Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/203

 them barbaric," he said, "but perhaps they have also had something good in them. How distinctly I remember the day when Moses Meyer had to stop his payments. He was chief in one of the two richest Jewish commercial firms, and had ruined himself by rivalry with Wolff—they had always been enemies. There was a dreadful uproar on the Exchange, some were malicious, but the Jews were all very down-hearted. 'Will Wolff come?' was asked everywhere, but most of the people thought that after all he would not witness the humiliation of his rival. It struck twelve, the hour at which the ceremony was to take place; the chairman was just going to ring the bell, when Wolff's landau drew up at a gallop, and Wolff rushed into the hall and shouted breathlessly: 'The bell is not to ring; Meyer is not to take the bankrupt chair.' He had at the last minute, surely after a hard fight, decided to supply his rival with the necessary amount in order to prevent the Jewish congregation from being humiliated; and the two old men cried in each other's arms."

We stared in astonishment at this old man, who seemed at this moment still more venerable, on account of his remembrances of a time that had such a far-off and patriarchal character.

With what pious meditation did we regard some dust and pebbles in a bottle, earth from the Holy Land, which an old Jew from Riga, who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on foot, had brought home in a pocket-handkerchief.

From such Jewish tales the conversation gradually diverged to the Jews' share in liberal-minded literature and centred principally on Heine.

As soon as the coffee-table was cleared Hertz had his Heine portfolio taken out. It contained many letters both to and from the poet, some proof-sheets, and a few