There were days on which Joseph's business or pleasure took him past
his brother's house, though he always walked on the further side, and
Uriel now set himself to keep watch at his study window from morning
to night, the pair of Dutch mirrors fixed slantingly outside the
window enabling him to see all the street life without being seen.
After three days, his patience was rewarded by the reflected image of
the portly pillar of the synagogue, and with him his little boy of
six. He ran downstairs and into the street and caught up the boy in
his arms--
"Oh, Vidal!" he said, real affection struggling in his voice.
"Thou!" said Joseph, staggering with the shock, and trembling at the
sound of his submerged name. Then, recovering himself, he said
angrily, "Pollute not my Daniel with thy touch."
"He is my nephew. I love him, too! How beautiful he is!" And he
kissed the wondering little fellow. He refused to put him down. He ran
towards his own door. He begged Vidal to give him a word in pity of
his loneliness. Joseph looked fearfully up and down the street. No Jew
was in sight. He slipped hastily through the door. From that moment
Uriel played his portly brother like a chess-piece, which should make
complicated moves and think it made them of its own free will.
Gradually, by secret conversations, daily renewed, Joseph, fired with
enthusiasm and visions of the glory that would redound upon him in the
community--for he was now a candidate for the dignity of
treasurer--won Uriel back to Judaism. And when the faith of the revert
was quite fixed, Joseph made great talk thereof, and interceded with
the Rabbis.
Uriel Acosta was given a document of confession of his errors to sign;
he promised to live henceforward as a true Jew, and the ban was
removed. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue, and was called up to
read in the Law. The elders came to shake him by the hand; a wave of
emotion traversed the congregation. Uriel, mentally blinking at all
this novel sunshine, had moments of forgetfulness of his sardonic
hypocrisy, thrilled to be in touch with humanity again, and moved by
its forgiving good-will. The half-circle of almond and lemon trees
from Portugal, planted in gaily-painted tubs before the Holy Ark,
swelled his breast with tender, tearful memories of youth and the
sun-lands. And as Ianthe's happy eyes smiled upon him from the
gallery, the words of the Prophet Joel sang in his ears: "And I will
restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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