But since the disaster which had befallen Israel's house everything had undergone a change.It was now Israel himself who suggested dubious means of revenue.There was no device of a crafty brain for turning the very air itself into money--ransoms, promissory notes, and false judgments--but Israel thought of it.Thus he persuaded the Governor to send his small currency to the Jewish shops to be changed into silver dollars at the rate of nine ducats to the dollar, when a dollar was worth ten in currency.And after certain of the shopkeepers, having changed fifty thousand dollars at that rate, fled to the Sultan to complain, Israel advised that their debtors should be called together, their debts purchased, and bonds drawn up and certified for ten times the amounts of them.Thus a few were banished from their homes in fear of imprisonment, many were sorely harassed, and some were entirely ruined.
It was a strange spectacle.He whom the rabble gibed at in the public streets held the fate of every man of them in his hand.Their dogs and their asses might bear his name, but their own lives and liberty must answer to it.
Israel looked on at all with an equal mind, neither flinching at his indignities nor glorying in his power.He beheld the wreck of families without remorse, and heard the wail of women and the cry of children without a qualm.Neither did he delight in the sufferings of them that had derided him.His evil impulse was a higher matter--his faith in justice had been broken up.He had been wrong.There was no such thing as justice in the world, and there could, therefore, be no such thing as injustice.There was no thing but the blind swirl of chance, and the wild scramble for life.The man had quarrelled with God.
But Israel's heart was not yet dead.There was one place, where he who bore himself with such austerity towards the world was a man of great tenderness.That place was his own home.What he saw there was enough to stir the fountains of his being--nay, to exhaust them, and to send him abroad as a river-bed that is dry.