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A Renegade

By Martha Wolfenstein

Schneider, Schneider, Meck, Meck, Meck.

HE quiet village street echoed with this taunting cry. The shouters were half-grown boys, running in pursuit of a taller one, who fled before them, casting strangely terrified looks behind. At the corner of the street leading into the Jews' quarter, he ran full against a short, fat boy, bounding back as though he had collided with a rubber cushion. Thus stopped short, his pursuers were upon him in a moment.

"Come on, let's fight 'em, Peretz!" cried the shorter boy. The other glared for a moment at his tormentors, breathed hard, clenched his fists, then suddenly grasped his companion by the arm and, dragging him along, ran down the Jews' quarter into the open doorway of the synagogue yard. He quickly slammed the gate and bolted it. The two boys stood panting and glaring at each other. "They are right," burst forth the shorter, "they are right that they call us Jews cowards! Why didn't you fight 'em?"

For answer Peretz lunged forward, grasped his companion by the shirt and the belt of his trousers, tossed him up above his head, shook him as a dog would a cat, and then gently laid him on the ground at his feet. The boy-his name was Jacob, euphoniously called Yaikew in the Ghetto-lay for a moment as if stunned.

"What kind of craziness is this?" demanded he, hotly, scrambling to his feet. "Thou needst not show me what a strong man thou art."

"Dost still think I was afraid?" cried the other, passionately. Then he turned suddenly away and hid his face against the wall. Yaikew looked in amazement and saw that he was trembling.

"What ails thee, Peretz?" he asked, more gently. "Has anybody done thee a harm ?"

"It is always so; the people all think I'm a coward," was the tremulous reply. Yaikew shrugged his shoulders and returned with a sage air: "What should they think?"

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Peretz cast a cautious glance around and drew from his bosom an old, torn book.

"See," said he, holding it fondly, "this is why I don't fight."

"What is that? What dost thou mean?" questioned Yaikew.

"If I fight might they not tear my shirt and find it?"

"What," cried Yaikew, "for an old, torn book thou lettest them torment thee!"

He took it in his hands, turned its yellow pages wonderingly, and finally added: "What is this, anyhow? It isn't Hebrew."

"It's Greek," whispered Peretz.

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Greek," echoed Yaikew. "Where didst thou get it?"

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Sh-sh," warned the other, in fright. "The schoolmaster who lived at the mill last summer gave it to me, for blacking his boots and carrying water. In the evenings I taught him to read out of the Pentateuch and he taught me out of thisthe Iliad."

"Ili-ahd," mimicked Yaikew, smiling. "There must be fine things written in this book that thou wearest it in thy bosom."

"God forgive me the sin," cried Peretz, "but there is naught so beautiful in all our holy tongue as is written in this little book. I could not live without it. Wai! my master would burn it in a minute, and my mother, Yaikew-she is very pious. It would grieve her that I read profane books," and he laid the volume carefully within his open shirt and pressed his hands lovingly upon it.

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Peretz was fifteen years old, and for the last two years apprenticed to the village tailor. His widowed mother, the poorest woman in the "Gass (Jews' street), picked up a scanty living at any odd work that she could find. She had sent him to the Ghetto school until he was barmitzvah (at the age of thirteen).

"'Tis time that he begin to earn something, and he has no head for learning," decided the old teacher, for Peretz dreamed

idly over the fine, logical intricacies of the Talmud text.

The great dry-goods merchant of the "Gass" took him into his store to teach him the business, but in a month Reb Noach sent him home with the message: "Tell thy mother thou art as fit for business as I am for a tight-rope walker." As Reb Noach had a club foot and weighed some two hundred pounds, this likeness was fully convincing.

Although Peretz had been with his master, the tailor, almost two years, he had as yet learned little of the craft. His principal occupation was that of minding the children and doing chores, for which select service he received no wages.

With his lank limbs protruding from his ragged clothes, an old rimless cap pressed upon his black, curling hair, his pallid face and black eyes red-rimmed with nightly reading, he was the butt and jest of all mischievous boys. The little cowards took particular delight in tormenting him as soon as they discovered that he would not fight.

The very next day after the incident related, Peretz's master sent him to deliver a coat to Count Reichenberg, whose estate was an hour's walk from the village. Peretz went along, reciting to himself parts of his beloved Iliad. His memory failing him at a certain passage, he sat down and looked up the verse. It was

beautiful. So was the next and the following one, and in the combat of Hector and Ajax he forgot his errand, his wretched life, and the whole world about him. Noticing presently that the lines in his book were growing dim, he looked up and saw to his dismay that it was evening. He remembered that his master had particularly urged him to hasten, as the coat was for a fancy-dress ball which the Count was to give that evening, and which the tailor had taken great pride in freshening for the occasion. Peretz snatched Peretz snatched up his parcel and ran at the top of his speed.

Lamps were already twinkling on the lawn when, frightened and panting, he arrived at the palace. He delivered the parcel, and was about to steal away when a valet appeared and ordered Peretz to follow him, as the Count wished to see the messenger.

appeared in the doorway of the Count's dressing-room.

"Thou damned rascally scoundrel!" roared the Count, a thick-set man, with a round face, now red with rage. "I have a mind to have thee flogged, thee and thy master together. What does the man mean by keeping me waiting? Tell thy master that I'll have him run out of the village. I'll ruin his trade. I won't pay him a kreutzer." Peretz trembled at sight of the Count's rage.

"It isn't my master's fault," he stammered. "He sent me early in the afternoon. I forgot myself."

"So!" cried the Count, "loafing in the tavern! Pitching pennies! What!" Peretz's pride was stung.

"I was reading, your Highness," replied he, quietly.

"What! reading! Liar! Liar! What wast thou reading? Show it to me! Where is the book?"

Peretz paled again. He had betrayed his secret. He would lose his beloved book, perhaps his place, and be again a care and disgrace to his mother. He undid his ragged shirt, pulled out the tattered volume, and two great tears welled up under his lids as he reluctantly held it forth to the Count. The Count glanced at the book, then at Peretz, and shook his head incredulously.

"Dost mean to say, boy, that thou canst read this?"

All trace of anger had vanished from his face, which now shone with interest and curiosity.

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Peretz grasped the book joyfully. haps the Count would let him keep it, after all. He began to read. Passage after passage flowed glibly from his lips.

The Count listened, his face a mixture of surprise, incredulity, and pleasure.

His guests were surprised presently to see him appear in earnest conversation with a ragged, barefooted Jewish boy, whom he shook by the hand at parting as if he were his equal.

"You seem to have discovered a new species of game, Count," remarked a guest, laughingly.

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Hunting is not my pet vice, MaPeretz followed. Pale with fright, he dame," returned the Count. "Am I not

known as an inveterate collector of gems? You may congratulate me. I have just discovered a rare diamond."

That same evening Schedel Neuer, with Peretz beside her, stood within the rabbi's house, crying, eagerly:

"Talk it out of him, Herr Rebbe Leben! He wants to go to Vienna. The Count wants to send him to the High School. Why should he become a wise man? Will that bring money into the house? If he learned nothing out of our dear, holy books, will he learn out of those without a word of Yiddish [Hebrew] in them? He dare not go, Herr Rebbe Leben. We dare not take it from the Goy [Gentile]. There will no good come of it. Why should he learn all the wickedness that is written in those books? Not my father, peace be with him, nor my grandfather could read a word that was not written in the Prayer Book. They were pious men, but he has it from his father. God forgive me that I must confess it."

The rabbi, a young man, who had been but two years in the village, and had what the older people called "new notions in his head," at once sided with Peretz.

"You may take my word for it, Frau Neuer," said he, "there is much wisdom contained in those books that you so despise. It would be better if more in the 'Gass' should devote themselves to their study."

But Schedel was firm in her opposition. "There will no good come of it," she insisted. "We dare not take it from the Gentile."

The younger folks sided with Peretz. "Wilt thou trample thy good fortune under foot? Times have changed, and the Jew and Christian are now equal," they urged. The old people shook their heads wisely, and sighed :

"The Jew and the Christian can never agree. There will no good come of it."

But the outcome was that Peretz went to Vienna to study, under the protection of Count Reichenberg.

His letters were full of hope and happiness; everything was pleasant and easy; he was already beginning to earn money, for he had formed a class of factory men

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It near breaks my heart to write this, for I know how it will grieve thee. Didst thou but know what pain and struggle I have gone through, thou wouldst pity and not condemn

me.

What I am about to do must be, or all my striving all my life were in vain.

Mother, dear, it is only a form-an empty nothing. My soul still clings to thee, to our dear "Gass," to the beloved friends at home. But wouldst thou that I come back and go to work for the tailor again; or at best earn a scanty living by teaching at ten kreutzers an hour? Shall I, like Dr. Pinkus, smother my brain, my body, my soul, within the Ghetto walls? Were he not a Jew he could to-day be Professor at the medical college here. And poor Aaron Silberstein-is he not grown bent and gray and miserable in his wretched little shop? He might to-day be upon the Supreme Bench of Austria had he but consented to be baptized. I tell thee it is obstinacy, nothing but obstinacy! A short ceremony, a few drops of water-can they change the soul? Or does true religion consist in what one eats, or in the strap one binds upon the forehead, or that one prays in Hebrew? In the end they are all alike-Judaism and Christianity-both for the betterment, the happiness of mankind. All the rest is trifling-empty form. But we cannot transform the world. If the majority have prejudices and insist that we become Christians, it is absurd to stand like petulant

children. It is madness to try to run our heads through a stone wall. Obstinacy, I say, sheer obstinacy! And I cannot sacrifice position, ease, comfort, wealth, hope, ambitionaye, fame (thou dost not dream of the heights to which I may aspire)-for an empty form. As a Jew in Vienna I cannot earn my salt. Moreover, my beloved friend and benefactor, Count Reichenberg, is being constantly reproached for his protection of a Jew, and must leave me to my fate unless I change. A thousand times rather death than back to the Ghetto! It is useless to try to dissuade me. The first steps are already taken. God help thee to see it in the right light. We shall yet be happy together, darling mother, till a hundred years. Dost remember how thou didst laugh and wonder that the Countess has her breakfast in bed? Thou wilt live like the Countess, mother, with a maid to save thy dear, tired feet every step, and silken dresses, and a new Sabbath cap for every week in the year.

Write that thou forgivest and still lovest thy affectionate son till death,

PERETZ.

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Isn't he done yet?" moaned she, feebly. "Read! read!" The doctor opened the letter. It contained only a few lines and a ten-gulden gold piece. He laid them both within her hand. Schedel slowly lifted her hand and looked with dim, bleared eyes at the coin. Then suddenly, with a cry, she sat up in bed. "From him!" she cried with a shrill voice. "Does he think he can buy me as they have bought him-with a piece of gold !" And she flung the coin from her with such force that it crashed through the window and rolled on the pavement outside.

The neighbors stood around awaiting her death; the friends wept; the "pious

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women were in readiness; but towards evening the wrinkle on the old doctor's forehead began to smooth out, for Schedel opened her eyes and said:

"Why do you sit here, Herr Doctor Leben, waiting for me to die? I shall not die yet."

"It all lies with you," replied he.

"I tell you I will live!” assured Schedel. "She will live," said the doctor, and went home to his bed. He had hardly closed the door when Schedel said to the woman who was watching with her:

"Bele Leben, bring me that gold piece." The woman gave her the coin, and Schedel placed it under her pillow. The next morning she breakfasted on bread and milk.

Every seventh day following this a letter containing a gold piece arrived, and with each new coin Schedel seemed to

gain strength. Yet she grew thinner and paler every day; only her eyes seemed to live, and they gleamed with a strange, wild energy. She kept the coins carefully wrapped in an old piece of silk, and when she looked at them she would laugh a low, mirthless laugh that terrified those who heard her. She who had proudly refused all their help during her days of bitterest poverty now lived upon the soups and invalid dishes the neighbors sent her.

"Let me buy thee a bit of roasting meat," urged her neighbor Bele one day. "Thou needest it for thy strength."

"Have I money for roasting meat?" replied Schedel in surprise. Bele flushed red with anger.

"Hast thou not thy pocket heaped full of gold so that one hears it jingle a mile off!" she cried.

Schedel looked at her quietly for a moment, then said:

"If I were lying out on the street and dying, and one should say, For a penny of that gold thou canst buy a drop of water to save thy life, I would not buy it."

"Would one believe," said the people, contemptuously, "that Schedel should turn out such a miser?"

"One does not become a miser over night," said Dr. Pinkus. "There is something wrong with Schedel. She is planning something."

The morning after the sixth gold piece. had arrived the "Gass" awoke to the

astounding news that Schedel was gone and her house locked up.

Two weeks later an old woman, haggard, footsore, and travel-stained, joined a great throng crowding into the portals of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

"Art sure," asked she of the Jewish lad who was leading her by the hand, "that he who is to be baptized to-day is the young man Neuer? It must be a mistake.'

"Shall I not know, when nothing else has been talked about for a month? Think not it is for him that all these people have come. Only last month, when the old law came in again and we Jews were forbidden to own land, three got baptized, but not a cock crowed about them. The people have come to see the Kaiser. He himself is to be godfather, on account of his friend the Count. Such a thing has never been before. My mother says she doesn't know whether it is an honor or a disgrace for the Jews. Anyhow, it will be a fine sight;" and the boy, stimulated by the promise of ten kreutzers, began elbowing his way through the crowd, and dragged the old woman with him into the Kaiser Chapel, already crowded to suffocation, where the ceremony was to take place.

In front, near the altar, on which a thousand candles glittered, were invited guests of the nobility, and in a place of honor Count Reichenberg and his family. Suddenly a glorious burst of organ music shook the air, the chancel door opened, and forth came the cardinal and bishops and a procession of priests, followed by choir-boys, some swinging censers. Then came the convert, led by two acolytes. He was covered from the neck to the ground by a sweeping robe of white, his face pale as death, his black eyes down

cast.

When all were assembled, the chancel door again opened; a handsome, pleasant-faced young man entered and stood beside the convert. The church was hushed with awe. It was the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria!

Now the chant began, which the cardinal himself intoned. Then all again was silence, while the convert uttered the confession of faith, bowed his head to receive the holy water, raised a crucifix on high and pressed it to his lips.

It was done! The people were about to withdraw when a shrill voice in the congregation cried suddenly, "Wait!"

An old woman, disheveled, trembling, and wild-eyed, scrambled over the low altar rail.

"Wait!" she cried, with a low, mad laugh. "I've a gift for the newly baptized child. I've come afoot all the way from Maritz to bring it. from Maritz to bring it. See," she added, extending her tattered shoe, "not enough leather there to cut a little patch."

"She is mad," whispered the priests, and darted forward to seize her. But in a moment Peretz stood beside her with uplifted hand.

"She is my mother," he murmured. At sight of him the old woman uttered a fearful shriek.

"Did you see him, all of you-did you see him kiss the crucifix? Phui! Thou wretch! accursed Meshummed! [renegade]. Here thou hast thy dirty gold," and she flung a handful of coin full into the young man's face. The blows seamed the flesh with livid white, which in a moment turned purple. The people stared. A maniac," "She raves,' Bind her," buzzed the crowd.

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But she had flung herself on her son's neck, and was wailing,

"Have I hurt thee, Peretz, my life? I did not mean it. Oh, the poor bruised face," and she stroked the red spots gently with her withered fingers. "God forgive me! I am a wicked mother," she sobbed. Lifting her in his arms, Peretz carried her out into the vestry, where she lost consciousness.

When she again opened her eyes, she looked around in stupid amazement at the strangers, the priests, and the choirboys.

"What are we doing here, Peretz?" she complained, querulously. "Come, let's go home. It seems to me," she whispered in his ear with scorn, "these here are nothing but Goyim [Gentiles]."

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