The Salzburg Tales (14 page)

The next night they crept into the apartment and stole the statue. They took it into the central court of the mansion and there prepared to cast it into a great pot in a portable furnace, before which stood two goldsmiths. The statue touched the crucible as a loud cry rang out: the attendants started back from their work, and looking behind them, began to run, with agitated shouts, towards the house. One of the inmates of the forbidden apartment stood on the brink of the window-sill, and as they ran, threw himself into the paved court. When they reached him, he was already dead, and they saw in him the companion of Ferdinand, the yellow old man who watched with him, unknown Carlos.

The body was laid out, and the priest came. Ferdinand was brought out of his apartment and, shocked by the event, brought together his household and confessed that the dead man was Carlos, his cousin, and the golden statue Zelis, the wife of Carlos, and that Zelis had killed herself by leaping from the window of her apartment when Ferdinand had tried to force her love. “If you look now at the statue of your mother,” said Ferdinand to Carlos's son, “you will see a suture down the side. After your mother's death, your father opened the statue: inside the head he placed the ashes of the brain, inside the breast the ashes of the heart, and inside the belly the ashes of the bowels, and thus bound himself for life, to this golden idol.” The boy scarcely understood, but being of his father's blood, he turned his back on the people there and began to weep, swearing to build a memorial to his father and mother that would commemorate their love to his family.

On the day following his father's funeral he went to look at the statue of Zelis which had been locked in a cabinet. The cabinet was empty. Presently a messenger came from the caretaker of the cemetery saying that the golden image had been found on the brink of Carlos's newly-dug grave during the night. They brought it back to the house,
and the son put it in his own room. Awaking, towards morning, with a feeling of calm delight and satisfaction, he saw the faded lavender morning light through the uncurtained window and looked towards the statue of his mother. There was nothing there. After considering for a few moments, he dressed quietly, went out without a sound and, going to the cemetery, knocked on the gate until the porter got up, and demanded to be taken at once to his father's grave. There, with the advanced right foot slightly embedded in the new earth, stood the statue. “Who passed through the gate this night?” asked the boy. “The gate has been shut since sunset yesterday,” said the attendant. Once more the statue was taken home, yet the next dawn it was found buried in the grave up to the waist.

The son attached it to the pedestal with a padlock and chain, and the next night watched in the room, while a servant waited in the adjoining room, in case robbery or a practical joke should again be attempted.

About one o'clock in the morning the boy heard a slight sigh, and looking at the statue of Zelis, saw the golden eyes move and the breasts heave. Then a soft voice said, “Why am I chained?” Much moved, the boy made haste to unlock the lock. Then the voice said, “My son, put out that light!” He was paralysed with doubt and surprise, until the voice said again, “l am Zelis, your mother, and ask you to put out the light which discountenances miracles.” The boy, softened by the mystery, and by a spring of love for his dead mother, put out the light. The voice of Zelis than said, “Open the window!” and he did so. “Close your eyes, my son,” said the voice now, “and do not come looking for me until an hour after sunrise.” He closed his eyes with regret, heard a light sound of a footfall, presently looked and found the statue gone and the window shut again. He lay down clothed on his bed and waited for sunrise.

An hour after sunrise he called the attendant and said, “Let us go to the graveyard, the statue is no more here,” and he showed the loosened chain. This time the cemetery was already open and the porter came out and said, “I have been to look and there is nothing at
the graveside: this time a good watch was kept.” “Lend us two spades, and a hammer and chisel, and shut the public gates for an hour,” said the son, giving the man some money, and the porter did what was requested. When they came to the grave they dug until they reached the coffin and then took a hammer and chisel and opened it. There was a sweet smell mingling with the smell of aromatic oils coming out of the box and the embalmed body had not decomposed. But there lay on it three heaps of ashes, one on the forehead, one on the heart and one on the belly. There was no sign of the golden woman at all.

So the son went home and brought his uncle and aunt to see this miracle, and it was decided to seek no more for the gold statue, but to cover up the grave and leave them in peace. This was done, and there was no further manifestation of so great a love, except that within a few days, and after that, every spring and summer, the grave and every inch of ground surrounding it for some distance, was covered with yellow flowers of every sort that oozed out of the earth; and in three spots, covering the three heaps of ashes, there was nothing at all but the black marble chips which had first been strewn over the earth.

W
HEN
they sat at table the first evening and began to talk again about music, the Centenarist said, “They say that old Vienna has died and that there are no more gipsy orchestras. When I was in Vienna last month resting, I collected a band of one hundred and twenty-five Tzigane and Magyar violins and took them to a hill outside the city. There I made them play czardas …”

Then he began to say that the Hungarian Jews had been the heart and soul of Vienna, now ruined by their absence, and that the Jews, long denied music by their religion, nevertheless imbibed rhythm and incantation in the synagogue. His delicate dark hand was uplifted, as he spoke of his race: invisible praying-shawls seemed to hover
round the shoulders of the company, and somehow darken the air. Then he began to sing the air of a Bach flute, and it seemed the flute was making visible its sweet, consolatory form. They stared at the restless, self-centred figure of the Centenarist. A musician joined in and they sang a phrase, the musician with a warm, faltering baritone, the Centenarist with his cold, sharp voice, which was nearest, of all voices, to the sound of a violin, and which was strangely bewildering, taken with the Niersteiner they had drunk.

“Did you ever hear of the great prophet,” he said, “whose disciples gathered round him on the top of a hill? ‘Tell us,' they asked with reverence, ‘how is it possible to reach that state where one sees God? Tell us, Master, where is he, and by what sense may he be perceived?' ‘You must only call him,' said the Rabbi, ‘and he will come: thus, Gottenu, little God dear, where are you? And you will hear the response.' So they called God, and listened; and called, and began to chant together: ‘Art thou there, little God? Art thou here, little God? Art thou in the air, little God? ‘And then they began listening and calling the elements and creatures, and presently their eyes sparkled, for they heard, all about, what is not heard through the ears, they heard the rhythm, the insistence, the pulse of God, wherever they bent their ears: and with their hands in their laps, and their faces, beardless and bearded, nodding, sitting on their folded legs they began to chant rapturously: ‘Thou, here! Thou, there! Thou, in the earth! Thou, in the air! Grass, thou! Tree, thou! Flowers, thou! Moth, thou! Little birds, thou, earthworm, thou: sun, thou, moon, thou, wind, thou, snow, thou,' … and so they remained for hours, knowing God everywhere and in pure rapture naming all the things in the world, for he had become apparent to each of them.

“That is a well-known tale,” said the Centenarist, after a few minutes, for the company sat still, and tears glittered in the eyes of some.

“The idea is charming—of course,” said a High Church lady, politely, “but it seems to me that religious sentiment is lacking.”

“Naturally,” said a curly-headed young professor of political economy; “it is an Eastern sentiment. One cannot have an evangelical idea
of Deity, when one makes him a character in after-dinner stories: but what a delightful practice!”

The taleteller said in a melancholy way: “The sect which tells these stories is irritably proud and touchingly simple before divinity, as children before their father. God really sits at the head of their table. You will see this in the story of the saintly Rabbi and the gold piece.”

“What is that?”

“A saintly Rabbi, in a poor community, was very poor, and held his Friday evening meetings in a barn over a livery stables. There the patriarchs of the village gathered, as well as the youths who were instructed. The Rabbi had to offer them meat on Friday evenings: that is the custom. Thus every week, all the week long, his good wife fretted and worried: ‘Israel, Friday evening is coming and there is not a penny in hand for the supper.' Thus on Tuesday; and on Wednesday, ‘Ah, dear God, there he sits and reads and not a cent in the house for Friday. We will be ashamed before the guests. Israel, stop reading, then, for once, in the name of God (I am ashamed to scold him, a holy man, but men must eat); listen to me and tell me where we will get the money for Friday's supper.'

“So all the week she worried, and already it was Friday, and the sun sank towards the horizon and the Sabbath approached with rapid strides. She went to him once more, caught his frock and shook him: ‘Israel, will you not listen now? Woe is upon us, we shall be disgraced: the guests will say, a fine Rabbi, who cannot even provide a tea, or black bread for supper. They will come no more, they will lose faith, they will seek out another Rabbi, God will not send us a son, our daughters will beg their bread, there will be infinite trouble, and desolation will strike the village: yes, perhaps God will strike us, or let the Gentile rage, and we will die in our beds in one night, and all this because you, Israel, sit there day after day and never give a thought to everyday things. Yes, everyday things are important, too: they mean as much as Scripture, for where would Maimonides have been without his mother's milk? God must excuse me, but I must give you a little sense. You eat the soup, but you do not ask, where does it come from?'

“‘God will provide!' said the holy man quietly.

“‘God will provide! Yes, you say that! Look in the cupboard and tell me if he has provided, and the sun sinking already! Is it necessary for a wise man to be such a fool? I am so furious I can hardly keep from striking you, and you my husband, Israel, and a Rabbi! I am furious: I could beat my breast till it grew a cancer, and our youngest child died of want: it is a misery to have a husband so impractical! Poor woman that I am … God will provide! Provide then, God, even if you strike me dead for impiety! No, he has not provided, and he will not. He helps those that help themselves. Get your hat and coat on, old man, and go out and see if you can borrow something from Aaronson or Jacobson. Stir yourself now, and be quick about it, for it is nearly evening …' and so forth, until the Rabbi, embittered by this tirade, and by lack of money and food, rose, clothed himself in his outdoor clothes, and set out upon the road, muttering biblical texts about scolds and harassed husbands. ‘A poor man,' said he, ‘is ever a blind man, and unable to read aright the word of God.'

“Partly out of obstinacy, partly from forgetfulness and sadness, he set out along the road which led out of the village, and did not give a thought to Jacobson or Aaronson. The road went westwards, and as he walked, downcast, with bent head, jabbing the dust with his long stick, he became blacker and blacker, and sharper and sharper, against the red cloak of the descending sun. The dust was red, the fields impoverished, roadside shelter there was none. Thus muttering and weeping old tears, the old man walked for a long time, and all the time he carried with him the harassing thought of his cabin and barn, the earth floor strewn with pots, rags and shoes, the rent curtain that hid the bed, Miriam, his old wife, the old men and the young men coming along the road, in a crowd it seemed, to eat the supper that was not there. It seemed a pity that the custom was to eat supper, after all, when they could discourse upon the Torah, and also about local business. They ate so much, while pretending to refuse, out of politeness. The woman had much to worry her, and then how could a man faithfully study the way of
Heaven, with the worries of a household? He sighed and repressed his weeping.

“A small black mound a little way along the road attracted his attention, and presently announced its nature by its agreeably foetid odour. It was a heap of dung. He stopped sadly, in a complete discouragement of body and spirit, and began poking at the mess. ‘Yes, there is another little village like ours,' he said, ‘a dirty mound by the roadside. No wonder God does not care whether such rubbish eats or not.'

“He poked through the rubbish dispiritedly, sniffing the pungent smell. Suddenly something bright shone through the dung. The Rabbi stooped and saw that it was a piece of gold. He picked it out, and wiping it, put it in his sleeve. God had provided, even in the heart of a dung heap. ‘That is the lesson to me,' said the good Rabbi. Then he wrung his hands, and his heart wept inwardly, and he cried as he turned homewards: ‘Aie, aie, is it always like this, though? If God wished to give me a gold coin, it is good: but in the name of misery, why does he give it to me in a dung heap?'”

I
N
this way ended the first day of the Tales.

 

O
N
the second day, the weather was fine again and they went up into the Capuchin Wood. When they had reached a stone platform near a sentry-box in the old wall, overlooking the city, they recalled to the Viennese Conductor that he was Master of Tongues and exacted a story. But the Viennese Conductor said, “In the daytime, I will make each one speak, in turn, with pleasure; but in the evening, there is another fitter than I am, that is the Centenarist: he is the one with the gift of tongues. You must only call me Master of the Day.”