Rabbi and Priest. Milton Goldsmith
the day. This was followed by the drosha, a well-committed speech, expressive of gratitude to his parents and teachers, and full of beautiful promises of a future that should be pleasant in the eyes of the Lord. The words fell from his lips as though inspired. It was a proud moment for the boy's parents. Their tears mingled with their smiles. Forgotten were hardships and persecutions. God still held happiness in reserve for his chosen people. When the boy concluded his exercises, kisses and congratulations were showered upon him by his admiring friends.
"Hirsch Bensef is right," said Mordecai to his wife. "Mendel ought to go to some large city. He has wonderful talents. He may become a great rabbi. Who can tell?"
"We shall see; we shall see!" replied his wife, with a look of mingled pleasure and pain. But she did not say her husband was in the wrong.
In the afternoon the entire congregation visited Reb Mordecai, so that the little house scarcely held all the people. The men came with their long caftans, the women with their black silk robes, their prettiest wigs, and strings of pearls; and one and all brought presents, tokens of their esteem. Naturally, Mendel was the centre of attraction. His present, past and future were discussed. A brilliant career was predicted for him, and he was held up as a model to his juniors.
Little Jacob was also the recipient of attentions from young and old. His mishap, though painful, was not an exceptional case. Similar ones occurred almost weekly in the surrounding country. What mattered it? His arm would be stiff and his ear mutilated to the end of his days; but he was only a Jew—doomed to live and suffer for his belief in the one God. It was a sad consolation they gave him, but it was the best they had to offer.
The poor children, Christian as well as Jew, came from miles around to receive alms, which were generously given. Then refreshments were served, followed by speeches and jests; and so the afternoon and evening wore merrily away, and night—a dark and dismal night—followed the happy day.
CHAPTER IV.
A NIGHT OF TERROR.
The guests had retired to their homes. The children had been blessed and sent to bed. The parents throughout the quarter, having discussed the one topic of the day, Mendel's bar-mitzvah, had extinguished their candles and sought their pillows, preparatory to again venturing forth into a cold and inhospitable world in search of their meagre subsistence.
In the village, too, the serfs had retired, the brawling in "Paradise" had gradually ceased, and silent night had cast her mantle of sleep over Togarog.
A dim rumbling of wagons, a clattering of horses' hoofs, a murmur of men's voices fell upon the air. Nearer and nearer came the sounds and the soldiers that produced them, until the village was reached. With as little noise as possible, the company crept through the narrow streets until they came to the inn of our friend Basilivitch, who evidently expected them, for he hastily opened the door and bade the martial band enter. There was a whispered consultation between the host and the leader of the soldiers. Basilivitch put on his cap and guided the captain through the village. Carefully the two scanned the houses, and now and then Basilivitch drew a cross upon one of the doors with a piece of red chalk. They then directed their footsteps to the Jewish quarter, where they repeated their tactics, and finally rejoined their companions in "Paradise." Here the soldiers were given their instructions, and silently and stealthily, lest they might arouse the village and invite resistance, they crept forth in twos, to the huts marked with the mystic sign of the cross. The house of Podoloff was the first they reached. Cautiously one of the soldiers knocked at the door.
"Who's there?" cried a voice, inside.
"Friends! Open at once!" was the enticing answer.
Podoloff hastily attired himself, and, cautiously opening the door, he peeped through the crevice. At the sight of the soldiers, he instinctively divined danger, and tried to bar the entrance. Too late! One of the soldiers had already thrust the muzzle of his gun into the opening, while the other forced his way into the room.
"Utter a single cry," he said, "and you are a corpse."
Resistance was useless. Podoloff, in spite of his pleading, was seized and his hands bound behind him. Then, while one man held guard over the captive's wife and children, the other ransacked the house, rummaging through filthy and worm-eaten closets, and exploring dirty coffers, into which had been thrust a wretched assortment of rags—the garb of slavery. Every scrap of paper was captured and jealously guarded. During this time, the greatest silence was preserved. Other arrests were to be made, and it was imperative upon the men to take every precaution not to arouse the intended victims prematurely.
"Forward, march!" commanded one of the soldiers; and poor Podoloff, without even daring to bid his wife farewell, was forced into the street and carried, rather than led, to Basilivitch's hostlery.
Nine others were captured in a similar manner; nine poor wretches, doomed to life-long misery in the copper mines of Siberia, many of them having not the slightest idea of the nature of their offence. Basilivitch had placed the Governor of Alexandrovsk under eternal obligations by his patriotic devotion. Of the number captured, there were three who had seconded Podoloff during the discussion at the inn, the previous Sunday afternoon. The remainder were to be exiled, because the Governor, on Basilivitch's recommendation, deemed them dangerous. A good day's work, Basilivitch! You have done the nation a signal service, and have rid yourself of six persons from whom you had at various times borrowed money, and who had of late become troublesome in their dunning. They will not trouble you from the Siberian mines.
The prisoners were thrown into two carts, which had been brought for that purpose, and a detachment of soldiers accompanied them without delay to Alexandrovsk. There they were put into prison for a month, until it pleased the Governor to take notice of them. Then followed the mere mockery of a trial, during which the prisoners were not permitted to utter a word in self-defence, and as a fitting end to this travesty of justice, the ten unfortunates were launched upon their weary foot-journey to the frozen North, destined to live and die beyond the reach, beyond the sympathy of mankind.
Let us retrace our steps and accompany the Governor's soldiers through the Jewish quarter. The refinement of cruelty demanded from the Jews a greater sacrifice than from the Catholics. The malefactors must be punished through their little ones. In pursuance of a decree of the mighty Czar, passed some years before, the Governors of the various provinces were authorized to visit the Jewish homes, and to remove from them all male children that had reached the age of five years.[3]
There was a twofold object in this course. Firstly, the humane Czar desired to accustom these babes to the rigorous soldier life of Russia, to transform the weakly scions of an oriental race into strong and hardy Russians; and, secondly, it was deemed a blessing to humanity to tear the Jewish children from their homes, parents and religion, and to bring them up in the only saving Catholic faith. Far, far from all that was dear to them, in a strange locality, among hostile people, exposed to unutterable hardships and rigorous discipline, these unfortunate beings dragged out their wretched existence. Fully half of their number died of exposure, wearing away their poor lives in a vain longing for home and friends, while the remainder survived, only to forget their kind and kin, and to furnish the raw material for future Nihilists. Many Jewish communities had already suffered from this heartless decree, and those who had been spared its terrors, anticipated them as they would some dreaded scourge, some deadly pestilence. That the Jews of Togarog and the surrounding villages had escaped its influences, was due less to the humane sentiments of the Governor than to his natural indolence. But now his ire was aroused. The Jews should feel his power.
The detachment of soldiers having seen their Russian prisoners safely on the road to oblivion, now directed their attention to the Jewish