A Ghetto Violet | Page 5

you keep so many valuables?"
And again Gudule regarded him with those unfathomable eyes.
"There, you 're... looking at me again!" he exclaimed with sudden
vehemence.
"They 're safe enough in the cupboard," Gudule said, smiling, "why
should I lock it?"
"Gudule, do you mean to say..." he cried, raising his hand as for a blow.
Then he fell back in his chair, and his frame was shaken with sobs.

"Gudule, my heart's love," he cried, "I am not worthy that your eyes
should rest on me. Everywhere, wherever I go, they look at me, those
eyes... and that is my ruin. If business is bad, your eyes ask me, 'Why
did you mix yourself up with these things, without a thought of wife or
children?'... Then I feel as if some evil spirit possessed me and tortured
my soul. Oh, why can't you look at me again as you did when you were
my bride?--then you looked so happy, so lovely! At other times I think:
'I shall yet grasp fortune with both hands... and then I can face my
Gudule's eyes again.' But now, now... oh, don't look at me, Gudule!"
There spoke the self-reproaching voice, which sometimes burst forth
unbidden from a suffering soul.
As for Gudule, she already knew how to appreciate this cry of her
husband's conscience at its true value. It was not that she felt one
moment's doubt as to its sincerity, but she knew that so far as it affected
the future, it was a mere cry and nothing more.
The years rolled on. The children were growing up. Ephraim had
entered his fifteenth year. Viola was a little pale girl of twelve. In the
opinion of the Ghetto they were the most extraordinary children in the
world. In the midst of the harassing life to which her marriage with the
gambler had brought her, Gudule so reared them that they grew to be
living reflections of her own inmost being. People wondered when they
beheld the strange development of "Wild" Ascher's children.
Their natures were as proud and reserved as that of their mother. They
did not associate with the youth of the Ghetto; it seemed as though they
were not of their kind, as though an insurmountable barrier divided
them. And many a bitter sneer was hurled at Gudule's head.
"Does she imagine," she often heard people whisper, "that because her
father was a farmer her children are princes? Let her remember that her
husband is but a common gambler."
How different would have been their thoughts had they known that the
children were Gudule's sole comfort. What their father had never heard
from her, she poured into their youthful souls. No tear their mother

shed was unobserved by them; they knew when their father had lost,
and when he had won; they knew, too, all the varying moods of his
unhinged mind; and in this terrible school of misery they acquired an
instinctive intelligence, which in the eyes of strangers seemed mere
precocity.
The two children, however, had early given evidence of a marked
difference in disposition. Ephraim's nature was one of an almost
feminine gentleness, whilst Viola was strong-willed and proudly
reserved.
"Mother," she said one day, "do you think he will continue to play
much longer?"
"Viola, how can you talk like that?" Ephraim cried, greatly disturbed.
Thereupon Viola impetuously flung her arms round her mother's neck,
and for some moments she clung to her with all the strength of her
passionate nature. It was as though in that wild embrace she would fain
pour forth the long pent-up sorrows of her blighted childhood.
"Mother!" she cried, "you are so good to him. Never, never shall he
have such kindness from me!"
"Ephraim," said Gudule, "speak to your sister. In her sinful anger,
Viola would revenge herself upon her own father. Does it so beseem a
Jewish child?"
"Why does he treat you so cruelly, then?" Viola almost hissed the
words.
Soon after fell the final crushing blow. Ascher had been away from
home for some weeks, when one day Gudule received a letter, dated
from a prison in the neighborhood of Vienna.
In words of genuine sympathy the writer explained that Ascher had
been unfortunate enough to forge the signature to a bill. She would not
see him again for the next five years. God comfort her! The letter was

signed: "A fellow-sufferer with your husband."
As it had been with her old father, after he had bidden her a last
farewell, so it was now with Gudule. From that moment her days were
numbered, and although not a murmur escaped her lips, hour by hour
she wasted away.
One Friday evening, shortly after the seven-branched Sabbath lamp had
been lit, Gudule, seated in her arm-chair, out of which