rickly pear and the aloe.
Israel had opened a grave for Ruth beside the grave of the old rabbi
her father. He had asked no man's permission to do so, but if no one had
helped at that day's business, neither had any one dared to hinder. And
when the coffin was set down by the grave-side no ceremony did Israel
forget and none did he omit. He repeated the Kaddesh, and cut the notch
in his kaftan; he took from his breast the little linen bag of the white
earth of the land of promise and laid it under the head; he locked a
padlock and flung away the key. Last of all, when the body had been
taken out of the coffin and lowered to its long home, he stepped in
after it, and called on one of the soldiers to lend him a lantern. And
then, kneeling at the foot of his dead wife, he touched her with both
his hands, and spoke these words in a clear, firm voice, looking down
at her where she lay in the veil that she had used to wear in the
synagogue, and speaking to her as though she heard: "Ruth, my wife, my
dearest, for the cruel wrong which I did you long ago when I suffered
you to marry me, being a man such as I was, under the ban of my people,
forgive me now, my beloved, and ask God to forgive me also."
The dark cemetery, the six prisoners in their clanking irons, the two
soldiers with their lanterns the open grave, and this strong-hearted
man kneeling within it, that he might do his last duty, according to the
custom of his race and faith, to her whom he had wronged and should meet
no more until the resurrection itself reunited them! The traffic of the
streets had begun again by this time, and between the words which Israel
had spoken the low hum of many voices had come over the dark town walls.
The six prisoners went back to the Kasbah with joyful hearts, for
each carried with him a paper which procured his freedom on the day
following. But Israel returned to his home with a soured and darkened
mind. As he had plucked his last handful of the grass, and flung it over
his shoulder, saying, "They shall spring in the cities as the grass in
the earth," he had asked himself what it mattered to him though all the
world were peopled, now that she, who had been all the world to him, was
dead. God had left him as a lonely pilgrim in a dreary desert. Only one
glimpse of human affection had he known as a man, and here it was taken
from him for ever.
And when he remembered Naomi, he quarrelled with God again. She was
a helpless exile a
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