For many minutes he gazed in silence. Then he sighed and turned away. He held certain books in his hand, for he had come from the school of the synagogue where, throughout the short winter days, the rabbis taught him and his companions the mysteries of the sacred tongue. The woman by his side was a servant in his father’s house, and it was her duty to attend him through the streets, until the day when, being judged a man, he should be suddenly freed from the bondage of childish things.
“Let us go,” he said in a low voice. “The air is full of gold and heavy. I cannot breathe it.”
“Thou knowest,” he answered. And suddenly the faint radiance that was always about him grew brighter, and spread out arms behind him, to the right and left, in the figure of a cross.
They walked together, side by side, quickly and often glancing behind them as though to see whether they were followed. And yet it seemed as though it was not they who moved, but the city about them which changed. The throng of busy Jews grew shadowy and disappeared, their shrill voices were lost in the distance. There were other people in the street, of other features and in different garbs, of prouder bearing and hot, restless manner, broad-shouldered, erect, manly, with spur on heel and sword at side. The outline of the old synagogue melted into the murky air and changed its shape, and stood out again in other and ever-changing forms. Now they were passing before the walls of a noble palace, now beneath long, low galleries of arches, now again across the open space of the Great Ring in the midst of the city--then all at once they were standing before the richly carved doorway of the Teyn Kirche, the very doorway out of which the Wanderer had followed the fleeting shadow of Beatrice’s figure but a month ago. And then they paused, and looked again to the right and left, and searched the dark corners with piercing glances.
“Thy life is in thine hand,” said the woman, speaking close to the boy’s ear. “It is yet time. Turn with me and let us go back.”
The mysterious radiance lit up the youth’s beautiful face in the dark street and showed the fearless yet gentle smile that was on his lips.
“Death,” answered the woman in a trembling tone. “They will kill thee, and it shall be upon my head.”