a tragic, white-haired wreck, touched up with a playful whip to urge
him faster towards the church door. It was Joseph whom that whip stung
most. When the official who was charged to see that the congregants
paid attention, and especially that they did not evade the sermon by
slumber, stirred up Rachel with an iron rod, her unhappy son broke
into a cold sweat. When, every third Sabbath, Miriam passed before his
desk with steadfast eyes of scorn, he was in an ague, a fever of hot
and cold. His only consolation was to see rows of devout faces
listening for the first time in their life to the gospel. At least he
had achieved something. Even Shloumi the Droll had grown regenerate;
he listened to the preachers with sober reverence.
Joseph the Dreamer did not know that, adopting the whimsical device
hit on by Shloumi, all these devout Jews had wadding stuffed deep into
their ears.
But, meanwhile, in other pulpits, Fra Giuseppe was gaining great fame.
Christians came from far and near to hear him. He went about among the
people and they grew to love him. He preached at executions, his black
mantle and white scapulary were welcomed in loathsome dungeons, he
absolved the dying, he exorcised demons. But there was one sinner he
could not absolve, neither by hair-shirt nor flagellation, and that
was himself. And there was one demon he could not exorcise--that in
his own breast, the tribulation of his own soul, bruising itself
perpetually against the realities of life and as torn now by the
shortcomings of Christendom as formerly by those of the Ghetto.
VIII
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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