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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ghetto Comedies, by Israel Zangwill,
+Illustrated by J. H. Amschewitz
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Ghetto Comedies
+
+
+Author: Israel Zangwill
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 28, 2009  [eBook #28982]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHETTO COMEDIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital
+material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 28982-h.htm or 28982-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28982/28982-h/28982-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28982/28982-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/ghettocomedies00zanguoft
+
+
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+      | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistant spelling in the |
+      | original document have been preserved. This document      |
+      | contains Yiddish and other dialects.                      |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+      | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+      |                                                           |
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+GHETTO COMEDIES
+
+by
+
+ISRAEL ZANGWILL
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+New 6s. Novels.
+
+
+  THE EXPENSIVE MISS DU CANE. By S. MACNAUGHTAN. 'To resist the charm
+     of Hetty Du Cane one must be singularly hard to
+     please.'--_Spectator._
+
+  THE LOST WORD. By EVELYN UNDERHILL. 'She writes vigorously and well,
+     with a clear sense of the beauty of language and a notable power
+     of description.'--_Times._
+
+  THE COUNTRY HOUSE. By JOHN GALSWORTHY. 'It deserves the widest
+     measure of success as a careful study of modern life and an
+     interesting piece of fiction, presented with remarkable literary
+     ability.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  MEMOIRS OF A PERSON OF QUALITY. By ASHTON HILLIERS. 'Such a recruit
+     as Mr. Hilliers is welcome to the ranks of novelists.... He has
+     absorbed the spirit of the times with remarkable ability. Mr.
+     Hilliers has a fine literary future before him, and we are glad
+     to give his maiden effort a cordial greeting.'--_Athenĉum._
+
+  PAUL. By E.F. BENSON. 'A genuinely fine novel; a story marked by
+     powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of
+     life.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  THE SWIMMERS. By E.S. RORISON. 'Full of crisp dialogue and bright
+     descriptive passages.'--_Athenĉum._
+
+  THE TRAIL TOGETHER. By H.H. BASHFORD. 'Very interesting, very well
+     constructed, and admirably written; altogether an excellent piece
+     of work.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  FOOLS RUSH IN. By MARY GAUNT and J.R. ESSEX. 'A live story, full of
+     the stir and stress of existence on the fringe of civilization,
+     very vividly and interestingly written.'--_Sketch._
+
+  JOSEPH VANCE. By WILLIAM DE MORGAN. 'Humorous, thoughtful, pathetic,
+     and thoroughly entertaining.... Fresh, original, and unusually
+     clever.'--_Athenĉum._
+
+  MOONFACE, AND OTHER STORIES. By JACK LONDON. 'Jack London at his
+     best.'--_Standard._
+
+  LOVE'S TRILOGY. By PETER NANSEN. 'Humour the author possesses, and
+     tenderness. Sensibility he has, and shrewd sense. The tale "God's
+     Peace" shows that he has a soul.'--_Evening Standard._
+
+LONDON
+WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: At last I said "Good morning."]
+
+
+GHETTO COMEDIES
+
+by
+
+ISRAEL ZANGWILL
+
+Author of
+'The Grey Wig,' 'Dreamers of the Ghetto,'
+'The Master,' 'Children of the Ghetto,'
+'Ghetto Tragedies,' etc.
+
+With Illustrations by J.H. Amschewitz
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+London
+William Heinemann
+1907
+
+Copyright by William Heinemann, 1907
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY OLD FRIEND
+
+M.D. EDER
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+Simultaneously with the publication of these 'Ghetto Comedies' a fresh
+edition of my 'Ghetto Tragedies' is issued, with the original title
+restored. In the old definition a comedy could be distinguished from a
+tragedy by its happy ending. Dante's Hell and Purgatory could thus
+appertain to a 'comedy.' This is a crude conception of the distinction
+between Tragedy and Comedy, which I have ventured to disregard,
+particularly in the last of these otherwise unassuming stories.
+
+                                                            I.Z.
+
+SHOTTERMILL,
+    _April, 1907._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                             PAGE
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS                                            1
+
+ANGLICIZATION                                                  49
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY                                             89
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER                            119
+
+THE RED MARK                                                  173
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS                                         193
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH                                                225
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE                                               249
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'                                          259
+
+THE CONVERTS                                                  293
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK                                                  313
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET                                               335
+
+THE HIRELINGS                                                 351
+
+SAMOOBORONA                                                   375
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+AT LAST I SAID 'GOOD MORNING'                      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                   _To face page_
+
+'I WORK ON--ON _SHABBOS_'                                     142
+
+'YOU COMPARE MY WIFE TO A KANGAROO!'                          276
+
+THE JEWS SCATTERED BEFORE HIM LIKE DOGS                       408
+
+
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS
+
+
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW I FOUND THE MODEL
+
+
+I cannot pretend that my ambition to paint the Man of Sorrows had any
+religious inspiration, though I fear my dear old dad at the Parsonage
+at first took it as a sign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist,
+I have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the
+beautiful; for I have ever held that the beautiful has in it the same
+infinite element as forms the essence of religion. But I cannot
+explain very intelligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only
+instrument through which I can speak. And if I am here paradoxically
+proposing to use my pen to explain what my brush failed to make clear,
+it is because the criticism with which my picture of the Man of
+Sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal
+elucidation. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; perhaps
+my pen can manage to say the other half, especially as this other half
+mainly consists of things told me and things seen.
+
+And in the first place, let me explain that the conception of the
+picture which now hangs in its gilded frame is far from the conception
+with which I started--was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an
+evolution--for I began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a
+realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue of Jerusalem, or
+walked about the shores of Galilee. As a painter in love with the
+modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations
+of Him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their
+inspiration in reality. Each nation had unconsciously given Him its
+own national type, and though there was a subtle truth in this, for
+what each nation worshipped was truly the God made over again in its
+own highest image, this was not the truth after which I was seeking.
+
+I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which Da Vinci and
+others have imposed upon the world, for Christ, to begin with, must be
+a Jew. And even when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish
+model, I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed
+to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic of the Oriental face, as
+I figured it, was a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the
+very antithesis of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The characteristic
+Jewish face must suggest more of the Arab than of the Goth.
+
+I do not know if the lay reader understands how momentous to the
+artist is his model, how dependent he is on the accident of finding
+his creation already anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in
+Nature. To me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in
+Nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those
+subtle _nuances_ which give the full sense of life. After which, if I
+say, that my aim is not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I
+suppose I shall again seem to be self-contradictory. But that, again,
+must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes.
+
+Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search of the ideal
+model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief
+railway run of the Parsonage. Besides, I understood that the
+dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish
+types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed all the
+streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting in the Jewish quarter
+left me despairing. I could find types of all the Apostles, but never
+of the Master.
+
+Running down one week-end to Brighton to recuperate, I joined the
+Church Parade on the lawns. It was a sunny morning in early November,
+and I admired the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky,
+making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the stuccoed
+boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered amid the vast crowd of
+promenaders like a swarm of brilliant butterflies. I noted with
+amusement that the Church Parade was guarded by beadles from the
+intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed Jews
+paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search.
+In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking
+in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest.
+Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting
+oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat
+a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green
+cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the
+face of my desire. The head was bowed towards the earth; it did not
+even turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle was
+beadle-barred. I was about to accost this strange creature who sat
+there so immovably, when a venerable Royal Academician who resides at
+Hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore me along
+in the stream of his conversation and geniality. I looked back
+yearningly; it was as if the Academy was dragging me away from true
+Art.
+
+'I think, if you don't mind, I'll get that old chap's address,' I
+said.
+
+He looked back and shook his head in laughing reproof.
+
+'Another study in dirt and ugliness! Oh, you youngsters!'
+
+My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with his own
+conventional patterns and prettinesses.
+
+'Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,' I retorted. 'I
+certainly did not see Him in the Church Parade.'
+
+'Have you gone on the religious lay now?' he asked, with a burst of
+his bluff laughter.
+
+'No, but I'm going,' I said, and turned back.
+
+I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying
+my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement,
+I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery
+of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity
+with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified.
+I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan,
+while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that
+the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his
+abstention from the holy ground of the Church Parade, and the less
+sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes
+drew towards him, move him on from further profaning those frigidly
+respectable windows and stuccoed portals?
+
+At last I said: 'Good-morning.' And he rose hurriedly and began to
+move away uncomplainingly, as one used to being hounded from
+everywhere.
+
+'_Guten Morgen_,' I said in German, with a happy inspiration, for in
+my futile search in London I had found that a corrupt German called
+Yiddish usually proved a means of communication.
+
+He paused, as if reassured. '_Gut' Morgen_,' he murmured; and then I
+saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of Anak, and
+his manner a strange blend of majesty and humility.
+
+'Pardon me,' I went on, in my scrupulously worst German, 'may I ask
+you a question?'
+
+He made a curious movement of acquiescence, compounded of a shrug and
+a slight uplifting of his palms.
+
+'Are you in need of work?'
+
+'And why do you wish to know?' he replied, answering, as I had already
+found was the Jewish way, one question by another.
+
+'I thought I could find you some,' I said.
+
+'Have you scrolls of the Law for me to write?' he replied
+incredulously. 'You are not even a Jew.'
+
+'Still, there may be something,' I replied. 'Let us walk along.'
+
+I felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us both, and I
+hurried my model down a side-street. I noticed he hobbled as if
+footsore. He did not understand what I wanted, but he understood a
+pound a week, for he was starving, and when I said he must leave
+Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck: 'It is the finger of
+God.' For in London were his wife and children.
+
+His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia.
+
+The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel Quarriar's presence
+dignified the studio. It was thrilling and stimulating to see his
+noble figure and tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like
+a prophet's.
+
+'It is the finger of God,' I, too, murmured, and fell to work,
+exalted.
+
+I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence--perhaps the model's
+silence was contagious--but gradually through the days I grew to
+communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I
+give his story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I often
+paused to take down, when they were characteristic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MODEL'S STORY
+
+
+I came here because Russia had grown intolerable to me. All my life,
+and during the lives of my parents, we Quarriars had been innkeepers,
+and thereby earned our bread. But Russia took away our livelihood for
+herself, and created a monopoly. Thus we were left destitute. So what
+could I do with a large family? Of London and America I had long heard
+as places where they have compassion on foreigners. They are not
+countries like Russia, where Truth exists not. Secondly, my children
+also worried me greatly. They are females, all the five, and a female
+in Russia, however beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no
+dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however uncongenial the
+man may be. These things conspired to drive me from Russia. So I
+turned everything into money, and realized three hundred and fifty
+roubles. People had told me that the whole journey to London should
+cost us two hundred roubles, so I concluded I should have one hundred
+and fifty roubles with which to begin life in the new country. It was
+very bitter to me to leave my Fatherland, but as the moujik says:
+'Necessity brings everything.' So we parted from our friends with many
+tears: little had we thought we should be so broken up in our old age.
+But what else could I do in such a wretched country? As the moujik
+says: 'If the goat doesn't want to go to market it is compelled to
+go.' So I started for London. We travelled to Isota on the Austrian
+frontier. As we sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we
+were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in came a
+benevolent-looking Jew with a long venerable beard, two very long
+ear-locks, and a girdle round his waist, washed his hands
+ostentatiously at the station tap, prayed aloud the _Asher Yotzer_
+with great fervour, and on finishing his prayer looked everyone
+expectantly in the eyes, and all responded 'Amen.' Then he drew up his
+coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended his hand, gave me an
+effusive '_Shalom Aleichem_' and asked me how it went with me. Soon he
+began to talk about the frontier. Said he: 'As you see me, an _Ish
+kosher_ (a ritually correct man), I will do you a kindness, not for
+money, but for the sake of the _Mitzvah_ (good deed).' I began to
+smell a rat, and thought to myself, How comes it that you know I want
+the frontier? Your kindness is suspicious, for, as the moujik says:
+'The devil has guests.' But if we need the thief, we cut him down even
+from the gallows.
+
+Such a necessary rascal proved Elzas Kazelia. I asked him how much he
+wanted to smuggle me across. He answered thus: 'I see that you are a
+clever respectable man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and you
+will understand that you will receive fair treatment from me. I want
+to earn a _Mitzvah_ (good deed) and a little money thereby.'
+
+Then he cautioned me not to leave the station and go out into the
+street, because in the street were to be found Jews without beards,
+who would inform on me and give me up to the police. 'The world does
+not contain a sea of Kazelias,' said he. (Would that it did not
+contain even that one!)
+
+Then he continued: 'Shake out your money on the table, and we will see
+how much you have, and I will change it for you.'
+
+'Oh,' said I, 'I want first to find out the rate of exchange.'
+
+When Kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring and shrieked '_Hoi,
+hoi!_ On account of Jews like you, the _Messhiach_ (Messiah) can't
+come, and the Redemption of Israel is delayed. If you go out into the
+street, you will find a Jew without a beard, who will charge you more,
+and even take all your money away. I swear to you, as I should wish to
+see Messhiach Ben David, that I want to earn no money. I only desire
+your good, and so to lay up a little _Mitzvah_ in heaven.'
+
+Thereupon I changed my money with him. Afterwards I found that he had
+swindled me to the extent of fifteen roubles. Elzas Kazelia is like to
+the Russian forest robber, who waylays even the peasant.
+
+We began to talk further about the frontier. He wanted eighty roubles,
+and swore by his _kosher Yiddishkeit_ (ritually pure Judaism) that the
+affair would cost him seventy-five.
+
+Thereupon I became sorely troubled, because I had understood it would
+only cost us twenty roubles for all of us, and so I told him. Said he:
+'If you seek others with short beards, they will take twice as much
+from you.' But I went out into the street to seek a second murderer.
+The second promised to do it cheaper, said that Kazelia was a robber,
+and promised to meet me at the railway station.
+
+Immediately I left, Elzas Kazelia, the _kosher_ Jew, went to the
+police, and informed them that I and my family were running away from
+Russia, and were going to London; and we were at once arrested, and
+thrown bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an iron
+grating in the door. No food or drink was allowed us, as though we
+were the greatest criminals. Such is Russian humanity, to starve
+innocent people. The little provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us
+from fainting with hunger. On the second day Kazelia sent two Jews
+with beards. Suddenly I heard the door unlock, and they appeared
+saying: 'We have come to do you a favour, but not for nothing. If your
+life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we advise you to
+give the police seventy roubles, and we want ten roubles for our
+kindness, and you must employ Kazelia to take you over the frontier
+for eighty roubles, otherwise the police will not be bribed. If you
+refuse, you are lost.'
+
+Well, how could I answer? How could one give away the last kopeck and
+arrive penniless in a strange land? Every rouble taken from us was
+like a piece of our life. So my people and I began to weep and to beg
+for pity. 'Have compassion,' we cried. Answered they: 'In a frontier
+town compassion dwells not. Give money. That will bring compassion.'
+And they slammed the door, and we were locked in once more. Tears and
+cries helped nothing. My children wept agonizedly. Oh, truth, truth!
+Russia, Russia! How scurvily you handle the guiltless! For an
+enlightened land to be thus!
+
+'Father, father,' the children said, 'give away everything so that we
+die not in this cell of fear and hunger.'
+
+But even had I wished, I could do nothing from behind barred doors.
+Our shouting was useless. At last I attracted a warder who was
+watching in the corridor. 'Bring me a Jew,' I cried; 'I wish to tell
+him of our plight.' And he answered: 'Hold your peace if you don't
+want your teeth knocked out. Recognise that you are a prisoner. You
+know well what is required of you.'
+
+Yes, I thought, my money or my life.
+
+On the third day our sufferings became almost insupportable, and the
+Russian cold seized on our bodies, and our strength began to fail. We
+looked upon the cell as our tomb, and on Kazelia as the Angel of
+Death. Here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. We lost hope of
+seeing the sun. For well we know Russia. Who seeks Truth finds Death
+more easily. As the Russian proverb says, 'If you want to know Truth,
+you will know Death.'
+
+At length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries, and brought
+again the two Jews. 'For the last time we tell you. Give us money, and
+we will do you a kindness. We have been seized with compassion for
+your family.'
+
+So I said no more, but gave them all they asked, and Elzas Kazelia
+came and said to me rebukingly: 'It is a characteristic of the Jew
+never to part with his money unless chastised.' I said to Elzas
+Kazelia: 'I thought you were an honourable, pious Jew. How could you
+treat a poor family so?'
+
+He answered me: 'An honourable, pious Jew must also make a little
+money.'
+
+Thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent for a conveyance.
+No sooner had we seated ourselves than he demanded six roubles. Well,
+what could I do? I had fallen among thieves, and must part with my
+money. We drove to a small room, and remained there two hours, for
+which we had to pay three roubles, as the preparations for our
+crossing were apparently incomplete. When we finally got to the
+frontier--in this case a shallow river--they warned us not even to
+sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot without more ado.
+I had to strip in order to wade through the water, and several men
+carried over my family. My two bundles, with all my belongings,
+consisting of clothes and household treasures, remained, however, on
+the Russian side. Suddenly a wild disorder arose. 'The soldiers! The
+soldiers! Hide! Hide! In the bushes! In the bushes!'
+
+When all was still again--though no soldiers became visible--the men
+went back for the baggage, but brought back only one bundle. The
+other, worth over a hundred roubles, had disappeared. Wailing helped
+nothing. Kazelia said: 'Hold your peace. Here, too, dangers lurk.'
+
+I understood the game, but felt completely helpless in his hands. He
+drove us to his house, and our remaining bundle was deposited there.
+Later, when I walked into the town, I went to the Rabbi and
+complained. Said he: 'What can I do with such murderers? You must
+reconcile yourself to the loss.'
+
+I went back to my family at Kazelia's house, and he cautioned me
+against going into the street. On my way I had met a man who said he
+would charge twenty-eight roubles each for our journey to London. So
+Kazelia was evidently afraid I might yet fall into honester hands.
+
+Then we began to talk with him of London, for it is better to deal
+with the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Said he: 'It
+will cost you thirty-three roubles each.' I said: 'I have had an offer
+of twenty-eight roubles, but you I will give thirty.' '_Hoi, hoi!_'
+shrieked he. 'On a Jew a lesson is lost. It is just as at the
+frontier: you wouldn't give eighty roubles, and it cost you double.
+You want the same again. One daren't do a Jew a favour.'
+
+So I held my peace, and accepted his terms. But I saw I should be
+twenty-five roubles short of what was required to finish the journey.
+Said Kazelia: 'I can do you a favour: I can borrow twenty-five roubles
+on your luggage at the railway, and when you get to London you can
+repay.' And he took the bundle, and conveyed it to the railway. What
+he did there I know not. He came back, and told me he had done me a
+turn. (This time it seemed a good one.) He then took envelopes, and
+placed in each the amount I was to pay at each stage of the journey.
+So at last we took train and rode off. And at each place I paid the
+dues from its particular envelope. The children were offered food by
+our fellow-passengers, though they could only take it when it was
+_kosher_, and this enabled us to keep our pride. There was one kind
+Jewess from Lemberg with a heart of gold and delicious rings of
+sausages.
+
+When we arrived at Leipsic they told me the amount was twelve marks
+short. So we missed our train, not knowing what to do, as I had now no
+money whatever but what was in the envelopes. The officials ordered us
+from the station. So we went out and walked about Leipsic; we
+attracted the suspicion of the police, and they wanted to arrest us.
+But we pleaded our innocence, and they let us go. So we retired into a
+narrow dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told each other
+not to murmur. We sat together through the whole rainy night, the rain
+mingling with our tears.
+
+When day broke I thought of a plan. I took twelve marks from the
+envelope containing the ship's money, and ran back to the station, and
+took tickets to Rotterdam, and so got to the end of our overland
+journey. When we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed like
+cattle. One of the Kazelia conspirators--for his arm reaches over
+Europe--called us into his office, and said: 'How much money have
+you?' I shook out the money from the envelopes on the table. Said he:
+'The amount is twelve marks short.' He had had advices, he said, from
+Kazelia that I would bring a certain amount, and I didn't have it.
+
+'Here you can stay to-night. To-morrow you go back.' So he played on
+my ignorance, for I was paying at every stage in excess of the legal
+fares. But I knew not what powers he had. Every official was a
+possible disaster. We hardly lived till the day.
+
+Then I began to beg him to take my _Tallis_ and _Tephillin_
+(praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the twelve marks. Said he: 'I
+have no use for them; you _must_ go back.' With difficulty I got his
+permission to go out into the town, and I took my _Tallis_ and
+_Tephillin_, and went into a _Shool_ (synagogue), and I begged someone
+to buy them. But a good man came up, and would not permit the sale. He
+took out twelve marks and gave them to me. I begged him to give me his
+address that I might be able to repay him. Said he: 'I desire neither
+thanks nor money.' Thus was I able to replace the amount lacking.
+
+We embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing in money. We arrived
+in London at nine o'clock in the morning, penniless and without
+luggage, whereas I had calculated to have at least one hundred and
+fifty roubles and my household stuff. I had a friend's address, and we
+all went to look for him, but found that he had left London for
+America. We walked about all day till eight o'clock at night. The
+children could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness. At last
+we sat down on the steps of a house in Wellclose Square. I looked
+about, and saw a building which I took to be a _Shool_ (synagogue), as
+there were Hebrew posters stuck outside. I approached it. An old Jew
+with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began to speak with me. I
+understood soon what sort of a person he was, and turned away. This
+_Meshummad_ (converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with offers
+of food and drink for the family, and further help. I said: 'I want
+nothing of you, nor do I desire your acquaintance.'
+
+'I went back to my family. The children sat crying for food. They
+attracted the attention of a man, Baruch Zezangski (25, Ship Alley),
+and he went away, returning with bread and fish. When the children saw
+this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the man's hand to kiss it.
+Meanwhile darkness fell, and there was nowhere to pass the night. So I
+begged the man to find me a lodging for the night. He led us to a
+cellar in Ship Alley. It was pitch black. They say there is a hell.
+This may or may not be, but more of a hell than the night we passed in
+this cellar one does not require. Every vile thing in the world seemed
+to have taken up its abode therein. We sat the whole night sweeping
+the vermin from us. After a year of horror--as it seemed--came the
+dawn. In the morning entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. I
+had not a farthing, but I had a leather bag which I gave him for the
+night's lodging. I begged him to let me a room in the house. So he let
+me a small back room upstairs, the size of a table, at three and
+sixpence a week. He relied on our collecting his rent from the
+kind-hearted.
+
+We entered the empty room with joy, and sat down on the floor. We
+remained the whole day without bread. The children managed to get a
+crust now and again from other lodgers, but all day long they cried
+for food, and at night they cried because they had nothing to sleep
+on. I asked our landlord if he knew of any work we could do. He said
+he would see what could be done. Next day he went out, and returned
+with a heap of linen to be washed. The family set to work at once, but
+I am sure my wife washed the things less with water than with tears.
+Oh, Kazelia! We washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing
+bread and washing. At the end of the week he said: 'You have worked
+out your rent, and have nothing to pay.' I should think not indeed!
+
+My eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a place at a tailor's
+for four shillings a week, and the others sought washing and
+scrubbing. So each day we had bread, and at the end of the week rent.
+Bread and water alone formed our sustenance. But we were very grateful
+all the same. When the holidays came on, my daughter fell out of work.
+I heard a word 'slack.' I inquired, 'What is the meaning of the word
+"slack"?' Then my daughter told me that it means _schlecht_ (bad).
+There is nothing to be earned. Now, what should I do? I had no means
+of living. The children cried for bread and something to sleep on.
+Still we lived somehow till _Rosh Hashanah_ (New Year), hoping it
+would indeed be a New Year.
+
+It was _Erev Yomtov_ (the day before the holiday), and no washing was
+to be had. We struggled as before death. The landlord of the house
+came in. He said to me: 'Aren't you ashamed? Can't you see your
+children have scarcely strength to live? Why have you not compassion
+on your little ones? Go to the Charity Board. There you will receive
+help.' Believe me, I would rather have died. But the little ones were
+starving, and their cries wrung me. So I went to a Charity Board. I
+said, weeping: 'My children are perishing for a morsel of bread. I can
+no longer look upon their sufferings.' And the Board answered: 'After
+_Yomtov_ we will send you back to Russia.' 'But meanwhile,' I
+answered, 'the children want food.' Whereupon one of the Board struck
+a bell, and in came a stalwart Angel of Death, who seized me by the
+arm so that it ached all day, and thrust me through the door. I went
+out, my eyes blinded with tears, so that I could not see where I went.
+It was long before I found my way back to Ship Alley. My wife and
+daughters already thought I had drowned myself for trouble. Such was
+our plight the Eve of the Day of Atonement, and not a morsel of bread
+to 'take in' the fast with! But just at the worst a woman from next
+door came in, and engaged one of my daughters to look after a little
+child during the fast (while she was in the synagogue) at a wage of
+tenpence, paid in advance. With joy we expended it all on bread, and
+then we prayed that the Day of Atonement should endure long, so that
+we could fast long, and have no need to buy food; for as the moujik
+says, 'If one had no mouth, one could wear a golden coat.'
+
+I went to the Jews' Free School, which was turned into a synagogue,
+and passed the whole day in tearful supplication. When I came home at
+night my wife sat and wept. I asked her why she wept. She answered:
+'Why have you led me to such a land, where even prayer costs money--at
+least, for women? The whole day I went from one _Shool_ to another,
+but they would not let me in. At last I went to the _Shool_ of the
+"Sons of the Soul," where pray the pious Jews, with beards and
+ear-locks, and even there I was not allowed in. The heathen policeman
+begged for me, and said to them: "Shame on you not to let the poor
+woman in." The _Gabbai_ (treasurer) answered: "If one hasn't money,
+one sits at home."' And my wife said to him, weeping: 'My tears be on
+your head,' and went home, and remained home the whole day weeping.
+With a woman _Yom Kippur_ is a wonder-working day. She thought that
+her prayers might be heard, that God would consider her plight if she
+wept out her heart to Him in the _Shool_. But she was frustrated, and
+this was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. Moreover, she was
+oppressed by her own brethren, and this was indeed bitter. If it had
+been the Gentile, she would have consoled herself with the thought,
+'We are in exile.' When the fast was over, we had nothing but a little
+bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for the next day's
+fast. Nevertheless we sorrowfully slept. But the wretched day came
+again, and the elder children went out into the street to seek
+_Parnosoh_ (employment), and found scrubbing, that brought in
+nine-pence. We bought bread, and continued to live further. Likewise
+we obtained three shillings worth of washing to do, and were as rich
+as Rothschild. When _Succoth_ (Tabernacles) came, again no money, no
+bread, and I went about the streets the whole day to seek for work.
+When I was asked what handicraftsman I was, of course I had to say I
+had no trade, for, foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of
+Russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to hold one up
+to scorn, they say to him: 'Anybody can see you are a descendant of a
+handicraftsman.'
+
+I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, but what availed
+these accomplishments? As I found I could obtain no work, I went into
+the _Shool_ of the 'Sons of the Soul.' I seated myself next a man, and
+we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he: 'I will give you
+advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is a very fine man.'
+
+I did so. As I entered, he sat in company with another man, holding
+his _Lulov_ and _Esrog_ (palm and citron). 'What do you want?' I
+couldn't answer him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears
+gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand. I felt assured of
+sympathy, if of nothing else. I told him we were perishing for want of
+bread, and asked him to give me advice. He answered nothing. He turned
+to the man, and spoke concerning the Tabernacle and the Citron. He
+took no further notice of me, but left me standing.
+
+So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia. And this is a
+Rabbi! As I saw I might as well have talked to the wall, I left the
+room without a word from him. As the moujik would say: 'Sad and bitter
+is the poor man's lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb and not to
+see the sunlit world than to be a poor man and be compelled to beg for
+money.'
+
+I came home, where my family was waiting patiently for my return with
+bread. I said: 'Good _Yomtov_,' weeping, for they looked scarcely
+alive, having been without a morsel of food that day.
+
+So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his
+due. 'Hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep?' But he
+refused to be talked over. So we passed the night. When day came the
+little children began to cry: 'Father, let us go. We will beg bread in
+the streets. We die of hunger. Don't hold us back.'
+
+When the mother heard them speak of begging in the streets, she
+swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour among the children. When at
+length we brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her
+to life. 'I would rather have died than hear you speak of begging in
+the streets--rather see my children die of hunger before my eyes.'
+This speech of the mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they
+sat and wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man from next door,
+Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was the matter. He looked around,
+and his heart went out to us. So he went away, and returned speedily
+with bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away again, returning
+with five shillings. He said: 'This I lend you.' Later he came back
+with a man, Nathan Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away
+the three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when I called to
+see them in his house in St. George's Road, they hid themselves from
+me, being afraid I should want them to return to endure again the
+pangs of hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should have
+the care of my children, and that they should shun me as one shuns a
+forest-robber.
+
+After _Yomtov_ I went to Grunbach, the shipping agent, to see whether
+my luggage had arrived, as I had understood from Kazelia that it would
+get here in a month's time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired
+concerning it. Said he: 'Your luggage won't come to London, only to
+Rotterdam. If you like, I will write a letter to inquire if it is at
+Rotterdam, and how much money is due to redeem it.' I told him I had
+borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he calculated that it
+would cost me £4 6s., including freight to redeem it. But I told him
+to write and ask. Some days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating
+the cost at eighty-three roubles (£8 13s.), irrespective of freight
+dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I immediately wrote to
+Kazelia: 'Why do you behave like a forest-robber, giving me only
+twenty-five roubles where you got eighty-three?' Answered he: 'Shame
+on you to write such a letter! Haven't you been in my house, and seen
+what an honourable Jew I am? Shame on you! To such men as you one
+can't do a favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in the
+world? You are all thick-headed. You can't read a letter. I only took
+fifty-four roubles on the luggage; I had to recoup myself because I
+lost money through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, and
+only took what was due to me.' I showed the letter to Grunbach, and he
+wrote again to Rotterdam, and they answered that they knew nothing of
+a Kazelia. I must pay the £8 13s. if I wanted my bundle. Well, what
+was to be done? The weather grew colder. Hunger we had become inured
+to. But how could we pass the winter nights on the bare boards? I
+wrote again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever. Day and night
+I went about asking advice concerning the luggage. Nobody could help
+me.
+
+And as I stood thus in the middle of the sea, word came to me of a
+_Landsmann_ (countryman) I had once helped to escape from the Russian
+army, in the days when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he
+had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in front of the
+sea in a great town called Brighton. So I started off at once to talk
+to him--two days' journey, they said--for I knew he would help; and if
+not he, who? I would come to him as his Sabbath guest; he would surely
+fall upon my neck. The first night I slept in a barn with another
+tramp, who pointed me the way; but because I stopped to earn sixpence
+by chopping wood, lo! when Sabbath came I was still twelve miles away,
+and durst not profane the Sabbath by walking. So I lingered that
+Friday night in a village, thanking God I had at least the money for a
+bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money. And all next day, I
+know not why, the street-boys called me a _Goy_ (heathen) and a
+fox--'Goy-Fox, Goy-Fox!'--and they let off fireworks in my face. So I
+had to wander in the woods around, keeping within the Sabbath radius,
+and when the three stars appeared in the sky I started for Brighton.
+But so footsore was I, I came there only at midnight, and could not
+search. And I sat down on a bench; it was very cold, but I was so
+tired. But the policeman came and drove me away--he was God's
+messenger, for I should perchance have died--and a drunken female with
+a painted face told him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. How
+could I refuse? I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday morning I
+started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; but my heart
+grew sick, for I saw the shops were shut. At last I saw a jewellery
+shop and my _Landsmann's_ name over it. It sparkled with gold and
+diamonds, and little bills were spread over it--'Great sale! Great
+sale!' Then I went joyfully to the door, but lo! it was bolted. So I
+knocked and knocked, and at last a woman came from above, and told me
+he lived in that road in Hove, where I found indeed my redeemer, but
+not my _Landsmann_. It was a great house, with steps up and steps
+down. I went down to a great door, and there came out a beautiful
+heathen female with a shining white cap on her head and a shining
+white apron, and she drove me away.
+
+'Goy-Fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath and slammed the door
+on my heart; and I sat down on the pavement without, and I became a
+pillar of salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw the
+Angel of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE PICTURE EVOLVES
+
+
+Such was my model's simple narrative, the homely realism of which
+appealed to me on my most imaginative side, for through all its sordid
+details stood revealed to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it
+Heine or another who said 'The people of Christ is the Christ of
+peoples'? At any rate, such was the idea that began to take possession
+of me as I painted away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried
+model--to paint, not the Christ that I had started out to paint, but
+the Christ incarnated in a race, suffering--and who knew that He did
+not suffer over again?--in its Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could
+still be my model, but after another conception altogether.
+
+It was an idea that called for no change in what I had already done.
+For I had worked mainly upon the head, and now that I purposed to
+clothe the figure in its native gaberdine, there would be little to
+re-draw. And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling even
+safer now that I was painting and interpreting a real thing than when
+I was trying to reconstruct retrospectively the sacred figure that had
+walked in Galilee.
+
+And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new conception than I found
+everywhere how old it was. It appeared even to have Scriptural
+warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture
+by a Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of the passages
+in the Prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming
+Messiah, really applied to Israel, the people. Israel it was whom
+Isaiah, in that famous fifty-third chapter, had described as 'despised
+and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.' Israel it was who bore the
+sins of the world. 'He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he
+opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Yes,
+Israel was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German Professor,
+I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic opinion. My model proved a mine
+of lore upon this as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish
+expectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he said--that the
+_Messhiach_ would come riding upon a white ass. Israel would be
+redeemed by itself, though his neighbours would have called the
+sentiment 'epicurean.'
+
+'Whoever saves me is my _Messhiach_,' he declared suddenly, and
+plucked at my hand to kiss it.
+
+'Now, you shock _me_,' I said, pushing him away.
+
+'No, no,' he said; 'I agree with the word of the moujik: "the good
+people _are_ God."'
+
+'Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,' I said.
+
+'Yes,' he replied; 'now that you have saved me, I see that God works
+only through men. As for the _Messhiach_ on the white ass, they do not
+really believe it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. For
+my own part, when I say the prayer, "Blessed be Thou who restorest the
+dead to life," I always mean it of _you_.'
+
+Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satisfied the greediest
+benefactor, and was infinitely in excess of what he owed me. He seemed
+unconscious that he was doing work, journeying punctually long miles
+to my studio in any and every weather. It is true that I early helped
+him to redeem his household gods, but could I do less for a man who
+had still no bed to sleep in?
+
+My recovery of the Rotterdam bundle served to unveil further
+complications. The agents at the East End charged him three shillings
+and sixpence per letter, and conducted the business with a fine legal
+delay. But it was not till Kazelia was eulogized by one of these
+gentry as a very fine man that both the model and I grew suspicious
+that the long chain of roguery reached even unto London, and that the
+confederates on this side were playing for time, so that the option
+should expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage, which they
+would doubtless buy in cheap, making another profit.
+
+Ultimately Quarriar told me his second daughter--for the eldest was
+blind of one eye--was prepared to journey alone to Rotterdam, as the
+safest way of redeeming the goods. Admiring her pluck, I added her
+fare to the expenses.
+
+One fine morning Israel appeared, transfigured with happiness.
+
+'When does man rejoice most?' he cried. 'When he loses and finds
+again.'
+
+'Ah, then you have got your bedding at last,' I cried, now accustomed
+to his methods of expression. 'I hope you slept well.'
+
+'We could not sleep for blessing you,' he replied unexpectedly. 'As
+the Psalmist says, "All my bones praise the Lord!"'
+
+Not that the matter had gone smoothly even now. The Kazelia gang at
+Rotterdam denied all knowledge of the luggage, sent the girl to the
+railway, where the dues had now mounted to £10 6s. Again the cup was
+dashed from her lips, for I had only given her £9. But she went to the
+Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the balance to repledge the Sabbath
+silver candlesticks that were the one family heirloom in the bundle,
+and therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading with him, in
+came a noble Jew, paid the balance, lodged her and fed her, and saw
+her safely on board with the long-lost treasures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I BECOME A SORTER
+
+
+As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress I was making
+was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my
+picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several
+times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its
+advancing stages with a sort of hopeless fear. My anxiety about him
+and his family grew from day to day, but I could not see any possible
+way of helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and
+uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. Once I gave him a few
+shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were
+necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the
+Ghetto Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned
+me the balance--about two-thirds.
+
+I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir Asher Aaronsberg,
+the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in
+town in connection with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how
+indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish charities, I
+inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist
+Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very encouraging. The man knew no trade.
+However, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer
+the questions, he would see what could be done. I saw that the details
+were duly filled in--the ages and sex of his five children, etc.
+
+But the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they
+could do was to repatriate the man. 'Return to Russia!' cried Israel
+in horror.
+
+Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to
+him. But he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own
+accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the
+majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again
+came a fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be given a
+week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working
+master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms
+on the top floor. But that was only when there was an extra spasm of
+activity. His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the
+landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.
+
+At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that
+was carefully worked out in all its details. The scheme was certainly
+a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing
+a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among
+these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible
+conditions.
+
+Briefly his scheme was this. In the innumerable tailors' workshops of
+his district great piles of cuttings of every kind and quality of
+cloth accumulated, and for the purchase of these cuttings a certain
+competition existed among a class of people, known as piece-sorters.
+The sale of these cuttings by weight and for cash brought the
+master-tailors a pleasant little revenue, which was the more prized as
+it was a sort of perquisite. The masters were able to command payment
+for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect
+them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount he had advanced
+was exhausted. Quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be
+able to employ his daughters too. The whole family would find
+occupation in sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size
+would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven again into the
+cheaper woollen materials. Through the recommendation of his
+countrymen, there were several tailors who had readily agreed to give
+him the preference. His own landlord in particular had promised to
+befriend him, and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate at
+some inconvenience, since he might have had ready money for them.
+Moreover, his friends had introduced him to a very respectable and
+honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, teach him, and
+allow his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put down
+twenty pounds! His friends would jointly advance him eight on the
+security of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other
+twelve.
+
+This promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, and I hastened,
+somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the professional philanthropist,
+who had been so barren of ideas, with my intention to set up Quarriar
+as a piece-sorter.
+
+'Ah,' Sir Asher replied, unmoved. 'Then you had better employ my man
+Conn; he does a good deal of this sort of work for me. He will find
+Quarriar a partner and professor.'
+
+'But Quarriar has already found a partner.' I explained the scheme.
+
+'The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is ridiculous. Five pounds
+is quite enough. Take my advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I
+wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an
+amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell
+Conn I gave them. I don't believe the money'll do any good, and Conn
+will lose his respect for me.'
+
+My interest in piece-sorting--an occupation I had never even heard of
+before--had grown abnormally, and I had gone into the figures and
+quantities--so many hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings,
+sorted into lots, and sold at various prices--with as thorough-going
+an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to depend upon it.
+
+I confess I was now rather bewildered by so serious a difference of
+estimate as to the cost of a partnership, but I was inclined to set
+down Sir Asher's scepticism to that pessimism which is the penalty of
+professional philanthropy.
+
+On the other hand, I felt that whether the partnership was to cost
+five pounds or twenty, Quarriar's future would be safer from Kazelias
+under the auspices of Sir Asher and his Conn. So I handed the latter
+the five pounds, and bade him find Quarriar a guide, philosopher, and
+partner.
+
+With the advent of Conn, all my troubles began, and the picture passed
+into its third and last stage.
+
+I soon elicited that Quarriar and his friends were rather sorry Conn
+had been introduced into the matter. He was alleged to favour some
+people at the expense of others, and to be not at all popular among
+the people amid whom he worked. And altogether it was abundantly clear
+that Quarriar would rather have gone on with the scheme in his own way
+without official interference.
+
+Later, Sir Asher wrote to me direct that the partner put forward by
+the Quarriar faction was a shady customer; Conn had selected his own
+man, but even so there was little hope Quarriar's future would be thus
+provided for.
+
+There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of Quarriar sounding
+underneath, but I found comfort in the reflection that to Sir Asher my
+model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance,
+whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he
+was something infinitely more human.
+
+Spring was now nearing; I finished my picture early in March--after
+four months' strenuous labour--shook hands with my model, and received
+his blessing. I was somewhat put out at learning that Conn had not yet
+given him the five pounds necessary to start him, as I had been hoping
+he might begin his new calling immediately the sittings ended. I gave
+him a small present to help tide over the time of waiting.
+
+But that tragic face on my own canvas remained to haunt me, to ask the
+question of his future, and few days elapsed ere I found myself
+starting out to visit him at his home. He lived near Ratcliffe
+Highway, a district which I found had none of that boisterous marine
+romance with which I had associated it.
+
+The house was a narrow building of at least the sixteenth century,
+with the number marked up in chalk on the rusty little door. I
+happened to have stumbled on the Jewish Passover. Quarriar was called
+down, evidently astonished and unprepared for my appearance at his
+humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow,
+steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as I climbed up
+after him. On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment,
+intercepted us, introduced himself in English (which he spoke with
+pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took
+possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were
+entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his
+attic.
+
+He was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness and vigour--a
+marked contrast to Quarriar's drooping, dignified figure standing
+silently near by, and radiating poverty and suffering all the more in
+the little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved walnut
+cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed birds. Effusively the
+master-tailor painted himself as the champion of the poor fellow, and
+protested against this outside partnership that was being imposed on
+him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though he could scarcely afford
+it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from
+other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn't see
+why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should
+benefit by this goodness of his. He discoursed to me in moved terms of
+the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms
+upstairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his attitude of
+drooping dignity, saying no syllable except under special appeal.
+
+The landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub for the benefit of the
+high-born visitor, and we all clinked glasses, the young master-tailor
+beaming at me unctuously as he set down his glass.
+
+'I love company,' he cried, with no apparent consciousness of impudent
+familiarity.
+
+I returned, however, to my central interest in life--the
+piece-sorting. It occurred to me afterwards that possibly I ought not
+to have insisted on such a secular subject on a Jewish holiday, but,
+after all, the landlord had broached it, and both men now entered most
+cordially into the discussion. The landlord started repeating his
+lament--what a pity it would be if Quarriar were really forced to
+accept Conn's partner--when Quarriar timidly blurted out that he had
+already signed the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received
+the promised capital from Conn, nor spoken over matters with the
+partner provided. The landlord seemed astonished and angry at learning
+this, pricking up his ears curiously at the word 'signed,' and giving
+Quarriar a look of horror.
+
+'Signed!' he cried in Yiddish. '_What_ hast thou signed?'
+
+At this point the landlord's wife joined us in the parlour, with a
+pretty child in her arms and another shy one clinging to her skirts,
+completing the picture of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into
+greater shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed my way
+up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly prepared for the depressing
+spectacle that awaited me at their summit. It was not so much the
+shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses,
+a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of Passover cakes,
+as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and
+flushing before their important visitor. The wife-and-mother was
+dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were squat, with
+tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely suggestive of Caucasian peasants,
+while the sightless eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness.
+
+How little my academic friends know me who imagine I am allured by the
+ugly! It is only that sometimes I see through it a beauty that they
+are blind to. But here I confess I saw nothing but the ghastly misery
+and squalor, and I was oppressed almost to sickness as much by the
+scene as by the atmosphere.
+
+'May I open a window?' I could not help inquiring.
+
+The genial landlord, who had followed in my footsteps, rushed to
+anticipate me, and when I could breathe more freely, I found something
+of the tragedy that had been swallowed in the sordidness. My eye fell
+again on the figure of my host standing in his drooping majesty, the
+droop being now necessary to avoid striking the ceiling with his
+kingly head.
+
+Surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would have detracted from
+the splendour of the tragedy. Israel stood there, surrounded by all
+that was mean, yet losing nothing of his regal dignity--indeed the Man
+of Sorrows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ere I left I suddenly remembered to ask after the three younger
+children. They were still with their kind benefactor, the father told
+me.
+
+'I suppose you will resume possession of them when you make your
+fortune by the piece-sorting?' I said.
+
+'God grant it,' he replied. 'My bowels yearn for that day.'
+
+Against my intention I slipped into his hand the final seven pounds I
+was prepared to pay. 'If your partnership scheme fails, try again
+alone,' I said.
+
+His blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. His womankind
+remained shy and dumb.
+
+When I got home I found a telegram from the Parsonage. My father was
+dangerously ill. I left everything and hastened to help nurse him. My
+picture was not sent in to any Exhibition--I could not let it go
+without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. When, some
+months later, I returned to town, my first thought--inspired by the
+sight of my picture--was how Quarriar was faring. I left the studio
+and telephoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at the London office of his
+great Middleton business.
+
+'That!' His contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'Smashed up
+long ago. Just as I expected.'
+
+And the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated
+triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I could recover my composure
+Sir Asher was cut off. In the evening I received a note saying
+Quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of
+spirits. He had only two, at most three, elderly daughters; the three
+younger girls were a myth. For a moment I was staggered; then all my
+faith in Israel returned. Those three children a figment of the
+imagination! Impossible! Why, I remembered countless little anecdotes
+about these very children, told me with the most evident fatherly
+pride. He had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made
+on her return home from her first morning at the English school.
+Impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of
+the moment. No; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my
+model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no
+reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not
+demanded anything. And then I remembered that tragic passage
+describing how these three little ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly
+soul, hid themselves when their father came to see them, fearing to be
+reclaimed by him to hunger and cold. If Quarriar could invent such
+things, he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of
+starvation I could recall no better touch.
+
+I went to Sir Asher. He said that Quarriar, challenged by Conn to
+produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further
+questions. I found myself approving of his conduct. 'A man ought not
+to be insulted by such absurd charges,' I said. Sir Asher merely
+smiled and took up his usual unshakable position behind his
+impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism.
+
+I wrote to Quarriar to call on me without delay. He came immediately,
+his head bowed, his features care-worn and full of infinite suffering.
+Yes, it was true; the piece-sorting had failed. For a few weeks all
+had gone well. He had bought cuttings himself, had given the partner
+thrust upon him by Conn various sums for the same purpose. They had
+worked together, sorting in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which
+his partner kept the key. So smoothly had things gone that he had felt
+encouraged to invest even the reserve seven pounds I had given him,
+but when the cellar was full of their common stock, and his own
+suspicions had been lulled by the regular division of the
+profits--seventeen shillings per week for each--one morning, on
+arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he found the place
+locked, and when he called at the partner's house for an explanation,
+the man laughed in his face. Everything in the cellar now belonged to
+him, he claimed, insisting that Quarriar had eaten up the original
+capital and his share of the profits besides.
+
+'Besides, it never _was_ your money,' was the rogue's ultimate
+argument. 'Why shouldn't _I_ profit, too, by the Christian's
+simplicity?'
+
+Conn blindly believed his own man, for the transactions had not been
+recorded in writing, and it was only a case of Quarriar's word against
+the partner's. It was the latter who in his venomous craft had told
+Conn the younger children did not exist. But, thank Heaven! his quiver
+was not empty of them. He had blissfully taken them home when
+prosperity began, but now that he was again face to face with
+starvation, they had returned to his hospitable countryman, Nathan
+Beck.
+
+'You are sure you could absolutely produce the little ones?'
+
+He looked grieved at my distrusting him. My faith in his probity was,
+he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. I
+dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly
+determined that the man's good name should be cleared. The crocodile
+partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of
+Conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly
+sanctioned. Again I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher replied
+kindly and without a trace of impatience. Would I get some
+intelligible written statement from Quarriar as to what had taken
+place?
+
+So, at my request, Quarriar sent me a statement in quaint
+English--probably the landlord's--alleging specifically that the
+partner had detained goods and money belonging to Quarriar to the
+amount of £7 9s. 5d., and had assaulted him into the bargain. When the
+partner was threatened with police-court proceedings, he had defied
+Quarriar with the remark that Mr. Conn would bear out his honesty.
+Quarriar could give as references, to show that _he_ was an honest man
+and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven
+Russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by Conn
+was well known as a swindler. Though he was starving, Quarriar refused
+to have anything further to say to Conn. Quarriar further referred to
+his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. But being
+afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit himself in writing, the
+landlord would give his version verbally.
+
+Against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as
+made by the partner. Quarriar, according to this, had received the
+five pounds direct from Conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to
+the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two separate sums of
+one pound each (of which he returned to Quarriar thirty-three
+shillings from sales), while Quarriar only gave him as his share of
+the profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen
+shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each week that had
+been arranged.
+
+The partner insisted further that he had never handled any money (of
+which Quarriar had always retained full control), and that all the
+goods in the cellar at the time of the quarrel were only of the value
+of ten shillings, to which he was entitled, as Quarriar still owed him
+thirty-three shillings. Moreover, he was willing to repeat in
+Quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to
+tell. As to the children, he challenged Quarriar to produce them.
+
+In vain I attempted to grapple with these conflicting documents. My
+head was in a whirl. It seemed to me that no judicial bench, however
+eminent, could, from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom
+of this matter. The arithmetic of both parties was hopelessly beyond
+me. The names of the witnesses introduced showed that there must be
+two camps, and that certainly Quarriar was solidly encamped amid his
+advisers.
+
+The whole business was taking on a most painful complexion, and I was
+torn by conflicting emotions and swayed alternately by suspicion and
+confidence.
+
+How sift the false from the true amid all this tangled mass? And yet
+mere curiosity would not leave me content to go to my grave not
+knowing whether my model was apostle or Ananias. I, too, must then
+become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. Was there a black
+rag, and was there a white, or were both rags parti-coloured? To take
+only the one point of the children, it would seem a very simple matter
+to determine whether a man has five daughters or two; and yet the more
+I looked into it, the more I saw the complexity. Even if three little
+girls were produced for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for
+me to tell whether they really were the model's. Nor was it open to me
+to repeat the device of Solomon and have them hacked in two to see
+whose heart would be moved.
+
+And then, if Israel's story was false here, what of the rest? Was
+Kazelia also a myth? Did the second daughter ever go to Hamburg? Was
+the landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the
+attics to be emptied of any comforts? Where were the silver
+candlesticks? These and other questions surged up torturingly. But I
+remembered the footsore figure on the Brighton pavement; I remembered
+the months he had practically lived with me, the countless
+conversations, and as the Man of Sorrows rose reproachful before me
+from my own canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his dignity
+and probity returned unbroken.
+
+I called on Sir Asher--I had to go to the House of Commons to find
+him--and his practical mind quickly suggested the best course in the
+circumstances. He appointed a date for all parties--himself, myself,
+Conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring--to
+appear at his office. But, above all, Quarriar must bring the three
+children with him.
+
+On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar waiting for me. He was
+come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of
+underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he
+scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. He
+was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend Conn
+and Sir Asher, might turn against him. Even his landlord had
+threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to pay his rent the
+last week or two.
+
+I told him he might expect a letter asking him to attend at Sir
+Asher's office, that I should be there, and he should have an
+opportunity of facing his swindling partner. He welcomed it joyfully,
+and enthusiastically promised to obey the call and bring the children.
+I emptied my purse into his hand--there were three or four pounds--and
+he promised me that quite apart from the old tangle, he could now as
+an expert set up as a piece-sorter himself. And so his kingly figure
+passed out of my sight.
+
+The next document sent me in this _cause célèbre_ was a letter from
+Conn to announce that he had made all arrangements for the great
+meeting.
+
+'Sir Asher's private room in his office will be placed at the disposal
+of the inquiry. The original application form filled up by Quarriar
+clearly condemns him. The partner will be there, and I have arranged
+for Quarriar's landlord to appear if you think it necessary. I may
+add that I have very good reason to believe that Quarriar does not
+mean to appear. I fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the
+appointment.'
+
+I at once wrote a short note to Quarriar reminding him of the absolute
+necessity of appearing with the children, who should be even kept away
+from school.
+
+I reproduce the exact reply:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'Referring to your welcome letter, I gratify you very much for
+    the trouble you have taken for me. But I'm sorry to tell you
+    that I refuse to go before the committee according you
+    arranged to, as I received a letter without any name
+    threatening me that I should not dare to call for the
+    committee to tell the truth for I will be put into mischief
+    and trouble. It is stated also that the same gentleman does
+    not require the truth. He helps only those he likes to. So I
+    will not call and wish you my dear gentleman not to trouble to
+    come. Therefore if you wish to assist me in somehow is very
+    good and I will certainly gratify you and if not I will have
+    to do without it, and will have to trust the Almighty. So
+    kindly do not trouble about it as I do not wish to enter a
+    risk, I remain your humble and grateful servant,
+
+                                                'ISRAEL QUARRIAR.
+
+    'P.S.--Last Wednesday a man called on my landlord and asked
+    him some secrets about me, and told him at last that I shall
+    have to state according I will be commanded to and not as I
+    wish. I enclose you herewith the same letter I received, it is
+    written in Jewish. Please not to show it to anyone but to
+    tear it at once as I would not trust it to any other one. I
+    would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. But
+    my life is dearer. So you should not trouble to come. I fear
+    already I gratify you for kind help till now, in the future
+    you may do as you wish.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LAST STAGE OF ALL
+
+
+This letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. Conn to English the
+Yiddish epistle. My imagination saw too clearly Quarriar himself
+dictating its luridly romantic phraseology. Such counter-plots, coils,
+treasons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! How Quarriar could
+even think them plausible I could not at first imagine; and with my
+anger was mingled a flush of resentment at his low estimate of my
+intellect.
+
+After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a Russian to whom
+apparently nothing mediĉval was strange. But at the moment I had only
+the sense of outrage and trickery. All these months I had been fed
+upon lies. Day after day I had been swathed with them as with
+feathers. I had so pledged my reputation as a reader of character that
+he would appear with his three younger children, bear every test, and
+be triumphantly vindicated. And in that moment of hot anger and
+wounded pride I had almost slashed through my canvas and mutilated
+beyond redemption that kingly head. But it looked at me sadly with
+its sweet majesty, and I stayed my hand, almost persuaded to have
+faith in it still. I began multiplying excuses for Quarriar, figuring
+him as misled by his neighbours, more skilled than he in playing upon
+philanthropic heart-strings; he had been told, doubtless, that two
+daughters made no impression upon the flinty heart of bureaucratic
+charity, that in order to soften it one must 'increase and multiply.'
+He had got himself into a network of falsehood from which, though his
+better nature recoiled, he had been unable to disentangle himself. But
+then I remembered how even in Russia he had pursued an illegal
+calling, how he had helped a friend to evade military service, and
+again I took up my knife. But the face preserved its reproachful
+dignity, seemed almost to turn the other cheek. Illegal calling! No;
+it was the law that was illegal--the cruel, impossible law, that in
+taking away all means of livelihood had contorted the Jew's
+conscience. It was the country that was illegal--the cruel country
+whose frontiers could only be crossed by bribery and deceit--the
+country that had made him cunning like all weak creatures in the
+struggle for survival. And so, gradually softer thoughts came to me,
+and less unmingled feelings. I could not doubt the general accuracy of
+his melancholy wanderings between Russia and Rotterdam, between London
+and Brighton. And were he spotless as the dove, that only made surer
+the blackness of Kazelia and the partner--his brethren in Israel and
+in the Exile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the new Man of Sorrows shaped himself to my vision. And, taking
+my brush, I added a touch here and a touch there till there came into
+that face of sorrows a look of craft and guile. And as I stood back
+from my work, I was startled to see how nearly I had come to a
+photographic representation of my model; for those lines of guile had
+indeed been there, though I had eliminated them in my confident
+misrepresentation. Now that I had exaggerated them, I had idealized,
+so to speak, in the reverse direction. And the more I pondered upon
+this new face, the more I saw that this return to a truer homeliness
+and a more real realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty.
+For surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people of
+Christ--to have persisted sublimely, and to be as sordidly perverted;
+to be king and knave in one; to survive for two thousand years the
+loss of a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on
+its soul the yellow badge which had defaced its garments.
+
+For to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a privilege that has
+been accorded only to Israel--'the soldier of God.' That were no
+tragedy, but an heroic epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had
+prefigured. The true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom
+of an Israel _unworthy of his sufferings_. And this was the
+Israel--the high tragedian in the comedy sock--that I tried humbly to
+typify in my Man of Sorrows.
+
+
+
+
+ANGLICIZATION
+
+
+
+
+ANGLICIZATION
+
+    'English, all English, that's my dream.'
+                               CECIL RHODES.
+
+
+I
+
+Even in his provincial days at Sudminster Solomon Cohen had
+distinguished himself by his Anglican mispronunciation of Hebrew and
+his insistence on a minister who spoke English and looked like a
+Christian clergyman; and he had set a precedent in the congregation by
+docking the 'e' of his patronymic. There are many ways of concealing
+from the Briton your shame in being related through a pedigree of
+three thousand years to Aaron, the High Priest of Israel, and Cohn is
+one of the simplest and most effective. Once, taken to task by a
+pietist, Solomon defended himself by the quibble that Hebrew has no
+vowels. But even this would not account for the whittling away of his
+'Solomon.' 'S. Cohn' was the insignium over his clothing
+establishment. Not that he was anxious to deny his Jewishness--was not
+the shop closed on Saturdays?--he was merely anxious not to obtrude
+it. 'When we are in England, we are in England,' he would say, with
+his Talmudic sing-song.
+
+S. Cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of Sudminster, and his
+name had been printed on voting papers, and, what is more, he had at
+last become a Town Councillor. Really the citizens liked his stanch
+adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly by his Sabbath
+shutters: even the Christian clothiers bore him goodwill, not
+suspecting that S. Cohn's Saturday losses were more than
+counterbalanced by the general impression that a man who sacrificed
+business to religion would deal more fairly by you than his fellows.
+And his person, too, had the rotundity which the ratepayer demands.
+
+But twin with his Town Councillor's pride was his pride in being
+_Gabbai_ (treasurer) of the little synagogue tucked away in a back
+street: in which for four generations prayer had ebbed and flowed as
+regularly as the tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the
+worshippers did such lucrative business. The synagogue, not the sea,
+was the poetry of these eager traffickers: here they wore phylacteries
+and waved palm-branches and did other picturesque things, which in
+their utter ignorance of Catholic or other ritual they deemed
+unintelligible to the heathen and a barrier from mankind. Very
+imposing was Solomon Cohn in his official pew under the reading
+platform, for there is nothing which so enhances a man's dignity in
+the synagogue as the consideration of his Christian townsmen. That is
+one of the earliest stages of Anglicization.
+
+
+II
+
+Mrs. Cohn was a pale image of Mr. Cohn, seeing things through his gold
+spectacles, and walking humbly in the shadow of his greatness. She had
+dutifully borne him many children, and sat on the ground for such as
+died. Her figure refused the Jewess's tradition of opulency, and
+remained slender as though repressed. Her work was manifold and
+unceasing, for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties she was
+necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with Jewish charities as the
+_Gabbai's_ wife, tangled with Christian charities as the consort of
+the Town Councillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching up
+his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her slips in speaking the
+Councillor's English. He had had the start of her by five years, for
+she had been brought from Poland to marry him, through the good
+offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little dowry the nucleus of
+a thriving shop in a thriving port.
+
+And from this initial inferiority she never recovered--five milestones
+behind on the road of Anglicization! It was enough to keep down a more
+assertive personality than poor Hannah's. The mere danger of slipping
+back unconsciously to the banned Yiddish put a curb upon her tongue.
+Her large, dark eyes had a dog-like look, and they were set
+pathetically in a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense
+staying power.
+
+That S. Cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be denied. It is
+difficult to combine the offices of _Gabbai_ and Town Councillor
+without a self-satisfaction that may easily degenerate into
+dissatisfaction with others. Least endurable was S. Cohn in his
+religious rigidity, and he could never understand that pietistic
+exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce
+ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was discovered reading
+'The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book,
+the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's
+breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having
+ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would
+accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen
+back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. The quartering
+and burning of these tales in an avenging fireplace was not the least
+of the reasons why the whipped youth wept, and it needed several
+pieces of cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the father's
+back was turned, to choke his sobs.
+
+
+III
+
+With the daughters--and there were three before the son and
+heir--there was less of religious friction, since women have not the
+pious privileges and burdens of the sterner sex. When the eldest,
+Deborah, was married, her husband received, by way of compensation,
+the goodwill of the Sudminster business, while S. Cohn migrated to the
+metropolis, in the ambition of making 'S. Cohn's trouserings' a
+household word. He did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the
+Holloway Road.
+
+Gradually he came to live away from his business, and in the most
+fashionable street of Highbury. But he was never to recover his
+exalted posts. The London parish had older inhabitants, the local
+synagogue richer members. The cry for Anglicization was common
+property. From pioneer, S. Cohn found himself outmoded. The minister,
+indeed, was only too English--and especially his wife. One would
+almost have thought from their deportment that they considered
+themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the congregation. S.
+Cohn had been accustomed to a series of clergymen, who must needs be
+taught painfully to parrot 'Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, the
+Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family'--the
+indispensable atom of English in the service--so that he, the expert,
+had held his breath while they groped and stumbled along the
+precipitous pass. Now the whilom _Gabbai_ and Town Councillor found
+himself almost patronized--as a poor provincial--by this mincing,
+genteel clerical couple. He retorted by animadverting upon the
+preacher's heterodoxy.
+
+An urban unconcern met the profound views so often impressed on Simon
+with a strap. 'We are not in Poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging
+his shoulders.
+
+'In Poland!' S. Cohn's blood boiled. To be twitted with Poland, after
+decades of Anglicization! He, who employed a host of Anglo-Saxon
+clerks, counter-jumpers, and packers! 'And where did _your_ father
+come from?' he retorted hotly.
+
+He had almost a mind to change his synagogue, but there was no other
+within such easy walking distance--an important Sabbatic
+consideration--and besides, the others were reported to be even worse.
+Dread rumours came of a younger generation that craved almost openly
+for organs in the synagogue and women's voices in the choir, nay, of
+even more flagitious spirits--devotional dynamitards--whose dream was
+a service all English, that could be understood instead of chanted!
+Dark mutterings against the ancient Rabbis were in the very air of
+these wealthier quarters of London.
+
+'Oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' S. Cohn was wont to
+complain, 'that does not know the limits of Anglicization!'
+
+
+IV
+
+That Simon should enter his father's business was as inevitable as
+that the business should prosper in spite of Simon.
+
+His career had been settled ere his father became aware that Highbury
+aspired even to law and medicine, and the idea that Simon's education
+was finished was not lightly to be dislodged. Simon's education
+consisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools for the sons of
+tradesmen, while a long course of penny dreadfuls had given him a
+peculiar and extensive acquaintance with the ways of the world.
+Carefully curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his elementary
+Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his conception of the perfect
+Englishman. Ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so
+thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and restaurants!
+'We are emancipated now,' was his cry: 'we have too much intellect to
+keep all those old laws;' and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a
+fine spiritual glow, which somehow or other would not extend to bacon.
+That stuck more in his throat, and so was only taken in self-defence,
+to avoid the suspicions of a convivial company.
+
+As he sat at his father's side in the synagogue--a demure son of the
+Covenant--this young Englishman lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even
+as beneath his prayer-book had lurked 'The Pirates of Pechili.'
+
+In this hidden life Mrs. S. Cohn was not an aider or abettor, except
+in so far as frequent gifts from her own pocket-money might be
+considered the equivalent of the surreptitious cake of childhood. She
+would have shared in her husband's horror had she seen Simon
+banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy would have been
+original, not derivative. For her, indeed, London had proved narrowing
+rather than widening. She became part of a parish instead of part of a
+town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that! The vast background of
+London was practically a mirage--the London suburb was farther from
+London than the provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic
+life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family affairs, excluded
+even from the ladies' committee. Her lord's life, too, shrank, though
+his business extended--the which, uneasily suspected, did but increase
+his irritability. He had now the pomp and pose of his late offices
+minus any visible reason: a Sir Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen
+without authority.
+
+Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to clothe them had soon
+procured in London, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed
+under the Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own.
+Home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies
+grew the stronger by compression. He read 'the largest circulation,'
+and his wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions, never
+nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the Boer War
+began.
+
+'The impertinent rascals!' cried S. Cohn furiously. 'They have invaded
+our territory.'
+
+'Is it possible?' ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. 'This comes of our kindness to
+them after Majuba!'
+
+
+V
+
+A darkness began to overhang the destinies of Britain. Three defeats
+in one week!
+
+'It is humiliating,' said S. Cohn, clenching his fist.
+
+'It makes a miserable Christmas,' said Mrs. Cohn gloomily. Although
+her spouse still set his face against the Christmas pudding which had
+invaded so many Anglo-Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window
+flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his consciousness than the
+Jewish holidays, which produced no impression on the life of the
+streets.
+
+The darkness grew denser. Young men began to enlist for the front: the
+City formed a new regiment of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his
+foreign houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent out several
+parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and had the same duly
+recorded in his favourite Christian newspaper, whence it was copied
+into his favourite Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more
+chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher Aaronsberg, M.P.
+for Middleton, who was equipping a local corps at his own expense.
+Gradually S. Cohn became aware that the military fever of which he
+read in both his organs was infecting his clothing emporium--that his
+own counter-jumpers were in heats of adventurous resolve. The military
+microbes must have lain thick in the khaki they handled. At any rate,
+S. Cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of the correct thing,
+announced that he would present a bonus to all who went out to fight
+for their country, and that he would keep their places open for their
+return. The Saturday this patriotic offer was recorded in his
+newspaper--'On inquiry at S. Cohn's, the great clothing purveyor of
+the Holloway Road, our representative was informed that no less than
+five of the young men were taking advantage of their employer's
+enthusiasm for England and the Empire'--the already puffed-up Solomon
+had the honour of being called to read in the Law, and first as
+befitted the sons of Aaron. It was a man restored almost to his
+provincial pride who recited the ancient benediction; 'Blessed art
+Thou, O Lord our God, who hast chosen us from among all peoples and
+given to us His law.'
+
+But there was a drop of vinegar in the cup.
+
+'And why wasn't Simon in synagogue?' he inquired of his wife, as she
+came down the gallery stairs to meet her lord in the lobby, where the
+congregants loitered to chat.
+
+'Do I know?' murmured Mrs. Cohn, flushing beneath her veil.
+
+'When I left the house he said he was coming on.'
+
+'He didn't know you were to be "called up."'
+
+'It isn't that, Hannah,' he grumbled. 'Think of the beautiful
+war-sermon he missed. In these dark days we should be thinking of our
+country, not of our pleasures.' And he drew her angrily without, where
+the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchanging eulogiums on
+the 'Rule Britannia' sermon, made an Oriental splotch of colour on the
+wintry pavement.
+
+
+VI
+
+At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast.
+
+'Where have you been?' thundered S. Cohn, who, never growing older,
+imagined Simon likewise stationary.
+
+'I went out for a walk--it was a fine morning.'
+
+'And where did you go?'
+
+'Oh, don't bother!'
+
+'But I shall bother. Where did you go?'
+
+He grew sullen. 'It doesn't matter--they won't have me.'
+
+'Who won't have you?'
+
+'The War Office.'
+
+'Thank God!' broke from Mrs. Cohn.
+
+'Eh?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the other.
+
+'It is nothing--he went to see the enlisting and all that. Your soup
+is getting cold.'
+
+But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polishing them
+with his serviette--always a sign of a stormy meal.
+
+'It seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said,
+looking from mother to son.
+
+'Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's madcap ideas,' Hannah
+murmured. 'But it's all over now, thank God!'
+
+'Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 'especially as I am not
+going to be choked off. It's all stuff what the doctor says. I'm as
+strong as a horse. And, what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who
+can ride one.'
+
+'Hannah, will you explain to me what this _Meshuggas_ (madness) is?'
+cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non-Anglicism.
+
+'I've got to go to the front, just like other young men!'
+
+'What!' shrieked S. Cohn. 'Enlist! You, that I brought up as a
+gentleman!'
+
+'It's gentlemen that's going--the City Imperial Volunteers!'
+
+'The volunteers! But that's my own clerks.'
+
+'No; there are gentlemen among them. Read your paper.'
+
+'But not rich Jews.'
+
+'Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.'
+
+'We Jews of this favoured country,' put in Hannah eagerly, 'grateful
+to the noble people who have given us every right, every liberty,
+must----'
+
+S. Cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious quotation from the
+war-sermon of the morning. 'Yes, we must subscribe and all that,' he
+interrupted.
+
+'We must fight,' said Simon.
+
+'You fight!' His father laughed half-hysterically. 'Why, you'd shoot
+yourself with your own gun!' He had not been so upset since the day
+the minister had disregarded his erudition.
+
+'Oh, would I, though?' And Simon pursed his lips and nodded meaningly.
+
+'As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you'd be stuck on your own
+bayonet, like an obstinate pig.'
+
+Simon got up and left the table and the room.
+
+Hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 'There!' she said. 'And
+now he's turned sulky and won't eat.'
+
+'Didn't I say an obstinate pig? He's always been like that from a
+baby. But his stomach always surrenders.' He resumed his meal with a
+wronged air, keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent nervous
+polishing.
+
+Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented himself--gun on
+shoulder. For a moment S. Cohn, devoid of his glasses, stared without
+recognition. Wild hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the
+Russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare sense of the
+_Chappers_, the Jewish man-gatherers who collected the tribute of
+young Jews for the Little Father. But as Simon began to loom through
+the red fog, 'A gun on the Sabbath!' he cried. It was as if the bullet
+had gone through all his conceptions of life and of Simon.
+
+Hannah snatched at the side-issue. 'I read in Josephus--Simon's prize
+for Hebrew, you know--that the Jews fought against the Romans on
+Sabbath.'
+
+'Yes; but they fought for themselves--for our Holy Temple.'
+
+'But it's for ourselves now,' said Simon. 'Didn't you always say we
+are English?'
+
+S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then he discovered he had no
+retort, only anger. And this made him angrier, and his mouth remained
+open, quite terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn.
+
+'What is the use of arguing with him?' she said imploringly. 'The War
+Office has been sensible enough to refuse him.'
+
+'We shall see,' said Simon. 'I am going to peg away at 'em again, and
+if I don't get into the Mounted Infantry, I'm a Dutchman--and of the
+Boer variety.'
+
+He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled father. 'Hannah,
+you must have known of this--these clothes,' S. Cohn spluttered.
+
+'They don't cost anything,' she murmured. 'The child amuses himself.
+He will never really be called out.'
+
+'If he is, I'll stop his supplies.'
+
+'Oh,' said Simon airily, 'the Government will attend to that.'
+
+'Indeed!' And S. Cohn's face grew black. 'But remember--you may go,
+but you shall never come back.'
+
+'Oh, Solomon! How can you utter such an awful omen?'
+
+Simon laughed. 'Don't bother, mother. He's bound to take me back.
+Isn't it in the papers that he promised?'
+
+S. Cohn went from black to green.
+
+
+VII
+
+Simon got his way. The authorities reconsidered their decision. But
+the father would not reconsider his. Ignorant of his boy's graceless
+existence, he fumed at the first fine thing in the boy's life. 'Tis a
+wise father that knows his own child.
+
+Mere emulation of his Christian comrades, and the fun of the thing,
+had long ago induced the lad to add volunteering to his other
+dissipations. But, once in it, the love of arms seized him, and when
+the call for serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised
+even himself leapt to his breast--the first call upon an idealism,
+choked, rather than fed, by a misunderstood Judaism. Anglicization had
+done its work; from his schooldays he had felt himself a descendant,
+not of Judas Maccabĉus, but of Nelson and Wellington; and now that his
+brethren were being mowed down by a kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul
+rose in venomous sympathy. And, mixed with this genuine instinct of
+devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings of anticipated
+adventure, gorgeous visions of charges, forlorn hopes, picked-up
+shells, redoubts stormed; heritages of 'The Pirates of Pechili,' and
+all the military romances that his prayer-book had masked.
+
+He looked every inch an Anglo-Saxon, in his khaki uniform and his
+great slouch hat, with his bayonet and his bandolier.
+
+The night before he sailed for South Africa there was a service in St.
+Paul's Cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent
+his to his father. 'The Lord Mayor will attend in state. I dare say
+you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly.
+
+'He'll become a Christian next,' said S. Cohn, tearing the cards in
+twain.
+
+Later, Mrs. Cohn pieced them together. It was the last chance of
+seeing her boy.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Unfortunately the Cathedral service fell on a Friday night, when S.
+Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont to absorb the Sabbath peace. He
+would sit, after high tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime
+ingredient, dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved
+platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January night, the
+Sabbath arriving early in the afternoon, he was snoring before seven,
+and Mrs. Cohn slipped out, risking his wrath. Her religion forced her
+to make the long journey on foot; but, hurrying, she arrived at St.
+Paul's before the doors were opened. And throughout the long walk was
+a morbid sense of one wasted ticket. She almost stopped at a friend's
+house to offer the exciting spectacle, but dread of a religious rebuff
+carried her past. With Christians she was not intimate enough to
+invite companionship. Besides, would not everybody ask why she was
+going without her husband?
+
+She inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket, and soon found
+herself one of a crowd of parents on the steps. A very genteel crowd,
+she noted with pleasure. Her boy would be in good company. The scraps
+of conversation she caught dealt with a world of alien things--how
+little she was Anglicized, she thought, after all those years! And
+when she was borne forward into the Cathedral, her heart beat with a
+sense of dim, remote glories. To have lived so long in London and
+never to have entered here! She was awed and soothed by the solemn
+vistas, the perspectives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the
+white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, the
+overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but otherwise suggesting
+dim, skyey space.
+
+Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the men. But it did
+not seem to matter. The building kept one's thoughts religious. Around
+the waiting congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral
+rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit some dignitary the
+roar of cheering was heard like a salvo saluting his entry. The Lord
+Mayor and the Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by
+mace-bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded grandeur and
+robes, was a regretful memory of the days when, as a Town Councillor's
+consort, she had at least touched the hem of this unknown historic
+English life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without--that
+exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately into her life. And
+then, a little later, the wild cheers swept into the Cathedral like a
+furious wind, and the thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the
+air, and the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned towards
+the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. How she looked for
+Simon!
+
+The volunteers filed on, filed on--beardless youths mostly, a few with
+a touch of thought in the face, many with the honest nullity of the
+clerk and the shopman, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every
+face set and serious. Ah! at last, there was her Simon--manlier,
+handsomer than them all! But he did not see her: he marched on
+stiffly; he was already sucked up into this strange life. Her heart
+grew heavy. But it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The
+newspapers the next day found fault with the plain music, with the
+responses all in monotone, but to her it was divine. Only the words of
+the opening hymn, which she read in the 'Form of Prayer,' discomforted
+her:
+
+    'Fight the good fight with all thy might,
+    Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right'
+
+But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely like was it to
+the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm! Did they, then, pray the Jewish
+prayers in Christian churches? 'For He shall give His angels charge
+over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.' Ah! how she prayed that for
+Simon!
+
+As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, inaudibly, in
+echoing, vaulted space, she studied the hymns and verses, with their
+insistent Old Testament savour, culminating in the farewell blessing:
+
+'The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon
+you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of His
+countenance upon you and give you peace.'
+
+How often she had heard it in Hebrew from the priests as they blessed
+the other tribes! Her husband himself had chanted it, with uplifted
+palms and curiously grouped fingers. But never before had she felt its
+beauty: she had never even understood its words till she read the
+English of them in the gilt-edged Prayer-Book that marked rising
+wealth. Surely there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving the
+two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended to kneel
+with the others, she felt her knees sinking in surrender to the larger
+life around her.
+
+As the volunteers filed out and the cheers came in, she wormed her way
+nearer to the aisle, scrambling even over backs of chairs in the
+general mellay. This time Simon saw her. He stretched out his martial
+arm and blew her a kiss. Oh, delicious tears, full of heartbreak and
+exaltation! This was their farewell.
+
+She passed out into the roaring crowd, with a fantastic dream-sense of
+a night-sky and a great stone building, dark with age and solemnity,
+and unreal figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and
+hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the procession and became
+part of its marching. She yearned forwards to vague glories, aware of
+a poor past. She ran with the crowd. How they cheered her boy! _Her_
+boy! She saw him carried off on the shoulders of Christian citizens.
+Yes; he was a hero. She was the mother of a hero.
+
+
+IX
+
+The first news she got from him was posted at St. Vincent. He wrote to
+her alone, with a jocose hope that his father would be satisfied with
+his sufferings on the voyage. Not only had the sea been rough, but he
+had suffered diabolically from the inoculation against enteric fever,
+which, even after he had got his sea-legs, kept him to his berth and
+gave him a 'Day of Atonement' thirst.
+
+'Ah!' growled S. Cohn; 'he sees what a fool he's been, and he'll take
+the next boat back.'
+
+'But that would be desertion.'
+
+'Well, he didn't mind deserting the business.'
+
+Mr. Cohn's bewilderment increased with every letter. The boy was
+sleeping in sodden trenches, sometimes without blankets; and instead of
+grumbling at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was not
+getting to the front. Heat and frost, hurricane and dust-storm--nothing
+came amiss. And he described himself as stronger than ever, and poured
+scorn on the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him.
+
+'All the same,' sighed Hannah, 'I do hope they will just be used to
+guard the lines of communication.' She was full of war-knowledge
+acquired with painful eagerness, prattled of Basuto ponies and Mauser
+bullets, pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact position of the armies,
+and marked her war-map with coloured pins.
+
+Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under the pressure
+of so much vivid new life, and from his cheery letters she learned
+much that was not in the papers, especially in those tense days when
+the C.I.V.'S did at last get to the front--and remained there: tales
+of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly poisoned, and oxen
+dropping dead as they dragged the convoys; tales of muddle and
+accident, tales of British soldiers slain by their own protective
+cannon as they lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British
+officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; tales of
+hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and putties worn to rags,
+and all the hidden miseries of uncleanliness and insanitation that
+underlie the glories of war. There were tales, too, of quarter-rations;
+but these she did not read to her husband, lest the mention of
+'bully-beef' should remind him of how his son must be eating forbidden
+food. Once, even, two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the
+battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized those letters and
+read them first. He began to speak of his boy at the war--nay, to read
+the letters to enthralled groups in the synagogue lobby--groups that
+swallowed without reproach the _tripha_ meat cooked in Simon's
+mess-tin.
+
+It was like being _Gabbai_ over again.
+
+Moreover, Simon's view of the Boer was so strictly orthodox as to give
+almost religious satisfaction to the proud parent. 'A canting
+hypocrite, a psalm-singer and devil-dodger, he has no civilization
+worth the name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great trek he
+has acquired, from long intercourse with his Kaffir slaves, many of
+the native's savage traits. In short, a born liar, credulous and
+barbarous, crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.'
+
+'Crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,' repeated S. Cohn,
+pausing impressively. 'Haven't I always said that? The boy only bears
+out what I knew without going there. But hear further! "Is it to be
+wondered at that the Boer farmer, hidden in the vast undulations of
+the endless veldt, with his wife, his children and his slaves, should
+lose all sense of proportion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole
+knowledge filtering through Jo-burgh?"'
+
+As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was suddenly borne in on
+his wife with a stab of insight that he was reading a description of
+himself--nay, of herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great
+world, awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. The
+important voice of her husband broke again upon her reflections:
+
+'"He has held many nights of supplication to his fetish, and is still
+unconvinced that his God of Battles is asleep."' The reader chuckled,
+and a broad smile overspread the synagogue lobby. '"They are
+brave--oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it--they are good
+fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the back of them, and a
+profound contempt for us. Their whole life has been spent on the open
+veldt (we are always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows every
+inch of the ground), and they never risk anything except in the trap
+sort of manoeuvres. The brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to them,
+and their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking into a
+death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there ever two races less alike?"'
+wound up the youthful philosopher in his tent. '"I really do not see
+how they are to live together after the war."'
+
+'That's easy enough,' S. Cohn had already commented to his wife as
+oracularly as if she did not read the same morning paper.
+'Intermarriage! In a generation or two there will be one fine
+Anglo-African race. That's the solution--mark my words. And you can
+tell the boy as much--only don't say I told you to write to him.'
+
+'Father says I'm to tell you intermarriage is the solution,' Mrs. Cohn
+wrote obediently. 'He really is getting much softer towards you.'
+
+'Tell father that's nonsense,' Simon wrote back. 'The worst
+individuals we have to deal with come from a Boer mother and an
+English father, deposited here by the first Transvaal war.'
+
+S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. 'That was because there were
+two Governments--he forgets there will be only one United Empire now.'
+
+He was not appeased till Private Cohn was promoted, and sent home a
+thrilling adventure, which the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby
+to forward to the communal organ. The organ asked for a photograph to
+boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only _Gabbai_, but town councillor again.
+
+This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed printed copies to
+the staff of the Emporium with a bean-feast air, ran:
+
+    'We go out every day--I am speaking of my own squadron--each
+    officer taking his turn with twenty to fifty men, and sweep
+    round the farms a few miles out; and we seldom come back
+    without seeing Boers hanging round on the chance of a snipe at
+    our flanks, or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. The
+    local commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day--a
+    hundred and fifty to our twenty-five--and we suffered; it was
+    a horrible bit of country. There was a young chap,
+    Winstay--rather a pal of mine--he had a narrow squeak, knocked
+    over by a shot in his breast. I managed to get him safe back
+    to camp--Heaven knows how!--and they made me a lance-corporal,
+    and the beggar says I saved his life; but it was really
+    through carrying a fat letter from his sister--not even his
+    sweetheart. We chaff him at missing such a romantic chance.
+    He got off with a flesh wound, but there is a great blot of
+    red ink on the letter. You may imagine we were not anxious to
+    let our comrades go unavenged. My superiors being sick or
+    otherwise occupied, I was allowed to make a night-march with
+    thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away--just to get square.
+    It was a nasty piece of work, as we were within a few miles of
+    the Boer laager, three hundred strong. There was moonlight,
+    too--it was like a dream, that strange, silent ride, with only
+    the stumble of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs.
+    We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some
+    thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. I told the men I
+    wanted no shots--that would have brought down the
+    commando--but cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept
+    the farm--it was weird, but, alas! they were out on the loot.
+    The men were furious, but we live in hopes.'
+
+The end was a trifle disappointing, but S. Cohn, too, lived in
+hopes--of some monstrous and memorable butchery. Even his wife had got
+used to the firing-line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm
+her boy. 'For He shall give His angels charge over thee.' She had come
+to think her secret daily repetition of the ninety-first Psalm
+talismanic.
+
+When Simon sent home the box which had held the chocolates presented
+by the Queen, a Boer bullet, and other curios, S. Cohn displayed them
+in his window, and the crowd and the business they brought him put him
+more and more in sympathy with Simon and the Empire. In conversation
+he deprecated the non-militarism of the Jew: 'If I were only a
+younger man myself, sir....'
+
+The night Mafeking was relieved, the Emporium was decorated with
+bunting from roof to basement, and a great illuminated window revealed
+nothing but stacks of khaki trouserings.
+
+So that, although the good man still sulked over Simon to his wife,
+she was not deceived; and, the time drawing nigh for Simon's return,
+she began to look happily forward to a truly reunited family.
+
+In her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that it was her
+husband who would die. Yet this is what the irony of fate brought to
+pass. In the unending campaign which death wages with life, S. Cohn
+was slain, and Simon returned unscratched from the war to recite the
+_Kaddish_ in his memory.
+
+
+X
+
+Simon came back bronzed and a man. The shock of finding his father
+buried had supplied the last transforming touch; and, somewhat to his
+mother's surprise, he settled down contentedly to the business he had
+inherited. And now that he had practically unlimited money to spend,
+he did not seem to be spending it, but to be keeping better hours than
+when dodging his father's eye. His only absences from home he
+accounted for as visits to Winstay, his pal of the campaign, with whom
+he had got chummier than ever since the affair of the cattle-guard.
+Winstay, he said, was of good English family, with an old house in
+Harrow--fortunately on the London and North Western Railway, so that
+he could easily get a breath of country air on Saturday and Sunday
+afternoons. He seemed to have forgotten (although the Emporium was
+still closed on Saturdays) that riding was forbidden, and his mother
+did not remind him of it. The life that had been risked for the larger
+cause, she vaguely felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the
+smaller.
+
+Nearly two months after Simon's return, a special military service was
+held at the Great Synagogue on the feast of _Chanukah_--the
+commemoration of the heroic days of Judas Maccabĉus--and the Jewish
+C.I.V.'s were among the soldiers invited. Mrs. Cohn, too, got a ticket
+for the imposing ceremony which was fixed for a Sunday afternoon.
+
+As they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day, Mrs. Cohn said
+suddenly: 'Guess who paid me a visit yesterday.'
+
+'Goodness knows,' said Simon.
+
+'Mr. Sugarman.' And she smiled nervously.
+
+'Sugarman?' repeated Simon blankly.
+
+'The--the--er--the matrimonial agent.'
+
+'What impudence! Before your year of mourning is up!'
+
+Mrs. Cohn's sallow face became one flame. 'Not me! You!' she blurted.
+
+'Me! Well, of all the cheek!' And Simon's flush matched his mother's.
+
+'Oh, it's not so unreasonable,' she murmured deprecatingly. 'I suppose
+he thought you would be looking for a wife before long; and
+naturally,' she added, her voice growing bolder, 'I should like to see
+you settled before I follow your father. After all, you are no
+ordinary match. Sugarman says there isn't a girl in Bayswater, even,
+who would refuse you.'
+
+'The very reason for refusing them,' cried Simon hotly. 'What a
+ghastly idea, that your wife would just as soon have married any other
+fellow with the same income!'
+
+Mrs. Cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely exalted by it, as
+by the organ in St. Paul's, and strange tears of shame came to
+complicate her emotions further. She remembered how she had been
+exported from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah! how this new
+young generation was snapping asunder the ancient coils! how the new
+and diviner sap ran in its veins!
+
+'I shall only marry a girl I love, mother. And it's not likely to be
+one of these Jewish girls, I tell you frankly.'
+
+She trembled. 'One of which Jewish girls?' she faltered.
+
+'Oh, any sort. They don't appeal to me.'
+
+Her face grew sallower. 'I am glad your father isn't alive to hear
+that,' she breathed.
+
+'But father said intermarriage is the solution,' retorted Simon.
+
+Mrs. Cohn was struck dumb. 'He was thinking how to make the Boers
+English,' she said at last.
+
+'And didn't he say the Jews must be English, too?'
+
+'Aren't there plenty of Jewish girls who are English?' she murmured
+miserably.
+
+'You mean, who don't care a pin about the old customs? Then where's
+the difference?' retorted Simon.
+
+The meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and Simon went off to don
+his khaki regimentals and join in the synagogue parade.
+
+Mrs. Cohn's heart was heavy as she dressed for the same spectacle. Her
+brain was busy piecing it all together. Yes, she understood it all
+now--those sedulous Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Harrow. She
+lived at Harrow, then, this Christian, this grateful sister of the
+rescued Winstay: it was she who had steadied his life; hers were those
+'fat letters,' faintly aromatic. It must be very wonderful, this
+strange passion, luring her son from his people with its forbidden
+glamour. How Highbury would be scandalized, robbed of so eligible a
+bridegroom! The sons-in-law she had enriched would reproach her for
+the shame imported into the family--they who had cleaved to the Faith!
+And--more formidable than all the rest--she heard the tongue of her
+cast-off seaport, to whose reverence or disesteem she still
+instinctively referred all her triumphs and failures.
+
+Yet, on the other hand, surged her hero-son's scorn at the union by
+contract consecrated by the generations! But surely a compromise could
+be found. He should have love--this strange English thing--but could
+he not find a Jewess? Ah, happy inspiration! he should marry a quite
+poor Jewess--he had money enough, thank Heaven! That would show him he
+was not making a match, that he was truly in love.
+
+But this strange girl at Harrow--he would never be happy with her! No,
+no; there were limits to Anglicization.
+
+
+XI
+
+It was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue, relieved from
+the squeeze of entry in the wake of soldiers and the exhilaration of
+hearing 'See the Conquering Hero comes' pealing, she knew not whence,
+that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to the
+consciousness that she was actually sitting among the men--just as in
+St. Paul's. And what men! Everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms,
+the glister of gold lace--the familiar decorous lines of devout
+top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-skins, white nodding
+plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock, glengarries, all the colour of the
+British army, mixed with the feathered jauntiness of the Colonies and
+the khaki sombreros of the C.I.V.'s! Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards,
+Dragoon Guards, Lancers, Hussars, Artillery, Engineers, King's Royal
+Rifles, all the corps that had for the first time come clearly into
+her consciousness in her tardy absorption into English realities, Jews
+seemed to be among them all. And without conscription--oh, what would
+poor Solomon have thought of that?
+
+The Great Synagogue itself struck a note of modern English gaiety, as
+of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, divested of its historic
+mellowness, the electric light replacing the ancient candles and
+flooding the winter afternoon with white resplendence. The
+pulpit--yes, the pulpit--was swathed in the Union Jack; and looking
+towards the box of the _Parnass_ and _Gabbai_, she saw it was occupied
+by officers with gold sashes. Somebody whispered that he with the
+medalled breast was a Christian Knight and Commander of the Bath--'a
+great honour for the synagogue!' What! were Christians coming to
+Jewish services, even as she had gone to Christian? Why, here was
+actually a white cross on an officer's sleeve.
+
+And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning his Hebrew chant on
+the steps of the Ark, lit the great many-branched _Chanukah_
+candlestick. Truly, the world was changing under her eyes.
+
+And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark in his turn, she saw that
+he wore a strange scarlet and white gown (military, too, she imagined
+in her ignorance), and--oh, even rarer sight!--he was followed by a
+helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the ornate Scrolls of
+the Law.
+
+And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a sweetness through her
+blood. An organ! An organ in the Synagogue! Ah! here indeed was
+Anglicization.
+
+It was thin and reedy even to _her_ ears, compared with that divine
+resonance in St. Paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from
+the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the
+service--she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium--yet it
+brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears
+in the glittering uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon's eyes met his
+mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed between them.
+
+There was a sermon--the text taken with dual appropriateness from the
+Book of Maccabees. Fully one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the
+preacher, had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the Queen's
+dominions. Their beloved country had no more devoted citizens than
+the children of Israel who had settled under her flag. They had been
+gratified, but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names of
+more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and country. Many more had
+gone unrecorded, so that they had proportionally contributed more
+soldiers--from Colonel to bugler-boy--than their mere numbers would
+warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were the Englishman and the
+Jew whose Scriptures he had imbibed, that it was no accident that the
+Anglophobes of Europe were also Anti-Semites.
+
+And then the congregation rose, while the preacher behind the folds of
+the Union Jack read out the names of the Jews who had died for England
+in the far-off veldt. Every head was bent as the names rose on the
+hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this list, reeking
+with each bloody historic field, recalling every regiment, British or
+colonial; on and on in the reverent silence, till a black pall seemed
+to descend, inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had never
+dreamed so many of her brethren had died out there. Ah! surely they
+were knit now, these races: their friendship sealed in blood!
+
+As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed towards Simon and
+seized his hand for an instant, whispering passionately: 'My lamb,
+marry her--we are all English alike.'
+
+Nor did she ever know that she had said these words in Yiddish!
+
+
+XII
+
+Now came an enchanting season of confidences; the mother, caught up in
+the glow of this strange love, learning to see the girl through the
+boy's eyes, though the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of
+a plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The time was not ripe
+yet for bringing Lucy and her together, he explained. In fact, he
+hadn't actually proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for the
+year of mourning to be up.
+
+'But how will you be married?' she once asked.
+
+'Oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly.
+
+'But can't you make her a proselyte?' she ventured timidly.
+
+He coloured. 'It would be absurd to suddenly start talking religion to
+her.'
+
+'But she knows you're a Jew.'
+
+'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she
+know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the
+subject.'
+
+'A crank? About Jews?'
+
+'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are
+responsible for the war--and that they leave the fighting to the
+English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not
+treated as we should be, considering----'
+
+Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that,
+when you yourself--when you saved his----'
+
+'Well, I suppose just because he knows I _was_ fighting, he doesn't
+think of me as a Jew. It's a bit illogical, I know.' And he smiled
+ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'
+
+'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the
+photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a
+property desk.
+
+'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help
+him into the saddle.'
+
+'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to
+the war?' she persisted. 'Why, the paper had all their photographs!'
+
+'What paper?' said Simon, laughing. 'Do you suppose he reads the
+Jewish what's-a-name, like you? Why, he's never heard of it!'
+
+'Then you ought to show him a copy.'
+
+'Oh, mother!' and he laughed again. 'That would only prove to him
+there are too many Jews everywhere.'
+
+A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn's hard-won content. But
+apparently it only shadowed her own horizon. Simon was as happily full
+of his Lucy as ever.
+
+Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when Simon returned from
+Harrow earlier than his wont, and Hannah's dog-like eye noted that the
+cloud had at last reached his brow.
+
+'You have had a quarrel?' she cried.
+
+'Only with the old boy.'
+
+'But what about?'
+
+'The old driveller has just joined some League of Londoners for the
+suppression of the immigrant alien.'
+
+'But you should have told him we all agree there should be
+decentralization,' said Mrs. Cohn, quoting her favourite Jewish
+organ.
+
+'It isn't that--it's the old fellow's vanity that's hurt. You see, he
+composed the "Appeal to the Briton," and gloated over it so
+conceitedly that I couldn't help pointing out the horrible
+contradictions.'
+
+'But Lucy----' his mother began anxiously.
+
+'Lucy's a brick. I don't know what my life would have been without the
+little darling. But listen, mother.' And he drew out a portentous
+prospectus. 'They say aliens should not be admitted unless they
+produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath
+they accuse them of taking the work away from the British workman. Now
+this isn't a Jewish question, and I didn't raise it as such--just a
+piece of muddle--and even as an Englishman I can't see how we can
+exclude Outlanders here after fighting for the Outland----'
+
+'But Lucy----' his mother interrupted.
+
+His vehement self-assertion passed into an affectionate smile.
+
+'Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows the old boy's vanity.
+Of course she couldn't side with me openly.'
+
+'But what will happen? Will you go there again?'
+
+The cloud returned to his brow. 'Oh, well, we'll see.'
+
+A letter from Lucy saved him the trouble of deciding the point.
+
+    'DEAR SILLY OLD SIM,' it ran,
+
+    'Father has been going on dreadfully, so you had better wait a
+    few Sundays till he has cooled down. After all, you yourself
+    admit there is a grievance of congestion and high rents in the
+    East End. And it is only natural--isn't it?--that after
+    shedding our blood and treasure for the Empire we should not
+    be in a mood to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.'
+
+'Dirty!' muttered Simon, as he read. 'Has she seen the Christian
+slums--Flower and Dean Street?' And his handsome Oriental brow grew
+duskier with anger. It did not clear till he came to:
+
+    'Let us meet at the Crystal Palace next Saturday, dear
+    quarrelsome person. Three o'clock, in the Pompeian Room. I
+    _have_ got an aunt at Sydenham, and I _can_ go in to tea after
+    the concert and hear all about the missionary work in the
+    South Sea Islands.'
+
+
+XIII
+
+Ensued a new phase in the relation of Simon and Lucy. Once they had
+met in freedom, neither felt inclined to revert to the restricted
+courtship of the drawing-room. Even though their chat was merely of
+books and music and pictures, it was delicious to make their own
+atmosphere, untroubled by the flippancy of the brother or the
+earnestness of the father. In the presence of Lucy's artistic
+knowledge Simon was at once abashed and stimulated. She moved in a
+delicate world of symphonies and silver-point drawings of whose very
+existence he had been unaware, and reverence quickened the sense of
+romance which their secret meetings had already enhanced.
+
+Once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to Harrow, but the
+longer he delayed the more difficult the conciliatory visit grew.
+
+'Father is now deeper in the League than ever,' she told him. 'He has
+joined the committee, and the prospectus has gone forth in all its
+glorious self-contradiction.'
+
+'But, considering I am the son of an alien, and I have fought for----'
+
+'There, there! quarrelsome person,' she interrupted laughingly. 'No,
+no, no, you had better not come till you can forget your remote
+genealogy. You see, even now father doesn't quite realize you are a
+Jew. He thinks you have a strain of Jewish blood, but are in every
+other respect a decent Christian body.'
+
+'Christian!' cried Simon in horror.
+
+'Why not? You fought side by side with my brother; you ate ham with
+us.'
+
+Simon blushed hotly. 'But, Lucy, you don't think religion is ham?'
+
+'What, then? Merely Shem?' she laughed.
+
+Simon laughed too. How clever she was! 'But you know I never could
+believe in the Trinity and all that. And, what's more, I don't believe
+you do yourself.'
+
+'It isn't exactly what one believes. I was baptized into the Church of
+England--I feel myself a member. Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully
+argumentative and quarrelsome person.'
+
+'I'll never quarrel with you, Lucy,' he said half entreatingly; for
+somehow he felt a shiver of cold at the word 'baptized,' as though
+himself plunged into the font.
+
+In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue or decision till
+the summer itself glided away. Mrs. Cohn, anxiously following the
+courtship through Sim's love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the
+girl be brought to see her received with equal postponement, began to
+fret for the great thing to come to pass. One cannot be always
+heroically stiffened to receive the cavalry of communal criticism.
+Waiting weakens the backbone. But she concealed from her boy these
+flaccid relapses.
+
+'You said you'd bring her to see me when she returned from the
+seaside,' she ventured to remind him.
+
+'So I did; but now her father is dragging her away to Scotland.'
+
+'You ought to get married the moment she gets back.'
+
+'I can't expect her to rush things--with her father to square. Still,
+you are not wrong, mother. It's high time we came to a definite
+understanding between ourselves at least.'
+
+'What!' gasped Mrs. Cohn. 'Aren't you engaged?'
+
+'Oh, in a way, of course. But we've never said so in so many words.'
+
+For fear this should be the 'English' way, Mrs. Cohn forbore to remark
+that the definiteness of the Sugarman method was not without
+compensations. She merely applauded Simon's more sensible mood.
+
+But Mrs. Cohn was fated to a further season of fret. Day after day the
+'fat letters' arrived with the Scottish postmark and the faint perfume
+that always stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance--something
+far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses and the salt of
+tears. And still the lover, floating in his golden mist, vouchsafed
+her no definite news.
+
+One night she found him restive beyond his wont. She knew the reason.
+For two days there had been no scented letter, and she saw how he
+started at every creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last
+post. When at length a step was heard crunching on the gravel, he
+rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard the hall-door open. Her ear,
+disappointed of the rat-tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it
+seemed a long time before her boy's returning footstep reached her.
+The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her nerves, and her heart
+grew sick with premonition.
+
+He held out the letter towards her. His face was white. 'She cannot
+marry me, because I am a Jew,' he said tonelessly.
+
+'Cannot marry you!' she whispered huskily. 'Oh, but this must not be!
+I will go to the father; I will explain! You saved his son--he owes
+you his daughter.'
+
+He waved her hopelessly back to her seat--for she had started up. 'It
+isn't the father, it's herself. Now that I won't let her drift any
+longer, she can't bring herself to it. She's honest, anyway, my little
+Lucy. She won't fall back on the old Jew-baiter.'
+
+'But how dare she--how dare she think herself above you!' Her dog-like
+eyes were blazing yet once again.
+
+'Why are you Jews surprised?' he said bitterly. 'You've held yourself
+aloof from the others long enough, God knows. Yet you wonder they've
+got their prejudices, too.'
+
+And, suddenly laying his head on the table, he broke into sobs--sobs
+that tore at his mother's heart, that were charged with memories of
+his ancient tears, of the days of paternal wrath and the rending of
+'The Pirates of Pechili.' And, again, as in the days when his boyish
+treasures were changed to ashes, she stole towards him, with an
+involuntary furtive look to see if S. Cohn's back was turned, and laid
+her hands upon his heaving shoulders. But he shook her off! 'Why
+didn't a Boer bullet strike me down?' Then with a swift pang of
+remorse he raised his contorted face and drew hers close against
+it--their love the one thing saved from Anglicization.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY
+
+
+I
+
+With the Christian Mayoress of Middleton to take in to dinner at Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg's, Leopold Barstein as a Jewish native of that
+thriving British centre, should have felt proud and happy. But
+Barstein was young and a sculptor, fresh from the Paris schools and
+Salon triumphs. He had long parted company with Jews and Judaism, and
+to his ardent irreverence even the Christian glories of Middleton
+seemed unspeakably parochial. In Paris he had danced at night on the
+Boule Miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in choruses over
+midnight bocks; and London itself now seemed drab and joyless, though
+many a gay circle welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the
+physical graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to shed a
+blonde radiance all around him. The factories of Middleton, which had
+manufactured Sir Asher Aaronsberg, ex-M.P., and nearly all his wealthy
+guests, were to his artistic eye an outrage upon a beautiful planet,
+and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile revolt in which one
+speaks one's thoughts of the mess humanity has made of its world. But,
+unfortunately, the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he
+could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was extremely
+disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies met with an equally bland
+smile. On his other hand sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly
+charitable relict of 'The People's Clothier,' whose ugly pictorial
+posters had overshadowed Barstein's youth. Little wonder that the
+artist's glance frequently wandered across the great shining table
+towards a girl who, if they had not been so plaguily intent on
+honouring his fame, might have now been replacing the Mayoress at his
+side. True, the girl was merely a Jewess, and he disliked the breed.
+But Mabel Aaronsberg was unexpected. She had a statuesque purity of
+outline and complexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of
+his own. How the tedious old manufacturer could have produced this
+marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the sculptor, as he almost
+silently ate his way through the long and exquisite menu.
+
+Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very
+picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father
+Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and
+purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was
+dead--before even arriving at ladyship, alas!--and when she was alive
+Barstein had not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high
+municipal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign fame, and to
+his invitation by the Corporation to help in the organization of a
+local Art Exhibition.
+
+'I do admire Sir Asher,' the Mayoress broke in suddenly upon his
+reflections; 'he seems to me exactly like your patriarchs.'
+
+A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir Asher, with his
+hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far
+as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling
+Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were
+polygamists.'
+
+'Exactly,' assented the deaf Mayoress.
+
+Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his statement in a shout,
+but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the
+dinner-table. The Mayoress added ecstatically: 'You can imagine him
+sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.'
+
+This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter. All eyes turned a bit
+enviously in his direction. 'You're having all the fun down there,'
+called out Sir Asher benevolently; and the bluff Briton--even to the
+northerly burr--was so vividly stamped upon Barstein's mind that he
+wondered the more that the Mayoress could see him as anything but the
+prosy, provincial, whilom Member of Parliament he so transparently
+was. 'A mere literary illusion,' he thought. 'She has read the Bible,
+and now reads Sir Asher into it. As well see a Saxon pirate or a
+Norman jongleur in a modern Londoner.'
+
+As if to confirm Barstein's vision of the bluff and burly Briton, Sir
+Asher was soon heard over the clatter of conversation protesting
+vehemently against the views of Tom Fuller, the degenerate son of a
+Tory squire.
+
+'Give Ireland Home Rule?' he was crying passionately. 'Oh, my dear Mr.
+Fuller, it would be the beginning of the end of our Empire!'
+
+'But the Irish have as much right to govern themselves as we have!'
+the young Englishman maintained.
+
+'They would not so much govern themselves as misgovern the Protestant
+minority,' cried Sir Asher, becoming almost epigrammatic in his
+excitement. 'Home Rule simply means the triumph of Roman Catholicism.'
+
+It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the defeat of Roman
+Catholicism meant no victory for Judaism, but he stayed his tongue
+with a salted almond. Let the Briton make the running. This the young
+gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace.
+
+'Then how about Home Rule for India? There's no Catholic majority
+there!'
+
+'Give up India!' Sir Asher opened horrified eyes. This heresy was new
+to him. 'Give up the brightest jewel in the British crown! And let the
+Russian bear come and swallow it up! No, no! A thousand times no!' Sir
+Asher even gestured with his fork in his patriotic fervour, forgetting
+he was not on the platform.
+
+'So I imagine the patriarchs to have talked!' said the Mayoress,
+admiringly observing his animation. Whereat the sculptor laughed once
+more. He was amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion of
+Judah had endued himself with the skin of the British lion. To a
+cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois patriotism was peculiarly
+irritating. But soon his eyes wandered again towards Miss Aaronsberg,
+and he forgot trivialities.
+
+
+II
+
+The end of the meal was punctuated, not by the rising of the ladies,
+but by the host's assumption of a black cap, which popped up from his
+coat-tail pocket. With his head thus orientally equipped for prayer,
+Sir Asher suddenly changed into a Rembrandtesque figure, his white
+beard hiding the society shirtfront; and as he began intoning the
+grace in Hebrew, the startled Barstein felt that the Mayoress had at
+least a superficial justification. There came to him a touch of new
+and artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-M.P., who,
+environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of his glittering
+dinner-table uttering the language of the ancient prophets; and he
+respected at least the sturdiness with which Miss Aaronsberg's father
+wore his faith, like a phylactery, on his forehead. It said much for
+his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once elected him
+as their Member, despite his unpopular creed and race, and were now
+willing to sit at his table under this tedious benediction. Sir Asher
+did not even let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by a
+wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as was visible it
+was only the Jewish guests--comically distinguished by serviettes
+shamefacedly dabbed on their heads--who fidgeted under the pious
+torrent. These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians whose
+precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. In the host's
+son Julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. He had
+brought back from Oxford a contempt for his father's creed which was
+patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. Barstein, observing all this
+uneasiness, became curiously angry with his fellow-Jews, despite that
+he had scrupulously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette;
+a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up through all
+his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously trusted that the brave Sir
+Asher would pray his longest. He himself had been a tolerable Hebraist
+in his forcedly pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor
+heard any Hebrew prayers for many a year, his new artistic interest
+led him to listen to the grace, and to disentangle the meaning from
+the obscuring layers of verbal association and from the peculiar chant
+enlivened by occasional snatches of melody with which it was intoned.
+
+How he had hated this grace as a boy--this pious task-work that almost
+spoilt the anticipation of meals! But to-night, after so long an
+interval, he could look at it without prejudice, and with artistic
+aloofness render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value.
+
+'_We thank Thee, O Lord our God, because Thou didst give as an
+heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and ample land, and
+because Thou didst bring us forth, O Lord our God, from the land of
+Egypt, and didst deliver us from the house of bondage----_'
+
+Barstein heard no more for the moment; the paradox of this
+retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. What! Sir Asher was
+thankful because over three thousand years ago his ancestors had
+obtained--not without hard fighting for it--a land which had already
+been lost again for eighteen centuries. What a marvellous long memory
+for a race to have!
+
+Delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth! Sir Asher, himself--and
+here a musing smile crossed the artist's lips--had never even known a
+house of bondage, unless, indeed, the House of Commons (from which he
+had been delivered by the Radical reaction) might be so regarded, and
+his own house was, as he was fond of saying, Liberty Hall. But that
+the Russian Jew should still rejoice in the redemption from Egypt! O
+miracle of pious patience! O sublime that grazed the ridiculous!
+
+But Sir Asher was still praying on:
+
+'_Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon Israel Thy people, upon Jerusalem
+Thy city, upon Zion the abiding place of Thy glory, upon the kingdom
+of the house of David, Thine anointed...._'
+
+Barstein lost himself in a fresh reverie. Here was indeed the
+Palestinian patriarch. Not with the corporation of Middleton, nor the
+lobbies of Westminster, not with his colossal business, not even with
+the glories of the British Empire, was Sir Asher's true heart. He had
+but caught phrases from the environment. To his deepest self he was
+not even a Briton. '_Have mercy, O Lord, upon Israel Thy people._'
+Despite all his outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one of
+that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who had for eighteen
+centuries resisted alike the storm of persecution and the sunshine of
+tolerance, and whose one consolation in the long exile was the dream
+of Zion. The artist in Barstein began to thrill. What more fascinating
+than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath the manufacturer, the
+Hebrew visionary behind the English M.P.!
+
+This palatial dwelling-place with its liveried lackeys was, then, no
+fort of Philistinism in which an artist must needs asphyxiate, but a
+very citadel of the spirit. A new respect for his host began to steal
+upon him. Involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter; the
+secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious. Old Asher had
+a soul, and 'the soul is form and doth the body make.'
+
+Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the sensitive artist,
+the Rembrandtesque figure prayed on: '_And rebuild Jerusalem, the holy
+city, speedily and in our days...._'
+
+It was the climax of the romance that had so strangely stolen over the
+British dinner-table. Rebuild Jerusalem to-day! Did Jews really
+conceive it as a contemporary possibility? Barstein went hot and cold.
+The idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as a boy he had not
+understood his own prayers or his own people. All his imagination was
+inflamed. He conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir
+Asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his daughter: the
+great Empire that would spring from the unity and liberty of a race
+which even under dispersion and oppression was one of the most potent
+peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at last rose, he was
+in so deep a reverie that he almost forgot to rise too, and when he
+did rise, he accompanied the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss
+Aaronsberg's tactful 'Don't you want to smoke?' that saved him.
+
+'Almost as long a grace as the dinner!' Tom Fuller murmured to him as
+he returned to the table. 'Do the Jews say that after every meal?'
+
+'They're supposed to,' Barstein replied, a little jarred as he picked
+up a cigar.
+
+'No wonder they beat the Christians,' observed the young Radical, who
+evidently took original views. 'So much time for digestion would
+enable any race to survive in this age of quick lunches. In America,
+now they should rule the roast. Literally,' he added, with a laugh.
+
+'It's a beautiful grace,' said Barstein rebukingly. 'The glamour of
+Zion thrown over the prose of diet.'
+
+'You're not a Jew?' said Tom, with a sudden suspicion.
+
+'Yes, I am,' the artist replied with a dignity that surprised himself.
+
+'I should never have taken you for one!' said Tom ingenuously.
+
+Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 'But why?' he
+asked himself instantly. 'To feel complimented at not being taken for
+a Jew--what does it mean? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my
+nature? Has our race reached self-contempt?'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' Tom went on. 'I didn't mean to be irreverent. I
+appreciate the picturesqueness of it all--hearing the very language of
+the Bible, and all that. And I do sympathize with your desire for
+Jewish Home Rule.'
+
+'My desire?' murmured the artist, taken aback. Sir Asher here
+interrupted them by pressing his '48 port upon both, and directing the
+artist's attention in particular to the pictures that hung around the
+stately dining-room. There was a Gainsborough, a Reynolds, a Landseer.
+He drew Barstein round the walls.
+
+'I am very fond of the English school,' he said. His cap was back in
+his coat-tail, and he had become again the bluff and burly Briton.
+
+'You don't patronize the Italians at all?' asked the artist.
+
+'No,' said Sir Asher. He lowered his voice. 'Between you and I,' said
+he--it was his main fault of grammar--'in Italian art one is never
+safe from the Madonna, not to mention her Son.' It was a fresh
+reminder of the Palestinian patriarch. Sir Asher never discussed
+theology except with those who agreed with him. Nor did he ever,
+whether in private or in public, breathe an unfriendly word against
+his Christian fellow-citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he
+would frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of hearts he
+cherished a contempt, softened by stupefaction, for the arithmetical
+incapacity of Trinitarians.
+
+Christianity under any other aspect did not exist for him. It was a
+blunder impossible to a race with a genius for calculation. 'How can
+three be one?' he would demand witheringly of his cronies. The
+question was in his eye now as he summed up Italian art to the
+sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his lips invited his
+fellow-Jew to share with him his feeling of spiritual and intellectual
+superiority to the poor blind Christians at his table, as well as to
+Christendom generally.
+
+But the artist refused to come up on the pedestal. 'Surely the Madonna
+was a very beautiful conception,' he said.
+
+Sir Asher looked startled. 'Ah yes, you are an artist,' he remembered.
+'You think only of the beautiful outside. But how can there be
+three-in-one or one-in-three?'
+
+Barstein did not reply, and Sir Asher added in a low scornful tone:
+'Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.'
+
+
+III
+
+A sudden commission recalled Barstein to town before he could even pay
+his after-dinner call. But the seed sown in his soul that evening was
+not to be stifled. This seed was nothing less than the idea of a
+national revival of his people. He hunted up his old prayer-books, and
+made many discoveries as his modern consciousness depolarized page
+upon page that had never in boyhood been anything to him but a series
+of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as possible, when their
+meaning was not still further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune.
+'I might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as
+he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the Roman
+Empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its
+aspiration for its old territory. And this mystery of race and blood,
+this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate
+in Mabel Aaronsberg.
+
+He did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her
+all day long. She appeared all over his studio in countless designs in
+clay. But from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening
+insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out
+from the slums and small synagogues of the East End strange forlorn
+figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. It was from one of these
+figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion,
+whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads,
+and had even materialized into a national movement.
+
+He joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. He
+was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at
+first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with
+familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and
+cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he
+could, with far greater command of Talmudic quotation, while their
+knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally
+superior. But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty
+wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he
+retained his inner exaltation. He had at last found himself and found
+his art. He fell to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the
+awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection.
+It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist Congress, where it caused a
+furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been
+working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and
+whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book,
+and even postcard. Some of them were setting out for Palestine to
+start a School of Arts and Crafts.
+
+Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime the Bohemian circles
+which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been
+wondering what had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions
+supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet him
+reported dolefully that he was a changed man. Gone was the
+light-hearted and light-footed dancer of the Paris pavement. Silent
+the licentious wit of the neo-Pagan. This was a new being with
+brooding brow and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his
+dream. Never had Bohemia known such a transformation.
+
+
+IV
+
+But a change came over the spirit of the dream. Before he could
+seriously plan out his journey to Palestine, he met Mabel Aaronsberg
+in the flesh. She was staying in town for the season in charge of an
+aunt, and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the newer
+art, in front of Mabel's own self in marble. She praised the Psyche
+without in the least recognising herself, and Barstein, albeit
+disconcerted, could not but admit how far his statue was from the
+breathing beauty of the original.
+
+After this the Jewish borderland of Bohemia, where writers and
+painters are courted, began to see Barstein again. But, unfortunately,
+this was not Mabel's circle, and Barstein was reduced to getting
+himself invited to that Jewish Bayswater, his loathing for which had
+not been overcome even by his new-found nationalism. Here, amid
+hundreds of talking and dancing shadows, with which some shadowy self
+of his own danced and talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of
+reality--with Mabel.
+
+One could not be real and not talk of the national dream. Mabel, who
+took most of her opinions from her brother Julius, was frankly
+puzzled, though her marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her
+lover from premature shocks. She had, indeed, scarcely heard of such
+things. Zionism was something in the East End. Nobody in her class
+ever mentioned it. But, then, Barstein was a sculptor and strange,
+and, besides, he did not look at all like a Jew, so it didn't sound so
+horrible in his mouth. His lithe figure stood out almost Anglo-Saxon
+amid the crowds of hulking undersized young men, and though his
+manners were not so good as a Christian's--she never forgot his
+blunder at her father's dinner-party--still, he looked up to one with
+almost a Christian's adoration, instead of sizing one up with an
+Oriental's calculation. These other London Jews thought her
+provincial, she knew, whereas Barstein had one day informed her she
+was universal. Julius, too, had admired Barstein's sculpture, the
+modern note in which had been hailed by the Oxford elect. But what
+most fascinated Mabel was the constant eulogy of her lover's work in
+the Christian papers; and when at last the formal proposal came, it
+found her fearful only of her father's disapproval.
+
+'He's so orthodox,' she murmured, as they sat in a rose-garlanded
+niche at a great Jewish Charity Ball, lapped around by waltz-music and
+the sweetness of love confessed.
+
+'Well, I'm not so wicked as I was,' he smiled.
+
+'But you smoke on the Sabbath, Leo--you told me.'
+
+'And you told me your brother Julius does the same.'
+
+'Yes, but father doesn't know. If Julius wants to smoke on Friday
+evening, he always goes to his own room.'
+
+'And I shan't smoke in your father's.'
+
+'No--but you'll tell him. You're so outspoken.'
+
+'Well, I won't tell him--unless he asks me.'
+
+She looked sad. 'He won't ask you--he'll never get as far.'
+
+He smiled confidently. 'You're not very encouraging, dear; what's the
+matter with me?'
+
+'Everything. You're an artist, with all sorts of queer notions. And
+you're not so'--she blushed and hesitated--'not so rich----'
+
+He pressed her fingers. 'Yes, I am; I'm the richest man here.'
+
+A little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though they went on:
+'But you told me your profits are small--marble is so dear.'
+
+'So is celibacy. I shall economize dreadfully by marrying.'
+
+She pouted; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the situation, and he
+seemed scarcely to realize that she was an heiress. But he continued
+to laugh away her fears. She was so beautiful and he was so
+strong--what could stand between them? Certainly not the Palestinian
+patriarch with whose inmost psychology he had, fortunately, become in
+such cordial sympathy.
+
+But Mabel's pessimism was not to be banished even by the supper
+champagne. They had secured a little table for two, and were
+recklessly absorbed in themselves.
+
+'At the worst, we can elope to Palestine,' he said at last, gaily
+serious.
+
+Mabel shuddered. 'Live entirely among Jews!' she cried.
+
+The radiance died suddenly out of his face; it was as if she had
+thrust the knife she was wielding through his heart. Her silent
+reception of his nationalist rhapsodies he had always taken for
+agreement.
+
+Nor might Mabel have undeceived him had his ideas remained Platonic.
+Their irruption into the world of practical politics, into her own
+life, was, however, another pair of shoes. Since Barstein had brought
+Zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that distinguished
+Christians were quite sympathetic, but this was the one subject on
+which Christian opinion failed to impress Mabel. 'Zionism's all very
+well for Christians--they're in no danger of having to go to
+Palestine,' she had reflected shrewdly.
+
+'And why couldn't you live entirely among Jews?' Barstein asked
+slowly.
+
+Mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a suffocating weight.
+'One couldn't breathe,' she explained.
+
+'Aren't you living among Jews now?'
+
+'Don't look so glum, silly. You don't want Jews as background as well
+as foreground. A great Ghetto!' And again she shuddered instinctively.
+
+'Every other people is background as well as foreground. And you don't
+call France a Ghetto or Italy a Ghetto?' There was anti-Semitism, he
+felt--unconscious anti-Semitism--behind Mabel's instinctive repugnance
+to an aggregation of Jews. And he knew that her instinct would be
+shared by every Jew in that festive aggregation around him. His heart
+sank. Never--even in those East End back-rooms where the pitiful
+disproportion of his consumptive-looking collaborators to their great
+task was sometimes borne in dismally upon him--had he felt so black a
+despair as in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that was
+strong and strenuous in the race--lawyers and soldiers, and men of
+affairs, whose united forces and finances could achieve almost
+anything they set their heart upon.
+
+'Jews can't live off one another,' Mabel explained with an air of
+philosophy.
+
+Barstein did not reply. He was asking himself with an artist's
+analytical curiosity whence came this suicidal anti-Semitism. Was it
+the self-contempt natural to a race that had not the strength to build
+and fend for itself? No, alas! it did not even spring from so
+comparatively noble a source. It was merely a part of their general
+imitation of their neighbours--Jews, reflecting everything, had
+reflected even the dislike for the Jew; only since the individual
+could not dislike himself, he applied the dislike to the race. And
+this unconscious assumption of the prevailing point of view was
+quickened by the fact that the Jewish firstcomers were always aware of
+an existence on sufferance, with their slowly-won privileges
+jeopardized if too many other Jews came in their wake. He consulted
+his own pre-Zionist psychology. 'Yes,' he decided. 'Every Jew who
+moves into our country, our city, our watering-place, our street even,
+seems to us an invader or an interloper. He draws attention to us, he
+accentuates our difference from the normal, he increases the chance of
+the renewal of _Rishus_ (malice). And so we become anti-Semites
+ourselves. But by what a comical confusion of logic is it that we
+carry over the objection to Jewish aggregation even to an aggregation
+in Palestine, in our own land! Or is it only too logical? Is it that
+the rise of a Jewish autonomous power would be a standing reminder to
+our fellow-citizens that we others are not so radically British or
+German or French or American as we have vaunted ourselves? Are we
+afraid of being packed off to Palestine and is the fulfilment of the
+dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest dread?'
+
+The thought forced from him a sardonic smile.
+
+'And I feared you were like King Henry--never going to smile again.'
+Mabel smiled back in relief.
+
+'We're such a ridiculous people,' he answered, his smile fading into
+sombreness. 'Neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.'
+
+'Well, finish your good white fowl,' laughed Mabel. She had felt her
+hold over him slipping, and her own apprehensions now vanished in the
+effort to banish his gloom.
+
+But she had only started him on a new tack. 'Fowl!' he cried grimly.
+'_Kosher_, of course, but with bits of fried _Wurst_ to ape the scraps
+of bacon. And presently we shall be having water ices to simulate
+cream. We can't even preserve our dietary individuality. Truly said
+Feuerbach, "Der Mensch ist was er isst." In Palestine we shall at
+least dare to be true to our own gullets.' He laughed bitterly.
+
+'You're not very romantic,' Mabel pouted. Indeed, this Barstein, whose
+mere ideal could so interrupt the rhapsodies due to her admissions of
+affection, was distinctly unsatisfactory. She touched his hand
+furtively under the tablecloth.
+
+'After all, she is very young,' he thought, thrilling. And youth was
+plastic--he, the sculptor, could surely mould her. Besides, was she
+not Sir Asher's daughter? She must surely have inherited some of his
+love for Palestine and his people. It was this Philistine set that had
+spoiled her. Julius, too, that young Oxford prig--he reflected
+illogically--had no doubt been a baleful influence.
+
+'Shall I give you some almond-pudding?' he replied tenderly.
+
+Mabel laughed uneasily. 'I ask for romance, and you offer me
+almond-pudding. Oh, I _should_ like to go to a Jewish party where
+there wasn't almond-pudding!'
+
+'You shall--in Palestine,' he laughed back.
+
+She pouted again. 'All roads lead to Palestine.'
+
+'They do,' he said seriously. 'Without Palestine our past is a
+shipwreck and our future a quicksand.'
+
+She looked frightened again. 'But what should we do there? We can't
+pray all day long.'
+
+'Of course not,' he said eagerly. 'There's the new generation to train
+for its glorious future. I shall teach in the Arts and Crafts School.
+_Bezalel_, it's called; isn't that a beautiful name? It's from
+Bezalel, the first man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine
+wisdom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.'
+
+She shook her head. 'You'll be excommunicated. The Palestine Rabbis
+always excommunicate everything and everybody.'
+
+He laughed. 'What do you know about Palestine?'
+
+'More than you think. Father gets endless letters from there with
+pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-wood boxes and paper-knives--a
+perennial shower. The letters are generally in the most killing
+English. And he won't let me laugh at them because he has a vague
+feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar are holy.'
+
+Barstein laughed again. 'We'll send all the Rabbis to Jericho.'
+
+She smiled, but retorted: 'That's where they'll send you, you maker of
+graven images. Why, your very profession is forbidden.'
+
+'I'll corner 'em with this very Bezalel text. The cutting of stones is
+just one of the arts which God says He had inspired Bezalel with.
+Besides, you forget my statue at the Bâle Congress.'
+
+'Bâle isn't Palestine. There's nothing but superstition and squalor,
+and I'm sorry to say father's always bolstering it all up with his
+cheques.'
+
+'Bravo, Sir Asher! Unconsciously he has been bolstering up the
+eventual Renaissance. Your father and his kind have kept the seed
+alive; we shall bring it to blossom.'
+
+His prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of apprehension over her
+marmoreal brow. But her face lightened with a sudden thought. 'Well,
+perhaps, after all, we shan't need to elope.'
+
+'I never thought for a moment we should,' he answered as cheerfully.
+'But, all the same, we can spend our honeymoon in Palestine.'
+
+'Oh, I don't mind that,' said Mabel. 'Lots of Christians do that.
+There was a Cook's party went out from Middleton for last Easter.'
+
+The lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in the Palestinian
+honeymoon to analyse the terms in which it was given. He looked into
+her eyes, and saw there the _Shechinah_--the Divine glory that once
+rested on Zion.
+
+
+V
+
+It was in this happier mood that Barstein ran down to Middleton to
+plead his suit verbally with Sir Asher Aaronsberg. Mabel had feared to
+commit their fates to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. A
+plump negative would be so difficult to fight against. A personal
+interview permitted one to sound the ground, to break the thing
+delicately, to reason, to explain, to charm away objections. It was
+clearly the man's duty to face the music.
+
+Not that Barstein expected anything but the music of the Wedding
+March. He was glad that his original contempt for Sir Asher had been
+exchanged for sincere respect, and that the bluff Briton was a mere
+veneer. It was to the Palestinian patriarch that he would pour out his
+hopes and his dreams.
+
+Alas! he found only the bluff Briton, and a Briton no longer genially,
+but bluntly, bluff.
+
+'It is perfectly impossible.'
+
+Barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. Was he not pious
+enough, or not rich enough, too artistic or too low-born? Or did Sir
+Asher consider his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious?
+Let Sir Asher say.
+
+But Sir Asher would not say. 'I am not bound to give my reasons. We
+are all proud of your work--it confers honour on our community. The
+Mayor alluded to it only yesterday.' He spoke in his best platform
+manner. 'But to receive you into my family--that is another matter.'
+
+And all the talk advanced things no further.
+
+'It would be an entirely unsuitable match.' Sir Asher caressed his
+long beard with an air of finality.
+
+With a lover's impatience, Barstein had made the mistake of seeking
+Sir Asher in his counting-house, where the municipal magnate sat among
+his solidities. The mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers,
+the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through whom Barstein had
+had to penetrate, the factory buildings stretching around, with their
+sense of throbbing machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the
+burly Briton a background against which visions and emotions seemed as
+unreal as ghosts under gaslight. The artist felt all this solid life
+closing round him like the walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out
+his confidence, his aspirations, his very life.
+
+'Then you prefer to break your daughter's heart!' he cried
+desperately.
+
+'Break my daughter's heart!' echoed Sir Asher in amaze. It was
+apparently a new aspect to him.
+
+'You don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully?' Barstein went on,
+perceiving his advantage.
+
+'Break her heart!' repeated Sir Asher, startled out of his discreet
+reticence. 'I'd sooner break her heart than see her married to a
+Zionist!'
+
+This time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp.
+
+'To a what?' he cried.
+
+'To a Zionist. You don't mean to deny you're a Zionist?' said Sir
+Asher sternly.
+
+Barstein gazed at him in silence.
+
+'Come, come,' said Sir Asher. 'You don't suppose I don't read the
+Jewish papers? I know all about your goings-on.'
+
+The artist found his tongue. 'But--but,' he stammered, 'you yearn for
+Zion too.'
+
+'Naturally. But I don't presume to force the hand of Providence.'
+
+'How can any of us force Providence to do anything it doesn't want to?
+Surely it is through human agency that Providence always works. God
+helps those who help themselves.'
+
+'Spare me your blasphemies. Perhaps you think you are the Messiah.'
+
+'I can be an atom of Him. The whole Jewish people is its own
+Messiah--God working through it.'
+
+'Take care, young man; you'll be talking Trinity next. And with these
+heathen notions you expect to marry my daughter! You must excuse me if
+I wish to hear no further.' His hand began to wander towards the row
+of electric bells on his desk.
+
+'Then how do you suppose we shall ever get to Palestine?' inquired the
+irritated artist.
+
+Sir Asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'In God's good time,' he
+said.
+
+'And when will that be?'
+
+'When we are either too good or too bad for our present sphere. To-day
+we are too neutral. Besides, there will be signs enough.'
+
+'What signs?'
+
+'Read your Bible. Mount Zion will be split by an earthquake, as the
+prophet----'
+
+Barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 'But why can't we
+go to Jerusalem and wait for the earthquake there?' he asked.
+
+'Because we have a mission to the nations. We must live dispersed. We
+have to preach the unity of God.'
+
+'I have never heard you preach it. You lowered your voice when you
+denounced the Trinity to me, lest the Christians should hear.'
+
+'We have to preach silently, by our example. Merely by keeping our own
+religion we convert the world.'
+
+'But who keeps it? Dispersion among Sunday-keeping peoples makes our
+very Sabbath an economic impossibility.'
+
+'I have not found it so,' said Sir Asher crushingly. 'Indeed, the
+growth of the Saturday half-holiday since my young days is a
+remarkable instance of Judaizing.'
+
+'So we have to remain dispersed to promote the week-end holiday?'
+
+'To teach international truth,' Sir Asher corrected sharply; 'not
+narrow tribalism.'
+
+'But we don't remain dispersed. Five millions are herded in the
+Russian Pale to begin with.'
+
+'The Providence of God has long been scattering them to New York.'
+
+'Yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. A pretty scattering!'
+
+Sir Asher flushed angrily. 'But they go to the Argentine too. I heard
+of a colony even in Paraguay.'
+
+'Where they are preaching the Unity to the Indians.'
+
+'I do not discuss religion with a mocker. We are in exile by God's
+decree--we must suffer.'
+
+'Suffer!' The artist's glance wandered cynically round the snug
+solidities of Sir Asher's exile, but he forbore to be personal. 'Then
+if we _must_ suffer, why did you subscribe so much to the fund for the
+Russian Jews?'
+
+Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein's acquaintance with his
+generosity. 'That I might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch
+of humour.
+
+'Then you _are_ a Jewish patriot,' retorted Barstein.
+
+The bluff British face grew clouded again.
+
+'Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots. You talk treason to
+your country, young man.'
+
+'Treason--I!' The young man laughed bitterly.
+
+'It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so
+painfully won in the West.'
+
+'Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,' Barstein began.
+
+'I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a corps of
+volunteers for the Transvaal.'
+
+'I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion--that is blasphemy,
+narrow tribalism.'
+
+'Zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and
+teachers. And what would your volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan
+with his million soldiers? They couldn't even live in Palestine as men
+of peace. There is neither coal nor iron--hence no manufactures.
+Agriculture? It's largely stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too
+hot for Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've no right
+to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, even if Palestine were
+as fertile as England, Jews could never live off one another. And
+think how they'd quarrel!'
+
+Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array of arguments seemed
+to him a row of steam-hammers.
+
+'We can live off one another as easily as any other people. As for
+quarrelling, weren't you in Parliament? Party government makes quarrel
+the very basis of the Constitution.'
+
+Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying down the law had
+ill prepared him for repartee.
+
+'A pretty mess we should make of Government!' he sneered.
+
+'Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet in the world.'
+
+'Yes--we're all right as long as we're under others. Sir Asher was
+recovering his serenity.
+
+'All right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'Do you
+realize what you're saying, Sir Asher? The Boers against whom you
+equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under
+others! And we--the thought of Jewish autonomy makes us foam at the
+mouth. The idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call
+our fatherlands.'
+
+Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian wave of the hand.
+'This is all a waste of breath. Fortunately the acquisition of
+Palestine is impossible.'
+
+'Then why do you pray for it--"speedily and in our days"?'
+
+Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner.
+
+'That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein drily.
+
+'I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely. 'It is a Divine
+event I pray for--not the creation of a Ghetto.'
+
+'A Ghetto!' Barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'Yes, you're an
+anti-Semite too--like your daughter, like your son, like all of us.
+We're all anti-Semites.'
+
+'I an anti-Semite! Ho! ho! ho!' Sir Asher's anger broke down in sheer
+amusement. 'I have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said,
+recovering his magisterial note. 'I was once in love myself. But when
+it comes to calling _me_ an anti-Semite, it is obvious you are not in
+a fit state to continue this interview. Indeed, I no longer wonder
+that you think yourself the Messiah.'
+
+'Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah a man; somebody
+some day will have to win your belief. But what I said was that God
+acts through man.'
+
+'Ah yes,' said Sir Asher good-humouredly. 'Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'
+
+'And why not?' said Barstein with a flash of angry intuition. 'Aren't
+you a trinity yourself?'
+
+'Me?' Sir Asher was now quite sure of the sculptor's derangement.
+
+'Yes--the Briton, the Jew, and the anti-Semite--three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'
+
+Sir Asher touched one of the electric bells with a jerk. He was quite
+alarmed.
+
+Barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. Never would he marry
+into these triune tribes. 'And it's the same in every land where we're
+emancipated, as it is called,' he went on furiously. 'The Jew's a
+patriot everywhere, and a Jew everywhere and an anti-Semite
+everywhere. Passionate Hungarians, and true-born Italians,
+eagle-waving Americans, and loyal Frenchmen, imperial Germans, and
+double Dutchmen, we are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we
+illustrate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony! Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.' He laughed; to Sir Asher his laugh sounded maniacal.
+The old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.
+
+Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'Neither confounding the
+persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly.
+
+
+
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER
+
+
+
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER
+
+
+I
+
+There was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters which washed its
+leading Jews their living, but in the breasts of these same marine
+storekeepers. For a competitor had appeared in their hive of
+industry--an alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at
+Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not only with capital and
+enterprise--the showy plate-glass front of his shop revealed an
+enticing miscellany--but with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not
+close on Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morning as usual.
+
+The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the first Friday night,
+but by the Sabbath morning the synagogue hummed with it. It set a
+clammy horror in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their
+prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades, brought a
+tremor of insecurity into the very foundations of their universe. For
+nearly three generations a congregation had been established in
+Sudminster--like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly
+country--struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy Day despite
+the supplementary burden of Sunday closing, and the God of their
+fathers had not left unperformed His part of the contract. For 'the
+harvests' of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the former
+rain' of their unchanging supplication were mere dried metaphors to a
+people divorced from Palestine and the soil for eighteen centuries,
+the wine and the oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor
+were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on the synagogue was
+paid off. And now this Epicurean was come to trouble the snug
+security, to break the long chain of Sabbath observance which
+stretched from Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers,
+especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window on their return
+from synagogue on Friday evening, were literally surprised that the
+earth had not opened beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah.
+
+'Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death,'
+whispered the squat Solomon Barzinsky to the lanky Ephraim Mendel,
+marine-dealers both.
+
+'Alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen country,' sighed
+Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying-shawl more over his left
+shoulder. 'But at least his windows should be stoned.'
+
+Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining of the shattering
+of the shameless plate-glass. 'Yes, and that wax-dummy of a sailor
+should be hung as an atonement for his--Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
+of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.' The last phrase
+Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in antiphonal response to the
+cantor, and he rose three times on his toes, bowing his head piously.
+'No wonder he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he
+concluded bitterly.
+
+'He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old clo,' complained
+Lazarus Levy, who had taken over S. Cohn's business, together with his
+daughter Deborah, 'and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more
+than the price we ask for 'em as new.'
+
+Talk of the devil----! At this point Simeon Samuels stalked into the
+synagogue, late but serene.
+
+Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agitation could not have
+been greater. The first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was
+an event in itself; but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all
+was startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the obsequious and
+unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged--that
+high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant
+since the death of Tevele the pawnbroker--Simeon Samuels wrapped
+himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the
+service. His glossy high hat bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long
+black beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was a rebuke to
+his gossiping neighbours.
+
+A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. Had he been the victim
+of a jealous libel? Even those whose own eyes had seen him behind his
+counter when he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at his
+supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of some
+hallucination.
+
+When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was
+summoned canorously to the reading of the Law--'Shall stand Simeon,
+the son of Nehemiah'--and he arose and solemnly mounted the central
+platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and
+benedictions seemed a withering reply to the libel. When he
+descended, and the _Parnass_ proffered his presidential hand in pious
+congratulation upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found
+themselves upon his line of return shot forth their arms with
+remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon Samuels switched on to the
+brotherhood of Sudminsterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting
+co-religionists passed his shop on their homeward walk--and many a
+pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do so--their eyes
+became again saucers of horror and amaze. The broad plate-glass
+glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of
+the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed
+with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the
+procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with
+sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent.
+
+
+II
+
+On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinsky and Ephraim Mendel in pious
+black velvet caps, and their stout spouses in gold chains and diamond
+earrings, found themselves playing solo whist in the _Parnass's_
+parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. The
+_Parnass_, though at heart as outraged as they by the new departure,
+felt it always incumbent upon him to display his presidential
+impartiality and his dry humour. His authority, mainly based on his
+being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, was greatly
+strengthened by his slow manner of taking snuff at a crisis. 'My dear
+Mendel,' observed the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a
+blue handkerchief, 'Simeon Samuels has already paid his annual
+subscription--and you haven't!'
+
+'My money is good,' Mendel replied, reddening.
+
+'No wonder he can pay so quickly!' said Solomon Barzinsky, shuffling
+the cards savagely.
+
+'How he makes his money is not the question,' said the _Parnass_
+weightily. 'He has paid it, and therefore if I were to expel him, as
+you suggest, he might go to Law.'
+
+'Law!' retorted Solomon. 'Can't we prove he has broken the Law of
+Moses?'
+
+'And suppose?' said the _Parnass_, picking up his cards placidly. 'Do
+we want to wash our dirty _Talysim_ (praying-shawls) in public?'
+
+'He is right, Solomon,' said Mrs. Barzinsky. 'We should become a
+laughing-stock among the heathen.'
+
+'I don't believe he'd drag us to the Christian courts,' the little man
+persisted. 'I pass.'
+
+The rubber continued cheerlessly. 'A man who keeps his shop open on
+Sabbath is capable of anything,' said the lanky Mendel, gloomily
+sweeping in his winnings.
+
+The _Parnass_ took snuff judicially. 'Besides, he may have a Christian
+partner who keeps all the Saturday profits,' he suggested.
+
+'That would be just as forbidden,' said Barzinsky, as he dealt the
+cards.
+
+'But your cousin David,' his wife reminded him, 'sells his groceries
+to a Christian at Passover.'
+
+'That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to destroy hundreds of
+pounds of leaven. But Sabbath partnerships are not permitted.'
+
+'Perhaps the question has never been raised,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I am enough of a _Lamdan_ (pundit) to answer it,' retorted Barzinsky.
+
+'I prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the _Parnass_.
+
+Barzinsky threw down his cards. 'You can go to the devil!' he cried.
+
+'For shame, Solomon!' said his wife. 'Don't disturb the game.'
+
+'To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a _Parnass_ to talk like an
+_Epikouros_ (Epicurean).'
+
+The _Parnass_ blew his nose elaborately. 'It stands in the Talmud:
+"For vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world." And if----'
+
+'It stands in the Psalmist,' Barzinsky interrupted: '"The Law of Thy
+mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver."'
+
+'It stands in the Perek,' the _Parnass_ rejoined severely, 'that the
+wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.'
+
+'It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,' Barzinsky shrieked, 'that for the
+sanctification of the Sabbath----'
+
+'It stands in the Talmud,' interposed Mendel, with unwonted animation
+in his long figure, 'that one must not even offer a nut to allure
+customers. From light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that----'
+
+A still small voice broke in upon the storm. 'But Simeon Samuels
+hasn't a Christian partner,' said Mrs. Mendel.
+
+There was an embarrassed pause.
+
+'He has only his wife to help him,' she went on. 'I know, because I
+went to the shop Friday morning on pretence of asking for a
+cuckoo-clock.'
+
+'But a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the _Parnass's_ wife
+timidly. It was her first contribution to the conversation, for she
+was overpowered by her husband's greatness.
+
+'Don't be silly, Hannah!' said the _Parnass_. 'That was just why Mrs.
+Mendel asked for it.'
+
+'Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have one,' Mrs. Mendel
+confessed; 'and I couldn't get out of buying it.'
+
+There was a general laugh.
+
+'Cut-throat competition, I call it,' snarled Solomon Barzinsky,
+recovering from his merriment.
+
+'But _you_ don't sell clocks,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'That's just it; he gets hold of our customers on pretence of selling
+them something else. The Talmudical prohibition cited by Mendel
+applies to that too.'
+
+'So I wasn't so silly,' put in the _Parnass's_ wife, feeling vaguely
+vindicated.
+
+'Well, you saw his wife,' said the _Parnass_ to Mendel's wife,
+disregarding his own. 'More than I've done, for she wasn't in
+synagogue. Perhaps _she_ is the Christian partner.' His suggestion
+brought a new and holier horror over the card-table.
+
+'No, no,' replied Mrs. Mendel reassuringly. 'I caught sight of her
+frying fish in the kitchen.'
+
+This proof of her Jewishness passed unquestioned, and the new-born
+horror subsided.
+
+'But in spite of the fish,' said Mr. Mendel, 'she served in the shop
+while he was at synagogue.'
+
+'Yes,' hissed Barzinsky; 'and in spite of the synagogue _he_ served
+in the shop. A greater mockery was never known!'
+
+'Not at all, not at all,' said the _Parnass_ judicially. 'If a man
+breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.'
+
+'But he does break two,' Solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth
+with his fist; 'for he steals my custom by opening when I'm closed.'
+
+'Take care--you will break my plates,' said the _Parnass_. 'Take a
+sandwich.'
+
+'Thank you--you've taken away my appetite.'
+
+'I'm sorry--but the sandwiches would have done the same. I really
+can't expel a respectable seat-holder before I know that he is truly a
+sinner in Israel. As it is written, "Thou shalt inquire and make
+search and ask diligently." He may have only opened this once by way
+of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite.'
+
+'At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-sandwich--just for
+once,' said Solomon scathingly.
+
+'Don't say _I_ called you a dog,' the _Parnass_ laughed.
+
+'A mezaire!' announced the hostess hurriedly. 'After all, it's the
+Almighty's business, not ours.'
+
+'No, it's our business,' Solomon insisted.
+
+'Yes,' agreed the _Parnass_ drily; 'it _is_ your business.'
+
+
+III
+
+The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though the plate-glass
+window was unshaken by the gusts. It maintained its flaunting
+seductiveness, assisted, people observed, by Simeon Samuels' habit of
+lounging at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating spectator. And
+it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath that succeeded.
+
+The horror was tinged with consternation. The strange apathy of the
+pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the
+celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the
+cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the
+congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did
+not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is
+true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window
+down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins
+fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop; but as the suffering was
+entirely limited to the nerves of Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to
+the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what
+was expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the
+general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the
+Sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had
+connived at a breach of contract.
+
+The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and
+long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'
+
+'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon,
+unappeased. 'Saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to
+wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your
+duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'
+
+The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a
+German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in
+his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested
+such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was
+treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious
+ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not
+suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a
+congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky
+was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the
+congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and
+if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and
+the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.
+
+'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a
+bad example to our poor!'
+
+'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had
+much better talk to him yourself.'
+
+'Me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'I would not lower myself.
+He'd think I was jealous of his success.'
+
+Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. Bland
+and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only
+in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever.
+
+At last the Minister received a presidential command to preach upon
+the subject forthwith.
+
+'But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'We are still in
+Genesis.'
+
+'Bah!' replied the _Parnass_ impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to
+point any moral. You must preach next Sabbath.'
+
+'But we are reading the _Sedrah_ (weekly portion) about Joseph. How
+are you going to work Sabbath-keeping into that?'
+
+'It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the-earth. But what's the
+use of a preacher if he can't make any text mean something else?'
+
+'Well, of course, every text usually does,' said the preacher
+defensively. 'There is the hidden meaning and the plain meaning. But
+Joseph is merely historical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned
+in Genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained yet.'
+
+'And what about Potiphar's wife?'
+
+'That's the Seventh Commandment, not the Fourth.'
+
+'Thank you for the information. Do you mean to say you can't jump from
+one Commandment to another?'
+
+'Oh, well----' The minister meditated.
+
+
+IV
+
+'And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. And it came to
+pass that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph....'
+
+The congregation looked startled. Really this was not a text which
+they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. There were things in the
+Bible that should be left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially
+when one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their eyes lifted
+towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating.
+
+'But Joseph refused.'
+
+Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawnbroker blew his nose like a
+protesting trumpet. The congregation's eyes returned from the balcony
+and converged upon the _Parnass_. He was taking snuff as usual.
+
+'My brethren,' began the preacher impressively, 'temptation comes to
+us all----'
+
+A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from many nostrils. A blush
+overspread many cheeks.
+
+'But not always in the shape it came to Joseph. In this congregation,
+where, by the blessing of the Almighty, we are free from almost every
+form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to
+touch us--the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of
+Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and Simeon Samuels
+became now the focus of every eye. His face was turned towards the
+preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential
+dignity.
+
+'Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of us: "And Joseph
+refused"!'
+
+A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah, now the cosmos was
+righting itself; Heaven was speaking through the mouth of its
+minister.
+
+The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back
+to him. His stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As
+he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt '_Yosher Koach_'
+('May thy strength increase!').
+
+The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his
+seat. As he passed Simeon Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his
+hand and grasped the man of God's, and his neighbours testified that
+there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features.
+
+
+V
+
+The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the
+congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. The plate-glass window
+still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor
+allured the stream of custom.
+
+'He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed
+to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on
+their way from the Friday-evening service.
+
+'Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take
+money?' naïvely inquired Peleg.
+
+'_Behemah_ (animal)!' replied Solomon impatiently. 'Don't you know
+it's forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?'
+
+'Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop----!'
+
+'All the same, you might compromise. You might give the customers the
+things they need, as it is written, "Open thy hand to the needy!" but
+they could pay on Saturday night.'
+
+'And if they didn't pay? If they drank their money away?' said the
+pawnbroker.
+
+'True, but why couldn't they pay in advance?'
+
+'How in advance?'
+
+'They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.'
+
+'Not with me!' Peleg made a grimace. 'All very well for your line, but
+in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with _them_. I don't
+suppose they'd bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till
+Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One
+would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!'
+
+'Write! Heaven forbid!' ejaculated Solomon Barzinsky. 'But you could
+have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your
+register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp
+stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always
+give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.
+
+'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the
+crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a
+little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner.
+We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'
+
+'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'
+
+'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'
+
+'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our _Parnass_ has
+caught us up. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), _Parnass_. This is a fine
+scandal for a God-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'
+
+'Is he open again?' gasped the _Parnass_, hurled from his judicial
+calm.
+
+'Is my eye open?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 'A fat lot of good
+your preacher does.'
+
+'It was you who would elect him instead of Rochinsky,' the _Parnass_
+reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.
+
+'Well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured.
+
+'And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the
+_Parnass_, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never
+ceased to rankle.
+
+'Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Barzinsky. He seriously
+considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as
+retrospective. 'We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he
+went on. 'Let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a
+piece of our minds.'
+
+'I can't keep my family waiting for _Kiddush'_ (home service), said
+Peleg.
+
+'Come home, father; I'm hungry,' put in Peleg junior, who with various
+Barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake.
+
+'Silence, impudent face!' snapped Barzinsky. 'If I was your
+father----Ah, here comes the minister. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), Mr.
+Gabriel. I congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.'
+
+An exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. 'Is he shut?'
+
+'Is your mouth shut?' Solomon replied scathingly. 'I doubt if he'll
+even come to _Shool_ (synagogue) to-morrow.'
+
+The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came
+from it.
+
+'I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, Mr. Gabriel,' said
+the _Parnass_ soothingly.
+
+'But if he is not there to hear it.'
+
+'Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right enough. Just give
+it to him hot!'
+
+'Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who had lingered, though
+his son had not. 'You might have meant any of us.'
+
+'But we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'It
+is written in the Talmud that he who does so has no share in the world
+to come.'
+
+'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. 'A stranger would
+imagine we were a congregation of Sabbath-breakers.'
+
+'But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.
+
+'There was Simeon Samuels,' the _Parnass_ reminded him. 'Perhaps your
+sermon against Sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a
+crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him----'
+
+'But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,' said the poor
+minister.
+
+'Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the _Parnass_.
+
+'You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it
+clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'
+
+'I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the
+goaded minister.
+
+The _Parnass_ took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw.
+
+'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.'
+
+'I didn't undertake to preach every Saturday,' grumbled the minister,
+growing bolder.
+
+'As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said Solomon
+angrily.
+
+'It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.
+
+'And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's _Sedrah_' (portion),
+Barzinsky remembered exultantly. '"And took from them Simeon, and
+bound him before their eyes." There's your very text. You'll pick out
+Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the Sabbath.'
+
+'Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound him,' added the
+_Parnass_. 'You have a choice--yourself or Satan.'
+
+'Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister
+sullenly. 'I still can't see what that text has to do with
+Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+'It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as Potiphar's wife,'
+shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+
+VI
+
+'"And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved. Joseph
+is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin."'
+
+As the word 'Simeon' came hissing from the preacher's lips, a
+veritable thrill passed through the synagogue. Even Simeon Samuels
+seemed shaken, for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous
+movement.
+
+'My brethren, these words of Israel, the great forefather of our
+tribes, are still ringing in our ears. To-day more than ever is Israel
+crying. Joseph is not--our Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not--our Holy
+Temple is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us--one blessing
+with which the almighty father has blessed us--our Holy Sabbath. And
+ye will take Benjamin.' The pathos of his accents melted every heart.
+Tears rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels was seen to
+blow his nose softly.
+
+Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel proceeded to draw a
+tender picture of the love between Israel and his Benjamin,
+Sabbath--the one consolation of his exile, and he skilfully worked in
+the subsequent verse: 'If mischief befall him by the way on which ye
+go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'
+Yes, it would be the destruction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath
+decayed. Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger Benjamin.
+'From Reuben and _Simeon_ down to Gad and Asher, his life shall be
+required at their hands.' Oh, it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing
+sermon, and Solomon Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and
+whispering to the _Parnass_: 'Wasn't I right in refusing to vote for
+Rochinsky?' This reminder of his candidate's defeat was wormwood to
+the _Parnass_, spoiling all his satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked
+the talker with a noisy '_Shaa_' (silence).
+
+The congregation shrank delicately from looking at the sinner; it
+would be too painful to watch his wriggles. His neighbours stared
+pointedly every other way. Thus, the only record of his deportment
+under fire came from Yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said that he
+kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the effect on the
+congregation, stroking his beard placidly the while. But as to his
+behaviour after the guns were still, there was no dubiety, for
+everybody saw him approach the _Parnass_ in the exodus from synagogue,
+and many heard him say in hearty accents: 'I really must congratulate
+you, Mr. President, on your selection of your minister.'
+
+
+VII
+
+'You touched his heart so,' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky an hour later
+to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel, 'that he went straight from _Shool_
+(synagogue) to his shop.' Solomon had rushed out the first thing after
+breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to call upon the
+unsuccessful minister.
+
+'That is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen.
+
+'Yes, it is--if you had only stuck to _my_ text. But no! You must set
+yourself up over all our heads.'
+
+'You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.'
+
+'Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him? The Holy Temple! A
+fine thing, upon my soul!'
+
+'It was only an--an--analogy,' stammered the poor minister.
+
+'An apology! Oh, so you apologized to him, too! Better and better.'
+
+'No, no, I mean a comparison.'
+
+'A comparison! You never compared me to the Holy Temple. And I'm
+Solomon--Solomon who built it.'
+
+'Solomon was wise,' murmured the minister.
+
+'Oh, and I'm silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I'd remember my place
+and who I owed it to. But for me, Rochinsky would have stood in your
+shoes----'
+
+'Rochinsky is lucky.'
+
+'Oh, indeed! So this is your gratitude. Very well. Either Simeon
+Samuels shuts up shop or you do. That's final. Don't forget you were
+only elected for three years.' And the little man flung out.
+
+The _Parnass_, meeting his minister later in the street, took a
+similar view.
+
+'You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said. 'The
+congregation is terribly wrought up. There may even be a riot. If
+Simeon Samuels keeps open next Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't
+go and break his windows.'
+
+'Then _they_ will break the Sabbath.'
+
+'Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'
+
+'They'll be too busy opening their own shops.'
+
+'Don't argue. You _must_ preach his shop shut.'
+
+'Very well,' said the Reverend Gabriel sullenly.
+
+'That's right. A man with a family must rise to great occasions. Do
+you think I'd be where I am now if I hadn't had the courage to buy a
+bankrupt stock that I didn't see my way to paying for? It's a fight
+between you and Simeon Samuels.'
+
+'May his name be blotted out!' impatiently cried the minister in the
+Hebrew imprecation.
+
+'No, no,' replied the _Parnass_, smiling. 'His name must not be
+blotted out--it must be mentioned, and--unmistakably.'
+
+'It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is equivalent to murder,'
+the minister persisted.
+
+'Yet it is written in Leviticus: "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy
+neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."' And the _Parnass_ took a
+triumphant pinch.
+
+
+VIII
+
+'_Simeon_ and Levi are brethren ... into their assembly be not thou
+united: in their self-will they digged down a wall.'
+
+The _Parnass_ applauded mentally. The text, from Jacob's blessing,
+was ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. The wall, he perceived at
+once, was the Sabbath--the Jews' one last protection against the outer
+world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. Nor did his
+complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the
+preacher thundered against the self-will--ay, and the self-seeking--that
+undermined Israel's last fortification. What did they seek under the
+wall? Did they think their delving spades would come upon a hidden
+store of gold, upon an ancient treasure-chest? Nay, it was a coffin
+they would strike--a coffin of dead bones and living serpents.
+
+A cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue; a little shriek came
+from the gallery.
+
+'I don't think I ever enjoyed a sermon so much,' said the pawnbroker
+to the _Parnass_.
+
+'Oh, he's improving,' said the _Parnass_, still swollen with
+satisfaction.
+
+But as that worthy elder emerged from the synagogue, placidly snuffing
+himself, he found an excited gentleman waiting him in the lobby. It
+was Lazarus Levy, whom his wife Deborah, daughter of S. Cohn (now of
+Highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify.
+
+'Either that Reverend Gabriel goes, Mr. _Parnass_, or I resign my
+membership.'
+
+'What is it, Mr. Levy--what is the matter?'
+
+'Everybody knows I've been a good Jew all my life, and though Saturday
+is so good for the clothing business, I've striven with all my might
+to do my duty by the Almighty.'
+
+'Of course, of course; everybody knows that.'
+
+'And yet to-day I'm pointed out as a sinner in Israel; I'm coupled
+with that Simeon Samuels. Simeon and Levy are brothers in their
+iniquity--with their assembly be not united. A pretty libel, indeed!'
+
+The _Parnass's_ complacency collapsed like an air-ball at a pin-prick.
+'Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he couldn't mean you.'
+
+'I don't know so much. There are always people ready to think one has
+just been discovered keeping a back-door open or something. I
+shouldn't be at all surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in
+London--you know how pious old Cohn is! As for Simeon, he kept looking
+at me as if I _was_ his long-lost brother. Ah, there comes our
+precious minister.... Look here, Mr. Gabriel, I'll have the law on
+you. Simeon's no brother of mine----'
+
+The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other swing-door cut the
+speaker short. 'Good _Shabbos_,' said the shameless sinner. 'Ah, Mr.
+Gabriel, that was a very fine sermon.' He stroked his beard. 'I quite
+agree with you. To dig down a public wall is indefensible. Nobody has
+the right to make more than a private hole in it, where it blocks out
+his own prospect. So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again.
+Good _Shabbos_!' And, waving his hand pleasantly, he left them to
+their consternation.
+
+
+IX
+
+'What an impudent face!' said the _Gabbai_ (treasurer), who witnessed
+the episode.
+
+'And our minister says I'm that man's brother! exclaimed Mr. Levy.
+
+'Hush! Enough!' said the _Parnass_, with a tactful inspiration. 'You
+shall read the _Haphtorah_ (prophetic section) next _Shabbos_.'
+
+'And Mr. Gabriel must explain he didn't mean me,' he stipulated,
+mollified by the magnificent _Mitzvah_ (pious privilege).
+
+'You always try to drive a hard bargain,' grumbled the _Parnass_.
+'That's a question for Mr. Gabriel.'
+
+The reverend gentleman had a happy thought. 'Wait till we come to the
+text: "Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his
+brethren."'
+
+'You're a gentleman, Mr. Gabriel,' ejaculated S. Cohn's son-in-law,
+clutching at his hand.
+
+'And if he doesn't close to-day after your splendid sermon,' added the
+_Gabbai_, 'you must call and talk to him face to face.'
+
+The minister made a wry face. 'But that's not in my duties.'
+
+'Pardon me, Mr. Gabriel,' put in the _Parnass_, 'you have to call upon
+the afflicted and the bereaved. And Simeon Samuels is spiritually
+afflicted, and has lost his Sabbath.'
+
+'But he doesn't want comforting.'
+
+'Well, Solomon Barzinsky does,' said the _Parnass_. 'Go to him
+instead, then, for I'm past soothing him. Choose!'
+
+'I'll go to Simeon Samuels,' said the preacher gloomily.
+
+
+X
+
+'It is most kind of you to call,' said Simeon Samuels as he wheeled
+the parlour armchair towards his reverend guest. 'My wife will be so
+sorry to have missed you. We have both been looking forward so much to
+your visit.'
+
+'You knew I was coming?' said the minister, a whit startled.
+
+'I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or later.'
+
+'I'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister, subsiding into the
+chair.
+
+'Better late than never,' cried Simeon Samuels heartily, as he
+produced a bottle from the sideboard. 'Do you take it with hot water?'
+
+'Thank you--not at all. I am only staying a moment.'
+
+'Ah!' He stroked his beard. 'You are busy?'
+
+'Terribly busy,' said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel.
+
+'Even on Sunday?'
+
+'Rather! It's my day for secretarial work, as there's no school.'
+
+'Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to myself. But you have to
+work Saturday and Sunday too. It's really too bad.'
+
+'Eh,' said the minister blankly.
+
+'Oh, of course I know you _must_ work on the Sabbath.'
+
+'_I_ work on--on _Shabbos_!' The minister flushed to the temples.
+
+'Oh, I'm not blaming you. One must live. In an ideal world of
+course you'd preach and pray and sing and recite the Law for nothing
+so that Heaven might perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things
+are you must take your wages.'
+
+   [Illustration: "I work on--on _Shabbos_!"]
+
+The minister had risen agitatedly. 'I earn my wages for the rest of my
+work--the Sabbath work I throw in,' he said hotly.
+
+'Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. But far be
+it from me to judge a fellow-man.'
+
+'Far be it indeed!' The attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him
+vigour for the lunge. 'You--you whose shop stands brazenly open every
+Saturday!'
+
+'My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn't break the Fourth Commandment.'
+
+'What!'
+
+'Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?'
+
+'I do not understand.'
+
+'And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth
+Commandment run: "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? If
+I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week,
+since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.'
+
+'But you don't keep the other half of the Commandment,' said the
+bewildered minister. '"And on the seventh is the Sabbath."'
+
+'Yes, I do--after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned
+once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to
+Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'
+
+'But you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw.
+
+'Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it
+seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first
+sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the
+Commandment--to work six days and keep a day of rest--merely changing
+the day once in one's whole lifetime--or to work five days and keep
+two days of rest?'
+
+The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. He
+had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the
+necessity of earning one's bread. He was prepared to prove that even
+from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run,
+as it is written in the Conclusion-of-Sabbath Service: 'Blessed shalt
+thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.'
+
+Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.
+
+'My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon
+the resting half of the Commandment, forgetting the working half of
+it. I do my best to meet their views--as you say, one should not dig
+down a wall--by attending their Sabbath service on a day most
+inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful
+communion with one's brethren.'
+
+'But if your views were to prevail there would be an end of Judaism!'
+the minister burst forth.
+
+'Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!' said Simeon Samuels
+fervently. 'It is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly
+as possible from the pulpit.' Then, as the minister rose in angry
+obfuscation, 'You are sure you won't have some whisky?' he added.
+
+'No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And if you show
+yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you again.'
+
+'So that is your idea of religion--to drive me from the synagogue. You
+are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of
+always hearing the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy your
+eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of Judaism.'
+
+'Me!' The minister became ungrammatical in his indignation.
+
+'Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac. People who find that
+your Sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all
+professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves
+outside the gates of Judaism. If my father--peace be upon him--hadn't
+had your narrow notions, I should have gone to the Bar instead of
+being condemned to shop-keeping.'
+
+'You are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted the minister.
+
+Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'Thank you. And I congratulate
+_your_ client.'
+
+'You are an _Epikouros_ (Epicurean), and I am wasting my time.'
+
+'And mine too.'
+
+The minister strode into the shop. At the street-door he turned.
+
+'Then you persist in setting a bad example?'
+
+'A bad example! To whom? To your godly congregation? Considering every
+other shop in the town is open on _Shabbos_, one more or less can't
+upset them.'
+
+'When it is the only Jewish shop! Are you aware, sir, that every
+other Jew in Sudminster closes rigorously on the Sabbath?'
+
+'I ascertained that before I settled here,' said Simeon Samuels
+quietly.
+
+
+XI
+
+The report of the pastor's collapse produced an emergency meeting of
+the leading sheep. The mid-day dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest.
+A babble of suggestions filled the _Parnass's_ parlour. Solomon
+Barzinsky kept sternly repeating his _Delenda est Carthago_: 'He must
+be expelled from the congregation.'
+
+'He should be expelled from the town altogether,' said Mendel. 'As it
+is written: "And remove Satan from before and behind us."'
+
+'Since when have we owned Sudminster?' sneered the _Parnass_. 'You
+might as well talk of expelling the Mayor and the Corporation.'
+
+'I didn't mean by Act of Parliament,' said Mendel. 'We could make his
+life a torture.'
+
+'And meantime he makes yours a torture. No, no, the only way is to
+appeal to his soul----'
+
+'May it be an atonement for us all!' interrupted Peleg the pawnbroker.
+
+'We must beg him not to destroy religion,' repeated the _Parnass_.
+
+'I thought Mr. Gabriel had done that,' said the _Gabbai_.
+
+'He is only a minister. He has no worldly tact.'
+
+'Then, why don't _you_ go?' said Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+'I have too much worldly tact. The President's visit might seem like
+an appeal to authority. It would set up his bristles. Besides, there
+wouldn't be me left to appeal to. The congregation must keep some
+trump up its sleeve. No, a mere plain member must go, a simple brother
+in Israel, to talk to him, heart to heart. You, Barzinsky, are the
+very man.'
+
+'No, no, I'm not such a simple brother as all that. I'm in the same
+line, and he might take it for trade jealousy.'
+
+'Then Peleg must go.'
+
+'No, no, I'm not worthy to be the _Sheliach Tzibbur_!' (envoy of the
+congregation).
+
+The _Parnass_ reassured him as to his merits. 'The congregation could
+not have a worthier envoy.'
+
+'But I can't leave my business.'
+
+'You, with your fine grown-up daughters!' cried Barzinsky.
+
+'Don't beshrew them--I will go at once.'
+
+'And these gentlemen must await you here,' said the President, tapping
+his snuffbox incongruously at the 'here,' 'in order to continue the
+sitting if you fail.'
+
+'I can't wait more than a quarter of an hour,' grumbled various voices
+in various keys.
+
+Peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congregational esteem. He
+returned without even his own. Instead he carried a bulky barometer.
+
+'You must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,' he said. 'It will do
+to hang in the lobby.'
+
+The _Parnass_ was the only one left in command of his breath.
+
+'Buy a barometer!' he gasped.
+
+'Well, it isn't any good to _me_,' retorted Peleg angrily.
+
+'Then why did you buy it?' cried the _Gabbai_.
+
+'It was the cheapest article I could get off with.'
+
+'But you didn't go to buy,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I know that--but you come into the shop--naturally he takes you for a
+customer--he looks so dignified; he strokes his beard--you can't look
+a fool, you must----'
+
+'Be one,' snapped the _Parnass_. 'And then you come to us to share the
+expenses!'
+
+'Well, what do I want with a barometer?'
+
+'It'll do to tell you there's a storm when the chimney-pots are
+blowing down,' suggested the _Parnass_ crushingly.
+
+'Put it in your window--you'll make a profit out of it,' said Mendel.
+
+'Not while Simeon Samuels is selling them cheaper, as with his Sabbath
+profits he can well afford to do!'
+
+'Oh, he said he'd stick to his Sabbath profit, did he?' inquired the
+_Parnass_.
+
+'We never touched on that,' said Peleg miserably. 'I couldn't manage
+to work the Sabbath into the conversation.'
+
+'This is terrible.' Barzinsky's fist smote the table. 'I'll go--let
+him suspect my motives or not. The Almighty knows they are pure.'
+
+'Bravo! Well spoken!' There was a burst of applause. Several
+marine-dealers shot out their hands and grasped Barzinsky's in
+admiration.
+
+'Do not await me, gentlemen,' he said importantly. 'Go in peace.'
+
+
+XII
+
+'Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels,' said Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+'Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?'
+
+'You--you don't know me? I am a fellow-Jew.'
+
+'That's as plain as the nose on your face.'
+
+'You don't remember me from _Shool_? Mr. Barzinsky! I had the
+rolling-up of the Scroll the time you had the elevation of it.'
+
+'Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely notice people. But I
+am very glad to find you patronizing my humble establishment.'
+
+'I don't want a barometer,' said Solomon hurriedly.
+
+'That is fortunate, as I have just sold my last. But in the way of
+waterproofs, we have a new pattern, very seasonable.'
+
+'No, no; I didn't come for a waterproof.'
+
+'These oilskins----'
+
+'I didn't come to buy anything.'
+
+'Ah, you wish to sell me something.'
+
+'Not that either. The fact is, I've come to beg of you, as one Jew to
+another----'
+
+'A _Schnorrer_!' interrupted Simeon Samuels. 'Oh, Lord, I ought to
+have recognised you by that synagogue beginning.'
+
+'Me, a _Schnorrer_!' The little man swelled skywards. 'Me, Solomon
+Barzinsky, whose shop stood in Sudminster twenty years before you
+poked your nose in----'
+
+'I beg your pardon. There! you see I'm a beggar, too.' And Simeon
+Samuels laughed mirthlessly. 'Well, you've come to beg of me.' And
+his fingers caressed his patriarchal beard.
+
+'I don't come on my own account only,' Barzinsky stammered.
+
+'I understand. You want a contribution to the Passover Cake Fund. My
+time is precious, so is yours. What is the _Parnass_ giving?'
+
+'I'm not begging for money. I represent the congregation.'
+
+'Dear me, why didn't you come to the point quicker? The congregation
+wishes to beg my acceptance of office. Well, it's very good of you
+all, especially as I'm such a recent addition. But I really feel a
+diffidence. You see, my views of the Sabbath clash with those of the
+congregation.'
+
+'They do!' cried Barzinsky, leaping at his opportunity.
+
+'Yes, I am for a much stricter observance than appears general here.
+Scarcely one of you carries his handkerchief tied round his loins like
+my poor old father, peace be upon him! You all carry the burden of it
+impiously in a pocket.'
+
+'I never noticed _your_ handkerchief round your waist!' cried the
+bewildered Barzinsky.
+
+'Perhaps not; I never had a cold; it remained furled.'
+
+Simeon Samuels' superb insolence twitched Barzinsky's mouth agape.
+'But you keep your shop open!' he cried at last.
+
+'That would be still another point of clashing,' admitted Simeon
+Samuels blandly. 'Altogether, you will see the inadvisability of my
+accepting office.'
+
+'Office!' echoed Barzinsky, meeting the other's ironic fence with
+crude thwacks. 'Do you think a God-fearing congregation would offer
+office to a Sabbath-breaker?'
+
+'Ah, so that was at the back of it. I suspected something underhand in
+your offer. I was to be given office, was I, on condition of closing
+my shop on Saturday? No, Mr. Barzinsky. Go back and tell those who
+sent you that Simeon Samuels scorns stipulations, and that when you
+offer to make him _Parnass_ unconditionally he may consider your
+offer, but not till then. Good-bye. You must jog along with your
+present apology for a _Parnass_.'
+
+'You--you Elisha ben Abuyai!' And, consoled only by the aptness of his
+reference to the atheist of the Talmud, Barzinsky rushed off to tell
+the _Parnass_ how Simeon Samuels had insulted them both.
+
+
+XIII
+
+The _Parnass_, however, was not to be drawn yet. He must keep himself
+in reserve, he still insisted. But perhaps, he admitted, Simeon
+Samuels resented mere private members or committeemen. Let the
+_Gabbai_ go.
+
+Accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue strode into the
+notorious shop on the Sabbath itself, catching Simeon Samuels
+red-handed.
+
+But nothing could be suaver than that gentleman's 'Good _Shabbos_.
+What can I do for you?'
+
+'You can shut up your shop,' said the _Gabbai_ brusquely.
+
+'And how shall I pay your bill, then?'
+
+'I'd rather give you a seat and all the honours for nothing than see
+this desecration.'
+
+'You must have a goodly surplus, then.'
+
+'We have enough.'
+
+'That's strange. You're the first _Gabbai_ I ever knew who was
+satisfied with his balance-sheet. Is it your excellent management, I
+wonder, or have you endowments?'
+
+'That's not for me to say. I mean we have five or six hundred pounds
+in legacies.'
+
+'Indeed! Soundly invested, I hope?'
+
+'First-class. English Railway Debentures.'
+
+'I see. Trustee stock.' Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'And so your
+whole congregation works on the Sabbath. A pretty confession!'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Runs railway trains, lights engine-fires, keeps porters and
+signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits!'
+
+'Who does?'
+
+'You, sir, in particular, as the financial representative of the
+congregation. How can any Jew hold industrial shares in a heathen
+country without being a partner in a Sabbath business--ay, and opening
+on the Day of Atonement itself? And it is you who have the audacity to
+complain of me! I, at least, do my own dirty work, not hide myself
+behind stocks and shares. Good _Shabbos_ to you, Mr. _Gabbai_, and
+kindly mind your own business in future--your locomotives and your
+sidings and your stinking tunnels.'
+
+
+XIV
+
+The _Parnass_ could no longer delay the diplomatic encounter. 'Twas
+vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of
+his own tact. He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the
+others that he was about to put it to a trial.
+
+Hence he refrained from improving a synagogue opportunity, but sneaked
+one week-day towards the shop. He lingered without, waiting to be
+invited within. Thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke would be
+removed. His mission should pop up from a casual conversation.
+
+He peeped into the window, passed and repassed.
+
+Simeon Samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the purlieus of his web,
+issued from its centre, as the _Parnass_ turned his back on the shop
+and gazed musingly at the sky.
+
+'Looks threatening for rain, sir,' observed Simeon Samuels, addressing
+the back. 'Our waterproofs---- Bless my soul, but it surely isn't our
+_Parnass_!'
+
+'Yes, I'm just strolling about. I seem to have stumbled on your
+establishment.'
+
+'Lucky for me.'
+
+'And a pleasure for me. I never knew you had such a nice display.'
+
+'Won't you come inside, and see the stock?'
+
+'Thank you, I must really get back home. And besides, as you say, it
+is threatening for rain.'
+
+'I'll lend you a waterproof, or even sell you one cheap. Come in,
+sir--come in. Pray honour me.'
+
+Congratulating himself on catching the spider, the fly followed him
+within.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz about the stock. It
+seemed vastly difficult to veer round to the Sabbath through the web
+of conversation the spider wove round him. Simeon Samuels' conception
+of a marine-dealer's stock startled him by its comprehensiveness, and
+when he was asked to admire an Indian shawl, he couldn't help
+inquiring what it was doing there.
+
+'Well,' explained Simeon Samuels, 'occasionally a captain or first
+mate will come back to England, home, and beauty, and will have
+neglected to buy foreign presents for his womenkind. I then remind him
+of the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their menfolks'
+travel.'
+
+'Excellent. I won't tell your competitors.'
+
+'Oh, those cattle!' Simeon snapped his fingers. 'If they stole my
+idea, they'd not be able to carry it out. It's not easy to cajole a
+captain.'
+
+'No, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the _Parnass_.
+
+'I also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on Simeon. 'It's a thing
+women are especially fond of having brought back to them from India.
+And yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till I remind them
+of it on their return.'
+
+'_I_ certainly brought back none,' said the _Parnass_, smiling in
+spite of himself.
+
+'You have been in India?'
+
+'I have,' replied the _Parnass_, with a happy inspiration, 'and I
+brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.'
+
+'Indeed?'
+
+'Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, who, surrounded by
+all those millions of Hindoos, still keep their Sabbath.'
+
+'Ah, poor niggers. Then you've been half round the world.'
+
+'_All_ round the world, for I went there and back by different routes.
+And it was most touching, wherever I went, to find everywhere a colony
+of Jews, and everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'
+
+'But on different days, of course,' said Simeon Samuels.
+
+'Eh? Not at all! On the same day.'
+
+'On the same day! How could that be? The day changes with every move
+east or west. When it's day here, it's night in Australia.'
+
+Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.
+
+'Don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily.
+
+'It's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted Simeon
+Samuels. 'Perhaps you don't know that I hail from Australia, and that
+by working on Saturday I escape profaning my native Australian
+Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either
+lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are
+desecrating your original Sabbath either by working on Friday or
+smoking on Sunday.'
+
+The _Parnass_ felt his head going round--he didn't know whether east
+or west. He tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain
+strove to make judicial.
+
+'Oh, and so, and so--atchew!--and so you're the saint and I'm the
+sinner!' he cried sarcastically.
+
+'No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon Samuels somewhat
+unexpectedly. 'But I do think the Saturday was meant for Palestine,
+not for the lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. When
+you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday.
+A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday,
+of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on Sunday.'
+
+'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the _Parnass_ with obstinate
+sublimity.
+
+'But the Fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the
+Lord thy God giveth thee." I believe this reward belongs to all the
+first five Commandments--not only to the Fifth--else an orphan would
+have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the
+Lord giveth thee; not in England, which isn't thine.'
+
+'Oho!' retorted the _Parnass_. 'Then at that rate in England you
+needn't honour your father and mother.'
+
+'Not if you haven't got them!' rejoined Simeon Samuels. 'And if you
+haven't got a land, you can't keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we
+can keep the Jubilee also without a country.'
+
+'The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the _Parnass_ doggedly. 'It has
+nothing to do with countries. Before we got to the Promised Land we
+kept the Sabbath in the wilderness.'
+
+'Yes, and God sent a double dose of manna on the Friday. Do you mean
+to say He sends us here a double dose of profit?'
+
+'He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well enough before you brought
+your wretched example----'
+
+'Then my wretched example cannot lead the congregation away. I am glad
+of it. You do them much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+'My way!'
+
+'Yes, my dear old father--peace be upon him!--would have been
+scandalized to see the burden you carry on the Sabbath.'
+
+'What burden do I carry?'
+
+'Your snuff-box!'
+
+The _Parnass_ almost dropped it. 'That little thing!'
+
+'I call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless thing. But before the
+Almighty there is no great and no small. One who stands in such a high
+place in the synagogue must be especially mindful, and every
+unnecessary burden----'
+
+'But snuff is necessary for me--I can't do without it.'
+
+'Other Presidents have done without it. As it is written in Jeremiah:
+"And the wild asses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the
+wind."'
+
+The _Parnass_ flushed like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know _your_
+place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, and strode towards the
+door.
+
+'But if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said Simeon Samuels, 'I
+have an artistic assortment.'
+
+
+XV
+
+At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a notice of motion stood
+upon the agenda in the name of the _Parnass_ himself:
+
+'That this Council views with the greatest reprobation the breach of
+the Fourth Commandment committed weekly by a member of the
+congregation, and calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the
+burial and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close his business
+on the Sabbath.'
+
+When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky moved as an
+amendment that weekly be altered into 'twice a week,' since the member
+kept open on Friday night as well as Saturday.
+
+The _Parnass_ refused to accept the amendment. There was only one
+Sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 'And the evening and the
+morning were one day.'
+
+Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must not leave Mr. Simeon
+Samuels a loophole of escape. It was also, he said, the duty of the
+Council to buy a barometer the rogue had foisted upon him.
+
+After an animated discussion, mainly about the barometer, the
+President accepted the amendment, but produced a great impression by
+altering 'twice a week' into 'bi-weekly.'
+
+A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself on his style, and
+had even changed his name to John because Jacob grated on his delicate
+ear, refused to be impressed.
+
+Committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member sounded almost jocose, he argued.
+'Buy! buy!' it sounded like a butcher's cry.
+
+Mr. Enoch, the _kosher_ butcher, rose amid excitement, and asked if he
+had come there to be insulted!
+
+'Sit down! sit down!' said the _Parnass_ roughly. 'It's no matter how
+the resolution sounds. It will be in writing.'
+
+'Then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the stylist, '"Committed
+_bi_-weekly _by_ a member _by buying_ and selling."'
+
+'Order, order!' said the _Parnass_ angrily. 'Those who are in favour
+of the resolution! Carried.'
+
+'_By_ a majority,' sneered the stylist, subsiding.
+
+'Mr. Secretary'--the President turned to the poor
+Reverend-of-all-work--'you need not record this verbal discussion in
+the minutes.'
+
+'_By_ request,' said the stylist, reviving.
+
+'But what's the use of the resolution if you don't mention the
+member's name?' suddenly inquired Ephraim Mendel, stretching his long,
+languid limbs.
+
+'But there's only one Sabbath-breaker,' replied the _Parnass_.
+
+'To-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.'
+
+'It could hardly be to-morrow,' said the stylist. 'For that happens to
+be a Monday.'
+
+Barzinsky bashed the table. 'Mr. President, are we here for business
+or are we not?'
+
+'You may be here for business--I am here for religion,' retorted
+Straumann the stylist.
+
+'You--you snub-nosed monkey, what do you mean?'
+
+'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I will not order,' said Solomon Barzinsky excitedly. 'I did not come
+here to be insulted.'
+
+'Insulted!' quoth Straumann. 'It's you that must apologize, you
+illiterate icthyosaurus! I appeal to the President.'
+
+'You have both insulted _me_,' was that worthy's ruling. 'I give the
+word to Mr. Mendel.'
+
+'But----' from both the combatants simultaneously.
+
+'Order, order!' from a dozen throats.
+
+'I said Simeon Samuels' name must be put in,' Mendel repeated.
+
+'You should have said so before--the resolution is carried now,' said
+the President.
+
+'And a fat lot of good it will do,' said Peleg. 'Gentlemen, if you
+knew him as well as I, if you had my barometer to read him by, you'd
+see that the only remedy is to put him in _Cherem_' (excommunication).
+
+'If he can't get buried it _is_ a kind of _Cherem_,' said the
+_Gabbai_.
+
+'Assuredly,' added the _Parnass_. 'He will be frightened to think that
+if he dies suddenly----'
+
+'And he is sure to take a sudden death,' put in Barzinsky with
+unction.
+
+'He will not be buried among Jews,' wound up the _Parnass_.
+
+'Hear, hear!' A murmur of satisfaction ran round the table. All felt
+that Simeon Samuels was cornered at last. It was resolved that the
+resolution be sent to him.
+
+
+XVI
+
+'Mr. Simeon Samuels requests me to say that he presents his
+compliments to the secretary of the Sudminster Hebrew Congregation,
+and begs to acknowledge the receipt of the Council's resolution. In
+reply I am to state that Mr. Samuels regrets that his views on the
+Sabbath question should differ from those of his fellow-worshippers,
+but he has not attempted to impress his views on the majority, and he
+regrets that in a free country like England they should have imported
+the tyranny of the lands of persecution from which they came.
+Fortunately such procedure is illegal. By the act of Charles I. the
+Sabbath is defined as the Sunday, and as a British subject Mr. Samuels
+takes his stand upon the British Constitution. Mr. Samuels has done
+his best to compromise with the congregation by attending the Sabbath
+service on the day most convenient to the majority. In regard to the
+veiled threat of the refusal of burial rights, Mr. Samuels desires me
+to say that he has no intention of dying in Sudminster, but merely of
+getting his living there. In any case, under his will, his body is to
+be deported to Jerusalem, where he has already acquired a
+burying-place.'
+
+'Next year in Jerusalem!' cried Barzinsky fervently, when this was
+read to the next meeting.
+
+'Order, order,' said the _Parnass_. 'I don't believe in his Jerusalem
+grave. They won't admit his dead body.'
+
+'He relies on smuggling in alive,' said Barzinsky gloomily, 'as soon
+as he has made his pile.'
+
+'That won't be very long at this rate,' added Ephraim Mendel.
+
+'The sooner the better,' said the _Gabbai_ impatiently. 'Let him go to
+Jericho.'
+
+There was a burst of laughter, to the _Gabbai's_ great astonishment.
+
+'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the _Parnass_. 'Don't you see from
+this insolent letter how right I was? The rascal threatens to drag us
+to the Christian Courts, that's clear. All that about Jerusalem is
+only dust thrown into our eyes.'
+
+'Grave-dust,' murmured Straumann.
+
+'Order! He is a dangerous customer.'
+
+'Shopkeeper,' corrected Straumann.
+
+The _Parnass_ glared, but took snuff silently.
+
+'I don't wonder he laughed at us,' said Straumann, encouraged.
+'_Bi_-weekly _by_ a member. Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+'Mr. President!' Barzinsky screamed. 'Will you throw that laughing
+hyena out, or shall I?'
+
+Straumann froze to a statue of dignity. 'Let any animalcule try it
+on,' said he.
+
+'Shut up, you children, I'll chuck you both out,' said Ephraim Mendel
+in conciliatory tones. 'The point is--what's to be done now, Mr.
+President?'
+
+'Nothing--till the end of the year. When he offers his new
+subscription we refuse to take it. That can't be illegal.'
+
+'We ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,' said Straumann.
+'These formal resolutions "Buy! buy!" put his back up. We'll go to him
+as brothers--all Israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than
+water.'
+
+'Chutney is thicker than blood,' put in the _Parnass_ mysteriously.
+'He'll simply try to palm off his stock on the deputation.'
+
+Ephraim Mendel and Solomon Barzinsky jumped up simultaneously. 'What a
+good idea,' said Ephraim. 'There you have hit it!' said Solomon. Their
+simultaneous popping-up had an air of finality--like the long and the
+short of it!
+
+'You mean?' said the _Parnass_, befogged in his turn.
+
+'I mean,' said Barzinsky, 'we could buy up his stock, me and the other
+marine-dealers between us, and he could clear out!'
+
+'If he sold it reasonably,' added Mendel.
+
+'Even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for the Sabbath,' said
+the _Parnass_. 'Besides, divided among the lot of you, the loss would
+be little.'
+
+'And you can buy in my barometer with the rest,' added Peleg.
+
+'We could call a meeting of marine-dealers,' said Barzinsky,
+disregarding him. 'We could say to them we must sacrifice ourselves
+for our religion.'
+
+'Tell that to the marine-dealers!' murmured Straumann.
+
+'And that we must buy out the Sabbath-breaker at any cost.'
+
+'Buy! buy!' said Straumann. 'If you'd only thought of that sort of
+"Buy! buy!" at the first!'
+
+'Order, order!' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'It would be more in order,' said Straumann, 'to appoint an executive
+sub-committee to deal with the question. I'm sick of it. And surely we
+as a Synagogue Council can't be in order in ordering some of our
+members to buy out another.'
+
+'Hear, hear!' His suggestion found general approval. It took a long
+discussion, however, before the synagogue decided to wash its hands of
+responsibility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the task of
+ridding Sudminster of its plague-spot by any means that commended
+itself to them.
+
+Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the pawnbroker were
+elected to constitute this Council of Three.
+
+
+XVII
+
+The glad news spread through the Sudminster Congregation that Simeon
+Samuels had at last been bought out--at a terrible loss to the
+martyred marine-dealers who had had to load themselves with chutney
+and other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. But they would get back
+their losses, it was felt, by the removal of his rivalry. Carts were
+drawn up before the dismantled plate-glass window carrying off its
+criminal contents, and Simeon Samuels stood stroking his beard amid
+the ruins.
+
+Then the shop closed; the shutters that should have honoured the
+Sabbath now depressed the Tuesday. Simeon Samuels was seen to get into
+the London train. The demon that troubled their sanctity had been
+exorcised. A great peace reigned in every heart, almost like the
+Sabbath peace coming into the middle of the week.
+
+'If they had only taken my advice earlier,' said Solomon Barzinsky to
+his wife, as he rolled his forkful of beef in the chutney.
+
+'You can write to your father, Deborah,' said Lazarus Levy, 'that we
+no longer need the superior reach-me-downs.'
+
+On the Wednesday strange new rumours began to circulate, and those who
+hastened to confirm them stood dumbfounded before great posters on all
+the shutters:
+
+                      CLOSED FOR RE-STOCKING
+
+             THE OLD-FASHIONED STOCK OF THIS BUSINESS
+                HAVING BEEN SOLD OFF TO THE TRADE,
+
+                          SIMEON SAMUELS
+
+                    IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY
+              TO LAY IN THE BEST AND MOST UP-TO-DATE
+                   LONDON AND CONTINENTAL GOODS
+                        FOR HIS CUSTOMERS.
+        _BARGAINS AND NOVELTIES IN EVERY DEPARTMENT._
+
+                      RE-OPEN SATURDAY NEXT
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A hurried emergency meeting of the Executive Sub-Committee was called.
+
+'He has swindled us,' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'This paper signed by
+him merely undertakes to shut up his shop. And he will plead he meant
+for a day or two.'
+
+'And he agreed to leave the town,' wailed Peleg, 'but he meant to buy
+goods.'
+
+'Well, we can have the law of him,' said Mendel. 'We paid him
+compensation for disturbance.'
+
+'And can't he claim he _was_ disturbed?' shrieked Barzinsky. 'His
+whole stock turned upside down!'
+
+'Let him claim!' said Mendel. 'There is such a thing as obtaining
+money under false pretences.'
+
+'And such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock of the heathen,' said
+Peleg. 'We must grin and bear it ourselves.'
+
+'It's all very well for you to grin,' said Solomon tartly. '_We've_
+got to bear it. You didn't take over any of his old rubbish.'
+
+'Didn't I, indeed? What about the barometer?'
+
+'Confound your barometer!' cried Ephraim Mendel. 'I'll have the law of
+him; I've made up my mind.'
+
+'Well, you'll have to bear the cost, then,' said Peleg. 'It's none of
+my business.'
+
+'Yes, it is,' shouted Mendel. 'As a member of the Sub-Committee you
+can't dissociate yourselves from us.'
+
+'A nice idea that--I'm to be dragged into your law-suits!'
+
+'Hush, leave off these squabbles!' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'The law is
+slow, and not even sure. The time has come for desperate measures. We
+must root out the plague-spot with our own hands.'
+
+'Hear, hear,' said the rest of the Sub-Committee.
+
+
+XIX
+
+On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not the only figure in
+the synagogue absorbed in devotion. Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel,
+and Peleg the pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest
+of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip about them. Their
+shops were open, too, it would seem.
+
+Immediately after the service the _Parnass_ arrested Solomon
+Barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour were true.
+
+'Perfectly true,' replied Solomon placidly. 'The Executive
+Sub-Committee passed the resolution to----'
+
+'To break the Sabbath!' interrupted the _Parnass_.
+
+'We had already sacrificed our money; there was nothing left but to
+sacrifice our deepest feelings----'
+
+'But what for?'
+
+'Why, to destroy his advantage, of course. Five-sixths of his Sabbath
+profits depend on the marine-dealers closing, and when he sees he's
+breaking the Sabbath in vain----'
+
+'Rubbish! You are asked to stop a congregational infection, and
+you----'
+
+'Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make sure the attack
+shall be light.'
+
+'It's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said Mendel, who, with Peleg,
+had lingered to back up Barzinsky.
+
+'Of the mad dog!' exclaimed the _Parnass_. 'And you're all raging
+mad.'
+
+'It's the only sane way,' urged Peleg. 'When he sees his rivals
+open----'
+
+'You!' The President turned on him. 'You are not even a marine-dealer.
+Why are you open?'
+
+'How could I dissociate myself from the rest of the Sub-Committee?'
+inquired Peleg with righteous indignation.
+
+'You are a set of sinners in Israel!' cried the _Parnass_, forgetting
+even to take snuff. 'This will split up the congregation.'
+
+'The congregation through its Council gave the Committee full power to
+deal with the matter,' said Barzinsky with dignity.
+
+'But then the other marine-dealers will open as well as the
+Committee!'
+
+'I trust not,' replied Barzinsky fervently. 'Two of us are enough to
+cut down his takings.'
+
+'But the whole lot of you would be still more efficacious. Oh, this is
+the destruction of our congregation, the death of our religion!'
+
+'No, no, no,' said Solomon soothingly. 'You are mistaken. We are most
+careful not to touch money. We are going to trust our customers, and
+keep our accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a most
+ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we
+have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from
+unnecessary desecration.'
+
+'And once the customers don't pay up, your system will break down.
+No, no; I shall write to the Chief Rabbi.'
+
+'We will explain our motives,' said Mendel.
+
+'Your motives need no explanation. This scandal must cease.'
+
+'And who are you to give orders?' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. 'You're
+not speaking to a _Schnorrer_, mind you. My banking account is every
+bit as big as yours. For two pins I start an opposition _Shool_.'
+
+'A Sunday _Shool_!' said the _Parnass_ sarcastically.
+
+'And why not? It would be better than sitting playing solo on Sundays.
+We are not in Palestine now.'
+
+'Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has he?'
+
+'I don't need Simeon Samuels' wisdom. I'm an Englishman myself.'
+
+
+XX
+
+The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were successful. The other
+marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of
+campaign, and Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more pious
+seaport.
+
+But, alas! homoeopathy was only half-vindicated. For the remedy proved
+worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original
+plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic
+spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the
+congregation. Some had it in a mild form--only one shutter open, or a
+back door not closed--but in many it came out over the whole
+shop-window.
+
+The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the
+congregation of which the present esteemed _Parnass_ is Solomon
+Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that
+while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches
+on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still
+remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon
+Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the
+unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are
+engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MARK
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MARK
+
+
+The curious episode in the London Ghetto the other winter, while the
+epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the
+reporters, though in the world of the Board-schools it is a vivid
+memory. But even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and
+the Board members, have remained ignorant of the part little Bloomah
+Beckenstein played in it.
+
+To explain how she came to be outside the school-gates instead of
+inside them, we must go back a little and explain her situation both
+outside and inside her school.
+
+Bloomah was probably '_Blume_,' which is German for a flower, but she
+had always been spelt 'Bloomah' in the school register, for even
+Board-school teachers are not necessarily familiar with foreign
+languages.
+
+They might have been forgiven for not connecting Bloomah with blooms,
+for she was a sad-faced child, and even in her tenth year showed deep,
+dark circles round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large,
+brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience.
+
+Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these qualities in her
+youngest born, who seemed to her entirely sucked up by the school.
+
+'In my days,' she would grumble, 'it used to be God Almighty first,
+your parents next, and school last. Now it's all a red mark first,
+your parents and God Almighty nowhere.'
+
+The red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set opposite the child's
+name in the register. To gain it, she must be in her place at nine
+o'clock to the stroke. A moment after nine, and only the black mark
+was attainable. Twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the absent was
+sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording Angel, who in Bloomah's case
+was a pale pupil-teacher with eyeglasses.
+
+But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the school horizon,
+intensifying Bloomah's anxiety and her mother's grievance.
+
+'I don't see nothing,' Mrs. Beckenstein iterated; 'no prize, no
+medal--nothing but a red mark and a banner.'
+
+The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not unfurled itself in Mrs.
+Beckenstein's young days, nor even in the young days of Bloomah's
+married brothers and sisters.
+
+As the worthy matron would say: 'There's been Jack Beckenstein,
+there's been Joey Beckenstein, there's been Briny Beckenstein, there's
+been Benjy Beckenstein, there's been Ada Beckenstein, there's been
+Becky Beckenstein, God bless their hearts! and they all grew up
+scholards and prize-winners and a credit to their Queen and their
+religion without this _meshuggas_ (madness) of a Banner.'
+
+Vaguely Mrs. Beckenstein connected the degenerate innovation with the
+invasion of the school by 'furriners'--all these hordes of Russian,
+Polish, and Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were sweeping
+away the good old English families, of which she considered the
+Beckensteins a shining example. What did English people want with
+banners and such-like gewgaws?
+
+The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and punctuality. It might
+be said metaphorically to be made of red marks; and, indeed, its
+ground-hue was purple.
+
+The class that had scored the highest weekly average of red marks
+enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for the next week. It hung by a cord
+on the classroom wall, amid the dull, drab maps--a glorious sight with
+its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. Life moved to a
+chivalrous music, lessons went more easily, in presence of its proud
+pomp: 'twas like marching to a band instead of painfully plodding.
+
+And the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little
+girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some
+mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple
+and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of
+the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally
+through the door of the cold and empty room.
+
+Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the
+register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those
+childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet
+her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence.
+
+Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely
+through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse.
+
+For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the
+fold--the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings
+round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the
+poor child grieve over her sins of omission.
+
+Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for
+if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because Bloomah was slaving
+at something that her mother considered more important.
+
+'The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school
+nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on her mother.
+
+At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-rooms she did
+cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand
+fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes,
+school hours or no school hours.
+
+Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment, and the
+portress of goods to and from S. Cohn's Emporium in Holloway, and the
+watch-dog when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.
+
+'Lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when Bloomah tearfully
+pleaded for that course. 'My things are much too valuable to be locked
+up. But I know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious
+Banner.'
+
+When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren--and they came
+frequently--Bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of
+service. Curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived:
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+        'A son. Send Bloomah.
+                    'BRINY.'
+
+Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted:
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+       'Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to your heart-broken
+                    'BECKY.'
+
+Occasionally the post-card went the other way:
+
+    'DEAR BECKY,
+      'Send back Bloomah.
+                    'Your loving mother.'
+
+The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part of Bloomah's
+burden; and in the evenings she had to keep an eye on his street
+sports and comrades, for since he had shocked his parents by dumping
+down a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted without
+supervision.
+
+Not that he had stolen the boots--far worse! Beguiled by a card
+cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had attended the evening classes of
+the _Meshummodim_, those converted Jews who try to bribe their
+brethren from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execration of the
+Ghetto.
+
+Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a lamb who had escaped
+from the lions' den, and must be the object of their vengeful pursuit,
+while on Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-dog.
+
+It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that Bloomah tried to
+go to school by day, and do her home lessons by night. She did not
+murmur against her mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised
+that the poor woman was similarly distracted between domestic duties
+and turns at the machines upstairs.
+
+Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life.
+At night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school
+books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her
+share of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. Beckenstein's
+language: 'Don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor
+fry, nor nothing.'
+
+Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it was
+ten minutes to nine before Bloomah could sit down to her own
+breakfast, and then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a
+terrible hindrance; and if that good woman's head was turned, Bloomah
+would sneak towards the improvised sink--which consisted of two dirty
+buckets, the one holding the clean water being recognisable by the tin
+pot standing on its covering-board--where she would pour half her tea
+into the one bucket and fill up from the other.
+
+When this stratagem was impossible, she almost scalded herself in her
+gulpy haste. Then how she snatched up her satchel and ran through
+rain, or snow, or fog, or scorching sunshine! Yet often she lost her
+breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered tearfully under
+the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab at her heart was added to the
+stitch in her side.
+
+It made her classmates only the angrier that, despite all her
+unpunctuality, she kept a high position in the class, even if she
+could never quite attain prize-rank.
+
+But there came a week when Bloomah's family remained astonishingly
+quiet and self-sufficient, and it looked as if the Banner might once
+again adorn the dry, scholastic room and throw a halo of romance round
+the blackboard.
+
+Then a curious calamity befell. A girl who had left the school for
+another at the end of the previous week, returned on the Thursday,
+explaining that her parents had decided to keep her in the old school.
+An indignant heart-cry broke through all the discipline:
+
+'Teacher, don't have her!'
+
+From Bloomah burst the peremptory command: 'Go back, Sarah!'
+
+For the unlucky children felt that her interval would now be reckoned
+one of absence. And they were right. Sarah reduced the gross
+attendance by six, and the Banner was lost.
+
+Yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh spurt. Again the
+tantalizing Thursday was reached before their hopes were dashed. This
+time the break-down was even crueller, for every pinafored pupil, not
+excluding Bloomah, was in her place, red-marked.
+
+Upon this saintly company burst suddenly Bloomah's mother, who,
+ignoring the teacher, and pointing her finger dramatically at her
+daughter, cried:
+
+'Bloomah Beckenstein, go home!'
+
+Bloomah's face became one large red mark, at which all the other
+girls' eyes were directed. Tears of humiliation and distress dripped
+down her cheeks over the dark rings. If she were thus hauled off ere
+she had received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance
+would be cancelled.
+
+The class was all in confusion. 'Fold arms!' cried the teacher
+sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. Bloomah obeyed instinctively
+with the rest.
+
+'Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you out by your plait?'
+
+'Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn't come here like that!' said the
+teacher in her most ladylike accents.
+
+'Tell Bloomah that,' answered Mrs. Beckenstein, unimpressed. 'She's
+come here by runnin' away from home. There's nobody but her to see to
+things, for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a weddin'
+last night, and comin' home at four in the mornin', and pourin' cats
+and dogs. If you go to our house, please, teacher, you'll see my Benjy
+in bed; he's given up his day's work; he must have his sleep; he earns
+three pounds a week as head cutter at S. Cohn's--he can afford to be
+in bed, thank God! So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein! Don't they teach
+you here: "Honour thy father and thy mother"?'
+
+Poor Bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and mothers should not
+dishonour their children. With hanging head she moved to the door, and
+burst into a passion of tears as soon as she got outside.
+
+After, if not in consequence of, this behaviour, Mrs. Beckenstein
+broke her leg, and lay for weeks with the limb cased in
+plaster-of-Paris. That finished the chances of the Banner for a long
+time. Between nursing and house management Bloomah could scarcely ever
+put in an attendance.
+
+So heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the sensitive child day
+and night that she walked almost with a limp, and dreamed of her name
+in the register with ominous rows of black ciphers; they stretched on
+and on to infinity--in vain did she turn page after page in the hope
+of a red mark; the little black eggs became larger and larger, till at
+last horrid horned insects began to creep from them and scramble all
+over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. Sometimes she lay swathed
+and choking in the coils of a Black Banner.
+
+And, to add to these worries, the School Board officer hovered and
+buzzed around, threatening summonses.
+
+But at last she was able to escape to her beloved school. The expected
+scowl of the room was changed to a sigh of relief; extremes meet, and
+her absence had been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome.
+
+Bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. The hope of the Banner
+flamed anew in every breast. But the other classes were no less keen;
+a fifth standard, in particular, kept the Banner for a full month,
+grimly holding it against all comers, came they ever so regularly and
+punctually.
+
+Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into the competition. An
+epidemic of small-pox broke out in the East End, with its haphazard
+effects upon the varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals
+and prizes, all was luck and lottery. The pride of the fifth standard
+was laid low; one of its girls was attacked, two others were kept at
+home through parental panic. A disturbing insecurity as of an
+earthquake vibrated through the school. In Bloomah's class alone--as
+if inspired by her martial determination--the ranks stood firm,
+unwavering.
+
+The epidemic spread. The Ghetto began to talk of special psalms in the
+little synagogues.
+
+In this crisis which the epidemic produced the Banner seemed drifting
+steadily towards Bloomah and her mates. They started Monday morning
+with all hands on deck, so to speak; they sailed round Tuesday and
+Wednesday without a black mark in the school-log. The Thursday on
+which they had so often split was passed under full canvas, and if
+they could only get through Friday the trophy was theirs.
+
+And Friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as, in view of the
+incoming Sabbath, it finished earlier. School did not break up between
+the two attendances; there was a mere dinner-interval in the
+playground at midday. Nobody could get away, and whoever scored the
+first mark was sure of the second.
+
+Bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter morning; she could
+run no risks of being late. She polished off all her house-work,
+wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself,
+yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still there was
+always that troublesome small-pox----! She breathed a prayer that God
+would keep all the little girls and send them the Banner.
+
+As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-card for her
+mother. Bloomah's heart was in her mouth when Mrs. Beckenstein clucked
+her tongue in reading it. She felt sure that the epidemic had invaded
+one of those numerous family hearths.
+
+Her mother handed her the card silently.
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+      'I am rakked with neuraljia. Send Bloomah to fry the fish.
+                    'BECKY.'
+
+Bloomah turned white; this was scarcely less tragic.
+
+'Poor Becky!' said her heedless parent.
+
+'There's time after school,' she faltered.
+
+'What!' shrieked Mrs. Beckenstein. 'And not give the fish time to get
+cold! It's that red mark again--sooner than lose it you'd see your own
+sister eat hot fish. Be off at once to her, you unnatural brat, or
+I'll bang the frying-pan about your head. That'll give you a red
+mark--yes, and a black mark, too! My poor Becky never persecuted me
+with Banners, and she's twice the scholard you are.'
+
+'Why, she can't spell "neuralgia,"' said Bloomah resentfully.
+
+'And who wants to spell a thing like that? It's bad enough to feel it.
+Wait till you have babies and neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how
+you'll spell.'
+
+'She can't spell "racked" either,' put in Daniel.
+
+His mother turned on him witheringly. 'She didn't go to school with
+the _Meshummodim_.'
+
+Bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel.
+
+'What's your books for? You don't fry fish with books.' Mrs.
+Beckenstein wrested it away from her, and dashed it on the floor. The
+pencil-case rolled one way, the thimble another.
+
+'But I can get to school for the afternoon attendance.'
+
+'Madness! With your sister in agony? Have you no feelings? Don't let
+me see your brazen face before the Sabbath!'
+
+Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way to Becky's her feet
+turned of themselves by long habit down the miry street in which the
+red-brick school-building rose in dreary importance. The sight of the
+great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a throb of guilt.
+For a moment she stood wrestling with the temptation to enter.
+
+It was but for the moment. She might rise to the heresy of _hot_ fried
+fish in lieu of cold, but Becky's Sabbath altogether devoid of fried
+fish was a thought too sacrilegious for her childish brain.
+
+From her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried fish had been part of
+her conception of the Day of Rest. Visions and odours of her mother
+frying plaice and soles--at worst, cod or mackerel--were inwoven with
+her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it is probable she
+thought Friday was short for frying-day.
+
+With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape the tug of
+temptation.
+
+'Bloomah! Where are you off to?'
+
+It was the alarmed cry of a classmate. Bloomah took to her heels, her
+face a fiery mass of shame and grief.
+
+Towards midday Becky's fish, nicely browned and sprigged with parsley,
+stood cooling on the great blue willow-pattern dish, and Becky's
+neuralgia abated, perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed to scamper off to
+school in the desperate hope of saving the afternoon attendance.
+
+The London sky was of lead, and the London pavement of mud, but her
+heart was aglow with hope. As she reached the familiar street a
+certain strangeness in its aspect struck her. People stood at the
+doors gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots were a-cooking;
+straggling groups possessed the roadway, impeding her advance, and as
+she got nearer to the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became
+impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate.
+
+Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this
+malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing
+herself time to speculate on what was up. All around her she became
+aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands.
+
+The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and Roumanian women of the
+latest immigration, as she could tell by the pious wigs hiding their
+tresses. Those in the front were pressed against the bars of the
+locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them with passion.
+
+Although Bloomah's knowledge of Yiddish was slight--as became a scion
+of an old English family--she could make out their elemental
+ejaculations.
+
+'You murderers!'
+
+'Give me my Rachel!'
+
+'They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh destroyed our sons.'
+
+'Give me back my children, and I'll go back to Russia.'
+
+'They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners!'
+
+'O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my Leah?'
+
+On the other side of the bars the children--released for the
+dinner-interval--were clamouring equally, shouting, weeping, trying to
+get to their mothers. Some howled, with their sleeves rolled up, to
+exhibit the upper arm.
+
+'See,' the women cried, 'the red marks! Oh, the poisoners!'
+
+A light began to break upon Bloomah's brain. Evidently the School
+Board had suddenly sent down compulsory vaccinators.
+
+'I won't die,' moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 'I'm too young to
+die yet.'
+
+'My little lamb is dying!' A woman near Bloomah, with auburn wisps
+showing under her black wig, wrung her hands. 'I hear her
+talk--always, always about the red mark. Now they have given it her.
+She is poisoned--my little apple.'
+
+'Your little carrot is all right,' said Bloomah testily. 'They've only
+vaccinated her.'
+
+The woman caught at the only word she understood. 'Vaccinate,
+vaccinate!' she repeated. Then, relapsing into jargon and raising her
+hands heavenward: 'A sudden death upon them all!'
+
+Bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless woman. One stood at
+her elbow.
+
+'Can't you explain to her that the doctors mean no harm?' Bloomah
+asked.
+
+'Oh, don't they, indeed? Just you read this!' She flourished a
+handbill, English on one side, Yiddish on the other.
+
+Bloomah read the English version, not without agitation:
+
+'Mothers, look after your little ones! The School Tyrants are plotting
+to inject filthy vaccine into their innocent veins. Keep them away
+rather than let them be poisoned to enrich the doctors.'
+
+There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah. What wonder if the
+refugees from lands of persecution--lands in which anything might
+happen--believed they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if
+the rumour that executioners with instruments had entered the
+school-buildings had run like wildfire through the quarter, enflaming
+Oriental imagination to semi-madness.
+
+While Bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman fainted, and the din
+and frenzy grew.
+
+'But I was vaccinated when a baby, and I'm all right,' murmured
+Bloomah, half to reassure herself.
+
+'My arm! I'm poisoned!' And another pupil flew frantically towards the
+gate.
+
+The women outside replied with a dull roar of rage, and hurled
+themselves furiously against the lock.
+
+A window on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the
+head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the
+parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone
+shook an answering fist.
+
+'You old maid--childless, pitiless!'
+
+Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every side, and soon a
+posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to
+push themselves between them and the gate. A fat and genial officer
+worked his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action.
+
+'Don't hurt the poor women,' Bloomah pleaded. 'They think their
+children are being poisoned.'
+
+'I know, missie. What can you do with such greenhorns? Why don't they
+stop in their own country? I've just been vaccinated myself, and it's
+no joke to get my arm knocked about like this!'
+
+'Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet them.'
+
+The policeman laughed. A sleeveless policeman! It would destroy all
+the dignity and prestige of the force.
+
+'Then I'll show them mine,' said Bloomah resolutely. 'Mine are old
+and not very showy, but perhaps they'll do. Lift me up, please--I mean
+on your unvaccinated arm.'
+
+Overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted her on his burly
+shoulder. The apparent arrest made a diversion; all eyes turned
+towards her.
+
+'You _Narronim_!' (fools), she shrieked, desperately mustering her
+scraps of Yiddish. 'Your children are safe. Ich bin vaccinated. Look!'
+She rolled up her sleeve. 'Der policeman ist vaccinated. Look--if I
+tap him he winces. See!'
+
+'Hold on, missie!' The policeman grimaced.
+
+'The King ist vaccinated,' went on Bloomah, 'and the Queen, and the
+Prince of Wales, yes, even the Teachers themselves. There are no
+devils inside there. This paper'--she held up the bill--'is lies and
+falsehood.' She tore it into fragments.
+
+'No; it is true as the Law of Moses,' retorted a man in the mob.
+
+'As the Law of Moses!' echoed the women hoarsely.
+
+Bloomah had an inspiration. 'The Law of Moses! Pooh! Don't you know
+this is written by the _Meshummodim_?'
+
+The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the handbill was
+written by apostates, what could it hold but Satan's lies?
+
+Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. 'Go home, you _Narronim_!'
+she cried pityingly from her perch. And then, veering round towards
+the children behind the bars: 'Shut up, you squalling sillies!' she
+cried. 'As for you, Golda Benjamin, I'm ashamed of you--a girl of your
+age! Put your sleeve down, cry-baby!'
+
+Bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the
+police from observing another party of rioters--women, assisted by
+husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at
+a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it open, and with a
+great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for
+their progeny.
+
+The police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack
+upon doors and windows, and Bloomah was hastily set down in the
+seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who
+could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.
+
+The large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children,
+police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. But there was no
+riot. The law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching
+their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. The children
+who had not the luck to be kidnapped escaped of themselves, some
+panic-stricken, some merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the
+school was empty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The School Management Committee sat formally to consider this
+unprecedented episode. It was decided to cancel the attendance for the
+day. Red marks, black marks--all fell into equality; the very ciphers
+were reduced to their native nothingness. The school-week was made to
+end on the Thursday.
+
+Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant
+sisterhood. On the wall shone the Banner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS
+
+
+
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS
+
+
+I
+
+When her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya--as everybody called the old
+clo'-woman--was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined
+beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past
+the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But
+when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's
+critical maternity was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had
+not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut of his clothes a
+subtle suggestion of going to the races.
+
+It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had never gone to the
+races, that his duties as bookkeeper of S. Cohn's Clothing Emporium
+prevented him from going to the races, and that the cut of his clothes
+was intended to give tone to his own establishment.
+
+'Ah, yes, he does not take _thee_ to the races,' she insisted in
+Yiddish. 'But all these young men with check suits and flowers in
+their buttonholes bet and gamble and go to the bad, and their wives
+and children fall back on their old mothers for support.'
+
+'I shall not fall back on thee,' Fanny retorted angrily.
+
+'And on whom else? A pretty daughter! Would you fall back on a
+stranger? Or perhaps you are thinking of the Board of Guardians!' And
+a shudder of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. For at sixty she
+was already meagre, had already the appearance of the venerable
+grandmother she was now to become, save that her hair, being only a
+pious wig, remained rigidly young and black. Life had always gone hard
+with her. Since her husband's death, when Fanny was a child, she had
+scraped together a scanty livelihood by selling odds and ends for a
+mite more than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas she
+haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old-clo' woman linked
+by their common love of a bargain.
+
+Natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle of ancient finery on
+the floor and spurn it with her foot. 'How can I sell that?' she would
+inquire. 'Last time I gave you too much--I lost by you.' And having
+wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking
+silver and copper from a grimy leather bag she wore hidden in her
+bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she
+would stagger joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly
+sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and
+transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning;
+scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the
+great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and
+freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on
+other social horizons.
+
+Of English she had, when she began, only enough to bargain with; but
+in one year of forced intercourse with English folk after her
+husband's death she learnt more than in her quarter of a century of
+residence in the Spitalfields Ghetto.
+
+Fanny's function had been to keep house and prepare the evening meal,
+but the old clo'-woman's objection to her marriage was not selfish.
+She was quite ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater
+after the day's tramp. Fanny had, indeed, offered to have her live in
+the elegant two-roomed cottage near King's Cross which Henry was
+furnishing. She could sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour.
+But the old woman's independent spirit and her mistrust of her
+son-in-law made her prefer the humble Ghetto garret. Against all
+reasoning, she continued to feel something antipathetic in Henry's
+clothes and even in his occupation--perhaps it was really the
+subconscious antagonism of the old clo' and the new, subtly symbolic
+of the old generation and the smart new world springing up to tread it
+down. Henry himself was secretly pleased at her refusal. In the first
+ardours of courtship he had consented to swallow even the Polish crone
+who had strangely mothered his buxom British Fanny, but for his own
+part he had a responsive horror of old clo'; felt himself of the great
+English world of fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly
+Britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool at his
+glass-environed desk, and in touch even with the _lion comique_, the
+details of whose cheap but stylish evening dress he entered with a
+proud flourish.
+
+
+II
+
+The years went by, and it looked as if the old woman's instinct were
+awry. Henry did not go to the races, nor did Fanny have to fall back
+on her mother-in-law for the maintenance of herself and her two
+children, Becky and Joseph. On the contrary, she doubled her position
+in the social scale by taking a four-roomed house in the Holloway
+Road. Its proximity to the Clothing Emporium enabled Henry to come
+home for lunch. But, alas! Fanny was not allowed many years of
+enjoyment of these grandeurs and comforts. The one-roomed grave took
+her, leaving the four-roomed house incredibly large and empty. Even
+Natalya's Ghetto garret, which Fanny had not shared for seven years,
+seemed cold and vacant to the poor mother. A new loneliness fell upon
+her, not mitigated by ever rarer visits to her grandchildren. Devoid
+of the link of her daughter, the house seemed immeasurably aloof from
+her in the social scale. Henry was frigid and the little ones went
+with marked reluctance to this stern, forbidding old woman who
+questioned them as to their prayers and smelt of red-herrings. She
+ceased to go to the house.
+
+And then at last all her smouldering distrust of Henry Elkman found
+overwhelming justification.
+
+Before the year of mourning was up, before he was entitled to cease
+saying the _Kaddish_ (funeral hymn) for her darling Fanny, the wretch,
+she heard, was married again. And married--villainy upon villainy,
+horror upon horror--to a Christian girl, a heathen abomination.
+Natalya was wrestling with her over-full sack when she got the news
+from a gossiping lady client, and she was boring holes for the passage
+of string to tie up its mouth. She turned the knife viciously, as if
+it were in Henry Elkman's heart.
+
+She did not know the details of the piquant, tender courtship between
+him and the pretty assistant at the great drapery store that
+neighboured the Holloway Clothing Emporium, any more than she
+understood the gradual process which had sapped Henry's instinct of
+racial isolation, or how he had passed from admiration of British ways
+into entire abandonment of Jewish. She was spared, too, the knowledge
+that latterly her own Fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of
+impiety; that they had ridden for a breath of country air on Sabbath
+afternoons. They had been considerate enough to hide that from her. To
+the old clo'-woman's crude mind, Henry Elkman existed as a monster of
+ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that he had been married
+in church and baptized, despite that her informant tried to console
+her with the assurance that the knot had been tied in a Registrar's
+office.
+
+'May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh!' she cried in her
+picturesque jargon. 'May his fine clothes fall from his flesh and his
+flesh from his bones! May my Fanny's outraged soul plead against him
+at the Judgment Bar! And she--this heathen female--may her death be
+sudden!' And she drew the ends of the string tightly together, as
+though round the female's neck.
+
+'Hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would
+become of your own grandchildren?'
+
+'They cannot be worse off than they are now, with a heathen in the
+house. All their Judaism will become corrupted. She may even baptize
+them. Oh, Father in Heaven!'
+
+The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the innocent Becky and
+Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the best there would be no _kosher_ food
+in the house any more. How could this stranger understand the
+mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from
+butter-plates?
+
+At last she could bear the weight no longer. She took the Elkman house
+in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door.
+It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along
+the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet
+on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there,
+forgotten, a mute symbol of the Jewish past.
+
+A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened
+the door.
+
+The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see.
+
+'Old clo',' she said mechanically.
+
+'No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her voice was sweet, but it
+sounded to Natalya like the voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born
+children. Her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the
+background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which
+the new-comer profaned. And between Natalya and it, between Natalya
+and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand
+barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without explanations.
+
+'Is Mr. Elkman at home?' she asked.
+
+'You know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised.
+
+'Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old woman's sardonic accent
+was lost on the listener.
+
+'I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied.
+
+'Not even a pair of old shoes?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But the dead woman's----? Are you, then, standing in them?'
+
+The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so
+weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a little shriek.
+
+'Henry!' she cried.
+
+Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but came to a sudden
+standstill.
+
+'What do you want here?' he muttered.
+
+'Fanny's shoes!' she cried.
+
+'Who is it?' his wife's eyes demanded.
+
+'A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,' he gestured
+back. And he put her inside the room-door, whispering, 'Let me get rid
+of her.'
+
+'So, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-in-law in Yiddish.
+
+'Painted?' he said angrily. 'Madge painted? She's just as natural as a
+rosy apple. She's a country girl, and her mother was a lady.'
+
+'Her mother? Perhaps! But she? You see a glossy high hat marked
+sixteen and sixpence, and you think it's new. But I know what it's
+come from--a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. Ah, how she
+could have bewitched you, when there are so many honest Jewesses
+without husbands!
+
+'I am sorry she doesn't please you; but, after all, it's my business,
+and not yours.'
+
+'Not mine? After I gave you my Fanny, and she slaved for you and bore
+you children?'
+
+'It's just for her children that I had to marry.'
+
+'What? You had to marry a Christian for the sake of Fanny's children?
+Oh, God forgive you!'
+
+'We are not in Poland now,' he said sulkily.
+
+'Ah, I always said you were a sinner in Israel. My Fanny has been
+taken for your sins. A black death on your bones.'
+
+'If you don't leave off cursing, I shall call a policeman.'
+
+'Oh, lock me up, lock me up--instead of your shame. Let the whole
+world know that.'
+
+'Go away, then. You have no right to come here and frighten Madge--my
+wife. She is in delicate health, as it is.'
+
+'May she be an atonement for all of us! I have the right to come here
+as much as I please.'
+
+'You have no right.'
+
+'I have a right to the children. My blood is in their veins.'
+
+'You have no right. The children are their father's.'
+
+'Yes, their Father's in heaven,' and she raised her hand like an
+ancient prophetess, while the other supported her bag over her
+shoulder. 'The children are the children of Israel, and they must
+carry forward the yoke of the Law.'
+
+'And what do you propose?' he said, with a scornful sniff.
+
+'Give me the children. I will elevate them in the fear of the Lord.
+You go your own godless way, free of burdens--you and your Christian
+poppet. You no longer belong to us. Give me the children, and I'll go
+away.'
+
+He looked at her quizzingly. 'You have been drinking, my good
+mother-in-law.'
+
+'Ay, the waters of affliction. Give me the children.'
+
+'But they won't go with you. They love their step-mother.'
+
+'Love that painted jade? They, with Jewish blood warm in their veins,
+with the memory of their mother warm in their hearts? Impossible!'
+
+He opened the door gently. 'Becky! Joe! No, don't you come, Madge,
+darling. It's all right. The old lady wants to say "Good-day" to the
+children.'
+
+The two children tripped into the passage, with napkins tied round
+their chins, their mouths greasy, but the rest of their persons
+unfamiliarly speckless and tidy. They stood still at the sight of
+their grandmother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door
+carefully.
+
+'My lambs!' Natalya cried, in her sweetest but harsh tones, 'Won't you
+come and kiss me?'
+
+Becky, a mature person of seven, advanced courageously and surrendered
+her cheek to her grandmother.
+
+'How are you, granny?' she said ceremoniously.
+
+'And Joseph?' said Natalya, not replying. 'My heart and my crown, will
+he not come?'
+
+The four-and-a-half year old Joseph stood dubiously, with his fist in
+his mouth.
+
+'Bring him to me, Becky. Tell him I want you and him to come and live
+with me.'
+
+Becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. 'He may. I won't,' she said
+laconically.
+
+'Oh, Becky!' said the grandmother. 'Do you want to stay here and
+torture your poor mother?'
+
+Becky stared. 'She's dead,' she said.
+
+'Yes, but her soul lives and watches over you. Come, Joseph, apple of
+my eye, come with me.'
+
+She beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining the invitation
+was to enter her bag and be literally carried away therein, set up a
+terrific howl. Thereupon the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and
+the child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to her and
+nestled in her arms.
+
+'Mamma, mamma,' he cried.
+
+Henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant smile.
+
+Natalya went hot and cold. It was not only that little Joseph had gone
+to this creature. It was not even that he had accepted her maternity.
+It was this word 'mamma' that stung. The word summed up all the
+blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity. 'Mamma' was redolent
+of cold Christian houses in whose doorways the old clo'-woman
+sometimes heard it. Fanny had been 'mother'--the dear, homely, Jewish
+'mother.' This 'mamma,' taught to the orphans, was like the haughty
+parade of Christian elegance across her grave.
+
+'When _mamma's_ shoes are to be sold, don't forget me,' Natalya
+hissed. 'I'll give you the best price in the market.'
+
+Henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her outside: 'Certainly,
+certainly. Good-afternoon.'
+
+'I'll buy them at your own price--ah, I see them coming, coming into
+my bag.'
+
+The door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity, and Henry
+clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom and pressed a long kiss upon
+her fragrant cherry lips.
+
+Later on he explained that the crazy old clo'-woman was known to the
+children, as to everyone in the neighbourhood, as 'Granny.'
+
+
+III
+
+In the bearing of her first child the second Mrs. Elkman died. The
+rosy face became a white angelic mask, the dainty figure lay in
+statuesque severity, and a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was
+the compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was overwhelmed by
+grief and superstition.
+
+'For three things women die in childbirth,' kept humming in his brain
+from his ancient Hebrew lore. He did not remember what they were,
+except that one was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire
+the lump of dough from the Sabbath bread. But these neglects could not
+be visited on a Christian, he thought dully. The only distraction of
+his grief was the infant's pressing demand on his attention.
+
+It was some days before the news penetrated to the old woman.
+
+'It is his punishment,' she said with solemn satisfaction. 'Now my
+Fanny's spirit will rest.'
+
+But she did not gloat over the decree of the God of Israel as she had
+imagined beforehand, nor did she call for the dead woman's old clo'.
+She was simply content--an unrighteous universe had been set straight
+again like a mended watch. But she did call, without her bag, to
+inquire if she could be of service in this tragic crisis.
+
+'Out of my sight, you and your evil eye!' cried Henry as he banged the
+door in her face.
+
+Natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions. So she was
+still to be shut out.
+
+
+IV
+
+The next news that leaked into Natalya's wizened ear was as startling
+as Madge's death. Henry had married again. Doubtless with the same
+pretext of the children's needs he had taken unto himself a third
+wife, and again without the decencies of adequate delay. And this wife
+was a Jewess, as of yore. Henry had reverted matrimonially to the
+fold. Was it conscience, was it terror? Nobody knew. But everybody
+knew that the third Mrs. Elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good
+orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash,
+besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without
+prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with
+these household elements.
+
+The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. She felt
+vaguely that the Jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have
+accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral
+rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian conjunction. And
+the memory of Fanny was still outraged by this burying of her, so to
+speak, under layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the
+children would revert to Judaism, and they would have a Jewish mother,
+not a mamma, to care for them and to love them. The thought consoled
+her for being shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been,
+even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had alienated her from
+the household, had made her kinship practically remote. She had sunk
+to a sort of third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed.
+
+The days went on, and again the Elkman household occupied the gossips,
+and news of it--second-hand, like everything that came to her--was
+picked up by Natalya on her rounds. Henry's third wife was, it
+transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was frightful, she beat
+her step-children, and--worst and rarest sin in the Jewish
+housewife--she drank. Henry was said to be in despair.
+
+'_Nebbich_, the poor little children!' cried Natalya, horrified. Her
+brain began plotting how to interfere, but she could find no way.
+
+The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the
+third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap--Henry had
+disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent
+brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium
+knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. Benjamin
+Beckenstein, the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter
+hypothesis reported a significant saying: 'I have lived with two
+angels; I can't live with a demon.'
+
+'Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,' said Natalya, neglecting
+to draw the deduction anent America, and passing over the other angel.
+And she embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man who had known
+the blessing of a sober, God-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a
+child-beater? 'No wonder he killed himself!'
+
+The gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than
+suicide.
+
+'You are right!' Natalya admitted illogically. 'Just what a coward and
+blackguard like that would do--leave the children at the mercy of the
+woman he couldn't face himself. How in Heaven's name will they live?'
+
+'Oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after them,' the
+gossips assured her. 'He gave her good money, you know, fifty pounds
+and the bedding. Ah, trust Elkman for that. He knew he wasn't leaving
+the children to starve.'
+
+'I don't know so much,' said the old woman, shaking her bewigged head.
+
+What was to be done? Suppose the furrier refused the burden. But
+Henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the Elkman
+household. If she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face
+the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts it was this other
+woman whom Henry's flight had changed to a stranger. What had the
+wretch to do with the children? She was a mere intruder in the house.
+Out with her, or at least out with the children.
+
+Yes, she would go boldly there and demand them. 'Poor Becky! Poor
+Joseph!' her heart wailed. 'You to be beaten and neglected after
+having known the love of a mother.' True, it would not be easy to
+support them. But a little more haggling, a little more tramping, a
+little more mending, and a little less gorging and gormandising! They
+would be at school during the day, so would not interfere with her
+rounds, and in the evening she could have them with her as she sat
+refurbishing the purchases of the day. Ah, what a blessed release from
+the burden of loneliness, heavier than the heaviest sack! It was well
+worth the price. And then at bedtime she would say the Hebrew
+night-prayer with them and tuck them up, just as she had once done
+with her Fanny.
+
+But how if the woman refused to yield them up--as Natalya could fancy
+her refusing--out of sheer temper and devilry? What if, amply
+subsidized by her well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little
+ones by her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or hold
+them hostages for his return? Why, then, Natalya would use
+cunning--ay, and force, too--she would even kidnap them. Once in their
+grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back
+to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were
+nil.
+
+It was while buying up on a Sunday afternoon the sloughed vestments of
+a Jewish family in Holloway that her resolve came to a head. A cab
+would be necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. What an
+opportunity for carrying off the children at the same time! The house
+was actually on her homeward route. The economy of it tickled her,
+made her overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed the
+motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and
+squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a
+magic sack that could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Emporium,
+Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming
+adventure.
+
+Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to fetch a cab.
+Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied Natalya half an hour. She
+would harangue the Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty,
+and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a ridiculous sum. At
+first none of them would take notice of the old Jewish crone, but
+would read their papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually,
+as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream of persuasion
+would begin to percolate, and at last one would relent, half out of
+pity, and would end by bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder
+from the house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite filling
+the interior of a four-wheeler, and then Natalya would ride
+triumphantly beside her cabby on the box, the two already the best of
+friends. Things went ill if Natalya did not end by trading off
+something in the sacks against the fare--at a new profit.
+
+But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a mediocre bargain.
+The cumbrous sack was hoisted into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside
+it, and in a resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment at
+the Elkman home.
+
+
+V
+
+The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky to the door ere her
+grandmother could jump out. She was still under ten, but prematurely
+developed in body as in mind. There was something unintentionally
+insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment of adults as
+equals; but now her face changed almost to a child's, and with a glad
+tearful cry of 'Oh, grandmother!' she sprang into the old woman's
+arms.
+
+It was the compensation for little Joseph's 'mamma.' Tears ran down
+the old woman's cheeks as she hugged the strayed lamb to her breast.
+
+A petulant infantile wail came from within, but neither noted it.
+
+'Where is your step-mother, my poor angel?' Natalya asked in a half
+whisper.
+
+Becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her face became a woman's
+again. 'One o'clock the public-houses open on Sundays,' she snorted.
+
+'Oh, my God!' cried Natalya, forgetting that the circumstance was
+favouring her project. 'A Jewish woman! You don't mean to say that she
+drinks in public-houses?'
+
+'You don't suppose I would let her drink here,' said Becky. 'We have
+nice scenes, I can tell you. The only consolation is she's
+better-tempered when she's quite drunk.'
+
+The infant's wail rang out more clamorously.
+
+'Hush, you little beast!' Becky ejaculated, but she moved mechanically
+within, and her grandmother followed her.
+
+All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed overclouded with
+shabbiness and untidiness. To Natalya everything looked and smelt like
+the things in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled
+its red face with shrieking.
+
+Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its existence
+penetrated at all to the old woman's preoccupied brain. Its pipings
+had been like an unheeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic
+experience. Even when she realized the child's existence her brain
+groped for some seconds in search of its identity.
+
+Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet's life! So it
+still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that
+brief but shameful episode. 'Grow dumb like your mother,' she murmured
+resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry Elkman had left behind
+him! Ah, how right she had been to suspect him from the very first!
+
+'But where is my little Joseph?' she said aloud.
+
+'He's playing somewhere in the street.'
+
+'_Ach, mein Gott!_ Playing, when he ought to be weeping like this
+child of shame. Go and fetch him at once!'
+
+'What do you want him for?'
+
+'I am going to take you both away--out of this misery. You'd like to
+come and live with me--eh, my lamb?'
+
+'Rather--anything's better than this.'
+
+Natalya caught her to her breast again.
+
+'Go and fetch my Joseph! But quick, quick, before the public-house
+woman comes back!'
+
+Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair, breathless with emotion
+and fatigue. The baby in the cradle beside her howled more vigorously,
+and automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she heard herself
+singing:
+
+    'Sleep, little baby, sleep,
+    Thy father shall be a Rabbi;
+    Thy mother shall bring thee almonds;
+    Blessings on thy little head.'
+
+As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock that she was
+rocking this misbegotten infant--nay, singing to it a Jewish
+cradle-song full of inappropriate phrases. She withdrew her foot as
+though the rocker had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out with
+fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her foot to its old place.
+'_Nu, nu_,' she cried, rocking violently, 'go to sleep.'
+
+She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw that the teat
+of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. 'There, there--suck!' she
+said, readjusting it. The baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at
+her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya
+trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of
+Fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the
+cherry lips of the painted poppet.
+
+'_Nebbich_; the poor, deserted little orphan,' she apologized to
+herself. 'And this is how the new Jewish wife does her duty to her
+step-children. She might as well have been a Christian.' Then a
+remembrance that the Christian woman had seemingly been an
+unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts further. And while she
+was groping among them Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his
+turn haled in a kite with a long tail.
+
+The boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate towards his
+grandmother with Becky's eagerness. Probably he felt the domestic
+position less. But he surrendered himself to her long hug. 'Did she
+beat him,' she murmured soothingly, 'beat my own little Joseph?'
+
+'Don't waste time, granny,' Becky broke in petulantly, 'if we _are_
+going.'
+
+'No, my dear. We'll go at once.' And, releasing the boy, Natalya
+partly undid the lower buttons of his waistcoat.
+
+'You wear no four-corner fringes!' she exclaimed tragically. 'She
+neglects even to see to that. Ah, it will be a good deed to carry you
+from this godless home.'
+
+'But I don't want to go with you,' he said sullenly, reminded of past
+inquisitorial worryings about prayers.
+
+'You little fool!' said Becky. 'You _are_ going--and in that cab.'
+
+'In that cab?' he cried joyfully.
+
+'Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again.'
+
+'Oh, _she_ don't hurt!' he said contemptuously. 'She hasn't even got a
+cane--like at school.'
+
+'But shan't we take our things?' said Becky.
+
+'No, only the things you stand in. They shan't have any excuse for
+taking you back. I'll find you plenty of clothes, as good as new.'
+
+'And little Daisy?'
+
+'Oh, is it a girl? Your stepmother will look after that. She can't
+complain of one burden.'
+
+She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the sack and
+herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette.
+
+'I say, I didn't bargain for extras inside,' grumbled the cabman.
+
+'You can't reckon these children,' said Natalya, with confused legal
+recollections; 'they're both under seven.'
+
+The cabman started. Becky stared out of the window. 'I wonder if we'll
+pass Mrs. Elkman,' she said, amused. Joseph busied himself with
+disentangling the tails of his kite.
+
+But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their indifference to her. That
+poor little Daisy! The image of the baby swam vividly before her. What
+a terrible fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! Who
+knew what would happen to it? What if, in her drunken fury at the
+absence of Becky and Joseph, she did it a mischief? At the best the
+besotted creature would not take cordially to the task of bringing it
+up. It was no child of hers--had not even the appeal of pure Jewish
+blood. And there it lay, smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. It had
+smiled trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave it to its
+fate. And now it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of
+the cab. But how could she charge herself with it--she, with her daily
+rounds to make? The other children were grown up, passed the day at
+school. No, it was impossible. And the child's cry went on in her
+imagination louder and louder.
+
+She put her head out of the window. 'Turn back! Turn back! I've
+forgotten something.'
+
+The cabman swore. 'D'ye think you've taken me by the week?'
+
+'Threepence extra. Drive back.'
+
+The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the
+whip, and set off briskly.
+
+'What have you forgotten, grandmother?' said Becky. 'It's very
+careless of you.'
+
+The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round nervously, sprang
+out, and then uttered a cry of despair.
+
+'_Ach_, we shut the door!' And the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold
+desirability.
+
+'It's all right,' said Becky. 'Just turn the handle.'
+
+Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby, not crying, but
+sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched it up frenziedly, and hurried
+the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab.
+
+'Taking Daisy?' cried Becky. 'But she isn't yours!'
+
+Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle
+turned again Ghettowards.
+
+
+VI
+
+The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the children could not
+be kept a secret, but the step-mother's family made no effort to
+regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of
+all Henry Elkman's wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a
+successor, is unknown.
+
+The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not,
+however, so charming as Natalya had imagined. The cost of putting
+Daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared
+to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who
+began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the
+garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old
+times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the
+irregular ménage. The Christian wife's influence had been refining but
+too temporary. It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the
+religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to add to the
+grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety.
+
+The only sweet in Natalya's cup turned out to be the love of little
+Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning.
+
+Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All Daisy did seemed to
+her perfect. For instant obedience and instant comprehension she
+declared her matchless.
+
+One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in
+her momentary absence Becky had pulled Joseph's hair.
+
+'Hush! You mustn't tell tales,' Natalya said reprovingly.
+
+'Becky did not pull Joey's hair,' Daisy corrected herself instantly.
+
+Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to outgrow the Ghetto, even
+while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, Daisy picked
+up the Yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky's
+remonstrances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was not the only
+subject of dispute between Becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly
+accused of favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when,
+with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on
+her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother's
+father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her
+grandmother.
+
+In another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the
+School Board, Joseph joined her. And thus, by the unforeseen turns of
+Fortune's wheel, the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone
+with the child of seven.
+
+But this child was compensation for all she had undergone, for all
+the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. Daisy
+threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail,
+and while she made the old clo' into new, Daisy read aloud her English
+story-books. Natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery
+tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. 'Jack the
+Giant-killer,' 'Aladdin,' 'Cinderella,' they were all delightful
+novelties. The favourite story of both was 'Little Red Riding-Hood,'
+with its refrain of 'Grandmother, what large eyes you've got!' That
+could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for
+them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: 'Grandmother, what a
+large mouth you've got!' 'All the better to bite you with,'
+grandmother would reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.
+
+But Friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on
+which Natalya could be stopped from working. Only religion was strong
+enough to achieve that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper
+candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon
+as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they
+shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the
+ritually-twisted loaves. And after supper Natalya would sing the
+Hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. Then she
+would tell stories of her youth in Poland--comic tales mixed with
+tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would
+weep and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed made her
+sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and Natalya was not
+unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future.
+
+But after eighteen months of this delightful life Natalya's wonderful
+vitality began slowly to collapse. She earned less and less, and, amid
+her gratitude to God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky
+and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would she be taken away
+before Daisy became self-supporting? Nay, would she even be able to
+endure the burden till the end? What made things worse was that, owing
+to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra
+shilling a week for rent. When Daisy was asleep the old woman hung
+over the bed, praying for life, for strength.
+
+It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the
+ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. And a little thing occurred to
+bring home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources,
+physical and financial. The children's country holiday was in the air
+at Daisy's Board School, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the
+droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a
+cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or
+guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have
+gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant
+investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even
+more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of
+poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural
+delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation.
+Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in
+a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not
+disillusion Daisy.
+
+By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles of bargaining
+with bewildered housewives, Natalya raised the four shillings, and the
+unconscious Daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the
+platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears.
+
+That first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for
+the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed
+removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the
+greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up
+her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets.
+
+In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found
+a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her
+for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. This old lady
+seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her
+playing outside the cottage.
+
+'Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child when I am gone,'
+thought Natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get
+this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down
+them again.
+
+Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-room neighbour, the
+cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' But she
+would not have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On the
+day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and
+warning, in being up and dressed. She sent everybody away, and lay on
+her bed till she heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her
+feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the sound of
+other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, silver-haired old
+gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her intended hug. Daisy's new
+friend had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the
+strange lady and the sunburnt child.
+
+'Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got!' And Daisy ran
+laughingly towards her.
+
+The usual repartee was wanting.
+
+'And the room is not tidied up,' Natalya said reproachfully, and began
+dusting a chair for the visitor. But the old lady waved it aside.
+
+'I have come to thank you for all you have done for my grandchild.'
+
+'_Your_ grandchild?' Natalya fell back on the bed.
+
+'Yes. I have had inquiries made--it is quite certain. Daisy was even
+called after me. I am glad of that, at least.' Her voice faltered.
+
+Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under sacks would
+allow.
+
+'And you have come to take her from me!' she shrieked.
+
+Already Daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the sign of life that
+belonged elsewhere.
+
+'No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough from my
+selfishness. It was my bad temper drove my daughter from me.' She
+bowed her silver head till her form seemed as bent as Natalya's. 'What
+can I do to repair--to atone? Will you not come and live with me in
+the country, and let me care for you? I am not rich, but I can offer
+you every comfort.'
+
+Natalya shook her head. 'I am a Jewess. I could not eat with you.'
+
+'That's just what _I_ told her, grandmother,' added Daisy eagerly.
+
+'Then the child must remain with you at my expense,' said the old
+lady.
+
+'But if she likes the country so----' murmured Natalya.
+
+'I like you better, grandmother.' And Daisy laid her ruddied cheek to
+the withered cheek, which grew wet with ecstasy.
+
+'She calls _you_ "grandmother," not me,' said the old gentlewoman with
+a sob.
+
+'Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive me!'
+
+Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to and fro, holding
+Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing heart.
+
+'What did you say?' Daisy's grandmother flamed and blazed with her
+ancient anger. 'You wished my Madge dead?'
+
+Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their hold of Daisy. 'Dead,
+dead, dead,' she repeated in a strange, crooning voice. Gradually a
+vacant look crept over her face, and she fell back again on the bed.
+She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black wig.
+
+'She is ill!' Daisy shrieked.
+
+The cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back between the
+sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy in leaving her bed.
+Natalya lived till near noon of the next day, and Daisy's real
+grandmother was with her still at the end, side by side with the
+Jewish death-watcher.
+
+About eleven in the morning Natalya said: 'Light the candles, Daisy,
+the Sabbath is coming in.' Daisy spread a white tablecloth on the old
+wooden table, placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the
+bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with curious unreality
+in the full August sunshine.
+
+A holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face. Her dried-up lips
+mumbled the Hebrew prayer, welcoming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they
+grew rigid in death.
+
+'Daisy,' said her grandmother, 'say the text I taught you.'
+
+'"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,"' sobbed the
+child obediently, '"and I will give you rest."'
+
+
+
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH
+
+
+
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH
+
+
+I
+
+Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio,
+brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him
+a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. It began 'Angel of
+God!'
+
+He laughed bitterly. 'Just when I am at my most diabolical!' He did
+not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many
+begging-letters which were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist
+period. But he turned over the page to see the name of the Orientally
+effusive scribe. It was 'Nehemiah Silvermann, Dentist and
+Restaurateur.' His laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense
+of humour was still saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist
+sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand the
+figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. He read the
+letter.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'ANGEL OF GOD,
+
+    'I have the honour now to ask Your very kind humane merciful
+    cordial nobility to assist me by Your clement philanthropical
+    liberal relief in my very hard troublesome sorrows and
+    worries, on which I suffer violently. I lost all my fortune,
+    and I am ruined by Russia. I am here at present without means
+    and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of
+    a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really what to do in my
+    actual very disgraceful mischief. I heard the people saying
+    Your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are
+    everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably
+    gracious. Thus I solicit and supplicate Your good very kind
+    genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant
+    request to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to
+    respond me as soon as possible according to Your generous very
+    philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty.
+
+    'Your obedient servant respectfully,
+                'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Restaurateur._'
+
+Such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of Barstein's
+melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its
+cornucopia. 'It is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured,
+re-reading the letter with unction.
+
+It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. He asked for
+details of Silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to
+the Russo-Jewish Fund, which existed to help such refugees from
+persecution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring
+Mansel Place?
+
+Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors in Zionism, a
+pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the
+voluble little man now loomed suddenly large as a possible authority
+upon his brother-dentist.
+
+By return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the
+'dictionary in distress.'
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+'MOST HONOURABLE AND ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD BARSTEIN,
+
+    'I have the honour now to thank You for Your kind answer of my
+    letter. I did not succeed here by my vital experience in the
+    last of ten years. I got my livelihood a certain time by my
+    dental practice so long there was not a hard violent
+    competition, then I had never any efficacious relief,
+    protection, then I have no relation, then we and the time are
+    changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform
+    any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate
+    position £4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not
+    earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in
+    Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful
+    humanity by something, if I had £15 I could start off from
+    here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had
+    £30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my
+    bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is
+    nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the
+    Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is
+    in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection,
+    no introduction, no recommendation for it. Poverty has very
+    seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends.
+    The people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a
+    good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes the impossible
+    competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility
+    according to the universal good reputation of Your gracious
+    goodness to reply me quick by some help now.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+                'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Restaurateur._'
+
+This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation.
+Instead of being a victim of the Russian troubles, a recent refugee
+from massacre and robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London for
+ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by
+Russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. His ideas of his future
+seemed as hazy as his past. Four pounds would be a very present help;
+he could continue his London career. With fifteen pounds he was ready
+to start off anywhither. With thirty pounds he would end all his
+troubles in Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a
+personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form,
+Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and
+repaired to the Minories. But he looked in vain for either a dentist
+or a restaurant at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence,
+trying to edge itself into the important street. At last, after
+wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby door. A
+frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said that the
+Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.
+
+'What!' cried Barstein. 'Is he married?'
+
+'I should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'He has eleven
+children at least.'
+
+Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by
+Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony.
+The family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back,
+which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silvermann had rushed
+thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded
+from it. But Mr. Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded,
+bewigged creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked curiously
+round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. But
+he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane
+chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped
+with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into
+a bedstead at night for half the family. But of a dentist's chair
+there was not even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-backed
+books--some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' He noted a
+Russo-German and a German-English. Then the sounds of frying
+penetrated more keenly to his brain.
+
+'You are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired.
+
+'Restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'Have I not enough cooking
+to do for my own family? And where shall I find money to keep a
+restaurant?'
+
+'Your husband said----' murmured Barstein, as in guilty confusion.
+
+A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the
+mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile
+mob. From the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings.
+Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board.
+She placed it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his
+Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she
+complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous.
+
+'Where does your husband do his dentistry?' Barstein inquired, seating
+himself cautiously upon the board.
+
+'Do I know?' said his wife. 'He goes out, he comes in.' At this
+moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in.
+
+'Holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of Barstein's coat, and
+kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to
+over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the
+tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest
+possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded
+her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone
+with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor,
+positively soaring heavenwards with rapture.
+
+But Barstein inquired brutally: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'
+
+'Never mind me,' replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 'Let me look on you!'
+And a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze.
+
+But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'Where do you do your
+dentistry?'
+
+The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through
+Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where
+shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no
+friends.'
+
+The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the
+dictionary _was_ his fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was
+reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring
+to gaze with large liquid eyes.
+
+'But you _have_ managed to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed
+out.
+
+'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once
+has He deserted me and my children.'
+
+'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein.
+
+The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes.
+
+'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.
+
+Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a
+holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?'
+
+'That is here.'
+
+'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again.
+
+'Where else? Here is a wide opening for a _kosher_ restaurant. There
+are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around--poor young
+men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not
+where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.'
+
+'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'
+
+'Naturally--a counsel that I have given myself.'
+
+'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford
+to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?'
+
+Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.
+
+'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!'
+
+Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was softened by noting
+how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands--they might
+well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will
+happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of
+stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?'
+
+As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily
+which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto
+Sicilian fashions were paralleled.
+
+'I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' Nehemiah explained.
+'But here is this great empty room. What am I to do with it? At night
+of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. Also
+I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a week from my friends in
+Russia and America, and one of which I even buy here. When I have read
+them these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given myself a
+counsel, if I would make here a reading-room they should come in the
+evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go
+to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy
+to make them to eat and drink. First I will give to them only coffee
+and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all the
+_Delicatessen_ of Poland. When our custom will become too large we
+shall take over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the
+Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is
+only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility----'
+
+'But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted Barstein,
+alarmed.
+
+'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,' said Nehemiah
+reassuringly. 'From you I ask nothing.'
+
+'In that case,' replied Barstein drily, 'I must say I consider it an
+excellent plan. Your idea of building up from small foundations is
+most sensible--some of the young men may even have toothache--but I do
+not see where you need me--unless to supply a few papers.'
+
+'Did I not say you were from heaven?' Nehemiah's eyes shone again.
+'But I do not require the papers. It is enough for me that your holy
+feet have stood in my homestead. I thought you might send money. But
+to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able to tell I have spoken
+with him face to face!'
+
+Barstein was touched. 'I think you will need a larger table for the
+reading-room,' he said.
+
+The tall figure shook its tall hat. 'It is only gas that I need for my
+operations.'
+
+'Gas!' repeated Barstein, astonished. 'Then you propose to continue
+your dentistry too.'
+
+'It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated Nehemiah.
+'Unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not
+come. But the penny gas is all I need.'
+
+'Well, if it costs only a penny----' began Barstein.
+
+'A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. 'But then there is the
+meter and the cost of the burners.' He calculated that four pounds
+would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all
+the homeless moths of the neighbourhood.
+
+So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected with his first
+sense of solid foothold. After all Nehemiah had sustained his surprise
+visit fairly well--he was obviously no Croesus--and if four pounds
+would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the
+whole neighbourhood--
+
+He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. It
+contained only three pounds ten. He rummaged his pockets for silver,
+finding only eight shillings.
+
+'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he murmured.
+
+'As if I couldn't trust you!' cried Nehemiah reproachfully, and as he
+lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw
+that he had no waistcoat.
+
+
+II
+
+About six months later, when Barstein had utterly forgotten the
+episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly
+recalled everything.
+
+
+'_To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious
+    Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very
+    Famous Sculptor._
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and
+    sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for Your
+    grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal
+    compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous
+    benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which
+    afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable
+    desperate necessitous need, wherein I am at present very poor
+    indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical Russia,
+    therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and
+    assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously,
+    I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from
+    Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently £4 the same
+    was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very
+    indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain
+    now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my
+    daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse
+    languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology,
+    the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to
+    Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate Your
+    charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to
+    make me go away from here as soon as possible according to
+    Your humane kind merciful clemency.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages_.'
+
+So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant.
+Anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. Emigration appeared now
+the only salvation.
+
+But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly Persia was meant. But why
+Persia? Wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever
+would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in Persia?
+Nehemiah's original suggestion of Jerusalem had been much more
+intelligible. Perhaps it persisted still under the head of Turkey.
+Not least characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious gloating
+over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.
+
+For some days the sculptor went about weighed down by Nehemiah's
+misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the
+Minories. But he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could
+tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell
+upon him.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about
+    my decided and expecting departure. I must sue by my quite
+    humble and very instant entreaty Your noble genteel cordial
+    humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour
+    vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at
+    least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as
+    possible according to Your clement magnanimous charitable
+    mercy of £15 if not £25 among Your very estimable and
+    respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another
+    country even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice
+    or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. The
+    great competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have
+    here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations,
+    no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no
+    protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no
+    good connecting acquaintance, in Russia I am ruined and I
+    perish here, I am already desperate and despond entirely. I do
+    not know what to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual
+    urgent, extreme immense need. I am told by good many people,
+    that the board of guardians is very seldom to rescue by aid
+    the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices
+    and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, and in
+    the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and
+    he is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit considerably
+    Your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as
+    possible quick according to Your very gracious mercy.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages._'
+
+As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein summoned a hansom
+and sped to the Minories.
+
+
+III
+
+Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw
+the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless
+chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah
+sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the
+visitor. From chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the
+same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.
+
+But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss.
+
+'Where is the gas?' he asked drily.
+
+'Alas, the company removed the meter.'
+
+'But the gas-brackets?'
+
+'What else had we to eat?' said Nehemiah simply.
+
+Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the ceiling. But a
+fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. He could not, however,
+recall whether the pipe had been there before or not.
+
+'So the young men would not come?' he said.
+
+'Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. Only they did not
+pay.'
+
+'You should have made it a rule--cash down.'
+
+Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and
+melancholy visage.
+
+'And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where had those young men to
+turn but to me?'
+
+Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. He hastened to
+change the conversation.
+
+'And why do you want to go to Bursia?' he said.
+
+'Why shall I want to go to Bursia?' Nehemiah replied.
+
+'You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.
+
+'Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. Always Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to Russia.'
+
+'He would,' said Barstein grimly. 'But where is Bursia?'
+
+Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'Shall I know? My little Rebeccah was
+drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we
+lived two months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'
+
+'Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'
+
+'And do I not trust Him?' said Nehemiah fervently. 'Otherwise,
+burdened down as I am with a multitude of children----'
+
+'You made your own burden,' Barstein could not help pointing out.
+
+Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had caught sight of feet of
+clay beneath Barstein's shining boots.
+
+'"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' Nehemiah quoted in
+Hebrew. 'Is not that the very first commandment in the Bible?'
+
+'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the sculptor evasively.
+'I suppose you mean Palestine?'
+
+'No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should ought to go, there to
+work for Palestine. Are not many of the Sultan's own officials Jews?
+If we can make of _them_ hot-hearted Zionists----'
+
+It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found himself sitting on
+the table to discuss it. The reverence with which Nehemiah listened to
+his views was touching and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the
+celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror. Yet he could not
+suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of Zionism
+Nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe
+trembling on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean
+visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of
+Palestine, and Barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity
+was repeated and re-enforced.
+
+Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that Nehemiah himself
+would have scant opportunity of influential contact with Ottoman
+officials, and that the real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his
+wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in
+Turkey. He mentioned the point.
+
+Nehemiah waved it away. 'And cannot the Almighty support us in Turkey
+as well as in England?' he asked. 'Yes, even in Bursia itself the
+Guardian of Israel is not sleepy.'
+
+It was then that the word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind.
+Nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. He was
+an air-man, floating on facile wings through the ĉther. True, he spoke
+of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary
+distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition.
+At worst they were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in common
+with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision.
+Never for a moment had Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had
+he lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely optimism in
+disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a
+few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not
+that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker
+such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten
+years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to
+uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an
+unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse,
+through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever
+on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days
+and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more
+important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he,
+the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new child
+with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah lost his
+robustious faith in life, his belief in God, man, or himself.
+
+Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his respect for
+others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant
+humanity, by men become as Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he
+address one as 'Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his pole-stars.
+And what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible
+resilience! He had once been a dentist, and he still considered
+himself one. Before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the
+proprietor of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of
+anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly
+between two gilded horizons. The superficial might call him shiftless,
+but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the
+art of living? Did he not incarnate the great Jewish gospel of the
+improvident lilies?
+
+'You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a burst of artistic
+fervour. 'Thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds
+or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small
+business here.'
+
+Nehemiah stared at him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then
+the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a
+Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were
+caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were distinctly audible.
+
+Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest.
+
+'But what business do you think you----?' he began.
+
+'Shall I presume dictation to the angel?' asked Nehemiah with wet
+shining eyes.
+
+'I am thinking that perhaps we might find something in which your
+children could help you. How old is the eldest?'
+
+'I will ask my wife. Salome!' he cried. The dismal creature trotted
+in.
+
+'How old is Moshelé?' he asked.
+
+'And don't you remember he was twelve last Tabernacles?'
+
+Nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'Merciful Heaven! He must soon begin
+to learn his _Parshah_ (confirmation portion). What will it be? Where
+is my _Chumash_ (Pentateuch)?' Mrs. Silvermann drew it down from the
+row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending
+over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future.
+
+Barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'What business do you think
+your husband could set up here?'
+
+'Is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply.
+
+Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.
+
+'Would you like to be a dentist again?'
+
+'Ah, but how shall I find achers?'
+
+'You put up a sign,' said Barstein. 'One of those cases of teeth. I
+daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door,
+especially if you take an extra room. I will buy you the instruments,
+furnish the room attractively. You will put in your newspapers--why,
+people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling.
+
+Nehemiah addressed his wife. 'Did I not say he was a genteel
+archangel?' he cried ecstatically.
+
+
+IV
+
+Barstein was sitting outside a café in Rome sipping vermouth with
+Rozenoffski, the Russo-Jewish pianist, and Schneemann the
+Galician-Jewish painter, when he next heard from Nehemiah.
+
+He was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had
+instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. So when the
+man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand.
+But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and
+recalled the forgotten _Luftmensch_. He threw the letter impatiently
+on the table.
+
+'Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding.
+
+'I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here, in this classical
+atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with
+the gaunt godly Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his
+truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for the
+ne'er-do-well! Let his Providence look after him!
+
+'Is she beautiful?' quizzed Schneemann.
+
+Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was broken up. Nehemiah
+as a petticoated romance was too tickling.
+
+'You shall read the letter,' he said.
+
+Schneemann protested comically. 'No, no, that would be
+ungentlemanly--you read to us what the angel says.'
+
+'It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he tore open the
+letter. He read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter
+at each eruption of adjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.'
+Rozenoffski and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the
+Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the
+motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked
+with the mad foreigners.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'RIGHT HONOURABLE ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD BARSTEIN,
+
+    'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine
+    sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to
+    oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second
+    and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent
+    position in which I have no earn by my dental practice
+    likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no
+    employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I
+    was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration
+    of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful
+    archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my
+    dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital
+    subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little
+    while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the
+    urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent,
+    well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent
+    generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as
+    possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good
+    ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.
+
+          'Your obedient servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages_.'
+
+But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's comment was
+unexpected.
+
+'_Rosh Hashanah_ so near?' he said.
+
+A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to
+work out the date of the Jewish New Year, that solemn period of
+earthly trumpets and celestial judgments.
+
+'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski suddenly. The trio looked
+at one another with rueful humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even
+realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily
+decreeing their life-or-death sentences!
+
+Barstein raised his glass. 'Here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said.
+
+The three men clinked glasses.
+
+Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.
+
+'Send that to the poor devil,' he said.
+
+'Oho!' laughed Schneemann. 'You still believe "Charity delivers from
+death!" Well, I must be saved too!' And he threw down another
+hundred-lire note.
+
+To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if an old
+superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann's laughter as behind
+Rozenoffski's donation.
+
+'You will only make the _Luftmensch_ believe still more obstinately in
+his Providence,' he said, as he gathered up the New Year gifts. 'Again
+will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good
+sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!'
+
+'Well, hasn't he?' laughed Schneemann.
+
+'Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. '_Qui sa?_'
+
+
+
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE
+
+
+
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE
+
+
+When Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to
+Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the
+match, always excepting Sugarman the _Shadchan_ (whom love matches
+shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered Fanny flighty and
+fond of finery).
+
+'That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted
+Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.
+
+'He who marries Fanny _is_ rich,' retorted Elias.
+
+'"Pawn your hide, but get a bride,"' quoted the old lady savagely.
+
+As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a
+relative.
+
+'But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias protested.
+
+'A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,' replied Sugarman
+indignantly.
+
+But Elias was quite content with his own arrangement, for Fanny's
+glance was melting and her touch transporting. To deck that soft warm
+hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed
+disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. It lit
+up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch,
+bent over his press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's
+badinage.
+
+The course of true love seemed to run straight to the Canopy--Fanny
+had already worked the bridegroom's praying shawl--when suddenly a
+storm broke. At first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand--in
+fact, it was a man's hand. Elias espied it groping for Fanny's in the
+dim space between the two machines. As Fanny's fingers fluttered
+towards it, her other hand still guiding the cloth under the throbbing
+needle, Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, through
+and through. The very finger that held his costly ring lay in this
+alien paw gratis.
+
+The shameless minx! Ah, his relatives were right. He snapped the
+scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw.
+
+'Fanny, what dost thou?' he gasped in Yiddish.
+
+Fanny's face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back.
+
+'I thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed.
+
+Elias snorted incredulously.
+
+As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the engagement he flew to
+Elias, his blue bandanna streaming from his coat-tail.
+
+'If you had come to me,' he crowed, 'I should have found you a more
+reliable article. However, Heaven has given you a second helping. A
+well-built wage-earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's
+daughter even.'
+
+'I never wish to look upon a woman again,' Elias groaned.
+
+'_Schtuss!_' said the great marriage-broker. 'Three days after the
+Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of Tabernacles. The Almighty,
+blessed be He, who created both light and darkness, has made obedient
+females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' And he blew his nose
+emphatically into his bandanna.
+
+'Yes; but she won't return me my ring,' Elias lamented.
+
+'What!' Sugarman gasped. 'Then she considers herself still engaged to
+you.'
+
+'Not at all. She laughs in my face.'
+
+'And she has given you back your promise?'
+
+'My promise--yes. The ring--no.'
+
+'But on what ground?'
+
+'She says I gave it to her.'
+
+Sugarman clucked his tongue. 'Tututu! Better if we had followed our
+old custom, and the man had worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!'
+
+'In the workshop,' Elias went on miserably, 'she flashes it in my
+eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh, the Jezebel!'
+
+'I should summons her!'
+
+'It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave her the ring?'
+
+Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience was at fault. No maiden
+had ever refused to return his client's ring; rather had she flung it
+in the wooer's false teeth.
+
+'This comes of your love matches!' he cried sternly. 'Next time there
+must be a proper contract.'
+
+'Next time!' repeated Elias. 'Why how am I to afford a new ring? Fanny
+was ruinous in cups of chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre!'
+
+'I should want my fee down!' said Sugarman sharply.
+
+Elias shrugged his shoulders. 'If you bring me the ring.'
+
+'I do not get old rings but new maidens,' Sugarman reminded him
+haughtily. 'However, as you are a customer----' and crying 'Five per
+cent. on the greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere Elias had
+time to dissent from the bargain.
+
+Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts, Sugarman ploughed
+his way up the dark staircase to their room. His attire was wasted on
+the family, for Fanny herself opened the door.
+
+'Peace to you,' he cried. 'I have come on behalf of Elias Goldenberg.'
+
+'It is useless. I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door.
+Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared
+diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried
+hastily.
+
+Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The diamond glittered
+mockingly on it. Then she turned away giggling. 'But look at this
+photograph!' panted Sugarman desperately through the closing door.
+
+Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She stared at the
+sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger.
+
+'Four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter at S. Cohn's,'
+said Sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 'A good old English family;
+Benjamin Beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into Elias's
+shoes.'
+
+'His feet are too large!' And she flicked the photograph floorwards
+with her bediamonded finger.
+
+'But why waste the engagement-ring?' pleaded Sugarman, stooping to
+pick up the suitor.
+
+'What an idea! A new man, a new ring!' And Fanny slammed the door.
+
+'Impudence-face! Would you become a jewellery shop?' the baffled
+_Shadchan_ shrieked through the woodwork.
+
+He returned to Elias, brooding darkly.
+
+'Well?' queried Elias.
+
+'O, your love matches!' And Sugarman shook them away with shuddersome
+palms.
+
+'Then she won't----'
+
+'No, she won't. Ah, how blessed you are to escape from that daughter
+of Satan! The greengrocer's daughter now----'
+
+'Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.'
+
+'I will get you one on the hire system.'
+
+'A maiden?'
+
+'Guard your tongue! A ring, of course.'
+
+Elias shook an obdurate head. 'No. I must have the old ring back.'
+
+'That is impossible--unless you marry her to get it back. Stay! Why
+should I not arrange that for you?'
+
+'Leave me in peace! Heaven has opened my eyes.'
+
+'Then see how economical she is!' urged Sugarman. 'A maiden who sticks
+to a ring like that is not likely to be wasteful of your substance.'
+
+'You have not seen her swallow "stuffed monkeys,"' said Elias grimly.
+'Make an end! I have done with her.'
+
+'No, you have not! You can still give yourself a counsel.' And
+Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 'You may yet get back the ring.'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Of course, I have the next disposal of it?' said Sugarman.
+
+'Yes, yes. Go on.'
+
+'To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving glances all day
+long when she's not looking. When she catches you----'
+
+'But she won't be looking!'
+
+'Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you must blush.'
+
+'But I can't blush at will,' Elias protested.
+
+'I know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will be easier for you.'
+
+'But why shall I look foolish?'
+
+'To make her think you are in love with her after all.'
+
+'I should look foolish if I were.'
+
+'Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves the workshop in the
+evening follow her, and as she passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her
+if she will not eat a "stuffed monkey" for the sake of peace-be-upon-him
+times.'
+
+'But she won't.'
+
+'Why not? She is still in love.'
+
+'With stuffed monkeys,' said Elias cynically.
+
+'With you, too.'
+
+Elias blushed quite easily. 'How do you know?'
+
+'I offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!'
+
+'You--you offered----' Elias stuttered angrily.
+
+'Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He continued: 'Now, when
+she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must
+play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side,
+and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say "My
+treasure" or "My angel," or whatever nonsense you modern young men
+babble to your maidens--with the results you see!--and while she is
+drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a
+sudden tug, and off comes the ring!'
+
+Elias gazed at him in admiration. 'You are as crafty as Jacob, our
+father.'
+
+'Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied Sugarman modestly.
+'Be careful to seize the left hand.'
+
+The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter.
+
+Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually
+whenever his sheep's-eyes met Fanny's. He was so surprised to find his
+face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain.
+
+They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to summon up courage
+for the final feint. He would get a good grip on the ring finger. The
+tug-of-war should be brief.
+
+Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each
+other's eyes.
+
+'The good-for-nothing!' thought Elias hotly. 'She will make the same
+eyes at the next man.'
+
+And he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey'
+increasing his nervous tension. Her white teeth, biting recklessly
+into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery
+palled at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed, chattering
+with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew up even with her.
+
+They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley, lit by one dull
+gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the
+critical moment. He felt like a footpad. Hither and thither he
+peered--nobody was about. But--was he on the right side of her? 'The
+right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses
+thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew
+her right hand from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of the
+diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon
+it.
+
+But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that
+ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. Fool that he had been to
+doubt that dear hand! And it was wearing his ring still--she could not
+part with it! O blundering male ingrate!
+
+'My treasure! My angel!' he murmured ecstatically.
+
+
+
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'
+
+
+
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'
+
+
+I
+
+The little poet sat in the East-side café looking six feet high.
+Melchitsedek Pinchas--by dint of a five-pound note from Sir Asher
+Aaronsberg in acknowledgement of the dedication to him of the poet's
+'Songs of Zion'--had carried his genius to the great new Jewry across
+the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York only that very March, and
+already a crowd of votaries hung upon his lips and paid for all that
+entered them. Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is
+nowhere without honour save in his own country. The play that had
+vainly plucked at the stage-doors of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe
+had already been accepted by the leading Yiddish theatre of New York.
+At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each claiming this
+supreme position, but the poet felt that the production of his play at
+Goldwater's Theatre settled the question among them.
+
+'It is the greatest play of the generation,' he told the young
+socialists and free-thinkers who sat around him this Friday evening
+imbibing chocolate. 'It will be translated into every tongue.' He had
+passed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction with the Ghetto
+triumph into cosmopolitan anticipations. 'See,' he added, 'my initials
+make M.P.--Master Playwright.'
+
+'Also Mud Pusher,' murmured from the next table Ostrovsky, the
+socialist leader, who found himself almost deserted for the new lion.
+'Who is this uncombed bunco-steerer?'
+
+'He calls himself the "sweet singer in Israel,"' contemptuously
+replied Ostrovsky's remaining parasite.
+
+'But look here, Pinchas,' interposed Benjamin Tuch, another of the
+displaced demigods, a politician with a delusion that he swayed
+Presidential elections by his prestige in Brooklyn. 'You said the
+other day that your initials made "Messianic Poet."'
+
+'And don't they?' inquired the poet, his Dantesque, if dingy, face
+flushing spiritedly. 'You call yourself a leader, and you don't know
+your A B C!'
+
+There was a laugh, and Benjamin Tuch scowled.
+
+'They can't stand for everything,' he said.
+
+'No--they can't stand for "Bowery Tough,"' admitted Pinchas; and the
+table roared again, partly at the rapidity with which this linguistic
+genius had picked up the local slang. 'But as our pious lunatics think
+there are many meanings in every letter of the Torah,' went on the
+pleased poet, 'so there are meanings innumerable in every letter of my
+name. If I am playwright as well as poet, was not Shakespeare both
+also?'
+
+'You wouldn't class yourself with a low-down barnstormer like
+Shakespeare?' said Tuch sarcastically.
+
+'My superiority to Shakespeare I leave to others to discover,' replied
+the poet seriously, and with unexpected modesty. 'I discovered it for
+myself in writing this very play; but I cannot expect the world to
+admit it till the play is produced.'
+
+'How did you come to find it out yourself?' asked Witberg, the young
+violinist, who was never sure whether he was guying the poet or
+sitting at his feet.
+
+'It happened most naturally--order me another cup of chocolate,
+Witberg. You see, when Iselmann was touring with his Yiddish troupe
+through Galicia, he had the idea of acquainting the Jewish masses with
+"Hamlet," and he asked me to make the Yiddish translation, as one
+great poet translating another--and some of those almond-cakes,
+Witberg! Well, I started on the job, and then of course the discovery
+was inevitable. The play, which I had not read since my youth, and
+then only in a mediocre Hebrew version, appeared unspeakably childish
+in places. Take, for example, the Ghost--these almond-cakes are as
+stale as sermons; command me a cream-tart, Witberg. What was I
+saying?'
+
+'The Ghost,' murmured a dozen voices.
+
+'Ah, yes--now, how can a ghost affect a modern audience which no
+longer believes in ghosts?'
+
+'That is true.' The table was visibly stimulated, as though the
+chocolate had turned into champagne. The word 'modern' stirred the
+souls of these refugees from the old Ghettos like a trumpet; unbelief,
+if only in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition of three
+thousand years. The poet perceived his moment. He laid a black-nailed
+finger impressively on the right side of his nose.
+
+'I translated Shakespeare--yes, but into modern terms. The Ghost
+vanished--Hamlet's tragedy remained only the internal incapacity of
+the thinker for the lower activity of action.'
+
+The men of action pricked up their ears.
+
+'The higher activity, you mean,' corrected Ostrovsky.
+
+'Thought,' said Benjamin Tuch, 'has no value till it is translated
+into action.'
+
+'Exactly; you've got to work it up,' said Colonel Klopsky, who had
+large ranching and mining interests out West, and, with his florid
+personality, looked entirely out of place in these old haunts of his.
+
+'_Schtuss_ (nonsense)!' said the poet disrespectfully. 'Acts are only
+soldiers. Thought is the general.'
+
+Witberg demurred. 'It isn't much use _thinking_ about playing the
+violin, Pinchas.'
+
+'My friend,' said the poet, 'the thinker in music is the man who
+writes your solos. His thoughts exist whether you play them or
+not--and independently of your false notes. But you performers are all
+alike--I have no doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet will
+imagine his is the higher activity. But woe be to those fellows if
+they change a syllable!'
+
+'_Your_ Hamlet?' sneered Ostrovsky. 'Since when?'
+
+'Since I re-created him for the modern world, without tinsel and
+pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire and bore him in agony;
+since--even the cream of this tart is sour--since I carried him to and
+fro in my pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch of the
+mother.'
+
+'Then Iselmann did not produce it?' asked the Heathen Journalist, who
+haunted the East Side for copy, and pronounced Pinchas 'Pin-cuss.'
+
+'No, I changed his name to Eselmann, the Donkey-man. For I had hardly
+read him ten lines before he brayed out, "Where is the Ghost?" "The
+Ghost?" I said. "I have laid him. He cannot walk on the modern stage."
+Eselmann tore his hair. "But it is for the Ghost I had him translated.
+Our Yiddish audiences love a ghost." "They love your acting, too," I
+replied witheringly. "But I am not here to consider the tastes of the
+mob." Oh, I gave the Donkey-man a piece of my mind.'
+
+'But he didn't take the piece!' jested Grunbitz, who in Poland had
+been a _Badchan_ (marriage-jester), and was now a Zionist editor.
+
+'Bah! These managers are all men-of-the-earth! Once, in my days of
+obscurity, I was made to put a besom into the piece, and it swept all
+my genius off the boards. Ah, the donkey-men! But I am glad Eselmann
+gave me my "Hamlet" back, for before giving it to Goldwater I made it
+even more subtle. No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the
+end--a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts.
+No--this cream is just as sour as the other--my play will be the
+internal tragedy of the thinker.'
+
+'The internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,' laughed the
+ex-_Badchan_; 'you'd better be more careful with the cream-tarts.'
+
+The Heathen Journalist broke through the laughter. 'Strikes me,
+Pin-cuss, you're giving us Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.'
+
+'Better than the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet,' retorted the poet,
+cramming cream-tart down his throat in great ugly mouthfuls; 'that is
+how he is usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark indeed
+vanishes, for Hamlet is a Hebrew and the Prince of Palestine.'
+
+'You have made him a Hebrew?' cried Mieses, a pimply young poet.
+
+'If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to the nation of
+thinkers,' said Pinchas. 'In fact, the play is virtually an
+autobiography.'
+
+'And do you call it "Hamlet" still?' asked the Heathen Journalist,
+producing his notebook, for he began to see his way to a Sunday scoop.
+
+'Why not? True, it is virtually a new work. But Shakespeare borrowed
+his story from an old play called "Hamlet," and treated it to suit
+himself; why, therefore, should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits
+_me_. The cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.' He laughed his
+sniggering laugh. 'If I were to call it by another name, some learned
+fool would point out it was stolen from Shakespeare, whereas at
+present it challenges comparison.'
+
+'But you discovered Shakespeare cannot sustain the comparison,' said
+Benjamin Tuch, winking at the company.
+
+'Only as the mediĉval astrologer is inferior to the astronomer of
+to-day,' the poet explained with placid modesty. 'The muddle-headedness
+of Shakespeare's ideas--which, incidentally, is the cause of the muddle
+of Hamlet's character--has given way to the clear vision of the modern.
+How could Shakespeare really describe the thinker? The Elizabethans
+could not think. They were like our rabbis.'
+
+The unexpected digression into contemporary satire made the whole café
+laugh. Gradually other atoms had drifted toward the new magnet. From
+the remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. Pinchas
+was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else's frock-coat on his
+meagre person, his hair flowing like a dark cascade under a
+broad-brimmed dusky hat, and his sombre face aglow with genius and
+cocksureness.
+
+'Why should you expect thought from a rabbi?' said Grunbitz. 'You
+don't expect truth from a tradesman. Besides, only youth thinks.'
+
+'That is well said,' approved Pinchas. 'He who is ever thinking never
+grows old. I shall die young, like all whom the gods love. Waiter,
+give Mr. Grunbitz a cup of chocolate.'
+
+'Thank you--but I don't care for any.'
+
+'You cannot refuse--you will pain Witberg,' said the poet simply.
+
+In the great city around them men jumped on and off electric cars,
+whizzed up and down lifts, hustled through lobbies, hulloed through
+telephones, tore open telegrams, dictated to clacking typists, filled
+life with sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and the
+chink of the eternal dollar; while here, serenely smoking and sipping,
+ruffled only by the breezes of argument, leisurely as the philosophers
+in the colonnades of Athens, the talkers of the Ghetto, earnest as
+their forefathers before the great folios of the Talmud, made an
+Oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the Occident. And the Heathen
+Journalist who had discovered it felt, as so often before, that here
+alone in this arid, mushroom New York was antiquity, was restfulness,
+was romanticism; here was the Latin Quarter of the city of the Goths.
+
+Encouraged by the Master's good humour, young Mieses timidly exhibited
+his new verses. Pinchas read the manuscript aloud to the confusion of
+the blushing boy.
+
+'But it is full of genius!' he cried in genuine astonishment. 'I might
+have written it myself, except that it is so unequal--a mixture of
+diamonds and paste, like all Hebrew literature.' He indicated with
+flawless taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all
+unconscious reproductions from the English masterpieces Mieses had
+borrowed from the library in the Educational Alliance. The acolytes
+listened respectfully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced Mieses began
+to take importance in their eyes and to betray the importance he held
+in his own.
+
+'Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day,' he said. 'My "M," too,
+makes "Master."'
+
+'It may be that you are destined to wear my mantle,' said Pinchas
+graciously.
+
+Mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock-coat.
+
+Pinchas rose. 'And now, Mieses, you must give me a car-fare. I have to
+go and talk to the manager about rehearsals. One must superintend the
+actors one's self--these pumpkin-heads are capable of any crime, even
+of altering one's best phrases.'
+
+Radsikoff smiled. He had sat still in his corner, this most prolific
+of Ghetto dramatists, his big, furrowed forehead supported on his
+fist, a huge, odorous cigar in his mouth.
+
+'I suppose Goldwater plays "Hamlet,"' he said.
+
+'We have not discussed it yet,' said Pinchas airily.
+
+Radsikoff smiled again. 'Oh, he'll pull through--so long as Mrs.
+Goldwater doesn't play "Ophelia."'
+
+'She play "Ophelia"! She would not dream of such a thing. She is a
+saucy soubrette; she belongs to vaudeville.'
+
+'All right. I have warned you.'
+
+'You don't think there is really a danger!' Pinchas was pale and
+shaking.
+
+'The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and wives, unfortunately,
+live and play together,' said the old dramatist drily.
+
+'I'll drown her truly before I let her play my "Ophelia,"' said the
+poet venomously.
+
+Radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into American. 'Well,
+it's up to you.'
+
+'The minx!' Pinchas shook his fist at the air. 'But I'll manage her.
+If the worst comes to the worst, I'll make love to her.'
+
+The poet's sublime confidence in his charms was too much even for his
+admirers. The mental juxtaposition of the seedy poet and the piquant
+actress in her frills and furbelows set the whole café rocking with
+laughter. Pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious method of
+drawing the soubrette-serpent's fangs. He grinned placidly.
+
+'And when is your play coming on?' asked Radsikoff.
+
+'After Passover,' replied Pinchas, beginning to button his frock-coat
+against the outer cold. If only to oust this 'Ophelia,' he must be at
+the theatre instanter.
+
+'Has Goldwater given you a contract?'
+
+'I am a poet, not a lawyer,' said Pinchas proudly. 'Parchments are for
+Philistines; honest men build on the word.'
+
+'After all, it comes to the same thing--with Goldwater,' said
+Radsikoff drily. 'But he's no worse than the others; I've never yet
+found the contract any manager couldn't slip out of. I've never yet
+met the playwright that the manager couldn't dodge.' Radsikoff,
+indeed, divided his time between devising plays and devising
+contracts. Every experience but suggested fresh clauses. He regarded
+Pinchas with commiseration rather than jealousy. 'I shall come to your
+first night,' he added.
+
+'It will be a tribute which the audience will appreciate,' said
+Pinchas. 'I am thinking that if I had one of these aromatic cigars I
+too might offer a burnt-offering unto the Lord.'
+
+There was general laughter at the blasphemy, for the Sabbath, with its
+privation of fire, had long since begun.
+
+'Try taking instead of thinking,' laughed the playwright, pushing
+forward his case. 'Action is greater than Thought.'
+
+'No, no, no!' Pinchas protested, as he fumbled for the finest cigar.
+'Wait till you see my play--you must all come--I will send you all
+boxes. Then you will learn that Thought is greater than Action--that
+Thought is the greatest thing in the world.'
+
+
+II
+
+Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas plunged from the
+steam-heated, cheerful café into the raw, unlovely street, still
+hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. He did not take the
+horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the five cents
+for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was slow, for a side street
+that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of
+the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of
+frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely
+by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have
+been superfluous. But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby
+and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already
+up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by
+the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on
+the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet,
+whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. This great
+theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.
+
+'I will await him in a box,' he said.
+
+'There's no room,' said the usher.
+
+Pinchas threw up his head. 'I am the author of "Hamlet"!'
+
+The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had heard vaguely of
+'Hamlet'--as a great play that was acted on Broadway. And now here was
+the author himself! All the instinctive snobbery of the Ghetto toward
+the grand world was excited. And yet this seedy figure conflicted
+painfully with his ideas of the uptown type. But perhaps all
+dramatists were alike. Pinchas was bowed forward.
+
+In another instant the theatre was in an uproar. A man in a
+comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accommodate the distinguished
+stranger and had refused.
+
+'I pay my dollar--what for shall I go?'
+
+'But it is the author of "Hamlet"!'
+
+'My money is as good as his.'
+
+'But he doesn't pay.'
+
+'And I shall give my good seat to a _Schnorrer_!'
+
+'Sh! sh!' from all parts of the house, like water livening, not
+killing, a flame. From every side came expostulations in Yiddish and
+American. This was a free republic; the author of 'Hamlet' was no
+better than anybody else. Goldwater, on the stage, glared at the
+little poet.
+
+At last a compromise was found. A chair was placed at the back of a
+packed box. American boxes are constructed for publicity, not privacy,
+but the other dozen occupants bulked between him and the house. He
+could see, but he could not be seen. Sullen and mortified he listened
+contemptuously to the play.
+
+It was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic drama with which the
+vast audience had replaced the Sabbath pieties, the home-keeping
+ritual of the Ghetto, in their swift transformation to American life.
+Confined entirely to Jewish characters, it had borrowed much from the
+heroes and heroines of the Western world, remaining psychologically
+true only in its minor characters, which were conceived and rendered
+with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. And this naturalism was
+shot through with streaks of pure fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly
+bounded on in a masque for the edification of a Russian tyrant. But
+comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to horror and tragedy:
+these refugees from the brutality of Russia and Rumania, these
+inheritors of the wailing melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved
+morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. The 'happy endings' of Broadway
+would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players and audience made a large
+family party--the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the
+parts always cast in the same mould. And it was almost an impromptu
+performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear
+every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the
+footlights. The Yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried
+up'; it was his rôle to read the whole play ahead of them. 'Then you
+are the woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble. And the actor,
+hearing, invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, spinning
+out with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied
+to him. No mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no
+punctilious tuition by your stage-manager--all was inspiration and
+fire. But to Pinchas this hearing of the play twice over--once raw and
+once cooked--was maddening.
+
+'The lazy-bones!' he murmured. 'Not thus shall they treat my lines.
+Every syllable must be engraved upon their hearts, or I forbid the
+curtain to go up. Not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's
+words; they are ink-vomit, not literature.'
+
+Another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his literary instinct.
+Incongruously blended with the Yiddish were elementary American
+expressions--the first the immigrants would pick up. 'All right,'
+'Sure!' 'Yes, sir,' 'Say, how's the boss?' 'Good-bye.' 'Not a cent.'
+'Take the elevated.' 'Yup.' 'Nup.' 'That's one on you!' 'Rubber-neck!'
+A continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the
+audience, pleased to find themselves on such easy terms with the new
+language. But to Pinchas the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with
+such locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine talking with a
+twang--how could he permit such an outrage upon his Hebrew Hamlet?
+
+Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the
+iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the
+cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on
+whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. At
+last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which
+Goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the
+actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table
+beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging.
+
+'Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my house. What do you want?'
+cried Goldwater.
+
+'I want to talk to you about rehearsals.'
+
+'I told you I would let you know when rehearsals began.'
+
+'But you forgot to take my address.'
+
+'As if I don't know where to find you!'
+
+Kloot grinned. 'Pinchas gets drinks from all the café,' he put in.
+
+'They drink to the health of "Hamlet,"' said Pinchas proudly.
+
+'All right; Kloot's gotten your address. Good-evening.'
+
+'But when will it be? I must know.'
+
+'We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money in this piece yet.'
+
+'Money--bah! But merit?'
+
+'You fellows are as jealous as the devil.'
+
+'Me jealous of kangaroos! In Central Park you see giraffes--and
+tortoises too. Central Park has more talent than this scribbler of
+yours.'
+
+'I doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured Goldwater.
+
+'I'll write you about rehearsals,' said Kloot, winking at Goldwater.
+
+'But I must know weeks ahead--I may go lecturing. The great continent
+calls for me. In Chicago, in Cincinnati----'
+
+'Go, by all means,' said Goldwater. 'We can do without you.'
+
+'Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! I must teach you how
+to say every line.'
+
+'Teach _me_?' Goldwater could hardly believe his ears.
+
+Pinchas wavered. 'I--I mean the company. I will show them the
+accent--the gesture. I'm a great stage-manager as well as a great
+poet. There shall be no more prompter.'
+
+'Indeed!' Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'And how are
+you going to get on without a prompter?'
+
+'Very simple--a month's rehearsals.'
+
+Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge.
+
+Kloot broke in impishly: 'It is very good of you to give us a month of
+your valuable time.'
+
+But Goldwater was too irate for irony. 'A month!' he gasped at last.
+'I could put on six melodramas in a month.'
+
+'But "Hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said Pinchas, shocked.
+
+'Quite so; there is not half the scenery. It's the scenery that takes
+time rehearsing, not the scenes.'
+
+The poet was now as purple as the player. 'You would profane my divine
+work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!'
+
+'Here, just _you_ come off your perch!' said Kloot. 'You've written
+the piece; we do the rest.' Kloot, though only nineteen and at a few
+dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole
+world, but even with his employer. He was now, to his amaze,
+confronted by a superior.
+
+'Silence, impudent-face! You are not talking to Radsikoff. I am a
+Poet, and I demand my rights.'
+
+Kloot was silent from sheer surprise.
+
+Goldwater was similarly impressed. 'What rights?' he observed more
+mildly. 'You've had your twenty dollars. And that was too much.'
+
+'Too much! Twenty dollars for the masterpiece of the twentieth
+century!'
+
+'In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said
+Kloot, recovering.
+
+'Make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'I shall be
+living in the fifty-first century even. Poets never die--though, alas!
+they have to live. Twenty dollars too much, indeed! It is not a dollar
+a century for the run of the play.'
+
+'Very well,' said Goldwater grimly. 'Give them back. We return your
+play.'
+
+This time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'No, no, Goldwater--I
+must not disappoint my printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars
+to print my Hebrew "Selections from Nietzsche."'
+
+'You take your manuscript and give me my money,' said Goldwater
+implacably.
+
+'Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob you. Keep your bargain.
+See, here is the printer's letter.' He dragged from a tail-pocket a
+mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside
+the telephone as if to search among them.
+
+Goldwater waved a repudiating hand.
+
+'Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.' The poet's carneying forefinger was
+laid on his nose. 'I and you are the only two people in New York who
+serve the poetic drama--I by writing, you by producing.'
+
+Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the
+flattery.
+
+Kloot replied for him: 'Your manuscript shall be returned to you by
+the first dustcart.'
+
+Pinchas disregarded the youth. 'But I am willing you shall have only a
+fortnight's rehearsals. I believe in you, Goldwater. I have always
+said, "The only genius on the Yiddish stage is Goldwater."
+Klostermann--bah! He produces not so badly, but act? My grandmother's
+hen has a better stage presence. And there is Davidoff--a voice like a
+frog and a walk like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of
+when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater--your fame has blown
+across the Atlantic, over the Carpathians. I journeyed from Cracow
+expressly to collaborate with you.'
+
+'Then why do you spoil it all?' asked the mollified manager.
+
+'It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be disappointed in you. Let us
+talk of the cast.'
+
+'It is so early yet.'
+
+'"The early bird catches the worm."'
+
+'But all our worms are caught,' grinned Kloot. 'We keep our talent
+pinned on the premises.'
+
+'I know, I know,' said Pinchas, paling. He saw Mrs. Goldwater tripping
+on saucily as Ophelia.
+
+'But we don't give all our talent to one play,' the manager reminded
+him.
+
+'No, of course not,' said Pinchas, with a breath of hope.
+
+'We have to use all our people by turns. We divide our forces. With
+myself as Hamlet you will have a cast that should satisfy any author.'
+
+'Do I not know it?' cried Pinchas. 'Were you but to say your lines,
+leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be
+spellbound, like Moses when he saw the burning bush.'
+
+'That being so,' said Goldwater, 'you couldn't expect to have my wife
+in the same cast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Pinchas enthusiastically. 'Two such tragic geniuses
+would confuse and distract, like the sun and the moon shining
+together.'
+
+Goldwater coughed. 'But Ophelia is really a small part,' he murmured.
+
+'It is,' Pinchas acquiesced. 'Your wife's tragic powers could only be
+displayed in "Hamlet" if, like another equally celebrated actress, she
+appeared as the Prince of Palestine himself.'
+
+'Heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!' said Goldwater. 'A
+decent Jewish housewife cannot appear in breeches.'
+
+'That is what makes it impossible,' assented Pinchas. 'And there is no
+other part worthy of Mrs. Goldwater.'
+
+   [Illustration: "You compare my wife to a Kangaroo!"]
+
+'It may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the manager musingly.
+
+'And who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice herself?' replied the
+poet modestly.
+
+'Fanny won't sacrifice Ophelia,' Kloot observed drily to his chief.
+
+'You hear?' said Goldwater, as quick as lightning. 'My wife will not
+sacrifice Ophelia by leaving her to a minor player. She thinks only of
+the play. It is very noble of her.'
+
+'But she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet desperately, 'she needs
+a rest.'
+
+'My wife never spares herself.'
+
+Pinchas lost his head. 'But she might spare Ophelia,' he groaned.
+
+'What do you mean?' cried Goldwater gruffly. 'My wife will honour you
+by playing Ophelia. That is ended.' He waved the make-up brush in his
+hand.
+
+'No, it is not ended,' said Pinchas desperately. 'Your wife is a comic
+actress----'
+
+'You just admitted she was tragic----'
+
+'It is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said Pinchas, burning his
+boats. 'She skips and jumps. Rather would I give Ophelia to one of
+your kangaroos!'
+
+'You low-down monkey!' Goldwater almost flung his brush into the
+poet's face. 'You compare my wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy
+manuscript and begone where the pepper grows.'
+
+'Well, Fanny _would_ be rather funny as Ophelia,' put in Kloot
+pacifyingly.
+
+'And to make your wife ridiculous as Ophelia,' added Pinchas eagerly,
+'you would rob the world of your Hamlet!'
+
+'I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can translate
+Shakespeare.'
+
+'Perhaps, but who can surpass Shakespeare? Who can make him
+intelligible to the modern soul?'
+
+'Mr. Goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness of a reply.
+
+The irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape with his dignity
+and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs,
+dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of
+perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and
+perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let
+him read on unrebuked.
+
+'You will talk to him, Kloot,' he pleaded at last. 'You will save
+Ophelia?'
+
+The big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent inquisition. 'Rely
+on me, if I have to play her myself.'
+
+'But that will be still worse,' said Pinchas seriously.
+
+Kloot grinned. 'How do you know? You've never seen me act?'
+
+The poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'You will not spoil
+my play, you will get me a maidenly Ophelia? I and you are the only
+two men in New York who understand how to cast a play.'
+
+'You leave it to me,' said Kloot; 'I have a wife of my own.'
+
+'What!' shrieked Pinchas.
+
+'Don't be alarmed--I'll coach her. She's just the age for the part.
+Mrs. Goldwater might be her mother.'
+
+'But can she make the audience cry?'
+
+'You bet; a regular onion of an Ophelia.'
+
+'But I must see her rehearse, then I can decide.'
+
+'Of course.'
+
+'And you will seek me in the café when rehearsals begin?'
+
+'That goes without saying.'
+
+The poet looked cunning. 'But don't you say without going.'
+
+'How can we rehearse without you? You shouldn't have worried the boss.
+We'll call you, even if it's the middle of the night.'
+
+The poet jumped at Kloot's hand and kissed it.
+
+'Protector of poets!' he cried ecstatically. 'And you will see that
+they do not mutilate my play; you will not suffer a single hair of my
+poesy to be harmed?'
+
+'Not a hair shall be cut,' said Kloot solemnly.
+
+Pinchas kissed his hand again. 'Ah, I and you are the only two men in
+New York who understand how to treat poesy.'
+
+'Sure!' Kloot snatched his hand away. 'Good-bye.'
+
+Pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. 'And you will see it is not
+adulterated with American. In Zion they do not say "Sure" or "Lend me
+a nickel."'
+
+'I guess not,' said Kloot. 'Good-bye.'
+
+'All the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-fare.'
+
+Kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. He handed it over.
+
+The poet went. An instant afterwards the door reopened and his head
+reappeared, the nose adorned with a pleading forefinger.
+
+'You promise me all this?'
+
+'Haven't I promised?'
+
+'But swear to me.'
+
+'Will you go--if I swear?'
+
+'Yup,' said Pinchas, airing his American.
+
+'And you won't come back till rehearsals begin?'
+
+'Nup.'
+
+'Then I swear--on my father's and mother's life!'
+
+Pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that Kloot was an orphan.
+
+
+III
+
+On the very verge of Passover, Pinchas, lying in bed at noon with a
+cigarette in his mouth, was reading his morning paper by candle-light;
+for he tenanted one of those innumerable dark rooms which should make
+New York the photographer's paradise. The yellow glow illumined his
+prophetic and unshaven countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs,
+as he critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew letters served as
+the channel for the mongrel Yiddish and American dialect, in which
+'congressman,' 'sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all
+the outer Oriental robing of the Old Testament. Suddenly a strange
+gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. He read the
+announcement again.
+
+The Yiddish 'Hamlet' was to be the Passover production at Goldwater's
+Theatre. The author was the world-renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas,
+and the music was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous composer.
+
+'World-famous composer, indeed!' cried Pinchas to his garret walls.
+'Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? And who wants his music? The
+tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater
+imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will I permit an
+overture--or the cymbals shall clash as I take my call.'
+
+He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irritation at this
+intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indignation at the imminence of
+his play. The dogs! The liars! The first night was almost at hand, and
+no sign had been vouchsafed to him. He had been true to his promise;
+he had kept away from the theatre. But Goldwater! But Kloot! Ah, the
+godless gambler with his parents' lives! With such ghouls hovering
+around the Hebrew 'Hamlet,' who could say how the masterpiece had been
+mangled? Line upon line had probably been cut; nay, who knew that a
+whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time for
+that miserable music!
+
+He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, hurried off to
+the theatre, breathless and breakfastless. Orchestral music vibrated
+through the lobby and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of
+the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He gave but a moment to absorbing the great
+capital letters of his name; a dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a
+glowing, crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. Goldwater,
+limelit, occupied the centre of the boards. Hamlet trod the
+battlements of the tower of David, and gazed on the cupolas and
+minarets of Jerusalem.
+
+With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas galloped toward
+the fiddling and banging orchestra. A harmless sweeper in his path
+was herself swept aside. But her fallen broom tripped up the runner.
+He fell with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane
+contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered where erst had
+stood a poet.
+
+Goldwater stopped dead. 'Can't you sweep quietly?' he thundered
+terribly through the music.
+
+Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra paused.
+
+'It is I, the author!' said Pinchas, struggling up through clouds like
+some pagan deity.
+
+Hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. 'And what do you want?'
+
+'What do I want?' repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze.
+
+Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings munching a sandwich.
+
+'Sure, there's Shakespeare!' he said. 'I've just been round to the
+café to find you. Got this sandwich there.'
+
+'But this--this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered Pinchas, a jot
+appeased.
+
+'The first dress-rehearsal,' Kloot replied reassuringly. 'We don't
+trouble authors with the rough work. They stroll in and put on the
+polish. Won't you come on the stage?'
+
+Unable to repress a grin of happiness, Pinchas stumbled through the
+dim parterre, barking his shins at almost every step. Arrived at the
+orchestra, he found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled to the
+left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown holland, loomed
+ghostly.
+
+'No,' said Kloot, 'that door's got stuck. You must come round by the
+stage-door.'
+
+Pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth remainder of his
+shins. He allowed himself a palpitating pause before the lobby
+posters. His blood chilled. Not only was Ignatz Levitsky starred in
+equal type, but another name stood out larger than either:
+
+  _Ophelia_ ..  ..  ..   _Fanny Goldwater._
+
+His wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage-door. He pushed it
+open, but a gruff voice inquired his business, and a burly figure
+blocked his way.
+
+'I am the author,' he said with quiet dignity.
+
+'Authors ain't admitted,' was the simple reply.
+
+'But Goldwater awaits me,' the poet protested.
+
+'I guess not. Mr. Kloot's orders. Can't have authors monkeying around
+here.' As he spoke Goldwater's voice rose from the neighbouring stage
+in an operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas's brain to chaos. A
+despairing sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. He ran
+back to the lobby. The doors had been bolted. He beat against them
+with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman
+persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell.
+
+Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor Pinchas till the
+first night--and the third act--of the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He had
+reconciled himself to his extrusion from rehearsals. 'They fear I fire
+Ophelia,' he told the café.
+
+But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached him for the première;
+the boxes he had promised the café did not materialize, and the
+necessity of avoiding that haunt of the invited cost him several
+meals. But that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass in
+'on his face'--that authors should be admitted neither at the stage
+door nor at the public door--this had not occurred to him as within
+the possibilities of even theatrical humanity.
+
+'Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!' he shrieked into the box office. 'You and
+Goldwater and Kloot! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! I have indeed cast my pearls
+before swine. But I will not be beholden to them--I will buy a
+ticket.'
+
+'We're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding recklessly: 'Get a
+move on you; other people want to buy seats.'
+
+'You can't keep me out! It's conspiracy!' He darted within, but was
+hustled as rapidly without. He ran back to the stage-door, and hurled
+himself against the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the
+side-walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. He was left
+cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like the maledictions in Deuteronomy,
+only brought up to date by dynamite explosions and automobile
+accidents. Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon a
+blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The lobby was deserted save
+for a few strangers; his play had begun. And he--he, the god who moved
+all this machinery--he, whose divine fire was warming all that great
+house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to
+loiter in the corridors! But for the rumblings of applause that
+reached him he could hardly have endured the situation.
+
+Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the nearest drug-store, and
+entering the telephone cabinet rang up Goldwater.
+
+'Hello, there!' came the voice of Kloot. 'Who are you?'
+
+Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, in his peaked cap,
+sitting on the table by the telephone, swinging his legs; but he
+replied craftily, in a disguised voice: 'You, Goldwater?'
+
+'No; Goldwater's on the stage.'
+
+Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Goldwater's voice returned
+to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'They're loving it, Kloot;
+they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda.'
+
+Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied was: 'You're
+wanted on the 'phone.'
+
+'Hello!' called Goldwater.
+
+'Hello!' replied Pinchas in his natural voice. 'May a sudden death
+smite you! May the curtain fall on a gibbering epileptic!'
+
+'Can't hear!' said Goldwater. 'Speak plainer.'
+
+'I _will_ speak plainer, swine-head! Never shall a work of mine defile
+itself in your dirty dollar-factory. I spit on you!' He spat viciously
+into the telephone disk. 'Your father was a _Meshummad_ (apostate),
+and your mother----'
+
+But Goldwater had cut off the connection. Pinchas finished for his own
+satisfaction: 'An Irish fire-woman.'
+
+'That was worth ten cents,' he muttered, as he strode out into the
+night. And patrolling the front of the theatre again, or leaning on
+his cane as on a sword, he was warmed by the thought that his venom
+had pierced through all the actor-manager's defences.
+
+At last a change came over the nightmare. Striding from the envied,
+illuminated Within appeared the Heathen Journalist, note-book in hand.
+At sight of the author he shied. 'Must skedaddle, Pin-cuss,' he said
+apologetically, 'if we're to get anything into to-morrow's paper. Your
+people are so durned slow--nearly eleven, and only two acts over.
+You'll have to brisk 'em up a bit. Good-bye.'
+
+He shook the poet's hand and was off. With an inspiration Pinchas gave
+chase. He caught the Journalist just boarding a car.
+
+'Got your theatre ticket?' he panted.
+
+'What for?'
+
+'Give it me.'
+
+The Journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and threw him a
+crumpled fragment. 'What in thunder----' he began. And then, to
+Pinchas's relief, the car removed the querist.
+
+For the moment the poet was feeling only the indignity of the
+position, and the Heathen Journalist as trumpeter of his wrongs and
+avenger of the Muses had not occurred to him. He smoothed out the
+magic scrap, and was inside the suffocating, close-packed theatre
+before the disconcerted janitor could meet the new situation. Pinchas
+found the vacated journalistic chair in the stage-box; he was
+installed therein before the managerial minions arrived on ejection
+bent.
+
+'This is _my_ house!' screamed Pinchas. 'I stay here! Let me
+be--swine, serpents, Behemoth!'
+
+'Sh!' came in a shower from every quarter. 'Sit down there! Turn him
+out!' The curtain was going up; Pinchas was saved.
+
+But only for more gruesome torture. The third act began. Hamlet
+collogued with the Queen. The poet pricked up his ears. Whose language
+was this? Certainly not Shakespeare's or his superior's. Angels and
+ministers of grace defend him! this was only the illiterate jargon of
+the hack playwright, with its peppering of the phrases of Hester
+Street. 'You have too many dead flies on you,' Hamlet's mother told
+him. 'You'll get left.' But the nightmare thickened. Hamlet and his
+mother opened their mouths and sang. Their songs were light and gay,
+and held encore verses to reward the enthusiastic. The actors, like
+the audience, were leisurely; here midnight and the closure were not
+synonymous. When there were no more encore verses, Ignatz Levitsky
+would turn to the audience and bow in acknowledgment of the
+compliment. Pinchas's eyes were orbs straining at their sockets; froth
+gathered on his lips.
+
+Mrs. Goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her songs set to comic
+airs. The great house received her in the same comic spirit. Instead
+of rue and rosemary she carried a rustling green _Lulov_--the
+palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles--and shook it piously toward
+every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about
+in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving
+to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It
+was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes
+mingled with her terror-stricken soprano.
+
+This was the last straw. The Ghost--the Ghost that he had laid
+forever, the Ghost that made melodrama of this tragedy of the
+thinker--was risen again, and cake-walking!
+
+Unperceived in the general convulsion and cachinnation, Pinchas leaped
+to his feet, and, seeing scarlet, bounded through the iron door and
+made for the stage. But a hand was extended in the nick of time--the
+hand he had kissed--and Pinchas was drawn back by the collar.
+
+'You don't take your call yet,' said the unruffled Kloot.
+
+'Let me go! I must speak to the people. They must learn the truth.
+They think _me_, Melchitsedek Pinchas, guilty of this _tohu-bohu_! My
+sun will set. I shall be laughed at from the Hudson to the Jordan.'
+
+'Hush! Hush! You are interrupting the poesy.'
+
+'Who has drawn and quartered my play? Speak!'
+
+'I've only arranged it for the stage,' said Kloot, unabashed.
+
+'You!' gasped the poet.
+
+'You said I and you are the only two men who understand how to treat
+poesy.'
+
+'You understand push-carts, not poesy!' hissed the poet. 'You conspire
+to keep me out of the theatre--I will summons you!'
+
+'We had to keep all authors out. Suppose Shakespeare had turned up and
+complained of _you_.'
+
+'Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.'
+
+'Hush! The boss is going on.'
+
+From the opposite wing Hamlet was indeed advancing. Pinchas made a
+wild plunge forward, but Kloot's grasp on his collar was still
+carefully firm.
+
+'Who's mutilating the poesy now?' Kloot frowned angrily from under his
+peaked cap. 'You'll spoil the scene.'
+
+'Peace, liar! You promised me your wife for Ophelia!'
+
+Kloot's frown relaxed into a smile. 'Sure! The first wife I get you
+shall have.'
+
+Pinchas gnashed his teeth. Goldwater's voice rose in a joyous
+roulade.
+
+'I think you owe me a car-fare,' said Kloot soothingly.
+
+Pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane. 'Why does _Hamlet_
+sing?' he demanded fiercely.
+
+'Because it's Passover,' said Kloot. 'You are a "greener" in New York,
+otherwise you would know that it is a tradition to have musical plays
+on Passover. Our audiences wouldn't stand for any other. You're such
+an unreasonable cuss! Why else did we take your "Hamlet" for a
+Passover play?'
+
+'But "Hamlet" isn't a musical play.'
+
+'Yes, it is! How about Ophelia's songs? That was what decided us. Of
+course they needed eking out.'
+
+'But "Hamlet" is a tragedy!' gasped Pinchas.
+
+'Sure!' said Kloot cheerfully. 'They all die at the end. Our audiences
+would go away miserable if they didn't. You wait till they're dead,
+then you shall take your call.'
+
+'Take my call, for _your_ play!'
+
+'There's quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen carefully. Only
+you don't understand stage technique. Oh, I'm not grumbling; we're
+quite satisfied. The idea of adapting "Hamlet" for the Yiddish stage
+is yours, and it's worth every cent we paid.'
+
+A storm of applause gave point to the speaker's words, and removed the
+last partition between the poet's great mind and momentary madness.
+What! here was that ape of a Goldwater positively wallowing in
+admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been cast into outer
+darkness and his work mocked and crucified! He put forth all his
+might, like Samson amid the Philistines, and leaving his coat-collar
+in Kloot's hand, he plunged into the circle of light. Goldwater's
+amazed face turned to meet him.
+
+'Cutter of lines!' The poet's cane slashed across Hamlet's right cheek
+near the right eye. 'Perverter of poesy!' It slashed across the left
+cheek near the left eye.
+
+The Prince of Palestine received each swish with a yell of pain and
+fear, and the ever-ready Kloot dropped the curtain on the tragic
+scene.
+
+Such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of the curtain! Yet
+in the end the poet escaped scot-free. Goldwater was a coward, Kloot a
+sage. The same prudence that had led Kloot to exclude authors, saved
+him from magnifying their importance by police squabbles. Besides, a
+clever lawyer might prove the exclusion illegal. What was done was
+done. The dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best served by
+private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, irrefutable save in a court
+of law. It was bad enough that the Heathen Journalist should supply so
+graphic a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even more highly
+than Goldwater's eyes. Kloot had been glad that the Journalist had
+left before the episode; but when he saw the account he wished the
+scribe had stayed.
+
+'He won't play Hamlet with that pair of shiners,' Pinchas prophesied
+early the next morning to the supping café.
+
+Radsikoff beamed and refilled Pinchas's glass with champagne. He had
+carried out his promise of assisting at the première, and was now
+paying for the poet's supper.
+
+'You're the first playwright Goldwater hasn't managed to dodge,' he
+chuckled.
+
+'Ah!' said the poet meditatively. 'Action is greater than Thought.
+Action is the greatest thing in the world.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVERTS
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVERTS
+
+
+I
+
+As he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed workshop on the Bowery,
+clumsily pasting the flamboyant portrait on the boxes of the 'Yvonne
+Rupert cigar,' he wondered dully--after the first flush of joy at
+getting a job after weeks of hunger--at the strange fate that had
+again brought him into connection, however remote, with stageland. For
+even to Elkan Mandle, with his Ghetto purview, Yvonne Rupert's fame,
+both as a 'Parisian' star and the queen of American advertisers, had
+penetrated. Ever since she had summoned a Jewish florist for not
+paying her for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a single
+week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the
+journals had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing
+adventures.
+
+Not that there was much similarity between the New York star and his
+little actress of the humble Yiddish Theatre in London, save for that
+aureole of fluffy hair, which belonged rather to the genus than the
+individual. But as the great Yvonne's highly-coloured charms went on
+repeating themselves from every box-cover he manipulated (at
+seventy-five cents a hundred), the face of his own Gittel grew more
+and more vivid, till at last the whole splendid, shameful past began
+to rise up from its desolate tomb.
+
+He even lived through that prologue in the Ghetto garret, when, as
+benevolent master-tailor receiving the highest class work from S.
+Cohn's in the Holloway Road, he was called upstairs to assist the
+penniless Polish immigrants.
+
+There she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the rickety table
+just contributed to the home, a piquant, dark-eyed, yet golden-haired,
+mite of eleven, calm and comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter
+of parents and children.
+
+'Settle this among yourselves,' she seemed to be saying. 'When the
+chairs are here I will sit on _them_; when the table is laid I will
+draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr
+on the hearth.'
+
+Ah, _he_ had come forward as the pious philanthropist--pious enough
+then, Heaven knew. Why had Satan thrown such lures in the way of the
+reputable employer, the treasurer of 'The Gates of Mercy' Synagogue,
+with children of his own, and the best wife in the world? Did he not
+pray every day to be delivered from the _Satan Mekatrig_? Had he not
+meant it for the best when he took her into his workshop? It was only
+when, at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein left the whirring
+machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled position of heroine
+of Goldwater's London Yiddish Theatre that he had discovered how this
+whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated herself into his very
+being.
+
+Ah, madness, madness! that flight with her to America with all his
+savings, that desertion of his wife and children! But what delicious
+delirium that one year in New York, prodigal, reckless, ere, with the
+disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared. And now, here he
+was--after nigh seven apathetic years, in which the need of getting a
+living was the only spur to living on--glad to take a woman's place
+when female labour struck for five cents more a hundred. The old
+bitter tears came up to his eyes, blurring the cheerless scene, the
+shabby men and unlovely women with their red paste-pots, the medley of
+bare and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-balls. And as he
+wept, the vain salt drops moistened the pictures of Yvonne Rupert.
+
+
+II
+
+She became an obsession, this Franco-American singer and dancer, as he
+sat pasting and pasting, caressing her pictured face with sticky
+fingers. There were brief intervals of freedom from her image when he
+was 'edging' and 'backing,' or when he was lining the boxes with the
+plain paper; but Yvonne came twice on every box--once in large on the
+inside, once in small on the outside, with a gummed projection to be
+stuck down after the cigars were in. He fell to recalling what he had
+read of her--the convent education that had kept her chaste and
+distinguished beneath all her stage deviltry, the long Lenten fasts
+she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger's bill she disputed
+in open court), the crucifix concealed upon her otherwise not too
+reticent person, the adorable French accent with which she enraptured
+the dudes, the palatial private car in which she traversed the States,
+with its little chapel giving on the bathroom; the swashbuckling
+Marquis de St. Roquière, who had crossed the Channel after her, and
+the maid he had once kidnapped in mistake for the mistress; the
+diamond necklace presented by the Rajah of Singapuri, stolen at a
+soirée in San Francisco, and found afterwards as single stones in a
+low 'hock-shop' in New Orleans.
+
+And despite all this glitter of imposing images a subconscious thought
+was forcing itself more and more clearly to the surface of his mind.
+That aureole of golden hair, those piquant dark eyes! The Yvonne the
+cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar with had lacked this
+revelation of colour! But no, the idea was insane!
+
+This scintillating celebrity his lost Gittel!
+
+Bah! Misery had made him childish. Goldwater had, indeed, blossomed
+out since the days of his hired hall in Spitalfields, but his fame
+remained exclusively Yiddish and East-side. But Gittel!
+
+How could that obscure rush-light of the London Ghetto Theatre have
+blazed into the Star of Paris and New York?
+
+This Lent-keeping demoiselle the little Polish Jewess who had munched
+Passover cake at his table in the far-off happy days! This gilded idol
+the impecunious Gittel he had caressed!
+
+'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he inquired of his neighbour, a
+pock-marked, spectacled young woman, who, as record-breaker of the
+establishment, had refused to join the strike of the mere
+hundred-and-fifty a day.
+
+The young woman swiftly drew a knife from the wooden pail beside her,
+and deftly scraped at a rough hinge as she replied: 'No, but I guess
+she's the actress who gets all the flowers, and won't pay for 'em.'
+
+He saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the description seemed
+to hit off his Gittel to the life. Yes, Gittel had always got all the
+flowers of life, and dodged paying. Ah, she had always been
+diabolically clever, unscrupulously ambitious! Who could put bounds to
+her achievement? She had used him and thrown him away--without a word,
+without a regret. She had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly
+as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day's paste. What other 'pious
+philanthropist' had she found to replace him? Whither had she fled?
+Why not to Paris that her theatric gifts might receive training?
+
+This chic, this witchery, with which reputation credited her--had not
+Gittel possessed it all? Had not her heroines enchanted the Ghetto?
+
+Oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as the smoke-wreaths
+of the Yvonne Rupert cigar!
+
+
+III
+
+But the obsession persisted. In his miserable attic off Hester
+Street--that recalled the attic he had found her in, though it was
+many stories nearer the sky--he warmed himself with Gittel's image,
+smiling, light-darting, voluptuous. Night and sleep surrendered him
+to grotesque combinations--Gittel Goldstein smoking cigarettes in a
+bath-room, Yvonne Rupert playing Yiddish heroines in a little chapel.
+
+In the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten in the realized
+absurdity of the initial identification. But a forenoon at the
+pasting-desk brought back the haunting thought. At noon he morbidly
+expended his lunch-dime on an 'Yvonne Rupert' cigar, and smoked it
+with a semi-insane feeling that he was repossessing his Gittel.
+Certainly it was delicious.
+
+He wandered into the box-making room, where the man who tended the
+witty nail-driving machine was seated on a stack of Mexican
+cedar-wood, eating from a package of sausage and scrapple that sent
+sobering whiffs to the reckless smoker.
+
+'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he asked wistfully.
+
+'Might as well ask if I'd smoked her cigar!' grumbled the nailer
+through his mouthfuls.
+
+'But there's a gallery at Webster and Dixie's.'
+
+'Su-er!'
+
+'I guess I'll go some day, just for curiosity.'
+
+But the great Yvonne, he found, was flaming in her provincial orbit.
+So he must needs wait.
+
+Meantime, on a Saturday night, with a dirty two-dollar bill in his
+pocket, and jingling some odd cents, he lounged into the restaurant
+where the young Russian bloods assembled who wrote for the Yiddish
+Labour papers, and 'knew it all.' He would draw them out about Yvonne
+Rupert. He established himself near a table at which long-haired,
+long-fingered Freethinkers were drinking chocolate and discussing
+Lassalle.
+
+'Ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a schoolboy to
+protest against the master's injustice to one of his schoolfellows!
+How the divine fire flamed in him!'
+
+They talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying the Lassalle
+legend, broidering it with Messianic myths, with the same fantastic
+Oriental invention that had illuminated the plain Pentateuch with
+imaginative vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of
+Socialism with the same passionate personalization. He listened
+impatiently. He had never been caught by Socialism, even at his
+hungriest. He had once been an employer himself, and his point of view
+survived.
+
+They talked of the woman through whom Lassalle had met his death. One
+of them had seen her on the American stage--a bouncing burlesque
+actress.
+
+'Like Yvonne Rupert?' he ventured to interpose.
+
+'Yvonne Rupert?' They laughed. 'Ah, if Yvonne had only had such a
+snap!' cried Melchitsedek Pinchas. 'To have jilted Lassalle and been
+died for! What an advertisement!'
+
+'It would have been on the bill,' agreed the table.
+
+He asked if they thought Yvonne Rupert clever.
+
+'Off the stage! There's nothing to her on,' said Pinchas.
+
+The table roared as if this were a good joke. 'I dare say she would
+play my Ophelia as well as Mrs. Goldwater,' Pinchas added zestfully.
+
+'They say she has a Yiddish accent,' Elkan ventured again.
+
+The table roared louder. 'I have heard of Yiddish-Deutsch,' cried
+Pinchas, 'never of Yiddish-Français!'
+
+Elkan Mandle was frozen. By his disappointment he knew that he had
+been hoping to meet Gittel again--that his resentment was dead.
+
+
+IV
+
+But the hope would not die. He studied the theatrical announcements,
+and when Yvonne Rupert once again flashed upon New York he set out to
+see her. But it struck him that the remote seat he could afford--for
+it would not do to spend a week's wage on the mere chance--would be
+too far off for precise identification, especially as she would
+probably be theatrically transmogrified. No, a wiser as well as a more
+economical plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used to
+meet Gittel. He would hang about till she came.
+
+It was a long ride to the Variety Theatre, and, the weather being
+sloppy, there was not even standing-room in the car, every foot of
+which, as it plunged and heaved ship-like through the watery night,
+was a suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, or
+clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming like stuck flies
+on the fore and hind platforms, the squeeze and smell intensified by
+the shovings and writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or
+by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector of fares
+boring his way through the very thick of the soldered mass. Elkan
+alighted with a headache, glad even of the cold rain that sprinkled
+his forehead. The shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled
+him for once with a bitter revolt. But he dared not insinuate himself
+among the white-wrapped, scented women and elegant cloaked men, though
+he itched to enter the portico and study the pictures of Yvonne
+Rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. He found his way instead to the
+stage-door, and took up a position that afforded him a complete view
+of the comers and goers, if only partial shelter from the rain.
+
+But the leaden hours passed without her, with endless fevers of
+expectation, heats followed by chills. The performers came and went,
+mostly on foot, and strange nondescript men and women passed too
+through the jealously-guarded door.
+
+He was drenched to the skin with accumulated drippings ere a smart
+brougham drove up, a smart groom opened an umbrella, and a smart--an
+unimaginably smart--Gittel Goldstein alighted.
+
+Yes, the incredible was true!
+
+Beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of hair, gleamed the
+piquant eyes he had kissed so often.
+
+He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. She passed
+through the door the groom held open. The doorkeeper, from his
+pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the
+shoulders, every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the envelopes.
+As the groom let the door swing back and turned away, he rushed
+forward and pushed it open again.
+
+'Gittel!' he cried chokingly. 'Gittel!'
+
+She turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in her flushed, startled
+face he read consciousness if not recognition. The reek of her old
+cherry-blossom smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand
+passionate memories.
+
+'Knowest thou me not?' he cried in Yiddish.
+
+In a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty stare.
+
+'Who is zis person?' she asked the doorkeeper in her charming
+French-English.
+
+He reverted to English.
+
+'I am Elkan, your own Elkan!'
+
+Ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. So near, so near again!
+The same warm seductive witch. He strove to take her daintily-gloved
+hand.
+
+She shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the door that led to the
+dressing-rooms beside the stage.
+
+'Ze man is mad, lunatic!' And she disappeared with that delicious
+shrug of the shoulders that had captivated the States.
+
+Insensate fury overcame him. What! This creature who owed all this
+glory to his dragging her away from the London Ghetto Theatre, this
+heartless, brazen minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to
+mock him like this, was to elude him again! He made a dash after her;
+the doorkeeper darted from his little room, but was hurled aside in a
+swift, mad tussle, and Elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found
+himself blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing a
+great roaring audience, tier upon tier. Then he became aware of a pair
+of eccentric comedians whose scene he had interrupted, and who had not
+sufficient presence of mind to work him into it, so that the audience
+which had laughed at his headlong entrance now laughed the louder over
+its own mistake.
+
+But its delightful moment of sensational suspense was brief. In a
+twinkling the doorkeeper's vengeful hands were on the intruder's
+collar.
+
+'I want Yvonne Rupert!' shrieked Elkan struggling. 'She is mine--mine!
+She loved me once!'
+
+A vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as he was hauled off, to
+be handed over to a policeman on a charge of brawling and assaulting
+the doorkeeper.
+
+
+V
+
+As he lay in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. Yes, let them take
+him before the magistrate; it was not he that was afraid of justice.
+He would expose her, the false Catholic, the she-cat! A pretty
+convert! Another man would have preferred to blackmail her, he told
+himself with righteous indignation, especially in such straits of
+poverty. But he--the thought had scarcely crossed his mind. He had not
+even thought of her helping him, only of the joy of meeting her again.
+
+In the chill morning, after a sleepless night, he had a panic-stricken
+sense of his insignificance under the crushing weight of law and
+order. All the strength born of bitterness oozed out as he stood
+before the magistrate rigidly and heard the charge preferred. He had a
+despairing vision of Yvonne Rupert, mocking, inaccessible, even before
+he was asked his occupation.
+
+'In a cigar-box factory,' he replied curtly.
+
+'Ah, you make cigar-boxes?'
+
+'No, not exactly. I paste.'
+
+'Paste what?'
+
+He hesitated. 'Pictures of Yvonne Rupert on the boxes.'
+
+'Ah! Then it is the "Yvonne Rupert" cigar?'
+
+'Yes.' He had divined the court's complacent misinterpretation ere he
+saw its smile; the facile theory that brooding so much over her
+fascinating picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment a
+hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips grimly. What was the
+use of talking? Whatever he said would be discredited on this impish
+theory. And, even without it, how incredible his story, how irrelevant
+to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper!
+
+'I was drunk,' was all he would say. He was committed for trial, and,
+having no one to bail him out, lingered in a common cell with other
+reprobates till the van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up to
+justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the Stars and
+Stripes. A fortnight's more confinement was all that was meted out to
+him, but he had already had time enough to reflect that he had given
+Yvonne Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life. It would have
+enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had he known, as the knowing world
+outside knew, that he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert's pay, and that
+New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious dodge by which
+she had again asserted her sovereignty as an advertiser--delicious,
+immense!
+
+
+VI
+
+Short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided, much to his own
+surprise, with the Jewish Penitential period, and the Day of Atonement
+came in the middle. A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a
+prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at the break in the
+monotony. Several of the prisoners who posed as Jews with this same
+motive were detected and reprimanded; but Elkan felt, with the new
+grim sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert and the world
+she fooled was developing in him, that he was as little of a Jew as
+any of them. This elopement to America had meant a violent break with
+his whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside of an
+American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for synagogues.
+
+He entered the improvised prayer-room with this ironic sense of coming
+back to Judaism by the Christian prison door. But the service shook
+him terribly. He forgot even to be amused by the one successful
+impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen deprivation of
+rations during the whole fast day. The passionate outcries of the
+old-fashioned _Chazan_, the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the
+cornet, which had once been merely ĉsthetic effects to the reputable
+master-cutter, were now surcharged with doom and chastisement. The
+very sight of the Hebrew books and scrolls touched a thousand memories
+of home and innocence.
+
+Ah, God, how he had sinned!
+
+'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' he cried, smiting
+his breast and rocking to and fro.
+
+His poor deserted wife and children! How terrible for Haigitcha to
+wake up one morning and find him gone! As terrible as for him to wake
+up one morning and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him in
+kind! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
+
+The philanthropist himself preached the sermon. God could never
+forgive sins till the sinner had first straightened out the human
+wrongs.
+
+Ah, true, true! If he could only find his family again. If he could
+try by love and immeasurable devotion to atone for the past. Then
+again life would have a meaning and an aim. Poor, poor Haigitcha! How
+he would weep over her and cherish her. And his children! They must be
+grown up. Yankely must be quite a young man. Yes, he would be
+seventeen by now. And Rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub!
+
+In all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts pause upon
+them. His past lay like a misty dream behind those thousand leagues of
+ocean. But now it started up in all the colours of daylight, warm,
+appealing. Yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must still crave
+his love and guidance; he would plead and be forgiven, and end his
+days piously at the sacred hearth of duty.
+
+'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!'
+
+If only he could get back to old England.
+
+He appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition.
+It was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that
+had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the
+Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a
+modicum and the wife of his bosom.
+
+
+VII
+
+He arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his pocket, in the
+familiar Spitalfields alley, guarded by the three iron posts over
+which he remembered his Yankely leaping. His heart was full of tears
+and memories. Ah, there was the butcher's shop still underneath the
+old apartment, with the tin labels stuck in the _kosher_ meat, and
+there was Gideon, the fat, genial butcher, flourishing his great
+carving-knife as of yore, though without that ancient smile of
+brotherly recognition. Gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was an
+inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered, irrevocable.
+
+'Does Mrs. Mandle still live here?' he asked with a horrible
+heart-sinking.
+
+'Yes, first floor,' said Gideon, staring.
+
+Ah, how his heart leapt up again! Haigitcha, his dear Haigitcha! He
+went up the ever-open dusty staircase jostling against a spruce,
+handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with a
+sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart swelled with pride
+and affection; but ere he could cry 'Yankely' the young fellow was
+gone. He heard the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the
+workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the
+want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her
+to tide over the crisis. Ah, what a blackguard he had been! And she
+had brought up the children unaided. Dear Haigitcha! What madness had
+driven him from her side? But he would make amends--yes, he would make
+amends. He would slip again into his own niche, take up the old
+burdens and the old delights--perhaps even be again treasurer of 'The
+Gates of Mercy.'
+
+He knocked at the door. Haigitcha herself opened it.
+
+He wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in his throat. For this
+was not his Haigitcha; this was a new creature, cold, stern, tragic,
+prematurely aged, framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. And
+in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance.
+
+'What is it?' she asked.
+
+'I am Elkan; don't you know me?'
+
+She stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the flat breasts. Then
+she said icily: 'And what do you want?'
+
+'I am come back,' he muttered hoarsely in Yiddish.
+
+'And where is Gittel?' she answered in the same idiom.
+
+The needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing through his
+brain. So London knew that Gittel had been the companion of his
+flight! He hung his head.
+
+'I was only with her one year,' he whispered.
+
+'Then go back to thy dung-heap!' She shut the door.
+
+He thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to. 'Haigitcha!' he
+shrieked. 'Let me come in. Forgive me, forgive me!'
+
+It was a tug-of-war. He forced open the door; he had a vision of
+surprised 'hands' stopping their machines, of a beautiful, startled
+girl holding the ends of a half-laid tablecloth--his Rachel, oh, his
+Rachel!
+
+'Open the window, one of you!' panted Haigitcha, her shoulders still
+straining against the door. 'Call a policeman--the man is drunk!'
+
+He staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door slammed. This
+repetition of his 'Yvonne Rupert' experience sobered him effectually.
+What right, indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon
+these children, to whom he was dead? So might a suicide hope to win
+back his place in the old life. Life had gone on without him--had no
+need of him. Ah, what a punishment God had prepared for him! Closed
+doors to the past, closed doors everywhere.
+
+And this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the same palliative
+of righteous resentment. With Yvonne Rupert, the splendid-flaming,
+vicious ingrate, he had felt himself the sinned against. But before
+this wife-widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature, he had
+nothing but self-contempt. He tottered downstairs. How should he even
+get his bread--he whose ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the
+Ghetto? If he could only get hold of Gideon's carving-knife!
+
+
+VIII
+
+But he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve. There is always one
+last refuge for the failures of the Ghetto, and Elkan's easy
+experience with the Jewish philanthropist had prepared the way for
+dealings with the Christian.
+
+To-day the Rev. Moses Elkan, 'the converted Jew,' preaches eloquently
+to his blind brethren who never come to hear him. For he has 'found
+the light.' Exeter Hall's exposition of the Jewish prophecies has
+opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those of his own
+household, yet, remembering the terrible text, 'He that loveth son or
+daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me,' he has taken up his cross
+and followed after Christ alone.
+
+And even if the good souls for whose thousands of pounds he is the
+annual interest should discover his true past--through this
+tale-bearer or another--is there not but the more joy over the sinner
+that repenteth?
+
+Duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual world their
+unchangeable irreversible consequences--all this is irrelevant. He has
+'found the light.'
+
+And so, while Haigitcha walks in darkness, Yvonne prays in her chapel
+and Elkan preaches in his church.
+
+
+
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK
+
+
+
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK
+
+
+I
+
+When Schneemann, the artist, returned from Rome to his native village
+in Galicia, he found it humming with gossip concerning his paternal
+grandmother, universally known as the _Bube_ Yenta. It would seem that
+the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue conversing with Yossel
+Mandelstein, the hunchback, and sometimes even offered the unshapely
+septuagenarian her snuffbox as he passed the door of her cottage. More
+than one village censor managed to acquaint the artist with the
+flirtation ere he had found energy to walk the muddy mile to her
+dwelling. Even his own mother came out strongly in disapproval of the
+ancient dame; perhaps the remembrance of how fanatically her
+mother-in-law had disapproved of her married head for not being
+shrouded in a pious wig lent zest to her tongue. The artist controlled
+his facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and Bohemianism in the
+Eternal City.
+
+'Old blood will have its way,' he said blandly.
+
+'Yes, old blood's way is sometimes worse than young blood's,' said
+Frau Schneemann, unsmiling. 'You must not forget that Yossel is still
+a bachelor.'
+
+'Yes, and therefore a sinner in Israel--I remember,' quoth the artist
+with a twinkle. How all this would amuse his bachelor friends, Leopold
+Barstein and Rozenoffski the pianist!
+
+'Make not mock. 'Tis high time you, too, should lead a maiden under
+the Canopy.'
+
+'I am so shy--there are few so forward as grandmother.'
+
+'Heaven be thanked!' said his mother fervently. 'When I refused to
+cover my tresses she spoke as if I were a brazen Epicurean, but I had
+rather have died than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom I was
+not betrothed.'
+
+'Perhaps they _are_ betrothed.'
+
+'_We_ betrothed to Yossel! May his name be blotted out!'
+
+'Why, what is wrong with Yossel? Moses Mendelssohn himself had a
+hump.'
+
+'Who speaks of humps? Have you forgotten we are of Rabbinic family?'
+
+Her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten so much of this
+naïve life to which he was paying a holiday visit.
+
+'Ah yes,' he murmured. 'But Yossel is pious--surely?' A vision of the
+psalm-droners and prayer-shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom
+the hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up vividly.
+
+'He may shake himself from dawn-service to night-service, he will
+never shake off his father, the innkeeper,' said Frau Schneemann
+hotly. 'If I were in your grandmother's place I would be weaving my
+shroud, not thinking of young men.'
+
+'But she's thinking of old men, you said.'
+
+'Compared with her he is young--she is eighty-four, he is only
+seventy-five.'
+
+'Well, they won't be married long,' he laughed.
+
+Frau Schneemann laid her hand on his mouth.
+
+'Heaven forbid the omen,' she cried. ''Tis bringing a _Bilbul_
+(scandal) upon a respectable family.'
+
+'I will go and talk to her,' he said gravely. 'Indeed, I ought to have
+gone to see her days ago.' And as he trudged to the other end of the
+village towards the cottage where the lively old lady lived in
+self-sufficient solitude, he was full of the contrast between his
+mother's mental world and his own. People live in their own minds, and
+not in streets or fields, he philosophized.
+
+
+II
+
+Through her diamond-paned window he saw the wrinkled, white-capped old
+creature spinning peacefully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure
+cloistral crone. It seemed profane to connect such a figure with
+flirtation--this was surely the very virgin of senility. What a fine
+picture she made too! Why had he never thought of painting her? Yes,
+such a picture of 'The Spinster' would be distinctly interesting. And
+he would put in the _Kesubah_, the marriage certificate that hung over
+the mantelpiece, in ironical reminder of her days of bloom. He
+unlatched the door--he had never been used to knock at grannie's door,
+and the childish instinct came back to him.
+
+'_Guten Abend_,' he said.
+
+She adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at him.
+
+'_Guten Abend_,' she murmured.
+
+'You don't remember me--Vroomkely.' He used the old childish
+diminutive of Abraham, though he had almost forgotten he owned the
+name in full.
+
+'Vroomkely,' she gasped, almost overturning her wheel as she sprang to
+hug him in her skinny arms. He had a painful sense that she had shrunk
+back almost to childish dimensions. Her hands seemed trembling as much
+with decay as with emotion. She hastened to produce from the
+well-known cupboard home-made _Kuchen_ and other dainties of his
+youth, with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer being
+tempted by them.
+
+'And how goes your trade?' she said. 'They say you have never been
+slack. They must build many houses in Rome.' Her notion that he was a
+house-painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as
+picture-painting was contrary to the Mosaic dispensation.
+
+'Oh, I haven't been only in Rome,' he said evasively. 'I have been in
+many lands.'
+
+Fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the big spectacles. 'You
+have been to Palestine?' she cried.
+
+'No, only as far as Egypt. Why?'
+
+'I thought you might have brought me a clod of Palestine earth to put
+in my grave.' The fire died out of her spectacles, she sighed, and
+took a consolatory pinch of snuff.
+
+'Don't talk of graves--you will live to be a hundred and more,' he
+cried. But he was thinking how ridiculous gossip was. It spared
+neither age nor sexlessness, not even this shrivelled ancient who was
+meditating on her latter end. Suddenly he became aware of a shadow
+darkening the doorway. At the same instant the fire leapt back into
+his grandmother's glasses. Instinctively, almost before he turned his
+head, he knew it was the hero of the romance.
+
+Yossel Mandelstein looked even less of a hero than the artist had
+remembered. There had been something wistful and pathetic in the
+hunchback's expression, some hint of inner eager fire, but this--if he
+had not merely imagined it--seemed to have died of age and
+hopelessness. He used crutches, too, to help himself along with, so
+that he seemed less the hunchback of yore than the conventional
+contortion of time, and but for the familiar earlocks pendent on
+either side of the fur cap, but for the great hooked nose and the
+small chin hidden in the big beard, the artist might have doubted if
+this was indeed the Yossel he had sometimes mocked at in the crude
+cruelty of boyhood.
+
+Yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a mouldering
+black-covered book from under his greasy caftan. 'I have brought you
+back your _Chovoth Halvovoth_,' he said.
+
+In the vivid presence of the actual romance the artist could not
+suppress the smile he had kept back at the mere shadowy recital. In
+Rome he himself had not infrequently called on young ladies by way of
+returning books to them. It was true that the books he returned were
+not Hebrew treatises, but he smiled again to think that the name of
+Yossel's volume signified 'the duties of the heart.' The _Bube_ Yenta
+received the book with thanks, and a moment of embarrassment ensued,
+only slightly mitigated by the offer of the snuffbox. Yossel took a
+pinch, but his eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger
+than over the bespread table, as though he might unaccountably have
+overlooked some sacred festival. That two are company and three none
+seemed at this point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to
+renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from the idyllic
+cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry for which he himself was
+too old.
+
+So the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amusement not
+unblended with a touch of his mother's indignation. Surely, if his
+grandmother wished to cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen
+a more sightly object of devotion. Not that there was much to be said
+for Yossel's taste either. When after seventy-five years of celibacy
+the fascinations of the other sex began to tell upon him, he might at
+least have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femininity. But
+perhaps his grandmother had fascinations of another order. Perhaps she
+had money. He put the question to his mother.
+
+'Certainly she has money,' said his mother vindictively. 'She has
+thousands of _Gulden_ in her stocking. Twenty years ago she could have
+had her pick of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has one
+foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and she has cast her
+eye upon this pauper.'
+
+'But I thought his father left him his inn,' said the artist.
+
+'His inn--yes. His sense--no. Yossel ruined himself long ago paying
+too much attention to the Talmud instead of his business. He was
+always a _Schlemihl_.'
+
+'But can one pay too much attention to the Talmud? That is a strange
+saying for a Rabbi's daughter.'
+
+'King Solomon tells us there is a time for everything,' returned the
+Rabbi's daughter. 'Yossel neglected what the wise King said, and so
+now he comes trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her money.
+If he wanted to marry, why didn't he marry before eighteen, as the
+Talmud prescribes?'
+
+'He seems to do everything at the wrong time,' laughed her son. 'Do
+you suppose, by the way, that King Solomon made all his thousand
+marriages before he was eighteen?'
+
+'Make not mock of holy things,' replied his mother angrily.
+
+The monetary explanation of the romance, he found, was the popular one
+in the village. It did not, however, exculpate the grandame from the
+charge of forwardness, since if she wished to contract another
+marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by the _Shadchan_,
+and then the poor marriage-broker, who got little enough to do in this
+God-forsaken village, might have made a few _Gulden_ out of it.
+
+Beneath all his artistic perception of the humours of the thing,
+Schneemann found himself prosaically sharing the general
+disapprobation of the marriage. Really, when one came to think of it,
+it was ridiculous that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon
+him. And such a grandfather! Perhaps the _Bube_ was, indeed, losing
+her reason. Or was it he himself who was losing his reason, taking
+seriously this parochial scandal, and believing that because a
+doddering hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an ethical treatise
+from an octogenarian a marriage must be on the tapis? Yet, on more
+than one occasion, he came upon circumstances which seemed to justify
+the popular supposition. There could be no doubt, for example, that
+when at the conclusion of the synagogue service the feminine stream
+from the women's gallery poured out to mingle with the issuing males,
+these two atoms drifted together with unnatural celerity. It appeared
+to be established beyond question that on the preceding Feast of
+Tabernacles the _Bube_ had lent and practically abandoned to the
+hunchback's use the ritual palm-branch he was too poor to afford. Of
+course this might only have been gratitude, inasmuch as a fortnight
+earlier on the solemn New Year Day when, by an untimely decree, the
+grandmother lay ill abed, Yossel had obtained possession of the
+_Shofar_, and leaving the synagogue had gone to blow it to her. He had
+blown the holy horn--with due regard to the proprieties--in the
+downstairs room of her cottage so that she above had heard it, and
+having heard it could breakfast. It was a performance that charity
+reasonably required for a disabled fellow-creature, and yet what
+medieval knight had found a more delicate way of trumpeting his
+mistress's charms? Besides, how had Yossel known that the heroine was
+ill? His eye must have roved over the women's gallery, and
+disentangled her absence even from the huddled mass of weeping and
+swaying womanhood.
+
+One day came the crowning item of evidence. The grandmother had
+actually asked the village postman to oblige her by delivering a
+brown parcel at Yossel's lodgings. The postman was not a Child of the
+Covenant, but Yossel's landlady was, and within an hour all Jewry knew
+that Yenta had sent Yossel a phylacteries-bag--the very symbol of love
+offered by a maiden to her bridegroom. Could shameless passion further
+go?
+
+
+III
+
+The artist, at least, determined it should go no further. He put on
+his hat, and went to find Yossel Mandelstein. But Yossel was not to be
+found so easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with each
+false scent. Yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to Heaven,
+in the _Beth Hamedrash_, where he was shaking himself studiously over
+a Babylonian folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths and
+greybeards equally careless of the demands of life. The dusky home of
+holy learning seemed an awkward place in which to broach the subject
+of love. In a whisper he besought the oscillating student to come
+outside. Yossel started up in agitation.
+
+'Ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with what seemed a
+lover's inaccuracy. 'I will come and pray at once.'
+
+'No, no, she is not dying,' said Schneemann hastily, adding in a grim
+murmur, 'unless of love.'
+
+'Oh, then, it is not about your grandmother?'
+
+'No--that is to say, yes.' It seemed more difficult than ever to
+plunge into the delicate subject. To refer plumply to the courtship
+would, especially if it were not true, compromise his grandmother
+and, incidentally, her family. Yet, on the other hand, he longed to
+know what lay behind all this philandering, which in any case _had_
+been compromising her, and he felt it his duty as his grandmother's
+protector and the representative of the family to ask Yossel straight
+out whether his intentions were honourable.
+
+He remembered scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors
+were tackled by champions of convention--scenes in which they were
+even bought off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go to a new
+land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? He led the
+way without.
+
+'You have lived here all your life, Yossel, have you not?' he said,
+when they were in the village street.
+
+'Where else shall a man live?' answered Yossel.
+
+'But have you never had any curiosity to see other parts? Would you
+not like to go and see Vienna?'
+
+A little gleam passed over Yossel's dingy face. 'No, not Vienna--it is
+an unholy place--but Prague! Prague where there is a great Rabbi and
+the old, old underground synagogue that God has preserved throughout
+the generations.'
+
+'Well, why not go and see it?' suggested the artist.
+
+Yossel stared. 'Is it for that you tore me away from my Talmud?'
+
+'N--no, not exactly for that,' stammered Schneemann. 'Only seeing you
+glued to it gave me the idea what a pity it was that you should not
+travel and sit at the feet of great Rabbis?'
+
+'But how shall I travel to them? My crutches cannot walk so far as
+Prague.'
+
+'Oh, I'd lend you the money to ride,' said the artist lightly.
+
+'But I could never repay it.'
+
+'You can repay me in Heaven. You can give me a little bit of your _Gan
+Iden_' (Paradise).
+
+Yossel shook his head. 'And after I had the fare, how should I live?
+Here I make a few _Gulden_ by writing letters for people to their
+relatives in America; in Prague everybody is very learned; they don't
+need a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might as well
+die where I was born.'
+
+'But why can't you die in Palestine?' cried the artist with a new
+burst of hope. 'You _shall_ die in Palestine, I promise you.'
+
+The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'I shall die
+in Palestine?' he asked ecstatically.
+
+'As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.'
+
+For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on Yossel's face, then a
+cloud began to pass across it.
+
+'But how can I take your money? I am not a _Schnorrer_.'
+
+Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. The more so as
+Yossel's eagerness to go and die in Palestine seemed to show that
+there was no reason for packing him off. However, he told himself that
+one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty
+gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy.
+
+'There is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an
+artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why I should buy to
+myself the _Mitzvah_ (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You
+see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.'
+
+'So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. 'A very wicked life it is
+said you lead at Rome.'
+
+'Most true,' said the artist cheerfully.
+
+'It is said also that you break the Second Commandment by making
+representations of things that are on sea and land.'
+
+'I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist.
+
+'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint
+houses--which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her--it would
+pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's
+alarm.
+
+'When will you be ready to start?' he said.
+
+Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,'
+he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I
+set foot on the holy soil.'
+
+The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to
+guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were
+an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But
+there is the _Chalukah_,' he reminded Yossel.
+
+'But that is charity.'
+
+'No--it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is
+just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from
+all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in
+Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in
+particular.'
+
+'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I
+have always heard.'
+
+'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. But
+Yossel replied simply:
+
+'May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for ever and for ever,
+and by the merit of my prayers in Jerusalem may your sins be
+forgiven.'
+
+The artist was moved. Surely, he thought, struggling between tears and
+laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the
+head of the family. Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.
+
+
+IV
+
+The news that Yossel was leaving the village bound for the Holy Land,
+produced a sensation which quite obscured his former notoriety as an
+aspirant to wedlock. Indeed, those who discussed the new situation
+most avidly forgot how convinced they had been that marriage and not
+death was the hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the
+great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of
+gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been
+tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He
+had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point,
+it was said, the old lady had drawn back--she who had led him so far
+was not to be thus led. Women are changeable, it is known, and even
+when they are old they do not change. But Yossel had stood up for his
+rights; he had demanded compensation. And his fare to Palestine was a
+concession for his injured affections. It was not many days before the
+artist met persons who had actually overheard the bargaining between
+the _Bube_ and the hunchback.
+
+Meantime Yossel's departure was drawing nigh, and all those who had
+relatives in Palestine besieged him from miles around, plying him with
+messages, benedictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. And
+conversely, there was scarcely a Jewish inhabitant who had not begged
+for clods of Palestine earth or bottles of Jordan water. So great
+indeed were the demands that their supply would have constituted a
+distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and dried up
+the Jordan.
+
+With his grandmother's future thus off his mind, the artist had
+settled down to making a picture of the ruined castle which he
+commanded from his bedroom window. But when the through ticket for
+Jerusalem came from the agent at Vienna, and he had brazenly endured
+Yossel's blessings for the same, his artistic instinct demanded to see
+how the _Bube_ was taking her hero's desertion. As he lifted the latch
+he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, not on the
+peaceful scene he expected of the spinster at her ingle nook, but of a
+bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing
+menial. The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be
+Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. Almost
+as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet
+containing a huddle of articles, and tied it into a bundle before the
+artist's chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. But
+instantly a flash of explanation came to him.
+
+'Aha, grandmother,' he said, 'I see you too are sending presents to
+Palestine.'
+
+The grandmother took snuff uneasily. 'Yes, it is going to the Land of
+Israel,' she said.
+
+As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous heaps on the
+floor--Yossel and his bundle--he became aware of a blank in the
+familiar interior.
+
+'Why, where is the spinning-wheel?' he cried.
+
+'I have given it to the widow Rubenstein--I shall spin no more.'
+
+'And I thought of painting you as a spinster!' he murmured dolefully.
+Then a white patch in the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught
+his eye. 'Why, your marriage certificate is gone too!'
+
+'Yes, I have taken it down.'
+
+'To give to the widow Rubenstein?'
+
+'What an idea!' said his grandmother seriously. 'It is in the bundle.'
+
+'You are sending it away to Palestine?'
+
+The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and removing them with
+trembling fingers blinked downwards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up
+his crutches, and propped himself manfully upon them.
+
+'Your grandmother goes with me,' he explained decisively.
+
+'What!' the artist gasped.
+
+The grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly; they had drawn fire from
+Yossel's. 'And why should I not go to Palestine too?' she said.
+
+'But you are so old!'
+
+'The more reason I should make haste if I am to be luckier than Moses
+our Master.' She readjusted her spectacles firmly.
+
+'But the journey is so hard.'
+
+'Yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while alive as easily as
+others will roll thither after death.'
+
+'You'll be dead before you get there,' said the artist brutally.
+
+'Ah, no! God will not let me die before I touch the holy soil!'
+
+'You, too, want to die in Palestine?' cried the amazed artist.
+
+'And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to die? Ah, I
+forgot--your mother was an Epicurean with godless tresses; she did not
+bring you up in the true love of our land. But every day for seventy
+years and more have I prayed the prayer that my eyes should behold the
+return of the Divine Glory to Zion. That mercy I no longer expect in
+my own days, inasmuch as the Sultan hardens his heart and will not
+give us back our land, not though Moses our Master appears to him
+every night, and beats him with his rod. But at least my eyes shall
+behold the land of Israel.'
+
+'Amen!' said Yossel, still propped assertively on his crutches. The
+grandson turned upon the interrupter. 'But you can't take her _with_
+you?'
+
+'Why not?' said Yossel calmly.
+
+Schneemann found himself expatiating upon the responsibility of
+looking after such an old woman; it seemed too absurd to talk of the
+scandal. That was left for the grandmother to emphasize.
+
+'Would you have me arrive alone in Palestine?' she interposed
+impatiently. 'Think of the talk it would make in Jerusalem! And should
+I even be permitted to land? They say the Sultan's soldiers stand at
+the landing-place like the angels at the gates of Paradise with
+swords that turn every way. But Yossel is cunning in the customs of
+the heathen; he will explain to the soldiers that he is an Austrian
+subject, and that I am his _Frau_.'
+
+'What! Pass you off as his _Frau_!'
+
+'Who speaks of passing off? He could say I was his sister, as Abraham
+our Father said of Sarah. But that was a sin in the sight of Heaven,
+and therefore as our sages explain----'
+
+'It is simpler to be married,' Yossel interrupted.
+
+'Married!' echoed the artist angrily.
+
+'The witnesses are coming to my lodging this afternoon,' Yossel
+continued calmly. 'Dovidel and Yitzkoly from the _Beth Hamedrash_.'
+
+'They think they are only coming to a farewell glass of brandy,'
+chuckled the grandmother. 'But they will find themselves at a secret
+wedding.'
+
+'And to-morrow we shall depart publicly for Trieste,' Yossel wound up
+calmly.
+
+'But this is too absurd!' the artist broke in. 'I forbid this
+marriage!'
+
+A violent expression of amazement overspread the ancient dame's face,
+and the tone of the far-away years came into her voice. 'Silence,
+Vroomkely, or I'll smack your face. Do you forget you are talking to
+your grandmother?'
+
+'I think Mr. Mandelstein forgets it,' the artist retorted, turning
+upon the heroic hunchback. 'Do you mean to say you are going to marry
+my grandmother?'
+
+'And why not?' asked Yossel. 'Is there a greater lover of God in all
+Galicia?'
+
+'Hush, Yossel, I am a great sinner.' But her old face was radiant.
+She turned to her grandson. 'Don't be angry with Yossel--all the fault
+is mine. He did not ask me to go with him to Palestine; it was I that
+asked _him_.'
+
+'Do you mean that you asked him to marry you?'
+
+'It is the same thing. There is no other way. How different would it
+have been had there been any other woman here who wanted to die in
+Palestine! But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven; they wear
+their hair unshorn--they----'
+
+'Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.'
+
+'Asked? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement Day. For two years I
+prayed to him, but he always refused.'
+
+'Then why----?' began the artist.
+
+'Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.'
+
+'Oh, Yenta!' protested Yossel flushing, 'I am a very sinful man.'
+
+'Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the _Bube_ replied. 'Your
+iniquity is like your ugliness--some people have it scattered all
+over, but you have it all heaped up. And the heap is called pride.'
+
+'Never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently. 'Why did he not
+go on refusing you?'
+
+'I am coming to that. Only you were always so impatient, Vroomkely.
+When I was cutting you a piece of _Kuchen_, you would snatch greedily
+at the crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of the same
+clay as you and I. By an oversight the Almighty sent an angel into the
+world instead of a man, but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the
+All-High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. But when
+Yossel's father made a match for him with Leah, the rich
+corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl, when she was introduced to the
+bridegroom, could see only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry
+out the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since that day he
+curled himself up into his hump, and nursed a hatred for all women.'
+
+'How can you say that, Yenta?' Yossel broke in again.
+
+'Why else did you refuse my money?' the _Bube_ retorted. 'Twice, ten,
+twenty times I asked him to go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as
+a pig he keeps grunting "I can't--I've got no money." Sooner than I
+should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die here.'
+
+The artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, anger, and
+self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. So this was
+all his Machiavellian scheming had achieved--to bring about the very
+marriage it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen into it
+himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozenoffski and Leopold Barstein.
+He laughed bitterly.
+
+'Nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the _Bube_ indignantly. 'For I
+know well how Yossel longed to go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at
+last the All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come to me and
+invite me to go with him.'
+
+Here the artist became aware that Yossel's eyes and lips were
+signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth, one published one's good
+deeds! He had yet to learn on whose behalf the hunchback was
+signalling.
+
+'So! You came into a fortune?' he asked Yossel gravely.
+
+Yossel looked the picture of misery. The _Bube_ unconsciously cut
+through the situation. 'A wicked man gave it to him,' she explained,
+'to pray away his sins in Jerusalem.'
+
+'Indeed!' murmured the artist. 'Anyone you know?'
+
+'Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,' ambiguously
+interpolated her anxious protector.
+
+'I don't even know his name,' added the _Bube_. 'Yossel keeps it
+hidden.'
+
+'One must not shame a fellow-man,' Yossel urged. 'The sin of that is
+equal to the sin of shedding blood.'
+
+The grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 'It is enough that the
+All-High knows his name. But for such an Epicurean much praying will
+be necessary. It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel,
+must be that you shall not die very soon, else the labourer will not
+be worthy of his hire.'
+
+Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's clasp. 'Be at
+peace, Yenta! He will be redeemed if only by _your_ merits. Are we not
+one?'
+
+
+
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET
+
+
+
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET
+
+
+I
+
+Aaron Ben Amram removed from the great ritual dish the roasted
+shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of the Paschal Sacrifice) and the
+roasted egg (representative of the ancient festival-offering in the
+Temple), and while his wife and children held up the dish, which now
+contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened cakes, he recited the
+Chaldaic prelude to the _Seder_--the long domestic ceremonial of the
+Passover Evening.
+
+'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of
+Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who require
+come in and celebrate the Passover. This year here, next year in the
+land of Israel! This year slaves, next year sons of freedom!'
+
+But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave. White-bearded,
+clad in a long white robe and a white skullcap, and throned on white
+pillows, he made rather a royal figure, indeed for this night of
+nights conceived of himself as 'King' and his wife as 'Queen.'
+
+But 'Queen' Golda, despite her silk gown and flowery cap, did not
+share her consort's majestic mood, still less the rosy happiness of
+the children who sat round this fascinating board. Her heart was full
+of a whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the father
+nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. All very well for the
+little ones to be unconscious of the hovering shadow, but how could
+her husband have forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the
+very year he had led her under the Canopy?
+
+And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful legend was
+gathering again, that the slowly-growing Jew-hatred had reached a
+point at which it must find expression, that the _Pritzim_ (nobles) in
+their great houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, alike
+sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had not the Passover Market
+hummed with the old, old story of a lost Christian child? Not murdered
+yet, thank God, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy _should_ be
+found with signs of violence upon him at this season of the Paschal
+Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded on the Crucifixion! O God of
+Abraham, guard us from these fiends unchained!
+
+But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with
+cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal,
+mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast
+content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual
+repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the
+Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture
+of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the
+bondsmen's mortar; they relished the eggs sliced into salt water, and
+then--the symbols all duly swallowed--settled down with more prosaic
+satisfaction to the merely edible meats and fishes, though even to
+these the special Passover plates and dishes and the purified knives
+and forks lent a new relish.
+
+By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to meditate her annual
+theft of the _Afkuman_, that segment of Passover cake under Aaron's
+pillow, morsels of which, distributed to each as the final food to be
+tasted that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal Lamb in
+the ancient Palestinian meal.
+
+
+II
+
+But Elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table untasted. Every
+time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at
+the great silver goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas!
+the brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level.
+
+They found consolation in the thought that the great moment was still
+to come--the moment of the third cup, when, mother throwing open the
+door, father would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously
+salute an unseen visitor.
+
+True, in other years, though they had almost heard the rush of wings,
+the great shining cup had remained full, and when it was replaced on
+the white cloth, a vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had
+stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons could be found to
+exculpate Elijah--not omitting their own sins--and now, when Ben Amram
+nodded to his wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe,
+credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo.
+
+But the mother's heart was palpitating with another emotion. A faint
+clamour in the Polish quarter at the back, as she replaced the samovar
+in the kitchen, had recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw
+open the door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent-minded enough
+to be beguiled by her air of obedient alacrity. Besides, he could see
+the shut street-door through the strip of passage. He gestured towards
+it.
+
+Now she feigned laziness. 'Oh, never mind.'
+
+'David, open the street-door.'
+
+The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have been too bad of
+mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep.
+
+'No, no, David!' Golda stopped him. 'It is too heavy; he could not
+undo the bolts and bars.'
+
+'You have barred it?' Ben Amram asked.
+
+'And why not? In this season you know how the heathen go mad like
+street-dogs.'
+
+'Pooh! They will not bite us.'
+
+'But, Aaron! You heard about the lost Christian child!'
+
+'I have saved many a Christian child, Golda.'
+
+'They will not remember that.'
+
+'But I must remember the ritual.' And he made a movement.
+
+'No, no, Aaron! Listen!'
+
+The shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards the front of the
+house. He shrugged his shoulders. 'I hear only the goats bleating.'
+
+She clung to him as he made for the door. 'For the sake of our
+children!'
+
+'Do not be so childish yourself, my crown!'
+
+'But I am not childish. Hark!'
+
+He smiled calmly. 'The door must be opened.'
+
+Her fears lent her scepticism. 'It is you that are childish. You know
+no Prophet of Redemption will come through the door.'
+
+He caressed his venerable beard. 'Who knows?'
+
+'I know. It is a Destroyer, not a Redeemer of Israel, who will come.
+Listen! Ah, God of Abraham! Do you not hear?'
+
+Unmistakably the howl of a riotous mob was approaching, mingled with
+the reedy strains of an accordion.
+
+'Down with the _Zhits_! Death to the dirty Jews!'
+
+'God in heaven!' She released her husband, and ran towards the
+children with a gesture as of seeking to gather them all in her arms.
+Then, hearing the bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. 'Are you
+mad, Aaron?'
+
+But he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide the door with his
+left hand, while his right upheld Elijah's goblet, and over the
+ululation of the unseen mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his
+Hebrew welcome to the visitor: '_Baruch habaa!_'
+
+Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild flying figure in a
+rich furred coat dashed round the corner and almost into his arms,
+half-spilling the wine.
+
+'In God's name, Reb Aaron!' panted the refugee, and fell half-dead
+across the threshold.
+
+The physician dragged him hastily within, and slammed the door, just
+as two moujiks--drunken leaders of the chase--lurched past. The
+mother, who had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly
+shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry tore past the
+house and dwindled in the distance.
+
+Ben Amram raised the white bloody face, and put Elijah's goblet to the
+lips. The strange visitor drained it to the dregs, the clustered
+children looking on dazedly. As the head fell back, it caught the
+light from the festive candles of the Passover board. The face was
+bare of hair; even the side curls were gone.
+
+'Maimon the _Meshummad_!' cried the mother, shuddering back. 'You have
+saved the Apostate.'
+
+'Did I not say the door must be opened?' replied Ben Amram gently.
+Then a smile of humour twitched his lips, and he smoothed his white
+beard. 'Maimon is the only Jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor
+drunken peasants to know he was baptized?'
+
+Despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, David and his brothers
+and sisters were secretly pleased to see Elijah's goblet empty at
+last.
+
+
+III
+
+Next morning the Passover liturgy rang jubilantly through the vast,
+crowded synagogue. No violence had been reported, despite the passage
+of a noisy mob. The Ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire
+and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown, turreted
+quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out in great shouts of
+rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in their fringed shawls, with
+quivering hands of supplication. The Ark of the Law at one end of the
+great building, overbrooded by the Ten Commandments and the perpetual
+light, stood open to mark a supreme moment of devotion. Ben Amram had
+been given the honour of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad
+scrolls of all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood
+revealed in solemn splendour.
+
+Through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily-clad women
+looked down on the rocking figures, while the grace-notes of the
+cantor on his central daïs, and the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of
+his male ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were indeed
+angels on high. Suddenly, over the blended passion of cantor and
+congregation, an ominous sound broke from without--the complex clatter
+of cavalry, the curt ring of military orders. The swaying figures
+turned suddenly as under another wind, the women's eyes grew astare
+and ablaze with terror. The great doors flew open, and--oh, awful,
+incredible sight--a squadron of Cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast,
+with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a rattle of
+ponderous sabres. Their black conical caps and long beards, their
+great side-buttoned coats, and pockets stuffed with protrusive
+cartridges, their prancing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a
+blood-curdling discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped figures. The
+rumble of worship ceased, the cantor, suddenly isolated, was heard
+soaring ecstatically; then he, too, turned his head uneasily and his
+roulade died in his throat.
+
+'Halt!' the officer cried. The moving column froze. Its bristling
+length stretched from the central platform, blocking the aisle, and
+the courtyard echoed with the clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed
+into the school and the poor-house. The _Shamash_ (beadle) was seen to
+front the flamboyant invaders.
+
+'Why does your Excellency intrude upon our prayers to God?'
+
+The congregation felt its dignity return. Who would have suspected Red
+Judah of such courage--such apt speech? Why, the very Rabbi was
+petrified; the elders of the _Kahal_ stood dumb. Ben Amram himself,
+their spokesman to the Government, whose praying-shawl was embroidered
+with a silver band, and whose coat was satin, remained immovable
+between the pillars of the Ark, staring stonily at the brave beadle.
+
+'First of all, for the boy's blood!'
+
+The words rang out with military precision, and the speaker's horse
+pawed clangorously, as if impatient for the charge. The men grew
+death-pale, the women wrung their hands.
+
+'_Ai, vai!_' they moaned. 'Woe! woe!'
+
+'What boy? What blood?' said the _Shamash_, undaunted.
+
+'Don't palter, you rascal! You know well that a Christian child has
+disappeared.'
+
+The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the _Shamash_, uplifted a quavering
+voice.
+
+'The child will be found of a surety--if, indeed, it is lost,' he
+added with bitter sarcasm. 'And surely your Excellency cannot require
+the boy's blood at our hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed
+spilt.'
+
+'You misunderstand me, old dog--or rather you pretend to, old fox. The
+boy's blood is here--it is kept in this very synagogue--and I have
+come for it.'
+
+The _Shamash_ laughed explosively. 'Oh, Excellency!'
+
+The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad
+relief. It rang with strange laughter.
+
+'There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,' said the Rabbi, his
+eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.'
+
+'We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'
+
+'That!' The _Shamash_ grinned--almost indecorously. 'That is the
+Consecration wine--red as my beard,' quoth he.
+
+'Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy
+buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual
+explanation.
+
+'We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and
+the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost
+incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock
+discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical
+creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law.
+
+The officer's voice rose again. 'Let no one leave the synagogue--man,
+woman, or child. Kill anyone who attempts to escape.'
+
+The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively
+he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy
+hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened
+the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle,
+hideously red.
+
+'Consecration wine, eh?' he said grimly.
+
+'What else, Excellency?' stoutly replied the _Shamash_, who had
+followed him.
+
+A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'Drink me a mouthful!'
+
+As the _Shamash_ took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the
+shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the
+women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands.
+Every breath was held.
+
+Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red Judah gulped down a
+draught. But as the liquid met his palate a horrible distortion
+overcame his smile, his hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle,
+and with a hoarse cry, 'Mercy, O God!' he fell before the Ark, foaming
+at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a vivid pool.
+
+'Hear, O Israel!' A raucous cry of horror rose from all around, and
+was echoed more shrilly from above. Almighty Father! The Jew-haters
+had worked their fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the women,
+shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, '_Ai, vai!_' '_Gewalt!_' The
+Rabbi shook as with palsy. 'Satan! Satan!' chattered through his
+teeth.
+
+But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping over the scarlet
+stain.
+
+'A soldier should know blood, Excellency!' the physician said quietly.
+
+The officer's face relaxed into a faint smile.
+
+'A soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. And, indeed, the spicy
+reek of the Consecration wine was bewildering the nearer bystanders.
+
+'Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a fit,' said the
+physician, raising the beadle's head by its long red beard.
+
+His Excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried
+a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed
+cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere
+the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat
+and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots
+was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a
+moment like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of
+ejaculations.
+
+But Ben Amram's voice rang through the din. 'Brethren!' He rose from
+wiping the frothing lips of the stricken creature, and his face had
+the fiery gloom of a seer's, and the din died under his uplifted palm.
+'Brethren, the Lord hath saved us!'
+
+'Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever!' The Rabbi began
+the phrase, and the congregation caught it up in thunder.
+
+'But hearken how. Last night at the _Seder_, as I opened the door for
+Elijah, there entered Maimon the _Meshummad_! 'Twas he quaffed
+Elijah's cup!'
+
+There was a rumble of imprecations.
+
+'A pretty Elijah!' cried the Rabbi.
+
+'Nay, but God sends the Prophet of Redemption in strange guise,' the
+physician said. 'Listen! Maimon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant
+he was a deserter from our camp. When he found how I had saved him and
+dressed his bleeding face, when he saw the spread Passover table, his
+child-soul came back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the
+diabolical plot against our community, hatched through his
+instrumentality by some desperate debtors; how, having raised the cry
+of a lost child, they were to have its blood found beneath our Holy
+Ark as in some mystic atonement. And while you all lolled joyously at
+the _Seder_ table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the
+Consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and destroy us all.'
+
+A shudder of awe traversed the synagogue.
+
+'But the Guardian of Israel, who permits us to sleep on Passover night
+without night-prayer, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Maimon had bribed
+the _Shamash_ to let him enter the synagogue and replace the
+Consecration wine.'
+
+'Red Judah!' It was like the growl of ten thousand tigers. Some even
+precipitated themselves upon the writhing wretch.
+
+'Back! back!' cried Ben Amram. 'The Almighty has smitten him.'
+
+'"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,"' quoted the Rabbi solemnly.
+
+'Hallelujah!' shouted a frenzied female voice, and 'Hallelujah!' the
+men responded in thunder.
+
+'Red Judah had no true belief in the God of Israel,' the physician
+went on.
+
+'May he be an atonement for us all!' interrupted the Cantor.
+
+'Amen!' growled the congregation.
+
+'For a hundred roubles and the promise of personal immunity Red Judah
+allowed Maimon the _Meshummad_ to change the bottles while all Israel
+sat at the Seder. It was because the mob saw the _Meshummad_ stealing
+out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for a pious Jew. Behold,
+brethren, how the Almighty weaves His threads together. After the
+repentant sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the
+Cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community assembled helpless
+in synagogue, I deemed it best merely to get the bottles changed back
+again. The false bottle contained only bullock's blood, but it would
+have sufficed to madden the multitude. Since it is I who have the
+blessed privilege of supplying the Consecration wine it was easy
+enough to give Maimon another bottle, and armed with this he roused
+the _Shamash_ in the dawn, pretending he had now obtained true human
+blood. A rouble easily procured him the keys again, and when he
+brought me back the bullock's blood, I awaited the sequel in peace.'
+
+'Praise ye the Lord, for He is good,' sang the Cantor, carried away.
+
+'For His mercy endureth for ever,' replied the congregation
+instinctively.
+
+'I did not foresee the _Shamash_ would put himself so brazenly forward
+to hide his guilt, or that he would be asked to drink. But when the
+_Epikouros_ (atheist) put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste
+blood, and found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once that
+the God of Israel was truly in heaven, that He had wrought a miracle
+and changed the blood back to wine.'
+
+'And such a miracle God wrought verily,' cried the Rabbi, grasping the
+physician's hand, while the synagogue resounded with cries of 'May thy
+strength increase,' and the gallery heaved frantically with blessings
+and congratulations.
+
+'What wonder,' the physician wound up, as he bent again over the
+ghastly head, with its pious ringlets writhing like red snakes, 'that
+he fell stricken by dread of the Almighty's wrath!'
+
+And while men were bearing the convulsive form without, the Cantor
+began to recite the Grace after Redemption. And then the happy hymns
+rolled out, and the choristers cried 'Pom!' and a breath of jubilant
+hope passed through the synagogue. The mighty hand and the
+outstretched arm which had redeemed Israel from the Egyptian bondage
+were still hovering over them, nor would the Prophet Elijah for ever
+delay to announce the ultimate Messiah.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIRELINGS
+
+
+
+
+THE HIRELINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Crowded as was the steamer with cultured Americans invading Europe,
+few knew that Rozenoffski was on board, or even that Rozenoffski was a
+pianist. The name, casually seen on the passengers' list, conveyed
+nothing but a strong Russian and a vaguer Semitic flavour, and the
+mere outward man, despite a leonine head, was of insignificant port
+and somewhat shuffling gait, and drew scarcely a second glance.
+
+He would not have had it otherwise, he told himself, as he paced the
+almost deserted deck after dinner--it was a blessing to escape from
+the perpetual adulation of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls--but
+every wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after his
+American failure.
+
+Not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his failure; he had not
+put himself to the vulgar tests. His American expedition had followed
+the lines recommended to him by friendly connoisseurs--to come before
+the great public, if at all, only after being launched by great
+hostesses at small parties; to which end he had provided himself with
+unimpeachable introductions to unexceptionable ladies from
+irresistible personalities--a German Grand Duke, a Bulgarian
+Ambassador, Countesses, both French and Italian, and even a Belgian
+princess. But to his boundless amazement--for he had always heard that
+Americans were wax before titles--not one of the social leaders had
+been of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of the
+Chicago Palace, to whom he had been recommended by the Belgian
+princess. He had penetrated through one or two esoteric doors, only to
+find himself outside them again. Not once had he been asked to play.
+It was some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor prophet of
+European music-rooms that he was being shut out, still longer before
+it permeated to his brain that he had been shut out as a Jew!
+
+Those barbarous Americans, so far behind Europe after all! Had they
+not even discovered that art levels all ranks and races? Poor
+bourgeois money-mongers with their mushroom civilization. It was not
+even as if he were really a Jew. Did they imagine he wore phylacteries
+or earlocks, or what? His few childish years in the Russian Pale--what
+were they to the long years of European art and European culture? And
+even if in Rome or Paris he had foregathered with Jews like Schneemann
+or Leopold Barstein, it was to the artist in them he had gravitated,
+not the Jew. Did these Yankee ignoramuses suppose he did not share
+their aversion from the gaberdine or the three brass balls? Oh the
+narrow-souled anti-Semites!
+
+The deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the forgotten rugs and
+novels, tidying the deck for the night, but still the embittered
+musician tramped to and fro under the silent stars. Only from the
+smoking-room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously
+selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in discord with the
+solemnity of sky and sea, and the artist was newly jarred at this
+vulgar gaiety flung in the face of the spacious and starry mystery of
+the night. And these jocose, heavy-jowled, smoke-soused gamblers were
+the Americans whose drawing-rooms he would contaminate! He recalled
+the only party to which he had been asked--'To meet the Bright
+Lights'--and which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public
+entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall, and
+himself--with the other Bright Lights--planted on a platform and made
+to perform without a fee. The mean vulgarians! But perhaps it was
+better they had left him untainted with their dollars--better,
+comparatively poor though he was, that America should have meant pure
+loss to him. He had at least kept the spiritual satisfaction of
+despising the despiser, the dignity of righteous resentment, the
+artist's pride in the profitless. And this riot of ugliness and
+diamonds and third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to
+which, forsooth, the Jew could not be permitted access!
+
+The aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him, and the face
+between whose prominent teeth it was stuck loomed vividly in the glare
+of an electric light. Rozenoffski recognised those teeth. He had seen
+countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they not almost
+hold the globe in their grip? This, then was the notorious
+multi-millionaire, 'the Napoleon in dollars,' as a wit had summed him
+up; and the first sight of Andrew P. Wilhammer almost consoled the
+player for his poverty. Who, even for an imperial income, would bear
+the burden of those grotesque teeth, protruding like a sample of wares
+in a dentist's showcase? But as the teeth came nearer and the great
+rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of the notorious
+incisors affected him less than their carnivorous capacity--he felt
+himself almost swallowed up by this monstrous beast of prey, so
+admirably equated to our small day of large things, to that
+environment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but a little
+singing-bird. The long-forgotten word _Rishus_ came suddenly into his
+mind--was not the man's anti-Semitism as obtruded as his
+teeth?--_Rishus_, that wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had
+become almost a synonym for Christianity. He had left the thought
+behind him, as he had left the Hebrew word, while he went sailing up
+into the rosy ether of success, and _Rishus_ had sunk into the mere
+panic-word of the Ghetto's stunted brood, shrinking and quivering
+before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a misunderstood world, if
+it was not, indeed, rather a word conveniently cloaking from
+themselves a multitude of their own sins. But now, as incarnated in
+this millionaire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden solidity,
+to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing and rending
+significance.
+
+Yes, in very sooth--he remembered it suddenly--was it not this man's
+wife on whom he had built his main hopes? Was she not the leader of
+musical America, to whom the Belgian princess had given him the
+scented and crested note of introduction which was to open to him all
+doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble
+music-room--one of the boasts of Chicago--that he had mentally seen
+himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these
+Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over--a
+note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's
+health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such
+credentials. _Rishus--Rishus_ indubitable!
+
+
+II
+
+Turning with morbid interest to look after the retreating millionaire,
+he found him in converse with a feminine figure at the open door of a
+deck-cabin. Could this be the great She, the arbitress of art? He
+moved nearer. Why, this was but a girl--nay, unless his instinct was
+at fault, a Jewish girl--a glorious young Jewess, of that radiant
+red-haired type which the Russian Pale occasionally flowered with.
+What was she doing with this Christian Colossus? He tried vainly to
+see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might be Mrs.
+Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct. Wilhammer disappeared
+within--the relation was obviously intimate--but the girl still stood
+at the door, a brooding magical figure.
+
+Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak to her, but he
+conquered the abnormal and incorrect impulse, contenting himself to
+walk past her with a side-glance, while at the end of the
+deck-promenade, instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched
+his path round to the windy side. After some minutes of buffeting he
+returned chilled to his prior pacing ground. She was still there, but
+had moved under the same electric light which had illuminated
+Wilhammer's face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried
+him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down those radiant
+cheeks. A slight exclamation came involuntarily from him; the girl,
+even more startled to be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the
+letter--a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped
+at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed
+sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and
+deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed
+it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a
+thrill that the characters were cursive Hebrew.
+
+'How can I zank you, sir!' Her Teutonic-touched American gave him the
+courage to reply gallantly in German:
+
+'By letting me help you more seriously.'
+
+'_Ach, mein Herr_'--she jumped responsively into German--'it was for
+joy I was crying, not sorrow.' As her American was Germanic, so was
+her German like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding to
+the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's heart within his
+breast. He noted now with satisfaction that her fingers were bare of
+rings.
+
+'Then I am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply.
+
+She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back towards her cabin.
+'With us Jews,' she said, 'tears and laughter are very close.'
+
+'Us Jews!' He winced a little. It was so long since he had been thus
+classed to his face by a stranger. But perhaps he had misinterpreted
+her phrase; it was her way of referring to _her_ race, not necessarily
+to _his_.
+
+'It is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily. But he only opened
+wider the flood-gates of race-feeling.
+
+'Yes,' she replied simply, 'and such a heaven of stars is beginning
+to arise over the night of Israel. Is it not wonderful--the
+transformation of our people? When I left Russia as a girl--so young,'
+she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that I had not even been
+married--I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing,
+cowering, contorted people--I shall never forget the panic in our
+synagogue when a troop of Cossacks rode in with a bogus
+blood-accusation. Now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions;
+the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies
+to execute them. Our _Bund_ is the soul of the Russian revolution; our
+self-defence bands are bringing back the days of Judas Maccabĉus. In
+the olden times of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray;
+now they march to the fight like men.'
+
+They had arrived at her door, and she ended suddenly. The musician,
+fascinated, feared she was about to fade away within.
+
+'But Jews can't fight!' he cried, half-incredulous, half to arrest
+her.
+
+'Not fight!' She held up the Hebrew letter. 'They have scouts,
+ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, everything--my cousin David Ben
+Amram, who is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large
+three-story house inhabited by the families of factory-labourers who
+were at work when the _pogrom_ broke out. The poor frenzied women and
+children had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, and
+hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My cousin had to climb to
+their defence over the neighbouring tiles and through a window in the
+roof. Soon the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans in
+devilish league. With his one Browning revolver David held them all
+at bay, firing from every window of the house in turn, so as to give
+the besiegers an impression of a large defensive force. At last his
+cartridges were exhausted--to procure cartridges is the greatest
+difficulty of our self-defence corps--they began battering in the big
+front-door. David, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew
+back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried:
+'Back! back! They have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to
+escape the explosion. The others followed wildly, and in the panic
+David ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post
+of defence. Though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants
+were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained for
+over an hour at a safe distance firing at the house, till it was
+riddled with bullets. They counted nearly two hundred the next day,
+embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. And not a thing had
+been stolen--not a hooligan had dared enter. But David is only a type
+of the young generation--there are hundreds of Davids equally ready to
+take the field against Goliath. And shall I not rejoice, shall I not
+exult even unto tears?' Her eyes glowed, and the musician was kindled
+to equal fire. It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than
+Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own. 'The Pale that I
+left,' she went on, 'was truly a prison. But now--now it will be the
+forging-place of a regenerated people! Oh, I am counting the days till
+I can be back!'
+
+'You are going back to Russia!' he gasped.
+
+He had the sensation of cold steel passing through his heart. The
+_pogroms_, which had been as remote to him as the squabbles of
+savages in Central Africa, became suddenly vivid and near. And even
+vivider and nearer that greater danger--the heroic Cousin David!
+
+'How can I live away from Russia at such a moment?' she answered
+quietly. 'Who or what needs me in America?'
+
+'But to be massacred!' he cried incoherently.
+
+She smiled radiantly. 'To live and die with my own people.'
+
+The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime jet; he was like
+to crying, 'Thy people shall be my people,' but all he found himself
+saying was, 'You must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?'
+
+A bell rang sharply from the cabin.
+
+'I must go to my mistress. _Gute Nacht, mein Herr!_'
+
+His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wilhammer's hireling!
+
+
+III
+
+The wind freshened towards the middle of the night, and Rozenoffski,
+rocking in his berth, cursed his encounter with the red-haired
+romanticist who had stirred up such a pother in his brain that he had
+not been able to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that
+he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely afraid of it. The
+shuddering and groaning of the ship found an echo in his soul. He
+could not shake off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. At
+intervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in
+translating into sound his sense of the mystic, masterless waste in
+which the continents swim like islands, but music was soon swallowed
+up in terror.
+
+'No,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 'When I am safe on
+shore again, I shall weave my symphony of the sea.'
+
+Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a Jewish Joan of Arc
+who--turned Admiral--recaptured Zion from her battleship, to the sound
+of Psalms droned by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see
+her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to meet a lady's
+maid in the unromantic daylight, the restlessness she had engendered
+remained, replacing the settled bitterness which was all he had
+brought back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness drove
+him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and his fever sought to
+work itself off in a fury of practice. But the inner turbulence
+persisted, and the new thoughts clung round the old music. He was
+playing Schumann's _Fantasiestücke_, but through the stormy passion of
+_In der Nacht_ he saw the red hair of the heroic Jewess, and into the
+wistful, questioning _Warum_ insinuated itself not the world-question,
+but the Jewish question--the sad, unending Jewish question--surging up
+again and again in every part of the globe, as Schumann's theme in
+every part of the piano--the same haunting musical figure, never the
+same notes exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful,
+questioning _Warum_. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore
+wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse?
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone--forms were
+seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no
+meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other
+fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about,
+others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on
+reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. His breast filled with
+bitter satisfaction.
+
+So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like
+rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty
+heathen--draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of
+ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner
+of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors,
+peering in spellbound at the doors.
+
+With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and
+plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A, his fingers frolicking all over
+the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. As he
+stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave a
+masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed
+bewilderment. Was he not then alone? '_Gott im Himmel!_' he murmured,
+and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these
+presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.
+
+But the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting
+all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible Christendom. He
+gave them Beethoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled to
+them the vast treasures of his art and memory. And very soon, lo! the
+Christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and
+cautiously. They came crawling from every part of the ship's compass.
+Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. In vain. An
+enraptured greenhorn shouted 'Encore!' The musician awoke from his
+trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the presence of
+listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose
+again--but this time as more in sorrow than in anger--and stalked
+sublimely up the swarming stairs.
+
+It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers
+as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music
+out if he imagined himself unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon
+advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to
+the little army of music-lovers. Silently the rats gathered, scurrying
+in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the
+doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. And through the
+awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion
+till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the
+tea-cups.
+
+And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment
+against this complacent Christendom which took so much from the Jew
+and gave so little. 'Shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched
+teeth as he played--'Shylocks all!'
+
+
+IV
+
+With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the silent deck each
+night in the hope of again meeting the red-haired Jewess. He had soon
+recovered from her menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position
+in so anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in her. He
+wondered if she ever listened to his playing, or had realized that
+she had entertained an angel unawares.
+
+But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor was her mistress
+more visible. The Wilhammers kept royally to themselves in their
+palatial suite, though the husband sometimes deigned to parade his
+fangs in the smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won
+heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate night of the
+voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second glimpse of his red-haired
+muse. He had started his nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for
+the inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had sucked the
+loungers from their steamer-chairs. He had himself, of course, been
+approached by the programme-organizer, a bouncing actress from
+'Frisco, with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hopelessly
+with the mysterious sarcasm: 'To meet the Bright Lights?' And his
+reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and
+presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there
+she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the
+mistress was out for once--presumably at the concert. His heart beat
+faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a
+lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his
+voice.
+
+'I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn't been keeping you too imprisoned?' he
+said.
+
+She smiled faintly. 'Not so close as Neptune has kept her.'
+
+'Ill?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction.
+
+'It is curious and even consoling to see the limitations of Croesus,'
+she replied. 'But she is lucky--she just recovered in time.'
+
+'In time for what?'
+
+'Can't you hear?'
+
+Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had been rending the
+air throughout, but they had scarcely penetrated through his
+exaltation. He now shuddered.
+
+'Do you mean it is she singing?'
+
+The girl laughed outright. 'She sing! No, no, she is a sensitive
+receiver. She receives; she gives out nothing. She exploits her soul
+as her husband exploits the globe. There isn't a sensation or an
+emotion she denies herself--unless it is painful. It was to escape the
+concert that she has left her couch--and sought refuge in a friend's
+cabin. You see, here sound travels straight from the dining-hall, and
+a false note, she says, gives her nerve-ache.'
+
+'Then she can't return till the close of the concert,' he said
+eagerly. 'Won't you come outside and walk a bit under this beautiful
+moon?'
+
+She came out without a word, with the simplicity of a comrade.
+
+'Yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, 'and very soon I shall be in
+Russia.'
+
+'But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then?' he asked, with a sudden
+thought, wondering that it had never occurred to him before.
+
+'Of course not! I only joined her for this voyage. I have to work my
+passage, you see, and Providence, on the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs.
+Wilhammer of her maid.'
+
+'Oh!' he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse was going back to
+her social pedestal. 'But you must have found it humiliating,' he
+said.
+
+'Humiliating?' She laughed cheerfully. 'Why more than manicuring her?'
+
+The muse shivered again on the pedestal.
+
+'Manicuring?' he echoed in dismay.
+
+'Sure!' she laughed in American. 'When, after a course of starvation
+and medicine at Berne University, I found I had to get a new degree
+for America....'
+
+'You are a doctor?' he interrupted.
+
+'And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-maid.'
+
+She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight reminded him of a
+rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic enough, however, was what she went
+on to tell him of her struggle for life by day and for learning by
+night. 'Of course, I could only attend the night medical school. I
+lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner of a room
+inhabited by a whole family. A would-be graduate could not be seen
+with bundles; for fetching and carrying the work my good landlady
+extorted twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was slack I
+cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, became a "hello girl"--at
+a telephone, you know--reported murder cases--anything, everything.'
+
+'Manicuring,' he recalled tenderly.
+
+'Manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. 'And you ask me if it is
+humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick lady!'
+
+'Artistic!' he sneered. His heart was full of pity and indignation.
+
+'As surely as sea-sick!' she rejoined laughingly. 'Why are you
+prejudiced against her?'
+
+He flushed. 'Prej-prejudiced?' he stammered. 'Why should I be
+prejudiced? From all I hear it's she that's prejudiced. It's a wonder
+she took a Jewess into her service.'
+
+'Where's the wonder? Don't the Southerners have negro servants?' she
+asked quietly.
+
+His flush deepened. 'You compare Jews to negroes!'
+
+'I apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at least Liberia. There
+is a black President, a black Parliament. We have nothing, nothing!'
+
+'We!' Again that ambiguous plural. But he still instinctively evaded
+co-classification.
+
+'Nothing?' he retorted. 'I should have said everything. Every gift of
+genius that Nature can shower from her cornucopia.'
+
+'Jewish geniuses!' Her voice had a stinging inflection. 'Don't talk to
+me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. Every other
+people has its great men; but our great men--they belong to every
+other people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for our putrid
+remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes and dance to the measures of
+the heathen. They build and paint; they write and legislate. But never
+a song of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a law
+of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah! What are they but hirelings?'
+
+Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and enkindled him. Yes,
+it was true. He, too, was but a hireling. But he would become a
+Master; he would go back--back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess
+should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself free for her. But
+ere he could pour out his soul, the bouncing San Franciscan actress
+appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault,
+discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski
+repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's
+volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and
+smile, and retreated into her shrine of duty.
+
+
+V
+
+He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out their future
+together; her redemption from her hireling status, their joint work
+for their people. He was no longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of
+nothing--not even of the _pogroms_ that awaited them in Russia. Russia
+itself became dear to him again--the beautiful land of his boyhood,
+whose birds and whispering leaves and waters had made his earliest
+music.
+
+But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories. When he went almost
+mechanically to the piano on the last afternoon, all these slumbering
+forces wakened in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody to
+which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his audience. When
+gradually he became aware of the incongruity, it did but intensify his
+inspiration. Let the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music! But soon all
+self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in his deeper self.
+
+It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient
+fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival
+roulades and plaintive yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song
+augmentation of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses,
+the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darkening Sabbath
+twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and sobbings of penitence, the
+long-drawn notes of the ram's horn pealing through the Terrible Days,
+the passionate proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of
+heaven. And fused with these merely physical memories, there flowed
+into the music the peace of Sabbath evenings and shining candles, the
+love and wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic legend,
+the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, the holy joy
+of the promised Zion, when God would wipe away the tears from all
+faces.
+
+There were tears to be wiped from his own face when he ended, and he
+wiped them brazenly, unresentful of the frenzied approval of the
+audience, which now let itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and
+because this must be the last performance. All his vanity, his
+artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He did not shut
+the piano; he sat brooding a moment or two in tender reverie. Suddenly
+he perceived his red-haired muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered
+him at last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot,
+was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But why was she mute? Why
+was she tendering this scented letter? Was it because she could not
+trust herself to speak before the crowd? He tore open the delicate
+envelope. _Himmel!_ what was this? Would the maestro honour Mrs.
+Wilhammer by taking tea in her cabin?
+
+He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respectful and silent.
+
+'Did you not hear what I was playing?' he murmured.
+
+'Oh yes--a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly. 'They publish it on
+the East Side, _nicht wahr_?'
+
+'East Side?' He was outraged. 'I know nothing of East Side.' Her
+absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before
+this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance
+of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of
+a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon
+his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'Will you say I shall
+have much pleasure?' he added coldly.
+
+The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozenoffski went mechanically
+to his cabin, scarcely seeing the worshippers he plodded through;
+presently he became aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his
+best frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement.
+
+Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A voice--of another
+sweetness--cried 'Come!' and instantly he had the sensation that his
+touch on the handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate
+electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a rustling
+tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of patchouli, and a flood of
+compliment.
+
+'So delightful of you to come--I know you men of genius are
+_farouches_--it was awfully insolent of me, I know, but you have
+forgiven me, haven't you?'
+
+'The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured in German.
+
+'_Ach_, so you are a German,' she replied in the same tongue. 'I
+thought no American or Englishman could have so much divine fire. You
+see, _mein Herr_, I do not even know your name--only your genius.
+Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music, but I might
+never have had the courage to thank you had you not played that
+marvellous thing just now--such delicious heartbreak, such adorable
+gaiety, and now and then the thunder of the gods! I'm afraid you'll
+think me very ignorant--it wasn't Grieg, was it?'
+
+He looked uncomfortable. 'Nothing so good, I fear--a mere impromptu of
+my own.'
+
+'Your own!' She clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'Oh,
+where can I get it?'
+
+'East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her
+down, and replied uneasily: 'You can't get it. It just came to me this
+afternoon. It came--and it has gone.'
+
+'What a pity!' But she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and
+riotous extravagance of genius. 'I do hope you will try to remember
+it.'
+
+'Impossible--it was just a mood.'
+
+'And to think of all the other moods I seem to have missed! Why have I
+not heard you in America?'
+
+He grew red. 'I--I haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'You see,
+I'm not much known outside a few European circles.' Then, summoning up
+all his courage, he threw down his name 'Rozenoffski' like a bomb, and
+the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. But no
+explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so
+lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers.
+
+'Oh, but America _must_ know you, Herr Rozenoffski. You must promise
+me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' And,
+seeing the cloud on his face, she cried: 'You must, you must, you
+must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.'
+
+He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should
+remember.
+
+'You have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but
+positively everybody has played at my house in Chicago.'
+
+'_Ach so!_' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified
+the attitude of these Americans? Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer
+had really been too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish
+behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even seen his letter?
+had her secretary presumed to guard her from Semitic invaders? Or was
+she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any
+case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; it would be the
+silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been
+rejected.
+
+'It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the
+temptress.
+
+'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,'
+he replied tactfully.
+
+'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed
+him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off,
+you know; I shall follow you about Europe--to all your concerts.'
+
+When he left her--after inscribing his autograph, his permanent Munich
+address, and the earliest possible date for his Chicago concert, in a
+dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid--his whole being was
+swelling, expanding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism
+that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got back again
+from the fusty conventicles and the sunless Ghettos--back to spacious
+salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew
+deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with
+pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the
+human brotherhood. _Rishus_, forsooth!
+
+
+
+
+SAMOOBORONA
+
+
+
+
+SAMOOBORONA
+
+
+I
+
+Milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of Holy Russia.
+The news of the projected Jewish massacre in this little Polish town
+travelled to the _Samooborona_ (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern
+Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop
+of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the
+great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political
+activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to
+show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal
+to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not
+of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was
+necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently
+harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. But in revenge the
+_pogrom_ would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically
+separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the
+Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the
+victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the
+humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean
+wealth.
+
+David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a
+local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be
+stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding
+cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was
+just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and
+as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with
+thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated
+Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into
+conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in
+the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good
+old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think--one ate and drank.
+Now, it is all toil and trouble.'
+
+'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.
+
+'He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.
+
+David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was
+not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.
+But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away--killed by the
+_pogroms_. It was their one virtue.
+
+At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish
+driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned
+bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving
+musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject
+of the Jewish massacres.
+
+'_Bê!_' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are in
+_Goluth_ (exile)!' He spoke with resignation, but not with
+apprehension, and David perceived at once that Milovka would not be
+easy to arouse. As every man thought every other man mortal, so
+Milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality--for other towns.
+It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had been a horror almost
+beyond belief, but Jew-massacres had since become part of the natural
+order, which babes were born into.
+
+
+II
+
+The landlord shook his head.
+
+'All our rooms are full.'
+
+David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty,
+mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats
+playing on the floor. If this was the best, what in Heaven's name
+awaited him elsewhere?
+
+'For how long?' he asked.
+
+The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'Am I the
+All-knowing?'
+
+He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have
+professed piety. Its square cut indicated to the younger generation
+that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old
+its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual
+orthodoxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink.
+
+'But how many rooms have you?' inquired David.
+
+'And how many shall I have but one?' protested the landlord.
+
+'Only one room!' David turned upon the driver. 'And you said this was
+the best inn! I suppose it's your brother-in-law's.'
+
+'And what do I make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'You
+see he can't take you.'
+
+'Then why did you bring me?'
+
+'Because there is no room anywhere else either.'
+
+'What!' David stared.
+
+'Law of Moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've
+just come at the recruiting. The young men have flocked here from all
+the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen
+peasants in all the Jewish inns--eating _kosher_,' he added with a
+chuckle.
+
+David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if this was so, the
+_pogrom_ would probably be postponed till the Christian conscripts had
+been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their
+villages. He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish corps.
+Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia and he would be recruiting
+simultaneously. Still, where was he to sleep?
+
+'You can have the _lezhanka_,' said the host, following his thoughts.
+
+David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, there were worse beds
+in winter than the top of a stove. And perhaps to bestow himself and
+his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of
+diverting police attention. 'Conspirators, please copy,' he thought,
+with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. He could refresh himself
+here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging.
+
+'Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.
+
+'Tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.
+
+'Haven't you a drop of vodka?'
+
+The landlord held up hands of horror. '_Monopolka?_' (monopoly), he
+cried.
+
+'Haven't they left any Jewish licenses?' asked David.
+
+'Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized
+Benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. He added hastily: 'But
+his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'
+
+It appeared that the dinner was already over, and David could obtain
+nothing but half-warmed remains. However, hunger and hope gave sauce
+to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to
+pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.
+
+'But you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host
+warned him. 'Tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to
+read Christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their
+falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a
+Christian's? Not that I share his prejudices, of course. I have seen
+the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a
+handkerchief on the Sabbath and still be a good man.'
+
+'I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David bluntly, 'but in
+shooting.'
+
+'Shooting?' The landlord stared. 'Aren't you a Jew, then, sir? I beg
+your pardon.' His voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he
+addressed the _Poritz_ (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous familiarity
+was gone.
+
+'_Salachti!_' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew, and laughed at
+the man's bemused visage. 'Don't you think, considering what has been
+happening, it is high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?'
+
+The landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy.
+'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.
+
+David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'
+
+'God forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'
+
+David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say
+I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the
+landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began
+to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who
+knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all
+those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New
+Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a
+_Shidduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your
+life.'
+
+'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'
+
+'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take
+you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'
+
+'Ah, so you're a regular _Shadchan_' (marriage-broker).
+
+'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But
+people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle
+of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the
+ordinary _Shadchan_.'
+
+'But I am so _link_' (irreligious).
+
+'_Nu!_ Let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' Mine host
+had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.
+
+'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden
+thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not
+fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'
+
+The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'
+
+
+III
+
+Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor
+disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face--a face in
+whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his
+surplus stock of daughters.
+
+'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is
+it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even
+the eldest----'
+
+David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage
+that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my _Chutzpah_
+(impudence)!'
+
+'But the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----'
+
+'To tell the truth, _Panie_ Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned
+my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to
+prevent funerals!'
+
+The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'
+
+'A _pogrom_ is threatened----'
+
+'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.
+
+'If you prefer silence and slaughter----' said David, with a shrug.
+
+'It is impossible--here!'
+
+'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight
+other towns?'
+
+'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian
+live together like brothers.'
+
+'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while
+Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'
+
+The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tinowitz than a
+wilderness of arguments.
+
+'Then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips.
+
+'To form a branch of the _Samooborona_. You must first summon a
+meeting of householders.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'For a general committee--and for the expenses.'
+
+'But how can we hold a meeting? The police----'
+
+'There's the synagogue.'
+
+'Profane the synagogue!'
+
+'Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?'
+
+'Yes, but to pray.'
+
+'We will pray by pistol.'
+
+'Guard your tongue!'
+
+'Guard your daughters.'
+
+'The Uppermost will guard them.'
+
+'The Uppermost guards them through me, as He feeds them through you.
+For the last time I ask you, will you or will you not summon me a
+meeting of householders?'
+
+'You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you will _not_ be my
+son-in-law.'
+
+Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call
+the next day.
+
+When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the
+corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours
+reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his
+wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt.
+
+
+IV
+
+The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was
+promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had
+likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord
+had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls,
+David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His
+other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young
+Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for
+the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart.
+Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they
+might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal
+lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and
+was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka,
+and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly
+prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared
+important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the
+drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting.
+
+Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted
+upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and
+dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and
+stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting
+fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he
+added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered
+to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged
+window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever
+he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory
+ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the
+gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair,
+gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under
+difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most
+desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the
+secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,
+scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him
+engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the
+forces of law and order.
+
+He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black
+Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer
+must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten,
+had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must
+defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the _Samooborona_.
+Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be
+organized as a column of axe-bearers. There would be needed also an
+ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.
+
+The shudder at the first mention of the _pogrom_ was not so violent as
+that which followed the mention of bandages. Each man felt warm blood
+trickling down his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the
+conscription? The landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his
+brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet.
+
+'Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a Haman in
+disguise. To hold firearms is the surest way of provoking----'
+
+'I don't say _you_ shall hold firearms!' David interrupted. 'It is
+your young men who must defend the town. But the _Kahal_
+(congregation) must pay the expenses--say, ten thousand roubles to
+start with.'
+
+'Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried Mendel the
+horse-dealer. 'It is a swindle.'
+
+David flushed. 'We have to buy three pistols for every one we get
+safely into the town. But one revolver may save ten thousand roubles
+of property, not to mention your life.'
+
+'It will end our lives, not save them!' persisted the timber-merchant.
+'This is a plot to destroy us!'
+
+A growl of assent burst from the others.
+
+'My friends,' said David quietly. 'A plot to destroy you has already
+been hatched; the question is, are you going to be destroyed like rats
+or like men?'
+
+'Pooh!' said the horse-dealer. 'This is not the first time we have
+been threatened, if not with death, at least with extra taxes; but we
+have always sent _Shtadlonim_ (ambassadors). We will make a
+collection, and the president of the _Kahal_ shall go at once to the
+Governor, and present it to him'--here Mendel winked--'to enable him
+to take measures against the _pogrom_.'
+
+'The Governor is in the plot,' said David.
+
+'He can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant.
+
+'_Pogroms_ are more profitable than presents,' rejoined David drily.
+'Let us rather prepare bombs.' A fresh shudder traversed the beds and
+the chairs, and agitated the window-curtain.
+
+'Bombs! Presents!' burst forth the old Rabbi. 'These are godless
+instruments. We are in the hands of the Holy One--blessed be He! The
+_Shomer_ (Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.'
+
+'Neither does the _Shochet_ (slaughterer) of Israel,' said David
+savagely.
+
+'Hush! Epicurean!' came from every quarter at this grim jest; for the
+_Shomer_ and the _Shochet_ are the official twain of ritual butchery.
+
+The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, added, 'Brazen
+_Marshallik_ (buffoon)!'
+
+'I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' concluded the Rabbi
+solemnly.
+
+A breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 'And I, Rabbi,' said
+Gütels the grocer, 'will supply the synagogue with candles to equal in
+length the graves of all your predecessors.'
+
+'May thy strength increase, Gütels!' came the universal gratitude, and
+the landlord at the window-curtain drew a great sigh of relief.
+
+'Still, gentlemen,' he said, 'if I may intrude my humble opinion--Reb
+Mendel's advice is also good. God is, of course, our only protection.
+But there can be no harm in getting, _lehavdil_ (not to compare them),
+the Governor's protection too.'
+
+'True, true.' And the faces grew still cheerier.
+
+'In God's name, wake up!' David burst forth. 'In _Samooborona_ lies
+your only salvation. Give the money to us, not to the Governor. We can
+meet and practise in your Talmud-Torah Hall!'
+
+'The holy hall of study!' gasped the Rabbi. 'Given over to unlawful
+meetings!'
+
+'The hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said David grimly.
+'Don't you see it is the safest place for us? The police associate it
+only with learned weaklings.'
+
+'Hush, Haman!' said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. David's voice
+changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in
+a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker
+driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True
+Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite
+yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued
+recklessly, 'Will you never learn manli----'
+
+They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held him hand-gagged
+and struggling upon the bed.
+
+Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There was a blood-freezing
+instant in which all gave themselves up for lost. Their grip on David
+relaxed. Then the mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel
+Leven.
+
+'Blessed art thou who comest!' cried David, jumping to his feet. 'You
+and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.'
+
+'Alas!' Ezekiel groaned. 'I drew a low number--I go to fight for
+Russia.'
+
+
+V
+
+Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the Governor, but
+even before they were presented to him the Rabbi, in mortal terror of
+that firebrand of a David, had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence
+was legal, and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used for
+drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with firearms or in
+conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. And so,
+when the _Shtadlonim_ arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the
+Governor was able to point out severely that if a _pogrom_ did occur
+they would have only themselves to blame. The Jews of Milovka had
+begun to carry pistols like revolutionaries; they planned illegal
+assemblies in halls; was it to be wondered at if the League of True
+Russians grew restive? However, he would do his best with these
+inadequate roubles to have extra precautions taken, but let them root
+out the evil weeds that had sprung up in their midst, else even his
+authority might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the loyal
+children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the Ambassadors crept back
+with their empty money-bags.
+
+Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. His
+landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his
+original audience would have called as a deputation upon David to beg
+him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a
+conspirative meeting. So one of the Ambassadors was sent to inform the
+landlord instead.
+
+'Don't you think I've already ordered him off my premises?'
+
+'But he is still here!'
+
+'Alas! He threatens to shoot me--or anybody who _massers_ (informs),'
+said the poor landlord.
+
+The Ambassador shivered.
+
+'As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel!' added the landlord
+reproachfully.
+
+'No, no--of course not,' said the Ambassador. 'These fellows are best
+left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of
+_Tsitsith_ (ritual fringes). Let us hope, however, a sudden death may
+rid us of him.'
+
+'Amen,' said the landlord fervently.
+
+Not that David had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. But
+his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his
+perilous presence upon his prudential host.
+
+Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the
+thought that the population was best tackled by units. One fool or
+coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering.
+
+Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and
+approached Erbstein the Banker. Erbstein held up his hands. 'But I've
+just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a _pogrom_!'
+
+'That was for the Governor. Give me only a hundred for Self-Defence.'
+
+The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'But our rights are
+bound to come in the end. We can only get them gradually. Full rights
+now are nonsense--impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what you
+cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our emancipation----'
+
+'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew
+impatient.
+
+Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied.
+His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and
+politics.
+
+'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.
+
+'I'd rather trust our revolvers.'
+
+The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.
+
+'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!'
+
+David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He
+saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than
+to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising
+scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in
+a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and
+his surname was Rubensky.
+
+The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism,
+laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he
+calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an
+anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even
+revolutionary like the S.R.'s.'
+
+'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know
+what all these letters stand for.'
+
+Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.
+
+'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish
+Party of Socialism.'
+
+'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the
+Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.'
+
+The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no!
+That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of
+the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must
+be worked out in common with Russia's.'
+
+'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!'
+
+'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic
+Faith--Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.'
+
+'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'
+
+'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.
+
+'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said
+David passionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't
+the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was
+won----'
+
+Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David
+smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women--sober-clad
+students from a Swiss University--opened wide shocked eyes.
+
+'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly.
+
+'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?'
+
+'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _Zeitgeist_ set back. The
+unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a
+better social state.'
+
+'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I
+object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I assert----'
+
+'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.
+
+'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.'
+
+'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife
+indignantly.
+
+'No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does not understand
+modern politics. My wife is an S.D., I regret to say.'
+
+'But I have heard of Social Democrats!' said David triumphantly.
+
+Simon's sister sniffed. 'Of course! Because they are a bourgeois
+party--risking nothing, waiting passively till the Revolution drops
+into their hands.'
+
+'The name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include
+the landed peasants among their forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.
+
+'If I might venture to suggest,' said David soothingly, 'all these
+differences would be immaterial if you joined the _Samooborona_. I
+could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.'
+
+'Outrageous!' cried Simon angrily. 'Our place is shoulder to shoulder
+with our fellow-Poles.'
+
+Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the mention of ambulances
+had awakened sympathy in her S.R. soul. 'You ought to look among your
+own Party,' she said.
+
+'My Party?'
+
+'The Ghetto reactionaries--Zionists, Territorialists, Itoists, or
+whatever they call themselves nowadays.'
+
+'Are there any here?' cried David eagerly.
+
+'One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly. 'Fortunately, when
+the police found they weren't really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the
+meetings were stopped.'
+
+David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly recommended two
+young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, who had at least the grace of
+Socialism.
+
+But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 'Only the S.S.'s,' he
+said, 'can save Israel.'
+
+'What are S.S.'s?' David asked.
+
+'Socialistes Sionistes.'
+
+'But can't there be Socialism outside Zion?'
+
+'Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The unconditional historic
+necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. Our Minsk
+members already call themselves S.T.'s--Socialist Territorialists.'
+
+'But while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' David
+reminded him. 'Simon Rubensky thought you would be a good man for the
+self-defence corps.'
+
+'Join Rubensky! A P.P.S.! Never will I associate with a bourgeois like
+that!'
+
+'He isn't joining.'
+
+The S.S. hesitated. 'I must consult my fellow-members. I must write to
+headquarters.'
+
+'Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.'
+
+'But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.
+
+David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor.
+
+'I want to get together a _Samooborona_ branch,' he explained. 'Herr
+Grodsky has half promised----'
+
+'That bourgeois!' cried Lerkoff in disgust. 'We can have nothing to do
+with traitors like that!'
+
+'Why are they traitors?' David asked.
+
+'All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion must jealously guard
+the sacred flame of Socialism and Nationality, since only in Palestine
+can our social problem be solved.'
+
+'Why only in Palestine?' inquired David mildly.
+
+The P.Z. glared. 'Palestine is an unconditional historic necessity.
+The attempt to form a Jewish State elsewhere can only result in
+failure and disappointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads
+them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have gone there this
+year.'
+
+'And a hundred and fifty thousand to America. How about that
+folk-instinct?'
+
+'Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an Americanist
+Assimilator.'
+
+'I am no more an A.A. than I am a Z.Z.,' said David tartly, adding
+with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a Z.Z.'
+
+'Would to Heaven there were not!' said Lerkoff fervently. 'It is these
+miserable Zioni-Zionists, with their incapacity for political
+concepts, who----'
+
+Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous
+telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in Dr.
+Lerkoff's study.
+
+'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is a man who combines
+all the worst qualities of the Z.Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also
+imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs
+he deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably with his
+patient, and said he would come instantly.
+
+'Hasn't he the disease, then?' asked David.
+
+'He has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.'
+
+'While you cure him of the first, I should like to try my hand at the
+second,' said David laughingly.
+
+'Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'
+
+'You I don't ask for money, but your medical services would be
+invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'
+
+'Milovka to the deuce!' cried Lerkoff. 'Our future lies not in
+Russia.'
+
+'I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army surgeon.'
+
+'Next year--in Jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily.
+
+
+VI
+
+Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while he saw Herr Cantberg
+professionally. There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room,
+betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff
+reappeared chuckling.
+
+'He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said.
+
+'You have told him?'
+
+'_He_ told _me_; he always knows everything. You are a baptized police
+spy, posing as a P.P.S. I suppose he's heard of your visit to Herr
+Rubensky.'
+
+'But I shall undeceive him!'
+
+'Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his vanity would cost you
+dear. Go in; I did not tell him _you_ were the young man he was
+telling me of. I must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. 'Don't forget
+he's the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object is not to create the
+future, but to resurrect the dead past.'
+
+'And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't you----?' But the
+doctor was gone.
+
+The Mizrachi Z.Z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in
+expression; but his 'Be seated, sir--be seated; what can I do for
+you?' had the grand manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.
+
+'It is something I propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'Milovka
+is in danger.'
+
+'It is, indeed,' said the M.Z.Z. 'When men like Dr. Lerkoff (in whose
+company I was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly
+danger. An excellent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying:
+"Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he calls himself a
+Zionist! Bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who
+dubs himself P.P.S.'
+
+'But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David uneasily.
+
+Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. 'He'd introduce vaccination
+and serum-insertions instead of the grand old laws. As if any human
+arrangement could equal the wisdom of Sinai! And he actually scoffs at
+the Restoration of the Sacrifices!'
+
+'But do you propose to restore them?' David was astonished.
+
+The owl's eyes shone. 'What have we sacrificed ourselves for, all
+these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices? What has sanctified and
+illumined the long night of our Exile except a vision of the High
+Priest in his jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of
+our Holy Temple? Now at last the vision begins to take shape, the hope
+of Israel begins to shine again. Like a rosy cloud, like a crescent
+moon, like a star in the desert, like a lighthouse over lonely
+seas----'
+
+The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine frenzy disregarded
+the ringing, but it jangled his metaphors. 'But, alas! our people do
+not see clearly!' he broke off. 'False prophets, colossally vain--may
+their names be blotted out!--confuse the foolish crowd. But the wheat
+is being sifted from the chaff, the fine flour from the bran, the
+edible herbs from the evil weeds, and soon my people will see again
+that only I----'
+
+The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused to buy furs at the
+price it demanded, he resumed: 'Territorialist traitors mislead the
+masses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people,
+I wish them Godspeed.'
+
+'But what relief can they bring?' put in David impatiently. 'Without
+Self-Defence----'
+
+'Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred people with fever and
+famine on some savage shore. But let them; it will all be to the glory
+of Zionism----'
+
+'How so?' David asked, amazed.
+
+'It will show that the godless ideals of materialists can never be
+realized, that only in its old home can Israel again be a nation. Then
+will come the moment for Me to arise----'
+
+'But the English came from Denmark. And they're nation enough!'
+
+The owl blinked angrily. 'We are the Chosen People--no historic
+parallel applies to us. As the dove returned to the ark, as the
+swallow returns to the lands of the spring, as the tide returns to the
+sands, as the stars----'
+
+'Yes, yes, I know,' said David; 'but where is there room in Palestine
+for the Russian Jews?'
+
+'Where was there room in the Temple for the millions who came up at
+Passover?' retorted Herr Cantberg crushingly.
+
+The telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper.
+
+'A godless Bundist!' the owl explained between the deals.
+
+'A Bundist!' David pricked up his ears. From the bravest revolutionary
+party in Russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'Who is he?'
+
+The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'Oh,
+I can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-Israel. Not that he
+behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred
+and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'Not a kopeck
+more. Eh? What? He's rung off, the blood-sucker!' He rang him up
+again. David made a note of the number.
+
+'But what have you Zionists to do with the Parliament in Russia?' he
+inquired of the owl.
+
+But the owl was haggling with the telephone. 'Three hundred and
+fifteen! What! Do you want to skin _me_, like your martins and
+sables?'
+
+'You are busy,' interposed David, fretting at the waste of his day. 'I
+shall take the liberty of calling again.'
+
+A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist's shop, and David hurried
+off to enlist him. The shopkeeper proved, however, so corpulent and
+bovine that David's heart sank. But he began bluntly: 'I know you're a
+Bundist.'
+
+'A what?' said the fur-dealer.
+
+David smiled. 'Oh, you needn't pretend with me; I'm a fighter myself.'
+He let a revolver peep out of his hip-pocket.
+
+'Help! _Gewalt!_' cried the fur-dealer.
+
+A beardless youth came running out of the back room. David laughed.
+'Herr Cantberg told me that you were a Bundist,' he explained to the
+shopkeeper. 'And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was warned
+Herr Cantberg is always wrong. Good-morning.'
+
+'Stop!' cried the youth. 'Go in, Reb Yitzchok; let me deal with this
+fire-eater.' And as the corpulent man retired with an improbable
+alacrity, he continued gravely: 'This time Herr Cantberg was not more
+than a hundred versts from the truth.'
+
+David smiled. '_You_ are the Bundist.'
+
+'Hush! Here I am the son-in-law. I study Talmud and eat _Kest_ (free
+food). What news from Warsaw?'
+
+'I want both you and your father-in-law,' said David evasively--'his
+money and your muscles.'
+
+'He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly what I squeeze out
+of Cantberg.' The youth permitted himself his first smile. 'When he
+deals with that bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to
+stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the extra roubles
+we extort. But as for myself, my life, of course, is at the disposal
+of headquarters.'
+
+David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He felt a little
+embarrassment in explaining that headquarters to him meant
+_Samooborona_, not Bund. The youth's countenance changed completely.
+
+'Defend the Jews!' he cried contemptuously. 'What have we to do with
+the Jewish bourgeoisie?'
+
+'The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not?'
+
+'Merely because we found the rest of the Revolutionary body too clumsy
+for words. It was always getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed,
+its leaders buried. So we split off, the better to help our
+fellow-working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a Jewish party. We
+have the whole Russian Revolution on our shoulders; how can we throw
+away our lives for the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? Then there
+are the elections at hand--I have to work for the Left. Ah, here come
+some of our bourgeois; ask _them_, if you like. I will keep my
+father-in-law out of the shop.'
+
+Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but
+on their heels. With five Jews the concourse soon became a congress.
+
+One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive Pole. He mistook
+David for a Zionist, and denounced him for a foreigner.
+
+'We of the P.P.P.,' he said, 'will peacefully acquire equal rights
+with our fellow-Poles--nay, we shall be allowed to become Poles
+ourselves. But you Zionists are less citizens than strangers, and if
+you were logical, you would all----'
+
+'Where's your own logic?' interrupted the disconnected man. 'Why don't
+you join the P.P.N. at once?'
+
+The Progressive Pole frowned. 'The Nationalists! They are
+anti-Semites. I'd as soon join the League of True Russian Men.'
+
+'And do you trust the P.P.P.?' his companion asked him. 'I tell you,
+Nathan, that only in the Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief
+in the equality of all nationalities----'
+
+'If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,' David intervened
+desperately, 'you must join the _Samoo_----'
+
+'I fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the Bundist, not
+unkindly. He added with a sneer: 'These gentlemen of the P.P.P. and
+the P.P.N. and the P.P.D. are all good Poles.'
+
+'Good Poles!' echoed David no less bitterly. 'And the Poles voted _en
+bloc_ to keep every Jewish candidate out of the Duma.'
+
+'Even so we must be better Poles than they,' sublimely replied the
+member of the P.P.P. 'We are joining even the Clerical Parties of the
+Right for the good of our country. And now that the Party of National
+Concentration----'
+
+'Go to the Labour Parties,' advised the P.D. 'There you may perchance
+find sturdy young men with the necessary Ghetto taint.' Of the four
+great Labour Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P.S.D. as the most
+promising for David's purposes. 'Not the Bolshewiki faction,' he
+added, 'but the Menshewiki. Recruits might also be found in the
+Proletariat or the P.P.S.----'
+
+'No, I've tried the P.P.S.,' said David. 'But at any rate, gentlemen,
+since you must all see that the defence of our own lives is no
+undesirable object, a little contribution to our funds----'
+
+A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was scarcely credible that
+only four men were speaking. All explained elaborately that they had
+their own Party Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates
+for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ.
+
+'You see,' said the Bundist, 'your only chance lies with the men of no
+Party, who have only their own bourgeois pleasures.'
+
+'Are there such?' asked David eagerly.
+
+A universal laugh greeted this inquiry.
+
+'Alas, too many!' everybody told him. 'Our people are such
+individualists.'
+
+'But where are these individualists?' cried David desperately.
+
+As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by the laughter,
+crept in again.
+
+'You still here!' he murmured to David, taken aback.
+
+'Yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for Jewish
+Self-Defence----'
+
+'Jewish Emancipation!' cried the fur-dealer. 'Why didn't you say so at
+first?' He put his hand in his pocket. 'That's _my_ Party--or rather
+the National Group in it, the Anti-Zionist faction.'
+
+The stern Bundist laughed. 'No, he doesn't mean he's a J.E. even of
+the other faction.'
+
+His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket.
+
+David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. 'Why did you interfere?
+Perhaps my way may prove the shortest to Jewish Emancipation.'
+
+His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-dealer shook his
+head. 'I belong also to the Promotion of Education Party--I am for
+peaceful methods,' he announced.
+
+'So I perceived,' said David drily.
+
+To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address of a man who kept
+aloof from Polish politics--a bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by
+name, who might just as well be killed off in the _Samooborona_.
+
+But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist. David
+imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-Territorialist Grodsky,
+who had half promised----
+
+'Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-screamer!' he
+screamed. 'He's worse than the hysterical Zionists. It is a territory
+we need, not Socialism.'
+
+'I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.'
+
+'The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of our own.'
+
+'Five and a quarter million of us? Why, if two ships--one from Libau
+for the north, and one from Odessa for the south--sailed away every
+week, each bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over a
+quarter of a century. And by that time a new generation of us would
+have grown up.'
+
+The Territorialist looked uneasy.
+
+'Besides,' David continued, 'what new country could receive us at the
+rate of two hundred thousand a year? It would be a cemetery, not a
+country.'
+
+The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. 'Why didn't you say at first
+you were a bourgeois? The unconditional historic necessity which has
+created the I.T.O. may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon
+as our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to be in the
+first shipload.'
+
+'Have you this land, then?'
+
+'Not yet. We've only had time to draw up the Constitution. No
+Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines. But Democracy. Hereditary
+privileges will be abol----'
+
+'But what land _is_ there?'
+
+'Surely there are virgin lands.'
+
+'Even the virgin lands are betrothed!' said David. 'And if there was
+one still without a lord and master, it would probably be a very ugly
+and sickly virgin. And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the
+meantime let me teach you to fire a pistol.'
+
+'With all my heart--but merely to shoot wild beasts.'
+
+'That is all I am asking for,' said David grimly.
+
+Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called upon a
+tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked for a subscription to buy
+revolvers.
+
+The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of
+dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic
+measures. Let them put their trust in _Cultur_! To talk
+Hebrew--therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once
+again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea--that was true Zionism.
+
+'Then don't you want the Holy Land?' asked the astonished David.
+
+'Merely as a centre of _Cultur_. Merely as a University where Herbert
+Spencer may be studied in the tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is
+bourgeois Zionism. Political Zionism? Economic Zionism? Pah! Mere
+tawdry imitations of heathen politics!'
+
+'Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists!'
+
+'Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of mind. We want
+Culture--not Agriculture; we want the evolutionary efflorescence of
+Israel's inner personality----'
+
+David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who declared that
+Zionism was a caricature of true Nationalism, and Territorialism a
+cheap philanthropic substitute for it.
+
+'Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation?' David asked.
+
+'I will--when we are on our own soil. Your corps is a mere mockery of
+the military concept.'
+
+David found no more comfort in his interview with the member of the
+L.A.E.R., who was convinced that only in the League for the
+Advancement of Equal Rights lay the Jew's true security. It was the
+one party whose success was sure, the only one based upon an
+unconditional historic necessity.
+
+David's morning was not, however, to pass without the discovery of a
+man of no Party. And, strangely enough, he owed his find to the
+headache these innumerable Parties caused him. For, going into a
+chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded Jew whose
+genial face emboldened him to solicit a stock of bandages and
+antiseptics--in view of a possible _pogrom_.
+
+'But the _pogroms_ are over,' cried the chemist. 'They were but the
+expiring agonies of the old order. The reign of love is at hand, the
+brotherhood of man is beginning, and all races and creeds will
+henceforth live at peace under the new religion of science.'
+
+David's headache rose again triumphant over the powder. Even a
+partisan would be easier to convince than this sort of seer.
+
+'Why, a _pogrom_ is planned for Milovka!'
+
+'Impossible! Europe would not permit it. America would prohibit it.
+Did you not see the protest even in the Australian Parliament? Look on
+your calendar; we have reached the twentieth century, even according
+to the Christian calculation.'
+
+David returned hopelessly to his inn.
+
+Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the great stove. Before
+even ordering dinner, he made a last desperate attempt to save his
+morning.
+
+'Me join a Jewish Self-Defence!' The burly Jew laughed loud and
+heartily. 'Why, I'm a True Believer!'
+
+'A _Meshummad_!' David gasped. Modern as he was, the hereditary horror
+at the baptized apostate overcame him.
+
+'Yes--_I_'m safe enough,' the Convert laughed. 'I've taken the
+cold-water cure. Besides, I'm the censor of Milovka!'
+
+'Eh?' David looked like a trapped animal. The censor smiled on. 'Don't
+scowl at me like the other pious zanies. After all, you're an
+enlightened young man--a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your
+Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. Come--have a glass
+of vodka.'
+
+'Then, you won't inform?' David breathed.
+
+'Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep your pistols out of
+print. If my own skin is safe, that doesn't mean I'm made of stone
+like these Tartar devils. Landlord, the vodka. We'll drink confusion
+to them.'
+
+'I--I have none,' stammered the landlord. 'I haven't the right.'
+
+'There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-humouredly.
+
+The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.
+
+'But the idea of asking _me_ to join the Self-Defence!' chuckled the
+burly Jew. 'You might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added
+with a wink.
+
+David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met
+that morning.
+
+
+VII
+
+The vodka and a good three-course dinner (_Plotki_ for fish,
+_Lockschen_ for soup, and _Zrazy_ for joint) brought David new
+courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.
+
+This time he sought the market-place--a badly-paved square, bordered
+with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned
+crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger
+generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the classes--he would
+hear the voice of the people.
+
+On every side the voice babbled of the Duma--babbled happily, as
+though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation.
+Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the
+mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:
+
+A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.
+
+'We must put our trust in the Constitutional Democrats.'
+
+'And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.'
+
+'Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.' (This came from the
+Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.)
+
+'For shame, _Rebbitzin_! Put not your trust in Princes.'
+
+The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter--a fuzzy-headed
+butcher-boy.
+
+'Miserable Monarchists!' he sneered. 'We Jews will have no peace till
+the Republicans----'
+
+'A Republic without Socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry
+basket. 'What good's that? Wait till the N.S.'s----'
+
+'The D.R.'s are the only----' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar.
+
+'And who but the Labour group promises equal rights to all
+nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'Trust the
+_Trudowaja_----'
+
+'To the devil with the Labour Parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'Look
+how the Bundists have betrayed us. First they were bone of our bone;
+now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the _pogroms_.'
+
+The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'There is only
+one party to trust, and that's the C.D.'s,' he repeated.
+
+'Bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the Republican youth and the
+Socialist lass.
+
+'My children!' It was the bland voice of Moses the _Shamash_ (beadle).
+'Violence leads to naught. Even the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As
+a member of the Party of Peaceful Regeneration----'
+
+'Peaceful Regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'A Jew ally himself
+with the Reactionary Right, with the----!'
+
+A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. The Jews
+scattered before him like dogs. The member of the P.P.R. crawled under
+a barrow. Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral when the
+Cossack had disappeared.
+
+'Peaceful Regeneration!' he cried. 'There will be no Regeneration for
+you till you have the courage to leave Russian politics alone and to
+fight for yourselves.'
+
+'Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.
+
+'No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the minimum--that we save
+our own lives.'
+
+It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews, like the rich Russian
+Jews, were largely occupied in saving the world, or, at least, Holy
+Russia. Crushed by such an excess of Christianity, David wandered
+round the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. In one of
+the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping at shoes, surrounded by
+sprawling children.
+
+'Peace be to you,' called David.
+
+'Peace have I always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily.
+
+David looked at the happy dirty children; he had seen their like torn
+limb from limb. 'But have you thought of the danger of a _pogrom_?' he
+said.
+
+'I have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler. 'But we
+_Chassidim_ have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi, who has power over all the
+spheres, will utter a word, and----'
+
+   [Illustration: The Jews scattered before him like dogs.]
+
+'A _Tsaddik_ (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last _pogrom_,' said
+David brutally. 'You must join a Self-Defence band.'
+
+The cobbler ceased to tap. 'What! Go for a soldier! When the _Rebbe_
+caused me to draw a high number!'
+
+'Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from Russia. We must
+all join together!'
+
+'Me join the _Misnagdim!_' cried the cobbler in horror. 'Never will I
+join with those who deny the Master-of-the-Name.'
+
+David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart Jew lounging at a
+neighbouring door. He moved towards him, and broached the subject
+afresh. The lounger shook his head. 'You may persuade that foolish
+_Chassid_,' said he, 'but you cannot expect the rest of us to join
+with these heretics, these godless, dancing dervishes, who are capable
+even of saying the afternoon prayer in the evening!'
+
+In the next house lived a _Maskil_ (Intellectual), who looked up from
+his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he could be associated with a squad of
+young ignoramuses. His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from
+another community. The Karaite pointed out that Self-Defence was
+unnecessary in his case, as his sect was scarcely regarded by the
+authorities as Jewish. There were other motley Jews living round the
+market-place--a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with the Polish
+'sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigmatized by a Pole as
+'peel-barley,' in scarification of his reputedly stingy diet. A man
+from Odessa dismissed them both as 'cross-heads.' It was impossible
+to unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary and heart-sick,
+he returned towards the inn.
+
+
+VIII
+
+But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of Jewish boys pouring
+out of the primary school. They seemed to range in years between eight
+and twelve, but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and though
+the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter which accompanies the
+exodus of cramped and muted pupils, the normal elements of joyousness,
+of horse-play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was a
+common agitation that loosed all these little tongues and set all
+these little ears listening to the passionate harangues of
+ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home, the schoolboys lingered in
+knots round their favourite orators. A premature gravity furrowed all
+the childish foreheads.
+
+With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar, and after
+listening for a few minutes to the lad's tirade against the 'autocracy
+of the school director' and the 'bureaucratic methods of the
+inspector,' it dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his own
+landlord's son.
+
+'Hullo, Kalman!' he cried in surprise.
+
+'Hullo, comrade!' replied the boy graciously.
+
+'So you're a revolutionary, eh?' said David, smiling.
+
+'All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,' replied the boy gravely.
+
+'Then you're not so peaceful as papa!'
+
+The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He blushed furiously, and
+hung his head in shame of his Moderate parent.
+
+'Never mind, Comrade Kalman,' said another boy, slapping his shoulder
+consolingly. 'We've all got some shady relative or another.'
+
+A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situation. Turning his
+head, David found all the childish eyes converged upon a single
+figure, a bulging-headed lad who had sprung into a sudden position of
+eminence--upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse of
+Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon his upper lip
+suggested that he must be nearing fifteen.
+
+'Comrades!' he was crying. 'In my youth I myself was head boy at this
+school of yours, but even in those old days there was the same brutal
+autocracy. Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join the
+Syndical Anarchists.'
+
+More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The members of the
+Junior Bund waved their satchels frenziedly. Only the landlord's son
+stood mute and frowning.
+
+'You don't agree with him,' said David.
+
+'No,' answered the little Bundist gravely. 'I follow Comrade Berl. But
+this fellow is popular because he was expelled from the Warsaw
+gymnasium as a suspect.'
+
+'You must strike!' repeated the juvenile agitator. 'A strike is the
+only way of impressing the proletarian psychology. You must all swear
+to attend school no more till your demands are granted.'
+
+'We swear!' came from all sides in a childish treble. But the frown on
+the brow of the landlord's son grew darker.
+
+'It is well, comrades,' said the orator. 'Your success will be a
+lesson to your elders, too. Only by applying the Marxian philosophy of
+history can we upset the bourgeois _Weltanschauung_.'
+
+The landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box with one angry
+bound and stood beside the agitator. 'Marx is an old fogey!' he
+shouted. 'What's the good of a passive strike? Let us make a
+demonstration against the director; let us----'
+
+'Who told you that?' sneered the orator. 'Comrade Berl or Comrade
+Schmerl?'
+
+The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. 'You know Schmerl's a mere
+milk-blooded "Attainer,"' he said angrily.
+
+'Believe me,' was the soothing reply, 'even beyond the Five Freedoms
+the boycott is a better "Attainer" than the bomb.'
+
+'Traitor! Bourgeois!' And a third boy jumped upon the egg-box. He had
+red hair and flaming eyes. 'If Russia is to be saved,' he shrieked,
+'it will be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom nor by the
+Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, who alone maintain the
+purity of the Social Revolutionary programme, as it was before the
+party degenerated into Maximalists and Mini----'
+
+Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the three orators, and
+they sprawled in equal ignominy. But the storm was now launched. A
+score of the schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. The
+unity necessary to the school strike was shattered into fragments.
+
+David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic mob of youngsters,
+who were yet not all apes and parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had
+always had its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit,
+prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had its precocious
+politicians and its premature sociologists. He was tempted for a
+moment to try his recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist,
+whose red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed cruel
+to add to the lad's risks. Besides, had not the boy already
+proclaimed--like his seniors--that Russia, not Jewry, was to be saved?
+
+It was an hour of no custom when he got back to the inn, so that he
+was scarcely surprised to find host and hostess alike invisible. He
+sat down, and began to write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but
+a mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any concentration upon
+his task. Presently he threw down his pen, and went to find out what
+was the matter. The noises drew him downwards.
+
+The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his light.
+
+'It's only I,' said David.
+
+The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar strewn with iron
+bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones.
+
+'Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.
+
+'No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar--also provisioning the
+loft.'
+
+'_Samooborona?_' said David.
+
+'Precisely--and a far more effective form than yours, my young
+hot-head.'
+
+'Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He went back to his
+Report. He was glad to think that the little Bundist had an extra
+chance. After all, he had achieved something, he would save some
+lives. Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way--passive
+_Samooborona_ was better than none.
+
+
+IX
+
+But the Report refused to write itself. It was too dismal to confess
+he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. He picked up a greasy
+fragment of a Russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the
+Octobrists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That reminded him of
+Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. Would
+the Banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas!
+the question was, _could_ a Banker be disillusioned? To be
+disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and Bankers, like
+Popes, were infallible.
+
+David bethought himself instead of the owlish Mizrachi, his visit to
+whom had been left unfinished.
+
+He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the house with the Ark
+and the telephone.
+
+But as he reached Cantberg's door it opened suddenly, and a young man
+shot out.
+
+'Never, father!' he was shrieking--'Never do I enter this house
+again.' And he banged the door upon the owl, and rushed into David's
+arms.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' he said.
+
+'It is my fault,' murmured David politely. 'I was just going to see
+your father.'
+
+'You'll find him in a fiendish temper. He cannot argue without losing
+it.'
+
+'I hope you've not had a serious difference.'
+
+'He's such a bigoted Zionist--he cannot understand that Zionism is
+_ein überwundener Standpunkt_.'
+
+'I know.'
+
+'Ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'Then you can understand how I have
+suffered since I evolved from Zionism.'
+
+'What are you now, if I may ask?'
+
+'The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be--a Sejmist, of
+course!'
+
+'A Jewish Party?' asked David eagerly. After all the enthusiasm for
+Russian politics and world politics he was now pleased with even this
+loquacious form of Self-Defence.
+
+'Come and have a glass of tea; I will tell you all about it,' said the
+young man, soothed by the prospect of airing his theories. 'We will go
+to Friedman's inn--the University Club, we call it, because the
+intellectuals generally drink there.'
+
+'With pleasure,' said David, sniffing the chance of recruits. 'But
+before we talk of your Party I want to ask whether you can join me in
+a branch of the _Samooborona_.'
+
+The young man's face grew overclouded.
+
+'Our Party cannot join any other,' he said.
+
+'But mine isn't a Party--a corps.'
+
+'Not a Party?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you have a Committee?'
+
+'Yes--but only----'
+
+'And Branches?'
+
+'Naturally, but simply----'
+
+'And a Party-Chest?'
+
+'The money is only----'
+
+'And Conferences?'
+
+'Of course, but merely----'
+
+'And you read Referats----'
+
+'Not unless----'
+
+'Surely you are a Party!'
+
+'I tell you no. I want all Parties.'
+
+'I am sorry. But I'm too busy just now to consider anything else. Our
+Party-Day falls next week, and there's infinite work to be done.'
+
+'Work!' cried David desperately. 'What work?'
+
+'There will be many great speeches. I myself shall not speak beyond an
+hour, but that is merely impromptu in the debate. Our Referat-speakers
+need at least two hours apiece. We did not get through our last
+session till five in the morning. And there were scenes, I tell you!'
+
+'But what is there to discuss?'
+
+'What is there to discuss?' The Sejmist looked pityingly at David.
+'The great question of the Duma elections, for one thing. To boycott
+or not to boycott. And if not, which candidates shall we support? Then
+there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian
+Parliament--that is our great principle. Moreover, as a comparatively
+new Party, we have yet to thresh out our relations to all the existing
+Parties. With which shall we form _blocs_ in the elections? While most
+are dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people and opposed
+to the evolution of historic necessity, with some we may be able to
+co-operate here and there, where our work intersects.'
+
+'What work?' David insisted again.
+
+'Doesn't our name tell you? We are the _Vozrozhdenie_--the
+Resurrectionists--our work is an unconditional historic necessity
+springing from the evolution of----!'
+
+The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it
+open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise
+came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of
+cigarette-smoke near the stove. In one of the four David recognised
+the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have
+no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the
+Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence
+independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young
+Sejmist, observing ironically:
+
+'Behold, the dreamer cometh!'
+
+'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before
+his new acquaintance. 'It is you _Achad-Haamists_ who must wake up.'
+
+The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would
+do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand
+that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not
+self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?'
+
+Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he explained
+to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice
+you Sejmists have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have
+sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. In our party
+alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. It
+alone----'
+
+'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David.
+
+'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied
+Witsky proudly.
+
+'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily.
+
+'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social
+regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----'
+
+The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our Conference will have
+to decide against relations with you.'
+
+'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we
+not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the
+evolution of the forces of the people----'
+
+'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in
+his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the
+genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly
+leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'
+
+'But we also say----' began the other two.
+
+The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the
+P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? We subsume the
+Conservative elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League and of
+the Party of Real Politics with the Reform elements of the Democratic
+League and the Progressive Democrats. Consequently----'
+
+'But the true Polish Party----' began Witsky.
+
+'The _Kolo Polskie_ (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,' began the
+Sejmist. The three were talking at once. Through the chaos a thin
+piping voice penetrated clearly. It came from the fourth member of the
+group--a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently
+smoking.
+
+'As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all Parties,' he said,
+'allow me to tell you, friend Witsky, that your programme needs
+unification: it starts as economic, and then becomes dualistic--first
+inductive, then deductive.'
+
+'_Moj Panie drogi_ (my dear sir),' intervened David, 'if you
+sympathize with all Parties, you will join a corps for the defence of
+them all.'
+
+'You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees with all
+Parties.'
+
+David lost his temper at last. 'Gentlemen,' he shouted ironically,
+'one may sit and make smoke-rings till the Messiah comes, but I assure
+you there is only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is
+_Samooborona_.'
+
+And without drinking his tea--which, indeed, the Resurrectionist had
+forgotten to order--he dashed into the street.
+
+
+X
+
+He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish injustice. He had
+hitherto taken scant notice of all these Parties that had sprung up
+for the confusion of his people--these hybrid, kaleidoscopic
+combinations of Russian and Jewish politics--but as he fled from the
+philosophers through the now darkening streets, his every nerve
+quivering, it seemed to him as if the alphabet had only to be thrown
+about like dice to give always the name of some Party or other. He had
+a nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions, each
+with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Conferences, Party-Days,
+Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, each differentiating itself with
+meticulous subtlety from all the other Parties, each defining with
+casuistic minuteness its relation to every contemporary problem, each
+equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators speechifying through
+tumultuous nights.
+
+Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible nebulous welter in which
+his people found themselves, it was not unnatural that each man
+should grope towards his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was
+equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in
+both from the same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples possessed
+nothing.
+
+Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews lay in identifying
+themselves with Russia. But then, who could tell that the patriots who
+welcomed them to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the
+cause was won? Perhaps there was no hope outside preserving their own
+fullest identity. Poor bewildered Russian Jew, caught in the
+bewilderments both of the Russian and the Jew, and tangled up
+inextricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils!
+
+The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must make his account
+with them. How if he formed a secret _Samooborona_ Committee, composed
+equally of representatives of all Parties? But, then, how could he be
+sure of knowing them all? He might offend one by omitting or
+miscalling it; they formed and re-formed like clouds on the blue. A
+new Party, too, might spring up overnight. He might give deadly
+affront by ignoring this Jonah's gourd. Even as he thus mused, there
+came to him the voices of two young men, the one advocating a
+P.P.L.--a new Party of Popular Liberty--the other insisting that the
+new _Volksgruppe_ of all anti-Zionist Parties was an unconditional
+historic necessity. He groaned.
+
+It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through the ill-paved alleys
+that a plague of doctors of philosophy had broken out over the Pale,
+doctrinaires spinning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting
+bitterly against the slightest deviation from the pattern of their
+webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action. Was it, he wondered
+with a flash of sympathy, that Israel was too great for Action; too
+sophisticated a people for so primitive and savage a function; too set
+in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, so that, even
+when Action was attempted, it was turned and frozen into Philosophy?
+Or was it rather that eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had
+unfitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of applying the
+whole brain-force to religious minutiĉ led to a similar
+intellectualization of contemporary problems--of the vast new material
+suddenly opened up to their sharpened brains--but also because many of
+these religious problems related only to the time when Israel and his
+Temple flourished in Palestine? The academic leisure and scrupulous
+discrimination that might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had
+been imported into the burning present--into things that mattered for
+life or death.
+
+Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism or Socialism, as
+the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not
+risen since the year 70 of the Christian era, or over the decisions of
+Babylonian _Geonim_, no stone of whose city remained standing. The men
+of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world
+of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of
+Zionism without Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,
+Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The habit of actualities
+had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much
+intellectual stimulus? Would Israel never return to reality, never
+find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life?
+
+But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky,
+David suddenly felt infinitely weary of reality; a great yearning
+came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which
+pious Jewry still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,
+the jangle of politics and philosophies, the _tohu-bohu_ of his
+unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go
+back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the
+_Beth Hamedrash_ where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten
+folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. There
+lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's
+true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen
+centuries of tragedy--a watertight world into which no drop of outer
+reality could ever trickle. There lay Zion and the Jordan, the Temple
+and the Angels; there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over
+their people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists
+starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the
+Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No
+more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the
+horrible Modern.
+
+He asked the way to the _Beth Hamedrash_. How fraternally the sages
+and the youths would greet him! They would inquire in the immemorial
+formula, 'What town comest thou from?' And when he told them, they
+would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news there was. And 'news,'
+David remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of
+texts.' Yes, this was all the 'news' that ever ruffled that peaceful
+world. Man lived only for the Holy Law; the world had been created
+merely that the Law might be studied; new lights upon its words and
+letters were the only things that could matter to a sensible soul.
+Time and again he had raged against the artificiality of this quietist
+cosmos, accusing it of his people's paralysis, but to-night every
+fibre of him yearned for this respite from the harsh reality. He
+rummaged his memory for 'news'--for theological ingeniosities, textual
+wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of Milovka; and as one
+who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the _Beth
+Hamedrash_, and, murmuring 'Peace be to you,' dropped upon a bench
+before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined
+themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text.
+Immediately he was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and
+ancients.
+
+'Which Party are you of?' they clamoured eagerly.
+
+
+XI
+
+The _pogrom_ arrived. But it arrived in a new form for which even
+David was unprepared. Perhaps in consequence of the Rabbi's warning to
+the Governor, Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian
+paraphernalia of _agents provocateurs_, no hooligans with false grey
+beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or blasphemers. Artillery was
+calmly brought up against the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were
+an enemy's town.
+
+As the shells began to burst over the close-packed houses, David felt
+grimly that an economic Providence had saved him from wasting his time
+in training pistoliers.
+
+The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and saying his _Vidui_
+(death-bed confession), offered him and his violin-case a place in
+the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the
+aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round
+the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the
+chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. His eyes were glued
+upon a figure he had espied amid the cannon.
+
+It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with whom he had dreamed
+of Maccabean deeds. The new conscript, in the uniform of an
+artilleryman, was carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun.
+
+'Poor Ezekiel!' David cried. 'Yours is the most humorous fate of all!
+But have you forgotten there is still one form of _Samooborona_ left?'
+And with an ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself.
+
+The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When the bombardment was
+over, the peace of the devil lay over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent
+were all the fiery orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent
+the Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers of mankind;
+silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, the timber-merchants and
+the horse-dealers, the bankers and the Bundists; silent the Socialists
+and the Democrats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless
+Karaite and the cheerful _Chassid_; silent the landlord and his
+revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; silent the Rabbi in
+his study, and the crowds in the market-place.
+
+The same unconditional historic necessity had overtaken them all.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  20: shillngs replaced with shillings                |
+    | Page 114: 'we're under other' replaced with               |
+    |           'we're under others'                            |
+    | Page 136: 'I really must congratulate yon' replaced with  |
+    |           'I really must congratulate you'                |
+    | Page 146: 'He must be expelled the congregation'          |
+    |           replaced with                                   |
+    |           'He must be expelled from the congregation'     |
+    | Page 179: haled replaced with hauled                      |
+    | Page 263: Demnark replaced with Denmark                   |
+    | Page 298: 'he lounged inte' replaced with                 |
+    |           'he lounged into'                               |
+    | Page 306: Rachael replaced with Rachel                    |
+    | Page 396: danegrous replaced with dangerous               |
+    | Page 396: arrangmement replaced with arrangement          |
+    | Page 400: 'allowed to becomes Poles' replaced with        |
+    |           'allowed to become Poles'                       |
+    | Page 405: truimphant replaced with triumphant             |
+    | Page 423: themseves replaced with themselves              |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ghetto Comedies, by Israel Zangwill</title>
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ghetto Comedies, by Israel Zangwill,
+Illustrated by J. H. Amschewitz</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Ghetto Comedies</p>
+<p>Author: Israel Zangwill</p>
+<p>Release Date: May 28, 2009  [eBook #28982]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHETTO COMEDIES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4 class="pg">E-text prepared by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from digital material generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/toronto">http://www.archive.org/details/toronto</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/ghettocomedies00zanguoft">
+      http://www.archive.org/details/ghettocomedies00zanguoft</a>
+	</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistant spelling in the
+original document have been preserved. This document contains Yiddish and other dialects.</p>
+<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p>
+<p class="noin">Click on the images to see a larger version.</p>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="ads">
+<h3>New 6s. Novels.</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">THE EXPENSIVE MISS DU CANE. By <span class="sc">S. Macnaughtan</span>. 'To resist
+the charm of Hetty Du Cane one must be singularly hard to
+please.'&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE LOST WORD. By <span class="sc">Evelyn Underhill</span>. 'She writes vigorously
+and well, with a clear sense of the beauty of language and a
+notable power of description.'&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE COUNTRY HOUSE. By <span class="sc">John Galsworthy</span>. 'It deserves the
+widest measure of success as a careful study of modern life and
+an interesting piece of fiction, presented with remarkable
+literary ability.'&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">MEMOIRS OF A PERSON OF QUALITY. By <span class="sc">Ashton Hilliers</span>. 'Such a
+recruit as Mr. Hilliers is welcome to the ranks of novelists....
+He has absorbed the spirit of the times with remarkable ability.
+Mr. Hilliers has a fine literary future before him, and we are
+glad to give his maiden effort a cordial greeting.'&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">PAUL. By <span class="sc">E.F. Benson</span>. 'A genuinely fine novel; a story
+marked by powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of
+life.'&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE SWIMMERS. By <span class="sc">E.S. Rorison</span>. 'Full of crisp dialogue and
+bright descriptive passages.'&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">THE TRAIL TOGETHER. By <span class="sc">H.H. Bashford</span>. 'Very interesting,
+very well constructed, and admirably written; altogether an
+excellent piece of work.'&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">FOOLS RUSH IN. By <span class="sc">Mary Gaunt</span> and <span class="sc">J.R. Essex</span>. 'A
+live story, full of the stir and stress of existence on the
+fringe of civilization, very vividly and interestingly
+written.'&mdash;<i>Sketch.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">JOSEPH VANCE. By <span class="sc">William De Morgan</span>. 'Humorous, thoughtful,
+pathetic, and thoroughly entertaining.... Fresh, original, and
+unusually clever.'&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">MOONFACE, AND OTHER STORIES. By <span class="sc">Jack London</span>. 'Jack London
+at his best.'&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hang">LOVE'S TRILOGY. By <span class="sc">Peter Nansen</span>. 'Humour the author
+possesses, and tenderness. Sensibility he has, and shrewd sense.
+The tale "God's Peace" shows that he has a soul.'&mdash;<i>Evening
+Standard.</i></p></div>
+
+<h4>LONDON<br />
+WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET.</h4>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="48%" alt="At last I said &quot;Good morning.&quot;" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">At last I said "Good morning."<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>Ghetto Comedies</h1>
+
+<h4>By</h4>
+
+<h3>Israel Zangwill</h3>
+
+<h5>Author of<br />
+'The Grey Wig,' 'Dreamers of the Ghetto,'<br />
+'The Master,' 'Children of the Ghetto,'<br />
+'Ghetto Tragedies,' etc.</h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4><i>With Illustrations by J.H. Amschewitz</i></h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img">
+<img border="0" src="images/deco.jpg" width="10%" alt="Publisher's Mark" />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>London<br />
+William Heinemann<br />
+1907</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5><i>Copyright by William Heinemann, 1907</i></h5>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>TO<br />
+MY OLD FRIEND<br />
+M.D. EDER</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>NOTE</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="block">
+<p>Simultaneously with the publication of these 'Ghetto Comedies' a fresh
+edition of my 'Ghetto Tragedies' is issued, with the original title
+restored. In the old definition a comedy could be distinguished from a
+tragedy by its happy ending. Dante's Hell and Purgatory could thus
+appertain to a 'comedy.' This is a crude conception of the distinction
+between Tragedy and Comedy, which I have ventured to disregard,
+particularly in the last of these otherwise unassuming stories.</p>
+
+<p class="right">I.Z.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">Shottermill</span>,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>April, 1907.</i></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td width="80%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_MODEL_OF_SORROWS">THE MODEL OF SORROWS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">1</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#ANGLICIZATION">ANGLICIZATION</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">49</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_JEWISH_TRINITY">THE JEWISH TRINITY</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">89</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_SABBATH_QUESTION_IN_SUDMINSTER">THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">119</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_RED_MARK">THE RED MARK</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">173</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_BEARER_OF_BURDENS">THE BEARER OF BURDENS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">193</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_LUFTMENSCH">THE LUFTMENSCH</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">225</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_TUG_OF_LOVE">THE TUG OF LOVE</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">249</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_YIDDISH_HAMLET">THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">259</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_CONVERTS">THE CONVERTS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">293</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#HOLY_WEDLOCK">HOLY WEDLOCK</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">313</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#ELIJAHS_GOBLET">ELIJAH'S GOBLET</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">335</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_HIRELINGS">THE HIRELINGS</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">351</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#SAMOOBORONA">SAMOOBORONA</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">375</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="65%" summary="List of Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%">AT LAST I SAID 'GOOD MORNING'</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><a href="#frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="font-size: 90%;"><i>To face page</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">'I WORK ON&mdash;ON <i>SHABBOS</i>'</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep142">142</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">'YOU COMPARE MY WIFE TO A KANGAROO!'</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep276">276</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">THE JEWS SCATTERED BEFORE HIM LIKE DOGS</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#imagep408">408</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE MODEL OF SORROWS</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_MODEL_OF_SORROWS" id="THE_MODEL_OF_SORROWS"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE MODEL OF SORROWS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>CHAPTER I</h4>
+
+<h4>HOW I FOUND THE MODEL</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>I cannot pretend that my ambition to paint the Man of Sorrows had any
+religious inspiration, though I fear my dear old dad at the Parsonage
+at first took it as a sign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist,
+I have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the
+beautiful; for I have ever held that the beautiful has in it the same
+infinite element as forms the essence of religion. But I cannot
+explain very intelligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only
+instrument through which I can speak. And if I am here paradoxically
+proposing to use my pen to explain what my brush failed to make clear,
+it is because the criticism with which my picture of the Man of
+Sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal
+elucidation. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; perhaps
+my pen can manage to say the other half, especially as this other half
+mainly consists of things told me and things seen.</p>
+
+<p>And in the first place, let me explain that the conception of the
+picture which now hangs in its gilded frame is far from the conception
+with which I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>started&mdash;was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an
+evolution&mdash;for I began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a
+realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue of Jerusalem, or
+walked about the shores of Galilee. As a painter in love with the
+modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations
+of Him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their
+inspiration in reality. Each nation had unconsciously given Him its
+own national type, and though there was a subtle truth in this, for
+what each nation worshipped was truly the God made over again in its
+own highest image, this was not the truth after which I was seeking.</p>
+
+<p>I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which Da Vinci and
+others have imposed upon the world, for Christ, to begin with, must be
+a Jew. And even when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish
+model, I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed
+to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic of the Oriental face, as
+I figured it, was a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the
+very antithesis of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The characteristic
+Jewish face must suggest more of the Arab than of the Goth.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know if the lay reader understands how momentous to the
+artist is his model, how dependent he is on the accident of finding
+his creation already anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in
+Nature. To me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in
+Nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those
+subtle <i>nuances</i> which give the full sense of life. After which, if I
+say, that my aim is not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>suppose I shall again seem to be self-contradictory. But that, again,
+must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search of the ideal
+model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief
+railway run of the Parsonage. Besides, I understood that the
+dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish
+types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed all the
+streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting in the Jewish quarter
+left me despairing. I could find types of all the Apostles, but never
+of the Master.</p>
+
+<p>Running down one week-end to Brighton to recuperate, I joined the
+Church Parade on the lawns. It was a sunny morning in early November,
+and I admired the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky,
+making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the stuccoed
+boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered amid the vast crowd of
+promenaders like a swarm of brilliant butterflies. I noted with
+amusement that the Church Parade was guarded by beadles from the
+intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed Jews
+paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search.
+In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking
+in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest.
+Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting
+oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat
+a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green
+cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the
+face of my desire. The head was bowed towards the earth; it did not
+even <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle was
+beadle-barred. I was about to accost this strange creature who sat
+there so immovably, when a venerable Royal Academician who resides at
+Hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore me along
+in the stream of his conversation and geniality. I looked back
+yearningly; it was as if the Academy was dragging me away from true
+Art.</p>
+
+<p>'I think, if you don't mind, I'll get that old chap's address,' I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked back and shook his head in laughing reproof.</p>
+
+<p>'Another study in dirt and ugliness! Oh, you youngsters!'</p>
+
+<p>My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with his own
+conventional patterns and prettinesses.</p>
+
+<p>'Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,' I retorted. 'I
+certainly did not see Him in the Church Parade.'</p>
+
+<p>'Have you gone on the religious lay now?' he asked, with a burst of
+his bluff laughter.</p>
+
+<p>'No, but I'm going,' I said, and turned back.</p>
+
+<p>I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying
+my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement,
+I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery
+of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity
+with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified.
+I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan,
+while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that
+the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his
+abstention from the holy ground <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>of the Church Parade, and the less
+sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes
+drew towards him, move him on from further profaning those frigidly
+respectable windows and stuccoed portals?</p>
+
+<p>At last I said: 'Good-morning.' And he rose hurriedly and began to
+move away uncomplainingly, as one used to being hounded from
+everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Guten Morgen</i>,' I said in German, with a happy inspiration, for in
+my futile search in London I had found that a corrupt German called
+Yiddish usually proved a means of communication.</p>
+
+<p>He paused, as if reassured. '<i>Gut' Morgen</i>,' he murmured; and then I
+saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of Anak, and
+his manner a strange blend of majesty and humility.</p>
+
+<p>'Pardon me,' I went on, in my scrupulously worst German, 'may I ask
+you a question?'</p>
+
+<p>He made a curious movement of acquiescence, compounded of a shrug and
+a slight uplifting of his palms.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you in need of work?'</p>
+
+<p>'And why do you wish to know?' he replied, answering, as I had already
+found was the Jewish way, one question by another.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought I could find you some,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you scrolls of the Law for me to write?' he replied
+incredulously. 'You are not even a Jew.'</p>
+
+<p>'Still, there may be something,' I replied. 'Let us walk along.'</p>
+
+<p>I felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us both, and I
+hurried my model down a side-street. I noticed he hobbled as if
+footsore. He did not understand what I wanted, but he understood a
+pound a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>week, for he was starving, and when I said he must leave
+Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck: 'It is the finger of
+God.' For in London were his wife and children.</p>
+
+<p>His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia.</p>
+
+<p>The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel Quarriar's presence
+dignified the studio. It was thrilling and stimulating to see his
+noble figure and tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like
+a prophet's.</p>
+
+<p>'It is the finger of God,' I, too, murmured, and fell to work,
+exalted.</p>
+
+<p>I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence&mdash;perhaps the model's
+silence was contagious&mdash;but gradually through the days I grew to
+communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I
+give his story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I often
+paused to take down, when they were characteristic.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>CHAPTER II</h4>
+
+<h4>THE MODEL'S STORY</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>I came here because Russia had grown intolerable to me. All my life,
+and during the lives of my parents, we Quarriars had been innkeepers,
+and thereby earned our bread. But Russia took away our livelihood for
+herself, and created a monopoly. Thus we were left destitute. So what
+could I do with a large family? Of London and America I had long heard
+as places where they have compassion on foreigners. They are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>not
+countries like Russia, where Truth exists not. Secondly, my children
+also worried me greatly. They are females, all the five, and a female
+in Russia, however beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no
+dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however uncongenial the
+man may be. These things conspired to drive me from Russia. So I
+turned everything into money, and realized three hundred and fifty
+roubles. People had told me that the whole journey to London should
+cost us two hundred roubles, so I concluded I should have one hundred
+and fifty roubles with which to begin life in the new country. It was
+very bitter to me to leave my Fatherland, but as the moujik says:
+'Necessity brings everything.' So we parted from our friends with many
+tears: little had we thought we should be so broken up in our old age.
+But what else could I do in such a wretched country? As the moujik
+says: 'If the goat doesn't want to go to market it is compelled to
+go.' So I started for London. We travelled to Isota on the Austrian
+frontier. As we sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we
+were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in came a
+benevolent-looking Jew with a long venerable beard, two very long
+ear-locks, and a girdle round his waist, washed his hands
+ostentatiously at the station tap, prayed aloud the <i>Asher Yotzer</i>
+with great fervour, and on finishing his prayer looked everyone
+expectantly in the eyes, and all responded 'Amen.' Then he drew up his
+coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended his hand, gave me an
+effusive '<i>Shalom Aleichem</i>' and asked me how it went with me. Soon he
+began to talk about the frontier. Said he: 'As you see me, an <i>Ish
+kosher</i> (a ritually correct man), I will do you a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>kindness, not for
+money, but for the sake of the <i>Mitzvah</i> (good deed).' I began to
+smell a rat, and thought to myself, How comes it that you know I want
+the frontier? Your kindness is suspicious, for, as the moujik says:
+'The devil has guests.' But if we need the thief, we cut him down even
+from the gallows.</p>
+
+<p>Such a necessary rascal proved Elzas Kazelia. I asked him how much he
+wanted to smuggle me across. He answered thus: 'I see that you are a
+clever respectable man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and you
+will understand that you will receive fair treatment from me. I want
+to earn a <i>Mitzvah</i> (good deed) and a little money thereby.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he cautioned me not to leave the station and go out into the
+street, because in the street were to be found Jews without beards,
+who would inform on me and give me up to the police. 'The world does
+not contain a sea of Kazelias,' said he. (Would that it did not
+contain even that one!)</p>
+
+<p>Then he continued: 'Shake out your money on the table, and we will see
+how much you have, and I will change it for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' said I, 'I want first to find out the rate of exchange.'</p>
+
+<p>When Kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring and shrieked '<i>Hoi,
+hoi!</i> On account of Jews like you, the <i>Messhiach</i> (Messiah) can't
+come, and the Redemption of Israel is delayed. If you go out into the
+street, you will find a Jew without a beard, who will charge you more,
+and even take all your money away. I swear to you, as I should wish to
+see Messhiach Ben David, that I want to earn no money. I only desire
+your good, and so to lay up a little <i>Mitzvah</i> in heaven.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>Thereupon I changed my money with him. Afterwards I found that he had
+swindled me to the extent of fifteen roubles. Elzas Kazelia is like to
+the Russian forest robber, who waylays even the peasant.</p>
+
+<p>We began to talk further about the frontier. He wanted eighty roubles,
+and swore by his <i>kosher Yiddishkeit</i> (ritually pure Judaism) that the
+affair would cost him seventy-five.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon I became sorely troubled, because I had understood it would
+only cost us twenty roubles for all of us, and so I told him. Said he:
+'If you seek others with short beards, they will take twice as much
+from you.' But I went out into the street to seek a second murderer.
+The second promised to do it cheaper, said that Kazelia was a robber,
+and promised to meet me at the railway station.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately I left, Elzas Kazelia, the <i>kosher</i> Jew, went to the
+police, and informed them that I and my family were running away from
+Russia, and were going to London; and we were at once arrested, and
+thrown bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an iron
+grating in the door. No food or drink was allowed us, as though we
+were the greatest criminals. Such is Russian humanity, to starve
+innocent people. The little provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us
+from fainting with hunger. On the second day Kazelia sent two Jews
+with beards. Suddenly I heard the door unlock, and they appeared
+saying: 'We have come to do you a favour, but not for nothing. If your
+life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we advise you to
+give the police seventy roubles, and we want ten roubles for our
+kindness, and you must employ Kazelia to take you over the frontier
+for eighty roubles, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>otherwise the police will not be bribed. If you
+refuse, you are lost.'</p>
+
+<p>Well, how could I answer? How could one give away the last kopeck and
+arrive penniless in a strange land? Every rouble taken from us was
+like a piece of our life. So my people and I began to weep and to beg
+for pity. 'Have compassion,' we cried. Answered they: 'In a frontier
+town compassion dwells not. Give money. That will bring compassion.'
+And they slammed the door, and we were locked in once more. Tears and
+cries helped nothing. My children wept agonizedly. Oh, truth, truth!
+Russia, Russia! How scurvily you handle the guiltless! For an
+enlightened land to be thus!</p>
+
+<p>'Father, father,' the children said, 'give away everything so that we
+die not in this cell of fear and hunger.'</p>
+
+<p>But even had I wished, I could do nothing from behind barred doors.
+Our shouting was useless. At last I attracted a warder who was
+watching in the corridor. 'Bring me a Jew,' I cried; 'I wish to tell
+him of our plight.' And he answered: 'Hold your peace if you don't
+want your teeth knocked out. Recognise that you are a prisoner. You
+know well what is required of you.'</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I thought, my money or my life.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day our sufferings became almost insupportable, and the
+Russian cold seized on our bodies, and our strength began to fail. We
+looked upon the cell as our tomb, and on Kazelia as the Angel of
+Death. Here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. We lost hope of
+seeing the sun. For well we know Russia. Who seeks Truth finds Death
+more easily. As the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>Russian proverb says, 'If you want to know Truth,
+you will know Death.'</p>
+
+<p>At length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries, and brought
+again the two Jews. 'For the last time we tell you. Give us money, and
+we will do you a kindness. We have been seized with compassion for
+your family.'</p>
+
+<p>So I said no more, but gave them all they asked, and Elzas Kazelia
+came and said to me rebukingly: 'It is a characteristic of the Jew
+never to part with his money unless chastised.' I said to Elzas
+Kazelia: 'I thought you were an honourable, pious Jew. How could you
+treat a poor family so?'</p>
+
+<p>He answered me: 'An honourable, pious Jew must also make a little
+money.'</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent for a conveyance.
+No sooner had we seated ourselves than he demanded six roubles. Well,
+what could I do? I had fallen among thieves, and must part with my
+money. We drove to a small room, and remained there two hours, for
+which we had to pay three roubles, as the preparations for our
+crossing were apparently incomplete. When we finally got to the
+frontier&mdash;in this case a shallow river&mdash;they warned us not even to
+sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot without more ado.
+I had to strip in order to wade through the water, and several men
+carried over my family. My two bundles, with all my belongings,
+consisting of clothes and household treasures, remained, however, on
+the Russian side. Suddenly a wild disorder arose. 'The soldiers! The
+soldiers! Hide! Hide! In the bushes! In the bushes!'</p>
+
+<p>When all was still again&mdash;though no soldiers became <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>visible&mdash;the men
+went back for the baggage, but brought back only one bundle. The
+other, worth over a hundred roubles, had disappeared. Wailing helped
+nothing. Kazelia said: 'Hold your peace. Here, too, dangers lurk.'</p>
+
+<p>I understood the game, but felt completely helpless in his hands. He
+drove us to his house, and our remaining bundle was deposited there.
+Later, when I walked into the town, I went to the Rabbi and
+complained. Said he: 'What can I do with such murderers? You must
+reconcile yourself to the loss.'</p>
+
+<p>I went back to my family at Kazelia's house, and he cautioned me
+against going into the street. On my way I had met a man who said he
+would charge twenty-eight roubles each for our journey to London. So
+Kazelia was evidently afraid I might yet fall into honester hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then we began to talk with him of London, for it is better to deal
+with the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Said he: 'It
+will cost you thirty-three roubles each.' I said: 'I have had an offer
+of twenty-eight roubles, but you I will give thirty.' '<i>Hoi, hoi!</i>'
+shrieked he. 'On a Jew a lesson is lost. It is just as at the
+frontier: you wouldn't give eighty roubles, and it cost you double.
+You want the same again. One daren't do a Jew a favour.'</p>
+
+<p>So I held my peace, and accepted his terms. But I saw I should be
+twenty-five roubles short of what was required to finish the journey.
+Said Kazelia: 'I can do you a favour: I can borrow twenty-five roubles
+on your luggage at the railway, and when you get to London you can
+repay.' And he took the bundle, and conveyed it to the railway. What
+he did there I know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>not. He came back, and told me he had done me a
+turn. (This time it seemed a good one.) He then took envelopes, and
+placed in each the amount I was to pay at each stage of the journey.
+So at last we took train and rode off. And at each place I paid the
+dues from its particular envelope. The children were offered food by
+our fellow-passengers, though they could only take it when it was
+<i>kosher</i>, and this enabled us to keep our pride. There was one kind
+Jewess from Lemberg with a heart of gold and delicious rings of
+sausages.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at Leipsic they told me the amount was twelve marks
+short. So we missed our train, not knowing what to do, as I had now no
+money whatever but what was in the envelopes. The officials ordered us
+from the station. So we went out and walked about Leipsic; we
+attracted the suspicion of the police, and they wanted to arrest us.
+But we pleaded our innocence, and they let us go. So we retired into a
+narrow dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told each other
+not to murmur. We sat together through the whole rainy night, the rain
+mingling with our tears.</p>
+
+<p>When day broke I thought of a plan. I took twelve marks from the
+envelope containing the ship's money, and ran back to the station, and
+took tickets to Rotterdam, and so got to the end of our overland
+journey. When we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed like
+cattle. One of the Kazelia conspirators&mdash;for his arm reaches over
+Europe&mdash;called us into his office, and said: 'How much money have
+you?' I shook out the money from the envelopes on the table. Said he:
+'The amount is twelve marks short.' He had had advices, he said, from
+Kazelia that I would bring a certain amount, and I didn't have it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>'Here you can stay to-night. To-morrow you go back.' So he played on
+my ignorance, for I was paying at every stage in excess of the legal
+fares. But I knew not what powers he had. Every official was a
+possible disaster. We hardly lived till the day.</p>
+
+<p>Then I began to beg him to take my <i>Tallis</i> and <i>Tephillin</i>
+(praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the twelve marks. Said he: 'I
+have no use for them; you <i>must</i> go back.' With difficulty I got his
+permission to go out into the town, and I took my <i>Tallis</i> and
+<i>Tephillin</i>, and went into a <i>Shool</i> (synagogue), and I begged someone
+to buy them. But a good man came up, and would not permit the sale. He
+took out twelve marks and gave them to me. I begged him to give me his
+address that I might be able to repay him. Said he: 'I desire neither
+thanks nor money.' Thus was I able to replace the amount lacking.</p>
+
+<p>We embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing in money. We arrived
+in London at nine o'clock in the morning, penniless and without
+luggage, whereas I had calculated to have at least one hundred and
+fifty roubles and my household stuff. I had a friend's address, and we
+all went to look for him, but found that he had left London for
+America. We walked about all day till eight o'clock at night. The
+children could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness. At last
+we sat down on the steps of a house in Wellclose Square. I looked
+about, and saw a building which I took to be a <i>Shool</i> (synagogue), as
+there were Hebrew posters stuck outside. I approached it. An old Jew
+with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began to speak with me. I
+understood soon what sort of a person he was, and turned away. This
+<i>Meshummad</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>(converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with offers
+of food and drink for the family, and further help. I said: 'I want
+nothing of you, nor do I desire your acquaintance.'</p>
+
+<p>'I went back to my family. The children sat crying for food. They
+attracted the attention of a man, Baruch Zezangski (25, Ship Alley),
+and he went away, returning with bread and fish. When the children saw
+this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the man's hand to kiss it.
+Meanwhile darkness fell, and there was nowhere to pass the night. So I
+begged the man to find me a lodging for the night. He led us to a
+cellar in Ship Alley. It was pitch black. They say there is a hell.
+This may or may not be, but more of a hell than the night we passed in
+this cellar one does not require. Every vile thing in the world seemed
+to have taken up its abode therein. We sat the whole night sweeping
+the vermin from us. After a year of horror&mdash;as it seemed&mdash;came the
+dawn. In the morning entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. I
+had not a farthing, but I had a leather bag which I gave him for the
+night's lodging. I begged him to let me a room in the house. So he let
+me a small back room upstairs, the size of a table, at three and
+sixpence a week. He relied on our collecting his rent from the
+kind-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the empty room with joy, and sat down on the floor. We
+remained the whole day without bread. The children managed to get a
+crust now and again from other lodgers, but all day long they cried
+for food, and at night they cried because they had nothing to sleep
+on. I asked our landlord if he knew of any work we could do. He said
+he would see what could be done. Next day he went out, and returned
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>with a heap of linen to be washed. The family set to work at once, but
+I am sure my wife washed the things less with water than with tears.
+Oh, Kazelia! We washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing
+bread and washing. At the end of the week he said: 'You have worked
+out your rent, and have nothing to pay.' I should think not indeed!</p>
+
+<p>My eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a place at a tailor's
+for four shillings a week, and the others sought washing and
+scrubbing. So each day we had bread, and at the end of the week rent.
+Bread and water alone formed our sustenance. But we were very grateful
+all the same. When the holidays came on, my daughter fell out of work.
+I heard a word 'slack.' I inquired, 'What is the meaning of the word
+"slack"?' Then my daughter told me that it means <i>schlecht</i> (bad).
+There is nothing to be earned. Now, what should I do? I had no means
+of living. The children cried for bread and something to sleep on.
+Still we lived somehow till <i>Rosh Hashanah</i> (New Year), hoping it
+would indeed be a New Year.</p>
+
+<p>It was <i>Erev Yomtov</i> (the day before the holiday), and no washing was
+to be had. We struggled as before death. The landlord of the house
+came in. He said to me: 'Aren't you ashamed? Can't you see your
+children have scarcely strength to live? Why have you not compassion
+on your little ones? Go to the Charity Board. There you will receive
+help.' Believe me, I would rather have died. But the little ones were
+starving, and their cries wrung me. So I went to a Charity Board. I
+said, weeping: 'My children are perishing for a morsel of bread. I can
+no longer look upon their sufferings.' And the Board answered: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>'After
+<i>Yomtov</i> we will send you back to Russia.' 'But meanwhile,' I
+answered, 'the children want food.' Whereupon one of the Board struck
+a bell, and in came a stalwart Angel of Death, who seized me by the
+arm so that it ached all day, and thrust me through the door. I went
+out, my eyes blinded with tears, so that I could not see where I went.
+It was long before I found my way back to Ship Alley. My wife and
+daughters already thought I had drowned myself for trouble. Such was
+our plight the Eve of the Day of Atonement, and not a morsel of bread
+to 'take in' the fast with! But just at the worst a woman from next
+door came in, and engaged one of my daughters to look after a little
+child during the fast (while she was in the synagogue) at a wage of
+tenpence, paid in advance. With joy we expended it all on bread, and
+then we prayed that the Day of Atonement should endure long, so that
+we could fast long, and have no need to buy food; for as the moujik
+says, 'If one had no mouth, one could wear a golden coat.'</p>
+
+<p>I went to the Jews' Free School, which was turned into a synagogue,
+and passed the whole day in tearful supplication. When I came home at
+night my wife sat and wept. I asked her why she wept. She answered:
+'Why have you led me to such a land, where even prayer costs money&mdash;at
+least, for women? The whole day I went from one <i>Shool</i> to another,
+but they would not let me in. At last I went to the <i>Shool</i> of the
+"Sons of the Soul," where pray the pious Jews, with beards and
+ear-locks, and even there I was not allowed in. The heathen policeman
+begged for me, and said to them: "Shame on you not to let the poor
+woman in." The <i>Gabbai</i> (treasurer) answered: "If one hasn't money,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>one sits at home."' And my wife said to him, weeping: 'My tears be on
+your head,' and went home, and remained home the whole day weeping.
+With a woman <i>Yom Kippur</i> is a wonder-working day. She thought that
+her prayers might be heard, that God would consider her plight if she
+wept out her heart to Him in the <i>Shool</i>. But she was frustrated, and
+this was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. Moreover, she was
+oppressed by her own brethren, and this was indeed bitter. If it had
+been the Gentile, she would have consoled herself with the thought,
+'We are in exile.' When the fast was over, we had nothing but a little
+bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for the next day's
+fast. Nevertheless we sorrowfully slept. But the wretched day came
+again, and the elder children went out into the street to seek
+<i>Parnosoh</i> (employment), and found scrubbing, that brought in
+nine-pence. We bought bread, and continued to live further. Likewise
+we obtained three shillings worth of washing to do, and were as rich
+as Rothschild. When <i>Succoth</i> (Tabernacles) came, again no money, no
+bread, and I went about the streets the whole day to seek for work.
+When I was asked what handicraftsman I was, of course I had to say I
+had no trade, for, foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of
+Russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to hold one up
+to scorn, they say to him: 'Anybody can see you are a descendant of a
+handicraftsman.'</p>
+
+<p>I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, but what availed
+these accomplishments? As I found I could obtain no work, I went into
+the <i>Shool</i> of the 'Sons of the Soul.' I seated myself next a man, and
+we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he: <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>'I will give you
+advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is a very fine man.'</p>
+
+<p>I did so. As I entered, he sat in company with another man, holding
+his <i>Lulov</i> and <i>Esrog</i> (palm and citron). 'What do you want?' I
+couldn't answer him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears
+gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand. I felt assured of
+sympathy, if of nothing else. I told him we were perishing for want of
+bread, and asked him to give me advice. He answered nothing. He turned
+to the man, and spoke concerning the Tabernacle and the Citron. He
+took no further notice of me, but left me standing.</p>
+
+<p>So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia. And this is a
+Rabbi! As I saw I might as well have talked to the wall, I left the
+room without a word from him. As the moujik would say: 'Sad and bitter
+is the poor man's lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb and not to
+see the sunlit world than to be a poor man and be compelled to beg for
+money.'</p>
+
+<p>I came home, where my family was waiting patiently for my return with
+bread. I said: 'Good <i>Yomtov</i>,' weeping, for they looked scarcely
+alive, having been without a morsel of food that day.</p>
+
+<p>So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his
+due. 'Hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep?' But he
+refused to be talked over. So we passed the night. When day came the
+little children began to cry: 'Father, let us go. We will beg bread in
+the streets. We die of hunger. Don't hold us back.'</p>
+
+<p>When the mother heard them speak of begging in the streets, she
+swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>among the children. When at
+length we brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her
+to life. 'I would rather have died than hear you speak of begging in
+the streets&mdash;rather see my children die of hunger before my eyes.'
+This speech of the mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they
+sat and wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man from next door,
+Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was the matter. He looked around,
+and his heart went out to us. So he went away, and returned speedily
+with bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away again, returning
+with five shillings. He said: 'This I lend you.' Later he came back
+with a man, Nathan Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away
+the three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when I called to
+see them in his house in St. George's Road, they hid themselves from
+me, being afraid I should want them to return to endure again the
+pangs of hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should have
+the care of my children, and that they should shun me as one shuns a
+forest-robber.</p>
+
+<p>After <i>Yomtov</i> I went to Grunbach, the shipping agent, to see whether
+my luggage had arrived, as I had understood from Kazelia that it would
+get here in a month's time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired
+concerning it. Said he: 'Your luggage won't come to London, only to
+Rotterdam. If you like, I will write a letter to inquire if it is at
+Rotterdam, and how much money is due to redeem it.' I told him I had
+borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he calculated that it
+would cost me &pound;4 6s., including freight to redeem it. But I told him
+to write and ask. Some days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating
+the cost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>at eighty-three roubles (&pound;8 13s.), irrespective of freight
+dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I immediately wrote to
+Kazelia: 'Why do you behave like a forest-robber, giving me only
+twenty-five roubles where you got eighty-three?' Answered he: 'Shame
+on you to write such a letter! Haven't you been in my house, and seen
+what an honourable Jew I am? Shame on you! To such men as you one
+can't do a favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in the
+world? You are all thick-headed. You can't read a letter. I only took
+fifty-four roubles on the luggage; I had to recoup myself because I
+lost money through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, and
+only took what was due to me.' I showed the letter to Grunbach, and he
+wrote again to Rotterdam, and they answered that they knew nothing of
+a Kazelia. I must pay the &pound;8 13s. if I wanted my bundle. Well, what
+was to be done? The weather grew colder. Hunger we had become inured
+to. But how could we pass the winter nights on the bare boards? I
+wrote again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever. Day and night
+I went about asking advice concerning the luggage. Nobody could help
+me.</p>
+
+<p>And as I stood thus in the middle of the sea, word came to me of a
+<i>Landsmann</i> (countryman) I had once helped to escape from the Russian
+army, in the days when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he
+had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in front of the
+sea in a great town called Brighton. So I started off at once to talk
+to him&mdash;two days' journey, they said&mdash;for I knew he would help; and if
+not he, who? I would come to him as his Sabbath guest; he would surely
+fall upon my neck. The first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>night I slept in a barn with another
+tramp, who pointed me the way; but because I stopped to earn sixpence
+by chopping wood, lo! when Sabbath came I was still twelve miles away,
+and durst not profane the Sabbath by walking. So I lingered that
+Friday night in a village, thanking God I had at least the money for a
+bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money. And all next day, I
+know not why, the street-boys called me a <i>Goy</i> (heathen) and a
+fox&mdash;'Goy-Fox, Goy-Fox!'&mdash;and they let off fireworks in my face. So I
+had to wander in the woods around, keeping within the Sabbath radius,
+and when the three stars appeared in the sky I started for Brighton.
+But so footsore was I, I came there only at midnight, and could not
+search. And I sat down on a bench; it was very cold, but I was so
+tired. But the policeman came and drove me away&mdash;he was God's
+messenger, for I should perchance have died&mdash;and a drunken female with
+a painted face told him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. How
+could I refuse? I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday morning I
+started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; but my heart
+grew sick, for I saw the shops were shut. At last I saw a jewellery
+shop and my <i>Landsmann's</i> name over it. It sparkled with gold and
+diamonds, and little bills were spread over it&mdash;'Great sale! Great
+sale!' Then I went joyfully to the door, but lo! it was bolted. So I
+knocked and knocked, and at last a woman came from above, and told me
+he lived in that road in Hove, where I found indeed my redeemer, but
+not my <i>Landsmann</i>. It was a great house, with steps up and steps
+down. I went down to a great door, and there came out a beautiful
+heathen female with a shining white cap on her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>head and a shining
+white apron, and she drove me away.</p>
+
+<p>'Goy-Fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath and slammed the door
+on my heart; and I sat down on the pavement without, and I became a
+pillar of salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw the
+Angel of the Lord.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>CHAPTER III</h4>
+
+<h4>THE PICTURE EVOLVES</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>Such was my model's simple narrative, the homely realism of which
+appealed to me on my most imaginative side, for through all its sordid
+details stood revealed to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it
+Heine or another who said 'The people of Christ is the Christ of
+peoples'? At any rate, such was the idea that began to take possession
+of me as I painted away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried
+model&mdash;to paint, not the Christ that I had started out to paint, but
+the Christ incarnated in a race, suffering&mdash;and who knew that He did
+not suffer over again?&mdash;in its Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could
+still be my model, but after another conception altogether.</p>
+
+<p>It was an idea that called for no change in what I had already done.
+For I had worked mainly upon the head, and now that I purposed to
+clothe the figure in its native gaberdine, there would be little to
+re-draw. And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling even
+safer now that I was painting and interpreting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>a real thing than when
+I was trying to reconstruct retrospectively the sacred figure that had
+walked in Galilee.</p>
+
+<p>And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new conception than I found
+everywhere how old it was. It appeared even to have Scriptural
+warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture
+by a Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of the passages
+in the Prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming
+Messiah, really applied to Israel, the people. Israel it was whom
+Isaiah, in that famous fifty-third chapter, had described as 'despised
+and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.' Israel it was who bore the
+sins of the world. 'He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he
+opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Yes,
+Israel was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German Professor,
+I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic opinion. My model proved a mine
+of lore upon this as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish
+expectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he said&mdash;that the
+<i>Messhiach</i> would come riding upon a white ass. Israel would be
+redeemed by itself, though his neighbours would have called the
+sentiment 'epicurean.'</p>
+
+<p>'Whoever saves me is my <i>Messhiach</i>,' he declared suddenly, and
+plucked at my hand to kiss it.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, you shock <i>me</i>,' I said, pushing him away.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' he said; 'I agree with the word of the moujik: "the good
+people <i>are</i> God."'</p>
+
+<p>'Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' he replied; 'now that you have saved me, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>see that God works
+only through men. As for the <i>Messhiach</i> on the white ass, they do not
+really believe it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. For
+my own part, when I say the prayer, "Blessed be Thou who restorest the
+dead to life," I always mean it of <i>you</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satisfied the greediest
+benefactor, and was infinitely in excess of what he owed me. He seemed
+unconscious that he was doing work, journeying punctually long miles
+to my studio in any and every weather. It is true that I early helped
+him to redeem his household gods, but could I do less for a man who
+had still no bed to sleep in?</p>
+
+<p>My recovery of the Rotterdam bundle served to unveil further
+complications. The agents at the East End charged him three shillings
+and sixpence per letter, and conducted the business with a fine legal
+delay. But it was not till Kazelia was eulogized by one of these
+gentry as a very fine man that both the model and I grew suspicious
+that the long chain of roguery reached even unto London, and that the
+confederates on this side were playing for time, so that the option
+should expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage, which they
+would doubtless buy in cheap, making another profit.</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately Quarriar told me his second daughter&mdash;for the eldest was
+blind of one eye&mdash;was prepared to journey alone to Rotterdam, as the
+safest way of redeeming the goods. Admiring her pluck, I added her
+fare to the expenses.</p>
+
+<p>One fine morning Israel appeared, transfigured with happiness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>'When does man rejoice most?' he cried. 'When he loses and finds
+again.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, then you have got your bedding at last,' I cried, now accustomed
+to his methods of expression. 'I hope you slept well.'</p>
+
+<p>'We could not sleep for blessing you,' he replied unexpectedly. 'As
+the Psalmist says, "All my bones praise the Lord!"'</p>
+
+<p>Not that the matter had gone smoothly even now. The Kazelia gang at
+Rotterdam denied all knowledge of the luggage, sent the girl to the
+railway, where the dues had now mounted to &pound;10 6s. Again the cup was
+dashed from her lips, for I had only given her &pound;9. But she went to the
+Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the balance to repledge the Sabbath
+silver candlesticks that were the one family heirloom in the bundle,
+and therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading with him, in
+came a noble Jew, paid the balance, lodged her and fed her, and saw
+her safely on board with the long-lost treasures.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>CHAPTER IV</h4>
+
+<h4>I BECOME A SORTER</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress I was making
+was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my
+picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several
+times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its
+advancing stages with a sort of hopeless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>fear. My anxiety about him
+and his family grew from day to day, but I could not see any possible
+way of helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and
+uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. Once I gave him a few
+shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were
+necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the
+Ghetto Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned
+me the balance&mdash;about two-thirds.</p>
+
+<p>I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir Asher Aaronsberg,
+the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in
+town in connection with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how
+indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish charities, I
+inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist
+Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very encouraging. The man knew no trade.
+However, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer
+the questions, he would see what could be done. I saw that the details
+were duly filled in&mdash;the ages and sex of his five children, etc.</p>
+
+<p>But the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they
+could do was to repatriate the man. 'Return to Russia!' cried Israel
+in horror.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to
+him. But he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own
+accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the
+majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again
+came a fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be given a
+week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working
+master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms
+on the top floor. But that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>was only when there was an extra spasm of
+activity. His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the
+landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.</p>
+
+<p>At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that
+was carefully worked out in all its details. The scheme was certainly
+a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing
+a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among
+these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly his scheme was this. In the innumerable tailors' workshops of
+his district great piles of cuttings of every kind and quality of
+cloth accumulated, and for the purchase of these cuttings a certain
+competition existed among a class of people, known as piece-sorters.
+The sale of these cuttings by weight and for cash brought the
+master-tailors a pleasant little revenue, which was the more prized as
+it was a sort of perquisite. The masters were able to command payment
+for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect
+them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount he had advanced
+was exhausted. Quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be
+able to employ his daughters too. The whole family would find
+occupation in sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size
+would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven again into the
+cheaper woollen materials. Through the recommendation of his
+countrymen, there were several tailors who had readily agreed to give
+him the preference. His own landlord in particular had promised to
+befriend him, and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate at
+some inconvenience, since he might have had ready <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>money for them.
+Moreover, his friends had introduced him to a very respectable and
+honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, teach him, and
+allow his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put down
+twenty pounds! His friends would jointly advance him eight on the
+security of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other
+twelve.</p>
+
+<p>This promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, and I hastened,
+somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the professional philanthropist,
+who had been so barren of ideas, with my intention to set up Quarriar
+as a piece-sorter.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah,' Sir Asher replied, unmoved. 'Then you had better employ my man
+Conn; he does a good deal of this sort of work for me. He will find
+Quarriar a partner and professor.'</p>
+
+<p>'But Quarriar has already found a partner.' I explained the scheme.</p>
+
+<p>'The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is ridiculous. Five pounds
+is quite enough. Take my advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I
+wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an
+amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell
+Conn I gave them. I don't believe the money'll do any good, and Conn
+will lose his respect for me.'</p>
+
+<p>My interest in piece-sorting&mdash;an occupation I had never even heard of
+before&mdash;had grown abnormally, and I had gone into the figures and
+quantities&mdash;so many hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings,
+sorted into lots, and sold at various prices&mdash;with as thorough-going
+an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to depend upon it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>I confess I was now rather bewildered by so serious a difference of
+estimate as to the cost of a partnership, but I was inclined to set
+down Sir Asher's scepticism to that pessimism which is the penalty of
+professional philanthropy.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, I felt that whether the partnership was to cost
+five pounds or twenty, Quarriar's future would be safer from Kazelias
+under the auspices of Sir Asher and his Conn. So I handed the latter
+the five pounds, and bade him find Quarriar a guide, philosopher, and
+partner.</p>
+
+<p>With the advent of Conn, all my troubles began, and the picture passed
+into its third and last stage.</p>
+
+<p>I soon elicited that Quarriar and his friends were rather sorry Conn
+had been introduced into the matter. He was alleged to favour some
+people at the expense of others, and to be not at all popular among
+the people amid whom he worked. And altogether it was abundantly clear
+that Quarriar would rather have gone on with the scheme in his own way
+without official interference.</p>
+
+<p>Later, Sir Asher wrote to me direct that the partner put forward by
+the Quarriar faction was a shady customer; Conn had selected his own
+man, but even so there was little hope Quarriar's future would be thus
+provided for.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of Quarriar sounding
+underneath, but I found comfort in the reflection that to Sir Asher my
+model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance,
+whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he
+was something infinitely more human.</p>
+
+<p>Spring was now nearing; I finished my picture early <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>in March&mdash;after
+four months' strenuous labour&mdash;shook hands with my model, and received
+his blessing. I was somewhat put out at learning that Conn had not yet
+given him the five pounds necessary to start him, as I had been hoping
+he might begin his new calling immediately the sittings ended. I gave
+him a small present to help tide over the time of waiting.</p>
+
+<p>But that tragic face on my own canvas remained to haunt me, to ask the
+question of his future, and few days elapsed ere I found myself
+starting out to visit him at his home. He lived near Ratcliffe
+Highway, a district which I found had none of that boisterous marine
+romance with which I had associated it.</p>
+
+<p>The house was a narrow building of at least the sixteenth century,
+with the number marked up in chalk on the rusty little door. I
+happened to have stumbled on the Jewish Passover. Quarriar was called
+down, evidently astonished and unprepared for my appearance at his
+humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow,
+steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as I climbed up
+after him. On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment,
+intercepted us, introduced himself in English (which he spoke with
+pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took
+possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were
+entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his
+attic.</p>
+
+<p>He was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness and vigour&mdash;a
+marked contrast to Quarriar's drooping, dignified figure standing
+silently near by, and radiating poverty and suffering all the more in
+the little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved walnut
+cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>birds. Effusively the
+master-tailor painted himself as the champion of the poor fellow, and
+protested against this outside partnership that was being imposed on
+him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though he could scarcely afford
+it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from
+other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn't see
+why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should
+benefit by this goodness of his. He discoursed to me in moved terms of
+the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms
+upstairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his attitude of
+drooping dignity, saying no syllable except under special appeal.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub for the benefit of the
+high-born visitor, and we all clinked glasses, the young master-tailor
+beaming at me unctuously as he set down his glass.</p>
+
+<p>'I love company,' he cried, with no apparent consciousness of impudent
+familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>I returned, however, to my central interest in life&mdash;the
+piece-sorting. It occurred to me afterwards that possibly I ought not
+to have insisted on such a secular subject on a Jewish holiday, but,
+after all, the landlord had broached it, and both men now entered most
+cordially into the discussion. The landlord started repeating his
+lament&mdash;what a pity it would be if Quarriar were really forced to
+accept Conn's partner&mdash;when Quarriar timidly blurted out that he had
+already signed the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received
+the promised capital from Conn, nor spoken over matters with the
+partner provided. The landlord seemed astonished and angry at learning
+this, pricking up his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>ears curiously at the word 'signed,' and giving
+Quarriar a look of horror.</p>
+
+<p>'Signed!' he cried in Yiddish. '<i>What</i> hast thou signed?'</p>
+
+<p>At this point the landlord's wife joined us in the parlour, with a
+pretty child in her arms and another shy one clinging to her skirts,
+completing the picture of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into
+greater shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed my way
+up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly prepared for the depressing
+spectacle that awaited me at their summit. It was not so much the
+shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses,
+a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of Passover cakes,
+as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and
+flushing before their important visitor. The wife-and-mother was
+dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were squat, with
+tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely suggestive of Caucasian peasants,
+while the sightless eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness.</p>
+
+<p>How little my academic friends know me who imagine I am allured by the
+ugly! It is only that sometimes I see through it a beauty that they
+are blind to. But here I confess I saw nothing but the ghastly misery
+and squalor, and I was oppressed almost to sickness as much by the
+scene as by the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>'May I open a window?' I could not help inquiring.</p>
+
+<p>The genial landlord, who had followed in my footsteps, rushed to
+anticipate me, and when I could breathe more freely, I found something
+of the tragedy that had been swallowed in the sordidness. My eye <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>fell
+again on the figure of my host standing in his drooping majesty, the
+droop being now necessary to avoid striking the ceiling with his
+kingly head.</p>
+
+<p>Surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would have detracted from
+the splendour of the tragedy. Israel stood there, surrounded by all
+that was mean, yet losing nothing of his regal dignity&mdash;indeed the Man
+of Sorrows.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>Ere I left I suddenly remembered to ask after the three younger
+children. They were still with their kind benefactor, the father told
+me.</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose you will resume possession of them when you make your
+fortune by the piece-sorting?' I said.</p>
+
+<p>'God grant it,' he replied. 'My bowels yearn for that day.'</p>
+
+<p>Against my intention I slipped into his hand the final seven pounds I
+was prepared to pay. 'If your partnership scheme fails, try again
+alone,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>His blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. His womankind
+remained shy and dumb.</p>
+
+<p>When I got home I found a telegram from the Parsonage. My father was
+dangerously ill. I left everything and hastened to help nurse him. My
+picture was not sent in to any Exhibition&mdash;I could not let it go
+without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. When, some
+months later, I returned to town, my first thought&mdash;inspired by the
+sight of my picture&mdash;was how Quarriar was faring. I left the studio
+and telephoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at the London office of his
+great Middleton business.</p>
+
+<p>'That!' His contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'Smashed up
+long ago. Just as I expected.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>And the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated
+triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I could recover my composure
+Sir Asher was cut off. In the evening I received a note saying
+Quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of
+spirits. He had only two, at most three, elderly daughters; the three
+younger girls were a myth. For a moment I was staggered; then all my
+faith in Israel returned. Those three children a figment of the
+imagination! Impossible! Why, I remembered countless little anecdotes
+about these very children, told me with the most evident fatherly
+pride. He had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made
+on her return home from her first morning at the English school.
+Impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of
+the moment. No; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my
+model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no
+reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not
+demanded anything. And then I remembered that tragic passage
+describing how these three little ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly
+soul, hid themselves when their father came to see them, fearing to be
+reclaimed by him to hunger and cold. If Quarriar could invent such
+things, he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of
+starvation I could recall no better touch.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Sir Asher. He said that Quarriar, challenged by Conn to
+produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further
+questions. I found myself approving of his conduct. 'A man ought not
+to be insulted by such absurd charges,' I said. Sir Asher merely
+smiled and took up his usual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>unshakable position behind his
+impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism.</p>
+
+<p>I wrote to Quarriar to call on me without delay. He came immediately,
+his head bowed, his features care-worn and full of infinite suffering.
+Yes, it was true; the piece-sorting had failed. For a few weeks all
+had gone well. He had bought cuttings himself, had given the partner
+thrust upon him by Conn various sums for the same purpose. They had
+worked together, sorting in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which
+his partner kept the key. So smoothly had things gone that he had felt
+encouraged to invest even the reserve seven pounds I had given him,
+but when the cellar was full of their common stock, and his own
+suspicions had been lulled by the regular division of the
+profits&mdash;seventeen shillings per week for each&mdash;one morning, on
+arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he found the place
+locked, and when he called at the partner's house for an explanation,
+the man laughed in his face. Everything in the cellar now belonged to
+him, he claimed, insisting that Quarriar had eaten up the original
+capital and his share of the profits besides.</p>
+
+<p>'Besides, it never <i>was</i> your money,' was the rogue's ultimate
+argument. 'Why shouldn't <i>I</i> profit, too, by the Christian's
+simplicity?'</p>
+
+<p>Conn blindly believed his own man, for the transactions had not been
+recorded in writing, and it was only a case of Quarriar's word against
+the partner's. It was the latter who in his venomous craft had told
+Conn the younger children did not exist. But, thank Heaven! his quiver
+was not empty of them. He had blissfully taken them home when
+prosperity began, but now that he was again face to face with
+starvation, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>they had returned to his hospitable countryman, Nathan
+Beck.</p>
+
+<p>'You are sure you could absolutely produce the little ones?'</p>
+
+<p>He looked grieved at my distrusting him. My faith in his probity was,
+he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. I
+dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly
+determined that the man's good name should be cleared. The crocodile
+partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of
+Conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly
+sanctioned. Again I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher replied
+kindly and without a trace of impatience. Would I get some
+intelligible written statement from Quarriar as to what had taken
+place?</p>
+
+<p>So, at my request, Quarriar sent me a statement in quaint
+English&mdash;probably the landlord's&mdash;alleging specifically that the
+partner had detained goods and money belonging to Quarriar to the
+amount of &pound;7 9s. 5d., and had assaulted him into the bargain. When the
+partner was threatened with police-court proceedings, he had defied
+Quarriar with the remark that Mr. Conn would bear out his honesty.
+Quarriar could give as references, to show that <i>he</i> was an honest man
+and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven
+Russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by Conn
+was well known as a swindler. Though he was starving, Quarriar refused
+to have anything further to say to Conn. Quarriar further referred to
+his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. But being
+afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>himself in writing, the
+landlord would give his version verbally.</p>
+
+<p>Against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as
+made by the partner. Quarriar, according to this, had received the
+five pounds direct from Conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to
+the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two separate sums of
+one pound each (of which he returned to Quarriar thirty-three
+shillings from sales), while Quarriar only gave him as his share of
+the profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen
+shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each week that had
+been arranged.</p>
+
+<p>The partner insisted further that he had never handled any money (of
+which Quarriar had always retained full control), and that all the
+goods in the cellar at the time of the quarrel were only of the value
+of ten shillings, to which he was entitled, as Quarriar still owed him
+thirty-three shillings. Moreover, he was willing to repeat in
+Quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to
+tell. As to the children, he challenged Quarriar to produce them.</p>
+
+<p>In vain I attempted to grapple with these conflicting documents. My
+head was in a whirl. It seemed to me that no judicial bench, however
+eminent, could, from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom
+of this matter. The arithmetic of both parties was hopelessly beyond
+me. The names of the witnesses introduced showed that there must be
+two camps, and that certainly Quarriar was solidly encamped amid his
+advisers.</p>
+
+<p>The whole business was taking on a most painful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>complexion, and I was
+torn by conflicting emotions and swayed alternately by suspicion and
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>How sift the false from the true amid all this tangled mass? And yet
+mere curiosity would not leave me content to go to my grave not
+knowing whether my model was apostle or Ananias. I, too, must then
+become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. Was there a black
+rag, and was there a white, or were both rags parti-coloured? To take
+only the one point of the children, it would seem a very simple matter
+to determine whether a man has five daughters or two; and yet the more
+I looked into it, the more I saw the complexity. Even if three little
+girls were produced for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for
+me to tell whether they really were the model's. Nor was it open to me
+to repeat the device of Solomon and have them hacked in two to see
+whose heart would be moved.</p>
+
+<p>And then, if Israel's story was false here, what of the rest? Was
+Kazelia also a myth? Did the second daughter ever go to Hamburg? Was
+the landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the
+attics to be emptied of any comforts? Where were the silver
+candlesticks? These and other questions surged up torturingly. But I
+remembered the footsore figure on the Brighton pavement; I remembered
+the months he had practically lived with me, the countless
+conversations, and as the Man of Sorrows rose reproachful before me
+from my own canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his dignity
+and probity returned unbroken.</p>
+
+<p>I called on Sir Asher&mdash;I had to go to the House of Commons to find
+him&mdash;and his practical mind quickly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>suggested the best course in the
+circumstances. He appointed a date for all parties&mdash;himself, myself,
+Conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring&mdash;to
+appear at his office. But, above all, Quarriar must bring the three
+children with him.</p>
+
+<p>On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar waiting for me. He was
+come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of
+underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he
+scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. He
+was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend Conn
+and Sir Asher, might turn against him. Even his landlord had
+threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to pay his rent the
+last week or two.</p>
+
+<p>I told him he might expect a letter asking him to attend at Sir
+Asher's office, that I should be there, and he should have an
+opportunity of facing his swindling partner. He welcomed it joyfully,
+and enthusiastically promised to obey the call and bring the children.
+I emptied my purse into his hand&mdash;there were three or four pounds&mdash;and
+he promised me that quite apart from the old tangle, he could now as
+an expert set up as a piece-sorter himself. And so his kingly figure
+passed out of my sight.</p>
+
+<p>The next document sent me in this <i>cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre</i> was a letter from
+Conn to announce that he had made all arrangements for the great
+meeting.</p>
+
+<p>'Sir Asher's private room in his office will be placed at the disposal
+of the inquiry. The original application form filled up by Quarriar
+clearly condemns him. The partner will be there, and I have arranged
+for Quarriar's landlord to appear if you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>think it necessary. I may
+add that I have very good reason to believe that Quarriar does not
+mean to appear. I fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the
+appointment.'</p>
+
+<p>I at once wrote a short note to Quarriar reminding him of the absolute
+necessity of appearing with the children, who should be even kept away
+from school.</p>
+
+<p>I reproduce the exact reply:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p class="sc">'Dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p>'Referring to your welcome letter, I gratify you very much for
+the trouble you have taken for me. But I'm sorry to tell you
+that I refuse to go before the committee according you
+arranged to, as I received a letter without any name
+threatening me that I should not dare to call for the
+committee to tell the truth for I will be put into mischief
+and trouble. It is stated also that the same gentleman does
+not require the truth. He helps only those he likes to. So I
+will not call and wish you my dear gentleman not to trouble to
+come. Therefore if you wish to assist me in somehow is very
+good and I will certainly gratify you and if not I will have
+to do without it, and will have to trust the Almighty. So
+kindly do not trouble about it as I do not wish to enter a
+risk, I remain your humble and grateful servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right sc">'Israel Quarriar.</p>
+
+<p>'P.S.&mdash;Last Wednesday a man called on my landlord and asked
+him some secrets about me, and told him at last that I shall
+have to state according I will be commanded to and not as I
+wish. I enclose you herewith the same letter I received, it is
+written in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>Jewish. Please not to show it to anyone but to
+tear it at once as I would not trust it to any other one. I
+would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. But
+my life is dearer. So you should not trouble to come. I fear
+already I gratify you for kind help till now, in the future
+you may do as you wish.'</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>CHAPTER V</h4>
+
+<h4>LAST STAGE OF ALL</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>This letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. Conn to English the
+Yiddish epistle. My imagination saw too clearly Quarriar himself
+dictating its luridly romantic phraseology. Such counter-plots, coils,
+treasons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! How Quarriar could
+even think them plausible I could not at first imagine; and with my
+anger was mingled a flush of resentment at his low estimate of my
+intellect.</p>
+
+<p>After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a Russian to whom
+apparently nothing medi&aelig;val was strange. But at the moment I had only
+the sense of outrage and trickery. All these months I had been fed
+upon lies. Day after day I had been swathed with them as with
+feathers. I had so pledged my reputation as a reader of character that
+he would appear with his three younger children, bear every test, and
+be triumphantly vindicated. And in that moment of hot anger and
+wounded pride I had almost slashed through my canvas and mutilated
+beyond redemption that kingly head. But it looked at me sadly with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>its sweet majesty, and I stayed my hand, almost persuaded to have
+faith in it still. I began multiplying excuses for Quarriar, figuring
+him as misled by his neighbours, more skilled than he in playing upon
+philanthropic heart-strings; he had been told, doubtless, that two
+daughters made no impression upon the flinty heart of bureaucratic
+charity, that in order to soften it one must 'increase and multiply.'
+He had got himself into a network of falsehood from which, though his
+better nature recoiled, he had been unable to disentangle himself. But
+then I remembered how even in Russia he had pursued an illegal
+calling, how he had helped a friend to evade military service, and
+again I took up my knife. But the face preserved its reproachful
+dignity, seemed almost to turn the other cheek. Illegal calling! No;
+it was the law that was illegal&mdash;the cruel, impossible law, that in
+taking away all means of livelihood had contorted the Jew's
+conscience. It was the country that was illegal&mdash;the cruel country
+whose frontiers could only be crossed by bribery and deceit&mdash;the
+country that had made him cunning like all weak creatures in the
+struggle for survival. And so, gradually softer thoughts came to me,
+and less unmingled feelings. I could not doubt the general accuracy of
+his melancholy wanderings between Russia and Rotterdam, between London
+and Brighton. And were he spotless as the dove, that only made surer
+the blackness of Kazelia and the partner&mdash;his brethren in Israel and
+in the Exile.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>And so the new Man of Sorrows shaped himself to my vision. And, taking
+my brush, I added a touch here and a touch there till there came into
+that face of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>sorrows a look of craft and guile. And as I stood back
+from my work, I was startled to see how nearly I had come to a
+photographic representation of my model; for those lines of guile had
+indeed been there, though I had eliminated them in my confident
+misrepresentation. Now that I had exaggerated them, I had idealized,
+so to speak, in the reverse direction. And the more I pondered upon
+this new face, the more I saw that this return to a truer homeliness
+and a more real realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty.
+For surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people of
+Christ&mdash;to have persisted sublimely, and to be as sordidly perverted;
+to be king and knave in one; to survive for two thousand years the
+loss of a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on
+its soul the yellow badge which had defaced its garments.</p>
+
+<p>For to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a privilege that has
+been accorded only to Israel&mdash;'the soldier of God.' That were no
+tragedy, but an heroic epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had
+prefigured. The true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom
+of an Israel <i>unworthy of his sufferings</i>. And this was the
+Israel&mdash;the high tragedian in the comedy sock&mdash;that I tried humbly to
+typify in my Man of Sorrows.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>ANGLICIZATION</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span><br />
+<a name="ANGLICIZATION" id="ANGLICIZATION"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>ANGLICIZATION<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<p class="cen">'English, all English, that's my dream.'</p>
+<p class="right sc">Cecil Rhodes.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Even in his provincial days at Sudminster Solomon Cohen had
+distinguished himself by his Anglican mispronunciation of Hebrew and
+his insistence on a minister who spoke English and looked like a
+Christian clergyman; and he had set a precedent in the congregation by
+docking the 'e' of his patronymic. There are many ways of concealing
+from the Briton your shame in being related through a pedigree of
+three thousand years to Aaron, the High Priest of Israel, and Cohn is
+one of the simplest and most effective. Once, taken to task by a
+pietist, Solomon defended himself by the quibble that Hebrew has no
+vowels. But even this would not account for the whittling away of his
+'Solomon.' 'S. Cohn' was the insignium over his clothing
+establishment. Not that he was anxious to deny his Jewishness&mdash;was not
+the shop closed on Saturdays?&mdash;he was merely anxious not to obtrude
+it. 'When we are in England, we are in England,' he would say, with
+his Talmudic sing-song.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>S. Cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of Sudminster, and his
+name had been printed on voting papers, and, what is more, he had at
+last become a Town Councillor. Really the citizens liked his stanch
+adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly by his Sabbath
+shutters: even the Christian clothiers bore him goodwill, not
+suspecting that S. Cohn's Saturday losses were more than
+counterbalanced by the general impression that a man who sacrificed
+business to religion would deal more fairly by you than his fellows.
+And his person, too, had the rotundity which the ratepayer demands.</p>
+
+<p>But twin with his Town Councillor's pride was his pride in being
+<i>Gabbai</i> (treasurer) of the little synagogue tucked away in a back
+street: in which for four generations prayer had ebbed and flowed as
+regularly as the tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the
+worshippers did such lucrative business. The synagogue, not the sea,
+was the poetry of these eager traffickers: here they wore phylacteries
+and waved palm-branches and did other picturesque things, which in
+their utter ignorance of Catholic or other ritual they deemed
+unintelligible to the heathen and a barrier from mankind. Very
+imposing was Solomon Cohn in his official pew under the reading
+platform, for there is nothing which so enhances a man's dignity in
+the synagogue as the consideration of his Christian townsmen. That is
+one of the earliest stages of Anglicization.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cohn was a pale image of Mr. Cohn, seeing things through his gold
+spectacles, and walking humbly in the shadow of his greatness. She had
+dutifully borne him many children, and sat on the ground for such as
+died. Her figure refused the Jewess's tradition of opulency, and
+remained slender as though repressed. Her work was manifold and
+unceasing, for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties she was
+necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with Jewish charities as the
+<i>Gabbai's</i> wife, tangled with Christian charities as the consort of
+the Town Councillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching up
+his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her slips in speaking the
+Councillor's English. He had had the start of her by five years, for
+she had been brought from Poland to marry him, through the good
+offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little dowry the nucleus of
+a thriving shop in a thriving port.</p>
+
+<p>And from this initial inferiority she never recovered&mdash;five milestones
+behind on the road of Anglicization! It was enough to keep down a more
+assertive personality than poor Hannah's. The mere danger of slipping
+back unconsciously to the banned Yiddish put a curb upon her tongue.
+Her large, dark eyes had a dog-like look, and they were set
+pathetically in a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense
+staying power.</p>
+
+<p>That S. Cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be denied. It is
+difficult to combine the offices of <i>Gabbai</i> and Town Councillor
+without a self-satisfaction that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>may easily degenerate into
+dissatisfaction with others. Least endurable was S. Cohn in his
+religious rigidity, and he could never understand that pietistic
+exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce
+ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was discovered reading
+'The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book,
+the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's
+breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having
+ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would
+accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen
+back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. The quartering
+and burning of these tales in an avenging fireplace was not the least
+of the reasons why the whipped youth wept, and it needed several
+pieces of cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the father's
+back was turned, to choke his sobs.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>With the daughters&mdash;and there were three before the son and
+heir&mdash;there was less of religious friction, since women have not the
+pious privileges and burdens of the sterner sex. When the eldest,
+Deborah, was married, her husband received, by way of compensation,
+the goodwill of the Sudminster business, while S. Cohn migrated to the
+metropolis, in the ambition of making 'S. Cohn's trouserings' a
+household word. He did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the
+Holloway Road.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>Gradually he came to live away from his business, and in the most
+fashionable street of Highbury. But he was never to recover his
+exalted posts. The London parish had older inhabitants, the local
+synagogue richer members. The cry for Anglicization was common
+property. From pioneer, S. Cohn found himself outmoded. The minister,
+indeed, was only too English&mdash;and especially his wife. One would
+almost have thought from their deportment that they considered
+themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the congregation. S.
+Cohn had been accustomed to a series of clergymen, who must needs be
+taught painfully to parrot 'Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, the
+Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family'&mdash;the
+indispensable atom of English in the service&mdash;so that he, the expert,
+had held his breath while they groped and stumbled along the
+precipitous pass. Now the whilom <i>Gabbai</i> and Town Councillor found
+himself almost patronized&mdash;as a poor provincial&mdash;by this mincing,
+genteel clerical couple. He retorted by animadverting upon the
+preacher's heterodoxy.</p>
+
+<p>An urban unconcern met the profound views so often impressed on Simon
+with a strap. 'We are not in Poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging
+his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>'In Poland!' S. Cohn's blood boiled. To be twitted with Poland, after
+decades of Anglicization! He, who employed a host of Anglo-Saxon
+clerks, counter-jumpers, and packers! 'And where did <i>your</i> father
+come from?' he retorted hotly.</p>
+
+<p>He had almost a mind to change his synagogue, but there was no other
+within such easy walking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>distance&mdash;an important Sabbatic
+consideration&mdash;and besides, the others were reported to be even worse.
+Dread rumours came of a younger generation that craved almost openly
+for organs in the synagogue and women's voices in the choir, nay, of
+even more flagitious spirits&mdash;devotional dynamitards&mdash;whose dream was
+a service all English, that could be understood instead of chanted!
+Dark mutterings against the ancient Rabbis were in the very air of
+these wealthier quarters of London.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' S. Cohn was wont to
+complain, 'that does not know the limits of Anglicization!'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>That Simon should enter his father's business was as inevitable as
+that the business should prosper in spite of Simon.</p>
+
+<p>His career had been settled ere his father became aware that Highbury
+aspired even to law and medicine, and the idea that Simon's education
+was finished was not lightly to be dislodged. Simon's education
+consisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools for the sons of
+tradesmen, while a long course of penny dreadfuls had given him a
+peculiar and extensive acquaintance with the ways of the world.
+Carefully curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his elementary
+Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his conception of the perfect
+Englishman. Ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so
+thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>restaurants!
+'We are emancipated now,' was his cry: 'we have too much intellect to
+keep all those old laws;' and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a
+fine spiritual glow, which somehow or other would not extend to bacon.
+That stuck more in his throat, and so was only taken in self-defence,
+to avoid the suspicions of a convivial company.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat at his father's side in the synagogue&mdash;a demure son of the
+Covenant&mdash;this young Englishman lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even
+as beneath his prayer-book had lurked 'The Pirates of Pechili.'</p>
+
+<p>In this hidden life Mrs. S. Cohn was not an aider or abettor, except
+in so far as frequent gifts from her own pocket-money might be
+considered the equivalent of the surreptitious cake of childhood. She
+would have shared in her husband's horror had she seen Simon
+banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy would have been
+original, not derivative. For her, indeed, London had proved narrowing
+rather than widening. She became part of a parish instead of part of a
+town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that! The vast background of
+London was practically a mirage&mdash;the London suburb was farther from
+London than the provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic
+life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family affairs, excluded
+even from the ladies' committee. Her lord's life, too, shrank, though
+his business extended&mdash;the which, uneasily suspected, did but increase
+his irritability. He had now the pomp and pose of his late offices
+minus any visible reason: a Sir Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen
+without authority.</p>
+
+<p>Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>clothe them had soon
+procured in London, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed
+under the Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own.
+Home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies
+grew the stronger by compression. He read 'the largest circulation,'
+and his wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions, never
+nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the Boer War
+began.</p>
+
+<p>'The impertinent rascals!' cried S. Cohn furiously. 'They have invaded
+our territory.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is it possible?' ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. 'This comes of our kindness to
+them after Majuba!'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>A darkness began to overhang the destinies of Britain. Three defeats
+in one week!</p>
+
+<p>'It is humiliating,' said S. Cohn, clenching his fist.</p>
+
+<p>'It makes a miserable Christmas,' said Mrs. Cohn gloomily. Although
+her spouse still set his face against the Christmas pudding which had
+invaded so many Anglo-Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window
+flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his consciousness than the
+Jewish holidays, which produced no impression on the life of the
+streets.</p>
+
+<p>The darkness grew denser. Young men began to enlist for the front: the
+City formed a new regiment of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his
+foreign houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent out several
+parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>had the same duly
+recorded in his favourite Christian newspaper, whence it was copied
+into his favourite Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more
+chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher Aaronsberg, M.P.
+for Middleton, who was equipping a local corps at his own expense.
+Gradually S. Cohn became aware that the military fever of which he
+read in both his organs was infecting his clothing emporium&mdash;that his
+own counter-jumpers were in heats of adventurous resolve. The military
+microbes must have lain thick in the khaki they handled. At any rate,
+S. Cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of the correct thing,
+announced that he would present a bonus to all who went out to fight
+for their country, and that he would keep their places open for their
+return. The Saturday this patriotic offer was recorded in his
+newspaper&mdash;'On inquiry at S. Cohn's, the great clothing purveyor of
+the Holloway Road, our representative was informed that no less than
+five of the young men were taking advantage of their employer's
+enthusiasm for England and the Empire'&mdash;the already puffed-up Solomon
+had the honour of being called to read in the Law, and first as
+befitted the sons of Aaron. It was a man restored almost to his
+provincial pride who recited the ancient benediction; 'Blessed art
+Thou, O Lord our God, who hast chosen us from among all peoples and
+given to us His law.'</p>
+
+<p>But there was a drop of vinegar in the cup.</p>
+
+<p>'And why wasn't Simon in synagogue?' he inquired of his wife, as she
+came down the gallery stairs to meet her lord in the lobby, where the
+congregants loitered to chat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>'Do I know?' murmured Mrs. Cohn, flushing beneath her veil.</p>
+
+<p>'When I left the house he said he was coming on.'</p>
+
+<p>'He didn't know you were to be "called up."'</p>
+
+<p>'It isn't that, Hannah,' he grumbled. 'Think of the beautiful
+war-sermon he missed. In these dark days we should be thinking of our
+country, not of our pleasures.' And he drew her angrily without, where
+the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchanging eulogiums on
+the 'Rule Britannia' sermon, made an Oriental splotch of colour on the
+wintry pavement.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast.</p>
+
+<p>'Where have you been?' thundered S. Cohn, who, never growing older,
+imagined Simon likewise stationary.</p>
+
+<p>'I went out for a walk&mdash;it was a fine morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'And where did you go?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, don't bother!'</p>
+
+<p>'But I shall bother. Where did you go?'</p>
+
+<p>He grew sullen. 'It doesn't matter&mdash;they won't have me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who won't have you?'</p>
+
+<p>'The War Office.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank God!' broke from Mrs. Cohn.</p>
+
+<p>'Eh?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>'It is nothing&mdash;he went to see the enlisting and all that. Your soup
+is getting cold.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polishing them
+with his serviette&mdash;always a sign of a stormy meal.</p>
+
+<p>'It seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said,
+looking from mother to son.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's madcap ideas,' Hannah
+murmured. 'But it's all over now, thank God!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 'especially as I am not
+going to be choked off. It's all stuff what the doctor says. I'm as
+strong as a horse. And, what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who
+can ride one.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hannah, will you explain to me what this <i>Meshuggas</i> (madness) is?'
+cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non-Anglicism.</p>
+
+<p>'I've got to go to the front, just like other young men!'</p>
+
+<p>'What!' shrieked S. Cohn. 'Enlist! You, that I brought up as a
+gentleman!'</p>
+
+<p>'It's gentlemen that's going&mdash;the City Imperial Volunteers!'</p>
+
+<p>'The volunteers! But that's my own clerks.'</p>
+
+<p>'No; there are gentlemen among them. Read your paper.'</p>
+
+<p>'But not rich Jews.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.'</p>
+
+<p>'We Jews of this favoured country,' put in Hannah eagerly, 'grateful
+to the noble people who have given us every right, every liberty,
+must&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>S. Cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious quotation from the
+war-sermon of the morning. 'Yes, we must subscribe and all that,' he
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>'We must fight,' said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>'You fight!' His father laughed half-hysterically. 'Why, you'd shoot
+yourself with your own gun!' He had not been so upset since the day
+the minister had disregarded his erudition.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, would I, though?' And Simon pursed his lips and nodded meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>'As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you'd be stuck on your own
+bayonet, like an obstinate pig.'</p>
+
+<p>Simon got up and left the table and the room.</p>
+
+<p>Hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 'There!' she said. 'And
+now he's turned sulky and won't eat.'</p>
+
+<p>'Didn't I say an obstinate pig? He's always been like that from a
+baby. But his stomach always surrenders.' He resumed his meal with a
+wronged air, keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent nervous
+polishing.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented himself&mdash;gun on
+shoulder. For a moment S. Cohn, devoid of his glasses, stared without
+recognition. Wild hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the
+Russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare sense of the
+<i>Chappers</i>, the Jewish man-gatherers who collected the tribute of
+young Jews for the Little Father. But as Simon began to loom through
+the red fog, 'A gun on the Sabbath!' he cried. It was as if the bullet
+had gone through all his conceptions of life and of Simon.</p>
+
+<p>Hannah snatched at the side-issue. 'I read in Josephus&mdash;Simon's prize
+for Hebrew, you know&mdash;that the Jews fought against the Romans on
+Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>'Yes; but they fought for themselves&mdash;for our Holy Temple.'</p>
+
+<p>'But it's for ourselves now,' said Simon. 'Didn't you always say we
+are English?'</p>
+
+<p>S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then he discovered he had no
+retort, only anger. And this made him angrier, and his mouth remained
+open, quite terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn.</p>
+
+<p>'What is the use of arguing with him?' she said imploringly. 'The War
+Office has been sensible enough to refuse him.'</p>
+
+<p>'We shall see,' said Simon. 'I am going to peg away at 'em again, and
+if I don't get into the Mounted Infantry, I'm a Dutchman&mdash;and of the
+Boer variety.'</p>
+
+<p>He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled father. 'Hannah,
+you must have known of this&mdash;these clothes,' S. Cohn spluttered.</p>
+
+<p>'They don't cost anything,' she murmured. 'The child amuses himself.
+He will never really be called out.'</p>
+
+<p>'If he is, I'll stop his supplies.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' said Simon airily, 'the Government will attend to that.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed!' And S. Cohn's face grew black. 'But remember&mdash;you may go,
+but you shall never come back.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Solomon! How can you utter such an awful omen?'</p>
+
+<p>Simon laughed. 'Don't bother, mother. He's bound to take me back.
+Isn't it in the papers that he promised?'</p>
+
+<p>S. Cohn went from black to green.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<p>Simon got his way. The authorities reconsidered their decision. But
+the father would not reconsider his. Ignorant of his boy's graceless
+existence, he fumed at the first fine thing in the boy's life. 'Tis a
+wise father that knows his own child.</p>
+
+<p>Mere emulation of his Christian comrades, and the fun of the thing,
+had long ago induced the lad to add volunteering to his other
+dissipations. But, once in it, the love of arms seized him, and when
+the call for serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised
+even himself leapt to his breast&mdash;the first call upon an idealism,
+choked, rather than fed, by a misunderstood Judaism. Anglicization had
+done its work; from his schooldays he had felt himself a descendant,
+not of Judas Maccab&aelig;us, but of Nelson and Wellington; and now that his
+brethren were being mowed down by a kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul
+rose in venomous sympathy. And, mixed with this genuine instinct of
+devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings of anticipated
+adventure, gorgeous visions of charges, forlorn hopes, picked-up
+shells, redoubts stormed; heritages of 'The Pirates of Pechili,' and
+all the military romances that his prayer-book had masked.</p>
+
+<p>He looked every inch an Anglo-Saxon, in his khaki uniform and his
+great slouch hat, with his bayonet and his bandolier.</p>
+
+<p>The night before he sailed for South Africa there was a service in St.
+Paul's Cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent
+his to his father. 'The Lord Mayor will attend in state. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>I dare say
+you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly.</p>
+
+<p>'He'll become a Christian next,' said S. Cohn, tearing the cards in
+twain.</p>
+
+<p>Later, Mrs. Cohn pieced them together. It was the last chance of
+seeing her boy.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the Cathedral service fell on a Friday night, when S.
+Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont to absorb the Sabbath peace. He
+would sit, after high tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime
+ingredient, dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved
+platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January night, the
+Sabbath arriving early in the afternoon, he was snoring before seven,
+and Mrs. Cohn slipped out, risking his wrath. Her religion forced her
+to make the long journey on foot; but, hurrying, she arrived at St.
+Paul's before the doors were opened. And throughout the long walk was
+a morbid sense of one wasted ticket. She almost stopped at a friend's
+house to offer the exciting spectacle, but dread of a religious rebuff
+carried her past. With Christians she was not intimate enough to
+invite companionship. Besides, would not everybody ask why she was
+going without her husband?</p>
+
+<p>She inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket, and soon found
+herself one of a crowd of parents on the steps. A very genteel crowd,
+she noted with pleasure. Her boy would be in good company. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>scraps
+of conversation she caught dealt with a world of alien things&mdash;how
+little she was Anglicized, she thought, after all those years! And
+when she was borne forward into the Cathedral, her heart beat with a
+sense of dim, remote glories. To have lived so long in London and
+never to have entered here! She was awed and soothed by the solemn
+vistas, the perspectives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the
+white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, the
+overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but otherwise suggesting
+dim, skyey space.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the men. But it did
+not seem to matter. The building kept one's thoughts religious. Around
+the waiting congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral
+rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit some dignitary the
+roar of cheering was heard like a salvo saluting his entry. The Lord
+Mayor and the Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by
+mace-bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded grandeur and
+robes, was a regretful memory of the days when, as a Town Councillor's
+consort, she had at least touched the hem of this unknown historic
+English life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without&mdash;that
+exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately into her life. And
+then, a little later, the wild cheers swept into the Cathedral like a
+furious wind, and the thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the
+air, and the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned towards
+the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. How she looked for
+Simon!</p>
+
+<p>The volunteers filed on, filed on&mdash;beardless youths mostly, a few with
+a touch of thought in the face, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>many with the honest nullity of the
+clerk and the shopman, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every
+face set and serious. Ah! at last, there was her Simon&mdash;manlier,
+handsomer than them all! But he did not see her: he marched on
+stiffly; he was already sucked up into this strange life. Her heart
+grew heavy. But it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The
+newspapers the next day found fault with the plain music, with the
+responses all in monotone, but to her it was divine. Only the words of
+the opening hymn, which she read in the 'Form of Prayer,' discomforted
+her:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Fight the good fight with all thy might,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely like was it to
+the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm! Did they, then, pray the Jewish
+prayers in Christian churches? 'For He shall give His angels charge
+over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.' Ah! how she prayed that for
+Simon!</p>
+
+<p>As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, inaudibly, in
+echoing, vaulted space, she studied the hymns and verses, with their
+insistent Old Testament savour, culminating in the farewell blessing:</p>
+
+<p>'The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon
+you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of His
+countenance upon you and give you peace.'</p>
+
+<p>How often she had heard it in Hebrew from the priests as they blessed
+the other tribes! Her husband himself had chanted it, with uplifted
+palms and curiously grouped fingers. But never before had she felt its
+beauty: she had never even understood its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>words till she read the
+English of them in the gilt-edged Prayer-Book that marked rising
+wealth. Surely there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving the
+two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended to kneel
+with the others, she felt her knees sinking in surrender to the larger
+life around her.</p>
+
+<p>As the volunteers filed out and the cheers came in, she wormed her way
+nearer to the aisle, scrambling even over backs of chairs in the
+general mellay. This time Simon saw her. He stretched out his martial
+arm and blew her a kiss. Oh, delicious tears, full of heartbreak and
+exaltation! This was their farewell.</p>
+
+<p>She passed out into the roaring crowd, with a fantastic dream-sense of
+a night-sky and a great stone building, dark with age and solemnity,
+and unreal figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and
+hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the procession and became
+part of its marching. She yearned forwards to vague glories, aware of
+a poor past. She ran with the crowd. How they cheered her boy! <i>Her</i>
+boy! She saw him carried off on the shoulders of Christian citizens.
+Yes; he was a hero. She was the mother of a hero.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IX</h4>
+
+<p>The first news she got from him was posted at St. Vincent. He wrote to
+her alone, with a jocose hope that his father would be satisfied with
+his sufferings on the voyage. Not only had the sea been rough, but he
+had suffered diabolically from the inoculation against enteric fever,
+which, even after he had got his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>sea-legs, kept him to his berth and
+gave him a 'Day of Atonement' thirst.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' growled S. Cohn; 'he sees what a fool he's been, and he'll take
+the next boat back.'</p>
+
+<p>'But that would be desertion.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, he didn't mind deserting the business.'</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cohn's bewilderment increased with every letter. The boy was
+sleeping in sodden trenches, sometimes without blankets; and instead of
+grumbling at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was not
+getting to the front. Heat and frost, hurricane and dust-storm&mdash;nothing
+came amiss. And he described himself as stronger than ever, and poured
+scorn on the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him.</p>
+
+<p>'All the same,' sighed Hannah, 'I do hope they will just be used to
+guard the lines of communication.' She was full of war-knowledge
+acquired with painful eagerness, prattled of Basuto ponies and Mauser
+bullets, pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact position of the armies,
+and marked her war-map with coloured pins.</p>
+
+<p>Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under the pressure
+of so much vivid new life, and from his cheery letters she learned
+much that was not in the papers, especially in those tense days when
+the C.I.V.'S did at last get to the front&mdash;and remained there: tales
+of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly poisoned, and oxen
+dropping dead as they dragged the convoys; tales of muddle and
+accident, tales of British soldiers slain by their own protective
+cannon as they lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British
+officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; tales of
+hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>putties worn to rags,
+and all the hidden miseries of uncleanliness and insanitation that
+underlie the glories of war. There were tales, too, of quarter-rations;
+but these she did not read to her husband, lest the mention of
+'bully-beef' should remind him of how his son must be eating forbidden
+food. Once, even, two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the
+battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized those letters and
+read them first. He began to speak of his boy at the war&mdash;nay, to read
+the letters to enthralled groups in the synagogue lobby&mdash;groups that
+swallowed without reproach the <i>tripha</i> meat cooked in Simon's
+mess-tin.</p>
+
+<p>It was like being <i>Gabbai</i> over again.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, Simon's view of the Boer was so strictly orthodox as to give
+almost religious satisfaction to the proud parent. 'A canting
+hypocrite, a psalm-singer and devil-dodger, he has no civilization
+worth the name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great trek he
+has acquired, from long intercourse with his Kaffir slaves, many of
+the native's savage traits. In short, a born liar, credulous and
+barbarous, crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.'</p>
+
+<p>'Crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,' repeated S. Cohn,
+pausing impressively. 'Haven't I always said that? The boy only bears
+out what I knew without going there. But hear further! "Is it to be
+wondered at that the Boer farmer, hidden in the vast undulations of
+the endless veldt, with his wife, his children and his slaves, should
+lose all sense of proportion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole
+knowledge filtering through Jo-burgh?"'</p>
+
+<p>As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>suddenly borne in on
+his wife with a stab of insight that he was reading a description of
+himself&mdash;nay, of herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great
+world, awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. The
+important voice of her husband broke again upon her reflections:</p>
+
+<p>'"He has held many nights of supplication to his fetish, and is still
+unconvinced that his God of Battles is asleep."' The reader chuckled,
+and a broad smile overspread the synagogue lobby. '"They are
+brave&mdash;oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it&mdash;they are good
+fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the back of them, and a
+profound contempt for us. Their whole life has been spent on the open
+veldt (we are always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows every
+inch of the ground), and they never risk anything except in the trap
+sort of man&oelig;uvres. The brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to
+them, and their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking into
+a death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there ever two races less
+alike?"' wound up the youthful philosopher in his tent. '"I really do
+not see how they are to live together after the war."'</p>
+
+<p>'That's easy enough,' S. Cohn had already commented to his wife as
+oracularly as if she did not read the same morning paper.
+'Intermarriage! In a generation or two there will be one fine
+Anglo-African race. That's the solution&mdash;mark my words. And you can
+tell the boy as much&mdash;only don't say I told you to write to him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Father says I'm to tell you intermarriage is the solution,' Mrs. Cohn
+wrote obediently. 'He really is getting much softer towards you.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>'Tell father that's nonsense,' Simon wrote back. 'The worst
+individuals we have to deal with come from a Boer mother and an
+English father, deposited here by the first Transvaal war.'</p>
+
+<p>S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. 'That was because there were
+two Governments&mdash;he forgets there will be only one United Empire now.'</p>
+
+<p>He was not appeased till Private Cohn was promoted, and sent home a
+thrilling adventure, which the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby
+to forward to the communal organ. The organ asked for a photograph to
+boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only <i>Gabbai</i>, but town councillor again.</p>
+
+<p>This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed printed copies to
+the staff of the Emporium with a bean-feast air, ran:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>'We go out every day&mdash;I am speaking of my own squadron&mdash;each
+officer taking his turn with twenty to fifty men, and sweep
+round the farms a few miles out; and we seldom come back
+without seeing Boers hanging round on the chance of a snipe at
+our flanks, or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. The
+local commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day&mdash;a
+hundred and fifty to our twenty-five&mdash;and we suffered; it was
+a horrible bit of country. There was a young chap,
+Winstay&mdash;rather a pal of mine&mdash;he had a narrow squeak, knocked
+over by a shot in his breast. I managed to get him safe back
+to camp&mdash;Heaven knows how!&mdash;and they made me a lance-corporal,
+and the beggar says I saved his life; but it was really
+through carrying a fat letter from his sister&mdash;not even his
+sweetheart. We chaff him at missing such a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>romantic chance.
+He got off with a flesh wound, but there is a great blot of
+red ink on the letter. You may imagine we were not anxious to
+let our comrades go unavenged. My superiors being sick or
+otherwise occupied, I was allowed to make a night-march with
+thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away&mdash;just to get square.
+It was a nasty piece of work, as we were within a few miles of
+the Boer laager, three hundred strong. There was moonlight,
+too&mdash;it was like a dream, that strange, silent ride, with only
+the stumble of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs.
+We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some
+thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. I told the men I
+wanted no shots&mdash;that would have brought down the
+commando&mdash;but cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept
+the farm&mdash;it was weird, but, alas! they were out on the loot.
+The men were furious, but we live in hopes.'</p></div>
+
+<p>The end was a trifle disappointing, but S. Cohn, too, lived in
+hopes&mdash;of some monstrous and memorable butchery. Even his wife had got
+used to the firing-line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm
+her boy. 'For He shall give His angels charge over thee.' She had come
+to think her secret daily repetition of the ninety-first Psalm
+talismanic.</p>
+
+<p>When Simon sent home the box which had held the chocolates presented
+by the Queen, a Boer bullet, and other curios, S. Cohn displayed them
+in his window, and the crowd and the business they brought him put him
+more and more in sympathy with Simon and the Empire. In conversation
+he deprecated the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>non-militarism of the Jew: 'If I were only a
+younger man myself, sir....'</p>
+
+<p>The night Mafeking was relieved, the Emporium was decorated with
+bunting from roof to basement, and a great illuminated window revealed
+nothing but stacks of khaki trouserings.</p>
+
+<p>So that, although the good man still sulked over Simon to his wife,
+she was not deceived; and, the time drawing nigh for Simon's return,
+she began to look happily forward to a truly reunited family.</p>
+
+<p>In her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that it was her
+husband who would die. Yet this is what the irony of fate brought to
+pass. In the unending campaign which death wages with life, S. Cohn
+was slain, and Simon returned unscratched from the war to recite the
+<i>Kaddish</i> in his memory.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>X</h4>
+
+<p>Simon came back bronzed and a man. The shock of finding his father
+buried had supplied the last transforming touch; and, somewhat to his
+mother's surprise, he settled down contentedly to the business he had
+inherited. And now that he had practically unlimited money to spend,
+he did not seem to be spending it, but to be keeping better hours than
+when dodging his father's eye. His only absences from home he
+accounted for as visits to Winstay, his pal of the campaign, with whom
+he had got chummier than ever since the affair of the cattle-guard.
+Winstay, he said, was of good English family, with an old house <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>in
+Harrow&mdash;fortunately on the London and North Western Railway, so that
+he could easily get a breath of country air on Saturday and Sunday
+afternoons. He seemed to have forgotten (although the Emporium was
+still closed on Saturdays) that riding was forbidden, and his mother
+did not remind him of it. The life that had been risked for the larger
+cause, she vaguely felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the
+smaller.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly two months after Simon's return, a special military service was
+held at the Great Synagogue on the feast of <i>Chanukah</i>&mdash;the
+commemoration of the heroic days of Judas Maccab&aelig;us&mdash;and the Jewish
+C.I.V.'s were among the soldiers invited. Mrs. Cohn, too, got a ticket
+for the imposing ceremony which was fixed for a Sunday afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day, Mrs. Cohn said
+suddenly: 'Guess who paid me a visit yesterday.'</p>
+
+<p>'Goodness knows,' said Simon.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Sugarman.' And she smiled nervously.</p>
+
+<p>'Sugarman?' repeated Simon blankly.</p>
+
+<p>'The&mdash;the&mdash;er&mdash;the matrimonial agent.'</p>
+
+<p>'What impudence! Before your year of mourning is up!'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cohn's sallow face became one flame. 'Not me! You!' she blurted.</p>
+
+<p>'Me! Well, of all the cheek!' And Simon's flush matched his mother's.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, it's not so unreasonable,' she murmured deprecatingly. 'I suppose
+he thought you would be looking for a wife before long; and
+naturally,' she added, her voice growing bolder, 'I should like to see
+you settled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>before I follow your father. After all, you are no
+ordinary match. Sugarman says there isn't a girl in Bayswater, even,
+who would refuse you.'</p>
+
+<p>'The very reason for refusing them,' cried Simon hotly. 'What a
+ghastly idea, that your wife would just as soon have married any other
+fellow with the same income!'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely exalted by it, as
+by the organ in St. Paul's, and strange tears of shame came to
+complicate her emotions further. She remembered how she had been
+exported from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah! how this new
+young generation was snapping asunder the ancient coils! how the new
+and diviner sap ran in its veins!</p>
+
+<p>'I shall only marry a girl I love, mother. And it's not likely to be
+one of these Jewish girls, I tell you frankly.'</p>
+
+<p>She trembled. 'One of which Jewish girls?' she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, any sort. They don't appeal to me.'</p>
+
+<p>Her face grew sallower. 'I am glad your father isn't alive to hear
+that,' she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>'But father said intermarriage is the solution,' retorted Simon.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cohn was struck dumb. 'He was thinking how to make the Boers
+English,' she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>'And didn't he say the Jews must be English, too?'</p>
+
+<p>'Aren't there plenty of Jewish girls who are English?' she murmured
+miserably.</p>
+
+<p>'You mean, who don't care a pin about the old customs? Then where's
+the difference?' retorted Simon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>The meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and Simon went off to don
+his khaki regimentals and join in the synagogue parade.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Cohn's heart was heavy as she dressed for the same spectacle. Her
+brain was busy piecing it all together. Yes, she understood it all
+now&mdash;those sedulous Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Harrow. She
+lived at Harrow, then, this Christian, this grateful sister of the
+rescued Winstay: it was she who had steadied his life; hers were those
+'fat letters,' faintly aromatic. It must be very wonderful, this
+strange passion, luring her son from his people with its forbidden
+glamour. How Highbury would be scandalized, robbed of so eligible a
+bridegroom! The sons-in-law she had enriched would reproach her for
+the shame imported into the family&mdash;they who had cleaved to the Faith!
+And&mdash;more formidable than all the rest&mdash;she heard the tongue of her
+cast-off seaport, to whose reverence or disesteem she still
+instinctively referred all her triumphs and failures.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, on the other hand, surged her hero-son's scorn at the union by
+contract consecrated by the generations! But surely a compromise could
+be found. He should have love&mdash;this strange English thing&mdash;but could
+he not find a Jewess? Ah, happy inspiration! he should marry a quite
+poor Jewess&mdash;he had money enough, thank Heaven! That would show him he
+was not making a match, that he was truly in love.</p>
+
+<p>But this strange girl at Harrow&mdash;he would never be happy with her! No,
+no; there were limits to Anglicization.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>XI</h4>
+
+<p>It was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue, relieved from
+the squeeze of entry in the wake of soldiers and the exhilaration of
+hearing 'See the Conquering Hero comes' pealing, she knew not whence,
+that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to the
+consciousness that she was actually sitting among the men&mdash;just as in
+St. Paul's. And what men! Everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms,
+the glister of gold lace&mdash;the familiar decorous lines of devout
+top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-skins, white nodding
+plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock, glengarries, all the colour of the
+British army, mixed with the feathered jauntiness of the Colonies and
+the khaki sombreros of the C.I.V.'s! Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards,
+Dragoon Guards, Lancers, Hussars, Artillery, Engineers, King's Royal
+Rifles, all the corps that had for the first time come clearly into
+her consciousness in her tardy absorption into English realities, Jews
+seemed to be among them all. And without conscription&mdash;oh, what would
+poor Solomon have thought of that?</p>
+
+<p>The Great Synagogue itself struck a note of modern English gaiety, as
+of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, divested of its historic
+mellowness, the electric light replacing the ancient candles and
+flooding the winter afternoon with white resplendence. The
+pulpit&mdash;yes, the pulpit&mdash;was swathed in the Union Jack; and looking
+towards the box of the <i>Parnass</i> and <i>Gabbai</i>, she saw it was occupied
+by officers with gold sashes. Somebody whispered that he with the
+medalled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>breast was a Christian Knight and Commander of the Bath&mdash;'a
+great honour for the synagogue!' What! were Christians coming to
+Jewish services, even as she had gone to Christian? Why, here was
+actually a white cross on an officer's sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning his Hebrew chant on
+the steps of the Ark, lit the great many-branched <i>Chanukah</i>
+candlestick. Truly, the world was changing under her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark in his turn, she saw that
+he wore a strange scarlet and white gown (military, too, she imagined
+in her ignorance), and&mdash;oh, even rarer sight!&mdash;he was followed by a
+helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the ornate Scrolls of
+the Law.</p>
+
+<p>And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a sweetness through her
+blood. An organ! An organ in the Synagogue! Ah! here indeed was
+Anglicization.</p>
+
+<p>It was thin and reedy even to <i>her</i> ears, compared with that divine
+resonance in St. Paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from
+the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the
+service&mdash;she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium&mdash;yet it
+brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears
+in the glittering uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon's eyes met his
+mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed between them.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sermon&mdash;the text taken with dual appropriateness from the
+Book of Maccabees. Fully one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the
+preacher, had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the Queen's
+dominions. Their beloved country had no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>more devoted citizens than
+the children of Israel who had settled under her flag. They had been
+gratified, but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names of
+more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and country. Many more had
+gone unrecorded, so that they had proportionally contributed more
+soldiers&mdash;from Colonel to bugler-boy&mdash;than their mere numbers would
+warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were the Englishman and the
+Jew whose Scriptures he had imbibed, that it was no accident that the
+Anglophobes of Europe were also Anti-Semites.</p>
+
+<p>And then the congregation rose, while the preacher behind the folds of
+the Union Jack read out the names of the Jews who had died for England
+in the far-off veldt. Every head was bent as the names rose on the
+hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this list, reeking
+with each bloody historic field, recalling every regiment, British or
+colonial; on and on in the reverent silence, till a black pall seemed
+to descend, inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had never
+dreamed so many of her brethren had died out there. Ah! surely they
+were knit now, these races: their friendship sealed in blood!</p>
+
+<p>As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed towards Simon and
+seized his hand for an instant, whispering passionately: 'My lamb,
+marry her&mdash;we are all English alike.'</p>
+
+<p>Nor did she ever know that she had said these words in Yiddish!</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>XII</h4>
+
+<p>Now came an enchanting season of confidences; the mother, caught up in
+the glow of this strange love, learning to see the girl through the
+boy's eyes, though the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of
+a plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The time was not ripe
+yet for bringing Lucy and her together, he explained. In fact, he
+hadn't actually proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for the
+year of mourning to be up.</p>
+
+<p>'But how will you be married?' she once asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>'But can't you make her a proselyte?' she ventured timidly.</p>
+
+<p>He coloured. 'It would be absurd to suddenly start talking religion to
+her.'</p>
+
+<p>'But she knows you're a Jew.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she
+know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the
+subject.'</p>
+
+<p>'A crank? About Jews?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are
+responsible for the war&mdash;and that they leave the fighting to the
+English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not
+treated as we should be, considering&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that,
+when you yourself&mdash;when you saved his&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I suppose just because he knows I <i>was</i> fighting, he doesn't
+think of me as a Jew. It's a bit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>illogical, I know.' And he smiled
+ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'</p>
+
+<p>'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the
+photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a
+property desk.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help
+him into the saddle.'</p>
+
+<p>'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to
+the war?' she persisted. 'Why, the paper had all their photographs!'</p>
+
+<p>'What paper?' said Simon, laughing. 'Do you suppose he reads the
+Jewish what's-a-name, like you? Why, he's never heard of it!'</p>
+
+<p>'Then you ought to show him a copy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, mother!' and he laughed again. 'That would only prove to him
+there are too many Jews everywhere.'</p>
+
+<p>A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn's hard-won content. But
+apparently it only shadowed her own horizon. Simon was as happily full
+of his Lucy as ever.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when Simon returned from
+Harrow earlier than his wont, and Hannah's dog-like eye noted that the
+cloud had at last reached his brow.</p>
+
+<p>'You have had a quarrel?' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Only with the old boy.'</p>
+
+<p>'But what about?'</p>
+
+<p>'The old driveller has just joined some League of Londoners for the
+suppression of the immigrant alien.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you should have told him we all agree there should be
+decentralization,' said Mrs. Cohn, quoting her favourite Jewish
+organ.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>'It isn't that&mdash;it's the old fellow's vanity that's hurt. You see, he
+composed the "Appeal to the Briton," and gloated over it so
+conceitedly that I couldn't help pointing out the horrible
+contradictions.'</p>
+
+<p>'But Lucy&mdash;&mdash;' his mother began anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>'Lucy's a brick. I don't know what my life would have been without the
+little darling. But listen, mother.' And he drew out a portentous
+prospectus. 'They say aliens should not be admitted unless they
+produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath
+they accuse them of taking the work away from the British workman. Now
+this isn't a Jewish question, and I didn't raise it as such&mdash;just a
+piece of muddle&mdash;and even as an Englishman I can't see how we can
+exclude Outlanders here after fighting for the Outland&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But Lucy&mdash;&mdash;' his mother interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>His vehement self-assertion passed into an affectionate smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows the old boy's vanity.
+Of course she couldn't side with me openly.'</p>
+
+<p>'But what will happen? Will you go there again?'</p>
+
+<p>The cloud returned to his brow. 'Oh, well, we'll see.'</p>
+
+<p>A letter from Lucy saved him the trouble of deciding the point.</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p><span class="sc">'Dear Silly Old Sim</span>,' it ran,</p>
+
+<p>'Father has been going on dreadfully, so you had better wait a
+few Sundays till he has cooled down. After all, you yourself
+admit there is a grievance of congestion and high rents in the
+East End. And it is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>only natural&mdash;isn't it?&mdash;that after
+shedding our blood and treasure for the Empire we should not
+be in a mood to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.'</p></div>
+
+<p>'Dirty!' muttered Simon, as he read. 'Has she seen the Christian
+slums&mdash;Flower and Dean Street?' And his handsome Oriental brow grew
+duskier with anger. It did not clear till he came to:</p>
+
+<div class="block"><p>'Let us meet at the Crystal Palace next Saturday, dear
+quarrelsome person. Three o'clock, in the Pompeian Room. I
+<i>have</i> got an aunt at Sydenham, and I <i>can</i> go in to tea after
+the concert and hear all about the missionary work in the
+South Sea Islands.'</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XIII</h4>
+
+<p>Ensued a new phase in the relation of Simon and Lucy. Once they had
+met in freedom, neither felt inclined to revert to the restricted
+courtship of the drawing-room. Even though their chat was merely of
+books and music and pictures, it was delicious to make their own
+atmosphere, untroubled by the flippancy of the brother or the
+earnestness of the father. In the presence of Lucy's artistic
+knowledge Simon was at once abashed and stimulated. She moved in a
+delicate world of symphonies and silver-point drawings of whose very
+existence he had been unaware, and reverence quickened the sense of
+romance which their secret meetings had already enhanced.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>Harrow, but the
+longer he delayed the more difficult the conciliatory visit grew.</p>
+
+<p>'Father is now deeper in the League than ever,' she told him. 'He has
+joined the committee, and the prospectus has gone forth in all its
+glorious self-contradiction.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, considering I am the son of an alien, and I have fought for&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'There, there! quarrelsome person,' she interrupted laughingly. 'No,
+no, no, you had better not come till you can forget your remote
+genealogy. You see, even now father doesn't quite realize you are a
+Jew. He thinks you have a strain of Jewish blood, but are in every
+other respect a decent Christian body.'</p>
+
+<p>'Christian!' cried Simon in horror.</p>
+
+<p>'Why not? You fought side by side with my brother; you ate ham with
+us.'</p>
+
+<p>Simon blushed hotly. 'But, Lucy, you don't think religion is ham?'</p>
+
+<p>'What, then? Merely Shem?' she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Simon laughed too. How clever she was! 'But you know I never could
+believe in the Trinity and all that. And, what's more, I don't believe
+you do yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>'It isn't exactly what one believes. I was baptized into the Church of
+England&mdash;I feel myself a member. Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully
+argumentative and quarrelsome person.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll never quarrel with you, Lucy,' he said half entreatingly; for
+somehow he felt a shiver of cold at the word 'baptized,' as though
+himself plunged into the font.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue or decision till
+the summer itself glided away. Mrs. Cohn, anxiously following the
+courtship through Sim's love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the
+girl be brought to see her received with equal postponement, began to
+fret for the great thing to come to pass. One cannot be always
+heroically stiffened to receive the cavalry of communal criticism.
+Waiting weakens the backbone. But she concealed from her boy these
+flaccid relapses.</p>
+
+<p>'You said you'd bring her to see me when she returned from the
+seaside,' she ventured to remind him.</p>
+
+<p>'So I did; but now her father is dragging her away to Scotland.'</p>
+
+<p>'You ought to get married the moment she gets back.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can't expect her to rush things&mdash;with her father to square. Still,
+you are not wrong, mother. It's high time we came to a definite
+understanding between ourselves at least.'</p>
+
+<p>'What!' gasped Mrs. Cohn. 'Aren't you engaged?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, in a way, of course. But we've never said so in so many words.'</p>
+
+<p>For fear this should be the 'English' way, Mrs. Cohn forbore to remark
+that the definiteness of the Sugarman method was not without
+compensations. She merely applauded Simon's more sensible mood.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Cohn was fated to a further season of fret. Day after day the
+'fat letters' arrived with the Scottish postmark and the faint perfume
+that always stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance&mdash;something
+far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>and the salt of
+tears. And still the lover, floating in his golden mist, vouchsafed
+her no definite news.</p>
+
+<p>One night she found him restive beyond his wont. She knew the reason.
+For two days there had been no scented letter, and she saw how he
+started at every creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last
+post. When at length a step was heard crunching on the gravel, he
+rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard the hall-door open. Her ear,
+disappointed of the rat-tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it
+seemed a long time before her boy's returning footstep reached her.
+The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her nerves, and her heart
+grew sick with premonition.</p>
+
+<p>He held out the letter towards her. His face was white. 'She cannot
+marry me, because I am a Jew,' he said tonelessly.</p>
+
+<p>'Cannot marry you!' she whispered huskily. 'Oh, but this must not be!
+I will go to the father; I will explain! You saved his son&mdash;he owes
+you his daughter.'</p>
+
+<p>He waved her hopelessly back to her seat&mdash;for she had started up. 'It
+isn't the father, it's herself. Now that I won't let her drift any
+longer, she can't bring herself to it. She's honest, anyway, my little
+Lucy. She won't fall back on the old Jew-baiter.'</p>
+
+<p>'But how dare she&mdash;how dare she think herself above you!' Her dog-like
+eyes were blazing yet once again.</p>
+
+<p>'Why are you Jews surprised?' he said bitterly. 'You've held yourself
+aloof from the others long enough, God knows. Yet you wonder they've
+got their prejudices, too.'</p>
+
+<p>And, suddenly laying his head on the table, he broke <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>into sobs&mdash;sobs
+that tore at his mother's heart, that were charged with memories of
+his ancient tears, of the days of paternal wrath and the rending of
+'The Pirates of Pechili.' And, again, as in the days when his boyish
+treasures were changed to ashes, she stole towards him, with an
+involuntary furtive look to see if S. Cohn's back was turned, and laid
+her hands upon his heaving shoulders. But he shook her off! 'Why
+didn't a Boer bullet strike me down?' Then with a swift pang of
+remorse he raised his contorted face and drew hers close against
+it&mdash;their love the one thing saved from Anglicization.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE JEWISH TRINITY</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_JEWISH_TRINITY" id="THE_JEWISH_TRINITY"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE JEWISH TRINITY<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>With the Christian Mayoress of Middleton to take in to dinner at Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg's, Leopold Barstein as a Jewish native of that
+thriving British centre, should have felt proud and happy. But
+Barstein was young and a sculptor, fresh from the Paris schools and
+Salon triumphs. He had long parted company with Jews and Judaism, and
+to his ardent irreverence even the Christian glories of Middleton
+seemed unspeakably parochial. In Paris he had danced at night on the
+Boule Miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in choruses over
+midnight bocks; and London itself now seemed drab and joyless, though
+many a gay circle welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the
+physical graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to shed a
+blonde radiance all around him. The factories of Middleton, which had
+manufactured Sir Asher Aaronsberg, ex-M.P., and nearly all his wealthy
+guests, were to his artistic eye an outrage upon a beautiful planet,
+and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile revolt in which one
+speaks one's thoughts of the mess humanity has made of its world. But,
+unfortunately, the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was extremely
+disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies met with an equally bland
+smile. On his other hand sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly
+charitable relict of 'The People's Clothier,' whose ugly pictorial
+posters had overshadowed Barstein's youth. Little wonder that the
+artist's glance frequently wandered across the great shining table
+towards a girl who, if they had not been so plaguily intent on
+honouring his fame, might have now been replacing the Mayoress at his
+side. True, the girl was merely a Jewess, and he disliked the breed.
+But Mabel Aaronsberg was unexpected. She had a statuesque purity of
+outline and complexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of
+his own. How the tedious old manufacturer could have produced this
+marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the sculptor, as he almost
+silently ate his way through the long and exquisite menu.</p>
+
+<p>Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very
+picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father
+Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and
+purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was
+dead&mdash;before even arriving at ladyship, alas!&mdash;and when she was alive
+Barstein had not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high
+municipal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign fame, and to
+his invitation by the Corporation to help in the organization of a
+local Art Exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>'I do admire Sir Asher,' the Mayoress broke in suddenly upon his
+reflections; 'he seems to me exactly like your patriarchs.'</p>
+
+<p>A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>Asher, with his
+hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far
+as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling
+Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were
+polygamists.'</p>
+
+<p>'Exactly,' assented the deaf Mayoress.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his statement in a shout,
+but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the
+dinner-table. The Mayoress added ecstatically: 'You can imagine him
+sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.'</p>
+
+<p>This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter. All eyes turned a bit
+enviously in his direction. 'You're having all the fun down there,'
+called out Sir Asher benevolently; and the bluff Briton&mdash;even to the
+northerly burr&mdash;was so vividly stamped upon Barstein's mind that he
+wondered the more that the Mayoress could see him as anything but the
+prosy, provincial, whilom Member of Parliament he so transparently
+was. 'A mere literary illusion,' he thought. 'She has read the Bible,
+and now reads Sir Asher into it. As well see a Saxon pirate or a
+Norman jongleur in a modern Londoner.'</p>
+
+<p>As if to confirm Barstein's vision of the bluff and burly Briton, Sir
+Asher was soon heard over the clatter of conversation protesting
+vehemently against the views of Tom Fuller, the degenerate son of a
+Tory squire.</p>
+
+<p>'Give Ireland Home Rule?' he was crying passionately. 'Oh, my dear Mr.
+Fuller, it would be the beginning of the end of our Empire!'</p>
+
+<p>'But the Irish have as much right to govern themselves as we have!'
+the young Englishman maintained.</p>
+
+<p>'They would not so much govern themselves as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>misgovern the Protestant
+minority,' cried Sir Asher, becoming almost epigrammatic in his
+excitement. 'Home Rule simply means the triumph of Roman Catholicism.'</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the defeat of Roman
+Catholicism meant no victory for Judaism, but he stayed his tongue
+with a salted almond. Let the Briton make the running. This the young
+gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace.</p>
+
+<p>'Then how about Home Rule for India? There's no Catholic majority
+there!'</p>
+
+<p>'Give up India!' Sir Asher opened horrified eyes. This heresy was new
+to him. 'Give up the brightest jewel in the British crown! And let the
+Russian bear come and swallow it up! No, no! A thousand times no!' Sir
+Asher even gestured with his fork in his patriotic fervour, forgetting
+he was not on the platform.</p>
+
+<p>'So I imagine the patriarchs to have talked!' said the Mayoress,
+admiringly observing his animation. Whereat the sculptor laughed once
+more. He was amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion of
+Judah had endued himself with the skin of the British lion. To a
+cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois patriotism was peculiarly
+irritating. But soon his eyes wandered again towards Miss Aaronsberg,
+and he forgot trivialities.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>The end of the meal was punctuated, not by the rising of the ladies,
+but by the host's assumption of a black cap, which popped up from his
+coat-tail pocket. With his head thus orientally equipped for prayer,
+Sir Asher suddenly changed into a Rembrandtesque figure, his white
+beard hiding the society shirtfront; and as he began intoning the
+grace in Hebrew, the startled Barstein felt that the Mayoress had at
+least a superficial justification. There came to him a touch of new
+and artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-M.P., who,
+environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of his glittering
+dinner-table uttering the language of the ancient prophets; and he
+respected at least the sturdiness with which Miss Aaronsberg's father
+wore his faith, like a phylactery, on his forehead. It said much for
+his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once elected him
+as their Member, despite his unpopular creed and race, and were now
+willing to sit at his table under this tedious benediction. Sir Asher
+did not even let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by a
+wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as was visible it
+was only the Jewish guests&mdash;comically distinguished by serviettes
+shamefacedly dabbed on their heads&mdash;who fidgeted under the pious
+torrent. These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians whose
+precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. In the host's
+son Julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. He had
+brought back from Oxford a contempt for his father's creed which was
+patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>Barstein, observing all this
+uneasiness, became curiously angry with his fellow-Jews, despite that
+he had scrupulously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette;
+a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up through all
+his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously trusted that the brave Sir
+Asher would pray his longest. He himself had been a tolerable Hebraist
+in his forcedly pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor
+heard any Hebrew prayers for many a year, his new artistic interest
+led him to listen to the grace, and to disentangle the meaning from
+the obscuring layers of verbal association and from the peculiar chant
+enlivened by occasional snatches of melody with which it was intoned.</p>
+
+<p>How he had hated this grace as a boy&mdash;this pious task-work that almost
+spoilt the anticipation of meals! But to-night, after so long an
+interval, he could look at it without prejudice, and with artistic
+aloofness render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>We thank Thee, O Lord our God, because Thou didst give as an
+heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and ample land, and
+because Thou didst bring us forth, O Lord our God, from the land of
+Egypt, and didst deliver us from the house of bondage&mdash;&mdash;</i>'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein heard no more for the moment; the paradox of this
+retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. What! Sir Asher was
+thankful because over three thousand years ago his ancestors had
+obtained&mdash;not without hard fighting for it&mdash;a land which had already
+been lost again for eighteen centuries. What a marvellous long memory
+for a race to have!</p>
+
+<p>Delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth! Sir Asher, himself&mdash;and
+here a musing smile crossed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>artist's lips&mdash;had never even known a
+house of bondage, unless, indeed, the House of Commons (from which he
+had been delivered by the Radical reaction) might be so regarded, and
+his own house was, as he was fond of saying, Liberty Hall. But that
+the Russian Jew should still rejoice in the redemption from Egypt! O
+miracle of pious patience! O sublime that grazed the ridiculous!</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Asher was still praying on:</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon Israel Thy people, upon Jerusalem
+Thy city, upon Zion the abiding place of Thy glory, upon the kingdom
+of the house of David, Thine anointed....</i>'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein lost himself in a fresh reverie. Here was indeed the
+Palestinian patriarch. Not with the corporation of Middleton, nor the
+lobbies of Westminster, not with his colossal business, not even with
+the glories of the British Empire, was Sir Asher's true heart. He had
+but caught phrases from the environment. To his deepest self he was
+not even a Briton. '<i>Have mercy, O Lord, upon Israel Thy people.</i>'
+Despite all his outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one of
+that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who had for eighteen
+centuries resisted alike the storm of persecution and the sunshine of
+tolerance, and whose one consolation in the long exile was the dream
+of Zion. The artist in Barstein began to thrill. What more fascinating
+than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath the manufacturer, the
+Hebrew visionary behind the English M.P.!</p>
+
+<p>This palatial dwelling-place with its liveried lackeys was, then, no
+fort of Philistinism in which an artist must needs asphyxiate, but a
+very citadel of the spirit. A new respect for his host began to steal
+upon him. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>Involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter; the
+secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious. Old Asher had
+a soul, and 'the soul is form and doth the body make.'</p>
+
+<p>Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the sensitive artist,
+the Rembrandtesque figure prayed on: '<i>And rebuild Jerusalem, the holy
+city, speedily and in our days....</i>'</p>
+
+<p>It was the climax of the romance that had so strangely stolen over the
+British dinner-table. Rebuild Jerusalem to-day! Did Jews really
+conceive it as a contemporary possibility? Barstein went hot and cold.
+The idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as a boy he had not
+understood his own prayers or his own people. All his imagination was
+inflamed. He conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir
+Asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his daughter: the
+great Empire that would spring from the unity and liberty of a race
+which even under dispersion and oppression was one of the most potent
+peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at last rose, he was
+in so deep a reverie that he almost forgot to rise too, and when he
+did rise, he accompanied the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss
+Aaronsberg's tactful 'Don't you want to smoke?' that saved him.</p>
+
+<p>'Almost as long a grace as the dinner!' Tom Fuller murmured to him as
+he returned to the table. 'Do the Jews say that after every meal?'</p>
+
+<p>'They're supposed to,' Barstein replied, a little jarred as he picked
+up a cigar.</p>
+
+<p>'No wonder they beat the Christians,' observed the young Radical, who
+evidently took original views. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>'So much time for digestion would
+enable any race to survive in this age of quick lunches. In America,
+now they should rule the roast. Literally,' he added, with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'It's a beautiful grace,' said Barstein rebukingly. 'The glamour of
+Zion thrown over the prose of diet.'</p>
+
+<p>'You're not a Jew?' said Tom, with a sudden suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I am,' the artist replied with a dignity that surprised himself.</p>
+
+<p>'I should never have taken you for one!' said Tom ingenuously.</p>
+
+<p>Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 'But why?' he
+asked himself instantly. 'To feel complimented at not being taken for
+a Jew&mdash;what does it mean? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my
+nature? Has our race reached self-contempt?'</p>
+
+<p>'I beg your pardon,' Tom went on. 'I didn't mean to be irreverent. I
+appreciate the picturesqueness of it all&mdash;hearing the very language of
+the Bible, and all that. And I do sympathize with your desire for
+Jewish Home Rule.'</p>
+
+<p>'My desire?' murmured the artist, taken aback. Sir Asher here
+interrupted them by pressing his '48 port upon both, and directing the
+artist's attention in particular to the pictures that hung around the
+stately dining-room. There was a Gainsborough, a Reynolds, a Landseer.
+He drew Barstein round the walls.</p>
+
+<p>'I am very fond of the English school,' he said. His cap was back in
+his coat-tail, and he had become again the bluff and burly Briton.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't patronize the Italians at all?' asked the artist.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>'No,' said Sir Asher. He lowered his voice. 'Between you and I,' said
+he&mdash;it was his main fault of grammar&mdash;'in Italian art one is never
+safe from the Madonna, not to mention her Son.' It was a fresh
+reminder of the Palestinian patriarch. Sir Asher never discussed
+theology except with those who agreed with him. Nor did he ever,
+whether in private or in public, breathe an unfriendly word against
+his Christian fellow-citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he
+would frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of hearts he
+cherished a contempt, softened by stupefaction, for the arithmetical
+incapacity of Trinitarians.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity under any other aspect did not exist for him. It was a
+blunder impossible to a race with a genius for calculation. 'How can
+three be one?' he would demand witheringly of his cronies. The
+question was in his eye now as he summed up Italian art to the
+sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his lips invited his
+fellow-Jew to share with him his feeling of spiritual and intellectual
+superiority to the poor blind Christians at his table, as well as to
+Christendom generally.</p>
+
+<p>But the artist refused to come up on the pedestal. 'Surely the Madonna
+was a very beautiful conception,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher looked startled. 'Ah yes, you are an artist,' he remembered.
+'You think only of the beautiful outside. But how can there be
+three-in-one or one-in-three?'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein did not reply, and Sir Asher added in a low scornful tone:
+'Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.'</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>A sudden commission recalled Barstein to town before he could even pay
+his after-dinner call. But the seed sown in his soul that evening was
+not to be stifled. This seed was nothing less than the idea of a
+national revival of his people. He hunted up his old prayer-books, and
+made many discoveries as his modern consciousness depolarized page
+upon page that had never in boyhood been anything to him but a series
+of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as possible, when their
+meaning was not still further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune.
+'I might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as
+he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the Roman
+Empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its
+aspiration for its old territory. And this mystery of race and blood,
+this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate
+in Mabel Aaronsberg.</p>
+
+<p>He did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her
+all day long. She appeared all over his studio in countless designs in
+clay. But from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening
+insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out
+from the slums and small synagogues of the East End strange forlorn
+figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. It was from one of these
+figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion,
+whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads,
+and had even materialized into a national movement.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>He joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. He
+was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at
+first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with
+familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and
+cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he
+could, with far greater command of Talmudic quotation, while their
+knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally
+superior. But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty
+wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he
+retained his inner exaltation. He had at last found himself and found
+his art. He fell to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the
+awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection.
+It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist Congress, where it caused a
+furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been
+working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and
+whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book,
+and even postcard. Some of them were setting out for Palestine to
+start a School of Arts and Crafts.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime the Bohemian circles
+which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been
+wondering what had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions
+supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet him
+reported dolefully that he was a changed man. Gone was the
+light-hearted and light-footed dancer of the Paris pavement. Silent
+the licentious wit of the neo-Pagan. This was a new being with
+brooding brow and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his
+dream. Never had Bohemia known such a transformation.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>But a change came over the spirit of the dream. Before he could
+seriously plan out his journey to Palestine, he met Mabel Aaronsberg
+in the flesh. She was staying in town for the season in charge of an
+aunt, and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the newer
+art, in front of Mabel's own self in marble. She praised the Psyche
+without in the least recognising herself, and Barstein, albeit
+disconcerted, could not but admit how far his statue was from the
+breathing beauty of the original.</p>
+
+<p>After this the Jewish borderland of Bohemia, where writers and
+painters are courted, began to see Barstein again. But, unfortunately,
+this was not Mabel's circle, and Barstein was reduced to getting
+himself invited to that Jewish Bayswater, his loathing for which had
+not been overcome even by his new-found nationalism. Here, amid
+hundreds of talking and dancing shadows, with which some shadowy self
+of his own danced and talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of
+reality&mdash;with Mabel.</p>
+
+<p>One could not be real and not talk of the national dream. Mabel, who
+took most of her opinions from her brother Julius, was frankly
+puzzled, though her marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her
+lover from premature shocks. She had, indeed, scarcely heard of such
+things. Zionism was something in the East End. Nobody in her class
+ever mentioned it. But, then, Barstein was a sculptor and strange,
+and, besides, he did not look at all like a Jew, so it didn't sound so
+horrible in his mouth. His lithe figure stood <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>out almost Anglo-Saxon
+amid the crowds of hulking undersized young men, and though his
+manners were not so good as a Christian's&mdash;she never forgot his
+blunder at her father's dinner-party&mdash;still, he looked up to one with
+almost a Christian's adoration, instead of sizing one up with an
+Oriental's calculation. These other London Jews thought her
+provincial, she knew, whereas Barstein had one day informed her she
+was universal. Julius, too, had admired Barstein's sculpture, the
+modern note in which had been hailed by the Oxford elect. But what
+most fascinated Mabel was the constant eulogy of her lover's work in
+the Christian papers; and when at last the formal proposal came, it
+found her fearful only of her father's disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>'He's so orthodox,' she murmured, as they sat in a rose-garlanded
+niche at a great Jewish Charity Ball, lapped around by waltz-music and
+the sweetness of love confessed.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I'm not so wicked as I was,' he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'But you smoke on the Sabbath, Leo&mdash;you told me.'</p>
+
+<p>'And you told me your brother Julius does the same.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but father doesn't know. If Julius wants to smoke on Friday
+evening, he always goes to his own room.'</p>
+
+<p>'And I shan't smoke in your father's.'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;but you'll tell him. You're so outspoken.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I won't tell him&mdash;unless he asks me.'</p>
+
+<p>She looked sad. 'He won't ask you&mdash;he'll never get as far.'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled confidently. 'You're not very encouraging, dear; what's the
+matter with me?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>'Everything. You're an artist, with all sorts of queer notions. And
+you're not so'&mdash;she blushed and hesitated&mdash;'not so rich&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>He pressed her fingers. 'Yes, I am; I'm the richest man here.'</p>
+
+<p>A little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though they went on:
+'But you told me your profits are small&mdash;marble is so dear.'</p>
+
+<p>'So is celibacy. I shall economize dreadfully by marrying.'</p>
+
+<p>She pouted; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the situation, and he
+seemed scarcely to realize that she was an heiress. But he continued
+to laugh away her fears. She was so beautiful and he was so
+strong&mdash;what could stand between them? Certainly not the Palestinian
+patriarch with whose inmost psychology he had, fortunately, become in
+such cordial sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>But Mabel's pessimism was not to be banished even by the supper
+champagne. They had secured a little table for two, and were
+recklessly absorbed in themselves.</p>
+
+<p>'At the worst, we can elope to Palestine,' he said at last, gaily
+serious.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel shuddered. 'Live entirely among Jews!' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>The radiance died suddenly out of his face; it was as if she had
+thrust the knife she was wielding through his heart. Her silent
+reception of his nationalist rhapsodies he had always taken for
+agreement.</p>
+
+<p>Nor might Mabel have undeceived him had his ideas remained Platonic.
+Their irruption into the world of practical politics, into her own
+life, was, however, another pair of shoes. Since Barstein had brought
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>Zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that distinguished
+Christians were quite sympathetic, but this was the one subject on
+which Christian opinion failed to impress Mabel. 'Zionism's all very
+well for Christians&mdash;they're in no danger of having to go to
+Palestine,' she had reflected shrewdly.</p>
+
+<p>'And why couldn't you live entirely among Jews?' Barstein asked
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a suffocating weight.
+'One couldn't breathe,' she explained.</p>
+
+<p>'Aren't you living among Jews now?'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't look so glum, silly. You don't want Jews as background as well
+as foreground. A great Ghetto!' And again she shuddered instinctively.</p>
+
+<p>'Every other people is background as well as foreground. And you don't
+call France a Ghetto or Italy a Ghetto?' There was anti-Semitism, he
+felt&mdash;unconscious anti-Semitism&mdash;behind Mabel's instinctive repugnance
+to an aggregation of Jews. And he knew that her instinct would be
+shared by every Jew in that festive aggregation around him. His heart
+sank. Never&mdash;even in those East End back-rooms where the pitiful
+disproportion of his consumptive-looking collaborators to their great
+task was sometimes borne in dismally upon him&mdash;had he felt so black a
+despair as in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that was
+strong and strenuous in the race&mdash;lawyers and soldiers, and men of
+affairs, whose united forces and finances could achieve almost
+anything they set their heart upon.</p>
+
+<p>'Jews can't live off one another,' Mabel explained with an air of
+philosophy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>Barstein did not reply. He was asking himself with an artist's
+analytical curiosity whence came this suicidal anti-Semitism. Was it
+the self-contempt natural to a race that had not the strength to build
+and fend for itself? No, alas! it did not even spring from so
+comparatively noble a source. It was merely a part of their general
+imitation of their neighbours&mdash;Jews, reflecting everything, had
+reflected even the dislike for the Jew; only since the individual
+could not dislike himself, he applied the dislike to the race. And
+this unconscious assumption of the prevailing point of view was
+quickened by the fact that the Jewish firstcomers were always aware of
+an existence on sufferance, with their slowly-won privileges
+jeopardized if too many other Jews came in their wake. He consulted
+his own pre-Zionist psychology. 'Yes,' he decided. 'Every Jew who
+moves into our country, our city, our watering-place, our street even,
+seems to us an invader or an interloper. He draws attention to us, he
+accentuates our difference from the normal, he increases the chance of
+the renewal of <i>Rishus</i> (malice). And so we become anti-Semites
+ourselves. But by what a comical confusion of logic is it that we
+carry over the objection to Jewish aggregation even to an aggregation
+in Palestine, in our own land! Or is it only too logical? Is it that
+the rise of a Jewish autonomous power would be a standing reminder to
+our fellow-citizens that we others are not so radically British or
+German or French or American as we have vaunted ourselves? Are we
+afraid of being packed off to Palestine and is the fulfilment of the
+dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest dread?'</p>
+
+<p>The thought forced from him a sardonic smile.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>'And I feared you were like King Henry&mdash;never going to smile again.'
+Mabel smiled back in relief.</p>
+
+<p>'We're such a ridiculous people,' he answered, his smile fading into
+sombreness. 'Neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, finish your good white fowl,' laughed Mabel. She had felt her
+hold over him slipping, and her own apprehensions now vanished in the
+effort to banish his gloom.</p>
+
+<p>But she had only started him on a new tack. 'Fowl!' he cried grimly.
+'<i>Kosher</i>, of course, but with bits of fried <i>Wurst</i> to ape the scraps
+of bacon. And presently we shall be having water ices to simulate
+cream. We can't even preserve our dietary individuality. Truly said
+Feuerbach, "Der Mensch ist was er isst." In Palestine we shall at
+least dare to be true to our own gullets.' He laughed bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>'You're not very romantic,' Mabel pouted. Indeed, this Barstein, whose
+mere ideal could so interrupt the rhapsodies due to her admissions of
+affection, was distinctly unsatisfactory. She touched his hand
+furtively under the tablecloth.</p>
+
+<p>'After all, she is very young,' he thought, thrilling. And youth was
+plastic&mdash;he, the sculptor, could surely mould her. Besides, was she
+not Sir Asher's daughter? She must surely have inherited some of his
+love for Palestine and his people. It was this Philistine set that had
+spoiled her. Julius, too, that young Oxford prig&mdash;he reflected
+illogically&mdash;had no doubt been a baleful influence.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I give you some almond-pudding?' he replied tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel laughed uneasily. 'I ask for romance, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>you offer me
+almond-pudding. Oh, I <i>should</i> like to go to a Jewish party where
+there wasn't almond-pudding!'</p>
+
+<p>'You shall&mdash;in Palestine,' he laughed back.</p>
+
+<p>She pouted again. 'All roads lead to Palestine.'</p>
+
+<p>'They do,' he said seriously. 'Without Palestine our past is a
+shipwreck and our future a quicksand.'</p>
+
+<p>She looked frightened again. 'But what should we do there? We can't
+pray all day long.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course not,' he said eagerly. 'There's the new generation to train
+for its glorious future. I shall teach in the Arts and Crafts School.
+<i>Bezalel</i>, it's called; isn't that a beautiful name? It's from
+Bezalel, the first man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine
+wisdom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.'</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. 'You'll be excommunicated. The Palestine Rabbis
+always excommunicate everything and everybody.'</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. 'What do you know about Palestine?'</p>
+
+<p>'More than you think. Father gets endless letters from there with
+pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-wood boxes and paper-knives&mdash;a
+perennial shower. The letters are generally in the most killing
+English. And he won't let me laugh at them because he has a vague
+feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar are holy.'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein laughed again. 'We'll send all the Rabbis to Jericho.'</p>
+
+<p>She smiled, but retorted: 'That's where they'll send you, you maker of
+graven images. Why, your very profession is forbidden.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>'I'll corner 'em with this very Bezalel text. The cutting of stones is
+just one of the arts which God says He had inspired Bezalel with.
+Besides, you forget my statue at the B&acirc;le Congress.'</p>
+
+<p>'B&acirc;le isn't Palestine. There's nothing but superstition and squalor,
+and I'm sorry to say father's always bolstering it all up with his
+cheques.'</p>
+
+<p>'Bravo, Sir Asher! Unconsciously he has been bolstering up the
+eventual Renaissance. Your father and his kind have kept the seed
+alive; we shall bring it to blossom.'</p>
+
+<p>His prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of apprehension over her
+marmoreal brow. But her face lightened with a sudden thought. 'Well,
+perhaps, after all, we shan't need to elope.'</p>
+
+<p>'I never thought for a moment we should,' he answered as cheerfully.
+'But, all the same, we can spend our honeymoon in Palestine.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I don't mind that,' said Mabel. 'Lots of Christians do that.
+There was a Cook's party went out from Middleton for last Easter.'</p>
+
+<p>The lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in the Palestinian
+honeymoon to analyse the terms in which it was given. He looked into
+her eyes, and saw there the <i>Shechinah</i>&mdash;the Divine glory that once
+rested on Zion.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>It was in this happier mood that Barstein ran down to Middleton to
+plead his suit verbally with Sir Asher Aaronsberg. Mabel had feared to
+commit their fates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. A
+plump negative would be so difficult to fight against. A personal
+interview permitted one to sound the ground, to break the thing
+delicately, to reason, to explain, to charm away objections. It was
+clearly the man's duty to face the music.</p>
+
+<p>Not that Barstein expected anything but the music of the Wedding
+March. He was glad that his original contempt for Sir Asher had been
+exchanged for sincere respect, and that the bluff Briton was a mere
+veneer. It was to the Palestinian patriarch that he would pour out his
+hopes and his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! he found only the bluff Briton, and a Briton no longer genially,
+but bluntly, bluff.</p>
+
+<p>'It is perfectly impossible.'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. Was he not pious
+enough, or not rich enough, too artistic or too low-born? Or did Sir
+Asher consider his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious?
+Let Sir Asher say.</p>
+
+<p>But Sir Asher would not say. 'I am not bound to give my reasons. We
+are all proud of your work&mdash;it confers honour on our community. The
+Mayor alluded to it only yesterday.' He spoke in his best platform
+manner. 'But to receive you into my family&mdash;that is another matter.'</p>
+
+<p>And all the talk advanced things no further.</p>
+
+<p>'It would be an entirely unsuitable match.' Sir Asher caressed his
+long beard with an air of finality.</p>
+
+<p>With a lover's impatience, Barstein had made the mistake of seeking
+Sir Asher in his counting-house, where the municipal magnate sat among
+his solidities. The mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through whom Barstein had
+had to penetrate, the factory buildings stretching around, with their
+sense of throbbing machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the
+burly Briton a background against which visions and emotions seemed as
+unreal as ghosts under gaslight. The artist felt all this solid life
+closing round him like the walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out
+his confidence, his aspirations, his very life.</p>
+
+<p>'Then you prefer to break your daughter's heart!' he cried
+desperately.</p>
+
+<p>'Break my daughter's heart!' echoed Sir Asher in amaze. It was
+apparently a new aspect to him.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully?' Barstein went on,
+perceiving his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>'Break her heart!' repeated Sir Asher, startled out of his discreet
+reticence. 'I'd sooner break her heart than see her married to a
+Zionist!'</p>
+
+<p>This time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp.</p>
+
+<p>'To a what?' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>'To a Zionist. You don't mean to deny you're a Zionist?' said Sir
+Asher sternly.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein gazed at him in silence.</p>
+
+<p>'Come, come,' said Sir Asher. 'You don't suppose I don't read the
+Jewish papers? I know all about your goings-on.'</p>
+
+<p>The artist found his tongue. 'But&mdash;but,' he stammered, 'you yearn for
+Zion too.'</p>
+
+<p>'Naturally. But I don't presume to force the hand of Providence.'</p>
+
+<p>'How can any of us force Providence to do anything it doesn't want to?
+Surely it is through human <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>agency that Providence always works. God
+helps those who help themselves.'</p>
+
+<p>'Spare me your blasphemies. Perhaps you think you are the Messiah.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can be an atom of Him. The whole Jewish people is its own
+Messiah&mdash;God working through it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take care, young man; you'll be talking Trinity next. And with these
+heathen notions you expect to marry my daughter! You must excuse me if
+I wish to hear no further.' His hand began to wander towards the row
+of electric bells on his desk.</p>
+
+<p>'Then how do you suppose we shall ever get to Palestine?' inquired the
+irritated artist.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'In God's good time,' he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'And when will that be?'</p>
+
+<p>'When we are either too good or too bad for our present sphere. To-day
+we are too neutral. Besides, there will be signs enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'What signs?'</p>
+
+<p>'Read your Bible. Mount Zion will be split by an earthquake, as the
+prophet&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 'But why can't we
+go to Jerusalem and wait for the earthquake there?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Because we have a mission to the nations. We must live dispersed. We
+have to preach the unity of God.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have never heard you preach it. You lowered your voice when you
+denounced the Trinity to me, lest the Christians should hear.'</p>
+
+<p>'We have to preach silently, by our example. Merely by keeping our own
+religion we convert the world.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>'But who keeps it? Dispersion among Sunday-keeping peoples makes our
+very Sabbath an economic impossibility.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have not found it so,' said Sir Asher crushingly. 'Indeed, the
+growth of the Saturday half-holiday since my young days is a
+remarkable instance of Judaizing.'</p>
+
+<p>'So we have to remain dispersed to promote the week-end holiday?'</p>
+
+<p>'To teach international truth,' Sir Asher corrected sharply; 'not
+narrow tribalism.'</p>
+
+<p>'But we don't remain dispersed. Five millions are herded in the
+Russian Pale to begin with.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Providence of God has long been scattering them to New York.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. A pretty scattering!'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher flushed angrily. 'But they go to the Argentine too. I heard
+of a colony even in Paraguay.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where they are preaching the Unity to the Indians.'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not discuss religion with a mocker. We are in exile by God's
+decree&mdash;we must suffer.'</p>
+
+<p>'Suffer!' The artist's glance wandered cynically round the snug
+solidities of Sir Asher's exile, but he forbore to be personal. 'Then
+if we <i>must</i> suffer, why did you subscribe so much to the fund for the
+Russian Jews?'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein's acquaintance with his
+generosity. 'That I might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch
+of humour.</p>
+
+<p>'Then you <i>are</i> a Jewish patriot,' retorted Barstein.</p>
+
+<p>The bluff British face grew clouded again.</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots. You talk treason to
+your country, young man.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>'Treason&mdash;I!' The young man laughed bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>'It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so
+painfully won in the West.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,' Barstein began.</p>
+
+<p>'I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a corps of
+volunteers for the Transvaal.'</p>
+
+<p>'I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion&mdash;that is blasphemy,
+narrow tribalism.'</p>
+
+<p>'Zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and
+teachers. And what would your volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan
+with his million soldiers? They couldn't even live in Palestine as men
+of peace. There is neither coal nor iron&mdash;hence no manufactures.
+Agriculture? It's largely stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too
+hot for Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've no right
+to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, even if Palestine were
+as fertile as England, Jews could never live off one another. And
+think how they'd quarrel!'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array of arguments seemed
+to him a row of steam-hammers.</p>
+
+<p>'We can live off one another as easily as any other people. As for
+quarrelling, weren't you in Parliament? Party government makes quarrel
+the very basis of the Constitution.'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying down the law had
+ill prepared him for repartee.</p>
+
+<p>'A pretty mess we should make of Government!' he sneered.</p>
+
+<p>'Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet in the world.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>'Yes&mdash;we're all right as long as we're under others. Sir Asher was
+recovering his serenity.</p>
+
+<p>'All right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'Do you
+realize what you're saying, Sir Asher? The Boers against whom you
+equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under
+others! And we&mdash;the thought of Jewish autonomy makes us foam at the
+mouth. The idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call
+our fatherlands.'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian wave of the hand.
+'This is all a waste of breath. Fortunately the acquisition of
+Palestine is impossible.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then why do you pray for it&mdash;"speedily and in our days"?'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner.</p>
+
+<p>'That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein drily.</p>
+
+<p>'I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely. 'It is a Divine
+event I pray for&mdash;not the creation of a Ghetto.'</p>
+
+<p>'A Ghetto!' Barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'Yes, you're an
+anti-Semite too&mdash;like your daughter, like your son, like all of us.
+We're all anti-Semites.'</p>
+
+<p>'I an anti-Semite! Ho! ho! ho!' Sir Asher's anger broke down in sheer
+amusement. 'I have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said,
+recovering his magisterial note. 'I was once in love myself. But when
+it comes to calling <i>me</i> an anti-Semite, it is obvious you are not in
+a fit state to continue this interview. Indeed, I no longer wonder
+that you think yourself the Messiah.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>'Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah a man; somebody
+some day will have to win your belief. But what I said was that God
+acts through man.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah yes,' said Sir Asher good-humouredly. 'Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why not?' said Barstein with a flash of angry intuition. 'Aren't
+you a trinity yourself?'</p>
+
+<p>'Me?' Sir Asher was now quite sure of the sculptor's derangement.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;the Briton, the Jew, and the anti-Semite&mdash;three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'</p>
+
+<p>Sir Asher touched one of the electric bells with a jerk. He was quite
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. Never would he marry
+into these triune tribes. 'And it's the same in every land where we're
+emancipated, as it is called,' he went on furiously. 'The Jew's a
+patriot everywhere, and a Jew everywhere and an anti-Semite
+everywhere. Passionate Hungarians, and true-born Italians,
+eagle-waving Americans, and loyal Frenchmen, imperial Germans, and
+double Dutchmen, we are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we
+illustrate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony! Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.' He laughed; to Sir Asher his laugh sounded maniacal.
+The old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'Neither confounding the
+persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_SABBATH_QUESTION_IN_SUDMINSTER" id="THE_SABBATH_QUESTION_IN_SUDMINSTER"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>There was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters which washed its
+leading Jews their living, but in the breasts of these same marine
+storekeepers. For a competitor had appeared in their hive of
+industry&mdash;an alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at
+Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not only with capital and
+enterprise&mdash;the showy plate-glass front of his shop revealed an
+enticing miscellany&mdash;but with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not
+close on Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morning as usual.</p>
+
+<p>The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the first Friday night,
+but by the Sabbath morning the synagogue hummed with it. It set a
+clammy horror in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their
+prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades, brought a
+tremor of insecurity into the very foundations of their universe. For
+nearly three generations a congregation had been established in
+Sudminster&mdash;like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly
+country&mdash;struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy Day despite
+the supplementary burden of Sunday closing, and the God of their
+fathers had not left <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>unperformed His part of the contract. For 'the
+harvests' of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the former
+rain' of their unchanging supplication were mere dried metaphors to a
+people divorced from Palestine and the soil for eighteen centuries,
+the wine and the oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor
+were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on the synagogue was
+paid off. And now this Epicurean was come to trouble the snug
+security, to break the long chain of Sabbath observance which
+stretched from Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers,
+especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window on their return
+from synagogue on Friday evening, were literally surprised that the
+earth had not opened beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah.</p>
+
+<p>'Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death,'
+whispered the squat Solomon Barzinsky to the lanky Ephraim Mendel,
+marine-dealers both.</p>
+
+<p>'Alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen country,' sighed
+Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying-shawl more over his left
+shoulder. 'But at least his windows should be stoned.'</p>
+
+<p>Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining of the shattering
+of the shameless plate-glass. 'Yes, and that wax-dummy of a sailor
+should be hung as an atonement for his&mdash;Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
+of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.' The last phrase
+Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in antiphonal response to the
+cantor, and he rose three times on his toes, bowing his head piously.
+'No wonder he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he
+concluded bitterly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>'He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old clo,' complained
+Lazarus Levy, who had taken over S. Cohn's business, together with his
+daughter Deborah, 'and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more
+than the price we ask for 'em as new.'</p>
+
+<p>Talk of the devil&mdash;&mdash;! At this point Simeon Samuels stalked into the
+synagogue, late but serene.</p>
+
+<p>Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agitation could not have
+been greater. The first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was
+an event in itself; but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all
+was startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the obsequious and
+unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged&mdash;that
+high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant
+since the death of Tevele the pawnbroker&mdash;Simeon Samuels wrapped
+himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the
+service. His glossy high hat bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long
+black beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was a rebuke to
+his gossiping neighbours.</p>
+
+<p>A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. Had he been the victim
+of a jealous libel? Even those whose own eyes had seen him behind his
+counter when he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at his
+supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of some
+hallucination.</p>
+
+<p>When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was
+summoned canorously to the reading of the Law&mdash;'Shall stand Simeon,
+the son of Nehemiah'&mdash;and he arose and solemnly mounted the central
+platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and
+benedictions seemed a withering reply <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>to the libel. When he
+descended, and the <i>Parnass</i> proffered his presidential hand in pious
+congratulation upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found
+themselves upon his line of return shot forth their arms with
+remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon Samuels switched on to the
+brotherhood of Sudminsterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting
+co-religionists passed his shop on their homeward walk&mdash;and many a
+pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do so&mdash;their eyes
+became again saucers of horror and amaze. The broad plate-glass
+glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of
+the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed
+with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the
+procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with
+sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinsky and Ephraim Mendel in pious
+black velvet caps, and their stout spouses in gold chains and diamond
+earrings, found themselves playing solo whist in the <i>Parnass's</i>
+parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. The
+<i>Parnass</i>, though at heart as outraged as they by the new departure,
+felt it always incumbent upon him to display his presidential
+impartiality and his dry humour. His authority, mainly based on his
+being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, was greatly
+strengthened by his slow manner <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>of taking snuff at a crisis. 'My dear
+Mendel,' observed the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a
+blue handkerchief, 'Simeon Samuels has already paid his annual
+subscription&mdash;and you haven't!'</p>
+
+<p>'My money is good,' Mendel replied, reddening.</p>
+
+<p>'No wonder he can pay so quickly!' said Solomon Barzinsky, shuffling
+the cards savagely.</p>
+
+<p>'How he makes his money is not the question,' said the <i>Parnass</i>
+weightily. 'He has paid it, and therefore if I were to expel him, as
+you suggest, he might go to Law.'</p>
+
+<p>'Law!' retorted Solomon. 'Can't we prove he has broken the Law of
+Moses?'</p>
+
+<p>'And suppose?' said the <i>Parnass</i>, picking up his cards placidly. 'Do
+we want to wash our dirty <i>Talysim</i> (praying-shawls) in public?'</p>
+
+<p>'He is right, Solomon,' said Mrs. Barzinsky. 'We should become a
+laughing-stock among the heathen.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't believe he'd drag us to the Christian courts,' the little man
+persisted. 'I pass.'</p>
+
+<p>The rubber continued cheerlessly. 'A man who keeps his shop open on
+Sabbath is capable of anything,' said the lanky Mendel, gloomily
+sweeping in his winnings.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> took snuff judicially. 'Besides, he may have a Christian
+partner who keeps all the Saturday profits,' he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>'That would be just as forbidden,' said Barzinsky, as he dealt the
+cards.</p>
+
+<p>'But your cousin David,' his wife reminded him, 'sells his groceries
+to a Christian at Passover.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>destroy hundreds of
+pounds of leaven. But Sabbath partnerships are not permitted.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps the question has never been raised,' said the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'I am enough of a <i>Lamdan</i> (pundit) to answer it,' retorted Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p>'I prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Barzinsky threw down his cards. 'You can go to the devil!' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>'For shame, Solomon!' said his wife. 'Don't disturb the game.'</p>
+
+<p>'To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a <i>Parnass</i> to talk like an
+<i>Epikouros</i> (Epicurean).'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> blew his nose elaborately. 'It stands in the Talmud:
+"For vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world." And if&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It stands in the Psalmist,' Barzinsky interrupted: '"The Law of Thy
+mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver."'</p>
+
+<p>'It stands in the Perek,' the <i>Parnass</i> rejoined severely, 'that the
+wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.'</p>
+
+<p>'It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,' Barzinsky shrieked, 'that for the
+sanctification of the Sabbath&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It stands in the Talmud,' interposed Mendel, with unwonted animation
+in his long figure, 'that one must not even offer a nut to allure
+customers. From light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>A still small voice broke in upon the storm. 'But Simeon Samuels
+hasn't a Christian partner,' said Mrs. Mendel.</p>
+
+<p>There was an embarrassed pause.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>'He has only his wife to help him,' she went on. 'I know, because I
+went to the shop Friday morning on pretence of asking for a
+cuckoo-clock.'</p>
+
+<p>'But a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the <i>Parnass's</i> wife
+timidly. It was her first contribution to the conversation, for she
+was overpowered by her husband's greatness.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't be silly, Hannah!' said the <i>Parnass</i>. 'That was just why Mrs.
+Mendel asked for it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have one,' Mrs. Mendel
+confessed; 'and I couldn't get out of buying it.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a general laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Cut-throat competition, I call it,' snarled Solomon Barzinsky,
+recovering from his merriment.</p>
+
+<p>'But <i>you</i> don't sell clocks,' said the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'That's just it; he gets hold of our customers on pretence of selling
+them something else. The Talmudical prohibition cited by Mendel
+applies to that too.'</p>
+
+<p>'So I wasn't so silly,' put in the <i>Parnass's</i> wife, feeling vaguely
+vindicated.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you saw his wife,' said the <i>Parnass</i> to Mendel's wife,
+disregarding his own. 'More than I've done, for she wasn't in
+synagogue. Perhaps <i>she</i> is the Christian partner.' His suggestion
+brought a new and holier horror over the card-table.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' replied Mrs. Mendel reassuringly. 'I caught sight of her
+frying fish in the kitchen.'</p>
+
+<p>This proof of her Jewishness passed unquestioned, and the new-born
+horror subsided.</p>
+
+<p>'But in spite of the fish,' said Mr. Mendel, 'she served in the shop
+while he was at synagogue.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' hissed Barzinsky; 'and in spite of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>synagogue <i>he</i> served
+in the shop. A greater mockery was never known!'</p>
+
+<p>'Not at all, not at all,' said the <i>Parnass</i> judicially. 'If a man
+breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he does break two,' Solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth
+with his fist; 'for he steals my custom by opening when I'm closed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take care&mdash;you will break my plates,' said the <i>Parnass</i>. 'Take a
+sandwich.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you&mdash;you've taken away my appetite.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm sorry&mdash;but the sandwiches would have done the same. I really
+can't expel a respectable seat-holder before I know that he is truly a
+sinner in Israel. As it is written, "Thou shalt inquire and make
+search and ask diligently." He may have only opened this once by way
+of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite.'</p>
+
+<p>'At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-sandwich&mdash;just for
+once,' said Solomon scathingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't say <i>I</i> called you a dog,' the <i>Parnass</i> laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'A mezaire!' announced the hostess hurriedly. 'After all, it's the
+Almighty's business, not ours.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, it's our business,' Solomon insisted.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' agreed the <i>Parnass</i> drily; 'it <i>is</i> your business.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though the plate-glass
+window was unshaken by the gusts. It maintained its flaunting
+seductiveness, assisted, people observed, by Simeon Samuels' habit of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>lounging at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating spectator. And
+it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath that succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>The horror was tinged with consternation. The strange apathy of the
+pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the
+celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the
+cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the
+congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did
+not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is
+true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window
+down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins
+fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop; but as the suffering was
+entirely limited to the nerves of Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to
+the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what
+was expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the
+general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the
+Sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had
+connived at a breach of contract.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and
+long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'</p>
+
+<p>'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon,
+unappeased. 'Saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to
+wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your
+duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'</p>
+
+<p>The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a
+German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in
+his five years <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>of office that one of his congregants had suggested
+such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was
+treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious
+ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not
+suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a
+congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky
+was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the
+congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and
+if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and
+the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.</p>
+
+<p>'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a
+bad example to our poor!'</p>
+
+<p>'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had
+much better talk to him yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>'Me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'I would not lower myself.
+He'd think I was jealous of his success.'</p>
+
+<p>Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. Bland
+and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only
+in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever.</p>
+
+<p>At last the Minister received a presidential command to preach upon
+the subject forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>'But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'We are still in
+Genesis.'</p>
+
+<p>'Bah!' replied the <i>Parnass</i> impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to
+point any moral. You must preach next Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'But we are reading the <i>Sedrah</i> (weekly portion) <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>about Joseph. How
+are you going to work Sabbath-keeping into that?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the-earth. But what's the
+use of a preacher if he can't make any text mean something else?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, of course, every text usually does,' said the preacher
+defensively. 'There is the hidden meaning and the plain meaning. But
+Joseph is merely historical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned
+in Genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained yet.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what about Potiphar's wife?'</p>
+
+<p>'That's the Seventh Commandment, not the Fourth.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you for the information. Do you mean to say you can't jump from
+one Commandment to another?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, well&mdash;&mdash;' The minister meditated.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>'And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. And it came to
+pass that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph....'</p>
+
+<p>The congregation looked startled. Really this was not a text which
+they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. There were things in the
+Bible that should be left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially
+when one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their eyes lifted
+towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>'But Joseph refused.'</p>
+
+<p>Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawnbroker blew his nose like a
+protesting trumpet. The congregation's eyes returned from the balcony
+and converged upon the <i>Parnass</i>. He was taking snuff as usual.</p>
+
+<p>'My brethren,' began the preacher impressively, 'temptation comes to
+us all&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from many nostrils. A blush
+overspread many cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>'But not always in the shape it came to Joseph. In this congregation,
+where, by the blessing of the Almighty, we are free from almost every
+form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to
+touch us&mdash;the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of
+Sabbath-breaking.'</p>
+
+<p>A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and Simeon Samuels
+became now the focus of every eye. His face was turned towards the
+preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential
+dignity.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of us: "And Joseph
+refused"!'</p>
+
+<p>A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah, now the cosmos was
+righting itself; Heaven was speaking through the mouth of its
+minister.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back
+to him. His stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As
+he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt '<i>Yosher Koach</i>'
+('May thy strength increase!').</p>
+
+<p>The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his
+seat. As he passed Simeon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his
+hand and grasped the man of God's, and his neighbours testified that
+there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the
+congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. The plate-glass window
+still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor
+allured the stream of custom.</p>
+
+<p>'He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed
+to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on
+their way from the Friday-evening service.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take
+money?' na&iuml;vely inquired Peleg.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Behemah</i> (animal)!' replied Solomon impatiently. 'Don't you know
+it's forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop&mdash;&mdash;!'</p>
+
+<p>'All the same, you might compromise. You might give the customers the
+things they need, as it is written, "Open thy hand to the needy!" but
+they could pay on Saturday night.'</p>
+
+<p>'And if they didn't pay? If they drank their money away?' said the
+pawnbroker.</p>
+
+<p>'True, but why couldn't they pay in advance?'</p>
+
+<p>'How in advance?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>'They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not with me!' Peleg made a grimace. 'All very well for your line, but
+in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with <i>them</i>. I don't
+suppose they'd bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till
+Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One
+would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!'</p>
+
+<p>'Write! Heaven forbid!' ejaculated Solomon Barzinsky. 'But you could
+have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your
+register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp
+stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always
+give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.</p>
+
+<p>'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the
+crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a
+little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner.
+We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'</p>
+
+<p>'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our <i>Parnass</i> has
+caught us up. Good <i>Shabbos</i> (Sabbath), <i>Parnass</i>. This is a fine
+scandal for a God-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he open again?' gasped the <i>Parnass</i>, hurled from his judicial
+calm.</p>
+
+<p>'Is my eye open?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 'A fat lot of good
+your preacher does.'</p>
+
+<p>'It was you who would elect him instead of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>Rochinsky,' the <i>Parnass</i>
+reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>'And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the
+<i>Parnass</i>, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never
+ceased to rankle.</p>
+
+<p>'Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Barzinsky. He seriously
+considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as
+retrospective. 'We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he
+went on. 'Let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a
+piece of our minds.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can't keep my family waiting for <i>Kiddush'</i> (home service), said
+Peleg.</p>
+
+<p>'Come home, father; I'm hungry,' put in Peleg junior, who with various
+Barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake.</p>
+
+<p>'Silence, impudent face!' snapped Barzinsky. 'If I was your father&mdash;&mdash;
+Ah, here comes the minister. Good <i>Shabbos</i> (Sabbath), Mr. Gabriel. I
+congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.'</p>
+
+<p>An exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. 'Is he shut?'</p>
+
+<p>'Is your mouth shut?' Solomon replied scathingly. 'I doubt if he'll
+even come to <i>Shool</i> (synagogue) to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, Mr. Gabriel,' said
+the <i>Parnass</i> soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>'But if he is not there to hear it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right enough. Just give
+it to him hot!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>'Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who had lingered, though
+his son had not. 'You might have meant any of us.'</p>
+
+<p>'But we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'It
+is written in the Talmud that he who does so has no share in the world
+to come.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. 'A stranger would
+imagine we were a congregation of Sabbath-breakers.'</p>
+
+<p>'But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.</p>
+
+<p>'There was Simeon Samuels,' the <i>Parnass</i> reminded him. 'Perhaps your
+sermon against Sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a
+crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,' said the poor
+minister.</p>
+
+<p>'Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it
+clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'</p>
+
+<p>'I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the
+goaded minister.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.'</p>
+
+<p>'I didn't undertake to preach every Saturday,' grumbled the minister,
+growing bolder.</p>
+
+<p>'As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said Solomon
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.</p>
+
+<p>'And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's <i>Sedrah</i>' (portion),
+Barzinsky remembered exultantly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>'"And took from them Simeon, and
+bound him before their eyes." There's your very text. You'll pick out
+Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound him,' added the
+<i>Parnass</i>. 'You have a choice&mdash;yourself or Satan.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister
+sullenly. 'I still can't see what that text has to do with
+Sabbath-breaking.'</p>
+
+<p>'It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as Potiphar's wife,'
+shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>'"And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved. Joseph
+is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin."'</p>
+
+<p>As the word 'Simeon' came hissing from the preacher's lips, a
+veritable thrill passed through the synagogue. Even Simeon Samuels
+seemed shaken, for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous
+movement.</p>
+
+<p>'My brethren, these words of Israel, the great forefather of our
+tribes, are still ringing in our ears. To-day more than ever is Israel
+crying. Joseph is not&mdash;our Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not&mdash;our Holy
+Temple is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us&mdash;one blessing
+with which the almighty father has blessed us&mdash;our Holy Sabbath. And
+ye will take Benjamin.' The pathos of his accents melted every heart.
+Tears <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels was seen to
+blow his nose softly.</p>
+
+<p>Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel proceeded to draw a
+tender picture of the love between Israel and his Benjamin,
+Sabbath&mdash;the one consolation of his exile, and he skilfully worked in
+the subsequent verse: 'If mischief befall him by the way on which ye
+go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'
+Yes, it would be the destruction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath
+decayed. Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger Benjamin.
+'From Reuben and <i>Simeon</i> down to Gad and Asher, his life shall be
+required at their hands.' Oh, it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing
+sermon, and Solomon Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and
+whispering to the <i>Parnass</i>: 'Wasn't I right in refusing to vote for
+Rochinsky?' This reminder of his candidate's defeat was wormwood to
+the <i>Parnass</i>, spoiling all his satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked
+the talker with a noisy '<i>Shaa</i>' (silence).</p>
+
+<p>The congregation shrank delicately from looking at the sinner; it
+would be too painful to watch his wriggles. His neighbours stared
+pointedly every other way. Thus, the only record of his deportment
+under fire came from Yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said that he
+kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the effect on the
+congregation, stroking his beard placidly the while. But as to his
+behaviour after the guns were still, there was no dubiety, for
+everybody saw him approach the <i>Parnass</i> in the exodus from synagogue,
+and many heard him say in hearty accents: 'I really must congratulate
+you, Mr. President, on your selection of your minister.'</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<p>'You touched his heart so,' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky an hour later
+to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel, 'that he went straight from <i>Shool</i>
+(synagogue) to his shop.' Solomon had rushed out the first thing after
+breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to call upon the
+unsuccessful minister.</p>
+
+<p>'That is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is&mdash;if you had only stuck to <i>my</i> text. But no! You must set
+yourself up over all our heads.'</p>
+
+<p>'You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him? The Holy Temple! A
+fine thing, upon my soul!'</p>
+
+<p>'It was only an&mdash;an&mdash;analogy,' stammered the poor minister.</p>
+
+<p>'An apology! Oh, so you apologized to him, too! Better and better.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, I mean a comparison.'</p>
+
+<p>'A comparison! You never compared me to the Holy Temple. And I'm
+Solomon&mdash;Solomon who built it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Solomon was wise,' murmured the minister.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, and I'm silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I'd remember my place
+and who I owed it to. But for me, Rochinsky would have stood in your
+shoes&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Rochinsky is lucky.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, indeed! So this is your gratitude. Very well. Either Simeon
+Samuels shuts up shop or you do. That's final. Don't forget you were
+only elected for three years.' And the little man flung out.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i>, meeting his minister later in the street, took a
+similar view.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>'You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said. 'The
+congregation is terribly wrought up. There may even be a riot. If
+Simeon Samuels keeps open next Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't
+go and break his windows.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then <i>they</i> will break the Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'</p>
+
+<p>'They'll be too busy opening their own shops.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't argue. You <i>must</i> preach his shop shut.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well,' said the Reverend Gabriel sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>'That's right. A man with a family must rise to great occasions. Do
+you think I'd be where I am now if I hadn't had the courage to buy a
+bankrupt stock that I didn't see my way to paying for? It's a fight
+between you and Simeon Samuels.'</p>
+
+<p>'May his name be blotted out!' impatiently cried the minister in the
+Hebrew imprecation.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' replied the <i>Parnass</i>, smiling. 'His name must not be
+blotted out&mdash;it must be mentioned, and&mdash;unmistakably.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is equivalent to murder,'
+the minister persisted.</p>
+
+<p>'Yet it is written in Leviticus: "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy
+neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."' And the <i>Parnass</i> took a
+triumphant pinch.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+<p>'<i>Simeon</i> and Levi are brethren ... into their assembly be not thou
+united: in their self-will they digged down a wall.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> applauded mentally. The text, from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>Jacob's blessing, was
+ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. The wall, he perceived at
+once, was the Sabbath&mdash;the Jews' one last protection against the outer
+world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. Nor did his
+complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the
+preacher thundered against the self-will&mdash;ay, and the self-seeking&mdash;that
+undermined Israel's last fortification. What did they seek under the
+wall? Did they think their delving spades would come upon a hidden
+store of gold, upon an ancient treasure-chest? Nay, it was a coffin
+they would strike&mdash;a coffin of dead bones and living serpents.</p>
+
+<p>A cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue; a little shriek came
+from the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think I ever enjoyed a sermon so much,' said the pawnbroker
+to the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, he's improving,' said the <i>Parnass</i>, still swollen with
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>But as that worthy elder emerged from the synagogue, placidly snuffing
+himself, he found an excited gentleman waiting him in the lobby. It
+was Lazarus Levy, whom his wife Deborah, daughter of S. Cohn (now of
+Highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify.</p>
+
+<p>'Either that Reverend Gabriel goes, Mr. <i>Parnass</i>, or I resign my
+membership.'</p>
+
+<p>'What is it, Mr. Levy&mdash;what is the matter?'</p>
+
+<p>'Everybody knows I've been a good Jew all my life, and though Saturday
+is so good for the clothing business, I've striven with all my might
+to do my duty by the Almighty.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, of course; everybody knows that.'</p>
+
+<p>'And yet to-day I'm pointed out as a sinner in Israel; I'm coupled
+with that Simeon Samuels. Simeon and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>Levy are brothers in their
+iniquity&mdash;with their assembly be not united. A pretty libel, indeed!'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass's</i> complacency collapsed like an air-ball at a pin-prick.
+'Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he couldn't mean you.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know so much. There are always people ready to think one has
+just been discovered keeping a back-door open or something. I
+shouldn't be at all surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in
+London&mdash;you know how pious old Cohn is! As for Simeon, he kept looking
+at me as if I <i>was</i> his long-lost brother. Ah, there comes our
+precious minister.... Look here, Mr. Gabriel, I'll have the law on
+you. Simeon's no brother of mine&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other swing-door cut the
+speaker short. 'Good <i>Shabbos</i>,' said the shameless sinner. 'Ah, Mr.
+Gabriel, that was a very fine sermon.' He stroked his beard. 'I quite
+agree with you. To dig down a public wall is indefensible. Nobody has
+the right to make more than a private hole in it, where it blocks out
+his own prospect. So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again.
+Good <i>Shabbos</i>!' And, waving his hand pleasantly, he left them to
+their consternation.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IX</h4>
+
+<p>'What an impudent face!' said the <i>Gabbai</i> (treasurer), who witnessed
+the episode.</p>
+
+<p>'And our minister says I'm that man's brother! exclaimed Mr. Levy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>'Hush! Enough!' said the <i>Parnass</i>, with a tactful inspiration. 'You
+shall read the <i>Haphtorah</i> (prophetic section) next <i>Shabbos</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'And Mr. Gabriel must explain he didn't mean me,' he stipulated,
+mollified by the magnificent <i>Mitzvah</i> (pious privilege).</p>
+
+<p>'You always try to drive a hard bargain,' grumbled the <i>Parnass</i>.
+'That's a question for Mr. Gabriel.'</p>
+
+<p>The reverend gentleman had a happy thought. 'Wait till we come to the
+text: "Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his
+brethren."'</p>
+
+<p>'You're a gentleman, Mr. Gabriel,' ejaculated S. Cohn's son-in-law,
+clutching at his hand.</p>
+
+<p>'And if he doesn't close to-day after your splendid sermon,' added the
+<i>Gabbai</i>, 'you must call and talk to him face to face.'</p>
+
+<p>The minister made a wry face. 'But that's not in my duties.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pardon me, Mr. Gabriel,' put in the <i>Parnass</i>, 'you have to call upon
+the afflicted and the bereaved. And Simeon Samuels is spiritually
+afflicted, and has lost his Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he doesn't want comforting.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Solomon Barzinsky does,' said the <i>Parnass</i>. 'Go to him
+instead, then, for I'm past soothing him. Choose!'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll go to Simeon Samuels,' said the preacher gloomily.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>X</h4>
+
+<p>'It is most kind of you to call,' said Simeon Samuels as he wheeled
+the parlour armchair towards his reverend guest. 'My wife will be so
+sorry to have missed you. We have both been looking forward so much to
+your visit.'</p>
+
+<p>'You knew I was coming?' said the minister, a whit startled.</p>
+
+<p>'I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or later.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister, subsiding into the
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>'Better late than never,' cried Simeon Samuels heartily, as he
+produced a bottle from the sideboard. 'Do you take it with hot water?'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you&mdash;not at all. I am only staying a moment.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' He stroked his beard. 'You are busy?'</p>
+
+<p>'Terribly busy,' said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel.</p>
+
+<p>'Even on Sunday?'</p>
+
+<p>'Rather! It's my day for secretarial work, as there's no school.'</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to myself. But you have to
+work Saturday and Sunday too. It's really too bad.'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh,' said the minister blankly.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, of course I know you <i>must</i> work on the Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>I</i> work on&mdash;on <i>Shabbos</i>!' The minister flushed to the temples.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I'm not blaming you. One must live. In an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>ideal world of
+course you'd preach and pray and sing and recite the Law for nothing
+so that Heaven might perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things
+are you must take your wages.'</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep142" id="imagep142"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep142.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep142.jpg" width="45%" alt="&quot;I work on--on Shabbos!&quot;" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">"I work on&mdash;on <i>Shabbos</i>!"<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The minister had risen agitatedly. 'I earn my wages for the rest of my
+work&mdash;the Sabbath work I throw in,' he said hotly.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. But far be
+it from me to judge a fellow-man.'</p>
+
+<p>'Far be it indeed!' The attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him
+vigour for the lunge. 'You&mdash;you whose shop stands brazenly open every
+Saturday!'</p>
+
+<p>'My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn't break the Fourth Commandment.'</p>
+
+<p>'What!'</p>
+
+<p>'Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not understand.'</p>
+
+<p>'And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth
+Commandment run: "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? If
+I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week,
+since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you don't keep the other half of the Commandment,' said the
+bewildered minister. '"And on the seventh is the Sabbath."'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I do&mdash;after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned
+once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to
+Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>'Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it
+seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first
+sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the
+Commandment&mdash;to work six days and keep a day of rest&mdash;merely changing
+the day once in one's whole lifetime&mdash;or to work five days and keep
+two days of rest?'</p>
+
+<p>The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. He
+had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the
+necessity of earning one's bread. He was prepared to prove that even
+from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run,
+as it is written in the Conclusion-of-Sabbath Service: 'Blessed shalt
+thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.'</p>
+
+<p>Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.</p>
+
+<p>'My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon
+the resting half of the Commandment, forgetting the working half of
+it. I do my best to meet their views&mdash;as you say, one should not dig
+down a wall&mdash;by attending their Sabbath service on a day most
+inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful
+communion with one's brethren.'</p>
+
+<p>'But if your views were to prevail there would be an end of Judaism!'
+the minister burst forth.</p>
+
+<p>'Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!' said Simeon Samuels
+fervently. 'It is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly
+as possible from the pulpit.' Then, as the minister rose in angry
+obfuscation, 'You are sure you won't have some whisky?' he added.</p>
+
+<p>'No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>if you show
+yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you again.'</p>
+
+<p>'So that is your idea of religion&mdash;to drive me from the synagogue. You
+are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of
+always hearing the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy your
+eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of Judaism.'</p>
+
+<p>'Me!' The minister became ungrammatical in his indignation.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac. People who find that
+your Sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all
+professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves
+outside the gates of Judaism. If my father&mdash;peace be upon him&mdash;hadn't
+had your narrow notions, I should have gone to the Bar instead of
+being condemned to shop-keeping.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted the minister.</p>
+
+<p>Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'Thank you. And I congratulate
+<i>your</i> client.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are an <i>Epikouros</i> (Epicurean), and I am wasting my time.'</p>
+
+<p>'And mine too.'</p>
+
+<p>The minister strode into the shop. At the street-door he turned.</p>
+
+<p>'Then you persist in setting a bad example?'</p>
+
+<p>'A bad example! To whom? To your godly congregation? Considering every
+other shop in the town is open on <i>Shabbos</i>, one more or less can't
+upset them.'</p>
+
+<p>'When it is the only Jewish shop! Are you aware, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>sir, that every
+other Jew in Sudminster closes rigorously on the Sabbath?'</p>
+
+<p>'I ascertained that before I settled here,' said Simeon Samuels
+quietly.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XI</h4>
+
+<p>The report of the pastor's collapse produced an emergency meeting of
+the leading sheep. The mid-day dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest.
+A babble of suggestions filled the <i>Parnass's</i> parlour. Solomon
+Barzinsky kept sternly repeating his <i>Delenda est Carthago</i>: 'He must
+be expelled from the congregation.'</p>
+
+<p>'He should be expelled from the town altogether,' said Mendel. 'As it
+is written: "And remove Satan from before and behind us."'</p>
+
+<p>'Since when have we owned Sudminster?' sneered the <i>Parnass</i>. 'You
+might as well talk of expelling the Mayor and the Corporation.'</p>
+
+<p>'I didn't mean by Act of Parliament,' said Mendel. 'We could make his
+life a torture.'</p>
+
+<p>'And meantime he makes yours a torture. No, no, the only way is to
+appeal to his soul&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'May it be an atonement for us all!' interrupted Peleg the pawnbroker.</p>
+
+<p>'We must beg him not to destroy religion,' repeated the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought Mr. Gabriel had done that,' said the <i>Gabbai</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'He is only a minister. He has no worldly tact.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then, why don't <i>you</i> go?' said Solomon Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>'I have too much worldly tact. The President's visit might seem like
+an appeal to authority. It would set up his bristles. Besides, there
+wouldn't be me left to appeal to. The congregation must keep some
+trump up its sleeve. No, a mere plain member must go, a simple brother
+in Israel, to talk to him, heart to heart. You, Barzinsky, are the
+very man.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, I'm not such a simple brother as all that. I'm in the same
+line, and he might take it for trade jealousy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then Peleg must go.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, I'm not worthy to be the <i>Sheliach Tzibbur</i>!' (envoy of the
+congregation).</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> reassured him as to his merits. 'The congregation could
+not have a worthier envoy.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I can't leave my business.'</p>
+
+<p>'You, with your fine grown-up daughters!' cried Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't beshrew them&mdash;I will go at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'And these gentlemen must await you here,' said the President, tapping
+his snuffbox incongruously at the 'here,' 'in order to continue the
+sitting if you fail.'</p>
+
+<p>'I can't wait more than a quarter of an hour,' grumbled various voices
+in various keys.</p>
+
+<p>Peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congregational esteem. He
+returned without even his own. Instead he carried a bulky barometer.</p>
+
+<p>'You must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,' he said. 'It will do
+to hang in the lobby.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> was the only one left in command of his breath.</p>
+
+<p>'Buy a barometer!' he gasped.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>'Well, it isn't any good to <i>me</i>,' retorted Peleg angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'Then why did you buy it?' cried the <i>Gabbai</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'It was the cheapest article I could get off with.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you didn't go to buy,' said the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'I know that&mdash;but you come into the shop&mdash;naturally he takes you for a
+customer&mdash;he looks so dignified; he strokes his beard&mdash;you can't look
+a fool, you must&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Be one,' snapped the <i>Parnass</i>. 'And then you come to us to share the
+expenses!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, what do I want with a barometer?'</p>
+
+<p>'It'll do to tell you there's a storm when the chimney-pots are
+blowing down,' suggested the <i>Parnass</i> crushingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Put it in your window&mdash;you'll make a profit out of it,' said Mendel.</p>
+
+<p>'Not while Simeon Samuels is selling them cheaper, as with his Sabbath
+profits he can well afford to do!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, he said he'd stick to his Sabbath profit, did he?' inquired the
+<i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'We never touched on that,' said Peleg miserably. 'I couldn't manage
+to work the Sabbath into the conversation.'</p>
+
+<p>'This is terrible.' Barzinsky's fist smote the table. 'I'll go&mdash;let
+him suspect my motives or not. The Almighty knows they are pure.'</p>
+
+<p>'Bravo! Well spoken!' There was a burst of applause. Several
+marine-dealers shot out their hands and grasped Barzinsky's in
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>'Do not await me, gentlemen,' he said importantly. 'Go in peace.'</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>XII</h4>
+
+<p>'Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels,' said Solomon Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p>'Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?'</p>
+
+<p>'You&mdash;you don't know me? I am a fellow-Jew.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's as plain as the nose on your face.'</p>
+
+<p>'You don't remember me from <i>Shool</i>? Mr. Barzinsky! I had the
+rolling-up of the Scroll the time you had the elevation of it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely notice people. But I
+am very glad to find you patronizing my humble establishment.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't want a barometer,' said Solomon hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>'That is fortunate, as I have just sold my last. But in the way of
+waterproofs, we have a new pattern, very seasonable.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no; I didn't come for a waterproof.'</p>
+
+<p>'These oilskins&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I didn't come to buy anything.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, you wish to sell me something.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not that either. The fact is, I've come to beg of you, as one Jew to
+another&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'A <i>Schnorrer</i>!' interrupted Simeon Samuels. 'Oh, Lord, I ought to
+have recognised you by that synagogue beginning.'</p>
+
+<p>'Me, a <i>Schnorrer</i>!' The little man swelled skywards. 'Me, Solomon
+Barzinsky, whose shop stood in Sudminster twenty years before you
+poked your nose in&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I beg your pardon. There! you see I'm a beggar, too.' And Simeon
+Samuels laughed mirthlessly. 'Well, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>you've come to beg of me.' And
+his fingers caressed his patriarchal beard.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't come on my own account only,' Barzinsky stammered.</p>
+
+<p>'I understand. You want a contribution to the Passover Cake Fund. My
+time is precious, so is yours. What is the <i>Parnass</i> giving?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not begging for money. I represent the congregation.'</p>
+
+<p>'Dear me, why didn't you come to the point quicker? The congregation
+wishes to beg my acceptance of office. Well, it's very good of you
+all, especially as I'm such a recent addition. But I really feel a
+diffidence. You see, my views of the Sabbath clash with those of the
+congregation.'</p>
+
+<p>'They do!' cried Barzinsky, leaping at his opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I am for a much stricter observance than appears general here.
+Scarcely one of you carries his handkerchief tied round his loins like
+my poor old father, peace be upon him! You all carry the burden of it
+impiously in a pocket.'</p>
+
+<p>'I never noticed <i>your</i> handkerchief round your waist!' cried the
+bewildered Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps not; I never had a cold; it remained furled.'</p>
+
+<p>Simeon Samuels' superb insolence twitched Barzinsky's mouth agape.
+'But you keep your shop open!' he cried at last.</p>
+
+<p>'That would be still another point of clashing,' admitted Simeon
+Samuels blandly. 'Altogether, you will see the inadvisability of my
+accepting office.'</p>
+
+<p>'Office!' echoed Barzinsky, meeting the other's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>ironic fence with
+crude thwacks. 'Do you think a God-fearing congregation would offer
+office to a Sabbath-breaker?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, so that was at the back of it. I suspected something underhand in
+your offer. I was to be given office, was I, on condition of closing
+my shop on Saturday? No, Mr. Barzinsky. Go back and tell those who
+sent you that Simeon Samuels scorns stipulations, and that when you
+offer to make him <i>Parnass</i> unconditionally he may consider your
+offer, but not till then. Good-bye. You must jog along with your
+present apology for a <i>Parnass</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'You&mdash;you Elisha ben Abuyai!' And, consoled only by the aptness of his
+reference to the atheist of the Talmud, Barzinsky rushed off to tell
+the <i>Parnass</i> how Simeon Samuels had insulted them both.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XIII</h4>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i>, however, was not to be drawn yet. He must keep himself
+in reserve, he still insisted. But perhaps, he admitted, Simeon
+Samuels resented mere private members or committeemen. Let the
+<i>Gabbai</i> go.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue strode into the
+notorious shop on the Sabbath itself, catching Simeon Samuels
+red-handed.</p>
+
+<p>But nothing could be suaver than that gentleman's 'Good <i>Shabbos</i>.
+What can I do for you?'</p>
+
+<p>'You can shut up your shop,' said the <i>Gabbai</i> brusquely.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>'And how shall I pay your bill, then?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'd rather give you a seat and all the honours for nothing than see
+this desecration.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must have a goodly surplus, then.'</p>
+
+<p>'We have enough.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's strange. You're the first <i>Gabbai</i> I ever knew who was
+satisfied with his balance-sheet. Is it your excellent management, I
+wonder, or have you endowments?'</p>
+
+<p>'That's not for me to say. I mean we have five or six hundred pounds
+in legacies.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed! Soundly invested, I hope?'</p>
+
+<p>'First-class. English Railway Debentures.'</p>
+
+<p>'I see. Trustee stock.' Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'And so your
+whole congregation works on the Sabbath. A pretty confession!'</p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'Runs railway trains, lights engine-fires, keeps porters and
+signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits!'</p>
+
+<p>'Who does?'</p>
+
+<p>'You, sir, in particular, as the financial representative of the
+congregation. How can any Jew hold industrial shares in a heathen
+country without being a partner in a Sabbath business&mdash;ay, and opening
+on the Day of Atonement itself? And it is you who have the audacity to
+complain of me! I, at least, do my own dirty work, not hide myself
+behind stocks and shares. Good <i>Shabbos</i> to you, Mr. <i>Gabbai</i>, and
+kindly mind your own business in future&mdash;your locomotives and your
+sidings and your stinking tunnels.'</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>XIV</h4>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> could no longer delay the diplomatic encounter. 'Twas
+vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of
+his own tact. He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the
+others that he was about to put it to a trial.</p>
+
+<p>Hence he refrained from improving a synagogue opportunity, but sneaked
+one week-day towards the shop. He lingered without, waiting to be
+invited within. Thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke would be
+removed. His mission should pop up from a casual conversation.</p>
+
+<p>He peeped into the window, passed and repassed.</p>
+
+<p>Simeon Samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the purlieus of his web,
+issued from its centre, as the <i>Parnass</i> turned his back on the shop
+and gazed musingly at the sky.</p>
+
+<p>'Looks threatening for rain, sir,' observed Simeon Samuels, addressing
+the back. 'Our waterproofs&mdash;&mdash; Bless my soul, but it surely isn't our
+<i>Parnass</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I'm just strolling about. I seem to have stumbled on your
+establishment.'</p>
+
+<p>'Lucky for me.'</p>
+
+<p>'And a pleasure for me. I never knew you had such a nice display.'</p>
+
+<p>'Won't you come inside, and see the stock?'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, I must really get back home. And besides, as you say, it
+is threatening for rain.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll lend you a waterproof, or even sell you one cheap. Come in,
+sir&mdash;come in. Pray honour me.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>Congratulating himself on catching the spider, the fly followed him
+within.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz about the stock. It
+seemed vastly difficult to veer round to the Sabbath through the web
+of conversation the spider wove round him. Simeon Samuels' conception
+of a marine-dealer's stock startled him by its comprehensiveness, and
+when he was asked to admire an Indian shawl, he couldn't help
+inquiring what it was doing there.</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' explained Simeon Samuels, 'occasionally a captain or first
+mate will come back to England, home, and beauty, and will have
+neglected to buy foreign presents for his womenkind. I then remind him
+of the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their menfolks'
+travel.'</p>
+
+<p>'Excellent. I won't tell your competitors.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, those cattle!' Simeon snapped his fingers. 'If they stole my
+idea, they'd not be able to carry it out. It's not easy to cajole a
+captain.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'I also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on Simeon. 'It's a thing
+women are especially fond of having brought back to them from India.
+And yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till I remind them
+of it on their return.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>I</i> certainly brought back none,' said the <i>Parnass</i>, smiling in
+spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>'You have been in India?'</p>
+
+<p>'I have,' replied the <i>Parnass</i>, with a happy inspiration, 'and I
+brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>'Indeed?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, who, surrounded by
+all those millions of Hindoos, still keep their Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, poor niggers. Then you've been half round the world.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>All</i> round the world, for I went there and back by different routes.
+And it was most touching, wherever I went, to find everywhere a colony
+of Jews, and everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'</p>
+
+<p>'But on different days, of course,' said Simeon Samuels.</p>
+
+<p>'Eh? Not at all! On the same day.'</p>
+
+<p>'On the same day! How could that be? The day changes with every move
+east or west. When it's day here, it's night in Australia.'</p>
+
+<p>Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'It's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted Simeon
+Samuels. 'Perhaps you don't know that I hail from Australia, and that
+by working on Saturday I escape profaning my native Australian
+Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either
+lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are
+desecrating your original Sabbath either by working on Friday or
+smoking on Sunday.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> felt his head going round&mdash;he didn't know whether east
+or west. He tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain
+strove to make judicial.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, and so, and so&mdash;atchew!&mdash;and so you're the saint and I'm the
+sinner!' he cried sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>'No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Samuels somewhat
+unexpectedly. 'But I do think the Saturday was meant for Palestine,
+not for the lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. When
+you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday.
+A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday,
+of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on Sunday.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the <i>Parnass</i> with obstinate
+sublimity.</p>
+
+<p>'But the Fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the
+Lord thy God giveth thee." I believe this reward belongs to all the
+first five Commandments&mdash;not only to the Fifth&mdash;else an orphan would
+have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the
+Lord giveth thee; not in England, which isn't thine.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oho!' retorted the <i>Parnass</i>. 'Then at that rate in England you
+needn't honour your father and mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not if you haven't got them!' rejoined Simeon Samuels. 'And if you
+haven't got a land, you can't keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we
+can keep the Jubilee also without a country.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the <i>Parnass</i> doggedly. 'It has
+nothing to do with countries. Before we got to the Promised Land we
+kept the Sabbath in the wilderness.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and God sent a double dose of manna on the Friday. Do you mean
+to say He sends us here a double dose of profit?'</p>
+
+<p>'He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well enough before you brought
+your wretched example&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Then my wretched example cannot lead the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>congregation away. I am glad
+of it. You do them much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.'</p>
+
+<p>'My way!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, my dear old father&mdash;peace be upon him!&mdash;would have been
+scandalized to see the burden you carry on the Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>'What burden do I carry?'</p>
+
+<p>'Your snuff-box!'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> almost dropped it. 'That little thing!'</p>
+
+<p>'I call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless thing. But before the
+Almighty there is no great and no small. One who stands in such a high
+place in the synagogue must be especially mindful, and every
+unnecessary burden&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But snuff is necessary for me&mdash;I can't do without it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Other Presidents have done without it. As it is written in Jeremiah:
+"And the wild asses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the
+wind."'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> flushed like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know <i>your</i>
+place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, and strode towards the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>'But if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said Simeon Samuels, 'I
+have an artistic assortment.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XV</h4>
+
+<p>At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a notice of motion stood
+upon the agenda in the name of the <i>Parnass</i> himself:</p>
+
+<p>'That this Council views with the greatest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>reprobation the breach of
+the Fourth Commandment committed weekly by a member of the
+congregation, and calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the
+burial and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close his business
+on the Sabbath.'</p>
+
+<p>When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky moved as an
+amendment that weekly be altered into 'twice a week,' since the member
+kept open on Friday night as well as Saturday.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> refused to accept the amendment. There was only one
+Sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 'And the evening and the
+morning were one day.'</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must not leave Mr. Simeon
+Samuels a loophole of escape. It was also, he said, the duty of the
+Council to buy a barometer the rogue had foisted upon him.</p>
+
+<p>After an animated discussion, mainly about the barometer, the
+President accepted the amendment, but produced a great impression by
+altering 'twice a week' into 'bi-weekly.'</p>
+
+<p>A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself on his style, and
+had even changed his name to John because Jacob grated on his delicate
+ear, refused to be impressed.</p>
+
+<p>Committed <i>bi</i>-weekly <i>by</i> a member sounded almost jocose, he argued.
+'Buy! buy!' it sounded like a butcher's cry.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Enoch, the <i>kosher</i> butcher, rose amid excitement, and asked if he
+had come there to be insulted!</p>
+
+<p>'Sit down! sit down!' said the <i>Parnass</i> roughly. 'It's no matter how
+the resolution sounds. It will be in writing.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>'Then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the stylist, '"Committed
+<i>bi</i>-weekly <i>by</i> a member <i>by buying</i> and selling."'</p>
+
+<p>'Order, order!' said the <i>Parnass</i> angrily. 'Those who are in favour
+of the resolution! Carried.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>By</i> a majority,' sneered the stylist, subsiding.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Secretary'&mdash;the President turned to the poor
+Reverend-of-all-work&mdash;'you need not record this verbal discussion in
+the minutes.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>By</i> request,' said the stylist, reviving.</p>
+
+<p>'But what's the use of the resolution if you don't mention the
+member's name?' suddenly inquired Ephraim Mendel, stretching his long,
+languid limbs.</p>
+
+<p>'But there's only one Sabbath-breaker,' replied the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'To-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.'</p>
+
+<p>'It could hardly be to-morrow,' said the stylist. 'For that happens to
+be a Monday.'</p>
+
+<p>Barzinsky bashed the table. 'Mr. President, are we here for business
+or are we not?'</p>
+
+<p>'You may be here for business&mdash;I am here for religion,' retorted
+Straumann the stylist.</p>
+
+<p>'You&mdash;you snub-nosed monkey, what do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'I will not order,' said Solomon Barzinsky excitedly. 'I did not come
+here to be insulted.'</p>
+
+<p>'Insulted!' quoth Straumann. 'It's you that must apologize, you
+illiterate icthyosaurus! I appeal to the President.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have both insulted <i>me</i>,' was that worthy's ruling. 'I give the
+word to Mr. Mendel.'</p>
+
+<p>'But&mdash;&mdash;' from both the combatants simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>'Order, order!' from a dozen throats.</p>
+
+<p>'I said Simeon Samuels' name must be put in,' Mendel repeated.</p>
+
+<p>'You should have said so before&mdash;the resolution is carried now,' said
+the President.</p>
+
+<p>'And a fat lot of good it will do,' said Peleg. 'Gentlemen, if you
+knew him as well as I, if you had my barometer to read him by, you'd
+see that the only remedy is to put him in <i>Cherem</i>' (excommunication).</p>
+
+<p>'If he can't get buried it <i>is</i> a kind of <i>Cherem</i>,' said the
+<i>Gabbai</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Assuredly,' added the <i>Parnass</i>. 'He will be frightened to think that
+if he dies suddenly&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'And he is sure to take a sudden death,' put in Barzinsky with
+unction.</p>
+
+<p>'He will not be buried among Jews,' wound up the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Hear, hear!' A murmur of satisfaction ran round the table. All felt
+that Simeon Samuels was cornered at last. It was resolved that the
+resolution be sent to him.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XVI</h4>
+
+<p>'Mr. Simeon Samuels requests me to say that he presents his
+compliments to the secretary of the Sudminster Hebrew Congregation,
+and begs to acknowledge the receipt of the Council's resolution. In
+reply I am to state that Mr. Samuels regrets that his views on the
+Sabbath question should differ from those of his fellow-worshippers,
+but he has not attempted to impress his views on the majority, and he
+regrets that in a free country like England they should have imported
+the tyranny of the lands of persecution <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>from which they came.
+Fortunately such procedure is illegal. By the act of Charles I. the
+Sabbath is defined as the Sunday, and as a British subject Mr. Samuels
+takes his stand upon the British Constitution. Mr. Samuels has done
+his best to compromise with the congregation by attending the Sabbath
+service on the day most convenient to the majority. In regard to the
+veiled threat of the refusal of burial rights, Mr. Samuels desires me
+to say that he has no intention of dying in Sudminster, but merely of
+getting his living there. In any case, under his will, his body is to
+be deported to Jerusalem, where he has already acquired a
+burying-place.'</p>
+
+<p>'Next year in Jerusalem!' cried Barzinsky fervently, when this was
+read to the next meeting.</p>
+
+<p>'Order, order,' said the <i>Parnass</i>. 'I don't believe in his Jerusalem
+grave. They won't admit his dead body.'</p>
+
+<p>'He relies on smuggling in alive,' said Barzinsky gloomily, 'as soon
+as he has made his pile.'</p>
+
+<p>'That won't be very long at this rate,' added Ephraim Mendel.</p>
+
+<p>'The sooner the better,' said the <i>Gabbai</i> impatiently. 'Let him go to
+Jericho.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a burst of laughter, to the <i>Gabbai's</i> great astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the <i>Parnass</i>. 'Don't you see from
+this insolent letter how right I was? The rascal threatens to drag us
+to the Christian Courts, that's clear. All that about Jerusalem is
+only dust thrown into our eyes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Grave-dust,' murmured Straumann.</p>
+
+<p>'Order! He is a dangerous customer.'</p>
+
+<p>'Shopkeeper,' corrected Straumann.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Parnass</i> glared, but took snuff silently.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>'I don't wonder he laughed at us,' said Straumann, encouraged.
+'<i>Bi</i>-weekly <i>by</i> a member. Ha! ha! ha!'</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. President!' Barzinsky screamed. 'Will you throw that laughing
+hyena out, or shall I?'</p>
+
+<p>Straumann froze to a statue of dignity. 'Let any animalcule try it
+on,' said he.</p>
+
+<p>'Shut up, you children, I'll chuck you both out,' said Ephraim Mendel
+in conciliatory tones. 'The point is&mdash;what's to be done now, Mr.
+President?'</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing&mdash;till the end of the year. When he offers his new
+subscription we refuse to take it. That can't be illegal.'</p>
+
+<p>'We ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,' said Straumann.
+'These formal resolutions "Buy! buy!" put his back up. We'll go to him
+as brothers&mdash;all Israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than
+water.'</p>
+
+<p>'Chutney is thicker than blood,' put in the <i>Parnass</i> mysteriously.
+'He'll simply try to palm off his stock on the deputation.'</p>
+
+<p>Ephraim Mendel and Solomon Barzinsky jumped up simultaneously. 'What a
+good idea,' said Ephraim. 'There you have hit it!' said Solomon. Their
+simultaneous popping-up had an air of finality&mdash;like the long and the
+short of it!</p>
+
+<p>'You mean?' said the <i>Parnass</i>, befogged in his turn.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean,' said Barzinsky, 'we could buy up his stock, me and the other
+marine-dealers between us, and he could clear out!'</p>
+
+<p>'If he sold it reasonably,' added Mendel.</p>
+
+<p>'Even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for the Sabbath,' said
+the <i>Parnass</i>. 'Besides, divided among the lot of you, the loss would
+be little.'</p>
+
+<p>'And you can buy in my barometer with the rest,' added Peleg.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>'We could call a meeting of marine-dealers,' said Barzinsky,
+disregarding him. 'We could say to them we must sacrifice ourselves
+for our religion.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tell that to the marine-dealers!' murmured Straumann.</p>
+
+<p>'And that we must buy out the Sabbath-breaker at any cost.'</p>
+
+<p>'Buy! buy!' said Straumann. 'If you'd only thought of that sort of
+"Buy! buy!" at the first!'</p>
+
+<p>'Order, order!' said the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'It would be more in order,' said Straumann, 'to appoint an executive
+sub-committee to deal with the question. I'm sick of it. And surely we
+as a Synagogue Council can't be in order in ordering some of our
+members to buy out another.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hear, hear!' His suggestion found general approval. It took a long
+discussion, however, before the synagogue decided to wash its hands of
+responsibility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the task of
+ridding Sudminster of its plague-spot by any means that commended
+itself to them.</p>
+
+<p>Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the pawnbroker were
+elected to constitute this Council of Three.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XVII</h4>
+
+<p>The glad news spread through the Sudminster Congregation that Simeon
+Samuels had at last been bought out&mdash;at a terrible loss to the
+martyred marine-dealers who had had to load themselves with chutney
+and other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. But they would get back
+their losses, it was felt, by the removal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>of his rivalry. Carts were
+drawn up before the dismantled plate-glass window carrying off its
+criminal contents, and Simeon Samuels stood stroking his beard amid
+the ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Then the shop closed; the shutters that should have honoured the
+Sabbath now depressed the Tuesday. Simeon Samuels was seen to get into
+the London train. The demon that troubled their sanctity had been
+exorcised. A great peace reigned in every heart, almost like the
+Sabbath peace coming into the middle of the week.</p>
+
+<p>'If they had only taken my advice earlier,' said Solomon Barzinsky to
+his wife, as he rolled his forkful of beef in the chutney.</p>
+
+<p>'You can write to your father, Deborah,' said Lazarus Levy, 'that we
+no longer need the superior reach-me-downs.'</p>
+
+<p>On the Wednesday strange new rumours began to circulate, and those who
+hastened to confirm them stood dumbfounded before great posters on all
+the shutters:</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+    <p class="cen" style="font-size: 125%;">CLOSED FOR RE-STOCKING</p>
+
+    <p class="cen fakesc">THE OLD-FASHIONED STOCK OF THIS BUSINESS<br />
+    HAVING BEEN SOLD OFF TO THE TRADE,</p>
+
+    <p class="cen" style="font-size: 110%;">SIMEON SAMUELS</p>
+
+    <p class="cen fakesc">IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY<br />
+    TO LAY IN THE BEST AND MOST UP-TO-DATE<br />
+    LONDON AND CONTINENTAL GOODS<br />
+    FOR HIS CUSTOMERS.<br />
+    <i>BARGAINS AND NOVELTIES IN EVERY DEPARTMENT.</i></p>
+
+    <p class="cen" style="font-size: 125%;">RE-OPEN SATURDAY NEXT</p>
+</div>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>XVIII</h4>
+
+<p>A hurried emergency meeting of the Executive Sub-Committee was called.</p>
+
+<p>'He has swindled us,' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'This paper signed by
+him merely undertakes to shut up his shop. And he will plead he meant
+for a day or two.'</p>
+
+<p>'And he agreed to leave the town,' wailed Peleg, 'but he meant to buy
+goods.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, we can have the law of him,' said Mendel. 'We paid him
+compensation for disturbance.'</p>
+
+<p>'And can't he claim he <i>was</i> disturbed?' shrieked Barzinsky. 'His
+whole stock turned upside down!'</p>
+
+<p>'Let him claim!' said Mendel. 'There is such a thing as obtaining
+money under false pretences.'</p>
+
+<p>'And such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock of the heathen,' said
+Peleg. 'We must grin and bear it ourselves.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's all very well for you to grin,' said Solomon tartly. '<i>We've</i>
+got to bear it. You didn't take over any of his old rubbish.'</p>
+
+<p>'Didn't I, indeed? What about the barometer?'</p>
+
+<p>'Confound your barometer!' cried Ephraim Mendel. 'I'll have the law of
+him; I've made up my mind.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you'll have to bear the cost, then,' said Peleg. 'It's none of
+my business.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is,' shouted Mendel. 'As a member of the Sub-Committee you
+can't dissociate yourselves from us.'</p>
+
+<p>'A nice idea that&mdash;I'm to be dragged into your law-suits!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>'Hush, leave off these squabbles!' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'The law is
+slow, and not even sure. The time has come for desperate measures. We
+must root out the plague-spot with our own hands.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hear, hear,' said the rest of the Sub-Committee.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XIX</h4>
+
+<p>On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not the only figure in
+the synagogue absorbed in devotion. Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel,
+and Peleg the pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest
+of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip about them. Their
+shops were open, too, it would seem.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after the service the <i>Parnass</i> arrested Solomon
+Barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour were true.</p>
+
+<p>'Perfectly true,' replied Solomon placidly. 'The Executive
+Sub-Committee passed the resolution to&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'To break the Sabbath!' interrupted the <i>Parnass</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'We had already sacrificed our money; there was nothing left but to
+sacrifice our deepest feelings&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But what for?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, to destroy his advantage, of course. Five-sixths of his Sabbath
+profits depend on the marine-dealers closing, and when he sees he's
+breaking the Sabbath in vain&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Rubbish! You are asked to stop a congregational infection, and
+you&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make sure the attack
+shall be light.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>'It's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said Mendel, who, with Peleg,
+had lingered to back up Barzinsky.</p>
+
+<p>'Of the mad dog!' exclaimed the <i>Parnass</i>. 'And you're all raging
+mad.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's the only sane way,' urged Peleg. 'When he sees his rivals
+open&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'You!' The President turned on him. 'You are not even a marine-dealer.
+Why are you open?'</p>
+
+<p>'How could I dissociate myself from the rest of the Sub-Committee?'
+inquired Peleg with righteous indignation.</p>
+
+<p>'You are a set of sinners in Israel!' cried the <i>Parnass</i>, forgetting
+even to take snuff. 'This will split up the congregation.'</p>
+
+<p>'The congregation through its Council gave the Committee full power to
+deal with the matter,' said Barzinsky with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>'But then the other marine-dealers will open as well as the
+Committee!'</p>
+
+<p>'I trust not,' replied Barzinsky fervently. 'Two of us are enough to
+cut down his takings.'</p>
+
+<p>'But the whole lot of you would be still more efficacious. Oh, this is
+the destruction of our congregation, the death of our religion!'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, no,' said Solomon soothingly. 'You are mistaken. We are most
+careful not to touch money. We are going to trust our customers, and
+keep our accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a most
+ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we
+have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from
+unnecessary desecration.'</p>
+
+<p>'And once the customers don't pay up, your system <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>will break down.
+No, no; I shall write to the Chief Rabbi.'</p>
+
+<p>'We will explain our motives,' said Mendel.</p>
+
+<p>'Your motives need no explanation. This scandal must cease.'</p>
+
+<p>'And who are you to give orders?' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. 'You're
+not speaking to a <i>Schnorrer</i>, mind you. My banking account is every
+bit as big as yours. For two pins I start an opposition <i>Shool</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'A Sunday <i>Shool</i>!' said the <i>Parnass</i> sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>'And why not? It would be better than sitting playing solo on Sundays.
+We are not in Palestine now.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has he?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't need Simeon Samuels' wisdom. I'm an Englishman myself.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XX</h4>
+
+<p>The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were successful. The other
+marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of
+campaign, and Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more pious
+seaport.</p>
+
+<p>But, alas! hom&oelig;opathy was only half-vindicated. For the remedy
+proved worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original
+plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic
+spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the
+congregation. Some had it in a mild <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>form&mdash;only one shutter open, or a
+back door not closed&mdash;but in many it came out over the whole
+shop-window.</p>
+
+<p>The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the
+congregation of which the present esteemed <i>Parnass</i> is Solomon
+Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that
+while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches
+on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still
+remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon
+Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the
+unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are
+engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE RED MARK</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_RED_MARK" id="THE_RED_MARK"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE RED MARK<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>The curious episode in the London Ghetto the other winter, while the
+epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the
+reporters, though in the world of the Board-schools it is a vivid
+memory. But even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and
+the Board members, have remained ignorant of the part little Bloomah
+Beckenstein played in it.</p>
+
+<p>To explain how she came to be outside the school-gates instead of
+inside them, we must go back a little and explain her situation both
+outside and inside her school.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah was probably '<i>Blume</i>,' which is German for a flower, but she
+had always been spelt 'Bloomah' in the school register, for even
+Board-school teachers are not necessarily familiar with foreign
+languages.</p>
+
+<p>They might have been forgiven for not connecting Bloomah with blooms,
+for she was a sad-faced child, and even in her tenth year showed deep,
+dark circles round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large,
+brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these qualities in her
+youngest born, who seemed to her entirely sucked up by the school.</p>
+
+<p>'In my days,' she would grumble, 'it used to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>God Almighty first,
+your parents next, and school last. Now it's all a red mark first,
+your parents and God Almighty nowhere.'</p>
+
+<p>The red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set opposite the child's
+name in the register. To gain it, she must be in her place at nine
+o'clock to the stroke. A moment after nine, and only the black mark
+was attainable. Twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the absent was
+sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording Angel, who in Bloomah's case
+was a pale pupil-teacher with eyeglasses.</p>
+
+<p>But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the school horizon,
+intensifying Bloomah's anxiety and her mother's grievance.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't see nothing,' Mrs. Beckenstein iterated; 'no prize, no
+medal&mdash;nothing but a red mark and a banner.'</p>
+
+<p>The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not unfurled itself in Mrs.
+Beckenstein's young days, nor even in the young days of Bloomah's
+married brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>As the worthy matron would say: 'There's been Jack Beckenstein,
+there's been Joey Beckenstein, there's been Briny Beckenstein, there's
+been Benjy Beckenstein, there's been Ada Beckenstein, there's been
+Becky Beckenstein, God bless their hearts! and they all grew up
+scholards and prize-winners and a credit to their Queen and their
+religion without this <i>meshuggas</i> (madness) of a Banner.'</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely Mrs. Beckenstein connected the degenerate innovation with the
+invasion of the school by 'furriners'&mdash;all these hordes of Russian,
+Polish, and Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>sweeping
+away the good old English families, of which she considered the
+Beckensteins a shining example. What did English people want with
+banners and such-like gewgaws?</p>
+
+<p>The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and punctuality. It might
+be said metaphorically to be made of red marks; and, indeed, its
+ground-hue was purple.</p>
+
+<p>The class that had scored the highest weekly average of red marks
+enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for the next week. It hung by a cord
+on the classroom wall, amid the dull, drab maps&mdash;a glorious sight with
+its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. Life moved to a
+chivalrous music, lessons went more easily, in presence of its proud
+pomp: 'twas like marching to a band instead of painfully plodding.</p>
+
+<p>And the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little
+girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some
+mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple
+and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of
+the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally
+through the door of the cold and empty room.</p>
+
+<p>Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the
+register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those
+childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet
+her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence.</p>
+
+<p>Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely
+through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the
+fold&mdash;the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings
+round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the
+poor child grieve over her sins of omission.</p>
+
+<p>Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for
+if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because Bloomah was slaving
+at something that her mother considered more important.</p>
+
+<p>'The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school
+nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on her mother.</p>
+
+<p>At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-rooms she did
+cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand
+fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes,
+school hours or no school hours.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment, and the
+portress of goods to and from S. Cohn's Emporium in Holloway, and the
+watch-dog when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.</p>
+
+<p>'Lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when Bloomah tearfully
+pleaded for that course. 'My things are much too valuable to be locked
+up. But I know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious
+Banner.'</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren&mdash;and they came
+frequently&mdash;Bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of
+service. Curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived:</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">'Dear Mother,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'A son. Send Bloomah.</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-left: 15%;">'Briny.'</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted:</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">'Dear Mother,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to your heart-broken</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-left: 25%;">'Becky.'</span></p>
+
+<p>Occasionally the post-card went the other way:</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">'Dear Becky,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Send back Bloomah.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 15%;">'Your loving mother.'</span></p>
+
+<p>The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part of Bloomah's
+burden; and in the evenings she had to keep an eye on his street
+sports and comrades, for since he had shocked his parents by dumping
+down a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted without
+supervision.</p>
+
+<p>Not that he had stolen the boots&mdash;far worse! Beguiled by a card
+cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had attended the evening classes of
+the <i>Meshummodim</i>, those converted Jews who try to bribe their
+brethren from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execration of the
+Ghetto.</p>
+
+<p>Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a lamb who had escaped
+from the lions' den, and must be the object of their vengeful pursuit,
+while on Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-dog.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that Bloomah tried to
+go to school by day, and do her home lessons by night. She did not
+murmur against her mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised
+that the poor woman was similarly distracted between domestic duties
+and turns at the machines upstairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life.
+At night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school
+books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her
+share of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. Beckenstein's
+language: 'Don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor
+fry, nor nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it was
+ten minutes to nine before Bloomah could sit down to her own
+breakfast, and then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a
+terrible hindrance; and if that good woman's head was turned, Bloomah
+would sneak towards the improvised sink&mdash;which consisted of two dirty
+buckets, the one holding the clean water being recognisable by the tin
+pot standing on its covering-board&mdash;where she would pour half her tea
+into the one bucket and fill up from the other.</p>
+
+<p>When this stratagem was impossible, she almost scalded herself in her
+gulpy haste. Then how she snatched up her satchel and ran through
+rain, or snow, or fog, or scorching sunshine! Yet often she lost her
+breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered tearfully under
+the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab at her heart was added to the
+stitch in her side.</p>
+
+<p>It made her classmates only the angrier that, despite all her
+unpunctuality, she kept a high position in the class, even if she
+could never quite attain prize-rank.</p>
+
+<p>But there came a week when Bloomah's family remained astonishingly
+quiet and self-sufficient, and it looked as if the Banner might once
+again adorn the dry, scholastic room and throw a halo of romance round
+the blackboard.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>Then a curious calamity befell. A girl who had left the school for
+another at the end of the previous week, returned on the Thursday,
+explaining that her parents had decided to keep her in the old school.
+An indignant heart-cry broke through all the discipline:</p>
+
+<p>'Teacher, don't have her!'</p>
+
+<p>From Bloomah burst the peremptory command: 'Go back, Sarah!'</p>
+
+<p>For the unlucky children felt that her interval would now be reckoned
+one of absence. And they were right. Sarah reduced the gross
+attendance by six, and the Banner was lost.</p>
+
+<p>Yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh spurt. Again the
+tantalizing Thursday was reached before their hopes were dashed. This
+time the break-down was even crueller, for every pinafored pupil, not
+excluding Bloomah, was in her place, red-marked.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this saintly company burst suddenly Bloomah's mother, who,
+ignoring the teacher, and pointing her finger dramatically at her
+daughter, cried:</p>
+
+<p>'Bloomah Beckenstein, go home!'</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah's face became one large red mark, at which all the other
+girls' eyes were directed. Tears of humiliation and distress dripped
+down her cheeks over the dark rings. If she were thus hauled off ere
+she had received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance
+would be cancelled.</p>
+
+<p>The class was all in confusion. 'Fold arms!' cried the teacher
+sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. Bloomah obeyed instinctively
+with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>'Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you out by your plait?'</p>
+
+<p>'Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn't come here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>like that!' said the
+teacher in her most ladylike accents.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell Bloomah that,' answered Mrs. Beckenstein, unimpressed. 'She's
+come here by runnin' away from home. There's nobody but her to see to
+things, for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a weddin'
+last night, and comin' home at four in the mornin', and pourin' cats
+and dogs. If you go to our house, please, teacher, you'll see my Benjy
+in bed; he's given up his day's work; he must have his sleep; he earns
+three pounds a week as head cutter at S. Cohn's&mdash;he can afford to be
+in bed, thank God! So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein! Don't they teach
+you here: "Honour thy father and thy mother"?'</p>
+
+<p>Poor Bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and mothers should not
+dishonour their children. With hanging head she moved to the door, and
+burst into a passion of tears as soon as she got outside.</p>
+
+<p>After, if not in consequence of, this behaviour, Mrs. Beckenstein
+broke her leg, and lay for weeks with the limb cased in
+plaster-of-Paris. That finished the chances of the Banner for a long
+time. Between nursing and house management Bloomah could scarcely ever
+put in an attendance.</p>
+
+<p>So heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the sensitive child day
+and night that she walked almost with a limp, and dreamed of her name
+in the register with ominous rows of black ciphers; they stretched on
+and on to infinity&mdash;in vain did she turn page after page in the hope
+of a red mark; the little black eggs became larger and larger, till at
+last horrid horned insects began to creep from them and scramble all
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. Sometimes she lay swathed
+and choking in the coils of a Black Banner.</p>
+
+<p>And, to add to these worries, the School Board officer hovered and
+buzzed around, threatening summonses.</p>
+
+<p>But at last she was able to escape to her beloved school. The expected
+scowl of the room was changed to a sigh of relief; extremes meet, and
+her absence had been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. The hope of the Banner
+flamed anew in every breast. But the other classes were no less keen;
+a fifth standard, in particular, kept the Banner for a full month,
+grimly holding it against all comers, came they ever so regularly and
+punctually.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into the competition. An
+epidemic of small-pox broke out in the East End, with its haphazard
+effects upon the varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals
+and prizes, all was luck and lottery. The pride of the fifth standard
+was laid low; one of its girls was attacked, two others were kept at
+home through parental panic. A disturbing insecurity as of an
+earthquake vibrated through the school. In Bloomah's class alone&mdash;as
+if inspired by her martial determination&mdash;the ranks stood firm,
+unwavering.</p>
+
+<p>The epidemic spread. The Ghetto began to talk of special psalms in the
+little synagogues.</p>
+
+<p>In this crisis which the epidemic produced the Banner seemed drifting
+steadily towards Bloomah and her mates. They started Monday morning
+with all hands on deck, so to speak; they sailed round <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>Tuesday and
+Wednesday without a black mark in the school-log. The Thursday on
+which they had so often split was passed under full canvas, and if
+they could only get through Friday the trophy was theirs.</p>
+
+<p>And Friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as, in view of the
+incoming Sabbath, it finished earlier. School did not break up between
+the two attendances; there was a mere dinner-interval in the
+playground at midday. Nobody could get away, and whoever scored the
+first mark was sure of the second.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter morning; she could
+run no risks of being late. She polished off all her house-work,
+wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself,
+yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still there was
+always that troublesome small-pox&mdash;&mdash;! She breathed a prayer that God
+would keep all the little girls and send them the Banner.</p>
+
+<p>As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-card for her
+mother. Bloomah's heart was in her mouth when Mrs. Beckenstein clucked
+her tongue in reading it. She felt sure that the epidemic had invaded
+one of those numerous family hearths.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother handed her the card silently.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">'Dear Mother,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'I am rakked with neuraljia. Send Bloomah to fry the fish.</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-left: 25%;">'Becky.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah turned white; this was scarcely less tragic.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Becky!' said her heedless parent.</p>
+
+<p>'There's time after school,' she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>'What!' shrieked Mrs. Beckenstein. 'And not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>give the fish time to get
+cold! It's that red mark again&mdash;sooner than lose it you'd see your own
+sister eat hot fish. Be off at once to her, you unnatural brat, or
+I'll bang the frying-pan about your head. That'll give you a red
+mark&mdash;yes, and a black mark, too! My poor Becky never persecuted me
+with Banners, and she's twice the scholard you are.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, she can't spell "neuralgia,"' said Bloomah resentfully.</p>
+
+<p>'And who wants to spell a thing like that? It's bad enough to feel it.
+Wait till you have babies and neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how
+you'll spell.'</p>
+
+<p>'She can't spell "racked" either,' put in Daniel.</p>
+
+<p>His mother turned on him witheringly. 'She didn't go to school with
+the <i>Meshummodim</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel.</p>
+
+<p>'What's your books for? You don't fry fish with books.' Mrs.
+Beckenstein wrested it away from her, and dashed it on the floor. The
+pencil-case rolled one way, the thimble another.</p>
+
+<p>'But I can get to school for the afternoon attendance.'</p>
+
+<p>'Madness! With your sister in agony? Have you no feelings? Don't let
+me see your brazen face before the Sabbath!'</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way to Becky's her feet
+turned of themselves by long habit down the miry street in which the
+red-brick school-building rose in dreary importance. The sight of the
+great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a throb of guilt.
+For a moment she stood wrestling with the temptation to enter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>It was but for the moment. She might rise to the heresy of <i>hot</i> fried
+fish in lieu of cold, but Becky's Sabbath altogether devoid of fried
+fish was a thought too sacrilegious for her childish brain.</p>
+
+<p>From her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried fish had been part of
+her conception of the Day of Rest. Visions and odours of her mother
+frying plaice and soles&mdash;at worst, cod or mackerel&mdash;were inwoven with
+her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it is probable she
+thought Friday was short for frying-day.</p>
+
+<p>With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape the tug of
+temptation.</p>
+
+<p>'Bloomah! Where are you off to?'</p>
+
+<p>It was the alarmed cry of a classmate. Bloomah took to her heels, her
+face a fiery mass of shame and grief.</p>
+
+<p>Towards midday Becky's fish, nicely browned and sprigged with parsley,
+stood cooling on the great blue willow-pattern dish, and Becky's
+neuralgia abated, perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed to scamper off to
+school in the desperate hope of saving the afternoon attendance.</p>
+
+<p>The London sky was of lead, and the London pavement of mud, but her
+heart was aglow with hope. As she reached the familiar street a
+certain strangeness in its aspect struck her. People stood at the
+doors gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots were a-cooking;
+straggling groups possessed the roadway, impeding her advance, and as
+she got nearer to the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became
+impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this
+malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing
+herself time to speculate on what was up. All around her she became
+aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands.</p>
+
+<p>The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and Roumanian women of the
+latest immigration, as she could tell by the pious wigs hiding their
+tresses. Those in the front were pressed against the bars of the
+locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them with passion.</p>
+
+<p>Although Bloomah's knowledge of Yiddish was slight&mdash;as became a scion
+of an old English family&mdash;she could make out their elemental
+ejaculations.</p>
+
+<p>'You murderers!'</p>
+
+<p>'Give me my Rachel!'</p>
+
+<p>'They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh destroyed our sons.'</p>
+
+<p>'Give me back my children, and I'll go back to Russia.'</p>
+
+<p>'They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners!'</p>
+
+<p>'O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my Leah?'</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the bars the children&mdash;released for the
+dinner-interval&mdash;were clamouring equally, shouting, weeping, trying to
+get to their mothers. Some howled, with their sleeves rolled up, to
+exhibit the upper arm.</p>
+
+<p>'See,' the women cried, 'the red marks! Oh, the poisoners!'</p>
+
+<p>A light began to break upon Bloomah's brain. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>Evidently the School
+Board had suddenly sent down compulsory vaccinators.</p>
+
+<p>'I won't die,' moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 'I'm too young to
+die yet.'</p>
+
+<p>'My little lamb is dying!' A woman near Bloomah, with auburn wisps
+showing under her black wig, wrung her hands. 'I hear her
+talk&mdash;always, always about the red mark. Now they have given it her.
+She is poisoned&mdash;my little apple.'</p>
+
+<p>'Your little carrot is all right,' said Bloomah testily. 'They've only
+vaccinated her.'</p>
+
+<p>The woman caught at the only word she understood. 'Vaccinate,
+vaccinate!' she repeated. Then, relapsing into jargon and raising her
+hands heavenward: 'A sudden death upon them all!'</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless woman. One stood at
+her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>'Can't you explain to her that the doctors mean no harm?' Bloomah
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, don't they, indeed? Just you read this!' She flourished a
+handbill, English on one side, Yiddish on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah read the English version, not without agitation:</p>
+
+<p>'Mothers, look after your little ones! The School Tyrants are plotting
+to inject filthy vaccine into their innocent veins. Keep them away
+rather than let them be poisoned to enrich the doctors.'</p>
+
+<p>There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah. What wonder if the
+refugees from lands of persecution&mdash;lands in which anything might
+happen&mdash;believed they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if
+the rumour that executioners with instruments had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>entered the
+school-buildings had run like wildfire through the quarter, enflaming
+Oriental imagination to semi-madness.</p>
+
+<p>While Bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman fainted, and the din
+and frenzy grew.</p>
+
+<p>'But I was vaccinated when a baby, and I'm all right,' murmured
+Bloomah, half to reassure herself.</p>
+
+<p>'My arm! I'm poisoned!' And another pupil flew frantically towards the
+gate.</p>
+
+<p>The women outside replied with a dull roar of rage, and hurled
+themselves furiously against the lock.</p>
+
+<p>A window on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the
+head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the
+parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone
+shook an answering fist.</p>
+
+<p>'You old maid&mdash;childless, pitiless!'</p>
+
+<p>Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every side, and soon a
+posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to
+push themselves between them and the gate. A fat and genial officer
+worked his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't hurt the poor women,' Bloomah pleaded. 'They think their
+children are being poisoned.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know, missie. What can you do with such greenhorns? Why don't they
+stop in their own country? I've just been vaccinated myself, and it's
+no joke to get my arm knocked about like this!'</p>
+
+<p>'Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet them.'</p>
+
+<p>The policeman laughed. A sleeveless policeman! It would destroy all
+the dignity and prestige of the force.</p>
+
+<p>'Then I'll show them mine,' said Bloomah <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>resolutely. 'Mine are old
+and not very showy, but perhaps they'll do. Lift me up, please&mdash;I mean
+on your unvaccinated arm.'</p>
+
+<p>Overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted her on his burly
+shoulder. The apparent arrest made a diversion; all eyes turned
+towards her.</p>
+
+<p>'You <i>Narronim</i>!' (fools), she shrieked, desperately mustering her
+scraps of Yiddish. 'Your children are safe. Ich bin vaccinated. Look!'
+She rolled up her sleeve. 'Der policeman ist vaccinated. Look&mdash;if I
+tap him he winces. See!'</p>
+
+<p>'Hold on, missie!' The policeman grimaced.</p>
+
+<p>'The King ist vaccinated,' went on Bloomah, 'and the Queen, and the
+Prince of Wales, yes, even the Teachers themselves. There are no
+devils inside there. This paper'&mdash;she held up the bill&mdash;'is lies and
+falsehood.' She tore it into fragments.</p>
+
+<p>'No; it is true as the Law of Moses,' retorted a man in the mob.</p>
+
+<p>'As the Law of Moses!' echoed the women hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah had an inspiration. 'The Law of Moses! Pooh! Don't you know
+this is written by the <i>Meshummodim</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the handbill was
+written by apostates, what could it hold but Satan's lies?</p>
+
+<p>Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. 'Go home, you <i>Narronim</i>!'
+she cried pityingly from her perch. And then, veering round towards
+the children behind the bars: 'Shut up, you squalling sillies!' she
+cried. 'As for you, Golda Benjamin, I'm ashamed of you&mdash;a girl of your
+age! Put your sleeve down, cry-baby!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>Bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the
+police from observing another party of rioters&mdash;women, assisted by
+husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at
+a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it open, and with a
+great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for
+their progeny.</p>
+
+<p>The police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack
+upon doors and windows, and Bloomah was hastily set down in the
+seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who
+could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.</p>
+
+<p>The large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children,
+police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. But there was no
+riot. The law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching
+their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. The children
+who had not the luck to be kidnapped escaped of themselves, some
+panic-stricken, some merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the
+school was empty.</p>
+
+<br />
+<hr style='width: 15%;' />
+<br />
+
+<p>The School Management Committee sat formally to consider this
+unprecedented episode. It was decided to cancel the attendance for the
+day. Red marks, black marks&mdash;all fell into equality; the very ciphers
+were reduced to their native nothingness. The school-week was made to
+end on the Thursday.</p>
+
+<p>Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant
+sisterhood. On the wall shone the Banner.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE BEARER OF BURDENS</h2>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_BEARER_OF_BURDENS" id="THE_BEARER_OF_BURDENS"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE BEARER OF BURDENS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>When her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya&mdash;as everybody called the old
+clo'-woman&mdash;was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined
+beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past
+the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But
+when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's
+critical maternity was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had
+not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut of his clothes a
+subtle suggestion of going to the races.</p>
+
+<p>It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had never gone to the
+races, that his duties as bookkeeper of S. Cohn's Clothing Emporium
+prevented him from going to the races, and that the cut of his clothes
+was intended to give tone to his own establishment.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, yes, he does not take <i>thee</i> to the races,' she insisted in
+Yiddish. 'But all these young men with check suits and flowers in
+their buttonholes bet and gamble and go to the bad, and their wives
+and children fall back on their old mothers for support.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>'I shall not fall back on thee,' Fanny retorted angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'And on whom else? A pretty daughter! Would you fall back on a
+stranger? Or perhaps you are thinking of the Board of Guardians!' And
+a shudder of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. For at sixty she
+was already meagre, had already the appearance of the venerable
+grandmother she was now to become, save that her hair, being only a
+pious wig, remained rigidly young and black. Life had always gone hard
+with her. Since her husband's death, when Fanny was a child, she had
+scraped together a scanty livelihood by selling odds and ends for a
+mite more than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas she
+haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old-clo' woman linked
+by their common love of a bargain.</p>
+
+<p>Natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle of ancient finery on
+the floor and spurn it with her foot. 'How can I sell that?' she would
+inquire. 'Last time I gave you too much&mdash;I lost by you.' And having
+wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking
+silver and copper from a grimy leather bag she wore hidden in her
+bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she
+would stagger joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly
+sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and
+transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning;
+scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the
+great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and
+freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on
+other social horizons.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>Of English she had, when she began, only enough to bargain with; but
+in one year of forced intercourse with English folk after her
+husband's death she learnt more than in her quarter of a century of
+residence in the Spitalfields Ghetto.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny's function had been to keep house and prepare the evening meal,
+but the old clo'-woman's objection to her marriage was not selfish.
+She was quite ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater
+after the day's tramp. Fanny had, indeed, offered to have her live in
+the elegant two-roomed cottage near King's Cross which Henry was
+furnishing. She could sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour.
+But the old woman's independent spirit and her mistrust of her
+son-in-law made her prefer the humble Ghetto garret. Against all
+reasoning, she continued to feel something antipathetic in Henry's
+clothes and even in his occupation&mdash;perhaps it was really the
+subconscious antagonism of the old clo' and the new, subtly symbolic
+of the old generation and the smart new world springing up to tread it
+down. Henry himself was secretly pleased at her refusal. In the first
+ardours of courtship he had consented to swallow even the Polish crone
+who had strangely mothered his buxom British Fanny, but for his own
+part he had a responsive horror of old clo'; felt himself of the great
+English world of fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly
+Britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool at his
+glass-environed desk, and in touch even with the <i>lion comique</i>, the
+details of whose cheap but stylish evening dress he entered with a
+proud flourish.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>The years went by, and it looked as if the old woman's instinct were
+awry. Henry did not go to the races, nor did Fanny have to fall back
+on her mother-in-law for the maintenance of herself and her two
+children, Becky and Joseph. On the contrary, she doubled her position
+in the social scale by taking a four-roomed house in the Holloway
+Road. Its proximity to the Clothing Emporium enabled Henry to come
+home for lunch. But, alas! Fanny was not allowed many years of
+enjoyment of these grandeurs and comforts. The one-roomed grave took
+her, leaving the four-roomed house incredibly large and empty. Even
+Natalya's Ghetto garret, which Fanny had not shared for seven years,
+seemed cold and vacant to the poor mother. A new loneliness fell upon
+her, not mitigated by ever rarer visits to her grandchildren. Devoid
+of the link of her daughter, the house seemed immeasurably aloof from
+her in the social scale. Henry was frigid and the little ones went
+with marked reluctance to this stern, forbidding old woman who
+questioned them as to their prayers and smelt of red-herrings. She
+ceased to go to the house.</p>
+
+<p>And then at last all her smouldering distrust of Henry Elkman found
+overwhelming justification.</p>
+
+<p>Before the year of mourning was up, before he was entitled to cease
+saying the <i>Kaddish</i> (funeral hymn) for her darling Fanny, the wretch,
+she heard, was married again. And married&mdash;villainy upon villainy,
+horror upon horror&mdash;to a Christian girl, a heathen abomination.
+Natalya was wrestling with her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>over-full sack when she got the news
+from a gossiping lady client, and she was boring holes for the passage
+of string to tie up its mouth. She turned the knife viciously, as if
+it were in Henry Elkman's heart.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know the details of the piquant, tender courtship between
+him and the pretty assistant at the great drapery store that
+neighboured the Holloway Clothing Emporium, any more than she
+understood the gradual process which had sapped Henry's instinct of
+racial isolation, or how he had passed from admiration of British ways
+into entire abandonment of Jewish. She was spared, too, the knowledge
+that latterly her own Fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of
+impiety; that they had ridden for a breath of country air on Sabbath
+afternoons. They had been considerate enough to hide that from her. To
+the old clo'-woman's crude mind, Henry Elkman existed as a monster of
+ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that he had been married
+in church and baptized, despite that her informant tried to console
+her with the assurance that the knot had been tied in a Registrar's
+office.</p>
+
+<p>'May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh!' she cried in her
+picturesque jargon. 'May his fine clothes fall from his flesh and his
+flesh from his bones! May my Fanny's outraged soul plead against him
+at the Judgment Bar! And she&mdash;this heathen female&mdash;may her death be
+sudden!' And she drew the ends of the string tightly together, as
+though round the female's neck.</p>
+
+<p>'Hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would
+become of your own grandchildren?'</p>
+
+<p>'They cannot be worse off than they are now, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>a heathen in the
+house. All their Judaism will become corrupted. She may even baptize
+them. Oh, Father in Heaven!'</p>
+
+<p>The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the innocent Becky and
+Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the best there would be no <i>kosher</i> food
+in the house any more. How could this stranger understand the
+mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from
+butter-plates?</p>
+
+<p>At last she could bear the weight no longer. She took the Elkman house
+in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door.
+It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along
+the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet
+on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there,
+forgotten, a mute symbol of the Jewish past.</p>
+
+<p>A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see.</p>
+
+<p>'Old clo',' she said mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>'No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her voice was sweet, but it
+sounded to Natalya like the voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born
+children. Her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the
+background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which
+the new-comer profaned. And between Natalya and it, between Natalya
+and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand
+barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without explanations.</p>
+
+<p>'Is Mr. Elkman at home?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>'You know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old woman's sardonic accent
+was lost on the listener.</p>
+
+<p>'I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied.</p>
+
+<p>'Not even a pair of old shoes?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'But the dead woman's&mdash;&mdash;? Are you, then, standing in them?'</p>
+
+<p>The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so
+weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a little shriek.</p>
+
+<p>'Henry!' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but came to a sudden
+standstill.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you want here?' he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>'Fanny's shoes!' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is it?' his wife's eyes demanded.</p>
+
+<p>'A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,' he gestured
+back. And he put her inside the room-door, whispering, 'Let me get rid
+of her.'</p>
+
+<p>'So, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-in-law in Yiddish.</p>
+
+<p>'Painted?' he said angrily. 'Madge painted? She's just as natural as a
+rosy apple. She's a country girl, and her mother was a lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'Her mother? Perhaps! But she? You see a glossy high hat marked
+sixteen and sixpence, and you think it's new. But I know what it's
+come from&mdash;a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. Ah, how she
+could have bewitched you, when there are so many honest Jewesses
+without husbands!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>'I am sorry she doesn't please you; but, after all, it's my business,
+and not yours.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not mine? After I gave you my Fanny, and she slaved for you and bore
+you children?'</p>
+
+<p>'It's just for her children that I had to marry.'</p>
+
+<p>'What? You had to marry a Christian for the sake of Fanny's children?
+Oh, God forgive you!'</p>
+
+<p>'We are not in Poland now,' he said sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, I always said you were a sinner in Israel. My Fanny has been
+taken for your sins. A black death on your bones.'</p>
+
+<p>'If you don't leave off cursing, I shall call a policeman.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, lock me up, lock me up&mdash;instead of your shame. Let the whole
+world know that.'</p>
+
+<p>'Go away, then. You have no right to come here and frighten Madge&mdash;my
+wife. She is in delicate health, as it is.'</p>
+
+<p>'May she be an atonement for all of us! I have the right to come here
+as much as I please.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have no right.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have a right to the children. My blood is in their veins.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have no right. The children are their father's.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, their Father's in heaven,' and she raised her hand like an
+ancient prophetess, while the other supported her bag over her
+shoulder. 'The children are the children of Israel, and they must
+carry forward the yoke of the Law.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what do you propose?' he said, with a scornful sniff.</p>
+
+<p>'Give me the children. I will elevate them in the fear of the Lord.
+You go your own godless way, free <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>of burdens&mdash;you and your Christian
+poppet. You no longer belong to us. Give me the children, and I'll go
+away.'</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her quizzingly. 'You have been drinking, my good
+mother-in-law.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, the waters of affliction. Give me the children.'</p>
+
+<p>'But they won't go with you. They love their step-mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Love that painted jade? They, with Jewish blood warm in their veins,
+with the memory of their mother warm in their hearts? Impossible!'</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door gently. 'Becky! Joe! No, don't you come, Madge,
+darling. It's all right. The old lady wants to say "Good-day" to the
+children.'</p>
+
+<p>The two children tripped into the passage, with napkins tied round
+their chins, their mouths greasy, but the rest of their persons
+unfamiliarly speckless and tidy. They stood still at the sight of
+their grandmother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door
+carefully.</p>
+
+<p>'My lambs!' Natalya cried, in her sweetest but harsh tones, 'Won't you
+come and kiss me?'</p>
+
+<p>Becky, a mature person of seven, advanced courageously and surrendered
+her cheek to her grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>'How are you, granny?' she said ceremoniously.</p>
+
+<p>'And Joseph?' said Natalya, not replying. 'My heart and my crown, will
+he not come?'</p>
+
+<p>The four-and-a-half year old Joseph stood dubiously, with his fist in
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>'Bring him to me, Becky. Tell him I want you and him to come and live
+with me.'</p>
+
+<p>Becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. 'He may. I won't,' she said
+laconically.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>'Oh, Becky!' said the grandmother. 'Do you want to stay here and
+torture your poor mother?'</p>
+
+<p>Becky stared. 'She's dead,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but her soul lives and watches over you. Come, Joseph, apple of
+my eye, come with me.'</p>
+
+<p>She beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining the invitation
+was to enter her bag and be literally carried away therein, set up a
+terrific howl. Thereupon the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and
+the child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to her and
+nestled in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>'Mamma, mamma,' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant smile.</p>
+
+<p>Natalya went hot and cold. It was not only that little Joseph had gone
+to this creature. It was not even that he had accepted her maternity.
+It was this word 'mamma' that stung. The word summed up all the
+blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity. 'Mamma' was redolent
+of cold Christian houses in whose doorways the old clo'-woman
+sometimes heard it. Fanny had been 'mother'&mdash;the dear, homely, Jewish
+'mother.' This 'mamma,' taught to the orphans, was like the haughty
+parade of Christian elegance across her grave.</p>
+
+<p>'When <i>mamma's</i> shoes are to be sold, don't forget me,' Natalya
+hissed. 'I'll give you the best price in the market.'</p>
+
+<p>Henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her outside: 'Certainly,
+certainly. Good-afternoon.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll buy them at your own price&mdash;ah, I see them coming, coming into
+my bag.'</p>
+
+<p>The door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>and Henry
+clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom and pressed a long kiss upon
+her fragrant cherry lips.</p>
+
+<p>Later on he explained that the crazy old clo'-woman was known to the
+children, as to everyone in the neighbourhood, as 'Granny.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>In the bearing of her first child the second Mrs. Elkman died. The
+rosy face became a white angelic mask, the dainty figure lay in
+statuesque severity, and a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was
+the compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was overwhelmed by
+grief and superstition.</p>
+
+<p>'For three things women die in childbirth,' kept humming in his brain
+from his ancient Hebrew lore. He did not remember what they were,
+except that one was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire
+the lump of dough from the Sabbath bread. But these neglects could not
+be visited on a Christian, he thought dully. The only distraction of
+his grief was the infant's pressing demand on his attention.</p>
+
+<p>It was some days before the news penetrated to the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>'It is his punishment,' she said with solemn satisfaction. 'Now my
+Fanny's spirit will rest.'</p>
+
+<p>But she did not gloat over the decree of the God of Israel as she had
+imagined beforehand, nor did she call for the dead woman's old clo'.
+She was simply content&mdash;an unrighteous universe had been set straight
+again like a mended watch. But she did call, without <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>her bag, to
+inquire if she could be of service in this tragic crisis.</p>
+
+<p>'Out of my sight, you and your evil eye!' cried Henry as he banged the
+door in her face.</p>
+
+<p>Natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions. So she was
+still to be shut out.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>The next news that leaked into Natalya's wizened ear was as startling
+as Madge's death. Henry had married again. Doubtless with the same
+pretext of the children's needs he had taken unto himself a third
+wife, and again without the decencies of adequate delay. And this wife
+was a Jewess, as of yore. Henry had reverted matrimonially to the
+fold. Was it conscience, was it terror? Nobody knew. But everybody
+knew that the third Mrs. Elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good
+orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash,
+besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without
+prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with
+these household elements.</p>
+
+<p>The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. She felt
+vaguely that the Jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have
+accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral
+rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian conjunction. And
+the memory of Fanny was still outraged by this burying of her, so to
+speak, under layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>children would revert to Judaism, and they would have a Jewish mother,
+not a mamma, to care for them and to love them. The thought consoled
+her for being shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been,
+even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had alienated her from
+the household, had made her kinship practically remote. She had sunk
+to a sort of third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed.</p>
+
+<p>The days went on, and again the Elkman household occupied the gossips,
+and news of it&mdash;second-hand, like everything that came to her&mdash;was
+picked up by Natalya on her rounds. Henry's third wife was, it
+transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was frightful, she beat
+her step-children, and&mdash;worst and rarest sin in the Jewish
+housewife&mdash;she drank. Henry was said to be in despair.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Nebbich</i>, the poor little children!' cried Natalya, horrified. Her
+brain began plotting how to interfere, but she could find no way.</p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the
+third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap&mdash;Henry had
+disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent
+brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium
+knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. Benjamin
+Beckenstein, the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter
+hypothesis reported a significant saying: 'I have lived with two
+angels; I can't live with a demon.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,' said Natalya, neglecting
+to draw the deduction anent America, and passing over the other angel.
+And she embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>who had known
+the blessing of a sober, God-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a
+child-beater? 'No wonder he killed himself!'</p>
+
+<p>The gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than
+suicide.</p>
+
+<p>'You are right!' Natalya admitted illogically. 'Just what a coward and
+blackguard like that would do&mdash;leave the children at the mercy of the
+woman he couldn't face himself. How in Heaven's name will they live?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after them,' the
+gossips assured her. 'He gave her good money, you know, fifty pounds
+and the bedding. Ah, trust Elkman for that. He knew he wasn't leaving
+the children to starve.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know so much,' said the old woman, shaking her bewigged head.</p>
+
+<p>What was to be done? Suppose the furrier refused the burden. But
+Henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the Elkman
+household. If she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face
+the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts it was this other
+woman whom Henry's flight had changed to a stranger. What had the
+wretch to do with the children? She was a mere intruder in the house.
+Out with her, or at least out with the children.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, she would go boldly there and demand them. 'Poor Becky! Poor
+Joseph!' her heart wailed. 'You to be beaten and neglected after
+having known the love of a mother.' True, it would not be easy to
+support them. But a little more haggling, a little more tramping, a
+little more mending, and a little less gorging and gormandising! They
+would be at school <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>during the day, so would not interfere with her
+rounds, and in the evening she could have them with her as she sat
+refurbishing the purchases of the day. Ah, what a blessed release from
+the burden of loneliness, heavier than the heaviest sack! It was well
+worth the price. And then at bedtime she would say the Hebrew
+night-prayer with them and tuck them up, just as she had once done
+with her Fanny.</p>
+
+<p>But how if the woman refused to yield them up&mdash;as Natalya could fancy
+her refusing&mdash;out of sheer temper and devilry? What if, amply
+subsidized by her well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little
+ones by her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or hold
+them hostages for his return? Why, then, Natalya would use
+cunning&mdash;ay, and force, too&mdash;she would even kidnap them. Once in their
+grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back
+to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were
+nil.</p>
+
+<p>It was while buying up on a Sunday afternoon the sloughed vestments of
+a Jewish family in Holloway that her resolve came to a head. A cab
+would be necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. What an
+opportunity for carrying off the children at the same time! The house
+was actually on her homeward route. The economy of it tickled her,
+made her overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed the
+motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and
+squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a
+magic sack that could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Emporium,
+Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to fetch a cab.
+Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied Natalya half an hour. She
+would harangue the Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty,
+and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a ridiculous sum. At
+first none of them would take notice of the old Jewish crone, but
+would read their papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually,
+as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream of persuasion
+would begin to percolate, and at last one would relent, half out of
+pity, and would end by bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder
+from the house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite filling
+the interior of a four-wheeler, and then Natalya would ride
+triumphantly beside her cabby on the box, the two already the best of
+friends. Things went ill if Natalya did not end by trading off
+something in the sacks against the fare&mdash;at a new profit.</p>
+
+<p>But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a mediocre bargain.
+The cumbrous sack was hoisted into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside
+it, and in a resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment at
+the Elkman home.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky to the door ere her
+grandmother could jump out. She was still under ten, but prematurely
+developed in body as in mind. There was something unintentionally
+insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>of adults as
+equals; but now her face changed almost to a child's, and with a glad
+tearful cry of 'Oh, grandmother!' she sprang into the old woman's
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>It was the compensation for little Joseph's 'mamma.' Tears ran down
+the old woman's cheeks as she hugged the strayed lamb to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>A petulant infantile wail came from within, but neither noted it.</p>
+
+<p>'Where is your step-mother, my poor angel?' Natalya asked in a half
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>Becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her face became a woman's
+again. 'One o'clock the public-houses open on Sundays,' she snorted.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, my God!' cried Natalya, forgetting that the circumstance was
+favouring her project. 'A Jewish woman! You don't mean to say that she
+drinks in public-houses?'</p>
+
+<p>'You don't suppose I would let her drink here,' said Becky. 'We have
+nice scenes, I can tell you. The only consolation is she's
+better-tempered when she's quite drunk.'</p>
+
+<p>The infant's wail rang out more clamorously.</p>
+
+<p>'Hush, you little beast!' Becky ejaculated, but she moved mechanically
+within, and her grandmother followed her.</p>
+
+<p>All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed overclouded with
+shabbiness and untidiness. To Natalya everything looked and smelt like
+the things in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled
+its red face with shrieking.</p>
+
+<p>Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its existence
+penetrated at all to the old woman's preoccupied brain. Its pipings
+had been like an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>unheeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic
+experience. Even when she realized the child's existence her brain
+groped for some seconds in search of its identity.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet's life! So it
+still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that
+brief but shameful episode. 'Grow dumb like your mother,' she murmured
+resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry Elkman had left behind
+him! Ah, how right she had been to suspect him from the very first!</p>
+
+<p>'But where is my little Joseph?' she said aloud.</p>
+
+<p>'He's playing somewhere in the street.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ach, mein Gott!</i> Playing, when he ought to be weeping like this
+child of shame. Go and fetch him at once!'</p>
+
+<p>'What do you want him for?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am going to take you both away&mdash;out of this misery. You'd like to
+come and live with me&mdash;eh, my lamb?'</p>
+
+<p>'Rather&mdash;anything's better than this.'</p>
+
+<p>Natalya caught her to her breast again.</p>
+
+<p>'Go and fetch my Joseph! But quick, quick, before the public-house
+woman comes back!'</p>
+
+<p>Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair, breathless with emotion
+and fatigue. The baby in the cradle beside her howled more vigorously,
+and automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she heard herself
+singing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Sleep, little baby, sleep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy father shall be a Rabbi;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy mother shall bring thee almonds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blessings on thy little head.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock that she was
+rocking this misbegotten infant&mdash;nay, singing to it a Jewish
+cradle-song full of inappropriate phrases. She withdrew her foot as
+though the rocker had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out with
+fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her foot to its old place.
+'<i>Nu, nu</i>,' she cried, rocking violently, 'go to sleep.'</p>
+
+<p>She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw that the teat
+of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. 'There, there&mdash;suck!' she
+said, readjusting it. The baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at
+her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya
+trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of
+Fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the
+cherry lips of the painted poppet.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Nebbich</i>; the poor, deserted little orphan,' she apologized to
+herself. 'And this is how the new Jewish wife does her duty to her
+step-children. She might as well have been a Christian.' Then a
+remembrance that the Christian woman had seemingly been an
+unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts further. And while she
+was groping among them Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his
+turn haled in a kite with a long tail.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate towards his
+grandmother with Becky's eagerness. Probably he felt the domestic
+position less. But he surrendered himself to her long hug. 'Did she
+beat him,' she murmured soothingly, 'beat my own little Joseph?'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't waste time, granny,' Becky broke in petulantly, 'if we <i>are</i>
+going.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>'No, my dear. We'll go at once.' And, releasing the boy, Natalya
+partly undid the lower buttons of his waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>'You wear no four-corner fringes!' she exclaimed tragically. 'She
+neglects even to see to that. Ah, it will be a good deed to carry you
+from this godless home.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I don't want to go with you,' he said sullenly, reminded of past
+inquisitorial worryings about prayers.</p>
+
+<p>'You little fool!' said Becky. 'You <i>are</i> going&mdash;and in that cab.'</p>
+
+<p>'In that cab?' he cried joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, <i>she</i> don't hurt!' he said contemptuously. 'She hasn't even got a
+cane&mdash;like at school.'</p>
+
+<p>'But shan't we take our things?' said Becky.</p>
+
+<p>'No, only the things you stand in. They shan't have any excuse for
+taking you back. I'll find you plenty of clothes, as good as new.'</p>
+
+<p>'And little Daisy?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, is it a girl? Your stepmother will look after that. She can't
+complain of one burden.'</p>
+
+<p>She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the sack and
+herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette.</p>
+
+<p>'I say, I didn't bargain for extras inside,' grumbled the cabman.</p>
+
+<p>'You can't reckon these children,' said Natalya, with confused legal
+recollections; 'they're both under seven.'</p>
+
+<p>The cabman started. Becky stared out of the window. 'I wonder if we'll
+pass Mrs. Elkman,' she said, amused. Joseph busied himself with
+disentangling the tails of his kite.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their indifference to her. That
+poor little Daisy! The image of the baby swam vividly before her. What
+a terrible fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! Who
+knew what would happen to it? What if, in her drunken fury at the
+absence of Becky and Joseph, she did it a mischief? At the best the
+besotted creature would not take cordially to the task of bringing it
+up. It was no child of hers&mdash;had not even the appeal of pure Jewish
+blood. And there it lay, smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. It had
+smiled trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave it to its
+fate. And now it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of
+the cab. But how could she charge herself with it&mdash;she, with her daily
+rounds to make? The other children were grown up, passed the day at
+school. No, it was impossible. And the child's cry went on in her
+imagination louder and louder.</p>
+
+<p>She put her head out of the window. 'Turn back! Turn back! I've
+forgotten something.'</p>
+
+<p>The cabman swore. 'D'ye think you've taken me by the week?'</p>
+
+<p>'Threepence extra. Drive back.'</p>
+
+<p>The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the
+whip, and set off briskly.</p>
+
+<p>'What have you forgotten, grandmother?' said Becky. 'It's very
+careless of you.'</p>
+
+<p>The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round nervously, sprang
+out, and then uttered a cry of despair.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ach</i>, we shut the door!' And the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold
+desirability.</p>
+
+<p>'It's all right,' said Becky. 'Just turn the handle.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby, not crying, but
+sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched it up frenziedly, and hurried
+the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab.</p>
+
+<p>'Taking Daisy?' cried Becky. 'But she isn't yours!'</p>
+
+<p>Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle
+turned again Ghettowards.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the children could not
+be kept a secret, but the step-mother's family made no effort to
+regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of
+all Henry Elkman's wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a
+successor, is unknown.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not,
+however, so charming as Natalya had imagined. The cost of putting
+Daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared
+to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who
+began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the
+garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old
+times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the
+irregular m&eacute;nage. The Christian wife's influence had been refining but
+too temporary. It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the
+religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to add to the
+grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>The only sweet in Natalya's cup turned out to be the love of little
+Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning.</p>
+
+<p>Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All Daisy did seemed to
+her perfect. For instant obedience and instant comprehension she
+declared her matchless.</p>
+
+<p>One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in
+her momentary absence Becky had pulled Joseph's hair.</p>
+
+<p>'Hush! You mustn't tell tales,' Natalya said reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Becky did not pull Joey's hair,' Daisy corrected herself instantly.</p>
+
+<p>Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to outgrow the Ghetto, even
+while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, Daisy picked
+up the Yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky's
+remonstrances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was not the only
+subject of dispute between Becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly
+accused of favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when,
+with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on
+her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother's
+father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her
+grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>In another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the
+School Board, Joseph joined her. And thus, by the unforeseen turns of
+Fortune's wheel, the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone
+with the child of seven.</p>
+
+<p>But this child was compensation for all she had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>undergone, for all
+the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. Daisy
+threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail,
+and while she made the old clo' into new, Daisy read aloud her English
+story-books. Natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery
+tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. 'Jack the
+Giant-killer,' 'Aladdin,' 'Cinderella,' they were all delightful
+novelties. The favourite story of both was 'Little Red Riding-Hood,'
+with its refrain of 'Grandmother, what large eyes you've got!' That
+could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for
+them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: 'Grandmother, what a
+large mouth you've got!' 'All the better to bite you with,'
+grandmother would reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.</p>
+
+<p>But Friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on
+which Natalya could be stopped from working. Only religion was strong
+enough to achieve that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper
+candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon
+as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they
+shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the
+ritually-twisted loaves. And after supper Natalya would sing the
+Hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. Then she
+would tell stories of her youth in Poland&mdash;comic tales mixed with
+tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would
+weep and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed made her
+sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and Natalya was not
+unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>But after eighteen months of this delightful life Natalya's wonderful
+vitality began slowly to collapse. She earned less and less, and, amid
+her gratitude to God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky
+and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would she be taken away
+before Daisy became self-supporting? Nay, would she even be able to
+endure the burden till the end? What made things worse was that, owing
+to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra
+shilling a week for rent. When Daisy was asleep the old woman hung
+over the bed, praying for life, for strength.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the
+ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. And a little thing occurred to
+bring home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources,
+physical and financial. The children's country holiday was in the air
+at Daisy's Board School, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the
+droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a
+cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or
+guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have
+gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant
+investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even
+more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of
+poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural
+delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation.
+Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in
+a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not
+disillusion Daisy.</p>
+
+<p>By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>of bargaining
+with bewildered housewives, Natalya raised the four shillings, and the
+unconscious Daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the
+platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears.</p>
+
+<p>That first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for
+the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed
+removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the
+greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up
+her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets.</p>
+
+<p>In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found
+a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her
+for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. This old lady
+seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her
+playing outside the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child when I am gone,'
+thought Natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get
+this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down
+them again.</p>
+
+<p>Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-room neighbour, the
+cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' But she
+would not have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On the
+day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and
+warning, in being up and dressed. She sent everybody away, and lay on
+her bed till she heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her
+feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the sound of
+other footsteps, and the entry of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>spectacled, silver-haired old
+gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her intended hug. Daisy's new
+friend had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the
+strange lady and the sunburnt child.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got!' And Daisy ran
+laughingly towards her.</p>
+
+<p>The usual repartee was wanting.</p>
+
+<p>'And the room is not tidied up,' Natalya said reproachfully, and began
+dusting a chair for the visitor. But the old lady waved it aside.</p>
+
+<p>'I have come to thank you for all you have done for my grandchild.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Your</i> grandchild?' Natalya fell back on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes. I have had inquiries made&mdash;it is quite certain. Daisy was even
+called after me. I am glad of that, at least.' Her voice faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under sacks would
+allow.</p>
+
+<p>'And you have come to take her from me!' she shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>Already Daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the sign of life that
+belonged elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough from my
+selfishness. It was my bad temper drove my daughter from me.' She
+bowed her silver head till her form seemed as bent as Natalya's. 'What
+can I do to repair&mdash;to atone? Will you not come and live with me in
+the country, and let me care for you? I am not rich, but I can offer
+you every comfort.'</p>
+
+<p>Natalya shook her head. 'I am a Jewess. I could not eat with you.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's just what <i>I</i> told her, grandmother,' added Daisy eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>'Then the child must remain with you at my expense,' said the old
+lady.</p>
+
+<p>'But if she likes the country so&mdash;&mdash;' murmured Natalya.</p>
+
+<p>'I like you better, grandmother.' And Daisy laid her ruddied cheek to
+the withered cheek, which grew wet with ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>'She calls <i>you</i> "grandmother," not me,' said the old gentlewoman with
+a sob.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive me!'</p>
+
+<p>Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to and fro, holding
+Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing heart.</p>
+
+<p>'What did you say?' Daisy's grandmother flamed and blazed with her
+ancient anger. 'You wished my Madge dead?'</p>
+
+<p>Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their hold of Daisy. 'Dead,
+dead, dead,' she repeated in a strange, crooning voice. Gradually a
+vacant look crept over her face, and she fell back again on the bed.
+She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black wig.</p>
+
+<p>'She is ill!' Daisy shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>The cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back between the
+sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy in leaving her bed.
+Natalya lived till near noon of the next day, and Daisy's real
+grandmother was with her still at the end, side by side with the
+Jewish death-watcher.</p>
+
+<p>About eleven in the morning Natalya said: 'Light the candles, Daisy,
+the Sabbath is coming in.' Daisy spread a white tablecloth on the old
+wooden table, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the
+bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with curious unreality
+in the full August sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>A holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face. Her dried-up lips
+mumbled the Hebrew prayer, welcoming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they
+grew rigid in death.</p>
+
+<p>'Daisy,' said her grandmother, 'say the text I taught you.'</p>
+
+<p>'"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,"' sobbed the
+child obediently, '"and I will give you rest."'</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE LUFTMENSCH</h2>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_LUFTMENSCH" id="THE_LUFTMENSCH"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE LUFTMENSCH<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio,
+brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him
+a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. It began 'Angel of
+God!'</p>
+
+<p>He laughed bitterly. 'Just when I am at my most diabolical!' He did
+not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many
+begging-letters which were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist
+period. But he turned over the page to see the name of the Orientally
+effusive scribe. It was 'Nehemiah Silvermann, Dentist and
+Restaurateur.' His laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense
+of humour was still saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist
+sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand the
+figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. He read the
+letter.</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p class="right sc">'3a, The Minories, E.</p>
+
+<p>'<span class="sc">Angel of God,</span></p>
+
+<p>'I have the honour now to ask Your very kind humane merciful
+cordial nobility to assist me by Your clement philanthropical
+liberal relief in my very <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>hard troublesome sorrows and
+worries, on which I suffer violently. I lost all my fortune,
+and I am ruined by Russia. I am here at present without means
+and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of
+a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really what to do in my
+actual very disgraceful mischief. I heard the people saying
+Your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are
+everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably
+gracious. Thus I solicit and supplicate Your good very kind
+genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant
+request to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to
+respond me as soon as possible according to Your generous very
+philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 40%;">'Your obedient servant respectfully,</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-right: 20%;">'Nehemiah Silvermann,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 10%;">'<i>Dentist and Restaurateur.</i>'</span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of Barstein's
+melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its
+cornucopia. 'It is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured,
+re-reading the letter with unction.</p>
+
+<p>It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. He asked for
+details of Silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to
+the Russo-Jewish Fund, which existed to help such refugees from
+persecution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring
+Mansel Place?</p>
+
+<p>Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors in Zionism, a
+pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the
+voluble little man now loomed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>suddenly large as a possible authority
+upon his brother-dentist.</p>
+
+<p>By return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the
+'dictionary in distress.'</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p class="right sc">'3a, The Minories, E.</p>
+
+<p class="sc">'Most Honourable and Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,</p>
+
+<p>'I have the honour now to thank You for Your kind answer of my
+letter. I did not succeed here by my vital experience in the
+last of ten years. I got my livelihood a certain time by my
+dental practice so long there was not a hard violent
+competition, then I had never any efficacious relief,
+protection, then I have no relation, then we and the time are
+changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform
+any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate
+position &pound;4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not
+earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in
+Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful
+humanity by something, if I had &pound;15 I could start off from
+here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had
+&pound;30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my
+bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is
+nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the
+Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is
+in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection,
+no introduction, no recommendation for it. Poverty has very
+seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends.
+The people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a
+good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>impossible
+competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility
+according to the universal good reputation of Your gracious
+goodness to reply me quick by some help now.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 40%;">'Your obedient Servant respectfully,</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-right: 20%">'Nehemiah Silvermann,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 10%"><i>'Dentist and Restaurateur.'</i></span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation.
+Instead of being a victim of the Russian troubles, a recent refugee
+from massacre and robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London for
+ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by
+Russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. His ideas of his future
+seemed as hazy as his past. Four pounds would be a very present help;
+he could continue his London career. With fifteen pounds he was ready
+to start off anywhither. With thirty pounds he would end all his
+troubles in Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a
+personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form,
+Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and
+repaired to the Minories. But he looked in vain for either a dentist
+or a restaurant at No. 3<span class="sc">A</span>. It appeared a humble corner
+residence, trying to edge itself into the important street. At last,
+after wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby
+door. A frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said
+that the Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.</p>
+
+<p>'What!' cried Barstein. 'Is he married?'</p>
+
+<p>'I should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'He has eleven
+children at least.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by
+Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony.
+The family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back,
+which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silvermann had rushed
+thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded
+from it. But Mr. Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded,
+bewigged creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked curiously
+round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. But
+he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane
+chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped
+with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into
+a bedstead at night for half the family. But of a dentist's chair
+there was not even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-backed
+books&mdash;some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' He noted a
+Russo-German and a German-English. Then the sounds of frying
+penetrated more keenly to his brain.</p>
+
+<p>'You are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>'Restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'Have I not enough cooking
+to do for my own family? And where shall I find money to keep a
+restaurant?'</p>
+
+<p>'Your husband said&mdash;&mdash;' murmured Barstein, as in guilty confusion.</p>
+
+<p>A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the
+mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile
+mob. From the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings.
+Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board.
+She placed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his
+Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she
+complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous.</p>
+
+<p>'Where does your husband do his dentistry?' Barstein inquired, seating
+himself cautiously upon the board.</p>
+
+<p>'Do I know?' said his wife. 'He goes out, he comes in.' At this
+moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in.</p>
+
+<p>'Holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of Barstein's coat, and
+kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to
+over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the
+tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest
+possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded
+her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone
+with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor,
+positively soaring heavenwards with rapture.</p>
+
+<p>But Barstein inquired brutally: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind me,' replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 'Let me look on you!'
+And a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze.</p>
+
+<p>But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'Where do you do your
+dentistry?'</p>
+
+<p>The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through
+Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where
+shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no
+friends.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the
+dictionary <i>was</i> his fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was
+reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring
+to gaze with large liquid eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'But you <i>have</i> managed to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed
+out.</p>
+
+<p>'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once
+has He deserted me and my children.'</p>
+
+<p>'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein.</p>
+
+<p>The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a
+holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?'</p>
+
+<p>'That is here.'</p>
+
+<p>'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again.</p>
+
+<p>'Where else? Here is a wide opening for a <i>kosher</i> restaurant. There
+are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around&mdash;poor young
+men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not
+where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'</p>
+
+<p>'Naturally&mdash;a counsel that I have given myself.'</p>
+
+<p>'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford
+to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?'</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>softened by noting
+how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands&mdash;they might
+well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will
+happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of
+stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?'</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily
+which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto
+Sicilian fashions were paralleled.</p>
+
+<p>'I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' Nehemiah explained.
+'But here is this great empty room. What am I to do with it? At night
+of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. Also
+I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a week from my friends in
+Russia and America, and one of which I even buy here. When I have read
+them these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given myself a
+counsel, if I would make here a reading-room they should come in the
+evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go
+to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy
+to make them to eat and drink. First I will give to them only coffee
+and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all the
+<i>Delicatessen</i> of Poland. When our custom will become too large we
+shall take over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the
+Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is
+only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted Barstein,
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>said Nehemiah
+reassuringly. 'From you I ask nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>'In that case,' replied Barstein drily, 'I must say I consider it an
+excellent plan. Your idea of building up from small foundations is
+most sensible&mdash;some of the young men may even have toothache&mdash;but I do
+not see where you need me&mdash;unless to supply a few papers.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did I not say you were from heaven?' Nehemiah's eyes shone again.
+'But I do not require the papers. It is enough for me that your holy
+feet have stood in my homestead. I thought you might send money. But
+to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able to tell I have spoken
+with him face to face!'</p>
+
+<p>Barstein was touched. 'I think you will need a larger table for the
+reading-room,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>The tall figure shook its tall hat. 'It is only gas that I need for my
+operations.'</p>
+
+<p>'Gas!' repeated Barstein, astonished. 'Then you propose to continue
+your dentistry too.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated Nehemiah.
+'Unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not
+come. But the penny gas is all I need.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, if it costs only a penny&mdash;&mdash;' began Barstein.</p>
+
+<p>'A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. 'But then there is the
+meter and the cost of the burners.' He calculated that four pounds
+would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all
+the homeless moths of the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected with his first
+sense of solid foothold. After all Nehemiah had sustained his surprise
+visit fairly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>well&mdash;he was obviously no Cr&oelig;sus&mdash;and if four pounds
+would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the
+whole neighbourhood&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. It
+contained only three pounds ten. He rummaged his pockets for silver,
+finding only eight shillings.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>'As if I couldn't trust you!' cried Nehemiah reproachfully, and as he
+lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw
+that he had no waistcoat.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>About six months later, when Barstein had utterly forgotten the
+episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly
+recalled everything.</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<div class="block"><p class="hang">'<i>To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious
+Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very Famous Sculptor.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right sc">'3a, The Minories, E.</p>
+
+<p class="sc">'Dear Sir,</p>
+
+<p>'I have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and
+sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for Your
+grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal
+compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous
+benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which
+afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable
+desperate necessitous need, wherein I am at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>present very poor
+indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical Russia,
+therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and
+assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously,
+I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from
+Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently &pound;4 the same
+was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very
+indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain
+now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my
+daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse
+languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology,
+the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to
+Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate Your
+charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to
+make me go away from here as soon as possible according to
+Your humane kind merciful clemency.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 40%;">'Your obedient Servant respectfully,</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-right: 20%;">'Nehemiah Silvermann,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 10%;"><i>'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'</i></span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant.
+Anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. Emigration appeared now
+the only salvation.</p>
+
+<p>But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly Persia was meant. But why
+Persia? Wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever
+would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in Persia?
+Nehemiah's original suggestion of Jerusalem had been much more
+intelligible. Perhaps it persisted still under the head of Turkey.
+Not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>least characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious gloating
+over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>For some days the sculptor went about weighed down by Nehemiah's
+misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the
+Minories. But he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could
+tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell
+upon him.</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p class="right sc">'3a, The Minories, E.</p>
+
+<p>'I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about
+my decided and expecting departure. I must sue by my quite
+humble and very instant entreaty Your noble genteel cordial
+humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour
+vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at
+least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as
+possible according to Your clement magnanimous charitable
+mercy of &pound;15 if not &pound;25 among Your very estimable and
+respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another
+country even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice
+or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. The
+great competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have
+here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations,
+no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no
+protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no
+good connecting acquaintance, in Russia I am ruined and I
+perish here, I am already desperate and despond entirely. I do
+not know what to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual
+urgent, extreme immense need. I am told by good many people,
+that the board of guardians is very seldom to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>rescue by aid
+the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices
+and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, and in
+the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and
+he is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit considerably
+Your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as
+possible quick according to Your very gracious mercy.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 40%;">'Your obedient Servant respectfully,</span><br />
+<span class="sc" style="margin-right: 20%;">'Nehemiah Silvermann,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 10%;"><i>'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'</i></span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein summoned a hansom
+and sped to the Minories.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw
+the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless
+chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah
+sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the
+visitor. From chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the
+same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.</p>
+
+<p>But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss.</p>
+
+<p>'Where is the gas?' he asked drily.</p>
+
+<p>'Alas, the company removed the meter.'</p>
+
+<p>'But the gas-brackets?'</p>
+
+<p>'What else had we to eat?' said Nehemiah simply.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>ceiling. But a
+fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. He could not, however,
+recall whether the pipe had been there before or not.</p>
+
+<p>'So the young men would not come?' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. Only they did not
+pay.'</p>
+
+<p>'You should have made it a rule&mdash;cash down.'</p>
+
+<p>Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and
+melancholy visage.</p>
+
+<p>'And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where had those young men to
+turn but to me?'</p>
+
+<p>Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. He hastened to
+change the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>'And why do you want to go to Bursia?' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Why shall I want to go to Bursia?' Nehemiah replied.</p>
+
+<p>'You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. Always Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to Russia.'</p>
+
+<p>'He would,' said Barstein grimly. 'But where is Bursia?'</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'Shall I know? My little Rebeccah was
+drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we
+lived two months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'</p>
+
+<p>'And do I not trust Him?' said Nehemiah fervently. 'Otherwise,
+burdened down as I am with a multitude of children&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'You made your own burden,' Barstein could not help pointing out.</p>
+
+<p>Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>caught sight of feet of
+clay beneath Barstein's shining boots.</p>
+
+<p>'"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' Nehemiah quoted in
+Hebrew. 'Is not that the very first commandment in the Bible?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the sculptor evasively.
+'I suppose you mean Palestine?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should ought to go, there to
+work for Palestine. Are not many of the Sultan's own officials Jews?
+If we can make of <i>them</i> hot-hearted Zionists&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found himself sitting on
+the table to discuss it. The reverence with which Nehemiah listened to
+his views was touching and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the
+celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror. Yet he could not
+suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of Zionism
+Nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe
+trembling on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean
+visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of
+Palestine, and Barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity
+was repeated and re-enforced.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that Nehemiah himself
+would have scant opportunity of influential contact with Ottoman
+officials, and that the real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his
+wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in
+Turkey. He mentioned the point.</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah waved it away. 'And cannot the Almighty support us in Turkey
+as well as in England?' he asked. 'Yes, even in Bursia itself the
+Guardian of Israel is not sleepy.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>It was then that the word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind.
+Nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. He was
+an air-man, floating on facile wings through the &aelig;ther. True, he spoke
+of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary
+distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition.
+At worst they were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in common
+with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision.
+Never for a moment had Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had
+he lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely optimism in
+disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a
+few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not
+that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker
+such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten
+years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to
+uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an
+unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse,
+through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever
+on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days
+and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more
+important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he,
+the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new child
+with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah lost his
+robustious faith in life, his belief in God, man, or himself.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>respect for
+others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant
+humanity, by men become as Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he
+address one as 'Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his pole-stars.
+And what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible
+resilience! He had once been a dentist, and he still considered
+himself one. Before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the
+proprietor of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of
+anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly
+between two gilded horizons. The superficial might call him shiftless,
+but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the
+art of living? Did he not incarnate the great Jewish gospel of the
+improvident lilies?</p>
+
+<p>'You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a burst of artistic
+fervour. 'Thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds
+or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small
+business here.'</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah stared at him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then
+the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a
+Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were
+caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were distinctly audible.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest.</p>
+
+<p>'But what business do you think you&mdash;&mdash;?' he began.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I presume dictation to the angel?' asked Nehemiah with wet
+shining eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'I am thinking that perhaps we might find something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>in which your
+children could help you. How old is the eldest?'</p>
+
+<p>'I will ask my wife. Salome!' he cried. The dismal creature trotted
+in.</p>
+
+<p>'How old is Moshel&eacute;?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>'And don't you remember he was twelve last Tabernacles?'</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'Merciful Heaven! He must soon begin
+to learn his <i>Parshah</i> (confirmation portion). What will it be? Where
+is my <i>Chumash</i> (Pentateuch)?' Mrs. Silvermann drew it down from the
+row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending
+over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'What business do you think
+your husband could set up here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.</p>
+
+<p>'Would you like to be a dentist again?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, but how shall I find achers?'</p>
+
+<p>'You put up a sign,' said Barstein. 'One of those cases of teeth. I
+daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door,
+especially if you take an extra room. I will buy you the instruments,
+furnish the room attractively. You will put in your newspapers&mdash;why,
+people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Nehemiah addressed his wife. 'Did I not say he was a genteel
+archangel?' he cried ecstatically.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>Barstein was sitting outside a caf&eacute; in Rome sipping vermouth with
+Rozenoffski, the Russo-Jewish pianist, and Schneemann the
+Galician-Jewish painter, when he next heard from Nehemiah.</p>
+
+<p>He was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had
+instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. So when the
+man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand.
+But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and
+recalled the forgotten <i>Luftmensch</i>. He threw the letter impatiently
+on the table.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding.</p>
+
+<p>'I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here, in this classical
+atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with
+the gaunt godly Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his
+truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for the
+ne'er-do-well! Let his Providence look after him!</p>
+
+<p>'Is she beautiful?' quizzed Schneemann.</p>
+
+<p>Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was broken up. Nehemiah
+as a petticoated romance was too tickling.</p>
+
+<p>'You shall read the letter,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Schneemann protested comically. 'No, no, that would be
+ungentlemanly&mdash;you read to us what the angel says.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he tore open the
+letter. He read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter
+at each eruption of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>adjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.'
+Rozenoffski and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the
+Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the
+motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked
+with the mad foreigners.</p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p class="right sc">'3a, The Minories, E.</p>
+
+<p class="sc">'Right Honourable Angelical Mr. Leopold Barstein,</p>
+
+<p>'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine
+sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to
+oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second
+and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent
+position in which I have no earn by my dental practice
+likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no
+employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I
+was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration
+of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful
+archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my
+dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital
+subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little
+while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the
+urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent,
+well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent
+generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as
+possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good
+ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 40%;">'Your obedient servant respectfully,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 20%;">'Nehemiah Silvermann,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-right: 10%;"><i>'Dentist and Professor of Languages.'</i></span><br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's comment was
+unexpected.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Rosh Hashanah</i> so near?' he said.</p>
+
+<p>A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to
+work out the date of the Jewish New Year, that solemn period of
+earthly trumpets and celestial judgments.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski suddenly. The trio looked
+at one another with rueful humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even
+realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily
+decreeing their life-or-death sentences!</p>
+
+<p>Barstein raised his glass. 'Here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said.</p>
+
+<p>The three men clinked glasses.</p>
+
+<p>Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.</p>
+
+<p>'Send that to the poor devil,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Oho!' laughed Schneemann. 'You still believe "Charity delivers from
+death!" Well, I must be saved too!' And he threw down another
+hundred-lire note.</p>
+
+<p>To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if an old
+superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann's laughter as behind
+Rozenoffski's donation.</p>
+
+<p>'You will only make the <i>Luftmensch</i> believe still more obstinately in
+his Providence,' he said, as he gathered up the New Year gifts. 'Again
+will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good
+sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, hasn't he?' laughed Schneemann.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. '<i>Qui sa?</i>'</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE TUG OF LOVE</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_TUG_OF_LOVE" id="THE_TUG_OF_LOVE"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE TUG OF LOVE<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>When Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to
+Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the
+match, always excepting Sugarman the <i>Shadchan</i> (whom love matches
+shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered Fanny flighty and
+fond of finery).</p>
+
+<p>'That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted
+Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.</p>
+
+<p>'He who marries Fanny <i>is</i> rich,' retorted Elias.</p>
+
+<p>'"Pawn your hide, but get a bride,"' quoted the old lady savagely.</p>
+
+<p>As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a
+relative.</p>
+
+<p>'But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias protested.</p>
+
+<p>'A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,' replied Sugarman
+indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>But Elias was quite content with his own arrangement, for Fanny's
+glance was melting and her touch transporting. To deck that soft warm
+hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed
+disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. It lit
+up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch,
+bent over his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's
+badinage.</p>
+
+<p>The course of true love seemed to run straight to the Canopy&mdash;Fanny
+had already worked the bridegroom's praying shawl&mdash;when suddenly a
+storm broke. At first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand&mdash;in
+fact, it was a man's hand. Elias espied it groping for Fanny's in the
+dim space between the two machines. As Fanny's fingers fluttered
+towards it, her other hand still guiding the cloth under the throbbing
+needle, Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, through
+and through. The very finger that held his costly ring lay in this
+alien paw gratis.</p>
+
+<p>The shameless minx! Ah, his relatives were right. He snapped the
+scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw.</p>
+
+<p>'Fanny, what dost thou?' he gasped in Yiddish.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny's face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed.</p>
+
+<p>Elias snorted incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the engagement he flew to
+Elias, his blue bandanna streaming from his coat-tail.</p>
+
+<p>'If you had come to me,' he crowed, 'I should have found you a more
+reliable article. However, Heaven has given you a second helping. A
+well-built wage-earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's
+daughter even.'</p>
+
+<p>'I never wish to look upon a woman again,' Elias groaned.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Schtuss!</i>' said the great marriage-broker. 'Three days after the
+Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of Tabernacles. The Almighty,
+blessed be He, who created both light and darkness, has made obedient
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' And he blew his nose
+emphatically into his bandanna.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes; but she won't return me my ring,' Elias lamented.</p>
+
+<p>'What!' Sugarman gasped. 'Then she considers herself still engaged to
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not at all. She laughs in my face.'</p>
+
+<p>'And she has given you back your promise?'</p>
+
+<p>'My promise&mdash;yes. The ring&mdash;no.'</p>
+
+<p>'But on what ground?'</p>
+
+<p>'She says I gave it to her.'</p>
+
+<p>Sugarman clucked his tongue. 'Tututu! Better if we had followed our
+old custom, and the man had worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!'</p>
+
+<p>'In the workshop,' Elias went on miserably, 'she flashes it in my
+eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh, the Jezebel!'</p>
+
+<p>'I should summons her!'</p>
+
+<p>'It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave her the ring?'</p>
+
+<p>Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience was at fault. No maiden
+had ever refused to return his client's ring; rather had she flung it
+in the wooer's false teeth.</p>
+
+<p>'This comes of your love matches!' he cried sternly. 'Next time there
+must be a proper contract.'</p>
+
+<p>'Next time!' repeated Elias. 'Why how am I to afford a new ring? Fanny
+was ruinous in cups of chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre!'</p>
+
+<p>'I should want my fee down!' said Sugarman sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Elias shrugged his shoulders. 'If you bring me the ring.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>'I do not get old rings but new maidens,' Sugarman reminded him
+haughtily. 'However, as you are a customer&mdash;&mdash;' and crying 'Five per
+cent. on the greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere Elias had
+time to dissent from the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts, Sugarman ploughed
+his way up the dark staircase to their room. His attire was wasted on
+the family, for Fanny herself opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>'Peace to you,' he cried. 'I have come on behalf of Elias Goldenberg.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is useless. I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door.
+Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared
+diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried
+hastily.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The diamond glittered
+mockingly on it. Then she turned away giggling. 'But look at this
+photograph!' panted Sugarman desperately through the closing door.</p>
+
+<p>Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She stared at the
+sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger.</p>
+
+<p>'Four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter at S. Cohn's,'
+said Sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 'A good old English family;
+Benjamin Beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into Elias's
+shoes.'</p>
+
+<p>'His feet are too large!' And she flicked the photograph floorwards
+with her bediamonded finger.</p>
+
+<p>'But why waste the engagement-ring?' pleaded Sugarman, stooping to
+pick up the suitor.</p>
+
+<p>'What an idea! A new man, a new ring!' And Fanny slammed the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>'Impudence-face! Would you become a jewellery shop?' the baffled
+<i>Shadchan</i> shrieked through the woodwork.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to Elias, brooding darkly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well?' queried Elias.</p>
+
+<p>'O, your love matches!' And Sugarman shook them away with shuddersome
+palms.</p>
+
+<p>'Then she won't&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'No, she won't. Ah, how blessed you are to escape from that daughter
+of Satan! The greengrocer's daughter now&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.'</p>
+
+<p>'I will get you one on the hire system.'</p>
+
+<p>'A maiden?'</p>
+
+<p>'Guard your tongue! A ring, of course.'</p>
+
+<p>Elias shook an obdurate head. 'No. I must have the old ring back.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is impossible&mdash;unless you marry her to get it back. Stay! Why
+should I not arrange that for you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Leave me in peace! Heaven has opened my eyes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then see how economical she is!' urged Sugarman. 'A maiden who sticks
+to a ring like that is not likely to be wasteful of your substance.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have not seen her swallow "stuffed monkeys,"' said Elias grimly.
+'Make an end! I have done with her.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, you have not! You can still give yourself a counsel.' And
+Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 'You may yet get back the ring.'</p>
+
+<p>'How?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, I have the next disposal of it?' said Sugarman.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>'Yes, yes. Go on.'</p>
+
+<p>'To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving glances all day
+long when she's not looking. When she catches you&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But she won't be looking!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you must blush.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I can't blush at will,' Elias protested.</p>
+
+<p>'I know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will be easier for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why shall I look foolish?'</p>
+
+<p>'To make her think you are in love with her after all.'</p>
+
+<p>'I should look foolish if I were.'</p>
+
+<p>'Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves the workshop in the
+evening follow her, and as she passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her
+if she will not eat a "stuffed monkey" for the sake of
+peace-be-upon-him times.'</p>
+
+<p>'But she won't.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why not? She is still in love.'</p>
+
+<p>'With stuffed monkeys,' said Elias cynically.</p>
+
+<p>'With you, too.'</p>
+
+<p>Elias blushed quite easily. 'How do you know?'</p>
+
+<p>'I offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!'</p>
+
+<p>'You&mdash;you offered&mdash;&mdash;' Elias stuttered angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He continued: 'Now, when
+she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must
+play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side,
+and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say "My
+treasure" or "My angel," or whatever nonsense you modern young men
+babble to your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>maidens&mdash;with the results you see!&mdash;and while she is
+drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a
+sudden tug, and off comes the ring!'</p>
+
+<p>Elias gazed at him in admiration. 'You are as crafty as Jacob, our
+father.'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied Sugarman modestly.
+'Be careful to seize the left hand.'</p>
+
+<p>The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter.</p>
+
+<p>Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually
+whenever his sheep's-eyes met Fanny's. He was so surprised to find his
+face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain.</p>
+
+<p>They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to summon up courage
+for the final feint. He would get a good grip on the ring finger. The
+tug-of-war should be brief.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each
+other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'The good-for-nothing!' thought Elias hotly. 'She will make the same
+eyes at the next man.'</p>
+
+<p>And he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey'
+increasing his nervous tension. Her white teeth, biting recklessly
+into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery
+palled at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed, chattering
+with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew up even with her.</p>
+
+<p>They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley, lit by one dull
+gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the
+critical moment. He felt like a footpad. Hither and thither he
+peered&mdash;nobody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>was about. But&mdash;was he on the right side of her? 'The
+right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses
+thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew
+her right hand from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of the
+diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon
+it.</p>
+
+<p>But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that
+ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. Fool that he had been to
+doubt that dear hand! And it was wearing his ring still&mdash;she could not
+part with it! O blundering male ingrate!</p>
+
+<p>'My treasure! My angel!' he murmured ecstatically.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_YIDDISH_HAMLET" id="THE_YIDDISH_HAMLET"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>The little poet sat in the East-side caf&eacute; looking six feet high.
+Melchitsedek Pinchas&mdash;by dint of a five-pound note from Sir Asher
+Aaronsberg in acknowledgement of the dedication to him of the poet's
+'Songs of Zion'&mdash;had carried his genius to the great new Jewry across
+the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York only that very March, and
+already a crowd of votaries hung upon his lips and paid for all that
+entered them. Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is
+nowhere without honour save in his own country. The play that had
+vainly plucked at the stage-doors of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe
+had already been accepted by the leading Yiddish theatre of New York.
+At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each claiming this
+supreme position, but the poet felt that the production of his play at
+Goldwater's Theatre settled the question among them.</p>
+
+<p>'It is the greatest play of the generation,' he told the young
+socialists and free-thinkers who sat around him this Friday evening
+imbibing chocolate. 'It will be translated into every tongue.' He had
+passed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>with the Ghetto
+triumph into cosmopolitan anticipations. 'See,' he added, 'my initials
+make M.P.&mdash;Master Playwright.'</p>
+
+<p>'Also Mud Pusher,' murmured from the next table Ostrovsky, the
+socialist leader, who found himself almost deserted for the new lion.
+'Who is this uncombed bunco-steerer?'</p>
+
+<p>'He calls himself the "sweet singer in Israel,"' contemptuously
+replied Ostrovsky's remaining parasite.</p>
+
+<p>'But look here, Pinchas,' interposed Benjamin Tuch, another of the
+displaced demigods, a politician with a delusion that he swayed
+Presidential elections by his prestige in Brooklyn. 'You said the
+other day that your initials made "Messianic Poet."'</p>
+
+<p>'And don't they?' inquired the poet, his Dantesque, if dingy, face
+flushing spiritedly. 'You call yourself a leader, and you don't know
+your A B C!'</p>
+
+<p>There was a laugh, and Benjamin Tuch scowled.</p>
+
+<p>'They can't stand for everything,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;they can't stand for "Bowery Tough,"' admitted Pinchas; and the
+table roared again, partly at the rapidity with which this linguistic
+genius had picked up the local slang. 'But as our pious lunatics think
+there are many meanings in every letter of the Torah,' went on the
+pleased poet, 'so there are meanings innumerable in every letter of my
+name. If I am playwright as well as poet, was not Shakespeare both
+also?'</p>
+
+<p>'You wouldn't class yourself with a low-down barnstormer like
+Shakespeare?' said Tuch sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>'My superiority to Shakespeare I leave to others to discover,' replied
+the poet seriously, and with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>unexpected modesty. 'I discovered it for
+myself in writing this very play; but I cannot expect the world to
+admit it till the play is produced.'</p>
+
+<p>'How did you come to find it out yourself?' asked Witberg, the young
+violinist, who was never sure whether he was guying the poet or
+sitting at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>'It happened most naturally&mdash;order me another cup of chocolate,
+Witberg. You see, when Iselmann was touring with his Yiddish troupe
+through Galicia, he had the idea of acquainting the Jewish masses with
+"Hamlet," and he asked me to make the Yiddish translation, as one
+great poet translating another&mdash;and some of those almond-cakes,
+Witberg! Well, I started on the job, and then of course the discovery
+was inevitable. The play, which I had not read since my youth, and
+then only in a mediocre Hebrew version, appeared unspeakably childish
+in places. Take, for example, the Ghost&mdash;these almond-cakes are as
+stale as sermons; command me a cream-tart, Witberg. What was I
+saying?'</p>
+
+<p>'The Ghost,' murmured a dozen voices.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, yes&mdash;now, how can a ghost affect a modern audience which no
+longer believes in ghosts?'</p>
+
+<p>'That is true.' The table was visibly stimulated, as though the
+chocolate had turned into champagne. The word 'modern' stirred the
+souls of these refugees from the old Ghettos like a trumpet; unbelief,
+if only in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition of three
+thousand years. The poet perceived his moment. He laid a black-nailed
+finger impressively on the right side of his nose.</p>
+
+<p>'I translated Shakespeare&mdash;yes, but into modern terms. The Ghost
+vanished&mdash;Hamlet's tragedy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>remained only the internal incapacity of
+the thinker for the lower activity of action.'</p>
+
+<p>The men of action pricked up their ears.</p>
+
+<p>'The higher activity, you mean,' corrected Ostrovsky.</p>
+
+<p>'Thought,' said Benjamin Tuch, 'has no value till it is translated
+into action.'</p>
+
+<p>'Exactly; you've got to work it up,' said Colonel Klopsky, who had
+large ranching and mining interests out West, and, with his florid
+personality, looked entirely out of place in these old haunts of his.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Schtuss</i> (nonsense)!' said the poet disrespectfully. 'Acts are only
+soldiers. Thought is the general.'</p>
+
+<p>Witberg demurred. 'It isn't much use <i>thinking</i> about playing the
+violin, Pinchas.'</p>
+
+<p>'My friend,' said the poet, 'the thinker in music is the man who
+writes your solos. His thoughts exist whether you play them or
+not&mdash;and independently of your false notes. But you performers are all
+alike&mdash;I have no doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet will
+imagine his is the higher activity. But woe be to those fellows if
+they change a syllable!'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Your</i> Hamlet?' sneered Ostrovsky. 'Since when?'</p>
+
+<p>'Since I re-created him for the modern world, without tinsel and
+pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire and bore him in agony;
+since&mdash;even the cream of this tart is sour&mdash;since I carried him to and
+fro in my pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch of the
+mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then Iselmann did not produce it?' asked the Heathen Journalist, who
+haunted the East Side for copy, and pronounced Pinchas 'Pin-cuss.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>'No, I changed his name to Eselmann, the Donkey-man. For I had hardly
+read him ten lines before he brayed out, "Where is the Ghost?" "The
+Ghost?" I said. "I have laid him. He cannot walk on the modern stage."
+Eselmann tore his hair. "But it is for the Ghost I had him translated.
+Our Yiddish audiences love a ghost." "They love your acting, too," I
+replied witheringly. "But I am not here to consider the tastes of the
+mob." Oh, I gave the Donkey-man a piece of my mind.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he didn't take the piece!' jested Grunbitz, who in Poland had
+been a <i>Badchan</i> (marriage-jester), and was now a Zionist editor.</p>
+
+<p>'Bah! These managers are all men-of-the-earth! Once, in my days of
+obscurity, I was made to put a besom into the piece, and it swept all
+my genius off the boards. Ah, the donkey-men! But I am glad Eselmann
+gave me my "Hamlet" back, for before giving it to Goldwater I made it
+even more subtle. No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the
+end&mdash;a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts.
+No&mdash;this cream is just as sour as the other&mdash;my play will be the
+internal tragedy of the thinker.'</p>
+
+<p>'The internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,' laughed the
+ex-<i>Badchan</i>; 'you'd better be more careful with the cream-tarts.'</p>
+
+<p>The Heathen Journalist broke through the laughter. 'Strikes me,
+Pin-cuss, you're giving us Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.'</p>
+
+<p>'Better than the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet,' retorted the poet,
+cramming cream-tart down his throat in great ugly mouthfuls; 'that is
+how he is usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>indeed
+vanishes, for Hamlet is a Hebrew and the Prince of Palestine.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have made him a Hebrew?' cried Mieses, a pimply young poet.</p>
+
+<p>'If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to the nation of
+thinkers,' said Pinchas. 'In fact, the play is virtually an
+autobiography.'</p>
+
+<p>'And do you call it "Hamlet" still?' asked the Heathen Journalist,
+producing his notebook, for he began to see his way to a Sunday scoop.</p>
+
+<p>'Why not? True, it is virtually a new work. But Shakespeare borrowed
+his story from an old play called "Hamlet," and treated it to suit
+himself; why, therefore, should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits
+<i>me</i>. The cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.' He laughed his
+sniggering laugh. 'If I were to call it by another name, some learned
+fool would point out it was stolen from Shakespeare, whereas at
+present it challenges comparison.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you discovered Shakespeare cannot sustain the comparison,' said
+Benjamin Tuch, winking at the company.</p>
+
+<p>'Only as the medi&aelig;val astrologer is inferior to the astronomer of
+to-day,' the poet explained with placid modesty. 'The
+muddle-headedness of Shakespeare's ideas&mdash;which, incidentally, is the
+cause of the muddle of Hamlet's character&mdash;has given way to the clear
+vision of the modern. How could Shakespeare really describe the
+thinker? The Elizabethans could not think. They were like our rabbis.'</p>
+
+<p>The unexpected digression into contemporary satire made the whole caf&eacute;
+laugh. Gradually other atoms had drifted toward the new magnet. From
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. Pinchas
+was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else's frock-coat on his
+meagre person, his hair flowing like a dark cascade under a
+broad-brimmed dusky hat, and his sombre face aglow with genius and
+cocksureness.</p>
+
+<p>'Why should you expect thought from a rabbi?' said Grunbitz. 'You
+don't expect truth from a tradesman. Besides, only youth thinks.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is well said,' approved Pinchas. 'He who is ever thinking never
+grows old. I shall die young, like all whom the gods love. Waiter,
+give Mr. Grunbitz a cup of chocolate.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you&mdash;but I don't care for any.'</p>
+
+<p>'You cannot refuse&mdash;you will pain Witberg,' said the poet simply.</p>
+
+<p>In the great city around them men jumped on and off electric cars,
+whizzed up and down lifts, hustled through lobbies, hulloed through
+telephones, tore open telegrams, dictated to clacking typists, filled
+life with sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and the
+chink of the eternal dollar; while here, serenely smoking and sipping,
+ruffled only by the breezes of argument, leisurely as the philosophers
+in the colonnades of Athens, the talkers of the Ghetto, earnest as
+their forefathers before the great folios of the Talmud, made an
+Oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the Occident. And the Heathen
+Journalist who had discovered it felt, as so often before, that here
+alone in this arid, mushroom New York was antiquity, was restfulness,
+was romanticism; here was the Latin Quarter of the city of the Goths.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by the Master's good humour, young Mieses timidly exhibited
+his new verses. Pinchas read <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>the manuscript aloud to the confusion of
+the blushing boy.</p>
+
+<p>'But it is full of genius!' he cried in genuine astonishment. 'I might
+have written it myself, except that it is so unequal&mdash;a mixture of
+diamonds and paste, like all Hebrew literature.' He indicated with
+flawless taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all
+unconscious reproductions from the English masterpieces Mieses had
+borrowed from the library in the Educational Alliance. The acolytes
+listened respectfully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced Mieses began
+to take importance in their eyes and to betray the importance he held
+in his own.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day,' he said. 'My "M," too,
+makes "Master."'</p>
+
+<p>'It may be that you are destined to wear my mantle,' said Pinchas
+graciously.</p>
+
+<p>Mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock-coat.</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas rose. 'And now, Mieses, you must give me a car-fare. I have to
+go and talk to the manager about rehearsals. One must superintend the
+actors one's self&mdash;these pumpkin-heads are capable of any crime, even
+of altering one's best phrases.'</p>
+
+<p>Radsikoff smiled. He had sat still in his corner, this most prolific
+of Ghetto dramatists, his big, furrowed forehead supported on his
+fist, a huge, odorous cigar in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose Goldwater plays "Hamlet,"' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'We have not discussed it yet,' said Pinchas airily.</p>
+
+<p>Radsikoff smiled again. 'Oh, he'll pull through&mdash;so long as Mrs.
+Goldwater doesn't play "Ophelia."'</p>
+
+<p>'She play "Ophelia"! She would not dream of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>such a thing. She is a
+saucy soubrette; she belongs to vaudeville.'</p>
+
+<p>'All right. I have warned you.'</p>
+
+<p>'You don't think there is really a danger!' Pinchas was pale and
+shaking.</p>
+
+<p>'The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and wives, unfortunately,
+live and play together,' said the old dramatist drily.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll drown her truly before I let her play my "Ophelia,"' said the
+poet venomously.</p>
+
+<p>Radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into American. 'Well,
+it's up to you.'</p>
+
+<p>'The minx!' Pinchas shook his fist at the air. 'But I'll manage her.
+If the worst comes to the worst, I'll make love to her.'</p>
+
+<p>The poet's sublime confidence in his charms was too much even for his
+admirers. The mental juxtaposition of the seedy poet and the piquant
+actress in her frills and furbelows set the whole caf&eacute; rocking with
+laughter. Pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious method of
+drawing the soubrette-serpent's fangs. He grinned placidly.</p>
+
+<p>'And when is your play coming on?' asked Radsikoff.</p>
+
+<p>'After Passover,' replied Pinchas, beginning to button his frock-coat
+against the outer cold. If only to oust this 'Ophelia,' he must be at
+the theatre instanter.</p>
+
+<p>'Has Goldwater given you a contract?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am a poet, not a lawyer,' said Pinchas proudly. 'Parchments are for
+Philistines; honest men build on the word.'</p>
+
+<p>'After all, it comes to the same thing&mdash;with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>Goldwater,' said
+Radsikoff drily. 'But he's no worse than the others; I've never yet
+found the contract any manager couldn't slip out of. I've never yet
+met the playwright that the manager couldn't dodge.' Radsikoff,
+indeed, divided his time between devising plays and devising
+contracts. Every experience but suggested fresh clauses. He regarded
+Pinchas with commiseration rather than jealousy. 'I shall come to your
+first night,' he added.</p>
+
+<p>'It will be a tribute which the audience will appreciate,' said
+Pinchas. 'I am thinking that if I had one of these aromatic cigars I
+too might offer a burnt-offering unto the Lord.'</p>
+
+<p>There was general laughter at the blasphemy, for the Sabbath, with its
+privation of fire, had long since begun.</p>
+
+<p>'Try taking instead of thinking,' laughed the playwright, pushing
+forward his case. 'Action is greater than Thought.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, no!' Pinchas protested, as he fumbled for the finest cigar.
+'Wait till you see my play&mdash;you must all come&mdash;I will send you all
+boxes. Then you will learn that Thought is greater than Action&mdash;that
+Thought is the greatest thing in the world.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas plunged from the
+steam-heated, cheerful caf&eacute; into the raw, unlovely street, still
+hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. He did not take the
+horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>five cents
+for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was slow, for a side street
+that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of
+the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of
+frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely
+by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have
+been superfluous. But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby
+and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already
+up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by
+the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on
+the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet,
+whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. This great
+theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.</p>
+
+<p>'I will await him in a box,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'There's no room,' said the usher.</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas threw up his head. 'I am the author of "Hamlet"!'</p>
+
+<p>The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had heard vaguely of
+'Hamlet'&mdash;as a great play that was acted on Broadway. And now here was
+the author himself! All the instinctive snobbery of the Ghetto toward
+the grand world was excited. And yet this seedy figure conflicted
+painfully with his ideas of the uptown type. But perhaps all
+dramatists were alike. Pinchas was bowed forward.</p>
+
+<p>In another instant the theatre was in an uproar. A man in a
+comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accommodate the distinguished
+stranger and had refused.</p>
+
+<p>'I pay my dollar&mdash;what for shall I go?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>'But it is the author of "Hamlet"!'</p>
+
+<p>'My money is as good as his.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he doesn't pay.'</p>
+
+<p>'And I shall give my good seat to a <i>Schnorrer</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Sh! sh!' from all parts of the house, like water livening, not
+killing, a flame. From every side came expostulations in Yiddish and
+American. This was a free republic; the author of 'Hamlet' was no
+better than anybody else. Goldwater, on the stage, glared at the
+little poet.</p>
+
+<p>At last a compromise was found. A chair was placed at the back of a
+packed box. American boxes are constructed for publicity, not privacy,
+but the other dozen occupants bulked between him and the house. He
+could see, but he could not be seen. Sullen and mortified he listened
+contemptuously to the play.</p>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic drama with which the
+vast audience had replaced the Sabbath pieties, the home-keeping
+ritual of the Ghetto, in their swift transformation to American life.
+Confined entirely to Jewish characters, it had borrowed much from the
+heroes and heroines of the Western world, remaining psychologically
+true only in its minor characters, which were conceived and rendered
+with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. And this naturalism was
+shot through with streaks of pure fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly
+bounded on in a masque for the edification of a Russian tyrant. But
+comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to horror and tragedy:
+these refugees from the brutality of Russia and Rumania, these
+inheritors of the wailing melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved
+morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. The 'happy endings' of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>Broadway
+would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players and audience made a large
+family party&mdash;the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the
+parts always cast in the same mould. And it was almost an impromptu
+performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear
+every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the
+footlights. The Yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried
+up'; it was his r&ocirc;le to read the whole play ahead of them. 'Then you
+are the woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble. And the actor,
+hearing, invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, spinning
+out with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied
+to him. No mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no
+punctilious tuition by your stage-manager&mdash;all was inspiration and
+fire. But to Pinchas this hearing of the play twice over&mdash;once raw and
+once cooked&mdash;was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>'The lazy-bones!' he murmured. 'Not thus shall they treat my lines.
+Every syllable must be engraved upon their hearts, or I forbid the
+curtain to go up. Not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's
+words; they are ink-vomit, not literature.'</p>
+
+<p>Another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his literary instinct.
+Incongruously blended with the Yiddish were elementary American
+expressions&mdash;the first the immigrants would pick up. 'All right,'
+'Sure!' 'Yes, sir,' 'Say, how's the boss?' 'Good-bye.' 'Not a cent.'
+'Take the elevated.' 'Yup.' 'Nup.' 'That's one on you!' 'Rubber-neck!'
+A continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the
+audience, pleased to find themselves on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>such easy terms with the new
+language. But to Pinchas the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with
+such locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine talking with a
+twang&mdash;how could he permit such an outrage upon his Hebrew Hamlet?</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the
+iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the
+cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on
+whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. At
+last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which
+Goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the
+actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table
+beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging.</p>
+
+<p>'Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my house. What do you want?'
+cried Goldwater.</p>
+
+<p>'I want to talk to you about rehearsals.'</p>
+
+<p>'I told you I would let you know when rehearsals began.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you forgot to take my address.'</p>
+
+<p>'As if I don't know where to find you!'</p>
+
+<p>Kloot grinned. 'Pinchas gets drinks from all the caf&eacute;,' he put in.</p>
+
+<p>'They drink to the health of "Hamlet,"' said Pinchas proudly.</p>
+
+<p>'All right; Kloot's gotten your address. Good-evening.'</p>
+
+<p>'But when will it be? I must know.'</p>
+
+<p>'We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money in this piece yet.'</p>
+
+<p>'Money&mdash;bah! But merit?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>'You fellows are as jealous as the devil.'</p>
+
+<p>'Me jealous of kangaroos! In Central Park you see giraffes&mdash;and
+tortoises too. Central Park has more talent than this scribbler of
+yours.'</p>
+
+<p>'I doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured Goldwater.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll write you about rehearsals,' said Kloot, winking at Goldwater.</p>
+
+<p>'But I must know weeks ahead&mdash;I may go lecturing. The great continent
+calls for me. In Chicago, in Cincinnati&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Go, by all means,' said Goldwater. 'We can do without you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! I must teach you how
+to say every line.'</p>
+
+<p>'Teach <i>me</i>?' Goldwater could hardly believe his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas wavered. 'I&mdash;I mean the company. I will show them the
+accent&mdash;the gesture. I'm a great stage-manager as well as a great
+poet. There shall be no more prompter.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed!' Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'And how are
+you going to get on without a prompter?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very simple&mdash;a month's rehearsals.'</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge.</p>
+
+<p>Kloot broke in impishly: 'It is very good of you to give us a month of
+your valuable time.'</p>
+
+<p>But Goldwater was too irate for irony. 'A month!' he gasped at last.
+'I could put on six melodramas in a month.'</p>
+
+<p>'But "Hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said Pinchas, shocked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>'Quite so; there is not half the scenery. It's the scenery that takes
+time rehearsing, not the scenes.'</p>
+
+<p>The poet was now as purple as the player. 'You would profane my divine
+work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!'</p>
+
+<p>'Here, just <i>you</i> come off your perch!' said Kloot. 'You've written
+the piece; we do the rest.' Kloot, though only nineteen and at a few
+dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole
+world, but even with his employer. He was now, to his amaze,
+confronted by a superior.</p>
+
+<p>'Silence, impudent-face! You are not talking to Radsikoff. I am a
+Poet, and I demand my rights.'</p>
+
+<p>Kloot was silent from sheer surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater was similarly impressed. 'What rights?' he observed more
+mildly. 'You've had your twenty dollars. And that was too much.'</p>
+
+<p>'Too much! Twenty dollars for the masterpiece of the twentieth
+century!'</p>
+
+<p>'In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said
+Kloot, recovering.</p>
+
+<p>'Make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'I shall be
+living in the fifty-first century even. Poets never die&mdash;though, alas!
+they have to live. Twenty dollars too much, indeed! It is not a dollar
+a century for the run of the play.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well,' said Goldwater grimly. 'Give them back. We return your
+play.'</p>
+
+<p>This time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'No, no, Goldwater&mdash;I
+must not disappoint my printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars
+to print my Hebrew "Selections from Nietzsche."'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>'You take your manuscript and give me my money,' said Goldwater
+implacably.</p>
+
+<p>'Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob you. Keep your bargain.
+See, here is the printer's letter.' He dragged from a tail-pocket a
+mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside
+the telephone as if to search among them.</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater waved a repudiating hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.' The poet's carneying forefinger was
+laid on his nose. 'I and you are the only two people in New York who
+serve the poetic drama&mdash;I by writing, you by producing.'</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the
+flattery.</p>
+
+<p>Kloot replied for him: 'Your manuscript shall be returned to you by
+the first dustcart.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas disregarded the youth. 'But I am willing you shall have only a
+fortnight's rehearsals. I believe in you, Goldwater. I have always
+said, "The only genius on the Yiddish stage is Goldwater."
+Klostermann&mdash;bah! He produces not so badly, but act? My grandmother's
+hen has a better stage presence. And there is Davidoff&mdash;a voice like a
+frog and a walk like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of
+when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater&mdash;your fame has blown
+across the Atlantic, over the Carpathians. I journeyed from Cracow
+expressly to collaborate with you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then why do you spoil it all?' asked the mollified manager.</p>
+
+<p>'It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be disappointed in you. Let us
+talk of the cast.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is so early yet.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>'"The early bird catches the worm."'</p>
+
+<p>'But all our worms are caught,' grinned Kloot. 'We keep our talent
+pinned on the premises.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know, I know,' said Pinchas, paling. He saw Mrs. Goldwater tripping
+on saucily as Ophelia.</p>
+
+<p>'But we don't give all our talent to one play,' the manager reminded
+him.</p>
+
+<p>'No, of course not,' said Pinchas, with a breath of hope.</p>
+
+<p>'We have to use all our people by turns. We divide our forces. With
+myself as Hamlet you will have a cast that should satisfy any author.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do I not know it?' cried Pinchas. 'Were you but to say your lines,
+leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be
+spellbound, like Moses when he saw the burning bush.'</p>
+
+<p>'That being so,' said Goldwater, 'you couldn't expect to have my wife
+in the same cast.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed,' said Pinchas enthusiastically. 'Two such tragic geniuses
+would confuse and distract, like the sun and the moon shining
+together.'</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater coughed. 'But Ophelia is really a small part,' he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>'It is,' Pinchas acquiesced. 'Your wife's tragic powers could only be
+displayed in "Hamlet" if, like another equally celebrated actress, she
+appeared as the Prince of Palestine himself.'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!' said Goldwater. 'A
+decent Jewish housewife cannot appear in breeches.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is what makes it impossible,' assented Pinchas. 'And there is no
+other part worthy of Mrs. Goldwater.'</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep276" id="imagep276"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep276.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep276.jpg" width="45%" alt="&quot;You compare my wife to a Kangaroo!&quot;" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">"You compare my wife to a Kangaroo!"<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>'It may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the manager musingly.</p>
+
+<p>'And who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice herself?' replied the
+poet modestly.</p>
+
+<p>'Fanny won't sacrifice Ophelia,' Kloot observed drily to his chief.</p>
+
+<p>'You hear?' said Goldwater, as quick as lightning. 'My wife will not
+sacrifice Ophelia by leaving her to a minor player. She thinks only of
+the play. It is very noble of her.'</p>
+
+<p>'But she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet desperately, 'she needs
+a rest.'</p>
+
+<p>'My wife never spares herself.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas lost his head. 'But she might spare Ophelia,' he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean?' cried Goldwater gruffly. 'My wife will honour you
+by playing Ophelia. That is ended.' He waved the make-up brush in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>'No, it is not ended,' said Pinchas desperately. 'Your wife is a comic
+actress&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'You just admitted she was tragic&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said Pinchas, burning his
+boats. 'She skips and jumps. Rather would I give Ophelia to one of
+your kangaroos!'</p>
+
+<p>'You low-down monkey!' Goldwater almost flung his brush into the
+poet's face. 'You compare my wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy
+manuscript and begone where the pepper grows.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Fanny <i>would</i> be rather funny as Ophelia,' put in Kloot
+pacifyingly.</p>
+
+<p>'And to make your wife ridiculous as Ophelia,' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>added Pinchas eagerly,
+'you would rob the world of your Hamlet!'</p>
+
+<p>'I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can translate
+Shakespeare.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps, but who can surpass Shakespeare? Who can make him
+intelligible to the modern soul?'</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness of a reply.</p>
+
+<p>The irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape with his dignity
+and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs,
+dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of
+perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and
+perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let
+him read on unrebuked.</p>
+
+<p>'You will talk to him, Kloot,' he pleaded at last. 'You will save
+Ophelia?'</p>
+
+<p>The big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent inquisition. 'Rely
+on me, if I have to play her myself.'</p>
+
+<p>'But that will be still worse,' said Pinchas seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Kloot grinned. 'How do you know? You've never seen me act?'</p>
+
+<p>The poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'You will not spoil
+my play, you will get me a maidenly Ophelia? I and you are the only
+two men in New York who understand how to cast a play.'</p>
+
+<p>'You leave it to me,' said Kloot; 'I have a wife of my own.'</p>
+
+<p>'What!' shrieked Pinchas.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't be alarmed&mdash;I'll coach her. She's just the age for the part.
+Mrs. Goldwater might be her mother.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>'But can she make the audience cry?'</p>
+
+<p>'You bet; a regular onion of an Ophelia.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I must see her rehearse, then I can decide.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course.'</p>
+
+<p>'And you will seek me in the caf&eacute; when rehearsals begin?'</p>
+
+<p>'That goes without saying.'</p>
+
+<p>The poet looked cunning. 'But don't you say without going.'</p>
+
+<p>'How can we rehearse without you? You shouldn't have worried the boss.
+We'll call you, even if it's the middle of the night.'</p>
+
+<p>The poet jumped at Kloot's hand and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>'Protector of poets!' he cried ecstatically. 'And you will see that
+they do not mutilate my play; you will not suffer a single hair of my
+poesy to be harmed?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not a hair shall be cut,' said Kloot solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas kissed his hand again. 'Ah, I and you are the only two men in
+New York who understand how to treat poesy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Sure!' Kloot snatched his hand away. 'Good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. 'And you will see it is not
+adulterated with American. In Zion they do not say "Sure" or "Lend me
+a nickel."'</p>
+
+<p>'I guess not,' said Kloot. 'Good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p>'All the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-fare.'</p>
+
+<p>Kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. He handed it over.</p>
+
+<p>The poet went. An instant afterwards the door reopened and his head
+reappeared, the nose adorned with a pleading forefinger.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>'You promise me all this?'</p>
+
+<p>'Haven't I promised?'</p>
+
+<p>'But swear to me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Will you go&mdash;if I swear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yup,' said Pinchas, airing his American.</p>
+
+<p>'And you won't come back till rehearsals begin?'</p>
+
+<p>'Nup.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then I swear&mdash;on my father's and mother's life!'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that Kloot was an orphan.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>On the very verge of Passover, Pinchas, lying in bed at noon with a
+cigarette in his mouth, was reading his morning paper by candle-light;
+for he tenanted one of those innumerable dark rooms which should make
+New York the photographer's paradise. The yellow glow illumined his
+prophetic and unshaven countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs,
+as he critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew letters served as
+the channel for the mongrel Yiddish and American dialect, in which
+'congressman,' 'sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all
+the outer Oriental robing of the Old Testament. Suddenly a strange
+gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. He read the
+announcement again.</p>
+
+<p>The Yiddish 'Hamlet' was to be the Passover production at Goldwater's
+Theatre. The author was the world-renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas,
+and the music was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous composer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>'World-famous composer, indeed!' cried Pinchas to his garret walls.
+'Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? And who wants his music? The
+tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater
+imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will I permit an
+overture&mdash;or the cymbals shall clash as I take my call.'</p>
+
+<p>He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irritation at this
+intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indignation at the imminence of
+his play. The dogs! The liars! The first night was almost at hand, and
+no sign had been vouchsafed to him. He had been true to his promise;
+he had kept away from the theatre. But Goldwater! But Kloot! Ah, the
+godless gambler with his parents' lives! With such ghouls hovering
+around the Hebrew 'Hamlet,' who could say how the masterpiece had been
+mangled? Line upon line had probably been cut; nay, who knew that a
+whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time for
+that miserable music!</p>
+
+<p>He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, hurried off to
+the theatre, breathless and breakfastless. Orchestral music vibrated
+through the lobby and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of
+the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He gave but a moment to absorbing the great
+capital letters of his name; a dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a
+glowing, crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. Goldwater,
+limelit, occupied the centre of the boards. Hamlet trod the
+battlements of the tower of David, and gazed on the cupolas and
+minarets of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas galloped toward
+the fiddling and banging orchestra. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>A harmless sweeper in his path
+was herself swept aside. But her fallen broom tripped up the runner.
+He fell with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane
+contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered where erst had
+stood a poet.</p>
+
+<p>Goldwater stopped dead. 'Can't you sweep quietly?' he thundered
+terribly through the music.</p>
+
+<p>Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra paused.</p>
+
+<p>'It is I, the author!' said Pinchas, struggling up through clouds like
+some pagan deity.</p>
+
+<p>Hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. 'And what do you want?'</p>
+
+<p>'What do I want?' repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze.</p>
+
+<p>Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings munching a sandwich.</p>
+
+<p>'Sure, there's Shakespeare!' he said. 'I've just been round to the
+caf&eacute; to find you. Got this sandwich there.'</p>
+
+<p>'But this&mdash;this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered Pinchas, a jot
+appeased.</p>
+
+<p>'The first dress-rehearsal,' Kloot replied reassuringly. 'We don't
+trouble authors with the rough work. They stroll in and put on the
+polish. Won't you come on the stage?'</p>
+
+<p>Unable to repress a grin of happiness, Pinchas stumbled through the
+dim parterre, barking his shins at almost every step. Arrived at the
+orchestra, he found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled to the
+left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown holland, loomed
+ghostly.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said Kloot, 'that door's got stuck. You must come round by the
+stage-door.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>Pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth remainder of his
+shins. He allowed himself a palpitating pause before the lobby
+posters. His blood chilled. Not only was Ignatz Levitsky starred in
+equal type, but another name stood out larger than either:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>Ophelia</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;..&nbsp;&nbsp;..&nbsp;&nbsp;..&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<i>Fanny Goldwater.</i></p>
+
+<p>His wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage-door. He pushed it
+open, but a gruff voice inquired his business, and a burly figure
+blocked his way.</p>
+
+<p>'I am the author,' he said with quiet dignity.</p>
+
+<p>'Authors ain't admitted,' was the simple reply.</p>
+
+<p>'But Goldwater awaits me,' the poet protested.</p>
+
+<p>'I guess not. Mr. Kloot's orders. Can't have authors monkeying around
+here.' As he spoke Goldwater's voice rose from the neighbouring stage
+in an operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas's brain to chaos. A
+despairing sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. He ran
+back to the lobby. The doors had been bolted. He beat against them
+with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman
+persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell.</p>
+
+<p>Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor Pinchas till the
+first night&mdash;and the third act&mdash;of the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He had
+reconciled himself to his extrusion from rehearsals. 'They fear I fire
+Ophelia,' he told the caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached him for the premi&egrave;re;
+the boxes he had promised the caf&eacute; did not materialize, and the
+necessity of avoiding that haunt of the invited cost him several
+meals. But that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>in
+'on his face'&mdash;that authors should be admitted neither at the stage
+door nor at the public door&mdash;this had not occurred to him as within
+the possibilities of even theatrical humanity.</p>
+
+<p>'Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!' he shrieked into the box office. 'You and
+Goldwater and Kloot! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! I have indeed cast my pearls
+before swine. But I will not be beholden to them&mdash;I will buy a
+ticket.'</p>
+
+<p>'We're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding recklessly: 'Get a
+move on you; other people want to buy seats.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can't keep me out! It's conspiracy!' He darted within, but was
+hustled as rapidly without. He ran back to the stage-door, and hurled
+himself against the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the
+side-walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. He was left
+cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like the maledictions in Deuteronomy,
+only brought up to date by dynamite explosions and automobile
+accidents. Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon a
+blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The lobby was deserted save
+for a few strangers; his play had begun. And he&mdash;he, the god who moved
+all this machinery&mdash;he, whose divine fire was warming all that great
+house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to
+loiter in the corridors! But for the rumblings of applause that
+reached him he could hardly have endured the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the nearest drug-store, and
+entering the telephone cabinet rang up Goldwater.</p>
+
+<p>'Hello, there!' came the voice of Kloot. 'Who are you?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, in his peaked cap,
+sitting on the table by the telephone, swinging his legs; but he
+replied craftily, in a disguised voice: 'You, Goldwater?'</p>
+
+<p>'No; Goldwater's on the stage.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Goldwater's voice returned
+to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'They're loving it, Kloot;
+they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied was: 'You're
+wanted on the 'phone.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hello!' called Goldwater.</p>
+
+<p>'Hello!' replied Pinchas in his natural voice. 'May a sudden death
+smite you! May the curtain fall on a gibbering epileptic!'</p>
+
+<p>'Can't hear!' said Goldwater. 'Speak plainer.'</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>will</i> speak plainer, swine-head! Never shall a work of mine defile
+itself in your dirty dollar-factory. I spit on you!' He spat viciously
+into the telephone disk. 'Your father was a <i>Meshummad</i> (apostate),
+and your mother&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>But Goldwater had cut off the connection. Pinchas finished for his own
+satisfaction: 'An Irish fire-woman.'</p>
+
+<p>'That was worth ten cents,' he muttered, as he strode out into the
+night. And patrolling the front of the theatre again, or leaning on
+his cane as on a sword, he was warmed by the thought that his venom
+had pierced through all the actor-manager's defences.</p>
+
+<p>At last a change came over the nightmare. Striding from the envied,
+illuminated Within appeared the Heathen Journalist, note-book in hand.
+At sight of the author he shied. 'Must skedaddle, Pin-cuss,' he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>said
+apologetically, 'if we're to get anything into to-morrow's paper. Your
+people are so durned slow&mdash;nearly eleven, and only two acts over.
+You'll have to brisk 'em up a bit. Good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p>He shook the poet's hand and was off. With an inspiration Pinchas gave
+chase. He caught the Journalist just boarding a car.</p>
+
+<p>'Got your theatre ticket?' he panted.</p>
+
+<p>'What for?'</p>
+
+<p>'Give it me.'</p>
+
+<p>The Journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and threw him a
+crumpled fragment. 'What in thunder&mdash;&mdash;' he began. And then, to
+Pinchas's relief, the car removed the querist.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment the poet was feeling only the indignity of the
+position, and the Heathen Journalist as trumpeter of his wrongs and
+avenger of the Muses had not occurred to him. He smoothed out the
+magic scrap, and was inside the suffocating, close-packed theatre
+before the disconcerted janitor could meet the new situation. Pinchas
+found the vacated journalistic chair in the stage-box; he was
+installed therein before the managerial minions arrived on ejection
+bent.</p>
+
+<p>'This is <i>my</i> house!' screamed Pinchas. 'I stay here! Let me
+be&mdash;swine, serpents, Behemoth!'</p>
+
+<p>'Sh!' came in a shower from every quarter. 'Sit down there! Turn him
+out!' The curtain was going up; Pinchas was saved.</p>
+
+<p>But only for more gruesome torture. The third act began. Hamlet
+collogued with the Queen. The poet pricked up his ears. Whose language
+was this? Certainly not Shakespeare's or his superior's. Angels and
+ministers of grace defend him! this was only the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>illiterate jargon of
+the hack playwright, with its peppering of the phrases of Hester
+Street. 'You have too many dead flies on you,' Hamlet's mother told
+him. 'You'll get left.' But the nightmare thickened. Hamlet and his
+mother opened their mouths and sang. Their songs were light and gay,
+and held encore verses to reward the enthusiastic. The actors, like
+the audience, were leisurely; here midnight and the closure were not
+synonymous. When there were no more encore verses, Ignatz Levitsky
+would turn to the audience and bow in acknowledgment of the
+compliment. Pinchas's eyes were orbs straining at their sockets; froth
+gathered on his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her songs set to comic
+airs. The great house received her in the same comic spirit. Instead
+of rue and rosemary she carried a rustling green <i>Lulov</i>&mdash;the
+palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles&mdash;and shook it piously toward
+every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about
+in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving
+to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It
+was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes
+mingled with her terror-stricken soprano.</p>
+
+<p>This was the last straw. The Ghost&mdash;the Ghost that he had laid
+forever, the Ghost that made melodrama of this tragedy of the
+thinker&mdash;was risen again, and cake-walking!</p>
+
+<p>Unperceived in the general convulsion and cachinnation, Pinchas leaped
+to his feet, and, seeing scarlet, bounded through the iron door and
+made for the stage. But a hand was extended in the nick of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>time&mdash;the
+hand he had kissed&mdash;and Pinchas was drawn back by the collar.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't take your call yet,' said the unruffled Kloot.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me go! I must speak to the people. They must learn the truth.
+They think <i>me</i>, Melchitsedek Pinchas, guilty of this <i>tohu-bohu</i>! My
+sun will set. I shall be laughed at from the Hudson to the Jordan.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush! Hush! You are interrupting the poesy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who has drawn and quartered my play? Speak!'</p>
+
+<p>'I've only arranged it for the stage,' said Kloot, unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>'You!' gasped the poet.</p>
+
+<p>'You said I and you are the only two men who understand how to treat
+poesy.'</p>
+
+<p>'You understand push-carts, not poesy!' hissed the poet. 'You conspire
+to keep me out of the theatre&mdash;I will summons you!'</p>
+
+<p>'We had to keep all authors out. Suppose Shakespeare had turned up and
+complained of <i>you</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush! The boss is going on.'</p>
+
+<p>From the opposite wing Hamlet was indeed advancing. Pinchas made a
+wild plunge forward, but Kloot's grasp on his collar was still
+carefully firm.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's mutilating the poesy now?' Kloot frowned angrily from under his
+peaked cap. 'You'll spoil the scene.'</p>
+
+<p>'Peace, liar! You promised me your wife for Ophelia!'</p>
+
+<p>Kloot's frown relaxed into a smile. 'Sure! The first wife I get you
+shall have.'</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas gnashed his teeth. Goldwater's voice rose in a joyous
+roulade.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>'I think you owe me a car-fare,' said Kloot soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>Pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane. 'Why does <i>Hamlet</i>
+sing?' he demanded fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>'Because it's Passover,' said Kloot. 'You are a "greener" in New York,
+otherwise you would know that it is a tradition to have musical plays
+on Passover. Our audiences wouldn't stand for any other. You're such
+an unreasonable cuss! Why else did we take your "Hamlet" for a
+Passover play?'</p>
+
+<p>'But "Hamlet" isn't a musical play.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is! How about Ophelia's songs? That was what decided us. Of
+course they needed eking out.'</p>
+
+<p>'But "Hamlet" is a tragedy!' gasped Pinchas.</p>
+
+<p>'Sure!' said Kloot cheerfully. 'They all die at the end. Our audiences
+would go away miserable if they didn't. You wait till they're dead,
+then you shall take your call.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take my call, for <i>your</i> play!'</p>
+
+<p>'There's quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen carefully. Only
+you don't understand stage technique. Oh, I'm not grumbling; we're
+quite satisfied. The idea of adapting "Hamlet" for the Yiddish stage
+is yours, and it's worth every cent we paid.'</p>
+
+<p>A storm of applause gave point to the speaker's words, and removed the
+last partition between the poet's great mind and momentary madness.
+What! here was that ape of a Goldwater positively wallowing in
+admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been cast into outer
+darkness and his work mocked and crucified! He put forth all his
+might, like Samson amid the Philistines, and leaving his coat-collar
+in Kloot's hand, he plunged into the circle of light. Goldwater's
+amazed face turned to meet him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>'Cutter of lines!' The poet's cane slashed across Hamlet's right cheek
+near the right eye. 'Perverter of poesy!' It slashed across the left
+cheek near the left eye.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince of Palestine received each swish with a yell of pain and
+fear, and the ever-ready Kloot dropped the curtain on the tragic
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>Such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of the curtain! Yet
+in the end the poet escaped scot-free. Goldwater was a coward, Kloot a
+sage. The same prudence that had led Kloot to exclude authors, saved
+him from magnifying their importance by police squabbles. Besides, a
+clever lawyer might prove the exclusion illegal. What was done was
+done. The dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best served by
+private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, irrefutable save in a court
+of law. It was bad enough that the Heathen Journalist should supply so
+graphic a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even more highly
+than Goldwater's eyes. Kloot had been glad that the Journalist had
+left before the episode; but when he saw the account he wished the
+scribe had stayed.</p>
+
+<p>'He won't play Hamlet with that pair of shiners,' Pinchas prophesied
+early the next morning to the supping caf&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Radsikoff beamed and refilled Pinchas's glass with champagne. He had
+carried out his promise of assisting at the premi&egrave;re, and was now
+paying for the poet's supper.</p>
+
+<p>'You're the first playwright Goldwater hasn't managed to dodge,' he
+chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' said the poet meditatively. 'Action is greater than Thought.
+Action is the greatest thing in the world.'</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE CONVERTS</h2>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_CONVERTS" id="THE_CONVERTS"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE CONVERTS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>As he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed workshop on the Bowery,
+clumsily pasting the flamboyant portrait on the boxes of the 'Yvonne
+Rupert cigar,' he wondered dully&mdash;after the first flush of joy at
+getting a job after weeks of hunger&mdash;at the strange fate that had
+again brought him into connection, however remote, with stageland. For
+even to Elkan Mandle, with his Ghetto purview, Yvonne Rupert's fame,
+both as a 'Parisian' star and the queen of American advertisers, had
+penetrated. Ever since she had summoned a Jewish florist for not
+paying her for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a single
+week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the
+journals had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing
+adventures.</p>
+
+<p>Not that there was much similarity between the New York star and his
+little actress of the humble Yiddish Theatre in London, save for that
+aureole of fluffy hair, which belonged rather to the genus than the
+individual. But as the great Yvonne's highly-coloured charms went on
+repeating themselves from every box-cover he manipulated (at
+seventy-five cents <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>a hundred), the face of his own Gittel grew more
+and more vivid, till at last the whole splendid, shameful past began
+to rise up from its desolate tomb.</p>
+
+<p>He even lived through that prologue in the Ghetto garret, when, as
+benevolent master-tailor receiving the highest class work from S.
+Cohn's in the Holloway Road, he was called upstairs to assist the
+penniless Polish immigrants.</p>
+
+<p>There she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the rickety table
+just contributed to the home, a piquant, dark-eyed, yet golden-haired,
+mite of eleven, calm and comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter
+of parents and children.</p>
+
+<p>'Settle this among yourselves,' she seemed to be saying. 'When the
+chairs are here I will sit on <i>them</i>; when the table is laid I will
+draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr
+on the hearth.'</p>
+
+<p>Ah, <i>he</i> had come forward as the pious philanthropist&mdash;pious enough
+then, Heaven knew. Why had Satan thrown such lures in the way of the
+reputable employer, the treasurer of 'The Gates of Mercy' Synagogue,
+with children of his own, and the best wife in the world? Did he not
+pray every day to be delivered from the <i>Satan Mekatrig</i>? Had he not
+meant it for the best when he took her into his workshop? It was only
+when, at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein left the whirring
+machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled position of heroine
+of Goldwater's London Yiddish Theatre that he had discovered how this
+whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated herself into his very
+being.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, madness, madness! that flight with her to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>America with all his
+savings, that desertion of his wife and children! But what delicious
+delirium that one year in New York, prodigal, reckless, ere, with the
+disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared. And now, here he
+was&mdash;after nigh seven apathetic years, in which the need of getting a
+living was the only spur to living on&mdash;glad to take a woman's place
+when female labour struck for five cents more a hundred. The old
+bitter tears came up to his eyes, blurring the cheerless scene, the
+shabby men and unlovely women with their red paste-pots, the medley of
+bare and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-balls. And as he
+wept, the vain salt drops moistened the pictures of Yvonne Rupert.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>She became an obsession, this Franco-American singer and dancer, as he
+sat pasting and pasting, caressing her pictured face with sticky
+fingers. There were brief intervals of freedom from her image when he
+was 'edging' and 'backing,' or when he was lining the boxes with the
+plain paper; but Yvonne came twice on every box&mdash;once in large on the
+inside, once in small on the outside, with a gummed projection to be
+stuck down after the cigars were in. He fell to recalling what he had
+read of her&mdash;the convent education that had kept her chaste and
+distinguished beneath all her stage deviltry, the long Lenten fasts
+she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger's bill she disputed
+in open court), the crucifix concealed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>upon her otherwise not too
+reticent person, the adorable French accent with which she enraptured
+the dudes, the palatial private car in which she traversed the States,
+with its little chapel giving on the bathroom; the swashbuckling
+Marquis de St. Roqui&egrave;re, who had crossed the Channel after her, and
+the maid he had once kidnapped in mistake for the mistress; the
+diamond necklace presented by the Rajah of Singapuri, stolen at a
+soir&eacute;e in San Francisco, and found afterwards as single stones in a
+low 'hock-shop' in New Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>And despite all this glitter of imposing images a subconscious thought
+was forcing itself more and more clearly to the surface of his mind.
+That aureole of golden hair, those piquant dark eyes! The Yvonne the
+cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar with had lacked this
+revelation of colour! But no, the idea was insane!</p>
+
+<p>This scintillating celebrity his lost Gittel!</p>
+
+<p>Bah! Misery had made him childish. Goldwater had, indeed, blossomed
+out since the days of his hired hall in Spitalfields, but his fame
+remained exclusively Yiddish and East-side. But Gittel!</p>
+
+<p>How could that obscure rush-light of the London Ghetto Theatre have
+blazed into the Star of Paris and New York?</p>
+
+<p>This Lent-keeping demoiselle the little Polish Jewess who had munched
+Passover cake at his table in the far-off happy days! This gilded idol
+the impecunious Gittel he had caressed!</p>
+
+<p>'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he inquired of his neighbour, a
+pock-marked, spectacled young woman, who, as record-breaker of the
+establishment, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>had refused to join the strike of the mere
+hundred-and-fifty a day.</p>
+
+<p>The young woman swiftly drew a knife from the wooden pail beside her,
+and deftly scraped at a rough hinge as she replied: 'No, but I guess
+she's the actress who gets all the flowers, and won't pay for 'em.'</p>
+
+<p>He saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the description seemed
+to hit off his Gittel to the life. Yes, Gittel had always got all the
+flowers of life, and dodged paying. Ah, she had always been
+diabolically clever, unscrupulously ambitious! Who could put bounds to
+her achievement? She had used him and thrown him away&mdash;without a word,
+without a regret. She had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly
+as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day's paste. What other 'pious
+philanthropist' had she found to replace him? Whither had she fled?
+Why not to Paris that her theatric gifts might receive training?</p>
+
+<p>This chic, this witchery, with which reputation credited her&mdash;had not
+Gittel possessed it all? Had not her heroines enchanted the Ghetto?</p>
+
+<p>Oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as the smoke-wreaths
+of the Yvonne Rupert cigar!</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>But the obsession persisted. In his miserable attic off Hester
+Street&mdash;that recalled the attic he had found her in, though it was
+many stories nearer the sky&mdash;he warmed himself with Gittel's image,
+smiling, light-darting, voluptuous. Night and sleep surrendered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>him
+to grotesque combinations&mdash;Gittel Goldstein smoking cigarettes in a
+bath-room, Yvonne Rupert playing Yiddish heroines in a little chapel.</p>
+
+<p>In the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten in the realized
+absurdity of the initial identification. But a forenoon at the
+pasting-desk brought back the haunting thought. At noon he morbidly
+expended his lunch-dime on an 'Yvonne Rupert' cigar, and smoked it
+with a semi-insane feeling that he was repossessing his Gittel.
+Certainly it was delicious.</p>
+
+<p>He wandered into the box-making room, where the man who tended the
+witty nail-driving machine was seated on a stack of Mexican
+cedar-wood, eating from a package of sausage and scrapple that sent
+sobering whiffs to the reckless smoker.</p>
+
+<p>'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he asked wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>'Might as well ask if I'd smoked her cigar!' grumbled the nailer
+through his mouthfuls.</p>
+
+<p>'But there's a gallery at Webster and Dixie's.'</p>
+
+<p>'Su-er!'</p>
+
+<p>'I guess I'll go some day, just for curiosity.'</p>
+
+<p>But the great Yvonne, he found, was flaming in her provincial orbit.
+So he must needs wait.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, on a Saturday night, with a dirty two-dollar bill in his
+pocket, and jingling some odd cents, he lounged into the restaurant
+where the young Russian bloods assembled who wrote for the Yiddish
+Labour papers, and 'knew it all.' He would draw them out about Yvonne
+Rupert. He established himself near a table at which long-haired,
+long-fingered Freethinkers were drinking chocolate and discussing
+Lassalle.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>schoolboy to
+protest against the master's injustice to one of his schoolfellows!
+How the divine fire flamed in him!'</p>
+
+<p>They talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying the Lassalle
+legend, broidering it with Messianic myths, with the same fantastic
+Oriental invention that had illuminated the plain Pentateuch with
+imaginative vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of
+Socialism with the same passionate personalization. He listened
+impatiently. He had never been caught by Socialism, even at his
+hungriest. He had once been an employer himself, and his point of view
+survived.</p>
+
+<p>They talked of the woman through whom Lassalle had met his death. One
+of them had seen her on the American stage&mdash;a bouncing burlesque
+actress.</p>
+
+<p>'Like Yvonne Rupert?' he ventured to interpose.</p>
+
+<p>'Yvonne Rupert?' They laughed. 'Ah, if Yvonne had only had such a
+snap!' cried Melchitsedek Pinchas. 'To have jilted Lassalle and been
+died for! What an advertisement!'</p>
+
+<p>'It would have been on the bill,' agreed the table.</p>
+
+<p>He asked if they thought Yvonne Rupert clever.</p>
+
+<p>'Off the stage! There's nothing to her on,' said Pinchas.</p>
+
+<p>The table roared as if this were a good joke. 'I dare say she would
+play my Ophelia as well as Mrs. Goldwater,' Pinchas added zestfully.</p>
+
+<p>'They say she has a Yiddish accent,' Elkan ventured again.</p>
+
+<p>The table roared louder. 'I have heard of Yiddish-Deutsch,' cried
+Pinchas, 'never of Yiddish-Fran&ccedil;ais!'</p>
+
+<p>Elkan Mandle was frozen. By his disappointment he knew that he had
+been hoping to meet Gittel again&mdash;that his resentment was dead.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>But the hope would not die. He studied the theatrical announcements,
+and when Yvonne Rupert once again flashed upon New York he set out to
+see her. But it struck him that the remote seat he could afford&mdash;for
+it would not do to spend a week's wage on the mere chance&mdash;would be
+too far off for precise identification, especially as she would
+probably be theatrically transmogrified. No, a wiser as well as a more
+economical plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used to
+meet Gittel. He would hang about till she came.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long ride to the Variety Theatre, and, the weather being
+sloppy, there was not even standing-room in the car, every foot of
+which, as it plunged and heaved ship-like through the watery night,
+was a suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, or
+clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming like stuck flies
+on the fore and hind platforms, the squeeze and smell intensified by
+the shovings and writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or
+by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector of fares
+boring his way through the very thick of the soldered mass. Elkan
+alighted with a headache, glad even of the cold rain that sprinkled
+his forehead. The shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled
+him for once with a bitter revolt. But he dared not insinuate himself
+among the white-wrapped, scented women and elegant cloaked men, though
+he itched to enter the portico and study the pictures of Yvonne
+Rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. He found his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>way instead to the
+stage-door, and took up a position that afforded him a complete view
+of the comers and goers, if only partial shelter from the rain.</p>
+
+<p>But the leaden hours passed without her, with endless fevers of
+expectation, heats followed by chills. The performers came and went,
+mostly on foot, and strange nondescript men and women passed too
+through the jealously-guarded door.</p>
+
+<p>He was drenched to the skin with accumulated drippings ere a smart
+brougham drove up, a smart groom opened an umbrella, and a smart&mdash;an
+unimaginably smart&mdash;Gittel Goldstein alighted.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the incredible was true!</p>
+
+<p>Beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of hair, gleamed the
+piquant eyes he had kissed so often.</p>
+
+<p>He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. She passed
+through the door the groom held open. The doorkeeper, from his
+pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the
+shoulders, every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the envelopes.
+As the groom let the door swing back and turned away, he rushed
+forward and pushed it open again.</p>
+
+<p>'Gittel!' he cried chokingly. 'Gittel!'</p>
+
+<p>She turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in her flushed, startled
+face he read consciousness if not recognition. The reek of her old
+cherry-blossom smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand
+passionate memories.</p>
+
+<p>'Knowest thou me not?' he cried in Yiddish.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty stare.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>'Who is zis person?' she asked the doorkeeper in her charming
+French-English.</p>
+
+<p>He reverted to English.</p>
+
+<p>'I am Elkan, your own Elkan!'</p>
+
+<p>Ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. So near, so near again!
+The same warm seductive witch. He strove to take her daintily-gloved
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>She shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the door that led to the
+dressing-rooms beside the stage.</p>
+
+<p>'Ze man is mad, lunatic!' And she disappeared with that delicious
+shrug of the shoulders that had captivated the States.</p>
+
+<p>Insensate fury overcame him. What! This creature who owed all this
+glory to his dragging her away from the London Ghetto Theatre, this
+heartless, brazen minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to
+mock him like this, was to elude him again! He made a dash after her;
+the doorkeeper darted from his little room, but was hurled aside in a
+swift, mad tussle, and Elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found
+himself blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>a
+great roaring audience, tier upon tier. Then he became aware of a pair
+of eccentric comedians whose scene he had interrupted, and who had not
+sufficient presence of mind to work him into it, so that the audience
+which had laughed at his headlong entrance now laughed the louder over
+its own mistake.</p>
+
+<p>But its delightful moment of sensational suspense was brief. In a
+twinkling the doorkeeper's vengeful hands were on the intruder's
+collar.</p>
+
+<p>'I want Yvonne Rupert!' shrieked Elkan struggling. 'She is mine&mdash;mine!
+She loved me once!'</p>
+
+<p>A vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as he was hauled off, to
+be handed over to a policeman on a charge of brawling and assaulting
+the doorkeeper.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>As he lay in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. Yes, let them take
+him before the magistrate; it was not he that was afraid of justice.
+He would expose her, the false Catholic, the she-cat! A pretty
+convert! Another man would have preferred to blackmail her, he told
+himself with righteous indignation, especially in such straits of
+poverty. But he&mdash;the thought had scarcely crossed his mind. He had not
+even thought of her helping him, only of the joy of meeting her again.</p>
+
+<p>In the chill morning, after a sleepless night, he had a panic-stricken
+sense of his insignificance under the crushing weight of law and
+order. All the strength born of bitterness oozed out as he stood
+before the magistrate rigidly and heard the charge preferred. He had a
+despairing vision of Yvonne Rupert, mocking, inaccessible, even before
+he was asked his occupation.</p>
+
+<p>'In a cigar-box factory,' he replied curtly.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, you make cigar-boxes?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, not exactly. I paste.'</p>
+
+<p>'Paste what?'</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. 'Pictures of Yvonne Rupert on the boxes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah! Then it is the "Yvonne Rupert" cigar?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.' He had divined the court's complacent misinterpretation ere he
+saw its smile; the facile <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>theory that brooding so much over her
+fascinating picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment a
+hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips grimly. What was the
+use of talking? Whatever he said would be discredited on this impish
+theory. And, even without it, how incredible his story, how irrelevant
+to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper!</p>
+
+<p>'I was drunk,' was all he would say. He was committed for trial, and,
+having no one to bail him out, lingered in a common cell with other
+reprobates till the van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up
+to justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the Stars and
+Stripes. A fortnight's more confinement was all that was meted out to
+him, but he had already had time enough to reflect that he had given
+Yvonne Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life. It would
+have enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had he known, as the knowing
+world outside knew, that he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert's pay,
+and that New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious dodge
+by which she had again asserted her sovereignty as an
+advertiser&mdash;delicious, immense!</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>Short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided, much to his own
+surprise, with the Jewish Penitential period, and the Day of Atonement
+came in the middle. A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a
+prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at the break in the
+monotony. Several of the prisoners <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>who posed as Jews with this same
+motive were detected and reprimanded; but Elkan felt, with the new
+grim sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert and the world
+she fooled was developing in him, that he was as little of a Jew as
+any of them. This elopement to America had meant a violent break with
+his whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside of an
+American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for synagogues.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the improvised prayer-room with this ironic sense of coming
+back to Judaism by the Christian prison door. But the service shook
+him terribly. He forgot even to be amused by the one successful
+impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen deprivation of
+rations during the whole fast day. The passionate outcries of the
+old-fashioned <i>Chazan</i>, the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the
+cornet, which had once been merely &aelig;sthetic effects to the reputable
+master-cutter, were now surcharged with doom and chastisement. The
+very sight of the Hebrew books and scrolls touched a thousand memories
+of home and innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, God, how he had sinned!</p>
+
+<p>'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' he cried, smiting
+his breast and rocking to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>His poor deserted wife and children! How terrible for Haigitcha to
+wake up one morning and find him gone! As terrible as for him to wake
+up one morning and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him in
+kind! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.</p>
+
+<p>The philanthropist himself preached the sermon. God could never
+forgive sins till the sinner had first straightened out the human
+wrongs.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>Ah, true, true! If he could only find his family again. If he could
+try by love and immeasurable devotion to atone for the past. Then
+again life would have a meaning and an aim. Poor, poor Haigitcha! How
+he would weep over her and cherish her. And his children! They must be
+grown up. Yankely must be quite a young man. Yes, he would be
+seventeen by now. And Rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub!</p>
+
+<p>In all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts pause upon
+them. His past lay like a misty dream behind those thousand leagues of
+ocean. But now it started up in all the colours of daylight, warm,
+appealing. Yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must still crave
+his love and guidance; he would plead and be forgiven, and end his
+days piously at the sacred hearth of duty.</p>
+
+<p>'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!'</p>
+
+<p>If only he could get back to old England.</p>
+
+<p>He appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition.
+It was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that
+had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the
+Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a
+modicum and the wife of his bosom.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<p>He arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his pocket, in the
+familiar Spitalfields alley, guarded by the three iron posts over
+which he remembered his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>Yankely leaping. His heart was full of tears
+and memories. Ah, there was the butcher's shop still underneath the
+old apartment, with the tin labels stuck in the <i>kosher</i> meat, and
+there was Gideon, the fat, genial butcher, flourishing his great
+carving-knife as of yore, though without that ancient smile of
+brotherly recognition. Gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was an
+inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered, irrevocable.</p>
+
+<p>'Does Mrs. Mandle still live here?' he asked with a horrible
+heart-sinking.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, first floor,' said Gideon, staring.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, how his heart leapt up again! Haigitcha, his dear Haigitcha! He
+went up the ever-open dusty staircase jostling against a spruce,
+handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with a
+sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart swelled with pride
+and affection; but ere he could cry 'Yankely' the young fellow was
+gone. He heard the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the
+workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the
+want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her
+to tide over the crisis. Ah, what a blackguard he had been! And she
+had brought up the children unaided. Dear Haigitcha! What madness had
+driven him from her side? But he would make amends&mdash;yes, he would make
+amends. He would slip again into his own niche, take up the old
+burdens and the old delights&mdash;perhaps even be again treasurer of 'The
+Gates of Mercy.'</p>
+
+<p>He knocked at the door. Haigitcha herself opened it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>He wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in his throat. For this
+was not his Haigitcha; this was a new creature, cold, stern, tragic,
+prematurely aged, framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. And
+in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I am Elkan; don't you know me?'</p>
+
+<p>She stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the flat breasts. Then
+she said icily: 'And what do you want?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am come back,' he muttered hoarsely in Yiddish.</p>
+
+<p>'And where is Gittel?' she answered in the same idiom.</p>
+
+<p>The needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing through his
+brain. So London knew that Gittel had been the companion of his
+flight! He hung his head.</p>
+
+<p>'I was only with her one year,' he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'Then go back to thy dung-heap!' She shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>He thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to. 'Haigitcha!' he
+shrieked. 'Let me come in. Forgive me, forgive me!'</p>
+
+<p>It was a tug-of-war. He forced open the door; he had a vision of
+surprised 'hands' stopping their machines, of a beautiful, startled
+girl holding the ends of a half-laid tablecloth&mdash;his Rachel, oh, his
+Rachel!</p>
+
+<p>'Open the window, one of you!' panted Haigitcha, her shoulders still
+straining against the door. 'Call a policeman&mdash;the man is drunk!'</p>
+
+<p>He staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door slammed. This
+repetition of his 'Yvonne Rupert' experience sobered him effectually.
+What right, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon
+these children, to whom he was dead? So might a suicide hope to win
+back his place in the old life. Life had gone on without him&mdash;had no
+need of him. Ah, what a punishment God had prepared for him! Closed
+doors to the past, closed doors everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>And this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the same palliative
+of righteous resentment. With Yvonne Rupert, the splendid-flaming,
+vicious ingrate, he had felt himself the sinned against. But before
+this wife-widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature, he had
+nothing but self-contempt. He tottered downstairs. How should he even
+get his bread&mdash;he whose ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the
+Ghetto? If he could only get hold of Gideon's carving-knife!</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+<p>But he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve. There is always one
+last refuge for the failures of the Ghetto, and Elkan's easy
+experience with the Jewish philanthropist had prepared the way for
+dealings with the Christian.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the Rev. Moses Elkan, 'the converted Jew,' preaches eloquently
+to his blind brethren who never come to hear him. For he has 'found
+the light.' Exeter Hall's exposition of the Jewish prophecies has
+opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those of his own
+household, yet, remembering the terrible text, 'He that loveth son or
+daughter more than Me <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>is not worthy of Me,' he has taken up his cross
+and followed after Christ alone.</p>
+
+<p>And even if the good souls for whose thousands of pounds he is the
+annual interest should discover his true past&mdash;through this
+tale-bearer or another&mdash;is there not but the more joy over the sinner
+that repenteth?</p>
+
+<p>Duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual world their
+unchangeable irreversible consequences&mdash;all this is irrelevant. He has
+'found the light.'</p>
+
+<p>And so, while Haigitcha walks in darkness, Yvonne prays in her chapel
+and Elkan preaches in his church.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>HOLY WEDLOCK</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span><br />
+<a name="HOLY_WEDLOCK" id="HOLY_WEDLOCK"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>HOLY WEDLOCK<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>When Schneemann, the artist, returned from Rome to his native village
+in Galicia, he found it humming with gossip concerning his paternal
+grandmother, universally known as the <i>Bube</i> Yenta. It would seem that
+the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue conversing with Yossel
+Mandelstein, the hunchback, and sometimes even offered the unshapely
+septuagenarian her snuffbox as he passed the door of her cottage. More
+than one village censor managed to acquaint the artist with the
+flirtation ere he had found energy to walk the muddy mile to her
+dwelling. Even his own mother came out strongly in disapproval of the
+ancient dame; perhaps the remembrance of how fanatically her
+mother-in-law had disapproved of her married head for not being
+shrouded in a pious wig lent zest to her tongue. The artist controlled
+his facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and Bohemianism in the
+Eternal City.</p>
+
+<p>'Old blood will have its way,' he said blandly.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, old blood's way is sometimes worse than young blood's,' said
+Frau Schneemann, unsmiling. 'You must not forget that Yossel is still
+a bachelor.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>'Yes, and therefore a sinner in Israel&mdash;I remember,' quoth the artist
+with a twinkle. How all this would amuse his bachelor friends, Leopold
+Barstein and Rozenoffski the pianist!</p>
+
+<p>'Make not mock. 'Tis high time you, too, should lead a maiden under
+the Canopy.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am so shy&mdash;there are few so forward as grandmother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven be thanked!' said his mother fervently. 'When I refused to
+cover my tresses she spoke as if I were a brazen Epicurean, but I had
+rather have died than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom I was
+not betrothed.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps they <i>are</i> betrothed.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>We</i> betrothed to Yossel! May his name be blotted out!'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, what is wrong with Yossel? Moses Mendelssohn himself had a
+hump.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who speaks of humps? Have you forgotten we are of Rabbinic family?'</p>
+
+<p>Her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten so much of this
+na&iuml;ve life to which he was paying a holiday visit.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah yes,' he murmured. 'But Yossel is pious&mdash;surely?' A vision of the
+psalm-droners and prayer-shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom
+the hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up vividly.</p>
+
+<p>'He may shake himself from dawn-service to night-service, he will
+never shake off his father, the innkeeper,' said Frau Schneemann
+hotly. 'If I were in your grandmother's place I would be weaving my
+shroud, not thinking of young men.'</p>
+
+<p>'But she's thinking of old men, you said.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>'Compared with her he is young&mdash;she is eighty-four, he is only
+seventy-five.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, they won't be married long,' he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>Frau Schneemann laid her hand on his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven forbid the omen,' she cried. ''Tis bringing a <i>Bilbul</i>
+(scandal) upon a respectable family.'</p>
+
+<p>'I will go and talk to her,' he said gravely. 'Indeed, I ought to have
+gone to see her days ago.' And as he trudged to the other end of the
+village towards the cottage where the lively old lady lived in
+self-sufficient solitude, he was full of the contrast between his
+mother's mental world and his own. People live in their own minds, and
+not in streets or fields, he philosophized.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>Through her diamond-paned window he saw the wrinkled, white-capped old
+creature spinning peacefully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure
+cloistral crone. It seemed profane to connect such a figure with
+flirtation&mdash;this was surely the very virgin of senility. What a fine
+picture she made too! Why had he never thought of painting her? Yes,
+such a picture of 'The Spinster' would be distinctly interesting. And
+he would put in the <i>Kesubah</i>, the marriage certificate that hung over
+the mantelpiece, in ironical reminder of her days of bloom. He
+unlatched the door&mdash;he had never been used to knock at grannie's door,
+and the childish instinct came back to him.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Guten Abend</i>,' he said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>She adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at him.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Guten Abend</i>,' she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't remember me&mdash;Vroomkely.' He used the old childish
+diminutive of Abraham, though he had almost forgotten he owned the
+name in full.</p>
+
+<p>'Vroomkely,' she gasped, almost overturning her wheel as she sprang to
+hug him in her skinny arms. He had a painful sense that she had shrunk
+back almost to childish dimensions. Her hands seemed trembling as much
+with decay as with emotion. She hastened to produce from the
+well-known cupboard home-made <i>Kuchen</i> and other dainties of his
+youth, with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer being
+tempted by them.</p>
+
+<p>'And how goes your trade?' she said. 'They say you have never been
+slack. They must build many houses in Rome.' Her notion that he was a
+house-painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as
+picture-painting was contrary to the Mosaic dispensation.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I haven't been only in Rome,' he said evasively. 'I have been in
+many lands.'</p>
+
+<p>Fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the big spectacles. 'You
+have been to Palestine?' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>'No, only as far as Egypt. Why?'</p>
+
+<p>'I thought you might have brought me a clod of Palestine earth to put
+in my grave.' The fire died out of her spectacles, she sighed, and
+took a consolatory pinch of snuff.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't talk of graves&mdash;you will live to be a hundred and more,' he
+cried. But he was thinking how <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>ridiculous gossip was. It spared
+neither age nor sexlessness, not even this shrivelled ancient who was
+meditating on her latter end. Suddenly he became aware of a shadow
+darkening the doorway. At the same instant the fire leapt back into
+his grandmother's glasses. Instinctively, almost before he turned his
+head, he knew it was the hero of the romance.</p>
+
+<p>Yossel Mandelstein looked even less of a hero than the artist had
+remembered. There had been something wistful and pathetic in the
+hunchback's expression, some hint of inner eager fire, but this&mdash;if he
+had not merely imagined it&mdash;seemed to have died of age and
+hopelessness. He used crutches, too, to help himself along with, so
+that he seemed less the hunchback of yore than the conventional
+contortion of time, and but for the familiar earlocks pendent on
+either side of the fur cap, but for the great hooked nose and the
+small chin hidden in the big beard, the artist might have doubted if
+this was indeed the Yossel he had sometimes mocked at in the crude
+cruelty of boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>Yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a mouldering
+black-covered book from under his greasy caftan. 'I have brought you
+back your <i>Chovoth Halvovoth</i>,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>In the vivid presence of the actual romance the artist could not
+suppress the smile he had kept back at the mere shadowy recital. In
+Rome he himself had not infrequently called on young ladies by way of
+returning books to them. It was true that the books he returned were
+not Hebrew treatises, but he smiled again to think that the name of
+Yossel's volume signified 'the duties of the heart.' The <i>Bube</i> Yenta
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>received the book with thanks, and a moment of embarrassment ensued,
+only slightly mitigated by the offer of the snuffbox. Yossel took a
+pinch, but his eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger
+than over the bespread table, as though he might unaccountably have
+overlooked some sacred festival. That two are company and three none
+seemed at this point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to
+renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from the idyllic
+cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry for which he himself was
+too old.</p>
+
+<p>So the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amusement not
+unblended with a touch of his mother's indignation. Surely, if his
+grandmother wished to cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen
+a more sightly object of devotion. Not that there was much to be said
+for Yossel's taste either. When after seventy-five years of celibacy
+the fascinations of the other sex began to tell upon him, he might at
+least have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femininity. But
+perhaps his grandmother had fascinations of another order. Perhaps she
+had money. He put the question to his mother.</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly she has money,' said his mother vindictively. 'She has
+thousands of <i>Gulden</i> in her stocking. Twenty years ago she could have
+had her pick of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has one
+foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and she has cast her
+eye upon this pauper.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I thought his father left him his inn,' said the artist.</p>
+
+<p>'His inn&mdash;yes. His sense&mdash;no. Yossel ruined himself long ago paying
+too much attention to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>Talmud instead of his business. He was
+always a <i>Schlemihl</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'But can one pay too much attention to the Talmud? That is a strange
+saying for a Rabbi's daughter.'</p>
+
+<p>'King Solomon tells us there is a time for everything,' returned the
+Rabbi's daughter. 'Yossel neglected what the wise King said, and so
+now he comes trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her money.
+If he wanted to marry, why didn't he marry before eighteen, as the
+Talmud prescribes?'</p>
+
+<p>'He seems to do everything at the wrong time,' laughed her son. 'Do
+you suppose, by the way, that King Solomon made all his thousand
+marriages before he was eighteen?'</p>
+
+<p>'Make not mock of holy things,' replied his mother angrily.</p>
+
+<p>The monetary explanation of the romance, he found, was the popular one
+in the village. It did not, however, exculpate the grandame from the
+charge of forwardness, since if she wished to contract another
+marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by the <i>Shadchan</i>,
+and then the poor marriage-broker, who got little enough to do in this
+God-forsaken village, might have made a few <i>Gulden</i> out of it.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath all his artistic perception of the humours of the thing,
+Schneemann found himself prosaically sharing the general
+disapprobation of the marriage. Really, when one came to think of it,
+it was ridiculous that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon
+him. And such a grandfather! Perhaps the <i>Bube</i> was, indeed, losing
+her reason. Or was it he himself who was losing his reason, taking
+seriously this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>parochial scandal, and believing that because a
+doddering hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an ethical treatise
+from an octogenarian a marriage must be on the tapis? Yet, on more
+than one occasion, he came upon circumstances which seemed to justify
+the popular supposition. There could be no doubt, for example, that
+when at the conclusion of the synagogue service the feminine stream
+from the women's gallery poured out to mingle with the issuing males,
+these two atoms drifted together with unnatural celerity. It appeared
+to be established beyond question that on the preceding Feast of
+Tabernacles the <i>Bube</i> had lent and practically abandoned to the
+hunchback's use the ritual palm-branch he was too poor to afford. Of
+course this might only have been gratitude, inasmuch as a fortnight
+earlier on the solemn New Year Day when, by an untimely decree, the
+grandmother lay ill abed, Yossel had obtained possession of the
+<i>Shofar</i>, and leaving the synagogue had gone to blow it to her. He had
+blown the holy horn&mdash;with due regard to the proprieties&mdash;in the
+downstairs room of her cottage so that she above had heard it, and
+having heard it could breakfast. It was a performance that charity
+reasonably required for a disabled fellow-creature, and yet what
+medieval knight had found a more delicate way of trumpeting his
+mistress's charms? Besides, how had Yossel known that the heroine was
+ill? His eye must have roved over the women's gallery, and
+disentangled her absence even from the huddled mass of weeping and
+swaying womanhood.</p>
+
+<p>One day came the crowning item of evidence. The grandmother had
+actually asked the village postman <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>to oblige her by delivering a
+brown parcel at Yossel's lodgings. The postman was not a Child of the
+Covenant, but Yossel's landlady was, and within an hour all Jewry knew
+that Yenta had sent Yossel a phylacteries-bag&mdash;the very symbol of love
+offered by a maiden to her bridegroom. Could shameless passion further
+go?</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>The artist, at least, determined it should go no further. He put on
+his hat, and went to find Yossel Mandelstein. But Yossel was not to be
+found so easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with each
+false scent. Yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to Heaven,
+in the <i>Beth Hamedrash</i>, where he was shaking himself studiously over
+a Babylonian folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths and
+greybeards equally careless of the demands of life. The dusky home of
+holy learning seemed an awkward place in which to broach the subject
+of love. In a whisper he besought the oscillating student to come
+outside. Yossel started up in agitation.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with what seemed a
+lover's inaccuracy. 'I will come and pray at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, she is not dying,' said Schneemann hastily, adding in a grim
+murmur, 'unless of love.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, then, it is not about your grandmother?'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;that is to say, yes.' It seemed more difficult than ever to
+plunge into the delicate subject. To refer plumply to the courtship
+would, especially if it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>were not true, compromise his grandmother
+and, incidentally, her family. Yet, on the other hand, he longed to
+know what lay behind all this philandering, which in any case <i>had</i>
+been compromising her, and he felt it his duty as his grandmother's
+protector and the representative of the family to ask Yossel straight
+out whether his intentions were honourable.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors
+were tackled by champions of convention&mdash;scenes in which they were
+even bought off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go to a new
+land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? He led the
+way without.</p>
+
+<p>'You have lived here all your life, Yossel, have you not?' he said,
+when they were in the village street.</p>
+
+<p>'Where else shall a man live?' answered Yossel.</p>
+
+<p>'But have you never had any curiosity to see other parts? Would you
+not like to go and see Vienna?'</p>
+
+<p>A little gleam passed over Yossel's dingy face. 'No, not Vienna&mdash;it is
+an unholy place&mdash;but Prague! Prague where there is a great Rabbi and
+the old, old underground synagogue that God has preserved throughout
+the generations.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, why not go and see it?' suggested the artist.</p>
+
+<p>Yossel stared. 'Is it for that you tore me away from my Talmud?'</p>
+
+<p>'N&mdash;no, not exactly for that,' stammered Schneemann. 'Only seeing you
+glued to it gave me the idea what a pity it was that you should not
+travel and sit at the feet of great Rabbis?'</p>
+
+<p>'But how shall I travel to them? My crutches cannot walk so far as
+Prague.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>'Oh, I'd lend you the money to ride,' said the artist lightly.</p>
+
+<p>'But I could never repay it.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can repay me in Heaven. You can give me a little bit of your <i>Gan
+Iden</i>' (Paradise).</p>
+
+<p>Yossel shook his head. 'And after I had the fare, how should I live?
+Here I make a few <i>Gulden</i> by writing letters for people to their
+relatives in America; in Prague everybody is very learned; they don't
+need a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might as well
+die where I was born.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why can't you die in Palestine?' cried the artist with a new
+burst of hope. 'You <i>shall</i> die in Palestine, I promise you.'</p>
+
+<p>The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'I shall die
+in Palestine?' he asked ecstatically.</p>
+
+<p>'As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.'</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on Yossel's face, then a
+cloud began to pass across it.</p>
+
+<p>'But how can I take your money? I am not a <i>Schnorrer</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. The more so as
+Yossel's eagerness to go and die in Palestine seemed to show that
+there was no reason for packing him off. However, he told himself that
+one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty
+gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy.</p>
+
+<p>'There is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an
+artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why I should buy to
+myself the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span><i>Mitzvah</i> (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You
+see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.'</p>
+
+<p>'So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. 'A very wicked life it is
+said you lead at Rome.'</p>
+
+<p>'Most true,' said the artist cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>'It is said also that you break the Second Commandment by making
+representations of things that are on sea and land.'</p>
+
+<p>'I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist.</p>
+
+<p>'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint
+houses&mdash;which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her&mdash;it would
+pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>'When will you be ready to start?' he said.</p>
+
+<p>Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,'
+he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I
+set foot on the holy soil.'</p>
+
+<p>The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to
+guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were
+an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But
+there is the <i>Chalukah</i>,' he reminded Yossel.</p>
+
+<p>'But that is charity.'</p>
+
+<p>'No&mdash;it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is
+just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from
+all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in
+Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in
+particular.'</p>
+
+<p>'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I
+have always heard.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. But
+Yossel replied simply:</p>
+
+<p>'May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for ever and for ever,
+and by the merit of my prayers in Jerusalem may your sins be
+forgiven.'</p>
+
+<p>The artist was moved. Surely, he thought, struggling between tears and
+laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the
+head of the family. Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>The news that Yossel was leaving the village bound for the Holy Land,
+produced a sensation which quite obscured his former notoriety as an
+aspirant to wedlock. Indeed, those who discussed the new situation
+most avidly forgot how convinced they had been that marriage and not
+death was the hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the
+great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of
+gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been
+tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He
+had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point,
+it was said, the old lady had drawn back&mdash;she who had led him so far
+was not to be thus led. Women are changeable, it is known, and even
+when they are old they do not change. But Yossel had stood up for his
+rights; he had demanded compensation. And his fare to Palestine was a
+concession for his injured affections. It was not many days before the
+artist met persons <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>who had actually overheard the bargaining between
+the <i>Bube</i> and the hunchback.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Yossel's departure was drawing nigh, and all those who had
+relatives in Palestine besieged him from miles around, plying him with
+messages, benedictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. And
+conversely, there was scarcely a Jewish inhabitant who had not begged
+for clods of Palestine earth or bottles of Jordan water. So great
+indeed were the demands that their supply would have constituted a
+distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and dried up
+the Jordan.</p>
+
+<p>With his grandmother's future thus off his mind, the artist had
+settled down to making a picture of the ruined castle which he
+commanded from his bedroom window. But when the through ticket for
+Jerusalem came from the agent at Vienna, and he had brazenly endured
+Yossel's blessings for the same, his artistic instinct demanded to see
+how the <i>Bube</i> was taking her hero's desertion. As he lifted the latch
+he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, not on the
+peaceful scene he expected of the spinster at her ingle nook, but of a
+bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing
+menial. The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be
+Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. Almost
+as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet
+containing a huddle of articles, and tied it into a bundle before the
+artist's chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. But
+instantly a flash of explanation came to him.</p>
+
+<p>'Aha, grandmother,' he said, 'I see you too are sending presents to
+Palestine.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>The grandmother took snuff uneasily. 'Yes, it is going to the Land of
+Israel,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous heaps on the
+floor&mdash;Yossel and his bundle&mdash;he became aware of a blank in the
+familiar interior.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, where is the spinning-wheel?' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>'I have given it to the widow Rubenstein&mdash;I shall spin no more.'</p>
+
+<p>'And I thought of painting you as a spinster!' he murmured dolefully.
+Then a white patch in the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught
+his eye. 'Why, your marriage certificate is gone too!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I have taken it down.'</p>
+
+<p>'To give to the widow Rubenstein?'</p>
+
+<p>'What an idea!' said his grandmother seriously. 'It is in the bundle.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are sending it away to Palestine?'</p>
+
+<p>The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and removing them with
+trembling fingers blinked downwards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up
+his crutches, and propped himself manfully upon them.</p>
+
+<p>'Your grandmother goes with me,' he explained decisively.</p>
+
+<p>'What!' the artist gasped.</p>
+
+<p>The grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly; they had drawn fire from
+Yossel's. 'And why should I not go to Palestine too?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'But you are so old!'</p>
+
+<p>'The more reason I should make haste if I am to be luckier than Moses
+our Master.' She readjusted her spectacles firmly.</p>
+
+<p>'But the journey is so hard.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>'Yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while alive as easily as
+others will roll thither after death.'</p>
+
+<p>'You'll be dead before you get there,' said the artist brutally.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, no! God will not let me die before I touch the holy soil!'</p>
+
+<p>'You, too, want to die in Palestine?' cried the amazed artist.</p>
+
+<p>'And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to die? Ah, I
+forgot&mdash;your mother was an Epicurean with godless tresses; she did not
+bring you up in the true love of our land. But every day for seventy
+years and more have I prayed the prayer that my eyes should behold the
+return of the Divine Glory to Zion. That mercy I no longer expect in
+my own days, inasmuch as the Sultan hardens his heart and will not
+give us back our land, not though Moses our Master appears to him
+every night, and beats him with his rod. But at least my eyes shall
+behold the land of Israel.'</p>
+
+<p>'Amen!' said Yossel, still propped assertively on his crutches. The
+grandson turned upon the interrupter. 'But you can't take her <i>with</i>
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why not?' said Yossel calmly.</p>
+
+<p>Schneemann found himself expatiating upon the responsibility of
+looking after such an old woman; it seemed too absurd to talk of the
+scandal. That was left for the grandmother to emphasize.</p>
+
+<p>'Would you have me arrive alone in Palestine?' she interposed
+impatiently. 'Think of the talk it would make in Jerusalem! And should
+I even be permitted to land? They say the Sultan's soldiers stand at
+the landing-place like the angels at the gates <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>of Paradise with
+swords that turn every way. But Yossel is cunning in the customs of
+the heathen; he will explain to the soldiers that he is an Austrian
+subject, and that I am his <i>Frau</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'What! Pass you off as his <i>Frau</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Who speaks of passing off? He could say I was his sister, as Abraham
+our Father said of Sarah. But that was a sin in the sight of Heaven,
+and therefore as our sages explain&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It is simpler to be married,' Yossel interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>'Married!' echoed the artist angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'The witnesses are coming to my lodging this afternoon,' Yossel
+continued calmly. 'Dovidel and Yitzkoly from the <i>Beth Hamedrash</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'They think they are only coming to a farewell glass of brandy,'
+chuckled the grandmother. 'But they will find themselves at a secret
+wedding.'</p>
+
+<p>'And to-morrow we shall depart publicly for Trieste,' Yossel wound up
+calmly.</p>
+
+<p>'But this is too absurd!' the artist broke in. 'I forbid this
+marriage!'</p>
+
+<p>A violent expression of amazement overspread the ancient dame's face,
+and the tone of the far-away years came into her voice. 'Silence,
+Vroomkely, or I'll smack your face. Do you forget you are talking to
+your grandmother?'</p>
+
+<p>'I think Mr. Mandelstein forgets it,' the artist retorted, turning
+upon the heroic hunchback. 'Do you mean to say you are going to marry
+my grandmother?'</p>
+
+<p>'And why not?' asked Yossel. 'Is there a greater lover of God in all
+Galicia?'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush, Yossel, I am a great sinner.' But her old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>face was radiant.
+She turned to her grandson. 'Don't be angry with Yossel&mdash;all the fault
+is mine. He did not ask me to go with him to Palestine; it was I that
+asked <i>him</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean that you asked him to marry you?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is the same thing. There is no other way. How different would it
+have been had there been any other woman here who wanted to die in
+Palestine! But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven; they wear
+their hair unshorn&mdash;they&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Asked? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement Day. For two years I
+prayed to him, but he always refused.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then why&mdash;&mdash;?' began the artist.</p>
+
+<p>'Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Yenta!' protested Yossel flushing, 'I am a very sinful man.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the <i>Bube</i> replied. 'Your
+iniquity is like your ugliness&mdash;some people have it scattered all
+over, but you have it all heaped up. And the heap is called pride.'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently. 'Why did he not
+go on refusing you?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am coming to that. Only you were always so impatient, Vroomkely.
+When I was cutting you a piece of <i>Kuchen</i>, you would snatch greedily
+at the crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of the same
+clay as you and I. By an oversight the Almighty sent an angel into the
+world instead of a man, but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the
+All-High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. But when
+Yossel's father made a match for him with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>Leah, the rich
+corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl, when she was introduced to the
+bridegroom, could see only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry
+out the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since that day he
+curled himself up into his hump, and nursed a hatred for all women.'</p>
+
+<p>'How can you say that, Yenta?' Yossel broke in again.</p>
+
+<p>'Why else did you refuse my money?' the <i>Bube</i> retorted. 'Twice, ten,
+twenty times I asked him to go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as
+a pig he keeps grunting "I can't&mdash;I've got no money." Sooner than I
+should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die here.'</p>
+
+<p>The artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, anger, and
+self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. So this was
+all his Machiavellian scheming had achieved&mdash;to bring about the very
+marriage it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen into it
+himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozenoffski and Leopold Barstein.
+He laughed bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>'Nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the <i>Bube</i> indignantly. 'For I
+know well how Yossel longed to go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at
+last the All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come to me and
+invite me to go with him.'</p>
+
+<p>Here the artist became aware that Yossel's eyes and lips were
+signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth, one published one's good
+deeds! He had yet to learn on whose behalf the hunchback was
+signalling.</p>
+
+<p>'So! You came into a fortune?' he asked Yossel gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Yossel looked the picture of misery. The <i>Bube</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>unconsciously cut
+through the situation. 'A wicked man gave it to him,' she explained,
+'to pray away his sins in Jerusalem.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed!' murmured the artist. 'Anyone you know?'</p>
+
+<p>'Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,' ambiguously
+interpolated her anxious protector.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't even know his name,' added the <i>Bube</i>. 'Yossel keeps it
+hidden.'</p>
+
+<p>'One must not shame a fellow-man,' Yossel urged. 'The sin of that is
+equal to the sin of shedding blood.'</p>
+
+<p>The grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 'It is enough that the
+All-High knows his name. But for such an Epicurean much praying will
+be necessary. It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel,
+must be that you shall not die very soon, else the labourer will not
+be worthy of his hire.'</p>
+
+<p>Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's clasp. 'Be at
+peace, Yenta! He will be redeemed if only by <i>your</i> merits. Are we not
+one?'</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>ELIJAH'S GOBLET</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span><br />
+<a name="ELIJAHS_GOBLET" id="ELIJAHS_GOBLET"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>ELIJAH'S GOBLET<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Aaron Ben Amram removed from the great ritual dish the roasted
+shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of the Paschal Sacrifice) and the
+roasted egg (representative of the ancient festival-offering in the
+Temple), and while his wife and children held up the dish, which now
+contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened cakes, he recited the
+Chaldaic prelude to the <i>Seder</i>&mdash;the long domestic ceremonial of the
+Passover Evening.</p>
+
+<p>'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of
+Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who require
+come in and celebrate the Passover. This year here, next year in the
+land of Israel! This year slaves, next year sons of freedom!'</p>
+
+<p>But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave. White-bearded,
+clad in a long white robe and a white skullcap, and throned on white
+pillows, he made rather a royal figure, indeed for this night of
+nights conceived of himself as 'King' and his wife as 'Queen.'</p>
+
+<p>But 'Queen' Golda, despite her silk gown and flowery cap, did not
+share her consort's majestic mood, still less the rosy happiness of
+the children who sat round this fascinating board. Her heart was full
+of a whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>father
+nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. All very well for the
+little ones to be unconscious of the hovering shadow, but how could
+her husband have forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the
+very year he had led her under the Canopy?</p>
+
+<p>And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful legend was
+gathering again, that the slowly-growing Jew-hatred had reached a
+point at which it must find expression, that the <i>Pritzim</i> (nobles) in
+their great houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, alike
+sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had not the Passover Market
+hummed with the old, old story of a lost Christian child? Not murdered
+yet, thank God, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy <i>should</i> be
+found with signs of violence upon him at this season of the Paschal
+Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded on the Crucifixion! O God of
+Abraham, guard us from these fiends unchained!</p>
+
+<p>But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with
+cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal,
+mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast
+content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual
+repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the
+Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture
+of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the
+bondsmen's mortar; they relished the eggs sliced into salt water, and
+then&mdash;the symbols all duly swallowed&mdash;settled down with more prosaic
+satisfaction to the merely edible meats and fishes, though even to
+these the special Passover plates and dishes and the purified knives
+and forks lent a new relish.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to meditate her annual
+theft of the <i>Afkuman</i>, that segment of Passover cake under Aaron's
+pillow, morsels of which, distributed to each as the final food to be
+tasted that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal Lamb in
+the ancient Palestinian meal.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>But Elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table untasted. Every
+time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at
+the great silver goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas!
+the brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level.</p>
+
+<p>They found consolation in the thought that the great moment was still
+to come&mdash;the moment of the third cup, when, mother throwing open the
+door, father would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously
+salute an unseen visitor.</p>
+
+<p>True, in other years, though they had almost heard the rush of wings,
+the great shining cup had remained full, and when it was replaced on
+the white cloth, a vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had
+stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons could be found to
+exculpate Elijah&mdash;not omitting their own sins&mdash;and now, when Ben Amram
+nodded to his wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe,
+credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo.</p>
+
+<p>But the mother's heart was palpitating with another emotion. A faint
+clamour in the Polish quarter at the back, as she replaced the samovar
+in the kitchen, had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw
+open the door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent-minded enough
+to be beguiled by her air of obedient alacrity. Besides, he could see
+the shut street-door through the strip of passage. He gestured towards
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Now she feigned laziness. 'Oh, never mind.'</p>
+
+<p>'David, open the street-door.'</p>
+
+<p>The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have been too bad of
+mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, David!' Golda stopped him. 'It is too heavy; he could not
+undo the bolts and bars.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have barred it?' Ben Amram asked.</p>
+
+<p>'And why not? In this season you know how the heathen go mad like
+street-dogs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pooh! They will not bite us.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, Aaron! You heard about the lost Christian child!'</p>
+
+<p>'I have saved many a Christian child, Golda.'</p>
+
+<p>'They will not remember that.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I must remember the ritual.' And he made a movement.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, Aaron! Listen!'</p>
+
+<p>The shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards the front of the
+house. He shrugged his shoulders. 'I hear only the goats bleating.'</p>
+
+<p>She clung to him as he made for the door. 'For the sake of our
+children!'</p>
+
+<p>'Do not be so childish yourself, my crown!'</p>
+
+<p>'But I am not childish. Hark!'</p>
+
+<p>He smiled calmly. 'The door must be opened.'</p>
+
+<p>Her fears lent her scepticism. 'It is you that are childish. You know
+no Prophet of Redemption will come through the door.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>He caressed his venerable beard. 'Who knows?'</p>
+
+<p>'I know. It is a Destroyer, not a Redeemer of Israel, who will come.
+Listen! Ah, God of Abraham! Do you not hear?'</p>
+
+<p>Unmistakably the howl of a riotous mob was approaching, mingled with
+the reedy strains of an accordion.</p>
+
+<p>'Down with the <i>Zhits</i>! Death to the dirty Jews!'</p>
+
+<p>'God in heaven!' She released her husband, and ran towards the
+children with a gesture as of seeking to gather them all in her arms.
+Then, hearing the bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. 'Are you
+mad, Aaron?'</p>
+
+<p>But he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide the door with his
+left hand, while his right upheld Elijah's goblet, and over the
+ululation of the unseen mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his
+Hebrew welcome to the visitor: '<i>Baruch habaa!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild flying figure in a
+rich furred coat dashed round the corner and almost into his arms,
+half-spilling the wine.</p>
+
+<p>'In God's name, Reb Aaron!' panted the refugee, and fell half-dead
+across the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The physician dragged him hastily within, and slammed the door, just
+as two moujiks&mdash;drunken leaders of the chase&mdash;lurched past. The
+mother, who had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly
+shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry tore past the
+house and dwindled in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Ben Amram raised the white bloody face, and put Elijah's goblet to the
+lips. The strange visitor drained it to the dregs, the clustered
+children looking on dazedly. As the head fell back, it caught the
+light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>from the festive candles of the Passover board. The face was
+bare of hair; even the side curls were gone.</p>
+
+<p>'Maimon the <i>Meshummad</i>!' cried the mother, shuddering back. 'You have
+saved the Apostate.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did I not say the door must be opened?' replied Ben Amram gently.
+Then a smile of humour twitched his lips, and he smoothed his white
+beard. 'Maimon is the only Jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor
+drunken peasants to know he was baptized?'</p>
+
+<p>Despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, David and his brothers
+and sisters were secretly pleased to see Elijah's goblet empty at
+last.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>Next morning the Passover liturgy rang jubilantly through the vast,
+crowded synagogue. No violence had been reported, despite the passage
+of a noisy mob. The Ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire
+and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown, turreted
+quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out in great shouts of
+rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in their fringed shawls, with
+quivering hands of supplication. The Ark of the Law at one end of the
+great building, overbrooded by the Ten Commandments and the perpetual
+light, stood open to mark a supreme moment of devotion. Ben Amram had
+been given the honour of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad
+scrolls of all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood
+revealed in solemn splendour.</p>
+
+<p>Through the ornate grating of their gallery the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>gaily-clad women
+looked down on the rocking figures, while the grace-notes of the
+cantor on his central da&iuml;s, and the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of
+his male ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were indeed
+angels on high. Suddenly, over the blended passion of cantor and
+congregation, an ominous sound broke from without&mdash;the complex clatter
+of cavalry, the curt ring of military orders. The swaying figures
+turned suddenly as under another wind, the women's eyes grew astare
+and ablaze with terror. The great doors flew open, and&mdash;oh, awful,
+incredible sight&mdash;a squadron of Cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast,
+with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a rattle of
+ponderous sabres. Their black conical caps and long beards, their
+great side-buttoned coats, and pockets stuffed with protrusive
+cartridges, their prancing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a
+blood-curdling discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped figures. The
+rumble of worship ceased, the cantor, suddenly isolated, was heard
+soaring ecstatically; then he, too, turned his head uneasily and his
+roulade died in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>'Halt!' the officer cried. The moving column froze. Its bristling
+length stretched from the central platform, blocking the aisle, and
+the courtyard echoed with the clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed
+into the school and the poor-house. The <i>Shamash</i> (beadle) was seen to
+front the flamboyant invaders.</p>
+
+<p>'Why does your Excellency intrude upon our prayers to God?'</p>
+
+<p>The congregation felt its dignity return. Who would have suspected Red
+Judah of such courage&mdash;such apt speech? Why, the very Rabbi was
+petrified; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>the elders of the <i>Kahal</i> stood dumb. Ben Amram himself,
+their spokesman to the Government, whose praying-shawl was embroidered
+with a silver band, and whose coat was satin, remained immovable
+between the pillars of the Ark, staring stonily at the brave beadle.</p>
+
+<p>'First of all, for the boy's blood!'</p>
+
+<p>The words rang out with military precision, and the speaker's horse
+pawed clangorously, as if impatient for the charge. The men grew
+death-pale, the women wrung their hands.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ai, vai!</i>' they moaned. 'Woe! woe!'</p>
+
+<p>'What boy? What blood?' said the <i>Shamash</i>, undaunted.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't palter, you rascal! You know well that a Christian child has
+disappeared.'</p>
+
+<p>The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the <i>Shamash</i>, uplifted a quavering
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>'The child will be found of a surety&mdash;if, indeed, it is lost,' he
+added with bitter sarcasm. 'And surely your Excellency cannot require
+the boy's blood at our hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed
+spilt.'</p>
+
+<p>'You misunderstand me, old dog&mdash;or rather you pretend to, old fox. The
+boy's blood is here&mdash;it is kept in this very synagogue&mdash;and I have
+come for it.'</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Shamash</i> laughed explosively. 'Oh, Excellency!'</p>
+
+<p>The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad
+relief. It rang with strange laughter.</p>
+
+<p>'There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,' said the Rabbi, his
+eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.'</p>
+
+<p>'We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>'That!' The <i>Shamash</i> grinned&mdash;almost indecorously. 'That is the
+Consecration wine&mdash;red as my beard,' quoth he.</p>
+
+<p>'Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy
+buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>'We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and
+the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost
+incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock
+discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical
+creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law.</p>
+
+<p>The officer's voice rose again. 'Let no one leave the synagogue&mdash;man,
+woman, or child. Kill anyone who attempts to escape.'</p>
+
+<p>The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively
+he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy
+hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened
+the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle,
+hideously red.</p>
+
+<p>'Consecration wine, eh?' he said grimly.</p>
+
+<p>'What else, Excellency?' stoutly replied the <i>Shamash</i>, who had
+followed him.</p>
+
+<p>A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'Drink me a mouthful!'</p>
+
+<p>As the <i>Shamash</i> took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the
+shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the
+women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands.
+Every breath was held.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red Judah gulped down a
+draught. But as the liquid met his palate a horrible distortion
+overcame his smile, his hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle,
+and with a hoarse cry, 'Mercy, O God!' he fell before the Ark, foaming
+at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a vivid pool.</p>
+
+<p>'Hear, O Israel!' A raucous cry of horror rose from all around, and
+was echoed more shrilly from above. Almighty Father! The Jew-haters
+had worked their fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the women,
+shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, '<i>Ai, vai!</i>' '<i>Gewalt!</i>' The
+Rabbi shook as with palsy. 'Satan! Satan!' chattered through his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping over the scarlet
+stain.</p>
+
+<p>'A soldier should know blood, Excellency!' the physician said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The officer's face relaxed into a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p>'A soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. And, indeed, the spicy
+reek of the Consecration wine was bewildering the nearer bystanders.</p>
+
+<p>'Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a fit,' said the
+physician, raising the beadle's head by its long red beard.</p>
+
+<p>His Excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried
+a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed
+cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere
+the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat
+and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots
+was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a
+moment <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of
+ejaculations.</p>
+
+<p>But Ben Amram's voice rang through the din. 'Brethren!' He rose from
+wiping the frothing lips of the stricken creature, and his face had
+the fiery gloom of a seer's, and the din died under his uplifted palm.
+'Brethren, the Lord hath saved us!'</p>
+
+<p>'Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever!' The Rabbi began
+the phrase, and the congregation caught it up in thunder.</p>
+
+<p>'But hearken how. Last night at the <i>Seder</i>, as I opened the door for
+Elijah, there entered Maimon the <i>Meshummad</i>! 'Twas he quaffed
+Elijah's cup!'</p>
+
+<p>There was a rumble of imprecations.</p>
+
+<p>'A pretty Elijah!' cried the Rabbi.</p>
+
+<p>'Nay, but God sends the Prophet of Redemption in strange guise,' the
+physician said. 'Listen! Maimon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant
+he was a deserter from our camp. When he found how I had saved him and
+dressed his bleeding face, when he saw the spread Passover table, his
+child-soul came back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the
+diabolical plot against our community, hatched through his
+instrumentality by some desperate debtors; how, having raised the cry
+of a lost child, they were to have its blood found beneath our Holy
+Ark as in some mystic atonement. And while you all lolled joyously at
+the <i>Seder</i> table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the
+Consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and destroy us all.'</p>
+
+<p>A shudder of awe traversed the synagogue.</p>
+
+<p>'But the Guardian of Israel, who permits us to sleep on Passover night
+without night-prayer, neither <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>slumbers nor sleeps. Maimon had bribed
+the <i>Shamash</i> to let him enter the synagogue and replace the
+Consecration wine.'</p>
+
+<p>'Red Judah!' It was like the growl of ten thousand tigers. Some even
+precipitated themselves upon the writhing wretch.</p>
+
+<p>'Back! back!' cried Ben Amram. 'The Almighty has smitten him.'</p>
+
+<p>'"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,"' quoted the Rabbi solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>'Hallelujah!' shouted a frenzied female voice, and 'Hallelujah!' the
+men responded in thunder.</p>
+
+<p>'Red Judah had no true belief in the God of Israel,' the physician
+went on.</p>
+
+<p>'May he be an atonement for us all!' interrupted the Cantor.</p>
+
+<p>'Amen!' growled the congregation.</p>
+
+<p>'For a hundred roubles and the promise of personal immunity Red Judah
+allowed Maimon the <i>Meshummad</i> to change the bottles while all Israel
+sat at the Seder. It was because the mob saw the <i>Meshummad</i> stealing
+out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for a pious Jew. Behold,
+brethren, how the Almighty weaves His threads together. After the
+repentant sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the
+Cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community assembled helpless
+in synagogue, I deemed it best merely to get the bottles changed back
+again. The false bottle contained only bullock's blood, but it would
+have sufficed to madden the multitude. Since it is I who have the
+blessed privilege of supplying the Consecration wine it was easy
+enough to give Maimon another bottle, and armed with this he roused
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span><i>Shamash</i> in the dawn, pretending he had now obtained true human
+blood. A rouble easily procured him the keys again, and when he
+brought me back the bullock's blood, I awaited the sequel in peace.'</p>
+
+<p>'Praise ye the Lord, for He is good,' sang the Cantor, carried away.</p>
+
+<p>'For His mercy endureth for ever,' replied the congregation
+instinctively.</p>
+
+<p>'I did not foresee the <i>Shamash</i> would put himself so brazenly forward
+to hide his guilt, or that he would be asked to drink. But when the
+<i>Epikouros</i> (atheist) put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste
+blood, and found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once that
+the God of Israel was truly in heaven, that He had wrought a miracle
+and changed the blood back to wine.'</p>
+
+<p>'And such a miracle God wrought verily,' cried the Rabbi, grasping the
+physician's hand, while the synagogue resounded with cries of 'May thy
+strength increase,' and the gallery heaved frantically with blessings
+and congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>'What wonder,' the physician wound up, as he bent again over the
+ghastly head, with its pious ringlets writhing like red snakes, 'that
+he fell stricken by dread of the Almighty's wrath!'</p>
+
+<p>And while men were bearing the convulsive form without, the Cantor
+began to recite the Grace after Redemption. And then the happy hymns
+rolled out, and the choristers cried 'Pom!' and a breath of jubilant
+hope passed through the synagogue. The mighty hand and the
+outstretched arm which had redeemed Israel from the Egyptian bondage
+were still hovering over them, nor would the Prophet Elijah for ever
+delay to announce the ultimate Messiah.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span><br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE HIRELINGS</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span><br />
+<a name="THE_HIRELINGS" id="THE_HIRELINGS"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE HIRELINGS<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Crowded as was the steamer with cultured Americans invading Europe,
+few knew that Rozenoffski was on board, or even that Rozenoffski was a
+pianist. The name, casually seen on the passengers' list, conveyed
+nothing but a strong Russian and a vaguer Semitic flavour, and the
+mere outward man, despite a leonine head, was of insignificant port
+and somewhat shuffling gait, and drew scarcely a second glance.</p>
+
+<p>He would not have had it otherwise, he told himself, as he paced the
+almost deserted deck after dinner&mdash;it was a blessing to escape from
+the perpetual adulation of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls&mdash;but
+every wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after his
+American failure.</p>
+
+<p>Not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his failure; he had not
+put himself to the vulgar tests. His American expedition had followed
+the lines recommended to him by friendly connoisseurs&mdash;to come before
+the great public, if at all, only after being launched by great
+hostesses at small parties; to which end he had provided himself with
+unimpeachable introductions to unexceptionable ladies from
+irresistible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>personalities&mdash;a German Grand Duke, a Bulgarian
+Ambassador, Countesses, both French and Italian, and even a Belgian
+princess. But to his boundless amazement&mdash;for he had always heard that
+Americans were wax before titles&mdash;not one of the social leaders had
+been of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of the
+Chicago Palace, to whom he had been recommended by the Belgian
+princess. He had penetrated through one or two esoteric doors, only to
+find himself outside them again. Not once had he been asked to play.
+It was some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor prophet of
+European music-rooms that he was being shut out, still longer before
+it permeated to his brain that he had been shut out as a Jew!</p>
+
+<p>Those barbarous Americans, so far behind Europe after all! Had they
+not even discovered that art levels all ranks and races? Poor
+bourgeois money-mongers with their mushroom civilization. It was not
+even as if he were really a Jew. Did they imagine he wore phylacteries
+or earlocks, or what? His few childish years in the Russian Pale&mdash;what
+were they to the long years of European art and European culture? And
+even if in Rome or Paris he had foregathered with Jews like Schneemann
+or Leopold Barstein, it was to the artist in them he had gravitated,
+not the Jew. Did these Yankee ignoramuses suppose he did not share
+their aversion from the gaberdine or the three brass balls? Oh the
+narrow-souled anti-Semites!</p>
+
+<p>The deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the forgotten rugs and
+novels, tidying the deck for the night, but still the embittered
+musician tramped to and fro under the silent stars. Only from the
+smoking-room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in discord with the
+solemnity of sky and sea, and the artist was newly jarred at this
+vulgar gaiety flung in the face of the spacious and starry mystery of
+the night. And these jocose, heavy-jowled, smoke-soused gamblers were
+the Americans whose drawing-rooms he would contaminate! He recalled
+the only party to which he had been asked&mdash;'To meet the Bright
+Lights'&mdash;and which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public
+entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall, and
+himself&mdash;with the other Bright Lights&mdash;planted on a platform and made
+to perform without a fee. The mean vulgarians! But perhaps it was
+better they had left him untainted with their dollars&mdash;better,
+comparatively poor though he was, that America should have meant pure
+loss to him. He had at least kept the spiritual satisfaction of
+despising the despiser, the dignity of righteous resentment, the
+artist's pride in the profitless. And this riot of ugliness and
+diamonds and third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to
+which, forsooth, the Jew could not be permitted access!</p>
+
+<p>The aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him, and the face
+between whose prominent teeth it was stuck loomed vividly in the glare
+of an electric light. Rozenoffski recognised those teeth. He had seen
+countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they not almost
+hold the globe in their grip? This, then was the notorious
+multi-millionaire, 'the Napoleon in dollars,' as a wit had summed him
+up; and the first sight of Andrew P. Wilhammer almost consoled the
+player for his poverty. Who, even for an imperial income, would bear
+the burden of those grotesque teeth, protruding like a sample of wares
+in a dentist's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>showcase? But as the teeth came nearer and the great
+rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of the notorious
+incisors affected him less than their carnivorous capacity&mdash;he felt
+himself almost swallowed up by this monstrous beast of prey, so
+admirably equated to our small day of large things, to that
+environment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but a little
+singing-bird. The long-forgotten word <i>Rishus</i> came suddenly into his
+mind&mdash;was not the man's anti-Semitism as obtruded as his
+teeth?&mdash;<i>Rishus</i>, that wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had
+become almost a synonym for Christianity. He had left the thought
+behind him, as he had left the Hebrew word, while he went sailing up
+into the rosy ether of success, and <i>Rishus</i> had sunk into the mere
+panic-word of the Ghetto's stunted brood, shrinking and quivering
+before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a misunderstood world, if
+it was not, indeed, rather a word conveniently cloaking from
+themselves a multitude of their own sins. But now, as incarnated in
+this millionaire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden solidity,
+to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing and rending
+significance.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, in very sooth&mdash;he remembered it suddenly&mdash;was it not this man's
+wife on whom he had built his main hopes? Was she not the leader of
+musical America, to whom the Belgian princess had given him the
+scented and crested note of introduction which was to open to him all
+doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble
+music-room&mdash;one of the boasts of Chicago&mdash;that he had mentally seen
+himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these
+Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>over&mdash;a
+note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's
+health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such
+credentials. <i>Rishus&mdash;Rishus</i> indubitable!</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>Turning with morbid interest to look after the retreating millionaire,
+he found him in converse with a feminine figure at the open door of a
+deck-cabin. Could this be the great She, the arbitress of art? He
+moved nearer. Why, this was but a girl&mdash;nay, unless his instinct was
+at fault, a Jewish girl&mdash;a glorious young Jewess, of that radiant
+red-haired type which the Russian Pale occasionally flowered with.
+What was she doing with this Christian Colossus? He tried vainly to
+see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might be Mrs.
+Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct. Wilhammer disappeared
+within&mdash;the relation was obviously intimate&mdash;but the girl still stood
+at the door, a brooding magical figure.</p>
+
+<p>Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak to her, but he
+conquered the abnormal and incorrect impulse, contenting himself to
+walk past her with a side-glance, while at the end of the
+deck-promenade, instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched
+his path round to the windy side. After some minutes of buffeting he
+returned chilled to his prior pacing ground. She was still there, but
+had moved under the same electric light which had illuminated
+Wilhammer's face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried
+him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>those radiant
+cheeks. A slight exclamation came involuntarily from him; the girl,
+even more startled to be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the
+letter&mdash;a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped
+at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed
+sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and
+deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed
+it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a
+thrill that the characters were cursive Hebrew.</p>
+
+<p>'How can I zank you, sir!' Her Teutonic-touched American gave him the
+courage to reply gallantly in German:</p>
+
+<p>'By letting me help you more seriously.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ach, mein Herr</i>'&mdash;she jumped responsively into German&mdash;'it was for
+joy I was crying, not sorrow.' As her American was Germanic, so was
+her German like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding to
+the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's heart within his
+breast. He noted now with satisfaction that her fingers were bare of
+rings.</p>
+
+<p>'Then I am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back towards her cabin.
+'With us Jews,' she said, 'tears and laughter are very close.'</p>
+
+<p>'Us Jews!' He winced a little. It was so long since he had been thus
+classed to his face by a stranger. But perhaps he had misinterpreted
+her phrase; it was her way of referring to <i>her</i> race, not necessarily
+to <i>his</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'It is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily. But he only opened
+wider the flood-gates of race-feeling.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' she replied simply, 'and such a heaven of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>stars is beginning
+to arise over the night of Israel. Is it not wonderful&mdash;the
+transformation of our people? When I left Russia as a girl&mdash;so young,'
+she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that I had not even been
+married&mdash;I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing,
+cowering, contorted people&mdash;I shall never forget the panic in our
+synagogue when a troop of Cossacks rode in with a bogus
+blood-accusation. Now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions;
+the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies
+to execute them. Our <i>Bund</i> is the soul of the Russian revolution; our
+self-defence bands are bringing back the days of Judas Maccab&aelig;us. In
+the olden times of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray;
+now they march to the fight like men.'</p>
+
+<p>They had arrived at her door, and she ended suddenly. The musician,
+fascinated, feared she was about to fade away within.</p>
+
+<p>'But Jews can't fight!' he cried, half-incredulous, half to arrest
+her.</p>
+
+<p>'Not fight!' She held up the Hebrew letter. 'They have scouts,
+ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, everything&mdash;my cousin David Ben
+Amram, who is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large
+three-story house inhabited by the families of factory-labourers who
+were at work when the <i>pogrom</i> broke out. The poor frenzied women and
+children had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, and
+hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My cousin had to climb to
+their defence over the neighbouring tiles and through a window in the
+roof. Soon the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans in
+devilish league. With his one Browning revolver <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>David held them all
+at bay, firing from every window of the house in turn, so as to give
+the besiegers an impression of a large defensive force. At last his
+cartridges were exhausted&mdash;to procure cartridges is the greatest
+difficulty of our self-defence corps&mdash;they began battering in the big
+front-door. David, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew
+back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried:
+'Back! back! They have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to
+escape the explosion. The others followed wildly, and in the panic
+David ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post
+of defence. Though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants
+were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained for
+over an hour at a safe distance firing at the house, till it was
+riddled with bullets. They counted nearly two hundred the next day,
+embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. And not a thing had
+been stolen&mdash;not a hooligan had dared enter. But David is only a type
+of the young generation&mdash;there are hundreds of Davids equally ready to
+take the field against Goliath. And shall I not rejoice, shall I not
+exult even unto tears?' Her eyes glowed, and the musician was kindled
+to equal fire. It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than
+Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own. 'The Pale that I
+left,' she went on, 'was truly a prison. But now&mdash;now it will be the
+forging-place of a regenerated people! Oh, I am counting the days till
+I can be back!'</p>
+
+<p>'You are going back to Russia!' he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>He had the sensation of cold steel passing through his heart. The
+<i>pogroms</i>, which had been as remote to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span>him as the squabbles of
+savages in Central Africa, became suddenly vivid and near. And even
+vivider and nearer that greater danger&mdash;the heroic Cousin David!</p>
+
+<p>'How can I live away from Russia at such a moment?' she answered
+quietly. 'Who or what needs me in America?'</p>
+
+<p>'But to be massacred!' he cried incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled radiantly. 'To live and die with my own people.'</p>
+
+<p>The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime jet; he was like
+to crying, 'Thy people shall be my people,' but all he found himself
+saying was, 'You must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?'</p>
+
+<p>A bell rang sharply from the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>'I must go to my mistress. <i>Gute Nacht, mein Herr!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wilhammer's hireling!</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>The wind freshened towards the middle of the night, and Rozenoffski,
+rocking in his berth, cursed his encounter with the red-haired
+romanticist who had stirred up such a pother in his brain that he had
+not been able to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that
+he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely afraid of it. The
+shuddering and groaning of the ship found an echo in his soul. He
+could not shake off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. At
+intervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in
+translating into sound his sense of the mystic, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span>masterless waste in
+which the continents swim like islands, but music was soon swallowed
+up in terror.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 'When I am safe on
+shore again, I shall weave my symphony of the sea.'</p>
+
+<p>Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a Jewish Joan of Arc
+who&mdash;turned Admiral&mdash;recaptured Zion from her battleship, to the sound
+of Psalms droned by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see
+her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to meet a lady's
+maid in the unromantic daylight, the restlessness she had engendered
+remained, replacing the settled bitterness which was all he had
+brought back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness drove
+him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and his fever sought to
+work itself off in a fury of practice. But the inner turbulence
+persisted, and the new thoughts clung round the old music. He was
+playing Schumann's <i>Fantasiest&uuml;cke</i>, but through the stormy passion of
+<i>In der Nacht</i> he saw the red hair of the heroic Jewess, and into the
+wistful, questioning <i>Warum</i> insinuated itself not the world-question,
+but the Jewish question&mdash;the sad, unending Jewish question&mdash;surging up
+again and again in every part of the globe, as Schumann's theme in
+every part of the piano&mdash;the same haunting musical figure, never the
+same notes exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful,
+questioning <i>Warum</i>. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore
+wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone&mdash;forms were
+seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no
+meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about,
+others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on
+reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. His breast filled with
+bitter satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like
+rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty
+heathen&mdash;draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of
+ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner
+of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors,
+peering in spellbound at the doors.</p>
+
+<p>With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and
+plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A, his fingers frolicking all over
+the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. As he
+stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave a
+masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed
+bewilderment. Was he not then alone? '<i>Gott im Himmel!</i>' he murmured,
+and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these
+presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.</p>
+
+<p>But the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting
+all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible Christendom. He
+gave them Beethoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled to
+them the vast treasures of his art and memory. And very soon, lo! the
+Christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and
+cautiously. They came crawling from every part of the ship's compass.
+Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. In vain. An
+enraptured greenhorn shouted 'Encore!' The musician awoke from his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the presence of
+listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose
+again&mdash;but this time as more in sorrow than in anger&mdash;and stalked
+sublimely up the swarming stairs.</p>
+
+<p>It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers
+as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music
+out if he imagined himself unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon
+advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to
+the little army of music-lovers. Silently the rats gathered, scurrying
+in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the
+doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. And through the
+awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion
+till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the
+tea-cups.</p>
+
+<p>And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment
+against this complacent Christendom which took so much from the Jew
+and gave so little. 'Shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched
+teeth as he played&mdash;'Shylocks all!'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the silent deck each
+night in the hope of again meeting the red-haired Jewess. He had soon
+recovered from her menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position
+in so anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in her. He
+wondered if she ever listened to his playing, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span>or had realized that
+she had entertained an angel unawares.</p>
+
+<p>But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor was her mistress
+more visible. The Wilhammers kept royally to themselves in their
+palatial suite, though the husband sometimes deigned to parade his
+fangs in the smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won
+heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate night of the
+voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second glimpse of his red-haired
+muse. He had started his nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for
+the inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had sucked the
+loungers from their steamer-chairs. He had himself, of course, been
+approached by the programme-organizer, a bouncing actress from
+'Frisco, with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hopelessly
+with the mysterious sarcasm: 'To meet the Bright Lights?' And his
+reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and
+presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there
+she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the
+mistress was out for once&mdash;presumably at the concert. His heart beat
+faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a
+lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>'I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn't been keeping you too imprisoned?' he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled faintly. 'Not so close as Neptune has kept her.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ill?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>'It is curious and even consoling to see the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>limitations of
+Cr&oelig;sus,' she replied. 'But she is lucky&mdash;she just recovered in
+time.'</p>
+
+<p>'In time for what?'</p>
+
+<p>'Can't you hear?'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had been rending the
+air throughout, but they had scarcely penetrated through his
+exaltation. He now shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean it is she singing?'</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed outright. 'She sing! No, no, she is a sensitive
+receiver. She receives; she gives out nothing. She exploits her soul
+as her husband exploits the globe. There isn't a sensation or an
+emotion she denies herself&mdash;unless it is painful. It was to escape the
+concert that she has left her couch&mdash;and sought refuge in a friend's
+cabin. You see, here sound travels straight from the dining-hall, and
+a false note, she says, gives her nerve-ache.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then she can't return till the close of the concert,' he said
+eagerly. 'Won't you come outside and walk a bit under this beautiful
+moon?'</p>
+
+<p>She came out without a word, with the simplicity of a comrade.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, 'and very soon I shall be in
+Russia.'</p>
+
+<p>'But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then?' he asked, with a sudden
+thought, wondering that it had never occurred to him before.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course not! I only joined her for this voyage. I have to work my
+passage, you see, and Providence, on the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs.
+Wilhammer of her maid.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!' he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span>was going back to
+her social pedestal. 'But you must have found it humiliating,' he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'Humiliating?' She laughed cheerfully. 'Why more than manicuring her?'</p>
+
+<p>The muse shivered again on the pedestal.</p>
+
+<p>'Manicuring?' he echoed in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>'Sure!' she laughed in American. 'When, after a course of starvation
+and medicine at Berne University, I found I had to get a new degree
+for America....'</p>
+
+<p>'You are a doctor?' he interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>'And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-maid.'</p>
+
+<p>She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight reminded him of a
+rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic enough, however, was what she went
+on to tell him of her struggle for life by day and for learning by
+night. 'Of course, I could only attend the night medical school. I
+lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner of a room
+inhabited by a whole family. A would-be graduate could not be seen
+with bundles; for fetching and carrying the work my good landlady
+extorted twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was slack I
+cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, became a "hello girl"&mdash;at
+a telephone, you know&mdash;reported murder cases&mdash;anything, everything.'</p>
+
+<p>'Manicuring,' he recalled tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>'Manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. 'And you ask me if it is
+humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick lady!'</p>
+
+<p>'Artistic!' he sneered. His heart was full of pity and indignation.</p>
+
+<p>'As surely as sea-sick!' she rejoined laughingly. 'Why are you
+prejudiced against her?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>He flushed. 'Prej-prejudiced?' he stammered. 'Why should I be
+prejudiced? From all I hear it's she that's prejudiced. It's a wonder
+she took a Jewess into her service.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where's the wonder? Don't the Southerners have negro servants?' she
+asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>His flush deepened. 'You compare Jews to negroes!'</p>
+
+<p>'I apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at least Liberia. There
+is a black President, a black Parliament. We have nothing, nothing!'</p>
+
+<p>'We!' Again that ambiguous plural. But he still instinctively evaded
+co-classification.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing?' he retorted. 'I should have said everything. Every gift of
+genius that Nature can shower from her cornucopia.'</p>
+
+<p>'Jewish geniuses!' Her voice had a stinging inflection. 'Don't talk to
+me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. Every other
+people has its great men; but our great men&mdash;they belong to every
+other people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for our putrid
+remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes and dance to the measures of
+the heathen. They build and paint; they write and legislate. But never
+a song of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a law
+of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah! What are they but hirelings?'</p>
+
+<p>Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and enkindled him. Yes,
+it was true. He, too, was but a hireling. But he would become a
+Master; he would go back&mdash;back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess
+should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself free for her. But
+ere he could pour out his soul, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span>bouncing San Franciscan actress
+appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault,
+discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski
+repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's
+volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and
+smile, and retreated into her shrine of duty.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out their future
+together; her redemption from her hireling status, their joint work
+for their people. He was no longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of
+nothing&mdash;not even of the <i>pogroms</i> that awaited them in Russia. Russia
+itself became dear to him again&mdash;the beautiful land of his boyhood,
+whose birds and whispering leaves and waters had made his earliest
+music.</p>
+
+<p>But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories. When he went almost
+mechanically to the piano on the last afternoon, all these slumbering
+forces wakened in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody to
+which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his audience. When
+gradually he became aware of the incongruity, it did but intensify his
+inspiration. Let the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music! But soon all
+self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in his deeper self.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient
+fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival
+roulades and plaintive <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song
+augmentation of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses,
+the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darkening Sabbath
+twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and sobbings of penitence, the
+long-drawn notes of the ram's horn pealing through the Terrible Days,
+the passionate proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of
+heaven. And fused with these merely physical memories, there flowed
+into the music the peace of Sabbath evenings and shining candles, the
+love and wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic legend,
+the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, the holy joy
+of the promised Zion, when God would wipe away the tears from all
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>There were tears to be wiped from his own face when he ended, and he
+wiped them brazenly, unresentful of the frenzied approval of the
+audience, which now let itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and
+because this must be the last performance. All his vanity, his
+artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He did not shut
+the piano; he sat brooding a moment or two in tender reverie. Suddenly
+he perceived his red-haired muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered
+him at last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot,
+was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But why was she mute? Why
+was she tendering this scented letter? Was it because she could not
+trust herself to speak before the crowd? He tore open the delicate
+envelope. <i>Himmel!</i> what was this? Would the maestro honour Mrs.
+Wilhammer by taking tea in her cabin?</p>
+
+<p>He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respectful and silent.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>'Did you not hear what I was playing?' he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes&mdash;a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly. 'They publish it on
+the East Side, <i>nicht wahr</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'East Side?' He was outraged. 'I know nothing of East Side.' Her
+absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before
+this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance
+of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of
+a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon
+his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'Will you say I shall
+have much pleasure?' he added coldly.</p>
+
+<p>The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozenoffski went mechanically
+to his cabin, scarcely seeing the worshippers he plodded through;
+presently he became aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his
+best frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A voice&mdash;of another
+sweetness&mdash;cried 'Come!' and instantly he had the sensation that his
+touch on the handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate
+electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a rustling
+tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of patchouli, and a flood of
+compliment.</p>
+
+<p>'So delightful of you to come&mdash;I know you men of genius are
+<i>farouches</i>&mdash;it was awfully insolent of me, I know, but you have
+forgiven me, haven't you?'</p>
+
+<p>'The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured in German.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ach</i>, so you are a German,' she replied in the same tongue. 'I
+thought no American or Englishman could have so much divine fire. You
+see, <i>mein Herr</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>I do not even know your name&mdash;only your genius.
+Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music, but I might
+never have had the courage to thank you had you not played that
+marvellous thing just now&mdash;such delicious heartbreak, such adorable
+gaiety, and now and then the thunder of the gods! I'm afraid you'll
+think me very ignorant&mdash;it wasn't Grieg, was it?'</p>
+
+<p>He looked uncomfortable. 'Nothing so good, I fear&mdash;a mere impromptu of
+my own.'</p>
+
+<p>'Your own!' She clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'Oh,
+where can I get it?'</p>
+
+<p>'East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her
+down, and replied uneasily: 'You can't get it. It just came to me this
+afternoon. It came&mdash;and it has gone.'</p>
+
+<p>'What a pity!' But she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and
+riotous extravagance of genius. 'I do hope you will try to remember
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Impossible&mdash;it was just a mood.'</p>
+
+<p>'And to think of all the other moods I seem to have missed! Why have I
+not heard you in America?'</p>
+
+<p>He grew red. 'I&mdash;I haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'You see,
+I'm not much known outside a few European circles.' Then, summoning up
+all his courage, he threw down his name 'Rozenoffski' like a bomb, and
+the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. But no
+explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so
+lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, but America <i>must</i> know you, Herr Rozenoffski. You must promise
+me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' And,
+seeing the cloud <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>on his face, she cried: 'You must, you must, you
+must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.'</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should
+remember.</p>
+
+<p>'You have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but
+positively everybody has played at my house in Chicago.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ach so!</i>' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified
+the attitude of these Americans? Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer
+had really been too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish
+behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even seen his letter?
+had her secretary presumed to guard her from Semitic invaders? Or was
+she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any
+case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; it would be the
+silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been
+rejected.</p>
+
+<p>'It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the
+temptress.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,'
+he replied tactfully.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed
+him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off,
+you know; I shall follow you about Europe&mdash;to all your concerts.'</p>
+
+<p>When he left her&mdash;after inscribing his autograph, his permanent Munich
+address, and the earliest possible date for his Chicago concert, in a
+dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid&mdash;his whole being was
+swelling, expanding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism
+that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span>back again
+from the fusty conventicles and the sunless Ghettos&mdash;back to spacious
+salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew
+deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with
+pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the
+human brotherhood. <i>Rishus</i>, forsooth!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>SAMOOBORONA</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span><br />
+<a name="SAMOOBORONA" id="SAMOOBORONA"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>SAMOOBORONA<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of Holy Russia.
+The news of the projected Jewish massacre in this little Polish town
+travelled to the <i>Samooborona</i> (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern
+Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop
+of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the
+great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political
+activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to
+show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal
+to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the <i>pogrom</i> route, and had not
+of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was
+necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently
+harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. But in revenge the
+<i>pogrom</i> would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically
+separate town; no asking of <i>dvorniks</i> (janitors) to point out the
+Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the
+victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the
+humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span>David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a
+local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be
+stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding
+cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was
+just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and
+as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with
+thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated
+Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into
+conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in
+the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good
+old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think&mdash;one ate and drank.
+Now, it is all toil and trouble.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>'He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was
+not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.
+But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away&mdash;killed by the
+<i>pogroms</i>. It was their one virtue.</p>
+
+<p>At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish
+driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned
+bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving
+musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject
+of the Jewish massacres.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>B&ecirc;!</i>' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are in
+<i>Goluth</i> (exile)!' He spoke with resignation, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>but not with
+apprehension, and David perceived at once that Milovka would not be
+easy to arouse. As every man thought every other man mortal, so
+Milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality&mdash;for other towns.
+It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had been a horror almost
+beyond belief, but Jew-massacres had since become part of the natural
+order, which babes were born into.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>The landlord shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>'All our rooms are full.'</p>
+
+<p>David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty,
+mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats
+playing on the floor. If this was the best, what in Heaven's name
+awaited him elsewhere?</p>
+
+<p>'For how long?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'Am I the
+All-knowing?'</p>
+
+<p>He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have
+professed piety. Its square cut indicated to the younger generation
+that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old
+its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual
+orthodoxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink.</p>
+
+<p>'But how many rooms have you?' inquired David.</p>
+
+<p>'And how many shall I have but one?' protested the landlord.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>'Only one room!' David turned upon the driver. 'And you said this was
+the best inn! I suppose it's your brother-in-law's.'</p>
+
+<p>'And what do I make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'You
+see he can't take you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then why did you bring me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Because there is no room anywhere else either.'</p>
+
+<p>'What!' David stared.</p>
+
+<p>'Law of Moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've
+just come at the recruiting. The young men have flocked here from all
+the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen
+peasants in all the Jewish inns&mdash;eating <i>kosher</i>,' he added with a
+chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if this was so, the
+<i>pogrom</i> would probably be postponed till the Christian conscripts had
+been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their
+villages. He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish corps.
+Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia and he would be recruiting
+simultaneously. Still, where was he to sleep?</p>
+
+<p>'You can have the <i>lezhanka</i>,' said the host, following his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, there were worse beds
+in winter than the top of a stove. And perhaps to bestow himself and
+his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of
+diverting police attention. 'Conspirators, please copy,' he thought,
+with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. He could refresh himself
+here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging.</p>
+
+<p>'Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>'Tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.</p>
+
+<p>'Haven't you a drop of vodka?'</p>
+
+<p>The landlord held up hands of horror. '<i>Monopolka?</i>' (monopoly), he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Haven't they left any Jewish licenses?' asked David.</p>
+
+<p>'Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized
+Benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. He added hastily: 'But
+his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that the dinner was already over, and David could obtain
+nothing but half-warmed remains. However, hunger and hope gave sauce
+to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to
+pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.</p>
+
+<p>'But you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host
+warned him. 'Tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to
+read Christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their
+falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a
+Christian's? Not that I share his prejudices, of course. I have seen
+the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a
+handkerchief on the Sabbath and still be a good man.'</p>
+
+<p>'I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David bluntly, 'but in
+shooting.'</p>
+
+<p>'Shooting?' The landlord stared. 'Aren't you a Jew, then, sir? I beg
+your pardon.' His voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he
+addressed the <i>Poritz</i> (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous familiarity
+was gone.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Salachti!</i>' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew, and laughed at
+the man's bemused visage. 'Don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>you think, considering what has been
+happening, it is high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?'</p>
+
+<p>The landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy.
+'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.</p>
+
+<p>David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'</p>
+
+<p>'God forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'</p>
+
+<p>David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say
+I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully&mdash;at which the
+landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began
+to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who
+knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all
+those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New
+Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a
+<i>Shidduch</i> (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your
+life.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'</p>
+
+<p>'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take
+you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, so you're a regular <i>Shadchan</i>' (marriage-broker).</p>
+
+<p>'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But
+people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle
+of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the
+ordinary <i>Shadchan</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I am so <i>link</i>' (irreligious).</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>'<i>Nu!</i> Let your ear-locks grow&mdash;the dowry grows with them.' Mine host
+had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden
+thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not
+fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'</p>
+
+<p>The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor
+disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face&mdash;a face in
+whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his
+surplus stock of daughters.</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is
+it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even
+the eldest&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage
+that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my <i>Chutzpah</i>
+(impudence)!'</p>
+
+<p>'But the eldest&mdash;perhaps&mdash;with a smaller dowry&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'To tell the truth, <i>Panie</i> Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned
+my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to
+prevent funerals!'</p>
+
+<p>The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'</p>
+
+<p>'A <i>pogrom</i> is threatened&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>'If you prefer silence and slaughter&mdash;&mdash;' said David, with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>'It is impossible&mdash;here!'</p>
+
+<p>'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight
+other towns?'</p>
+
+<p>'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian
+live together like brothers.'</p>
+
+<p>'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while
+Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'</p>
+
+<p>The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tinowitz than a
+wilderness of arguments.</p>
+
+<p>'Then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips.</p>
+
+<p>'To form a branch of the <i>Samooborona</i>. You must first summon a
+meeting of householders.'</p>
+
+<p>'What for?'</p>
+
+<p>'For a general committee&mdash;and for the expenses.'</p>
+
+<p>'But how can we hold a meeting? The police&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'There's the synagogue.'</p>
+
+<p>'Profane the synagogue!'</p>
+
+<p>'Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but to pray.'</p>
+
+<p>'We will pray by pistol.'</p>
+
+<p>'Guard your tongue!'</p>
+
+<p>'Guard your daughters.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Uppermost will guard them.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Uppermost guards them through me, as He feeds them through you.
+For the last time I ask you, will you or will you not summon me a
+meeting of householders?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>'You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you will <i>not</i> be my
+son-in-law.'</p>
+
+<p>Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call
+the next day.</p>
+
+<p>When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the
+corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours
+reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his
+wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was
+promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had
+likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord
+had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls,
+David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His
+other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young
+Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for
+the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart.
+Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they
+might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal
+lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and
+was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka,
+and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly
+prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared
+important. Ezekiel himself must, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span>unfortunately, be away at the
+drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted
+upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and
+dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and
+stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting
+fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he
+added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered
+to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged
+window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever
+he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory
+ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the
+gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair,
+gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under
+difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most
+desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the
+secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,
+scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him
+engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the
+forces of law and order.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black
+Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer
+must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten,
+had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must
+defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the <i>Samooborona</i>.
+Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be
+organized as a column of axe-bearers. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>would be needed also an
+ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.</p>
+
+<p>The shudder at the first mention of the <i>pogrom</i> was not so violent as
+that which followed the mention of bandages. Each man felt warm blood
+trickling down his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the
+conscription? The landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his
+brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>'Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a Haman in
+disguise. To hold firearms is the surest way of provoking&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't say <i>you</i> shall hold firearms!' David interrupted. 'It is
+your young men who must defend the town. But the <i>Kahal</i>
+(congregation) must pay the expenses&mdash;say, ten thousand roubles to
+start with.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried Mendel the
+horse-dealer. 'It is a swindle.'</p>
+
+<p>David flushed. 'We have to buy three pistols for every one we get
+safely into the town. But one revolver may save ten thousand roubles
+of property, not to mention your life.'</p>
+
+<p>'It will end our lives, not save them!' persisted the timber-merchant.
+'This is a plot to destroy us!'</p>
+
+<p>A growl of assent burst from the others.</p>
+
+<p>'My friends,' said David quietly. 'A plot to destroy you has already
+been hatched; the question is, are you going to be destroyed like rats
+or like men?'</p>
+
+<p>'Pooh!' said the horse-dealer. 'This is not the first time we have
+been threatened, if not with death, at least with extra taxes; but we
+have always sent <i>Shtadlonim</i> (ambassadors). We will make a
+collection, and the president of the <i>Kahal</i> shall go at once to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>Governor, and present it to him'&mdash;here Mendel winked&mdash;'to enable him
+to take measures against the <i>pogrom</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'The Governor is in the plot,' said David.</p>
+
+<p>'He can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Pogroms</i> are more profitable than presents,' rejoined David drily.
+'Let us rather prepare bombs.' A fresh shudder traversed the beds and
+the chairs, and agitated the window-curtain.</p>
+
+<p>'Bombs! Presents!' burst forth the old Rabbi. 'These are godless
+instruments. We are in the hands of the Holy One&mdash;blessed be He! The
+<i>Shomer</i> (Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.'</p>
+
+<p>'Neither does the <i>Shochet</i> (slaughterer) of Israel,' said David
+savagely.</p>
+
+<p>'Hush! Epicurean!' came from every quarter at this grim jest; for the
+<i>Shomer</i> and the <i>Shochet</i> are the official twain of ritual butchery.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, added, 'Brazen
+<i>Marshallik</i> (buffoon)!'</p>
+
+<p>'I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' concluded the Rabbi
+solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>A breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 'And I, Rabbi,' said
+G&uuml;tels the grocer, 'will supply the synagogue with candles to equal in
+length the graves of all your predecessors.'</p>
+
+<p>'May thy strength increase, G&uuml;tels!' came the universal gratitude, and
+the landlord at the window-curtain drew a great sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>'Still, gentlemen,' he said, 'if I may intrude my humble opinion&mdash;Reb
+Mendel's advice is also good. God is, of course, our only protection.
+But there can be no harm in getting, <i>lehavdil</i> (not to compare them),
+the Governor's protection too.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>'True, true.' And the faces grew still cheerier.</p>
+
+<p>'In God's name, wake up!' David burst forth. 'In <i>Samooborona</i> lies
+your only salvation. Give the money to us, not to the Governor. We can
+meet and practise in your Talmud-Torah Hall!'</p>
+
+<p>'The holy hall of study!' gasped the Rabbi. 'Given over to unlawful
+meetings!'</p>
+
+<p>'The hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said David grimly.
+'Don't you see it is the safest place for us? The police associate it
+only with learned weaklings.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush, Haman!' said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. David's voice
+changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in
+a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker
+driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True
+Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite
+yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued
+recklessly, 'Will you never learn manli&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held him hand-gagged
+and struggling upon the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There was a blood-freezing
+instant in which all gave themselves up for lost. Their grip on David
+relaxed. Then the mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel
+Leven.</p>
+
+<p>'Blessed art thou who comest!' cried David, jumping to his feet. 'You
+and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.'</p>
+
+<p>'Alas!' Ezekiel groaned. 'I drew a low number&mdash;I go to fight for
+Russia.'</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the Governor, but
+even before they were presented to him the Rabbi, in mortal terror of
+that firebrand of a David, had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence
+was legal, and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used for
+drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with firearms or in
+conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. And so,
+when the <i>Shtadlonim</i> arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the
+Governor was able to point out severely that if a <i>pogrom</i> did occur
+they would have only themselves to blame. The Jews of Milovka had
+begun to carry pistols like revolutionaries; they planned illegal
+assemblies in halls; was it to be wondered at if the League of True
+Russians grew restive? However, he would do his best with these
+inadequate roubles to have extra precautions taken, but let them root
+out the evil weeds that had sprung up in their midst, else even his
+authority might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the loyal
+children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the Ambassadors crept back
+with their empty money-bags.</p>
+
+<p>Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. His
+landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his
+original audience would have called as a deputation upon David to beg
+him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a
+conspirative meeting. So one of the Ambassadors was sent to inform the
+landlord instead.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't you think I've already ordered him off my premises?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span>'But he is still here!'</p>
+
+<p>'Alas! He threatens to shoot me&mdash;or anybody who <i>massers</i> (informs),'
+said the poor landlord.</p>
+
+<p>The Ambassador shivered.</p>
+
+<p>'As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel!' added the landlord
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no&mdash;of course not,' said the Ambassador. 'These fellows are best
+left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of
+<i>Tsitsith</i> (ritual fringes). Let us hope, however, a sudden death may
+rid us of him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Amen,' said the landlord fervently.</p>
+
+<p>Not that David had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. But
+his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his
+perilous presence upon his prudential host.</p>
+
+<p>Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the
+thought that the population was best tackled by units. One fool or
+coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering.</p>
+
+<p>Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and
+approached Erbstein the Banker. Erbstein held up his hands. 'But I've
+just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a <i>pogrom</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'That was for the Governor. Give me only a hundred for Self-Defence.'</p>
+
+<p>The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'But our rights are
+bound to come in the end. We can only get them gradually. Full rights
+now are nonsense&mdash;impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what you
+cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our emancipation&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew
+impatient.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied.
+His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>'I'd rather trust our revolvers.'</p>
+
+<p>The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!'</p>
+
+<p>David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He
+saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than
+to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising
+scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in
+a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and
+his surname was Rubensky.</p>
+
+<p>The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism,
+laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he
+calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an
+anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even
+revolutionary like the S.R.'s.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know
+what all these letters stand for.'</p>
+
+<p>Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.</p>
+
+<p>'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish
+Party of Socialism.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the
+Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.'</p>
+
+<p>The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no!
+That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of
+the Jew is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must
+be worked out in common with Russia's.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!'</p>
+
+<p>'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic
+Faith&mdash;Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.'</p>
+
+<p>'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'</p>
+
+<p>'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.</p>
+
+<p>'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said
+David passionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't
+the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was
+won&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David
+smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women&mdash;sober-clad
+students from a Swiss University&mdash;opened wide shocked eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the <i>Zeitgeist</i> set back. The
+unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a
+better social state.'</p>
+
+<p>'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I
+object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I assert&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.'</p>
+
+<p>'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife
+indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>not understand
+modern politics. My wife is an S.D., I regret to say.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I have heard of Social Democrats!' said David triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>Simon's sister sniffed. 'Of course! Because they are a bourgeois
+party&mdash;risking nothing, waiting passively till the Revolution drops
+into their hands.'</p>
+
+<p>'The name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include
+the landed peasants among their forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'If I might venture to suggest,' said David soothingly, 'all these
+differences would be immaterial if you joined the <i>Samooborona</i>. I
+could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.'</p>
+
+<p>'Outrageous!' cried Simon angrily. 'Our place is shoulder to shoulder
+with our fellow-Poles.'</p>
+
+<p>Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the mention of ambulances
+had awakened sympathy in her S.R. soul. 'You ought to look among your
+own Party,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'My Party?'</p>
+
+<p>'The Ghetto reactionaries&mdash;Zionists, Territorialists, Itoists, or
+whatever they call themselves nowadays.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are there any here?' cried David eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>'One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly. 'Fortunately, when
+the police found they weren't really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the
+meetings were stopped.'</p>
+
+<p>David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly recommended two
+young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, who had at least the grace of
+Socialism.</p>
+
+<p>But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 'Only the S.S.'s,' he
+said, 'can save Israel.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>'What are S.S.'s?' David asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Socialistes Sionistes.'</p>
+
+<p>'But can't there be Socialism outside Zion?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The unconditional historic
+necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. Our Minsk
+members already call themselves S.T.'s&mdash;Socialist Territorialists.'</p>
+
+<p>'But while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' David
+reminded him. 'Simon Rubensky thought you would be a good man for the
+self-defence corps.'</p>
+
+<p>'Join Rubensky! A P.P.S.! Never will I associate with a bourgeois like
+that!'</p>
+
+<p>'He isn't joining.'</p>
+
+<p>The S.S. hesitated. 'I must consult my fellow-members. I must write to
+headquarters.'</p>
+
+<p>'Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.'</p>
+
+<p>'But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.</p>
+
+<p>David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor.</p>
+
+<p>'I want to get together a <i>Samooborona</i> branch,' he explained. 'Herr
+Grodsky has half promised&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'That bourgeois!' cried Lerkoff in disgust. 'We can have nothing to do
+with traitors like that!'</p>
+
+<p>'Why are they traitors?' David asked.</p>
+
+<p>'All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion must jealously guard
+the sacred flame of Socialism and Nationality, since only in Palestine
+can our social problem be solved.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why only in Palestine?' inquired David mildly.</p>
+
+<p>The P.Z. glared. 'Palestine is an unconditional historic necessity.
+The attempt to form a Jewish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span>State elsewhere can only result in
+failure and disappointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads
+them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have gone there this
+year.'</p>
+
+<p>'And a hundred and fifty thousand to America. How about that
+folk-instinct?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an Americanist
+Assimilator.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am no more an A.A. than I am a Z.Z.,' said David tartly, adding
+with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a Z.Z.'</p>
+
+<p>'Would to Heaven there were not!' said Lerkoff fervently. 'It is these
+miserable Zioni-Zionists, with their incapacity for political
+concepts, who&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous
+telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in Dr.
+Lerkoff's study.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is a man who combines
+all the worst qualities of the Z.Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also
+imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs
+he deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably with his
+patient, and said he would come instantly.</p>
+
+<p>'Hasn't he the disease, then?' asked David.</p>
+
+<p>'He has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.'</p>
+
+<p>'While you cure him of the first, I should like to try my hand at the
+second,' said David laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'</p>
+
+<p>'You I don't ask for money, but your medical services would be
+invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'</p>
+
+<p>'Milovka to the deuce!' cried Lerkoff. 'Our future lies not in
+Russia.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>'I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army surgeon.'</p>
+
+<p>'Next year&mdash;in Jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while he saw Herr Cantberg
+professionally. There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room,
+betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff
+reappeared chuckling.</p>
+
+<p>'He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'You have told him?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>He</i> told <i>me</i>; he always knows everything. You are a baptized police
+spy, posing as a P.P.S. I suppose he's heard of your visit to Herr
+Rubensky.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I shall undeceive him!'</p>
+
+<p>'Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his vanity would cost you
+dear. Go in; I did not tell him <i>you</i> were the young man he was
+telling me of. I must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. 'Don't forget
+he's the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object is not to create the
+future, but to resurrect the dead past.'</p>
+
+<p>'And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't you&mdash;&mdash;?' But the
+doctor was gone.</p>
+
+<p>The Mizrachi Z.Z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in
+expression; but his 'Be seated, sir&mdash;be seated; what can I do for
+you?' had the grand manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>'It is something I propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'Milovka
+is in danger.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is, indeed,' said the M.Z.Z. 'When men like Dr. Lerkoff (in whose
+company I was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly
+danger. An excellent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying:
+"Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he calls himself a
+Zionist! Bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who
+dubs himself P.P.S.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. 'He'd introduce vaccination
+and serum-insertions instead of the grand old laws. As if any human
+arrangement could equal the wisdom of Sinai! And he actually scoffs at
+the Restoration of the Sacrifices!'</p>
+
+<p>'But do you propose to restore them?' David was astonished.</p>
+
+<p>The owl's eyes shone. 'What have we sacrificed ourselves for, all
+these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices? What has sanctified and
+illumined the long night of our Exile except a vision of the High
+Priest in his jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of
+our Holy Temple? Now at last the vision begins to take shape, the hope
+of Israel begins to shine again. Like a rosy cloud, like a crescent
+moon, like a star in the desert, like a lighthouse over lonely
+seas&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine frenzy disregarded
+the ringing, but it jangled his metaphors. 'But, alas! our people do
+not see clearly!' he broke off. 'False prophets, colossally vain&mdash;may
+their names be blotted out!&mdash;confuse the foolish crowd. But the wheat
+is being sifted from the chaff, the fine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>flour from the bran, the
+edible herbs from the evil weeds, and soon my people will see again
+that only I&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused to buy furs at the
+price it demanded, he resumed: 'Territorialist traitors mislead the
+masses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people,
+I wish them Godspeed.'</p>
+
+<p>'But what relief can they bring?' put in David impatiently. 'Without
+Self-Defence&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred people with fever and
+famine on some savage shore. But let them; it will all be to the glory
+of Zionism&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'How so?' David asked, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>'It will show that the godless ideals of materialists can never be
+realized, that only in its old home can Israel again be a nation. Then
+will come the moment for Me to arise&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But the English came from Denmark. And they're nation enough!'</p>
+
+<p>The owl blinked angrily. 'We are the Chosen People&mdash;no historic
+parallel applies to us. As the dove returned to the ark, as the
+swallow returns to the lands of the spring, as the tide returns to the
+sands, as the stars&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes, I know,' said David; 'but where is there room in Palestine
+for the Russian Jews?'</p>
+
+<p>'Where was there room in the Temple for the millions who came up at
+Passover?' retorted Herr Cantberg crushingly.</p>
+
+<p>The telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper.</p>
+
+<p>'A godless Bundist!' the owl explained between the deals.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span>'A Bundist!' David pricked up his ears. From the bravest revolutionary
+party in Russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'Who is he?'</p>
+
+<p>The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'Oh,
+I can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-Israel. Not that he
+behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred
+and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'Not a kopeck
+more. Eh? What? He's rung off, the blood-sucker!' He rang him up
+again. David made a note of the number.</p>
+
+<p>'But what have you Zionists to do with the Parliament in Russia?' he
+inquired of the owl.</p>
+
+<p>But the owl was haggling with the telephone. 'Three hundred and
+fifteen! What! Do you want to skin <i>me</i>, like your martins and
+sables?'</p>
+
+<p>'You are busy,' interposed David, fretting at the waste of his day. 'I
+shall take the liberty of calling again.'</p>
+
+<p>A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist's shop, and David hurried
+off to enlist him. The shopkeeper proved, however, so corpulent and
+bovine that David's heart sank. But he began bluntly: 'I know you're a
+Bundist.'</p>
+
+<p>'A what?' said the fur-dealer.</p>
+
+<p>David smiled. 'Oh, you needn't pretend with me; I'm a fighter myself.'
+He let a revolver peep out of his hip-pocket.</p>
+
+<p>'Help! <i>Gewalt!</i>' cried the fur-dealer.</p>
+
+<p>A beardless youth came running out of the back room. David laughed.
+'Herr Cantberg told me that you were a Bundist,' he explained to the
+shopkeeper. 'And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>warned
+Herr Cantberg is always wrong. Good-morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'Stop!' cried the youth. 'Go in, Reb Yitzchok; let me deal with this
+fire-eater.' And as the corpulent man retired with an improbable
+alacrity, he continued gravely: 'This time Herr Cantberg was not more
+than a hundred versts from the truth.'</p>
+
+<p>David smiled. '<i>You</i> are the Bundist.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush! Here I am the son-in-law. I study Talmud and eat <i>Kest</i> (free
+food). What news from Warsaw?'</p>
+
+<p>'I want both you and your father-in-law,' said David evasively&mdash;'his
+money and your muscles.'</p>
+
+<p>'He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly what I squeeze out
+of Cantberg.' The youth permitted himself his first smile. 'When he
+deals with that bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to
+stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the extra roubles
+we extort. But as for myself, my life, of course, is at the disposal
+of headquarters.'</p>
+
+<p>David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He felt a little
+embarrassment in explaining that headquarters to him meant
+<i>Samooborona</i>, not Bund. The youth's countenance changed completely.</p>
+
+<p>'Defend the Jews!' he cried contemptuously. 'What have we to do with
+the Jewish bourgeoisie?'</p>
+
+<p>'The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not?'</p>
+
+<p>'Merely because we found the rest of the Revolutionary body too clumsy
+for words. It was always getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed,
+its leaders buried. So we split off, the better to help our
+fellow-working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a Jewish party. We
+have the whole Russian Revolution <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>on our shoulders; how can we throw
+away our lives for the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? Then there
+are the elections at hand&mdash;I have to work for the Left. Ah, here come
+some of our bourgeois; ask <i>them</i>, if you like. I will keep my
+father-in-law out of the shop.'</p>
+
+<p>Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but
+on their heels. With five Jews the concourse soon became a congress.</p>
+
+<p>One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive Pole. He mistook
+David for a Zionist, and denounced him for a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>'We of the P.P.P.,' he said, 'will peacefully acquire equal rights
+with our fellow-Poles&mdash;nay, we shall be allowed to become Poles
+ourselves. But you Zionists are less citizens than strangers, and if
+you were logical, you would all&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Where's your own logic?' interrupted the disconnected man. 'Why don't
+you join the P.P.N. at once?'</p>
+
+<p>The Progressive Pole frowned. 'The Nationalists! They are
+anti-Semites. I'd as soon join the League of True Russian Men.'</p>
+
+<p>'And do you trust the P.P.P.?' his companion asked him. 'I tell you,
+Nathan, that only in the Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief
+in the equality of all nationalities&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,' David intervened
+desperately, 'you must join the <i>Samoo</i>&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the Bundist, not
+unkindly. He added with a sneer: 'These gentlemen of the P.P.P. and
+the P.P.N. and the P.P.D. are all good Poles.'</p>
+
+<p>'Good Poles!' echoed David no less bitterly. 'And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>the Poles voted <i>en
+bloc</i> to keep every Jewish candidate out of the Duma.'</p>
+
+<p>'Even so we must be better Poles than they,' sublimely replied the
+member of the P.P.P. 'We are joining even the Clerical Parties of the
+Right for the good of our country. And now that the Party of National
+Concentration&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Go to the Labour Parties,' advised the P.D. 'There you may perchance
+find sturdy young men with the necessary Ghetto taint.' Of the four
+great Labour Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P.S.D. as the most
+promising for David's purposes. 'Not the Bolshewiki faction,' he
+added, 'but the Menshewiki. Recruits might also be found in the
+Proletariat or the P.P.S.&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I've tried the P.P.S.,' said David. 'But at any rate, gentlemen,
+since you must all see that the defence of our own lives is no
+undesirable object, a little contribution to our funds&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was scarcely credible that
+only four men were speaking. All explained elaborately that they had
+their own Party Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates
+for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ.</p>
+
+<p>'You see,' said the Bundist, 'your only chance lies with the men of no
+Party, who have only their own bourgeois pleasures.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are there such?' asked David eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>A universal laugh greeted this inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>'Alas, too many!' everybody told him. 'Our people are such
+individualists.'</p>
+
+<p>'But where are these individualists?' cried David desperately.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by the laughter,
+crept in again.</p>
+
+<p>'You still here!' he murmured to David, taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for Jewish
+Self-Defence&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Jewish Emancipation!' cried the fur-dealer. 'Why didn't you say so at
+first?' He put his hand in his pocket. 'That's <i>my</i> Party&mdash;or rather
+the National Group in it, the Anti-Zionist faction.'</p>
+
+<p>The stern Bundist laughed. 'No, he doesn't mean he's a J.E. even of
+the other faction.'</p>
+
+<p>His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. 'Why did you interfere?
+Perhaps my way may prove the shortest to Jewish Emancipation.'</p>
+
+<p>His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-dealer shook his
+head. 'I belong also to the Promotion of Education Party&mdash;I am for
+peaceful methods,' he announced.</p>
+
+<p>'So I perceived,' said David drily.</p>
+
+<p>To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address of a man who kept
+aloof from Polish politics&mdash;a bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by
+name, who might just as well be killed off in the <i>Samooborona</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist. David
+imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-Territorialist Grodsky,
+who had half promised&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-screamer!' he
+screamed. 'He's worse than the hysterical Zionists. It is a territory
+we need, not Socialism.'</p>
+
+<p>'I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.'</p>
+
+<p>'The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of our own.'</p>
+
+<p>'Five and a quarter million of us? Why, if two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>ships&mdash;one from Libau
+for the north, and one from Odessa for the south&mdash;sailed away every
+week, each bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over a
+quarter of a century. And by that time a new generation of us would
+have grown up.'</p>
+
+<p>The Territorialist looked uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>'Besides,' David continued, 'what new country could receive us at the
+rate of two hundred thousand a year? It would be a cemetery, not a
+country.'</p>
+
+<p>The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. 'Why didn't you say at first
+you were a bourgeois? The unconditional historic necessity which has
+created the I.T.O. may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon
+as our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to be in the
+first shipload.'</p>
+
+<p>'Have you this land, then?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not yet. We've only had time to draw up the Constitution. No
+Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines. But Democracy. Hereditary
+privileges will be abol&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But what land <i>is</i> there?'</p>
+
+<p>'Surely there are virgin lands.'</p>
+
+<p>'Even the virgin lands are betrothed!' said David. 'And if there was
+one still without a lord and master, it would probably be a very ugly
+and sickly virgin. And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the
+meantime let me teach you to fire a pistol.'</p>
+
+<p>'With all my heart&mdash;but merely to shoot wild beasts.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is all I am asking for,' said David grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called upon a
+tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked for a subscription to buy
+revolvers.</p>
+
+<p>The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of
+dubious cut, protested vehemently <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>against such materialistic
+measures. Let them put their trust in <i>Cultur</i>! To talk
+Hebrew&mdash;therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once
+again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea&mdash;that was true Zionism.</p>
+
+<p>'Then don't you want the Holy Land?' asked the astonished David.</p>
+
+<p>'Merely as a centre of <i>Cultur</i>. Merely as a University where Herbert
+Spencer may be studied in the tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is
+bourgeois Zionism. Political Zionism? Economic Zionism? Pah! Mere
+tawdry imitations of heathen politics!'</p>
+
+<p>'Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists!'</p>
+
+<p>'Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of mind. We want
+Culture&mdash;not Agriculture; we want the evolutionary efflorescence of
+Israel's inner personality&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who declared that
+Zionism was a caricature of true Nationalism, and Territorialism a
+cheap philanthropic substitute for it.</p>
+
+<p>'Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation?' David asked.</p>
+
+<p>'I will&mdash;when we are on our own soil. Your corps is a mere mockery of
+the military concept.'</p>
+
+<p>David found no more comfort in his interview with the member of the
+L.A.E.R., who was convinced that only in the League for the
+Advancement of Equal Rights lay the Jew's true security. It was the
+one party whose success was sure, the only one based upon an
+unconditional historic necessity.</p>
+
+<p>David's morning was not, however, to pass without the discovery of a
+man of no Party. And, strangely enough, he owed his find to the
+headache these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>innumerable Parties caused him. For, going into a
+chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded Jew whose
+genial face emboldened him to solicit a stock of bandages and
+antiseptics&mdash;in view of a possible <i>pogrom</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'But the <i>pogroms</i> are over,' cried the chemist. 'They were but the
+expiring agonies of the old order. The reign of love is at hand, the
+brotherhood of man is beginning, and all races and creeds will
+henceforth live at peace under the new religion of science.'</p>
+
+<p>David's headache rose again triumphant over the powder. Even a
+partisan would be easier to convince than this sort of seer.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, a <i>pogrom</i> is planned for Milovka!'</p>
+
+<p>'Impossible! Europe would not permit it. America would prohibit it.
+Did you not see the protest even in the Australian Parliament? Look on
+your calendar; we have reached the twentieth century, even according
+to the Christian calculation.'</p>
+
+<p>David returned hopelessly to his inn.</p>
+
+<p>Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the great stove. Before
+even ordering dinner, he made a last desperate attempt to save his
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>'Me join a Jewish Self-Defence!' The burly Jew laughed loud and
+heartily. 'Why, I'm a True Believer!'</p>
+
+<p>'A <i>Meshummad</i>!' David gasped. Modern as he was, the hereditary horror
+at the baptized apostate overcame him.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;<i>I</i>'m safe enough,' the Convert laughed. 'I've taken the
+cold-water cure. Besides, I'm the censor of Milovka!'</p>
+
+<p>'Eh?' David looked like a trapped animal. The censor smiled on. 'Don't
+scowl at me like the other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>pious zanies. After all, you're an
+enlightened young man&mdash;a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your
+Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. Come&mdash;have a glass
+of vodka.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then, you won't inform?' David breathed.</p>
+
+<p>'Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep your pistols out of
+print. If my own skin is safe, that doesn't mean I'm made of stone
+like these Tartar devils. Landlord, the vodka. We'll drink confusion
+to them.'</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;I have none,' stammered the landlord. 'I haven't the right.'</p>
+
+<p>'There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-humouredly.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.</p>
+
+<p>'But the idea of asking <i>me</i> to join the Self-Defence!' chuckled the
+burly Jew. 'You might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added
+with a wink.</p>
+
+<p>David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met
+that morning.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<p>The vodka and a good three-course dinner (<i>Plotki</i> for fish,
+<i>Lockschen</i> for soup, and <i>Zrazy</i> for joint) brought David new
+courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.</p>
+
+<p>This time he sought the market-place&mdash;a badly-paved square, bordered
+with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned
+crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger
+generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the classes&mdash;he would
+hear the voice of the people.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>On every side the voice babbled of the Duma&mdash;babbled happily, as
+though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation.
+Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the
+mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:</p>
+
+<p>A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.</p>
+
+<p>'We must put our trust in the Constitutional Democrats.'</p>
+
+<p>'And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.' (This came from the
+Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.)</p>
+
+<p>'For shame, <i>Rebbitzin</i>! Put not your trust in Princes.'</p>
+
+<p>The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter&mdash;a fuzzy-headed
+butcher-boy.</p>
+
+<p>'Miserable Monarchists!' he sneered. 'We Jews will have no peace till
+the Republicans&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'A Republic without Socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry
+basket. 'What good's that? Wait till the N.S.'s&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'The D.R.'s are the only&mdash;&mdash;' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar.</p>
+
+<p>'And who but the Labour group promises equal rights to all
+nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'Trust the
+<i>Trudowaja</i>&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'To the devil with the Labour Parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'Look
+how the Bundists have betrayed us. First they were bone of our bone;
+now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the <i>pogroms</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'There is only
+one party to trust, and that's the C.D.'s,' he repeated.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>'Bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the Republican youth and the
+Socialist lass.</p>
+
+<p>'My children!' It was the bland voice of Moses the <i>Shamash</i> (beadle).
+'Violence leads to naught. Even the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As
+a member of the Party of Peaceful Regeneration&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Peaceful Regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'A Jew ally himself
+with the Reactionary Right, with the&mdash;&mdash;!'</p>
+
+<p>A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. The Jews
+scattered before him like dogs. The member of the P.P.R. crawled under
+a barrow. Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral when the
+Cossack had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>'Peaceful Regeneration!' he cried. 'There will be no Regeneration for
+you till you have the courage to leave Russian politics alone and to
+fight for yourselves.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.</p>
+
+<p>'No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the minimum&mdash;that we save
+our own lives.'</p>
+
+<p>It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews, like the rich Russian
+Jews, were largely occupied in saving the world, or, at least, Holy
+Russia. Crushed by such an excess of Christianity, David wandered
+round the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. In one of
+the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping at shoes, surrounded by
+sprawling children.</p>
+
+<p>'Peace be to you,' called David.</p>
+
+<p>'Peace have I always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily.</p>
+
+<p>David looked at the happy dirty children; he had seen their like torn
+limb from limb. 'But have you thought of the danger of a <i>pogrom</i>?' he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'I have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>'But we
+<i>Chassidim</i> have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi, who has power over all the
+spheres, will utter a word, and&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep408" id="imagep408"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep408.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep408.jpg" width="45%" alt="The Jews scattered before him like dogs." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em;">The Jews scattered before him like dogs.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>'A <i>Tsaddik</i> (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last <i>pogrom</i>,' said
+David brutally. 'You must join a Self-Defence band.'</p>
+
+<p>The cobbler ceased to tap. 'What! Go for a soldier! When the <i>Rebbe</i>
+caused me to draw a high number!'</p>
+
+<p>'Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from Russia. We must
+all join together!'</p>
+
+<p>'Me join the <i>Misnagdim!</i>' cried the cobbler in horror. 'Never will I
+join with those who deny the Master-of-the-Name.'</p>
+
+<p>David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart Jew lounging at a
+neighbouring door. He moved towards him, and broached the subject
+afresh. The lounger shook his head. 'You may persuade that foolish
+<i>Chassid</i>,' said he, 'but you cannot expect the rest of us to join
+with these heretics, these godless, dancing dervishes, who are capable
+even of saying the afternoon prayer in the evening!'</p>
+
+<p>In the next house lived a <i>Maskil</i> (Intellectual), who looked up from
+his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he could be associated with a squad of
+young ignoramuses. His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from
+another community. The Karaite pointed out that Self-Defence was
+unnecessary in his case, as his sect was scarcely regarded by the
+authorities as Jewish. There were other motley Jews living round the
+market-place&mdash;a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with the Polish
+'sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigmatized by a Pole as
+'peel-barley,' in scarification of his reputedly stingy diet. A man
+from Odessa dismissed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>them both as 'cross-heads.' It was impossible
+to unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary and heart-sick,
+he returned towards the inn.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>VIII</h4>
+
+<p>But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of Jewish boys pouring
+out of the primary school. They seemed to range in years between eight
+and twelve, but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and though
+the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter which accompanies the
+exodus of cramped and muted pupils, the normal elements of joyousness,
+of horse-play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was a
+common agitation that loosed all these little tongues and set all
+these little ears listening to the passionate harangues of
+ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home, the schoolboys lingered in
+knots round their favourite orators. A premature gravity furrowed all
+the childish foreheads.</p>
+
+<p>With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar, and after
+listening for a few minutes to the lad's tirade against the 'autocracy
+of the school director' and the 'bureaucratic methods of the
+inspector,' it dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his own
+landlord's son.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Kalman!' he cried in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, comrade!' replied the boy graciously.</p>
+
+<p>'So you're a revolutionary, eh?' said David, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>'All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,' replied the boy gravely.</p>
+
+<p>'Then you're not so peaceful as papa!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He blushed furiously, and
+hung his head in shame of his Moderate parent.</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind, Comrade Kalman,' said another boy, slapping his shoulder
+consolingly. 'We've all got some shady relative or another.'</p>
+
+<p>A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situation. Turning his
+head, David found all the childish eyes converged upon a single
+figure, a bulging-headed lad who had sprung into a sudden position of
+eminence&mdash;upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse of
+Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon his upper lip
+suggested that he must be nearing fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>'Comrades!' he was crying. 'In my youth I myself was head boy at this
+school of yours, but even in those old days there was the same brutal
+autocracy. Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join the
+Syndical Anarchists.'</p>
+
+<p>More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The members of the
+Junior Bund waved their satchels frenziedly. Only the landlord's son
+stood mute and frowning.</p>
+
+<p>'You don't agree with him,' said David.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' answered the little Bundist gravely. 'I follow Comrade Berl. But
+this fellow is popular because he was expelled from the Warsaw
+gymnasium as a suspect.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must strike!' repeated the juvenile agitator. 'A strike is the
+only way of impressing the proletarian psychology. You must all swear
+to attend school no more till your demands are granted.'</p>
+
+<p>'We swear!' came from all sides in a childish treble. But the frown on
+the brow of the landlord's son grew darker.</p>
+
+<p>'It is well, comrades,' said the orator. 'Your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>success will be a
+lesson to your elders, too. Only by applying the Marxian philosophy of
+history can we upset the bourgeois <i>Weltanschauung</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>The landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box with one angry
+bound and stood beside the agitator. 'Marx is an old fogey!' he
+shouted. 'What's the good of a passive strike? Let us make a
+demonstration against the director; let us&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Who told you that?' sneered the orator. 'Comrade Berl or Comrade
+Schmerl?'</p>
+
+<p>The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. 'You know Schmerl's a mere
+milk-blooded "Attainer,"' he said angrily.</p>
+
+<p>'Believe me,' was the soothing reply, 'even beyond the Five Freedoms
+the boycott is a better "Attainer" than the bomb.'</p>
+
+<p>'Traitor! Bourgeois!' And a third boy jumped upon the egg-box. He had
+red hair and flaming eyes. 'If Russia is to be saved,' he shrieked,
+'it will be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom nor by the
+Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, who alone maintain the
+purity of the Social Revolutionary programme, as it was before the
+party degenerated into Maximalists and Mini&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the three orators, and
+they sprawled in equal ignominy. But the storm was now launched. A
+score of the schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. The
+unity necessary to the school strike was shattered into fragments.</p>
+
+<p>David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic mob of youngsters,
+who were yet not all apes and parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had
+always had its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had its precocious
+politicians and its premature sociologists. He was tempted for a
+moment to try his recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist,
+whose red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed cruel
+to add to the lad's risks. Besides, had not the boy already
+proclaimed&mdash;like his seniors&mdash;that Russia, not Jewry, was to be saved?</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour of no custom when he got back to the inn, so that he
+was scarcely surprised to find host and hostess alike invisible. He
+sat down, and began to write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but
+a mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any concentration upon
+his task. Presently he threw down his pen, and went to find out what
+was the matter. The noises drew him downwards.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his light.</p>
+
+<p>'It's only I,' said David.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar strewn with iron
+bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>'No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar&mdash;also provisioning the
+loft.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Samooborona?</i>' said David.</p>
+
+<p>'Precisely&mdash;and a far more effective form than yours, my young
+hot-head.'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He went back to his
+Report. He was glad to think that the little Bundist had an extra
+chance. After all, he had achieved something, he would save some
+lives. Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way&mdash;passive
+<i>Samooborona</i> was better than none.</p>
+
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span><br />
+
+<h4>IX</h4>
+
+<p>But the Report refused to write itself. It was too dismal to confess
+he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. He picked up a greasy
+fragment of a Russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the
+Octobrists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That reminded him of
+Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. Would
+the Banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas!
+the question was, <i>could</i> a Banker be disillusioned? To be
+disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and Bankers, like
+Popes, were infallible.</p>
+
+<p>David bethought himself instead of the owlish Mizrachi, his visit to
+whom had been left unfinished.</p>
+
+<p>He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the house with the Ark
+and the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>But as he reached Cantberg's door it opened suddenly, and a young man
+shot out.</p>
+
+<p>'Never, father!' he was shrieking&mdash;'Never do I enter this house
+again.' And he banged the door upon the owl, and rushed into David's
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>'I beg your pardon,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'It is my fault,' murmured David politely. 'I was just going to see
+your father.'</p>
+
+<p>'You'll find him in a fiendish temper. He cannot argue without losing
+it.'</p>
+
+<p>'I hope you've not had a serious difference.'</p>
+
+<p>'He's such a bigoted Zionist&mdash;he cannot understand that Zionism is
+<i>ein &uuml;berwundener Standpunkt</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'Then you can <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span>understand how I have
+suffered since I evolved from Zionism.'</p>
+
+<p>'What are you now, if I may ask?'</p>
+
+<p>'The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be&mdash;a Sejmist, of
+course!'</p>
+
+<p>'A Jewish Party?' asked David eagerly. After all the enthusiasm for
+Russian politics and world politics he was now pleased with even this
+loquacious form of Self-Defence.</p>
+
+<p>'Come and have a glass of tea; I will tell you all about it,' said the
+young man, soothed by the prospect of airing his theories. 'We will go
+to Friedman's inn&mdash;the University Club, we call it, because the
+intellectuals generally drink there.'</p>
+
+<p>'With pleasure,' said David, sniffing the chance of recruits. 'But
+before we talk of your Party I want to ask whether you can join me in
+a branch of the <i>Samooborona</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>The young man's face grew overclouded.</p>
+
+<p>'Our Party cannot join any other,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'But mine isn't a Party&mdash;a corps.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not a Party?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you have a Committee?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes&mdash;but only&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'And Branches?'</p>
+
+<p>'Naturally, but simply&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'And a Party-Chest?'</p>
+
+<p>'The money is only&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'And Conferences?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course, but merely&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'And you read Referats&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Not unless&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Surely you are a Party!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span>'I tell you no. I want all Parties.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am sorry. But I'm too busy just now to consider anything else. Our
+Party-Day falls next week, and there's infinite work to be done.'</p>
+
+<p>'Work!' cried David desperately. 'What work?'</p>
+
+<p>'There will be many great speeches. I myself shall not speak beyond an
+hour, but that is merely impromptu in the debate. Our Referat-speakers
+need at least two hours apiece. We did not get through our last
+session till five in the morning. And there were scenes, I tell you!'</p>
+
+<p>'But what is there to discuss?'</p>
+
+<p>'What is there to discuss?' The Sejmist looked pityingly at David.
+'The great question of the Duma elections, for one thing. To boycott
+or not to boycott. And if not, which candidates shall we support? Then
+there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian
+Parliament&mdash;that is our great principle. Moreover, as a comparatively
+new Party, we have yet to thresh out our relations to all the existing
+Parties. With which shall we form <i>blocs</i> in the elections? While most
+are dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people and opposed
+to the evolution of historic necessity, with some we may be able to
+co-operate here and there, where our work intersects.'</p>
+
+<p>'What work?' David insisted again.</p>
+
+<p>'Doesn't our name tell you? We are the <i>Vozrozhdenie</i>&mdash;the
+Resurrectionists&mdash;our work is an unconditional historic necessity
+springing from the evolution of&mdash;&mdash;!'</p>
+
+<p>The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it
+open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise
+came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of
+cigarette-smoke <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span>near the stove. In one of the four David recognised
+the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have
+no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the
+Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence
+independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young
+Sejmist, observing ironically:</p>
+
+<p>'Behold, the dreamer cometh!'</p>
+
+<p>'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before
+his new acquaintance. 'It is you <i>Achad-Haamists</i> who must wake up.'</p>
+
+<p>The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would
+do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand
+that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not
+self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?'</p>
+
+<p>Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he
+explained to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for
+territorial-proletariat practice you Sejmists have altogether lost the
+theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have sacrificed territorial practice to
+their territorial theory. In our party alone do you find the synthesis
+of the practical and the ideal. It alone&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David.</p>
+
+<p>'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied
+Witsky proudly.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily.</p>
+
+<p>'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social
+regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>Conference will have
+to decide against relations with you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we
+not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the
+evolution of the forces of the people&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in
+his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the
+genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly
+leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'</p>
+
+<p>'But we also say&mdash;&mdash;' began the other two.</p>
+
+<p>The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the
+P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? We subsume the
+Conservative elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League and of
+the Party of Real Politics with the Reform elements of the Democratic
+League and the Progressive Democrats. Consequently&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'But the true Polish Party&mdash;&mdash;' began Witsky.</p>
+
+<p>'The <i>Kolo Polskie</i> (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,' began the
+Sejmist. The three were talking at once. Through the chaos a thin
+piping voice penetrated clearly. It came from the fourth member of the
+group&mdash;a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently
+smoking.</p>
+
+<p>'As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all Parties,' he said,
+'allow me to tell you, friend Witsky, that your programme needs
+unification: it starts as economic, and then becomes dualistic&mdash;first
+inductive, then deductive.'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Moj Panie drogi</i> (my dear sir),' intervened David, 'if you
+sympathize with all Parties, you will join a corps for the defence of
+them all.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span>'You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees with all
+Parties.'</p>
+
+<p>David lost his temper at last. 'Gentlemen,' he shouted ironically,
+'one may sit and make smoke-rings till the Messiah comes, but I assure
+you there is only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is
+<i>Samooborona</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>And without drinking his tea&mdash;which, indeed, the Resurrectionist had
+forgotten to order&mdash;he dashed into the street.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>X</h4>
+
+<p>He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish injustice. He had
+hitherto taken scant notice of all these Parties that had sprung up
+for the confusion of his people&mdash;these hybrid, kaleidoscopic
+combinations of Russian and Jewish politics&mdash;but as he fled from the
+philosophers through the now darkening streets, his every nerve
+quivering, it seemed to him as if the alphabet had only to be thrown
+about like dice to give always the name of some Party or other. He had
+a nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions, each
+with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Conferences, Party-Days,
+Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, each differentiating itself with
+meticulous subtlety from all the other Parties, each defining with
+casuistic minuteness its relation to every contemporary problem, each
+equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators speechifying through
+tumultuous nights.</p>
+
+<p>Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible nebulous welter in which
+his people found themselves, it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>was not unnatural that each man
+should grope towards his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was
+equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in
+both from the same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples possessed
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews lay in identifying
+themselves with Russia. But then, who could tell that the patriots who
+welcomed them to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the
+cause was won? Perhaps there was no hope outside preserving their own
+fullest identity. Poor bewildered Russian Jew, caught in the
+bewilderments both of the Russian and the Jew, and tangled up
+inextricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils!</p>
+
+<p>The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must make his account
+with them. How if he formed a secret <i>Samooborona</i> Committee, composed
+equally of representatives of all Parties? But, then, how could he be
+sure of knowing them all? He might offend one by omitting or
+miscalling it; they formed and re-formed like clouds on the blue. A
+new Party, too, might spring up overnight. He might give deadly
+affront by ignoring this Jonah's gourd. Even as he thus mused, there
+came to him the voices of two young men, the one advocating a
+P.P.L.&mdash;a new Party of Popular Liberty&mdash;the other insisting that the
+new <i>Volksgruppe</i> of all anti-Zionist Parties was an unconditional
+historic necessity. He groaned.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through the ill-paved alleys
+that a plague of doctors of philosophy had broken out over the Pale,
+doctrinaires spinning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting
+bitterly against the slightest deviation from the pattern of their
+webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>Was it, he wondered
+with a flash of sympathy, that Israel was too great for Action; too
+sophisticated a people for so primitive and savage a function; too set
+in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, so that, even
+when Action was attempted, it was turned and frozen into Philosophy?
+Or was it rather that eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had
+unfitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of applying the
+whole brain-force to religious minuti&aelig; led to a similar
+intellectualization of contemporary problems&mdash;of the vast new material
+suddenly opened up to their sharpened brains&mdash;but also because many of
+these religious problems related only to the time when Israel and his
+Temple flourished in Palestine? The academic leisure and scrupulous
+discrimination that might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had
+been imported into the burning present&mdash;into things that mattered for
+life or death.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism or Socialism, as
+the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not
+risen since the year 70 of the Christian era, or over the decisions of
+Babylonian <i>Geonim</i>, no stone of whose city remained standing. The men
+of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world
+of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of
+Zionism without Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,
+Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The habit of actualities
+had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much
+intellectual stimulus? Would Israel never return to reality, never
+find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life?</p>
+
+<p>But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky,
+David suddenly felt infinitely weary of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>reality; a great yearning
+came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which
+pious Jewry still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,
+the jangle of politics and philosophies, the <i>tohu-bohu</i> of his
+unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go
+back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the
+<i>Beth Hamedrash</i> where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten
+folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. There
+lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's
+true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen
+centuries of tragedy&mdash;a watertight world into which no drop of outer
+reality could ever trickle. There lay Zion and the Jordan, the Temple
+and the Angels; there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over
+their people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists
+starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the
+Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No
+more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the
+horrible Modern.</p>
+
+<p>He asked the way to the <i>Beth Hamedrash</i>. How fraternally the sages
+and the youths would greet him! They would inquire in the immemorial
+formula, 'What town comest thou from?' And when he told them, they
+would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news there was. And 'news,'
+David remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of
+texts.' Yes, this was all the 'news' that ever ruffled that peaceful
+world. Man lived only for the Holy Law; the world had been created
+merely that the Law might be studied; new lights upon its words and
+letters were the only things that could matter to a sensible soul.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>Time and again he had raged against the artificiality of this quietist
+cosmos, accusing it of his people's paralysis, but to-night every
+fibre of him yearned for this respite from the harsh reality. He
+rummaged his memory for 'news'&mdash;for theological ingeniosities, textual
+wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of Milovka; and as one
+who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the <i>Beth
+Hamedrash</i>, and, murmuring 'Peace be to you,' dropped upon a bench
+before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined
+themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text.
+Immediately he was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and
+ancients.</p>
+
+<p>'Which Party are you of?' they clamoured eagerly.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>XI</h4>
+
+<p>The <i>pogrom</i> arrived. But it arrived in a new form for which even
+David was unprepared. Perhaps in consequence of the Rabbi's warning to
+the Governor, Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian
+paraphernalia of <i>agents provocateurs</i>, no hooligans with false grey
+beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or blasphemers. Artillery was
+calmly brought up against the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were
+an enemy's town.</p>
+
+<p>As the shells began to burst over the close-packed houses, David felt
+grimly that an economic Providence had saved him from wasting his time
+in training pistoliers.</p>
+
+<p>The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and saying his <i>Vidui</i>
+(death-bed confession), offered him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span>and his violin-case a place in
+the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the
+aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round
+the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the
+chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. His eyes were glued
+upon a figure he had espied amid the cannon.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with whom he had dreamed
+of Maccabean deeds. The new conscript, in the uniform of an
+artilleryman, was carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun.</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Ezekiel!' David cried. 'Yours is the most humorous fate of all!
+But have you forgotten there is still one form of <i>Samooborona</i> left?'
+And with an ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself.</p>
+
+<p>The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When the bombardment was
+over, the peace of the devil lay over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent
+were all the fiery orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent
+the Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers of mankind;
+silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, the timber-merchants and
+the horse-dealers, the bankers and the Bundists; silent the Socialists
+and the Democrats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless
+Karaite and the cheerful <i>Chassid</i>; silent the landlord and his
+revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; silent the Rabbi in
+his study, and the crowds in the market-place.</p>
+
+<p>The same unconditional historic necessity had overtaken them all.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page &nbsp;&nbsp;20: &nbsp;shillngs replaced with shillings<br />
+Page 114: &nbsp;'we're under other' replaced with 'we're under others'<br />
+Page 136: &nbsp;'I really must congratulate yon' replaced with 'I really must congratulate you'<br />
+Page 146: &nbsp;'He must be expelled the congregation' replaced with 'He must be expelled from the congregation'<br />
+Page 179: &nbsp;haled replaced with hauled<br />
+Page 263: &nbsp;Demnark replaced with Denmark<br />
+Page 298: &nbsp;'he lounged inte' replaced with 'he lounged into'<br />
+Page 306: &nbsp;Rachael replaced with Rachel<br />
+Page 396: &nbsp;danegrous replaced with dangerous<br />
+Page 396: &nbsp;arrangmement replaced with arrangement<br />
+Page 400: &nbsp;'allowed to becomes Poles' replaced with 'allowed to become Poles'<br />
+Page 405: &nbsp;truimphant replaced with triumphant<br />
+Page 423: &nbsp;themseves replaced with themselves<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Ghetto Comedies, by Israel Zangwill,
+Illustrated by J. H. Amschewitz
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Ghetto Comedies
+
+
+Author: Israel Zangwill
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 28, 2009  [eBook #28982]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GHETTO COMEDIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by David Edwards, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital
+material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries
+(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 28982-h.htm or 28982-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28982/28982-h/28982-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28982/28982-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/ghettocomedies00zanguoft
+
+
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+      | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistant spelling in the |
+      | original document have been preserved. This document      |
+      | contains Yiddish and other dialects.                      |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+      | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+      |                                                           |
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+GHETTO COMEDIES
+
+by
+
+ISRAEL ZANGWILL
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+New 6s. Novels.
+
+
+  THE EXPENSIVE MISS DU CANE. By S. MACNAUGHTAN. 'To resist the charm
+     of Hetty Du Cane one must be singularly hard to
+     please.'--_Spectator._
+
+  THE LOST WORD. By EVELYN UNDERHILL. 'She writes vigorously and well,
+     with a clear sense of the beauty of language and a notable power
+     of description.'--_Times._
+
+  THE COUNTRY HOUSE. By JOHN GALSWORTHY. 'It deserves the widest
+     measure of success as a careful study of modern life and an
+     interesting piece of fiction, presented with remarkable literary
+     ability.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  MEMOIRS OF A PERSON OF QUALITY. By ASHTON HILLIERS. 'Such a recruit
+     as Mr. Hilliers is welcome to the ranks of novelists.... He has
+     absorbed the spirit of the times with remarkable ability. Mr.
+     Hilliers has a fine literary future before him, and we are glad
+     to give his maiden effort a cordial greeting.'--_Athenaeum._
+
+  PAUL. By E.F. BENSON. 'A genuinely fine novel; a story marked by
+     powerful workmanship and glowing with the breath of
+     life.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  THE SWIMMERS. By E.S. RORISON. 'Full of crisp dialogue and bright
+     descriptive passages.'--_Athenaeum._
+
+  THE TRAIL TOGETHER. By H.H. BASHFORD. 'Very interesting, very well
+     constructed, and admirably written; altogether an excellent piece
+     of work.'--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+  FOOLS RUSH IN. By MARY GAUNT and J.R. ESSEX. 'A live story, full of
+     the stir and stress of existence on the fringe of civilization,
+     very vividly and interestingly written.'--_Sketch._
+
+  JOSEPH VANCE. By WILLIAM DE MORGAN. 'Humorous, thoughtful, pathetic,
+     and thoroughly entertaining.... Fresh, original, and unusually
+     clever.'--_Athenaeum._
+
+  MOONFACE, AND OTHER STORIES. By JACK LONDON. 'Jack London at his
+     best.'--_Standard._
+
+  LOVE'S TRILOGY. By PETER NANSEN. 'Humour the author possesses, and
+     tenderness. Sensibility he has, and shrewd sense. The tale "God's
+     Peace" shows that he has a soul.'--_Evening Standard._
+
+LONDON
+WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD STREET.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+[Illustration: At last I said "Good morning."]
+
+
+GHETTO COMEDIES
+
+by
+
+ISRAEL ZANGWILL
+
+Author of
+'The Grey Wig,' 'Dreamers of the Ghetto,'
+'The Master,' 'Children of the Ghetto,'
+'Ghetto Tragedies,' etc.
+
+With Illustrations by J.H. Amschewitz
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+London
+William Heinemann
+1907
+
+Copyright by William Heinemann, 1907
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY OLD FRIEND
+
+M.D. EDER
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+Simultaneously with the publication of these 'Ghetto Comedies' a fresh
+edition of my 'Ghetto Tragedies' is issued, with the original title
+restored. In the old definition a comedy could be distinguished from a
+tragedy by its happy ending. Dante's Hell and Purgatory could thus
+appertain to a 'comedy.' This is a crude conception of the distinction
+between Tragedy and Comedy, which I have ventured to disregard,
+particularly in the last of these otherwise unassuming stories.
+
+                                                            I.Z.
+
+SHOTTERMILL,
+    _April, 1907._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                             PAGE
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS                                            1
+
+ANGLICIZATION                                                  49
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY                                             89
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER                            119
+
+THE RED MARK                                                  173
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS                                         193
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH                                                225
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE                                               249
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'                                          259
+
+THE CONVERTS                                                  293
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK                                                  313
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET                                               335
+
+THE HIRELINGS                                                 351
+
+SAMOOBORONA                                                   375
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+AT LAST I SAID 'GOOD MORNING'                      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                   _To face page_
+
+'I WORK ON--ON _SHABBOS_'                                     142
+
+'YOU COMPARE MY WIFE TO A KANGAROO!'                          276
+
+THE JEWS SCATTERED BEFORE HIM LIKE DOGS                       408
+
+
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS
+
+
+
+
+THE MODEL OF SORROWS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HOW I FOUND THE MODEL
+
+
+I cannot pretend that my ambition to paint the Man of Sorrows had any
+religious inspiration, though I fear my dear old dad at the Parsonage
+at first took it as a sign of awakening grace. And yet, as an artist,
+I have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the
+beautiful; for I have ever held that the beautiful has in it the same
+infinite element as forms the essence of religion. But I cannot
+explain very intelligibly what I mean, for my brush is the only
+instrument through which I can speak. And if I am here paradoxically
+proposing to use my pen to explain what my brush failed to make clear,
+it is because the criticism with which my picture of the Man of
+Sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal
+elucidation. My picture, let us suppose, is half-articulate; perhaps
+my pen can manage to say the other half, especially as this other half
+mainly consists of things told me and things seen.
+
+And in the first place, let me explain that the conception of the
+picture which now hangs in its gilded frame is far from the conception
+with which I started--was, in fact, the ultimate stage of an
+evolution--for I began with nothing deeper in my mind than to image a
+realistic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue of Jerusalem, or
+walked about the shores of Galilee. As a painter in love with the
+modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations
+of Him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their
+inspiration in reality. Each nation had unconsciously given Him its
+own national type, and though there was a subtle truth in this, for
+what each nation worshipped was truly the God made over again in its
+own highest image, this was not the truth after which I was seeking.
+
+I started by rejecting the blonde, beardless type which Da Vinci and
+others have imposed upon the world, for Christ, to begin with, must be
+a Jew. And even when, in the course of my researches for a Jewish
+model, I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed
+to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic of the Oriental face, as
+I figured it, was a sombre majesty, as of the rabbis of Rembrandt, the
+very antithesis of the ruddy gods of Walhalla. The characteristic
+Jewish face must suggest more of the Arab than of the Goth.
+
+I do not know if the lay reader understands how momentous to the
+artist is his model, how dependent he is on the accident of finding
+his creation already anticipated, or at least shadowed forth, in
+Nature. To me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in
+Nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those
+subtle _nuances_ which give the full sense of life. After which, if I
+say, that my aim is not to copy, but to interpret and transfigure, I
+suppose I shall again seem to be self-contradictory. But that, again,
+must be put down to my fumbling pen-strokes.
+
+Perhaps I ought to have gone to Palestine in search of the ideal
+model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief
+railway run of the Parsonage. Besides, I understood that the
+dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish
+types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed all the
+streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting in the Jewish quarter
+left me despairing. I could find types of all the Apostles, but never
+of the Master.
+
+Running down one week-end to Brighton to recuperate, I joined the
+Church Parade on the lawns. It was a sunny morning in early November,
+and I admired the three great even stretches of grass, sea, and sky,
+making up a picture that was unspoiled even by the stuccoed
+boarding-houses. The parasols fluttered amid the vast crowd of
+promenaders like a swarm of brilliant butterflies. I noted with
+amusement that the Church Parade was guarded by beadles from the
+intrusion of the ill-dressed, and the spectacle of over-dressed Jews
+paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search.
+In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking
+in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest.
+Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting
+oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat
+a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green
+cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed black beard was the
+face of my desire. The head was bowed towards the earth; it did not
+even turn towards the gay crowd, as if the mere spectacle was
+beadle-barred. I was about to accost this strange creature who sat
+there so immovably, when a venerable Royal Academician who resides at
+Hove came towards me with hearty hand outstretched, and bore me along
+in the stream of his conversation and geniality. I looked back
+yearningly; it was as if the Academy was dragging me away from true
+Art.
+
+'I think, if you don't mind, I'll get that old chap's address,' I
+said.
+
+He looked back and shook his head in laughing reproof.
+
+'Another study in dirt and ugliness! Oh, you youngsters!'
+
+My heart grew hot against his smug satisfaction with his own
+conventional patterns and prettinesses.
+
+'Behind that ugliness and dirt I see the Christ,' I retorted. 'I
+certainly did not see Him in the Church Parade.'
+
+'Have you gone on the religious lay now?' he asked, with a burst of
+his bluff laughter.
+
+'No, but I'm going,' I said, and turned back.
+
+I stood, pretending to watch the gay parasols, but furtively studying
+my Jew. Yes, in that odd figure, so strangely seated on the pavement,
+I had chanced on the very features, the haunting sadness and mystery
+of which I had been so long in quest. I wondered at the simplicity
+with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified.
+I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan,
+while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that
+the beadles were unobservant of him. Were they content with his
+abstention from the holy ground of the Church Parade, and the less
+sacred seats on the promenade without, or would they, if their eyes
+drew towards him, move him on from further profaning those frigidly
+respectable windows and stuccoed portals?
+
+At last I said: 'Good-morning.' And he rose hurriedly and began to
+move away uncomplainingly, as one used to being hounded from
+everywhere.
+
+'_Guten Morgen_,' I said in German, with a happy inspiration, for in
+my futile search in London I had found that a corrupt German called
+Yiddish usually proved a means of communication.
+
+He paused, as if reassured. '_Gut' Morgen_,' he murmured; and then I
+saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of Anak, and
+his manner a strange blend of majesty and humility.
+
+'Pardon me,' I went on, in my scrupulously worst German, 'may I ask
+you a question?'
+
+He made a curious movement of acquiescence, compounded of a shrug and
+a slight uplifting of his palms.
+
+'Are you in need of work?'
+
+'And why do you wish to know?' he replied, answering, as I had already
+found was the Jewish way, one question by another.
+
+'I thought I could find you some,' I said.
+
+'Have you scrolls of the Law for me to write?' he replied
+incredulously. 'You are not even a Jew.'
+
+'Still, there may be something,' I replied. 'Let us walk along.'
+
+I felt that the beadle's eye was at last drawn to us both, and I
+hurried my model down a side-street. I noticed he hobbled as if
+footsore. He did not understand what I wanted, but he understood a
+pound a week, for he was starving, and when I said he must leave
+Brighton for London, he replied, awe-struck: 'It is the finger of
+God.' For in London were his wife and children.
+
+His name was Israel Quarriar, his country Russia.
+
+The picture was begun on Monday morning. Israel Quarriar's presence
+dignified the studio. It was thrilling and stimulating to see his
+noble figure and tragic face, the head drooped humbly, the beard like
+a prophet's.
+
+'It is the finger of God,' I, too, murmured, and fell to work,
+exalted.
+
+I worked, for the most part, in rapt silence--perhaps the model's
+silence was contagious--but gradually through the days I grew to
+communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I
+give his story, so far as I can, in his own words, which I often
+paused to take down, when they were characteristic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MODEL'S STORY
+
+
+I came here because Russia had grown intolerable to me. All my life,
+and during the lives of my parents, we Quarriars had been innkeepers,
+and thereby earned our bread. But Russia took away our livelihood for
+herself, and created a monopoly. Thus we were left destitute. So what
+could I do with a large family? Of London and America I had long heard
+as places where they have compassion on foreigners. They are not
+countries like Russia, where Truth exists not. Secondly, my children
+also worried me greatly. They are females, all the five, and a female
+in Russia, however beautiful, good and clever she be, if she have no
+dowry, has to accept any offer of marriage, however uncongenial the
+man may be. These things conspired to drive me from Russia. So I
+turned everything into money, and realized three hundred and fifty
+roubles. People had told me that the whole journey to London should
+cost us two hundred roubles, so I concluded I should have one hundred
+and fifty roubles with which to begin life in the new country. It was
+very bitter to me to leave my Fatherland, but as the moujik says:
+'Necessity brings everything.' So we parted from our friends with many
+tears: little had we thought we should be so broken up in our old age.
+But what else could I do in such a wretched country? As the moujik
+says: 'If the goat doesn't want to go to market it is compelled to
+go.' So I started for London. We travelled to Isota on the Austrian
+frontier. As we sat at the railway-station there, wondering how we
+were going to smuggle ourselves across the frontier, in came a
+benevolent-looking Jew with a long venerable beard, two very long
+ear-locks, and a girdle round his waist, washed his hands
+ostentatiously at the station tap, prayed aloud the _Asher Yotzer_
+with great fervour, and on finishing his prayer looked everyone
+expectantly in the eyes, and all responded 'Amen.' Then he drew up his
+coat-sleeve with great deliberation, extended his hand, gave me an
+effusive '_Shalom Aleichem_' and asked me how it went with me. Soon he
+began to talk about the frontier. Said he: 'As you see me, an _Ish
+kosher_ (a ritually correct man), I will do you a kindness, not for
+money, but for the sake of the _Mitzvah_ (good deed).' I began to
+smell a rat, and thought to myself, How comes it that you know I want
+the frontier? Your kindness is suspicious, for, as the moujik says:
+'The devil has guests.' But if we need the thief, we cut him down even
+from the gallows.
+
+Such a necessary rascal proved Elzas Kazelia. I asked him how much he
+wanted to smuggle me across. He answered thus: 'I see that you are a
+clever respectable man, so look upon my beard and ear-locks, and you
+will understand that you will receive fair treatment from me. I want
+to earn a _Mitzvah_ (good deed) and a little money thereby.'
+
+Then he cautioned me not to leave the station and go out into the
+street, because in the street were to be found Jews without beards,
+who would inform on me and give me up to the police. 'The world does
+not contain a sea of Kazelias,' said he. (Would that it did not
+contain even that one!)
+
+Then he continued: 'Shake out your money on the table, and we will see
+how much you have, and I will change it for you.'
+
+'Oh,' said I, 'I want first to find out the rate of exchange.'
+
+When Kazelia heard this, he gave a great spring and shrieked '_Hoi,
+hoi!_ On account of Jews like you, the _Messhiach_ (Messiah) can't
+come, and the Redemption of Israel is delayed. If you go out into the
+street, you will find a Jew without a beard, who will charge you more,
+and even take all your money away. I swear to you, as I should wish to
+see Messhiach Ben David, that I want to earn no money. I only desire
+your good, and so to lay up a little _Mitzvah_ in heaven.'
+
+Thereupon I changed my money with him. Afterwards I found that he had
+swindled me to the extent of fifteen roubles. Elzas Kazelia is like to
+the Russian forest robber, who waylays even the peasant.
+
+We began to talk further about the frontier. He wanted eighty roubles,
+and swore by his _kosher Yiddishkeit_ (ritually pure Judaism) that the
+affair would cost him seventy-five.
+
+Thereupon I became sorely troubled, because I had understood it would
+only cost us twenty roubles for all of us, and so I told him. Said he:
+'If you seek others with short beards, they will take twice as much
+from you.' But I went out into the street to seek a second murderer.
+The second promised to do it cheaper, said that Kazelia was a robber,
+and promised to meet me at the railway station.
+
+Immediately I left, Elzas Kazelia, the _kosher_ Jew, went to the
+police, and informed them that I and my family were running away from
+Russia, and were going to London; and we were at once arrested, and
+thrown bag and baggage into a filthy cell, lighted only by an iron
+grating in the door. No food or drink was allowed us, as though we
+were the greatest criminals. Such is Russian humanity, to starve
+innocent people. The little provender we had in a bag scarcely kept us
+from fainting with hunger. On the second day Kazelia sent two Jews
+with beards. Suddenly I heard the door unlock, and they appeared
+saying: 'We have come to do you a favour, but not for nothing. If your
+life and the lives of your family are dear to you, we advise you to
+give the police seventy roubles, and we want ten roubles for our
+kindness, and you must employ Kazelia to take you over the frontier
+for eighty roubles, otherwise the police will not be bribed. If you
+refuse, you are lost.'
+
+Well, how could I answer? How could one give away the last kopeck and
+arrive penniless in a strange land? Every rouble taken from us was
+like a piece of our life. So my people and I began to weep and to beg
+for pity. 'Have compassion,' we cried. Answered they: 'In a frontier
+town compassion dwells not. Give money. That will bring compassion.'
+And they slammed the door, and we were locked in once more. Tears and
+cries helped nothing. My children wept agonizedly. Oh, truth, truth!
+Russia, Russia! How scurvily you handle the guiltless! For an
+enlightened land to be thus!
+
+'Father, father,' the children said, 'give away everything so that we
+die not in this cell of fear and hunger.'
+
+But even had I wished, I could do nothing from behind barred doors.
+Our shouting was useless. At last I attracted a warder who was
+watching in the corridor. 'Bring me a Jew,' I cried; 'I wish to tell
+him of our plight.' And he answered: 'Hold your peace if you don't
+want your teeth knocked out. Recognise that you are a prisoner. You
+know well what is required of you.'
+
+Yes, I thought, my money or my life.
+
+On the third day our sufferings became almost insupportable, and the
+Russian cold seized on our bodies, and our strength began to fail. We
+looked upon the cell as our tomb, and on Kazelia as the Angel of
+Death. Here, it seemed, we were to die of hunger. We lost hope of
+seeing the sun. For well we know Russia. Who seeks Truth finds Death
+more easily. As the Russian proverb says, 'If you want to know Truth,
+you will know Death.'
+
+At length the warder seemed to take pity on our cries, and brought
+again the two Jews. 'For the last time we tell you. Give us money, and
+we will do you a kindness. We have been seized with compassion for
+your family.'
+
+So I said no more, but gave them all they asked, and Elzas Kazelia
+came and said to me rebukingly: 'It is a characteristic of the Jew
+never to part with his money unless chastised.' I said to Elzas
+Kazelia: 'I thought you were an honourable, pious Jew. How could you
+treat a poor family so?'
+
+He answered me: 'An honourable, pious Jew must also make a little
+money.'
+
+Thereupon he conducted us from the prison, and sent for a conveyance.
+No sooner had we seated ourselves than he demanded six roubles. Well,
+what could I do? I had fallen among thieves, and must part with my
+money. We drove to a small room, and remained there two hours, for
+which we had to pay three roubles, as the preparations for our
+crossing were apparently incomplete. When we finally got to the
+frontier--in this case a shallow river--they warned us not even to
+sneeze, for if the soldiers heard we should be shot without more ado.
+I had to strip in order to wade through the water, and several men
+carried over my family. My two bundles, with all my belongings,
+consisting of clothes and household treasures, remained, however, on
+the Russian side. Suddenly a wild disorder arose. 'The soldiers! The
+soldiers! Hide! Hide! In the bushes! In the bushes!'
+
+When all was still again--though no soldiers became visible--the men
+went back for the baggage, but brought back only one bundle. The
+other, worth over a hundred roubles, had disappeared. Wailing helped
+nothing. Kazelia said: 'Hold your peace. Here, too, dangers lurk.'
+
+I understood the game, but felt completely helpless in his hands. He
+drove us to his house, and our remaining bundle was deposited there.
+Later, when I walked into the town, I went to the Rabbi and
+complained. Said he: 'What can I do with such murderers? You must
+reconcile yourself to the loss.'
+
+I went back to my family at Kazelia's house, and he cautioned me
+against going into the street. On my way I had met a man who said he
+would charge twenty-eight roubles each for our journey to London. So
+Kazelia was evidently afraid I might yet fall into honester hands.
+
+Then we began to talk with him of London, for it is better to deal
+with the devil you know than the devil you don't know. Said he: 'It
+will cost you thirty-three roubles each.' I said: 'I have had an offer
+of twenty-eight roubles, but you I will give thirty.' '_Hoi, hoi!_'
+shrieked he. 'On a Jew a lesson is lost. It is just as at the
+frontier: you wouldn't give eighty roubles, and it cost you double.
+You want the same again. One daren't do a Jew a favour.'
+
+So I held my peace, and accepted his terms. But I saw I should be
+twenty-five roubles short of what was required to finish the journey.
+Said Kazelia: 'I can do you a favour: I can borrow twenty-five roubles
+on your luggage at the railway, and when you get to London you can
+repay.' And he took the bundle, and conveyed it to the railway. What
+he did there I know not. He came back, and told me he had done me a
+turn. (This time it seemed a good one.) He then took envelopes, and
+placed in each the amount I was to pay at each stage of the journey.
+So at last we took train and rode off. And at each place I paid the
+dues from its particular envelope. The children were offered food by
+our fellow-passengers, though they could only take it when it was
+_kosher_, and this enabled us to keep our pride. There was one kind
+Jewess from Lemberg with a heart of gold and delicious rings of
+sausages.
+
+When we arrived at Leipsic they told me the amount was twelve marks
+short. So we missed our train, not knowing what to do, as I had now no
+money whatever but what was in the envelopes. The officials ordered us
+from the station. So we went out and walked about Leipsic; we
+attracted the suspicion of the police, and they wanted to arrest us.
+But we pleaded our innocence, and they let us go. So we retired into a
+narrow dark street, and sat down by a blank wall, and told each other
+not to murmur. We sat together through the whole rainy night, the rain
+mingling with our tears.
+
+When day broke I thought of a plan. I took twelve marks from the
+envelope containing the ship's money, and ran back to the station, and
+took tickets to Rotterdam, and so got to the end of our overland
+journey. When we got to the ship, they led us all into a shed like
+cattle. One of the Kazelia conspirators--for his arm reaches over
+Europe--called us into his office, and said: 'How much money have
+you?' I shook out the money from the envelopes on the table. Said he:
+'The amount is twelve marks short.' He had had advices, he said, from
+Kazelia that I would bring a certain amount, and I didn't have it.
+
+'Here you can stay to-night. To-morrow you go back.' So he played on
+my ignorance, for I was paying at every stage in excess of the legal
+fares. But I knew not what powers he had. Every official was a
+possible disaster. We hardly lived till the day.
+
+Then I began to beg him to take my _Tallis_ and _Tephillin_
+(praying-shawl and phylacteries) for the twelve marks. Said he: 'I
+have no use for them; you _must_ go back.' With difficulty I got his
+permission to go out into the town, and I took my _Tallis_ and
+_Tephillin_, and went into a _Shool_ (synagogue), and I begged someone
+to buy them. But a good man came up, and would not permit the sale. He
+took out twelve marks and gave them to me. I begged him to give me his
+address that I might be able to repay him. Said he: 'I desire neither
+thanks nor money.' Thus was I able to replace the amount lacking.
+
+We embarked without a bit of bread or a farthing in money. We arrived
+in London at nine o'clock in the morning, penniless and without
+luggage, whereas I had calculated to have at least one hundred and
+fifty roubles and my household stuff. I had a friend's address, and we
+all went to look for him, but found that he had left London for
+America. We walked about all day till eight o'clock at night. The
+children could scarcely drag along from hunger and weariness. At last
+we sat down on the steps of a house in Wellclose Square. I looked
+about, and saw a building which I took to be a _Shool_ (synagogue), as
+there were Hebrew posters stuck outside. I approached it. An old Jew
+with a long grey beard came to meet me, and began to speak with me. I
+understood soon what sort of a person he was, and turned away. This
+_Meshummad_ (converted Jew) persisted, tempting me sorely with offers
+of food and drink for the family, and further help. I said: 'I want
+nothing of you, nor do I desire your acquaintance.'
+
+'I went back to my family. The children sat crying for food. They
+attracted the attention of a man, Baruch Zezangski (25, Ship Alley),
+and he went away, returning with bread and fish. When the children saw
+this, they rejoiced exceedingly, and seized the man's hand to kiss it.
+Meanwhile darkness fell, and there was nowhere to pass the night. So I
+begged the man to find me a lodging for the night. He led us to a
+cellar in Ship Alley. It was pitch black. They say there is a hell.
+This may or may not be, but more of a hell than the night we passed in
+this cellar one does not require. Every vile thing in the world seemed
+to have taken up its abode therein. We sat the whole night sweeping
+the vermin from us. After a year of horror--as it seemed--came the
+dawn. In the morning entered the landlord, and demanded a shilling. I
+had not a farthing, but I had a leather bag which I gave him for the
+night's lodging. I begged him to let me a room in the house. So he let
+me a small back room upstairs, the size of a table, at three and
+sixpence a week. He relied on our collecting his rent from the
+kind-hearted.
+
+We entered the empty room with joy, and sat down on the floor. We
+remained the whole day without bread. The children managed to get a
+crust now and again from other lodgers, but all day long they cried
+for food, and at night they cried because they had nothing to sleep
+on. I asked our landlord if he knew of any work we could do. He said
+he would see what could be done. Next day he went out, and returned
+with a heap of linen to be washed. The family set to work at once, but
+I am sure my wife washed the things less with water than with tears.
+Oh, Kazelia! We washed the whole week, the landlord each day bringing
+bread and washing. At the end of the week he said: 'You have worked
+out your rent, and have nothing to pay.' I should think not indeed!
+
+My eldest daughter was fortunate enough to get a place at a tailor's
+for four shillings a week, and the others sought washing and
+scrubbing. So each day we had bread, and at the end of the week rent.
+Bread and water alone formed our sustenance. But we were very grateful
+all the same. When the holidays came on, my daughter fell out of work.
+I heard a word 'slack.' I inquired, 'What is the meaning of the word
+"slack"?' Then my daughter told me that it means _schlecht_ (bad).
+There is nothing to be earned. Now, what should I do? I had no means
+of living. The children cried for bread and something to sleep on.
+Still we lived somehow till _Rosh Hashanah_ (New Year), hoping it
+would indeed be a New Year.
+
+It was _Erev Yomtov_ (the day before the holiday), and no washing was
+to be had. We struggled as before death. The landlord of the house
+came in. He said to me: 'Aren't you ashamed? Can't you see your
+children have scarcely strength to live? Why have you not compassion
+on your little ones? Go to the Charity Board. There you will receive
+help.' Believe me, I would rather have died. But the little ones were
+starving, and their cries wrung me. So I went to a Charity Board. I
+said, weeping: 'My children are perishing for a morsel of bread. I can
+no longer look upon their sufferings.' And the Board answered: 'After
+_Yomtov_ we will send you back to Russia.' 'But meanwhile,' I
+answered, 'the children want food.' Whereupon one of the Board struck
+a bell, and in came a stalwart Angel of Death, who seized me by the
+arm so that it ached all day, and thrust me through the door. I went
+out, my eyes blinded with tears, so that I could not see where I went.
+It was long before I found my way back to Ship Alley. My wife and
+daughters already thought I had drowned myself for trouble. Such was
+our plight the Eve of the Day of Atonement, and not a morsel of bread
+to 'take in' the fast with! But just at the worst a woman from next
+door came in, and engaged one of my daughters to look after a little
+child during the fast (while she was in the synagogue) at a wage of
+tenpence, paid in advance. With joy we expended it all on bread, and
+then we prayed that the Day of Atonement should endure long, so that
+we could fast long, and have no need to buy food; for as the moujik
+says, 'If one had no mouth, one could wear a golden coat.'
+
+I went to the Jews' Free School, which was turned into a synagogue,
+and passed the whole day in tearful supplication. When I came home at
+night my wife sat and wept. I asked her why she wept. She answered:
+'Why have you led me to such a land, where even prayer costs money--at
+least, for women? The whole day I went from one _Shool_ to another,
+but they would not let me in. At last I went to the _Shool_ of the
+"Sons of the Soul," where pray the pious Jews, with beards and
+ear-locks, and even there I was not allowed in. The heathen policeman
+begged for me, and said to them: "Shame on you not to let the poor
+woman in." The _Gabbai_ (treasurer) answered: "If one hasn't money,
+one sits at home."' And my wife said to him, weeping: 'My tears be on
+your head,' and went home, and remained home the whole day weeping.
+With a woman _Yom Kippur_ is a wonder-working day. She thought that
+her prayers might be heard, that God would consider her plight if she
+wept out her heart to Him in the _Shool_. But she was frustrated, and
+this was perhaps the greatest blow of all to her. Moreover, she was
+oppressed by her own brethren, and this was indeed bitter. If it had
+been the Gentile, she would have consoled herself with the thought,
+'We are in exile.' When the fast was over, we had nothing but a little
+bread left to break our fast on, or to prepare for the next day's
+fast. Nevertheless we sorrowfully slept. But the wretched day came
+again, and the elder children went out into the street to seek
+_Parnosoh_ (employment), and found scrubbing, that brought in
+nine-pence. We bought bread, and continued to live further. Likewise
+we obtained three shillings worth of washing to do, and were as rich
+as Rothschild. When _Succoth_ (Tabernacles) came, again no money, no
+bread, and I went about the streets the whole day to seek for work.
+When I was asked what handicraftsman I was, of course I had to say I
+had no trade, for, foolishly enough, among the Jews in my part of
+Russia a trade is held in contempt, and when they wish to hold one up
+to scorn, they say to him: 'Anybody can see you are a descendant of a
+handicraftsman.'
+
+I could write Holy Scrolls, indeed, and keep an inn, but what availed
+these accomplishments? As I found I could obtain no work, I went into
+the _Shool_ of the 'Sons of the Soul.' I seated myself next a man, and
+we began to speak. I told him of my plight. Said he: 'I will give you
+advice. Call on our Rabbi. He is a very fine man.'
+
+I did so. As I entered, he sat in company with another man, holding
+his _Lulov_ and _Esrog_ (palm and citron). 'What do you want?' I
+couldn't answer him, my heart was so oppressed, but suddenly my tears
+gushed forth. It seemed to me help was at hand. I felt assured of
+sympathy, if of nothing else. I told him we were perishing for want of
+bread, and asked him to give me advice. He answered nothing. He turned
+to the man, and spoke concerning the Tabernacle and the Citron. He
+took no further notice of me, but left me standing.
+
+So I understood he was no better than Elzas Kazelia. And this is a
+Rabbi! As I saw I might as well have talked to the wall, I left the
+room without a word from him. As the moujik would say: 'Sad and bitter
+is the poor man's lot. It is better to lie in the dark tomb and not to
+see the sunlit world than to be a poor man and be compelled to beg for
+money.'
+
+I came home, where my family was waiting patiently for my return with
+bread. I said: 'Good _Yomtov_,' weeping, for they looked scarcely
+alive, having been without a morsel of food that day.
+
+So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his
+due. 'Hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep?' But he
+refused to be talked over. So we passed the night. When day came the
+little children began to cry: 'Father, let us go. We will beg bread in
+the streets. We die of hunger. Don't hold us back.'
+
+When the mother heard them speak of begging in the streets, she
+swooned, whereupon arose a great clamour among the children. When at
+length we brought her to, she reproached us bitterly for restoring her
+to life. 'I would rather have died than hear you speak of begging in
+the streets--rather see my children die of hunger before my eyes.'
+This speech of the mother caused them to forget their hunger, and they
+sat and wept together. On hearing the weeping, a man from next door,
+Gershon Katcol, came in to see what was the matter. He looked around,
+and his heart went out to us. So he went away, and returned speedily
+with bread and fish and tea and sugar, and went away again, returning
+with five shillings. He said: 'This I lend you.' Later he came back
+with a man, Nathan Beck, who inquired into our story, and took away
+the three little ones to stay with him. Afterwards, when I called to
+see them in his house in St. George's Road, they hid themselves from
+me, being afraid I should want them to return to endure again the
+pangs of hunger. It was bitter to think that a stranger should have
+the care of my children, and that they should shun me as one shuns a
+forest-robber.
+
+After _Yomtov_ I went to Grunbach, the shipping agent, to see whether
+my luggage had arrived, as I had understood from Kazelia that it would
+get here in a month's time. I showed my pawn-ticket, and inquired
+concerning it. Said he: 'Your luggage won't come to London, only to
+Rotterdam. If you like, I will write a letter to inquire if it is at
+Rotterdam, and how much money is due to redeem it.' I told him I had
+borrowed twenty-five roubles on it. Whereupon he calculated that it
+would cost me L4 6s., including freight to redeem it. But I told him
+to write and ask. Some days later a letter came from Rotterdam stating
+the cost at eighty-three roubles (L8 13s.), irrespective of freight
+dues. When I heard this, I was astounded, and I immediately wrote to
+Kazelia: 'Why do you behave like a forest-robber, giving me only
+twenty-five roubles where you got eighty-three?' Answered he: 'Shame
+on you to write such a letter! Haven't you been in my house, and seen
+what an honourable Jew I am? Shame on you! To such men as you one
+can't do a favour. Do you think there are a sea of Kazelias in the
+world? You are all thick-headed. You can't read a letter. I only took
+fifty-four roubles on the luggage; I had to recoup myself because I
+lost money through sending you to London. I calculated my loss, and
+only took what was due to me.' I showed the letter to Grunbach, and he
+wrote again to Rotterdam, and they answered that they knew nothing of
+a Kazelia. I must pay the L8 13s. if I wanted my bundle. Well, what
+was to be done? The weather grew colder. Hunger we had become inured
+to. But how could we pass the winter nights on the bare boards? I
+wrote again to Kazelia, but received no answer whatever. Day and night
+I went about asking advice concerning the luggage. Nobody could help
+me.
+
+And as I stood thus in the middle of the sea, word came to me of a
+_Landsmann_ (countryman) I had once helped to escape from the Russian
+army, in the days when I was happy and had still my inn. They said he
+had a great business in jewellery on a great highroad in front of the
+sea in a great town called Brighton. So I started off at once to talk
+to him--two days' journey, they said--for I knew he would help; and if
+not he, who? I would come to him as his Sabbath guest; he would surely
+fall upon my neck. The first night I slept in a barn with another
+tramp, who pointed me the way; but because I stopped to earn sixpence
+by chopping wood, lo! when Sabbath came I was still twelve miles away,
+and durst not profane the Sabbath by walking. So I lingered that
+Friday night in a village, thanking God I had at least the money for a
+bed, though it was sinful even to touch my money. And all next day, I
+know not why, the street-boys called me a _Goy_ (heathen) and a
+fox--'Goy-Fox, Goy-Fox!'--and they let off fireworks in my face. So I
+had to wander in the woods around, keeping within the Sabbath radius,
+and when the three stars appeared in the sky I started for Brighton.
+But so footsore was I, I came there only at midnight, and could not
+search. And I sat down on a bench; it was very cold, but I was so
+tired. But the policeman came and drove me away--he was God's
+messenger, for I should perchance have died--and a drunken female with
+a painted face told him to let me be, and gave me a shilling. How
+could I refuse? I slept again in a bed. And on the Sunday morning I
+started out, and walked all down in front of the sea; but my heart
+grew sick, for I saw the shops were shut. At last I saw a jewellery
+shop and my _Landsmann's_ name over it. It sparkled with gold and
+diamonds, and little bills were spread over it--'Great sale! Great
+sale!' Then I went joyfully to the door, but lo! it was bolted. So I
+knocked and knocked, and at last a woman came from above, and told me
+he lived in that road in Hove, where I found indeed my redeemer, but
+not my _Landsmann_. It was a great house, with steps up and steps
+down. I went down to a great door, and there came out a beautiful
+heathen female with a shining white cap on her head and a shining
+white apron, and she drove me away.
+
+'Goy-Fox was yesterday,' she shouted with wrath and slammed the door
+on my heart; and I sat down on the pavement without, and I became a
+pillar of salt, all frozen tears. But when I looked up, I saw the
+Angel of the Lord.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE PICTURE EVOLVES
+
+
+Such was my model's simple narrative, the homely realism of which
+appealed to me on my most imaginative side, for through all its sordid
+details stood revealed to me the tragedy of the Wandering Jew. Was it
+Heine or another who said 'The people of Christ is the Christ of
+peoples'? At any rate, such was the idea that began to take possession
+of me as I painted away at the sorrow-haunted face of my much-tried
+model--to paint, not the Christ that I had started out to paint, but
+the Christ incarnated in a race, suffering--and who knew that He did
+not suffer over again?--in its Passion. Yes, Israel Quarriar could
+still be my model, but after another conception altogether.
+
+It was an idea that called for no change in what I had already done.
+For I had worked mainly upon the head, and now that I purposed to
+clothe the figure in its native gaberdine, there would be little to
+re-draw. And so I fell to work with renewed intensity, feeling even
+safer now that I was painting and interpreting a real thing than when
+I was trying to reconstruct retrospectively the sacred figure that had
+walked in Galilee.
+
+And no sooner had I fallen to work on this new conception than I found
+everywhere how old it was. It appeared even to have Scriptural
+warrant, for from a brief report of a historical-theological lecture
+by a Protestant German Professor I gleaned that many of the passages
+in the Prophets which had been interpreted as pointing to a coming
+Messiah, really applied to Israel, the people. Israel it was whom
+Isaiah, in that famous fifty-third chapter, had described as 'despised
+and rejected of men: a man of sorrows.' Israel it was who bore the
+sins of the world. 'He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he
+opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.' Yes,
+Israel was the Man of Sorrows. And in this view the German Professor,
+I found, was only re-echoing Rabbinic opinion. My model proved a mine
+of lore upon this as upon so many other points. Even the Jewish
+expectation of the Messiah, he had never shared, he said--that the
+_Messhiach_ would come riding upon a white ass. Israel would be
+redeemed by itself, though his neighbours would have called the
+sentiment 'epicurean.'
+
+'Whoever saves me is my _Messhiach_,' he declared suddenly, and
+plucked at my hand to kiss it.
+
+'Now, you shock _me_,' I said, pushing him away.
+
+'No, no,' he said; 'I agree with the word of the moujik: "the good
+people _are_ God."'
+
+'Then I suppose you are what is called a Zionist,' I said.
+
+'Yes,' he replied; 'now that you have saved me, I see that God works
+only through men. As for the _Messhiach_ on the white ass, they do not
+really believe it, but they won't let another believe otherwise. For
+my own part, when I say the prayer, "Blessed be Thou who restorest the
+dead to life," I always mean it of _you_.'
+
+Such Oriental hyperbolic gratitude would have satisfied the greediest
+benefactor, and was infinitely in excess of what he owed me. He seemed
+unconscious that he was doing work, journeying punctually long miles
+to my studio in any and every weather. It is true that I early helped
+him to redeem his household gods, but could I do less for a man who
+had still no bed to sleep in?
+
+My recovery of the Rotterdam bundle served to unveil further
+complications. The agents at the East End charged him three shillings
+and sixpence per letter, and conducted the business with a fine legal
+delay. But it was not till Kazelia was eulogized by one of these
+gentry as a very fine man that both the model and I grew suspicious
+that the long chain of roguery reached even unto London, and that the
+confederates on this side were playing for time, so that the option
+should expire, and the railway sell the unredeemed luggage, which they
+would doubtless buy in cheap, making another profit.
+
+Ultimately Quarriar told me his second daughter--for the eldest was
+blind of one eye--was prepared to journey alone to Rotterdam, as the
+safest way of redeeming the goods. Admiring her pluck, I added her
+fare to the expenses.
+
+One fine morning Israel appeared, transfigured with happiness.
+
+'When does man rejoice most?' he cried. 'When he loses and finds
+again.'
+
+'Ah, then you have got your bedding at last,' I cried, now accustomed
+to his methods of expression. 'I hope you slept well.'
+
+'We could not sleep for blessing you,' he replied unexpectedly. 'As
+the Psalmist says, "All my bones praise the Lord!"'
+
+Not that the matter had gone smoothly even now. The Kazelia gang at
+Rotterdam denied all knowledge of the luggage, sent the girl to the
+railway, where the dues had now mounted to L10 6s. Again the cup was
+dashed from her lips, for I had only given her L9. But she went to the
+Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the balance to repledge the Sabbath
+silver candlesticks that were the one family heirloom in the bundle,
+and therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading with him, in
+came a noble Jew, paid the balance, lodged her and fed her, and saw
+her safely on board with the long-lost treasures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+I BECOME A SORTER
+
+
+As the weeks went by, my satisfaction with the progress I was making
+was largely tempered by the knowledge that after the completion of my
+picture my model would be thrown again on the pavement, and several
+times I fancied I detected him gazing at it sadly as if watching its
+advancing stages with a sort of hopeless fear. My anxiety about him
+and his family grew from day to day, but I could not see any possible
+way of helping him. He was touchingly faithful, anxious to please, and
+uncomplaining either of cold or hunger. Once I gave him a few
+shillings to purchase a second-hand pair of top-boots, which were
+necessary for the picture, and these he was able to procure in the
+Ghetto Sunday market for a minute sum, and he conscientiously returned
+me the balance--about two-thirds.
+
+I happened to have sold an English landscape to Sir Asher Aaronsberg,
+the famous philanthropist and picture-buyer of Middleton, then up in
+town in connection with his Parliamentary duties, and knowing how
+indefatigably he was in touch with the London Jewish charities, I
+inquired whether some committee could not do anything to assist
+Quarriar. Sir Asher was not very encouraging. The man knew no trade.
+However, if he would make application on the form enclosed and answer
+the questions, he would see what could be done. I saw that the details
+were duly filled in--the ages and sex of his five children, etc.
+
+But the committee came to the conclusion that the only thing they
+could do was to repatriate the man. 'Return to Russia!' cried Israel
+in horror.
+
+Occasionally I inquired if any plan for the future had occurred to
+him. But he never raised the subject of his difficulties of his own
+accord, and his very silence, born, as it seemed to me, of the
+majestic dignity of the man, was infinitely pathetic. Now and again
+came a fitful gleam of light. His second daughter would be given a
+week's work for a few shillings by his landlord, a working
+master-tailor in a small way, from whom he now rented two tiny rooms
+on the top floor. But that was only when there was an extra spasm of
+activity. His half-blind daughter would do a little washing, and the
+landlord would allow her the use of the backyard.
+
+At last one day I found he had an idea, and an idea, moreover, that
+was carefully worked out in all its details. The scheme was certainly
+a novel and surprising one to me, but it showed how the art of forcing
+a livelihood amid impossible circumstances had been cultivated among
+these people, forced for centuries to exist under impossible
+conditions.
+
+Briefly his scheme was this. In the innumerable tailors' workshops of
+his district great piles of cuttings of every kind and quality of
+cloth accumulated, and for the purchase of these cuttings a certain
+competition existed among a class of people, known as piece-sorters.
+The sale of these cuttings by weight and for cash brought the
+master-tailors a pleasant little revenue, which was the more prized as
+it was a sort of perquisite. The masters were able to command payment
+for their cuttings in advance, and the sorter would call to collect
+them week by week as they accumulated, till the amount he had advanced
+was exhausted. Quarriar would set up as a piece-sorter, and thus be
+able to employ his daughters too. The whole family would find
+occupation in sorting out their purchases, and each quality and size
+would be readily saleable as raw material, to be woven again into the
+cheaper woollen materials. Through the recommendation of his
+countrymen, there were several tailors who had readily agreed to give
+him the preference. His own landlord in particular had promised to
+befriend him, and even now was allowing his cuttings to accumulate at
+some inconvenience, since he might have had ready money for them.
+Moreover, his friends had introduced him to a very respectable and
+honest sorter, who would take him into partnership, teach him, and
+allow his daughters to partake in the sorting, if he could put down
+twenty pounds! His friends would jointly advance him eight on the
+security of his silver candlesticks, if only he could raise the other
+twelve.
+
+This promising scheme took an incubus off my mind, and I hastened,
+somewhat revengefully, to acquaint the professional philanthropist,
+who had been so barren of ideas, with my intention to set up Quarriar
+as a piece-sorter.
+
+'Ah,' Sir Asher replied, unmoved. 'Then you had better employ my man
+Conn; he does a good deal of this sort of work for me. He will find
+Quarriar a partner and professor.'
+
+'But Quarriar has already found a partner.' I explained the scheme.
+
+'The partner will cheat him. Twenty pounds is ridiculous. Five pounds
+is quite enough. Take my advice, and let it all go through Conn. If I
+wanted my portrait painted, you wouldn't advise me to go to an
+amateur. By the way, here are the five pounds, but please don't tell
+Conn I gave them. I don't believe the money'll do any good, and Conn
+will lose his respect for me.'
+
+My interest in piece-sorting--an occupation I had never even heard of
+before--had grown abnormally, and I had gone into the figures and
+quantities--so many hundredweights, purchased at fifteen shillings,
+sorted into lots, and sold at various prices--with as thorough-going
+an eagerness as if my own livelihood were to depend upon it.
+
+I confess I was now rather bewildered by so serious a difference of
+estimate as to the cost of a partnership, but I was inclined to set
+down Sir Asher's scepticism to that pessimism which is the penalty of
+professional philanthropy.
+
+On the other hand, I felt that whether the partnership was to cost
+five pounds or twenty, Quarriar's future would be safer from Kazelias
+under the auspices of Sir Asher and his Conn. So I handed the latter
+the five pounds, and bade him find Quarriar a guide, philosopher, and
+partner.
+
+With the advent of Conn, all my troubles began, and the picture passed
+into its third and last stage.
+
+I soon elicited that Quarriar and his friends were rather sorry Conn
+had been introduced into the matter. He was alleged to favour some
+people at the expense of others, and to be not at all popular among
+the people amid whom he worked. And altogether it was abundantly clear
+that Quarriar would rather have gone on with the scheme in his own way
+without official interference.
+
+Later, Sir Asher wrote to me direct that the partner put forward by
+the Quarriar faction was a shady customer; Conn had selected his own
+man, but even so there was little hope Quarriar's future would be thus
+provided for.
+
+There seemed, moreover, a note of suspicion of Quarriar sounding
+underneath, but I found comfort in the reflection that to Sir Asher my
+model was nothing more than the usual applicant for assistance,
+whereas to me who had lived for months in daily contact with him he
+was something infinitely more human.
+
+Spring was now nearing; I finished my picture early in March--after
+four months' strenuous labour--shook hands with my model, and received
+his blessing. I was somewhat put out at learning that Conn had not yet
+given him the five pounds necessary to start him, as I had been hoping
+he might begin his new calling immediately the sittings ended. I gave
+him a small present to help tide over the time of waiting.
+
+But that tragic face on my own canvas remained to haunt me, to ask the
+question of his future, and few days elapsed ere I found myself
+starting out to visit him at his home. He lived near Ratcliffe
+Highway, a district which I found had none of that boisterous marine
+romance with which I had associated it.
+
+The house was a narrow building of at least the sixteenth century,
+with the number marked up in chalk on the rusty little door. I
+happened to have stumbled on the Jewish Passover. Quarriar was called
+down, evidently astonished and unprepared for my appearance at his
+humble abode, but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow,
+steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as I climbed up
+after him. On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment,
+intercepted us, introduced himself in English (which he spoke with
+pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took
+possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were
+entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in his
+attic.
+
+He was a strapping young fellow, full of acuteness and vigour--a
+marked contrast to Quarriar's drooping, dignified figure standing
+silently near by, and radiating poverty and suffering all the more in
+the little old panelled room, elegant with a big carved walnut
+cabinet, and gay with chromos and stuffed birds. Effusively the
+master-tailor painted himself as the champion of the poor fellow, and
+protested against this outside partnership that was being imposed on
+him by the notorious Conn. He himself, though he could scarcely afford
+it, was keeping his cuttings for him, in spite of tempting offers from
+other quarters, even of a shilling a sack. But of course he didn't see
+why an outsider foisted upon him by a philanthropic factotum should
+benefit by this goodness of his. He discoursed to me in moved terms of
+the sorrows and privations of his tenants in their two tiny rooms
+upstairs. And all the while Quarriar preserved his attitude of
+drooping dignity, saying no syllable except under special appeal.
+
+The landlord produced a goblet of rum and shrub for the benefit of the
+high-born visitor, and we all clinked glasses, the young master-tailor
+beaming at me unctuously as he set down his glass.
+
+'I love company,' he cried, with no apparent consciousness of impudent
+familiarity.
+
+I returned, however, to my central interest in life--the
+piece-sorting. It occurred to me afterwards that possibly I ought not
+to have insisted on such a secular subject on a Jewish holiday, but,
+after all, the landlord had broached it, and both men now entered most
+cordially into the discussion. The landlord started repeating his
+lament--what a pity it would be if Quarriar were really forced to
+accept Conn's partner--when Quarriar timidly blurted out that he had
+already signed the deed of partnership, though he had not yet received
+the promised capital from Conn, nor spoken over matters with the
+partner provided. The landlord seemed astonished and angry at learning
+this, pricking up his ears curiously at the word 'signed,' and giving
+Quarriar a look of horror.
+
+'Signed!' he cried in Yiddish. '_What_ hast thou signed?'
+
+At this point the landlord's wife joined us in the parlour, with a
+pretty child in her arms and another shy one clinging to her skirts,
+completing the picture of felicity and prosperity, and throwing into
+greater shadow the attic to which I shortly afterwards climbed my way
+up the steep, airless stairs. I was hardly prepared for the depressing
+spectacle that awaited me at their summit. It was not so much the
+shabby, fusty rooms, devoid of everything save a couple of mattresses,
+a rickety wooden table, a chair or two, and a heap of Passover cakes,
+as the unloveliness of the three women who stood there, awkward and
+flushing before their important visitor. The wife-and-mother was
+dwarfed and black-wigged, the daughters were squat, with
+tallow-coloured round faces, vaguely suggestive of Caucasian peasants,
+while the sightless eye of the elder lent a final touch of ugliness.
+
+How little my academic friends know me who imagine I am allured by the
+ugly! It is only that sometimes I see through it a beauty that they
+are blind to. But here I confess I saw nothing but the ghastly misery
+and squalor, and I was oppressed almost to sickness as much by the
+scene as by the atmosphere.
+
+'May I open a window?' I could not help inquiring.
+
+The genial landlord, who had followed in my footsteps, rushed to
+anticipate me, and when I could breathe more freely, I found something
+of the tragedy that had been swallowed in the sordidness. My eye fell
+again on the figure of my host standing in his drooping majesty, the
+droop being now necessary to avoid striking the ceiling with his
+kingly head.
+
+Surely a pretty wife and graceful daughters would have detracted from
+the splendour of the tragedy. Israel stood there, surrounded by all
+that was mean, yet losing nothing of his regal dignity--indeed the Man
+of Sorrows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ere I left I suddenly remembered to ask after the three younger
+children. They were still with their kind benefactor, the father told
+me.
+
+'I suppose you will resume possession of them when you make your
+fortune by the piece-sorting?' I said.
+
+'God grant it,' he replied. 'My bowels yearn for that day.'
+
+Against my intention I slipped into his hand the final seven pounds I
+was prepared to pay. 'If your partnership scheme fails, try again
+alone,' I said.
+
+His blessings pursued me down the steep staircase. His womankind
+remained shy and dumb.
+
+When I got home I found a telegram from the Parsonage. My father was
+dangerously ill. I left everything and hastened to help nurse him. My
+picture was not sent in to any Exhibition--I could not let it go
+without seeing it again, without a last touch or two. When, some
+months later, I returned to town, my first thought--inspired by the
+sight of my picture--was how Quarriar was faring. I left the studio
+and telephoned to Sir Asher Aaronsberg at the London office of his
+great Middleton business.
+
+'That!' His contempt penetrated even through the wires. 'Smashed up
+long ago. Just as I expected.'
+
+And the sneer of the professional philanthropist vibrated
+triumphantly. I was much upset, but ere I could recover my composure
+Sir Asher was cut off. In the evening I received a note saying
+Quarriar was a rogue, who had to flee from Russia for illicit sale of
+spirits. He had only two, at most three, elderly daughters; the three
+younger girls were a myth. For a moment I was staggered; then all my
+faith in Israel returned. Those three children a figment of the
+imagination! Impossible! Why, I remembered countless little anecdotes
+about these very children, told me with the most evident fatherly
+pride. He had even repeated the quaint remarks the youngest had made
+on her return home from her first morning at the English school.
+Impossible that these things could have been invented on the spur of
+the moment. No; I could not possibly doubt the genuineness of my
+model's spontaneous talk, especially as in those days he had had no
+reason for expecting anything from me, and he had most certainly not
+demanded anything. And then I remembered that tragic passage
+describing how these three little ones, sheltered and fed by a kindly
+soul, hid themselves when their father came to see them, fearing to be
+reclaimed by him to hunger and cold. If Quarriar could invent such
+things, he was indeed a poet, for in the whole literature of
+starvation I could recall no better touch.
+
+I went to Sir Asher. He said that Quarriar, challenged by Conn to
+produce these children, had refused to do so, or to answer any further
+questions. I found myself approving of his conduct. 'A man ought not
+to be insulted by such absurd charges,' I said. Sir Asher merely
+smiled and took up his usual unshakable position behind his
+impregnable wall of official distrust and pessimism.
+
+I wrote to Quarriar to call on me without delay. He came immediately,
+his head bowed, his features care-worn and full of infinite suffering.
+Yes, it was true; the piece-sorting had failed. For a few weeks all
+had gone well. He had bought cuttings himself, had given the partner
+thrust upon him by Conn various sums for the same purpose. They had
+worked together, sorting in a cellar rented for the purpose, of which
+his partner kept the key. So smoothly had things gone that he had felt
+encouraged to invest even the reserve seven pounds I had given him,
+but when the cellar was full of their common stock, and his own
+suspicions had been lulled by the regular division of the
+profits--seventeen shillings per week for each--one morning, on
+arriving at the cellar to start the day's work, he found the place
+locked, and when he called at the partner's house for an explanation,
+the man laughed in his face. Everything in the cellar now belonged to
+him, he claimed, insisting that Quarriar had eaten up the original
+capital and his share of the profits besides.
+
+'Besides, it never _was_ your money,' was the rogue's ultimate
+argument. 'Why shouldn't _I_ profit, too, by the Christian's
+simplicity?'
+
+Conn blindly believed his own man, for the transactions had not been
+recorded in writing, and it was only a case of Quarriar's word against
+the partner's. It was the latter who in his venomous craft had told
+Conn the younger children did not exist. But, thank Heaven! his quiver
+was not empty of them. He had blissfully taken them home when
+prosperity began, but now that he was again face to face with
+starvation, they had returned to his hospitable countryman, Nathan
+Beck.
+
+'You are sure you could absolutely produce the little ones?'
+
+He looked grieved at my distrusting him. My faith in his probity was,
+he said with dignity, the one thing he valued in this world. I
+dismissed him with a little to tide him over the next week, thoroughly
+determined that the man's good name should be cleared. The crocodile
+partner must disgorge, and the eyes of my benevolent friend and of
+Conn must be finally opened to the injustice they had unwittingly
+sanctioned. Again I wrote to my friend. As usual, Sir Asher replied
+kindly and without a trace of impatience. Would I get some
+intelligible written statement from Quarriar as to what had taken
+place?
+
+So, at my request, Quarriar sent me a statement in quaint
+English--probably the landlord's--alleging specifically that the
+partner had detained goods and money belonging to Quarriar to the
+amount of L7 9s. 5d., and had assaulted him into the bargain. When the
+partner was threatened with police-court proceedings, he had defied
+Quarriar with the remark that Mr. Conn would bear out his honesty.
+Quarriar could give as references, to show that _he_ was an honest man
+and had made a true statement as to the number of his children, seven
+Russians (named) who would attest that the partner provided by Conn
+was well known as a swindler. Though he was starving, Quarriar refused
+to have anything further to say to Conn. Quarriar further referred to
+his landlord, who would willingly testify to his honesty. But being
+afraid of Conn, and not inclined to commit himself in writing, the
+landlord would give his version verbally.
+
+Against this statement my philanthropic friend had to set another as
+made by the partner. Quarriar, according to this, had received the
+five pounds direct from Conn, and had handed over niggardly sums to
+the partner for the purchase of goods, to wit, two separate sums of
+one pound each (of which he returned to Quarriar thirty-three
+shillings from sales), while Quarriar only gave him as his share of
+the profits for the whole of the five weeks the sum of seventeen
+shillings, instead of the minimum of ten shillings each week that had
+been arranged.
+
+The partner insisted further that he had never handled any money (of
+which Quarriar had always retained full control), and that all the
+goods in the cellar at the time of the quarrel were only of the value
+of ten shillings, to which he was entitled, as Quarriar still owed him
+thirty-three shillings. Moreover, he was willing to repeat in
+Quarriar's presence the lies the latter had tried to persuade him to
+tell. As to the children, he challenged Quarriar to produce them.
+
+In vain I attempted to grapple with these conflicting documents. My
+head was in a whirl. It seemed to me that no judicial bench, however
+eminent, could, from the bare materials presented, probe to the bottom
+of this matter. The arithmetic of both parties was hopelessly beyond
+me. The names of the witnesses introduced showed that there must be
+two camps, and that certainly Quarriar was solidly encamped amid his
+advisers.
+
+The whole business was taking on a most painful complexion, and I was
+torn by conflicting emotions and swayed alternately by suspicion and
+confidence.
+
+How sift the false from the true amid all this tangled mass? And yet
+mere curiosity would not leave me content to go to my grave not
+knowing whether my model was apostle or Ananias. I, too, must then
+become a rag-sorter, dabbling amid dirty fragments. Was there a black
+rag, and was there a white, or were both rags parti-coloured? To take
+only the one point of the children, it would seem a very simple matter
+to determine whether a man has five daughters or two; and yet the more
+I looked into it, the more I saw the complexity. Even if three little
+girls were produced for my inspection, it was utterly impossible for
+me to tell whether they really were the model's. Nor was it open to me
+to repeat the device of Solomon and have them hacked in two to see
+whose heart would be moved.
+
+And then, if Israel's story was false here, what of the rest? Was
+Kazelia also a myth? Did the second daughter ever go to Hamburg? Was
+the landlord's detaining me in the parlour a ruse to gain time for the
+attics to be emptied of any comforts? Where were the silver
+candlesticks? These and other questions surged up torturingly. But I
+remembered the footsore figure on the Brighton pavement; I remembered
+the months he had practically lived with me, the countless
+conversations, and as the Man of Sorrows rose reproachful before me
+from my own canvas, with his noble bowed head, my faith in his dignity
+and probity returned unbroken.
+
+I called on Sir Asher--I had to go to the House of Commons to find
+him--and his practical mind quickly suggested the best course in the
+circumstances. He appointed a date for all parties--himself, myself,
+Conn, the two partners, and any witnesses they might care to bring--to
+appear at his office. But, above all, Quarriar must bring the three
+children with him.
+
+On getting back to my studio, I found Quarriar waiting for me. He was
+come to pour out his heart to me, and to complain that all sorts of
+underhand inquiries were being directed against him, so that he
+scarcely dared to draw breath, so thick was the air with treachery. He
+was afraid that his very friends, who were anxious not to offend Conn
+and Sir Asher, might turn against him. Even his landlord had
+threatened to kick him out, as he had been unable to pay his rent the
+last week or two.
+
+I told him he might expect a letter asking him to attend at Sir
+Asher's office, that I should be there, and he should have an
+opportunity of facing his swindling partner. He welcomed it joyfully,
+and enthusiastically promised to obey the call and bring the children.
+I emptied my purse into his hand--there were three or four pounds--and
+he promised me that quite apart from the old tangle, he could now as
+an expert set up as a piece-sorter himself. And so his kingly figure
+passed out of my sight.
+
+The next document sent me in this _cause celebre_ was a letter from
+Conn to announce that he had made all arrangements for the great
+meeting.
+
+'Sir Asher's private room in his office will be placed at the disposal
+of the inquiry. The original application form filled up by Quarriar
+clearly condemns him. The partner will be there, and I have arranged
+for Quarriar's landlord to appear if you think it necessary. I may
+add that I have very good reason to believe that Quarriar does not
+mean to appear. I fancy he is trying to wriggle out of the
+appointment.'
+
+I at once wrote a short note to Quarriar reminding him of the absolute
+necessity of appearing with the children, who should be even kept away
+from school.
+
+I reproduce the exact reply:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'Referring to your welcome letter, I gratify you very much for
+    the trouble you have taken for me. But I'm sorry to tell you
+    that I refuse to go before the committee according you
+    arranged to, as I received a letter without any name
+    threatening me that I should not dare to call for the
+    committee to tell the truth for I will be put into mischief
+    and trouble. It is stated also that the same gentleman does
+    not require the truth. He helps only those he likes to. So I
+    will not call and wish you my dear gentleman not to trouble to
+    come. Therefore if you wish to assist me in somehow is very
+    good and I will certainly gratify you and if not I will have
+    to do without it, and will have to trust the Almighty. So
+    kindly do not trouble about it as I do not wish to enter a
+    risk, I remain your humble and grateful servant,
+
+                                                'ISRAEL QUARRIAR.
+
+    'P.S.--Last Wednesday a man called on my landlord and asked
+    him some secrets about me, and told him at last that I shall
+    have to state according I will be commanded to and not as I
+    wish. I enclose you herewith the same letter I received, it is
+    written in Jewish. Please not to show it to anyone but to
+    tear it at once as I would not trust it to any other one. I
+    would certainly call at the office and follow your advice. But
+    my life is dearer. So you should not trouble to come. I fear
+    already I gratify you for kind help till now, in the future
+    you may do as you wish.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LAST STAGE OF ALL
+
+
+This letter seemed decisive. I did not trouble Mr. Conn to English the
+Yiddish epistle. My imagination saw too clearly Quarriar himself
+dictating its luridly romantic phraseology. Such counter-plots, coils,
+treasons, and stratagems in so simple a matter! How Quarriar could
+even think them plausible I could not at first imagine; and with my
+anger was mingled a flush of resentment at his low estimate of my
+intellect.
+
+After-reflection instructed me that he wrote as a Russian to whom
+apparently nothing mediaeval was strange. But at the moment I had only
+the sense of outrage and trickery. All these months I had been fed
+upon lies. Day after day I had been swathed with them as with
+feathers. I had so pledged my reputation as a reader of character that
+he would appear with his three younger children, bear every test, and
+be triumphantly vindicated. And in that moment of hot anger and
+wounded pride I had almost slashed through my canvas and mutilated
+beyond redemption that kingly head. But it looked at me sadly with
+its sweet majesty, and I stayed my hand, almost persuaded to have
+faith in it still. I began multiplying excuses for Quarriar, figuring
+him as misled by his neighbours, more skilled than he in playing upon
+philanthropic heart-strings; he had been told, doubtless, that two
+daughters made no impression upon the flinty heart of bureaucratic
+charity, that in order to soften it one must 'increase and multiply.'
+He had got himself into a network of falsehood from which, though his
+better nature recoiled, he had been unable to disentangle himself. But
+then I remembered how even in Russia he had pursued an illegal
+calling, how he had helped a friend to evade military service, and
+again I took up my knife. But the face preserved its reproachful
+dignity, seemed almost to turn the other cheek. Illegal calling! No;
+it was the law that was illegal--the cruel, impossible law, that in
+taking away all means of livelihood had contorted the Jew's
+conscience. It was the country that was illegal--the cruel country
+whose frontiers could only be crossed by bribery and deceit--the
+country that had made him cunning like all weak creatures in the
+struggle for survival. And so, gradually softer thoughts came to me,
+and less unmingled feelings. I could not doubt the general accuracy of
+his melancholy wanderings between Russia and Rotterdam, between London
+and Brighton. And were he spotless as the dove, that only made surer
+the blackness of Kazelia and the partner--his brethren in Israel and
+in the Exile.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so the new Man of Sorrows shaped himself to my vision. And, taking
+my brush, I added a touch here and a touch there till there came into
+that face of sorrows a look of craft and guile. And as I stood back
+from my work, I was startled to see how nearly I had come to a
+photographic representation of my model; for those lines of guile had
+indeed been there, though I had eliminated them in my confident
+misrepresentation. Now that I had exaggerated them, I had idealized,
+so to speak, in the reverse direction. And the more I pondered upon
+this new face, the more I saw that this return to a truer homeliness
+and a more real realism did but enable me to achieve a subtler beauty.
+For surely here at last was the true tragedy of the people of
+Christ--to have persisted sublimely, and to be as sordidly perverted;
+to be king and knave in one; to survive for two thousand years the
+loss of a fatherland and the pressure of persecution, only to wear on
+its soul the yellow badge which had defaced its garments.
+
+For to suffer two thousand years for an idea is a privilege that has
+been accorded only to Israel--'the soldier of God.' That were no
+tragedy, but an heroic epic, even as the prophet Isaiah had
+prefigured. The true tragedy, the saddest sorrow, lay in the martyrdom
+of an Israel _unworthy of his sufferings_. And this was the
+Israel--the high tragedian in the comedy sock--that I tried humbly to
+typify in my Man of Sorrows.
+
+
+
+
+ANGLICIZATION
+
+
+
+
+ANGLICIZATION
+
+    'English, all English, that's my dream.'
+                               CECIL RHODES.
+
+
+I
+
+Even in his provincial days at Sudminster Solomon Cohen had
+distinguished himself by his Anglican mispronunciation of Hebrew and
+his insistence on a minister who spoke English and looked like a
+Christian clergyman; and he had set a precedent in the congregation by
+docking the 'e' of his patronymic. There are many ways of concealing
+from the Briton your shame in being related through a pedigree of
+three thousand years to Aaron, the High Priest of Israel, and Cohn is
+one of the simplest and most effective. Once, taken to task by a
+pietist, Solomon defended himself by the quibble that Hebrew has no
+vowels. But even this would not account for the whittling away of his
+'Solomon.' 'S. Cohn' was the insignium over his clothing
+establishment. Not that he was anxious to deny his Jewishness--was not
+the shop closed on Saturdays?--he was merely anxious not to obtrude
+it. 'When we are in England, we are in England,' he would say, with
+his Talmudic sing-song.
+
+S. Cohn was indeed a personage in the seaport of Sudminster, and his
+name had been printed on voting papers, and, what is more, he had at
+last become a Town Councillor. Really the citizens liked his stanch
+adherence to his ancient faith, evidenced so tangibly by his Sabbath
+shutters: even the Christian clothiers bore him goodwill, not
+suspecting that S. Cohn's Saturday losses were more than
+counterbalanced by the general impression that a man who sacrificed
+business to religion would deal more fairly by you than his fellows.
+And his person, too, had the rotundity which the ratepayer demands.
+
+But twin with his Town Councillor's pride was his pride in being
+_Gabbai_ (treasurer) of the little synagogue tucked away in a back
+street: in which for four generations prayer had ebbed and flowed as
+regularly as the tides of the sea, with whose careless rovers the
+worshippers did such lucrative business. The synagogue, not the sea,
+was the poetry of these eager traffickers: here they wore phylacteries
+and waved palm-branches and did other picturesque things, which in
+their utter ignorance of Catholic or other ritual they deemed
+unintelligible to the heathen and a barrier from mankind. Very
+imposing was Solomon Cohn in his official pew under the reading
+platform, for there is nothing which so enhances a man's dignity in
+the synagogue as the consideration of his Christian townsmen. That is
+one of the earliest stages of Anglicization.
+
+
+II
+
+Mrs. Cohn was a pale image of Mr. Cohn, seeing things through his gold
+spectacles, and walking humbly in the shadow of his greatness. She had
+dutifully borne him many children, and sat on the ground for such as
+died. Her figure refused the Jewess's tradition of opulency, and
+remained slender as though repressed. Her work was manifold and
+unceasing, for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties she was
+necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with Jewish charities as the
+_Gabbai's_ wife, tangled with Christian charities as the consort of
+the Town Councillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching up
+his mistakes, indeed, admonished by him of her slips in speaking the
+Councillor's English. He had had the start of her by five years, for
+she had been brought from Poland to marry him, through the good
+offices of a friend of hers who saw in her little dowry the nucleus of
+a thriving shop in a thriving port.
+
+And from this initial inferiority she never recovered--five milestones
+behind on the road of Anglicization! It was enough to keep down a more
+assertive personality than poor Hannah's. The mere danger of slipping
+back unconsciously to the banned Yiddish put a curb upon her tongue.
+Her large, dark eyes had a dog-like look, and they were set
+pathetically in a sallow face that suggested ill-health, yet immense
+staying power.
+
+That S. Cohn was a bit of a bully can scarcely be denied. It is
+difficult to combine the offices of _Gabbai_ and Town Councillor
+without a self-satisfaction that may easily degenerate into
+dissatisfaction with others. Least endurable was S. Cohn in his
+religious rigidity, and he could never understand that pietistic
+exercises in which he found pleasure did not inevitably produce
+ecstasy in his son and heir. And when Simon was discovered reading
+'The Pirates of Pechili,' dexterously concealed in his prayer-book,
+the boy received a strapping that made his mother wince. Simon's
+breakfast lay only at the end of a long volume of prayers; and, having
+ascertained by careful experiment the minimum of time his father would
+accept for the gabbling of these empty Oriental sounds, he had fallen
+back on penny numbers to while away the hungry minutes. The quartering
+and burning of these tales in an avenging fireplace was not the least
+of the reasons why the whipped youth wept, and it needed several
+pieces of cake, maternally smuggled into his maw while the father's
+back was turned, to choke his sobs.
+
+
+III
+
+With the daughters--and there were three before the son and
+heir--there was less of religious friction, since women have not the
+pious privileges and burdens of the sterner sex. When the eldest,
+Deborah, was married, her husband received, by way of compensation,
+the goodwill of the Sudminster business, while S. Cohn migrated to the
+metropolis, in the ambition of making 'S. Cohn's trouserings' a
+household word. He did, indeed, achieve considerable fame in the
+Holloway Road.
+
+Gradually he came to live away from his business, and in the most
+fashionable street of Highbury. But he was never to recover his
+exalted posts. The London parish had older inhabitants, the local
+synagogue richer members. The cry for Anglicization was common
+property. From pioneer, S. Cohn found himself outmoded. The minister,
+indeed, was only too English--and especially his wife. One would
+almost have thought from their deportment that they considered
+themselves the superiors instead of the slaves of the congregation. S.
+Cohn had been accustomed to a series of clergymen, who must needs be
+taught painfully to parrot 'Our Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, the
+Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the Royal Family'--the
+indispensable atom of English in the service--so that he, the expert,
+had held his breath while they groped and stumbled along the
+precipitous pass. Now the whilom _Gabbai_ and Town Councillor found
+himself almost patronized--as a poor provincial--by this mincing,
+genteel clerical couple. He retorted by animadverting upon the
+preacher's heterodoxy.
+
+An urban unconcern met the profound views so often impressed on Simon
+with a strap. 'We are not in Poland now,' said the preacher, shrugging
+his shoulders.
+
+'In Poland!' S. Cohn's blood boiled. To be twitted with Poland, after
+decades of Anglicization! He, who employed a host of Anglo-Saxon
+clerks, counter-jumpers, and packers! 'And where did _your_ father
+come from?' he retorted hotly.
+
+He had almost a mind to change his synagogue, but there was no other
+within such easy walking distance--an important Sabbatic
+consideration--and besides, the others were reported to be even worse.
+Dread rumours came of a younger generation that craved almost openly
+for organs in the synagogue and women's voices in the choir, nay, of
+even more flagitious spirits--devotional dynamitards--whose dream was
+a service all English, that could be understood instead of chanted!
+Dark mutterings against the ancient Rabbis were in the very air of
+these wealthier quarters of London.
+
+'Oh, shameless ignorance of the new age,' S. Cohn was wont to
+complain, 'that does not know the limits of Anglicization!'
+
+
+IV
+
+That Simon should enter his father's business was as inevitable as
+that the business should prosper in spite of Simon.
+
+His career had been settled ere his father became aware that Highbury
+aspired even to law and medicine, and the idea that Simon's education
+was finished was not lightly to be dislodged. Simon's education
+consisted of the knowledge conveyed in seaport schools for the sons of
+tradesmen, while a long course of penny dreadfuls had given him a
+peculiar and extensive acquaintance with the ways of the world.
+Carefully curtained away in a secret compartment, lay his elementary
+Hebrew lore. It did not enter into his conception of the perfect
+Englishman. Ah, how he rejoiced in this wider horizon of London, so
+thickly starred with music-halls, billiard-rooms, and restaurants!
+'We are emancipated now,' was his cry: 'we have too much intellect to
+keep all those old laws;' and he swallowed the forbidden oyster in a
+fine spiritual glow, which somehow or other would not extend to bacon.
+That stuck more in his throat, and so was only taken in self-defence,
+to avoid the suspicions of a convivial company.
+
+As he sat at his father's side in the synagogue--a demure son of the
+Covenant--this young Englishman lurked beneath his praying-shawl, even
+as beneath his prayer-book had lurked 'The Pirates of Pechili.'
+
+In this hidden life Mrs. S. Cohn was not an aider or abettor, except
+in so far as frequent gifts from her own pocket-money might be
+considered the equivalent of the surreptitious cake of childhood. She
+would have shared in her husband's horror had she seen Simon
+banqueting on unrighteousness, and her apoplexy would have been
+original, not derivative. For her, indeed, London had proved narrowing
+rather than widening. She became part of a parish instead of part of a
+town, and of a Ghetto in a parish at that! The vast background of
+London was practically a mirage--the London suburb was farther from
+London than the provincial town. No longer did the currents of civic
+life tingle through her; she sank entirely to family affairs, excluded
+even from the ladies' committee. Her lord's life, too, shrank, though
+his business extended--the which, uneasily suspected, did but increase
+his irritability. He had now the pomp and pose of his late offices
+minus any visible reason: a Sir Oracle without a shrine, an abdomen
+without authority.
+
+Even the two new sons-in-law whom his ability to clothe them had soon
+procured in London, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed
+under the Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own.
+Home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies
+grew the stronger by compression. He read 'the largest circulation,'
+and his wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions, never
+nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the Boer War
+began.
+
+'The impertinent rascals!' cried S. Cohn furiously. 'They have invaded
+our territory.'
+
+'Is it possible?' ejaculated Mrs. Cohn. 'This comes of our kindness to
+them after Majuba!'
+
+
+V
+
+A darkness began to overhang the destinies of Britain. Three defeats
+in one week!
+
+'It is humiliating,' said S. Cohn, clenching his fist.
+
+'It makes a miserable Christmas,' said Mrs. Cohn gloomily. Although
+her spouse still set his face against the Christmas pudding which had
+invaded so many Anglo-Jewish homes, the festival, with its shop-window
+flamboyance, entered far more vividly into his consciousness than the
+Jewish holidays, which produced no impression on the life of the
+streets.
+
+The darkness grew denser. Young men began to enlist for the front: the
+City formed a new regiment of Imperial Volunteers. S. Cohn gave his
+foreign houses large orders for khaki trouserings. He sent out several
+parcels of clothing to the seat of war, and had the same duly
+recorded in his favourite Christian newspaper, whence it was copied
+into his favourite Jewish weekly, which was, if possible, still more
+chauvinist, and had a full-page portrait of Sir Asher Aaronsberg, M.P.
+for Middleton, who was equipping a local corps at his own expense.
+Gradually S. Cohn became aware that the military fever of which he
+read in both his organs was infecting his clothing emporium--that his
+own counter-jumpers were in heats of adventurous resolve. The military
+microbes must have lain thick in the khaki they handled. At any rate,
+S. Cohn, always quick to catch the contagion of the correct thing,
+announced that he would present a bonus to all who went out to fight
+for their country, and that he would keep their places open for their
+return. The Saturday this patriotic offer was recorded in his
+newspaper--'On inquiry at S. Cohn's, the great clothing purveyor of
+the Holloway Road, our representative was informed that no less than
+five of the young men were taking advantage of their employer's
+enthusiasm for England and the Empire'--the already puffed-up Solomon
+had the honour of being called to read in the Law, and first as
+befitted the sons of Aaron. It was a man restored almost to his
+provincial pride who recited the ancient benediction; 'Blessed art
+Thou, O Lord our God, who hast chosen us from among all peoples and
+given to us His law.'
+
+But there was a drop of vinegar in the cup.
+
+'And why wasn't Simon in synagogue?' he inquired of his wife, as she
+came down the gallery stairs to meet her lord in the lobby, where the
+congregants loitered to chat.
+
+'Do I know?' murmured Mrs. Cohn, flushing beneath her veil.
+
+'When I left the house he said he was coming on.'
+
+'He didn't know you were to be "called up."'
+
+'It isn't that, Hannah,' he grumbled. 'Think of the beautiful
+war-sermon he missed. In these dark days we should be thinking of our
+country, not of our pleasures.' And he drew her angrily without, where
+the brightly-dressed worshippers, lingeringly exchanging eulogiums on
+the 'Rule Britannia' sermon, made an Oriental splotch of colour on the
+wintry pavement.
+
+
+VI
+
+At lunch the reprobate appeared, looking downcast.
+
+'Where have you been?' thundered S. Cohn, who, never growing older,
+imagined Simon likewise stationary.
+
+'I went out for a walk--it was a fine morning.'
+
+'And where did you go?'
+
+'Oh, don't bother!'
+
+'But I shall bother. Where did you go?'
+
+He grew sullen. 'It doesn't matter--they won't have me.'
+
+'Who won't have you?'
+
+'The War Office.'
+
+'Thank God!' broke from Mrs. Cohn.
+
+'Eh?' Mr. Cohn looked blankly from one to the other.
+
+'It is nothing--he went to see the enlisting and all that. Your soup
+is getting cold.'
+
+But S. Cohn had taken off his gold spectacles and was polishing them
+with his serviette--always a sign of a stormy meal.
+
+'It seems to me something has been going on behind my back,' he said,
+looking from mother to son.
+
+'Well, I didn't want to annoy you with Simon's madcap ideas,' Hannah
+murmured. 'But it's all over now, thank God!'
+
+'Oh, he'd better know,' said Simon sulkily, 'especially as I am not
+going to be choked off. It's all stuff what the doctor says. I'm as
+strong as a horse. And, what's more, I'm one of the few applicants who
+can ride one.'
+
+'Hannah, will you explain to me what this _Meshuggas_ (madness) is?'
+cried S. Cohn, lapsing into a non-Anglicism.
+
+'I've got to go to the front, just like other young men!'
+
+'What!' shrieked S. Cohn. 'Enlist! You, that I brought up as a
+gentleman!'
+
+'It's gentlemen that's going--the City Imperial Volunteers!'
+
+'The volunteers! But that's my own clerks.'
+
+'No; there are gentlemen among them. Read your paper.'
+
+'But not rich Jews.'
+
+'Oh, yes. I saw several chaps from Bayswater.'
+
+'We Jews of this favoured country,' put in Hannah eagerly, 'grateful
+to the noble people who have given us every right, every liberty,
+must----'
+
+S. Cohn was taken aback by this half-unconscious quotation from the
+war-sermon of the morning. 'Yes, we must subscribe and all that,' he
+interrupted.
+
+'We must fight,' said Simon.
+
+'You fight!' His father laughed half-hysterically. 'Why, you'd shoot
+yourself with your own gun!' He had not been so upset since the day
+the minister had disregarded his erudition.
+
+'Oh, would I, though?' And Simon pursed his lips and nodded meaningly.
+
+'As sure as to-day is the Holy Sabbath. And you'd be stuck on your own
+bayonet, like an obstinate pig.'
+
+Simon got up and left the table and the room.
+
+Hannah kept back her tears before the servant. 'There!' she said. 'And
+now he's turned sulky and won't eat.'
+
+'Didn't I say an obstinate pig? He's always been like that from a
+baby. But his stomach always surrenders.' He resumed his meal with a
+wronged air, keeping his spectacles on the table, for frequent nervous
+polishing.
+
+Of a sudden the door reopened and a soldier presented himself--gun on
+shoulder. For a moment S. Cohn, devoid of his glasses, stared without
+recognition. Wild hereditary tremors ran through him, born of the
+Russian persecution, and he had a vague nightmare sense of the
+_Chappers_, the Jewish man-gatherers who collected the tribute of
+young Jews for the Little Father. But as Simon began to loom through
+the red fog, 'A gun on the Sabbath!' he cried. It was as if the bullet
+had gone through all his conceptions of life and of Simon.
+
+Hannah snatched at the side-issue. 'I read in Josephus--Simon's prize
+for Hebrew, you know--that the Jews fought against the Romans on
+Sabbath.'
+
+'Yes; but they fought for themselves--for our Holy Temple.'
+
+'But it's for ourselves now,' said Simon. 'Didn't you always say we
+are English?'
+
+S. Cohn opened his mouth in angry retort. Then he discovered he had no
+retort, only anger. And this made him angrier, and his mouth remained
+open, quite terrifyingly for poor Mrs. Cohn.
+
+'What is the use of arguing with him?' she said imploringly. 'The War
+Office has been sensible enough to refuse him.'
+
+'We shall see,' said Simon. 'I am going to peg away at 'em again, and
+if I don't get into the Mounted Infantry, I'm a Dutchman--and of the
+Boer variety.'
+
+He seemed any kind of man save a Jew to the puzzled father. 'Hannah,
+you must have known of this--these clothes,' S. Cohn spluttered.
+
+'They don't cost anything,' she murmured. 'The child amuses himself.
+He will never really be called out.'
+
+'If he is, I'll stop his supplies.'
+
+'Oh,' said Simon airily, 'the Government will attend to that.'
+
+'Indeed!' And S. Cohn's face grew black. 'But remember--you may go,
+but you shall never come back.'
+
+'Oh, Solomon! How can you utter such an awful omen?'
+
+Simon laughed. 'Don't bother, mother. He's bound to take me back.
+Isn't it in the papers that he promised?'
+
+S. Cohn went from black to green.
+
+
+VII
+
+Simon got his way. The authorities reconsidered their decision. But
+the father would not reconsider his. Ignorant of his boy's graceless
+existence, he fumed at the first fine thing in the boy's life. 'Tis a
+wise father that knows his own child.
+
+Mere emulation of his Christian comrades, and the fun of the thing,
+had long ago induced the lad to add volunteering to his other
+dissipations. But, once in it, the love of arms seized him, and when
+the call for serious fighters came, some new passion that surprised
+even himself leapt to his breast--the first call upon an idealism,
+choked, rather than fed, by a misunderstood Judaism. Anglicization had
+done its work; from his schooldays he had felt himself a descendant,
+not of Judas Maccabaeus, but of Nelson and Wellington; and now that his
+brethren were being mowed down by a kopje-guarded foe, his whole soul
+rose in venomous sympathy. And, mixed with this genuine instinct of
+devotion to the great cause of country, were stirrings of anticipated
+adventure, gorgeous visions of charges, forlorn hopes, picked-up
+shells, redoubts stormed; heritages of 'The Pirates of Pechili,' and
+all the military romances that his prayer-book had masked.
+
+He looked every inch an Anglo-Saxon, in his khaki uniform and his
+great slouch hat, with his bayonet and his bandolier.
+
+The night before he sailed for South Africa there was a service in St.
+Paul's Cathedral, for which each volunteer had two tickets. Simon sent
+his to his father. 'The Lord Mayor will attend in state. I dare say
+you'll like to see the show,' he wrote flippantly.
+
+'He'll become a Christian next,' said S. Cohn, tearing the cards in
+twain.
+
+Later, Mrs. Cohn pieced them together. It was the last chance of
+seeing her boy.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Unfortunately the Cathedral service fell on a Friday night, when S.
+Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont to absorb the Sabbath peace. He
+would sit, after high tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime
+ingredient, dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved
+platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January night, the
+Sabbath arriving early in the afternoon, he was snoring before seven,
+and Mrs. Cohn slipped out, risking his wrath. Her religion forced her
+to make the long journey on foot; but, hurrying, she arrived at St.
+Paul's before the doors were opened. And throughout the long walk was
+a morbid sense of one wasted ticket. She almost stopped at a friend's
+house to offer the exciting spectacle, but dread of a religious rebuff
+carried her past. With Christians she was not intimate enough to
+invite companionship. Besides, would not everybody ask why she was
+going without her husband?
+
+She inquired for the door mentioned on her ticket, and soon found
+herself one of a crowd of parents on the steps. A very genteel crowd,
+she noted with pleasure. Her boy would be in good company. The scraps
+of conversation she caught dealt with a world of alien things--how
+little she was Anglicized, she thought, after all those years! And
+when she was borne forward into the Cathedral, her heart beat with a
+sense of dim, remote glories. To have lived so long in London and
+never to have entered here! She was awed and soothed by the solemn
+vistas, the perspectives of pillars and arches, the great nave, the
+white robes of the choir vaguely stirring a sense of angels, the
+overarching dome, defined by a fiery rim, but otherwise suggesting
+dim, skyey space.
+
+Suddenly she realized that she was sitting among the men. But it did
+not seem to matter. The building kept one's thoughts religious. Around
+the waiting congregation, the human sea outside the Cathedral
+rumoured, and whenever the door was opened to admit some dignitary the
+roar of cheering was heard like a salvo saluting his entry. The Lord
+Mayor and the Aldermen passed along the aisle, preceded by
+mace-bearers; and mingled with this dazzle of gilded grandeur and
+robes, was a regretful memory of the days when, as a Town Councillor's
+consort, she had at least touched the hem of this unknown historic
+English life. The skirl of bagpipes shrilled from without--that
+exotic, half-barbarous sound now coming intimately into her life. And
+then, a little later, the wild cheers swept into the Cathedral like a
+furious wind, and the thrill of the marching soldiers passed into the
+air, and the congregation jumped up on the chairs and craned towards
+the right aisle to stare at the khaki couples. How she looked for
+Simon!
+
+The volunteers filed on, filed on--beardless youths mostly, a few with
+a touch of thought in the face, many with the honest nullity of the
+clerk and the shopman, some with the prizefighter's jaw, but every
+face set and serious. Ah! at last, there was her Simon--manlier,
+handsomer than them all! But he did not see her: he marched on
+stiffly; he was already sucked up into this strange life. Her heart
+grew heavy. But it lightened again when the organ pealed out. The
+newspapers the next day found fault with the plain music, with the
+responses all in monotone, but to her it was divine. Only the words of
+the opening hymn, which she read in the 'Form of Prayer,' discomforted
+her:
+
+    'Fight the good fight with all thy might,
+    Christ is thy Strength and Christ thy Right'
+
+But the bulk of the liturgy surprised her, so strangely like was it to
+the Jewish. The ninety-first Psalm! Did they, then, pray the Jewish
+prayers in Christian churches? 'For He shall give His angels charge
+over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.' Ah! how she prayed that for
+Simon!
+
+As the ecclesiastical voice droned on, unintelligibly, inaudibly, in
+echoing, vaulted space, she studied the hymns and verses, with their
+insistent Old Testament savour, culminating in the farewell blessing:
+
+'The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon
+you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the light of His
+countenance upon you and give you peace.'
+
+How often she had heard it in Hebrew from the priests as they blessed
+the other tribes! Her husband himself had chanted it, with uplifted
+palms and curiously grouped fingers. But never before had she felt its
+beauty: she had never even understood its words till she read the
+English of them in the gilt-edged Prayer-Book that marked rising
+wealth. Surely there had been some monstrous mistake in conceiving the
+two creeds as at daggers drawn, and though she only pretended to kneel
+with the others, she felt her knees sinking in surrender to the larger
+life around her.
+
+As the volunteers filed out and the cheers came in, she wormed her way
+nearer to the aisle, scrambling even over backs of chairs in the
+general mellay. This time Simon saw her. He stretched out his martial
+arm and blew her a kiss. Oh, delicious tears, full of heartbreak and
+exaltation! This was their farewell.
+
+She passed out into the roaring crowd, with a fantastic dream-sense of
+a night-sky and a great stone building, dark with age and solemnity,
+and unreal figures perched on railings and points of vantage, and
+hurrahing hordes that fused themselves with the procession and became
+part of its marching. She yearned forwards to vague glories, aware of
+a poor past. She ran with the crowd. How they cheered her boy! _Her_
+boy! She saw him carried off on the shoulders of Christian citizens.
+Yes; he was a hero. She was the mother of a hero.
+
+
+IX
+
+The first news she got from him was posted at St. Vincent. He wrote to
+her alone, with a jocose hope that his father would be satisfied with
+his sufferings on the voyage. Not only had the sea been rough, but he
+had suffered diabolically from the inoculation against enteric fever,
+which, even after he had got his sea-legs, kept him to his berth and
+gave him a 'Day of Atonement' thirst.
+
+'Ah!' growled S. Cohn; 'he sees what a fool he's been, and he'll take
+the next boat back.'
+
+'But that would be desertion.'
+
+'Well, he didn't mind deserting the business.'
+
+Mr. Cohn's bewilderment increased with every letter. The boy was
+sleeping in sodden trenches, sometimes without blankets; and instead of
+grumbling at that, his one grievance was that the regiment was not
+getting to the front. Heat and frost, hurricane and dust-storm--nothing
+came amiss. And he described himself as stronger than ever, and poured
+scorn on the medical wiseacre who had tried to refuse him.
+
+'All the same,' sighed Hannah, 'I do hope they will just be used to
+guard the lines of communication.' She was full of war-knowledge
+acquired with painful eagerness, prattled of Basuto ponies and Mauser
+bullets, pontoons and pom-poms, knew the exact position of the armies,
+and marked her war-map with coloured pins.
+
+Simon, too, had developed quite a literary talent under the pressure
+of so much vivid new life, and from his cheery letters she learned
+much that was not in the papers, especially in those tense days when
+the C.I.V.'S did at last get to the front--and remained there: tales
+of horses mercifully shot, and sheep mercilessly poisoned, and oxen
+dropping dead as they dragged the convoys; tales of muddle and
+accident, tales of British soldiers slain by their own protective
+cannon as they lay behind ant-heaps facing the enemy, and British
+officers culled under the very eyes of the polo-match; tales of
+hospital and camp, of shirts turned sable and putties worn to rags,
+and all the hidden miseries of uncleanliness and insanitation that
+underlie the glories of war. There were tales, too, of quarter-rations;
+but these she did not read to her husband, lest the mention of
+'bully-beef' should remind him of how his son must be eating forbidden
+food. Once, even, two fat pigs were captured at a hungry moment for the
+battalion. But there came a day when S. Cohn seized those letters and
+read them first. He began to speak of his boy at the war--nay, to read
+the letters to enthralled groups in the synagogue lobby--groups that
+swallowed without reproach the _tripha_ meat cooked in Simon's
+mess-tin.
+
+It was like being _Gabbai_ over again.
+
+Moreover, Simon's view of the Boer was so strictly orthodox as to give
+almost religious satisfaction to the proud parent. 'A canting
+hypocrite, a psalm-singer and devil-dodger, he has no civilization
+worth the name, and his customs are filthy. Since the great trek he
+has acquired, from long intercourse with his Kaffir slaves, many of
+the native's savage traits. In short, a born liar, credulous and
+barbarous, crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn.'
+
+'Crassly ignorant and inconceivably stubborn,' repeated S. Cohn,
+pausing impressively. 'Haven't I always said that? The boy only bears
+out what I knew without going there. But hear further! "Is it to be
+wondered at that the Boer farmer, hidden in the vast undulations of
+the endless veldt, with his wife, his children and his slaves, should
+lose all sense of proportion, ignorant of the outside world, his sole
+knowledge filtering through Jo-burgh?"'
+
+As S. Cohn made another dramatic pause, it was suddenly borne in on
+his wife with a stab of insight that he was reading a description of
+himself--nay, of herself, of her whole race, hidden in the great
+world, awaiting some vague future of glory that never came. The
+important voice of her husband broke again upon her reflections:
+
+'"He has held many nights of supplication to his fetish, and is still
+unconvinced that his God of Battles is asleep."' The reader chuckled,
+and a broad smile overspread the synagogue lobby. '"They are
+brave--oh, yes, but it is not what we mean by it--they are good
+fighters, because they have Dutch blood at the back of them, and a
+profound contempt for us. Their whole life has been spent on the open
+veldt (we are always fighting them on somebody's farm, who knows every
+inch of the ground), and they never risk anything except in the trap
+sort of manoeuvres. The brave rush of our Tommies is unknown to them,
+and their slim nature would only see the idiocy of walking into a
+death-trap, cool as in a play. Were there ever two races less alike?"'
+wound up the youthful philosopher in his tent. '"I really do not see
+how they are to live together after the war."'
+
+'That's easy enough,' S. Cohn had already commented to his wife as
+oracularly as if she did not read the same morning paper.
+'Intermarriage! In a generation or two there will be one fine
+Anglo-African race. That's the solution--mark my words. And you can
+tell the boy as much--only don't say I told you to write to him.'
+
+'Father says I'm to tell you intermarriage is the solution,' Mrs. Cohn
+wrote obediently. 'He really is getting much softer towards you.'
+
+'Tell father that's nonsense,' Simon wrote back. 'The worst
+individuals we have to deal with come from a Boer mother and an
+English father, deposited here by the first Transvaal war.'
+
+S. Cohn snorted angrily at the message. 'That was because there were
+two Governments--he forgets there will be only one United Empire now.'
+
+He was not appeased till Private Cohn was promoted, and sent home a
+thrilling adventure, which the proud reader was persuaded by the lobby
+to forward to the communal organ. The organ asked for a photograph to
+boot. Then S. Cohn felt not only _Gabbai_, but town councillor again.
+
+This wonderful letter, of which S. Cohn distributed printed copies to
+the staff of the Emporium with a bean-feast air, ran:
+
+    'We go out every day--I am speaking of my own squadron--each
+    officer taking his turn with twenty to fifty men, and sweep
+    round the farms a few miles out; and we seldom come back
+    without seeing Boers hanging round on the chance of a snipe at
+    our flanks, or waiting to put up a trap if we go too far. The
+    local commando fell on our cattle-guard the other day--a
+    hundred and fifty to our twenty-five--and we suffered; it was
+    a horrible bit of country. There was a young chap,
+    Winstay--rather a pal of mine--he had a narrow squeak, knocked
+    over by a shot in his breast. I managed to get him safe back
+    to camp--Heaven knows how!--and they made me a lance-corporal,
+    and the beggar says I saved his life; but it was really
+    through carrying a fat letter from his sister--not even his
+    sweetheart. We chaff him at missing such a romantic chance.
+    He got off with a flesh wound, but there is a great blot of
+    red ink on the letter. You may imagine we were not anxious to
+    let our comrades go unavenged. My superiors being sick or
+    otherwise occupied, I was allowed to make a night-march with
+    thirty-five men on a farm nine miles away--just to get square.
+    It was a nasty piece of work, as we were within a few miles of
+    the Boer laager, three hundred strong. There was moonlight,
+    too--it was like a dream, that strange, silent ride, with only
+    the stumble of a horse breaking the regular thud of the hoofs.
+    We surrounded the farm in absolute silence, dismounting some
+    thousand yards away, and fixing bayonets. I told the men I
+    wanted no shots--that would have brought down the
+    commando--but cold steel and silence. We crept up and swept
+    the farm--it was weird, but, alas! they were out on the loot.
+    The men were furious, but we live in hopes.'
+
+The end was a trifle disappointing, but S. Cohn, too, lived in
+hopes--of some monstrous and memorable butchery. Even his wife had got
+used to the firing-line, now that neither shot nor shell could harm
+her boy. 'For He shall give His angels charge over thee.' She had come
+to think her secret daily repetition of the ninety-first Psalm
+talismanic.
+
+When Simon sent home the box which had held the chocolates presented
+by the Queen, a Boer bullet, and other curios, S. Cohn displayed them
+in his window, and the crowd and the business they brought him put him
+more and more in sympathy with Simon and the Empire. In conversation
+he deprecated the non-militarism of the Jew: 'If I were only a
+younger man myself, sir....'
+
+The night Mafeking was relieved, the Emporium was decorated with
+bunting from roof to basement, and a great illuminated window revealed
+nothing but stacks of khaki trouserings.
+
+So that, although the good man still sulked over Simon to his wife,
+she was not deceived; and, the time drawing nigh for Simon's return,
+she began to look happily forward to a truly reunited family.
+
+In her wildest anxiety it never occurred to her that it was her
+husband who would die. Yet this is what the irony of fate brought to
+pass. In the unending campaign which death wages with life, S. Cohn
+was slain, and Simon returned unscratched from the war to recite the
+_Kaddish_ in his memory.
+
+
+X
+
+Simon came back bronzed and a man. The shock of finding his father
+buried had supplied the last transforming touch; and, somewhat to his
+mother's surprise, he settled down contentedly to the business he had
+inherited. And now that he had practically unlimited money to spend,
+he did not seem to be spending it, but to be keeping better hours than
+when dodging his father's eye. His only absences from home he
+accounted for as visits to Winstay, his pal of the campaign, with whom
+he had got chummier than ever since the affair of the cattle-guard.
+Winstay, he said, was of good English family, with an old house in
+Harrow--fortunately on the London and North Western Railway, so that
+he could easily get a breath of country air on Saturday and Sunday
+afternoons. He seemed to have forgotten (although the Emporium was
+still closed on Saturdays) that riding was forbidden, and his mother
+did not remind him of it. The life that had been risked for the larger
+cause, she vaguely felt as enfranchised from the limitations of the
+smaller.
+
+Nearly two months after Simon's return, a special military service was
+held at the Great Synagogue on the feast of _Chanukah_--the
+commemoration of the heroic days of Judas Maccabaeus--and the Jewish
+C.I.V.'s were among the soldiers invited. Mrs. Cohn, too, got a ticket
+for the imposing ceremony which was fixed for a Sunday afternoon.
+
+As they sat at the midday meal on the exciting day, Mrs. Cohn said
+suddenly: 'Guess who paid me a visit yesterday.'
+
+'Goodness knows,' said Simon.
+
+'Mr. Sugarman.' And she smiled nervously.
+
+'Sugarman?' repeated Simon blankly.
+
+'The--the--er--the matrimonial agent.'
+
+'What impudence! Before your year of mourning is up!'
+
+Mrs. Cohn's sallow face became one flame. 'Not me! You!' she blurted.
+
+'Me! Well, of all the cheek!' And Simon's flush matched his mother's.
+
+'Oh, it's not so unreasonable,' she murmured deprecatingly. 'I suppose
+he thought you would be looking for a wife before long; and
+naturally,' she added, her voice growing bolder, 'I should like to see
+you settled before I follow your father. After all, you are no
+ordinary match. Sugarman says there isn't a girl in Bayswater, even,
+who would refuse you.'
+
+'The very reason for refusing them,' cried Simon hotly. 'What a
+ghastly idea, that your wife would just as soon have married any other
+fellow with the same income!'
+
+Mrs. Cohn cowered under his scorn, yet felt vaguely exalted by it, as
+by the organ in St. Paul's, and strange tears of shame came to
+complicate her emotions further. She remembered how she had been
+exported from Poland to marry the unseen S. Cohn. Ah! how this new
+young generation was snapping asunder the ancient coils! how the new
+and diviner sap ran in its veins!
+
+'I shall only marry a girl I love, mother. And it's not likely to be
+one of these Jewish girls, I tell you frankly.'
+
+She trembled. 'One of which Jewish girls?' she faltered.
+
+'Oh, any sort. They don't appeal to me.'
+
+Her face grew sallower. 'I am glad your father isn't alive to hear
+that,' she breathed.
+
+'But father said intermarriage is the solution,' retorted Simon.
+
+Mrs. Cohn was struck dumb. 'He was thinking how to make the Boers
+English,' she said at last.
+
+'And didn't he say the Jews must be English, too?'
+
+'Aren't there plenty of Jewish girls who are English?' she murmured
+miserably.
+
+'You mean, who don't care a pin about the old customs? Then where's
+the difference?' retorted Simon.
+
+The meal finished in uncomfortable silence, and Simon went off to don
+his khaki regimentals and join in the synagogue parade.
+
+Mrs. Cohn's heart was heavy as she dressed for the same spectacle. Her
+brain was busy piecing it all together. Yes, she understood it all
+now--those sedulous Saturday and Sunday afternoons at Harrow. She
+lived at Harrow, then, this Christian, this grateful sister of the
+rescued Winstay: it was she who had steadied his life; hers were those
+'fat letters,' faintly aromatic. It must be very wonderful, this
+strange passion, luring her son from his people with its forbidden
+glamour. How Highbury would be scandalized, robbed of so eligible a
+bridegroom! The sons-in-law she had enriched would reproach her for
+the shame imported into the family--they who had cleaved to the Faith!
+And--more formidable than all the rest--she heard the tongue of her
+cast-off seaport, to whose reverence or disesteem she still
+instinctively referred all her triumphs and failures.
+
+Yet, on the other hand, surged her hero-son's scorn at the union by
+contract consecrated by the generations! But surely a compromise could
+be found. He should have love--this strange English thing--but could
+he not find a Jewess? Ah, happy inspiration! he should marry a quite
+poor Jewess--he had money enough, thank Heaven! That would show him he
+was not making a match, that he was truly in love.
+
+But this strange girl at Harrow--he would never be happy with her! No,
+no; there were limits to Anglicization.
+
+
+XI
+
+It was not till she was seated in the ancient synagogue, relieved from
+the squeeze of entry in the wake of soldiers and the exhilaration of
+hearing 'See the Conquering Hero comes' pealing, she knew not whence,
+that she woke to the full strangeness of it all, and to the
+consciousness that she was actually sitting among the men--just as in
+St. Paul's. And what men! Everywhere the scarlet and grey of uniforms,
+the glister of gold lace--the familiar decorous lines of devout
+top-hats broken by glittering helmets, bear-skins, white nodding
+plumes, busbies, red caps a-cock, glengarries, all the colour of the
+British army, mixed with the feathered jauntiness of the Colonies and
+the khaki sombreros of the C.I.V.'s! Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards,
+Dragoon Guards, Lancers, Hussars, Artillery, Engineers, King's Royal
+Rifles, all the corps that had for the first time come clearly into
+her consciousness in her tardy absorption into English realities, Jews
+seemed to be among them all. And without conscription--oh, what would
+poor Solomon have thought of that?
+
+The Great Synagogue itself struck a note of modern English gaiety, as
+of an hotel dining-room, freshly gilded, divested of its historic
+mellowness, the electric light replacing the ancient candles and
+flooding the winter afternoon with white resplendence. The
+pulpit--yes, the pulpit--was swathed in the Union Jack; and looking
+towards the box of the _Parnass_ and _Gabbai_, she saw it was occupied
+by officers with gold sashes. Somebody whispered that he with the
+medalled breast was a Christian Knight and Commander of the Bath--'a
+great honour for the synagogue!' What! were Christians coming to
+Jewish services, even as she had gone to Christian? Why, here was
+actually a white cross on an officer's sleeve.
+
+And before these alien eyes, the cantor, intoning his Hebrew chant on
+the steps of the Ark, lit the great many-branched _Chanukah_
+candlestick. Truly, the world was changing under her eyes.
+
+And when the Chief Rabbi went toward the Ark in his turn, she saw that
+he wore a strange scarlet and white gown (military, too, she imagined
+in her ignorance), and--oh, even rarer sight!--he was followed by a
+helmeted soldier, who drew the curtain revealing the ornate Scrolls of
+the Law.
+
+And amid it all a sound broke forth that sent a sweetness through her
+blood. An organ! An organ in the Synagogue! Ah! here indeed was
+Anglicization.
+
+It was thin and reedy even to _her_ ears, compared with that divine
+resonance in St. Paul's: a tinkling apology, timidly disconnected from
+the congregational singing, and hovering meekly on the borders of the
+service--she read afterwards that it was only a harmonium--yet it
+brought a strange exaltation, and there was an uplifting even to tears
+in the glittering uniforms and nodding plumes. Simon's eyes met his
+mother's, and a flash of the old childish love passed between them.
+
+There was a sermon--the text taken with dual appropriateness from the
+Book of Maccabees. Fully one in ten of the Jewish volunteers, said the
+preacher, had gone forth to drive out the bold invader of the Queen's
+dominions. Their beloved country had no more devoted citizens than
+the children of Israel who had settled under her flag. They had been
+gratified, but not surprised, to see in the Jewish press the names of
+more than seven hundred Jews serving Queen and country. Many more had
+gone unrecorded, so that they had proportionally contributed more
+soldiers--from Colonel to bugler-boy--than their mere numbers would
+warrant. So at one in spirit and ideals were the Englishman and the
+Jew whose Scriptures he had imbibed, that it was no accident that the
+Anglophobes of Europe were also Anti-Semites.
+
+And then the congregation rose, while the preacher behind the folds of
+the Union Jack read out the names of the Jews who had died for England
+in the far-off veldt. Every head was bent as the names rose on the
+hushed air of the synagogue. It went on and on, this list, reeking
+with each bloody historic field, recalling every regiment, British or
+colonial; on and on in the reverent silence, till a black pall seemed
+to descend, inch by inch, overspreading the synagogue. She had never
+dreamed so many of her brethren had died out there. Ah! surely they
+were knit now, these races: their friendship sealed in blood!
+
+As the soldiers filed out of synagogue, she squeezed towards Simon and
+seized his hand for an instant, whispering passionately: 'My lamb,
+marry her--we are all English alike.'
+
+Nor did she ever know that she had said these words in Yiddish!
+
+
+XII
+
+Now came an enchanting season of confidences; the mother, caught up in
+the glow of this strange love, learning to see the girl through the
+boy's eyes, though the only aid to his eloquence was the photograph of
+a plump little blonde with bewitching dimples. The time was not ripe
+yet for bringing Lucy and her together, he explained. In fact, he
+hadn't actually proposed. His mother understood he was waiting for the
+year of mourning to be up.
+
+'But how will you be married?' she once asked.
+
+'Oh, there's the registrar,' he said carelessly.
+
+'But can't you make her a proselyte?' she ventured timidly.
+
+He coloured. 'It would be absurd to suddenly start talking religion to
+her.'
+
+'But she knows you're a Jew.'
+
+'Oh, I dare say. I never hid it from her brother, so why shouldn't she
+know? But her father's a bit of a crank, so I rather avoid the
+subject.'
+
+'A crank? About Jews?'
+
+'Well, old Winstay has got it into his noddle that the Jews are
+responsible for the war--and that they leave the fighting to the
+English. It's rather sickening: even in South Africa we are not
+treated as we should be, considering----'
+
+Her dark eye lost its pathetic humility. 'But how can he say that,
+when you yourself--when you saved his----'
+
+'Well, I suppose just because he knows I _was_ fighting, he doesn't
+think of me as a Jew. It's a bit illogical, I know.' And he smiled
+ruefully. 'But, then, logic is not the old boy's strong point.'
+
+'He seemed such a nice old man,' said Mrs. Cohn, as she recalled the
+photograph of the white-haired cherub writing with a quill at a
+property desk.
+
+'Oh, off his hobby-horse he's a dear old boy. That's why I don't help
+him into the saddle.'
+
+'But how can he be ignorant that we've sent seven hundred at least to
+the war?' she persisted. 'Why, the paper had all their photographs!'
+
+'What paper?' said Simon, laughing. 'Do you suppose he reads the
+Jewish what's-a-name, like you? Why, he's never heard of it!'
+
+'Then you ought to show him a copy.'
+
+'Oh, mother!' and he laughed again. 'That would only prove to him
+there are too many Jews everywhere.'
+
+A cloud began to spread over Mrs. Cohn's hard-won content. But
+apparently it only shadowed her own horizon. Simon was as happily full
+of his Lucy as ever.
+
+Nevertheless, there came a Sunday evening when Simon returned from
+Harrow earlier than his wont, and Hannah's dog-like eye noted that the
+cloud had at last reached his brow.
+
+'You have had a quarrel?' she cried.
+
+'Only with the old boy.'
+
+'But what about?'
+
+'The old driveller has just joined some League of Londoners for the
+suppression of the immigrant alien.'
+
+'But you should have told him we all agree there should be
+decentralization,' said Mrs. Cohn, quoting her favourite Jewish
+organ.
+
+'It isn't that--it's the old fellow's vanity that's hurt. You see, he
+composed the "Appeal to the Briton," and gloated over it so
+conceitedly that I couldn't help pointing out the horrible
+contradictions.'
+
+'But Lucy----' his mother began anxiously.
+
+'Lucy's a brick. I don't know what my life would have been without the
+little darling. But listen, mother.' And he drew out a portentous
+prospectus. 'They say aliens should not be admitted unless they
+produce a certificate of industrial capacity, and in the same breath
+they accuse them of taking the work away from the British workman. Now
+this isn't a Jewish question, and I didn't raise it as such--just a
+piece of muddle--and even as an Englishman I can't see how we can
+exclude Outlanders here after fighting for the Outland----'
+
+'But Lucy----' his mother interrupted.
+
+His vehement self-assertion passed into an affectionate smile.
+
+'Lucy was dimpling all over her face. She knows the old boy's vanity.
+Of course she couldn't side with me openly.'
+
+'But what will happen? Will you go there again?'
+
+The cloud returned to his brow. 'Oh, well, we'll see.'
+
+A letter from Lucy saved him the trouble of deciding the point.
+
+    'DEAR SILLY OLD SIM,' it ran,
+
+    'Father has been going on dreadfully, so you had better wait a
+    few Sundays till he has cooled down. After all, you yourself
+    admit there is a grievance of congestion and high rents in the
+    East End. And it is only natural--isn't it?--that after
+    shedding our blood and treasure for the Empire we should not
+    be in a mood to see our country overrun by dirty aliens.'
+
+'Dirty!' muttered Simon, as he read. 'Has she seen the Christian
+slums--Flower and Dean Street?' And his handsome Oriental brow grew
+duskier with anger. It did not clear till he came to:
+
+    'Let us meet at the Crystal Palace next Saturday, dear
+    quarrelsome person. Three o'clock, in the Pompeian Room. I
+    _have_ got an aunt at Sydenham, and I _can_ go in to tea after
+    the concert and hear all about the missionary work in the
+    South Sea Islands.'
+
+
+XIII
+
+Ensued a new phase in the relation of Simon and Lucy. Once they had
+met in freedom, neither felt inclined to revert to the restricted
+courtship of the drawing-room. Even though their chat was merely of
+books and music and pictures, it was delicious to make their own
+atmosphere, untroubled by the flippancy of the brother or the
+earnestness of the father. In the presence of Lucy's artistic
+knowledge Simon was at once abashed and stimulated. She moved in a
+delicate world of symphonies and silver-point drawings of whose very
+existence he had been unaware, and reverence quickened the sense of
+romance which their secret meetings had already enhanced.
+
+Once or twice he spoke of resuming his visits to Harrow, but the
+longer he delayed the more difficult the conciliatory visit grew.
+
+'Father is now deeper in the League than ever,' she told him. 'He has
+joined the committee, and the prospectus has gone forth in all its
+glorious self-contradiction.'
+
+'But, considering I am the son of an alien, and I have fought for----'
+
+'There, there! quarrelsome person,' she interrupted laughingly. 'No,
+no, no, you had better not come till you can forget your remote
+genealogy. You see, even now father doesn't quite realize you are a
+Jew. He thinks you have a strain of Jewish blood, but are in every
+other respect a decent Christian body.'
+
+'Christian!' cried Simon in horror.
+
+'Why not? You fought side by side with my brother; you ate ham with
+us.'
+
+Simon blushed hotly. 'But, Lucy, you don't think religion is ham?'
+
+'What, then? Merely Shem?' she laughed.
+
+Simon laughed too. How clever she was! 'But you know I never could
+believe in the Trinity and all that. And, what's more, I don't believe
+you do yourself.'
+
+'It isn't exactly what one believes. I was baptized into the Church of
+England--I feel myself a member. Really, Sim, you are a dreadfully
+argumentative and quarrelsome person.'
+
+'I'll never quarrel with you, Lucy,' he said half entreatingly; for
+somehow he felt a shiver of cold at the word 'baptized,' as though
+himself plunged into the font.
+
+In this wise did both glide away from any deep issue or decision till
+the summer itself glided away. Mrs. Cohn, anxiously following the
+courtship through Sim's love-smitten eyes, her suggestion that the
+girl be brought to see her received with equal postponement, began to
+fret for the great thing to come to pass. One cannot be always
+heroically stiffened to receive the cavalry of communal criticism.
+Waiting weakens the backbone. But she concealed from her boy these
+flaccid relapses.
+
+'You said you'd bring her to see me when she returned from the
+seaside,' she ventured to remind him.
+
+'So I did; but now her father is dragging her away to Scotland.'
+
+'You ought to get married the moment she gets back.'
+
+'I can't expect her to rush things--with her father to square. Still,
+you are not wrong, mother. It's high time we came to a definite
+understanding between ourselves at least.'
+
+'What!' gasped Mrs. Cohn. 'Aren't you engaged?'
+
+'Oh, in a way, of course. But we've never said so in so many words.'
+
+For fear this should be the 'English' way, Mrs. Cohn forbore to remark
+that the definiteness of the Sugarman method was not without
+compensations. She merely applauded Simon's more sensible mood.
+
+But Mrs. Cohn was fated to a further season of fret. Day after day the
+'fat letters' arrived with the Scottish postmark and the faint perfume
+that always stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance--something
+far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses and the salt of
+tears. And still the lover, floating in his golden mist, vouchsafed
+her no definite news.
+
+One night she found him restive beyond his wont. She knew the reason.
+For two days there had been no scented letter, and she saw how he
+started at every creak of the garden-gate, as he waited for the last
+post. When at length a step was heard crunching on the gravel, he
+rushed from the room, and Mrs. Cohn heard the hall-door open. Her ear,
+disappointed of the rat-tat, morbidly followed every sound; but it
+seemed a long time before her boy's returning footstep reached her.
+The strange, slow drag of it worked upon her nerves, and her heart
+grew sick with premonition.
+
+He held out the letter towards her. His face was white. 'She cannot
+marry me, because I am a Jew,' he said tonelessly.
+
+'Cannot marry you!' she whispered huskily. 'Oh, but this must not be!
+I will go to the father; I will explain! You saved his son--he owes
+you his daughter.'
+
+He waved her hopelessly back to her seat--for she had started up. 'It
+isn't the father, it's herself. Now that I won't let her drift any
+longer, she can't bring herself to it. She's honest, anyway, my little
+Lucy. She won't fall back on the old Jew-baiter.'
+
+'But how dare she--how dare she think herself above you!' Her dog-like
+eyes were blazing yet once again.
+
+'Why are you Jews surprised?' he said bitterly. 'You've held yourself
+aloof from the others long enough, God knows. Yet you wonder they've
+got their prejudices, too.'
+
+And, suddenly laying his head on the table, he broke into sobs--sobs
+that tore at his mother's heart, that were charged with memories of
+his ancient tears, of the days of paternal wrath and the rending of
+'The Pirates of Pechili.' And, again, as in the days when his boyish
+treasures were changed to ashes, she stole towards him, with an
+involuntary furtive look to see if S. Cohn's back was turned, and laid
+her hands upon his heaving shoulders. But he shook her off! 'Why
+didn't a Boer bullet strike me down?' Then with a swift pang of
+remorse he raised his contorted face and drew hers close against
+it--their love the one thing saved from Anglicization.
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY
+
+
+
+
+THE JEWISH TRINITY
+
+
+I
+
+With the Christian Mayoress of Middleton to take in to dinner at Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg's, Leopold Barstein as a Jewish native of that
+thriving British centre, should have felt proud and happy. But
+Barstein was young and a sculptor, fresh from the Paris schools and
+Salon triumphs. He had long parted company with Jews and Judaism, and
+to his ardent irreverence even the Christian glories of Middleton
+seemed unspeakably parochial. In Paris he had danced at night on the
+Boule Miche out of sheer joy of life, and joined in choruses over
+midnight bocks; and London itself now seemed drab and joyless, though
+many a gay circle welcomed the wit and high spirits and even the
+physical graces of this fortunate young man who seemed to shed a
+blonde radiance all around him. The factories of Middleton, which had
+manufactured Sir Asher Aaronsberg, ex-M.P., and nearly all his wealthy
+guests, were to his artistic eye an outrage upon a beautiful planet,
+and he was still in that crude phase of juvenile revolt in which one
+speaks one's thoughts of the mess humanity has made of its world. But,
+unfortunately, the Mayoress of Middleton was deafish, so that he
+could not even shock her with his epigrams. It was extremely
+disconcerting to have his bland blasphemies met with an equally bland
+smile. On his other hand sat Mrs. Samuels, the buxom and highly
+charitable relict of 'The People's Clothier,' whose ugly pictorial
+posters had overshadowed Barstein's youth. Little wonder that the
+artist's glance frequently wandered across the great shining table
+towards a girl who, if they had not been so plaguily intent on
+honouring his fame, might have now been replacing the Mayoress at his
+side. True, the girl was merely a Jewess, and he disliked the breed.
+But Mabel Aaronsberg was unexpected. She had a statuesque purity of
+outline and complexion; seemed, indeed, worthy of being a creation of
+his own. How the tedious old manufacturer could have produced this
+marmoreal prodigy provided a problem for the sculptor, as he almost
+silently ate his way through the long and exquisite menu.
+
+Not that Sir Asher himself was unpicturesque. Indeed, he was the very
+picture of the bluff and burly Briton, white-bearded like Father
+Christmas. But he did not seem to lead to yonder vision of poetry and
+purity. Lady Aaronsberg, who might have supplied the missing link, was
+dead--before even arriving at ladyship, alas!--and when she was alive
+Barstein had not enjoyed the privilege of moving in these high
+municipal circles. This he owed entirely to his foreign fame, and to
+his invitation by the Corporation to help in the organization of a
+local Art Exhibition.
+
+'I do admire Sir Asher,' the Mayoress broke in suddenly upon his
+reflections; 'he seems to me exactly like your patriarchs.'
+
+A Palestinian patriarch was the last person Sir Asher, with his
+hovering lackeys, would have recalled to the sculptor, who, in so far
+as the patriarchs ever crossed his mind, conceived them as resembling
+Rembrandt's Rabbis. But he replied blandly: 'Our patriarchs were
+polygamists.'
+
+'Exactly,' assented the deaf Mayoress.
+
+Barstein, disconcerted, yearned to repeat his statement in a shout,
+but neither the pitch nor the proposition seemed suitable to the
+dinner-table. The Mayoress added ecstatically: 'You can imagine him
+sitting at the door of his tent, talking with the angels.'
+
+This time Barstein did shout, but with laughter. All eyes turned a bit
+enviously in his direction. 'You're having all the fun down there,'
+called out Sir Asher benevolently; and the bluff Briton--even to the
+northerly burr--was so vividly stamped upon Barstein's mind that he
+wondered the more that the Mayoress could see him as anything but the
+prosy, provincial, whilom Member of Parliament he so transparently
+was. 'A mere literary illusion,' he thought. 'She has read the Bible,
+and now reads Sir Asher into it. As well see a Saxon pirate or a
+Norman jongleur in a modern Londoner.'
+
+As if to confirm Barstein's vision of the bluff and burly Briton, Sir
+Asher was soon heard over the clatter of conversation protesting
+vehemently against the views of Tom Fuller, the degenerate son of a
+Tory squire.
+
+'Give Ireland Home Rule?' he was crying passionately. 'Oh, my dear Mr.
+Fuller, it would be the beginning of the end of our Empire!'
+
+'But the Irish have as much right to govern themselves as we have!'
+the young Englishman maintained.
+
+'They would not so much govern themselves as misgovern the Protestant
+minority,' cried Sir Asher, becoming almost epigrammatic in his
+excitement. 'Home Rule simply means the triumph of Roman Catholicism.'
+
+It occurred to the cynical Barstein that even the defeat of Roman
+Catholicism meant no victory for Judaism, but he stayed his tongue
+with a salted almond. Let the Briton make the running. This the young
+gentleman proceeded to do at a great pace.
+
+'Then how about Home Rule for India? There's no Catholic majority
+there!'
+
+'Give up India!' Sir Asher opened horrified eyes. This heresy was new
+to him. 'Give up the brightest jewel in the British crown! And let the
+Russian bear come and swallow it up! No, no! A thousand times no!' Sir
+Asher even gestured with his fork in his patriotic fervour, forgetting
+he was not on the platform.
+
+'So I imagine the patriarchs to have talked!' said the Mayoress,
+admiringly observing his animation. Whereat the sculptor laughed once
+more. He was amused, too, at the completeness with which the lion of
+Judah had endued himself with the skin of the British lion. To a
+cosmopolitan artist this bourgeois patriotism was peculiarly
+irritating. But soon his eyes wandered again towards Miss Aaronsberg,
+and he forgot trivialities.
+
+
+II
+
+The end of the meal was punctuated, not by the rising of the ladies,
+but by the host's assumption of a black cap, which popped up from his
+coat-tail pocket. With his head thus orientally equipped for prayer,
+Sir Asher suddenly changed into a Rembrandtesque figure, his white
+beard hiding the society shirtfront; and as he began intoning the
+grace in Hebrew, the startled Barstein felt that the Mayoress had at
+least a superficial justification. There came to him a touch of new
+and artistic interest in this prosy, provincial ex-M.P., who,
+environed by powdered footmen, sat at the end of his glittering
+dinner-table uttering the language of the ancient prophets; and he
+respected at least the sturdiness with which Miss Aaronsberg's father
+wore his faith, like a phylactery, on his forehead. It said much for
+his character that these fellow-citizens of his had once elected him
+as their Member, despite his unpopular creed and race, and were now
+willing to sit at his table under this tedious benediction. Sir Asher
+did not even let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by a
+wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as was visible it
+was only the Jewish guests--comically distinguished by serviettes
+shamefacedly dabbed on their heads--who fidgeted under the pious
+torrent. These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians whose
+precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. In the host's
+son Julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. He had
+brought back from Oxford a contempt for his father's creed which was
+patent to every Jew save Sir Asher. Barstein, observing all this
+uneasiness, became curiously angry with his fellow-Jews, despite that
+he had scrupulously forborne to cover his own head with his serviette;
+a racial pride he had not known latent in him surged up through all
+his cosmopolitanism, and he maliciously trusted that the brave Sir
+Asher would pray his longest. He himself had been a tolerable Hebraist
+in his forcedly pious boyhood, and though he had neither prayed nor
+heard any Hebrew prayers for many a year, his new artistic interest
+led him to listen to the grace, and to disentangle the meaning from
+the obscuring layers of verbal association and from the peculiar chant
+enlivened by occasional snatches of melody with which it was intoned.
+
+How he had hated this grace as a boy--this pious task-work that almost
+spoilt the anticipation of meals! But to-night, after so long an
+interval, he could look at it without prejudice, and with artistic
+aloofness render to himself a true impression of its spiritual value.
+
+'_We thank Thee, O Lord our God, because Thou didst give as an
+heritage unto our fathers a desirable, good, and ample land, and
+because Thou didst bring us forth, O Lord our God, from the land of
+Egypt, and didst deliver us from the house of bondage----_'
+
+Barstein heard no more for the moment; the paradox of this
+retrospective gratitude was too absorbing. What! Sir Asher was
+thankful because over three thousand years ago his ancestors had
+obtained--not without hard fighting for it--a land which had already
+been lost again for eighteen centuries. What a marvellous long memory
+for a race to have!
+
+Delivered from the house of bondage, forsooth! Sir Asher, himself--and
+here a musing smile crossed the artist's lips--had never even known a
+house of bondage, unless, indeed, the House of Commons (from which he
+had been delivered by the Radical reaction) might be so regarded, and
+his own house was, as he was fond of saying, Liberty Hall. But that
+the Russian Jew should still rejoice in the redemption from Egypt! O
+miracle of pious patience! O sublime that grazed the ridiculous!
+
+But Sir Asher was still praying on:
+
+'_Have mercy, O Lord our God, upon Israel Thy people, upon Jerusalem
+Thy city, upon Zion the abiding place of Thy glory, upon the kingdom
+of the house of David, Thine anointed...._'
+
+Barstein lost himself in a fresh reverie. Here was indeed the
+Palestinian patriarch. Not with the corporation of Middleton, nor the
+lobbies of Westminster, not with his colossal business, not even with
+the glories of the British Empire, was Sir Asher's true heart. He had
+but caught phrases from the environment. To his deepest self he was
+not even a Briton. '_Have mercy, O Lord, upon Israel Thy people._'
+Despite all his outward pomp and prosperity, he felt himself one of
+that dispersed and maltreated band of brothers who had for eighteen
+centuries resisted alike the storm of persecution and the sunshine of
+tolerance, and whose one consolation in the long exile was the dream
+of Zion. The artist in Barstein began to thrill. What more fascinating
+than to catch sight of the dreamer beneath the manufacturer, the
+Hebrew visionary behind the English M.P.!
+
+This palatial dwelling-place with its liveried lackeys was, then, no
+fort of Philistinism in which an artist must needs asphyxiate, but a
+very citadel of the spirit. A new respect for his host began to steal
+upon him. Involuntarily he sought the face of the daughter; the
+secret of her beauty was, after all, not so mysterious. Old Asher had
+a soul, and 'the soul is form and doth the body make.'
+
+Unconscious of the effect he was producing on the sensitive artist,
+the Rembrandtesque figure prayed on: '_And rebuild Jerusalem, the holy
+city, speedily and in our days...._'
+
+It was the climax of the romance that had so strangely stolen over the
+British dinner-table. Rebuild Jerusalem to-day! Did Jews really
+conceive it as a contemporary possibility? Barstein went hot and cold.
+The idea was absolutely novel to him; evidently as a boy he had not
+understood his own prayers or his own people. All his imagination was
+inflamed. He conjured up a Zion built up by such virile hands as Sir
+Asher's, and peopled by such beautiful mothers as his daughter: the
+great Empire that would spring from the unity and liberty of a race
+which even under dispersion and oppression was one of the most potent
+peoples on the planet. And thus, when the ladies at last rose, he was
+in so deep a reverie that he almost forgot to rise too, and when he
+did rise, he accompanied the ladies outside the door. It was only Miss
+Aaronsberg's tactful 'Don't you want to smoke?' that saved him.
+
+'Almost as long a grace as the dinner!' Tom Fuller murmured to him as
+he returned to the table. 'Do the Jews say that after every meal?'
+
+'They're supposed to,' Barstein replied, a little jarred as he picked
+up a cigar.
+
+'No wonder they beat the Christians,' observed the young Radical, who
+evidently took original views. 'So much time for digestion would
+enable any race to survive in this age of quick lunches. In America,
+now they should rule the roast. Literally,' he added, with a laugh.
+
+'It's a beautiful grace,' said Barstein rebukingly. 'The glamour of
+Zion thrown over the prose of diet.'
+
+'You're not a Jew?' said Tom, with a sudden suspicion.
+
+'Yes, I am,' the artist replied with a dignity that surprised himself.
+
+'I should never have taken you for one!' said Tom ingenuously.
+
+Despite himself, Barstein felt a thrill of satisfaction. 'But why?' he
+asked himself instantly. 'To feel complimented at not being taken for
+a Jew--what does it mean? Is there a core of anti-Semitism in my
+nature? Has our race reached self-contempt?'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' Tom went on. 'I didn't mean to be irreverent. I
+appreciate the picturesqueness of it all--hearing the very language of
+the Bible, and all that. And I do sympathize with your desire for
+Jewish Home Rule.'
+
+'My desire?' murmured the artist, taken aback. Sir Asher here
+interrupted them by pressing his '48 port upon both, and directing the
+artist's attention in particular to the pictures that hung around the
+stately dining-room. There was a Gainsborough, a Reynolds, a Landseer.
+He drew Barstein round the walls.
+
+'I am very fond of the English school,' he said. His cap was back in
+his coat-tail, and he had become again the bluff and burly Briton.
+
+'You don't patronize the Italians at all?' asked the artist.
+
+'No,' said Sir Asher. He lowered his voice. 'Between you and I,' said
+he--it was his main fault of grammar--'in Italian art one is never
+safe from the Madonna, not to mention her Son.' It was a fresh
+reminder of the Palestinian patriarch. Sir Asher never discussed
+theology except with those who agreed with him. Nor did he ever,
+whether in private or in public, breathe an unfriendly word against
+his Christian fellow-citizens. All were sons of the same Father, as he
+would frequently say from the platform. But in his heart of hearts he
+cherished a contempt, softened by stupefaction, for the arithmetical
+incapacity of Trinitarians.
+
+Christianity under any other aspect did not exist for him. It was a
+blunder impossible to a race with a genius for calculation. 'How can
+three be one?' he would demand witheringly of his cronies. The
+question was in his eye now as he summed up Italian art to the
+sculptor, and a faint smile twitching about his lips invited his
+fellow-Jew to share with him his feeling of spiritual and intellectual
+superiority to the poor blind Christians at his table, as well as to
+Christendom generally.
+
+But the artist refused to come up on the pedestal. 'Surely the Madonna
+was a very beautiful conception,' he said.
+
+Sir Asher looked startled. 'Ah yes, you are an artist,' he remembered.
+'You think only of the beautiful outside. But how can there be
+three-in-one or one-in-three?'
+
+Barstein did not reply, and Sir Asher added in a low scornful tone:
+'Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance.'
+
+
+III
+
+A sudden commission recalled Barstein to town before he could even pay
+his after-dinner call. But the seed sown in his soul that evening was
+not to be stifled. This seed was nothing less than the idea of a
+national revival of his people. He hunted up his old prayer-books, and
+made many discoveries as his modern consciousness depolarized page
+upon page that had never in boyhood been anything to him but a series
+of syllables to be gabbled off as rapidly as possible, when their
+meaning was not still further overlaid by being sung slowly to a tune.
+'I might as well have turned a prayer-wheel,' he said regretfully, as
+he perceived with what iron tenacity the race beaten down by the Roman
+Empire and by every power that had reigned since, had preserved its
+aspiration for its old territory. And this mystery of race and blood,
+this beauty of unforgetting aspiration, was all physically incarnate
+in Mabel Aaronsberg.
+
+He did not move one inch out of his way to see her, because he saw her
+all day long. She appeared all over his studio in countless designs in
+clay. But from this image of the beauty of the race, his deepening
+insight drove him to interpret the tragedy also, and he sought out
+from the slums and small synagogues of the East End strange forlorn
+figures, with ragged curls and wistful eyes. It was from one of these
+figures that he learnt to his astonishment that the dream of Zion,
+whereof he imagined himself the sole dreamer, was shared by myriads,
+and had even materialized into a national movement.
+
+He joined the movement, and it led him into strange conventicles. He
+was put on a committee which met in a little back-room, and which at
+first treated him and his arguments with deference, soon with
+familiarity, and occasionally with contempt. Hucksters and
+cigar-makers held forth much more eloquently on their ideals than he
+could, with far greater command of Talmudic quotation, while their
+knowledge of how to run their local organization was naturally
+superior. But throughout all the mean surroundings, the petty
+wrangles, and the grotesque jealousies that tarnished the movement he
+retained his inner exaltation. He had at last found himself and found
+his art. He fell to work upon a great Michel-angelesque figure of the
+awakening genius of his people, blowing the trumpet of resurrection.
+It was sent for exhibition to a Zionist Congress, where it caused a
+furore, and where the artist met other artists who had long been
+working under the very inspiration which was so novel to him, and
+whose work was all around him in plaque and picture, in bust and book,
+and even postcard. Some of them were setting out for Palestine to
+start a School of Arts and Crafts.
+
+Barstein began to think of joining them. Meantime the Bohemian circles
+which he had adorned with his gaiety and good-fellowship had been
+wondering what had become of him. His new work in the Exhibitions
+supplied a sort of answer, and the few who chanced to meet him
+reported dolefully that he was a changed man. Gone was the
+light-hearted and light-footed dancer of the Paris pavement. Silent
+the licentious wit of the neo-Pagan. This was a new being with
+brooding brow and pained eyes that lit up only when they beheld his
+dream. Never had Bohemia known such a transformation.
+
+
+IV
+
+But a change came over the spirit of the dream. Before he could
+seriously plan out his journey to Palestine, he met Mabel Aaronsberg
+in the flesh. She was staying in town for the season in charge of an
+aunt, and the meeting occurred in one of the galleries of the newer
+art, in front of Mabel's own self in marble. She praised the Psyche
+without in the least recognising herself, and Barstein, albeit
+disconcerted, could not but admit how far his statue was from the
+breathing beauty of the original.
+
+After this the Jewish borderland of Bohemia, where writers and
+painters are courted, began to see Barstein again. But, unfortunately,
+this was not Mabel's circle, and Barstein was reduced to getting
+himself invited to that Jewish Bayswater, his loathing for which had
+not been overcome even by his new-found nationalism. Here, amid
+hundreds of talking and dancing shadows, with which some shadowy self
+of his own danced and talked, he occasionally had a magic hour of
+reality--with Mabel.
+
+One could not be real and not talk of the national dream. Mabel, who
+took most of her opinions from her brother Julius, was frankly
+puzzled, though her marmoreal gift of beautiful silence saved her
+lover from premature shocks. She had, indeed, scarcely heard of such
+things. Zionism was something in the East End. Nobody in her class
+ever mentioned it. But, then, Barstein was a sculptor and strange,
+and, besides, he did not look at all like a Jew, so it didn't sound so
+horrible in his mouth. His lithe figure stood out almost Anglo-Saxon
+amid the crowds of hulking undersized young men, and though his
+manners were not so good as a Christian's--she never forgot his
+blunder at her father's dinner-party--still, he looked up to one with
+almost a Christian's adoration, instead of sizing one up with an
+Oriental's calculation. These other London Jews thought her
+provincial, she knew, whereas Barstein had one day informed her she
+was universal. Julius, too, had admired Barstein's sculpture, the
+modern note in which had been hailed by the Oxford elect. But what
+most fascinated Mabel was the constant eulogy of her lover's work in
+the Christian papers; and when at last the formal proposal came, it
+found her fearful only of her father's disapproval.
+
+'He's so orthodox,' she murmured, as they sat in a rose-garlanded
+niche at a great Jewish Charity Ball, lapped around by waltz-music and
+the sweetness of love confessed.
+
+'Well, I'm not so wicked as I was,' he smiled.
+
+'But you smoke on the Sabbath, Leo--you told me.'
+
+'And you told me your brother Julius does the same.'
+
+'Yes, but father doesn't know. If Julius wants to smoke on Friday
+evening, he always goes to his own room.'
+
+'And I shan't smoke in your father's.'
+
+'No--but you'll tell him. You're so outspoken.'
+
+'Well, I won't tell him--unless he asks me.'
+
+She looked sad. 'He won't ask you--he'll never get as far.'
+
+He smiled confidently. 'You're not very encouraging, dear; what's the
+matter with me?'
+
+'Everything. You're an artist, with all sorts of queer notions. And
+you're not so'--she blushed and hesitated--'not so rich----'
+
+He pressed her fingers. 'Yes, I am; I'm the richest man here.'
+
+A little delighted laugh broke from her lips, though they went on:
+'But you told me your profits are small--marble is so dear.'
+
+'So is celibacy. I shall economize dreadfully by marrying.'
+
+She pouted; his flippancy seemed inadequate to the situation, and he
+seemed scarcely to realize that she was an heiress. But he continued
+to laugh away her fears. She was so beautiful and he was so
+strong--what could stand between them? Certainly not the Palestinian
+patriarch with whose inmost psychology he had, fortunately, become in
+such cordial sympathy.
+
+But Mabel's pessimism was not to be banished even by the supper
+champagne. They had secured a little table for two, and were
+recklessly absorbed in themselves.
+
+'At the worst, we can elope to Palestine,' he said at last, gaily
+serious.
+
+Mabel shuddered. 'Live entirely among Jews!' she cried.
+
+The radiance died suddenly out of his face; it was as if she had
+thrust the knife she was wielding through his heart. Her silent
+reception of his nationalist rhapsodies he had always taken for
+agreement.
+
+Nor might Mabel have undeceived him had his ideas remained Platonic.
+Their irruption into the world of practical politics, into her own
+life, was, however, another pair of shoes. Since Barstein had brought
+Zionism to her consciousness, she had noted that distinguished
+Christians were quite sympathetic, but this was the one subject on
+which Christian opinion failed to impress Mabel. 'Zionism's all very
+well for Christians--they're in no danger of having to go to
+Palestine,' she had reflected shrewdly.
+
+'And why couldn't you live entirely among Jews?' Barstein asked
+slowly.
+
+Mabel drew a great breath, as if throwing off a suffocating weight.
+'One couldn't breathe,' she explained.
+
+'Aren't you living among Jews now?'
+
+'Don't look so glum, silly. You don't want Jews as background as well
+as foreground. A great Ghetto!' And again she shuddered instinctively.
+
+'Every other people is background as well as foreground. And you don't
+call France a Ghetto or Italy a Ghetto?' There was anti-Semitism, he
+felt--unconscious anti-Semitism--behind Mabel's instinctive repugnance
+to an aggregation of Jews. And he knew that her instinct would be
+shared by every Jew in that festive aggregation around him. His heart
+sank. Never--even in those East End back-rooms where the pitiful
+disproportion of his consumptive-looking collaborators to their great
+task was sometimes borne in dismally upon him--had he felt so black a
+despair as in this brilliant supper-room, surrounded by all that was
+strong and strenuous in the race--lawyers and soldiers, and men of
+affairs, whose united forces and finances could achieve almost
+anything they set their heart upon.
+
+'Jews can't live off one another,' Mabel explained with an air of
+philosophy.
+
+Barstein did not reply. He was asking himself with an artist's
+analytical curiosity whence came this suicidal anti-Semitism. Was it
+the self-contempt natural to a race that had not the strength to build
+and fend for itself? No, alas! it did not even spring from so
+comparatively noble a source. It was merely a part of their general
+imitation of their neighbours--Jews, reflecting everything, had
+reflected even the dislike for the Jew; only since the individual
+could not dislike himself, he applied the dislike to the race. And
+this unconscious assumption of the prevailing point of view was
+quickened by the fact that the Jewish firstcomers were always aware of
+an existence on sufferance, with their slowly-won privileges
+jeopardized if too many other Jews came in their wake. He consulted
+his own pre-Zionist psychology. 'Yes,' he decided. 'Every Jew who
+moves into our country, our city, our watering-place, our street even,
+seems to us an invader or an interloper. He draws attention to us, he
+accentuates our difference from the normal, he increases the chance of
+the renewal of _Rishus_ (malice). And so we become anti-Semites
+ourselves. But by what a comical confusion of logic is it that we
+carry over the objection to Jewish aggregation even to an aggregation
+in Palestine, in our own land! Or is it only too logical? Is it that
+the rise of a Jewish autonomous power would be a standing reminder to
+our fellow-citizens that we others are not so radically British or
+German or French or American as we have vaunted ourselves? Are we
+afraid of being packed off to Palestine and is the fulfilment of the
+dream of eighteen centuries our deadliest dread?'
+
+The thought forced from him a sardonic smile.
+
+'And I feared you were like King Henry--never going to smile again.'
+Mabel smiled back in relief.
+
+'We're such a ridiculous people,' he answered, his smile fading into
+sombreness. 'Neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.'
+
+'Well, finish your good white fowl,' laughed Mabel. She had felt her
+hold over him slipping, and her own apprehensions now vanished in the
+effort to banish his gloom.
+
+But she had only started him on a new tack. 'Fowl!' he cried grimly.
+'_Kosher_, of course, but with bits of fried _Wurst_ to ape the scraps
+of bacon. And presently we shall be having water ices to simulate
+cream. We can't even preserve our dietary individuality. Truly said
+Feuerbach, "Der Mensch ist was er isst." In Palestine we shall at
+least dare to be true to our own gullets.' He laughed bitterly.
+
+'You're not very romantic,' Mabel pouted. Indeed, this Barstein, whose
+mere ideal could so interrupt the rhapsodies due to her admissions of
+affection, was distinctly unsatisfactory. She touched his hand
+furtively under the tablecloth.
+
+'After all, she is very young,' he thought, thrilling. And youth was
+plastic--he, the sculptor, could surely mould her. Besides, was she
+not Sir Asher's daughter? She must surely have inherited some of his
+love for Palestine and his people. It was this Philistine set that had
+spoiled her. Julius, too, that young Oxford prig--he reflected
+illogically--had no doubt been a baleful influence.
+
+'Shall I give you some almond-pudding?' he replied tenderly.
+
+Mabel laughed uneasily. 'I ask for romance, and you offer me
+almond-pudding. Oh, I _should_ like to go to a Jewish party where
+there wasn't almond-pudding!'
+
+'You shall--in Palestine,' he laughed back.
+
+She pouted again. 'All roads lead to Palestine.'
+
+'They do,' he said seriously. 'Without Palestine our past is a
+shipwreck and our future a quicksand.'
+
+She looked frightened again. 'But what should we do there? We can't
+pray all day long.'
+
+'Of course not,' he said eagerly. 'There's the new generation to train
+for its glorious future. I shall teach in the Arts and Crafts School.
+_Bezalel_, it's called; isn't that a beautiful name? It's from
+Bezalel, the first man mentioned in the Bible as filled with Divine
+wisdom and understanding in all manner of workmanship.'
+
+She shook her head. 'You'll be excommunicated. The Palestine Rabbis
+always excommunicate everything and everybody.'
+
+He laughed. 'What do you know about Palestine?'
+
+'More than you think. Father gets endless letters from there with
+pressed flowers and citrons, and olive-wood boxes and paper-knives--a
+perennial shower. The letters are generally in the most killing
+English. And he won't let me laugh at them because he has a vague
+feeling that even Palestine spelling and grammar are holy.'
+
+Barstein laughed again. 'We'll send all the Rabbis to Jericho.'
+
+She smiled, but retorted: 'That's where they'll send you, you maker of
+graven images. Why, your very profession is forbidden.'
+
+'I'll corner 'em with this very Bezalel text. The cutting of stones is
+just one of the arts which God says He had inspired Bezalel with.
+Besides, you forget my statue at the Bale Congress.'
+
+'Bale isn't Palestine. There's nothing but superstition and squalor,
+and I'm sorry to say father's always bolstering it all up with his
+cheques.'
+
+'Bravo, Sir Asher! Unconsciously he has been bolstering up the
+eventual Renaissance. Your father and his kind have kept the seed
+alive; we shall bring it to blossom.'
+
+His prophetic assurance cast a fresh shade of apprehension over her
+marmoreal brow. But her face lightened with a sudden thought. 'Well,
+perhaps, after all, we shan't need to elope.'
+
+'I never thought for a moment we should,' he answered as cheerfully.
+'But, all the same, we can spend our honeymoon in Palestine.'
+
+'Oh, I don't mind that,' said Mabel. 'Lots of Christians do that.
+There was a Cook's party went out from Middleton for last Easter.'
+
+The lover was too pleased with her acquiescence in the Palestinian
+honeymoon to analyse the terms in which it was given. He looked into
+her eyes, and saw there the _Shechinah_--the Divine glory that once
+rested on Zion.
+
+
+V
+
+It was in this happier mood that Barstein ran down to Middleton to
+plead his suit verbally with Sir Asher Aaronsberg. Mabel had feared to
+commit their fates to a letter, whether from herself or her lover. A
+plump negative would be so difficult to fight against. A personal
+interview permitted one to sound the ground, to break the thing
+delicately, to reason, to explain, to charm away objections. It was
+clearly the man's duty to face the music.
+
+Not that Barstein expected anything but the music of the Wedding
+March. He was glad that his original contempt for Sir Asher had been
+exchanged for sincere respect, and that the bluff Briton was a mere
+veneer. It was to the Palestinian patriarch that he would pour out his
+hopes and his dreams.
+
+Alas! he found only the bluff Briton, and a Briton no longer genially,
+but bluntly, bluff.
+
+'It is perfectly impossible.'
+
+Barstein, bewildered, pleaded for enlightenment. Was he not pious
+enough, or not rich enough, too artistic or too low-born? Or did Sir
+Asher consider his past life improper or his future behaviour dubious?
+Let Sir Asher say.
+
+But Sir Asher would not say. 'I am not bound to give my reasons. We
+are all proud of your work--it confers honour on our community. The
+Mayor alluded to it only yesterday.' He spoke in his best platform
+manner. 'But to receive you into my family--that is another matter.'
+
+And all the talk advanced things no further.
+
+'It would be an entirely unsuitable match.' Sir Asher caressed his
+long beard with an air of finality.
+
+With a lover's impatience, Barstein had made the mistake of seeking
+Sir Asher in his counting-house, where the municipal magnate sat among
+his solidities. The mahogany furniture, the iron safes, the ledgers,
+the silent obsequious clerks and attendants through whom Barstein had
+had to penetrate, the factory buildings stretching around, with their
+sense of throbbing machinery and disciplined workers, all gave the
+burly Briton a background against which visions and emotions seemed as
+unreal as ghosts under gaslight. The artist felt all this solid life
+closing round him like the walls of a torture-chamber, squeezing out
+his confidence, his aspirations, his very life.
+
+'Then you prefer to break your daughter's heart!' he cried
+desperately.
+
+'Break my daughter's heart!' echoed Sir Asher in amaze. It was
+apparently a new aspect to him.
+
+'You don't suppose she won't suffer dreadfully?' Barstein went on,
+perceiving his advantage.
+
+'Break her heart!' repeated Sir Asher, startled out of his discreet
+reticence. 'I'd sooner break her heart than see her married to a
+Zionist!'
+
+This time it was the sculptor's turn to gasp.
+
+'To a what?' he cried.
+
+'To a Zionist. You don't mean to deny you're a Zionist?' said Sir
+Asher sternly.
+
+Barstein gazed at him in silence.
+
+'Come, come,' said Sir Asher. 'You don't suppose I don't read the
+Jewish papers? I know all about your goings-on.'
+
+The artist found his tongue. 'But--but,' he stammered, 'you yearn for
+Zion too.'
+
+'Naturally. But I don't presume to force the hand of Providence.'
+
+'How can any of us force Providence to do anything it doesn't want to?
+Surely it is through human agency that Providence always works. God
+helps those who help themselves.'
+
+'Spare me your blasphemies. Perhaps you think you are the Messiah.'
+
+'I can be an atom of Him. The whole Jewish people is its own
+Messiah--God working through it.'
+
+'Take care, young man; you'll be talking Trinity next. And with these
+heathen notions you expect to marry my daughter! You must excuse me if
+I wish to hear no further.' His hand began to wander towards the row
+of electric bells on his desk.
+
+'Then how do you suppose we shall ever get to Palestine?' inquired the
+irritated artist.
+
+Sir Asher raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'In God's good time,' he
+said.
+
+'And when will that be?'
+
+'When we are either too good or too bad for our present sphere. To-day
+we are too neutral. Besides, there will be signs enough.'
+
+'What signs?'
+
+'Read your Bible. Mount Zion will be split by an earthquake, as the
+prophet----'
+
+Barstein interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 'But why can't we
+go to Jerusalem and wait for the earthquake there?' he asked.
+
+'Because we have a mission to the nations. We must live dispersed. We
+have to preach the unity of God.'
+
+'I have never heard you preach it. You lowered your voice when you
+denounced the Trinity to me, lest the Christians should hear.'
+
+'We have to preach silently, by our example. Merely by keeping our own
+religion we convert the world.'
+
+'But who keeps it? Dispersion among Sunday-keeping peoples makes our
+very Sabbath an economic impossibility.'
+
+'I have not found it so,' said Sir Asher crushingly. 'Indeed, the
+growth of the Saturday half-holiday since my young days is a
+remarkable instance of Judaizing.'
+
+'So we have to remain dispersed to promote the week-end holiday?'
+
+'To teach international truth,' Sir Asher corrected sharply; 'not
+narrow tribalism.'
+
+'But we don't remain dispersed. Five millions are herded in the
+Russian Pale to begin with.'
+
+'The Providence of God has long been scattering them to New York.'
+
+'Yes, four hundred thousand in one square mile. A pretty scattering!'
+
+Sir Asher flushed angrily. 'But they go to the Argentine too. I heard
+of a colony even in Paraguay.'
+
+'Where they are preaching the Unity to the Indians.'
+
+'I do not discuss religion with a mocker. We are in exile by God's
+decree--we must suffer.'
+
+'Suffer!' The artist's glance wandered cynically round the snug
+solidities of Sir Asher's exile, but he forbore to be personal. 'Then
+if we _must_ suffer, why did you subscribe so much to the fund for the
+Russian Jews?'
+
+Sir Asher looked mollified at Barstein's acquaintance with his
+generosity. 'That I might suffer with them,' he replied, with a touch
+of humour.
+
+'Then you _are_ a Jewish patriot,' retorted Barstein.
+
+The bluff British face grew clouded again.
+
+'Heaven forbid. I only know of British patriots. You talk treason to
+your country, young man.'
+
+'Treason--I!' The young man laughed bitterly.
+
+'It is you Zionists that will undermine all the rights we have so
+painfully won in the West.'
+
+'Oh, then you're not really a British patriot,' Barstein began.
+
+'I will beg you to remember, sir, that I equipped a corps of
+volunteers for the Transvaal.'
+
+'I dare say. But a corps of volunteers for Zion--that is blasphemy,
+narrow tribalism.'
+
+'Zion's soil is holy; we want no volunteers there: we want saints and
+teachers. And what would your volunteers do in Zion? Fight the Sultan
+with his million soldiers? They couldn't even live in Palestine as men
+of peace. There is neither coal nor iron--hence no manufactures.
+Agriculture? It's largely stones and swamps. Not to mention it's too
+hot for Jews to work in the fields. They'd all starve. You've no right
+to play recklessly with human lives. Besides, even if Palestine were
+as fertile as England, Jews could never live off one another. And
+think how they'd quarrel!'
+
+Sir Asher ended almost good-humouredly. His array of arguments seemed
+to him a row of steam-hammers.
+
+'We can live off one another as easily as any other people. As for
+quarrelling, weren't you in Parliament? Party government makes quarrel
+the very basis of the Constitution.'
+
+Sir Asher flushed again. A long lifetime of laying down the law had
+ill prepared him for repartee.
+
+'A pretty mess we should make of Government!' he sneered.
+
+'Why? We have given Ministers to every Cabinet in the world.'
+
+'Yes--we're all right as long as we're under others. Sir Asher was
+recovering his serenity.
+
+'All right so long as we're under others!' gasped the artist. 'Do you
+realize what you're saying, Sir Asher? The Boers against whom you
+equipped volunteers fought frenziedly for three years not to be under
+others! And we--the thought of Jewish autonomy makes us foam at the
+mouth. The idea of independence makes us turn in the graves we call
+our fatherlands.'
+
+Sir Asher dismissed the subject with a Podsnappian wave of the hand.
+'This is all a waste of breath. Fortunately the acquisition of
+Palestine is impossible.'
+
+'Then why do you pray for it--"speedily and in our days"?'
+
+Sir Asher glared at the bold questioner.
+
+'That seems a worse waste of breath,' added Barstein drily.
+
+'I said you were a mocker,' said Sir Asher severely. 'It is a Divine
+event I pray for--not the creation of a Ghetto.'
+
+'A Ghetto!' Barstein groaned in sheer hopelessness. 'Yes, you're an
+anti-Semite too--like your daughter, like your son, like all of us.
+We're all anti-Semites.'
+
+'I an anti-Semite! Ho! ho! ho!' Sir Asher's anger broke down in sheer
+amusement. 'I have made every allowance for your excitement,' he said,
+recovering his magisterial note. 'I was once in love myself. But when
+it comes to calling _me_ an anti-Semite, it is obvious you are not in
+a fit state to continue this interview. Indeed, I no longer wonder
+that you think yourself the Messiah.'
+
+'Even if I do, our tradition only makes the Messiah a man; somebody
+some day will have to win your belief. But what I said was that God
+acts through man.'
+
+'Ah yes,' said Sir Asher good-humouredly. 'Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'
+
+'And why not?' said Barstein with a flash of angry intuition. 'Aren't
+you a trinity yourself?'
+
+'Me?' Sir Asher was now quite sure of the sculptor's derangement.
+
+'Yes--the Briton, the Jew, and the anti-Semite--three-in-one and
+one-in-three.'
+
+Sir Asher touched one of the electric bells with a jerk. He was quite
+alarmed.
+
+Barstein turned white with rage at his dismissal. Never would he marry
+into these triune tribes. 'And it's the same in every land where we're
+emancipated, as it is called,' he went on furiously. 'The Jew's a
+patriot everywhere, and a Jew everywhere and an anti-Semite
+everywhere. Passionate Hungarians, and true-born Italians,
+eagle-waving Americans, and loyal Frenchmen, imperial Germans, and
+double Dutchmen, we are dispersed to preach the Unity, and what we
+illustrate is the Jewish trinity. A delicious irony! Three-in-one and
+one-in-three.' He laughed; to Sir Asher his laugh sounded maniacal.
+The old gentleman was relieved to see his stalwart doorkeeper enter.
+
+Barstein turned scornfully on his heel. 'Neither confounding the
+persons nor dividing the substance,' he ended grimly.
+
+
+
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER
+
+
+
+
+THE SABBATH QUESTION IN SUDMINSTER
+
+
+I
+
+There was a storm in Sudminster, not on the waters which washed its
+leading Jews their living, but in the breasts of these same marine
+storekeepers. For a competitor had appeared in their hive of
+industry--an alien immigrant, without roots or even relatives at
+Sudminster. And Simeon Samuels was equipped not only with capital and
+enterprise--the showy plate-glass front of his shop revealed an
+enticing miscellany--but with blasphemy and bravado. For he did not
+close on Friday eve, and he opened on Saturday morning as usual.
+
+The rumour did not get round all Sudminster the first Friday night,
+but by the Sabbath morning the synagogue hummed with it. It set a
+clammy horror in the breasts of the congregants, distracted their
+prayers, gave an unreal tone to the cantor's roulades, brought a
+tremor of insecurity into the very foundations of their universe. For
+nearly three generations a congregation had been established in
+Sudminster--like every Jewish congregation, a camp in not friendly
+country--struggling at every sacrifice to keep the Holy Day despite
+the supplementary burden of Sunday closing, and the God of their
+fathers had not left unperformed His part of the contract. For 'the
+harvests' of profit were abundant, and if 'the latter and the former
+rain' of their unchanging supplication were mere dried metaphors to a
+people divorced from Palestine and the soil for eighteen centuries,
+the wine and the oil came in casks, and the corn in cakes. The poor
+were few and well provided for; even the mortgage on the synagogue was
+paid off. And now this Epicurean was come to trouble the snug
+security, to break the long chain of Sabbath observance which
+stretched from Sinai. What wonder if some of the worshippers,
+especially such as had passed his blatant shop-window on their return
+from synagogue on Friday evening, were literally surprised that the
+earth had not opened beneath him as it had opened beneath Korah.
+
+'Even the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath was stoned to death,'
+whispered the squat Solomon Barzinsky to the lanky Ephraim Mendel,
+marine-dealers both.
+
+'Alas! that would not be permitted in this heathen country,' sighed
+Ephraim Mendel, hitching his praying-shawl more over his left
+shoulder. 'But at least his windows should be stoned.'
+
+Solomon Barzinsky smiled, with a gleeful imagining of the shattering
+of the shameless plate-glass. 'Yes, and that wax-dummy of a sailor
+should be hung as an atonement for his--Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
+of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.' The last phrase
+Solomon suddenly shouted in Hebrew, in antiphonal response to the
+cantor, and he rose three times on his toes, bowing his head piously.
+'No wonder he can offer gold lace for the price of silver,' he
+concluded bitterly.
+
+'He sells shoddy new reach-me-downs as pawned old clo,' complained
+Lazarus Levy, who had taken over S. Cohn's business, together with his
+daughter Deborah, 'and he charges the Sudminster donkey-heads more
+than the price we ask for 'em as new.'
+
+Talk of the devil----! At this point Simeon Samuels stalked into the
+synagogue, late but serene.
+
+Had the real horned Asmodeus walked in, the agitation could not have
+been greater. The first appearance in synagogue of a new settler was
+an event in itself; but that this Sabbath-breaker should appear at all
+was startling to a primitive community. Escorted by the obsequious and
+unruffled beadle to the seat he seemed already to have engaged--that
+high-priced seat facing the presidential pew that had remained vacant
+since the death of Tevele the pawnbroker--Simeon Samuels wrapped
+himself reverently in his praying-shawl, and became absorbed in the
+service. His glossy high hat bespoke an immaculate orthodoxy, his long
+black beard had a Rabbinic religiousness, his devotion was a rebuke to
+his gossiping neighbours.
+
+A wave of uneasiness passed over the synagogue. Had he been the victim
+of a jealous libel? Even those whose own eyes had seen him behind his
+counter when he should have been consecrating the Sabbath-wine at his
+supper-table, wondered if they had been the dupe of some
+hallucination.
+
+When, in accordance with hospitable etiquette, the new-comer was
+summoned canorously to the reading of the Law--'Shall stand Simeon,
+the son of Nehemiah'--and he arose and solemnly mounted the central
+platform, his familiarity with the due obeisances and osculations and
+benedictions seemed a withering reply to the libel. When he
+descended, and the _Parnass_ proffered his presidential hand in pious
+congratulation upon the holy privilege, all the congregants who found
+themselves upon his line of return shot forth their arms with
+remorseful eagerness, and thus was Simeon Samuels switched on to the
+brotherhood of Sudminsterian Israel. Yet as his now trusting
+co-religionists passed his shop on their homeward walk--and many a
+pair of legs went considerably out of its way to do so--their eyes
+became again saucers of horror and amaze. The broad plate-glass
+glittered nakedly, unveiled by a single shutter; the waxen dummy of
+the sailor hitched devil-may-care breeches; the gold lace, ticketed
+with layers of erased figures, boasted brazenly of its cheapness; the
+procession of customers came and went, and the pavement, splashed with
+sunshine, remained imperturbably, perturbingly acquiescent.
+
+
+II
+
+On the Sunday night Solomon Barzinsky and Ephraim Mendel in pious
+black velvet caps, and their stout spouses in gold chains and diamond
+earrings, found themselves playing solo whist in the _Parnass's_
+parlour, and their religious grievance weighed upon the game. The
+_Parnass_, though at heart as outraged as they by the new departure,
+felt it always incumbent upon him to display his presidential
+impartiality and his dry humour. His authority, mainly based on his
+being the only retired shopkeeper in the community, was greatly
+strengthened by his slow manner of taking snuff at a crisis. 'My dear
+Mendel,' observed the wizened senior, flicking away the spilth with a
+blue handkerchief, 'Simeon Samuels has already paid his annual
+subscription--and you haven't!'
+
+'My money is good,' Mendel replied, reddening.
+
+'No wonder he can pay so quickly!' said Solomon Barzinsky, shuffling
+the cards savagely.
+
+'How he makes his money is not the question,' said the _Parnass_
+weightily. 'He has paid it, and therefore if I were to expel him, as
+you suggest, he might go to Law.'
+
+'Law!' retorted Solomon. 'Can't we prove he has broken the Law of
+Moses?'
+
+'And suppose?' said the _Parnass_, picking up his cards placidly. 'Do
+we want to wash our dirty _Talysim_ (praying-shawls) in public?'
+
+'He is right, Solomon,' said Mrs. Barzinsky. 'We should become a
+laughing-stock among the heathen.'
+
+'I don't believe he'd drag us to the Christian courts,' the little man
+persisted. 'I pass.'
+
+The rubber continued cheerlessly. 'A man who keeps his shop open on
+Sabbath is capable of anything,' said the lanky Mendel, gloomily
+sweeping in his winnings.
+
+The _Parnass_ took snuff judicially. 'Besides, he may have a Christian
+partner who keeps all the Saturday profits,' he suggested.
+
+'That would be just as forbidden,' said Barzinsky, as he dealt the
+cards.
+
+'But your cousin David,' his wife reminded him, 'sells his groceries
+to a Christian at Passover.'
+
+'That is permitted. It would not be reasonable to destroy hundreds of
+pounds of leaven. But Sabbath partnerships are not permitted.'
+
+'Perhaps the question has never been raised,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I am enough of a _Lamdan_ (pundit) to answer it,' retorted Barzinsky.
+
+'I prefer going to a specialist,' rejoined the _Parnass_.
+
+Barzinsky threw down his cards. 'You can go to the devil!' he cried.
+
+'For shame, Solomon!' said his wife. 'Don't disturb the game.'
+
+'To Gehenna with the game! The shame is on a _Parnass_ to talk like an
+_Epikouros_ (Epicurean).'
+
+The _Parnass_ blew his nose elaborately. 'It stands in the Talmud:
+"For vain swearing noxious beasts came into the world." And if----'
+
+'It stands in the Psalmist,' Barzinsky interrupted: '"The Law of Thy
+mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver."'
+
+'It stands in the Perek,' the _Parnass_ rejoined severely, 'that the
+wise man does not break in upon the speech of his fellow.'
+
+'It stands in the Shulchan Aruch,' Barzinsky shrieked, 'that for the
+sanctification of the Sabbath----'
+
+'It stands in the Talmud,' interposed Mendel, with unwonted animation
+in his long figure, 'that one must not even offer a nut to allure
+customers. From light to heavy, therefore, it may be deduced that----'
+
+A still small voice broke in upon the storm. 'But Simeon Samuels
+hasn't a Christian partner,' said Mrs. Mendel.
+
+There was an embarrassed pause.
+
+'He has only his wife to help him,' she went on. 'I know, because I
+went to the shop Friday morning on pretence of asking for a
+cuckoo-clock.'
+
+'But a marine-dealer doesn't sell clocks,' put in the _Parnass's_ wife
+timidly. It was her first contribution to the conversation, for she
+was overpowered by her husband's greatness.
+
+'Don't be silly, Hannah!' said the _Parnass_. 'That was just why Mrs.
+Mendel asked for it.'
+
+'Yes, but unfortunately Simeon Samuels did have one,' Mrs. Mendel
+confessed; 'and I couldn't get out of buying it.'
+
+There was a general laugh.
+
+'Cut-throat competition, I call it,' snarled Solomon Barzinsky,
+recovering from his merriment.
+
+'But _you_ don't sell clocks,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'That's just it; he gets hold of our customers on pretence of selling
+them something else. The Talmudical prohibition cited by Mendel
+applies to that too.'
+
+'So I wasn't so silly,' put in the _Parnass's_ wife, feeling vaguely
+vindicated.
+
+'Well, you saw his wife,' said the _Parnass_ to Mendel's wife,
+disregarding his own. 'More than I've done, for she wasn't in
+synagogue. Perhaps _she_ is the Christian partner.' His suggestion
+brought a new and holier horror over the card-table.
+
+'No, no,' replied Mrs. Mendel reassuringly. 'I caught sight of her
+frying fish in the kitchen.'
+
+This proof of her Jewishness passed unquestioned, and the new-born
+horror subsided.
+
+'But in spite of the fish,' said Mr. Mendel, 'she served in the shop
+while he was at synagogue.'
+
+'Yes,' hissed Barzinsky; 'and in spite of the synagogue _he_ served
+in the shop. A greater mockery was never known!'
+
+'Not at all, not at all,' said the _Parnass_ judicially. 'If a man
+breaks one commandment, that's no reason he should break two.'
+
+'But he does break two,' Solomon thundered, smiting the green cloth
+with his fist; 'for he steals my custom by opening when I'm closed.'
+
+'Take care--you will break my plates,' said the _Parnass_. 'Take a
+sandwich.'
+
+'Thank you--you've taken away my appetite.'
+
+'I'm sorry--but the sandwiches would have done the same. I really
+can't expel a respectable seat-holder before I know that he is truly a
+sinner in Israel. As it is written, "Thou shalt inquire and make
+search and ask diligently." He may have only opened this once by way
+of a send-off. Every dog is allowed one bite.'
+
+'At that rate, it would be permitted to eat a ham-sandwich--just for
+once,' said Solomon scathingly.
+
+'Don't say _I_ called you a dog,' the _Parnass_ laughed.
+
+'A mezaire!' announced the hostess hurriedly. 'After all, it's the
+Almighty's business, not ours.'
+
+'No, it's our business,' Solomon insisted.
+
+'Yes,' agreed the _Parnass_ drily; 'it _is_ your business.'
+
+
+III
+
+The week went by, with no lull in the storm, though the plate-glass
+window was unshaken by the gusts. It maintained its flaunting
+seductiveness, assisted, people observed, by Simeon Samuels' habit of
+lounging at his shop-door and sucking in the hesitating spectator. And
+it did not shutter itself on the Sabbath that succeeded.
+
+The horror was tinged with consternation. The strange apathy of the
+pavement and the sky, the remissness of the volcanic fires and the
+celestial thunderbolts in face of this staring profanity, lent the
+cosmos an air almost of accessory after the fact. Never had the
+congregation seen Heaven so openly defied, and the consequences did
+not at all correspond with their deep if undefined forebodings. It is
+true a horse and carriage dashed into Peleg, the pawnbroker's, window
+down the street, frightened, Peleg maintained, by the oilskins
+fluttering outside Simeon Samuels' shop; but as the suffering was
+entirely limited to the nerves of Mrs. Peleg, who was pious, and to
+the innocent nose of the horse, this catastrophe was not quite what
+was expected. Solomon Barzinsky made himself the spokesman of the
+general dissatisfaction, and his remarks to the minister after the
+Sabbath service almost insinuated that the reverend gentleman had
+connived at a breach of contract.
+
+The Rev. Elkan Gabriel quoted Scripture. 'The Lord is merciful and
+long-suffering, and will not at once awaken all His wrath.'
+
+'But meantime the sinner makes a pretty penny!' quoth Solomon,
+unappeased. 'Saturday is pay-day, and the heathen haven't patience to
+wait till the three stars are out and our shops can open. It is your
+duty, Mr. Gabriel, to put a stop to this profanation.'
+
+The minister hummed and ha'd. He was middle-aged, and shabby, with a
+German diploma and accent and a large family. It was the first time in
+his five years of office that one of his congregants had suggested
+such authoritativeness on his part. Elected by their vote, he was
+treated as their servant, his duties rigidly prescribed, his religious
+ideas curbed and corrected by theirs. What wonder if he could not
+suddenly rise to dictatorship? Even at home Mrs. Gabriel was a
+congregation in herself. But as the week went by he found Barzinsky
+was not the only man to egg him on to prophetic denunciation; the
+congregation at large treated him as responsible for the scandal, and
+if the seven marine-dealers were the bitterest, the pawnbrokers and
+the linen-drapers were none the less outraged.
+
+'It is a profanation of the Name,' they said unanimously, 'and such a
+bad example to our poor!'
+
+'He would not listen to me,' the poor minister would protest. 'You had
+much better talk to him yourself.'
+
+'Me!' the button-holer would ejaculate. 'I would not lower myself.
+He'd think I was jealous of his success.'
+
+Simeon Samuels seemed, indeed, a formidable person to tackle. Bland
+and aloof, he pursued his own affairs, meeting the congregation only
+in synagogue, and then more bland and aloof than ever.
+
+At last the Minister received a presidential command to preach upon
+the subject forthwith.
+
+'But there's no text suitable just yet,' he pleaded. 'We are still in
+Genesis.'
+
+'Bah!' replied the _Parnass_ impatiently, 'any text can be twisted to
+point any moral. You must preach next Sabbath.'
+
+'But we are reading the _Sedrah_ (weekly portion) about Joseph. How
+are you going to work Sabbath-keeping into that?'
+
+'It is not my profession. I am a mere man-of-the-earth. But what's the
+use of a preacher if he can't make any text mean something else?'
+
+'Well, of course, every text usually does,' said the preacher
+defensively. 'There is the hidden meaning and the plain meaning. But
+Joseph is merely historical narrative. The Sabbath, although mentioned
+in Genesis, chapter two, wasn't even formally ordained yet.'
+
+'And what about Potiphar's wife?'
+
+'That's the Seventh Commandment, not the Fourth.'
+
+'Thank you for the information. Do you mean to say you can't jump from
+one Commandment to another?'
+
+'Oh, well----' The minister meditated.
+
+
+IV
+
+'And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured. And it came to
+pass that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph....'
+
+The congregation looked startled. Really this was not a text which
+they wished their pastor to enlarge upon. There were things in the
+Bible that should be left in the obscurity of the Hebrew, especially
+when one's womenkind were within earshot. Uneasily their eyes lifted
+towards the bonnets behind the balcony-grating.
+
+'But Joseph refused.'
+
+Solomon Barzinsky coughed. Peleg the pawnbroker blew his nose like a
+protesting trumpet. The congregation's eyes returned from the balcony
+and converged upon the _Parnass_. He was taking snuff as usual.
+
+'My brethren,' began the preacher impressively, 'temptation comes to
+us all----'
+
+A sniff of indignant repudiation proceeded from many nostrils. A blush
+overspread many cheeks.
+
+'But not always in the shape it came to Joseph. In this congregation,
+where, by the blessing of the Almighty, we are free from almost every
+form of wrong-doing, there is yet one temptation which has power to
+touch us--the temptation of unholy profit, the seduction of
+Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+A great sigh of dual relief went up to the balcony, and Simeon Samuels
+became now the focus of every eye. His face was turned towards the
+preacher, wearing its wonted synagogue expression of reverential
+dignity.
+
+'Oh, my brethren, that it could always be said of us: "And Joseph
+refused"!'
+
+A genial warmth came back to every breast. Ah, now the cosmos was
+righting itself; Heaven was speaking through the mouth of its
+minister.
+
+The Rev. Elkan Gabriel expanded under this warmth which radiated back
+to him. His stature grew, his eloquence poured forth, polysyllabic. As
+he ended, the congregation burst into a heartfelt '_Yosher Koach_'
+('May thy strength increase!').
+
+The minister descended the Ark-steps, and stalked back solemnly to his
+seat. As he passed Simeon Samuels, that gentleman whipped out his
+hand and grasped the man of God's, and his neighbours testified that
+there was a look of contrite exaltation upon his goodly features.
+
+
+V
+
+The Sabbath came round again, but, alas! it brought no balm to the
+congregation; rather, was it a day of unrest. The plate-glass window
+still flashed in iniquitous effrontery; still the ungodly proprietor
+allured the stream of custom.
+
+'He does not even refuse to take money,' Solomon Barzinsky exclaimed
+to Peleg the pawnbroker, as they passed the blasphemous window on
+their way from the Friday-evening service.
+
+'Why, what would be the good of keeping open if you didn't take
+money?' naively inquired Peleg.
+
+'_Behemah_ (animal)!' replied Solomon impatiently. 'Don't you know
+it's forbidden to touch money on the Sabbath?'
+
+'Of course, I know that. But if you open your shop----!'
+
+'All the same, you might compromise. You might give the customers the
+things they need, as it is written, "Open thy hand to the needy!" but
+they could pay on Saturday night.'
+
+'And if they didn't pay? If they drank their money away?' said the
+pawnbroker.
+
+'True, but why couldn't they pay in advance?'
+
+'How in advance?'
+
+'They could deposit a sum of money with you, and draw against it.'
+
+'Not with me!' Peleg made a grimace. 'All very well for your line, but
+in mine I should have to deposit a sum of money with _them_. I don't
+suppose they'd bring their pledges on Friday night, and wait till
+Saturday night for the money. Besides, how could one remember? One
+would have to profane the Sabbath by writing!'
+
+'Write! Heaven forbid!' ejaculated Solomon Barzinsky. 'But you could
+have a system of marking the amounts against their names in your
+register. A pin could be stuck in to represent a pound, or a stamp
+stuck on to indicate a crown. There are lots of ways. One could always
+give one's self a device,' he concluded in Yiddish.
+
+'But it is written in Job, "He disappointeth the devices of the
+crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." Have a
+little of Job's patience, and trust the Lord to confound the sinner.
+We shall yet see Simeon Samuels in the Bankruptcy Court.'
+
+'I hope not, the rogue! I'd like to see him ruined!'
+
+'That's what I mean. Leave him to the Lord.'
+
+'The Lord is too long-suffering,' said Solomon. 'Ah, our _Parnass_ has
+caught us up. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), _Parnass_. This is a fine
+scandal for a God-fearing congregation. I congratulate you.'
+
+'Is he open again?' gasped the _Parnass_, hurled from his judicial
+calm.
+
+'Is my eye open?' witheringly retorted Barzinsky. 'A fat lot of good
+your preacher does.'
+
+'It was you who would elect him instead of Rochinsky,' the _Parnass_
+reminded him. Barzinsky was taken aback.
+
+'Well, we don't want foreigners, do we?' he murmured.
+
+'And you caught an Englishman in Simeon Samuels,' chuckled the
+_Parnass_, in whose breast the defeat of his candidate had never
+ceased to rankle.
+
+'Not he. An Englishman plays fair,' retorted Barzinsky. He seriously
+considered himself a Briton, regarding his naturalization papers as
+retrospective. 'We are just passing the Reverend Gabriel's house,' he
+went on. 'Let us wait a moment; he'll come along, and we'll give him a
+piece of our minds.'
+
+'I can't keep my family waiting for _Kiddush'_ (home service), said
+Peleg.
+
+'Come home, father; I'm hungry,' put in Peleg junior, who with various
+Barzinsky boys had been trailing in the parental wake.
+
+'Silence, impudent face!' snapped Barzinsky. 'If I was your
+father----Ah, here comes the minister. Good _Shabbos_ (Sabbath), Mr.
+Gabriel. I congratulate you on the effect of your last sermon.'
+
+An exultant light leapt into the minister's eye. 'Is he shut?'
+
+'Is your mouth shut?' Solomon replied scathingly. 'I doubt if he'll
+even come to _Shool_ (synagogue) to-morrow.'
+
+The ministerial mouth remained open in a fishy gasp, but no words came
+from it.
+
+'I'm afraid you'll have to use stronger language, Mr. Gabriel,' said
+the _Parnass_ soothingly.
+
+'But if he is not there to hear it.'
+
+'Oh, don't listen to Barzinsky. He'll be there right enough. Just give
+it to him hot!'
+
+'Your sermon was too general,' added Peleg, who had lingered, though
+his son had not. 'You might have meant any of us.'
+
+'But we must not shame our brother in public,' urged the minister. 'It
+is written in the Talmud that he who does so has no share in the world
+to come.'
+
+'Well, you shamed us all,' retorted Barzinsky. 'A stranger would
+imagine we were a congregation of Sabbath-breakers.'
+
+'But there wasn't any stranger,' said the minister.
+
+'There was Simeon Samuels,' the _Parnass_ reminded him. 'Perhaps your
+sermon against Sabbath-breaking made him fancy he was just one of a
+crowd, and that you have therefore only hardened him----'
+
+'But you told me to preach against Sabbath-breaking,' said the poor
+minister.
+
+'Against the Sabbath-breaker,' corrected the _Parnass_.
+
+'You didn't single him out,' added Barzinsky; 'you didn't even make it
+clear that Joseph wasn't myself.'
+
+'I said Joseph was a goodly person and well-favoured,' retorted the
+goaded minister.
+
+The _Parnass_ took snuff, and his sneeze sounded like a guffaw.
+
+'Well, well,' he said more kindly, 'you must try again to-morrow.'
+
+'I didn't undertake to preach every Saturday,' grumbled the minister,
+growing bolder.
+
+'As long as Simeon Samuels keeps open, you can't shut,' said Solomon
+angrily.
+
+'It's a duel between you,' added Peleg.
+
+'And Simeon actually comes into to-morrow's _Sedrah_' (portion),
+Barzinsky remembered exultantly. '"And took from them Simeon, and
+bound him before their eyes." There's your very text. You'll pick out
+Simeon from among us, and bind him to keep the Sabbath.'
+
+'Or you can say Satan has taken Simeon and bound him,' added the
+_Parnass_. 'You have a choice--yourself or Satan.'
+
+'Perhaps you had better preach yourself, then,' said the minister
+sullenly. 'I still can't see what that text has to do with
+Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+'It has as much to do with Sabbath-breaking as Potiphar's wife,'
+shrieked Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+
+VI
+
+'"And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved. Joseph
+is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin."'
+
+As the word 'Simeon' came hissing from the preacher's lips, a
+veritable thrill passed through the synagogue. Even Simeon Samuels
+seemed shaken, for he readjusted his praying-shawl with a nervous
+movement.
+
+'My brethren, these words of Israel, the great forefather of our
+tribes, are still ringing in our ears. To-day more than ever is Israel
+crying. Joseph is not--our Holy Land is lost. Simeon is not--our Holy
+Temple is razed to the ground. One thing only is left us--one blessing
+with which the almighty father has blessed us--our Holy Sabbath. And
+ye will take Benjamin.' The pathos of his accents melted every heart.
+Tears rolled down many a feminine cheek. Simeon Samuels was seen to
+blow his nose softly.
+
+Thus successfully launched, the Rev. Elkan Gabriel proceeded to draw a
+tender picture of the love between Israel and his Benjamin,
+Sabbath--the one consolation of his exile, and he skilfully worked in
+the subsequent verse: 'If mischief befall him by the way on which ye
+go, then shall ye bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.'
+Yes, it would be the destruction of Israel, he urged, if the Sabbath
+decayed. Woe to those sons of Israel who dared to endanger Benjamin.
+'From Reuben and _Simeon_ down to Gad and Asher, his life shall be
+required at their hands.' Oh, it was a red-hot-cannon-ball-firing
+sermon, and Solomon Barzinsky could not resist leaning across and
+whispering to the _Parnass_: 'Wasn't I right in refusing to vote for
+Rochinsky?' This reminder of his candidate's defeat was wormwood to
+the _Parnass_, spoiling all his satisfaction in the sermon. He rebuked
+the talker with a noisy '_Shaa_' (silence).
+
+The congregation shrank delicately from looking at the sinner; it
+would be too painful to watch his wriggles. His neighbours stared
+pointedly every other way. Thus, the only record of his deportment
+under fire came from Yankele, the poor glazier's boy, who said that he
+kept looking from face to face, as if to mark the effect on the
+congregation, stroking his beard placidly the while. But as to his
+behaviour after the guns were still, there was no dubiety, for
+everybody saw him approach the _Parnass_ in the exodus from synagogue,
+and many heard him say in hearty accents: 'I really must congratulate
+you, Mr. President, on your selection of your minister.'
+
+
+VII
+
+'You touched his heart so,' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky an hour later
+to the Reverend Elkan Gabriel, 'that he went straight from _Shool_
+(synagogue) to his shop.' Solomon had rushed out the first thing after
+breakfast, risking the digestion of his Sabbath fish, to call upon the
+unsuccessful minister.
+
+'That is not my fault,' said the preacher, crestfallen.
+
+'Yes, it is--if you had only stuck to _my_ text. But no! You must set
+yourself up over all our heads.'
+
+'You told me to get in Simeon, and I obeyed.'
+
+'Yes, you got him in. But what did you call him? The Holy Temple! A
+fine thing, upon my soul!'
+
+'It was only an--an--analogy,' stammered the poor minister.
+
+'An apology! Oh, so you apologized to him, too! Better and better.'
+
+'No, no, I mean a comparison.'
+
+'A comparison! You never compared me to the Holy Temple. And I'm
+Solomon--Solomon who built it.'
+
+'Solomon was wise,' murmured the minister.
+
+'Oh, and I'm silly. If I were you, Mr. Gabriel, I'd remember my place
+and who I owed it to. But for me, Rochinsky would have stood in your
+shoes----'
+
+'Rochinsky is lucky.'
+
+'Oh, indeed! So this is your gratitude. Very well. Either Simeon
+Samuels shuts up shop or you do. That's final. Don't forget you were
+only elected for three years.' And the little man flung out.
+
+The _Parnass_, meeting his minister later in the street, took a
+similar view.
+
+'You really must preach again next Sabbath,' he said. 'The
+congregation is terribly wrought up. There may even be a riot. If
+Simeon Samuels keeps open next Sabbath, I can't answer that they won't
+go and break his windows.'
+
+'Then _they_ will break the Sabbath.'
+
+'Oh, they may wait till the Sabbath is out.'
+
+'They'll be too busy opening their own shops.'
+
+'Don't argue. You _must_ preach his shop shut.'
+
+'Very well,' said the Reverend Gabriel sullenly.
+
+'That's right. A man with a family must rise to great occasions. Do
+you think I'd be where I am now if I hadn't had the courage to buy a
+bankrupt stock that I didn't see my way to paying for? It's a fight
+between you and Simeon Samuels.'
+
+'May his name be blotted out!' impatiently cried the minister in the
+Hebrew imprecation.
+
+'No, no,' replied the _Parnass_, smiling. 'His name must not be
+blotted out--it must be mentioned, and--unmistakably.'
+
+'It is against the Talmud. To shame a man is equivalent to murder,'
+the minister persisted.
+
+'Yet it is written in Leviticus: "Thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy
+neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."' And the _Parnass_ took a
+triumphant pinch.
+
+
+VIII
+
+'_Simeon_ and Levi are brethren ... into their assembly be not thou
+united: in their self-will they digged down a wall.'
+
+The _Parnass_ applauded mentally. The text, from Jacob's blessing,
+was ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. The wall, he perceived at
+once, was the Sabbath--the Jews' one last protection against the outer
+world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. Nor did his
+complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the
+preacher thundered against the self-will--ay, and the self-seeking--that
+undermined Israel's last fortification. What did they seek under the
+wall? Did they think their delving spades would come upon a hidden
+store of gold, upon an ancient treasure-chest? Nay, it was a coffin
+they would strike--a coffin of dead bones and living serpents.
+
+A cold wave of horror traversed the synagogue; a little shriek came
+from the gallery.
+
+'I don't think I ever enjoyed a sermon so much,' said the pawnbroker
+to the _Parnass_.
+
+'Oh, he's improving,' said the _Parnass_, still swollen with
+satisfaction.
+
+But as that worthy elder emerged from the synagogue, placidly snuffing
+himself, he found an excited gentleman waiting him in the lobby. It
+was Lazarus Levy, whom his wife Deborah, daughter of S. Cohn (now of
+Highbury), was vainly endeavouring to pacify.
+
+'Either that Reverend Gabriel goes, Mr. _Parnass_, or I resign my
+membership.'
+
+'What is it, Mr. Levy--what is the matter?'
+
+'Everybody knows I've been a good Jew all my life, and though Saturday
+is so good for the clothing business, I've striven with all my might
+to do my duty by the Almighty.'
+
+'Of course, of course; everybody knows that.'
+
+'And yet to-day I'm pointed out as a sinner in Israel; I'm coupled
+with that Simeon Samuels. Simeon and Levy are brothers in their
+iniquity--with their assembly be not united. A pretty libel, indeed!'
+
+The _Parnass's_ complacency collapsed like an air-ball at a pin-prick.
+'Oh, nonsense, everybody knows he couldn't mean you.'
+
+'I don't know so much. There are always people ready to think one has
+just been discovered keeping a back-door open or something. I
+shouldn't be at all surprised to get a letter from my father-in-law in
+London--you know how pious old Cohn is! As for Simeon, he kept looking
+at me as if I _was_ his long-lost brother. Ah, there comes our
+precious minister.... Look here, Mr. Gabriel, I'll have the law on
+you. Simeon's no brother of mine----'
+
+The sudden appearance of Simeon through the other swing-door cut the
+speaker short. 'Good _Shabbos_,' said the shameless sinner. 'Ah, Mr.
+Gabriel, that was a very fine sermon.' He stroked his beard. 'I quite
+agree with you. To dig down a public wall is indefensible. Nobody has
+the right to make more than a private hole in it, where it blocks out
+his own prospect. So please do not bracket me with Mr. Levy again.
+Good _Shabbos_!' And, waving his hand pleasantly, he left them to
+their consternation.
+
+
+IX
+
+'What an impudent face!' said the _Gabbai_ (treasurer), who witnessed
+the episode.
+
+'And our minister says I'm that man's brother! exclaimed Mr. Levy.
+
+'Hush! Enough!' said the _Parnass_, with a tactful inspiration. 'You
+shall read the _Haphtorah_ (prophetic section) next _Shabbos_.'
+
+'And Mr. Gabriel must explain he didn't mean me,' he stipulated,
+mollified by the magnificent _Mitzvah_ (pious privilege).
+
+'You always try to drive a hard bargain,' grumbled the _Parnass_.
+'That's a question for Mr. Gabriel.'
+
+The reverend gentleman had a happy thought. 'Wait till we come to the
+text: "Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his
+brethren."'
+
+'You're a gentleman, Mr. Gabriel,' ejaculated S. Cohn's son-in-law,
+clutching at his hand.
+
+'And if he doesn't close to-day after your splendid sermon,' added the
+_Gabbai_, 'you must call and talk to him face to face.'
+
+The minister made a wry face. 'But that's not in my duties.'
+
+'Pardon me, Mr. Gabriel,' put in the _Parnass_, 'you have to call upon
+the afflicted and the bereaved. And Simeon Samuels is spiritually
+afflicted, and has lost his Sabbath.'
+
+'But he doesn't want comforting.'
+
+'Well, Solomon Barzinsky does,' said the _Parnass_. 'Go to him
+instead, then, for I'm past soothing him. Choose!'
+
+'I'll go to Simeon Samuels,' said the preacher gloomily.
+
+
+X
+
+'It is most kind of you to call,' said Simeon Samuels as he wheeled
+the parlour armchair towards his reverend guest. 'My wife will be so
+sorry to have missed you. We have both been looking forward so much to
+your visit.'
+
+'You knew I was coming?' said the minister, a whit startled.
+
+'I naturally expected a pastoral visit sooner or later.'
+
+'I'm afraid it is later,' murmured the minister, subsiding into the
+chair.
+
+'Better late than never,' cried Simeon Samuels heartily, as he
+produced a bottle from the sideboard. 'Do you take it with hot water?'
+
+'Thank you--not at all. I am only staying a moment.'
+
+'Ah!' He stroked his beard. 'You are busy?'
+
+'Terribly busy,' said the Rev. Elkan Gabriel.
+
+'Even on Sunday?'
+
+'Rather! It's my day for secretarial work, as there's no school.'
+
+'Poor Mr. Gabriel. I at least have Sunday to myself. But you have to
+work Saturday and Sunday too. It's really too bad.'
+
+'Eh,' said the minister blankly.
+
+'Oh, of course I know you _must_ work on the Sabbath.'
+
+'_I_ work on--on _Shabbos_!' The minister flushed to the temples.
+
+'Oh, I'm not blaming you. One must live. In an ideal world of
+course you'd preach and pray and sing and recite the Law for nothing
+so that Heaven might perhaps overlook your hard labour, but as things
+are you must take your wages.'
+
+   [Illustration: "I work on--on _Shabbos_!"]
+
+The minister had risen agitatedly. 'I earn my wages for the rest of my
+work--the Sabbath work I throw in,' he said hotly.
+
+'Oh come, Mr. Gabriel, that quibble is not worthy of you. But far be
+it from me to judge a fellow-man.'
+
+'Far be it indeed!' The attempted turning of his sabre-point gave him
+vigour for the lunge. 'You--you whose shop stands brazenly open every
+Saturday!'
+
+'My dear Mr. Gabriel, I couldn't break the Fourth Commandment.'
+
+'What!'
+
+'Would you have me break the Fourth Commandment?'
+
+'I do not understand.'
+
+'And yet you hold a Rabbinic diploma, I am told. Does not the Fourth
+Commandment run: "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work"? If
+I were to close on Saturday I should only be working five days a week,
+since in this heathen country Sunday closing is compulsory.'
+
+'But you don't keep the other half of the Commandment,' said the
+bewildered minister. '"And on the seventh is the Sabbath."'
+
+'Yes, I do--after my six days the seventh is my Sabbath. I only sinned
+once, if you will have it so, the first time I shifted the Sabbath to
+Sunday, since when my Sabbath has arrived regularly on Sundays.'
+
+'But you did sin once!' said the minister, catching at that straw.
+
+'Granted, but as to get right again would now make a second sin, it
+seems more pious to let things be. Not that I really admit the first
+sin, for let me ask you, sir, which is nearer to the spirit of the
+Commandment--to work six days and keep a day of rest--merely changing
+the day once in one's whole lifetime--or to work five days and keep
+two days of rest?'
+
+The minister, taken aback, knew not how to meet this novel defence. He
+had come heavily armed against all the usual arguments as to the
+necessity of earning one's bread. He was prepared to prove that even
+from a material point of view you really gained more in the long run,
+as it is written in the Conclusion-of-Sabbath Service: 'Blessed shalt
+thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.'
+
+Simeon Samuels pursued his advantage.
+
+'My co-religionists in Sudminster seem to have put all the stress upon
+the resting half of the Commandment, forgetting the working half of
+it. I do my best to meet their views--as you say, one should not dig
+down a wall--by attending their Sabbath service on a day most
+inconvenient to me. But no sacrifice is too great to achieve prayerful
+communion with one's brethren.'
+
+'But if your views were to prevail there would be an end of Judaism!'
+the minister burst forth.
+
+'Then Heaven forbid they should prevail!' said Simeon Samuels
+fervently. 'It is your duty to put the opposition doctrine as strongly
+as possible from the pulpit.' Then, as the minister rose in angry
+obfuscation, 'You are sure you won't have some whisky?' he added.
+
+'No, I will take nothing from a house of sin. And if you show
+yourself next Sabbath I will preach at you again.'
+
+'So that is your idea of religion--to drive me from the synagogue. You
+are more likely to drive away the rest of the congregation, sick of
+always hearing the same sermon. As for me, you forget how I enjoy your
+eloquence, devoted though it is to the destruction of Judaism.'
+
+'Me!' The minister became ungrammatical in his indignation.
+
+'Yes, you. To mix up religion with the almanac. People who find that
+your Sabbath wall shuts them out of all public life and all
+professions, just go outside it altogether, and think themselves
+outside the gates of Judaism. If my father--peace be upon him--hadn't
+had your narrow notions, I should have gone to the Bar instead of
+being condemned to shop-keeping.'
+
+'You are a very good devil's advocate now,' retorted the minister.
+
+Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'Thank you. And I congratulate
+_your_ client.'
+
+'You are an _Epikouros_ (Epicurean), and I am wasting my time.'
+
+'And mine too.'
+
+The minister strode into the shop. At the street-door he turned.
+
+'Then you persist in setting a bad example?'
+
+'A bad example! To whom? To your godly congregation? Considering every
+other shop in the town is open on _Shabbos_, one more or less can't
+upset them.'
+
+'When it is the only Jewish shop! Are you aware, sir, that every
+other Jew in Sudminster closes rigorously on the Sabbath?'
+
+'I ascertained that before I settled here,' said Simeon Samuels
+quietly.
+
+
+XI
+
+The report of the pastor's collapse produced an emergency meeting of
+the leading sheep. The mid-day dinner-hour was chosen as the slackest.
+A babble of suggestions filled the _Parnass's_ parlour. Solomon
+Barzinsky kept sternly repeating his _Delenda est Carthago_: 'He must
+be expelled from the congregation.'
+
+'He should be expelled from the town altogether,' said Mendel. 'As it
+is written: "And remove Satan from before and behind us."'
+
+'Since when have we owned Sudminster?' sneered the _Parnass_. 'You
+might as well talk of expelling the Mayor and the Corporation.'
+
+'I didn't mean by Act of Parliament,' said Mendel. 'We could make his
+life a torture.'
+
+'And meantime he makes yours a torture. No, no, the only way is to
+appeal to his soul----'
+
+'May it be an atonement for us all!' interrupted Peleg the pawnbroker.
+
+'We must beg him not to destroy religion,' repeated the _Parnass_.
+
+'I thought Mr. Gabriel had done that,' said the _Gabbai_.
+
+'He is only a minister. He has no worldly tact.'
+
+'Then, why don't _you_ go?' said Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+'I have too much worldly tact. The President's visit might seem like
+an appeal to authority. It would set up his bristles. Besides, there
+wouldn't be me left to appeal to. The congregation must keep some
+trump up its sleeve. No, a mere plain member must go, a simple brother
+in Israel, to talk to him, heart to heart. You, Barzinsky, are the
+very man.'
+
+'No, no, I'm not such a simple brother as all that. I'm in the same
+line, and he might take it for trade jealousy.'
+
+'Then Peleg must go.'
+
+'No, no, I'm not worthy to be the _Sheliach Tzibbur_!' (envoy of the
+congregation).
+
+The _Parnass_ reassured him as to his merits. 'The congregation could
+not have a worthier envoy.'
+
+'But I can't leave my business.'
+
+'You, with your fine grown-up daughters!' cried Barzinsky.
+
+'Don't beshrew them--I will go at once.'
+
+'And these gentlemen must await you here,' said the President, tapping
+his snuffbox incongruously at the 'here,' 'in order to continue the
+sitting if you fail.'
+
+'I can't wait more than a quarter of an hour,' grumbled various voices
+in various keys.
+
+Peleg departed nervously, upborne by the congregational esteem. He
+returned without even his own. Instead he carried a bulky barometer.
+
+'You must buy this for the synagogue, gentlemen,' he said. 'It will do
+to hang in the lobby.'
+
+The _Parnass_ was the only one left in command of his breath.
+
+'Buy a barometer!' he gasped.
+
+'Well, it isn't any good to _me_,' retorted Peleg angrily.
+
+'Then why did you buy it?' cried the _Gabbai_.
+
+'It was the cheapest article I could get off with.'
+
+'But you didn't go to buy,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I know that--but you come into the shop--naturally he takes you for a
+customer--he looks so dignified; he strokes his beard--you can't look
+a fool, you must----'
+
+'Be one,' snapped the _Parnass_. 'And then you come to us to share the
+expenses!'
+
+'Well, what do I want with a barometer?'
+
+'It'll do to tell you there's a storm when the chimney-pots are
+blowing down,' suggested the _Parnass_ crushingly.
+
+'Put it in your window--you'll make a profit out of it,' said Mendel.
+
+'Not while Simeon Samuels is selling them cheaper, as with his Sabbath
+profits he can well afford to do!'
+
+'Oh, he said he'd stick to his Sabbath profit, did he?' inquired the
+_Parnass_.
+
+'We never touched on that,' said Peleg miserably. 'I couldn't manage
+to work the Sabbath into the conversation.'
+
+'This is terrible.' Barzinsky's fist smote the table. 'I'll go--let
+him suspect my motives or not. The Almighty knows they are pure.'
+
+'Bravo! Well spoken!' There was a burst of applause. Several
+marine-dealers shot out their hands and grasped Barzinsky's in
+admiration.
+
+'Do not await me, gentlemen,' he said importantly. 'Go in peace.'
+
+
+XII
+
+'Good afternoon, Mr. Samuels,' said Solomon Barzinsky.
+
+'Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you?'
+
+'You--you don't know me? I am a fellow-Jew.'
+
+'That's as plain as the nose on your face.'
+
+'You don't remember me from _Shool_? Mr. Barzinsky! I had the
+rolling-up of the Scroll the time you had the elevation of it.'
+
+'Ah, indeed. At these solemn moments I scarcely notice people. But I
+am very glad to find you patronizing my humble establishment.'
+
+'I don't want a barometer,' said Solomon hurriedly.
+
+'That is fortunate, as I have just sold my last. But in the way of
+waterproofs, we have a new pattern, very seasonable.'
+
+'No, no; I didn't come for a waterproof.'
+
+'These oilskins----'
+
+'I didn't come to buy anything.'
+
+'Ah, you wish to sell me something.'
+
+'Not that either. The fact is, I've come to beg of you, as one Jew to
+another----'
+
+'A _Schnorrer_!' interrupted Simeon Samuels. 'Oh, Lord, I ought to
+have recognised you by that synagogue beginning.'
+
+'Me, a _Schnorrer_!' The little man swelled skywards. 'Me, Solomon
+Barzinsky, whose shop stood in Sudminster twenty years before you
+poked your nose in----'
+
+'I beg your pardon. There! you see I'm a beggar, too.' And Simeon
+Samuels laughed mirthlessly. 'Well, you've come to beg of me.' And
+his fingers caressed his patriarchal beard.
+
+'I don't come on my own account only,' Barzinsky stammered.
+
+'I understand. You want a contribution to the Passover Cake Fund. My
+time is precious, so is yours. What is the _Parnass_ giving?'
+
+'I'm not begging for money. I represent the congregation.'
+
+'Dear me, why didn't you come to the point quicker? The congregation
+wishes to beg my acceptance of office. Well, it's very good of you
+all, especially as I'm such a recent addition. But I really feel a
+diffidence. You see, my views of the Sabbath clash with those of the
+congregation.'
+
+'They do!' cried Barzinsky, leaping at his opportunity.
+
+'Yes, I am for a much stricter observance than appears general here.
+Scarcely one of you carries his handkerchief tied round his loins like
+my poor old father, peace be upon him! You all carry the burden of it
+impiously in a pocket.'
+
+'I never noticed _your_ handkerchief round your waist!' cried the
+bewildered Barzinsky.
+
+'Perhaps not; I never had a cold; it remained furled.'
+
+Simeon Samuels' superb insolence twitched Barzinsky's mouth agape.
+'But you keep your shop open!' he cried at last.
+
+'That would be still another point of clashing,' admitted Simeon
+Samuels blandly. 'Altogether, you will see the inadvisability of my
+accepting office.'
+
+'Office!' echoed Barzinsky, meeting the other's ironic fence with
+crude thwacks. 'Do you think a God-fearing congregation would offer
+office to a Sabbath-breaker?'
+
+'Ah, so that was at the back of it. I suspected something underhand in
+your offer. I was to be given office, was I, on condition of closing
+my shop on Saturday? No, Mr. Barzinsky. Go back and tell those who
+sent you that Simeon Samuels scorns stipulations, and that when you
+offer to make him _Parnass_ unconditionally he may consider your
+offer, but not till then. Good-bye. You must jog along with your
+present apology for a _Parnass_.'
+
+'You--you Elisha ben Abuyai!' And, consoled only by the aptness of his
+reference to the atheist of the Talmud, Barzinsky rushed off to tell
+the _Parnass_ how Simeon Samuels had insulted them both.
+
+
+XIII
+
+The _Parnass_, however, was not to be drawn yet. He must keep himself
+in reserve, he still insisted. But perhaps, he admitted, Simeon
+Samuels resented mere private members or committeemen. Let the
+_Gabbai_ go.
+
+Accordingly the pompous treasurer of the synagogue strode into the
+notorious shop on the Sabbath itself, catching Simeon Samuels
+red-handed.
+
+But nothing could be suaver than that gentleman's 'Good _Shabbos_.
+What can I do for you?'
+
+'You can shut up your shop,' said the _Gabbai_ brusquely.
+
+'And how shall I pay your bill, then?'
+
+'I'd rather give you a seat and all the honours for nothing than see
+this desecration.'
+
+'You must have a goodly surplus, then.'
+
+'We have enough.'
+
+'That's strange. You're the first _Gabbai_ I ever knew who was
+satisfied with his balance-sheet. Is it your excellent management, I
+wonder, or have you endowments?'
+
+'That's not for me to say. I mean we have five or six hundred pounds
+in legacies.'
+
+'Indeed! Soundly invested, I hope?'
+
+'First-class. English Railway Debentures.'
+
+'I see. Trustee stock.' Simeon Samuels stroked his beard. 'And so your
+whole congregation works on the Sabbath. A pretty confession!'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Runs railway trains, lights engine-fires, keeps porters and
+signal-men toiling, and pockets the profits!'
+
+'Who does?'
+
+'You, sir, in particular, as the financial representative of the
+congregation. How can any Jew hold industrial shares in a heathen
+country without being a partner in a Sabbath business--ay, and opening
+on the Day of Atonement itself? And it is you who have the audacity to
+complain of me! I, at least, do my own dirty work, not hide myself
+behind stocks and shares. Good _Shabbos_ to you, Mr. _Gabbai_, and
+kindly mind your own business in future--your locomotives and your
+sidings and your stinking tunnels.'
+
+
+XIV
+
+The _Parnass_ could no longer delay the diplomatic encounter. 'Twas
+vain to accuse the others of tactlessness, and shirk the exhibition of
+his own tact. He exhibited it most convincingly by not informing the
+others that he was about to put it to a trial.
+
+Hence he refrained from improving a synagogue opportunity, but sneaked
+one week-day towards the shop. He lingered without, waiting to be
+invited within. Thus all appearance of his coming to rebuke would be
+removed. His mission should pop up from a casual conversation.
+
+He peeped into the window, passed and repassed.
+
+Simeon Samuels, aware of a fly hovering on the purlieus of his web,
+issued from its centre, as the _Parnass_ turned his back on the shop
+and gazed musingly at the sky.
+
+'Looks threatening for rain, sir,' observed Simeon Samuels, addressing
+the back. 'Our waterproofs---- Bless my soul, but it surely isn't our
+_Parnass_!'
+
+'Yes, I'm just strolling about. I seem to have stumbled on your
+establishment.'
+
+'Lucky for me.'
+
+'And a pleasure for me. I never knew you had such a nice display.'
+
+'Won't you come inside, and see the stock?'
+
+'Thank you, I must really get back home. And besides, as you say, it
+is threatening for rain.'
+
+'I'll lend you a waterproof, or even sell you one cheap. Come in,
+sir--come in. Pray honour me.'
+
+Congratulating himself on catching the spider, the fly followed him
+within.
+
+A quarter of an hour passed, in which he must buzz about the stock. It
+seemed vastly difficult to veer round to the Sabbath through the web
+of conversation the spider wove round him. Simeon Samuels' conception
+of a marine-dealer's stock startled him by its comprehensiveness, and
+when he was asked to admire an Indian shawl, he couldn't help
+inquiring what it was doing there.
+
+'Well,' explained Simeon Samuels, 'occasionally a captain or first
+mate will come back to England, home, and beauty, and will have
+neglected to buy foreign presents for his womenkind. I then remind him
+of the weakness of womenkind for such trophies of their menfolks'
+travel.'
+
+'Excellent. I won't tell your competitors.'
+
+'Oh, those cattle!' Simeon snapped his fingers. 'If they stole my
+idea, they'd not be able to carry it out. It's not easy to cajole a
+captain.'
+
+'No, you're indeed a honeyed rascal,' thought the _Parnass_.
+
+'I also do a brisk business in chutney,' went on Simeon. 'It's a thing
+women are especially fond of having brought back to them from India.
+And yet it's the last thing their menkind think of till I remind them
+of it on their return.'
+
+'_I_ certainly brought back none,' said the _Parnass_, smiling in
+spite of himself.
+
+'You have been in India?'
+
+'I have,' replied the _Parnass_, with a happy inspiration, 'and I
+brought back to my wife something more stimulating than chutney.'
+
+'Indeed?'
+
+'Yes, the story of the Beni-Israel, the black Jews, who, surrounded by
+all those millions of Hindoos, still keep their Sabbath.'
+
+'Ah, poor niggers. Then you've been half round the world.'
+
+'_All_ round the world, for I went there and back by different routes.
+And it was most touching, wherever I went, to find everywhere a colony
+of Jews, and everywhere the Holy Sabbath kept sacred.'
+
+'But on different days, of course,' said Simeon Samuels.
+
+'Eh? Not at all! On the same day.'
+
+'On the same day! How could that be? The day changes with every move
+east or west. When it's day here, it's night in Australia.'
+
+Darkness began to cloud the presidential brow.
+
+'Don't you try to make black white!' he said angrily.
+
+'It's you that are trying to make white black,' retorted Simeon
+Samuels. 'Perhaps you don't know that I hail from Australia, and that
+by working on Saturday I escape profaning my native Australian
+Sabbath, while you, who have been all round the world, and have either
+lost or gained a day, according as you travelled east or west, are
+desecrating your original Sabbath either by working on Friday or
+smoking on Sunday.'
+
+The _Parnass_ felt his head going round--he didn't know whether east
+or west. He tried to clear it by a pinch of snuff, which he in vain
+strove to make judicial.
+
+'Oh, and so, and so--atchew!--and so you're the saint and I'm the
+sinner!' he cried sarcastically.
+
+'No, I don't profess to be a saint,' replied Simeon Samuels somewhat
+unexpectedly. 'But I do think the Saturday was meant for Palestine,
+not for the lands of the Exile, where another day of rest rules. When
+you were in India you probably noted that the Mohammedans keep Friday.
+A poor Jew in the bazaar is robbed of his Hindoo customers on Friday,
+of his Jews on Saturday, and his Christians on Sunday.'
+
+'The Fourth Commandment is eternal!' said the _Parnass_ with obstinate
+sublimity.
+
+'But the Fifth says, "that thy days may be long in the land which the
+Lord thy God giveth thee." I believe this reward belongs to all the
+first five Commandments--not only to the Fifth--else an orphan would
+have no chance of long life. Keep the Sabbath in the land that the
+Lord giveth thee; not in England, which isn't thine.'
+
+'Oho!' retorted the _Parnass_. 'Then at that rate in England you
+needn't honour your father and mother.'
+
+'Not if you haven't got them!' rejoined Simeon Samuels. 'And if you
+haven't got a land, you can't keep its Sabbath. Perhaps you think we
+can keep the Jubilee also without a country.'
+
+'The Sabbath is eternal,' repeated the _Parnass_ doggedly. 'It has
+nothing to do with countries. Before we got to the Promised Land we
+kept the Sabbath in the wilderness.'
+
+'Yes, and God sent a double dose of manna on the Friday. Do you mean
+to say He sends us here a double dose of profit?'
+
+'He doesn't let us starve. We prospered well enough before you brought
+your wretched example----'
+
+'Then my wretched example cannot lead the congregation away. I am glad
+of it. You do them much more harm by your way of Sabbath-breaking.'
+
+'My way!'
+
+'Yes, my dear old father--peace be upon him!--would have been
+scandalized to see the burden you carry on the Sabbath.'
+
+'What burden do I carry?'
+
+'Your snuff-box!'
+
+The _Parnass_ almost dropped it. 'That little thing!'
+
+'I call it a cumbrous, not to say tasteless thing. But before the
+Almighty there is no great and no small. One who stands in such a high
+place in the synagogue must be especially mindful, and every
+unnecessary burden----'
+
+'But snuff is necessary for me--I can't do without it.'
+
+'Other Presidents have done without it. As it is written in Jeremiah:
+"And the wild asses did stand in the high places; they snuffed up the
+wind."'
+
+The _Parnass_ flushed like a beetroot. 'I'll teach you to know _your_
+place, sir.' He turned his back on the scoffer, and strode towards the
+door.
+
+'But if you'd care for a smaller snuff-box,' said Simeon Samuels, 'I
+have an artistic assortment.'
+
+
+XV
+
+At the next meeting of the Synagogue Council a notice of motion stood
+upon the agenda in the name of the _Parnass_ himself:
+
+'That this Council views with the greatest reprobation the breach of
+the Fourth Commandment committed weekly by a member of the
+congregation, and calls upon him either to resign his seat, with the
+burial and other rights appertaining thereto, or to close his business
+on the Sabbath.'
+
+When the resolution came up Mr. Solomon Barzinsky moved as an
+amendment that weekly be altered into 'twice a week,' since the member
+kept open on Friday night as well as Saturday.
+
+The _Parnass_ refused to accept the amendment. There was only one
+Sabbath a week, though it had two periods. 'And the evening and the
+morning were one day.'
+
+Mr. Peleg supported the amendment. They must not leave Mr. Simeon
+Samuels a loophole of escape. It was also, he said, the duty of the
+Council to buy a barometer the rogue had foisted upon him.
+
+After an animated discussion, mainly about the barometer, the
+President accepted the amendment, but produced a great impression by
+altering 'twice a week' into 'bi-weekly.'
+
+A Mr. John Straumann, however, who prided himself on his style, and
+had even changed his name to John because Jacob grated on his delicate
+ear, refused to be impressed.
+
+Committed _bi_-weekly _by_ a member sounded almost jocose, he argued.
+'Buy! buy!' it sounded like a butcher's cry.
+
+Mr. Enoch, the _kosher_ butcher, rose amid excitement, and asked if he
+had come there to be insulted!
+
+'Sit down! sit down!' said the _Parnass_ roughly. 'It's no matter how
+the resolution sounds. It will be in writing.'
+
+'Then why not add,' sarcastically persisted the stylist, '"Committed
+_bi_-weekly _by_ a member _by buying_ and selling."'
+
+'Order, order!' said the _Parnass_ angrily. 'Those who are in favour
+of the resolution! Carried.'
+
+'_By_ a majority,' sneered the stylist, subsiding.
+
+'Mr. Secretary'--the President turned to the poor
+Reverend-of-all-work--'you need not record this verbal discussion in
+the minutes.'
+
+'_By_ request,' said the stylist, reviving.
+
+'But what's the use of the resolution if you don't mention the
+member's name?' suddenly inquired Ephraim Mendel, stretching his long,
+languid limbs.
+
+'But there's only one Sabbath-breaker,' replied the _Parnass_.
+
+'To-day, yes, but to-morrow there might be two.'
+
+'It could hardly be to-morrow,' said the stylist. 'For that happens to
+be a Monday.'
+
+Barzinsky bashed the table. 'Mr. President, are we here for business
+or are we not?'
+
+'You may be here for business--I am here for religion,' retorted
+Straumann the stylist.
+
+'You--you snub-nosed monkey, what do you mean?'
+
+'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'I will not order,' said Solomon Barzinsky excitedly. 'I did not come
+here to be insulted.'
+
+'Insulted!' quoth Straumann. 'It's you that must apologize, you
+illiterate icthyosaurus! I appeal to the President.'
+
+'You have both insulted _me_,' was that worthy's ruling. 'I give the
+word to Mr. Mendel.'
+
+'But----' from both the combatants simultaneously.
+
+'Order, order!' from a dozen throats.
+
+'I said Simeon Samuels' name must be put in,' Mendel repeated.
+
+'You should have said so before--the resolution is carried now,' said
+the President.
+
+'And a fat lot of good it will do,' said Peleg. 'Gentlemen, if you
+knew him as well as I, if you had my barometer to read him by, you'd
+see that the only remedy is to put him in _Cherem_' (excommunication).
+
+'If he can't get buried it _is_ a kind of _Cherem_,' said the
+_Gabbai_.
+
+'Assuredly,' added the _Parnass_. 'He will be frightened to think that
+if he dies suddenly----'
+
+'And he is sure to take a sudden death,' put in Barzinsky with
+unction.
+
+'He will not be buried among Jews,' wound up the _Parnass_.
+
+'Hear, hear!' A murmur of satisfaction ran round the table. All felt
+that Simeon Samuels was cornered at last. It was resolved that the
+resolution be sent to him.
+
+
+XVI
+
+'Mr. Simeon Samuels requests me to say that he presents his
+compliments to the secretary of the Sudminster Hebrew Congregation,
+and begs to acknowledge the receipt of the Council's resolution. In
+reply I am to state that Mr. Samuels regrets that his views on the
+Sabbath question should differ from those of his fellow-worshippers,
+but he has not attempted to impress his views on the majority, and he
+regrets that in a free country like England they should have imported
+the tyranny of the lands of persecution from which they came.
+Fortunately such procedure is illegal. By the act of Charles I. the
+Sabbath is defined as the Sunday, and as a British subject Mr. Samuels
+takes his stand upon the British Constitution. Mr. Samuels has done
+his best to compromise with the congregation by attending the Sabbath
+service on the day most convenient to the majority. In regard to the
+veiled threat of the refusal of burial rights, Mr. Samuels desires me
+to say that he has no intention of dying in Sudminster, but merely of
+getting his living there. In any case, under his will, his body is to
+be deported to Jerusalem, where he has already acquired a
+burying-place.'
+
+'Next year in Jerusalem!' cried Barzinsky fervently, when this was
+read to the next meeting.
+
+'Order, order,' said the _Parnass_. 'I don't believe in his Jerusalem
+grave. They won't admit his dead body.'
+
+'He relies on smuggling in alive,' said Barzinsky gloomily, 'as soon
+as he has made his pile.'
+
+'That won't be very long at this rate,' added Ephraim Mendel.
+
+'The sooner the better,' said the _Gabbai_ impatiently. 'Let him go to
+Jericho.'
+
+There was a burst of laughter, to the _Gabbai's_ great astonishment.
+
+'Order, order, gentlemen,' said the _Parnass_. 'Don't you see from
+this insolent letter how right I was? The rascal threatens to drag us
+to the Christian Courts, that's clear. All that about Jerusalem is
+only dust thrown into our eyes.'
+
+'Grave-dust,' murmured Straumann.
+
+'Order! He is a dangerous customer.'
+
+'Shopkeeper,' corrected Straumann.
+
+The _Parnass_ glared, but took snuff silently.
+
+'I don't wonder he laughed at us,' said Straumann, encouraged.
+'_Bi_-weekly _by_ a member. Ha! ha! ha!'
+
+'Mr. President!' Barzinsky screamed. 'Will you throw that laughing
+hyena out, or shall I?'
+
+Straumann froze to a statue of dignity. 'Let any animalcule try it
+on,' said he.
+
+'Shut up, you children, I'll chuck you both out,' said Ephraim Mendel
+in conciliatory tones. 'The point is--what's to be done now, Mr.
+President?'
+
+'Nothing--till the end of the year. When he offers his new
+subscription we refuse to take it. That can't be illegal.'
+
+'We ought all to go to him in a friendly deputation,' said Straumann.
+'These formal resolutions "Buy! buy!" put his back up. We'll go to him
+as brothers--all Israel are brethren, and blood is thicker than
+water.'
+
+'Chutney is thicker than blood,' put in the _Parnass_ mysteriously.
+'He'll simply try to palm off his stock on the deputation.'
+
+Ephraim Mendel and Solomon Barzinsky jumped up simultaneously. 'What a
+good idea,' said Ephraim. 'There you have hit it!' said Solomon. Their
+simultaneous popping-up had an air of finality--like the long and the
+short of it!
+
+'You mean?' said the _Parnass_, befogged in his turn.
+
+'I mean,' said Barzinsky, 'we could buy up his stock, me and the other
+marine-dealers between us, and he could clear out!'
+
+'If he sold it reasonably,' added Mendel.
+
+'Even unreasonably you must make a sacrifice for the Sabbath,' said
+the _Parnass_. 'Besides, divided among the lot of you, the loss would
+be little.'
+
+'And you can buy in my barometer with the rest,' added Peleg.
+
+'We could call a meeting of marine-dealers,' said Barzinsky,
+disregarding him. 'We could say to them we must sacrifice ourselves
+for our religion.'
+
+'Tell that to the marine-dealers!' murmured Straumann.
+
+'And that we must buy out the Sabbath-breaker at any cost.'
+
+'Buy! buy!' said Straumann. 'If you'd only thought of that sort of
+"Buy! buy!" at the first!'
+
+'Order, order!' said the _Parnass_.
+
+'It would be more in order,' said Straumann, 'to appoint an executive
+sub-committee to deal with the question. I'm sick of it. And surely we
+as a Synagogue Council can't be in order in ordering some of our
+members to buy out another.'
+
+'Hear, hear!' His suggestion found general approval. It took a long
+discussion, however, before the synagogue decided to wash its hands of
+responsibility, and give over to a sub-committee of three the task of
+ridding Sudminster of its plague-spot by any means that commended
+itself to them.
+
+Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel, and Peleg the pawnbroker were
+elected to constitute this Council of Three.
+
+
+XVII
+
+The glad news spread through the Sudminster Congregation that Simeon
+Samuels had at last been bought out--at a terrible loss to the
+martyred marine-dealers who had had to load themselves with chutney
+and other unheard-of and unsaleable stock. But they would get back
+their losses, it was felt, by the removal of his rivalry. Carts were
+drawn up before the dismantled plate-glass window carrying off its
+criminal contents, and Simeon Samuels stood stroking his beard amid
+the ruins.
+
+Then the shop closed; the shutters that should have honoured the
+Sabbath now depressed the Tuesday. Simeon Samuels was seen to get into
+the London train. The demon that troubled their sanctity had been
+exorcised. A great peace reigned in every heart, almost like the
+Sabbath peace coming into the middle of the week.
+
+'If they had only taken my advice earlier,' said Solomon Barzinsky to
+his wife, as he rolled his forkful of beef in the chutney.
+
+'You can write to your father, Deborah,' said Lazarus Levy, 'that we
+no longer need the superior reach-me-downs.'
+
+On the Wednesday strange new rumours began to circulate, and those who
+hastened to confirm them stood dumbfounded before great posters on all
+the shutters:
+
+                      CLOSED FOR RE-STOCKING
+
+             THE OLD-FASHIONED STOCK OF THIS BUSINESS
+                HAVING BEEN SOLD OFF TO THE TRADE,
+
+                          SIMEON SAMUELS
+
+                    IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY
+              TO LAY IN THE BEST AND MOST UP-TO-DATE
+                   LONDON AND CONTINENTAL GOODS
+                        FOR HIS CUSTOMERS.
+        _BARGAINS AND NOVELTIES IN EVERY DEPARTMENT._
+
+                      RE-OPEN SATURDAY NEXT
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A hurried emergency meeting of the Executive Sub-Committee was called.
+
+'He has swindled us,' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'This paper signed by
+him merely undertakes to shut up his shop. And he will plead he meant
+for a day or two.'
+
+'And he agreed to leave the town,' wailed Peleg, 'but he meant to buy
+goods.'
+
+'Well, we can have the law of him,' said Mendel. 'We paid him
+compensation for disturbance.'
+
+'And can't he claim he _was_ disturbed?' shrieked Barzinsky. 'His
+whole stock turned upside down!'
+
+'Let him claim!' said Mendel. 'There is such a thing as obtaining
+money under false pretences.'
+
+'And such a thing as becoming the laughing-stock of the heathen,' said
+Peleg. 'We must grin and bear it ourselves.'
+
+'It's all very well for you to grin,' said Solomon tartly. '_We've_
+got to bear it. You didn't take over any of his old rubbish.'
+
+'Didn't I, indeed? What about the barometer?'
+
+'Confound your barometer!' cried Ephraim Mendel. 'I'll have the law of
+him; I've made up my mind.'
+
+'Well, you'll have to bear the cost, then,' said Peleg. 'It's none of
+my business.'
+
+'Yes, it is,' shouted Mendel. 'As a member of the Sub-Committee you
+can't dissociate yourselves from us.'
+
+'A nice idea that--I'm to be dragged into your law-suits!'
+
+'Hush, leave off these squabbles!' said Solomon Barzinsky. 'The law is
+slow, and not even sure. The time has come for desperate measures. We
+must root out the plague-spot with our own hands.'
+
+'Hear, hear,' said the rest of the Sub-Committee.
+
+
+XIX
+
+On the succeeding Sabbath Simeon Samuels was not the only figure in
+the synagogue absorbed in devotion. Solomon Barzinsky, Ephraim Mendel,
+and Peleg the pawnbroker were all rapt in equal piety, while the rest
+of the congregation was shaken with dreadful gossip about them. Their
+shops were open, too, it would seem.
+
+Immediately after the service the _Parnass_ arrested Solomon
+Barzinsky's exit, and asked him if the rumour were true.
+
+'Perfectly true,' replied Solomon placidly. 'The Executive
+Sub-Committee passed the resolution to----'
+
+'To break the Sabbath!' interrupted the _Parnass_.
+
+'We had already sacrificed our money; there was nothing left but to
+sacrifice our deepest feelings----'
+
+'But what for?'
+
+'Why, to destroy his advantage, of course. Five-sixths of his Sabbath
+profits depend on the marine-dealers closing, and when he sees he's
+breaking the Sabbath in vain----'
+
+'Rubbish! You are asked to stop a congregational infection, and
+you----'
+
+'Vaccinate ourselves with the same stuff, to make sure the attack
+shall be light.'
+
+'It's a hair of the dog that bit us,' said Mendel, who, with Peleg,
+had lingered to back up Barzinsky.
+
+'Of the mad dog!' exclaimed the _Parnass_. 'And you're all raging
+mad.'
+
+'It's the only sane way,' urged Peleg. 'When he sees his rivals
+open----'
+
+'You!' The President turned on him. 'You are not even a marine-dealer.
+Why are you open?'
+
+'How could I dissociate myself from the rest of the Sub-Committee?'
+inquired Peleg with righteous indignation.
+
+'You are a set of sinners in Israel!' cried the _Parnass_, forgetting
+even to take snuff. 'This will split up the congregation.'
+
+'The congregation through its Council gave the Committee full power to
+deal with the matter,' said Barzinsky with dignity.
+
+'But then the other marine-dealers will open as well as the
+Committee!'
+
+'I trust not,' replied Barzinsky fervently. 'Two of us are enough to
+cut down his takings.'
+
+'But the whole lot of you would be still more efficacious. Oh, this is
+the destruction of our congregation, the death of our religion!'
+
+'No, no, no,' said Solomon soothingly. 'You are mistaken. We are most
+careful not to touch money. We are going to trust our customers, and
+keep our accounts without pen or ink. We have invented a most
+ingenious system, which gives us far more work than writing, but we
+have determined to spare ourselves no trouble to keep the Sabbath from
+unnecessary desecration.'
+
+'And once the customers don't pay up, your system will break down.
+No, no; I shall write to the Chief Rabbi.'
+
+'We will explain our motives,' said Mendel.
+
+'Your motives need no explanation. This scandal must cease.'
+
+'And who are you to give orders?' shrieked Solomon Barzinsky. 'You're
+not speaking to a _Schnorrer_, mind you. My banking account is every
+bit as big as yours. For two pins I start an opposition _Shool_.'
+
+'A Sunday _Shool_!' said the _Parnass_ sarcastically.
+
+'And why not? It would be better than sitting playing solo on Sundays.
+We are not in Palestine now.'
+
+'Oh, Simeon Samuels has been talking to you, has he?'
+
+'I don't need Simeon Samuels' wisdom. I'm an Englishman myself.'
+
+
+XX
+
+The desperate measures of the Sub-Committee were successful. The other
+marine-dealers hastened to associate themselves with the plan of
+campaign, and Simeon Samuels soon departed in search of a more pious
+seaport.
+
+But, alas! homoeopathy was only half-vindicated. For the remedy proved
+worse than the disease, and the cutting-out of the original
+plague-spot left the other marine-stores still infected. The epidemic
+spread from them till it had overtaken half the shops of the
+congregation. Some had it in a mild form--only one shutter open, or a
+back door not closed--but in many it came out over the whole
+shop-window.
+
+The one bright spot in the story of the Sudminster Sabbath is that the
+congregation of which the present esteemed _Parnass_ is Solomon
+Barzinsky, Esq., J.P., managed to avert the threatened split, and that
+while in so many other orthodox synagogues the poor minister preaches
+on the Sabbath to empty benches, the Sudminster congregation still
+remains at the happy point of compromise acutely discovered by Simeon
+Samuels: of listening reverentially every Saturday morning to the
+unchanging principles of its minister-elect, the while its shops are
+engaged in supplying the wants of Christendom.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MARK
+
+
+
+
+THE RED MARK
+
+
+The curious episode in the London Ghetto the other winter, while the
+epidemic of small-pox was raging, escaped the attention of the
+reporters, though in the world of the Board-schools it is a vivid
+memory. But even the teachers and the committees, the inspectors and
+the Board members, have remained ignorant of the part little Bloomah
+Beckenstein played in it.
+
+To explain how she came to be outside the school-gates instead of
+inside them, we must go back a little and explain her situation both
+outside and inside her school.
+
+Bloomah was probably '_Blume_,' which is German for a flower, but she
+had always been spelt 'Bloomah' in the school register, for even
+Board-school teachers are not necessarily familiar with foreign
+languages.
+
+They might have been forgiven for not connecting Bloomah with blooms,
+for she was a sad-faced child, and even in her tenth year showed deep,
+dark circles round her eyes. But they were beautiful eyes, large,
+brown, and soft, shining with love and obedience.
+
+Mrs. Beckenstein, however, found neither of these qualities in her
+youngest born, who seemed to her entirely sucked up by the school.
+
+'In my days,' she would grumble, 'it used to be God Almighty first,
+your parents next, and school last. Now it's all a red mark first,
+your parents and God Almighty nowhere.'
+
+The red mark was the symbol of punctuality, set opposite the child's
+name in the register. To gain it, she must be in her place at nine
+o'clock to the stroke. A moment after nine, and only the black mark
+was attainable. Twenty to ten, and the duck's egg of the absent was
+sorrowfully inscribed by the Recording Angel, who in Bloomah's case
+was a pale pupil-teacher with eyeglasses.
+
+But it was the Banner which loomed largest on the school horizon,
+intensifying Bloomah's anxiety and her mother's grievance.
+
+'I don't see nothing,' Mrs. Beckenstein iterated; 'no prize, no
+medal--nothing but a red mark and a banner.'
+
+The Banner was indeed a novelty. It had not unfurled itself in Mrs.
+Beckenstein's young days, nor even in the young days of Bloomah's
+married brothers and sisters.
+
+As the worthy matron would say: 'There's been Jack Beckenstein,
+there's been Joey Beckenstein, there's been Briny Beckenstein, there's
+been Benjy Beckenstein, there's been Ada Beckenstein, there's been
+Becky Beckenstein, God bless their hearts! and they all grew up
+scholards and prize-winners and a credit to their Queen and their
+religion without this _meshuggas_ (madness) of a Banner.'
+
+Vaguely Mrs. Beckenstein connected the degenerate innovation with the
+invasion of the school by 'furriners'--all these hordes of Russian,
+Polish, and Roumanian Jews flying from persecution, who were sweeping
+away the good old English families, of which she considered the
+Beckensteins a shining example. What did English people want with
+banners and such-like gewgaws?
+
+The Banner was a class trophy of regularity and punctuality. It might
+be said metaphorically to be made of red marks; and, indeed, its
+ground-hue was purple.
+
+The class that had scored the highest weekly average of red marks
+enjoyed its emblazoned splendours for the next week. It hung by a cord
+on the classroom wall, amid the dull, drab maps--a glorious sight with
+its oaken frame and its rich-coloured design in silk. Life moved to a
+chivalrous music, lessons went more easily, in presence of its proud
+pomp: 'twas like marching to a band instead of painfully plodding.
+
+And the desire to keep it became a passion to the winners; the little
+girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some
+mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple
+and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of
+the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally
+through the door of the cold and empty room.
+
+Woe to the late-comer who imperilled the Banner. The black mark on the
+register was a snowflake compared with the black frown on all those
+childish foreheads. As for the absentee, the scowls that would meet
+her return not improbably operated to prolong her absence.
+
+Only once had Bloomah's class won the trophy, and that was largely
+through a yellow fog which hit the other classes worse.
+
+For Bloomah was the black sheep that spoilt the chances of the
+fold--the black sheep with the black marks. Perhaps those great rings
+round her eyes were the black marks incarnate, so morbidly did the
+poor child grieve over her sins of omission.
+
+Yet these sins of omission were virtues of commission elsewhere; for
+if Bloomah's desk was vacant, it was only because Bloomah was slaving
+at something that her mother considered more important.
+
+'The Beckenstein family first, the workshop second, and school
+nowhere,' Bloomah might have retorted on her mother.
+
+At home she was the girl-of-all-work. In the living-rooms she did
+cooking and washing and sweeping; in the shop above, whenever a hand
+fell sick or work fell heavy, she was utilized to make buttonholes,
+school hours or no school hours.
+
+Bloomah was likewise the errand-girl of the establishment, and the
+portress of goods to and from S. Cohn's Emporium in Holloway, and the
+watch-dog when Mrs. Beckenstein went shopping or pleasuring.
+
+'Lock up the house!' the latter would cry, when Bloomah tearfully
+pleaded for that course. 'My things are much too valuable to be locked
+up. But I know you'd rather lose my jewellery than your precious
+Banner.'
+
+When Mrs. Beckenstein had new grandchildren--and they came
+frequently--Bloomah would be summoned in hot haste to the new scene of
+service. Curt post-cards came on these occasions, thus conceived:
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+        'A son. Send Bloomah.
+                    'BRINY.'
+
+Sometimes these messages were mournfully inverted:
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+       'Poor little Rachie is gone. Send Bloomah to your heart-broken
+                    'BECKY.'
+
+Occasionally the post-card went the other way:
+
+    'DEAR BECKY,
+      'Send back Bloomah.
+                    'Your loving mother.'
+
+The care of her elder brother Daniel was also part of Bloomah's
+burden; and in the evenings she had to keep an eye on his street
+sports and comrades, for since he had shocked his parents by dumping
+down a new pair of boots on the table, he could not be trusted without
+supervision.
+
+Not that he had stolen the boots--far worse! Beguiled by a card
+cunningly printed in Hebrew, he had attended the evening classes of
+the _Meshummodim_, those converted Jews who try to bribe their
+brethren from the faith, and who are the bugbear and execration of the
+Ghetto.
+
+Daniel was thereafter looked upon at home as a lamb who had escaped
+from the lions' den, and must be the object of their vengeful pursuit,
+while on Bloomah devolved the duties of shepherd and sheep-dog.
+
+It was in the midst of all these diverse duties that Bloomah tried to
+go to school by day, and do her home lessons by night. She did not
+murmur against her mother, though she often pleaded. She recognised
+that the poor woman was similarly distracted between domestic duties
+and turns at the machines upstairs.
+
+Only it was hard for the child to dovetail the two halves of her life.
+At night she must sit up as late as her elders, poring over her school
+books, and in the morning it was a fierce rush to get through her
+share of the housework in time for the red mark. In Mrs. Beckenstein's
+language: 'Don't eat, don't sleep, boil nor bake, stew nor roast, nor
+fry, nor nothing.'
+
+Her case was even worse than her mother imagined, for sometimes it was
+ten minutes to nine before Bloomah could sit down to her own
+breakfast, and then the steaming cup of tea served by her mother was a
+terrible hindrance; and if that good woman's head was turned, Bloomah
+would sneak towards the improvised sink--which consisted of two dirty
+buckets, the one holding the clean water being recognisable by the tin
+pot standing on its covering-board--where she would pour half her tea
+into the one bucket and fill up from the other.
+
+When this stratagem was impossible, she almost scalded herself in her
+gulpy haste. Then how she snatched up her satchel and ran through
+rain, or snow, or fog, or scorching sunshine! Yet often she lost her
+breath without gaining her mark, and as she cowered tearfully under
+the angry eyes of the classroom, a stab at her heart was added to the
+stitch in her side.
+
+It made her classmates only the angrier that, despite all her
+unpunctuality, she kept a high position in the class, even if she
+could never quite attain prize-rank.
+
+But there came a week when Bloomah's family remained astonishingly
+quiet and self-sufficient, and it looked as if the Banner might once
+again adorn the dry, scholastic room and throw a halo of romance round
+the blackboard.
+
+Then a curious calamity befell. A girl who had left the school for
+another at the end of the previous week, returned on the Thursday,
+explaining that her parents had decided to keep her in the old school.
+An indignant heart-cry broke through all the discipline:
+
+'Teacher, don't have her!'
+
+From Bloomah burst the peremptory command: 'Go back, Sarah!'
+
+For the unlucky children felt that her interval would now be reckoned
+one of absence. And they were right. Sarah reduced the gross
+attendance by six, and the Banner was lost.
+
+Yet to have been so near incited them to a fresh spurt. Again the
+tantalizing Thursday was reached before their hopes were dashed. This
+time the break-down was even crueller, for every pinafored pupil, not
+excluding Bloomah, was in her place, red-marked.
+
+Upon this saintly company burst suddenly Bloomah's mother, who,
+ignoring the teacher, and pointing her finger dramatically at her
+daughter, cried:
+
+'Bloomah Beckenstein, go home!'
+
+Bloomah's face became one large red mark, at which all the other
+girls' eyes were directed. Tears of humiliation and distress dripped
+down her cheeks over the dark rings. If she were thus hauled off ere
+she had received two hours of secular instruction, her attendance
+would be cancelled.
+
+The class was all in confusion. 'Fold arms!' cried the teacher
+sharply, and the girls sat up rigidly. Bloomah obeyed instinctively
+with the rest.
+
+'Bloomah Beckenstein, do you want me to pull you out by your plait?'
+
+'Mrs. Beckenstein, really you mustn't come here like that!' said the
+teacher in her most ladylike accents.
+
+'Tell Bloomah that,' answered Mrs. Beckenstein, unimpressed. 'She's
+come here by runnin' away from home. There's nobody but her to see to
+things, for we are all broken in our bones from dancin' at a weddin'
+last night, and comin' home at four in the mornin', and pourin' cats
+and dogs. If you go to our house, please, teacher, you'll see my Benjy
+in bed; he's given up his day's work; he must have his sleep; he earns
+three pounds a week as head cutter at S. Cohn's--he can afford to be
+in bed, thank God! So now, then, Bloomah Beckenstein! Don't they teach
+you here: "Honour thy father and thy mother"?'
+
+Poor Bloomah rose, feeling vaguely that fathers and mothers should not
+dishonour their children. With hanging head she moved to the door, and
+burst into a passion of tears as soon as she got outside.
+
+After, if not in consequence of, this behaviour, Mrs. Beckenstein
+broke her leg, and lay for weeks with the limb cased in
+plaster-of-Paris. That finished the chances of the Banner for a long
+time. Between nursing and house management Bloomah could scarcely ever
+put in an attendance.
+
+So heavily did her twin troubles weigh upon the sensitive child day
+and night that she walked almost with a limp, and dreamed of her name
+in the register with ominous rows of black ciphers; they stretched on
+and on to infinity--in vain did she turn page after page in the hope
+of a red mark; the little black eggs became larger and larger, till at
+last horrid horned insects began to creep from them and scramble all
+over her, and she woke with creeping flesh. Sometimes she lay swathed
+and choking in the coils of a Black Banner.
+
+And, to add to these worries, the School Board officer hovered and
+buzzed around, threatening summonses.
+
+But at last she was able to escape to her beloved school. The expected
+scowl of the room was changed to a sigh of relief; extremes meet, and
+her absence had been so prolonged that reproach was turned to welcome.
+
+Bloomah remorsefully redoubled her exertions. The hope of the Banner
+flamed anew in every breast. But the other classes were no less keen;
+a fifth standard, in particular, kept the Banner for a full month,
+grimly holding it against all comers, came they ever so regularly and
+punctually.
+
+Suddenly a new and melancholy factor entered into the competition. An
+epidemic of small-pox broke out in the East End, with its haphazard
+effects upon the varying classes. Red marks, and black marks, medals
+and prizes, all was luck and lottery. The pride of the fifth standard
+was laid low; one of its girls was attacked, two others were kept at
+home through parental panic. A disturbing insecurity as of an
+earthquake vibrated through the school. In Bloomah's class alone--as
+if inspired by her martial determination--the ranks stood firm,
+unwavering.
+
+The epidemic spread. The Ghetto began to talk of special psalms in the
+little synagogues.
+
+In this crisis which the epidemic produced the Banner seemed drifting
+steadily towards Bloomah and her mates. They started Monday morning
+with all hands on deck, so to speak; they sailed round Tuesday and
+Wednesday without a black mark in the school-log. The Thursday on
+which they had so often split was passed under full canvas, and if
+they could only get through Friday the trophy was theirs.
+
+And Friday was the easiest day of all, inasmuch as, in view of the
+incoming Sabbath, it finished earlier. School did not break up between
+the two attendances; there was a mere dinner-interval in the
+playground at midday. Nobody could get away, and whoever scored the
+first mark was sure of the second.
+
+Bloomah was up before dawn on the fateful winter morning; she could
+run no risks of being late. She polished off all her house-work,
+wondering anxiously if any of her classmates would oversleep herself,
+yet at heart confident that all were as eager as she. Still there was
+always that troublesome small-pox----! She breathed a prayer that God
+would keep all the little girls and send them the Banner.
+
+As she sat at breakfast the postman brought a post-card for her
+mother. Bloomah's heart was in her mouth when Mrs. Beckenstein clucked
+her tongue in reading it. She felt sure that the epidemic had invaded
+one of those numerous family hearths.
+
+Her mother handed her the card silently.
+
+    'DEAR MOTHER,
+      'I am rakked with neuraljia. Send Bloomah to fry the fish.
+                    'BECKY.'
+
+Bloomah turned white; this was scarcely less tragic.
+
+'Poor Becky!' said her heedless parent.
+
+'There's time after school,' she faltered.
+
+'What!' shrieked Mrs. Beckenstein. 'And not give the fish time to get
+cold! It's that red mark again--sooner than lose it you'd see your own
+sister eat hot fish. Be off at once to her, you unnatural brat, or
+I'll bang the frying-pan about your head. That'll give you a red
+mark--yes, and a black mark, too! My poor Becky never persecuted me
+with Banners, and she's twice the scholard you are.'
+
+'Why, she can't spell "neuralgia,"' said Bloomah resentfully.
+
+'And who wants to spell a thing like that? It's bad enough to feel it.
+Wait till you have babies and neuralgy of your own, and you'll see how
+you'll spell.'
+
+'She can't spell "racked" either,' put in Daniel.
+
+His mother turned on him witheringly. 'She didn't go to school with
+the _Meshummodim_.'
+
+Bloomah suddenly picked up her satchel.
+
+'What's your books for? You don't fry fish with books.' Mrs.
+Beckenstein wrested it away from her, and dashed it on the floor. The
+pencil-case rolled one way, the thimble another.
+
+'But I can get to school for the afternoon attendance.'
+
+'Madness! With your sister in agony? Have you no feelings? Don't let
+me see your brazen face before the Sabbath!'
+
+Bloomah crept out broken-hearted. On the way to Becky's her feet
+turned of themselves by long habit down the miry street in which the
+red-brick school-building rose in dreary importance. The sight of the
+great iron gate and the hurrying children caused her a throb of guilt.
+For a moment she stood wrestling with the temptation to enter.
+
+It was but for the moment. She might rise to the heresy of _hot_ fried
+fish in lieu of cold, but Becky's Sabbath altogether devoid of fried
+fish was a thought too sacrilegious for her childish brain.
+
+From her earliest babyhood chunks of cold fried fish had been part of
+her conception of the Day of Rest. Visions and odours of her mother
+frying plaice and soles--at worst, cod or mackerel--were inwoven with
+her most sacred memories of the coming Sabbath; it is probable she
+thought Friday was short for frying-day.
+
+With a sob she turned back, hurrying as if to escape the tug of
+temptation.
+
+'Bloomah! Where are you off to?'
+
+It was the alarmed cry of a classmate. Bloomah took to her heels, her
+face a fiery mass of shame and grief.
+
+Towards midday Becky's fish, nicely browned and sprigged with parsley,
+stood cooling on the great blue willow-pattern dish, and Becky's
+neuralgia abated, perhaps from the mental relief of the spectacle.
+
+When the clock struck twelve, Bloomah was allowed to scamper off to
+school in the desperate hope of saving the afternoon attendance.
+
+The London sky was of lead, and the London pavement of mud, but her
+heart was aglow with hope. As she reached the familiar street a
+certain strangeness in its aspect struck her. People stood at the
+doors gossiping and excited, as though no Sabbath pots were a-cooking;
+straggling groups possessed the roadway, impeding her advance, and as
+she got nearer to the school the crowd thickened, the roadway became
+impassable, a gesticulating mob blocked the iron gate.
+
+Poor Bloomah paused in her breathless career ready to cry at this
+malicious fate fighting against her, and for the first time allowing
+herself time to speculate on what was up. All around her she became
+aware of weeping and wailing and shrieking and wringing of hands.
+
+The throng was chiefly composed of Russian and Roumanian women of the
+latest immigration, as she could tell by the pious wigs hiding their
+tresses. Those in the front were pressed against the bars of the
+locked gate, shrieking through them, shaking them with passion.
+
+Although Bloomah's knowledge of Yiddish was slight--as became a scion
+of an old English family--she could make out their elemental
+ejaculations.
+
+'You murderers!'
+
+'Give me my Rachel!'
+
+'They are destroying our daughters as Pharaoh destroyed our sons.'
+
+'Give me back my children, and I'll go back to Russia.'
+
+'They are worse than the Russians, the poisoners!'
+
+'O God of Abraham, how shall I live without my Leah?'
+
+On the other side of the bars the children--released for the
+dinner-interval--were clamouring equally, shouting, weeping, trying to
+get to their mothers. Some howled, with their sleeves rolled up, to
+exhibit the upper arm.
+
+'See,' the women cried, 'the red marks! Oh, the poisoners!'
+
+A light began to break upon Bloomah's brain. Evidently the School
+Board had suddenly sent down compulsory vaccinators.
+
+'I won't die,' moaned a plump golden-haired girl. 'I'm too young to
+die yet.'
+
+'My little lamb is dying!' A woman near Bloomah, with auburn wisps
+showing under her black wig, wrung her hands. 'I hear her
+talk--always, always about the red mark. Now they have given it her.
+She is poisoned--my little apple.'
+
+'Your little carrot is all right,' said Bloomah testily. 'They've only
+vaccinated her.'
+
+The woman caught at the only word she understood. 'Vaccinate,
+vaccinate!' she repeated. Then, relapsing into jargon and raising her
+hands heavenward: 'A sudden death upon them all!'
+
+Bloomah turned despairingly in search of a wigless woman. One stood at
+her elbow.
+
+'Can't you explain to her that the doctors mean no harm?' Bloomah
+asked.
+
+'Oh, don't they, indeed? Just you read this!' She flourished a
+handbill, English on one side, Yiddish on the other.
+
+Bloomah read the English version, not without agitation:
+
+'Mothers, look after your little ones! The School Tyrants are plotting
+to inject filthy vaccine into their innocent veins. Keep them away
+rather than let them be poisoned to enrich the doctors.'
+
+There followed statistics to appal even Bloomah. What wonder if the
+refugees from lands of persecution--lands in which anything might
+happen--believed they had fallen from the frying-pan into the fire; if
+the rumour that executioners with instruments had entered the
+school-buildings had run like wildfire through the quarter, enflaming
+Oriental imagination to semi-madness.
+
+While Bloomah was reading, a head-shawled woman fainted, and the din
+and frenzy grew.
+
+'But I was vaccinated when a baby, and I'm all right,' murmured
+Bloomah, half to reassure herself.
+
+'My arm! I'm poisoned!' And another pupil flew frantically towards the
+gate.
+
+The women outside replied with a dull roar of rage, and hurled
+themselves furiously against the lock.
+
+A window on the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the
+head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the
+parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone
+shook an answering fist.
+
+'You old maid--childless, pitiless!'
+
+Shrill whistles sounded and resounded from every side, and soon a
+posse of eight policemen were battling with the besiegers, trying to
+push themselves between them and the gate. A fat and genial officer
+worked his way past Bloomah, his truncheon ready for action.
+
+'Don't hurt the poor women,' Bloomah pleaded. 'They think their
+children are being poisoned.'
+
+'I know, missie. What can you do with such greenhorns? Why don't they
+stop in their own country? I've just been vaccinated myself, and it's
+no joke to get my arm knocked about like this!'
+
+'Then show them the red marks, and that will quiet them.'
+
+The policeman laughed. A sleeveless policeman! It would destroy all
+the dignity and prestige of the force.
+
+'Then I'll show them mine,' said Bloomah resolutely. 'Mine are old
+and not very showy, but perhaps they'll do. Lift me up, please--I mean
+on your unvaccinated arm.'
+
+Overcome by her earnestness the policeman hoisted her on his burly
+shoulder. The apparent arrest made a diversion; all eyes turned
+towards her.
+
+'You _Narronim_!' (fools), she shrieked, desperately mustering her
+scraps of Yiddish. 'Your children are safe. Ich bin vaccinated. Look!'
+She rolled up her sleeve. 'Der policeman ist vaccinated. Look--if I
+tap him he winces. See!'
+
+'Hold on, missie!' The policeman grimaced.
+
+'The King ist vaccinated,' went on Bloomah, 'and the Queen, and the
+Prince of Wales, yes, even the Teachers themselves. There are no
+devils inside there. This paper'--she held up the bill--'is lies and
+falsehood.' She tore it into fragments.
+
+'No; it is true as the Law of Moses,' retorted a man in the mob.
+
+'As the Law of Moses!' echoed the women hoarsely.
+
+Bloomah had an inspiration. 'The Law of Moses! Pooh! Don't you know
+this is written by the _Meshummodim_?'
+
+The crowd looked blank, fell silent. If, indeed, the handbill was
+written by apostates, what could it hold but Satan's lies?
+
+Bloomah profited by her moment of triumph. 'Go home, you _Narronim_!'
+she cried pityingly from her perch. And then, veering round towards
+the children behind the bars: 'Shut up, you squalling sillies!' she
+cried. 'As for you, Golda Benjamin, I'm ashamed of you--a girl of your
+age! Put your sleeve down, cry-baby!'
+
+Bloomah would have carried the day had not her harangue distracted the
+police from observing another party of rioters--women, assisted by
+husbands hastily summoned from stall and barrow, who were battering at
+a side gate. And at this very instant they burst it open, and with a
+great cry poured into the playground, screaming and searching for
+their progeny.
+
+The police darted round to the new battlefield, expecting an attack
+upon doors and windows, and Bloomah was hastily set down in the
+seething throng and carried with it in the wake of the police, who
+could not prevent it flooding through the broken side gate.
+
+The large playground became a pandemonium of parents, children,
+police, and teachers all shouting and gesticulating. But there was no
+riot. The law could not prevent mothers and fathers from snatching
+their offspring to their bosoms and making off overjoyed. The children
+who had not the luck to be kidnapped escaped of themselves, some
+panic-stricken, some merely mischievous, and in a few minutes the
+school was empty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The School Management Committee sat formally to consider this
+unprecedented episode. It was decided to cancel the attendance for the
+day. Red marks, black marks--all fell into equality; the very ciphers
+were reduced to their native nothingness. The school-week was made to
+end on the Thursday.
+
+Next Monday morning saw Bloomah at her desk, happiest of a radiant
+sisterhood. On the wall shone the Banner.
+
+
+
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS
+
+
+
+
+THE BEARER OF BURDENS
+
+
+I
+
+When her Fanny did at last marry, Natalya--as everybody called the old
+clo'-woman--was not over-pleased at the bargain. Natalya had imagined
+beforehand that for a matronly daughter of twenty-three, almost past
+the marrying age, any wedding would be a profitable transaction. But
+when a husband actually presented himself, all the old dealer's
+critical maternity was set a-bristle. Henry Elkman, she insisted, had
+not a true Jewish air. There was in the very cut of his clothes a
+subtle suggestion of going to the races.
+
+It was futile of Fanny to insist that Henry had never gone to the
+races, that his duties as bookkeeper of S. Cohn's Clothing Emporium
+prevented him from going to the races, and that the cut of his clothes
+was intended to give tone to his own establishment.
+
+'Ah, yes, he does not take _thee_ to the races,' she insisted in
+Yiddish. 'But all these young men with check suits and flowers in
+their buttonholes bet and gamble and go to the bad, and their wives
+and children fall back on their old mothers for support.'
+
+'I shall not fall back on thee,' Fanny retorted angrily.
+
+'And on whom else? A pretty daughter! Would you fall back on a
+stranger? Or perhaps you are thinking of the Board of Guardians!' And
+a shudder of humiliation traversed her meagre frame. For at sixty she
+was already meagre, had already the appearance of the venerable
+grandmother she was now to become, save that her hair, being only a
+pious wig, remained rigidly young and black. Life had always gone hard
+with her. Since her husband's death, when Fanny was a child, she had
+scraped together a scanty livelihood by selling odds and ends for a
+mite more than she gave for them. At the back doors of villas she
+haggled with miserly mistresses, gentlewoman and old-clo' woman linked
+by their common love of a bargain.
+
+Natalya would sniff contemptuously at the muddle of ancient finery on
+the floor and spurn it with her foot. 'How can I sell that?' she would
+inquire. 'Last time I gave you too much--I lost by you.' And having
+wrung the price down to the lowest penny, she would pay it in clanking
+silver and copper from a grimy leather bag she wore hidden in her
+bosom; then, cramming the goods hastily into the maw of her sack, she
+would stagger joyously away. The men's garments she would modestly
+sell to a second-hand shop, but the women's she cleaned and turned and
+transmogrified and sold in Petticoat Lane of a Sunday morning;
+scavenger, earth-worm, and alchemist, she was a humble agent in the
+great economic process by which cast-off clothes renew their youth and
+freshness, and having set in their original sphere rise endlessly on
+other social horizons.
+
+Of English she had, when she began, only enough to bargain with; but
+in one year of forced intercourse with English folk after her
+husband's death she learnt more than in her quarter of a century of
+residence in the Spitalfields Ghetto.
+
+Fanny's function had been to keep house and prepare the evening meal,
+but the old clo'-woman's objection to her marriage was not selfish.
+She was quite ready to light her own fire and broil her own bloater
+after the day's tramp. Fanny had, indeed, offered to have her live in
+the elegant two-roomed cottage near King's Cross which Henry was
+furnishing. She could sleep in a convertible bureau in the parlour.
+But the old woman's independent spirit and her mistrust of her
+son-in-law made her prefer the humble Ghetto garret. Against all
+reasoning, she continued to feel something antipathetic in Henry's
+clothes and even in his occupation--perhaps it was really the
+subconscious antagonism of the old clo' and the new, subtly symbolic
+of the old generation and the smart new world springing up to tread it
+down. Henry himself was secretly pleased at her refusal. In the first
+ardours of courtship he had consented to swallow even the Polish crone
+who had strangely mothered his buxom British Fanny, but for his own
+part he had a responsive horror of old clo'; felt himself of the great
+English world of fashion and taste, intimately linked with the burly
+Britons whose girths he recorded from his high stool at his
+glass-environed desk, and in touch even with the _lion comique_, the
+details of whose cheap but stylish evening dress he entered with a
+proud flourish.
+
+
+II
+
+The years went by, and it looked as if the old woman's instinct were
+awry. Henry did not go to the races, nor did Fanny have to fall back
+on her mother-in-law for the maintenance of herself and her two
+children, Becky and Joseph. On the contrary, she doubled her position
+in the social scale by taking a four-roomed house in the Holloway
+Road. Its proximity to the Clothing Emporium enabled Henry to come
+home for lunch. But, alas! Fanny was not allowed many years of
+enjoyment of these grandeurs and comforts. The one-roomed grave took
+her, leaving the four-roomed house incredibly large and empty. Even
+Natalya's Ghetto garret, which Fanny had not shared for seven years,
+seemed cold and vacant to the poor mother. A new loneliness fell upon
+her, not mitigated by ever rarer visits to her grandchildren. Devoid
+of the link of her daughter, the house seemed immeasurably aloof from
+her in the social scale. Henry was frigid and the little ones went
+with marked reluctance to this stern, forbidding old woman who
+questioned them as to their prayers and smelt of red-herrings. She
+ceased to go to the house.
+
+And then at last all her smouldering distrust of Henry Elkman found
+overwhelming justification.
+
+Before the year of mourning was up, before he was entitled to cease
+saying the _Kaddish_ (funeral hymn) for her darling Fanny, the wretch,
+she heard, was married again. And married--villainy upon villainy,
+horror upon horror--to a Christian girl, a heathen abomination.
+Natalya was wrestling with her over-full sack when she got the news
+from a gossiping lady client, and she was boring holes for the passage
+of string to tie up its mouth. She turned the knife viciously, as if
+it were in Henry Elkman's heart.
+
+She did not know the details of the piquant, tender courtship between
+him and the pretty assistant at the great drapery store that
+neighboured the Holloway Clothing Emporium, any more than she
+understood the gradual process which had sapped Henry's instinct of
+racial isolation, or how he had passed from admiration of British ways
+into entire abandonment of Jewish. She was spared, too, the knowledge
+that latterly her own Fanny had slid with him into the facile paths of
+impiety; that they had ridden for a breath of country air on Sabbath
+afternoons. They had been considerate enough to hide that from her. To
+the old clo'-woman's crude mind, Henry Elkman existed as a monster of
+ready-made wickedness, and she believed even that he had been married
+in church and baptized, despite that her informant tried to console
+her with the assurance that the knot had been tied in a Registrar's
+office.
+
+'May he be cursed with the boils of Pharaoh!' she cried in her
+picturesque jargon. 'May his fine clothes fall from his flesh and his
+flesh from his bones! May my Fanny's outraged soul plead against him
+at the Judgment Bar! And she--this heathen female--may her death be
+sudden!' And she drew the ends of the string tightly together, as
+though round the female's neck.
+
+'Hush, you old witch!' cried the gossip, revolted; 'and what would
+become of your own grandchildren?'
+
+'They cannot be worse off than they are now, with a heathen in the
+house. All their Judaism will become corrupted. She may even baptize
+them. Oh, Father in Heaven!'
+
+The thought weighed upon her. She pictured the innocent Becky and
+Joseph kissing crucifixes. At the best there would be no _kosher_ food
+in the house any more. How could this stranger understand the
+mysteries of purging meat, of separating meat-plates from
+butter-plates?
+
+At last she could bear the weight no longer. She took the Elkman house
+in her rounds, and, bent under her sack, knocked at the familiar door.
+It was lunch-time, and unfamiliar culinary smells seemed wafted along
+the passage. Her morbid imagination scented bacon. The orthodox amulet
+on the doorpost did not comfort her; it had been left there,
+forgotten, a mute symbol of the Jewish past.
+
+A pleasant young woman with blue eyes and fresh-coloured cheeks opened
+the door.
+
+The blood surged to Natalya's eyes, so that she could hardly see.
+
+'Old clo',' she said mechanically.
+
+'No, thank you,' replied the young woman. Her voice was sweet, but it
+sounded to Natalya like the voice of Lilith, stealer of new-born
+children. Her rosy cheek seemed smeared with seductive paint. In the
+background glistened the dual crockery of the erst pious kitchen which
+the new-comer profaned. And between Natalya and it, between Natalya
+and her grandchildren, this alien girlish figure seemed to stand
+barrier-wise. She could not cross the threshold without explanations.
+
+'Is Mr. Elkman at home?' she asked.
+
+'You know the name!' said the young woman, a little surprised.
+
+'Yes, I have been here a good deal.' The old woman's sardonic accent
+was lost on the listener.
+
+'I am sorry there is nothing this time,' she replied.
+
+'Not even a pair of old shoes?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But the dead woman's----? Are you, then, standing in them?'
+
+The words were so fierce and unexpected, the crone's eyes blazed so
+weirdly, that the new wife recoiled with a little shriek.
+
+'Henry!' she cried.
+
+Fork in hand, he darted in from the living-room, but came to a sudden
+standstill.
+
+'What do you want here?' he muttered.
+
+'Fanny's shoes!' she cried.
+
+'Who is it?' his wife's eyes demanded.
+
+'A half-witted creature we deal with out of charity,' he gestured
+back. And he put her inside the room-door, whispering, 'Let me get rid
+of her.'
+
+'So, that's your painted poppet,' hissed his mother-in-law in Yiddish.
+
+'Painted?' he said angrily. 'Madge painted? She's just as natural as a
+rosy apple. She's a country girl, and her mother was a lady.'
+
+'Her mother? Perhaps! But she? You see a glossy high hat marked
+sixteen and sixpence, and you think it's new. But I know what it's
+come from--a battered thing that has rolled in the gutter. Ah, how she
+could have bewitched you, when there are so many honest Jewesses
+without husbands!
+
+'I am sorry she doesn't please you; but, after all, it's my business,
+and not yours.'
+
+'Not mine? After I gave you my Fanny, and she slaved for you and bore
+you children?'
+
+'It's just for her children that I had to marry.'
+
+'What? You had to marry a Christian for the sake of Fanny's children?
+Oh, God forgive you!'
+
+'We are not in Poland now,' he said sulkily.
+
+'Ah, I always said you were a sinner in Israel. My Fanny has been
+taken for your sins. A black death on your bones.'
+
+'If you don't leave off cursing, I shall call a policeman.'
+
+'Oh, lock me up, lock me up--instead of your shame. Let the whole
+world know that.'
+
+'Go away, then. You have no right to come here and frighten Madge--my
+wife. She is in delicate health, as it is.'
+
+'May she be an atonement for all of us! I have the right to come here
+as much as I please.'
+
+'You have no right.'
+
+'I have a right to the children. My blood is in their veins.'
+
+'You have no right. The children are their father's.'
+
+'Yes, their Father's in heaven,' and she raised her hand like an
+ancient prophetess, while the other supported her bag over her
+shoulder. 'The children are the children of Israel, and they must
+carry forward the yoke of the Law.'
+
+'And what do you propose?' he said, with a scornful sniff.
+
+'Give me the children. I will elevate them in the fear of the Lord.
+You go your own godless way, free of burdens--you and your Christian
+poppet. You no longer belong to us. Give me the children, and I'll go
+away.'
+
+He looked at her quizzingly. 'You have been drinking, my good
+mother-in-law.'
+
+'Ay, the waters of affliction. Give me the children.'
+
+'But they won't go with you. They love their step-mother.'
+
+'Love that painted jade? They, with Jewish blood warm in their veins,
+with the memory of their mother warm in their hearts? Impossible!'
+
+He opened the door gently. 'Becky! Joe! No, don't you come, Madge,
+darling. It's all right. The old lady wants to say "Good-day" to the
+children.'
+
+The two children tripped into the passage, with napkins tied round
+their chins, their mouths greasy, but the rest of their persons
+unfamiliarly speckless and tidy. They stood still at the sight of
+their grandmother, so stern and frowning. Henry shut the door
+carefully.
+
+'My lambs!' Natalya cried, in her sweetest but harsh tones, 'Won't you
+come and kiss me?'
+
+Becky, a mature person of seven, advanced courageously and surrendered
+her cheek to her grandmother.
+
+'How are you, granny?' she said ceremoniously.
+
+'And Joseph?' said Natalya, not replying. 'My heart and my crown, will
+he not come?'
+
+The four-and-a-half year old Joseph stood dubiously, with his fist in
+his mouth.
+
+'Bring him to me, Becky. Tell him I want you and him to come and live
+with me.'
+
+Becky shrugged her precocious shoulders. 'He may. I won't,' she said
+laconically.
+
+'Oh, Becky!' said the grandmother. 'Do you want to stay here and
+torture your poor mother?'
+
+Becky stared. 'She's dead,' she said.
+
+'Yes, but her soul lives and watches over you. Come, Joseph, apple of
+my eye, come with me.'
+
+She beckoned enticingly, but the little boy, imagining the invitation
+was to enter her bag and be literally carried away therein, set up a
+terrific howl. Thereupon the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and
+the child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to her and
+nestled in her arms.
+
+'Mamma, mamma,' he cried.
+
+Henry looked at the old woman with a triumphant smile.
+
+Natalya went hot and cold. It was not only that little Joseph had gone
+to this creature. It was not even that he had accepted her maternity.
+It was this word 'mamma' that stung. The word summed up all the
+blasphemous foreignness of the new domesticity. 'Mamma' was redolent
+of cold Christian houses in whose doorways the old clo'-woman
+sometimes heard it. Fanny had been 'mother'--the dear, homely, Jewish
+'mother.' This 'mamma,' taught to the orphans, was like the haughty
+parade of Christian elegance across her grave.
+
+'When _mamma's_ shoes are to be sold, don't forget me,' Natalya
+hissed. 'I'll give you the best price in the market.'
+
+Henry shuddered, but replied, half pushing her outside: 'Certainly,
+certainly. Good-afternoon.'
+
+'I'll buy them at your own price--ah, I see them coming, coming into
+my bag.'
+
+The door closed on her grotesque sibylline intensity, and Henry
+clasped his wife tremblingly to his bosom and pressed a long kiss upon
+her fragrant cherry lips.
+
+Later on he explained that the crazy old clo'-woman was known to the
+children, as to everyone in the neighbourhood, as 'Granny.'
+
+
+III
+
+In the bearing of her first child the second Mrs. Elkman died. The
+rosy face became a white angelic mask, the dainty figure lay in
+statuesque severity, and a screaming, bald-headed atom of humanity was
+the compensation for this silence. Henry Elkman was overwhelmed by
+grief and superstition.
+
+'For three things women die in childbirth,' kept humming in his brain
+from his ancient Hebrew lore. He did not remember what they were,
+except that one was the omission of the wife to throw into the fire
+the lump of dough from the Sabbath bread. But these neglects could not
+be visited on a Christian, he thought dully. The only distraction of
+his grief was the infant's pressing demand on his attention.
+
+It was some days before the news penetrated to the old woman.
+
+'It is his punishment,' she said with solemn satisfaction. 'Now my
+Fanny's spirit will rest.'
+
+But she did not gloat over the decree of the God of Israel as she had
+imagined beforehand, nor did she call for the dead woman's old clo'.
+She was simply content--an unrighteous universe had been set straight
+again like a mended watch. But she did call, without her bag, to
+inquire if she could be of service in this tragic crisis.
+
+'Out of my sight, you and your evil eye!' cried Henry as he banged the
+door in her face.
+
+Natalya burst into tears, torn by a chaos of emotions. So she was
+still to be shut out.
+
+
+IV
+
+The next news that leaked into Natalya's wizened ear was as startling
+as Madge's death. Henry had married again. Doubtless with the same
+pretext of the children's needs he had taken unto himself a third
+wife, and again without the decencies of adequate delay. And this wife
+was a Jewess, as of yore. Henry had reverted matrimonially to the
+fold. Was it conscience, was it terror? Nobody knew. But everybody
+knew that the third Mrs. Elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good
+orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash,
+besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without
+prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with
+these household elements.
+
+The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever. She felt
+vaguely that the Jewish minister should not so unquestioningly have
+accorded the scamp the privileges of the hymeneal canopy. Some lustral
+rite seemed necessary to purify him of his Christian conjunction. And
+the memory of Fanny was still outraged by this burying of her, so to
+speak, under layers of successive wives. On the other hand, the
+children would revert to Judaism, and they would have a Jewish mother,
+not a mamma, to care for them and to love them. The thought consoled
+her for being shut out of their lives, as she felt she must have been,
+even had Henry been friendlier. This third wife had alienated her from
+the household, had made her kinship practically remote. She had sunk
+to a sort of third cousin, or a mother-in-law twice removed.
+
+The days went on, and again the Elkman household occupied the gossips,
+and news of it--second-hand, like everything that came to her--was
+picked up by Natalya on her rounds. Henry's third wife was, it
+transpired, a melancholy failure. Her temper was frightful, she beat
+her step-children, and--worst and rarest sin in the Jewish
+housewife--she drank. Henry was said to be in despair.
+
+'_Nebbich_, the poor little children!' cried Natalya, horrified. Her
+brain began plotting how to interfere, but she could find no way.
+
+The weeks passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the
+third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap--Henry had
+disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent
+brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium
+knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. Benjamin
+Beckenstein, the cutter of the Emporium, who favoured the latter
+hypothesis reported a significant saying: 'I have lived with two
+angels; I can't live with a demon.'
+
+'Ah, at last he sees my Fanny was an angel,' said Natalya, neglecting
+to draw the deduction anent America, and passing over the other angel.
+And she embroidered the theme. How indeed could a man who had known
+the blessing of a sober, God-fearing wife endure a drunkard and a
+child-beater? 'No wonder he killed himself!'
+
+The gossips pointed out that the saying implied flight rather than
+suicide.
+
+'You are right!' Natalya admitted illogically. 'Just what a coward and
+blackguard like that would do--leave the children at the mercy of the
+woman he couldn't face himself. How in Heaven's name will they live?'
+
+'Oh, her father, the furrier, will have to look after them,' the
+gossips assured her. 'He gave her good money, you know, fifty pounds
+and the bedding. Ah, trust Elkman for that. He knew he wasn't leaving
+the children to starve.'
+
+'I don't know so much,' said the old woman, shaking her bewigged head.
+
+What was to be done? Suppose the furrier refused the burden. But
+Henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the Elkman
+household. If she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face
+the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts it was this other
+woman whom Henry's flight had changed to a stranger. What had the
+wretch to do with the children? She was a mere intruder in the house.
+Out with her, or at least out with the children.
+
+Yes, she would go boldly there and demand them. 'Poor Becky! Poor
+Joseph!' her heart wailed. 'You to be beaten and neglected after
+having known the love of a mother.' True, it would not be easy to
+support them. But a little more haggling, a little more tramping, a
+little more mending, and a little less gorging and gormandising! They
+would be at school during the day, so would not interfere with her
+rounds, and in the evening she could have them with her as she sat
+refurbishing the purchases of the day. Ah, what a blessed release from
+the burden of loneliness, heavier than the heaviest sack! It was well
+worth the price. And then at bedtime she would say the Hebrew
+night-prayer with them and tuck them up, just as she had once done
+with her Fanny.
+
+But how if the woman refused to yield them up--as Natalya could fancy
+her refusing--out of sheer temper and devilry? What if, amply
+subsidized by her well-to-do parent, she wished to keep the little
+ones by her and revenge upon them their father's desertion, or hold
+them hostages for his return? Why, then, Natalya would use
+cunning--ay, and force, too--she would even kidnap them. Once in their
+grandmother's hands, the law would see to it that they did not go back
+to this stranger, this bibulous brute, whose rights over them were
+nil.
+
+It was while buying up on a Sunday afternoon the sloughed vestments of
+a Jewish family in Holloway that her resolve came to a head. A cab
+would be necessary to carry her goods to her distant garret. What an
+opportunity for carrying off the children at the same time! The house
+was actually on her homeward route. The economy of it tickled her,
+made her overestimate the chances of capture. As she packed the
+motley, far-spreading heap into the symmetry of her sack, pressing and
+squeezing the clothes incredibly tighter and tighter till it seemed a
+magic sack that could swallow up even the Holloway Clothing Emporium,
+Natalya's brain revolved feverish fancy-pictures of the coming
+adventure.
+
+Leaving the bag in the basement passage, she ran to fetch a cab.
+Usually the hiring of the vehicle occupied Natalya half an hour. She
+would harangue the Christian cabmen on the rank, pleading her poverty,
+and begging to be conveyed with her goods for a ridiculous sum. At
+first none of them would take notice of the old Jewish crone, but
+would read their papers in contemptuous indifference. But gradually,
+as they remained idly on the rank, the endless stream of persuasion
+would begin to percolate, and at last one would relent, half out of
+pity, and would end by bearing the sack gratuitously on his shoulder
+from the house to his cab. Often there were two sacks, quite filling
+the interior of a four-wheeler, and then Natalya would ride
+triumphantly beside her cabby on the box, the two already the best of
+friends. Things went ill if Natalya did not end by trading off
+something in the sacks against the fare--at a new profit.
+
+But to-day she was too excited to strike more than a mediocre bargain.
+The cumbrous sack was hoisted into the cab. Natalya sprang in beside
+it, and in a resolute voice bade the driver draw up for a moment at
+the Elkman home.
+
+
+V
+
+The unwonted phenomenon of a cab brought Becky to the door ere her
+grandmother could jump out. She was still under ten, but prematurely
+developed in body as in mind. There was something unintentionally
+insolent in her precocity, in her habitual treatment of adults as
+equals; but now her face changed almost to a child's, and with a glad
+tearful cry of 'Oh, grandmother!' she sprang into the old woman's
+arms.
+
+It was the compensation for little Joseph's 'mamma.' Tears ran down
+the old woman's cheeks as she hugged the strayed lamb to her breast.
+
+A petulant infantile wail came from within, but neither noted it.
+
+'Where is your step-mother, my poor angel?' Natalya asked in a half
+whisper.
+
+Becky's forehead gloomed in an ugly frown. Her face became a woman's
+again. 'One o'clock the public-houses open on Sundays,' she snorted.
+
+'Oh, my God!' cried Natalya, forgetting that the circumstance was
+favouring her project. 'A Jewish woman! You don't mean to say that she
+drinks in public-houses?'
+
+'You don't suppose I would let her drink here,' said Becky. 'We have
+nice scenes, I can tell you. The only consolation is she's
+better-tempered when she's quite drunk.'
+
+The infant's wail rang out more clamorously.
+
+'Hush, you little beast!' Becky ejaculated, but she moved mechanically
+within, and her grandmother followed her.
+
+All the ancient grandeur of the sitting-room seemed overclouded with
+shabbiness and untidiness. To Natalya everything looked and smelt like
+the things in her bag. And there in a stuffy cradle a baby wrinkled
+its red face with shrieking.
+
+Becky had bent over it, and was soothing it ere its existence
+penetrated at all to the old woman's preoccupied brain. Its pipings
+had been like an unheeded wail of wind round some centre of tragic
+experience. Even when she realized the child's existence her brain
+groped for some seconds in search of its identity.
+
+Ah, the baby whose birth had cost that painted poppet's life! So it
+still lived and howled in unwelcome reminder and perpetuation of that
+brief but shameful episode. 'Grow dumb like your mother,' she murmured
+resentfully. What a bequest of misery Henry Elkman had left behind
+him! Ah, how right she had been to suspect him from the very first!
+
+'But where is my little Joseph?' she said aloud.
+
+'He's playing somewhere in the street.'
+
+'_Ach, mein Gott!_ Playing, when he ought to be weeping like this
+child of shame. Go and fetch him at once!'
+
+'What do you want him for?'
+
+'I am going to take you both away--out of this misery. You'd like to
+come and live with me--eh, my lamb?'
+
+'Rather--anything's better than this.'
+
+Natalya caught her to her breast again.
+
+'Go and fetch my Joseph! But quick, quick, before the public-house
+woman comes back!'
+
+Becky flew out, and Natalya sank into a chair, breathless with emotion
+and fatigue. The baby in the cradle beside her howled more vigorously,
+and automatically her foot sought the rocker, and she heard herself
+singing:
+
+    'Sleep, little baby, sleep,
+    Thy father shall be a Rabbi;
+    Thy mother shall bring thee almonds;
+    Blessings on thy little head.'
+
+As the howling diminished, she realized with a shock that she was
+rocking this misbegotten infant--nay, singing to it a Jewish
+cradle-song full of inappropriate phrases. She withdrew her foot as
+though the rocker had grown suddenly red-hot. The yells broke out with
+fresh vehemence, and she angrily restored her foot to its old place.
+'_Nu, nu_,' she cried, rocking violently, 'go to sleep.'
+
+She stole a glance at it, when it grew stiller, and saw that the teat
+of its feeding-bottle was out of its mouth. 'There, there--suck!' she
+said, readjusting it. The baby opened its eyes and shot a smile at
+her, a wonderful, trustful smile from great blue eyes. Natalya
+trembled; those were the blue eyes that had supplanted the memory of
+Fanny's dark orbs, and the lips now sucking contentedly were the
+cherry lips of the painted poppet.
+
+'_Nebbich_; the poor, deserted little orphan,' she apologized to
+herself. 'And this is how the new Jewish wife does her duty to her
+step-children. She might as well have been a Christian.' Then a
+remembrance that the Christian woman had seemingly been an
+unimpeachable step-mother confused her thoughts further. And while she
+was groping among them Becky returned, haling in Joseph, who in his
+turn haled in a kite with a long tail.
+
+The boy, now a sturdy lad of seven, did not palpitate towards his
+grandmother with Becky's eagerness. Probably he felt the domestic
+position less. But he surrendered himself to her long hug. 'Did she
+beat him,' she murmured soothingly, 'beat my own little Joseph?'
+
+'Don't waste time, granny,' Becky broke in petulantly, 'if we _are_
+going.'
+
+'No, my dear. We'll go at once.' And, releasing the boy, Natalya
+partly undid the lower buttons of his waistcoat.
+
+'You wear no four-corner fringes!' she exclaimed tragically. 'She
+neglects even to see to that. Ah, it will be a good deed to carry you
+from this godless home.'
+
+'But I don't want to go with you,' he said sullenly, reminded of past
+inquisitorial worryings about prayers.
+
+'You little fool!' said Becky. 'You _are_ going--and in that cab.'
+
+'In that cab?' he cried joyfully.
+
+'Yes, my apple. And you will never be beaten again.'
+
+'Oh, _she_ don't hurt!' he said contemptuously. 'She hasn't even got a
+cane--like at school.'
+
+'But shan't we take our things?' said Becky.
+
+'No, only the things you stand in. They shan't have any excuse for
+taking you back. I'll find you plenty of clothes, as good as new.'
+
+'And little Daisy?'
+
+'Oh, is it a girl? Your stepmother will look after that. She can't
+complain of one burden.'
+
+She hustled the children into the cab, where, with the sack and
+herself, they made a tightly-packed quartette.
+
+'I say, I didn't bargain for extras inside,' grumbled the cabman.
+
+'You can't reckon these children,' said Natalya, with confused legal
+recollections; 'they're both under seven.'
+
+The cabman started. Becky stared out of the window. 'I wonder if we'll
+pass Mrs. Elkman,' she said, amused. Joseph busied himself with
+disentangling the tails of his kite.
+
+But Natalya was too absorbed to notice their indifference to her. That
+poor little Daisy! The image of the baby swam vividly before her. What
+a terrible fate to be left in the hands of the public-house woman! Who
+knew what would happen to it? What if, in her drunken fury at the
+absence of Becky and Joseph, she did it a mischief? At the best the
+besotted creature would not take cordially to the task of bringing it
+up. It was no child of hers--had not even the appeal of pure Jewish
+blood. And there it lay, smiling, with its beautiful blue eyes. It had
+smiled trustfully on herself, not knowing she was to leave it to its
+fate. And now it was crying; she heard it crying above the rattle of
+the cab. But how could she charge herself with it--she, with her daily
+rounds to make? The other children were grown up, passed the day at
+school. No, it was impossible. And the child's cry went on in her
+imagination louder and louder.
+
+She put her head out of the window. 'Turn back! Turn back! I've
+forgotten something.'
+
+The cabman swore. 'D'ye think you've taken me by the week?'
+
+'Threepence extra. Drive back.'
+
+The cab turned round, the innocent horse got a stinging flip of the
+whip, and set off briskly.
+
+'What have you forgotten, grandmother?' said Becky. 'It's very
+careless of you.'
+
+The cab stopped at the door. Natalya looked round nervously, sprang
+out, and then uttered a cry of despair.
+
+'_Ach_, we shut the door!' And the inaccessible baby took on a tenfold
+desirability.
+
+'It's all right,' said Becky. 'Just turn the handle.'
+
+Natalya obeyed and ran in. There was the baby, not crying, but
+sleeping peacefully. Natalya snatched it up frenziedly, and hurried
+the fresh-squalling bundle into the cab.
+
+'Taking Daisy?' cried Becky. 'But she isn't yours!'
+
+Natalya shut the cab-door with a silencing bang, and the vehicle
+turned again Ghettowards.
+
+
+VI
+
+The fact that Natalya had taken possession of the children could not
+be kept a secret, but the step-mother's family made no effort to
+regain them, and, indeed, the woman herself shortly went the way of
+all Henry Elkman's wives, though whether she, like the rest, had a
+successor, is unknown.
+
+The sudden change from a lone old lady to a mater-familias was not,
+however, so charming as Natalya had imagined. The cost of putting
+Daisy out to nurse was a terrible tax, but this was nothing compared
+to the tax on her temper levied by her legitimate grandchildren, who
+began to grumble on the first night at the poverty and pokiness of the
+garret, and were thenceforward never without a lament for the good old
+times. They had, indeed, been thoroughly spoilt by the father and the
+irregular menage. The Christian wife's influence had been refining but
+too temporary. It had been only long enough to wean Joseph from the
+religious burdens indoctrinated by Fanny, and thus to add to the
+grandmother's difficulties in coaxing him back to the yoke of piety.
+
+The only sweet in Natalya's cup turned out to be the love of little
+Daisy, who grew ever more beautiful, gracious, and winning.
+
+Natalya had never known so lovable a child. All Daisy did seemed to
+her perfect. For instant obedience and instant comprehension she
+declared her matchless.
+
+One day, when Daisy was three, the child told the grandmother that in
+her momentary absence Becky had pulled Joseph's hair.
+
+'Hush! You mustn't tell tales,' Natalya said reprovingly.
+
+'Becky did not pull Joey's hair,' Daisy corrected herself instantly.
+
+Much to the disgust of Becky, who wished to outgrow the Ghetto, even
+while she unconsciously manifested its worst heritages, Daisy picked
+up the Yiddish words and phrases, which, in spite of Becky's
+remonstrances, Natalya was too old to give up. This was not the only
+subject of dispute between Becky and the grandmother, whom she roundly
+accused of favouritism of Daisy, and she had not reached fifteen when,
+with an independence otherwise praiseworthy, she set up for herself on
+her earnings in the fur establishment of her second step-mother's
+father, lodging with a family who, she said, bored her less than her
+grandmother.
+
+In another year or so, freed from the compulsory education of the
+School Board, Joseph joined her. And thus, by the unforeseen turns of
+Fortune's wheel, the old-clo' woman of seventy-five was left alone
+with the child of seven.
+
+But this child was compensation for all she had undergone, for all
+the years of trudging and grubbing and patching and turning. Daisy
+threaded her needle for her at night when her keen eyes began to fail,
+and while she made the old clo' into new, Daisy read aloud her English
+story-books. Natalya took an absorbing interest in these nursery
+tales, heard for the first time in her second childhood. 'Jack the
+Giant-killer,' 'Aladdin,' 'Cinderella,' they were all delightful
+novelties. The favourite story of both was 'Little Red Riding-Hood,'
+with its refrain of 'Grandmother, what large eyes you've got!' That
+could be said with pointed fun; it seemed to be written especially for
+them. Often Daisy would look up suddenly and say: 'Grandmother, what a
+large mouth you've got!' 'All the better to bite you with,'
+grandmother would reply. And then there would be hugs and kisses.
+
+But Friday night was the great night, the one night of the week on
+which Natalya could be stopped from working. Only religion was strong
+enough to achieve that. The two Sabbath candles in the copper
+candlesticks stood on the white tablecloth, and were lighted as soon
+as the welcome dusk announced the advent of the holy day, and they
+shed their pious illumination on her dish of fish and the
+ritually-twisted loaves. And after supper Natalya would sing the
+Hebrew grace at much leisurely length and with great unction. Then she
+would tell stories of her youth in Poland--comic tales mixed with
+tales of oppression and the memories of ancient wrong. And Daisy would
+weep and laugh and thrill. The fusion of races had indeed made her
+sensitive and intelligent beyond the common, and Natalya was not
+unjustified in planning out for her some illustrious future.
+
+But after eighteen months of this delightful life Natalya's wonderful
+vitality began slowly to collapse. She earned less and less, and, amid
+her gratitude to God for having relieved her of the burden of Becky
+and Joseph, a secret fear entered her heart. Would she be taken away
+before Daisy became self-supporting? Nay, would she even be able to
+endure the burden till the end? What made things worse was that, owing
+to the increase of immigrants, her landlord now exacted an extra
+shilling a week for rent. When Daisy was asleep the old woman hung
+over the bed, praying for life, for strength.
+
+It was a sultry summer, making the trudge from door to door, under the
+ever-swelling sack, almost intolerable. And a little thing occurred to
+bring home cruelly to Natalya the decline of all her resources,
+physical and financial. The children's country holiday was in the air
+at Daisy's Board School, throwing an aroma and a magic light over the
+droning class-room. Daisy was to go, was to have a fortnight with a
+cottager in Kent; but towards the expenses the child's parent or
+guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have
+gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant
+investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even
+more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of
+poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural
+delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation.
+Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in
+a poor Polish village, amid huts and pigs, but she would not
+disillusion Daisy.
+
+By miles of extra trudging in the heat, and miracles of bargaining
+with bewildered housewives, Natalya raised the four shillings, and the
+unconscious Daisy glided off in the happy, noisy train, while on the
+platform Natalya waved her coloured handkerchief wet with tears.
+
+That first night without the little sunshiny presence was terrible for
+the old-clo' woman. The last prop against decay and collapse seemed
+removed. But the next day a joyous postcard came from Daisy, which the
+greengrocer downstairs read to Natalya, and she was able to take up
+her sack again and go forth into the sweltering streets.
+
+In the second week the child wrote a letter, saying that she had found
+a particular friend in an old lady, very kind and rich, who took her
+for drives in a chaise, and asked her many questions. This old lady
+seemed to have taken a fancy to her from the moment she saw her
+playing outside the cottage.
+
+'Perhaps God has sent her to look after the child when I am gone,'
+thought Natalya, for the task of going down and up the stairs to get
+this letter read made her feel as if she would never go up and down
+them again.
+
+Beaten at last, she took to her bed. Her next-room neighbour, the
+cobbler's wife, tended her and sent for the 'penny doctor.' But she
+would not have word written to Daisy or her holiday cut short. On the
+day Daisy was to come back she insisted, despite all advice and
+warning, in being up and dressed. She sent everybody away, and lay on
+her bed till she heard Daisy's footsteps, then she started to her
+feet, and drew herself up in pretentious good health. But the sound of
+other footsteps, and the entry of a spectacled, silver-haired old
+gentlewoman with the child, spoilt her intended hug. Daisy's new
+friend had passed from her memory, and she stared pathetically at the
+strange lady and the sunburnt child.
+
+'Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you've got!' And Daisy ran
+laughingly towards her.
+
+The usual repartee was wanting.
+
+'And the room is not tidied up,' Natalya said reproachfully, and began
+dusting a chair for the visitor. But the old lady waved it aside.
+
+'I have come to thank you for all you have done for my grandchild.'
+
+'_Your_ grandchild?' Natalya fell back on the bed.
+
+'Yes. I have had inquiries made--it is quite certain. Daisy was even
+called after me. I am glad of that, at least.' Her voice faltered.
+
+Natalya sat as bolt upright as years of bending under sacks would
+allow.
+
+'And you have come to take her from me!' she shrieked.
+
+Already Daisy's new ruddiness seemed to her the sign of life that
+belonged elsewhere.
+
+'No, no, do not be alarmed. I have suffered enough from my
+selfishness. It was my bad temper drove my daughter from me.' She
+bowed her silver head till her form seemed as bent as Natalya's. 'What
+can I do to repair--to atone? Will you not come and live with me in
+the country, and let me care for you? I am not rich, but I can offer
+you every comfort.'
+
+Natalya shook her head. 'I am a Jewess. I could not eat with you.'
+
+'That's just what _I_ told her, grandmother,' added Daisy eagerly.
+
+'Then the child must remain with you at my expense,' said the old
+lady.
+
+'But if she likes the country so----' murmured Natalya.
+
+'I like you better, grandmother.' And Daisy laid her ruddied cheek to
+the withered cheek, which grew wet with ecstasy.
+
+'She calls _you_ "grandmother," not me,' said the old gentlewoman with
+a sob.
+
+'Yes, and I wished her mother dead. God forgive me!'
+
+Natalya burst into a passion of tears and rocked to and fro, holding
+Daisy tightly to her faintly pulsing heart.
+
+'What did you say?' Daisy's grandmother flamed and blazed with her
+ancient anger. 'You wished my Madge dead?'
+
+Natalya nodded her head. Her arms unloosed their hold of Daisy. 'Dead,
+dead, dead,' she repeated in a strange, crooning voice. Gradually a
+vacant look crept over her face, and she fell back again on the bed.
+She looked suddenly very old, despite her glossy black wig.
+
+'She is ill!' Daisy shrieked.
+
+The cobbler's wife ran in and helped to put her back between the
+sheets, and described volubly her obstinacy in leaving her bed.
+Natalya lived till near noon of the next day, and Daisy's real
+grandmother was with her still at the end, side by side with the
+Jewish death-watcher.
+
+About eleven in the morning Natalya said: 'Light the candles, Daisy,
+the Sabbath is coming in.' Daisy spread a white tablecloth on the old
+wooden table, placed the copper candlesticks upon it, drew it to the
+bedside, and lighted the candles. They burned with curious unreality
+in the full August sunshine.
+
+A holy peace overspread the old-clo' woman's face. Her dried-up lips
+mumbled the Hebrew prayer, welcoming the Sabbath eve. Gradually they
+grew rigid in death.
+
+'Daisy,' said her grandmother, 'say the text I taught you.'
+
+'"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,"' sobbed the
+child obediently, '"and I will give you rest."'
+
+
+
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH
+
+
+
+
+THE LUFTMENSCH
+
+
+I
+
+Leopold Barstein, the sculptor, was sitting in his lonesome studio,
+brooding blackly over his dead illusions, when the postman brought him
+a letter in a large, straggling, unknown hand. It began 'Angel of
+God!'
+
+He laughed bitterly. 'Just when I am at my most diabolical!' He did
+not at first read the letter, divining in it one of the many
+begging-letters which were the aftermath of his East-End Zionist
+period. But he turned over the page to see the name of the Orientally
+effusive scribe. It was 'Nehemiah Silvermann, Dentist and
+Restaurateur.' His laughter changed to a more genial note; his sense
+of humour was still saving. The figure of the restaurateur-dentist
+sprang to his imagination in marble on a pedestal. In one hand the
+figure held a cornucopia, in the other a pair of pincers. He read the
+letter.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'ANGEL OF GOD,
+
+    'I have the honour now to ask Your very kind humane merciful
+    cordial nobility to assist me by Your clement philanthropical
+    liberal relief in my very hard troublesome sorrows and
+    worries, on which I suffer violently. I lost all my fortune,
+    and I am ruined by Russia. I am here at present without means
+    and dental practice, and my restaurant is impeded with lack of
+    a few frivolous pounds. I do not know really what to do in my
+    actual very disgraceful mischief. I heard the people saying
+    Your propitious magnanimous beneficent charities are
+    everywhere exceedingly well renowned and considerably
+    gracious. Thus I solicit and supplicate Your good very kind
+    genteel clement humanity by my very humble quite instant
+    request to support me by Your merciful aid, and please to
+    respond me as soon as possible according to Your generous very
+    philanthropy in my urgent extreme immense difficulty.
+
+    'Your obedient servant respectfully,
+                'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Restaurateur._'
+
+Such a flood of language carried away the last remnants of Barstein's
+melancholia; he saw his imagined statue showering adjectives from its
+cornucopia. 'It is the cry of a dictionary in distress!' he murmured,
+re-reading the letter with unction.
+
+It pleased his humour to reply in the baldest language. He asked for
+details of Silvermann's circumstances and sorrows. Had he applied to
+the Russo-Jewish Fund, which existed to help such refugees from
+persecution? Did he know Jacobs, the dentist of the neighbouring
+Mansel Place?
+
+Jacobs had been one of Barstein's fellow-councillors in Zionism, a
+pragmatic inexhaustible debater in the small back room, and the
+voluble little man now loomed suddenly large as a possible authority
+upon his brother-dentist.
+
+By return of post a second eruption descended upon the studio from the
+'dictionary in distress.'
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+'MOST HONOURABLE AND ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD BARSTEIN,
+
+    'I have the honour now to thank You for Your kind answer of my
+    letter. I did not succeed here by my vital experience in the
+    last of ten years. I got my livelihood a certain time by my
+    dental practice so long there was not a hard violent
+    competition, then I had never any efficacious relief,
+    protection, then I have no relation, then we and the time are
+    changeable too, then without money is impossible to perform
+    any matter, if I had at present in my grieved desperate
+    position L4 for my restaurant, then I were rescued. I do not
+    earn anything, and I must despond at last, I perish here, in
+    Russia I was ruined, please to aid me in Your merciful
+    humanity by something, if I had L15 I could start off from
+    here to go somewhere to look for my daily bread, and if I had
+    L30 so I shall go to Jerusalem because I am convinced by my
+    bitter and sour troubles and shocking tribulations here is
+    nothing to do any more for me. I have not been in the
+    Russo-Jewish fund and do not know it where it is, and if it is
+    in the Jewish shelter of Leman Street so I have no protection,
+    no introduction, no recommendation for it. Poverty has very
+    seldom a few clement humane good people and little friends.
+    The people say Jacobs the dentist of Mansel Place is not a
+    good man, and so it is I tried it for he makes the impossible
+    competition. I ask Your good genteel cordial nobility
+    according to the universal good reputation of Your gracious
+    goodness to reply me quick by some help now.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+                'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Restaurateur._'
+
+This letter threw a new but not reassuring light upon the situation.
+Instead of being a victim of the Russian troubles, a recent refugee
+from massacre and robbery, Nehemiah had already existed in London for
+ten years, and although he might originally have been ruined by
+Russia, he had survived his ruin by a decade. His ideas of his future
+seemed as hazy as his past. Four pounds would be a very present help;
+he could continue his London career. With fifteen pounds he was ready
+to start off anywhither. With thirty pounds he would end all his
+troubles in Jerusalem. Such nebulousness appeared to necessitate a
+personal visit, and the next day, finding himself in bad form,
+Barstein angrily bashed in a clay visage, clapped on his hat, and
+repaired to the Minories. But he looked in vain for either a dentist
+or a restaurant at No. 3A. It appeared a humble corner residence,
+trying to edge itself into the important street. At last, after
+wandering uncertainly up and down, he knocked at the shabby door. A
+frowsy woman with long earrings opened it staring, and said that the
+Silvermanns occupied two rooms on her second floor.
+
+'What!' cried Barstein. 'Is he married?'
+
+'I should hope so,' replied the landlady severely. 'He has eleven
+children at least.'
+
+Barstein mounted the narrow carpetless stairs, and was received by
+Mrs. Silvermann and her brood with much consternation and ceremony.
+The family filled the whole front room and overflowed into the back,
+which appeared to be a sort of kitchen, for Mrs. Silvermann had rushed
+thence with tucked-up sleeves, and sounds of frying still proceeded
+from it. But Mr. Silvermann was not at home, the small, faded,
+bewigged creature told him apologetically. Barstein looked curiously
+round the room, half expecting indications of dentistry or dining. But
+he saw only a minimum of broken-down furniture, bottomless cane
+chairs, a wooden table and a cracked mirror, a hanging shelf heaped
+with ragged books, and a standing cupboard which obviously turned into
+a bedstead at night for half the family. But of a dentist's chair
+there was not even the ruins. His eyes wandered over the broken-backed
+books--some were indeed 'dictionaries in distress.' He noted a
+Russo-German and a German-English. Then the sounds of frying
+penetrated more keenly to his brain.
+
+'You are the cook of the restaurant?' he inquired.
+
+'Restaurant!' echoed the woman resentfully. 'Have I not enough cooking
+to do for my own family? And where shall I find money to keep a
+restaurant?'
+
+'Your husband said----' murmured Barstein, as in guilty confusion.
+
+A squalling from the overflow offspring in the kitchen drew off the
+mother for a moment, leaving him surrounded by an open-eyed juvenile
+mob. From the rear he heard smacks, loud whispers and whimperings.
+Then the poor woman reappeared, bearing what seemed a scrubbing-board.
+She placed it over one of the caneless chairs, and begged his
+Excellency to be seated. It was a half holiday at the school, she
+complained, otherwise her family would be less numerous.
+
+'Where does your husband do his dentistry?' Barstein inquired, seating
+himself cautiously upon the board.
+
+'Do I know?' said his wife. 'He goes out, he comes in.' At this
+moment, to Barstein's great satisfaction, he did come in.
+
+'Holy angel!' he cried, rushing at the hem of Barstein's coat, and
+kissing it reverently. He was a gaunt, melancholy figure, elongated to
+over six feet, and still further exaggerated by a rusty top-hat of the
+tallest possible chimneypot, and a threadbare frockcoat of the longest
+possible tails. At his advent his wife, vastly relieved, shepherded
+her flock into the kitchen and closed the door, leaving Barstein alone
+with the long man, who seemed, as he stood gazing at his visitor,
+positively soaring heavenwards with rapture.
+
+But Barstein inquired brutally: 'Where do you do your dentistry?'
+
+'Never mind me,' replied Nehemiah ecstatically. 'Let me look on you!'
+And a more passionate worship came into his tranced gaze.
+
+But Barstein, feeling duped, replied sternly: 'Where do you do your
+dentistry?'
+
+The question seemed to take some moments penetrating through
+Nehemiah's rapt brain, but at last he replied pathetically: 'And where
+shall I find achers? In Russia I had my living of it. Here I have no
+friends.'
+
+The homeliness of his vocabulary amused Barstein. Evidently the
+dictionary _was_ his fount of inspiration. Without it Niagara was
+reduced to a trickle. He seemed indeed quite shy of speech, preferring
+to gaze with large liquid eyes.
+
+'But you _have_ managed to live here for ten years,' Barstein pointed
+out.
+
+'You see how merciful God is!' Nehemiah rejoined eagerly. 'Never once
+has He deserted me and my children.'
+
+'But what have you done?' inquired Barstein.
+
+The first shade of reproach came into Nehemiah's eyes.
+
+'Ask sooner what the Almighty has done,' he said.
+
+Barstein felt rebuked. One does not like to lose one's character as a
+holy angel. 'But your restaurant?' he said. 'Where is that?'
+
+'That is here.'
+
+'Here!' echoed Barstein, staring round again.
+
+'Where else? Here is a wide opening for a _kosher_ restaurant. There
+are hundreds and hundreds of Greeners lodging all around--poor young
+men with only a bed or a corner of a room to sleep on. They know not
+where to go to eat, and my wife, God be thanked, is a knowing cook.'
+
+'Oh, then, your restaurant is only an idea.'
+
+'Naturally--a counsel that I have given myself.'
+
+'But have you enough plates and dishes and tablecloths? Can you afford
+to buy the food, and to risk it's not being eaten?'
+
+Nehemiah raised his hands to heaven.
+
+'Not being eaten! With a family like mine!'
+
+Barstein laughed in spite of himself. And he was softened by noting
+how sensitive and artistic were Nehemiah's outspread hands--they might
+well have wielded the forceps. 'Yes, I dare say that is what will
+happen,' he said. 'How can you keep a restaurant up two pairs of
+stairs where no passer-by will ever see it?'
+
+As he spoke, however, he remembered staying in an hotel in Sicily
+which consisted entirely of one upper room. Perhaps in the Ghetto
+Sicilian fashions were paralleled.
+
+'I do not fly so high as a restaurant in once,' Nehemiah explained.
+'But here is this great empty room. What am I to do with it? At night
+of course most of us sleep on it, but by daylight it is a waste. Also
+I receive several Hebrew and Yiddish papers a week from my friends in
+Russia and America, and one of which I even buy here. When I have read
+them these likewise are a waste. Therefore have I given myself a
+counsel, if I would make here a reading-room they should come in the
+evenings, many young men who have only a bed or a room-corner to go
+to, and when once they have learnt to come here it will then be easy
+to make them to eat and drink. First I will give to them only coffee
+and cigarettes, but afterwards shall my wife cook them all the
+_Delicatessen_ of Poland. When our custom will become too large we
+shall take over Bergman's great fashionable restaurant in the
+Whitechapel Road. He has already given me the option thereof; it is
+only two hundred pounds. And if your gentility----'
+
+'But I cannot afford two hundred pounds,' interrupted Barstein,
+alarmed.
+
+'No, no, it is the Almighty who will afford that,' said Nehemiah
+reassuringly. 'From you I ask nothing.'
+
+'In that case,' replied Barstein drily, 'I must say I consider it an
+excellent plan. Your idea of building up from small foundations is
+most sensible--some of the young men may even have toothache--but I do
+not see where you need me--unless to supply a few papers.'
+
+'Did I not say you were from heaven?' Nehemiah's eyes shone again.
+'But I do not require the papers. It is enough for me that your holy
+feet have stood in my homestead. I thought you might send money. But
+to come with your own feet! Now I shall be able to tell I have spoken
+with him face to face!'
+
+Barstein was touched. 'I think you will need a larger table for the
+reading-room,' he said.
+
+The tall figure shook its tall hat. 'It is only gas that I need for my
+operations.'
+
+'Gas!' repeated Barstein, astonished. 'Then you propose to continue
+your dentistry too.'
+
+'It is for the restaurant I need the gas,' elucidated Nehemiah.
+'Unless there shall be a cheerful shining here the young men will not
+come. But the penny gas is all I need.'
+
+'Well, if it costs only a penny----' began Barstein.
+
+'A penny in the slot,' corrected Nehemiah. 'But then there is the
+meter and the cost of the burners.' He calculated that four pounds
+would convert the room into a salon of light that would attract all
+the homeless moths of the neighbourhood.
+
+So this was the four-pound solution, Barstein reflected with his first
+sense of solid foothold. After all Nehemiah had sustained his surprise
+visit fairly well--he was obviously no Croesus--and if four pounds
+would not only save this swarming family but radiate cheer to the
+whole neighbourhood--
+
+He sprung open the sovereign-purse that hung on his watch-chain. It
+contained only three pounds ten. He rummaged his pockets for silver,
+finding only eight shillings.
+
+'I'm afraid I haven't quite got it!' he murmured.
+
+'As if I couldn't trust you!' cried Nehemiah reproachfully, and as he
+lifted his long coat-tails to trouser-pocket the money, Barstein saw
+that he had no waistcoat.
+
+
+II
+
+About six months later, when Barstein had utterly forgotten the
+episode, he received another letter whose phraseology instantly
+recalled everything.
+
+
+'_To the most Honourable Competent Authentical Illustrious
+    Authority and Universal Celebrious Dignity of the very
+    Famous Sculptor._
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I have the honour and pleasure now to render the real and
+    sincere gratitude of my very much obliged thanks for Your
+    grand gracious clement sympathical propitious merciful liberal
+    compassionable cordial nobility of your real humane generous
+    benevolent genuine very kind magnanimous philanthropy, which
+    afforded to me a great redemption of my very lamentable
+    desperate necessitous need, wherein I am at present very poor
+    indeed in my total ruination by the cruel cynical Russia,
+    therein is every day a daily tyrannous massacre and
+    assassinate, here is nothing to do any more for me previously,
+    I shall rather go to Bursia than to Russia. I received from
+    Your dear kind amiable amicable goodness recently L4 the same
+    was for me a momental recreateing aid in my actual very
+    indigent paltry miserable calamitous situation wherein I gain
+    now nothing and I only perish here. Even I cannot earn here my
+    daily bread by my perfect scientifick Knowledge of diverse
+    languages, I know the philological neology and archaiology,
+    the best way is for me to go to another country to wit, to
+    Bursia or Turkey. Thus, I solicit and supplicate Your
+    charitable generosity by my very humble and instant request to
+    make me go away from here as soon as possible according to
+    Your humane kind merciful clemency.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages_.'
+
+So an Academy of Languages had evolved from the gas, not a restaurant.
+Anyhow the dictionary was in distress again. Emigration appeared now
+the only salvation.
+
+But where in the world was Bursia? Possibly Persia was meant. But why
+Persia? Wherein lay the attraction of that exotic land, and whatever
+would Mrs. Silvermann and her overflowing progeny do in Persia?
+Nehemiah's original suggestion of Jerusalem had been much more
+intelligible. Perhaps it persisted still under the head of Turkey.
+Not least characteristic Barstein found Nehemiah's tenacious gloating
+over his ancient ruin at the hands of Russia.
+
+For some days the sculptor went about weighed down by Nehemiah's
+misfortunes, and the necessity of finding time to journey to the
+Minories. But he had an absorbing piece of work, and before he could
+tear himself away from it a still more urgent shower of words fell
+upon him.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'I have the honour now,' the new letter ran, 'to inquire about
+    my decided and expecting departure. I must sue by my quite
+    humble and very instant entreaty Your noble genteel cordial
+    humanity in my very hard troublous and bitter and sour
+    vexations and tribulations to effect for my poor position at
+    least a private anonymous prompt collection as soon as
+    possible according to Your clement magnanimous charitable
+    mercy of L15 if not L25 among Your very estimable and
+    respectfully good friends, in good order to go in another
+    country even Bursia to get my livelihood by my dental practice
+    or by my other scientifick and philological knowledge. The
+    great competition is here in anything very vigorous. I have
+    here no dental employment, no dental practice, no relations,
+    no relief, no gain, no earning, no introduction, no
+    protection, no recommendation, no money, no good friends, no
+    good connecting acquaintance, in Russia I am ruined and I
+    perish here, I am already desperate and despond entirely. I do
+    not know what to do and what shall I do, do now in my actual
+    urgent, extreme immense need. I am told by good many people,
+    that the board of guardians is very seldom to rescue by aid
+    the people, but very often is to find only faults, and vices
+    and to make them guilty. I have nothing to do there, and in
+    the russian jewish fund I found once Sir Asher Aaronsberg and
+    he is not to me sympathical. I supply and solicit considerably
+    Your kind humane clement mercy to answer me as soon as
+    possible quick according to Your very gracious mercy.
+
+          'Your obedient Servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages._'
+
+As soon as the light failed in his studio, Barstein summoned a hansom
+and sped to the Minories.
+
+
+III
+
+Nehemiah's voice bade him walk in, and turning the door-handle he saw
+the top-hatted figure sprawled in solitary gloom along a caneless
+chair, reading a newspaper by the twinkle of a rushlight. Nehemiah
+sprang up with a bark of joy, making his gigantic shadow bow to the
+visitor. From chimney-pot to coat-tail he stretched unchanged, and the
+same celestial rapture illumined his gaunt visage.
+
+But Barstein drew back his own coat-tail from the attempted kiss.
+
+'Where is the gas?' he asked drily.
+
+'Alas, the company removed the meter.'
+
+'But the gas-brackets?'
+
+'What else had we to eat?' said Nehemiah simply.
+
+Barstein in sudden suspicion raised his eyes to the ceiling. But a
+fragment of gaspipe certainly came through it. He could not, however,
+recall whether the pipe had been there before or not.
+
+'So the young men would not come?' he said.
+
+'Oh yes, they came, and they read, and they ate. Only they did not
+pay.'
+
+'You should have made it a rule--cash down.'
+
+Again a fine shade of rebuke and astonishment crossed his lean and
+melancholy visage.
+
+'And could I oppress a brother-in-Israel? Where had those young men to
+turn but to me?'
+
+Again Barstein felt his angelic reputation imperilled. He hastened to
+change the conversation.
+
+'And why do you want to go to Bursia?' he said.
+
+'Why shall I want to go to Bursia?' Nehemiah replied.
+
+'You said so.' Barstein showed him the letter.
+
+'Ah, I said I shall sooner go to Bursia than to Russia. Always Sir
+Asher Aaronsberg speaks of sending us back to Russia.'
+
+'He would,' said Barstein grimly. 'But where is Bursia?'
+
+Nehemiah shrugged his shoulders. 'Shall I know? My little Rebeccah was
+drawing a map thereof; she won a prize of five pounds with which we
+lived two months. A genial child is my Rebeccah.'
+
+'Ah, then, the Almighty did send you something.'
+
+'And do I not trust Him?' said Nehemiah fervently. 'Otherwise,
+burdened down as I am with a multitude of children----'
+
+'You made your own burden,' Barstein could not help pointing out.
+
+Again that look of pain, as if Nehemiah had caught sight of feet of
+clay beneath Barstein's shining boots.
+
+'"Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,"' Nehemiah quoted in
+Hebrew. 'Is not that the very first commandment in the Bible?'
+
+'Well, then, you want to go to Turkey,' said the sculptor evasively.
+'I suppose you mean Palestine?'
+
+'No, Turkey. It is to Turkey we Zionists should ought to go, there to
+work for Palestine. Are not many of the Sultan's own officials Jews?
+If we can make of _them_ hot-hearted Zionists----'
+
+It was an arresting conception, and Barstein found himself sitting on
+the table to discuss it. The reverence with which Nehemiah listened to
+his views was touching and disconcerting. Barstein felt humbled by the
+celestial figure he cut in Nehemiah's mental mirror. Yet he could not
+suspect the man of a glozing tongue, for of the leaders of Zionism
+Nehemiah spoke with, if possible, greater veneration, with an awe
+trembling on tears. His elongated figure grew even gaunter, his lean
+visage unearthlier, as he unfolded his plan for the conquest of
+Palestine, and Barstein's original impression of his simple sincerity
+was repeated and re-enforced.
+
+Presently, however, it occurred to Barstein that Nehemiah himself
+would have scant opportunity of influential contact with Ottoman
+officials, and that the real question at issue was, how Nehemiah, his
+wife, and his 'at least eleven children,' were to be supported in
+Turkey. He mentioned the point.
+
+Nehemiah waved it away. 'And cannot the Almighty support us in Turkey
+as well as in England?' he asked. 'Yes, even in Bursia itself the
+Guardian of Israel is not sleepy.'
+
+It was then that the word 'Luftmensch' flew into Barstein's mind.
+Nehemiah was not an earth-man in gross contact with solidities. He was
+an air-man, floating on facile wings through the aether. True, he spoke
+of troublesome tribulations, but these were mainly dictionary
+distresses, felt most keenly in the rhapsody of literary composition.
+At worst they were mere clouds on the blue. They had nothing in common
+with the fogs which frequently veiled heaven from his own vision.
+Never for a moment had Nehemiah failed to remember the blue, never had
+he lost his radiant outlook. His very pessimism was merely optimism in
+disguise, since it was only a personal pessimism to be remedied by 'a
+few frivolous pounds,' by a new crumb from the hand of Providence, not
+that impersonal despair of the scheme of things which gave the thinker
+such black moments. How had Nehemiah lived during those first ten
+years in England? Who should say? But he had had the wild daring to
+uproot himself from his childhood's home and adventure himself upon an
+unknown shore, and there, by hook or crook, for better or for worse,
+through vicissitudes innumerable and crises beyond calculation, ever
+on the perilous verge of nothingness, he had scraped through the days
+and the weeks and the years, fearlessly contributing perhaps more
+important items to posterity than the dead stones, which were all he,
+the sculptor, bade fair to leave behind him. Welcoming each new child
+with feasting and psalmody, never for a moment had Nehemiah lost his
+robustious faith in life, his belief in God, man, or himself.
+
+Yes, even deeper than his own self-respect was his respect for
+others. An impenetrable idealist, he lived surrounded by a radiant
+humanity, by men become as Gods. With no conscious hyperbole did he
+address one as 'Angel.' Intellect and goodness were his pole-stars.
+And what airy courage in his mundane affairs, what invincible
+resilience! He had once been a dentist, and he still considered
+himself one. Before he owned a tablecloth he deemed himself the
+proprietor of a restaurant. He enjoyed alike the pleasures of
+anticipation and of memory, and having nothing, glided ever buoyantly
+between two gilded horizons. The superficial might call him shiftless,
+but more profoundly envisaged, was he not rather an education in the
+art of living? Did he not incarnate the great Jewish gospel of the
+improvident lilies?
+
+'You shall not go to Bursia,' said Barstein in a burst of artistic
+fervour. 'Thirteen people cannot possibly get there for fifteen pounds
+or even twenty-five pounds, and for such a sum you could start a small
+business here.'
+
+Nehemiah stared at him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then
+the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a
+Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were
+caught in the thicket to save Isaac's life were distinctly audible.
+
+Barstein waited patiently till the pious lips were at rest.
+
+'But what business do you think you----?' he began.
+
+'Shall I presume dictation to the angel?' asked Nehemiah with wet
+shining eyes.
+
+'I am thinking that perhaps we might find something in which your
+children could help you. How old is the eldest?'
+
+'I will ask my wife. Salome!' he cried. The dismal creature trotted
+in.
+
+'How old is Moshele?' he asked.
+
+'And don't you remember he was twelve last Tabernacles?'
+
+Nehemiah threw up his long arms. 'Merciful Heaven! He must soon begin
+to learn his _Parshah_ (confirmation portion). What will it be? Where
+is my _Chumash_ (Pentateuch)?' Mrs. Silvermann drew it down from the
+row of ragged books, and Nehemiah, fluttering the pages and bending
+over the rushlight, became lost to the problem of his future.
+
+Barstein addressed himself to the wife. 'What business do you think
+your husband could set up here?'
+
+'Is he not a dentist?' she inquired in reply.
+
+Barstein turned to the busy peering flutterer.
+
+'Would you like to be a dentist again?'
+
+'Ah, but how shall I find achers?'
+
+'You put up a sign,' said Barstein. 'One of those cases of teeth. I
+daresay the landlady will permit you to put it up by the front door,
+especially if you take an extra room. I will buy you the instruments,
+furnish the room attractively. You will put in your newspapers--why,
+people will be glad to come as to a reading-room!' he added smiling.
+
+Nehemiah addressed his wife. 'Did I not say he was a genteel
+archangel?' he cried ecstatically.
+
+
+IV
+
+Barstein was sitting outside a cafe in Rome sipping vermouth with
+Rozenoffski, the Russo-Jewish pianist, and Schneemann the
+Galician-Jewish painter, when he next heard from Nehemiah.
+
+He was anxiously expecting an important letter, which he had
+instructed his studio-assistant to bring to him instantly. So when the
+man appeared, he seized with avidity upon the envelope in his hand.
+But the scrawling superscription at once dispelled his hope, and
+recalled the forgotten _Luftmensch_. He threw the letter impatiently
+on the table.
+
+'Oh, you may read it,' his friends protested, misunderstanding.
+
+'I can guess what it is,' he said grumpily. Here, in this classical
+atmosphere, in this southern sunshine, he felt out of sympathy with
+the gaunt godly Nehemiah, who had doubtless lapsed again into his
+truly troublesome tribulations. Not a penny more for the
+ne'er-do-well! Let his Providence look after him!
+
+'Is she beautiful?' quizzed Schneemann.
+
+Barstein roared with laughter. His irate mood was broken up. Nehemiah
+as a petticoated romance was too tickling.
+
+'You shall read the letter,' he said.
+
+Schneemann protested comically. 'No, no, that would be
+ungentlemanly--you read to us what the angel says.'
+
+'It is I that am the angel,' Barstein laughed, as he tore open the
+letter. He read it aloud, breaking down in almost hysterical laughter
+at each eruption of adjectives from 'the dictionary in distress.'
+Rozenoffski and Schneemann rolled in similar spasms of mirth, and the
+Italians at the neighbouring tables, though entirely ignorant of the
+motive of the merriment, caught the contagion, and rocked and shrieked
+with the mad foreigners.
+
+
+                                            '3A, THE MINORIES, E.
+
+    'RIGHT HONOURABLE ANGELICAL MR. LEOPOLD BARSTEIN,
+
+    'I have now the honour to again solicit Your genteel genuine
+    sympathical humane philanthropic kind cordial nobility to
+    oblige me at present by Your merciful loan of gracious second
+    and propitious favourable aidance in my actually poor indigent
+    position in which I have no earn by my dental practice
+    likewise no help, also no protection, no recommendation, no
+    employment, and then the competition is here very violent. I
+    was ruined by Russia, and I have nothing for the celebration
+    of our Jewish new year. Consequentially upon your merciful
+    archangelical donative I was able to make my livelihood by my
+    dental practice even very difficult, but still I had my vital
+    subsistence by it till up now, but not further for the little
+    while, in consequence of it my circumstances are now in the
+    urgent extreme immense need. Thus I implore Your competent,
+    well famous good-hearted liberal magnanimous benevolent
+    generosity to respond me in Your beneficent relief as soon as
+    possible, according to Your kind grand clemence of Your good
+    ingenuous genteel humanity. I wish You a happy new year.
+
+          'Your obedient servant respectfully,
+              'NEHEMIAH SILVERMANN,
+                    '_Dentist and Professor of Languages_.'
+
+But when the reading was finished, Schneemann's comment was
+unexpected.
+
+'_Rosh Hashanah_ so near?' he said.
+
+A rush of Ghetto memories swamped the three artists as they tried to
+work out the date of the Jewish New Year, that solemn period of
+earthly trumpets and celestial judgments.
+
+'Why, it must be to-day!' cried Rozenoffski suddenly. The trio looked
+at one another with rueful humour. Why, the Ghetto could not even
+realize such indifference to the heavenly tribunals so busily
+decreeing their life-or-death sentences!
+
+Barstein raised his glass. 'Here's a happy new year, anyhow!' he said.
+
+The three men clinked glasses.
+
+Rozenoffski drew out a hundred-lire note.
+
+'Send that to the poor devil,' he said.
+
+'Oho!' laughed Schneemann. 'You still believe "Charity delivers from
+death!" Well, I must be saved too!' And he threw down another
+hundred-lire note.
+
+To the acutely analytical Barstein it seemed as if an old
+superstitious thrill lay behind Schneemann's laughter as behind
+Rozenoffski's donation.
+
+'You will only make the _Luftmensch_ believe still more obstinately in
+his Providence,' he said, as he gathered up the New Year gifts. 'Again
+will he declare that he has been accorded a good writing and a good
+sealing by the Heavenly Tribunal!'
+
+'Well, hasn't he?' laughed Schneemann.
+
+'Perhaps he has,' said Rozenoffski musingly. '_Qui sa?_'
+
+
+
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE
+
+
+
+
+THE TUG OF LOVE
+
+
+When Elias Goldenberg, Belcovitch's head cutter, betrothed himself to
+Fanny Fersht, the prettiest of the machinists, the Ghetto blessed the
+match, always excepting Sugarman the _Shadchan_ (whom love matches
+shocked), and Goldenberg's relatives (who considered Fanny flighty and
+fond of finery).
+
+'That Fanny of yours was cut out for a rich man's wife,' insisted
+Goldenberg's aunt, shaking her pious wig.
+
+'He who marries Fanny _is_ rich,' retorted Elias.
+
+'"Pawn your hide, but get a bride,"' quoted the old lady savagely.
+
+As for the slighted marriage-broker, he remonstrated almost like a
+relative.
+
+'But I didn't want a negotiated marriage,' Elias protested.
+
+'A love marriage I could also have arranged for you,' replied Sugarman
+indignantly.
+
+But Elias was quite content with his own arrangement, for Fanny's
+glance was melting and her touch transporting. To deck that soft warm
+hand with an engagement-ring, a month's wages had not seemed
+disproportionate, and Fanny flashed the diamond bewitchingly. It lit
+up the gloomy workshop with its signal of felicity. Even Belcovitch,
+bent over his press-iron, sometimes omitted to rebuke Fanny's
+badinage.
+
+The course of true love seemed to run straight to the Canopy--Fanny
+had already worked the bridegroom's praying shawl--when suddenly a
+storm broke. At first the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand--in
+fact, it was a man's hand. Elias espied it groping for Fanny's in the
+dim space between the two machines. As Fanny's fingers fluttered
+towards it, her other hand still guiding the cloth under the throbbing
+needle, Elias felt the needle stabbing his heart up and down, through
+and through. The very finger that held his costly ring lay in this
+alien paw gratis.
+
+The shameless minx! Ah, his relatives were right. He snapped the
+scissors savagely like a dragon's jaw.
+
+'Fanny, what dost thou?' he gasped in Yiddish.
+
+Fanny's face flamed; her guilty fingers flew back.
+
+'I thought thou wast on the other side,' she breathed.
+
+Elias snorted incredulously.
+
+As soon as Sugarman heard of the breaking of the engagement he flew to
+Elias, his blue bandanna streaming from his coat-tail.
+
+'If you had come to me,' he crowed, 'I should have found you a more
+reliable article. However, Heaven has given you a second helping. A
+well-built wage-earner like you can look as high as a greengrocer's
+daughter even.'
+
+'I never wish to look upon a woman again,' Elias groaned.
+
+'_Schtuss!_' said the great marriage-broker. 'Three days after the
+Fast of Atonement comes the Feast of Tabernacles. The Almighty,
+blessed be He, who created both light and darkness, has made obedient
+females as well as pleasure-seeking jades.' And he blew his nose
+emphatically into his bandanna.
+
+'Yes; but she won't return me my ring,' Elias lamented.
+
+'What!' Sugarman gasped. 'Then she considers herself still engaged to
+you.'
+
+'Not at all. She laughs in my face.'
+
+'And she has given you back your promise?'
+
+'My promise--yes. The ring--no.'
+
+'But on what ground?'
+
+'She says I gave it to her.'
+
+Sugarman clucked his tongue. 'Tututu! Better if we had followed our
+old custom, and the man had worn the engagement-ring, not the woman!'
+
+'In the workshop,' Elias went on miserably, 'she flashes it in my
+eyes. Everybody makes mock. Oh, the Jezebel!'
+
+'I should summons her!'
+
+'It would only cost me more. Is it not true I gave her the ring?'
+
+Sugarman mopped his brow. His vast experience was at fault. No maiden
+had ever refused to return his client's ring; rather had she flung it
+in the wooer's false teeth.
+
+'This comes of your love matches!' he cried sternly. 'Next time there
+must be a proper contract.'
+
+'Next time!' repeated Elias. 'Why how am I to afford a new ring? Fanny
+was ruinous in cups of chocolate and the pit of the Pavilion Theatre!'
+
+'I should want my fee down!' said Sugarman sharply.
+
+Elias shrugged his shoulders. 'If you bring me the ring.'
+
+'I do not get old rings but new maidens,' Sugarman reminded him
+haughtily. 'However, as you are a customer----' and crying 'Five per
+cent. on the greengrocer's daughter,' he hurried away ere Elias had
+time to dissent from the bargain.
+
+Donning his sealskin vest to overawe the Fershts, Sugarman ploughed
+his way up the dark staircase to their room. His attire was wasted on
+the family, for Fanny herself opened the door.
+
+'Peace to you,' he cried. 'I have come on behalf of Elias Goldenberg.'
+
+'It is useless. I will not have him.' And she was shutting the door.
+Her misconception, wilful or not, scattered all Sugarman's prepared
+diplomacies. 'He does not want you, he wants the ring,' he cried
+hastily.
+
+Fanny indecorously put a finger to her nose. The diamond glittered
+mockingly on it. Then she turned away giggling. 'But look at this
+photograph!' panted Sugarman desperately through the closing door.
+
+Surprise and curiosity brought her eyes back. She stared at the
+sheepish features of a frock-coated stranger.
+
+'Four pounds a week all the year round, head cutter at S. Cohn's,'
+said Sugarman, pursuing this advantage. 'A good old English family;
+Benjamin Beckenstein is his name, and he is dying to step into Elias's
+shoes.'
+
+'His feet are too large!' And she flicked the photograph floorwards
+with her bediamonded finger.
+
+'But why waste the engagement-ring?' pleaded Sugarman, stooping to
+pick up the suitor.
+
+'What an idea! A new man, a new ring!' And Fanny slammed the door.
+
+'Impudence-face! Would you become a jewellery shop?' the baffled
+_Shadchan_ shrieked through the woodwork.
+
+He returned to Elias, brooding darkly.
+
+'Well?' queried Elias.
+
+'O, your love matches!' And Sugarman shook them away with shuddersome
+palms.
+
+'Then she won't----'
+
+'No, she won't. Ah, how blessed you are to escape from that daughter
+of Satan! The greengrocer's daughter now----'
+
+'Speak me no more matches. I risk no more rings.'
+
+'I will get you one on the hire system.'
+
+'A maiden?'
+
+'Guard your tongue! A ring, of course.'
+
+Elias shook an obdurate head. 'No. I must have the old ring back.'
+
+'That is impossible--unless you marry her to get it back. Stay! Why
+should I not arrange that for you?'
+
+'Leave me in peace! Heaven has opened my eyes.'
+
+'Then see how economical she is!' urged Sugarman. 'A maiden who sticks
+to a ring like that is not likely to be wasteful of your substance.'
+
+'You have not seen her swallow "stuffed monkeys,"' said Elias grimly.
+'Make an end! I have done with her.'
+
+'No, you have not! You can still give yourself a counsel.' And
+Sugarman looked a conscious sphinx. 'You may yet get back the ring.'
+
+'How?'
+
+'Of course, I have the next disposal of it?' said Sugarman.
+
+'Yes, yes. Go on.'
+
+'To-morrow in the workshop pretend to steal loving glances all day
+long when she's not looking. When she catches you----'
+
+'But she won't be looking!'
+
+'Oh, yes, she will. When she catches you, you must blush.'
+
+'But I can't blush at will,' Elias protested.
+
+'I know it is hard. Well, look foolish. That will be easier for you.'
+
+'But why shall I look foolish?'
+
+'To make her think you are in love with her after all.'
+
+'I should look foolish if I were.'
+
+'Precisely. That is the idea. When she leaves the workshop in the
+evening follow her, and as she passes the cake-shop, sigh and ask her
+if she will not eat a "stuffed monkey" for the sake of peace-be-upon-him
+times.'
+
+'But she won't.'
+
+'Why not? She is still in love.'
+
+'With stuffed monkeys,' said Elias cynically.
+
+'With you, too.'
+
+Elias blushed quite easily. 'How do you know?'
+
+'I offered her another man, and she slammed the door in my face!'
+
+'You--you offered----' Elias stuttered angrily.
+
+'Only to test her,' said Sugarman soothingly. He continued: 'Now, when
+she has eaten the cake and drunk a cup of chocolate, too (for one must
+play high with such a ring at stake), you must walk on by her side,
+and when you come to a dark corner, take her hand and say "My
+treasure" or "My angel," or whatever nonsense you modern young men
+babble to your maidens--with the results you see!--and while she is
+drinking it all in like more chocolate, her fingers in yours, give a
+sudden tug, and off comes the ring!'
+
+Elias gazed at him in admiration. 'You are as crafty as Jacob, our
+father.'
+
+'Heaven has not denied everybody brains,' replied Sugarman modestly.
+'Be careful to seize the left hand.'
+
+The admiring Elias followed the scheme to the letter.
+
+Even the blush he had boggled at came to his cheeks punctually
+whenever his sheep's-eyes met Fanny's. He was so surprised to find his
+face burning that he looked foolish into the bargain.
+
+They dallied long in the cake-shop, Elias trying to summon up courage
+for the final feint. He would get a good grip on the ring finger. The
+tug-of-war should be brief.
+
+Meantime the couple clinked chocolate cups, and smiled into each
+other's eyes.
+
+'The good-for-nothing!' thought Elias hotly. 'She will make the same
+eyes at the next man.'
+
+And he went on gorging her, every speculative 'stuffed monkey'
+increasing his nervous tension. Her white teeth, biting recklessly
+into the cake, made him itch to slap her rosy cheek. Confectionery
+palled at last, and Fanny led the way out. Elias followed, chattering
+with feverish gaiety. Gradually he drew up even with her.
+
+They turned down the deserted Fishmonger's Alley, lit by one dull
+gas-lamp. Elias's limbs began to tremble with the excitement of the
+critical moment. He felt like a footpad. Hither and thither he
+peered--nobody was about. But--was he on the right side of her? 'The
+right is the left,' he told himself, trying to smile, but his pulses
+thumped, and in the tumult of heart and brain he was not sure he knew
+her right hand from her left. Fortunately he caught the glitter of the
+diamond in the gloom, and instinctively his robber hand closed upon
+it.
+
+But as he felt the warm responsive clasp of those soft fingers, that
+ancient delicious thrill pierced every vein. Fool that he had been to
+doubt that dear hand! And it was wearing his ring still--she could not
+part with it! O blundering male ingrate!
+
+'My treasure! My angel!' he murmured ecstatically.
+
+
+
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'
+
+
+
+
+THE YIDDISH 'HAMLET'
+
+
+I
+
+The little poet sat in the East-side cafe looking six feet high.
+Melchitsedek Pinchas--by dint of a five-pound note from Sir Asher
+Aaronsberg in acknowledgement of the dedication to him of the poet's
+'Songs of Zion'--had carried his genius to the great new Jewry across
+the Atlantic. He had arrived in New York only that very March, and
+already a crowd of votaries hung upon his lips and paid for all that
+entered them. Again had the saying been verified that a prophet is
+nowhere without honour save in his own country. The play that had
+vainly plucked at the stage-doors of the Yiddish Theatres of Europe
+had already been accepted by the leading Yiddish theatre of New York.
+At least there were several Yiddish Theatres, each claiming this
+supreme position, but the poet felt that the production of his play at
+Goldwater's Theatre settled the question among them.
+
+'It is the greatest play of the generation,' he told the young
+socialists and free-thinkers who sat around him this Friday evening
+imbibing chocolate. 'It will be translated into every tongue.' He had
+passed with a characteristic bound from satisfaction with the Ghetto
+triumph into cosmopolitan anticipations. 'See,' he added, 'my initials
+make M.P.--Master Playwright.'
+
+'Also Mud Pusher,' murmured from the next table Ostrovsky, the
+socialist leader, who found himself almost deserted for the new lion.
+'Who is this uncombed bunco-steerer?'
+
+'He calls himself the "sweet singer in Israel,"' contemptuously
+replied Ostrovsky's remaining parasite.
+
+'But look here, Pinchas,' interposed Benjamin Tuch, another of the
+displaced demigods, a politician with a delusion that he swayed
+Presidential elections by his prestige in Brooklyn. 'You said the
+other day that your initials made "Messianic Poet."'
+
+'And don't they?' inquired the poet, his Dantesque, if dingy, face
+flushing spiritedly. 'You call yourself a leader, and you don't know
+your A B C!'
+
+There was a laugh, and Benjamin Tuch scowled.
+
+'They can't stand for everything,' he said.
+
+'No--they can't stand for "Bowery Tough,"' admitted Pinchas; and the
+table roared again, partly at the rapidity with which this linguistic
+genius had picked up the local slang. 'But as our pious lunatics think
+there are many meanings in every letter of the Torah,' went on the
+pleased poet, 'so there are meanings innumerable in every letter of my
+name. If I am playwright as well as poet, was not Shakespeare both
+also?'
+
+'You wouldn't class yourself with a low-down barnstormer like
+Shakespeare?' said Tuch sarcastically.
+
+'My superiority to Shakespeare I leave to others to discover,' replied
+the poet seriously, and with unexpected modesty. 'I discovered it for
+myself in writing this very play; but I cannot expect the world to
+admit it till the play is produced.'
+
+'How did you come to find it out yourself?' asked Witberg, the young
+violinist, who was never sure whether he was guying the poet or
+sitting at his feet.
+
+'It happened most naturally--order me another cup of chocolate,
+Witberg. You see, when Iselmann was touring with his Yiddish troupe
+through Galicia, he had the idea of acquainting the Jewish masses with
+"Hamlet," and he asked me to make the Yiddish translation, as one
+great poet translating another--and some of those almond-cakes,
+Witberg! Well, I started on the job, and then of course the discovery
+was inevitable. The play, which I had not read since my youth, and
+then only in a mediocre Hebrew version, appeared unspeakably childish
+in places. Take, for example, the Ghost--these almond-cakes are as
+stale as sermons; command me a cream-tart, Witberg. What was I
+saying?'
+
+'The Ghost,' murmured a dozen voices.
+
+'Ah, yes--now, how can a ghost affect a modern audience which no
+longer believes in ghosts?'
+
+'That is true.' The table was visibly stimulated, as though the
+chocolate had turned into champagne. The word 'modern' stirred the
+souls of these refugees from the old Ghettos like a trumpet; unbelief,
+if only in ghosts, was oxygen to the prisoners of a tradition of three
+thousand years. The poet perceived his moment. He laid a black-nailed
+finger impressively on the right side of his nose.
+
+'I translated Shakespeare--yes, but into modern terms. The Ghost
+vanished--Hamlet's tragedy remained only the internal incapacity of
+the thinker for the lower activity of action.'
+
+The men of action pricked up their ears.
+
+'The higher activity, you mean,' corrected Ostrovsky.
+
+'Thought,' said Benjamin Tuch, 'has no value till it is translated
+into action.'
+
+'Exactly; you've got to work it up,' said Colonel Klopsky, who had
+large ranching and mining interests out West, and, with his florid
+personality, looked entirely out of place in these old haunts of his.
+
+'_Schtuss_ (nonsense)!' said the poet disrespectfully. 'Acts are only
+soldiers. Thought is the general.'
+
+Witberg demurred. 'It isn't much use _thinking_ about playing the
+violin, Pinchas.'
+
+'My friend,' said the poet, 'the thinker in music is the man who
+writes your solos. His thoughts exist whether you play them or
+not--and independently of your false notes. But you performers are all
+alike--I have no doubt the leading man who plays my Hamlet will
+imagine his is the higher activity. But woe be to those fellows if
+they change a syllable!'
+
+'_Your_ Hamlet?' sneered Ostrovsky. 'Since when?'
+
+'Since I re-created him for the modern world, without tinsel and
+pasteboard; since I conceived him in fire and bore him in agony;
+since--even the cream of this tart is sour--since I carried him to and
+fro in my pocket, as a young kangaroo is carried in the pouch of the
+mother.'
+
+'Then Iselmann did not produce it?' asked the Heathen Journalist, who
+haunted the East Side for copy, and pronounced Pinchas 'Pin-cuss.'
+
+'No, I changed his name to Eselmann, the Donkey-man. For I had hardly
+read him ten lines before he brayed out, "Where is the Ghost?" "The
+Ghost?" I said. "I have laid him. He cannot walk on the modern stage."
+Eselmann tore his hair. "But it is for the Ghost I had him translated.
+Our Yiddish audiences love a ghost." "They love your acting, too," I
+replied witheringly. "But I am not here to consider the tastes of the
+mob." Oh, I gave the Donkey-man a piece of my mind.'
+
+'But he didn't take the piece!' jested Grunbitz, who in Poland had
+been a _Badchan_ (marriage-jester), and was now a Zionist editor.
+
+'Bah! These managers are all men-of-the-earth! Once, in my days of
+obscurity, I was made to put a besom into the piece, and it swept all
+my genius off the boards. Ah, the donkey-men! But I am glad Eselmann
+gave me my "Hamlet" back, for before giving it to Goldwater I made it
+even more subtle. No vulgar nonsense of fencing and poison at the
+end--a pure mental tragedy, for in life the soul alone counts.
+No--this cream is just as sour as the other--my play will be the
+internal tragedy of the thinker.'
+
+'The internal tragedy of the thinker is indigestion,' laughed the
+ex-_Badchan_; 'you'd better be more careful with the cream-tarts.'
+
+The Heathen Journalist broke through the laughter. 'Strikes me,
+Pin-cuss, you're giving us Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.'
+
+'Better than the Prince of Denmark without Hamlet,' retorted the poet,
+cramming cream-tart down his throat in great ugly mouthfuls; 'that is
+how he is usually played. In my version the Prince of Denmark indeed
+vanishes, for Hamlet is a Hebrew and the Prince of Palestine.'
+
+'You have made him a Hebrew?' cried Mieses, a pimply young poet.
+
+'If he is to be the ideal thinker, let him belong to the nation of
+thinkers,' said Pinchas. 'In fact, the play is virtually an
+autobiography.'
+
+'And do you call it "Hamlet" still?' asked the Heathen Journalist,
+producing his notebook, for he began to see his way to a Sunday scoop.
+
+'Why not? True, it is virtually a new work. But Shakespeare borrowed
+his story from an old play called "Hamlet," and treated it to suit
+himself; why, therefore, should I not treat Shakespeare as it suits
+_me_. The cat eats the rat, and the dog bites the cat.' He laughed his
+sniggering laugh. 'If I were to call it by another name, some learned
+fool would point out it was stolen from Shakespeare, whereas at
+present it challenges comparison.'
+
+'But you discovered Shakespeare cannot sustain the comparison,' said
+Benjamin Tuch, winking at the company.
+
+'Only as the mediaeval astrologer is inferior to the astronomer of
+to-day,' the poet explained with placid modesty. 'The muddle-headedness
+of Shakespeare's ideas--which, incidentally, is the cause of the muddle
+of Hamlet's character--has given way to the clear vision of the modern.
+How could Shakespeare really describe the thinker? The Elizabethans
+could not think. They were like our rabbis.'
+
+The unexpected digression into contemporary satire made the whole cafe
+laugh. Gradually other atoms had drifted toward the new magnet. From
+the remotest corners eyes strayed and ears were pricked up. Pinchas
+was indeed a figure of mark, with somebody else's frock-coat on his
+meagre person, his hair flowing like a dark cascade under a
+broad-brimmed dusky hat, and his sombre face aglow with genius and
+cocksureness.
+
+'Why should you expect thought from a rabbi?' said Grunbitz. 'You
+don't expect truth from a tradesman. Besides, only youth thinks.'
+
+'That is well said,' approved Pinchas. 'He who is ever thinking never
+grows old. I shall die young, like all whom the gods love. Waiter,
+give Mr. Grunbitz a cup of chocolate.'
+
+'Thank you--but I don't care for any.'
+
+'You cannot refuse--you will pain Witberg,' said the poet simply.
+
+In the great city around them men jumped on and off electric cars,
+whizzed up and down lifts, hustled through lobbies, hulloed through
+telephones, tore open telegrams, dictated to clacking typists, filled
+life with sound and flurry, with the bustle of the markets and the
+chink of the eternal dollar; while here, serenely smoking and sipping,
+ruffled only by the breezes of argument, leisurely as the philosophers
+in the colonnades of Athens, the talkers of the Ghetto, earnest as
+their forefathers before the great folios of the Talmud, made an
+Oriental oasis amid the simoom whirl of the Occident. And the Heathen
+Journalist who had discovered it felt, as so often before, that here
+alone in this arid, mushroom New York was antiquity, was restfulness,
+was romanticism; here was the Latin Quarter of the city of the Goths.
+
+Encouraged by the Master's good humour, young Mieses timidly exhibited
+his new verses. Pinchas read the manuscript aloud to the confusion of
+the blushing boy.
+
+'But it is full of genius!' he cried in genuine astonishment. 'I might
+have written it myself, except that it is so unequal--a mixture of
+diamonds and paste, like all Hebrew literature.' He indicated with
+flawless taste the good lines, not knowing they were one and all
+unconscious reproductions from the English masterpieces Mieses had
+borrowed from the library in the Educational Alliance. The acolytes
+listened respectfully, and the beardless, blotchy-faced Mieses began
+to take importance in their eyes and to betray the importance he held
+in his own.
+
+'Perhaps I, too, shall write a play one day,' he said. 'My "M," too,
+makes "Master."'
+
+'It may be that you are destined to wear my mantle,' said Pinchas
+graciously.
+
+Mieses looked involuntarily at the ill-fitting frock-coat.
+
+Pinchas rose. 'And now, Mieses, you must give me a car-fare. I have to
+go and talk to the manager about rehearsals. One must superintend the
+actors one's self--these pumpkin-heads are capable of any crime, even
+of altering one's best phrases.'
+
+Radsikoff smiled. He had sat still in his corner, this most prolific
+of Ghetto dramatists, his big, furrowed forehead supported on his
+fist, a huge, odorous cigar in his mouth.
+
+'I suppose Goldwater plays "Hamlet,"' he said.
+
+'We have not discussed it yet,' said Pinchas airily.
+
+Radsikoff smiled again. 'Oh, he'll pull through--so long as Mrs.
+Goldwater doesn't play "Ophelia."'
+
+'She play "Ophelia"! She would not dream of such a thing. She is a
+saucy soubrette; she belongs to vaudeville.'
+
+'All right. I have warned you.'
+
+'You don't think there is really a danger!' Pinchas was pale and
+shaking.
+
+'The Yiddish stage is so moral. Husbands and wives, unfortunately,
+live and play together,' said the old dramatist drily.
+
+'I'll drown her truly before I let her play my "Ophelia,"' said the
+poet venomously.
+
+Radsikoff shrugged his shoulders and dropped into American. 'Well,
+it's up to you.'
+
+'The minx!' Pinchas shook his fist at the air. 'But I'll manage her.
+If the worst comes to the worst, I'll make love to her.'
+
+The poet's sublime confidence in his charms was too much even for his
+admirers. The mental juxtaposition of the seedy poet and the piquant
+actress in her frills and furbelows set the whole cafe rocking with
+laughter. Pinchas took it as a tribute to his ingenious method of
+drawing the soubrette-serpent's fangs. He grinned placidly.
+
+'And when is your play coming on?' asked Radsikoff.
+
+'After Passover,' replied Pinchas, beginning to button his frock-coat
+against the outer cold. If only to oust this 'Ophelia,' he must be at
+the theatre instanter.
+
+'Has Goldwater given you a contract?'
+
+'I am a poet, not a lawyer,' said Pinchas proudly. 'Parchments are for
+Philistines; honest men build on the word.'
+
+'After all, it comes to the same thing--with Goldwater,' said
+Radsikoff drily. 'But he's no worse than the others; I've never yet
+found the contract any manager couldn't slip out of. I've never yet
+met the playwright that the manager couldn't dodge.' Radsikoff,
+indeed, divided his time between devising plays and devising
+contracts. Every experience but suggested fresh clauses. He regarded
+Pinchas with commiseration rather than jealousy. 'I shall come to your
+first night,' he added.
+
+'It will be a tribute which the audience will appreciate,' said
+Pinchas. 'I am thinking that if I had one of these aromatic cigars I
+too might offer a burnt-offering unto the Lord.'
+
+There was general laughter at the blasphemy, for the Sabbath, with its
+privation of fire, had long since begun.
+
+'Try taking instead of thinking,' laughed the playwright, pushing
+forward his case. 'Action is greater than Thought.'
+
+'No, no, no!' Pinchas protested, as he fumbled for the finest cigar.
+'Wait till you see my play--you must all come--I will send you all
+boxes. Then you will learn that Thought is greater than Action--that
+Thought is the greatest thing in the world.'
+
+
+II
+
+Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas plunged from the
+steam-heated, cheerful cafe into the raw, unlovely street, still
+hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. He did not take the
+horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the five cents
+for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was slow, for a side street
+that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of
+the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of
+frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely
+by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have
+been superfluous. But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby
+and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already
+up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by
+the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on
+the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet,
+whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. This great
+theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.
+
+'I will await him in a box,' he said.
+
+'There's no room,' said the usher.
+
+Pinchas threw up his head. 'I am the author of "Hamlet"!'
+
+The usher winced as at a blow. All his life he had heard vaguely of
+'Hamlet'--as a great play that was acted on Broadway. And now here was
+the author himself! All the instinctive snobbery of the Ghetto toward
+the grand world was excited. And yet this seedy figure conflicted
+painfully with his ideas of the uptown type. But perhaps all
+dramatists were alike. Pinchas was bowed forward.
+
+In another instant the theatre was in an uproar. A man in a
+comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accommodate the distinguished
+stranger and had refused.
+
+'I pay my dollar--what for shall I go?'
+
+'But it is the author of "Hamlet"!'
+
+'My money is as good as his.'
+
+'But he doesn't pay.'
+
+'And I shall give my good seat to a _Schnorrer_!'
+
+'Sh! sh!' from all parts of the house, like water livening, not
+killing, a flame. From every side came expostulations in Yiddish and
+American. This was a free republic; the author of 'Hamlet' was no
+better than anybody else. Goldwater, on the stage, glared at the
+little poet.
+
+At last a compromise was found. A chair was placed at the back of a
+packed box. American boxes are constructed for publicity, not privacy,
+but the other dozen occupants bulked between him and the house. He
+could see, but he could not be seen. Sullen and mortified he listened
+contemptuously to the play.
+
+It was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic drama with which the
+vast audience had replaced the Sabbath pieties, the home-keeping
+ritual of the Ghetto, in their swift transformation to American life.
+Confined entirely to Jewish characters, it had borrowed much from the
+heroes and heroines of the Western world, remaining psychologically
+true only in its minor characters, which were conceived and rendered
+with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. And this naturalism was
+shot through with streaks of pure fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly
+bounded on in a masque for the edification of a Russian tyrant. But
+comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to horror and tragedy:
+these refugees from the brutality of Russia and Rumania, these
+inheritors of the wailing melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved
+morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. The 'happy endings' of Broadway
+would have spelled bankruptcy here. Players and audience made a large
+family party--the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the
+parts always cast in the same mould. And it was almost an impromptu
+performance. Pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear
+every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the
+footlights. The Yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried
+up'; it was his role to read the whole play ahead of them. 'Then you
+are the woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble. And the actor,
+hearing, invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, spinning
+out with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied
+to him. No mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no
+punctilious tuition by your stage-manager--all was inspiration and
+fire. But to Pinchas this hearing of the play twice over--once raw and
+once cooked--was maddening.
+
+'The lazy-bones!' he murmured. 'Not thus shall they treat my lines.
+Every syllable must be engraved upon their hearts, or I forbid the
+curtain to go up. Not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's
+words; they are ink-vomit, not literature.'
+
+Another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his literary instinct.
+Incongruously blended with the Yiddish were elementary American
+expressions--the first the immigrants would pick up. 'All right,'
+'Sure!' 'Yes, sir,' 'Say, how's the boss?' 'Good-bye.' 'Not a cent.'
+'Take the elevated.' 'Yup.' 'Nup.' 'That's one on you!' 'Rubber-neck!'
+A continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the
+audience, pleased to find themselves on such easy terms with the new
+language. But to Pinchas the idea of peppering his pure Yiddish with
+such locutions was odious. The Prince of Palestine talking with a
+twang--how could he permit such an outrage upon his Hebrew Hamlet?
+
+Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the
+iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the
+cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on
+whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. At
+last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which
+Goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the
+actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table
+beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging.
+
+'Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my house. What do you want?'
+cried Goldwater.
+
+'I want to talk to you about rehearsals.'
+
+'I told you I would let you know when rehearsals began.'
+
+'But you forgot to take my address.'
+
+'As if I don't know where to find you!'
+
+Kloot grinned. 'Pinchas gets drinks from all the cafe,' he put in.
+
+'They drink to the health of "Hamlet,"' said Pinchas proudly.
+
+'All right; Kloot's gotten your address. Good-evening.'
+
+'But when will it be? I must know.'
+
+'We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money in this piece yet.'
+
+'Money--bah! But merit?'
+
+'You fellows are as jealous as the devil.'
+
+'Me jealous of kangaroos! In Central Park you see giraffes--and
+tortoises too. Central Park has more talent than this scribbler of
+yours.'
+
+'I doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured Goldwater.
+
+'I'll write you about rehearsals,' said Kloot, winking at Goldwater.
+
+'But I must know weeks ahead--I may go lecturing. The great continent
+calls for me. In Chicago, in Cincinnati----'
+
+'Go, by all means,' said Goldwater. 'We can do without you.'
+
+'Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! I must teach you how
+to say every line.'
+
+'Teach _me_?' Goldwater could hardly believe his ears.
+
+Pinchas wavered. 'I--I mean the company. I will show them the
+accent--the gesture. I'm a great stage-manager as well as a great
+poet. There shall be no more prompter.'
+
+'Indeed!' Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'And how are
+you going to get on without a prompter?'
+
+'Very simple--a month's rehearsals.'
+
+Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge.
+
+Kloot broke in impishly: 'It is very good of you to give us a month of
+your valuable time.'
+
+But Goldwater was too irate for irony. 'A month!' he gasped at last.
+'I could put on six melodramas in a month.'
+
+'But "Hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said Pinchas, shocked.
+
+'Quite so; there is not half the scenery. It's the scenery that takes
+time rehearsing, not the scenes.'
+
+The poet was now as purple as the player. 'You would profane my divine
+work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!'
+
+'Here, just _you_ come off your perch!' said Kloot. 'You've written
+the piece; we do the rest.' Kloot, though only nineteen and at a few
+dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole
+world, but even with his employer. He was now, to his amaze,
+confronted by a superior.
+
+'Silence, impudent-face! You are not talking to Radsikoff. I am a
+Poet, and I demand my rights.'
+
+Kloot was silent from sheer surprise.
+
+Goldwater was similarly impressed. 'What rights?' he observed more
+mildly. 'You've had your twenty dollars. And that was too much.'
+
+'Too much! Twenty dollars for the masterpiece of the twentieth
+century!'
+
+'In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said
+Kloot, recovering.
+
+'Make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'I shall be
+living in the fifty-first century even. Poets never die--though, alas!
+they have to live. Twenty dollars too much, indeed! It is not a dollar
+a century for the run of the play.'
+
+'Very well,' said Goldwater grimly. 'Give them back. We return your
+play.'
+
+This time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'No, no, Goldwater--I
+must not disappoint my printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars
+to print my Hebrew "Selections from Nietzsche."'
+
+'You take your manuscript and give me my money,' said Goldwater
+implacably.
+
+'Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob you. Keep your bargain.
+See, here is the printer's letter.' He dragged from a tail-pocket a
+mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside
+the telephone as if to search among them.
+
+Goldwater waved a repudiating hand.
+
+'Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.' The poet's carneying forefinger was
+laid on his nose. 'I and you are the only two people in New York who
+serve the poetic drama--I by writing, you by producing.'
+
+Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the
+flattery.
+
+Kloot replied for him: 'Your manuscript shall be returned to you by
+the first dustcart.'
+
+Pinchas disregarded the youth. 'But I am willing you shall have only a
+fortnight's rehearsals. I believe in you, Goldwater. I have always
+said, "The only genius on the Yiddish stage is Goldwater."
+Klostermann--bah! He produces not so badly, but act? My grandmother's
+hen has a better stage presence. And there is Davidoff--a voice like a
+frog and a walk like a spider. And these charlatans I only heard of
+when I came to New York. But you, Goldwater--your fame has blown
+across the Atlantic, over the Carpathians. I journeyed from Cracow
+expressly to collaborate with you.'
+
+'Then why do you spoil it all?' asked the mollified manager.
+
+'It is my anxiety that Europe shall not be disappointed in you. Let us
+talk of the cast.'
+
+'It is so early yet.'
+
+'"The early bird catches the worm."'
+
+'But all our worms are caught,' grinned Kloot. 'We keep our talent
+pinned on the premises.'
+
+'I know, I know,' said Pinchas, paling. He saw Mrs. Goldwater tripping
+on saucily as Ophelia.
+
+'But we don't give all our talent to one play,' the manager reminded
+him.
+
+'No, of course not,' said Pinchas, with a breath of hope.
+
+'We have to use all our people by turns. We divide our forces. With
+myself as Hamlet you will have a cast that should satisfy any author.'
+
+'Do I not know it?' cried Pinchas. 'Were you but to say your lines,
+leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be
+spellbound, like Moses when he saw the burning bush.'
+
+'That being so,' said Goldwater, 'you couldn't expect to have my wife
+in the same cast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Pinchas enthusiastically. 'Two such tragic geniuses
+would confuse and distract, like the sun and the moon shining
+together.'
+
+Goldwater coughed. 'But Ophelia is really a small part,' he murmured.
+
+'It is,' Pinchas acquiesced. 'Your wife's tragic powers could only be
+displayed in "Hamlet" if, like another equally celebrated actress, she
+appeared as the Prince of Palestine himself.'
+
+'Heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!' said Goldwater. 'A
+decent Jewish housewife cannot appear in breeches.'
+
+'That is what makes it impossible,' assented Pinchas. 'And there is no
+other part worthy of Mrs. Goldwater.'
+
+   [Illustration: "You compare my wife to a Kangaroo!"]
+
+'It may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the manager musingly.
+
+'And who am I that I should ask her to sacrifice herself?' replied the
+poet modestly.
+
+'Fanny won't sacrifice Ophelia,' Kloot observed drily to his chief.
+
+'You hear?' said Goldwater, as quick as lightning. 'My wife will not
+sacrifice Ophelia by leaving her to a minor player. She thinks only of
+the play. It is very noble of her.'
+
+'But she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet desperately, 'she needs
+a rest.'
+
+'My wife never spares herself.'
+
+Pinchas lost his head. 'But she might spare Ophelia,' he groaned.
+
+'What do you mean?' cried Goldwater gruffly. 'My wife will honour you
+by playing Ophelia. That is ended.' He waved the make-up brush in his
+hand.
+
+'No, it is not ended,' said Pinchas desperately. 'Your wife is a comic
+actress----'
+
+'You just admitted she was tragic----'
+
+'It is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said Pinchas, burning his
+boats. 'She skips and jumps. Rather would I give Ophelia to one of
+your kangaroos!'
+
+'You low-down monkey!' Goldwater almost flung his brush into the
+poet's face. 'You compare my wife to a kangaroo! Take your filthy
+manuscript and begone where the pepper grows.'
+
+'Well, Fanny _would_ be rather funny as Ophelia,' put in Kloot
+pacifyingly.
+
+'And to make your wife ridiculous as Ophelia,' added Pinchas eagerly,
+'you would rob the world of your Hamlet!'
+
+'I can get plenty of Hamlets. Any scribbler can translate
+Shakespeare.'
+
+'Perhaps, but who can surpass Shakespeare? Who can make him
+intelligible to the modern soul?'
+
+'Mr. Goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness of a reply.
+
+The irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape with his dignity
+and so cheap a masterpiece. Kloot was left, with swinging legs,
+dominating the situation. In idle curiosity and with the simplicity of
+perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and
+perused them. As there were scraps of verse amid the mass, Pinchas let
+him read on unrebuked.
+
+'You will talk to him, Kloot,' he pleaded at last. 'You will save
+Ophelia?'
+
+The big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent inquisition. 'Rely
+on me, if I have to play her myself.'
+
+'But that will be still worse,' said Pinchas seriously.
+
+Kloot grinned. 'How do you know? You've never seen me act?'
+
+The poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'You will not spoil
+my play, you will get me a maidenly Ophelia? I and you are the only
+two men in New York who understand how to cast a play.'
+
+'You leave it to me,' said Kloot; 'I have a wife of my own.'
+
+'What!' shrieked Pinchas.
+
+'Don't be alarmed--I'll coach her. She's just the age for the part.
+Mrs. Goldwater might be her mother.'
+
+'But can she make the audience cry?'
+
+'You bet; a regular onion of an Ophelia.'
+
+'But I must see her rehearse, then I can decide.'
+
+'Of course.'
+
+'And you will seek me in the cafe when rehearsals begin?'
+
+'That goes without saying.'
+
+The poet looked cunning. 'But don't you say without going.'
+
+'How can we rehearse without you? You shouldn't have worried the boss.
+We'll call you, even if it's the middle of the night.'
+
+The poet jumped at Kloot's hand and kissed it.
+
+'Protector of poets!' he cried ecstatically. 'And you will see that
+they do not mutilate my play; you will not suffer a single hair of my
+poesy to be harmed?'
+
+'Not a hair shall be cut,' said Kloot solemnly.
+
+Pinchas kissed his hand again. 'Ah, I and you are the only two men in
+New York who understand how to treat poesy.'
+
+'Sure!' Kloot snatched his hand away. 'Good-bye.'
+
+Pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. 'And you will see it is not
+adulterated with American. In Zion they do not say "Sure" or "Lend me
+a nickel."'
+
+'I guess not,' said Kloot. 'Good-bye.'
+
+'All the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-fare.'
+
+Kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. He handed it over.
+
+The poet went. An instant afterwards the door reopened and his head
+reappeared, the nose adorned with a pleading forefinger.
+
+'You promise me all this?'
+
+'Haven't I promised?'
+
+'But swear to me.'
+
+'Will you go--if I swear?'
+
+'Yup,' said Pinchas, airing his American.
+
+'And you won't come back till rehearsals begin?'
+
+'Nup.'
+
+'Then I swear--on my father's and mother's life!'
+
+Pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that Kloot was an orphan.
+
+
+III
+
+On the very verge of Passover, Pinchas, lying in bed at noon with a
+cigarette in his mouth, was reading his morning paper by candle-light;
+for he tenanted one of those innumerable dark rooms which should make
+New York the photographer's paradise. The yellow glow illumined his
+prophetic and unshaven countenance, agitated by grimaces and sniffs,
+as he critically perused the paragraphs whose Hebrew letters served as
+the channel for the mongrel Yiddish and American dialect, in which
+'congressman,' 'sweater,' and such-like crudities of to-day had all
+the outer Oriental robing of the Old Testament. Suddenly a strange
+gurgle spluttered through the cigarette smoke. He read the
+announcement again.
+
+The Yiddish 'Hamlet' was to be the Passover production at Goldwater's
+Theatre. The author was the world-renowned poet Melchitsedek Pinchas,
+and the music was by Ignatz Levitsky, the world-famous composer.
+
+'World-famous composer, indeed!' cried Pinchas to his garret walls.
+'Who ever heard of Ignatz Levitsky? And who wants his music? The
+tragedy of a thinker needs no caterwauling of violins. Does Goldwater
+imagine I have written a melodrama? At most will I permit an
+overture--or the cymbals shall clash as I take my call.'
+
+He leaped out of bed. Even greater than his irritation at this
+intrusion of Levitsky was his joyful indignation at the imminence of
+his play. The dogs! The liars! The first night was almost at hand, and
+no sign had been vouchsafed to him. He had been true to his promise;
+he had kept away from the theatre. But Goldwater! But Kloot! Ah, the
+godless gambler with his parents' lives! With such ghouls hovering
+around the Hebrew 'Hamlet,' who could say how the masterpiece had been
+mangled? Line upon line had probably been cut; nay, who knew that a
+whole scene had not been shorn away, perhaps to give more time for
+that miserable music!
+
+He flung himself into his clothes and, taking his cane, hurried off to
+the theatre, breathless and breakfastless. Orchestral music vibrated
+through the lobby and almost killed his pleasure in the placards of
+the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He gave but a moment to absorbing the great
+capital letters of his name; a dash at a swinging-door, and he faced a
+glowing, crowded stage at the end of a gloomy hall. Goldwater,
+limelit, occupied the centre of the boards. Hamlet trod the
+battlements of the tower of David, and gazed on the cupolas and
+minarets of Jerusalem.
+
+With a raucous cry, half anger, half ecstasy, Pinchas galloped toward
+the fiddling and banging orchestra. A harmless sweeper in his path
+was herself swept aside. But her fallen broom tripped up the runner.
+He fell with an echoing clamour, to which his clattering cane
+contributed, and clouds of dust arose and gathered where erst had
+stood a poet.
+
+Goldwater stopped dead. 'Can't you sweep quietly?' he thundered
+terribly through the music.
+
+Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra paused.
+
+'It is I, the author!' said Pinchas, struggling up through clouds like
+some pagan deity.
+
+Hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. 'And what do you want?'
+
+'What do I want?' repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze.
+
+Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings munching a sandwich.
+
+'Sure, there's Shakespeare!' he said. 'I've just been round to the
+cafe to find you. Got this sandwich there.'
+
+'But this--this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered Pinchas, a jot
+appeased.
+
+'The first dress-rehearsal,' Kloot replied reassuringly. 'We don't
+trouble authors with the rough work. They stroll in and put on the
+polish. Won't you come on the stage?'
+
+Unable to repress a grin of happiness, Pinchas stumbled through the
+dim parterre, barking his shins at almost every step. Arrived at the
+orchestra, he found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled to the
+left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown holland, loomed
+ghostly.
+
+'No,' said Kloot, 'that door's got stuck. You must come round by the
+stage-door.'
+
+Pinchas retraced his footsteps, barking the smooth remainder of his
+shins. He allowed himself a palpitating pause before the lobby
+posters. His blood chilled. Not only was Ignatz Levitsky starred in
+equal type, but another name stood out larger than either:
+
+  _Ophelia_ ..  ..  ..   _Fanny Goldwater._
+
+His wrath reflaming, he hurried round to the stage-door. He pushed it
+open, but a gruff voice inquired his business, and a burly figure
+blocked his way.
+
+'I am the author,' he said with quiet dignity.
+
+'Authors ain't admitted,' was the simple reply.
+
+'But Goldwater awaits me,' the poet protested.
+
+'I guess not. Mr. Kloot's orders. Can't have authors monkeying around
+here.' As he spoke Goldwater's voice rose from the neighbouring stage
+in an operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas's brain to chaos. A
+despairing sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. He ran
+back to the lobby. The doors had been bolted. He beat against them
+with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall policeman
+persuaded him that home was better than a martyr's cell.
+
+Life remained an unintelligible nightmare for poor Pinchas till the
+first night--and the third act--of the Yiddish 'Hamlet.' He had
+reconciled himself to his extrusion from rehearsals. 'They fear I fire
+Ophelia,' he told the cafe.
+
+But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached him for the premiere;
+the boxes he had promised the cafe did not materialize, and the
+necessity of avoiding that haunt of the invited cost him several
+meals. But that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass in
+'on his face'--that authors should be admitted neither at the stage
+door nor at the public door--this had not occurred to him as within
+the possibilities of even theatrical humanity.
+
+'Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!' he shrieked into the box office. 'You and
+Goldwater and Kloot! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! I have indeed cast my pearls
+before swine. But I will not be beholden to them--I will buy a
+ticket.'
+
+'We're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding recklessly: 'Get a
+move on you; other people want to buy seats.'
+
+'You can't keep me out! It's conspiracy!' He darted within, but was
+hustled as rapidly without. He ran back to the stage-door, and hurled
+himself against the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the
+side-walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. He was left
+cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like the maledictions in Deuteronomy,
+only brought up to date by dynamite explosions and automobile
+accidents. Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon a
+blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The lobby was deserted save
+for a few strangers; his play had begun. And he--he, the god who moved
+all this machinery--he, whose divine fire was warming all that great
+house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to
+loiter in the corridors! But for the rumblings of applause that
+reached him he could hardly have endured the situation.
+
+Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the nearest drug-store, and
+entering the telephone cabinet rang up Goldwater.
+
+'Hello, there!' came the voice of Kloot. 'Who are you?'
+
+Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, in his peaked cap,
+sitting on the table by the telephone, swinging his legs; but he
+replied craftily, in a disguised voice: 'You, Goldwater?'
+
+'No; Goldwater's on the stage.'
+
+Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Goldwater's voice returned
+to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'They're loving it, Kloot;
+they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda.'
+
+Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied was: 'You're
+wanted on the 'phone.'
+
+'Hello!' called Goldwater.
+
+'Hello!' replied Pinchas in his natural voice. 'May a sudden death
+smite you! May the curtain fall on a gibbering epileptic!'
+
+'Can't hear!' said Goldwater. 'Speak plainer.'
+
+'I _will_ speak plainer, swine-head! Never shall a work of mine defile
+itself in your dirty dollar-factory. I spit on you!' He spat viciously
+into the telephone disk. 'Your father was a _Meshummad_ (apostate),
+and your mother----'
+
+But Goldwater had cut off the connection. Pinchas finished for his own
+satisfaction: 'An Irish fire-woman.'
+
+'That was worth ten cents,' he muttered, as he strode out into the
+night. And patrolling the front of the theatre again, or leaning on
+his cane as on a sword, he was warmed by the thought that his venom
+had pierced through all the actor-manager's defences.
+
+At last a change came over the nightmare. Striding from the envied,
+illuminated Within appeared the Heathen Journalist, note-book in hand.
+At sight of the author he shied. 'Must skedaddle, Pin-cuss,' he said
+apologetically, 'if we're to get anything into to-morrow's paper. Your
+people are so durned slow--nearly eleven, and only two acts over.
+You'll have to brisk 'em up a bit. Good-bye.'
+
+He shook the poet's hand and was off. With an inspiration Pinchas gave
+chase. He caught the Journalist just boarding a car.
+
+'Got your theatre ticket?' he panted.
+
+'What for?'
+
+'Give it me.'
+
+The Journalist fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and threw him a
+crumpled fragment. 'What in thunder----' he began. And then, to
+Pinchas's relief, the car removed the querist.
+
+For the moment the poet was feeling only the indignity of the
+position, and the Heathen Journalist as trumpeter of his wrongs and
+avenger of the Muses had not occurred to him. He smoothed out the
+magic scrap, and was inside the suffocating, close-packed theatre
+before the disconcerted janitor could meet the new situation. Pinchas
+found the vacated journalistic chair in the stage-box; he was
+installed therein before the managerial minions arrived on ejection
+bent.
+
+'This is _my_ house!' screamed Pinchas. 'I stay here! Let me
+be--swine, serpents, Behemoth!'
+
+'Sh!' came in a shower from every quarter. 'Sit down there! Turn him
+out!' The curtain was going up; Pinchas was saved.
+
+But only for more gruesome torture. The third act began. Hamlet
+collogued with the Queen. The poet pricked up his ears. Whose language
+was this? Certainly not Shakespeare's or his superior's. Angels and
+ministers of grace defend him! this was only the illiterate jargon of
+the hack playwright, with its peppering of the phrases of Hester
+Street. 'You have too many dead flies on you,' Hamlet's mother told
+him. 'You'll get left.' But the nightmare thickened. Hamlet and his
+mother opened their mouths and sang. Their songs were light and gay,
+and held encore verses to reward the enthusiastic. The actors, like
+the audience, were leisurely; here midnight and the closure were not
+synonymous. When there were no more encore verses, Ignatz Levitsky
+would turn to the audience and bow in acknowledgment of the
+compliment. Pinchas's eyes were orbs straining at their sockets; froth
+gathered on his lips.
+
+Mrs. Goldwater bounded on, fantastically mad, her songs set to comic
+airs. The great house received her in the same comic spirit. Instead
+of rue and rosemary she carried a rustling green _Lulov_--the
+palm-branch of the Feast of Tabernacles--and shook it piously toward
+every corner of the compass. At each shake the audience rolled about
+in spasms of merriment. A moment later a white gliding figure, moving
+to the measure of the cake-walk, keyed up the laughter to hysteria. It
+was the Ghost appearing to frighten Ophelia. His sepulchral bass notes
+mingled with her terror-stricken soprano.
+
+This was the last straw. The Ghost--the Ghost that he had laid
+forever, the Ghost that made melodrama of this tragedy of the
+thinker--was risen again, and cake-walking!
+
+Unperceived in the general convulsion and cachinnation, Pinchas leaped
+to his feet, and, seeing scarlet, bounded through the iron door and
+made for the stage. But a hand was extended in the nick of time--the
+hand he had kissed--and Pinchas was drawn back by the collar.
+
+'You don't take your call yet,' said the unruffled Kloot.
+
+'Let me go! I must speak to the people. They must learn the truth.
+They think _me_, Melchitsedek Pinchas, guilty of this _tohu-bohu_! My
+sun will set. I shall be laughed at from the Hudson to the Jordan.'
+
+'Hush! Hush! You are interrupting the poesy.'
+
+'Who has drawn and quartered my play? Speak!'
+
+'I've only arranged it for the stage,' said Kloot, unabashed.
+
+'You!' gasped the poet.
+
+'You said I and you are the only two men who understand how to treat
+poesy.'
+
+'You understand push-carts, not poesy!' hissed the poet. 'You conspire
+to keep me out of the theatre--I will summons you!'
+
+'We had to keep all authors out. Suppose Shakespeare had turned up and
+complained of _you_.'
+
+'Shakespeare would have been only too grateful.'
+
+'Hush! The boss is going on.'
+
+From the opposite wing Hamlet was indeed advancing. Pinchas made a
+wild plunge forward, but Kloot's grasp on his collar was still
+carefully firm.
+
+'Who's mutilating the poesy now?' Kloot frowned angrily from under his
+peaked cap. 'You'll spoil the scene.'
+
+'Peace, liar! You promised me your wife for Ophelia!'
+
+Kloot's frown relaxed into a smile. 'Sure! The first wife I get you
+shall have.'
+
+Pinchas gnashed his teeth. Goldwater's voice rose in a joyous
+roulade.
+
+'I think you owe me a car-fare,' said Kloot soothingly.
+
+Pinchas waved the rejoinder aside with his cane. 'Why does _Hamlet_
+sing?' he demanded fiercely.
+
+'Because it's Passover,' said Kloot. 'You are a "greener" in New York,
+otherwise you would know that it is a tradition to have musical plays
+on Passover. Our audiences wouldn't stand for any other. You're such
+an unreasonable cuss! Why else did we take your "Hamlet" for a
+Passover play?'
+
+'But "Hamlet" isn't a musical play.'
+
+'Yes, it is! How about Ophelia's songs? That was what decided us. Of
+course they needed eking out.'
+
+'But "Hamlet" is a tragedy!' gasped Pinchas.
+
+'Sure!' said Kloot cheerfully. 'They all die at the end. Our audiences
+would go away miserable if they didn't. You wait till they're dead,
+then you shall take your call.'
+
+'Take my call, for _your_ play!'
+
+'There's quite a lot of your lines left, if you listen carefully. Only
+you don't understand stage technique. Oh, I'm not grumbling; we're
+quite satisfied. The idea of adapting "Hamlet" for the Yiddish stage
+is yours, and it's worth every cent we paid.'
+
+A storm of applause gave point to the speaker's words, and removed the
+last partition between the poet's great mind and momentary madness.
+What! here was that ape of a Goldwater positively wallowing in
+admiration, while he, the mighty poet, had been cast into outer
+darkness and his work mocked and crucified! He put forth all his
+might, like Samson amid the Philistines, and leaving his coat-collar
+in Kloot's hand, he plunged into the circle of light. Goldwater's
+amazed face turned to meet him.
+
+'Cutter of lines!' The poet's cane slashed across Hamlet's right cheek
+near the right eye. 'Perverter of poesy!' It slashed across the left
+cheek near the left eye.
+
+The Prince of Palestine received each swish with a yell of pain and
+fear, and the ever-ready Kloot dropped the curtain on the tragic
+scene.
+
+Such hubbub and hullabaloo as rose on both sides of the curtain! Yet
+in the end the poet escaped scot-free. Goldwater was a coward, Kloot a
+sage. The same prudence that had led Kloot to exclude authors, saved
+him from magnifying their importance by police squabbles. Besides, a
+clever lawyer might prove the exclusion illegal. What was done was
+done. The dignity of the hero of a hundred dramas was best served by
+private beefsteaks and a rumoured version, irrefutable save in a court
+of law. It was bad enough that the Heathen Journalist should supply so
+graphic a picture of the midnight melodrama, coloured even more highly
+than Goldwater's eyes. Kloot had been glad that the Journalist had
+left before the episode; but when he saw the account he wished the
+scribe had stayed.
+
+'He won't play Hamlet with that pair of shiners,' Pinchas prophesied
+early the next morning to the supping cafe.
+
+Radsikoff beamed and refilled Pinchas's glass with champagne. He had
+carried out his promise of assisting at the premiere, and was now
+paying for the poet's supper.
+
+'You're the first playwright Goldwater hasn't managed to dodge,' he
+chuckled.
+
+'Ah!' said the poet meditatively. 'Action is greater than Thought.
+Action is the greatest thing in the world.'
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVERTS
+
+
+
+
+THE CONVERTS
+
+
+I
+
+As he sat on his hard stool in the whitewashed workshop on the Bowery,
+clumsily pasting the flamboyant portrait on the boxes of the 'Yvonne
+Rupert cigar,' he wondered dully--after the first flush of joy at
+getting a job after weeks of hunger--at the strange fate that had
+again brought him into connection, however remote, with stageland. For
+even to Elkan Mandle, with his Ghetto purview, Yvonne Rupert's fame,
+both as a 'Parisian' star and the queen of American advertisers, had
+penetrated. Ever since she had summoned a Jewish florist for not
+paying her for the hundred and eleven bouquets with which a single
+week's engagement in vaudeville had enabled her to supply him, the
+journals had continued to paragraph her amusing, self-puffing
+adventures.
+
+Not that there was much similarity between the New York star and his
+little actress of the humble Yiddish Theatre in London, save for that
+aureole of fluffy hair, which belonged rather to the genus than the
+individual. But as the great Yvonne's highly-coloured charms went on
+repeating themselves from every box-cover he manipulated (at
+seventy-five cents a hundred), the face of his own Gittel grew more
+and more vivid, till at last the whole splendid, shameful past began
+to rise up from its desolate tomb.
+
+He even lived through that prologue in the Ghetto garret, when, as
+benevolent master-tailor receiving the highest class work from S.
+Cohn's in the Holloway Road, he was called upstairs to assist the
+penniless Polish immigrants.
+
+There she sat, the witching she-devil, perched on the rickety table
+just contributed to the home, a piquant, dark-eyed, yet golden-haired,
+mite of eleven, calm and comparatively spruce amid the wailing litter
+of parents and children.
+
+'Settle this among yourselves,' she seemed to be saying. 'When the
+chairs are here I will sit on _them_; when the table is laid I will
+draw to; when the pious philanthropist provides the fire I will purr
+on the hearth.'
+
+Ah, _he_ had come forward as the pious philanthropist--pious enough
+then, Heaven knew. Why had Satan thrown such lures in the way of the
+reputable employer, the treasurer of 'The Gates of Mercy' Synagogue,
+with children of his own, and the best wife in the world? Did he not
+pray every day to be delivered from the _Satan Mekatrig_? Had he not
+meant it for the best when he took her into his workshop? It was only
+when, at the age of sixteen, Gittel Goldstein left the whirring
+machine-room for the more lucrative and laurelled position of heroine
+of Goldwater's London Yiddish Theatre that he had discovered how this
+whimsical, coquettish creature had insinuated herself into his very
+being.
+
+Ah, madness, madness! that flight with her to America with all his
+savings, that desertion of his wife and children! But what delicious
+delirium that one year in New York, prodigal, reckless, ere, with the
+disappearance of his funds, she, too, disappeared. And now, here he
+was--after nigh seven apathetic years, in which the need of getting a
+living was the only spur to living on--glad to take a woman's place
+when female labour struck for five cents more a hundred. The old
+bitter tears came up to his eyes, blurring the cheerless scene, the
+shabby men and unlovely women with their red paste-pots, the medley of
+bare and coloured boxes, the long shelf of twine-balls. And as he
+wept, the vain salt drops moistened the pictures of Yvonne Rupert.
+
+
+II
+
+She became an obsession, this Franco-American singer and dancer, as he
+sat pasting and pasting, caressing her pictured face with sticky
+fingers. There were brief intervals of freedom from her image when he
+was 'edging' and 'backing,' or when he was lining the boxes with the
+plain paper; but Yvonne came twice on every box--once in large on the
+inside, once in small on the outside, with a gummed projection to be
+stuck down after the cigars were in. He fell to recalling what he had
+read of her--the convent education that had kept her chaste and
+distinguished beneath all her stage deviltry, the long Lenten fasts
+she endured (as brought to light by the fishmonger's bill she disputed
+in open court), the crucifix concealed upon her otherwise not too
+reticent person, the adorable French accent with which she enraptured
+the dudes, the palatial private car in which she traversed the States,
+with its little chapel giving on the bathroom; the swashbuckling
+Marquis de St. Roquiere, who had crossed the Channel after her, and
+the maid he had once kidnapped in mistake for the mistress; the
+diamond necklace presented by the Rajah of Singapuri, stolen at a
+soiree in San Francisco, and found afterwards as single stones in a
+low 'hock-shop' in New Orleans.
+
+And despite all this glitter of imposing images a subconscious thought
+was forcing itself more and more clearly to the surface of his mind.
+That aureole of golden hair, those piquant dark eyes! The Yvonne the
+cheap illustrated papers had made him familiar with had lacked this
+revelation of colour! But no, the idea was insane!
+
+This scintillating celebrity his lost Gittel!
+
+Bah! Misery had made him childish. Goldwater had, indeed, blossomed
+out since the days of his hired hall in Spitalfields, but his fame
+remained exclusively Yiddish and East-side. But Gittel!
+
+How could that obscure rush-light of the London Ghetto Theatre have
+blazed into the Star of Paris and New York?
+
+This Lent-keeping demoiselle the little Polish Jewess who had munched
+Passover cake at his table in the far-off happy days! This gilded idol
+the impecunious Gittel he had caressed!
+
+'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he inquired of his neighbour, a
+pock-marked, spectacled young woman, who, as record-breaker of the
+establishment, had refused to join the strike of the mere
+hundred-and-fifty a day.
+
+The young woman swiftly drew a knife from the wooden pail beside her,
+and deftly scraped at a rough hinge as she replied: 'No, but I guess
+she's the actress who gets all the flowers, and won't pay for 'em.'
+
+He saw she had mixed up the two lawsuits, but the description seemed
+to hit off his Gittel to the life. Yes, Gittel had always got all the
+flowers of life, and dodged paying. Ah, she had always been
+diabolically clever, unscrupulously ambitious! Who could put bounds to
+her achievement? She had used him and thrown him away--without a word,
+without a regret. She had washed her hands of him as light-heartedly
+as he washed his of the dirty, sticky day's paste. What other 'pious
+philanthropist' had she found to replace him? Whither had she fled?
+Why not to Paris that her theatric gifts might receive training?
+
+This chic, this witchery, with which reputation credited her--had not
+Gittel possessed it all? Had not her heroines enchanted the Ghetto?
+
+Oh, but this was a wild day-dream, insubstantial as the smoke-wreaths
+of the Yvonne Rupert cigar!
+
+
+III
+
+But the obsession persisted. In his miserable attic off Hester
+Street--that recalled the attic he had found her in, though it was
+many stories nearer the sky--he warmed himself with Gittel's image,
+smiling, light-darting, voluptuous. Night and sleep surrendered him
+to grotesque combinations--Gittel Goldstein smoking cigarettes in a
+bath-room, Yvonne Rupert playing Yiddish heroines in a little chapel.
+
+In the clear morning these absurdities were forgotten in the realized
+absurdity of the initial identification. But a forenoon at the
+pasting-desk brought back the haunting thought. At noon he morbidly
+expended his lunch-dime on an 'Yvonne Rupert' cigar, and smoked it
+with a semi-insane feeling that he was repossessing his Gittel.
+Certainly it was delicious.
+
+He wandered into the box-making room, where the man who tended the
+witty nail-driving machine was seated on a stack of Mexican
+cedar-wood, eating from a package of sausage and scrapple that sent
+sobering whiffs to the reckless smoker.
+
+'You ever seen this Yvonne Rupert?' he asked wistfully.
+
+'Might as well ask if I'd smoked her cigar!' grumbled the nailer
+through his mouthfuls.
+
+'But there's a gallery at Webster and Dixie's.'
+
+'Su-er!'
+
+'I guess I'll go some day, just for curiosity.'
+
+But the great Yvonne, he found, was flaming in her provincial orbit.
+So he must needs wait.
+
+Meantime, on a Saturday night, with a dirty two-dollar bill in his
+pocket, and jingling some odd cents, he lounged into the restaurant
+where the young Russian bloods assembled who wrote for the Yiddish
+Labour papers, and 'knew it all.' He would draw them out about Yvonne
+Rupert. He established himself near a table at which long-haired,
+long-fingered Freethinkers were drinking chocolate and discussing
+Lassalle.
+
+'Ah, but the way he jumped on a table when only a schoolboy to
+protest against the master's injustice to one of his schoolfellows!
+How the divine fire flamed in him!'
+
+They talked on, these clamorous sceptics, amplifying the Lassalle
+legend, broidering it with Messianic myths, with the same fantastic
+Oriental invention that had illuminated the plain Pentateuch with
+imaginative vignettes, and transfiguring the dry abstractions of
+Socialism with the same passionate personalization. He listened
+impatiently. He had never been caught by Socialism, even at his
+hungriest. He had once been an employer himself, and his point of view
+survived.
+
+They talked of the woman through whom Lassalle had met his death. One
+of them had seen her on the American stage--a bouncing burlesque
+actress.
+
+'Like Yvonne Rupert?' he ventured to interpose.
+
+'Yvonne Rupert?' They laughed. 'Ah, if Yvonne had only had such a
+snap!' cried Melchitsedek Pinchas. 'To have jilted Lassalle and been
+died for! What an advertisement!'
+
+'It would have been on the bill,' agreed the table.
+
+He asked if they thought Yvonne Rupert clever.
+
+'Off the stage! There's nothing to her on,' said Pinchas.
+
+The table roared as if this were a good joke. 'I dare say she would
+play my Ophelia as well as Mrs. Goldwater,' Pinchas added zestfully.
+
+'They say she has a Yiddish accent,' Elkan ventured again.
+
+The table roared louder. 'I have heard of Yiddish-Deutsch,' cried
+Pinchas, 'never of Yiddish-Francais!'
+
+Elkan Mandle was frozen. By his disappointment he knew that he had
+been hoping to meet Gittel again--that his resentment was dead.
+
+
+IV
+
+But the hope would not die. He studied the theatrical announcements,
+and when Yvonne Rupert once again flashed upon New York he set out to
+see her. But it struck him that the remote seat he could afford--for
+it would not do to spend a week's wage on the mere chance--would be
+too far off for precise identification, especially as she would
+probably be theatrically transmogrified. No, a wiser as well as a more
+economical plan would be to meet her at the stage-door, as he used to
+meet Gittel. He would hang about till she came.
+
+It was a long ride to the Variety Theatre, and, the weather being
+sloppy, there was not even standing-room in the car, every foot of
+which, as it plunged and heaved ship-like through the watery night,
+was a suffocating jam of human beings, wedged on the seats, or
+clinging tightly to the overhead straps, or swarming like stuck flies
+on the fore and hind platforms, the squeeze and smell intensified by
+the shovings and writhings of damp passengers getting in and out, or
+by the desperate wriggling of the poor patient collector of fares
+boring his way through the very thick of the soldered mass. Elkan
+alighted with a headache, glad even of the cold rain that sprinkled
+his forehead. The shining carriages at the door of the theatre filled
+him for once with a bitter revolt. But he dared not insinuate himself
+among the white-wrapped, scented women and elegant cloaked men, though
+he itched to enter the portico and study the pictures of Yvonne
+Rupert, of which he caught a glimpse. He found his way instead to the
+stage-door, and took up a position that afforded him a complete view
+of the comers and goers, if only partial shelter from the rain.
+
+But the leaden hours passed without her, with endless fevers of
+expectation, heats followed by chills. The performers came and went,
+mostly on foot, and strange nondescript men and women passed too
+through the jealously-guarded door.
+
+He was drenched to the skin with accumulated drippings ere a smart
+brougham drove up, a smart groom opened an umbrella, and a smart--an
+unimaginably smart--Gittel Goldstein alighted.
+
+Yes, the incredible was true!
+
+Beneath that coquettish veil, under the aureole of hair, gleamed the
+piquant eyes he had kissed so often.
+
+He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. She passed
+through the door the groom held open. The doorkeeper, from his
+pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the
+shoulders, every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the envelopes.
+As the groom let the door swing back and turned away, he rushed
+forward and pushed it open again.
+
+'Gittel!' he cried chokingly. 'Gittel!'
+
+She turned with a quick jerk of the head, and in her flushed, startled
+face he read consciousness if not recognition. The reek of her old
+cherry-blossom smote from her costlier garments, kindling a thousand
+passionate memories.
+
+'Knowest thou me not?' he cried in Yiddish.
+
+In a flash her face, doubly veiled, was a haughty stare.
+
+'Who is zis person?' she asked the doorkeeper in her charming
+French-English.
+
+He reverted to English.
+
+'I am Elkan, your own Elkan!'
+
+Ah, the jostle of sweet and bitter memories. So near, so near again!
+The same warm seductive witch. He strove to take her daintily-gloved
+hand.
+
+She shrank back shudderingly and thrust open the door that led to the
+dressing-rooms beside the stage.
+
+'Ze man is mad, lunatic!' And she disappeared with that delicious
+shrug of the shoulders that had captivated the States.
+
+Insensate fury overcame him. What! This creature who owed all this
+glory to his dragging her away from the London Ghetto Theatre, this
+heartless, brazen minx who had been glad to nestle in his arms, was to
+mock him like this, was to elude him again! He made a dash after her;
+the doorkeeper darted from his little room, but was hurled aside in a
+swift, mad tussle, and Elkan, after a blind, blood-red instant, found
+himself blinking and dripping in the centre of the stage, facing a
+great roaring audience, tier upon tier. Then he became aware of a pair
+of eccentric comedians whose scene he had interrupted, and who had not
+sufficient presence of mind to work him into it, so that the audience
+which had laughed at his headlong entrance now laughed the louder over
+its own mistake.
+
+But its delightful moment of sensational suspense was brief. In a
+twinkling the doorkeeper's vengeful hands were on the intruder's
+collar.
+
+'I want Yvonne Rupert!' shrieked Elkan struggling. 'She is mine--mine!
+She loved me once!'
+
+A vaster wave of laughter swept back to him as he was hauled off, to
+be handed over to a policeman on a charge of brawling and assaulting
+the doorkeeper.
+
+
+V
+
+As he lay in his cell he chewed the cud of revenge. Yes, let them take
+him before the magistrate; it was not he that was afraid of justice.
+He would expose her, the false Catholic, the she-cat! A pretty
+convert! Another man would have preferred to blackmail her, he told
+himself with righteous indignation, especially in such straits of
+poverty. But he--the thought had scarcely crossed his mind. He had not
+even thought of her helping him, only of the joy of meeting her again.
+
+In the chill morning, after a sleepless night, he had a panic-stricken
+sense of his insignificance under the crushing weight of law and
+order. All the strength born of bitterness oozed out as he stood
+before the magistrate rigidly and heard the charge preferred. He had a
+despairing vision of Yvonne Rupert, mocking, inaccessible, even before
+he was asked his occupation.
+
+'In a cigar-box factory,' he replied curtly.
+
+'Ah, you make cigar-boxes?'
+
+'No, not exactly. I paste.'
+
+'Paste what?'
+
+He hesitated. 'Pictures of Yvonne Rupert on the boxes.'
+
+'Ah! Then it is the "Yvonne Rupert" cigar?'
+
+'Yes.' He had divined the court's complacent misinterpretation ere he
+saw its smile; the facile theory that brooding so much over her
+fascinating picture had unhinged his brain. From that moment a
+hardness came over his heart. He shut his lips grimly. What was the
+use of talking? Whatever he said would be discredited on this impish
+theory. And, even without it, how incredible his story, how irrelevant
+to the charge of assaulting the doorkeeper!
+
+'I was drunk,' was all he would say. He was committed for trial, and,
+having no one to bail him out, lingered in a common cell with other
+reprobates till the van brought him to the Law Court, and he came up to
+justice in an elevator under the rebuking folds of the Stars and
+Stripes. A fortnight's more confinement was all that was meted out to
+him, but he had already had time enough to reflect that he had given
+Yvonne Rupert one of the best advertisements of her life. It would have
+enhanced the prisoner's bitterness had he known, as the knowing world
+outside knew, that he was a poor devil in Yvonne Rupert's pay, and that
+New York was chuckling over the original and ingenious dodge by which
+she had again asserted her sovereignty as an advertiser--delicious,
+immense!
+
+
+VI
+
+Short as his term of imprisonment was it coincided, much to his own
+surprise, with the Jewish Penitential period, and the Day of Atonement
+came in the middle. A wealthy Jewish philanthropist had organized a
+prison prayer-service, and Elkan eagerly grasped at the break in the
+monotony. Several of the prisoners who posed as Jews with this same
+motive were detected and reprimanded; but Elkan felt, with the new
+grim sense of humour that meditation on Yvonne Rupert and the world
+she fooled was developing in him, that he was as little of a Jew as
+any of them. This elopement to America had meant a violent break with
+his whole religious past. Not once had he seen the inside of an
+American synagogue. Gittel had had no use for synagogues.
+
+He entered the improvised prayer-room with this ironic sense of coming
+back to Judaism by the Christian prison door. But the service shook
+him terribly. He forgot even to be amused by the one successful
+impostor who had landed himself in an unforeseen deprivation of
+rations during the whole fast day. The passionate outcries of the
+old-fashioned _Chazan_, the solemn peals and tremolo notes of the
+cornet, which had once been merely aesthetic effects to the reputable
+master-cutter, were now surcharged with doom and chastisement. The
+very sight of the Hebrew books and scrolls touched a thousand memories
+of home and innocence.
+
+Ah, God, how he had sinned!
+
+'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!' he cried, smiting
+his breast and rocking to and fro.
+
+His poor deserted wife and children! How terrible for Haigitcha to
+wake up one morning and find him gone! As terrible as for him to wake
+up one morning and find Gittel gone. Ah, God had indeed paid him in
+kind! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
+
+The philanthropist himself preached the sermon. God could never
+forgive sins till the sinner had first straightened out the human
+wrongs.
+
+Ah, true, true! If he could only find his family again. If he could
+try by love and immeasurable devotion to atone for the past. Then
+again life would have a meaning and an aim. Poor, poor Haigitcha! How
+he would weep over her and cherish her. And his children! They must be
+grown up. Yankely must be quite a young man. Yes, he would be
+seventeen by now. And Rachel, that pretty, clinging cherub!
+
+In all those years he had not dared to let his thoughts pause upon
+them. His past lay like a misty dream behind those thousand leagues of
+ocean. But now it started up in all the colours of daylight, warm,
+appealing. Yes, he would go back to his dear ones who must still crave
+his love and guidance; he would plead and be forgiven, and end his
+days piously at the sacred hearth of duty.
+
+'Forgive us now, pardon us now, atone for us now!'
+
+If only he could get back to old England.
+
+He appealed to the philanthropist, and lied amid all his contrition.
+It was desperation at the severance from his wife and children that
+had driven him to drink, lust of gold that had spurred him across the
+Atlantic. Now a wiser and sadder man, he would be content with a
+modicum and the wife of his bosom.
+
+
+VII
+
+He arrived at last, with a few charity coins in his pocket, in the
+familiar Spitalfields alley, guarded by the three iron posts over
+which he remembered his Yankely leaping. His heart was full of tears
+and memories. Ah, there was the butcher's shop still underneath the
+old apartment, with the tin labels stuck in the _kosher_ meat, and
+there was Gideon, the fat, genial butcher, flourishing his great
+carving-knife as of yore, though without that ancient smile of
+brotherly recognition. Gideon's frigidity chilled him; it was an
+inauspicious omen, a symptom of things altered, irrevocable.
+
+'Does Mrs. Mandle still live here?' he asked with a horrible
+heart-sinking.
+
+'Yes, first floor,' said Gideon, staring.
+
+Ah, how his heart leapt up again! Haigitcha, his dear Haigitcha! He
+went up the ever-open dusty staircase jostling against a spruce,
+handsome young fellow who was hurrying down. He looked back with a
+sudden conviction that it was his son. His heart swelled with pride
+and affection; but ere he could cry 'Yankely' the young fellow was
+gone. He heard the whirr of machines. Yes, she had kept on the
+workshop, the wonderful creature, though crippled by his loss and the
+want of capital. Doubtless S. Cohn's kind-hearted firm had helped her
+to tide over the crisis. Ah, what a blackguard he had been! And she
+had brought up the children unaided. Dear Haigitcha! What madness had
+driven him from her side? But he would make amends--yes, he would make
+amends. He would slip again into his own niche, take up the old
+burdens and the old delights--perhaps even be again treasurer of 'The
+Gates of Mercy.'
+
+He knocked at the door. Haigitcha herself opened it.
+
+He wanted to cry her name, but the word stuck in his throat. For this
+was not his Haigitcha; this was a new creature, cold, stern, tragic,
+prematurely aged, framed in the sombre shadows of the staircase. And
+in her eyes was neither rapture nor remembrance.
+
+'What is it?' she asked.
+
+'I am Elkan; don't you know me?'
+
+She stared with a little gasp, and a heaving of the flat breasts. Then
+she said icily: 'And what do you want?'
+
+'I am come back,' he muttered hoarsely in Yiddish.
+
+'And where is Gittel?' she answered in the same idiom.
+
+The needles of the whirring machines seemed piercing through his
+brain. So London knew that Gittel had been the companion of his
+flight! He hung his head.
+
+'I was only with her one year,' he whispered.
+
+'Then go back to thy dung-heap!' She shut the door.
+
+He thrust his foot in desperately ere it banged to. 'Haigitcha!' he
+shrieked. 'Let me come in. Forgive me, forgive me!'
+
+It was a tug-of-war. He forced open the door; he had a vision of
+surprised 'hands' stopping their machines, of a beautiful, startled
+girl holding the ends of a half-laid tablecloth--his Rachel, oh, his
+Rachel!
+
+'Open the window, one of you!' panted Haigitcha, her shoulders still
+straining against the door. 'Call a policeman--the man is drunk!'
+
+He staggered back, his pressure relaxed, the door slammed. This
+repetition of his 'Yvonne Rupert' experience sobered him effectually.
+What right, indeed, had he to force himself upon this woman, upon
+these children, to whom he was dead? So might a suicide hope to win
+back his place in the old life. Life had gone on without him--had no
+need of him. Ah, what a punishment God had prepared for him! Closed
+doors to the past, closed doors everywhere.
+
+And this terrible sense of exclusion had not now the same palliative
+of righteous resentment. With Yvonne Rupert, the splendid-flaming,
+vicious ingrate, he had felt himself the sinned against. But before
+this wife-widow, this dutiful, hard-working, tragic creature, he had
+nothing but self-contempt. He tottered downstairs. How should he even
+get his bread--he whose ill-fame was doubtless the gossip of the
+Ghetto? If he could only get hold of Gideon's carving-knife!
+
+
+VIII
+
+But he did not commit suicide, nor did he starve. There is always one
+last refuge for the failures of the Ghetto, and Elkan's easy
+experience with the Jewish philanthropist had prepared the way for
+dealings with the Christian.
+
+To-day the Rev. Moses Elkan, 'the converted Jew,' preaches eloquently
+to his blind brethren who never come to hear him. For he has 'found
+the light.' Exeter Hall's exposition of the Jewish prophecies has
+opened his eyes, and though his foes have been those of his own
+household, yet, remembering the terrible text, 'He that loveth son or
+daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me,' he has taken up his cross
+and followed after Christ alone.
+
+And even if the good souls for whose thousands of pounds he is the
+annual interest should discover his true past--through this
+tale-bearer or another--is there not but the more joy over the sinner
+that repenteth?
+
+Duties neglected, deadly sins trailing in the actual world their
+unchangeable irreversible consequences--all this is irrelevant. He has
+'found the light.'
+
+And so, while Haigitcha walks in darkness, Yvonne prays in her chapel
+and Elkan preaches in his church.
+
+
+
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK
+
+
+
+
+HOLY WEDLOCK
+
+
+I
+
+When Schneemann, the artist, returned from Rome to his native village
+in Galicia, he found it humming with gossip concerning his paternal
+grandmother, universally known as the _Bube_ Yenta. It would seem that
+the giddy old thing hobbled home from synagogue conversing with Yossel
+Mandelstein, the hunchback, and sometimes even offered the unshapely
+septuagenarian her snuffbox as he passed the door of her cottage. More
+than one village censor managed to acquaint the artist with the
+flirtation ere he had found energy to walk the muddy mile to her
+dwelling. Even his own mother came out strongly in disapproval of the
+ancient dame; perhaps the remembrance of how fanatically her
+mother-in-law had disapproved of her married head for not being
+shrouded in a pious wig lent zest to her tongue. The artist controlled
+his facial muscles, having learnt tolerance and Bohemianism in the
+Eternal City.
+
+'Old blood will have its way,' he said blandly.
+
+'Yes, old blood's way is sometimes worse than young blood's,' said
+Frau Schneemann, unsmiling. 'You must not forget that Yossel is still
+a bachelor.'
+
+'Yes, and therefore a sinner in Israel--I remember,' quoth the artist
+with a twinkle. How all this would amuse his bachelor friends, Leopold
+Barstein and Rozenoffski the pianist!
+
+'Make not mock. 'Tis high time you, too, should lead a maiden under
+the Canopy.'
+
+'I am so shy--there are few so forward as grandmother.'
+
+'Heaven be thanked!' said his mother fervently. 'When I refused to
+cover my tresses she spoke as if I were a brazen Epicurean, but I had
+rather have died than carry on so shamelessly with a man to whom I was
+not betrothed.'
+
+'Perhaps they _are_ betrothed.'
+
+'_We_ betrothed to Yossel! May his name be blotted out!'
+
+'Why, what is wrong with Yossel? Moses Mendelssohn himself had a
+hump.'
+
+'Who speaks of humps? Have you forgotten we are of Rabbinic family?'
+
+Her son had quite forgotten it, as he had forgotten so much of this
+naive life to which he was paying a holiday visit.
+
+'Ah yes,' he murmured. 'But Yossel is pious--surely?' A vision of the
+psalm-droners and prayer-shriekers in the little synagogue, among whom
+the hunchback had been conspicuous, surged up vividly.
+
+'He may shake himself from dawn-service to night-service, he will
+never shake off his father, the innkeeper,' said Frau Schneemann
+hotly. 'If I were in your grandmother's place I would be weaving my
+shroud, not thinking of young men.'
+
+'But she's thinking of old men, you said.'
+
+'Compared with her he is young--she is eighty-four, he is only
+seventy-five.'
+
+'Well, they won't be married long,' he laughed.
+
+Frau Schneemann laid her hand on his mouth.
+
+'Heaven forbid the omen,' she cried. ''Tis bringing a _Bilbul_
+(scandal) upon a respectable family.'
+
+'I will go and talk to her,' he said gravely. 'Indeed, I ought to have
+gone to see her days ago.' And as he trudged to the other end of the
+village towards the cottage where the lively old lady lived in
+self-sufficient solitude, he was full of the contrast between his
+mother's mental world and his own. People live in their own minds, and
+not in streets or fields, he philosophized.
+
+
+II
+
+Through her diamond-paned window he saw the wrinkled, white-capped old
+creature spinning peacefully at the rustic chimney-corner, a pure
+cloistral crone. It seemed profane to connect such a figure with
+flirtation--this was surely the very virgin of senility. What a fine
+picture she made too! Why had he never thought of painting her? Yes,
+such a picture of 'The Spinster' would be distinctly interesting. And
+he would put in the _Kesubah_, the marriage certificate that hung over
+the mantelpiece, in ironical reminder of her days of bloom. He
+unlatched the door--he had never been used to knock at grannie's door,
+and the childish instinct came back to him.
+
+'_Guten Abend_,' he said.
+
+She adjusted a pair of horn spectacles, and peered at him.
+
+'_Guten Abend_,' she murmured.
+
+'You don't remember me--Vroomkely.' He used the old childish
+diminutive of Abraham, though he had almost forgotten he owned the
+name in full.
+
+'Vroomkely,' she gasped, almost overturning her wheel as she sprang to
+hug him in her skinny arms. He had a painful sense that she had shrunk
+back almost to childish dimensions. Her hands seemed trembling as much
+with decay as with emotion. She hastened to produce from the
+well-known cupboard home-made _Kuchen_ and other dainties of his
+youth, with no sense of the tragedy that lay in his no longer being
+tempted by them.
+
+'And how goes your trade?' she said. 'They say you have never been
+slack. They must build many houses in Rome.' Her notion that he was a
+house-painter he hardly cared to contradict, especially as
+picture-painting was contrary to the Mosaic dispensation.
+
+'Oh, I haven't been only in Rome,' he said evasively. 'I have been in
+many lands.'
+
+Fire came into her eyes, and flashed through the big spectacles. 'You
+have been to Palestine?' she cried.
+
+'No, only as far as Egypt. Why?'
+
+'I thought you might have brought me a clod of Palestine earth to put
+in my grave.' The fire died out of her spectacles, she sighed, and
+took a consolatory pinch of snuff.
+
+'Don't talk of graves--you will live to be a hundred and more,' he
+cried. But he was thinking how ridiculous gossip was. It spared
+neither age nor sexlessness, not even this shrivelled ancient who was
+meditating on her latter end. Suddenly he became aware of a shadow
+darkening the doorway. At the same instant the fire leapt back into
+his grandmother's glasses. Instinctively, almost before he turned his
+head, he knew it was the hero of the romance.
+
+Yossel Mandelstein looked even less of a hero than the artist had
+remembered. There had been something wistful and pathetic in the
+hunchback's expression, some hint of inner eager fire, but this--if he
+had not merely imagined it--seemed to have died of age and
+hopelessness. He used crutches, too, to help himself along with, so
+that he seemed less the hunchback of yore than the conventional
+contortion of time, and but for the familiar earlocks pendent on
+either side of the fur cap, but for the great hooked nose and the
+small chin hidden in the big beard, the artist might have doubted if
+this was indeed the Yossel he had sometimes mocked at in the crude
+cruelty of boyhood.
+
+Yossel, propped on his crutches, was pulling out a mouldering
+black-covered book from under his greasy caftan. 'I have brought you
+back your _Chovoth Halvovoth_,' he said.
+
+In the vivid presence of the actual romance the artist could not
+suppress the smile he had kept back at the mere shadowy recital. In
+Rome he himself had not infrequently called on young ladies by way of
+returning books to them. It was true that the books he returned were
+not Hebrew treatises, but he smiled again to think that the name of
+Yossel's volume signified 'the duties of the heart.' The _Bube_ Yenta
+received the book with thanks, and a moment of embarrassment ensued,
+only slightly mitigated by the offer of the snuffbox. Yossel took a
+pinch, but his eyes seemed roving in amaze, less over the stranger
+than over the bespread table, as though he might unaccountably have
+overlooked some sacred festival. That two are company and three none
+seemed at this point a proverb to be heeded, and without waiting to
+renew the hero's acquaintance, the artist escaped from the idyllic
+cottage. Let the lover profit by the pastry for which he himself was
+too old.
+
+So the gossips spoke the truth, he thought, his amusement not
+unblended with a touch of his mother's indignation. Surely, if his
+grandmother wished to cultivate a grand passion, she might have chosen
+a more sightly object of devotion. Not that there was much to be said
+for Yossel's taste either. When after seventy-five years of celibacy
+the fascinations of the other sex began to tell upon him, he might at
+least have succumbed to a less matriarchal form of femininity. But
+perhaps his grandmother had fascinations of another order. Perhaps she
+had money. He put the question to his mother.
+
+'Certainly she has money,' said his mother vindictively. 'She has
+thousands of _Gulden_ in her stocking. Twenty years ago she could have
+had her pick of a dozen well-to-do widowers, yet now that she has one
+foot in the grave, madness has entered her soul, and she has cast her
+eye upon this pauper.'
+
+'But I thought his father left him his inn,' said the artist.
+
+'His inn--yes. His sense--no. Yossel ruined himself long ago paying
+too much attention to the Talmud instead of his business. He was
+always a _Schlemihl_.'
+
+'But can one pay too much attention to the Talmud? That is a strange
+saying for a Rabbi's daughter.'
+
+'King Solomon tells us there is a time for everything,' returned the
+Rabbi's daughter. 'Yossel neglected what the wise King said, and so
+now he comes trying to wheedle your poor grandmother out of her money.
+If he wanted to marry, why didn't he marry before eighteen, as the
+Talmud prescribes?'
+
+'He seems to do everything at the wrong time,' laughed her son. 'Do
+you suppose, by the way, that King Solomon made all his thousand
+marriages before he was eighteen?'
+
+'Make not mock of holy things,' replied his mother angrily.
+
+The monetary explanation of the romance, he found, was the popular one
+in the village. It did not, however, exculpate the grandame from the
+charge of forwardness, since if she wished to contract another
+marriage it could have been arranged legitimately by the _Shadchan_,
+and then the poor marriage-broker, who got little enough to do in this
+God-forsaken village, might have made a few _Gulden_ out of it.
+
+Beneath all his artistic perception of the humours of the thing,
+Schneemann found himself prosaically sharing the general
+disapprobation of the marriage. Really, when one came to think of it,
+it was ridiculous that he should have a new grandfather thrust upon
+him. And such a grandfather! Perhaps the _Bube_ was, indeed, losing
+her reason. Or was it he himself who was losing his reason, taking
+seriously this parochial scandal, and believing that because a
+doddering hunchback of seventy-five had borrowed an ethical treatise
+from an octogenarian a marriage must be on the tapis? Yet, on more
+than one occasion, he came upon circumstances which seemed to justify
+the popular supposition. There could be no doubt, for example, that
+when at the conclusion of the synagogue service the feminine stream
+from the women's gallery poured out to mingle with the issuing males,
+these two atoms drifted together with unnatural celerity. It appeared
+to be established beyond question that on the preceding Feast of
+Tabernacles the _Bube_ had lent and practically abandoned to the
+hunchback's use the ritual palm-branch he was too poor to afford. Of
+course this might only have been gratitude, inasmuch as a fortnight
+earlier on the solemn New Year Day when, by an untimely decree, the
+grandmother lay ill abed, Yossel had obtained possession of the
+_Shofar_, and leaving the synagogue had gone to blow it to her. He had
+blown the holy horn--with due regard to the proprieties--in the
+downstairs room of her cottage so that she above had heard it, and
+having heard it could breakfast. It was a performance that charity
+reasonably required for a disabled fellow-creature, and yet what
+medieval knight had found a more delicate way of trumpeting his
+mistress's charms? Besides, how had Yossel known that the heroine was
+ill? His eye must have roved over the women's gallery, and
+disentangled her absence even from the huddled mass of weeping and
+swaying womanhood.
+
+One day came the crowning item of evidence. The grandmother had
+actually asked the village postman to oblige her by delivering a
+brown parcel at Yossel's lodgings. The postman was not a Child of the
+Covenant, but Yossel's landlady was, and within an hour all Jewry knew
+that Yenta had sent Yossel a phylacteries-bag--the very symbol of love
+offered by a maiden to her bridegroom. Could shameless passion further
+go?
+
+
+III
+
+The artist, at least, determined it should go no further. He put on
+his hat, and went to find Yossel Mandelstein. But Yossel was not to be
+found so easily, and the artist's resolution strengthened with each
+false scent. Yossel was ultimately run to earth, or rather to Heaven,
+in the _Beth Hamedrash_, where he was shaking himself studiously over
+a Babylonian folio, in company with a motley assemblage of youths and
+greybeards equally careless of the demands of life. The dusky home of
+holy learning seemed an awkward place in which to broach the subject
+of love. In a whisper he besought the oscillating student to come
+outside. Yossel started up in agitation.
+
+'Ah, your grandmother is dying,' he divined, with what seemed a
+lover's inaccuracy. 'I will come and pray at once.'
+
+'No, no, she is not dying,' said Schneemann hastily, adding in a grim
+murmur, 'unless of love.'
+
+'Oh, then, it is not about your grandmother?'
+
+'No--that is to say, yes.' It seemed more difficult than ever to
+plunge into the delicate subject. To refer plumply to the courtship
+would, especially if it were not true, compromise his grandmother
+and, incidentally, her family. Yet, on the other hand, he longed to
+know what lay behind all this philandering, which in any case _had_
+been compromising her, and he felt it his duty as his grandmother's
+protector and the representative of the family to ask Yossel straight
+out whether his intentions were honourable.
+
+He remembered scenes in novels and plays in which undesirable suitors
+were tackled by champions of convention--scenes in which they were
+even bought off and started in new lands. Would not Yossel go to a new
+land, and how much would he want over and above his fare? He led the
+way without.
+
+'You have lived here all your life, Yossel, have you not?' he said,
+when they were in the village street.
+
+'Where else shall a man live?' answered Yossel.
+
+'But have you never had any curiosity to see other parts? Would you
+not like to go and see Vienna?'
+
+A little gleam passed over Yossel's dingy face. 'No, not Vienna--it is
+an unholy place--but Prague! Prague where there is a great Rabbi and
+the old, old underground synagogue that God has preserved throughout
+the generations.'
+
+'Well, why not go and see it?' suggested the artist.
+
+Yossel stared. 'Is it for that you tore me away from my Talmud?'
+
+'N--no, not exactly for that,' stammered Schneemann. 'Only seeing you
+glued to it gave me the idea what a pity it was that you should not
+travel and sit at the feet of great Rabbis?'
+
+'But how shall I travel to them? My crutches cannot walk so far as
+Prague.'
+
+'Oh, I'd lend you the money to ride,' said the artist lightly.
+
+'But I could never repay it.'
+
+'You can repay me in Heaven. You can give me a little bit of your _Gan
+Iden_' (Paradise).
+
+Yossel shook his head. 'And after I had the fare, how should I live?
+Here I make a few _Gulden_ by writing letters for people to their
+relatives in America; in Prague everybody is very learned; they don't
+need a scribe. Besides, if I cannot die in Palestine I might as well
+die where I was born.'
+
+'But why can't you die in Palestine?' cried the artist with a new
+burst of hope. 'You _shall_ die in Palestine, I promise you.'
+
+The gleam in Yossel's face became a great flame of joy. 'I shall die
+in Palestine?' he asked ecstatically.
+
+'As sure as I live! I will pay your fare the whole way, second-class.'
+
+For a moment the dazzling sunshine continued on Yossel's face, then a
+cloud began to pass across it.
+
+'But how can I take your money? I am not a _Schnorrer_.'
+
+Schneemann did not find the question easy to answer. The more so as
+Yossel's eagerness to go and die in Palestine seemed to show that
+there was no reason for packing him off. However, he told himself that
+one must make assurance doubly sure and that, even if it was all empty
+gossip, still he had stumbled upon a way of making an old man happy.
+
+'There is no reason why you should take my money,' he said with an
+artistic inspiration, 'but there is every reason why I should buy to
+myself the _Mitzvah_ (good deed) of sending you to Jerusalem. You
+see, I have so few good deeds to my credit.'
+
+'So I have heard,' replied Yossel placidly. 'A very wicked life it is
+said you lead at Rome.'
+
+'Most true,' said the artist cheerfully.
+
+'It is said also that you break the Second Commandment by making
+representations of things that are on sea and land.'
+
+'I would the critics admitted as much,' murmured the artist.
+
+'Your grandmother does not understand. She thinks you paint
+houses--which is not forbidden. But I don't undeceive her--it would
+pain her too much.' The lover-like sentiment brought back the artist's
+alarm.
+
+'When will you be ready to start?' he said.
+
+Yossel pondered. 'But to die in Palestine one must live in Palestine,'
+he said. 'I cannot be certain that God would take my soul the moment I
+set foot on the holy soil.'
+
+The artist reflected a moment, but scarcely felt rich enough to
+guarantee that Yossel should live in Palestine, especially if he were
+an unconscionably long time a-dying. A happy thought came to him. 'But
+there is the _Chalukah_,' he reminded Yossel.
+
+'But that is charity.'
+
+'No--it is not charity, it is a sort of university endowment. It is
+just to support such old students as you that these sums are sent from
+all the world over. The prayers and studies of our old men in
+Jerusalem are a redemption to all Israel. And yours would be to me in
+particular.'
+
+'True, true,' said Yossel eagerly; 'and life is very cheap there, I
+have always heard.'
+
+'Then it is a bargain,' slipped unwarily from the artist's tongue. But
+Yossel replied simply:
+
+'May the blessings of the Eternal be upon you for ever and for ever,
+and by the merit of my prayers in Jerusalem may your sins be
+forgiven.'
+
+The artist was moved. Surely, he thought, struggling between tears and
+laughter, no undesirable lover had ever thus been got rid of by the
+head of the family. Not to speak of an undesirable grandfather.
+
+
+IV
+
+The news that Yossel was leaving the village bound for the Holy Land,
+produced a sensation which quite obscured his former notoriety as an
+aspirant to wedlock. Indeed, those who discussed the new situation
+most avidly forgot how convinced they had been that marriage and not
+death was the hunchback's goal. How Yossel had found money for the
+great adventure was not the least interesting ingredient in the cup of
+gossip. It was even whispered that the grandmother herself had been
+tapped. Her skittish advances had been taken seriously by Yossel. He
+had boldly proposed to lead her under the Canopy, but at this point,
+it was said, the old lady had drawn back--she who had led him so far
+was not to be thus led. Women are changeable, it is known, and even
+when they are old they do not change. But Yossel had stood up for his
+rights; he had demanded compensation. And his fare to Palestine was a
+concession for his injured affections. It was not many days before the
+artist met persons who had actually overheard the bargaining between
+the _Bube_ and the hunchback.
+
+Meantime Yossel's departure was drawing nigh, and all those who had
+relatives in Palestine besieged him from miles around, plying him with
+messages, benedictions, and even packages for their kinsfolk. And
+conversely, there was scarcely a Jewish inhabitant who had not begged
+for clods of Palestine earth or bottles of Jordan water. So great
+indeed were the demands that their supply would have constituted a
+distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and dried up
+the Jordan.
+
+With his grandmother's future thus off his mind, the artist had
+settled down to making a picture of the ruined castle which he
+commanded from his bedroom window. But when the through ticket for
+Jerusalem came from the agent at Vienna, and he had brazenly endured
+Yossel's blessings for the same, his artistic instinct demanded to see
+how the _Bube_ was taking her hero's desertion. As he lifted the latch
+he heard her voice giving orders, and the door opened, not on the
+peaceful scene he expected of the spinster at her ingle nook, but of a
+bustling and apparently rejuvenated old lady supervising a packing
+menial. The greatest shock of all was that this menial proved to be
+Yossel himself squatted on the floor, his crutches beside him. Almost
+as in guilty confusion the hunchback hastily closed the sheet
+containing a huddle of articles, and tied it into a bundle before the
+artist's chaotic sense of its contents could change into clarity. But
+instantly a flash of explanation came to him.
+
+'Aha, grandmother,' he said, 'I see you too are sending presents to
+Palestine.'
+
+The grandmother took snuff uneasily. 'Yes, it is going to the Land of
+Israel,' she said.
+
+As the artist lifted his eyes from the two amorphous heaps on the
+floor--Yossel and his bundle--he became aware of a blank in the
+familiar interior.
+
+'Why, where is the spinning-wheel?' he cried.
+
+'I have given it to the widow Rubenstein--I shall spin no more.'
+
+'And I thought of painting you as a spinster!' he murmured dolefully.
+Then a white patch in the darkened wood over the mantelpiece caught
+his eye. 'Why, your marriage certificate is gone too!'
+
+'Yes, I have taken it down.'
+
+'To give to the widow Rubenstein?'
+
+'What an idea!' said his grandmother seriously. 'It is in the bundle.'
+
+'You are sending it away to Palestine?'
+
+The grandmother fumbled with her spectacles, and removing them with
+trembling fingers blinked downwards at the bundle. Yossel snatched up
+his crutches, and propped himself manfully upon them.
+
+'Your grandmother goes with me,' he explained decisively.
+
+'What!' the artist gasped.
+
+The grandmother's eyes met his unflinchingly; they had drawn fire from
+Yossel's. 'And why should I not go to Palestine too?' she said.
+
+'But you are so old!'
+
+'The more reason I should make haste if I am to be luckier than Moses
+our Master.' She readjusted her spectacles firmly.
+
+'But the journey is so hard.'
+
+'Yossel has wisdom; he will find the way while alive as easily as
+others will roll thither after death.'
+
+'You'll be dead before you get there,' said the artist brutally.
+
+'Ah, no! God will not let me die before I touch the holy soil!'
+
+'You, too, want to die in Palestine?' cried the amazed artist.
+
+'And where else shall a daughter of Israel desire to die? Ah, I
+forgot--your mother was an Epicurean with godless tresses; she did not
+bring you up in the true love of our land. But every day for seventy
+years and more have I prayed the prayer that my eyes should behold the
+return of the Divine Glory to Zion. That mercy I no longer expect in
+my own days, inasmuch as the Sultan hardens his heart and will not
+give us back our land, not though Moses our Master appears to him
+every night, and beats him with his rod. But at least my eyes shall
+behold the land of Israel.'
+
+'Amen!' said Yossel, still propped assertively on his crutches. The
+grandson turned upon the interrupter. 'But you can't take her _with_
+you?'
+
+'Why not?' said Yossel calmly.
+
+Schneemann found himself expatiating upon the responsibility of
+looking after such an old woman; it seemed too absurd to talk of the
+scandal. That was left for the grandmother to emphasize.
+
+'Would you have me arrive alone in Palestine?' she interposed
+impatiently. 'Think of the talk it would make in Jerusalem! And should
+I even be permitted to land? They say the Sultan's soldiers stand at
+the landing-place like the angels at the gates of Paradise with
+swords that turn every way. But Yossel is cunning in the customs of
+the heathen; he will explain to the soldiers that he is an Austrian
+subject, and that I am his _Frau_.'
+
+'What! Pass you off as his _Frau_!'
+
+'Who speaks of passing off? He could say I was his sister, as Abraham
+our Father said of Sarah. But that was a sin in the sight of Heaven,
+and therefore as our sages explain----'
+
+'It is simpler to be married,' Yossel interrupted.
+
+'Married!' echoed the artist angrily.
+
+'The witnesses are coming to my lodging this afternoon,' Yossel
+continued calmly. 'Dovidel and Yitzkoly from the _Beth Hamedrash_.'
+
+'They think they are only coming to a farewell glass of brandy,'
+chuckled the grandmother. 'But they will find themselves at a secret
+wedding.'
+
+'And to-morrow we shall depart publicly for Trieste,' Yossel wound up
+calmly.
+
+'But this is too absurd!' the artist broke in. 'I forbid this
+marriage!'
+
+A violent expression of amazement overspread the ancient dame's face,
+and the tone of the far-away years came into her voice. 'Silence,
+Vroomkely, or I'll smack your face. Do you forget you are talking to
+your grandmother?'
+
+'I think Mr. Mandelstein forgets it,' the artist retorted, turning
+upon the heroic hunchback. 'Do you mean to say you are going to marry
+my grandmother?'
+
+'And why not?' asked Yossel. 'Is there a greater lover of God in all
+Galicia?'
+
+'Hush, Yossel, I am a great sinner.' But her old face was radiant.
+She turned to her grandson. 'Don't be angry with Yossel--all the fault
+is mine. He did not ask me to go with him to Palestine; it was I that
+asked _him_.'
+
+'Do you mean that you asked him to marry you?'
+
+'It is the same thing. There is no other way. How different would it
+have been had there been any other woman here who wanted to die in
+Palestine! But the women nowadays have no fear of Heaven; they wear
+their hair unshorn--they----'
+
+'Yes, yes. So you asked Yossel to marry you.'
+
+'Asked? Prayed, as one prays upon Atonement Day. For two years I
+prayed to him, but he always refused.'
+
+'Then why----?' began the artist.
+
+'Yossel is so proud. It is his only sin.'
+
+'Oh, Yenta!' protested Yossel flushing, 'I am a very sinful man.'
+
+'Yes, but your sin is all in a lump,' the _Bube_ replied. 'Your
+iniquity is like your ugliness--some people have it scattered all
+over, but you have it all heaped up. And the heap is called pride.'
+
+'Never mind his pride,' put in the artist impatiently. 'Why did he not
+go on refusing you?'
+
+'I am coming to that. Only you were always so impatient, Vroomkely.
+When I was cutting you a piece of _Kuchen_, you would snatch greedily
+at the crumbs as they fell. You see Yossel is not made of the same
+clay as you and I. By an oversight the Almighty sent an angel into the
+world instead of a man, but seeing His mistake at the last moment, the
+All-High broke his wings short and left him a hunchback. But when
+Yossel's father made a match for him with Leah, the rich
+corn-factor's daughter, the silly girl, when she was introduced to the
+bridegroom, could see only the hump, and scandalously refused to carry
+out the contract. And Yossel is so proud that ever since that day he
+curled himself up into his hump, and nursed a hatred for all women.'
+
+'How can you say that, Yenta?' Yossel broke in again.
+
+'Why else did you refuse my money?' the _Bube_ retorted. 'Twice, ten,
+twenty times I asked him to go to Palestine with me. But obstinate as
+a pig he keeps grunting "I can't--I've got no money." Sooner than I
+should pay his fare he'd have seen us both die here.'
+
+The artist collapsed upon the bundle; astonishment, anger, and
+self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. So this was
+all his Machiavellian scheming had achieved--to bring about the very
+marriage it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen into it
+himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozenoffski and Leopold Barstein.
+He laughed bitterly.
+
+'Nay, it was no laughing matter,' said the _Bube_ indignantly. 'For I
+know well how Yossel longed to go with me to die in Jerusalem. And at
+last the All-High sent him the fare, and he was able to come to me and
+invite me to go with him.'
+
+Here the artist became aware that Yossel's eyes and lips were
+signalling silence to him. As if, forsooth, one published one's good
+deeds! He had yet to learn on whose behalf the hunchback was
+signalling.
+
+'So! You came into a fortune?' he asked Yossel gravely.
+
+Yossel looked the picture of misery. The _Bube_ unconsciously cut
+through the situation. 'A wicked man gave it to him,' she explained,
+'to pray away his sins in Jerusalem.'
+
+'Indeed!' murmured the artist. 'Anyone you know?'
+
+'Heaven has spared her the pain of knowing him,' ambiguously
+interpolated her anxious protector.
+
+'I don't even know his name,' added the _Bube_. 'Yossel keeps it
+hidden.'
+
+'One must not shame a fellow-man,' Yossel urged. 'The sin of that is
+equal to the sin of shedding blood.'
+
+The grandmother nodded her head approvingly. 'It is enough that the
+All-High knows his name. But for such an Epicurean much praying will
+be necessary. It will be a long work. And your first prayer, Yossel,
+must be that you shall not die very soon, else the labourer will not
+be worthy of his hire.'
+
+Yossel took her yellow withered hand as in a lover's clasp. 'Be at
+peace, Yenta! He will be redeemed if only by _your_ merits. Are we not
+one?'
+
+
+
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET
+
+
+
+
+ELIJAH'S GOBLET
+
+
+I
+
+Aaron Ben Amram removed from the great ritual dish the roasted
+shankbone of lamb (symbolic residuum of the Paschal Sacrifice) and the
+roasted egg (representative of the ancient festival-offering in the
+Temple), and while his wife and children held up the dish, which now
+contained only the bitter herbs and unleavened cakes, he recited the
+Chaldaic prelude to the _Seder_--the long domestic ceremonial of the
+Passover Evening.
+
+'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of
+Egypt. Let all who are hungry come in and eat; let all who require
+come in and celebrate the Passover. This year here, next year in the
+land of Israel! This year slaves, next year sons of freedom!'
+
+But the Polish physician showed nothing of the slave. White-bearded,
+clad in a long white robe and a white skullcap, and throned on white
+pillows, he made rather a royal figure, indeed for this night of
+nights conceived of himself as 'King' and his wife as 'Queen.'
+
+But 'Queen' Golda, despite her silk gown and flowery cap, did not
+share her consort's majestic mood, still less the rosy happiness of
+the children who sat round this fascinating board. Her heart was full
+of a whispering fear that not all the brave melodies of the father
+nor all the quaint family choruses could drown. All very well for the
+little ones to be unconscious of the hovering shadow, but how could
+her husband have forgotten the horrors of the Blood Accusation in the
+very year he had led her under the Canopy?
+
+And surely he knew as well as she that the dreadful legend was
+gathering again, that the slowly-growing Jew-hatred had reached a
+point at which it must find expression, that the _Pritzim_ (nobles) in
+their great houses, and the peasants behind their high palings, alike
+sulked under the burden of debts. Indeed, had not the Passover Market
+hummed with the old, old story of a lost Christian child? Not murdered
+yet, thank God, nor even a corpse. But still, if a boy _should_ be
+found with signs of violence upon him at this season of the Paschal
+Sacrifice, when the Greek Church brooded on the Crucifixion! O God of
+Abraham, guard us from these fiends unchained!
+
+But the first part of the elaborate ritual, pleasantly punctuated with
+cups of raisin wine, passed peacefully by, and the evening meal,
+mercifully set in the middle, was reached, to the children's vast
+content. They made wry, humorous mouths, each jest endeared by annual
+repetition, over the horseradish that typified the bitterness of the
+Egyptian bondage, and ecstatic grimaces over the soft, sweet mixture
+of almonds, raisins, apples, and cinnamon, vaguely suggestive of the
+bondsmen's mortar; they relished the eggs sliced into salt water, and
+then--the symbols all duly swallowed--settled down with more prosaic
+satisfaction to the merely edible meats and fishes, though even to
+these the special Passover plates and dishes and the purified knives
+and forks lent a new relish.
+
+By this time Golda was sufficiently cheered up to meditate her annual
+theft of the _Afkuman_, that segment of Passover cake under Aaron's
+pillow, morsels of which, distributed to each as the final food to be
+tasted that night, replaced the final mouthful of the Paschal Lamb in
+the ancient Palestinian meal.
+
+
+II
+
+But Elijah's goblet stood in the centre of the table untasted. Every
+time the ritual cup-drinking came round, the children had glanced at
+the great silver goblet placed for the Prophet of Redemption. Alas!
+the brimming raisin wine remained ever at the same level.
+
+They found consolation in the thought that the great moment was still
+to come--the moment of the third cup, when, mother throwing open the
+door, father would rise, holding the goblet on high, and sonorously
+salute an unseen visitor.
+
+True, in other years, though they had almost heard the rush of wings,
+the great shining cup had remained full, and when it was replaced on
+the white cloth, a vague resentment as at a spurned hospitality had
+stirred in each youthful breast. But many reasons could be found to
+exculpate Elijah--not omitting their own sins--and now, when Ben Amram
+nodded to his wife to open the door, expectation stood on tip-toe,
+credulous as ever, and the young hearts beat tattoo.
+
+But the mother's heart was palpitating with another emotion. A faint
+clamour in the Polish quarter at the back, as she replaced the samovar
+in the kitchen, had recalled all her alarms, and she merely threw
+open the door of the room. But Ben Amram was not absent-minded enough
+to be beguiled by her air of obedient alacrity. Besides, he could see
+the shut street-door through the strip of passage. He gestured towards
+it.
+
+Now she feigned laziness. 'Oh, never mind.'
+
+'David, open the street-door.'
+
+The eldest boy sprang up joyously. It would have been too bad of
+mother to keep Elijah on the doorstep.
+
+'No, no, David!' Golda stopped him. 'It is too heavy; he could not
+undo the bolts and bars.'
+
+'You have barred it?' Ben Amram asked.
+
+'And why not? In this season you know how the heathen go mad like
+street-dogs.'
+
+'Pooh! They will not bite us.'
+
+'But, Aaron! You heard about the lost Christian child!'
+
+'I have saved many a Christian child, Golda.'
+
+'They will not remember that.'
+
+'But I must remember the ritual.' And he made a movement.
+
+'No, no, Aaron! Listen!'
+
+The shrill noises seemed to have veered round towards the front of the
+house. He shrugged his shoulders. 'I hear only the goats bleating.'
+
+She clung to him as he made for the door. 'For the sake of our
+children!'
+
+'Do not be so childish yourself, my crown!'
+
+'But I am not childish. Hark!'
+
+He smiled calmly. 'The door must be opened.'
+
+Her fears lent her scepticism. 'It is you that are childish. You know
+no Prophet of Redemption will come through the door.'
+
+He caressed his venerable beard. 'Who knows?'
+
+'I know. It is a Destroyer, not a Redeemer of Israel, who will come.
+Listen! Ah, God of Abraham! Do you not hear?'
+
+Unmistakably the howl of a riotous mob was approaching, mingled with
+the reedy strains of an accordion.
+
+'Down with the _Zhits_! Death to the dirty Jews!'
+
+'God in heaven!' She released her husband, and ran towards the
+children with a gesture as of seeking to gather them all in her arms.
+Then, hearing the bolts shot back, she turned with a scream. 'Are you
+mad, Aaron?'
+
+But he, holding her back with his gaze, threw wide the door with his
+left hand, while his right upheld Elijah's goblet, and over the
+ululation of the unseen mob and the shrill spasms of music rose his
+Hebrew welcome to the visitor: '_Baruch habaa!_'
+
+Hardly had the greeting left his lips when a wild flying figure in a
+rich furred coat dashed round the corner and almost into his arms,
+half-spilling the wine.
+
+'In God's name, Reb Aaron!' panted the refugee, and fell half-dead
+across the threshold.
+
+The physician dragged him hastily within, and slammed the door, just
+as two moujiks--drunken leaders of the chase--lurched past. The
+mother, who had sprung forward at the sound of the fall, frenziedly
+shot the bolts, and in another instant the hue and cry tore past the
+house and dwindled in the distance.
+
+Ben Amram raised the white bloody face, and put Elijah's goblet to the
+lips. The strange visitor drained it to the dregs, the clustered
+children looking on dazedly. As the head fell back, it caught the
+light from the festive candles of the Passover board. The face was
+bare of hair; even the side curls were gone.
+
+'Maimon the _Meshummad_!' cried the mother, shuddering back. 'You have
+saved the Apostate.'
+
+'Did I not say the door must be opened?' replied Ben Amram gently.
+Then a smile of humour twitched his lips, and he smoothed his white
+beard. 'Maimon is the only Jew abroad to-night, and how were the poor
+drunken peasants to know he was baptized?'
+
+Despite their thrill of horror at the traitor, David and his brothers
+and sisters were secretly pleased to see Elijah's goblet empty at
+last.
+
+
+III
+
+Next morning the Passover liturgy rang jubilantly through the vast,
+crowded synagogue. No violence had been reported, despite the passage
+of a noisy mob. The Ghetto, then, was not to be laid waste with fire
+and sword, and the worshippers within the moss-grown, turreted
+quadrangle drew free breath, and sent it out in great shouts of
+rhythmic prayer, as they swayed in their fringed shawls, with
+quivering hands of supplication. The Ark of the Law at one end of the
+great building, overbrooded by the Ten Commandments and the perpetual
+light, stood open to mark a supreme moment of devotion. Ben Amram had
+been given the honour of uncurtaining the shrine, and its richly clad
+scrolls of all sizes, with their silver bells and pointers, stood
+revealed in solemn splendour.
+
+Through the ornate grating of their gallery the gaily-clad women
+looked down on the rocking figures, while the grace-notes of the
+cantor on his central dais, and the harmoniously interjected 'poms' of
+his male ministrants flew up to their ears, as though they were indeed
+angels on high. Suddenly, over the blended passion of cantor and
+congregation, an ominous sound broke from without--the complex clatter
+of cavalry, the curt ring of military orders. The swaying figures
+turned suddenly as under another wind, the women's eyes grew astare
+and ablaze with terror. The great doors flew open, and--oh, awful,
+incredible sight--a squadron of Cossacks rode slowly in, two abreast,
+with a heavy thud of hoofs on the sacred floor, and a rattle of
+ponderous sabres. Their black conical caps and long beards, their
+great side-buttoned coats, and pockets stuffed with protrusive
+cartridges, their prancing horses, their leaded knouts, struck a
+blood-curdling discord amid the prayerful, white-wrapped figures. The
+rumble of worship ceased, the cantor, suddenly isolated, was heard
+soaring ecstatically; then he, too, turned his head uneasily and his
+roulade died in his throat.
+
+'Halt!' the officer cried. The moving column froze. Its bristling
+length stretched from the central platform, blocking the aisle, and
+the courtyard echoed with the clanging hoofs of its rear, which backed
+into the school and the poor-house. The _Shamash_ (beadle) was seen to
+front the flamboyant invaders.
+
+'Why does your Excellency intrude upon our prayers to God?'
+
+The congregation felt its dignity return. Who would have suspected Red
+Judah of such courage--such apt speech? Why, the very Rabbi was
+petrified; the elders of the _Kahal_ stood dumb. Ben Amram himself,
+their spokesman to the Government, whose praying-shawl was embroidered
+with a silver band, and whose coat was satin, remained immovable
+between the pillars of the Ark, staring stonily at the brave beadle.
+
+'First of all, for the boy's blood!'
+
+The words rang out with military precision, and the speaker's horse
+pawed clangorously, as if impatient for the charge. The men grew
+death-pale, the women wrung their hands.
+
+'_Ai, vai!_' they moaned. 'Woe! woe!'
+
+'What boy? What blood?' said the _Shamash_, undaunted.
+
+'Don't palter, you rascal! You know well that a Christian child has
+disappeared.'
+
+The aged Rabbi, stimulated by the _Shamash_, uplifted a quavering
+voice.
+
+'The child will be found of a surety--if, indeed, it is lost,' he
+added with bitter sarcasm. 'And surely your Excellency cannot require
+the boy's blood at our hands ere your Excellency knows it is indeed
+spilt.'
+
+'You misunderstand me, old dog--or rather you pretend to, old fox. The
+boy's blood is here--it is kept in this very synagogue--and I have
+come for it.'
+
+The _Shamash_ laughed explosively. 'Oh, Excellency!'
+
+The synagogue, hysterically tense, caught the contagion of glad
+relief. It rang with strange laughter.
+
+'There is no blood in this synagogue, Excellency,' said the Rabbi, his
+eyes a-twinkle, 'save what runs in living veins.'
+
+'We shall see. Produce that bottle beneath the Ark.'
+
+'That!' The _Shamash_ grinned--almost indecorously. 'That is the
+Consecration wine--red as my beard,' quoth he.
+
+'Ha! ha! the red Consecration wine!' repeated the synagogue in a happy
+buzz, and from the women's gallery came the same glad murmur of mutual
+explanation.
+
+'We shall see,' repeated the officer, with iron imperturbability, and
+the happy hum died into a cold heart-faintness, fraught with an almost
+incredulous apprehension of some devilish treachery, some mock
+discovery that would give the Ghetto over to the frenzies of fanatical
+creditors, nay, to the vengeance of the law.
+
+The officer's voice rose again. 'Let no one leave the synagogue--man,
+woman, or child. Kill anyone who attempts to escape.'
+
+The screams of fainting women answered him from above, but impassively
+he urged his horse along the aisle that led to the Ark; its noisy
+hoofs trampled over every heart. Springing from his saddle he opened
+the little cupboard beneath the scrolls, and drew out a bottle,
+hideously red.
+
+'Consecration wine, eh?' he said grimly.
+
+'What else, Excellency?' stoutly replied the _Shamash_, who had
+followed him.
+
+A savage laugh broke from the officer's lips. 'Drink me a mouthful!'
+
+As the _Shamash_ took the bottle, with a fearless shrug of the
+shoulders, every eye strained painfully towards him, save in the
+women's gallery, where many covered their faces with their hands.
+Every breath was held.
+
+Keeping the same amused incredulous face, Red Judah gulped down a
+draught. But as the liquid met his palate a horrible distortion
+overcame his smile, his hands flew heavenwards. Dropping the bottle,
+and with a hoarse cry, 'Mercy, O God!' he fell before the Ark, foaming
+at the mouth. The red fluid spread in a vivid pool.
+
+'Hear, O Israel!' A raucous cry of horror rose from all around, and
+was echoed more shrilly from above. Almighty Father! The Jew-haters
+had worked their fiendish trick. Now the men were become as the women,
+shrieking, wringing their hands, crying, '_Ai, vai!_' '_Gewalt!_' The
+Rabbi shook as with palsy. 'Satan! Satan!' chattered through his
+teeth.
+
+But Ben Amram had moved at last, and was stooping over the scarlet
+stain.
+
+'A soldier should know blood, Excellency!' the physician said quietly.
+
+The officer's face relaxed into a faint smile.
+
+'A soldier knows wine too,' he said, sniffing. And, indeed, the spicy
+reek of the Consecration wine was bewildering the nearer bystanders.
+
+'Your Excellency frightened poor Judah into a fit,' said the
+physician, raising the beadle's head by its long red beard.
+
+His Excellency shrugged his shoulders, sprang to his saddle, and cried
+a retreat. The Cossacks, unable to turn in the aisle, backed
+cumbrously with a manifold thudding and rearing and clanking, but ere
+the congregation had finished rubbing their eyes, the last conical hat
+and leaded knout had vanished, and only the tarry reek of their boots
+was left in proof of their actual passage. A deep silence hung for a
+moment like a heavy cloud, then it broke in a torrent of
+ejaculations.
+
+But Ben Amram's voice rang through the din. 'Brethren!' He rose from
+wiping the frothing lips of the stricken creature, and his face had
+the fiery gloom of a seer's, and the din died under his uplifted palm.
+'Brethren, the Lord hath saved us!'
+
+'Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever!' The Rabbi began
+the phrase, and the congregation caught it up in thunder.
+
+'But hearken how. Last night at the _Seder_, as I opened the door for
+Elijah, there entered Maimon the _Meshummad_! 'Twas he quaffed
+Elijah's cup!'
+
+There was a rumble of imprecations.
+
+'A pretty Elijah!' cried the Rabbi.
+
+'Nay, but God sends the Prophet of Redemption in strange guise,' the
+physician said. 'Listen! Maimon was pursued by a drunken mob, ignorant
+he was a deserter from our camp. When he found how I had saved him and
+dressed his bleeding face, when he saw the spread Passover table, his
+child-soul came back to him, and in a burst of tears he confessed the
+diabolical plot against our community, hatched through his
+instrumentality by some desperate debtors; how, having raised the cry
+of a lost child, they were to have its blood found beneath our Holy
+Ark as in some mystic atonement. And while you all lolled joyously at
+the _Seder_ table, a bottle of blood lay here instead of the
+Consecration wine, like a bomb waiting to burst and destroy us all.'
+
+A shudder of awe traversed the synagogue.
+
+'But the Guardian of Israel, who permits us to sleep on Passover night
+without night-prayer, neither slumbers nor sleeps. Maimon had bribed
+the _Shamash_ to let him enter the synagogue and replace the
+Consecration wine.'
+
+'Red Judah!' It was like the growl of ten thousand tigers. Some even
+precipitated themselves upon the writhing wretch.
+
+'Back! back!' cried Ben Amram. 'The Almighty has smitten him.'
+
+'"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,"' quoted the Rabbi solemnly.
+
+'Hallelujah!' shouted a frenzied female voice, and 'Hallelujah!' the
+men responded in thunder.
+
+'Red Judah had no true belief in the God of Israel,' the physician
+went on.
+
+'May he be an atonement for us all!' interrupted the Cantor.
+
+'Amen!' growled the congregation.
+
+'For a hundred roubles and the promise of personal immunity Red Judah
+allowed Maimon the _Meshummad_ to change the bottles while all Israel
+sat at the Seder. It was because the mob saw the _Meshummad_ stealing
+out of the synagogue that they fell upon him for a pious Jew. Behold,
+brethren, how the Almighty weaves His threads together. After the
+repentant sinner had confessed all to me, and explained how the
+Cossacks were to be sent to catch all the community assembled helpless
+in synagogue, I deemed it best merely to get the bottles changed back
+again. The false bottle contained only bullock's blood, but it would
+have sufficed to madden the multitude. Since it is I who have the
+blessed privilege of supplying the Consecration wine it was easy
+enough to give Maimon another bottle, and armed with this he roused
+the _Shamash_ in the dawn, pretending he had now obtained true human
+blood. A rouble easily procured him the keys again, and when he
+brought me back the bullock's blood, I awaited the sequel in peace.'
+
+'Praise ye the Lord, for He is good,' sang the Cantor, carried away.
+
+'For His mercy endureth for ever,' replied the congregation
+instinctively.
+
+'I did not foresee the _Shamash_ would put himself so brazenly forward
+to hide his guilt, or that he would be asked to drink. But when the
+_Epikouros_ (atheist) put the bottle to his lips, expecting to taste
+blood, and found instead good red wine, doubtless he felt at once that
+the God of Israel was truly in heaven, that He had wrought a miracle
+and changed the blood back to wine.'
+
+'And such a miracle God wrought verily,' cried the Rabbi, grasping the
+physician's hand, while the synagogue resounded with cries of 'May thy
+strength increase,' and the gallery heaved frantically with blessings
+and congratulations.
+
+'What wonder,' the physician wound up, as he bent again over the
+ghastly head, with its pious ringlets writhing like red snakes, 'that
+he fell stricken by dread of the Almighty's wrath!'
+
+And while men were bearing the convulsive form without, the Cantor
+began to recite the Grace after Redemption. And then the happy hymns
+rolled out, and the choristers cried 'Pom!' and a breath of jubilant
+hope passed through the synagogue. The mighty hand and the
+outstretched arm which had redeemed Israel from the Egyptian bondage
+were still hovering over them, nor would the Prophet Elijah for ever
+delay to announce the ultimate Messiah.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIRELINGS
+
+
+
+
+THE HIRELINGS
+
+
+I
+
+Crowded as was the steamer with cultured Americans invading Europe,
+few knew that Rozenoffski was on board, or even that Rozenoffski was a
+pianist. The name, casually seen on the passengers' list, conveyed
+nothing but a strong Russian and a vaguer Semitic flavour, and the
+mere outward man, despite a leonine head, was of insignificant port
+and somewhat shuffling gait, and drew scarcely a second glance.
+
+He would not have had it otherwise, he told himself, as he paced the
+almost deserted deck after dinner--it was a blessing to escape from
+the perpetual adulation of music-sick matrons and schoolgirls--but
+every wounded fibre in him was yearning for consolation after his
+American failure.
+
+Not that his fellow-passengers were aware of his failure; he had not
+put himself to the vulgar tests. His American expedition had followed
+the lines recommended to him by friendly connoisseurs--to come before
+the great public, if at all, only after being launched by great
+hostesses at small parties; to which end he had provided himself with
+unimpeachable introductions to unexceptionable ladies from
+irresistible personalities--a German Grand Duke, a Bulgarian
+Ambassador, Countesses, both French and Italian, and even a Belgian
+princess. But to his boundless amazement--for he had always heard that
+Americans were wax before titles--not one of the social leaders had
+been of the faintest assistance to him, not even the owner of the
+Chicago Palace, to whom he had been recommended by the Belgian
+princess. He had penetrated through one or two esoteric doors, only to
+find himself outside them again. Not once had he been asked to play.
+It was some weeks before it even dawned upon the minor prophet of
+European music-rooms that he was being shut out, still longer before
+it permeated to his brain that he had been shut out as a Jew!
+
+Those barbarous Americans, so far behind Europe after all! Had they
+not even discovered that art levels all ranks and races? Poor
+bourgeois money-mongers with their mushroom civilization. It was not
+even as if he were really a Jew. Did they imagine he wore phylacteries
+or earlocks, or what? His few childish years in the Russian Pale--what
+were they to the long years of European art and European culture? And
+even if in Rome or Paris he had foregathered with Jews like Schneemann
+or Leopold Barstein, it was to the artist in them he had gravitated,
+not the Jew. Did these Yankee ignoramuses suppose he did not share
+their aversion from the gaberdine or the three brass balls? Oh the
+narrow-souled anti-Semites!
+
+The deck-steward stacked the chairs, piled up the forgotten rugs and
+novels, tidying the deck for the night, but still the embittered
+musician tramped to and fro under the silent stars. Only from the
+smoking-room where the amateur auctioneer was still hilariously
+selling the numbers for a sweepstake, came sounds in discord with the
+solemnity of sky and sea, and the artist was newly jarred at this
+vulgar gaiety flung in the face of the spacious and starry mystery of
+the night. And these jocose, heavy-jowled, smoke-soused gamblers were
+the Americans whose drawing-rooms he would contaminate! He recalled
+the only party to which he had been asked--'To meet the Bright
+Lights'--and which to his amazement turned out to be a quasi-public
+entertainment with the guests seated in rows in a hall, and
+himself--with the other Bright Lights--planted on a platform and made
+to perform without a fee. The mean vulgarians! But perhaps it was
+better they had left him untainted with their dollars--better,
+comparatively poor though he was, that America should have meant pure
+loss to him. He had at least kept the spiritual satisfaction of
+despising the despiser, the dignity of righteous resentment, the
+artist's pride in the profitless. And this riot of ugliness and
+diamonds and third-rate celebrities was the fashionable society to
+which, forsooth, the Jew could not be permitted access!
+
+The aroma of an expensive cigar wafted towards him, and the face
+between whose prominent teeth it was stuck loomed vividly in the glare
+of an electric light. Rozenoffski recognised those teeth. He had seen
+countless pictures and caricatures of them, for did they not almost
+hold the globe in their grip? This, then was the notorious
+multi-millionaire, 'the Napoleon in dollars,' as a wit had summed him
+up; and the first sight of Andrew P. Wilhammer almost consoled the
+player for his poverty. Who, even for an imperial income, would bear
+the burden of those grotesque teeth, protruding like a sample of wares
+in a dentist's showcase? But as the teeth came nearer and the great
+rubicund face bore down upon him, the prominence of the notorious
+incisors affected him less than their carnivorous capacity--he felt
+himself almost swallowed up by this monstrous beast of prey, so
+admirably equated to our small day of large things, to that
+environment in which he, poor degenerate artist, was but a little
+singing-bird. The long-forgotten word _Rishus_ came suddenly into his
+mind--was not the man's anti-Semitism as obtruded as his
+teeth?--_Rishus_, that wicked malice, which to a persecuted people had
+become almost a synonym for Christianity. He had left the thought
+behind him, as he had left the Hebrew word, while he went sailing up
+into the rosy ether of success, and _Rishus_ had sunk into the mere
+panic-word of the Ghetto's stunted brood, shrinking and quivering
+before phantasms, sinuously gliding through a misunderstood world, if
+it was not, indeed, rather a word conveniently cloaking from
+themselves a multitude of their own sins. But now, as incarnated in
+this millionaire mammoth, the shadowy word took on a sudden solidity,
+to which his teeth gave the necessary tearing and rending
+significance.
+
+Yes, in very sooth--he remembered it suddenly--was it not this man's
+wife on whom he had built his main hopes? Was she not the leader of
+musical America, to whom the Belgian princess had given him the
+scented and crested note of introduction which was to open to him all
+doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble
+music-room--one of the boasts of Chicago--that he had mentally seen
+himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these
+Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over--a
+note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's
+health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such
+credentials. _Rishus--Rishus_ indubitable!
+
+
+II
+
+Turning with morbid interest to look after the retreating millionaire,
+he found him in converse with a feminine figure at the open door of a
+deck-cabin. Could this be the great She, the arbitress of art? He
+moved nearer. Why, this was but a girl--nay, unless his instinct was
+at fault, a Jewish girl--a glorious young Jewess, of that radiant
+red-haired type which the Russian Pale occasionally flowered with.
+What was she doing with this Christian Colossus? He tried vainly to
+see her left hand; the mere possibility that she might be Mrs.
+Wilhammer shocked his Semitic instinct. Wilhammer disappeared
+within--the relation was obviously intimate--but the girl still stood
+at the door, a brooding magical figure.
+
+Almost a sense of brotherhood moved him to speak to her, but he
+conquered the abnormal and incorrect impulse, contenting himself to
+walk past her with a side-glance, while at the end of the
+deck-promenade, instead of returning on his footsteps, he even arched
+his path round to the windy side. After some minutes of buffeting he
+returned chilled to his prior pacing ground. She was still there, but
+had moved under the same electric light which had illuminated
+Wilhammer's face, and she was reading a letter. As his walk carried
+him past her, he was startled to see tears rolling down those radiant
+cheeks. A slight exclamation came involuntarily from him; the girl,
+even more startled to be caught thus, relaxed her grip of the
+letter--a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped
+at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed
+sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and
+deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed
+it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a
+thrill that the characters were cursive Hebrew.
+
+'How can I zank you, sir!' Her Teutonic-touched American gave him the
+courage to reply gallantly in German:
+
+'By letting me help you more seriously.'
+
+'_Ach, mein Herr_'--she jumped responsively into German--'it was for
+joy I was crying, not sorrow.' As her American was Germanic, so was
+her German like the Yiddish of his remote youth, and this, adding to
+the sweetness of her voice, dissolved the musician's heart within his
+breast. He noted now with satisfaction that her fingers were bare of
+rings.
+
+'Then I am rejoiced too,' he ventured to reply.
+
+She smiled pathetically, and began to walk back towards her cabin.
+'With us Jews,' she said, 'tears and laughter are very close.'
+
+'Us Jews!' He winced a little. It was so long since he had been thus
+classed to his face by a stranger. But perhaps he had misinterpreted
+her phrase; it was her way of referring to _her_ race, not necessarily
+to _his_.
+
+'It is a beautiful night,' he murmured uneasily. But he only opened
+wider the flood-gates of race-feeling.
+
+'Yes,' she replied simply, 'and such a heaven of stars is beginning
+to arise over the night of Israel. Is it not wonderful--the
+transformation of our people? When I left Russia as a girl--so young,'
+she interpolated with a sad smile, 'that I had not even been
+married--I left a priest-ridden, paralysed people, a cringing,
+cowering, contorted people--I shall never forget the panic in our
+synagogue when a troop of Cossacks rode in with a bogus
+blood-accusation. Now it is a people alive with ideas and volitions;
+the young generation dreams noble dreams, and, what is stranger, dies
+to execute them. Our _Bund_ is the soul of the Russian revolution; our
+self-defence bands are bringing back the days of Judas Maccabaeus. In
+the olden times of massacre our people fled to the synagogues to pray;
+now they march to the fight like men.'
+
+They had arrived at her door, and she ended suddenly. The musician,
+fascinated, feared she was about to fade away within.
+
+'But Jews can't fight!' he cried, half-incredulous, half to arrest
+her.
+
+'Not fight!' She held up the Hebrew letter. 'They have scouts,
+ambulance corps, orderlies, surgeons, everything--my cousin David Ben
+Amram, who is little more than a boy, was told off to defend a large
+three-story house inhabited by the families of factory-labourers who
+were at work when the _pogrom_ broke out. The poor frenzied women and
+children had barricaded themselves within at the first rumour, and
+hidden themselves in cellars and attics. My cousin had to climb to
+their defence over the neighbouring tiles and through a window in the
+roof. Soon the house was besieged by police, troops, and hooligans in
+devilish league. With his one Browning revolver David held them all
+at bay, firing from every window of the house in turn, so as to give
+the besiegers an impression of a large defensive force. At last his
+cartridges were exhausted--to procure cartridges is the greatest
+difficulty of our self-defence corps--they began battering in the big
+front-door. David, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew
+back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried:
+'Back! back! They have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to
+escape the explosion. The others followed wildly, and in the panic
+David ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post
+of defence. Though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants
+were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained for
+over an hour at a safe distance firing at the house, till it was
+riddled with bullets. They counted nearly two hundred the next day,
+embedded in the walls or strewn about the rooms. And not a thing had
+been stolen--not a hooligan had dared enter. But David is only a type
+of the young generation--there are hundreds of Davids equally ready to
+take the field against Goliath. And shall I not rejoice, shall I not
+exult even unto tears?' Her eyes glowed, and the musician was kindled
+to equal fire. It seemed to him less a girl who was speaking than
+Truth and Purity and some dead muse of his own. 'The Pale that I
+left,' she went on, 'was truly a prison. But now--now it will be the
+forging-place of a regenerated people! Oh, I am counting the days till
+I can be back!'
+
+'You are going back to Russia!' he gasped.
+
+He had the sensation of cold steel passing through his heart. The
+_pogroms_, which had been as remote to him as the squabbles of
+savages in Central Africa, became suddenly vivid and near. And even
+vivider and nearer that greater danger--the heroic Cousin David!
+
+'How can I live away from Russia at such a moment?' she answered
+quietly. 'Who or what needs me in America?'
+
+'But to be massacred!' he cried incoherently.
+
+She smiled radiantly. 'To live and die with my own people.'
+
+The fire in his veins seemed upleaping in a sublime jet; he was like
+to crying, 'Thy people shall be my people,' but all he found himself
+saying was, 'You must not, you must not; what can a girl like you do?'
+
+A bell rang sharply from the cabin.
+
+'I must go to my mistress. _Gute Nacht, mein Herr!_'
+
+His flame sank to sudden ashes. Only Mrs. Wilhammer's hireling!
+
+
+III
+
+The wind freshened towards the middle of the night, and Rozenoffski,
+rocking in his berth, cursed his encounter with the red-haired
+romanticist who had stirred up such a pother in his brain that he had
+not been able to fall asleep while the water was still calm. Not that
+he suffered physically from the sea; he was merely afraid of it. The
+shuddering and groaning of the ship found an echo in his soul. He
+could not shake off the conviction that he was doomed to drown. At
+intervals, during the tedious night, he found forgetfulness in
+translating into sound his sense of the mystic, masterless waste in
+which the continents swim like islands, but music was soon swallowed
+up in terror.
+
+'No,' he sighed, with a touch of self-mockery. 'When I am safe on
+shore again, I shall weave my symphony of the sea.'
+
+Sleep came at last, but only to perturb him with a Jewish Joan of Arc
+who--turned Admiral--recaptured Zion from her battleship, to the sound
+of Psalms droned by his dead grandfather. And, though he did not see
+her the next day, and was, indeed, rather glad not to meet a lady's
+maid in the unromantic daylight, the restlessness she had engendered
+remained, replacing the settled bitterness which was all he had
+brought back from America. In the afternoon this restlessness drove
+him to the piano in the deserted dining-hall, and his fever sought to
+work itself off in a fury of practice. But the inner turbulence
+persisted, and the new thoughts clung round the old music. He was
+playing Schumann's _Fantasiestuecke_, but through the stormy passion of
+_In der Nacht_ he saw the red hair of the heroic Jewess, and into the
+wistful, questioning _Warum_ insinuated itself not the world-question,
+but the Jewish question--the sad, unending Jewish question--surging up
+again and again in every part of the globe, as Schumann's theme in
+every part of the piano--the same haunting musical figure, never the
+same notes exactly, yet essentially always the same, the wistful,
+questioning _Warum_. Why all this ceaseless sorrow, this footsore
+wandering, this rootless life, this eternal curse?
+
+Suddenly he became aware that he was no longer alone--forms were
+seated at the tables on the fixed dining-chairs, though there was no
+meal but his music; and as he played on, with swift side-peeps, other
+fellow-passengers entered into his consciousness, some standing about,
+others hovering on the stairs, and still others stealing in on
+reverent tip-toe and taking favourable seats. His breast filled with
+bitter satisfaction.
+
+So they had to come, the arrogant Americans; they had to swarm like
+rats to the pied piper. He could draw them at will, the haughty
+heathen--draw them by the magic of his finger-touch on pieces of
+ivory. Lo, they were coming, more and more of them! Through the corner
+of his eye he espied the figures drifting in from the corridors,
+peering in spellbound at the doors.
+
+With a great crash on the keys, he shook off his morbid mood, and
+plunged into Scarlatti's Sonata in A, his fingers frolicking all over
+the board, bent on a dominating exhibition of technique. As he
+stopped, there was a storm of hand-clapping. Rozenoffski gave a
+masterly start of surprise, and turned his leonine head in dazed
+bewilderment. Was he not then alone? '_Gott im Himmel!_' he murmured,
+and, furiously banging down the piano-lid, stalked from these
+presumptuous mortals who had jarred the artist's soliloquy.
+
+But the next afternoon found him again at the public piano, devoting
+all the magic of his genius to charming a contemptible Christendom. He
+gave them Beethoven and Bach, Paradies and Tschaikowski, unrolled to
+them the vast treasures of his art and memory. And very soon, lo! the
+Christian rats were pattering back again, only more wisely and
+cautiously. They came crawling from every part of the ship's compass.
+Newcomers were warned whisperingly to keep from applause. In vain. An
+enraptured greenhorn shouted 'Encore!' The musician awoke from his
+trance, stared dreamily at the Philistines; then, as the presence of
+listeners registered itself upon his expressive countenance, he rose
+again--but this time as more in sorrow than in anger--and stalked
+sublimely up the swarming stairs.
+
+It became a tradition to post guards at the doors to warn all comers
+as to the habits of the great unknown, who could only beat his music
+out if he imagined himself unheard. Scouts watched his afternoon
+advance upon the piano in an empty hall, and the word was passed to
+the little army of music-lovers. Silently the rats gathered, scurrying
+in on noiseless paws, stealing into the chairs, swarming about the
+doorways, pricking up their ears in the corridors. And through the
+awful hush rose the master's silvery notes in rapturous self-oblivion
+till the day began to wane, and the stewards to appear with the
+tea-cups.
+
+And the larger his audience grew, the fiercer grew his resentment
+against this complacent Christendom which took so much from the Jew
+and gave so little. 'Shylocks!' he would mutter between his clenched
+teeth as he played--'Shylocks all!'
+
+
+IV
+
+With no less punctuality did Rozenoffski pace the silent deck each
+night in the hope of again meeting the red-haired Jewess. He had soon
+recovered from her menial office; indeed, the paradox of her position
+in so anti-Semitic a household quickened his interest in her. He
+wondered if she ever listened to his playing, or had realized that
+she had entertained an angel unawares.
+
+But three nights passed without glimpse of her. Nor was her mistress
+more visible. The Wilhammers kept royally to themselves in their
+palatial suite, though the husband sometimes deigned to parade his
+fangs in the smoking-room, where with the luck of the rich he won
+heavily in the pools. It was not till the penultimate night of the
+voyage that Rozenoffski caught his second glimpse of his red-haired
+muse. He had started his nocturnal pacing much earlier than usual, for
+the inevitable concert on behalf of marine charities had sucked the
+loungers from their steamer-chairs. He had himself, of course, been
+approached by the programme-organizer, a bouncing actress from
+'Frisco, with an irresistible air, but he had defeated her hopelessly
+with the mysterious sarcasm: 'To meet the Bright Lights?' And his
+reward was to have the deck and the heavens almost to himself, and
+presently to find the stars outgleamed by a girl's hair. Yes, there
+she was, gazing pensively forth from the cabin window. He guessed the
+mistress was out for once--presumably at the concert. His heart beat
+faster as he came to a standstill, yet the reminder that she was a
+lady's maid brought an involuntary note of condescension into his
+voice.
+
+'I hope Mrs. Wilhammer hasn't been keeping you too imprisoned?' he
+said.
+
+She smiled faintly. 'Not so close as Neptune has kept her.'
+
+'Ill?' he said, with a shade of malicious satisfaction.
+
+'It is curious and even consoling to see the limitations of Croesus,'
+she replied. 'But she is lucky--she just recovered in time.'
+
+'In time for what?'
+
+'Can't you hear?'
+
+Indeed, the shrill notes of an amateur soprano had been rending the
+air throughout, but they had scarcely penetrated through his
+exaltation. He now shuddered.
+
+'Do you mean it is she singing?'
+
+The girl laughed outright. 'She sing! No, no, she is a sensitive
+receiver. She receives; she gives out nothing. She exploits her soul
+as her husband exploits the globe. There isn't a sensation or an
+emotion she denies herself--unless it is painful. It was to escape the
+concert that she has left her couch--and sought refuge in a friend's
+cabin. You see, here sound travels straight from the dining-hall, and
+a false note, she says, gives her nerve-ache.'
+
+'Then she can't return till the close of the concert,' he said
+eagerly. 'Won't you come outside and walk a bit under this beautiful
+moon?'
+
+She came out without a word, with the simplicity of a comrade.
+
+'Yes, it is a beautiful night,' she said, 'and very soon I shall be in
+Russia.'
+
+'But is Mrs. Wilhammer going to Russia, then?' he asked, with a sudden
+thought, wondering that it had never occurred to him before.
+
+'Of course not! I only joined her for this voyage. I have to work my
+passage, you see, and Providence, on the eve of sailing, robbed Mrs.
+Wilhammer of her maid.'
+
+'Oh!' he murmured in relief. His red-haired muse was going back to
+her social pedestal. 'But you must have found it humiliating,' he
+said.
+
+'Humiliating?' She laughed cheerfully. 'Why more than manicuring her?'
+
+The muse shivered again on the pedestal.
+
+'Manicuring?' he echoed in dismay.
+
+'Sure!' she laughed in American. 'When, after a course of starvation
+and medicine at Berne University, I found I had to get a new degree
+for America....'
+
+'You are a doctor?' he interrupted.
+
+'And, therefore, peculiarly serviceable as a ship-maid.'
+
+She smiled again, and her smile in the moonlight reminded him of a
+rippling passage of Chopin. Prosaic enough, however, was what she went
+on to tell him of her struggle for life by day and for learning by
+night. 'Of course, I could only attend the night medical school. I
+lived by lining cloaks with fur; my bed was the corner of a room
+inhabited by a whole family. A would-be graduate could not be seen
+with bundles; for fetching and carrying the work my good landlady
+extorted twenty cents to the dollar. When the fur season was slack I
+cooked in a restaurant, worked a typewriter, became a "hello girl"--at
+a telephone, you know--reported murder cases--anything, everything.'
+
+'Manicuring,' he recalled tenderly.
+
+'Manicuring,' she repeated smilingly. 'And you ask me if it is
+humiliating to wait upon an artistic sea-sick lady!'
+
+'Artistic!' he sneered. His heart was full of pity and indignation.
+
+'As surely as sea-sick!' she rejoined laughingly. 'Why are you
+prejudiced against her?'
+
+He flushed. 'Prej-prejudiced?' he stammered. 'Why should I be
+prejudiced? From all I hear it's she that's prejudiced. It's a wonder
+she took a Jewess into her service.'
+
+'Where's the wonder? Don't the Southerners have negro servants?' she
+asked quietly.
+
+His flush deepened. 'You compare Jews to negroes!'
+
+'I apologize to the negroes. The blacks have at least Liberia. There
+is a black President, a black Parliament. We have nothing, nothing!'
+
+'We!' Again that ambiguous plural. But he still instinctively evaded
+co-classification.
+
+'Nothing?' he retorted. 'I should have said everything. Every gift of
+genius that Nature can shower from her cornucopia.'
+
+'Jewish geniuses!' Her voice had a stinging inflection. 'Don't talk to
+me of our geniuses; it is they that have betrayed us. Every other
+people has its great men; but our great men--they belong to every
+other people. The world absorbs our sap, and damns us for our putrid
+remains. Our best must pipe alien tunes and dance to the measures of
+the heathen. They build and paint; they write and legislate. But never
+a song of Israel do they fashion, nor a picture of Israel, nor a law
+of Israel, nor a temple of Israel. Bah! What are they but hirelings?'
+
+Again the passion of her patriotism uplifted and enkindled him. Yes,
+it was true. He, too, was but a hireling. But he would become a
+Master; he would go back--back to the Ghetto, and this noble Jewess
+should be his mate. Thank God he had kept himself free for her. But
+ere he could pour out his soul, the bouncing San Franciscan actress
+appeared suddenly at his elbow, risking a last desperate assault,
+discharging a pathetic tale of a comedian with a cold. Rozenoffski
+repelled the attack savagely, but before he could exhaust the enemy's
+volubility his red-haired companion had given him a friendly nod and
+smile, and retreated into her shrine of duty.
+
+
+V
+
+He spent a sleepless but happy night, planning out their future
+together; her redemption from her hireling status, their joint work
+for their people. He was no longer afraid of the sea. He was afraid of
+nothing--not even of the _pogroms_ that awaited them in Russia. Russia
+itself became dear to him again--the beautiful land of his boyhood,
+whose birds and whispering leaves and waters had made his earliest
+music.
+
+But dearer than all resurged his Jewish memories. When he went almost
+mechanically to the piano on the last afternoon, all these slumbering
+forces wakened in him found vent in a rhapsody of synagogue melody to
+which he abandoned himself, for once forgetting his audience. When
+gradually he became aware of the incongruity, it did but intensify his
+inspiration. Let the heathen rats wallow in Hebrew music! But soon all
+self-consciousness passed away again, drowned in his deeper self.
+
+It was a strange fantasia that poured itself through his obedient
+fingers; it held the wistful chants of ancient ritual, the festival
+roulades and plaintive yearnings of melodious cantors, the sing-song
+augmentation of Talmud-students oscillating in airless study-houses,
+the long, melancholy drone of Psalm-singers in darkening Sabbath
+twilights, the rustle of palm-branches and sobbings of penitence, the
+long-drawn notes of the ram's horn pealing through the Terrible Days,
+the passionate proclamation of the Unity, storming the gates of
+heaven. And fused with these merely physical memories, there flowed
+into the music the peace of Sabbath evenings and shining candles, the
+love and wonder of childhood's faith, the fantasy of Rabbinic legend,
+the weirdness of penitential prayers in raw winter dawns, the holy joy
+of the promised Zion, when God would wipe away the tears from all
+faces.
+
+There were tears to be wiped from his own face when he ended, and he
+wiped them brazenly, unresentful of the frenzied approval of the
+audience, which now let itself go, out of stored-up gratitude, and
+because this must be the last performance. All his vanity, his
+artistic posing, was swallowed up in utter sincerity. He did not shut
+the piano; he sat brooding a moment or two in tender reverie. Suddenly
+he perceived his red-haired muse at his side. Ah, she had discovered
+him at last, knew him simultaneously for the genius and the patriot,
+was come to pour out her soul at his feet. But why was she mute? Why
+was she tendering this scented letter? Was it because she could not
+trust herself to speak before the crowd? He tore open the delicate
+envelope. _Himmel!_ what was this? Would the maestro honour Mrs.
+Wilhammer by taking tea in her cabin?
+
+He stared dazedly at the girl, who remained respectful and silent.
+
+'Did you not hear what I was playing?' he murmured.
+
+'Oh yes--a synagogue medley,' she replied quietly. 'They publish it on
+the East Side, _nicht wahr_?'
+
+'East Side?' He was outraged. 'I know nothing of East Side.' Her
+absolute unconsciousness of his spiritual tumult, her stolidity before
+this spectacle of his triumphant genius, her matter-of-fact acceptance
+of his racial affinity, her refusal to be impressed by the heroism of
+a Hebrew pianoforte solo, all she said and did not say, jarred upon
+his quivering nerves, chilled his high emotion. 'Will you say I shall
+have much pleasure?' he added coldly.
+
+The red-haired maid nodded and was gone. Rozenoffski went mechanically
+to his cabin, scarcely seeing the worshippers he plodded through;
+presently he became aware that he was changing his linen, brushing his
+best frock-coat, thrilling with pleasurable excitement.
+
+Anon he was tapping at the well-known door. A voice--of another
+sweetness--cried 'Come!' and instantly he had the sensation that his
+touch on the handle had launched upon him, as by some elaborate
+electric contrivance, a tall and beautiful American, a rustling
+tea-gown, a shimmer of rings, a reek of patchouli, and a flood of
+compliment.
+
+'So delightful of you to come--I know you men of genius are
+_farouches_--it was awfully insolent of me, I know, but you have
+forgiven me, haven't you?'
+
+'The pleasure is mine, gracious lady,' he murmured in German.
+
+'_Ach_, so you are a German,' she replied in the same tongue. 'I
+thought no American or Englishman could have so much divine fire. You
+see, _mein Herr_, I do not even know your name--only your genius.
+Every afternoon I have lain here, lapped in your music, but I might
+never have had the courage to thank you had you not played that
+marvellous thing just now--such delicious heartbreak, such adorable
+gaiety, and now and then the thunder of the gods! I'm afraid you'll
+think me very ignorant--it wasn't Grieg, was it?'
+
+He looked uncomfortable. 'Nothing so good, I fear--a mere impromptu of
+my own.'
+
+'Your own!' She clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'Oh,
+where can I get it?'
+
+'East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her
+down, and replied uneasily: 'You can't get it. It just came to me this
+afternoon. It came--and it has gone.'
+
+'What a pity!' But she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and
+riotous extravagance of genius. 'I do hope you will try to remember
+it.'
+
+'Impossible--it was just a mood.'
+
+'And to think of all the other moods I seem to have missed! Why have I
+not heard you in America?'
+
+He grew red. 'I--I haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'You see,
+I'm not much known outside a few European circles.' Then, summoning up
+all his courage, he threw down his name 'Rozenoffski' like a bomb, and
+the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. But no
+explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so
+lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers.
+
+'Oh, but America _must_ know you, Herr Rozenoffski. You must promise
+me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' And,
+seeing the cloud on his face, she cried: 'You must, you must, you
+must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.'
+
+He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should
+remember.
+
+'You have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but
+positively everybody has played at my house in Chicago.'
+
+'_Ach so!_' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified
+the attitude of these Americans? Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer
+had really been too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish
+behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even seen his letter?
+had her secretary presumed to guard her from Semitic invaders? Or was
+she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any
+case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; it would be the
+silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been
+rejected.
+
+'It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the
+temptress.
+
+'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,'
+he replied tactfully.
+
+'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed
+him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off,
+you know; I shall follow you about Europe--to all your concerts.'
+
+When he left her--after inscribing his autograph, his permanent Munich
+address, and the earliest possible date for his Chicago concert, in a
+dainty diary brought in by her red-haired maid--his whole being was
+swelling, expanding. He had burst the coils of this narrow tribalism
+that had suddenly retwined itself round him; he had got back again
+from the fusty conventicles and the sunless Ghettos--back to spacious
+salons and radiant hostesses and the great free life of art. He drew
+deep breaths of sea-air as he paced the deck, strewn so thickly with
+pleasant passengers to whom he felt drawn in a renewed sense of the
+human brotherhood. _Rishus_, forsooth!
+
+
+
+
+SAMOOBORONA
+
+
+
+
+SAMOOBORONA
+
+
+I
+
+Milovka was to be the next place reddened on the map of Holy Russia.
+The news of the projected Jewish massacre in this little Polish town
+travelled to the _Samooborona_ (Self-Defence) Headquarters in Southern
+Russia through the indiscretion of a village pope who had had a drop
+of blood too much. It appeared that Milovka, though remote from the
+great centres of disturbance, had begun to seethe with political
+activity, and even to publish a newspaper, so that it was necessary to
+show by a first-class massacre that true Russian men were still loyal
+to God and the Czar. Milovka lay off the _pogrom_ route, and had not
+of itself caught the contagion; careful injection of the virus was
+necessary. Moreover, the town was two-thirds Jewish, and consequently
+harder to fever with the lust of Jewish blood. But in revenge the
+_pogrom_ would be easier; the Jewish quarter formed a practically
+separate town; no asking of _dvorniks_ (janitors) to point out the
+Jewish apartments, no arming one's self with photographs of the
+victims; one had but to run amuck among these low wooden houses, the
+humblest of which doubtless oozed with inexhaustible subterranean
+wealth.
+
+David Ben Amram was hurriedly despatched to Milovka to organize a
+local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be
+stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding
+cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was
+just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and
+as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with
+thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated
+Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards the end he got into
+conversation with an old Russian peasant who, so far from sharing in
+the general political effervescence, made a long lament over the good
+old days of serfdom. 'Then, one had not to think--one ate and drank.
+Now, it is all toil and trouble.'
+
+'But you were whipped at your lord's pleasure,' David reminded him.
+
+'He was a nobleman,' retorted the peasant with dignity.
+
+David fell silent. The Jew, too, had grown to kiss the rod. But it was
+not even a nobleman's rod; any moujik, any hooligan, could wield it.
+But, thank Heaven, this breed of Jew was passing away--killed by the
+_pogroms_. It was their one virtue.
+
+At the station he hired a ramshackle droshky, and told his Jewish
+driver to take him to the best inn. Seated astride the old-fashioned
+bench of the vehicle, and grasping his violin-case like a loving
+musician, as they jolted over the rough roads, he broached the subject
+of the Jewish massacres.
+
+'_Be!_' commented the driver, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are in
+_Goluth_ (exile)!' He spoke with resignation, but not with
+apprehension, and David perceived at once that Milovka would not be
+easy to arouse. As every man thought every other man mortal, so
+Milovka regarded the massacres as a terrible reality--for other towns.
+It was no longer even shocked; Kishineff had been a horror almost
+beyond belief, but Jew-massacres had since become part of the natural
+order, which babes were born into.
+
+
+II
+
+The landlord shook his head.
+
+'All our rooms are full.'
+
+David, still hugging his violin-case, looked at the dirty,
+mustard-smeared tablecloth on the long table, and at the host's brats
+playing on the floor. If this was the best, what in Heaven's name
+awaited him elsewhere?
+
+'For how long?' he asked.
+
+The landlord shrugged his shoulders like the driver. 'Am I the
+All-knowing?'
+
+He wore a black velvet cap, but not with the apex that would have
+professed piety. Its square cut indicated to the younger generation
+that he was a man of the world, in touch with the times; to the old
+its material and hue afforded sufficient guarantee of ritual
+orthodoxy. He was a true host, the friend of all who eat and drink.
+
+'But how many rooms have you?' inquired David.
+
+'And how many shall I have but one?' protested the landlord.
+
+'Only one room!' David turned upon the driver. 'And you said this was
+the best inn! I suppose it's your brother-in-law's.'
+
+'And what do I make out of it, if it is?' answered the driver. 'You
+see he can't take you.'
+
+'Then why did you bring me?'
+
+'Because there is no room anywhere else either.'
+
+'What!' David stared.
+
+'Law of Moses!' corroborated the landlord good-humouredly, 'you've
+just come at the recruiting. The young men have flocked here from all
+the neighbouring villages to draw their numbers. There are heathen
+peasants in all the Jewish inns--eating _kosher_,' he added with a
+chuckle.
+
+David frowned. But he reflected instantly that if this was so, the
+_pogrom_ would probably be postponed till the Christian conscripts had
+been packed off to their regiments or the lucky ones back to their
+villages. He would have time, therefore, to organize his Jewish corps.
+Yes, he reflected in grim amusement, Russia and he would be recruiting
+simultaneously. Still, where was he to sleep?
+
+'You can have the _lezhanka_,' said the host, following his thoughts.
+
+David looked ruefully at the high stove. Well, there were worse beds
+in winter than the top of a stove. And perhaps to bestow himself and
+his violin in such very public quarters would be the safest way of
+diverting police attention. 'Conspirators, please copy,' he thought,
+with a smile. Anyhow, he was very tired. He could refresh himself
+here; the day was yet young; time enough to find a better lodging.
+
+'Bring in the luggage,' he said resignedly.
+
+'Tea?' said the host, hovering over the samovar.
+
+'Haven't you a drop of vodka?'
+
+The landlord held up hands of horror. '_Monopolka?_' (monopoly), he
+cried.
+
+'Haven't they left any Jewish licenses?' asked David.
+
+'Not unless one mixed holy water with the vodka, like the baptized
+Benjamin,' said the landlord with grim humour. He added hastily: 'But
+his inn is even fuller than mine, four beds in the room.'
+
+It appeared that the dinner was already over, and David could obtain
+nothing but half-warmed remains. However, hunger and hope gave sauce
+to the miserable meal, and he profited by the absence of custom to
+pump the landlord anent the leading citizens.
+
+'But you will not get violin lessons from any of them,' his host
+warned him. 'Tinowitz the corn-factor has daughters who are said to
+read Christian story-books, but is it likely he will risk their
+falling in love with a young man whose hair and clothes are cut like a
+Christian's? Not that I share his prejudices, of course. I have seen
+the great world, and understand that it is possible to carry a
+handkerchief on the Sabbath and still be a good man.'
+
+'I haven't come to give lessons in music,' said David bluntly, 'but in
+shooting.'
+
+'Shooting?' The landlord stared. 'Aren't you a Jew, then, sir? I beg
+your pardon.' His voice had suddenly taken on the same ring as when he
+addressed the _Poritz_ (Polish nobleman). His oleaginous familiarity
+was gone.
+
+'_Salachti!_' (I have forgiven), said David in Hebrew, and laughed at
+the man's bemused visage. 'Don't you think, considering what has been
+happening, it is high time the Jews of Milovka learned to shoot?'
+
+The landlord looked involuntarily round the room for a possible spy.
+'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.
+
+David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'
+
+'God forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'
+
+David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say
+I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the
+landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began
+to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who
+knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all
+those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New
+Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a
+_Shidduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your
+life.'
+
+'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'
+
+'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take
+you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'
+
+'Ah, so you're a regular _Shadchan_' (marriage-broker).
+
+'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But
+people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle
+of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the
+ordinary _Shadchan_.'
+
+'But I am so _link_' (irreligious).
+
+'_Nu!_ Let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' Mine host
+had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.
+
+'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden
+thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not
+fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'
+
+The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'
+
+
+III
+
+Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor
+disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face--a face in
+whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his
+surplus stock of daughters.
+
+'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is
+it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even
+the eldest----'
+
+David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage
+that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my _Chutzpah_
+(impudence)!'
+
+'But the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----'
+
+'To tell the truth, _Panie_ Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned
+my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to
+prevent funerals!'
+
+The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'
+
+'A _pogrom_ is threatened----'
+
+'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.
+
+'If you prefer silence and slaughter----' said David, with a shrug.
+
+'It is impossible--here!'
+
+'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight
+other towns?'
+
+'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian
+live together like brothers.'
+
+'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while
+Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'
+
+The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tinowitz than a
+wilderness of arguments.
+
+'Then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips.
+
+'To form a branch of the _Samooborona_. You must first summon a
+meeting of householders.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'For a general committee--and for the expenses.'
+
+'But how can we hold a meeting? The police----'
+
+'There's the synagogue.'
+
+'Profane the synagogue!'
+
+'Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?'
+
+'Yes, but to pray.'
+
+'We will pray by pistol.'
+
+'Guard your tongue!'
+
+'Guard your daughters.'
+
+'The Uppermost will guard them.'
+
+'The Uppermost guards them through me, as He feeds them through you.
+For the last time I ask you, will you or will you not summon me a
+meeting of householders?'
+
+'You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you will _not_ be my
+son-in-law.'
+
+Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call
+the next day.
+
+When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the
+corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours
+reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his
+wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt.
+
+
+IV
+
+The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was
+promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had
+likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord
+had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls,
+David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His
+other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young
+Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for
+the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart.
+Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they
+might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal
+lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and
+was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka,
+and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly
+prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared
+important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the
+drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting.
+
+Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted
+upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and
+dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and
+stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting
+fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he
+added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered
+to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged
+window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever
+he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory
+ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the
+gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair,
+gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under
+difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most
+desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the
+secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed,
+scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him
+engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the
+forces of law and order.
+
+He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black
+Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer
+must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten,
+had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must
+defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the _Samooborona_.
+Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be
+organized as a column of axe-bearers. There would be needed also an
+ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.
+
+The shudder at the first mention of the _pogrom_ was not so violent as
+that which followed the mention of bandages. Each man felt warm blood
+trickling down his limbs. To what end, then, had he escaped the
+conscription? The landlord at the window wiped the cold beads off his
+brow, and was surprised to find his hand not scarlet.
+
+'Brethren,' Koski the timber-merchant burst out, 'this is a Haman in
+disguise. To hold firearms is the surest way of provoking----'
+
+'I don't say _you_ shall hold firearms!' David interrupted. 'It is
+your young men who must defend the town. But the _Kahal_
+(congregation) must pay the expenses--say, ten thousand roubles to
+start with.'
+
+'Ten thousand roubles for a few pistols!' cried Mendel the
+horse-dealer. 'It is a swindle.'
+
+David flushed. 'We have to buy three pistols for every one we get
+safely into the town. But one revolver may save ten thousand roubles
+of property, not to mention your life.'
+
+'It will end our lives, not save them!' persisted the timber-merchant.
+'This is a plot to destroy us!'
+
+A growl of assent burst from the others.
+
+'My friends,' said David quietly. 'A plot to destroy you has already
+been hatched; the question is, are you going to be destroyed like rats
+or like men?'
+
+'Pooh!' said the horse-dealer. 'This is not the first time we have
+been threatened, if not with death, at least with extra taxes; but we
+have always sent _Shtadlonim_ (ambassadors). We will make a
+collection, and the president of the _Kahal_ shall go at once to the
+Governor, and present it to him'--here Mendel winked--'to enable him
+to take measures against the _pogrom_.'
+
+'The Governor is in the plot,' said David.
+
+'He can be bought out,' said the timber-merchant.
+
+'_Pogroms_ are more profitable than presents,' rejoined David drily.
+'Let us rather prepare bombs.' A fresh shudder traversed the beds and
+the chairs, and agitated the window-curtain.
+
+'Bombs! Presents!' burst forth the old Rabbi. 'These are godless
+instruments. We are in the hands of the Holy One--blessed be He! The
+_Shomer_ (Guardian) of Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.'
+
+'Neither does the _Shochet_ (slaughterer) of Israel,' said David
+savagely.
+
+'Hush! Epicurean!' came from every quarter at this grim jest; for the
+_Shomer_ and the _Shochet_ are the official twain of ritual butchery.
+
+The landlord, seeing how the tide was turning, added, 'Brazen
+_Marshallik_ (buffoon)!'
+
+'I will appoint a day of fasting and prayer,' concluded the Rabbi
+solemnly.
+
+A breath of reassurance wafted through the room. 'And I, Rabbi,' said
+Guetels the grocer, 'will supply the synagogue with candles to equal in
+length the graves of all your predecessors.'
+
+'May thy strength increase, Guetels!' came the universal gratitude, and
+the landlord at the window-curtain drew a great sigh of relief.
+
+'Still, gentlemen,' he said, 'if I may intrude my humble opinion--Reb
+Mendel's advice is also good. God is, of course, our only protection.
+But there can be no harm in getting, _lehavdil_ (not to compare them),
+the Governor's protection too.'
+
+'True, true.' And the faces grew still cheerier.
+
+'In God's name, wake up!' David burst forth. 'In _Samooborona_ lies
+your only salvation. Give the money to us, not to the Governor. We can
+meet and practise in your Talmud-Torah Hall!'
+
+'The holy hall of study!' gasped the Rabbi. 'Given over to unlawful
+meetings!'
+
+'The hooligans will meet there, if you don't,' said David grimly.
+'Don't you see it is the safest place for us? The police associate it
+only with learned weaklings.'
+
+'Hush, Haman!' said the timber-merchant, and rose to go. David's voice
+changed to passion; memories of things he had seen came over him as in
+a red mist: an old man scalped with a sharp ladle; a white-hot poker
+driven through a woman's eye; a baby's skull ground under a True
+Russian's heel. 'Bourgeois!' he thundered, 'I will save you despite
+yourselves.' The landlord signalled in a frenzy, but David continued
+recklessly, 'Will you never learn manli----'
+
+They flung themselves upon him in a panic, and held him hand-gagged
+and struggling upon the bed.
+
+Suddenly a new figure burst into the room. There was a blood-freezing
+instant in which all gave themselves up for lost. Their grip on David
+relaxed. Then the mist cleared, and they saw it was only Ezekiel
+Leven.
+
+'Blessed art thou who comest!' cried David, jumping to his feet. 'You
+and I, Ezekiel, will save Milovka.'
+
+'Alas!' Ezekiel groaned. 'I drew a low number--I go to fight for
+Russia.'
+
+
+V
+
+Fifteen thousand roubles were soon collected for the Governor, but
+even before they were presented to him the Rabbi, in mortal terror of
+that firebrand of a David, had rushed to inquire whether Self-Defence
+was legal, and might the Talmud-Torah Hall be legitimately used for
+drilling. Sharp came an order that Jews found with firearms or in
+conclave for non-religious purposes should be summarily shot. And so,
+when the _Shtadlonim_ arrived with the fifteen thousand roubles, the
+Governor was able to point out severely that if a _pogrom_ did occur
+they would have only themselves to blame. The Jews of Milovka had
+begun to carry pistols like revolutionaries; they planned illegal
+assemblies in halls; was it to be wondered at if the League of True
+Russians grew restive? However, he would do his best with these
+inadequate roubles to have extra precautions taken, but let them root
+out the evil weeds that had sprung up in their midst, else even his
+authority might be overborne by the righteous indignation of the loyal
+children of the Little Father. Tremblingly the Ambassadors crept back
+with their empty money-bags.
+
+Poor David now found it impossible to get anybody to a meeting. His
+landlord had forbidden any more gatherings in the inn, and his
+original audience would have called as a deputation upon David to beg
+him to withdraw from the town, but that might have been considered a
+conspirative meeting. So one of the Ambassadors was sent to inform the
+landlord instead.
+
+'Don't you think I've already ordered him off my premises?'
+
+'But he is still here!'
+
+'Alas! He threatens to shoot me--or anybody who _massers_ (informs),'
+said the poor landlord.
+
+The Ambassador shivered.
+
+'As if I would betray a brother-in-Israel!' added the landlord
+reproachfully.
+
+'No, no--of course not,' said the Ambassador. 'These fellows are best
+left alone; they wear fuses under their waistcoats instead of
+_Tsitsith_ (ritual fringes). Let us hope, however, a sudden death may
+rid us of him.'
+
+'Amen,' said the landlord fervently.
+
+Not that David had any reason for clinging to so squalid a hostel. But
+his blood was up, and he took a malicious pleasure in inflicting his
+perilous presence upon his prudential host.
+
+Reduced now to buttonholing individuals, he consoled himself with the
+thought that the population was best tackled by units. One fool or
+coward was enough to infect or betray a whole gathering.
+
+Still intent on the sinews of war, he sallied out after breakfast, and
+approached Erbstein the Banker. Erbstein held up his hands. 'But I've
+just given a thousand roubles to guard us from a _pogrom_!'
+
+'That was for the Governor. Give me only a hundred for Self-Defence.'
+
+The Banker puffed tranquilly at his big cigar. 'But our rights are
+bound to come in the end. We can only get them gradually. Full rights
+now are nonsense--impossible. It is bad tactics to ask for what you
+cannot get. Only in common with Russia can our emancipation----'
+
+'I am not talking of our rights, but of our lives.' David grew
+impatient.
+
+Being a Banker, Erbstein never listened, though he invariably replied.
+His success in finance had made him an authority upon religion and
+politics.
+
+'Trust the Octobrists,' he said cheerily.
+
+'I'd rather trust our revolvers.'
+
+The Banker's cigar fell from his mouth.
+
+'An anarchist! like my nephew Simon!'
+
+David began to realize the limitations of the financial intellect. He
+saw that to get ideas into Bankers' brains is even more difficult than
+to get cheques from their pockets. Still, there was that promising
+scapegrace Simon! He hurried out on his scent, and ran him to earth in
+a cosy house near the town gate. Simon practised law, it appeared, and
+his surname was Rubensky.
+
+The young barrister, informed of his uncle's accusation of anarchism,
+laughed contemptuously. 'Bourgeois! Every idea that makes no money he
+calls anarchy. As a matter of fact, I'm the exact opposite of an
+anarchist: I'm a socialist. I belong to the P.P.S. We're not even
+revolutionary like the S.R.'s.'
+
+'I'm afraid I'm a great ignoramus,' said David. 'I don't even know
+what all these letters stand for.'
+
+Simon Rubensky looked pityingly as at a bourgeois.
+
+'S.R.'s are the silly Social Revolutionists; I belong to the Polish
+Party of Socialism.'
+
+'Ah!' said David, with an air of comprehension. 'And I belong to the
+Jewish Party of Self-Defence! I hope you'll join it too.'
+
+The young lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no!
+That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of
+the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must
+be worked out in common with Russia's.'
+
+'Oh, then you agree with your uncle!'
+
+'With that bourgeois! Never! But we are Poles of the Mosaic
+Faith--Jewish Poles, not Polish Jews.'
+
+'The hooligans are murdering both impartially.'
+
+'And the Intellectuals equally,' rejoined Simon.
+
+'But the Intellectuals will triumph over the Reactionaries,' said
+David passionately, 'and then both will trample on the Jews. Didn't
+the Hungarian Jews join Kossuth? And yet after Hungary's freedom was
+won----'
+
+Simon's wife and sister here entered the room, and he introduced David
+smilingly as a Ghetto reactionary. The young women--sober-clad
+students from a Swiss University--opened wide shocked eyes.
+
+'So young, too!' Simon's wife murmured wonderingly.
+
+'Would you have me stand by and see our people murdered?'
+
+'Certainly,' she said, 'rather than see the _Zeitgeist_ set back. The
+unconditional historic necessity will carry us on of itself towards a
+better social state.'
+
+'There you go with your Marx and your Hegel!' cried Simon's sister. 'I
+object to your historic materialism. With Fichte, I assert----'
+
+'She is an S.R.,' Simon interrupted her to explain.
+
+'Ah,' said David. 'Not a P.P.S. like you and your wife.'
+
+'Simon, did you tell him I was a P.P.S.?' inquired his wife
+indignantly.
+
+'No, no, of course not. A Ghetto reactionary does not understand
+modern politics. My wife is an S.D., I regret to say.'
+
+'But I have heard of Social Democrats!' said David triumphantly.
+
+Simon's sister sniffed. 'Of course! Because they are a bourgeois
+party--risking nothing, waiting passively till the Revolution drops
+into their hands.'
+
+'The name of bourgeois would be better applied to those who include
+the landed peasants among their forces,' said Simon's wife angrily.
+
+'If I might venture to suggest,' said David soothingly, 'all these
+differences would be immaterial if you joined the _Samooborona_. I
+could make excellent use of you ladies in the ambulance department.'
+
+'Outrageous!' cried Simon angrily. 'Our place is shoulder to shoulder
+with our fellow-Poles.'
+
+Simon's sister intervened gently. Perhaps the mention of ambulances
+had awakened sympathy in her S.R. soul. 'You ought to look among your
+own Party,' she said.
+
+'My Party?'
+
+'The Ghetto reactionaries--Zionists, Territorialists, Itoists, or
+whatever they call themselves nowadays.'
+
+'Are there any here?' cried David eagerly.
+
+'One heard of nothing else,' cried Simon bitterly. 'Fortunately, when
+the police found they weren't really emigrating to Zion or Uganda, the
+meetings were stopped.'
+
+David eagerly took down names. Simon particularly recommended two
+young men, Grodsky and Lerkoff, who had at least the grace of
+Socialism.
+
+But Grodsky, David found, had his own panacea. 'Only the S.S.'s,' he
+said, 'can save Israel.'
+
+'What are S.S.'s?' David asked.
+
+'Socialistes Sionistes.'
+
+'But can't there be Socialism outside Zion?'
+
+'Of course. We have evolved from Zionism. The unconditional historic
+necessity is for a land, but not for a particular land. Our Minsk
+members already call themselves S.T.'s--Socialist Territorialists.'
+
+'But while awaiting your territory, there are the hooligans,' David
+reminded him. 'Simon Rubensky thought you would be a good man for the
+self-defence corps.'
+
+'Join Rubensky! A P.P.S.! Never will I associate with a bourgeois like
+that!'
+
+'He isn't joining.'
+
+The S.S. hesitated. 'I must consult my fellow-members. I must write to
+headquarters.'
+
+'Letters do not travel very quickly or safely nowadays.'
+
+'But Party Discipline is everything,' urged Grodsky.
+
+David left him, and hunted up Lerkoff, who proved to be a doctor.
+
+'I want to get together a _Samooborona_ branch,' he explained. 'Herr
+Grodsky has half promised----'
+
+'That bourgeois!' cried Lerkoff in disgust. 'We can have nothing to do
+with traitors like that!'
+
+'Why are they traitors?' David asked.
+
+'All Territorialists are traitors. We Poali Zion must jealously guard
+the sacred flame of Socialism and Nationality, since only in Palestine
+can our social problem be solved.'
+
+'Why only in Palestine?' inquired David mildly.
+
+The P.Z. glared. 'Palestine is an unconditional historic necessity.
+The attempt to form a Jewish State elsewhere can only result in
+failure and disappointment. Do you not see how the folk-instinct leads
+them to Palestine? No less than four thousand have gone there this
+year.'
+
+'And a hundred and fifty thousand to America. How about that
+folk-instinct?'
+
+'Oh, these are the mere bourgeois. I see you are an Americanist
+Assimilator.'
+
+'I am no more an A.A. than I am a Z.Z.,' said David tartly, adding
+with a smile, 'if there is such a thing as a Z.Z.'
+
+'Would to Heaven there were not!' said Lerkoff fervently. 'It is these
+miserable Zioni-Zionists, with their incapacity for political
+concepts, who----'
+
+Milovka, amid all its medievalism, possessed a few incongruous
+telephones, and one of these now started ringing violently in Dr.
+Lerkoff's study.
+
+'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'talk of the devil. There is a man who combines
+all the worst qualities of the Z.Z.'s and the Mizrachi. He also
+imagines he has a throat disease due to swallowing flecks of the furs
+he deals in.' After which harangue he collogued amiably with his
+patient, and said he would come instantly.
+
+'Hasn't he the disease, then?' asked David.
+
+'He has no disease except too much vanity and too much money.'
+
+'While you cure him of the first, I should like to try my hand at the
+second,' said David laughingly.
+
+'Oh, I'll introduce you, if you let me off.'
+
+'You I don't ask for money, but your medical services would be
+invaluable. Milovka is in danger.'
+
+'Milovka to the deuce!' cried Lerkoff. 'Our future lies not in
+Russia.'
+
+'I talk of our present. Do let me appoint you army surgeon.'
+
+'Next year--in Jerusalem!' replied the doctor airily.
+
+
+VI
+
+Lerkoff asked David to wait in another room while he saw Herr Cantberg
+professionally. There was an Ark with scrolls of the Law in the room,
+betiding a piety and a purse beyond the normal. Presently Lerkoff
+reappeared chuckling.
+
+'He knows all about you, you infamous rascal,' he said.
+
+'You have told him?'
+
+'_He_ told _me_; he always knows everything. You are a baptized police
+spy, posing as a P.P.S. I suppose he's heard of your visit to Herr
+Rubensky.'
+
+'But I shall undeceive him!'
+
+'Not if you want his money. Such a blow to his vanity would cost you
+dear. Go in; I did not tell him _you_ were the young man he was
+telling me of. I must fly.' The P. Z shook David's hand. 'Don't forget
+he's the bourgeois type of Zionist; his object is not to create the
+future, but to resurrect the dead past.'
+
+'And mine is to keep alive the living present. Won't you----?' But the
+doctor was gone.
+
+The Mizrachi Z.Z. proved unexpectedly small in stature and owl-like in
+expression; but his 'Be seated, sir--be seated; what can I do for
+you?' had the grand manner. It evoked a resentful chord in David.
+
+'It is something I propose to do for you,' he said bluntly. 'Milovka
+is in danger.'
+
+'It is, indeed,' said the M.Z.Z. 'When men like Dr. Lerkoff (in whose
+company I was sorry to see you) command a hearing, it is in deadly
+danger. An excellent physician, but you know the Talmudical saying:
+"Hell awaits even the best of physicians." And he calls himself a
+Zionist! Bah! he's more dangerous than that young renegade spy who
+dubs himself P.P.S.'
+
+'But he seems very zealous for Zion,' said David uneasily.
+
+Herr Cantberg shook his head dolefully. 'He'd introduce vaccination
+and serum-insertions instead of the grand old laws. As if any human
+arrangement could equal the wisdom of Sinai! And he actually scoffs at
+the Restoration of the Sacrifices!'
+
+'But do you propose to restore them?' David was astonished.
+
+The owl's eyes shone. 'What have we sacrificed ourselves for, all
+these centuries, if not for the Sacrifices? What has sanctified and
+illumined the long night of our Exile except a vision of the High
+Priest in his jewelled breastplate officiating again at the altar of
+our Holy Temple? Now at last the vision begins to take shape, the hope
+of Israel begins to shine again. Like a rosy cloud, like a crescent
+moon, like a star in the desert, like a lighthouse over lonely
+seas----'
+
+The telephone impolitely interrupted him. His fine frenzy disregarded
+the ringing, but it jangled his metaphors. 'But, alas! our people do
+not see clearly!' he broke off. 'False prophets, colossally vain--may
+their names be blotted out!--confuse the foolish crowd. But the wheat
+is being sifted from the chaff, the fine flour from the bran, the
+edible herbs from the evil weeds, and soon my people will see again
+that only I----'
+
+The telephone insisted on a hearing. Having refused to buy furs at the
+price it demanded, he resumed: 'Territorialist traitors mislead the
+masses, but in so far as they may bring relief to our unhappy people,
+I wish them Godspeed.'
+
+'But what relief can they bring?' put in David impatiently. 'Without
+Self-Defence----'
+
+'Most true. They will but kill off a few hundred people with fever and
+famine on some savage shore. But let them; it will all be to the glory
+of Zionism----'
+
+'How so?' David asked, amazed.
+
+'It will show that the godless ideals of materialists can never be
+realized, that only in its old home can Israel again be a nation. Then
+will come the moment for Me to arise----'
+
+'But the English came from Denmark. And they're nation enough!'
+
+The owl blinked angrily. 'We are the Chosen People--no historic
+parallel applies to us. As the dove returned to the ark, as the
+swallow returns to the lands of the spring, as the tide returns to the
+sands, as the stars----'
+
+'Yes, yes, I know,' said David; 'but where is there room in Palestine
+for the Russian Jews?'
+
+'Where was there room in the Temple for the millions who came up at
+Passover?' retorted Herr Cantberg crushingly.
+
+The telephone here interposed, offering the furs cheaper.
+
+'A godless Bundist!' the owl explained between the deals.
+
+'A Bundist!' David pricked up his ears. From the bravest revolutionary
+party in Russia he could surely cull a recruit or two. 'Who is he?'
+
+The owl tried to look noble, producing only a twinkle of cunning. 'Oh,
+I can't betray him; after all, he's a brother-in-Israel. Not that he
+behaves as such, opposing our candidate for the Duma! Three hundred
+and thirteen roubles,' he told the telephone sternly. 'Not a kopeck
+more. Eh? What? He's rung off, the blood-sucker!' He rang him up
+again. David made a note of the number.
+
+'But what have you Zionists to do with the Parliament in Russia?' he
+inquired of the owl.
+
+But the owl was haggling with the telephone. 'Three hundred and
+fifteen! What! Do you want to skin _me_, like your martins and
+sables?'
+
+'You are busy,' interposed David, fretting at the waste of his day. 'I
+shall take the liberty of calling again.'
+
+A telephone-book soon betrayed the Bundist's shop, and David hurried
+off to enlist him. The shopkeeper proved, however, so corpulent and
+bovine that David's heart sank. But he began bluntly: 'I know you're a
+Bundist.'
+
+'A what?' said the fur-dealer.
+
+David smiled. 'Oh, you needn't pretend with me; I'm a fighter myself.'
+He let a revolver peep out of his hip-pocket.
+
+'Help! _Gewalt!_' cried the fur-dealer.
+
+A beardless youth came running out of the back room. David laughed.
+'Herr Cantberg told me that you were a Bundist,' he explained to the
+shopkeeper. 'And I came to meet a kindred spirit. But I was warned
+Herr Cantberg is always wrong. Good-morning.'
+
+'Stop!' cried the youth. 'Go in, Reb Yitzchok; let me deal with this
+fire-eater.' And as the corpulent man retired with an improbable
+alacrity, he continued gravely: 'This time Herr Cantberg was not more
+than a hundred versts from the truth.'
+
+David smiled. '_You_ are the Bundist.'
+
+'Hush! Here I am the son-in-law. I study Talmud and eat _Kest_ (free
+food). What news from Warsaw?'
+
+'I want both you and your father-in-law,' said David evasively--'his
+money and your muscles.'
+
+'He gives no money to the Cause, save unwillingly what I squeeze out
+of Cantberg.' The youth permitted himself his first smile. 'When he
+deals with that bourgeois at the telephone, I always egg him on to
+stand out for more and more, and my profit is half the extra roubles
+we extort. But as for myself, my life, of course, is at the disposal
+of headquarters.'
+
+David was moved by this refreshing simplicity. He felt a little
+embarrassment in explaining that headquarters to him meant
+_Samooborona_, not Bund. The youth's countenance changed completely.
+
+'Defend the Jews!' he cried contemptuously. 'What have we to do with
+the Jewish bourgeoisie?'
+
+'The Bund is exclusively Jewish, is it not?'
+
+'Merely because we found the rest of the Revolutionary body too clumsy
+for words. It was always getting caught, its printing-presses exhumed,
+its leaders buried. So we split off, the better to help our
+fellow-working-men. But we are a Labour party, not a Jewish party. We
+have the whole Russian Revolution on our shoulders; how can we throw
+away our lives for the capitalists of the Milovka Ghetto? Then there
+are the elections at hand--I have to work for the Left. Ah, here come
+some of our bourgeois; ask _them_, if you like. I will keep my
+father-in-law out of the shop.'
+
+Two men in close confabulation strolled in, a third disconnected, but
+on their heels. With five Jews the concourse soon became a congress.
+
+One of the couple turned out to be a Progressive Pole. He mistook
+David for a Zionist, and denounced him for a foreigner.
+
+'We of the P.P.P.,' he said, 'will peacefully acquire equal rights
+with our fellow-Poles--nay, we shall be allowed to become Poles
+ourselves. But you Zionists are less citizens than strangers, and if
+you were logical, you would all----'
+
+'Where's your own logic?' interrupted the disconnected man. 'Why don't
+you join the P.P.N. at once?'
+
+The Progressive Pole frowned. 'The Nationalists! They are
+anti-Semites. I'd as soon join the League of True Russian Men.'
+
+'And do you trust the P.P.P.?' his companion asked him. 'I tell you,
+Nathan, that only in the Progressive Democratic Party, with its belief
+in the equality of all nationalities----'
+
+'If you want a Party free from anti-Semites,' David intervened
+desperately, 'you must join the _Samoo_----'
+
+'I fear you will get no recruits here,' interrupted the Bundist, not
+unkindly. He added with a sneer: 'These gentlemen of the P.P.P. and
+the P.P.N. and the P.P.D. are all good Poles.'
+
+'Good Poles!' echoed David no less bitterly. 'And the Poles voted _en
+bloc_ to keep every Jewish candidate out of the Duma.'
+
+'Even so we must be better Poles than they,' sublimely replied the
+member of the P.P.P. 'We are joining even the Clerical Parties of the
+Right for the good of our country. And now that the Party of National
+Concentration----'
+
+'Go to the Labour Parties,' advised the P.D. 'There you may perchance
+find sturdy young men with the necessary Ghetto taint.' Of the four
+great Labour Parties, he proceeded to recommend the P.S.D. as the most
+promising for David's purposes. 'Not the Bolshewiki faction,' he
+added, 'but the Menshewiki. Recruits might also be found in the
+Proletariat or the P.P.S.----'
+
+'No, I've tried the P.P.S.,' said David. 'But at any rate, gentlemen,
+since you must all see that the defence of our own lives is no
+undesirable object, a little contribution to our funds----'
+
+A violent chorus of protest broke out. It was scarcely credible that
+only four men were speaking. All explained elaborately that they had
+their own Party Funds, and what a tax it was to run their candidates
+for the Duma, not to mention their Party Organ.
+
+'You see,' said the Bundist, 'your only chance lies with the men of no
+Party, who have only their own bourgeois pleasures.'
+
+'Are there such?' asked David eagerly.
+
+A universal laugh greeted this inquiry.
+
+'Alas, too many!' everybody told him. 'Our people are such
+individualists.'
+
+'But where are these individualists?' cried David desperately.
+
+As if in answer, the bovine proprietor, encouraged by the laughter,
+crept in again.
+
+'You still here!' he murmured to David, taken aback.
+
+'Yes, but if you'll give me a subscription for Jewish
+Self-Defence----'
+
+'Jewish Emancipation!' cried the fur-dealer. 'Why didn't you say so at
+first?' He put his hand in his pocket. 'That's _my_ Party--or rather
+the National Group in it, the Anti-Zionist faction.'
+
+The stern Bundist laughed. 'No, he doesn't mean he's a J.E. even of
+the other faction.'
+
+His father-in-law took his hand out of his pocket.
+
+David cast a rebuking glance at the Bundist. 'Why did you interfere?
+Perhaps my way may prove the shortest to Jewish Emancipation.'
+
+His hearers smiled a superior smile, and the fur-dealer shook his
+head. 'I belong also to the Promotion of Education Party--I am for
+peaceful methods,' he announced.
+
+'So I perceived,' said David drily.
+
+To be rid of him, the Bundist gave him the address of a man who kept
+aloof from Polish politics--a bourgeois cousin of his, Belchevski by
+name, who might just as well be killed off in the _Samooborona_.
+
+But even Belchevski turned out to be a Territorialist. David
+imprudently told him he had seen his fellow-Territorialist Grodsky,
+who had half promised----
+
+'Associate with a brainless, bumptious platform-screamer!' he
+screamed. 'He's worse than the hysterical Zionists. It is a territory
+we need, not Socialism.'
+
+'I agree. But even more do we need Self-Defence.'
+
+'The only Self-Defence is to leave Russia for a land of our own.'
+
+'Five and a quarter million of us? Why, if two ships--one from Libau
+for the north, and one from Odessa for the south--sailed away every
+week, each bearing two thousand passengers, it would take over a
+quarter of a century. And by that time a new generation of us would
+have grown up.'
+
+The Territorialist looked uneasy.
+
+'Besides,' David continued, 'what new country could receive us at the
+rate of two hundred thousand a year? It would be a cemetery, not a
+country.'
+
+The Territorialist smiled disdainfully. 'Why didn't you say at first
+you were a bourgeois? The unconditional historic necessity which has
+created the I.T.O. may drive at what pace it will; enough that as soon
+as our autonomous land is ready to receive us, I intend to be in the
+first shipload.'
+
+'Have you this land, then?'
+
+'Not yet. We've only had time to draw up the Constitution. No
+Socialism as that idiot Grodsky imagines. But Democracy. Hereditary
+privileges will be abol----'
+
+'But what land _is_ there?'
+
+'Surely there are virgin lands.'
+
+'Even the virgin lands are betrothed!' said David. 'And if there was
+one still without a lord and master, it would probably be a very ugly
+and sickly virgin. And, anyhow, it will be a long wooing. So in the
+meantime let me teach you to fire a pistol.'
+
+'With all my heart--but merely to shoot wild beasts.'
+
+'That is all I am asking for,' said David grimly.
+
+Encouraged by this semi-success, David boldly called upon a
+tea-merchant quite unknown to him, and asked for a subscription to buy
+revolvers.
+
+The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of
+dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic
+measures. Let them put their trust in _Cultur_! To talk
+Hebrew--therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once
+again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea--that was true Zionism.
+
+'Then don't you want the Holy Land?' asked the astonished David.
+
+'Merely as a centre of _Cultur_. Merely as a University where Herbert
+Spencer may be studied in the tongue of the Psalmist. All the rest is
+bourgeois Zionism. Political Zionism? Economic Zionism? Pah! Mere
+tawdry imitations of heathen politics!'
+
+'Then you agree with the Chovevi Zionists!'
+
+'Not at all. Zion is less a place than a state of mind. We want
+Culture--not Agriculture; we want the evolutionary efflorescence of
+Israel's inner personality----'
+
+David fled, only to stumble upon a Nationalist who declared that
+Zionism was a caricature of true Nationalism, and Territorialism a
+cheap philanthropic substitute for it.
+
+'Then why not join in the Self-Defence of our nation?' David asked.
+
+'I will--when we are on our own soil. Your corps is a mere mockery of
+the military concept.'
+
+David found no more comfort in his interview with the member of the
+L.A.E.R., who was convinced that only in the League for the
+Advancement of Equal Rights lay the Jew's true security. It was the
+one party whose success was sure, the only one based upon an
+unconditional historic necessity.
+
+David's morning was not, however, to pass without the discovery of a
+man of no Party. And, strangely enough, he owed his find to the
+headache these innumerable Parties caused him. For, going into a
+chemist's shop for a powder, he was served by a red-bearded Jew whose
+genial face emboldened him to solicit a stock of bandages and
+antiseptics--in view of a possible _pogrom_.
+
+'But the _pogroms_ are over,' cried the chemist. 'They were but the
+expiring agonies of the old order. The reign of love is at hand, the
+brotherhood of man is beginning, and all races and creeds will
+henceforth live at peace under the new religion of science.'
+
+David's headache rose again triumphant over the powder. Even a
+partisan would be easier to convince than this sort of seer.
+
+'Why, a _pogrom_ is planned for Milovka!'
+
+'Impossible! Europe would not permit it. America would prohibit it.
+Did you not see the protest even in the Australian Parliament? Look on
+your calendar; we have reached the twentieth century, even according
+to the Christian calculation.'
+
+David returned hopelessly to his inn.
+
+Here he saw a burly Jew warming himself at the great stove. Before
+even ordering dinner, he made a last desperate attempt to save his
+morning.
+
+'Me join a Jewish Self-Defence!' The burly Jew laughed loud and
+heartily. 'Why, I'm a True Believer!'
+
+'A _Meshummad_!' David gasped. Modern as he was, the hereditary horror
+at the baptized apostate overcame him.
+
+'Yes--_I_'m safe enough,' the Convert laughed. 'I've taken the
+cold-water cure. Besides, I'm the censor of Milovka!'
+
+'Eh?' David looked like a trapped animal. The censor smiled on. 'Don't
+scowl at me like the other pious zanies. After all, you're an
+enlightened young man--a violinist, they tell me; you can't take your
+Judaism any more seriously than I take my baptism. Come--have a glass
+of vodka.'
+
+'Then, you won't inform?' David breathed.
+
+'Not unless you publish seditious Yiddish. Keep your pistols out of
+print. If my own skin is safe, that doesn't mean I'm made of stone
+like these Tartar devils. Landlord, the vodka. We'll drink confusion
+to them.'
+
+'I--I have none,' stammered the landlord. 'I haven't the right.'
+
+'There are no rights in Russia,' said the censor good-humouredly.
+
+The landlord furtively produced a big bottle.
+
+'But the idea of asking _me_ to join the Self-Defence!' chuckled the
+burly Jew. 'You might as well ask me to play the violin!' he added
+with a wink.
+
+David felt this was the first really sympathetic hearer he had met
+that morning.
+
+
+VII
+
+The vodka and a good three-course dinner (_Plotki_ for fish,
+_Lockschen_ for soup, and _Zrazy_ for joint) brought David new
+courage, and again he sallied out to recruit.
+
+This time he sought the market-place--a badly-paved square, bordered
+with small houses and congested with stalls and a grey, kaftaned
+crowd, amid which gleamed the blue blouses of the ungodly younger
+generation. He had hitherto addressed himself to the classes--he would
+hear the voice of the people.
+
+On every side the voice babbled of the Duma--babbled happily, as
+though the word was a new religious charm or a witch's incantation.
+Crude political conversations broke out amid all the business of the
+mart. He had only to listen to know how he would be answered:
+
+A blacksmith buying a new hammer stayed to argue with the vendor.
+
+'We must put our trust in the Constitutional Democrats.'
+
+'And why in the Cadets? Give me the Democrats.'
+
+'Nay, we must put our trust only in the Czar.' (This came from the
+Rabbi's wife, who was cheapening fish at the next stall.)
+
+'For shame, _Rebbitzin_! Put not your trust in Princes.'
+
+The bystanders hushed down the text-quoter--a fuzzy-headed
+butcher-boy.
+
+'Miserable Monarchists!' he sneered. 'We Jews will have no peace till
+the Republicans----'
+
+'A Republic without Socialism!' interrupted a girl with a laundry
+basket. 'What good's that? Wait till the N.S.'s----'
+
+'The D.R.'s are the only----' interrupted a phylactery-pedlar.
+
+'And who but the Labour group promises equal rights to all
+nationalities?' interrupted a girl in spectacles. 'Trust the
+_Trudowaja_----'
+
+'To the devil with the Labour Parties!' said an old-clo' man. 'Look
+how the Bundists have betrayed us. First they were bone of our bone;
+now it is they who by their recklessness provoke the _pogroms_.'
+
+The blacksmith brought his hammer down upon the stall. 'There is only
+one party to trust, and that's the C.D.'s,' he repeated.
+
+'Bourgeois!' simultaneously hissed the Republican youth and the
+Socialist lass.
+
+'My children!' It was the bland voice of Moses the _Shamash_ (beadle).
+'Violence leads to naught. Even the Viborg Manifesto was a mistake. As
+a member of the Party of Peaceful Regeneration----'
+
+'Peaceful Regeneration?' shouted the blacksmith. 'A Jew ally himself
+with the Reactionary Right, with the----!'
+
+A Cossack galloped recklessly among the serried stalls. The Jews
+scattered before him like dogs. The member of the P.P.R. crawled under
+a barrow. Even the blacksmith froze up. David drew the moral when the
+Cossack had disappeared.
+
+'Peaceful Regeneration!' he cried. 'There will be no Regeneration for
+you till you have the courage to leave Russian politics alone and to
+fight for yourselves.'
+
+'Ah, you're a Maximalist,' said the beadle.
+
+'No, I am only a Minimalist. I merely want the minimum--that we save
+our own lives.'
+
+It was asking too little. The poor Russian Jews, like the rich Russian
+Jews, were largely occupied in saving the world, or, at least, Holy
+Russia. Crushed by such an excess of Christianity, David wandered
+round the market-place, looking into the bordering houses. In one of
+the darkest and dingiest sat a cobbler tapping at shoes, surrounded by
+sprawling children.
+
+'Peace be to you,' called David.
+
+'Peace have I always,' rejoined the cobbler cheerily.
+
+David looked at the happy dirty children; he had seen their like torn
+limb from limb. 'But have you thought of the danger of a _pogrom_?' he
+said.
+
+'I have heard whispers of it,' said the cobbler. 'But we
+_Chassidim_ have no fear. Our wonder-rabbi, who has power over all the
+spheres, will utter a word, and----'
+
+   [Illustration: The Jews scattered before him like dogs.]
+
+'A _Tsaddik_ (wonder-rabbi) was killed in the last _pogrom_,' said
+David brutally. 'You must join a Self-Defence band.'
+
+The cobbler ceased to tap. 'What! Go for a soldier! When the _Rebbe_
+caused me to draw a high number!'
+
+'Our soldiering is not for Russia, but to save us from Russia. We must
+all join together!'
+
+'Me join the _Misnagdim!_' cried the cobbler in horror. 'Never will I
+join with those who deny the Master-of-the-Name.'
+
+David sighed. Suddenly he perceived a stalwart Jew lounging at a
+neighbouring door. He moved towards him, and broached the subject
+afresh. The lounger shook his head. 'You may persuade that foolish
+_Chassid_,' said he, 'but you cannot expect the rest of us to join
+with these heretics, these godless, dancing dervishes, who are capable
+even of saying the afternoon prayer in the evening!'
+
+In the next house lived a _Maskil_ (Intellectual), who looked up from
+his Hebrew newspaper to ask how he could be associated with a squad of
+young ignoramuses. His neighbour was a Karaite, drifted here from
+another community. The Karaite pointed out that Self-Defence was
+unnecessary in his case, as his sect was scarcely regarded by the
+authorities as Jewish. There were other motley Jews living round the
+market-place--a Lithuanian, who refused to co-operate with the Polish
+'sweet-tooths,' and who was in turn stigmatized by a Pole as
+'peel-barley,' in scarification of his reputedly stingy diet. A man
+from Odessa dismissed them both as 'cross-heads.' It was impossible
+to unite such mutually superior elements. Again weary and heart-sick,
+he returned towards the inn.
+
+
+VIII
+
+But his way was blocked by a turbulent stream of Jewish boys pouring
+out of the primary school. They seemed to range in years between eight
+and twelve, but even the youngest face wore a stamp of age, and though
+the air vibrated with the multiplex chatter which accompanies the
+exodus of cramped and muted pupils, the normal elements of joyousness,
+of horse-play, of individual freakishness, were absent. It was a
+common agitation that loosed all these little tongues and set all
+these little ears listening to the passionate harangues of
+ringleaders. Instead of hurrying home, the schoolboys lingered in
+knots round their favourite orators. A premature gravity furrowed all
+the childish foreheads.
+
+With one of these orators David dimly felt familiar, and after
+listening for a few minutes to the lad's tirade against the 'autocracy
+of the school director' and the 'bureaucratic methods of the
+inspector,' it dawned upon him that the little demagogue was his own
+landlord's son.
+
+'Hullo, Kalman!' he cried in surprise.
+
+'Hullo, comrade!' replied the boy graciously.
+
+'So you're a revolutionary, eh?' said David, smiling.
+
+'All my class belongs to the Junior Bund,' replied the boy gravely.
+
+'Then you're not so peaceful as papa!'
+
+The lad's aplomb and dignity deserted him. He blushed furiously, and
+hung his head in shame of his Moderate parent.
+
+'Never mind, Comrade Kalman,' said another boy, slapping his shoulder
+consolingly. 'We've all got some shady relative or another.'
+
+A shrill burst of applause relieved the painful situation. Turning his
+head, David found all the childish eyes converged upon a single
+figure, a bulging-headed lad who had sprung into a sudden position of
+eminence--upon an egg-box. He was clothed in the blue blouse of
+Radicalism and irreligion, and the faint down upon his upper lip
+suggested that he must be nearing fifteen.
+
+'Comrades!' he was crying. 'In my youth I myself was head boy at this
+school of yours, but even in those old days there was the same brutal
+autocracy. Your only remedy is a general strike. You must join the
+Syndical Anarchists.'
+
+More shrill cheers greeted this fiery counsel. The members of the
+Junior Bund waved their satchels frenziedly. Only the landlord's son
+stood mute and frowning.
+
+'You don't agree with him,' said David.
+
+'No,' answered the little Bundist gravely. 'I follow Comrade Berl. But
+this fellow is popular because he was expelled from the Warsaw
+gymnasium as a suspect.'
+
+'You must strike!' repeated the juvenile agitator. 'A strike is the
+only way of impressing the proletarian psychology. You must all swear
+to attend school no more till your demands are granted.'
+
+'We swear!' came from all sides in a childish treble. But the frown on
+the brow of the landlord's son grew darker.
+
+'It is well, comrades,' said the orator. 'Your success will be a
+lesson to your elders, too. Only by applying the Marxian philosophy of
+history can we upset the bourgeois _Weltanschauung_.'
+
+The landlord's son reached the roof of the egg-box with one angry
+bound and stood beside the agitator. 'Marx is an old fogey!' he
+shouted. 'What's the good of a passive strike? Let us make a
+demonstration against the director; let us----'
+
+'Who told you that?' sneered the orator. 'Comrade Berl or Comrade
+Schmerl?'
+
+The boy missed the sarcasm of the rhyme. 'You know Schmerl's a mere
+milk-blooded "Attainer,"' he said angrily.
+
+'Believe me,' was the soothing reply, 'even beyond the Five Freedoms
+the boycott is a better "Attainer" than the bomb.'
+
+'Traitor! Bourgeois!' And a third boy jumped upon the egg-box. He had
+red hair and flaming eyes. 'If Russia is to be saved,' he shrieked,
+'it will be neither by the Fivefold Formula of Freedom nor by the
+Fourfold Suffrage, but by the Integralists, who alone maintain the
+purity of the Social Revolutionary programme, as it was before the
+party degenerated into Maximalists and Mini----'
+
+Here the egg-box collapsed under the weight of the three orators, and
+they sprawled in equal ignominy. But the storm was now launched. A
+score of the schoolboys burst into passionate abstract discussion. The
+unity necessary to the school strike was shattered into fragments.
+
+David ploughed his way sadly through the mimetic mob of youngsters,
+who were yet not all apes and parrots, he reflected. Just as Jewry had
+always had its boy Rabbis, its infant phenomenons of the pulpit,
+prodigies of eloquence and holy learning, so it now had its precocious
+politicians and its premature sociologists. He was tempted for a
+moment to try his recruiting spells upon the juvenile Integralist,
+whose red hair reminded him of his girl cousin's, but it seemed cruel
+to add to the lad's risks. Besides, had not the boy already
+proclaimed--like his seniors--that Russia, not Jewry, was to be saved?
+
+It was an hour of no custom when he got back to the inn, so that he
+was scarcely surprised to find host and hostess alike invisible. He
+sat down, and began to write a melancholy Report to Headquarters, but
+a mysterious and persistent knocking prevented any concentration upon
+his task. Presently he threw down his pen, and went to find out what
+was the matter. The noises drew him downwards.
+
+The landlord, alarmed at the footsteps, blew out his light.
+
+'It's only I,' said David.
+
+The landlord relit the candle. David saw a cellar strewn with iron
+bars, instruments, boxes, and a confused heap of stones.
+
+'Ah, hiding the vodka,' said David, with a smile.
+
+'No, we are widening and fortifying the cellar--also provisioning the
+loft.'
+
+'_Samooborona?_' said David.
+
+'Precisely--and a far more effective form than yours, my young
+hot-head.'
+
+'Perhaps you are right,' said David wearily. He went back to his
+Report. He was glad to think that the little Bundist had an extra
+chance. After all, he had achieved something, he would save some
+lives. Perhaps he would end by preaching the landlord's way--passive
+_Samooborona_ was better than none.
+
+
+IX
+
+But the Report refused to write itself. It was too dismal to confess
+he had not collected a kopeck or one recruit. He picked up a greasy
+fragment of a Russian newspaper, and read with a grim smile that the
+Octobrists had excluded Jews from their meetings. That reminded him of
+Erbstein the Banker, who had bidden him put his trust in them. Would
+the Banker be more susceptible now, under this disillusionment? Alas!
+the question was, _could_ a Banker be disillusioned? To be
+disillusioned is to admit having been mistaken, and Bankers, like
+Popes, were infallible.
+
+David bethought himself instead of the owlish Mizrachi, his visit to
+whom had been left unfinished.
+
+He threw down his pen, and repaired again to the house with the Ark
+and the telephone.
+
+But as he reached Cantberg's door it opened suddenly, and a young man
+shot out.
+
+'Never, father!' he was shrieking--'Never do I enter this house
+again.' And he banged the door upon the owl, and rushed into David's
+arms.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' he said.
+
+'It is my fault,' murmured David politely. 'I was just going to see
+your father.'
+
+'You'll find him in a fiendish temper. He cannot argue without losing
+it.'
+
+'I hope you've not had a serious difference.'
+
+'He's such a bigoted Zionist--he cannot understand that Zionism is
+_ein ueberwundener Standpunkt_.'
+
+'I know.'
+
+'Ah!' said the young man eagerly. 'Then you can understand how I have
+suffered since I evolved from Zionism.'
+
+'What are you now, if I may ask?'
+
+'The only thing that a self-respecting Jew can be--a Sejmist, of
+course!'
+
+'A Jewish Party?' asked David eagerly. After all the enthusiasm for
+Russian politics and world politics he was now pleased with even this
+loquacious form of Self-Defence.
+
+'Come and have a glass of tea; I will tell you all about it,' said the
+young man, soothed by the prospect of airing his theories. 'We will go
+to Friedman's inn--the University Club, we call it, because the
+intellectuals generally drink there.'
+
+'With pleasure,' said David, sniffing the chance of recruits. 'But
+before we talk of your Party I want to ask whether you can join me in
+a branch of the _Samooborona_.'
+
+The young man's face grew overclouded.
+
+'Our Party cannot join any other,' he said.
+
+'But mine isn't a Party--a corps.'
+
+'Not a Party?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you have a Committee?'
+
+'Yes--but only----'
+
+'And Branches?'
+
+'Naturally, but simply----'
+
+'And a Party-Chest?'
+
+'The money is only----'
+
+'And Conferences?'
+
+'Of course, but merely----'
+
+'And you read Referats----'
+
+'Not unless----'
+
+'Surely you are a Party!'
+
+'I tell you no. I want all Parties.'
+
+'I am sorry. But I'm too busy just now to consider anything else. Our
+Party-Day falls next week, and there's infinite work to be done.'
+
+'Work!' cried David desperately. 'What work?'
+
+'There will be many great speeches. I myself shall not speak beyond an
+hour, but that is merely impromptu in the debate. Our Referat-speakers
+need at least two hours apiece. We did not get through our last
+session till five in the morning. And there were scenes, I tell you!'
+
+'But what is there to discuss?'
+
+'What is there to discuss?' The Sejmist looked pityingly at David.
+'The great question of the Duma elections, for one thing. To boycott
+or not to boycott. And if not, which candidates shall we support? Then
+there is the question of Jewish autonomy in the Russian
+Parliament--that is our great principle. Moreover, as a comparatively
+new Party, we have yet to thresh out our relations to all the existing
+Parties. With which shall we form _blocs_ in the elections? While most
+are dangerous to the best interests of the Jewish people and opposed
+to the evolution of historic necessity, with some we may be able to
+co-operate here and there, where our work intersects.'
+
+'What work?' David insisted again.
+
+'Doesn't our name tell you? We are the _Vozrozhdenie_--the
+Resurrectionists--our work is an unconditional historic necessity
+springing from the evolution of----!'
+
+The door of the inn arrested the Sejmist's harangue. As he pushed it
+open, a babel of other voices made continuance impossible. The noise
+came entirely from a party of four, huddled in a cloud of
+cigarette-smoke near the stove. In one of the four David recognised
+the tea-merchant of the morning, but the tea-merchant seemed to have
+no recollection of David. He was still expatiating upon the
+Individuality of Israel, which, it appeared, was an essence
+independent of place and time. He nodded, however, to the young
+Sejmist, observing ironically:
+
+'Behold, the dreamer cometh!'
+
+'I a dreamer, forsooth!' The young man was vexed to be derided before
+his new acquaintance. 'It is you _Achad-Haamists_ who must wake up.'
+
+The tea-merchant smiled with a superior air. 'The Vozrozhdenie would
+do well to study Achad-Haam's philosophy. Then they would understand
+that their strivings are bound to lead to self-constriction, not
+self-expression. You were saying that, too, weren't you, Witsky?'
+
+Witsky, who was a young lawyer, demurred. 'What I said was,' he explained
+to the Sejmist, 'that in your search for territorial-proletariat practice
+you Sejmists have altogether lost the theory. Conversely the S.S.'s have
+sacrificed territorial practice to their territorial theory. In our party
+alone do you find the synthesis of the practical and the ideal. It
+alone----'
+
+'May I ask whom you speak for?' intervened David.
+
+'The newest Jewish Social Democratic Artisan Party of Russia!' replied
+Witsky proudly.
+
+'Are you the newest?' inquired David drily.
+
+'And the best. If we desire Palestine as the scene of our social
+regeneration, it is because the unconditional historic necessity----'
+
+The Sejmist interrupted sadly: 'I see that our Conference will have
+to decide against relations with you.'
+
+'Pooh! The S.D.A.'s will only be the stronger for isolation. Have we
+not of ourselves severed our relations with the D.K.'s? In the
+evolution of the forces of the people----'
+
+'It is not right, Witsky, that you should mislead a stranger,' put in
+his sallow, spectacled neighbour. 'Or perhaps you misconceive the
+genetic moments of your own programme. What evolution is clearly
+leading to is a Jewish autonomous party in Parliament.'
+
+'But we also say----' began the other two.
+
+The sallow, spectacled man waved them down wearily. 'Who but the
+P.N.D.'s are the synthesis of the historic necessities? We subsume the
+Conservative elements of the Spojnia Narodowa National League and of
+the Party of Real Politics with the Reform elements of the Democratic
+League and the Progressive Democrats. Consequently----'
+
+'But the true Polish Party----' began Witsky.
+
+'The _Kolo Polskie_ (Polish Ring) is half anti-Semitic,' began the
+Sejmist. The three were talking at once. Through the chaos a thin
+piping voice penetrated clearly. It came from the fourth member of the
+group--a clean-shaven ugly man, who had hitherto remained silently
+smoking.
+
+'As a philosophic critic who sympathizes with all Parties,' he said,
+'allow me to tell you, friend Witsky, that your programme needs
+unification: it starts as economic, and then becomes dualistic--first
+inductive, then deductive.'
+
+'_Moj Panie drogi_ (my dear sir),' intervened David, 'if you
+sympathize with all Parties, you will join a corps for the defence of
+them all.'
+
+'You forget the philosophic critic equally disagrees with all
+Parties.'
+
+David lost his temper at last. 'Gentlemen,' he shouted ironically,
+'one may sit and make smoke-rings till the Messiah comes, but I assure
+you there is only one unconditional historic necessity, and that is
+_Samooborona_.'
+
+And without drinking his tea--which, indeed, the Resurrectionist had
+forgotten to order--he dashed into the street.
+
+
+X
+
+He was but a youth, driven into action by hellish injustice. He had
+hitherto taken scant notice of all these Parties that had sprung up
+for the confusion of his people--these hybrid, kaleidoscopic
+combinations of Russian and Jewish politics--but as he fled from the
+philosophers through the now darkening streets, his every nerve
+quivering, it seemed to him as if the alphabet had only to be thrown
+about like dice to give always the name of some Party or other. He had
+a nightmare vision of bristling sects and pullulating factions, each
+with its Councils, Federations, Funds, Conferences, Party-Days,
+Agenda, Referats, Press-Organs, each differentiating itself with
+meticulous subtlety from all the other Parties, each defining with
+casuistic minuteness its relation to every contemporary problem, each
+equipped with inexhaustible polyglot orators speechifying through
+tumultuous nights.
+
+Well, it could not be helped. In the terrible nebulous welter in which
+his people found themselves, it was not unnatural that each man
+should grope towards his separate ray of light. The Russian, too, was
+equally bewildered, and perhaps all this profusion of theories came in
+both from the same lack of tangibilities. Both peoples possessed
+nothing.
+
+Perhaps, indeed, the ultimate salvation of the Jews lay in identifying
+themselves with Russia. But then, who could tell that the patriots who
+welcomed them to-day as co-workers would not reject them when the
+cause was won? Perhaps there was no hope outside preserving their own
+fullest identity. Poor bewildered Russian Jew, caught in the
+bewilderments both of the Russian and the Jew, and tangled up
+inextricably in the double confusion of interlacing coils!
+
+The Parties, then, were perhaps inevitable; he must make his account
+with them. How if he formed a secret _Samooborona_ Committee, composed
+equally of representatives of all Parties? But, then, how could he be
+sure of knowing them all? He might offend one by omitting or
+miscalling it; they formed and re-formed like clouds on the blue. A
+new Party, too, might spring up overnight. He might give deadly
+affront by ignoring this Jonah's gourd. Even as he thus mused, there
+came to him the voices of two young men, the one advocating a
+P.P.L.--a new Party of Popular Liberty--the other insisting that the
+new _Volksgruppe_ of all anti-Zionist Parties was an unconditional
+historic necessity. He groaned.
+
+It seemed to him as he stumbled blindly through the ill-paved alleys
+that a plague of doctors of philosophy had broken out over the Pale,
+doctrinaires spinning pure logic from their vitals, and fighting
+bitterly against the slightest deviation from the pattern of their
+webs. But the call upon Israel was for Action. Was it, he wondered
+with a flash of sympathy, that Israel was too great for Action; too
+sophisticated a people for so primitive and savage a function; too set
+in the moulds of an ancient scholastic civilization, so that, even
+when Action was attempted, it was turned and frozen into Philosophy?
+Or was it rather that eighteen centuries of poring over the Talmud had
+unfitted them for Action, not merely because the habit of applying the
+whole brain-force to religious minutiae led to a similar
+intellectualization of contemporary problems--of the vast new material
+suddenly opened up to their sharpened brains--but also because many of
+these religious problems related only to the time when Israel and his
+Temple flourished in Palestine? The academic leisure and scrupulous
+discrimination that might be harmlessly devoted to the dead past had
+been imported into the burning present--into things that mattered for
+life or death.
+
+Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism or Socialism, as
+the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not
+risen since the year 70 of the Christian era, or over the decisions of
+Babylonian _Geonim_, no stone of whose city remained standing. The men
+of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world
+of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of
+Zionism without Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,
+Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The habit of actualities
+had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much
+intellectual stimulus? Would Israel never return to reality, never
+find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life?
+
+But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky,
+David suddenly felt infinitely weary of reality; a great yearning
+came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which
+pious Jewry still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,
+the jangle of politics and philosophies, the _tohu-bohu_ of his
+unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go
+back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the
+_Beth Hamedrash_ where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten
+folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. There
+lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's
+true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen
+centuries of tragedy--a watertight world into which no drop of outer
+reality could ever trickle. There lay Zion and the Jordan, the Temple
+and the Angels; there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over
+their people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists
+starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the
+Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No
+more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the
+horrible Modern.
+
+He asked the way to the _Beth Hamedrash_. How fraternally the sages
+and the youths would greet him! They would inquire in the immemorial
+formula, 'What town comest thou from?' And when he told them, they
+would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news there was. And 'news,'
+David remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of
+texts.' Yes, this was all the 'news' that ever ruffled that peaceful
+world. Man lived only for the Holy Law; the world had been created
+merely that the Law might be studied; new lights upon its words and
+letters were the only things that could matter to a sensible soul.
+Time and again he had raged against the artificiality of this quietist
+cosmos, accusing it of his people's paralysis, but to-night every
+fibre of him yearned for this respite from the harsh reality. He
+rummaged his memory for 'news'--for theological ingeniosities, textual
+wire-drawings that might have escaped the lore of Milovka; and as one
+who draws nigh to a great haven, he opened the door of the _Beth
+Hamedrash_, and, murmuring 'Peace be to you,' dropped upon a bench
+before an open folio whose commentaries and super-commentaries twined
+themselves lovingly in infinite convolutions round its holy text.
+Immediately he was surrounded by a buzzing crowd of youths and
+ancients.
+
+'Which Party are you of?' they clamoured eagerly.
+
+
+XI
+
+The _pogrom_ arrived. But it arrived in a new form for which even
+David was unprepared. Perhaps in consequence of the Rabbi's warning to
+the Governor, Self-Defence was made ridiculous. No Machiavellian
+paraphernalia of _agents provocateurs_, no hooligans with false grey
+beards, masquerading as Jewish rioters or blasphemers. Artillery was
+calmly brought up against the Jewish quarter, as though Milovka were
+an enemy's town.
+
+As the shells began to burst over the close-packed houses, David felt
+grimly that an economic Providence had saved him from wasting his time
+in training pistoliers.
+
+The white-faced landlord, wringing his hands and saying his _Vidui_
+(death-bed confession), offered him and his violin-case a place in
+the cellar, but he preferred to climb to the roof, from which with the
+aid of a small glass, he had a clear view of the cordon drawn round
+the doomed quarter. A ricocheting cannon-ball crashed through the
+chimney-pots at his side, but he did not budge. His eyes were glued
+upon a figure he had espied amid the cannon.
+
+It was Ezekiel Leven, his whilom lieutenant, with whom he had dreamed
+of Maccabean deeds. The new conscript, in the uniform of an
+artilleryman, was carefully taking sight with a Gatling gun.
+
+'Poor Ezekiel!' David cried. 'Yours is the most humorous fate of all!
+But have you forgotten there is still one form of _Samooborona_ left?'
+And with an ironic laugh he turned his pistol upon himself.
+
+The great guns boomed on hour after hour. When the bombardment was
+over, the peace of the devil lay over the Ghetto of Milovka. Silent
+were all the fiery orators of all the letters of the alphabet; silent
+the Polish patriots and the lovers of Zion and the lovers of mankind;
+silent the bourgeois and the philosophers, the timber-merchants and
+the horse-dealers, the bankers and the Bundists; silent the Socialists
+and the Democrats; silent even the burly censor, and the careless
+Karaite and the cheerful _Chassid_; silent the landlord and his
+revolutionary infant in their fortified cellar; silent the Rabbi in
+his study, and the crowds in the market-place.
+
+The same unconditional historic necessity had overtaken them all.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  20: shillngs replaced with shillings                |
+    | Page 114: 'we're under other' replaced with               |
+    |           'we're under others'                            |
+    | Page 136: 'I really must congratulate yon' replaced with  |
+    |           'I really must congratulate you'                |
+    | Page 146: 'He must be expelled the congregation'          |
+    |           replaced with                                   |
+    |           'He must be expelled from the congregation'     |
+    | Page 179: haled replaced with hauled                      |
+    | Page 263: Demnark replaced with Denmark                   |
+    | Page 298: 'he lounged inte' replaced with                 |
+    |           'he lounged into'                               |
+    | Page 306: Rachael replaced with Rachel                    |
+    | Page 396: danegrous replaced with dangerous               |
+    | Page 396: arrangmement replaced with arrangement          |
+    | Page 400: 'allowed to becomes Poles' replaced with        |
+    |           'allowed to become Poles'                       |
+    | Page 405: truimphant replaced with triumphant             |
+    | Page 423: themseves replaced with themselves              |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
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