I introduced myself and stated my business. I came to ask if he could give me any information respecting the late Salome da Costa who died on the 18th of October last, and was buried on the Lido.
The rabbi replied that he had no doubt he could give me any information I desired, for he had known the lady personally, and was the intimate friend of her father.
"Can you tell me," I asked, "whether she had any dear friend or female relative of the same name--Salome?"
"I think not," he said. "I remember no other maiden of that name."
"Pardon me, but I know there was another," I replied. "There was a very beautiful Salome living in the Merceria when I was last in Venice, just this time last year."
"Salome da Costa was very fair," said the rabbi; "and she dwelt with her father in the Merceria. Since her death, he hath removed to the neighbourhood of the Rialto."
"This Salome's father was a dealer in Oriental goods," I said, hastily.
"Isaac da Costa is a dealer in Oriental goods," replied the old man very gently. "We are speaking, my son, of the same persons."
"But she lives!" I exclaimed, becoming greatly agitated. "She lives. I have seen her. I have spoken to her. I saw her only last evening."
"Nay," he said, compassionately, "this is some dream. She of whom you speak is indeed no more."
"I saw her only last evening," I repeated.
"And she spoke to me. I heard her voice--heard it as distinctly as I hear my own at this moment."
The rabbi stroked his beard thoughtfully, and looked at me. "You think you heard her voice!" he ejaculated. "That is strange. What said she?"
I was about to answer. I checked myself--a sudden thought flashed upon me--I trembled from head to foot.
"Have you--have you any reason for supposing that she died a Christian?" I faltered.
"I--I--that is a strange question," he stammered. "Why do you ask it?"
"Yes or no?" I cried wildly. "Yes or no?"
"I admit," he said, after a moment or two,--"I admit that I may have heard something tending that way. It may be that the maiden cherished some secret doubt. Yet she was no professed Christian."
"_Laid in earth without one Christian prayer; with Hebrew rites; in a Hebrew sanctuary!_" I repeated to myself.
"But I marvel how you come to have heard of this," continued the rabbi. "It was known only to her father and myself."