BARUCH. My flesh is still a-creep From the strange gaze of those wide-rolling orbs. Didst note, man, how they fixed me? His lean cheeks, As wan as wax, were bloodless; how his arms Stretched far beyond the flowing sleeve and showed Gaunt, palsied wrists, and hands blue-tipped with death! Well, I have seen a sage of Israel. [They enter the Synagogue. Scene closes.] SCENE II. The Synagogue crowded with worshippers. Among the women in the Gallery are discovered LIEBHAID VON ORB and CLAIRE CRESSELIN. Below, among the men, SUSSKIND VON ORB and REUBEN. At the Reader's Desk, RABBI JACOB. Fronting the audience under the Ark of the Covenant, stands a high desk, behind which is seen the white head of an old man bowed in prayer. BARUCH and NAPHTALI enter and take their seats. BARUCH. Think you he speaks before the service? NAPHTALI. Yea. Lo, phantom-like the towering patriarch! [RABBI CRESSELIN slowly rises beneath the Ark.] RABBI CRESSELIN. Woe unto Israel! woe unto all Abiding 'mid strange peoples! Ye shall be Cut off from that land where ye made your home. I, Cresselin of Chinon, have traveled far, Thence where my fathers dwelt, to warn my race, For whom the fire and stake have been prepared. Our brethren of Verdun, all over France, Are burned alive beneath the Goyim's torch. What terrors have I witnessed, ere my sight Was mercifully quenched! In Gascony, In Savoy, Piedmont, round the garden shores Of tranquil Leman, down the beautiful Rhine, At Lindau, Costnitz, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Everywhere torture, smoking Synagogues, Carnage, and burning flesh. The lights shine out Of Jewish virtue, Jewish truth, to star The sanguine field with an immortal blazon. The venerable Mar-Isaac in Cologne, Sat in his house at prayer, nor lifted lid From off the sacred text, while all around The fanatics ran riot; him they seized, Haled through the streets, with prod of stick and spike Fretted his wrinkled flesh, plucked his white beard. Dragged him with gibes into their Church, and held A Crucifix before him. "Know thy Lord!" He spat thereon; he was pulled limb from limb. I saw--God, that I might forget!--a man Leap in the Loire, with his fair, stalwart son, A-bloom with youth, and midst the stream unsheathe A poniard, sheathing it in his boy's heart, While he pronounced the blessing for the dead. "Amen!" the lad responded as he sank, And the white water darkened as with wine. I saw--but no! You are glutted, and my tongue, Blistered, refuseth to narrate more woe. I have known much sorrow. When it pleased the Lord To afflict us with the horde of Pastoureaux,