Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 098.djvu/343

Rh "As a people and as a nation we are already lost," replied his son; "and with the destruction o£ the temple at Jerusalem has the outward-structure of our religion fallen to the ground. Do you not believe that if our great lawgiver had lived in these times, and in thin land, he would not have prescribed very different rules for our conduct?"

"Would he have changed the commandments to fear and serve the God of Sabaoth, and to honour father and mother?" asked the old man.

Some persons came in at that moment, and the conversation was broken off.

In the evening Isaac was not at home, but some of his wife's relations came to visit her, along with a couple of foppish young men, who looked in from a party in the neighbourhood. No one seemed to notice old Philip Moses; he sat quietly in a remote comer of the room, and listened to the jokes, with which some of the gentlemen entertained the company about the rising against the Jews, at which they laughed very heartily; also telling, with great glee, that they were to be attacked again. Amongst we visitors was a handsome young man, with long fair hair falling over his white collar. He was the young painter Veit, who had lately returned from Rome, and who still wore the peculiar costume adopted there by artists. The two fops seemed inclined to turn his dress into ridicule, for they were afraid that he intended introducing the fashion into Hamburg; but he took no notice of them. He was the son of the physician who attended Isaac's family, and who resided on the "Hopfenmarkt." His attraction to the house was Benjamina's beautiful face, which was very interesting to him as an artist. He had hitherto taken no share in the general conversation, but had been standing apart in a window with Benjamina, talking to her about her reverend-looking grandfather, whom he had saluted with the respect which his age and patriarchal appearance demanded.

He now remarked the tenor of the conversation that was going on, and turned quickly from Benjamina to try to stop it, by introducing some other subject But the thoughtless and unfeeling young men soon resumed their ridicule of the Jews, and indulged in witticisms at the expense of their sufferings during the riot, without at all being checked by the remembrance of whose house they were in, or who was present. At length Veit thought it necessary to remind them where they were; and he did this in so pointed and a stinging a manner, that, ashamed and enraged, they immediately took their departure, but not until they had whispered him that he would find them the next morning near the Obelisk. No one overheard the challenge, but Veit vowed to himself that he would chastise them severely, and that that meeting should be a blacker hour to them than any which had occurred during the tumult they had considered so amusing. But their exit did not put an end to strife. Some elderly wholesale dealers thought fit to take up the defence of their friends who had just gone, and seemed at least not to disapprove of the chastisement inflicted on the privileged Hebrew usurers for their long practised extortions.

Veit again became the champion of the Jews, and descanted with warmth on the hateful, unchristian spirit which could impel Christians so shamefully to break the peace, and maltreat a fugitive, defenceless race to whom the state had promised its protection.