parents have never once said to me
'you must,' but my own will, my own desire, rather, has always been
supreme. My husband is the son of a rich man in the community. To enter
his family was to be made the first lady in the _gasse_, to sit buried
in gold and silver. And that very thing, nothing else, was what
infatuated me with him. It was for that that I forced myself, my heart
and will, to be married to him, hard as it was for me. But in my
innermost heart I detested him. The more he loved me, the more I hated
him. But the gold and silver had an influence over me. More and more
they cried to me, 'You will be the first lady in the _gasse_!'"

"Continue," said the rabbi, when she ceased, almost exhausted by these
words.

"What more shall I tell you, rabbi?" she began again. "I was never a
liar, when a child, or older, and yet during my whole engagement it has
seemed to me as if a big, gigantic lie had followed me step by step.
I have seen it on every side of me. But to-day, when I stood under the
_chuppe_, rabbi, and he took the ring from his finger and put it on
mine, and when I had to dance at my own wedding with him, whom I now
recognized, now for the first time, as the lie, and--when they led me
away----"

This sincere confession escaping from the lips of the young woman, she
sobbed aloud and bowed her head still deeper over her breast. The rabbi
gazed upon her in silence. No insane woman ever spoke like that! Only a
soul conscious of its own sin, but captivated by a mysterious power,
could suffer like this!

It was not sympathy which he felt with her; it was much more a living
over the sufferings of the woman. In spite of the confused story, it was
all clear to the rabbi. The cause of the flight from the father's house
at this hour also required no explanation. "I know what you mean," he
longed to say, but he could only find words to say: "Speak further,
Veile!"

The young woman turned towards him. He had not yet seen her face. The
golden hood with the shading lace hung deeply over it.

"Have I not told you everything?" she said, with a flush of scorn.

"Everything?" repeated the rabbi, inquiringly. He only said this,
moreover, through embarrassment.

"Do you tell me now," she cried, at once passionately and mildly, "what
am I to do?"

"Veile!" exclaimed the rabbi, entertaining now, for the first time, a
feeling of repugnance for this confidential interview.

"Tell me now!" she pleaded; and before the