“You saw her just now, and that’s the way she is all day. She looks out of the window at empty air, she speaks to no one, she gives timid answers as if she was ducking down expecting someone to hit her. She never speaks to men. At first I thought she’d be an asset here in the tavern, bringing in the guests, like the landlord’s young daughter over the road, she’ll joke with his customers and encourage them to drink glass after glass. But our girl here’s not bold, and if anyone so much as touches her she screams and runs out of the door like a whirlwind. And then if I go looking for her she’s sure to be sitting huddled in a corner somewhere, crying fit to break your heart, you’d think God know what harm had come to her. Strange folk, the Jews!”
“Tell me,” said the painter, interrupting the storyteller, who was getting more and more thoughtful as he went on, “tell me, is she still of the Jewish religion, or has she converted to the true faith?”
The landlord scratched his head in embarrassment. “Well, sir,” he said, “I was a soldier. I couldn’t say too much about my own Christianity. I seldom went to church and I don’t often go now, though I’m sorry, and as for converting the child, I never felt clever enough for that. I didn’t really try, seemed to me it would be a waste of time with that truculent little thing. Folk set the priest on me once, and he read me a right lecture, but I was putting it off until the child reached the age of reason. Still, I reckon we’ll be waiting a long time yet for that, although she’s past fifteen years old now, but she’s so strange and wilful. Odd folk, these Jews, who knows much about them? Her old grandfather seemed to me a good man, and she’s not a bad girl, hard as it is to get close to her. And as for your idea, sir, I like it well enough, I think an honest Christian can never do too much for the salvation of his soul, and everything we do will be judged one day… but I’ll tell you straight, I have no real power over the child. When she looks at you with those big black eyes you don’t have the heart to do anything that might hurt her. But see for yourself. I’ll call her down.”
He stood up, poured himself another glass, drained it standing there with his legs apart, and then marched across the tavern to some sailors who had just come in and were puffing at their short-stemmed white clay pipes, filling the place with thick smoke. He shook hands with them in friendly fashion, filled their glasses and joked with them. Then he remembered what he was on his way to do, and the painter heard him make his way up the stairs with a heavy tread.
He felt strangely disturbed. The wonderful confidence he had drawn from that happy moment of emotion on seeing the girl began to cloud over in the murky light of this tavern. The dust of the street and the dark smoke were imposed on the shining image he remembered. And back came his sombre fear that it was a sin to take the solid, animal humanity that could not be separated from earthly women, mingling it with sublime ideas and elevating it to the throne of his pious dreams. He shuddered, wondering from what hands he was to receive the gift to which miraculous signs, both secret and revealed, had pointed his way.
The landlord came back into the tavern, and in his heavy, broad black shadow the painter saw the figure of the girl, standing in the doorway indecisively, seeming to be alarmed by the noise and the smoke, holding the doorpost with her slender hands as if seeking for help. An impatient word from the landlord telling her to hurry up alarmed her, and sent her shrinking further back into the darkness of the stairway, but the painter had already risen to approach her. He took her hands in his—old and rough as they were, they were also very gentle—and asked quietly and kindly, looking into her eyes, “Won’t you sit down with me for a moment?”
The girl looked at him, astonished by the kindness and affection in the deep, bell-like sound of his voice on hearing it for the first time there in the dark, smoky tavern. She felt how gentle his hands were, and saw the tender goodness in his eyes with the sweet diffidence of a girl who has been hungering for affection for weeks and years, and is amazed to receive it. When she saw his snow-white head and kindly features, the image of her dead grandfather’s face rose suddenly before her mind’s eye, and forgotten notes sounded in her heart, chiming with loud jubilation through her veins and up into her throat, so that she could not say a word in reply, but blushed and nodded vigorously—almost as if she were angry, so harshly abrupt was the sudden movement. Timidly, she followed him to his table and perched on the edge of the bench beside him.
The painter looked affectionately down at her without saying a word. Before the old man’s clear gaze, the tragic loneliness and proud sense of difference that had been present in this child from an early age flared up suddenly in her eyes. He would have liked to draw her close and press a reassuring kiss of benediction on her brow, but he was afraid of alarming her, and he feared the eyes of the other guests, who were pointing the strange couple out to each other and laughing. Before even hearing a word from this child he understood her very well, and warm sympathy rose in him, flowing freely, for he understood the painful defiance, harsh and brusque and defensive, of someone who wants to give an infinite wealth of love, yet who feels rejected. He gently asked, “What is your name, child?”
She looked up at him with trust, but in confusion. All this was still too strange and alien to her. Her voice shook shyly as she replied quietly, half turning away, “Esther.”
The old man sensed that she trusted him but dared not show it yet. He began, in a quiet voice, “I am a painter, Esther, and I would like to paint a picture of you. Nothing bad will happen to you, you will see a great many beautiful things in my studio, and perhaps we will sometimes talk to each other like good friends. It will only be for one or two hours a day, as long as you please and no more. Will you come to my studio and let me paint you, Esther?”
The girl blushed even more rosily and did not know what to say. Dark riddles suddenly opened up before her, and she could not find her way to them. Finally she looked at the landlord, who was standing curiously by, with an uneasy, questioning glance.
“Your father will allow it and likes the idea,” the painter made haste to say. “The decision is yours alone, for I cannot and do not want to force you into it. So will you let me paint you, Esther?”
He held out his large, brown, rustic hand invitingly. She hesitated for a moment, and then, bashfully and without a word, placed her own small white hand in the painter’s to show her consent. His hand enclosed hers for a moment, as if it were prey he had caught. Then he let it go with a kindly look. The landlord, amazed to see the bargain so quickly concluded, called over some of the sailors from the other tables to point out this extraordinary event. But the girl, ashamed to be at the centre of attention, quickly jumped up and ran out of the door like lightning. The whole company watched her go in surprise.
“Good heavens above,” said the astonished landlord, “that was a masterstroke, sir. I’d never have expected that shy little thing to agree.”
And as if to confirm this statement he poured another glassful down his throat. The painter, who was beginning to feel ill at ease in the company here as it slowly lost its awe of him, threw some money on the table, discussed further details with the landlord, and warmly shook his hand. However, he made haste to leave the tavern; he did not care for its musty air and all the noise, and the drunk, bawling customers repelled him.
When he came out into the street the sun had just set, and only a dull pink twilight lingered in the sky. The evening was mild and pure. Walking slowly, the old man went home musing on events that seemed to him as strange and yet as pleasing as a dream. There was reverence in his heart, and it trembled as happily as when the first bell rang from the church tower calling the congregation to prayers, to be answered by the bells of all the other towers nearby, their voices deep and high, muffled and joyful, chiming and murmuring, like human beings calling out in joy and sorrow and pain. It seemed to him extraordinary that after following a sober and straightforward path all his life, his heart should be inflamed at this late hour by the soft radiance of divine miracles, but he
dared not doubt it, and he carried the grace of that radiance for which he had longed home through the dark streets, blessedly awake and yet in a wonderful dream.
Days had passed by, and still the blank canvas stood on the painter’s easel. Now, however, it was not despondency paralysing his hands, but a sure inner confidence that no longer counted the days, was in no hurry, and instead waited in serene silence while he held his powers in restraint. Esther had been timid and shy when she first visited the studio, but she soon became more forthcoming, gentler and less timid, basking in his fatherly warmth as he bestowed it on the simple, frightened girl. They spent these days merely talking to each other, like friends meeting after long years apart who have to get acquainted again before putting ardent feeling into heartfelt words and reviving their old intimacy. And soon there was a secret bond between these two people, so dissimilar and yet so like each other in a certain simplicity—one of them a man who had learnt that clarity and silence are at the heart of life, an experienced man schooled in simplicity by long days and years; the other a girl who had never yet truly felt alive, but had dreamt her days away as if surrounded by darkness, and who now felt the first ray from a world of light reach her heart, reflecting it back in a glow of radiance. The difference between the sexes meant nothing to the two of them; such thoughts were now extinguished in him and merely cast the evening light of memory into his life, and as for the girl, her dim sense of her own femininity had not fully awoken and was expressed only as vague, restless longing that had no aim as yet. A barrier still stood between them, but might soon give way—their different races and religions, the discipline of blood that has learnt to see itself as strange and hostile, nurturing distrust that only a moment of great love will overcome. Without that unconscious idea in her mind the girl, whose heart was full of pent-up affection, would long ago have thrown herself in tears on the old man’s breast, confessing her secret terrors and growing longings, the pains and joys of her lonely existence. As it was, however, she showed her feelings only in glances and silences, restless gestures and hints. Whenever she felt everything in her trying to flow towards the light and express itself in clear, fluent words of ardent emotion, a secret power took hold of her like a dark, invisible hand and stifled them. And the old man did not forget that all his life he had regarded Jews if not with hatred, at least with a sense that they were alien. He hesitated to begin his picture because he hoped that the girl had been placed in his path only to be converted to the true faith. The miracle was not to be worked for him; he was to work it for her. He wanted to see in her eyes the same deep longing for the Saviour that the Mother of God must herself have felt when she trembled in blessed expectation of his coming. He would like to fill her with faith before painting a Madonna who still felt the awe of the Annunciation, but had already united it with the sweet confidence of coming fulfilment. And around his Madonna he imagined a mild landscape, a day just before the coming of spring, with white clouds moving through the air like swans drawing the warm weather along on invisible threads, with the first tender green showing as the moment of resurrection approached, flowers opening their buds to announce the coming of blessed spring as if in high, childlike voices. But the girl’s eyes still seemed to him too timid and humble. He could not yet kindle the mystic flame of the Virgin’s Annunciation and her devotion to a sombre promise in those restless glances; the deep, veiled suffering of her race still showed there, and sometimes he sensed the defiance of the Chosen People at odds with their God. They did not yet know humility and gentle, unearthly love.
With care and caution he tried to find ways to bring the Christian faith closer to her heart, knowing that if he showed it to her glowing in all its brightness, like a monstrance with the sun sparkling in it to show a thousand colours, she would not sink down before it in awe but turn brusquely away, seeing it as a hostile sign. There were many pictures taken from the Scriptures in his portfolios, works painted when he was an apprentice and sometimes copied again later when he was overcome by emotion. He took them out now and looked at the pictures side by side, and soon he felt the deep impression that many of them made on his mind in the trembling of his hands, and the warmth of his breath on his cheeks as it came faster. A bright world of beauty suddenly lay before the eyes of the lonely girl, who for years had seen only the swollen figures of guests at the tavern, the wrinkled faces of old, black-clad women, the grubby children shouting and tussling with each other in the street. But here were gentlewomen of enchanting beauty wearing wonderful dresses, ladies proud and sad, dreamy and desirable, knights in armour with long and gorgeous robes laughing or talking to the ladies, kings with flowing white locks on which golden crowns shone, handsome young men who had suffered martyrdom, sinking to the ground pierced by arrows or bleeding to death under torture. And a strange land that she did not know, although it touched her heart sweetly like an unconscious memory of home, opened up before her—a land of green palms and tall cypress trees, with a bright blue sky, always the same deep hue, above deserts and mountains, cities and distant prospects. Its radiant glow seemed much lighter and happier than this northern sky of eternal grey cloud.
Gradually he began telling her little stories about the pictures, explaining the simple, poetic legends of the Bible, speaking of the signs and wonders of that holy time with such enthusiasm that he forgot his own intentions, and he described, in ecstatic terms, the confidence in his faith that had brought him grace so recently. And the old man’s deeply felt faith touched the girl’s heart; she felt as if a wonderful country were suddenly revealed to her, opening its gates in the dark. She was less and less certain of herself as her life woke from the depths of the dark to see crimson light. She herself was feeling so strange that nothing seemed to her incredible—not the story of the silver star followed by three kings from distant lands, with their horses and camels bearing bright burdens of precious things—nor the idea that a dead man, touched by a hand in blessing, might wake to life again. After all, she felt the same wonderful power at work in herself. Soon the pictures were forgotten. The old man told her about his own life, connecting the old legends with many signs from God. He was bringing to light much that he had thought and dreamt of in his old age, and he himself was surprised by his own eloquence, as if it were something strange taken from another’s hand to be tested. He was like a preacher who begins with a text from the word of God, meaning to explain and interpret it, and who then suddenly forgets his hearers and his intentions and gives himself up to the pleasure of letting all the springs of his heart flow into a deep torrent of words, as if into a goblet containing all the sweetness and sanctity of life. And then the preacher’s words rise higher and higher above the heads of the humble members of his congregation, who cannot reach up to the world he now inhabits, but murmur and stare at him as he approaches the heavens in his bold dream, forgetting the force of gravity that will weigh down his wings again…
The painter suddenly looked around him as if still surrounded by the rosy mists of his inspired words. Reality showed him its cold and ordered structure once more. But what he saw was itself as beautiful as a dream.
Esther was sitting at his feet looking up at him. Gently leaning on his arm, gazing into the still, blue, clear eyes that suddenly seemed so full of light, she had gradually sunk down beside him, and in his devout emotion he had never noticed. She was crouching at his knees, her eyes turned up to him. Old words from her own childhood were suddenly present in her confused mind, words that her father, wearing his solemn black robe and frayed white bands, had often read from an old and venerable book. Those words too had been so full of resonant ceremony and ardent piety. A world that she had lost, a world of which she now knew little came back to life in muted colours, filling her with poignant longing and bringing the gleam of tears to her eyes. When the old man bent down to those sad eyes and kissed her forehead, he felt a sob shaking her tender, childlike frame in a wild fever. And he misunderstood her. He thought the miracle had happened, and God, in
a wonderful moment, had given his usually plain and simple manner of speech the glowing, fiery tongue of eloquence as he once gave it to the prophets when they went out to his people. He thought this awe was the shy, still timorous happiness of one who was on her way home to the true faith, in which all bliss was to be found, and she was trembling and swaying like a flame suddenly lit, still feeling its way up into the air before settling into a clear, steady glow. His heart rejoiced at his mistake; he thought that he was suddenly close to his aim. He spoke to her solemnly.
“I have told you about miracles, Esther. Many say that miracles only happened long ago, but I feel and I tell you now that they still happen today. However, they are quiet miracles, and are only to be found in the souls of those who are ready for them. What has happened here is a miracle—my words and your tears, rising from our blind hearts, have become a miracle of enlightenment worked by an invisible hand. Now that you have understood me you are one of us; at the moment when God gave you those tears you became a Christian…”
He stopped in surprise. When he uttered that word Esther had risen from where she knelt at his feet, putting out her hands to ward off the mere idea. There was horror in her eyes, and the angry, wild truculence that her foster father had mentioned. At that moment, when the severity of her features turned to anger, the lines around her mouth were as sharp as the cut of a knife, and she stood in a defensive attitude like a cat about to pounce. All the ardour in her broke out in that moment of wild self-defence.