University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

A luxuriously-furnished apartment in Süsskind von Orb's house. Upon a richly-spread supper-table stands the seven-branched silver candlestick of the Sabbath eve. At the table are seated Süsskind von Orb, Liebhaid, and Reuben.
SÜSSKIND.
Drink, children, drink! and lift your hearts to Him
Who gives us the vine's fruit.
[They drink.
How clear it glows;
Like gold within the golden bowl, like fire
Along our veins, after the work-day week
Rekindling Sabbath-fervor, Sabbath-strength.
Verily God prepares for me a table
In presence of mine enemies! He anoints
My head with oil, my cup is overflowing.
Praise we His name! Hast thou, my daughter, served
The needs o' the poor, suddenly-orphaned child?
Naught must she lack beneath my roof.

LIEBHAID.
Yea, father.
She prays and weeps within: she had no heart
For Sabbath meal, but charged me with her thanks—

SÜSSKIND.
Thou shalt be mother and sister in one to her.
Speak to her comfortably.

REUBEN.
She has begged
A grace of me I happily can grant.
After our evening-prayer, to lead her back
Unto the Synagogue, where sleeps her father,
A light at head and foot, o'erwatched by strangers;
She would hold vigil.

SÜSSKIND.
'T is a pious wish,
Not to be crossed, befitting Israel's daughter.
Go, Reuben; heavily the moments hang,
While her heart yearns to break beside his corpse.
Receive my blessing.
[He places his hands upon his son's head in benediction. Exit Reuben.
Henceforth her home is here.
In the event to-night, God's finger points
Visibly out of heaven. A thick cloud
Befogs the future. But just here is light.

Enter a servant ushering in Prince William.
SERVANT.
His highness Prince of Meissen.

[Exit.
SÜSSKIND.
Welcome, Prince!
God bless thy going forth and coming in!
Sit at our table and accept the cup
Of welcome which my daughter fills.

[Liebhaid offers him wine.
PRINCE WILLIAM
(drinking).
To thee!
[All take their seats at the table.
I heard disquieting news as I came hither.
The apparition in the Synagogue,
The miracle of the message and the death.
Süsskind von Orb, what think'st thou of these things?

SÜSSKIND.
I think, sir, we are in the hand of God,
I trust the Prince—your father and my friend.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Trust no man! flee! I have not come to-night
To little purpose. Your arch enemy,
The Governor of Salza, Henry Schnetzen,
Has won my father's ear. Since yester eve
He stops at Eisenach, begging of the Prince
The Jews' destruction.

SÜSSKIND
(calmly).
Schnetzen is my foe,
I know it, but I know a talisman,
Which at a word transmutes his hate to love.
Liebhaid, my child, look cheerly. What is this?
Harm dare not touch thee; the oppressor's curse,
Melts into blessing at thy sight.

LIEBHAID.
Not fear
Plucks at my heart-strings, father, though the air
Thickens with portents; 't is the thought of flight,
But no—I follow thee.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Thou shalt not miss
The value of a hair from thy home treasures.
All that thou lovest, Liebhaid, goes with thee.
Knowest thou, Süsskind, Schnetzen's cause of hate?

SÜSSKIND.
'T is rooted in an ancient error, born
During his feud with Landgrave Fritz the Bitten,
Your Highness' grandsire—ten years—twenty—back.
Misled to think I had betrayed his castle,
Who knew the secret tunnel to its courts,
He has nursed a baseless grudge, whereat I smile,
Sure to disarm him by the simple truth.
God grant me strength to utter it.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
You fancy
The rancor of a bad heart slow distilled
Through venomed years, so at a breath, dissolves.
O good old man, i' the world, not of the world!
Belike, himself forgets the doubtful core
Of this still-curdling, petrifying ooze.
Truth? why truth glances from the callous mass,
A spear against a rock. He hugs his hate,
His bed-fellow, his daily, life-long comrade;
Think you he has slept, ate, drank with it this while,
Now to forego revenge on such slight cause
As the revealed truth?

SÜSSKIND.
You mistake my thought,
Great-hearted Prince, and justly—for I speak
In riddles, till God's time to make all clear.
When His day dawns, the blind shall see.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Forgive me,
If I, in wit and virtue your disciple,
Seem to instruct my master. Accident
Lifts me where I survey a broader field
Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril,
Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks.
God's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie
Triumphant. If you harbor any secret,
Potent to force an ear that 's locked to mercy,
In God's name, now disbosom it.

SÜSSKIND.
Kind Heaven!
Would that my people's safety were assured
So is my child's! Where shall we turn? Where flee?
For all around us the Black Angel broods.
We step into the open jaws of death
If we go hence.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Better to fall beneath
The hand of God, than be cut off by man.

SÜSSKIND.
We are trapped, the springe is set. Not ignorantly
I offered counsel in the Synagogue,
Quelled panic with authoritative calm,
But knowing, having weighed the opposing risks.
Our friends in Strasburg have been overmastered,
The imperial voice is drowned, the papal arm
Drops paralyzed—both, lifted for the truth;
We can but front with brave eyes, brow erect,
As is our wont, the fullness of our doom.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Then Meissen's sword champions your desperate cause.
I take my stand here where my heart is fixed.
I love your daughter—if her love consent,
I pray you, give me her to wife.

LIEBHAID.
Ah!

SÜSSKIND.
Prince,
Let not this Saxon skin, this hair's gold fleece,
These Rhine-blue eyes mislead thee—she is alien.
To the heart's core a Jewess—prop of my house,
Soul of my soul—and I? a despised Jew.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Thy propped house crumbles; let my arm sustain
Its tottering base—thy light is on the wane,
Let me relume it. Give thy star to me,
Or ever pitch-black night engulf us all—
Lend me your voice, Liebhaid, entreat for me.
Shall this prayer be your first that he denies?

LIEBHAID.
Father, my heart's desire is one with his.

SÜSSKIND.
Is this the will of God? Amen! My children,
Be patient with me, I am full of trouble.
For you, heroic Prince, could aught enhance
Your love's incomparable nobility,
'T were the foreboding horror of this hour,
Wherein you dare flash forth its lightning-sword.
You reckon not, in the hot, splendid moment
Of great resolve, the cold insidious breath
Wherewith the outer world shall blast and freeze—
But hark! I own a mystic amulet,
Which you delivering to your gracious father,
Shall calm his rage withal, and change his scorn
Of the Jew's daughter into pure affection.
I will go fetch it—though I drain my heart
Of its red blood, to yield this sacrifice.
[Exit Süsskind.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Have you no smile to welcome love with, Liebhaid?
Why should you tremble?

LIEBHAID.
Prince, I am afraid!
Afraid of my own heart, my unfathomed joy,
A blasphemy against my father's grief,
My people's agony. I dare be happy—
So happy! in the instant's lull betwixt
The dazzle and the crash of doom.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
You read
The omen falsely; rather is your joy
The thrilling harbinger of general dawn.
Did you not tell me scarce a month agone,
When I chanced in on you at feast and prayer,
The holy time's bright legend? of the queen,
Strong, beautiful, resolute, who denied her race
To save her race, who cast upon the die
Of her divine and simple loveliness,
Her life, her soul,—and so redeemed her tribe.
You are my Esther—but I, no second tyrant,
Worship whom you adore, love whom you love!

LIEBHAID.
If I must die with morn, I thank my God,
And thee, my king, that I have lived this night.

Enter Süsskind, carrying a jewelled casket.
SÜSSKIND.
Here is the chest, sealed with my signet-ring,
A mystery and a treasure lies within,
Whose worth is faintly symboled by these gems,
Starring the case. Deliver it unopened,
Unto the Landgrave. Now, sweet Prince, good night.
Else will the Judengasse gates be closed.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Thanks, father, thanks. Liebhaid, my bride, good-night.

[He kisses her brow. Süsskind places his hands on the heads of Liebhaid and Prince William.
SÜSSKIND.
Blessed, O Lord, art thou, who bringest joy
To bride and bridegroom. Let us thank the Lord.

[Curtain falls.