Part 27 (1/2)

”Oh, sir,” she said, with a faint smile, ”one does not suffer for a brother as I have suffered for Feodor. I am the Countess Sandomir, and Count Feodor is my betrothed. The good empress herself joined our hands, and blessed our union. A short time after our marriage the war broke out, and deprived me of my lover and husband. For six months I have had no tidings of him, and, tortured by anxiety and apprehension, I resolved to come myself to Germany to seek my betrothed, either to bury or nurse him, for I believed he must be sick or dead, as he did not return to me.”

Bertram offered in his heart a prayer of grat.i.tude to G.o.d. With feelings of sympathy, he then turned his eyes on the quivering features of the stranger. ”Listen to me,” said he, gently. ”As you entered, I had just prayed to G.o.d, in the suffering and sadness of my heart, to show me some way and means of escape from the labyrinth in which Count Brenda has placed us. It would seem as if He has had compa.s.sion on us all, for at the very moment he sends you, the affianced bride of the count, and through you alone can we be saved.

We must be open and candid toward each other. Therefore, listen to me.

I love Gotzkowsky's daughter--I love her without hope, for she loves another.”

”And this other?” asked she breathlessly.

”She loves Count Feodor von Brenda, and is about to escape with him.”

”Escape!” cried the lady, and her voice sounded threatening and angry, and her eyes flashed. ”Oh!” said she, gnas.h.i.+ng her teeth, ”I will prevent this, even if I kill this girl!”

Bertram shook his head sadly. ”Let us rather try to kill this love in her heart. Let us contrive some means of bringing your lover back to you.”

”Are there any such means?” asked she, anxiously.

Bertram did not answer immediately. His brow was clouded with deep thought, and a heavy sigh escaped him. He then asked quickly, ”Will you follow me and enter into my plot?”

”I will,” she said firmly.

”Above all things, then, let us be cautious. Count Feodor must have no suspicion that you are here, for your presence would drive him to some desperate resolve, and I fear Elise loves him sufficiently not to draw back from any thing.”

”You are very cruel,” murmured the lady. ”You know not what torture you are preparing for me.”

”If I did not know it, I would not undertake the enterprise that is to serve us both. I have told you that I love Elise, but I have not told you how deep and sacred this love is. I would cheerfully venture my life for her, but now I dare to interfere with her love, and earn her hatred.”

”You have, then, already made your plan?”

”I have made my plan, and if you will allow me to escort you to your hotel, I will disclose it to you, so that we may arrange the particulars together.”

”Come, then,” said she, grasping his hand warmly, ”and may G.o.d a.s.sist us, and restore to you your bride, and to me my lover!”

CHAPTER XI.

THE JEW EPHRAIM.

Much sorrow and tribulation were suffered during this time by the inhabitants of Berlin. But the saddest lot of all fell to the Jews, who were threatened with the greatest danger. In Berlin, as everywhere else, they only led a tolerated, reviled, and derided existence.

They possessed no rights, only duties; no honor, only insults; no dignities, but humiliation and disgrace. Now they were called on to give up the last and only thing which shed some gleam of brightness on their poor, down-trodden existence--their gold and their treasures.

The Russian commander had imposed upon the Jewish community in Berlin a special tax; and as they hesitated about paying it, and declared themselves incapable of raising such a large sum, General von Tottleben had the three elders of the Jews arrested and strictly guarded in the Vincenti House in Brueder Street.

But who could despise or blame the poor Jews for not wis.h.i.+ng to give up their gold? Gold was to them a condition of existence, their future, their happiness, their family. Gold enabled some of them to raise themselves from the dust and degradation to which the cruel severity of _Christian charity_ had condemned them, and to indulge in human aspirations, human happiness, and human feelings. Only those among them who possessed wealth were tolerated, and dared hope by strenuous industry, ceaseless activity, and fortunate speculation, to ama.s.s sufficient fortune to found a family or beget children. The happiness of domestic life was only allowed to them on condition of their being rich.

Frederick the Great had learned with indignation that the Jewish families in Berlin far exceeded the number of one hundred and fifty-two allowed by law, and that there were fifty-one too many.

Consequently a stringent decree was issued that they should no longer be counted by families, but by heads, and that when the poll exceeded the permitted number, the poorest and lowest of them should be s.h.i.+pped off.[1] Gold was therefore to the rich Jew a certificate of naturalization, while the poorer ones had no certainty of a home. They could at any moment be turned off, driven out of Berlin, if a richer one should by his wealth and trading acquire the right to take to himself a wife, and by her have a child. But even he, the rich one, could only have one child; only one child was allowed to him by law.

For one child only could he obtain legal protection, and only in exceptional cases, as when their factories and firms succeeded remarkably well, did the king, in the fulness of his grace, allow a second child to inherit its guardians.h.i.+p.[2]

Of what avail, then, was it to the poor Jews to have toiled and worked so hard, driven by the necessity of paying the hateful _Jewish poll-tax,_ and thereby procuring for themselves a temporary toleration? At any moment they could be driven off in case the rich Ephraim or the rich David Itzig, in the arrogance of their wealth, should venture to give to the world more than one child, and purchase for the sum of three thousand dollars another certificate of protection for the second! Of what avail was their wealth even to the rich Jews Ephraim and Itzig? They were nevertheless under the ban of their proscribed race. No privileges, no offices existed for them.