he to do with it? He ought to have kissed her, too. But, in the first place, she ought not to have been invited."

      Lady Anna had her excuse ready, and, when this was said to her, made answer: "She was invited at his express request. The little coquette attracted his attention at his entrée, and he immediately asked my husband her name, saying, when they parted, 'I shall be pleased to meet all those pretty ladies again to-night.' Tell me what else I could do? Now I suppose the little upstart is proud of what she has done."

      There she made a mistake. The poor little beauty felt as if she could never show her face again to the world. Sorrow gnawed her heart, and tears poured over her pale cheeks. She had only left her own room once, early in the dawn, when the carriage drove up which was to carry her brother away.

      Then she fell on his neck, and covered his face, clothes, and hand with her tears and kisses, until he, too, wept with her. "Pardon me!" she stammered again and again. "You meant it for the best; you are always right; you were right last night, and I will remember it my life long."

      He had no knowledge of the painful scene of the preceding evening, nor had his father, who stood gazing affectionately on them. So they started on their journey with a light heart. Nathaniel was to accompany his son the first day, and would not be home until the next evening.

      Till then Judith kept in her room; even Lady Anna knocked in vain. She had come to have a sensible talk with the girl before Nathaniel's return. The old Jew was clever, but one could not tell how he would take the affair; and this was of great importance, as Herr von Wroblewski was thinking of applying for a considerable loan.

      She went away uneasily after hearing no sound behind the door, but she lost little in not having had a conversation. For, had Judith's own father told her she had been wrong in repaying insult with insult, she would not have believed him. She was convinced she had done what was right, and was also convinced she had hitherto been tolerated only by the people in whose society she had found such pleasure and delight.

      How humiliating the recollection of their friendliness, even more so than the remembrance of the insult! For while she thirsted passionately for revenge, it angered her to think of one even of that set with gratitude and respect. She recalled his glance in the morning; her face had led him on, or perhaps he wished to earn her regard. But again came the thought of his noble interposition in her behalf, of the deep respect he showed when leading her from the room, and his face rose before her--the pale, noble, commanding face with the sad eyes.

      "No," she sobbed, "he is no better than the others." Yet this decision brought no consolation to the poor heart but fresh grief.

      Another child of man was weeping inconsolably over the same event, but he was not beautiful as was the golden-haired Jewess. It was Herr Wladko von Wolczinski. And with him sobbed his father, mother, and four sisters, so that the whole house re-echoed with their lamentations.

      His cousin Jan was the only one who remained unmoved. "Howl away," he growled. "If you did not wish to fight a duel, you should not have allowed us to persuade you into sending a challenge. It's only twenty-five paces, and only once firing. Baby, do be a man! Shoot him down! You can hit a deer at twenty-five paces."

      "Jan," cried Wladko, "how can you be so heartless? Has a deer a pistol in its hand, aimed at me? It's a horrible thought!" Then, as the ladies kept up their quintet of sobs, old Herr Wolczinski determined to see if anything could be done to avert the calamity, and went to the magistrate.

      "I have no desire to reproach you," he began, gloomily and energetically, "but it is your duty to prevent bloodshed. Count Agenor is the last of his line; he ought not fall by the hand of a Wolczinski. Let him only write a brief apology, which we can insert in the Lemberg Gazette, and the duel will be stopped."

      Herr von Wroblewski had hard work to restrain his merriment, and indeed he did not entirely succeed.

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