comforted my son and said to him: See, your father has been spared old age, he was called away without illness or suffering.
"But, now, oh, my God, why this? Why do you take from me my support, my pride, my joy? Hitherto I was Theodor Herzl's mother; this was a title of nobility. What am I now? It would be but right if I lay in there, and he stood here."
Then she told of the child Theodor, of his youth, without exaggeration, in beautiful sentences. As she spoke, one realized the source of Theodor Herzl's literary art.
Yes, they were one and united, inwardly indissolubly bound, he and his parents, his children and he. We all love our children. But none loved as tenderly as Theodor Herzl. We all honor our parents, but none as did Theodor Herzl. "It was often strange," said his mother, "how he showed us his love and thanks. I often said to my husband, he is as thankful as a child to step-parents who have done more than their duty. It is too much—too much—we have only behaved like all parents."
The coffin of Theodor Herzl was enfolded with passionate love. We loved his mother, his wife, his children, to honor them, to console them, surrounding them with love, resolving to think of them. We wished to replace to those nearest to the deceased what we had taken from them, we wished to repay them with the great wealth he showered upon us.
And Theodor Herzl's mother fell on the coffin there, where the head of her son rested on, and moistened it with gentle tears. Mrs. Herzl arranged the telegrams which were being showered upon her. She had known how her husband was beloved, what he was to a people—
but now she saw with her own eyes, she grasped the fact that thousands, tens of thousands, were mourning and weeping with her. But is this a consolation?
The children were sitting together, to forget in play, for a moment, the dark guest. The girls beg the mother to be with them. Hans, however, sits apart, reading in a book. First hesitatingly, then distinctly, he repeats words strange to his lips: "Yisgadal, Weyiskadasch, shme rabbo."
We weep again—Hans is studying the Kaddish!
The great trouble of the day, the misfortune, presses in upon us. Theodor Herzl's son learning Kaddish!
While his young lips move I see thousands who listen—a great congregation stretching from ocean to ocean, is assembled, a great sigh sounds from afar, and a great choir answers: "Amen, yche shme rabbo!"
So fled the hours to our imprisoned senses. None desired to think clearly, not even to understand.
We had habituated ourselves to the thought of death, which had come as a visitor, and it was dark in Theodor Herzl's study.
Every now and then the members of the family visited the coffin.
Near the end he never permitted anyone to leave his room unconsoled, now he could not prevent it.
And yet it was some consolation that he was still there. Dead and stiff, coffined and immovable, but still there.
The hours fled, the days sped, and the last morning arrived.
The students—his students—whose guard was changed silently, stood unmovable, looking at him. But they became anxious. Their outward discipline was affected, and they sobbed aloud.