University of Virginia Library

15. Chapter XV.
The Rag-Picker's Revelation.

THE scene presented was hideously grotesque. Propped
against the mouldy wall, in her dark corner, sat the
dying rag-picker, “Old Pris”—her cadaverous features
cast in strong relief by the candle rays that flickered fitfully
upon them, and her shrunken limbs and body, almost
doubled together, seeming more like a goblin shape than
that of human creature. Mordecai Kolephat sat opposite,
his head bowed on his arms, his face averted, to avoid
the glittering look which the woman fixed upon him, at
every pause in her strange recital. At the other extremity
of the room, crouching together on their heap of rags, the
dwarf and his mother still remained, the mulatto apparently
engaged in listening to some mumbling words that
dropped at intervals from the crone's lips. On the one
side, in the dim recess, the two figures were visible by a
trembling candle's gleam; and on the other, a few discolored
day-beams, slanting through the single window pane,
disclosed the miserable pair beneath. Cold, nakedness,
hunger, disease, darkness and death—with all the harrowing
images of ill-spent years and guilty deeds—abode in
this wretched apartment, where the Jew listened to the

harsh voice of one whom he had loved in youth, and
whose treachery had made him trust the world no more in
future years.

Mordecai Kolephat did not weep, for tears had long
been alien to his eyes; but his eyelids and lips quivered,
and his breath grew thick and painful to draw; for the
damp atmosphere around waxed full of ghostly shapes,
and the withered hag seemed now like the weird one of
Endor unto Saul of old, marshalling the phantoms of
memories bitter and gloomy to his soul.

“So was I, once,” resumed the woman, as if interpreting
his thoughts. “The beauty—the belle—the coquette!
Thus am I now, as you see, Mordecai—the despised, forsaken,
and doomed. When I drove you scornfully from
my side, I wept not, for my heart was cold with pride;
nor weep I now, Mordecai, for my heart is chill with
despair. I wedded another—a rich man, and all my
dreams of wealth and position were realized; but years
rolled by, to avenge the love I had slain in my bosom,
and I strove to condemn, and ridicule, and hate all who
were happier than I; till, at last, Mordecai, riches fled
from me! My husband died, a dishonored bankrupt;
I became a shameless woman, and sunk—sunk down,
Mordecai! to the lowest depths of mortal vice and
misery.”

“No more! no more, Rachel!” gasped the Hebrew.
“I was, indeed, avenged!”

“Listen, Mordecai!” again muttered the woman, in her
harsh whisper. “When next I saw you, after returning
from a foreign land, where my youth and prime had been

consumed in excesses, you were married, and the angel of
death had been with your household. But your wedded
life, your reputed wealth, and apparent happiness, instead
of giving pleasure to my wicked soul, made me regard
you with envy and bitterness. I saw that another shared
with you what might have been mine. I beheld you rich,
when I, after revelling in luxury, was reduced to want
and shame. Years passed on, and I grew to hate you,
day by day; till, at length, a lovely child was born to
you—the first daughter of your house. I watched you
once, Mordecai, as you stooped and kissed that beautiful
child, while tears fell from your eyes upon its face, and its
mother” —

The Jew groaned, and raised his hand, with a tremulous
gesture.

“Rachel! Rachel!” he cried, “if you would have my
pardon for the misery you caused me long ago, which has
since clouded my existence, let not that angel woman be
mentioned now. Let not her memory be mingled with
this hour!” He rose, as he spoke, and fixed his eyes upon
the rag-picker, adding, solemnly:—“I forgive you, dark
spirit, the crime of days gone by! And now I will hasten
to send hither attendance and comforts, that your last
hour may be, at least, not void of comfort” —

“Stay!” cried the hag, the breath rattling sharply in
her throat, as she plucked at the Jew's skirts, with a fierce
clutch. “I have not done with you, Mordecai Kolephat!
Ah! I would speak to ye of the child—your baby child—
that was stolen—stolen from its nurse!”

The old man, as he heard these words, seemed suddenly

stricken with ague; for his teeth parted and met, convulsively,
and his whole frame shook. “What of the child,
Rachel?—speak!” he demanded, in a stifled tone.

“Did I not say I hated you, Mordecai?” cried the hag.
“Hated you and the white-cheeked woman that loved
you, and bore you the beautiful babe! I resolved, in my
hate, to rob ye both of your idol!—and so 'twas I, Mordecai
Kolephat, that stole the child away from its drunken
nurse, and left my old lover again in misery and despair!
Ah!—kill me now, Mordecai! trample on the vile rag-picker's
head that plotted the deadly wrong!—kill me,
for 'twas I that murdered your wife!”

The wretched woman, in the frenzy of remorse, cast
herself forward at the Hebrew's feet, her distorted face
burying itself in the wet straw, while her body writhed as
if in mortal agony. Mordecai Kolephat bent over, and
with difficulty raised her head, turning her features once
more to the light. They were stained with dirt and blood,
and a dark red stream was gushing from her mouth. The
Jew supported her in his arms, forgetful, in his newly-awakened
anxiety concerning his long-lost child, of the
disgust which he had experienced but a moment before.
At seeing her prostrate, too, the mulatto rose from his
rag-heap, and, advancing, assisted to sustain the wretched
crone, while her mouth was relieved of foam and blood
which the spasm had caused to flow. Still, however, the
rag-picker remained without motion, apparently senseless
and deprived of speech. Mordecai Kolephat wrung his
hands and groaned as he beheld this, fearful that she
would die without another word, and thus leave him tortured

by a thousand doubts and fears engendered by her
partial revelation. He hastily sought for another coin,
and giving it to the mulatto, bade him quickly bring a
glass of spirits, to revive, if possible, the strength which
was fast ebbing from the shattered frame before him.
The dwarf's eyes glistened, as before, in receiving the
money, and he quickly departed to procure the stimulant,
while Mordecai watched the discolored and ghastly features
beneath his gaze, unable to trace a single lineament
of the proud and radiant face that had charmed his
youthful soul. Time, dissipation, and disease, with the
unbridled rule of wicked passions, had done their fearful
work, in obliterating every trait of womanly nature, and
leaving only the hard, cold, ugliness of a demonized human
being. It was a terrible sight to look upon, and doubly
so to him who could remember like Kolephat.

The mulatto returned, with some fiery liquid in a broken
glass, which Mordecai placed to the woman's lips, allowing
a few drops to moisten her throat. A moment afterwards,
a shiver ran through her frame, and her eyes, unclosing,
glittered again on the Hebrew; but now with a changed
expression, as if the secret fires which fed their unnatural
brightness were now smouldering out in the dying heart
below. Her voice, too, was not so harsh, nor quick, but
very feeble, as she muttered, mumblingly, like the old
negress—

“You are here, Mordecai—not gone!”

“The child—the child, Rachel!” cried Kolephat, clasping
his hands together, as he bent over the dying woman.
“You said that you stole the baby, Rachel” —

“From its nurse,” muttered the rag-picker.

“And — O Father Moses! — her eyes close again!
speak! Rachel—the child! You did not murder my
child?”

“The child!—ah! she is not dead, Mordecai!” gasped
the rag-picker.

“Speak! on your life, Rachel! As you hope for pardon,
Rachel!—where is my child?”

The Jew bent, distractedly, as he spoke, over the almost
speechless woman at his feet.

“She lives—here—tenant-house!” were the almost
indistinct words that came from her lips.

“Here, say you, Rachel? In this tenant-house?”

“No—no!—not—not here!—at the other—there—
there—Mordecai.”

The woman's under-lip fell, and her face grew ghastlier.
Kolephat placed the liquor to her mouth again, with
trembling eagerness.

“One more word. Die not yet, Rachel!—with whom
is my child?—where is she? speak!”

“Yes—yes! she lives!—dance—beautiful!—the organ-people!
Mordecai—oh!”

These were the last words of “Old Pris,” the rag-picker,
ended by a choking gasp, which closed her
wretched life forever.

“She's gone!” said the mulatto.

Mordecai Kolephat spoke not, but rose from beside the
corpse, and tottered away, through the narrow and dark
passages, and out into the street, with brain confused and
eyes blinded, like a drunken man. But one thought possessed

his mind—that his long-lost daughter, stolen in
youth, was still living, and within a tenant-house such as
he had just left—such as he owned. Every word of the
rag-picker's parting disclosure was fixed within his recollection,
filling his withered bosom with a new passion—
with a new quest—before which the incentives and realizations
of his past were as shadows and dross.