“What did she say to me when I was asleep?” he asked, after a short pause.
“Did you ever hear the story of Simon Abeles?” the Wanderer inquired by way of answer.
“Simon Abeles? He was a renegade Hebrew boy. His father killed him. He is buried in the Teyn Kirche. What of him? What has he to do with Unorna, or with me? I am myself a Jew. The time has gone by when we Jews hid our heads. I am proud of what I am, and I will never be a Christian. What can Simon Abeles have to do with me?”
“And when I was asleep, what then? She made me see him, perhaps?”
“She made you live his life. She made you suffer all that he suffered--”
“What?” cried Israel Kafka in a loud and angry tone.
“What I say,” returned the other quietly.
“And you did not interfere? You did not stop her? No, of course, I forgot that you are a Christian.”
The Wanderer looked at him in surprise. It had not struck him that Israel Kafka might be a man of the deepest religious convictions, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and that what he would resent most would be the fact that in his sleep Unorna had made him play the part and suffer the martyrdom of a convert to Christianity. This was exactly what took place. He would have suffered anything at Unorna’s hands, and without complaint, even to bodily death, but his wrath rose furiously at the thought that she had been playing with what he held most sacred, that she had forced from his lips the denial of the faith of his people and the confession of the Christian belief, perhaps the very words of the hated Creed. The modern Hebrew of Western Europe might be indifferent in such a case, as though he had spoken in the delirium of a fever, but the Jew of the less civilised East is a different being, and in some ways a stronger. Israel Kafka represented the best type of his race, and his blood boiled at the insult that had been put upon him. The Wanderer saw, and understood, and at once began to respect him, as men who believe firmly in opposite creeds have been known to respect each other even in a life and death struggle.
“I would have stopped her if I could,” he said.
“Were you sleeping, too?” asked Kafka hotly.
“I cannot tell. I was powerless though I was conscious. I saw only Simon Abeles in it all, though I seemed to be aware that you and he were one person. I did interfere--so soon as I was free to move. I think I saved your life. I was carrying you away in my arms when she waked you.”