The next events occurred so quickly it is difficult to sort them out. First the man shouted loudly, “Trumpelman! You’re no Elder! You’re a traitor to the Jews!” From his pocket he drew a gun. Then the bride’s veil came off, like a cover from the cage of a bird. Miss Lubliver twitched her head.

“It should have been me!” the woman screamed and, just as the gun went off, hurled herself at the groom. The bullet meant for I. C. Trumpelman went into Madame Zweideneck, who had not been seen in our town for years.

“Lipsky the lawyer!” somebody cried.

Then the whole church erupted in shouts and screams. There was a wild rush to escape from the rows of raised benches. People stepped over each other. Women fell down. The bulk of the crowd made a charge down the center aisle. The gift table turned over. The soup spilled across the stones of the floor. Then the back doors flew open; the first one through was little Lipsky.

“After him!” was the cry.

There was a tremendous surge to the outside. Grown men butted each other. In the awful crush, the crowd shoved against the painter’s scaffold. “Watch out! Don’t push!” But the next moment the wood and the tubing started to buckle. Then with a rip the canvas parted and, with Klapholtz still wrapped in the billows, plunged all the way down.

In spite of everything people paused and raised their heads. Then all together they moaned. There, along the entire vault of the ceiling, in brilliant colors, was the Tricouleur itself. Across it the enormous legend:

VIVE LA FRANCE!

“Sabotage!” Trumpelman roared.

The last of the Jews fled through the doors.

On the platform Miss Lubliver pointed to where Klapholtz, although an arm and a leg had been broken, was trying to crawl away. “There he is! There! Get him! Catch him! Don’t let him escape!”

Grundtripp himself sprang forward and collared the painter. He shook him the way you shake a broken machine. Then he dragged him to the street outside.

The church was now deserted. No rabbis. No Wohltat. Even the Zweideneck woman had been taken away. There remained only shambles: benches thrown over, the huppah tangled in its sticks. Trumpelman stooped for the canopy. He stretched it over his own head and that of his bride. Her teeth were clamped on the white cloth of the veil, as if she wished to tear it in pieces.

The Judenrat Chairman took the fist of her hand from her glove and placed a round gold ring on her finger. “Behold you are consecrated unto me,” he said, “according to the Law of Moses and Israel.” Then he faced north, the direction of demons, and smashed the little goblet under his heel.

It is said that God Himself is a bridegroom and that all Israel once, on the mountain of Sinai, became His bride. What that means is that every Jewish wedding is in some way a reflection of that distant and shining event. Even I. C. Trumpelman’s.